Light Online Book Three: Leader

by Tom Larcombe

  The shaman did not resist and Ephram took the opportunity to feather it with arrows, leaving it in much worse shape. When Eddie looked over to where he'd last seen Karl, the scout was gone. He looked towards the tanks and realized why it had taken so long for the healers to get to him after he was poisoned.

  The tanks were hard pressed and the ogre was now attacking over the heads of the orcs with his massive sword. Eddie found out just how to fight that thing. Charles simply braced his feet, crouched behind his shield, and took the strike on the shield, that same shield that Eddie had given him. The shield wasn't holding up well at this point, chunks having been carved off of it in spots.

  Every time the ogre struck and a shield intercepted it, the orcish warriors would attack whoever it was that had hidden behind their shield to intercept the ogre's sword. In turn they were attacked by another one of the tanks, but the tanks were definitely on the losing end of the exchange. The only reason they were still standing was that four of the orcish warriors were down, their skin and clothing still smoldering. Eddie assumed that was Dominic's work since the fire mage hadn't backed him up on the shaman.

  Eddie glanced around quickly, trying to think of anything that might help. He saw that Tamshir had stepped in to help Ephram after using spells to immobilize two of the orcish warriors. Their feet were buried in mounds of stone that weren't going anywhere anytime soon. Dominic looked like he might be low on mana, or conserving it. He was tossing fiery arrows at the ogre at a staggered pace. The rogue types were nowhere in sight, but Eddie figured they were working on their own plans.

  Then he had a thought. As he watched the massive sword sweep over the orcs' heads, he grinned. He waited until it looked like the ogre was about to attack again, then launched a Frostbite at it. The ogre resisted and Eddie growled. He held off for a moment again, waiting on the ogre. It started its next swing and Eddie cast once more. This time the Frostbite took hold and he'd remembered correctly. For a fighter type it made it impossible for them to attack and gave a chance to drop the weapon.

  The ogre's sword, having started its sweep across the orcs heads, maintained its momentum, but started dropping as it fell from his hands. The blade struck first one, and then a second orc, cleaving the first one in two and lodging in the ribs of the second.

  Good, two more orcs down. Two are immobilized, and two still fighting, Eddie thought.

  Charles called out something that Eddie couldn't hear, then when Jern and Allie stepped in, engaging one of the remaining mobile orcs each, Charles leapt forward and struck at the ogre. His sword sliced open the ogre's leg, and Charles caught the return strike from the ogre's fist on his shield. Even intercepting it with the shield left Charles staggering though.

  A gout of blood shot from the ogre's other leg, the back of it, and Eddie looked to see if there was someone back there fighting. He didn't see anyone, but then remembered Stalker's new ability.

  “He's hamstrung,” Stalker shouted. “Limited mobility now. Gonna finish off some orcs next.”

  As Charles struck again, there was a brilliant flash of light from behind the ogre and it bent forward in agony. Charles took advantage of that, striking up into the ogre's chest while it was doubled over.

  The ogre spun, its hand in a fist, and Karl went flying towards the back of the room, impacting the stone of the wall and sliding down into a little pile of Karl, right next to the two goblin shamans that had been rescued.

  The ogre was in bad shape now. Dominic's fiery arrows were coming a bit quicker and the other orc shaman had just fallen. Ephram and Tamshir retargeted on the ogre, adding their damage to the increasing total. The two orcs that had been immobilized were now dead, Stalker having slit their throats. Allie's was in bad shape and Jern appeared to be holding his own, although his orc wasn't nearly as wounded as the one on Allie.

  Eddie took a minute to fire a few arrows, first helping Jern until his orc dropped, then shooting Allie's. By the time he was done, everyone was facing off with the ogre. The ogre kept trying to get to his sword, but Eddie saw the cuts on his arm from his prior attempts. Every time he reached for it, Charles struck the back of his arm.

  “Gonna try something,” Eddie called out. “If it works he'll be disabled for a few seconds.”

  Eddie cast another Frostbite. He only had enough mana for one more after this, so he hoped that it took. It didn't. The ogre swung a meaty fist, striking Stalker who had been trying to attack from the rear.

  “Last chance,” Eddie muttered to himself.

  He cast Frostbite one more time and his notification light immediately started blinking faster. The ogre was shivering like crazy.

  “Disabled briefly, get him!” Eddie yelled.

  He took his bow in hand and launched three Arcing arrows in a row at the ogre. Ephram lived up to his earlier claim, having saved one of the Arcing arrows for the boss fight, which he now released. The ogre was covered in dancing blue arcs of electricity by the time he could move again. He wasn't moving for long though, Stalker had taken the opportunity to stealth and now struck with a backstab at the same time Charles struck with his sword. Jern had used his special ability and lengthened his hammer for this strike, which hit at about the same time as Stalker's backstab and Charles' sword strike.

  The final blow was Allie. The ogre staggered forward as he took the three strikes at once, one to his back, Charles on one leg, and Jern on the opposing knee from where Charles had struck. As he doubled over, Allie spun her ax down, continuing the spin until the ax came flying up and lodged in the ogre's chest.

  “Heads up,” Allie yelled.

  The ogre was falling and was easily large enough to do more damage to anyone unfortunate enough to be under it. People scrambled out of the way as the ogre came down with a crash.

  Eddie had noticed that Karl was still crumpled over against the wall. He hadn't gotten a message that the scout had left the party though, so he was sure he wasn't dead. He trotted over that way to check on him before anything else and found that Karl was barely conscious, the hand of one of the goblin shamans resting on him. In Karl's hand was the shattered remains of one of Eddie's Arcing arrows.

  Did he backstab the ogre with that? Eddie thought.

  The goblin shaman with the hand on Karl was twisted in pain.

  “Are you alright?” Eddie asked the goblin.

  “You speak my language,” the goblin gasped out. “Mana burn, human saved me from chain, so when he was dying I saved him with healing. Mana low though so mana burn now.”

  “Thank you then, thank you very much.”

  Eddie cast his own healing spell on Karl and noticed his notification light going wild. Finally he gave in a pulled up his notifications. Karl groaned as Eddie read his gains so Eddie figured that the scout would be fine.

  You have upgraded the spell Frostbite to (3). Think you're a cool dude, don't you?

  You have upgraded the skill Bows to (6). That's better, at least it's a weapon and not magic. Didn't anyone ever tell you that Ranger is a warrior sub-class?

  You have upgraded the spell Frostbite to (4). Back to the magic, you really want to be a wizard not a warrior, don't you?

  Success:

  You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 14

  Do you wish to advance?

  (Y/N)

  You have upgraded the spell Nature's Binding to (2). So eager to work your spells that you're skipping levels? Called it, you should've been a wizard.

  Eddie's cursor was still flashing, so now he went ahead and thought.

  Yes.

  You have advanced to Level 14.

  You have 3 stat points to distribute.

  Your Health has increased.

  Your Mana has increased.

  Your Stamina has increased.

  ~ ~ ~

  Chapter Twenty-Three

  Cooper stepped out of his tent, looking around for the squad. He'd been engrossed in reading the regulations, wanting desperately to have another way to cover
his ass. He'd been in enough sketchy situations to know that the style of sitting around and waiting that they were currently doing wasn't normal. Sure, sit around and wait, do make work in the meanwhile, that would be normal. His squad, though, wasn't being given any make work to do, just allowed to sit idle.

  Which is just a recipe for disaster, especially with a crew like this, he thought.

  Now that he was out of his tent, he discovered that it was oddly silent. Normally he could hear someone doing something, but not this time.

  “Squad, front and center,” he bellowed.

  A minute later he was still standing alone in the center of the clearing.

  Alright, where did those sons of bitches go?

  He opened up his in-game console and altered his own profile to have a high level of the Tracking skill. He'd considered just using the console to spot them, but was sure it would be logged if he did. Using his new skill he started moving around the clearing.

  Within minutes he had the trail. The entire squad had headed off into the woods as a unit and he had to wonder if the higher ups had decided to cut him out of the loop, decided that his protestations and the like had made him unreliable.

  Nah, if they'd done that, they would've pulled me out of the game also, he thought. This is on the squad, no-one else.

  As he followed their tracks, which he probably could've done without tracking at this point, he stumbled over the first of their kills.

  This area is supposed to be free of mobs, except for some small game. What the hell was a wolf doing here? he wondered.

  He continued along their trail finding a number of other kills as well, always single creatures, always predator types. It wasn't until he started hearing combat that he sped up. Once he had, he quickly came across another clearing. This one had a bunch of ramshackle huts in it. In the center of this clearing, he came across the squad, then stopped dead.

  Ferring was tossing magic spells, Cooper had expected that, but Campbell was out there in full armor with a shield and sword, bashing the hell out of the opponents. He wasn't, however, attacking with the sword. Instead, two more of the squad were attacking the goblin opponents, and even as Cooper watched, a third did something with his hands, his mouth moving as though he were speaking, and a golden glow enveloped Campbell, healing the wounds he'd taken by tanking the goblins.

  Cooper was about to yell out when he saw the last member of the squad. The man had just appeared out of nowhere, behind a goblin. The shortsword the man was carrying slid easily into the goblin's back and the man pumped a fist in victory.

  “Got it! Both thief and backstab!” he yelled.

  Campbell turned to the two with melee weapons and even over the fight, Cooper heard him.

  “What about you two?”

  “Got warrior a moment ago,” one called out.

  The other thrust with his spear towards the last goblin, skewering it as Campbell intercepted the blow the goblin tried to land on the spear wielder.

  “That did it, man. I got it!” the spear wielder yelled.

  “Good, since we've all got them now...” Campbell said, trailing off as he brought his sword into play.

  A moment later and the last goblin was lying on the ground, bleeding out. Campbell had made quick work of it after he stopped just tanking.

  Cooper just stared at his squad. It looked like every last one of them had gone and gotten themselves a class. If his suspicions were correct...

  He popped open his console and quickly checked.

  Damn it! Every last one of those men has a class the way Ferring does, one I can't alter to set them back to classless. I can't touch their skills or anything else about them either because of that. So what the hell do I do now?

  ~ ~ ~

  Eddie's notification light was still flashing. He wondered if there'd been another level still from that fight, it felt like too much, but...

  He pulled up the light and realized that it was actually from his healing of Karl.

  You have upgraded Nature Magic to (6). Warrior subclass, my ass!

  Eddie wasn't worried about his stat points at the moment. Yeah, he wanted to get them assigned before he did any more combat, but for the moment he looked around, checking the party members.

  Tiana and Alyx were tending to Karl, so when Eddie saw a flash of golden light on Charles, he was surprised.

  “Hey, was that a spell?” Eddie asked.

  Charles nodded.

  “Yeah, you didn't think I was a straight warrior, did you?” he said.

  “Um, yeah, I sort of did.”

  “Nah, I'm a warrior subclass, a paladin,” Charles said.

  Now that explains a whole lot, Eddie thought. I'm surprised I never thought of that before, it's just that I never saw him use any spells until now.

  “Normally I leave the healing to Alyx, just use my mana on personal boosts before combat and such, or hold it for an emergency. But it looks like Karl is going to be draining a lot of their mana out of them, so I figured I'd do what I could. After all, it looks safe now.”

  Eddie looked around and realized Charles was right. There weren't any enemies still standing in here at least and he didn't hear any signs of panic or alarm.

  “Loot then?” Eddie asked.

  Charles grinned.

  “Let's do it, although I'll be surprised if Stalker isn't already.”

  Eddie started with the shamans. If anyone had something interesting it would be either them or the ogre, and he didn't want to go near the thing even now that it was dead. The stench was incredible. He'd gotten used to the smell of the goblins, and the orcs were only a little worse. The smell of the Rat Woods wasn't too great either, but he could ignore it. Same with the dungeon, but even walking close to the ogre after it was dead had him close to retching.

  He was wandering around the room, looking for any chests or secret compartments or the like when he stumbled on the door. It wasn't really obvious, the only thing that revealed it to him was the thin crack that ran from the floor to high up the wall.

  Sized for the ogre apparently. Maybe it's his room or something. If he was the boss, then maybe that's where the boss loot is, Eddie thought.

  He poked and prodded for a moment or two before considering the size differential. A minute after he shifted his pokes and prods up to eye level he found a block of stone that moved when he pushed it.

  Eddie pushed the block in and listened to the grating of stone on stone as the door opened.

  “Charles,” he called out, “got something here.”

  Charles came trotting over and Eddie peeked in.

  “Wait, false alarm, maybe. It just looks like the control room for my inn, only bigger. Both sized for the ogre and with a lot more options,” Eddie said.

  “Well, this place was attached to the mine. Let's go in and see if we can claim the mine from in there. That'd finish up that quest for us.”

  Eddie nodded and entered the room. He was slightly hesitant but when nothing bad happened, he relaxed a bit. He had to actually climb up and stand on the chair in order to see all the options on the panels in here though. There was one flashing, so he looked at that one closer.

  “Flashing light on a button here, but I don't know what it does,” Eddie said.

  “There's nothing bad in your other control rooms, right?” Charles asked.

  Eddie shook his head.

  “Just potentially bad choices, nothing else.”

  “Go ahead and press it then, I can't make heads nor tails out of any of this.”

  Eddie reached out and pressed the button. He was immediately presented with a screen on the lower portion of his vision.

  The village of Rotthorpe and the adjoining mine are currently unclaimed due to the death of the previous owner. Do you wish to claim the village and mine?

  (Y/N)

  Eddie's cursor sat there, flashing. He just stared at it, mouth slightly agape.

  “Eddie?” Charles asked.

  “Yeah, um... Do I
really want to be responsible for another village?” Eddie said.

  “What are you talking about?”

  Eddie set his screen so Charles could see it and waited.

  “You've got to be kidding me,” Charles said. “You can claim this village?”

  “It looks like we have to in order to claim the mine,” Eddie replied. “I mean, there's probably a way around that, but I don't know what it is.”

  “Do it,” Charles said decisively. “If your goblin miners want to live underground? This way you can provide them with a village to live in. We know they've got some food crops, you've got goblin warriors for guards. All we need to do is seal off any other entrance into this place and you've got secure living quarters for your goblins.”

  “Are you sure?” Eddie asked.

  “Yeah, I'm sure. Besides, with the way things work for you, I want to see if you get to start an empire or something with two settlements.”

  Eddie groaned, but finally thought an answer at the flashing cursor.

  Yes, claim Rotthorpe and mine, he thought.

  In a flash the control room started shrinking. Eddie nearly darted out the door in panic, until he realized that the room had stopped shrinking when it was properly sized for a human. He sank into the chair with relief.

  “Nope, no empire. Sorry, Charlie.”

  “Blub, blub,” Charles answered.

  When he saw the surprised look on Eddie's face, he continued.

  “You and Karl aren't the only ones that are familiar with some of the older movie and TV stuff. Trust me, I'm familiar with that one, and it's Charles, not Charlie.”

  “Sorry, I was just feeling a bit put out at the moment. Wanting me to start an empire, or hoping I would,” Eddie said, his voice growing softer after the first sentence.