Spellcraft

by Andrew Beymer

  “How long do you think those gates will hold?” I asked.

  “No idea,” the goblin mage said.

  I turned to members of the strike team in their spellcrafted armor.

  “How are you guys doing? Has anyone come around and tried to get in here yet?”

  “Not yet,” the goblin said. “But it’s only a matter of time before they remember those entrances are around there.”

  “Right,” I said. “I need you to stall for as long as you can. We can still do this, but we need time.”

  “We’ll keep those bastards back,” the mage said.

  “Good men,” I said.

  Though before I turned to duck out of the tower I did infuse a couple of spellcrafted gems and toss them out of some of the viewing slits. I was greeted with the sound of people screaming followed by several explosions, but it didn’t so much as make a dent in the hordes surging out there.

  I grinned as I made my way back down the stairs. It was worrying the way the gates sounded, but they were massive and made of thick goblinsteel so I figured they would hold for the moment.

  At least I prayed they would. Otherwise we were about to be in a really bad spot.

  I jogged over to where Rezzik was supervising an impromptu mining operation. It was impressive the way the goblins took to it, though I suppose I shouldn’t have been all that surprised considering this was their territory.

  The goblins stopped in the process of piling goblinsteel and turned to look at me as I approached them. I tried to stand a little taller, but honestly I was so new at this whole leadership thing that I wasn’t sure I was even doing a good job.

  It looked like they were waiting for something, though, so I guess I had to come up with an inspirational speech.

  “You guys have done great work tonight,” I said.

  I hadn’t anticipated this, and it was throwing me off my stride. I knew with a deep certainty that if we didn’t pull this off then we’d be dead soon enough. Well, the goblins would be dead. Me, Kris, and Keia would be captured by Horizon Dawn and tortured, which wasn’t my idea of a good time thank you very much.

  Who knew a raid that’d been successful beyond my wildest dreams would only cause more trouble?

  “We’ve grabbed more goblinsteel ore than I could’ve hoped for tonight, and we’ve killed more Horizon Dawn people than I ever would’ve imagined!”

  That was good for a cheer from the goblins. It was good to know they were getting just as worked up as I was.

  “Things might look bad right now,” I continued. “We’re facing travelers who have equipment they’ve forged with the help of their gods, and if they come down on us with those weapons now we could lose everything. We need to forge weapons of our own to fight them, and then we need to teach them what it means to fight goblinkind!”

  That was good for another cheer. And if it wasn’t quite as enthusiastic as the last one where I talked about killing Horizon Dawn, at least it was still a cheer. At least they were still excited about what they were doing here.

  “So here’s the plan,” I said. “I need everyone who has forged weapons for me to stand over to my right. I need everyone who was spellcrafting for me in the Underground to stand over to my left. And I need everyone who hasn’t been assigned a role to please stand in front of me in a line.”

  “What’s the plan?” Rezzik asked.

  I smiled. Of course he was setting me up for success. I was really glad we’d saved this crazy goblin back when this world was still shiny and new.

  Though that hadn’t been all that long ago, when I thought about it. It was crazy how quickly the world had changed all around us.

  “Those ring mines all have forges and spellcrafting tables in them,” I said. “We’re going to set up a mass production in here using the goblinsteel we’re mining and the materials lying around here, and we’re going to outfit a spellcrafted army that’s going to make Horizon Dawn regret the day they ever invaded our territory!”

  There was another cheer, and this one was deafening. Though it was a cheer that very quickly turned to awe as the goblins looked up. I had a moment to see that there was something odd, like everyone suddenly had two shadows and were lit by a strange glow, before the fireballs started landing all around us.

  “Hit the deck!” I yelled at the top of my lungs, diving for the protection of a massive rock that looked like it’d been left behind by a giant playing around in the quarry at some point.

  I looked around the rock and saw more fireballs arcing over the gate and into the quarry. They had mages out there who were lobbing the things at us. Clever, that, even if they were firing blind.

  The fireballs were landing all around, but the more they fell the more I realized they’d probably be easy enough to avoid.

  “Get to work everyone, and keep one eye to the skies!”

  “I heard your plan,” Keia said, coming out of stealth next to me even though she was still in her healing garb.

  I jumped as she appeared, then smiled. It was good to see her.

  “It’s not much, but it’s all we have,” I said. “This went from an MMO to a strategy game the moment that army appeared.”

  “It’s a good plan,” she said. “At least it’s better than I could’ve come up with on short notice.”

  “All we can do is hope it’ll be enough to save all of us,” I muttered, watching goblins watching the skies with one eye and running with goblinsteel or sprinting for the ring mines all around us.

  “Y’know, if we don’t make it out of this, I just want you to know I’ve had a really good time with you,” Keia said.

  I grinned. “If we don’t make it out of this it’s not like we’re going to be dead or anything.”

  “Says you,” Keia said. “They’re going to torture us, at the very least.”

  “Not if I blow us up first,” I said, holding up a gem that was ready to be infused if the shit started really hitting the fan.

  “You always know the most romantic things to say to a girl,” Keia said.

  I felt bad about blowing myself up when the goblins wouldn’t get the same consideration, but that would also be the one sure way for me to get back to the Underground and try to get some help.

  They should be in the middle of converting the goblinsteel we’d gathered tonight into weapons, but I wasn’t sure if it would be ready in time for them to get out here and help us even assuming they knew there was a battle in the offing here tonight.

  Which they didn’t since all the gophers had come back to the mines when they got done dropping off their materials.

  Damn it. Stupid goblins trying to save their stupid king holed up in his stupid mine.

  “Hey! What are the two of you doing over here?” Kris shouted, running up to us with her hammer out even though there wasn’t a damn thing she was going to be able to do with the thing. “There’s a fight in the offing!”

  I glanced at Keia and then back to Kris.

  “I kinda got chewed out for getting myself into the front line of a battle a little while back,” I said. “So I figure it’s time to start acting like a general.”

  “Well then why don’t you start acting like a general and give some orders or something?”

  “She’s right,” I said. “We probably should get a move on.”

  “One moment,” Keia said, pulling me towards her.

  She pulled me into one hell of a kiss. Like we’re talking this wasn’t the kind of kiss I thought I’d ever share with Keia as early as a week ago, let alone the kind of kiss we’d share on a battlefield where we were probably going to die very soon.

  Still, I wasn’t going to knock it if she wanted to suck face in the middle of a battlefield. I figured it was an answer to that age old gamer question about whether or not love could bloom, even on a battlefield.

  She pulled away from the kiss and patted me on the cheek. Maybe I was biased, but I thought she looked beautiful standing there in the glow of fireballs landing all around us.<
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  Everything was chaos, but I figured that was to be expected considering all the craziness going on around us. The sun was starting to peek over the edge of the quarry, and I figured it wouldn’t be long before it was up and we were in broad daylight.

  The line I’d had forming in front of me had scattered, but the goblins from the two groups I’d separated were streaming off towards the stairs leading up to the ring mines. The ones I hadn’t tapped were grabbing goblinsteel and other supplies and bringing them up to the ring mines as well.

  I figured that’d have to work. I hadn’t thought of having goblins to act as gophers for the materials, but that was probably a better use than going down a line and individually tapping them with spellcrafting or armor and weaponcrafting skills.

  I looked around again, taking in the organized chaos around me, and then I saw something that really caught my interest. The cannons were lying on the ground where goblins had left them, but I figured those could still be of some use if we could get them up in an opportune place.

  So I waved some goblins over. They stopped and walked over to see what it was I wanted.

  I figured I ought to do something while everything else was working like a well oiled chaos machine, so why not set up another surprise for my good buddies in Horizon Dawn?

  76

  Enemy at the Gates

  I took a deep breath as the banging got louder and louder against the gates. Even though they were made of goblinsteel the things were pressing in with every hit.

  I pulled up the tactical display. It didn’t look good. There were green dots representing my goblins. They formed a web pattern as they moved in lines through the Goblinsteel Mine quarry towards the ring mines and the supply depots Horizon Dawn had been obliging enough to not destroy.

  “This is not good,” I muttered. “Yet at the same time it could be worse.”

  “How could this possibly be worse?” Keia asked.

  There were also a bunch of red dots on the other side of the gate, but they were congregating at the front of the gates like an angry swarm. The gate was also color coded with a percentage to show me how close it was to being knocked over. Right now it was yellow trending towards red and at about thirty percent, but it was going down fast now that there was a big red long something or other, probably a felled tree they’d turned into a battering ram, slamming into the gate over and over.

  But it could’ve been worse. They weren’t going around the edges of the quarry like I would’ve if I was trying to take this place.

  “They’re bunching up at the front and not bothering to go for any of the ring mines,” I said. “Which means they’re not focusing on any of the alternative ways in here and giving us time to make shit.”

  “Sounds like Torian’s idea of an assault,” Keia said.

  “Weren’t you the one who said he was all about the stealth archer? I’d think a guy like that would be all about the sneak attack from behind.”

  “Yeah, then he got into all this bullshit about a glorious charge from the front. That’s why he switched to plate,” she said. “He probably can’t think of a world where there’s any other way to attack this place than from the front.”

  “And bless him for being an idiot like that,” I muttered.

  More and more green dots were lining up behind me on the tactical screen. Every set of armor and weapons made in one of those numerous ring mine forges was a goblin soldier outfitted in a fully spellcrafted set of Goblinsteel Armor with Goblinsteel Swords.

  They were going to be way more prepared than they’d ever been when Horizon got those gates open. They’d done it before when they first invaded this place, and I knew they were going to do it again now that they really had a reason to get in here.

  “Stand ready!” I shouted.

  The goblins shouted behind me, raising their swords into the air. Dawn had finally broken and the sun was low in the skies. The real world timer said we still had about an hour before people would normally be getting up to go to school, but something told me the school was going to be a ghost town today.

  “Are you sure you’re ready?” Keia asked, moving up to stand next to me.

  I turned to smile at her. I also stole a quick glance down the front of her armor top. What can I say? I might be on the verge of leading my armies on a hopeless charge against a vast horde of player characters who could respawn and rejoin the game, but I was also still a man and she looked really good in that armor.

  “Eyes up here, Napoleon,” she said.

  “Sorry,” I said. “I couldn’t resist. I also resent the comparison.”

  “Fine, Patton,” she said.

  “Better,” I said.

  “The two of you are seriously flirting when we’re about to get our asses killed?” Kris said, rolling her eyes as she held her hammer out in front of her.

  “Oh come on,” I said. “You know you’re looking forward to using that hammer to pull a Thor on some of those assholes.”

  Kris grin and hefted the hammer. She looked intimidating in her full set of goblinsteel plate and a glowing goblinsteel two-handed warhammer that looked like it could cause some serious damage to any heads it made contact with.

  “You look bitchin’ there with your new armor and hammer, by the way,” I said.

  “You know it motherfucker,” Kris said, twirling the hammer around her head and causing both me and Keia to duck. The goblins around her didn’t have to worry about their heads getting bashed in because they were low enough to the ground.

  “You know you’re going to take your head off doing that someday, right?” I asked.

  “Maybe,” she said with a twinkle in her eyes. “But that day isn’t today. Speaking of taking some heads off?”

  She turned to the gates that were buckling in. I glanced at the tactical display that showed the gates going from yellow to red as the percentage that told me how much strength they had left went down.

  It hit zero, and there was a loud crash and rending sound as the gates moved in and fell down, letting the horde of Horizon Dawn players in with Torian, Gregor, and Kravos at the head.

  “Show time,” I said.

  The hordes ran towards the center where we were gathered with a line of glowing goblins behind us. It was almost a pity this was happening after the sun had come up, those glowing bits of armor had looked way more impressive in the dark, but beggars couldn’t be choosers and all that.

  The charge of the Dolt Brigade continued for the space of another breath, but then they started to slow as I stepped out in front of the charge totally unconcerned.

  I glanced to the ground and then to the sides to some of the surprises we’d prepared for them, but there was no point giving any of that away until it was too late. For them.

  They were about to learn the same hard lesson the Blood King had learned not that long ago.

  “What are you doing?” Torian shouted, even though he’d come to a stop along with the rest of them. “He’s right there! We’ll make him pay for what he’s done to us! We’ll make him pay for mocking us and stealing from us and killing us!”

  “Yup, I’m right here!” I said, not bothering to raise my voice. I could be heard just fine even though I didn’t bother raising my voice. “I’m standing right here in front of you, I don’t seem to have any weapons, and I’m yours for the taking. Who wants to go first?”

  None of them moved. The side of my lips curled up just a little.

  “That’s what I thought.”

  “Kill him!” Torian shouted, spittle flying from his mouth.

  No one moved. Kravos and Gregor glanced at him and then back to me, but they also didn’t make a move. Gregor didn’t twirl his daggers, and Kravos didn’t do that annoying little animation where he let the flames dance around his fingers.

  “How about we try this instead,” I said. “I’m standing here with no obvious weapons and a goblin army at my back. Y’all know how that’s worked out when I had nothing in the past, and now I hav
e a bunch of pointy-eared stabby murder machines who really don’t like you in fully spellcrafted Goblinsteel Armor ready to take the fight to you.”

  Some of the people in the front row started to shuffle nervously. My guess was they’d come into this thing expecting a slaughter, and this wasn’t quite what they’d signed up for. It was still going to be a slaughter, they still ultimately had the numbers, but it was going to be a slaughter where they got killed a hell of a lot more than they usually did when they were out killing goblins.

  “So I’m going to give you this chance,” I said. “You all need to turn around and leave. Get out of my mines. Get out of Nilbog. Go off to some other rotten corner of the game world where Horizon still holds the power and wait for the dark day when I come knocking at your door there at the head of my armies, but at least you won’t be killed here today.”

  Was I overdoing it just a little? Maybe, but I wanted to make it absolutely clear to every asshole out there who was following Torian just what a mistake it would be to continue following him.

  Only it looked like Torian was too far gone to admit defeat. He pulled out his sword and pointed it at me.

  “Don’t listen to him!” he shouted. “He’s trying to get in your head like he always does. He doesn’t have a plan, and we’ve been killing goblins in this place since the game went live. Get them!”

  He charged forward. For the space of a breath it looked like the rest of his army was going to be properly intimidated. Then that space of a breath passed and they were charging forward right along with him.

  I shrugged. I’d figured it was probably going to end up like this, and unlike when I’d first arrived in the game I’d had time to make a plan. Which was going to really suck for them.

  I got down on my knees and pressed my hands into the ground. I closed my eyes, because I was going to have to concentrate to pull this off. I sent out a fire infusion into the various non-fire gems we’d buried in the ground in the short amount of time we’d had to prepare.