NOVEL WEB Chapter 137: Impish
Chapter 137: Impish
As Zach fought to get over his incredulity, he found himself unable to concentrate on the task that Jimmy had given him. It wasn’t that he didn’t want to be helpful, but it was more that he struggled to contain his amazement at just how much Jimmy seemed to know about certain aspects of a world he’d been in for less than a month. Here, before him, was a person who couldn’t tell you whether Shadowfall Coast was north or south of Giant’s Fall, and yet he seemed to understand intrinsically what needed to be done in a so-called “unpopular” dungeon that almost no one ever bothered to visit—apparently—and probably hadn’t hosted adventurers in decades if not longer.
“Are you even trying to look?” Jimmy demanded, firing Zach an irritated glare.
“Uh, yeah,” Zach said, distracted. He felt like one of the dumb kids that used to sit at the back of his second-period math class.
He shifted his body, the motion causing water to drip down his trousers. His equipment was once again soaked, as was Jimmy’s, but at least he felt a great deal “cleaner” than he had after emerging from the lake in the middle of the forest. Much of the gunk had rinsed off after the two of them had submerged all the way down into the water-filled pit that resided in the middle of this fairly large, circular room. Unfortunately, the small pack he’d bought containing snacks had become ruined. The water bottles, however, were just fine, and he twisted the lid off one and began to drink.
“Want a water?” he asked Jimmy. Rather than reply, Jimmy extended his arm even as he continued to waltz around the outer perimeter of this circular room, and Zach tossed him one of the bottles, which he caught.
“Thanks,” he said, drinking it as he continued to search for some “pattern” that he insisted must exist.
About half the space in the room was taken up by the water pit, which Zach estimated to be at least twenty-feet deep. To the front, there was an indentation in the wall that looked like a shutter, and about thirty feet in the opposite direction was a raised platform with a pedestal containing a dial. Aside from that, there wasn’t much here other than these weird stone statues that looked like fossilized, horned mini-demons. Each time Jimmy did a lap around the room, he seemed to hesitate any time he ventured near one of these cluttering of statues, which he claimed would “transform” into mobs whenever the puzzle was solved. Was he worried that they could transform even sooner? He must have been, or else he would not become so wary each time he drew near to one of them.
“So, uh, was this dungeon part of your video simulations?” Zach asked. “Is that how you know what’s going to happen?”
Jimmy paused, then looked at Zach before shaking his head. “Nah, man. Nothing I’ve seen so far is a one-to-one of anything I’ve played. It’s more that the themes and ideas are things I’ve seen before. Like, lots of games have a mechanic where you see an enemy encased in stone, and then it breaks apart when you get near it. Since these ones don’t, there’s a good chance they’ll break apart once we solve the puzzle.”
“So you don’t know for sure if we’re going to have to fight?”
“Nope. But I’m pretty certain I’m right. Especially because of the shape of the room.”
“Shape?” Zach asked, not sure what he was referring to.
Jimmy nodded then shuffled over to the front, occupying the space between the dais and the shutter. Then he extended his arms widely. “Look at how much room they’re giving us,” he said. “It’s like when you’re playing an FPS, right? And then you see a bunch of barrels and boxes to take cover behind. Even if there are no enemies around, you know there’s gonna be enemies or else why would you enter a room that just-so happens to have all these places to take cover?”
Zach was willing to assume that by “they,” Jimmy meant the Great Ones, but he had no idea what an “FPS” was or what Jimmy meant by barrels and boxes, as there weren’t any in this room. “So,” he said, trying to make sense of Jimmy’s words, “you think the reason there’s all this empty space is because we’re going to have to fight?”
“Definitely,” Jimmy said. “I mean, it’s not a hundred percent, but it’s pretty close to it.”
Zach couldn’t help but grin at the delight he saw in Jimmy’s eyes. “Looks like you’re going to get what you wanted after all.”
Jimmy laughed. “Don’t pretend you don’t want to fight some mobs too. Come on, Zach, admit it.”
Zach tried to suppress a chuckle of his own but failed. “All right. I guess I could go for a bit of exercise now that we’re here.”
“Well, let’s find the pattern and then we will.”
“You’re sure there is one?”
Jimmy gave a firm nod. “There always is. Trust me.” He jogged over to the dais, stepped onto the platform, and looked down at the pedestal with the dials. “Just to remind you: look for things shaped like a star, a half circle, a little mouse-like creature, a smiley face—that’s the best I can think of to call this one—a bean, a…”
As Jimmy continued to rattle off the list of symbols, Zach darted his head around the room, wondering where they could be. The two of them had looked everywhere, and so far, they’d found nothing. Although Jimmy had clearly proved that he had a great deal more knowledge than Zach could ever have expected, it was still possible that he was wrong, wasn’t it? What if there was no pattern to find and they were just wasting time?
I hope not, Zach thought nervously. Because then we really will be trapped here.
There didn’t seem to be any way out of this room, and it was all thanks to the water pit. This was because, although Zach had high enough stats that he could easily jump the hundred-plus feet required to leap back up to the area they’d come from, the small opening they’d fallen through was positioned dead center over the water pit, which meant he’d have to jump while under water. And that, Zach was fairly sure, he could not do. Even if he exerted every last bit of his strength, Zach did not believe it would enable him to leap over a hundred feet’s worth of distance while submerged beneath twenty feet of water—and Jimmy definitely couldn’t.
There’s no way I can angle it by jumping across, either, Zach thought, glancing upwards at the ceiling. That means we’re trapped down here unless we can—
He widened his eyes. Wait a minute. What’s that?
Placed on the ceiling above, and smeared in what looked like plain white ink, were strange, bizarre scribblings that sort of resembled little doodles, though it was impossible to be sure, as they were also mostly gibberish. Even still, it was something that stood apart from everything else in here, and Zach therefore concluded that it might be worth inquiring about.
“Jimmy, come here a second,” he called out.
“You find something?” Jimmy asked, excitedly hurrying over to Zach, who pointed directly up above him.
“Those things on the ceiling kind of look like symbols, right?”
Jimmy glanced upwards. Then his eyebrows rose, and he smiled. “Yup! That’s got to be it. Great work, Zach!”
“Yeah, but…they don’t look anything like the symbols you described.”
“Maybe not, but it’s no coincidence they’re there. They’ve definitely got something to do with it.” Jimmy pinched his chin and curled his lips. “The question is what. Hmm…”
“Do you have any idea what it could be?” Zach asked him hopefully. He was relieved to see Jimmy give a slow but confident nod.
“Okay, so it’s like this,” he began, pointing his finger at the scribblings. “Usually, when they give you symbols in a puzzle room like this, and those symbols aren’t the ones you’re looking for, it means it’s either a perspective puzzle—which is where you have to look at them by turning the camera in the exact perfect angle—or there’s some other gimmick that you have to—”
“Camera?” Zach asked, not meaning to interrupt his new friend but finding his choice of words so bizarre.
“Yeah,” Jimmy replied, speaking absentmindedly as though most of his attention was on the puzzle and not Zach’s question. Thus, with a distant-sounding tone, he dreamily whispered, “You know, like with the right stick.”
“The right stick? Jimmy, I don’t know what you’re talking about at all.”
Jimmy gave a sigh of what Zach took to be frustration. “Don’t you people got video games here?”
“We have some simple screen games. Nothing like what you told everyone about yesterday when we were swimming in the pool.”
This seemed to capture Jimmy’s full attention. “Wait a minute,” he said. “So, what about, like, PC gaming? Or consoles?”
“PC gaming or consoles?” Zach asked.
At this, Jimmy’s lips peeled back as though horrified. “Tell me I’m not trapped in a game-less world. How the hell’s it thousands of years in the future and there’s no PlayStation 70 yet?”
“Again,” Zach said, becoming a bit annoyed, “I don’t know what that means.”
Jimmy rubbed his nose and made another sigh. “It’s too much to explain right now. You’ll just have to take my word for it. Anyway, let me think for a second. That shit on the ceiling’s definitely got something to do with the puzzle.”
With that, he again began to circle around the room, though this time, he only made it half a lap before he stopped short as though changing his mind or coming up with a separate idea entirely; whichever the case, he halted completely, remained perfectly still a moment, and after a few seconds, he abruptly spun around. Then, with clear excitement in each step, he hurried his way back over to Zach, where he’d only just been standing. Now, he raised his index finger and began shaking it in the air while releasing a few short chuckles. “Actually, I know. Oh my God, it’s obvious!”
Zach watched, amazed, as Jimmy ran to the very edge of the water-pit, close enough so that, if he took just another step forward, he’d fall in. Then he began to circle it just like he’d been circling the room. He paused when he was behind and slightly off to Zach’s right, causing Zach to have to spin around to follow his motion. Jimmy now had his arm extended and he was pointing at something: at the water itself. “Aha! There it is. Zach, come here a second.”
Curious to see what he’d discovered, Zach hurried over. “Look at the reflection,” Jimmy said to him. “In the water.”
Zach glanced down at where Jimmy indicated, and then he inhaled in surprise as he saw the reflection of the ceiling in the water. Only, now, the white-painted “scribblings” looked much clearer and had more distinct shapes, all of which formed a pattern of symbols—the key that Jimmy would need to unlock the shuttered section of the wall that would hopefully lead to the next floor.
“Those look much more like the symbols,” Zach said, unsure of how this was even possible. He half turned around and looked up at the ceiling before again gazing into the water. The reflection differed from the original in a way that was not scientific or explainable—at least so far as Zach understood. It must have been dungeon weirdness in action.
“Okay, this is great,” Jimmy said enthusiastically. “I think we’re good now. So look: I’m gonna go over to the dais and operate the dials, and you let me know what symbols to put in one by one, okay? You should also get ready to fight some shit, too.”
Zach nodded. “You got it.”
He watched as Jimmy hurriedly scurried over to the pedestal, getting on top of it and leaning over the round, wheel-like board that contained the various dials that apparently controlled the symbols near the shuttered door, of which six, Jimmy had claimed, would need to be presented in the correct order.
“I’m good,” Jimmy announced. “Start giving them to me.”
“Okay,” Zach said, staring down into the water. “So…okay, so the first one, uh, it looks a lot like the letter ‘E,’ but there’s a dot above it and also below it.”
A loud, rumbling, and echoing sound came from all around the room, and then there was a pound followed by a click. “Got it. Next one?”
“Okay, so uh…this one’s the one I think you said looked like a little mouse creature, only the tail of it has three dots above it.”
“Oh, I see that,” Jimmy called back to him. More rumbling, more vibrations, and another click soon followed his words. “Next!”
Zach continued to describe the next three symbols to follow the first two, and Jimmy used the dials to make them appear near the “front” of the circular room by the shuttered exit. Then, with five entered, Zach paused on the last one. “Hey, let me come over to you before you put this last one in, okay? Since we might have to fight.”
“Yeah.”
Zach memorized what he saw, turned around, and headed directly for Jimmy, who then asked him to give him the final symbol. Rather than try to describe it, Zach simply hopped up onto the pedestal next to him, extended his finger, and pointed at one of the many symbols. “It was that one,” he said confidently.
“You sure?”
“Definitely.”
Jimmy nodded. “Okay. Get ready. I’m pretty sure I’m right about what happens next.”
Zach hopped back down off the pedestal and drew his sword, gripping it tightly in both hands. Now, he readied himself as he listened to more of the rumbling and felt more of the vibrating. Then there was another pounding noise as well as another click. But this time, there was more that came after. Following the click, there was an even louder rumbling, an even louder vibration, and then lastly a very loud grating sound as an entire section of the rounded wall in front of them began to slide directly upwards, opening a pathway into an area beyond—and also allowing something from beyond to enter inside.
“There they are!” Zach shouted as multiple creatures only about as tall as Zach’s waist came strutting into the room. At the exact same time, there was a loud crackling sound, and to both their left and right, the stone statues began to crack and shatter, and a weird sort of giddy laughing filled the entirety of the room as more of the short creatures emerged from the stone, very much animate and active.
“He-he-he-he-he!” they laughed.
Though short, they were menacing in appearance, and all of them—both those from the stone statues as well as those flooding into the room—had long, rounded ears and dual horns that protruded from their head. All of them were grinning through wicked, sharp teeth while swaying around a red, forked tail. But there appeared to be some differences among them as well: specifically, there appeared to be two different types of this creature. Zach made a quick estimation that about three quarters of these cackling, horned mobs were wielding gilded, golden spears and began to lift upwards on purplish, bat-like wings, which started to flutter and buzz as they hovered midair such that they became approximately level with Zach’s height. The rest of them were wingless, wielded daggers, and seemed to exude a sort of shadowy mist.
The ones with the wings were called “warriors,” and the ones with the daggers were called “troublemakers.”
HP
72,500/72,500
Name
Sneering Imp Warrior
Level
45
HP
49,000/49,000
Name
Sneering Imp Troublemaker
Level
44
Between the ones that’d broken free of the stone-like statues to the left and right side of the room, and the bunch that were pouring in from the newly opened, previously shuttered wall, Zach felt a pinch of fear that grew exponentially as he realized the sheer number of these things that had found their way inside here with the two of them. He didn’t appear to be alone in his apprehension, either.
Zach caught a glimpse of Jimmy, who took several steps forward until he was just ahead of Zach. Now, for the first time since entering the dungeon, Zach could spot a degree of worry in Jimmy’s facial expression, though he seemed like he was trying to conceal it. Even still, it was plainly visible on his face, and it reminded Zach that, for all he might’ve known about dungeons, even he could be caught unprepared or unaware.
“Okay,” Zach said, drawing a deep breath and refusing to let fear paralyze him. “There’s…there’s definitely a lot of them, but…but we’ll just have to find a way though this.” Even as more and more continued to flood into the room, he kept his voice steady. “Here’s what we’ll do, Jimmy. First, we’ll—”
“Mezzing!” Jimmy called out suddenly. He ran forward and darted across the room until halting in place about fifty feet before the growing swarm of enemies. Once there, he made a grand, wide, and swinging motion with his staff, and then, from out of thin air, a hail of tiny yellow lights began pouring down in a wide area over all of those to the left side of the room; this, he repeated, doing the same to those on the right, and then yet again to most of the ones that’d run inside. It caused both an immediate cessation in movement and an equally sudden quieting of the high-pitched cackling, buzzing wings, and tapping feet. A moment later, Jimmy doubled over, and a steady stream of sweat began dripping all over the floor, splash after splash, as he began to pant and huff.
“So damn many of them,” he said, practically wheezing. “We’re gonna be okay, though. I promise. I mean, there’s a lot more than I was expecting, but we’re not gonna wipe to this trash. Just don’t touch them yet. Let me catch my breath.”
“Are they…are they crowd controlled?” Zach asked, doing his best to conceal his nerves.
“Yeah. For now, anyway.”
Zach gripped his sword even more tightly. Right now, there were cartoonish stars spinning around the heads of each and every mob in the room with them—and Gods, there were so many! Clearly, this was not a dungeon intended to be run with a party of just two adventurers. It took everything Zach had not to let the terror creeping inside of him take hold of his actions at the sight of how badly outnumbered they were. There was nowhere to run, either. They would have to fight: and win.
One, two, three, four, five…nineteen, twenty, twenty-one…thirty…and that’s not even all of them!
As Zach counted, he became more and more concerned that they might be in a dire situation from which they could not escape. Yet Jimmy, despite his previous display of alarm, seemed to grow bolder as he straightened his back and looked around the room at the horde of mobs to three sides of them. “Okay, follow me, Zach. We’re not gonna lose to these garbage mobs. Hell nah.”
“You sure you know what you’re doing, Jimmy?”
“Yeah, definitely. It’ll be fine.” He paused a moment and closed his eyes as he sucked air into his lungs before reopening them. “My mezz should hold for about two minutes, so we’ve got a minute and a half left to get everything set up to kill these dudes. Come here. Just trust me.”
Jimmy began to move, leaving Zach with little choice in the matter, and so Zach followed him as he maneuvered around the water pit and headed all the way to the back of the room, venturing as far inside of it as he could until they reached the wall at what would have been the backmost and rightmost “corner” if the room hadn’t been circular; still, it was a close enough approximation.
“Okay,” Jimmy said, still gasping for air between words. “Since…since there’s a big water pit in the middle of the room, they can only funnel in from the left and right side. I mezzed them, so I’m gonna have first aggro. That means most of them will probably come through the right.”
“What do we do?” Zach asked, genuinely nervous. Despite all that Jimmy had done so far, it was only really now, in this moment, that it truly registered to Zach that if he had not brought Jimmy along with him today, he would have died here. Without even a shadow of a doubt: had he not chosen on a whim to bring Jimmy along, he would not have left this place alive.
“For now, stay right here and don’t move. I gotta get the ball rolling.”
“The ball…rolling? Jimmy, what are…? What’re you going to—”
“Just trust me!”
Looking exhausted, Jimmy waded forward on somewhat shaky, unsteady legs, heading in the direction of the mobs he’d mezzed; but more importantly, he was by himself, insisting that Zach remained put. Even still, Zach kept himself at the ready so that, if anything bad ended up happening, he could leap to Jimmy’s rescue as fast as possible. For now, though, he begrudgingly chose to stand still and wait.
I really, really hope Jimmy knows what he’s doing.
Raising his staff, Zach watched as Jimmy then swung it downwards, planting one of those rust-colored, oblong-shaped traps that Zach recalled being used on Zylor earlier yesterday. Then he pointed his staff directly at just one of these many “imps” nearby it, and with that, Jimmy released a blueish ball of energy that sailed across the room and struck the creature for 9,451 damage; the moment of impact, the stars circling above its head abruptly vanished, and the creature once more became animated, the sound of its laughter filling the room.
“He-he-he-he-he!”
Even while being “mezzed,” it had somehow managed to remain airborne despite the stopping of its wings, which once more began to flutter as the imp dashed forward in the air and made straight for Jimmy. Yet, the moment it flew over the oblong-shaped object, the rust-colored trap popped up into the air as though it’d been sitting on a springboard, and it detonated into a purplish cloud, which the mob flew directly into, becoming obscured for a moment before appearing from inside of it. At first, this seemed to have no effect on the creature at all, but then after a few seconds, it made a painful-sounding laugh and suffered 4,208 damage and then another 3,105 a few moments after that.
Jimmy, who was now breathing as hard as Zach had ever seen, raised his staff a second time and swung it down, causing another purplish cloud to explode directly in the spot the mob happened to be flying towards. Now, it took another 4,211 damage as well as 3,207 at the same time. And it was here that Jimmy whispered, “Finally, thank God! The bar filled up.” Directly following those words, he raised his staff one last time, and he cast what Zach recalled was called Breath of Invigoration: his stamina regen buff.
So that’s what he was doing, Zach realized, recalling that Jimmy had to inflict a certain amount of poison damage to an enemy in order to use his buff.
Now, much more vigorously, he turned around and bolted straight towards Zach. “It’s all yours,” he said, becoming visibly more energetic with each moment. Zach could actually see him recuperating every few seconds that his stamina regeneration buff “ticked.”
“I need you to deal with that one really quick,” he said to Zach. “And try to hurry, man.”
Zach nodded, and without any hesitation, he dashed forward to meet the winged, spear-wielding imp, which ended up taking a combined total of 11,901 damage just in the time it took for Zach to reach it.
HP
36,417/72,500
Name
Sneering Imp Warrior C
Level
45
“He-he-he-he-he!” the imp creature laughed as it buzzed through the air, lunging forward and sending its spear directly at Zach’s chest despite Zach not even having aggro. He supposed that was simply a result of him having put himself directly in the mob’s path. But either way, his reaction to it would’ve been the same. Zach, having anticipated the attack, spun his body around and caused the golden spear to instead pierce nothing but the empty air. Then he retaliated, whipping his sword across and slicing the creature in its throat, dealing 10,405 damage and causing a spray of red blood to stain the tiled flooring on both sides of it.
“He-he-he-he-he!”
Undeterred, the creature flew a tiny bit higher and then slammed its spear downwards. Zach raised his own sword to guard, and the creature surprised him with the amount of force in its blow. Still, he was able to endure it, his sword clanging against the gilded spear, deflecting the weapon. The imp, in a display of persistence, followed up with another quick, forward thrust, but not before suffering 4,010 damage from Jimmy’s first poison and 3,805 from his second, causing it to flinch each time and actually stagger mid-thrust, interrupting its motion and allowing Zach to thrust his own sword forward ahead of it, skewering it through the torso and dealing another 11,526, as well as another 417 when Zach yanked his sword free of the creature’s gut.
HP
6,254/72,500
Name
Sneering Imp Warrior C
Level
45
The creature, now leaking blood from both its throat and the open wound in its stomach, made as if to attack Zach a third time, and Zach was prepared to defend against it. Yet just as it pulled back its bony arms as if to thrust its spear forward once more, Jimmy’s two DOTs ticked again, hitting for 4,666 and 3,655 respectively, and with that, the creature halted midair, its wings stopped fluttering, and it fell down to the floor with a plop like a swatted fly. Then it began to turn brown and shrivel up like a dying plant aging in fast-forward, leaving behind a brown, powdery residue that reminded Zach of sand only darker in color. This powdery residue did not vanish and remained where it was even after the rest of it was no more.
+18000xp
As the number of xp floated in the air before him, Zach was taken aback by the huge amount of it. How had he earned so much while partied with Jimmy? Shouldn’t the number have been reduced due to Jimmy’s much higher level?
No, he recalled, thinking all the way back to what he’d learned from Rian and Lienne during his first dungeon outing. There’s only a penalty for killing mobs with someone who’s at least two levels higher than both you and the mob. Jimmy’s only 45, and I’m 23, so only mobs that are levels 24 to 43 would give me a penalty.
“Zach, snap out of it,” Jimmy said to him, rousing him from his thoughts. “That one was just to get my buff on me. My mez is only gonna last another minute. Let’s try to take out the group on the right first. Do that thing you can do.”
“Thing? What thing?”
Without clarifying what he was talking about, Jimmy took off yet again, pausing when he was closer—but still a fair distance—away from all the ones that’d broken free from the stone statues on the right side of the rounded room. Waving his staff around, he made the same gesture twice in succession, and two gigantic clouds of smoke popped into the air, blanketing the entire group of imps and causing various red down arrows to appear after all of their names. The stars circling their heads vanished at once, and they began to move as one big group towards Jimmy—only much, much more slowly.
“Okay, they’re slowed,” he announced.
Jimmy, staying right where he was, made another gesture as he swung around his staff, reciting the words “Val en Bled” twice in a row and causing two large, green, and cloudy mists to appear beneath the general group of mobs, rising upwards until vanishing. Each blast of green mist was large enough that the two Jimmy created covered more than enough area to poison each and every imp in this particular batch of them. But Jimmy did not stop there.
Despite his stamina regen buff, he once more began to pant and sweat as he raised his staff and swung it downward four times back-to-back, causing four more purplish clouds to appear. Only then did he turn around and retreat towards Zach.
From what Zach could tell, it seemed Jimmy had three different poisons: a single-target one, which exploded when stepping or hovering over it, and two AOEs: the mid-sized purplish cloud and the much larger green one. Given its smaller area, that was likely why he needed to use the purplish one four times and the green only twice. Either way, the result was the same: a mass of poisoned, slowed mobs inching their way towards the two of them.
Zach, understanding the need to be quick, bolted forward and moved to intercept them. “Be careful!” Jimmy called out to him in warning. “They only move slower when it comes to shit like crossing physical distance. They can still attack ya’ll with full speed.”
“Got it!”
Zach realized right away what Jimmy was talking about, as despite crawling forward, the first mob he approached, an imp warrior called “Sneering Imp Warrior A,” made a blazing-fast chopping motion with its spear, which Zach had to move equally fast to deflect. Then he slashed down with his own sword, and to his surprise, the mob held its spear flat and guarded against Zach’s strike.
These ones can fight defensively? he wondered.
Even still, Zach struck with enough force that it knocked the mob downwards, causing it to briefly hover much lower to the ground. This enabled Zach to attack a second time with even more strength, coming from up high and slicing down low. The mob attempted to guard again, but this time, Zach was too fast, and he hit it for 15,451, slicing off one of its long, round earlobes and half of its cheek. For some reason, it seemed to find this funny.
“He-he-he-he-he!”
It jabbed forward with its spear, but rather than dodge, Zach parried, swinging his own blade and knocking it to the side. With that, he lashed out in three quick striking motions, the first cutting off its right arm and dealing 10,200, the second ripping open its stomach for 8,205, and the third taking off half its head, dealing 13,111. Jimmy’s DOT then ticked twice, and like the previous mob, this one died as well.
+18000xp
“Too slow,” Jimmy said. Standing beside him, Zach saw him eying the two other large groups they’d have to soon deal with. “That’s why I said to do your thing.”
“What thing?” Zach demanded as the roughly eighteen mobs they were already dealing with continued to slither closer and closer.
“Use that ability of yours: the one with the smoke.”
“My ability with the…oh, you mean Unleashed Phase? I was hoping to save that for later. I didn’t want to have to use that just yet.”
“Well, either use it or we die. Trust me: we’ll pull off the greatest combo of mass-killing mobs you’ll ever see.”
“Yeah, but…you don’t understand…!”
“I don’t have to. Just use it!”
Zach swore. Jimmy really didn’t understand why that was such a dangerous request, and there was literally no time for him to explain it, either. It was simply too complex to get across. Jimmy therefore could not understand that, right now, the ability only had twenty-five minutes left on its twenty-four-hour cooldown, which meant that, in twenty-five minutes, it would have been exactly one full day since he’d called upon Unleashed Phase to help him deal with Zylor. This was significant because, with a Phase Level of 0, the ability would only have a high exertion cost, which meant that, when it was time to pay up, Zach would likely pass out and go to sleep for a few minutes but wake up otherwise unharmed.
Yet, since the ability was on cooldown, the only way he could activate it now would be to use Phase Reset and reset the cooldown, increasing the Phase Level to 1. This also had a high exertion cost—meaning Zach could handle it if necessary. The problem? If he needed to use it again later, he’d have to Phase Reset once again, and that would just not be possible, as Phase Level 2 increased the exertion cost to Very High.
Not only wasn’t Zach capable yet of handling a Very High exertion cost, he’d discovered—much to his terror and pain—that he couldn’t even handle half of that debt without dropping dead, as his sword had a weekly ability that allowed him to use an exertion ability at half cost, and he’d once attempted to do just that—only to find he still could not cover the stamina cost. Back then, Fylwen had saved his life. But she wasn’t here now, and there would be no one able to revive him if he attempted something so suicidal.
Ultimately, what all this meant was simple: if he absolutely had to do it, Zach could use Unleashed Phase here and now. But in doing so, he’d run the risk of not having it available to him during a potential boss fight on a later floor. And what made it all the worse was that if it were only twenty-five minutes into the future, he could use the ability, pass out for a bit once they were safe, reset it, and then use it again if needed. But since he’d be resetting it just to avoid waiting a mere twenty-five minutes, he’d only get to use it this one more time.
If only Zach had a way of expressing this to Jimmy, maybe then he would change his mind. Or maybe not. It was impossible to know, actually, as there was no way Zach could explain this to him. So instead, Zach focused on surviving the here and now instead of worrying about what might come later. Thus, he gritted his teeth and said, “Fine, Gods-damn it!”
Relenting, he activated Phase Reset and then immediately activated Unleashed Phase a moment later, causing his entire body to shine with a very dull glow while a trail of impossibly black smoke escaped his hands and feet along with the occasional burning ember. At the same time, Jimmy cast Breath of Invigoration on him, causing his body to briefly come under a spotlight caused by a floating heart above his head, which cast a warm light on top of him.
Name
Breath of Invigoration
Effect
Periodically restores a portion of user’s stamina (10 second interval)
Duration
4:59
Unleashed Phase Duration
14:45 Remaining
Having barely exerted himself thus far, Zach was not surprised to see that he began with a duration of 14:45, but what did surprise him was the way in which, just ten seconds later, this turned into 16:45. Even though he’d witnessed this effect yesterday, Zach could still barely believe his eyes. He’d nearly forgotten about the incredible combination that existed between the two of them, and he grew excited even in spite of the possibility that this might jeopardize his capabilities later on.
“Cut them down!” Jimmy shouted at him as the batch of slowed mobs drew nearer and nearer. “Use that slash thing on the mobs. Hurry!”
“I’ve got something better than that, actually,” Zach said, taking note of the fact that, while not lined up directly, the entire group of mobs were more or less cluttered together.
Removing one hand from his sword, Zach extended his arm, palm flat. Then, aiming at the general direction of the mobs rather than any one in particular, he activated Phase Cannon, causing his hand to recoil, a flash to pop into existence, and a loud, echoing bang to fill the room as a projectile flew out of his hand at incredible speed and detonated, striking eight different mobs and causing blood and pieces of wing, horn, and other various body parts to join a collection of broken tiling and dust as all were sent scattering around.
Each mob was hit for a different amount of damage, but there seemed to be a general range, such as one taking 5,201, another taking an even 7000, and a third being struck for 6,485. All things considered, the numbers were lower than he would’ve expected, which meant they were either resistant to magic in general or to light damage, which was the type of magic damage dealt by his Phase Cannon. But even still, it was worth it to hit so many at once. In his peripheral vision, he noted that the use of Phase Cannon reduced his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase to 15:15, but knowing it would rise again shortly, he fired a second time, hitting eleven of the mobs this time, and then he fired again after that before unleashing a fourth, consecutive blast as well.
Spears, daggers, arms, legs, and pieces of wing were added to the explosive storm as deafening bangs erupted one after the next, echoing off the walls and causing his eardrums to ring and small holes and craters to form all along the floor accompanied by a steadily growing column of smoke. But still, each of the mobs drew nearer, laughing as though oblivious to the bloody, explosive wounds in their bony, demon-like bodies.
Throughout it all, Zach did not target any one particular mob or try to eliminate any of them in any particular order: he merely fired at the general mass of them, sometimes hitting as many as thirteen and other times hitting as few as seven as he steadied his hand and blasted five times more; at some point during his relentless barrage, five of the imps died outright, followed by two dropping dead mere seconds later from Jimmy’s poisons.
+18000xp
+18000xp
+18000xp
+18000xp
+18000xp
…
…
+18000xp
+18000xp
Though Zach remained focused and tried his best not to become distracted, he couldn’t help but notice in the corner of his vision the way his xp bar was absolutely flying where he kept it down beneath him just out of his usual line of sight. He stole a peek down at it, awed by the speed at which if was increasing.
To Next Level
162,082/265,000
As the eleven surviving mobs continued to slowly drag along, each with a varying amount of HP left before death and all with signs of serious damage, Zach took stock of his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase, which had dropped all the way down to 4:05; an instant later, it was back up to 6:05. Having become so low, Zach hesitated, and Jimmy, who clearly did not understand how his ability worked, began to holler at him.
“Keep it up! You ain’t even sweating yet. Don’t stop!”
“Jimmy, I can’t just fire it endlessly. I need to build up more time.”
“Time?” Jimmy asked, sounding confused. Even as he spoke, two of the eleven mobs collapsed and turned into more of the dry powder as his poisons finished them off, adding yet another +36000xp to Zach’s total.
I just can’t explain it to him right now, Zach thought, frustrated. To appease his friend, his hand recoiled and rocked as he fired off yet another blast of Phase Cannon; the mobs, now much closer, indirectly splattered him with gore as a much closer and more visceral bang sent another shower of guts and body parts scattering around him and left another section of the flooring ripped up with a gaping hole in it. It also caused the death of three more of the mobs.
+18000xp
+18000xp
+18000xp
With his time now down to just 4:02, Zach ignored Jimmy’s protests and criticisms and bolted forward, raising his blade as he prepared to slaughter the final six mobs all on his own. Yet the moment he came within ten feet of the lingering survivors, he had to quickly duck down as a mob called “Sneering Imp Troublemaker G” hurled one of its daggers directly at his face with such speed that it nearly succeeded in catching Zach off guard. Then another of the Troublemakers beside it also threw its knife, and Zach hurriedly slashed the air with his blade, causing a pang to resound in the room as he knocked it away. With that, he resumed his dash forward—bending backwards and away from a spinning, slicing slash of a Sneering Imp Warrior’s spear. Zach ripped his own blade directly upwards, cutting the already badly wounded mob cleanly in half for 21,500 and finishing it off. It also reminded him that, while under Phase Level 1 of Unleashed Phase, his strength had raised from 106 to 131, and it clearly made a big difference in terms of how much damage he could deal.
+180000xp
Level Up!
24 (23)
Constitution
+4 (116)
Speed
+1 (98)
XP Required for Level 25
300,000
Halting Strike Acquired!
Zach was too preoccupied with racing against the clock to pay any attention to his level-up or whatever new ability he’d acquired. Instead, he moved from mob to mob, bringing death each time he swung his sword. He stepped around a Troublemaker and decapitated a Warrior, only to whirl back around and stab the Troublemaker through the back. From there, he guarded against a lunging strike from another Troublemaker, easily brushing off both its daggers while noting that it’d somehow replaced the one it’d thrown, and then he finished this one off by cutting it along its waist, severing the top half of its body from its bottom.
This left just two: one to his immediate left and one to his right. He raised his blade to strike the one to his left, but it died on its own from Jimmy’s poisons, and then the one on the right was blasted by a blueish orb that sailed over Zach’s shoulder and crashed into its chest, which Zach assumed Jimmy had fired from his staff. In total, it’d earned him another 90000xp.
To Next Level
95,082/300,000
“Thanks, Jimmy,” Zach said, grinning as he looked over his shoulder. “I can’t believe how much xp I’m…uh, Jimmy?” Something was off with Jimmy. A fair bit of the confidence had fled his friend’s eyes, and now there was a great deal more worry. He seemed troubled and offput. “What’s wrong?”
“You’ve got to pick up the pace, Zach,” Jimmy said to him. “Why are you wasting time going in for melee kills?”
“It’s how my ability works,” Zach said. “If I had time to explain it, I would.”
Jimmy stared at him blankly, and then a knowing look came across his expression. “Wait a minute. Yesterday, I think I remember you saying something like…like it works off a timer or some shit, right? You said it could go up or down.”
“Right!” Zach exclaimed; he was glad Jimmy recalled the very brief explanation he’d given earlier yesterday. It was during such a hectic moment he was surprised Jimmy could remember it at all.
“I use time in place of stamina, and if I hit zero, that’s that.”
Jimmy mouthed something but did not voice it—at least for a moment. Glancing off at something behind Zach, he muttered something else that was inaudible before more loudly saying, “I still don’t understand it exactly, but damn, all right. How much time you at now?”
“Six minutes and fifty seconds,” Zach said.
“And I’m guessing it costs you a different amount of time to use each one of your abilities? Is that how it works?”
“Yeah,” Zach said, relieved to see Jimmy understood at least partially how it functioned.
“How much does it cost for you to do one of those bomb things?”
“Phase Cannon? It’s a minute and a half without a target, which is how I’m using it.”
“And how much time are you getting back from each tick of my buff?”
“Two minutes.”
Jimmy swore viciously, but he calmed down a moment later. “It’s all right. We’re still good. We’re gonna just have to tryhard this shit.”
“Try-what? Jimmy, I have no idea what that even means!”
“Oh no? Well, you’re about to find out.” His confidence seemed to return in a flood—but only for a moment. An instant later, his expression flared up in alarm. “Damn, I gotta hurry!”
Without another word, Jimmy sprinted around the water pit and back towards the front of the room, and he promptly began waving his staff around and causing more debilitating clouds of smoke to appear, one after the next, breaking the mez on the twenty or so mobs that’d barged their way into the room as well as the additional twenty that’d emerged from the statues a bit off towards the left; the latter group, he managed to slow just as the mez had expired all on its own, and for a brief instant, they took off at a blazing speed in the direction of Jimmy, but fortunately, they only managed to get a few feet before Jimmy halted their momentum with his slows. Now, however, having had to cast such a large AOE, he looked absolutely exhausted, and like before, he was panting and dripping sweat, though he seemed fast to recover.
“Okay, here’s what we’ll do,” he said, hurrying back to Zach’s side. “We’re gonna try to reposition them into one big group instead of two smaller ones, and then we’re gonna try to path them around the water pit. But there’s too many of them to do that right now.” He paused to take a breath, then as if realizing time was short, he continued to speak, even though it looked like it was a struggle for him to do so. He pointed. “There’s so many of them that if we try to run them around it right now, we’ll end up running into them and getting surrounded—like a snake eating its own tail. So we gotta reduce their number first. So let’s start killing and falling back at the same time, and then if we can group ‘em up, we can kite around the pit. Thing is, we have to kill at least a third of them before we fall all the way back to the wall or we’ll end up surrounded. Got it?”
“Yeah,” Zach lied. In truth, he only half understood what Jimmy was saying—if even that much—but he nodded and decided he’d follow along and hopefully pick up on whatever Jimmy was planning as it was actually acted out. His adrenaline pumping, he was glad to see that his remaining duration of Unleashed Phase was now back over eight minutes. Even still, he wouldn’t be able to spam senselessly. Not without first being able to gain more time.
“Okay, stick close,” Jimmy said. “I promise you we’re gonna get through this. No way in hell is Jimmy Green wiping to pre-boss trash mobs. If we’re dying, we’re at least dying to the damn boss.”
“Or maybe we don’t die at all,” Zach suggested, a touch of uneasiness coming through on his words. “Just a thought. Might as well keep it open as an option.”
Zach, following behind Jimmy, became confused as Jimmy made a series of odd motions. Rather than move away from the slowed mobs, he started off by moving towards them, in some cases dangerously so. He approached close enough that about nine of them launched daggers, and Zach had to jump in front of him and whirl his arms around as fast as he possibly could, deflecting each one. Jimmy also came close to having a few spears run him through, and Zach was amazed he was able to deflect those as well. But thankfully, after coming within kissing distance of some of the mobs, he began to move in the opposite direction, and it was only here that Zach finally understood what he was doing.
By going near one group, and then the other, he caused both to form into one larger group, and now the two of them started to gain a decent amount of distance. The cluster of mobs was not far from the dais that had controlled the shutter, and Jimmy was now at the edge of the water-filled pit. “Okay, I’m back to full stamina,” he said, raising his staff. Zach watched as he then cast four of his large, green-misty, cloud-like AOE poisons before resting a moment then casting four of his purplish ones. He halted again before casting another four; now, every one of the mobs was inflicted with both types of poison.
Zach, for his part, had broken much farther away on his own, retreating as far into the room as he could and gaining as much distance as possible. “Get clear!” he called to Jimmy, who turned his head around and raised his eyebrow at Zach. “Just get to the side. Hurry!”
Jimmy seemed reluctant, but Zach was grateful that he did as asked, especially since this might be the only time Zach would have enough distance to make use of an ability that would probably be pointless once they came any closer.
“Wave Slash!” he called out, swinging his blade downwards and leaving a streak of green, patchy, energy in the air; energy, which quickly curled in on itself, solidified, changed color, and reformed into a double-bladed disc that took off slowly at first but began to rapidly gain speed.
Having only just hit the ten-minute mark on his current duration of Unleashed Phase, he was brought back down to just under nine, but more importantly, it was worth every moment of his time, because the moment of impact, he hacked off numerous sets of legs, cut open a few torsos, and even severed a couple of wings before the Wave Slash fizzled out. And though he failed to kill any outright, he left at least five of them completely immobilized and incapacitated on the dungeon floor in crumpled, bloodied heaps, where Jimmy’s poisons would hopefully end them—eventually. At any rate, having fired off his ability, he hurriedly returned to Jimmy, who lifted his staff and cast Breath of Invigoration twice: first on himself and, after a few more ticks of his poison, on Zach, refreshing the buff.
“Get on them!”
*****
Vim spat out a wad of blood as he was struck yet again by one of his captors. This time, they hit him with enough force to cause one of his front teeth to come lose, and he coughed it out along with a wad of bloody saliva.
“Thanks,” he said weakly, his body going limp from where he was bound in a standing position, propped up by chains in this foul, filthy dungeon. “I think I had a cavity. I was hoping someone would get rid of that for me.”
His quip was rewarded with both a chuckle and a subsequent, follow-up smack across the face from the gauntleted fist of a low-ranking thug of the Guild of Gentlemen. They must have thought that it would increase the disrespect done to Vim if his torturers were men of lower stature. In truth, Vim cared little whether it was the fifth-ranking member or the fiftieth. Torture was torture.
“We can do this all day just like yesterday,” the thug said. “This ends when you make the rest of the public decree.”
Vim had surprised the Guild of Gentlemen earlier when he’d actually conceded to one of their demands: but only one. And it had not been their beatings, sleep deprivation, starvation, or dehydration that had convinced him to do so, either. Of all the things for which they demanded he admit his guilt, there was one thing and only one thing that he had agreed to confess, and he had done so willingly.
A few hours earlier, knowing the eyes of the world would be watching, he had sat down at a small table in a dark room, and with a camera trained on him, he had publicly confessed to having been the natural-born son of a Gnomish woman and a half-Gnomish, half-human father. And he had done so proudly. Honestly, it should not have shocked the world. It was the admission itself that most would find shocking: far more so than the mere fact of it. But given all that had transpired, he could no longer justify keeping it a secret. To do so would only validate his treatment: give credence to the idea that being non-human was somehow shameful and deserving of such harshness.
They were going to kill him, yes, but they would not break him. For that, they’d need to do a lot better than knocking a few teeth out of his mouth.