Even though the skeletal champion appeared to be out of melee range of the party, it bent forward and pushed its arms forward at Ewtain, who jumped backward at the last second to avoid being skewered. One of the large talons broke apart a skeleton that Ewtain had been engaged with, and it crumpled to the ground from the impact.
In response to this, Vultressant used his bolt of fire spell for the first time. The bolt struck the right side of the skeleton champion’s torso, causing it to retract its left arm. Unlike the skeletons, this larger horror appeared to have some muscle tissue attached to its bones, and the bolt had hit a patch of muscle along the rib cage. It was unclear if this had caused it to suffer more or less damage, but the creature turned on Vultressant and reached toward him with its right talon. Vultressant made no move to dodge, and the points of the talon struck his magical shield, causing a blue light to flash where the contact was made. Vultressant did take a step back after the strike—whether out of reflex or due to the force of the blow, Taloc couldn’t tell.
Maroftis and Isla were making their way towards the big guy, and Taloc decided to do what he could to destroy the lesser skeletons until the debuff affecting him had worn off. He had gotten the knack of fighting the skeletons, and he only really had issues with the ones wearing armor and wielding swords. The swords were not a problem, since the skeletons swung them slowly and without much skill. The chainmail, on the other hand, was difficult to penetrate, and Taloc had to aim his strikes at more difficult-to-hit areas. Every skeleton that he faced eventually went down; it just took longer to drop the ones in armor. Taloc was amazed at how he could use a sword with actual skill. He swung the weapon with ease, as if he had been using it for years.
He had two special attacks: sweeping strike and impale. He used sweeping strike because that seemed more useful against skeletons. It allowed him to make a lateral swinging strike faster than he thought possible. It tired him out more quickly than normal fighting stances and forms did, but it also had a 30-second cooldown. The long cooldown allowed him to rest between big strikes.
Isla spent most of her effort using her shield to knock over skeletons. Like Taloc, she was using a special ability: she would step forward, thrust her shield at a skeleton, and then bend her knees, bringing the bottom of her shield crashing down on the legs of the skeleton. The skeleton champion turned on her, and she had to block a strike from it with her shield. Unfortunately, one of the long, bony fingers made it under her shield and pierced her leg. Despite this, she fought on and did what she could to both defend and land normal strikes on the monster.
Maroftis focused on actually attacking the skeleton champion, and although he was bloodied, he didn’t seem to be slowing. Arrows flew overhead and struck the champion, as did a bolt of fire from Vultressant.
By the time that the smaller skeletons had all been neutralized, the skeletal champion looked pretty beat up, and its health bar indicated that it was below a quarter of its maximum health points. Taloc and Ewtain were finally able to make their way toward the giant thing. They managed to destroy one of its legs; once it lost its balance, they were able to finish it off with little additional effort.
Five skeletons had fled to the other half of the room; they were quickly dispatched before the party searched the room and treated the wounded. They lit more of the wall lights to help this process go faster and safer. While the scratches from skeletons were classified as necrotic damage, that really just equated to a slightly higher chance of infection. The damage from the champion, however, was more serious. The champion had only dealt damage to Maroftis and Isla, and while they bandaged up Isla’s leg, Maroftis assisted in the search of the room and appeared to have fully regenerated by the time they were done.
Their search of the room produced ten rings, one of which was classified as magical in Taloc’s log. Vanya used her appraise skill on the rings; they were worth a combined 60 silver coins. The magical ring gave Vanya a notification that the value was unknown. There was no indication what the item did, and Taloc didn’t want to experiment with it at this time; there was no need to risk trying on an item and have it turn out to be cursed. They also found 45 small copper pieces and four slightly larger coins made of silver. The two chainmail shirts were in poor condition from age and the fight, but they took those as well as the two swords that the skeletons wearing the chainmail had carried. They decided to let Maroftis store the loot since, given his regeneration ability, he was the least likely of them to die. They had no idea how the respawn worked here, but they hoped that their personal storage areas would respawn with them.
The room was indeed in the shape of an L, and there was a door at the other end of the room. “Should we check that door next or go back to one of the other three that we found?” Taloc asked.
Vultressant pointed at the door. “That’s the same door as the one that we found last. We’re just on the other side of it.”
“How do you know that?” Taloc asked.
“It’s on my map.” Vultressant pointed immediately in front of his face, indicating the map on his display.
“Mine just gives me a small radius of detail, and it changes to gray after we leave the area and then back to black after more time goes by. What did you do to get yours to stay?” Taloc asked.
Vultressant frowned. “Nothing.”
“Wait,” Taloc said, remembering one of Vultressant’s skills. “Is it your cartography skill?”
Vultressant spent a minute staring at his HUD before reading, “‘You have the ability to create maps. As your skill increases, so will the detail and precision of the maps that you make.’ It looks to be a passive ability, although I might be able to interact with the map system, or I might be able to in the future if I can’t already.”
“Good to know,” Taloc said. “You’ll have to help navigate when we travel.” He then went over to Isla, who was sitting on a table near the closed door. “Looks like we need to do a better job keeping you out of trouble.” She looked about ready to protest, but he put up his hand to stop her. Online Isla could be prickly at times, and he made the comment to make her laugh without really thinking. “I’m kidding. How’s the wound?”
Stolen story; please report.
For a moment, it looked like she was about to really get upset, but she said, “It really doesn’t hurt that bad—well, not nearly as much as it should. I sliced my finger when I was using a hedge trimmer a few years ago in real life, and that hurt like hell. This is more like stubbing a toe. It was shocking when it happened, but it’s just a dull pain now. My Dexterity will be lowered by five points until this is fully healed, though, so we need to get that dealt with. There is some sort of rot effect from when its finger pierced me, and it’s preventing the wound from healing.”
Taloc was not sold on the fact that this was just a game. Isla had used the phrase “in real life” or “IRL” a fair amount when they had played together and chatted online, but he wanted to make a point. “This might be real life.”
She looked at him questioningly, but after a moment, her expression turned to one of resignation. “Sorry. Force of habit, I guess.” Then she smiled. “At least I didn’t get knocked out of the fight by a sneak attack this time. I was able to do something useful.”
“You did at that.” Then he asked about something that had bothered him during the fight. “How were you able to approach the champion? It had some skill or spell or something that it put on me. Also, that shield move that you kept doing. It looked like a special move.”
“I resisted the effect. I got a notification that it was based on Charisma, and mine is at 20. I’m not sure why Charisma was needed since it was some sort of fear effect, and that should be something like willpower or wisdom rather than Charisma. I would have thought that Psyche would have been the logical choice for the attribute to help with that sort of resistance. The move is called shield bash, and it hits harder than anything else that I have. It does tire me out though, and I have to wait before I’m able to use the move again, but it’s great otherwise.”
Isla had a high Charisma, so maybe it was just high enough to prevent the fear. Or maybe there was a percent chance to avoid the effect, and Charisma was the modifier, similar to a ‘saving throw’ in many role-playing games. Maroftis, however, had a low Charisma, if Taloc recalled correctly. He decided to attempt to fully understand the situation. “Hey Maroftis, what’s your Charisma?”
Maroftis had been eating something that looked like beef jerky. “Charisma ten,” he said between chews.
“How did you approach the champion?”
Maroftis looked at him uncomprehendingly, so Vultressant translated. Eventually Vultressant said, “He said, ‘Uh, I walked.’”
It was difficult to gauge his friend’s expression now that he had reptilian features, so Taloc did not know if Maroftis truly did not understand what he was asking or was just messing with him. Knowing him, however, there was a strong possibility that both were true. He decided to spell it out. “The big skeleton yelled a taunt at us, and I suffered a debuff that prevented me from getting closer to it. Isla made a save that used Charisma. But her Charisma is twice what yours is, so I’m trying to get a grasp on the mechanics of this game.”
Vultressant relayed this to Maroftis. “Ah,” Maroftis said, nodding, and Taloc hoped that the nod meant that he actually understood the question. “I didn’t understand the thing.” He then pulled out another strip of meat and began biting it.
“Well, that’s good to know. We do need to work on your Common, though,” Taloc said.
After Vultressant clarified what Taloc had said, Maroftis cocked his head and pointed at Taloc. “Or we don’t do that, so I can continue to ignore taunts and save your bacon,” Vultressant translated for him. Then his facial expression took on a grizzly guise. Is that supposed to be a smile? Very disturbing.
Before Taloc could comment on it, however, Vultressant said, “Hey, look at this.” Taloc looked over at what the Gnome was doing. There was what appeared to be a holographic image of the layout of the crypt in the air in front of Vultressant, or at least as much as they had explored so far. It was three-dimensional, and the Wizard was moving his hands to manipulate the image. As he made a curving gesture to his right, the map followed his motions, and when he pulled his hands apart, the image increased in size. There were also six small green lights on the hologram that seemed to indicate the locations of the six of them.
Vanya, who had been interacting with her own HUD, now took an interest. “How did you do that, Vult?” she asked.
“I got the idea from the display’s projection option.” His map disappeared, and he moved his hands in front of his face for a few moments and finally gestured to something in front of him. “See?”
Vanya looked at him and held out her hands in confusion. “I don’t see anything.”
Vultressant frowned, made some more hand gestures, and then what looked like a screen appeared in front of him. “Sorry, I had to set permissions for who could view this. I just set it for the party.”
He spent a few minutes showing them all how to bring their displays up so that they could use their hands to navigate things, as well as how to give permission for others to see their displays.
“What made you try this, Vult?” Isla asked as she played with her display, now projected in front of her.
Vultressant considered for a moment before saying, “I was having trouble with the interface. I’ve never used anything like this before, so I was looking for a way to interact with it that was similar to what I’m accustomed to using. When I play games like WoW or EQ2, I try to use the mouse as little as possible, and I’m also used to using VR commands. I feel more comfortable with those types for now, so I looked for a way to do them.”
“I would think that ‘move your eyes and think about what you want’ would be faster,” Isla said.
Vultressant nodded. “You’re probably right, but for now, I’m quicker this way. Also, the most advanced ways are not always the most efficient. I once went to a LAN party where we played the old StarCraft game. I was taken out of the game, so I went and watched the guy who had soundly beaten me. All of his buildings were in perfect order, and the dude didn’t touch his mouse once in the ten minutes I watched him. I need to get used to the new interface, but I want to be able to be comfortable with things while I do that.”
Taloc was not surprised by this. He, Vultressant, and Maroftis had been friends for a long time, and Vult had usually been pretty adept at finding ways to take a given set of rules and make them work best for him. Vult’s philosophy was, I don’t care what the rules are; just tell me the rules. He was often able to exploit something before anyone else even knew he was doing it. Taloc knew that they needed to learn how this world worked as soon as possible. “Nice work, man. If you find out anything else, let us know. That goes for everyone here. We won’t all think of everything, so we need to work together and learn from each other.”
There was general assent to Taloc’s words, and then Ewtain asked, “What if there’s a respawn here?”
Ewtain made a good point: if the rules of this world were like basically every online game, then the monsters would respawn after a set or random amount of time.
“Ewt’s right. We should head back to the entry room and keep an eye on this one for respawn.” There was no argument for this—none of them wanted to be there if there was a chance that the skeletons could reappear.