“Remember, no charges or rushing. We can give ground but on our terms and let people know if you’re moving. The mages will heal us as needed. Don’t rush in and get killed. Cycle parties if you need to,” Dwayne said.
Dave watched as buffs started to stack on the left side of his screen, filling him with power as he continued to stare at the oncoming undead.
His shield and weapon had golden light mixing with the gray smoke of conjuring. He’d created Weapons of Light.
Dave touched Steve’s leg to check his runes. Everything looked good. Dave added new runes that would increase his Light Affinity.
“Thanks,” Steve said as Dave looked to his armor.
“No problem, dude,” Dave said. The changes he made to his armor changed Deia’s and Anna’s armor through their link.
Suzy’s armor also changed, but not in the same way. He gave her magical and Willpower boosts while Anna, Deia, and he got increased Agility and Strength enhancements.
Suzy was constantly casting soul trap and her creations all had a soul trap rune on their cores so that their attacks would fuel them and their master. Her power was linked to the others, keeping them going as Dave, Deia, and Anna had cast soul fields on the ground among the draugrs as they had advanced and on the ground when they got closer.
Dave cast his own soul field and drew power from his armor. “Let’s dance.” Dave’s eyes glowed, the spaces between his armor showing his glowing tattoos. He brought his shield forward. Dozens of spikes jumped out of the ground, just feet from the front line. They shone with golden runes as undead slammed into them.
Their own force and the Light Affinity of the weapons killed dozens. Dave hadn’t stopped moving. Grenades appeared in the sky. They fell among the draugr, ripping them apart. Souls seemed to flee toward Dave, Suzy, Deia, and Anna.
Arrows rained down from the heavens. Dave grunted, adding more and more, waiting until they hit the ground before he created more. Their effects still took hold even as they disappeared.
Dave spent a third of their armors’ Mana, continuing the explosions and arrows.
The undead weathered through it; their high numbers and levels allowed them to cross through the mayhem Dave was creating. In other places around the tower, battle had already been joined.
Dave dropped his conjurations as the Stone Raiders met the undead.
He felt haggard as he let go of trying to make new conjurations, ending the curtain of arrows and explosions. He stopped a spear with his shield; his sword turned into a spear and slammed through the draugr that attacked him. Dave cut the conjuration and twisted away to get a better position.
He settled into a routine, not trying to advance as he blocked blows with his shield and created a spear with his rod, not having to move his already tired shoulder as the conjuration pierced through the draugrs as if they weren’t there.
Elementals and creations continued to fight in the distance, slowing down and reducing the undead’s reinforcements.
Josh’s people took out anyone who looked like a problem, but they hadn’t been able to get anywhere near the Lich Lord.
Magical spells from curses, blessings, healing, artillery, and lances flew free. Darklings erupted into the midst of the undead, tearing at them with hateful anger.
Traps had been spent, making the mages call down their area of effect spells; roots lashed out, Fire swirled and burned while Air cut like a cold blade.
The metal ground turned to liquid, making the draugrs and bone creations stumble and falter.
There were too many sights to take in at once. Dave focused on what was in front of him, freely using his conjurations, dropping spears with Light runes on the draugr’s heads, driving his spear through their chests, or slamming their shields away with a maul.
“Ahh shit! Scratched up my new metal paint job!” Steve sounded annoyed as a draugr went flying. “So, what do you think the next area is going to be?”
“Hell if I know. Shard wanted us to take this place so we had somewhere to set up camp.”
“Wouldn’t you know more? You are kind of like his kid,” Dave said.
“Well, I’m thinking that it will be the main installations. Need to check those—go for places that don’t have many enemies, but do have equipment that needs to be repaired. Then, we move onto the areas with less importance, but also with creatures. Then, probably important places with more assholes in them,” Steve said.
“How many places do the Aleph have?”
“Not sure. I think that was kept from me. The Aleph like having their secrets.”
“I have noticed that.” Dave slapped a blade away, driving his shield forward. It changed into a sword, piercing the confused-looking draugr as Dave ripped his blade free, taking out thirty percent of the draugr’s Health, decreasing by five a minute because of the heavy Light enchantment on the blade.
Enraged, it stabbed at Dave’s shoulder. The dragon scale armor didn’t allow him to find purchase; the rusted blade glided off as Dave spun, bringing his hands together. A warhammer appeared in his hands as he slammed it into the side of the draugr, caving their side in and ending their life.
Dave barely had time to change back to a sword and shield as another draugr attacked him.
“Moving back a bit—things are getting hot,” Dave said, trading blows with the draugr. As soon as they got used to his fighting pattern, he’d change weapons, opening them up for a killing blow.
Dave’s inference ability was making it easier than ever for him to land killing blows. After fighting so many draugr, his perception highlighted blue areas where the draugr’s soul was probably attached or where its bones were weak.
Dave was rewarded with a satisfied crack as the draugr’s spine gave way and it fell apart, its bones and remaining ligaments not strong enough to keep it upright. Dave’s two axes came free as he started to laugh.
“Look at me—I’m a fucking lawnmower!” Steve said to the laughter of the others as Dave smashed through the draugr lines. To use dual axes properly, you needed to keep them up a moment, have a larger reach, and have the speed and Strength to use them so fast that your opponent couldn’t get in.
It was a tall order, but with Dave shutting down his Mana barrier and feeding power to his Strength and Agility enhancing runes, he was a whirlwind of metal, brawn, and destruction.
The other fighters whooped and hollered.
“Well, come on! There’s plenty of them for the rest of you to kill!” Dave barked.
It was what they needed; they thrived on challenges.
Dave rode the power running through his body, following his training where he knew to, adding in the moves from inferencing and the weaknesses highlighted by his perception. He was ripping through the draugr but he made sure to not let the power go to his head. If he got too close or deep in the draugr, he would be swept away.
Dave thought that he was doing good until he watched Deia dismantle draugr while Dave was just hacking them apart.
“Damn, my mentor’s hot,” Dave said, loud enough for her to hear.
“And my student is a blockhead! At least, you’re using bigger axes so that you have more time to react when someone gets inside your guard.”
Dave took draugr and skeletons down with his axes, but they were massing in numbers out of melee range. He focused on staying alive as a claymore slammed into his side, taking out 5 Health. It didn’t make it through the armor but Dave felt his insides shake from the impact.
“What the fuck do you think I am, some kind of fucking piñata?” Dave hacked the draugr apart, reverting to his shield and sword. He couldn’t kill as many like this, but then it was much harder to land a hit on him.
“Pull back into a line!” Anjold called out. The Players were all different distances from the tower. Anjold’s call made them come back and into a line. The mages from above got clear lines of sight, sending dozens of spells that spelled ruin for the draugr.
Dave was panting. He had been fighting for hours
and the fatigue had mounted, even with revitalizing Xer, Stamina drinks, and self-healing.
“Come on!” Dave said, as a draugr’s sword met his shield. Dave took out their knees, before driving his sword through their skull. He changed the sword to a rod and then back again, removing the skull atop it, ready to meet the next challenger.
***
Josh drank his Stamina potion, breathing heavily. They had placed a tracking spell on the Lich Lord without him knowing. He had sent three parties off to go and hunt down its phylactery. The tracking spell was faint but it looked as if some of the Stone Raiders’ encyclopedic knowledge of monsters was coming to use.
He jumped off the building he was standing on and dropped down out of the shadows.
The draugr magi didn’t know what hit him as Josh’s daggers tore through his body, destroying his soul bind point. The magi dropped with a pained grunt. The other draugrs didn’t know what was happening till Josh had already opened another draugr’s chest open, dropping them to the ground, their hit points reaching zero as Josh ran away.
He jumped through their attacks, slashing and damaging as many as possible before he jumped for an alleyway. Jumping from side to side, he made his way up to a three-story building’s rooftop. His draugr attackers gave up the chase.
Josh once again looked over the draugr that rushed to meet the Stone Raiders’ protected tower. It was a massive building, rising fifty stories upward, to meet with four other similarly large buildings that connected in the center of the city.
Deia had told Josh of how the cities were supposed to spin, giving the entire cylinder gravity to walk around with. The floor that they were on was slightly slanted.
Josh focused on the battle around the tower, waiting for his Stamina to regenerate. His people worked in small groups, rushing the strongest of the undead to try to make it easier on their guildmates.
Magic of all kinds illuminated the sky, slamming into the draugr hordes. Elementals had started off strong, but they were using the magic that created them to form their attacks. With each movement or attack, they grew weaker. The creations had created their own abattoir around them.
Groups of creations under control of a single summoner were a deadly opponent. Born of one summoner, the Willpower and imprinted unconsciousness of the summoner allowed them to fight with the kind of coordination that took years for other groups to master.
The bone creations were still rushing through; their innate Strength, natural armor, and inability to feel pain made them the perfect juggernauts.
The cats and snikts were built for speed and destruction. Snikts looked like bowling balls that constantly spun out sharpened weapons of bone. Jake had taken it from his copious number of comic books; he declared they were snikts as it was the closest noise he could think of from his favorite comic books.
The cats had half-meter long claws and fangs, with a five-meter long tail that had blades running along it and ended in a spike ball.
They had been pulled back to the portal tower, so there was less chance of the draugr magi controlling them. The Stone Raiders’ necromancers were now working to break the magi’s hold over their own bone creations to reinforce their lines.
Josh had to take a minute to just watch it all: his guild working together, the deadly beauty of the spells that crashed through the draugr or slammed into the tower’s Mana barrier.
A smile crossed Josh’s face as new energy filled him. He thought of how lucky he was to be there at this very moment, to be playing Emerilia with his friends. Even if they lost, it was so much fun that Josh would do it over again and again just for the fun and sense of accomplishment. And, he knew that his guild would readily agree.
They would get stronger than ever before. The Stone Raiders would be the best raiding guild in all of Emerilia, the best guild ever created. That was his dream, his passion, and before him, he saw proof of his devotions.
“Stone Raiders!” he yelled out, his pride bursting forth as he cheered from his rooftop.
“Stone Raiders! Stone Raiders! Stone Raiders!” the rest of the guild chanted out, taking strength from those two words as the attacks redoubled and the defending tanks slowed their retreat.
Josh picked out his next target, a draugr knight.
He ran off the building, slamming on top of the knight and burying his blades into it exposed spine. With the combined sneak attack and the force of his landing, Josh used a stunned draugr to get high enough to grab a balcony and get clear, looking for his next target.
He saw his other stealth types flitting through the shadows, dropping out from the shadows, and killing or maiming their targets before they disappeared once again.
***
“Induca!” Malsour’s yell was drowned out as a plasma cannon shot sped off into the draugr that were just starting to make it into the doors of the tower.
Suzy worked with the support people, keeping supplies moving to those who needed it: Stamina and healing potions to the fighters, and Xer, stimulants, and Mana potions to the mages. She kept an eye on people who could use healing and assisted Lucy.
Lucy was good at her job, but Suzy was a maestro. She could help run a multi-trillion dollar business; she could run a damned guild as they were fighting a horde of undead.
Lucy let her have command, helping where Suzy told her to be. Lucy had the position, but she knew when to fight to be in command and when to let those who were better suited for the job take over.
The plasma round slammed into the draugr, killing tens of them and giving the tanks some room to breathe. Suzy’s people moved, switching out broken armor or weapons with good replacements.
For fighting in other games, supplies weren’t necessarily a big thing, but here they were. With the long, extended battles, everyone ran out of something at some time, usually at the worst of times.
While Malsour and Induca were trying to hide it, it was easy to see that they were some of the strongest mages in the Stone Raiders. Being so much older and dragons gave them a definite edge over their allies.
“Buffs needed at the western entrance. Make sure we have healers ready at the north. I want people out and checking on supplies for the tanks. They’re the priority right now,” Suzy said.
The undead had pushed the melee fighters back from their positions and into the entrances of the tower. There was about fifty meters of space for them to work in before the stairs. Once they got to the stairs, the Stone Raiders would pull back to the flat area at the bottom, a two-hundred-meter by two-hundred-meter square that surrounded the elevators and chutes.
Once the undead got into that area, the mages from above could really open up on them. It would be their melee fighters’ last stand. If they died, then the elevators and the chutes would be cut off so that none of the undead could make it up to the mages.
No one wanted to have to fight through another twenty levels if they didn’t have to.
Suzy checked the counter for the wave.
Quest: Aleph Homecoming
You have arrived at an unknown Aleph City.
To return the city to the governing power of the Aleph, you must hold your position in the city for 20 waves.
Wave: 20 of 20
Attackers: 451/3,000
Rewards: ???
It had taken half a day to get this far. No one wanted to have to do it all over again.
The tanks slowly fell back, pulling the draugr into the strongest traps that the Stone Raiders had created. Each trap killed tens of basic draugr; the stronger bone creations, magi, and knights made it through. Every so often, a bone creation would turn against its masters and start tearing into the draugr lines.
The Stone Raiders’ necros had used the bone creations before and lost control of them. They were not going to have a repeat of that, though they were more than happy to use those same tactics against the draugr.
“What doesn’t kill you makes you stronger. What does kill you, you remember to use it against your enemy and make sure it doe
sn’t get you a second time,” Suzy said, remembering a motto that the Stone Raiders had taken up.
With dying so many times to complete raids that were supposed to be way over their level, they had come to learn and adapt. It was why they had a guild house for a VR home instead of everyone being in their own homes, waiting. They could talk to one another, pass information to those who were alive and continue on.
“Report from the dead. They found the Lich Lord’s phylactery; it was hidden in its lair. Sending location details.” One of the people tasked with logging out to check on the VR home and then back in reported.
“Josh, we’ve got the location of the Lich’s lair and its phylactery has been confirmed at the location. One of the dead told us,” Lucy said.
Suzy listened in as she looked over her display screen. “Health potions to the south entrance,” Suzy said on another channel as she looked at the varying requests coming in and prioritized who got what when.
“Very well. I sent three of my best parties over there. I’ll have another two sent out and have them conference with the dead to talk about the layout and such.” Josh cut the channel.
“Dark Aberration,” Malsour said, next to Suzy.
A chill went down her spine as shadows started to twist and distort between the creatures clawing their way in through the north entrance.
Malsour grunted as he continued to move his hands for a few moments. They dropped to his side as he used a banister to steady himself.
“You okay?” Suzy asked.
“I am, but they won’t be for long,” Malsour said.
Suzy looked over as a scream ripped through the air. Standing in the middle of the north entrance was a writhing mass of mouths and hands. It clawed and ripped at the undead forces, shadows wrapping around those that it crushed in its massive hands. Draugrs went limp as it crunched down on them with its many mouths.
“The hell is that?” Suzy asked.
“A Dark aberration is created from the Dark souls of an area. It seeks to consume other Dark souls, to grow stronger and more powerful. It will not eat the souls of those fighting along with it or those with souls untouched by the darkness. Takes a bit of work, but they’re powerful. However, they’re not overly mobile unless they create smaller aberrations. It’ll last for ten minutes.” Malsour looked tired as different creatures tried to kill the aberration. Its hands whipped out to crush and destroy; its mouths devoured anything that went into their maws.
For The Guild (Emerilia Book 2) Page 30