Dragon Kings of the New World

by Dante Doom

  “Alright, drink up!” Sang said as she thrust a bottle of greenish liquid into Van’s hand. She had her own bottle of the concoction, and they clicked their glasses together before guzzling the potion down.

  “Augh,” Van gasped as he shuddered from the sheer horror of the taste. It had been as if he were drinking swamp water, gasoline, and pepper all mixed together.

  “Yeah, this is terrible,” Sang agreed. Van glanced up and saw his experience points well over. Quest Complete! said the bar, informing him that he had successfully survived the quest. The summary appeared in front of him.

  That was definitely enough points to level up. Van was eager because he was starting to get to the point where he would be able to salvage some of his character options. The next level gave him a cool selection of some new powers and a single magic spell, which might come in handy. He opened up his character sheet and examined what his options were.

  Van looked at his options of special abilities. Of all the ones offered, Bardic Will would probably come in handy, as it helped him resist mind control powers better. One of the worst things that could happen in the game was to end up charmed or paralyzed due to some kind of mind control power.

  Van nodded at Sang once they were both done playing around with their stats. “You ready to kill some Trolls?” he asked.

  Sang shrugged. “Didn’t you call me one of those earlier?”

  “Yeah, but don’t worry... I won’t get confused in the heat of battle,” Van said with a grin. “Let’s go!”

  17

  Sang was in awe of the temple they were approaching. It was a beautifully carved stone temple with six pillars holding it high in the air, at home amongst the trees, and she could see on the white marble pillars that there were etchings of some kind of ancient language. Around the massive temple were a few hooded figures walking about. Some were collecting sticks, and others were waving their hands around and mumbling words in an arcane language that she didn’t understand, but the majority of them were gathered in the center, beneath the suspended temple.

  “Alright, let’s get the quest and find out where the tunnel entrance is,” Van said as he walked with Sang up to the group of Druids. They were all wearing moss-covered robes and Sang could see that many of them looked identical to one another. In the center of the group of Druids was a woman who was shimmering with a yellow aura, indicating that she had the quest.

  “Let me get the quest this time—you always skip,” Sang said as she walked up to the Druid and activated the woman’s quest dialogue.

  “Oh, what fortune!” said the moss-robed woman, turning to face the two. She had a deep scar across her right eye that looked fairly fresh. “Travelers! What do you seek?”

  A dialogue box popped up in front of Sang.

  We are looking for adventure

  We are looking to get out of this accursed jungle

  We are here to rob and kill you

  Sang selected the second box. The Druid nodded. “I see! Well, perhaps we can help each other out then, for we Druids here are wood walkers, able to stride through the jungle without fear of being harmed while we move! But, most ironically, we are weak when here at our temple! The Stone Trolls who tunnel beneath our lands have started to surface and raid us, killing the weak and feasting on their bones! If you can aid us by defeating the Troll Lord, we can provide you with transportation to get out of this place.”

  “Can you get us to Verrata?” Sang asked, forgetting that this was nothing more than an AI and that she probably wouldn’t be able to understand such a specific question.

  “I can take you to any edge of the jungle,” the Druid replied.

  Sang turned to Van, surprised at the Druid’s understanding. “Hey, Van, I thought most AI didn’t have the ability to respond to our questions?”

  “Eh, there’s a few questions they understand; you just asked the most predictable one,” Van replied.

  Sang nodded and accepted the quest from the Druid. This was perfect—they’d be able to get more experience points, and probably a few items, and escape from the jungle in one fell swoop. She had been a little frustrated with her poor decision to attack those players earlier, but this would make up for it. She hoped that Van wasn’t too agitated with her antics, but he hadn’t seemed that phased since their initial argument. She certainly hadn’t meant to cause that much trouble, but still, as she looked at the items in her inventory, it definitely seemed worth it. Sang promised herself that she would be more careful in the future, but decided not to recant her decision to Van because the last thing she wanted was for him to be able to say “I told you so.”

  “Alright, so there’s the tunnel,” Van said, pointing to a massive hole in the ground that wasn’t too far from the Druid camp. “We’re gonna have to drop in there and keep going until we find some Trolls. Now, how much do you know about Trolls?”

  “Not a thing, Van,” Sang said.

  “Well, in this world, Trolls have highly corrosive blood. It’s like acid, so when you stab or cut them, their blood could potentially spray onto you and kill you.”

  “That’s not great,” Sang muttered. “But fortunately, neither of us get close to our targets.”

  “Except for the fact that we’re going to be underground, in tight quarters. Trolls have low hit points but they bleed like crazy, so they’ll be on us as soon as they smell our scents.”

  “So, we need to prepare for this,” Sang replied.

  “Big time.”

  “Hmmm, well... there’s no stores or anything around here, so what do you recommend we do?” Sang asked.

  Van pulled out his bagpipes. “Well, I have a song that’s perfect for this! I just learned it. It’s called “The Dirge of Resistance”! It makes you resistant to things like poison, fire, and anything that causes damage over time. It won’t protect us from the initial damage we take from acid splash, but it will prevent the damage-over-time effect. That’s how Trolls really get you.”

  “Do you have any solutions that don’t involve you playing music?” Sang asked.

  “If I did, I wouldn’t tell you!” Van cheerfully replied as he began to blow into his bagpipes, creating more horrendous noise. No matter how many times Sang heard him play, it never got any better. In fact, she was beginning to wonder if he was starting to get worse. As the horrific noise played, though, she saw that her stats were beginning to increase.

  Health: +50

  Stamina Regen +20%

  DOT Resistance: 100%

  Time: 24 hours

  “Not bad,” she muttered. As awful as the sounds were, she was impressed with his ability to boost her stats as high as they were getting. She grabbed her bow and walked towards the big hole. Gazing down, she could see that it was a straight drop. “You ready?” she asked as she took out her lantern and tied it to her waist. The lantern had a big enough aura to where it would illuminate everything within a twenty-foot radius, courtesy of Kraggoth.

  “Yeah, I am,” Van said as he walked over and looked down the hole with her. “Remember, don’t let them get close. Oh, and also, I’ve got a cool new spell; it’s called Ignition Switch, and—”

  “Spell? You can do magic?” Sang interrupted excitedly. She had yet to see a player do any kind of magic and was fairly curious as to what was possible.

  “Don’t get too excited—magic for players is incredibly weak. Doubly so for bards. But, now I can cause a single item to ignite by pointing my finger at it.”

  “Well, that might come in handy somehow,” Sang said.

  “Yeah, because Trolls hate fire. So, if we’re in a pinch, starting a fire will cause them to back off for a few moments,” Van said. “Unless they have a boss. Trolls are pack creatures, so they’re usually directed by a Troll boss, who will yell at them to suck it up and keep fighting in spite of the fire.”

  “So, kill the bosses first, and then use the fire to scare them back,” Sang said. “Good plan.”

  Van grinned. “Alright! Let’s go Troll hunt
ing!” And with that, they both leapt down the hole. Sang fell for a few moments before the tunnel began to slope, causing her to slide down the rest of the way. It would have been fun, had the ground not been full of rocks, gravel, and roots, all of which were causing her some level of pain as she slid across them. Of all the things she wished that she could deactivate in the game, she really wished pain were one of them. It didn’t make any sense why pain existed in a silly video game, but exist it did.

  “Ahhhh!” Van cried as they came sliding to a halt at the bottom of the tunnel. It was cramped and the tunnels weren’t tall enough for either of them to stand fully. Van was laying on the ground when she looked to him, grabbing his legs.

  “See, this is why I wear leather leggings,” Sang said as she pointed at Van’s burning and bloodied legs. “I have no idea why you would wear cloth pants.”

  “I can’t wear leggings! Geez, it burns!” Van cried out.

  “Buuurrrrns!” echoed all the way down the tunnel.

  “Quiet down,” Sang grumbled as she looked ahead. The tunnel was incredibly dark, and it smelled wretched. She could see piles of bones scattered throughout the space around them, which they looked as if they had been chewed on for quite some time.

  “Alright, well, we better keep going,” Van said. “Don’t want to get caught up in a raid.”

  “Yeah, better to surprise them,” Sang said as she walked forward. Her Map skill wasn’t working underground for some reason, which concerned her. The words TRAIT NEEDED: STONE SENSE appeared whenever she tried to bring up her map to detect threats. Why couldn’t anything in this game be easy?

  As they walked through the darkness, Sang heard a hissing noise ahead. Wordlessly, she raised her bow up and drew the string back, preparing to attack. In the distance, she could see a pair of red eyes staring at her from the darkness. The hissing grew louder.

  “Shoot!” Van shouted.

  Sang let loose an arrow and it sailed through the air, crashing straight into the red eyes. A burst of flames from the arrow illuminated the darkness for just a moment afterward, revealing a squat, blue creature with long arms, bumpy skin, and razor-sharp teeth. Its head looked sort of like a lizard’s, but with fins on the sides that were almost like ears. The words Troll Level 9 hovered above it. Its health had rapidly dropped down to zero in response to the arrow causing it to catch on fire.

  “Nice shot!” Van said. “But don’t get too cocky. They drop quick, sure, but if enough of them get the charge on us, you won’t have time for that many shots before they swarm you completely.”

  “Well, make sure you have some kind of strategy for that,” Sang said as they continued walking deeper into the tunnels.

  “Hold up!” Van hissed, causing Sang to freeze. “Look!” he said, coming around her and pointing at the ground. There was some kind of a bear trap lying there.

  “Weird,” Sang said as she moved her foot away from the trap. She knelt down to inspect it. “Are Trolls smart enough to use traps?”

  “No, they’re not smart at all. Troll bosses can speak a few words and the Troll Lord might know enough of the human language to mock us, but even he’s not smart enough to use traps.”

  “That’s strange then, right? I mean, a bear trap lying here in the middle of a Troll tunnel. Do you think another player put it down here?”

  Van shrugged. “Who knows? But now we need to keep our eyes open for traps, too, since there could be more. Might as well grab that thing—it could be useful.”

  Sang nodded and used her Trapping skill to disarm the trap and put it in her inventory.

  Trap gained: Beartrap.

  Effect: Immobilizes target

  Set-up Time: 1 minute

  Reusable: Yes

  “Man, we need to buy more traps,” Sang said as they continued through the tunnels. “These things seem pretty handy.”

  “Yeah, they’re nice, but I’ve never messed around with them much. I don’t know if you’ve noticed this about me, but I’m a bit of a trap magnet,” Van replied. “I mean, ask any of my friends... the moment we get into a dungeon, I’m going to be immediately tangled up in the net, falling down the pit, turned to stone by the statue—it’s inevitable.”

  “But it still bugs me; who put that there?”

  “Well, this quest might be a little more complicated than just killing all of the Trolls,” Van said as they continued walking.

  Up ahead, there was a wide hole to be seen, and the tunnel grew large enough to where Van and Sang were able to stand up straight. There was also a lot of chittering off in the distance. It sounded like the Troll that Sang had seen earlier. The hissing and shrieking seemed to signify some kind of crude communication. And between the darkness of the tunnel, being in closed-in spaces, and hearing the strange hissing and shrieking, Sang was beginning to feel uneasy.

  “You hear that hissing? I bet that’s a nest!” Van said as he held up his own lantern and began to walk forward. The light flickered as its beams reached a large pile of bones. The pile was huge, almost as tall as the tunnel itself. Sang could see the hundreds of etch marks on all of the bones. Some of the skulls had been shattered, and many weapons and swords were strewn carelessly around the area.

  “Ugh, that’s horrible!” Sang said.

  “Yeah, Trolls are nasty creatures,” Van replied. “They probably drag all of the corpses they kill into this room and feast until all of the meat is gone. This ribcage looks picked clean.” He picked up one of the ribcages and inspected it. “Yeah, definitely picked clean.”

  “Man, this kind of detail is gross. Why can’t this place be less weird and creepy?” Sang asked. She certainly didn’t like the discussion of bone chewing.

  “I dunno... adds character to the game. Come on, the hissing is coming from this direction,” he said, taking a sharp right away from the bone pile and moving forward.

  Sang followed along after him, making sure to look behind her after every few steps. Her gut was telling her that something was wrong, and she wasn’t about to let anyone or anything get the drop on her.

  “There!” Van whispered as they turned a corner of the underground network of tunnels to find a large blue mass hissing and writhing. It was made up of about two dozen Trolls, all lying on the ground, sleeping. Their hisses and shrieks were products of whatever nightmarish dreams they were having.

  “Kill them?” Sang asked.

  “Nah,” Van said, “they’ll just respawn. Bosses and the Troll Lord won’t, however. So let’s keep moving, but quietly.”

  Sang nodded and continued creeping forward. The tunnel seemed to branch off every few feet into smaller holes where they’d see a few dozen Trolls were sleeping. It was as if this area was some sort of gigantic dormitory. Sang had never seen so many monsters before, and she wasn’t sure what she should be doing or feeling in response. Van didn’t even bother to stop to check the monsters, though, and instead was mumbling about finding the final boss. He had explained that killing the Troll Lord would cause all of the nearby Trolls in the area to revert back to their individualistic nature, and then they would all attack each other. So, for as long as he and Sang could, they would be as inconspicuous as possible.

  As they walked, Van stopped suddenly and pointed at something hanging from the ceiling. “What is that?” he asked.

  Sang craned her neck to see that it was some kind of bell. There was a thick rope tied to the bell, leading downwards. She followed the rope down until she realized that Van was standing right on top of some sort of rope trigger.

  “Van!” she hissed. “Don’t move your foot!”

  Van looked at the ground and then back up at the rope. “Ah crap,” he whispered. “If I trigger this rope, it’ll cause the bell to ring and wake all these things up at once.”

  “And we’re right in the center of their nest!” Sang hissed. “We’re going to die if they wake up!”

  “Well, try to disarm the trap,” Van replied. He was looking around rather frantically. “Oh man, I�
��ve counted at least sixty of these sleeping bastards.”

  “Don’t pressure me!” Sang said as she dug out her knife and began to look at the complexity of the trap. It appeared that, if the rope was stepped on, the pressure would cause the bell to go taught. When the pressure from the foot released the rope, it would relax the bell immediately, causing it to ring out. So, cutting the rope was out of the question because it would immediately begin to ring.

  “Any ideas?” Van asked. “I’m starting to panic!”

  “Take it easy! If you calm down, we’ll get out of this together!” Sang said.

  “Look, I’m trying really hard not to think about moving my foot, but I’m worried that I might! It’s really hard for me to not do something,” Van confessed. “You saw me with the treasure chest. You know my weaknesses...”

  “Van, I will kill you if you pull your foot off that rope,” Sang replied.

  “Hurry up!”

  Sang looked up at the bell and realized that the only way to stop it from ringing was to remove the tongue of the bell. It was too far up for her to reach, though. “Van,” she said, “don’t move... I have a plan.”

  “What is it?” Van asked. She didn’t reply, but instead grabbed onto his neck and hoisted herself up onto his back.

  “Hey, stop it!” Van hissed as she clambered atop him and managed to stand on his shoulders. She had the appropriate Climbing skill that made it easy enough to climb up another player. With the additional height, she could reach the bell easily.

  “Oh, your boots are digging into me!” Van whimpered.

  “Shush, and don’t squirm! If you mess me up, this bell will ring, and then we’re definitely going to die!” Sang instructed as she very carefully grabbed the bell with one hand and shoved her fingers into the mouth of the bell at the same time. This prevented it from making any noise. She fumbled to get a grip around the tongue of the bell, finally holding it firmly. It was made of iron, and would require some force to break off. Below her, Van was busy shifting a little, trying to hold himself perfectly still but failing miserably at it.