A whistle drew his attention and he chanced a glimpse towards the right side of the square.
His guild loved him after all. Jimmy was there with Maverick beside him along with two others. Jimmy rolled his eyes, but made a motion with his hand to say they were all there, surrounding the square. They might not be able to pull Bishop out before the people mobbed him, but he would at least get his chance to summon the Red Witch.
“You, you will remain my prisoner and help me hunt down this Red Witch,” the Governor snarled as he grabbed Bishop by his jerkin and yanked him off his feet. “You will never be free.”
“I think you have that backwards my friend.” He squeezed the token again and, when the prompt appeared, he selected Summon.
An ear-splitting crack of lightning shot across the sky, but it wasn’t green. Instead, a brilliant red hue fell over the town square. Bishop was dropped to his feet and hurried to stand upright to witness what he just did.
“Commander Yarson, leader of Kevork’s Legions,” the Witch’s voice rang out strong and filled with power from the other end of the square. Every head turned to stare at her, but she was not alone. As Bishop hoped, men bearing red robes flanked her, at least twenty of them, the priests from High Ridge. “You have terrorized these lands long enough and now you will pay for your treachery. Release these people from your hold and I may let you crawl back into Vorgan.”
The Governor’s face faded away to reveal a Demonic snout and horns that fell back over his head like hair. He shed the body of the man he possessed and Bishop stared up at the nine-foot-tall beast holding a scythe in one hand and his other swirling with green flames.
“It is true then, you have emerged from your forest. You should have remained there and I may have let you live in peace, for a while.”
“You will not have these people. I will not allow it.”
“And you hope to stop me? You and your priests?” His laugh was bone chilling and Bishop cringed, backing away from the commander. They couldn’t attack the possessed people, but they could attack the commander and keep his attention off the Red Witch long enough for her to save these people. There were hundreds of them, though. Was she meant to save them all?
Bishop tried to ease away further without drawing attention. Jimmy was closer now and he tried to motion to him that, as soon as Yarson’s HP bar appeared, they needed to throw everything they could at him… and the guards too, who turned to face Bishop suddenly. Beneath their helmets were not just glowing eyes. They were Demons. Eight of them in total. He didn’t like the odds, not knowing what Yarson was capable of, but they had to save the townspeople or they would fail this quest, and who knew what would happen then. Dennis had several surprises up his sleeve. For all Bishop knew, he would let them fail and it would change the course of how they played the rest of the game. As interested as he was to see a varied story line, he hated losing more.
Jimmy nodded and Maverick shifted quietly beside him before disappearing from his sight. Yarson and the Red Witch were still exchanging insults when Bishop turned back around and slowly removed his bow from his body. The guards immediately aimed their spears at him and Yarson paused mid-sentence to study him curiously.
“You are a fool,” he snapped. “You and this woman. This is who you bring to help you save this town and its people? What power do you possess, hero? Will no one else stand beside you but a washed-up hag and her whimpering brood of cloistered men?”
“I will,” Jimmy said, stepping out from behind the stacks of crates.
“And me, too.”
“And me!”
One by one, the guild members stepped forward, announcing they stood beside Bishop and would fight against Yarson. The Demon’s rage grew as he glared at them, all moving forward to stand between Yarson, his Demon guards, and the crowd of townspeople. Bishop smirked at him, holding his bow lightly in his hands.
“Think I’m a fool now, Yarson?”
“You will perish! All of you will perish!” he bellowed and his HP appeared.
“Now!” Bishop yelled, and Maverick appeared out of the crowd with a mighty roar, forcing Yarson and the Demon guards to focus on them.
Bishop fell back with Zoe and Giles to protect the healers as Willy launched himself into the fray to fight at Calista’s side. She, Arthur, and four others focused on the guards along with the hunters’ ranged attacks. If they could kill them first, then they could turn all their attention to Yarson. Maverick and Trajan held strong getting heals from Benji.
As they focused their attack, the possessed townspeople roared en masse, but the Red Witch and the priests thrust their hands skyward. Red bolts of power shot out of their palms and, as Bishop watched in slack jawed amazement, they crisscrossed, turning into a net that hovered over the crowd, encircling every single person. Then, one by one, a streak of red power separated and attached itself to a person below. Screams and shouts of panic erupted from the crowd as each and every one was connected to the red net, drawing the Demons out, slowly.
Very slowly.
They would be racing to try and kill Yarson and his Demons to give them enough time to save the people.
Bishop kept up a rotation between Instant Shot, Increased Swift Bow, and Fiery Arrow—using his Rain of Thorns every time the cooldown ran out. The Demon guards were tough, but when he glanced at Yarson’s health, it’d barely nudged. They weren’t doing any damage and those two were their hardest hitters.
“Calista!” he yelled over the crowd. “Jump onto Yarson! He’s not taking any damage!”
She nodded and raced off to join the fight against the commander, her scream of fury filling Bishop with a new fire to fight harder. Two of the eight guards were down and another two were ready to fall. Bishop drew back his Execute shot and a third fell. He watched his XP bar steadily inch closer to level 38 and he grinned. After this fight, they’d be able to spend a day grinding and hit 40 in no time.
“Halfway!” Jimmy called out, and everyone moved in, focusing on one guard at a time to kill them faster.
Yarson’s HP was still holding strong, but there was a tiny sliver of it gone now. Calista used all her fury to attack, but even her damage was hardly enough to make any significant change. They were missing something, they had to be…
And then, he saw it.
Ten people fell to the ground in a dead faint and the red beams of power shot right at Yarson instead. He staggered from the hit and his HP finally changed enough to make a difference. The beams of power quickly faded though.
“The people…his power comes from the people! Jimmy! Can you and the other exorcist help them out?” he yelled.
Jimmy turned to the priests and stared at the net of power. “It doesn’t say I can!”
“We need more people to be free of the Demons! They’re giving Yarson his power!”
“I’ll see what I can do!” He got the attention of the other exorcist in the group and they hurried to join the priests and the Red Witch. Bishop had no idea if they’d be able to help speed things along or not, but they had to try.
Another guard fell and another until they were finally down to the last two. When their health was low, Bishop shot an Execute at one while Zoe and Giles tag-teamed the other.
“Guards down! Focus on Yarson!”
The healers were running low on power and the tanks were starting to show the wear of trying to hold off Yarson’s attacks for so long. But almost half the townspeople were on the ground. Whatever the Red Witch and the priests were doing, it was working.
Bishop turned his attention on Yarson, but had to switch his stance to Endurance. His power was taking too long to regen and he and the other DPS needed to start dealing out some heavy hits so they didn’t lose their tanks.
The fight was going much better than Bishop assumed it would, despite everyone struggling to keep enough power up for decent attacks.
“Anyone have a power boost for the guild?” he yelled when he ran out ag
ain.
“Got one, but not enough power to cast it!” Zoe yelled.
Bishop watched as another group of townspeople fell to the ground, freed of the Demons. Yarson took another brutal hit and, this time, it stunned him.
Bishop used his Penetrating Shot, hoping to break through some of his armor, and watched in glee as his chest piece cracked. Yarson yelled in rage when the stun wore off, swinging his scythe out wide in a move none of them had witnessed before. It dealt a nasty poison debuff and another debuff that prevented them all from healing easily. Bishop hit the ground hard beside Giles.
“Damn it! Man, this is insane! Is it supposed to take this long?”
“I have no idea,” Bishop replied, climbing back to his feet. “Look, they’re almost all down.”
The mob of bodies that surrounded them moments before were down to maybe fifty. They had to push through. He didn’t want to fail so close. Everyone was alive, so all they had to do was keep fighting and Yarson would fall.
And fall he eventually did.
The final group of people hit the ground and Yarson convulsed, each hit made by the players dealing massive damage that he couldn’t fend off for anything. They had him on the ground, finishing him off as his screams died away and his body crumpled into a pile of ash at their feet.
Trajan let out a bellow of triumph as everyone else fell to the ground, exhausted from the fight, mentally at least. “Damn, and he wasn’t even the boss!”
“That was epic,” Jimmy agreed as he joined the others. “I think we helped.”
“Man I don’t care. Everyone’s alive and it looks like we saved the people, too.” Bishop nodded to Timothy rushing towards them and the Red Witch coming from the other end of town. “Good. We can turn this quest in and head to Hillside for repairs, and an ale or two at the tavern.”
Calista squinted at him oddly, but he turned away from her gaze. He made a mental note not to drink as much the next time; she was looking at him now like she knew he was back to his old vice.
He stood when the Red Witch grew closer but, before she could say anything, the ground trembled beneath them and a monstrous roar split the calm that had fallen over Chesterville.
“Is this another part of the quest?” Jimmy asked, struggling to stay standing as the ground continued to rumble.
Bishop didn’t think it was. Yet, as the ground exploded beneath the Governor’s mansion, destroying it and sending debris flying, a towering green flame shot out of the ground. And with it came a demon, horns shaped the same as Yarson’s had been, but much larger, a scythe in his right hand. He glowered with neon green eyes down on the square.
“Witch!” he snarled when he zeroed in on the Red Witch. “You have thwarted my plans for the last time, you and your heroes!”
Bishop stared from the Witch to the Demon Lord and wondered if this was supposed to happen or not.
She opened her mouth to respond, but Kevork stomped forward and a portal burst to life behind him in the flames.
“You will be mine!” He slammed his scythe down on the ground and Bishop yelled in alarm when he was suddenly being dragged into the portal. He wasn’t the only one though. All of them were being sucked in one after another.
“What the hell is this?” Trajan hollered.
“Where are we going?” Jimmy shouted. “Bishop!”
He tried to hang on, but lost his footing and sailed backwards through the portal and into darkness. He dropped with a hard thud, the others landing with grunts and groans around him.
When he sat up, his eyes adjusted enough to discover they were no longer in Samar. Green flames burst to life in braziers all around them and they stared at the massive onyx doors of a fortress.
“Uh guys, are we where I think we are?” Maverick whispered.
“Vorgan. This is Vorgan,” Bishop replied. “Is this…did he drag us into the dungeon?”
Trajan reached out to the doors and a quest appeared before their eyes. “We can’t be here yet, we’re not level forty!”
“Try to leave,” Bishop said, and he brought up the menu, but there was no option to leave and no portal he could see that would take them back to Samar. “We’re trapped in this dungeon.”
They stared at the doors looming before them with no other choice but to go through the dungeon…
Three levels too soon.
Chapter 11
Calista watched Bishop, waiting for him to show a little more concern for the fact that they couldn’t get out of this dungeon and that they couldn’t even log out of the game. She had double-checked after they had realized there was no leaving the dungeon. She didn’t like it and brought up the options to send a message to the admin.
“Do we just sit here then?” Jimmy asked.
“There’s no way we can beat a level forty dungeon,” Maverick said firmly. “I really don’t feel like getting myself killed, or losing my gear.”
“And what if it takes hours for them to get us out?”
Calista blinked. “You want us to try the dungeon? Are you nuts?” What had gotten into Bishop these past few days? She knew he was in a good mood and he claimed it was simply because he hadn’t seen or heard Valen, but Calista didn’t believe him.
He shrugged. “We can always fix our gear, or make new stuff. We have plenty of mats.”
“That’s not the point,” she argued. “Not all of us want to experience the annoying pain of dying.” She crossed her arms and stepped to stand beside Maverick. “I’m not doing it but, if you want to be the sacrificial lamb, go for it.”
Maverick nodded in agreement with her words, so did Benji, Zoe, Giles, and a few others. But to her surprise, Trajan, Jimmy, Arthur and the rest of the guild went to stand beside Bishop in favor of entering the dungeon. She narrowed her eyes at his smug smile. Of all the things Bishop was, she’d never seen him act smug. He cared about himself in this game and the guild. He never would let them purposely be put in harm’s way, but he had gone into Chesterville alone with that insane plan, and now he wanted to enter the dungeon, three levels over them, as if it would be another walk in the park.
“Seriously?” she muttered. “You all want to go in there and be killed by that bastard?”
“No,” Trajan answered, “however, if we could get a sneak peek at what’s behind those doors, then it might make the dungeon more manageable when we come back to run it at level. We’ll know what to expect, can plan better.”
“We always have a plan,” Benji argued.
“We do until it all falls apart because we couldn’t predict accurately what was going to happen,” Trajan shot back. “Face it, every time we get a plan, something goes wrong and we have to change it all around anyway. This way, we know.”
“Unless it’s on some sort of rotation and changes each time,” Maverick pointed out.
“There is that possibility, but I say we at least go inside and have a look.”
“Then you all can go have that look,” Calista muttered. “I’m not stepping foot inside those doors.” She sank to the ground and glared at them all.
Bishop sighed and went to her. “Look, I know this isn’t ideal, but it’d be better if we entered as a group. Who’s to say we wouldn’t be able to do it as is anyway? It could be a weak boss, or he could be the only thing we have to kill, or…I don’t know, but don’t you want to just come and see?”
“What’s gotten into you lately?” She wasn’t usually one to have an argument with anyone if there was an audience present, but Bishop’s behavior of late had her worried.
“What do you mean?”
“You’re acting like you don’t care,” she whispered. “Like this all is just a game.”
He frowned. “It is just a game.”
“No, that’s not what I mean, like you don’t care about the outcome. No one likes dying, but you’ve been ready to charge headfirst into danger without fearing for the consequences.” She worried maybe Valen was doing this to him
in some way, making him more prone to danger and finding ways to bring harm to himself instead of her having to do it. When she looked into Bishop’s eyes, all she saw was him. None of it sat right with her and, when he held out his hand for her to take, she muttered a curse, but took it and let him pull her to her feet.
“I care, which is why I think going into that dungeon and at least seeing how crazy it will be is a good idea,” he said, and she relaxed at his familiar tone of taking charge. “I don’t want to die and I don’t want anyone else to, either, but we could use this to our advantage. And sitting around here for hours until they can get us out of the game will not accomplish anything. It’s just a waste of time.”
She glanced at Maverick who was still pointedly staring at a grinning Jimmy. “Whatever happens in there, I’m blaming you and you better pay for my gear repairs.”
Trajan chuckled loudly. “Deal. Now then, can we proceed?”
“We’re all gonna die,” Benji whined, but joined the rest of them at the doors.
“You’re supposed to be positive,” Bishop argued. “Being positive makes everything better.”
“Not dying. Then we’re just dead,” he said simply. “Dead and dead and more dead.”
Calista silently hoped it wouldn’t let them enter since they weren’t the right level. But when Trajan and Bishop each pushed on a door, a quest appeared before her eyes.
Accepted Quest: Ending Kevork.
“Damn.” She reluctantly closed out the prompt and saw it appear in her quest tracker.
The doors swung inward silently to reveal a corridor lined with more green fires in braziers. Calista drew out her weapons and held them softly in her hands, readying for an ambush as they stepped inside the fortress of Demon Lord Kevork. Her eyes shifted from the ceiling to the walls and back again, listening for any sign they were about to be attacked. But nothing came for them and, soon, they found themselves in an arena type room, more massive than the one where they had faced the sirens. The hair on the back of her neck stood on end and her blood ran cold in her veins.
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