by G. D. Penman
At some point, he was probably going to have to pump up his agility if he wanted to stay ahead of the blows coming his way, but for now the natural advantage of being a smaller target seemed to be carrying him through.
So, neither agility nor endurance were top picks, at least at the moment. Which left him with the dichotomy of willpower and strength yet again.
He really appreciated the utility of his magic, and it had been serving him extremely well in the last few fights, but the whole exorcist fighting style was still built around him hitting things with a sword.
He could blind them, fling them around, heal himself and increase the odds of a critical hit, but none of those things actually killed the monsters he was fighting, and without direct damage the enemies wouldn’t go down.
Every time he had to dodge an attack, he had to be lucky, and with the ridiculous power of some of the enemies they were facing, they only had to be lucky once. What he needed wasn’t the ability to avoid more attacks, it was to make the monsters stop attacking. Permanently.
He dropped all three points into his strength score, briefly wondering if it would have a visual effect. The idea of a really buff rat-man was intensely appealing to him for some reason; probably because the same diseased bit of his brain that still made him laugh at Lindsay’s jokes was at work.
Strength: 9 Agility: 8
Endurance: 9 Willpower: 7
Health: 45 Stamina: 58
A bit more health would have been nice, but this was a compromise he was willing to make. Three extra damage on every hit, six on every critical hit. That could make a big difference.
You may select 1 new ability.
Trinity Strike – Activates after two successful Celestial Strikes. Shares a cooldown with Celestial Strike.
Deals 16 light damage.
Increases critical chance for all allies by 33% for 30 seconds.
[30-second cooldown]
Lay on Hands – Restores 100% of an ally’s health. Reduces your stamina and stamina regeneration by 10% for 5 minutes.
[60-minute cooldown]
Rite of Passage – Unlocks any Gate without requiring the key.
[72-hour cooldown]
That last option nearly stopped him dead in his tracks. The ability to open a Deep Gate without having to deal with the boss of the deep was beyond valuable. Sure, most of them would be guarded by something lethal that you needed to fight your way through anyway, but still. He nearly selected it on the spot, but at the very last moment, he froze.
They already had the key to this deep’s gate, and while he was sure that now they were all together they would be plowing through the deeps that followed all weekend, he had another piece of math to fit into the selection equation.
Was he going to level up again before they got to the next gate? So far, he’d been easily clearing one level per deep, and he was about to get a small bounty of experience points for handing his Defender of the Frogs quest in. By the time they reached the next Deep Gate, he was willing to gamble that he would have gone up another level and been able to select Rite of Passage as his reward, whereas if he chose it now, the new ability would be sitting unused the whole time they were trying to fight their way to the next gate. A wasted pick, at least for this deep. He flicked his tail anxiously then made his selection.
Trinity Strike didn’t seem like a particularly powerful ability back when it had first popped up, but now that Martin realized he could use Celestial Strike to bypass armor, he was likely to use it every time it came off cooldown.
The extra critical chance had been a minor boon when it had just been him and Lindsay, but with a party of four, it suddenly multiplied in value, particularly given the way that Jericho’s attacks seemed to come in small flurries.
If the wolf-man was making a flurry of three attacks each time, and Trinity Strike gave a 33% chance, Jericho would be making one critical hit every time he attacked. There was still a gamble involved in taking it over the Rite, but Martin could be using it twice a minute instead of once per deep. It was the better investment, at least for now.
With the path clear and marked, the guild made record time heading back to the entrance of the deep. Martin knew from years of experience that the bickering would start up the moment there was any confusion, so he did everything he could to make sure their path seemed so obvious that they’d have to be blind to miss it. Even if it was an uphill battle in some cases.
“So, you’re saying that these little frog dudes are monsters but we’re not meant to kill them,” Lindsay said.
She was swinging across the roots on the roof of the tunnel, mainly to amuse herself at this point, since the Swamproot Sight allowed them to navigate hidden pitfalls with surprising ease.
Martin nodded carefully. “Right.”
She dangled by one arm, swinging in ponderous circles. “Because they’re super dangerous? Like, poison skin and extendable tongue punches?”
“No.” Martin could already feel control of the conversation slipping away from him. “Because they aren’t hostile and they can help us out, if we play nicely.”
“They are just NPCs?” Jericho grumbled.
“More or less,” Martin said, “but they might act a little hostile to start with since they don’t know you. I don’t want you to misunderstand and start chopping them to pieces.”
Jericho paused to look down at him. The Wulvan actually had something like eyebrows to raise, big tufts of fur that put Martin in mind of a Schnauzer.
“You want us to let the monsters attack us?”
“I just want you to give me long enough to explain what is happening to them before you start building a throne with their skulls.”
Exasperation was climbing up Martin’s throat, just dying to get out. Lindsay dropped down with a splash.
“I would absolutely rock a skull-throne. Majestic and murderous. That is a look.”
“Well, at least now I know what to get you for Christmas,” Martin chuckled.
She pounced forward, her beak inches from Martin’s face, her eyes sparkling with barely restrained laughter. “Are you confirming the rumors that you are secretly Santa Claus, rat edition?”
“I… I don’t even know how to respond to that.”
Jericho’s big hand clapped him over the back of the head and Martin nearly went over.
“Keep your eyes forward. Don’t let her distract you.”
The swamp spread out up ahead of them, somehow even bigger than Martin remembered it now that he had the roots beneath the surface to grant some sense of perspective.
There was no sign of the Anurvan yet, but Martin felt certain they’d have some sentries keeping an eye on what seemed to be the only entrance to their little domain. Apart from the Deep Gate, which Martin felt certain was in this part of the dungeon, somewhere near to their settlement.
From what Martin could understand of the ecology of Strata, the weak monsters that died up here respawned down at the bottom of the dungeon and then had to make a wild dash for the relative safety of the higher floors.
That explained why there were so few of them up here, if attrition in each deep took care of some of them on each floor between the spawn and their final resting place. It also explained the distribution of weaker monsters closer to the surface in the less contested territory.
To Martin – who had been pondering the mechanics of it all day in between his other mental gymnastics – this meant one very important thing: the monsters had to know where every Deep Gate from here to their spawn point was, otherwise they couldn’t make the trip.
If he could lay his hands on a monster guide, they would have a map all the way down. All they’d need to search for in each deep would be the key, and while the boss-monsters were pretty imposing, the fights were usually over in a matter of minutes.
In a race to the bottom, time was their biggest enemy. Now all he had to do was convince a frogman to join the cause and they’d be on course for victory.
He didn�
��t dare mention this plan to the others. Not yet. It was just as likely that they’d try to shanghai some poor sentry-frog and start a war with the whole village if they realized how valuable an ally the Anurvan could prove to be.
Martin just hoped that his heroics were going to be enough to convince one of them before the rest of the guild worked out what he was up to. What could be simpler?
It was almost startling how easy it was to find the Anurvan village now that the Swamproot Sap had taken effect. Last night had been an arduous hike full of trial and error and no small amount of dread, whereas today it was a walk in the park. Assuming the park was quite badly flooded and smelled stagnant. They didn’t even have to pick a route, as every single path led back towards that central point.
Martin couldn’t shake the feeling that he was walking into an ambush. The entire time they were traversing the roots he kept straining his hearing, trying to find the tell-tale splash of an Anurvan breaking the surface.
He could understand there being some reluctance to surface on their part – Jericho alone was enough to put the fear into anyone with any semblance of sanity – but he refused to believe that they were completely gone. They would not abandon the home it had taken them centuries to grow.
In his mind, he began trying to plot out whatever catastrophe had hit the Anurvan after he’d abandoned them for his watery grave the night before. Another Morass might have come stomping through, or something more sinister might have crawled up out of the Deep Gate, wherever it was hidden. Martin could picture the impact a Night Ravager would have on the poor little Anurvan. Like frogs in a blender.
When the village came into sight, there was no sign of battle damage, or even a hint that it had been populated just a few hours ago. It looked as though it had always been abandoned; every trace of the frog-folk had been stripped away when they went into hiding. Martin sighed. At least he knew they were safe, even if they didn’t feel safe with him right now.
“Okay, this is their village. I’m guessing the giant wolf-man maybe scared them off?”
“Tadpoles, come out to play!” Lindsay bellowed.
That was super helpful.
“Listen, why don’t you guys start scouting out the trails further in, see if you can see any sign of the Deep Gate. I’ll hang back and hopefully they’ll come out once they see I’m alone.”
“Sounds like ambush time,” Jericho grumbled, but he still walked off, scooping up Lindsay under one arm before she could screech anything else.
Julia gave Martin an apologetic wince – as if Lindsay’s antics were somehow her fault – before scurrying off after them, further into the looming darkness of the underground swamp.
Martin half expected the Anurvan to pop up out of the water the moment the others were out of sight, but he was disappointed. He sat on the edge of the vine cluster, dangling his feet in the rust-colored water and trying to keep his patience as the minutes ticked by.
He couldn’t go anywhere until they found the gate anyway. He wasn’t really wasting time. Not really. No matter what that edge of desperation in his gut was whispering to him.
[ANNOUNCEMENT: Nights in Armor have defeated Carnifex, Tenth Archduke of Strata]
The pop-up was like a punch in the gut. Every minute that he was dawdling here, the more their chances of getting to the end of Strata first dwindled.
He bounced back to his feet with a grumble. If the frog-men wanted to hide, let them. He didn’t need to hand in the quest. There would be plenty of experience in the lower deeps; he probably had almost enough banked from that Swamproot to hit level five anyway. He turned around and nearly tripped over Speckles.
The noise that came out of his throat had started as a yell, but he tried to strangle it before it could startle the few frightened frog-folk back into the water, resulting in a croaky squeak that set their huge yellow eyes blinking at him.
“Hi.”
Speckles’ throat inflated a little before he spoke.
“Dry friend. Why bring bad? You fight bad.”
Martin patted the frog on his slimy shoulder. “My friends aren’t bad. Well, they aren’t all exactly good either, but they’re not going to hurt you. I’ve told them about you. They… they’re friends to you too. Probably.”
“Words,” Speckles croaked as the others crept closer. “Not good? Not bad? No hurt?”
Martin sighed. “No hurt. I promise. No hurt.”
That seemed to be enough for Speckles, who held out an empty palm towards Martin. “You fight bad. Save us. You good dry friend. We thank.”
Martin held up his own hand in the same pose and the pink pads of his furry paw brushed against the weirdly textured amphibian skin.
[Rare Quest: Defender of the Frogs COMPLETED]
Skaife gains 480 experience.
Some of the other Anurvan were doing a little capering dance that kept drawing Martin’s attention. It almost made him miss what Speckles said next.
“We gift. You good friend. We gift.”
This was going to be the tricky bit. “I don’t want a gift.”
“You save us.” Speckles ambled closer. “We gift. Is our way.”
Martin tried to act disinterested. “There is only one thing that I want from my friends, the Anurvan.”
“We give! Good friend.” Speckles was practically jumping up and down on the spot. Hopping.
Martin sprung his little verbal trap. “I want your company.”
“Always welcome here!” Speckles gestured at all the stagnant mess around him with wide arms. “Our swamp, your swamp!”
“Sadly, I cannot stay here.” Martin mimed a big sigh. “But I still want to spend more time with you. Would you perhaps consider travelling along with me and my friends? Serving as a guide, perhaps? We’d be happy to compensate you for your time.”
His reply was a long silence, then a blink.
“Many words. Less words?”
Martin tried again. “Me good friend. You come with me?”
“Not that good,” Speckles croaked.
Martin cocked his head. “But I thought it was your way to give gifts?”
“Me give gift. Love give gift. But me not gift. Me not crazy.” Speckles was backing away towards the water’s edge once more. “You go down below. Scary bad. No thanks.”
“That makes me very sad to hear.” Martin pointed a claw towards his own exaggerated sadness and pursued Speckles to the edge.
Speckles patted him on the head. “Sorry sad. Still no.”
The same desperation that the surprise return of the Anurvan had interrupted was beginning to flourish in Martin’s gut once again. “I’ll pay you?”
Speckles shook his head. Since he didn’t have a neck, this involved his whole body swinging back and forth. “Not enough fish in world.”
“Is there a younger, braver Anurvan who might take me up on my offer? We desperately need a guide if we’re to find the Deep Gates that you’ve already traversed.”
Speckles began to really puff up at that comment.
“Gods below! Me bravest. Me youngest. Me say no. Down is bad! No way going down there.”
“All right, all right.” Martin’s shoulders slumped. “I understand.”
“You no understand nothing. Down at bottom is Heart of Strata. Darkness. We run. Through hot and dry, through cold and wet, through slick black and stone. We run all our life to get away from it. But you. You want go down there. It call you like fisher tugging on line.”
Martin couldn’t suppress a shiver. It must have been the damp air in the cave. “We are going down there to destroy it. We’re going to end the darkness. You understand? You can’t run forever. Eventually someone has to face it or it will never end.”
The little frog-man turned his back on Martin, lipless mouth curled up in a sneer.
“No end. Never end. Just dark, forever.”
Along with the other Anurvan, Speckles plopped down into the water and immediately faded out of Martin’s sight. The last ripples p
assed under his feet and just like that, the village was abandoned again.
When he was entirely certain that he was alone, Martin cursed loudly and kicked the stupid wicker village. They could have at least given him whatever reward he was due before slinking off in a cloud of ominous statements. Even if it had just been gold it would have been useful.
He shouldn’t have pushed so hard. Maybe the NPCs were more locked into their behaviors.
With a grumble he set off towards the tiny specks of light on his map where the rest of Iron Riot had dispersed. At least he had gotten his experience points, even if the taste of heroism had turned bitter in his mouth.
He understood why these little frogs were afraid; he had felt his own guts turn over more than once when faced with the monsters of the lower deeps, but their terror was different. It was more real. This wasn’t a game to them; it was their whole world.
He wondered if they could feel pain, if all the monsters they were facing felt every injury that the players could just shrug off with a laugh. If they could, the fear made more sense.
From the brief glimpses of the creatures below, Martin was starting to develop a very clear picture of the designers’ intentions. They weren’t just dangerous, they were sadistic. If they treated players like that, players who could actually defend themselves and posed a threat, he dreaded to think how something harmless, small and squishy would manage.
The specks marking his guild-mates were dotted around the cavern. Presumably Jericho had finally decided that they weren’t at any risk of an ambush after all and they’d dispersed to search faster. Martin broke into a jog, trusting in his Swamproot Sight to guide him safely across the hidden paths.