by James Hunter
But it felt right to shout.
“Bombardment run,” I yelled, “but focus on the spellcasters.” I paused, turning my gaze on Squad B, which was circling high above on the left. “When the mages put up their shields, sweep in low from the back and hit ’em hard while they’re defenseless. Once they’re down, take out the clerics and archers in that order.” A deafening caw, part eagle part buzz saw, ripped at the air as the guardians acknowledged my command. Then, they were diving. The ten members of Squad A swooped down in a wave, spreading out in a staggered line.
“Incoming!” an Imperial Huntress in dark leathers screamed as Squad A dropped their boulders toward the most densely populated pockets of people, letting gravity do the heavy lifting. A few panicked Imperials scurried about, raising shields in a pitiful attempt to defend themselves, but most just stood there smug and cocksure. They had reason to be: domes of flickering blue light erupted in the air as the squad of support mages raised hands skyward, all chanting in unison as they channeled their power into a massive defensive barrier of pure spirit.
The gigantic AOE spell was completely badass, but it only protected the Imperials from aerial bombardment, and the mages themselves would be defenseless while casting it. I grinned and waved a hand at Squad B—time to move. Ten more Griffins wheeled around behind the AOE shield and dived on cue, streaking toward the earth like living lightning. They hit the dirt at a sprint, their powerful feline legs eating up ground in a blink as they closed on the mages. The Imperials were quick—a group of archers turned and peppered the monstrous guardians with acid-tipped arrows.
They weren’t quick enough, though.
Squad B slammed into the vulnerable mages—their hands still upraised as they chanted—from behind. Cruel, hooked beaks tore out throats while razor-sharp talons shredded through flimsy cloth robes. The blue dome above flickered, guttered, and died as the mages fell, and just like that, in a snap, hell broke loose on the field. The remaining Griffins dropped from the sky, meeting the ground troops head-on. Shouts and screams filled the air, interrupted by the clang of steel on stone and the snap of bowstrings. The Griffins were badly outnumbered, at least three to one, but they fought fearlessly and ruthlessly.
To them, death was a minor inconvenience. They weren’t NPCs, not really. They’d respawn in eight hours, good as new with none of the unfortunate side effects players suffered after dying.
The crash of drums—whomp-whomp-whomp-whomp—rolled down from the walls, almost deafening even over the din of battle. There was no in-game comm-link for players, and PMing everyone just wasn’t practical, so Otto had suggested the drums as a way of passing orders during battle.
“Spider-riders!” someone shouted in panic.
I glanced back in time to see a wave of furry legs and bloated bodies pour over the top of the wall, carrying a contingent of mounted Alliance members: Battle-Wardens, Firebrands, Ice-Lancers, Shadow Knights, Marauders, Cutthroats—players of every class and racial affinity—all bound to spider mounts. The creatures rappelled down on thick strands of gray, gossamer webbing before scuttling into the fray. A chaotic hail of arrows flew in both directions, claiming fighters on each side … Fire and ice cut through the air, scorching flesh or impaling enemy bodies … The clash of steel rang out as hard-hitting melee warriors dismounted and sprinted into battle …
The enemy catapults were still up and operational, but I had complete confidence Xiu would get the javelins up and working. With everything else in motion, the only thing left to do now was head down and try to grind out some extra EXP. The constant raids—two a day, every day, regular as clockwork, for the last five days—were supremely annoying, but at least they were perfect for grinding. Since the battle for Rowanheath, I’d picked up three additional levels, putting me at level 32, which was phenomenal progress considering how many experience points I now needed to advance.
Let’s do this, I thought at Devil. Drop me toward the rear, then do what you can to take out the siege engines.
Siege engines don’t bleed, the Drake replied stoically. Our telepathic bond had grown considerably since our fight against Carrera. I want blood, I want to eat, Devil continued after a second.
I hesitated for a moment, unsure what to say. You can mop up, I finally sent, feeling a mild wave of revulsion at the words. Devil was a great mount and a terrifying battle minion, but he wasn’t human. Not at all. Not even close. A fact I was becoming more aware of each day. He was an animal, a predator to his core, and he rarely cared about morality or pain. I looked down at the field and saw people—real people, even if they currently wanted to kill me—who would experience the trauma of being torn apart by Devil’s barbed teeth and rending claws.
All Devil saw was meat.
Once we’re done, you can eat whatever’s left, but work first, I said.
Done, he replied, corkscrewing in an instant.
The world flipped, the ground now forty feet above as my head dangled down. With a gulp, I unhooked my feet from the leather stirrups and let go of the reins. My stomach fluttered as I slipped from the saddle and dropped toward the ground like an insane skydiver who’d forgotten to strap on a parachute. Wind whipped at me, arrows streaked by in flashes, and the whole while the ground rushed up to meet me. I took a few deep calming breaths and triggered Shadow Stride ten feet from the earth. The world lurched to a halt as the Shadowverse exploded around me in all of its monochromatic, blurred-edged glory.
I turned my body into the fall, flipping head over heels, and landed on my back with a thud and a groan.
Dull pain radiated through my body, throbbing in time with my heart, but my life bar didn’t drop even a fraction of a percent. A fall like that should’ve killed me outright, or at least broken every bone in my body, but I couldn’t sustain damage while inside the Shadowverse—even natural damage from, say, a really high fall. A happy little loophole I’d discovered a few days back after some Imperial Ice-Lancer blasted me out of the air. Sort of a magic parachute, though I needed to work on that landing. Flopping flat on my back still hurt, even if it didn’t damage me.
With a grunt, I scampered to my feet—the whole world frozen around me—and found a target: a Wode Berserker with beef-slab shoulders, preparing to split one of my Murk Elf warriors in two with a gleaming sword. Maybe I couldn’t save everyone, but I could certainly help the Murky, whose eyes were frozen in terrible resignation that he was about to die a very painful death. I dropped into a crouch and lined up my shot, taking a few practice swings with my warhammer before stepping back into reality. Time crashed back down like a wave as everyone jerked back into motion.
The Wode let out a bellow as he lunged forward, but my hammer was already in motion.
I triggered my Crush Armor ability as the strike landed; the attack cost me 100 Stamina but added 250% attack bonus against opponents in heavy plate armor. Opponents just like the Wode Berserker in front of me. Between Crush Armor and my Stealth Attack bonus, the poor sucker didn’t stand a chance. The spiked heel of my warhammer slammed through the steel gorget protecting his neck and sank directly into the vulnerable flesh beneath. The warrior dropped his sword in shock, staggering to one side from the force of the blow, gauntleted hands flying to his ruined throat, now slick with crimson blood.
His health bar flashed an angry red—critical zone—but a final Umbra Bolt to the head sent him for respawn, though his body, bloody and ruined, remained behind. I wriggled my warhammer free, offered the downed Murk Elf a helping hand up, then spun and darted back into the heat of the battle. The siege weapons were still operational—though Devil was currently roasting one with a thick column of purple flame—but between the Griffins and the spider-riders, Imperials were falling by the bucket-loads, unable to coordinate a counterassault.
Off to the right, a group of Black Legion members were staging one last stand: a ring of ten armored warriors with heavy shields stood back to back, fighting off folks in every direction, while a pair of gore-spattered cleri
cs stood in the center, healing the most grievous wounds and casting buff after buff on the fighters. In theory, their strategy was great, but it also left them open to a devastating AOE spell—like my Plague Burst ability. I threw my left hand forward, conjuring Umbra Bog. The green grass beneath the entrenched ring of fighters exploded in a pool of thick prehistoric tar; writhing tendrils of inky black lashed out, wrapping themselves around feet and legs, arms and torsos, rooting the enemy warriors in place.
Making sure they couldn’t run.
“Burst, burst, burst!” I called out at the top of my lungs as my left hand whipped through the air in a complex series of gestures: flick, twirl, snap, fingers splayed out, hand curling into a fist as raw power trickled into my palm. My warning call carried in the air, repeated over and over again by retreating Alliance members eager to clear the zone.
Plague Burst didn’t discriminate between friends and foes.
A rancid yellow fog—thick, billowing, and positively toxic—bled from the air, swirling around the invaders, clawing ferociously at any exposed flesh, and digging into open mouths and nostrils. The trapped warriors fought against the dark tendrils of Umbra power rooting them in place, desperate to get away, but their struggle was fruitless. Many dropped to their knees, hands wrapped around throats as they gasped like fish stranded on land. The cloud dissipated a few seconds later, the area now safe, though my Spirit meter continued to plummet as the lingering Plague debuff chewed through enemy hit points.
I smiled, a cold vicious thing. I’d seen some spectacularly cool class kits in VGO—some rarer and more powerful than my own, like Vlad’s Alchemic Weaponeer Kit—but I still thought the Shadowmancer was about as wicked as they came.
The Alliance members, retreating a moment before, reversed course, charging the dying Black Legion troops with weapons raised, screaming defiant war cries the whole time. I sprinted forward, happy to join them, unleashing Umbra Bolt after Umbra Bolt as I ran, raising my warhammer in preparation for battle—
A thunderclap split the air as a wave of terrible heat and gale-force wind blasted me from my feet, scorching my armor and knocking a fifth of my HP off in a single go. I flipped ass over teakettle and landed on my side with a thud, my body aching, my skin raw and tender like I’d been flash-fried. Holy crap, what the heck was that? I coughed and blinked sporadically against a purple afterimage temporarily burned into my vision, before slowly sliding up onto my elbows. I froze—half of the siege weapons were gone. All that remained was smoldering timbers, twisted, red hot metal, and piles of gray ash.
And the warriors manning the contraptions?
There was no sign of them at all. Even their corpses had been eradicated, wiped away like a smudge on the mirror.
For a long beat, the battlefield was as silent as a graveyard, interrupted only by the whistle of the steady breeze blowing across the grass and the crackle of burning timbers. Then a cheer went up from the wall, hoots and hollers oddly out of place against the backdrop of carnage. “Fire,” Xiu yelled, his clipped Chinese accent easy to identify. I watched, dumbstruck, as a pair of ballistae bolts streaked toward the remaining siege engines. These new bolts, which had to be Vlad’s javelins, didn’t look all that different from the old bolts: basically giant wooden arrows, though these sported blunt silver tips carved with intricate runes that burned with golden fire.
The few Imperials manning the remaining mangonel---s abandoned the wooden contraptions without a thought, sprinting for the hills as fast as their legs would carry them.
They didn’t make it far.
The javelins landed with the force of a bomb blast; a cloud of dirty golden fire mushroomed into the air accompanied by a plume of black smoke climbing lazily into the sky. A blast wave rippled out from the detonation site, hurling debris and tongues of flame in every direction. The fleeing Imperials were roasted alive, their screams barely audible over the clamor of the blast. This time, I conjured a protective dome of twisting purple light, saving myself from the assailing wind and relentless heat.
I stared at the devastation through squinted eyes. I guess the javelins worked.
With a groan, I gained my feet and took a quick survey of the battlefield. The siege engines were gone, destroyed beyond recovery, and most of the Imperials were either dead or severely wounded. Devil, thankfully, had retreated from the siege weapons and was busy snacking near the base of Rowanheath’s formidable wall. I sighed, blew my cheeks out, and rubbed the heels of my palms into my eyes. I needed a bite to eat and a break. Needed it badly. I whistled to Devil, who glanced up at me with annoyance etched into the lines of his scaly, terrifying face.
He had part of a Risi’s arm dangling from his lips like a spaghetti noodle.
Time to get back to the Keep.
He grunted noncommittally at me, smoke trailing up from his nostrils in displeasure, then finished off the dangling arm with a disgusting chomp. He swept his massive head around the field as he ambled toward me, pausing now and then to take another bite here or there, before finally allowing me to clamber up into my saddle. He gave one last reproachful look at the body-strewn wasteland, a forlorn growl building in his chest, then broke into a quick trot, building up speed as his wings pumped, generating huge gusts of air which flattened blood-coated grass. After a few thrusts, we were airborne, rocketing into the sky.
“Good work, Xiu,” I shouted down at the commander, shooting him a thumbs-up as Devil and I streaked by, bound for the Mystica Ordo and a one-way port skip back to Yunnam.
TWO: Set Course
The sun was dipping below the tree line, painting the sky with fat fingers of pink and gold, when I finally ported into Darkshard Keep. I pressed a hand to my gut as a grumble of hunger burbled up and out, reminding me that my last meal had been a spit of roasted rat well before noon. All I wanted was a mug of ale, a heaping plate full of something hot—it didn’t even matter what—and an opportunity to relax for a few hours. Fat chance of that happening, though. Despite a long, tiring day on the wall and winning yet another skirmish against the Imperials, my work was far from done.
Heck, these days, my work was never really done. I had a faction to run, which meant reports to file, briefs to hear, decisions to make, fires—both metaphorical and often literal—to extinguish.
I sighed as I threaded my way through the crowds near the stone port pad, all waiting to head from the Darkshard Keep into Yunnam proper. I kept my head down and my hood up since there’d be less of a chance of someone spotting me; at this point, any moment to myself was something to cherish. The Keep grounds had changed a lot over the past week. The rubble formerly littering the area was completely gone, the foliage—assorted trees, vines, and hedges—had been painstakingly trimmed back, and a host of exotic swamp flowers and shrubs had been sculpted into pristine gardens by a handful of hardworking groundskeepers.
I ambled past the barracks—a boxy, three-story stone monstrosity with terraces running along each floor. My gaze momentarily lingered on a group of squealing children racing over green grass in a frantic game of tag. One boy, little more than a toddler, clapped frantically as he ran in circles while an overgrown Dread Hound—two hundred pounds of black fur, yellowed fangs, and hellfire eyes—chased along, its great tongue lolling out in what amounted to a doggy smile. Another kid, a little Dawn Elf girl with pigtails, leaped over one of her friends, a Risi boy of maybe twelve, before turning a cartwheel and streaking off to one of the manicured gardens.
I glanced up.
A knot of adults watched on from the terraces above, leaning against the stone railing, smiling. I grinned too, my sour attitude improving just a hair. There was a surprisingly high number of children who’d made the transition, and even more surprisingly, the game had spawned custom children NPC companions for each of them. I wasn’t sure what would happen to them—would they grow or would they be kids for all eternity?—but for now, it made me happy to see them. Kids, running around in the green grass, carefree despite the fact that the worl
d had ended a week and a half ago.
Maybe there was some hope.
I dropped my head and trudged into one of the shanty towns, weaving past the sprawl of bulky leather tents and through the graceful archway connecting to the Keep’s inner courtyard. The Keep’s courtyard—a giant slab of ancient, weathered stone—sat empty, but several of our new training areas were bustling with activity: Men and women scuttled along narrow beams or climbed swaying cargo nets on the new Agility Course. Meanwhile, the clash of steel, followed by cheers and jeers from onlookers, rose up from the Melee Combat Arena off to the right.
I ignored them all and beelined toward the weather-beaten steps leading from the courtyard into the Keep. The Darkshard Keep stood in stark contrast to the castle looming high above Rowanheath, carved into the cliffs above the city. Instead of hard lines, gray stone, and high walls built for war, Darkshard looked like a Buddhist Temple plucked out of a bygone era. The place was all rounded edges, flowing curves, elegant spires, and artfully carved stonework depicting fantastical beasts and epic battles from long, long ago.
Once I’d made it up the stairs and through a pair of double doors big enough to admit a herd of wild elephants, I pulled up my user screen and scrolled over to the Keep’s interface. I could do all kinds of things from there—summon guards, oversee the Keep’s defenses, upgrade structures—but what I really wanted was the internal port feature, which we’d added as soon as we had the points. The Keep itself was a sprawling place with rooms upon rooms to explore or get lost in, and the Command Center sat at the tip-top of the highest turret on the premises.
The view was to die for, but the climb up the stairs might actually kill.
“Command Center,” I muttered, pressing my eyes shut as I activated the Keep’s teleporter. The world shivered, shuddered, shifted, and suddenly the clamor of voices washed over me as the floor reeled below my unsteady feet. I wobbled for a moment, pressing a hand against my queasy stomach as I waited for the surge of vertigo to pass, then cracked my eyes open. The sprawling entryway was gone, and the octagonal Command Center sat before me. Flickering firelight, from both the stone fireplace at the far end of the room and an elaborate chandelier hanging from the vaulted ceiling, filled the room with a warm glow.