by Oliver Mayes
Andrew bowed his head, exposing the back of his head further, and sighed. He interlocked his fingers in his lap and turned to face her. Finally. He kept his neck tilted open and gave her his undivided attention.
“You’ll have to kill me then. Honestly, I don’t have much to lose: I’ve already set my Portal Stone to this inn. At least this way we’ll both know I tried my best. If things go badly, I’ll make sure I’m available if you need my help later. I wasn’t there for you then, but I am now. You might as well make the most of me.”
Lillian took her sword in both hands and drew it back behind her head. Andrew didn’t move an inch, save for his eyes, which he closed. Lillian held her position. This didn’t feel right. This didn’t feel right at all. It was only when Andrew opened one eye, saw he was still about to die, then closed it again, that Lillian knew the moment had passed.
As Andrew himself had just said, she may as well make the most of him. She twisted the blade and slapped the flat of it against his open neck. The high-pitched yelp he made went some way to making her feel better, which was sorely needed.
“One wrong move. If you put a single toe out of line, it’s over.”
Andrew’s lips strained, trying and failing not to make him look too cheerful.
“I’ll be on my best behavior.”
Lillian grabbed a chair from under the table and carried it to the farthest corner of the room, then sat down to wait for everyone else to arrive. The first of them started logging in some ten minutes later. Lillian got a few searching looks, reminiscent of those she’d received in hospital earlier that day. She stared them down until they averted their gazes. Their gazes mostly averted to Andrew, who kept his eyes cast down but responded by pushing their care packages across the table to them. When Trinytea arrived, her eyes nearly fell out of her head at the sight of him. She looked to Lillian to complain, thought better of it and redirected her anger back at Andrew, who was quick to respond: her care package was the largest of all of them.
It included three health potions, a full sack of gunpowder, a leather satchel (which judging from the default name, Andrew had personally crafted out of Damien’s materials) and a Swift Hood with 50 agility. Andrew had displayed utter submission to the rest of them, but Trinytea’s items were paired with his very best meaningful stare.
Lillian was not in the mood for stirring up any more old conflicts, but this she did approve of. Trinytea had fallen out with the two of them while still in Rising Tide, way back when, following an ill-fated attempt to ninja-loot a bow she couldn’t effectively use from the recently deceased Legolias. She’d followed up this absurd demand with a load of guff about Aetherius surreptitiously taking the potions for himself, when he’d allocated them to guild storage. Lillian had taken charge of the situation by giving Trinytea a sound beating and kicking her out of the guild. Aetherius had taken offense, since he was both party and guild leader at the time, declaring that Lillian had undermined him.
The argument Trinytea precipitated between them had heralded the beginning of the end of their relationship. Half the people here had been present when Trinytea’s career with Rising Tide was cut short. The rest of them knew about it second hand. All of them were staring at her. It was almost worth having Trinytea here, to watch Aetherius make her squirm.
Trinytea took the hood in both hands, but didn’t equip it.
“I don’t deserve this. I did nearly nothing yesterday, after we got through the gate. The gunpowder and potions are more than enough. Legolias, is this any good for you?”
Legolias looked to Lillian, who remained completely impassive. She was staying well clear of this one. He gave Trinytea a single curt nod and she handed it over. Hammertime had arrived while this exchange was going on. He elbowed Lillian in the shoulder, gently, then lowered his head to her ear as Aetherius kept giving out supplies.
“I had to work on that for a long time. She was a handful, but not completely irredeemable.”
“Too little, too late. I’m not big on second chances.”
“Is that so? Why might I have trouble believing that?”
Lillian’s gaze tracked back to Aetherius, looking away as soon as he glanced in her direction. Hammertime lowered his voice even further.
“He shouldn’t be here. I didn’t even like him coming with us to get through the wall. That might have gone well enough, but coming with us on the Excalibur quest? He’s a liability.”
“I know that better than anyone. I can handle him. In case you don’t remember, I’m the one who dealt with him when he got out of hand last time.”
“Yet now he’s back again, like a tumor. There isn’t a single good reason for him to be here. You’re the party leader, it’s your responsibility to get rid of him. His presence puts the entire party at ri—”
Lillian smiled sweetly. Before Hammertime could finish, she’d grabbed him by the scruff of his breastplate and led him outside. She turned to close the door and caught Andrew looking after them, his face a perfect blend of concern, amusement and nostalgic reminiscence. Half a second later his face was carefully blank, and he’d gone back to distributing items. Lillian closed the door and turned on her ally, who’d forcefully reminded her that they were also long-term rivals.
“Look. I’m glad you came with us. There’s no way we’d have got here without you and you did a great job today, sourcing out the information for the quest. But I’m not here for your advice. If you keep on this way, thinking you can criticize how I run things in front of my team, I’ll knock your block off.”
Hammertime, as if he hadn’t heard a word Lillian just said, went into his menu. A few clicks later his helmet faded away, making his block available for inspection. She’d toggled off her helmet visibility and left it that way for a long time, but Hammertime had never entertained that option, so far as she knew. Lillian had never seen him without a helmet before. He was ruggedly handsome. Square-chinned, deep brown eyes paired with dark brown hair, a single lock of which hung preposterously down one side of his face. He was positively dreamy.
Definitely a full-on editing job. But Hammertime hadn’t removed his helmet to show off his avatar.
“I made those comments about the manner of your leadership as an aside, not for anyone else’s ears as you’ve implied, and I did so in a cordial, discreet fashion. Your escalation and distortion of events is unnecessary and unwarranted. And for the record, this is our team. It’s your project, which I’ve joined, but half of these players are my charges.”
He paused to see if Lillian had any complaints she felt like voicing so far. She was angrier than when she’d started this conversation and had plenty of complaints, but none she could voice at that precise moment without shouting. Hammertime had saved his most pointed criticism for last.
“I gave you the benefit of the doubt yesterday, when you threatened Trinytea and almost finished this excursion before it started. Tensions were high enough already. But know this. If you treat my people like that again – the same way you’re treating me now, trying to stamp your authority over me by force – we’ll fall out. That won’t help anyone except Magnitude.”
Hammertime was annoyingly calm. That was why he’d toggled off the helmet. So Lillian could see every inch of how calm he was. He was waiting, patiently, for her reply. Lillian narrowed her eyes and tried, unsuccessfully, to match his temperament.
“If anyone causes any problems, like Trinytea did yesterday when she almost collapsed the party, I won’t come to you for a second opinion. I’ll deal with the problem first and you can complain about it afterwards. I’ll treat your players exactly the same as I treat my own.”
“Acceptable. I’m much happier to retain a backseat role, but if you demonstrate weakness or poor judgment it will be my duty to take over from you for the benefit of everyone here. Especially you. However, I don’t count Aetherius as one of our players. Our players come first. If you don’t deal with him when the time comes – when, not if – I will.”
H
e ducked through the door ahead of her, his helmet appearing back on his head with a few practiced clicks. Aetherius was waiting with his allotment of resources. Lillian pulled the door to behind Hammertime, remaining in the relative privacy of the corridor as she inhaled deeply through her nose.
To think that just a short while ago she’d been raving internally about Andrew and Damien’s juvenile conduct. Hammertime was insufferably mature.
12
Piggy in the Middle
Damien was bored. Not just bored, but angry bored. Archimonde had remained parked in front of his objective for almost two hours, without so much as a bathroom break. It appeared to be watching videos, judging by the hand movements it made every few minutes. Chilling out and preventing Damien from progressing simultaneously.
He’d had lots of time to think about what Archimonde was doing, and why. If Archimonde had wanted to prevent him from completing the Dark Tower, it would’ve made more sense to wait inside and gank him. At the very least, it wouldn’t have required building the entire base outside, directly on top of Damien’s objective. This seemed designed to stop Damien from entering altogether.
Damien had only got through yesterday morning, but all Archimonde’s structures were already Tier III. The construction happening was all with a view to fortifying the position. There hadn’t been enough time to upgrade the structures from scratch since yesterday, so the base had already been here before they’d broken through Magnitude’s wall.
If Damien’s theory was correct, this meant the Dark Tower was instanced: one of the special dungeons that split reality when you entered, preventing anyone not in your party from following after you. If that wasn’t the case, Archimonde could set its base up inside the Dark Tower rather than outside of it. So all Damien had to do was get into the tower and he’d be clear. He just couldn’t figure out any way of doing it.
He’d be dodging Chaotic Bolts for almost the entirety of his descent to the tower. He wouldn’t have the option of dodging Corruption. He could sneak some of the way, but that would mean leaving his minions behind, and eventually Archimonde’s hell hounds would detect him. If they got him without minion support and Archimonde started attacking him at the same time, he’d be dead.
If he tried to drink one of his three health potions to counteract the damage of Corruption, his attention on the incoming bolts would be reduced. Paired with the Corruption that brought on the drinking of the potion in the first place, he’d be dead. If he got snared by the Circle of Hell, he’d be hit by a Chaotic Bolt in the five seconds following and he’d be dead. If he managed to avoid the Circle of Hell by jumping into the air, Archimonde could hit him with a Chaotic Bolt while he was in midair and he’d be dead.
If he didn’t drink a potion and focused simply on dodging the bolts, assuming the first Corruption didn’t kill him outright (a fairly forlorn hope), the second Corruption would follow it up and finish the job. He’d be dead. If he got too close to Archimonde, which was blocking the door with its bulk, the tongue would come into play. The tongue was a critical hit point, but Damien had already discovered in his first encounter that his damage was too low to matter. He’d be dead.
If Archimonde took control of Damien’s minions during combat, the odds would turn against him even further on top of all the aforementioned points and he’d be very, very dead. Of course, that hardly mattered, because Archimonde also had 60 souls’ worth of minions gathered around him. 30 attached to Archimonde’s Soul Well, 30 attached to Archimonde itself. The same strategy Damien had used against Rising Tide when his base was in the Downward Spiral. Dead, dead, dead.
Damien had now been watching long enough from his imp’s eyes to discover the new demon’s utility role. It took up 8 souls of Archimonde’s Soul Summon Limit. The other 52 were all accounted for. Imps and an incubus would bring it raw materials at fifteen-minute intervals. Exotic ores from underground. When they left, the demon turned to the pile of ore and began eating it with the big mouth embedded in its stomach. Even across the distance, the mouth was easy enough to make out. Ewww, make out. Not the best turn of phrase when regarding this creature. When it was finished, it would spit the ore directly into the Demon Forge. So it had a construction function of some kind.
There was no mistaking it. Archimonde had taken this new demon’s form. Was it possible to learn this power? How? Was it the level 50 trait? That meant the ‘Dark Omen’ ability would be unaccounted for, and that seemed too powerful to warrant being learned just from leveling up. But so was this. Was it a level 60 trait? Hopefully Archimonde wasn’t level 60 yet. That would be a lot of catching up to do.
Damien could reverse engineer Archimonde to figure out the combat options. The mouth was the first combat choice, clearly. The tongue was probably a given, too. It was likely slow, but was otherwise well rounded. Literally and figuratively.
So it was a tank. Maybe even more so than the incubus. Archimonde had showcased at least one other ability it might have yesterday, when it ate Andrew’s Arcane Bolt. So the new minion was well defended against frontal magic attacks. Definitely tankier than the incubus.
He’d learned a lot, but it made him aware of how much more was left unknown. So long as Archimonde stood in front of that doorway, that was how it would remain. What could he do to make Archimonde leave? He could Portal back to his old base and start a livestream, killing players in the area until Archimonde came for him. If Archimonde was intent on shutting him down, following Damien’s streaming channel would be a no-brainer.
There were two problems with this plan. The first was that the moment Damien shut down the stream and used his Portal spell to get to his new Gateway, Archimonde would likely do exactly the same. Leaving them exactly where they were now, except Archimonde would be aware Damien had built an out-of-base Gateway nearby to the objective. He would also know Damien was trying to trick him into leaving, as well as potentially figuring out the location of Damien’s second Gateway. Not a good move.
The second problem was that the only way he could be certain Archimonde had left was by seeing it appear elsewhere. He didn’t rate his chances of survival, if Archimonde could both plan its attack and see through his eyes on the livestream.
But what if they weren’t his eyes?
Damien thought about it for a while. He had nothing but time. He analyzed everything at his disposal. He considered what he knew about streaming. Then he went into his menu, the imp’s fingers marginally more nimble than the incubus’s, and accessed the external browser. Making his way to the Council of Nine page. His level 40 traits reveal had resulted in the front page turning into a churning sea of irreverent discussion. Damien declined to scroll through. He was on a mission. The board was quickly drowned in ‘Praise Be’s following his arrival while he typed out his request.
Daemien: I need someone here to pretend to be me. I’m on a top secret mission and there is an obstacle, which I need someone to lure away by acting as bait. It will result in your death, for my advancement. If you’re interested, I’m opening a discussion group. I would be very grateful for your help. (2:1)
He went straight into the discussion forum and opened a new page, entitled False God. Almost everyone who was online, just less than thirty occultists, piled in immediately.
Daemien: Thank you for coming. Who here is working with a build similar to mine, with wisdom as their main stat and agility as their secondary stat, and has the same playstyle as me? (2:2)
TheWitcher: I am!
Scorpious666: I’m wisdom and agility, but flipped. Does that help?
Scorepeeus63: I can do it.
Oh! Scorepeeus63 was following in his footsteps. He was the highest level of all of them. That seemed like the best match.
Daemien: The more similar you look to me, the better. Your demons should also look the same, so ideally you’ll need the ‘Hell’s Angels’ trait for imps with wings. Higher-level players preferred. Who can do this for me? (2:3)
Scorepeeus63: I can.
That was fast. He was committed. It was hard to believe this was the little boy whose absurdly frightened Aetherius kill-steal had made waves around the world. Damien remembered it and was a little worried.
Daemien: Are you sure? I’ll make it as easy as possible, but even if you do a good job something ridiculously dangerous and frightening will be coming for you. (2:4)
Scorepeeus63: I’m not scared. I’m a real Scorpius. I’m low level, but I can help.
The exact words he’d used in his viral video, when his comrades had goaded him down the stairs of the Downward Spiral to cement Damien’s competition victory. The previously silent onlookers erupted with ‘Praise Be’s and an inordinate number of exclamation marks. Damien could hardly refuse him now.
Daemien: We have a winner. Come private chat with me. Thank you everyone, and Praise Be. (2:5)
Scorepeeus63 invited Damien into a private chat first, so eager was he to get started, and then it was just the two of them.
Daemien: I’m sending you the location of my base. I want you to sit in it and send out a broadcast, where I’ll be talking to my subscribers. All you have to do is follow my instructions. I need to trick someone into thinking that’s where I am, so I can get around them.
Scorepeeus63: Easy! Sure you don’t want me to go kill players to make it legit?
Daemien: It’s too high level for you. You’re level 38, some of the players in the Frozen Forest are almost ten levels higher than you. It’s not ideal, but I don’t expect you to go to the Frozen Forest for me.
Scorepeeus63: Frozen Forest! I can do it. Don’t treat me like a kid!
Damien smacked his imp head. It had nothing to do with him being a kid, although that wasn’t perfect either.
Daemien: I’m sure you can do it, but that won’t be necessary. I just need you as bait, no killing required. But you will possibly die. Are you sure it’s ok?
Scorepeeus63: I get to be Daemien for a few minutes? Hell yeah! Praise Be!