I can’t stand this. I’m the only one allowed to inflict such despair on the other players, the DMA staff isn’t allowed to copy my ideas – which are listed in a note I lost a long ti ago, but this doesn’t an I can’t complain.
“Go to hell! Chain Lightning!”
The lightning leaves my hand and strikes a group of dwarfs surrounding one of the inactive golems. The damage I deal is high, but all of them survive.
With my spell as the trigger, the other players snap out of it and swarm towards the three sleeping golems.
If a single golem required so many players to deal with, what would happen if there were four of them instead? That must be what’s occupying their minds right now. The do’s size isn’t big enough to fight them all; in fact, it feels smaller now that the crystals absorbing the dark particles have been deactivated. Furthermore, with monsters spawning everywhere, even right next to the players, the available space feels cramped.
At the sa ti, the alchemists, constructors, or whatever they are take defensive positions, and the corrupted royal guards move to the front. They put their shields one next to the other, creating one of the famous shield walls. The shields are so big compared to their size that I can’t see the dwarfs hiding behind them.
If the battle looked like an epic tale about defeating a single, powerful monster, now it’s just a bunch of players doing whatever they think is the best to stay alive. It reminds of the ongoing chaos in the large city above us.
“Hey! Don’t all of you leave the boss! We need a large group to deal with it!” The human raid leader tries to get the player’s attention, to no avail. “Do you hear !? Aaagh, if only the snob and the drunk would help…”
She starts pulling on the hair that sticks out of her helt, the only part that’s visible from her body.
But she’s wrong. The dwarf and the elf raid leaders have stopped arguing and are coordinating the surrounding players. It’s just that they are part of the group that’s trying to prevent the golems from awakening.
Two of them believe it’s best to focus on the sleeping golems before they turn into a nace; and the other believes that if they don’t stop the awakened golem, they will all die. This causes the few players who are listening to them to hesitate, and nothing gets done.
Tsk, tsk, tsk. This is just like watching politicians do their work… You know, they always look for their own benefits exclusively, disregarding everything else…
But I don’t have any reason, nor power, to intervene. The only thing I want to achieve is stopping those guys who are using my tactics without my permission!
“Hello? Can soone tell us what should we do? We want to help. Hello? Anyone…?” The leader of the fourth group of players asks, confused. But everyone ignores him and his teammates.
Who is he and what Champion is he using? I don’t know, I’m included in the ‘everyone ignores him’ faction.
“...soone? No?”
“You’re going to pay for your transgressions! Let’s do it, Muribelle. Double Firebaaaaaall!”
“Firebaaall!”
Our double Fireball soars through the air, crossing a multitude of spells, attacks, projectiles, and everything you can imagine, and explodes on the immovable dwarf shield wall. The fire spreads, affecting the players that are trying to break through, as well as two monsters that just spawned.
“Hey, aim properly!”
“Are you a noob? Don’t hit your allies!”
They complain. One of them even gives the middle finger and attacks with one of the weakest spells: Light Arrow. “Fuck you, idiot.”
Aahh… It feels great to release pent-up emotions on totally unrelated parties. Since they showed up, I’ve been waiting for a chance to release this thing inside … Now I’m at peace. I don’t care about their words or the fact that they attacked .
“Muribelle, let’s do it again.”
She smiles like a child with a birthday present. “Yeah. Let’s burn it all! Hahaha! Double Firebaaaaaaaaaaaall!”
The fire spreads with a loud explosion as per usual.
“I’m going to kill you, rat bastard!” One of the players shouts after the fire is exhausted. He’s a random nobody. I might or might not have aid near him on purpose because he attacked just a second ago.
“Hahaha! Try it!” I say, pointing at the chaos everywhere.
With the players moving everywhere, the spawning monsters, the giant golem, and the dwarves protecting the inactive ones, he’ll need a miracle to reach without dying first.
With our last double spell, the dwarven lines finally budge, and the players manage to break through. But then, from behind, we can see that those ‘workers’ that were activating the golems are now wielding nacing weaponry. They start shooting lasers similar to the ones shot by the final boss. The dwarven royal guards protect them with smaller shields that were embedded into the other shields they were using until now and leave the giant shields stuck to the ground, acting as obstacles.
When did we change genres? I thought this was fantasy and not scy-fy. Steampunk? Aaagh, I don’t know anymore.
“Hmm…”
Flying above the final boss’ arena, I watch the ongoing battle. The lack of vision due to the dark particles is perfect, I just need to fly slightly above the free area to stay hidden.
The spectacle below isn’t too different from the one above ground. If I had to say one difference, it would be the fact that we, the Calamities, aren’t allowed to participate in this fight. I shouldn’t be here, either. But as long as I don’t intervene, they can’t act against .
“...this is what happens when you put lots of players together but there’s no command chain. They just do whatever they think is the best and interfere with each other.”
Instead of acting like a single unit, they’re scattered everywhere. This makes them easy pickings for the spawning monsters. Even worse, their attacks interfere with the other teams, and it isn’t rare that they hit each other with them.
I can see Bargrum and Iyrandar in the mix, but they’re competing for who kills more enemies instead of organizing the players. The two aren’t bad players, it’s just… it’s just that they take the roleplaying to an excessive level. When they’re alone, it’s fine; but when they et, it never ends well.
I can also see Hyrja, the guild leader of Silverblast, but she’s too inexperienced in her role. It hasn’t been two months since she took over the position.
As for the last guy who ca in, leading a smaller group of players… I don’t know who he is, but everyone is ignoring him.
“Sigh. Such noobs…” I shake my head, “...they’re all focussing on the wrong things.”
Sure, the golem is big and scary. It’s strong, too. But it isn’t the true danger, as demonstrated when the players were doing a good job against it. The golems that are about to wake up are as strong as the first one, so they’re the sa.
The true danger of this battle isn’t the golems or the dwarfs. It has been sitting in front of everyone since the start: it’s the central crystal.
How can they be so blind? Even the quest they got, although incomplete, says it clearly: destroy ‘x’ before it’s too late.
I’m sure they assu they must unlock more information, but they’re wrong. The reason the mission contains interrogation marks is because, according to the lore they gave us, the dwarves didn’t know the na of the thing they discovered. That’s why it has no na.
“Tsk. It hurts to my core, having to watch them act like fools.”
Usually, I wouldn’t be here. Watching other players act like noobs, or having to witness when they use skills in the wrong way irks to no end. It’s like when you watch kids making up the rules of your favorite board ga.
However, I’m here for a reason. I’m here because I want to see how Andreu goes about this. As far as I can see, he hasn’t realized the truth yet.
“Co on… if you can beat , I’m sure you can do this too…”
If he doesn’t realize the truth, I’ll feel horrible. How can soone who beat in almost every ga we played lose to inexperienced players? Are you trying to imply they’re worse than , because they’re better than you, you who beat ?
“Ugh…” I hold my head, “...I should limit myself to watching the spectacle.”
It’s true that, usually, Clara would be with him. If we hadn’t fought as she desired, she might have t Andreu by now and they would be together. He believes himself smart, but it’s always her who, without him realizing it, manipulates him from the back so that his plans are successful. Is this why he hasn’t realized yet?
A player catches my attention because it’s acting different from all the others.
“Wait. That player…” Instead of fighting the monsters, the boss, or the dwarves protecting the inactive golems; the player is staring at an invisible screen and glaring at the central crystal. “That girl… have I seen her sowhere before? I never forget a face I’ve seen, but… when was it?”
After nodding to herself, the girl looks around. She seems dissatisfied with what she sees, which doesn’t surprise : only noobs acting like noobs everywhere.
She starts to go around the do, staying out of trouble. She seems to be alone. When one or more monsters get close to her, she Blinks away, and the monsters start attacking the surrounding players.
“Ahaha. That’s funny.” I laugh at the surprised players’ reactions. “She’s not that bad.” Finally having found soone who seems to have so brain, I observe her every move.
By the ti she has made half the lap around the do, – she had to go into the fog at one point, to avoid the boss’ rampage – she suddenly opens her eyes wide open and sprints towards Andreu.
Her horns and hear-shaped tail make it impossible to mistake. She’s a succubus.
“Ah! I rember now.”
As Andreu suspected, the DMA staff in charge of this Mystery Event did indeed use his tactics of manipulating the player’s emotions for the last battle. They got the inspiration from watching his videos and replays.
To be more precise, it was a single worker obsessed with watching him and laughing at everything he did: a woman who spent the Mystery Event watching a giant screen in a dark room with several other smaller screens. She was under a blanket and had a drink in one hand, and a popcorn cup in the other.
Reviews
All reviews (0)