“While the creatures in NEMO posed no real physical threat to players, the pain and suffering of unfortunate encounters lingered. Players were quick to log out when captured or when their doom became inescapable. Even with pain settings at zero, being eaten alive by monsters or vivisected or ripped limb from limb carried a psychological toll.”
Excerpt from “Virtual World, Real Risks” by Dr. Louise Andrews
Year 1, Month 1, Day 13, 14:00
Thirty members of Risk of Injury lay prone behind a ridge, observing hordes of spiders moving through a grove of immense trees. Webs stretched between them, creating a cotton candy cloud of white tendrils. The smaller spiders, the size of basketballs with legs, traveled along the silken strands hung loosely between the trees. The elite spiders, closer in size to bears, waited, content to quietly fuel the nightmares of any observers. Torgon shuddered, involuntarily brushing his hands over his body in response to the arachnid horror below.
Dusty, Physical Ed and the other three tanks moved between the groups holding their ranged weapons out but ready to swap out for shields once the fight kicked off. The adventurers nocked arrows, prepared spells, aimed at the nearest cluster and opened fire. Several of the spiders died instantly under the onslaught leaving the survivors crawling towards the group. The elites stayed in place while dozens, perhaps hundreds of smaller spiders swarmed in a living carpet of chitinous fury eager for the blood of the players.
The group pumped arrows, bolts and spells into the oncoming horde. The horde thinned, but the wave of monsters would soon reach them. When they were only forty yards away, groups of spiders split off to the side and turned around to fire webs at the group. Players dodged the sticky projectiles, but they kept on firing. The terror mixed incongruously with the sentiment that spiders had cans of silly string hidden in their behinds, using them to coat everyone liberally. The tanks in front found their shields harder to shift as more and more strands attached to them.
A furious melee erupted in the position with fierce slashes from swords impacting fangs and legs. Steve punted a spider back down the hill leaving one of its fangs embedded in his boot. Torgon struggled to find patches of ground not covered in webbing to maneuver through. He kept his fusillade of arrows going while the fight became increasingly confused and desperate. He was forced to put his bow away and draw his sword, moving behind the line of tanks to place healing touches on them.
Dusty slashed through a larger spider and shuddered lightly as the tingling warmth of a heal washed over. “I bet you wish you’d spent the points to get the ranged heal, right Torg?”
Torgon scraped webbing from his sword and replied, “I plan on it. I can’t slot it right now anyway; I need to free up a skill slot first.” He slashed through a small spider trying to sneak behind the tanks and groaned as ichor splashed all over him.
Ovarrix shouted, “Pull Back! We’ll string them out away from the grove, so they don’t get any more reinforcements.” He punctuated his words with more slashes from his sword. The team moved away from the trees as the pressure on them from the spiders lessened. Heals kept anyone from dying but the poison from the spiders made them sluggish.
The first wave of monsters was finally defeated, and the force took stock of their situation. Several players collapsed to the ground, waiting for the poison to run its course. Regeneration slowly began topping mana, energy and health back up for the group. The battlefield was scoured for loot. The spiders dropped no coins but provided a wide variety of crafting materials of basic quality. Vials of venom and pieces of spider webbing were harvested. Pieces of the spider’s exoskeletons and fangs also dropped. The spider materials promised applications for armor and weapons. New shields were cast while they considered what had happened.
“The spiders aren’t that strong individually, but their numbers are a pain. The webs mostly restrict movement, making it harder to dodge attacks. Each bite adds a paralytic poison that slows you down even more. Nobody got higher than 5 stacks, but I think around 10 stacks you would be completely helpless. I really don’t want to imagine what will happen if you can’t move, get cocooned and are dragged back into the spider’s lair.” Ovarrix shared what he learned with the group.
Torgon shuddered again, “Nobody gets captured. If we see someone being taken away, we either rescue them or kill them. I don’t want anyone to experience being slowly dissolved by acids and then drunk like a milkshake.”
Everyone grouped up and shared their observations on the fight as they prepared a plan to push into the grove and conquer it for the guild. Meanwhile, the rest of the starting zones in the kingdom and across the game were in an uproar. Announcements flashed informing all of them of approaching armies of monsters intent upon laying siege to their cities. None of the cities were prepared as everyone had thought that the sieges wouldn’t begin until a rare questline triggered it. A few of the most powerful guilds and organizations made calm preparations but for most, panic was the order of the day.
The group finished their plans and Torgon spoke, “Take a few minutes to dump experience into skills you think might help, then we’ll start our assault. Remember the plan, fast and focused, try to limit the amount that can come to us at any one time. We’ll retreat if we think we’ll be overwhelmed, nobody gets taken alive.”
Grim faces nodded and then took on the distant stares of players looking at their status windows. Torgon kept his free experience, there was nothing of immediate help and he would need it to clear a slot to take the ranged heal soon. A few players improved combat skills, healing skills or just any skill to boost an attribute point. They were all ready for the task ahead, spider extermination.
The spiders defending the grove moved around in agitated groups. They reeked of aggression and desire for battle. The team formed into an arrowhead shape with Dusty in the lead. Other tanks went to the sides with melee combatants on the edge and the ranged combatants in the middle. Healers stayed behind the tanks and melee, ready to use ranged spells and weapons until it was time to care for their charges.
Smaller groups of spiders came under fire while the unit moved forward. They stopped to finish off larger groups then resumed advancing directly towards the elite spiders. With the extra spiders in range killed off, they started their pull on the elites. Torgon carefully fired an arrow with a double shot into the closest elite spider, when its pathing took it the farthest distance possible from the others.
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The spider charged the group by itself; no others had been pulled. It rammed into the shields at the front while its hard exoskeleton turned away most attacks. The better archers would penetrate the beast’s hard shell but a few just glanced off. They put their weapons away and used support skills or just stayed out of the way. Torgon’s arrows sank deep into the spider. Dusty was forced to use her taunt to focus the spider on her. It kept trying to force its way past the tanks to get to Torgon. It was quickly worn down by the group and dispatched. The members of Risk of Injury rubbed their hands in glee when the spider dropped common ranked crafting materials.
The team continued forward slowly, dispatching the elite spiders one at a time. They cleared the webs from their area, making sure they had a line of retreat open if it was necessary to flee. Eventually they came to the first opening into the underground spider lair.
“The Queen’s Grove is claimable. It contains 200 basic wood nodes, 25 common wood nodes and 3 advanced wood nodes. Required Guild Reputation to claim: 2,500. Required rank with Miller’s Crossing, Knight. May use one control slot. To stake your claim you must defeat the monsters inside the grove. When enough monsters have been defeated, The Spider Queen will appear. Defeat the Queen to take control of the location.”
“Oh yeah, I’m really looking forward to fighting the biggest spider I’ve ever seen in her underground lair.” Allestor twirled his sword and eyed the passageway skeptically. “Do we send in Dusty first or maybe Steve?”
“Hey!” Steve protested.
“I’ve got this. I’ll protect you from the big bad spiders.” Dusty hefted her shield and pressed inside the tunnel. The group stretched out behind her, all thirty pushing their way into the warren of tunnels. The tunnels were dug from hard packed dirt, and the walls were supported by massive roots. The main tunnel stretched wide enough for two people to walk abreast comfortably. A spider attacked from a narrow side tunnel and the group struggled to get enough players on it to dispatch it quickly. Spells from the casters proved most effective in providing support. A mix of regular and elite spiders skittered towards the group. The tanks covered the tunnel openings, keeping spiders back before letting them through in small groups to be finished off by the main force.
Dusty pressed forward, leading the group through the tunnels until they emerged in a large chamber deep underground. The earthen room spread over sixty feet across with a huge purplish black spider sitting against the packed earth of the wall. Larger versions of the elite spiders flanked her, protecting a clutch of spider eggs piled high. Cocooned prey dangled from the ceiling of the chamber. The stench of rotting meat permeated the fetid air.
Ovarrix directed Dusty and Physical Ed to tank the Queen and divided the other tanks up among the elite troops. Damage dealers with enough power to hurt the monsters were ordered to prioritize the left Elite, while those who could barely injure them needed to focus on supporting the tanks with blocks, parries and heals. Torgon focused his arrow attacks and burned through his energy firing double shots. The first part of the fight went smoothly, but alas, soon, things went straight to hell.
The queen fired a web that plastered Physical Ed to the wall of the chamber. The webbing burned his skin, ticking his health down and freeing her to turn towards the rest of the raid. Ovarrix yelled for people to cut Ed free. The queen kept attacking Dusty with her fangs and forelegs while pointing her spinnerets at the group. Strands of sticky webbing flew out, coating players and leading to a tank dying to an elite. Allestor and Ovarrix stepped up to tank the elite spider guard the damage dealers were focusing down, sending the two tanks to help with the other elite spider.
It took a few seconds to free Ed and allow him to go back to rotation tanking on the queen. The first elite spider fell and lessened the pressure on the group. All the tanks now traded off tanking the queen with Dusty as main tank. Poison stacks added up, forcing Dusty to disengage completely and allow the poison timers to run their course, sidelining her for an entire minute. The second elite spider succumbed to magical and physical attacks leaving everyone free to deal with the queen.
Allestor joined the tanks around the queen, while the other melee dps held back, using their support abilities or ranged weapons. Torgon focused exclusively on damage, his high power making him one of the few in the group that could consistently wound her. One of the tanks stumbled and was impaled by the bladed leg of the spider queen. She bit down hard on him and pumped him full of toxins, leaving him completely immobile on the floor. The spider queen moved on top of him, preventing healers from reaching the stricken tank and he was sent to respawn.
When the queen’s health dropped to 50% health, she spewed venom all around her, giving everyone engaging her three stacks of paralytic poison. A slow damage over time effect applied to everyone, making it a race against the clock. Streams of healing energy burst from the casters as often as possible while energy and mana potions were drunk freely to dish out maximum damage. Allestor leapt onto the back of the spider and stabbed hard into her exoskeleton, widening a hole and jamming his sword into it. The queen chittered in pain and tried to thrash around. Dusty and Ed chopped a leg off, impeding her movement. The arrows kept penetrating and more often now they found damaged pieces of chitin to punch through. The weaker players swapped to add their own damage and after two more minutes of desperate struggles, the spider queen collapsed and fought no more.
Two more players died in the final burst but there were still over twenty remaining. They secured the node and looted the body of the spider queen. Torgon claimed the enchanted long bow. The recipe for a spider venom poison to coat piercing and slashing weapons would make the alchemist either smile or curse, depending on just how much they wanted to work. The real prize was the eggs. They could be placed inside the Tamer’s Hall and then incubated to hatch combat pets. Admittedly, spiders weren’t adorable. Their popularity would be quite low. Torgon considered that for a moment and wondered if they could find some raccoons, squirrels or wolves out in the wild for pets. Another thing to add to the ever growing list of possibilities.
The players built the teleportation arch to the guild base and quickly returned. The materials allowed upgrades for houses across the guild base. The alert that Torgon was waiting for flashed across his vision.
“Quest Completed! You have completed the basic quest Hierarchy of Needs 2. Your personal residence has been upgraded to Common and now features 10 basic wood, 10 basic stone, 10 basic farming, 10 basic herbalism, 1 common wood, 1 common stone, 1 common farming and 1 common herbalism nodes. You have been awarded 100 free experience points. Your personal residence is part of a guild base, and the gathering nodes have been added to the guild nodes.”
By the evening, every player that used their points on the cores upgraded their residences to a common house. All the other players diligently pursued defensive quests throughout Miller’s Crossing to earn the points needed. Torgon dragged himself over to the crafting hall to settle in for a long night of work while he awaited their second guild base raid in the morning. He looked forward to seeing how their ballistae and mana cannons would function. The ranged attackers for the wall had also been supplied with a limited number of their new area of effect ammunition to test. The fight should be easy and hopefully it would allow Ovarrix to plan for the siege of Miller’s Crossing.
