Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  With Freyja's damned temple there, she could just take refuge inside of it and be safe. Eddie it is. He could do the same, but I'm sure his pride will prevent that.

  After he'd set the process in motion, he immediately started snooping on Eddie, watching the player's reaction to his predicament. Loki hated the time constraints set into the procedure. He'd prefer to throw wave after wave of opponents at Eddie until the player succumbed, or all his efforts in the area were destroyed. Without creating his own code from scratch though, something he still considered beneath him, that was impossible.

  He began to reconsider whether or not it was something he should bother to do as Eddie, and those around him, defeated the first few waves of the Intervention function.

  They are getting larger each time though, he thought, and they seem to be getting additional types of Orcs mixed in, so perhaps if I just wait it out he'll be taken care of. None of the damned Orcs have destroyed, or even damaged, any of the buildings yet, even when they had to go right through them to get to him. Apparently the only damage is to structures he takes refuge in.

  Loki was furious. If he wanted this plan to work, he'd have to do the menial labor of coding a new procedure that partially duplicated this one.

  I refuse, I simply refuse to demean myself in such a manner. Perhaps Greenshaw might provide some other option? I'll go and visit his mind, see if I can direct his thoughts towards a solution to this more specific problem. He wasn't much help with the overall issue, but maybe this small segment is something that he can help with.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie hated it, but he led his group to the wooden fort for the next wave. Jern had come back and reported masons going to work immediately on the castle walls, the temptation of extra pay sending them out after they'd finished their normal day's work. So Eddie didn't want to lead Orcs up there and risk the mason's lives.

  Which assumes that they really are after me. It looked like they made a beeline for me both times so far, but who knows for certain. Fortunately Jern had the foresight to tell them that if they saw Orcs coming they were to run to the temple grounds and that they'd be safe there, Eddie thought.

  The attack came just before dusk. The sun was nearly set when Lucky started yipping outside of the fort. Eddie quickly let the cat in, despite knowing that she could get over the walls if she wanted, then mounted the wall walk on the inside of the fort.

  The lesser height and weaker material of the walls left him feeling a little bit nervous. He was pretty sure that the Orcs that had attacked last time could've smashed through the wood of these walls if they'd been here, but he also had Charles' group and one of the groups that stood watch in the fort to back him up. It was that weird group that Freyja had asked him to welcome, with a leader by the name of Cooper, but they had a wizard and a couple of missile users, plus an additional healer to back up Tiana and Alyx.

  “Lucky says they're coming,” he called as she pawed at him once more.

  The cat then went up on her hind legs to look out over the north wall, the one immediately adjacent to the road.

  “From the north,” Eddie added.

  He kept an eye out and less than a minute later, he saw a much larger blur on the horizon. One that was heading towards the fort at top speed. When the approaching Orcs didn't even stop to look at any of the development in the area they were moving through Eddie heaved a sigh of relief.

  So yeah, they're after me, I'm sure of it now. It's not the castle area, it's me. Plus, they just want me. They aren't stopping for anything else on the way in. They could've left a swathe of destruction through some of the development out that way, but they aren't stopping for anything else. Now, who the hell is it that's doing this to me, and why? Eddie thought.

  Then he forgot about all his questions as he drew an arrow and fired. With the three parties all together the fight went incredibly quickly. There were twenty Orcs, five of them with crossbows this time. As the melee Orcs came rushing in, the missile users inside the fort, along with the wizards, started hurling attacks at the crossbow Orcs. The five of them were all down before the melee fighters even managed to get atop the walls, the combination of three wizards and five bow users inside the fort removing them from the combat before it got down to melee fighting.

  A few moments after the last crossbow Orc dropped, an Orc came over the wall, having used two of its kin as a stepping stool. Charles was there to meet it though and as he bashed it with his shield, sending it back over the wall to the outside, Jern took a swing and struck it in mid-air with his hammer.

  One of Cooper's men, to the other side of Charles, called out a warning as another Orc crested the wall. He tried to push it back off, but lost the fight and ended up on the ground inside the fort.

  The motion inside the wall caught everyone's attention and the Orc didn't survive long as the missile users and wizards focused on the enemy within the walls.

  With their attempts to get over the walls thwarted, the remaining Orcs started trying to go through them, slamming into the walls over and over. The melee fighters landed a few blows on them over the walls, but mostly had to work to keep their balance as the wall shifted and started to splinter. Wooden walls that had stood up fine to goblins were having a problem with Orcs, and Eddie spared a moment to be glad that he was building his stronghold walls out of stone.

  A couple of the archer types, those of Cooper's party who were stationed in the towers, still had line of sight on the attacking Orcs and arrows flashed by at regular intervals as they feathered the Orcs. Unfortunately, they were the lowest level bow users inside the walls so they weren't doing a lot.

  Eddie, Allie, Dominic, and Tamshir had formed a line about twenty feet back from where they saw the wall splintering. As soon it went, they'd loose their own arrows and spells. Ephram was climbing one of the towers, hoping for line of sight from the lower windows in them.

  A minute later, the first of the planks on the wall gave, showering the area just inside with splinters. As the Orcs came charging in, making a beeline for Eddie's position in the firing line, the melee fighters dropped down from the wall walk and attacked as soon as the wizards released their spells.

  Allie and Eddie held their arrows, knowing that whatever Tamshir cast was liable to stir the wind and destroy their aim, but as the spell effects cleared and the Orcs charged through the cloud of dust that was stirred up by Tamshir's spell, they released. Eddie was using an Arcing arrow and the blue light of the electricity that sparked over the Orc's body was clearly visible in the dimming light of the day.

  About ten Orcs made it through the wall and the spells alive. The tanks caught seven of them, while the other three came charging at the small group in front of them. Eddie drew his sword, the modified gladius he'd received as a gift fitting his hand comfortably. Allie stowed her bow in her inventory, her hands quickly filling with shield and ax. Dominic and Tamshir stepped behind the two of them and began to cast again.

  Eddie was distracted by a cackle in mid-air and he glanced up to see Cooper's wizard floating about twenty feet off the ground, hurling small green glowing balls from his hands. Balls which exploded when they hit Orcs. He was almost distracted badly enough to miss the first two Orcs swinging at him, but he caught the motion out of the corner of his eye and rolled to one side before coming up to his feet again and lunging forward.

  He didn't see what anyone else was doing, but the other Orc that had attacked him wasn't still coming for him. Evidently the Orcs were targeting him, but if they were attacked by someone else, they'd defend themselves. That was the only way he could explain what was happening.

  He thrust again, dodging a swing of the Orc's jagged sword and managed to sink several inches of his blade into the Orc's body. Lucky came through from behind, sinking her teeth into the back of the Orc's calf, leaving its mobility drastically hindered. After that, it took only a few moments of work for Eddie and the cat to finish the Orc off.

  He straightened from killing off the Orc an
d looked around. The only Orcs left standing were on the other side of the wall of tanks. Arrows came down from the towers, as well as the small green, glowing orbs from the wizard hovering in the sky. They fell among the remaining Orcs, not enough to kill them, but certainly enough to keep them distracted and unable to effectively fight the tanks.

  Eddie moved off to one side, where he'd have an angle to shoot, Allie had done so to the other side, and within a couple more minutes the rest of the Orcs were down. He heaved a sigh of relief and then slumped against an intact section of the fort wall.

  “Three fights in one day are too much,” he said as Tiana walked over after healing the tanks. “I'm exhausted. I don't remember the dungeon being this bad.”

  He hadn't even noticed he was clutching his side until Tiana pulled his arm away.

  “It might have something to do with this slice on your side too,” she said. “Or maybe knowing that all the opponents want to kill you in particular?”

  She chanted and a warm, golden glow surrounded his torso. A moment later he felt much better, if still a bit wiped out from all the fighting he'd done.

  “This sucks,” he said, as his vision was obscured and the message 'Wave 4' flashed across his sight.

  He checked his clock

  “If I'm not mistaken, the next attack will be at eleven-seventeen tonight, and I'm already tired.”

  “Take a nap?” Tiana offered. “Maybe bunk down here in the fort?”

  “You saw how much protection the fort offered against the Orcs. It's fine for the goblins, but the Orcs? Not so much.”

  “So, tell all the adventurers that come to the inn tonight that they can have a stunning moonlight battle against a horde of Orcs, without even leaving the crossroads area. I bet you get enough takers to solve the problem.”

  “I'll do that, but I'll set an alarm too so I'm up in time to help fight. I wouldn't feel right otherwise.”

  “It wouldn't matter,” she said, “I bet the nearby fighting would wake you up anyhow. But if you're going to nap, then maybe I should spread the word for the adventurers?”

  “Yes, please, then I can nap longer. About waking up, you're probably right, but I'll still set an alarm,” Eddie said.

  Eddie was good to his word. He took a half hour to retrieve some rough planks and repair the damage to the fort, then bunked out inside of the fort after setting an alarm for three hours.

  And maybe I can get another three hours of sleep after that fight and before the next one, he thought.

  He was exhausted, physically, but had worried that he wouldn't be able to sleep. He needn't have worried, within five minutes of arranging himself on the ground behind one of the towers inside the fort, he fell asleep with the sun finally dipping beneath the horizon. The large bobcat that curled up with him and started purring may have had something to do with the easy time he had falling asleep.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie woke with the alarm chirping in his ear and Lucky licking his face.

  “Well, at least you don't have fish breath this time,” he said as he sat up.

  He looked around. The walls had been adorned with light spells. If he wasn't mistaken, they were Tiana's Eternal Day spells and he wondered what she'd cast them on. They were manned by adventurers, at least one every ten feet, which would mean that if the Orcs came in on the same vector and only attacked one wall, that wall was going to be very crowded with defenders.

  A glance at the time showed that he had a little less than half an hour until he expected the attack. As he stood and stowed his bedroll, Tiana came over, looking very satisfied with herself.

  “Looks like we got plenty of takers,” she said.

  “I'm surprised, I didn't think we'd have this many.”

  “Free-range experience that you don't need to wander out and get? Plus, Cooper's group was showing off some of the loot that they got from the last attack. Most of these players aren't high enough to go to the Hammertop Mountains yet, so it's not quite as impressive as it looks, but we should be fine.”

  “I think you're right. Now I need to find somewhere to position myself,” Eddie said.

  “Ephram was saying he had decent line of sight from the lower windows in the towers. He couldn't fire on the ones right against the wall, but he could fire on anything more than three feet back or so. So I reserved you a tower. Jern's going to be guarding the door to that one.”

  “Ah, so make it harder for them to get to me? That kind of feels like a cheat.”

  “And this wave crap is anything resembling fair? I think you should contact Aaron again if he didn't respond to your last message. I've been thinking and I've got a feeling that this isn't something right, that it's something even more out of line than the things that normally happen to you,” Tiana said.

  She sounded angry and Eddie couldn't help but think that it was with good reason. He was a little angry himself, but with no-one responsible available for him to vent, he'd been holding it back and using that anger against the Orcs.

  Lucky yawned, her teeth glinting in the light from the walls. Then she shook herself and started rubbing against Eddie's leg.

  “Come on Lucky, I bet Tiana wants you with me as my last line of defense,” Eddie said.

  “Not quite, I'll be there with you as well. The walls right in front of the tower are barely in range for my distance healing spell, so I can help them down there while I stay in the tower to help you and Lucky if they get through,” Tiana said.

  “Well, let's go,” Eddie said. “This tower or the other?”

  “This one please. Allie and Dominic will be on top of it.”

  “Got a plan for Karl also?”

  “Yeah, he volunteered to Stealth against the north wall and backstab any Orcs coming at our tower, or any crossbow Orcs that are firing at it.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Sounds more complete than my plans normally do,” he said, “so who I am to argue?”

  He lost the fight to resist yawning and when he finally managed to close his mouth again, he headed for the tower door.

  Lucky started bristling right on time at eleven-seventeen by his game clock and Eddie looked out the window. He couldn't see anything much beyond the other side of the road, but still called out.

  “They're coming. Get ready!”

  The Orcs poured into the light a minute later. Once again there were crossbow Orcs staying in back and firing. Eddie chose to counterfire those for the moment, considering them the biggest danger until the melee Orcs got into the fort, which he was sure they would.

  As he'd expected, the north wall was crowded with adventurers, but not as crowded as he'd thought. There were a bunch of other missile firing adventurers who hadn't ventured onto the north wall, firing in an arc over the other defenders into the mass of Orcs on the other side of the north wall.

  Eddie counted somewhere around thirty Orcs. He'd feared as many as forty if the numbers doubled every time, but he could worry about the progression later, for now he had to kill as many of the crossbow Orcs as he could before they started taking down adventurers on the north wall.

  The golden glow of healing added even more light to the night as the healers took care of their respective party members or any other wounded they saw. A flash of light came from the darkness behind the crossbow Orcs and Eddie was happy for a moment, thinking that there were adventurers attacking from the rear. Then the flash struck the wall and detonated into orange flames.

  Adventurers were spilled off the wall and into the courtyard by the detonation, and the wood of the wall began to burn merrily adding a reddish-orange tone to the light illuminating the night.

  “Shit, they have a shaman,” Eddie said. “He's still out in the dark and I can't see him. Tiana, how long would your Eternal Day spell last on an arrow?”

  “An arrow? Maybe ten minutes, fifteen tops. And that's only if you use a broadhead, maybe five minutes on a field point arrow. They just aren't worth that much.”

  “Good enou
gh. I just need to light up the area the shaman's in so I can target him. Here, cast it on this one?”

  He handed her an arrow and then waited as she cast the spell. In the meantime he saw the shaman release another pair of spells, single target ones this time. At least one of the adventurers hit by the spell was now lying motionless on the ground.

  “Here,” Tiana said, thrusting the arrow towards him.

  The arrow now glowed like a tiny sun, spreading its light out in a wide area around it. He turned back to the window and fired it about twenty feet beyond the remaining crossbow Orcs.

  There he is, Eddie thought.

  He'd nocked an Arcing Arrow for this opportunity and now he fired it. Evidently the other archers had similar ideas because within moments of the shaman being illuminated he seemed to have become the target of choice for anyone that could reach him with an attack.

  The shaman went down quickly, struck by Eddie's arrow, several other arrows and at least three single target spells. Then Eddie moved his focus back to the crossbow Orcs. The melee Orcs were into the fort now, the walls having burned down quickly from the spell, but the adventurers that had been knocked off the walls by it weren't dead, at least most of them weren't, and they were putting up a fight.

  The golden glow of healing spells was a constant now, and Eddie noted that Tiana was adding her own distance healing to the efforts. Then the last crossbow Orc fell. Eddie, and the other archers, were able to turn their attention to the Orcs in melee.

  It wasn't a constant rain of arrows. The archers had to wait for an Orc to disengage and get a little distance away from the adventurers before firing in most cases now. Although they couldn't hurt the other adventurers with their arrows, they didn't want to waste those arrows either. Even with the complications the missile barrage made a huge difference though.

  As the last of the Orcs fell, Eddie glanced around. It looked like there were at least seven adventurers down and unmoving.

  “Damn it, we lost a few,” he said.