Rogue Dungeon

by James A. Hunter

  Reminding himself to breathe, Roark steadied his hand and began to write the first spell that came to mind:

  Every human, elf, rog, and olm in a thirty-foot radius becomes instantly paraly—

  The words disappeared, leaving the page as clean as if he’d never touched pen to parchment, and a notification appeared in their place.

  [Mass Paralysis Spell is a Skill Level 4 spell! You cannot inscribe Mass Paralysis at this time.]

  Roark grimaced, but shook away his irritation. No matter.

  He’d spent the better part of his time at the academy thinking around these sorts of arbitrary rules magick users tended to employ—like the time he’d managed to write a spell opening the sealed door that led to the Masters-Only section of the library without sounding the alarm. That had been in his second year. If Lowen hadn’t tattled on him, Roark would’ve spent the night reading about the arcane secrets meant only for the highest levels of education. Though, admittedly, there had been a few times when he’d found out the hard way that some rules existed for the protection of the caster. Such as the time in his fourth year when he nearly boiled himself and a pretty, older student alive from the inside out trying to impress her by heating her tea.

  Roark pushed aside the memories and started writing again:

  Any combination of two humans, elves, rogs, or olms within a fifteen-foot radius—

  [Minor Paralysis Spell is a Skill Level 3 spell! You cannot inscribe Minor Paralysis at this time.]

  One human, elf, rog, or olm within a ten-foot—

  [Paralysis Spell is a Skill Level 2 spell! You cannot inscribe Paralysis Spell at this time.]

  “Seven hells take it,” he cursed. Fine, he would let his mind tumble the problem around while he worked on the other spells, then come back to paralysis. “For now, something basic.”

  A fireball. It was one of the first destructive spells he had learned and certainly the one every young boy went into the academy eager to try. For a moment, Roark was tempted to give the rudimentary wording a bit of a twist—a deadly concussive blast radius—but he quickly shook the thought from his mind. That would probably turn out to be a Level 30 or some such nonsense that he couldn’t inscribe at this time.

  He wrote:

  A ball of fire slams into the target, burning them for ten seconds.

  [Congratulations, you have inscribed Fireball in the Initiate’s Spell Book!

  Fireball can be cast (1) time per inscription!

  Base Damage: 10 HP, +1 Burn Damage per second.

  Cooldown period between casting Fireball and re-inscription: (2) hours!]

  Satisfied that the fireball spell had taken, Roark turned the page and set about writing out the cantrip he had used in his very first skirmish with PwnrBwner_007’s party. It was a simple stunner, but for the moment, simple was all the arbitrary laws of Hearthworld would allow.

  The air within ten feet compresses rapidly, then ignites.

  This one took as well. Roark gave the Spell Book’s response a quick final check before dismissing it.

  [Congratulations, you have inscribed Stun Spell in the Initiate’s Spell Book!

  Stun Spell can be cast (1) time per inscription!

  Base Damage: 2 HP to all targets in Area of Effect, +50% chance of Stunning all targets.

  Stunned Targets have reduced Vision, Hearing, and Balance for (1 x Character Level) seconds.

  Cooldown period between casting Stun Spell and re-inscription: (2) hours!]

  He turned to the next page. One Spell Slot left and writing on borrowed time. Simple spells, basic spells. Hundreds of thousands were fighting toward the forefront of his brain from any number of specialties he’d studied before and after his few years of formal education. Damn it all, he desperately wanted to use a version of paralysis. It would be the most efficient way of carrying out this round of battle. There must be a way to dumb it down to a Skill Level 1.

  Closing his eyes, Roark willed himself to see the stone-walled cell as though for the first time. He reopened them. Kaz was slashing at an imaginary opponent with his curve-bladed Khopesh. Macaroni—hells, that creature needed a new name, that was the least fearsome name in the history of all war beasts—stalked the ceiling overhead, occasionally lashing out with his wide sticky tongue, then crunching away at the insects he caught. The heroes’ corpses lay in and around the debris and trap components scattered throughout the room.

  Roark’s eyes fell on the doorway. A perfect choke point just begging for a conditionally triggered spell.

  “All right,” Roark said, capturing the Thursr’s and the Stone Salamander’s attention. “Here’s the plan …”

  On the floor, Kaz stopped practicing and kicked the discarded coffin lid aside so he could plop down at Roark’s feet. Macaroni slithered across the ceiling directly over Roark’s head, looking down and listening, his head cocked to one side. The beast looked surprisingly curious.

  As he outlined their individual duties, Roark wrote furiously in the Initiate’s Spell Book. This time, the inscription took.

  SEVENTEEN:

  The Griefer

  Minutes after Roark finished explaining the plan, the sounds of battle filled the citadel’s sprawling anteroom. He signaled for Kaz and Macaroni to take their places, then collapsed in the center of the room as if dead. The clash of steel on steel, the screams of dying Changelings, and the shouts of the raiding party echoed down the corridor and into the cell. One voice in particular grated on Roark’s eardrums. PwnrBwner_007. As before, the heroes waded through the anteroom with what sounded like minimal effort, and their footfalls soon echoed in the hallway.

  “Okay, Junior, you’re out front,” PwnrBwner_007 ordered in a hoarse stage whisper. “I want Detect Traps cast on that room before anybody sets foot inside.”

  “Yippee,” the female mage’s bored voice responded, not bothering to match his low tone.

  “Shhh!” PwnrBwner_007 snapped.

  “It’s not like they can hear me,” Junior drawled. “They’re just mobs, loser.”

  “You wouldn’t be saying that if this was your second time coming back to get your crap. Are we within your casting range yet or do we need to get closer?”

  A protracted sigh. “I can see the door, so I can cast.”

  The twanging sound of a wire being tripped vibrated through the air. Roark kept his eyes closed and his muscles slack, but the backs of his eyelids flashed with blue-green light.

  “No active boobytraps,” Junior reported.

  “You’re sure?” PwnrBwner_007 asked.

  “Holy crap,” said a male voice Roark recognized as belonging to the heavily armored dark elf, Dude_Farkowitz. “You gotta see this shiz, Pwnr.”

  A moments’ stunned silence settled over the party; only the shuffle and clank of their armor gave away their position. They were just outside the room now, surely peering in at the strange tableau Roark had set for them.

  Still playing dead, Roark could imagine the scene from the raiders’ point of view: Traps cleared away, pushed to the sides of the room. Their corpses laid out across the far side of the cell as if awaiting their proper writ and burial. And one very tall warrior in a wooden suit of O-Rogiri armor holding a wicked-looking Khopesh and standing over the body of a blue-skinned Changeling.

  “Thank God somebody finally got that little shit,” PwnrBwner_007 said, the smirk loud in his tone. Footsteps sounded on the cell’s stone floor as he stepped inside. “For a second there, I was starting to think the little cockknocker was some invincible quest monster.”

  “Naw, dude,” Kaz offered, drawing out the words just a little too long in his attempt to imitate the heroes’ speech. “Quick little, uh, knocker, though. Would this be you dudes?”

  “Yeap, that’s us,” the dark elf said, heavy armor clanking as he shuffled into the cell toward the row of neatly laid-out corpses. The sounds of more bodies followed him. The clack and tock of Kaz’s wooden armor let Roark know that the Thursr was moving into position behin
d the heroes.

  With an effort of will, Roark bit back the smug expression threatening to expose him. Dead Changelings didn’t smile, not even when their plans came off without a hitch.

  “Hey, wait just a fucking second,” PwnrBwner_007 snapped. “This thing’s Health bar is still full! Dammit! It’s another trap!”

  Make that nearly without a hitch.

  Roark’s eyes snapped open, and he pulled his Spell Book free. PwnrBwner_007 was standing over him, hastily drawing a poor-quality bow nocked with an equally shoddy arrow. Before the archer could get off his shot, Roark cast the Stun Spell. The air compressed suddenly, then erupted, throwing Dude_Farkowitz, Junior, and PwnrBwner_007 from their feet. Both the male and female rogs had managed to remain standing, but both were blinking their eyes rapidly and listing unsteadily as they pulled out low-level weapons. RogStarKel had a sad-looking Shortsword and a Rusty Mace this time, whereas the male rog was wielding a pitted halberd that had certainly seen better days.

  Before the rogs had time to recover from the Stun—only the length of a second, as Roark’s Skill Level was still at 1—Kaz rushed in, swinging his Khopesh at hamstrings and bashing heads with his Dented Buckler.

  Not wanting to waste his advantage, either, Roark drew the Slender Rapier with his right hand and cast Fireball on PwnrBwner_007 with his left. The archer screamed as the orb of flame slammed into his shoulder and a blazing inferno engulfed him, scorching armor and biting at exposed flesh. He batted frantically at the flames, trying to smother them, but with no success.

  Dude_Farkowitz, the elf warrior, took one look from the burning archer to the rampaging Thursr.

  “Nope!” The elf scrambled to his feet and sprinted for the door. “Nope-nope-no—”

  The moment the elf’s heavily armored foot touched the threshold, Roark’s final spell triggered.

  The first creature to step across this threshold twice becomes paralyzed on the spot.

  The seven-foot-tall elf warrior blocked the doorway as effectively as any heavy wooden table ever could, effectively trapping the rest of the warriors inside. Roark tucked the now-empty Spell Book back into his Inventory and rushed the mage, Junior, who had just regained her feet. She glared at him, dark eyes dancing in the flames radiating off PwnrBwner_007.

  “I shoot fireballs at people, a-hole,” she snarled, raising a burning hand, palm thrust out. “Not the other way around.”

  “Please do.” Roark grinned at the mage before him, showing his rows of serrated Changeling teeth. “If they’re anything like your Detect Traps spell, I should be fine.”

  Junior fired the ball of flame at him. Roark stepped aside in an easy contratempo to her attack—mentally taking back every grudging thought he’d had about spending those last five Stat points on Dexterity as he did—and slashed a quick tondo cut down the length of the mage’s spell-casting arm.

  She let out a cry of rage, flames roaring from her outstretched hand like dragon’s breath. Roark sidestepped, then feinted toward her arm once more. The mage spun on her heel, attempting to get out of the way of the cut, her robes whipping behind her like a train. With a flick of his wrist, Roark changed the thin blade’s direction and slashed the debole across his true target, the mage’s exposed throat.

  Health bled from her red bar as the blood poured down her neck and onto her robes. Eyes wide, she grabbed the gaping wound with both hands, but couldn’t stem the leak.

  From behind Roark came the sound of a dying rog. Male or female was anyone’s guess. Kaz was doing well, it seemed.

  With a heavy fendente dalla spalla—a downward slash swung from his shoulder—Roark backed Junior into a corner. Her Health had dropped to nearly a quarter, but she took one bloody hand from her ruined throat and gurgled out something furious, shooting more roaring dragon’s breath at Roark. He was too close to avoid the entirety of the flame. It burned across his right shoulder and back as he ducked under it, draining away a fifth of his Health vial with it. More red disappeared with every additional second.

  Quickly as he could, he lunged inside Junior’s measure, running her through with the rapier. The dragon’s breath sputtered and failed as her red bar flashed a critical warning. And then, in a blink, the mage died, collapsing in a heap of limbs.

  An arrow thudded into the raw meat of Roark’s burned shoulder, and fresh agony bloomed from his blistered flesh. He pitched forward, dropping to one knee to stop himself from sprawling out flat on the stone floor.

  [x2 Backstab Multiplier!]

  A full third of the remaining scarlet liquid in his Health vial disappeared.

  “Get wrecked, dickbreath!” PwnrBwner_007 hollered.

  Roark stumbled back to his feet just in time to see the archer nocking another arrow, its iron tip aimed at his left eye. With less than fifty percent left in his vial, he couldn’t imagine an arrow through the eye socket doing anything less than killing him. Roark raised his rapier in an obvious invitation and lunged into a series of mandritto and riverso squalembrato—a sequence of quick, deliberate steps toward PwnrBwner_007 that forced the archer backward while Roark slashed at him from right to left and left to right.

  PwnrBwner_007 let fly as he backpedaled from the flashing blade. Knocked off course by its owner’s hurry to get out from under the slashing cuts, the arrow slammed into Roark’s sword arm. Pain lanced up his bicep and down to his fingertips as a sixth of his Health dribbled away. Roark’s arm dropped uselessly to his side, rapier clattering away.

  He hurried to pull the Kaiken Dagger from his Inventory with his off-hand, but PwnrBwner_007 was already drawing back a new arrow. The archer could loose his string before Roark could cross the distance between them, and that would be it … Starting over again from level one, all five levels he’d gained so far lost to this angry little boy.

  A shadow flickered overhead. Roark flopped to his belly as Macaroni dropped from the ceiling—right down onto PwnrBwner_007’s head, camouflage disappearing. The drawn arrow veered wildly off course and thudded into a thick beam above, while the archer and Stone Salamander hit the floor like a sack of meal. Roark rolled to his feet and joined Macaroni in finishing off PwnrBwner_007. Between the two of them, they made short work of the archer’s remaining vitality.

  As the archer’s Health bar flashed the critical warning, PwnrBwner_007 let out a screech of fury.

  “You griefing son of a bitch!” He flailed his bow at Roark’s head in a futile attempt to inflict some damage—any damage—before he died. “I’m gonna pwn you so hard! You’ll see, you little—”

  PwnrBwner_007 slumped lifeless to the floor in a pool of his own blood, eyes glazed, a rictus of hate glued across his pale face.

  [Congratulations! A player has given you a nickname: Griefer! Accept? Yes/No]

  Roark wiped his gore-covered dagger on PwnrBwner_007’s cracked Leathers, then stood and scanned the cell for Kaz. He found the Thursr pulling the sickle-blade of his Khopesh from the paralyzed corpse of the elf warrior blocking the exit. As Kaz did, the elf crumpled, falling half in and half out of the room. Dead.

  “What does ‘griefer’ mean?” Roark asked him, returning the Kaiken Dagger to his Inventory, then going over to pick up his fumbled rapier. “I’ve never heard the word epithetized before.”

  “It is a body-camper,” Kaz said.

  Roark shook his head. “I need you to explain further.”

  “One who lies in wait near heroes’ corpses to kill them over and over again and steal their loot,” Kaz tried. He gestured at the bodies scattered about the gore-spattered cell. “As we do.”

  “Doesn’t everyone in Hearthworld do that?” Roark asked, genuinely curious and quite surprised. “It’s the most efficient way to level up and gain better weapons.”

  Kaz frowned and shifted his weight from foot to foot. “No no no. Only the lowest of the low would do such a thing to their fellow heroes—and no chimera has ever done it before. Griefing is …” He faltered, voice dropping to a whisper. “It is bad manners, Roa
rk.”

  Roark snorted, thinking of all the proper conduct he’d forgone and all the times he’d gotten his hands dirty over the years in the name of freeing his country from the oppressive fist of Marek Konig Ustar.

  “There are no manners in a war, Kaz,” Roark said, picturing the golden-haired thief Danella, who’d taught him the art of the cheap shot and the backstab and the pocketful of pepper-laced sand. “Only the victors and the dead.”

  “Roark does not understand,” Kaz insisted, clutching his Khopesh to his wide, white-furred chest like a child’s stuffed toy. “Griefing can lead to dire consequences. Higher-level heroes might later come and grind the griefer into dust, wiping out him and anyone with him, perhaps even camping the griefer’s body in revenge for his crimes.”

  “Kaz, these so-called heroes attack your citadel every day, and you respawn every two hours so they can kill you again. You’re forced to live a vile and tortured existence that not even your Floor Boss is trying to stop for the benefit of everyone but you. Griefing the heroes who raid the citadel is the most practical and effective way of ending that cycle. If I’d had the ability back in Traisbin, I would’ve used it a hundred times over and finished off the Tyrant King by now.”

  Roark returned to the message asking him to accept or reject the title given to him by the dying PwnrBwner_007. With no small measure of grim satisfaction, Roark selected Yes.

  [Congratulations, your Infamy has increased to Nonentity! You are now known as Roark the Griefer!]

  EIGHTEEN:

  Tradecraft

  In keeping with his new title, Roark had Kaz gather up the trap components from around the cell and take them down the corridor to the massacred Stone Salamander nest. It was time to grief the pair of heroes they’d rescued Macaroni from. Though Roark had used all of his inscribed spells in the last fight, and the cooldown period to re-inscribe them wouldn’t end until after the salamander-slayers respawned, he knew the traps would give them the upper hand. After all, the salamander-slayers didn’t yet know what they were up against.