by Cheek, Jason
“Now!” Ashley barked, as any trace of humor left her voice.
“Alright, already,” Killtet griped, as he furiously rubbed at his shoulder and began handing everyone’s gear back that he’d liberated during the trek. There was more than one surprised exclamation from the twenty-player raid as they took their lost property back. “I was going to put it all back on the return trip.”
“Not good enough before a fight,” Ashley said, in a perfect NCO voice of “I don’t give a shit.”
Orion shrugged in annoyance as he accepted his Katar punch-daggers back and Minny’s pickaxe. Immediately, he called the little Gnome over to get her gear as he sheathed his daggers. Usually, vets wouldn’t take that kind of shit from a fellow Marine, let alone an Army Cav grunt, but Killtet was roleplaying his Rogue within The World.
Yeah, it sounded strange as hell, but it was a suggested form of therapy from the head shrink at the VA hospital. Supposedly, it was to help Killtet integrate back into society. While roleplaying might have helped many vets, it seemed to be an epic failure for Killtet. Like with most things, he’d taken the role way too far and quite literally stolen from everyone around him. On the flip side, the man usually returned everyone’s property, but sometimes he had to be given some external motivation from his better half.
“Dude, you stole my underwear?” Blu3buck complained loudly, as Killtet handed over a coarse set of wool undershorts. “Why would you steal my underwear?”
“Why do you keep flirting with my wife?” Killtet asked back in a deadpan tone, as Blu3buck’s face turned pale white.
While it was a valid question on Killtet’s part, no one could exactly blame Blu3buck. Ashley was an impressive woman; a vet, smart, and a good gamer to boot. That combination pushed about every hot button a male soldier could ask for. Besides being easy on the eyes, she was generally pleasant to be around, even when she switched into her Drill Sergeant mode. While it was easy to understand why Killtet’s wife had a number of fans, none of them were as obvious about it as Blu3buck. Before either of them could reply back, Orion hurriedly called out to the raid.
“Okay, people, we’re heading out,” he caught Ashley’s and Killtet’s eyes, as he began leading the raid out. “You guys want to explain to everyone what happened the last time your team was here?” For a second, Orion wasn’t sure if that would get his buddy out of hot water, but finally, Killtet looked away as if nothing had been said between the two men.
“When we began heading deeper into the larger rock formations of the geyser fields, we were suddenly covered in a magical darkness and slaughtered in less than a minute.” Ashley picked up the discussion from where her husband had let off as the soldiers began to mutter between themselves.
“No, we didn’t see what attacked us,” Ashley stated in a nonplussed tone. “Some of the team thought we were being attacked by insects,” she said, pointedly nodding to their teammate Allen, before continuing. “While others swore that they saw something that looked like a horse with fangs,” she tilted her head towards the DPS Warrior in their group named Austin. “Whatever is making its home inside the geyser fields attacks quickly in groups, expels an area camouflage, and is dangerous as hell. Any questions?”
“So, do we have a plan to deal with the magical darkness if our Darkvision is useless?” Marina, one of Orion’s teammates, thoughtfully asked.
“Two actually,” Orion said, before continuing. “One is to have anyone with the ability to cast Minor Dispel magic on those within the clouds as soon as the clouds appear.”
“On top of that, the melee line will be spread out in a wider area,” Zyphonn, the raid’s assassin, said, chiming in on the subject. “Hopefully, that will stop them from catching all of us in the same AOE.”
“That’s a good one,” Orion agreed, pointing at his teammate before continuing. “The second part of the plan is to have the ranged classes attacking the areas within the clouds of darkness with our AOE attacks, while the melee line disengages and withdraws until they’re out of the camouflage spell’s effects.”
“The formation order will be with the tanks spread out in a half-circle in front of the raid keeping a consistent thirty foot distance as much as the terrain will allow,” Ashley announced, after getting a nod from Orion. “Rogues, your job will be to stop anyone from sneaking in behind the tanks. Ranged defenders will focus AOE style of attacks in front of the defensive arc. Hopefully, we’ll catch some tangos with our hook.”
“Are you still planning to play bodyguard for your little Gnome lady,” Ashley asked with a twinkle in her eyes, as she lowered her voice.
“It’s probably for the best that I do,” Orion said, matching the tone. “Startum was pretty adamant about keeping an eye out for the NPC, besides it makes sense if she really is one of our best miners. No sense in rocking that boat, ya know?”
“You sure it’s not because she’s been making you breakfast and dinner on this trip?” Ashley asked, ribbing him lightly. “If she wasn’t an NPC, I’d swear that she was sweet on you.”
“I wonder what she’d think about that old Centauride you were hitting on,” Killtet joked, as Orion rolled his eyes. “I bet it would break her heart to hear you’re actually into four-legged grandmas.”
“Hardy har har,” Orion said to them both, as Ashley shoved him away with a laugh. “Where’s the love?” he complained, as Killtet momentarily became serious.
“I left it on the shelf of I’m going to kick Buck’s ass if he keeps making eyes at my wife,” Killtet said with stony eyes, as he spoke earnestly. “I know I’m roleplaying an asshole, but your buddy is really starting to push all of my buttons.”
“I told you I was handling the situation,” Ashley said in a firm tone to her husband, as he grimaced unhappily.
“That’s not the problem,” Killtet said, as his frowned deepened. “It’s a matter of respect.”
“You know Buck isn’t serious,” Orion said, trying to calm his teammate down. The recovery group for the VA was extremely tight and he didn’t want any of this drama boiling over into real life. “He’s committed to his wife and wouldn’t mess around on her.”
Both Killtet and Ashley gave Orion a severe frown. Cheating was an unspoken problem in all branches of the service, but it tended to be even worse in the ground pounder arena of the Army and the Marines. Maybe that was Orion’s misinterpretation. If anything, it was probably an even worse problem within the Navy. That was because, no matter the branch, any group of soldiers that regularly deployed for months at a time had the same issues. Go to any officers or enlisted club when a unit went to the field on maneuvers and you’d find the club full of spouses looking to get laid. The sad part was that they usually had plenty of volunteers from the guys and gals staying behind on base.
Instead of commenting further on the issue, they all agreed to drop the subject as Orion breathed a sigh of relief. He would definitely need to have a talk with his buddy, before this blew up in everyone’s faces. When it came down to it, Ashley wasn’t going to take up Buck’s offer, but no one liked to be disrespected in front of their friends and spouse on a regular basis. Giving them both a nod of thanks, Orion fell back to walk with Minny as Ashley began getting everyone organized.
The raid had camped about a mile away from the edge of the sulfuric geysers to help them be able to see any incoming attacks. Nothing had happened during the night, but that didn’t mean the enemy wasn’t around. Not that any of them were going to be careless this close to where Ashley and her team had been wiped out. Even so, none of them were particularly worried that the raid of players they had with them wouldn’t be able to handle whatever it was that had taken their friends out. Hell, that was if the creatures were even still around.
Ashley took the raid’s advance slowly as they entered into the edge of the billowing sulfuric clouds. The stench was unpleasant to say the least. The closest thing that Orion could compare the stench to was that of rotten eggs on a hot summer day times ten. That, or taki
ng a trip through the CS gas chamber in basic training. CS gas was officially called orto-chlorobenzylidene-malononitrile gas, which was more commonly known around the world as tear gas. While it wasn’t quite as bad as the CS gas chamber inside the game, mainly because they could breathe and didn’t have foot-long snot trails hanging out of their noses, it was still uncomfortable as hell to say the least. On top of that, the entire raid received a poison gas debuff of minus twenty-five points of damage for every minute they were inside the sulfuric clouds. A complete pain in the ass all the way around.
There were also multiple geysers spewing boiling hot mineral water into the sky as they carefully made their way around the dangerous eruptions. As they moved further into the wasteland, the hot spring pools began to give away to ore-rich fields of built-up minerals. If Orion had to guess, the hot springs were more than just sulfuric geysers. They were rich in all kinds of rare mineral sediments from deep inside the earth. Over time, those various mineral deposits had built up into solid nodes of rich ore as the hot spring pools were slowly pushed further and further out.
His guess was more or less confirmed as Minny excitedly ran ahead to kneel at one of the smaller nodes at the edge of the hot springs. Squealing excitedly, she yanked her pickaxe out in a flash as she began prying and hammering out various ore samples of the node. With each handful of minerals she collected, her excited squeals grew louder. Prying away a particularly large chunk of the node, Minny fell onto her hands and knees as she madly began cleaning up a particularly large chunk of ore. Turning around, she held up a gray crystal for him to see.
“Hot diggity dog damn, this is a mana accumulation crystal,” she shrieked in her high-pitched voice, before her pickaxe began almost spastically hammering at the node. Chipped rocks began flying as Orion tried to get the little Gnome to calm down and lower her voice, but she was completely oblivious to the potential possibility of the danger around them as she half talked to him and herself while prying out more of the small gray stones. “Most of these crystals are too small to be used in any engineering devices, but they would be perfect for grinding up for enchanting weapons and armor.” Everything that fell to the ground was quickly swiped up and stuffed into the pouch at her waist as she continued excitedly.
“If the mana accumulation minerals are this large at the edge of the mineral field, do you have any idea what that could mean for the center?” Minny continued in almost a chant as she tasted the different stone chips before tucking them away into her pouch. “Loadstone iron, gold, silver, cobalt, and electrum …,” the Gnome’s voice died down into an incomprehensible mutter just as Orion squatted down behind her and snatched her up in his arms. “What are you doing, Orion?”
“Shh,” Orion hissed into the Gnome’s pointy ears, as Minny froze in place. “You do realize that we’re still in a possible combat zone, right?”
“Saw-wee,” Minny squeaked out like a little child, as Orion’s brow furled in confusion.
“Where in the hell did you learn, hot diggity dog damn?”
“Oh that,” Minny said with a giggle. “Kyarina says that all the time when she finishes crafting something.”
“Maybe little parrot is more apropos than little mouse,” Orion muttered under his breath as Minny promised to be quieter. Not that he was going to change the little Gnome’s nickname.
The further into the sulfuric wasteland they went, the larger the nodes grew. So much so, that the entire area looked more like a progressively growing maze. All the while, Minny became more and more of a maniac as she hurriedly chipped off various bits of stone here and there as the rest of the raid frowned at the sharp loud hammer strikes and squeals of excitement that was ruining their ability to sneak up on the enemy. Though, it wasn’t until the nodes got to be shoulder height that the Gnome’s excitement couldn’t be contained any longer as she pulled out a mana accumulation crystal the size of her fist. Unfortunately, that’s when Ashley raised her hand to signal the raid that enemies were in front of them.
Orion was too far back to hear or see what had set the Defensive Warrior-Healer off. One second they were carefully picking their way through the nodes and the next, horrified screams were erupting around them as the entire front half of the raid disappeared in a magic cloud of pure darkness. Immediately, insect-like shrieks filled the air around them as the sounds of bodies being pummeled with heavy blows all but drowned out the pain-filled screams of the injured. It all happened so fast that the ranged classes all momentarily froze, until Ashley’s bellow snapped everyone into action.
“All ranged AOE fire at will! Priests focus on casts of Holy Shield as much as possible!”
Having solid orders made the difference. The first to react were the healers as Holy Shields and Regeneration spells were spammed on the injured melee line. Even so, a Rogue and Warrior avatar turned the gray color of death in the five seconds it took for the wave of fire and frost AOEs to pummel the entire area in front of the survivors in a magic swath of death. While the ferocity of the ambush had caught the soldiers by surprise, they still managed to keep the friendly fire down to a minimum as the enemies’ inhuman shrieks of pain eerily echoed off the stones around them.
Nonetheless, the melee line’s health was plummeting across the board quicker than anyone had expected. The Holy Shields were being ripped down too quickly to replace and Regeneration spells were unable to keep up with the incoming damage. No one in the back row of the raid could understand what was going on as the designated healers for the battle struggled to keep their teammates alive. Before anyone knew it, there was no more ranged DPS targeting the enemies’ forces. That’s because they were all too busy trying to keep their comrades alive.
That was one of the pluses and minuses to the raid’s new class layouts, Orion thought, as he watched the raid’s support classes reeling from the assault. There were no pure healers anymore. Every Priest now had at least one additional class that focused on attacks. While the powerful build allowed for immense flexibility in keeping a raid alive, the diversion of being able to go all healing took away the raid’s ability to launch attacks against the enemy.
Yes, the choice did temporarily keep their raid mates alive, but it was only a temporary reprieve. The unfortunate truth that every soldier knew was that you couldn’t win a fight by defense alone. In martial arts, an attack was always quicker than a block. The common theory being that if you attacked repeatedly enough, you had a higher chance of getting a hit through then a defender did of blocking every incoming blow. Meaning, that at some point in time, the attacking enemy would ultimately win an engagement to a purely defensive target. To Orion’s experienced eye, this was exactly the initiative the raid had lost. Before he could decide what to do, Orion felt Minny’s little hand clutching his leg in fear as the seriousness of the situation set in.
“Is there nothing we can do to help them?” Minny worriedly asked, as she looked into his eyes. “I know you’re supposed to take me to safety if the raid’s threatened, but if the fight keeps on going like this, all of your people are going to die.”
“It’s not looking good,” Orion agreed, as his eyes reviewed the raid’s stats. In the five minutes since the battle had started, not one enemy had been taken down nor had the inky blackness that covered their forces dissipated in the least. Orion knew that to be the case, because the system window never listed any gained experience points from the death of an enemy. The only thing that had changed was the plummeting hit points of the melee classes and the mana levels of the casters.
Even though Orion had told his raid mates that his primary focus would be on protecting Minny if they came under attack, he couldn’t stand back and do nothing as his friends were wiped out. In his heart, he knew he had to do something to give them a hand, but closing with the enemy to use his martial art skills wasn’t an option. There was no way he could fight if he couldn’t see the enemy or their incoming attacks. On top of that, he doubted that he could do more than what Ashley and the other melee cla
sses were doing to hold the line.
While he could assist with his Fire magic, not being able to see what he was targeting would greatly reduce the effectiveness of any of his spells. On top of that, the AOE attacks from the mages earlier hadn’t seemed to do much in the way of damage to the attackers. That meant the monsters were too spread out, a much higher level than the raid, or that they were resistant to Fire and Frost magic. The only thing he could think of to do was to somehow get rid of the concealment that was hiding the enemy. Maybe then, they could come up with a plan of attack.
The only skill that Orion had that might be of assistance was the Air magic that he was learning from the Centauride Shaman, Naamro. Although he’d only used it so far to enhance his melee attacks by combining them with his Fire magic, Orion believed he could use it to form a ranged Jutsu like something directly out of Naruto. Picturing what he wanted to do in his mind, he gave Minny a determined grin.
“Listen up, little mouse. I’m going to try something that might be dangerous,” Orion said, hoping against hope that he didn’t screw this up and kill himself like he did when he was first learning how to manipulate the air around him for Wind Blade. “If I screw this up, promise me that you will retreat back to our encampment and wait for me there. I promise I’ll be there before nightfall.”
“Promise,” Minny said, with a concerned look in her eyes as she stepped away from her tall Light Elf friend and protector. She wanted to ask what he was planning to do, but decided it was best to not distract him, especially when she saw the determination in his narrowed eyes as he stepped away and began focusing his power.
Taking a deep breath, Orion widened his arms and cupped his hands as he began drawing in the air around him with broad circle-like movements. He looked like some Tai Chi practitioner moving in slow motion at first, but with each proceeding circuit, the speed of his movements increased. Using his mind to visualize the magic, Orion pictured the air around him being sucked in and compressed into a tight air pocket in front of his chest. Each completed circuit, the air became more and more compressed. This was because he needed as much air as possible for the plan he had in mind.