“Gonna have to find out what this guy can do the old fashioned way.” Ryan grinned nervously.

“Got a plan Darith?” Jacob asked.

“I’ll be sitting in the back healing, I hope.” Liana said.

“Y-yeah, we can do this. First we need to figure out what he does. Let’s assume he’s similar to the other monsters in this area, meaning we’ll have to hit the head to do damage to it. Start the fight by using your skeletons to see what he does, I’ll attack the gem and see what sort of damage I can do. Jacob you stay and guard Liana in case something unexpected happens, and Liana try and keep Ryan’s skeletons alive as long as you can. Ready?” He said, and they all nodded.

“Go!” He shouted, and Ryan’s hands motioned his three skeleton fighters forward, jumping off the top of the building and running at the Watcher. It spotted them immediately and drew it’s sword off it’s back, then swung it downward at one of them, instantly killing it.

“I can’t heal that!” Liana said, startled by the skeletons immediate death.

“How fast can you make new ones?” Darith asked Ryan.

“It’s not a matter of speed, it costs a lot of mana!” Ryan replied as he summoned a third skeleton again and sent it forward, while at the same time the Watcher killed a second skeleton. Darith glanced to see Ryan’s mana already almost at half from just one summon.

“Instead of healing the skeletons, try to keep his mana up.” Darith said, and Liana nodded.

“Concentrate!” She shouted, releasing a blue light from herself to transfer mana to Ryan.

“Uh, Darith, he’s doing something!” Jacob pointed to the Gem’s head, and it suddenly created a large black spell circle in the sky above the city, and from it, hundreds of small soul gems rained down on them, many landing around the group. Seconds after they landed they began forming into the small Fyu’jin monsters that they’d been fighting all day.

“Keep them off us as best you can Jacob, first let’s see how to hurt the big one.” Darith said, then put his hands out in front of himself and aimed them up at the head of the watcher. “Chain Fire!” Darith shouted, and a stream of firebolts began to fire one by one from red circles around him, flying with perfect accuracy to the Watcher’s black gem head. The first connected and Darith saw his damage numbers, because of all of this level balances his fireballs were only hitting for 200. One hit, then another, and the boss didn’t react much, he was busy swinging and killing more and more.

“Darith you’re getting a debuff from hitting the boss!” Liana commented, as Darith looked to see a black icon next to his health, a number on it stacking each time one of his streaming fireballs hit. “Darith stop hitting it, NOW, STOP HITTING IT NOW!” She screamed hysterically, panicking Darith. He canceled the Chain fire spell and started redirecting any already flying fireballs away from the gem so that they wouldn’t connect.

“What is it, what happened?” Darith said surprised, not having heard Liana ever scream like that before. He clicked on the icon to get more information.

Curse of the Fyu’jin

Attacking the Temple Watcher’s Soul Gem will strengthen its connection with your soul. At 10 stacks, the Gem will absorb your soul and add your strength to its own.

Remaining: 57s

Darith read it out loud, and noted that he was at 9 stacks. If he had hit the gem one more time, he’d be dead.

“Thanks for the save.” Darith said to her. “It looks like you can’t attack it more than 9 times every minute, or it’ll kill you. I’ll have to switch to big attacks instead of a bunch of small ones.

“In the meantime, can you give me a hand? These things are everywhere!” Jacob shouted as she dashed around cutting up the smaller ones, but his endurance bar was quickly dropping.

“Got it,” Darith said, turning to shoot fireballs at the smaller ones instead for a bit.

“I’m out of mana, I can’t summon anymore! Can you concentrate me again?” Ryan turned to Liana as the Temple Watcher killed another skeleton, getting ready to kill the last.

“I can’t, I’m also out!”

“Uh oh.” Ryan said with wide eyes, the last skeleton breaking apart under the Watcher’s giant sword. It then began stomping towards them and created a large shadow over them to block the sun.

“Dodge!” Darith shouted, and all of them jumped to different directions off of the building seconds before the Watcher swung its sword down on them, demolishing the structure into an explosion of dust and smoke. Because of this, Darith lost sight of Liana for a moment, only seeing Ryan standing beside him coughing from the dust.

“Liana?!” He shouted.

“I’m here!” She called back as the dust quickly cleared and she ran towards him with her hand on her mouth, and her back to the watcher. The watcher lifted his sword up high into the sky with his sights on her, and began swinging it downward.

“Liana!” Darith shouted, quickly casting dash multiple times to get to her side and push her out of the way. He made it in time milliseconds before the sword connected, but he himself wasn’t able to get out of the way. As the sword slammed into the street of the ruined city where Liana had been, she fell backward from Darith’s push, and the last thing she saw before the rising dust from the sword strike was Darith underneath it.

“Darith!” She screamed terrified. She couldn’t see him through the dust, but instead turned to look at his health in the party window and saw it was still full. As the dust cleared she saw him ducking down on the ground, the Temple Watcher’s sword hovering just above his head, being blocked by a large wooden shield held by Chadwin.

“You didn’t plan on taking on a raid boss with just 4 guys, did you?” Chadwin said with a strained expression as he held back the sword with difficulty. Liana let out a loud sigh of relief, quickly gone though as she saw a smaller soul gem creature charging at Chadwin and Darith from behind.

“Look out!” She shouted, but before the creature got close enough, its gem was shattered in half by Ashley’s axe as her orcish figure dropped down from a nearby rooftop. Liana looked up on the roof to see several other players shooting waterbolts and arrows around them to take out more of the tiny monsters.

“What's the plan, Great Wizard?” Ashley said as she reached out to Darith, grabbed his hand and pulled him back to his feet.

“It should be to move, holding this guy off using block is draining my endurance fast!” Chadwin shouted.

“Right!” Darith shouted, moving out from under Chadwin and the large sword, as did Ashley. Once they were safe, Chadwin dashed to the side and let the sword crash into the ground. “You got a plan to beat this guy?” Chadwin asked as the Temple Guardian prepared to swing down on them again. Darith glanced around to see all of the players that had run to hit the gongs had returned and were fighting off small minions all around them. It was starting to look like the minions were all dead, but another giant black circle appeared in the sky above them and sent more black gems down on them just as the Boss took another swing, this time they all dodged out of the way.

“We’re all stuck in this boss area now because of your gong plan, so you better come up with something.” Ashley said between taking out another couple of small ones.

“Do you think you can tank this boss?” Darith asked Chadwin.

“Judging by the rate he was draining endurance on my block skill, he’d kill me in three hits, so not really.”

“Three is plenty. Liana, focus your healing on Chadwin.” Darith said and she nodded.

“Ryan, I want you to watch Chadwin’s health and Liana’s mana, anytime they need some time to regenerate Endurance or Mana, use your Skeletons to buy them time.” Ryan heard this and nodded. Darith then jumped on to the top of a nearby building.

“Everyone listen up! All players with healing spells, use your spells to heal Chadwin, he’ll keep the attention of the boss as best he can! All players using close combat weapons like swords and axes, your job is to take out the smaller monsters that the boss keeps creating! And the players that can attack with ranged attacks, I want you to focus your damage on killing the boss! Be careful though, you can only hurt him by hitting the Gem in his head, and if you hit it more than 9 times in 1 minute, it will kill you. Try to only use big attacks, and stop at 8 attacks to be safe, until the curse wears off. Use the downtime to regenerate Endurance, mana, or help the close combat fighters deal with the little guys.”

“You heard him boys, let’s kill ourselves a raid boss!” Jacob shouted to fire them all up, and all of the nearby players shouted battlecries of excitement. Darith’s eyes opened wide in amazement. He watched as the healers from the different groups ran towards Liana and start casting restore spells on Chadwin, while Chadwin blocked the boss’s strikes with his shield, dropping his endurance and health by large chunks each time, Ryan respawning his skeletons as fast as his mana would allow to help out.

He watched as the melee fighters turned to the smaller monsters and protected the ranged fighters and healers from them, while the ranged fighters charged up giant Waterbolts and huge glowing arrows, firing them up into the sky at the Gem of the Temple Guardian.

They were all listening, it looked like a boss fight from an MMO! No, this was different, it was real, all around him it was really happening. He was living in it, inside the MMO, and he was leading the group against it. His mind came to this realization very slowly as he stood silently, Ashley and Jacob dashing around him to keep him safe from smaller monsters as more began coming down from the sky around them.

“Yo, Darith, you okay? Snap out of it man.” Jacob shouted to him.

“Can you believe this? We’re living in a raid battle! I never knew it’d feel like this, it’s incredible!” He shouted excitedly, many other players heard him shout and grinned as well, including Ashley and Chadwin.

“Yeah but, your debuffs gone, so stop slackin’ off and kill that thing before we all run out of endurance.” Jacob replied.

“Oh, r-right!” Darith said embarrassed. “I need a new spell that does a lot of damage in a single hit. So I’ll just...” He said to himself, looking at his mana, then taking a horse stance. “Firestorm!” He shouted, and created nearly 70 firebolt circles in the sky around him, but they all aimed towards where he was standing. He then held out his staff, and as the firebolts fired he had them all collide with one another at the tip of his staff. It took all of his concentration and mana to use his spell mastery to stop the firebolts from disappearing, and instead tried gathering them into one giant fireball that floated in front of him, releasing blazing hot waves of heat around them. Ashley, Jacob and several other players stepped back and looked in amazement.

“Did you just make that spell up?” Ashley asked in disbelief.

“Yeah, I think I’ll name it...” He paused as he pondered for a bit, trying to think of the coolest name possible. “Meteor!” He shouted, and then shot the giant fireball forward. It lit up the sky and caught the attention of all players nearby. They all watched as the giant fireball smashed into the black gem to deal almost 15 000 damage. It was a lot, but it barely moved the health bar of the boss down much, and it drained him of his mana. He saw only one stack of the debuff though and let out a sigh of relief.

“Nice, but we’ll need a lot more of those to take this thing down.” Ryan said as he joined beside him.

“Keep it up guys, this things got a lot of health, but as long as we work together, we’ll get out of here!” Jacob shouted to everyone. That it would take awhile was an understatement, as the group of players battled the Temple guardian for nearly 30 minutes before its health dropped below 10%. At this point, the body of the Guardian began to glow red, as did its sword, and it suddenly began attacking Chadwin much faster.

“Uh, I can’t tank him like this!” Chadwin shouted.

“Our mana won’t keep up! It’s doing too much damage!” Liana shouted to Darith.

“It’s enraged or something. I was expecting this. Everyone listen, we have to kill this thing now, fast, or we’re going to lose our tank! All casters that have a curse debuff, focus on protecting our healers from the small monsters! Every melee fighter, do what you can to help damage the boss, and use your most powerful attacks.”

“Finally!” Ashley grinned, turning and dashing towards the boss. Just as it had struck Chadwin and was pulling it’s arm back up from the wing, both she and Jacob jumped onto it’s arm and used it as a ramp to run up to the boss’s shoulders. Several other melee fighters began using high jump and dash skills to climb similarly using nearby buildings around the boss.

“Heaaaaavvvvvvyyyy~” Ashley called out as she closed in on the Gem, her axe glowing bright purple as she held it behind her body. “Strike!” She shouted as she leapt into the air above the Gem, slashing her axe down on it and creating a huge flash of purple light, dealing massive damage. She then flipped backward from the gem back onto its shoulder, eyed the curse at one stack, and prepared a second strike just as several other melee fighters arrived on the boss’s shoulders and joined in.

“Sun Strike!” Jacob shouted with a glowing yellow sword, slashing it down into the head of the giant boss.

On the ground, Darith had jumped from the roof of the building and started casting Chain fire, shooting firebolts rapidly out at all small monsters charging towards the healers, while behind him stood Chadwin and the 7 sphere wielding healers, casting restore on him while Ryan sent in his skeleton soldiers.

As more players focused on attacking the boss, more small monsters began to converge on the healers. Darith was getting overwhelmed until a male elf bow user with blue hair appeared on a nearby rooftop, firing arrows along with Darith. Then a human male staff user jump to the ground beside Darith and began shooting Waterbolts from blue spell circles. Within seconds there were tons of ranged players protecting the healers. Darith took a moment to see everyone’s mana was getting low, then looked to see the boss’s health almost at 0, but most of the melee fighters were forced to back off because of curse stacks.

“We’re not going to finish it in time, the curse is preventing us from bursting it!” Ryan shouted. Darith looked at his curse and saw it tick down from 3 seconds, so turned to face the boss one last time. The moment the debuff faded, he held his staff forward, ignoring the small monsters charging at him as the archers and waterbolt casters around him kept them at bay.

“One last time.” he shouted as he pulled the last of his spider-egg mana potions out and drank them. By this time, all of the melee fighters had left the boss and returned to the ground. “METEOR!” He shouted as loud as he could, and the gigantic fireball formed at the tip of his staff over the course of a long, 8 second cast time. Once fully formed, it shot forward up over Chadwin and the healers, and over the temple guardians giant sword, crashing violently into the black gem on its head, reducing the bosses health to zero. In that instant, all of the smaller monsters gems shattered into tiny pieces and their sand bodies returned to the ground.

The Boss dropped its sword to the ground and stumbled backward, wobbling in its step as the Gem began to glow a dark purple. The body of the giant began to lose its color, slowly turning back into yellow sand and dripping to the ground As all of the players watched in amazement. Several cracks began to form in the Gem as the giant’s body fell to its knees from its feet completely turning into sand, then it fell forward toward Chadwin and the healers, forcing them to all quickly dash out of the way. Within seconds the body had completely turned to sand, all that remained was the glowing, slowly cracking gem. It suddenly shot a huge black light up to the sky, the raid boss circle around them fading and the debuff of the raid boss battle disappearing with it.

That wasn’t all though, the light hit something in the sky above them. It was hard to make out at first, but the light from the gem slowly grew outward revealing something large floating in the sky above them. After a few seconds, it became obvious what it was.

“That’s the forgotten temple, isn’t it?” Liana said excitedly as she moved to Darith’s side.

“Looks like it was above the city this whole time.” Darith smiled. It wasn’t long before the floating temple in its entirety was visible above them, it was dripping sand and had tons of amazing carvings and statues on its wall.

“But how do we get up there?” Ryan asked as he and Jacob also arrived at Darith’s side.

“Look, it aint done yet!” Jacob pointed to the gem as it cracked more and more and lit up brighter, until it suddenly exploded in a burst of light. Everyone near it tried to cover their bodies from the broken shards, but to their relief, the shards of the gem only shot upward, and remained levitating in the air at different heights. Then a huge whirlpool of sand began to swirl downward from the temple above, slowly forming into stairs that connected between the shards of the broken gem. Over the course of 30 seconds, the sand stairs reached right to the ground, then solidified into stone and changed color from yellow sand to gray stone like the buildings around them.

Quest completed

Return to the Caravan Leader

You’ve gained 3000 experienced!

You’ve gained the skill Meteor(?)

Darith read his menu pop up, among many other skill ups and stat gains. A few seconds later, his ears filled with cheers from all the players around them.

“Hell yeah!” Jacob shouted excitedly, pumping his fist in the air to join in.

“Whew! That was AWESOME!” Chadwin shouted, raising his shield in the air as his party members gathered around him to cheer him on. Darith smiled and looked at Liana who smiled back, and the two panned around at all of the happy players. They quickly quieted down though as a sudden huge flash of white light appeared at the base of the stairs, and after the flash faded there was a huge pile of gold along with several other items.

“That’s the loot?” Ryan asked, and Liana’s expression suddenly got serious. She and Darith both spotted three spellbooks on top of the pile at the same time. It went very quiet as everyone’s excitement turned to worry, staring at the other players.

“What do we do with it?”

“How should we divide the rewards?” Some players started asking, everyone turning to each other, but no one daring to go towards the items first.

“We’ll divide it up evenly, we all fought bravely together, it’s only fair!” Ashley shouted. This quieted the questions and nodded.

“How do you suggest we do that?” Another player asked.

“Anaylze.” Liana whispered as they spoke, aiming her eyes on the spellbooks.

Tome of Remove Curse

Teaches the user the ability to remove curses. Learning this ability will consume the tome.

“It’s it, it's the curse removal we’re looking for! We have to get that book no matter what!” Liana said to Darith nervously, just as Chadwin and his party walked past them and overheard her.

“We’ll sort it like this. I’ll show an item and write a number down. Anyone who wants the item can write a number in the sand here, at the foot of these stairs. Whoever is closest will get the item. Anyone left without anything at the end will divide the gold up between each other. One item per person.” Ashley said to everyone.

“Sounds fair, yo. Best way to do it!” Jacob shouted, and hearing his agreement inspired most of the other players to quickly agree.

“I’ll agree to that, under one condition. I say Darith the Great Wizard is allowed to pick anything he wants from the pile first. If it wasn’t for him we probably would’ve never killed that thing.” Chadwin shouted, and everyone went silent again. All eyes seemed to turn to him, and he only had a dumbfounded expression, he was not expecting something like this.

“Yeah... Yeah! That was some awesome leading skills!” One player shouted from a building top.

“That was awesome, it felt like I was in a raid group with a real raid leader!” Another shouted, others joining in, until it suddenly turned into a chant.

“Darith! Darith! Darith!” they chanted

“Why’re they only chanting his name?” Ryan mumbled annoyed.

“Don’t sweat it man.” Jacob shrugged with a smile, then joined in shouting Darith’s name. Darith was flabbergasted, his cute tiny little nemothyne face lit up as Liana smiled excitedly at him.

“Guys it wasn’t much, the boss wasn’t that complicated.” He replied shyly.

“Well, what item would you like?” Ashley said from atop the loot pile as the crowd quieted down.

“Are you guys sure it’s alright? We all worked together.”

“Go for it man!”

“If you didn’t take out those pkers, we wouldn’t even be here!” More players shouted, others yeah’ing in agreement.

“Alright, one of the spellbooks then.” Darith said. Ashley quickly grabbed one of the three Curse Removal Tomes from the pile of gold and tossed it to him.

“What kind of spell is it?” Ashley asked after she had tossed it.

“It’s remove curse.” Darith replied. Ashley gave a nod of approval.

“Alright then, let’s get through the rest of this stuff, first up is one...” Ashley said as she lifted up a sword. “Blade of the Fyu’jin, gives +10 strength, endurance, and Agility! Everyone interested, step forward and write a number in the sand with your feet from 1 to 100.” Ashley shouted, Jacob stepped forward as did many other players, but Darith and Liana lost interest.

“Hardly seems fair that you got to pick the item when it was all of us together that got here.” Ryan said grumpily.

“You know why we need this spell book, remember?” Liana replied to him.

“Yeah yeah, whatever.” Ryan said dismissively, walking away from the two.

“Ignore him, he’s always like that about loot. Here, take it.” Darith handed the book to Liana.

“Are you sure, shouldn’t you learn it? I mean, I already got the other spell.” Liana said nervously.

“You’re the one who needs it right? I can’t get to the hospital tomorrow, I’ve got school. Just promise me you’ll only remove the curse when no one is looking, and if you see that high level guy come back, don’t fight him, call me or something.” Darith said, holding the book out to her.

“Okay, I promise.” She nodded, eventually taking it, and within seconds she had learned the spell.

“Speaking of hospital, what time is it? We’ve been in here for quite awhile.” Darith asked, pulling his cell phone out of his inventory. “Oh damn, mom’s gonna be home by now! We gotta get back before she sees your empty Wheelchair!” Darith panicked. “Return!” The two of them shouted, other players not paying attention anymore as they were too focused on the drops, Jacob and Ryan included.

After the 10 second cast and the bright flash of light, they re-appeared in the living room of their house to see Kristen running up the stairs

“Darith?! Liana?!” She shouted up worriedly, running to check Darith’s room.

“Shit, too late... Quick, before our fading in buff goes away...” Darith transformed back into his normal body.

“But she already saw the empty wheelchair!” Liana panicked.

“Uh, put your arms around me then,” Darith said quickly.

“Huh?”

“Just trust me! Put your arms around my neck and then turn back.” He insisted. Liana hesitated, then did as he said. She stood behind him and put her arms around his neck, then returned to her regular body just as Kristen ran down the stairs looking hysterical to see Darith holding Liana’s burned, crippled body on his back as if he was giving her a ride around.

“What in the hell are you doing?! Where the hell were you?” Kristen shouted furiously as she stomped towards them.

“I was just walking her around the backyard a bit!” Darith replied nervously.

“Walking around the- are you crazy? She’s not a dog! Put her back in her chair now!” She shouted as she got to Darith and helped him carefully lower Liana into her chair.

“It’s not his fault Kristen! I asked him to! I kept begging him until he finally said okay. I just wanted to know what it felt like to walk a bit!” Liana said in a pleading voice. Kristen sighed angrily and took a step back.

“Come on Liana, you know how dangerous that can be. Your body is really fragile! And Darith, you know better than that.” She scolded them.

“I’m sorry.” Liana said with puppy eyes.

“Sorry mom.” Darith said shamefully. She looked between the two for a moment.

“Just don’t do something like that again, you scared me half to death.” She groaned, turning to head into the kitchen and jingling some pots to signal she was starting dinner. Darith then collapsed on the couch beside Liana’s wheelchair and let out a huge sigh of relief. He glanced to Liana and she looked back, and after a few seconds the two burst into laughter.

“That was the most amazing thing I’ve ever done!” She said, referring to the boss, but Kristen heard this and assumed otherwise, smiling from the other room. They started whispering to each other about the different skill increases they got, and Liana talked about how intense it was making sure Chadwin’s health and endurance didn’t hit 0. After a few minutes of this though, there was a sudden flash of light in the living room, and from it appeared Jacob and Ryan. Darith’s eyes went wide, glancing down the hall to the kitchen to make sure his mom didn’t see.

“Sup.” Jacob smiled as they reappeared.

“You guys gotta go, my mom is here!” He whispered as he opened the backyard door and quickly rushed the two out, closing the door behind him so the three boys were standing under the moonlight in his backyard.

“Check it, I got this ring of the sun, makes my light skills do more damage. Works with most of my sword skills.” Jacob said as he held his hand out to show Darith the ring.

“Thats awesome!” Darith commented as he looked to see Ryan wearing a new necklace, it was a soul gem hanging on a chain. “Whoa, whats that?”

“Amulet of souls, makes my undead summons more powerful, pretty nice eh?” Ryan said proudly as he held it up.

“What else happened after I left?” He asked.

“Loot went surprisingly fast, no one argued.” Ryan shrugged.

“We turned in the quest but no one could get in the temple. Caravan guy said we’d have to find a key that was last seen somewhere in some swamp area?”

“Kulantus Swamp.” Ryan finished for him.

“So we can’t go into the temple yet after all that work?” Darith said with disappointment.

“Yeah but no biggie man, that was by far the most awesome thing ever! We gotta go celebrate!” Jacob grinned.

“Celebrate?” Darith asked.

“Yeah man, lets go to a club and get some girls.” Jacob replied enthusiastically.

“We’re not even old enough to get in.”

“That means nothing to NPC’s with how high his Charisma is, they pretty much let him do what he wants.” Ryan replied.

“It’s awesome man, we can get any girls we want.” Jacob said proudly.

“Did you use it to... You know... Do it with someone?” Darith asked nervously.

“He got a girl to a hotel room but then he chickened out.” Ryan replied for him.

“Hey man, I just wasn’t ready yet, that’s all.” He replied defensively.

“Do you guys really think it's okay to use the game on other people?”

“Why not? As long as we don’t do anything obvious and get caught by guards, we should be enjoying this stuff.” Ryan shrugged.

“Yeah man, we’re the Knights of Justice now, heroes! Not the same as we were before.” Jacob said excitedly. Darith turned to look back through the glass door at Liana sitting in the chair staring back at him curiously.

“I still don’t think you should use the game like that… besides, Liana won’t be able to come along, can’t convince my mom to let me leave with her.” Darith replied.

“So what? Boys night, she doesn’t need to see us pickin up ladies anyway.” Jacob shrugged back. Darith thought about it for a moment, but one more look to Liana helped him make up his mind. “Nah, I’ll sit out. You guys go and have fun, I’d feel bad leaving Liana out.”

“You sure man?” Jacob said disappointed.

“He’s probably still too scared to talk to girls.” Ryan joked.

“Whatever, yeah I’m sure. Just don’t do anything bad, we shouldn’t abuse this game power.” Darith replied.

“Yes mom.” Ryan replied sarcastically.

“Aite, peace out then man, catch you tomorrow. We gotta find that Swamp so we can get into the temple.” Jacob said as the two turned and headed out of Darith’s backyard around the side of the house.

“Cya later.” Darith said, then opened the door and walked back in the house.

“What did you guys talk about?” Liana asked him excitedly.

“Uh, nothin much, they’re just going to celebrate some items they got.” Darith shrugged as he sat back down beside Liana and turned on the TV.

“You’re not going with them?” She asked curiously.

“Nah, I wouldn’t really fit in.” Darith replied as he looked down at his normal body briefly.