I have a little experience of MMORPGs, although admittedly, nothing so sophisticated as the world of Atone Online. I’m no expert, but if that tiny bit of experience has granted me anything, it’s a (very) basic understanding of how this ‘game’ is supposed to work. The player should begin by levelling up against the smaller monsters, gaining experience, useful items, and acquiring gold to eventually purchase better weapons and armor. As they grow more powerful, they should work their way up to the more powerful mobs, eventually gaining the skills and experience required to join other players on a boss raid. Oh, and one more thing, they should always bring a weapon compatible with their skillset. Yeah, that last part is particularly important.

The situation that I now found myself in went against every one of those basic principles. You know, just like the last time I fought a boss. Here I was, my second day in the dungeon, and I was being forced to face off against an opponent who was waaay out of my league, sans armor or the appropriate weapon for the job. And it was another boss, no less: one of the biggest ugliest bastards in the dungeon, a mob capable of cutting down an entire raid party.

Yes, we’d successfully fended off the first wave of mobs, but we’d relied on our numbers to win the day, and that came with its own downside. This was no tightly knit party, watching each other’s backs and evenly sharing the spoils. Krainor and the swordswoman had come to my aid, but the NPCs had been as much use to us as a swordsman with an axe, only some of my allies could be trusted (our leader not included, evidently) and the greedy bastards who did fight alongside me had taken all the spoils for themselves. Given the nature of our opponents, there had to be someone among our number who now possessed a spare sword, but I didn’t have the first idea who.

I stared back at the wasted opportunity that was DungeonDestroyer. Oh, how I would have loved to break him to my will, and send his enslaved ass right back at its master. But the poor bastard was beyond the reach of my slaveowner trait or Kriabal’s domination spell. What he needed now, was a fucking necromancer. Oh well. A howl reminded me that I now had bigger mobs to worry about.

As the beastly boss slithered into full view, I was surprised to find that I couldn’t read its HP. I quickly checked my status menu: my perception hadn’t dropped, so I began to hurriedly scroll through my status messages, in case I’d missed some kind of perception debuff. Finding none, I was astonished to learn that limiting messages relating to the other sub-units hadn’t just blocked out their deaths: it had also muted the gains I’d made from their victories. Since my last status check, I’d received a trickle of shared XP from each of the hybrids felled by ‘Grom’s Guerrillas’, and the share had only increased as the size of our party had dwindled. Although not enough to gain an extra base point in any particular skill, I’d gained XP in a number of areas, including one important stat that could be reallocated: resilience.

After moving the bonus XP into perception, I checked out the one stat that was now frustrating me more than any other: mana. I knew that the mysterious substance increased a player’s attack strength, something I needed more with every passing moment. And I knew that I’d earned mana from every hybrid who had fallen to my war party. Yet my reserve was empty. Did I somehow use it up without realizing? Or did it simply evaporate if left unused? One thing was certain. The sooner I figured out how to channel the ambiguous life energy, the better.

As expected, I now had a 2-point bonus to both armed and unarmed attack, thanks to my new necklace. It had come at the expense of luck, but it raised my overall proficiency with weapons, and would hopefully help to compensate for my continued lack of access to my swordsman skill.

The creature howled again, and I could tell that a few of the inexperienced warriors were beginning to question their own luck. I didn’t know what their own perception skills were like (after all, I didn’t have time to go into the war party menu and read them off individually, it was difficult enough getting time to check my own stats) but just one look at the boss was enough to see that the thing was going to be no pushover.

“Kriabal?” I asked, leaning in to address my ally as we followed our leader to the safer end of the chamber. The rabble and the NPCs were in tow. “Why can’t I read that thing’s HP? Is it shielded, somehow?”

“Bosses are harder to read,” he gruffly replied, adding: “Hold on a sec.”

The warlock patted me on the shoulder and moved up to Grom’s side, whispering something in the barbarian’s ear. Our ‘general’ solemnly nodded and turned to face us.

“Listen up,” the barbarian announced, addressing all assembled. “For those whose perception ain’t high enough to see it, yeh should know that that thing back there has jus’ under 1000HP remaining…”

“1000? Fuck!” Gasped Kraitos.

“We’re doomed,” agreed Al_Catraz.

“It’s max HP was 3000, to begin with,” Grom continued, before pointing to the distant crumpled heap that had once been the raid party. “You can thank those poor bastards for that. They’ve shown us that it can be hurt. Now it’s up to us to prove that it can die.”

“By retreating?” scoffed Tiny. “Yeh do realize this is a dead end, yeah?”

“Just puttin’ some distance between us so we can talk strategy, is all. Yeh’ve all seen that thing’s reach, I take it”

“This is more than enough distance,” spat one of the guards. “You’re just buying time for your tiny human processor to come up with a plan. Everyone halt, we can’t afford to give up any more ground.”

“Yeah, stop wasting our time and tell us its weaknesses,” I demanded. Grom looked shocked by my decision to side with the NPCs, but I didn’t care. He was a shitty leader, and I was going to have the benefit of his high perception skill if nothing else.

“Its toughened hide gives it a high resistance to physical attack, especially blunt trauma,” he announced, finally giving us the benefit of his ability to ‘read’ our nearby opponent.

“As well as magical resistance?” gasped Kriabal.

“’Fraid so. That means it’s gonna take steel to hurt it, not clubs or fists. It goes without sayin’, the tentacles will be the main problem. An’ those eyes can see in jus’ about every direction…”

Just as I suspected. Damn!

“But the tentacles have their own weakness,” he added, giving us a small modicum of hope. “Think of ‘em like a whip. They can only be launched wiv precision from a distance. At close range, they have a fraction of the momentum, an’ much less accuracy. I’m bettin’ that if we get close enough, we might actually stand a chance of severin’ ‘em at the root.”

“Get me close enough an’ I’ll get the job done,” bragged Tiny, holding aloft his shamelessly looted blades. Kraitos agreed, proudly brandishing the axe I’d gifted him.

Kriabal agreed with the strategy, but demanded a small tweak, ordering the big man to swop axes with Kraitos. This drew looks of confusion from both warriors.

“Those bone axes have magical resistance,” the warlock continued. “Which means they can’t channel mana worth a damn. Kraitos axe, on the other hand, doubles the user’s mana output. But he’s got orc in him, so he can’t wield mana. That axe is wasted on him.”

It was good to have someone as experienced as Kriabal among us. The trade made sense, even Tiny could see that. But he still had a good question.

“Why the fuck did BulldogBrit have ‘em, then?”

“Because he was a stupid fuck who thought they looked cool,” the warlock replied, bluntly.

Tiny seemed amused by this. I watched as my precious loot found its way into the barbarian’s huge hands, pretty much ruling out the possibility that I’d ever see the Axe of Tallos again. Kraitos, in turn took the orc-bone axes. With that, Kriabal began to make his way through the party, searching for other opportunities to better re-allocate our weapons.

“You don’t mind using something that was made from the repurposed remains of your kind?” I asked, as the builder turned the morbid blades over in his hands.

“My heritage is Irish, not orcish,” he laughed.

Oh yeah, not your real body. Good point.

I watched as Tiny began to charge the weapon with mana, and cursed my orcan friend’s inability to school me in the wielding of the glowing energy, making a mental note to pick Kriabal’s brain on the subject at the next possible opportunity.

“The boss’s main weakness is the stomach sac,” continued Grom, redirecting our attention to the creature as it slowly slithered deeper into the chamber. “It has no eyes on its underside, creating a blind spot, and the skin is much weaker there. We’ll still need to work hard to penetrate it, but if we enter from the right angle, we might just pierce the bastard thing’s heart.”

“You heard the man,” added Kriabal. “Everybody stay calm and we might just get out of this aliv-”

He was cut off as (with absolutely no warning) the NPC guards let out a deafening taunt, readied their spears and began to charge at the distant creature. The gun mage immediately began to lay down covering fire.

“Oh for the god’s sake, am I talking to myself here?” grumbled the warlock, raising his own staff.

The rabble began to charge, but Tiny ordered them to hold back. When the swordswoman and the gun mage protested, their leader declared that he would win the day on their behalf, ensuring that their party lived to reap the XP rewards. The bastard! He was risking our odds of survival on a gambit to power-level his troops, shielding them from the boss battle and letting us do the heavy lifting. Before Grom could challenge the asshole tank’s strategy Tiny charged into the fray. With that, his troops retreated to join the zero’s huddled next to the entrance tunnel.

“What now?” I asked, surveying our pitiful war party. It amounted to two swordsmen, three half-orcs, our barbarian leader, and two magic users.

“Those dumb NPC’s have dammed us,” growled Grom, turning to the apprentice. “I would strongly suggest yeh get the fuck outta sight before that thing spots you. Find somewhere to hide that’s close enough to heal us, but only after we draw its ire.” With that, he sighed and hefted his bloodied sword overhead. “H’orcs, I need you to keep the hybrids off our backs. Not you, Kraitos, we need that axe up front.”

“Two of us against two of them?” balked one of the half-orcs.

“They’re injured, that should even the odds a little. See if you can convince the rabble to help yeh. The gun mage an’ swordswoman looked especially pissed about bein’ benched. There’s still a few independent combatants hidin’ amongst the zeros, maybe they’ll help yeh. Everyone else, join the charge. We need to give the boss as many targets as possible to occupy those damn tentacles. Our priority is to get our strongest sword and axe-men right up to that thing in one piece.”

We should be prepared to sacrifice ourselves to give you cover. How convenient.

With that Grom charged off in pursuit of the NPCs, followed by Al_Catraz, Kraitos and the other half-orcs. The apprentice followed, albeit from a safer distance. Only Kriabal and I remained.

“Pack of impatient assholes,” he cursed. “I wasn’t finished taking a bloody inventory, yet.” With that he spun his staff, and with a sigh announced: “Oh well, once more into the fray, eh noobster?”

“What about me? I cried, grabbing Kriabal’s arm. “I don’t have a sword capable of penetrating that things hide. I’ll be useless even if I do manage to reach it.”

“Hmmm. You have impressive resilience, though. And you’re naturally faster than a barbarian or a half-orc. Okay fella, here’s the plan. The NPCs are closing in, so that thing’s gonna be pretty distracted in a few seconds. Let’s use that distraction. Go to scavenge what you can from the raid party. Their bodies are probably on the brink of respawnin’, an’ when they do, they’ll take their items with them. They might be carrying items that can turn the tide, so the sooner we loot them, the better, understood?”

I nodded.

“Good. Once you’ve weaponed up, drag Nyx to safety. When that’s done you can join the assault and die with the rest of us.”

Did he have to look so cheery when he said the last part? He made to leave, so I grabbed his arm again, this time reaching into my inventory with my free hand. Selecting my ‘lucky’ charm, I pressed it into Kriabal’s hand, explaining that it was a loan, and that I’d be needing it back afterwards. It was only fair. He’d tried to reallocate our supplies as best he could, I figured someone should do the same for him. The warlock graciously accepted.

“One last thing…”

“In case yeh haven’t noticed, we’re late fer a boss fight, lad…”

“It’s important.”

He sighed. “Go on, then.”

“Ah… how does mana work, exactly?”

“Fuck’s sake swords-noob, you picked the wrong time fer that one. An’ the wrong bugger to ask, too.”

“What? I thought warlocks were experts in wielding mana.”

“Different classes use mana in different ways, lad. I know as much about empowerin’ a sword as Grom knows about personal hygiene. Now get a fucking move on, those bodies will vanish any second.”

I looked to the far end of the tunnel, where all hell had finally broken loose. And like a noob with a death-wish, I ran to meet it.