Chapter 121: Orc casters

After Mel returned to the dungeon, she sighed, causing John to frown and ask, “Something wrong?”

“This just got way more complicated. I just spoke to the druid council, who told me that they have informed Bengal about the situation, and that she’s on her way to the Emerald Enclave as we speak.”

All four of them showed surprised looks upon hearing this news before Emberslag said, “That makes it even more important that we rescue the white tiger, so let's move on quickly since there is nothing else here.”

The group nodded in agreement before Emberslag led the way out of the room and across the hall to another room, which she once again pressed her ear against. However, after not hearing anything, she decided to slowly push it open; greeting them was a chest that sat in the middle of the empty room all by itself.

They stared at the chest before John asked, “Why does this give me a bad feeling?”

Black Dragoon nodded in agreement before adding, “Probably because it's a trap. Ask yourselves: why would a treasure chest be left unguarded in the middle of a bandit hideout?”

“It wouldn’t,” Mel replied, causing Shelur to nod and say. “If this was a standard cave or some out-of-the-way place with no one around and you found a treasure chest, sure, but a bandit hideout- no way; that’s definitely a trap.”

“What happens if you fall for the trap?” John asked.

“Most likely you die,” Emberslag replied before explaining. “There are all sorts of treasure chests used to lure greedy individuals to their deaths in Genesis. It happens more often than you’d think, so when you see a treasure chest, make sure to consider the environment it's in before you decide if it's worth the gamble.

Also, as your level goes up, you will find in the future that most treasure chests you come across will be locked. You either need to locate the key, which is somewhere nearby, either on a person or hidden someplace; use a skeleton key which blacksmiths can make; or if you have a thief in your party, they can get a skill at their third class level that lets them pick locks.”

John nodded in understanding before Emberslag turned around without looking back at the chest again and proceeded further up the hallway while saying, “Come on, more animals to save and bandits to kill.”

They continued up the hallway to the third set of doors, and this time Emberslag went to the left first before listening at the door once again and hearing what sounded like muttering from the other side, as well as paper being moved around.

Slowly pushing the door open a crack and peering through, they saw that the room beyond it looked like a very basic office. It had a few shelves around the wall filled with books, and also a table and chair against the wall at the far end. Sitting in the chair with their back to the door was an individual who appeared to be the one muttering while hunched over the desk.

[Name: Sog (Veteran Boss)]

[Race: Orc]

[Class: Warlock (Bandit)]

[Level: 18]

[HP: 1040/1040]

[MP: 410/410]

“Ohh, we actually found a veteran before the final boss,” Shelur hissed in excitement. “It must be a mini-boss.”

“I wonder what sort of loot he has,” Emberslag hissed back as her eyes took on a greedy look.

Black Dragoon nodded while saying, “It’s also an orc warlock like Shelur, which is unexpected.”

Support creative writers by reading their stories on NovelPhoenix, not stolen versions.

John frowned before quietly asking. “I thought there was only one boss, and why is that unexpected?”

“Dungeons can often have multiple bosses depending on the level and size of the dungeon. However, since this is only a rank one dungeon, I didn’t expect to encounter more than the final boss. Perhaps the increase in level difficulty increased the number of bosses.”

“That’s not a bad thing though,” Mel hissed. “More bosses means more and better loot.”

“Damn straight,” Emberslag replied as she shot Mel an appreciative look.

Shelur rolled her eyes at her friend's greedy nature before glancing at John and whispering, “It’s rare to find any casters among my race since we are one of the races with the fewest number of magic users. This is naturally also replicated in Genesis, and you would think because of this that more of my race would want to play caster; however, most prefer to use Genesis as another place to train their martial skills, since there aren’t really any enemies to fight IRL nowadays.

However, like the draconians, Tia gave my orc race a unique ability: if we choose to play a caster class like the warlock, our strength stat gets swapped with our intellect stat, while our spirit stat swaps with our wisdom stat upon picking our class.

As you know, every race starts with different stats based on our real-life bodies, such as elves having high intellect. My orc race has naturally high strength and resilience IRL, hence our high strength and stamina upon character creation. Unfortunately, because of this, we get low intellect and wisdom, which is rude, but there are only so many points Tia could assign to each starting race to keep things balanced. Because of this, she made those stats swap based on the class we choose.”

“I had no idea,” John said in surprise, while Mel also shared his look of surprise.

“It’s not something that is common knowledge since there are so few orcs that take up a caster class,” Black Dragoon explained before looking back at the boss and saying. “Warlock NPCs, like their player counterparts, can be annoying because they have a choice of different pets they can summon to fill different roles; or at least that’s what I have been told, as I have never faced one.”

“If you want to face one, all you have to do is ask,” Shelur offered with a challenging smirk. “I’ve never faced a dragoon before.”

“A PvP duel, huh?” Black Dragon asked before adding. “Sure, I’m game. Let's do it after the dungeon.”

“Great, you guys have your fun later, but in the meantime we’re still on a time limit,” Emberslag hissed at the pair.

Shelur rolled her eyes while saying, “Relax, we’re breezing through this dungeon, and it’s only a level one, so while it might be a little harder than expected, it’s not going to be all that big, and we’ve got plenty of time.”

After saying this, she turned back to Black Dragoon and said,

" You're right, though, since this warlock is only level eighteen, I think we can guess that he will summon either an imp or a Gharzu.”

“You mean the summon you should have learned?” Emberslag teased while John asked. “What's a Gharzu?”

“Stop going on about that already,” Shelur snapped before answering John’s question. “A Gharzu is the second type of demon warlocks can learn to summon once we reach our second rank. It does less damage than the Imp we learn after first becoming a warlock, but it has a taunt skill and so can tank for us.”

Emberslag nodded while adding, “Imps are a ranged pet that don’t really do much except stand back and shoot out fireballs that deal damage equal to twenty-five percent of whatever their summoner's magic attack power is. Gharzu’s, on the other hand, only deal ten percent, but their ability to taunt makes them more useful, especially when playing solo.”

John nodded in understanding before asking, “Can we kill the summon?”

”We can,” Shelur nodded. “Though the warlock will only summon another afterwards, which takes them five seconds to do. Also, it doesn’t cost them any mana to summon them, so unless you're trying to make the boss waste five seconds, it's not really worth killing the summon at this level, especially the Gharzu, since its taunt won't affect us, which is probably why the NPC will summon the Imp.”

“So what’s the plan?” Black Dragoon asked.

Emberslag thought for a moment before smiling at John and saying, “Since it’s a solo boss, I think we can go with the old tank and spank while letting Vincarna here practice his tanking.”

“Excuse me?” John asked in surprise. “Tank and spank? Is that an actual gaming term, as it sounds rather like a fetish?”

“Don’t get too excited there, Vincarna,” Mel replied with a wink before flirtatiously adding. “Though if you do a good job, maybe I will let you spank me in the future.”

John just gave her a deadpan stare that hurt her pride and caused Mel to pout while thinking, {Hmph, do you have any idea how many of my fans across the world dream of me saying such a thing to them?}

”Not really the time, you two,” Black Dragoon replied. “If you want to flirt, save it for later.”

“Chill, I was just kidding,” Mel replied, causing the three other women to give her doubtful looks before Emberslag explained. “Tank and spank means that the tank gets the target's agro using a taunt or something, while the damage dealers just attack it until it dies.”

“That it?” John asked. “So you want me to charge up to the guy and just let him wail on me while you wail on him?”

“That’s basically the tank's job,” Shelur replied. “Though, as Emberslag said before, this is a good opportunity to practice tanking, blocking and positioning.”