Gamer Girl Grinding the Dragon's Lair

by Cat Wilder

  That triangle of rock jutting out over the precipice funneled attackers to the tower's killing ground. The closer we got to the tower, the less ground we'd have to fight upon. It would get crowded around that door real quick.

  "Do you think there are more guards inside?" Izzy asked.

  "Of course," I said. "And they'll get steadily better at fighting the closer we get to the boss."

  "The what?" Garik asked.

  "Boss is a renner word for big bad guy," Izzy said with a sigh. "So Carly is talking about Qaath Yazn."

  I pulled up my HUD to check my stats. Health stood at 98 percent. I figured the two percent loss was due to being saddle sore. Stamina showed 92 percent. My Mana thrilled me at 1236. Mana ticked up, just like health and stamina, at 1 point per hour, so I'd done my best not to use any on our cross-country trek.

  "Nothing to do but do it," I said, slipping past the other two. "Follow me, and let's kick some zombie ass."

  The sentries all came out of their stupor as soon as I started running toward them. The undead goblins lifted their clubs and the first rank started walking toward me, and not in an unsteady shamble like in the movies. Nope. They advanced emotionlessly. Yeah, very creepy. Still, I was bigger, faster, and better able to form coherent tactics than them. Being zombified reduced the goblins to mindless killing machines.

  "Die, zombies!" I screamed as I reached the first one. He swung his club at my ribs, which forced me to cut sharply to the side to avoid the blow. Broken ribs would be the end of me, and the next thing I'd know would be waking up in Taks' damned brothel. "Kill them all!"

  My threats didn't affect the goblins at all. They didn't threaten me back. They came at us in eerie silence. A second later, I body checked a zombie over the edge and into the chasm. He didn't even scream.

  I saw Garik plow into the little horde of undead, his great sword a blur as he tore a bloody path through their ranks. Izzy followed in his path, darting back and forth to fight the survivors trying to attack his back.

  Ducking under a swung club, I lunged toward the goblin as I called up my bracer's shield and sword. I used the shield to smash him aside, before going to town on him with my sword. HPs scrolled off into the ether as I slowly smashed through his defenses and health, and I ended it by forcing him over the edge. I spun and thrust my sword through the heart of the next undead goblin.

  He didn't die.

  "Shit, shit, shit! A sword through the heart doesn't kill them!"

  The goblin forced me to release the hilt and backpedal. The sword vanished, and a second later I called it back up into my hand. I love magic swords.

  "You have to cut off their heads," Garik said.

  "Everyone knows that," Izzy agreed, giving me a taunting look.

  The press of goblins brought Garik's charge to a grinding stop. He and Izzy fought back to back as the zombies surrounded them, struggling to parry the endless barrage of clubs. My heart fell, knowing they only had minutes to live.

  I quickly considered my inventory of magical weapons and spells. The problems killing zombies presented a problem. So I chose Levitate and rose above the battlefield, and then unleashed Fireballs. Both spells ate up mana I'd need fighting Qaath Yazn, but I had to save my friends.

  Fire got the undead goblins' attention. They all turned on me, as several of their little horde ran around in circles as intense arcane flames consumed them. I managed to flame a dozen of the little monsters in the one minute the spell kept me aloft. As I began to drop back to the ground, zombies gathered underneath and waited patiently for me to come down into their midst.

  "Help!" I cried. In a blind panic, I threw a thunderbolt down at them.

  Ka-BOOM!

  The blast pushed me back up in the air, while blasting the assembled zombies dozens of feet away. Many of them flew into the chasm, gone forever. My mana bar flashed red once, before turning blue, showing I had used up fifty points of it with just that one thunderbolt. My HUD showed Mana down to 1105.

  I dropped back to the ground. Garik and Izzy raced up to me to ensure I was okay.

  "I'll be fine," I said. Pointing at the still-open tower door. "We're running out of time. We can fight our way through the goblins, and then shut the door on any still alive."

  Leading the charge, with Garik to my right and Izzy to my left, I raced straight at the wooden door. I could see movement inside, but the brightness outside made it difficult to see anything in the relative dimness of the tower.

  I threw fireballs into the chests of undead goblins, while Izzy and Garik chopped off arms, legs, and mostly heads. We plowed through them, slowly but surely. Then I reached the door, with only two zombies guarding it. I hit one with a fireball, before pulling up my sword and chopping off the other's head and right shoulder with a mighty blow.

  "We did it!" I cried.

  And the door slammed shut in my face. My jaw dropped when I heard the bar dropped into place on the other side. Turning around, I looked upon the remaining goblin zombies, all slowly advancing on us.

  Chapter 12

  "Well, fuck me to tears," I said.

  "Pick me up and fly me out of here, Carly," Izzy demanded.

  "Not that easy," I said, and turned back to the door. "I know a spell that unlocks doors."

  "They aren't using a lock," Garik said.

  "I know, but it's still technically locked," I replied. I placed my hand on the door, and cast Unlock. I felt as much as heard the heavy wooden bar lift out of its brackets. "It worked!"

  I shoved the door open to find startled looking liches staring back at me. One of them even did a double-take before shouting orders. All were armed with scimitars. What was it with liches and scimitars? Some of them carried round shields, and a few even wore random bits of clothing and armor.

  "A motley, and moldy, crew if I ever saw one," I said.

  Their leader, a skeleton in helmet and cuirass, pointed his scimitar at me. "Close that door!"

  The door slammed shut again, and then I heard the wooden bar dropped back in place.

  "Well, that worked great," Izzy sneered.

  Garik snarled, and stepped into the approaching zombies. Izzy and I turned to fight as well. It got pretty intense for a moment, before I had enough space to conjure up some fireballs. Then I hit them with Percussion, but a warning flashed that I had dropped below 1000 mana. Still, the spell gave us a little breathing room, so I placed my hand back on the door.

  "Unlock," I said, using Unlock again. Again, I heard and felt the bar rise up and release the door. Garik kicked it open, but animated skeletons came charging out. "This is starting to get on my nerves."

  I ducked under an attempt to decapitate, before thrusting my foot into the lich's chest. My kick caved in his chest, and then Izzy's sword shattered his skull. The lich crumbled into a pile of bones.

  "Switch," Garik shouted, and he and I swapped places.

  His surge past me ended with a savage swing of his sword that took out four liches. I dodged a clumsy thrust, broke the lich's arm over my knee, and then smashed the edge of my shield in its eternally grinning face. The lich's face caved in, and he dropped into a pile of bones. I saw Izzy spin in three super fast roundhouse kicks, which shattered two liches, and ended by knocking a goblin zombie back to bowl over four more.

  The door then slammed shut again, and I heard the heavy bar go back into place. I growled, too frustrated and afraid to think straight. Whirling on the door, I unleashed a Thunderbolt into that door.

  Ka-BOOM!

  The door disintegrated before my eyes. I think it knocked down every lich inside, too. And my mana bar flashed again, dropping another 50 points. I only had 925 points of mana left.

  "Qaath Yazn! I'm coming for you!" I cried, and charged through the door. "Follow me!"

  I plowed into the liches. Thunderbolts were out of the question now. I worried I didn't have enough mana to fight a boss necromancer, and then a powerful dragon afterwards, but mostly I worried a thunderbolt would bring the shabbi
ly built tower down with us in it. Attacking with sword and shield, I used both to good effect and smashed apart lich after lich. Izzy joined me in reducing Qaath's host to scattered bones, while Garik defended the door against the zombies.

  For some reason, an old song filled my head, and I sang my altered version as I fought. "I have the right, to fight, to slay YOU!" I never said I could sing well.

  "Hit them with another thunderbolt, Carly," Izzy said.

  "I can't. The tower might crumble upon us," I said. After another moment of listening to her curse "worthless mages" I tried a spell that used a lot less mana. "BAM!"

  I hit them with Percussion. The force of that powerful percussive spell shattered more than half of the liches, and half the survivors slammed so hard against the wall they fell apart, too. Izzy cried out in joy. We made quick work of the woozy remainder.

  I finally had time to look around the lowest level of the tower, as Izzy and I bent over huffing and puffing. It took up the entire bottom level, one large round room. I didn't see any furnishings or decorations. Just bare stone walls and floor. Massive beams held up the wooden ceiling. The stairs hugged the wall to the left of the entrance.

  I ran over to the door, "Head up the stairs."

  The sun had dropped behind the mountains. It got dark fast in the mountains, so we didn't have much time. I hit the zombies with Percussion, sending them tumbling away. That wouldn't kill any of them, but it gave us a nice head start.

  Izzy followed Garik up the stairs, and I brought up the rear. The clash of steel filled the tower as soon as Garik vanished into the next level up. He shouted threats and cursed, and a second later Izzy joined him. She cursed even worse than the dragon-knight. I discovered the reason when I charged onto the second floor.

  Kobolds.

  A whole pack of the four-foot tall lizardman creatures with the floppy ears waited for us. They could be real cute when they wanted to be nice to you, but they fought like pack animals. The kobolds fought with short swords and shields, and most wore at least some armor. But they had claws on both hands and feet that they used to good effect, as well as long snouts filled with vicious teeth.

  And they made a god-awful noise, half shouting, half barking. They swarmed around us, alternately snapping their teeth, clawing, and stabbing. It took all we had to keep them at bay. Next to them, the goblin zombies and liches were a cakewalk.

  I levitated up and sent a dozen fireballs into their swirling mass. The kobolds screamed in agony and anger, with some of them leaping in attempts to grab me.

  "I hate kobolds more than any other creature!" Izzy screamed, slashing left and right like a crazy woman.

  I grinned. More than half of all of her patrons back in the brothel had been kobolds. I never knew she hated them so much, but I felt pretty sure it had to be because they dominated her time in the nastiest ways imaginable. I recalled the few who hired me were a pretty kinky bunch. Now that I thought about it, the vast majority of the kobolds did hire her. And, of course, the brothel owner that truly owned and dominated her was a kobold.

  "Taks would be shocked," I teased as I landed beside her.

  Back to back, we fought and slaughtered. Garik killed twice as many as we did. I watched him in amazement as he spun this way and that, dropping low as he swung that overlong great sword. The dragon-knight fought like a bloody killer tornado, slicing and dicing countless kobolds.

  When the goblin zombies started pouring into the room, I sent my sword and shield away. Grabbing first Izzy's hand, and then Garik's, I levitated up to the top of the stairs to the next floor. I pushed them through the door, and slammed it shut. Izzy quickly dropped the heavy bar into the brackets.

  "Uh-oh," Garik said behind me.

  I slowly turned to see what we faced next. My jaw dropped.

  "What the hell? Giant spiders?"

  Two shiny black spiders stood between us and the stairs, each the size of a pony. Their heavy bodies dropped lower, and shifted back. My eyes bugged out, and then I shouted the warning.

  "They're going to pounce!"

  We scattered as the spiders flew at us. I'm not going to lie. I wet myself. And I peed a little more when one of them skittered up the wall to hang from the ceiling, while the other slowly stalked towards us.

  "They're too fast," I said.

  "I changed my mind," Izzy said. "I hate spiders the most. Carly, do something magical."

  I made my sword and shield vanish, and called up my bow. The bow appeared out of thin air in my left hand, and then an arrow filled my right. I nocked the arrow and took careful aim at the spider on the ceiling. Holding my breath, I let loose. The arrow bounced off the thick carapace around its eyes. So I called up another arrow and sent it flying into the spider's soft abdominal sack.

  All three of us jumped when it screamed.

  "I didn't know they could make noises," Garik said. "Hit it again."

  The spider raced across the ceiling as I fired at it. I buried three of five arrows in that soft, leaking sack. My mana dropped at the rate of 5 per shot. The spider screamed every time I hit it. Then I hit it with Percussion.

  The force of that spell splattered it. Spider ichor rained down upon us, so thick and black and slimy. The spider fell onto its back, and Garik immediately jumped atop it, swinging his blade left and right to sheer off the monster's eight spindling legs.

  That's when the other spider attacked Izzy and me. We split up, running in opposite directions. The spider went after Izzy.

  "Carly!"

  My bow vanished as my right hand pulled the Fire Whip free. Izzy went up the stairs, with the spider following her, but on the wall. The spider's front legs tripped her up and pressed the drow flat, holding her firmly. Izzy screamed like a banshee.

  My whip snaked out, only to be snapped back and finally sent in search of my foe. It struck the fat, soft ass-sack with a flaming snap. The spider screamed and turned on me. My whips lashed it across the face, before taking off one of its front legs.

  Izzy leapt up and screamed as she charged the spider from behind. Her sword slashed and slashed, sending black ichor all over. The spider tried to escape our onslaught by climbing to the ceiling, but my whip stretched out to lick it with arcane flames. Three more strikes, and the monster fell to the floor next to me.

  "Shit!" I cried, seeing it lean back to pounce on me. My eyes locked on its venom dripping mandibles. And then I saw Izzy leap off the stairs. "No!"

  The drow princess crashed atop the spider's hard carapace, and then savagely thrust her sword straight down into its bug brain. The beast froze, shuttered, and finally collapsed. We all sighed in relief.

  "Don't lie to me, Carly," Izzy said breathlessly. "Do you really do stuff like this for fun?"

  "I do," I admitted. "Though, at the moment I'm not sure why."

  Pounding on the door reminded me that our predicament was urgent. The vampire necromancer could wake up at any moment. I'd rather stake the vamp's ass in his coffin than fight him three-on-one. So I started for the stairs.

  "The boss man has to be on the next floor," I said, racing up the stairs. Izzy, and then Garik, followed me up. "Let's kill him before he wakes up."

  I found the door closed and locked. I cast Unlock. Nothing happened. Did the lock have a ward to stop my spell? I tried once more, but failed. That forced me to destroy it with a thunderbolt and burn up a lot of mana. Like I feared, the entire tower shook. I held my breath until it settled down without crumbling. Then I noticed I only had 687 points left in mana. I'd used about half up so far.

  I'm burning up mana too fast. What could I do? Every foe facing us required magic to defeat. I better get some more off the vamp, or I'm fucked.

  I charged through before the dust settled, finding myself in a dark room with bricked up windows. Izzy went to my left, Garik to my right. We stopped to let our eyes adjust. The interior slowly came into focus. Like the previous three levels, that floor was a single room. I noticed wooden, iron-banded chests lined the walls,
in some places stacked two and three high. Otherwise, the chamber appeared to be a combination laboratory and conjuring room.

  "Over there, behind that table," Izzy said, pointing.

  I squinted into the gloom, and just made out a long black box. "His casket!"

  The lid began to rise before I moved. I saw a pale bluish-gray hand pushing it open from inside, and then the vampire sat up and turned his burning red eyes toward us. A lump formed in my throat, and I suddenly needed to pee again.

  Drow vampire necromancer.

  "Well, that sucks," Garik said.

  As I suspected, Qaath Yazn was a mob. No player could be old enough in the game to be Izzy's great grandfather. Or great grandfather's pet mage.

  "Get him," I cried, and launched myself at him using Levitate.

  I streaked through the air at him. The vamp waved his hand, and an unseen force slapped me to the side. I grunted when I struck the stone wall, and fell to all fours. I looked up just as Garik leapt over a table with an alchemy setup, knocking most of it to the floor. Qaath Yazn flew up to the ceiling a split second before the dragon-knight's blade could cleave him in two.

  "I am Izzy Szin, Heir to the Jade Throne, I command you to obedience."

  We all stopped to stare at the drow princess, who stood tall and arrogantly as she glared up at the undead necromancer. Qaath looked as surprised as Garik and I, but not for long.

  "The Jade Throne betrayed me!" he cried, face screwing up in rage. "I swore to kill every man, woman, and child of that unholy bloodline a hundred years ago!"

  "Oops," Izzy gasped, and darted aside when he sent a lightning bolt at her heart.

  Using the Gloves of Strength, I grabbed one end of the long trestle table and threw it at the vampire. He bashed it aside with another wave of the hand, so I called up my bow and sent an arrow into his left thigh while he dealt with Garik's renewed attack.

  "Bitch, I'll kill you a thousand times for that!" he cried, just yanking it out without even flinching. Black flames engulfed both of his hands, which he thrust toward me. A black bolt as thick as my thigh streaked at me, forcing me to use Levitate to escape.