by Jason Cheek
The blood raged in Töten’s veins as he continuously fought for his life while falling back towards the main gate of Darom. With every step, his health looked more and more like the moving bars on an audio equalizer at an Industrial Metal concert than a hit point bar for an MMO as his Primordial Aspect leeched twenty-five percent health and mana from all the damage that he was inflicting against his enemies. Even so, Töten found himself being slowly overwhelmed as the PKers that he’d so easily bashed aside earlier began clinging to his arms and legs while their reinforcements fought him head-on.
For a tight couple of seconds, Töten struggled against the mass of PKers as he heard shouts of “Get his arms!” and “Drag that asshole down!” while his warhammer and shield continued smashing players’ faces in with every swing. Seeing a large DPS Warrior charging at him with a large battle axe swung back over his shoulder, Töten tried to bash the man aside only to discover that his arms were being weighed-down by the enemies around him so much that he couldn’t defend himself as he took the blow to the side of his head.
Rage surged through Töten as he saw the DPS Warrior swinging his battle axe back for another strike. Dipping his head low, he lunged forward with his curved horns level to the ground, hearing the man’s surprised gasp of pain as his horns sunk deep into the DPS Warrior’s gut. Up until that second, the PKers must’ve all thought he was wearing a horned helm, Töten savagely thought, as his muscles rippled through his shoulders and back. Bellowing like an enraged bull, he shot straight-up and whipped his head back, throwing the screaming man back over his head.
For a split-second, everything came to a stop. At least, it felt that way to Töten as he stood to his full eight-feet of height and leveled his red cat-eyed gaze at the PKers before him. With their guildmates hanging from his arms, back, and legs, he looked like an unstoppable force of nature. Ignoring the daggers and swords hammering at his body like the damage and pain were nothing, Töten headbutted the shocked Rogue standing before him. As her body crumpled to the ground, he managed to momentarily rip a leg free to send another Rogue flying with a front kick to his chest as the train of monsters that had been chasing him reached the Chaos Storm Alliance raid.
“Ah shit,” Töten muttered under his breath, turning around to run only to find himself falling over like a downed tree. As the line of PKers charged forward to dogpile him, a mass of Elite Poisonous Web Slingers leaped onto the players from above.
It was a complete mess of flailing arms and legs, kind of like a ball of bait worms, while the spiders’ spiked legs pierced through leather and chain mail armor all around him as players screamed in terror. Töten felt his arms and legs come free within seconds as his attackers were forced to fight for their own lives against the enraged monsters tearing into their bodies to get at him. Though, being at the bottom of the dogpile, Töten barely noticed the combat going on around him as he began crawling away on his hands and knees. Breaking free of the struggling mass of bodies, he climbed back to his feet and began running for the main gates.
“Ssshhhrrriiiee!” A high-pitched chittering was the only warning Töten had as a Poisonous Web Slinger larger than all of the others sprang at his retreating back.
“Get the fuck off me!” Töten bellowed as he turned around in time to Shield Bash Venomwraith the Gut-Eater in midair.
The annoying Mini-Boss had made Töten’s life a living hell as he struggled to drag the entire train back to Darom. As Named Boss’s went, it was extremely agile and easily able to close distances by springing from tree-to-tree. If not for Lilin’s fiery flanks, he would’ve never gotten away from the terror-inducing monstrosity and been torn apart by the train. Not that a Level 45 Mini-Boss was truly a challenge to him at this level, but there was something about a spider as big as a pick-up truck that completely skeeved other people out. Not him though. He'd been through too much anger and pain by this point in his life to be affected by the appearance of a large spider.
The Shield Bash didn’t do anything but momentarily stun Venomwraith the Gut-Eater. As the bristly long legs drooped around him like a living cage of ick, Töten lifted his Demon-Headed Bronze Shield high enough over his head to flip the Mini-Boss onto its back. Jumping up onto the spider’s bulbous torso, he hammered the bottom edge of his shield into the chitinous armor that divided the arachnid’s head section from the rest of its body and began hammering Last Rights into its fanged maw.
Shaking off the stun with an ear-piercing shriek, Venomwraith the Gut-Eater clawed at Töten with everything it had, scoring his bronze plate mail with its hardened claws. Not that slowed him down any. Within seconds, the Mini-Boss’s two-foot-long fangs were nothing more than shattered broken stumps, which effectively removed its Poison Spray Special Attack. Not stopping in his brutal assault for a second, Töten’s overpowered blows began penetrating deep into the fleshy portion of the arachnid’s head. Between his Strength, level, and size, he was able to keep the Mini-Boss pinned on its back, removing the arachnid’s ability to bring many of its special attacks to bear against him. A minute later, Töten stepped away from Venomwraith the Gut-Eater’s lifeless corpse as angry shouts suddenly rang out behind him.
“That asshole is still alive!” Turning around, Töten immediately recognized Sodonon angrily pointing at him. She was a known Chaos Storm Guild Officer to him.
“I’m going to fucking rip his head off and shit down his neck!” Another voice threatened that Töten instantly recognized as Kasey JoJo, aka the Executioner.
“Damn it all,” Töten swore under his breath with a slight frown as he saw three more familiar faces turn in his direction. It was bad enough to have all four of the Chaos Storm Guild Officers after him, but why did Apoxsee have to be with them too?
The only good thing about this was that all of them were a much lower-level now, Töten silently thought, having immediately run an Identify on all of them. Even so, he knew better than anyone else that levels weren’t everything in The World. A smart player could fuck you up if they knew what they were doing, especially a whole group of them. After watching the various videos of these assclowns in-game accomplishments, he knew they were trouble with a capital T.
“Get him,” Apoxsee yelled as the whole group took off after him.
Turning around, Töten tucked his head in and ran for his life as Lightning and Flame Strikes blasted into his back. Though, only the Lightning really did any damage. Thankfully, between his higher-level and resistances, it didn’t hurt him enough to let any of the Chaos Storm players know that they’d managed to damage him. The problem was that there was only about fifteen to twenty yards in-between them. A distance that the group easily crossed before Töten had gone another thirty yards.
Töten found that out the hard way as the two Shadow Assassin Rogues managed to catch up with him using their Sprint ability, when a strong kick to his ankle tangled up his legs. In the blink of an eye, he uncontrollably slammed into the ground, momentarily knocking the air out of his lungs. As Sodonon and Ruston leaped onto his back, Töten still managed to keep his wits about him enough to switch out his Aura of Elemental Protection to the Redemptionist’s Aura of Forced Penance just as their Backstabbing combos slipped under the edge of his breast plate to pierce his kidney and liver.
““Gah!”” Both Shadow Assassins screamed in unison as they rolled away from Töten’s back in agony, feeling like they’d been Backstabbed themselves. The intense shock of pain was on a level that neither of them were used to experiencing as they scrambled away as if they’d been jabbed by burning-hot pokers.
“What the fuck was that?” Sodonon shrieked, arching around trying to see what had hurt her so much as Töten rose to his feet behind her.
“Motherfucker!” Ruston hollered next to her, clutching at his back as he danced around in a circle.
“That’s a Nightmare-level threshold of pain assholes,” Töten gasped out, grabbing Ruston by the face with his shield hand as a backhand blow from Last Rites dropped Sodonon like a rock to
the ground. Whirling around with the Shadow Assassin’s face gripped tightly in his overlarge hand, Töten began beating the stunned Sodonon to a bloody pulp as he alternated between using Ruston’s head and his warhammer.
“Get off of her you sick fuck!” Noah raged, knocking Töten away from the downed Sodonon with a combined Charge / Power Strike from all three DPS Warriors.
“I’m the sick fuck?” Töten bellowed in outrage, as he staggered to a stop to angrily glare at the group. As the Executioner and Apoxsee squared off in front of him, he chucked the limp Ruston as hard as he could at Noah, catching the DPS Warrior by surprise as he was kneeling next to his bloody virtual girlfriend. “You’re the sick fucks that enslaved two entire cities and slaughtered all of the children in it because it was convenient.”
As the PKer went down in a tangle of limbs from the impact, Töten ignored the angry shouts of “This is a fucking game!” and “They’re only NPCs!” as he cast Abyssal Ground on top of the downed prick and heaved Last Rites at the asshole for good measure. The warhammer caught the DPS warrior in the face just as he was trying to climb back to his feet. As the man fell back stunned, Töten snarled at him like a Boss, “I didn’t say that you could get up yet fool!” as Abyssal Ground triggered, inflicting a hundred points of damage to the entire group, which just so happened to give him a few more additional hit points and mana from the damage inflicted due to his Primordial Aspect’s leeching ability.
“And here I thought you weren’t as dumb as you looked,” Apoxsee sneered as he lunged forward with his two-handed sword striking quick as a snake high and low.
Töten did his best to block the powerful blows with his heavily armored forearms, but he couldn’t stop the ringing of his helm as the Dread Pack's Guild Leader finished off his flurry of attacks with a heavy strike to his head. As Apoxsee stepped back, the Executioner stepped in close with his flailing hand axes as the man did his absolute best to bash through his bronze plate mail. Before the PKer could step back, Töten managed to Shield Bash him back as he made sure to stay within the Abyssal Ground’s area of effect to keep up the spell’s damaging and healing affects.
“I’m the dumb one,” Töten mockingly said to both DPS Warriors as his AOE took out Sodonon and Ruston, “because you two losers haven’t done anything but give me more hit points and mana this entire time.”
“Fuck you,” the Executioner screamed as he lunged at Töten again.
“I’m going to enjoy killing you,” Apoxsee taunted as he joined in on the attack too, “maybe I’ll keep your armor to hang on our Guild Hall.”
Töten managed to keep the two DPS Warriors dancing around within the Abyssal Ground's damaging AOE by acting like he was going for his warhammer. Though, he had to admit the bastards were good. Töten was taking more damage than he was recovering from the tainted ground and even bleeding from a deep slash that he’d taken to the side of his neck from a lucky shot from the Dread Pack Guild Leader’s two-handed blade, when Noah leaped back into the fight. Jumping onto Töten’s back, the DPS Warrior wrapped his arms around Töten in a bearhug trying to restrict his ability to defend himself, but before Töten could trigger his ace in the whole, the whole lot of them were blasted off their feet by a charging Ridge-Spiked Boar through their midst.
Rolling to his feet, Töten rolled his eyes as he immediately recognized the Mini-Boss, Iron-Scaled Blight Boar, that had been chasing after him earlier. As the massive boar’s galloping run began curving around to charge at him again, he glanced back over his shoulder to see a mixture of monsters and PKers not far behind running towards them. It was a somewhat odd sight since the monsters weren’t attacking the players who hadn’t attacked them, meaning they were still aggro’d on him. Swiveling around, Töten saw that the trio of DPS Warriors were only too happy to let him take all of the Mini-Boss’s aggro while they stood over his warhammer to heal up and wait for their reinforcements to arrive.
“Really,” Töten mocking called out as he stood between the smirking DPS Warriors and the charging Mini-Boss, “Is this the best you chumps can do?”
Prior to the fight, Töten had been worried about being overwhelmed by too many enemies at once, but after everything that had gone down, he saw that they’d misjudged the power of his unique Level 50 build. His enemies’ plan was simple enough to figure out and wasn’t going to stop him in the least. Glancing quickly over his shoulder to make sure he was timing this right, Töten faced the charging Mini-Boss head on. While Iron-Scaled Blight Boar was Level 40 and a challenge to the PKers at their current levels, that was a different story altogether for him.
Timing the charge just right, Töten hunched down into a four-point stance to get his shoulders lower than the charging boar’s tusked head. Lunging forward at the last moment, he managed to trigger his Shield Bash and stop the lower-level Mini-Boss cold. It was like driving into a low cement wall at full speed with your car. As Iron-Scaled Blight Boar’s head crumpled into his neck and his hind quarters flew up into the air to flip over his head from the sudden impact, Töten’s muscles strained as he wrapped his arms around the boar’s neck, using the monster’s momentum to scoop the massive Mini-Boss up into the air. A quick twist and heave redirected the flailing mass directly at the shocked DPS Warriors standing behind him.
“Oh, that's gotta hurt,” Töten said out loud as the Mini-Boss landed on top of an open-mouthed Noah, instantly crushing him to death as Apoxsee and the Executioner scrambled to get out of the way of the flailing Mini-Boss’s spines and kicking hooves. That really was quite impressive, Töten thought, while magically recalling Last Rites back to his hand as he took off running once again.
Töten had nearly reached the main gate, when a boot kicked his ankle out from underneath him again. Fucking A, did these guys all go to the same bullying school of assholes, Töten thought, as he smashed face-first into the ground. Before he’d even come to a stop, he felt someone leap onto his back as hand axes began pummeling him about the head and neck. While that attack was going on, Töten’s helm rang with a deep bong as Apoxsee circled around in front to hammer him with his two-handed blade.
“Fuck you, asshole,” the Executioner screamed into his ears, as he whaled away like a madman.
“You’re not going anywhere fuckhead,” Apoxsee taunted as he continuously struck Töten’s helmeted head, “We’re going to hold you down and crack your shell open like a crab.”
Climbing to his hands and knees, Töten weathered the beating as he took in the situation around him in the blink of an eye. He was only around twenty yards from the main gate. A mass of players and monsters were nearly on top of him. These two assholes were close to finishing him off. It was time to play his ace in the hole, Töten silently decided, as his hit points dipped into the yellow-red of severe injury. A wicked smile split his lips. Three seconds was all that he needed to deal with these two cockgoblins. Pushing himself up to his knees, Töten went to stand up as he triggered his unique ability.
“Tell me again what you were going to do limp-dick?” Töten thundered as his body grew to twelve feet in height within the spans of a few seconds. As Apoxsee’s eyes widened in shock and the Executioner slid uncontrollably off his back, he wrapped his enlarged fist around the DPS Warrior’s chest, standing up just as his body swelled to its full sixteen feet of height along with this weapons and armor.
“Wha … what the-” the Executioner fearfully stuttered as he backed away from the giant Töten with a look of horror on his face.
“Crunch time!” Töten snarled, stomping on the Human like he was crushing a tin can. Ignoring the explosion of blood that sprayed out from under his solid bronze boot, he tossed a terrified Apoxsee high into the air as the man screamingly begged “No … no … no!” while swinging his massive two-handed warhammer back over his shoulder like a bat. Timing the move perfectly, he struck the screaming Dread Pack Guild Leader in midair like a baseball, sending the man flying through the air in a shower of blood to plow into the advancing horde of mon
sters and PKers just as he started shrinking back down to regular size while yelling out, "and he's out of here."
Enlarge was a unique special ability that had been part of his base abilities from day one and was supposedly a gift from his Fire Giant heritage. Though the ability could only be used once a day, Töten had to admit that it was cool as hell since it currently doubled his size and all of his stats across the board, including his gear and armor. Supposedly, the effect would increase in its effect and length as he leveled up, but for now, it only doubled his size and was only three seconds long.
To his surprise, the rest of the raid didn’t even seem to flinch at the display of his awesomeness. You would’ve thought there would’ve been at least some hesitation in their desire to attack a high-level player such as himself after that, Töten thought, surprised in spite of himself as he bent down to loot the Executioner’s corpse.
At first, Töten thought that was because his health was so low, but as he turned around to run for the main gate not twenty yards away, it suddenly hit him. The thunderous drumming that had been ringing throughout the city of Darom and the fields beyond its walls had completely stopped. All that was left was the thrumming lute and piercing soprano that was somehow keeping the illusion of the city’s gate intact. Meaning, the demoralizing effect of the Drums of Despair was gone and the normal fearlessness of the newfar had returned with a vengeance.
Even with his head start, Töten barely made it through the illusion of the main gate ahead of the mass of PKers and the train of mobs that were still aggro’ing on him. His biggest fear was that one of these assholes would make him wipe out again. If that happened, there was no doubt in his mind that it would be game over. The only thing that saved him from being trampled to death by the Ridge-Spiked Boars or jumped upon by the handful of Poisonous Web Slingers that had survived was the illusion of the massive ironwood gates that he disappeared through.