Mixing It Up (The World Book 2)

by Jason Cheek

  “I’m sorry guys. We really do appreciate the help, but we are going to have to head back to the graveyard to rescue the rest of our team before they’re spawned camped to death. Shit, this whole thing is turning into a complete mess.” Watching the players that had been nervously waiting behind the Valkyrie teams stream into the dungeon, the young tank ran a shaking hand through his hair. “I know we did what was needed, but still … Lylirra is going to be so pissed.”

  “Relax guys, that’s not going to be a problem.” Yun grinned waving his thumb back over his shoulder. “Star is taking care of that now.”

  “Starfire? What the hell can he do?” Kyarina asked slightly miffed. I had to laugh at the woman’s constant attitude. There was no doubt she still held a bit of a grudge from our first meeting. Hell, I’m sure she wasn’t exactly happy at having us beat them to the Prisoner Rescue quest. Even funnier, as soon as the words left her mouth, a golden glow surrounded the body of their level 20 priest. As the Valkyrie players’ heads whipped around in surprise, Kyarina’s mouth dropped open in confusion.

  “What the hell spell was that?”

  “Who had the resurrection spell?” Lylirra asked in a weak voice as she sat up looking around in surprise. Kyarina’s incredulous look of shock was the icing on the cake. Giving her a wink, I sat down without a word. Pulling out a water flask from my bag, I began restoring my Mana for the next cast. While showing up Kyarina as a healer was fun, I really didn’t have it out for her. Mostly, I just wished I was there to see PvPers’ faces when they realized the Valkyrie players they’d killed weren’t respawning at the graveyard.

  Players like Snufu’s group and The Syndicate were what gave PVPers a bad name. It was one thing to do a Battlegrounds or an Arena Fight. Hell, even having general PVPing areas that people knew ahead of time they faced the possibility of having to PVP was okay. It was an entirely different thing when people used PVP to brutalize and bully other players. Staking out ownership of a public dungeon, teaming up with people only to gank them by surprise as soon as they were away from town, it was shit like that which gave PVPers a bad rap.

  Guilds like The Syndicate flexed their muscles believing that their massive player base alone would keep the smaller guilds and regular players in line to follow their made up rules. Frickin cocksuckers the lot of them. So far I’d cleaned their clocks everytime we’d met. The good thing at this level of the game was that there was no fast travel to allow guilds to truly bring their full power to bear, which was good for anyone standing up to these large, powerful groups but once everyone leveled up this advantage would disappear. That’s why we had to be ready. Looking out at the Valkyrie players joking with my new guildmates, I smiled widely. Having friends that were willing to fight alongside us was always a good thing.

  “So are you going to explain to me how you managed to get that resurrect spell or not?” Kyarina huffed, sitting down beside me.

  “Sure, just let me get raise Julianna and Jorgen first before they respawn at the graveyard,” I said standing up as I began my second cast. It was tight, but I managed to get to both Valkyrie players before their five-minute timer popped. After that, there were lots of questions to answer. I explained to Kyarina and the other Valkyrie healers about the resurrect spell’s requirements being only the amount of Mana a player had. Once they had that covered, it was just a matter of talking to one of the priests at the temple. Demonslayerz was a lot friendlier once Lylirra was back on her feet. The relief on his face said it all. Although they weren’t married, they were another gaming couple still in college that was playing together with their classmates and friends. Unsurprisingly, most of the Valkyrie players were college students around my age.

  The impromptu meeting ended up in a general discussion about how best to take down Kharborg Bonebreaker and Vorgak the Brutal. Both teams of Valkyrie players had managed to take out the named mob in the slaver area; only it wasn’t Cralo Gutripper. Also, there weren’t any more prisoners to rescue. From what the Valkyrie players were saying, many of their quests for the dungeon had disappeared. They were working on the shaman quest now, but it was giving both teams a hard time. To be honest, I found that somewhat surprising, since everyone on both teams was level 20 and had completed their advance P&M exam. Still, we offered up what advice we could.

  “How did you guys pass through the mushroom forest?” Jorgen asked as everyone in the Valkyrie team waited for our answer. We’d all sat down in a large circle to eat and drink to recover our Mana and Hit Points.

  “We fell back down the tunnel all the way to almost the entrance, just before the first room,” Tinyr said talking expressively with his hands.

  “Yea, once we saw the zerg rush of large rats heading for us, I knew there was no way we could fight at the entrance to the cavern,” I spoke up to explain the tactical decision I’d made. “There was just too much room for them to get in behind us.”

  “After that, we just had to face two or three rats at a time.” Tinyr cut in again, miming knife strikes excitedly.

  “Worst part was watching them eating through their own dead to reach us,” Sarka added, looking somewhat green.

  “And the smell afterward.” Unalia choked out as she covered her mouth and looking away.

  “Falling backstopped us from wiping.” I agreed. “My only suggestion for the shaman fight is making sure your priests have Holy Shield and to have your tank keep the boss as far away as possible from the rest of the group. Otherwise, you’ll wipe.”

  “Why’s that?” Vardrid asked as Kyarina caught Yun’s eye. “What’s the spell’s stats?”

  “The shaman casts chain lightning,” I answered, figuring that was explanation enough as Yun posted the stats of Holy Shield in our raid chat. “As long as the tank can hold the boss’ agro at a distance, the rest of the team won’t get hit by the spell.”

  “Wow, Holy Shield is a freaking game changer!” Kyarina said excitedly.

  “Yea it is, but you’ll need to plan on having an off-tank for the fight.” Sarka chipped in, meeting the priest’s grin with one of her own. “The boss summons a bunch of Wererats that need to be taken down first. Otherwise, it’s pretty straightforward.”

  “So basically not much different than the Slave Master fight,” Jorgen said nodding his head slowly.

  “Any tips for Vorgak?” Demonslayerz asked.

  “The start of the fight is pretty rough. Focus on taking out the casters first.” I said thinking back over the fight. “The Orc and his pet both hit pretty hard, but they’re tankable, at least until the rest of the team finishes off the adds. Just make sure everyone cuts the heads off of the corpses.”

  “That’s not disturbing or anything.” Kyarina mewed, scrunching up her face in disgust.

  “It stops the Boss from raising the dead as zombies for the next phase of the fight.” I continued ignoring the overly sensitive woman. “Zombies with the same skills as they had in life.”

  “Or skeletons for the last phase,” Sarka spoke up sagely. “Which don’t have the skills like the Zombies, but are tough as nails.”

  “Yea, but I don’t think just cutting their heads off will work for the last phase of the fight,” Yun said thoughtfully. “Star and I blasted those casters into icy sludge at the beginning of the fight.”

  “Makes the rest of the fight a lot easier.” I agreed. Climbing to my feet, I held out a hand for Yun as I thrust my chin at the rest of the team. “It’s time for us to head back. Are you guys planning to do another run or are you going to head back to town with us?”

  “Thanks for the information,” Demonslayerz said rising to his feet as he signaled for the rest of his people to do likewise. “If you’all don’t mind waiting. We need to loot our gear from inside the instance before heading back, but …” Meeting his guildmates eyes tiredly for agreement, he continued his train of thought. “Until Kyarina and Lorelai can learn Holy Shield, we might as well wait like you said to take on those two bosses afterward.”

  The
re was some grumbling around the circle, but at the same time, everyone agreed with Demonslayerz’s strategic evaluation. As a group, we took up a position next to the portal as each team took turns completing their corpse runs back inside the instance. We all knew that at any time The Syndicate could show up for their gear and a second shot at revenge, so we kept a close watch on the area around the instance’s teleportation crystal. Luckily, everyone’s bodies were automatically warped to the entrance of the instance, so the process went relatively quickly. The funniest part was that once everyone collected their gear, we all looked like we were wearing the same uniform, except for Sarka and me, the entire raid was wearing black Marauder leathers. I was impressed to see that the Valkyrie casters weren’t wearing the typical long robes that I’d seen most casters wearing in town. Although, I was somewhat surprised that none of the Valkyrie players were wearing the red Slave Master’s armor like Sarka. Stepping up next to us while waiting for the raid to get into position to teleport to the entrance, Demonslayerz shook his head sadly.

  “Damn, it’s too bad we couldn’t have teamed up together for a run. Are you guys done with this dungeon or are you’ all planning to run it again tomorrow?”

  “Well, we plan on doing another run tomorrow as soon as we find a good tank,” Sarka said, cocking her eyebrow at the Valkyrie warrior. “You wouldn’t happen to know anyone who’d be interested in running the dungeon with us tomorrow, would you?”

  “I might know of a good tank who’d be interested,” Demonslayerz said, leaning forward with a cocky grin.

  “Hmmm, you don’t say …” Sarka said, giving the young man a shit eating grin. “The only thing is, if they’re not at least level 25, then they're going to need to take the off-tank position for the run.”

  “Ohhh, so that’s how it is?” Demonslayerz complained with a matching smile as the closest Valkyrie members of the raid laughed, calling out how he’d been burned. It was all good-natured teasing, and Sarka had carried it off to a T.

  “What, Startum needs to take tomorrow off or something?” Demonslayerz asked as the ‘ah burns’ died down.

  “Yea, he has to complete the next part of his Nightmare quest,” Sarka said, nodding at me. “We all knew he only had yesterday and today to do runs before he had to head back.”

  “You’re the first player I’ve met with a Nightmare start. How bad was it?” Demonslayerz asked.

  “I appeared in the middle of a slaughterhouse. The first fight was my level 0 against four level 10 Elite Goblins Raiders.” I answered with a shake of my head.

  “Damn! Did you at least get a boosted weapon to start off with?” Demonslayerz asked in surprise.

  “Nope, just a Frost Blast spell and a basic short sword.” I shrugged. “Got my first decent weapon off the Goblins I took down.”

  “Respect man,” Demonslayerz said, thumping his chest with a fist. Looking around at the waiting raid gathered around the portal, he spoke loud enough for everyone to hear. “Looks like we’re ready to head back to town.”

  “What’re we gonna do if those Syndicate players show up?” Lorelai nervously asked.

  “We’ll just take them out again,” I said with a confident smile. “Only this time it’ll be that much easier now that everyone’s geared up.”

  Our group portal to the front of the instance created quite a stir with the lower level players as we appeared in our matching armor and gleaming weapons within their midst. Immediately the entire raid spread out into three defensive groups. Casters and hunters in the rear with melee fighters in the front. Seeing no Syndicate players in the crowd around the front of the entrance, I gave Demonslayerz a thumbs up and began moving towards the exit as I passed the information into the raid’s chat.

  Moving through the crowd was like seeing a high-end mercenary group passing through a company of weekend warriors. Most of them recognized the names of our guilds. You could see it in their eyes of the players we passed. You could hear it in their hushed, excited whispers. Many of these players were the same ones we’d helped the day before across the no-mans-land to the instance or protected against the higher level Syndicate players who were forcing them to pay money to enter the mine.

  Instead of being the same low levels, we were now the highest level group in the area with leet gear to boot. Our growth had been spectacular so far. Inside MMORGS such accomplishments gave a kind of celebrity status to players and their guilds, albeit until someone else caught the majority of the players’ eyes on the forums, which was key for any pro gamer wanting to get ahead of the pack and stay there. With all of the exposure, The Revenants could be a platinum size power guild in a matter of hours if we so choose, but growth from players seeking fame would only lead to the guild imploding from within. Instead, my friends and I chose to play tactically, completing quests with our own unique brand of style and strategies, only accepting people we trusted and enjoyed playing together with into the guild.

  It was nice to be once again wearing a complete set of matching armor that looked cool and would be good for the next several levels. One of the things I’d liked about Chaos Online was the ability to get matching sets of armor that would last for more than just a few levels, unlike my time in World of Warcraft where I spent most of my time running around looking like a bum because every level brought huge increases in even basic armor. The few times I did get a nice looking set of armor, I’d end up having to dump it a few levels later because it was completely out-of-date in the next area.

  Not that everyone loved matching armor sets. Surprisingly enough, there was quite a large division in gamers’ perspectives on the topic. Chaos Online actually used this as one of their themes to show the differences between their two different sides. Clan players were proud of their patch-work appearance and their poor resources of their cities, while corporate players reveled in their pristine armor and new equipment. While World of Warcraft was the better game at the time, the whole beggar appearance you were forced to wear until late end-game annoyed the hell out of me.

  My mind came back into focus as soon as my feet hit the steps as I saw the Syndicate’s raid battling two groups of Elite Goblin Worg Riders and the Worg patrol of mini-bosses. Well, what do we have here? I said in raid chat, advancing into the valley far enough for the Valkyrie players to spread out to either side.

  “Ready?” I asked as soon as the raid was in position. The rest of the team checked ready as Vardrid’s and Demonslayerz’s groups came to a stop to either side of us. As soon as Vardrid checked with his group, his voice rang out.

  “Let’s do this!” Raising his sword into the air, Demonslayerz turned around in place. Seeing he had everyone’s attention, his sword slashed down as he screamed. “Attack!”

  Immediately a wave of icy bolts and fiery blast shot out from the raid like a brilliant flare as the hunters’ bowstrings twanged sending out a flight of arrows. In front of both, the melee fighters sprang forward racing across the sands for the enemy. Before the first ranged attacks hit the Syndicate player’s raid, two more rounds of shimmering blasts had already been launched. In the blink of an eye, the fury of the range attacks decimated the front ranks as seven smoking, half-frozen corpses dropped to the ground.

  The next round of ranged attacks slammed home, taking out another seven players before the Syndicate players even knew we were there. By then there was nothing they could do as our melee fighters closed the distance. Like a brick wall, Sarka, Vardrid, and Demonslayerz crashed into the remaining enemy with a crunch as Tinyr disappeared into their midst, appearing a second later with his blades buried deep into Snufu back as the warrior cried out in agony, before collapsing dead to the ground.

  By then it was nearly over. The surviving Syndicate players were caught between a rock and a hard place as the elite Worg Riders fought in a savage frenzy to take them down, while our melee fighters hammered at their backs. At that same time, the remaining Valkyrie and Revenants players in the raid sprinted for the furball to support their teamma
tes. At knife cutting range, we stopped to blast the surviving Syndicate players one last time, this time taking everyone out but PunkuGood and Shankolots. Drawing my Brutal Skullsplitter, I lunged the last few feet skewering PunkuGood in the back with a Sneak Attack as Tinyr’s blades finished off Skankolots as the rest of the raid turned their fury on the leftover Worg Riders.

  Looking around urgently for Sarka, I found her a second later triumphantly taking down Gruk Bonebreaker, the new Orc Mini-Boss. As the last body fell, we all looked around at each in semi-shock at the ease at which we’d just wiped out twenty-five players and thirteen elite mobs. Laughing excitedly from the adrenaline rush of it all, I threw my head back and howled in triumph as the rest of the raid joined in shouting alongside me.

  It took a minute for everyone’s excitement to finally die down, but, even so, the happy grins of our victory didn’t fade. In short order, Demonslayerz, Vardrid and I got everyone moving. There wasn’t much time left before the Syndicate’s raid would respawn at the nearest graveyard, but in the three to five minutes that would take, we got everyone together to loot the bodies of the dead before moving out once again. We didn’t bother to spawn camp the Syndicate players at the graveyard, nor did they try to ambush us on our way through the forest which was lucky for them. I guess they finally decided being wiped out twice in a row by our raid was more than enough PVPing for one day. Even so, we still kept a close watch out for any surprises.

  When we reached the outskirts of the town, everyone was in good spirits. Even the guards didn’t spoil the mood as they hailed welcomingly in passing. As we neared the center of town, the raid broke up as players began heading their separate ways to complete side quests and get additional training. Demonslayerz, Vardrid, and Kyarina thanked us again for the save and promised to meet up with us at The White Unicorn later on for dinner. I was surprised to see the warm glow reflected in Kyarina’s eyes after the PVP since I knew she wasn’t a fan. Vardrid’s wink behind her back stopped me from asking any unwanted questions as we both shared a knowing smile. With the right equipment and support, a little PVPing was actually a lot of fun and paid pretty well when you were hunting down PVPers.