Book 4: Chapter 23.Dancing with Dragons
Bill
July 2334
Virt
Two gamers lay dead, their smoking, ruined skeletons providing perfect tripping hazards as players ran frantically back and forth. The dragon, red variety, was doing its best to immolate the rest of the dungeon party. The only thing working in our favor was that the beast seemed to want to get at least two targets with each flame breath. Given the required recharge time, it was a reasonable tactic.
“Get under him! Hit him in the belly!” Tim the warrior yelled.
“You first, asshole!” replied Verne the dwarf warlord. “You’re the one with the magic sword.”
The dragon, an NPC known as Gargh the Destroyer, roared and tried to stomp on Tim. Also a reasonable tactic—Tim was far too close to take out with fire breath, at least not without dealing itself a few hit points of damage.
I had, for the moment, escaped Gargh’s attention, probably because I was A) by myself, and B) flat on my back, having been run over by our NPC troops when they fled in terror. I had only some crap armor and a basic sword to my name—the Gamers had flat-out refused to give me a higher starting level. Something about game integrity. Sure.
The smoking remains of Kevin the Wise (perhaps not as wise as he thought) still had a death grip (heh—death grip) on his former pride and joy—a staff of fireballs. Unfortunately, a staff of fireballs against a red dragon was about as useful as a harshly worded email. Now if he’d had a staff of ice storms or something …