by Rae Nantes
"Then let us teach them how to war."
Chapter 41
The Air War
Five black airships sailed the blue skies across the Mediterranean, the wind catching the banners. The waves rolled far beneath us, tiny white chevrons forming and fading with the beat of the current, water glistening against the sun. A flock of clouds grazed across the field of blue, their tops pure white against the sunlight. Our puny navy sat amongst the blue, a humble line of some dozen seaborne vessels with their cannons at the ready, yet the enemy had just come within sight.
I stood at the helm with our pilot, feet planted on the rough wood, hands grasping at passing ropes for balance - my friends doing the same. The wind was chilly against my face and pulled at my hair and cloak. Far below us, specks. Dozens upon dozens eased into view underneath the clouds, a few shy of a hundred if I took the time to count. Trailing behind, the Iskalan navy - a horde of heavy ships likely filled to the brim with soldiers and marines and enough cannon shot to level the country.
We all knew the scale of our foes, we had all read the reports and heard the rumors but seeing the extent of their battle lines made me groan. This would not be easy.
The pilot of my new flagship - the Anubis - spoke into his earpiece then turned to me. "Ma'am," he said. "Will we continue as planned?"
"Do it," I said.
The airship dipped, and I felt my stomach rise to my chest. The wind changed direction, the scenery slipped past as the vessel made a combat turn to face down toward the sea and the enemy fleet.
The air rushed past faster and faster, the ropes swayed, the wood and metal frames groaned against the wind, and I feared they would crack into splinters. We nosedived toward the fleet of airships, completely ignoring them as we zipped by. In the flash of a moment I saw them - surprised faces of soldiers and officers, pointed hands and shouting - yet it would be too late. We put ourselves between the enemy air fleet and our prey.
The nose of our gunship aimed directly at the warships, racing closer and closer toward us before the order was given. "Open fire!" the pilot shouted.
Thoom-thoom-thoom-thoom-thoom. The autocannon burst a rapid-fire volley into the first warship. The echo traveled far, then again as our small squadron strafed the enemy ships. Our targets erupted in splinters and dust and flame. Soldiers and sailors exploding with it, caught in the blasts or diving off the doomed vessel. Debris rained into the water, splinters and smoke flew high enough to tap against our armor.
Our gunners sat in the spinning chairs and laid drumming fire where they could. Small bursts of water in the sea that dotted their aim, pulling to the ships and onto the decks and into the enemy crews. Broadside cannons fired when able. The guns thundered and sprayed into the enemy fleet, shots skipping into the sea and grinding along the decks of the ships. Most had missed, but that wasn't the intention.
The enemy air fleet was slow to react, still using antiquated communication techniques with flags and horns and smoke, but now nearly a hundred airships turned their bodies to show us their cannons. The sky was filled with sparks like a starry night, Christmas lights that blinked a little too quickly, and the terrible thunder of an army who wished us dead.
With our speed and momentum, we shot out of the fray unscathed. Their cannon shots rained into their own fleet of warships, their gunners too inexperienced to deal with the awkward firing angles against a fast-moving target. As we had expected.
I struggled to maintain my grip as we cashed in our momentum to regain altitude. "As we planned," I ordered.
I raised my staff and invoked the spell - a trail of black smoke. It followed us, tracing our movement as we retreated back to land.
They took the bait. How could they not, after all? Mysterious black ships with advanced weaponry now limping back to shore to lick their wounds. For all they knew, we were the forces that came to challenge them, and now they could make the killing strike.
Our meager navy was left behind to throw volleys into the incoming warships, drawing their fire and keeping them busy. By the time our ships get boarded, the enemy would find them empty. Now only the enemy air force had followed us over, struggling to match our speeds yet showing no signs of giving up.
But they should have.
We crossed the threshold of the shore, deeper above the fields and valleys, and turned to wait for them.
"Willow, are they ready?" I asked.
She spoke into her comms then back at me. "Yes."
The enemy fleet had noticed us on the approach and now swung their airships out into a proper battle line just out of range. They formed into a crescent and eased closer.
My heart raced at the sight. Fucking up here would cost us everything, so I watched carefully at the lead airship's shadow as it crossed over a hill, crawled past a grassy field, then slipped over a camouflaged bunker. "Now!" I shouted.
The ordered was relayed in an instant. The enemy ships on the edges of their formation had caught sight of the trap, blew their horns and waved their flags in a panic, but it was too late. The landscape beneath them erupted into tracing lines of fire that lanced the underside of their ships, exploding into shards and ash. The air around them catching bursts of black smoke that hurled shrapnel to shred the vessels and ropes and sails and men and now our real fleet had rose to greet them.
Behind us, the Anhur rose from behind the hill like a dragon, dozens of smaller black ships trailing at her side, cannons catching the sunlight like the salivating jaws of demons - and that we were.
Our enemy still had three times our number, but now they hovered before us in disarray, struggling to return fire at the world around them before we made contact. Our fleet crashed into theirs for open combat, shattering their lines and their communication, cutting them all off for an outright brawl.
Ships ground against each other, blasting point-blank broadsides and hooking themselves to board. Flashes of green and blue when our mages could foresee incoming fire, explosions where they couldn't. It felt the entire world was at war with itself.
The deck of my ship creaked and groaned, banners flapped violently against the wind, and gunsmoke hit us in waves. The autocannon shredded another ship before us, the crew close enough I could see the fear in their eyes as their vessel cracked open like an egg, spilling its contents far to the earth below in trail of fire.
"Left flank!" Relce shouted. We followed his pointed hand to see an enemy airship lining us up for a full broadside. We were too late to dodge it. Rolling flashes and thunder, cannon balls smashed against the glassy green barrier, plinking off and cracking it in places, before the magic shield faded away.
Another rumble and we shook violently. We took a raw volley into our other side, but the reactive armor soaked most of the damage. The iron shingles ripped off to fall with the rest of the sky. Our own crew returned the favor. Rolling thunder, flashes, cannonballs. The enemy ship blossomed into black dust and fire before careening to the plains below.
"Alex!" Willow yelled. "Tae needs our help."
"What? How?"
My eyes darted around the aerial battle in search of him. He was above. The Anhur was getting ganged up on, many of the enemy airships had latched on to board it, the Anhur struggling to throw them off with broadsides and machinegun fire, but they didn't seem to give up. The entire cluster of ships spun in a circle as one unit. Maybe they thought I was there. "Tell him we're coming!"
The pilot took the hint, and we rose up to join them, the sun blinding our approach, smoke and debris falling onto our deck. When we made it, we parked behind an Iskalan airship, open its rear with the autocannon, and sent it on its way back down to earth.
The ships dipped and bobbed against each other as if at sea, metal cracking and grinding as we eased against it to board. There was a slam, and we rocked against it. On our other side, the enemy tried to ram us but to ill effect. Their wooden ship crumpled over our armor, spilling onto our deck, but now their marines were hopping aboard.
Guns and swo
rds and magic spells, but we were faster than them.
"Provoke!" Simone shouted.
The marines yanked over their aim to unload their rifles into her shield, but the first man took a bullet in the chest. A mage threw a lightning javelin to pierce her shield and electrocute her, but she dropped it in time. Willow turned the mage to ash, but now even more were hopping on board.
"Fusillade!" I invoked.
I felt a hundred stares and worried glances, but it wouldn't matter. A few dozen muskets popped into existence around me, aimed in their general direction, and exploded into a barrage of fire. The smoke poured from me, choked us and obscured our vision. I summoned a gust of wind to carry the gunsmoke away, revealing a dozen dead, riddled with gaping wounds and drenched in scarlet.
The pilot shook off the enemy ship, and we hopped aboard the Anhur. "I'm going ahead," the pilot said. "This is a target-rich environment, and we have ammo to spend."
"Be safe," Willow shouted as he lifted off.
My ship left and resumed the fight, guns blazing and rattling and flashing, and back into the battle.
I nodded to my party - Willow, Yun, Relce, and Simone. We hurried along the deck toward the sound of fighting, through the passing smoke of a dying ship and into the fight.
Yet these were players.
Tae's crew was locked in close combat with a group of them, but he wasn't among them. "Get to the helm!" a knight said. She was yelling at us. "Tae's alone, and we're stuck here!"
"Root(180, 30)," Yun said.
The fighting had come to a halt. Ivy and vines sprung out of the deck and entangled friends and foes alike. Relce did the honor of granting the enemy players a coup de grace, but before he could finish them all off, a warcry hit us from the other end of the deck. Another enemy boarding party. "Stop fuckin' around and go!" the knight shouted.
Tae's guild dispatched the last of the disabled enemy and held firm to meet the charge. We hurried past toward the helm, through passing smoke and over debris, smoldering wrecks of passing ships, stray cannon balls, holes ripped in the deck. We found them at the helm, the gnashing sound of swords clashing against armor fell on us from up the stairs at the upper deck.
The pilot was wounded against the railing, grasping at the gash in his stomach. Tae was fending off an entire party alone. He parried a sword, the thrust of a spear, and countered with his own, only to thunk against a dense black shield. Green and red insignias, close-shaved heads and skull tattoos.
Tae and I had fought them before.
Chapter 42
Party vs. Party
"Nipsy shits!" The player laughed when he spotted us. "Of course a girly boy like you would get off to the fuckin' NPCs." He thrust his foot at Tae who blocked it with his spear, forcing him back.
Two tanks, four swordsmen, and a healer. Half of them were fighting with Tae while the other half stood back and watched until they noticed us. Now they charged without so much as a monologue.
The mage thrust her staff at me. "Flare!"
"Gust," Willow countered.
Blue flames roared at us but were swept back into their faces. Two armored knights broke through the wall of fire in a sprint. I felt the heavy footsteps race across the deck, the rattle of their armor, the whites of their eyes.
"Provoke!"
They stumbled as their focus was ripped from me and over at Simone. She exploited their loss of balance and thrust her sword into the man's chest, but he shimmered with a healing spell. They locked against each other in a duel.
"Pyrolize," Willow said.
The enemy mage stood motionless as the ash trailed up her hands. "Regen 4," she said. Her skin pulsed with a pale shimmer, stopping the traveling burn, but her fingers weren't growing back. The staff fell out of her grip and tapped away on the deck.
"Wall(earth)," she said. Sparks and puffs of dust plinked off the earthen shield where Relce had aimed. The wall wrapped all around her, securing her in a dome while she tried to heal herself.
"Broil(silence)," I commanded.
"Provoke," the knight countered.
The spell shot off to the enemy knight who knelt down behind his shield. Behind him, Tae and a few others were fighting amidst the heat. I clicked off the spell and aimed my staff at this interloper.
"Fusillade(above)!"
One hundred muskets snapped into existence around the knight, circling his center mass one meter away like a hellish crown. He peaked around and stared in awe down the barrels of the guns, witnessing their flash and deafening blast before he was perforated with a hundred holes in every direction. Sparks against his armor, geysers of scarlet, splinters of wood, and he spilled out onto the deck.
Tae found an opening amidst the sudden explosive sound and thrust his spear into the heart of a swordsman. "Revive," the mage yelled. "Heal!" There was panic in her voice, for even she knew there was no out-healing this magnitude of damage.
A swordsman came at Simone’s flank, but she countered with her shield against his face to knock him off balance. She thrust her sword once, twice, three times in his chest, swung hard to rip his arm off at the joint, then drove her blade through his neck for the killing blow.
Gunshots. Relce and Yun took the opening to fill the knights and swordsmen with holes as Willow and I melted their armor to slag. It dripped and pooled onto the deck and sizzled into smoke. Yet there was an absence of screaming in pain and begging for mercy, something I came to enjoy when killing players.
There was no secret anymore. These players had their sensory loads turned down to zero, no longer able to feel the breeze against their faces, the wood deck beneath their feet, their skin melting against the molten iron and their bones turning to ash. These were the worst players of them all. They were tryhards.
Thunk. Tae's spear rammed against his enemy's shield, but the head-shaved knight came in with a counter. Tae swatted it away and rammed the blunt end of his spear into the man's face, knocking him to a stumble. The knight was red with anger, but it no longer mattered. Tae swung his spear to the inside of the knight's shield, between the slits of his glove and armor, and split off his hand at the wrist. The shield clanked against the deck. The knight, enraged, came at him with a desperate thrust, but the spear was longer. The knight struggled down the length of the pole, impaled but still swinging his sword wildly in anger.
"Pyrolize," I said.
As the knight's skin flaked away into ash, catching the wind and fluttering away, he looked not at me, but at Tae. "Fuckin' hackers," he spat.
"Revive!" The mage's muffled voice came from within her earthen dome. She didn't even seem to be aiming, for now there was no one left to heal.
"Wind(below, above)," I said.
The dome lifted just enough for Tae to jab his spear into, using the leverage to keep it raised just enough for us to throw a fire spell into.
Then we heard the screams. This poor, stupid girl trapped herself in a furnace, and while she couldn't feel the pain of being burned alive, she felt the fear - and I drank it in.
When the dome finally faded away, and the screams ceased, there was nothing left, nothing that could be considered human anymore.
"Alex," Willow said. "The plan worked."
"Uh, which plan? There's like a million plans."
"The northern nations are fighting each other."
I burst into laughter like a mad scientist. "Muahaha, those fools!"
They chuckled at my reaction. Tae stuck his spear into the deck beside him and retook the wheel of his ship. The air war was coming to a close, and the last of the enemy ships were falling out of the sky.
"Get a full report," I told her. "I need to know if the other nations are starting their invasions."
"Our forces are holding them off on the islands and at the strait." She smiled in relief. "You were right. From what they're saying, we're hardly suffering casualties while decimating our enemies."
Hearing this gave me hope. The adrenaline was still coursing through my body from the victory
and the battle, and now my resolve was stronger than ever. "What about—"
"Wait," she said. She held the earpiece closer to listen past the drumming thumps of explosions in the distance. Her eyes widened. She spoke as if in fear, "We need to get to the island."
"What happened?"
"It's being raided by a player guild."
Chapter 43
Player vs. Environment
We caught the Iskalan navy on the way back. They were approaching the shoreline to unload their troops at the air battle, but they were too little too late. I almost wished I could've seen what they had seen. A sky darkened by black airships, a behemoth that shook away their proud vessels to aim in their direction, to encroach on them as the bearer of death. And that it was.
Rolling cannon fire, a sea of flame, and dying ships.
When the white flags appeared, I ordered our navy to formalize the surrender - at least until we could send our own diplomats to sue for peace. The first nations I wanted out of the war would be the northern ones, and for that, I had our ambassadors teleport to Muskvana and Paris, hopefully to peace out those who were locked in combat against Smith.
I hoped that we could force the war between only our two nations so that we might drive our entire attention to that cretin and to take from him everything. Yet that would have to wait, as now some player guild had taken the opportunity to raid the apparently-coveted dungeon. There was no telling how the rumor got out, or what they would find at the bottom, but the fact remained that it was my loot, and I'd be damned to have some sniveling player take what was rightfully mine.
We found their airships in a grassy field, smoke billowing out from an airship wreck and the remains of a battle. We hovered around the few parked airships, empty and abandoned, and studied the opening of the dungeon. Concrete stairs that led down into the darkness, dim flashes pulsing out. They were still here.
We landed and ran in, sending the Anubis to keep watch over the island. We rushed down the steps and felt the echoes of combat - roars of flame and lightning, gunshots and swords clashing against metal. Sulfur and smoke mixed in with the humid air, chilly, and soaked into our clothes. It was dark here, and the stairs spiraled further down until stopping at a long hall.