Chapter 26

  There was no time to react before my dwarfish knee slammed into Clara’s face. I felt bone and cartilage collapse, and I panicked as I watched her Knocked health bar drop some thirty percent. “Crap!” I shouted, startled. “My bad!” They must have seen the portal and tried to go through. I guess being Knocked prevented that.

  She responded through a bloody nose, but I didn’t have a chance to comprehend what she said as I looked around the room to get my bearings.

  The room was thick with skeletons, a mix of archers and warriors. The three bosses had recuperated some of their health, and both the skeletons and the bosses were pacing around almost as if they were in idle mode. When I reappeared . . . all their heads turned toward me in unison.

  Ohhh fuck, okay. Here we go.

  Charleston the Necromancer, now done resurrecting the dead, targeted me and started up a cast, holding up his staff. Charles started charging at me, and Charlie blinked.

  A knife sank into my back, and I cursed. Despite the yell of agony I let out, I found myself slightly grinning. The attack had only brought my health down by a fifth. Quickly, I turned, a Basic Attack already in motion. My hammer connected with the side of Charlie’s face, and he blasted off his feet from the hammer’s knockback effect. He flew back and fell to the floor. I cast Shield Dome and threw what looked like a little golden wiffleball—only a little bigger—at my feet. A golden transparent honeycomb barrier blinked into existence all around us. I watched a couple skeleton warriors walk through but was absolutely thrilled when Charleston’s cast completed, and the flying black spell hit the barrier and died. Arrows were pinging off the dome harmlessly as well. Charles was approaching, Charlie was back on his feet, and the army of skeleton warriors was closing in fast. I cast my new Allied Cry ability. I bellowed, “TO ARMS!” involuntarily. I noticed Clara flinch as I did . . . Ugh. Mie was going to give me so much crap for that.

  Three Mountain Elf guards in gleaming silver armor blinked into existence in front of me, and I found I could mentally place a target for them to focus individually, as well as choose when to activate their Guardian Shout abilities. I had two of them shout, successfully generating enough threat to grab aggro. The skeletons and bosses that had been close turned to face them instead of me. As they turned, I finally knelt and started in on Hand of God in order to rez Clara.

  “Did you get my messages?” I asked to make sure she had read them.

  She tried to speak, but only blood and drool came out. She stopped, and just nodded.

  “When you get back, kite Charles for as long as you can. We need to buy time for Mie and Fred.”

  She nodded again. The cast finished, and she popped up, all her wounds healing and her health bouncing up to that fifty percent mark. She didn’t waste any time as she slid into the Battle Hall portal and vanished.

  That was my plan: to get everyone their class.

  I knew that there was no way in hell we could win this battle otherwise. Fred’s main attack was worthless, Mie didn’t do any damage, and while Clara’s stacks were effective, they were not enough. We needed more firepower.

  The two Mountain Elf guards fell, so I had the third shout to draw aggro. The dome was still up, but I knew it was about to expire. I watched my stamina top off and checked the dome’s cooldown. It looked like I would be without it for close to a minute. I checked Allied Cry’s cooldown as well. That one would be down for slightly longer.

  I didn’t waste any time though. The third guard had grabbed the attention of all the enemies, and Charlie and Charles were falling in. Charleston was still casting, seemingly unaware the dome would block his attacks. That was good. I looked for Mie and found her huddled to my left, in the far corner. I switched classes to my Wind Rogue and instinctually Blinked toward her. The mechanics of the new Blink ability were interesting. I had to see where I was going to appear and mentally visualize it.

  When I reappeared, I Wind Dove right afterwards. My body flew in the direction I targeted, as if violent wind was pushing me from behind. I made it to her side almost instantly. That, I thought, is fantastic. I now had two movement abilities, and combined, I could go a pretty good distance.

  “What the hell? Why do you look like a dumb rogue? I thought you hated rogues,” Mie said.

  I switched back to my Warden class. Mostly because I needed to, but also for effect.

  “Wait. What the hell? Why are you short and fat now?!”

  I started in on Hand of God and glanced behind myself.

  “Fat? Really?” I retorted. The remaining guard was just now falling, and I saw the dome disappear. “This is pure muscle.” The room’s attention returned to me. I laughed at her reaction, which was an expression of confusion and uncertainty.

  Arrows started hitting me, dinging off the shield on my back, but even the ones that found their mark were less effective with my new passive Projectile Resist ability, which felt like a shallow layer of compressed air all around my skin. It slowed the incoming arrows significantly. They still broke skin, and I saw my health drop in small chunks, but I was now able to withstand them, especially with the shield covering me effectively. Instead of interrupting my cast, they just increased the time it took to rez by a small amount.

  Mie stood up as the rez completed, and I covered her as a trade window appeared containing a full set of armor and a shield. Okay good. She got my messages. The trade window was full of gleaming red armor. We confirmed the trade, and then I equipped Charles’ old Keeper armor and shield, fully appreciating the immense strength and constitution each item brought. I nodded to her in thanks.

  “Don’t die” was all she said before she started lumbering toward the portal, throwing me a Flash Heal as she went. In our bond, I felt her confusion and fear as she moved.

  I still seemed to have aggro though, so the room ignored her. I went ahead and bellowed a Guardian Shout anyway as Charles and Charlie closed in. The one or two archers who had trained on Mie whipped their heads and bows towards me.

  As the two melee bosses began their Basic Attacks, I activated yet another one of my new abilities. Impact Armor. Their attacks connected as my red armor grew a layer of rubber-like substance. It was completely black and covered every inch of my gear. Even my shield. The armor absorbed the blows over and over, and I watched my health carefully as it . . . barely dipped at all. Okay. That’s good.

  I didn’t attack the two melee bosses and instead trotted forward at a slow pace, letting them trail behind, continuing to land attacks on my back as I approached Charleston. They kept swinging, skeleton warriors joining them now. Arrows were coming in rapid fire. All of the attacks combined pelted and bashed against me. And I kept focus on my health bar carefully, likewise keeping count of Impact Armor’s ten second duration. Even with the ninety-five percent damage reduction I was worried. My health dropped beneath the fifty percent mark. I popped a strong health potion, topping off my HP and finding myself directly in front of Charleston. His mouth was frothing as he completed another spell. The black inky pill crashed into me, and my armor absorbed that damage as well, storing its potential in my body. I could feel it there, like bottled up lightning in my stomach.

  Just before Impact Armor finished, I activated my ultimate: Hammer Smash. I raised my hand and hammer into the air, a rush of power and wind flowing into it. It felt like I was stealing mass from the world itself.

  I slammed my hammer into the floor.

  The room . . . broke. Massive cracks formed, spreading out from me, tossing enemies into the air until the archers lining the walls and I were the only ones standing.

  Silence fell, as ten-second stun timers appeared over the heads of all the enemies surrounding me encasing them in blue. I targeted Charleston, who had resisted the stun effect, released the damage potential that Impact Armor had absorbed, and willed it into my hammer swing. The hammer caved his head in, like a one-year-old smashing their fist into a cake. Blood and gore spattered across my gear. I switched to my Wind Rogue, praying this would be enough. I activated that class’s ultimate as well, Spinal Tap. Suddenly, I was behind the Necromancer, a shortsword of transparent blue already swiping effortlessly through his spine. The sword looked like it was condensed wind and maybe spirit or something. His health zeroed out, and he finally stopped fucking floating, falling to the ground, dead.

  Huh. I thought. That went way better than planned. I was starting to think that even though I was still slightly under-leveled for the dungeon, my gear was bringing me up to at least par . . . and having two classes obviously helped a ton. The thought comforted me, but there were still a ton of enemies and two more bosses. An arrow bit into me as I tossed my Shield Dome over Fred, then I blinked and dove toward him, wanting to take full advantage of the remaining stun timers.

  Fred was in the complete opposite corner of the room from where Mie had been. But I was able to get him rezzed with the help of the dome. Looking shaken and hugely relieved, he blubbered out a ‘thank you’ before turning invisible and heading to the Battle Hall portal. I Guardian Shouted again for good measure to ensure Fred made it to the portal safely. Once he passed through, I turned once again to face the bulk of the room, its attention fully on me. At this point, my options were starting to thin, but cooldowns were ticking down, Allied Cry came back online, and I went ahead and activated that.

  Meticulously, I made moves to group the skeletons and the two melee bosses up into a mob. Going from corner to corner had somewhat already done this, but I bunched them up even tighter, blinking and diving away from the melee enemies when they got close. Charlie was able to land hits here and there with his speed and his blink, but Charles the Keeper was slow and unable to get any hits in. With my insane stamina regeneration, I was able to keep my abilities coming as I dealt out devastating hammer blows to the skeleton archers when I could. They would completely scatter under its impact.

  Between Allied Call, Shield Dome, and Impact Armor, I sustained.

  I growled with pleasure, excitement growing . . . until I dealt an impact blow to Charlie that brought his health below fifty percent.

  This triggered a new boss mechanic. One that I had seen before.

  My gut clenched as I saw the Keeper stumble over to the Necromancer and start to cast what was clearly a rez.

  “God DAMN IT! JUST DIE!” I shouted as I started running at him. I hadn’t realized the boss rez from before was a threshold mechanic. I’d thought it had been an ability only the Necromancer could do. How are we supposed to win if they just keep rezzing?!

  Unfortunately, I had used up my blink and dive abilities a moment before and had no way to quickly get over to him for an Ass Crack. With absolute dread, I watched the Necromancer rise once more. He laughed a shrill laugh as he saw me and waved his staff. Three of the many, many archers I had taken out of the fight reformed, their bones flying together like one of those melon blasting videos I used to put in reverse for my kids.

  Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.

  Anger rolled over me. I was over this fucking place. Both my ultimate abilities were on cooldown, and while I had been able to kite for the most part, the Rogue was still getting hits in here and there, and with archers resurrecting, the arrows were going to start coming in swarms once again.

  As I activated Impact Armor once again, I analyzed the situation. I assumed we needed to take out at least two of the three to stop the resurrection mechanic? That felt somewhat right, but I had no way of knowing for sure. I raised my shield, blocking an arrow coming for my face. That alone was going to be a tall order, if we needed to take them all out close together, that was going to be a huge problem. I could only hope the others picked up some abilities that would help. Ideally something that wasn’t a class ultimate, since I assumed those would all have long cooldowns.

  I bellowed out another ‘TO ARMS!’ as my Impact Armor fell away, its power successfully stored within myself. This time five guards appeared at my cry. I had one activate a Guardian Shout, which generated the threat needed to grab aggro, but not before Charlie—who appeared next to me—planted his dagger in my side. I blasted him away once more with the power stored up from Impact Armor, enjoying the feeling of bone breaking. He went flying both from the knockback and the power behind the blow.

  I looked at his health and smacked my head as realization kicked in. I was dumb. We just had to keep them all alive but lower their health to insignificant amounts, then take them all out at the same time. I threw a dome down at my feet and activated another shout from one of the other four remaining guards, giving myself enough time to type into chat.

  As I finished typing, finally, three figures appeared, one after the other, sliding in from the shimmering portal. One wore darkness that looked like a cloak of black fire wrapped around her and had a long sword handle poking up over her shoulder. The tall one had a white robe and held a familiar staff in one hand and a book in her off hand, and the shortest of the bunch held two wands, one in each hand. And . . . he was butt naked.

  God . . . Fred, I thought. What the hell?

  “TIME TO WRAP UP YOUR SEX FANTASY, MY LIEGE!” Mie shouted over to me. Then she glanced behind herself and flinched by the surprising view that greeted her. “The hell, Fred?! YOU TOO?!”

  I shifted to my Rogue, blinked, dove, then shifted back to my Warden as I appeared in front of my team. I had another guard let out a shout, buying more time.

  By now they had probably all read my messages. I nodded to everyone and gave Fred a questioning look.

  “No leather,” he said, grimacing.

  I threw him a couple old gear pieces I still had through a trade window, and he popped those on.

  “I can’t believe you were naked under your robe . . . this whole time,” Mie said.

  I quickly inspected all the new classes on their nameplates

  Upland Highborn, Shadow Priest

  Shade Elf, Void Dancer

  Fairy Dwarf, Luckiteer

  I turned to face the mob of skeleton warriors. All three bosses were now headed our direction. A flash of purple fell through me, and my health—which had dropped below fifty percent—topped off. I noticed it healed considerably more than her former Flash Heal.

  “What’s the cooldown on that heal?” I asked Mie.

  “One second,” she said.

  “Okay good,” I said. “Keep the heals coming, but don’t over heal. Save your mana. If you run low, call it out, and I’ll pop a couple of my new ‘oh shit’ abilities.” There wasn’t time to say more, and it was time to test my default strength. I had been avoiding it, but I needed to know if I could withstand high amounts of damage without my Impact Armor and other shields. I let out a Guardian Shout of my own, making the others flinch, and charged into the mass of approaching bone.

  I marveled at my new strength and health pool. Charles landed a swiping blow to my side with his sword, knocking my health down by a quarter, and Charlie dug his knife into my thigh. A blast from Charleston hit me squarely in the breastplate, and skeletons all around me cut and stabbed their swords into me. While all of the blows were still painful, the heals from Mie came in steady, and for the first time . . . I sustained real damage, without Impact Armor, and survived. Yes, Mie was healing me, but I kept aggro, and the whole room clamored to attack me. I swung my hammer over and over, blasting skeletons apart.

  I watched the others from the corner of my vision. I saw a familiar Arbitrary Blast fly out from Fred toward a boss . . . and once again watched it sizzle away. But then he swapped to the dual wielding wands I had seen and started peppering the skeletons with bolts of magic, dealing solid damage. Every once in a while a green explosion would expand outward from a hit location, envelop the entire skeleton, and then wink out of existence, leaving no trace of the enemy. I had him link me the ability, needing to understand how it worked.

  Passive Ability: {Lost Target}

  Description: You roll a d100 on every Basic Attack. On a roll of a 95 or higher, you instantly kill your target. Bosses and Players are immune to this ability.

  That is awesome. He had a five percent chance for every attack to instantly kill his target. I looked over as one of Clara’s arrows rammed into Charles’ chest. The arrows were now tipped with what looked like a small black ball, and her attacks also felt faster. She peppered the Keeper with arrows, stacking a new debuff on him.

  {Black Venom}

  Description: This venom both creeps along the surface of its target and binds itself to the floor, slowing them by 4%. The venom enters their bloodstream, dealing damage relative to your attack power over two minutes. This can stack up to two hundred times.

  I watched the black bulbs break on impact, like a paintball would. There was still a sharp arrowhead hidden underneath, allowing the arrows to pierce their target. I watched as the black venom spider webbed its way across Charle’s chest and legs and then shoot out like little silly-strings of blackness and attach itself to the ground beneath his feet, slowing his movement considerably. It reminded me a lot of The Black Queen’s corruption vines.

  I had Clara start rotating her shots across all three bosses to spread out her damage and stacks. I did the same, Ass Cracking one, then using Impact Armor against another, then Hamstringing the next. The Necromancer had rezzed the skeletons I initially blasted apart, but now with Fred’s ability, which seemed to permanently remove them from existence, there wasn’t anything left for the boss to resurrect.

  We kept at it for a good while, spreading out our damage until the remaining skeletons were gone and the bosses were all close to one percent health. Charleston went down first, and immediately Charles started towards him slowly. With the threads of darkness dragging him down, he wasn’t going to make it in time, but I Ass Cracked him for good measure, and he froze mid-stride, stunned. Shortly after, I dealt a Basic Attack that crushed him to his knees. Blood seeped out of him once again from a mass of arrow wounds. He fell over . . . dead.

  Then, it was just little Charlie left.

  Clara moved toward him slowly as he tried to move. He had so many threads of black binding him, his movement was basically halted. Her voice sounded tight. “Time for a slap to the bottom, you little devil child.” . . . Then she unleashed her ultimate.

  The black flames that enveloped and wicked off of her went from slow-burning wood fire to jet engine pointed to the sky. As they grew in intensity, her eyes turned black. She drew out a massive two-handed sword off her back, easily longer than her own body was tall. The sword’s blade also turned black, and the black fire spread down its length. She held it with one hand effortlessly, and I realized it was the sword Charles had dropped. Mie must have passed it along to her. With a lazy flick, she smacked Charlie’s butt with the flat part of the blade. Only . . . the effect was more like that show . . . Wipe Out. He went flying, hit the wall, and . . . dropped dead.

  We all stared at Clara in awe-filled silence. Mie’s mouth was slightly open, and Fred was doing a weird little jig with an expression of glee on his face.

  You completed the dungeon Charlie’s Crypt!

  You received 2,000,000 XP!

  You gained multiple levels!

  You reached level 45!

  I fell to my knees next to all the boss’s corpses that were glowing gold. I was . . . exhausted.

  Mie walked over to me and knelt by my side.

  “I just wanted to ask him something,” she called back to a question from Fred. Then she got a little closer and spoke softly in my ear, clearly worried about something. “Did you check them yet?” She motioned to the boss corpses.

  I also noticed that a large golden chest had appeared in the center of the chamber.

  As the bosses clearly had not been looted, I asked, “Check them for what?” I noticed Clara and Fred had come up close to listen in.

  She got closer and whispered loud enough to be heard, “For vaginas.” Then she sat back and burst out laughing.

  “The joke . . . is officially old, Mie.”

  “I still don’t get it,” Clara said. “Why does Charlie have a vagina?”

  “Imagine you have a guy friend named Charlie. Or at least you thought—”

  “Mie. I will for real kill you,” I said.

  Then fast as a chipmunk she said, “Who later, after years of knowing him, reveals he has a—surprise! Vagina. AND THEN YOU HAVE A WET DREAM ABOUT HIM.”

  I breathed out. God damn it Mie. Why terrorize me like this?

  “Fucking weird ass kids these days,” Clara said.

  Fred just . . . stayed, looking confused.

  “Let’s just . . . loot and get out of here,” I said, too tired to react further to Mie throwing out-and-about the most awkward moments of my life.

  “Your past is just full of top tier stuff,” Mie said reading my . . . pissed off expression, “and it’s not like I have Greg to make fun right now . . . speaking of . . . he has been so quiet. GREG YOU BETTER NOT BE NAKED IN MY BED AGAIN!”

  Greg: You will never know, and also I'm quiet because every time I talk, you tell me to stop talking. So that’s what I’m doing. But great job, everyone. I thought for sure you guys were dead in there.

  Mie: Shut the fuck up, Greg. No one asked.

  Greg: Sigh.

  Moving on, I checked my logs and noticed a line.

  Exit Dungeon Instance? {Accept}

  I held off on that while we looted the corpses. Then I turned to the chest, rubbing my hands together. The chest was large and came up to my waist. It was intricate, with all sorts of imagery embedded into the dark gray metallic exterior. I opened the lid, and gold light poured out. After all the rolling, and to Mie’s extreme displeasure, I came away with six noteworthy items. Three were blue egg-shaped stones, one the skull-headed staff of the Necro, and one ring that bore a gray stone that almost looked like it warped the space around it slightly. It was hard to look at.

  {Charlie’s Resurrection Stone} x3

  Rank: Legendary

  Description: You may resurrect a dead party member regardless of their remaining life credits. Restores player back to full health. Physical contact with target corpse required.

  Cast Time: 10 seconds

  {Staff of the Dead}

  Rank: Epic

  Grade: Masterwork

  Slot: Hands

  [+6-14%] Magic Resistance

  [+20-40%] Shadow damage

  +30 Agility

  +55 Intelligence

  {Charleston’s Ambient Dungeon Stone}

  Rank: Legendary

  Slot: Ring

  Description: Attacks directed at you or your party members that contain roll-based mechanics are dispelled.

  That last item made my blood boil. There had been no mention in the instance manual or on the dungeon gate . . . or from fucking Greg that said, ‘Hey. Don’t bank on luck-based abilities against the bosses in here. You shitters.’

  I still couldn’t believe we had survived . . . I thought back to what Greg had told me way back when we first talked about Battle Halls. Battle Halls had a two percent chance of showing up when entering a new area of the dungeon. There was a lot higher chance of them showing up after the last boss battle, but for it to have shown up before the end of the fight? That was a one out of fifty chance. We were extremely lucky to not have lost our lives. But still . . . we lost three life credits.

  After turning the items over in my hands, I ended up passing the staff to Mie and the ambient dungeon stone to Fred.

  Fred looked confused. “It makes sense,” I said quickly after seeing his expression and confirming the trade. “The dungeon stone won’t always be in effect if I am constantly switching classes. It makes sense for someone else to take it. And you’re our one shot monster. I don’t want someone else one shotting you before you can one shot them.

  Fred . . . still looked confused but finally confirmed the trade.

  I held onto the resurrection stones for the time being, a few ideas running through my head. The resurrection potential was good, but I wasn’t sure yet how to use them effectively.

  I pushed the stones out of my mind for the time being, a strange feeling growing in my chest. It was warm and pleasant. We have a chance, I realized. It had been extremely dire before I made it to the Battle Hall. We could have lost it all . . . but now we had a chance to win, and to survive. A damn good one too.

  I was another step closer to finding out what happened to Rach. One step closer—I hoped—to being able to hold my children again, to figuring out who or what Mie was. One step closer to figuring out who was behind this hell.

  I let my thoughts continue to flow, letting the torrent of questions threaten to overwhelm me. I had one last thought . . . there better be some god damn answers at the end of this yellow fucking brick road. Survive or not, I wanted some damn answers.

  I clenched my Warden’s fists. I was much stronger now.

  I clicked the option to exit the dungeon, watching the timer tick down closer and closer to phase two.

  A shiver ran up my spine.

  If this was anything like other battle royale games I had played . . .

  Chaos was nigh.