That Wasn't the Plan

by Jason Cheek

  “I’m pretty sure he’s just telepathically communicating with his combat pet,” I said, meaningfully nodding to the Blink Lynx walking next to him. “And, he’s also Italian.”

  “What does that have to do with anything?” Neristhana asked, giving me a non-comprehending look as my friends laughed behind my back.

  “Everything, my dear,” Fluffy said, stepping up to loop Neristhana’s arm in her own. “Absolutely everything.”

  Before anyone could comment further, Domenic finished whatever he and his Blink Lynx were talking about as my friend threw open the huge door to the building. Deep inside I could see a group of Dwarves hard at work over a device with copper piping connected to copper barrels that hung over a fire pit. Though, instead of letting us in, Domenic blocked the doorway with his body as he gave me an odd look.

  “Except for a group of forty or so Dark Elves and about double that in wolves, Pounce said he didn’t see a bunch of soldiers hiding out in the valley,” Domenic stated in no uncertain terms. Pointedly giving my team a raised eyebrow as if to say that’s not an army, he continued with a tone dripping with sarcasm. “I thought you said you were bringing a mighty army with you or something to that affect last Sunday.”

  “I don’t know about you, but I think twenty-five hundred troopers in a game like this would be considered a decent sized army, especially once you add in our zombie pets,” I said, rolling my eyes at his attitude. “Seriously, do you think I would lie about something like that?”

  “Then where is this impressive army of yours, Jay?” Dom asked, intently studying my face.

  “We’re encamped just outside the southwestern side of the valley at the base of the mountains,” Mike explained, offering Domenic a bit more information. “I figured it would be safer there than trying to hide out in the valley with all the players traipsing around destroying everything they find.”

  That information seemed to put Domenic at ease as the Blink Lynx suddenly began pacing back and forth looking particularity aggravated. Although I had no clue as to what was being said between the two of them, I could see the big cat was displeased with whatever Domenic was saying from the set of its ears. With a final flick of its bushy tail, the Blink Lynx disappeared as my friend stepped back to let us into the building. As we walked through the doorway, Domenic fell in beside us while he removed his helmet and ran a nervous hand through his long dark hair.

  “Sorry about that,” Domenic said somewhat uncomfortably, as he led us over to the contraption in the center of the room where several Dwarves were busily working. “Welcome to the Ironheart Stronghold workshop.”

  From what I could tell at a glance, the Dwarves jobs mostly seemed to consist of either keeping the fire under the massive central copper barrel going, changing out the cold water bath for the second barrel, or changing out the large lead glass vial for the secondary condensing barrel. With the odd copper piping running between the two large barrels, the entire setup looked more like a massive moonshine still more than anything else.

  “Before we get started resurrecting my people I need to show you something. I’ve been stressing out about losing my Nightmare quest rewards ever since this whole siege started,” Domenic continued to say, as he proudly came to a stop before the condensing still. “I know, you kept on telling me you were on your way over to give me a hand and everything,” he gave me an apologetic look, “but all that I could think about was how could you possibly do anything to help when we had so many players aligned against us. I’d nearly given up hope.”

  An excited glow came to his eyes as Domenic began talking about the future. While he went on about his plans for the valley, I looked around the room we were in. Bushels of tuberous-like roots were stacked on one side of the wall, while firewood was stacked on the other side. Further back, I was surprised to see that the rear of the workshop opened into a cavern secured with a huge iron reinforced wooden door. It was on the ground just outside this open door where all of Domenic’s people that had fallen during the recent fighting were being laid out. There had to be around fifty or so corpses from this last fight alone. While that was pretty impressive for fending off a dual pronged stealth attack of nearly five hundred Rogues, there wouldn’t be enough of his people left to defend his fortress if the PKers repeated the same kind of attack several times in a row within a twelve hour period.

  Nonetheless, that didn’t stop Domenic from going on about how we could now take the battle to the enemy. From his words, it seemed like he thought my troopers were going to play a pivotal role in his plans for taking back the valley. Whatever, I didn’t bother listening too closely to everything he was ranting about while he went on and on about driving these PKers out once and for all. Instead, I nodded for Helgath to give me a hand in raising the dead. As we headed over towards the back of the workshop, I saw Kenzie’s questioning glance. Seeing my nod at the corpses and my raised eyebrow, she gave me a shrug and joined me with Zhou and Darkhorse in tow.

  Raising the dead went easily enough as usual, especially since I was able to use my upgraded spell. The flexibility it gave in regards to the corpses’ condition made the resurrection process just that much easier to perform. Besides, it didn’t hurt to have three additional healers on hand to share the after-healing load. Humorously enough, I could tell the fearless Devil Dog tactical team were a little uncomfortable at the prospect of being responsible for healing these guys up after I resurrected them. That seemed to amuse Helgath to no end as she gave me a wink, with her clawed hand wrapped around my bicep like always.

  Without skipping a beat, I linked with Helgath to combine our mana, while she did her tweak to the Enhanced Resurrection spell and sent it out to ten corpses instead of one. All of this was going on as while Domenic continued to discuss ways to take the PKers out. Mike silently studied the copper barrels cooking under the fire in the center of the room. A minute later, the entire workshop went silent as ten Dwarf-Human halflings suddenly groaned in pain as they came back to life.

  I had no idea of the commotion going on behind me as we quickly moved right along to the next part of the process. Helgath’s increased mana pool allowed us to start passing out Minor Mend Bone spells without completely draining our mana, while the Devil Dogs focused on general healing. Their lower level Restore spells didn’t heal anywhere near the amount of my Regeneration, but that was exactly what they needed to increase their Light magic skill quickly. We were just helping the discombobulated halflings to their feet, when both Mike and Domenic began hammering me with questions.

  Once everyone settled down, I was able to understand what the fuss was all about. None of them had ever seen a healer resurrect more than one person at a time. Domenic was especially insistent in wanting to understand how I’d pulled that feat off. I wasn’t sure why he was so excited. Yes, I know it was pretty awesome that Helgath was able to adapt a learned spell that was purchased. I also understood the technique she was using could be adapted to step up our power in a number of other ways for the future. It was just that we had too much going on for me to really sit down and think about it or run any tests until I got back to BrokenFang Hold.

  While Domenic clearly wanted to figure out how to do this for himself, I didn’t see it happening … at least not easily. From my experience, it would be extremely difficult to repeat such a feat without being telepathically connected to an in-game soulmate that was also a shaman. Knowing how the game mechanics worked, I’m sure he could discover another way to achieve similar results. I’d literally spent hours upon hours trying to learn how to be a Water Shaman. After all of that time, even now I could barely do anything more than detect liquids and see what Helgath was doing with her magic. Meaning that adapting spells was definitely possible, but it would take true dedication to learn how to do this as a player within The World.

  Upon hearing that, Domenic wanted to sit down and extensively question Helgath on how she was able to hack regular spells through our link, but once again I interrupted, asking hi
m to wait at least until we’d finished resurrecting everyone. While the rest of us got back to work, Domenic, slowly nodded agreeing that was a better use of our time and went back to explaining how he’d been able to hold out against the siege once they pushed to take him out, which we now knew had come after the destruction of Telrain. Interestingly enough, he’d managed to hold out basically by crafting Lightning resistance into his elemental pets.

  From what Domenic was saying, the first of his creations that he upgraded were his Earth elementals. While they were highly resistant to most elemental magic in general, they were extremely vulnerable to Lightning and Frost magic. While Frost magic was common, it wasn’t something the PKers were really using in this siege, so he figured all that he had to do was come up with a way to upgrade his creations’ to increase their resistance to Lightning magic.

  With a little online research with google outside of the game, Domenic had discovered a metal that was a very low conductor of electricity. It was called bauxite ore and was used in the manufacturing process of concrete and Aluminum. Surprisingly enough, it was already something they were mining to enhance the stone work being done on the defensive walls by his people.

  At the end of the day, Domenic said it was relatively easy to combine the iron and bauxite ore into a unique alloy for the creation of a new type of Earth elemental. Instead of just increasing the Lightning magic resistance of his Earth elementals, this new alloy’s magic properties made his pets completely resistant instead. Scientifically, it should have only enhanced the elementals resistance to electricity, not eliminated it entirely. Domenic figured it must have something to do with how the underlying magic of the metal interacted together within The World itself.

  Now, don’t misunderstand me. That didn’t mean these new Earth elementals weren’t vulnerable. Blunt melee weapons still did normal damage to them, but that wasn’t the weapon of choice for most PKers. Also, elemental magic otherwise did a quarter of its regular spell damage. Still, with this upgrade in place, he’d begun to inflict massive damage on the players attacking his pets, since the PKers could no longer take them down at range with the Chaos Storm guild’s powerful Lightning magic.

  The next problem that Domenic tackled was finding a way to enhance his Water elementals. While they moved quickly, were high DPS, and partly resistant to Earth, Fire, and even to an extent Frost magic, the Chaos Storm’s Lightning magic devastated them before they could get into melee range to attack the PKers. It had been a major problem during the siege and had basically reduced his force’s effective units by a full third. That was, until he’d figured out how to make the Water elementals invulnerable to the Lightning magic too.

  At first, I was having trouble following the logic as I rested between resurrections to recover my mana, but slowly, it started to make sense. Basically, Domenic had discovered during his research that water itself wasn’t a conductor of electricity. Yeah, I know, this sounded like an episode for the show Mythbusters, but it made sense once he explained it to me. The premise was that it wasn’t actually the water that was conducting electricity, but the impurities within the water that created a solution and that was what actually conducted electricity through water. Studying up on distilled water was how he’d finally come up with the idea of creating Distilled-Water elementals. Like the Earth elementals, they became completely immune to the Chaos Storm’s Lightning Strikes. Hence, the condensing still currently in the middle of the workshop. I had to admit that was very impressive outside of the box thinking on his part.

  As if to prove his point, Domenic went to the condensing still and grabbed a nearly full lead glass vial of clear liquid and held it up as proof to what he was saying. While that was all well and good, the nervous looks on the Dwarves’ faces standing behind him made me somewhat skeptical about exactly what was going on here. As Domenic began casting a long ass spell that I took to be his Water elemental summons, I heard words that made my blood turn cold.

  “Why does it smell like someone’s boiling potatoes in here if you’re just distilling water?” Mike suddenly asked, as my head whipped around to look at them both in consternation. That’s when it hit me like a bolt of lightning. What idiot would leave a bunch of Dwarves alone with a condensing still and a mountain of tuberous root?

  Mike was trying to understand the horrified look on my face that had come in that moment of epiphany. Before I could say anything, Domenic’s summoned Water elemental suddenly took shape before him in the center of the room. Like the Water elementals I’d seen before, this elemental was the size of an incredibly muscular humanoid, but, unlike the Water elementals I’d seen up until now, this one was-

  “Why is it glowing blue?” Domenic exclaimed out loud in obvious confusion, interrupting my train of thought as everyone looked at him in surprise. The Water elemental’s back was to the burning fire in the center of the room as the Dwarves unobtrusively but hurriedly began backing away from the odd glowing being.

  There was barely any time for me to react. Jumping to my feet like I had ants in my pants, I scooped Helgath up in my arms. Neristhana, who was going through the corpses to make sure they had all their body parts, shot to her feet in surprise as I dove out the open barn doors. I tackled her in midair like a defensive lineman going for the quarterback as I screamed over my shoulder to the rest of the team.

  “Fire in the hole!” My terrified scream sent the Dwarves running for the door as Neristhana let out an Oof of pain from the impact. Instead of following my lead, Domenic, Mike, Fluffy, Tony, and the Devil Dogs just stood there watching us flee the workshop like idiots, when a loud snap came from the fire pit as a spark hit the Water elemental in the leg. At least, that’s what I think happened.

  KABOOM!!!

  Chapter One.Thirty-Seven

  (Thursday, May 8th / Day 18 of The World.)

  The deafening sound left me momentarily dazed as I clutched Neristhana and Helgath to my chest while my body was picked up and thrown like a rag doll from the displaced air of the explosion. Fire, smoke, flaming bits of wood crates, pieces of lead glass, and body parts came shooting out of the workshop past me like someone had set off a stick of dynamite in the middle of the room as I tumbled across the snow.

  I came to an uncontrolled stop a moment later with both women still clutched tightly to my chest. Neither one of them were moving, but I figured that was due to the thirty second dazed effect that was blinking in my HUD under my picture. A quick look at both ladies’ avatars showed me that they were in the same situation as I was in. It also happened to confirm that the rest of my party was dead, since their avatars in the list were grayed out.

  Unfortunately, thirty seconds is a long time to be lying on your back staring at the ceiling of an alcove inside a dark mountain. Annoyingly enough, even my telepathic connection to Helgath didn’t seem to be fully functioning. It worked during stun, which could only mean that dazed was a slightly different debuff. Swallowing down my impatience, I kept one eye on the timer ticking down on the debuff as I looked over the rest of our stats with the other.

  Surprisingly enough, Neristhana’s and Helgath’s Mage Armor and Holy Shield had been completely blown away along with my own and that of my Bone Shield. While I’d lost half of my health, the two of them had luckily only lost around two hundred hit points each. Meaning, my body had taken the brunt of the explosion. I mentally shook my head unbelievingly. Still, that was a crazy amount of damage.

  My mind went back to the moments before the explosion and the looks on the Dwarves’ faces when Domenic had raised the Water elemental. He definitely had a much different relationship with his people than I had with mine, I thought, mentally snorting in irritation. Besides, that wasn’t a Water elemental. It was a freaking Moonshine elemental!

  While I was pissed as hell at being blown up, I had to say that, in all of my time of playing MMOs, RPGs, and Dungeon and Dragons with pen and paper players making crazy shit up left and right, never once in all that time had anyone come up with the
idea of using Moonshine elementals. Don’t ask me why. I mean, the concept was freaking cool as hell, and with the types of friends I have, you’d have thought this would’ve come up before. Nope, this was the first and it was accidental at that. My contemplation was interrupted as Neristhana and Helgath began stirring on my chest.

  ‘Just give me a second and I’ll get you healed up,’ Helgath’s thoughts clearly shot through my mind, as Neristhana painfully pushed herself up with her arms.

  “Gah,” Neristhana grunted, as she looked down at me and shook her head. “Do you think you could’ve hit me any harder?”

  It wasn’t that she was waiting for an answer. She knew as well as Helgath did that I was still dazed and unable to speak. Moving like an old woman, the Gnomeling helped the Half-Orc into a sitting position next to her. To both of our surprise, Helgath’s hands started to glow with a golden light as she cast a Regeneration on my battered body.

  ‘That should help you recover quicker, Star,’ Helgath mentally said, as I instantly started feeling better.

  I only had ten seconds left to be free from the debuff as Helgath next cast a Regeneration spell on Neristhana. Obviously, it was taking a lot longer for her to cast the spell than the instant cast that it was for me. Maybe, that was because she was somehow borrowing my abilities through our soulmate bond, I thought with interest, wondering how we might be able to use this in the future. By the time the dazed debuff faded away, Helgath had cast a Regeneration on herself and was already starting to feel better.

  “By the Dark, what happened to the workshop?” Neristhana asked in a horrified voice, as her eyes studied the destruction inside the room, while Helgath helped me to sit up. “It’s like someone launched a massive fire ball at the center of the room.”