Dungeon Core Online

Chapter 40

"Seriously, where did these traps come from?" Oak had once again been on the receiving end of a pitfall trap, as the group charged at a flock of dickens. James felt slightly sorry for the poor warrior. That was his third trap of the dungeon run. Luckily, he could survive the traps, the other poor players who found the traps usually died and had to wait 5 minutes to return, leaving their parties down a player, and scared to move forward.

"Would you say, that these weren't expected?" Z had a grin on his face as he lifted Oak from the hole, while Med Ic's hands were glowing, healing the warriors wounds.

"I would say they weren't expected indeed." Oak's scowl turned to a grin, and James found himself grinning as well.

"You know what else nobody expects, right?" Elm was joining in on the joke, as he launched a couple of arrows into the dicken, killing it .The flock was down to 4 now, losing their buff, and becoming even easier for the veteran adventurers.

"The Spanish Inquisition." James called out even as Rue, and the Knights Who Go Ni, all called out. For a second Rue and James were quiet, staring at each other as the Knights started to laugh. Then, he and Rue broke out in laughter as well. The pixie's surprised look turned to a knowing smile.

"It seems you were catching up on your Monty Python."

"Well, you used the Knight's jokes against me in a bet, I couldn't leave myself in the dark." On top of watching the three Monty Python Movies James had downloaded, he also proceeded to look up some of their more notable skits. Apparently the internet remembered all, and people were still willing to chat about them and share such things.

"Indeed, I guess I'll have to change up my tactics." Rue looked down at the group, and a grin started to form across her face. An evil, knowing grin. "I can guess a few other movies that group is bound to quote." Uh oh. James had been given a soft ball with the Monty Python references, but what else might the group be referencing? Was James going to need to pull pop culture references from the 80s and 90s to keep up with his pixie's bets? James pulled up another window, preparing a google search just in case. He might not know the movie when they referenced it, but he could sure as hell look it up and add it to his play list.

"I feel like I'm going to be exposed to a lot more old movies and shows thanks to our bets and the Knights."

"Consider it a free education. Trust me, you will thank me later. You've really been missing out." Rue waved her hand, and a hot chocolate appeared in her hand. The pixie stared at it hard for a moment, before summoning marshmallows for it.

"Did you forget about your liquor ban?"

"They're going to rue the day they emplaced prohibition on me." The pixie chuckled as she took a sip. James glanced around nervously, half expecting her to disappear again. After nothing happened, he let out a sigh, and turned his attention back to the group. They had finished off the dickens, and were heading towards a half buried chest. James almost felt sorry for Oak.

The warrior took a step towards the chest, grinning at the others, before he lifted the lid. The moment he did, wooden spikes shot up from the ground into him, digging in deep. The poor warrior cried out in surprise, and started cussing up a storm. Once again, his friends just stood and laughed.

"That's it." Oak growled as he freed himself from the spikes, heading away from the group.

"Someone else gets to open these durned chests."

"Ah come on, you're the punching bag for a reason." Z was gasping for breath as he fought to stop laughing. He was trying, and failing, to regain his composure.

"I'm the tank, I've resigned myself to that. I'm not the trap dummy." Oak looked at the group, and James could tell his anger was already fading. You couldn't become top level adventurers in MMOs if you didn't have a good sense of humor, after all.

"Well, who do you suppose should open the traps then?" Z was glancing at the rest of the group, and James could see the point Z was trying to make. You wouldn't have your healer risk getting damaged by a trap, and the other three were all DPS players, with lower defense and hp than the warrior. Logically, Oak was the only choice.

"Don't you guys get a ranger subclass at level 20? I read in the notes that class has a detect traps option."

"Subclass?" James turned towards Rue, and the pixie nodded. James had to admit, he had been so caught up reading the dungeon core forums and working on his pop culture knowledge, he hadn't had much time to learn much of the game from the player point of view. James opened another window, quickly heading towards the DCO home page. As a gamer, he had a terrible habit of jumping around countless internet windows.

"From level 1 through 19, players have just their regular class, such as warrior, archer, cleric, etc. When they hit level 20, and every 10 levels after, they are able to pick up a subclass. With these subclasses, they gain access to additional skill tress, and special boosts to their character stats. Some subclass combinations can actually unlock secret classes as well."

"Gotcha, so it's just a way for them to broaden and create their own individual characters, via a way of multiclassing." James had seen that in a few games, and had to admit he liked the idea. It felt much more DnD, and pure, than a lot of the games he played now. Most claimed you had complete optimization, but you were usually trapped in a set class, and at max level it was likely every player of that class was running some variation of the same skill set and gear. This subclass option for the players, combined with the potential to unlock secret classes, was extremely intriguing. For a moment, James was kind of jealous he wasn't playing a character in DCO. He could only imagine what he could have become as a summoner.

"Well, I had planned on becoming an arcane archer." Elm looked to Z, and James saw the archer was pleading the team leader. Time to see what type of leader Z was.

"I," Z paused as he looked at his team, before his shoulders dropped slightly. "Ah, why not. I'll take ranger at 20." His comment brought a smile to everyone's faces, and the tension James had started to feel around the group lifted. "Besides, I think rangers can get an animal companion. If I get a black panther, you guys have to call me Drizzt, at least for a day."

"Psh, you'll never be as cool as Drizzt." Faust cut in, and the group let out a light laugh. James turned to Rue, seeing if she got the reference. For once, it seemed like the pixie had no idea what was being talked about. James ran a quick google search for the name, and found it was from an old book series. He quickly added it to his to read list, before turning back to his instance screen. Just as he was about to listen in on their next conversation, a flashing light from one of his other instance screens caught his attention. His alarm was going off, a group was near his mimic. Oh yes.