The Golem, Meteo City

When me and Jade ascend the stairs and enter the common area of the bar, we find Windy already waiting at the same table we sat at yesterday. At once, Jade flinches, looking conflicted about whether to rush her friend down or stay put. Likely to do with their argument.

I wave, "Good morning."

Windy waves back half-heartedly, an equally conflicted pair of eyes trained on Jade.

"...Morning."

"M-morning...Win..." Jade stammers, avoiding eye contact.

Looking between the two I can't help but want to sigh, "If you need some space to talk, I can wait downstairs."

Guilty, Windy denies me, "No, it's fine."

Jade stays silent.

"Ok," I scratch at the back of my neck, "I'm gonna see if our healer's waiting outside and let him in, in that case."

Sure enough, Angelus Reach is leaning against the building next to the doorframe when I stick my head out, my sudden appearance startling him, "Err, hello. I thought this place was closed for another hour?"

"I have something of an understanding with the owner. Come on in, we're all here," I step back and beckon him inside.

A little weirded out, Angelus trots inside cautiously, the only sounds being the owner in the kitchen readying the day's soup supply, the girls still locked in awkward silence at their table. Seeing them, he clears his throat, "Hello, Miss Windy Fields and to you as well, Miss. I'm Angelus Reach, can I have your name as well?"

Jade squints up at Angelus, then lets her eyes slowly trail down to his distinctive legs. I see the ghost of a mocking smirk before she responds with gusto, "Jade Fairy, nice to meet you!"

I wave him on, "Take a seat, I guess. Then once we take care of a small housekeeping matter, we can move on to the briefing."

Once seated, I clear my throat, "Before we begin, I'm going to have to ask you to agree to a confidentiality contract concerning the information I reveal to you today. If you have any objections to that, please say so."

Angelus frowns, "Could you elaborate?"

Rather than explain it myself, I hold out my hand to him and focus on the man, "<System Contract: Custom 3>"

He blinks, a Contract window no-doubt popping up in his face. I wrote up the System Contract - a subsystem whereby players can write up System-enforced contracts - yesterday before logging off and saved it to my third of 10 custom presets. The first two slots are presently occupied by the Guild contracts I showed to Windy and Jade.

Essentially, he's not allowed to blab about the location, details, strategy or his experience of Miner's Nightmare for a duration of three Real weeks, nor the exit method we'll be using to leave the city without a small platoon of PKers following us out the main gate. If he does, he'll be hard reset to Level 1 with all his items and money forfeited to me. Meanwhile, I cannot attack him unprovoked nor coerce him into breaking the contract.

He laughs anxiously, "That's a little extreme."

"Perhaps, but it's easier to trust one another if the system is overseeing our cooperation, and I can't afford to lose these advantages," I explain calmly.

He nods, serious, "I take your point. Very well, I accept these terms."

Waving off the reply window from the system, I clap my hands together, "Now, if I could have all your attention please, let's begin with the brief."

"A short journey west of the city is Liggit Mine. Known locally as the nearest and safest source of Copper Ore for miners," I begin.

Raising a couple fingers, Angelus interrupts, "Isn't that place being occupied by PKers?"

Jade sniggers, "Fish in a barrel, more like."

I roll my eyes, "We'll deal with that eventuality when we arrive on site. May I continue?"

"Sorry," Angelus apologises.

"As I was saying. Liggit Mine has, at the bottom of the excavation, a generously sized mineshaft leading down and east underground. This tunnel is occupied by no more and no less than 6 Level 7 Elites patrolling the area. These monsters are called Shards of Terror, a shadowy bipedal humanoid armed only with a cracked, glowing stone spear. They do not care one whit about mundane stealth Spells, Skills, Items or Techniques. Any Scout cocky enough to try bypassing them to get to the Reminiscence further down will find themselves turned into a kebab in rather short order. Shards are not particularly smart, but they are very accurate with their thrusts when it comes to finding weakpoints in an opponent's defence. Furthermore, their shadowy bodies are highly resistant to physical damage - instead it'll be mainly down to myself and Windy to smash their Terrorstone Spears, which is their real body. Please remember this, as they are the primary trash mob within the dungeon itself, and once inside they come in groups of 3 on average."

Angelus raises his hand again, "I thought this place was undiscovered?"

Windy pipes in before I come up with an excuse of my own, "Beta tester privileges boyo."

"Aha..." His demeanour brightens with a bit of extra confidence in the endeavour. I'm not really about to deny it so, I'll move on.

"I realise this might make it sound like you don't have much to do," I address Jade directly, "But if anything you're the most important person in the group for this dungeon. Whether or not we wipe is largely dependant on you doing your job."

"Huh?" Jade's face scrunches up.

"I say that primarily because of the other trash mob that is encountered inside the dungeon: Fearstruck Miners. On their own, they pose next to no threat in terms of a melee, despite being Level 6 Elites. However, they have two very, very annoying gimmicks tied to their perpetual, terrified screaming. Besides the annoyance of the constant shrieking, Fearstruck Miners will patrol the mine and can randomly bump into us when we're doing something else. Once they aggro, any other Fearstruck Miners capable of hearing the initial mob will be attracted to them. If ten Fearstruck Miners gather in close proximity, they will use an ability called Wail of Stolen Souls every twenty seconds that deals 50% Max HP magic damage and burns 20% of max MP. Sufficed to say, this cannot be allowed to happen," I slam the table with my palm for emphasis.

They all collectively grimace and wince as I explain the Wail - the bane of thousands of disorganised parties and overly-enthusiastic tanks that think that tanking the entire dungeon is a viable strategy.

"So, I need to shoot every Fearstruck asshole I see, right?" Jade questions.

"Essentially, yes. They respawn constantly, so you'll need to pay attention to our surroundings. Thankfully, their defences and hp are pretty low, so one arrow between the eyes should be enough to take them down, meaning that while the three of us deal with the Shards, that's your job," Jade nods in understanding, as do Windy and Angelus.

"That's a fucking nasty ability for a trash mob," Windy remarks, a little leery.

"Miner's Nightmare is pretty gimmicky, but once you know the tricks, fairly easy," I admit, "It teaches add management as well as monster weakpoints and resistances pretty well, punishing people who can't adapt. The epitome of a Bronze-Tier dungeon for low-level players."

Windy and Angelus look pretty thoughtful at that.

"That about covers all the trash mobs. There's only the two, and they're easy to deal with, so does anyone have any questions concerning them so far?"

They all shake their heads.

"Alright, then let's talk about the first boss. At the end of the first tunnel, it'll open up into a large circular arena with a few bits of setting fodder that you don't need to worry about. The boss is the animated corpse of the Foreman of Liggit Mine wielding a blunted pickaxe, now known more appropriately as the Vacantsoul Foreman. In place of his head is a large chunk of Terrorstone - the same stuff the spears carried by the Shards are made of - so you can more or less put two and two together there, I trust?"

"Stab the rock?" Windy asks simply.

"Stab the rock. Don't worry about weapon durability, the Terrorstone the mobs are using is low-quality shite and very brittle. The Vacantsoul has three abilities: Morbid Curiosity, Terrorise, and Despaired Flailing AKA Temper Tantrum. The most dangerous of which is the first, Morbid Curiosity, which he casts at 75%, 50% and 25% of his max HP. After a brief channel, he will summon ten Fearstruck Miners into the arena at the periphery, and they will crawl towards the centre. These are essentially the same as the others, but have twice as much HP. Me and Jade will have to clean up the adds as quickly as possible, as leaving them alive will just add unnecessary strain to Windy and Angelus, and make subsequent casts of Morbid Curiosity more dangerous," I continue, inwardly flashing back to the time I grouped up with a team that insisted on letting them gather up so the Hedge Mage could AoE them, only to have his face melted off by the resulting Wail.

"Kill all the asshole miners or we wipe part 2, got it," Jade gives me a peace sign.

"Other than that, the Vacantsoul is not particularly interesting or dangerous. Terrorise is a room-wide AoE on a forty-second cooldown that does ok damage, about 100 to 150-ish. It's tagged as Magic and Psychic, so it's reduced by Willpower and Resilience - I'll leave whether you try and mitigate it or not up to your judgment, Windy. The other ability is a shitty Tankbuster - his next three attacks will be 20% faster and slightly less predictable. It happens on a 55 second interval and is his first priority over other abilities, even Morbid Curiosity, so just be ready for him to break the rhythm and start throwing a tantrum."

I give them all a small amount of time to properly digest the information, Windy speaks up after a short while.

"How viable is it to just move out the way when he activates Despaired Flailing?"

Angelus also perks up at that.

"It's dependant on attacks made, rather than attacks connected, so if you can, you should," I inform her. She nods to herself, gesturing for me to continue.

"Boss two of three is exceptionally easy. The easiest of the three, in fact," I rub my eyes, still a bit groggy, "It's basically a souped-up Shard, only as an Assassin this time called Trophytaker. Arena is about half the size of the first and very dark. Trophytaker starts the fight in stealth, and almost exclusively targets the player with the least defensive ability for Covetous Knives, meaning either Jade or Angelus, which does a ridiculous amount of damage and will almost certainly one-shot his victim if he pulls it off. Additionally, he will heal to full and gain a stacking damage buff per 'Trophy' taken," I pause momentarily to catch my breath, "Dealing with it is simple - knock him out of stealth with damage. He always stands in the same spot at the start of the fight, so Jade will fire off an arrow to knock him out of stealth the first time, after which we will have one minute to beat the shit out of him before he uses his stealth ability again. Given that his defence is low and so is his health, we only need that one minute to end him. He has nothing else special."

"Gotcha~" Jade looks pleased with how much she gets to do.

"Finally, we have a gimmick boss. The Pool of Desire and The Nightmare. Strictly speaking, the boss is The Pool of Desire, a spring corrupted by demonic energy, but being a literal pool of magic water, we can't damage it directly - instead it's guardian, The Nightmare will be the thing we fight. Basically a golem made out of Terrorstone, and for added creepiness, corpses of the miners who died in the room as it's bones and joints," Thankfully I'm more or less used to it, but I see Jade pale visibly. Windy is entirely unfazed, Angelus only slightly less stoic about it.

"The Nightmare is functionally immortal to start off with, and will ordinarily avoid going too close to the Pool itself. However, there's a trick to it. It's first ability of two is Covetous Grasp - every thirty seconds it will fixate on a player, usually the nearest, and attempt to grab them. If it's successful, you have about five seconds before you're assimilated into The Nightmare, killing you instantly and unpleasantly, while also healing it for 20% of it's Max HP. You can be broken out of it if enough damage is done to the arms, but don't count on it being enough when we're already doing this underlevelled, slightly undergeared, and with one less party member than optimal."

"...What is with this dungeon and instakills?" Angelus complains, his pride as a healer no doubt challenged by unhealable damage.

"Just gotta not get grabbed," I reply helplessly, "It's not very fast on it's feet, thankfully, which is just as well because when it fixates on a player, you need to lure it through the Pool of Desire - without walking in it yourself ideally. Exposure will slow you and deal damage every few seconds. Unfortunately, I have to suck it up and take it from time to time, so I'll need you to keep an eye on me, Angelus."

"I'm guessing it's vulnerable when in the sludge?" Angelus hedges.

"Yes. While it's in contact with the water, the Terrorstone Gem between it's shoulderblades will be especially vulnerable to attack. Dealing enough damage to knock it down will remove a 'charge' from the Pool and it'll reform The Nightmare to full, ending it's Covetous Grasp attempt. Do it three times and we win."

"Ugh, I hate those kinds of bosses, so much standing around waiting for it to decide to not be invulnerable," Jade whines, a sentiment that I am contractually obligated to agree with as a fellow damage dealer.

"And the other ability?" Windy asks.

"A heavy-hitting punch called Jealous Strike. You'll recognise it by the long wind-up and glowing arm. It uses it after every failed Covetous Grasp, and is really easy to dodge. If it hits you, you'll probably lose about 60% of your max hp with your current Resilience and Armour, rather than getting thumped into the ground like a tent peg. I should also mention that it's regular attacks are similarly slow and strong, so at least for this one, try not to stand your ground too much. That's basically the entire dungeon - now let's talk Satisfaction, if nobody has any questions?"

Again, no takers, "Embedded in the walls throughout are mining nodes with an item called 'Imagined Riches'. There's 10 in total, and they increase in proficiency requirement the further in we go, from 1-Star Novice to 3-Star Novice Miner. Each one we gather and dump into the remains of the Pool will increase the satisfaction by 5%, breaking past the maximum 50% allowable for killing all the required enemies with no deaths. Jade is, thankfully, a 2-Star Novice, or I would have had to take an extra day to get the proficiency myself. Which means we have the necessary prereqs to get an A rating."

Jade puffs out her chest, "I'm awesome."

"That you are," I deadpan, "No idea what exactly the reward is for the first A rating, but we might as well go for it anyway, as higher Satisfaction means better loot in general. Now, let's get moving, I'll pass the extra supplies I got along the way."