by Jason Cheek
“What the-?” Dangas began to shout as he spun around. His eyes bulging out in shock at each of the different forces appearing as if out of nowhere. Within seconds, his guildmates were subdued by overwhelming forces. As the Aussie guild leader accusingly turned around to face me, Neysa and Helgath rose up out of the snowdrift behind his back like shadows of death. The Silver Dire Wolf’s hot breath hit the back of Dangas’ bare neck as she let out a deep rumbling growl that froze the Warrior in his tracks. Before anyone else could say a word, the Aussie red neck’s voice rang out across the frozen scene.
“I’m not happy JAN!”
“Okay everyone, I think that’s enough of a show!” I called out to the raid. “Go ahead and let them up.”
Wordlessly, Neysa leaped around the Aussie Guild Leader and darted to my side as Neristhana and Brenna joined her taking up defensive positions around me with Ulia, Rayne, and Keela. To my companions’ surprise, Fylreh silently joined them a second later with her weapons sheathed. Although my companions put away their weapons, there was a certain wariness about them as they watched the Aussie players nervously climbing back to their feet. Even though the Uten Syn Druids and the zombie pets had let everyone up, they were still a little too close for comfort.
“Actually, we saw the traps ahead of time,” I said, looking over at James but speaking loud enough for everyone in the vicinity to hear. “But, we weren’t sure what was up after you didn’t give us a heads up about them.” Yeah, I know it was a lie, but I didn’t want to directly accuse them of being shady either.
“So, you knobgobblers let yourself be caught to see if we were going to betray you or not to the Chaos Storm Alliance,” Dangas said, filling in the unspoken blanks. “I guess that “catch you in the woods” comment came across as a little too shady?”
“You think?” Sarka sarcastically added, from where she stood with my friends.
“More or less,” I agreed, as a smile came to my lips. Stepping forward, I offered him a hand up. “Though, once I realized you guys were just having some fun, I couldn’t help but reply in kind.”
“Well played, man … well played.” Dangas said, shaking his head in spite of himself. “I’m starting to think that teaming up with you guys is going to be quite the adventure.”
After a quick round of introductions, Dangas led the way back to their camp as everyone began to talk and get to know one another. Dangas explained that some of his mates wanted to play a prank on us, since we were half a day late meeting up. Not that it was a big deal. They all knew we’d had a lot going on and it wasn’t like they weren’t having some fun PKing the Chaos Storm Alliance members that were passing through the pass.
Still, after Daniel brought the idea up, everyone decided it would be a blast to get one over on the big bad boy of The World. Dangas explained that our group was basically wanted by everyone in the game for destroying Telrain. Seeing my raised eyebrow at his comment, the Aussie guild leader waved my meaningful look away with a laugh. He explained that, unlike most of the idiots on the forums, all of them had seen the real video of our encounter with the leader of the Chaos Storm Alliance.
“I nearly shat my daks when you dropped in front of me.” I heard Daniel say to Angie, as I momentarily focused on the conversations going on around us.
“You have to understand, Aussies love pranking new chums whenever they can.” The panda-girl Steph was saying to Sarka and Unalia who were chatting it up like old friends.
“The first thing me and my mates should have been asking about was where were all the zombie pets?” I heard a player named Richard saying to Yun and Tinyr from where they walked nearby. Before I could turn my attention back to what Dangas was saying, my ears perked up at a conversation that made my hairs stand on end.
“Do you think that seppo was actually rooting with a brumby?” I heard a younger man’s voice ask with heavy innuendo as an older man snarled back. “Keep your voice down or he’s going to hear, you flaming galah!”
My head immediately snapped around to glare at the two Aussie men walking behind Fylreh. Seeing them focused on her rear, I felt my temper shoot through the roof. One look at the younger man’s face and I immediately knew what they were getting at as both men’s mouths guiltily snapped shut. Dangas had just come to a confused stop next to me, when Neysa’s rumbling growl filled the sudden silence.
Everyone followed the Silver Dire Wolf’s glaring eyes as she suddenly doubled in size from her fur standing on end. Fylreh seemed to catch the drift of what was going on as her golden eyes locked onto mine and her face flushed red in shame. In that moment, we each understood what the other was thinking. Feeling my outrage, my zombie pets came to a stop to look at the pair as their bony fangs began snapping hungrily at the frozen men.
For a Centaur, there was nothing more embarrassing than talking or showing intimacy in public. That wasn’t even discussing the taboo situation itself, since the tribe looked down on four-legs having sexual relations with two-legs. Disrespect like this for a Centauride was a killing offense.
For me, there wasn’t any embarrassment about our relationship. What did bother me was the lack of respect from the two men. That, and the comments themselves had acutely upset someone I still cared for very deeply. At the same time, these yahoos were from another guild we were hoping to count on as allies in the coming fight against the Chaos Storm Alliance. I knew that killing them for insulting an NPC, as most people thought of the people of The World, would go over like a ton of bricks with the rest of their guild.
As I was fretting over how to handle the situation, Fylreh came to our rescue. Kicking her rear end up, she balanced on her two front hooves as she kicked out with both hind legs. Before either man understood what was happening, they were launched into the air when the filly’s hooves smashed into their groins. It happened so fast. Once second, both men were looking right at me as if they’d been caught with “foot in the mouth” syndrome, and the next they were flying through the air.
They both came to a crashing stop by slamming into the trees behind them. Though the centauride’s kicks didn’t kill them, I’m sure they wished it had as both men moaned in agony. Even worse, they couldn’t writhe on the ground or clutch their junk, because of the Stun from the overpowered blows. Before either man recovered or Fylreh could finish them off, a massive Aussie Half-Orc named Toxi Croack took both men out with a two-handed axe.
“I owe you one,” I said, stepping forward and offering my hand in appreciation as the last bloody head rolled to a stop.
“Yeah, nah,” Toxi easily replied, as he solidly shook my hand with a hard smile. Leaning in close, he nodded towards the red panda-girl as he spoke in a low voice. “Let’s just say this isn’t the first time those bloody blokes have been warned.”
Grinning from ear to ear, I stepped back as the whispers started up around us. From what I could hear being said, several of the Aussie players had heard what the two men were saying and had passed along their nasty comments to the rest of the guild. Instead of catching a rash of shit for Fylreh’s actions, the players backed the filly’s response without complaint and gave Toxi a pat on the back for a job well-done. As the comments made their way back to Dangas’ ears, the guild leader even gave an official apology to Fylreh for the two men’s behavior and thanked Toxi for educating the pair yet again. That seemed to settle everyone down and satisfied the tinge of dishonor the centauride had felt.
Giving Fylreh a silent nod of thanks, I turned back to my conversation with the Aussie guild leader who continued leading us back to their camp with a grin on his face. Not that I could blame the man for being curious about my relationship with the beautiful centauride or the physical gymnastics that I might or might not have used to get the job done. Nonetheless, I wasn’t about to go into any details on the subject either. It’s one thing to wonder about something, but it’s another to disrespect someone to their face by asking those personal questions out loud. Besides, a gentleman didn’t kiss and tell.
Cooking food with bonus stats was obviously part of the game as I saw my Stamina and Endurance go up from the light meal. The making of alcoholic beverages was a crafting technique too, albeit this one lowered my intelligence by a few points. Thankfully, not enough to lose control over any of my pets. Enjoying the fruits of the guild’s labor just made me think of how far behind I was on crafting in general, which was frustrating to say the least. As we finished our meal, Dangas didn’t waste any more time as he got down to the business at hand.
“From the stream I saw last night on your Twitch channel, I thought youse would’ve had a lot more NPCs traveling with you, but I guess not.” Dangas said, as he studied the forces I’d brought along thoughtfully. “Even with our entire guild logged in, I don’t see how we’re going to do much against the number of the bloody bastards that have moved in over the last few days.”
“What do you mean?” I asked, curious as to what he knew about Domenic’s current situation.
“When we arrived here two days ago,” Dangas nodded to the ranger next to him. “Rassilon scouted out the blokes attacking your mate. What was it? Around four to five hundred players?”
“Nah, yeah,” Rassilon quietly agreed, as his eyes met mine. “Not too many bastards to take out if we could’ve coordinated the attack with the defenders.” Seeing my look of surprise, the ranger explained. “We couldn’t get anyone inside to listen to us before taking our people out.”
“Ugh, that makes sense. I should have thought about that earlier,” I said, with a self-depreciating frown.
“No worries mate,” Dangas replied with an easy grin. “Even a fair dinkum like you can’t think of everything.”
I laughed along with the Aussies, understanding the gist of the complement. We were all learning how to deal with the lack of instantaneous communications. It was nice to know the Aussies didn’t blame Domenic and his people for attacking them on sight. What defensive force wouldn’t instantly attack a random group of players suddenly appearing inside of their fortifications without warning? Thankfully, I now had Tengsly to use as an option, before Stealthing over the walls.
“Not that our help would have much mattered,” Rassilon said, with a disgusted shake of his head. “There must be over three thousand of those fucksticks outside his walls by now.”
“We’ve been ganking as many of the groups of players coming through as we can,” Dangas explained, as he saw the brief look of anger cross my face. “But, none of them buggers stuck around to fight it out.”
“Not that they don’t talk a bunch of shit about coming back to kick our asses once they’ve finished ganking your friend,” Steph muttered unhappily from where she sat with the Half-Orc Barbarian, Toxi.
“No worries about the smack they’re talking, Sheila,” Rassilon said, with a shrug. “It’s good money either way with the price on their heads.”
“While we’ve been doing what we can to help out,” Dangas said, ignoring his companions comments as he looked me in the eyes. “You’re dreaming if you think the five hundred of us are going to make any difference in that cluster fuck.”
“I wouldn’t worry about that too much,” I said, guffawing out loud at the looks on the Aussie players’ faces as my friends and the Uten Syn guild joined in. Wiping the tears away, I gave Dangas a shit-eating grin. “I think we’ll do just fine.” As the Aussies looked at us like we’d lost it, I hurriedly explained the real situation.
“My main force of a thousand Kayden Troopers plus friends are probably a half an hour to an hour behind us,” I said, cocking my head back the way we’d come. “Since we were running late, the rest of us decided to meet up with you a little sooner to get things moving.”
“Think you can have all of your people at the pass and ready to march in an hour?” I asked, as I stood up.
“You’re a bloody ripper, man!” Dangas shouted as he jumped to his feet with Rassilon as both men pumped their fists in the air in excitement. Even Steph had her arms up as she wooted happily from where she sat with her boyfriend.
Within seconds, the message had gone out to the rest of the Aussie guild as everyone began cheering loudly. As things calmed down somewhat, Dangas, Rassilon, and Steph began explaining that we needed everyone logging in and moving within thirty minutes. While that was going on, I began getting my people ready to move out for our next visit. Maybe that was rude of me, but we still had the Russians to meet with and everyone looked pretty busy. I did manage to catch Toxi’s eye before heading off. We’d nearly made it to the edge of the camp, when the Aussie officers caught up with us.
“Where are you guys headed to?” Dangas asked, trading a confused glance with Rassilon and Steph. “We thought you’d hang out until the rest of your people showed up.”
“Can’t,” I said, giving him an apologetic shrug. “We still need to meet up with a Russian guild who was planning on joining in on the fun too.”
“You mean the Krasnyy Volki guild?” Steph and Rassilon both exclaimed in unison.
“Is that a problem,” I asked, somewhat concerned there was a problem as the three Aussies gave each other a look.
“No worries mate,” Dangas said, slapping me on the back. “We’ve been sort of working together with them blokes to gank the larger Chaos Storm Alliance groups coming through the pass and …”
“Getting some PVP in when it gets too boring sitting around waiting on your slow asses,” Rassilon finished for Dangas. “They’re a solid group of players!”
“You can find them on the other side of the pass,” Steph added, as Toxi walked up to stand beside her. “They’re camped in a large clearing in about the same spot as where we’re camped on this side.”
“If that’s all,” Dangas eyes glazed over for a moment to check the time on his HUD, “we’ll catch you in fifty minutes or so.”
“Sounds good,” I agreed, before moving out. Without a word, Neysa and Helgath took the lead as we headed down one of the main paths through the forest. It was one of the ones with sentries that we’d scouted out earlier. Our undead pets were once again surrounding us in a protective ring as we moved out at a quick jog. Clearing the trees, we had around a fifteen-minute run to the next set of trees on the other side of the pass.
Chapter One.Twenty-Six
(Wednesday, May 7th / Day 17 of The World.)
Calling Tengsly to me, the little flying squirrel flew out of my hood to hover before my face in the blink of an eye. Picturing Thomas’ face, I mentally composed my message. Basically asking how much longer it would be before they caught up. Telling them about the pass between the two mountains I’d pointed out to him earlier and the situation with the Aussie guild. Getting my okay, Tengsly darted away into the night’s sky.
The tundra-like grass and frozen ground highlighted in the cold light of the moon with the mountain range in the background was truly breathtaking. With my Darkvision disabled, I could see the entire stretch of flat land up to the base of the mountain path. Our breath steamed in the cold of the night as we silently made our way towards our destination.
The various sounds of the wild monsters roaming the zone and hunting down prey came to our ears, reminding me of an African Safari on TV. You know, the ones where the host talks about the loud sounds at night that makes it almost impossible to sleep. In the distance, I could see packs of large creatures roamed in the distance, but they were unlike any of t
he monsters I’d seen so far on our travels through this zone.
They were probably higher-level respawns due to the pass constantly being cleared of mobs between the players’ PVP battles. If that was the case, there was a good chance these new creatures were a much higher level than the previous ones. No sense in getting caught up in a mess like that, I figured, warning Neysa and Helgath to keep their distance from the wandering mobs as much as possible.
As I continued switching my vision between both modes, I finally saw the forest that Steph had told us about rising up on the horizon like a black shadow in the darkness. It wasn’t until we got to within a hundred yards that I could see it clearly. As we closed to within fifty yards, I heard the soft flapping of wings as Tengsly came to a hover before my face. Immediately, I heard Thomas’ pissed off voice ring out in my mind.
‘Dammit Star, why are all the mobs we’re running into since you guys took off in the level 50’s to 60’s? Kenzie says, it’s because you cleared all the mobs out and these are the higher level respawns. We had to fucking fall back to the main group so we wouldn’t die like rats. You know how much XP that means we’re getting per kill? Jack shit, that’s how much you dick! Expect us there in about an hour.’
For a long second, I just stared at the gray flying squirrel flapping before my eyes after listening to Thomas’ message. I was almost tempted to send a follow up message to Assault Leader Dell to get the real scoop on how they were doing, but I held off, knowing that with a thousand Kayden Troopers plus my friends there was no reason to worry. Besides, I really needed Tengsly to first let Dmitry know we were on our way to them.
In my mind, I pictured Dmitry’s in-game name, Demyan Volk. From what Sasha had said, he was playing a Human Ranger slash Priest. Once I had the general image and name, I composed the message keeping it short and simple. With a flap of furry wings, Tengsly headed for the center of the woods where I’d told him to expect to find his target. We’d just reached the edge of that treeline, when Tengsly returned back to me. Flapping before my face, he quickly transferred the Russian guild leader’s message.