by M Helbig
Dumbus grinned stupidly at her.
“Yeah, we’d very much like to give this new fella a piece of our minds on your behalf,” Marknafian said. “Sounds like a real piece of work. Maybe we can even downsize him for you, if ya know what I mean.” He summoned his blunderbuss and slapped it into his palm.
“A nice thought,” the ogre said, “but that’s not how the rules of a dungeon work. If any of us die, we just come back a few hours later like nothing happened. And though I can make the stairs appear for myself, I can’t for anyone else. If you tried to follow me down, the magic protecting them would spit you back up here. There’s only one way for you to get down there.” The ogre resumed staring at the ground.
Olaf’s Sneak dropped in the middle of the pool and he flew out like he’d been shot from a cannon. He bounced off the wall and staggered to his feet. I cast Regrowth on him to get him back to full.
“What plan, Marknaf?” Dumbus asked.
Marknafian flew behind the large orc. “He’s level twenty-five. Normally, I’d say the only plan is to run, but the door back out just locked itself. The only chance we have is to work together with these lunks.” He turned to me. “Invite us to your group so we can coordinate.”
I stared at him in stunned silence for probably longer than I should have. I didn’t think it was possible to group with players of the opposing factions; however, when I tried, the game let me just like any other player.
“Oh great, now we can’t talk behind their backs,” Alizia said.
“No more talking behind their backs now,” Marknafian said simultaneously.
“Dumbus not know what Marknaf talking about. Dumbus only say nice thing about new friends. Make haiku about pretty green lady’s eyes.”
Alizia alternated between pointing her shield at the boss and at Dumbus. “Nope. I am not about to star in the S&S version of Romeo and Juliet. For one, it’s clichéd and this girl doesn’t do anything unless it’s new. For another, Shakespeare sucks.”
“And another, we have more important things to fight about.” I pointed toward the boss.
Alizia winked at me and marched to her usual position in front of the group.
“Dumbus not give up. Dumbus win heart through action and respectful persistence.” The orc split off toward her left to flank The Mad Shoveler.
Olaf reactivated Sneak. “What is our plan, by the way?”
“Easy,” Alizia said. “I get aggro in my usual, awesome way. Horus heals. Everyone else pummels it with the sweet DPS. We loot it and award everything to me. So simple that even Dumbus could follow it.”
“Dumbus find very easy to follow. Much eloquent.”
“OK,” Olaf said. “And how exactly is Horus supposed to keep up on heals when you’re getting pummeled mercilessly by something fifteen levels above you?”
“No idea,” Alizia banged her scepter against her shield. “I’m not the brains. I’m the beauty and sometimes the punching bag.”
“Lucky for you, you do have a ‘brain’ in your party.” Marknafian summoned something that looked like a fire hydrant coated in wires with four trumpet heads sticking out and pressed a button on top. The thing began to pump out a red-tinted gas. Satisfied that it was working, he pulled out a nearly identical one that pumped out a blueish gas. “Now as long as everyone sticks to their roles and doesn’t do anything Dumbus-like, these things should keep us up.” He turned to Dumbus. “Just focus on hitting the boss with your fists. The hydrants cost more than your house did back in Detroit.”
Dumbus laughed. “Joke on Marknaf. Dumbus live in apartment. For sake of pretty lady, Dumbus stay focus. Hit boss with extreme prejudice but in respectful, PC way.”
As the gas touched my skin, two new buffs appeared over my head. The first one was a heal-over-time effect that restored 100 HPs every five seconds. The second one reduced all non-magic melee damage by twenty-five percent.
“Jeez,” Alizia said. “I take back most of the bad things I said about you, Tinkerballs.”
“This will help a lot,” Olaf said. “But what about doing damage to him? With that armor class and hit points, it might take us a week to whittle him down.”
The pixie held up his glowing, golden blunderbuss. “If we all only had regular weapons, it would. Thankfully, I bring a gun for every resistance type there is. This one here does light damage against which he just so happens to be weak. By the way, I call all the loot on account of how expensive those buff pumps are.”
I stared at the two hydrants. “Agreed. Least we can do to pay you back.”
Alizia nearly spun around to object, but fortunately, she’d already landed the first blow a second before. The Mad Shoveler rose and retaliated with such force that even with her shield up, I was afraid he’d smash her through the floor. Everyone seemed to yell panicked instructions at once. The thought of how I’d failed her before and the ringing in my ears were all I could think about. His shovel skirted the edge of her shield, straight for her head and I finally started casting a Regrowth that I knew would be too late.
Alizia’s eyes met mine at almost the same time that the healing buff ticked off. Her HPs shot back up and then dropped as the shovel connected. My Regrowth took her a little farther up and after a string of successful blocks, she was back to full. A couple of minutes later, she was so safe she started yawning. I still threw Regrowths in anyway, more for my own peace of mind and to try to make up for my earlier failure than because she needed them.
I had to get it together. I was reverting to the old, confidence-impaired me that had failed the group so often. But the confident me had failed even worse. I needed something else, but what?
I looked to the group for answers. Dumbus was positioned behind the Shoveler toward the left, and Olaf was on the right. Dumbus didn’t seem like the best example for anything besides how to have fun. Despite his weapons (his gloves) looking to be more expensive, Olaf was easily doing twice the damage. Some of that may have been due to Olaf’s class being designed exclusively for DPS, though I liked to think it was because Olaf was that good.
Even then, Olaf wasn’t the example I needed either. He’d admitted to only being good at his job because he didn’t have to worry about what everyone else was doing. As he nearly lost half his face from a Marknafian blast when the Shoveler pivoted and then tripped over Dumbus, I realized he hadn’t been lying. And though he was impressive, double of 3 and 4 is still trivial when you’re fighting something with 3,500 HPs.
I couldn’t be too hard on them; level tens weren’t meant to fight something with 150 AC— unless they spent a crap ton of money. Marknafian’s strange light projecting gun more than made up for them, taking off 30 here, 40 there, and 58! on a good crit. In only a couple of minutes, we had the Shoveler down to 81%. The only thing I could learn from the foul-mouthed pixie seemed to be that, “If you spend a ton of money, you too can be a better player!” (which wasn’t too far off from an actual marketing slogan a few years ago). Not the worst lesson to learn, but it didn’t really help me now. That left—
Alizia stuck out her tongue as she narrowly avoided a blow that left an Olaf-sized hole in the floor. “Has Shovels always been this easy, or did his stats get demoted with his boss-ness?”
“I won’t be demoted much longer after I crush you!” The Shoveler glowed with dark reddish power.
I laughed at even considering looking to our mad tank for an example of how to do anything besides constantly yo-yo over the line between entertaining and annoying. But then I stopped laughing. While she had been talking, my conscious mind had remained focused on her silly banter, yet my subconscious mind had cast two perfectly timed Regrowths.
Alizia slammed her shield into the boss and the glowing stopped.
“He’s definitely a lot wimpier,” Marknafian said. “When he was a raid boss, stuns wouldn’t work on him, and at our levels, even with that damage reduction buff and heals, Tank-boobs would have had to chug potions left and right to keep standing.”
“Maybe we can
stop fighting and see if we can get this fella his job back, and then you can all give me the potions I would've gotten to drink afterward to make up for this injustice.”
“Alizia, focus,” I said.
At the last second, Alizia’s shield popped up to intercept a blow that seemed destined to remove her skull. “So easy, even Deccy could’ve done it.”
“What be a ‘Deccy?’” Dumbus’s voice wavered and his blow sailed wide to the right of the Shoveler. “Be source for potential love triangle?”
“She is referring to Decrona,” Olaf said. “Decrona was the name of our former group member. She and Alizia fought constantly. The two of them did not get along at all, though it was the kind of fighting you often see in movies in which the two people end up having intense feelings for each other.”
“I’ll give you ‘intense feelings’ via my scepter when this’s over Olaf.” Alizia looked like she was going to charge Olaf, but the Shoveler helpfully landed another blow that kept her focused on the correct target.
Oddly, Alizia’s banter seemed to have done the trick. I was so absorbed in the conversation that I temporarily forgot about my issues. Maybe if I joined in it’d help more?
I hit Alizia with a Regrowth and then looked at Marknafian. “Speaking of Decrona. Would you two happen to know anything about her? She was a Shadow player who re-rolled on our side in order to get the key that let your faction into Highwall. I assume she wouldn’t have gone by exactly that name when she was on your side, but I’d imagine she must be somewhat well known, given what she did.”
“We heard about some of that,” Marknafian said. “Sorry, though, we don’t know her.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well, she did have a brother who went back to your side?”
“His name was Danseen,” Alizia said.
“Right,” I said. “Have you heard of him?”
Marknafian paused his attack and gave Dumbus a long look. “No.”
“Well if you ever find anything, we’d really appreciate it. I’d like to tell him everything that happened.”
Alizia smiled. “I’ve got lots of colorful stories about Deccy that I’d like to send—”
The boss’s shovel caught her square in the ribs and flung her hard against the wall. She tried to rise, but with the stars floating above her head, failed.
I hesitated at first, and then tried my new theory out. I shouted out whatever stupid catch phrases popped into my head to keep my mind busy and away from doubt land. This time every single one of my Regrowths went off without a hitch. The Stunned debuff showed ten more seconds, and the Shoveler was moving toward her. I estimated he’d only get one unprotected shot on her by the time the debuff faded. With my mana still above 60% and the small heals from Dumbus’s strikes, I figured she’d survive, and then we’d easily get back into the groove. Alizia’s annoyed groans from the idiocy coming out of my mouth were an extra bonus. We already had the Shoveler down to 68%, mostly thanks to Marknafian and his odd gun with its glowing pellets. He was doing ten times the damage of Olaf and Dumbus combined.
Sure enough, the Shoveler’s first blow took the still Stunned Alizia down to 60%. My spell and the heal buff took her back to 85%, and his follow-up took her to—
“Marknafian, watch out,” I said as the Mad Shoveler spun around and headed toward the pixie. “Alizia, use Shout as soon as you can.”
The pixie’s eyes widened as his last shot landed and he took in the nine-foot ogre charging toward him. “Crap, crap, crap. Too awesome for my own good and no Drinta to save me neither this time. I’m gonna bomb him. These should take him down a thousand or so.” Two red, circular objects appeared in his hands.
“Not that. The opposite of that,” I said. “Stop attacking completely and don’t do anything else. No healing or debuffs either. Wait until Alizia gets his attention and then gets a couple more Shouts in until you join back.”
The pixie dispelled his gun and the bombs. “Sure, we can try that. Now how do I keep him from turning me into pixie kabobs?”
“Marknaf forget he have friends,” Dumbus said. “Big, burly friend who also Bruiser. Bruiser who can Shout. Not as good as pretty green lady, but—Dumbus Shout at Shovel-man! He not good at digging and get demoted for not being good at raid bossing either.”
“Dumbus, no!” Marknafian said. “You’re in your DPS gear. At least activate Rhino stance.”
The Shoveler stopped in front of the pixie and turned toward the orc. His eyes darted back and forth between the two figures before he finally charged Dumbus. His shovel caught Dumbus in mid-stride, instantly taking him from full to 43%. Alizia stumbled to her feet and growled out a Shout, but unfortunately so did Dumbus, not seeing her until it was too late. The healing buff ticked up, taking him to 89%, but was followed up with a massive crit of 213!
“No!” Marknafian said as Dumbus’s lifeless corpse crashed to the ground. “You stupid, wonderful orc. Why?”
“Dumbus record. Marknaf say more nice things. What you like most about Dumbus? Pretty green lady listening?” Dumbus said as a newly minted ghost.
“I Shout at you, you Shoveling jerk with the stupid haircut,” Alizia said.
The boss spun around and charged her, glowing with black, red energy. Alizia’s knees buckled as she caught the massive blow on her shield. Though her successful shield blocks in the past had always negated all damage completely, this one managed to break through for 57! As he raised his shovel for another blow, I shouted “Shield Slam” but Alizia was already ahead of me. With the stun from her ability, the Shoveler only managed to get a couple more blows in before his rage ended and he went back to normal. Olaf arrived from across the room a few seconds later and joined back in.
“Start shooting now, Marknafian,” I said.
The pixie grumbled but did as instructed, though this time he seemed to take a lengthy pause in between each shot at first, before eventually going back to his normal, merciless pace a minute later. We continued like that for another three minutes, which luckily didn’t require a single heal from me and allowed my mana to recover. The Mad Shoveler was down to 20%. It looked like we’d finish him in another couple of minutes.
“So, what type of loot does this goofus drop?” Alizia asked.
Marknafian looked up from his gun and scowled. “We agreed that it was all mine to make up for the cost of those two buff hydrants.”
“Alizia, do not take any loot,” Olaf said. “It is more than fair that he get it all.”
“If you take any, you’re out of the group,” I said.
“I’m just curious,” Alizia said. “Jeez.”
“He has some glasses that make guns more accurate,” Marknafian said. “A cloak with really high dexterity. A wand with mana regen on it, but also a sissy, pink glow. The real gem is a gopher mount. Worth almost a million gold, on account of how rare it is. But I heard the drop rate is something like 0.001%.”
“Ehh, you can have that crap,” Alizia said. “Who wants to ride around on something that ugly? It’s unicorn, pegasus, or sea cow for this girl.”
“A sea cow?” Olaf asked.
“They’re beautiful on the inside, like me, except I’m also beautiful on the outside. Plus they swim faster than anything and grant an underwater breathing buff so I can make the sweetness with the hot mermen.”
“Focus, people,” I said, sounding a bit too much like my dad. “There’s still 17% more to go and I’m guessing he has some sort of quirk coming up. Be on the lookout for any tells.”
Alizia grimaced as she missed her block and caught one on the shoulder. “You mean like if he starts glowing with red and black energy?”
“Yes!” I said as I hit her with a heal.
“He already did that like four times.” She blocked his next blow and followed it up with a smack on his shin for 6. “You really should start paying attention, Horus. This is serious stuff.”
I sighed. “I meant something else. Something new.”
“Dumbus pay attention for
new friend Horus. What quirk mean, by way?”
“Something they do before their big ability, such as make a loud statement or glow, to make it fair so you know to dodge it or get to safety,” Olaf said.
“The boss version would periodically hit the ceiling to make stalactites fall all over the room, which this fella hasn’t done—though that may be on account of this room not having any of those things,” Marknafian said.
The Mad Shoveler jumped twenty feet back out of everyone’s range and raised his shovel above his head. “How foolish of me to forget what my shovel was put on this world to do. Allow me to demonstrate by digging you your graves!”
He slammed his shovel down hard against the ground. The room began to shake up and down, though oddly none of us had any trouble staying on our feet. Despite the shovel striking the large, stone bricks that formed the floor with a massive amount of force, nothing happened to the ones directly below his blows. However, at random intervals along the rest of the floor holes appeared. My foot slowly began to tip in as one of them formed below me, but I easily moved back before it expanded enough for the rest of me to fall in.
A quick scan of the rest of the group showed that everyone else had moved easily away from the rest of the holes. Olaf even had time to rush over and pull Dumbus’s corpse away from one nearby.
Alizia stared into one of the holes. “Pit full of giant spikes? How clichéd is that?” She easily hopped over it and charged toward the Shoveler. “Oh, well. Let’s end this so we can go find Clewd, learn more about Laffy’s son, and begin a new adventure with more potions, fancier hats, and maybe an unexpected betrayal to keep things spicy.”
Was that a hint? If there was anyone who was going to betray us, I figured it’d be her. She’d been behaving awfully well by her standards lately. Had she been doing that to throw me off her trail as an NPC made by the AI to make everything harder? I filed that away for later. I’d keep more of an eye on her, but right now I had other concerns. After only a couple of blows, Alizia was already down to 42% and that was after blocking his blows perfectly.
“What the heck?” Alizia said. “He ain’t glowin’. Aren’t they supposed to have a tell before they buff up all of a sudden?”