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Li Xun was lying comatose on his sofa when his phone beeped. He flung out an arm, flailed in the direction of his phone, and managed to bring up Jiang Botao’s message.
Patch story giants prep event week.
Li Xun squinted at the message until it began making sense, then promptly sent a video call request.
Jiang Botao picked up after three rings. He was eating, which was no surprise; the other man’s typing could be relied upon to become what Li Xun privately thought of as ‘Zhou Zekai-fied’ whenever there was food around. This time it was a bowl of grapes. Li Xun wanted a bowl of grapes.
“The Giants’ Graveyard region is being updated this patch to set up next week’s event?” he asked.
Jiang Botao flashed a thumbs up into the camera. “The five-player dungeons, specifically,” he said, putting the grapes aside. “I read Broken Teeth and Narrow Spine both have an updated map and new regular enemies, plus a pair of new blue drops so that’s another small story before the event drops. Our guild leader says the Mercurial Knight already spawned this week, so no concerns there.”
“Right,” said Li Xun, who knew far too well what carnage the Mercurial Knight wrought. The memory of an eleven-digit damage number was still quite fresh. “Then we split, I run Broken Teeth and you run Narrow Spine? And vice versa if we don’t get the drops. Though I wish Glory would start wrapping up this storyline, we still know nothing about the scorpion civilisation and it’s been a whole year.”
“They’ve got to expand the savannah sometime this year too,” said Jiang Botao doubtfully. “We can’t keep having photography contests for wildebeest migration where they disappear into nothing.”
Li Xun’s alarm started vibrating on his phone at the same moment another alarm started ringing on Jiang Botao’s side, which meant it was time to cut the conversation short. “Catch you after the runs? Unless you’ve got other things happening and can’t get in straight away,” he said.
Jiang Botao squinted at something offscreen. “Works for me. Want to bet who gets the new equipment first?”
Easy for him to say – he’d won the last three bets, and that horrible idol drama Li Xun had been made to watch still haunted him. Also, he hadn’t thought of any punishment that could possibly be worse yet, so even a victory would be a waste. “Gambling is illegal,” he said primly, and ended the call to Jiang Botao’s cackle of laughter.
Unfortunately his house was devoid of grapes, but Li Xun did find a banana and some pastries. Close enough. He turned the fan on to full blast in one last protest against the ridiculous humidity and started downloading the new update, then fired a quick message into the group chat.
Ghost Lantern: 4 people for Broken Teeth dungeon?
He had replies within seconds. It wasn’t hard to imagine his teammates in their respective homes doing the same thing as him, namely, sweating out the Xi’an summer in a singlet and shorts in front of the computer, waiting for the last five minutes of the maintenance period to tick over. Li Xun glanced at his phone.
Crying Devil: 1 also your vc says he cant make it ☹ sry
Soul Defender: 1111111111
Blue Exorcist: 😭😭 I have to get groceries in half an hour.
Translucent: we live in the 21st century just get it delivered. 11111111
Blue Exorcist: my parents say I need exercise 😭
Crying Devil: ……
Transparent: was downloading the patch, 1.
Transparent: Also, poor Caijie.
Poor Ge Caijie indeed. Li Xun spared a moment to mentally light incense for probably the fittest person in all of Void, then double-checked his teammates’ smurf account names. Ge Zhaolan was trialling out the value of a low-levelled Electron Eye on a new mechanic, but the others were familiar enough that they wouldn’t have to waste time finding equipment once the game loaded. More importantly, his ninja smurf had them all added.
On screen, the Glory logo flashed, and the game loaded.
Travelling to Giants’ Graveyard was the hardest part; there were no handy teleporters nearby, which meant the five of them had to run all the way from the closest city. Li Xun couldn’t even describe the scenery as good, either. Like the name suggested, they were travelling to a graveyard – an ancient battleground between the giants and the dragons. Ultimately it had been a pyrrhic victory for the giants, slaying the Dragon of Ages at the cost of virtually every giant who came.
The Dragon of Ages’ corpse had calcified into a mountain range, first mapped by a legendary cartographer known only as Surveyor – an individual who had lacked lore updates for the past five years. If Surveyor was lucky, the event would drop another tidbit, but Li Xun wasn’t going to hold his breath. All he knew of Surveyor was that they had mapped a great deal of the western highlands, they had vanished seven hundred years ago, and they had a sense of humour. Who else would name the mountains formed by the spines on the dragon’s back Broken Teeth, and the caves that were the gaping maw of the dragon Narrow Spine?
“How’s everyone been?” asked Li Xuan.
A chorus of good and well answered him, with Tang Lisheng taking a moment to gripe about the leak in his bathroom that was causing a fungus to grow. Li Xun recommended him a plumbing company, and Li Xuan prolific use of vinegar and baking soda.
“Hey, Li Xun,” said Yang Haoxuan. “If we’re running Broken Teeth, is Samsara running, what’s the twin dungeon, the spine?”
“Narrow Spine, and yes,” said Li Xun. “It got updated this patch in preparation for the event.”
“Wanna tell us about it?”
Did he ever. Li Xun gladly spent the ten minutes it took travelling to Giants’ Graveyard regaling them with the lore premise as the ground steadily grew more treacherous and enemies began spawning. At least they were moving fast enough that a few well-placed Ash Boundaries were enough to stop enemies from catching up. Past the petrified forest, past the Lonely River, past the grass – and Giants’ Graveyard opened up in front of them.
They were halfway up the mountains when there was movement below, another team of five making a beeline for the dragon’s maw. Jiang Botao had arrived. Li Xun waved at him over on QQ and continued climbing.
Li Xuan fell into step next to him. “Once we’re in the dungeon, what do you need us to do?”
“I’ll need to make some notes of the new enemy designs,” said Li Xun. “There’s a new blue weapon, so if we get any transfer them to me. This account doesn’t have much on it anyway, the weight will be negligible. Oh, there’s also supposed to be new scenery, but I don’t remember what Broken Teeth looked like before.”
“It’s a fight through mobs to the top of the mountain,” said his captain. “I remember falling off the edge before and dying to the multiplied fall damage.”
That was the whiff of gossip. “When was this?” he asked. “I don’t remember it.”
Li Xuan just chuckled. If they were all in the Void building, Li Xun had the feeling he would have been clapped on the back. But they were scattered and on holidays, so all Li Xuan did was move ahead of him as the path narrowed to single file, blocking off the HP-draining mountain wind.
Ahead, the prompt for entry to Broken Teeth flashed. Li Xun scooted aside to make room for Ge Zhaolan to come up, and Li Xuan hit enter.
“The last time I was in Broken Teeth must have been two years ago,” mused Yang Haoxuan. “I’d like to say it brings back memories, but it really doesn’t.”
“What,” said Tang Lisheng immediately, “you didn’t fall off the edge?”
Li Xun sidled up to him to no avail; the paladin turned playfully closemouthed when he tried to pry. All that served to do was make him curiouser, but he held off on indulging it in favour of looking around for new enemies.
There! He snapped a screenshot and opened up a notepad, quickly scribbling down the important features. Void fanned out around him, whittling down the new enemy last and giving Li Xun plenty of time to see its skills. When he finished observing, he dispatched it with a quick Shuriken.
They fought their way up the slopes of Mount Molar, craggy and covered in snow. Led by their captain, his teammates blasted the dungeon apart in a formation that kept Li Xun firmly shielded, and when he was done with his notes it was the easiest thing in the world to slide back into their tempo. By the time they reached the summit he had five pages of notes and three pieces of equipment, none of which were blue. Lady Luck was trolling him.
“Desire sensor,” said Ge Zhaolan wisely, cancelling out of a Drill Attack animation to give his avatar the impression of a one-shouldered shrug. “The game knows what you want and doesn’t want to give it to you.”
In real life, Li Xun pulled a face. “The never-ending struggle.”
“There’s always another mountain to climb,” agreed Li Xuan. His ghostblade made for a dashing sight against the snow-covered dragon spines, peering at the next peak. “Do you need me to put a notice in for Void Walk? I’m sure we can form plenty of teams out of the players who haven’t run five-player dungeons this week, and blue equipment drops are common.”
That – would be quite nice. Given how out of the way Broken Teeth was, even a blue piece of equipment specific to the dungeon likely wouldn’t make it to market for some time. “Just make sure to stress it’s only if they don’t have other uses for their attempts,” he said aloud.
When he peered down there was movement far, far away. “Hey, Zhaolan, is Samsara back out?”
Whichever designer made the mechanic’s monocle flash in tandem with Electron Eye deserved a raise, honestly. It made him look like a cool supervillain – not that Li Xun was ever saying that in front of Xiao Shiqin. It wasn’t that he was scared of Xiao Shiqin, or worried that the other man would take it the wrong way, but the odds were very high that Xiao Shiqin would drop it in conversation with Zhang Xinjie, and Li Xun was, actually, quite scared of Tyranny’s vice-captain.
No cleric that would go against Wu Yuce in single combat on an All-Stars stage and do it so seriously was not scary.
“They’ve got Samsara tags on them,” reported Ge Zhaolan, and Li Xun immediately brought up his QQ screen.
Luck????
No equipment ☹ replied Jiang Botao. You?
Three purples.
A string of deadpan emotes flooded the chatlog. Where Jiang Botao found all those emotes was a mystery Li Xun hadn’t yet solved, but he was happy to steal them for his own collection in the meantime. The odds of getting confirmation that Zhou Zekai sent them as a faster means of communication were basically nil.
Wait, no blue either?
Nope, he sent back, to another cascade of emotes.
If we’re this unlucky now I’m going to be camping the forums for the whole event, grumbled Jiang Botao. Swap now?
“Are you guys free to run Narrow Spine as well?” Li Xun asked.
Affirmations rang in his headphones. “If you’re still doing that bet thing with the Samsara vice-captain, you should bet that you’ll get the new equipment faster than he does,” added Yang Haoxuan.
“You realise I lost the last three bets and had to watch some truly awful drama episodes,” said Li Xun. “I’m saving it for when I can think of a better punishment.”
“But it was fun watching you watch the drama episodes,” said his traitorous teammate. “When are you going to think of it?”
“I can’t believe you,” said Li Xun, who could very well believe that the person munching popcorn on the other couch while he’d been suffering through dramas in the common room was Yang Haoxuan. He just hadn’t realised who the popcorn was for. “Anyway, I have nefarious plans. Once I think of them.”
k, he typed back to Jiang Botao.
🙏🙏🙏🙏🙏 We’ll do Broken Teeth and catch up with you after then.
“I’ve always wondered if it’s possible to Aerial Fire down from here,” Yang Haoxuan was saying when he tuned back in, Ge Zhaolan scrutinising the distance with Electron Eye. “That would be cool, landing all superhero-style from this high up.”
“You’ll crash and die,” Tang Lisheng said. “It would be very cool to see, though. Now I wish I’d brought a cleric, so you can do that and then I can revive you.”
“And then we wouldn’t have a tank and die of OT instead,” said Ge Zhaolan.
Li Xuan cleared his throat. “Everyone’s indispensable,” his captain said mildly. “But perhaps leave the Aerial Fire test for another day. Make sure to invite me, I want to see it too. Now, I’ve lost a quarter of my HP from the biting weather just standing here – Narrow Spine, was it?”
“We should race each other down,” said Li Xun, eyeing Yang Haoxuan. “Loser has to watch dramas in the common room.”
Ge Zhaolan snorted. Li Xuan made a muffled noise of laughter, as if he’d hastily slapped a hand over the microphone. Tang Lisheng banged his sword against his shield. Yang Haoxuan, very unwisely, puffed out his chest.
“There’s only one single-file path down,” said Tang Lisheng. “You’re all going to push each other off the edge and become corpses. You know what, I’m in.”
“Five,” said Li Xuan, confident in the knowledge it wasn’t him Li Xun was targeting. “Four, three, two, one— go!”
Yang Haoxuan sprinted for the path. Li Xun grinned and threw his ninja’s ropes over the side of the mountain, cackling to his teammates’ howls over his blatant class advantage.
“Remember you have to watch dramas!” he shouted.