Darkness Fallen

by Dave Willmarth

  A drow appeared from around a corner and slit his throat from ear to ear. Alexander cast Levitate on the drow, raising it two feet off the ground and holding it there as Lorian pincushioned it with arrows. Fitz yelled, “Don’t kill him!” and cast a light cage around the drow.

  Fibble was shouting, “Pew! Pew” and frantically healing Brick and Warren as they faced off against six opponents on the right side. Sasha turned to help, as Lyra continued to heal the three tanks on the left. Misty covered the floor in front of them with ice, taking away any solid footing for those trying to hit Kimberly, Grumpy, and Michael.

  A dark bolt from the left side passed between Kimberly and Michael and struck Warren in the back. He stayed upright for a moment, then fell as forward as the thing began to burrow into him.

  Seeing Brick suddenly alone, Alexander grabbed Warren’s feet and pulled him back behind Brick. Then he took Warren’s place as Fitz tried to heal him.

  Alexander had no shield to equip, so he brandished his sword two-handed. Memories of his day as a melee warrior with a giant sword made him smile even as he strained to block multiple incoming weapons.

  “Screw this!” he shouted. He yanked a wall of stone up from the floor, cutting the opposing party in half. Three were trapped between him and the wall, the other three left on the other side. He lunged forward and stabbed a warrior who was foolish enough to turn and look at the wall that was suddenly behind him. The man went down with his insides smoking, screaming for mercy.

  “No mercy,” Alexander said, cutting off the man’s leg and leaving him to bleed out.

  Brick was keeping the other two occupied, so Alexander checked on Warren. Fitz had removed the worm, but the warrior was in bad shape. Lyra and Sasha both cast big heals on him, and he relaxed a bit.

  Alexander was drawn back to the fight when Brick activated Shield Bash, knocking both players back against the wall. The one nearest Alexander was stunned by the dual impact. Alexander took the opportunity to remove his head.

  Brick began to pound away at the last opponent. It was a paladin in heavy plate armor. The blows from Brick’s hammer dented it each time they struck. The man was too focused on defending against that hammer and left himself open to Alexander’s sword, which slid through his throat and pinned him to the wall.

  Brick turned to assist the three tanks on the left side. He stepped into Michael’s place, giving the older man a rest. The three archers and Misty were peppering the remaining players with missiles.

  A flash of light down the hall caught Alexander’s attention as another group of drow committed suicide among the spikes in the teleport room.

  There were still eight or nine players pounding at his tanks in the left hallway. And three behind his wall on the right. Alexander chose a healer at the back of the left group. She was wearing a headpiece with a sapphire. He focused on that gem, and forced power into it. He pictured earthquakes, volcanoes, then a nuclear explosion.

  The woman’s head exploded along with the headpiece, sending metal and bone shrapnel tearing through her guildmates. Two of them went down with serious wounds.

  The archers were still peppering the enemy players with arrows as fast as they could draw and fire. Misty was firing bolts of ice. Jules appeared behind their remaining healer and drove a dagger into the back of her neck. The blade exited the front of woman’s throat as she tried to scream. Jules’ second blade pierced her heart, and she dropped to the floor.

  One of the enemy warriors still standing noticed Jules and turned to attack. The rogue took two steps backward to avoid a sword slash and tripped over the body of the headless healer. The warrior leapt over the body, sword slashing down. Jules raised her daggers to defend herself but disappeared as Alexander teleported her back to his side.

  Being focused on Jules, he didn’t notice the caster firing a dark bolt at him. It struck him in the gut as he was about to speak to Jules. The worm quickly chewed its way into his entrails as he called out “Fitz!” and fell on his back. He tried to cast light spells at the worm, but his concentration was interrupted by the intense pain. Fibble was at his side, desperately casting repeated light magic heals on him. “Pew! Pew! Pew!” The little goblin had learned the significance of this spell, having seen several of his new friends die from it. “Boss no die! Pew! Fitz! Help! Pew!”

  Then Fitz was there, grabbing hold of the worm and turning it to ash. Alexander felt heals tingle through his body as Fitz helped him to his feet.

  There were now only five of the enemy left in the corridor. Plus at least three behind the wall Alexander had built. Most of those Alexander could see were losing health fast without healers to maintain them. He watched as the warrior that had gone after Jules took an arrow in the throat from Lorian’s bow and went down.

  Alexander examined the four that were left now. All were level 55 to 70. Their caster, the one that had just nearly killed him, was the highest level. She was dressed all in black robes with red symbols stitched into them. A black hood covered her face until an ice bolt from Misty knocked it back.

  “Another drow!” Fitz called out. “She’s mine!”

  He gestured, and blue flames engulfed the drow mage, her robes catching fire. Fitz cast a light cage around her, then levitated her above her minions and pulled her over the heads of Brick and Grumpy to be set down on the floor next to him.

  She screamed at the remaining Chaos Nation players, “Kill me! Do not let them take me! Kill me now!” She thrashed against the bars of light, burning herself without seeming to care.

  The remaining three enemy players tried to push through the line of shields to get to her. Brick caved in the skull of one of the warriors, dropping his health bar to zero. Then he and Warren took turns bashing another back and forth with their shields as they stabbed and pounded him from both sides. Grumpy and Kimberly made short work of the last warrior, who lost an arm, then a leg before finally expiring.

  The group took a breather, allowing the healers time to top everyone off and drink mana potions. Alexander could hear the enemy players beating on the wall, trying to get to them.

  Fitz waved a hand and the cage with the drow in it disappeared. “I sent her to my tower in Stormforge” he explained when he saw Alexander’s questioning look. “If I left her in that cage she’d use the light magic to commit suicide. Now she’s in a stasis chamber, and can do herself no harm.”

  When everyone had caught their breath, they did a quick search of the left side of the house. They found no other enemies, player or otherwise. The stairs to the cellar were on this side, and Alexander ventured down with Brick in the lead.

  The glow of their weapons lit the dark cellar from wall to wall. There were no enemies visible, but Alexander was taking no chances. He pulled out his Ray of Light wand and concentrated on sending a sustained beam, which he quickly swept around the room at waist level.

  The beam exposed two drow, who quickly jumped to the attack. Brick picked up one with his shield, knocking him backward. The other stabbed Alexander in the gut with his dagger. The mithril shirt turned the blade aside, but as it slid from his gut, the dagger sliced the back of Alexander’s sword hand. The drow laughed. “You’re a dead man now,” he said as he took another swipe, this time at Alexander’s head.

  Alexander raised his sword to block, slicing cleanly through the drow’s wrist and sending the hand still gripping the dagger flying away.

  “Immune to poison.” He grinned at the shocked drow before driving his sword up under his chin and thru his skull.

  With the room clear, Brick made his way to the open trap door in the floor. He laid on his stomach and stuck his head down through the hole. Alexander heard him shout “Hello, me pretties! What’re ye doin down here? Havin a picnic?”

  He was answered by whistles ‘n’ shouts from the dwarves below.

  “We’ll be done up here in a few more minutes; then drinks be on me!”

  This brought a much louder and more enthusiastic response.

  A
lexander looked down through the opening and used his earth skill to solidify the floor once again. Then he called down “The floor is solid. You can come in closer. But please keep watch for more drow. They can use their stealth down here.”

  He smiled as the dwarves drew in closer to the hole, leaving about a ten-foot opening between the two groups. Then they proceeded to play a game popular among dwarven children. A dozen throwing axes sped back and forth between the two groups as they deftly caught and then returned the weapon like human children playing catch with a ball. This effectively created a kill zone of flying blades directly below the trap door.

  Making their way back upstairs, they approached Alexander’s wall. The tanks put themselves in position, shields up. The archers drew their bows. Alexander said, “Now!” and liquified the wall. One of the players on the other side had been about to hit it with the pommel of his sword. With the wall gone, he stumbled forward onto Kimberly’s waiting sword.

  The other two were quickly being punctured by arrow after arrow from the three archers. Brick, Warren, and Grumpy pounded and hacked at them until they were down for good.

  “We still need to clear the rest of the house” Sasha reminded them.

  The tanks formed back up and proceeded down the hall. This one led to the main sitting area, a dining room, and a stairway leading upstairs. The front door was rattling under the blows of players trying to break in. Alexander couldn’t see the building’s status, but he was guessing its defense points were getting pretty low.

  Alexander opened guild chat. “Helga, try to call off the adventurers. No point in damaging this place further. Tell them we have it under control, and that drinks are on Greystone.”

  He was sure that not all of them would give up. But even if only half walked away, the building’s defenses would last that much longer.

  They found nobody alive in either of the main floor rooms. Alexander used his wand to sweep both of them, but no drow were exposed. Either they weren’t there, or they were smart enough to lay on the floor. Just in case, Sasha cast a few random Thorn Traps as they moved toward the stairs.

  Brick led the way up, singing loudly to himself. Alexander initially assumed it was some dwarven battle hymn, but as Brick reached the top of the stairs, he heard “Thunderbolts and lightning, very, very frightening me!” and recognized it as a song from a century ago.

  Then Grumpy picked it up, shouting “Galileo!” and the two grinning dwarves went back and forth. Alexander shook his head.

  At the upper landing, the hallway only went one direction, leading the entire way across the house. There were maybe ten doors on each side. Typical guild house configuration, small rooms for members, just big enough for a bed and a chest.

  “This is going to take forever,” Lyra observed.

  Sasha answered “Well we know at least one of them is still alive in here somewhere. Let’s find them.”

  So, they began to clear each room, one by one. As they left each one, Alexander would close the door, and Brick would shape some stone over it to keep it closed. They didn’t need any drow sneaking up behind them.

  They made no attempt to be quiet. Brick and Grumpy continued singing. They’d switched to a slightly more contemporary song that just seemed to involve shouting, “Helter Skelter!” a lot. Alexander pictured the video the folks at Jupiter would be making.

  Brick pushed open the door of the next bedroom, still singing, when a dagger plunged into his eye. Grumpy slammed his shield into the now visible drow, knocking it backward into a wall as Brick fell limp with his health bar below 10%. Michael and Kimberly flooded in behind him and used their own shields to pin the dark elf into a corner.

  Fitz withdrew the dagger from Brick’s eye and began to apply the same treatment he’d used on Kai in the forest. Sasha and Lyra cast heals on the dwarf until he was back over 50%. Brick looked up from the floor with his one good eye, stopping Fitz. “Can ye heal me eye?”

  Sasha shook her head. “It’s gone.”

  Brick grinned. “Then let me die. Can’t be havin’ me pretty face ruined by a pirate patch!”

  “Screw that!” Kimberly said as she pulled her sword from the drow’s throat and turned to Brick. “I think you’ll look sexy with a patch.”

  Sasha grinned at the princess, and said, “You heard the lady, winky,” as she cast another heal on him. Fitz resumed applying the antidote, chuckling at their antics.

  You have defeated all defenders of the Chaos Nation Guild House. Maintain control of the facility for ten minutes to assume ownership.

  “Well! There we go. Everybody’s dead!” Max said as he looted the drow.

  The group quickly split up and checked the rest of the rooms just to make sure they didn’t contain any prisoners or other surprises. Then they headed back downstairs.

  Alexander looked out the front window to see the dwarves and the queen’s men clearing away all the adventurers who remained. He opened the front door and beckoned to a couple of the dwarves.

  When they approached, both dwarves took a knee, saying “Your Majesty! How can we help ye?”

  Alexander tried hard not to roll his eyes. “How many dwarves came through the portal this evening?”

  One of them said, “Three hunnert, Y’Majesty.”

  Alexander pulled a sack of gold from his bag. “I need a detail of fifty dwarves. You are to borrow or buy a half-dozen wagons, then go to every tavern or pub you can find and buy as much alcohol as you can get your hands on. Pay fair prices, plus half. Bring it all back here. We’re going to celebrate!” he handed the dwarves the gold.

  The two dwarves ran off, barking orders and breaking off a booze detail. The word quickly spread, and the courtyard and street in front of the house grew loud with shouts and cheers.

  Lainey tapped Brick on the shoulder and handed him a newly crafted eye-patch. He examined it for a moment. “BWAHAHA! It be givin’ me +1 to charisma!”

  Thea, who had stayed back at the palace with the queen, must have informed her that the house was cleared. Players all over the area suddenly leveled up from completing whatever quest the queen had given them. The bells across the city began to ring as the players celebrated and congratulated each other.

  Kimberly gave Brick’s beard a solid tug, saying, “I need to get back to the palace and my mother. I’ll see you all there soon?” When Brick nodded, uncharacteristically quiet, she summoned her mount. It was a black unicorn with a single pink bow tied on its tail. She hopped aboard and trotted through the crowd toward the palace.

  Alexander moved into the sitting room and took a seat. He was considering pouring himself a drink when his UI exploded with messages.

  >>>System Alert!<<<

  The Greystone Guild has captured the guild house belonging to Chaos Nation, in the City and Kingdom of Antalia, and claimed it as Greystone property! The property is designated as restricted for the next 24 hours. Any who were previously bound to the guild house will now be bound to the fountain in the nearest city square.

  Level up! You are now level 59!

  Your wisdom has increased by +1. Your intelligence has increased by +1

  You have 10 free attribute points available

  As ruler of a sovereign nation and Friend of the Realm, you may establish an embassy in Antalia. Would you like to designate this facility as Embassy of Elysia?

  Alexander declined. He needed to get some clarification on what that would involve.

  Dwarves from in the tunnels began filing out of the house one by one, having been boosted up through the trap door by Lugs. Soldiers of all three cities were mingling outside, awaiting the promised refreshment. It didn’t take long for the first wagonload of barrels to appear, and the party began. Similar celebrations were breaking out across the city. Quick-thinking vendors were making their rounds selling food, drinking mugs, even newly blessed and glowing weapons. It was going to be a long night in Antalia.

  Alexander called the guild members together before things got too out of ha
nd. “I’m going back to the palace to speak with the queen. Any of you who wish to miss the party are welcome to join me.” He grinned.

  Jules took his hand, making it clear she was going along. When nobody else spoke up, Alexander waved goodbye and teleported the two of them to the palace. He chose a spot behind the altar in the main hall, hoping nobody would be standing there.

  When they arrived, they found the palace much less festive than the streets. The bodies of the forty citizens slain by the drow were lined up on tables, wrapped in white linen. Friends and family members were mourning and paying their respects. Jules began to walk toward where six small wrapped bodies lay on a single long table, tears already forming in her eyes.

  Alexander bowed to the queen as she approached, Kimberly at her side. “It is done, Your Majesty. Chaos Nation has been removed from your city. Your dungeon should be quite full by now.”

  “Thank you, Alexander. You and yours have done us another great favor tonight. I do not even want to imagine how many we would have lost trying to rid ourselves of those filth. Kimberly tells me you lost several of your own, and almost died yourself.”

  Quest Complete! Order Out of Chaos

  Level up! You are now level 60!

  Your wisdom has increased by +1. Your intelligence has increased by +1

  You have 15 free attribute points available

  “Yes, we did. But for us, death is a… temporary situation.” He winked at Kimberly. “It was our pleasure, Queen Margaret. That is what friends are for. When you require assistance, you need only call.” He bowed again.

  Leaving the queen to comfort her people, Alexander and Jules returned to their guild house. The party had expanded to include both houses, and there were crowds of revelers in the streets. Alexander opened the portal to the keep so that Pollock and company, who had respawned at the chapel there, could attend the party. They reclaimed their gear from Max and enthusiastically greeted friends from Antalia in the crowd. Brick took advantage of the open portal to grab some dwarves and retrieve several barrels of dwarven spirits from his personal stash.