Lillian and John don’t rush to meet the charging group. We’d already practiced out battle plans. My weapon, if fired in close range, is just as likely to hurt my friends as my foes. So, the two of them wait for me to get off a couple of lobbed grenade shots. I aim for the largest target, the roided out guy, and pull the trigger. I don’t wait for the grenade to land this time and immediately follow up with two more shots. The first grenade takes the group by surprise, and everyone is sent flying through the air by the explosive blast. Everyone except Muscle Man, he just stands there and takes the hits like a champ. He must have a lot of his stat points invested in Constitution, because that guy's health bar is only down a third even though he was at the center of each grenade blast. The squishy magic user is already dead, but the cyborg and the soldier are back on their feet. The trio that remains spreads out so that my grenades won’t hit them all again.
John rushes towards the cyborg and Lillian uses her speed enhancing gear to chase after the soldier with the sniper rifle as he retreats to find a good place to snipe from. This leaves me to deal with Mr. Muscles, who smiles with a mouth full of crooked teeth. I guess I understand his point of view. He got the smallest, lowest level member of my group to deal with. I open my inventory and grab one of the new traps I’ve been working on. Thanks to my high level of skill in Trap Making, it only takes a second to arm and set the trap now. I fire my last grenade at the charging giant, who covers his eyes to avoid being blinded by the explosive blast. He takes the hit from the explosion, but keeps on charging at where he last saw me. Thankfully, I already knew the tendencies of these kinds of muscle man built from my fight with the zombie boss, and laid my new trap right in his path. I use Roll to get the heck out of the way. As Mr. Muscles steps into the trap, there’s a small beep and just as the guy looks down to see what made the noise a blast of icy air explodes from the trap.
This latest trap uses compressed liquid nitrogen to freeze whoever steps on it. When the cooled air clears, I see Mr. Muscle wobbling. His legs a frozen to the ground. His upper body is still free, and he’s trying to pull his legs free using pure muscle. Unfortunately, his legs are completely frozen through, and his efforts only cause his leg to snap off from his frozen foot. The guy wobbles as he tries to keep his balance on just one leg, but he tumbles backward snapping his other leg off at the knee. It would be super gross normally, but the fact that both legs are frozen keeps the scene pretty bloodless. Mr. Muscle’s health has dropped to the halfway point, and I load six more explosive grenades into the launcher. It takes all six to finish the guy off too. I do the math in my head and realize that he must have had over 800 points in health or some damage negation ability. I saunter up to what’s left of Mr. Muscles, use Absorb and hope to get lucky and get whatever cool ability the guy had.
Absorb has failed to capture the essence of the defeated foe. Please try again.
Gosh darnit. I guess I won’t be the group’s tank after all.
You’ve defeated Max the Muscle Man Randy Savage, level 14. You receive 280 XP.
As Lillian and John finish up their opponents, a cannon blast heard overhead, and a picture of the first person to cross the finish line appears in the sky. That’s all the motivation our group needs. John tosses up another drone that plots out a path that avoids fights. We really did waste too much time with these guys. We avoid any entanglements for the rest of the run. When the dungeon springs a new ambush, we run away rather than engage. This is a race after all.
We reach the area of the finish line and find a series of doors embedded into a large circular wall. Each door has a keypad. On each door is a plaque with a riddle. Several individuals seem to be stuck at their door unable to figure out their riddle. One man with a jetpack tries to fly over the wall only be struck down by lightning from the sky. The door we’ve chosen has the riddle.
After a successful art show, three artists rent a hotel room for the night. When they get to the hotel, they pay the $30 for their room. Then they go up to their room. Soon the bellhop brings up their bags and gives the artists back $5 because the hotel had a special discount that weekend. So, the three artists decide to each keep one of the 5 dollars and to give the bellhop a $2 tip. However, when they sat down to tally up their expenses for the weekend, they could not explain the following details:
Each one of them had originally paid $10 (towards the initial $30), then each got back $1, which meant that they each paid $9. Then they gave the bellhop a $2 tip. However, 3 * $9 + $2 = $29
The guys couldn't figure out what happened to the other dollar. After all, the three paid out $30 but could only account for $29. How much did they each spend?
The keypad has three spaces for to enter the answer.
I run through the problem in my head several times and find that yes, 3 * $9 + $2 is indeed $29. However, that can’t be the answer since they’d really only spent $30 total. Instead, I run the problem through my brain backward. I know they spent $30 total, which means everything has to equal that. Then they gave the bellboy a $2 tip making it $30 = $2, they also gave $3 to each which puts it at $30 = $2 + $3. Then what is left is the cost of the room by itself, $25. Ok. So far so good. $30 = $2 +$3 +$25. Now the only money they actually got to pocket again was the 3 dollars, so that’s taken away from both sides leaving, $27 = $2+ $25. That’s what they spent, divide by 3 and you get $9 total.
Thanks to my Mental Math and Analysis skill, the whole process to figure out the problem only takes a few seconds,
I yell at John, “Enter 009 as the answer.”
“Are you sure? We’ll only get one shot at this.”
I nod my head and hope that my logic is sound. John presses 0-0-9 into the keypad. There’s moment where nothing happens, and I’m sure I messed things up, then the door clicks. John opens it, and our group rushes through.
The door opens into a maze that doesn’t take us long to finish since John’s drone can see a path through from overhead. Our group is counted as numbers #15-17 to make it to the finish line. Once our pictures go up overhead, we’re ported right back to our locker room.
Chapter 45
After an hour, waiting and recuperating in our locker room; Our team is summoned to the next event. Walking through another portal, we’re taken to the large stadium, where twenty-seven other competitors wait in the middle of a field. The crowds are cheering and screaming the names of their favorite Users. I see one woman lift up her shirt, flash her breasts, and scream, “I love you, Doom Kitty! I want to have your babies!” The guy she’s flashing is a six-foot-five-inch white guy with long blonde hair. He’s not wearing a shirt but instead is showing off his surfer’s body while leaning against his surfboard. He waves back at the flasher, and she faints in her seat.
I’m wondering why they call the guy Doom Kitty when the giant screen appears in mid-air. An announcer's voice cuts through the noise of the crowd.
“Welcome, competitors. Congratulations on making it to the 2nd qualifying event. This round only the top ten competitors will make it through. Competitors may form groups of any size to complete this challenge. No matter the size of your group, you will have to defend a golden egg from waves of monsters. How you choose to defend the egg is up to your team. But be aware, the larger the team, the more challenging the waves of enemies. You have ten minutes to choose your teammates.”
A clock appears on the screen counting down from 10 minutes. Since Lillian, John, and I came as a team, it’s not hard to for us to choose teammates. However, that’s not the case for everyone. There are several scuffles as people try to find teammates. Several people, approach one tall blonde woman wearing coveralls and carrying a giant hammer, but she refuses to join any of them. A skinny, shifty-eyed guy with cybernetic implants runs from group to group begging to join anyone. Three all-male groups argue over a hot looking lady in a vampire outfit.