For the first time, I noticed the human thief who had taken my arrow in the shoulder as he rose to his feet from the battlements near the witch. He was looking at me with a murderous expression – possibly something to do with the quiver of arrows on my back.
“No,” replied Teini with condescending calmness, “this is our tower, ‘Tower G’.”
A collective groan went up from the witch, the soldier and the thief.
“Don’t worry,” Teini continued, even more condescendingly, “could happen to anyone. That alphabet is a tricky one and it’s not like there’s any harm done, you only fried his companion and left a watchtower free to signal that our arm-”
“-This is ‘H’.” The halfling witch’s timing was flawless and Teini’s face a picture. “That’s ‘G’,” she said, pointing to an even higher ridge several kilometres to the southeast, its silhouette faintly visible against the lightening sky which signalled that dawn was less than half an hour away.
Teini turned to look at it, his expression pulled gaunt with the realisation of how badly we had screwed up. “The raiding party will be coming past there in the next ten, fifteen minutes; we’ll never make it in time.”
“If it’s only that beacon,” the halfling replied, almost managing kind, now that Teini had admitted our error, “it might be alright. It might not get seen.”
“You think?” asked Teini, desperate for some hope.
“Actually, I think it probably won’t matter.”
“Why’s that?”
The witch, the thief and the soldier – who I could now see was a dwarf character – all looked at each other.
“What?” Teini and I insisted together.
“The tower was empty and there was no signal fire here,” said the thief in the gravest of voices.
“And…?” called Bubeh from below. “So what?”
But I was beginning to understand and I could see from Teini’s face that he was too. Nobody seemed to want to say it.
“Shit!” Bubeh suddenly exclaimed. “They pulled the guards back; it’s a trap!”
Just then, two hairy(ish) legs appeared over the side of the tower’s battlements and strained to pull six more and a great big body over as well. Our three new allies on the roof eyed Fes as he trudged wearily to my side. It’s hard for a pair of seventy centimetre long pedipalps and four pairs of eyes the size of small saucers to look more pissed off and fearsome than they already do the rest of the time, but somehow he managed it.
The thief sniffed and pulled a disgusted face. “Oh my God,” he exclaimed, “what is that nasty smell?”
Fes let out a couple of angry hisses and clicks and shifted to face the thief, his front pair of legs and head still smoking and rather more devoid of hair than usual.
“Oh… sorry.”
* * *
Chapter 4
It was like we were surfing or skiing or... something. It was still a good three hundred metres to the valley floor, then another five hundred to get out of the pass and be able to see the road down which the raiding party had been planning to come. It was a bit close to Naulaeg to be intercepting them, but if any trap was due to be sprung, the goblinoid races of Naulaeg would most likely wait until the attackers were at the gates - or possibly even inside - before springing it. There might just be time yet.
And so, throwing all thoughts of personal safety to the wind and making their way as quickly and recklessly down the side of the valley as possible, the seven adventurers and one giant spider rode the top layer of shale at dangerous speed, quickly shimmying or leaping to avoid the solid pieces of rock occasionally jutting from below the shale. Fes was by far the most stable of us, although I wasn’t sure whether his loud, rhythmical clicking as he went past me backwards at speed was part of his showboating, or a desperate cry for help.
Despite her small size, the halfling witch – Ailyss, so I had learned – was the first to reach the valley floor; but once on even ground her tiny legs were slowing us down and Bubeh stopped and swept her onto his shoulders.
“You know,” she said to me as she settled atop the ogre, “it never gets any less humiliating.”
I laughed but, having seen a couple of her spells, I knew that Ailyss was possibly the most powerful member of our little group. However ridiculous she looked right now, I knew that if we got into a big fight, she was probably our best hope of getting out alive.
“What level are you?” I wondered out loud. “Er… if you don’t mind me asking?”
“Level 8 about a week ago,” she replied.
“Wow,” was all I could think of to say. I felt a little foolish, but she smiled kindly back down at me.
Before we’d even cleared the end of the pass, we knew that we’d arrived too late. The sounds of battle echoed up from below and the towering entrance to the Naulaeg stronghold started to come into view over to the right, with goblins, orcs and trolls pouring out of it.
Reaching a twenty metre wide ledge at the end of the pass, the main road into Naulaeg could then be seen about fifty metres below us. The raiding party must have been nearly two hundred strong and looked to have got closer than a hundred metres to the gates before the trap was sprung. Two or three times their number was pouring onto the road behind them, and a seemingly endless stream ten bodies wide was racing from the enormous entrance to the region’s goblinoid capital. They were already surrounded.
The raiding party appeared to become aware of the fullness of their predicament at about the same time that us watchers on the ledge did. They took the only gamble they could and charged back the way that they had come, hoping to break through the enemy line before it had a chance to form properly.
One thing that the raiding party did have in their favour was that every one of them was a player. With all but the most inept players it would tend to take an NPC at least three or four levels higher to defeat them one-on-one. Most of the force blocking the road looked – from where we were at least – to be NPCs, their appearances and dress being that bit more similar and ‘uniform’ than many of those charging out of Naulaeg, who were probably players.
The two lines clashed, and at first the superior quality in our allied line told well, as the enemy line started to split and fold back and off the road. But it took too long for them to push through and they got bottlenecked and bogged down in the process of fighting their way out. All this lasted not much more than twenty seconds, then the wave of reinforcements from Naulaeg arrived at the rear of the raiding party and the slaughter started.
****
While the sound of clanging metal and explosions, the desperate shouting and the veritable symphony of all kinds of magical discharge floated up to us from below, the seven players on the ledge stood in silence. What could we do?
To charge down the hill was to run headlong into certain death. Certain death was one thing when we thought we might be able to prevent this, but the only difference we could make now was to the death toll. We’d take a few of them with us for sure, but most of those would be NPCs and, sooner or later, they would re-spawn at exactly the same level as they had been before.
Still, pointless as our presence was, it seemed that we still couldn’t drag our eyes from the gruesome spectacle below. I found myself thinking about how hundreds of bodies lying in hibernation centres - centres very like the one in the Sowton complex where my plugged-in body now lay - were currently experiencing CyberV’s muted pain response. Thinking of how many were finding themselves accelerated down that white tunnel that I had travelled twice before, waking up (but, of course, not waking up at all) disoriented in the ‘morgue’ – the cavernous entrance foyer that guarded the way into Cymbo and the agonising week-long wait to rejoin the game, starting over again with a new character.
It was only a game, but watching the slaughter below was nonetheless a gruesome experience, kind of horrific in its own way. Death was only a temporary state for the players of CyberV, but the character that they had become, that name, that appearance
and the identity which they had spent their time crafting in Cymbo, did die. Lost to the insubstantial ether.
And, more than this, Cymbo was designed to be a reminder that all of us existed in an artificial construct there. While barely a moment of the game itself was anything less than truly convincing and – for want of a less contentious word – ‘realistic’, Cymbo was all white walls and artificiality, the true sense of being locked away inside a machine; which, of course, we all were.
Beside me, Fes suddenly started clicking and hissing in an agitated way. I bent down a little and patted a hairy leg – careful not to get lanced by a hair – saying, “Easy boy, we’ll be alright.”
But, far from calming him, one of his other legs kicked me, and I staggered back clutching it. “Fucking hell, Fes! What the hell’s your prob-”
Fes had turned ninety to degrees to the right, and my eyes followed the path ahead of him as it angled up and slowly curled away from us. Not much more than a hundred metres up the path, hard to see at dawn in the shadow of the mountains, a worryingly large number of figures were heading our way at a fast jog.
“Shit, s-h-i-t!” I yelled and turned to run.
The others looked up as well and let out similar curses, all of us fleeing back into the pass.
You don’t truly appreciate how fast spiders can run until you see one that’s more than one-eighty, front legs to rear, race past you in a panic. In a matter of seconds he was fifty metres ahead of us and, as I watched him race off towards the approaching dawn, leaving lots of little dust clouds in his wake, I came to understand (as if what I already knew was not enough) the truly dire nature of our predicament.
There, ahead and up to the left, skiing their way down the same slate piste that we had come down a few minutes earlier, were at least ten figures – goblins, if they were the same as those behind. Including those about to enter the pass behind us, we were outnumbered at around four-to-one, and about to be cut off.
Suddenly I became aware – as you sometimes do – that the thundering of footsteps behind us had lessened. I allowed myself a quick peek back over my shoulder, just in time to see that our pursuers had stopped and drawn their bows.
“Get down!” I screamed… too late.
An arrow in the thief’s right leg spun him from his feet and he landed on his head with an audible crunch. Two more of the arrows took Bubeh in the back, toppling him onto all fours and sending Ailyss – who had become his passenger again – sprawling across the stony ground. She got to her feet just as a few of the slower goblins loosed their first volley and I dived on top of her, a shaft whistling past close by.
“RIGHT!” I heard Ailyss scream from beneath me. “That’s fucking IT!” She struggled out from underneath me and spun to face our attackers, a bluish mist starting to form around each of her hands. “Frinn,” she called back to me, “get ready with that bow.”
Ailyss slammed her two hands together and the mist grew exponentially, developing to become a three metre diameter blizzard.
Seeing that the little witch was about to cast a spell, some of the goblins hurried to get off another shot at her. One succeeded, missing her by millimetres and causing her cloak to flap just as she loosed the spell – a cone of intense cold that blew through the goblins and left them half-frozen in an instant.
I took that as my cue and started firing arrows into the dazed and snow-covered goblins. One, two fell and Bubeh got to his feet – the two arrows still protruding from his back. His eyes were glazed as he swept his war hammer up and turned towards the goblins, hammer raised.
“RAARGH!” he bellowed as he started to charge towards them, while I fired again and Ailyss started to draw in the power for another spell.
The goblins were momentarily shocked to see a lone figure – however large – charging their line of about twenty, but some of the less frozen ones managed to get arrows away. By the time Bubeh reached them, he had another arrow in his shoulder and a deep gash which had already covered his cheek in blood, but still he made that swing of the hammer, taking three of the goblins from their feet with the one swipe.
Ailyss released a fireball at the opposite side of the line and one goblin was virtually incinerated instantly, while another rolled screaming on the ground, trying to put out the flames that threatened to consume him.
I managed to get off another arrow before the goblins all piled into Bubeh, who disappeared under a mass of slashing and stabbing bodies.
“Come on,” I said, grabbing Ailyss’ cloak at the shoulder and giving it a tug. She stared at the mass of bodies a moment longer before allowing herself to be pulled back round.
Ahead of us, the other goblins had reached the valley floor about eighty metres away, and I could see that Fes had made it past them and was most of the way towards being clear of the pass. I supposed I should have felt betrayed, but I was glad that Fes was going to get away – in a way it meant that some part of my Frinn character would carry on while Fes was still alive. Whether he was found and trained by another master, or whether he reverted back towards the giant spider’s natural state on CyberV – a wandering monster, there to either deal death to some unwary lower level characters or to provide cannon fodder for one really powerful one – something of Frinn’s influence might just remain for a while.
Actually, I was beginning to feel that there might even be a small chance of me getting out alive too. It was true that we had lost Bubeh – or were about to somewhere under the pile of angry, frenzied goblins behind us – but we had taken down more than a third of them in a matter of seconds. If we charged the ten or so in front of us before the others got themselves organised again, with Teini and the dwarven soldier (what was his name... Gwilin Stoutbeard, or something rubbish like that?) in front, one or two of us might just make it.
I quickly promised myself that, if we did get out alive, I was going to do everything I could to stick with Ailyss. Between the two of us, we could cause serious damage to most enemies before they even got close. The remaining five of us; myself, Ailyss, Teini, Gwilin and Ivran – the priest-like character who I had earlier pushed down a hole after he clubbed me with a mace – broke into a trot so as to close as much distance with the goblins in front as possible, before those behind us resumed their pursuit.
My keen elven eyesight was the first to notice our newest problem as the sun’s rays broke above the mountains behind them... They weren’t goblins at all; they were orcs.
Rarely shorter than two metres, on the whole every orc represented the same threat as at least two or three goblins. One-on-one with a sword in my hand, I probably wouldn’t fancy my own chances against an orc warrior, and now ten of them stood between us and freedom. Some games do seem to delight in giving you that glimmer of hope and then snatching it away again.
But we were committed now and, as we got close, Ailyss and I stopped to launch an opening attack before the other three smashed into the orcish line. The one break we had was that orc NPCs didn’t carry bows, so they couldn’t loose off a volley that might have maimed our best fighters before they could reach them.
Our two attacks seemed only to cause superficial damage and, checking behind us, I saw that the goblins were on the move again. Any further ranged attacks by us were likely going to mean being overrun either by those in front or those behind, so I drew my not-so-trusty sword and Ailyss pulled out a metal staff topped with some sort of crystalline orb that she kept slung across her back, and we followed the other three into the orcs.
Teini was good, I’d always known that. One orc lay dead at his feet before I even got there, and as I arrived he slapped aside the sword of another, driving his own sword of Kanoch into its throat. One of the orcs saw me coming and timed a blow aimed to cleave my body into two equal parts as I reached it. I saw it at the last moment and, off-balance, failed in my attempt to dance round it. Luckily, the motion as I staggered and almost fell brought my short sword down just enough to deflect the blow along my side. I felt the sharp bite of t
he sword as it bounced off the side of my rib cage, but looked down to see my leather jerkin apparently still intact.
I scrambled back a couple of steps to get beyond striking distance, my sword arm aching with the transferred power of the blow. The orc knew an advantage when it saw one, however, and followed quickly in, pressing on with great downward slashes at speed as I continued to try and get back and out of his way.
I caught a glimpse of the whirling figure of Ailyss and her staff – which was taller than she was – past the orc’s shoulder; she wasn’t causing much damage to anyone, but she was doing a remarkable job of keeping two orcs busy while not getting hit herself... yet.
The orc driving me back towards the side of the pass finally made a mistake, lazily letting the weight of its sword pull its arm too far back as it prepared for another swing. This was my chance, it was all or nothing; and I saw the orc’s eyes light up as, this time, I didn’t dance back out of the way. With all my strength, I shifted my momentum forward and launched a lightning fast thrust at its head.
The orc saw my thrust at the last moment and wrenched its neck to one side. This saved its life, but my blade still opened a twenty centimetre long gash from near its mouth to its ear. However, far from clutching its face and running off screaming as almost any other self-respecting opponent might have done, the orc just looked madder than before and barrelled into me, knocking us both to the ground.
I didn’t see its fist, but there was a sudden explosion of Cyber-pain in the middle of my face – I knew, instantly, that it had broken my nose – and everything went momentarily bright and blurry. Panic overtaking me, I brought my knees up in a sharp movement, gratified to feel the left one connect with something soft. Yet the whole thing seemed somewhat ridiculous - this being on top of me was twice my weight and probably four times as strong.
My vision started to clear a little and I instantly wished that it hadn’t, as it revealed the orc sat atop me, its sword raised in two hands and ready to be plunged through my chest. I realised then that my own sword was no longer in my hand and I couldn’t recall the point at which that had become the case.
A New Start Page 27