Defender Light Online Four

by Larcombe, Tom

  The adventurer had a large tower shield slung over his back and a sword sheathed at his waist. He walked a few paces, then looked to either side, muttered, and shook his head.

  “Looks like we aren't the only ones with that idea,” Cooper said.

  “Well, let's go help him Coop,” Ferring replied. “I'm guessing he's looking for cover, but I'm also guessing that he's going to fail. That meadow is wide open for way too far. That's probably why Eddie chose to build here, clear lines of fire and observation.”

  “I'm also guessing that this guy doesn't know squat about the ways to conceal yourself when you don't have natural cover,” Campbell said. “But we could easily dig in the whole squad anywhere out there and use the foliage to make it look like open meadow still.”

  “Well, let's go introduce ourselves and see if he's doing what we think he is,” Cooper said.

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie groggily made his way down to the common room. Fortunately Liv had kept his rule that food would be available right through until a half hour before they closed the bar for the night, so he and Tiana could get some dinner in them. Charles was on the other side of the common room, eating a meal himself so Eddie figured he could ask about any plans the paladin had for the upcoming fight after they'd both finished eating. Assuming, of course, that the paladin was planning on participating. He'd said he would but Eddie didn't want to take that for granted.

  The inn was more full than it normally was at this time of night, and Eddie hoped that meant he'd have a lot of defenders for the upcoming fight. Once he'd finished eating, he went over to Charles.

  “You're going to be at this next one?” Eddie asked.

  “Yup, that's why me and my party skipped the last one. We decided a full eight hours of sleep, or at least rest, would serve us well for an early morning attack. I did ask around first and made sure that there would be enough people to help out on the last one.”

  “Well thank you for that. The wizards just sliced and diced the majority of the last attack, everyone else mainly helped clean up the missile troops that were left.”

  “I heard, four wizards working together is a scary sight from what was described to me.”

  Eddie thought back to the fight and nodded his agreement.

  “Yeah, they took them apart easily,” he said.

  “I need to talk to Tiana for a minute, got a few preparations I need her help with,” Charles said. “Do you know where she went?”

  She'd left after she and Eddie finished eating, mentioning something about stopping by the temple.

  “I think she's at the temple, that's what she said anyhow.”

  “Thanks. I'll talk to you later Eddie,” Charles said.

  The paladin stood and strode out of the inn, leaving Eddie wondering what was up. Normally Charles was willing to sit and chat, or theorize about an upcoming fight. He'd seemed a bit short this time though.

  Eddie shook his head, not wanting to guess what was up there. He felt bad enough trying to tempt Charles to lead a settlement, using the bait of his father maybe wanting a different type of leadership out of his son.

  But I don't know just how many types of leadership a game would allow you to work on, Eddie thought. I mean, party leadership, sure, but he knows it isn't that. Maybe guilds or something like that? Even if that was his intent, I bet leading a settlement would be on par with it. A lot of the same problems there that you wouldn't get with just leading a party.

  He knew he was letting his thoughts wander so he wouldn't dwell on the upcoming fight. The last attack had been way too easy, and that left him worried about what the next one would be like.

  Because the attack waves adjusted to add a battering ram when we moved to the fort. They had one in this attack also, they just never got to try using it. What if they come in with a catapult or trebuchet though? Then those stone walls aren't going to mean jack.

  He forced his thoughts off of the attack, grabbing an ale from the bar and sipping at it. The rest of his group wasn't here at the moment, except for Jern, but it was still a couple of hours until the attack. He'd told Tiana he'd meet her at the temple on the way if she wasn't back before then. Dom, Karl, and Allie had said they'd be here though and their houses were close so if he didn't see him before he left he could check on them.

  He settled in with his mug of ale, nursing it slowly since he had no desire to go into battle anything other than stone cold sober. Jern didn't seem to have that problem, the dwarf was putting away ales as he sat with some of Delgar's group talking and laughing.

  Actually those guys are putting away the ales as fast as Jern. Dwarfish constitution maybe? Since they don't seem to be showing any ill effects from it.

  Eddie realized that he was being not quite himself, fretting over every little thing about the upcoming fight. A moment of deep thought revealed the problem.

  Eddie, he told himself, you are not to blame for any of the deaths that happen fighting the Orcs. Hell, there've been some already and they don't blame you. Most of them came back to fight more, so stop it you idiot.

  Realizing that he really needed something to snap him out of his mood, he headed up to his room. Lucky was sprawled across the bed, having stretched out to take up as much of it as possible when her person wasn't there.

  He settled on the edge of the bed and reached over to scratch between her ears. As far as Eddie could tell she was much larger than any bobcat in the real world would ever get, and still growing. He wasn't worried about her though, she loved him as much as he loved her. She stretched her head out a little more to nuzzle his hand when he stopped petting, cadging a few more scritches at the base of her ears.

  When he stood up again, she chuffed once, then stretched and leapt off the bed, ready to follow him.

  “I'll meet you out back girl, I'm still a touch worried about you walking through the common room when there's a bunch of drunken adventurers down there,” he said, gesturing towards her window entrance.

  Lucky bounded over to the window and slipped out, disappearing from sight. Eddie assumed that she'd climbed down the stair pegs he'd put into the back wall, but wondered how since he'd sized them for her when she was much smaller.

  He went downstairs and out through the kitchen, his cat greeting him with a 'chuff' as he closed the door and found himself in the mostly dark night. There were patches of light that came out of various sections on the back of the inn, but it was mostly dark.

  “Come on girl, I have pre-battle jitters I have to work off. Let's run,” Eddie said, suiting action to words.

  He'd never been much of a runner in the real world. He'd done a bit of exercising, but running had just never appealed to him. He'd never been in even close to the shape his game body was currently in or that might've been different. He set a steady pace and ran, north into the fields, Lucky practically running circles around him as they moved.

  He kept a close eye on his stamina though, knowing he'd need some for the coming battle. When he'd dropped it to half its maximum value, he turned around and headed for the crossroads at the half trot, half walk he'd developed that allowed his stamina to slowly regenerate.

  It was still more than an hour until the attack when he arrived at the crossroads. There were lights in the temple so he went there first. Tiana was inside, moving around in the dimly lit area.

  “Tiana?” he called out.

  “Is it that time already?” she asked.

  He shook his head.

  “No, I just had to burn off some nervous energy. This is driving me nuts so Lucky and I went for a run.”

  “Well, I had a surprise for you for later, but I can tell you now. The acolytes can leave the temple grounds now, so in addition to the adventuring healers, we'll have one of them up there at the castle site with us as well.”

  She quirked her brow and cocked her head.

  “I think I had to talk to some sort of lesser AI through the acolytes, convincing it that the acolyte of a temple should be able to travel thr
ough the surrounding area to treat those who might be worshipers. It asked a lot of questions that didn't seem all that relevant, but eventually agreed. Now the acolytes can move around up to one mile outside the area of the temple's effects.”

  Eddie blinked.

  “I hadn't realized we had a problem with healing in these fights,” he said. “Maybe I really should just walk out and let them catch me alone. If they kill me I'll respawn, but it should stop the waves of Orcs also.”

  “Oh no you don't, mister. The Eddie I know wouldn't give in like that. You said you know it has an end now. So let's get to it. I'm just bringing the acolyte because the healers get overwhelmed. There are, on average, four other players per healer in an average group. The healers can only cast one spell at a time, and they don't all have area heals. So this way anyone who's hurt won't have to wait as long. That's the only reason, that and I wanted to see if I could convince the game that my idea was valid.”

  “Well, you did, and thank you. I can tell you for a fact that those crossbow bolts hurt like hell going in and even worse coming out,” Eddie said.

  “See, so it isn't necessary, but it is a good idea. Plus, if we really get swarmed, most of the healers have at least some combat skills so they can fight and we'll still have at least one healer.”

  If we're in that situation and we only have one healer for all the adventurers who are fighting, then we're pretty much screwed, Eddie thought, but didn't say aloud.

  “Alright, well, it's almost that time. I'm going to go pick up the rest of the group,” Eddie said. “Stop by to get you on the way back?”

  “Sure, or I could walk with you if you like.”

  “Whichever you prefer. Moving seems to keep the jitters down a bit, so I'm definitely going,” Eddie said.

  Tiana had a word with one of her acolytes then caught up to Eddie before he left the temple. The rest of the group were all in the common room when they got there.

  “Hey Eddie, I thought you were going to miss your own fight,” Karl said.

  “Hardly. It wouldn't matter where I was, they'd just show up there,” Eddie replied. “But we should get going. I think Charles is up there already. Did he stop by the temple earlier?”

  He glanced at Tiana as he spoke the last.

  “Yes, he stopped by. He was asking if I thought we should get any of the residents out that way onto the temple grounds before anything happened. I told him I didn't think we needed to do that since the Orcs seem to just focus on you and whatever building you're in. That satisfied him, he said it was kind of what he thought, but he didn't know enough to be sure.”

  Eddie shook his head.

  Why didn't he ask me about that? he thought.

  Tiana saw the look on his face and spoke up.

  “He also said he would've asked you, but you looked like you were dealing with enough already and he didn't want to add anything to that.”

  Oh, Eddie thought. Has it been that obvious that this is getting to me?

  “Well, whatever. Let's head up to the castle site and get ourselves situated,” Eddie said.

  The group got their gear together and headed out into the night.

  ~ ~ ~

  Just before the Orcs arrived Eddie looked around. There were a lot less adventurers than he'd thought they would have here to defend. Although most of the ones here had missile weapons so they could attack from behind the walls.

  Maybe the melee guys didn't like the way the last one turned out? They didn't get all that much fighting.

  “Hey Charles, think we have enough people for this?” Eddie asked.

  Charles turned and grinned.

  “Oh, I think it'll be interesting and not all due to you this time. I wouldn't worry about it overly much,” he said.

  Huh? Charles looks smug, I wonder what's up with that? Eddie thought.

  A few minutes later flames burst out far out on the plain.

  “There's one of the traps the scouts set to let us know when the Orcs were coming,” Charles said.

  “Everyone ready? They're coming,” he hollered.

  The potential battlefield was well lit. Tiana had spent almost half her mana casting Eternal Day on silver coins, then had them scattered around the area. The spell would last a month or so on those and she'd promised to distribute them to people after all the fighting with the Orcs was over.

  At the far edge of the light Eddie saw Orcs start milling about. A row of Orcs in armor with melee weapons lined the edge of the light, but they'd stopped dead. He could see something happening out behind them, but not make out what it was. They were still out of reliable arrow shot, so he was holding his fire like everyone else on the walls.

  With a loud roar the Orcs charged forward and a few seconds later Eddie saw why they'd stopped. His worst fears were realized. They had a catapult, carried by six Orcs, in the middle of the crossbow Orcs. It looked like one of the ones that you could break down so the individual pieces could be carried and he was guessing that was what the pause had been, a chance for them to reassemble the catapult.

  “Should we have the mages focus on the catapult, or maybe some of the archers with fire arrows?” Eddie asked.

  Charles shook his head.

  “They'll only get a few shots off from it, don't worry.”

  Eddie drew and fired as the front line of Orcs got into a close enough range that he was sure he'd hit them. He wasn't the first to have fired, but he was among the first five.

  As arrows started raining down on the melee Orcs, they pulled shields from their backs and slowed their pace. At the same time they started moving apart from one another, leaving larger spaces between each Orc.

  “Damn it!” Eddie said. “How can they learn from what happened to the last wave? They're separating so they can't all be taken out by AOE spells. This game cheats.”

  “Well the game doesn't, in general, but I think this is a special circumstance. Didn't you say the function being used was called Intervention?” Charles said. “Sounds like the kind of thing the devs would set on problem players, no? So, of course this function cheats.”

  The paladin drew a horn out from his inventory, slightly longer than a trumpet, but with no valves.

  “Don't worry though, we've got an ace up our sleeve also,” he said.

  Charles returned to watching the fight and Eddie started firing again. The catapult was lowered to the ground and a ball of something loaded onto it. A moment later there was a shower of sparks, and then the ball burst into flames.

  “Wizards, ware the catapult,” Charles called. “Do something about the flames on its load if you can.”

  Tamshir, standing nearby, grunted.

  “I can put them out, but not until they land. They're too far away right now,” she said.

  Meanwhile Eddie was firing as fast as he could, but more than half his arrows ended up in shields. Then the Orcish crossbows got within range and the air was filled with arrows flying out into the night and bolts flying in towards the walls and their defenders.

  It wasn't long before there were flashes of different colored light flying back and forth as well. From what he saw there were three or four shamans out amidst the Orc missile troops.

  The catapult fired, the ball of flame flying out to strike the wall just below its top. Whatever it was that was burning on it splattered over the wall and set the wall walk in that location on fire.

  Tamshir chanted and gestured, bringing a wave of dirt up from the outside base of the wall to smother the flames. The flames on the wall walk were taken care of by the little dirt that flowed over the top of the wall at her command.

  Despite the fact that Charles was standing right next to him, Eddie barely heard him as he muttered.

  “Not quite yet, let them get it stuck in a little bit more.”

  Eddie spotted one of the shamans and pulled out an arcing arrow. He fired and watched his arrow strike the Orcish shaman. Just as the little arcing blue-white lights started racing up and down the shaman's bo
dy, Eddie jumped.

  Charles had raised the horn and blown it, right next to Eddie's ear, then Charles repeated that twice more before putting the horn down.

  “I'm going to go guard the portcullis. Paul and Jern put in the mechanism this afternoon, but it's still the weak point,” Charles said. “Interesting times, Eddie, but not always of your doing.”

  He disappeared, leaping off the wall walk into the interior of the walls, leaving Eddie to stare as a wave of adventurers flooded onto the battlefield from one side, striking the Orcish missile troops in the flank and causing utter chaos among the Orcish lines.

  Eddie was stunned for a few seconds and just stood there, staring. He started firing again when he realized he hadn't been, working on the end of the Orcish missile lines that hadn't been obliterated by the attack of the missing melee adventurers.

  The melee fighters in the midst of the crossbow Orcs were just about to the catapult when it fired again. This time the fiery ball hit right against the top of the wall, splattering flames onto some of the defenders as well as igniting the wall walk in at least a dozen spots.

  Tamshir's spells took care of a great deal of the flames, but Eddie saw several other adventurers stomping out flames or dumping water on them. Surprisingly, when the flames had water dumped on them, they spread.

  “Greek fire,” someone called. “No water, use dirt, watch your boots if you stomped on it!”

  The fire scorched up a few parts of the wall walk before it was eventually put out, but in the meanwhile, the melee attack on the crossbow Orcs had taken the catapult and continued past. When Eddie looked out, he saw Karl guarding the catapult, swords in hand. Karl caught his gaze and waved at him jauntily.

  When did Karl get out there? Eddie wondered. I haven't seen him or Jern since we got inside the walls, so they must've been in on this. But man, whoever thought of it is a genius. There's no obvious cover so the Orcs weren't expecting a flank attack. Did they dig holes or something, maybe use illusions? I'll have to check later.