The Dragon's Revenge Read online

  Naturally, it was the cleric who succumbed first, after all, he faced the united efforts of the rest of the raid. We got the system message – The dark elf cleric is dead. You gain experience – when the warrior was still on 78 per cent. Everyone then gathered around my fight. If we shared the remaining damage as we’d learned to do with the singles, it was unlikely that anyone else would get the aggro, even so, I felt it worth voicing a reminder.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘We have this. Just take it slow if you are high level.’

  This raid was giving me the rush of pleasure that I associated with my best moments in Epic. I had a sweet taste in my mouth every time I thought about how my vampire traits and Wolf Form meant we had a real chance of success here. More than that, I was experiencing the thrill of being back in a decent-sized raid party again, one that knew the ropes. Yes, we were relatively low level. That would change though. What mattered for the coming days and weeks were the bonds we were creating, the trust we were developing in each other’s skills, and the shared sense of achievement. This was how to build a raiding party who would be able to tackle tough bosses as we all grew in level. Maybe even the dragon herself.

  Just as I was enjoying, with some complacency, an anticipation of future success, the dark elf warrior span around and slashed at the halfling rogue behind him. Who was it? Owen. His hit points were halved in an instant.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Sorry, I scored a critical hit on a backstab. I’m dead.’

  And a moment later he was.

  Fortunately, then, the dark elf turned back around to me and began wasting his blows on a character who could not feel them. The speed with which this enemy warrior had taken out one of our higher-level characters was a reminder that, although we were comfortable so long as the focus was on me, we would quickly wipe otherwise. It was like walking a path with a ravine to either side. All was well, so long as you stayed on the path.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Anyone got a Resurrection?’ I asked.

  I recognised Woan’s voice in reply, [Channel Rescue] ‘I have Restore Life, but it doesn’t remove the experience loss penalty. If he runs back and reclaims the body, he does better.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Restore Life Owen? Or do you want to run back to clear the exp loss?’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘No question at all: Restore Life. I haven’t had this much fun since I came to San Francisco. I don’t want to miss a second of this raid.’

  While we were talking, the fight had been progressing and the dark elf warrior’s hit point bar was down below half. Was it me projecting, or did his face look weary and dispirited? Definitely, I decided, he was suffering and it showed in the drawn and wracked emotions of his tight-lipped mouth. For all that Epic 2 was very similar in mechanics to Epic, the quality of the immersive experience was completely different. If I concentrated, I could smell blood, metal (from the sparks that flew when iron smashed into iron) and sweat. It wasn’t only the sensual experience that was extraordinary though, it was the AI behind the behaviour of NPCs, which meant that every one I’d encountered had responded authentically.

  The dark elf rogue is dead. You gain experience.

  Eventually, our enemy staggered and collapsed to the ground with a last spasm that made it look like he really was biting the dust. Another nice game touch, if somewhat macabre. By this time Owen was back with us and when he had retrieved the last item from his body, it disappeared.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘There are magic items here, one Fastened,’ said Tuscl, who as our main looter had gone straight to the body.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Links please.’

  On everyone’s raid UI the links would have appeared: Boots of Dark Elvenkind and Seitharian Greaves. Holding my gaze on the links to open them, I read the following: Boots of Dark Elvenkind work exactly as Boots of Elvenkind, except only at night. At will, wearer moves as if with the skill Sneak (100). Seitharian Greaves: Fastened. +1 Plate, +3 at night. One other effect unknown.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Very nice. We’ve hardly seen any magic so far. Normally in my raids, loot is rolled for randomly every time by those classes who can use the item. This isn’t a normal situation. We have to be strategic. Until we liberate some higher-level characters, I think we need to pile all the tank items we find on Oveidio to make him as tough as possible. Is that agreed?’

  After a short pause - obviously the players were getting so used to leaving the raid channel alone it took a moment to realise they were supposed to speak in it now - I got a welter of responses. It seemed to me they were all positive.

  I tried again, [Channel Rescue] ‘Hold up everyone, let me put it the other way. Does anyone think we should handle the drops differently?’

  Silence.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Cool. Loot up Oveidio and congratulations.’

  [Channel Oveidio/Klytotoxos] ‘Many thanks, Tyro.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘What about the boots?’ he asked in the public channel, ‘should I take them too? They are only a small upgrade and seem better for a rogue.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘I agree. Owen, you are reborn under a lucky star, go ahead and take them.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Wait!’ cried Sapentia, so loudly and urgently I flinched. ‘Boots only work at night. Vampire only walks at night and vampire has invisibility. Boots are perfect for possible situation where stealth is needed. Tyro should loot them so to have silent as well as invisible.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Sapentia is right,’ said Raitha.

  More importantly, Owen then agreed also. In fact, he insisted I take the boots.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Very well. Thanks everyone. Back to your starting positions. Raitha, bring the next two mobs please.’

  [Channel Klytotoxos/Sapentia] ‘Thanks for that intervention, it was a good one. Can you take the boots for now? I’ll put them on when my Wolf Form is over.’

  As the others returned to the treeline behind me, I watched Sapentia kneel down and, with a tug, relieve the corpse of the dark elf of his boots. They looked fabulous, supple black leather with sinuous elven designs embossed upon them. Definitely an upgrade on the newbie leather sandals I was wearing.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Incoming!’ shouted Raitha. ‘Two dark elves, one fighter class, the other definitely a caster.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘I’ll take the caster. This time Tuscl, let Verida take the kite so you can lower his resistances.’

  Again, two powerful-looking dark elves ran into the clearing, chasing Raitha, and again I leapt into action. It was clear which one was the caster. While her companion wore black plate mail armour, she had just clothes: black boots, grey trousers, black shirt with wide collars and cuffs and a navy cape, over which cascaded astonishingly bright white hair. If you imagined a purple-skinned seventies superhero, you wouldn’t be far off. My barging into her didn’t cause her any damage and following a hiss from between clenched teeth and with a cold hatred in her moon-coloured eyes, she pointed at me and began to chant. Meanwhile, I took several hits from the longsword of the other dark elf, before he turned to chase someone, Verida, presumably.

  Flash! Glittering silver flooded my vision.

  You have been hit by Lightning Strike for 0 damage.

  Hurray for my immunities. There was a risk here though. What if she resorted to a spell that was not derived from fire, cold or electricity? Some sort of water-based attack perhaps. Was I immune to that too? My UI didn’t say so. Best to try to interrupt the caster rather than risk being hit by a spell that worked on me.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Og, Nullentha, Birch and Rahod, come to me. We need to push this one to stop her casting.’ I had picked the four lowest level characters of the raid. With my wolf attacks, still boosted by the blessing of Nemain, I should comfortably outscore them in damage and hold the aggro. What they could contribute, that was more important than damage, however, was a small push effect. The five of us, which was the maximum we could fit from this side, should be able to keep the wizard (Lightning Strike was wizard only) off balan
ce and unable to cast any more spells.

  Again, this was a test. Would the characters I’d named understand what I was about? It only took them a few seconds to run over and they squeezed in as tight as they could to maximise our collective impact. Good, they’d done this before. Og, the dwarven warrior didn’t even bother using his sword, but put his shoulder behind his shield and kept bashing into our opponent that way.

  Still glaring at me out of her amazing, silvered eyes, the dark elf was forced into a step back and her fluid arm motions and muttered words of power ceased. They started up at once, of course and again were broken off as she staggered back. We had her!

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Verida, just adjust your path as we push our mob to the edge of the clearing, make sure you don’t train the warrior onto us.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Verida’s down,’ said Tuscl, ‘I have the kite.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Restore Life sent,’ added Woan.

  For the first time since we had started the raid, I felt I’d made a mistake. With all my attention fixed on establishing the push, I hadn’t noticed that Verida’s name was greyed out on the raid screen. Fortunately, the rest of the team had picked up the kite string, so to speak. Was I among friends? I thought so. They wouldn’t care about a minor slip, would they? Still, I wished I’d continued my faultless start to this raid.

  [Channel Klytotoxos/Verida] ‘What happened?’ I asked her, without losing concentration on the dark elf in front of me.

  [Channel Klytotoxos/Verida] ‘I turned around to check on him and he lashed out with that naginata. I should have just kept running. Sorry.’

  [Channel Klytotoxos/Verida] ‘No problem at all. Tuscl took the kite.’

  To my left, my vision was partly obscured by the swing of Og’s long ginger plaids as he barged into the wizard again and again. On my right, a human cleric, Rahod, was thumping down upon the dark elf with a heavy-headed iron mace. To his right was Birch, swinging a scimitar and then Nullentha, jabbing at our enemy with a longsword. And as often as I could, I was leaping up onto our opponent. All together, we were managing to reduce her hit points at a respectable rate. More importantly, the wizard had failed to launch any other spells than that first one.

  Sylvania, the first moon, was showing as near full above the black treeline that loomed over us and this alerted me to the need to shift our push. Soon the wizard would be among the trees and that could allow her to break off.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Push team, get ready, we are going to turn her one-eighty. In three…two…one…’ I timed the countdown to end just as the dark elf was forced back a pace and even as she began to chant again, I whipped past her, span around and jumped to bite at her throat, for she had rotated to keep her vicious expression facing me. My comrades were at my side in an instant and now we had the whole width of the clearing for our push.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Well done. Tuscl, note our new direction and steer well clear of us please.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Noted already.’

  As the fight continued, my spirits rose high again. Once more, we had a winning set up. It would still be a long haul, however, and I hoped the others were patient. Over-eagerness was the main risk here, where someone accidently took the aggro and we lost our control over the mobs’ pathing.

  Unexpectedly, the dark elf wizard stopped trying to cast spells and drew a dagger.

  You have been hit by a dagger for 0 damage.

  Good.

  A few failed stabs later and she spat at me. ‘Whoever you are, you will suffer the wrath of Mikarkathat for this.’

  ‘Probably. What do you know of Mikarkathat?’ I asked without easing up my attacks; my response was more to make conversation than a purposeful question. I enjoyed chatting to NPCs, especially if they had a good AI.

  ‘Mikarkathat: her reach his long; her knowledge is deep; her thirst for vengeance unfathomable.’

  ‘Excellent, well if you can remember this conversation after you respawn, give Mikarkathat a message.’

  ‘What message?’

  ‘That we are coming to kill her.’

  The dark elf snarled, yet I could tell she was thinking. ‘Who are you?’ she eventually asked, after staggering back another step.

  ‘I am called General.’

  With that, it seemed we had run into a conversation stopper. By now her hit points were below half and the rest of the raid seemed to be doing a similar rate of damage to the warrior. Finishing them both off was just as matter of collective concentration and in due course we all received the messages we had been waiting for.

  The dark elf wizard is dead. You gain experience.

  The dark elf warrior is dead. You gain experience.

  Chapter 17

  Beneath Two Silver Moons

  Having assigned the armour drops (Seitharian Vanbraces and Seitharian Gauntlets) to the appreciative Oveidio and a potion of Restore Spirit to Woan, I allowed a few cheerful comments in the raid channel to grow to a lively hubbub. In the midst of my raid’s celebrations came a one-to-one message from someone I did not know: Borthar. After a moment’s hesitation I took it.

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘Hello Tyro. Mr Watson would like to see you right away.’ The voice was that of an older man, local accent, officious. Probably someone who worked fairly high up for Yuno in San Francisco.

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘Hello Borthar. I’m raiding at the moment. Could you ask him to wait until we are done please.’

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘We know, Tyro. Mr Watson instructed me to ask you to unclip from your raid and come and see him.’

  Although this way of addressing me as though I was just a Yuno pawn to be summoned and dismissed at will was needling, I knew better than to lose my temper with the messenger.

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘Borthar, can you please check again with Mr Watson. Tell him I’ve rescued Oveidio and Woan and believe we have an excellent chance of clearing the dark elves stationed at Middlehampton. If our meeting can be postponed, that might result in seven extra high-level characters returning to the game for Yuno.’

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘Really? Those level fifty-plus dark elves? With your raid?’ He paused, as if to give me a chance to say I was only kidding. ‘Well. That would change his priorities. I’ll report back to him and contact you again. Can you give me an estimate of how long you need?’

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘Thank you, Borthar. I guess around two hours. But I was then going to move north with the newly rescued players and tackle the other camps before our enemies respond in strength. So you might ask if that’s okay too.’

  [Channel Borthar/Klytotoxos] ‘I will.’ And to my surprise his voice softened. ‘Good luck, Tyro.’

  With that encouragement, I returned my attention to the partying in the raid channel.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Okay folks, back to serious mode. Raitha, the last double pull please. What have we got?’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Two warriors I think.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Great, starting positions please. Pull when ready.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Incoming! Two dark elf warriors.’

  Again, the battle ran well for us, the only surprise being that the dark elf I took on turned out to be a shadow knight. This became clear when she discharged Shock of Lightning on her first hit with a longsword (no effect) and regularly tried a range of cold-based spells (no effect). There was one spell she had, however, that did affect me: Weakness. When it landed, I got the message You have been afflicted by Weakness. My Strength attribute dropped from 23 to 15, with a corresponding effect on my chance to hit and the amount of damage I did. This wasn’t serious enough to make me want to use the push strategy that we’d employed on the wizard. Here, that would be a mistake as the mob might well have feats with her sword and shield that hit multiple targets and my allies would go down fast. No, I simply accepted the orange flashing icon on my UI. And I made note of the fact that there was at least one spell line capable of
harming me. It was a warning: being a vampire did not make me invulnerable to all magic.

  It took about fifteen minutes to grind the two mobs down to their dramatic death scenes. With every kill, a thrilling hope that we could release the trapped party despite the odds against us surged up inside me. The feeling made me giddy almost, though I was determined not to let that show. Cool hand Luke. That was me as raid leader.

  The loot this time was disappointing. Just Seitharian Greaves and Seitharian Vanbraces. Since Oveidio already had these slots filled with the magical plate armour, I asked Woan, the next highest plate class to loot them. It was hardly surprising that she sounded pleased when she did so, as not only was her armour now improving to the kind you might wear all the way up to your 50s, she would be a lot less weighed down compared to the bronze that the General had handed out.

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Right everyone, let’s set up again. We just have this pull of three and then we’ll see what we can do with the big group. What classes are we going to face this time Raitha?’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Unfortunately, I am not completely sure. This is the first time I have encountered dark elves in Epic Two and they all look rather similar. For certain, there is a cleric, to judge by his use of the mace. One of the others is some kind of fighter class and the other is in leather armour with a short sword. Perhaps a rogue?’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Pull them, then if you can take the one that looks like a rogue for a run, I’ll try to tag the cleric and our kite is on the warrior.’

  [Channel Rescue] ‘Incoming! Three dark elves!’ Raitha’s shout was as enthusiastic as ever. Evidently, he was enjoying the role quite as much, if not more, than when he played a warrior in Epic raids.

  At first the fight ran smoothly. My leap onto the cleric succeeded in focusing him onto me, while the warrior was snagged by Verida and taken for a run around the clearing. After several minutes however, Raitha spoke up anxiously, [Channel Rescue] ‘Sorry, I’ve lost the rogue. I must have flown too high. Watch out in case his path back to his camp goes through your fight.’