《Graphomurk》Chapter 13.13 – World of Elements
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I went into the caves, killed a couple of pirates, and sat down on a rock to wait for Dramg to leave the island. Finally, after half an hour, the color of his name changed, and I went further into the caves. In total, I had to kill 17 pirates before the system message appeared in front of me:
*** 'Urg Bloody Heart started hunting'.
After that, I ran through the dungeons for another hour until I found my target. In one of the lines of the future, I carelessly flew right at his feet, and then I was killed with a single blow. The boss had 25,000 HP. He was dressed in high-quality leather armor, and armed with a strange pecker surrounded by a dangerous purple aura. For ordinary pirates, the profession could only be determined by the weapons and skills they used. But in the information window about the boss, I could see that his profession is a Fanatic Priest. Accordingly, he could not only fight hand-to-hand, but also heal himself. This turned out to be a real combat unit, which could only be killed by infusing massive damage in a short period of time.
After running around of the boss, I found out his 'aggression radius'. When he saw me, he didn't rush forward, but just started walking in my direction. He only attacked if I dealt him damage or hit him in the attack radius with a weapon. Apparently, the game developers assumed that the boss could roam the dungeon for quite a long time, so it didn't make sense to spoil the life of ordinary players because of this. With certain precautions, it was quite easy to avoid a fight with the boss
The boss did not just stand still, but wandered through the dungeons, 'hunting' those who dared to kill his subordinates. Now that I had a rough idea of what the enemy is like, I could think of ways to kill them. Obviously, such a thing as a murder of a rare raid boss by one person was not envisaged by the game developers. But, as I have already seen, there were holes in the game mechanics, so they could be used somehow.
After a little more experimentation with the boss, I found out how to guarantee to capture his attention. I only had one distance spell with a range of 10 meters. This distance was too small. In response to my Magic Arrow, the boss could cast his spell, killing me with a single blow.
I knew that Scouts had a 'Stone Throw' skill, which allowed them to attack a target at a distance of 20 meters. The damage there was ridiculous small, but the main thing in it is to attract the attention of the target. I tried Stone Throw, and it worked. Of course, it didn't do any damage, but the boss then used his the 'Attraction of Faith' skill. If it will work, I will be pulled to the boss. But, if the control is blocked by my Resistance, then the boss will fly towards me, waving his arms absurdly and plopping on his stomach right in front of me. It would seem funny, but after that second of shame, he would jump to his feet and kill me with a one punch.
After thinking about this feature, I gathered five stones in reserve and ran to a place in the cave, which at one time made me marvel at the authenticity of the image of caves in the game. When I got to the right part of the dungeon, I began to examine the passage, in the center of which was a wide hole in the floor. The only way to pass it is by following a narrow path that ran along the wall. The hole was quite deep. It could probably be called an 'Elevator' that could move you from the top level of the caves to the bottom. However, it was possible to move along it only in one direction, and at the bottom you will be greeted by stalagmite peaks.
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I looked into the hole, and then in one of the lines of probability jumped down. I flew fast, but I still had enough time to make sure that as a result I got to exactly the place I was hoping for. So, I need to conduct a small experiment. What happens if we throw the boss down? The question was interesting, but there was one problem - I couldn't answer it just by looking through the probability lines. So, I had to go downstairs, find the wandering boss again, and then 'bring' him to the right place.
For the last hundred meters, Urg followed me reluctantly, and constantly 'broke free', turning to side. I had to approach him at a dangerous distance, balancing literally on the boundary of his attack radius.
Finally, I managed to lead the boss to the hole. Then I quickly ran along the path around the hole, took out the stone from the inventory and threw it at the boss. At the same time, I had to manipulate the probabilities, picking up the correct parameters of the throw, because it was quite difficult to launch the stone exactly at the target. I also chose the place and time of the throw so that when boss will use spell to me, my Resistance will protect me from the effects of control.
As a result, the boss caught a rock right in the forehead, used his 'Attraction of Faith ' skill on me, and ... fell straight into the hole, amusingly wailing all the way down. In addition to throwing a stone, I managed to throw a Magic Arrow at him, dealing only 3 points of damage.
Having crashed down, the boss remained alive. Moreover, from where I was standing, I could see that he didn't hit the stalagmites that were so dangerously protruding, but just hit the floor, which removed only five percent of his health. Rising to his feet, he used the healing spell, completely restoring his life, then with a wild roar, he rushed away through the corridors. However, after five minutes of waiting, I again saw the boss running towards me in the corridor.
As soon as he reached the attack range, the boss again used the "Attraction of Faith", fell into the hole and ... again survived. While this lucky contagion was running through the caves for the second time, I began to adjust to the manipulation of the probabilities so that when the boss will fell, he would definitely hit the tip of one of the stalagmites.
Five minutes later, the boss showed up again, but he was running from the other side, so I had to run around the hole. I only had a few seconds to predict the future, but in the end, I was able to guess my position, in which the boss almost got to the opposite end of the hole, but slipped on its edge and flew down, a little pushed off by the wall. Because of this awkward movement, the boss flew not on the side of the hole, but right in the middle, in the finale naturally landing on stalagmite.
Even so, he didn't die, but only lost a third of his health. The game was still to some extent a "sandbox" and quite allowed certain manipulations with physical objects, taking into account the laws of physics. The stalagmite pierced through the boss, and he had no way to get out. Moreover, with every move, he took damage from stalagmite, which he immediately heal.
After watching this scene for a couple of tens of seconds, I rushed through the corridors, going down to the desired level. There I cautiously approached the boss and found out that he could not attack me if I came in from the side of his head and did not attack with a spear. And after that, a rather dull story began.
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The boss was constantly twitching and losing about one percent of his health per second. But every four seconds, he used healing with a half-second duration. At this point, I used my Discharge spell to break his healing. Due to the weak effectiveness of the first-level spell, paralysis did not always work. In this case, the boss's health raises by ten percent. Fortunately, failures did not happen very often, so in overall, the health of the boss started to decrease.
I had to 'stand over the soul' of the boss for more than five minutes before he finally died. For the last two minutes, he was constantly on the verge of death, but managed to use the healing, even despite my intervention. And then, with a final twitch, the boss screamed loudly and died. I took a deep breath and stretched out my greedy, grasping hands to the still not cold corpse.
Meanwhile, system messages appeared in front of me.
*** 'Raid under the command of the player Cheater was the first on the server killed the boss Urg Blood Heart'.
** 'The raid under the command of the player Cheater has set a new record of murdering the boss Urg Blood Heart. New duration: 23:11. Damage received by the players: 0. Deaths: 0. Previous duration of the fight improved by 36:49'.
*** 'For the first murder of Urg Bloody Heart you get a permanent bonus of 3% to the force of stun.'
*** 'For setting a new murder record of Urg Bloody Heart, you get a bonus of 6% to the force of stun. The bonus is valid until someone exceeds your record.'
By opening the loot collection window, I found 25 silver coins, a beautiful blue triangular hat designed for level 4 players, and a ‘perfect large sapphire’. The crafting stones used to make the talismans had different 'quality' indicators. I used a small stone of ordinary quality in my talismans. With such characteristics, I could only count on a maximum efficiency of 100%. But if you use high-quality stones, you could get a bonus to damage or control effects. Plus, for some spells, it was necessary to use large-sized stones. The perfect large sapphire was a resource for level 10 players and above, making it extremely valuable.
In addition to these three things, I got a quest map, which indicated the location of the cache. I immediately combined it with my system map and got an approximate search area. I immediately went there, parallelly considering the 'hat' I got. It was quite stylish, decorated with gilt and had a large slot for the amulet. Amulets were similar to talismans, only the spells embedded in them acted constantly and exclusively on the person who wore this item of clothing. The quality of the hat was 'blue', so, armor level and weight matched the leather armor.
I was distracted from looking at the trophy by a private chat message from ‘Dramg the Magnificent’.
“- How????!!!!!”
Apparently, he was in a state of complete stupefaction, because he spent 10 copper for such useless question. However, I also had enough money, so I could spend some copper to brag in front of another player.
“- Trade secret. How much are you willing to pay for this information? Considering, I'll soon have 50 gold on my hands, so you don't even have to offer silver.”
The answer came in a couple of minutes.
"- I suggest to meet."
Ho! Does he want to beat the shit out of me?.. I mean, all the gold?
"- I'll write to you when I get back to the city.”
I answered. Before going to the meeting, I was going to go to the bank and put the money and valuables 'into the warehouse'.
"- I'll be waiting." - I got a reply from Dramg.
Apparently, he was completely pinned down that he spending money for such a useless phrase. But he is an adept of the Elements of the Earth, who are all misers and greedy.
In the meantime, I wandered into corridors I'd never visited before. There was a cunning corridor, the passage into which was almost invisible from the side. Inside, I met a group of four pirates, which I had to deal. At least there was only one Sniper, so dodging the attacks wasn't that difficult. The exact location of the cache was unknown, so I had to spend almost an hour tapping and sniffing around a hundred meters of passageway.
Finally, I was able to find a stone embedded into the notch in the wall. Behind it was an alcove containing a small chest. When I opened it, I found 50 gold coins and... Purple Wand for the level 1 Magician. It allowed to shoot Magic Arrow without the cost of mana. For the first level, it may have been cool, but in fact this wand is garbage. Ten damages per second? Lol. Completely trash.
Disappointed, I put the wand in my inventory, and I checked the contents of the chest and the alcove again, but found nothing new. However, I got another system message.
*** ‘Ered Crooked Sword declared you as his enemy. Beware! Time until the end of feud: 20 days.'
When I was ready, I stuffed all the loot, including the chest, into my inventory and hurried outside, intending to exit the cave system through one of the coastal exits at the very edge of the shore. I came across this exit yesterday while looking for pirates. From there it was possible to get along the shore to the place where there was a wharf with a boatman. Taking into account the de-buff 'Enemy of Ered Crooked Sword' imposed on me, I had another run ahead of me.
Despite the death of the boss, there were still rebel pirates in the dungeon. Only now, after death, they loot not 40 copper coins, but at best a couple. With such an income, killing the pirates didn't make any sense, so I hurried outside, killing the opponents only if they couldn't be bypassed.
When I came out of the cave, I found myself on the bare rocks near the surf line. To the left, the sea frowned, and to the right, the rocky shore of the volcano towered. There were no beaches in this part of the island, and in some places the rocks fell directly into the water. Looking around, I found a barely noticeable path, which I began to climb up, carefully looking around.
But no matter how careful I was, the pirates found me first. At one point, four pirates appeared on the path ahead, hurrying to get to me. There was no sniper among them, so they could only attack with cold weapons. For some reason I didn't understand, there wasn't a single mage among the pirates. With such a selection of the composition, I was able to destroy the opponents, skillfully maneuvering between rocks and trees.
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