by Jason Cheek
I grimaced as I took a second to study our Mana reserves. Yun and I were almost tapped out, and we were only a third of the way through the cavern. Unfortunately, it wasn’t like we could hang out until we recovered our Mana. There just wasn’t enough time to pause in-between every four groups to recover our reserves, or we’d wipe for sure once the Goblin patrol saw their missing miners.
There were no other options available at this point. We’d have to battle it out without magic until we recovered and hoped for the best. I held us up for twenty-two seconds, which would open up my Frost Blast spell by the time we attacked. Everyone figured out quick enough what had me worried as they looked around at the remaining mobs nervously. There was no turning back now. Pointing towards the next group, I hissed a quick “Let’s go!” and took off running.
This fight wasn’t over as quick our last. I only had enough Mana for a Frost Nova and three Ice Lances, before I was forced to switch over to my hand-axe. With Yun at my side, we attacked the last mob together. As we fought, I tried to figure out how much the lack of Mana was going to slow us down and what kind of shape we’d be in for the final battle against the three Elite Goblin Taskmasters, when I saw Yun’s Mana suddenly fill all the way up. Looking around confused as our Kobolds fell, I noticed Sarka’s health top off in a similar manner. I was trying to figure out what was going on when my own Mana suddenly shot to 100% as a system window briefly popped up before my eyes.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 18!
I breathed a sigh of relief as I saw the excited grins on everyone faces as the last Kobold fell. Like me, they’d all gained another level. Not only did that save our asses for the Mana boost Yun and I received, but the extra level would also help to close the level gap needed for completing this dungeon. Looking at each other in relief, I felt my confidence returning as I led the attack full tilt into the fifth group of mobs. We would have the same problem again soon enough, but the rest of the team shortly should be getting another level boost. There wasn’t anything we could do about it now except to keep on moving and play it out the best we could.
By the sixth group of Kobolds, we were moving like a killing machine. There was no hesitation in our attacks or tactics as we overwhelmed the mobs. Although, I switched up my attacks and held off on blasting the mobs with an Ice Lances to save on Mana, leaving Yun’s Frost Blasts the only extra damage attack to slow down the mobs’ attacks. Seeing what I was doing, Yun joined me in finishing the Kobolds off with his axe. This meant we were slightly slower in taking down each group, but that left us both with enough Mana to charge the ninth group of mobs without having to slow down to recover. As soon as we dropped the Kobolds, I charged the tenth group even though we were both bone-dry in Mana and Sarka’s health wasn’t looking all that good. I saw Unalia’s and Tinyr’s concerned looks but ignored them as the entire team followed my lead.
The one thing we didn’t have was time. The Goblin patrol had already passed the last group of miners. We had to knock out these last two group as soon as possible or we were fucked. Hesitation now would only ensure our wipe. The only way for us to have a chance to make it through was to push the attack. We were either all in, or we were all dead. Still, I silently crossed my fingers that my rough calculations were right as I glanced at my experience bar. There was only a sliver left until the next level.
I knew I was playing it tight which was nothing at all like the calculating professional I should be at this point in my professional gaming career. Not that I’d ever been exactly a numbers guy. For me, it was more of a feeling. A good close approximation as to where I stood with my resources in regards to whatever difficult situation I faced. I always felt like it was more ‘raw willpower’ that carried me through those difficult assaults then my ability to exactly calculate every odd ahead of time.
I grinned like a maniac as we physically battered our enemies down hand-to-hand as our Mana ran out. For a second, it looked like the battle could go either way, when suddenly the first kobold went down shortly followed by the next. I saw Yun glancing at his wife’s Hit Points nervously when he jumped as his Mana suddenly shot up to 100%. A second later Sarka’s Hit Points surged to 100% as the Kobold the other half of the team was fighting dropped to the floor dead. Laughing like madmen, Yun and I rushed to join in on killing that last two Kobolds.
Whipping around urgently, I saw Yun’s eyes settle on the Goblin patrol as they neared the point where we started the battle off. Any second they’d notice the Kobolds dead body strewn across the cavern floor. I could see nothing of the doubt that had hung over him before the start of the running battle as he came to a sudden decision.
Lifting his hand, I saw him begin to chant Frost Blast as the rest of the team looked over at him in surprise just as his first ice blast went shooting out across the cavern to the last group of Kobolds. As soon as it slammed into the first reddish-brown mob, the entire group began yipping in rage as they turned around and charged us as one with their pickaxes raised. Unalia began sending arrows after arrow into the enraged little bastards as Yun continued blasting the shrieking mobs. The range enabled him to hit them all at least once before they closed the distance between us as Sarka and I charged into the mobs shields first.
Yun retargeted the furthest kobold trying to keep the mobs strung out as long as possible, while Tinyr began Backstabbing our target like a berserker. We dropped the mob as a guttural shout rang out from the elite Goblin Taskmasters as we forced the next Kobold to face us. Our combined attacks dropped the strung-out mobs in short order as Yun switched his Frost Bolts to the charging Goblins who were now racing across the cavern towards us. His quick thinking gave us the time we needed to finish off the last Kobold before the Taskmasters could reach us. Catching Sarka’s eye, I shouted loud enough to be heard by the entire team.
“We’re switching up positions. I’m main tank, everyone target off of Sarka.” As Yun’s third Frost Bolt caught the lead elite Goblin ten feet in front of us, I threw myself at the mob shield first. I immediately discovered that whips were a much more impressive weapon than I’d ever thought as the thick leather coil snapped around my shield and tagged me in the side of the face. As pain exploded through my head, I bit my lip forcing my body to ignore the burning sensation as I Shield Bashed the Taskmaster in its ugly fat face, basting the mob off its feet as I shrieked.
“Shield Bash trumps bull whip any day motherfucker!” Without slowing down, I leaped with my Jagged Bonesplitter axe held high over my head in a two-fisted grip. Landing the strike into the mob’s ugly face, I came to a stop atop the nasty, green bastard. Blood flew everywhere as I repeatedly bludgeoned the mob with my axe and shield as the oversized Goblin somehow fought its way back to its clawed feet. As we traded blows, I found out that the mob’s sword could easily slash through my leathers as my limbs were covered in gaping wounds within seconds.
Thankfully, Shield Block kept the worst of the damage away from my torso, but I was losing a lot of blood as the fighting drug out between us. As the second Taskmaster came charging up in slow motion, I silently swore to myself that I had to move faster. As the Goblins ran by me targeting Yun, I spun around in a blur slamming my hand-axe deep into the mob’s fat neck.
Now that I was the focus of two of the ugly bastards, they started working me over in earnest with their bullwhips. Whenever I blocked the attack from one, the other would manage to get a strike through my defenses as I fought a defensive retreat as my Hit Points started to drop. The battle finally changed when I got smart and took the whip hand of the first Goblin off at the wrist as Sarka, Yun and Tinyr joined the battle, hammering at the mob’s backside.
I made sure to keep my bleed DOTs on both mobs as every fifteen seconds I forced myself to get a strike in even if I took a major hit to do so. When he first Goblin was almost down, I saw Yun get suddenly dragged off his feet. Lunging forward, I buried my axe blade in the first Goblin’s head and kicked the second Taskmaster away as I sprinted after my friend.
>
One look at the situation and I immediately realized my mistake. I’d completely forgotten about the third elite Goblin. Yun fought for his life with both hands clutching at his throat trying to get oxygen as the Taskmaster repeatedly plunged his sword into the healer’s back. With a yowl of rage, I slammed my hand axe into the Goblin’s oversized skull. Using all of my mass, I forced the mob’s head to the ground breaking its grip on my friend. As the Goblin dropped its whip to yank the axe blade from out of its skull, the second Taskmaster suddenly drove its blade deep into my shoulder blade. Ripping free of the attack, I backed up with my shield arm hanging limply at my side.
I managed to Parry and Riposte the Goblin’s follow up attacks, backing up quickly leaving Yun bleeding to death on the cold floor. As the last Taskmaster climbed to its feet next to the second Goblin, I saw Sarka in the background finish off the first elite Goblin by chopping its head completely off its blocky shoulders. Immediately, a surge of healing energy ran through my body and my Mana filled up to a 100% as I saw a welcomed system message briefly flash before my eyes.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 19!
Instantly a wave of ice blasted from my body at the elite Goblins as I instant cast Frost Nova and began casting a Heal on Yun. There was no telling if I was going to make it in time. I probably wouldn’t since the Frost Nova lockdown only lasted eight seconds, while my level 0 healing spell was a ten-second cast. Still, I wasn’t going to pass up the opportunity to save my friend if the possibility existed. The elite Goblins growled curses at me in their harsh language as they fought to escape their icy prisons while I silently counted down the seconds till they broke free. The spell was ridiculously long and left me completely vulnerable as I made the requisite hand motions to complete the complicated spell.
I’d just counted own to seven when both mobs suddenly shrieked in agony. I saw both elite Goblins whip around as their icy prisons melted away releasing them to attack. For a moment, I had a brief glimpse of Sarka and Tinyr fighting for their lives as the Goblins leaped after them while I waited the last three seconds for the spell to complete. As soon as the golden glow washed over Yun, I began blasting at the elite Goblins’s backs. By my third Ice Lance, I’d pushed out 600 points of damage as the Taskmaster exploded into oozing chunks of bloody ice.
As soon as the Goblins went down, Sarka ran to her man’s side as I went into another ten-second cast for a Heal spell. At the top edge of my vision, I saw that Yun was still alive, but his health bar was still shrinking at an alarming rate. The wounds he’d received must have severed something major. I watched Unalia go to Sarka to help slow down the bleeding as Tinyr hurriedly found some rags for makeshift bandages.
It took me five casts to catch up with his bleeding wounds and another seven to heal him all the way back to full health. While I was at it, I went ahead and healed the rest of the team as everyone excitedly joked and laughed together now that the danger was past. I didn’t begrudge them as I worked on skilling up my Light Magic. In truth, it had been a good run for us.
Once I topped off Tinyr’s Hit Points, I got everyone moving. I had no idea how long it would take for mobs to respawn in the cavern. The goal was to loot the corpses and get moving. Well, for the rest of the team it was all about looting, for Sarka and I it was all about mining the copper nodes scattered around the cavern. Thankfully, by the time we worked through the available nodes, the rest of the team had a pile of loot at their feet, and Yun was excitedly waving two swords over his head as we walked up.
“You guys have to check out these blades. They’re awesome!” Yun said excitedly. “Tinyr took the remaining blade, we all agreed you both should have first dibs on these bad boys.”
Curiously I took the blade and checked the weapons stats.
Cruel Bastard Sword
Item Quality: Good
Item Type: Common
Attack: One-hand Edge
Weapon Type: Sword
Damage: 38-42
Durability: 48/50
Weight: 6 kg
+3 To Hit
+3 Critical Strike
I whistled out loud as I tested the heft of the weapon. “Those are some pretty nice stats,” I said with a grin. “You guys sure about this? I can always use this as a backup weapon, but I don’t want to take loot from anyone in the team that needs this more.”
“Backup weapon?” I heard everyone chorus as the entire team stared at me in surprise.
“What is the status of your axe then?” Tinyr asked curiously voicing everyone’s thoughts.
“Check out the group chat,” I said mentally posting the weapon into the chat interface as Sarka made a choking noise as Tinyr whistled in surprise.
“No wonder you cleaned those Syndicates’ asses’ clocks.” Yun barked in laughter shaking his head. “That bleed DOT is pretty wicked. Taking 5 points of damage for 15 seconds is insane. Where in the hell did you get something like that?”
“When I started the game, I had to fight Gliogheeq the Gruesome, a level 15 Elite Goblin Raider,” I said with a shrug.
“What do you mean at the start of the game?” Unalia’s asked as her face scrunched up trying to understand what I meant. “Was this in the training area?”
“I had a Nightmare start. No training area. I appeared in the game surrounded by a horde of Elite Goblin Raiders that I had to take out.” I said with a shrug.
“It was a pretty nasty fight. Small groups of Elite Goblin Raiders were everywhere slaughtering a group of refugee NPCs that I had to save. The last part of the battle was against a large group of the fuckers, one being the Gliogheeq. Luckily that part of the fight was at least one-on-one.”
“Shit on me,” Tinyr said shaking his head as he tried to picture it. “That’s insane.”
“Right!” I agreed, clapping him on the back.
“Why in the hell would you go through that kind of hell for a game?” Tinyr asked shaking his head in wonder.
“I’m a Pro-Gamer,” I said with a shrug. “Our guild needs as many bonuses as we can to get more of our people in the Pro-side of the house.”
“Wait, you paid for the P&M exam to get an Ultra start, right?” Unalia suddenly asked cutting in on a different track as understanding shown in her eyes. “That’s why you’re so overpowered.”
“To a point. The P&M exam boosted my levels big time, but increased stats only go so far. Most of it comes down to skill.”
We began packing up the gear as we talked. I ended up keeping one of the Cruel Bastard Swords, strapping it on my back so I could draw both blade and hand-axe if needed. It was almost comical since I still had the Savage Fin Slasher and Vile Blade strapped to my waist. So what if I looked l like a walking armory. At this point, I wasn’t taking any chances.
I told them all about my guild, The Revenants, and how I had to get signatures for the guild charter. The conversation became more personal as we talked about where we were from. There must be something about fighting together and surviving incredible odds that brings people closer together. After the big cavern battle, everyone was much more open. I learned that Unalia was Shannon in real life and Tinyr was Eric and that they both lived in Charlotte, North Carolina. It was a good talk that helped lighten the mood as we chose the first tunnel to the right to explore.
There were two more groups of Kobolds with their elite Goblin Taskmasters, but we made quick work of them without batting an eye. Unfortunately, the tunnel was a dead end, and so we ended up backtracking to the main room and choosing the second tunnel. Ten minutes later we’d ran into another group of Kobolds and elite Goblins Taskmasters with another dead end and was forced to backtrack again.
This time when we reached the main cavern, there were groups of mining kobolds starting to respawn at the far end of the massive room. Not wasting any time, I hurriedly rushed our team down the next tunnel. I wasn’t about to risk having a group of mobs spawn in on top of us and wipe because of something stupid like that. I had plenty of experience with
that kind of crap from places like Blackrock Spire and Stratholme in World of Warcraft vanilla.
As soon as we’d traveled a short distance down the tunnel, I could tell this branch was different. Where we normally would have run into a double group of mining Kobolds and their Taskmaster, we found seven gravestones instead. I arched my eyebrows at the team as we stopped by the markers to look them over. The gravestones were from normal players scattered down the tunnel mostly in clumps, but there were a few singles spaced farther apart.
Obviously, a raid gone bad. Taking a firmer grip on the haft of my axe, I moved out with the Sarka and Tinyr at my side and Unalia and Yun taking up the rear. Instead of stopping at a rough rock wall, the tunnel continued further on past the point the first two branches we’d explored earlier had dead-ended. The tunnel went on for another fifty feet or so before it let out into another massive cavern.
Hearing the low roar of muttering voices, I held up my hand to halt and signaled Tinyr to join me in scouting out the chamber. In less than a minute we’d crept to the end of the tunnel. Carefully looking out into the well-lit cavern, we both froze in surprise at the sight before us. Towards the back of the immense room, there was a massive, stone archway with a glowing, blue-tinged doorway. It had to be at least twenty feet tall and thirty wide with an otherworldly look that reminded me of something right out the movie Stargate.
Standing before the shimmering doorway was what looked to be around forty players standing around and talking. Most were near a glowing red-tinged crystal that rose up out of the floor in the center of the chamber that had to be at least twenty feet high. At the same time, I noticed a semi-transparent window appear on the bottom middle of my vision. The window opened up as soon as I focused on it that was titled Delonshire Mine Local Chat. Immediately I saw a familiar scroll of text similar to any MMORPG.