by Erik Rounds
After taking a short taco break to satisfy her growling stomach and refill her MP, they continued into the next room.
This seemed to be the boss room, though it looked more like a dance floor than anything else. The entrance was set on an elevated platform, with a view of the dance floor below. There were no other exits from the chamber. An electric force field filled the door frame and blocked progress. They both stepped onto the dance floor.
The floor was composed of tiles that changed color in rhythm with the music. The in-game music had stopped, and dubstep music filled the air in its place. Tasha felt the rhythmic vibration of the music reverberating through her body.
Dubstep. Tasha hated dubstep, but that was mostly because she couldn’t dance. And how was this kind of music appropriate for a swords-and-sorcery-themed adventure? As a game developer, the lack of thematic consistency bothered her more than anything else.
Before she could vocalize her displeasure, the boss dropped from above and onto the dance floor. It was a stainless-steel robotic bunny exo-suit. The moment it landed, the boss started dancing to the music.
Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca (Level 25)
Her power armor makes her an indestructible dubstep-dancing dealer of devastation. Only the sweet, sweet smell of carrot-themed sweets can distract her.
ATK 33Mag ATK N/A
DEF N/AMag DEF N/A
Tasha’s battle HUD appeared and the enemy’s info filled the combat log. Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca had thirty heart containers.
Enough was enough. Tasha charged at it and hit the robot with her gunblade. A big fat zero appeared at the impact point. She hit it several more times with a similar lack of success. Then the breakdancing robot performed a spin kick, knocking her clear to the other side of the dance floor.
That’s right. Tasha remembered now. It was impossible to damage boss monsters unless you targeted their weak points. She examined the exo-suit, searching for some telltale glowing surface but found nothing.
From out of nowhere, the robot grabbed a bunch of bombs with lit fuses and threw them into the air. They each landed on different squares on the dance floor. When they exploded, they did so in horizontal and vertical directions Bomberman style, each bomb reaching two squares in either direction.
Tasha and Kiwi watched the floor where the bombs landed and made sure not to stand adjacent to any. Kaze, who was much too large to participate in this boss fight effectively, remained at the top of the stairs watching the battle play out.
Strangely enough, standing diagonally to the bombs only one square away was perfectly safe. It made sense from a video-game logic point of view, but not in a real-world physics sense. The bombs had to be very carefully designed and precisely thrown to operate in such a fashion.
As the attacks continued, a perfectly visible and opaque thought bubble appeared above the robot, the image of a slice of carrot cake floating in the middle.
After the fifth round of bombs, the bunny robot mixed in a glass plate with the bombs, throwing it on the center dance tile. Tasha looked at it in confusion, but the robot destroyed the plate with the next set of bombs.
Kiwi grabbed Tasha by the arm and said, “I think you need to put the carrot cake on the plate!” Tasha nodded in agreement.
She nodded and continued to dodge the bombs, wave after wave, until once again, Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca mixed in a dinner plate along with the bombs. Not wasting any time, Tasha took out the carrot cake and placed it on the dinner plate.
“Yum yum!” came a squeaky female voice from the robot. The exo-suit opened, and a short anthropomorphic rabbit girl hopped out and ran to the carrot cake.
“Get her!” cried Tasha. Kiwi blasted the rabbit with lighting attacks while Tasha wailed on her with the gunblade.
“Ow! Ow! Ow!” the rabbit cried as she wolfed down the carrot cake. Once she was down to twenty heart containers, she was able to dodge every attack and quickly ran back to her exo-suit. “Why you!”
The attack patterns began again, this time at a faster pace. Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca was now firing twice as many bombs, making them much harder to dodge. Kiwi was repeatedly casting recovery spells on the two of them as they were hit.
Between attacks, Rebecca said, “Is that a carrot in your pocket or are you just glad to see me?”
If Tasha had had more time, she’d have facepalmed. Who wrote that line of dialogue and why? Was it supposed to be a clue? Did the developers think they were being funny? What was wrong with these game developers?
At the end of the bomb cycle, the robot fired her fist at Tasha. The robotic fist had rockets attached to it, allowing her to rabbit-punch Tasha from a distance. The robot’s rocket-fist attack cost her seven hearts of damage. It rushed forward and lifted her fist before firing again.
Finally, she started throwing bombs again, and once that was finished, fired another dinner plate into the air. It landed in the center. Tasha knew what to do. She removed the golden carrot from her other pocket and dropped it on the plate.
“Yum yum!” said Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca as she once again left her exo-suit and ran to the plate. She started gobbling up the carrot as Tasha and Kiwi attacked her, bringing her down to ten hearts. She finished off her carrot and said, “You realize… this means war!” before rushing back to her exo-suit.
The attacks began again, but this time the robot was firing missiles from her shoulder pads. When the bombs were flying, she also had a spinning laser attack that Tasha and Kiwi had to jump over or duck under.
“I’m running out of mana,” said Kiwi, who had been healing almost nonstop. “Just keep dodging!”
“Golly, I’m parched,” Rebecca said. “Yessir, could sure go for some carrot juice right about now.”
Kiwi gasped. “Tasha, did you find any carrot juice?”
Tasha dodged a spinning laser beam and stepped out of the way of a bomb. “No. I think we have a problem!”
They continued to dodge the attacks for another two minutes, Kiwi’s mana reserves falling dangerously low. Then, to Tasha’s utter shock, Pan ran into the room, followed by Ari, Hermes, and Slimon.
Pan ran onto the dance floor, easily dodging the bombs and lasers. When she reached the plate, she set the carrot juice on it.
“Yum yum!” said Rebecca, who exited her exo-suit and started chugging carrot juice.
Tasha, Kiwi, and Pan started beating the crap out of Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca, and before long she was down to one heart. The dance floor began to crack and opened up to a cavern below. Before plummeting into the hole, Rebecca cursed, “Suffering succotash!”
Tasha, who was having none of this shit, walked over to the exo-suit and lifted it up, her augmented strength stat giving her the boost she needed. Time to end this. She carried it to the hole in the dance floor.
“Hey, Rebecca! You forgot something!”
She threw the exo-suit into the hole, and it landed on Rebecca, creating an explosion that shook the room.
Congratulations! You have cleared the dungeon: The Bunny Grotto
1200 experience gained. (2091 Experience to next level)
Level up!
Level up!
You have reached level 22.
You have 8 unassigned stat points.
“Ari, Pan! How did you guys find us?” she asked.
“We discovered the dungeon and then just followed the sound of dubstep,” Hermes said.
“Well, thanks, Hermes. We couldn’t have beaten them without your help.”
“Let’s catch up later,” Ari said. “There’s a good chance the flying monkeys will lead Queen Murderjoy right to us. Is there another way out of this place?”
“I think so,” Hermes said. “We should be close to the surface. Give me an hour, and I can dig us out.”
While Hermes was hard at work digging a tunnel to the surface, the rest of the group went through the loot that Retro Robot Rabbit Rebecca had dropped. There was 14,000 GP that they divided amongst themselves. Pan got a new
invisibility cloak to replace her tattered Cloak of Dusk.
Tasha added one mana container and one heart container and assigned two points into precision, two into strength, and four into agility.
Half an hour later, Hermes had tunneled his way to the surface, and they found themselves a good distance from the ravine, though it was still in sight.
“We should get as far away from here as possible,” Ari said. “This place will be crawling with monkeys by morning.”
“Where’s Denver?” Tasha asked.
Hermes shook his head. “Don’t know. We left him at the ravine when we climbed down after you. He might still be there, but that place must be swarming with baddies. It’s too dangerous to go back for him.”
“I can go,” Pan said, patting her new cloak. “They won’t see me.”
Kiwi nodded and indicated a nearby cluster of trees. “We’ll move into the tree line and stay out of sight until you return.”
“Be careful,” Ari added.
Without another word, Pan left the group and slipped on her cloak, vanishing from sight, her body blending into the surrounding landscape.
Chapter 27
Secrets and Revelations
Silently, Pan made her way back to the ravine, her cloak concealing her from sight, removing her scent and silencing her footsteps. Invisibility cloaks were immensely useful, though they were a continual mana drain. She was able to offset its cost by eating a candy bar every ten minutes. The extra calories would convert to mana, allowing her to remain invisible for longer periods of time.
Unfortunately the only kind of candy bar she had available was nougat. Pan hated nougat. She much preferred peanut butter and chocolate candy bars, but she’d long since exhausted her supply of those since leaving Questgivria.
It took her about twenty minutes to arrive back at the ravine. Denver wasn’t there and was nowhere in sight. There was somebody else of note, however. Standing upon the ledge, surrounded by a legion of flying monkeys, was Queen Murderjoy with several of her human servants.
Pan had never seen the queen in person, but every Zhakaran-born human knew who she was and would recognize her on sight. Faint red light emanated from an orb at the end of her staff. Pan was in reach of the Orb of Fire. She hated to pass up such a prime opportunity for burglary, but there was no obvious way to get the orb away from her. If Pan used Steal, she would either fail and be captured and killed or she would succeed and then be captured and killed. The Orb of Fire would serve no master but the queen—it would be useless in her hands.
But if the queen were to set it down and walk away from it, she might stand a shot at taking it, but such an occurrence wasn’t likely to happen.
She began to inch closer, staying hidden in the shadows as much as possible. Her invisibility cloak should shroud her from sight, but there was no point in taking unnecessary chances. The invisibility cloak was slowly draining her mana; she couldn’t delay indefinitely.
An elderly balding man walked straight past where Pan was hiding and approached the queen.
Queen Murderjoy turned to face him. “Ah, Gelkorus… my most trusted lieutenant. What do you have to report?”
“The dungeon just despawned about ten minutes ago,” Gelkorus said. “It pushed all of our explorers outside. It is possible that the princess and her companions died within. That would explain why she wasn’t seen leaving the dungeon. We did find a second entrance along the cliff face, but nobody has emerged from there either.”
The queen stood in thought. “Or perhaps they cleared the dungeon and either found or made another exit. If it is true that they died, then we will learn about it soon enough when the princess respawns at the castle.”
“What are your orders, my queen?” Gelkorus asked.
“Continue patrols along the ravine and search the surrounding area. I believe they are heading eastward toward Slimewater. Set patrols along the roads and passes.”
“Yes, my queen.”
Pan decided that it was time for her to leave. She turned around and moved away as slowly and quietly as she could, heading back to where Ari was waiting. She was disappointed at not being able to steal anything, but a good burglar knew when to cut her losses. It took her and Ari three hours to reach the waypoint.
She removed her hood and approached Tasha. “Sorry. D-Denver wasn’t there.”
“It’s fine,” said Tasha, who pointed happily at Denver napping on the grass. “He actually found us a few minutes after you left. It was too late to stop you.”
Ari sighed with relief. “That’s good. Listen, Queen Murderjoy was there. She’s planning on having her servants patrol the roads to the east. We’ll have to stick to the wilderness.”
♦ ♦ ♦
They spent the remainder of that night traveling at high speed away from the ravine and further into the wilderness. There were powerful enemy spawns, but fortunately everyone was able to flee from the mobs without incident.
Everyone agreed to allow Kaze to join the group, at least for as long as they were in the slime kingdom. Even a young dragon would be a valuable asset, and they were in no position to refuse his aid.
Kaze scouted for the enemy by air, but it appeared that they we not being pursued. After several days of uneventful travel, it became evident that they had escaped from the queen’s pursuit.
As they continued their journey, the shadows of mountains became visible to the north. They crossed great fields of purple wildflowers that decorated the valleys and hills.
Having Kaze in the party made combat much easier. He took over Hermes’s role as a tank. Since he could taunt the enemy and then fly out of their attack range, that enabled the others to deal damage without being on the receiving end.
It wasn’t a perfect strategy, however. If Kaze flew too far away, the mobs would consider him an invalid target and switch to the grounded party members. It was a matter of striking the right balance of being hard to hit from the air while not actually being out of range.
An entire month passed in this manner. They would wake up and spend the day traveling cross country, trudging in their zigzagging pattern to avoid areas of high spawns. At night they would rest and watch movies on Tasha’s phone. The tensions of their close encounter with the queen had become a distant memory.
But at night, Ari would still turn transparent and begin to fade away. Whenever Tasha asked about it, Ari played it off as if it wasn’t a big deal. Tasha never really became comfortable with it, but she stopped asking to respect his wishes.
As the days passed, Tasha continued to keep track of what abilities could be unlocked by different TV shows, songs, and novels. Some of them looked useful while others had no combat application. She jotted the newly discovered abilities in her notebook.
Moby-Dick – Hell’s Heart
Wayfinder ability, unlocks at level 19
Adds bonus damage when attacking aquatic enemies with a harpoon.
The Sound of Music – Spontaneous Dancing
Bard ability, unlocks at level 40
Chance to cause a crowd of people to spontaneously break into song and choreographed dancing. Chance of success depends on the aggregate personality of the crowd.
Naruto – Shadow Clone
Ninja ability, unlocked at level 5
Ability to make a duplicate of yourself at a temporary cost of one heart container. Any damage to the clone will cause it to despawn.
Cost: 1 heart container lost per clone, 1 mana point per 10 minutes per clone
She experimented with Shadow Clone but quickly discovered that her clone was not especially good company. Quite the opposite, in fact. When they tried to fight monsters together, they kept getting in each other’s way and more often than not ended up fighting each other. She wondered whether this was a natural part of meeting one’s self or if it just the way she was.
Big Trouble in Little China – Chinese Language
Classfree ability, unlocks at level 6
Grants user ability to s
peak and read fluid Cantonese and passable Mandarin.
This one caught her attention. Although the ability to speak Chinese offered no practical benefit in Etheria, it was just too cool to pass up. She would be able to watch Bruce Lee movies without needing to focus on the subtitles. In order to learn it, she spent nearly an entire day speaking nothing but Cantonese, much to the annoyance of her travel companions. Once she received the ability level-up notification, she switched back to English.
War Aeternus – Create Bacon
Classfree ability, unlocks at level 8
Exchange mana for uncooked bacon at a rate of one-eighth pound of bacon per mana spent.
Cost: variable
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Create Bacon was a useful ability. It was good to have an emergency food source. Though it consumed most of her mana, she would be able to get it all back within an hour just by eating some of the bacon. After unlocking this ability, bacon became a common side dish during their travels.
There was another ability that caught her interest, though it was out of her reach for the moment. She’d discovered it while watching the even-numbered Star Trek movies with Ari and Pan. After the first movie, the following notification appeared:
Ability Unlocked: Warp
Time mage ability, unlocks at level 40
Fast travel to any settlement that you have previously visited. Anyone in physical contact with you will make the journey as well, though at a higher mana cost.
Cast time: 45 seconds
Travel time: 60 seconds
Cost: 3 mana plus 1 mana per additional traveler
Cooldown: 20 minutes
You will not be able to use this ability since you do not meet the level requirements.
She was currently nowhere near level 40, but it might be worth holding on to the class if only to unlock such a convenient ability. In video games, fast travel was something the player usually unlocked early in the game. Fast travel was a way game developers allowed players to travel around the game quickly without forcing them to spend hours manually trudging the distance.