by Arthur Stone
A Slave in the Locked Lands
Chapter 1
The thylbits numbered five, which presented unforeseeable complications—after all, they were the very first mobs encountered in this dungeon, and if they didn’t exactly form a reception committee, it would be unfair to say that their efforts were lacking. When Ros cleared out this dungeon the first time, the creatures that resembled grotesquely overgrown grasshoppers guarded each crossroads in pairs, and, less frequently, in groups of three. Of course, deeper down in the bowels of the abandoned mine you could run into anything, up to a whole horde of mobs led by a mage—and rightly so, for things should get harder as the player progresses.
The dungeon was different now. Five weren’t that bad, but the trend was rather alarming. What would happen next?
Also, one of the thylbits had been peering into the darkness of the mine. It appeared Digits would be spotted at any moment—his Disguise skill was rather weak, after all: a mere four points, and even those were courtesy of the bonuses their tiny party got from the presence of a great hero.
Ros activated the Attack icon in his pet’s interface, unleashing it at the thylbits.
The pet looked hideous enough to make one drop dead just from seeing it—it was a horse-sized fiery centipede, a fiendish denizen of the Fiery Cleft. Its level was 171—he had gone there specifically to hunt such beasts as this beauty, sparing no expense to hire a group of mercenaries.
And now he would find out if the return justified the investment.
The pet had two skills: Poison Spray and Shattered Foundations. The former poured a toxic rain over an area in front of the centipede, each drop dealing Poison damage and making the targets lose HP slowly over the course of a few dozen seconds. The latter was also a mass spell that lowered the magic defense of enemies within a large area.
As soon as the pet reached the thylbits, Ros commanded it to use both skills, and shouted merrily:
“Our turn!”
Then he started to pound away at the thylbits with Chaos Arrows and Fireballs. Digits used his skill a few times, and then said, dejectedly:
“I’m out of mana!”
Nothing surprising about that—his mana pool was almost non-existent.
“Grab your pickaxe and start hitting them—they’re all attacking the pet, so they shouldn’t touch you unless you get careless. Hit them from behind!”
Four more thylbits appeared from a gallery, including two archers. But they didn’t pay any attention to Ros or Digits at all. The pet’s skills had a very short cooldown, and it kept using them one after another, so that every mob in the vicinity attacked the centipede and no one else.
The battle didn’t last much longer that a minute.
“Well, what do you say?” Ros asked as he started to check the bodies of the fallen adversaries for loot. “Did you manage to level anything at all? What do your stats look like?”
“No progress. Although I did get a few percent to Strength and Intellect.”
“That’s because the pet does nearly all the work, so I reap most of the rewards, almost all of which go into Summoning. Damn, I’d thought you’d level up much faster here.”
“If there are many mobs of this sort here, it won’t be all that slow. Two or three groups should boost my Strength and Intellect for sure.”
“The most important thing is that you don’t rush into anything. Don’t take any risks. If you kick the bucket, you’ll respawn at once. Level zero players like you don’t stay dead for long. I won’t have enough time to resurrect you.”
“Studied Resurrection, have you?”
“Sure did.”
“You’re one weird necro.”
“I’m not a necro. I’m a rrokh.”
“A rose by any other name. Where did you find this pet of yours?”
“Oh, there are places where you can find plenty.”
“Warn me next time you intend to raise another freakshow like it. I nearly shat my pants when I saw it, even though it’s considered to be impossible here.”
“Shall we keep chewing the fat, or should we, perhaps, clear out the galleries and move on?”
“Sure, let’s clear them out. But we still need to talk. About lots of things.”
“There’ll be time for that yet. Just make sure you don’t die here.”
“I’ll be doing my best.”
* * *
Three hours later, Digits was on his knees.
“Ros, it’s way too late, I need to get offline.”
“That sucks,” Ros sighed. All right, then, I’ll carry on without you.”
“Are you planning to get any sleep yourself, eh?”
“I’ll sleep here—three or four hours is enough for me.”
“Did you get stuck inside the game? Or have you decided to forget all about the real world? Never log out, do you? Damn, Ros, I know you’re not an idiot, so you shouldn’t be doing this.”
“I have no choice…”
“Why?”
“It’s a long story, and a sad one at that, and it’s time for you to go.”
“All right, let’s talk tomorrow. Everything happened so quickly, we barely managed to do any proper talking.”
“The dungeon has seven levels, so clearing it out will take us a while. We’ll have time for a hundred conversations, at least.”
“Would it be OK for me to leave my body here?”
“Most likely. The thylbits didn’t roam the tunnel the previous time, and the places I had already cleared remained safe.”
“All right then, Ros. See you tomorrow.”
“See you tomorrow, Digits.”
His partner’s body froze with its back against a wooden cart. Ros took a closer look at the cart, suspecting it might conceal a cache, but decided against checking it. He’d rather do it once Digits came back.
He moved on, wiping out thylbit patrols on six crossroads and checking all the adjacent galleries. Then he decided a break was in order, returned to Digits, took a rolled-up narrow felt rug from his kit, and made himself a makeshift bed. Even if it didn’t matter much to his companion the position in which to leave the body, Ros still required at least a modicum of comfort.
* * *
Upon waking up and seeing that Digits was still offline, he decided to move on and clear out another portion of the tunnel. He then spent about an hour and a half doing just that until his companion eventually made an appearance. Running toward him, Digits discharged his modest mana supply into the group of mobs, and then said:
“Good morning, Ros.”
“Morning to you, too.”
“Did you manage to get any sleep at all?”
“Sure. I slept on a rug right next to you.”
“Pity I haven’t seen it.”
“Seen what?”
“I stayed up all night IRL, wondering what you slip into before you go to bed—pajamas or a frilly nightie.”
“I told you to cut out the lewd innuendo!”
“Sorry, but I really can’t help it. You’d be making the same kind of jokes if you were me, so don’t get your knickers in a twist about it.”
“One day you’ll cross the line and I’ll kill you,” said Ros in a menacing voice.
“All right, all right, I’m zipping it! But I do have lots of questions—I don’t even know where to begin. You mentioned your second Chaos skill yesterday. Could you please read its description?”
“Is it urgent?”
“You’re a strange one, and everything about you is strange. I sure hope the skill isn’t as useless as you make it out to be. It might well be something valuable—something one should bother to level up, perhaps, if one isn’t a total noob. You don’t come across Chaos all that often.
That is, if you get a skill of that sort, you need to find a way to apply it. So, what about that description?”
“Ultra-rare ability: Chaos Aura. There cannot be more than five wielders of this skill. An aura of primordial Chaos covers the area chosen by the spellcaster, impacting enemies within 7 yards. Deals no damage. Ignores all defenses and resistances. Magic energy required: 110. Targets affected by the aura have their maximum HP reduced by 10% for 5 seconds. Can be used from behind obstacles. Scalable skill: the stats grow along with the character’s level. Can be modified into Grand Chaos Aura. That’s as far as the description goes.”
“Ros!”
“What?”
“You call that useless?!”
“Didn’t you hear me right the first time?”
“You’re a total noob! An Übernoob! A noobster of the highest order!”
“Does that come as any surprise to you? Hey! Get behind me! Get back, Digits!”
“Say what?”
“Your yelling has attracted the thylbits from the next intersection, and they’re running this way.”
“I can’t see any.”
“I can see them well enough.”
“Do you have night vision or something?”
“Why don’t we discuss my vision some other time?!”
Ros couldn’t even count the number of thylbits rushing at them. Either they had a sizable outpost that way, or they straight-up hated loudmouth beta testers. If not for the centipede’s area-of-effect skills, some of the mobs would invariably have gotten past it and dispatched Digits back to his distant bind point.
Ros pounded away at the enemies with Chaos Arrow, healed his pet—though the beast hardly needed it—and cast a few Fireballs while he was at it. The second one made a thylbit scout go up in flames, like a Christmas tree hit by a Molotov cocktail.
After the massacre, Ros started to search the bodies.
“If memory serves, they recommended me to gather a level 45 party the first time I came here,” he observed.
“So?”
“This time they recommended level 60.”
“This is a Chaos dungeon—the power of the mobs and the bosses varies greatly from one clearing to another. But let us consider your skills again. Have you ever wondered what exactly Chaos Aura does to your targets?”
“That much is no mystery—it lowers their overall HP by 10 percent for five seconds. So, if the target has 100 HP, it will get to 90, and stay that way for as long as the spell is active.”
“I hope you used your head when you read the spell’s description. Hell, even if your ass was doing the thinking, it would have to be pretty stupid to conclude that the skill is useless.”
“What is it with the insults all of a sudden?”
“Jenya! Are you really serious when you say it’s useless, or is it some elaborate joke?”
“Five seconds is nothing.”
“Sure, but look at it this way: what happens after five seconds pass?”
“After? Well… the enemy reverts to 100 HP.”
“That’s where you’re wrong! Spells of this sort don’t let you regain your HP. That is to say, the overall scale will revert to 100, but it will still only have 90 HP. The HP loss is permanent. Get it?”
Ros smacked himself on the forehead with his fist.
“I am a moron indeed! I can take a tenth of a boss’ HP off with a single cast!”
“That’s it! You finally get it! Also, the skill is scalable, so both the effect and the duration will grow eventually, even though the latter is of minor importance.”
“Why is that? What if the enemy uses healing spells or elixirs? It would make a lot of sense to keep their overall HP down in this case.”
“Well, sure, that would work. Hey, Ros, I spent the night tossing and turning, and I kept on thinking. If you want me to be of any use to you, I have to decide what to make of my character right now.”
“I believe you have more experience there, so it’s all up to you.”
“Experience? Duh, I’m one hell of a theoretician with near-zero experience.”
“Well, you still have more than I do.”
“What are you, anyway? As far as I understand, you’re a necromancer of sorts, but Chaos-aligned, which is, of course, pretty unusual, if not altogether unique. I’ve never heard of characters such as you. Apart from that, it turns out that you have numerous interesting skills likewise associated with Chaos, when it’s nigh impossible to get so much as one. Is there anything else you want to tell me?”
“About magic?”
“Aye.”
“I have studied Fireball, and I’m just beginning to level it up. Chaos Arrows do decent damage, but even at higher levels the cooldown is substantial, so I have to use something else in between—another attack spell so as to avoid being idle during cooldown. I also have a bunch of Light School buffs that increase physical and magic resistance, mitigate any damage, raise overall health, mana, Vigor, and Fury, and also boost physical and magic damage output. I can also heal injuries and dispel negative effects.”
“Why would you need so many buffs?”
“Well, they affect pets as well as players. Even though I’m not as much of a noob as I was on the first day, I depend on the pet for everything, which is why I have to level them.”
“That makes sense for sure. Also, as far as I remember, Light School is incompatible with the schools of Death and Darkness, but it doesn’t conflict with Chaos. Actually, Chaos has no incompatibility issues whatsoever. The only problem is that after the game came out of beta, the Chaos races were nerfed to absolute cripples, so that no one wants to play with them. Chaos skill scrolls never drop from mobs—you can very occasionally receive them as rewards for completing quests and achievements. I don’t recollect any other sources. And the only ones who can receive them are players whose races are aligned with Chaos. Such as yours—or mine.”
“I haven’t found Chaos mentioned anywhere but the race description. Not a single related bonus. That’s some weird alignment…”
“Racial bonuses can only be received at higher levels. Once you get to a hundred, or, better still, a hundred and fifty or two hundred, you’ll get them aplenty.”
“I had no idea.”
“Now you do. Thus, Chaos remains a loose cannon—it pairs with everything, but you can barely access it. So, we’re the last of the Mohicans, you and me. And, perhaps, we have what can be described as ‘an advantage over the other players,’ if only because our skills don’t conlict with one another. By the way, you don’t seem to spend any mana—your bar is always full. Why would that be?”
“Six hundred Intellect points as well as hero’s bonuses to mana regeneration speed. The equipment adds quite a bit, too. If Chaos Arrow didn’t require Fury points, I could use it non-stop: it doesn’t eat up that much mana, and there’s enough time for me to restore MP. But I have to alternate it with Fireballs, healing the pet, or physical attacks if I want to accumulate Fury points.”
“Why would anyone need so much Intellect? Two hundred would be quite enough for your every need. It would make more sense for you to dump the rest into Mental Power—that would do wonders for your damage output and buff duration. Also, the buffs themselves will get boosted a bit. Two hundred points of Intellect would be enough for you to hit level 180 monsters or higher, assuming their resistances aren’t too high. You can even get level 300 mobs using Chaos—very few possess the necessary resistance. Especially given that you have a good staff for a weapon.”
“The problem is that I have to conceal my, uh, successes, as it were. And that means dumping a lot of points into Intellect for the upkeep of a very clever spell that gives me such a disguise. Just trust me on this one: I cannot go any lower.”
“Well, it’s up to you. But bear in mind that you’re limiting yourself this way. You only use magic, and it doesn’t level anything but Intellect and Mental Power—virtually no other stats are involved. The bonus you get to Intellect is a drop in the oc
ean. You’ll need around five years of leveling to raise it by so much as a single point with such stats. So, the only thing that actually grows is Mental Power—which, I believe, is also at a higher value than it should be in your case. Anyway, the only thing that actually grows is your level, and that doesn’t make much sense.”
“I know, but I don’t need anything else right now.”
“Why would that be?”
“Ever heard of the Gift to the Race’s Last Scion?”