“What a floozy,” said Ember.
“What else you got for me Tweak?”
“There are nearly a thousand players with the NPC army like Cecilia predicted, and…what the hell is that? They’ve got like an army of giant insects.”
“Insects?” said Hagar, “like blasted spiders?”
“Yup,” said Tweak. “And ants the size of dogs, roaches as big as horses, and a shit ton of dragonflies.”
“What else?” I asked.
“That’s it,” said Tweak.
“That’s it?” Zoe shaded her eyes and peered south. “How can that be it?”
“They’re hiding their true numbers,” I guessed.
“What are those?” Hagar asked, pointing up at large winged eyeballs that zipped around like hummingbirds.
“Uhhh,” I said, not knowing how to explain it.
“Those are the eyes of the gods,” said Cecilia.
“Oh yeah,” said Tweak as he swiped his interface. “We’re live all over the world.”
“Then let’s give them a show they’ll never forget!” I summoned my griffin and leapt into the saddle, then I pulled back the reins so that the lion headed beast would rear back on two bird legs, and I unsheathed my enchanted blade, raising it into the sky.
“Defenders of Haven!” I bellowed in a voice enhanced by the tower’s magic. “The hour has come! The invaders march toward us now with their minds set on conquest. Our armies are well matched, but we have one thing that they do not!”
The crowd of humans, elf spirits, orcs, barbarians, dwarves, and players all waited on my next word.
“We have the favor of the gods!” I bellowed, and the crowd cheered the proclamation.
“Together we shall stand, the free peoples of Ozara. As one we will fight, as one we will bleed, and as one we shall scream in the faces of our enemies, ‘You will never defeat us! WE ARE OZARANS!’”
Cheers and war cries rose up, and the heavy thud of a thousand dwarven boots mixed with the thunderous boom of the barbarian drums.
“Show no mercy!” I continued, electrified by the energy around me. “They seek to ravish your women, steal your homes, and feast on your souls. If given the chance, they will use up our beautiful land until there is nothing left but the dead husk of what once was, and the moaning wind that haunts dark places. Today’s victory will be our statement to the world, and our deeds this day will make our enemies tremble at the memory!”
I shot a blast of Arcane Lightning into the sky and bellowed, “FOR OZARA!”
“For Ozara!” the crowd chanted, then I turned toward the approaching army, pointed my enchanted sword, and bellowed, “Charge!”
An ocean of barbarian and dwarf warriors flowed below me. From the back of my griffin, I watched them race across the fields of yellow and green. Then I noticed a big eyeball floating nearby. It was staring right at me, and I imagined that just about every gamer in the world was watching the feed. I made devil horns with my right hand and said, “Heavy Metal Thunder Mutha Fuckas!”
My guild mates joined me in the air, and we watched as our front line slammed into the goblins. Shields sprang up like giant umbrellas over the enemy army, and similar shields were conjured on our side. Then the spells began streaking through the air, arching downward, and slamming into the shields in a shower of multicolored sparks.
Another battle began high in the sky between the imps, dragons, demons, and our own winged defenders led by the elves. I watched both battles play out, wondering where Bogrum and the other guild masters were among the fighters. I knew that the leader of the Orc Chieftains would want to personally take me out, and it was just a matter of time before he made his move. But we were still hovering beneath the spell umbrella, and therefore untouchable. I kept the army tally up in the corner of my vision, glancing at it every now and again as it steadily ticked down on both sides. Dwarves and barbarians were dying and being resurrected by the healers behind them, but the goblins that fell stayed down, and soon none remained. The minotaur force didn’t fair much better, although they did manage to kill a few dozen of our warriors. It wasn’t until our front line got through to the real-world tanks that they met their match and then some.
The two forces came to a halt and exchanged deadly blows, hacking, chopping, and stabbing at each other. Warriors used their special abilities to barrel through the opposition, and some of the magic users on both sides began to slip through the front line. Assassins appeared from nowhere, slicing throats and stabbing backs before slipping away once more.
“Portals!” Nanaya yelled as she flew up to float beside me.
I turned toward the tower and saw dozens of warlock portals opening up around the perimeter of the tower shield.
“Everyone with me!” I yelled to my guild mates. “We can get the jump on them while they’re busy trying to get through the emerald shield.”
I led my guild around the east side of the tower, and we rained hell on the winged demons that began flying through the portals. As soon as we emerged from the protection of the shields, the spells started coming. But Anna, Kit, and Cecilia conjured a globe of protective energy, and it withstood the projectiles that managed to come close to us.
The demons looked like your everyday run of the mill Underworld midlevel minions, and they were easy enough to put down. A well-placed magic bolt could kill one of them 50% of the time, and I wondered why the invaders were sending such useless cannon fodder at us.
“There’s Bogrum!” Anna yelled to me as she passed by.
I looked to where she was pointing and found him flying on the back of a wicked looking green and black demon. He was looking right at me, and the grin he wore was a familiar one.
“What are you up to?” I asked aloud, and as if to answer, Bogrum flipped me two middle fingers.
He banked hard and began soaring around the tower, and I steered my Griffin to meet him. Seven of his guild mates flew with him, but I had nine with me. We steered right toward each other, and I conjured a Nuclear Thunderclap, ready to blow the fucker right out of the sky.
But I never got a chance.
Right before I released my spell, Bogrum thrust a glowing hand forward, and the next thing I knew, a portal opened right in front of me. I leapt off my saddle as the crackling doorway to darkness opened before me, and I hurdled it like an Olympic jumper as my griffin was swallowed up. Without my mount, I began falling like a rock, but that didn’t stop me from finally releasing my spell. The red-hot beam hit Bogrum’s demon in the chest as I fell away from him, and the explosion that ensued pitched me even faster toward the Earth.
I desperately searched for help as I tumbled, and it came in the form of a smoking hot succubus with cherry red tits.
“Gotcha!” Nanaya said as she hooked my robes with the retractable talons on her toes.
“It’s dragon time baby!” I yelled over the wind.
“I thought you’d never ask,” she said with a laugh before releasing me.
I fell again and watched her change form above me. Now a dragon, she banked right, barrel rolled beneath me, and I landed easily on her back.
“Fuck yeah!” I yelled as I blasted an enemy player with Arcane Lightning.
My celebration was cut short, however, as Bogrum flew out of the mushroom cloud on his black demon. His robes were in tatters and his skin was red and raw, but his eyes relayed only murderous intent.
Bogrum cast a writhing black spell at Nanaya that left her in agony, and as we fell from the sky, the orc chieftain leapt from his demon and landed behind me on Nanaya’s back. He stabbed her with the pointed end of his staff with one hand, and with the other he cast a spell at me point blank. I conjured my Fire Shield as I twisted in the saddle and barely deflected the spell in time. Bogrum stalked forward on the flailing dragon, planting the staff in her back to keep his balance, and blasting me with a barrage of malicious spells.
Nanaya finally recovered and leveled out, then she craned her head back and engulfed the hated
orc chieftain with dragon fire. But Bogrum had already leapt off, and I leaned out to try to find him.
“Where the hell did he go?” I asked frantically.
Then I saw him gliding about fifty feet beneath us on his winged demon.
“Hold on!” Nanaya urged. She banked hard right, did a barrel-roll, and leveled out right behind him.
I had a spell ready for his ugly green ass, and I unleashed it with a war cry. The Magic Bolt missed Bogrum, but it hit the demon in the back of the head, pitching them both forward. Nanaya once again opened her maw and bathed Bogrum and the demon in fire, and I unleashed Fire Storm, Fireball, and Arcane Lightning. The demon growled angrily as my meteors slammed into it, but Bogrum was protected by his enchanted armor it seemed, because he wasn’t bothered by the spells at all, and retaliated with a barrage of his own. Nanaya tried to dodge them all, but one got through that engulfed us both, and the next thing I knew, I was just as paralyzed as I had been since the accident.
Demonic Paralysis
Movement speed reduced by 100%
Duration – 5 seconds
It might not seem like much, but five seconds can seem like a lifetime when you’re falling like a rock with a demon and murderous orc chieftain on your ass. As Nanaya and I fell helplessly toward the hard ground, Bogrum and the demon swooped down and came right at us. By the time the paralysis wore off it was too late. The demon slammed into us, impaling Nanaya with a giant spear that ripped through her chest, out her back, and launched me right out of my saddle.
I fell screaming and frantically shot spells at the two, as Nanaya limply tumbled through the air. I was perhaps one-hundred feet above the ground when Bogrum caught up to me, and I cried out in pain when the demon grabbed me with his giant hands.
“Dine on his flesh!” Bogrum urged the demon.
I managed to unsheathe my enchanted blade as the demon brought me to his mouth and opened wide. He was intending on chomping my head off, and I desperately stabbed upward with my sword, impaling the demon through the roof of its mouth.
“Eat this motherfucker!”
Soul Shatter Strike!
“Noooo!” Bogrum screamed as the demon exploded into a million pieces that covered us both in gore.
The explosion left me just above the falling orc chieftain, and to my surprise, he cast a spell on himself and sprouted long green wings. I desperately reached for him as the ground rose up to crush me, and with perhaps twenty feet left to fall, I caught ahold of Bogrum’s hair and landed on his back. The extra weight sent him off course, and we crashed to the ground, skipping across the field like a flat stone on placid waters. One, two, three times we bounced before slamming into the thick base of a giant oak tree.
I felt my bones crack, and bad news flashed on my interface.
Warning!
Health at 17%
One of my ribs had punctured a lung, and I fought for air as a badly injured Bogrum tried to get his hands around my neck.
“Die!” he screamed in my face as he tried to choke the life out of me.
“You first fuckface!” I screamed right back and blasted him point blank with a Magic Bolt.
I saw the spell tear through his back and disappear into the forest behind him. His eyes went wide, and all strength left his big hands, but he did manage to spit in my face before he died. I cried out victoriously, but then I felt his spittle burning my flesh.
“What the fuck!” I said as I slapped at my face, then dug at the burning wounds, but it was no use, the burning sensation was spreading, and soon I was writhing on the ground in agony.
“Sam!” Anna cried, and a moment later the pain stopped. Healing light washed over me, and I gulped at the air, my heart racing from the excruciating pain that I had just experienced.
Anna pulled me to my feet as my health bar continued to climb, and I gave her a hug.
“Thanks babe.”
“No problem,” she said and deflected a spell that came at us from above.
I gazed out over the battleground, and soon realized that we were winning. The barbarians and dwarves had pushed the enemy forces back about a hundred yards, and there were half as many umbrella-shaped shields protecting the enemy.
Bogrum’s body disappeared, and I knew that he would be resurrecting far away at the back of his army. The demon army that had come through the warlocks’ portals surrounded the tower and continued to bombard it with spells. But the emerald shield held strong, and their efforts were in vain.
“Come on,” I said to Anna. “Let’s get back in the fight!”
We raced down the hill away from the tower and joined our allies. For fifteen minutes the casters bombarded the enemy with spells that left them scattered and disorganized. A few of the enemy guilds had had enough, some of them likely dying four or five times and deciding that it wasn’t worth it.
I knew that it was only a matter of time before Bogrum’s entire army abandoned him, and I grinned from ear to ear as we continued to overrun the enemy ranks with destructive spells.
Then I saw Bogrum again.
He stood in the middle of the enemy ranks, surrounded by his guildmates, who fanned out in a circle and defended their leader from attack. Something was strange about Bogrum, and I knew that he was up to something.
“Everyone, focus your attacks on Bogrum!” I urged my nearby guild mates.
I cast Firestorm and followed it up with two Fireballs and Hell Fire, but none of mine nor my friends’ spells got through. Bogrum continued to chant his incantation, then, to my horror, he raised his arms to the sky and bellowed, “Sons of Samson, come to me!”
“Oh shit…” Anna groaned beside me.
“No fucking way,” I said as I watched a portal open twenty feet above Bogrum.
My golden sons flew through the portal by the dozens and circled above Bogrum. They looked just like I remembered, except now there was a green hue to their golden glow.
“He’s bound them to him!” Cecilia screamed over the tumultuous sounds of battle.
“How is that possible?” I said as I grabbed my pendant. Then my breath caught in my throat. There was a glowing rune scratched into the miniature golden demon icon. Bogrum hadn’t been trying to choke me, he had been hacking my pendant.
“What the hell is this?” I asked Cecilia as the pendant began to change from a golden hue to green. My children’s skin was changing color as well, and a sick feeling began to settle in my stomach.
“It’s a powerful counter curse,” said Cecilia. “Sam, I don’t know how to break this.”
“Children!” I said, hurriedly raising the pendant. “Come to me!”
The pendant began to glow golden again, and a portal opened above me. About four hundred of my gilded sons flew through the portal, which meant that Bogrum had been able to bind almost 600 to him.
“Your souls are mine!” Bogrum yelled to those he had bound to himself. “And I command you to kill them all!”
“Stop your brothers!” I commanded the golden demons still under my control.
The two flying armies collided like gods, and soon the sky was alight with thousands of spells. Chaos ensued as those under Bogrum’s control began attacking my army, and those under my control sped after them.
“What do I do?” I asked Cecilia.
She was swiping her interface furiously and shaking her head. “I don’t know!” she said worriedly.
“Nanaya?”
“I’ve never seen anything like this before, Sam,” said the succubus.
I looked to the pendant in my hand, then to the destruction that was being wrought by my demonic sons. At this rate, the possessed demons were going to lay waste to my entire army in a matter of minutes. They all had the same spells as I did, and they put them to good use. Fireballs, Arcane Lightning, Magic Bolts, glowing meteors, and Hell Fire slammed into the elven, barbarian, and dwarven armies. The militia was obliterated by what must have been fifty simultaneous Nuclear Thunderclaps, and the blast sent everyone within fiv
e-hundred feet of ground zero flying through the air.
Warning!
Health 23%
I groggily came too, realizing that I must have been knocked out for a few seconds. Smoke filled the air, and the pleas of the dying were all around me. The acrid stench of burned hair and skin made me throw up, and as I pulled myself to my feet, I beheld the damage. The wind blew away the smoke as a massive mushroom cloud blotted out the sun, casting a shadow over Haven. Half of my army had been decimated by the blast, and my sons continued to wreak havoc as they fought in the sky like battling demi-gods.
I looked to the pendant, then to my sons, and I knew what I had to do.
“Samson!” Bogrum’s voice tore through the chaos and shook the ground beneath my feet.
I saw him coming, held aloft by two of my now green sons. His staff glowed in his left hand, and a wicked dagger gleamed in his right.
I place the pendant on a big rock beside me and glanced at Bogrum. He was about a hundred feet from me and moving fast, but his eyes widened when he realized my intentions. He frantically shot spells at me, but Cecilia and Anna were there to deflect them with their staffs.
I raised my sword, prayed that what I had in mind would work, and brought down the blade with a growl. Sparks erupted from the impact, and a chip appeared on the pendant. I hit it again and again, frantically trying to score a Soul Shatter Strike. Bogrum was almost upon me, and I hit the thing again, cursing and begging the sword’s special strike to score. Bogrum landed and cast Anna to the side with an explosive blast. I saw Cecilia being taken into the air by one of my green sons, and I struck the pendant again with all my might.
In my peripheral, Bogrum cast a spell at me.
Soul Shatter Strike!
The pendant exploded in a shower of sparks, and I spun away from Bogrum’s staff, crouched low, and stabbed him right in the nutsack.
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