NPC into Player: Let's Wreck This Game

"We can't tell before testing these out," he shook his head before glancing over to the side where Antoan was deeply focused over what he was doing.

Just as three hours passed before Antoan finally regained his normal state. "I've cracked it," he said before pointing to his mind, "it's all stored in here."

"Great, let's hit the road then," just as Bloom said this a loud roar suddenly erupted from one direction before others appeared after that.

"Damn! I forgot about their respawn time," Bloom could only smile, "let's run, it's not wise to fight those up this hill."

"Follow me," Antoan shouted and the entire team ran fast heading towards the bottom of the hill. The ascension trip was much slower, but it was far safer.

"Watch out," one player shouted, attracting everyone's attention to one direction where a group of hundreds of monsters were running fast towards them.

"There as well," another pointed to the other side. "Don't stop, run and let those with resurrection skills be at the forefront," Bloom shouted as he noticed some players intended to summon their pets and fight back.

It was obvious that getting to the bottom of the hill would require much more than luck. "How much we lost?" Bloom was panting while watching the summoned pet army that the remaining players in his team summoned after getting to the ground.

"Around twenty-five."

"Not bad," Bloom said, "resurrect them now and let's get moving."

The team didn't take much time to kill the monsters and resurrect those fallen comrades of theirs. After the entire team was reformed again, Bloom led them with the guidance of Antoan.

"This maze is really cunning," Antoan had to say, "those who created it made sure not to be crossed easily."

"Why is that?"

"There are clouds of fog that keep covering up many departments of this maze. If not for waiting for them to move around, I would have been fooled by many dead ends."

"Miasma?" Bloom asked.

"I believe so," Antoan nodded, "after all these clouds seemed a little bizarre. I never saw clouds moving so low and slow before."

"We'll see," Bloom glanced at the drawing near the maze, "where is the entry point?"

"Half an hour run to the right," Antoan pointed to a certain direction, "I marked the main points in my map, so when we are nearby I'll let you know."

"Good."

They ran as Antoan said for half an hour before they spotted a path like others they met before. "It's this one," Antoan said in confirmation while Bloom glanced at him as he asked: "Sure?"

He nodded and Bloom just shouted, "let's go in… I believe the monsters inside would be like those we faced before over the hill. When I order a retreat , don't slack off or else I might not resurrect you."

Bloom's harsh treatment wasn't groundless. After all he didn't trust the judge of his butler anymore and had to end this quest first before he would go through a revolution inside his team and trusted men.

Who would betray him here wouldn't hesitate to do the same out in the real world. Here he could lose a level, but outside he was still at risk even with his growing power.

As they entered the path, they spotted a group of similar monsters on the hills.

"Strange," one player muttered, "why aren't they attacking us?"

"Strange indeed," Bloom also noticed that the monsters glanced at them briefly before returning to mind their own business.

"They might be passive ones, right?" Antoan was optimistic.

"I doubt that," Bloom narrowed his eyes before adding, "let's send a small group of our pets first to attack them."

"Will we still attack them?" Antoan was speechless.

"Sure," Bloom nodded before turning to the team and gave them a serious glance that made at least half summon their pets and send them off.

"Slightly overboard," he muttered, "but not bad."

"Shouldn't we leave them alone?" Antoan whispered in doubt.

"Believe me, there is no such kindness in such a game," Bloom said before watching the pets coming so near the peaceful monsters before they finally hit them.

"Invalid!"

"Invalid!"

"Invalid!"

That was what appeared on top of those monsters. Despite how hard the pets tried, they couldn't even take a single point off these monsters.

"See? I told you some dirty scheme was here," Bloom muttered in low tone, "but why is it invalid?"

"Does this mean they aren't part of the quest?" a player asked.

"No, I hardly believe it," Bloom shook his head before adding, "I think we need to trigger something first."

"Like what?" a player asked.

"Dunno, but perhaps a boss monster or something," Bloom shook his head before adding, "now you all will remain here," he said before adding, "don't let anyone follow me, and keep an eye over the chat."

"Be careful," Antoan said, "if you die we can resurrect you," he added.

"Don't be this pessimistic," Bloom laughed, "I'm not that easy to kill y'know."

He went directly towards the front, where the path started to take right and left twists. "Where is that triggering thing?" he kept asking himself while examining everything around with extreme focus.

"Is this…?" he paused after walking for over ten minutes already as he finally reached a dead end. "When did I take a wrong turn?" he scratched his head and just as he touched the wall trying to see if there was a sudden mechanism to it, a loud bang erupted all of sudden.

"Damn!" he turned sharply around to spot many dormant monsters becoming instantly active, "so the triggering here is to fail the maze and end up into a dead end… screw you developers," he shouted in rage while running as fast as he could.

But slowly the path upfront was getting narrower by the overcrowding monsters.

"Screw it… Darkness might!"

"Darkness might skill: Any monster attacking the player during the time of the skill will get a fear effect no matter what level or grade it was for thirty seconds.

Monsters affected will run havoc, evading the player with their attack, and might cause some damage to others during these thirty seconds.

Player attacks during the thirty second period are valid, while monster attacks against players aren't. Duration: ten seconds. Cooldown: one minute."

Just as he activated the skill, all the monsters with no exception who were about to hit him turned around, roared in panic, and started to run in havoc all around.

That helped to buy him a precious half a minute where he got so near his team. "Just a little more," he urged while stealing a swift glance at the chaos he caused all around, "if I just can use this skill forever, I would be simply invincible."

He opened the chat and sent a warning message to Antoan. Yet he found Antoan already sent a long row of messages warning him of what happened to the monsters around them and telling him they retreated already.

"Cowards," he cursed, "they couldn't even stay and wait for their boss to come!"

Just as he closed the chat he found the effect of the skill fading away. "No other way then… Darkness nihilism."

"Darkness nihility skill: Player will be invisible for the duration of the skill. the player can attack freely without being seen, and if the player receives an attack, he will only take one tenth of the damage caused by these attacks. Duration: one minute. Cooldown: two minutes."

He instantly vanished but he didn't stop running. He checked his stamina to find it had only lost one tenth of it so far. "At least one piece of good news," he muttered before opening the map and found he was extremely close to the exit of this path.

Just before his skill vanished he stopped at the entrance and waited until the effect weaned off and then appeared running from the last turn to appear in front of Antoan and others while being chased by a huge group of monsters.

"Don't stand like that," he shouted, "summon the pet army, prepare for battle."

The team thought after getting out of the maze the monsters would stop chasing them. It was true for them as they weren't the one ending in a dead end there.

But for Bloom things seemed different. Once he exited the maze the monsters kept chasing like he was still running inside.

This coupled with his shouts from before made everyone hurry to summon their pets and take the fight stance. In less than half a minute he reached them and the fight started intensely from the start.

"I told you," Bloom took a deep breath while watching his players clearing the battlefield off the loot and resurrecting the ones fallen here, "this game isn't a mere walk in the garden."

"I never thought they would be this merciless," Antoan sighed, "dunno who had a twisted mind to do something like this."

"Lucky for us you cracked the maze," Bloom hit his arm before adding, "or else we would end up running all day long without getting us anywhere."

"At least we can clear those mo…" Antoan choked in the middle of his words while Bloom glanced at the maze again before sighing.

The monsters they just killed were respawned again like nothing happened. "Still having good faith in the developers? They are much more twisted, have a darker mind than I do!"