“We’re back, you little shit.”
Amelia hauled her sword off her back as the newly formed party stood facing the Dire Wolf. The dungeon had been reset since they visited, and they’d been cleaving their way through easy goblin encounters to get back here. The rider had returned to their original position. They almost seemed annoyed that he had died.
“We just want level 5, so you better not stop us!” Amelia continued.
“We should really just skip this,” Lambda reminded them. “This thing looks rough and it’s not even the boss here.”
“It isn’t, which is why we want to beat it up,” James told him. “We have unfinished business. Let’s start the same way, shall we?”
James stabbed his sword into the ground and a red aura appeared around him. As he did so, Lambda raked his scythe across the ground and a skeleton climbed out.
Cieth
Draw Rage
----
Dire Wolf Mount
600/600 HP
Now targeting Cieth
----
Necromancer Skill
Call Forth
Call forth the damned
Causes an Abyssal Summon.
40 second cooldown.
----
Lambda
Abyssal Summon
The rider charged forward, trying to stab James, but he blocked the attack easily. Amelia ran in and raked her sword along the wolf’s side.
Dire Wolf Mount
575/600 HP
“Don’t go for the rider, it’ll just go crazy,” James told the two new party members.
“I didn’t want to go for this thing in the first place,” Lambda reminded them. Gungnir pulled a shotgun out of thin air and fired it straight into the Wolf’s face.
Gunslinger Skill
Shotgun
A powerful blast of shrapnel that will blast enemies apart.
AoE attack that deals 2*STR damage in a cone in front of you. 6 ammo.
10 second cooldown.
----
Gungnir
Shotgun Ammo
5/6
----
Dire Wolf Mount
515/600 HP
The wolf reeled back and swiped wildly at the person who just shot him. Gungnir dodged back, the claws cutting her jacket slightly, as Lambda and his skeleton came in to attack both of the monster’s paws. The wolf reeled back from the constant string of attacks, and the goblin rider pulled on the reins to keep it under control.
“Get back here!” Amelia shouted. She spun her sword around and tried to slash the wolf multiple times, but only the first hit landed as the rider parried the attack with his lance. As Amelia’s blade was knocked back, the rider stabbed her through the shoulder. James ran in and pushed Amelia away. The wolf, still enraged by the earlier taunt, went to bite him. James rolled under the creature and stabbed it in the gut.
Dire Wolf Mount
458/600 HP
“Still hit for absolutely nothing,” he muttered. The wolf leapt around, trying to swat the annoying fly under him, but James’ superior defence stat let him parry and block every single attack. While it was preoccupied, Lambda tossed a potion to Amelia, who downed the whole thing and felt her shoulder stitch itself up.
Lambda
Potion
----
GlassAngel
200/200 HP
“Appreciated. Are you sure you don’t have any healing skills?” She asked.
“I got one from levelling up, but I’m not using it,” he explained.
“We can only use 3 skills then? That kind of sucks.”
“I’ve got mine!” Gungnir interjected, “I want to set things on fire!”
“Sure,” Amelia lifted her sword up. “We should go help him out, right?”
The others nodded and without another word, they rushed towards the Wolf. The three all struck him at once, with Amelia rising into the air with an upwards slash, Gungnir firing her shotgun again and Lambda and his skeleton simply going for the legs.
GlassAngel
Rising Slash
----
Gungnir
Shotgun
----
Dire Wolf Mount
333/600 HP
----
Gungnir
Shotgun Ammo
4/6
“Now this is what damage looks like!” Amelia shouted as she fell back down, stabbing the monster in the eye.
CHAIN
GlassAngel
Piercing Blow
----
Dire Wolf Mount
258/600 HP
“Shows you the difference a level and a more aggressive party composition can make,” James said. “Shame we didn’t have access to those fancy DLC Clas-”
The Dire Wolf finally managed to grab James in it’s jaws and hurled him away, sending him skidding across the ground.
“Stay focused,” Lambda reminded him as he helped James to his feet. “Just because you can hit harder doesn’t mean this is going to be easy.”
The Wolf turned to face Lambda and James, but Gungnir ran in front of it and chucked a bomb at it’s face. It exploded into flames, setting the fur alight.
Gunslinger Skill
Napalm Bomb
A special substance from Kezodora that sets whatever touches it aflame.
Deal STR damage and apply Burn to the target. 2 ammo
20 second cooldown.
----
Dire Wolf Mount
228/600 HP
----
Status effect
Burn
Deals 1 damage every 1 second.
----
Gungnir
Napalm Bombs
1/2
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The wolf growled, leapt at Gungnir and pinned her to the ground. The skeleton rushed forward, enraged, but was quickly swatted away by the goblin with the lance.
Lambda’s Abyssal Summon
0/30 HP
“Why do they always do that?” Lambda muttered to himself as he ran forward, slashing at the Wolf’s foot to try and get him off Gungnir. James helped him, bashing the leg away with his shield.
“What do you mean?” Amelia asked while she helped Gungnir up.
“The skeletons always go out on a limb to help Gungnir but leave me in the dust. It annoys the hell out of me.”
“I’m just more useful than you,” Gungnir said. The goblin got the wolf back under control and tried to stab them, but James parried the blow. As the goblin reeled from the attack, Amelia slashed across the Wolf’s legs multiple times and Gungnir shot it in the face, sending one of its eyes flying.
“Wow, I didn’t mean to hit it like that,” Gungnir said. “I feel kinda sorry for it.”
“I don’t,” Amelia growled back. As soon as she was done swiping at the monster, she cleanly decapitated its head.
Dire Wolf Mount
0/600 HP
----
Encounter Complete
All Party Members gain 325XP
All Party Members gain 1000 Gold
“Haven’t levelled up,” James said. “Guess we’ll have to actually finish this dungeon.”
“Even then, you have to admit it was incredibly satisfying,” Amelia replied as she snapped her sword onto her back.
“Do you know your way around this place?” Lambda asked.
“Nah, this is as far as we got. It’s all blind from here on out. I really hope it doesn’t get harder from here on out…”
The party turned and walked out of the room, leaving nothing but a dead wolf and the flailing goblin trapped under it in their wake.
>>>
“How long are these tunnels?” Amelia growled, spearing another goblin through the chest and chucking it behind her.
Goblin 28
0/75 HP
“It’s practically a maze,” James responded. They’d been looping the tunnels for over half an hour now, completely at a loss about where to go. “I imagine it’s designed this way to confuse intruders.”
“They could have at least added a minimap or something to this game.”
>>>
Gungnir, who was leading the party, held her hand out to signal them to stop as she noticed a tripwire on the floor. Lambda slashed it with his scythe. A chunk of the wall broke away and a massive log came out, smashing against the other wall, although luckily there was no party there to crush into a paste.
Gungnir sighed. “How many traps is that now?”
“6 spike pits, 4 crushers, 3 flamethrowers,” Lambda replied. “And may I remind you, it was my skeletons that sacrificed themselves to save us from those flamethrowers.”
“They didn’t sacrifice themselves, you threw them in there,” Amelia said bluntly.
The group entered into another dull tunnel.
“The skeletons have some semblance of their humanity left,” Lambda explained. “It’s why they sometimes act on their own despite following my orders.”
“That’s...kinda dark,” James said.
“If it makes you feel better, it’s simply flavour text. They’re all the AI in the end.”
“Fair enough.”
Suddenly, the room around them lit up. The group were on a thin rock bridge, still only large enough for them to walk single file. Several wooden platforms were held from the ceiling by chains, 3 on each side of the bridge, groups of laughing goblins standing on each of them. The long thin bridge led to a massive throne, and sitting on it was an equally large troll. He was dressed in rusted armour that didn’t fully cover his massive stomach and was clearly stitched together from random pieces of metal, likely from travellers the goblins had attacked on the road. The troll was eating a chicken leg the size of his lower torso.
“Huh, so this game really does have giant chickens,” James muttered.
“So, you wanted to break into my cave, huh?” The troll smiled.
“Twice in fact,” Amelia pointed out.
“Nice. I’m the Goblin King. Pleasure to meet you. We’re going to kill you now and roast you on our fire. The least you could do after killing my army is make a good meal.”
“At least you’re straight to the point,” Amelia pointed her sword at the Goblin King “Shall we get started?”
“Quite,” The Goblin King took another bite out of his chicken leg. “Kill them.”
The goblins on the platforms drew their bows and opened fire. The party rushed back into the tunnel to take cover, but even James wasn’t able to completely block the hail of arrows that struck them
Cieth
225/300 HP
----
GlassAngel
150/200 HP
----
Lambda
100/150 HP
----
Gungnir
25/100 HP
James slammed his shield down in front of the corridor, defending them from the arrows. The rest of them pulled out potions and drank.
GlassAngel
Potion
200/200 HP
----
Lambda
Potion
150/150 HP
----
Gungnir
Potion
75/100 HP
“Well, we’re out of potions already,” Lambda snarled. “How should we do this? Do we just wait for them to run out of arrows?”
“When do archers in video games ever run out of arrows?” Amelia pointed out. “We need a plan to take them all out.”
“Do you think we could knock the platforms down somehow?” James wondered.
“Those chains look thick,” Lambda said, “We’d need something strong to cut them down.”
Amelia raised her hand to put herself forward for the task, only to pull it down as it’s almost hit by an arrow.
“Even if you could do it, we can’t possibly slice them all down.”
“But we can’t kill all the goblins either!”
“I really wish we had Grey here,” James looked up at the ceiling. He noticed that the chains for each platform came together at a massive hook on the roof, like a chandelier.
“Can you get at that hook somehow?” James asked, pointing his sword at it in a way to avoid getting shot. His shield was now running out of space for arrows.
“If I climb up the chains, yeah,” Amelia said.
“I could probably burn some down with my bombs,” Gungnir added, “and I have the highest DEX stat here, I can climb those easy.”
“I’ll race you up there, then.”
“We’ll cover,” Lambda said. He held his hand against the wall and a skeleton pulled itself out.
“On my mark,” James said. “Let’s go.”
The group rushed along the bridge, James taking the hail of shots as best he could. Amelia leapt up onto the platform to her right and started crawling up the chain, while Gungnir did the same to the platform on their left. The goblins all aimed at them, but they turned away as a red aura appeared around James.
Cieth
Draw Rage
----
Bow Goblin 1-24
Now targeting Cieth
“Look, I’m a distraction!” James shouted. The goblins continued to shoot at him anyway, and despite this the Goblin King kept eating his meal.
As the two attackers scampered up the chain, Gungnir drew a napalm bomb out of her pocket and chucked it at the hook.
Gungnir
Napalm Bomb
----
Gungnir
Napalm Bombs
0/2
The bomb hit the hook and was smothered in the flaming substance. Gungnir slid down the chain as it began to melt. Meanwhile, Amelia leapt across the links and sliced her hook in two. The goblins screamed as the ground gave way beneath them and the platform fell into the abyss below.
Bow Goblins 1-4
0/75 HP
Amelia smirked before she realised she had nowhere to land. She flailed in mid-air before crashing into a group of goblins on the platform next to her.
Glass Angel
180/200 HP
Meanwhile, Gungnir casually jumped off her chain and onto the bridge as the melted hook could no longer hold the platform’s weight, forcing it to collapse.
Bow Goblins 5-8
0/75 HP
“Get off the platforms, you idiots!” The Goblin King shouted. The goblins did as they were told, all clambering onto the central bridge. Gungnir smiled and pulled out her shotgun. She slid under James’ shield, loaded the shell and fired at the line of goblins, sending them flying back. A few of them were sent flying into the abyss.
Gungnir
Shotgun
----
Bow Goblin 9-18
15/75 HP
----
Bow Goblin 19-24
0/75 HP
----
Gungnir
Shotgun Ammo
3/6
“Get back!” James shouted. He leapt over Gungnir and smashed his sword into the ground. The shockwave rang out, annihilating the remaining goblins.
Cieth
Crash Blade
----
Bow Goblin 9-18
0/75 HP
“A solid plan, flawlessly executed,” Lambda said. “I applaud your ingenuity, Cieth.”
“You did Jack shit!” Amelia told him bluntly.
“Unfortunately, I don’t think we’re done yet,” James pointed his sword at the growling Goblin King. The monstrous troll stood up and the bridge trembled as he marched forward, raking his mace along the ground.
“How dare you ravage my throne room, you insolent fools?”
“I thought trolls were meant to not talk much,” James replied. “If you wanted to stay safe, you shouldn’t have provoked us on the way to Haelshire. And you’re responsible for getting most of your goblins killed. Now I see why you’ve never done anything more than raid the surrounding area: you can’t plan anything.”
“That will be irrelevant when I crush you under my heel!”
Goblin King
Level 5
800/800 HP
James Stats: Level: 4 HP: 225/300 STR: 15 DEF: 15 DEX: 5 SPL: 15 INT: 1
Amelia Stats: Level: 4 HP: 200/200 STR: 25 DEF: 5 DEX: 10 SPL: 5 INT: 0
Gungnir Stats: Level: 5 HP: 75/100 STR: 30 DEF: 5 DEX: 10 SPL: 5 INT: 0
Lambda Stats: Level: 5 HP: 150/150 STR: 10 DEF: 5 DEX: 5 SPL: 15 INT: 0
