by M Helbig
Decrona turned to me. “I’m out as well. Congratulations, Horus.”
Olaf patted me on the back as Decrona handed me the gloves. I immediately equipped them and gave them a few experimental flexes. When I accidentally brushed against the residue I’d collected on my tunic, the grease immediately slid off onto the ground, leaving no stain on the gloves. I purposely rubbed the gloves on every dirty surface I could find to the same effect; those gloves could not stay dirty.
“Congratulations,” Alizia said. “Now loot this bad boy, so I can freely high jink again.”
Olaf began to kneel, but Decrona waved him off. “Not until I have the key to that gate. Besides, I thought you just said you could cause trouble without the use of your legs.” Decrona climbed up an oversized chair to reach for the key hanging on the far wall.
A wicked grin spread across Alizia’s face, which no doubt was causing villagers for miles around to hustle to their nearest emergency shelter. “Challenge accepted, Deccy, you marvelous dufus. Does anyone know what happens when you cross Decrona with a rutabaga?” Olaf and I rushed over to help Decrona. “You get a rutabaga that wets the bed. Speaking of Deccy, does anybody know where she really goes when she says she’s meeting her contacts?”
The key slid from Decrona’s hand as she rushed to loot the giant monster. She fell halfway, sliding across the ground to rest against the butler’s belt.
“Something, something, sex with books—maybe a librarian? No, there’s definitely a library card in there somewhere, but you probably don’t want to know where. OK, that one needs some work. If someone could come back to me after we kill the boss, I’ll have the kinks worked out. But don’t worry—it’ll be hilarious.”
Decrona has looted Chattington.
As group leader, Decrona has been granted the loot: Broken Tweezers.
Alizia hopped up and immediately flipped us all off. Decrona frantically tried to put the tweezers back into the rapidly fading butler corpse.
For the Love of God, Would Someone say “Action!”
After grabbing the key, Decrona spent the next twenty minutes going over our strategy for the boss fight, despite the fact that her plan was identical to the one we had before entering the sub-boss’s room. I prayed to God that there was a boss immediately at the top of the stairs on the other side of the locked gate, so she wouldn’t have to go over the plan again.
Alizia scrunched up her face and bounced side-to-side. “Come on, Deccy. Open the gate. I’ve got to go.”
“If I didn’t fall for it when you said my mother, a ‘gazillion’ gold, Amelia Earhart, and—my personal favorite—the Queen of Sheepa, were on the other side, I’m not going to fall for that. Besides, no one needs to go to the bathroom in this game, and I know what you’re going to say, but I’m quite confident the boss of this dungeon is not a giant toilet. Now, let’s go over this one more time. Olaf, you?”
Olaf sighed. “Turn on Sneak and scout out the room. If the boss sees through Sneak, I yell it out and run toward the door.”
Decrona pointed at me.
“If there are any adds that Alizia can’t grab aggro on, I guide them near her until she gets aggro.”
“Good. Good. Now what about you, Alizia?”
“Seriously?” Alizia stared at her shield and then gave a deadpan look. “I Shout at anything I see, and then when you’re not looking, I stick my shield up your—”
Decrona stomped her foot. “No. No. No. Again from the top. Olaf, what do you do?”
The rest of us groaned for probably the fiftieth time. We’d nearly synchronized our groans but Alizia was still a little off. I tried to slap her for that, and for once again making Decrona start over, but had to pull back because she was already slapping herself.
“Sneak. Scout. Run to Alizia if in trouble,” Olaf said.
Decrona beamed a smile. “Good. Alizia?”
“Say, who’s that?” Alizia pointed behind me.
A man in shining, multi-colored armor moved toward us, his impossibly long mustache scraping the top of my head as he skipped past us.
Decrona stomped her feet again. “No, you don’t say, ‘Who’s that?’ Why won’t anyone listen to me? This is important.”
Alizia reached out with her shield and pushed Decrona’s head toward the stranger.
“Stop that,” Decrona said. “Hitting me softly won’t—oh. Hello, fellow adventurer. We were just making our final plans before we unlocked this gate and engaged the boss. You’ll have to kill the sub-boss in the room behind us if you wish to get your own key.”
The newcomer twisted his mustache. “Key?” Several hundred keys appeared in his hand, spilling onto the floor. “Hmm—which one is it? My subscribers love a good boss fight, so I grab every key I can. I’m here to stream my epic fight with the one above. Say, do any of you know how to stream? Unrelated question, but what’s a subscriber and how would one go about getting them?”
“Sure,” Decrona said. “You just think ‘record’ and the system will—” Decrona’s eyes lit up as she took in what was behind the newcomer’s back. “You’re being attacked!”
As much as I wanted to avoid the same silliness I’d gone through with Clewd earlier, the look of shock on Decrona’s face easily made it worthwhile. I wondered if I’d looked that ridiculous during my first encounters with this strange higher-level player. Seven more brutes charged toward Clewd and joined their companions in a furious assault on his backside. It looked like we wouldn’t have to worry about any patrols for a while, as Clewd had probably attracted them all.
Clewd bent over to sort through the keys. “Oh, is that what’s been giving me that back massage for the last hour?” He picked up a key with an eyeball in it. “Is this it?” The eyelid on the key bent into a questioning look to mirror Clewd’s.
Decrona summoned our rusty green key and held it out. “It looks like this, but you’ll have to wait until we finish with the boss to get your turn.”
Clewd tossed the eyeball key over his shoulder. The key connected with one of the brutes in the chest, catapulting him into the far wall. He landed with a hard crash and stopped moving.
“Or, I could join you.” Clewd picked up a bright red key and held it next to the one in Decrona’s hand. “My subscribers might enjoy some guest stars.”
“I don’t know,” Decrona said. “But they could listen in while we go over my brilliant plan. You see, first Olaf here is going to—”
Clewd got up and tossed a handful of keys to the side, decapitating one brute and sending the rest sprawling across the hallway. “Bah, you know nothing about ratings. You’d think a young person such as yourself would understand what the key 18-97 demographic wants nowadays. People want action! Speed. Explosions. Love, especially if the love is fast and explosive. Observe.”
Clewd walked over to the gate and lifted it off its hinges effortlessly. He dropped the gate behind him on top of a brute’s foot, who squealed in pain. Alizia bashed the brute in the chest to put him out of his misery. Clewd pointed toward the stairs. “Noooow, action!”
“We really should go over the plan one more time,” Decrona said.
“Decrona,” Alizia said. “When a super-strong, crazy guy tells you to go, you go. I wouldn’t still be here if I didn’t follow that simple rule for all the other times I’ve been in this situation.”
Decrona stared at her in disbelief. “You can’t possibly have been in a situation like this before.”
Alizia shrugged and ran up the steps.
Olaf patted Decrona on the back. “We all know the plan by heart—so well that we will probably be reciting it in our dreams later tonight. Besides, we now have a high level with us. We will be fine.” Olaf ran up the stairs.
Clewd bowed dramatically. “After you two. Don’t worry, I promise to film from your good sides and only say a couple of bad things about you in the commentary for the deluxe edition DVD special release. By the way, does anyone know what a DVD or a deluxe edition is?”
I
pushed Decrona toward the stairs, but her legs were locked in place. “Better hurry. There’s no telling what trouble Alizia’s in without your guidance.”
A scream echoed down the stairwell, and Decrona’s knees immediately loosened up. She started running a second later, and before I knew it, we found ourselves up the stairs with Clewd muttering something to his probably imaginary subscribers behind us.
Definitely Not Bat-Man
The room we found ourselves in was not terribly large—roughly thirty feet wide and long—though the ceiling was so high that I could barely make it out. The area appeared empty besides our group and Clewd.
“Who screamed?” I asked.
Alizia raised her hand. “I wanted to hear an echo.”
Decrona inspected the lone piece of furniture—a small table with one leg shorter than the other. “So, they locked this room off for nothing?” The table tottered over and broke in half as it hit the ground.
“I’ll bet the guy who owns this place just wanted a nice peaceful place to come to and think. You know, get away from all his chattering minions and practice his singing without judgment.” Before Alizia even moved a muscle, Decrona’s arm shot out and covered her mouth.
Clewd made a motion like he was winding up one of those old-timey cameras. “Behold, faithful followers, watch as a group of inept, young adventurers stare around like half-wits, oblivious to the impending peril they’re about to discover. You can almost see the outlines of the ghosts they are about to become hovering menacingly over their heads. It’s enough to make you scream at your screen and alert them of the danger to which they are all too oblivious, but of course they can’t hear you—and even if they could, they are far too dimwitted to know what to do anyway.”
“What danger?” I asked as I began making several complete circuits of the room with my head. “Is it invisible?”
“Quick,” Alizia said. “Decrona, hand me all your powdered sugar.”
Decrona refused to make eye contact with Alizia as her head darted back and forth. “I’m not falling for that again.”
“Oh, that is a good plan, Alizia,” Olaf said. “If there is anything invisible, the powdered sugar will stick to it to let us see it. Give her what she requires, Decrona.”
Alizia uncorked a healing potion. “Errr . . . yeah. Wasn’t at all going to sweeten anything with it.”
Decrona summoned two bags of powdered sugar and ducked around Alizia to hand one to Olaf. The two of them opened their bags and shook them liberally around the room. Alizia held her potion up and tried get as much sugar as possible in it, which proved difficult while dancing and hooting in circles. Alizia poked her scepter in several directions—evidently thinking she saw something—but each swing found nothing but air and flakes of powdered sugar.
“Observe what can happen when a group of newbs becomes confined in a small area and the feeling of danger overwhelms their primitive minds,” Clewd said. “In this case, they’ve snapped and forgotten how to put together a simple recipe. If only they knew the true danger that lurks so near, they would truly snap.”
“What danger?” I asked, grabbing ahold of Clewd’s arm. I tried to shake him, but it was like trying to move a tank with your pinky. “Where is this hidden boss?”
A short man with an unusually hairy chest moved from behind Clewd. “Yeah. What danger? Is someone here allergic to powdered sugar? If they’re diabetic, I have a vial of Ye Olde Insulin they can have.”
“Cut!” Clewd slapped his hands against his side in frustration. “I need everyone to reset from the top.” He turned to face the man with the hairy chest. “Bruce, I need you to go back to the shadows, and this time, when you reveal yourself, say something ominous like how you’re going to ‘Suck them all dry and leave their dead, lifeless husks here as a warning to all who invade your hidden sanctum.’”
Bruce put his hand on his chin. “I don’t know. Blood doesn’t exactly taste very good, and I left my good straw downstairs. Besides, I’m trying to lead a gentler, more fulfilling life. This place isn’t that hidden either. Plus, ‘sanctum’ seems a bit grand of a title for a tiny room, and—Wait! Why am I listening to you?” Bruce easily pushed Clewd, who stumbled back.
“Perfect! Now use that in the scene.” Clewd began winding up his fictious, old-timey camera before giving Bruce the thumbs up. “Action!”
Bruce shook his head at Clewd and turned toward our group. I wasn’t the only one who noticed that Bruce had just pushed the extremely strong Clewd like he was a baby or, well, one of us. We all took a tentative step backward and nervously fidgeted with our weapons. I instinctively used Inspect on him, remembering a second too late that he’d feel it and probably view that as a hostile action.
Bruce
Level: 5
Resits:
Type: Boss
Light: ???
Race: Human
Dark: ???
Faction: Undead Homeowners’ Association
Earth: ???
HP: 300/300
Water: ???
MP: 0
Fire: ???
AP: 0
Wind: ???
AC: ???
Special Attributes: none
Weaknesses: Peanuts, Tree Nuts, Grass, Latex, Lactose, Shellfish, Bee Stings, Pollen, Nickle, Sunlight, Moonlight, Inspect, Accounting, Soy, Plaid, Wheat, Being Looted, Dust Mites, Cinnamon, Soy, Fish, The Alphabet, Jokes About Watches, Curling Trivia
Bruce let out a whining scream almost as soon as I used Inspect on him. The bits of pale skin I could see through his hairy chest flared bright red, and he began to scratch them.
“Finally, our inept protagonists have found the one opponent they are confident they can defeat,” Clewd said while giving us an enthusiastic thumbs up. “They still might not be able to defeat the frail, mewling individual in front of them in a fair fight, but if they’re lucky, he may succumb to a strong breeze or his legs may give way, causing him to fall on a sharp object and bleed out. Let us observe this epic battle between two decidedly un-epic foes.”
Bruce stopped scratching and turned around. “Heeeeeey! We can hear you, and we have feelings.” He started whimpering. “I’m . . . I’m . . . saaaaad.” He sat down and rolled into a ball.
Our group stared at each other in disbelief. Alizia took a few tentative steps toward Bruce and the rest of us followed shortly after. When she got a few feet away, he let out a loud cry and we all jumped back.
“Perhaps evenly matched weaklings weren’t a good idea,” Clewd grumbled. “If they don’t engage each other in a few minutes, I’ll have to liven this up with a wild animal or go topless.”
“Maybe we should just go?” Alizia whispered. “This guy clearly isn’t the boss.”
“Inspect says he is,” I pointed out unconvincingly.
Decrona nodded. “He only has 300 HPs. This should be easy.”
“I don’t know. It would be like kicking a puppy.” Olaf lowered his dagger.
While the group had been talking low enough for Clewd and Bruce not to hear us, as soon as we stopped Bruce whimpered even louder. It sounded like a combination of disappointed toddler and guy getting kicked in the nuts after being told his winning lottery ticket was fake. Clewd cringed and stopped making the cranking gesture.
The tight ball Bruce’s body had made loosened, and he punched the floor in frustration. Chips of stone shot up as he smashed great gouges into the floor. The group stumbled from the first few of his mighty impacts, but eventually got used to them and moved forward. We shared a look and knew that if we didn’t take this opportunity now, he’d probably tear us apart.
Alizia opened up the fight by cracking Bruce on the back of the head with her scepter. It didn’t actually produce the Stunned status, but with the way Bruce’s eyes rolled into the back of his head, you wouldn’t have known the difference. Not wanting to get torn apart when the hairy man-child regained his senses, the rest of the group unloaded on him. Bruce fell to the ground before he even had time
to defend himself. It was without a doubt the easiest fight I’d ever had. Our group stared at his fallen form in disbelief, not even sure if we should be congratulating each other.
You have gained 2,750 (2,500 +250 Group Bonus) Experience Points! 36,836/40,000 to next level.
You have received -50 Faction with the Undead Homeowners’ Association! Total: -1,150 Undead Homeowner’s Association (Hated).
Clewd shook his head as he walked toward us. “That was the most cowardly, underhanded thing I’ve ever seen. Absolutely brilliant! The viewership loved it! I think. Could you four bunch up together in front of your kill, so I can get a picture to memorialize this fight?”
Clewd corralled us together. As much as we didn’t want to, his massive strength forced us to comply. He formed his fingers into a frame and then made a clicking noise several times; after about twelve clicks, he stopped.
“It looks like weirdo is done,” Alizia whispered. “Loot this bad boy, and let’s get out of here before he forces us to reenact Waterloo with spaghetti or decides we’re undercover rodents who need to be exterminated.”
Decrona has looted Bruce.
Bruce’s allergic reaction to being looted has overcome him, and he has mutated into Bruce Vein!
The hairy, rash-covered corpse disappeared in a puff of smoke. My eyes watered and an uncontrollable cough followed. Judging by the sounds, the rest of the group had a similar reaction, and I bumped into them several times. When the smoke finally cleared, Bruce stood before us in a skintight gray shirt with a yellow emblem on it. A black cape billowed from his back, and on his head he wore a hardened black cap with oversized ears shaped like those of a bat. At first, I assumed the cape was blowing through some sort of magic, given that the small, enclosed room we were in didn’t have any source for a breeze—until I noticed that Clewd had set up an odd, steampunkish wind machine. (A machine behind it puffed out its last shot of smoke, answering the other mystery.)