by Tamryn Tamer
“I suppose we are,” Raven answered while side eyeing Jericho. “I suppose it’s too late to ask, but what quality players are we getting?”
“What quality?” Diana’s reptilian jaw dropped. She looked at Jericho in disbelief. “Oh! She doesn’t know? This is going to be fun.”
“Diana’s the top assassin in the game for raiding,” Jericho said. “Her friends are hardcore raiders and her friends list is longer than some guilds’ rosters.”
“Interesting,” Raven smiled. “The top assassin in the game for raiding and the assassin with the highest number of player kills. I wonder who’ll win.”
“Me,” Diana blinked around excitedly. She pulled out two glowing gold legendary daggers. “I don’t see any players out there and my babies are going to slide through those soldiers like an ex slides into DMs.”
“Care to bet on it?” Raven asked while spinning a red legendary dagger of her own. “We can go one on one, guild versus guild.”
“One on one,” Diana said with enough enthusiasm to make Raven second guess herself. “I have five million gold.”
“Five million?” Jericho said dumbfounded. Jericho had massive amounts of disposable gold but betting five million like it was nothing would be insane, even for him. “You have five million gold just laying around?”
“I have way more than five million,” Diana shrugged. “I raid constantly and sell ninety percent of the stuff I find.”
“Deal,” Raven said shaking Diana’s hand. “May the best assassin win.”
“It’s so nice of you to root for me!” Diana beamed.
“You’re funny,” Raven smiled through clenched teeth.
“Sapphire’s on board,” Owl said as he and Terra came down the hill. “Although she wants ten million gold on top of the information since she brings more value.”
“If she gets ten million, we get ten million,” Raven said. “We bring equal value.”
“That’s going to bankrupt me,” Jericho groaned. “I can’t believe she asked for gold.”
“That was actually Terra’s idea,” Owl said. “Terra mentioned you had a little over twenty million gold stashed away if she felt Ambrosia and Endgame deserved something extra.”
“Goddammit,” Jericho glared at her. “This is about the bedroom isn’t it?”
“Nope,” Terra said gleefully. “This is about you suffering some consequences for once.”
“Fine,” Jericho sighed. “I suppose being stupidly wealthy was nice while it lasted.”
“Not to mention if we lose you lose everything anyway,” Terra joked.
“Great!” Diana said. “I’ll let everybody know. This is going to be so much fun!”
“Twenty million and all of the information you have regarding magic and familiars,” Owl seemed to be suppressing a smile. “You’re having a rough day.”
“You’re funny Owl,” Jericho stood up and patted Owl on the back. “The thing is…my day started with me on the verge of losing everything. Look around. Now I have an army of friends ready to go to war for me. I’m having a fucking awesome day.”
Chapter 28
The Battle of Dayrose Village
Sapphire and her guild were assigned to Archduke Garlamond and the five noble families. Endgame and Tiamat agreed to defend against Grand Prince Thereon’s forces. Raven insisted that Tiamat be on her side of the village since the weaker forces of Garlamond and the five noble families would have allowed Diana to take a significant lead in their wager.
Terra and several archers were lined up on the walls surrounding the village to offer support fire while everybody else surrounded the village to ensure that no enemy forces made it through. They ended up with a little over three hundred troops meaning they’d need to average a little over two hundred enemies each.
“Are you sure you want to be out here?” Jericho asked Mirage. She was standing next to him in full black assassin’s regalia and her long blond hair was tied back in a tight bun to keep it out of her face. The way the regalia hugged her voluptuous body accenting her curves had Jericho thinking lecherous thoughts, “You could wait in the village.”
“Jinx is here,” Mirage gestured at Jinx who’d preemptively taken her spectral tiger form. “And Ariel and the fairies are providing air support. It wouldn’t feel right to wait inside.”
“Yeah,” Jericho said thoughtfully. “But you don’t like killing.”
“Neither does Ariel,” Mirage smiled while sweetly stroking Jericho’s hair. “Yet she’s going to be raining explosives all over the battlefield while dodging archers. I think I can suck it up for the day.”
“I’d rather not ask any of you to do anything you’re not comfortable with,” Jericho sighed dejectedly.
“Then stop being an idiot,” Jinx growled. “If you weren’t such a stupid mage we wouldn’t be in this mess. Moron. Dummy.”
“Fair enough,” Jericho said.
“It’s not your fault, it’s mine,” Mirage said somberly.
“No!” Jinx argued. “It’s Jericho’s fault because he never thinks. He’s a good for nothing lecher that lets his cock do the thinking for him! Isn’t that right? Rake. Tyrant.”
“That’s right,” Jericho squeezed Mirage’s plump ass. “This is all on me.”
“Exactly!” Jinx growled. “You’ll have to make it up to us later! Jerk. Dunce.”
“It’s starting,” Mirage said as the enemy raised their banners and blasted the battle horn.
Mirage blinked away and Jinx leaped off in a blur of turquoise spirit flames toward the nearest elite soldier. The players’ front line was made up of tanks capable of holding back dozens of enemy soldiers while the damage dealers either hid behind them firing from a distance or dove into the fray headfirst.
The assassins stood out the most as they teleported around the field critically striking any unsuspecting soldier. Unfortunately, even with the element of surprise, landing the blows proved difficult as the elite troops reacted quickly and had massive defensive stats.
Despite her legendary daggers, Raven was finding that critical strikes and the element of surprise weren’t enough to ensure quick kills. Irritated by the lack of fatalities she blinked upward and released dozens of smoke bombs around her section of the field. She threw her daggers into the sky and drew a crimson sword before vanishing into the smoke. As the smoke dissipated, Raven stood alone in the center of a corpse pile, sheathed her sword, and caught the daggers as they landed.
Diana had a completely different approach to fighting. Rather than hide and attempt to catch her enemies off guard she faced them head on parrying an attack with one dagger before striking with the other. Her style was similar to a warrior dual wielding while using her natural dodge ability and teleportation to escape tricky situations rather than engage. It was a skill she’d honed while acting as an evasive off-tank in raiding content.
Jericho had lost sight of Mirage as soon as she entered the battlefield but started noticing enemy soldiers falling dead for no apparent reason and he was sure it was her. It was chilling.
The ranged units focused on the quantity of shots rather than quality. There were so many enemies that it was almost impossible not to hit something. They fired both explosive and frost arrows to either damage or slow the enemies.
The fairies were holding their own as they dropped potions from the sky while avoiding the enemy archers. The explosive potions didn’t do much damage to the elite units but helped weaken the armor for the damage dealers.
A loud cheer erupted from the frontline as Kaos came crashing down in the center of a horde of enemies and slaughtered them with his halberd. The giant orc was a force to be reckoned with on the battlefield. In exchange for a massive reduction in speed his cursed plate boasted the highest strength and defensive stats in the game. It was a playstyle that would normally make him an easy target in player versus player but Kaos somehow made it work.
It seemed wherever Jericho looked players were making headway or holding back
troops yet he was struggling. The elite soldiers had insanely high magic resistance making most of his elemental magic worthless. Even his spirit magic barely managed to get a stagger. While his illusions proved effective for a time he couldn’t keep casting them forever.
“Regroup!” A voice yelled from the north. Jericho turned to see a tank had fallen and a horde of enemies had broken through. They slaughtered the players behind the lines. Most of them didn’t have the armor necessary to survive a direct hit and with the tight formations dodging was out of the question. In an instant, they’d lost over twenty players before they could close the hole.
“Dammit,” Jericho swore through clenched teeth. He snapped his fingers rapidly mixing wind and fire to create explosions throughout the battlefield, the elites barely budged. He shifted to mist and ice hoping to at least slow them but he might as well have been blowing on them.
“It seems we’re useless,” Owl said joining Jericho. “Additionally, the frontline is weakening. Do you have any ideas?”
“Why are you looking at me?” Jericho grumbled. “I’m not a strategist.”
“Yet here I am asking,” Owl said slashing upward as a wave of spikes shot up from the earth.
“Goddammit,” Jericho said while sending forth a powerful blast of wind in an attempt to push them back. “I’ve got nothing.”
“Jericho!” Jinx screamed. He couldn’t see her anywhere in the mass of soldiers. “Help! Weakling! Numbskull!”
Jericho’s body reacted, he couldn’t see her so he raised his arms and a pillar of stone lifted him up. A soldier had a chain around her neck keeping her from dashing off as the others stabbed at her. He condensed a fireball and shot it at the chain hoping to cut through but barely nicked it. “Fuck.”
“Arrgh!” Jinx roared as a spear pierced her shoulder. He quickly created a stone wall to protect her, the chain hoisted up over the top of the wall and the soldier holding it slid forward.
“Right,” Jericho said frustrated by his own ignorance. Once again, he was using magic wrong. He looked down at Jinx and focused his elemental energy, this time ignoring the enemy soldiers entirely.
A layer of ice and water began to spread beneath the enemies causing them to slip and fall. Within moments the soldier dropped the chain holding Jinx and she was free. She leaped toward Jericho and climbed up the pillar of stone to join him at the top.
“I need a potion idiot,” Jinx growled as Jericho fed her a powerful healing potion. “You should have done that sooner! Bastard! Dumbass!”
“Sorry,” Jericho said while scanning the battlefield. “I had tunnel vision. I forgot that mages are also a support class.”
“That’s because you’re stupid,” Jinx growled. “Magic isn’t just a hammer! Fool. Imbecile.”
“Yeah,” he chuckled as Jinx leaped back into the fray. “Let’s have some fun.”
Jericho raised his hands like a conductor of a symphony and began changing the landscape of the battlefield. Any tank getting overwhelmed received a brief reprieve as a wall of either ice or stone emerged in front of them. As players rushed the enemy lines Jericho collapsed the ground beneath the enemies’ feet causing them to stumble and fall.
Owl immediately took notice and distanced himself from Jericho to cover more of the battlefield. His own pillar rose a distance away and he began slashing away at the battlefield. With one slash he split the earth beneath the enemy’s feet and with another ignite arrows as they flew toward the enemy.
“Don’t you dare!” Raven screamed as Jericho sent a small group of soldiers in front of Diana tumbling allowing her to make short work of them. “Those don’t count!”
“They count!” Diana laughed while vanishing in a puff of smoke.
To balance things out Jericho created a thick mist around the area Raven was hunting at allowing her to hide. She dove in and seconds later he heard a series of screams as the mist took on a pink tint. When it cleared only a pile of corpses remained.
“That’s more like it!” Raven yelled while dashing away.
Jericho summoned more pillars to jump between as they started pushing forward. He also raised pillars for ranged fighters allowing them to get better angles on their targets, increasing their effectiveness.
As the landscape continued to shift, he added illusions into the mix creating imaginary soldiers to divert the enemies to dangerous locations. Owl created a pit and Jericho immediately covered it with fake terrain causing enemies to continually fall in and get slaughtered. Soon, even he struggled to remember what was real and what was an illusion as the battlefield became a funhouse.
“Jericho,” Mirage appeared next to him ready to pass out. “Can I stay up here for a bit?”
“Of course,” Jericho smiled. She sat at his feet and pulled out a cake and began eating. “Stay as long as you like.”
“Mmhm,” she gave him a thumbs up while shoveling more food into her mouth.
“Looks like this side is having all the fun,” Terra said while hopping between pillars. “Sapphire and the others should be over here soon. They’re just finishing off Garlamond and his troops. We fucking melted them.”
“Been a little rough over here,” Jericho said while creating a massive trench to divert enemies from a hole in their line. Despite his efforts, half of the players on their side were dead and the other half was barely hanging on. “I can’t really do much.”
“Looks like you’re doing a ton,” Terra said while firing into the elites. “I mean, shit. I’m in heaven sniping these assholes. I wish we’d thought of messing with the landscape earlier. We could have been prepping throughout the day.”
“I know right?” Jericho laughed.
Sapphires troops came rushing in from every direction and began plugging any holes in the frontline. She immediately jumped into the melee knocking enemies back with her massive hammer.
“Yeah,” Terra laughed as she caught Mirage staring at Sapphire. “I honestly think she might be a softball player with the way she swings that thing.”
“Softball?” Mirage asked.
“Never mind,” Terra said before turning back to Jericho. “Think you could make me a few more pillars deeper into their territory?”
“Sure,” Jericho said summoning up more. He was definitely slowing down but wasn’t even close to being depleted. If he didn’t have fear to draw from he had anger, if not anger there was plenty of hate, if not hate he was full of love for his friends and familiars. He might not have been overflowing with emotions, but he had a steady stream.
Terra jumped forward and rained more death from above as she went. The ground forces were also pushing through as Owl systematically converted the enemy footing to sand. Once the enemies were killed, he turned it back to stone to allow easy forward progress.
Before long, the only remaining forces were the personal guards of Grand Prince Thereon. Raven and Diana didn’t wait for the frontline as they dashed in trying to collect whatever scalps they could before the battle was over.
Kaos, looking to support Raven, came crashing in eliminating any enemies near Diana before she could get to them.
“Cheater!” Diana yelled and waved at her own officers. “Don’t let her get away with this!”
Diana’s officers charged in aiming to eliminate enemies before Raven could secure the kills.
“I think we won,” Ariel floated next to Jericho. Jinx climbed the pillar to join them. “Are you sure you’re okay with this? You’re giving up an awful lot. I know you could have run away.”
“I haven’t given up anything,” Jericho said as he rubbed her head. Jinx transformed into her human form and looked absolutely exhausted.
“You need to feed me,” Jinx said crankily. “I’m starving. Bastard. Clod.”
“Cupcake?” Mirage asked while pulling out more food. Ariel flew down and whispered in Mirage’s ear. “Oh! I could go for some of that myself.”
The surviving players cheered as Raven held up the head of Grand Prince Thereon then c
ontinued to slaughter the remaining enemies until none were left. As soon as the last enemy fell the safe zone was reengaged. Then the looting began, which would have been just as violent as the battle without the safe zone.
“I suppose now I have to pay up,” Jericho laughed. “But it’s worth it.”
Chapter 29
Victory Celebrations
After the battle, the first order of business was arranging the release of information. The guilds agreed that officers would receive the information and limit its availability to trustworthy members of their guilds. The last thing anybody wanted was for the information to be sold or traded by their gossipier players.
They agreed on a time and location for the meeting as well as who would be in attendance. They made sure it’d be in an area where they could kill any nearby eavesdroppers. The entire process was fairly smooth thanks to Raven, whose management skills were almost impressive as her combat abilities.
The second order of business was Jericho’s gold stash being depleted by Endgame and Ambrosia. While they didn’t leave him completely destitute, they left him pretty close. Additionally, he owned some local businesses in Dayrose which generated a couple thousand gold a day for him so he’d recover. He might not be wealthy, but he wasn’t poor.
The final item on the docket, and arguably most important, was the celebration. The players had just won a massive battle and while looting enemy corpses earned them quite a bit of gold, a celebration was expected.
Fortunately, all the guilds agreed to pitch in on the festivities, mainly because Jericho was too broke to pay. Endgame fronted the money for the hookers, Ambrosia purchased the alcohol, and Tiamat purchased the food. Since Diana won the wager against Raven there was a hell of a lot of food.
It was easily one of the largest celebrations in game history, and Jericho couldn’t make it.
“Haven’t you had enough yet?” Jericho said as Jinx climbed on top of him for the third time. “We’re supposed to be at the party.”