Rebirth Online 4

by Michael James Ploof

  I thought of my talisman, and how easily my children could defeat our enemies. The temptation to just say fuck it and summon my army was almost overwhelming, and my fury at losing made it hard not to say the words that would create the portal. Maybe Nanaya was right, maybe I would just be using one of my many resources. As I watched my guild mates fall dead around me, I reached for my talisman. Time seemed to slow, and my senses became heightened. Bogrum still raged after me, but Tweak had leapt into his path and now fought desperately to fend off the bloodthirsty orc. Cecilia fell dead at my feet, and I stabbed her weakened attacker through the heart. The barbarian fell, but he managed to slash me across the chest with a glowing blade.

  I reeled back from the blow and tore the talisman from my neck, cursing against the pain.

  Warning!

  Tower Defenses at 9%

  The notification pushed me over the edge. I don’t know if it was the rage I felt at seeing my friends being killed and my kingdom destroyed, or if it was just plain stubbornness, but there was no way I was losing my land to these fucks, not now, not ever.

  “Come to me my children!” I bellowed, and my voice boomed and rolled over the land like thunder.

  The barbarians all stopped and looked to me, as did the defenders.

  I thrust the talisman forward, and it began to glow like a supernova…but no golden demons flew out of it. Instead, Frig jumped out with a big grin and did jazz hands.

  “Surprise mutha-fucka!”

  When no one followed him out of the portal from the Underworld, the battle resumed with greater ferocity.

  “Frig!” I screamed. “What the fuck?”

  “Megulla wanted me to let you know that she needs your golden brats for a bit longer. There’s a succubus uprising we’re taking care of.” Frig grinned and glanced around at the battle. “You look like you’re getting your asses kicked, loser.”

  “Fuck you Frig!” I blasted a barbarian with a Magic Bolt and lit another one with Hell Fire. “Tell Megulla I need like a hundred of my sons.”

  “No can do dumbass,” said the imp. “Like I said, they’re busy.”

  “You little son of a bi—” I was interrupted by a spell that hit me in the left arm, leaving it useless.

  “Well, this is lame. C-ya,” said Frig.

  “Wait!” I yelled, but he was already gone.

  Warning!

  Tower Defenses 5%

  I let out a string of curses and ran to meet Bogrum’s charge. He had fought through the defenders and was now tearing toward me like a bull. The spell that had left my left arm numb wore off, and I lit the ground between us with Scorched Earth. I followed it with a Magic Bolt that exploded against his chest, then we were leaping through the air toward each other, both hellbent on murder. I pulled back my enchanted blade, praying for a soul shatter strike, but Bogrum suddenly disappeared into the mouth of Nanaya’s flying snake-dragon.

  I landed in front of the orc shaman and turned my attention on his energy shield. Hacking and slashing at the damned thing and praying for a soul shatter strike. I didn’t get one, but one of my guild mates did. When the shield blinked out and died, I let out a victorious cry and unleashed Hell Fire on the preoccupied orc shaman. He went up in green flames, and his cries of agony put a wide smile on my face. My guild mates attacked as well, and soon the shaman was forced to abandon his spell, and the enemy cemetery disappeared.

  Warning!

  Tower Defenses at 1%

  “Get back to the tower!” I cried, but I don’t know if anyone heard me over the battle raging all around us.

  My adrenaline surged through my veins, and the magic flowed, but soon we were overwhelmed by the Dragons of Fury. They flew overhead and bathed the battlefield in flames, and although I had the protection of my Scorched Earth spell, it did nothing against the dragon teeth that clamped down on me.

  As my body sailed toward Earth in two different pieces, I saw the emerald shield surrounding my tower wink out.

  You are Dead!

  One Level Penalty

  You are now level 66

  Chapter 11

  I spawned at our cemetery as angry as a bull and raced with the militiamen back to the tower. Now that there was no energy shield around it, the tower was being bombarded by spells and bombs launched by the siege weapons. I ran through the tumult, dodging burning debris and heavy stones as they came loose from the tower and crashed down around it. When I made my way to the stairs leading up to the top of the tower, I found Trinity pinned beneath a big stone slab that must have weighed five thousand pounds. Her leg was caught, and when I approached, she was holding her enchanted sword in hand, looking to be trying to gain the courage to cut her trapped leg off.

  “Wait!” I said as I came to a stop beside her.

  “Get back into the fight!” she yelled. “You don’t have time for this.”

  “I’m not leaving you like this,” I said as Tweak and Stormy raced over to us. The three of us all grabbed ahold of the slab on one end, and on the count of three we all heaved on it. Nothing happened, and Stormy cursed and spit in her hands.

  “Use your kinetic energy rings” I told them both. “Ready, on three. One, two, three!”

  We all enabled our rings at the same time, and to my surprise, we flipped the stone slab into the air. It crashed into the wall and almost took us out on its return.

  “Thanks,” said Trinity as I helped her up onto her good foot.

  Anna came racing from the cemetery and cast a healing spell on Trinity, then she turned to me.

  “What’s the plan now?”

  “Now we defend to the bitter end,” I said with a shrug. “They can’t respawn at their homemade cemetery anymore, so hopefully we can get control of this shit. Come on.”

  We all raced up the stairs to the top of the tower and joined the others at the cannons. The enemy had lost their cemetery, which meant that now they would respawn at ours. When that happened, Tweak and the others on the cannons would be able to keep them under control. But there were still hundreds of barbarians, and there were high-level healers among the enemy guilds who could resurrect the fallen.

  “Miramar!”

  “Yes, Sire,” he said as he appeared behind me.

  “Take the women and children through the portal in the basement that leads to Aeorock. They will be safe there.”

  “Yes, Sire,” he said with a bow, then he offered me a harrowing glance. “Is this it, is this the end?”

  “Not if I can help it,” I told my NPC wizard.

  He nodded and raced down the stairs. I moved to the edge of the roof and glanced down at the battlefield, and when I did, a cannonball exploded in front of me. The flash was blinding, and the force of the explosion took me off my feet and deposited me on the floor twenty feet away.

  Warning!

  Health 45%

  I groaned when I tried to get up, and glancing down at my body, I found a long piece of wood stuck in my side.

  “Son of a bitch,” I groaned and glanced around in hopes of finding one of my healers.

  Anna came rushing over and doused me with healing light. A moment later I pulled the bloody stake out of my liver and leaned on my first guild mate as I tried to stand.

  “We’ve got to stop them, Anna,” I said breathlessly. “We can’t lose the tower…the kingdom.”

  “We won’t,” she said to me, but a heartbeat later the tower was hit by a massive meteor storm that streaked down from the sky. She fell into me and I wrapped my arms around her and dove for the floor.

  The tower buckled beneath the onslaught, and I soon found myself sliding along the floor toward the other end.

  “I got ya!” said Kit, and her vines wrapped around my waist.

  I held onto Anna with all my strength as our world was turned upside down, and the tower crashed to the ground. The impact sent me flying forward, but I didn’t let go of Anna. Kit must have held out bravely as well, because a moment after I hit the ground, the little furry landed o
n top of me.

  “You two alright?” I asked as I choked on the dust.

  “We are, but the tower…” Kit lamented.

  An explosion hit the debris, and then another, and I realize that the opposing guild was now using our destroyed tower for target practice.

  “Go, go, go!” I screamed and pushed the girls to safety.

  I brought up my Fire Shield and fled the scene, ignoring the groans of the trapped NPCs who made up my militia. I passed Tweak, who was dead and buried in rubble. Then I passed Trinity and Stormy, Ember, Cecilia, and poor Zoe, who had been crushed by a massive block of stone.

  When we emerged from the wreckage, Anna and Kit were hit with a dozen different spells. I cried out and tried to retaliate, but then a black writhing spell wrapped around me so tight that I couldn’t breathe.

  “You lose, Mary Sue,” came a familiar voice.

  “Well played, Bogrum,” I said, and looked to the enemy guild members. The Dragons of Fury stood proudly around the destroyed tower, some as dragons, and others in human form. The nearly fifty Orc Chieftains stood with them, their tusks protruding from their ugly faces as they grinned at me. Then there were the Doom Lords, a bunch of goth looking chicks and dudes in too much leather.

  “Now, your kingdom is mine,” Bogrum said with a sneer.

  I let out a small laugh, as though I had planned for all of this to happen. “Enjoy it while it lasts, Boggy, because I’ll be back.”

  “Nice last words,” he said and strode over to me with a big grin on his face and a heavy war hammer dripping with blood in his gnarled hands.

  He swung.

  Light flashed.

  Sound disappeared.

  Darkness reigned.

  You are Dead

  One Level Penalty

  You are now level 65

  Fire Spirit revoked

  I opened my eyes and found myself in the cemetery behind the tower. My guild mates were there waiting for me, and they had all respawned at the cemetery, rather than back at their bodies where they would just get ganked. I did the same, walking through the veil and taking form before them.

  “Come on, let’s regroup in Aeorock,” Cecilia said tiredly.

  “We’ll take back the kingdom, Sam,” Kit assured me. “Don’t be sad.”

  “Yeah, bro. Like you said, we’ll be back,” Tweak added with a teary-eyed ape grin.

  I glanced around at my defeated guild mates, then back over my shoulder at the sneering guilds who stood upon the rubble. We had come so far, and now our kingdom had been taken by those we had defeated in the tournament. The very guilds that we had defeated in the first place. It had all been for nothing.

  “Fuck that!” I said and grabbed ahold of the talisman around my neck. I pulled it off and held it high.

  “All I need is a few seconds,” I told my healers.

  Kit, Anna, and Cecilia all smiled wide, glanced at each other, and then turned and brought up a magic shield. No sooner had they done so, then spells began slamming into it.

  “Children, come to me!” I bellowed.

  The portal opened and my guild mates and I waited eagerly to see if my golden demons would come through. But rather than my chiseled children of the Underworld, it was Frig who once again leapt out.

  “Hey, Nimrod,” he said with a scowl. “What part of Megulla needs the kids right now don’t you under—”

  “Shut the fuck up, Frig, and get me Megulla.”

  “Piss off playboy,” he said with a slow wave of his hand.

  Nanaya suddenly hit Frig with a spell that I had seen her use on imps and the lesser creatures of the Underworld before, and it didn’t look pleasant. Writhing black tentacles reached out and squeezed the terrified little imp until his eyes were bulging out of their sockets.

  “Get Megulla, or I’ll tear out your god forsaken soul!” Nanaya screamed against the torrent of spells hitting the healers’ shield.

  “Alright, jeesh, you fucking nutjob!” he screamed.

  A moment later a dark silhouette appeared behind him.

  “Samson, what is it? I am quite busy fighting rebels,” came Megulla’s voice.

  “I need the children, or else I will lose my kingdom,” I told her urgently.

  Anna Kit and Cecilia were groaning against the bombardment of spells, and on the other side of the shield, the three guilds were preparing to blow us to kingdom come as soon as the shield failed. If Miramar hadn’t stepped in to add to the shield’s power, it would have already faltered, but the NPC wizard was a level 70, and he was powerful as hell.

  “Oh, now you want to spend time with your children?” she said with a huff.

  “I don’t have time for this right now!” I told her as the shield began to break down.

  “You never have time for me or them. Only when it’s convenient for you,” she pouted.

  “Listen, I’ll make it up to you, I promise,” I pleaded.

  “Really? Hmmm, well, in that case, I may be able to spare a few. But I expect to see you once this mess is taken care of.”

  “Of course, babe,” I told her with my best smile.

  “Babe?” Trinity scoffed.

  “Very well. May our children help you to vanquish your foes,” said Megulla. Then her shadow suddenly disappeared along with Frig, and I waited with bated breath.

  “Shit!” Kit screamed, and a moment later the shield protecting us completely died.

  But at the same time, five of my golden demon children flew out of the portal.

  “Fuck yeah!” I cheered along with my guild mates.

  “Father?” said one of my sons as he floated before me with his brothers.

  “I need your help, my children,” I said and pointed at the enemy guilds. “You see those bastards over there? I need you to kill them all.”

  My sons turned with curious expressions on their faces, and when they did, dozens of spells slammed into them. For a moment my sons were completely lost from view behind the fire and smoke, but when it all cleared, they floated on golden wings unscathed. The only thing that had changed was their expressions.

  “Fire at will!” I heard Bogrum scream, and that’s when my children sprang into action.

  They flew in a blur of motion toward the enemy guild and unleashed a barrage of Fireballs, Arcane Lightning, Magic Bolts, Hell Fire, Firestorm, and to my surprise, Nuclear Thunderclap.

  “Charge!” I commanded my grinning guild mates, and we followed the golden demons into the fray.

  My children’s initial attack left the enemy guilds in disarray as five mushroom clouds rose above the rubble. Golden swords sang from sheaths and heads flew as my spawn dispatched the enemy guild members and their barbarians with precision and power. Not to be outdone, my guild and I bombarded the enemy with spells, and our melee fighters began cutting through the ranks.

  I noticed that my children were now level 80. And although Megulla was supposed to have forbidden them from fornicating and therefore leveling, it seemed like they had disobeyed. She wanted to take over the world with me, and the deal had been the only way I could get her to slow their growth. I hadn’t figured out how I was going to deal with Megulla and her aspirations, and allowing my children onto the surface world wasn’t going to help me dissuade her, but I could worry about that later.

  “Holy shit they’re powerful!” Nanaya said beside me as she watched the golden demons obliterate the enemy.

  They used not only their giant golden swords, shields, and spells as weapons, but also their tails, wings, and horns. When a group of the Dragons of Fury tried to take to the sky, my children chased them down and battered them with spells, before landing on their backs and ripping off their wings. As the dragons fell broken to the ground below, my children swooped down and dropped right into the middle of the enemy army, sending heads and limbs and gore flying in every direction.

  I got the attention of my guild mates and Frisco, telling them to focus their attention on the enemies that would soon be respawning at our g
raveyard. Between my guild and Frisco’s, we had over fifty fighters, and soon we were laying waste to the players emerging from the cemetery. Those who got through fell victim to our warriors and assassins, and soon the enemy had died so many times that they had lost nearly ten levels. They stopped respawning, and therefore so too did the barbarians.

  Suddenly, it was over.

  “And don’t come back!” Kit yelled to the sky.

  “Fuck yeah!” Tweak bellowed and beat his chest like King Kong.

  I wanted to cheer with my friends, but as I scoured the destruction, my excitement was replaced by a profound feeling of loss. How many of my villagers had died? How many of my brave militia men and women? They were NPC’s, I knew that, but they were mine, and I had promised to protect them. They would all eventually respawn, given that they were now under my rule, but they had still died, and they would remember.

  Then there was the problem of my golden children.

  They glided back over to me, their golden bodies covered in the blood of their enemies, and five blank stares held my gaze. The one in the middle landed on the rubble before me and slowly walked forward. He stopped before me and stared reverently.

  “Have we made you proud, father?” he asked in a creepily innocent voice.

  “Yes, you have. Now you can return to your mother in the Underworld,” I said gently. The portal back to the Underworld opened up, and my son glanced at it.

  He looked to his brothers, and they all nodded.

  “We like it here in the sun,” he informed me. “We will stay here.”

  “No,” I said as firmly as I could in the face of my powerful demon son. “You must return to the Underworld.”

  My voice carried with it no magical power. There was no mystical bond that forced my sons to obey me. How Megulla had kept them under control, I did not know.