Chapter 468

Wave 1 Complete: 1 Minute till next wave begins.

The message rolled across everyone’s chat bars, as the last of the painguins fell. Once they’d gotten the 2,000 mobs down to roughly 200, icons had appeared on their maps to show where the foes were located. From there, it had become a relatively simple job to track them down and put them out of their misery. Player wise, James figured they’d lost about 100 players, maybe 200, during the battle. Most were underprepared players who’d been caught ogling the incoming mobs, allowing themselves to become Swiss Cheese for the painguins. Luckily, most were there with their own friends and parties, so they’d been revived quickly.

Something players had learned, during the siege event, was if a player wasn’t revived within 30 seconds of death, they were actually booted from the siege event for that wave. An interesting mechanic to be sure, and one that could prove problematic as the waves progressed. The first wave, while initially impressive, had been easy to handle. Painguins didn’t have that many spiffy skills, and the mobs were pretty squishy when it came to actual combat. This next wave though, would introduce the Cyrus to the mix. Arguably one of the most rounded out mobs of the fifth floor, the cybernetic walrus’s had long range cannons on their backs, as well as lazer tusks. Additionally… James may have upgraded them to have the ability to create minor force fields for themselves, and, uh, additional, mid range floating cannons that swarmed around them. These pod-like lasers did 1/8 the damage of their main cannon, but there were eight of them.

It was highly unlikely, but if the siege summoned 2,000 Cyrus alone, that would mean 2,000 long range tank mobs, a whopping 16,000 mid-range lazer pods, and of course, 4,000 short range lazer tusks. Cyrus’s also packed a higher defense stat than the painguins did, as well as more hp. Furthermore, because the mobs levitated, James had a sinking suspicion that they’d be immune to well, sinking and pitfall style traps.

With just 1 minute to go between the conclusion of the first wave, and the start of the second wave though, James didn’t have the time or ability to warn the other players about it, even if he’d been 100 percent certain he could, without risking a breach in his NDA. All there was time for, was players to try and regroup, gobble down some drinks and food for buffs, and sort through their siege tokens.

Surviving the first wave, awarded all players with an additional siege token. Past that, it seemed killing mobs had roughly a 10percent chance to drop a siege token. Whether or not the siege tokens would have an increased drop rate as each wave progressed, James had no idea, and Steve was being, well, Steve. The Grand Spanker, as was Steve’s new official class, was being tight lipped on a lot of the more technical details, seemingly enjoying watching everything playout in real time. James had a feeling, this whole event was like a massive Beta Test for Steve, and the developer was having the time of his life taking part in it, and watching how people reacted.

James sighed, shaking a very disturbing image of Steve’s little form cackling like a maniac as he literally danced around the painguins, taunting them into shooting each other, came to his mind. Steve had seemed like a mad man, and he had to wonder if perhaps he’d been a bit of a fool, for putting so much faith in the developer. Then again, hadn’t James heard a saying somewhere once, about the line between a madness, and genius?

He pushed the pondering out of his mind as took stock of the town. Players had repaired the walls, using siege tokens to bring it back to full health, and past that, leveling it once more to level 4. With that upgrade, the walls had changed from being made of wood, to stone, and the battlements now had proper areas to take cover behind. Additionally, James noticed almost all of the siege weapons had been upgraded, granting them increased power, range, and newer options for attacks.

Sometime during the chaos of the first wave, most of the lower leveled players had been ushered to siege weapon duty, while the higher leveled players left the safety of the walls, to take the battle to the snowy fields. Well, what had remained of the fields following Ifrit’s hellstorm. Interestingly, the moment the first wave had ended, the terrain had instantly reset itself. Annoyingly, none of the traps players had used tokens to place, had reset themselves, meaning it was going to be costly to continue setting those traps. Against larger and stronger mobs, James also wondered if the traps would even be worth it. Perhaps if players utilized crowd control type traps, over damaging traps, it could be worthwhile, but those were still less likely to gain players a return on their spent siege tokens.

Speaking of Siege Tokens, James pulled up his inventory, as he half listened to SoulDemon’s players arguing about their leader. The man, who’d claimed to have singlehandedly slain 100 mobs, was refusing to return. Leaving the four, as it seemed was the norm, to fend for themselves. Why they stuck with him, James couldn’t fathom. But it wasn’t his place to judge, either.

“How many tokens ya got?” Rue asked as she peaked over his shoulder. She couldn’t see his screen, but it was obvious he was flicking through his inventory, and she’d likely predicted what he was doing.

“Looks like, six.” James sighed; the number disappointing. Between the two he’d gotten, both at the start of the siege, and from the first wave, that meant he’d only gained an additional 4 during the first wave. That 100 token perk seemed like an impossible to reach goal. Hell, at a rate of 4 per wave, even getting to 25 seemed like a big ask. Part of him, wanted to just dump his 6 into his stats. A 6% increase to his stats wasn’t nothing, and that also carried over to a boost in Ifrit’s stats, since the summoned djinn gained stat increases based off James’s stats.

“Lame.” Rue said, as a bottle of liquor appeared in her hand. She took a drink, and offered James the bottle. “I’ve got three. Apparently, unless something I’ve interacted with directly deals a killing blow, I have like, no chance of getting any.” She huffed. “Freaking unfair for healers.”

“Let me guess,” James responded as he took a drink from the bottle. It was pleasantly sweet, and he wondered where she’d procured such a beverage. “You were hoping you could leech tokens off of players purely by casting wide AOE heal spells and such?”

She flashed her fangs, not even trying to hide the truth. “Duh. Could you imagine if it had worked. I’d be swimming in tokens. What’s better than a healer? An immortal one.” She began laughing, in a somewhat evil manner, and James just shook his head. They had less than five seconds till the next wave. It was time get serious.

“For once,” he said as he handed her the bottle back, “I’m actually glad the game isn’t bending to your will.”

A mischievous look crossed her face, the corner of her mouth lifting in a knowing way, revealing a single fang. James prepared himself for her comment, but instead, she simply winked at him, and walked to the nearest table and sat down, drink still in hand, laughter on her lips. Part of James wanted to ask her what she was about to say, but the other part of him, told him he didn’t want to know. And besides, there wasn’t time. The second wave was coming.