by Jason Cheek
This time when Tinyr unlatched the door, we didn’t storm into the room. Instead, Tinyr eased the portal all the way open as we tensed up ready to charge at the first sound of alarm. Hearing nothing, we silently slinked into the room taking in the opposition before us. The chamber was long and wide, at least thirty yards long and twenty wide, obviously some sort of gathering hall for the workers of the mine that was now being used as a throne room for the enemy War Leader. Massive stone pillars were spaced evenly throughout the room, spaced at least fifteen yards apart. There were two groups of level 28 Goblins sitting around cooking fires in the middle of the room. Each group consisted of a fire mage, shaman, two Hunters and five warriors. Towards the back of the chamber sat a large, blackish-gray Orc atop a bone-hide throne. Instantly the name appeared above the Orc’s head: Vorgak the Brutal, level 30 Death Knight. Even from this distance, the Orc looked immense. The boss’ face was scarred and battered, one of its two fangs had been snapped-off halfway down its ivory length, and the mob’s upper body looked like it had muscles piled up on top of muscles. A solid black-metal breastplate covered the Orc’s chest, while a black, leather-chainmail mesh covered the mob’s arms and legs. My inspection of the room was interrupted by Tinyr’s urgent hiss.
“What the hell is a Death Knight?” Seeing my incredulous look, Tinyr held up his hands to forestall the sarcastic response he knew was coming. “I know what a freaking Death Knight is. I mean, what the fuck is a Death Knight boss doing in a beginner dungeon?”
“Intimidating the fuck out of us,” Sarka said with a squeak, intently studying the boss at the far end of the room.
“Why aren’t these mobs attacking?” Unalia nervously asked, lowering her half-bent bow.
“This doesn’t look all that bad.” Yun thoughtfully said as he studied the two groups of Goblins. “Seriously, this is the closest we’ve been in levels to any of the bosses we’ve faced so far. Honestly, once we knock out the casters, how bad can it be?”
“Dude! You never say that before a boss battle.” I swore under my breath, shaking my head as the rest of the team gave Yun dirty looks. “Now stop screwing around and-”
“Are you guys really that superstitious?” Yun asked, cutting me off as he rolled his eyes in indignation. “I mean seriously-“
SMACK
“Stop being an ass and focus!” Sarka hissed under her breath as the sound of her slap echoed throughout the room, while the rest of us froze in horror the Goblins leaped to their feet around the hall. Instantly four arrows pierced Sarka’s chest as two fire blasts slammed into her a split second later covering the team in an explosion of flames. The look of horror on Yun’s face said it all as his wife’s avatar turned gray in the team’s virtual group list on our HUDs. Understanding that we only had seconds to stop a wipe, I grabbed Tinyr and Unalia by the back of their armor and headed for the door at a run. Unfortunately, I didn’t quite make it. Just as we were passing through the doorway, dual bolts of chain lightning sizzled through the air blasting the three of us off our feet with a clap of thunder as the rest of the team’s life bars turned instantly gray.
For a long second, I could only lay on my back twitching as residual lightning danced across my armor while two more fire blasts impacted the wall above my head. Immediately the fiery explosions drop my health down to 140 Hit Points as a wave of flames washed over me. As I withered in agony, my eyes flicked across the virtual interface to the lightning stun debuff ticking down to zero as guttural war cries filled the air. Ignoring the burning DOTs ticking away the last of my health, I lurched to my feet shouldering the door closed as my smoking, armored hand numbly clawed at my belt. Snatching up four of the thin Minor Healing potions, I guzzled the contents in one swig while hopelessly bracing my back against the wooden door.
At first, nothing seems to happen, except for a semi-transparent red that partially filled my Hit Point bar as my health continued dropping like a rock from the burning effect of the spells’ additional damage. While the DOTs only equaled to an extra hundred and fifty points of damage over five seconds, that was ten more points of damage than I had of health. Meaning, if something didn’t happen soon, I was going to be keeling over dead in a second and this would be a complete wipe.
Slowly the semi-transparent red began to darken as my health continued to drop at an alarming rate, but just as my Hit Points reached ten, the bar suddenly turned crimson red. Immediately, my health stabilized at 325 Hit Points as the magic of the Minor Healing potions finally took effect. Breathing a sigh of relief, I begin casting Minor Heal and Restore back-to-back as I braced the bottom of the door with my foot.
The boost of additional health instantly cleared away the funk weighing down my thoughts as the pain faded away from my abused body. Standing up straighter, I was shocked to realize that I’d managed to cast the spells. Where in the hell was the massive train of mobs on the other side of the door? Each healing spell had a five-second cast which didn’t make any sense since by now there should have already been a train of mobs hammering at the door. Thinking back to the attack, I realized the Goblins had been only seconds behind me and should’ve already been breaking down the door but instead I heard nothing. No battle cries. No guttural shouting. No pounding or swearing. It took me a couple of seconds to understand what must have happened. Leaning my head back against the ancient wood, I close my eyes as a shit-eating grin spread across my face. No matter how much things looked different, they were still the same. The thought made me laugh out loud.
Boss fights were always special events in any MMORPG style game. Game designers implemented a number of different rules and strategies to stop players from easily camping dungeon bosses to get their uber loot. Basically, it was one thing to trap a group of normal mobs in a room to whittle them down one at a time in a doorway and another entirely when you were dealing with a boss level mob. Usually, game mechanics were set up to stop that kind of abuse.
Good examples of this strategy were the first two bosses we’d faced in the mine. With the shaman boss, our team had been locked in the same room unable to escape until we either defeated the enemy or were slaughtered. Using the switch to open the door, I expect, would’ve only worked if the boss was dead. While untested, I imagine that if we’d tried to escape the chamber with the Slaver Master boss that we’d have met a similar fate, aka you either fought the boss in his chamber, you fought the horde of Goblins in the corridor prior to the fight or you died. In most MMORPG style games, those limited choices were much the same.
For a final boss here, it looked like the mobs wouldn’t leave their room. If that were the case, normal boss gaming logic would dictate that even if we’d killed half of the mobs in the room, as soon as we tried to draw them out into the corridor, they would automatically return to their original positions back to full health. Also, if we hadn’t already cleared out the two other rooms, I expect the mobs would’ve come boiling out to attack us in the middle of the hallway. Us, meaning me for right now, since the rest of the team was taking dirt naps.
Now as to why the door didn’t seal as soon as we entered the room was a whole nother story which could be one of several possibilities: One, we didn’t actually initiate an attack with the mobs in the room so the flag for locking the door wasn’t triggered; two, the mobs in the room were programmed to reset to their original places as soon as someone on the team exited the room; three, as soon as I open the door the entire room will come boiling out and slaughter me. My lips twisted into a wry smile. The only way to know for sure was to open the door and test the theory. Either I’d die a quick death or be able to resurrect the rest of the team.
It’s one thing to believe you’re right and another to know. Taking a deep breath, I finished healing myself to full health, restored my Ice Barrier spell, refilled the quick slots on my belt with Minor Health potions and readied my shield and sword, before carefully cracking the door open. Placing my foot at the bottom edge of the door to block it from easily being flung open, I peeked
into the room through the small gap. My gaze found the two groups of Goblins back to their original positions busily talking around their cooking fires as I breathed a sigh of relief.
Woohoo, no dagger stuck through my eye, I grinned at my morbid sense of humor as I eyed the two corpses closest to the door. Opening the door further, I quietly stepped into the room keeping an eye on the mobs. Seeing no response, I relaxed somewhat and stepped back out of the room as I mentally selected Unalia’s unmoving body and began casting my twenty-second long resurrection spell.
“What the hell happened?” Unalia groaned loudly holding her head as she sat up looking around in confusion.
“Keep it down, Dude!” I urgently hissed dragging Unalia back into the corridor while keeping an eye on the roomful of mobs. “Unless you want to be slaughtered twice in a row.” Taking a moment to cast a Minor Heal and a Restore, I began pulling Tinyr out of the room and repeated the resurrection process all over again. Obviously, I should have thought over the whole resurrecting my teammates in a room full of mobs first, but this multiclass character was a work in progress. They’d just better be happy we hadn’t completely wiped over this stupid shit, or I was going to be completely pissed off.
Luckily for Yun and Sarka, I could Stealth to get in close enough to recover their corpses. By the time Tinyr was climbing back to his feet, Unalia was closing the door as I finished dragging Sarka and Yun out into the corridor. In short order, I had them both rezzed and back on their feet. Although, I thought I was going to lose Yun once again since he wouldn’t stop giving her a hard time about making us nearly wipe.
“Hold up there, Sarka!” As soon as I saw her blade, I swore in frustration jumping in-between the arguing couple. “You can’t kill him.”
“Why not? It’s not like he’s going to lose any more experience.” Sarka spat at her husband’s feet in disgust. “It’s going to be the only way I can shut him up.”
“This wouldn’t have been a problem if you hadn’t slapped-“ Yun began to say as I cut him off with a slash from my hand.
“Dude, shut your mouth.” I snapped in frustration, punctuating each word. “Seriously that is not helping!” I chilled out somewhat seeing the pitiful look on Yun’s face. “So what, we wiped. Shit happens everyone, get over it so we can focus on getting this right.”
“That’s easy for you to say, you haven’t died once yet.” Yun sullenly scowled.
“Be happy that I didn’t. Otherwise, we’d have to start doing this whole run over again.” I grinned widely. “Just think of me as the group’s backup Pally.”
“Back up Pally?” Sarka asked, looking confused.
“Yea, back up Pally,” Tinyr said. “Basically, groups use Paladins as a class of last resort. They can’t be proper tanks or proper healers, but you always keep one around because they’re usually the last one standing when the shit hits the digital fan so you can resurrect the entire group.”
“Doesn’t that usually mean the group the team was fighting was actually completely taken out?” Unalia asked with a raised eyebrow.
“Eh.” Tinyr and I both said with a shrug as we grinned at each other. “I don’t know why Yun is being so pissy. Out of all of us, I’ve died the most.”
“Yea, but Rogues tend to be squishy,” I said matter of factly.
“True dat.” Tinyr sighed. “So how are we going to beat this thing?”
“I have a plan, but even then it’s going to be tough,” I said thoughtfully, looking towards the closed door. “I have a feeling that Death Knight is going to be tough.”
“Yea, I don’t see how they expect a regular group to take on a room like this,” Tinyr said with a frown.
“I think that’s the developer’s way of encouraging people to take the P&M exam. But, even with that, everyone would have to be higher than level 25.” I said, shaking my head.
“Eh, sorry for being pissy guys. I was just frustrated.” Yun said hanging his head in embarrassment, before looking at me questioningly. “Do you really think we have a chance against these guys?”
“I have some good ideas,” I replied, rubbing my chin thoughtfully. “As long as everyone is alright with dying a few times.”
“Ha, good one!” Yun said slapping my back a little too hard with a laugh. “You’re kidding, right?” Seeing the serious expression on my face, he hung his head low. “Ah man, I hate dying.”
“I thought you’d be used to it by now after your fight with The Syndicate,” I said without hesitation, cracking a grin.
This time everyone was more receptive to the battle plan I’d come up with on the fly. Even though there were some disagreements with some of the roles I’d handed out, everyone agreed to follow the plan. This time when Tinyr popped the door open, the entire team Stealthed silently into the room taking up our preplanned positions. Catching everyone’s eyes, I began counting down in team chat. Hitting zero, I sent my Flurry blast at the first shaman as Yun timed his attack with mine hitting the other simultaneously as the room exploded into action. Immediately the thrumming snick of Unalia’s Quick Shot came to my ear as Tinyr sprinted towards the Goblins still in Stealth while Sarka took up a forward position in front of the team. Yun and I each got two shots off before my follow-up Frost Nova spell locked everyone down as the enraged Vorgak the Brutal surged to his feet sending a cloud of blood-red magic coursing through the chamber with a bellowing shout.
Instantly, the entire team staggered as we each received a DOT called Blood Plague under our avatar’s picture. The red mist burned as it touched our skin and was breathed into our lungs. I swore as soon as I saw the properties of the DOT.
Blood Plague
Type: Disease
Target suffers 10 points of Dark Magic damage every second.
Duration: 30 seconds
Area of Effect: 10 Yard radius from the caster.
It wasn’t that the DOT was super powerful, but 300 points of damage against the entire team for just being near the caster could add up fast. Ignoring the burning sensation coursing through our bodies, Yun and I finished off the shamans and turned our focus towards the frozen fire mages as Vorgak brought his arm up casting another spell.
“RRRAAWWW!” The savage growl echoed around the room as a massive Worg appeared from out of nowhere next to the Death Knight. The beast was huge. Old battle scars crisscrossed the creature’s furry chest and back as its ferocious, yellow eyes locked onto me from across the room. As the Orc drew a massive two-handed sword from its back sheath, the Worg sprang into a bounding charge heading directly for me.
Swearing, I hurriedly finishing off the fire mage, before focusing my icy blasts on the new enemy tearing down on top of me. The overwhelming aura of hate that came from the beast turned my muscles to water as I fought against the terror welling up inside my chest. This enraged beast wasn’t any simple level 30 hungry wolf. This was a unique, scarred monster coming to rip my heart out of my chest. Forcing away the fear that sapped at my strength, I wordlessly howled blasting at the monster with my magic for everything I was worth.
Even with the freeze effect, the Worg’s bounding leaps ate up the distance between us in the blink of an eye as it shrugged off my icy blows like they were nothing. Releasing my fifth blast, I whipped my shield and sword up at the last second as the monster smashed me against the wall like a cheap squeaky toy. Leaping on top of me, the beast’s jaws wrapped around my Iron-reinforced Defender as it shook its head like a dog tearing the head of a rat off, before flinging me to the ground some fifteen feet away.
With a hate-filled howl, the Worg pounced on top of me in one fluid motion. Rolling to my back, I drove my Brutal Skullsplitter blade deep into the creature’s shoulder as its fangs pierced my flesh with a crunch. Gasping for breath at the shooting pain, I began hammering at the bridge of the Worg’s muzzle with the edge of my shield with all of my strength.
For a timeless moment, I stared into the Worg’s burning eyes as I rolled my entire blade in a wide circle inside the creature�
��s body trying to shred its guts while the beast’s claws tore at my armor. With each punishing blow the Worg tried to force its fangs deeper into my shoulder, but thankfully the chain links embedded in the leather of my Marauder armor held fast until the edge of my shield finally shattered bones. With a splintering crack, my last overpowered blow snapped the beast’s fangs in the links of my armor as I drove its head into the ground.
Grinning savagely at the confused look on the Worg’s brutal face as it staggered backward in agony, I watched in relief as the creature’s health plummeted into the red from the massive internal damage I’d inflicted on its ugly ass. While my melee attacks had hurt it, it was the 3k worth of spell damage I’d handed out at the beginning of the fight that had truly finished the mob off. The bleed DOT ripped the last of the creature’s Hit Points away as it collapsed into a heap was just the icing on the cake as I climbed back to my feet. Spitting the blood from my mouth, I lunged forward driving my blade through the Worg’s skull killing it instantly as a bellow of anguish echoed throughout the chamber.
"Eg mun rifa innyfli bin ut meo klo greipar minar!“ The guttural shriek whipped my head around in time for me to throw up my shield just as a massive two-handed blade blasted me off my feet. Rolling across the ground, I heard the heavy blade clank again and again as Vorgak the Brutal lost all control. Bellowing in rage, the Orc cursed at me in its harsh language as its massive sword flailed at me again and again.
I scrambled to my feet as a cleaving slash whistled past the top of my head. The blade slammed into the ground where I’d just been a split second earlier as the boss bellowed after me like an enraged berserker, swinging his blade after me as if it were light as a feather. Stumbling backward, I fought for my life using my sword and shield to deflect the Death Knight’s attacks, knowing that one direct hit from the massive blade would split me in two if it connected. Still, no matter how well I fought, the overpowered blows threw me about the room like a rag doll. Blood streamed down my chest and legs from where the massive sword had caught me with glancing blows as I fought for my life.