Shattered Lands 2 The Fall Of Blackstone: A LitRPG Series

by Darren Pillsbury

He found the subdirectory he was looking for, opened the prompt, and typed in ERIC IS HERE.

  It wasn’t fancy because his role wasn’t fancy. All he had to do was send up a flare, so to speak, and the Unnamed One was supposed to find him.

  Which it did immediately.

  One word appeared on the screen:

  PROCEED.

  130

  Daniel

  A frontal assault on the steps would be brutal, though. The archers had switched their attention to the enemy inside the gates, and outright killed the first couple of hundred men who tried to rush their position high atop the wall.

  Daniel looked around the corner into the archway. The dead blue-caped guards – and the bronze shields some of them had been carrying – were lying on the ground.

  Daniel gestured his friends inside and they all grabbed shields. Then they headed back outside.

  The continuous rain of arrows sent the foot soldiers into a mad scramble. Some raced down the main street, but others took off to the sides for the Courtyard of Mercenaries or the soldier’s barracks.

  “ANYBODY WITH SHIELDS OR FULL ARMOR, FOLLOW ME ONTO THE WALLS!” Daniel roared as he headed for the nearest set of steps.

  At least a hundred men followed them up onto the steps, including the knights from the original mission.

  Daniel had it easy – his armor protected 95 percent of his body, so all he had to do was protect the view slit in his helmet and Siffis on his shoulder. Vlisil was basically covered by his shield, but poor Lotan and especially Drogar were bigger targets. Drogar got hit twice as they rushed up, once in the thigh and another in the arm. He just roared in anger and pain, but he was big and strong enough that he could absorb the punishment and keep going.

  Lotan wasn’t so lucky.

  Halfway up the steps, an arrow hit him between the shoulder blades.

  Daniel turned back as soon as he heard his cry of agony. “Lotan!”

  “Keep going, keep going!” the droth cried out as he crumpled to the steps and waved others past him. “We’ve got to stop Eric!”

  Daniel nodded and forged on.

  Suddenly the dragon passed over them a hundred feet overhead, big as a jumbo jet. Daniel’s heart rose in this throat – he could imagine what the beast might do if it turned its fury on him and his friends – but instead the monster flew over the interior of the city and began shooting fire at Byrel’s army as they dashed through the streets. Agonized screams drowned out the victorious roar of the crowd as hundreds of men began writhing in flames.

  Maybe that was their plan, Daniel thought in a moment of panic. Get the army inside the walls, then let the dragon kill them all –

  But he shouldn’t have worried, because Mira had control of the situation.

  131

  Mira

  The dragon glided in low over Blackstone’s walls and immediately went after the thousands of Blackstone soldiers rampaging through the streets.

  Liquid fire shot down from the sky and enveloped a hundred men in flames, who began to scream and flail in torment.

  Everyone around them panicked. A stampede began – dozens were trampled underfoot at the army panicked and tried to take cover in the smaller alleyways that branched off the main thoroughfare.

  The dragon lazily swooped through the air and came back for another pass.

  But this time Mira was there.

  She flew her griffin straight at it, firing arrow after arrow in a nonstop fusillade.

  The dragon averted its attention from the soldiers on the ground; it had a new enemy in the sky.

  It spewed fire at her over the rooftops of Blackstone. The griffin dove between buildings, zoomed down side streets, and came back up on the dragon’s side, where Mira fired more shots at the dragon’s head.

  Seeing that the city provided too much protection for its nemesis, the monster soared higher into the air – away from the soldiers on the ground.

  Exactly, Mira smiled to herself, and directed the griffin higher into the air to harass the enemy some more.

  132

  Eric

  Eric pulled out his keychain (or rather, Mike’s keychain) and plugged the spark drive into the computer port. A few clicks of the mouse and he’d uploaded the file of programming protocols to the hard drive.

  He typed the directory path to the file into the prompt window.

  A window came up and showed an upload notice along with a progress bar.

  Unfortunately he had to stick around to make sure nothing happened – that Neck Beard didn’t return and shut the computer down before the transfer was complete.

  Now the only thing to do was wait.

  5%… 12%… 19%…

  Suddenly someone reappeared in front of him – Neck Beard. But this time he was with a nerdy guy in a starched white dress shirt and khakis.

  “Who are you?” White Shirt yelled over the robotic voice still droning over the loudspeakers.

  27%...

  Eric lifted the badge again. “Mike Werner. Security.”

  “Security?!” White Shirt squinted at the badge in the darkness, then gave up. “You’re not in the IT department – what the hell are you doing here?”

  33%…

  “Hey, if you’re going to be insulting, screw you, man,” Eric yelled over the computerized voice.

  “Answer my question before I CALL security and get them up here right now, bozo!”

  Bozo.

  What’re you going to do next, call me poopy-head?

  “Like I told your guy there, I’m helping nail down the point where the hacker entered the system!”

  48%…

  “That’s not what security does – you guys check doors at night!”

  “I’m part of a new department – ”

  “Get off of that computer!”

  “Go talk to my supervisor!” Eric yelled.

  “I’m calling security is what I’m doing!”

  “Go right ahead!”

  The guy seemed a little thrown by how confident Eric was, but he still walked over to the nearest empty cubicle, picked up the receiver, and dialed a couple of digits.

  He glared daggers at Eric.

  57%…

  Eric’s heart was hammering in his chest, but he just stared at his screen.

  “Hey, it’s Benny Masbuler up in QA – yeah, I’ll hold,” White Shirt fumed as he glared at Eric.

  Eric wanted to grin, but he kept a poker face. Hard to get ahold of Security when there’s a hack going on, huh, asshole?

  63%…

  Apparently Security was pretty fast, though, because White Shirt started yelling into the phone.

  “Yes, I’m here! Do you have a – what’s your name again?” White Shirt yelled at him.

  “Mike Werner!” Eric yelled back.

  71%…

  “Do you have a Mike Werner up here in QA? Well, yeah, I know there’s a Mike Werner because he’s sitting right in from of me, but did you – ” White Shirt turned back to Eric. “Who’s your supervisor?”

  “Susan Diawara!”

  One of the nice little tidbits of information Mike had coughed up while he was duct-taped to his bedroom floor.

  “Did Susan Diawara authorize him to be up here on a computer terminal in QA? What’s that? Your guys aren’t authorized to get on computer systems in other departments?” White Shirt repeated loudly, as though for Eric’s sake.

  Neck Beard, who was standing in the aisle, crossed his arms and leered smugly.

  “I’m going to need security up here on Floor Five immediately,” White Shirt yelled. “I think we have a security breach, maybe an imposter!”

  Eric’s heart was hammering in his chest. He had to buy some more time.

  “Tell them they need to talk to Susan!” he yelled at White Shirt. “She’s the one who authorized it! It’s a special case!”

  White Shirt seemed puzzled, like he thought that once he’d played the trump card of calling Eric an imposter, he’d fold or run or something.
So he didn’t get overly emotional, but just continued yelling into the phone over the bleating computer voice on the loudspeakers.

  “Yeah, we’re at cubicle 5-A-155 – this Werner guy says you need to talk to Susan!”

  79%…

  Eric decided he needed to stall for time. He held out his hand. “Here, let me talk to them!”

  White Shirt seemed confused by that. He frowned, then said, “Hold on, he wants to talk to you,” and handed over the receiver.

  84%…

  “Hello?” a voice said over the phone.

  “Yeah, this is Mike Werner,” Eric lied. “Susan Diawara had me come up here.”

  “Are you on a computer in QA?”

  “Yeah. I’m just doing a simple test,” he lied.

  89%…

  “You’re not authorized for that. NOBODY’S authorized for that.”

  “You gotta talk to Susan!”

  Unfortunately, because White Shirt wasn’t occupied with talking to security, he had time to notice other things – like the progress bar on Eric’s monitor.

  “HEY!” White Shirt yelled, and tried to lunge over Eric at the computer. “STOP THAT!”

  Okay, screw this.

  Eric stood up and slammed the phone receiver as hard as he could into White Shirt’s face.

  “Agh!” the nerd yelled as he stumbled backwards, and touched his hand to his bleeding nose.

  Neck Beard about crapped his pants.

  “BACK OFF!” Eric roared.

  “Hello?” the voice said over the phone.

  “Help! Security!” White Shirt screamed, then flapped his arm at Neck Beard. “GET SECURITY!”

  Neck Beard took off in a sprint.

  94%…

  White Shirt edged his way around the edge of the cubicle, but Eric stood his ground between the nerd and the computer. Which confused the nerd even more.

  Eric thought he knew why:

  What imposter doesn’t run when you out him?

  What burglar/hacker/criminal stands his ground after you’ve exposed him?

  “You are SO fired!” White Shirt screamed as he pointed at Eric, then took off after Neck Beard.

  Well, at least now he doesn’t think I’m an imposter anymore.

  133

  Daniel

  Mira had drawn off the dragon, which let Daniel focus his attention on storming the wall.

  The higher he climbed up the steps, the more intense the resistance became. The angle of the stairs, because they were flush with the wall, had performed a natural barrier to the worst of the volleys. But in the last twenty feet, he was wide open to attack from all quarters.

  The archers were no fools. They knew what would happen if the invaders made it to the top of the stairs, so they did everything in their power to stop it.

  The good news was, Daniel was drawing fire away from the soldiers on the ground. The bad news was, he was getting bombarded by five arrows a second as he got closer to the top and started coming out of cover. The projectiles broke uselessly against his armor, but he was one of a scant few who could sustain such punishment. The other knights had to pass Drogar by, who would have been skewered by the rain of missiles.

  When he was close enough to the top, Daniel unleashed his secret weapon.

  “Siffis, take the left,” Daniel said, “and disable or kill any archer in your way.”

  The sprite jumped down from his shoulder and bounded up the stairs in a fiery blur. Along the way he ripped through the calves and Achilles tendons of archer after archer like a fiery scythe, sending the men screaming onto their hands and knees. Daniel watched in amazement as the Ignis ripped across the top of the wall, felling multiple archers a second.

  Daniel bounded up the steps and went to the right. He slashed through archer after archer – not as fast as the fire elemental, but enough to cause panic in the ranks and send men scrambling in the opposite direction.

  Again he noticed with regret that their eyes were all black – but as soon as he cut them down, the inky darkness faded, and they died with clear eyes.

  With the bombardment cut in half, the more heavily armored knights followed up the stairs behind Daniel and began fighting alongside him. Within two minutes the archers’ ranks had been crushed, and the majority of the survivors were running in retreat.

  Which is why it was so odd to hear Mira say, “Daniel, something strange is happening.”

  134

  Mira

  Mira kept engaging the dragon in aerial combat, swooping and diving and cutting through the air.

  The bad news was the dragon was so powerful and well armored that there was little she could do but harass it.

  The good news was that as long as she harassed it, it kept its attention off the soldiers in the streets below.

  The best news of all was that the dragon was so slow and lumbering, that the griffin could fly circles around it easily, giving her plenty of time to pick her shots and aim directly for the monster’s head.

  As long as she avoided the liquid jets of fire – and it was fairly easy to stay outside the creature’s range of attack – she was fine. She just kept shooting arrows at its black eyes, hoping to strike one, and feeling plenty happy when her arrows sunk into the delicate tissues of the creature’s gums and mouth instead.

  The monster would bellow in fury, briefly double its speed, try to follow her, inevitably open itself up to a second attack. This happened over and over again –

  Until suddenly it gave up.

  It just turned around and headed for the castle.

  As she followed the dragon, shooting arrows at its leathery wings to try to shred them with cumulative damage, she noted what was happening in the streets below.

  Byrel’s men were still rampaging through the streets – but the skeleton army wasn’t even trying to stop them. The Hell army had gathered in the middle of the courtyard outside the palace, and formed into a tightly-packed mass of thousands of soldiers.

  Byrel’s men raced on their horses around the courtyard, waiting for their superior numbers to build – which they were by the second. Hundreds of Blackstone’s soldiers raced in from the streets and surrounded the relatively tiny force of skeleton soldiers.

  The outermost ring of Hell’s warriors pointed hundreds of spears outwards to dissuade Byrel’s cavalry from attacking – but other than that, they weren’t even attempting to fight.

  None of it seemed right.

  It was like they were cowering there, waiting to die – a far cry from how they’d been on the battlefield just ten minutes ago.

  And where were the remaining undead mages from the first battle? Why would Eric decide not to use them this time out?

  “Daniel, something strange is happening.”

  135

  Daniel

  Daniel turned and looked up. Mira’s griffin was soaring high above the city, outside the reach of any arrows someone might have lobbed her way.

  “What’s going on?”

  “Look at the middle of the city.”

  He peered out at the center of Blackstone. From here he had the perfect vantage point to see the entire city – the palace directly in the center, the giant open square in front of it, the Temple of Mages with its fifty-foot-tall statute out in front, the thousands of rundown slums and the handful of lush aristocratic residences.

  In the giant square, the entire skeleton army was huddled in the center, packed tight as could be. Literally 8000 soldiers stood shoulder to shoulder, front to back, in a solid mass of armored bodies.

  Circled all around them were Byrel’s men, the armies from other lands, and tens of thousands of players. They enclosed and surrounded the Hell Army, slowly pushing in as though to crush them in a vise.

  In every other part of the city, tens of thousands of other soldiers ran wild, coursing through the cobblestone streets like blood through an artery.

  “I don’t see what you’re talking about,” he said. “Looks like a massive victory to me.”


  “The enemy soldiers all ran to one spot like it was pre-planned. They didn’t even try to fight back.”

  The dragon swooped lazily through the sky and grabbed on to the highest tower with its talons, then put its head right next to the platform. It was too far away to make out what was happening, but he could guess.

  “What’s going on at the tower?” he asked in alarm.

  136

  Mira

  The castle had a number of high towers. Most of them ended in conical roofs, the type of place where a king might go to be alone, or a wizard might have his secret workshop – but several of the towers were open turrets, with flat, open roofs more akin to a medieval helicopter pad.

  Mira watched as the dragon seized onto the highest one of the turrets like an eagle clutching onto a wooden post. It extended its neck, placing its head right up next to the gap-toothed merlons encircling the roof.

  On top of the roof were two wyverns – smaller, eight-foot-tall dragons with only wings instead of forearms. Saddles were strapped to their backs, just like Mira’s griffin.

  Someone was going to ride them.

  Suddenly a trap door opened in the center of the roof, and three people climbed out: Eric, in what looked like black armor; a woman in a black dress; and a scraggly-looking man in tattered black robes and a wide-brimmed hat.

  Suddenly, like an ink dot dropped in water, a tiny speck of black swirled and expanded until a shadowy figure stood atop the tower. It had a vaguely human shape, but its flowing robes seemed to disappear into mist where they touched the ground. At this distance she couldn’t see any features on its bald head, but it was black as midnight, from the top of its skull to the hem of its robes.

  As Eric walked over to the dragon and climbed onto its neck, he moved slowly, like a sleepwalker…