by Cheek, Jason
Chapter Twenty-Five
(Triple “A” group fighting Zeven)
“Did you guys save any of that asshole for me?” Xxnos called out, as he appeared by his body. His corpse was a wreck. Like some massive monster had pulled him apart. Oddly enough, he didn’t see his head anywhere. He was just opening up his gravestone and reaching for a weapon, when a tremendous roar from the Grizhawk rang out behind him. “I can’t believe that mob still won’t give up-“
That was as far as Xxnos got, before the mother Grizhawk jaws snapped over his head. There was a moment of shocked agony as the Rogue was snatched off his feet, when the side-to-side shaking started. Once again, Xxnos died as his body was pulled apart by the Grizhawk’s massive paws shredding his legs and abdomen like newspaper.
Stannis, Muhrder, and Carebear all appeared one after another. They’d rushed back as quickly as possible with the knowledge that their teammates were under attack and were just in time to see their friend’s gruesome death. As the boss mob gulped down Xxnos’s upper body, they hurriedly opened up their gravestones to grab their weapons. None of them bothered to armor up since their gear’s durability was nearly gone. Without batting an eye, Carebear began shouting orders.
“Stannis, Muhrder, and I will hit the bitch with Flurry Spears and then you lock her down with a Nova Spike!”
“Got it!” Stannis snapped, as Muhrder and Carebear blasted her with their highest damage spell. While the Grizhawk’s thick coat made her somewhat resistant to their magic, the spells still did a shit ton of damage and worked well against large monsters. As soon as the five-foot shafts of ice pierced the mob’s hide, Stannis attacked. “Nova Spikes!”
As the wave of ice rushed out from Stannis, Muhrder and Carebear were already sprinting forward. The wave of frost caught the Grizhawk as it reared up on its hind legs. Immediately, an explosion of ice shafts sprouted underneath the mob’s immense body as twenty shafts of ice pierced its thick skin the ice shafts turned a bloody red. While the spell looked impressive as hell it only did moderate damage. Basically, it was a crowd control spell that inflicted minor damage to the target. What was important, was that it lined the mob up perfectly for the Rogue’s Backstabs.
With his mana now drained, Stannis started sprinting for the mob, while Muhrder and Carebear dodged behind the Grizhawk. A second later, there was a tremendous howl of agony as both Rogues struck. As the boss mob turned around to take on the Humans’ that had hurt it, Stannis struck with his own Backstab at the mob’s broad back as a swipe from the massive Grizhawk sent Muhrder flying through the air. Dodging the Grizhawk's next sweeping strike, Carebear got in close and attacked the mob with a high-damage blade combo, before leaping backwards as the Grizhawk slammed its body down trying to crush the Rogue.
Immediately, an explosion of air erupted in a three hundred and sixty degree circle around the Grizhawk. There was nothing Stannis could do. He was just leaping onto the mob’s broad back when the blast of air flung him away like a rag doll. Carebear and Muhrder were in slightly better positions. Both Rogues dove to the ground and slammed their weapons into the earth as the air blades washed across them. Bloody wounds opened up across their backs as the area attack washed over them. While the Grizhawk recovered, Nacario appeared directly in front of its massive head followed a split-second later by Xxnos.
“Ah, fuck my life!” Nacario managed to swear just before the boss mob’s massive jaws bit him in half. At the same time, Stannis’ icon turned gray as he was impaled by a tree branch at the edge of the semi-destroyed clearing.
“What the fuck is going on?” Xxnos demanded, as he evaded a claw strike coming at his face. Using an evade skill, he appeared ten feet away and hurried out of range. Stopping thirty feet away, he hurriedly began the process of looting his gravestone as Carebear and Muhrder attacked the boss mob to draw the agro back onto them.
“The fuck if I know,” Carebear called back, as his blades ripped into the mob’s bloody flanks. “The bitch was at one percent health when that Badger Kin motherfucker showed up!”
“This has to be that shithead’s fault,” Muhrder swore, as an air blade ripped open his chest. Staggering backwards, he managed to dodge the follow up chomp as Xxnos hit it with a Flurry Spears. Tossing away the empty vial from the Health Potion that he’d just sucked dry, Xxnos ran in to support his teammates.
Carebear and Xxnos were able keep up enough pressure so that Muhrder could get back into the game. Emptying his belt of Health potions, Muhrder shrugged into his hardened leather chest piece before rejoining the fight. Launching himself at the Grizhawk’s back, he straddled the monster and began triggering Backstab combos. As the immense mob stood on its hind legs, his teammates launched an all-out attack against the Grizhawk’s underbelly.
As the named boss’ health bar began to flash red, it fell onto its back trying to crush Muhrder. Using his evade skill again, he managed to escape being crushed. Though, as he rolled to his feet, the Rogue caught a savage blow to the face from one of the tabletop sized front claws. While the blow didn’t outright kill him, Muhrder’s broken body wasn’t rejoining the fight any time soon as it flopped to a stop twenty feet away.
Knowing they had to end it now before the Grizhawk could recover its hit points, Carebear and Xxnos leaped onto the mob’s back as it rolled to its paws. Backstab combos hammered into the Grizhawk’s back one after another as the named boss bellowed in its final death throes. Getting his feet up underneath him, Xxnos leaped into the air to drive his short sword through the mob’s spine as Nacario and Stannis respawned twenty feet away.
“Wow, that took you assholes long enough to kill,” Nacario snarled, as he began looting his corpse.
“Fuck you very much, asshole,” Carebear shot back, as he slid off the side of the Grizhawk and plopped onto his ass.
“Dude, it had one percent health left-” Nacario began to say, as Xxnos cut him off.
“No it didn’t, Nacario.” Using both hands to pull his blade free, Xxnos slid off the mob’s back and began looting his corpse as he unhappily continued. “That Badger Kin mother fucker somehow managed to boost the Grizhawk’s hit points back up to three percent.”
“How the fuck did he manage that?” Stannis asked in confusion, as he studied his body in confusion. “Where the fuck is my head?”
“I think that Badger Kin guy took it,” Muhrder called out from where he laid on his back, “because all of our heads are missing.” As the rest of his team began looking at their corpses to confirm what he’d said, the Rogue continued in an annoyed tone. “Can someone pour a Health Potion down my throat? I don’t want to lay here until my body heals up enough for me to do it myself.”
“Sure thing,” Nacario said, as he walked over and stabbed Muhrder in the head, killing him instantly.
“Why the hell did you do that?” Xxnos asked in shock, as the rest of the team just laughed.
“What, that?” Nacario asked, not understanding why the new guy was upset. “It’s quicker to respawn than try to heal up after an injury like that. We don’t have time to be screwing around with someone at half their attribute levels if we’re going to catch up to that shithead that fucked us over. And besides,” a nasty look came to his face, “losing some XP will make him do better at dodging next time around.”
“Yo, Nacario,” Carebear called out from where he kneeled at the edge of the clearing studying the ground, as Xxnos muttered “Dick!” under his breath. “It looks like he’s headed towards Lonsalindel.”
“Fuck!” Nacario snarled, as he strode over to Carebear. “How much of a head start does he have on us?”
“Give or take ten minutes if we wait for Muhrder to respawn,” Carebear said, after casting a spell. Even though they were all Rogues, each of them had a slightly different build to cover everything they might need as a group. While some people wouldn’t understand why they didn’t have a more traditional set of classes, ganking was best done by a group of high DPS Rogues that could sneak in anywhere t
hey wanted. As far as any of them were concerned, Health Potions or respawning could take care of the rest.
“Fuck!” Nacario snarled, as he looked back to study the body of the named boss for a moment before continuing. “Okay, we’ll take everything we can from this Grizhawk until Muhrder respawns and then we’re going make that Badger Kin player regret they ever decided to fuck with us!”
Chapter Twenty-Six
(Zeven reaches the city of Lonsalindel)
Zeven didn’t slow down for anything as he raced through the forest in the general direction of Lonsalindel while searching for the main thoroughfare. Though he wasn’t exactly sure where he was in relationship to the city, he knew that as long as he traveled at a perpendicular line he’d run across the road soon enough. Light branches slashed him in the snout and arms while the larger ones snapped as he propelled himself through the tree limbs and bushes in his path.
Even though Saber Tooth Wolves, Carnivorous Blood Deer, and Spiked-Spitter Boars aggro’d at his passing, he refused to stop his headlong flight through the forest. While none of the lower-level predators of this forest were a true threat to him at his current level, he still caught a nasty swipe or bite here and there. As long as he didn’t strike back, the monstrous wildlife would only chase after him for a short distance, before slowing down and heading back to their own area. If he was lucky, it was quite possible that having the various predators running back to their own area could actually be to his benefit by forcing the group of triple “A” players to stop and fight, especially since the predators were all, more or less, lined up behind him.
The only difficulty he had was when he’d passed a little too close to a large passel of Spiked-Spitter Boars. The flight of bone spikes they sent after him was nothing to take lightly. Even so, other than catching a few barbs in the back, he made it past the group with no other damage as the heavy foliage took care of the majority of the spikes. Bursting out in front of a group of Wolf Kin fighting a battle against a pack of Saber Tooth Wolves, Zeven passed through the middle of the fight.
“Train coming through,” Zeven shouted at the top of his lungs, “with a group of PKers behind it!”
Everyone stopped fighting as he ran between both the wolves and players alike urgently shouting. It was all the warning Zeven could give as he plowed into the trees on the far side of the small clearing. Ten seconds later, screams, cursing, and growls of rage came to his ears as the train of mobs following on his heels slammed into the group a second later. Due to the thick forest between him and his pursuers, Zeven had no idea how big of a train he had following behind him, but it sounded big as shit as the terrified screams died down to nothing a few seconds later.
He passed several more groups with similar results, meaning everyone was wiped out within seconds of his passing. The racket of the train behind him just seemed to be growing louder by the minute. After nearly five minutes of running, Zeven started to notice that the players and monsters he ran across were already nervously looking in his direction, especially after Lonsalindel Forest General Chat began to explode with bitching players.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: OMG, our whole team just got wiped out by a two headed beast! Monsters are everywhere!!!
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Dean Twangslump: It’s called a train, Kaivax.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: A player did that shit?
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Cinc Kimbearly: We were wiped out too.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: Duh, that’s why they call it a train.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Cinc Kimbearly: Did anyone catch the name of the asshole?
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: Must have been Dean Twafflefart’s fault!
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Dean Twangslump: The name is Twangslump, ya dumbshit, and our group didn’t do shit. We died just like everyone else.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Nethera Culture: WTF is going on? A team of triple “A” players slaughtered us as soon as we respawned!”
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: Gah, they’re here killing every-
Fuck, Zeven anxiously thought, as he watched local chat explode again. This time it was all about the triple “A” players slaughtering everyone they passed and not the train. It’s not that he was actually surprised those knob-bobbers weren’t going to let him get away after slaughtering them and stealing their gruesome fun.
Luckily for him, the run-by had happened so fast that no one had gotten a good look at his name and now everyone was more concerned about the triple “A” players then the person who actually started the train. Well that, and it probably didn’t hurt that he had the large Grizhawk cub clutched to his chest.
The ruckus was quickly growing across the Lonsalindel Forest region as other groups got caught up in the massive train and were trying to figure out what the hell was going on, when he flew out onto a wide pathway that was mostly dirt with trampled grass on the edges. The great thoroughfare to Lonsalindel, Zeven thought in relief, as he took off in the direction of the massive Beast Kin city. A wicked smile came to his face as a plan began forming in his head. With a thought, he switched chats.
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Zeven Al'Zaric: It was those triple “A” players that started the train. Their leader, Nacario Deathreaver, told me this whole region belongs to the triple “A” guild now!
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Kaivax Rabit: We’re so going to kill us some triple “A” douchebags!
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Dean Twangslump: They can’t fight us all!
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Sycthros Ravens: We just saw those PKing assholes. They’re headed to Lonsalindel!”
(Lonsalindel Forest General Chat) Nethera Culture: Everyone who wants a piece of them head to Lonsalindel. We’ll show them where the triple “A” guild can shove it!
Zeven’s attention was pulled away from the conversation going on in general chat by a horrendous sound of snapping trees and cracking branches. It sounded like a massive stampede was coming through the forest behind him. A moment later, a herd of mobs exploded out of the treeline and tumbled onto the trail behind him. Zeven swore that there had to be every predator common to the area and a few odd looking beasts that he’d never seen before in the monstrous horde. You’d have thought that the creatures would’ve been more interested in fighting each other than chasing after him, but that wasn’t the case as mass of beasts reoriented and began racing down the trail after him.
“Gah!” Zeven wordlessly grunted as he forced his legs to run even faster. It’s surprising the motivation seeing something like that could give you. While starting the train had been a dick move, the reason that Zeven hadn’t dared to slow down was because he knew that Rogues typically had Sprint skills to escape from enemies or, in his case, to chase them down. Besides that, he’d royally fucked those guys over and now had the prize they were after clutched safely in his arms. Not that Bright Claw of the Azure Sky was currently anything special, Zeven flippantly thought, as he hustled down the dirt road as fast as his legs could carry him.
“Rrraaawwwweeengggrrr,” the cub cried in Zeven’s ear in protest, sounding like a high-pitched mini-Chewbacca. It was almost like the cub was saying, “What did you expect, I’m only level zero!”
“Chill out, little dude,” Zeven distractedly said, loud enough to be heard over the ruckus coming from behind them. “I was just joking. I’m sure you’ll be impressive as hell once you get a few levels under your belt.” While Zeven had said that as a joke, to his surprise, that seemed to settle the issue as the cub’s serious face fearfully looked over his shoulder.
“Don’t worry, Bright Claw,” Zeven said, as he risked a hurried look over his shoulder. “Those knob-gobblers haven’t caught up to us yet.”
With that, Zeven put his head down and focused everything he had on running. In truth, his Badger Kin form wasn’t the best
for running. What his Badger body lacked in speed, it made up for in having the endurance to run all day. Though, up until now, he hadn’t thought much of it being a useful ability. Funny how things change, he thought, letting out a disgruntled snort.
As the forest around him began to give away to the rolling hills before the city, Zeven was shocked to see the majority of the monsters were still chasing after him. Scattered across the rolling fields ahead of him, Zeven saw numerous groups of lower-level players hunting the quest mobs begin worriedly looking in his direction as the Lonsalindel Forest General Chat began to go off about the triple “A” players trying to kill everyone. Zeven thought that was funny as hell, until Bright Claw started hollering again.
“Bbbwwwaaa gggrrr bbbaaaa … Bbbwwwaaa gggrrr bbbaaaa!”
“Fuck my life,” Zeven muttered, as he looked over his shoulder. Less than a hundred yards behind him, he saw what had gotten the Grizhawk cub so excited. Not that he thought the little guy was trying to talk to him, but more or less responding to the sight of the Humans that had killed his mother. Intermixed with the train of nearly a hundred monstrous predators were the five familiar Humans from the triple “A” team pounding after them. He gasped out in-between heaving breaths, “Those fuckwits look all kinds of pissed off.”
“Mmmrrraaa gggrrr aaabbb?” Bright Claw of the Azure Sky questioningly replied back.
“We’re good,” Zeven panted out, as they crested the rise before the city gates not a hundred yards away. Not that he understood a word of what the Grizhawk cub was trying to say as he focused on running. The city’s alarm bell was already ringing as guards began rushing to take up positions on top of the wall, while another group formed up before the city gates. As the massive doors to the city began to close, Zeven muttered under his breath. “At least, I hope we are.”