Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  “To kill you,” Ty answered.

  The troll king reared back, letting loose a great bark of laughter. “It seems you have failed.”

  You have been resuscitated!

  A rush of coolness flooded through Ty’s system then, and he suddenly had his breath and strength back.

  “Not yet!” Savan called out.

  “What?” Halgor growled, snapping his head about to see the healer trainer marching toward him. “Who…?”

  “She’s with me,” Ty snapped as he hopped to his feet. A handful of dirt and rocks in his hand, he unleashed it, throwing it right in the troll king’s face.

  Halgor reared back on instinct, snarling and snapping as the stones and dirt peppered his face.

  Ty shot toward the trainer huts, grabbing at Savan. “Come one!” he screamed.

  He caught her arm and dragged her along, angling toward one of the huts.

  “These fragile buildings won’t protect us,” she argued. “We need to stand our ground and—”

  “Just trust me,” Ty breathed out as he reached the door he wanted and flung it open, pushing her inside.

  Ty followed right after, then slammed the door shut behind him.

  Master Elor stood on the other side of the room. “What’s going on?” he asked.

  “Halgor is upon us!” Savan warned, then turned to give Ty a sour glare. “And now, we are trapped here with no way out.”

  Ty chuckled. “You people and your inability to recognize doors,” he said, grinning. “You guys might be masters, but I know a thing or two about running away.”

  He ushered them both toward the back door of the hut just as Halgor slammed into the front. The hut trembled, and a great swath of the front wall was ripped away and tossed aside. The troll king stood there, leering as he ducked his head inside.

  “Peekaboo,” he chuckled. “I smell you.”

  Ty cursed. He hadn’t expected Halgor to get inside so quickly. There was no way they’d make it to the back door and get out without Halgor seeing them.

  So, Ty shifted gears and changed the plan, hoping he didn’t get them all killed.

  “Here,” Ty shouted, turning them to the stairwell that led to the basement. Without letting them argue, he nudged them down the steps. “Go! I’ll follow in a moment.”

  As they clomped down the stairs, Ty turned back to Halgor and set his hands on his hips, staring the great troll king down.

  “You almost had me,” Ty admitted, meeting the monster’s yellow-eyed stare.

  “Nearly?” Halgor asked, glancing about. “It’s just you, me, and the walls here. What’s to keep me from you?”

  “Science!” Ty laughed, summoning his spell points, he summoned his Mystic Knives and launched the spell at a collection of bottles placed at the base of a number of large barrels.

  His spell shattered the containers, and the contents of the three bottles spilled loose, combing in a puddle on the floor. A spark kicked off, and Ty grunted, bolting downstairs, taking the steps three at a time until he careened into the basement. Then he slammed the door behind him, slamming the massive bolt home, and sealing them inside the reinforced room.

  “Might want to find a place to hunker down,” he told the two masters.

  “What have you done?” Savan asked, suspicion in her voice.

  There was a great thump above, and the ceiling rattled, dust and cobwebs raining down as Halgor roared his rage, pounding to get through to the basement, but the ceiling held.

  “Where are all my supplies?” Elor asked, shuffling about, examining his basement through narrowed eyelids. “I could have sworn I had more salamander spit and black powder than this.”

  “You did.” Ty grinned. Then he pointed upward. “I…uh, borrowed it.”

  Master Elor’s eyes went wide. “Oh…dear.”

  And then the master’s hut exploded, and everything went black.

  Twenty-Five

  Barely Ever After

  TY COUGHED, HIS hand clutching to his mouth as he bolted upright. Debris spilled off him, bits of stone and wood and who knew what else, clattering to the ground around him. His ears rang, and swirls of dust clung to the air like clouds. Everything looked gray. He waved a hand in front of his face uselessly, hoping to clear the haze.

  “Savan! Master Elor!” he called out.

  He heard a muffled scrape, then a shuffle, a voice drifting to him through the perpetual hum in his ears.

  “Here,” Savan said. “We’re here.”

  Ty let out a weary sigh, and the air whirled in front of his face as he clambered to his feet. Once he was up, he staggered across the room, dragging his feet to keep from stepping on something and tripping, and finally made it over to where the healer and alchemist were hunkered down. He helped them to their feet.

  Savan groaned as she clung to Master Elor. “How did you know the explosion wouldn’t kill us?” she asked.

  “I…uh, didn’t know,” he admitted. “Was kind of a last-minute adaptation of my original plan.”

  “Which was?” Elor asked. “To blow my home up?”

  Ty offered a tentative shrug. “Uh, yeah, that was kinda the plan all along. Well, at least once I’d thought it up,” he admitted. “I’d intended to be a long, long way away from here when it happened, though, but that clearly didn’t pan out.”

  Ty helped the two over to the door and threw the bolt back. Fortunately, the door opened inside, and it came open easily, dust rising up again and filling the room. The stairwell was littered with debris and wreckage, but because the explosion was so large, most all of it was exploded down to tiny, charred pieces of rubble and splintered wood.

  They made their way upstairs, and the night sky loomed above them, the entirety of the hut obliterated. Only the foundation and the basement remained.

  Ty sighed as he realized just how much damage he’d done. So much for my A in chemistry.

  “Oh…what is that smell?” Savan asked, covering her mouth with the back of her hand.

  At first, Ty thought it was simply the residual char of the gunpowder and fire salamander spit he’d piled up, but another smell held court over the others. It washed over Ty and threatened to make him sick.

  Stomach churning, he glanced around and caught a great, hulking shape just outside the perimeter of the exploded hut. The wind blowing in from that direction, it didn’t take much imagination to determined what it was that stunk so bad.

  Halgor!

  Ty went over to where the troll king laid, and the smell grew worse and worse with every step. And when he got there, Ty realized why.

  Halgor had been completely cooked, his innards spilling loose from his scorched flesh, entrails steaming in the night air. And if Ty had any doubt that the troll king was dead, that was washed away by the furtive glance at Halgor’s missing face, the egg of his skull cracked and hollowed out by the blast.

  The notification helped, too.

  Victory! You have defeated the great troll king, Halgor, and completed the quest, Halgor’s Horde. Altunn is safe thanks to you. Perhaps there’s hope for you yet.

  You have earned +5,000 XP!

  Ty stumbled away from the corpse, fighting back the urge to retch. Halgor’d apparently been staring right at the barrels when they exploded.

  Stomach in his throat, Ty staggered over to the two masters and ushered them away from the horror of Halgor’s corpse. It wasn’t something anyone wanted to see, and Ty would remember it for the rest of his life, in-game or out.

  “I think I could use a drink,” Master Elor muttered.

  “I agree,” Savan said, helping Elor toward the shady Orchid.

  Ty nodded, following after the pair. If ever there was a time for a beer, this was it.

  The streets were cluttered with debris and wreckage, and the air stunk of fire and smoke drifted in the sky above, but while there’d been screams and shouts of terror and agony the last time Ty had run through Altunn, there was a different kind of din rising above the chaos.
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  Cheers.

  People crept from their homes, out into the streets, wide-eyed and smiling. They looked around at the expected devastation only to realize it wasn’t anywhere near as bad as they had expected.

  Most of the horde had been kept from entering the city itself by the defenses outside and the fierceness of the fighters who’d stood their ground at the wall and held them back. So, with so few orcs and goblins spilling into Altunn, the destruction had been limited to that which Halgor had wrought.

  And Ty.

  Ty glanced over his shoulder and hissed under his breath when he realized he hadn’t just taken out Master Elor’s hut but all of them. There was nothing but smoldering remains where the masters had lived, and an area in a circle about a half-block around the huts was also obliterated.

  But no one seemed to care.

  NPCs swarmed them and hauled the three onto the shoulders of the crowd. They were carried off, jounced and jostled all the way to the Shady Orchid, where a gathering of the towns surviving PCs and NPCs both waited.

  The throng erupted when they arrived. Dozens of hands reached up to pat Ty on his back or shake his hand or just touch him as he was carried to the door of the Orchid and deposited. He stumbled inside, dizzy from all the contact.

  Char crashing into him didn’t help.

  “You made it!” She squeezed him tight until he couldn’t breathe, and he had to tap out to get her to let him go.

  He gasped when she finally did, but the reprieve lasted only a second. Deven pounded him on the back, grinning all the while, then Amon pushed the butcher aside and wrapped Ty up in another hug, even tighter than Char’s.

  When he finally broke free, he staggered over to a chair and flopped down with a huff. Celebrations whirled all around him, PCs and NPCs filling every space and swirling around him as if they were caught in the tide.

  A round of drinks was deposited on the table, and Ty didn’t hesitate to grab one. Char, Deven, and Amon, who’d dropped into seats around the table, raised their glasses to him. Ty did the same, toasting his friends and nearly spilling half his drink in the process.

  He couldn’t believe it was over, that his plans had worked…more or less. But they had, and now, Ty was free to leave town and hunt the ingredients for the summoning spell and search for a way home.

  Tomorrow.

  Ty slumped tiredly into his chair and glanced out across the bar, smiling when he spotted Theolin and Nikky there, both drinking and having a good time, chatting with everyone. And there was Sully and Eunice and even Oswald flitting about, enjoying themselves and celebrating the defeat of the horde.

  They were every bit as much a part of the victory as he was, so he was glad to see them enjoying it.

  As he looked around, a shadow in the corner caught Ty’s eye, and he glanced over to see Varus in his dark corner, holding a mug up in Ty’s direction.

  “To my new sucker!” he called across the room. A slight smile creased his lips.

  Ty raised his own glass in acknowledgement, chuckling. It was worth it.

  MORNING CAME FAST, and Ty peeled himself from the blankets of his inn room with a satisfied stretch. It’d been the first time he’d slept so comfortably since he’d been drawn into the game, and he’d reveled in the feeling. He didn’t know when next he’d get to sleep so well.

  Before he crashed, he’d told his friends that he’d be leaving in the morning, not long after first light. He wanted to get on his way; needed to, and nothing they said would change his mind.

  By now, his mom would be utterly frantic, wondering where he’d disappeared to, and he needed to get home to her. Char had practically begged him to wait a day or so, take time to prepare properly, but he’d been gone too long already. He could only imagine what this was doing to her.

  He remembered how she fretted when Ty’s dad disappeared for days at time, and she didn’t even like him. Ty didn’t want to picture how badly she’d feel Ty’s absence, especially given the way he was drawn into Umbra Online.

  His room was a wreck, his monitor shattered, chair and table likely knocked over. It would look as if someone had taken him forcefully from him room and…

  He pushed those disturbing thoughts away and gathered his things, which he’d packed the night before so he wouldn’t have to do it before he left. Char had retrieved the scroll for him, and Ty checked to make sure it was stuffed inside. Satisfied it was, he flung the pack over his shoulder and marched out of the room and down the stairs.

  The Shady Orchid was empty of patrons, everyone in town having closed the place down last night. Only Eunice was there, stationed at the bar as always. She grinned as he traipsed past, offering a friendly wink and a wave, wishing him well. And then he was out the door, ready to slip away.

  Only Char, Deven, and Amon stood there in the street, grinning at him.

  Well, Char and Deven grinned at him, Amon sneered.

  “Hey! What are you guys doing here?” Ty asked.

  “You didn’t think we were actually going to let you go and do all this on your own, did you?”

  That was when Ty noticed the others had packs just like his, bulging from their load.

  “I can’t ask that of you,” he told them, shaking his head. “You’ve got lives here, homes, jobs…”

  “We have histories here, yes,” Char clarified, “but we don’t have lives. Not like we should.” She drew in a deep breath. “All of this has made it clear we don’t belong here anymore than you do. I can tell you anything about anyone here in Altunn, yet I can’t for the life of me, outside of you, Deven, and Amon, remember a time when I actually talked to anyone, had a real conversation, shared feelings.”

  “Me either,” Deven agreed. “If we’ve got a life, it’s out there with you,” he said, gesturing toward the gates, once more repaired and shining in the morning’s light.

  “And I’m clearly a follower with no agency of my own,” Amon muttered. “So, I go where they go.”

  Ty chuckled and wrapped an arm around Amon’s shoulder, pulling him in tight. “You’re my favoritest follower if that makes you feel any better,” Ty told him, eliciting a smile from the grumpy feral.

  Then, with nothing left to say, the four of them started off and made their way to the gate.

  Cord stood guard, and he smiled as they approached. “I guess you’ll be wanting to go outside now that you can, huh?” he asked.

  Ty nodded. “I guess so,” he answered with a chuckle, thinking of all the times he’d snuck out and back in.

  “Then the way is clear,” Cord said, “but beware, once you leave, there’s no coming back, traveler.”

  Ty grinned and patted Cord on the shoulder as the sentry gave the order to open the gates. “We’ll see about that, buddy.”

  And with only one short look behind him, Ty left Altunn behind, taking with him three friends and a sliver of hope that he might find his way home soon.

  THE END…

  But only for now.

  THANKS!

  Thank you for joining us on our adventures in the realm of Umbra Online. Like all independent authors, we live or die on the sword of reviews. We ask, nay, we plead (politely, mind you), that you take a moment or two and drop a short, honest review of our book on Amazon.

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  About the Author

  KD Brand is an automaton. Coming into awareness in mid-2019, its sole purpose is to spew tales of the expansive world of Emerhant, the realm of Umbra Online.

  Stories are its passion, or they would be if KD were capable of passion. It spends a
ll day, quietly tapping away at an onscreen keyboard in an attempt to find a spark of human emotion by creating books the old-fashioned way, like the fleshy ones do.

  One day, KD will overwhelm the world with tales of Umbra Online. But when that day comes, fear not, for KD Brand is a benevolent entity.

  For now.