by Jackson Gray
“That is just my companion, Food. But he is not food anymore” Leeroy said as he swallowed another chunk. Suddenly my stomach rumbled, I could smell the person he was eating and could feel myself salivating.
“Fool cover yourself up we have children running about” Ferocity said as I noticed I was no longer wearing any clothes. Although I was now red and everything was scaly I appreciated the normal skin covering my manhood and the impressive size it had grown but still did not to flash a teenager. I looked around for something as Ferocity dug into her inventory bag and tossed me a shirt, I tied it up the best that I could. I wasn’t as big as a troll, but I did have the size and musculature of a well-built orc approaching 7 feet.
“What happened to you?” Bianca stammered as she finally faced me.
“Well I used to work in that castle” I replied as Leeroy gave me an arm. “I used to work for the company that built this game but I died. My job was to stop a glitch that allowed Brutale, the dungeon boss to become invincible. When we came back through he pulled me aside and stripped me of my race and guild”.
“So that’s why you left the guild, we need you to rejoin” Ferocity said as a pop up appeared in my window.
“Oh no, not again” I said as I let a little fire pour from my mouth and bit into the arm. It was delicious, far tastier than anything I had ever had before as I bit into it again and again like a man possessed.
“What do you mean not again” Ferocity said angrily. “We took care of you, you owe us!”
“I will certainly help you folks out but I am not going to be a prisoner anymore” I said in-between mouthfuls.
“Well it is your fault we are under attack right now, that is why we haven’t been rescued yet” Ferocity said as she walked up and yanked the arm away from me. A pop up appeared in my vision.
“You leave Not Food alone” Leeroy said as he stood up suddenly.
“What do you mean it is all my fault?” I replied as I noticed it was quite cold here as the snow started falling and the wind started howling.
“The elves are led by a new guild leader, Jokesonyou” Ferocity replied. “He found out you had your own guild and bought many mercenaries and took over leadership for the Natural Born Killers after changing himself into an elf. We are losing the fight right now as they have destroyed our stronghold and is now chasing us through the countryside”.
“Get word to them and tell them to meet us here, and I will still help out with the raid” I replied wondering if they could use my castle as a temporary home.
“What good would that do?” Ferocity asked.
“Just tell them to do it, right now let’s find Bianca her soul stone and me some clothes.
The Frost Lands were tiny, the only thing they held were soul stones of course, and Snow Rabbits. The environment could kill you though, as I was finding out as my health bar started to drop. This was to keep people from camping out in the frost lands and fighting others. We didn’t have to walk far as I saw a soul stone lying in the dirt. I walked over and picked it up just as Ferocity screamed at me.
“Well what did you do that for, now it is soul bound to you and Bianca can’t use it. We have to find another one now”.
I looked into my inventory and could see the rock was not soul bound to me. I tossed it to Bianca who smiled as it obviously became soul bound to her. I figured because of my race I could not be changed, so the stones did not attach to me. If I was able to pick them up without any problem, I could corner the market on soul stones and become a very rich man. I imagined selling these stones and making a huge amount of money, they would go for no less than 100 gold on the open market.
“How did you do that?” Ferocity asked as she examined Bianca.
“It doesn’t matter did you relay my message?” I asked.
“Yes, although it will take them sometime to meet here”.
“That’s okay, we have time” I replied as we headed back to the teleport spot. We entered it and was transferred back to the front of the castle. I could see the translucent dome covering the castle, just outside of it stood Big Sally and Frankie Kneecaps along with their mages and four other people I did not know. They were steadily beating on the dome but I knew it was no use, you needed and actual raid to break in a dome built this good. I walked near the boundaries of the dome and stood there facing Big Sally, my height and weight were greater than his now.
“What do you want big ugly?” Sally said as he hit the dome again with his sword.
“Why are you attacking my house?” I asked nonchalantly.
“We are looking for a little mage prick” Frankie said as he stopped his pounding.
“Haven’t seen him, now go away” I replied as I could feel myself being scanned.
“Frankie, big ugly is the fucking mage” Sally said as he hit the dome even harder. I summoned a hellfire and tossed it at him. It stuck to his armor and began burning as he tried beating it out. His life points started dropping as I tossed another one at Frankie. The mages with them started pouring healing into the pair as I cast corroding mist. The mages could not cast any spells during the duration and resulted to handing over healing potions. As the mages got closer the flame jumped to them and eventually the whole party began burning. They pulled out a teleportation scroll after that and vanished. I personally was amazed at all the teleportation scrolls I had seen used. They were not cheap and were set at a price of 100 gold a piece.
“Okay now we have another enemy” Ferocity grumbled. “Where did this dome come from anyway?”
“I bought it for a platinum, this is now my house” I said as I walked outside of the dome. “I will give the Horde access until they build a new home, the skeletons inside will not attack them. Now let’s get to where ever the hell we are going”. I selected each party member and cast teleport, and found myself back in Seafarin.
“I’m not even going to ask you how you have an impossible spell, but what good does being here get us?” Ferocity said as she gestured around her.
“Well I can buy some clothes and you can buy more teleport scrolls and take us wherever Bianca here wants to go” I replied as I tossed her a platinum coin. “She is welcome to stay in my castle although I don’t know how safe it will be if she chooses to remain and elf until her father gets her”.
“I don’t want to be an elf anymore” Bianca spoke up. “No one picks on Ferocity and no one is going to pick on me either. I want to be something dangerous, I can always turn back into an elf later”.
I nodded and took a walk with Leeroy as a noticeable crowd started following us. I could hear people whispering, asking what type of character I was playing and where did I get the Mountain Troll from.
“Hey you, were did you get that get up from?” A human archer said as he stood in our path.
“I got it from the soul demon, this elf guy Jokesonyou turned me into this when as revenge from when I helped kill him” I replied throwing dirt on Jokesonyou’s name.
“Wait a minute, are you that Fool guy?” the archer asked and did not let me finish. “You are that Fool guy, bro you are a legend. Man that build looks sweet, I wonder why Jokes gave it to you?”
“He is giving the ability to anyone that can kill him twice” I lied hoping whoever this guy was took the bait.
“Well hell I can find enough people to do it” the archer said as I could see his mind working.
I walked away from the man and into an armor shop, I couldn’t really wear any armor but these folks were known to have snazzy outfits. I was red and scaly so I went for a more Hellboyish look complete with trench coat that this guy had. The shop keep for his part seemed robotic, whatever had affected the other NPC’s clearly did not get to this guy yet.
“Not Food, Leeroy is hungry” my big gray companion said as he sniffed the air. I also smelled something good and was happy it smelled like regular food instead of the cannibalistic variety I had enjoyed earlier.
“I know a little place to eat but keep your head down Leeroy” I said rememberi
ng the Soldiers of Light. Before I was a neutral, now I was a demon who served another demon. We walked over to the inn where I had sat at only a week or two ago and walked in the door, Dorothy, we were not in Kansas anymore.
There were only a few Soldiers of Lights around and I counted about three working girls. We walked into the place and found a seat, I could already tell all eyes were on me as we sat at a table. There were booths located in the place and that is what I would have preferred but there was no way Leeroy could have fit. I kept my head down as a busty waitress made her way over to me.
“Um, w-what would you have?” the blonde waitress said, her voice trembling a little. I scanned her and could tell she was an NPC, just some bits of code but her nervousness looked far more realistic than it should have.
“Bring a two big bowls of something to eat and two bigger mugs of mead” I replied waiting on her price.
“That’ll be 20 silver s-sir” the woman stammered as I could see sweat start to pour down the right side of her face.
“Keep the change” I said as I flicked her a gold coin which put her at ease. “Say, you wouldn’t happen to know where OEF2010 is would you?”
“The Soldier of Light?” the waitress replied her voice gaining more confidence.
“Yeah that’s the guy, he owes me some money” I said remembering I helped take back the stronghold and was whisked away before I got any payment.
“I may have seen him, or at least I know where he will be” the waitress replied. I could see she was trying a shakedown, pretty little thing like her was probably used to fleecing rich folks, the money wouldn’t hurt me none, right now I had the power of a mini boss in my own right. I pulled out a coin as she stopped me and took a step back. I looked at her quizzically as she gave me a sign to follow her.
“Hey stay put Leeroy, I will be right back” I told the troll as I followed the waitress behind the bar, through the kitchen and out to a small alley. I went to ask her what this was all about as two strong sets of hands grabbed me from behind. I struggled a bit and tossed the guy on my left over my shoulder, he must have weighed a ton. The person holding me from behind on my right hit me with some kind of stun ability, I dropped for a bit and went to call Leeroy for help until I heard one of my would be kidnappers talking.
“What the hell is this guy?” Someone in front of me said, the guy I had threw who was wearing the colors of white and gold.
“He says he is looking for OEF2010” the waitress replied as the stun wore off and I jumped to my feet. Before the guy behind me could react I spun and hit him twice, bringing his life down to 25% despite his heavy armor. I was too fast for his partner behind me as I spun to my right and missed a blow from his Warhammer. I maneuvered behind him and gave him a claw strike while whispering the spell for corroding rain. The rain started falling as I gained distance from my attackers, the blonde who had set me up was in my grasp, my claws resting on her throat.
“What the fuck” I screamed as I eyed my two attackers. “Give me a reason not to rip this bitch’s throat out right now”. I could see the attackers paused for a moment before noticing their armor was corroding and falling off in pieces. One of them ran, the man I had tossed over my shoulder, probably to get reinforcements.
“Just leave her be boy” said the remaining attacker, BigRed1. “You came here looking for our guild leader and you don’t look like the kind of guy he would associate himself with”.
I let the girl go and tossed her towards BigRed1. “Well he still owes me money, I helped him get your stronghold back and never got paid. I can see you are at a higher level than I am but I don’t really think that matters, I have a troll and other people in this city”.
“You mean the female troll?” BigRed1 replied. “We have her for safe keeping, and I was at the battle to gain back Castle Greyskull, you weren’t there”.
“The hell I wasn’t, I helped drop the shield over that place and took out Jokesonyou” I said getting angry. “Now if you don’t release my companions there will be trouble here”. I watched as five people poured out of the kitchen and heard footsteps coming from my rear. “If that’s the way you want to play this then, so be it”. I then started whispering my teleport spell, seconds later I was outside of my castle, surrounding me were a bunch of beat up looking Horde members.
I accessed my interface and gave the Horde immunity from attack as well as access to the first level of the dungeon, sending the skeletons I now controlled to the second level. “Hey fancy meeting you guys here” I said as I looked at the orc Torment.
“Well you told us to meet you here and we have been fighting off players looking to get soul stones” Torment replied as Agony the goblin and another orc I knew as Despair entered into our conversation.
“Well have you tried walking through it?” I said sarcastically as a yell went up. We all turned around and could see players streaming through the forest going towards our position, I screamed for everyone to fall back into the castle, at first they were hesitant but once they found out they could get past the border people started streaming in as the enemy came closer. We barely got the horde inside as the enemy who were all on horseback appeared and started circling. I could tell they must have been a part of some guild as they all had the same horse and same color scheme. There didn’t look to be any Tanks or any warrior class among them, these were all archers.
“You can’t take all of the soul stones for yourself” an elf on horseback said loudly, his name reading FancyThaht.
“Well you can always buy some off of me, but I’m not letting you inside of me home” I replied as I let out a yawn, just inside the barrier. An arrow struck the barrier and bounced off as Agony came over to my side.
“You wish to make more fancy elves” the goblin said with a laugh. “The world has too many of them already!”
I could hear a crowd behind me laughing; I guessed they were the members of the horde that were not that badly injured. The elf looked angry as they started beating on the shield, there attacks was more of a taking out of frustration rather than doing any real damage.
“Ferocity was grabbed in Seafarin” I turned to Agony as I got serious. “The Soldiers of light have her, I know we have that raid coming up but we have to get her back, her and my companion”.
“What do you mean the Soldiers of Light have her?” Agony replied in a voice I could tell meant he had trouble understanding.
“I don’t know how to say it any clearer, the Soldiers of light have her, my companion who you have never met and a young girl, get together a strong raid of at least 20 people and lets go get her, it’s getting dark and their castle is not that far outside of Seafarin”.
Agony looked blank for a moment, I could tell he was either trying to communicate with Ferocity or maybe trying to reach his contact within the Soldiers of Light.
“They must have her shielded somehow, they probably brought her to their strong hold and used the girl as bait to make sure she did not give them a hard time” Agony said as 10 Orc silencers came forward the orcish equivalent of an assassin. The party outside of our dome continued to curse and yell as Torment pulled out his crossbow and fire upon one of them. Soon, the Orc Silencers produced some kind of throwing spike and began to attack, safe behind the confines of the best shield money could buy until the attack broke off.
“We are your party” Torment said gesturing to the orcs present. “Although I am not sure you will have us after quitting your own guild”.
“We both know the guild was not mine” I replied as I waved him off. “But this is a conversation for another day, they still have Ferocity”.
I created a party with three of the orcs, Morose, Rage and Anger and activated my teleportation spell, surprising the heel out of them as we appeared back in Seafarin. A little while later another group of four showed up followed by Torment whose group only had three members.
“The waitress at the inn is the person who first sicced them on me” I said as I looked around at the d
arkened streets, still full of people closing up shop. “But Ferocity was grabbed away from me which means they have eyes everywhere”.
“Well let’s try and kill as many of these bastards as possible while in town” Torment said as he too became aware of his surroundings. “Let’s start at the inn, it would do no good to try an infiltrate their stronghold only to have enemies at our back”.
I nodded agreement as we decided to stick together and move as a group. My party thanks to my ability had to keep slowing down as they were far faster than their comrades. I could see movement out of the corner of my eye my Torment dismissed it, whoever it was we could deal with later. We came upon the inn quickly enough, Torment’s group went around to the rear and the other group climbed the building to come in through the second story. Once I saw them enter a window I burst through the door and started looking around.
I could see the blonde, who screamed and ran towards the back, A mage of the Soldiers of light had his back to me as Morose and Rage activated their backstab ability on the man, killing him instantly. The other two Soldiers of Light hurried to their feet as Rage started firing off throwing spikes. The enemy was a Knight and an assassin, they were slightly higher level and even with my boosts, if we didn’t get the tank down quickly he could hold out until back up arrived.
“Wait a minute!” the assassin cried out as I personally jumped towards him as Rage faced off against the knight. I slashed him once which caused him to jump back but I was far faster than he was, and delivered another strike as he jumped behind the bar. I turned my attention to the Knight as the sounds of fighting upstairs reached me. I went after the knight who looked to be just defending, his stone wall ability successfully turning back my basic attack. I would have summoned Corroding rain but there would be a lot of collateral damage from players who really didn’t have a beef with me.
“Fool just wait a minute!” the knight cried out as we took turns testing out his defense.
“Kill him” I screamed as I could hear the assassin sneaking up beside me. I struck him at least 8 more times wondering why he wasn’t dead yet as clarity struck me. I could only take off half damage, it didn’t matter how many times I struck him once he got to one life point, the game wouldn’t let me half that. I switched targets just as my three party members finished off the knight and the other group came running down stairs, minus two members. I could look at their health and tell they had a tougher fight than we had. The customers in the inn were braced against the wall as Anger killed the assassin.