by Jason Cheek
“One group of forty for each graveyard-“ I said, picturing the strategy he’d been running up till now.
“It worked like a charm at first,” Mike said, as he explained further.
“The only problem with that is they had more than enough forces to counter you at any one spot,” I said, visualizing the forces in my mind.
“Ccorrectamundo,” Mike said, giving me a wicked smile. “Even then, it’s not like they could flush us out of Stealth, so, next, I had my people mix up their attack groups’ sizes. Each increase let us slaughter the guards along with all the respawns coming through, which then forced them to pull more attackers away from the siege going on against Domenic.”
“Hell man, you probably tied up at least a thousand of their players by the time they shut you down,” I said, thinking out loud.
“Exactly!” Mike crowed, elbowing me excitedly as we ran. “You talk about some pissed off players. I swear, we could’ve driven them off completely if V-MMORG hadn’t rolled out those Emergency Hot Fixes this morning.” Those words seemed to take the wind out of his sails as he pointed out the lack of sentries around the entrance to the gauntlet.
“Sub-Leader Zuvnabod and his assault group were running them ragged up until I pulled them back to watch the western graveyard. They must have sent all of those guards in to join the siege,” Mike said, as he looked me in the eye.
I immediately understood what my friend was getting at. We were the two top strategists of our group and tended to be in sync when it came to formulating tactics. It sounded like Mike had managed to tie up nearly two thousand players by having his people mercilessly spawn camping the graveyards and the paths back to the gauntlet.
Situations like this always favored the attacker. While the defenders had to have enough guards in place to defend against Mike’s total strength, he could split up or combine his forces as needed to hit them wherever they were weakest or had gaps in their defenses. He must have driven the Chaos Storm Alliance leadership insane with his ever-changing tactics. Which meant, moving one assault group of forty Shadow Assassins hadn’t just freed up a corresponding group of forty defenders. It had actually freed up more like five hundred to a thousand players for the assault, which was bad news for Domenic.
While my mind was working that out, Mike waved us over to a pile of rubble before the entrance of the gauntlet. This close to the battle, the rolling sounds of thunder and fire blasts were deafening as the ground vibrated beneath our feet. Huddling down amongst the rocks, he had us gather around as streams of players ran past. Well, ran past was a little bit of an oxymoron since the gap was around hundred and fifty yards wide and the players were running through the center, but it was still uncomfortable without any actual cover.
“This is where things get tricky,” Mike said, his tone deadly serious. “We’re going to stealth down the left side of the gauntlet and then head over the wall. If we’re caught,” he momentarily paused to look into each of our eyes, “it’s game over, plain and simple. So, let’s buff up and get moving.”
“Do you want to pull Sub-Leader Zuvnabod’s assault group back over?” I asked, as my eyes watched the stream of players re-entering the fight.
“It’s cool,” Mike said, following my gaze. “The other two groups should be switching off soon to cover the plain, which will force them to shift their forces again. Besides, they sometimes try switching up graveyards to throw us. I’d rather have forces in place to drive them off so we don’t get caught by surprise.”
“Have you had a chance to talk to set up a signal with Domenic for when we’re sneaking into his base?” I asked next, hoping we had an easy method in place to signal we were friendlies.
“Are you kidding me?” Mike snapped in annoyance. “I haven’t been able to get a hold of him since we arrived. Emails, voice mail, texts, I swear I’ve tried everything short of breaking into his house and forcing him out of the egg. I’m sure it’s because he’s been in game for hours trying to keep from being overrun, but that doesn’t mean it’s not irritating as hell.”
“Great,” I said, unhappily dragging out the “a” sound as I scooted deeper into the rocks. “I guess we can try Tengsly, and see if he can get a message to him.”
“Aww, your poor little baby,” Kenzie mockingly said in a baby voice, as she gave me a smart-ass look. “What kind of man even talks that way?”
“Me, that’s who,” I snapped back without hesitation. “If I’m being such a baby, then let’s send Nightblade with the message.”
“Fuck that shit,” Kenzie snarled angrily. “I’m not going to risk losing my Nightblade. He’s your friend so send in the squirrel.”
“Zackly what I thought you’d say,” I muttered back, as Zhou and Darkhorse choked back their laughter. Ignoring Kenzie’s dirty look, I focused on Tengsly who’d curiously climbed onto my shoulder and cocked his head at me as if to say “are we doing this or not.” Feeling my tension, his little fury paws comfortingly stroked my cheeks as I looked into his beady, black eyes and sent him the message.
‘This is Jay. We need to talk. I’m coming in over the western edge of your wall within the next thirty minutes with Mike and a few of our friends. Don’t kill us.’ Tengsly chittered happily as I sent him the name Vengeance Burnslinger and did my best to picture Domenic’s face in my mind’s eye. Letting out an excited chitter, he took off into the night’s sky in a blur of wings.
“Damn, man. You’ve gotta show me how to get those little guys for all my people,” Mike’s voice took on a far away tone, as he watched Tengsly disappear. “You know how much damage we could’ve done to the Chaos Storm Alliance with fast communications?”
“I can imagine,” I said with a laugh. “The good news is that it shouldn’t exactly be a problem getting one for all of your people.”
“How quickly are we talking about?” Mike asked, the excitement plain on his face.
“As fast as it takes for each of your people to level up a crappy magic tree,” I said, suppressing a grin. “And then get the training from one of the Uten Syn players.”
“How crappy of a magic tree are we talking about?” Mike eyed me apprehensively, as I sent him the base stats of Zap in the raid’s text chat. The look he gave me afterwards was priceless. Though, it changed to a thoughtful look a second later. “How quickly does it ramp up?”
“Not until you hit skill level 25. Then, it’s like, wow.” I said with a grin, as I immediately sent him the stats for Healing Breeze, Enhanced Mage Armor, Homing Zap, and Manifest Cave Bear. “But, you can get the flying squirrel at level 10.” I explained, sending him the stats for Manifest Giant Squirrel.
“Your flying messenger squirrel is a spell?” Mike incredulously asked, as he read over the information. “Can you lose him permanently or something?”
“No, I can’t exactly lose him permanently,” I agreed, giving Mike a pained look. “But, do you really think I want to wait twenty-four hours until I can recall him on the eve of a massive battle?”
“Well, yeah, that would royally suck before a battle like this,“ Mike agreed, understanding my concern.
“Besides, the mental link they share with you tends to make you somewhat protective over the little guys,” I said, rubbing the back of my neck somewhat embarrassed.
“Is that so,” Mike commented drolly, as I sent him a link for the spell.
“Whatever,” I said, ignoring his smirk as I began passing out buffs. That basically covered Holy Shield, Enhanced Mage Armor, and Light’s Blessing, while I added Bone Shield and Fangs onto the list when I buffed myself. I was just finishing up when a fur singed Tengsly came fluttering back to me. A quick glance at my HUD showed me that he only had a quarter of his hit points left.
Instead of hovering before my face, Tengsly collapsed onto my shoulder. Even though he looked like roadkill, he managed to rise up onto his haunches as he began angrily chittering up a storm. The gist of it being that Domenic’s protection shields nearly killed him when he got close e
nough to make the mental connection and relay the message. The damage Domenic was taking while in battle deflected off his magic shield and hit Tengsly nearly killing the little guy.
While one tick of the Regeneration spell was all it took to top off his health, I still had to give the little guy some serious petting, before I could get him to calm down. During which time, I visually selected his avatar in my HUD and opened it up to look over his stats. Surprisingly enough, I discovered that he’d gained five levels since this afternoon. For a second, I could only look at him in shock as I realized my manifest pet must be getting experience every time he delivered a message. As I contemplated that development, Tengsly cooed softly and nuzzled up to my check as if to thank me for taking away his pain, before delivering Domenic’s message.
‘Sure Jay, come on up. I’ll make sure we have a warm welcome waiting for you, and sorry about your pet. He flew full speed right into my magic shields and was hit with collateral damage, which was unfortunate for him. Hope he‘s okay.’
“So, are we ready to move out, or what?” Kenzie said, looking between us expectantly.
“Good to go,” Mike and I said in unison.
Chapter One.Thirty-Three
(Thursday, May 8th / Day 18 of The World.)
“Jinx!” Mike said, as he punched me hard in the arm.
“Gah, what the hell?” I grunted, grabbing my shoulder in surprise as Mike laughed. “You have to let someone know they’re playing jinx before punching them.”
“Oh, my bad,” Mike said with a grin, as I flipped him off. Still chuckling, he led us into the mouth of the gauntlet. No one saw us as we slipped past the players in Stealth. The gauntlet itself was made from the formation of two natural stony ridges that merged into the mass of the mountain that made up the fortress. Each slate ridge looked like a giant stone blade had burst from the ground. The mouth started out around ten-yards in height and quickly hit thirty-yards at around twenty-yard in. From then on, the knife-like ridges slowly rose to around fifty-yards in height, before merging into the mountain that made up the fortress.
Luckily for us, the trampled ground made our passing all but invisible as we headed towards the ruins of the first defensive wall that had guarded the pass. It was in this area that the enemy players had set up their current encampment. Everywhere I looked there were fire pits, sleeping furs, and tents scattered across the frozen ground. While most were unused, there were several hundred players present who were obviously recovering from the five-hour debuff from dying too much.
Most of the players we passed seemed to be in good spirits and were excitedly talking about the siege or the stealthed fights they’d been through with Mike’s Shadow Assassins. Although, there were several noticeably pissed off groups standing separate from everyone else. As we passed by these groups, I heard the players bitching up a storm about losing their levels before the Emergency Hot Fix had gone into effect. They were all trying to figure out ways to get the admins to give them back their lost levels. As we approached one of the largest groups pissing and moaning, Mike came to a stop and meaningfully pointed towards a knot of players. Following his finger, I mouthed “Mother-fucker!” when I saw who it was.
“Yusuk, where in the hell do you think you’re going?” A player named Dante bellowed out, as he angrily barreled up to the group of Syndicate players.
“How many times do I have to tell you?” The Syndicate officer angrily snarled. “The name is, Imkewl!” The ten-man raid following Dante guffawed at the man’s outburst.
“Whatever,” Dante said, with an unconcerned wave of his hand. “I thought I told you that no one is allowed to leave the area.”
“It doesn’t matter what you say,” Yusuk spat back in a mocking voice, as he got up into the smaller man’s face. “It’s not your fucking call! Besides, we’re off the clock so step the fuck back.”
“What a bunch of losers,” Kenzie sneered in disbelief.
“Is this really how their Chaos Storm Alliance works?” Zhou asked out loud in pure amazement, as Mike and I just shrugged. It’s not like we were any experts on these people’s friendships.
“Who are those idiots anyways?” Kenzie asked, as we watched the Global Brutality and Syndicate guilds get into each other faces.
“Imkewl Yusuk,” Mike said, as he nodded towards the Syndicate officer as I began casting Identify on the two different groups to get a feel for what was going on. “We always called him Yusuk. He was one of the main raid leaders for the Syndicate in Chaos Online.”
“Isn’t that the game you guys came from?” Darkhorse asked, as Zhou perked up in sudden understanding.
“I remembered hearing about that from Thomas,” she said to Darkhorse, as Mike continued his explanation.
“Yeah, that was the game we were playing together with those punks before coming to The World. Jay … I mean Star,” Mike corrected at the confused looks, “got the lot of them in trouble with their company, Junnaco, but unlike Kintaii, he never discovered the guy’s in real life name.“
“Eh, you can’t win them all,” I unhappily said, watching Yusuk and Dante get into each other’s faces.
“The guy is a major griefer who loves screwing over the player base in general,” Mike said, as he squatted down and began gathering up the frozen snow at his feet into a ball. “From our interactions with him in the past, I’d always felt that his name fit his personality to a T.”
“Do you know who I am?” Dante began to say, as Yusuk flipped him off and overrode whatever else he was going to say.
“Yeah, you’re some punk who got here late to the party,” Yusuk said, his voice full of scorn as his guildmates began aggressively closing in around Dante’s group. “If you’ve got a problem with it, you’re welcome to complain to Evil Sandra!” As the two groups drew their weapons, Dante and Yusuk began shoving each other around like they were back in high school, when Mike stood up with the ice-ball in his hands.
“I have an idea,” Mike said, as he caught my eye. “But it would probably be best if everyone moved up a little further.”
“What the hell are you thinking about, Mike?” I asked, in a harsh hiss. Eyeing the ice-ball and the arguing group, I unhappily shook my head. “You know as well as I do that you’ll pop out of stealth as soon as you throw that.”
“It’s cool, man,” Mike gave me a wicked grin, “but, it might be best if none of you were too close in case they see me.” He waved for me to lead everyone ahead. “Seriously, I’ve got this.”
“Are you a fucking dumbass?” Kenzie snapped at me, as Zhou and Darkhorse looked at each other worriedly. “You know as well as I do that there’s no way he’ll be able to get back into Stealth!” Their words nearly set Sub-Leader Chuzedros off, but Mike signaled her to be silent
Instead of arguing with Kenzie, I just hurried away with Neristhana and Helgath in tow with a pissed off Dark Elf following behind me. Throwing her arms up in the air in frustration, the pissed off rogue followed us bitching up a storm in team chat as I headed for the base of the defensive wall that was fifteen-yards away. I figured it would be the safest place to hide out if Mike screwed up. Turning back around, I was just in time to see the whole thing go down.
In the time it had took for us to reach the wall, Mike had managed to sneak around behind the crowd of Syndicate players. He popped out of Stealth as soon as the ice-ball left his hand just like we’d all expected, but, unlike a regular rogue, he disappeared back into Stealth a moment later. In that split second, I wasn’t sure if that was because the ice-ball was still in the air or if it was because of some special skill Mike had managed to acquire. Either way, he’d timed the throw perfectly as it smashed into Dante’s face a split-second later.
“Who the fuck threw that at me?” Dante’s shrill voice demanded, as the Syndicate players busted out laughing. I swear the guy sounded like a child throwing a temper tantrum.
I didn’t hear Yusuk’s response, because I was too busy trying to figure out what happened to Mike who
had suddenly disappeared before my eyes. He reappeared a split-second later still in stealth on our side of the gauntlet. Oh yeah, didn’t Sub-Leader Zuvnabod use a similar skill to scale the tree in the graveyard? I immediately thought, as Mike began running towards us.
“Fucking Mike!” I said, shaking my head as the Global Brutality and Syndicate players went after each other like cats and dogs. “Only he would have the balls to pull off something like that in the middle of an enemy’s camp.”
A quick glance at the action let me know the fight was pretty evenly matched even with the five to one odds on the Syndicate’s side due to the level differences between the two groups. While we might not have exactly needed the additional distraction, having the enemy fighting amongst themselves was always a win. Besides, it couldn’t have happened to a better set of asshats, I thought with a grin, as I looked back to see where Mike was at. I nearly shit my pants when he suddenly appeared directly before me in a swirl of shadows.
“Looks like all is not well in paradise,” Mike sarcastically said, as he gave us a huge smile.
“I don’t know whether I should be impressed at what you just pulled off,” Kenzie said, as she folded her arms over her chest. “Or kicking your ass for putting our stealth mission at risk.” Mike accepted high-fives from Zhou and Darkhorse as he gave me a confused look at the dark-haired rogue’s comments.
“She’s friends with Jill,” I said, as if that explained everything.
“Oh!” Mike said, as a knowing look came to his face. “I guess we might as well move on out.”
“What the hell is that supposed to mean,” Kenzie angrily demanded, as Zhou and Darkhorse choked back their laughter. “You’re such an asshole, Star!”
“Hold up a second,” Zhou said, as Mike turned back around. “Was that a special skill or something?”
