by Jason Cheek
Viletooth the Bloated’s response was instantaneous. Slurping down the last zombie, the massive lizard-like Mini-Boss spun around to face Ashley faster than she would’ve thought possible. Nonetheless, she braced her shield for what was to come while tightening the grip on the long sword clutched in her sweaty hand. The timing had to be perfect. As the monster’s massive maw opened and its long tongue came shooting out, she triggered Shield Bash targeting its fleshy tip with her entire focus as she activated Enrage and Berserker Mode.
In the blink of an eye, the disgusting fleshy meat of Viletooth the Bloated’s tongue oozed around the edges of Ashley’s Iron-Reinforced Shield while her Shield Bash disrupted the monster’s special attack. Ignoring the sticky goo-like slime that splattering across the bare skin of her face and the horrendous stench of rotting flesh, she forced the meaty flesh back on top of itself with her shield arm as she cocked her sword arm back and dove on top of the Mini-Boss’s tongue. Using the weight of her entire body, she ducked her head behind her shield and drove the long sword through the spongy flesh and into the frozen ground as the monster bellowed in pure agony.
“Gah!” Ashley screamed out, ignoring the sticky goo-like saliva splattering her face and upper chest as Viletooth the Bloated urgently tried to yank its tongue back into its mouth. Splaying her legs out to lower her center of gravity, she used the weight of her body and the edge of her iron shield as a brace against the buried sword to keep the tongue wedged beneath her. The only way the Mini-Boss was going to free itself was to bite through its own flesh or to climb on top of Ashley and peel her off the ground with its large claws. Before either of those things could happen, the melee fighters in the raid caught up to them.
Triggering his charge, Vardrid was the first to come flying in with his Heavy Bronze Iron-Reinforced Shield leading the way. The dull crunch of his impact sent the Elite Corrupt Spike Beast reeling as the Valkyrie tank dropped to his feet and drove his blade into the monster’s open jaws. As the beast bellowed in agony, Vector Fisher came flying in next hammering the Mini-Boss from the opposite side. Landing lightly on his feet, the Devil Dog tank slammed the edge of his iron-reinforced shield into the monster’s front knee, before following up the blow with a strike from his spiked mace. As the beast tried to swat the humanoid flea away, Demonslayerz’s Shield Bash rang its bell.
As that was going on, the DPS Warriors came charging in. The first was Austin Montoya who triggered his Shred Armor ability as he leaped up into the air to slam his dual blades into the Mini-Boss’s boulder-like foot. Though the blades didn’t penetrate the stony skin, he did manage to break away a chunk of the armor covering its thick wrist. Again and again, he struck as more and more Rogues and Warriors entered the fray. Working together, they staggered their strikes as they fought to break through the beast’s natural defenses.
Even stuck as he was, Viletooth the Bloated wasn’t going to go down without a fight. Bashing the melee players away with blind swings of its clawed hands, the Mini-Boss repeatedly released its Poison Breath and Stone Spikes into their ranks. Both were devastating attacks that took everything the Priests had to keep their raid mates alive.
After a long minute of heavy fighting, Ashley started to grow concerned that even with all of them pounding on the stuck monster that it wasn’t going to be enough to take the named boss down. Even with the Mages of the raid blasting at the beast with their Enhanced Shadow Bolts, Pyrobasts, and Flurry spells, the Mini-Boss’s health had only dropped down to sixty percent. On the flip side, nearly every caster in the raid had their mana nearly bottoming out. There was no way they were going to be able to keep this up for much longer. That was, until an iron-bolt the size of her arm pierced the side of its massive head.
Up until that moment, Ashley had completely forgotten about the BAMFs as Viletooth the Bloated went completely berserk. Not that it helped much as heavy iron bolt after heavy iron bolt came thudding in one after another into the Mini-Boss’s spiked head. While even that powerful weapon only seemed to take a percent off with each strike, there were fifty iron bolts in each full cartridge.
Though, any question that Ashley might’ve had of them winning the fight ended, when a second and then a third BAMF started firing on the massive beast. It took less than a minute for Viletooth the Bloated to collapse dead in a pool of its own blood. By then, five of the ten BAMFs that Kyarina had brought with them had joined in on taking the Mini-Boss down. Ashley could only roll onto her back and sigh in relief that they’d managed to do it without losing anyone while the entire raid began cheering and high-fiving each other in triumph. It just went to remind her that even with a thirty-eight-person raid, you had to play smart because there was always something out there that could take you down.
“Nice plan you came up with on the fly,” Kyarina called out as she walked up. She was just bending over to give Ashley a hand up, when she got a good look at the Warrior.
“I still can’t believe that thing was so hard to take down,” Ashley unconsciously complained as she reached up to grasp the other woman’s wrist that suddenly wasn’t there. That’s when she noticed the disturbed look on Kyarina’s face. “What’s wrong?”
“Umm, sorry about that,” Kyarina apologetically said, as a mix of emotions flittered across her face, before her lips curved up into a sardonic smile, “but you’ve got a lot of tongue on your cheeks.”
Taking note of her current condition, Ashley realized that there was a copious amount of white pasty goo covering her upper chest and face. Even her hair seemed drenched in the viscous fluid. Feeling the substance beginning to slowly harden, she realized something needed to be done quickly to clean the junk off or she was going to be in a seriously bad way.
“Hey Ash,” Killtet said, walking up just as she was carefully trying to sit up without touching anything, “that was a righteous takedown. Umm,” his face cleared of all expression as he got a good look at her goop-covered face. Bringing his hands together into the shape of a frame to trigger the in-game screenshot feature, he shifted his voice to sound like Donald Duck as he continued while trying not to laugh, “Don’t move, I’ll go get you a towel.”
“Not funny,” Ashley growled at her husband’s shenanigans as he began ruffling through his rucksack.
“It kind of is,” Kyarina choked out, before slamming a palm over her mouth as she hurriedly looked away.
“Not helping,” Ashley said in a flat tone. Though she was silently chuckling at her own predicament, her temper went through the roof a second later at the unwelcomed comment that came from a familiar voice.
“Holy shit, Ashley. You took that money shot like a champ,” Blu3buck chortled, as everyone else in the raid froze in shock.
Even if she would’ve normally laughed off such a comment from a friend, in Buck’s case, it was the unvoiced message behind every inappropriate joke that came out of his mouth when it came to her. Up until now, she’d been holding Killtet back from expressing his displeasure at constantly having his wife being hit on. Now though, any patience she’d had about this was over. Catching her husband’s eye, she gave him a grim smile as he tossed her the towel that he’d fished out of his bag.
“Please explain to Buck that I do not appreciate being constantly hit upon,” Ashley said, as a metallic rasp rang out from her husband drawing his daggers, “but don’t kill him. We still need his sorry ass for fighting the Hobgoblins later.”
“Oh, Bucky,” Killtet called out in an almost singsong voice, “you have some splaining to do.”
“Look, I’m so sorry, I honestly didn’t mean it like – Gah!” Blu3buck shrieked in agony, “Fuck, stop stabbing me! Gaaahhh-”
Ashley didn’t bother watching the show as Kyarina pulled out a clay jar from her inventory and tossed it to her. Setting it aside, she began casting Minor Dispel on herself to get rid of the sticky goo covering her face as the Valkyrie woman got busy organizing the other members of the raid to skin, loot, and pack the BAMFs up. It was shortly after that when Ashle
y realized, to her horror, that the monster’s gooey saliva wasn’t being neutralized by the spell.
“Just use the gel in the jar for the worst of it,” Kyarina said, as she squatted down beside her at arm’s length, “It’s the only way you’re going to get cleaned up.”
“Why isn’t my Minor Dispel Magic working?” Ashley asked as she opened the clay jar and took a whiff of the substance inside. She swore the stuff looked like pure lard as she gagged at the smell. “Ugh, this reeks!”
“Because it’s not magic, but organic saliva,” Kyarina explained with a shrug. “While the worst of it has already disappeared, the remaining residue won’t go away until you use a cleansing solution to scrub it off.” She nodded towards the clay jar Ashley was holding. “That’s a special alchemy recipe the people back at BrokenFang Hold made up for cleaning up stuff like that.”
“Does it have to smell like turpentine,” Ashley complained as she held her breath to bath her face. Instantly, the sticky feeling that had been slowly hardening over her skin was gone as she noticed the glint in the other woman’s eye. “Let me guess, this is basically turpentine.”
“You got it on the first try,” Kyarina said with a chuckle.
“Ugh,” Ashley muttered as she began cleaning the remaining gunk out of her hair and chest plate, “I just don’t understand why that Mini-Boss was so hard to take down.”
“It was ten to fifteen levels higher than most of us in the raid,” Kyarina said with a shrug, “that much of a higher-level is no joke in an MMO style game.”
“You would’ve thought we’d have done better with this size of a raid,” Ashley grumbled as she ran a bare hand over her face, hair, and chest to make sure the sticky feeling was gone.
“It probably hurts us more than it helps,” Kyarina thoughtfully said, studying Ashley’s face as if she were trying to feel her out, “Traveling around with such a large group of players typically attracts more monsters in games like this. While I don’t know how The World does it, I’m sure the spread in our levels doesn’t help either.”
“Gotcha,” Ashley said, understanding what the Valkyrie woman was trying to get at, “The World sets the local boss and mobs for the highest levels and overall number of a group.”
“More than likely,” Kyarina agreed, “Though, it probably doesn’t help that we’re Advanced start players either.”
“I thought The World was only supposed to be harder for Nightmare start players?” Ashley asked in confusion.
“It is,” Kyarina agreed, “That’s why we have the Hobgoblin army headed our way,” she tilted her head to the side thoughtfully before continuing, “but there’s been a lot of talk on the forums that the monsters in The World also respond to Advanced start players to an extent. Random monster encounters and dungeons are being reported as harder than that for Basic start players,” she gave a shrug, “who knows how true it is or not.”
“But it would explain this mess somewhat,” Ashley thoughtfully said, as she tossed the jar back to the other woman. “Thanks again.”
“Don’t mention it,” Kyarina said, as Vector called out from next to the dead Mini-Boss.
“Yo, Ashley, type Roll 100 in raid chat,” Vector said, holding up an odd spiked shield that the rest of the Warriors were hungrily eyeing, “lowest number wins.”
“Ugh, okay,” Ashley said, focusing for a second to mentally command the HUD to do as she was asked. A moment later, a list of numbers was automatically generated in chat as each Warrior in the raid typed the same command.
“Ashley wins it with a three,” Vardrid called out as a number of people groaned at losing the roll.
“Damn lucky roll,” Vector grumbled, tossing the triangle spiked shield over to her. “Heads up!”
Catching the heavy shield one-handed, Ashley eyes widened in surprise at seeing the blue highlighted name of the unique superior item. Pulling up the stats, she let out an impressed whistle as she read through the displayed information.
Corrupt Stone Spiked Heater
Item Quality: Superior
Item Type: Unique
Armor: 2000
Armor Type: Medium
Durability: 200/200
Weight: 15 kg
+10 Strength
+10 Stamina
-40% increase chance to block.
-Resistant to elemental magic +10%
-Waterproof
-Corrupt Breath (Type; Elemental Magic) the shield will release a sulfuric gas attack that inflicts twenty-five points of damage for fifteen seconds. Area of Effect: five-yard radius from caster. Cooldown: five minutes.
“Hot diggity dog damn,” Kyarina exclaimed from beside her as the other woman did her own Inspection of the shield, “that’s one sweet ass unique item!”
It really was, Ashley silently agreed, as she began to reorganize her gear. She honestly hadn’t expected to win any of the rolls with such a large group of players. As she began strapping the old shield under her rucksack, raid chat lit up with another unique melee item.
“Hey Ashley,” Demonslayerz called out, “you want to roll on this Corrupt Stone Spike Dagger too?”
“I’m good,” Ashley said with an appreciative wave, “no sense in being greedy.”
While rando groups would usually roll on everything that dropped, Ashley didn’t do that with guildmates and friends, especially not when there were so many people who wouldn’t be getting any loot from the kill. Ignoring the handful of unique items and gems that were being rolled on in raid chat, she finished getting everything repacked so that she could use her new shield without any problems. Just as she was standing back up, Marina, her long-time friend and an ex-helicopter pilot, came walking up.
“The BAMFs are fully packed up and the support group is ready to move out,” Marina reported smartly.
“Thanks, Marina,” Ashley said with a nod, “good job on getting those BAMFs set up.”
“That was mostly due to you and Killtet,” Marina admitted with a disgusted shake of her head, “If you hadn’t staked that piece of shit down the way you had, we’d probably be wiping about now.”
“How are we looking Vardrid?” Kyarina called out to her husband. Seeing his thumbs up, the Priestess turned back to Ashley just as the Centauride came trotting up to them with Killtet at her side. From the lack of screaming, he was obviously finished talking with Buck. “They’ve finished skinning the corpse.”
“Excuse me, raid leader,” Pherala politely said, refusing to meet Ashley’s eyes as she spoke more to Kyarina than to her. “I suggest we get moving out,” she swept an arm in an arc around them, “We have multiple Elite Corrupt Dust Devils headed our way.”
“By the way, Pherala,” Ashley said, feeling self-conscious in front of the demi-human after her previous bad behavior, “You did a good job back there with getting the BAMFs set up with Killtet.” Ignoring the surprised side-look from her husband, she continued in the friendliest tone she could manage. “If you don’t mind, could you scout out the path to the top of the ridge?”
“It would be my honor, Raid Leader,” Pherala said, clenching her fist to her chest.
Whirling around, the Centauride wordlessly took off ahead of the raid as she headed up the path at a fast trot. Ignoring the surprised looks coming from the rest of the Devil Dogs in the raid, she met her husband’s questioning look with a raised eyebrow as Kyarina suppressed a smile.
“What?” Ashley pointedly asked.
“Nothing, really, I just wanted to say that Pherala did a good job on getting that BAMF set up so we could lay down that covering fire that saved the raid,” Killtet said in a reserved tone, understanding that something was up with his wife. “I was just curious as to, you know,” he nodded towards the retreating Centauride’s back, “your change of heart with not referring to her as that “dumb NPC” like usual.”
“Or dumb animal,” Kyarina added, as Ashley gave them both a dirty look.
“Look,” Ashley said with an exasperated sigh as she uncomfort
ably ran her fingers through her still damp hair, “I can admit when I’m wrong.” Seeing the nonplussed look her husband gave her, she flipped him off before continuing. “There’s obviously something more going on with these people of The World then I’d first thought.”
“While I agree they are not just scripted personalities,” she said, eyeing Kyarina unhappily, “I don’t know if I’d go so far as to say they’re digital people like you and your guild keep going on about. At the same time, there’s no reason to treat them with scorn or disrespect,” she admonished as Killtet rocked back on his heels at the concession. Up till now, they’d been treating the NPCs in The World as they would in any other MMO.
“That’s probably for the best,” Kyarina said in a knowing tone, understanding just how much that simple concession had truly taken for the other woman to make. It wasn’t that long ago that her and her friends had been in a similar mental space. “Otherwise, you’re going to be having major problems with Startum once he returns.” Ignoring the shocked looks on both Devil Dog players’ faces, she nodded towards the path. “We probably don’t want to let Pherala get too far ahead.” With that, the woman headed off to join her guildmates preparing to head out.
“Do you think Startum is really one of those mmosexual guys like she’s suggesting?” Killtet asked under his breath, as she popped him in the arm.
“You’re such a dumbass,” Ashley jokingly said in the same hushed tone, as they both shared a laugh. Still shaking her head at their back and forth, she called out in raid chat, “Alright people, let’s move out!”
It was lucky they got moving when they did, because there was a pack of Elite Poisonous Salamanders that had been slowly sneaking up on them. Thankfully, the creatures hadn’t been close enough to truly aggro on their group but it had been close. The real concern Ashley had was for the Elite Dust Devils. Not so much because they could threaten the raid but because they were a pain in the ass to fight. Even now, she had coarse sand wedged up under her armor and clothing in places where there shouldn’t be. Not that she was going to be stripping down any time soon to get cleaned up. At least, not until they broke for camp and she could find some privacy.