Defeat Every Enemy in Snippets and Shorter Stories 2.0

2.16 I love me some action role-playing games where you level-up your character and collect armor and weapons. When I saw this picture, with his missing spikey shoulder thing I immediately thought, He must be looking in a dungeon for the right shoulder thing to complete his armor. Then I laughed and wrote this. Artist: p0p5

A Complete Set

Garreth crept through the abandoned dwarf city, painfully aware of how loud his boots sounded in the eerily silent, rocky tunnels. If he was lucky he would make it to the armory, find the last piece of his armor, and make it out without having to fight any orcs, goblins, or giant spiders; he didn’t need the experience and he would just waste time later washing their blood from his legendary shindian armor. The tunnel ended in a wood and metal door that was surprisingly in great condition. Must be from the lack of water and sun. Garreth mused and opened the squeaky door as quietly as he could, poking his head inside to look around.

It opened into a large banquet hall with grand arches, chiseled pillars, and broken furniture scattered everywhere. It was empty. Garreth smiled and walked inside. The door swung shut with a resounding bang. Curses! Garreth swung around and immediately saw his mistake. It was rigged. He tried to open it but the thing wouldn’t budge. Scowling, he tapped on the lock. Please say I need to find a scroll or key to unlock you! A small textbox appeared.

To open this door: defeat every enemy in this dungeon.

Garreth groaned. He was trapped in this dark and dank dungeon until every last orc, goblin, cave troll, giant spider, rodent, wraith and whatever else was lying dead on the cold ground. Just my luck, he thought.

Well, no sense in staying quiet. He would make them come to him as he looked for the treasure room. Garreth stomped across the banquet hall, kicking aside broken chairs, broken cooking pots, and grumbling about the unfairness of the random task assignments. He hadn’t come across a ‘defeat every enemy’ task in months. He smashed open every door he found, exiting the banquet hall when he found another tunnel leading farther in. It wasn’t long before he heard shrieks and pounding feet. Probably orikins by the sound of their cries. Garreth sighed and pulled out his double swords as the foul creatures surrounded him on both sides of the tunnel. He could smell their putrid stench and see the skulls of the unfortunate on their belts like trophies, distinguishing rank among the tribes. They would be easy enough to defeat as long as he didn’t get trapped or bogged down by their bodies. Garreth steeled himself, cast a berserk spell, and charged.