by Charles Dean
Liu shifted her attention back to the doorway, and her gaze locked on the Alfar healer who had caused Hans’s struggle to be so difficult. When the Alfar’s eyes met Liu’s, they lit up with fear.
“Wait, wait, don’t-- You don’t have to kill me. We can all share the prize. I can heal you while you claim it!” she pleaded.
Liu didn’t even answer her. She just started walking quietly toward her. On her second step forward, the black ethereal chains from Nick’s taunt spell shot out and wrapped around the Alfar woman's waist. The healer was forced to turn away and face Nick, and the Dark Knight was already upon her. Before she could utter so much as a word, Nick’s mace crashed down onto her skull once and then twice more, killing her.
“Welp,” Nick said as he looked at the corpse. “That solves that.”
Liu glanced around the room to see that between Nick, the girls above, and Katie, their side had held on pretty well. With one of their healers and three of their melee fighters gone, Liu had basically crippled the enemy group’s ability to put up a fight. Even if she hadn’t fared well, it was clear that Viola and the rest would have pressed through and relieved her in due time.
“Yeah, I suppose it does,” Liu answered, taking in a deep breath.
“You don’t have long to get up this ladder before another group shows up and tries to attack you again. I can’t even begin to tell you how many people have died right where you’re standing due to that very thing. I’d get a move on,” the green-eyed girl at the top of the ladder advised.
Liu was slightly annoyed at being pressured to hurry up, but she stepped forward and began climbing the ladder nonetheless. Viola came after her, and Nick came up last.
“Thanks for your help,” Liu said when she reached the top.
“No problem,” replied the pretty girl that had caused Nick to act like a puppy with a tail stuck on wag mode. “Rooms 208, 313, and 404 are the other paths up if you’re trying to see Lucas. He’s in room 511.”
“That’s . . . very helpful. Thank you,” Liu responded.
“Oh, and . . .” After a pause, the girl reached out and handed something to Nick, causing the whole party, especially him, to look confused. Nick opened his hand long enough to see whatever it was that she had passed to him and then clenched his fist tightly around it, a massive grin spreading across his face.
“I’ll . . .” Nick glanced at the object she had handed him one more time and then blushed as his gaze traveled up and met hers.
“See me again, right?” the girl asked. She idly twirled a strand of her hair around her finger as she spoke, mimicking the most obvious flirting mannerism Liu had ever seen.
“Right.” Nick nodded once and then averted his gaze toward the door. “We need to get going now!” Then, without waiting, he pushed forward and ahead of Liu.
Viola grasped onto Nick’s forearm with both hands as soon as they were out of earshot of the girls and looked up at him with more bright-eyed enthusiasm than Liu had ever seen in from her. “What in the heck was that?!” she asked rather knowingly.
“N-nothing. Nick stammered while turning an even brighter shade of red, an irrepressible smile clinging to his face. “It was nothing.”
“Guess I’ll have to tell Bonnie then,” Viola snickered, causing Nick to go from a regular shade of red to a full-on tomato as he ducked his head and tried to hide his face from the group of girls.
“I don’t know what she has to do with anything,” Nick muttered as they made their way down the hallway. When they reached room 208, which was inconveniently on the far end of the hallway, they found a very similar room to the one with the first rope ladder. It would have been exactly identical if it weren’t for one major difference: there were dead bodies everywhere, and the crew that Liu guessed had been guarding the rope ladder before she arrived had been completely butchered.
It was the same with room 313 except that the defenders' bodies had been hacked up and strewn about. Women’s limbs had been violently separated from their bodies, and their torsos had been slashed and rent, making Liu feel more than a little uncomfortable as she stepped over them. The only positive thing she could say was it seemed like the girls had given better than they had gotten. For every one body at the top, there were at least three dead men at the bottom.
“All women,” Viola said as she stepped over the last corpse into the fourth-floor hallway. “You guys noticing that too, right? It’s like the casting director for these scenes was some lascivious, sexist rake with too much free time.”
“You mean like Lucas?” Nick snickered, his bashfulness having faded.
“Lucas isn’t like that,” Liu snapped, quickly defending him.
“Oh, come on! Don’t play it off like that.” Nick’s snicker morphed into a full-on laugh as the group walked down the hallway toward room 404, where the final rope ladder up was supposed to be. “We both know he’s a horn dog. That’s why he’s always doing the naked parties with you guys during breaks.”
“You don’t know anything about him,” Liu grimaced even as the words exited her mouth. She hated the fact that standing up for him made her sound like a walking cliché, but it was hard not to. This idiot was insulting Lucas and treating him like some sort of perverted old man when the reality wasn’t that way at all. It was about as far away as it could possibly get. Even after Yu Hua’s death, Lucas was still staying true to her sister.
“I know enough,” Nick said. “We’re bros, after all.” It sounded like he added that last part solely to make sure Liu and Viola and Katie knew that he wasn’t bad-mouthing Lucas. He was just claiming to be an authority from experience. “I know that he’s some second- or third-generation rich guy who loves women and spending his time gaming. He’s kinda like my hero.”
No. Liu instantly wanted to correct the idiot, but she held back the words out of respect for Lucas’s privacy. How can someone look at such a broken man, such an unspirited face, day after day and come away with that conclusion? Lucas is an extremely hardworking widower who made so much money before his wife died that he has the luxury of retreating into the game world.
“Your memory is short, and your perception is shallow,” Viola answered for Liu. “If that’s all you see in your friend, I don’t know if you should call him ‘brother.’”
“What do you mean?” Nick asked, his laughter mostly gone.
“He’s decisive, impulsive, emotional,” Viola began. “At times, he's consumed by hatred and vengeance. An eye for an eye? No, he takes the whole head, breaking it open and shedding layers like cabbage under his rage, but for all that . . .” She paused, and silence drifted between them for a moment. “But for all the rage that pours out of him in waves at the smallest slight, what you see is just a mask, a disguise that you can see him take off when those emotions lull. Watch him as his forlorn gaze sweeps across a room, as it pierces through you and past you. It’s like he’s looking right at you, but you don’t even exist to him as his mind retreats to a world you’ll never fathom. It’s so hard to read that I can’t tell if he’s an empty glass or a drowning man.” Viola’s voice cracked a little as her own emotions rippled through every syllable, and when she finished speaking, silence reigned again.
“He just needs to get laid,” Katie said, piping up from the back, her innocent and naive comment destroying all the seriousness that Viola’s short monologue had crafted. “My dad says that, when a man looks like that, he just needs to get laid.”
Liu had a hard time not laughing at that.
“Well, if that’s what he wanted, he wouldn’t be short of volunteers,” Viola chortled. “I just don’t think he’s ready for that, Katie,” she added more seriously.
“Yeah,” Liu said, nodding and pushing back the rest of her thoughts as she began to remember how hard it was for her to deal with Yu Hua’s loss too.
“You guys make things too complicated,” Nick scoffed, opening up his hand to look at whatever he had been given once more.
This time, Liu
was actually close enough and quick enough to peek at it. There, on a gum-wrapper-sized piece of old-timey burnt paper, the kind one might find in a medieval monastery, was something that looked like a name and an email address.
So, that’s where this sudden cavalier confidence is coming from.
When they reached room 404, they opened it up to see three players at the rope ladder.
“What’s the hold up?” Liu asked. “We gotta get to the boss!” She was careful not to declare whether “boss” meant “final foe” or “main benefactor” as she tried to feel out the room.
“We’re short too many players now,” an Orc wearing studded leather armor and standing closest to the rope ladder grumbled. “Those damn girls . . . Stupid, freaking, side-switching women . . .” He then seemed to notice that, other than Nick, the whole group he was talking to was women. “I mean, just the traitorous ones are stupid.”
“Right,” the Human male in the group said. He was wearing armor very similar to Nick’s and a forced smile likely meant defrost the suddenly tense situation. “He means just the traitors have picked us off, a lot of us, and then there is this.” He pointed to the rope ladder.
“Yeah, it’s a way up. What’s the problem?” Liu asked.
“It could be death. I don’t wanna touch it,” he explained quickly.
“Death?” Liu looked at the rope ladder. “It doesn’t seem that threatening.”
“Have you not been going through this dungeon? Everything could be a trap. Door handle? It’s a trap. Picture frame that looks crooked? Trap. Random piece of furniture? It’s hiding a team of assassins. I don’t trust it,” the man said.
“Well, then . . . how did you get up the last one?” Liu asked. “We’re on the fourth floor, so you have to have gone through a lot of these before.”
“We did, but . . . they were guarded. This one isn’t guarded. Why isn’t it guarded?!” His voice rose in timbre, belying his paranoia. “I don’t trust a ladder up that isn’t guarded.”
“It’s just a ladder,” Nick said, giving it a tug. As soon as he yanked the rope, however, the group’s suspicions proved true. There was a loud click, and a large box’s worth of tiny black spiders dropped down from the ceiling onto Nick. “WHAT THE FREAKING HELL?!” Nick started swatting the spiders away left and right as Viola went into overdrive to keep him healed.
The three men, validated in their fear and clearly mocking Nick’s nonchalant attitude, laughed their heads off as they joined Liu and Viola to swat, step on, and squish every spider they could. As they were working furiously, Nick started to take off his armor and drop his pants.
“What are you doing?” Liu asked in alarm while backing away.
“They got under the armor! They’re in my-- Look away!” Nick insisted. “Don’t stop healing though! Don’t stop!”
Liu had no problem turning around, not wanting to see the poor kid’s half-naked dance as he crunched away the spiders close to his important bits, and though she hated to admit it, she even took a little pleasure in his screams.
The problem was over after a few minutes, and Nick soon managed to regain his composure and put his outfit back on.
“We good?” Liu asked, already having turned around to see that he was ready.
“Yeah, we are, but what about the rope ladder?”
“Not just a rope ladder anymore, is it?” the third man, a Naga, said with a hearty laugh.
“No, no, it is not. That ladder is indeed death,” Nick agreed with a gulp.
“Everything in this dungeon is death,” the Orc commented.
“So . . .” Viola began, grinning ear to ear, “do you want to try and pull on the ladder again? See if the trap has more than one charge?”
“I think I’ll pass,” Nick said, backing away slightly.
“Then how are we going to get up there?” Viola asked.
“Same way we got down from that Alfar town when we kidnapped you,” Nick said, rummaging through his stuff until finally pulling out a healing scepter.
“Ohhhhh!!!” Viola exclaimed in understanding, already beginning her own spell.
“What's the ‘oh’? What do you guys know?” the Orc from the other group asked insistently.
“Just follow us after we head up. We’ll check for traps on the top floor,” Liu said, seeing what was going on. She didn’t have anything but a rapier, but she knew what was going to happen.
In just a few seconds, Viola, Katie, and Nick had created multiple Force Shields that they were able to stack on top of one another like giant blocky stairs. Once they were in place, the group was able to use them to climb upward by carefully leapfrogging over one another until they reached the higher floor.
“Come on up,” Liu said, signaling that it was safe for the group below.
“Yeah, we got it,” the Naga replied as the three eagerly followed in their footsteps. When they got to the top Force Shield, however, Liu gave them a little surprise.
“Destroy it,” she said to Katie, the one who had summoned the last Force Shield.
The Force Shield vanished underneath the trio, and they fell back onto the floor below. The fall damage wasn’t enough to kill them, but it was enough to leave them awkwardly scrambling to stand up. Liu had only meant to stall them a little bit, but Viola had different ideas. The Alfar reached out and gave the rope ladder a fierce tug, and sure enough, the trap did have more than one charge. A second load of spiders dumped from an opening in the ceiling and down onto the trio below. Not satisfied with only seeing it happen once, Viola gave the trap several more tugs until the group below might as well have been swimming in nasty arachnids.
“That’s messed up,” Nick said as he looked down on the soon-to-be-dead group with a note of pity in his voice. “They get under your armor and bite absolutely everywhere.”
“That’s the point sometimes,” Viola replied. “We’re supposed to be villains. We’re supposed to do this type of evil stuff.”
After that solemn note, with the screams of the dying men still ringing in the background, Liu and the rest left down the hallway to find Lucas.
It wasn’t hard to spot his door. It was the largest they had come across so far, and it stood out like a sore thumb. Liu had no idea what to expect as she pushed the door open, but the sight that greeted her certainly wasn’t it. Lucas, Bonnie, some crazy crimson-colored mage along with fifteen or so women were fighting it out tooth and nail with about thirty men. The only thing that appeared to be keeping the battle from tipping in the invaders’ favor was a new great-dane-sized six-legged reptilian monster with black skin, a dragon’s head, and horns, spitting out Lightning and pouncing between one enemy and the next.
“Hans!” Liu called, summoning up her butler as she readied her rapier and picked a target.
“You called, my lady?” Hans answered as he reappeared back into the world through the mysterious portal. He still had all of his injuries from his previous fight, but a warm glow quickly surrounded him, and Liu knew that Viola was already at work fixing that problem.
Liu took a deep breath and mentally prepared herself to enter the battle. She targeted a weak-looking healer, raised her blade, and activated her combat skill Thrust of Dignity.
“Let’s kill some bastards.”
Chapter 11
Character Name: Lucas
Level: 34
Hit Points: 5175
Arcane Energy: 2600
Stamina: 500
Holy Energy: Class Locked
Current Class: Enchanter
Stats:
Arcanum [increases Arcane Energy by 10 per point]: 250
Holy [No Effect/Class Locked]: 0
Athletics [increases Stamina by 10 per point]: 40
Fortitude [increases Hit Points by 1% per point]: 350
Charisma: 350
Luck: 60
Unspent: 0
Current Elemental Attunement:
Lightning Affinity: 1.5%
Effects: +3% Lightning Element Damage
+6% Lightning Element Channeling Speed
-3% Non-Lightning Element Channeling Speed
+0.75% Lightning Element Damage Resistance
Arcane Resistance: 2%
Combat Proficiencies:
None
Racial Quest Chain Progress:
Vampire Quest: In progress.
The fight had been going on for over half an hour, and it didn’t show any signs of reaching a conclusion. Every time Lucas managed to kill off a few people, another team would show up and join the fray, and to make matters worse, the continuous fighting was starting to slowly whittle down his crew. Although he had gained quite a few supporters thanks to his earlier speech, he didn’t have the ability to replenish his numbers like his opponents did. They were consistently showing up in groups of threes and fours, making it feel impossible to gain any headway or respite.
At first, he had tried to make use of some of his new spells. From what he could tell, the Weapon of the Blood Servant came equipped with some pretty amazing area-of-effect magic that would have been perfect for clearing out a large group. Indeed, he had used it earlier to great effect outside and bought himself more than enough time to retreat into the hotel. The problem now was that each of the attacks required mana, health, and channeling time, and he never seemed to have all three of those on hand at the same time. He had tried to cast Red Ice Prison earlier, but the cast was broken when he took a heavy blow to his gut from a two-handed maul. The spell had fizzled, and he had suffered the now-familiar pangs of unused Arcane Energy as the spell backfired, and Arcane Energy rampaged through his body. Anything that took longer than a split second to cast was off the table as most of the players present were constantly targeting him.
As a result, Lucas had spent a large majority of the fight using his old staff to lob Exploding Tears at the enemy healers and range builds on the other side of the fray and execute well-placed Scorching Skulls on any melee fighters that broke through to his position at the rear of his forces. However, his biggest contribution to the fight so far had been acting as a distraction so that his team could do the work for him. He was constantly able to pull the attackers’ attention away from his people, allowing them to slip past enemy defenses and strike at vulnerable targets. All he had to do was make a show of attempting to cast a major spell, releasing a little unfocused Arcane Energy in a dazzling burst for some glitz, and it was more than enough for every player on the field to focus their attention on him. Meanwhile, he was able to act as a commander, coordinating his team while keeping the enemy flustered.