I looked for the boss and at first couldn't see its bluish black scaly body. The draconid was standing next to the portal and staring at me attentively. But it was silent, doing nothing to come closer.
I had to take a few steps forward myself, but even then he didn't start attacking. Instead, Pherax wrapped himself in darkness, stepped into the portal and disappeared. The exit from the cave contracted and closed up, pulling me inside. There were lots of small openings covering the surface, and a strange smoking substance seeped out of them like sweat from skin. A popup notification showed ticking damage. If not for my curse, the DoT would have killed me very quickly.
Inevitability of the Nether
−3% health points every 3 seconds.
The battle began suddenly, but not at all like I was expecting. I was pulled into the portal and found myself in a replica of the cave, but in the Nether. DoT was still bringing my life down, but then another effect joined the party:
Desperation of the Nether
−3% to all main attributes every 15 seconds.
That was very unpleasant. The portal disappeared, and I had no idea how to get out without killing the draconid.
I threw myself at him and landed a couple hits, but some of them sailed past into thin air. And the boss disappeared and popped back up right behind me.
Pherax wasn't attacking at all, just keeping silent. I was full of regret that I hadn't read any guides on this instance. DoT damage was not converted into plague energy and in a few minutes my damage, already quite low for this boss, was approaching zero. I mean, I basically couldn’t even hit him!
My eyes raced around the room, trying to find anything that might have significance in terms of battle tactics, but there were no hints. The world had turned black and white, there were no sounds other than monotonous white noise, and the draconid was keeping his vow of silence.
By minute five, I was clearly at an impasse. There was no way to kill me, but my blows were doing such a tiny amount of damage it would all regenerate before I landed another blow. And by the way, his health regenerated!
Then I got an idea. Sure no one in their right mind would have thought of it, but I clearly was not in mine. I balled up my fist and slammed it full-force into my own skull. Hammer.
Even the game went a bit bonkers, but still did its job:
Player Scyth (Alex Sheppard) has critically damaged you: 354!
Damage completely absorbed by Curse of the Undead.
Health points: 42/280.
Plague energy points: 18/10000.
You have critically damaged player Scyth (Alex Sheppard): 354!
Health points: 42/280.
I imagine Pherax had never seen anything like this before. Trying to beat myself up as much as possible before my attributes fell to zero, I landed one blow after the next. Clenching my teeth, I grunted and gasped after especially powerful Hammer cracks. The boss was so surprised that he froze at the opposite wall like a stone sculpture. Was it just me or was he shaking his head?
By the time all my stats had fallen by two-thirds, I was doing zero damage with normal blows. Accounting for a possible miss, I built up enough plague energy to kill this boss two or even three times.
I landed the final blows while carefully moving toward him, but he was on guard. And just as I came at him, he disappeared. I ran at him and hit with my special once again, but I didn't waste any energy. And thank God for that. I missed. In a few seconds, the boss disappeared again. I meanwhile ran on the chase, counting out heartbeats.
Approximately ten seconds. That was the cooldown time on his disappearing and teleporting ability. With my last attack, I had four seconds. Hammer! One thousand plague energy additional damage!
You have damaged Pherax: 1049.
Health points: 722/1800.
Another blow, a miss. He disappeared.
But he didn't survive my next Hammer.
* * *
"Why did you make that stupid bet, Alex?" Tissa flew at me at our very first break. "Are you crazy or something?"
Ten pairs of classmate eyes were staring at me. I yawned wide, covering my mouth and stretched. Something cracked in my body and Tissa rolled her eyes.
"Not here," Ed hissed, looking toward the door out of class.
I nodded. I would have to discuss the joint venture to the Olton Quarries with them sometime. I might as well get this out of the way and hear what they thought about my bet with Crag too. Bomber pushed people aside and jumped out in front. Ed, Tissa and I were close behind.
Rodriguez patted Malik on the shoulder and he stayed in class. He was probably waiting to see what everyone else talked about after we left.
We walked a bit away and got set up next to the windows: Tissa sat down, and the boys stood next to her. The sun outside was shining bright, but heavy leaden clouds were already making inroads. Rain was coming.
"Why?" Ed asked simply, looming over me.
"Why what?"
"Why the hell did you go to bat for that onitso? And against Crag? Were you trying to make us look bad? Or are you just suicidal?"
"What do you mean?" He caught me off guard. Was I missing something? "Explain."
"Alex, Alex..." Tissa sighed. "You and your little girlfriend Aphrodite know the score. You must have some idea of the status quo in Dis after that whole year of bumming around."
"Basically," Rodriguez said harshly, "we said you were in the Dementors, a fact which did not go unnoticed. We even went to bat against Crag and Rashidos for you. And now those two are screaming on every corner that we basically ganked them, broke our understandings and took their loot. Then with a ton of people around, you go to bat for some workman and challenge Crag to a duel? And you're level four..."
"Six now."
"I don't give a shit. Everyone is talking about level-four Scyth and Crag at twelve. And when a noob challenges a well-known ganker to a duel with expensive gear on the line, people start to think."
"What do you mean?"
"Well, maybe something with that noob is a bit… sketchy. I mean, you had no good reason to go against him, and you're very confident. And there’s been all this talk around about how you're a Dementor now and the conflict with Crag. Back in the day, we threw him out of the clan dishonorably... Axiom is starting to ask questions..." said Ed, working his jaws. "It is none of your business, but most people think we want to teach Crag a lesson. The idea is that we’re using you as a lure to get revenge on that idiot. No one understands why though, and that is causing questions and suspicion."
The bell rang but none of them even tried to go back to class. The conversation had just begun and the Dementors were clearly in the mood to finish no matter what.
"Ed, game politics and your reputation are not my problem." I jumped off the window sill and Ed had to take a step back. "Crag is an asshole if I ever saw one. He went after this workman out in the open and, if not for me, his family would be going hungry right now. I don't care about the gear, but I'm not planning to lose! And now we'd better get back to class. I've got enough demerit points this semester as is. We can talk later. What's more, we need to get back to Evil from the Depths. I've decided to help you."
"We can talk later," Ed frowned. "But you think about whether that duel really is worth it. Because no matter how it ends now, the preventers are going to take notice. And they’re gonna start asking questions."
Chapter Twenty-Eight. Valor and the Feeble Mind
NO MATTER HOW I tried to keep it together during the conversation with the Dementors, Ed's words made me think. He must have been dropping a hint when he mentioned the preventers. Maybe he was letting me know he already suspected me? We didn't have any time to talk during the other breaks. I slept through the next one after dozing through a tedious lecture by Greg about changes to the map of Europe over the last two hundred years and no one woke me up. After that, the Dementors were gone.
But that was normal. On Fridays, last period was optional. Some visited movie club, othe
rs played football, and others still went to the school's studio for a lecture on art. I headed into shop to finish working on an artificial companion, but my eyes were drooping and I couldn't get anything done. I had to leave it without getting anywhere though, because I came close to really messing it up.
I came home alone because Eve was at the clinic. I tried to call but Mr. O'Sullivan answered and said she couldn't talk yet. And that she would likely be unable to until the end of next week. Seemingly, she had gotten some serious plastic surgery because that was a long time for recovery. No, I saw another reason why she couldn't or more likely wouldn’t want to speak. No girl wanted to be seen like that.
My house was empty. My parents had gone somewhere. Mom left a message, which played as soon as I walked into the house:
"Alex, dad and I flew off to meet a client. We're going to spend the night there. We'll be back by tomorrow evening. Make sure you behave yourself..."
"Don’t listen to her Alex, take your chance!" Dad cackled in the background. Mom hissed, unhappy with his encouragement, then the message was over.
The oven turned on in the kitchen to warm up the food they'd left for me. I changed into shorts and a t-shirt, ate a big dinner then overpowered my desire to sleep a few hours and climbed into my pod. My duel with Crag would be in less than four hours.
A short moment of darkness and the pod walls were replaced with the walls of my personal room in the tavern where I left the game this morning. I opened my inventory: almost four full stacks of Altered Ash, one unusual item – plate armbands – and three rare items from the jail bosses. I looked at the loot from Pherax and sighed in disappointment: all this stuff was for level ten at least. Better to sell it and free up the space.
Robe of the Sinister Ritual
Rare
Cloth armor.
Armor: 4.
+5 Intelligence.
+7 Endurance.
Durability: 110/110.
Requires level: 10.
Sell price: 7 gold coins, 19 silver coins.
Chance of losing after death reduced by 50%.
The bashing weapon and boots from the first two bosses found a place in the chest, and all that remained in my bag was ash, green stuff and the blue belt. Most likely Crag would want to see it before the duel.
With that thought, I ran to the auction, my mind made up to spend all my money on a bag that brought down drop chance. Ten minutes later, some alchemist had bought all the Ash and I became the owner of an excellent blue backpack. It was literally blue as well.
Medium Blue Leather Backpack
Rare
Container
Capacity: 32 slots.
Chance of losing contents after death reduced by 100%.
The rare bag cost me almost everything I had earned on the Ash, sixty gold. But it was pretty sweet, hard to argue with that. But I had stopped thinking in terms of money. Now it was just three hours’ worth of time. And that was basically one run-through of the Tristad City Jail. And that was not counting the green and blue gear that dropped. I had left a lot of green stuff behind because I didn't have space, and that would have been around twenty gold. That meant I could earn a stable one hundred gold or more in that instance if I counted the blue and green loot.
And when I realized that I froze mid-step. I was already half way to Underweight, and it struck me like lightning. If I went through such a low-level ins two or three times in one day, I’d be earning as much as father. It was hard to even imagine how much money I could earn in the future if... If my threat status was maintained. When a threat was eliminated, the character died once and for all. I'd have to start over from the beginning but without the OP curses from Behemoth and the Destroying Plague.
And I myself would go to the merchant kid, who I didn't really know to sell him the blue stuff from the final boss at level ten. And that was at the fact that, when I went to see him five days earlier, I was at level one. Back then I couldn't even find one copper, and got overjoyed at the gift of just a gray club.
"Hey, Undy, you wouldn't have happened to notice anything weird in your sandbox, huh?" some preventer might ask. And the geographic location of our sandbox was no secret. "Maybe someone is levelling too fast?"
"You're telling me, Xan," Undy responds, scratching his head. "We've got one guy, he’s a real freak. In five days he went from one to six and keeps selling me blues from level-ten ins’s!"
"Unbelievable! And what did you say this weirdo’s name was?"
"Scyth aka Alex... let me think... Sheppard! That's right! Him!"
"Bingo!" a switch flips in the head of this hypothetical Xan or Bill. "There's our L-Class threat!"
Sure they couldn't get to me, but nothing was stopping them from hiring Axiom, enticing them with promises of support in greater Dis. And if they didn’t want to share, I wouldn't be getting out of this sandbox alive. They'd figure out my birthday and at midnight they would put extra guards at the exit.
In a flurry I went back to the auction, placed the Robe of the Sinister Ritual up for twenty-two gold, spending my last coins on the inflated auction commission for anonymous selling. Then I walked over the tavern and sat on my favorite bench.
I lowered my head, studying some scurrying ants as I thought. If I won the duel, which was easily possible with enough plague energy, it would look very strange. If I lost and came back in the same place, it would lead to more questions. But I could explain it as a curse from the town drunk. Everyone knew him, and that worked to my advantage. Still that was best avoided. And if I didn't die because the Mark of the Destroying Plague triggered, that would be alles, kaput. Pictures and videos would hit the internet within seconds. And that would mean "hello" to the preventers, and "goodbye" to my plans for a better life!
Then I considered the situation from an outside perspective. A wimpy boy throws a fit and insults a strong player, setting a place and time for them to fight for who’s right. Who would be surprised if the weakling chickened out? Nobody. That was to be expected. So maybe I should just play up to that? And to make sure Crag wouldn't get mad, I could send him the Corrupted Scale Belt he so yearned for. Let him choke on it, I say. At the very least, it would sate his ego and play in my favor, telling everyone about the cowardly Scyth. I made up my mind and breathed a sigh of relief.
Yes, the idea of losing to that asshole made me angry, especially considering I could win – I really could! – and cut him down to size. But everyone would soon forget this. And what was a temporary embarrassment in comparison with my lifetime dream? Not a thing. Nada. Come to grips with this, Alex...
"Of course this is where you are!" Tissa's cheerful voice rang out next to me. "You aren't answering messages, your comm says you're in Dis... The guys are looking for you in Gloomwood, but I decided to check your favorite place just in case. Are you getting ready for the duel?"
"Yep. I'm levelling the sitting on my ass skill, as you can see."
"Alright, be serious. We figured out what you should do with Crag!"
I had already made up my own mind.
I scooted over and Tissa sat close to me. Too close. My voice cracked either because of her proximity or because I had just been pondering my own weakness and cowardice.
"I'm not gonna do it. I just won't show up, and nether with the whole thing!"
"Yes, we also considered that." Tissa frowned. "It was actually my suggestion. But Ed said that would be a blow to our reputation. And you have to fight him no matter what!"
"Why? I don't owe anyone anything in Dis. Tissa, I'm sorry but I don't give a crap about your clan's reputation. Sure, you helped me out with Crag that time, and I'm grateful for that. But that doesn't mean I'm your... basically I don't have to do what you say, no matter what Rodriguez thinks. I play alone. Plus, I decided to help you with Evil from the Depths, so we're even."
I turned away, not feeling strong enough to keep drowning in her eyes. She took that as a lack of desire to keep talking. With my peripheral vision I saw her bi
te her lip.
"Alex, just listen. Please. Ed has an idea where you stand to lose nothing, and you might even win. It won't lead to any questions, either. Got your attention?"
"Tell me!"
I shuddered, looked at her and felt myself drowning in her smiling eyes once again.
"The Arena," she said simply. "Alex, insist on a duel in the Arena. Battles begin at eight PM there every day. You won’t be high enough level to really be competitive for a while, so it's no wonder you haven't heard of it. Any player can register their own tournament with its own rules. So you just make a two-person tournament, and turn on No Deaths and Player Scaling. Voila!"
Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series Page 25