“Then put a protective spell on him. Dress him in plate armor! Whatever the hell! Get up here! Nash is hurt and 4884 is going to attack!”
“Open the gates!” one of the NPCs shouted.
“What if the archers take out after Dave!?” Robb shouted.
“Then Marc can heal him. Get up here!”
Thiridion raced across the bailey towards the spot Nash had chosen to hide from the archers. Highwayman maintained his observation position on the ramparts over the gate assembly. The wooden barrier rose slowly, revealing 4884‘s hulking, grinning form bit by bit. What few attackers were left at the flaming battering ram were not prepared for what happened next. Dave’s character bounded out the front gate and went to work. The first oxcart was flipped into the air as if fired out of an hydraulic accumulator. It crashed against the rest of the crippled assembly, blasting flaming wreckage in all directions.
One of the higher ranking archers turned to run. Highwayman stepped out of the shadows and performed a flawless overhand throw. A balanced blade punched into the archer officer’s back. The humanoid soldier fell face first into the road. Two or three of the attackers returned fire, but none could get a good look at the level nine Cloak, especially with the late day sun behind him.
Thiridion wound up his biggest, slowest heal. A green +174 critical registered over Nash’s head, returning him to full health.
“Well done, my low level bandage dispenser!” Robb said as Nash performed an alarming gesture. A crown of festive colorful flowers appeared on Thiridion’s head. “Wear them proudly, but don’t forget to feed them. They like corned beef with a side of cabbage.”
Marc just stared at Robb.
“Arianne, what can you do in a war?”
“Be a one girl cavalry?” Dave offered.
“At this point we’d be better off just launching her horse at the archers,” Robb said.
“You do, and I’ll launch you at the archers!” Amy shot back.
“Hey, we need firepower, not silliness! It’s only a matter of time before they bring up that infantry, and if we don’t secure the gate by then, we’re screwed!”
“I can cast a skill-up spell on Ciera,” Robb offered.
“What does that do?” Jordan asked.
“I can give her points in archery. Do we have a bow anywhere?” Robb replied.
“Yes! Alyssa, go to the general supply and get the bow that goes with your dagger. Robb, when she’s equipped cast your skill-up and get her up here on the ramparts over the gate! She can cover 4884. Marc, you come up here too so you can heal him!”
While the interior forces re-organized themselves into a battle-ready formation, 4884 made quick work of the few remaining defenders of the battering ram. The siege weapon had been reduced to a smoldering pile of wreckage. By now Dave was leaping over plants and puddles, crunching low-level attackers with his fists. After the last one fled, 4884 moved on to the flaming chickens, which scattered at his challenging shout and then ran in circles around him as he raged.
“Dave, get back inside! The archers are moving up!” Jordan shouted. Dave’s character retreated without a moment to spare. The gate was halfway closed when the first fresh arrows slammed into the damaged wood. 4884 was safe, but just barely.
By now, Ciera was climbing the steps to the ramparts over the gate. She was equipped with a new weapon. Nash was right behind her, winding up one of his highest-level spells.
Footman’s Short Bow
Common Ranged Weapon
Requires Level 5
Attacks per Round: 0.75
Attack Power: 110
Solid: 15
+2 Quickness on Attack Only
Improvements: None
Enchantments: None
Engraving: None
Decoration: None
Footman’s Arrows
Common Ammunition
Requires Level 5
Damage Range: 10-40
Solid: 2
Improvements: None
Enchantments: None
Engraving: None
Decoration: None
“Okay, what have you got?”
“I can give her five skill points in general ranged weapons or seven specifically in archery,” Robb replied. “But it will only last for two minutes.”
“Archery,” Alyssa and Jordan said in concert. Alyssa laughed.
Nash began casting. A blue glow appeared around Ciera for a moment, then a blue +7 appeared over her head and faded. A similar blue +7 appeared in Alyssa’s skill list.
“Now at least I can use this thing,” Alyssa said. “I’ve never used a combat skill before. What do I do?”
“Select the targeting icon of whoever you want to shoot at, then click the ranged attack button. It should have the same icon as your weapon,” Dave replied.
Alyssa scanned her screen, piecing together the instructions with what she saw on her interface. Jordan got up and walked around to see if he could help. By the time he could see her screen, Ciera fired her first shot. A thin arrow streaked off the ramparts and speared one of the infantry scouts hiding in the trees just off the eastern approach road to Shon Cloud. A red '-292' appeared over the humanoid creature. It fell back into the undergrowth.
“Woot!” Alyssa shouted. “I got him! I got him!”
“Nope! Do not say it. I repeat: DO NOT say it!” Robb barked. There was a moment of silence.
“Don’t...” Dave started “get..”
“No! Desist, knave!” Robb barked again. “Or I’ll conjure something highly annoying and train it to be unusually interested in your nostrils!” Everyone laughed.
“Whatever you did, keep doing it,” Jordan said, patting Alyssa’s shoulders. “Anything that moves out there, two in the chest and one between the headlamps.” He scrambled back to his own interface, wondering if he could find some throwing knives in the general supply. Between himself and Ciera they just might be able to hold off the worst of it. “Nash, you’ll need to refresh your skill-up buff on Ciera. Are there any better arrows?”
“Nope. There’s a crossbow, but it takes forever to load.”
“Shit! Shitty shit!” Jordan babbled. “What the hell was I thinking?!”
“I don’t know,” Robb replied. “What the hell are you talking about?”
“The Crossbow of the Disgraced Prince!”
“None of us can use that, it’s for level– shit!” Robb barked. “Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah Hah-mi-nah!”
“What are you two on about?” Amy asked.
“Ciera can use the crossbow we got from Wyland at Supercon! She’s level 40!” Jordan frantically scrolled through every screen he could find in his inventory list. Way at the end was an unusually colorful icon.
Crossbow of the Disgraced Prince
Legendary Ranged Weapon
Universe Unique
Treasure Station Item
Requires Level 17
Attacks per Round: 0.6
Attack Power: 2325
Solid: 650
+8 Might
+15 Quickness
+5 Bonus Quickness on Attack Only
+12 Will
Improvements: Hardened Silversteel Frame
Enchantments: Permanently Enchanted
Engravings: Engraved by House Eduril
Decorations: Fitted with the Jewels of the Eduril Crown
“Wyland! You magnificent bastard!” Jordan shouted. “Ciera, use this!”
Highwayman ran across the ramparts and offered the legendary crossbow to Alyssa at the moment Marc arrived with a supply of ammunition.
Footman’s Steel Quarrels
Common Ammunition
Requires Level 5
Damage Range: 18-65
Solid: 4
Improvements: None
Enchantments: None
Engraving: None
Decoration: None
A few moments of confusion followed as Nash had to replace his recently-cast
archery skill-up spell with the general ranged weapon buff. Alyssa’s character instantly lost all her ability points in archery, only to have a blue +5 appear and grant her a basic skill level in all ranged weapons.
“Okay, let’s see if Princess Howitzer can ring up some DPS!” Robb exclaimed.
At that exact moment, an arrow slammed into Ciera. A red '-84' appeared over her head.
“Shit!” Jordan shouted. “Are you okay!?”
“She has four thousand health, Sir Galahad. Relax,” Dave said.
Alyssa blew Jordan a kiss across the narrow diner table. Then she lined up her shining new weapon, took aim at one of the archers and returned fire. A flaming trail streaked through the air behind the quarrel. It punched into the archer with a bright orange explosion of magical fire. A red '-1176' appeared over the empty space where enemy soldier had been before it was thrown across the battlefield. Only a pile of burning clothing remained.
The NNG voice channel went berzerk. Alyssa looked like she had just turned a cage of puppies loose.
“Boom laka-laka BOOM!” Robb shouted.
“Aaaaaaiiiieeeee!” Amy shrieked. “A thousand damage!”
“Princess of Darkness!” Dave exclaimed.
“Highlight Reel!” Marc cheered.
Jordan ran around the table and kissed her. “You win the play of the day!”
Alyssa beamed. Maybe she was pretty good at Kings and Conquests after all?
“Oh shit, here they come!” Dave said. Jordan looked up. The enemy infantry was in a full charge at the Shon Cloud eastern gate.
“These guys are the Niners!” Robb exclaimed. “I just got an in-game message! They’re trying to get Highwayman before he reaches level ten!”
“Bring that shit!” Dave shouted. “I’ll kill their baddest and beat the rest of them to death with his dead body!”
Chapter Nineteen
Rednar accidentally landed the death blow with four health left. Had the fight against the Prince of the Gorian Cliffs lasted another ten seconds, Rednar and all he had accomplished would be gone.
The fight had earned him more than 30,000 experience points and 12 skill points. His health was almost back to ten percent. He was seated near the defeated corpse of his opponent. The Cacai Warlord had dropped no treasure at all, aside from the unusual achievement of a solo defeat of an equivalent-level world boss.
These were among the reasons the appearance of another player at the far end of the jetty was so confusing to Devin. The character didn’t say anything. It just stood there, watching. He had no level and no identification. Not even a name. Devin wasn’t entirely sure how that was possible. He had heard rumors of certain assassin character types that were able to hide their identity but he had never seen it in action. It was more than a little disconcerting.
Rednar’s healing spell ticked. His health climbed to 11%.
The darkly dressed player character stood silently.
A chill crawled up Devin Oliver’s neck. It was the first time he had ever had that sensation playing a video game. He maneuvered his character to stand so he wouldn’t take critical damage in the event of an attack. Try as he might, Devin could not determine anything about his opponent other than the fact he was human and from a faction apparently friendly with Rednar’s. Otherwise he was a completely blank avatar. Even his face was concealed.
“It was a mistake to carry that machines crafting book out here. You should have stored it in the village,” the shadowy character said. His voice came over the audio channel.
“What difference does it make to you?”
Rednar’s healing spell ticked again. 13%.
“I have a message for Mr. Griffin. Will you deliver it for me?”
How could he know?
The mysterious player character rushed forward. Rednar activated his “shield rush” ability and missed, only to find himself disoriented. The other player was still targeted, but everything in the display was blurred. All of Rednar’s combat multipliers had 70% and 80% penalties.
The attacker slashed at Rednar’s neck, causing 71 damage. The attack took the hammerman to only 2% health. The disorient expired, leaving Devin’s view of the game world crystal clear. What he found chilled him anew.
He had been poisoned. The particular variety used by this assassin caused five points of damage every five seconds unless magically countered or neutralized with an antidote. Rednar had never considered the possibility he would be assassinated or attacked by a player using poisons, so he never bothered to equip himself with anti-toxin.
His healing spell wouldn’t save him. He had one minute to live.
“Give me the antidote.”
The assassin didn’t answer. A breeze caught his cloak and cowl as he sheathed his weapon.
“Give it to me!”
“Tell Mister Griffin the next time he makes a deal with someone he better uphold his end of the bargain.”
“What the hell are you talking about!?”
“He abandoned me. He tried to screw over my friends. Meanwhile he’s staking you with his own money. He’s a lying ass, just like every other corporate fuck who has ever lived. You tell him any character he tries to build up in this game will die right before I loot every last fucking thing he collects with it. You tell him that’s the price he pays for trying to better deal a world champion.”
“I’ll quit working for him! Just don’t let my character die! I’ve worked too hard on this!”
“You suck.”
Rednar slumped to the ground. His health ticked to zero.
I’M AFRAID YOU HAVE DIED
Devin screamed and shoved three thousand dollars worth of gaming equipment off his desk.
Chapter Twenty
Peredone and Rhanis had rapidly concluded it was one hell of a lot easier to simply take other players’ property than it was to earn it for themselves. Turned out it was a lot quicker too. Their first attempt to join the ranks of the lawless in Yarshire was a shakedown of a boot vendor, of all things, near the docks where they had acquired their pet gorilla.
Rich had already decided that if there were satellites that could detect stupid in the world of Kings and Conquests, Goom’s location would blot out the entire Hesan Kingdom. The one redeeming quality he had was being level ten and having the entirety of his skill points invested in intimidation and hitting people in the mouth. It didn’t take much to set him off, and Goom was an expert in beating people to the verge of permanent disability without killing them, which meant all Peredone and Rhanis really had to do was decide who they wanted to shake down, wait for them to refuse and then send in the fist.
But even that wasn’t the end of the corruption, graft, thuggery and criminality the two formerly upstanding merchants were prepared to unleash on the occasionally good people of Yarshire. The quest they were about to turn in was guaranteed to push them over their next reputation threshold, which would make them eligible to employ a second bruiser. There was also the fact Rhanis was about to ding level eight, which would make him eligible to start running errands for the black market questmaster and to start getting contracts to steal valuable items, assist other Yarshire thugs in large-scale robberies and offing enemies of the thieves guild.
It had been Rich’s idea to hire temporary additional muscle to overcome the challenge that had led them to this quest turn-in. Twice they had been run off from a lucrative shakedown quest by a rival team of racketeers. So Rich, against Jason’s better instincts, went out on the open market and hired a level 41 NPC ass-kicker to deal with the problem. After he crushed the first rival to death with one arm, the others fled, leaving only the sweating merchant behind. Much coinage was had that day, and the success of the mission had granted Peredone and Rhanis their first regular source of protection income. They didn’t get to keep the king of the bruisers, but he had done his job.
“I think it’s pretty clear we’re going to end up fighting the head of this rival organization,” Jason said.
“Makes sens
e. The quest line looks as if its ultimate goal is for us to defeat the rival leader, exile his holdouts and then recruit the rest of his organization under our flag. That will give us the manpower to start forcing our way into the black market and to deal with those who aren’t fans of our price increases,” Rich replied. “The thing I’m most impressed with is the fact we’ve gained five levels in less than a week.”
“I’m not entirely sure I agree with the idea of gathering money as a source of experience, but for players in our specialty, I suppose it makes sense. I wasn’t sure about the idea of never having to obtain combat skills either, but if the NPCs can take care of it, that only magnifies our power, since we can concentrate on the skills that matter.” Jason said.
“We should have maximized our Charm scores,” Rich muttered. “All the best diplomacy, intrigue and negotiation skills are keyed off Charm. Neither of us have good scores.”
“Then we’ll have to pick a different skill set to pursue. At this point, I’m pretty sure anything we can’t do for ourselves can be hired out. This ‘steal stuff for a living’ career is also one of the few options that gets us to player housing early. We’ve got to have some place to store all the stuff we take, after all.”
“Ok, what’s the status on our black market ticket? I vote we just arbitrage stuff off the auction house and push it into the black market at triple the price,” Rich said. “Every time we score, we gain cash and we can ring up another one of those repeatable ‘illicit gains’ quests from Lood.”
“We’re supposed to find that stuff in the real world and sell it,” Jason replied.
“There’s no way the KNC developers made it possible to run arbitrage between the auctions and the black market, and then expected players who were on the track we’re on not to take advantage of it,” Rich said. “The whole thing was set up this way on purpose.”
“We need to be ready when the good guys show up and try to crash the party. We’re going to need some serious muscle between now and then.”
Stunlocked: A LitRPG Thriller (Kings and Conquests Book 2) Page 12