Kit, Anna, and Cecilia all hit the statue with spells of their own, and like mine, theirs came right back at them. Kit’s hit her in the shoulder and spun her around like a whirlwind, but Anna and Cecilia both managed to dodge theirs,
“It’s no use!” I warned.
Just then Ember appeared on the statue’s right shoulder, and she stabbed her enchanted blade down on its shiny neck. She might as well have stabbed a forcefield, because the sword bounced off the statue’s neck with such force that it brought Ember with it. She spun in the air, not falling, but kind of gliding down, and landed beside me.
“Okii, bless me with your power!” the statue bellowed, and a moment later it brought the butt of its staff down and slammed it into the floor.
Lightning erupted from the staff and lit the room, it’s crackling electrical fingers finding us all and electrocuting the shit out of us.
Okii’s Fury
Movement slowed by 25%
I cried out in pain along with the rest of my guild as the electric currents coursed through me, and when it finally subsided, I staggered toward the wall for support.
Warning!
75% Health Remaining
The slowing effect might not have sounded like much, but a 25% reduction in speed turns out to be huge. I sluggishly conjured Firestorm, and a moment later small meteors began to crash into the silver statue from overhead.
“I thought you said spells were no use?” Anna reminded me, her teeth chattering and her hair standing straight up from the electrocution.
It was true, the flaming meteors were repelled by the statue’s silver skin, and they bounced around the chamber like ping pong balls. My guild mates dove for cover, and that’s when I noticed one of the fireballs ricochet off the statue’s head and hit the silver dome in the center of the ceiling. To my surprise, the statue jerked as if he had been hit directly.
“Hey guys!” I yelled to my fleeing friends. “I think I figured out—”
One of my meteors hit me right in the chest and exploded against my enchanted armor, sending me careening into the wall behind me. I felt a healing spell wash over me and noticed through blurry vision that the statue was stomping toward me.
“Attack the silver dome!” I screamed as Cecilia helped me to my feet.
We ran from the statue as Tweak, Kit, and Anna began firing their spells at the silver dome. Each strike resulted in a satisfying groan from the massive statue. The big staff came down on our heads, and Cecilia and I barely avoided death as we dove to the side.
“Hey fuckstick!” Trinity yelled at the statue before surging across the chamber in a blur of motion and slamming into his right ankle.
She bounced off like a ragdoll, but the blow caused the statue to stumble enough for me and Cecilia to escape. As soon as I was safely away, I unleashed a barrage of spells at the silver dome in the ceiling. My fireball scorched the dome and the statue howled, then my Magic Bolt cracked it like a windshield, and finally Arcane Lightning blew it into a thousand pieces.
The falcon-headed statue fell to its knees and let out a tortured squawk, and the curse that had slowed us down to 25% movement speed wore off. My guild mates cheered as the silver skin covering the statue melted away to reveal soft flesh.
“My turn, Birdman!” Trinity yelled as she sped across the chamber. She leapt ten feet in the air, kicked off the statue’s bent knee and sailed all the way up to face level. The statue’s face was about as big as Trinity, and her sword was the size of a toothpick in comparison, but there isn’t anyone alive that likes a stick to the eye.
She thrust the sword forward, right into birdman’s right eye, and she must have received a Soul Shatter Strike, because the poor guardian’s eye popped like a grape. Trinity leapt backward, did some twisty-flippy-spinny gymnast shit, and stuck the landing like an Olympic champ.
Now that the shot was clear, I hit the guardian in the left leg with a Magic Bolt that buckled his knee, then I followed it up with a Fireball right at the injured knee. Tweak thrust out his hands, and from them a dozen little purple monkeys erupted. They yipped and chittered with delight and proceeded to leap up on the falcon-headed guardian and wreak havoc. Kit wrapped up the guardian’s good leg in vines when it tried to stand back up, but Anna and Cecilia’s spells were slowing it down considerably.
Trinity continued to assault the statue from all sides, keeping its attention and its staff away from the rest of us. Then I saw Ember crawling along the ceiling like Spiderman, and I couldn’t help but laugh as I unleashed magical fury.
The beautiful drow assassin let go of the ceiling and let herself fall. She spun as she fell and landed gracefully on the guardian’s bird head. Two daggers came down into the sides of its feathered skull, and the guardian’s staff fell heavily from its twitching fingers. Ember pulled the blades back and thrust them into the guardian’s forehead, and with a twist and a jerk of the blades, the fight was over.
Ember landed like a superhero as the guardian crashed to the floor behind her, and I felt the urge to make love to her right then and there. She gave me a look that said the same and followed it with a wink.
“Come on Loverboy,” said Trinity as she walked past me wiping blood from her blade. “The fun has only just begun.”
I turned to explore the new chamber, when Dr. Marks suddenly appeared in the doorway.
“Doctor?” I said, wondering why he would interrupt us during a dungeon raid. “If it’s my parents, tell them I’m going to be about an hour.”
“It’s not that, Sam. I didn’t think you would want me to wait to tell you the results of your pre-surgery screening.” He glanced around at my guild mates. “Should we talk privately?”
“No, it’s fine. What is it Doc?”
“Sam, I’m sorry,” he said with a frown that I didn’t like one bit. “It has been deemed that currently you are not a good candidate for advanced spinal cord repair surgery.”
My heart sank, and an ironic laugh escaped me.
Chapter 2
After hearing the news from the doctor, I wasn’t in the mood to raid dungeons anymore, and neither were my guild mates. We used our portal stones to return to our tower in the mountains, and I decided to go ahead and have that private conversation with the doctor.
“What happened?” I asked him once we were alone in the library.
“Nothing happened, Sam,” he said gently. “Your injury is just too extreme. We’re afraid that the surgery would kill you, and we can’t take that chance.”
“What are the odds?” I asked.
“Sam, you don’t want to gamble with your life.”
“What are they?” I demanded in an even voice.
“Twenty percent chance that you’ll die. I’m sorry, Sam. I’m sorry I got your hopes up. But there are advancements in this area all the time. We’re close, real close. We just don’t want to put you in any danger.”
“I understand,” I said. I felt completely deflated, like a balloon that had not only run out of air but had also sunk in the ocean.
Dr. Marks looked like he had something else on his mind, and he kept on rubbing the nape of his neck nervously.
“Jesus Christ, what else? The game isn’t being shut down, is it?”
“Nothing like that,” he assured me, looking relieved that I had asked him to spill the beans. “Corporate has rescinded their previous offer as well.”
“What? They don’t want me and the guild to be the face of the game anymore?”
“That is correct. They’ve chosen another guild.”
“Why the fuck did they do that?” I asked. I had been forlorn, but now I was just getting pissed.
“The nature of your special ability and your relationship with your female guild mates has come to their attention, and they think that it’s bad PR.”
“Great.” I threw up my hands and plopped onto the sofa.
“I hate to be the bearer of bad news, but alas,” he said with an exaggerated shrug.
“Tell me some
thing, doctor. What is the name of the other guild they chose?”
“They’re called the Doom Lords.”
Ten minutes later my guild mates and I settled into a booth at Cecilia’s pub, and I told them everything else that I had learned about my surgery. The news left them all melancholy and full of condolences, but when I told them that we had been passed over to be the face of the game, my guild mates became red-faced and furious.
“What the fuck?” Trinity screamed and smashed a clay tankard full of beer on the floor.
“This is bullshit,” Kit declared and chucked her empty tankard at the wall. It bounced off without breaking and hit Tweak in the head.
“Man,” he said, rubbing his head. “The man’s always fucking with a brotha!”
“Amen, Tweak,” I said and drained my mug of ale.
“It’s not like we’re friggin polygamists,” Anna said angrily. “We’re not your wives, and we aren’t even having real sex.”
“No,” I said with a laugh. “It’s better than real sex.”
Tweak perked up. “Is it?”
“Who did they choose instead?” Cecilia asked as she refilled Trinity’s tankard.
“The Doom Lords,” I told her.
“Are you serious?” Ember rolled her eyes. “The Doom Lords are all goth and shit. I can’t believe the corporate dipshits think they’re a good representation of the players in game.”
“Neither is a mage with a magic dick and five sex slaves,” said Tweak.
The girls eyed him dangerously, and he backed against the booth defensively.
“You know what I mean…” he pleaded jokingly.
“No…we don’t,” said Trinity.
“So,” I said, trying to lighten the tension. “I’m not getting my surgery anymore, and we just lost out on a multi-million-dollar marketing deal. What the hell do we do now?”
Kit pointed at the looking glass, where a special about the upcoming guild wars competition was playing. “We win the whole fucking thing,” she said, surprising us all with her ferocity.
“Screw it, lets do it,” Ember put in.
“They just showed our picture,” Cecilia said urgently and pointed at the looking glass. She went to the bar and came back with a remote control made of wood and cranked up the volume on the looking glass. On screen were two announcers. The one on the left was an old, wizardly looking man, and the other was none other than Dr. Marks. He wore his priest robes and smiled into the camera while the wizard spoke. The hundred or so players at the tables and along the bar turned their attention to the broadcast.
“And that is your line-up,” said the wizardly looking announcer. “These sixty-four guilds will compete for the coveted throne of Ozara, Rebirth Online’s newest land.”
A bracket appeared on the screen, and I was surprised to see my guild’s name at the very top. Our first battle appeared to be against a guild called The Orc Chieftains.
Heavy Metal Thunder
The Orc Chieftains
The Grinders
Harvesters of Sorrow
Tinkers and Thinkers
Champions of the Dragon
Double Fisted
The Warlords
Soldiers of Fortune
Blunt Instruments
Hacksaw
Dragons of Fury
The Gilded Shield
The Order of Marduk
Fate's Revenge
The Keepers of the Blade
Lords of the Bling
Girls Only
The Purrrrsian Empire
The Children of Light
Brothers of Ruin
The Way of the Wizard
Baal's Revenge
Dungeon Raiders
The Wyverns
The Gilded Mages
The Order of Merlin
The Elves of Starlight
The Bards of Calimdor
The Crimson Dragons
Axe and Shield
Warsaw
The Hate Mongers
Doom Lords
The Tokyo Kids
The Manchurian Meddlers
A Fist Full of Fire
Donkey Punch Posse
The Hung Hipsters
IPA is King
The One True Guild
The Skull thumpers
Go Hard or Go Home
The Panthers
Pirate's Booty
The Marauders
Hell's Bar Tab
The Hand of God
The Howling
The Brits
Norsemen
Momma Said
The Seers
Luke's Eyeliner
Rich Kidz
Harbingers of Ale
The Purple People Eaters
Mondays Suck
The Shitkickers
Vishnu Lives
Lion Zion
Hiro Quest
Average Joes
Desecrated Cemetery
“Right you are, Donovan,” said Dr. Marks. “From the initial battle, 32 guilds will emerge victorious. Then the field will be thinned again, and 16 guilds will become 8, 4, and finally only two will remain standing.”
The image moved from the final two empty brackets and began flashing briefly between exotic and dangerous looking landscapes.
“Each battle will take place in a unique battleground randomly generated by our A.I,” Dr. Marks went on. “The guilds might find themselves fighting on floating islands, the edge of a volcano, or a crumbling castle to name a few.”
“This is a Crystal Guardian,” said Donovan as a crystalline creature at least twenty feet tall appeared on the screen. “Each guild will be given one at the start of each battle. The object of the guild wars will be to destroy the other guild’s guardian, while at the same time defending your own. With an impressive 500,000 health points, the guardians will prove hard to defeat. But like fellow players, the guardians can be healed.”
“Right you are, Donovan,” Dr. Marks replied. “Not only can they be healed, but they can be buffed as well. Now for a breakdown of the rules. First and foremost, each guild will be allowed to have only seven players on the field at once. Alternates can come in only when a player is killed, or that player can respawn back at their starting point after ten seconds.”
“This could be difficult for smaller-sized guilds,” said the wizard, and my guild mates and I shared apprehensive looks.
“True,” said Dr. Marks. “There is definitely a plus side to having a big guild, and that is the nature of the guild wars. To win, the guildmates will need to work well together and combine their strengths. But innovation will be the key to victory, no matter if it is a large or small guild.”
“Right you are, old chap, right you are,” said the wizard Donovan. “Practice sessions can be set up with other guilds in one of many simulation chambers throughout Rebirth Online. So check your interfaces for the one nearest you and start training. The first battle takes place in three days!”
“Good luck to all the guilds and may the best guild win!” Dr. Marks added.
Kit turned back to the group wide-eyed as the broadcast began playing again from the beginning.
“Only seven players in the field at once,” said Tweak, reminding us what the announcers had said. “Well that’s a good thing.”
“Yeah,” Kit said relieved. “I thought we were going to have to fight full guilds all this time.”
“Let’s not forget the alternates,” said Trinity. “We only have seven in our guild, when we die in battle, we’ll have to wait ten seconds before respawning if we don’t have anyone to replace us.”
“With only three days until the first battle, how are we going to find alternates?” Anna asked.
“We’ll just have to open enrollment,” Tweak told her. “Shit, you know how many people would love to be in Samson Sullivan’s guild? The dude’s got the magic stick!”
“Screw that noise,” Ember said as she slowly shook her head. “I’m not letting a bunch of skanks i
nto the guild just so we can win some stupid competition.”
“Stupid?” said Tweak. “The winner gets a damn kingdom. That means farmland, mines, minions, armies. Damn woman, that means riches!”
“I agree,” said Cecilia. “We’ve got to win this thing, no matter the cost.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I like things the way they are. We’re a great guild because we work well together. I’m not bringing in a bunch of people that I don’t know.”
“Thank you,” Trinity said beside me.
“Well can’t we at least put the word out there?” Tweak asked. “We can at least interview some peeps, see if someone’s a good fit or not.”
The women all looked to me, and I shrugged.
“Yeah sure,” I said. “You never know.”
I was still pretty pissed about not being a candidate for surgery, and the loss of the marketing gig had been the piss icing on a shit cake.
“Cheer up, Big Daddy,” said Kit as she snuggled up to me in the booth. “We’re going to do great!”
Trinity rolled her eyes and raised her tankard toward Cecilia. The foxy furry refilled the warrior’s cup and topped off the rest of us.
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