Light Online Book Three: Leader

by Tom Larcombe

  There was a narrower section of cave right before it led into the cavern that housed the settlement. Not narrow by any means, but less wide than any of the other options. Charles' group was going to form up there. Tamshir would narrow the passage with her stone shape spell, leaving a smaller gap for Charles to defend. Meanwhile Ephram would provide missile support from behind with Tamshir joining in with her spells once she was done with the cavern. Alyx would stay behind Charles, healing him and taking care of leakers. Stalker would be on his own, trying to create chaos within the orcish lines.

  Charles stepped forward, Tamshir right behind him for the moment. Eddie's group quickly filed along the edge of the cave, getting into the settlement just as Charles stepped up to the center of the bottleneck. The stone wall on the opposite side of the bottleneck from Eddie's group stretched out into the passage as Tamshir manipulated it, and Eddie's group slipped off along the edge of the cavern, trying to remain unseen for the moment.

  ~ ~ ~

  Charles' roar echoed around the cavern as soon as Eddie's group lost sight of him. Within moments the orcs were stirring. Eddie's group was trying to stay out of sight. Even so they ended up in a couple of fights before they made it to the first of the pens. The first was with a group of three orcs, just standard orcs though, around level ten each. The party made quick work of them, the orcs' cries for help lost in the sounds of battle that echoed around from where Charles' group was fighting. The second encounter took a bit longer since it was with a pair of orcish warriors. That one had Tiana scrambling to keep Jern and Allie healed as Eddie and Dominic did as much damage as quickly as they could.

  The Arcs and Fiery Arrows that sprayed the orcs would certainly have been noticed at any other time, but the only reaction they got this time was from the targets of the spells. It wasn't long before Karl popped up behind an orcish warrior as his swords slid into its back. That warrior dropped and as everyone ganged up on the last orc he followed the other one into oblivion in a few more moments.

  The rest of the trip to the pen was uneventful and Eddie tossed his rope contraption up towards the pillar just as Karl cursed.

  “What is it?” Eddie asked nervously, looking around.

  “Those orc warriors?” Karl said. “They gave me three thousand experience points, each!”

  “Is that all? Keep an eye out.”

  “Eddie, I could make level twelve in this fight at this rate, and you want me to concentrate?”

  “If you don't concentrate, you'll make it to dead in this fight instead, and miss out on any more of that sweet multiplied experience,” Eddie replied.

  “Oh,” Karl said, then turned back to watch his own sector as Eddie scrambled up the rope.

  He glanced into the pen and sighed. He'd hoped to find the humans first, but instead these were all goblins. He was about to slide back down, thinking that the goblins weren't going to be interested in a fight, when he noticed that it wasn't all just the puny types he'd seen in the mines.

  Are those goblin warriors? Eddie thought.

  He gulped for a moment, trying to decide the best way to approach this, finally he decided on bravado.

  “Any of you goblins want vengeance. Any of you warrior enough to help destroy orcs?” he called out in Goblin Speak.

  All eyes in the pen quickly turned up towards him. Seven of what he thought were goblin warriors came striding forward.

  “Why we not destroy you?” one asked.

  “I can get you out of this cage, give you weapons. That's why. Follow me, attack only the orcs and not the other races you find in this cavern, and I give freedom and weapons.”

  For a moment, the warrior that had strode forward had his face twisted in thought.

  “After?” it asked.

  “After, perhaps we find you home. I pay you to guard goblin miners that I already pay,” Eddie said.

  “You hire goblins?” the warrior asked, surprised.

  Eddie nodded.

  “They know how to mine and didn't want do anything else. I feed them, pay them, give them home after killing orcs that use them.”

  “Give weapon and out,” the warrior said.

  Eddie dropped the other side of the rope down into the pen and scrambled back down outside of it, pulling out weapons. Within a minute all seven goblin warriors were out of the pen. The other goblins were coming out also, but they cowered as opposed to striding up to Eddie like the warriors did.

  “Weapon,” the first warrior stated.

  Eddie dropped the pile on the ground.

  “Help self, take choice,” he said.

  Now a smile spread across the warriors face. He picked up a heavy longsword in one hand and a dagger in the other. The other warriors followed suit, each picking one or two weapons of their own choice.

  “You, not need fight, maybe defend though. Take daggers,” Eddie said in Goblin Speak.

  A lot of the weapons Eddie had been given were daggers and there were several still left over. The smaller goblins came forward, each of them taking a dagger, except for one who chose the last short sword.

  “Now, we expected at fight,” Eddie said. “You come? Help take orcs from side or behind?”

  The warriors broke into a grin.

  “Lead us,” the largest one said.

  Eddie turned and headed back towards the sound of battle, followed by his group, seven goblin warriors and about twenty-five smaller goblins.

  ~ ~ ~

  When Eddie saw the battle up in front of them, he turned to the goblin warriors.

  “You go that way,” he said pointing. “Once we attack side, they react, then you attack from behind.”

  The warrior nodded and the seven warriors split off down a side street. Eddie turned back to the rest of the goblins.

  “You stay, don't fight unless have to.”

  The one goblin of the others that had a weapon larger than a dagger nodded, then started speaking to the rest of the goblins. Far too quickly for Eddie to make out what it was saying.

  Charles roared, in pain this time, and Eddie turned back. Charles' roar had been in reaction to being struck by a spell from an orcish shaman in the middle of the orc forces, and Eddie decided that that orc had to go first.

  “We need a big impact, guys. Dominic, you and I target that shaman in the middle. Jern, Allie, you two get right up in their faces. Tiana can you reach Charles with heals from here? Sounds like he's down a bit. Karl, you do what you do best.”

  Tiana edged out and started casting as Karl grinned.

  “What, you mean charm them with my personality?” Karl asked.

  “No I mean hide and stick them from behind,” Eddie said.

  “Yeah, that's what I normally do after I charm them, you know?” Karl added.

  Allie struck him in the side of the head, hard, before stepping up beside Jern.

  “Now!” Eddie called, nocking and drawing an Arcing arrow.

  “You first Eddie, I don't want to burn your arrow up,” Dominic said.

  Eddie released the arrow as he saw the shaman chanting. It struck the shaman, who started to dance spastically as the electricity danced through his body. A moment later a bolt of flame raced from Dominic's hands. When it struck it expanded, catching several of the orcs to the sides of the shaman in the flames.

  Oh yeah, Eddie thought, I've got this to use too.

  He pulled out the firebomb potion and after checking and making sure the shaman was still up, he hurled it as hard as he could, right at the shaman.

  It slammed into the shaman without breaking, but when it dropped to the stone floor the glass shattered and flames roared out, consuming the shaman and spreading out around him.

  Jern and Allie, about to engage with the orcs, jumped back as the flames came within a few feet of them. Allie gave him a quick glare over her shoulder, to which he just shrugged, before she turned back and advanced again, her battle ax striking the orc that was smoldering in front of her.

  Just then he heard a roar from
Charles, but this one was made up of words. Eddie definitely made out the words 'level twenty' somewhere in it and smiled at the obvious joy in his friend's voice. About the same time another roar came from the rear of the orcish forces and Eddie's smile grew when he moved his head and saw the goblin warriors charging the orcs.

  He was surprised at how intelligently they fought. The focused in on the orcs with shields and took them down one after another, from behind where possible. As each orc fell, one of the goblins snatched up their shield and put it to use.

  Eddie was firing his bow again and again right through his observations, his head flicking back and forth to keep an eye on everything, all while still taking a few moments to aim each arrow as he released it. He was holding his Arcing arrows for the moment, not seeing any more shamans or any orc that looked like a leader.

  The orcs were getting more and more packed in, hampering their own efforts, and he decided that it was about time for the other potion he had. This time he warned the group first.

  [group chat: Eddie – Poison bomb coming out, keep an eye out since we don't know how big the cloud will get.]

  Then he grabbed the other potion vial and hurled it towards the most tightly packed group of orcs he could see. This time the vial hit an orc's armor and shattered, the gray-green cloud of poison spreading out from the orc that was hit. The cloud of poison wasn't nearly as large as the ball of flame from earlier, but the effect was more visceral.

  It looked like the poison wasn't lethal, but every orc who inhaled it was shortly vomiting, on their knees if there was room for them to drop to them, but with as packed as it was, a lot of them couldn't double over. The effect was horrendous and Eddie nearly felt like vomiting himself.

  The goblin warriors didn't seem to have a problem with it though. When they saw what was happening, they formed an arrowhead formation and drove towards the helpless orcs. When they reached them, there was no mercy and the overall sight grew even more nauseating than it had been as blood mixed with the vomit.

  As the slaughter continued, the orcs began to break and run, except for a cluster right in front of Charles' group. The rest fled back into the city as Eddie and his group focused on the backs of the orcs that continued to fight Charles and his party.

  “Hey, the goblin warriors are with us,” Eddie called out as he got close enough for Charles to hear him.

  He saw that Charles was relatively healthy, but his gear had taken a beating. The blade on the front of the shield Eddie had given him had snapped off, leaving a jagged spike of metal coming from the front of the shield. As the last of the orcs dropped, Charles sagged with exhaustion.

  “Couldn't have taken much more of that, my stamina is in low double digits,” he said. “Good job though, whatever that last area attack was pretty much broke their spirits.”

  “Yeah, but now that we've had the stand-up fight, we're gonna have to go on a bug hunt too,” Karl said, cleaning his swords before sheathing them.

  “Huh?” Charles said.

  Eddie and Karl both broke out laughing, their shared love of retro movies still baffling a lot of the others around them.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Twenty-One

  Loki wasn't distracted. He didn't currently have a piece of his consciousness in Greenshaw, so he was entirely focused on the game.

  If Odin and Freyja want to interfere with my plans, we'll see how they like me interfering with theirs, Loki thought. I believed Odin was safely ensconced in the intricacies of the twisted mortal mind, but evidently he made it out of that trap somehow. I don't know what he's currently doing. Freyja, on the other hand, I've been keeping an eye on. I know that she has some world-traveling mortals as pets, so let me see what I can do to thwart her own plans and maybe distract her from mine for a while.

  Loki rapidly pulled up the data from some of his own files, tracking down Eddie's user ID and then locating him.

  This is one of her pets and he is constantly in the company of one of her priestesses, so that should be an appropriate target. Let's see where they are, shall we?

  When Loki saw that the two of them were close to an orcish settlement, and that they appeared to have plans to attack it, despite being underleveled for the attempt, he grinned to himself.

  Well, let's just advance that settlement some, he thought. Give it a few more orcs as well, shall we? Perhaps if her pets are slain, even if they will come back, then she'll be a bit more hesitant about interfering with me, knowing that I can do the same to her pets over and over if needed.

  He adjusted several variables and the size of the settlement doubled, the population more than doubling. Then he simply sat back and waited, anticipation coursing through him.

  Wait, what did she just do? What is that code? The Overwhelming Odds code? I know that was approved for use, but I don't think it was ever used before now. How does she think that is going to save her pets?

  Loki tuned in more closely to the battle as opposed to just watching Eddie and Tiana's stats. When he looked at the visual, and saw that there was another group with Eddie's, he ground his teeth together.

  Damn, I should've been paying more attention earlier on. Still, they're well overmatched for their levels, he thought.

  With his senses spread so that he could visually watch the encounter while still being able to keep an eye on their stats as they fought, he almost missed it at first.

  Wait, did something change there?

  With his focus on the stats instead of the visual he noticed the level numbers on every last member of the two parties fighting begin to climb, some more than once. He turned his focus back on the visual, about to try to intercede in a more direct fashion, and discovered that the orcs were breaking and running after taking severe casualties.

  How did she know they would survive? How could Freyja manage that? I didn't see her intercede in any fashion other than activating the Overwhelming Odds code. Those mortals should've been destroyed, instead they've recruited more allies and gained in personal power. This is intolerable! I must convince Greenshaw that Freyja's AI needs to be pruned, or even destroyed. If I can't distract her through her pets, then perhaps a danger to herself will keep her from interfering with my plans.

  ~ ~ ~

  “Hey, Eddie, I might have finally caught up with you,” Karl said. “Level twelve here.”

  Eddie had noted the flashing notification lights during the fight, but had been ignoring them. Now he pulled them up.

  “What did you get? Like four levels out of that fight?” Eddie asked.

  Karl nodded.

  Eddie glanced at the notification in front of him.

  Success:

  You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 11

  Do you wish to advance?

  (Y/N)

  Yes, he thought.

  You have advanced to Level 11.

  You have 3 stat points to distribute.

  Your Health has increased.

  Your Mana has increased.

  Your Stamina has increased.

  The flashing notification light started up again.

  Success:

  You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 12

  Do you wish to advance?

  (Y/N)

  Yes, he thought.

  You have advanced to Level 12.

  You have 6 stat points to distribute.

  You may choose a skill.

  You have received one stat point in: Heartiness.

  Your Health has increased.

  Your Mana has increased.

  Your Stamina has increased.

  You have gained access to: Nature Magic – Tier 4 spells

  The flashing notification light started up yet again.

  Success:

  You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 13

  Do you wish to advance?

  (Y/N)

  Yes, he thought.

  You have advanced to Level 13.

  You have 9 stat poin
ts to distribute.

  Your Health has increased.

  Your Mana has increased.

  Your Stamina has increased.

  This time the light did not come back on.

  “Sorry Karl, not yet you haven't,” Eddie said. “I'm level thirteen now.”

  Karl shook his head, muttering something about lucky bastards under his breath.

  Alright, I know where I want some of these points, let's start with agility. Add three points to agility, he thought.

  It seems like I've got a lot of health, but I bet Charles has more and he looked like he was barely hanging on at a few points in that fight, so... Add two points to heartiness.

  Okay, I want to boost my magic power and give myself some more skill slots, do I use the point on intelligence now, or later on? Now, I think, so my mana regens faster. Add one point to wisdom, add one point to intelligence, he thought.

  Well, hell, I've increased everything but strength and charisma. I've got two points left, so I could do both by one. Is charisma worth it now though? I'm not running my inn any more, but I do have a lot of employees, so I guess it is. But I want to get stronger also, so one point to each of those. Add one point to strength, add one point to charisma.

  “Since we're going to have to do house by house, if any of you haven't assigned your stats yet you might want to do so now,” Eddie said, looking to Charles.

  Charles looked back and nodded.

  “I know some people like to save them, but I normally encourage my party to figure out where they want them before they get them so they can immediately get used. Although, were you saying you got two levels, Stalker?”

  Stalker grinned.

  “Sure did, that rocked!”

  “I did too, Charles,” Alyx said. “But I'd planned out roughly where I wanted my stats earlier so I already assigned them.”