“Shut it, Wind. He’ll come through for us. You’ll see.” I grab Kiro’s forearms, trying to get him to look at me. “Kiro. I know this is pretty heavy for your first encounter, but you have to raise a shield. Otherwise, we’re toast. We have about…” I quickly glance at the enraged dragon. “…three seconds before we’re charcoal. C’mon. I know you can do this. Focus, just like we practiced.”
A moment of silence fills the cavern, the dragon’s steam whistle intake of breath suddenly gone. I look over again, seeing the tiniest wisps of flame starting to leak out of the corners of its mouth, and swear. My hands move, seemingly of their own accord, starting the motions of a barrier, but it’s pointless. I don’t have enough specialization in applied defensive magic to keep us safe if I’m the spell anchor, and Kiro’s staff isn’t attuned to me. Wind sighs dramatically.
“Fucking newbies…”
A broad hand brushes me aside, interrupting my cast.
“No. I… I can do this. I can.”
Kiro steps in front of us, then slams his staff into the ground. A minor shockwave ripples out, tiny dust waves undulating across the floor. His hands blur into motion, creating the impossibly complex forms required to initiate a max-level group shield spell, the now-unsupported staff floating gently above the ground, a solid pillar of brightening green runes crawling along its length.
“Get in support positions!” My voice is halfway between a yell and a cheer.
Good job, Kiro. I knew you could do it.
Wind and Slend take positions to either side. I run behind Kiro, completing the diamond formation, and prepare for impact. Above us, a massive fireball descends.
Kiro finishes the final hand gesture and crosses his wrists in front of him. We all copy him, bracing one foot behind our bodies. Beams of light flash from us to the staff, and then a shimmering blue wall flashes into existence, between us and the descending torrent of flame. A millisecond later, it hits like a crashing tsunami.
Raw force slams into my arms, the sheer power of the dragon’s fire eliciting an involuntary grunt. Straining, I push back against the brutal pressure, keeping my section of the shield firm. My shoulders and core muscles quiver beneath the stress, and I scream out in defiance.
Magic in the Game is reflected by three elements—physical dexterity to create the proper forms; raw strength proportional to the level of the spell being cast; and the force of will to endure the pain for as long as it takes. A max rank shield spell will withstand anything, as long as our flesh doesn’t give way. If it does, if we fail to hold the appropriate form against the requisite burden, then the spell crumples, along with our bodies. In situations where a max rank shield spell is required, that means a wipe.
In front of me, the other three push out as well, muscles bulging. Tears are leaking from the corners of Kiro’s eyes. As the anchor, he’s bearing the brunt of the attack, an onslaught of crushing weight trying to smear him into the ground, and if we weren’t sharing the load, the dragonflame would’ve breached the shield almost instantly. Even the strongest Gamer in the world isn’t strong enough to withstand close to a ton of pressure.
Incandescent heat spreads across the pale blue of our barrier, a half dome covering our braced forms. Rock melts and flows in a circle around us, but the shield stays intact, keeping us safe in our tiny island. Sweat pours from my brow, but I ignore it. If I didn’t want to push myself, I would’ve stayed in Candyland. Finally, mercifully, the fire ends, the smothering weight falling away.
“Wind, Slend, draw its attention. I’m going for the tail. Kiro, move! Don’t stand in the fire!”
We split apart once more, Kiro narrowly avoiding a magma eruption at his feet by diving out of the way. Hissing superheated rock shoots into the air behind him, a deadly fountain barely missing his leather boots. It cools and solidifies into a new layer on the ground. I shake my head at his narrow escape.
You gotta pay attention to environmentals, Kiro. That’s how most parties wipe.
I notice glowing cracks beneath my feet and sidestep a magma eruption of my own, then turn my attention back to the dragon.
The creature is fully mobile now—twenty tons of murderous muscle atop four dextrous limbs, each equipped with an opposable digit and talons the size of a scimitar. Of course there’s also the prehensile tail covered in needle-tipped spines, and the flamethrower system in its throat. Dragons don’t mess around. Murderous red eyes track my movements, singling me out as the most dangerous target.
I dodge a casual swipe from its claws, waiting for Slend and Wind to get into position. Once they distract it, I should have a free run at the tail. Killing a dragon is a matter of taking away its weapons, one at a time, in a very specific order—wings, tail, claws, throat; gradually wearing it down until all threats are neutralized, with no room for error.
Slend bellows at the creature, taunting it to attack her, and it spins in place, surprisingly agile for such a large beast. She waves her axe at it, drawing its attention. To her side, I can see Wind pull the pin on a flashbang from her grenade belt. The flashbang won’t really hurt the dragon, but it’ll confuse it for the bare moment I need to sever the nerves at the base of its tail. My blade slides into my hand naturally as breathing, the worn leather grip comforting in my palm. It’s nothing special, just a fifty-centimeter piece of metal designed to cut what I want it to cut, but the sharpened steel is an extension of myself, a familiarity earned from years of practice.
Slend blocks a claw swipe, using her axe to beat the scaled mass of the dragon’s paw to the side. Behind her, Wind cocks her arm back and throws the flashbang, alert for the opening. The dragon smiles like an open grave.
My eyes narrow. Dragons don’t normally…
Shit.
“It’s a dev! We’re being featured!”
Glowing golden runes appear on the walls, cutting away the steam and turning the cavern into a massive arena. Fast-paced music bursts into the air, heavy on the guitar riffs and choral melodies, a thrumming bass line syncopating like a heartbeat. Another rune, this one electric blue, appears above the dragon’s head—the sigil of whichever dev has taken over the program that normally runs the monster’s reactions. In this case, the twisting lines let me know that it’s Hammer. I grimace. He and I have history, and he’s been itching to take me down.
Of all the top-tier devs in Infinite Game, Hammer’s the best, and he hates letting players win. Especially with an audience. Judging by the runes on the walls, there’s at least a million viewers tuning in for the showdown. We must be the first guild to make it this far after the new patch, and I’m sure GameCore has been hyping this on the global ’Net since we started the run. I’ve been running my personal stream, of course, but that’s a drop in the ocean compared to the attention GameCore commands. Ashura vs. Hammer, come one come all, get your tickets at the door. I know without looking that a jade green sigil is floating over my head, the swirling frozen explosion of my guild tag. The SunJewel Warriors.
Fighting devs is always a risky proposition, because they never react like the normally programmed responses in an encounter. It can be a lot of fun in social events, because then you really feel like you’re interacting with living beings, but in the combat events it creates a dangerous unpredictability. Even worse, devs are the ones who design program behaviors, so they know the best way to subvert everything a player’s learned about a specific encounter. The good ones have a nasty habit of studying previous strats the leaderboard groups use, so they’re prepared to counter everything we normally do. The best ones, like Hammer, have an uncanny ability to get inside a non-human skin, and make it do something unexpected.