INFINITY CROWN RING 2: WARITORIUM

   PvP Active | Difficulty: Veteran

  We walk into a bloodbath.

  RiftElites and gigantic mobs hammer at each other inside a jam-packed gladiator arena. Huge sections of the stadium rise, fall, and disappear with no warning. The mobs are all troll-sized or bigger, with a few giants dotting the landscape, along with some lobster-things that must be fifteen feet tall.

  Gone are the casual whales; here, there are only killers, hardcore gamers, and competitive RiftElites gunning for the Leaderboard. Everyone here is playing for clout. The rim of the arena is filled with scoreboards, mob holograms, stats, and quick vids of party kills. It’s like being inside a sports casino where people murder each other at the bar.

  “Ooo! And that’s Team Omaha Deathwave out!” I glance up at one of the screens and see Blap Blap talking to… himself. Blap-Blap #2 nods excitedly. “All 10 players on that squad are dead-dead-dead! Blap-Blap!” A screen shows a replay of the last two members of Omaha Deathwave getting fragged, one by a mob, one by another team. Blap Blap agrees with himself. “That’s right, Blap, it’s back to Level 0 for those loo-hoo-zer-hers. Suck it, noooobs!”

  “Yes!” Hang Ten’s skin ignites in rune magic as she readies her Fusion Lance. “Let’s stack some Ws!” She attacks the nearest mob, a one-eyed giant called a Dirty Cyclopcop. The Night Shift goes to work. Everyone’s thrilled about the augmentations and gear they got from the LootBoxes, and they’re ready to do some damage. All five wizards wade into the fray and attack the mob.

  I lag behind.

  Something Doc Broadchurch said is stuck in my head. A code. That could circumvent the Icebox. If we were smart about it, we could smuggle out a message. What HumanAsset is doing, what the LivingLegends really are. That’s a really good idea. Why didn’t I think of that? I flick up the keyboard on my HUD and start typing into the notepad tool.

  “Dave!” Rincewind shouts as a Dirty Cyclopcop tries to smash him with a billy club. “Little help!”

  I fire the M1 into the Cyclopcop’s face a few times, distracting it long enough for Wahoo to Paralyze it with the Needle Blaster and Queen WaqWaq to boil its blood with her Death Sorceress magic. The mob melts as it collapses to the stone floor and disintegrates, leaving behind a pile of ‘CopKiller LootBoxes and +1000XP ea.

  “Okay!” I yell. “Let’s run the program! Stick to the script!”

  I take my 21 strides and feel my Parkour Pulse kick in. The plan is simple. I pull aggro on the mob and stay out of reach while Hank and the wizards murder the hell out of it. Pepper plays free safety and nerfs the mob if it gets too close, but mostly her job is posting fight videos as fast as she can.

  We knock down three mobs before we get in trouble.

  Something big smashes right down into the middle of the Night Shift, hitting all of us with a Knockback that sends us sprawling. The massive creature looks something like a twenty-foot hairless dog-lizard covered in rolls of fat that quiver from the impact.

  

  Chubbacabra lvl13 Abominación

  Once feared across the galaxies as the “Goat-sucker” this starbeast devoured one too many Taco Bell restaurants. Not the food, the restaurants. Now it waddles across the planets, trackable only by a slime-trail of Quesarito Cheese Sauce and Baha Blasts. ?Queso con explosivo! ?Ay, Dios mío!

  This novel's true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there.

  It hurls a lump of molten cheese at Wahoo, who barely dodges out of the way. The other wizards unleash hell on it, and the naked lizard-dog screams, but its Health bar only drops a fraction. “We’ve got Barney Rubble!” Matchstick yells, blasting a stream of blue fire. “Trouble!”

  “Okay, do Boom Box!” I fire my Yeetlejuice and swing right in front of the big guy, my Drama Dial cranked to 75%. It swings at me. Pepper hits it with a MirrorMirror. Chubbacabra smashes itself in its triple chin and staggers back. I swing past Chubba and fire the M1 at its eyes. I’m a lousy shot while I’m swinging on the Yeetline, but the noise and the aggro-draw are enough to get the ugly thing to come after me.

  I draw it on a merry chase, but my mind’s not on the lizard-dog. It’s on the puzzle I’ve given myself… the coded message. Doc Broadchurch’s idea won’t get out of my head. She’s right, it’s the solution. No more fighting for our lives, that’s what the code is. But I can’t crack it, and it’s driving me nuts.

  Chubbacabra nearly gets me with a flying lava-wad of queso. I re-focus and realize a group of RiftElites is trying to snake my kill. They blast Chubba, trying to take him down while he’s focused on me. I grin. Bonus points.

  My HUD pings, the Night Shift signaling they’re ready for me. I fire Yeetlejuice and swing toward them, bringing Chubbacabra and the RiftElites with me. “Inbound!”

  I drop into the killbox and slide to a stop on my Air Jordans. I see the Rubik's Cube on the floor waiting for me. Hank wanted to do this part, but I wouldn’t let him. The flabby dog-lizard thunders toward me with the Elites hot on his heels. As they all converge on me in a blaze of weapons and cheese, I fire Yeetlejuice and yoink myself out of the scrum. Chubbacabra’s fist smashes down, hits the Rubik's Cube, and explodes.

  Death magic, Chaos magic, Rune magic, all of it detonates from the wizard trap. While I distracted Chubby, all 5 wizards infused a single object with a murder-spell. When the trap goes off, my Hannibal’s Gambit combo multiplies the damage x5. The result is a Rubix Cube with enough damage to blow Chubbacabra and the RiftElites into bloody salsa con carne.

  Victory rewards rain down on us. XP, gold, 8 LootBoxes, Mana Potions, Focus Shards, and something called The Gauntlet of Thiccness, which offers a Strength +5 bonus.

  

  You Did a Thing!

  Congratulations! You not only killed the mob but the RiftElite party trying to frag both of you.

  

  Badge Unlocked! Finders Keepers!

  Nobody steals my kill! Mine! Mine!

  

  EmpathyEngine?: Polite Reminder!

  Please refrain from murdering RiftElite players. We value their paid membership and want them to feel privileged while they are here. Poor people don’t pay your bills! Hype: -?10

  I ignore the alert and grab one of the LootBoxes for myself and get an Epic Cosmetic Drop that earns +12% Engagement. I toss it to Pepper. “Here. You can use this more than me.”

  “Oh, thank you, Dave!” I have to smile. I keep thinking about getting out of this game, and I love the idea of freedom, but if there’s anything I would miss, it’s Pepper. All that happiness. She glows. “It’s just what I wanted!”

  “We’re racking up VSC fast.” The slap on the wrist for killing RiftElite is nothing compared to the ?10,000 we’ve earned since we entered the Waritorium, and I can see the Night Shift on one of Blap Blap’s screens, tagged with #RebelRaid and #DeleteTheElite. “Are we trending?”

  “Yepper-depper!” Pepper peeps. “Lots of people think it slaps to have an F2P raid on an Elite Battle Pass Zone!” She scans the comments, replying to several. “Wow, they really like it. They say the grinders are punking the elites! We’re punks! Yay!”

  “Perfect.” I glance over as Hank opens his LootBox and see a title pop up: Spinfinity Edge. Suddenly, Hank’s axe blossoms into a wicked two-sided blade and starts spinning like a laser chainsaw. His face shines like a kid who just won a Lamborghini. “Gooat!!”

  “Hank! Take this too!” Rincewind throws him the Gauntlet of Thiccness. I didn’t think the barbarian’s smile could get any bigger, but it does.

  From here, I can see the entrance to the Third Ring, an identical red key vault door at the far side of the arena. I turn to Rincewind and the team. “However good this loot is here, it’s only going to get better the closer we get to the Mega-Quest. You ready?”

  They are. We hustle across the arena, fling open the ring gate, and hit the next level.