Chapter 14: Chapter 14

After a brief period of disembodiment while she stared at a loading screen, Sara materialized into the dungeon with her companions. The party summoned their armaments.

Every time a group entered a dungeon, an instance was created—this was their own personal copy of that dungeon. No one else could enter that particular instance, and it would continue to exist until the party conquered the dungeon and left. ...Or until they died, in which case their virtual bodies would never be found.

Sara tried not to dwell on such thoughts. She observed her surroundings. The stronghold was a cavernous underground dungeon of carved stone. Half way up the high walls were massive lit torches on fixtures. Behind the party were stairs leading out of the instance. Up ahead, the corridor continued for a time before branching to the left and right.

“I hope everyone’s ready for a fun day of gaming,” Sara joked. May and Pari laughed slightly. “For our first time through, I’d like to minimize potion use—save them for emergencies. Once we have a better supply, we’ll be able to use them more freely.” The healer then led the group forward.

At the end of the corridor, Sara looked around and saw a mob approaching slowly from the left. These were groups of monsters that populated dungeons. There were over two dozen standard monsters, who could each be killed by a simple crit. They appeared as hairless rat-like humanoids in primitive clothes, each armed with a club. A nameplate that appeared on Sara’s HUD labeled them as Among these creatures were four three meter tall humanoids in similar dress, armed with axes and protected by rough iron plates hanging on their bodies. They were These creatures were mini-bosses, which made them immune to critical hits. Sara had read about both these monster types in inmate writings on this dungeon. Neither used any unusual tactics.

Mobs had an unrealistically short sight radius—they would not attack the party until they came within twenty meters. This gave Sara some time to give last minute reminders. “Pari, remember to watch behind us occasionally to make sure no other wandering mobs sneak up from the other side. Let Clare get threat before you start using area bursts—otherwise, just attack her target. May and I will clear out the trash with crits. No one stand between Clare and any of the monsters—they normally attack whomever they have threat with, but if you get in their way they’ll attack you too.

“Clare, try to stand where you can give Pari a clear shot on your target. You can pull when ready. ”

The tank nodded and stepped forward. Spell range was twenty-five meters, so she would be able to attack them before they noticed her. The tank aimed her sword at the ground in front of the mob. She cast a void burst, and then another a second later. The sound of the spells made Sara think of a Van de Graaff generator. Each crack of purple lightning ended in a hemisphere of electrically charged, dark energy that lingered for a time.

The monsters passed through the damaging fields of Clare’s spells, which caused them to run toward her. Sara’s HUD, which already had stat listings for the party, now added additional health bars for the monsters. The bars for the normal monsters were much smaller than the others, as their condition was less relevant. In addition, the four important monsters had a threat entry. Each said When they arrived, the creatures crowded around Clare in a disorganized fashion. Many of the monsters were unable to attack due to their companions standing in the way.

Clare dropped another void burst, making sure to catch all four of the giants. While using her shield to block some of the incoming attacks, she struck repeatedly at one of the larger enemies. The sound of metal striking metal was heard repeatedly. Pari began firing her single-target void bursts at the tank’s target as well, with occasional area spells. She used her frenzy as it was available. Despite this, Clare’s threat stayed high—both her void spells were modified to increase threat generation.

Sara cast her lasting heal on Clare via the HUD, as she and May set about stabbing the mole ratlings in their vulnerable heads and hearts. Sara’s spear thrust over and over. Each crit dropped one of the creatures. May took a couple minor hits from the enemies. “Back off slightly, you’re getting in their way,” Sara called out. She cast a lasting heal on the demon player.

“My bad,” May told her. She continued attacking, but slightly less aggressively. This prevented her from soaking up any more attacks.

Despite Sara’s heals, Clare’s health dropped to eighty percent—this was expected, given the sheer number of opponents surrounding her and swinging their clubs and axes violently upon her. Sara cast a barrier on her so that her health could recover. She renewed the lasting heal as necessary.

Clare fired a new void burst whenever her mana was full. One of the large creatures had lost half its health, and most of the ratlings were defeated when Pari cried out. “There’s more behind us!”

Sara looked and saw an identical mob coming up the opposite side. She would have preferred not to have a double pull their first time out, but there was nothing for it. “Everyone back up toward the entrance, so we can keep them in front of us!”

“Right!” the rest of the party acknowledged. As Sara and May cleared up the last of the initial group of ratlings, Clare slowly backed away. The four attacking giants followed along with her. With the ratlings out of the way, the tank was taking much less damage.

Pari accidentally hit Clare with one of her single-target attacks. Unlike the party’s area bursts, the spell was not modified to prevent friendly fire. This kept its mana cost lower. “Sorry!” the mage called out.

Spells did less damage against players than they did to monsters, so errors like this were inconsequential unless they happened frequently. “It’s fine, you’re doing well,” Sara told her.

May started in on Clare’s target, wailing away at it. Pari was still firing her void bursts over and over. The health of the party’s primary target began to drop much faster. Sara did not bother to get involved in this part of the offense—without a damaging spell or gem, her spear would not be very effective. It was better not to get in the way, so she merely concentrated on healing Clare.

One giant was dead, with another mostly drained of health, when Clare was forced to pull the approaching group with a new pair of bursts. The party went back to their original tactics, with Sara and May again clearing out the riffraff.

After a couple more minutes, it was all over. Eight dead giants and numerous ratlings littered the stone floor of the dungeon. The party was rewarded equal shares of experience and gold for their victory. Sara also received a couple scraps of cloth—these items were used in the tailoring trade. The healer figured that she could sell them to Justine.

“Nicely done,” Sara said. She pressed the stats button on her HUD. This brought up information on the party and their performance in the recent battle. She had kept everyone’s health near full, and the other women had done solid damage given their lack of gems. Clare’s shield work and evasions in dealing with the many giants had been impressive, and she had taken even fewer attacks than Sara had expected.

Sara looked around. There was no indication that either direction was more likely to lead to a boss monster. “Let’s try right,” she suggested.

The party walked through the maze-like stronghold, destroying mobs as they had to. Sara’s map filled in the details of the dungeon as they explored it. Some areas were unlit caves, requiring Sara to summon her magical torch from her inventory. The layout of a dungeon was randomly generated each time one ran it.

Eventually they came upon a massive, sealed cold iron door. “This must be the final boss’s room,” Sara noted. “We’ll come back after we take out the two secondaries.” As it so happened, the next corner they rounded led to a cavernous room with one of the secondary bosses waiting inside.

The boss looked like a normal black house cat, only it was so large that the top of its head was some four meters above the ground. Appropriately enough, the nameplate identified the boss as The maximum listed value for its health was much higher than anything the group had yet fought. And of course, the creature was immune to critical hits—this was going to be a long fight. Sara returned her spear to her inventory and materialized her bow.

“Aww, it’s so cute,” Pari said. “I wish I could pet it.”

“I kind of wish I could too,” Sara admitted sheepishly.

“What is it with gay chicks and cats?” May asked quietly. Sara and Pari laughed.

“Please be serious,” Clare told the group.

“She’s right—everyone stay focused. I don’t know if I could handle the embarrassment of being shuffled off this mortal coil by such a cute kitty.” After receiving an annoyed glance from Clare, Sara continued. “Okay, this is one of the more straightforward bosses. It attacks rapidly with its front claws. It’s big, but the game physics for fighting against a monster are different from PvP—larger monsters are weaker and have less mass relative to their size, so that their attacks can still be blocked.

“Its only special attack is an extremely fast tail swipe and bite combo. The tail will trip anyone within melee range, and the bite goes to whomever has the highest threat. The tail can be avoided by jumping over it as it passes or getting out of range. This will be a very easy fight for me and Pari—all we have to do stand there and cast our spells.”

“You don’t have to keep speechifying,” May said teasingly to Sara. “We all read the same books you did.”

“For the first time through, it’s safer to be certain that no one’s forgotten anything,” Clare pointed out.

“Fair enough.” May raised her swords in anticipation.

Sara led the group some distance into the room, but remained beyond the boss’s sight radius. She did not want the party to set off any wandering monsters that might walk through the corridor behind them. “Okay, this is a good spot. Clare, you stand closest to it. Pull when ready.” The healer kept her tone confident, but she was a little apprehensive about this fight—in most any video game, bosses were serious business.

Clare walked to the edge of the sight radius and fired a void burst at the monster. It jumped at her with a snarl and then batted her with its claws. She was able to avoid or block some of the attacks, but they came too frequently to evade all damage. Sara kept up her usual healing to compensate. She also started in with her bow attacks, for whatever good they might do.

The cat moved so quickly that the party’s melee fighters sometimes had trouble landing clean hits on its forelegs. Pari, who could easily fire at the thing’s center of mass, was doing much better damage. At the end of her first frenzy, Clare’s threat dropped briefly to sixty percent—this was potentially dangerous. She fired a burst right at the monster’s face—when the sphere of dark energy appeared, the cat hissed irritably. This action brought her threat back up, at least for the moment.

“Clare, attack more aggressively,” Sara shouted. “Even if you get hit more, I’ll have you covered! May, try attacking at the hind legs—they don’t seem to move as much!”

“Right!” both women yelled.

This change improved the damage both women were doing. Sara had to throw in an occasional barrier, but her mana stayed close to full. Things proceeded smoothly for another minute, and over ten percent of the cat’s health was gone. Suddenly, it raised its head and let out a fierce yowl.

Sara recognized the warning sign. “Tail swipe! Guard!” Clare cast as ordered, with the name of the spell appearing beside her status bars on Sara’s HUD.

They had all known that the swipe would be fast—but it turned out to be much quicker than anyone had expected. The cat spun so rapidly that for an instant it was a blur. Even with their Chronomil enhanced reflexes, both Clare and May were knocked off their feet. The tank’s shield arm was knocked aside, leaving her exposed to attack. Pari gasped.

As a result of using guard, the cat only did five percent health damage when it picked up the tank in its jaws and shook her like a captured bird. After being dropped from the monster’s mouth, Clare awkwardly regained her feet and resumed her own attacks. The cat started batting at her with its paws once more.

Meanwhile, May also stood and resumed her offense. “That looked fun!” she called out jokingly to Clare. “How’s your neck?”

“Incinerated, along with the rest of my body.” The overly literal reply drew a few laughs. Sara was not completely sure if the joke had been deliberate.

The rest of the fight went much more smoothly. The boss monster used its special attack several more times, but each time the two front line fighters knew what to expect and jumped to avoid being tripped. Clare continued to use her guard spell in anticipation of the highly damaging bite, but it did not hit her again now that she was better prepared.

About eight minutes after the battle had begun, the cat was reduced to zero health. It gave a mournful cry and collapsed. Sara’s HUD informed her of their victory and the spoils. Besides a respectable quantity of gold and experience, the group received a few potions and a void gem.

“Too bad it’s not fire or lightning” May said when she saw this last. “Who gets it?”

“Technically, Pari would get the biggest damage increase. But I think we should give it to Clare so that she can hold threat more easily through frenzies.”

“Sounds good,” the demon player told her. Pari nodded to Sara, and the healer used the inventory controls to pass the gem along to the tank.

Pari walked up to the defeated cat and petted it on the head. “Sorry, kitty. Thanks for the gem though.”

“Aww,” May said. “Once I have enough gold, I’m getting you a cat.”

“Non-combat pets are a waste of resources,” Clare stated flatly.

“We should save as much gold as possible for rare speed gems,” Sara admitted. “That will improve our odds if we have to fight any hunters. But it’s possible we might get a pet free from a special quest.”

“Where do you think the other secondary is?” Clare asked Sara.

“The layouts are random, so it’s hard to say. Usually the bosses are far from each other, but even that’s not true all the time.” She manipulated the map controls for a bit. “Let’s try west.”

Sara led the group onward. After a few more fights with typical mobs, they found the room belonging to the other secondary. It was identical to the first—but then, given that this dungeon only had eight different possible secondary bosses, there had been a one in eight chance of this.

“Well, that’s kinda dull,” May said, disappointed.

“Don’t worry—we’ll be running this dungeon so much, you’ll get to know every possible boss it can generate.”

“Can’t wait,” the demon said sarcastically.

“You might as well try your bow this time. We can compare your damage to last one and see how your archery is coming along.” May nodded. “Clare, Pari, use the same tactics you did before.”

May and Sara switched to their bows, and Clare soon pulled the boss. The demon’s arrowheads were covered in flame. This battle went without incident. Unfortunately, no gem dropped this time—there were only potions, and a few pieces of leather.

Sara used the stats button to compare everyone’s performance. “Clare, Pari, you both went up on damage. May, you went down almost twenty percent—looks like you need more archery lessons. Well, we both do,” she said with a slight laugh.

“It’s so much less fun than stabbing things,” May complained.

Sara led the group back to the door that had once hidden the final boss. It was now open. Inside was the largest cavern they had yet seen. It was lit by the usual oversize torches, and there were a handful of stalactites and stalagmites throughout. Two staircases led down toward the floor far below. One of them had steps that were far too big to be of use. They followed the other downward.

At the far end of the place was a monster that resembled an armored human woman, though it was some ten meters in height. It carried a sword and was listed as Beyond the boss were two closed, massive doors and a giant pile of boulders.

“Okay, last annoying lecture of the day,” Sara said as the party walked down the stairs. “This boss has a whole bunch of potential tricks up her sleeve. Could be adds, area attacks, debuffs, traps in the floor, or charges. We’ll face two of those special attacks, chosen at random. If it’s the area attack, she’ll grab one of those boulders and toss it toward one of us. Her regular attacks are kicks and sword strikes—the sword is slower but much more damaging.

“These min XP bosses are a bit easier than what we’ll be facing down the road, but that doesn’t mean we can afford to be careless. Also, over-thinking things can lead to lowered performance—so just try to keep in the mindset of this being like our training exercises.

“Any questions?”

“What did this poor giant do to deserve an ass-whopping?” May joked.

Sara laughed. “She probably just disobeyed the Goblin Queen—our side are the jerks in this setting. I mean, we’re even called the ‘Unholy Alliance.’”

“Aww, we killed those two kitties for nothing then,” Pari said. Sara and May laughed.

The party soon arrived outside the sight radius of the Giant Matriarch. “Everyone ready?” Clare asked. The rest of the party all answered in the affirmative, and the tank pulled the boss.

With an angry shout, the giant closed on Clare and began its attacks. In return, the magical girls retaliated with their usual offense. Sara healed Clare as necessary—the tank took a few kicks here and there, but evaded every attack from the sword.

After half a minute, the monster suddenly fled toward the nearby pile of boulders. It picked one up and tossed it in Pari’s direction. The mage canceled one of her spells and ran out of the way—the massive projectile missed her by a narrow margin. After that attack, the giant went after Clare once more.

As the battle continued, a few more boulders were launched at the party to no effect. Once the boss reached seventy-five percent health, something new happened. The large doors both briefly opened, and two new monsters emerged. These giants were similar to the matriarch, but they were male and dressed only in furs and loincloths. They each carried a club. Sara focused on one of them to observe its nameplate.

Despite their extremely high health total, these creatures were not mini-bosses—they could be dispatched by a strike to the heart or brain.

“May, crit the one on the left,” Sara called out. She switched weapons. “I’ll go right. Clare, Pari, stay on the boss!”

“Right!” May acknowledged.

The consorts both started walking toward Clare. May ran at one, swiping at its legs with her swords to get its attention. Sara soon did the same to the other target with quick thrusts.

May looked up at her monster. “Hey, these guys don’t have any junk! Some consorts.”

“Have to keep things family-friendly,” Sara yelled back. “Some shows even bleep profanity.” Neither of the two women managed to get threat right away, so they had to stab their giants in the legs several more times.

May laughed. “Well, in that case—fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck, fuck!”

The demon player was the first to get her monster to stop its advance toward Clare. It took a clumsy swing at her, but missed. May dropped her swords and jumped to grab on to the back side of the creature’s loincloth. As she climbed, the enemy became briefly confused on how to attack her. It spun around several times rapidly, ineffectually waving its club at her. May gave a drawn-out and more genuine shout of “fuck” as she held on tightly.

Sara’s spear did much less damage, but she managed to gain threat shortly before her giant could reach the group’s tank. She kept up her lasting heal on Clare as she dealt with her opponent. The monster tried to bring its club down on Sara, but she jumped backward to avoid it. After the weapon crashed into the ground, Sara tried to run up it as if it were a ramp. Her plan was to reach the giant’s shoulder and attack his head from there.

Unfortunately, she did not have enough speed to make the distance in time. She was still running when the giant suddenly lifted its arm. This motion launched the healer into the air. She gave a startled cry, and cast barrier on herself to absorb the coming fall damage. She struck the ground, landing painfully on her behind.

“Sara!” Pari called out.

The healer saw the giant’s club coming down toward her. Quickly, she rolled out of the way and regained her feet. But she then realized too late that the mage had not been yelling about the consort’s attack—the matriarch had just launched another boulder at Sara. The healer was too slow getting out of the way, and the massive rock knocked her back down and bounced right off her body.

Fortunately, this was a min XP dungeon—the damage caused by this mistake was not as bad as it might have been. The rest of her barrier was used up resisting the damage, and her health only dropped by twenty percent.

“I’m okay!” she reassured the rest of the party as she stood. She was, though she felt like road-kill. Sara cast her instant heal on herself, and then Clare once more. May was hit repeatedly but lightly by her own giant’s club—the monster swung stubbornly at her as if its weapon were a backscratcher. She received yet another heal. All this activity reduced Sara’s mana. However, she still had enough that there was no sense in wasting a potion to refill it.

May finished her climb and summoned one of her swords. She stabbed her giant in the heart. It fell forward, and after it landed she materialized her other blade. “Sara, need help?”

“I’ve got this! Go back on the boss.” Sara dropped her spear, and then copied May’s method of climbing up the giant’s back. She encountered similar resistance, but kept her healing up as needed. Once she was high enough, she materialized her weapon and ran the monster through. It was just her luck that her giant fell backwards, but Sara managed to jump out of the way of its falling body.

“Rock!” Pari yelled.

The matriarch had targeted Sara again, but this time she ran fast enough to avoid the boulder’s damage. “You stupid giant, what’s your problem?” she called out irritably. The healer then felt a little silly for having essentially yelled at a computer program. She switched out her spear for her bow and resumed her regular attack.

Nothing else unusual happened until the matriarch’s health dropped to ten percent. The doors again opened and closed, allowing two more giants to join the fray. These creatures were also male, but they were dressed and armed similarly to the matriarch.

Sara’s HUD informed her. They had a great deal of health, but Sara knew from her reading that they did much less damage than the boss. Unfortunately, they were mini-bosses—they would not be taken out by a simple crit.

“Clare, get threat on both adds! Everyone, stay on the boss.” The tank shouted her acknowledgment. Given that the matriarch was almost dead, it made sense to deal with it before killing the adds.

The tank fired two void bursts, successfully drawing the attention of the bodyguards. Sara was afraid that Clare might take a great deal of damage during this phase of the battle. This would force her the use a mana potion, and to cast her spells frequently enough to risk drawing threat.

This did not come to pass thanks to Clare’s extraordinary skill. She dodged or blocked every single sword strike from all three of the giants. She moved frequently among them and between their legs, which made it difficult for the monsters to attack. Even with all three of them kicking at her, she only took a few hits here and there. Her sword repeatedly struck the legs of all three giants, though the boss took most of her attacks. The tank also used occasional area attacks.

The matriarch finally fell, forcing May to run clear of her collapse. Clare chose one of the remaining giants as her primary target, and the entire party burned it down. After it was dead, they did the same to the last. It had been over fifteen minutes since the start of the battle when that giant reached zero health and dropped with a powerful thud. Sara’s HUD informed her of the victory. In addition to the experience and gold the group had gained, there was cloth, fur, metal, and a raw stone gem. The two doors both opened—either of them could be used to exit the dungeon instance.

Everyone but Clare cheered in excitement. The four women all gathered beside the slain matriarch. “Thanks everyone,” Sara said. “You made my job easy by avoiding so much damage. I was especially impressed by all your fancy footwork at the end, Clare. And we had a great offense given all our missing gems.”

“No one dropped below three-quarters health,” Clare noted. “That’s a strong performance.” Her matter-of-fact tone aside, to Sara this felt like high praise. She smiled at the tank.

“You really helped me stay confident during the fighting,” Pari told Sara. “Except that scare you gave me with the giant!”

“What happened?” May asked Pari. “I was too busy to tell what was going on.”

“Sara tried to run up the giant’s club, but it launched her into the air! Then a boulder landed on her. It was frightening at the time, but in hindsight it was a little funny—sort of like a cartoon.”

Sara gave a self-depreciating laugh. “I screwed up. I should have realized that you need a much higher speed stat to pull off a stunt like that.”

“Still, all things considered we did really well for our first time out,” May observed.

“And we didn’t need to use any potions,” Sara added. “That helps a lot with our budget. May, Clare—I think both of you might as well quit your courier work. Between my job and all the dungeon gold, that should keep us in rare speed gems as we progress.”

“That doesn’t seem fair to you,” May said. “You’re the only one who’s barely gonna get any downtime.”

“I don’t really mind my work,” Sara insisted. “And even beyond all the gold, I’m doing a lot of networking—that could really help us down the road.”

“Networking?” May asked skeptically.

“Apparently, I’m a very persuasive speaker when I’m naked,” Sara joked. Clare blushed slightly. “Sorry, I didn’t mean to be crude,” the healer told her. But the truth was, she did enjoy making the other woman blush.

“Be sure to take some nights off if you start feeling stressed,” May insisted.

Sara nodded. “Oh, Pari, can you cut the stone gem so we can sell it?”

“Sure, I’ll add it to the front of my queue.” The gemcrafting trade only allowed one to finish a gem every two hours. Sara transferred the raw gem to Pari through her inventory controls.

Sara spoke up again. “Anyway, we made solid time—it’s only been two and a half hours since we got here. Now we just run this place twice more, and we can head back to the city.” She started walking toward one of the exit doors, and the rest of the party followed.

May sighed in displeasure. “This is gonna get repetitive real fast. I can’t see how the hunters get to maximum.”

“Their dungeons are easier, and give twenty times the XP and gold. Unfortunately, we can’t use them.”

“Seriously?” May asked. “The mass executions are bad enough—that’s just fucking rude.” Sara and Pari laughed at this.

The party soon reached the doorway, and her HUD asked Sara if she wanted to exit the instance. She mentally selected yes, and the party vanished into another loading screen.