by Jason Cheek
Supposedly, King Isolde had traveled in his younger years and had reached an impressive level. He’d returned home from his adventures with the knowledge necessary to create the Isolde Line and other marvels like the King’s Road, which really was a marvel if it dissuaded monsters from attacking the people traveling upon the roadway. Supposedly, he also brought with him terrible magic that was said to have had the ability to decimate cities and annihilate entire armies. Supposedly, it was how he’d initially driven the Northern hordes from their lands long enough to get the line in place.
Sir Hemmet droned on telling stories of the great king as the rest of us did our best not to fall asleep from the sheer boredom. It was the first time I regretted not having my trouble magnet in full affect. Thankfully enough, an hour later, Neysa and Helgath reported contact with the rear guard of our people. Ten minutes later, we were headed for the front of the formation, while the Kayden Troopers saluted as we passed by. Reaching the front of the column, the Devil Dogs called out in welcome, albeit there was more than one surprised face looking back at us.
“I’m surprised to see you this soon. I figured you’d be busy raising up the dead for a few hours.” Thomas called out as I slowed down to jog beside him. Before I could answer, Kenzie’s voice turned shrill.
“How the fuck did you level up?” The Rogue demanded angrily. “And, what the hell is Sir Fuck-you-over doing here? I thought he’d left earlier with Princess Cockula”
Most of the Devil Dogs looked away from Sir Hemmet, doing their best to keep a straight face, while the others busted our laughing. Terry and Sara especially seemed to like the comment as they giggled like school girls, while Thomas sighed and looked at the Knight and me apologetically.
“Princess Cockula was pretty good, I have to admit.” I said, with an unconcerned smile. Besides, it was freaking funny. Seeing a look of annoyance cross Thomas’ face, I hurriedly explained everything that had happened after they left. Well, by everything; I meant my friends in Telrain, the Princess’s capture, the scheduled execution, and meeting up with Sir Hemmet. As I came to the end of my spiel, Kenzie cleared her throat loudly.
“And the level?”
“Ah, yeah,” I said somewhat embarrassedly. “I had Sir Hemmet lead us back the way he’d come through the forest. Let’s just say there were a lot of freaking level 35 predators to contend with.”
“We could have cut through the forest?” Kenzie exploded giving Thomas the evil eye. “What the fuck?”
“Kenzie!” Thomas shouted as she continued to rage. “How the fuck are we supposed to drive a thousand men through the woods? Not to mention, they’re all lower level. We’d have aggro’d the entire area. Not only that, how much experience do you think you’d have gotten in a thousand plus person raid?” Kenzie seemed to settle down with that. “Besides, you’ll have more action then you want tonight and or tomorrow. So chill the fuck out, woman!”
“Unbelievable!” Kenzie stormed, angrily bitching to the rest of the guild about being stuck escorting a bunch of dumb NPCs while I had all the fun.
Seeing the dubious looks on my friends’ faces, I held up my hands explaining. “Look, my last level probably came from a combination of the Sword Flayers and the Sekolahian High Priest. And, I never leveled up from the Sea Orc battle. I figure I was on the edge of leveling and the kills we got pushed me over.”
That seemed to settle everyone down. Glancing back at Sir Hemmet who was busy talking with Assault Leader Dell, I lowered my voice. “Besides, I wanted to verify the man’s story to make sure we weren’t walking into a trap. You know that old soldier’s quote? Trust-”
“But verify.” Thomas, Darkhorse, and Matt said automatically.
“After seeing the remains of his fight with the Poisonous Web Slingers, I figured his story was on the up-and-up.” I said with an uncomfortable shrug. “Although, I wouldn’t fully trust him until the Princess is safe, but for now, I’m willing to give him a chance.”
“Hold up there for just a moment,” Sarka said as Unalia visibly paled next to her. “What do you mean Poisonous Web Slingers?”
Her words seemed to get everyone’s attention. Well, all of the newfar at least. Suppressing my grin, I told them what Helgath had said and described the creatures in detail as everyone seemed to cringe. I don’t know what it is with arachnids and Humans or maybe modern day Humans, but everyone was visibly upset afterwards. As if to emphasis my words, Sarka punched Yun in the arm.
“You never said the game had mutant, giant spiders in it!” Seeing the ghost of a smile on my lips at her complaining, the female warrior turned on me. “What the hell are you laughing about? You nearly puked when you saw those things!”
“No I didn’t,” I tried to argue as Tinyr chimed in.
“Dude, you should have seen your face when you were describing their bodies.” The little Rogue chortled. “Even now you’re looking green just talking about them.”
“That’s because they’re freaking disgusting as hell,” I groused as a shiver ran down my spine. For some reason, my uncomfortableness with the monsters seemed to calm everyone down. Like that made any freaking sense. “I was laughing Sarka, because mutant, giant spiders are kind of a thing for the genre. Every game has them, probably because culturally we find the idea of giant spiders so repulsive.”
Talking about the creatures seemed to help. Thompson, the Devil Dog priest, seemed to not have any issues with monster arachnids and had fun grossing everyone out as he contemplated how they must attack. Discussing the strategy seemed to settle everyone down. Before I knew it, my friends had moved on and were joking back and forth as we moved down the King’s Road at a comfortable pace.
They were a good group of friends, even Kenzie. The female Rogue’s jealously about my level wasn’t unusual for MMOs. If gamers were bad about anything, it was missing out on a leveling opportunity or distributing loot. Both tended to be sore points for many players. Luckily, that hadn’t been an issue for us. For the most part, our group seemed to be mostly happy even when their friends won a roll, which was the way it should be.
From Thomas and Thompson’s happy faces, they must have gotten lucky the night before with some of the ladies of the city. That, in and of itself, might explain the reason for Kenzie’s panties being in a knot. Whatever, I was especially happy for Thomas since Kenzie tended to treat him like shit the more he chased after her. And, while I liked Kenzie in general, she was definitely an attention whore.
Catching up to Krishna, I asked if he minded sharing out more of his Nature magic spells. The look on his face when I told him my Nature magic skill was now level 30 made the other man stumble and nearly wipe out, before he managed to catch himself. We went back and forth on the spells. A part of the Warden wanted to hold off on sharing out the spells until I’d fulfilled my part of the agreement, but at the same time, the additional spells would just make us that much more resilient for the coming battle.
At the end he went ahead and agreed to share out all the spells I could take, which actually caught me up to his current level. Krishna went ahead and just gave me the most advanced version of the spells, except for the next lowest level manifesting spell. By the end of our discussion, my new Nature magic spell I’d acquired looked like this:
Enhanced Shocking Grip – (60 Mana) – instant cast – Sends out a chaotic force of natural energy into target that deals 800% Spell Power. Requires Nature Magic skill level 20. Range touch.
Manifest Large Wolf – (200 Mana) – 60 sec cast – Manifest a level 20 large wolf to protect caster for a day or until creature is destroyed or dismissed. Requires Nature Magic skill level 20. Cooldown of 24 hours.
Enhanced Mage Armor – (40 Mana) – instant cast – Creates a shield of Nature Magic that acts like armor giving wearer plus 800 to armor class against physical attacks and 800% protection against Spell Damage. Requires Nature Magic skill level 25. Range 10 yards. Cooldown of 30 seconds.
Healing Breeze - (60 Mana) – instant cast �
�� Sends the wind of life force into target area that heals all party members for 1200% Spell Power. Requires Nature Magic skill level 25. Range 100 yards. Target area 40 yards radius from the point designated.
Homing Zap – (120 Mana) – instant cast – Shoots three bolts of concentrated decay force at enemy doing 500% Spell Power damage each. Requires Nature Magic skill level 30. Range 100 yards.
Manifest Cave Bear – (300 Mana) – 60 sec cast – Manifest a level 30 Cave Bear to protect caster for a day or until creature is destroyed or dismissed. Requires Nature Magic skill level 30. Cooldown of 24 hours.
Some of the spells like Enhanced Shocking Grip wasn’t exactly anything special. My Leech Life was a much better spell. But, the others were a completely different story altogether. Enhanced Mage Armor would stack with my other Mage Armors and spell barriers, while Homing Zap could definitely come in handy for players hiding behind static defenses. The Manifest Cave Bear was also interesting and gave me another combat pet for free. Lastly, Healing Breeze was the first group heal spell in the game. While it wasn’t much, it could make the difference between life and death for the entire raid.
Krishna and I continued talking about the future. I explained to him what had happened with Sir Hemmet and Princess Reeva in detail and why I thought it was important to knock out Chaos Storm’s hold within the Kingdom of Kader. Hopefully it would just be a quick stop. Besides, it was on the way to his and Domenic’s fortresses. Luckily, he was down with kicking the PKers’ feet out from under them if that became possible.
We were about an hour out from Telrain, if I was reading our position on the map correctly, when Sir Hemmet and Assault Leader Dell caught up with me. Explaining we needed to travel through the woods the rest of the way. Looking west, I could just make out the towers of the city off in the distance. With a quick series of orders, Assault Leader Dell got this people moving into the woods in an organized fashion as me and my friends took the lead.
It was only seven in the afternoon so it was still light out, but in the forest it was deep twilight. Unlike the last time we were in the woods, this area was another training location, so all the mobs were lower level. Otherwise, I think we’d have lost Kenzie to a killing spree. Our detour to the northwestern side of the city added another hour onto the trip, but we reached the general spot my friends had specified by eight.
The zombie pets were set up into a perimeter around the makeshift camp as the Kayden Troopers sat down to eat. While there was some grumbling about eating rations when a city was so close, the fresh Cuttle meat was good even cold. Besides, after the horrors we’d seen in Darom, none of the complaining was serious. Thomas explained it with an unconcerned smile when he saw my face upon hearing the complaints, “Don’t worry about it Star, soldiers like to complain. It’s all part of wearing the uniform.”
We made our way over the last fifty yards to the edge of the woods and hunkered down in the shadows to get the lay of the land. All the Devil Dogs, my friends and companions had come, along with Neysa, Helgath, Fylreh, Sir Hemmet, and Assault Leader Dell. Fylreh wouldn’t be going into the actual city. Being a four-legged demi-human, she stood out too much in a mainly human city and enough players had seen my videos to know centaurs were a part of my party, but she could give us a hand if things went to shit.
There was a two hundred square yard gap between the forest and the fifty foot high stone walls of the human capital. Unlike the other walls, this one had a massive pit at its base that had to be at least a hundred yards square wide and ten deep. From the reeking stench wafting to us on the wind, this was the local equivalence to a medieval dump slash sewer as one could get.
Due to the setting sun from the west, the top of the wall was wreathed in a red glow, while the rest of the land around the base was thrown into deep shadow due to the nearness of the forest towards the north. Using my Darkvision, I could make out raggedy soldiers keeping guard around the edges, while a beautiful Dark Elf with a familiar face called out orders.
From this distance, the people looked small and were hard to make out. In the shadows, I could see humanoid shapes diligently sorting through the stacks of corpses, while, out of my direct sight, a golden glow reflected from deeper inside the pit. I felt my balls defensively tighten up as I realized what that had to mean. Krystal was so going to kill me for this mess. I felt my naturally sarcastic personality rally at the thought. Maybe she’d adjusted to the stench after being in it for so long.
Even though I was ninety-nine percent certain these were my people, I was hesitant about making open contact. At least, until I knew for sure. That came a few minutes later, when I saw a familiar face ordering a group of black Cuttle armored men around. Letting out a quick whistle, I pointed across the pit once I had everyone’s attention.
“There’s one of our Guardian Knights.”
“Sir Degarre,” Thomas agreed.
“I think Jill is the Dark Elf standing over there with a group of Royal Knights and some other troopers.” I said, pointing higher near the base of the wall.
“Why are the idiots standing out in the open?” Kenzie snapped irritably from where she sat on a low branch swinging her legs.
“Probably because there’s no one on the walls with this stench,” Zhou replied, pointedly ignoring the other Rogue’s glare.
“What the hell crawled up her ass and died?” I quietly asked Thomas. Unfortunately, he wasn’t the only one who’d heard the comment.
“It’s probably her time of the month,” Sarka growled in annoyance. While Kenzie could be a lot of fun, she could also be a major pain in the ass too. Seeing Thomas and mine’s surprised look, the warrior rolled her eyes. “What else could it be?”
Seeing the curious looks from Unalia, Terry, and Sara about how we’d respond to Sarka’s comment, Thomas and I shared a quick look, before ignoring them completely. By now, we knew there was no safe answer to a comment like that. If anything, it was my fault because I’d been dragging everyone across to the other side of the known map and that was never fun. Especially when we’d basically wasted another day traveling. Well, everyone but me since I’d managed to level. I’m sure that wasn’t sitting well with her either.
“What do you mean, you think that’s Jill?” Unalia quietly asked, while gazing across at the group. “Don’t you know?”
“Well … we’ve never actually met in-game before.” I said, with a bemused smile. “While our faces are constructed from our in real life scans, between the changes from her Dark Elf features and the long black dreads, it’s kind of hard to tell.”
“Why? Because she’s black?” Kenzie called out obnoxiously. It was her “I need to kill something now tone” as I covered my eyes and took a deep breath.
“What? You didn’t plan to meet by the largest pile of garbage at sundown?” Phoenix sarcastically asked, trying to keep a straight face at my obvious distress.
I couldn’t help but smile even with the gruesome view before us. Hopefully, I wasn’t getting accustomed to seeing piles of corpses. It amazing how quickly you could get adjusted to this level of horror. Looking over at Thomas, I jerked my chin back at Kenzie. “You think it’s safe to bring her with us?”
“No,” Thomas said, giving me a “duh” look. “But feel free to tell her she can’t come along.” Yeah, because that would go over well. Although, thinking about the activities I had planned for tonight, bringing Kenzie and the rest of the Rogues along might actually be for the best.
“Let’s leave the zombies in the treeline and move out.” I called out in raid chat. “Use Stealth if you have it.” Looking around, I caught Fylreh’s eye. “You staying here or are you heading down with us?”
“I go where you go.” She stated with her head held high. Not if you can’t climb up a rope, I silently thought. While that was somewhat unfair, I honestly didn’t see how she could enter the city without blowing our cover. While Helgath could conceal herself in a cloak, there was no way of hiding that ass. Even so, I appreciated that
she wanted to be a part of this as I gave her a nod.
“Then stay with the non-Stealthers,” I replied, before slipping into Stealth. Without looking back, I headed out onto the plateau while Neysa raced ahead with Helgath on her back.
Kenzie and I each led a Stealth group of our own people around the pit. I headed off at a run with my friends and companions, while Thomas followed behind me at a somewhat slower pace with everyone else that didn’t have the Stealth ability. Surprisingly enough, that included Krishna and Lyeneru. One more thing that I needed to show my Uten Syn friends, I thought, adding it to my mental to-do list.
My eyes scanned the field and the top of the wall as I made my way across the open field. So far there were no guards up top looking for enemies. In the center of the pit, I saw flashes of Neysa and Helgath as they sprang from pile-to-pile of garbage in the middle of the pit. While Neysa mentally assured me that she was only doing this to scout for possible enemies, I knew better than that, especially after growing up with Major, the Doberman I’d had as a child. There was no doubt in my mind that her antics were more about the mud and stinky smells than anything else. That thought was only reinforced by Helgath’s wink, before they disappeared into the mazelike pit of stinking muck.
As I neared the wall, I realized that similar to the design of BrokenFang Hold there were no battlements or machicolations to scope out invaders at the base of the wall, which meant, that once you got within fifty feet of the wall, it was almost impossible to see anything going on even if there’d actually been someone on guard duty. Near the base of the wall was an enormous pile of bodies … men, women … even children. Many were well dressed, which made me think of nobles. The majority though were Royal Army troopers. There had to be thousands of them. The horrific sight of it all tore at my heart. It left me wondering what kind of cold-hearted bastard this Chaos Storm guild leader could be to inflict so much pain and death.