The advisor takes her time answering. She strolls over to the queen’s side, keeping her eyes on us the whole way. I can’t read her expression at all.
“I think that it is likely true that these six travelers represent a lot of power, damage and ability.”
Morgana walks past the queen, still strolling casually, to the far end of our line, to stand in front of Callidus. Not for the first time, the poor kid looks scared.
“I also think,” she continues, “that given their evident power, it seems wise to make sure they are stationed both in a place they can be of the most use and in a place they can be under the most supervision.”
“I see,” Queen Vivian says.
“Whatever you decide, your majesty, I would advise not keeping them here in the Throne Room without Captain Crowhurst present.”
“You’re right, Madam Avery,” the queen says after a moment. “Captain Crowhurst, please take these prisoners with you and put them to work. If they survive the battle, we can continue the trial at that time.”
Callidus pales as Crowhurst grabs his arm and roughly leads us out of the Throne Room.
On our way out the door, I turn back and see Morgana watching us oddly.
Chapter 38
“Right. You heard the queen,” Captain Crowhurst says as he and his men lead us out of the Throne Room to where we will be defending Castle Nennius. “Survive and you’ll be right back where you started. Don’t survive and, well.” He shrugs.
“How are the attackers maneuvering so far?” I ask. He is power-walking us through the corridors and down stairwells. I have to practically shout to be heard over all of our footsteps. “Have they been able to breach the first gate?”
“Not yet,” he says sullenly. “But their battering ram is making significant inroads. If we can’t stop them and soon, they’ll be through the first gate in no time.”
“What do you need us to do?” Erinocalypse asks.
The captain shakes his head. “I can’t believe this is what the queen wanted. To actually give dangerous prisoners permission to be even more dangerous.”
“So, what? You want us to just wait here, then?” I can’t help my sarcasm.
We’ve reached the final staircase down to the level of the parapets.
“We’ll split up here,” Captain Crowhurst says. “I’m going to keep an eye on these ranged attackers. The other three of you go down with the sergeant to the gate. You’re the front line. If anyone is going to get hurt in this attack it’s you lot, not my men.”
“Seems reasonable,” SteelFeather says with a good-natured shrug.
“Go,” Crowhurst commands.
We watch them descend the stairs for only a moment before the captain leads us down a different hallway to a wide door leading outside. One of his soldiers holds it open as we file through and out on to the top of the castle wall. It’s dawn. The sun has fully risen now and where we emerge, facing west, all I can see is the top of the White Rock Ravine forming a crack in the surface of the earth all the way to the beach, with miles of ocean beyond. I think I even see a few ships peppering the blue expanse.
“Come on,” the soldier says as he pushes me along the wall.
Crowhurst is already several paces ahead of us, checking in with each soldier as he passes them. This side of the castle there are only a few men holding defensive positions. As we turn the corner to the north side of the castle, the walkway is crowded with archers raining attacks down on the players.
Erinocalypse, who had been walking ahead of me, turns around to grin. I can’t help but grin back. If I haven’t leveled up at least once at the end of this battle I’ll be disappointed.
We follow Crowhurst as he approaches another soldier shouting commands at the others.
“Report,” Crowhurst commands.
“Sir, the enemy has been slowed, but I fear not for long. They had at least one sorcerer who is repeatedly casting a protection over them so our archers’ efforts are diminished.”
Enhancement received: Bubble of Protection
Description: You will sustain -5% damage for the next sixty seconds
Crowhurst looks up and around, confused. “What was— Did you do that?” he asks Erinocalypse.
“I did. It should cover all your men on this side of the castle at least. I’ll recast it as often as I need to.”
He pauses, scrutinizing her. “Thank you,” he says begrudgingly.
“I’m sorry. I didn’t mean to interrupt. Please continue.”
Crowhurst frowns and turns back to his soldier. “Continue.”
“We have begun boiling oil for the Murder Hole for the eventuality that the enemy breaches the first gate.”
“Excellent. And any luck communicating with the attackers?”
“No, sir. They have ignored all our attempts at overture and remain fixated on breaking down the door. We have been able to thwart them for now, but until we are able to make contact and learn what they want, all our attempts at defense are necessarily reactive.”
From where we are standing there is no clear line of sight to the players below. I hear the lead shouting instructions.
“Once more, men!” floats up from below. “On my count.”
Three seconds later, a heavy thud I feel in my core crashes against the outside gate. The sound of wood splintering and iron creaking filters through the noise of the soldiers around us. It sounds as though we only have a few minutes before they break through completely with their battering ram.
“We don’t have much time,” I say. Crowhurst glares at me, but I press on. “I might be able to talk to MadMachine—the leader. I met him briefly last night.”
“I’ll not allow you to fraternize with the enemy. I knew you could not be trusted. I should have guessed you’re a traitor to the queen.”
“Look, do you want our help or not? We have an interest in this castle remaining in the queen’s possession. We don’t want it conquered by these jokers any more than you do.”
He sighs, pausing and weighing his options. “Do it.”
I take a step back, putting my back against the wall and moving out of the way of the hurrying soldiers pushing back along the top of the wall. I don’t want to get knocked over because I’m paying attention to the game’s interface instead of the NPCs around me.
It takes me no time at all to find his name and shoot off a message.
SirAsh3r: Hey, man, what are you doing?
MadMachine: None of your business, kid. What we do for our employer is none of your business.
SirAsh3r: Who is your employer? What are you doing here?
MadMachine: Shut up, you Toterra stooge.
“Wait. What?” I say out loud. The abruptness with which MadMachine ended our conversation stuns me for a second.
“What did he say?” Erinocalypse asks me.
I rush to the side of the wall and look down, equipping my bow and arrow as I move. There he is, directing the other players in their assault. He glances up at me, smiles smugly, and returns his focus to the front gate without doing anything else to acknowledge my presence.
I nock an arrow, debating what would be the best plan of attack. The last thing I want is for the front gate to be inadvertently lit on fire, or even weakened by getting wet. I choose Earth arrow and aim for MadMachine’s head.
The same moment I fire, MadMachine shuffles, moving just a half a step back and my arrow hits one of his tanks in the shoulder.
Both MadMachine and the other player look up at the castle walls. I briefly consider ducking back so he doesn’t see me, but what would be the point, instead I nock another arrow and aim directly at him.
I fire an Earth arrow, but rather than duck out of the way, MadMachine quickly turns his back on me, moving one step and letting the arrow hit him in the back.
It does damage; I can console myself with that. But either the cloak he’s wearing has such high armor, or whatever protection spell his sorcerer has cast keeps him from being incapacitated by
such a hit.
Once the arrow falls to the ground, not embedded at all, MadMachine turns around and grins at me.
“Once more, men!” he says while holding my gaze. “One!”
“They’re close, Asher. Fire again! Take them down!”
“Two!”
I rapidly shoot off three more arrows, aiming for the players holding the front end of the battering ram. With all the movement and bustle, I don’t cause much damage at all.
“Three!” MadMachine shouts from below us.
Only half a second later, we hear the battering ram make its final contact with the front gate, wood breaking, iron scraping, and the whole of the doors being ripped off their hinges falling to the ground with an immense crash.
MadMachine and his attackers cheer.
Chapter 39
“Oil at the ready!” Captain Crowhurst shouts to his men.
The first gate has just been breached. MadMachine and his group of players who are attempting to take Castle Nennius alternate between streaming into the gap before the second gate, and working to move the battering ram, fallen arrows and broken pieces of wood and iron out of the way.
We stand near the Murder Hole, a large grate in the ceiling above where the players have infiltrated. Erinocalypse uses Petrify to stop several of the players in their tracks. When they freeze, the pushing players behind them are forced to stop short, trying not to crush the petrified players under their feet. But the effect is short lived, maybe half of what Erin’s spells can usually cause.
“We need to find their sorcerer and take him out,” I say, seeing how well the players below us are protected. “I don’t see him in this mob, do you?”
The closest sergeant hears my question and immediately delegates the job of finding the spell caster to two of the soldiers standing near him.
“Commandeer a spy glass if you have to. There’s no telling how far away the mage could be, but find him.”
“Or her,” Erinocalypse calls after them.
“If we can end their protection, our attacks will have that much more effectiveness,” I explain to Captain Crowhurst.
“I know how it works, boy,” he sputters, frustrated. “Both Queen Vivian and Madam Avery are powerful casters.”
“Sorry. Geez.”
I peek over the top of the wall again to see how the attacking party is faring. It’s a relatively small army—all players and not a single NPC—and all but three of them are past the first gate into the corridor under us. I can try shooting at these three stragglers, but it’s not going to do much good.
“I think we’ve found him,” a soldier gasps out as he runs up. “The spell caster. Off to the east, in the trees.”
“Show us,” I tell him.
The kid leads the way back to the east corner of the castle. We meet another soldier who is peering through a spy glass and offers it to us as we run up.
“We haven’t actually put eyes on the person casting,” the soldier clarifies, “but we have seen several beams of energy and spells emit from that direction, including the branches breaking and grass in the meadow matted down under some kind of weight.”
I activate my Power Perception, aim the spyglass and look in the direction he is pointing.
Attention: You have unlocked Active Skill: Power Perception Level 4
Description: In addition to sensing magical danger or gifts, you now are able to sense other players who are hiding or enhanced by magic
Requirement: Focus Level 2; Magic Level 20
Reward: +120 XP
Behind one of the thicker trees is a man wearing a navy blue cloak, the hood pulled up and over his eyes. He seems completely consumed by the fabric, but it doesn’t hide his player name, ElJugador, hovering in blue over his head. As I watch, he performs some kind of spell, a pulsing, swirling jet of purple energy shooting from his palms
“I see him,” I tell Erinocalypse as I hand her the spyglass. “That big tree a little to the right of the chapel. Right behind it.”
“By the chapel? Maybe the vargs will get him,” she says with a smile as she takes her turn to look. “Wait, where did you say?”
As I describe the location again, I see another bolt of light blue energy shoot toward the castle. “There, did you see that spell? Follow it back to the source.”
“I don’t see anything.” She shakes her head and looks at me. “Maybe he’s just behind the tree.”
“He can’t stay behind the tree while he casts.”
“Then where is he?”
“Let me see again.” I take the spy glass from her and investigate. This time, even though I know exactly where to look, there’s no sign of ElJugador. “That’s weird.”
“You don’t see him?”
I shake my head. I try again. I’m sure that’s the tree. Unless he has moved, I am certain I am looking in the right place. But this time, with the spyglass still trained on that tree, I activate Power Perception while looking through the spyglass.
As soon as the effect takes hold, ElJugador appears as though from thin air.
“Ah, well. That solves it. He’s invisible.”
“How can he be invisible? You just said you saw him.”
“Yeah, I did, but only when I activated my special perception skill. Without it I can’t see him at all. And, I guess, neither can you.”
“Well how do we kill him if we can’t see him?”
I grin at her. “Hope we get lucky, I guess. Just follow my arrows. We’ve done this before. You can totally handle it, Erin.”
She looks slightly mollified but still unsure.
“Besides,” I continue. “With the PVP limitations in Camlan, we can’t kill him anyway. We’ll have to draw him out or get him to drop the invisibility or something so one of these NPCs can finish him off.”
“Go for it,” she says, readying a spell.
I hand the spyglass back to the soldier who had been on duty. “I’m going to need an archer over here.”
I equip my Bow of Elements and ready an arrow, activating Power Perception and aiming for ElJugador when he steps out from behind the tree.
“I’m ready whenever you are,” Erinocalypse says quietly.
I start with an Earth arrow, aiming for the middle of the guy’s chest. “Okay, I’m going to countdown. Here we go. Three, two, one.”
As I say one, I let the arrow fly. The distance—a hundred yards or more—is maybe the farthest I’ve ever had to shoot an arrow. But as I’ve been leveling my aim has been improving and I’m not surprised to see the arrow make contact in roughly the correct place. Erinocalypse must have been watching me closely, because her Fire Bolt spell hits ElJugador in his knees only a few seconds later.
“Nice,” I tell her. “You hit him.”
“I did? Awesome. Again.”
I aim, again with an Earth arrow, and fire, this time hitting ElJugador in the shoulder and hopefully incapacitating his ability to cast. Erinocalypse misses with her casting, but after another two arrows and spells, cutting his health down by a third, she laughs out loud.
“I can see him! He’s not invisible anymore.”
At that same moment, the soldier finally appears with an archer in tow.
“What are we shooting?” he says, clearly confused.
I point to the edge of the forest. “Navy cloak. Take him down.”
The soldier nods, swallows and aims his arrow. It falls about twelve feet short of the target, embedding in the dirt and getting lost in the meadow grass.
“Um. Okay,” I say, trying to be patient. I shoot off another arrow, lodging in the sorcerer’s leg. “Try again?”
He aims and fires, not actually hitting the target until the fourth arrow. Erinocalypse takes her shot sending Fire Bolt across the meadow, further cutting ElJugador’s health down to almost half. But it’s not enough. We need the NPC to finish him off.
“Good. Okay. Great. Keep going. Faster. We have to stop them before they get through the second gate.”
I
let loose again, my Fire arrow setting the arm of ElJugador’s cloak aflame. The soldier continues to fire, his aim getting marginally better, but ElJugador has been able to refill his health back up to eighty percent in the time it takes the soldier to injure him.
I’m about to nock another arrow to continue the attack when I have to jump out of the way of a grappling hook sailing up over the castle wall. I look down to where it is coming from. The players have expanded their advance, infiltrating the castle from all sides now.
Chapter 40
I grab hold of the hook and pull hard, trying to get it untangled from where it is embedded in the stone. At the top of the castle wall where I’m standing, a person could climb up the rope and invade the castle. I need to stop it before it starts. I lean far over to see how the attacking players are making their way up. Two women, dressed in the light leather armor of rogues, are already making their way up the wall.
I quickly nock a Fire arrow and aim for the top of the rope holding them up. My aim is perfect and as soon as the tip of the arrow makes contact, the rope catches fire, burning all the way through in mere seconds. I watch the two players fall to the ground, take hits to their health points and look up at me angrily.
I duck out of sight—they don’t need to know who I am—and leave Erinocalypse and the soldier to continue the attack on the mage while I hurry back to see what the players’ progress on the gate is. The closer I get, the more my throat constricts. The sounds of the battering ram making solid progress through the giant door is apparent.
Half a dozen soldiers, including Captain Crowhurst, are gathered around the Murder Hole, above where the attackers are making their assault. A giant iron pot sits on the floor next to the hole and as I get closer I can actually feel the heat coming off it. They have boiled a vat of oil to pour down on top of the players.
Guardians of Camlan Page 16