PrimeVerse: Dose of Chaos: A GameLit / LitRPG Adventure

by R K Billiau

  “Let’s stick to the plan,” Kai said. “If there is time after we figure out the orbs, we can see about finding hidden things.”

  “Works for me,” I said, and we set up around the next tunnel.

  This time was even easier to face off against the globs. All of us had maxxed out whatever skills we could while fighting and had become engines of glob destroying destruction. Or something.

  It also helped that of the negative status effects the globs had, the blue one was the least annoying. Getting hit by it inflicted a Slow debuff, that reduced movement speed and dodging ability. But since we didn’t want to run away, we barely noticed it.

  With the globs gone, Madison grabbed the final orb and we headed up the ramp. Kai, Madison, and I each holding an orb, we did the only thing left to do. We lifted the orbs in the air to place them on the pedestals.

  “On three,” Kai said.

  “Wait, like, one… two... three... go, or like one... two... go on three?” I asked. Kai let out an exasperated sigh and plunked his orb down on the pedestal.

  Chapter 25

  Madison rolled her eyes and we both set our orbs down as well, then we all backed away from the pedestals as they began sinking into the ground. The scraping of stone on stone was more eerie than ear piercing, and we waited anxiously for whatever was going to happen next.

  The orbs lit up brighter and brighter with their descent and the light merged to form a brilliant white, eManating off the orbs like a reverse prism. As the pedestals stopped moving and the orbs settled near the ground, the light in them died, but the room remained lit with the bright white light.

  It was silent for a few seconds and we looked between each other, expectantly. Nothing happened. I was just about to let my guard down when my ears were assaulted by the loudest grinding noises coming from all sides. I plastered my hands over my ears and spun around to witness the walls of the dungeon that separated the three individual rooms sinking into the ground simultaneously, just as the pedestals had. Everyone was silent, watching, though I don’t think we would have been able to hear anyone talking above the noise, anyway.

  After a minute or so the walls had completely disappeared, revealing- and releasing- the five respawned globs of each color: red, blue, and yellow. The tunnels were gone and the room was a massive, round open space with the three open doorways that led to the foyer, and nothing but the ramp between us and the 15 globs.

  “Uh... now what?” Carl asked.

  “Well that’s annoying,” Madison said, “do we have to fight them all now?”

  “No... look!” I shouted, pointing at a pair of globs. The two globs, a red and a blue, had started slapping at each other with their pseudopods, the hits causing small ruptures and goo to leak out. They fought, seeming equal in strength, until in one moment both pseudopods slapped into each other and wrapped around one another, entwining and pulsing.

  “Are they...?” Madison asked as the two pulsing appendages writhed and braided around each other. “Gross,” she said and turned away.

  “Bow-chicka-wow-wow,” Carl said while wiggling his eyebrows, “you get you some, globby things!”

  “I don’t think it’s like that,” I said, “watch!” Sure enough, something weird was happening, and the two entwined pseudopods, red and blue, began merging and changing color to a bright magenta. The color spread down the appendages into the separate globs, who drew close to each other and in a forceful and final pulse, merged, becoming a single, larger, fully magenta glob.

  “That cannot be good,” Kai understated.

  As soon as we pulled our eyes from the strange mutation, we realized all across the battlefield globs were fighting. The strange slapping sounds of jello on jello filled the air. Before long there was an orange glob and a green. Their numbers dwindled as their colors changed and their sizes got larger and larger. It looked as if they were playing last man standing, and all the losers got eaten.

  “This is a boss fight, isn’t it?” I asked to no one. As if the dungeon itself answered me, the last of the globs merged, forming a truly massive brilliant white glob. It had to be ten feet tall, and twice as wide, taking up a considerable amount of real estate on the floor. The ramp would not help us this time, as it could easily reach us with one of its pseudopods.

  “What do we do now?” Madison asked.

  “We RUN!” I shouted as I shoved her aside to avoid the aforementioned pseudopod that came crashing down right where we had been standing. To Carl’s credit, he reacted well, slashing out with his dagger as soon as the appendage came close, and leaving a small bleeding wound. I don’t think the amount of bleeding it caused would even be noticed by the gargantuan thing, but I was impressed, nonetheless.

  The pseudopod squirmed about on the platform, like it was looking for something on top of the refrigerator that it couldn’t see, sending the orbs and us flying. The thing was colossal. It felt like a humongous, wet, sticky hand when it slapped across my body.

  The hit I took didn’t really hurt, but the combination of Burn, Slow, and Poison debuffs landing on me simultaneously made for a painful time. The Pain debuff kicked in right to the yellow unhappy face. My HUD looked like a politician’s jersey, only instead of being covered in corporate sponsorships it was covered in debuffs.

  I took a moment to center myself and gauge the situation. The white glob only had a single pseudopod out and was slowly flailing it at Kai, who was dodging admirably. I didn’t know if it was a product of its size or what, but the glob seemed even slower than its smaller counterparts. Kai had ample time to get out of the way, and was throwing punches and kicks every chance he could, though if they had any effect it was hard to tell.

  The next swipe nearly cleared the balcony, and Madison and I were knocked off. I landed at the very bottom of it, but Madison had been knocked further into the room, along with the three orbs, clanking like glass, but they did not break. Carl remained on the platform with Kai, and while he wasn’t dodging the attacks as easily, getting hit occasionally, his dagger seemed to have an actual effect on the thing, leaving bleeding wounds all over.

  I ran to Madison, offering her my hand to help her up. “You okay?”

  “How the hell are we supposed to fight this thing?” she asked, taking my hand and getting to her feet.

  “There has to be some kind of trick to it,” I said. “It looks like Kai can’t hurt it, I bet your spear wouldn’t either. Carl’s dagger is causing bleeding wounds, but it’s a magical weapon, so that must be why it can.”

  “What about your magical weapon?” she asked, pointing towards my baculus.

  I shrugged. “Yeah, I don’t know. I guess I could try though, maybe a different color will work better.”

  I ran to the base of the behemoth and swung my stick for all it was worth. It smacked into the side of the thing and bounced off as if I had hit the world’s largest bouncy ball, the contact reverberating through my arm.

  The glob shifted as if it felt my attack and moved towards me. It was almost as if it wanted to run me over, which is exactly what it did, because while having a dodge ability is great, it’s still hard to dodge something the size of a building while it’s moving to consume you.

  The pressure rolled slowly from my feet where I got knocked to the ground, over my legs, back, and head. It may have been like a pleasant massage if it didn’t feel like a piece of dry ice between a kid’s sweaty hands. I couldn’t tell if it was frost bite or burning. Then I got to experience the joy of the Suffocation debuff on top of all the others.

  Then I died.

  But hey, it’s not all bad; at least death cleared my debuffs! I also learned that we no longer respawned at the beginning of the dungeon, but at the entrance to this floor.

  Your party has a total of 4 deaths allowed before the dungeon is considered failed.

  I was grateful that the walls to the entry room had not also disappeared into the floor, which prevented me from dying the second I respawned. No more spawn camping for me!<
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  This room had three entrances that were basically just doorways into the next room, which was filled with the giant glob. I peered through one of the doorways. The boss was so big that I could imagine the rest of our lives going quickly. There had to be something we hadn’t thought of. Most bosses had a gimmick, and this whole dungeon was a puzzle.

  I couldn’t give it too much thought as Kai’s scream grabbed my attention. I snapped my head in the direction of the sound and saw him caught in the pseudopod like a pig in a blanket. It wrapped around him and squeezed.

  It was an impressive display as Kai’s health bar bottomed out and his corpse was pulped. I looked away just in case his head popped off.

  Your party has a total of 3 deaths allowed before the dungeon is considered failed.

  A few seconds later Kai came up to me from the respawn point. “This seems a little unfair,” he said with more huffiness than I had ever seen him with before.

  “There’s just some trick we are missing,” I said. “I’m trying to put my finger on it.”

  “We need to figure it out soon, or we will fail the dungeon,” he said. Now I knew he was annoyed since he just stated the obvious.

  “It’s something to do with colors, I bet,” I said. “It has to be. This whole section of the dungeon has been about colors and color combinations.”

  “Perhaps you must light it up somehow, like the others?” Kai asked, nodding toward the baculus. “Can you make it a white light?”

  “Yeah, let me try that,” I said. I twisted the baculus, changing it back into its shorter, fatter form that could project light in a beam. I put the red disc in and activated it, red light shooting forward. I continued to twist the dial on the bottom and a much more focused, concentrated beam of red light, like what you would get from a laser pointer, shot out.

  “Well that’s neat,” I mumbled and felt around on the handle to turn off the beam.

  I twisted the dial again to widen the beam and it splashed through the doorway, across the room, landing on one of the rogue orbs that had been scattered. The orb instantly lit up red and the lighting in the room changed to the same color, making the giant glob look red as well. I moved the light off the orb and it went dull again.

  I looked at Kai and he looked at me, then shrugged and took off into the room to attack the glob.

  “Keep the light on the orb!” he shouted. I moved the light back to the orb and tried to keep an eye on him while also looking for Madison, but I couldn’t see her anywhere.

  Your party has a total of 2 deaths allowed before the dungeon is considered failed.

  Well, that explained why I couldn’t see her. “Did you figure it out yet?” she said from behind me. I’m not ashamed to admit I jumped.

  “We are not doing so great with this boss fight, are we?” I asked.

  She smiled at me and gave me a quick peck on the cheek. “Nope!” She pointed at Kai fighting the now reddish monster glob. “But you figured something out! Think it’ll work?”

  “I have no idea, but I hope so. Where the heck is Carl?” I asked.

  She shrugged. “Last I saw he was actually doing pretty good, dodging and stabbing with that knife. Amazing what a little pep talk can do.”

  I watched as Kai launched one of his air kicks at the glob but simply bounced off. I half expected to hear one of those cartoon boingggg! sounds. The glob seemed to ignore him completely and was making its way towards the red orb. As it trundled along, I caught sight of something floating in it, close to the surface.

  “Kai!” I shouted, “I can see a core!” Sure enough, suspended in the thing was a core like the ones in the other globs, only larger. It floated near the membrane of the glob, and seemed to be almost attracted to the red orb, like it was being pulled to it.

  If that thing wanted it, I didn’t want it to have it. I ripped the spear out of Madison’s hand and threw it at the orb, hitting it and sending it flying away like a pool ball. “Get the orb!” I shouted and charged in after it.

  Madison stayed put in the foyer, watching from the central doorway. I finally saw Carl, picking himself up off the ground at the bottom of the ramp. I didn’t know what happened to him, but his health was low and had flames dancing in it.

  “Carl!” I shouted, “go to Madison so she can heal you!”

  Kai was doing a good job of not getting hit while he tried to slow down the single-minded glob, but to no effect. “What. The. Hell!” he shouted, clearly letting his frustration out. “What does lighting up that orb do?!”

  I made it to the orb and scooped it up, but had no idea what to do with it. I did, however, become acutely aware of the target I had just made myself. The BFG (Big Freaking Glob) was heading right toward me, so I charged it, thinking maybe I could smash it with the orb and something would happen. As I ran over one of the sunken pillars, it quickly rose out of the ground as if expecting me. I skidded to a stop, considering, as the massive glob bore down on me. With a mental shrug, I placed the orb on the pedestal and blasted it with my red light.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Conscious attribute!

  As soon the red light touched the orb it lit up, the light eManating off it focused into a single, powerful beam the height and width of the orb, as if it were a spotlight. The light in the room faded back to white as all the red seemed to concentrate into the beam.

  The pillar began rotating, the beam of light with it. I ducked under the beam, unwilling to find out what would happen if it touched me, and spun to watch as the beam slowly made its way across the now white again monster glob.

  Everywhere the beam touched the glob, it left a glowing line of red that slowly faded away.

  “Wait, that’s it!” I shouted, “Hit where the red is!”

  “Madison! Come tank!” Kai shouted as he flew into range, his flying kick landing squarely on the red line. When he hit, the whole glob flashed red briefly and it shuddered, stopping its inexorable move towards the orb for a fleeting moment.

  I couldn’t tell where Madison and Carl were, but I ran the short distance to join Kai and swung my baculus at the red line, hitting it square on and also causing the glob to flash red.

  Kai and I fought, dodging the slow pseudopod when we could, sometimes having to run completely out of range of the thing. Finally, Madison and Carl joined us, and she popped a formation for us to get our attack bonus. A quick glance showed Carl’s health was good, and I nodded at Madison.

  “He’s okay, but I’m low on Mana, the next heal will start eating Spirit also,” she said.

  “Let’s try not to need any heals then,” I said. We took our spots in the formation, Madison tanking the blow from the pseudopod. When the strike landed, pushing her to her knees under the shield with the force of it, Carl, Kai and I popped out and struck at the red line, each hit stopping the glob momentarily and causing it to flash red.

  The rotation of the pillar moved the light beam off the glob and we had no more avenue to attack.

  “Back off!” Kai shouted and we took his advice, moving back to the foyer. With a flick of its pseudopod, the glob smacked the red glowing orb off the pedestal, killing the red beam and sending it flying to the top of the ramp.

  “Well,” I said with a huge grin, “now we know what to do. We need to round up the orbs.”

  Kai smiled, his frustrated grimace gone. “Finally, we can hurt the thing.”

  “How are we going to do this?” Carl asked.

  “I can go get the orbs on the ground,” Madison said, “I’ll tank the blows with my shield, which should help mitigate damage. Kai, you’re the fastest, do you want to run up and grab the other orb?”

  “I can do that,” he said. “Are we ready?”

  “What do we do?” Carl asked, gesturing to me and himself. His new focus on teamwork was refreshing.

  “Carl, you be ready to run out and grab Madison if she is in trouble, Hudson, you be ready with the light, we will need to get the orb placed as quickly as we can to maximize our tim
e to attack.”

  “Got it,” Carl said, and stood next to the entryway to the foyer.

  “Watch yourselves,” I reminded everyone. “We only have two deaths until we fail this place.”

  Chapter 26

  I stood on the side of the entryway, Carl on the other side, watching as our compatriots ran into the fray. I couldn’t help but notice that Carl was watching Madison closely. He whistled and turned to me. At least he had the decency to look a little ashamed as I gave him a dark look.

  “So,” he said, “you’re hitting that, huh?”

  I screwed up my face into a frown. “Dude, don’t be gross. She isn’t a ‘that’, she’s a person.”

  He held up his hands placatingly. “Whoa, woah. Calm down chief, I didn’t know you were so touchy.”

  I shot him another mean look. “You know, I was starting to like you there for a minute. You pretty much took that off the table.”

  He frowned. “All right already, I was just kidding, okay? Can we let it go?”

  I didn’t answer, but I was hoping my piercing stare was answer enough.

  “Look,” he said, “I’m sorry you got so offended over a little comment. It’s just locker room talk, bro. We good now?”

  “No, we are not good,” I said, and opened my mouth to continue but was interrupted by Kai yelling.

  “Hudson!” he shouted, and I spun to look just in time to see the orb he threw flying towards my face. I reacted as quickly as I could and surprisingly caught it.

  Congratulations! You have increased your Agility attribute!

  I threw a final glare at Carl and turned to check on Madison. I saw her crouched down in the sneaking position, trying to get to one of the other orbs. She looked ridiculous and didn’t fool the massive glob one bit, who was slowly encroaching on her. Thinking fast, I turned the red light on my baculus, igniting the orb in my hands and the glob snapped around, toward the light. Or it at least turned around as quickly as something with a 400 square foot base and no feet could turn.