Interlude: Destination Part 1

“千里之行，始於足下。”

A spectral skeleton stood, its form surrounded by the green flames of plague, before it, lay five bodies.

You died!!

Like a lil’bitch lmao!!

Declan opened his eyes, his body lying on the soft grassy ground. It didn’t feel like much, the limitations of VR made it so the feeling was little more than some small pressure on his skin.

“Ahhh not again,” Matt complained next to him. Around him, his party members returned as their respawn timers ticked down to zero. A mere group of six random people, a group he was dragged into.

All to do the impossible.

Vek’Na stood living once again. As expected, if the best guilds couldn’t take him down, then what could they do? What else could’ve happened?

“This is pointless,” Declan quietly muttered.

Matt shot him a look, the only one close enough to have heard him, but Declan didn’t care. Not truly, it didn’t matter then, it didn’t matter now. A whole day of ramming their heads into a boss, nothing worked, nothing will work.

“There are some difficulties in beating him,” Alex said. The old clone took a genderless character, clad in heavy armour and bearing a spear and shield.

“Yea,” Belle replied, her voice soft and melodious as she rubbed an ache. There was no real pain in VR, so it must’ve been imagined, or mental fatigue.

“It is a shame,” Mortimer added, his real name Declan never learned, unlike the rest. “We’re not the only ones trying this dungeon, the other guilds will probably clear it first.”

“And if they don’t,” Declan spoke up, “what chance do we have?”

Matt rung an arm around his neck, “Ah don’t be like that Decs, any more down and you’ll sound Mort.”

The necromancer shot him a look, “What’s wrong with sounding like me?”

“You named yourself Mortimer Memento,” he shot back, “What else do I need to know?”

“It’s a cool sounding name,” Mortimer defended.

“The Memento part sure, but Mort? Couldn’t you have gone with Mori or something? More on theme at least?”

“Mori Memento was already taken by some asshole,” Mortimer replied. “As was Memento Mori. I spent three hours just finding names.”

“How long before you’re redeployed again, Alex?” Belle asked, cutting in the conversation between them.

“Two weeks,” they replied. “It might be enough for us to clear Vek’Na.”

‘Or someone else does, and the effort everyone put in became meaningless,’ Declan thought but didn’t voice.

“Well we’re gonna have to go to sleep for tonight,” Matt said.

“Oh yeah, you three are still students,” Belle mused.

“I never said I was a student,” Mortimer immediately shot back.

“Your sleeping patterns and the times you’re online do,” Declan casually threw out.

The boy shot him a weird look, “Well, I’ll have to go to sleep for a completely unrelated reason to education.”

Belle chuckled, standing on her toes, she reached to ruffle the much taller character’s black hair, “Sure you do.”

“Stop that,” Mortimer said, but he didn’t move to turn her away.

“Oh well,” Declan said. “Good night.”

And he logged off without hearing everyone’s response.

His real eyes blinked open, the lights of his room slowly brightening up as he returned to the real world.

He stretched his body, feeling the creases in his back lightening up. Lumbering his way out of the chair that held him. Popping off his Auxiliary Augment Device, his AAD off his neck as he scratched the itchy and sweaty strip where it was bonded.

Matt was mostly talking out his ass, as usual, Declan took almost all his classes online, he found no point in physically being in a school when he could learn the same things at home. It was night but he didn’t really need to sleep right now. Even if he missed the time he could still watch the recordings. And he didn’t feel tired enough to sleep.

But still, he didn’t have enough energy to do anything else.

So he sat on the edge of his bed, AAD back in place as he aimlessly scrolled through the internet. Eventually, he came to a now long deleted post by the Yggdrasil developer.

‘Mythic Tomb of Nilbog could be run with more than ten people.’

He was technically correct, you technically could go into the Tomb with ten people on Mythic difficulty, but succeeding with a full clear was a completely different beast.

The main problem was Watcher of Death Vek’Na, the boss was the first you could encounter, but entirely skippable by just going around his room. Yet the bastard was a difficult one to fight. It had an automatic percent HP execute that increased based on the number of players in the raid, at five, it was 40%, at six, it was 60%, seven, 75%, ten, 80%. That execute will hit any player that hit that HP threshold regardless of where they were within the dungeon. Given the boss’s large array of high damage abilities, insane durability for a low tier boss, it was simply impossible to out damage the thing fast enough.

Even if it would make the raid significantly easier to kill Vek’Na, it was far easier to fight your way to the final boss without ever fighting Vek’Na.

That’s why the First Clear of the raid was already claimed by the Emerald Swords, while the First Full Clear remains a distant impossibility.

And many people agreed with him, all over the forums, people complained about the numbers of Vek’Na being far too overtuned. It was impossible unless they were an overstacked guild with nothing but tryhards, and even then.

Emerald Swords claimed the First Clear, but Immense Girth, Goop Troop, Lazarus Hollow, Thick Thighs Save Lives and Complexity Bop were all following close behind to try and get that First Full Clear.

And they were all failing.

While no clear progress report can be found from each, the members of all those guilds were complaining loudly on the forums. Loudest of which was-

He blinked as he clicked on a profile, ‘Mattmanfoo’. Scrolling through Matt’s history, he could find nine pages of just him yelling expletives over the forum.

‘No, it fucking couldn’t. You delusional detached piece of shitstain game developer…’

His direct response to the dev’s first response to the impossibility of Mythic ToN. Followed up by far more comments after the dev’s second response.

And as he refreshed, he found a tenth page of him still raging over the forums.

That idiot was still awake.

Declan didn’t understand, no couldn’t understand, why Matt was wasting his time on something like this, something pointless, something that was just wasting energy.

Though he didn’t pay attention to the talks inside the group, he did catch many things.

Alex, the clone soldier that presumably dragged Matt into Australia was leaving for another tour, Matt dragged them into this game after Declan half-heartedly invited him in. Matt wanted to get a First Full Clear for them, to get their character’s name, Aban Twice Crowned, placed on the Raid first clears so that there was something achieved before they left. Something they did together.

Declan understood it intellectually, but he couldn’t understand it emotionally.

It was just text on a game, nothing noteworthy, nothing to write home about, nothing that couldn’t be achieved when Alex returned.

‘If Alex returned.’

There was always a chance that they died, that they perished on the way. No one to find their body lost amongst the wastes.

He didn’t understand.

But he wasn’t tired, he felt lethargic sure, but he’s felt like that for the past few years. So, he brought up Vek’Na’s wiki page, seeing the stats and numbers that other players have datamined. Then he took out everyone’s character sheets. Aban Twice Crowned was a tank build Battle Smith, highly durable and able to use a variety of automatons to assist them in battle. HitZaDec’s build was a Hemomancer, basically, a vampire that could manipulate everyone’s health for benefits. Mattmanfoo was a Sharpshooter, specialising in long-range sustained damage and combos. Mortimer Memento was a Necromancer, mostly focused on burst necrotic damage and ally raising. Finally, Silv3r_Belle was a Maven, doing AOE healing, supporting and buffing.

He had all the stats he needed, the numbers to calculate the outcomes. It was simple, one just needed to keep a good understanding of the battlefield, he had a night to burn, so he began writing, calculating. He became hungry halfway through, raiding his sweets pantry several times throughout the night…

Declan woke to someone gently tapping him.

He groggily pushed aside candy wrappers and virtual notes alike. Blinking blearily as the curtains opened with his waking, letting in the light of the sun. He noticed next the string of notifications at the edge of his vision, then at the person standing next to him.

“Matt?” he called out in confusion, “How’d you…”

“You still use a traditional lock for the back door,” he answered as if that explained everything.

“What time is-” he noticed it at the edge of his vision, 5:42 pm, displayed on his virtual interface.

At the same time, Matt answered, “5:42, ya lazy cunt slept till evening.”

Declan shook off the last remnants of sleep as Matt continued, “What kept you up so long? We’re trying again tonight.”

And he remembered what he was doing, sighing, Declan muttered, “Don’t bother, we won’t succeed either way.”

“What do you-”

At that moment Declan’s stomach rumbled, loudly.

Matt raised an eyebrow, “There’s a good pizza place nearby.”

“What’s its name?” Declan asked, already scrolling the air for nearby restaurants.

“Oh no,” Matt grabbed his arm, “the weather ain’t even forty today, we’re going out to eat.”

Declan groaned, “Why eat out when take out-”

“I’m shouting.”

Declan shut up, letting the much skinnier and shorter teen peel him off his desk like an old scab. Following in step behind him as they left the house.

The weather outside was a pleasant twenty degrees, almost freezing compared to what both boys were used to, but it was a small matter as they made their way to the pizzeria.

“I’m telling you, Vek’Na is mathematically impossible to beat,” Declan began.

“There’s gotta be a way, a fucking trick to it,” Matt said as our pizzas were brought out, “Can’t we get better stats?”

Declan shook his head, “When I said mathematically impossible to beat, I mean I used the top raiding builds and then some! The DPS check was still impossible. There is simply not a comp that can both survive to his last phase and kill him during it.”

He continued to elaborate, “I used Lazarus Hollow’s five man raiding party as a baseline, since of all the guilds they had the best equipment, assuming they were completely world buffed, pre-buffed, going in with their maxed orange items and played perfectly…”

Declan threaded his fingers, “In a straight fight, Vek’Na will win with 13% health remaining.”

And that was approaching the theoretical limit of how strong a raid party could be. “The simple truth is, Vek’Na’s final stage is that of a DPS check boss, you either had the damage to kill him, or you don’t and you fail. And at this current, no five-man party has the DPS to get through his normal and rage phase.”

If they only had to deal with one or the other, it would be possible, but the thing is, not even counting his abilities, Vek’Na’s stats were overtuned. His HP and armour matched that of Torquise Eternity from the Four Heavenly Kings Raid and his base damage output matched that of the Gunner of Ninth Heaven, adding in his abilities, then Vek’Na was without a doubt, the mathematically strongest boss currently in Yggdrasil. He required two very different strategies to even survive, his initial phase was that of outlasting him, having the needed durability to survive all his attacks, but once his rage phase activated, it was a thing of outputting more damage than him, because, with all Vek’Na’s scaling stats, he will raid wipe the party. But given his first phase, two-three of the party’s slots needed to be dedicated to tanks and healers, which meant the remaining slots for DPSers won’t be enough to take out his final enrage phase before he raid wiped.

“In truth,” he continued, “Vek’Na’s stats are closer to that of a ten to fifteen man raid boss, but given his HP execute, you really can’t bring more than five or six people into the instance. If, and this is a big if, every player was fully maxed out, had the best equipment and were top 1% players, they might be able to beat it with seven to eight people.”

And they were not that, Declan knew. Between all five of them, only Matt had orange equipment, his dual pistols, Setting Sun and Mourning Moon.

Matt was ruminating on the information, his slice idly dripping cheese from his prosthetic hands, “What if you made a mistake?”

“I might have,” Declan answered, but he didn’t truly believe, for all his theorising, it was actually proven in reality. On the forums, there was a clip of Emerald Swords just barely managing to break Vek’Na’s HP from 17% to 16%, and that was with the last shot by the last member of that party, it was also confirmed by other raiding guilds that 15% was the lowest anyone has ever gotten Vek’Na.

Declan finished his own pizza, “Like I said, Vek’Na is mathematically impossible to beat, so we should just give up.”

‘Rather than waste our lives on something pointless.’

Because in the end, it was not something they could achieve through hard work, it was not an effort that would be rewarded. Vek’Na’s numbers were simply better. And assuming a miracle did happen, that they did manage to kill Vek’Na, what would they get, other than a name on a database? What would they get, that won’t be simplified and made easy in the future?

The journey was impossible, the destination was pointless.

And why bother chasing the pointless?