by Charles Dean
“Well, what do you think, boss?” Mclean asked, everyone turning to face Darwin this time.
“We really shouldn’t give this dungeon the cold shoulder,” he punned poorly. Despite the fact that no-one laughed, he couldn’t help but smile and follow it up with an even worse attempt at wordplay. “Come on, guys. Don’t leave my joke out in the cold.” Still, nothing but the distant chirping of lava-bugs followed his remarks. “You guys will warm up to puns one day.”
“Okay, let’s stop the old man with the dad jokes before we hear any ‘call me a doctor’ jokes,” Daniel said, shaking his head.
Darwin sighed. “Let’s just do this.”
“You sure you don’t know when Kass is going to be on?” Kitchens asked as they opened the door. “It’s kind of strange to see Valerie and Kass both missing at the same time.”
“Kass isn’t missing. She’s probably just asleep . . .” Darwin didn’t know how to breach that subject exactly. Do I tell them, ‘Oh, yeah, Kass . . . No, she came over to join me for dinner last night, took a few looks at my face and fainted from how horrendous I must appear? Or do I just keep pretending that she’s just an Internet-only friend?
Kass had not only fainted, but she had still not woken up even though it was well into the next morning. She hadn’t missed anything, however. As soon as she passed out, the dinner was wrapped up, and Darwin, unable to actually get to sleep even after entering the real world, ended up watching ‘just one more episode’ over and over again with Stephanie until light creaked through the bedroom windows. By that time, he figured it was about time to enter Tiqpa and start farming before Hunger got ahead of him. He had checked to see if Kass was awake and if she wanted to join them, but when he entered the room and tried to get her out of bed, all he was greeted with was a type of snoring that was somewhere between two sawmills competing against each other and a T-Rex trying to blow his nose even though the tissues wouldn’t reach. After several failed attempts to talk over the woman’s possessed slumber-speak, he finally gave up and left the room defeated. It was probably for the best. He doubted that the first thing she’d want to be greeted with would be the very thing that made her pass out in the first place.
“What about Valerie? Do you guys know where she is? Isn’t she always one of the first ones on in the mornings?”
“Yeah, boss, no idea. I sent her two messages through the in-game forum, telling her where we were going and what we were doing, but I haven’t seen her on all morning, and she didn’t mention anything yesterday about having plans. I’m actually really concerned about her.” Daniel sighed. His face looked like that of a father whose daughter had stayed out all night partying and forgot to call and check in.
“You geezers are too worried about nothing,” Minx said, rolling around in the snow. While the others debated about whether or not to enter the dungeon without their missing members, she had somehow managed to turn herself into a sort of Minx-filled snow burrito with Fuzzy Wuzzy’s help. The only thing not covered by rolled-up snow was her head as she stuck her tongue out at them. “Old men shouldn’t worry so much about young ladies.”
“Hey, I’m not that old!” Daniel protested, packing a ball of snow and tossing it at her undefended face.
“Hey! Dad! Stop him!” Minx tried to use the time-honored dance technique, the worm, to move her human-snow-burrito self away as Daniel hit her with another powdery projectile, but she didn’t make it very far.
“Hmmm. Did you make your bed this morning?” Kitchens asked as a third snowball hit his daughter, this one from Mclean.
“I . . . I’ll get to it! Just . . . Just help me!” she protested, clearly guilty of failing to do her chores.
“Hmm . . . And will you clean the bathroom too?”
“Ugh, no no. I’d rather suffer the balls of snow!” Minx protested with a frown, resigned to her fate.
Fuzzy Wuzzy, who had been watching this with a rather bemused look on his face, rolled up a giant snowball the size of Daniel, and tossed it at Minx too, leaving only a giant ball where her face had poked out of the snow roll.
“Mphh!!!” came a muffled sound from the Minx snowball.
“Should one of us like get her out?” Darwin asked as he stared at the snow-covered teen.
“You’re going to tell me she’s strong enough to stab through a Blue-Drake’s skull with one thrust, but can’t clear away a few pounds of snow?” Kitchens looked at the spot where his daughter lay. “She’s just being Minx.”
Darwin, not entirely sure what that meant, used his fiery blade to melt away the top layer of snow and free the frozen teenager.
“Ah! I can always count on Darwin to free the cute and pretty princess!” Minx cheered as her arms and head shot out through the remaining thin layer of snow.
“I thought it was you who rescued him in the last big boss fight?” Kitchens chuckled.
“Shhh, quiet quiet. Don’t you know? Men get embarrassed when you have to carry them across the threshold instead.” Minx stabbed Darwin’s ego as she reminded the whole group how she had been the one to catch and carry him to victory when he almost died during the fight with the dragon.
Daniel and Mclean, both of whom had been absent, exchanged odd glances. “You two tied the knot?” Mclean asked, misinterpreting the ‘carry through the threshold’ reference. “Strange, I didn’t expect you to rob the cradle, Darwin.”
Kitchens’ face went uncharacteristically red at the joke. “They did not,” he insisted firmly.
“Hey! Easy there, grandpa. A girl has to make her own choices.” Mclean threw another verbal dagger in Kitchens’ mood, all the while beaming a big, bright smile at him. “And there are worse options than Darwin, you know?”
“Alright, enough!” Darwin decided to end that conversation before he found a katana from Kitchens in his backside. “You two trying to get me killed?” he asked the two girls, both of whom now wore the most fake and innocent faces they could muster.
“Ooo, I love it when he gets mad. It’s so cute when he’s serious.” Mclean was having a field day at Darwin’s expense.
Kitchens exchanged a glance with Darwin, then gave him a wink letting Darwin know that any malicious intent was gone. “Darwin, I think you need to spank one of your guild members before she causes you to lose too much face. Can’t have a naughty angel embarrassing you.”
“Mmm . . . You think that would work? She looks like the type that might enjoy being disciplined too much,” he laughed.
The shameless comments left a puzzled Minx blushing a bit, but Mclean just laughed.
“We have to be a little careful going in here. Nir’s information says that the mobs are color-coded, so assigning targets should be pretty easy,” Daniel said, bringing the subject back to something entirely unsexy before the joking got too inappropriate.
“They are color-coded?” Darwin’s face contorted at the strange notion of such a kiddy game cliché in a game that tried to maintain realism. “Like most difficult to least difficult?”
“No, they are segregated by class and ability,” Daniel began to explain. “Apparently, the blue ones are the tanks and will try to get in your way and block you at every chance, the yellow ones are the healers, and the red ones do the most damage.”
“So we need to kill the yellow ones, then the red ones and then the blue ones--and in that order if possible?” Darwin understood the tactic that would be needed right away. Games, even ones like Tiqpa, were still often heavily centered around number exchanges, even if the numbers weren’t visible. If they couldn’t do more damage than the healers, the fight would go nowhere. It would be like trying to pay off credit card bills when the interest rate exceeded your income--there’d just be no point in trying. That was why it would help to kill the healers first. In theory, they should take more damage than tanks, and once they were dead, the entire fight would take a lot less time. Every second they were alive they would be undoing valuable damage that had already been dealt.
“Yep. When
we get in there, we just need to take out those yellow guys first, and the rest should be smooth sailing,” Daniel said with a nod.
“Alright, that shouldn’t be hard if they’re only Level 60.” Darwin clapped Daniel on the back. “Let’s do it!”
“Wait, you don’t want to make snow angels first?” Daniel teased for a moment, flapping his wings once as an obvious taunt at Minx.
“No no! Kill kill!” she replied, brushing off the remaining snow and pulling out a pair of newly-acquired daggers. “Stabby stabby some yeti yeti!”
“I don’t think the bad guys will be yetis,” Kitchens said, patting her on the head as they walked up to the dungeon door and slowly opened it. “But they might be . . .”
“Snow cones with sprinkles on top!” Minx shouted enthusiastically as the door swung open, indeed revealing a set of mobs that could only be described as floating snow cones with sprinkles and cherries. As Daniel had mentioned in his briefing, the baddies were indeed different colors. There, in front of the intrepid band of warriors, stood an assortment of devilish desserts: three blue snow cones, two red and two yellow. There was also an ominous black snow cone lurking behind the colorful ones.
The mob design matched the theme of the dungeon, which seemed to be something of a winter wonderland. Each section of the dungeon was covered with snow flakes that circulated from the floor to the walls and back up to the roof, where they would fall and repeat the process. It was as if the dungeon was comprised of automated snow globes.
“Great.” Darwin facepalmed. Please tell me this was randomly generated from some weird AI function of search words thrown together and that someone didn’t actually design this dungeon. Darwin sighed. He just didn’t understand how they could go from fighting hideous insect monsters to snow cones with sprinkles in less than five minutes and after only walking through one door. This was too random.
“Okay, now, I know you said that the yellow ones were the healers, and that we needed to kill them first . . .” Mclean started, but Minx immediately finished her thought.
“Ewwwwww! I don’t want to touch the yellow snowmen! I know how they’re made!” She pointed her finger at her mouth and made a gagging sound as she complained.
“So you want to fight the blue and red ones first because you don’t want to touch the yellow ones?” Darwin laughed. This snow cones with sprinkles-on-top mob set was already becoming more problematic than he had first expected.
“Uhhh . . . What is the black one?” Minx asked instead of answering Darwin’s question.
“Daniel, did Nir have any information about that?” Darwin looked at the black snow cone. Even though it was the same size and shape as the other floating icy delights, this one gave off a weird vibe that left Darwin on edge, almost making him want to pull back from the attack altogether.
“No . . . which is rare. The guy has a guide on everything. It may just mean that the dungeon hasn’t been attempted more than once, and those that tried it gave a spotty report.”
“Or that a group of people bailed before they could finish the report,” Kitchens offered with a shrug. It wasn’t the most positive possible outcome, but it was still a very real possibility.
“Or it could be a ZombCone!” Minx added, gigglier than usual, even after her grossed out reaction. “Maybe that is their fallen friend, risen back as a delicious dark dessert to be eaten. Every time he kills another player, a new topping is added. Soon, he’ll be granted nuts and chocolate chips!”
Darwin was almost tempted to join in on her wild speculations, but instead decided to just get the dungeon going before any guessing about the blue or red snow cones’ origins came into play. “Alright, you know what, I’ll just kill the yellow snow cones with Mclean and Daniel. Minx, if you don’t want to help with them, how about you work with Kitchens and Fuzzy Wuzzy to keep those red and blue ones off us. Daniel, I know you’re going to be fighting with me, but try to watch the behavior of that black one. Let me know if anything funny starts to happen, or if you have a guess as to what role it has.”
“Wait, you’re going to make me put my hands into yellow snow cones?” Mclean gasped. She obviously wasn’t hot about the idea either.
“Hopefully it’ll just be your daggers,” Daniel chuckled.
“I’m just happy it’s not my job.” Kitchens patted Minx on the head. “Good job, Minx.”
Fuzzy Wuzzy growled his approval too.
“Okay, you two go pull them. We’ll sneak through and gank their healers.” Darwin gave out the orders, pulling out his giant, flaming zweihander. He expected the fight to start right away, but Kitchens held up his hand as if to pause and stopped everyone.
“Wait, what does ‘gank’ mean?” he asked, showing his age.
“You’re not too old to play, are you?” Mclean smirked at him. “It means gang shank, group kill, surprise stab. I don’t know. It’s something like that. It just means that Darwin, Daniel and I are all going to go attack the same target at once while all the others are focused on you three.”
“Ah, fair enough. Carry on then.” Kitchens pulled out his sword and began his samurai-stride towards the first enemy.
Darwin and his group of yellow-snow-cone-killers waited patiently as Minx, Kitchens and Fuzzy Wuzzy each went up and started attacking the enemy snow cones. At first, it looked like Kitchens was simply going to do his usual trick where he walked up and cut one of the enemies in half, but as his blade made contact with one of the snow cones, a giant hexagonal shield blocked his katana before it even got close to shaving any ice off his target. Two giant icicles appeared behind one of the red snow cones and flew at Kitchens, forcing him to step back and deflect them with his blade. Minx and Fuzzy Wuzzy ran into the same bad luck, except Fuzzy Wuzzy couldn’t dodge and ended up being impaled by one of the ice blades. Fortunately for Fuzzy Wuzzy, it didn’t seem to do much damage, but the roar he let out when it hit sounded pretty bad.
“Crap, I’m going to sub for Fuzzy Wuzzy,” Darwin decided after he saw the event. “Daniel, Mclean, you two go hit that healer. Fuzzy Wuzzy, retreat until they stop attacking you.” Darwin almost said, ‘until you lose aggro,’ but didn’t know if the bear could understand commands that were laid out in gamer speak. ‘Aggro’ was a common word among gamers, but he couldn’t be positive it was put into the game’s lexicon for recognizable phrases, and he still wasn’t sure what type of system gave Fuzzy Wuzzy intelligence or even how intelligent he was to begin with.
Darwin jumped between the black bear and a series of fresh icicles coming from the red snow cones just in time to block them before his pet took any more damage. Then, after having deflected the red snow cone’s attack, he swung at one of the blue cones to try and inflict some damage. Just like with Kitchens, however, his blade harmlessly clanked off a magical set of yellow hexagons that popped up and protected the blue enemy.
He swung a few more times, and he could tell that the shielding slowly started to grow fainter, losing color and opacity like a picture fading away on a television set. Unfortunately for Darwin, before he could batter the pesky hexagons from existence, they renewed, regaining all the luster they had lost under his barrage. What the hell? Never having run into a real party combo in Tiqpa, this healer shield was almost foreign to him. Most mobs--and players, for that matter--that he had encountered so far had only been focused on damage-dealing.
“Darwin, the yellow guys are spreading yellow stuff everywhere! I can’t do damage!” Minx complained on the other side of the battle field.
“Just a moment,” Daniel called to them as his and Mclean’s daggers dug into the healer cone over and over again like four straws all vying for position as they tried to get the last bit of liquid from the bottom of a movie theater slushy. “There!”
Sure enough, as soon as Daniel had signaled them, Darwin drove his burning blade right through his opponent, melting the creature into a mess of blue liquid. He still had trouble deflecting and dodging the red icicles, but without the yellow shield up pr
otecting the blue tanks, they were able to finish the job easily enough. One by one, the three cones went down and the battle was almost over. Just as they finished off the others, the odd black snow cone condensed into a small black snowball that was tiny enough to fit in one’s hand with room left over for two or three more.
“What do you think we do with that?” Mclean asked, pointing at the floating black ball.
“I . . . I don’t know. It looks like an item. Why don’t I just put it in my inventory and figure it out later?” Darwin asked rhetorically as he stashed the item. They were gamers--of course they were going to take something that had the option to be looted.
“Hey, boss, I need to take your place in the next fight,” Daniel said to him.
“Do you not think you can damage them fast enough?” Darwin misunderstood Daniel’s motivations.
“Those yellow ones . . . Their shielding spell appears to be stronger than any of the player versions I’ve read about. We need them to turn into red-eyes. Our team has no healers at all right now,” Daniel reasoned. “What if we run into a boss that does damage we can’t avoid? A few of those yellow guys might help keep us all from dying instantly.”
“Well . . .” Darwin was about to answer with ‘You’re the boss,’ but he figured that might be in poor taste since, technically, that was still his own role. Sometimes, however, with the way Daniel came up with layouts and formations, battle strategies, group tactics and general logistics, it often felt like he was more in control of the planning than Darwin. “That does sound about right. You sure you don’t want to just steal a whole group and play chess while they level us up?”
Daniel raised a finger as if he had something to say, then lowered it. “I guess not. Maybe just the yellow guys.”
“Alright then, that should be easy enough. Let’s go get us some yellow snow cones.” Darwin laughed and began the walk towards the next group of mobs.