HC:Pacifist | Ch. 83 - Pacman Much? (Patreon)

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This locker room was an exact copy of the one Roth had found his flashlight in, but all of the lockers were wide open this time, and he got no notification as he entered. He clicked his tongue in frustration and punched at the empty air. Someone had been here before. He couldn't expect to be the only explorer out there. Someone else had ventured deep into the sewers and found this maintenance room before him.

He shone his flashlight into all the lockers individually, not caring about using up all his energy. They were all empty. Roth sighed. His only hope was that someone else had been here recently and that if he tried coming here later, a drop would respawn. Another less likely possibility was that every time he entered the room, there was a specific chance of it giving an item as a reward.

Whatever the case was, he decided to mark the location on his map. There were five pieces of the plumber's set. If there was one maintenance locker room for each piece of the set, since he had already found two, logic had it that there would be three left to go.

Roth shone the flashlight and saw a ladder leading up to a distant hatch. It seemed that all of these locker rooms had an exit to the upworld. He climbed the ladder, turned the wheel, and pushed hard. There was a smell of fire and coal in the air. Roth could also hear the sound of hammers. Maybe this was Blacksmith Street? He hauled himself out and saw that this ladder led up to a secret trap door in an alley. It looked like it could only be opened from the inside.

Roth looked up into the night sky. The moonlight was weak tonight, and the sky was cloudy. That explained why the sewers were so dark tonight. He dove back in and closed the hatch behind him. Climbing back down, Roth added the exit to his map and sat for a few minutes, letting his energy recover to the maximum before he resumed his march.

It would have been nice to find another piece of the plumber set here, but he couldn't have everything in life, could he? There were many talented players out there who thought outside the box and tried to discover the game's secrets, just like Roth. He went back to exploration.

The dimmed light that made it from the lamps illuminating the city above didn't do much for his poor visibility down here. By now, the darkness in the sewers was nearly absolute. Roth kept systematically turning the flashlight on while keeping the glowshroom in his other hand at all times.

After an hour, Roth had finished mapping the borders of the sewers. He only had to fill in the blank in the middle. He was working on a clockwise spiral, so he turned right when he could and started making it toward the center of the map. Even though there was crippling darkness, he still tried to go through every tunnel as fast as he could.

The secret to completing this quest was out here somewhere—torch on, torch off. This was a dead-end. Roth checked if [Search] was off cooldown and seeing that it was, activated it.

You detect nothing of interest.

Disappointed, Roth doubled back and turned right at the next segment of the sewers—torch on, torch off.

There was an intersection up ahead; he would see if it was a dead-end. Arriving, he flashed his torch to the right and saw nothing. When he shone it on the left, he was met with dozens of twinkling eyes reflecting the light of his torch.

Roth hadn't expected to meet so many oozing monsters grouped like this. What was going on? Roth wasn't sure what to do for a few awkward moments. He got no quest notification. This meant this wasn't where the monsters came from. Why, then, were there so many of them grouped here? And what was up with this weird stand-off? Why weren't they attacking?

As if in answer to his question, all of the monsters suddenly started running toward him. Roth screamed and ran off, flailing his arms desperately with the monsters in tow. Roth needed all the energy in his bar to sprint as far as he could. Fortunately for him, the combination of [Marathonist], [Triathlete], and [Ratan Form] meant that he could sprint at full speed for a long time. He could easily run all the way to Mario's lab if he had to.

As he ran away, Roth took a few moments to beat himself up for being so stupid. What had gotten into him? Why did he have the brilliant idea of going to look for monsters in the sewers at night? It was as if he was begging to be scared to death!

After a minute of being chased, Roth calmed down. The distance from his pursuers was widening. That meant he was faster than them. Knowing he could outrun the oozing stampede relaxed him enough to let him think again. He tried to run toward the western district's outer rim near Scar's nest. With some luck, he'd run into Athos and leave eliminating these monsters to him.

Even though Roth tried not to run too fast and even threw a few taunting shouts to maintain aggro, after a few more minutes, the monsters stopped chasing and returned the way they had come from. Roth was left alone in the darkness again.

On the one hand, he was terrified of what had just happened. Shining a torch on a monster in the sewers was the stuff of nightmares, and he was glad he wouldn't be sleeping any time soon.

On the other hand, if the monsters were all huddled together like that, it meant that there must be something valuable on the other side, right? The best-case scenario had been for him to run into Athos and let him blast them to smithereens. But it seemed they wouldn't chase him this far, and Athos didn't seem willing to walk further in until he knew where the monsters were being spawned.

Roth cracked his knuckles and his neck. That would have been too easy. He would have to put the work in. Roth paused and checked his map. It was at 88%. He had an idea. But he would increase his chances of success if he first completed as much of the map as possible.

*

Inside the darkness of the egg, Josh commanded his troops furiously and checked his map and all the accompanying charts. One of the five platoons of thirty minions he'd formed had spotted the intruder again. It was the third time this had happened over the last hour.

Despite the generous stats and scary speed his infected possessed, the intruder managed to escape every time. But that wasn't all bad news. At least that told Josh that this amount and level of mobs was enough to keep the invader at bay. The player couldn't be too high-leveled. Unfortunately, repeated incidents over the last hour proved his fears. Someone was on to him.

Loki had repeatedly and exhaustively explained that the key to this plan was to go undetected. At the sight of any nearby players, they should abort the plan and lay low for as long as possible. That's why only rogues had been deployed for this too. Even though he had to sacrifice a stat to lay the egg, his dexterity and skills were still intact. Even if he lost all minions and someone made it to this chamber, he could activate [Camouflage] and hide.

Together with the mission, all of the players in this plan had been given a package of skills that boosted their stealth to the point that even a level 50 player would have trouble seeing through invisibility. After all, although there was a limitation on being unable to move, there was none in making the egg invisible.

If it came to that, he would hide and let the storm blow over before he tried gathering enough minions again. But the delay would undoubtedly make Loki furious. He looked at the countdown. There were six hours left until his supervisor called again. He had to make a decision. He bit his tongue, swallowed his pride, and made a call.

"What is it, Hilsford?" asked the apathetic lady on the other side.

"Hello, we have a problem here. There's an intruder." The secretary stood there dumbly for a few seconds. Just as he was terrified of telling her what was happening, Josh realized she wouldn't be thrilled with having to tell Loki about it face-to-face.

"Is it just the one?"

"So far, yes."

"What do you know?" Josh was surprised that she wasn't screaming left and right at him. "A few minutes ago, some of my sentries were killed. I called the troops back and formed five squads of thirty. I put each guarding one of the entrances to my assigned location and thirty others next to the egg in case I need to send backup, and I then called you immediately."

The first sign of trouble had been two hours ago, but Josh lied a little to look better in the picture.

"From now on, don't disconnect this call. I want to be a part of every decision that is made. We'll first try to contain the intruder. If it is a random player exploring the sewers, scaring him should suffice. I'll let the boss know immediately what's happening. If we lose Hilsford, it will severely disturb his..."

"The intruder is back," Josh said, interrupting his supervisor. Another blip on the screen had appeared, marking the location where the intruder was spotted.

"Quick! Contain him. Send the platoon closest to where he was located together with the backup. Bring up the group in your rear to stand guard close to you." It was an excellent bold move, as much as he hated to admit it.

Josh couldn't see through the eyes of the monsters he was controlling. They were all bleeps on his map. All he could do was to put them into groups and give them simple commands such as 'fight,' 'chase,' 'defend,' 'patrol,' 'turn right,' 'turn left,' etc.

"Strange."

"What? What?"

"I thought this intruder was able to run faster. Maybe it's just my impression." After a few moments of pause, Josh continued. "Converging on him with group two."

Josh kept commanding the two groups of infected monsters to chase after the intruder. The player who'd breached the perimeter had a slightly greater speed than his minions and more maneuverability. If only he could have a camera to see what was going on. Despite Josh's efforts, the intruder kept evading him.

"Deploy another group and send it ahead to wait for him. Then, try to corner him using the other two groups." His supervisor was a decisive strategist willing to deploy more troops than Josh would have. Josh got the two groups already chasing the target running in circles after him to give enough time to the third group to reach a good ambush site.

"Converging now." Josh sprung his trap. He got the two groups to herd him toward a corner and the third group to come behind his back. Just as the ambush was nearly complete, the target suddenly disappeared. Where did it go? He sent a command to all his infected minions to search for the target. No messages.

"Where is the target?"

"I think it logged out?"

"Scatter one of the groups and leave sentries patrolling at every corner. Have the rest of them meet us here. Let's try to lay low for a moment. Perhaps we can still reach the boss' deadline. I'll tell him what happened and see what he wants to do."

"Very well." His supervisor reacted better than he expected. It was just a scare, thank goodness.

*

Roth's heart raced inside locker room #1. His plan had worked. He'd been able to lure the monsters away from the only part of the sewers left unexplored on his map.

When he'd seen this dead-end, Roth had found it suspicious and used [Search]. It had revealed another locker room hidden here. After seeing the first two, he started getting a knack for guessing where the developers hid secret rooms.

The monsters almost had him a couple of times. Good thing he had found another part of the plumber set here.

Plumber Boots (Rare)

Item description: Boots that give you traction even in damp environments and that complete your plumbing ensemble. It's part of a set.

Item effects: +20% speed in damp places.

Restrictions: Lvl. 12.

It was a weirdly specific effect and gave no stats, but it worked in the sewers, and Roth had fully used the 20% running boost to escape the many monsters chasing him. They kept multiplying, and it was becoming harder to run away from them.

Like every other locker room, this one had a second entrance. These locker rooms were a unique crossbreed of treasure chests and secret shortcuts. He climbed up the ladder leading into an abandoned storehouse in the commercial district and sprinted toward another secret sewer entrance.

From what Roth could tell, if he hurried, he would make it to the unexplored section of the map before the monsters made it back there. Roth dove into the sewers again and checked his map.

According to his rough estimates, he had drawn the monsters far enough. It had taken him fifteen minutes to get here. The monsters would probably need twenty minutes, twenty-five if they wasted some time looking for him. That gave him a five-minute window.

It was time to discover what these monsters were trying to hide from him.

Ch. 82 - Novice Broker

INDEX

Ch. 84 - Oops!