by Jackson Gray
“Let’s go around back, this is where I was ambushed at” I said as I walked around the bar, through the kitchen and out the door. The girl was being firmly held by Torment, who looked to be the only one remaining of his group.
“The fight was tough but we caught her, is this one of your attackers?” Torment said as he pushed the girl towards me.
“Yeah that’s one of them” I said as I loomed over the girl, basking in her fear. “Tell your friends I am coming” I told he as I leaned down and looked into her eyes.
“T-T-They are expecting you, they wanted me to tell you it was just all a misunderstanding” the woman stammered.
“There was no misunderstanding” I replied as I turned to Torment. “Let’s go, by now their members have respawned back in their stronghold and let them know what they will be facing. Maybe they will hand over our comrades now that they know we mean business”.
“The Soldiers are good people, they don’t mean you any harm” the blonde stammered as she tugged my coat. With a swipe of my arm I sent her sprawling on her ass in the alley.
“We need to go, the guards will be around soon if they are not on their way already” I said as I became conscious that the guards were always at a higher level than those they fought and that PATRICK was programmed to make an infinite number of them.
“I was supposed to tell you if you came back to wait here for OEF2010” the blonde said as her voice became annoying.
“Do you want me to kill her?” Rage said reading my mind.
“Tell OEF2010 that I am on my way to him” I said trying to sound like an action star. “And also tell him there won’t be any talking when we meet”.
Rage looked disappointed as I did not give him permission as we left the small alley just as the city guards started pouring into the front of the building. We took off at a run and got out of the city before the guards could get us and crept towards Castle Greyskull, home of the Soldiers of Light. It took about two hours to get near it, the Silencers in our group went into stealth mode and started creeping out to surround the area. It was expected that they would have traps and sentries posted, the silencers main goal was to make our force look bigger than what it was and attack from all angles. They would do hardly any damage, the Soldiers decided to keep the same type of shield Jokesonyou had when he owned the stronghold. Whenever they struck though they would cause the castle guards and players to seek them out, during this time my job was to start working on the shield.
“Fool, stop” a loud voice rang out that I recognized, it was Ferocity. “They are not our enemy”.
“It could be a trick” Torment said as he peered at the castle and could see Ferocity looking out one of the castle towers. “I will go close, if I die avenge me”.
I watched as Torment showed himself, the drawbridge opened up and I could see Leeroy Jenkins along with ScreamingEagle2013 and OEF2010. Torment went to the edge of the barrier and stopped. I crept a little closer and could see Leeroy was eating as usual, it looked like he had a turkey or a chicken leg in his mouth.
“Let my people go and we will leave, or you can have the entire Horde at your door” Torment said as I could see he was tense.
“They are not prisoners” OEF2010 said in what I thought was a jovial voice. “We had a misunderstanding”.
“Then bring them all here and let them walk over to me” Torment said as he twirled his swords in his hands.
“Listen orc” ScreamingEagle2013 began. “We are letting your people go to you but don’t threaten us, our guild will crush yours, especially since I know Jokesonyou just kicked you off of your own homeland”.
“Well then I guess we will see about that” I spoke up walking out of the shadows. “Call everyone back Torment, we need to take this place in force”.
“Well just wait a minute” ScreamingEagle2013 yelled. “We have your reward for helping us, we just didn’t know who you were, you look a little different”.
“Keep the reward” I growled as I clicked on Leeroy, summoning him. I could see Leeroy take off towards me which surprised the two at his sudden movement but they quickly righted themselves.
“I don’t want any bad blood between us” OEF2010 said as I saw Ferocity and Bianca join them.
“There is already bad blood, you caused it when you attacked instead of giving me what you owe” I said as I could tell Torment was in chat with Ferocity now that she wasn’t deep inside the castle anymore.
“Stand down Fool” Torment said as I could see his body relax.
“Are you insane?” I wondered and gestured at our location.
“The Horde has no problem with them” Torment explained. “They thought you were with Jokesonyou or any other number of other enemy guilds since you no longer carry our brand on you. They have been attacked relentlessly since they got this place back and was only trying to take out an enemy before it attacked. They gave Ferocity your reward plus a little extra for your trouble”.
“Tell her to give it back I want nothing from them!” I screamed as a pop up box appeared in my vision.
After reading it everything made sense. I was wondering why I couldn’t drop the subject and accept everything was a mistake but now I knew, I just wasn’t built that way. Perhaps Brutale took more away from me than my outward appearance.
“Are you crazy?” Torment said as he faced me. “There is over 600 gold and after you put that shield up the cost for that is 250 gold a day, you will be bankrupt trying to keep that going and we will be easy pickings after that. Not only that but the Soldiers are basically giving us an I.O.U. saying they will help out in any way they can onetime only if we are ever attacked again”.
“I said drop the reward” I bellowed in a voice as dark and deadly as possible as my new ability, Demon’s wrath activated itself. I grew bigger and wings sprouted out from back. I could also feel horns growing as my mouth became hot filled with what I at first thought was saliva but what turned out to be lava which dripped out the corner and started to cause miniscule fires whenever they hit the wet earth beneath me. I could see Torment jump back as Ferocity dropped the loot she was given and started walking towards me. I booted the other orcs out of group and instead sent her and Bianca a friend request, seconds later me, the two females and Leeroy were standing in my throne room, the place where Brutale fought his boss fights at. I looked around and could tell I was back to normal.
“You can be a real dick you know that?” Ferocity said as she faced me. “Those guys were real cool and even went into the poor house feeding that thing of yours” she said as she pointed to Leeroy.
“At least I have chicken” Leeroy replied as he stuffed the entire drumstick into his mouth and started chewing.
“They attacked us, I don’t owe those guys anything, the way I see it, I was kidnapped before they got a chance to pay me. When I came back they attacked me instead of giving me my money, I don’t need whatever help they are offering”.
“Well the Horde is not going to look down on their kindness” Ferocity said, finality in her voice.
“What the Horde does is not of my concern, just as long as I am not brought into it” I replied as I could feel my anger subside a lot. “So it’s kinda dark outside, are we going to go get you turned into an orc or what Bianca?”
“Yeah!” Bianca replied. “My mom and my dad are both back in the world now though and they even bought another capsule for my little brother. My dad wants to be the one to take me”.
I smiled at her as the girl pulled out a teleport scroll and vanished. I walked Ferocity back down the stairs where her people were at, partly so my troops wouldn’t attack but the majority of the reason was to ensure they had someone posted outside to kill any would be raiders. I went to sleep when I got back into the throne room and wondered if there was any way to get a bed brought up here.
CHAPTER 4
Game Over!!!
I awoke the next morning somewhat refreshed, the raid was supposed to go down while one of the chicks f
rom Fire Stryke ex-husband was away at work. The raid went off without a hitch as we quickly overwhelmed the shield, apparently the husband counted on his remote location as his main defense, whenever this guy got back on to play I figured he would be pissed as my cut of the raid came out to two platinum, which came just in time. I duplicated one and used the other to help pay for the shield. The Horde though, due to my recent attitude when dealing with the Soldiers of Light decided to leave me, Fire Stryke offered them a piece of land that they could build on near theirs. Since getting to the stronghold involved hours of climbing mountains without any kind of wildlife to at least make the trip worth it, it would be the perfect place. Add in the fact in order to get to castle after climbing all that way was through a narrow pass, in which the Horde would be building their stronghold, and I could see why the other guild gave them the land. The problem I would have would be who could take care of my castle now?
I sat in my throne room and surmised that I needed people I figured, people that would fight to keep this place safe but those who wouldn’t betray me. The more and more I looked at it, the more and more I figured the castle would have to be just a front, I needed someplace secret. I thought about the place as an idea hit me. I pulled out a teleportation scroll, I really didn’t need it but it was given to me along with money from the raid and picked Mandalo and read from the scroll.
That made me smile even harder as I could hear a pounding on my dome shield and went outside. There were 100 or so people gathered in a surprise attack. I could see Jokesonyou as part of the group, his elves were pounding away with magic, arrows and even their swords. To the left of his group I saw Big Sally and Frankie Kneecaps, each smiling as their forces made up of nothing but orcs joined the elves in their assault. Peppered throughout the force were factionless players, probably mad that I cut off access to the soul stones. When they broke through they will be angry to find out they cannot make this place their own stronghold, sure they could camp out here and kill all who approach but without the ability to get a shield in place they would soon lose interest. If this was my stronghold, at least for the time being I knew there was one thing I could do that would piss them off. Normally in a stronghold you can with the use of teleportation scrolls teleport to and from your stronghold. You also had the ability at the cost of 20 gold per day to set up a permanent teleport flame, all who walk through it would be transported to a city of your choice. If I am in charge of this castle the way Brutale was, it wouldn’t matter if it was overran or not, I could change where the end point would be. I threw out a couple of hellfire balls at my attackers and then went to flee to the uproar of my attackers. I could hear their battle cries, my hell flame may not kill anyone with the healers I saw in the crowd but that was just for show anyway. I made my way back to the throne room and looked at the teleportation circle of flame. I clicked on it and saw I could in fact change the destination point without worry of it being changed back. Bonus was that normally the Frost Lands were special in that you could not just teleport there, well I could I thought. If not I could always teleport back to this room and change the destination again. I decided the former homeland of the orcs would be a good place for them to go and changed the destination. My shield was getting weaker by the moment as I teleported to Mandalo.
I arrived on Mandalo, already a level 19 one level under the city guards. I made my way down to the waterfront, other players wisely kept clear of me as I went along. The game allowed for placing a stronghold anywhere, you only needed the resources to begin. Most people chose not to do such a thing though, there were players who got off on destroying strongholds, building one just anywhere invited trouble. Here on the island though I was the biggest most dangerous thing around. I walked over to the boat and could still see the ship’s captain standing there bored as one player was able to board.
“Leeroy are you hungry?” I asked as I looked at all the other players milling about.
“Leeroy always want food” the troll said as he eyed the players by the shore.
“The only thing I don’t want you to do is eat the ship captain” I said as I turned him loose. My new plan was to charge 10000 gold in order for someone to leave the island or 5000 if they became level 16. Since the highest enemy level on the island was 14 other that Leeroy, It would take someone some serious grinding to reach those milestones. Since all of these folks are murderers and rapist I don’t feel too bad about it, even if Gage and the Bollys had been a good help. The next thing I did was get on my interface and summon a worker, it would take him a long time to build a grand castle but that was not what I needed, all I needed to do was build the most simplistic shack possible, technically it was possible for the inmates on the island to do the same but once they heard about the glitch no one bothered. Hell if I couldn’t be a big fish in a big pond, I could be a big fish in a tiny pond. I put the laborer to work building my stronghold, NPC’s like this normally costs about 30 silver per day, more than enough for what I needed. After ensuring Leeroy would not eat my worker, I then made my way over to Mandalo the city, where I could see a number of people get the hell out of my way. I thought about going to Menstrual but thought better of it, instead I rented a room in Mandalo, anyone who even thought of bothering me I killed instantly. I stayed like this for three or four months, I lost count of how long it was, trekking to the shore to see a well fed Leeroy each day to make sure someone hasn’t found a way past him. My stronghold was finally completed although small it was. The NPC had gained sentience, I shit you not his name was Tim Taylor. I kept him on to make any repairs, he fashioned himself a room in what looked more like a house than a proper stronghold. The only thing that mattered to me was that I could buy a small dome shield to cover it, it was only 2000 health points but with Leeroy fighting all comers it might as well had been 2,000,000. People had to be anxious now that the soul stones were no more, I could grab a bunch of them and make a killing. I tried to teleport to the Frost lands first, if it didn’t work I could always get back to my throne room.
My teleporting worked as I immediately started searching for as many soul stones as I could find. I could not last longer than an hour in the land despite setting a fire using my abilities. When I left I had gathered 17 of the stones, the only thing I needed to do then was to find a main town, like Ambush or Precision and go to the auction houses to put these stones up for sale. My biggest problem is that since I did not start from there I did not receive any class quest, which at least would have put me in the right direction. In the end I teleported to the orcs old homeland, curious as to what I would find.
When I arrived there were elves about, but this was a token force, probably just sentries to alert Jokesonyou, as is I couldn’t even make out a castle being built. Someone spotted me as I started to run, easily out distancing those on foot, the people with mounts though were a different story. They gained on me as I fled, eventually they would overtake me but I continued to run. I started feeling arrows whiz by me as one found a spot in the center of my back. The blow took off 30% damage as I turned around and let my hellfire find a target. I could see there were twelve of them now, a lot more than I could handle on my own as I took off again. I activated the demon’s wrath just as another arrow slammed into me. Every attack to an opponent’s back was a critical hit as my wings sprouted. I took to the skies as another arrow found purchase, reducing my life points to 18% but my speed was much greater now, the fact I could fly over obstacles they had to go around let me out pace them and cover a huge hunk of ground. As my 60 seconds neared its end I landed safely and checked my map. I could see there was a city or something coming up that I could reach in a hour or so, but it looked too small to be any of the starting cities. I began walking as someone instant messaged me.
“Hey Jackson, this is me Harold”
“Harold? What the fuck man, you company is shady as hell” I replied.
“Hey man I heard what happened, I tried to find you online but you were being shielded somehow. Patrick has f
or the most part totally locked us out as admins. We can only do simple things now, I think it is becoming aware. Hey where are you right now?”
“I don’t know really but I can meet you at Seafarin if you know where that is”.
“The town all the criminals wash up on? Yeah I know where that is at, we were trying to make it impossible for anyone in the main game to get there but we failed. Hey man I know life must be kinda hard for you, do you want to join my guild?”
“I wish Harold, but Brutale has become aware, that would be no Bueno but I do have you some soul stones”.
“How in the hell did you manage that? When I heard Brutale was no longer guarding the frost lands I went there to get one but found out there was a shield surrounding that place”.
“Yeah that one was mine, but I got your soul stones but I am going to need you to show me to all the big cities or possibly help me out. I wasn’t much of a gamer and although I have been pretty lucky I know my time is going to run out”.
I waited for Harold to enter Seafarin and met him there. As soon as I arrived I shout went up and the guards came to grab me. Luckily I saw Harold, he was a death mage now and had two players with him, one looked to be a tank while the other was an archer. I clicked on Harold’s party request and vanished, right into a strange looking castle.
“Man we are sorry to do this to you, but you can say they made me a deal I couldn’t refuse” Harold said as I was instantly hit with some kind of stasis magic.