Skills
Hunting: When active, increases the drop rate of materials and food items from defeated monsters.
Lockpicking: A skill for unlocking locks. Higher proficiency allows faster unlocking and tackling more complex locks.
Poison Resistance: Increases resistance to poison effects.
Items
Phosphorescent Red Herb: A herb with greater healing potency than standard Phosphorescent Herb. Made by drying Phosphorescent Herb over time, it's a mass-produced item often harvested for profit, typically affordable.
Silver Spirit Water: A viscous, mercury-like silver liquid. An alchemical marvel said to cure all ailments, created during research into the Philosopher's Stone.
Mocking Grimoire: A book with a large mouth on its cover. It summarizes its contents aloud, but its voice mocks the listener's ignorance. Any sane person would spend years reading it themselves to avoid the derision.
The Dark Rider tears through the robot testing lab, firing with relentless precision, steadily chipping away at our HP.
Thankfully, the Rider's wide-ranging shotgun has low power. Unless all pellets hit at point-blank range, it won't shred our HP. Its bullets also suffer greater distance decay than arrows, so keeping our distance minimizes each hit's damage.
The beam machine gun has steep distance decay too, but its rapid-fire rate is terrifying. Being a magical attack, it drains HP alarmingly if you don't escape its line of fire instantly. However, it requires a reload period, preventing continuous use.
But the twin beam cannons on the bike's front frame are absurd. Their range and power are insane—a graze alone takes 10% of my low-VIT HP.
"What is this thing?!" Shinon screams, leaping off a wrecked robot husk to loose arrows at the Rider. But the Rider deftly maneuvers the bike, dodging every shot.
As Shinon lands, the Rider unleashes the beam machine gun. Diavel dives in, raising his high-magic-defense Blue Shield to protect Shinon, whose low HP and light armor make her vulnerable in high-speed combat.
As the Rider tries to run them down, I ambush from cover with my war pick. But it's as if the Rider knew I was there—holstering the beam gun, it swings the shotgun at me.
"Damn it! That's cheating!" I yell.
About half the pellets hit. A last-second Rabbit Dash spares me a full blast, but my HP, over 80%, drops to 40%, hitting the yellow zone.
I chomp a Phosphorescent Herb, but its 10% HP recovery over 10 seconds means I'd need six herbs and a full minute to fully heal.
"Shinon! Ku! Stop its movement! I'll block all optical weapons! Destroy the bike!" Diavel shouts.
Without Diavel, we'd be dead three times over. In the dim, cluttered lab, he tracks everything, shielding us at perfect moments. But that means he's taking the brunt, his HP steadily draining.
Shields drastically reduce damage, and high-quality ones can nullify weaker attacks. Diavel's Blue Shield is among the best available—excelling in physical and magical defense while lightweight. Its drawbacks? Lower durability and high stamina cost.
"Diavel! Your stamina?!" Shinon asks, sharing my concern. Stamina, invisible but critical, is this game's ultimate lifeline.
Diavel just grins boldly, but that likely means he's in the danger zone, with the tear-mark icon flashing.
Of course. Shinon and I rotate, striking from cover, but Diavel's constantly running, blocking, and attacking when he can. Even without sword skills, his stamina drain is the heaviest.
"I'll buy 40 seconds! Recover your HP and stamina!" I yell.
With the highest CON and light gear, I've got the most stamina left.
The Rider unveils a new attack: missiles from the bike's rear frame. Small but numerous, they arc upward before raining down, exploding on impact. Clearly aimed at me, I dodge with Rabbit Dash, kicking off robot husks to close the gap with the Rider.
As I charge, the Rider fires the beam machine gun. A few hits land, but I leap off a husk, swinging my war pick with momentum.
"Not bad," the Rider says, casually deflecting my strike with the beam gun, throwing off my trajectory.
What is this thing? Last time, its AI pushed boundaries; now, it's beyond that—like fighting a player.
A player-like AI. I shake off the terrifying thought. If it has true intelligence and a will of its own, it's an entity that shouldn't exist in a game.
"Don't think. Don't think, don't think, don't think! Focus!" I mutter.
No point pondering its nature. We beat it—or kill it.
Assume it's a high-level player ambushing us for a PK. That frames the fight.
Five attack types: bike-mounted beam cannons and missiles, handheld shotgun and beam machine gun, and bike ramming.
Its back. No matter how it moves, it can't attack behind itself. The guns might, but not instantly from a speeding bike.
But how to get behind? It's too fast for positioning to matter.
Then, a plan hits me. This could deal real damage!
"Shinon! Land one hit! I've got a strategy!"
"Don't tell me what to do! I'll take it down!" she snaps.
Like me, she leaps from a robot husk, using 3D movement to evade the beam cannons and close in.
"Amusing acrobatics, but I'm getting bored," the Rider says.
It's beyond my expectations. It fires the beam cannons, then drifts into a spin, sweeping thick beams in circles—one, two, three—shattering robot husks into polygon fragments.
The area's flattened, leaving Shinon floating midair, out of footing. The Rider seizes the moment, unloading the beam machine gun, slashing her HP.
"Shinon!" I yell.
"Guh… I'm… not done yet!" she gasps, crashing hard, her HP in the red zone.
I leap from cover into the 15-meter cleared radius the Rider created. Missiles, fired unnoticed, pummel me. My recovering HP drops below 30%, and the impact stuns me.
In DBO, if impact exceeds your stun resistance, you're stunned for a duration based on the excess. Armor and CON boost resistance, but my light gear and modest CON leave me vulnerable. I'm frozen for one, maybe two seconds—ample time for the Rider to aim the shotgun.