Elusive Prey

by Cheek, Jason

  “I’m not sure what scout mission you’re talking about,” Sub-Scout Leader Tanner replied in a strained voice, as sweat beaded on her forehead. Risking a quick glance towards Lance Leader Warf, who gave her an encouraging nod, she gulped before answering. “We never scouted the Isolde Line-” there was a gagging sound as Helgath shoved her clawed fist down DeKhayed’s throat to keep him from talking as the rest of the riders looked at each other in consternation.

  “What do you mean there was no scouting done on the Isolde Line?” Lance Leader Warf demanded, as he leaned forward in his saddle to glare at his subordinate.

  “It was at Scout Leader DeKhayed’s direct orders,” the Sub-Scout Leader hurriedly explained, as her eyes emotionlessly watched her superior’s struggles against the Half-Orc. “He said that his father had assured him that there was no Orc incursion to scout for and refused to carry out his assigned duty.”

  ‘Release him,’ I sent to Helgath, as she suddenly jumped up and used his shoulders to leap across to Neysa again. Though she landed with an assuredness that required no help, I still grabbed her by the waist and helped her down so she could sit in front of me, while noting the alarmed looks on the rest of the cavalry troopers faces. Their reaction was everything that needed to be said. Though, Lance Leader Warf’s reaction was most telling.

  “What have you done?” Lance Leader Warf shouted into the other man’s face, as he snatched him from the saddle and began shaking him in outrage. “Your father told you that there was nothing to scout!” Ignoring the altercation, I addressed the cavalrywoman directly.

  “Scout Leader Tanner,” I said, as the woman noticeably jumped at my address. “Please take your unit and scout the line. “When you return, please report directly to me in-” I paused to look at Sir Anon.

  “The main castle,” Sir Anon quickly spoke up, “the Queen is meeting with the Royal Forces commanders.”

  “In the conference room where the Queen is meeting with the rest of the Royal Forces commanders,” I finished telling Scout Leader Tanner. There was a slight hesitation as she looked towards her ex-Scout Leader’s commander.

  “Go,” Lance Leader Warf said, looking away from the terrified Scout Leader DeKhayed dangling in midair. “I recognize your field promotion, Scout Leader Tanner,” he said, giving me a respectful nod before continuing. “Report back at the first signs of any horde.”

  “Overlord Ironwolf, Lance Leader Warf,” the young woman snapped out sharply, giving us both a fist salute before whirling her mount around and racing back down the column to the scouts.

  “Arrest him,” Lance Leader Warf snarled, as he tossed the blubbering man away. “Once we return to Palnisdale, I want him brought to the prison. He’s not to be released unless Overlord Ironwolf, Sir Anon, or I orders it.”

  “Yes, Lance Leader,” the men chorused, as the man urged his mount over to us and we got moving again.

  “How did you know there was a problem with the report?” Lance Leader Warf respectfully asked. I could tell that the man was upset that he’d somehow missed this and was trying to understand how a complete stranger had figured out the obvious. “And to ask the Sub-Scout Leader to report on the issue, Overlord?”

  “Well the first was easy enough for us to figure out,” I said, giving the man a sardonic smile. “We’ve spent the last seven hours fighting against the Orc Horde flooding across the Isolde Line. Why else would my people and I look so ravaged?” My hand unconsciously rubbed at the fist-sized hole in my chest plate. “We held off a large group of Ogres until my friends could drop the gorge in on itself.”

  “How large is this horde?” Sir Anon asked, his eyes-wide as he realized what I was saying.

  “If not for the close confines of the gorge, we would’ve been wiped out to the last soldier,” I said, a haunted look came to my face as I met both men’s eyes. “How many leaves drop from a grove of trees when winter comes?” I rhetorically asked as my audience frowned. “Honestly, there were simply too many to count. Their advancing tribes blackened the hills and valleys like a creeping ooze that covered everything as far as we could see from the top of the mountain pass from Ironheart Stronghold and still they came.”

  “A simple enough way to know DeKhayed was lying about scouting the Orcs,” Lance Leader Warf said, nodding to himself.

  “And Scout Leader Tanner?” Sir Anon curiously asked.

  “Well, that was a bit more luck,” I said, giving both men an apologetic shrug. “Tanner looked like she’d swallowed some sour grapes.”

  “Yeah, she was bypassed for her promotion to Scout Leader because of DeKhayed’s father’s interference.” Lance Leader Warf said, as he looked to Sir Anon. “That was just before all of you showed up yesterday.”

  “What happened to the previous Scout Leader?” Sir Anon asked, as his eyes suspiciously narrowed at the timing.

  “He was found dead a day earlier, murdered by foul deeds,” Lance Leader Warf explained, as Sir Anon and I frowned at the timing. Obviously, the Chaos Storm Alliance were up to their same old tricks.

  “What actions have Queen Isolde taken with the newfar and the garrison since you’ve arrived?” I asked Sir Anon, as we began making our way across the rolling hills of frozen snow.

  As Sir Anon began explaining how Queen Isolde had kicked out the members of the Chaos Storm Alliance and began setting up quests for the newfar to hunt down the Orc Scouts in the area upon her arrival, I watched the ripple that went through the players in the area as soon as they saw our column. Although no one approached, I noticed a number of players triggering their screen shot and video options as we rode past. Fylreh received as much if not more attention than even I did astride Neysa’s back.

  I didn’t bother enabling the local chat to hear what everyone was saying. Even without Julie’s games on the forums, I had no illusions that the comments were anything nice. Gamers tended to be jealous of another players’ success. Besides that, between our Dark magic, black armor, zombie pets, and all of that ruckus about how the House of Kayden was the Dark Side, it had put a target on my back as large as any that Julie had made with her video. It was one of the few times that I was thankful that private messaging didn’t work outside of the cities. Otherwise, I would’ve been flooded with demands for gold, openly cursed, or outright threatened.

  More and more, it seemed like random strangers felt that it was perfectly fine for them to accost people they didn’t know or like for one reason or another. It wasn’t like they’d done any research on who you were or what you represented. They’d simply heard from a friend or read an outraged post on the forum about such and such that you’d supposedly said or done something without ever researching the circumstances around it for themselves. Instead of just allowing you to “play your game” while they “played their game,” they thought it was their right to berate you about your play style and demand that you do or act in a way that they approved of or thought was appropriate.

  In the past, I would’ve responded to such assholes. I always liked to picture their faces as I asked them, “Who the fuck do you think you are?” It was like they thought they were the morality police or something. That was usually followed up by my next favorite comment, “If I didn’t know them from Adam, why the fuck would I give a rat’s ass about what they thought or said about me?”

  Ever want to see some self-important asshat lose their fucking mind, say something like that to them. I swear, it was like they believed everyone should care about their rando opinion. Why the fuck would their opinion mean anything to me one way or another? You had to know someone and respect them in some way before their opinion mattered. I shook my head in disgust.

  Nowadays, I simply blocked assholes like that from messaging me, but, seeing some of the pissed off looks on the faces around me, I was almost tempted to open local chat and tell the whole lot of them to fuck off. I swear, it was like the self-important Twitter trolls were slowly infiltrating gaming so they could get in on the payout only to be pissed off w
hen they discovered it wasn’t as easy as they thought it should be.

  At this point, some of you might accuse me of being a hypocrite, but that wasn’t the case at all. What my friends and I did were stop assholes from griefing other players, albeit, I’d enlarged this to protecting the people of The World too. If that made me an asshole, then so be it. I’d still argue there was difference between playing the game and being a murderhobo. Either way, I’d protected me and mine. If people didn’t like that, they could fuck off.

  Dismissing the ugly thoughts running through my mind, I did my best to focus on what Sir Anon was currently saying. It’s not like I didn’t know that I was tired and cranky as hell. Letting out a deep sigh, I silently reminded myself not to do anything too over-the-top stupid. From what the Guardian Knight was saying, Queen Isolde had managed to get all of the city’s graveyards under the Royal Army’s control. She’d also imprisoned the Chaos Storm Alliance members that were within the city for their crimes against the Kingdom of Kadar, but she was getting major pushback against hounding them out of the region from Lord DeKhayed who was one of the Generals in Palnisdale. If this asshole was forcibly putting his son into the local scouting unit’s leadership position and then telling him not to follow any orders to scout for Orcs intrusions along the Isolde Line, something ugly was going down. This whole situation had Julie’s stench all over it.

  “When we reach the city,” I said, addressing both men directly. “I want a large force of the Royal Army sent to Lord DeKhayed’s home with orders to arrest any Iron Falcon Mercenaries or newfar on the premises.”

  “Do you really think Milo Hawkin was sent to Palnisdale after he betrayed us in Telrain?” Sir Anon asked, as his face turned hard at the memory of what had happened.

  “What will you do about General DeKhayed?” Lance Leader Warf nervously asked. “If we invade the General’s residence with proper cause-“

  “Your career in the Royal Forces will be over,” I knowingly said, cutting Lance Leader Warf off as my face turned hard. “I’ll head to the council chambers upon our arrival and confront General DeKhayed directly.” As I turned to Sir Anon, the rage I felt at the Mercenary Leader’s betrayal against my people was clear in my eyes.

  “Cristiane Sekhmet is no slouch at misdirection and betrayal,” I explained using my ex-girlfriend’s in-game name. While I’d always been the master of strategy, she’d always been the expert at misdirection. “I have no doubt Milo Hawkin and his people are somewhere within the city of Palnisdale. If they’re truly within General DeKhayed’s residence, that I cannot say. Let’s start there and get a search going throughout the city for these traitors.”

  Our conversation was interrupted as we approached the towering gates of Palnisdale by a group of players making a commotion before the entrance. As we neared, I noticed the group was cursing and screaming insults at the troop of guards standing before the gates. There had to be nearly two hundred players in all. Interestingly enough, none of them were doing anything more than making a nuisance of themselves as the guards simply ignored their ruckus. I noticed both men’s lips press together unhappily at the sight of the newfar as I ran an Identify on the rearmost player.

  Unholy Josephine – level 40 DPS Warrior - Guild Leader of The Legion of Vengeance popped over the first player’s head. A savage grin came to my lips as I ran another Identify on the player to the right of her. This guy came up as Brandon Phillipe – Level 41 Rogue – The Coven. Both of these asshats were a part of the Chaos Storm Alliance. Why would these asshats be hanging around after they’d been kicked out of Palnisdale unless there was some plan afoot? I didn’t bother to inspect any more of the players in the group since I had all of the information I needed. I was just mentally reaching out for Tengsly, when I remembered that he’d been cut down earlier that morning.

  “Fylreh,” I called out to the filly, while mentally swearing about how much of a pain in the ass it was to not have Tengsly with me. With a prancing double step, she caught up to us and gave me a nod while falling in step with Neysa. “Would you mind carry a message to General Dell and ask him to assign five hundred troopers to harry those Chaos Storm Alliance newfar until they leave the area? I don’t want them to go out farther than two graveyard hops and it would probably be best if they were back by nightfall.”

  “Yes, milord,” Fylreh said, as I did a double take. Taking off with a flick of her tail, she called out over her shoulder. “I’ll return in a moment.”

  “That’s quite convenient,” Lance Leader Warf commented under his breath to Sir Anon who simply nodded his head in agreement.

  While that conversation was going on, I was eying Neysa and Helgath. Both of them were oddly quiet on the topic and were giving me the innocent act. There was now no doubt in my mind that something had happened earlier this morning when they were out scouting the enemy. I was just about to ask some pertinent questions, when Helgath caught me by surprise.

  ‘You know,’ Helgath mentally said in an amused tone, ‘I could summon Tengsly if you’d like.’

  ‘What do you mean?’ I asked in confusion, as her comment immediately interrupted my train of thought. ‘Isn’t he my summon pet?’

  ‘It’s somewhat different due to our soulmate connection,’ Helgath diffidently explained, as she started casting the Manifest Giant Squirrel spell. “I can reform Tengsly’s essence from our connection.”

  By the time Helgath finished the spell, Fylreh was just galloping back to us and was just in time to see the Flying Squirrel once again being summoned into existence. Not that she seemed to mind as she fell into place behind me. Surprisingly enough, the clatter of the filly’s hooves on the cobblestone road caught The Legion of Vengeance guild leader’s attention. The look of shock on her face as she saw our group approaching filled me with glee as she urgently jostled the Coven player standing next to her.

  “What the fuck is your problem, woman,” Brandon snarled, as he angrily whirled on his ally. Seeing the worried look on Unholy Josephine’s face, he followed her line of sight to see our massive group riding up not thirty yards away. The momentary look of shock that flared in his eyes went away a second later as he confidently called out loud enough for everyone to hear. “Fuck that asshole, Unholy. There’s nothing that dickless wonder can do to us when we’re within the Palnisdale city limit.”

  “I’m not so sure about that,” Unholy Josephine uncomfortably said, as she nervously watched the now forming up mass of Kayden Troopers split out of the column behind me with a mini-horde of zombies assembling in front of them.

  There was a momentary pause as the sub-raid organized into squads of ten. It was obvious to the naked eye they outnumbered the players over two to one. Less than thirty seconds later, the Kayden Troopers cried out, “For Lord Ironwolf!” and charged the group of Chaos Storm Alliance players. If that wasn’t disconcerting enough, the rotting horde of Orc zombies charged ahead of the group in all of their feral rotting glory which was enough to cause nightmares in and of itself. I didn’t blame the pale looks of fear on the enemy raid’s faces either as the group of two hundred players began preparing to fight.

  “No one attack!” Brandon commanded, as the entire raid unconsciously began backing up in fear.

  “Form up with tanks and heavy armor classes in the front row!” Unholy Josephine began calling out, as the heavier armored players stepped to the front of their formation and readied their shields.

  “Let them attack first,” Brandon voice quaked out, “so the Palnisdale guards will be forced to defend us!”

  The unnatural gait of the slavering Orc undead was daunting to look at to say the least. After hours of fighting the large Orcs, I was mostly numb to the intimidation their massed charges could inflict. It quickly became apparent from the sickening look on their Mages faces that these asshats were aware of how resistant the Orcs were to elemental magic. Not that they had much time to worry about the obvious, since the undead horde was nearly on top of them.

  “Hold fas
t!” Brandon’s false bravado visibly began to collapse in the face of being eaten to death as his voice cracked. “He won’t dare attack us if that means he’ll be forced to fight the entire city’s garrison!”

  There is one thing you don’t want to do with any type of undead, I thought, as I saw the enemy raid get tackled to the frozen snow. You don’t want to let them tackle you to the ground, especially not when they outnumber you two to one. The zombies hit so hard that the players’ bodies went flying into their raid mates behind them like bowling pins as whole packs of zombies piled on top of the tangled players. The screams of terror as the enemy raid were literally torn to shreds brought a cruel smile to my lips.

  Again, I’m sure that would be pointed out on my Twitch Channel by those that hated me, but honestly I could care less. As far as I was concerned, these bastards deserved everything they got and more. None of them were innocent. All of them had joined in on the fun of razing the players’ fortresses on the Isolde Line to the ground and griefing any players they found in their travels. As far as I was concerned, this was just the beginning of their just desserts.

  The fighting was over almost as soon as it had begun. The group had never stood a chance, which was the plan from the beginning. I wasn’t a believer in a fair fight. Well, I did if it was a fight amongst friends, but even then, we’d slaughter each other without a second thought and use whatever crazy tactics that we could think of to win. In gaming, the objective was always to win and I’d take whatever advantage that I could get. As we rode up to the Kayden Troopers who were beginning to loot the dead, the familiar face of Logan West snapped to attention as he gave me a fist salute.

  “We’ll have the zombies carry the gravestones like you did in retaking of the city of Darom,” Sub Leader West explained smartly, as I returned his salute. “General Dell was concerned that the newfar might chose to respawn at the graveyards within the city. How should we proceed, milord?”