Forsaken 337 BC

by Sharon Leslie

  They began their approach to the Pirate King's castle. Cain thought they would cover the distance in under an hour. His main concern was that they kept clear of any patrols the Pirate King occasionally sent out. They had been running for nearly twenty-five minutes when one of the Amazons who were on point duty returned.

  "Up ahead is a group of pirates sat drinking and talking, near the trail we need to use to reach our target," said one of the group. Cain asked "How many of them are there? How are they armed or are they drunk and unlikely to put up much of a fight?" The Amazon said, "We counted six in the group and I left them sat around a small fire, roasting a brace of birds and sharing a flask which smelt like wine."

  Listening to the report, Daphne took thirty arrows from the shared inventory and handed them to fifteen of their archers. Moving stealthily, they made a semicircle around the patrol. As one they placed an arrow on their draw string, drew their bows and loosed together. The six soldiers of the Pirate King died as one. Cain kicked out the fire while several Amazons moved the dead bodies, piling stones over them even though they would soon disappear.

  One patrol of six dealt with they carried on toward their target and jogged toward Pyrgadikian, and their destination the Pirate King's castle. Fifteen minutes later Lesley could make out the silhouette of Pyrgadikian's walls. They knew the wall which surrounded the castle had a regular patrol, yet the wall around the large town did not. They aimed for the junction of both walls.

  From Mogastation's report to Nithey a few days ago, they now knew the pirates patrolled in pairs making a circuit of the castle's wall every fifteen minutes. Hiding their group amongst the few homes outside of the wall, Cain waited for the current patrol to walk past. After they disappeared he would begin the countdown, the DreamBabes, Amazons and himself had to scale the walls and be ready to take control of the castle in fifteen minutes.

  As the patrol moved past their location, the first scaling party moved to the wall. The Amazons had practiced scaling the fifteen-yard-tall wall and made a human pyramid in the corner where both walls joined. Their base was nine females wide and seven high, the last Amazon up the pyramid climbed over the smooth-topped wall, pulling a thick rope behind her.

  Cain was the first player up the rope followed by Daphne and Toni, soon everyone of the attacking force was hiding on the wall and on building roofs around the city. As the second patrol passed neither guard noticed them hiding in shadows or under eaves of houses which ran next to the inner wall, they began the second part of Cain's plan as Daphne and Cain stalked the two guards.

  Chapter 31

  Plan Executed

  The two-man patrol walked past the end of the wall where Cain and Daphne waited at the head of all the DreamBabes and Amazons. Quietly Cain and Daphne climbed through two embrasures onto the parapet walkway. As one, they silently killed the two pirate guards using their Ari B’Lila, holding their mouths closed as they bled out.

  Passing the dead bodies back through an embrasure, they knocked on the gatehouse door, copying the pattern of the previous two patrols. A guard on the inside opened the door, Cain greeted him thrusting his special narrow gladius up under the chin straight into the brain. Using his arm strength, Cain walked the guard back into the large gatehouse room.

  Daphne, Toni and Lesley entered after Cain, along with fifteen Amazons. The room was a good twenty paces by twenty paces. A rack of Dorus and javelins lined one wall. Laying the dead guard down on one of the three cots in the far corner, Toni listened at the top of the stairs, hearing only snoring she crept down the stone staircase. She entered an identical-sized room which had twelve cots, all occupied by NPC guards. Each of them according to their Gamer Tags were low level NPC pirate guards. As they slept twelve Amazons moved to their heads and they all looked at Toni who nodded her head, all twelve died a single thrust from their gladii. Daphne used her Geomancer skill and reached out through the stone gatehouse, looking for more signs of life.

  She found life on the opposite side of the gatehouse, all seemed to be motionless barring one on the top floor. Sending a party message she asked for more Amazons to go with Toni. Daphne headed down to the gate winding gear while Toni and Sophie exited the top room in the gatehouse and walked across the narrow wooden footbridge to the opposite side. Rahab changed Toni's voice so after she knocked on the door when it began to open she spoke as a male and said, "This is a boring watch, not so much as a fly is out tonight."

  The guard inside the room shouted to who he thought was a colleague, saying, "Man your stopped me just as I was on the vinegar strokes, I have the fresh woman, who was brought in earlier tonight by one of the city patrols, did you want a share?" Toni replied in the man's voice, saying, "I sure as blazes don't want sloppy seconds after you've shot your load."

  Lesley slipped past as Toni spoke and entered the room and buried a gladius into the man's naked back as he climbed back between the woman's legs and thrusted into the woman; grunting with the effort. The stabbed guard dragged in a breath to scream, but he couldn't let the scream free as Toni removed his head. Lesley had to put her hand over the woman's mouth, telling her it would be all right. She looked into the woman's eyes and they were full of fear and panic. Being raped was one indignity, having the rapist stabbed then beheaded while he was inside her, was something completely different.

  The woman pushed the naked pirate and dead rapist off her body. Several Amazons entered the room, one of them picked up the woman's clothing, handing them to her. Accepting a hand the woman got up off the bed then she turned her back to the room, as she hastily pulled on her torn dress and under clothes. Lesley used her healing ability and cleansed the woman and put the distressed, now dressed female into a deep sleep. She told the Amazons, "She will sleep until midday. Hopefully she will forget what happened to her."

  The room below was empty of guards, cots and equipment, seeing another stairway Toni went down the single-width stairs to the lower floor. As she stepped off the stairs into the room, Toni heard the nose of chairs falling over as two guards rushed her. They got tangled together as they swung their Xiphos swords, the two had been playing cards.

  Receiving a shallow cut across her face as one guard freed his tangled Xiphos, he swung at Toni's head and the sword tip easily split the skin, like a ripe tomato splits under pressure. She then leant backward from the wild swing and the sting of the shallow cut. She kicked out at the guard who recovered slower, hard between his legs, he elicited a strangled grunt as he collapsed to the floor his hands protected his privates.

  The other guard turned on the sound from his card partner, and headed for a door at the opposite end of the room. He managed two strides when he sprouted three arrows, two in his upper back, one at the base of his neck. The guard measured a full length, his feet tapping on the floor as the signals from his brain interrupted by the arrow now permanently cut. The smell of urine flowed from his body.

  With the gatehouse their first aim now fully secured, all of its guards captured or dead. A squad of Amazons exited through a side door on the first floor, so they could secure the outer gate. A task they easily accomplished, by using wooden wedges hammered into the locking beam.

  Daphne stepped out of the side door and checked the Amazons' work, she knelt on the flagged ground and used her Geomancer skill. She raised a four-yard-tall by two-yards-deep, rock wall directly behind the outer gate.

  :Nobody is opening the gate now, unless they have a bloody tank,: Daphne thought as the rock solidified. While she was making the outer gate secure, she cast her senses throughout the whole area. Laughing, she returned to Cain, who was waiting for her so they could mount an attack on the castle.

  "You'll never guess what I found?" said Daphne to Cain and Toni. "There is a tunnel running from the right hand room in the gatehouse, out to what I assume is a barracks in the city. In the opposite guard room, another tunnel runs deep under the castle, entering a room on the far side. We may not have to fight our way in like we thought. If we use the tun
nel we can avoid being spotted and be deep in the Pirate King's lair before they know what's hit them."

  As they could secure the gatehouse better than they planned, Daphne closed the tunnel to the barracks in the city. Cain, Toni and some Amazons searched for a switch to open the entrance to the tunnel heading to the castle. One of the Amazons came up to Cain and said, "One of our sisters in the watchtower, has seen a small group of ten men leave a building in the city. They have begun to walk up the hill toward the castle; they will be here in eight minutes.

  Cain messaged Sophie, < Sophie, can you go and take Daphne with you and between you to keep the gatehouse and walls secure. You can take one hundred of the Amazons to help you. C > Daphne selected group two and with Sophie they hurried to protect the castle from any attacks originating from the city.

  Cain, Toni, Bethany and Lesley took the remaining three hundred Amazons through the tunnel. Toni found the activating mechanism to lower the entrance, a stone in the room's outer wall once pushed lowered the stone floor making a wide staircase.

  As they walked through the tunnel Cain's HUD map updated and provided him with the castle's interior. The map labelled the main rooms. He could see the tunnel exited in a storeroom in the basement on the far side of the castle. He checked but could not see any red icons which denoted players or NPC not on their side.

  Scrolling through the floors, Cain noticed the castle had three barracks, two large reception rooms on the first floor and a huge throne room over those on the second floor. Several areas had a mix of red icons, the main barracks was full of them.

  Using his quest menu he clicked on the two quests located at the castle. His system link provided two coloured lines, one for each quest. A bright blue line was for the free Circe quest while the purple line was the kill to Pirate King quest.

  Cain followed the blue line on the map, as it climbed through three additional floors. The line stopped outside a door, there were seven player dots, the system identified two of the player dots as Mogastation and Boostoff. The system also showed the icons were several floors higher. Sharing the map with Toni, he asked if she would take seventy Amazons from group one to free Circe and keep her safe. Toni collected her seventy Amazons, and she followed the blue line on her HUD.

  Cain asked Lesley and Bethany to take the third group and fourth groups to secure the barracks. Kill the players and any NPCs resistant to surrendering. Not all the guards are pirates or bandits.

  Lesley checked her HUD and noticed an orange line which led to the barracks locations inside the castle. With Bethany they looked at their maps and thought it best to split their group taking one group of Amazons a-piece, taking the two smaller barracks at the same time, then joining to take the main barracks.

  Cain, collected thirty Amazons Toni left behind from group one and went searching for the Pirate King. Checking again, there didn't seem to be any icon for the Pirate King.

  {Try the throne room-cum-ballroom on the third floor, or the former lord's suite of rooms, up on the fifth floor. I think the Pirate King's icon is missing because the EI is manipulating the system code,} Enoch said.

  Cain looked at the map and noticed a players icon and Gamer Tag, located in the former lord's suite of rooms, was none other than Giant Dick and two NPC icons with him.

  :This should be fun, I bet she is getting sick of me killing her avatar. I wonder if she'll be happy to see me? I can understand why a woman would want to play as a male in an older RPG or MMORPG game, but in an immersive VR-RPG I don't understand why. Your real body feels the feedback from your game avatar, especially when you are intimate.:

  Giving hand signals, Cain led the thirty warriors up to the fifth floor and a rendezvous with Giant Dick. Cain checked and Giant Dick’s icon was still in what the map showed as the former lord's suite of rooms, with two NPCs.

  Toni followed three Amazons who were her point team, as they moved silently toward the staircase for the tower and Circe. Lesley and her one hundred easily captured eight guards they surprised in a small barracks. They bound them hand to foot, gagged them, took their weapons away then fastened them to their cots, keeping them out of any mischief. Lesley locked the barracks door as they left, snapping the key in the lock.

  Bethany's one hundred Amazons had to fight hard as they killed nine and captured fourteen NPC guards. Lesley fought and killed two players, one a level thirty-one magician called '[PB]™.' The other aptly named 'ChairOnTheHead' a level twenty-nine ranger, who like his name implied was fast asleep under a chair; several empty bottles scattered on the floor around him. The fighting, especially loud when Lesley fought [PB]™, eventually killing him, the noise of the fight did not even wake ChairOnTheHead. Lesley had two of the Amazons bind and gag the very drunk player, leaving him under the chair.

  Freeing Circe

  Cain and his thirty Amazons headed for the room with Giant Dick, as they used the main staircase four guards dropped from above and assaulted them. Two of the Amazons would have died had they not been wearing their Athena pendent which had the new enchantment of save life.

  The guards dropped on them as they walked between the floors, one guard landed badly and broke his leg as he missed hitting an Amazon. His scream was cut short as the Amazon he missed slashed her gladius across his throat, the guard's head hinged backward held by a few muscles and skin.

  The other three guards lasted slightly longer, two who drove their Xiphos' into two Amazons, were shocked to see the Amazons survive. They though died, when several gladii pieced their bodies. The last guard's Xiphos missed the Amazon he landed on, his blade went between her arm and chest. He bounced from her body and landed awkwardly on the stairs. Cain turned and drove a gladius through the man’s neck, pinning him to the wooden stairs where he bled out and died. Cain handed one of the Amazons a fifty-item backpack and made her his small group's looter. The wounded Amazons each drank a medium Heamna and were soon back to full health.

  With every one in his group now healthy, Cain started his group searching the rooms placed around the balcony. Most were empty though they found three guards, one a player was torturing one of the castle's female staff. She was naked and hung by her arms, fastened to a chandelier.

  Cain took their lives, without a moment's thought to the player Draxus!35, as he rescued the female, cutting her down from the chandelier. One of the Amazons acting as group medic gave the female a sleep potion and a medium one hundred and thirty-five points of a HoT, heal-over-time, potion.

  Cain told each Amazon with him all guards they came across they now had to kill, take none as prisoners. They continued around the balcony, checking rooms and killing guards. As they returned to the head of the grand staircase, they came up to the next floor, Cain checked and they had killed seventeen guards, most died before they knew what was happening. Cain messaged all the party on group chat,

  With seven guards they came across coming down the stairs, they soon tied and fastened them like pigs in blankets at the bottom of the second flight of stairs. Toni took point and led her seventy Amazons higher up the tower staircase, she checked the local map HUD function which showed they had located Circe two floors above. It was then they all received Cain's message.

  "Let's leave them be, we have moved on and are beyond them. If needed we can come back later, if Cain pushes his order," said Bethany.

  Looking at the HUD map, Toni watched Cain and his thirty move around the balcony, clearing rooms as they came upon them. When he arrived back at the grand staircase Toni messaged him, ^T^ I don't know why you sent the message love, but I do love you. Lets hold off from killing everything if we can, xxx >

  With her seventy Amazons, Toni was now a floor below the eight players which included Mogastation and Boostoff. Using her Wind skill Toni sent a strong gust up the stairs which blew out the lamps lighting the landing, bringing darkness for all.

  Toni already asked
the Amazons, to turn lamps on the staircase off, as they passed. In the darkness Toni and ten Amazons rushed the last flight and attacked the players who were milling around in the darkness. It surprised Toni to see Sir Hardy and Speedy Pete there on the landing with the players. Their Gamer Tags hidden somehow, smiles on their faces as they noticed her alone and without Cain.

  Toni shouted, "Don't kill Speedy Pete, the thinnest one," which earned him a reprieve as Boostoff knocked him unconscious. Mogastation under no such orders attacked Sir Hardy with his gladius, severing his spine as he thrust through Sir Hardy's back and out of his chest.

  It took eighteen seconds for Toni, ten Amazons, Mogastation and Boostoff to kill all barring Speedy Pete. As the Amazons re-lit a few lamps the growing light lit the scene of a brief, bloody conflict. The players disappeared after being looted, their blood a reminder of their deaths.

  Pools of coloured blood marked the scene like a Jackson Pollock. Arterial sprays on the walls and ceiling painted the magnolia coloured surfaces, a bright red. Dull reds from wounds made on player's abdomens, thrown when swords were pulled from bodies, dark bloods with a tint of yellow from liver wounds. Along with the blood were pieces of bone, brain, and one eye.

  Speedy Pete came around, he struggled against the bindings on his legs and arms. Shaking his head Speedy Pete finally cleared his vision, gagging at the scene of blood before him. He wished he could still not see as there before him squatting was Natasha Zuby, a sick grin pasted upon her beautiful face.