by Taj McCoy El
“The numbers at this point are 50-50 either with me dying or me surviving. I also have to factor in the possibility that if I die it might break the hold of the probe in my pod, and or give me new possibilities that I'll be able to access. the downside is those possibilities could leave me in a worse situation.”
She squatted down and held her head in her hands and muttered, “To go in, or not to go in?”
She repeated the question many, many times before her boredom and curiosity wrestled her caution to the ground and won out. she found a reason and worked her logic into a shape to fit that decision.
“With the money I’m gonna get from selling the storage runeagrams I’m pretty sure I can buy us rares, and I really want to go in and take a look around.”
Mayah looked at the skull again, shuddered and looked at the shivering rötten as they sat in Vergie's chest pouch and firmly decided to go in.
No more waffling.
“You ready to go take a look?” The rötten chittered uncomfortably and Vergie nodded while sniffing the air and rotating her ears.
Mayah pulled Riker and Deanna out of their harness and put them on the ground, and then squatted down making eye contact.
“Your job is to go ahead of us. If the path splits wait for us there.”
Riker squeaked anxiously.
“Don’t be so scared. Your job is to stay a few yards ahead of the light and run back if you see anything at all. Be extra sneaky.” Riker and Deanna nodded. She pet both of the rötten and stood up. They skittered off and Mayah pulled up her mini-map and watched their position. When they were about ten yards in front of her she patted Vergie. Her minimap didn’t fill in where the rötten went even though she could keep track of their markers. She huffed in disappointment.
“Let’s go.”
As they stepped over the threshold, Mayah and Vergie walked side by side into the looming darkness. after a few steps she relaxed.
See nothing to be afraid of.
They walked cautiously. Fifty feet in A stone suddenly settled and sunk under her heel with a click.
Shaz…!!!
She turned as the tunnel trembled, and she saw the opening to Clacker’s Alley shrink. The eerie sky was quickly waning into a sliver before it disappeared completely. They had been swallowed by the dungeon.
Double Shaz. Margaret’s going to be furious.
Vergie let out a low growl of complaint.
"I know. This sucks. But there’s only one direction to go now.”
Mayah checked her timer for Vergie and almost wailed. Her timer had been up for awhile now and since they weren’t in the dungeon’s flame light she might not be able to stick around long at all. Mayah confirmed the worst and looked up at Vergie just as she mewled and moved towards Mayah.
“Oh Kitty..!” Vergie disappeared like smoke on the breeze.
“SHAZ!!!”
Looks like I’m on my own. I need to get out of here and I’m at an even worse disadvantage without Vergie. I just had to go into the creepy skull, didn’t I? Shaz!!! Shaz!!! Shaz!!! She reprimanded herself
She shook her head and got back into the game. “Okay let’s see what challenges await.”
✽✽✽
Mo and his team sat at Driskel’s kitchen table waiting for Driskel’s son whose name was Kwaad. The sun had set an hour ago and everyone was becoming impatient. Driskel’s wife Engele was busily keeping dishes warm for her son’s arrival. She seemed put out by the extra bodies silently sitting around her small table.
Mephi’s fingers drummed impatiently on the table while Ziggs floated there silently. Mo was on the crysweb looking up speedster builds in the forums and finding little useful information. His fingers were typing questions that he hoped someone would be able to answer soon. There wasn’t much for it being that Majesta was only 4 days old and the list of discovered class skills had grown to two hundred and thirty-four. Most of those were variations on your basic barbarians, mages, warlocks, and space soldiers but the majority of people were still looking for answers.
There was speculation that the list might grow to three or four times that size by the end of the week, seeing as how every game had its own classes that were being translated into Majesta. Someone named BaconBeard32 had sorted the list into power derived class sections. There were builds for strength, mana, and stamina classes. There were also subheadings for attribute-based classes and how to make sure your build could capitalize on min-maxing them. Mo was very interested in a class called rook which was part tactician and part defensive warrior. It was based on your intelligence and constitution. Which was the complete opposite of his build at the moment.
The “What do Attributes mean” information was alarmingly good. The discussion on constitution vs endurance info explained how constitution was linked to your personal defense or, how hard someone would have to hit you to cause damage. Endurance was how long you could endure damage before your body actually gave out.
Glad they cleared that up, I was getting confused. So, people with the same strength and differences in Constitution and Endurance will react to pain quite differently. The Constitution based fighter would take less damage because of the defensive boost, but the damage would be crippling when it finally happened. The Endurance Based fighter would take damage but would be able to keep fighting as though they weren’t uninjured. I gotta share this with the others.
He bookmarked the info for now and kept reading until there was a knock at the door. A tall slim man about six foot walked in and froze. The warm smile quickly dropped off his face when he spied the people sitting around the table and a box floating next to them. He turned to shut the door and with his head cocked to the side he made his way into the room.
“Mother, Father, I see we have guests.” Kwaad greeted his parents in a way that was more an inquiry to why they had guests than an actual hello.
“That we do. They’re here waiting for you.” Driskel responded.
Kwaad's face screwed up with unspoken questions.
“Engele we’ll be in the barn,” Driskel said abruptly. “Follow me, son. We have something you need to see.”
Everyone stood from their seats and walked past Kwaad out of the room and left him to close the door behind himself. Kwaad caught up as they walked over to the barn and entered. They waded through the chickens and came to what looked like a horse stall with wooden beams nailed across it. There were planks stuck into the ground at a forty-five degree angle that were nailed into those cross beams.
“What’s going on it there?” Kwaad asked walking over to the stall. Driskel clapped a hand on his shoulder stopping him before he could get too close.
“That,” he pointed, “is one of our chickens.”
Kwaad peered into the darkness of the stall seeing nothing. “There’s nothing there.”
“Oh really???” Mo said sarcastically. He stepped in front of Kwaad and Driskel and smarmily asked, “Are you sure?”
Mo inched forward step by step, looking ready to jump out of the way of something. Kwaad racked his brain trying to understand this scene when above Mo’s head in the darkness a pair of sinister yellow eyes appeared. The eyes moved with the speed of a lightning strike and a flurry of claws, beak, and feathers struck the barricade and made the stall shake. A squawk with the timbre of an air horn made Mo back up while covering his ears. Driskel did the same and motioned everyone to follow him outside.
In a businesslike tone, Mo said, “So, what we have here is a situation in which we were contracted to do a job in which the rewards fall far short of the work expected.”
“I’m sorry… who are you?”
“You can call me Booms. These are my partners Mephi and Ziggs. We happened to hear about your father’s request and came to find our fortune. Mainly because we’re paladins and that’s what we do.”
Kwaad was astonished. He froze his jaw slackened by the word paladin.
Mo continued, ”…and you are?”
Kwaad snapped out of it l
ong enough to reach over and shake hands with Mo. “My name is Kwaad Henhausen Driskel Jr., apprentice Elementalist.” He then shook hands with Mephi and bowed to Ziggs because it didn’t appear to have any hands.
“You’re all paladins… and you’re here to find the chickens?”
“That’s the gist of it,” Mephi fired off. “Now… we have a few questions for you.”
Kwaad was taken aback. “For me?”
“Yes, my good friend.” Mo threw an arm over Kwaad's shoulder and leaned on him—for information.
“As I’m sure you’ve noticed, the chickens aren’t so much chickens as man-eating birds of prey now. If we were to finish the quest as is we would be coming away at a loss—of maybe even our lives.”
“But I’ve heard paladins come back from the dead?”
“That is true. But we come back weaker every time we die, and we have to spend resources and time to regain our strength. It’s the last resort, unfortunately. Also, it can be a bit painful from what I hear, and I have an allergy to pain. So, we could use some information from you to avoid a most distasteful fate.”
“What information do you need?”
“For starters, what kinds of crystals did you drop for the birds to eat?”
“Crystals? Ah… Elemental Matrices. They aren’t so much crystals as energy in a solid form. True crystals are much more dense, incredibly stable, and can hold a wide range of energies based on the substance of their formation. They would be diamonds, rubies, garnets, emeralds, and most precious gems.
“There are many different grades of crystals,” Kwaad’s eyes widened as he shared information about his true passion and information tumbled out of his mouth in a stream of words that moved so fast, they ran together. “Matrices also have different grades based on the size of the matrix and the density of the energy held within.”
“Elementalists create and use the matrices to store elemental energy to produce effects upon the world through a series of foci and spell formations. Sometimes more than one element has to be used in order to create an effect. Fire and water will make steam, water and earth will make mud. You can even make a crystal of a specific material such as iron or wood or—”
“Ahem…” Driskel gruffly interrupted the impromptu monologue and Kwaad took a look at his impatient audience. The three of them who had arms were staring at him with arms crossed, looking impatient.
Kwaad scratched his chin in embarrassment. “Sorry, I never was good at speaking about elementalism without getting caught in a rapture.”
“No apologies needed but if we could stick to the subject, we’ll be out of your hair sooner rather than later,” Mo gestured for Kwaad to continue.
"I understand. Now, you asked what matrices the chickens ate? Is it because you think the other chickens might have mutated as well?”
“Unfortunately, yes.”
"I can list the matrices for you but I’m not sure about which chickens ate what. All I can be sure of is that the three roosters all ate more than one matrix. They were fighting over them which alerted me to the fact that my pouch had split open. I ran over to grab what matrices I could find and found I had lost sixteen.”
“beep- This just went from bad to worse—in a big way. -boop”
“So, you’re telling me, that at least three roosters and maybe one chicken have more than one elemental power?” Mephi cried out. “When the Shaz hits the fan it just keeps blowing doesn’t it?” He strode away angrily.
Everyone covered their noses except for the noseless Ziggs and let him walk.
“beep- Yup, the fan just keeps blowing. -boop”
✽✽✽
Mayah walked down the singular hallway the surface of the walls transitioning from rough-hewn into a more natural appearance. As she walked, she noticed small bones scattered here and there on the ground. They all looked like the small bones from a hand or a foot. Meanwhile, she kept hearing small little tics like someone tapping their nails on stone in rapid succession.
A wisp of something drifted over her shoulder caught up in the breeze of her wake and settled noiselessly on the floor. As she walked it dragged behind her and picked up dust. She wiped it away from her cloak.
Spiderweb…
That was when she noticed that some of the natural formations were actually spiderwebs covered in the dust of ages. She had to fight her urge to examine the webs and take some samples.
Don’t touch the webs. That’s how the spiders know you’re there.
The features of the stone became covered with fist-sized irregular holes that grew in number while shrinking in spacing the further she walked. She held her club light up and tried to examine what might be in the holes. Without sticking her hand in she couldn’t gain any conclusive evidence and that was fine by her.
Looks like somebody decorated this place in a lotus pod motif. Trypophobia nightmare fuel fer’sure.
"Okay, I’m gonna kick a web. Looks like it might be spiders."
Mayah lightly toed a web. A few more strands of web drifted down and settled on her body. Mayah grabbed it and it was sticky but not that strong. She activated crack of dawn and swung it up towards the ceiling. As the whip fell, she caught the tiniest flash of movement and heard the tiny tics on stone. She tossed it up into the air again and watched as what looked like tiny bone fingers reached out of the holes clicking around the edges.
“Gnarlz…”
They came out of their hole in droves, fastening a tether of silk to the ceiling and slowly dropping down. As they fell Mayah could make out their shapes. Eight legs and two large mandibles made out of bone. Their whole structure looked like someone smashed two sets of hand bones together at the wrist and made a mouth out of where the double-jointed thumbs should be.
Empty black holes peered at her from above their thumb-dibles as they descended. The hungry clacking of the mandibles made Mayah shudder.
“Don’t you dare lose it,” Mayah said to herself. “Get a grip cupcake. Ha… Grip!”
She tossed the whip at one the spiders and hit it dead center sticking it to the wall. It wiggled and screamed.
You have attacked
Tarhandtula
Level 7
-36DP
14/50HP
“Tar- hand-tula? Ugh, really? That almost broke my dad-joke-o-meter.”
After a few more seconds the pinned arachnid broke apart. “Must mean I’m getting light damage. Guess it’s time to test out the ole crack of dawn.”
In the darkness, the whip blazed into circles of dazzling brightness as she swung it around her head. The tarhandtulas shrieked when she did so and fell from their silks. She swung the whip around her head and attacked the mobs as they tried to right themselves. Within a matter of minutes, she was clearing the beasties out. She walked forward on the path and the light from her whip created a circle around her where the undead hand spiders would take damage. This served to enrage them and draw them to her like moths to the flame.
They bunched up on a circumference about eight feet out from her position. The crowd trying to get to her but unable to reach her without taking any light damage. They swayed back and forth with their front feet raised as the whip circled creating an undulating wave in their phalanx. Mayah reached across her body and grabbed an Acid (D) grenade and tossed it into the thickest section of the tarhandtulas.
Damage and XP notifications dinged as the DOT took its toll. She switched the whip to her left hand and grabbed three more Acid (D) grenades. She had been ignoring the strands of webbing as they fell on her from above. This had proven to be a bad decision. Covered in an Individual web they did nothing but almost shrouded in strands with more falling on her every few seconds she was becoming encumbered and her stamina drain was rising.
“Stupid flipping hand spiders. Guess it’s time to hand out some whoopings.” She chuckled after the horrible pun. She Activated Shield (F), deactivated the whip and waited as the tarhandtulas raced toward her.
As they approached,
she activated another six Acid(D) grenade and tossed it up in the air where it exploded. Fluorescent green ooze rained down in a larger radius than normal due to the physics of exploding mid-air. She got a bunch of the tarhandtulas that were hanging there, and they fell to the floor writhing under the DOT. She quickly stomped on the ones closest to her in a battle fueled tarantella ending their heavy-handed tactics. The acid also dissolved about two thirds of the webbing holding her.
She moved back towards the entrance, kiting them behind her when a tarhandtula dropped onto her back. It scuttled up her back towards her nape and Mayah broke the rhythm of her whip swinging trying to reach it. More tarhandtulas took the opportunity to drop on her or skitter closer, and she found herself in an up-close battle with the spider swarm as it spider swarmed up her legs. She could hear the loud clacking of osseous mandibles as they climbed her body. They were jumping at her legs dragging strands of web. Strands were being dragged around her legs as she tried to dance through and on the swarm. She slowed and tossed the two acid grenades up in the air. They exploded raining green goo.
A tarhandtula grabbed the edge of her hood and bit her on the cheek. The venom burned like ice as it entered her bloodstream. The spider died from a tick of the Acid (D) DOT and fell to the ground.
You have been attacked
Tarhandtula
Level 7
-23HP Bitten
1591/1614HP
You have received a Debuff
envenomed -5% Agility -5% stamina
This debuff is stackable
Timer 3:00 Minutes
“Biting the flarfing hand that smashes ya, huh?”