The Bathrobe Knight: Volume 2 Read Free Page B

Hydra come from?" Robert asked.
                  "Well, we can't be certain," Gary began, "but from the footage we've seen that's been posted around the net, it looks a lot like a dungeon boss that was staged at the end of the passageway of mines connecting the Human and White-Horn lands. There's a quest players have a chance of picking up from an NPC in Valcrest that would ask them to clear it from mobs so that normal travel through the mountain could continue. You know, a 'we desperately need you brave heroes to save us' kind of thing. I don't remember the details exactly, but I think the odds of triggering the quest were pretty low. Normally, players would just kill the mobs and try to escape the Hydra to cut some time off their trip. You'd have to venture back to the town after you were a high enough level to leave the island altogether to even be eligible for picking up the quest."
                  "I'm going to go out on a limb and guess that the mobs that were present were also from the mine then?" Robert queried further.
                  Gary shook his head in response. "No, they’re actually from a silver ore mine outside of Valcrest, the city that the players sacked, which makes them traveling in the same pack even harder to explain."
                  "So what would cause a mob to break its leash and roam that far out of its designated zone?  Kass mentioned before that she was chased a good distance by a group of Minotaur without them giving up and recalling, but that's pretty normal. Those would have been programmed differently. They were part of the White-Horn army and basically given free range. But a Hydra? From a dungeon? I'll need to go back and check the tethering limitations in the code and see if something is interfering with it. There might be a condition or exception I missed that's allowing the players to lure mobs such a long distance."
                  "Kass?" Charles suddenly asked from the opposite end of the table. Eyes around the table flitted over at him briefly as he spoke before they quickly lowered again.
                  "My daughter," Robert answered. "She's been playing the game for a while now."
                  Charles gave a small nod to indicate that he understood, but his eyes seemed to crinkle just a bit around the corners as he did so. It was so fast Robert would have missed it if he hadn't been looking directly at him. 
                  "Well," Gary continued, "it's not unheard of for players to lure mobs and use them to get other players killed. I think there have been a few reports of something similar that have come through my inbox."
                  Stephen looked up and agreed. He had apparently gained a little confidence after speaking at length earlier. "There have definitely been posts on the boards complaining about basically the same thing. Players would be standing outside a camp aggroing mobs one by one and a higher-level player runs through the camp, attracts everything and leads it directly to them then sprints off. If the other players are casting spells or attack them and don't run away as well, all the mobs will switch aggro to them as the other guy sprints off into the distance and watches them die."
                    "But a Hydra? From a dungeon it shouldn't be able to escape at all? So far?" Gary shrugged, showing he didn't have an answer.
                  "Where is the Hydra now? Or any of the other mobs for that matter. We should be able to track them using GM functions, right?" Robert asked. "Did it return to its spawn point like it should have, or is it still roaming free? That could cause some pretty big issues if there's a giant boss just roaming around the starter islands freely."
                  "Good question," Gary responded as he pulled out his phone and punched in a quick text message. "I'll have one of the guys pull