“I’m guessing because he didn’t want us to know he had them,” Constantine said. “Though I’m pretty sure he’ll figure out we know when he finds the handful we killed, plus hopefully the one Amaranth got.”
“Hopefully,” Helix agreed in a gravelly voice.
The four of us stood silently for a moment as we collected our thoughts, hearing the rest of the guild chatting nervously nearby. Many of them had known little of Carver’s reputation and what he had done to the first group of Adventurers that had come to Aldford under Graves. Though judging from the general tone of some of the conversations I overheard, I was confident that they would all be brought up to speed very quickly.
“Fuck. As if this day wasn’t bad enough already,” I growled, turning my attention away from the guild members, feeling yet another thing land on top of my shoulders as I considered our next steps. It hadn’t been enough to have the threat of the ruptured Ley Line and Eberian spies on my plate, but now I had to deal with potential Orcs living in the region.
Led by Carver of all people.
“No kidding,” Constantine replied, sensing my thoughts with a grim nod. “When it rains, it pours.”
“We need to get back to the others,” I said, turning my head briefly as Lazarus walked into view, breaking away from the other group of guild members and approaching us. “The battle was too close to call when I died, but the others have to still be alive, no one else has respawned here after me.”
“It’ll take us a while to get there,” Helix said cautiously, shifting to the side as Lazarus wordlessly fell into the group. “By the time we get there…what could we do?”
“We can take the horses,” I countered shaking my head at the lizardman. “They may not all be bred for riding, but they’ll be a hell of a lot faster than going on foot. I’m sure the new settlers will understand the need and let us borrow them.”
“Hmm,” Helix paused for a moment, considering what I had just said, then bobbed his head in agreement. “That would work. We could be there in a couple of hours, depending how fast the horses move.”
“We’ll be too late to affect the battle,” I said, glancing at everyone in the circle. “But if we move fast, we might be able to save the wagon, or drive off Carver’s forces if they’re harassing the survivors.”
“If nothing else it’ll make us feel better than sitting here and waiting,” Sierra added in a small voice. “And give us the chance to pick up our Soul Fragments where we died, at least before we lose too much more experience.”
“Then that sounds like a plan,” I finished, turning my head towards Lazarus and acknowledging the man, who wasted no time in speaking.
“We want to help,” he stated simply. “What can we do?”
The half-giant’s expression was completely serious as he waited for my answer, leaving me in no doubt that the offer was genuine. I motioned with my head in the direction of the pasture that we had set up on the outskirts of Aldford.
“You can saddle up with us.”
W
Finally! I breathed with silent relief as we galloped across the plains over an hour later. The cloud of apathy and depression that was Death Sickness releasing its hold on me and allowing my mind to function clearly once more. I had experienced the effects of the death penalty a handful of times over the last month and was more than used to it.
At least as much as a person can be, I added dryly to myself. Dying was rarely a non-violent experience in Ascend Online after all.
The trick that I had found to avoid dwelling on the effects of the sickness was to keep moving and to prevent it from gaining hold on your psyche. The longer that one sat contemplating one’s death, the more it tended to dig in and re-enforce itself, eventually leaving you with the desire to crawl into a corner and fall asleep, which often resulted in at least eight straight hours of sleep. Regardless of how rested you were before your death.
But now that the death sickness had let go of me, I was no longer in danger of spiraling into a depression, and I allowed myself to relax fractionally as I considered what was ahead of us. Thus far, even an hour after we had left Aldford on our horses, no one else had died from the battle with Carver. We had told everyone in the guild to keep careful track of their Party Sense as we travelled and to shout an alert if anyone happened to respawn in the direction of Aldford.
So far so good, I thought, checking on my own Party Sense once more and noting that Halcyon and Caius were still ahead of me, and from what I could tell, together, something that I considered to be a very good thing. The last I had seen of Halcyon was him riding on top of the wagon as both he and Thorne barreled through Carver’s raiders and out onto the plains. If he and Caius had managed to regroup, then it meant that they were able to fight their way out of the forest and were already hopefully heading towards us.
Speaking of heading towards us, I thought with a start as I realized that I now sensed Amaranth with much clearer detail, and that he was rushing towards me with impressive speed. We weren’t close enough just yet for our mental communication, but at the speeds that we were both travelling, that would change in minutes.
“Amaranth is closing in on us,” I called out to the group, not wanting to startle anyone when an azure furred puma sprinted out of the tall grasses that covered the plains. The last thing we needed was a friendly fire incident with someone taking a shot at my familiar.
I paused for a moment, taken back by Amaranth’s concern and how quickly he had spoken. I had never heard such worry coming from my familiar before and I couldn’t help but feel shaken at what he had told me. I held up a hand and signaled for everyone to stop as I mentally comprised my reply.
Amaranth told me with frustration.
Amaranth didn’t reply for a few moments, causing me to worry that something had happened to him, but just as I was about to send another message his way. I noticed the grass part far ahead of me from on top of my horse, followed by glimpses of an azure colored streak heading towards us. Dismounting from my horse, my feet barely had hit the ground before Amaranth erupted from the grass, his fur covered in blood and panting heavily.
He wasted no time in crossing the distance between us, moving to lean his body heavily onto mine, relief shuddering through his body the moment that we made contact as the compulsion that had been driving him released its hold on his mind. I paused for a moment to run my hands through his fur, silently noting that all of his wounds had since regenerated from the battle, despite there still being missing patches that would take longer to regrow.
“Good,” I replied, hearing other horses approach behind me as the rest of the party closed around me.
“Any news?” Sierra asked as she pulled up on the other side of Amaranth, leaning down from her horse to offer the cat a hand to touch.
“Nothing, unfortunately,” I answered, watching Amaranth reach up to rub his face on Sierra’s outstretched hand in greeting. “He left to rejoin me the moment that I died. He didn’t see the rest of the battle.”
“Then we should keep moving,” Constantine said from behind me, prompting a nod from me and a croak of acknowledgment from Amaranth, who had since managed to regain his breath.
“Yeah,” I agreed as I climbed back onto my horse and looked back down at my familiar. “Are you okay to keep going?”
“Then let’s get back at it,” I said with a smile, spurring my horse to continue the journey back towards the rest of the guild.
The next hour and a half passed with almost blinding speed as we closed in on the surviving guild members, the wagon becoming visible on the darkening horizon long before we got close enough to see the individual people following beside it. It seemed that they had managed to get away from Carver and his group intact and based on what we could tell, weren’t being actively pursued.
Though given that Carver knew exactly where Aldford was, I didn’t consider that to be a clear sign that today’s conflict was over or that it had been the last we’d seen of him. From what I could tell as we rode closer to the wagon, the first round ended in somewhat of a draw, the both of us having suffered a bloody enough nose that neither of us could claim any sort of victory.
“Hey!” Freya’s voice was the first to greet us as we entered earshot, a waving hand signaling us from Thorne’s side at the head of the wagon.
We all split up as we formally rejoined the party, the mounted members of the guild taking up position around the wagon. Party Sense had helped make it clear who we were as we approached and prevented any unpleasant accidents from occurring, but despite the fact that we were up to full strength, I could tell that everyone was on edge from the way they glanced around us, searching the plains for any sign of movement.
“We came as soon as we were able to get ourselves sorted,” I said in greeting as I brought my horse alongside the front of the wagon to where Freya, Thorne, Halcyon, and Caius, were sitting. No sooner did I pull up close, did I see all of their eyes widen as they noticed the changes in my appearance.
“It’s okay,” I said, preempting their questions with a reassuring smile that I didn’t quite feel and pushed onwards, hoping to keep the conversation off myself. “What happened with the rest of the battle after…I, uh, went down? Is Carver following you at all?”
“Doesn’t seem like it,” Freya replied after a moment, not quite believing my statement, the concern remaining on her face. “As for the battle…”
“It was a mess,” Caius said, picking up as Freya trailed off. “They had the numbers, but we were better geared and trained as a whole. It was a stalemate for the longest time…at least until you did…whatever you did to Carver…”
“What did you do, Lyrian?” Freya asked, finding her voice as she continued to look at me with concern. “I never saw you fight anything like that before.”
“During the fight, Carver’s wolf managed to drain all of my mana,” I said simply, before going on to explain what I remembered after I had lost control of my body, taking pains to downplay just how all-consuming the hunger had been. “…and then, I resurrected back in Aldford, badly shaken, and a little bit more warped.”
“Damn,” Halcyon commented, shaking his head from side to side. “That’s brutal Lyr.”
“It’s not something I hope ever to repeat,” I admitted, turning my attention to Freya. “If I remember right…I think I may have hit you during the fight, I’m sorry—”
“Shoved would be more accurate, and don’t worry about it, really; I know it wasn’t you,” Freya replied with a shrug. “What you did to Carver though…how much of it do you remember?”
“Next to nothing to be honest,” I said, feeling a sense of relief that she understood what had happened to me. “What happened exactly?”
“You broke his shield,” Freya told me with a shake of her head. “Cracked it nearly in half.”
“I did?” I looked at her with confusion. “I don’t remember doing that at all.”
“What about when you tore his arm apart?” Freya asked with a raised eyebrow. “Or brushed his spells off completely?”
I blinked at her and shook my head in negation, “None of that matches up to what I remember at all.”
“It happened, Lyr,” Caius said softly. “I didn’t see the shield bit, but I definitely saw Carver run off with a mangled arm.”
“Huh,” I grunted before falling silent to reconsider what had happened during the fight from my perspective. Digging through my memories, I couldn’t pinpoint a time where a spell might have landed on me, though I did vaguely remember my hand clawing something soft at one point. “What about Carver’s retreat? What happened there?”
“Not much to say,” Freya shrugged while letting out a deep breath. “After what you did, Carver was too wounded to continue fighting and was desperately trying to disengage when you…fell. He started calling for a general retreat afterward, and we just let him go. We were in no shape to pursue.”
“After that, we gathered everyone still alive and pulled out of the forest,” Freya continued nodding her head towards Thorne and Halcyon. “Eventually we linked up with these guys, and started making our way back to Aldford as fast as we could.”
“God, what a shitty day,” I said with resignation as I looked back at the large chunks of metal still on the bed of the wagon. “At least we didn’t lose the metal.”
“Small victories,” Thorne commented. “Right?”
“Right,” I agreed with a heavy sigh. “But our day isn’t done yet. A handful of us still need to go back and collect our Soul Fragments. There’s no way we can afford to eat a twenty percent experience loss. Not knowing that Carver and his group are out here.”
“Soul Fragments?” Caius asked, voicing the question on everyone’s face as they turned sharply to look at me. “You don’t lose a fragment of your soul if you die to players. You I can understand, but the others?”
“The fireballs that landed in the middle of us weren’t cast by players,” I told the group in a heavy tone. “Constantine and Sierra told me they were cast by Orcs, specifically ones that were working with Carver.”
“Orcs?” Freya repeated with a surprised expression on her face. “Then that means…”
“Yeah,” I confirmed with a nod, my eyes shifting between everyone.
“We’re not as alone out here as we thought.”
Chapter 28
Tuesday, March 19th, 2047 - 1:57 pm
The Northern Plains
“They’re riding out to meet us!” Bax called back to me from the point of our formation as he motioned for us to slow our horses to a walk. “Er, well, walking out to meet us at any rate.”
“That makes things easier,” Natasha commented happily from Bax’s side, the elven woman not having strayed far from it in the last few weeks. “We should probably slow down not to look threatening though.”
“Good idea,” I said distractedly, staring off into the distance where a trio of roughly made buildings stood in an area recently cleared of trees, barely able to focus my eyes on them. I was so tired that it was all I could do to keep myself steady on my horse, let alone fully be aware of my surroundings.
The days since the surprise attack had done much to contribute to my level of exhaustion. The revelation that Carver was still out in the region hadn’t gone well once we had all managed to return to Aldford and word got out about his ambush. There were too
many Adventurers that had a firsthand experience of Carver and wasted no time in painting the man as an unhinged sociopath, endlessly recounting their journey to Aldford as Graves’ prisoners to anyone who would listen.
Which eventually escalated after several of them shared their own personal feed of Carver’s antics.
As such, there was what could only be described as a knee-jerk reaction as the majority of the Adventurers practically demanded that we shift our focus from residential building to finishing the palisade surrounding Aldford. Carver on his own had been bad enough to unsettle everyone, but with the Bandit Adventurers under his command, and the potential alliance with at least one Orc Tribe, everyone was convinced that a defensive posture was a new priority.
Intellectually, I didn’t disagree with them.
Practically, on the other hand, it meant that all of that new construction had to fall on my shoulders. Léandre still hadn’t come back from his treatment, and at this point, we weren’t sure if he ever would. Drace was consumed with the dig into the Nafarrian ruins, which was progressing at a slow if steady pace. Then lastly, Jenkins was far too busy catering to the new settlers, providing them with tools, equipment, and the countless other things that they would need to begin taming the land around Aldford. There was simply no one else to take over the construction efforts full time, or at least anyone else who had as much crafting experience as I did.
Needless to say, I hadn’t been getting much sleep or downtime over the last few days.
“Lyr!” Constantine’s sharp voice startled me and caused my eyes to snap open, making me wonder when I had even closed them.
Blinking furiously, I looked towards my friend and realized that he was holding my horse’s reins in his hands and was in the process of getting my horse to stop, while Sierra on the other side of me had reached out to grab hold of my collar to keep me from falling straight out of my saddle.
Legacy of the Fallen Page 35