by Oliver Mayes
He looted the ranger, an act of revenge for mocking Lillian and giving him such a scare, before Demon Gating back to the ground so he could gather the souls littered there. “Destroying buildings is more your scene. Glad you’re making use of the hammer!”
“I told you it would be better in my hands. Let’s go get what we came for.”
Without waiting for a reply, Lillian headed straight to the back of the courtyard. She moved fast, despite her heavy armor. Damien ran behind her, the four imps flying out in front of him. Their destination was the stable lining the inner wall.
Stables were a valuable resource in Saga Online, much like parking spaces back in the real world. Also, like parking spaces, they weren’t much use unless you had something worth putting in them. And according to Lillian, Aetherius had a sweet ride.
“He showed it off on his stream when he got it,” she said over her shoulder. “He’s planning to ride it in a victory parade when he wins the competition. If we take it out, nobody can deny we’ve hurt him.”
It was a generic stable, full of straw and stalls in a high-roofed barn. The compartment on the end was separated from the rest of them and significantly bigger, large enough for whatever was inside to run around in. That was where Lillian was headed. She reached it and Damien drew up beside her to look inside.
“Are you serious?”
“Yup. Isn’t she a beauty?”
Standing casually, looking brooding and majestic all at once, was a pegasus. A mythical mount. It wasn’t quite as big as Lillian’s warhorse in frame, but it was far more beautiful. Radiant white fur gave way to sleek white feathers on the wings, which were folded neatly against its sides.
“Can’t we just steal it?”
“Nope. We’re making a statement; stealing it looks like we did it for the money. Besides, it won’t let anyone ride it except Aetherius. You’re going to have to kill it.”
“But it’s so pretty!”
“I know. That’s why it’s going to hurt Aetherius. Just get on with it!”
She turned and headed back across the ground toward the broken gate.
“Hey, aren’t you going to help me?”
“Nope. My part is to watch out for enemies, your part is to kill the pretty horse and take a trophy. Suck it up!”
She was halfway across the courtyard before Damien could reply, leaving him alone. Great. He knew the pegasus wasn’t a real animal, but killing it felt wrong. Assassinating players was one thing; they’d signed up for it. Killing monsters offered no moral quandary; it was either him or them. This was somehow different.
The pegasus was just owned by the wrong person. It had to be done, though. They’d come too far not to do what they’d come here to do. And it was just a collection of pixels for crying out loud.
Damien climbed into the enclosure, out of the sun, and summoned two wraiths. If he had to kill it, he could at least do it quickly. The pegasus was looking at him now, the wording of ‘Aetherius’s Pegasus’ changing from green to orange as it extended its wings. It wasn’t hostile yet, but it was debating whether or not Damien was a threat. The two wraiths blended into the shadows and came around it on either side. By the time they were at their positions, thirty seconds had passed. The pegasus had tired of Damien’s presence. The text changed from orange to red. It was now hostile. In addition, a level popped up next to it. Level 30. Higher than Damien had expected.
It lowered its head and prepared to charge, making Damien’s next orders that much easier. As one, the undetected wraiths dropped the scythes on their arms through its neck.
Damien sighed as it toppled over sideways. What a waste. He was still mourning the loss of the rarest mount he’d ever seen when his experience bar surged upward. What the pegasus lacked in durability, it made up for with rarity. The slaughter of the mythical creature had given him 11,500 experience points, far in excess of what he’d received for destroying the Hub. He was lucky the creature hadn’t been expecting an attack. For such a considerable reward, it likely would have packed enough of a punch to have him for lunch.
In one kill he’d got a third of the way to level 30. It had left 3 soul energy behind as well, replenishing Damien's Soul Reserve to 9 points.
Previously, he’d felt conflicted about the deed. Now he was just sorry Aetherius didn’t have more pegasi he could work through. He went into his chat box and messaged Lillian.
'Finished, got it all recorded. Great exp. Do we have time for the last part?'
He placed his hands on the horse and inspected the loot. All it had to offer him was the severed head. How ironic. Aetherius had wanted to mount it in his parade, now Damien was going to mount it on his wall. He selected the head and willed it into his inventory, but it wouldn’t budge. His inventory was too small. He got the four imps to carry it between them instead and headed outside.
Lillian was already running past the stables, toward the Guild House.
“Hurry it up! They’re almost here!”
Damien sprinted after her, his laden imps and sun-kissed wraiths lagging behind. Lillian re-activated Divine Might and stormed into the building, hammer in hand. Moments later, there was a huge crash and a durability bar with 3000 points appeared above the entire building as she started to wreck shop. They’d already taken the settlement but had no way of holding it. Destroying the Guild House wasn’t as personal as depriving Aetherius of his mount, but it would net a good chunk of XP and represented an undeniable victory over Rising Tide.
Damien had the imps drop the trophy next to him and they headed inside to help Lillian out. The wraiths limped in behind them, restoring their forms as they entered the shade. Damien summoned a new succubus and sent her in to cast Bloodlust while he remained outside, watching out for any players that might appear. Within five minutes, the building was nearing half health. The interior had been completely destroyed. Damien used one of his remaining two souls to cast a portal back to his base. Once this was done, they’d want to be out of here in a hurry.
It was halfway summoned when Lillian’s hammer tore a hole through the outer wall, spewing out swirling blocks of granite. She had started work on the infrastructure. Damien called his minions back. This was beyond what they could do, and he wanted them clear so she didn’t end up killing them by mistake. They crossed the threshold as a second explosion tore through the building a little further along the wall. The Guild House groaned and then, in the wake of a third explosion, caved inward.
The durability bar disappeared as the building it pertained to crossed the line between ruins and rubble. It hadn’t put up much of a fight, but it had been as sturdy as any boss.
Damien received another 9775 experience points for his assistance in destroying the core of the Rising Tide settlement. It wasn’t nearly as much as he’d received on his raids against large parties, but between the players, the Hub, the mythical mount and now this, he’d managed to accumulate a level and a half.
He was torturously close to level 30. Lillian punched her way out of the debris and started running toward him, looking deeply serious.
Damien knew it wasn’t part of the plan, but he couldn’t help trying his luck.
“Nice job! Do we have time for another building? I’m just about to hi—”
She reached him, grabbed him by the scruff of his neck and casually dragged him behind her with her sword hand, thrusting her shield into the space he’d been occupying. It rang loudly as the arcane missiles intended for Damien exploded across its surface.
Rising Tide’s raid party was back. They were trying to cut off their escape, the ranged units running along the walls and hurling projectiles as the melee units tore across the open ground. Lillian had blocked the arcane missiles well and sustained little damage, but they were under heavy fire now.
Lillian kept her shield raised in one hand and Damien clutched firmly in the other, her shield glowing white as she redirected a fireball into the first wave. Damien’s attention was elsewhere. His portal was flickering at
the edges and had started to contract. They’d entered combat. It was closing.
“Lillian! Portal!”
It might not have been the skill she knew best, but her instincts were finely tuned. She looked between the shrinking portal and the pegasus head laying tauntingly in front of it. She had no hands available to pick it up, but when there’s a will, there’s a way. Lillian was not short on real willpower.
She drew back her leg and punted the head through the portal, screaming obscenities at no one in particular, before dragging Damien bodily through it. The portal closed, leaving what was left of his minions behind.
He’d not even had time to order them through in the chaos, but they were a small price to pay for what had been accomplished. He’d have to apologize to Noigel later. Lillian stood up and extended a hand to him, which he took and pulled on until they were face to face. For the first time since they’d reconvened, she was smiling again.
“There. I’d like to see him ignore that.”
31
Earning Your Name
Lillian set the newest video in pride of place at the top of Damien’s profile and removed her headset, grinning broadly.
“I don’t think that could’ve gone much better. Shame I had to give away the pegasus head, though.”
“Are you kidding? If that’s all Bart wants, let him have it. Trust me.”
“I believe you. He’s a weird one, isn’t he? My reputation with the occultists is ‘tolerated’; I didn’t know that reputation level even existed.”
That was something Damien hadn’t thought of. Bartholomew hadn’t been pleased to discover Damien’s new ‘friend’ was a paladin, exalted with the Empire. At least, not until Lillian quit her guild on the spot and offered the head of Aetherius’s mount as proof of disloyalty. Following some uncomfortable sniffing and an all too familiar round of condescending questions, to which Lillian had responded with gusto, he’d taken an instant liking to her. They hadn’t mingled with the vampire much longer before logging off.
Lillian wanted to edit the footage as quickly as possible, ideally making it public before Aetherius’s forty-man raid stream was out. It was a lot of work, but she’d stitched Damien’s footage together with her own to create a single video showing what each of them had been doing. The two of them voiced it together, credited it as a collaborative effort and it went out at 17:55, five minutes before Aetherius’s raid stream was due.
Damien stretched into the sofa, groaning with relief. He hadn’t had a moment's rest since Lillian called him to action three and a half hours ago.
“So, what do we do now?”
“Now? We wait. Keep an eye on the streams. We need to see how people react.”
Damien nodded and reluctantly put his headset back on, waiting for Aetherius’s raid footage to show up. In fact, their attack yielded an unexpected bonus: Aetherius’s raid stream, eagerly anticipated by every Saga Online fan with a pulse, had been delayed by an hour.
This gave everyone plenty of time to browse their way to Damien’s new video and figure out why for themselves. Lillian linked the footage in all the right places to get it maximum exposure. When the forty-man raid was finally uploaded, the comments section was full of people asking how his pegasus was.
Lillian placed a new link in the comments section of Aetherius’s video itself, where it accumulated five thousand clicks before it was picked up on and deleted. It was far too late by then. Bit by bit, everyone was learning of that afternoon’s events.
The hype was real. It was as real as when Damien had fought Toutatis, granting him his unscheduled fifteen minutes of fame. He’d hoped to make something of that, to take advantage of the publicity to get support in the competition. Despite Aetherius taking that away from him, he was still here. More than that, Damien had made himself a threat.
Together, he and Lillian had heaped humiliation upon Aetherius, just as he had heaped humiliation upon them. His entire competition campaign had been reduced to a cautionary tale, living proof that you made your own demons. It was the big news of the day, and the timing of it, just as the competition was entering its final phase, couldn’t have been better: Daemien’s profile was raking in views.
Even better, the votes on Aetherius’s profile were decreasing. In the wake of this embarrassment, people were rescinding their votes and re-allocating them elsewhere. While the competition leader was still far ahead, the gap between them was diminishing.
Normally it was advisable not to check the comments, but Damien took a deep breath and plunged into the comments section on his pegasus video.
Mr.Rheeeeeeeeeeee: Is that a blink? Can this guy blink?!?
WomboCombo: Not exactly, but it’s close. He switches places with the imps. Go check his profile, he’s got some videos about it.
BrawndusTheEverythingMutilator: here ya go ‘Daemien v Rising Tide v Godhammer’.
RonFlawedSpamBlam: I don’t get it. Why does he get so much experience for the horse?
FullThottle: S’not a horse. It’s a Pegasus. Uber rare creature, level was lowered after training but you still get big rewards for killing them. Aetherius should have kept it safer.
CactusLover: Yeeeee! Scorpius, mah boyyyy! Lillian has the tank, you have the spank! Put Aetherius over your knee and teach him some manners! ( ͜ ͜ ) <(^o^<)
Shankyou: Whatever. Daemien’s nothing special. Killed him myself yesterday XD So easy. Put it on my channel just now, check it out if you don’t believe me: ‘Revenge! Suck it, Daemien!’
Oooooie. Get a load of Shankyou. Still sore about your dagger, no doubt.
Given the inconvenience and misery he’d caused, not to mention the gloating as he performed the killing blow, Damien couldn’t care less. But now he was ripping on Damien on his own video, using it to publicize his death. So, Rising Tide had finally got around to making the announcement Lillian was waiting for. Not that it meant as much now Damien had hurt them so badly. Still, it warranted a decent response.
Damien raised the visor on his IMBA set to speak with Lillian.
“Hey, do you remember Shankyou? That guy who killed me outside the Malignant Crypt? You got him just after, right? Were you recording?”
“Yup. Kept that one for if they posted your death. Why? Did they?”
Damien nodded and Lillian immediately slipped on her headset, clicking the link to Shankyou’s profile that Damien had provided. He started watching the video at the same time as she did. It was strange watching the scene play out from Shankyou’s perspective. He wasn’t kidding. It really had been all too easy. The video conveniently omitted the part where Lillian had got involved. Lillian sent the footage Damien yearned for to his chat box. It was short, a mere ten-second clip. He opened it and watched. Then he sputtered. He involuntarily closed his eyes for the last five seconds and had to watch again from the beginning, grimacing in a bizarre mix of horror and satisfaction.
Oh yeah. Shankyou’s revenge had been short lived.
“Do you mind if I post this publicly?”
“Go for it! Tag me, you and Shankyou in it. That way people can connect the dots and get the whole picture. More exposure for us!”
Damien named the video, tagged all three of them and added a thoughtful little message.
Daemien: That was a great kill. Might want to work on your exits: ‘Revenge! Suck it, Daemien! Continued, part 2 of 2’. Thanks for the dagger by the way. It’s a winner. P.S, Lillian’s shield apologizes for moving too fast. It should have at least bought you dinner.
He posted the comment and held his breath. A few seconds later, Lillian was giggling into her headset. She pulled it off and grinned over at him, her cheeks flushed red.
“Nice! We want the publicity focused on you, though, so I’ll pledge my support for you officially on my channel. That way, hopefully, some of my fans will vote for you instead.”
Damien was touched. He knew pledging to him made sense if they wanted to put him in contention with Aetherius, but it was still a huge gesture. S
he was pinning all her hopes on him. He didn’t want to let her down. She had the headset back on, so he pulled down his visor and voice called her instead.
“I’m sorry I wasn’t too happy about the plan today, it just came so... anyway, it was an awesome plan. I don’t know how I can ever repay you for this.”
“Hey, don’t get all mushy on me. It’s not all good news. Over on Aetherius’s channel he’s pitching this like I’ve betrayed him out of nowhere. As if he didn’t pull that prank in the hospital, or have everyone in the guild treat me like dirt. What a scab!”
Damien diplomatically decided not to point out that since Rising Tide would’ve already known she murdered Shankyou in cold blood by then, keeping her out of the waiting room had been a sensible decision.
“Andrew wanted me to turn. I bet it’s why they never kicked me out of the guild. He wanted it to look like I’d turned traitor publicly, a little controlled drama to liven up the last days of the competition and leech my votes away.”
The food processor hissed and pinged, loud enough to be heard even through the headsets. Lillian hung up the call and tapped on Damien’s visor as she went to fetch plates.
“Anyway, long story short, Aetherius and you will split most of my votes. I’ll guide them in your direction as best I can. We’ll keep putting everything in place tonight and see where we are tomorrow. Lasagna?”
Damien hummed his agreement and went back to his profile. He worked on it for the next hour, taking short, frequent breaks to cram lasagna through the gap in the IMBA set. When he finally let himself stop at 8pm, they settled in to see how the voting would go.
As expected, the majority of Lillian’s voters migrated in the wake of her actions. She’d had 21,000 votes that morning; by evening’s end it was down to just 8,000. Aetherius might have got a chunk of them, but it wasn’t enough to balance out the rain of blows he was suffering across Saga Online’s media. At the cusp of hitting a record 200,000 votes, his score had plummeted.