The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 3 (7 page)

“Yep. When we get in there, we just need to take out those yellow guys first, and the rest should be smooth sailing,” Daniel said with a nod.

“Alright, that shouldn’t be hard if they’re only Level 60.” Darwin clapped Daniel on the back. “Let’s do it!”

“Wait, you don’t want to make snow angels first?” Daniel teased for a moment, flapping his wings once as an obvious taunt at Minx.

“No no! Kill kill!” she replied, brushing off the remaining snow and pulling out a pair of newly-acquired daggers. “Stabby stabby some yeti yeti!”

“I don’t think the bad guys will be yetis,” Kitchens said, patting her on the head as they walked up to the dungeon door and slowly opened it. “But they might be . . .”

“Snow cones with sprinkles on top!” Minx shouted enthusiastically as the door swung open, indeed revealing a set of mobs that could only be described as floating snow cones with sprinkles and cherries. As Daniel had mentioned in his briefing, the baddies were indeed different colors. There, in front of the intrepid band of warriors, stood an assortment of devilish desserts: three blue snow cones, two red and two yellow. There was also an ominous black snow cone lurking behind the colorful ones.

The mob design matched the theme of the dungeon, which seemed to be something of a winter wonderland. Each section of the dungeon was covered with snow flakes that circulated from the floor to the walls and back up to the roof, where they would fall and repeat the process. It was as if the dungeon was comprised of automated snow globes.

“Great.” Darwin facepalmed.
Please tell me this was randomly generated from some weird AI function of search words thrown together and that someone didn’t actually design this dungeon.
Darwin sighed. He just didn’t understand how they could go from fighting hideous insect monsters to snow cones with sprinkles in less than five minutes and after only walking through one door. This was too random.

“Okay, now, I know you said that the yellow ones were the healers, and that we needed to kill them first . . .” Mclean started, but Minx immediately finished her thought.

“Ewwwwww! I don’t want to touch the yellow snowmen! I know how they’re made!” She pointed her finger at her mouth and made a gagging sound as she complained.

“So you want to fight the blue and red ones first because you don’t want to touch the yellow ones?” Darwin laughed. This snow cones with sprinkles-on-top mob set was already becoming more problematic than he had first expected.

“Uhhh . . . What is the black one?” Minx asked instead of answering Darwin’s question.

“Daniel, did Nir have any information about that?” Darwin looked at the black snow cone. Even though it was the same size and shape as the other floating icy delights, this one gave off a weird vibe that left Darwin on edge, almost making him want to pull back from the attack altogether.

“No . . . which is rare. The guy has a guide on everything. It may just mean that the dungeon hasn’t been attempted more than once, and those that tried it gave a spotty report.”

“Or that a group of people bailed before they could finish the report,” Kitchens offered with a shrug. It wasn’t the most positive possible outcome, but it was still a very real possibility.

“Or it could be a ZombCone!” Minx added, gigglier than usual, even after her grossed out reaction. “Maybe that is their fallen friend, risen back as a delicious dark dessert to be eaten. Every time he kills another player, a new topping is added. Soon, he’ll be granted nuts and chocolate chips!”

Darwin was almost tempted to join in on her wild speculations, but instead decided to just get the dungeon going before any guessing about the blue or red snow cones’ origins came into play. “Alright, you know what, I’ll just kill the yellow snow cones with Mclean and Daniel. Minx, if you don’t want to help with them, how about you work with Kitchens and Fuzzy Wuzzy to keep those red and blue ones off us. Daniel, I know you’re going to be fighting with me, but try to watch the behavior of that black one. Let me know if anything funny starts to happen, or if you have a guess as to what role it has.”

“Wait, you’re going to make me put my hands into yellow snow cones?” Mclean gasped. She obviously wasn’t hot about the idea either.

“Hopefully it’ll just be your daggers,” Daniel chuckled.

“I’m just happy it’s not my job.” Kitchens patted Minx on the head. “Good job, Minx.”

Fuzzy Wuzzy growled his approval too.

“Okay, you two go pull them. We’ll sneak through and gank their healers.” Darwin gave out the orders, pulling out his giant, flaming zweihander. He expected the fight to start right away, but Kitchens held up his hand as if to pause and stopped everyone.

“Wait, what does ‘gank’ mean?” he asked, showing his age.

“You’re not too old to play, are you?” Mclean smirked at him. “It means gang shank, group kill, surprise stab. I don’t know. It’s something like that. It just means that Darwin, Daniel and I are all going to go attack the same target at once while all the others are focused on you three.”

“Ah, fair enough. Carry on then.” Kitchens pulled out his sword and began his samurai-stride towards the first enemy.

Darwin and his group of yellow-snow-cone-killers waited patiently as Minx, Kitchens and Fuzzy Wuzzy each went up and started attacking the enemy snow cones. At first, it looked like Kitchens was simply going to do his usual trick where he walked up and cut one of the enemies in half, but as his blade made contact with one of the snow cones, a giant hexagonal shield blocked his katana before it even got close to shaving any ice off his target. Two giant icicles appeared behind one of the red snow cones and flew at Kitchens, forcing him to step back and deflect them with his blade. Minx and Fuzzy Wuzzy ran into the same bad luck, except Fuzzy Wuzzy couldn’t dodge and ended up being impaled by one of the ice blades. Fortunately for Fuzzy Wuzzy, it didn’t seem to do much damage, but the roar he let out when it hit sounded pretty bad.

“Crap, I’m going to sub for Fuzzy Wuzzy,” Darwin decided after he saw the event. “Daniel, Mclean, you two go hit that healer. Fuzzy Wuzzy, retreat until they stop attacking you.” Darwin almost said, ‘until you lose aggro,’ but didn’t know if the bear could understand commands that were laid out in gamer speak. ‘Aggro’ was a common word among gamers, but he couldn’t be positive it was put into the game’s lexicon for recognizable phrases, and he still wasn’t sure what type of system gave Fuzzy Wuzzy intelligence or even how intelligent he was to begin with.

Darwin jumped between the black bear and a series of fresh icicles coming from the red snow cones just in time to block them before his pet took any more damage. Then, after having deflected the red snow cone’s attack, he swung at one of the blue cones to try and inflict some damage. Just like with Kitchens, however, his blade harmlessly clanked off a magical set of yellow hexagons that popped up and protected the blue enemy.

He swung a few more times, and he could tell that the shielding slowly started to grow fainter, losing color and opacity like a picture fading away on a television set. Unfortunately for Darwin, before he could batter the pesky hexagons from existence, they renewed, regaining all the luster they had lost under his barrage.
What the hell?
Never having run into a real party combo in Tiqpa, this healer shield was almost foreign to him. Most mobs--and players, for that matter--that he had encountered so far had only been focused on damage-dealing.

“Darwin, the yellow guys are spreading yellow stuff everywhere! I can’t do damage!” Minx complained on the other side of the battle field.

“Just a moment,” Daniel called to them as his and Mclean’s daggers dug into the healer cone over and over again like four straws all vying for position as they tried to get the last bit of liquid from the bottom of a movie theater slushy. “There!”

Sure enough, as soon as Daniel had signaled them, Darwin drove his burning blade right through his opponent, melting the creature into a mess of blue liquid. He still had trouble deflecting and dodging the red icicles, but without the yellow shield up protecting the blue tanks, they were able to finish the job easily enough. One by one, the three cones went down and the battle was almost over. Just as they finished off the others, the odd black snow cone condensed into a small black snowball that was tiny enough to fit in one’s hand with room left over for two or three more.

“What do you think we do with that?” Mclean asked, pointing at the floating black ball.

“I . . . I don’t know. It looks like an item. Why don’t I just put it in my inventory and figure it out later?” Darwin asked rhetorically as he stashed the item. They were gamers--of course they were going to take something that had the option to be looted.

“Hey, boss, I need to take your place in the next fight,” Daniel said to him.

“Do you not think you can damage them fast enough?” Darwin misunderstood Daniel’s motivations.

“Those yellow ones . . . Their shielding spell appears to be stronger than any of the player versions I’ve read about. We need them to turn into red-eyes. Our team has no healers at all right now,” Daniel reasoned. “What if we run into a boss that does damage we can’t avoid? A few of those yellow guys might help keep us all from dying instantly.”

“Well . . .” Darwin was about to answer with ‘You’re the boss,’ but he figured that might be in poor taste since, technically, that was still his own role. Sometimes, however, with the way Daniel came up with layouts and formations, battle strategies, group tactics and general logistics, it often felt like he was more in control of the planning than Darwin. “That does sound about right. You sure you don’t want to just steal a whole group and play chess while they level us up?”

Daniel raised a finger as if he had something to say, then lowered it. “I guess not. Maybe just the yellow guys.”

“Alright then, that should be easy enough. Let’s go get us some yellow snow cones.” Darwin laughed and began the walk towards the next group of mobs.

He hadn’t taken more than ten steps before he heard Kitchens behind him. “Minx, put that down. What are you eating?” Kitchens scolded his daughter.

“But red means cherry. It’s tasty!” Minx whimpered. “Even Fuzzy Wuzzy thinks so!”

Darwin turned around to see Minx holding a ball of red snow. She was still licking it and taking bites even after her dad chastised her.

“Come on, try it!” she said, holding out a handful of the enemy’s slushy, red remains.

“I’d rather not. It might be poisonous, and I don’t think any of us have an antidote type of potion,” the ever-vigilant Kitchens replied sternly, not at all swayed by his daughter.

“Darwin, you try then!” Minx produced another giant ball of the red snow that she had obviously saved for later and tossed it to Darwin.

Darwin looked at the red ball in his hands with suspicion. Half of him wanted to just agree with Kitchens and toss it back to her, but everyone was eyeing him like he was the first one in the group to test a rickety bridge. Minx wasn’t showing any signs of being affected yet, and while that did little to assure him that the snow cone wasn’t poisonous, it did make him feel intensely pressured to try it.
They’re going to think I’m a chicken if I don’t, aren’t they?
He sighed, stuck out his tongue and gave the red ball a lick.
Holy crud! It’s cherry flavored!

“This is wonderful. You guys have to try it,” he said, breaking the giant ball he had been given by Minx into smaller bits and passing it around to everyone except Fuzzy Wuzzy. The bear was already working away at his own blue snowball, which Minx appeared to be in the process of taking away and trying to use as a hat for him.

“I didn’t realize dungeons in this game came with snacks,” Mclean said, biting into the red snowball. “But you are right, this is tasty.”

"Why wouldn't they come with edible delights?” Darwin laughed. “I’ve been using dungeons as a food source for the NPCs since the very first one.”

“Well, I mean, there is still one question regarding these snow cones. . .” Daniel greedily took another bite of his. “Do they have enough sugar to be served in an American restaurant? Will they make our guildmates grow wider more quickly than they grow stronger?”

“You’re worried about weight gain in a video game? If you don’t want to put on pixels, why didn’t you just alter your character’s appearance in the creation menu?” Mclean shook her head. “Aren’t girls supposed to be the ones worried about packing on the pounds?”

“Well, new day, new standards. Can’t be chubby cheeks and pull all of the mad ladies like me.” Daniel flexed once or twice in the most over-exaggerated manner he could.

“You have a girlfriend?” Darwin asked curiously.

“Um . . . No, but at least I have the body to get one!” Daniel flexed one more time.

“Yeah . . . that’s not how it works.” Mclean bopped Daniel on the back of his head. “Dufus.”

Now is as good a time as any.
Darwin sighed, not wanting to actually broach this subject with the gang yet. “Actually, there is something I need to talk to you guys about.” Darwin took another bite of his own cherry-flavored treat. The dungeon hadn’t even really started yet, and the whole group, other than Kitchens, was quietly eating away at their dessert as if they were celebrating a hard-earned victory over the boss.

“Wait, you’re not gonna tell us you’re actually a fat forty-year-old with hygiene problems, are you? I mean, I did have my suspicions, especially with how much you like milk and cookies, but I wasn’t gonna say anything, boss.” Daniel’s joke caused both Minx and Mclean to cringe at the mental image.