That Wasn't the Plan

by Jason Cheek

  “That’s basically what happened,” I agreed, following the Gnomeling’s wide eyes.

  The destruction inside the room was impressive to say the least. Purposely done or not, Domenic had come up with an impressive weapon. No wonder none of our teammates had survived the blast, I thought, as my eyes studied the burnt out blackened shell of the stone building. Puddles of flames burned here and there from where the moonshine hadn’t completely been burned off during the initial explosion. Even the condensing still was a twisted wreck partly filling the doorway we’d entered the workshop through. The only thing that might be recoverable was the immense copper barrels and piping, some of the scattered firewood, and maybe a few of the less burned tuberous roots that had been shot out of the double doors like a shotgun blast.

  Everything else was a ruined mess. Hell, even part of the stone wall of the building that the moonshine was being stored against had a large hole blown completely through it. The only thing that could have done that was a secondary explosion, which probably happened when the rest of the Moonshine vials that had been piled up ignited. Even now, black smoke still billowed out from the gaping openings of the stone workshop. Climbing to my feet, I helped Neristhana and Helgath up as my eyes scanned the destruction for survivors or corpses.

  Either worked, I silently thought, as I selected the burned out workshop and cast a few Healing Breeze spells as the pain filled sounds of the injured came to my ears. Even though I couldn’t see the victims around me, my magic would still reach them if they were anywhere in the forty yard radius of my spell. As I neared the damaged barn doors to the workshop, I saw the twenty corpses I had left to resurrect were relatively undamaged and still lying where they’d been left. A few were burning slightly, but Helgath and Neristhana were already working to put the flames out, when I noticed a blackened body crumpled in the snow a few feet from the gaping entrance.

  Hurrying to the corpse’s side, I saw that they’d caught the brunt of the blasting debris from the explosion. Large and small splinters had turned the small body into a veritable porcupine. While I joked, it was nonetheless a gruesome sight, especially when I turned the body over and saw that it was my friend Zhou. Looking around quickly, I didn’t see any of the other Devil Dog corpses nearby. I was just about to cast my Enhanced Resurrect spell, when I saw Neristhana heading off to look for more survivors.

  “Stay close, Neristhana,” I called out warningly to the Gnomeling, as she turned to look at me in surprise. “We’re guests here and these people’s lord was just killed. It’s best not to become a victim of friendly fire.”

  “Friendly fire?” Neristhana asked, looking at me in annoyance.

  “He means, attacked by allied troops mistaking us for the enemy,” Helgath translated for me in her exotic voice. I couldn’t seem to get used to it, since she rarely spoke out loud.

  “Why would that even be a problem?” Neristhana asked, dumbfounded by Helgath’s words. “I’m marked as an ally.”

  “It is in the newfar realm,” Helgath explained with a shrug.

  “Ha!” Neristhana barked out, as I rolled my eyes at their byplay. “Lord Stinky, I’ll let you know if that becomes a problem.” With that, she continued heading out to look for more survivors.

  With a wordless shrug at Helgath, I began resurrecting Zhou as the Half-Orc kept an eye on our surroundings. While it very well may have been safe for my people, I preferred to play it safe in a situation like this. Especially when, I felt so vulnerable when casting long-ass spells. Zhou groaned to life thirty seconds later as I hit her with a Regeneration while Helgath began removing the wooden splinters that had pierced her body.

  “Fuck,” Zhou cursed out loud, as I helped her to a sitting position. “I thought that I’d made it out of the blast zone.”

  “Nope, it hit me pretty hard and I was a lot further out,” I explained, as I stood up and looked around. “Besides, I think it was more of the shotgun blast of debris that killed you more than anything else.” And probably saved my life by taking the majority of the flying shrapnel, I silently added.

  “I imagine so,” Zhou said, looking down at her battered body and torn up Cuttle leather armor. “But damn, this is going to take forever to repair.”

  “Did anyone else make it out,” I asked, as I headed for the smoke-filled doorway. Holding my breath, I walked inside to take a quick look around. There were six white tombstones in the center of the room that I hadn’t noticed from outside, as Zhou’s voice came loud and clear to me in team chat.

  “Darkhorse hit the deck instead of diving out the door,” Zhou said with a laugh. “Can you raise him like you did me?”

  “I don’t think so,” I said, looking at the dark smudges on the floor next to the black gravestones with the two Devil Dogs’ names. Scanning the rest of the room, it looked like the explosion had completely destroyed everyone’s’ bodies as I ran across the gravestones for Mike, Domenic, Fluffy, and Tony.

  Hopefully, no one lost any gear from that level of destruction, I silently thought, as I turned around to see Helgath keeping a wary eye on me. She was supposed to have been staying outside to keep an eye on things, but, due to our link, I knew she was here to guard my back. Helgath was incensed that I’d nearly lost my life from the Dwarves shenanigans. Not that I particularly blamed her. It was somewhat terrifying to see the level of destruction the exploding Moonshine elemental had managed to do in the blink of an eye. With a nod towards the exit, I headed back out of the burning building with Helgath at my back.

  “Ha!” Zhou let out a sharp laugh, as I hit her with another Regeneration. “Kenzie is going to be so pissed that she died and lost the experience points she’d gained for her new level.”

  “You lost experience points,” I asked somewhat confused, as my mind went back through the Emergency Hot Fix list in my head. “Ah, I remember the change now.”

  Emergency Hot Fix Deaths from Monsters and Other Natural Enemies: Upon death by a monster or other natural enemy of The World, a player will now only lose ten percent of their current level and with each proceeding death until their current gained experience bar is reduced to zero. There will be no loss of level beyond this point even with repeated deaths.

  “Those Dwarves asses are grass if she gets her hands on them.” The small Rogue said with a giggle, as I helped her to her feet.

  “You mean Dom or the brew masters?” I asked somewhat confused, as a broad smile split Zhou’s lips.

  “Yes,” the Rogue said, still smiling.

  “Well, shit,” I muttered under my breath, thinking quickly. “Then, let’s see if we can get the wounded healed up and out of here before she makes it back to her corpse … err … I mean gravestone.”

  We found the Dwarven brew masters on the far side of the building along with the battered corpse of Sub-Leader Chuzedros. From her crispy appearance, she must have made it to the doorway just as the explosion went off taking the majority of the blast. If not for her, the Dwarves probably would have been in much worse shape. With a sigh, I got to work.

  Sub-Leader Chuzedros’ imperious attitude was much more subdued once I raised her back from the dead. Instead of yelling angrily and carrying on for being blown up, she quietly joined our group as I got to work on helping the Dwarves that had been strewn across the ground and wounded from the blast. For most of them, it didn’t take much more than a few Regeneration and Minor Mend Bone spells to make them right as rain. Not that I didn’t badger them with questions about the Moonshine as I worked, but the bastards were all stubbornly silent about what had gone down.

  At first, I was confused. None of the Dwarves seemed to be too concerned about being almost killed, taking out a group of alliance newfar, or even all of the destruction from the explosion. If anything, their sole concern was about the loss of their stock of Moonshine. The head Dwarf’s general indifference to my team’s death somewhat set me off, but he apologized after we had a few words, explaining about their lack of alcohol during the siege. Out of ever
ything they’d been through up until now, that seemed to be the biggest concern on any of their minds. Somewhat mollified, I decided it was to be expected. They were Dwarves after all.

  I didn’t really expect any further issues from the rest of my team. Accidents happened and the Devil Dogs were a pretty easy going group. Even if Kenzie was excitable about catching up to my level, I didn’t see there being any more than a bitch fest once everyone made it back from their graveyard shuffle. My biggest concern had actually been for Neristhana and Sub-Leader Chuzedros, since if they’d been blasted to smithereens there wouldn’t have been a way for me to resurrect them. Luckily for them, they were far enough away from the blast to still be resurrected.

  Within a short time, the head Dwarf and I started to warm up to one another. At least, we did once the conversation turned to brewing alcohol. Before I knew it, I explained that their first mistake was storing the raw brew in lead glass vials and not oaken casks. Surprisingly enough, that loosed their lips as we got into a discussion about how to make whiskey, vodka, and double-distilling the Moonshine down to increase its alcoholic content. Before I knew it, they’d also told me the whole story about how the explosion had happened.

  Basically, Domenic had promised that he’d work on getting them the alcohol they required, but then the fortress had come under siege. From their attitudes, I got the impression that alcoholic drinks were expected payment for a Dwarf’s service, and in their minds there was literally nothing worse than running out of strong alcohol after a long day of battle. Unfortunately, the promised beer and mead had never shown up, because Domenic’s entire focus had been on repelling the attacking players and countering the Chaos Storms powerful magic.

  Now the Dwarves weren’t idiots. They knew the deal as well as Domenic did, so they didn’t exactly blame him for not being able to replenish their stores of drink. The problem came when the condensing still had been set up to make the distilled water for Dom’s new Water Elementals. Domenic mentioned that the still could not only make pure water but could be used to make extremely strong alcohol too. He’d only given them the basic information needed to create Vodka, but it had been enough for the lead Dwarf to decide to give it a whirl, once they’d finished up their latest batch of distilled water. The rest of the story, I could figure out on my own. Domenic came in to show us the distillery in the middle of them making a batch of Moonshine and blew the entire room up by mistakenly summoning a Moonshine elemental instead of the expected Distilled Water elemental.

  Now that was cool on a whole different level, but none of the Dwarves seemed all that interested in discussing the warfare applications of the new elementals right now. They were way too interested in picking my brain for how to flavor and strengthen their new brew. Seeing the sparkle in the lead Dwarf’s eyes, I belatedly realized I’d wound the Dwarf up. Calling out to the other Dwarves excitedly, he got them working on putting out the few fires still burning, before hurriedly getting the condensing still back into place in the center of the room. It was impressive work to say the least, especially since they never stopped discussing the future possibilities for their Moonshine. Around then, a large group of Dwarves showed up to see what the explosion was about. Instead of helping the injured or returning back to guarding the courtyard, they were instantly put to work gathering the materials needed for a new batch of Moonshine.

  I didn’t know whether or not to be annoyed or impressed at their single-minded devotion to crafting a better brew. With an incredulous snort of disbelief, I led the surviving members of our team back to where the Dwarven corpses were laid out. With a shrug at Zhou and Neristhana, Helgath and I went back to resurrecting the dead while Sub-Leader Chuzedros watched us work. We’d just started the Enhanced Resurrection spell and hack, when a loud commotion inside the workshop came to my ears.

  “You blew me up again!” I heard Fluffy’s voice call out in annoyance as she appeared next to Domenic. Zhou, who was in front of me, looked over my shoulder in surprise, as Helgath and I continued casting the Enhanced Resurrection spell unperturbed.

  I silently shook my head. That simple sentence had so many connotations in it that I didn’t even know what to say. Although, I could tell from Fluffy’s tone that she really wasn’t angry. It was obvious she was just ribbing Domenic for the accident. I think the only time I’d ever heard her angry and cursing up a storm was when the Syndicate was spawn-stealing the Trash King from her back in Chaos Online.

  “It wasn’t my fault this time!” Domenic’s exasperated reply came to my ears. “I was not informed that the still was being used to make moonshine. Had I known, all of this could have been avoided,” he plainly stated looking over at the head Dwarf who studiously avoided his eyes.

  “Besides, it’s not like you lost any experience points this time around!” Domenic said with an amused grin at the look on Fluffy’s face.

  “That’s because I lost them all from the first five times you blew me up!” Fluffy joked back, as Zhou silently cocked her head at me with a look that said, was this really a regular occurrence here? That was a good question, I thought, as the Enhanced Resurrection spell completed and we hurriedly began healing the Dwarves up with Neristhana’s and Zhou’s help.

  By the time I could focus back on the discussion, we’d just sat down to recover our mana when I hit Domenic, Fluffy, and Tony with a Regeneration spell. Not that they particularly needed it by now, but skilling up was skilling up, I thought with a smile. It quickly became obvious that Fluffy and Tony weren’t really angry at being blown up. Mainly they were just tired from the long day of PKing and having some fun at Domenic’s expense.

  Giving me a hug, Fluffy explained that she was logging out for the night, while Tony excitedly gave me a double thumbs-up as he excitedly followed his wife out without another word. I didn’t even want to know the details to that, I thought, as Mike and Darkhorse casually came walking over to us. Without a thought, I hit them both with a Regeneration spell.

  “Well that sucked,” Mike said with an annoyed look on his face, as he squatted down next to me. Giving us a silent nod, Darkhorse silently stole a kiss from Zhou as he sat down to recover the rest of his health and mana.

  “At least, it was quick,” I said, flashing Mike a grin as he rolled his eyes. I gave him a shrug back. “It sounds like getting blown up is a thing here.”

  “A thing?” Mike asked, somewhat confused, but before I could explain further, Kenzie suddenly appeared next to her gravestone. Without a second thought, I hit her with a Regeneration before Helgath and I stood up to resurrect the last group of Dwarves. As soon as we started casting the spell, the proverbial shit hit the fan.

  Chapter One.Thirty-Eight

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

  “You blew me up!” Kenzie’s shriek of outrage echoed in the mostly hollowed out building. Zhou, who was in front of me, looked over my shoulder in concern, as Helgath and I continued casting the Enhanced Resurrection spell unperturbed. Not that I really thought much about the Rogue’s dramatics, I mean, it was Kenzie we were talking about.

  Unfortunately, I missed the apprehensive look that passed between Zhou and Darkhorse as Domenic hurriedly apologized for blowing Kenzie up. She was incensed and out for blood no matter what my friend said about the whole thing being an accident. Before any of us realized just how bad things had gotten, Kenzie launched herself at my friend with a blood-curling scream.

  “Gah,” Domenic wordlessly screamed at the out of control Rogue. “What in the hell do you think you’re doing backstabbing me?” He demanded, as Kenzie stalked after him with her blades drawn and a look that could kill plastered on her face. “It’s not like killing me is going to help anything!”

  “It’ll make me feel better!” Kenzie snarled in fury, as she triggered Slip Into Shadows. A second later, she popped out of stealth behind Domenic’s armored back, getting off a nasty Sneak Attack that dropped his health insignificantly as she went all out on him.

  Seeing the si
tuation getting that out of control sent shooting pain through my right eye as it began to uncontrollably twitch. The tension migraine that had been trying to form all night had finally sunk its teeth into me as it came on full force. I was so exhausted. All that I wanted to do was log out and go to sleep, but bullshit like this kept on getting in the way of that simple goal. Sighing heavily, I pressed my fingers against my closed eyelids as I waved my hand in the direction of the fight.

  “Can’t someone do something about that?” I asked, still in the middle of resurrecting the last group of Dwarves from the battle as everyone looked at me like I was crazy.

  “What in the hell is wrong with her?” Mike asked under his breath, as Kenzie went absolutely berserk, while Sub-Leader Chuzedros silently stood behind him wordlessly watching the fight.

  “This is bad,” Darkhorse said, giving me a disconcerted look as Zhou shook her head vigorously. “I think she’s having a PTSD episode from the explosion.”

  “Didn’t she loose a leg from an IED in the sandpit?” Zhou asked, unable to tear her gaze away from their friend in full freak-out.

  Kenzie was attacking Domenic at a furious pace, attempting to inflict as much damage as she could as payback for blowing her up. The Rogue was four levels higher and was putting out an impressive amount of DPS. The Arcane Paladin, on the other hand, had Nightmare stats and was absorbing the majority of the damage like a massive sponge. Not just absorbing the damage, but reflecting a portion of it back too. It was almost as if each and every attack that Kenzie got through ended up hurting her nearly as much as it did Domenic. I tucked that little bit of information away in case Domenic and I ever had to go toe-to-toe in the future.

  To Domenic’s credit, he was mostly just defending himself. Apparently, he didn’t want to retaliate since she was here on my request and fighting a new ally was never a good idea. Between the heavy armor he was wearing and whatever special skill he was using to reflect the damage back to his attacker, Domenic was quickly wearing Kenzie down no matter what she did to try and stop it. While I knew he felt bad about blowing everyone up, Domenic was getting more pissed by the moment about Kenzie relentlessly trying to make him into her very own pincushion.