That Tunic...

Artemis raised his aegis and cast a dispelling spell. The bolt of spell ricochetted around the passageway and struck the gnomish wizard right in the nose. The sphere of invulnerability was completely nullified by the spell and David raised a fist in pleasure.

``Yes!'' He cried out loud. ``I can't believe that the new costume we picked up actually helps Artemis to cast that dispelling spell accurately.''

``I cannot believe it,'' Mary replied from her computer opposite of him. ``Why the hell did you manage to pick up that blessed tunic? I thought it was supposed to be dropped only on my end?''

``Well this is the latest patch of the game. I think they made it such that twice as much loot drops in a multiplayer context, and everyone can now pick up anything.''

``That's a stupid system,'' Mary said as she clicked on her screen to guide her avatar towards the gnomish wizard to strike blows at it.

David shrugged. Artemis dropped his aegis and charged in with staff in hand to help Mary's Athena, who was already thwacking away at the gnomish wizard with her short sword. For a wizard, it seemed to have too many hit points -- even with Artemis striking away at it, it still took nearly twenty to thirty blows before the gnomish wizard was felled. And it wasn't even a boss character either.

``Is it me or did they screw up the balance again?'' Mary asked as she clicked on the gnomish wizard's corpse to loot it. ``Sweet, rare short sword!'' She clicked on it to pick it up and equip it on Athena. The latter's right arm was now holding a short sword that was glowing blue.

``Lucky...'' David said. ``But I think my blessed tunic is better.''

``Only if you are a squishy magic user! Plate armour for the win!'' Mary laughed. ``Next floor!''

Artemis and Athena walked past the now looted gnomish wizard corpse and made their way to the blackness that was the entrance to the stairs to the next floor of the dungeon, or as David put it, ``loading zone exit''. The images on the screens paused for a while before revealing yet another new level, with Artemis and Athena starting at roughly the same place.

The new dungeon featured different tiles from the previous one. The one they just went through had a stony appearance, as though some masonry work had been done to build the dungeon. But in this next one, the default tiles seemed to suggest a slightly more natural cave setting, with dirt and coal pillars everywhere.

``I don't think you should use fire spells here, David. I've got a funny feeling that you might set the place on fire.''

``No worries, I don't have any fire spells prepared. It should be fine.''

Artemis raised his aegis and led the way, with Athena close behind. The aegis was a side effect of the blessed tunic, and according to the statistics page for equipment, granted a bonus to defense that was higher than the plate armour that Athena was wearing. The caveat was, of course, that the aegis effect only lasted for thirty seconds. It also amplified the success chance for spells, which explained why the dispel spell worked well.

Out of the blue, a lightning bolt hit Artemis and struck down the aegis in one shot. A ring of fire centred on Artemis grew outwards and lit the coal pillars on fire. Both Artemis and Athena started taking lots of damage as David and Mary clicked desperately to get their respective avatars out of the area. But they were not close enough to any exit, and so both Artemis and Athena died and had to respawn back in the town.

``Dude! David! What the hell! I thought I told you no fire spells!''

``I didn't cast that! Didn't you see that there was a lightning bolt that hit me?''

``Yeah, but all it did was to knock out the aegis---'' Mary was suddenly silent.

``How the hell can we get a cursed blessed tunic in this game?'' David suddenly said out loud.

(Based on an exercise generated by WriteThis - 2014-01-16 17:29:14)