Dungeon Duel (Rogue Dungeon 5) - Chapter Nineteen

Scott Bayani finished up in the first-floor men’s room, then headed for the cafeteria, taking a couple practice swings with the bat as he went. The halls were plenty wide. He got the full follow-through without having to pull his arms in even a little.

Frontflip had some majorly nice facilities. Marble in the johns and heated toilet seats. Fully stocked employee lounges, plus coffee and vending machines in basically every hall. They even had designated Segway and hoverboard paths indoors and check-out charging stations that looked like all you had to do was scan your ID or something. Not to mention the gym, the Olympic-sized pool, and the basketball and tennis courts he’d seen on the campus maps in the elevator lobbies. Not that they could get past the Heralds to check those out right then, but still. Frontflip beat the fuck out of Taco Bell for fringe benefits. Scott was actually a little jealous of Randy for getting to work there.

Speaking of Randy, Scott needed to get his squad of POSes and get back to the east entrance. Not long after Randy showed up, they had divided the Poser Owners into two rotating shifts. That way, one group could eat and rest while the other was keeping a lookout and fighting off any new attacks by that dickweed Lowen’s crew. One of the POSes was an Army National Guard dude, Couch_Warrior3000, and he’d helped with the watch roster. Guy was crazy out of shape for being in the guard, but he seemed sharper than most of the other gamers in the crew.

Scott’s squad’s break was almost up, though. Time to get back at it.

He sauntered into the cafeteria, swinging the bat up onto his shoulder. Since the caf was at the center of the building, most of the staff had holed up in there. That famous gamer chick, Helen Rose Douglas, was surrounded by scared Frontflip employees, trying to reassure everyone. She’d managed to talk some of them into joining the fight with their Hearthworld characters and helping defend Frontflip—Scott had made them honorary members of the POSes, which was basically worthless since they couldn’t do any magic, but whatever, it was the thought that counted. The non-fighters, on the other hand, were busy bombarding her with questions. The ones who weren’t demanding answers were staring at the projection screen, where footage showed fires burning across the city, storefronts smashed, cars overturned, monsters going nuts on cops or anybody who tried to get close, and of course the inevitable douchebags taking advantage of the chaos to loot shit.

Everybody who wasn’t watching that was obsessively checking their phones.

Scott didn’t know what they expected to change in the next two seconds. Some huge announcement that everything was fine now and the cops suddenly had all the big bad monsters under control? Scott snorted under his breath. Yeah right. He’d binged all the SWAT shows when he was a kid; he knew those dudes were nails-tough AF, but from what he’d seen so far, not a single one of them knew the trick to any of these mobs. Like, the Heralds were no walk in the park, obviously, but they hadn’t even known to shoot at the jewel in the Rampaging Greater Stonewarg’s forehead when one of Lowen’s dudes dropped the thing in the middle of their formation. Rookie mistake.

“Yo, Pwnr!” Ninjastein waved him over to a table in the corner. Basically everybody from his POS squad was there, crowded around Flappie_Sak’s phone. “You need to see this, dude.”

“What’s going on?” Scott leaned over the skinny guy’s shoulder so he could see the screen better.

“War,” Flappie_Sak said in a low voice. “They called out the National Guard.” He hooked a thumb toward Couch_Warrior3000, who was sitting a little apart from the rest. “Mark just got orders to mobilize. He’s trying to decide if he can do more here or with his unit…”

Sure enough, whatever news blog Flappie was subscribed to showed live shots of tanks rolling down the 5.

“Shit,” Hobbitses said, settling in with a bowl of noodles. “My brother’s in the guard.”

Abruptly, the feed switched to carnage in a mall food court. Bodies and furniture thrown around like dirty clothes. A sour taste pushed up the back of Scott’s throat when he realized all that red was legit blood and guts, not shiny VR gore. That wasn’t the worst part, though. The worst part was whatever had done it had dragged some of the bodies away from the scene of the crime.

He swallowed and watched as whoever was recording followed the blood trails to a Bed Bath & Beyond.

“Ghouls,” GothicTerror muttered.

She was right. Through the front windows, Scott could see the low-level slimy snotrags floating around displays of pillows, hand towels, and French presses, getting nasty green ectoplasm all over the place.

“I hate those things,” Ninjastein said grimly.

“Same,” Flappie_Sak replied.

“You know who hates ’em more?” Scott said. “The losers they helter-skeltered all over that food court.”

“Not really the time for your patented shitty sense of humor,” GothicTerror snapped, glaring at him over Flappie_Sak’s head. “People are dead.”

“Yeah, and more are gonna die,” Scott said, pointing at the screen. “Ghouls take prisoners to eat later, right? That’s what those blood streaks were—they’ve got people in there stored up for when they get the munchies. And those trash-tier Ghouls are only there because there’s a Reaper Queen inside somewhere. That’s what fucked up the food court, and whoever tried to stop it had no idea that nonmagical weapons don’t do jack shit against Reapers. Either the cops or the National Guard’s gonna get called in to deal with these things, and they’re gonna get chewed up and spit out the minute they rock up because they don’t know what they’re up against. We’re the only experts in this field.”

She frowned at him. “What’re you saying? We’re the cavalry?”

“Obviously that’s what I’m saying, Skullcandy. Nobody knows better than us how to take Ghouls and Reapers out. Besides, if using our spells IRL helps us level them up, then killing mobs has to work the same way. I’m not wasting a shot at grinding out some IRL levels. These snotrags might even drop loot. All I know is some enchanted weapons and armor would go a long fucking way against these Heralds.”

Ninjastein nodded. “You’re right. They need us out there. If the rest of the guild can hold this place, I’m in.”

Hobbitses slurped up a noodle, unconvinced, and Flappie_Sak was looking at Goth-tots. Neither one of those douches was going to agree unless the rest of the group did it first.

“What do you say, Elvira?” Scott prompted her. “You in?”

GothicTerror took another long look at the Ghouls floating across the screen, then blew out her breath.

“The mall’s got an Archery Pro, and I’m almost out of arrows.” She nodded. “Fine, whatever. Let’s raid these a-holes.”

***

After they checked in with Randy to make sure his squad could hold out until they got back, Scott, GothicTerror, Ninjastein, Flappie_Sak, and 3Trenchcoat_Hobbitses made a run for it out the back where the Herald coverage and subsequently the SWAT response team was thinnest. The cops tried to stop them, but their escape had Heralds attacking, and pretty soon the SWAT team was too focused on the dickbirds to worry about a bunch of gamers in hockey pads sprinting toward Ninjastein’s beat-up van. They piled in the back and Ninjastein fired it up.

“Nice van,” Scott said, eyeing the lack of windows in the back. “Abduct anybody cool lately?”

“It’s for deliveries,” Ninajstein snapped as he squealed brakes out of the parking lot. “My parents own a furniture shop.”

It also happened to be pretty good at getting through apocalyptic downtown traffic. It didn’t matter if a driver had abandoned their truck in the middle of the road or a car was overturned in front of them, Ninjastein’s van sat high enough to ride up on the sidewalks when the deadlock was impassable, and it was heavy enough to slowly shove vehicles out of the way so it could get through. As a result, the trip was faster than anything Scott had ever experienced driving through LA.

By the time they got to the Palms Mall, the usually bustling shopping center had been cleared out. Flappie_Sak had Ninjastein make a complete circle of the place before they parked, “for reconnaissance.” A pileup of cars burned in front of Entrance 3 like a lone bonfire, but other than a broken-down camper in the West Lot and a few scattered abandoned vehicles, the place was a ghost town.

Scott didn’t know whether he should be happy or scared that no cops had shown up here yet. That meant none of the good guys were being pointlessly slaughtered already, so yay, but also that he and the POSes were about to waltz into a huge building full of hiding spaces where the only non-monsters were people the Ghouls had kept to chow down on later, so yikes.

Little of both, he decided.

“The Archery Pro’s by Entrance 1,” GothicTerror said, leaning up front to point it out. “The Bed Bath & Beyond is kind of halfway down that wing, on the second floor.”

They parked and hopped out, checking hockey pads, katanas, and bows. Scott pulled on his batting gloves and cocked the Slugger back, ready to rock some noggins. Hobbitses cast a protective orange dome over their party.

“Lead the way, Tots,” Scott said. “You’re the one looking for arrows.”

He was expecting it to be dead silent inside, but everybody had run off so fast that no one had thought to shut off the endless soundtrack of mall pop. With no other sound to compete with, the eerily upbeat music echoed through the empty hallways.

Spreading out into raid formation, they followed GothicTerror to one of those outdoorsy stores full of extra-expensive brand-name fishing, hunting, and hiking crap. Not the way Scott liked to spend his extra cash—why spend time getting dirty and sweaty outdoors when gaming was a thing? He was a little surprised that Tots was into that scene, but the whole bow-and-arrow thing had worked out in their favor so far, so whatever floated her kayak.

Nothing jumped out and attacked them in Archery Pro, and there turned out to be some good shit in there in terms of weaponry. While GothicTerror picked out all the arrows and tips she could stuff into her quiver, Hobbitses decided it was time to dual-wield, his hockey stick in one hand and an off-the-shelf machete in the other. Flappie_Sak followed his example and picked out a pair of hatchets. Scott found some wicked-looking metal spiked thingies called crampons and fastened them to the top of his bat, leveling it up from a club to a full-on mace.

“Hell yeah,” Scott whispered, giving it a couple test swings. He jerked his chin at Ninjastein when the fat guy didn’t move to pick anything out. “You gonna upgrade or not?”

“Nah, Reiko’s seen me through a lot of Bleach, Deathnote,and every episode of Hunter x Hunter,” the big dude said, patting his crappy mall katana. “We go too far back. I can’t abandon her now.”

“Suit yourself.”

Newly geared up, they headed out into the main corridor and followed the blue path to the escalators. Still no sign of deadly Hearthworld mobs, and the aggressively optimistic bullshit music kept pumping out of the speakers. Scott led the way onto the moving stairs.

“So far, so good,” Flappie_Sak said.

“Don’t get complacent,” Scott snapped, already locked into full raid mode. “Keep your head on a swivel. Hobbitses, hit us with another blanket ward.”

Hobbitses complied, casting pale orange light around them with a wave of his hockey stick turned wizard’s staff. While he did that, Scott raised his fist and cast Powerful Inspiration, one of the party buffs from the Cleric half of his Ranger-Cleric.

[Powerful Inspiration has granted each member of your party +1 to all Skilled Attacks and a character stat of their choice.]

The text floated in front of his face for a moment before dissipating. Now that was weird, getting a pop-up in the middle of the real world. He hurried up and dropped the extra point into Intelligence. Ghouls might be annoying, but they died easily enough when you finally hit them. Reapers, on the other hand, were nothing to dick around with; they weren’t susceptible to regular weapons, so his spells were going to have to do the heavy lifting when they finally ran the Reaper down.

Scott spotted Bed Bath & Beyond as the escalator dumped them out on the second floor.

Apparently the Ghouls had taken the time between that blogcast and the POSes’ arrival to set up shop and redecorate. Eerie green light spilled out into the hall through the glass front of the store, and bloody drag marks took a sharp turn into the open doorway. Ectoplasm and flimsy wisps of something halfway between a mushroom and a fog clung to every corner, wafting gently in a breeze.

Even the air coming out of the place was musty and dank. Scott grimaced at the dampness it left on his skin. That was gross as balls.

“How are they doing this?” GothicTerror whispered as they crept closer. “Making it wet like that? And growing that fungus? That’s Corpse Hair.” She jerked her bow at a cloud of the wispy stuff. “It only grows in Undead dungeons near Averi City. It’s like they’re making this place into a legit dungeon.”

“Magic,” Scott answered sharply. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s kill them first, then ask questions never.”

A gauzy translucent form floated past the doorway, then stopped suddenly. The bobbing sentry turned, looked right at Scott, then screamed, the sound piercing the air like a foghorn.

All of a sudden, they were staring down the rotting, haggard faces of a pack of Ghouls. Disgusting strings of green saliva hung from their ghostly teeth, and their disintegrating cheeks flapped in time with their wails.

Scott cocked back his mace-bat. “Weapons only on the lowbies! Save your magic for the big show! She’s in there somewhere.”

All at once, the pack charged, coming at them in a swirling tornado of goo and gauze and nastiness.

“Calm Undead!” GothicTerror yelled.

A pale greenish halo blasted off her, washing over the swarming Ghouls. Just like that, they stopped attacking and calmly turned to go back inside their creepy-ass Bed Bath & Beyond. Either her Intelligence was really high, or these were some dumbshit mobs.

Scott nodded at GothicTerror. “Decent.”

She pointed at the things’ backs. “Attack.”

“Duh,” he said. “Game on, bitches.”

They ran up on the Calmed Ghouls and launched a merciless assault. The second they hit one, the Calming wore off, but really all it took to kill a Ghoul was one or two hits. They were made for new players to learn the ropes and level up their characters, which was why Ghoul dungeons were so close to Averi City.

“Huh.” Scott grand-slammed a Ghoul across the store. It took out a display of crystal wineglasses with a satisfying crash just before its Health bar emptied. Not only was he seeing prompts, he was seeing Health bars now. “Wonder if any of these douches know the Griefer,” he mused, stepping over a downed corpse, scanning the entryway for more threats.

The rest of the POSes were too busy hacking and slashing and shooting arrows at the slime bags to hear him. Blanket sets, copper pans, and whisks went flying in every direction. Scott waded in alongside them, smashing heads and calling out orders whenever somebody missed something obvious, but for the most part, he’d picked the right people for the job. They knew what they were doing; he barely had to micromanage at all.

The Employees Only door exploded open, and a shriek cut through the store. Any glass they hadn’t already broken immediately shattered. Scott dropped his bat and slapped his hands over his ears. Felt like someone had hammered freshly sharpened pencils into his ear canals.

The Reaper Queen swooped out of the back room, hauling ass right toward them.

“Magic only!” Scott yelled, but even he couldn’t hear himself over her screaming.

Ninjastein ran to intercept her with his stupid fake katana. The Reaper didn’t even slow down. She slashed her long nasty fingernails across his gut, shredding the fat guy’s shirt and tearing open his stomach as she passed.

“Shit!” Scott looked at GothicTerror. “Get her while I heal Ninjastein!” he yelled, gesturing wildly.

When the thot didn’t move, he aimed a Fast-Healing Blast at the downed tank.

She nodded, nocked an arrow, and took aim at the Reaper.

“Dammit!” What about no regular weapons didn’t these doofuses understand?

But GothicTerror tapped the shaft with one finger, and the arrow lit up with Undead Chaos. She let it rip, and the broadhead slammed into the Reaper, tearing away a chunk of the Bed Bath & Beyond Dungeon boss’s Health.

Fine. So maybe Goth-Tots wasn’t a doofus after all. Hobbitses joined in with some orange exploding spell, and Flappie_Sak threw a couple random offensive casts from the very bottom tier of magic spells, like Fire and Ice Javelin. Dude was no spell-slinger, but it was better than nothing.

Scott finished Fast-Healing Ninjastein, then sent a double fistful of Elemental Fury to fry some revenge into the Reaper scream queen. Between that, GothicTerror’s Undead Chaos damage, and Hobbitses’ explosions, they had her on the ropes in no time. And Scott reluctantly admitted that maybe some of the rando crap Flappie was throwing in helped a little, too.

With a final shout, Scott called down Lightning Spear on the Reaper. Impossibly, thunder rolled inside the store, and a blue-white bolt ripped through her chest from out of nowhere. Her Health bar flashed out its critical warning, then emptied. The Reaper Queen was dead.

An ascending chime played through the Bed Bath & Beyond speaker system.

[LEVEL UP!]

Bright golden light shined from Scott’s skin, and he rose up into the air, defying all the known laws of physics. Magic was a helluva thing. Power rushed into him, filling him with a euphoria unlike anything he’d ever felt before. He’d gotten the smallest shot ever of that feeling when he leveled up in Hearthworld, but this was like that on steroids times a thousand with a dose of You’re the Greatest Hero the World’s Ever Known! thrown in for good measure.

He could get used to that.

When the real-life cutscene ended and he dropped back to the tiled floor of the Bed Bath & Beyond, he went straight for the Reaper Queen’s corpse and started digging through her ragged clothes looking for pockets.

An Inventory popped open.

“Oh hell yeah,” he said, dumping everything onto the floor in front of himself. It wasn’t much, but it was more than he’d had a minute ago. “Great news, POSes—these assbags drop loot.”