DCO- Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 10

“If I hadn’t met Steve already,” Oak said as Med Ic’s silence went off, “I would have sworn the developers of this game were on drugs.”

“And after meeting him,” Z offered, “it’s pretty clear they probably were.” Everyone laughed, even James and Rue. Steve, the brunt of the joke for once, just took a sip of his drink and shrugged. He’d already spilled the secret on how a lot of the floor options had come about. A flip book, split in parts, that just had random descriptors and mob types on them. The developers would flip different sections on the book, and whichever combination was created, would go with it from there.

“Still,” Oak continued as he stomped hard onto the ground, sending a wave of electrical energy flowing from himself and his shield towards the J-Kappas. And AOE style taunt. “The fact they created such…er… detailed models is rather impressive.”

The taunt flowed over the five mobs, lightning crackling around them, doing negligible damage to level 91 mobs. The damage wasn’t the purpose of course, the taunt was.

“Five seconds left on the silence.” Med Ic called as the party advanced on the mobs. “Then it’s down to single target silences.”

“We’ll focus…” Z trailed off, and then his bow twanged. An arrow soared past Oak’s shoulder and planted deep into the blue-haired ‘Idol’ personal. “The Miku wannabe.” Even though they were silenced, the J-Kappas were all still singing and performing. Their voices were just currently being sucked away into little purple orbs that hung over their heads. When the arrow hit the Idol Popstar, her mouth went from a smiling singing motion, to a frown. She placed her hands on her hips, and glared in Z’s direction. His arrow had done enough damage to take off the threat from Oak’s taunt.

The tank was quick to remedy that. He rushed forward and smashed into her with a shield bash, just as the silence effect faded. She punched at him, her blow hitting the shield, which immediately sprayed acid in her face. The high-pitched scream echoed off the stone walls, as coins from the bowl atop her head clattered to the ground.

“They’re probably a group mob.” Z was saying as her scream continued. The other J-Kappa’s, all aggroed onto Oak from his taunt, were looking at the tank, their faces determined. “Burn em down one at a time.”

“You got it boss,” Faust pointed a finger at the Idol J-Kappa, and released the spell he’d been preparing. A storm cloud appeared over the poor mob, and lightning immediately struck her, causing another scream to echo out.

Before the others could attack, the rest of the mobs entered the fray. While they were aggroed onto Oak, their skills were AOE based. That is, anything within a certain radius of them could be affected by the songs. With incredible harmony, and more than a little fanfare as the sound of various instruments including an up-tempo bass magically appeared, they began singing.

James watched as the bodies of the J-Kappa’s that were singing all began to glow, interestingly a different color depending on who was singing. The Bad Boy had an aura of blue flames envelop him. The Businessman, a rain of magical golden light, in the image of coins. The Idol still couldn’t sing, as she’d been hit by a silence from Elm. While the twin Shy personas had a whitish mist flowing around their bodies, and seeping outwards. As their performance intensified, the lights all reverberated with intensity, and shot towards every single person in the battle. Both friend and foe, alike.

“Alright, I’ll admit,” James said as he watched the mobs at work, “I almost didn’t put these guys in the dungeon.”

“You got something against catchy music?” Steve asked.

“No, just,” James motioned at the scene, “they look ridiculous, and on paper read even crazier.”

“And yet,” Steve said, his grin growing. “Here we are.”

“Yeah, their sellout skill was what tempted me to place them in.” James started, “because what sane Dungeon Core would pass up the chance to earn a bit of extra coin off players who wanted to hire out the mobs.” James motioned at the battle, “after seeing them in action though, I can honestly say, I definitely underestimated just how much I’d enjoy this.”

“Their tunes are catchy aren’t they.” Steve said as he bobbed along to the music. There was no doubt the performance of the mobs, well, the musical performance at least, was catchy. In a ‘this is going to be stuck in my head later earworm’ kind of way. But past that, as James watched all off the buffs instantly stack on the mobs as they empowered their band, while the debuffs randomly applied to the Knights Who Go Ni, based on their luck and resistances, it was, without a doubt, one of the more unique and random types of battles to happen in the dungeon.

Purely depending on RNG and what types spawned, every battle against the J-Kappas would be different. As players figured out which applied what types of buffs and debuffs, they’d be able to focus and adjust the fight depending on their own strengths and weaknesses. It was the perfect type of flexible, varied mob, to keep players on their toes, and keep them from predicting every situation. And variance was the spice of life for MMO players.

“Their debuffs look to be quite catchy too.” Rue added, and James noted that as the fighting continued, the debuff’s seemed to have a chance to apply every 5 seconds that a performance was underway. And not only were the mobs just rocking out. No, they’d all begun to dance around Oak, striking him with weapons that materialized in their glowing auras, weapons that, uh, took on the form of various musical instruments. The attacks wouldn’t be too powerful, given the mob’s lower attack stats, but the number of them, as well as the buffs they were getting from each other, made them enough to actually force the tank to apply more defensive skills, while Med Ic had to switch between healing and cleansing.

And of course, with the battle roughly thirty seconds in, and the ‘Idol’ J-kappa still at roughly half its HP, the true fight was still to come. After all, if the players weren’t so preoccupied with taking out the blue-haired idol, nor all the dashing and dazzling lights of the pop performance that would make any pyromaniac insanely proud, they’d notice the two shadows rushing towards them, shadows that glowed now with blue, yellow, and white light from the buffs they were receiving.

“Looks like the adventurers are getting rowdy.” Steve commented, noting James’s attention on the approaching mobs. “So it’s time for the bouncers to do their job.”