The War (Play to Live: Book #6)

by D. Rus

  The Fallen One cracked his fingers and closed his eyes, preparing to influence the mind of a high-order being. I sat down and stared at my hands. Divine blood glistened on them, tempting me. Ooh…No! Quiet, greedy pig!

  I glanced at Fall. He seemed to be in a trance. In a flash I brought my palm to my mouth and licked off a drop of blood.

  Status alert! You have tasted divine…

  Bang! A hard blow to the back of my skull made stars explode inside my head.

  "I see everything! Feel the wrath of god!" warned the Fallen One, making a pun.

  Status alert! The divine essence particle is reacting to the first hostile impact and is dissolving in your aura in order to preserve itself and its bearer.

  Partial divine damage immunity received: 90%.

  Chances of getting a crit and an injury are reduced threefold.

  I rubbed my head and smiled to myself. Not bad!

  Chapter Six

  Croaking and tearing my back muscles, I barely managed to pick up the unconscious god. He felt like he was made of lead. My strength was way over 2,000, and yet lifting Aulë still felt like giving birth.

  Screenshot! I saw Grym slip by.

  National Art Gallery. A work by an unknown artist. Circa 7th century of the rule of Laith the Two-Faced, the Era of the Uprising of the Young Gods.

  "Sorrow." Laith carries Aulë’s son off the battlefield after the latter has been heavily wounded in a fight with his father.

  The staff portalist transferred us to Station 0. Every few seconds portals to and from the Crypt would appear in this place. I handed the comatose god to an orc who grunted under the weight. Then I recited a series of instructions to the senior officer accompanying the orc and let them take the god away.

  Hurrying to get back to the battlefield, I dove back into the portal that was considerately opened for me. It was best to act while I could still feel the enemy’s next move and while the small details were fresh in my mind.

  Our warriors left cover before the wall of fire reached them. They hurried to retreat and take new positions.

  Our covering team wasn’t just a formality; blurry shapes of enemy stealthers would flash here and there amidst the raging flames. There was no friendly damage in AlterWorld, and the enemy took full advantage of it. Damn bug users!

  On my command, dwarf masters came out of the portals, carrying quality timber. It made for a peculiar obstruction on the Frontier sands. As a barrier, it had an efficienty of zero point zero. But once it would catch fire, enemy assassins wouldn’t feel so safe anymore. Accidental death by fire was more dangerous than death by an enemy arrow as the former counted as carelessness and took away precious XP.

  I had no clue which plane of reality Aulë had copy-pasted the fortress from. But my hat went off to the unknown architects; the edifice was stunning with its hundred-fifty-foot walls and its sixteen-story-high roof. Look down, and you could shit your pants.

  I didn’t even want to know what the enemy leader must’ve felt like. The fortress marker read: "Created by a god. Indestructible." That meant that you couldn’t just zero the HP of one of its segments, break through fifty feet of basalt and be on your way.

  Hitting us from the ground was also impossible. Those on the walls would be out of shooting and magic range. But we, as owners of the game bonus "+1% range for every yard of elevation," would unleash our entire arsenal on them. And not just the arsenal, but the contents of the closest stone quarry as well; the portals allowed us to transport heavy objects with little effort. The dwarves were already working their pickaxes, and the five-ton mules prepared their bags, accepting buffs.

  At last, Lightsider rangers counted the total numbers of our cover force. They passed the info to their leaders. The latter gave new orders which were passed down to the executing officers.

  The enemy force that had accumulated under the cover of the wall of fire finally charged, easily crushing our defensive formations. They made a few attempts to take prisoners. Good luck with that! The times when some of our warriors were not devoted to Macaria were long gone now.

  Enemy wizards stopped burning mana in vain. The veil of magic disappearead, and we felt shivers run down our spines. The entire canyon was teeming with enemy soldiers. They jammed into the pass, intent on killing us.

  "Boys, where’s the ladies room around here?" whispered a svelte female archer whose armor was covered with phone numbers.

  "Don’t sweat it, girl!" grinned the orc standing next to her. "Look at it this way; we’ve got countless loot and frags coming our way, just asking to be butchered!"

  A small and always gloomy halfling armed with a sling spat on the ground. "Yeah, right! And how much [beep] loot have you [beep] gotten so far?"

  The orc barely held back from laughing, then put a hand on his chest and confessed: "Sorry, Junior! I feel for you! To get digitized in such a tiny body and with a mandatory admin curseword filter – that sucks! But don’t give into pessimism now."

  "I don’t give a [beep]! [Beep] you and [beep] pessimism!"

  Everyone around them was already chuckling. The halfling turned red with anger and started talking back with one "beep" after another, making the warriors erupt with hysterical laughter. A fierce-looking mercenary NPC elf looked at the guffawing Immortals and could barely maintain his usual mask of arrogant imperturbability.

  Slightly shaking his head, he turned to the female archer. "Lady Amy Astan, allow me to show you to the ladies’ section of the Fortress and watch over you as long as you need."

  The girl nodded, took his arm and followed him, carrying herself majestically. As they were about to disappear inside the tower, she looked back and stuck her tongue out at her stunned fellow warriors.

  The Alliance members quickly made themselves at home in the divine fortress. A few optimists were already writing Tsoi lives! on the walls.

  The former Sullen girls built fires, eager to try shish kebabs from marble unicorn fillets. The scent was truly something. The meat sparkled with many colors, indicating that the dish had magic buffs.

  A quarrel started in one of the towers; two homeless clans were trying to claim the free property.

  I sent Fuckyall with some reinforcements to handle the situation. A fight between allies in the middle of a war was no better than treachery. It needed to be stopped as soon as possible, in the strictest way possible.

  The enemy army trampled over the lonely portal as they advanced. Of course there were a few curious ones. They pushed each other out of the way to get inside the arch first and become the next Darwin Awards nominees. I bet that even if I had left a huge red button labeled Will explode when pushed! it would take less than thirty seconds before the slippers of some curious fellow would go spinning through the air.

  The enemy soon figured out where the portal led. The cries of the souls that Asmodeus captured must have had a sobering effect on the Lights. The demon would never miss an opportunity like this. Of those who dove into the arch, none came back.

  Some tried to step aside, but were accidentally pushed inside the portal by the charging army. The warriors shrieked in horror as they stumbled into the opening, where their cries died down forever.

  After a few minutes of demonic feasting, the first Bundle of Nerves squeezed out of the iridescent film of the portal.

  Have you ever heard the roar of a stadium full of fans? Now picture them all wheezing in pain. That’s the sound that the arrival of this creature induced.

  The first Bundle of Nerves was followed by a second, third, fourth…The sensations they caused quickly intensified to the point where the body could no longer cope. The soldiers dropped their weapons and fell to the ground. Twisting into fetal positions, they croaked and their exhalations sounded like they would never end.

  The bundles nearly choked on the abundant victims, hurrying to swallow the lavish gifts of reality plane "zero." Their gluttony killed them. For the first time in their lives, these creatures ceased to feel hunger. Plus the warm,
bloodied sand of the Frontier was more difficult for them to move over than Inferno basalt.

  Hell’s creatures grew heavy and began to slow down. At last they stopped, feeling stuffed, and went into hibernation. They pupated, preparing to give rise to new life. The aura of contentment emanating from them wrapped around the nearby mountains, bringing the fighters to their senses.

  Direct fatalaties were few; barely a thousand enemy warriors. But those who had lost all patience were many. Portals began to pop up everywhere as entire clans left the giant horde. About 7-8 percent of Lights deserted from the invasion army for good. Not bad!

  The enemy closed ranks. Craving vengeance like a beaten weakling, they started violently tearing Bundles of Nerves to pieces, making them screech.

  Trampling their remains into the scarlet sand, the horde charged again, driven on by scathing hatred. We were able to bring something personal into the conflict, making all the superficial aspects recede into the background. And we were about to be generously repaid.

  After all the pain, fear, and material damage, the enemy wished to get even. They wanted to destroy our towns and rape our women.

  We heard claws striking stones; that meant our hounds gave in under the mental pressure and abandoned their positions. Draky and Craky who were perched on two projecting towers began to whimper sadly.

  Vertebra roared from the sky, and the little ones took wing, escaping into the depths of the Valley where it was still safe. All right…We started this war, we are gonna finish it…

  The enemy fell on the wall, helplessly clawing the stone in blind rage. The numerous instruments of death were already falling on them from above. We dumped everything on the Lights that we could find: stones, logs, burning barrels with flammable liquids…Archers on both sides fired non-stop, wizards drove off stealthers, and ogres competed for the highest DpS against each other.

  The fortress was safe indeed, but rather cramped. It was only 200 feet wide plus the area inside the towers and the three-story fighting grounds and the space behind the extra arrowslits. Our 500 warriors were elbowing each other.

  The attackers painted Yavanna’s walls with their own blood, paying for their fury with their guts, then stepped back, leaving a hundred fresh graves in their wake.

  It was a shame we hadn’t killed more. It was hard to even aim at any single individual in such a crowd, much less employ efficient tactics. We couldn’t spot the healers so we were unable to break neither casts nor portals. We also couldn’t make out the enemy commanders. We just blindly threw heavy objects into the sea of assailants, hoping for the best.

  After pulling back their reconnaissance party, the enemy leaders took a short break. Unfortunately for us, they reached a decision rather quickly. They passed an order through their public channel so that we couldn’t hear. Their soldiers began to undress, reluctantly at first, but then much more decisively.

  I looked at my officers in bewilderment. "Any guesses as to what the striptease is for?"

  Most only shrugged in response. Only the analyst lieutenant looked down, then surmised: "Maybe they want to build a ramp out of gravestones?"

  Someone scoffed. I paused, weighing it up. A headstone was six inches thick, so it took two headstones per foot and therefore three hundred headstones to climb to the top of our walls. Assuming the ramp could be up to 30 feet wide, one stair would need a few thousand graves. And there would need to be almost a hundred stairs total. So about half a million headstones… It sounded a bit out there, but then everyone could simply die five times to get it built. Whoa, what if it works?!

  But the enemy had something even more creative planned. Clan mules raced between their lines to collect all gear. After that, the Lights started stuffing their inventories with sand and stones.

  It looked like they would fit the entire canyon into their pockets. If each one weighed 500 pounds, then a hundred would weigh 50,000.

  "They’ll build a ramp by filling up the canyon," concluded the leader of the Vets, General Frag.

  It felt like I was dreaming. The crowd of almost completely naked people charged at the fortress, carrying thousands of pounds of rock in their spatial pockets.

  "Screenshot…" muttered Grym in astonishment. He had somehow managed to get inside the fortress.

  This was the strangest siege I’ve seen in my entire life. We chopped them up by the thousands. The bare bodies easily gave under the steel, accepted all crits and burned like logs under the magic napalm.

  The hateful horde roared with pain and spouted millions of curses which slowly materialized into a fierce-looking tornado over our heads. This road was being built from blood and gravestones. In three hours, when the graves get sent to the cemeteries, this road will be gone. But we might be gone too.

  Only fifteen minutes into the massacre, the ramp was already half the height of our wall. The enemy jammed the lower level embrasures with stones.

  Most clans could fire accurately at a distance of 75 feet. We could no longer burn the enemies like ants through a magnifying glass and get away with it. They hit us back hard.

  It was clear that our pressure on the enemy wasn’t very efficient anymore. The Lightside commanders had made the right choices, and now the assault forces were regrouping and rebuffing right in front of us.

  There seemed to be too many of them. Did they already start believing that they could win again? Did the craftier and more careful ones return to deal the final blows and partake in the looting? Probably…

  They were 30 feet from the top of the wall. There was a short yet bloody fight on the first defensive tier. Alas, the fighting platforms were under three feet wide. A hundred of our guards got splattered all over the walls. The mules were fearsome to look at as they joined the massacre, literally tearing our warriors to shreds with bare hands.

  The Guards of the First Temple grew pale. The intensity of the battle shook up even the most thick-skinned.

  The top of the walls was luxuriously wide, 30 feet at least. Over a thousand of our tanks lined up there. Wizards bustled behind them, preparing portals to resurrection zones. Clerics formed a line, dividing the future patients among themselves.

  Archers climbed the adjacent mountains trying to get the best positions. The least agile ones fell to their deaths. Rock climbing is a risky sport and a one-time venture for many.

  The joyful enemy cries and the sound of Russian cussing indicated that the Lights took yet another platform. It was no longer dangerous to fall off a fortress wall; the ramp was at most ten feet lower. We could already hit the taller enemy ogres over the heads with our weapons.

  The enemy was short on vials this time around, unlike the first days of the siege, so the ones they dumped on us weren’t many. I had seen this coming; it was easy to use up a whole crate of those things, but they weren’t cheap. The developers charged three times as much for abilities that were outside of a certain class’s specialization.

  The ramp grew higher. Hooked spears reached our ranks, trying to catch us and pull us down into the raging crowd. Enemy trolls and ogres blindly probed the parapet with their meaty paws, leaving chopped-off fingers on the black stone and spraying it with blood.

  Finally, the ramp drew abreast the top of our wall and the enemy stormed the fortress. But I realized that things weren’t so bad for us. Taking into account how we constantly rotated our warriors, we could probably last forever on these walls.

  The 30-foot-wide ramp only let a dozen enemy warriors charge at any given time. Once at the top, only six of them could actually approach us because of the castellations. The Lightsters were also being heavily pressured on the flanks, the towers and the adjacent mountains.

  For each one of our soldiers, the enemy lost five. They could not get into dense enough formations and therefore could not use their huge numbers to drive us off the fortress walls.

  Our warriors cheered up. Frag numbers soared, new achievements poured in and loot dropped right into our pockets.

  The Analyst wa
s the first to predict a potential problem: "They’ll pile their graves on top of us."

  He was right. The ramp kept getting higher due to the huge number of headstones. They had already swallowed up the castellations, allowing more enemies to come in contact with us.

  Our first line was forced to move back as the pile of graves got bigger. It was now the enemy attacking us from above. The werewolves growled as they lunged at us. The heaviest members of the largest species jumped on top of us with laughter.

  Our losses increased sharply. The intensity and difficulty of the battle reached a whole new level. The situation was still under control, but things were getting worse fast.

  The ramp grew higher and wider, and the influx of enemies grew with it. The enemy headquarters stayed on top of the situation. They sent out mules again to aid in the process.

  I transported three basilisks into our rear task force. The presence of the mighty monsters emboldened our warriors, although of course the basilisks were no match for a hundred-thousand-strong army as I had recently learned. I would have brought all twelve, but the enemy had enormous resources at their disposal and had already dispatched a portal infantry to the far end of the Valley. The King and his subjects were holding them back successfully, and I could not risk exposing that area, so I couldn’t use my reserves.

  An hour passed. No one was smiling anymore. Our girls and boys wheezed like overdriven horses. Their blades slipped out of their weary blood-stained hands.

  Our archers had all gotten knocked off the mountains by that time. Our casters were vomiting elixirs. No one took breaks anymore. You left your position only if you were a corpse. Alas, our corpses were many.

  The warriors would come back through portals, live through another minute of brutal chopping and slicing, and leave as corpses again. The fighting area grew ridiculously small. In some spots, the gravestones were already piling up on our walls, and the fight continued atop these artificial waste banks.