Glitch Book Four Read online

  “How?” I inquired and then a thought suddenly struck me. “You mean his acid spit is immune to Telekinesis while his rockets are not?”

  “Exactly. All the projectiles will break into three groups, one for each player. I’ll handle the bunch of projectiles that will be after me, while you Warlocks will need to use Telekinesis to redirect your rockets back at Reaper. This will destroy his power shield, and despite not being shielded, he won’t budge until he launches two more barrages. You’ll need to repeat the process two more times. Since no shield will be protecting him now, the projectiles you two will redirect will inflict a good amount of damage on him. As for me, I’m gonna deploy my turret guns as soon as his shield is down to add to our damage output. This way, we’ll whack him before he even turns into a Berserk. So that’s the plan in a nutshell.”

  “Is this workable?”

  “You bet it is,” Flynn replied. “They wouldn’t have written the guide, otherwise.”

  But I still had my doubts. I asked, “Have you ever confronted Reaper?”

  “No, I haven’t.”

  “And what about your friend?”

  “No.”

  The players who had written the guide had surely perished a lot before they finally worked out a strategy to deal with Reaper. As for the three of us, we would be fighting the Raid Boss for the very first time. Even if we would scrupulously be following the instructions described in the guide, something unexpected could happen. Like they said, no plan survives contact with the enemy.

  “What if he mutates before we do him in?” I asked.

  “Ain’t gonna happen,” Flynn grinned. “Trust me, we’ll whack him before he gets mutated.”

  “Yeah, I get it. But let’s suppose we failed to waste him in time, what would we do then?”

  A puzzled expression appeared on Flynn’s face. Seemed like he hadn’t even considered such a possibility. He gave the matter some thought and then replied confidently, “Then we’re dead.”

  Simple as that.

  “Sure, we can try to finish him off,” Flynn added. “If he has five to fifteen percent of HP left after taking rocket barrages, then we’ll probably be able to finish him off. But if he has more than fifteen percent left after turning into a berserk, then we’ll be dead, for sure.”

  “All right. What will we lose if we die?”

  “As usual,” Flynn answered. “All our stuff and some exp. But there a few Resurrection Pods nearby his lair, so we can take our items back at once. Reaper won’t attack us unless we attack him first or get too close to him. And if we don’t whack him on the first try, we can try again.”

  “What if we get our levels dropped after getting killed?” I wanted to know.

  “Then his level gets decreased as well because his level is the median number from the levels of all the players on the team.”

  I was weighing the possibility of us defeating the Raid Boss, and from where I stood, our chances of success were pretty slim.

  “So you in or what?” Flynn asked hurrying me into a decision.

  In the end, I agreed. Flynn was both a good player and a loyal friend. One could count on him. Perhaps we wouldn’t defeat Reaper, but it was worth a try anyway.

  We were waiting for Flynn’s friend to connect to the game, but his friend was running late for some reason. When Flynn was about to go offline to get in touch with his friend IRL via social media, he froze for a moment with his gaze downcast.

  “She’s just written to me,” Flynn explained after a second. “She’s finally online, but she’s at the other end of the city. Let’s pick her up.”

  “Okay.”

  As we drove through the city to meet Flynn’s friend, I grinned and joked, “I wonder if your friend’s nickname happens to be Christine.”

  Flynn turned his head to look at me and replied casually, “No, her name’s Melissa.”

  My smile instantly vanished and my mood sank. I hadn’t really expected his friend to be Christine, much less Melissa. That Flynn’s friend turned out to be Melissa was a surprise, and an unpleasant one at that. Just my luck!

  From the expression on my face, Flynn must have been aware that something was off. “What’s the matter? Do you know her?”

  “Unfortunately, I do.”

  Not that I disliked the girl. Not that she was a bad player either. No, the reason why I wasn’t all that thrilled to meet her was altogether different. She just didn’t take the game seriously. She played the game for pure fun, not really caring about beating it.

  Moreover, while I didn’t dislike the girl, she wasn’t all that fond of me for some reason.

  I told Flynn how I had once teamed up with three other players––including Melissa––to hold out against an invasion of night monsters.

  “So you two don’t get along,” Flynn concluded sadly.

  “Something like that,” I nodded in agreement. “Not that we’re foes. But we’re not friends either.”

  Flynn was upset that I was on bad terms with Melissa.

  “What about you?” I asked. “How did you make her acquaintance?”

  “I’ve made friends with her on the first day,” Flynn replied. “Today I asked her if she wanted to team with us to whack the Raid Boss. She got totally excited about the idea.”

  It was her usual way. From her perspective, confronting the Raid Boss had promised to be fun, so she had agreed to join in. But she surely didn’t care about whether we would be able to bring him down or not. Succeeding or not, she got a kick out of the mere process of playing the game.

  “Does she know who will be the second Warlock?” I asked.

  “No, I didn’t give her your nickname.”

  “Well, she’s in for a big surprise then,” I said grimly.

  After some time passed, a message popped up in the log.

  > Attention! The Reaper will revive in 60 minutes.

  “We gotta hustle our bustle,” Flynn said. “If other players beat us to Reaper, then we’ll have to wait until he disposes of them.”

  “What if it’ll be them who dispose of him?” I wanted to know.

  “Then we’ll have to wait for Reaper to respawn again. Like I already told you, it takes Reaper three days to get revived.”

  I gunned the engine.

  After some time passed, Flynn pointed at a half-ruined building up ahead and said that Melissa was inside. Before I could pull over, the girl walked out of the house and looked in the direction of our car. Flynn must have sent a text message to the girl to inform her about our approaching.

  Once I pulled up at the curb, Melissa yanked one door open and slid inside, then I drove on.

  “I’ve never been to Reaper’s lair,” she said excitedly.

  I looked in the rear-view window, and Melissa was seated in the rear with her eyes shiny, a smile on her lips. Then I caught her eyes and her smile disappeared at once.

  “You?!” She gasped.

  “Surprise, surprise.”

  The girl seemed to be on the verge of hyperventilating. Turning her head, she stared daggers at Flynn. “Why didn’t you warn me about him?”

  “I didn’t know you’re acquainted,” He mumbled, “much less about, ahem, the relationship between you two.”

  Flynn looked confused. He wasn’t sure how he should react.

  “Look,” I said to Melissa, “don’t know why you don’t like me, but we should call a truce. To bring the Raid Boss down we need to act shoulder to shoulder, y’know.”

  Melissa dismissed my reasonable warning as foolishness. “Think it’ll help? You play like a noob!”

  Before I could decide if I should pretend to be offended, Flynn chimed in, “You’re wrong. He’s an excellent player. I saw him deal with two PKs all on his own.”

  Melissa pointed her index finger at me and jeered at me, “Him? Really? When we played together the other day, we all almost died because of him.”

  “You’re overstating it,�
�� I put in.

  “I don’t know what you’re talking about,” Flynn said to Melissa. “He made it through one night all on his own. Also, we played together last night and he saved the day when I got killed once. I’m telling you, I saw him play. He’s a very experienced player.”

  Melissa looked at me doubtfully and clammed up for a few moments. Then she said, changing the subject, “I must admit, that ride of yours is totally awesome.”

  I said nothing.

  Melissa looked at me suspiciously. “How did you get such a masterpiece? You stole it from someone, didn’t you?”

  I almost jumped marveling at her keen intuition.

  Before I could say something, Flynn cut in, “You’re wrong again, Melissa. He’s surely crafted the car himself. Moreover, he’s been working on another vehicle, a huge armored bus. I’m assisting him with the job.”

  Melissa continued to regard me suspiciously. She seemed to be about to say something else but then just shut her mouth. We drove in silence the rest of the way.

  Finally, we reached the desired place. Reaper’s lair was underground. We parked, entered the subway, and negotiated the tunnels for some time. As things turned out, it wasn’t all that easy to find Reaper’s lair. If Flynn hadn’t examined the subway map while offline, we would never have found it.

  Soon we made it to the place and stopped before a huge metal door. It had neither a handle nor a system control panel. Flynn said that the door would open once Reaper revived.

  We wandered around the tunnels for some time, acquainting ourselves with the layout and killing local mobs. There were a few Resurrection Pods near the entrance to the Raid Boss’ lair.

  There were few minutes remaining until the door opened, so we used it to discuss the details of our strategy. Melissa didn’t seem very interested in that. The girl was fidgeting excitedly. She just couldn’t wait to put up a fight against the Raid Boss. Her carefree, light-hearted mood made me worry.

  Finally, a message popped up in the log.

  > Attention! Reaper has just revived!

  There was a creaking as the door slid to the wall. It was an elevator. We got inside and it started to descend, rattling and trembling slightly.

  As soon as it came to a stop, we got out looking around warily. We found ourselves in some enormous cave or something like that. It was well illuminated although there weren’t any sources of light. Neither was there anything that we could use as cover. It was just a huge open room.

  Then I turned my attention toward the thing that stood still at the center of the arena. It was the reason we had come here, the Raid Boss.

  Name: Reaper

  Level: 16

  He was about ten feet tall and of all muscular build. Compared to the rest of his body, his head seemed to be too small. A huge heavy machine gun was attached to each of his hands and on his back was something along the lines of a metal backpack. Had to be a rocket launcher.

  Reaper seemed to be staring right at us, yet he didn’t budge. As Flynn had told me some time prior, the Raid Boss wouldn’t charge at us until we aggravated him by attacking or coming too close to him.

  We regarded him for a few seconds, preparing ourselves for a tough fight. Then we nodded at one another and started for Reaper. When within thirty or so yards of the Raid Boss, we stopped again. Now he seemed to loom over us. His machine guns were trained on our small team.

  We drew our weapons, fanned out, looked at one another one last time, and then simultaneously opened up, the bullets tearing into Reaper’s flesh.

  Chapter two

  Once the first slugs hit him, the Raid Boss instantly jumped into action. He straightened up, brought his machine guns to bear, and walked my way. I wondered why he had chosen me. Probably because my Ice Volcanos dealt the most damage to him.

  Reaper walked rather slowly toward me, so I didn’t bother to run away. Instead, I just stood still firing away at the huge monster. When my revolvers ran dry, I dashed away reloading my guns on the run.

  Glancing back, I saw the Raid Boss dog me idly. I ran a little farther across the room, stopped, and commenced firing at the huge mutant again. A health bar hovered above Reaper’s head. My Ice Volcanos had a good damage output, but the Raid Boss’ health seemingly wasn’t reducing whatsoever. It stayed the same no matter how many bullets I put into the mutant’s body.

  Both my revolvers soon clicked empty again. I burst into a race, reloading my handguns. A humming reaching my ears from behind. After a moment, Flynn shouted to me, “Max, look out!”

  I glanced back in time to see Reaper bring his huge machine guns up and sight me. Then they roared to life sending two streams of lead my way.

  I leaped to the side to avoid being hit. Yet three of them bit into my body. Each reduced my character’s HP by about ten percent. I raced on, activating Shield on the run.

  Finally, the rattling of the machine guns ceased. I healed myself with Telekinesis and brought my firearms to bear. My teammates were shooting at the monster as well, but Reaper paid them no notice. Not that I objected. He didn’t give me any troubles thus far.

  My revolvers ran out of ammo again. I ejected the spent cartridges from the two guns, quickly inserted the fresh ones, and closed the cylinders.

  When I was about to turn around, a roar came from behind. Glancing over my shoulder, I saw Reaper standing still with his mouth wide open. Even from the distance that separated me from the huge mutant, I saw greenish saliva begin to gather in his mouth. The Raid Boss was about to spit acid.

  Once an acid ball was ejected from the mutant’s mouth, I quickly sidled a couple of yards. The acid glob dashed past me, trailing greenish stinking smoke, which was slowly expanding and dissipating.

  After spitting out, Reaper walked in pursuit of me again.

  We were firing away at him almost ceaselessly, taking short respites only when we needed to reload our guns. Soon I noticed that his health bar had gotten reduced somewhat.

  The Raid Boss fired short bursts and ejected acid balls a few times more and then stood still at the center of the room. He lowered his machine guns, pointing them at the ground as a yellowish dome-shaped power field appeared all around him.

  The top of the metal container on his back popped open. I looked at Melissa to see if she was ready. When our eyes met, she made a face at me and averted her eyes to gaze at the mutant again.

  Finally, he began to eject missiles out of the container. They flew straight up in the air. Each was the size of a fist. There were about thirty of them. I tried to use Telekinesis on them, but nothing happened. Probably because they were too far away from me.

  The projectiles suddenly broke into three group and turned to dash toward us.

  Out of the corner of my eye, I noticed Flynn bring up his shotgun and press the stock against his shoulder, ready to shoot down several rockets flying toward him. I wondered if he would actually be able to destroy all of them before they reached him.

  I turned my full attention to the bunch of rockets that flew my way. I gazed at them as they were getting closer and closer and finally Telekinesis kicked in.

  In practice, taking control of and redirecting Reaper’s rockets turned out to be a very difficult task. I had to focus my attention fully on the ten or so rockets flying my way without breaking my concentration.

  Seven rockets being guided by my mind turned in a wide arc and flew in the direction of the Raid Boss. But the other four projectiles were still racing toward me.

  When I had fought the two PKs, it was pretty easy for me to redirect the rocket-propelled grenades they had fired at me. All I had to do was to give them momentum, that was all.

  I initially thought that it was going to be the same with the rockets. But I was wrong. As things turned out, dealing with the rockets was altogether different matter.

  Once I ceased to concentrate on the first seven rockets to guide the remaining four ones, the seven projectiles instantly changed their di
rection to fly back toward me.

  The other four projectiles were almost on me by that point. I had barely activated Shield when one of them smashed against it, exploding and destroying the power dome. Another rocket slammed into the ground before my feet.

  The concussion smacked into me with great force, lifting my character off the floor and sending it flying across the room. As I collided with the unyielding ground, a sharp twinge shot through my body.

  Groaning in pain, I rose to my elbows and checked my HUD. The explosion had reduced my HP by about twenty-five percent.

  The other two rockets were already in the vicinity of me. And the other seven ones were a few yards behind them.

  I leaped to my feet and tore off, activating Shield. It was an extremely difficult task to concentrate on the rockets while running away. Nonetheless, I was actually able to take control of several rockets and guide them back toward Reaper.

  Then one of the nearest two rockets smacked into the power dome, exploding on impact and destroying it. The other one crashed into the ground a couple of yards from me, ripping a crater out of the ground, dust, and smoke sweeping outward.

  The expanding shock wave reached me, causing me to lose my concentration, the seven rockets out of control again. But since there was no missile in the close vicinity of me now, I stopped and focused on the seven remaining projectiles barreling through the air toward me.

  In the background, I could hear the booming of explosions. I had to resist the urge to check on Flynn and Melissa in order not to break my concentration.

  Eventually, I guided the rockets over to Reaper. They slammed into his power shield and exploded. But failed to obliterate it. Seven projectiles didn’t suffice to bring it down.

  I checked my HUD. The health bar was half-empty and I also almost ran out of mana. It sure took a whole lot of mana points to redirect Reaper’s projectiles. After using a stimulator and a vigor to restore my HP and MP respectively, I looked around.