I was shaking my head at the same time Dan reacted to the Ogre’s words. “Why do people keep thinking we are going to be a bunch of ass clowns? How serious can anyone take us when I’m wearing pants that came from a damn rabbit?”
“Relax, Dan. This is always the case when people think you are at the top of the food chain,” Wayne tried to explain. “They hate. Like you do because Allister is wittier than you. And just like with that, you have to learn to accept the truth.”
“Allibater is a lot of things, mon frère, and most of those are way better than what I got, but no fucking way is he wittier than TheClaw.”
This was too good to pass up and I just had to get involved. “What are the best jokes ever, Dan?”
“Fart jokes, bro. They’re always funny.”
“And there you go proving Wayne right. Case closed.”
“You know you guys just don’t have the depth to appreciate TheClaw’s humor.”
“Indeed, Dan. We have not yet sunk to that level,” Jason added, while giving Dan one of his signature looks.
“Damn. That was good.”
*
We didn’t encounter any further players or mobs before hitting the location of the soldiers’ camp. There looked to be two thousand soldiers and all the accoutrements that go along with that many people. Horses were tied to posts, tents were laid out in an orderly fashion, and every ten tents or so had a fire pit for cooking and keeping warm. What I gauged were the officers’ tents were larger and in better shape, but no one was living in grandeur. The camp had been set up along the river, and in the distance, I could see the bridge the Trolls kept destroying. It wasn’t a full-on demolition, but the damage was sufficient enough that the King’s men would never be able to cross their supplies over.
The flashing quest icon on our maps was not leading us to the Trolls but rather a grouping of tents that belonged to officers. Standing in front of the tent that was our destination were two sentries in chainmail. Full plate would have been far too exhausting on a sentry standing guard, but even the chainmail looked to be extremely uncomfortable. And if there is anything I’ve learned in my short time on the planet, it’s that uncomfortable people don’t like people who aren’t as uncomfortable as them.
“State your business!” The sentry on our left said while leaning the pike in his hand a tad bit forward toward our direction.
“We have been sent by Sir Arthur to assist in your problem.”
“Finally. Those latrines have been needing a good cleaning for a week now!”
“Maybe a little more clarity there, Alex.”
“Thanks, Dan. I wouldn’t have figured that out without you,” I responded. “We are here to eradicate the Trolls.”
The sentry on our right looked over at his companion, back to us, and then back to his companion. Then, without a word, he began laughing hard.
“Oh sure. No doubt you four will be able to take out that tiny little problem. It isn’t like we sent twenty men in there to kill those beasts. You remember what they said when they came back?” the sentry asked to his companion.
“They didn’t ever come back.”
“Oh, that’s right. They didn’t.” The laughter was gone and he was all business now. “If you lads want to go over there and get killed, that’s your business. But don’t say we didn’t warn ya. Twenty of ours couldn’t stop those animals. Don’t seem like you will have any luck, either.”
“We appreciate your warning, but we have our orders.”
“Sure enough you do. Go on in and talk to Captain Treeswain. He’ll tell ya what ya need to know.”
Without another word, the four of us entered the tent and saw the lone occupant standing over a map of the area. It was highly detailed, and I nodded at Dan to get close to it and give it a gander. In the meantime, I approached the man I suspected was the Captain and repeated the quest phrase again.
While Dan reviewed the map, the Captain explained the situation, to include far more details than we needed about the impact the bridge’s destruction had had on morale and the efforts of the war. After several minutes of trying to move the Captain along to giving us the quest location, I finally broke down and asked, “Where are the Trolls?”
“Fine. I never do meet any of you adventurers who appreciate the grand scale of warfare and all the strategic objectives one needs to consider to achieve victory.”
The Captain then walked over to the map and pointed at a location on the other side of the river from where we were. Immediately a quest icon showed up on our maps labeling the location of the Trolls. “Best of luck to you. We need to get that bridge fixed, and none of my soldiers will go near that place again.”
We left the tent and walked to the outskirts of the camp before I asked Dan where we should cross.
“If that map in there was accurate, and I have to believe it is, we have to go about a half hour south of our location to find the best place to cross.”
“You know shit flows downstream right?” Wayne asked.
“I thought that was downhill,” I said.
“In this case, both. Any chance we can cross somewhere north of the camp?”
“I am afraid not, my Barbarian brother. The river just continues to get wider as we travel north. South with the shit is our only option.”
“South it is. And if it isn’t terribly deep in that part of the river, we can probably ride our horses across.”
Thankfully, we didn’t encounter any problems on the way to the crossing point, although the tree line along the river was too dense for us to ride our horses to the spot. If we could find a suitable area of open ground, we could summon a horse, although we would likely have to do this one at a time. I had yet to see an area outside of the camp where we could have summoned all four at the same time.
After a few minutes of searching, we found a spot that worked. Dan volunteered to go first, but I overruled him since I could Invis and he couldn’t. The horses didn’t have a problem with going through the river, but their movement speed was cut down to only 10 percent of normal. This was likely a game mechanic that stopped players from using the rivers and mounts to escape being attacked. At 10 percent of normal speed, the horse was moving at a speed slower than I could move while on land. Once everyone was across, I planned to see what happened when I tried to walk through the river, and if it would affect my movement speed as well. But that would be after everyone was across and we were north of the shit factory that was the soldier’s camp.
Once everyone was across and Dan reported there were no mobs in the area, we unsummoned the horses and made our way north to the Troll camp. We would have loved to stay on the horses, but just like on the west side of the river, the tree line on this side was too dense for that.
I kept our pace at a leisurely trot. We had no knowledge of the area, and Dan needed to move slower than normal to make sure we weren’t running into a pack of mobs.
We encountered a couple of Green mobs between our crossing point and the Troll’s location, but we dispatched one quickly and avoided the other. Otherwise, there were no further obstacles in our path.
Upon arriving at the locator on our maps, we saw a large cave opening. Apparently when Trolls weren’t living under bridges, they were living in caves—and damn big ones, as the mouth of this cave was easily 15 feet high.
“Well, boys, there’s our quest. Let’s buff up, get full mana, and go wreck shit.”
The guys nodded in my direction and went to work. After a short time, we were ready to go.
As a team, we entered the cave-home of the Trolls.
And then we were annihilated.
Chapter 7
October 22nd, 2043
Maybe all that talk of “legends” had gone to our heads. Maybe we were a step off of our game. Either way, we went into the cave of the Trolls and got our backsides handed to us due to our own stupidity. I didn’t go first and scout the area. A total and complete newb mistake and that cost us experience and time.
/> We rushed into the cave entrance expecting it to resemble every dungeon we had ever encountered. You go through the entrance and make your way through who knows how many mobs until you reach the end. Only this “dungeon” didn’t follow the rules of the other dungeons we had faced. Instead of the immediate area surrounding the entrance being a safe zone, it was a complete and total ambush. Five Trolls were located immediately within the entrance, and walking into the cave set off some sort of door trap that blocked the entire 15-foot entrance and kept us from just running away. Then all five of them rushed our group.
The mobs were all Blue. Normally, Blues are our bread and butter and we can do two at a time. Sometimes we can do three. We can’t do five.
Wayne immediately went to Jason’s side and got aggro on the two mobs approaching our Cleric. Unfortunately, Dan drew the aggro of two other mobs, and I got aggro on the last one. With Dan receiving a beat-down from two separate mobs, he was unable to launch a snare and try to kite the mobs around. I was unable to shake the mob on me, and Jason was busy trying to keep Wayne alive.
As soon as the two Blues destroyed Dan—and Broham soon after—they rushed Jason. I never saw what happened next, since I was killed in quick order. It doesn’t take a genius, though, to figure out what happens when five mobs take on two players.
I thought about using my Force Multiplier Ring, but I wanted to save that for the boss mob and a chance for better loot. I only get to use it once every 24 hours, after all. And honestly, the Ring would have done nothing but prolong the death that was going to come our way. As I have noted repeatedly, we were stronger than the average player, but we were in no way unstoppable.
“That was so much suck, I don’t even have words to explain it.”
“For one of those rare occasions, I am in complete agreement with Dan,” Jason said.
“Damn. We totally thought you guys would be able to take the entrance.”
I turned around and saw Tyke and his group of Dark aligned players resting near the fountain.
“Think you could have given us a heads up?”
“Hell nah,” Tyke said, a little too enthusiastically for my taste. “Where’s the fun in that?”
It had been a long time since we had all been in nothing but our starting clothes. Clothes that have no armor. Basically, we were walking around in our birthday suits when it came to defense. Despite that, Wayne still looked very formidable as he approached the little Halfling. Jason stepped in front of Wayne as the Ogre Warrior, Lug, stepped in front of Tyke.
“Relax, Naugha. We can’t be mad at these guys. We got our asses beat because of our own stupid actions.”
“Don’t take it so hard, Naugha. We tried that entrance three times and were killed each time. It’s a beast of a way to start a quest challenge.”
Wayne calmed down a bit as Lug kept talking. Like anyone that ever played an MMORPG, Wayne hated to lose experience. More than that, Wayne hated losing, period.
“Sorry. I’m not the friendliest after getting beat down.”
“You’ll have plenty of time to calm down and hit your Zen. It takes forever to walk back to that camp. Trust me on this one. I’ve had to do it three times now.”
The thought of wasting a day walking back to the camp was enough to bring everyone’s moods down yet another notch.
I hoped by talking a bit about our strategy, we could get some more information out of Tyke and his group. “I guess we can try pulling them out of the cave to take one at a time.”
“Won’t work,” said one of their casters. “We tried doing the exact same thing, and the mobs will only come to the entrance of the cave and stop there.”
“Why not nuke them while they are stuck at the entrance?”
“Oh, we tried that! After about ten seconds, they boomerang back to their starting position and go back to full health.”
“I bet it was awesome the first time they just stood there and took your shots!”
“Yeah. We totally thought we found a loophole for those ten seconds.”
“You guys figure it out, we would love to know how. That entrance is going to be impossible until we come up with a strategy that works,” Tyke said.
“I fear a lot of experimentation waits in our futures, Tyke. If we come up with anything, we will let you guys know. Thanks for the info on the entrance thing.”
At the mention of experimentation, I saw Wayne wince. I was glad to see I could still instill a small bit of fear into our Warrior.
After saying our goodbyes to Tyke and his group, we started the long trek back to the Troll cave.
“Getting our bodies won’t be a problem, at least. I’ll go in there and drag them out. And with Allister’s new spell, we will get half of our experience back.”
“I’m more worried about the fact that we could very well have to do this all over again tomorrow. Those guys said they had lost three times already.”
“Have no fear, Allister. I have a plan.”
“Alex, every time you have ‘a plan,’ I worry for my mental health.”
“I would say ‘this time will be different,’ but I doubt any of you would believe me.”
“Not a chance, sadist,” Jason said with a grin on his face.
“You’ll see. Let’s go get our bodies and then log out for the night. If we stay to the road, we shouldn’t have any problems with mobs. Getting across the river is going to suck, though. Guess it’s time to level up our swimming.”
Everyone was quiet for a while. But since we had several hours to travel, Wayne eventually broke the monotony of walking along the road.
“Jenny and I want you guys to come over for dinner sometime soon.”
“Will Kaitlin be there?”
“Yes, Dan, Kaitlin is being invited as well.”
“I’ll be there!”
“You realize she’s likely asking the exact same question and deciding on not going because of your invite,” Jason chimed in.
“Not true, Allisister. Kaitlin loves TheClaw with all her soul.”
“Guess her soul hasn’t bothered to tell the rest of her that yet.”
“You’ll see. TheClaw is going to come with the thunder.”
“You’re totally welcome to come Dan, as long as ‘the thunder’ isn’t the name of some inappropriate phallic symbol.”
“That’s ‘The Lightning,’ hombre! The thunder is just my normal awesomeness.”
“Good. Keep The Lightning at home,” Wayne said and then turned toward me and Jason. “How about you guys?”
Jason replied first. “I’d love to, Naugha. Can I bring my husband as well? James hears about you guys all the time, and I would love for him to meet you guys. He doesn’t believe Dan could possibly be a real person.”
“The awesomeness, right?”
“Only if that word suddenly became synonymous with ridiculousness.”
“Of course James is welcome. Gary and Tim are going to bring their significant others as well. You can bring anyone you like as well, Alex, if you want to come.”
“Oh, I’ll definitely be there, Wayne. I’ll be coming alone, but that’s ok. Someone will need to be there to comfort Dan when Kaitlin shuts him down. Again.”
We spent the rest of the walk hammering out when we would all meet up, what everyone should bring, and convincing Dan that this was not an opportunity for all of us to try and cosplay our characters from the game. Dan was adamant that it was totally appropriate and noted he had already had a set of Furry Bunny Britches made for just such an occasion. In the end, Wayne won out by citing the age-old truism of ‘my house, my rules,’ against which even Dan could not argue.
In true TheClaw fashion, Dan immediately began talking about the next gathering, but at his place. There was even mention of a unicorn ice sculpture that rained booze from its horn. This kept up all the way to the soldiers’ camp.
We avoided Captain Treeswain’s tent and made our way to the southern portion of the camp. Since we had traveled this area already, D
an was able to see for a good distance if there were any mobs in the area. Our trek to our previous crossing point went off without a hitch, as did our re-crossing of the river.
In fact, we were quite lucky in that we were able to avoid any of the mobs that would have crossed our path, although we did have to backtrack on a couple of occasions. I stayed in my Conceal/Stealth for the journey, just in case something bad did happen.
Upon arriving at the cave entrance, I waited for the guys to get a bit further ahead of me and then cloaked myself in shadows. With my Blacksuit engaged, I had no fear that I would be detected by the Trolls.
I had no clue if just entering the cave would set off the trap, but there was no way for me to know without trying. I should have asked Tyke and his crew what they did with their bodies. Oh well. Nothing ventured, nothing gained.
I never had to find out though, as from the entrance of the cave I could “drag” the bodies of my group. When everything went south, we had tried to run out of the cave. That action put our bodies right next to the entrance when we died. From just outside the cave I grabbed the bodies and brought them over to Jason.
Jason had full mana but only his base Wisdom to supply it. Jason’s gear gave him more potential mana but did not immediately fill up his mana pool. The shoulders did reduce the amount of mana Jason needed to use, but even with that, the spell to return 50 percent of our experience took about 1/3 of Jason’s mana. After Wayne and Dan were finished, Jason sat and regenerated until he reached full mana. Fifteen minutes later, Jason and I were both returned and the experience loss looked marginal. Thankfully, we hadn’t lost enough to negate our levels. I wanted all of us to log out with full health and full mana, so Jason got to work healing all of us up. After that, Dan and Jason sat until their mana returned and we were ready for the next day’s adventure. Dan took that break to ask Wayne three more times if Kaitlin said she was coming to the party or not. Wayne enjoyed dragging Dan along without an appropriate answer.
October 23rd, 2043
Restoration: The Rise of Resurgence: Book II Page 13