“Whoa, this place is beautiful!” said Tanyargh as she, Puff, and Delric all stepped into the wide open pasture.

Her two companions said nothing to disparage her remark, choosing instead to admire the serene landscape as well. That was until a sudden shout cut into their daydreaming. “Look out! Train!”

The trio turned and saw a single man in a mix of chain and leather armor running straight towards them with a look of panic on his face. His armor had slight tears and cuts in the leather portions and he was covered in blood. Behind him, 6 horned rabbits, eyes glowing red and lips frothing, were hot on his heels.

Berserk Horned Rabbit

Level- 14

Status- Frenzied

Almost like a well-oiled machine, Tanyargh stepped forward and swung her greataxe off her back and readied it for combat. Puff Jumped off her shoulder and hovered to the right and slightly behind her, just outside the range of her weapons swing. Delric stepped up close behind Tanyargh, almost right behind her. He held his rapier down and to the side, ready to dart forward between Tanyargh’s swings to strike at any openings she made available with each blow.

“Come get some!” Tanyargh roared using a taunt ability to try and get the crazed rabbits to focus on her. The horde swarmed towards her en masse and Tanyargh lifted the ax in preparation to strike down her foes. Tension soared as the enemy closed the distance shrieking like banshees to show their distaste for all things not cute and fluffy and… rushed past them.

The horned rabbits had completely ignored the threat that Tanyargh posed to them. They were completely willing to ignore all threats and dangers pointed at them just so they could focus on the target that had so wronged them which, unfortunately for him, was the player currently sprinting towards the edge of the meadows like his life depended on it.

Sadly, bad luck seems to strike at the absolute worst times. The player turned around to check on the proximity of his pursuers and while he wasn’t looking he had somehow managed to trip on the only rock that could be found in the entire meadow region. “Whaa-Ouuf!” He screamed as he fell, only to gouge out a mouthful of dirt with his lower jaw. Maybe if he hadn’t turned to look behind him, maybe if he had gotten up immediately instead of taking the time to spit the dirt off his tongue, he might have been able to get away with his life.

As it was, he was having a lot of bad luck today. “AAAAAAAAHHHHH!!!! FUUCK! AAAAAhhh! GET IT OFF! SAVE ME! AAAAAHHHHHHHHGUURrrpffflleefrrrr-”

Puff winced as the horned rabbits tore the man apart. The rabbits swarmed all over him, doing nothing to muffle his screams until they managed to reach his throat and tear it out. The group turned away, not wanting to watch the bloody scene any longer. Delric took another look at the pasture and watched how the other players were fighting the rabbits closely.

Horned Rabbit

Level- 12

Status- Annoyed

Horned Rabbit

Level- 13

Status- Mad

Horned Rabbit

Level- 13

Status- Calm

Delric paid close attention to the fact that there was an addition Status tab for this monster and decided to examine other rabbits throughout the area. He noted that every rabbit currently not engaged in combat was calm but as soon as a fight started it would change. Delric wasn’t sure what the difference was between statuses like annoyed or mad, but he was sure of one thing. He would have to be wary if it ever became frenzied.

“Hey Delric, are you alright?”

Delric snapped out of his own thoughts and looked around to see Puff looking at him. “Sorry, I was just thinking… There is more to these rabbits than you would think. If you inspect them, you’ll notice they all have a status of their emotional state.”

Delric pointed towards the 6 berserk horned rabbits ripping chunks of flesh from their fresh kill. “On every one of those rabbits, their status says ‘frenzied’. I’m willing to bet that if you are fighting a horned rabbit and its emotional status jumps high enough, it will change to frenzied and become berserk.”

Tanyargh shrugged. “So? I don’t think that changes anything for us anyways. Just hit ‘em till they die, right?”

Delric shook his head. “Did you see how they completely ignored your taunt and ran around you? I’m willing to bet that once they become frenzied they completely focus on one target and ignore everything else. That can become a problem if said target isn’t our designated tank.”

“Well, then what’s the plan?” Puff asked as he settled on his usual spot on Tanyargh’s shoulder.

Delric paused a moment, choosing his words carefully. “ Rushing in and grabbing a couple rabbits without a good plan might prove disastrous for us. Not only are they a higher level, but we are unfamiliar with that frenzy mechanic. I think we should carefully pull a single rabbit and try and force it to frenzy in order to figure out what exactly triggers it. Once we work that out, we implement tactics to prevent that from happening.”

“Well, that’s the best damn plan I’ve heard all day. I’m glad not every player that’s come here so far isn’t a complete idiot.” Delric jumped at the sudden voice and whirled to see a group of players walking towards them. The one that spoke seemed to be some sort of mage since he was wearing a set of robes.

Once the mage reached them he extended his hand in greeting. “Hey. My name’s GrammarKnotsee. I was coming over here to warn you about the whole frenzy thing but it sounds like you are already working that out.”

Delric smiled and reciprocated the greeting. “Thanks, I appreciate the gesture. My name’s Delric. These are my friends Puff and Tanyargh.” He said, pointed to each in turn. “I take it you’ve been fighting this furball menace for a while now? I wouldn’t mind hearing how you deal with them.”

GrammarKnotsee nodded. “Sure, I don’t mind helping. Fighting the horned rabbits is actually pretty straightforward. They mostly charge and try to stick you with their horn. So just sidestep or block their attacks and counter when the opportunity presents itself. As to their frenzy mechanic… Actually, it’s fairly complex. As far as I can tell there are two ways to cause them to frenzy. The first method is time-based that varies. Generally, it depends on how well you are fending off their attacks. The better you are at not getting hurt, the faster they’ll frenzy.”

Tanyargh sat down on the ground with a thud before commenting. “That doesn’t make any sense though. Why would the time change? Why not make it constant?”

“GrammarKnotsee was quick to reply. “Think of it like this. What if you were fighting an opponent, but he outclassed your fighting ability by such a large margin, you were like a kid swinging a stick instead of a sword. He started toying with you, mocking how you fight. You would get upset, right? I think the same thing applies to these horned rabbits. During a fight, their status will gradually from annoyed, too agitated, then frustrated. Once it reaches frustrated, it will stay there until something happens. Maybe an especially well-timed parry? Maybe it fumbles a charge? Once something triggers it, it will change from frustrated to frenzied and will immediately go berserk.”

Delric’s eyes widened. “That’s ingenious! It’s a perfect way to balance a difficult mechanic!”

Puff eyed his friend curiously. “What do you mean?”

Excitedly, Delric explained his revelation. “Newer players will likely have a tough time defending against a horned rabbit. Likely some attacks are going to get through or be close. This, in turn, will slow down the build-up towards frenzy. Once a player gets better, they avoid attacks better and frenzy can start happening more quickly.” Delric’s eyes open even wider with another realization. “Holy shit! This even works with healers too, doesn’t it? If they heal a player too much, the rabbit will get frustrated at the lack of progress on killing a player and frenzy towards the healer!”

Tanyargh cut into Delric's excited ramblings. “Not to be rude Delric, but Grammar hear said there were two ways to trigger frenzy. So far we’ve only heard one.”

Delric blushed when he realized how he got so carried away, but GrammarKnotsee only smiled.

“I’m surprised you were able to work that out for yourself.” GrammarKnotsee pointed over his shoulder towards a blushing elven druid standing in the back of the group. “It took our healer two deaths before she came to that realization.” GrammarKnotsee hesitated a moment before continuing. “Us figuring out the second trigger was kind of an accident. We had gotten careless fighting them once we had gained a few levels. One, in particular, happened to be a little clumsy when we fought it. We laughed a bit when it slipped during a charge.”

GrammarKnotsee shuffled his feet a bit. “Well, it turns out horned rabbits are pretty hot-headed with the right circumstances. Instead of becoming agitated, It’s status changed to mad. I didn’t really think anything of it at the time thinking it was another variation of agitated. Then after a few seconds, it jumped to furious. Finally, it made an especially brazen charge right at our tank, InCrudable, here.” GrammarKnotsee pointed at an Orc standing to his right who held a large two-handed hammer.

“Crud blocked the charge by placing the head of his hammer in front of the horn and it broke off its horn. I don’t know why but seeing a horned rabbit without a horn had seemed so funny at the time I couldn’t stop myself from laughing.”

GrammarKnotsee grimaced at the memory. “Once the rabbit saw its horn on the ground and me laughing at it, it went into frenzy. This time though, instead of charging, it started screaming at us. Every single horned rabbit close enough stopped whatever they were doing, and charged towards us as an entire mob of Berserk rabbits. Even ones that had been busy fighting other players stopped in order to help a single rabbit that had called for help. We died pretty quickly after that.”

“Well shit, man. That sucks.” Tanyargh said. “It’s nice to know you shouldn’t go poking fun at these things, or else your fucked.”

Delric decided to voice a thought that had been bothering him for the last few minutes of their conversation. “Say, GrammarKnotsee. I can’t help but notice you and your buddies are all around level 25-ish. Aren’t you over-leveled for this region? Why are you still sticking around?”

GrammarKnotsee turned and looked towards the center of the clearing. These few hours we’ve been trying to take a crack at the boss of this area. A level 18 elite mob named Snowball. The problem is though, for some reason the second Snowball spawns, he sprints for the edge of the meadow into the woods and we lose track of him. This time though, we are prepared. We have a couple agility potions to increase our movement speed and a potion of tracking to chase it, and if we lose it again, to track it down. This time we are pulling out all the stops to make sure Snowball won’t get away from us!” GrammarKnotsee confidently clenches his fist, the excitement dancing in his eyes.

Delric grins. “Well alright then. Thank you so much for all of your advice. I will certainly put it to good use! I don’t want to keep you from your quarry anymore though. Good luck.”

Suddenly there is a bright flash of light from the center of the meadow and GrammarKnotsee instantly turns on his heels and sprints in the direction of the light before it even has a chance to fade. “Let's go guys! Get your agility potions ready! Snowball is here!”

The light fades and Delric is surprised to see a small white rabbit.

Snowball

Level- 18 [ELITE]

Status- Vengeful

The rabbit barely takes a second to orient itself before it starts sprinting towards the woods with GrammarKnotsee and his group hot on its heels.

……

I feel shivers rolling down my spine as I can barely hold back my excitement. I’m carefully prowling towards the center of this forest. I’m close, I can feel it! My tail is twitching constantly and I can do nothing to still it. “About the only thing marring this perfect moment is that damnable wad of fuzz.”

I frown as I think of that. “I shouldn’t have gone back to that clearing after I killed him.” Indeed I had thought it was a good idea to poke some fun at the horned rabbits that were still alive after my little prank.

Unfortunately, I failed to account for the fact that this is, in fact, a game where mobs respawn. You can imagine my surprise when I saw Snowball there munching away on the plentiful greenery. I was so shocked in fact, that I had forgotten to blend in and allowed Snowball to spot me.

Since then I had left the clearing and the persistent pest hasn’t stopped trying to enact its own form of vengeance. Thankfully the other horned rabbits didn’t follow me outside the meadows, and I don't mind if Snowball is willing to charge into his own death with every respawn. It can’t do anything to me without its stupid horde to help it now.

Now that I think about it, I think he should probably be respawning right about now. I laugh quietly to myself. I’m almost to my destination and should have enough time to deal with that Direwolf before the rabbit can reach me again. Then I’ll have all the time in the world to deal with Snowball.

You have been afflicted by Aura of Misfortune!

I froze in my tracks. “What the fuck?” I carefully examine my surroundings. Seeing nothing I smell the air for anything unusual… nothing. After another minute with nothing unfortunate happening I shrug. “Pffft Aura of bullshit more like!”

I laugh again, louder this time but not enough to alert any enemies that might be nearby. Today’s such a good day! I got revenge on Snowball and his bunny minions, I got to mess with Amy and a random town, and even now I’m about to even the score on a long time coming encounter.

I unleash my best feral grin onto the world and dance around on my paws with giddy excitement at how close I am to accomplish all my goals. “Hahahaha!!! No way anything can go wrong now!”