The Once King

by Rachel Aaron

  The old elf shook his head again, which seemed to be a common theme with him. “Even if I was willing to teach it, I cannot. Unlike normal spells, the Resplendent Aegis isn’t something I control. It is a prayer that beseeches the Sun’s direct intervention. Only true priests—those who have devoted themselves entirely to the service of the Holy Sun—can request such a great blessing.” He turned up his nose. “I highly doubt anyone in your band of robed hoodlums can even hear the voice of our great god.”

  As much as Tina wanted to call that out as racist bullshit, she was worried the old bastard had a point. She clearly remembered her conversation with Anders two days ago about this exact issue. He’d been worried that he was a fake priest stealing the power of a very real god. That said, Anders had been talking to the Sun at that time. Specifically, he’d been complaining about how the god was hard to understand and how its relationship with players was complicated, but those were all minor details Tina was sure they’d sort out. Point was, she had at least one priest she knew could talk to the Sun, and that would have to be good enough.

  “I might have a guy who can prove you wrong,” she said, leaning over the table at the high priest. “If I can get you a player the Sun will listen to, will you give him a chance?”

  Raffestain thought about that for a moment, then he nodded. “Regardless of the current situation, the opportunity to turn a false cleric into a real one is a chance I can’t ignore. I’ll see if what you say is true.”

  “Works for me,” Tina said with a clap of her hands. “Let’s do this.”

  “What about His Majesty?” Captain Hightower snapped. “He needs a healer!”

  “I will be fine, Hightower,” the king said, smiling reassuringly at his captain before turning to Tina. “I am ready.”

  “Let’s rock, then!” she said, turning to lead the way out of the lodge.

  ***

  “Are you sure this is a good idea?” Zen asked her an hour later.

  They were all standing in the middle of the rutted trade road just south of Windy Lake. In front of them, King Gregory stood in all his eight-foot-tall, sun metal–armored glory. The Dawn Blade, his family’s ancient heirloom and one of the world’s most powerful against the undead—and pretty much anything else—hung on his hip like a sheathed nuke. Behind him, Captain Hightower and two hundred of Bastion’s former knights were waiting in the field on the edge of town. They were all sweating and looking miserable, but it was still a very imposing production, even if Gregory’s nervous hand-wringing did ding the effect a bit.

  “It’ll be fine,” Tina said, glad that her stonekin didn’t seem to mind the heat any more than the cold. “Though we probably should have some water on hand in case anyone gets sunstroke. Full armor in this heat is beastly.”

  “I’ve already got water stations set up, but that’s not what I’m talking about!” Zen snarled, rising onto her tiptoes to wave her lovely—and very magical—bow in Tina’s face. “I meant should we really be having a mock battle with the king using our real weapons? It feels like this could get out of hand very, very fast.”

  “We don’t have a choice,” Tina argued, rapping her knuckles against her own golden sun–steel armor. “I’ll go splat if I try to tank a five-skull in my underwear. Also, what else are we gonna fight with? Even steel swords don’t hold up at our level. It’s magical weapons of legend or go home, so we might as well use what we’ve got.”

  Zen huffed in annoyance, and Tina smiled. “Relax! Gregory’s a tanky type of boss. He’s got five hundred million HP or something crazy like that.”

  “Not that crazy when you consider some of us deal over a hundred thousand damage per second,” Zen pointed out. “It only took the Roughnecks two minutes to beat King Gregory during the Drunken King event last Oktoberfest. I know, I was there. I got the Chug! Chug! speed kill achievement at the same time you did.”

  “That was in-game DPS,” Tina said dismissively. “Thanks to this friendly-fire bullshit, we can’t get anywhere close to those numbers on a human-sized target. That’s the whole reason we’re doing this.”

  “But—”

  “Zen, it’ll be fine,” Tina said, pointing at the sidelines, where a whole raid of low-level player healers had been pressed into king-management service. “If we can do enough damage to actually hurt Gregory through all those heals, then the Once King is gonna go down like a chump. This practice isn’t even about doing damage, anyway. It’s about us learning how to fight a raid boss who isn’t the size of an apartment building.”

  “You’re right there,” said Killbox from behind them. “We suck balls at small targets. Gotta L2P if we wanna win.”

  “What does L2P mean again?” Frank asked from his position beside Tina. “Seriously, sometimes I swear y’all are speaking a different language.”

  “You’re not half wrong,” Tina said, laughing. “And L2P is ‘learn to play,’ which is exactly what we’re going to do.” She settled her shield on her arm and looked over her shoulder to check her troops, who were already arranged in the positioning Richard had deemed most optimal. “Ready?”

  “No,” ZeroDarkness said, stepping suddenly out of Frank’s shadow. “Where’s SB?”

  “Tarnation!” Frank yelled, jumping a foot in the air. “Don’t do that to a body!”

  “Sorry,” Zero told Frank, but the Assassin’s slitted cat eyes never left Tina.

  She wished they would. She knew why Zero was asking. SB wasn’t just the Roughnecks’ top damage dealer; he was her second in command. It was his job to know what was going on and give orders if she went down, but he didn’t know anything about their current plan. He hadn’t even shown up for the vote. But while that was fine with Tina, who didn’t want to think about SilentBlayde right now in any capacity, it was a very bad look. It was also not a conversation she wanted to have out here in front of everyone. Or ever. But she had to say something.

  “He was fine in the Malakai fight,” she replied after a long pause. “He’ll pick this one up, too. I’m not worried. Let’s just do this.”

  Zero scowled and opened his mouth to say more, but Tina wasn’t waiting around for any more awkwardness. She’d already started marching down the road toward the King of Bastion.

  “Ready, Your Majesty?” she yelled.

  Gregory nodded nervously. “I think so.”

  That was more warning than the Once King would give them, so Tina dug her boots into the ground and charged, hurtling her eight-hundred-pound stone body down the road straight at the king.

  The giant man took an involuntary step back as the wall of Roughnecks charged after her, yelling their battle cries. Then Tina saw Gregory’s pale face pull into a determined scowl as he raised his fist for the opening punch. Lifting her shield higher, Tina braced for impact, skidding to a stop and digging her boots into the dusty ground to stop herself from being thrown as the level-eighty five-skull king swung at her…

  Bong.

  Her shield made a gentle bell noise as Gregory’s fist plunked against it, and Tina threw up her hands.

  “Stop!” she yelled, grabbing Killbox by his collar as the Berserker charged past her with his ax raised high. “Stop, stop, stop! What was that?”

  “A punch?” Gregory said sheepishly.

  “More like a fist-bump.”

  Gregory dropped his eyes. “I didn’t want to kill you.”

  “But that’s the point!” Tina cried, getting so far into his face she was practically in his beard. “You’re a raid boss! If I can’t tank you, then I sure as hell can’t tank the Once King. You’re our only chance to learn how to do this right! If you wimp out on us, we’re all going to die!”

  “Sorry,” Gregory said, eyes still on his feet, and Tina sighed. She felt like a heel yelling at the gentle king, but this was too important to be nice about.

  “You have to really hit us,” she scolded him. “Otherwise there’s no point. And on that note, why are you even attacking me?”

  The king looked confu
sed. “Because you’re the tank?”

  “Exactly,” Tina said. “I’m the one who’s best suited to take your attacks, so why are you punching me when you could be punching them?” She pointed over her shoulder at the clump of healers and cloth-robed Sorcerers, many of whom were still holding spells ready for when she gave the order to resume. “They’re the ones who are going to win this, not me. The Once King’s not going to make the mistake of attacking the one person who’s built to survive his blows. He’s going to go after the squishies he can kill in one hit, so that’s what you need to do, too.”

  Her words sent Gregory into a panic. “But I don’t want to hurt them!”

  “I don’t want you to, either,” Tina said, waving her shield at him. “That’s why I’m going to learn how to stop you. But I can’t do that if you just stand there and bap my shield like you’re still a tank-and-spank fight from the game.”

  The king looked more dejected with every word, and Tina sighed. “Look,” she said, lowering her voice. “This is training for you as well. There’s a lot of players in this world who aren’t as nice as we are. When else are you going to get practice facing them? Now’s your chance to learn how to use your status as a raid boss to protect your people. Don’t waste it.”

  “That…that is a wise perspective,” Gregory said with a nervous swallow. “I will keep it in mind.”

  “Good,” Tina said, turning around to stomp back up the road. “Let’s take it from the top. And remember: go for the healers first. If we lose them, we lose the fight, so they should always be your first priority.”

  “Right,” Gregory said, clenching his fists.

  “Roxxy,” Killbox whispered nervously as they jogged back to their starting positions. “Should you really be telling him this?”

  “Damn straight I should be,” Tina growled. “You think the Once King’s going to pull his punches?”

  “But I don’t want to die in a practice fight!” NekoBaby called from much farther away than Tina had thought she could hear. “Everyone who’s died says it’s ultra-horrible!”

  “Then make sure you all stay on top of your heals,” Tina yelled back, turning around to face her raid. “The Once King is the end boss of the Dead Mountain Fortress. He’s going to be faster, stronger, and tougher than anything we’ve ever fought. He can cast and counterspell every type of magic in the game, has a giant health pool, hits like a goddamn truck, and if all that wasn’t bad enough, he can fly.” She shook her head. “If we can’t handle ‘Teddy Bear’ Gregory, then we might as well pack it in right now. This is for real, people. But so we’re not sitting around all day waiting on rezzes, we’ll count a knockdown as a death. If Gregory gets to you and puts you in the dirt, you’re officially ‘dead’ for the rest of that round. Sound good?”

  It was obvious no one thought that sounded good, but they nodded anyway.

  “Great,” Tina said, getting her shield back into position. “Let’s try this again.”

  She didn’t give Gregory a warning this time. She just charged him with her shield like a linebacker. When he started backing up timidly again, Tina switched up and came at him with her sword instead. Seeing the naked blade in her hands had the desired effect. All at once, Gregory’s eyes went wide, and he lurched forward, grabbing her sword in his armored hand.

  Tina’s charge jerked to a stop. Malakai had grabbed her blade before, but being stuck in Gregory’s grasp felt like her sword was stuck in a mountain. She couldn’t rip it free, either, because the “wicked-sick” serrations that ran down her blade’s back had locked into the sun steel chain of the monarch’s gauntlet. She refused to let her weapon go, though, which turned out to be a very bad idea, as Gregory used her own sword like a handle to sling her sideways into Killbox.

  She hit the Berserker like a boulder, taking them both down and leaving a giant gap in the front line. Getting the hang of things at last, Gregory charged through the break, steamrolling past her to plow into their shocked back line. Zen hit him in the leg with a rapid-fire attack, but the king had so much health and armor that her arrows just bounced off. Richard was casting a fire spell, but he was forced to drop it and teleport out of the way instead when the king turned his direction. Unable to grab the Sorcerer, the king grabbed Anders instead, his huge hands engulfing the ichthyian’s entire fin-crested head as he lifted the kicking Cleric off his feet and prepared to throw him into the group of casters who were already fleeing.

  “Stop!” Tina cried, pushing herself off Killbox. “That’s a wipe!”

  Gregory quickly set the struggling ichthyian down. “Are you all right, good sir?”

  Anders’s spines flexed erratically as he staggered away. “I’m okay,” he gulped out, his fish eyes huge.

  The king looked traumatized, but Tina clapped her metal-covered hands. “Now that’s what I’m talking about!” she called, grinning at her players, most of whom looked every bit as horrified as the king. “This is the new reality, people. We’ve been fighting stupid undead bosses up to this point, but the Once King is smart. Smart raid bosses aren’t going to sit there and let themselves be tanked while everyone else shoots them. They’re going to move and charge and be all up in our business, and if we want to win, we’ve got to learn to handle that.”

  Everyone groaned and grumbled at that, but they all got back into position when Tina yelled, “Again!”

  It was a bruising and humiliating rest of the afternoon. Gregory quickly learned that he could physically overpower almost any defense they tried to mount. She and Frank tried a few co-tanking strategies in attempt to make their front line harder to break, but it didn’t really make much of a difference when Gregory could simply grab anyone who wasn’t a tank and toss them out of the way. At one point, Tina, Frank, and Killbox were all hanging off His Royal Five-Skull-Ness like kids on a gorilla while he chased a fleeing NekoBaby.

  Tina forced herself to stay relentlessly positive so the raid wouldn’t crumble, but in reality she hated it more than anyone else. She prided herself on being the tank, the wall no enemy could cross, and Gregory was running circles around her. Worse, she didn’t know how to make him stop. Gregory figured out a way around every strategy they tried. Having a raid boss who could feint and change targets at will was just impossible to deal with. Once, when they were trying out a strategy of using a ring of Berserkers to physically cage him in, Gregory grabbed Killbox by his ax and tossed him into a tree a hundred feet away.

  It was a harsh reminder that no one was safe in this kind of fight, not that Tina needed to be reminded. Every time Gregory got around her, all she could think about was how easily Malakai had killed KatanaFatale. She never wanted that to happen again, but Gregory was simply impossible to control. She supposed it was a good lesson for the other Roughnecks to stop depending on her and learn to protect themselves, but that didn’t mean much when a boss could kill you in one hit.

  By the time the sun began to slide toward the horizon, tempers were running as hot as the day. Even Tina was struggling to stay upbeat when Cinco and the Red Sands showed up to make everything a thousand times worse.

  When the PvP guild arrived, Tina assumed it was to join the practice, but they just stood in the shade and laughed as Gregory plowed through spells, disarmed people with slaps, and used Roughnecks as human wrecking balls against each other. Finally, Tina had had enough. The king was soaked in sweat and red-faced anyway, so she called for a break. Everyone immediately went for the barrels Zen had set up along the roadside, dunking their heads in the warm water. This only made CincoDeMurder laugh harder as Tina stomped over.

  “Damn, this is some funny shit to watch,” he cackled, slapping her on her giant shoulder plate. “I thought I was gonna die when he caught Zero by his cloak and tied him up in it.”

  Tina gave him a killing look, and Cinco rolled his eyes. “Come on, don’t be a stick. That shit’s funny!” He nodded at her exhausted raid. “It’s like watching a bunch of kids trying to wrestle an elephant.”

&nb
sp; This remark earned hoots of laugher from his PvPers, and Tina got an idea.

  “Yeah, I guess us hug-box raiders just suck,” she said, smiling down at him. “Why don’t you PvP badasses show us how it’s done?”

  The red-armored Berserker grinned back at her. “Sure thing, sweetheart,” he said, pushing off the tree he’d been leaning against. “Red Sands, fall in! Let’s go show these Care Bears how real players fight!”

  Tina motioned for him to go ahead, flopping down in the dirt to enjoy the show as Cinco arrogantly informed the King that his guild was next and they were “the real deal.” Zen and several others came over to sit next to her in the shade, fanning themselves in the dusty late-afternoon heat as Red Sands started their attack.

  Cinco was right about one thing: watching a raid fight Gregory was hilarious. Ten minutes after Cinco and his guild took the field, Tina could barely breathe from laughing so hard. She actually had to scramble out of the way when Gregory launched a red blur into the branches over her head. Cinco crashed into the brush nearby a few moments later, cursing and coughing up lungfuls of yellow dust.

  “Come on, dude,” Tina said, reaching down to help him up. “I soloed a four-skull yesterday. Surely you can take down FFO’s easiest boss with that overstocked raid of yours.”

  A chorus of “oooooooohs” went up from the Roughnecks surrounding her, and NekoBaby even tossed in a “Sick burn!” They were still catcalling when Cinco slapped Tina’s hand away.

  “Fuck you,” he huffed, hauling himself to his feet. “This isn’t PvE or PvP, it’s a circus of bullshit. Nothing works on that guy!” He glared murder at Gregory, who was currently using the Red Sands’ top Assassin, Shankfest, like a cricket bat to knock over healers. “How the fuck did you beat Malakai, anyway?”

  “I drowned him,” Tina replied with what had to be the smuggest smile in the history of smug smiles.

  “Yeah, well, fat lot of good that does us,” Cinco snarled. “We’re in a fucking desert right now.”