Elusive Prey

by Cheek, Jason

  In his heart, Jacob knew he should be trying to help his people in fighting off these shadowy nightmares, but his unconscious mind ignored the wishes of his logical brain as his feet began carrying him back the way he’d come. Within seconds, he was in a full panicked flight for the graveyard as the shadowy hunters gave chase. Glancing fearfully behind him, Jacob realized they weren’t exactly after him, per say. They were simply after more prey to feed upon as the monstrous tentacle-like limbs plucked the ghostly shapes of his guildmates from the aether around him.

  Although there was no physical exhaustion in the ghostly world of the dead, within seconds Jacob was panting from exhaustion as he fled in terror. The wolf-like Wraiths had what could only be described as a psychic howl that they released as they hunted. The horrific sound sent tremors through his body and gave him a sense of dread that could only be described as night chills. Something he hadn’t experienced since he was a young child.

  The ghostly world warped and stretched as the pall of fear covered everything around him. Phantasmal tears streamed down his face as he raced out of the mouth of the gauntlet. With every step, he could feel the hot breath of the Wraith Wolves breathing down the back of his neck. Jacob didn’t know what the shadowy monstrosities were called, but Wraith Wolves fit the feelings of absolute terror that filled his aching heart as he ran for his life.

  Unfortunately, his time had come as he felt the first tentacles rip the spectral flesh from his back. A panic-stricken look over his shoulder let him see the shadowy beasts that were hunting him. Three of the smaller Wraith Wolves in the mass of the terrifying pack had chosen to focus on him. Closing in on him from behind, they were running him down like an injured deer cut from the herd.

  Jacob didn’t know if size made a difference in this realm of spirits or not as pain lanced down his sides once again from the lash of another feeding tentacle. He didn’t really know if the leathery tentacles had their own mouths or not, but each hit burned like fire down his back. The only thing that might possibly save him, Jacob fleetingly thought, was that they seemed too small to pluck him off the ground and cram whole into their snapping maws. If he could endure the pain and not completely lose his mind, he might yet make it in range to respawn in the graveyard.

  Maybe some armchair pro-gamer wannabe watching his stream from home might ridicule him for not even trying to fight, but Jacob had seen the horrific deaths of his guildmates and he wanted none of it. As the spectral flesh was ripped from his soul, his eyes naturally went to gauge the damage being inflicted upon his phantom body. To his horror, the Fatal Midnight guild leader realized that he wasn’t losing health so much as his hit point bar was shrinking. A hurried look at his Character Sheet proved his fears to be correct. The Wraith Wolves weren’t inflicting damage so much as they were sucking the vitality from his soul. His Stamina had shrunk to a hundred and eighty!

  Praying that this wasn’t permanent, Jacob ran for all he was worth towards the edge of the trees that lead to the southern graveyard. All the while, the small Wraith Wolves tore at his soul. Each strike felt like he was losing a part of himself as he drove himself onward toward his goal. The shadowy predators seemed to understand what he was up to. At first, their attacks seemed more as a way to torture and play with their prey than seeking to outright kill him. Almost as if his terror was something they fed upon. It wasn’t until the edge of the forest came into view that the ferocity of their attacks noticeably increased.

  The last fifty yards were the worst as spectral fangs ripped at his hamstrings and tore chunks out of his thighs. At one point, one of the Wraith Wolves sprang onto his back and wrapped its tentacle arms around his neck. Somehow, Jacob managed to rip the shadow beast from his back, but not before his Stamina had dropped below a hundred and fifty. By the time the graveyard came into sight through the trees, he was dragging all three immature wolves behind him as they did their best to stop him from reaching his goal.

  All around him, Jacob’s fellow surviving raid mates were going through the same life and death struggle. A woman with half of her face ripped off collapsed not ten feet away as a small pack of Wraith Wolves dogpiled her kicking and screaming body to rip her to shreds. Another familiar face was snatched up and stuffed into a massive maw the size of a giant bear as spectral viscera was sprayed everywhere. Getting caught by a monster like that was sure death, Jacob hysterically thought, as the massive shadow monstrosity lumbered in his direction.

  Wordlessly bellowing, Jacob used the trees themselves to pull himself forward. It felt like his hands were dripping spectral blood as he hauled his soul forward one step at a time. In the distance, he could hear the rumble of the nightmarish beast coming for his soul. In its wake a cold wind blew through his soul as he fought against the tentacles lashing at his body, when the blood red letters he’d been waiting for so anxiously popped into a system window before his impatient eyes.

  You have reached a graveyard! Do you wish to release your spirit now or wait for your timer to expire? Yes or No.

  “Yes!” Jacob shrieked at the top of his lungs, as the realm of spirits faded away and he found himself lying on his back in the center of the silent graveyard. High above him, the sun shined onto his pale white face as he jerked into a sitting position. Before he could decide if that had all been some horrible nightmare or not, a disturbing system message popped open before his eyes.

  Due to your Spirit being attacked by Wraiths while you were a ghost, you have temporarily lost one hundred and thirteen points of Stamina. To recover the Spirit Essence lost, you must rest for an hour of non-activity such as sleeping, eating, sitting, and drinking. This can be performed whether or not you’re actively logged in or out of The World.

  Chapter Fourteen

  (Evil Sandra – Chaos Storm guild officer at the western graveyard)

  “Gggaaahhh!” Evil Sandra wordlessly screamed, as she turned on the Roadkill guild leader with murder in her eyes. “There’s no possible way it was Startum Ironwolf that killed your entire raid at the eastern graveyard,” her face screwed up in pure indignation as she glared back at the faces of the Alliance guild leaders and officers that were silently standing around them. Not a one dared to disagree with her words. Getting control over her outrage, she continued in a more even tone.

  “We slaughtered the majority of Starfairy’s raid in my ambush and have been hounding him since,” Evil Sandra reasonably explained, expecting the woman to retract her ridiculous claims. “So you see, there’s no way you could’ve fought against him at the eastern graveyard.”

  “Really?” Lizzie Short demanded, as she stood up to her full five foot two inches of height. There was no way she could truly get into Evil Sandra’s face since she was too short, but the unbridled rage coursing through her body made her look taller than she actually was as she angrily spat. “Then I guess this screen shot of being killed by Startum Ironwolf was a freaking mistake by the game!” To prove her point, she posted the screen shot she’d taken in raid chat.

  You have been killed by Startum Ironwolf! Do you wish to resurrect at your corpse or release your spirit to the nearest graveyard?

  For a long moment, no one said a word as all eyes silently turned to give Evil Sandra unfriendly looks. There was no love lost between the various Alliance leaders and her. It was a dog eat dog business and having someone in charge fuck up was a sure way to get ahead in this environment. No one had bothered arguing with her up until now, because she had Julie’s ear and confidence. Now though, even if she’d done more than anyone else had up until now, she’d still stepped on her proverbial dick.

  Not that she noticed any of her fellow Alliance partners’ looks as her mind worked over the strategic issue in her head. While it was bad, it wasn’t something she couldn’t come back from. Evil Sandra just needed to find out what Starfairy’s game plan was. Not that it was particularly rocket science.

  When it came down to it, there were only two possible strategies for him to go for. Either Star-loser had go
tten her forces out of the way to march his main force inside Domenic’s fortress or he’d evacuated his friend. The first option would be more of a pain in the ass in the short term but ultimately useless in the end. It would just take her a little bit longer to break down the walls, or she’d be forced to use their new Orc allies to do her dirty work. Either way, it trapped Julie’s ex-boyfriend far from his lands and removed his ability to affect events.

  If Star-loser had chosen to evacuate his buddy, it was even better. She had control of the fortress, as well as weakened his alliance with the loss of a nightmare tree, and he now could be hunted down like the dog he was by her forces. Between the Orc invasion army and her own forces, the bastard was as good as dead. It was a win-win situation no matter how you looked at it. It even made her being tricked by his ruse a moot point. Evil Sandra was just preparing to explain this fact to her audience, when a new voice caught her by surprise.

  “The entire fortress is gone!”

  “Oh please,” Evil Sandra sneered, as she whirled around to face Jacob who was striding up to them with a look that could kill plastered on his face. Obviously, Starfairy had chosen option two if this loser was already done with his task. “Don’t tell me you’ve come to gloat over the taking of an empty fortress.” The leadership group around her chuckled like good henchmen as they dismissed the shoddy looking Fatal Midnight guild leader and the handful of ragged guildmates that were following behind him.

  “I don’t know what you’re trying to get at, but the entire fortress is completely gone,” Jacob vehemently spat, as he glared accusingly at his fellow associates in the Chaos Storm Alliance. His eyes seemed to watch everyone’s faces as he dropped his next bombshell. “All that’s left is an empty hole in the side of the mountain.” Coming to a stop, he snarled angrily at the entire group.

  “What I want to know is which one of you assholes knew ahead of time that a fortress could be folded up on an invading force to kill everyone in it?”

  Evil Sandra didn’t know what the Fatal Midnight loser was trying to get at, but his words didn’t make any sense. Everyone knew that a fortress couldn’t be picked up and carried away. Jacob’s blustering had to be a cover for something else, but for the life of her she couldn’t figure out what he was trying to get at. Before she could slam the annoying player down, Jacob angrily jabbed a finger at Dante standing next to her.

  “You knew about that didn’t you,” Jacob exclaimed in outrage, as the Global Brutality guild leader began sputtering out excuses, while the rest of the command group backed away from the panicked man in confusion. A wild look came into Jacob’s eyes as if he’d figured out some important secret. Lunging forward, he grabbed Dante by the jerkin and shook him angrily. “It must have happened with the Uten Syn guild’s fortress too, didn’t it,” Jacob screeched, “didn’t it?”

  “Get off my back, you fucking support loser!” Dante roared, as he angrily shoved the Fatal Midnight guild leader away from him in disgust. Even though Jacob was the higher level of the two and had extra buff spells to enhance his abilities, Dante was a Warrior and simply had a higher base Strength stat than the Rogue. Nonetheless, Jacob easily caught his balance as Dante glowered at the rest of the command group.

  “Yeah, that’s right, my people lost the fortress they were guarding,” he snarled at the dismissive faces looking down at him as he twirled his finger above his head. “Big whoopty-doo, it’s not like any of you losers could’ve done better. It was a hundred and twenty against five thousand. What other outcome did you assholes expect?”

  “That’s not the point,” Jacob bellowed back. “Half of my guild is locked out for twenty-four hours due to your lame ass not sharing critical need to know information to the rest of the Alliance that such a thing was even possible. Otherwise, we would’ve used another strategy to take the assholes out.”

  “Oh fuck off,” Dante dismissively said, folding his arms across his chest. “Don’t make this all about you. All that my people knew was that a fortress could be moved … somehow. And just for your in-for-ma-tion,” Dante said, spacing out the word to emphasis his next point. “None of my people know how it was done, or that enemy forces could be killed inside a fortress when it was being packed up.”

  “Great job getting that intelligence,” Evil Sandra dismissively said, trying to wrestle control back over the discussion. “That still doesn’t excuse you for letting the enemy get away when you outnumbered the losers what,” she made an act like she was trying to calculate the difference, “fifty against one?”

  “Yeah, about that,” Jacob’s voice took on an ugly edge, as he turned to face her with an odd look on his face. “I’ve been asking myself why you’ve been commanding everyone to respawn at the southern graveyard and make their way back to the siege instead of collecting their gravestones. I mean, why take the hour-long attribute hit when you didn’t have to? It didn’t make any sense to me. At least it didn’t until the other half of my raid came under attack by Wraith Wolves when we tried to quickly get back into the fight by respawning at our gravestones!”

  “Oh my god!” Evil Sandra smugly said, acting as if this was old news. “Seriously, why are you making such a big deal about this? The worst case scenario is that you lose a few stat points until you rest up.”

  While she shrugged off his accusations like it wasn’t anything big, in her heart, Evil Sandra knew the shadow monsters were dangerous as hell. They’d gotten so thick during the first week that they’d attacked the living and the dead. It was so bad, that they’d been forced to make everyone respawn at the graveyards instead of running back to their gravestones. Not that she was going to admit to that here. Jacob didn’t need any extra ammunition to use against her when this all came to light. She thought she’d dismissed his accusations without anyone being the wiser, when the Fatal Midnight guild leader lunged at her screaming like a maniac.

  “There were no gravestones for us to return to you stupid bitch!” Jacob tackled her to the ground still howling like a mad man doing his best to strangle her to death as the rest of the command staff tried to drag them apart. “The rest of my raid had nowhere to go and was eaten alive by those nightmarish beasts!”

  Chapter Fifteen

  (Second Assault Group: Startum and friends at the mouth of the gauntlet)

  “Sub-Leader Haag and Runeschoff,” Assault Leader Dell’s voice cracked out like a whip, as the rest of us came running up to the mouth of the gauntlet. “Move ’em out!”

  Immediately, the five hundred Kayden Troopers that had been assembled in case of a counter attack began jogging off. The lead elements were arranged in a loose arrowhead formation that consisted of squads of ten soldiers that were grouped together in three platoons. The middle was made up of a block of fifty troopers with each wing holding another fifty troopers. The remaining three hundred and fifty troopers fell in behind the wings in groups of fifty troopers. Together, it was a front line that was thirty soldiers wide. The speed at which the troopers performed the evolution was impressive to say the least.

  “How are we looking?” I shouted out, as soon as we came to within twenty yards of Assault Leader Dell’s command group. Falling in beside me, the veteran swordsman gave his report, speaking loud enough to be heard over the clanking sounds of gear and the tread of hundreds of boots.

  “There was a push by the rogue raid that we’d run into on our way from the eastern graveyard, but Helgath and Neysa warned the troopers ahead of time and then disrupted the rogues’ stealth,” Assault Leader Dell reported, as I lead my raid into the center of the troopers’ formation and we began retracing our path to the eastern graveyard. “Otherwise, it’s been quiet.”

  “Dammit,” I unhappily swore under my breath, “that means they’re already informing Evil Sandra that we’re here.” Seeing Assault Leader Dell’s concerned face, I tried to relieve the other man’s sense of guilt. “It’s not your fault, Dell. It was going to happen either way, I just wished it had taken a bit longer to give us more tim
e to get away.”

  The question was never if the enemy was going to find out about our ruse, but when. Once Evil Sandra realized that the assault had been a distraction, she’d be out for blood. Unfortunately, that didn’t ease the dour look on Dell’s face, but I didn’t have any more time to try to ease his concerns of failure. There was just too much that needed to be done.

  “Good job, Dell,” I said, trying to think of everything that needed to be done for us to vacate the area. “Just make sure everyone’s ready to move out by the time we reach them.” Returning the swordsman’s fist salute, I called Tengsly to me.

  Instead of trying to climb up onto my shoulder, the flying squirrel shot out of my hood to hover next to my face, chittering happily as I gave the little guy a quick message for Helgath. I was about to send him away, when I realized through our link that he now had the ability to carry a second message along with the first. When I got some time, I really was going to have to see what all else he could do, but, for now, I just gave him Fylreh’s message and sent him on his way. Giving me an affirmative chitter, Tengsly raced off into the sky as my friends made room for Domenic.

  “Yo, Jay! Why are we heading north-east?” Domenic asked, as soon as he matched paces with me. “If you want to head to Darom, we should be either heading through the southeastern or southwestern passes.”

  “The southeastern pass is basically a no-go,” I said, ignoring the shocked look on my friend’s face as I continued explaining the current situation to him. “It’s blocked off by a bunch of high-level 90 to 100 monster packs. And if everything went as planned, the southwestern mountain pass is currently being used by Mike and company as an escape route with the enemy hot on their trail, hopefully after giving them a solid bloody nose.”