by J. A. Hunter
But, she was also a total glass cannon: one good hit from an enemy was liable to wipe her out completely.
Cutter wasn’t anywhere to be seen. He was scouting ahead, ghosting through the shadows, using his abilities to disarm any potential traps well before we got there, while also keeping an eye out for potential opposition.
The hallway, which dove solidly for thirty or forty feet, eventually leveled out and opened into a wide room with a vaulted ceiling, which might’ve been a grand entry hall at some point in the far distant past. The place was all stone walls, massive earthen columns, and partially dilapidated statues marching along either side of the room. For all its former glory, though, time had really done a number here. Moss clung to most surfaces, creeping tree roots dangled from the ceiling in spots, and piles of rubble and debris littered the floor.
Despite the decrepitude, however, I could tell the place was currently inhabited.
Weak firelight, obscured by a hulking column in the center of the room, illuminated the far end of the chamber. A second later, Cutter stepped from a pocket of shadow, urging us all to silence with a finger raised across his lips. “Unfriendlies, up ahead,” he whispered as everyone pulled in close to hear him. “I disarmed several very nasty traps on the way in—spring-loaded spikes, a plate-triggered flame wall, a ceiling mounted buzz saw big as a horse. Someone definitely does not want visitors.”
“What about the unfriendlies?” I asked, still searching the room for any signs of movement.
“Tough. Not your typical brainless cave dwellers. These are real guards. Mercs. They’re sitting around the fire gabbing and eating, but they look dangerous.” He knelt down and began to trace a rough map into the dirt with a finger. “There’s a trio of plate-armored warriors, nearest to us”—he made three quick Xs in a rough semicircle—“a Ranger with a mean looking bow, on the left.” A hasty circle marked the Ranger’s position. “Plus two spellcasters, one might be a priest or a Warlock of some kind, here and here.” Two triangles, tucked away behind the Xs, entered the fray. He paused, turning his eyes on Abby. “What’s the plan, flame-lady?”
Otto turned, sharing a brief look with Abby, then nodded even though no words were spoken. “We’re going to play this one straight and simple. You and you”—he pointed to me and Cutter—“will Stealth out. Thief, you target the sorcerer. Grim Jack, you take the Ranger. I’ll give you both a fifteen count to get into position, then I’ll blunder out and draw their focus. Once the fighting begins, Abby will lay down wholesale suppressive firepower. Straight, simple, easy.” His speech was delivered coolly, practically, like a well-seasoned field general with a thousand engagements under his belt. “Well, don’t just stand there, move,” he barked.
Otto’s sheer confidence was more than enough to convince me, so I nodded and dropped into Stealth mode.
Cutter broke right and vanished, while I went left, slipping from broken statue to statue, maneuvering ever closer to the other end of the chamber. It didn’t take me long before I spotted the hostile party for the first time: Cutter hadn’t been joking, these guys looked tough as old boot leather. Two of the three melee fighters were hulking, muscle-laden Risi warriors in heavy plates that gleamed like polished onyx. The third, similarly attired, was a stocky female Dwarf with a blunt-faced mace at her side. A Templar or a Paladin of some kind, if I had to guess.
The sorcerer was garbed in fine battle robes of heavy blue silk. Flares of fanciful silver scrollwork ran over the outfit in elaborate swirls. The priest, a Dawn Elf, wore plain brown robes, but the heavily worked staff he carried suggested he wasn’t a lightweight either. Last was the archer, decked out in muted black leather armor; she was the only one not crowded around the fire. Instead, the vigilant huntress leaned against the far wall, a pair of large brown wings folded up behind her, her hawkish eyes roving ceaselessly over the terrain.
I gulped. She was my mark.
Truthfully, the thought of merking these guys made me salivate—I bet they had some phenomenal loot. Only part of me felt that way, though. The other part of me felt terrified, because even a casual glance at the party told me they were way out of our league.
I fidgeted with my warhammer, adjusting and readjusting my grip as I stalked my victim, carefully placing every foot, checking every step so I wouldn’t alert anyone prematurely. If Cutter and I lost the element of surprise and the backstab bonus that came with it, we didn’t have any shot at all. At one point, just a few feet away from the archer, I put a foot down on a piece of stone which made a barely audible clack. I froze, because as soft as the sound had been, the Ranger’s eyes locked on my position like an owl spotting a field mouse.
For a long, tense beat I stood there, unmoving, unbreathing, sweat rolling down my face and slicking my palms.
Then her gaze softened and shifted as a noise came from the front of the cave—the clomp of heavy footfalls on damp earth. Otto. Thank god.
The group of NPCs mobilized in a heartbeat, standing from their spots around the fire and moving almost as one toward the center of the chamber. The winged Ranger glided past me, her eerie yellow eyes fixed dead ahead, the tip of one wing almost close enough to graze me. I wheeled about, bringing up my hammer, preparing for my strike, but stopped just shy as Otto came into view.
Curiously, the hostile NPCs didn’t attack. Rather, the priest in the burlap-looking robes shouldered his way to the front of the party, his head canted to the side, his face screwed up in a picture of puzzlement. “Who are you?” he asked at last, his voice a resonant baritone. “How did you get here? You don’t have the seal of Lord Carrera, yet here you are in an area reserved for him. Explain yourselves or perish.”
I held my hammer in upraised hands, trembling with indecision. What’s going on here? What should I do? Strike or hold?
Abby stepped forward from the entryway tunnel, her heavy cowl obscuring her face completely. “We are servants of Lord Carrera, the owner of this reserved area,” she replied smoothly, confidently. I knew Abby well enough to hear the bluff in her voice, but it was still a convincing performance. “I wasn’t told to expect your party,” she continued, hands carefully smoothing out her robes, “so can you please explain what you are doing here? What is the role and function of your group?”
“We’re the mercenaries,” the priest replied, eyes narrowing in suspicion. “Mercenaries hired to lead Lord Aleixo Carrera through this dungeon, to help him and his party power-level and claim the treasure at the dungeon’s end. That is the nature of our contract. If you are Lord Carrera’s servants, why aren’t you aware of these details?” On some unspoken cue, the mercenary warriors pulled free their weapons, the rasp of steel on leather hanging in the air. “Unless, of course, you are schemers and connivers.” The words oozed scorn like venom. “Give me the pass code. Now.”
The priest’s tone said no nonsense or further delays would be tolerated.
Abby hesitated for a second longer, her body tight with indecision. Otto solved the problem for everyone by charging forward with a bellowing roar, his meaty sword flying from its sheath as he moved. The Ranger drew an ebony recurve bow and sighted in—
It was now or never, I knew. So I leapt, bringing my warhammer down before she could unleash a volley of arrows at Otto and Abby.
EIGHTEEN:
Firestorm
I drove the nasty spike of my weapon into the Ranger’s back, aiming for one of her feathered shoulder joints. And I triggered my Savage Blow skill as I did it, increasing both my critical hit chance while adding a whopping 25% increased damage to the attack. Her bowstring snapped as she unleashed an arrow, but the shot went wide as she fell under my hammer, shrieking from the pain of my surprise attack. The spike punctured feather, skin, and muscle with ease, and the sheer force of the strike snapped the base of her wing bone with a sharp report that almost sounded like gunfire.
Her HP bar dropped below 50%—a critical hit combined with the added damage of a Stealth attack and my special blunt weapon move. A
brutal combination.
I yanked my weapon free as she wheeled toward me, slinging her bow in one practiced movement, then drawing a wickedly sharp knife. She lunged at me with an enraged shriek, lashing out with a lightning quick thrust. I dropped back, raising my dinky wooden shield in a sloppy attempt to block, which I knew from the get-go wasn’t going to do me a lick of good. And I was right. She was far too quick, shifting her weight as she moved, sidestepping right, then hooking the blade past my guard. The razor slid into my gut as though I were wearing a silk nightshirt instead of leather armor.
I staggered under the terrible blow, the pain a hot poker wriggling inside me, making it hard to think. I sputtered, red burbling from between my lips and dribbling down my chin. She pulled the knife free with a grunt, my blood gleaming along the edge, and jabbed upward with a merciless heave, the tip aimed at my neck. With a desperate jerk, I batted away the incoming blade with the shaft of my hammer, diverting the potentially deadly thrust. She didn’t seem to mind, though; she simply spun, catching me in the jaw with an elbow, before dropping low and slashing her blade across my exposed thigh.
Totally outclassed.
I went down like a sack of concrete, my bleeding leg refusing to support my weight, while my health bar flashed like an angry strobe light. With gritted teeth I pushed away from her, using my elbows to scramble back, to gain some extra distance. She moved forward with a feral sneer, her blade upraised—a mountain lion, preparing to maul some weak, injured deer. I fought to bring up my buckler, knowing it wouldn’t do any good against an opponent like this, but doing it anyway. I wasn’t going down without a fight. I flinched as she lunged, steeling myself for the agony of a killing blow—
A wall of super-hot air thumped into me like a giant unseen hand as an explosion ripped through the chamber. A deafening boom, which sent rocks scattering as great gouts of fire snaked and twisted around me.
The sheer force of the detonation slammed me back, my head slapping up against a piece of rough stone. With all that said, the brilliant wave of flame didn’t actually do any damage to my HP meter, which meant Abby had to be the caster. When I finally mustered the strength to lift my head, the Ranger was no longer looming over me. Instead, she was rolling on the ground a few feet away, trying desperately to extinguish the hungry red flames crawling over her body, chewing mercilessly at her skin and hair. Her feathered wings were completely gone, now, replaced by blackened nubs jutting from her shoulder blades.
It was an awful scene to witness, game or not. The medic in me demanded I check her breathing, get some pressure dressings on those horrendous shoulder wounds, and slap some WaterJel on the burns for pain relief. Every instinct in my body said that’s what I needed to do. Instead, I accessed my inventory, drained a health potion, then hastily gained my feet as the elixir went to work, knitting my torn flesh back together.
Mustering as much speed as I could, I padded over to the dying bird-woman and brought my hammer down on her throat with a sickening thud.
For a long moment I just stood there, staring down at the body, staring at the woman’s crushed trachea, fighting the terrible urge to vomit onto the floor. This was the first human I’d killed since entering V.G.O., and it was awful. Why would someone design a game like this? A game that’d force office workers, schoolteachers, and retail clerks into situations where they’d be forced to murder people in gory detail?
Another brilliant lance of flame streaked across my vision, jarring me from my own thoughts.
On instinct, I pulled my hammer away and took a quick survey of the room: the spellcaster was already dead by Cutter’s hand, and one of the melee warriors was down as well, his head nearly cleaved off by Otto’s vicious sword blade. That left the priest and two other fighters. Abby was going to town with her magic—slinging powerful and flashy spells at the enemy swordsman—while Otto and Cutter fought the beefy Templar woman head-on. Otto drew aggro as Cutter danced around her in a whirl of steel, his blades flashing out in streaks of silver, drawing blood with every swipe.
That left the priest, who was currently in the back, chanting some sort of divine spell.
A chanting priest was too dangerous to ignore.
I tried to slip back into Stealth, but failed. My stamina was too badly depleted from my scuffle with the Ranger.
So instead, I broke into a sprint—low-grade panic spurring me on—ducking past the brawlers before throwing myself at the priest. I sailed through the air like a cruise missile and hit him around the waist, driving a shoulder into his gut. We both went to the ground in a tangle of limbs. He landed with a muffled curse, dust mushrooming up around him in a puff, while I ended up on top of him. A relieved smile broke across my face—I’d managed to interrupt his spell, even if my tactic hadn’t been elegant or graceful.
The priest awkwardly flailed at me with his staff, but without distance and leverage, the attacks were merely a nuisance instead of actually being harmful. Unfortunately, the same thing applied to me. Straddling the guy didn’t offer me much opportunity to use my hammer. I let the weapon clatter to the floor and promptly laid into him with my fists, working over his face and torso until he finally stopped struggling. Not dead—his health bar still had over 25%—but stunned. Even after he stopped resisting, though, I kept hitting until someone finally dragged me off the bloody priest.
“You’re good, Grim Jack,” Cutter murmured, his arms wrapped around my chest, restraining me.
“But he’s still breathing,” I snarled, straining toward my hammer, ready to kill the priest. To finish him for good.
“We know,” Abby said, strutting over and kneeling next to the downed man. “And that’s a good thing. Hard to get a dead prisoner to talk, and I’ve got a feeling this guy has a few more things to tell us before his usefulness is exhausted.” She ran her hands over the priest’s downed form, palms a few inches above his body, while she chanted in some archaic language. Tendrils of fire, most as thin as my pinky, spread over him, wrapping him in a tight, brilliant cocoon of flame. Suddenly he lurched upright, lifted from the ground by Abby’s magic, though he was still unresponsive.
“Flame of Holding,” she said, glancing at me over one shoulder. “This’ll keep him immobile while we question him.” Next, she stood and pulled a red vial from her bag, identical to the one I’d chugged a few moments before. She regarded the glass bottle, before uncorking it and dumping the liquid into the priest’s slack mouth. After a long moment, the Dawn Elf sputtered and coughed, his body shuddering and shivering as he opened swollen eyes.
“Good work, Jack,” she said, patting me reassuringly on the forearm. “Now we don’t have much time—Aleixo Carrera and his thugs could show up any moment—so Otto and I are going to interrogate our friend here. See if we can’t get a heads-up about what we’re going into. In the meantime, you and Cutter loot these bodies. Sound like a plan? Oh, and you can keep whatever you find.”
She didn’t even wait for me to respond. Instead she offered me a dimple-cheeked smile and dragged the priest off with Otto’s help.
Cutter finally let me go, offered me a hearty slap on the back, then swaggered over to the body of the mage he’d killed and began searching the bloody corpse. Happy as a kid on Christmas morning. I shuffled from foot to foot as I eyed the brutalized and smoldering Ranger. The last thing I wanted to do was go and pick over her charred and battered body, but loot was loot. Still, it felt dirty. Wrong. But, loot was the goal of these kinds of games, I reminded myself. Cheap loot meant money in the bank. And good loot meant life. Good loot meant power. Influence. Status.
Good loot reduced the chance of being killed or feeling the pain of this place.
With a sigh, I headed over, squatted down, then began checking her person.
Thankfully, like with the Corrupt Valdgeist, I didn’t actually have to search her pockets or rip the armor from her body. An inventory menu popped up in front of me, displaying my spoils. I whistled. Very impressive. The boots were standard leather, thoug
h of “superior” quality, which meant they were a heck of a lot better than what I was currently sporting. I slipped them on without a qualm, then turned my sights on her armor, which was truly a cut above:
Night Blessed Armor.
Dark black leather covered in swatches of ebony ring mail in the most vulnerable places—like along the shoulders, across the stomach, and down the spinal column. It was medium armor, instead of the light armor I’d used up to this point, which offered better defense, though slightly reduced speed, movement, and evade bonuses.
Night Blessed Armor
Armor Type: Medium; Modified Leather
Class: Rare
Base Defense: 62
Primary Effects:
+5 to Constitution
15% Resistance to Piercing Damage
15% Resistance to Slashing Damage
10% Resistance to all Elemental and Arcane-Based Damage
I threw the armor on and instantly felt stronger, more resilient, less tired. Lastly, I snatched up a beautiful recurve bow with a +10 Dexterity boost and a 10% increased chance to evade, worth a staggering 150 gold, and also pocketed a small bag of silver coins.
I moved on to the next body, one of the warriors Otto had killed, and began the process all over again. This time rummaging through the belongings of a butchered NPC didn’t bother me quite so much, which was a little troubling in itself.
In the end, I walked away with another 225 in gold, a Ring of Slaying—+5 to Strength—and Heavy Firesteel Gauntlets, worth another cool 75 gold. I hadn’t been to a proper store yet, but I imagined these kinds of weapons and armor weren’t the types of gear lowbies were supposed to get. I wasn’t sure what else awaited us inside this dungeon, but if these were the door prizes, it had to be something epically awesome.