by Cheek, Jason
“I give you my word that it was solely due to unusual circumstances, Guard Leader Stonier,” Gregory said, walking up with the rest of his naked team and their new friends as he gave the woman an apologetic smile. Our impromptu meet up was interrupted by a banging against the outer gates as the woman’s face grew grim.
“This isn’t good,” Guard Leader Stonier said, looking around for the needed reinforcements. Though it was kind of hard to see with the several hundred or so dancing naked players. “With all of the patrols out looking for the Iron Falcon Mercenaries and recalling the Royal Forces, we have nearly no one to defend the walls.”
I suddenly grinned as an awesome idea came to me. Following my eyes, the rest of the group eyed the plaza full of players dueling and dancing, while others complained that the event was over. It was quite an unusual sight, but one I knew we could use. Turning back to Guard Leader Stonier, I gave her a shit-eating grin.
“While you open the gates, I’ll get our impromptu army on the move?”
“Ove-Overlord Ironwolf?” Guard Leader Stonier stuttered unsure if my plan was a good idea or not. “Those newfar will be slaughtered without armor or clothing.”
“No they won’t,” I assured her. As I looked towards the ex-skirmishers, the boys gave me a grin.
“We’re on it, Overlord Ironwolf,” Gregory said, as they began running towards the gatehouse.
“It’ll be okay,” I reassured Guard Leader Stonier, as I nodded for Fylreh and Neysa to come with me and while we jogged over towards the front of the gate. Getting both of them to stand still, I hopped up to straddle both of their backs as I faced the plaza full of naked players and did something that I’d never usually do. I re-enabled local chat.
(Palnisdale City General Chat) Startum Ironwolf: Listen up people, the naked raid has just begun! The final part of the event is taking out the Orcs attacking the gate. The best naked kill gets this cool sword!
Walking over to Fylreh, I pulled out the sword that she’d looted from Milo Hawkin’s and dropped its information into the general chat window with a thought.
(Palnisdale City General Chat) Startum Ironwolf: Vicious Blade of Rending
Vicious Blade of Rending (Purple)
Item Quality: Uncommon
Item Type: Crafted
Attack: One-hand Edge
Weapon Type: Long Sword
Damage: 210-260
Durability: 252/300
Weight: 11 kg
+30 Strength
+30 Agility
-Rend, causes the target to bleed with every successful hit for an additional 25 points of damage for 15 seconds.
For a second, I looked at the stats of Milo’s sword in surprise. Honestly, I hadn’t checked it out when Fylreh had picked it up with the rest of the loot and strapped it to her back. Whatever, I thought with a shrug. While I had a feeling it was going to be a halfway decent weapon, I was partly glad that I hadn’t checked it out ahead of time and had just posted it in general chat. Otherwise, I’d have been tempted to keep it for my own people. Though it was frustrating to lose such a good weapon, if it motivated the players to take on the force of Orcs that Grimblood DeKhayed had planned to use to surprise attack the city with, then it was given up for a good cause.
(Palnisdale City General Chat) Startum Ironwolf: Post all video clips of your best naked kills on Twitch Channel The Revenants! Winners will be by channel votes. The posted winner can collect their blade tomorrow morning from Guard Leader Stonier at the front gate to Palnisdale City!
(Palnisdale City General Chat) Startum Ironwolf: Who’s up for some phat loot, fun, and winning a cool sword?
The response from the plaza full of naked players was deafening. As the gates opened up behind me, the force of Orcs that charged into the city and thought that they were going to be raping and pillaging were met by a literal horde of naked players. At first, I wasn’t sure if this was going to work out, but the ferocity of the players rocked the armored Orcs back on their heels.
I saw everything from players biting to hair pulling to holding the mobs down so they could eviscerate their targets while buckass naked. At first, the players were dying in swarms, but that quickly changed as they respawned at the closest graveyard and came charging back into the scrum. None of them took the deaths seriously. They were laughing it up as they tore into the demi-humans trying to get the coolest kill.
Five minutes later, and the Orcs were sent fleeing back out of the gate. The resulting traffic jam from the invading Orcs trying to rush through the open gate in abject terror made the perfect traffic jam for the players to slaughter the enemy to their heart’s content. I almost wondered if I should’ve offered a secondary prize for the goriest kill too.
“I think you can come down now,” Ulia called up to me, as she walked up to us followed by a very happy Gregory. “By now, I think everyone has seen your ass.”
“Whatever,” I shot back, as I hopped up and dropped down between Neysa and Fylreh’s sides. “I was busy watching the fun.”
“I can’t believe you pulled that off,” Guard Leader Stonier said, as she followed the rest of the crew over.
“Should we be helping them out or something?” Hartley asked, as Neristhana leaned back against his chest.
“That’s against the rules,” I explained, “it's considered bad manners to offer up a prize and then compete against everyone for it.” Holding out my hand to Fylreh, she wordlessly handed over Milo Hawkin’s blade so that I could hand it to Guard Leader Stonier. “I’ll let you know the winner tomorrow morning.”
“Uh, right,” she said, nervously accepting the sword. “I guess we can keep it in the gatehouse until tomorrow.”
“Stick a fork in me, I’m done,” I said, checking the time in my HUD as I let out a yawn. It was just past eleven. Nodding to Helgath, I climbed up onto Neysa’s back as the Half-Orc jumped up to take a seat in my lap. Seeing the blank faces as I looked back at my party, I clarified what I meant. “I’m heading to bed.”
“You could’ve just said that the first time,” Neristhana shot back, as she began looking around for her mount.
My comment seemed to get everyone moving. No one wanted to stay on their own, and, if I wasn’t mistaken, a few of the ex-skirmishers were going to be putting in some extra hours tonight if the looks they were getting from Neristhana, Ulia, and Keela meant what I thought it did. Thankfully, instead of having to find everyone’s mounts, Guard Leader Stonier had one of her people collect them up earlier. When she whistled, the young guard quickly brought the line of horses over.
Looking behind me, I saw a number of new guards going about the work of cleaning everything up. By now, all of the Iron Falcon Mercenary corpses had been policed up into a pile to burn. A tougher mess to clean than most would think after our zombies had recovered their hit points from consuming the corpses. Interestingly enough, the undead seemed to choose the best parts of a body and move to the next corpse instead of completely finishing off one corpse at a time. Needless to say, it wasn’t the easiest thing to clean up afterwards.
The best part was that I didn’t have to spend my time after the fight healing up everyone. From the look of things, several Battle Priests had taken the time to resurrect the fallen guards who were now recovering off to the side. It was the first time I’d ever seen the Priests supporting the common soldiers like they should. My attention was pulled away from the scene by an annoying Gnomeling.
“You going to stare off in the distance all night,” Neristhana pointedly asked, as an uncomfortable Hartley tried to act like he wasn’t a part of the conversation. “Or are we heading back?”
Shooting her a bird as Neysa turned around, we began trotting back up Main Street for the keep. We got a lot of cheers as we passed by the players and the people of The World. By now, the news that the attack against the city had been repelled by the naked raid had made its way around the city. On top of that, people got a kick out of checking everybody out. Instead of acting shy, my compan
ions proudly stuck out their chests as they rode by. I had to give it to the ladies, they completely owned the situation like champs. Our new friends riding behind them were sitting proud too.
A harried looking Guard Leader Cleaver greeted us in the courtyard shortly after we’d arrived. We didn’t chat much, but I gave him a brief rundown of the events of the evening. I think more than anything else, he was relieved to see that everyone was okay. Not that I blamed him. Would you want to be the one responsible for telling Queen Isolde or her Guardian Knights that you’d lost someone in the Overlords party?
Entering into the keep, we all were greeted by a line of maids that escorted us to our individual rooms. There was some confusion as to which room to put Fylreh into, but no one once suggested that she might be better off spending the night in the Royal Stables. Thankfully, I didn’t see Lady Trinder anywhere. I hated to just blame her without hearing her side of the story, no matter how damning the situation had looked to the rest of us when we’d rushed into the foyer. At the same time, I wasn’t in the mood of trying to stop Fylreh and Neysa from trying to kill the stern older woman.
Zoe promised me that she would have everyone’s gear collected from where it had been left in the baths and delivered to our rooms. She also agreed to have new uniforms delivered for Gregory and his men. Surprisingly enough, she seemed to be the only maid that didn’t give Neysa a second glance as we made our way into our suite. None of us bothered to wipe off the grime or sweat that we’d acquired during the fight. Instead we simply climbed into the inordinately large bed. As I laid down, I had Helgath snuggle up into my shoulder as Neysa plopped down a second later on my other side to rest her massive head on my other shoulder.
With our connection being what it was, no words were needed as I triggered the logout sequence. As the game world disappeared around me, I was once again inside my darkened computer room all by myself. It took me a moment to climb out of the gaming unit and make my way to the guest bathroom. Though I didn’t have a migraine and my body wasn’t dehydrated or starving, I still felt ready to pass out from a lack of sleep.
In fact, I was pretty sure that I’d passed out for a bit on the toilet seat. The reason being was that when I went to get up to make my way into the bedroom, my ass cheeks were tingly and numb. Have you ever had your ass fall asleep before? If not, take it from me, it’s one strange ass feeling, quite literally. Making sure my smartphone’s alarm was set for my usual time and that it was far enough away on my nightstand that I’d have to get up to turn it off, I laid back on top of my bedspread and pulled the throw blanket over me as I feel instantly into a deep sleep.
*** The story continues in Book 8 ***
Appendices and the Post Credit Scene
A note to the reader. The various appendices are put here for those readers who enjoy the technical aspects of the Star’s Character Sheet, Equipment, gaming terms, the various people in the word, and whatever else that people ask me to include because they’re interested in the mechanics. This is not taking away from the story. It is in addition to the story for those people who enjoy such things.
There are some people who want to spam pages of this information throughout their stories instead of placing it within an appendices at the end of the book where it belongs. While that would increase my page count for the monies earned for pages read by Kindle Unlimited and would match how many of the other authors in the genre, GameLit and LitRPG, are adding this information into their stories. I personally will not be doing that. As a reader, I hate such information being needlessly spammed throughout the body of the book. From conversations with my fans, they feel this way too. For myself, such senseless spamming of tables and gear takes me out of the story and is frankly annoying in my personal opinion. How do people on the audiobook even handle that? For my own series, I will add in the base information that has changed and allow the reader to choose if they want to look up the pages and pages of Character Sheet or whatever other information they are interested in at the back of the book.
As to the Post Credit Scene. Well, it goes after all the credits and other information like any Post Credit Scene in any Marvel movie you’ve ever enjoyed. It’s a short fun addition to the story. Sadly, due to its location, I receive no additional remuneration from adding such a scene, since Kindle Unlimited doesn’t count anything after the end of the main story. The Post Credit Scene is simply here because my geeky gamer side loves the idea and so I’ve started adding such scenes into The World series starting with book 5. I hope you enjoy them. At the same time, not reading them doesn’t make you lose any important plot points to the story.
Sincerely,
Jason A. Cheek
Character Sheet
Startum Ironwolf – Level 44
Difficulty: Nightmare Start
Half-Elf: House of Kayden
Class: Empty
Profession Title: Necromancer
Titles:
First Settler
First Village
Hero of Delonshire Mine
Leader of House Kayden
Lord of BrokenFang Hold
Worm Slayer
Tribal Leader
Mine Boss
Noble Guardian
Ship’s Captain
Protector of Auris Shaeras
Orc Bane
Sekolahian Bane
Beastkin Brother
Noble Defender
Scourge of the Dishonorable
Protector of the Kingdom of Kader
Overlord
Champion of the Royal House of Isolde
Scourge of the Dil-Hilth Race
Statistics:
Hit Points: 2,670
Mana: 3,760
Endurance: 2,670
Attributes:
Strength: 114 (+91)
Intelligence: 200 (+176)
Spirit: 113 (+71)
Agility: 141 (+30)
Stamina: 160 (+87)
Charisma: 80
0 Unassigned Attribute Points.
Racial Ability:
Adaptable Survivability (Passive) – All defenses increased by 5% and total hit points are increased 10%.
Darkvision (Passive) - Grants ability to see in dim-lighting conditions up to 100 yards and the ability to see in complete darkness up to 60 yards.
Ambitious (Passive) - Receive 5% experience bonus when gaining experience.
Racial Modifiers - +2 points to any stat of choice per level.
Abilities:
Frost Magic – Level 33
Light Magic – Level 35
Fire Magic – Level 18
Dark Magic – Level 28
Water Shaman – Level 13
Nature Magic – Level 30
Shadow Magic – Level 3
Warrior Monk Jutsu – Level 10
Unarmed Combat – Level 24
One-hand edge – Level 33
Two-hand edge – Level 17
Shield Block - Level 33
Shield Bash – Level 33
Riposte – Level 32
Lunge – Level 32
Parry – Level 33
Dodge – Level 33
Archery – Level 13
Riding – Level 18
Riding Exotic Beasts – Level 18
Spells:
Frost:
Frost Blast (30 Mana) – 2 sec cast – Launches Blast of frost at enemy. Damage is 200% of Spell Power. Slows target by 50% for 15 seconds. Range 60 yards.
Frost Nova (50 Mana) – Instant cast - Blasts enemies within 10 yards of the caster for 100% Spell power and freezes them in place for up to 8 sec. This spell does not affect friendlies within range of the AOE. Damage caused may interrupt the effect. 30 second cool down. Requires frost magic skill level 5.
Ice Lance (40 Mana) – Instant cast - Deals 400% Spell power to an enemy target. Ice Lance damage is doubled against frozen targets. Slows target by 50% for 15 seconds. Requires frost magic skill level 10. Range 40 yards.
Flurry (60 Mana) �
�� Instant cast – Hurls a flurry of ice shards at target that strikes enemy 3 times for a total of ((400% of spell power) * 3). Each shard slows target by 50% for 5 sec. Requires frost magic skill level 15. Range 40 yards.
Ice Barrier (30 Mana) – Instant cast – Shields caster for 1 minute, absorbing 1400% ranged spell damage. Melee attacks against caster reduces the attacker’s movement speed by 50% for 5 seconds. Armor Class is not increased. Requires frost magic skill level 20. 20 second cool down.
Ice Barrage (100 Mana) – 4 sec cast –Releases a storm of ice on targeted area. Spell power is 1600% Spell Power. All targets in area of effect have movement slowed by 50% for duration of cast or an additional 5 seconds if they leave the area of effect. 30 second cool down. Area of effect is 10 yards. Requires frost magic skill level 30. Any direct damage will cancel the cast. Range 100 yards.
*Special Attack – (600 Mana) - Can be continuously channeled for up to 30 seconds for continuous 1600% spell damage every 5 seconds. 30 second cool down.
Light:
Heal (50 Mana) – 10 sec cast – Ray of golden light that heals target for 500% Spell Power. Range 60 yards.
Quick Heal (30 Mana) – 5 sec cast – A pulse of golden light that quickly heals target for 300% Spell Power. Requires healing magic skill level 5. Range 60 yards.
Restore (40 Mana) – 3 sec cast – A flash of golden light that instantly heals target for (50% of Spell power) and then (300% of Spell power) over 15 sec. Requires healing magic skill level 10. Range 40 yards.
Minor Healing (60 Mana) – 5 sec cast – A ray of golden light that instantly heals target for 800% Spell Power. Requires healing magic skill level 15. Range 60 yards.
Minor Mend Bones (80 Mana) – 10 sec cast – A healing energy that heals target of minor debilitating debuffs 200% Spell Power. Requires healing magic skill level 15. Range 60 yards.
