by Tom Larcombe
He finished by gesturing towards a much smaller, rough-cut tunnel that led in the opposite direction of the first one he'd pointed at.
After a minute or so of silence, Charles nodded.
“You're right, it does sound like that. So do we go for the miners first or for the settlement?”
“What are the odds that the miners might attack us from behind if we attack the settlement?” Eddie asked.
“Miners it is,” Charles said. “Everyone ready?”
“One other thing first,” Eddie said. “Hey Karl, come with me. We've got some prisoners to free. They're probably freaking out up there by now.”
Charles blushed, apparently having forgotten about the prisoners they'd pulled out of the way before starting the fight. Eddie and Karl climbed the stairs and Eddie quickly explained, first to the humans, and then to the goblins, about what was going on and what they could expect. Once Eddie had warned them, Karl set to work on the locks holding them in the chain gang, and within a couple of minutes the miners had departed for the safe area. The humans to wait for the group to escort them out and the two goblins in this group to join the other goblins in their new lodgings.
~ ~ ~
When they went back down the stairs, Stalker was missing.
“I sent him out to see how many mining groups are down that way,” Charles said. “I figured he could just stealth around out there and let us know what to expect.”
Eddie just nodded, approving of getting information first when possible.
It was only about five minutes before Stalker was back.
“Unfinished tunnel. They're actually extending it more than just mining. One group, orcs as miners instead of prisoners.”
“Good stuff, thanks Stalker,” Charles said.
“Wizard work?” Eddie asked. “Send them in right behind the tanks and drop a couple of AOE spells on them? Leave us archers in back and we'll pepper any survivors with arrows. That should take most of them down, and the tanks can engage the rest.”
“Probably, although we'll want to check with Tamshir. She's mainly earth spells and I don't know how well an AOE earth spell would do in an unfinished tunnel. Just thinking it might not be all that stable,” Charles replied.
Eddie nodded. He hadn't thought of that, he knew Dominic's fire spells wouldn't be a problem, but if Tamshir's AOE spells took material from their surroundings, they might be.
Charles went over to Tamshir and spoke with her for a moment, then came back.
“She can't use her most powerful area spells, but she's got a less powerful one that ought to be safe, and it has a potential added bonus of maybe blinding the targets for a few seconds, so...”
“Let's go,” Eddie said. “The sooner we clear them out, the sooner we can get to the settlement.”
They headed down the tunnel with the tanks in the front, followed directly by the two wizards. When they got in sight of the orcs, they moved more quickly, getting the two wizards into range as soon as possible. Tamshir cast first, her spell picking up dust and pebbles from the floor all around and hurling it towards the orcs at high speed. Dominic was letting her cast first since he didn't want all the whipped up dirt to put out his fire, but once Tamshir finished he let loose with his flame spray as well.
The resultant conflagration was unexpected, and the tiny explosions from the middle of it were as well. Evidently some of the dust and debris hurled by Tamshir's spell had been flammable and Dominic's casting had ignited it. Only two warriors exited the cloud, and they were quickly taken care of by a few arrows and the tanks engaging them. The ceiling groaned overhead down at the end of the corridor, so the looting was done as quickly as possible, then the two parties headed back down the corridor towards the settlement.
When they passed the tunnel leading up into the mine, they slowed, sending Karl and Stalker out in front of them. They paused when the sounds of combat grew louder, waiting for the two stealthy party members to finish scouting and return with what they'd found.
Stalker showed up about five feet away from Charles, but Karl popped in right behind Eddie. He didn't see the scout showing up there, so he simply reacted to a presence showing up behind him in a hazardous situation. Eddie drove his elbow back and spun with a fist while his other hand was drawing his sword. When he saw Karl staggering back and clutching his stomach, he almost laughed with relief.
“I don't know how many times I've told you not to do that,” Eddie said. “Maybe now you'll listen?”
Karl just glared at him, but Allie leaned over and whispered something in his ear that switched his glare from Eddie to Allie.
“You told me so? Really Allie? I'd think you might be a little supportive here,” Karl said.
“I told you, I'm happy to support you when you aren't being a dick. When you are? You're on your own.”
“If we're done with the drama?” Charles asked. “Maybe you two could tell us what we're up against?”
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twenty
Ferring cackled gleefully as Campbell swung his sword at the bear.
“See, I told you we'd find things,” Ferring yelled.
“Shut up and help me kill it before it kills me. I've got the health, but not the combat skills to take it down fast enough. I wish you'd been right about the class part too.”
As though he'd spoken his wish to a genie, Campbell's notification light flashed.
Success:
You have obtained the class: Warrior. Your current level will be carried over into the warrior class. See 'help warrior skills' for additional information.
A moment later he felt the urge to strike with his tower shield instead of his sword, so he did. As the shield struck the bear, it staggered for a moment, then just stood still and shook its head. Campbell jumped on the opportunity, striking out with his sword as another of Ferring's little balls of magic arced over to strike the bear and explode, leaving a bloody wound on it.
From that point, the fight was easy. Campbell found that he was doing a lot more damage with his sword than he had been before receiving his class. Plus he was sure he had some special moves like the one he'd felt the urge to use with his shield. He couldn't wait for the fight to get over so he could actually check the help files and see what he had access to now.
Sure, I'll have to work the skills up probably, but with the level I've got now I've got the health to practice those skills a lot in battle without endangering myself too much, he thought.
As soon as the bear dropped, Campbell sat.
“Hey Ferring, loot this thing, will you? I just got my class and I gotta see what skills I have so I know what I can do and what I have to practice, alright?”
“You got it? Awesome man. What did you get?”
“Warrior, like I wanted. Now I have to see what skills to work on so I can both tank and do damage.”
“Alright, I got this thing. I've been told you can get more from the mobs if you know how to actually butcher them yourselves, but I don't have hunting, and I'm not too sure I'd want to do that anyhow,” Ferring said, staring at the bloody corpse of the bear.
Campbell apparently didn't hear him. He didn't reply and when Ferring glanced over, Campbell's eyes held the vacant look that signified he was buried in his game screens.
It was a few minutes later when Campbell returned to himself.
“Hey Ferring, you know what? I bet Olson and maybe a couple of others would be up to get themselves a class too. You want to sneak back in there and spirit them out if they're interested?” Campbell asked.
“Hmm, my goblin construct had an invisibility spell. I wonder if I'm high enough to pull that one off again yet,” Ferring said. “Sure, let's do it. I'll work on that invisibility spell on the way back. If I can pull it off, getting them out of the clearing will be easy as pie. What about Cooper though? He's gonna get in a shit ton of trouble if we steal the whole squad.”
“Who cares, he'll be in just as much trouble with only the two of us gone. Besides,
he's got his screen. He can always find us if he needs to, even teleport us back probably. He hasn't done it yet though. We just get them, get out, and he won't realize it until he tries to find one of us and we're not there. Might give us enough time to help them pick up classes, you know?”
“I don't know, I think he'd notice faster with a bunch of us gone,” Ferring replied. “Don't want to mess up the plans from higher up, they might yank us out of the game.”
“Hell, I'm sure we're screwing something up here already, but they kind of expect that of us, don't they? I mean, you know how the military asking for the best members of a squad for special work ends up with them getting the worst members of the squad because the leader doesn't want to lose the good ones, right? I figure every last one of us qualifies like that, don't you?”
Ferring looked thoughtful for a moment, but since they'd already turned around and were heading back to the clearing Campbell figured he'd won the argument.
~ ~ ~
“Come on, spill it,” Charles said. “What are we looking at, Stalker?”
“Well Charles, remember that orc settlement where we almost got massacred?”
Charles nodded.
“Multiply that times two, or maybe three. I really couldn't see. There's hundreds of them,” Stalker said.
Karl, finally having regained his breath, nodded in agreement.
“Yeah, there's hundreds, probably a good four hundred or so. But a lot of them are just regular orcs, not warriors or overseers. No casters in sight, but you know as well as I do that they could be there where we didn't see them, or invisible, or—“
Eddie elbowed Karl again, none too gently. He was nervous about what he'd heard.
“We get the idea Karl. Enough,” Eddie said.
“Okay, but the combat we heard was orcs training with weapons, just wanted to get that out there,” Karl said.
I'm terrified, really, Eddie thought. But maybe Charles has an idea, he's dealt with this type of thing before.
He turned to Charles.
“What's the plan?” he asked.
Charles, for once, wasn't looking confident. Nervousness slid across his face, replacing his normally stoic expression before he lowered his face to stare at the stone.
“Hey, come on Charles,” Eddie continued. “You said you wanted something different, that it'd give you better experience. Just imagine what this place is worth, never mind the ten thousand experience quest reward.”
Eddie's notification light started flashing, so he paused for a moment and scanned the notice.
System Notice:
Overwhelming odds multiplier activated for the next three hours. When faced with overwhelming odds the intrepid adventurer uses it as a learning opportunity. Should your attack proceed as planned, your experience will be adjusted by a heavy modifier.
Eddie blinked.
“Did anyone else just get a notification?”
Charles turned his head back up, a look of wonder on his face.
“I have never seen that before, even when we went on ten to one odds adventures. How many did you say are in there Stalker?”
“Over four hundred.”
“Forty to one odds, but an experience multiplier. Even if it's only times two I might level up in the middle of the battle and that would help,” Charles said. “I'd be right at the very top of the recommended levels and that always helps. That's not even considering your party Eddie, you guys would probably all gain multiple levels in the middle of battle.”
He looked thoughtful for a moment.
“That might actually make it doable. But I'm not ordering anyone into this. This time we'll take a vote,” Charles said. “That goes for my party, you pick what's going on with yours, Eddie.”
Eddie looked around his own group and saw an eager look in all their eyes, even Jern's, who was the one the most at risk.
Jern caught him looking.
“High risk for high reward, lad. Risk my life for multiple levels in an hour? I risk it every time we go adventuring, what's a little more risk for a lot more reward. My vote is that we do this,” Jern said.
Karl just looked at him.
“Do you even have to ask?” the scout said, checking the looseness of his swords in their scabbards.
Dominic looked a little shamefaced as he stepped up.
“You want out, Dom?” Eddie asked.
The fire mage shook his head.
“Nope, just feeling stupid. I finally got those potions identified a couple of days back. They might help now, so here's what they are...”
A few minutes later and all of Eddie's group had agreed that they wanted this. They'd also formed a rough plan based around the potions they'd found. Several were just healing, and those were given to Jern, along with most of the healing flatbread people had left. Anyone who had some left kept one slice themselves and gave the rest to the tank.
More of the potions were poison, two of them a gaseous version that could be hurled like a grenade and two of them liquid that would need to be drunk to activate. Eddie had thought those would be worthless until Karl pointed out that they might be useful if hurled into an open mouth. Karl had taken those two.
There were eight more useful potions. Two of them were a shield that worked for those with light or no armor, increasing their armor rating by ten, if wearing light armor, or twenty if wearing none. Two were minor mana restoration potions. One could be hurled and create a ball of fire larger than Dominic's largest fireball. The last three were the prizes. One would increase strength by twenty for one hour, one would increase agility by twenty for an hour, and the very last would increase heartiness by fifty for a scant thirty minutes.
“Allie, tank or missile for this one?” Eddie asked.
Allie responded by pulling out her heavy armor, shield, and battle ax.
“Okay, I think Allie should get the strength potion, Jern should get the heartiness one. If he's taking too much damage he can quaff that and have a butt load more health right away. Karl takes the agility one since his stealth and hurled weapons benefit from that.”
He turned towards Tiana.
“Did you want one of the grenade style ones?”
“I'll take a mana restoration, Dominic should probably get the other of those. Otherwise I'll be too busy healing to use the others effectively,” she said.
Eddie had thought that would be the case, but he'd wanted to ask.
“Dom?”
“Give me a poison gas and the other mana restore,” he said. “I know your agility rocks so you should have the most accurate throws for the other poison one and the firebomb.”
“Alright, done. Split them up. Now let's make sure this isn't all for naught, since if Charles' group is out we won't be doing it on our own.”
Charles had been right behind him when he said that and now he grinned.
“No worry about that. After that notification, my group wouldn't miss this for the world. Interesting times, Eddie, interesting times.”
Charles clapped him on the back and pulled out a sketch that Stalker had made. One that showed the general layout of the town.
“He's not the artist Karl is, but he does get all the important parts,” Charles said.
“What are these?” Eddie asked, pointing towards what looked like a pair of corrals.
“Prisoner compounds,” Charles spat, a look of distaste on his face. “One for goblins, one for humans.”
An addition to the plan slowly started to form in Eddie's head as Charles continued on detailing his plan.
“I like it, just one thing to add to it,” Eddie said. “Anyone got spare weapons sitting in their inventory? Not the one you'll use if your primary breaks, but any weapons beyond that?”
“Why?” Charles asked.
Eddie thrust a finger towards one of the pens.
“Because I'm pretty sure some of these prisoners would like to get back at those who enslaved them and I'm not above giving them the opportunity.”
; Charles looked uncertain.
“I'm not going to force them,” Eddie said. “Just give them the option.”
Meanwhile it looked like everyone else liked Eddie's addition to the plan since a pile of weapons was growing on the stone beside him. He quickly swept them up and into his inventory.
“How high were the walls on those pens?” he asked.
“About eight feet or so, with pillars on the corners,” Stalker said.
“Good.”
Eddie pulled out a chunk of rope about twenty-five feet long and quickly tied a loop in the very middle of it. He grinned wryly at the notification that flashed up when he finished.
You have upgraded the skill Rope Use to (4).
“I'll toss this up and loop the pillar, leave one side hanging out and one side hanging down in. Tell them they can flee if they want, wait for everything to be over, or fight. Any who choose to fight, I'll give the weapons to them,” Eddie said.
Charles evidently decided to support Eddie's plan since a pair of daggers and a longsword appeared in his hands before he laid them down beside Eddie.
“I don't really like it, but it's their choice, and we'll need any help we can get. I think with that multiplier it'll be worth it even if we do die. Might loose a piece of equipment or two and a little coin, but there's so much experience waiting out there that I'm almost drooling. I know that's just wrong, but it's how I feel right now. I feel like a kid on Christmas morning that knows he'll have to fight all his siblings to get his gifts, but that they'll be worth it. You're a bad influence, Eddie, but definitely interesting. Let's do this.”
Charles stood and his group formed up behind him. Eddie's group formed off to the side a little. Charles' group was going to grab the orcs' attention first while Eddie's group slipped off to the pens. Once they'd freed anyone that wanted it, Eddie's group was going to come in with a flank attack on whatever orcs were attacking Charles' group at the time.
