War Games

by Nikita Thorn

  His friends were moving noiselessly between the buildings. The white fox was checking under the living quarters and Yamura was peering around the corner as he tried to get to the kitchen. The ryoushi glanced up toward Seiki’s usual spot and waited for his confirmation that it was safe, before making a dash into the kitchen.

  Up on the roof, Seiki could see now where they had found the boy. Joji was hiding behind a cluster of barrels beside the kitchen building, his dim shadow visible on the wall.

  A wind lifted, a little chilly on his skin, and something caught Seiki’s attention. He thought for a very brief moment he heard a strange metallic clink, but when he strained his ears to listen it was gone.

  Seiki turned his focus back to his friends. Yamura was already back outside after finishing searching the kitchen, and was looking up toward him quizzically, perhaps waiting for him to signal the abbot’s position once more.

  Seeing that the abbot was near the well at the far end of the temple, Seiki motioned the ryoushi to take a step closer.

  “What?” asked Yamura.

  Seiki risked asking in a low voice. “Did you hear that?”

  The ryoushi shook his head. “Hear what?”

  “There it is again,” said Seiki. It was definitely a metallic clink.

  Yamura seemed puzzled, but before he could answer, a pale hand reached out from the kitchen door toward the ryoushi’s leg. Recognizing Mairin’s golden bracelets, Seiki waved at Yamura to move away, knowing that the ryoushi would probably let out a spooked yelp that would blow their cover.

  The kitsune’s hand found empty air instead of her target, and after a few seconds, the girl peered out to check what had happened.

  Yamura, still pressing himself flat against the outer kitchen wall, had moved out of range and was glaring at the girl. “That’s not funny,” he whispered. “You’re going to get all of us caught.”

  “Don’t you think it’s more fun when the abbot is chasing you around?” The kitsune giggled, before shooting a mock disapproving look toward the roof at Seiki. “Hey, I thought you were on my team tonight.”

  Having the abbot on your heels was definitely more challenging, since it turned the whole encounter into an unending game of freeze-tag, right until the final boss, but Seiki had to agree with Ippei that they probably had better things to do now.

  “No,” said Yamura, answering her question.

  Mairin shrugged. “Remember that time when we got him right from the beginning and we kited him round and round the temple well? That was pretty funny.”

  “No,” said Yamura again.

  “Who’s there?” cried the abbot as he reached the right side of the prayer hall.

  Seiki tapped loudly on the tile and ducked low on the roof, successfully distracting the abbot away from his friends.

  While Yamura and Mairin were caught up in their prank, Ippei had apparently been hard at work. A whistle signal sounded from inside the living quarters, which meant he had found the brush. Now it was Seiki’s job to guide him back to the boy without the abbot noticing.

  Ippei emerged quietly from the living quarters, a simple bamboo paintbrush in hand. The abbot was still circling the prayer hall, so Seiki shook his head as a signal for his friend to wait. He then grabbed a cheap Bamboo Firecracker [Toy] from his pocket and tossed it with all his might toward the front of the temple.

  The bamboo tube sailed across the roof toward the front of the instance. Even without being lit, it conveniently exploded upon contact with the ground, shattering the surrounding silence and spewing merry orange sparkles. This was another part of their strategy Seiki quite enjoyed, especially now that his aim was getting rather good. Kentaro had been the one to discover this toy, and while the strategy seemed a little silly, perhaps even downright cartoonish, it never failed them. The abbot let out an angry grunt and rushed toward the source of the noise.

  Ippei took this chance to return the paintbrush to the boy and get the next part of the instructions.

  So far, things were going perfectly in this run. The next bit, however, was about to become unavoidably chaotic.

  “Kurokoge Grass, Lawn Orchid petals, Sandalwood Oil, and Yellow Lead Powder,” yelled Ippei a second later, listing the ingredients the boy had asked for.

  Ippei had initially tried to get everyone to learn signal codes for all the possible ingredients to keep them in stealth longer. But considering there were more than twenty possible ingredients, no one ever bothered, so the only thing the group could do at this point was to resort to shouting. Since there was no way to avoid detection anymore, they had agreed to just let all hell break loose.

  “Intruders!” came the abbot’s furious cry. The old priest had turned around and was running back toward the kitchen, his staff raised high.

  “I’ll get the Yellow Lead Powder,” Seiki shouted. The abbot’s chemical stash was in the library, and he could easily slip back in through an open window straight from the rooftop.

  “I’m on the flower,” shouted Kentaro from somewhere further away.

  “I’ll do the oil then.” Mairin dashed into the prayer hall, where Sandalwood Oil could be collected from one of the altars.

  The abbot, naturally, did not respond very graciously to all this ruckus. “Who’s there!” cried the old priest, waving his hand in the air as he prepared to cast his Capture spell. Seiki was about to wait for the priest to pass, but the abbot suddenly stopped when he reached the side of the prayer hall.

  “Mairin, get out!” Seiki said. Most of these buildings were fixed with sliding shoji doors, which opened on all sides. The prayer hall was bare. Apart from the neat spaced-out rows of thin wooden pillars, there was no place to hide.

  It was too late. The abbot threw open the door and rushed in. So Seiki leapt down from the roof, landed with minimal damage, and bluffed the priest with a simple sword strike before the priest could get to the kitsune. The old man turned around and blocked.

  “Hi, Abbot Arai,” said Seiki with a smile. “It’s me again.”

  The old priest frowned. “What are you doing in my temple? Thief!” He swung out his staff, his attention now focused on Seiki. The abbot’s attacks were non-lethal and therefore completely Parry-able, but Seiki decided to kite him away to the far edge of the temple to allow his friends time to gather the ingredients.

  “I guess this means you’re on the yellow powder now,” said Seiki as he ran past Ippei, ducking aside as the air thickened behind him and the abbot’s Capture spell lashed out like a whip. The ability only had a three-foot reach, but had a rather wide connecting range, so the best idea was to stay as far ahead of the man as possible.

  “On it,” said Ippei.

  The abbot jumped as he noticed the samurai. “Another intruder!”

  Seiki laughed. “Over here, abbot-san,” he said, stepping closer just in range to reclaim the man’s attention. “Don’t mind my friend.”

  Tanking had become second nature to him, and Seiki quite enjoyed it. Perhaps it was the closest he could get to being right in the midst of the action. Mairin had once observed that his career had trained him to expect to get hurt as part of doing his job right. Despite denying it, Seiki could not help wondering how true that was, as he had to admit that the thrill of danger made him feel intensely alive—the experiences standing out like bright-shining golden spots in his otherwise uneventful existence.

  They reached a small opening behind the kitchen, right before the thick bamboo woods. In one corner was the temple well, which was Seiki’s favorite spot to tackle the abbot. It had a lot of open spaces, and gave him freedom of movement.

  “Let’s do it over here, then,” said Seiki to the priest. “As usual.”

  The abbot was apparently not interested in civil conversation. “What business do you have in the temple!” he growled as he tried to whack Seiki with his staff again.

  Seiki easily blocked the attack and leapt aside. He knew he could do this forever if he
needed to. The abbot was no Master Tsujihara, and his moves were slow and predictable. All you had to do was watch out for his Capture, which he cast from his left hand.

  The abbot glared at him, and Seiki used his Slide to get out of the way as the priest slammed his staff down, the metal tip hitting the ground with a loud thud. Technically, Seiki knew he was supposed to attack, but since the old man posed no real threat, he simply kept dodging.

  “Okay,” came Ippei’s shout from somewhere between the buildings. “Phase Three starting.”

  This meant his friends had gathered all the ingredients and Joji was now happily working on his painting, and the whole thing was about to end pretty soon. It had gone faster than he had expected, and Seiki was glad to know that he would have time to go talk to Commander Nakatani after all.

  “Watch out,” Seiki said to the abbot as he retreated further away from the bamboo forest. “The boss rat is about to come this way.” The man gave no acknowledgement to the warning, but chased after him with a close attack.

  Seiki laughed as he dodged. “Easy, now. I’m trying to save your life over here.”

  “Nonsense!” said the priest, which was what he said to every statement that sounded like an excuse for players to be in the temple.

  “You’ll see,” said Seiki. “About… right… now.”

  As if on cue, a thundering crash sounded from within the bamboo woods, followed by sounds of snapping branches as something gigantic made its way toward the temple.

  “Here it comes,” said Seiki. “Better stand aside if you don’t want to get run over.”

  That had happened a few times. If the abbot was within range, he would try to fight the rat boss with his Capture, which would occasionally help freeze the rat for three seconds, but that would eventually get him killed. On the other hand, if you kited the abbot out of range, the man would mysteriously disappear during the boss fight, but would reappear after the instance was over to tell Joji it was his fate to become a great artist, and also to reward players ten gold each for helping save the temple.

  Ippei had speculated that not having the abbot join the final fight was a way to do the instance in Hard Mode, which explained the extra gold reward. It was not as if Seiki really needed the ten gold, but lately he had been trying to save the abbot every time, perhaps just because he could.

  “Okay, over here by the well,” said Seiki as he rushed to the spot behind the well that he knew for certain was out of the rat’s range. As soon as he got the old man where he wanted, he spun around and stabbed his sword down with both hands, letting the familiar flash of energy flow through him deep into the ground, using Vertical Spike to send shockwaves outward in a small radius around the tip of his Hikari.

  The abbot let out a muted grunt as the area stun hit him.

  “Sorry about that,” said Seiki. He had been on the receiving end of several versions of stuns, and none of them were any pleasant. At Level 13, another Enhancement Slot had opened up for him, and Seiki had chosen to enhance his Vertical Spike so that now it stunned the target for an extra second, at the cost of 20% more energy. It was not his favorite move, but the enhanced version was very handy especially when trying to dodge Shadow Manor ninjas and one-shot attempts by Rogami members. In his current situation, it was pretty much a necessity.

  Two seconds were usually long enough to keep the abbot out of harm’s way as Seiki engaged the rat. Behind him, he could hear the rat boss burst out of the bamboo forest, announcing its arrival with its usual hair-raising Squeak—an ability that paralyzed targets within five feet.

  It was a straightforward fight, one he had done far too many times. All he needed to do was to keep spinning the black rat around and try to attack it from the side, while avoiding its sharp claws and the occasional bite.

  Seiki turned around to face the boss. Then he froze. The instance was indeed different this time, and now he had his proof.

  The giant rat was aflame, blazing orange like a meteor in the dark night sky. Below its massive body, the dry grass was starting to catch fire. Not having spotted Seiki, the rat’s glowing red eyes scanned the temple ahead. Then it let out another Squeak, its flaming tail whipped around, charring the dirt ground pitch black.

  Seiki stared at the thing, something in his head clicking in place about how the 4% drop chance was turning out to be true after all.

  The rat turned toward him, its red eyes full of malice, and he slowly steadied his Hikari.

  “Hey, Yamura,” Seiki called out to his friend. “I think we’ve finally found your fire-rat.”

  CHAPTER 02

  Hinezumi [Level Unknown Rare Elite]. HP 16343/18990.

  The burning rat let out yet another ear-piercing Squeak, and Seiki quickly threw himself out of range in time not to be caught in its paralyzing sphere of effect. The small opening at the back of the temple had been seared black, and the roof above the well was on fire. Even some of the bamboo trees were ablaze and the whole place was undeniably slowly turning into an inferno.

  “Whoa,” was the only thing Mairin could say when she saw it.

  The rat was the same size as the normal boss rat, except that its entire body was covered with angry neon-orange flames, which radiated enough heat to turn the chilly night into high noon on a hot summer day.

  Seiki tried attacking again by sliding around to avoid the rat’s claws before ramming a Focused Strike into its side. His Hikari could not get in very far before the fire on the giant rodent started roasting his arms, forcing him to pull back.

  Ippei was trying the same strategy, to little avail, since neither of them could pull off a full melee connect. Mairin could barely get close and could only rely on her area ability Fox Dust as she dashed around. Yamura’s steel arrows were doing some damage, but he quickly ran out of those and the wooden ones mostly burned before they could make a noticeable dent in the rat’s health.

  The Hinezumi pauses!

  They all let out annoyed groans and ran out of range before the boss could activate its Squeak again.

  “How often is it going to do that? And look at that ridiculous health,” said Mairin in disappointment as she glanced at the remaining number.

  The fire-rat possessed about 30% more health than its normal version. Seiki and his friends had done the temple so many times that they had now worked out a very effective rotation that allowed them to finish the fight with almost half their energy left. This time, however, with the fire preventing them from getting too close, their attacks were doing much less damage, and the near-constant Squeak meant they often had to abandon their attacks midway through to run out of range, and this had quickly depleted their energy.

  That was still hardly the worst of it. The rodent now came with a spin ability, where its tail would whip around and set fire to everything within a ten-foot radius. This special ability activated as soon as the rat managed to trap someone with its Squeak paralysis, and the group learned first-hand that the burning tail was much nastier than it looked when they were caught off-guard by it the first time. Luckily Kentaro’s enhanced multi-target Heal and Mairin’s Kindred Spirit phantom foxes saved them from a wipe, and afterward everyone became extra careful not to get too close.

  “If we all die and the instance resets, you think it will still be the fire-rat version when we come back?” asked Yamura.

  By now, no one doubted anymore the existence of the ryoushi’s coveted arm piece, especially considering how much trouble this encounter was proving to be. Getting to the drop, however, was starting to look impossible.

  Yamura turned to Kentaro. “Try your Reprimand? Maybe it will, uh, stop attacking?”

  That was a far-fetched suggestion, but they were running out of ideas. They had tried everything they could, but their damage output was still much too low. The Level 10 houshi ability Reprimand was one of the rare houshi damaging spells. The first cast of Reprimand significantly reduced the amount of threat from the target on the caster for 15 second
s. Casting Reprimand again on a target affected by the first had a semi-voluntary Disarm effect.

  Kentaro shook his head. “I don’t think it will work. And I really can’t if I’m to keep these sword-wielding gentlemen alive.” The ability cost a lot of energy, and so the spell was often conserved as a last resort for when the houshi wanted to disengage and run away.

  Seiki glanced at the rat again. There was no way they would be able to get it down to 5% health to activate Joji’s cat. “We need to try something else.”

  “Bad news,” Kentaro warned them. “I’m almost out of energy.”

  “It’s just this dang fire.” Mairin coughed as she inhaled too much of the smoke. “Maybe you need, like, three ryoushi for this, and they have to come armed with steel arrows.” She giggled. “Then afterward, they can all quibble over who gets the armguard. Oh, maybe that’s the design. You need to strategically kill off your party members to cut competition so you can loot the special piece.”

  “Uh, can we concentrate on this?” said Yamura.

  As Seiki blocked the rat’s claw once again, he started to wonder what he would do if he ran out of energy. He supposed he could try kiting it round and round the temple well like they once did with the abbot; something Mairin had found extremely amusing.

  An idea suddenly occurred to him as he glanced at the burning roof above the well. Everything was by design, and if that was the case, it was entirely possible that the well had not been put there simply as a hiding place for Joji and for the old priest to run around.

  “Mairin,” Seiki called out to the kitsune. “You think you can kite it for a bit?”

  “Sure.” Mairin was instantly back in fox form and leapt in casually between Seiki and the rat, casting smoky Fox Dust as she tried to draw its attention.

  The moment the fire-rat turned to take a swipe at the white fox, Seiki dashed for the well and hastily pulled up half a bucket of water. The well was nearly dry, and there was much less water in it than he would have liked.