Dungeon Duel (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Twenty-Seven

Scott Bayani leaned against the wall, tucked away in one of the murder corbels the Griefer had added to the tops of the walls when he battle-modded out Frontflip. All in all, the changes were pretty awesome. He had to admit the dude knew his siege defense. Made sense. Based on that slaughter Roark had shown him and Randy, they probably didn’t have any drone technology on the alien planet Roark was from, so if they wanted to fight, they had to get medieval with it. The fact that the Griefer had entrusted all this to him was still a little bit of a mind fuck.

But only a little. Scott was awesome as hell, after all. Randy was the only other real option, and that wasn’t even a fair contest. Randy was wicked smart, but a total pocket-protector wearing nerd. Scott tapped the stone wall affectionately. This place needed a serious baller at the helm, and he could do the job. Idly, he glanced out over the lawn turned battlefield.

Most of the Heralds who had run like bitches during that first surprise dragon attack were back now, and the siege had mostly reset itself. There weren’t as many of the shitbirds—Roark had kicked their teeth in with that NecroDragon transformation—but they’d managed to reorganize themselves and were trying to take Frontflip again, attacking every now and then. Scott hadn’t noticed a pattern to the attacks, but he figured they were trying to keep them irregular so the POSes and the rest of the people defending the building would have to stay constantly on alert. Wear them down that way.

Some of the weak-ass losers in his Guild had started complaining about the constant fighting, but Scott liked it. Kick ass, level up and loot, quick rest, kick some more ass. He could get used to living like this. It was exhausting, but it beat the ever-loving crap out of burning quesadillas at the Bell, and it was a helluva lot more rewarding. And not just monetarily. For the first time in forever, Scott could see some progress in his IRL life, not just in Hearthworld. Shit was happening, and it was making him hella stronger and awesomer. Who wouldn’t want that? Plus, he was a legit Dungeon Lord now. He wasn’t sure what that would mean long term—especially if Roark managed to split back to his home world—but he was living for it right now.

“Um, PwnrBwner?” One of the eggheads that used to work with Randy leaned through the open doorway into the corbel. “Randy just got a call wanting to talk to the leader of the forces inside. He’s looking for you.”

Scott straightened up. “Hell yeah he’s looking for me. Where’s Rando at?”

“Down in the eastern lobby.”

“Still? I thought this was his off shift.”

The egghead shrugged. “I guess he wanted to stay.”

“Congratulations, pal, this murder corbel is yours until the shift change.” Scott took one last look out for attacks, then eyed the egghead. “You’re a caster type, right?”

“Yeah. Incendiary War Priest, level 19.”

“Perfect.” Scott pointed to a lever on the floor. “If they’re flying too low to nail through the window, hit that lever to drop open the floor and rain down arson all over these douchebirds. Pull it back the other direction to close it again—oh yeah, and don’t fall out. It’s a long way down.”

With that, he strode into the building, heading toward the hub at the new center of Frontflip. The layout had changed massively since the Griefer switched everything up, but it wasn’t that hard to figure out where you were going. If you were out on one of the spokes, walk until you hit the middle. If you were in the middle, walk until you came to the end of the spoke. If you didn’t know which spoke you needed, check the little wall maps next to the elevators in the middle. Those things had updated along with the building.

Scott passed by another new addition to the premises, a no shit dragon. It was a little one, and it looked more like a scalded Kobold than it did Aczol the Eternal, but a dragon was a dragon. The little guy stood about four feet tall. It had gleaming bronze scales and wore a white toga, tied at the shoulder with a golden clasp. There were about thirty of the little squibs running around the place, all low-level new spawns. Apparently, the Griefer had turned this place into a Draconic Nest.

This one blinked oddly intelligent eyes at Scott and dropped its head in a deep bow, hissing out a greeting, “Arch-Overseer.”

“Sup,” Scott said, giving him a nod. He’d had a while to think on what kind of boss he wanted to be while he was up in the murder corbel and had eventually decided on cool as fuck. If his minions gave him respect, he’d give it right back.

The little dude seemed pretty excited about getting a shout-out from the guy at the top of the food chain. A wide grin broke across its face, showing a mouthful of razor-sharp teeth. Scott gave himself a mental pat on the back. Already he was a better boss than half of the douches he’d worked for.

“Is there any way I can be of service, Arch-Overseer?” the little dragon dude rasped hopefully.

“Yeah, there’s a spellcaster up in one of the north murder corbels.” Scott hooked a thumb back the way he’d come. “Go give him a hand and make sure he doesn’t kill himself.”

“Of course, Arch-Overseer,” the dragon thing rasped, bobbing its head in acknowledgement. It broke into an odd loping run, eager to obey.

Man, being a Dungeon Lord was lit AF.

Grinning ear to ear, Scott continued toward the hub. It took him another five minutes to get to the former eastern entrance to Frontflip. The huge bank of glass doors there had been transformed into a sally port where you had to go around one wall outside, then come down a stone hall to get to the single door. Pretty Castle Builders II: Age of Historical Warfare, but it kept all the Heralds from crashing through the front at once. He might add some external battlements and maybe a steel portcullis when he had a little time to screw around with the Dungeon Grimoire, but they weren’t top priority, especially not since they were fighting jerkwads who could just fly over.

He found Randy pacing the lobby, arguing with someone on the phone. When Randy saw Scott, the nerd threw up his hands.

“They won’t listen to me,” Randy said, taking the phone away from his ear and covering the mouthpiece. “I tried to tell them that we have multiple leaders here, and I’m technically one of them.”

Scott snatched the phone out of Randy’s hand.

“Yeah, if you said it like that, it’s no wonder they won’t listen to you. Watch and learn, Randy.” He put the phone to his ear. “Anybody still on the line?”

“Who is this?” a gravelly voice snapped. “I want to speak to the leader of the forces inside Frontflip Studios, dammit.”

“You got him. Scott Bayani, aka PwnrBwner, Arch-Overseer and leader of the guys saving everybody on Earth’s butts. I heard about you being a total dickhole to my second-in-command, Randy, and frankly, I’m not sure I want to waste my time talking to you.”

The dude on the other end hesitated.

Scott smirked. Boom. Leadership like a boss.

“That’s right,” Scott said. “Lucky for you, I’m feeling nice today, but don’t forget that I’m doing you a favor hearing you out in spite of your shitty attitude. Now, let’s get this over with. What the hell is the problem, and what do you expect me to do about it? In case you didn’t notice, I’m kind of busy fighting a war here.”

“You say you’re leading the forces inside?” the man asked.

“Pretty sure you heard me the first time,” Scott said. “What, do I need to get it printed on a business card?”

“I was under the impression demons had taken over Frontflip.”

Scott snorted in disbelief. “Demons? Okay.”

“Those big motherfuckers with the horns and bat wings.” There was a pause on the other end of the line. “I talked to one of them. It said… it said it was trying to help us save Earth.”

“No shit, Sherlock,” Scott said, rolling his eyes. “That’s what my boy Randy’s been trying to tell you geniuses all day, but you wouldn’t listen.”

“Demons lie!” the man snapped. “How the hell was I supposed to know we could trust anybody in league with that thing?”

“Dial back the aggression, cowboy.” Scott glanced sidelong at Randy. “One, Rando might be an awkward computer nerd, but he’s a one hundred percent trustworthy nerd. You can take anything he says as gold. Two, none of those things are demons. They’re mobs from the game Hearthworld. Just go look it up online. Search for Roark the Griefer and you’ll find all the pics you need—there must be like a thousand screenshots of him on Google. He’s on our side, and so are the monsters. Well, some of them.” Scott sliced a hand through the air. “It’s complicated. But the angel types are bad. That’s the important takeaway. If you really want to help us out, shoot down the shiny golden angels, okay?”

Another long pause.

“I’ll pass that along,” the guy said. “I’ve heard there’s a guardsman who’s been saying something similar in his unit, so maybe we can get someone to listen to us.”

“No rush or anything,” Scott said, heavy on the sarcasm and with a side order of scathing.

The man cleared his throat.

“Is there anything else we can do in the meantime?” He sounded like he was fighting to be civil. “Food? Medical supplies? We can get a chopper to drop something, but with the new configuration of the building, hitting the roof might be a long shot. There’s not a lot of surface area to work with anymore.”

“Nah, we’re stocked on Healing potions, and we’ve got the best Gourmet in the history of MMORPGs, so we’re good on food. You just focus on passing along the news that the angels are bad.”

There was a long taut pause on the other end and Scott knew this guy was holding something back.

“Just spit it out already,” he said into the phone. “What do you want to know?”

“Well, the thing is,” the guy said, “we need some help. Someone caught video of a few of your boys taking down some monster in a Bed, Bath, and Beyond.”

“Yeah, that was me,” Scott said. “What’s it to you?”

“We have a bit of a situation. A band of faceless bug creatures have taken over the bottom level of an office building. There are people trapped on the higher levels and the National Guard and fire department aren’t able to clear the creatures out.” He paused again. “These things… They get into your mind somehow. Make you see things and hear things.” Scott could hear the shudder in his voice.

“Yeah, sounds like you got a bunch of Mind Mantids. They’re probably nesting up in that bitch. They’ll tear your whole party apart if you don’t have somebody with psychic defenses.”

The man on the other end cleared his throat. “Would it be possible for you to dispatch a… uh… unit of your men to assist us?”

“What’s to stop you from arresting my guys the second they step outside, huh?”

“Nothing,” the man admitted. “But it would go a long way to proving you’re the good guys.”

“Fine,” Scott said. “I’ll see if I can get a group of volunteers together. You just make sure you pass along how helpful we are to your higher-ups. I don’t want a tactical nuke dropped on our asses. We’re shorthanded enough as it is.”

“I’ll see to it,” the guy replied.

“Great. And, bro? Next time, don’t be a dick to Randy. In this interdimensional magic war, he outranks you. By a metric ass ton.”

Before the dude could say anything else, Scott hit the hang-up icon.

“That’s how you do that,” he said, tossing the phone to Randy.

Randy pushed his glasses up on his face. “Admittedly, your approach did yield faster results.”

“Damn straight it did.” Scott pointed at him. “So what’s the deal with you being down here right now? You were on command down here last shift.”

Randy looked toward the sally port. “I’m not tired, and I just wanted to make sure everything was going smoothly. There are always hiccups when you have a new group working on a new project…” He trailed off and shrugged.

“Dude, there’s gonna be hiccups whether you’re here or not. This is how you end up staying awake for three days staring at your RTS troops when you could’ve just set them to auto-manage.”

Randy frowned. “Haven’t you been on nonstop since you got back from dealing with the mobs at that mall?”

“Yeah, but I’m basically superhuman,” Scott said. He jerked his head toward the center of the building. “Come on. We’re getting some food, then you’re going to chill with me in the Dungeon Lord’s throne room until the next shift change. If you eat fast, you can probably score a nap, too.”

Randy looked over his shoulder at the sally port, then let out a long breath.

“Okay.”

They smelled the caf a long time before they got to it. Scott’s mouth watered at the warm, spicy blend of scents. It was like an Indian restaurant was having a threesome with a pizzeria and a Thai place. Whatever Kaz was cooking, it made Scott pick up the pace.

When they finally did make it to the cafeteria, the mood had done a one-eighty from the way Scott had found it before. Instead of bummed-out faces silently staring at screens like they were watching the end of the world, groups of people were sitting at the tables, eating and talking. Some of them were even laughing.

“This is amazing,” Randy said, noticing the same change Scott had. “The morale has completely shifted since the attack on the Heralds.”

“It wasn’t just winning one battle.” Scott stopped at the kitchen window and grabbed a tray and some silverware. “It’s that.”

He pointed his fork and knife at the huge freaking Bonesnap Behemoth busily stirring a pot of curry while humming one of the generic ambience tunes from Hearthworld’s Infernal dungeons. Kaz’s good mood had infected the place. The Mighty Gourmet’s Imp apprentice was running around, flipping pans full of naan like they were pancakes, and a man and woman in corporate casual had joined the party, putting about a million kinds of toppings on an enormous pan of deep-dish pizza, all of them with a smile on their face. Everybody working back there was having as much fun as Kaz, like this was one big company sleepover instead of a siege.

A handful of the newly hatched Dragonoids were scuttling around, carrying out trays of food to sitting guests and bussing platters full of dirty dishes. They were smart little shits.

“What’s good, Kaz?”

The Mighty Gourmet broke off mid-note and clapped with excitement.

“PwnrBwner and Randy Shoemaker must try this new dish Lakshya has shown Kaz how to make!” Kaz ladled a massive portion of yellow curry out of the pot and over a bowl of rice. “It combines the exquisite complexity of curry with the simplicity of cruciferous vegetables. Has PwnrBwner heard of this vegetable? Caul-ee-flower? So versatile! It is the Stone Salamander of foods, taking on the flavor and coloring of whatever it is cooked with, camouflaging itself while adding a lovely heartiness.” He handed the bowl to Scott, then snatched a piece of the flatbread out of the air as his apprentice was flipping it. “Try it with this lovely Health-Regen Speeding Naan!”

“Don’t mind if I do,” Scott said, taking the piping hot piece of bread. He ripped off a bit of naan with his teeth, the outside crunching and the inside fluffy. “Damn, dude. You’re killing it back there.”

Kaz grinned as he passed a second helping of the same proportions to Randy.

“There are so many new spice and ingredient combinations possible in this world,” the Mighty Gourmet said, his voice all dreamy and faraway. “Curry, Pad Thai, chicken fried chicken—or chicken fried steak! How PwnrBwner and Randy ever choose what they will eat for a single meal, Kaz cannot conceive of!”

“I usually just scarf down some tacos or whatever’s left over from the night shift on the way home from the Bell.”

“Yeah,” Randy said. “Most of the time I grab a pop-tart.”

Kaz cocked his wide head. “Pop… tart? Taco? What are these foods?”

Randy grimaced sheepishly. “Tacos aren’t very healthy for you. At least not the fast-food version. Not that Pop-Tarts are any better for you.”

“Who gives a crap? They taste good and they’re there.” Scott dug into his curry. They were probably trapped at the window until the conversation ended anyway, so he might as well eat. “I’m not trying to live to be a hundred.”

Randy said something back to that, but Scott stopped paying attention. That douchebag boss of Randy’s was strolling through the caf like he owned the place—which, okay, maybe he literally did own the place, but Silva wasn’t supposed to be out of that office they’d locked him in without a guard to watch his every move.

Acting suspiciously un-suspicious, Silva joined a small group of nerds clustered around a table, making small talk with them. After a couple minutes, he must’ve gotten serious and asked them something, because they shook their heads, and he moved on to another group. Still totally cool. Not a suspicious move. The dude was practically whistling to show how nonchalant he was.

“Shut up for a second,” Scott said in a low voice.

Randy broke off, looking around. “What is it?”

“Your boss.” Scott jerked his chin at Silva. “Did you give the order to let him wander around free?”

Randy shook his head. “Molly and Creighton were watching him.”

“Looks like he gave them the slip.”

“Should we take him back?” Randy asked, taking a step toward Silva.

Scott stopped him. “No, keep it low-key, dude. If you go after him now, he’ll just say he wasn’t doing anything. Dickhole is up to something, though. We’ll follow him, do some recon before we pounce.”

It didn’t take long before Silva found somebody who could do whatever he wanted. A guy with a bowl cut gave him a thumbs-up, then emptied his tray and headed out of the caf.

“That’s Frontflip’s player notifications manager,” Randy said.

“What would Silva want with him?” Scott asked.

“No one can log in right now unless they’re infected with the anomalous code,” Randy replied, sounding genuinely puzzled. “Maybe he’s having a mass explanation sent out to keep the lines from getting clogged with customer service requests and complaints.”

That made sense, but Scott wasn’t sure he bought it. Dubious shenanigans were afoot here.

Cool as James Bond, Silva rocked up to the espresso machine, made himself a cup, then strolled out five minutes later.

“Hit me with that Invisibility, Randy,” Scott said.

Grabbing his arm, Randy used his Arboreal Herald ability to make them both disappear, then they snuck out of the caf after Silva.

Frontflip’s CEO wandered nonchalantly through the halls until he came to a dark office. The only light Scott could see through the hazy glass walls came from the workstation’s glowing screen. Roark had been careful to leave the workstations and computer terminals alone during his overhaul of the building. Silva glanced around for tails, then slipped inside and shut the door behind him. Scott watched his shadow take a seat at the desk.

“He’s not supposed to have contact with anyone,” Randy whispered. “What do you think he’s doing?”

Scott didn’t have a clue, but for some reason the hair on the back of his neck was prickling uneasily. Whatever this jerkwad was up to, it wasn’t good.

“We’re gonna fucking find out.” He shook Randy’s hand off his arm, suddenly visible again, and jerked the door open. “Yo, douchebag, what the hell are you doing?”

Silva jumped, then swiveled his chair around to face them.

“Nothing. Checking my email,” he said, obviously struggling to sound like this was all no big deal and he wasn’t surprised to see them. His eyes narrowed when they landed on Scott. “You’re that prick who punched me.” He sat forward in his chair, stabbing a finger at them. “Listen up, shithead, this isn’t some rinky-dink operation like whatever supermarket or McDonald’s you crawled out of. I run a goddamn Fortune-500 company here. I can’t afford to be cut off from the outside world for hours at a time.”

Scott crossed his arms. “Oh yeah, so what did you ask that dude in the cafeteria to do? The player-communications guy with the doofus hair?”

Randy reappeared, leaning over the screen. “Pwnr, this is bad.”

“Get away from that!” Silva snapped, trying to stand up and shove Randy.

Scott grabbed the douche by the shoulder and pushed him back into the chair.

“You’re not in charge here, nutsack,” he said. “What is it, Randy?”

“None of your goddamn business,” Silva growled.

“Dude, you’re about ten seconds away from getting another fist in the face,” Scott said.

Randy squinted at the screen. “There’s a message here from an outside source. I think it’s one of the hackers Frontflip hired to shut down Hearthworld and frame me.” His eyes flew open wide. “Oh my gosh. They moved up the shutdown timeframe to six hours from now. It’s already in progress. That’s why no one who wasn’t logged in before the shutdown started can log in now without the anomalous code.

“It’s a safety protocol to avoid brain damaging players when the server dumps. But the problem is, not everybody’s going to log off. Marathon players will still be in there when the shutdown occurs.” He looked at Silva. “That’s why you needed the player notifications manager. You’re sending out a warning to log out so the company can’t be held legally responsible for damages—that also explains the countdown. It’s not Frontflip’s fault if they don’t check their messages in time.”

Silva scowled at Randy, but didn’t say anything.

“So stop them from shutting it down,” Scott said. “Isn’t this computer shit your job?”

“The problem is, it’s not just a routine shutdown,” Randy replied, frantic. “It looks like this hacker was just there to get the process in motion. The other hacker’s job was to put stopgaps in place to keep anyone who might find out about it from reversing the process.”

“Yeah, but you can fix that, right?”

“No, he can’t,” Silva said. “These are two of the best programmers in the world. Shoemaker’s not even the best in this company.”

Randy’s face clouded, red creeping into his cheeks. “First of all, Mr. Silva, I am the best in this company. Not that I was ever rewarded or recognized for it, even when I discovered before anyone else that an interdimensional being had taken up residence in Hearthworld and that was the source of our problematic code.” He turned to Scott. “The shutdown is a major problem, but we’ve got an even bigger one right now.” He swiveled the screen so Scott could see it and pointed at a line in the email. “They removed the soulbinding on the World Stone. If Roark dies in-game, Lowen will be able to take the pendant from his corpse.”

Scott grabbed Silva by the collar and shoved him and his damn wheely chair back against the glass of the office wall.

“What the hell is this?” he snapped. “You’re working with that dick, Lowen?”

“I’m working for Earth!” Silva bellowed. “Protecting this goddamn planet and the company I built from the ground up! That idiot Lowen ran back to Hearthworld to kill the Griefer. He thinks he’s got twelve hours to finish this, but he’s actually got less than six. With my shutdown in place, they’ll finish each other off and be deleted before they even have a chance to respawn. Whatever forces are left here, the military will take care of, and this problem will be solved for good.”

Scott took a long breath and blew it back out, staring at the ticking clock on the screen.

05:42:02 … 01 … 00 …

“Well, shit.”

Without warning, he spun around and slammed a fist into Silva’s nose, snapping the dude’s head back on his shoulders and knocking him out again.

“That was on general principle,” Scott said, shaking out his stinging fist. “Okay. Randy. Hero time. What do we do?”