The Bathrobe Knight

by Charles Dean

  “Guys, that force, that force is our key to victory,” Valerie announced. “That force is how we’re going to stop these lunatics.”

  “You’re right, but how do we make sure they don’t kill us in the process though? How do the reanimated ones tell the difference between friend and foe?” Daniel asked.

  “It’s the eyes. The risen ones all have glowing red eyes!” Valerie said, her face turning as red from the excitement as the eyes she was talking about. “If we can just start taking out the ones without red eyes, they red-eyed ones might see us as friendly or at the very least not attack us while we help them.”

  “That’s an awfully big maybe,” Mclean said, pulling out her Daggers again. She might have said one thing, but her actions let Valerie know she was already onboard.

  “Yeah, we might not make it out of this one alive,” Daniel said, also pulling out his blades. “Shall we play this just like the Fire-Walker dungeon?”

  “No one won a war without taking chances,” Valerie said. “It may be mostly like the Fire-Walker dungeon, but the big difference is this time we’re going to win the war, save the people and come out alive,” she said as she closed her wings and leaned in to dive ahead and join the fray where the Bathrobe Knight was fighting. She didn’t care if he took her on his team. Tim was going to get his vengeance and no one else was going to go through what they did. That was enough.

  It’s all or nothing, again, and I’ll be damned if I die twice! she thought, cutting the wings off the first White-Wing she came across in her dive.

  “What are you do--” the White-Wing next to her victim started to ask before Valerie’s Dagger found it’s way right into his throat. She flapped her wings as hard as she could, reaching him, ripping out the weapon and quickly landing on another unsuspecting victim’s back, both her Dagger’s firmly driven into the base of his wings.

  “Don’t die too quickly," she whispered into his ear before dragging the blades downward and pulling his wings off. Valerie propelled herself up off of his back, leaving him screaming in both terror and pain as he plummeted through the sky towards his inevitable death.

  Two White-Wings who saw the whole thing started to dive at Valerie, but she was ready. She flew upwards to meet them, and right before the impact, she used her wings to force herself to the side. As they shot past her, Valerie thrust out her daggers and used her enemies’ momentum to split open their ribs. Her next victim, just like the last one whose back she landed on, didn’t even see her coming as she put her Dagger right into his spine. Don’t be upset. This is what you blind zealots did to Tim. A Dagger in the back from the people he trusted . . . it should be old hat for you by now.

  Kass:

  Kass did her best to channel her spells, firing more snowballs per minute than she had ever managed to before. It was probably because, for once, she didn’t have to constantly run after Darwin. She got to sit still happily on a giant Hydra that stopped her from even worrying about having to walk. The snowballs are fast, the enemies are weak and the mount is awesome, she thought, watching as her spells carved destruction into the feathery foes’ wings. Video game life just doesn’t get better than this.

  It was mostly Darwin’s idea. He said that he often used roots and the terrain to kite and beat bosses that couldn’t be straight tanked back on his old video games. He learned quickly that for melee classes, which he is now, range and terrain are a significant disadvantage that flying-type mobs can easily leverage. Unfortunately, fliers who would try to leverage it against him would find out that root and stun Classes were their worst nightmare. While in the old MMO, it wouldn’t cause them to fall to their death, it would stamina leech them. He guessed that the same principle could be easily applied again.

  Unfortunately, since Kass was the only one who could cast a spell with any significant range, it meant that the second the fight started, she wouldn’t only need to pick up the slack for everyone, she’d be the center of attention for any non-friendly party in a fifty-meter radius. That’s why Darwin had given her the Hydra for the battle--because even if she was the center of attention, the Hydra had seven heads, Frost Step for faster movement, Frost Edge for more Damage, and the boosts from her items and Darwin’s red eyes. It was, by itself, a fully buffed Boss mob guarding her, and all she had to do was stop one of the other high level players from taking it out while she rode comfortably.

  In front of her, Darwin was leading the charge and zombifying everything he could. The plan was simple--flank them--but the complicated part was how to build a wall that would grow perpetually bigger. So long as everything was focused on her and her Hydra, Darwin would be able to start amassing an army before anyone noticed what he was doing. The plan was simple, and it was working.

  Kass looked at Darwin, dancing through the enemies with a bloodthirst that made her grimace. Darwin, you don’t have to do this, she thought as she watched his back. I know you’re not a normal player. I can’t get it out of my head that there is a good chance if you die here, you die for good. Why do you risk so much for these people? We could have just taken our time, she thought. It hadn’t been until the Hydra fight that she ever worried about him dying, but when she did, she couldn’t help but remember the paper she found him writing in the bar. It all added up, and it was impossible to ignore no matter how much she tried. He was always on; he never slept. He didn’t log in or out like other players: he was always in the game, twenty-four/seven. The only creatures that could maintain that kind of schedule are NPCs, but he wasn’t one of those either. Something was off about him, and she would need to talk to her dad to figure it out. The only problem was, she wasn’t sure if her dad would help Darwin or help ‘solve’ Darwin. Stop it, Kass, get your head back in the fight, she had to tell herself as her thoughts wondered to Darwin. Granted, that’s where they were more often than not lately--on Darwin.

  “Lady Kass, your buffer zone is big enough, and Darwin reports that he has enough White-Wing red eyes to hold the line temporarily. It’s time for us to enact phase two. Bring them down,” Alex said as he appeared on the Hydra next to her. After finishing his message he threw the Spear he was holding into a White-Wing twenty meters away from them and vanished. Only a moment later did Kass see him standing atop the dead White-Wing pulling his Spear out.

  I swear, that boy is more of a magician than I am, Kass thought, always annoyed that Alex could sneak up on her so well. If the Stormguard Alliance ever gets rich, it’s going to lose all of its money treating heart attacks that he will cause startling people.

  Kass calmed her nerves, stopped the snowball shooting gallery, closed her eyes and began channeling something new. It was her first time casting the spell in what felt like forever, but it felt like the spell was programed for just this moment. ‘Winter is Coming,’ don’t fail me now! she thought as she started summoning the ice chains from the ground beneath the waters. One after another they started shooting out of the water and into the air, shackling the flying White-Wings. As she kept channeling the spell, more and more chains began shooting up at a time. After only holding the channeling process open for two minutes, the chains were already starting to shoot up over a dozen at a time.

  The White-Wings, struggling as they were pulled to the ground by the ice chains, seemed to almost scream in horror. The sky was their advantage, it was their Racial right to live in the skies, and now they were being grounded in knee-high water. And if they weren’t screaming in horror from the chains pulling them to the ground, they were definitely shouting in pain as the eager, hungry Turtle-Wolves and Spear-wielding Scouts began preying on them the second they touched the ground. Without a dive, without any mobility, they were sitting ducks for their enemies wading in the blood-red water below.

  Even though none of them were worth a terrible amount of EXP, Kass couldn’t help but notice her bar was slowly shooting up from the sheer volume of the kills. It might not be enough to hit another level, but it was still better than nothing, and EXP was the reason she had stuc
k with Darwin to begin with. It was the reason she had been okay with ignoring the very real struggle Darwin was probably going through. Stop it Kass, you’re thinking about Darwin again. You’re in the middle of committing good, old-fashioned, home-grown avian genocide on a level that would make Colonel Sanders proud, so stay focused and turn these White-Wings into dodo birds.

  Everything was going down smoother than a well-aged wine, especially with the spell ‘Winter is Coming’ shackling more people than the interest on student loans, when all of a sudden Kass noticed something terrifying. While all the other White-Wings that Darwin was killing only had the standard two wings and angel-like appearance, this particular one was different. He had four massive wings sprouting out of his back that dwarfed his allies’ wings. He was well over two meters tall and wore Steel, not Leather, Armor. Instead of the two Daggers or Bow and Arrow that she saw being used by all the other White-Wings, he was wielding a Sword and a Shield, and he was coming right at Darwin.

  “What the heck is that?” she mumbled to herself out loud, almost losing her concentration on the ‘Winter is Coming’ spell. “Fuzzy Wuzzy! Get to Darwin! I got a bad feeling about this!” she yelled as soon as she was able to get her concentration back on the spell.

  Fuzzy Wuzzy, who was behind the Hydra, rolling on its back and swatting its giant, ice breathing-bubble with its paws, stood up and looked at Kass while poking the bubble with a claw. I did not make that bubble that thick. Stop being lazy! Kass wanted to shout, but instead decided not to waste time. “Blake! Bust that bubble for Fuzzy Wuzzy so he can go help Darwin. And go with him too!”

  Blake didn’t question her at all, but rather just appeared behind Fuzzy Wuzzy with the same creepy trick Alex always used and broke the bubble with his Spear before the two of them started running towards Darwin. You two better keep him safe, Kass wished after them, but she herself knew that she needed to maintain the spell or the battle would be lost.

  Kass kept up the spell, but she felt like she was watching in horror as the armored, four-winged Commander got closer to Darwin. It was just about to ready itself and make a dive when three White-Wings, not red-eyes like Darwin’s Zombies, struck it in the back one after the other. They didn’t manage to do more than hurt one of its wings before the Commander sped up so fast in the air he almost disappeared like Alex, charging them with his shield and knocking them forward into the area a dozen meters ahead of Kass.

  Kass, looked at them. “Are you three okay? Why are you attacking one of your own?” she couldn’t help but ask.

  “We haven’t been on the White-Wing side since they tried to kill us,” the only male of the three said, standing up and brushing off his shoulders then his wings. As the other two stood up, Alex, Justin and two other scouts materialized behind them.

  “Do we kill them, Lady Kass?” Alex asked as he trained his Spear on them.

  “No, they’ve got a story they can tell us after the fight is over. Until then, I need you all to make sure that thing doesn’t kill Darwin,” Kass said, pointing at the four-winged beast who was once again readying his dive for Darwin.

  “I wish I could, Lady Kass,” Justin said, staring at the armored angel, “unfortunately the great Lord Darwin’s orders are final. He saw it when the fight started and commanded us to protect you should it engage us directly.”

  Blake came back with Fuzzy Wuzzy too. “I was sent back as well, Lady Kass.”

  What? Protect me? I can die, you idiot! You can’t! her voice yelled inside her head. You made me ask you out, and now you’re going to die before I ever even get that date! she thought, protesting fiercely in her mind.

  “Well, do you mind removing the Spears so we go after it again? I don’t think the ‘Great Lord Darwin’ ordered us to do anything,” the male White-Wing spoke again, his hands over his head in the traditional surrender pose. “I mean, do you really want the ‘Great Lord Darwin’ to fight on his own? Against a Faction Leader, Lady Kass, was it?”

  Kass wanted to tell him to go, but she needed to know first what type of threat Darwin faced, if she was over-reacting or if he was in real danger. “Faction Leader? What level are they generally?”

  “This one, he’s about Level 65 to 70 like all of the other Faction Leaders. He’s the unrivalled leader of the White-Wings,” one of the two girl White-Wings answered this time. “He also has all the standard NPC Boss buffs.”

  “Move you lumbering beast!” she yelled at the Hydra, ignoring the three White-Wing prisoners. It may not be enough, but I still have to try, she thought as the Hydra started rushing towards Darwin. She watched as the Angel flew upwards higher into the sky again, preparing for its dive. Once it took head, she knew she wouldn’t make it in time. She closed her eyes and gulped, she couldn’t watch. She could only pray that when he died, he’d respawn like she would.

  *CLANG!* a loud metallic sound, louder than any of the clashing Spears, Knives, Armor and Axes across the battlefield, wrung out from where Darwin was. Kass shut her eyes even tighter for a second, afraid to look as the Hydra barrelled towards Darwin’s position.

  *Clang!* the metallic sound shot out again. Is Darwin fighting? she thought, opening her eyes to find Darwin was momentarily nowhere in sight. Darwin? Did you live? Are you okay? she panicked. Where did you go? she worried, scanning the battlefield until she saw him, flat on his butt behind a man who had taken his spot on the field: the King. Kass would recognize his face anywhere. It was still the first one you saw during the intro sequence when picking a Human, and he was the only Human who wore a Crown to battle.

  “I see your Bathrobe has gotten a little fancier since we last met,” the King said to Darwin behind him as he held his Sword out towards the four-winged Commander, now grounded with his Sword and Shield in a defensive position.

  Wait, Darwin knows the King? When did he meet the King? she thought, the shock of the King’s appearance causing her to forget the Boss-level mob threatening their life in front of them.

  “Yeah, what can I say? Came with the new job title.” Darwin stood up, leveling his Sword into his own combat stance. “By the way, thanks for the help.”

  “I had to help you out when I saw that you were stuck with a Sword and not your weapon of preference, silverware,” the King laughed. It was like the two were long-lost friends. “To be fair, your sister was the one who sent me though. She said I would need to assist you here. She said you would strike the enemy from the north, and this Commander would try to kill you, and I needed to interfere before you were saved.”

  “Before I was saved?” Darwin asked, almost dropping his stance.

  “You are Eve’s brother, no?” the King said, the two standing there chatting right in front of the enemy.

  “Yes, I am Eve’s brother, but you came to help me before I was saved?” Darwin said, not turning his head to look at him while he was talking. “Don’t you mean before I am killed?”

  “No, he, like, totes means saved,” a voice Kass immediately recognized said from behind her. She was about to turn around and look when two hands shot over her eyes casting her vision into darkness. “No peeking, girlfriend.”

  “Stephanie!” Darwin called out to the person behind her.

  Medusa . . . no wonder she covered my eyes.

  “Sorry, Darwin, I, like, totes had an awesome entrance planned when I saw the lead female from Touched by an Angel’s first kid get all grumpus in metal at you, but the Burger King boy wouldn’t let me have it my way,” she apologized, as she pulled her hands away from Kass’s eyes.

  Kass, eyes now firmly closed again, was afraid to look. She knew what happened to those who gazed on the Medusa, but the need to see what was going on was slowly almost killing her. What are they doing?

  “It seems I’m too late to fulfill Eve’s request,” the King said in a disappointed voice that made Kass think she could almost hear his frown. “In that case, I am told to pass on a message. Stephanie, you were supposed to only deliver the Stone to Darwin, not meddle further.�
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  “Message, like, recieved grandpa grumps,” Stephanie said with her usual high-pitched bubble gum voice, but then it switched to a darker tone that chilled Kass more than any of her frost spells. “But if you come between us again, I will end you.”

  “I’m just delivering the message. Take it up with Eve if you have further concerns. I don’t want to get between you two,” the King said, his voice lacking the same bold bass it had before Stephanie had showed up.

  “Like, whatevs. Anyways, honey! Did you miss me?” Stephanie was back to her high pitch.

  Honey? Why is she calling Darwin honey? Why should he be missing her? What did they do in that room when I wasn’t there? Kass started to feel a little jealous.

  “Been a little busy to miss anyone,” Darwin dodged the question.

  Kass could hear stone crumbling in the background. For some reason Darwin and the King weren’t affected, but from the sound of breaking rocks, it was clear that many of the White-Wings around them weren’t so fortunate.

  “Well, like, missing me or not, I think you like totes promised me some ice cream, and I thought I’d come here and collect,” Stephanie said.