Shadows of the Great Forest (Realm of Arkon, Book 4)

by G. Akella

  "The quest details are perfectly clear: Cenatodone requires one hundred level 120 fighters. Right?"

  "Sure, and?"

  "What is your current damage output, Max?"

  "About five grand per second, but I'm holding a rare level-appropriate two-hander," replied the warrior. "What's your point?"

  "The point is that, as a rule, the health of a boss is proportional to the median level of a raid required to kill them. Accounting for the difference in levels between the boss and the raid," Alex joined their conversation as he approached.

  Accepting the offered rollie, the ranger took a skeptical look around in search of a seat. There weren't any, at least not in the traditional sense, but there was Mopsy lolling on the ground. Alex shrugged nonchalantly and leaned back against the reptile's leathery hide.

  "Your average level 120 fighter deals about two thousand damage per second. Out of one hundred raid members, roughly seventy will be pure dps. That brings the total damage output of such a raid to one hundred forty thousand per second, right?"

  "I suppose," Max replied, feeling like a complete idiot.

  "The devs used to be foaming at the mouth that world bosses shouldn't take more than an hour to put down."

  Finally managing to shove Mopsy's foreparts off his lap, the rogue scrambled to his feet, brushed the caked dirt off his pants, and stretched blissfully.

  "Now multiply one hundred forty thousand by sixty, and then another sixty. That gets you the approximate damage it should take to put him down. Now divide that number by one point three five, and you'll arrive at his approximate HP."

  "Thirty five percent—I assume those are the boss' average resistances?"

  "Exactly," Donut nodded. "So, what did you get in the end?"

  "Just shy of three hundred eighty million."

  "Bingo! Now open the raid menu and count the number of fighters present," the assassin snorted, glancing at the squads scattered around the area. "You are the raid leader, are you not?"

  "Oh, shove it," Max groused darkly. "A dung beetle would lead this raid better than me. I can't make heads or tails of this bloody menu, and I'm afraid of screwing something up. Like, if I press the wrong button, the monster will crawl out of the swamp prematurely."

  "Let me put your mind at ease, then," the ranger laughed. "It's actually really simple, and I can talk you through the process any time you like. But I was making a different point. The raid is three hundred twenty eight strong. I don't know why Vagabond decided to leave some of his people behind, but that's their business, not ours. The average level here is around 175. Around two hundred fifty pure damage dealers, with roughly eight thousand dps per fighter. Knowing all that, go ahead and calculate how long the swamp beast has to live once summoned?"

  "Less than five minutes," Max replied at once, doing the simple calculations on a calculator. "Would it have killed you two to freaking say something earlier?! I've been stressing over this battle for the past month!"

  "How would we know that you weren't aware of such elementary things?" the ranger shrugged.

  "Exactly," Donut echoed his friend's sentiment. "And besides, stress can be a healthy thing sometimes. It's like when sailors are forced to file anchors with a nail file to start their service—it's good for them in the end."

  "Anchors, huh?" Max was starting to lose it. "All right, then. Remind me to arm you two with nail files when we get to the Wild Wood!"

  "Don't be mean," Donut sniffed. "I should probably go scout the situation," he added after a pause, and headed toward a group of melee fighters sprawled out in the grass.

  With a loud, eerily human-like sigh, Mopsy got up and followed after the rogue.

  "Well, aren't they a fun bunch," Alex shook his head, watching the odd couple go.

  "Donut is as clever as they come," Max said. "He knows full well the way to a woman's heart lies through her kids. Or, in the absence of kids, through her pets. And Masyanya is no exception."

  "Are you sure he's still her pet? I barely ever see them together anymore, and Donut is the one feeding that oversized croc around the clock. I wouldn't be surprised if he becomes the first rogue with a pet bar!"

  "Masyanya doesn't seem to mind, so you shouldn't either. Tell me instead what kind of mounts we should be looking to buy?"

  "No idea," the ranger shrugged. "The prices have tumbled even with NPC sellers. You can buy a wild cat or boar for five hundred gold these days, and horses are practically being given away. Only you won't get far on a horse in the woods."

  "Boars and bears require level 180, and tigers are still a pipe dream at 250. Not even Vagabond has got a tiger."

  "Oh, but his rare grizzly is every bit as good, believe me," Alex objected. "But anyway, I wouldn't rush the mounts issue. We're still some thirty levels away from decent mounts, so let's cross that bridge when we get there. Assuming we'll have the money, of course."

  For Max, the past two months had fused into one unending nightmare. Vagabond hadn't lied—two days after their conversation, Max's party was split up by pairs, with each pair joining a trio of veteran Night Blades. And thus began the grind in all its mind-numbing glory. He and Bonbon ended up in the same party, led by a rogue named Miexi. When the veteran first laid eyes on the new recruits, he sized them up skeptically and chuckled to himself, muttering something to the effect of, "Hardly inspiring, but we've done more with less," declared the place and time of their gathering, winked at Max and vanished into thin air. Rounding out their party was a merry ice mage named Fantastique and a surly warrior tank named Schwartz—they would later learn that he'd turned sixteen years of age one day before the patch. Max and Bonbon barely saw any action in the first month, as the trio of Blades simply tore through the mobs in areas specifically selected for leveling—it was a struggle just to keep up with the looting. After a month, with everybody reaching at least level 120, they were reintegrated into one group and continued leveling as a raid of twenty.

  Nothing of interest had happened in the span of those months. Aunt Tanya's phone had been silent, and there had been no contact with Roman. Alyona was perpetually worried, and Max was perpetually trying to console her with varying degrees of success. Two full moons had passed without any complications for him. Vagabond turned out to have a powerful mental mage at his disposal—thanks to his mental shields that he would refresh every eight hours, the warrior's dreams hadn't troubled him. Donut's persistence had finally borne fruit as he and Masyanya began a romance, and Alex was clearly crushing on their green-haired priestess. It was all so damned idyllic... if not for the enduring and utterly exhausting anxiety over their looming battle with the raid boss.

  On the whole, the Blades turned out to be rather decent folk. Strangely enough, only a small percentage of them were professional gamers. The clanmates were a diverse bunch, their ages ranging from fifteen to eighty five, with the most common denominator being their cultural origin, as the vast majority hailed from the territories of the former USSR. Perhaps surprisingly given this day and age, many people still tended to stick to what was familiar. And yet, though Max had gotten to know a ton of new people, none had become particularly dear to him.

  "Hey, Lucky! Quit slacking!" a voice interrupted his musings. It was Qtpie—a dark-haired priestess with an engaging, jocular disposition. And, yes, she was indeed a cutie. "Are you the commander or what?" She pressed on with a twinkle in her eye. "Vagabond has been looking for you."

  It had taken only once for the drunken mage to refer to Max as "Lucky" in public for the nickname to irreversibly stick. Thankfully, Max didn't particularly mind—better to be known for your luck than a lack thereof.

  "He couldn't just send me a private message?" he scoffed, getting up off the ground.

  "Excellent question! Why don't you ask him that?" Tucking away an unruly strand of hair spilling out from under her beret, she beckoned Max playfully. "Go on! Move those buns, soldier!"

  Vagabond was standing some twenty yards from the water's edge, surrounded
by eight players, most of which Mad had already met. Seeing Max approach, he gave a friendly wave and pointed at a nondescript knoll along the shore.

  "Hey! The Mark of Kohel will need to go there, just as we'd agreed. As soon as you summon the boss, don't waste any time rejoining your ten. You guys are in the first century, headed by Amit," Vagabond gestured at the morose practitioner of black magic standing a bit off to the side. "Get your specific instructions from him."

  After shaking Max's offered hand, the warlock gave him a scrutinizing look, drew a heavy sigh and pointed at the edge of the meadow.

  "See the pair of bushes along the shore? That'll be your spot. The boss will likely bring adds, though probably no more than a dozen or so. Still, if anything comes crawling ashore through those bushes, take care of it."

  "So, we kill the adds first, then switch to the boss?"

  "Not exactly," Amit shook his head. "After the first add dies, we wait and see if its death has any effect on Cenatodone. If nothing happens, we put down all the adds except for yours. You keep yours engaged and alive until the boss goes down. But that's just one of numerous possible scenarios."

  "But why keep it alive?" Max frowned. "What am I missing?"

  "Killing all the adds may trigger some other script, more than likely unpleasant," the warlock explained, not bothering to hide the utmost tedium on his pale drawn-out face. "Judging by the quest it shouldn't take long for the boss to die, but there's no point taking needless risks."

  "All right, and if there aren't any adds?"

  "That's unlikely," Amit said. "But if it does happen, your ranged dps will attack along with the others in our century while the melee fighters and that croc of yours will stand back and cheer them on most enthusiastically."

  "I don't get it."

  "What's not to get it? Neither you nor your bald friend are to go anywhere near the boss. And keep a tight leash on that pet as well."

  "But—"

  "Hold on, Max, don't get all worked up." Putting a hand on the warrior's shoulder, Vagabond made a wide gesture at the crowded meadow. "We've got about a hundred and twenty close-combat fighters here. Unfortunately, the boss is unlikely to be shaped like a train for all of them to be able to beat on him effectively. Every fighter in the clan has a dedicated role in battle that depends on the size and shape of the boss we're up against. You guys don't have those roles, unfortunately. And it's not that we don't trust you, but—"

  "We would just get in the way."

  "Well, yes. That's more or less it."

  "I get it. No problem—we'll play the role of cheerleaders."

  "I'm glad you understand," Vagabond nodded. "Now buff up, we start in ten on Amit's command."

  The Mark of Kohel was a thin wooden rod covered lengthwise with mysterious runes of dazzling colors. The description called for the tip to be broken off to use. Fighting a serious case of the jitters, Max walked over to the knoll indicated by Vagabond, then thrust the rod into the earth. He paused for a second, taking in his surroundings, savoring the absurdity, the surrealism of it all. Fifty feet behind him stood Allard, the Night Blades' main tank, his posture relaxed and his expression bored. The clan's off-tanks stood to his sides at intervals of roughly ten feet. Standing behind the tanks were melee dps, and further behind them—spread out in a fan formation along the edge of the meadow—were the ranged dps, casters and healers.

  Three hundreds sets of eyes were fixed on Max, making him feel uneasy. What if it doesn't work? The pesky thought popped into his head. Or, worse yet, what if some vodyanoi leaps out of the swamp, flips the bird to all the people gathered here, slaps its naked rear end and dives back in? That would freaking suck! And yet, imagining such a farcical turn of events made Max feel better. Allowing himself a chuckle, he broke off the tip of the rod, just as the instruction called for, and started briskly toward his ten.

  The next five minutes went by uneventfully, exacerbating his fears. His imagination was already running wild with images of a dude wearing nothing but seaweed flipping them off with a wicked grin when, suddenly, a plangent dreary howl rose up from the bowels of the swamp.

  Mopsy responded with a menacing growl as archers from the half-century nocked their arrows in unison. Standing in front of the small army, Allard shifted from foot to foot, slipping a shield onto his left hand and doing a few test swings with a blade he'd just unsheathed.

  "Poser," Bonbon scoffed to Max's right. "I can do that, too."

  "Let's get you outfitted like him first, then you can pose to your heart's content," Masyanya teased the bald man, petting her saurian's neck soothingly.

  "Let's get him ninety five percent Nature resistance, then we'll talk," Bonbon parried, mimicking her tone.

  "But we all have maximum resistance!" the huntress protested at once.

  "Which is the sole reason I'm talking to you," the tank sniffed. "I don't talk to blondes otherwise—I fear too much for my fragile psyche. I'm happy to let Comrade Donut have all the pleasure since he hasn't much to lose in that regard." Shifting his doleful eyes to the rogue, he let out dramatic sigh. "But seeing as you do have ninety five percent Nature resistance, I'm making an exception."

  "Would you cut it out!" Alyona shushed the bald man. "We might get eaten any minute now, and you two are at each other's throats."

  The howl, in the meantime, had gotten closer, probably to within three hundred yards off the shore. There came a loud splashing sound from behind the wall of mist, and all the chatter died down at once. The swamp's surface began to heave, and moments later, tearing through the rust-colored carpet of weeds, the head of the Ancient Beast emerged from the water.

  Coated in silt and scraps of seaweed, the sight of the monster instilled a cold, paralyzing dread.

  "That's some goddamned lizard!" Jolie's stunned voice broke the silence in the raid channel.

  Max could already see how screwed they were. That much was obvious from the boss' 450th level, and the life bar displaying one and a half billion hit points floating above his gruesome, wart-covered head.

  "Everyone, down an elixir of possibilities. Allard, draw that shitbird away from the raid. The first healer group heals only the MT!" Amit's voice was focused but not panicked, giving Max a sense of hope.

  "Where's the promised three hundred eighty million HP?" he asked Donut standing to his right.

  "I'm shocked myself," the rogue shook his head in disbelief. "This is... impossible."

  "Oh, quite possible. The boss is scalable to the raid's numbers and levels—I remember reading about it in the news a year ago," Alex interjected. "But it's a nasty surprise nonetheless, no question about it."

  "Nasty isn't the word," Rexar echoed in support. "I'm not sure the Blades were ready for this."

  The Ancient Beast, in the meantime, had crawled out onto the shore and was surveying his surroundings. Quickly noticing the throng of two-legged munchkins that had come for his head, the monster gave a menacing hiss that sounded more like the wheezing of a wounded mammoth. Max had never seen a mammoth, so he wasn't sure why he'd conjured up that specific association. Lastly, he realized that Cenatodone was the very monster that had been haunting his dreams, only five times bigger. Not a train, you say? I beg to differ, he thought, marveling at the beast's thirty-yard-long torso. Not a proper train, perhaps, but no smaller than for a locomotive and a full-sized car!

  "Look alive, gang, he's only 450!" Vagabond's confident voice sounded over the centurions barking their orders. "Half an hour of battle is all that stands between us and eternal glory! The Azure Dragons' victory over Xahrien will be ancient history. This is our time! Stick to the plan! Amit, lead the way!"

  From that moment on, the action on the meadow was off at full gallop. Allard hurled a throwing axe at the hissing monster and, having gotten his attention, dashed to the right, turning the boss' rear to the raid. A group of five healers moved with him, keeping a respectable distance. Several seconds into the fight, a portion of the melee fighters moved in. Max didn't se
e what happened next as the swamp's waters began to seethe, and ten-foot-tall toads began crawling out onto the shore.

  "Grab that one, Bonbon!" Max gestured frantically at the end mob, but the bald warrior was already on it.

  Charging into the toad, the tank immediately turned it facing the swamp. After counting to five to let Bonbon accumulate aggro, Max joined the fight, followed by Mopsy sinking his teeth into the fiend's rear paw. A Fiery Arrow plunged into the mob's side, infusing the air with a distinct scent of burning seaweed. It was a real stretch to call the monster a toad, seeing as toads didn't typically feature huge maws lined with rows of needle-like teeth or huge black claws. In fact, its body shape more closely resembled that of a bear. Boasting seventy million HP, the Ostrodox—as that was the mob's name—executed powerful attacks with its forepaws rippling with muscles, and would occasionally attempt to bite into Bonbon. Every thirty seconds the beast excreted a greenish cloud of noxious gas, which thankfully dealt minor damage thanks to their maxed-out Nature resistance.

  The ground trembled as Cenatodone roared over the cacophony of bow-strings snapping, weapons clanging, and pained groans of the wounded. The command chat in Max's century, however, was relatively quiet, with only the occasional orders issued calmly by Amit to his officers. All these things were barely registering somewhere in the back of Max's mind, as he concentrated on the timely rotation of his attacks. Over the past month of nonstop grinding their ten had mastered not only the fundamentals of team combat, but many of the nuances required to fight as a single organism, a well-oiled machine sowing death and destruction. The warrior could sense the exact moment Alyona's heal would reach him, and when to step aside and let Donut execute his combo on a one-minute cooldown. Their toad dipped below fifty percent HP some twenty minutes into the fight. Their neighbors to the right—Miexi's ten—had already finished off their mob and had rejoined the main host in fighting the boss. Max wasn't worried about that—their target was supposed to outlast Cenatodone, which meant they would have to stem all damage in another ten minutes or so. Any deviation from their instructions, no matter how well-intentioned, could quickly turn tragic, and Max wasn't going to take that risk.