The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 3 (6 page)

“If you wish to leave, by all means, feel free. However, if you wish to finish the quest, you will need this.” She handed Ashish a scroll. “When you get out of here, open up the scroll, but be careful whom you share its contents with. Inside is the location for the secret portal that must be destroyed at all costs. If you are the first to destroy that unholy gateway, then I will grant you this crown, and you will have the right to claim the Panda King’s glorious throne. Yet, beware! The fiend who guards it is no easy man to kill. He has covered the earth with the blood of thousands who came before you.”

Ashish looked at the scroll.
So this is the map of the unbeatable dungeon Lawlheima.
“Alright.” He rolled the parchment back up and gripped it firmly. “Let’s get out of here.” With that, he turned and strode off in the direction the pair had come from, his Jotunn comrade lumbering alongside him, obviously relieved.

“About time.” Linzmeier didn’t stop looking at Ashish. “What did she do to you?”

“I . . .” Ashish tried to recall. He knew there had been a feeling, an enchanting charm that had spread over him moments ago, but no clear memory of it remained now. All he could recall was meeting someone who gave him the key to a kingdom, the only condition being that he had to turn it himself. “I don’t know, but I do know that if we take over that throne, our name will go down in gaming history.”

“Easier said than done.” Linzmeier took the scroll from Ashish and opened it up in much the same fashion someone disarming a bomb might. After nothing happened, a mild look of shock crept up his face.

“What? Were you thinking it might kill you?” Ashish laughed at his Jotunn friend.

“Not exactly, but, hmm . . .” He studied the paper for a moment. “What is this?”

Ashish looked over at the scroll. On the bottom it had a countdown timer with two sentences above it: ‘The battle begins. Will you be ready?’
Ashish then glanced up at his companion with a slight grin and said, “It might not have been a bomb, but it does have the usual ticking clock.”

“Perhaps the numbers will stop at three.” Linzmeier joked, but something about the whole situation still didn’t sit right with him. They didn’t sit to well with Ashish either.
Why is there a countdown timer?
If it is first-come, first serve and has such a great reward
,
then
why hasn’t anyone completed it yet?
For once, Ashish, the fearless guild leader, joined his buddy in wishing things added up.

“Let’s just get back to the guild. We’ve got organizing to do. We can’t let anyone else take this victory from us.” Ashish sighed, no longer in as good a mood as when he had arrived.

Chapter 2 – Don’t Eat Yellow Snow

Darwin
:

              “Does this look at all like a dungeon to you?” Darwin asked his friends as the group stumbled across a hole in the wall.

Normally, when they were going out to conquer dungeons, they knew exactly where they were going before they even started. It was always a mad rush to reach the dungeon as quickly as possible. This time, however, was a bit different. Everyone in the group was still drunk off the joy, excitement, money and levels that had come with overthrowing the Panda King’s oppressive rule. Since the freshly-dead tyrant’s army had been mostly made up of NPCs around their level, the EXP Darwin’s faction had gotten was phenomenal. It was enough to make even the most hardcore grinder jealous and keep everyone in the StormGuard Alliance ahead of the curve. The boost made them feel as if they had spent several days gaining experience after the battle without stopping, not just enjoying the festivities in the game and going to sleep for the night. That being the case, they were just meandering along and leisurely killing everything in their path.

“Yeah, it definitely seems to be one. I can’t tell for sure, but I think these guys will probably be around Level 60. We’re almost there. Seem about right for you guys?” Daniel asked as he crept closer to the entrance. Like Darwin, he was completely failing to address the anomaly that was the hole in the wall standing before them.

The entry, like it was with most dungeons, was neatly cut into the side of a mountain, and as it was with some of the other dungeons they had previously encountered before, it seemed rather out of place and matched neither the weather or the terrain around it at all. Just over the mountain to the south, they had been happily plodding through their new volcano lair. No more than fifty feet away from where they now stood, they had been doing battle with lava elementals and rogue fire bugs. Yet here before them was a giant wooden door with green leaves sprawling up and down the sides of it, a tiny peek hole and snow--lots and lots of snow--covering the area around it as if it were a new type of fake, roll-out grass that the cave owner had insisted on buying after several failed attempts to naturally cultivate it.

“How can you be sure that it’s around Level 60?” Kitchens asked, looking at the white stuff littering the entranceway with a strange expression that made Darwin wonder if he were allergic to it.

“Ah, I cheated.” Daniel grinned. “I checked the forums ahead of time. One of the regular information specialists, Nir, had a posting about this area. Said a few people tried to tackle it around the time we were having our big ‘defend the town’ battle, but it was around Level 60, and they weren’t even well into their 50s yet. They didn’t make it very far, but they did take good notes on the first set of monsters they encountered before they turned tail and ran.”

“That’s two good pieces of good information.” Kitchens scratched his chin as he pondered for a minute. “We know the level range, and we know that it’s not hard to get away if we can’t handle it.”

The others looked at him. The idea of fleeing hadn’t ever actually crossed any of their minds, but now that he mentioned it wouldn’t be hard, they somehow found it to be a comforting notion. Nonetheless, it felt downright odd for someone like Kitchens to immediately consider the option of retreating when he had always embraced death in the game as ‘something that just happened.’

“Well, what do you think, boss?” Mclean asked, everyone turning to face Darwin this time.

“We really shouldn’t give this dungeon the cold shoulder,” he punned poorly. Despite the fact that no-one laughed, he couldn’t help but smile and follow it up with an even worse attempt at wordplay. “Come on, guys. Don’t leave my joke out in the cold.” Still, nothing but the distant chirping of lava-bugs followed his remarks. “You guys will warm up to puns one day.”

“Okay, let’s stop the old man with the dad jokes before we hear any ‘call me a doctor’ jokes,” Daniel said, shaking his head.

Darwin sighed. “Let’s just do this.”

“You sure you don’t know when Kass is going to be on?” Kitchens asked as they opened the door. “It’s kind of strange to see Valerie and Kass both missing at the same time.”

“Kass isn’t missing. She’s probably just asleep . . .” Darwin didn’t know how to breach that subject exactly.
Do I tell them, ‘Oh, yeah, Kass . . . No, she came over to join me for dinner last night, took a few looks at my face and fainted from how horrendous I must appear? Or do I just keep pretending that she’s just an Internet-only friend?

Kass had not only fainted, but she had still not woken up even though it was well into the next morning. She hadn’t missed anything, however. As soon as she passed out, the dinner was wrapped up, and Darwin, unable to actually get to sleep even after entering the real world, ended up watching ‘just one more episode’ over and over again with Stephanie until light creaked through the bedroom windows. By that time, he figured it was about time to enter Tiqpa and start farming before Hunger got ahead of him. He had checked to see if Kass was awake and if she wanted to join them, but when he entered the room and tried to get her out of bed, all he was greeted with was a type of snoring that was somewhere between two sawmills competing against each other and a T-Rex trying to blow his nose even though the tissues wouldn’t reach. After several failed attempts to talk over the woman’s possessed slumber-speak, he finally gave up and left the room defeated. It was probably for the best. He doubted that the first thing she’d want to be greeted with would be the very thing that made her pass out in the first place.

“What about Valerie? Do you guys know where she is? Isn’t she always one of the first ones on in the mornings?”

“Yeah, boss, no idea. I sent her two messages through the in-game forum, telling her where we were going and what we were doing, but I haven’t seen her on all morning, and she didn’t mention anything yesterday about having plans. I’m actually really concerned about her.” Daniel sighed. His face looked like that of a father whose daughter had stayed out all night partying and forgot to call and check in.

“You geezers are too worried about nothing,” Minx said, rolling around in the snow. While the others debated about whether or not to enter the dungeon without their missing members, she had somehow managed to turn herself into a sort of Minx-filled snow burrito with Fuzzy Wuzzy’s help. The only thing not covered by rolled-up snow was her head as she stuck her tongue out at them. “Old men shouldn’t worry so much about young ladies.”

“Hey, I’m not that old!” Daniel protested, packing a ball of snow and tossing it at her undefended face.

“Hey! Dad! Stop him!” Minx tried to use the time-honored dance technique, the worm, to move her human-snow-burrito self away as Daniel hit her with another powdery projectile, but she didn’t make it very far.

“Hmmm. Did you make your bed this morning?” Kitchens asked as a third snowball hit his daughter, this one from Mclean.

“I . . . I’ll get to it! Just . . . Just help me!” she protested, clearly guilty of failing to do her chores.

“Hmm . . . And will you clean the bathroom too?”

“Ugh, no no. I’d rather suffer the balls of snow!” Minx protested with a frown, resigned to her fate.

Fuzzy Wuzzy, who had been watching this with a rather bemused look on his face, rolled up a giant snowball the size of Daniel, and tossed it at Minx too, leaving only a giant ball where her face had poked out of the snow roll.

“Mphh!!!” came a muffled sound from the Minx snowball.

“Should one of us like get her out?” Darwin asked as he stared at the snow-covered teen.

“You’re going to tell me she’s strong enough to stab through a Blue-Drake’s skull with one thrust, but can’t clear away a few pounds of snow?” Kitchens looked at the spot where his daughter lay. “She’s just being Minx.”

Darwin, not entirely sure what that meant, used his fiery blade to melt away the top layer of snow and free the frozen teenager.

“Ah! I can always count on Darwin to free the cute and pretty princess!” Minx cheered as her arms and head shot out through the remaining thin layer of snow.

“I thought it was you who rescued him in the last big boss fight?” Kitchens chuckled.

“Shhh, quiet quiet. Don’t you know? Men get embarrassed when you have to carry them across the threshold instead.” Minx stabbed Darwin’s ego as she reminded the whole group how she had been the one to catch and carry him to victory when he almost died during the fight with the dragon.

Daniel and Mclean, both of whom had been absent, exchanged odd glances. “You two tied the knot?” Mclean asked, misinterpreting the ‘carry through the threshold’ reference. “Strange, I didn’t expect you to rob the cradle, Darwin.”

Kitchens’ face went uncharacteristically red at the joke. “They did not,” he insisted firmly.

“Hey! Easy there, grandpa. A girl has to make her own choices.” Mclean threw another verbal dagger in Kitchens’ mood, all the while beaming a big, bright smile at him. “And there are worse options than Darwin, you know?”

“Alright, enough!” Darwin decided to end that conversation before he found a katana from Kitchens in his backside. “You two trying to get me killed?” he asked the two girls, both of whom now wore the most fake and innocent faces they could muster.

“Ooo, I love it when he gets mad. It’s so cute when he’s serious.” Mclean was having a field day at Darwin’s expense.

Kitchens exchanged a glance with Darwin, then gave him a wink letting Darwin know that any malicious intent was gone. “Darwin, I think you need to spank one of your guild members before she causes you to lose too much face. Can’t have a naughty angel embarrassing you.”

“Mmm . . . You think that would work? She looks like the type that might enjoy being disciplined too much,” he laughed.

The shameless comments left a puzzled Minx blushing a bit, but Mclean just laughed.

“We have to be a little careful going in here. Nir’s information says that the mobs are color-coded, so assigning targets should be pretty easy,” Daniel said, bringing the subject back to something entirely unsexy before the joking got too inappropriate.

“They are color-coded?” Darwin’s face contorted at the strange notion of such a kiddy game cliché in a game that tried to maintain realism. “Like most difficult to least difficult?”

“No, they are segregated by class and ability,” Daniel began to explain. “Apparently, the blue ones are the tanks and will try to get in your way and block you at every chance, the yellow ones are the healers, and the red ones do the most damage.”

“So we need to kill the yellow ones, then the red ones and then the blue ones--and in that order if possible?” Darwin understood the tactic that would be needed right away. Games, even ones like Tiqpa, were still often heavily centered around number exchanges, even if the numbers weren’t visible. If they couldn’t do more damage than the healers, the fight would go nowhere. It would be like trying to pay off credit card bills when the interest rate exceeded your income--there’d just be no point in trying. That was why it would help to kill the healers first. In theory, they should take more damage than tanks, and once they were dead, the entire fight would take a lot less time. Every second they were alive they would be undoing valuable damage that had already been dealt.