The Dragon's Revenge

by Conor Kostick

  When the first Protector died, Grythiss pulled Roberta’s other stray and with no one sprinting around the place any longer, the hall felt relatively calm. It was, of course, the exact opposite: three furious battles were underway: Rubblethumper was hunkered down, while the smoke god, static at 47 per cent, battered him; I was up on the plinth, surrounded by angry Protectors; and Grythiss, with a wide semi-circle of players around him, was tanking his mob with fierce concentration.

  A Protector is dead. You gain experience.

  One after the other, the Protectors were peeled away from me and dealt with. The great hall felt like it was home to a party from which people were beginning to leave. It grew quieter with every kill, until the last of the revellers gathered in a dark corner.

  [Smoked] ‘Well done all. Let’s hold the god at forty-seven while the bards sing spirit restoration. Clerics report when you are at seventy-five.’

  Resuming my place on the plinth, bow in hand, I looked carefully around the hall, to check nothing had changed. Same tall stone walls, dark, but with a hint of orange from the reflections of the low-burning fire at the centre of the plinth. Nothing stirring in any direction, except for the frenzied efforts of the giant frog-man, tirelessly swinging his maces one after the other into the shield of Rubblethumper, who I had to admit was doing a great job of blocking the attacks. Satisfied, I took shots at the god with ordinary, non-frost imbued, arrows. May as well level up my archery skill while waiting for the clerics to recover.

  After some ten minutes of this, with admirable restraint in the use of the raid channel (although in group chat Raitha was gabbling on about wind-based spells and whether they would harm or heal the god), all the clerics had plenty of spirit.

  [Smoked] ‘Let’s go. Take him down.’

  For my own part, I imbued my shots with the Frost Arrow spell again and added my own small contribution to the raid’s DPS.

  43…42…41…40.

  [Smoked] ‘Resist!’ shouted Rubblethumper in triumph.

  [Smoked] ‘Well done, keep going everyone.’ My voice sounded even and calm to my ears, though I was trying to hold back a rising sense of delight and achievement. Some psychologists apparently spent their whole careers encouraging sports stars to picture victory. To picture themselves as champions. To overcome feelings of inadequacy and intimidation, presumably. Here, the danger was complacency rather than the possibility that the tanks or clerics would choke. It would be bad luck to acknowledge how well we were doing so I thrust aside all anticipation of success and instead made myself stand ready for a new wave of adds or some other unexpected twist to the battle.

  23…22…21…20.

  All at once the smoke god was free of his containment. Our tank had gone flying up the wall and immediately Tezpeylipoca turned around, scattering half the raid, including, unfortunately, Grythiss.

  Whirlwind of Smoke. You have been struck by a blast of magical air for 18 damage. You have resisted the Knockback effect. You are Stunned for twelve seconds. You cannot move or speak.

  Damn. Twelve seconds was a very long time in a crisis like this. And while my physical body could still move, in the game my avatar was stricken, the stun had shut me up. All I could do was watch.

  Marmalade, our absurdly named Dwarven Paladin, was still on his feet and did the right thing, leaping into the corner and trying to turn the god.

  Smack!

  Marmalade was dead.

  Smack!

  With three strides, Tezpeylipoca had reached Woan and killed her.

  Smack! Smack!

  Rurn and Birch were dead.

  Smack!

  Braja was less than half. Oh no.

  Smack!

  Braja was dead.

  Now the god looked up and with eyes that were like the pits of active volcanoes, stared right at me. I was his next target. And I was locked, helpless. If those powerful weapons could damage me, or if he took my head off with one swipe, I was dead.

  A Russian accent came on the raid channel. [Smoked] ‘I am main tank. Oveidio.’

  The human warrior ran across my vision, chopped at the god’s legs with a longsword and then danced away, turning the god and bringing him back to the corner. At some cost though. I could still access the raid UI and see how rapidly Oveidio was losing hit points. Moreover, we needed a Shrink on him for the fighting was taking place with the god on the inside, facing the rest of the room. It was often like that in Epic, when you fought really large creatures, they had a centre of gravity that was unfairly small. The encounter designers wanted raids to fight their huge bosses the hard way, with all the players facing into their full range of attacks. Focusing the god on one small player in a corner was a kind of cheat as far as the devs were concerned. The tactic was considered common sense for everyone else.

  At last, my Stun condition was over. [Smoked] ‘Shrink on Oveidio. He is MT. All healers on him now.’

  [Group] ‘It will take me a minute to load Shrink.’ This was Tuscl, the only person in the raid with that spell.

  [Group] ‘Lizardman ssorry for weakness. Will make amendsss.’

  Grythiss was charging back across the hall and meanwhile, too, Rubblethumper had shaken off his Stun and was returning to the fight.

  [Smoked] ‘I repeat, Oveidio is MT. Rubblethumper and Grythiss, stand down until needed.’

  If either of the other two tanks hit the god, they would almost certainly get the aggro, after all they’d built up from earlier in the fight. There was nothing wrong with that; in some ways it might prove a better strategy because I was taking a risk that Tezpeylipoca wouldn’t use his AE again before the Shrink caused Oveidio to get nearer the wall than the god and turned him. There was this consideration though: our surviving healers would all be in the middle of casting on Oveidio and it would get messy if they had to abort and restart their heals with Grythiss or Rubblethumper as the target. Then there was a less rational, more personal issue. I admired Oveidio and if fate had chosen him to be the one who resisted the AE when the rest of us were knocked out, then it felt right to run with that and let him finish the battle as our champion.

  For an anxious minute, I watched Oveidio’s hit points dive, before they began to surge back up as the clerics and druids pumped him full of healing spells. And when Tuscl got her Shrink spell to land and Tezpeylipoca suddenly swung away from us, my heart rose. We had the fight properly contained once more.

  19…18…17…Tezpeylipoca’s hit points were steadily declining.

  Firing Frost Arrow as often as I could, I maximised my own contribution to the fight.

  16…15…

  [Smoked] ‘Silva here. Just ten per cent spirit left.’

  Oh no, that was a worry, Silva was our only really powerful cleric left. [Smoked] ‘Other healers report please.’

  [Smoked] ‘Spinespike, seventeen.’

  [Smoked] ‘Healyupy, eight.’

  [Smoked] ‘Birch, eight.’

  [Smoked] ‘Rahod, eleven.’

  There was a pause.

  [Smoked] ‘Jesus!’ someone exclaimed and I had to agree, this was terrible. There was no room for romance here.

  [Smoked] ‘None of you heal Oveidio. Stop; save your spirit. Sorry O, you have to take a hit for the team. Rubblethumper, when Oveidio dies, you’re up, maximum defence.’

  With a defiant laugh, Oveidio spoke to us all. [Smoked] ‘I understand. It is correct play. Good luck everyone.’

  Just three blows later and Oveidio was gone.

  With an extra five levels, better armour and, crucially, additional defensive abilities, Rubblethumper was a much more suitable tank. Especially when the issue was damage limitation, rather than dishing it out. The transition was smooth, with Tezpeylipoca only momentarily turning to face us. Crucially, it soon became clear our healers could now keep up.

  14…13…12…

  [Smoked] ‘DPS: everything you’ve got now, let’s try to skip through whatever unpleasant tricks he has left.’

  [Group] ‘Cometh hour
, cometh sorceress.’ Sapentia sounded resolute and I was delighted to hear the determination in her voice. Having absolute faith in her spirit management, I knew she’d have plenty to burn.

  Several vivid, sizzling bolts coloured white, green and blue crashed into the god. These were from our other casters; Sapentia, I could see from the stroboscopic flashes, was standing with raised arms, still casting. And then it came, a mighty slam from what appeared to be a white beam of light, that momentarily encased Tezpeylipoca in ice, before blowing apart in a glittering explosion.

  6…5…4…

  Boom! Another ice blast was followed by the beautiful game message:

  Tezpeylipoca is dead. You gain experience.

  [Smoked] ‘Get in!’

  [Smoked] ‘He’s down!’

  [Smoked] ‘Booyah!’

  The raid channel burst into life with a dozen voices, all expressing excitement and delight.

  [Smoked] ‘Shut up!’ shouted Grythiss at full volume and then, in his more usual voice. ‘Lizardman hasss important news. Good and bad.’

  [Smoked] ‘What’s the good news?’ I asked.

  [Smoked] ‘There are eight ssshards.’

  Eight! All eight with one raid. Incredible.

  [Smoked] ‘And the bad news?’

  [Smoked] ‘They are Fastened.’

  Silence.

  In a second I’d gone from feeling flushed with success to being so cold, I shivered. My stomach felt heavy. Fastened. We couldn’t bring them to Scarlet, she would have to come here. Why hadn’t I thought of this possibility? She could have been with us now and there would be no problems. As it was, we’d been so long down in this hall there was bound to be a full respawn above us.

  It took me a moment but I shook off the paralysis that had gripped me. [Smoked] ‘If Tezpeylipoca’s body is on the usual timer, we have six minutes. Scarlet, are you there?’ As I spoke I hurried over to Rubblethumper.

  [Smoked] ‘Listening.’ Scarlet had a US accent, somewhere East maybe, though I really didn’t have a clue.

  [Smoked] ‘Go to the foot of the ramp and get ready to run in and loot the boss.’

  ‘Ring please, Rubblethumper, quickly.’ I held out my hand. ‘Rasquelle, run up to work the lever on the trapped corridor.’ Even before Rubblethumper had managed to find the ring and swap it to me, the gnome rogue had rushed from the hall.

  [Smoked] ‘Everyone who is outside the ziggurat, try to pull mobs down the ramp and out of line of Scarlet’s run. Everyone with me, keep the corridors clear as far back as the trap with the sleeping gas.’

  Having got the ring, I was already running back to the ladders even as I spoke.

  [Smoked] ‘Scarlet, I’m going to bring a large train down the ramp. Once it’s clear, you run in, basically it’s straight all the way until you get to a trapped corridor. Rasquelle will open that for you and guide you from there. But there’s sleeping gas, so as I pass you at the bottom of the ramp, I’m going to throw you a ring of Breathe Without Air.’

  [Smoked] ‘Got it. All set.’

  Back up the ladders (overtaking Rasquelle) and along the trapped corridor, which my weight alone didn’t trigger, I ran as far as the first opening off the corridor. A barracks with a full respawn of Anura.

  ‘Hey! I’ve just killed your god.’ I ran inside, kicking and lashing out with my sword, until they all crowded around me, hitting me to no effect. Then I brought my train up to the next opening off the corridor, a kitchen, and ran a quick circuit around that room to pull its five occupants. There were two Anura in a washroom and two more in the storeroom, all of whom were encouraged to join my train by my exclaiming their god was dead.

  Then a long run up to the trap wire and bell, which presumably had mobilised all the mobs currently in my train when we had set it off on the way in. I triggered it again now. Then there were poison darts to come, weren’t there? The thought of being poisoned made me anxious but I couldn’t leave the trap live for Scarlet. Just as I braced myself to be struck by them, I recognised the trapped section of corridor by the murals on the walls and went into a roll. Swoosh! Swoosh! The darts flew over me. Hah! And I was still clear of the stampeding, heaving crowd of Anura doing their best to get hold of me.

  I’d almost forgotten about the two hidden guards, not that it mattered, they jumped out as I ran past and suddenly I was outside in the moonlight again, to an air that was both fresher than that inside the ziggurat and also sweeter with the scents of lavender and jasmine.

  Below me, on the pale ramp, were several bodies from our low-level characters who had failed to pull mobs clear of the huge building. Others must have succeeded though because there were no Anura between me and the bottom.

  [Smoked] ‘Here I come!’ Tempted as I was to add a long ‘wheeee!’ to this shout as a sudden giddiness overcame me, I kept my composure and jogged down the huge building, just fast enough to keep my long train of jumping, angry frog-people interested in chasing me.

  [Smoked] ‘Can you see me?’ This was Scarlet’s voice and I could indeed see her, waving from beside a bush.

  [Smoked] ‘I see you, that’s perfect.’

  Long before I reached the bottom of the ramp, I had the ring ready and just before swerving to my left, to lead my train around the outside of the ziggurat, I threw it. Not a bad throw either.

  [Smoked] ‘Did you get it?’

  [Smoked] ‘No, sorry, I heard it land in the bush. I can’t see too well in the dark.’

  The clock was running down on the drops and our whole raid, not to mention our whole multi-million-dollar project, had come down to how quickly a character could scrabble around on all fours among the bushes, looking for a magic ring by moonlight. Talk about stress. Totally unnecessary stress too; I should have just kept Scarlet safe in the centre of the raid and brought her to the boss fight.

  [Smoked] ‘Anyone with Detect Magic or Infravision outside and able to help her?’

  [Smoked] ‘Konnichiwa here. Just slotting it now. Will be over in a minute.’

  [Smoked] ‘Found it!’

  Thank goodness. And there she went, swiftly up the empty ramp.

  [Smoked] ‘Respawns!’ shouted someone, probably Oveidio.

  This raid was hammering at my emotions, which had been up and down in the last hour as dramatically as the rollercoaster at Tayto Park. Again, just when I thought we were done, there was a challenge to face. Not that I could help with the tactics now I was outside, jogging at the head of a train.

  [Smoked] ‘Sapentia is raid leader. Follow her instructions.’

  [Channel Klytotoxos/Sapentia] ‘Setting you to raid leader, organise everyone down there to keep the route clear.’

  Sapentia didn’t reply. From the raid UI, I could see that she had at once set about shuffling the players around. Having made two balanced groups, one with Grythiss as group leader the other with Rubblethumper, our sorceress gave her orders. [Smoked] ‘Group one, with Grythiss to here. Tackle respawns from this side of room. Group Rubblethumper opposite side. Do same.’

  [Smoked] ‘I’m in the trap,’ cried Scarlet urgently, ‘someone open the door.’

  As ordered, Rasquelle had been standing by. [Smoked] ‘On it. There! Follow me.’

  Whatever was going on in the great hall, it did not distract Sapentia from making a smart adjustment to the raid UI, putting Scarlet into group one, the same group as Rasquelle (and myself for that matter). Not only did this allow group chat so Rasquelle wouldn’t spam the raid channel with instructions to Scarlet, it gave her other group options like the command find, which orientated you towards a fellow group member.

  Only now, as I was running around it, did I appreciate how enormous the ziggurat was. After all this jogging, I still wasn’t halfway around. Was that a hint of grey sky above the jungle? Had we really been six hours at this? No, only four, but still, perhaps dawn wasn’t so far off in this region.

  [Smoked] ‘Got them! Got them!’ Scarlet sounded triumphant. ‘There’s more loot here too, what shoul
d I do?’

  I almost stopped running to do a little dance. Out of habit I was about to reply that Scarlet should take everything, there may be only a matter of minutes left before the boss disappeared but Sapentia beat me too it. [Smoked] ‘You take all you can.’

  [Smoked] ‘Evac?’ someone asked.

  Again, Sapentia spoke promptly. [Smoked] ‘Finish this fight first, then both groups teleport out at same time. Players who outside, meet at jungle house tree for your ports home.’

  That would include me, but what to do with my train? Run it off? Buffed as I was with my own Swift as a Panther, this was the obvious solution.

  [Smoked] ‘Dispersing my train. Watch out for returning mobs if you are on the ramp.’

  Sprinting now, at maximum speed, weaving a path through the thin-trunked, bushy-headed trees, I easily pulled away from all the Anura chasing me. When their stomping and croaking had completely died away and I was certain that I had lost them, I curved my route to bring me back to our rendezvous. Only now could I relax. We’d done it. Even if Scarlet died, and there was no reason why she would, the shards were Fastened to her and she wouldn’t even have to reclaim her body to find them in her inventory.

  That had been some raid.

  Chapter 31

  Black Holes and Multiple Universes

  When I emerged from the game, I didn’t just have to deal with the usual disorientation that came with swapping environments, there were a lot of people waiting for me and several rounds of cheering.

  ‘Great job.’

  ‘Best raid I was ever on.’

  ‘Well done, man, proud to have been on that one.’

  My back received several hard but well-intentioned slaps. My hand was shaken by earnest players with excited eyes and it took several minutes before I could reach the Den, where a smiling Braja gave me a wink. ‘You know what you have to do.’