Class-A Threat (Disgardium Book #1) LitRPG Series

by Dan Sugralinov

  [6:48] [Group] [Infect]: I'm inside! It worked!

  Oh nether, they're already here! Unsticking my eyes, I got up and felt my bones and back aching. And those were sensations in my real body.

  I jumped up, shook my head, but still felt like crap. My throat was totally dry, I wanted badly to eat and not here, there in the real world. My body was giving signals that I needed to quench my hunger and thirst as quickly as possible. Among the debuff icons, I noticed an interface warning that I was at risk of dehydration and, in five hours, I would be forced to exit Disgardium.

  [6:48] [Group] [Scyth]: Everything is fine, I was asleep. Some coffee is just what I need, Hung! I'm waiting at the first boss. To be fair, he's a bit of a corpse now... He couldn't take the long hard fist massage and just died. And yeah, hi!

  [6:49] [Group] Crawler has entered Evil from the Depths.

  [6:49] [Group] Bomber has entered Evil from the Depths.

  [6:49] [Group] Tissa has entered Evil from the Depths.

  [6:50] [Group] [Bomber]: Ah-ha-ha! So what, you tickle him to death?

  [6:50] [Group] [Scyth]: I spent half the night tickling. By the way, it dropped an epic!

  [6:50] [Group] [Crawler]: Well I'll be! You beautiful boy! Link to loot, plz.

  [6:51] [Group] [Scyth]: [Gloves of Evil from the Depths] – something like that.

  All activity in the chat stopped. Clearly the set epic had so struck them and driven them into a frenzy that they were running to reach me as quickly as possible.

  In ten minutes, I saw the Dementors entering Faras's cave. And Infect appearing behind me, covered my eyes and whispered tenderly:

  "Guess who?"

  "Don't even start," I groaned and broke free. "I'm already in enough of a fog here!"

  Tissa, when she caught sight of me, for some reason cast Holy Renewal, which wasn't much help, then she ran up and embraced me, whispering in my ear:

  "Thanks."

  Ed patted me on the shoulder, then I found myself in the embrace of big old Hung. He gave me a strong squeeze, nearly breaking a rib then shouted, unable to hide his glee:

  "It worked! We did it! I can only imagine how pissed those Axiom jerks are gonna be when we snatch the achi out from under their noses! Big Po is gonna blow a gasket!"

  "Don't run in front of a flying semi, Bomber," Ed said. He looked me in the eyes with compassion, taking me by the shoulders. "Scyth, you can leave your pod now. We'll wait."

  "Uh... But what about the progress? Won't it zero out?"

  "Not as long as at least one group member is alive in the instance. Will a half hour be enough?"

  "Hm... In theory yes, but I wouldn't mind a shower," I said, thinking it over.

  "No problem," Rodriguez nodded. "The four of us have gotten to the final boss before, so take your time while we clear mobs. Don't worry, just get yourself together. It usually took us six or seven hours to get to the last boss. But you already took down the first, so we can get it down to five. Alright, go on."

  "If you want, you could even get a bit of sleep out there," Tissa suggested.

  "That's if he doesn't want the experience," Infect noted. "If he isn't here, he won't get any."

  "I mean, we're different enough levels that he won't get much xp," Tissa didn't agree. "Alex, do you care about a couple experience per mob? You stand to gain three maybe five hundred points total including bosses, but it's up to you. I bet that's what you were getting from one pack of mobs before."

  "Yeah, good point," Crawler said. "Don't worry about the loot. We have a fair system for sharing it. Needs take prevalence. If an item is no use to anyone, which is not likely, we sell it and put the dough in our clan coffers. But your share is twenty percent, and we of course will let you have it. If you don't get anything, we'll pay your share of the gear at market value."

  They all looked at me, waiting for a decision. I considered whether I wanted to spend another five or six hours hanging around here, risking death from some boss’s mass ability or aggro'd mob. After all, this place was full of traps, and you could easily just fall down a hole. I could not afford to die. I'd help them damage on the last boss by adding plague energy though. In theory, it would look plausible. They were not beginners and should understand that, with the ability to respawn in where you just died, you could level Unarmed Combat very fast.

  "Good. I'm heading to sleep," I said. "If it's not too hard, give me a call on my comm if you need me."

  "Sounds good," Ed said. "About... Okay, later. Go get some rest."

  I activated emergency exit and this time I got no warnings about lost progress. The world around started draining of color then went black.

  Emergency exit activated!

  Exiting in: 3...

  "You'll come back right here. We'll send Infect back to lead you to us. After this, it gets into these mazes..." Ed's voice went silent.

  "Hey, what about the coffee?" came Hung, sounding offended. And that was the last thing I heard.

  What did Crawler want to talk about?

  * * *

  "We got lucky too," Infect boasted. "Locust, the fourth boss, dropped another epic. This one is chainmail armor. The rest is good equip, but not blue..."

  "We didn't come here for loot," Ed interrupted and handed me the artifact they had put such hope into. "Here you go, Scyth."

  The little rock was the size of a chicken egg and made no impression. It wasn't a proper shape, it had flakes and chips. To touch it, it was just a normal rock. But pores in the mineral emanated a barely visible light.

  Stone of Resurrection

  Artifact

  Use: resurrects a dead group member.

  Cooldown time: 1 hour.

  Value: 2000 gold.

  I estimated that at auction this stone might be worth as much as ten thousand. After all, two thousand was just the vendor purchase price.

  "Yeah, it cost a pretty penny," Tissa said. "Please don't lose it. Best thing would be bringing it up on the panel and activating it from there."

  "I hope we don't have to use it," Crawler said. "Well, are we ready? Scyth, do you need me to go over tactics again?"

  "Give me a couple minutes to drink that coffee," I said, nodding at Hung. "I just woke up."

  The tank eagerly dug in his bag and handed me a large hot wineskin.

  "It doesn't get cold in your inventory," he chuckled. "Sorry, there's only one. We kept it for you special. The other one already got drunk."

  That break was exactly what I needed. When I climbed out of the capsule, I wanted to drink so badly I couldn't take my mouth off the kitchen tap for five whole minutes. Then I ordered three portions of breakfast of various kinds from our multicooker (all told, I got a tomato omelet, hot dogs, bacon, toast, beans, cheese croissants and a tuna sandwich), then went to take a shower. I ate, drank a whole carton of orange juice and, just as I entered the bedroom, collapsed into bed.

  I woke up to a call from Tissa, answered that I'd be there soon and went to wash up and brush my teeth. While I did that, I thought over how I would handle the talk with the Dementors if Curse of the Undead kicked in or Ed started asking questions about my threat status. I was calmed by the fact that, if that happened and I had the curse, they would have no way to kill me. In fact, I would probably kill them. Then I'd go to the Mire, and hang out there until I was old enough to leave the sandbox. There were no preventers here, and I could handle high-level mobs with my curse, even if every one in the Mire came at once. Nothing was stopping me from levelling Mark of the Destroying Plague to cap either.

  "Scyth, it's time to go!" Ed said nervously.

  The team was very high-strung, after all there was just one more step to the target. Another issue was that they had been unable to beat this boss before, but this time they'd have a few chances.

  "Yeah, let's go," I got up despite myself and returned the empty wineskin to Bomber.

  On the way, Ed repeated the tactics we were going to use for the hundredth time. To me it seemed like a big w
aste of time considering that no one had ever killed this boss yet. I mean, that meant all known tactics had failed. Beyond that, we agreed that I was not taking part in the battle, just trying not to die and I would only join in the final phase, when Murkiss – the level twenty-three boss – was down to less than twenty percent health. Then the group would need all the damage it could muster, because Murkiss would Enrage and quickly mow down the whole party, starting with the tank if they couldn't kill the boss first.

  We spent a long time walking the spiral ramp down, which was lit by Tissa's magic. We carefully crossed a narrow path carved into a cliffside over a lava pit and finally reached the entrance to a huge cave.

  And there I saw the undefeated main dungeon boss. This was the very incarnation of Evil from the Depths – a gigantic scorpion. It's carapace was black and its many appendages were orange. Its searing pincers and segmented tail flexed menacingly. Plus it had thirty thousand health points.

  The main problem came from the boss's magical abilities. Beyond very strong physical and poison attacks like Stinger or attacking with its powerful claws, Murkiss had a couple other ways to make problems for our group.

  He was spontaneous and unpredictable. You see, at random intervals Murkiss teleported to a random point in the cave and attacked whoever was closest. And it might never happen in a whole battle, or it could happen once per minute.

  The teleportation took less than a second, so it always threw a wrench in our battle plan. While the tank ran over to the boss, whichever of us ended up in hot water might go down. And usually they fought back, using all defensive abilities at once and frantically slamming health potions. There was no way to run because the boss cast a three-second AoE Earthquake wherever he appeared, which slowed everyone in a ten-foot radius by fifty percent.

  The boss also often used Ignition, beating the ground with its fiery pincers, which caused lines of flame to run every direction. And another special, Fire of the Depths, could burn anyone to death in just three seconds.

  "Out of the fire!" Crawler repeated for the tenth time. "Out of the fire!"

  Sometimes Murkiss chaotically spit Seed of the Nether too, covering the cave with small puddles of black slime. If you stayed in one for too long, it came at a high cost. In a few seconds a player would be pulled down to the Depths. And down there, they couldn't do anything until the end of battle. But usually they would die before that. The Creatures of the Depths were small and blind, but they could smell living flesh, and were drawn to it. When they got what they were after, they would grind a person down in an instant. And so I heard "Out of the puddles!" at least twenty times from Crawler.

  And although the boss's last two abilities didn't worry the Dementors much – just be smart and run out of fire and puddles and Tissa will heal you – the fourth and first had everyone very worried. It was basically a lottery.

  Murkiss could also summon Nether Worms, which would swallow a random player and go underground. There was no way to avoid them either. After getting swallowed, if you couldn't get out in thirty seconds by killing the thing from inside, you would die. And we would be screwed if the worm swallowed our tank or healer. Bomber didn't have high enough DPS, i.e. damaging speed, to kill the worm that fast, and without a tank the group couldn’t survive long. Meanwhile if it swallowed Tissa, the tank would fold. Squeeze and Stinger could take half of Bomber's life even with his defensive abilities, and without the healing power of the priestess of Nergal, he would be dead in just eight seconds.

  Out of nine attempts by the Dementors, one every week, which was the maximum the system allowed for a raid dungeon like this, the worst happened five or six times. That meant the tank or healer got swallowed.

  "The theory of probability is on our side," Crawler said. "Plus, we've got Scyth with us now."

  "I really hope you’re right," Tissa snorted. "Swimming in acid inside a worm is not exactly a great experience."

  "Don't start, please! Think positive!" His harsh tone left no doubts about Crawler's own positivity. He scratched the back of his head, trying to decide whether he had considered everything or not, then he just barked: "Is everyone ready?"

  "Yes!" we answered in unison.

  "Then let's go!"

  Chapter Thirty-Five. All Hail the Heroes

  I FELT IT WAS TIME to step in. Up until now, I was busy avoiding the lines of fire and jumping out of the Depths puddles.

  The panic started when Ed shouted: "Worm!" The earth yawned underfoot, and an instant later I could feel myself falling into its behemoth maw. The fear of dying and revealing my status as a threat was so high that I put half my plague energy into one Hammer. The worm exploded into smithereens, and I got splashed with a bunch of its innards.

  "Hell yeah!" Crawler shouted.

  I rolled away just in time, one second before the earth beneath me gave way.

  The worm appeared when Murkiss was at fifty percent health. For the next thirty, the Dementors were inspired by the quick defeat of the worm attack. So successfully and methodically, knowing exactly what to do, they hectored the scorpion and even when it suddenly teleported for the only time in battle to Ed, nothing went wrong. The mage didn't flinch and activated a fire shield that absorbed and reflected damage. And that lasted long enough for Hung to get the boss back on him.

  The whole battle, Bomber was held the boss away from the group. Crawler and Tissa stood at maximum distance and had no problem seeing the trajectory of the fire lines and taking a few steps away when necessary.

  On the other side of the boss, winding between the scorpion's appendages, Infect was running as a ghost, doing the highest DpS of all. His predatory daggers moved so fast they looked blurry when he used specials. And as if the huge damage wasn't enough on its own, there were also regular messages about DoTs renewing: Bleeding, Slowed and Poisoned. Beyond that, Murkiss had a constant bunch of debuffs on him from Tissa and Crawler.

  The speed of the battle was impressive. It had started just a few minutes ago, but that was child's play. Murkiss entered Enrage, and everything turned on a dime. The boss grew larger and one and a half times faster...

  "Heal!" Hung shouted.

  "I am!" Tissa noted. "I can't get you to full!"

  "Plus ten percent damage every five seconds!" Crawler shouted. "Bro, turn on Tenacity! Scyth, help us with all you got! Stay away from the stinger!"

  I joined Infect from the same side and slammed full force with my ability, adding a dose of plague energy for two hundred points.

  You have damaged Murkiss: 239.

  Health points: 5426/30000.

  The rhythm of battle was cyclical and I very quickly got the hang of it. Jump under a Cleaver, dodge the fire, Hammer, land a series of blows, out of the puddles, jump...

  I added thirty or forty points of plague energy to normal blows and I think I was doing no less damage than Infect. I would use Hammerfist after cooldown and got so caught up in the fun that I nearly burned up in a line of fire. Thankfully the thief pushed me out, barking:

  "Look out below!"

  I didn't make any more errors like that. The scorpion's health bar was barreling down and that made it angry. That was having a very bad effect on Bomber. Tissa clearly wasn't doing enough.

  "Pedal to the metal!" the barely living tank shouted, parrying the boss's attack with a screech and hitting back with Shatter. The scorpion stumbled and threw itself back on the attack. "Take this!"

  That was the last thing Hung managed to do. With two snips of its pincers and one big bite, our tank was dead.

  Infect was next on the aggro list. Spitting out Bomber's lifeless body, Murkiss turned to the thief.

  "Inf, Dodge then smash Disappear!" Crawler yelled.

  "Where would I be without you...?" Malik snarled.

  But he didn't have time to go invisible. His Dodge gave a very high, but not one-hundred-percent chance of evading an attack. This was not his lucky day. The scorpion one-shotted the thief and headed straight for Crawler.

&n
bsp; "Alright guys, easy does it!" he admonished us, kiting the boss and throwing on a fire shield. "Almost there... Almost... Easy, let's not make any mistakes... Okay..."

  "Scyth, now!" Tissa shouted.

  "Tiss, regen on me and get to the other side," the leader of the Dementors had an infectious calm about him. "Just a bit more..."

  You have critically damaged Murkiss: 289!

  Health points: 1356/30000.

  "He-hee-heee!" Tissa shrieked, reminding me of an enraged banshee. "Okay guys! Three percent!"

  Understanding that if we fell now we’d have to start over, I put all my plague energy into this attack. That didn't kill the boss, but then someone's DoT ticked...