Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds

by Wade Adrian

  Jesse shrugged. “Sorry.”

  Amos straightened his black cloth jacket as he approached. “As least you get armor. Medium gets lumped in with heavy, but light gets lumped in with cloth.” He shook his head. “This stuff doesn’t look like it will stop an insult. Or a stiff breeze.”

  Claire chuckled. “But it’s so fetching on you. Clearly you were meant to be a bard.”

  “You see? I felt that. Hit me right in the feels.”

  Toby rubbed at his chin. “I suggest we change the guild name to reflect our new status as a ninja clan.”

  “Yes, yes.” Paul was the last to approach, his helmet held under his arm. “Have we exhausted the complaining and mocking segment of the morning meeting? Good. We have some business to see to, followed by returning here to see what the crafters have accomplished for our attempt at the end game. Afraid we don’t have much time for whining.”

  Jesse held up a hand. “I have whining time written into my contract. I mean, it wasn’t official, but I did write it down as something I wanted.”

  Paul gave her a level stare. Her hand slowly fell back to her side. “Right, lets get moving.”

  The morning progressed without incident. They found an event when the clock was pushing eleven. A doomsday cult was erecting portals to allow demons to enter the world. They went a bit easy on the cultists, trying to avoid triggering a bigger problem. The demons were the second part of the event, and much tougher, at least compared to the pasty robed types.

  “Mitchel” had not been seen today. His account had not been logged in. His second in command was leading the Reserve Corps in the fighting here and coordinating their scouting efforts. He seemed like a stand up guy.

  Millers disappearance kept Paul on edge throughout the day. The more time went by without him appearing, the more convinced everyone seemed to be that he was planning something.

  Toby couldn’t really disagree… but he also had no idea what that might be. It didn’t change anything for him, though. He had a goal and he was going to see it through.

  He drove Soulbreaker into the chest of a charging demon. Paul bashed it upside the head with his shield, the gesture more than enough to get its attention. You’d think a gaping chest wound would be more worrying but apparently no, it wasn’t.

  The experience path laid out that morning had certainly done its job. They were level forty nine now. Forty nine and some. They were on the edge of being done with leveling which would change the dynamic some. Hunting level 50 events for gear instead of experience was the normal modus operandi and it was what most expected. The scouting crews were already looking for capped events.

  Apparently they were becoming common in places as the spawning of events followed the leveling curve, but no one had been touching capped events yet.

  And they would need those events. No one but Toby had a Soulbreaker, after all. They had armor from somewhat questionable means, but that hadn’t provided any weapons better than their own.

  Miller had said only Soulbreaker could hurt him, true, but the raid had a lot of things in it that weren’t Miller. They had to reach him and be in fighting form when they did.

  Claire was convinced they would have another night of peace, at least, and assail the raid sometime late tomorrow. Events were unpredictable. They had run into some solid luck finding as many as they had. The scouting crews deserved some serious kudos for taking on so much risk. That would be true even if it hadn’t paid off.

  Toby threw Soulbreaker at another demon as it left the nearest portal, garnering its full attention.

  “Come on ugly.” He help up his hand as Soulbreaker reappeared.

  The creature barreled toward him on its cloven hoof feet.

  Paul charged headlong knocking the demon aside before it reached Toby.

  “Heh.” Toby hefted the sword and rested it on his shoulder. “I’m not even sure this armor works. Can’t test it.”

  Paul wailed on the demon with his own sword. The creature burst into flame even as ice crawled over its skin. Jesse and Carol at work.

  Toby swung his sword throwing a red shock wave. The demon fell over dead.

  Paul’s eyes swung back to the portal. He seemed a man obsessed.

  Toby frowned a bit and glanced aside to Claire. She shrugged back at him as she held up her hand to heal Paul of a few superficial wounds.

  This was what they were about. Paul’s single minded behavior was beneficial… at least for now.

  As the event continued they closed all but one of the portals by attacking them directly. Each that disappeared made the remaining ones a bit larger until only one remained, easily two stories tall.

  The groups formed up as the lights and energy within the last portal shifted.

  Toby leaned aside to Claire. “So… what’s going to come out of there?”

  “Don’t know.” She shrugged. “A few options. Could be one big thing, or a group of what we’ve been killing, but stronger.”

  “Why would you make something where you don’t know what’s going to happen?”

  “So it’s fun? If we knew everything, we would get tired of the game. If you don’t care, it’s harder to work on it.”

  He pondered that… and just how many games he had started and never finished. “I guess that makes sense.”

  The energy in the portal swirled faster.

  A tiny impish creature popped out. It was less than two feet tall with long curling horns on top of its head and little bat wings protruding from its back. Its beady eyes surveyed the arrayed warriors and its pointed nose bounced around as it smelled the air.

  Another popped out of the portal, landing beside the first. The pair of them looked at each other and made a few screeching noises back and forth.

  They charged into the waiting army.

  Toby leveled his sword, but they were both pin cushioned with arrows long before he could swing.

  There were three more at the foot of the portal.

  “Oh.” Toby blinked a few times. “God damn it.”

  Another popped out of the portal, and another. And another. Countless little imps appeared faster and faster, the portal spitting them out in pairs, then groups, then a near constant stream.

  It was the skeletons all over again. Individually weak… but endless.

  Toby didn’t even bother to attack them as the swung to clear a path. If they died, great. If they didn’t, they were not in his way. He charged ahead trying to reach the portal.

  He wasn’t alone. Others were barreling toward the center, trying to fight back against the wave of imps.

  They didn’t have time for this, or any bodies to spare. They needed to field a raid group, which needed to be full if they had any chance at victory. If even one fell here… it would mean bringing on a ringer, someone they couldn’t count on.

  They were already going to be carrying Toby in there. They had discussed it, and it all made sense, but he hadn’t seen it for himself. He was going to need to learn and adapt… but at least he was in the same room. Any other ringers would be distant and even less reliable.

  He swung, throwing shock waves up high to strike the portal. It wobbled a bit, but there was no means of telling just how much damage it had sustained, or how much more it would take to break it.

  The tanks taunted and charged through the massed imps, knocking them down or away from attackers. Most DPS were focusing on the portal, which spoke well of them. There would always be more imps if the portal remained.

  AOE casters were trying to clear out imps, while more focused ones were wailing on the portal, too.

  The light show was bordering on headache inducing. So many imps getting hit, throwing off fire, ice, poison, and all kinds of colorful shining effects.

  He tried to ignore it all and focus on the portal. Its wobbling grew more intense the more people hit it. Toby took that as an indication of damage. It was all he had, really.

  Imps attacking and climbing onto him slowed his assault. He had to stop an
d knock them loose before he could swing again.

  Even with them hanging onto him and biting… they didn’t seem to be hurting him much. He felt better about investing points into the passive damage resistance. Their attacks seemed to be numerous but numerically weak, so most of it was ignored entirely.

  He briefly considered firing up Rage again. He should be able to tell which were people and which were imps just by the size… unless size had nothing to do with how Rage worked. Or if other enemies appeared from the portal while he couldn’t see them to react.

  No. He he kept on, forcing his way closer to the portal like a trout swimming upstream. His shock waves were weaker than his normal attacks and a hell of a lot weaker than a combo of normal attacks, even if shock wave counted for building combos. It seemed to be percentage based, so striking the thing with the sword would always be better.

  A bolt of lighting struck the ground a few feet before him sending imps flying and leaving a blackened circle on the ground. Toby covered his eyes and cursed like a sailor… but the thunder covered that.

  He looked back over his shoulder to see Jesse smiling and waving.

  Sigh. She thought she was helping. His eardrums would grow back. Or they wouldn’t. He wasn’t a doctor. He didn’t know.

  He crossed the empty and still smoldering space unopposed and laid into the portal with all his might. More imps poured out of it even as he swung, but he just kept chopping. With all the other blows from arrows, fireballs, colorful energy projectiles, icicles, electricity, and tons of other wacky things, the portal finally burst out of being.

  The stranded imps were no trouble to clean up.

  He sat on a broken stone pillar beside where the portal had stood.

  “A Doorway To Beyond: Rank 2 - Complete!” The pop up chimed a bit as it appeared. It offered him a magical ring. He was about to hit the accept button.

  “No one accept yet.” Paul’s voice echoed, and appeared on Toby’s screen as letters. Paul nodded to Toby. “You first.”

  “Uhh… kay?” He hit accept, the ring appearing and landing on his palm.

  He also leveled, sending out the standard lights and loud gong. His ears were still ringing from the lightning strike.

  Achievement unlocked! World First Level 50!

  Achievement unlocked! Level 50!

  Toby blinked at the message. No one had made it before them? Paul must have checked.

  “World First! Level 50, Tobin Ironblood!”

  “World First! Level 50 Barbarian, Tobin Ironblood!”

  The bright letters stood out across his screen.

  He was the first to hit 50. And goddamn everybody knew about it.

  “World First! Level 50 Paladin, Celan Doren!”

  “World First! Level 50 Cleric, Kelara Kirol!”

  “World First! Level 50 Ranger, Amos Yonal!”

  “World First! Level 50 Druid, Amallia Puppypaws!”

  Toby glanced aside at Jesse. “Wow.”

  She stuck her tongue out at him. “Woo, world first! Suck it other druids!”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “Classy.”

  “I am the classiest level 50 druid.”

  Claire almost argued, but no words left her mouth. After a moment she nodded. “You certainly are.”

  Nearly every class first was earned by members of their groups. There were certainly repeats amongst the other members of the guild who were helping out, as well as a few world firsts going to members of the Reserve Corps. Most just seemed happy to be at the cap.

  Paul nodded as he looked around. “And just like that, our army is shaping up.” He smiled. A bit of an odd thing for him. “You’d better keep on hiding, Miller.”

  26

  They broke up the rest of the camp and divided up some small bits of loot even as they were heading out. They made for Morblina, though they sent out scouts to look for capped events just in case.

  It seemed to take far longer than Toby expected. But then, his stomach was growling all the while.

  He kept getting random /tells from people. Congratulations. Insults. People accusing him of hacking or cheating… who were not entirely wrong. Soulbreaker was a hell of a thing, but it wasn’t really his fault, either.

  He tried to ignore them. There wasn’t any way he could reply to them all anyway. Besides, his name was well know, where had all these people been before?

  Probably leveling. They had been progressing at a ridiculous pace, at least for this game. Everyone else was levels behind, even if they had been working their butts off.

  The text flew by in the bottom left corner of his vision. Just a purple blur. It was mildly distracting.

  The town was in full swing when they arrived. People were running errands every which way. Toby had to hop out of the way of a wagon.

  Paul nodded. “Guess they heard.”

  “How could they not?” Toby shook his head at the fleeing wagon. “The game told the whole server.”

  Jesse tilted her head. “ ‘Server’ is kinda the wrong word. We only have one realm. So, it told everybody who has an active account that was online, regardless of where they are. Because mega-server.”

  Claire rolled her eyes. “That is such a silly term.”

  “But it’s accurate. It’s a bunch of servers working together Voltron style. Or like Captain Planet, if you prefer.”

  So, it was only everyone that knew. No wonder the text box kept humming. “I don’t think I prefer that, no. Not unless I’m the fire guy in this analogy.”

  “Pfft.” Jesse snapped and a small burst of fire climbed from her fingers. “Hardly.”

  “Yeah, but you’re all the elements. I don’t think anyone had the hit-it-with-a-sword element.”

  Paul shook his head. “You people are crazy. Half the time I swear you’re making all this crap up.”

  “Have you seen Krull?” Jesse smiled. “I saw Krull last night. I missed the first bit, so I understood like maybe a third of it? It was still glorious.”

  “Of course I’ve seen Krull.” Paul scoffed. “It’s a classic.”

  “Really? Huh.” Jesse tilted her head. “I need to watch more classics.”

  Claire elbowed Toby. She was smiling when he looked over. “I think we created a monster.”

  “You picked Krull. I blame you.”

  Jesse had matched her pace to walk beside Paul. “Can we make one of those spiky throwing things?”

  “It’s called the glaive. Though… it’s not much like a glaive at all, really.”

  “Cool.” She nodded. “Can we make one?”

  He shook his head. “In addition to being incredibly impractical, we don’t have much in the way of thrown weapons, and they’re all short range.”

  She pouted for a moment. “What about the one Xena has?”

  “Just as impractical. Same problems.”

  Amos shrugged. “Except that chakrams, which is what that was, were a real thing in India.”

  “Really?” Paul raised his chin. “Huh. Still thinking ‘no,’ I’m afraid.”

  Jesse sighed. “That sucks. I want to throw stuff.”

  “You throw fire.”

  “That’s not the same.” She threw up her hands.

  Paul opened the door to the church. “Maybe someone will throw things in an expansion, or something.” The party crossed into the church and Paul let the door shut behind him.

  “We have the first expansion plotted out. Nobody throws stuff.”

  “I must admit, I didn’t think you’d planned that far ahead.” The small bearded form that Miller had worn before was standing at the far side of the room. “But I’ve seen some of the groundwork for myself.”

  Paul and Toby where the first to draw their weapons but the others followed suit.

  Miller didn’t wear his Mitchel disguise, so he had some other agenda.

  He turned casually. “My my, so hostile.”

  The party moved to their common offensive positions. Paul was in front, shield held high. Toby was be
hind and to his left, Claire behind and to his right. Jesse, Amos, and Carol were arrayed further back, prepared to make use of their range.

  Miller’s eyes played over the group. “Oh, poor Tim.” He shook his head. “But I knew there would be consequences when I set all this in motion.”

  Paul sneered. “What do you want? Go hide on your mountain, we’ll be along shortly to stab you.”

  “That’s what passes for diplomacy around here? What happened to parlay?”

  The words left Toby’s mouth before the thought had even crossed his brain. “The code is more like guidelines than actual rules.”

  Miller’s eyes shifted to Toby. “Your tenacity is inspiring, kid. Unfortunately, it’s also problematic.” He sat on the large chair put in place for Toby. “You see, you weren’t supposed to make it this far. Certainly not so swiftly.”

  Paul scoffed. “Did what you asked, you’re complaining that we did it too well?”

  “Something like that.” Miller shrugged. “I asked for an empire, and that you do not have. There are several guilds just as large and a few with more control of the world. In that regard, you’re a disappointment.”

  “I don’t care. We’re going to take on your raid whether you’re happy about it nor not. And we’re going to win.”

  “Bravado, I like it.” Miller smiled. “And you might beat me, sure. But what happens to the rest of the world while you do?”

  “What?” Paul narrowed his eyes.

  “I want an empire. Not a raid group. What happens in the raid is really just the public face of what I have set up. As soon as you cross through the door events will trigger the world over. I’ve perfected creating them wherever I wish. And I can tailor them to my whims.” He wiggled his fingers. “How do you think people will react when dying doesn’t just lock them out for a few days, but deletes their characters? Including all those that already died.”

  Paul ground his teeth.

  “I’m thinking the PR nightmares might be problematic. It might not end the game, you can claim a server fuck up or something, but the people asking for refunds are sure to put your corporate backers into a foul mood. And let’s be honest here, they’re not reasonable enough to wait for an explanation.” He hopped up and started pacing in front of the chair. “They start pulling their money out, and suddenly you’re in a real bind. Reviewers are upset that this event screwed up the time they needed to get their work done, so you get shitty reviews. Players are understandably upset, so they concur. You won’t stay afloat long after that. A few months, tops.”