“You don’t want to hurt us? Bitch please, I’ve fried crawlers like you before yo mamma even got fat!”

The creature that appeared from around the corner was a ramshackle combination of a trailer trash thug and a llama, dressed in a filthy white tank top two sizes too large for him with several tacky necklaces around his neck and baggy pants a size too short to show off flashy brand sneakers that heavily contrasted everything else. To top it all off was a red dish rag he wore as a bandana, with a poorly drawn bovine skull on it.

As ridiculous as he appeared though, the brightly shining sacks under his neck warned of great danger. Danger that was confirmed as he spat specks of lava with the words ‘bitch’ and ‘fat’. Three smaller and more mundanely dressed llamas went “Oooooh!” as he said it, and made exaggerated arm movements as if the poor diss meant anything. To rub salt into the wound, the posse Ooh! sound was mixed with a typical llama bleat.

Bad Llama Rapper, level 5

All Llamas have the poor manners to spit in your face during conversation, but the rappers are a particularly aggravating foe to talk to. Trained to talk fast and diss you with complete disrespect, any exchange essentially comes down to them trash-talking you with the eloquence of a fourth-grader and the cursing vocabulary of a Detroit prostitute. Don’t buy their home-made rap tracks by the way, they’re always shit.

Darryl quickly raised his shield and the droplets of lava splashed against it. The next moment the world turned white as Thomas used his Blinding Flash spell.

Darryl blinked a few times and took his spear from his inventory. The flash hadn’t been that bad on his eyes, which only caught the reflection on the wall, but the llamas were all covering their eyes or clawing at them after receiving the full brunt.

The rapper was cursing wildly, spitting a fountain of lava in Darryl’s general direction that proved to be a genuine defensive measure. He backed off to prevent any globs from reaching him.

“Damn, that was shinier than your fat sweaty mother glistening in the sun!” The rapper shouted angrily, spitting his lava only to hit the wall he had angled towards. “You bitches trying to outshine my bling? As if! My bling bling plays no game, putting all yo poor baubles to shame!”

One of the llamas half-heartedly ooooh’d, but the other two were either too distracted by being blinded, or they too were underwhelmed by the poor boast. Darryl easily sidestepped what little lava was directed his way, most of it splashing harmlessly against the wall.

One of the llamas grunted as Ben backstabbed him, immediately putting him in the red but also inviting a nasty horse-like kick that almost struck true. The llama then quickly turned around and spat where Ben had been just moments ago.

The spit of these regular third level llamas was apparently a lot bigger. It came with a clear charge-up of their neck-sac glowing bright orange and flew lazily in one big glob, but the sheer size made their spit an instant-kill if it’d hit anywhere vital.

Ben had already retreated, and thus found himself in no real danger. That said, the kid visibly grew pale after seeing the llama spit where his face had been just moments before. Then he jumped further back into the shadows.

Darryl: Plan?

Ben: KILL EM!!!

Thomas: One alive.

Ben: rapper?

Thomas: Any will do, the strongest seems like a poor idea.

Ben: but we got to beat him in a rap battle

Thomas: No, we don’t…

Ben: easy mode against such poor rhymes, good ratings!

Darryl: floor 1 = no views

Ben: oh

Ben: right

Ben: KILL EM!

Thomas: Poisoned blade if one gets close, otherwise just plan 1B.

Darryl nodded in real life, which was pointless as the others couldn’t see him.

Plan 1B was fairly simple, as all first plans were. A was for him to tank while the others ganged up on the enemy, B was to fall back and skirmish with the spear and sneak attack, C was to retreat, and D to brute force it.

The Plan 2 series would probably be more complicated, but they had all agreed that too complicated and too many plans would only work to their detriment. Darryl assumed B from the moment that these guys started spitting freaking lava, and had already retreated back to a decent 10m distance.

The rapper shook the blinding effect and glared at Darryl after reorienting himself. “Hey, why don’t cha run all the way back home! Oh right, it’s flat now!”, he shouted spitting lava with every angry word. At this distance they lacked accuracy though, as well as cooling off to be nearly harmless. Darryl ignored the two drops that would hit him as he threw the heavenly spear.

Which went wild, missing all four llamas by a fair margin. One more spear appeared, only to hit nothing but air as well.

Not a big surprise, Darryl had only practised a little and practice didn’t level anything. Real life ranged combat apparently took years to master, so he had smoothed out only the roughest of edges of his throwing technique.

He clenched his hand and the spear returned to him before it even hit the ground, a small cooldown meter appearing over the glove. Darryl threw it again, and once more the spear missed. The second spear grazed one of the rapper’s posse, briefly making his green dot blink but not noticeably changing the hue.

This time the spear clattered on the floor behind the llamas. The cooldown on the gloves was 30 seconds, so it would remain there for a while.

Ben backstabbed the wounded Llama again, this time taking it down. One of the other llamas gave pursuit as Ben retreated, with the remaining two charging at Darryl and Thomas.

Darryl cursed and equipped his trophy knife, meaning he could no longer summon the spear once the cooldown was up. Behind him, Thomas unequipped his staff and held both hands in the air.

The rapper spat curses and more uninspired rap lyrics, showering the air in front of him with a thick mist of lava particles that lightly scorched his llama fur and clothes. The llama turned burning battering ram didn’t seem to care, despite his dot slowly turning yellow.

Then he rammed into Darryl’s shield, and Darryl almost buckled. If it weren’t for his cufflinks reinforcing him, his arm would’ve probably broken by the kinetic energy coming through the shield alone.

Instead, the rapper almost bounced off his shield when it didn’t give way, and was the one temporarily stunned instead. Darryl grunted, regained his footing and rammed the knife into the llama’s glowing neck sac.

He quickly withdrew his hand as the sac burst open, and returned the knife into his inventory. To his surprise, the llama rapper’s health dot went straight to a deep red as the lava burned a hole into his ribcage and made his stomach glow dimly.

Hm. Not intended, but certainly a welcome outcome. Darryl only intended to cover the knife with the lava to use against a different foe in the future.

One of their plans, Poisoned knife, was essentially the idea to stab the otherwise worthless trophy knife into something poisonous or acidic and then store it so that the acid would remain static. Lava would work just as well for that purpose, and should probably stop melting the knife until he took it out again.

Next to him, Thomas smashed a file cabinet into the other llama with the full brunt of the momentum that Darryl gave it before. As it was not a headshot rather than striking into the creature’s shoulder, it didn’t kill the llama outright.

Darryl raised his shield and rushed at the llama, pinning it against the wall. The llama inhaled, but Thomas placed a spike of his whacking stick against the glowing neck sac and the llama exhaled while the sac dimmed.

Thomas: Survivor found, rest are free game.

Ben: TOO LATE

Ben: rest already dead! XD so much xp!!!

Darryl: good job b

Ben: b?

Darryl: It’s a thumb up. d :) b

“Ah. Can’t say I ever heard of that one.” Ben said, appearing from the darkness. The cloak he was wearing played strange tricks with the shadows, almost making them cling to him rather than actually making him stealthy. “By the way, is one of you guys a junkie? These guys are carrying meth.”

“Never touched the stuff.” Darryl grunted, still staring down the llama.

“Don’t even drink or smoke.” Thomas said. “And if you’re an addict yourself, I have to insist you stop. Such addictions can only be detrimental in here.”

“Chill, dude. I was just joking. You’re one of them body purists?” Ben laughed.

“Nah, I’m a cheapskate. Not a single cheap addiction out there.” Thomas shrugged. “But getting addicted to something while in this dungeon would be a really bad idea.”

“No shit, Sherlock.” Ben grumbled. “I was just joking…”

“Surrender.” Darryl said, ignoring the exchange.

The llama snorted, defiantly glaring back at him.

“I strongly suggest you listen to the man.” Thomas said, pushing the spike of his whacking stick a bit deeper into the neck sac. The area around the point began to shine a brighter orange with spots of yellow.

The llama wasn’t attacking, but the dot on their minimaps remained red.

“We’ll let you keep your meth?” Ben tried.

“Fuck you.” The llama snarled.

“No, fuck you!” Ben retaliated. “Punk-ass bitch, if you’re going to try and swagger with your back against the wall, we’ll just kill you for your exp.”

“Language.” Darryl said, sparing Ben a quick glance.

“And I don’t think there’s any virtue in getting in a verbal shit throwing contest with these guys. Especially not now that their leader is dead.” Thomas said.

“Didn’t even rhyme either.” Darryl agreed. “If you said something like ‘If you try to swagger to me, I’ll just kill you for your exp.’, it might’ve been a diss. But now it’s just a miss.”

“Dude. You’re criticizing me for my roasting skills?” Ben sputtered. “You’re the goodie two-shoes of the group, no way you’re part of the rap scene.”

“Are you?” Thomas frowned.

“Pfft, no. Rap is so last decade, no one I know would want to be caught dead thinking that stuff is still cool. Retro at best.” Ben said.

The llama ignored the exchange, instead staring wide-eyed at Darryl.

“Wait, dude, did you just rhyme twice in a row?” He said.

“What?” Darryl said, as much to what the llama said as to their dot suddenly turning white.

“Dude, you just like, rhymed and dissed someone. But like, twice in a row. Almost as if, twice in a sentence.” The llama said, still staring at Darryl. “That’s like, better than Mauricio ever did.”

“That’s like, like… Oooooh!, dude.” The llama said. Darryl closed his eyes and fought off a cough as the creature bleated in his face with a foul and slightly sulphuric breath.