Bitter 495
Gabba was doing a lot of damage to the prone guardvark. Britta had no idea how many hit points the guardvark had, but she definitely had less now.
Could Gabba see the monsters health bar? Did she have other ways to detect weak points?
Currently, the fight looked very one-sided. The guardvark couldn’t get up, even though Gabba was tiny in comparison. She kept smacking the guardvark with the chain, keeping her dazed. Just under the chin seemed to be the guardvark’s weak spot.
It was like Gabba had fought the guardvark many times before. She seemed to know all the monster’s attacks and when to attack back. In any other game, that was to be expected. The normal method of beating a tough mob was to fight it over and over until you knew exactly what to do and when to do it.
This wasn’t any other game, though. Even if Gabba had encountered a guardvark before, perhaps during beta, monsters in New World didn’t simply repeat the same attack patterns. They weren’t all the same and had enough intelligence to change their methods if required.
Britta tried her best not to care. She could simply walk away and leave this mess behind. It wasn’t like anyone was really going to get hurt here.
That’s how she should have been feeling, but the only thought in her head was what would happen to the babies once the mother was dead?
Britta looked over at the nest. A pair of terrified eyes peeked over the top. The guardvark babies had figured out how to get one of them high enough to see their mother getting ruthlessly beaten.
What was she supposed to do? Tell them it was just a game?
She felt angry. She felt useless. She felt like she had to do something.
It was a bad idea to get involved. Gabba was clearly an accomplished player. She knew how to solo a giant monster, she certainly wouldn’t have any problem beating the crap out of Britta. Everywhere on her body was Britta’s weak point.
She could take the babies and run, but abandoning the mother to her fate left an unpleasant taste in Britta’s mouth. And then what? How was she going to raise three baby monsters? Plus, she would have to do it while Gabba chased her down.
It would completely change the whole game for her. It wasn’t what she wanted.
No, what needed to happen was for the guardvark mother to beat Gabba.
If Britta got directly involved, she would just be next on Gabba’s to-do list. But if she could somehow assist the guardvark… but how? None of her spells seemed particularly useful right now. She did, however, have three new spells to choose from.
Britta opened her status screen as red numbers continued to fly around the cavern. It was impossible for the guardvark to retaliate while she was perma-stunned. What she needed was a break in Gabba’s relentless rotation.
The three spells Britta had available were:
Scrying Perception — allows the caster to view the targets mood from a distance.
Phantasmal Conjuration — creates a ghost that will haunt the target for a limited time.
Invisible Army — summon an army of one hundred soldiers, unseen and undetectable.
She wasn’t sure what they did or how they worked, but none of them struck her as the ideal spell for this situation.
Being able to know the target’s mood? She couldn’t think of a single instance where that would come in useful, let alone this one.
A ghost to distract Gabba? That could give the guardvark enough time to get up and fight back. But what did haunting entail? A floating sheet going ‘Oooooh’? What if Gabba just ignored it? There was no way to know exactly how frightening it was without using the spell, but it was a possibility. It seemed like a troll spell to annoy someone with, which had potential. The other question was, would Gabba know it was her? There were all sorts of undead creatures down here, if Gabba thought she’d been attacked by a random ghost, it might not appear like Britta had anything to do with it. It was a big if.
And then there was the invisible army of a hundred soldiers. It sounded impressive, but Britta was suspicious of it for that very reason. It couldn’t simply be an actual invisible army that big descending on your enemy. That would be very unfair. There had to be a catch.
She looked at the spell description. Unseen and undetectable. Gabba was all about detecting things, would this negate her advantage? No matter what the actual spell did, it would at least mean she couldn’t see it coming the way she was able to foresee everything else.
Britta made a snap decision. She didn’t have all the information she would like, but her gut told her this was the spell she should use. Her gut had never spoken to her before, other than to warn her to get to a bathroom as quickly as possible, but she was getting a clear message now, so she might as well listen to it.
She selected the spell.
The casting word was ‘Kupa,’ but she didn’t want to say anything out loud that would tip Gabba off. Britta was used to assigning hand gestures to spells so it was an easy matter to make the spell cast when she painted a circle in the air with her finger.
The guardvark was continuing to take a beating, but there were no signs of it actually approaching death. It probably had a huge health pool and Gabba was just chipping away at it.
Britta decided to make her move and cast the spell. She would have liked to have had a better idea of what would happen, but she felt she had no choice. She made the gesture with her hand behind her back and waited.
She felt the army coming. They were supposed to be undetectable, but she could sense them flood into the cavern. Hopefully, she was the only one. It was like a breeze passing through her mind.
And then they attacked… the guardvark.
Britta hadn’t specified who she wanted the invisible army to target. There hadn’t been any options to choose from. Now there were many more red numbers flying from all over the guardvark’s body.
