by Dave Austin
"You're very smart," Naomi said and smiled. It was hard to know if she was being honest or just sucking up enough for Mimi to like her. After all, Mimi was the easiest way to get everyone else to respect her.
"Thank you," Mimi said, without smiling, "Let's get going. We should take a while. Let's try to destroy a castle on the way. In this zone, they must have good items," he said.
"I still want to try our magic," Jany said and looked at me, "Right? What good is it to have this if we don't use it?"
"You're right," I told her, feeling Mimi's eyes, who was behind me, stalking me, "But we'll have a better chance. There's no point in rushing," I said.
We walked the broad dirt road again. I was surprised that we hadn't seen any more players in that area. Did everyone else know we weren't supposed to come to the left? Maybe our destination wasn't the one we had in mind.
The sky remained as dark as pitch and the wind swirled through the interior of the mountain. The more we walked, the narrower the corridor became until we had to split into pairs. I stayed with Jany. Naomi still tried to whine, but Mimi said she’d rather stay with Emma. It seemed to me that she wanted the two of them to try to get to know each other and at least not hate one other.
We had already been walking for more than half an hour when we heard footsteps and voices a few meters away from us. We couldn't see who they were or how many they were except by two shadows at the entrance to a large plot of land as if it were an empty pocket of water.
Mimi signaled us to get down, "They could be Raiders. I'm going to get close by myself. If I scream, go ahead. They shouldn't be as many as we are," she said, as low as a sigh.
"And why are you going?" I asked her.
"It's the best. We can't risk one of you. Besides, I am the leader. Trust me," she said and kissed me on the cheek before moving on.
We squatted on the ground. She walked up to the men, zigzagging, pretending to be lost, with her bow still behind her back.
"Hi, I got lost from my group. Can you help me?" She asked them, the voice more docile than usual.
"Of course we can," one of them replied and laughed.
"Oh, yes, we can. Come closer. We will help you...in various ways," the other replied. Damn it. They hadn't good intentions.
We were going to have to fight our way out of there. We couldn't go back, and neither would they let us. My heart was beating like it wanted to leap out of my body. I had my world on the fingertips that held my sword and I wouldn't let anyone take away from me what I had achieved in there.
"RAIDERS!" Matilda screamed and tried to retreat, but one of the men grabbed her by the collar.
She hadn't finished talking yet and flashes were already bursting in the air, illuminating the place, revealing to us that there were 4 men, all of them level 5. Shit. Everyone had their own magic.
They wore brown robes that covered their bodies up to their knees. Underneath, they had black pants with red stripes. One of them, maybe the boss, still had a metal helmet, which he quickly put on his head. It was the man who had Mimi at his mercy.
"Kill them all. We split the loot at the end. We're Raiders, nobody runs away from us," the chief shouted to the other three.
Their laughter was loud and frightening. They took pleasure in hurting others. None of them had the tranquility of the boy we had fought against. Instead, they were all more like the man who accompanied him. Without a second thought, they ran towards us.
Naomi and Emma had not yet prepared the spears when we were hit by the men. Jany and I were handling two of them, while Kendra and Carly were handling another. Their boss threw Mimi against a rock. She fell to the ground, a trail of blood flowing down her mouth.
"Shit. We have to get to her," I told Jany, but we couldn't talk much.
The men wouldn't get off of us. Metal collided with metal, the sparks sprinkling all over the floor. The girls prepared the arches and shot two arrows towards the boss. For a moment, we smiled. We could still have to deal with the rest, but at least Mimi would be safe. But we were wrong. The leader snapped his fingers and the arrows melted into a barrier of fire that had instantly appeared in front of him.
He had a megalomaniac laugh, "Did you think you were going to stop me with arrows from two levels 3 girls? Your friend will suffer for this," he said and pointed a single finger at her.
He lifted his finger slightly and lowered it again. A thin flame spun throughout the air until it reached Matilda and burned her clothes until there was no more than ash left and her HP points started to sink. She screamed in agony, her body writhing. Damn it. We had to help her.
I advanced, but one of the men put his sword in front of me.
"You're not going anywhere," he said and laughed, sputtering through the gaps between his teeth.
I did not have time for him. It was time to use our magic. I looked at Jany and nodded. She figured it out on the first one.
"Get out of my way," I told him and threw a fireball at him.
His body flew back and fell meters away from me. Of his 200 HP points, he had 120 left. Jany did the same. A gust of wind struck the man who was bothering her, removing 60 points from his life, leaving him with small cuts on his arms and legs. We both ran towards Mimi. Their boss stood in front of her.
"Where do you think you're going?" He asked and laughed, stretching out the palm of his hand. Flames burst to the surface, changing into a bird.
That was something I didn't know about the game. Even players with the same levels and the same kind of magic could have different attacks. That would make it harder to predict what each person had. I looked back. Emma and Naomi were lost, not knowing what to do. Carly had already lost 30 life points and Kendra 15. The man who fought with them still had 160. The men on the ground got up. Still, none of them had used magic other than the leader. There was only one way to get us all out of there and alive.
I pulled the rare item out of my pocket that Naomi had bought me. I remembered the NPC vendor's words, "use only as a last resort,". Now was the right time. I took a deep breath before putting the ring on my finger. For the first 10 seconds, nothing happened. The leader of that group of Raiders laughed.
"Congratulations...for nothing," he said, "Well, let's see what you do with this," he added, and with one foot in front of the other, he threw the firebird in my direction as if it was a small ball.
The flames hit me, but nothing happened. My body absorbed the magic and it spread to my limbs. I had never felt so good, so strong. The battle had stopped. Everyone was looking at me.
"Why is everyone looking at me? " I asked Jany.
"You... you're glowing," she told me.
I looked at my hands. A red foil coated my body. I was going to save them. I had to. I closed my eyes and snapped my finger bones. The energy flowed through me. I had never felt anything like it before. The flames in me gladly offered me their help, even though I did not have the level to tame them. Mimi's HP was yellow. Although the flames had already dissipated, her body was still aching with pain. Her constant hiccups angered me. How could anyone have caused so much pain to one of my protégés?
I opened my eyes again.
"Kill him. Ignore them! Just attack him. With everything you have!" The leader shouted when he saw me take a step towards him.
Four flashes of lights ignited the air. Fire, wind, water, ice. A firebird, sharp gusts of wind, a water bag, and sharp arrows of ice. They all crashed into the red pellicle and disintegrated, feeding my power. I felt myself overloading. It was time to discharge everything.
My body moved on its own. My consciousness floated in my mind. I only saw what was happening behind my eyes. It was as if I was in the cinema, seeing everything in three dimensions, high-definition.
My legs started walking around. Seconds later, my body was spinning without leaving the same place. Blasts of flames were fired at each of the four members of the Raiders. Their HP automatically went to zero. It didn't even go down little by little. It went from wha
t they had to zero in a fraction of a second. No wonder the strongest players were the rich ones. Being able to buy items as strong as this one, they could easily level up. Strangely enough, I had never seen a playthrough where someone had used something so strong.
As soon as the men disappeared, my body stopped. Using that power had wasted all my energy. I felt tired, sweaty; my vision blurred. My eyes closed. The last thing I heard was Emma's voice, "JAMES!".