by Oliver Mayes
This data set presented an immediate concern. While breaking down the gate was the most challenging individual component, it was not the most problematic. Simply getting to the gate already took nearly half a minute for those who were not athletically inclined, and it had already been demonstrated that even in the dark, encroaching players would be spotted against the snow long before they reached the gate. That meant the plan was doomed to fail right from the start. Unless they could reach the gate undetected.
So it was a good thing Hammertime had brought his support mage. While they were generally shunned in favor of arcane or elemental-based damage dealers, a large number of unique skills were available to them. Most were combat-based, such as the Anti-Magic Shield Sabrina had deployed on Hammertime when Damien had first encountered him in the Twisted Forest. Some did other things, generally disregarded in PvE and only forming a small portion of the meta for PvP. This was a good time to be thinking outside the box.
“You ready, boss?”
Hammertime nodded, his eyes fixed on where he needed to be. Sabrina counted him down.
“Three, two, one, Phase Shift.”
Hammertime had hardly begun charging when he blurred around the edges and vanished. Well, not quite, but close enough. There was a shimmer in the space he occupied, which was a considerable amount of space. Damien could see the profile of his legs as they pumped relentlessly forward, the profile of his shoulders and even the outline of the war hammer strapped to his back, if he squinted. Everything within those confines was a distorted version of the terrain in front of him, as though he’d been turned into a hastily frosted window. So long as he didn’t take or deal damage, the effect would last for thirty seconds.
It wasn’t true invisibility and wouldn’t work for a frontal assault: anyone looking directly at it in daylight would know something was up. However, at that range, in the dark, they thought it would be enough. It had to be enough. The other problem was that Phase Shift could only be used on one target at a time, and had a thirty-second cooldown. So they had to send the party over this way individually.
Everyone waited. It was an excruciatingly long thirty seconds. At last, they heard Hammertime murmuring over their comms, his voice a deep baritone even when lowered.
“I’m here. Next.”
Sabrina hesitantly tapped Damien on the arm.
“Ready?”
He grunted, the steam of his hot breath pooling out between his jagged teeth, and reached for Noigel.
“Three—”
Noigel, Bloodlust.
“—two, one, Phase Shift.”
The effects of the two spells arrived simultaneously and Damien kicked forward. Then he Charged. The incubus he was currently possessing was a powerhouse in terms of stats, but it only had two abilities: Enrage, and Charge. Enrage would only take effect once he was at less than 50% health, doubling his strength and endurance. Charge was his mobility move, a breakneck run with 50% increased movement speed for ten seconds or until he hit a target, expending no stamina and with a mere thirty-second cooldown. It was designed to put him in combat quickly and effectively. In this instance, he was using it to prevent combat from happening.
He’d made it halfway when the bonus from Charge gave out. It was frustrating moving so slowly when he was used to his occultist body, but at least the snow meant there wasn’t much noise. He trudged the rest of the way across to find Hammertime huddled at one side of the gate, and then he ran for the other side. The incubus wasn’t built for hiding. Hammertime could just about stand in the narrow alcove on his side of the gate, but Damien’s tail prevented him from sticking his back against the wall. He stuck his face against it instead, standing straight and still with his tail glued to the floor. The guards would likely not be looking at the gate directly, since they were looking out and scanning the forest for signs of activity. Though that didn’t make Damien feel any more comfortable.
Next on the priority list were Lillian and Aetherius. Aetherius had made it clear in the briefing he didn’t need any help to complete the maneuver, at which point Lillian had said the two would cross simultaneously. A sensible decision, keeping the dubious ally surrounded by those who were best equipped to survive him and wouldn’t hesitate to punish him for any deviation from the plan. There was a low whoomf as Aetherius arrived out of his Blink, followed almost immediately by a clatter of Lillian’s armor which made Damien wince. He supposed so far as noise went there wasn’t much to worry about, since the guards up above were too far awa—
“There it is again! Did you hear it this time?”
The voice had come from the other side of the gate. Barely audible, but extremely concerning. Damien twisted his head and found the other three members of his quartet frozen like statues. There were at least two characters, right on the other side of the gate. Only a few feet of timber separated them, the conversation humming through the grain.
“I think the lack of sleep is getting to you. We’re due to be relieved in twenty minutes, just hold on.”
“No, no, I definitely heard something.”
“Shall I gather some men to have a look outsi—”
“No! Fool! What, there might be someone outside so you want to open the gate and let them in?”
“The guards haven’t seen anythi—”
Then the voices faded as the two of them moved away. Dammit. Even with this huge wall and NPCs on night watch, Magnitude had found actual players to stand on guard. Lillian was on the comms immediately, whispering directly into the whole party’s ears.
“We’ve been detected and they’re checking. We’re starting now. The rest of you run across the gap on my command.”
Hammertime had already left his corner and taken his hammer in both hands to stand over the center point. Lillian took her position on the other side, with Damien looming over her. Aetherius leaned back on the alcove where Hammertime had been and folded his arms as he tapped his foot. Even knowing his input would come later, it was still annoying for Damien to see him being himself.
They were all in position. Lillian double-checked around her, her hammer resting on the floor, and whispered into the comms.
“Me, Hammertime, Damien. Three rounds, then Beam. Go, go, go!”
She lit up with Divine Might and lifted the hammer, then plowed it into the gate. The quiet was ruptured with a low boom and a louder crunch. The wood caved and splintered, but the gate barely moved. As soon as her weapon was withdrawn, Hammertime’s came in to take its place directly over it. With just two hits the outer layer was crumbling, but there were cries of alarm from beyond.
Hammertime’s weapon was withdrawn. Damien’s turn. He swung over Lillian’s head and the metal orb struck, but missed the target zone. He’d hit a little over them, the orb cratering an aesthetically but not technically pleasing divot about two feet above the target. The gate rocked back fractionally, but the larger weapon penetrated less deeply than those of the two guild leaders. A rallying cry from above was swiftly followed by the shunting of metal slats as the archers mobilized. Even now, the mechanisms to alert offline players would be firing up.
The second time Damien hit the target, although he nearly took Lillian’s head off doing it. She ducked it without so much as a backward glance then took her last strike, this one with everything she had. The center of the gate had been turned to mulch, but they were only penetrating halfway deep. She jumped backward, the glow of her Divine Might fading away as her sword and shield appeared in her grasp.
Hammertime struck still deeper, then Damien placed his final strike directly in the middle, the orb sinking deep into the gate with the impediment of Lillian’s well-being removed from the equation. He was shocked the gate was still largely intact, let alone still standing, given how much brute force the three of them had buried in it. He’d only just landed the hit when Lillian cried out.
“Clear!”
From behind Hammertime, Aetherius put his hands together and they pulsed red. He was pointing not at th
e gate, but straight at Lillian herself. She gave him an appraising look, then smashed the base of her shield into the ground. Aetherius narrowed his eyes and yelled a single word of warning.
“Breach!”
He fired. Lillian’s shield lit up with the light of her Repent a fraction of a second before the beam hit her. The shot connected with her shield then reflected back toward the gate, twice as wide and twice as powerful. Damien barely dragged his weapon free before following it backward into the snow, narrowly avoiding vaporization. Aetherius’s Arcane Beams had always been disproportionately powerful, but this one’s power was doubled by Lillian’s trait ability.
Damien knew about the theory-crafting and had seen a couple of the videos. Being there, having an actual presence in the wake of this ability combination, was nothing like watching it on a screen. It was truly awesome, in the traditional sense of the word. He was within inches of something that would completely destroy him were it turned against him. And it went on for a few seconds, all the while feeling like it would continue endlessly.
It did not. In the last second of the cast, it withdrew and became narrower and narrower till it winked out of existence, burning the core of their combined efforts a little longer before it was completely expended. It had created a wide hole where the structure was weakened in advance of the pummeling, but everything around it was only half cooked through. As impressive as the beam had been, it had not penetrated all the way through the gate.
This had not been the plan. Damien swiveled his head to the remaining six party members and his demon retinue, who were traveling across the gap in a tight group. Scores of not only arrows, but musket balls as well, were ricocheting off the Sanctuary spell enveloping them.
There were gunners in the defense on the wall now, as well as the archers that had already caused Rising Tide so much trouble on their first attempt. Magnitude had upgraded his men. The rest of the party weren’t even close yet, and once they’d arrived not only would Mr. Healy’s mana be drained, but all the projectiles would be focused on their stationary tight cluster rather than the moving targets running across no-man’s land.
Hammertime turned his head from the gate to the imminent arrivals, then glowed red. He’d activated his Berserker Rage to try and finish off what was left of the gate. He knew that if the group arrived and the gate hadn’t yet been breached, they were done for. It seemed they all understood that much.
Aetherius was drinking a mana potion, his smug and distant propping up of the alcove a thing of the past. They were supposed to be through already, and everyone had slammed into full improvisational panic mode. Hammertime was knocking chunks out of the area surrounding the breach, but even with the structural damage and his strongest ability in effect he couldn’t reach the depth of Aetherius and Lillian’s combined Arcane Beam with his weapon. Lillian had just retaken her place on the opposite side to join him, hammer in hand, when the first of the new party members announced her arrival.
“Get out of the way!”
It was Trinytea, who’d effortlessly sprinted ahead of the rest of her group in half the time. Hammertime, despite the good work he was doing and the short time his ability would be active to do it in, immediately withdrew. Lillian ignored her, but stopped in mid-swing when she saw what Trinytea was doing. The gunslinger removed her entire inventory and jammed it deep into the hole left by the beam. She gave it a last wistful look before fleeing back into the no-man’s land, back toward the group where the light of Mr. Healy’s Sanctuary was shimmering in protest. The mana potion he was drinking did little to allay Damien’s fears. They were under extremely heavy fire. Lillian and Damien looked at each other, then fled backward as well. Hammertime took over on the party comms.
“Someone hit the bag with fire! Do it! Do it now!”
Damien watched as Aetherius stopped running after him and Lillian, planted his feet and put his hands together facing the gate. He fired his second beam straight at the bag. The cast had only gone for a split second when the explosion shook the earth. Gunslingers carry gunpowder to reload between shots, and Trinytea had packed for a long trip. In their haste, unfortunately everyone had neglected to plug the opening of the gate with anything to prevent the explosion being thrown back in their faces. Aetherius’s Arcane Beam was prestigious, but did not compare to the instantly unleashed, pure concussive force of an entire backpack’s worth of gunpowder. The narrow opening in the gate funneled much of the explosion back the way it had come, interrupting Aetherius’s casting and throwing him through the air.
Before Damien had time to think, his arm stretched into the air and caught the mage at the top of his arc, taking all the momentum out of his flight and saving Aetherius from a crushing death by then revolving at the shoulder as if Aetherius were a misshapen, morally repugnant baseball. Damien checked the palm of his hand to make sure Aetherius was unharmed and found his archnemesis looking up at him in surprise.
“Nice catch, tha—”
Damien couldn’t express himself as he’d like, but the incubus’s lack of speech didn’t prevent him from getting his feelings across.
“Euuuurrrrrgghh!”
He held his palm flat and roughly shook it over the floor behind him. Aetherius plopped into the snow and Damien turned back to the gate, just in time to start absorbing shots into his inadequately armored torso. He and Hammertime were both large targets, and they were now out in the open. Hammertime was drawing fire, the projectiles ricocheting off him. Damien was unarmored. Two arrows embedded themselves in his chest and a bullet tore through his abdomen. He had to keep his front to the enemies, or else they might hit his real body concealed in the bag.
There was no point in standing around here. Damien Charged what was left of the gate. His health was quite a bit less than 50%, so Enrage was already active.
Bloodlust!
Noigel had his drawbacks, but his reaction time was not one of them. Both hands on his weapon, the Bloodlust reached Damien as he drew the quauhololli back and put everything he had into a single strike. Double stats from Possession, strength and stamina doubled again by Enrage; attack speed and movement speed buffed by Bloodlust; and extra momentum from the Charge on top meant Damien was a living siege engine.
The majority of the gate was intact, but the center of it was a charred, broken mess. The party had accidentally created a fantasy-based blasting charge, complete with a magic-powered drill. There was a wide hole centered around the blast zone, but everything in the immediate vicinity looked to be hanging on by only a thread. The hole was not wide enough for Damien to pass through, not by a long shot, but it was wide enough for Damien to hear one of the Carlisle-Elites extolling the other players before he made contact.
“You are the Carlisle-Elite. No matter what comes through that gate, you will stand your ground!”
Damien planted his weapon directly into the weakest-looking section. This time there was no resistance. His weapon passed straight through the charred remnants, pieces of the gate projecting forward left and right. The rest of him crashed through in its wake. Then he was standing on the other side, with ten Carlisle-Elites all pointing their weapons at him.
BiggusDickus was at the front, advancing with his flail held above his head and his shield close. The leader, no doubt. TwinBlade, the dual-wielding warrior who’d received his membership and an instant promotion for killing five Rising Tide members the day prior, was standing beside him, ever so slightly further back. He looked very nervous. It was clear that the incubus’s possessed form was not what Magnitude’s night watch had been expecting.
Damien’s ability to express himself was still limited, but once again words were of secondary importance. He tensed every muscle in the incubus’s considerable frame and roared into them. Those still advancing stopped in their tracks, those standing their ground stepped back. The channels in the casters’ hands were interrupted as they flinched, and one even fled back toward the Portal Stone, screaming and crying. Someone was up past their bedt
ime. They all were, to be fair.
Behind them, blue orbs started popping up around the Portal Stone in rapid succession.
Hammertime blitzed through glowing red on Damien’s left and Lillian was glowing white on his right, each wielding Hammertime’s hammers past and present. Lillian locked onto TwinBlade almost immediately. TwinBlade had resolutely stood his ground as Damien roared into him at close range. When he saw Lillian, his weapons dematerialized and he fled. He was not as fast as Lillian.
Trinytea slid through on the ground, then leapt into the air and sailed over the front line as the guild leaders crashed into them. She planted both her remaining shots into the top of BiggusDickus’s helmet, dropping him to his knees as he was passed on either side by the two guild leaders. Legolias, lacking another vantage point, arrived on Damien’s shoulder and began loosing arrows into the vulnerable casters who’d remained at the back. Aetherius Blinked through and emptied Arcane Bolts into BiggusDickus’s body as he lay prone, finishing him. The hell hounds and imps had also been Bloodlust-buffed, and they arrived to savage anyone still standing as the party laid into each of them in turn.
They had to destroy the Portal Stone. If any of the players arriving were Magnitude, which seemed likely, the whole ordeal would become far more difficult. Damien had no Charge and couldn’t make it, but Hammertime and Lillian both knew the score. The Anti-Magic Shield appeared on Hammertime from Sabrina, a Sanctification buff appeared on Lillian from Judgementday, and both of them ran straight toward the Portal Stone without any loss of momentum. The players standing in their path may as well have been made of smoke. They reached it simultaneously and their hammers connected with it in the center at once, turning it into rubble and dust. The blue orbs winked out and were gone. The wall was obviously their guild’s rally point, but it was not a hot spot that people purposefully logged out at. Finally some good news.