Already expecting the respite of the gabat's death, this time I was able to create two fire morbs before the new gabat appeared and it took three fireballs as soon as it showed his face.
HP: 114 / 324 <?>
Even so, things were beginning to get a little desperate. Daggers wouldn't have time to do her shadow thing on this one and Eternal would make me take nine attacks before killing the damn thing.
<Daggers, can you tank the two after this one?> I assumed the one who had been awake would come after we had killed its pals.
<Negative!>
<C'mon! I can kill them a lot faster!>
<I do not have a shield!>
<I'll lend you mine, idiot!>
<Then, yes!>
<Stay sharp! When it dies I'll drop the shield on the ground and fall back!>
<Roger!>
Just as I expected, the gabat had time to hit me nine times before dying. I immediately dropped the shield and ran back without checking if Daggers was doing as she had been told.
I didn't go far, though, only about two meters away, and turned while creating fire morbs.
Things went much smoother. Not only did I add eighty-six points of damage per second, but Daggers was also able to hit it almost twice a second.
The gabat died much faster, in a storm of fire and metal. The sixth beast didn't come, even though we were ready for it.
Daggers HP had gone down by a third by then, but nothing like mine: I had thirteen HP left. If Eternal had taken half a second more to kill the last gabat I had tanked, I would have died. For a stupid quest in a stupid place.
"That was amazing!" Eternal said excitedly. "Did you see that?! We-"
<Shut up!> Daggers mind yelled. <Party chat only!>
<Okay, sorry! But, man, that was so incredible! We burned them! To death!>
<Yeah, buddy. Crispy bats.> I sat and began to heal myself. <Let's rest until we're full, then go for the last guy. He's probably a mini boss or something.> Bosses were the stronger monsters in an area or in a big group, like the spider queen had been, and it was common for smaller groups to have mini bosses. <Which magic element heals you, Daggers? Darkness or life?>
<Life, sir.>
<I can't help, then. I think we have to redesign our strategy. You should tank first while I rain magic over the enemy, then I take over. Doings things the way we did only makes you take extra hits when we swap.>
<Negative,> she said firmly without even taking a second to think about it.
Jackass.
<Well, then we better leave after we kill the mini boss. If we find another group like this I don't want to be a hit away from dying again, not for some spoiled girl who refuses to do what's better for the group.>
<Guys-> Eternal began, but Daggers raised a hand and stopped him.
<I am not a tank, sir, I am a damage dealer.>
<Yeah, we saw that. Great damage.>
She shook her head. <I am an agile fighter, sir, and it usually means I am better at close quarters. But our enemy is agile too, therefore I need space to move around.> Her hands motioned at the corridor. <In here I cannot dodge properly and I have to stay protected. As a party leader, it is your responsibility to choose a battleground where your party members can do their best.>
<What?! You trying to blame me?! I tanked the most and I did the most damage to the damn monsters!>
She didn't sound impressed. <Of course you did better than me, sir. You know how you fight, so you put yourself in an optimal position in the battle. Do the same for me. That is a party leader's job.>
<I'm trying to better the whole party's tactics instead. I'm clearly a better damage dealer than you, so I should be one dealing damage.>
<You are blind if you think that, sir.>
Yep, definitely a commando. She was able to sound just the right amount of disrespectful, but still dutiful enough that I couldn't do anything about it as her 'superior'.
She and Tardas did make a great couple.
<Oh, really? Why don't we find it out, then? What about a duel?>
<I do not need to prove myself to you, sir. I will not take the shield unless you are about to die again, I've already decided that. Do as you will with this knowledge.>
Crap. I punched the ground to vent off some frustration. Women! The next few minutes passed slowly in silence. Eternal was the only one who still seemed excited about going on with the quest, so I decided to go on at least a little further for him. If Daggers became excessively annoying to deal with, I'd call it a day.
When we got back to work, in the same setup as before, the gabat was still standing in the same place. Before deciding to tank it, I chose to try and kill if from afar.
My first fireball flew straight at the gabat. It tried to dodge, but I took advantage of the fact that neither Daggers nor Eternal could see it, and made the fireball change paths midway, hitting the gabat close to its head.
86 fire damage dealt to Forever Alone Gabat
It opened its wings, revealing a scabbard on its waist. It took the sword out – a very, very large one, bigger even than Shai's had been – and held it with its four big hands. The reach of the thing was such that I wouldn't be able to counter-attack the gabat.
It ran towards me.
<Eternal, Daggers, come on!> I ran to the gabat, my shield held high, throwing my two remaining morbs at him as fireballs.
They hit, then the gabat hit me.
No sword that big should be able to move that fast. It was not fast enough for me to have any difficulty defending, but still faster than my dodge speed.
56 shock damage received
HP: 219 / 275
Holy crap! Why does everyone hit like trains nowadays?
I felt my arm strain under the power of the hit. Dropping the sword on the ground, I put my other hand on the shield to assist on the next block.
Eternal's fireball flew over me but the gabat dodged it. It didn't dodge Daggers attacks, though.
Again she passed by me like a shadow and thrust her daggers three times total for a hundred and twenty damage. The gabat whimpered like the others and tried to hit her, but she dodged it with a high, graceful leap like a spring uncoiling. The sword passed under her and she put her dagger to the gabat's leg, dealing thirty-five damage.
It didn't make any sound as it fell dead on the ground.
<What the hell?! Why didn't you do that acrobatics thing in the tunnel?>
<Like I said, sir, there was no room for it in the tunnels.> She said as she cleaned her daggers on the gabat's hide.
<But you just jumped! You could jump in there too.>
<Yes, sir. But the other gabats did not have swords. And even if they did, they couldn't have swung horizontally in there.>
I wanted to argue back, but the damn girl had a point. Which I would have seen if I wasn't so upset about her being so full of herself. Now I felt like a blind idiot.
<By the way, sir, this is a good way to kill loners. You deal preemptive damage, tank the first hit and I can finish it.>
She didn't sound as if she was trying to make peace, or even as if she was slightly annoyed at the near argument we had just had. It seemed that to her it had all been simple questioning. It disarmed me completely.
I sighed. For now, I would simply consider her as a very exotic person. To continue fighting her would be stupid.
<Yeah. I'm brilliant. You are pretty good yourself.>
<Convinced that I am a better damage dealer, sir?>
A smile came to my face. So, she did have some fire in there.
<Not even close. Let's check our loot.> We did, and after everything was split between us by the game system, I got two gabat hides.
Eternal almost puked at the suggestion of removing them from the corpses and Daggers had finished cutting her two while I was still halfway on my first. She ended being named our official hide cutter.
Slightly Damaged Pawn Gabat's Hide
We discovered the gabats were named after chess pieces. The ones without a sword were all pawns and the other one was a rook gabat. On close examination the color of their pelts was of slightly different shades, Daggers told us. They were equally black to me, so I just took her word for it.
My two pawn hides went into my backpack. Eternal produced a small purse from his purple mage robe. It had lots of laces in its mouth and he took the time to open them all, expanding the mouth to a ridiculous big size, before putting the hides and the sword inside. Daggers produced a similar purse from her cloak.
The purses didn't get bigger as the items went inside them and I recognized them for what they were: enchanted bags.
<Woah. How did you get these?>
They looked at each other and Eternal blushed. <The First Lord gave them to us.>
<I see.>
Basic RPG rule: if an NPC likes you, you get stuff other people don't. I didn't even care; I wanted nothing from the damn slaver. I had to tell myself this a few times before I was convinced enough.
Strength increased to 8 (+1)
After continuous fights, you have gotten stronger.
About time. Last time I had leveled my strength up had been on my training after leaving the prison, and I had used my sword a lot on the spiders.
After a quick rest, we moved on to one of the two other tunnels that intersected this chamber. I chose the right one because yes.
A new corridor and new traps were revealed and, unsurprisingly, yet another cave chamber with six gabats. This time, all five pawns were sleeping, but the rook was still standing and awake, looking right at me as I appeared.
<Ok, fellas, new plan.> I explained it to them.
A few seconds later, four fireballs flew at two different gabats – Eternal had been tasked with maintaining his own Fire of Revelation since I dealt much more damage than him.
Fortunately, I got critical damage bonus on all fireballs and the two gabats died in their sleep.
The rook howled, the three pawns woke up and ran at me. I managed to throw two extra fireballs before they got to us and they died after a quick fight.
<Easy-peasy.>
After a quick rest, we killed the rook as easily as before. So the circle of death began: rest, kill pawns, rest, kill rook, rest, find more gabats to kill, repeat.
It was damn nice to hunt with people, instead of all alone. Not only did it made things much easier – I wouldn't have been able to kill the gabats alone –, but hearing other people's voices was a nice break to the dark mood of the Underworld.
That was it, I realized. The thing I had been missing.
Friends.
Well, they were not really my friends, more like temporary fellow combatants, but having them with me still felt good. A part of me relaxed a little and, for the first time, I began to really enjoy the game without my worries weighing me down.
We found out the cave had more than one floor – a ramp in one corridor went upwards – and that the floor we were in had twelve cave chambers, each of them with the six gabats setup.
<Do they revive, you think?> I asked them. In games, it was common for monsters to reappear after some time, but Valia had been too real up until now.
<They do,> said Eternal. <From what I read, it uses an advanced implementation of a Schweppes-or-something cat theory.>
<Schrödinger's cat?>
<Yes, that.>
<I see. I just hope they did it right, others have failed too badly on this.>
Schrödinger's cat was a quantum mechanics theory, or maybe just an explanation, that considered a cat in a box with a mechanism that may at any moment kill it to be both dead and alive until someone opened the box to check. Or something like that. It went too far from my interests in life for me to really care to understand.
In gaming, it meant that anything could happen as long as there was the freedom of lack of knowledge for the game to act.
For instance, armies of gabats could appear coming from the upper floor as long as no player was actually there checking how these armies were appearing. When a player did get there, there would be a generic setting, like the spider eggs from the inn, from where an undetermined number of troops could have come.
Also, if there were players watching, there would be a limit to the reinforcements based on existing numbers of gabats.
This was a gambit. Games didn't need to do that, they could simply say that some mystical energy liked to create monsters out of thin air and leave it at that. When they did use the cat theory, though, it meant giving players expectations of some logic and reality. Which, in turn, meant that people would feel cheated or betrayed if such expectations weren't met.
After the AI quality I had seen in Valia, I knew for a fact that they had the computing power to pull off something like that. Yet, AI and monster systems were different things and it was entirely possible for V-Soft to fail.
<Are we going up?> Eternal asked.
<I cannot,> said Daggers. <I must travel out. I can be back in about nine hours.>
<Wow, it's already this late? I also must go. I'll try to be back on the same time.>
<Ok,> I said. <Let's get back to the entrance so you two can travel out safely.> We did and just before they logged out, I got all emotional on them. <By the way, thank you, guys.>
<Sorry?> Eternal said.
<For the company, you know? I'm happy I'm doing this with you two.>
<You are not half bad yourself, sir. At least not after you pull your head out of your ass,> Daggers said and logged out.
I laughed. Yeah, once you accepted her thickheaded nature, it was possible to not want to kill her.
<Okay, thank you too,> Eternal said awkwardly and also left.
I hope I hadn't sounded like a needy guy as I suspected I had.
After long moments feeling embarrassed with myself for what I had done, I took one of the four huge gabat's greatswords I had received as loot out of my backpack.
It was training time.
Jack Thorn
Unbound Deathlord
Legendary Spotter, Hedge Wizard, Pioneer, Dark Archmage
Level 10
Hit Points:275 / 275
Mana Points:620 / 620
Stamina:210 / 210
Attributes:
Strength:8
Agility:7
Dexterity:6
Constitution:8
Intelligence:14
Perception:6 + 10 [Items]
Willpower:9
Charisma:7
Traits:
Adept Mage:11 + 10 [Items]
Adept Controller:11
Energizer:3
Diviner:2
Gold Digger:2
Scavenger:2
Antimage:1
Athlete:1
Crafter:1
Healer:1
Meditator:1
Mind Seer:1
Negotiator:1
Nitpicker:1
Shadow:1
Warrior:1
16. Life or Death
'Your advantage is your ultimate goal. Be prepared to throw away anything and anyone to achieve it.'
- Mother
Low-Quality Extra Large Greatsword
» 50 (+4 [Strength]) physical damage
The greatsword was surprisingly shitty for a weapon that big, but the reason I had taken it out was not for the damage, but for its weight. The thing was so heavy that I received the old Encumbered debuff – game talk for a negative status effect – when I used it.
Encumbered (level 7)
You are using equipment too heavy for you.
» -70% strength damage
» -70% agility (7 -> 2)
» +70% stamina consumption
I hadn't forgotten my unmet goal: leveling all my attributes to ten. Unfortunately, after meeting Ted I'd had no opportunity to focus on this.
From what I understood of this world, weightlifting would probably work
. So, instead of training with my sword, I would do it with the heavy one. It was unfortunate that I could not hold the big thing with a single hand – it was that heavy –, but I'd take what I could.
And so I trained.
A turtle would probably be able to dodge my attack, as slow and off mark as they were. It didn't take long – exactly twenty-three clumsy attacks – for my stamina to be almost depleted, my arms shaking for the effort.
I threw myself on the floor, threw half my MP worth of magic at the walls and for the next twelve minutes or so I rested. After that, I got up and swung the sword again.
More than a few times I had wondered about my lack of boredom in the game. I mean, swinging a sword and a shield while throwing spells repeatedly was not the most entertaining activity. Still, I had done that for days after leaving the prison. It meant that V-Soft's technology was not only about sensory feedback, but it also relaxed our minds as we played the game.
Which was cool with me. Playing a game was supposed to be fun and relaxing, and if they could help with that, why not? They were already reading my mind; you can't get much scarier than that.
Plus, living the rest of my life without boredom, doing whatever I wanted in a fantasy world sounded good to me. If anyone got concerned about it – like people from fifty or so years ago would be –, it was their job to do something about it, not mine.
Also, I need to conquer the Underworld.
That thought made me stop mid-swing. I had no intention whatsoever of conquering the Underworld and my thoughts were nowhere in that direction. It was the second time that had happened and I was sure now: something was in my head.
Not nice, V-Soft. I don't like you directing my life in the game.
As bad as that sounded, it was not uncommon in gaming: adding a character thought to the character. It was a big gray area, with good arguments on both sides – they were supposed to be characters, after all, not our true selves. I disliked it, but I was willing to endure it for the sake of continuing to play.