Deserts Of Naroosh

by Bradford Bates

“Camel Spider, maybe,” JaKobi whispered just loud enough for Tim to hear as he clearly tried to work out the same problem.

  Jabari’s thick black goatee bobbed up and down as he spoke. “Khalid’s dogs. Why am I not surprised? I’m sorry that he tricked you into an early death. It’s what he is known for around here.”

  His sneer was full of arrogance. “Next time you see the old bastard, ask him how many have died while he sat idly by? Then ask yourself how many lives could have been spared if he had simply walked away.”

  From the balcony to their left, Khalid roared, “You’re the one who kills innocent people. You’re the one corrupted by Vitaria’s taint.”

  Tim turned to see the old warrior and Neema making their way down the rows of seats to the railing. The Desert Wolf let an arrow fly, but the arrow simply vanished a foot from Jabari. There was no trail of smoke or ashes. It was simply there one second and gone the next. Tim would’ve said it was a glitch, but he didn’t think such a thing was possible inside The Etheric Coast, which meant it was probably a clue.

  He was half-tempted to tell Lorelei to try one of her arrows so he could see the effect happen again, but he was afraid it would start the fight prematurely. Part of his brain was still trying to play catch-up because Jabari was above them and it wasn’t the Goliath waiting for them in the room.

  Jabari’s sneer could have curdled milk. “You say those things as if the trail of bodies you leave in your wake is any smaller than mine. The only difference between you and me is that I gave up the pretense of being good while you cling to your morals like a baby with a new toy.

  “Such things are beneath men like us.” Jabari forced a neutral expression onto his face. “There’s still time for you to give up this folly and join me. I can see that it was wrong of me to cast you out all those years ago. Let me welcome you back now with open arms.” He held his arms wide as if waiting for an embrace.

  Khalid stared across the space with hatred burning in his eyes. “Your father was a man of respect, a man I would have followed until I died. For him, I would have given my life.”

  The old warrior spat over the edge of the railing. “As for you, Jabari, I wouldn’t work for you. I’d rather be dead.” Khalid’s laughter was full of malice. “Tell me truly. Now that all your ambitions have turned to shit in your mouth, how does it taste?”

  “You’ve been living on the taste of my shit your entire life.” Jabari moved toward a seat so he could watch whatever was about to happen next. “I hope you like a show because after my Goliath finishes with them, I’m coming for you.”

  Neema jumped on the railing overlooking the space between them as if she might be able to leap for it. “Still hiding behind your pets and your threats? The only thing new about you is how little support you have left.”

  Khalid moved forward, pulled her back, and kept an arm around her. “I’ve failed the people of this land many times in my life, but I’ve never abused their trust in me. We will see you humbled today, servant of Vitaria.”

  Laughter spilled from Jabari’s lips, but he had a weaselly, about to flee, look in his eyes. “The Goliath will end your band of adventurers. Then I’ll take your precious Khalid from you. Finally, when you have nothing left, I will send you to the pleasure houses to be utterly broken.”

  Jabari kept his eyes locked on Neema, knowing he could get under her skin much easier than he could Khalid’s. He tapped his scepter on the stone railing. “See what your foolishness has wrought?” He pointed down at Tim. “And your trust.”

  The upper doors snapped shut behind the boxes and sealed. Thick bronze bars slid down from the ceiling, cutting Khalid and Neema off from the rest of the room. There were slots in the bars wide enough they might be able to wriggle through, but Tim expected the metal was sharpened, and they were angled the wrong way to make it easy. The floor shook.

  The Goliath was coming.

  The doorway below Jabari swung open, and something slowly squeezed into the room. Tim wasn’t sure what he saw at first, but then the man made it through the giant door and turned to face them. That’s right—the Goliath was so big he had to squish through an opening that the five of them could have walked through side by side at the same time. He made the doors look child-sized instead of made for a group of full-grown adults.

  The fucker was massive.

  Tim’s mouth must have been hanging open because ShadowLily tapped the bottom of his chin to make him close it.

  He’d expected an epic warrior—a Hercules, a Samson, an Achilles—but what he saw was more like Chris Farley stuffed into armor made for Chris Hemsworth. The Goliath's massive belly hung below his chest piece. Scars lined the fatty surface, so the extra bulk clearly wasn’t a recent development. Not what Tim imagined when he’d heard the boss’ name, but being fat wouldn’t make the Goliath any less deadly.

  The Goliath flexed his massive gauntleted hands. Each of those big steel-covered mitts was big enough to pick one of them up and crush them. Or shove them in his mouth for a little snack. Please don’t have him eating us be a thing. He’d seen that in plenty of games, and getting chomped on wasn’t a fun way to die.

  Imagine the shirt Barbara would make.

  As if to prove a point, the Goliath let out a roar that made his neck wobble from side to side. He could have easily eaten a full-sized person. Hippos did it all the time, and they were about five times smaller than this guy. The boss had grown so large that the helmet sitting atop his head almost looked like a kippah instead of the face-covering plate mail it used to be. However, when Tim looked at the boss’ face, all he could see were the teeth.

  Big enough to eat you with, my pretty.

  It was as though they were facing Gluttony from Diablo or Dante’s Inferno but without all the demon stuff. This boss was big, he was pissed off, and he might be looking for a snack. They had some serious work cut out for them if they wanted to win. The Goliath took one wobbling step forward.

  It took everything Tim had not to take a step back.

  Khalid looked down on them through the bronze slats as he made the sign of Eternia over his chest. “May her light guide you to victory.”

  “Kick some ass!” Neema pumped her fist in the air.

  Jabari’s sneer grew more pronounced as he watched their little display with disdain. The motherfucker’s sneer was like the Grinch’s heart the way it kept growing. The ruler of Nar’ha barely acknowledged the group as he sipped from a glass of wine and picked over a tray of fruits and cheeses. “They’re all yours.”

  He tapped the railing in front of him again, and the Goliath took another shuffling step toward the group.

  “What are we going to do about the egg with legs?” Cassie quipped.

  Tim would usually be above fat jokes, having gone through a rather portly phase himself, but in this case, he was willing to let it slide. The Goliath was big enough that a normal-sized human might look like a footlong sub, and there was a time Tim could have eaten three of those bad boys in a single sitting. Tim didn’t want to be the next sub sandwich the boss demolished.

  He looked too good to be food.

  Before the boss got to them, Tim took a final chance to address the group. “Hit him hard, and try to stay away from his mouth.”

  A string of drool dripped down the Goliath’s chin as he drew closer.

  “Not going to be a problem.” Cassie snorted. “I have a firm no kissing on the first date policy.”

  JaKobi mouthed at Tim, “Not with me.”

  Tim didn’t have any idea what to say to that so he kept his mind working on the fight in front of them. “Stay sharp, focus on the exposed bits, and try to have some fucking fun.” Tim was feeling it now. It was go time.

  Cassie let out a war cry and ran forward. “No one takes the last slice of pizza from me.”

  Tim tried not to laugh as he imagined Cassie always being the smallest person at the dinner table and having to fight off her family so she could have her fair share of the grub. After thei
r talk earlier, pizza was clearly on all of their minds. At least the tank wouldn’t have to think about it for long. She’d be too busy dodging and trying to stay alive while he’d be stuck thinking about that ooey-gooey goodness for at least another ten seconds.

  The Goliath didn’t slow his ponderous steps as Cassie approached. There was a chance he couldn’t stop running forward without some help. Getting that much bulk to stop moving all at once would have been damn near impossible. Thankfully, the boss didn’t have to worry about slowing on his own. Cassie handled that for him by flying through the air and landing both feet against his chest.

  Their tank bounced off what remained of the steel breastplate, flipped in the air, and landed gracefully on her feet. “Try to keep up.”

  Cassie went to work with her staff, and the rest of the group started their DPS rotations. Tim watched the tank for a moment to make sure she wasn’t going to get manhandled straight away, then scanned the battlefield as he cast Curse of Giving. Nothing seemed out of place in the rest of the room so he got to work on his rotation and cast Healing Orb on Cassie.

  With his initial burst of healing out of the way, he had to decide if now was the right time to toss out his big damage spell or to wait for a more opportune time. No one but Cassie was taking any damage, so now felt better than later. With a thought, he cast Behold My Power and tossed out a round of Healing Orb to soak up the damage he was causing.

  No one batted an eye as his spell crashed into them. The instant the damage was done, his heals took care of it. They were too good of players to let a small thing like a little pain keep them from doing their jobs effectively. From his spot in the back, he could already see several arrows and a few scorch marks lining the boss’ massive belly. They weren’t doing a ton of damage yet, but they were just getting started.

  For the most part, the Goliath seemed to be doing his own thing. He tried to punch Cassie a few times, but when he realized she was too fast, he ignored her. It took everything the tank had to keep the boss focused on her. Jabari watched from above with a disgusted look on his face as if this whole thing was taking entirely too long and was utterly beneath him.

  Jabari clapped his hands. “Eat.”

  Hidden doors opened along the walls and servants ran into the room, tossing whole cooked chickens and hams at Goliath's feet and scurrying away as fast they could. One of the boys wasn’t so lucky, and the boss snatched him off his feet with one massive hand. The kid screamed right up until the Goliath crunched into his top half as if it was an apple. He tossed the boy’s legs away and picked up some of the other items as he finished his snack.

  The boss' health hadn’t gone up with his feasting, so that was a plus. Tim had been worried when he saw the food coming out that they’d be starting at square one as soon as he finished the snacks.

  What he hadn't expected was the boss to keep eating until he let out a room-shaking fart. A cloud of noxious green gas shot from his ass and hung in the air. What was with these last two bosses? Yes, he knew developers liked to give you mechanics and expand on them but was doing it with farts the right way to go?

  “Watch the gas!” Tim called.

  The green cloud didn’t move, but it did hang in the air. If the gas lingered for the fight’s duration, they would have to start moving the boss around the room. Tim got the feeling if the Goliath kept expelling gas in the same place, then the cloud would slowly expand until they ran out of room. If they moved the boss, they could control where he disbursed the clouds, and it might buy them the time they needed to win.

  Who would have thought farts would become so fucking important to their survival?

  Cassie moved the boss with a not-so-deft touch. Getting the big motherfucker to shuffle was no easy task. She split her staff in two and whaled on the boss with every step she took. The frustration on the Goliath's face slowly grew. It was like watching an old-time cartoon where the person drank something hot, and the steam slowly moved up their face until it came out their ears.

  Only this cloud of steam came from somewhere else.

  Tim was half-tempted to tell JaKobi to try and light the farts on fire the next time one came out, but with their luck, the clouds would all light at once and his little plan would incinerate them all. It wasn’t worth the risk of trying for extra damage when the opposite effect might be dying by fart fire.

  There was no reason for them to rush. Goliath’s health was already down twenty percent, and all of them were at full health. All they had to do was rinse and repeat until the fight was over.

  Goliath’s health pool must have been massive because Tim hadn’t even noticed when Behold My Power took effect. Normally the damage was pretty spectacular, but here it was just a tiny blip. This fight was taking much longer than he planned, but his mana looked good. Nothing too crazy happened yet unless you counted a kid getting eaten like a Tootsie Pop.

  ShadowLily must have landed a critical hit because the boss’ health jumped down to seventy-five percent in a blink. The Goliath jumped up and down, and the effects shook the entire palace. Dirt drifted down from the ceiling. A little dirt was the least of their worries. With every single jump, their entire group took damage.

  Tim shot out a small burst of Healing Storm. “Try to jump right before his feet hit the floor!”

  He soaked up the damage from the next jump, waiting to time his next attempt perfectly. Right before the Goliath’s feet hit, Tim jumped. The floor was still a little shaky when he landed, but other than almost falling on his ass, he didn’t take any damage at all. Then his life turned into a simple routine of jump, land, and hit whoever mistimed their jump with a Healing Orb.

  That went on until the Goliath ran out of energy. The boss gave one last mighty leap, but instead of landing on his feet again, he landed on his ass. Everyone in their group missed the jump and all of them were stunned in place. Tim felt their moment of opportunity slipping away and could only hope their punishment for missing the final jump meant they would only get half of the boss’ moment of opportunity to do big DPS.

  “As soon as the stun wears off give him everything you’ve got until the bastard gets up again.” Tim tried to Cleanse himself to see if it set them free, but it didn’t work. He cast Divine Light on the boss, and it also didn’t work. For better or worse, they were stuck until the game said otherwise.

  Nothing felt worse than when the boss had an unbreakable mechanic that hit everyone. In some games that was it, fight over. The Etheric Coast was a little more generous, or maybe they’d gotten lucky, and the Goliath happened to get stunned at the same time as the rest of them. Throwing temper tantrums was never a good way to win a fight. Tim was pretty sure they would live through this stun, but now he wasn’t sure if they’d seen the last of the boss’ tricks.

  Suddenly, the spell ended.

  Tim could move again, and he didn’t waste a second before he started casting. He quickly reapplied Curse of Giving and sent out a Healing Orb to anyone who needed it. The group's overall health looked good for the moment so he fired off a quick blast of Divine Light before dropping into a wait and see approach.

  A group of servants ran into the room with massive poles and a few large barrels. Lining up behind the boss, the men fit the wooden poles over the barrels and used them as fulcrums to help the boss back onto his feet. The Goliath teetered for a moment as if he was unsure his legs were working, then turned to face the group.

  Ripping off his metal helmet, the Goliath cried, “I want more.” He chucked the helmet up at Jabari’s seating area.

  “Enough of this!” Jabari roared. “Kill them, and I will place a feast at your feet so great even the gods will be envious.”

  Spittle flew from Goliath's mouth as his voice quivered with rage. “I’m hungry now.”

  “Fine, but if you fail me in this you will never eat again.” Jabari clapped his hands and the servants bearing food ran into the room again.

  Tim caught Lorelei’s attention and made a shooting motion with
his fingers.

  Nodding to confirm she received the message, Lorelei turned and fired in one smooth motion. The arrow flew through the air and vanished a foot away from the boss. He’d been pretty sure that when Jabari was speaking to the Goliath it was some kind of in-game cutscene, but if they missed out on a chance to do damage when they could have, it would have put the outcome of the battle in jeopardy.

  They couldn’t have that.

  Servants ran into the room again, dodging the Goliath’s attempts to snatch them up as they threw food at his feet. Once again, one of Jabari’s servants was too slow and met the same fate as the first boy. I mean, why settle for turkeys, chickens, and hams when you could crunch up a perfectly good person? Tim almost laughed hysterically at the thought.

  What were they, ogres?

  It was one thing to read about man-eating monsters, but to see someone getting snacked on was something else entirely. Whatever Vitaria had done to make this man into a monster it had clearly changed his appetites for the worst. Tim was pretty sure he hadn’t even tried to eat any of the other food this time. Apparently, the top halves of children were enough to satisfy his hunger.

  The meal didn’t do anything for Goliath's health, but it did start the fart train again.

  Cassie was doing her best to move the boss before he exploded with gas, but it wasn’t going to happen.

  Goliath rumbled with laughter, belched, and farted like he’d spent the last week eating chili four times a day. He turned his massive ass as he expelled the noxious gas, creating a semicircle of hanging fart for them to deal with.

  “Just do what you can,” Tim called to Cassie as he blasted her with another heal.

  The tank gritted her teeth in frustration as she kept slamming her staff into the boss’ legs. “Kind of already doing that.”

  Note to self, don’t tell the tank to tank.

  Tim looked at the boss’ status. He was getting closer to fifty percent health now. Whatever the rest of his group was doing it was working the right way. His mana looked good, and the fight seemed well in hand as long as they kept up the pace.