Steel Orc- Player Reborn

by Deck Davis

  Some players fought solo, while others – guildless judging by the lack of emblems by their heads – were standing back-to-back, swinging their weapons desperately at any weaver or returned-player who came near.

  Incredibly, there were NPCs nestled in the heart of the battle. Even a hundred feet away he recognized some of the traders from the plaza. There must have been a dozen Mountmend residents there, fighting the weavers with everything they had. What they lacked in strength they made up for in ferocity, and Tripp watched one weaver fall under a rain of axe blows.

  They had killed so many. There was hardly any grass now; the plains had become a bed of weaver parts. Swollen abdomens and decapitated heads and hacked-off limbs all mixed together. Hundreds, maybe thousands.

  “Ever feel like you got to the battle too late?” said Jon, as he let an arrow fly at a weaver a few dozen yards away.

  Tripp soon saw the reason there were so few weavers now, and it wasn’t all thanks to the efforts of the players. “The dawnfreak is over there.”

  “Holy hell. No way. That thing? That’s what we saw in the labyrinth?” said Jon.

  “You read the note.”

  It was easy to understand Jon’s disbelief. The creature that had been small enough that it could have fit in Tripp’s palm was now a leviathan, a monster that he could have imagined stalking the land of a mythological underworld. Its different parts were even clearer now; the tentacles that trailed behind it, snapping and buzzing with electricity. The ice cloud that surrounded its body and froze and shattered any weapon that got close. Its wings, bony and red and with flames dancing over them in a ferocious way that its smaller frorarg cousin could never manage.

  “It’s gorged with venom,” said Tripp. “It’ll just get bigger and bigger. We need to hit the dawnfreak first.”

  “What about Warren? I don’t see him.”

  There was an explosion a dozen yards from the Forgestriders, and then another all the way across the battlefield. Mud and grass and weaver limbs sprayed up into the air. The boom was a split second behind the flash of light, but it drowned out the sounds of everything else.

  “What was that?”

  Jon shrugged. “Spellcasters?”

  Tripp didn’t have time to answer, because he saw an orb weaver tear away from its pack and gallop toward him. He drew a Godden-artificed axe and was ready to meet it when the earth beneath the weaver’s feet exploded in a shower of purple light. The weaver fell down, the foundation beneath its pincers ripped away.

  “Traps,” said Clive, hovering over his left shoulder. “Someone’s laced the plains with traps. There are miles and miles of tunnels under the Reach, and it doesn’t take much to explode into them.”

  Jon tapped his shoulder and pointed. “Warren’s over there!” he said.

  Before Tripp could even warn Jon about the traps, it was too late. He sprinted off toward his brother, hopping over the broken corpse of a weaver, darting left to avoid a pincer aimed at his head, and then finally reaching Warren.

  “Clive, go help him,” said Tripp.

  The orb zoomed off over the battlefield. For a flicker of a second Tripp wondered if he should help, but he saw the dawnfreak swoop over the head of a lone bard. The bard was battling a weaver by strumming his lute and sending out aurally-pleasing waves of deadly manus. The dawnfreak pivoted mid-air, swishing its tentacles out. The strips of flesh struck the bard once. Twice. Again, each time zapping him with a jolt of lightning.

  The weaver impaled the bard’s chest, only to be torn in two when the dawnfreak chomped its stone jaws around it and sucked out the venom.

  Watching the weaver shrivel into a husk as the freak sucked from it, Tripp felt his priories align. He couldn’t help Jon and Warren.

  He took Godden’s sword from his inventory and ran toward the creature. He skirted the corpse of a fallen rogue covered in flies. Spotting a pile of dead weavers blocking his way, he headed right. A lone fire arrow shot over his head, the trajectory so low that he was sure he could feel the flames, and he patted his hair to make sure it wasn’t alight.

  Twenty feet away from the dawnfreak, doubts kicked him in the gut. He had a stitch in his side, and his body didn’t want him to go on.

  Pushing through it, he was ten feet from the freak when he went to leap over a rock in front of him.

  The rock suddenly stood up. He crashed into it and then fell, smashing nose-first into the ground.

  “Feckin clumsy lump,” said the rock.

  Tripp waited for the pain in his nose to fade, blinking through the tears it bought to his eyes. When his vision cleared, he saw Konrad standing in front of him.

  His braids had come loose, and his hair was a tangle of brown-red clumps matted together by sweat and blood. Crimson splotches stained his artificery goggles, and his clothing was such a mess of grass, blood, and other darker, smellier stains that Tripp couldn’t help imagining the furious look on Glora’s face when he tried to get her to wash them.

  It was a stupid thought, but then, he wasn’t thinking straight. He noticed a ringing in his ears now, and the battle sounds seemed duller. His suddenly felt weak and dizzy, and his legs buckled.

  The next thing he knew he was sitting on the ground and Konrad was crouched beside him, snapping his fingers in front of his eyes.

  “We don’t have time for this, lad.”

  “Konrad?”

  “You smashed your face. I’m not sayin’ you were a looker before, but now…”

  “You were gone,” he said stupidly. The fall must have affected him worse than he thought. He needed to let his brain reset.

  “I knew what was coming, and I wasn’t ready to just sit on my arse,” said Konrad. “Spent the day layin’ traps all over the Reach. Me and some of the other crafters, at least the ones who weren’t too chicken shit to help. Winthrop is like a disease, damn the lanky twig.”

  “You didn’t tell Glora. She asked me to find you.”

  “And a great job you did with that! She’d only have worried. Best she doesn’t find out.”

  Tripp took a deep breath, wiped his eyes, and then looked around. Good; his vision was clear now, and his pain was gone. That was when he saw someone way across the battlefield.

  “Talking of Glora,” he said.

  Konrad spun around. “What in all feckin’ hell? Where?”

  “You can’t see her?”

  “My goggles are artificed, but they can’t work miracles. I can see maybe twenty feet around, and only dull shapes at that. Colors so I know which to kill, which to save. Where is she?”

  “A few hundred meters north,” said Tripp, gently putting his hands on Konrad’s shoulders and turning him in the direction of his wife. “I think she’s with your son. Where did they get those axes?”

  Konrad’s face paled. “Stay alive,” he said. “And if you can’t do that, then die like a man.” With that, he tore off across the battlefield as fast as his dwarf legs could carry him.

  Gripping Godden’s sword, Tripp turned to locate the dawnfreak.

  He was alone again, keenly aware of time fading.

  ~

  Jon’s lungs ached by the time he reached his brother. Even with his elvish agility, he’d powered through the battlefield on pure adrenaline. It was exacting its price now, and he had to stop and gulp air, feeling his chest cry out with pain.

  He allowed himself two breaths before looking up.

  Warren wasn’t alone anymore.

  A man was with him. Was it a man? Jon couldn’t tell. He was tall, maybe four or five inches bigger than a normal person, and he wore armor that glowed as blue as sea-submerged ice, and he carried a sword that looked just as frozen.

  He didn’t know who the hell this was, but he knew one thing; fire damaged ice. He pulled a fire arrow and nocked it.

  And then Warren turned around, and Jon saw his eyes.

  Tripp hurried along the outskirts of the battle, keeping the dawnfreak in sight. Careful not to draw its attention, he kept Godd
en’s sword pointed down so that the flames from a nearby burning pile of weaver corpses didn’t gleam across the metal.

  He got closer and closer until he was so near that he could hear squelching sounds as it drained venom from a weaver, before letting the husk and bone sac drop to the ground and then moving onto another.

  Gripping the hilt, Tripp took a breath. He didn’t try to break the tension in his body. He worked with it, he let the adrenaline flow through him.

  And then he charged.

  Warren’s face was grey and mottled, his eyes a deep black. A great gouge ran from just below his neck all the way to his groin. His blood had clotted, but the wound was slick with stains of it.

  The sight brought revulsion in Jon until he recovered a semblance of his thoughts. This wasn’t Warren.

  Footsteps behind him drew his attention. Hot breath teased on his neck.

  He turned, his stomach becoming water.

  No.

  The person he saw hadn’t been Warren, and this new one, a humanoid elephant so close he could smell her breath, wasn’t Lizzy. Both of them were dead, raised again and brought back to fight for the Blood Wave.

  He just had to kill them and then survive, and then he’d see the real Warren and Lizzy as a winner, as a survivor with something to show for it.

  That was what he told himself as he turned and aimed an arrow at the taller man beside them.

  Reaching the dawnfreak, Tripp sprinted with the last ounce of his energy. He leaped, sword held high and roared as he struck the dawnfreak’s flesh as hard as he could.

  As the three of them reached him, Jon realized he was out of arrows. Four were stuck in the taller man’s chest, but he had deflected half dozen with his ice sword.

  Now he was arrowless and surrounded, and his brother and sister raised their weapons and advanced on him.

  Tripp pushed Godden’s sword deep into the dawnfreak’s flesh, tearing it apart. A yellow light spread through it, drying out every part that it touched, gouging deep into the freak’s body and burning and decaying until it became just an empty sack of skin.

  His foe dead, energy spent, Tripp lay on his back, covered in the dawnfreak’s death juices.

  The ice sword stabbed deep into Jon’s chest. The bitter cold spread through him, not just on his skin but inside. Deep, deep within him, the ice mercifully numbing the pain as it tore through his insides and destroyed his hitpoints.

  He pathetically reached for his dagger, but he didn’t even have time for that. The last thing he saw was a cleric and a grey tusk standing over him, their eyes as dark as night.

  ~

  Tripp allowed himself just five seconds. In those five seconds, he tried to cram a month’s worth of calmness, forcing it upon himself with every breath.

  That done, he stood up. He saw the dawnfreak on the ground in front of him, dead and drained and empty, not so different from a discarded snakeskin. He couldn’t see Godden’s Sword, he didn’t know if he’d dropped it or if it had just burned out as he killed the monster with it, but either way, it was gone and he wouldn’t need it again.

  Nor would he need his swords for the weavers, either. Between the dawnfreak, Konrad’s traps, and the efforts of the other players, the weavers were almost gone.

  Some players were already celebrating. One, a cleric, picked up a giant, blue sword, held it aloft in the air and shouted, “Frost Carver is mine! I’m the new Fell Lord, baby!” The players around were too tired to argue.

  Only a few lone arachnids lived, and these soon succumbed to the swords and axes of the surviving players until there was just one of them left.

  But it was that lone weaver that stoked the embers of worry in Tripp just as the fire was dying out.

  “What the hell?” he said in disbelief.

  Across the battlement was the surviving weaver. Just one arachnid, the only thing that remained of the Blood Wave.

  It was surrounded by wooden poles with lights glowing on the end, unable to escape. Tripp knew what those were; he’d seen the Forgestriders use them on the second night of the wave. Whatever they were artificed with, the orb weaver couldn’t go near it, effectively trapping it in place.

  But even with the last weaver caught, the Forgestriders weren’t killing it. They were watching it.

  It was only seconds before Tripp understood why.

  He watched as two of the Forgestriders crossed the battlefield, systemically slaughtering the other survivors. This took just a minute since the remaining players were alone and weakened from their battle.

  And then, they narrowed their gaze on Tripp. He stood up and saw Gilla, Lamp, and the other remaining Forgestrider advancing on him.

  He checked his map. The player count in Godden’s Reach was four, which meant there were no other Forgestriders around, nor were there any other players who could help him. On the plains, deep in player-killing territory, it was three against one.

  It didn’t take much to understand why they were doing this. Whatever the reward for surviving the wave, Gilla wanted it for herself. Her motivation didn’t matter to him. The only thing he cared about was not letting her win.

  Three against one. What could he do?

  The question was partly answered when two NPC dwarves sprinted at the Forgestriders. A lump formed in Tripp’s gut when he saw that it was Konrad and Glora.

  Lamp raised his palm, gathered manus and fired off a spell, sending a blast of fire at Glora. The flames scorched her, setting her hair alight. In a mad fury, she heaved her axe at Lamp, hurtling it through the air and tearing into the already-injured mage, vanquishing the last of his hitpoints.

  Konrad cut down the Forgestrider to Gilla’s right, leaving her alone. In a blink, Gilla pulled a spear from a loop on her belt and impaled Konrad before he could even wrench his axe free from the Forgestrider’s chest.

  She pulled her spear out of Konrad’s belly and carried on toward Tripp, not pausing for even a second. The battlefield was curiously silent now as if a vacuum had sucked the noise away. There was a haunting quality to the breeze, one that made Tripp feel just as alone as he really was.

  He equipped his flail again. It still held the damage charge from earlier. Checking his hitpoints, he was reassured to see that he was almost full, whereas the bar hovering above Gilla’s head was on its last dregs.

  Up close, he saw red stains covering her armor, but not all of it was blood. Some were light pink, the color of health potions. He wondered how many she had gulped to get herself through the battle. Whatever the answer, it seemed she was out of them now.

  He only needed one strike. She would be quicker than him. There was no way he’d get his hit without taking one of his own, but if his artificed chest plate could just absorb it…

  Charging at her, Tripp waited until he was just a second away before dropping to his knees and swinging his flail at Gilla.

  He felt her spear tip jab inches above his head. He got to his feet, only to see that Gilla had moved with impossible speed.

  He turned to see her behind him. Their eyes locked.

  But there was no need for words.

  Just one hit, he told himself.

  He charged again. He felt a blunt force smash into his chest, and pain spread over his skin, making hard to breathe.

  But his hitpoints clung on, and his chest plate took the damage and its artificery converted it into hitpoints, restoring his bar to a quarter full.

  Wow. She was so many levels above him that even his best artificery only kept him alive for one strike.

  Giving her no time to reposition, he swung his flail at her.

  Gail raised her arm, and Tripp saw a small hand-shield strapped around her palm.

  When the flail hit the shield, his weapon shattered in his hand, while the shield stayed firm.

  Gilla smiled. “It’s called Weaponbreaker,” she said. “Only one of them in the game.”

  Tripp reached to his inventory bag for a sword, but couldn’t feel the metal inside. A sinking f
eeling opened inside him.

  Where were his swords?

  He’d given them to Jon to share with the others, back when he assumed it was in everyone’s interests to survive the wave.

  He was weaponless. Almost out of hitpoints. He could take only one more blow from Gilla.

  She advanced on him now, her spear pointed at his chest, a hunter cornering a feral dog.

  He searched his bag again, desperate to feel the touch of a blade.

  Nothing.

  Gilla tensed her arm.

  Tripp felt something metal in the bottom of his bag. He didn’t care what it was now. He pulled it out and thrust it in front of him, just in time for Gilla’s spear to smash into it.

  Pain sprang in his hands, and he dropped the metal, only to see that it was the first gauntlet that he’d made.

  Gilla, disorientated after striking the gauntlet, tried to readjust, but the spear became caught in the loop on her belt.

  As she wrenched it free, Tripp desperately patted himself, as if he would somehow pluck a sword from somewhere.

  Then he felt something. Not metal but something else, something that spread a smile on his face.

  His bone dagger, the one he’d taken from the dawnfreak skeleton.

  Holding it, Tripp charged at her. Gilla got her spear free just as he raised his arm and then, gripping his sharpened bone dagger, plunged it into her neck, releasing the last of her hitpoints in a spray of blood.

  Gilla slumped to the ground, lifeless, and Tripp slumped with her. A cloud of words formed curves and spirals in the air above him, becoming words of his deeds.

  Sharpened Bone Dagger

  Legacy changed: Taken from the skeleton of Godden’s pet dawnfreak, Tripp Keaton used the dagger to slay his last Blood Wave foe.

  And then it was done.

  He lay on his back, fatigued, and he stared at the night sky above, and he imagined all the people watching the Blood Wave and seeing him win.