Gamer Guild’s Dungeon (Entrance)

--- Jon ---

“Alright, Roxy.” He called, getting the girl’s attention, “If you’re just trying to help I don’t see why you can’t join us.”

“Great!” Roxanne cheered, bouncing onto her feet with a wide smile. “Then in that case let’s get this game started shall we?”

“Right.” He nodded, following the excited girl past the tents selling drinks, snacks, and trinkets and towards the larger tent in the center of everything.

“You’re lucky you came on a Thursday,” Roxanne told them as they cut through an empty waiting area. “If you’d come over the weekend -or even just Friday- you’d have to deal with an actual line.”

“What about the crowd outside?” Ying asked.

“That’s nothing, and most of those are the people who already ran through the dungeon.” Roxanne shrugged. “Basically they’re the ones who took the day off, rather than the natives who want to play the game. And that’s before you get the actual Gamer’s Guild players involved. Oh, speaking of…”

A guild member walked up to them wearing a knight’s helmet and breastplate beneath a hoodie covered in neon paint. “I’m assuming you young adventurers wish to try your hand at the fierce dungeon?”

“Yes, that seems like the main reason to be here.” Ying snarked from beside him.

“Well, in that case you’ll have to fill out these liability waivers.” The guild member told them with a mix of annoyance and amusement as he held out several packets.

“Actually, you think we can do the mask route?” Roxanne asked, flashing a small object that he was pretty sure changed colors to silver.

The guild member gave the object a look, then turned to him and Ying before looking at Pix and Wolf. “Alright, but I’m going to need you to sign… these papers with an alias.”

Accepting the new pages from the guild member he gave them a once over -and saw they were pretty close to the forums he and his Ma used for their haunted houses- before coming across the place requiring a signature.

(Huh, probably shouldn’t be putting my real name if I’m using magic…) It wasn’t illegal and he wasn’t an actual mask, but he’d rather not people he didn’t know bother him over the fact. (So what should I use as an alias…)

(A bleeding monster glared up at him as its flesh burned to ash and the Beast’s control began to slip away from it, but not before spitting out the title that it’d come to know him as, while promising him a painful demise.)

Shaking his head from the memory, he put the name down figuring it was better than anything he could come up with himself.

“Hmm, fitting.” Ying commented looking over his shoulder.

He shrugged before looking at Pix and Wolf as they shifted through a chest of some kind with Roxanne, “Do I need to sign anything for them?”

“Nah, we don’t really need a liability waiver for Summons.” The knight-like guild member answered as they both handed over their waivers.

“Right.” He nodded before walking over to the mask chest with Ying. “What are you guys messing with?”

“Oh, the guild keeps masks for those who don’t bring their own.” Roxanne explained, helping Pix put on a moth mask and Wolf a wolf mask. “Some people don’t trust the guild to hide their identities while recording, and the masks are self adjusting so it’s whatever for those who take the time to look through them.”

“Ah, yes that’s how the guild makes money off of this.” Ying nodded, crossing her arms. “They release the videos of everyone's attempts at conquering the dungeon and monetize the videos. Which makes me wonder what kind of information you possess on the dungeon that we can’t access ourselves?”

“Oh, they only release the videos after the Dungeon closes for the year, and they end up changing everything by the next time they open it.” Roxanne smiled. “And I’ve already soloed this dungeon up to the fourth floor of the seven.” Roxanne’s smile became a little more strained. “I uh, I just need a bit of help to get past the fifth.”

“I see…”

“Ying, we already agreed to let her join us.” He reminded his draconian friend, mentally adding the fact that Roxanne’s Deviancy was agitating the usually friendly teen’s instincts. (Meaning Roxanne likely uses madness or malice… And since she didn’t sign any waivers and flashed that medal or whatever, then she’s also likely a member of the Gamer’s Guild, meaning madness given the whole Wonderland thing.)

Letting all of that click in his head, he grabbed a black mask rather than another wolf mask -(so wolf can have one all her own)- and decided that he wasn’t going to make a big deal of that revelation. (After all, she’s no less trustworthy than DeSade or Rogers.) (Not that you can trust either of them.) (Much.)

“How’s this look?” He asked the girls once his mask was in place.

Roxanne smiled even as Ying, Pix, and Wolf eyed him warily. “I think you might be the first person to get their mask to change like that.”

“Like what?” He frowned, wondering if the mask looked weird with his hood or something.

“Hey do you guys mind hurrying up,” The knight-like guild member asked, walking over from the tent entrance, “I’ve got another group lining up and I need a few minutes to- What the fuck?!”

Blinking, he took the mask off, “That seems a bit extreme…”

“Sorry, sorry… wasn’t expecting… that.” The guild member shivered, gesturing towards him as he eyed the reverted mask. “Either way I kind of need you to go so I can get the next group set up… and preferably not piss myself.”

“Right, we’ll be on our way.” Roxanne nodded, gently corralling the rest of them out of the tent as Pix knocked his mask out of his hand.

“Uh, what um, what was wrong with my mask?” He felt the need to ask given the knight-like guild member’s reaction.

“Eh, nothing much.” Roxanne assured him when Ying didn’t answer. “Your eyes just glowed a bit in the mask.”

“Really?” (Because that doesn’t seem like it’d get that kind of reaction out of someone…)

“Yes. That was the problem.” Ying nodded succinctly as they came up to a stone archway built into a hill in the middle of a tree grove. “I just wasn’t expecting… the glowing eyes.”

(They’re lying.)

Shaking his head he idly stepped through the archway, and immediately felt the shift in the world as everything became laced in Madness.

(In… One… Two… Three… Four… Out… One… Two… Three… Four… In…)

“You two okay?” Roxanne asked, noticing how both he and Ying had frozen after just a couple of steps.

“Sorry, I wasn’t expecting… So much Madness.” Ying ground out, her eyes becoming draconic behind her mask.

“Well… It is a Wonderland.” Roxanne reminded them a bit cautiously before shaking her head. “Or it’s a massive overlay at least, I don’t think the GM could handle so many… people in her actual Wonderland.”

“Right.” He nodded. (Just a Madness construct.) (Like the Corrupted nests.)

He couldn’t help but shiver as he recalled those three hell holes. (With half mutilated corpses drifting through the black water dripping from the cave ceiling dug out by claw marks and going even further into the black abyss made from the shifting black moss growing on the walls.)

(Nope, cannot be that bad.) He told himself, before noticing Roxanne was staring at him with a fair bit of concern.

“Bad memory.” He told her, earning a grimace from the other teen.

“Yeah… some Madness users… they aren’t nice people.” She admitted in understanding. “If you two want, we can back out. It’s not like anyone is going to hold it against us.”

“I appreciate the thought, but I will hold it against us.” Ying told her, visibly steeling herself.

Roxanne gave him a concerned look. “If you’re sure…”

Shaking her head and putting on a -(forced)- smile, Roxanne pointed down the stairs and told them, “Down these stairs is a room full of weapons. Usually we’d each pick one and that’d give us our ‘class’ for this adventure, but uh, since you’re both Masks you don’t have to take them if you don’t want to. Especially since they’re all made of Madness.”

He tried not to grimace at that, something he noticed Ying do as well, “I think… I think we’ll just stick to our own kits.”

“Yeah… I can understand that.” Roxanne nodded as they came to a set of doors at the bottom of the stairs.

Minding his manners he stepped forward and pushed the doors open, before stepping to the side and saying, “Ladies first.” to the girls.

“Such a gentleman.” Roxanne laughed, as Ying rolled her eyes and followed after Wolf and Pix who didn’t honestly care about human manners.

Following after everyone he gave the room a once over, noting how there seemed to be several light beams that were realistically impossible given how they had to be a good twenty feet underground after all of those stairs.

“Alright, so… which power-up do you guys think I should take?” Roxanne asked, walking between a number of columns suspending the weapons she’d mentioned earlier.

“Didn’t you say you’ve gone through all of this before?” Ying questioned, crossing her arms. “Doesn’t that mean you’d know better than us?”

“Well yeah,” Roxanne agreed as if that was obvious, “but at the same time I should pick a class that fits the party ya know?”

“So you’re asking which role would be best while in here?” He tried to clarify.

“Yep.” The gamer teen nodded, before explaining that, “It’d be kind of pointless for me to pick a class that one of you already has. And I’ve played all of them before during other Dungeons so I can fill whatever role you guys need.”

He glanced at Ying to see if she understood that better than him, only for the draconian teen to give him a shrug. “You’re the leader of this little adventure, so you should decide. After all, you're better at actual tactics than me.”

“I guess…” He admitted, wondering why he was being left in charge when (you’re the one who dragged me here…)

Shaking his head at that thought, he decided to work the problem out the way he would with some of the strategy lessons his Ma gave him. (Though she never went big on team tactics since she only ever meant for me to take care of myself, not fight a war…)

“Alright, well, going off of the classic adventurer roles… Ying could function as the warrior and maybe the magic user.” He began, figuring he should lay his thoughts out for everyone. “From there, I’d probably be… the rogue, hunter, or ranger. Pix would probably be best as the party healer since I doubt illusions will work on Madness Constructs. And lastly Wolf’s magic and fighting style makes her best as cavalry, since can rush wherever one of us needs support.”

“Okay, going off of all of that we can definitely rule out the sword, the bow, the white book, and the gauntlets.” Roxanne listed, before seeming to think about something. “Also… the illusions should work if they’re the image kind instead of the mental kind.”

“Pix can work with both.” He nodded, “Which means barring her magic reserves she should be able to work some crowd control as well.”

“Oh, oh, actually I know for a fact that the mana potions players use for their power-ups can also restore some magic for real magic users.” Roxanne told him excitedly. “The GM put a lot of effort into those because she wanted the Arcane and Practitioners both to be able to have fun and cut loose on their runs.”

“That does sound like fun.” Ying admitted with a fanged smile.

“It is.” Roxanne nodded with her own smile before seeming to remember something. “Oh, but you might want to save some of those MP drops, since once we hit the fourth floor the difficulty curve jumps and you’ll be wishing you kept a few of them on hand when they quit dropping. Same with the healing potions.”

“Alright, we’ll keep that in mind.” He nodded back to her. “But if magic limits aren’t holding us back as much the girls should be able to deal a fair amount of damage between Ying’s lightning, Pix’s zaps, and Wolf’s clones.”

“In that case we should also probably rule out the black book, the skull, and the collar.” Roxanne told him, before glancing at the staff. “Given how you’re all magic users it’d probably be redundant to take the staff, even if an all magic party could be cool. Especially since it's a half-way point between the books as far as spells go.”

“What about the axe, scythe, chains, and shield?” He asked, not taking the option off the table but wanting to know about the ones Roxanne hadn’t removed.

“Well the axe is best for high-attack, low-defense builds with a lot of guard breakers.” Roxanne began. “The scythe has a lot of fast sweeping attacks which are good on the floors with a lot of enemies per mob, but not so good against the mobs with just one or two heavy units. Chains are mid-range and while they don’t have the best damage their crowd control is pretty solid with a bunch of stuns, snares, and pulls. And the shield is best for blocking, making shields, and buffing allies, but aside from a couple of counters it has almost no damage output.”

“Huh, and you’ve used all of them a fair amount?” Ying asked, seemingly impressed by the number of weapons the other girl was familiar with.

“I’ve used them all a few times each, but I play support or puppeteer more often than not since the only one who really likes to is my brother Decks.” Roxanne admitted. “But I figure between Pix’s heals and Wolf’s clones I can try my hand at something a little more active today, even if it’s just blocking attacks for everyone.”

“Why wouldn’t people want to help each other though?” He could understand not being a Puppeteer since according to his Ma that Combat Class treated their summons as expendable -something he’d never do to Pix or Wolf- (but I don't get why people wouldn’t want to help each other.)

“Most people think more damage equals more fun.” Roxanne shrugged. “Though you do get the ones who think tanking damage or skill shots and traps are fun too. It’s just no one seems to think healing and buffs are fun for some reason.”

“Hmm…” He could get the skill shots and traps, but still he’d happily pick up healing magic if it meant he could help people.

“Still, shield, axe, chains, or scythe, which’ll it be?” Roxanne asked him, as he gave the weapons in question and the staff one more look over.