The Heroic Villain 2

by Charles Dean

  Finally, there was a small lull in the battle. Lucas had moved deep into the front lines, trying to draw the attackers’ focus away from a cluster of fighters that were being pressed too hard. Despite having at least a single healer dedicated to him at all times, his health pool had fallen to just under 20%, and it wasn’t until that number started climbing much more quickly that Lucas realized something had changed.

  Lucas jumped back at the last possible second, narrowly avoiding having his gut sliced open by a warrior using a two-handed sword. Someone else reached in from the side and cracked the fighter over the head with a one-handed mace, successfully drawing his attention away from Lucas and onto the more dangerous threat.

  Is it over? Are we winning? Lucas danced back several steps, sucked in a deep breath, and surveyed the battle. Melee fighters on both sides were engaged in a constantly shifting front line. Sometimes it looked like his team had the advantage, and sometimes it looked like he was going to lose it. Just past them, there was an area on the far side of the room that they retreated to whenever they were taking too much damage. Someone else would rush up to take their spot in the front line while they received healing from the rear, and then they would rejoin the fight once they were back out of the red. Behind that, the archers, mages, and healers had taken up position near the far end of the room. Lucas knew how hard it was for the archers and mages to get off spells and attacks that wouldn’t harm their own team, and he had taken advantage of that fact by constantly trying to keep as many people in close-quarters combat as he could. The throne room was quite large, but not so spacious that this many people could move about freely.

  Almost instantly, he spotted what was different: the backline had been thrown into chaos. The sight of Nick casting his taunt from within the middle of a cluster of archers, healers, and casters as unmistakable. The long black chains flew out from his body and twisted around the nearby players. A second later, they were drawn toward the Dark Knight and forced to engage the tank head-on. It was an absolute nightmare, worst-case scenario for any class that preferred to attack from range, and it was made even worse by the fact that Liu and her butler, Hans, were waiting to massacre them in the next moment.

  While Lucas was surveying the scene, a sneaky player popped out of stealth mode and tried to stab him.

  “I got ya!” Bonnie shouted. She slammed into Lucas from his left side, shoving him out of the way of the attack that he never saw coming. There was a loud clang as she knocked a sword away and deflected a blow, but not before he heard her suck in a deep breath and gasp in pain. He recovered from the shock and then turned to see that she had taken a long cut that drew a line red up her left forearm as she intercepted the hit with her own flesh.

  “Thanks,” Lucas said earnestly and then stepped forward again. He swung his staff around like a melee weapon and aimed a low blow at the Were-Rat who had struck Bonnie. He caught the fighter in the back of the legs, successfully sweeping him off his feet and sending him tumbling to the floor. Bonnie pounced the moment the enemy hit the ground and exacted her own vengeance by driving her sword down into a gap in his armor. The Were-Rat’s helmet had rocked back enough to expose an opening at the base of his neck, and her sword filled that space almost instantly.

  Lucas jumped back, expecting another fighter to attack the moment Bonnie was occupied with finishing off the stealthy Were-Rat, but it seemed Liu and the rest had rendered Lucas’s instinctive avoidance to standing in the same place unwarranted. Lucas saw that his health pool had already jumped up to 32%, and it looked like he finally might be able to go for more than a few seconds without having to avoid being disemboweled or decapitated.

  If I have this much time, I can finally . . .

  He slammed his staff on the floor and began channeling Red Ice Prison for the second time. He instantly felt a crippling level of hunger start eating away at his mind and body as he watched over 500 Hit Points of his life bar fade away along with 400 Arcane Energy. It only took two and a half seconds to complete the cast, but that was a painful process that seemed to drag on for much longer. The spell required him to picture what he wanted the blood to do, to imagine it moving, and as he did, the red pools around him started to emit a black and purple glow, giving ample time for someone who was paying attention to try and flee.

  Casting the spell for the first time in the history of the game, Lucas caught basically everyone off guard. The attackers had been wading through pools of blood that had accrued over the lengthy battle, largely oblivious to the fact that they were even there thanks to their constant struggle against Lucas’s defenders. When the spell went off, geysers of blood gushed up and gathered around peoples’ bodies before hardening, encasing them in sanguine ice pods from the neck down.

  Their expressions turned from stunned fear to shock to outrage and then back to fear again as they realized what had happened and struggled against their prisons.

  They likely would have been able to break free if given enough time, as the ice was already starting to thaw, but Lucas wasn’t going to let that happen.

  “Now, attack!” he roared. As if they had been waiting for those orders, his team awoke from their stunned stupor and took action. They rushed forward and targeted the perfectly exposed heads with everything they had, rapidly eliminating targets. What had once been a tough fight ended within moments thanks to the surplus of spilled blood and the fact that no one had encountered the spells in Lucas’s staff before or been able to anticipate such an outcome.

  Lucas let out a breath when the last head was felled and felt a little glee course through him.

  “It’s so beautiful,” Lilith said as she walked up beside him.

  “If you’re talking about all the money we’ve earned, I couldn't agree more,” Bonnie said as she started cleaning her daggers.

  Lilith frowned at Bonnie then turned back to Lucas. Under her breath, at barely more than a whisper, she said, “I forgot that cash is sometimes more important than camaraderie.”

  Is she . . .? No, don’t think about it. Ignore it. That’s just unwanted drama. Even if Bonnie didn’t care about him, she was a part of his team, and he cared about her the same way that he cared about everyone that had been with him from the start. That’s all that matters, right? Lucas shook his head, dismissing the question of Bonnie’s loyalties, and instead turned his attention back to the surreal scene in front of him. A gaggle of women, some of whom were incredibly beautiful if you could look past the blood and gore they were covered in, was wading through a sea of blood and mangled bodies.

  “Boss?” Bonnie called out, bringing Lucas back to reality.

  “Yeah? What’s up?” Lucas asked, giving her his attention.

  “What do we do now? I think it might be over,” Bonnie said confidently, putting away her blades and looking at the door.” We can throw the barricades back up, and unless they push with a large crowd again, I think we’ve won.”

  “BONNIE!” Viola shouted from the doorway as she rushed over, the first of the group to approach.

  “I see you’re still alive,” Liu said as she sauntered up behind Viola.

  “I could still use a little more healing . . .” Lucas said while looking at Viola expectantly. The spell had drained him heavily, and unlike his mana, his health didn’t magically restore itself at 1% per second.

  “Oh, right!” She jumped slightly, like she had been shocked, but quickly collected herself as she fell into her role. It was always interesting to watch her get in character. “Your wish is my command, master. Just . . . Just please, don’t punish me. I promise not to slack in my duties again.”

  What? Really? Lucas shook his head. The new women who had joined his cause and were close enough to hear Viola all shot him dirty looks.

  “By the way, where’s Linnaeus?” Liu asked. “And what’s with the, uhh”--she gestured to the Ant-Dragon--“that.”

  “Oh, Eri?” Lucas chuckled as he walked over to the Ant-Dragon and scratched her on the head lovingly. “S
he’s my newest monster. Don’t you just love her? Isn’t she just the cutest?”

  “Is she a dog?” Liu asked.

  “Nope, an Ant-Dragon,” Lucas answered. “I made her from an Ant-Lizard, and I’ll evolve her some more after the battling is done.”

  Lucas opened up his menu and checked the dungeon map to see exactly how many people were still fighting inside the dungeon. There were a few skirmishes here and there. Clusters of people were still trying to fight their way to the boss room, and there were several places where his traps were still getting kills, but there was no longer a large coherent force anywhere to be seen. The largest group in the entire dungeon of his was only eight people strong, and given that they were headed for one of his favorite traps--a room where opening the closet door would cause blades to shoot out of the wall--he was certain that they would be down to a group of only four or five at most by the time they reached him. Lucas also took a moment and counted how many Blood Goddess Reputation Points as well as how much money his new dungeon had harvested, but he quickly went back to focusing on his team. “Where’s Nick, by the way?” Lucas asked as he closed his dungeon master’s HUD.

  “Oh, him?” Liu looked over to the door. “I think he darted off when the fighting stopped to go find some girl he met on the first floor.”

  “Good on him,” Lucas said with a shrug, not finding it as funny as Bonnie clearly did, judging from the giggle that escaped her. “And I hate asking this, but what was the hold up? You should have been with me only a few minutes after I arrived.” Liu wasn’t the type to delay issues like this, and that had Lucas concerned.

  “That’s what I need to talk to you about,” Liu said. “While we were on our way here, we ran into a few nobles planning to kill you.”

  Nobles trying to kill me? Isn’t that the whole quest to begin with? Lucas thought back to the hideously harsh punishments that would be doled out for failing that quest. “Did you get any names?” Even if the idea of a noble trying to kill him wasn’t a surprise, the list of possible motives ranged from his performance in court, his success in Hesse, his direct attack on the people who formerly occupied this hotel, his murder of a few nobles’ kids at the academy, to the vampirification quest. He needed to know exactly which nobles were moving against him and why.

  “Duke Edmund,” Liu answered. “That’s the name of their head honcho, but . . . there is also the academy headmistress . . . and Ostreicher.”

  “Ostreicher?” Lucas asked, already having suspected the headmistress was gunning for him.

  “He’s a serious deal, and apparently another noble is going to him right now to try and get him to kill you, so you need to get ready. If Ostreicher sends his elite Were-Bear forces, it’s going to be a battle with the equivalent difficulty of two or three boss fights at the same time.”

  “Are they really that strong?” Lucas asked.

  “Yes. The Were-Bear elites under Ostreicher are supposed to be a raid challenge,” she explained. A raid challenge was a boss that typically took twenty or more people to tackle, and some of the large raids even required forty or more. “If they all come at once, we might not have the numbers to fight them, especially if we’re busy fighting some of the people trying to beat the dungeon too.”

  Lucas racked his mind as he tried to figure out what was going to happen here. “Wait, how many elites do players usually fight at a time in a raid?”

  “Only a handful . . . Maybe five at a time or just one if it’s the final boss,” Liu answered.

  Lucas frowned. “The final boss? I take it that is Ostreicher himself?”

  “Yeah. Ostreicher is practically a super mage with how unique and powerful his prebuilt skillset is. He’s so fast that it sometimes seems like he is warping, and his attacks all have elemental effects, from Fire to Lightning, and he’s the type who’s always going to show up in person unless he’s got a scheme in the works. He rarely passes up the opportunity to fight.”

  The quest had just reached what felt like a safe spot, but it was about to be derailed again, and he wasn’t sure how he was going to handle it this time. He still had two or three hours until sunset, so no matter how long it took for that Were-Bear guardian to come, he’d probably make it in time, especially if he was as fast as they said.

  A blonde girl in blood-stained leather armor with her hair pulled back in a single long braid walked up and stuck her thumb out like she was approving something for an advertisement. “We can take him, boss,” she chimed optimistically.

  Lucas looked a little surprised at her calling him that. “Boss?” he asked curiously.

  Her expression turned to one of panic for a moment, and her eyes flickered over to Bonnie before she recovered. “Oh, uhh . . . I just thought . . . Never mind. I mean, we can handle it if you like, Lord Lucas!” she said, smiling from ear to ear.

  “He’s not a Lord; he’s a Baron,” a Dokkalfar wearing a caster’s robe that matched her silver hair added as she walked up and put a hand on the first girl’s shoulder. “You should really pay attention if you’re going to be taking quests from him in the future.”

  “Right, Baron, but . . . Wait, is he still a Baron? I thought the quest notification said he was going against the nobles?” The blonde looked over at the pale-skinned Dokkalfar, and others began congregating around them in a small circle as they listened in on the conversation. “He rebelled against them, right? Doesn’t that make him like a prince, or a king, or a vagabond or something? How is his title still unchanged?”

  “This isn’t unusual,” the Dokkalfar explained, adopting the job of educating everyone listening. “Nobles fight each other all the time. In fact, vassals and nobles under a ruler will often and frequently skirmish when the reins of the actual king have loosened. If the king can’t control his subjects, infighting is almost a guarantee. It’s much of what happened to England before Henry VII and was a constant strain on the Holy Roman Empire.”

  Lucas immediately recognized both of the references, but he didn’t let on. He still had to play the role of an evil NPC around everyone but those inside his inner circle.

  “Oh . . . then . . .”

  “Then you two should probably stop being rude and talking about someone as if he isn’t standing right here. You should include him in the conversation,” another woman interjected. It was the girl Lucas had saved earlier during the fight in front of the hotel by rushing her to triage.

  “Sorry!”

  “Sorry!”

  Both girls managed to look sheepish and embarrassed after the scolding, something that was displayed very differently in the pale-skinned Dokkalfar and the slightly-tanned blonde as their cheeks reddened.

  “There is nothing to apologize for,” Lucas said while doing his best to adopt a high and noble voice. “You ladies have done an amazing job for us today. I have to say, I am very surprised at how strong and powerful you have proven to be. Were it not for you, I do not believe I could have made it. Have no doubts that, as such, I plan on rewarding you handsomely for your efforts. I will find land and titles befitting those who have risked their lives for a humble noble such as myself instead of taking the side of foreign forces.”

  “Wait,” Bonnie said suddenly. “Wasn’t there some creepy mage guy making awful puns with us at the start of the fight? What happened to him?” Given how small the room was and how bright the mage’s outfit, it was easy to spot him after a moment of searching. He was lying face down near the back of the room by the windows. He hadn’t just been killed: he had been brutally eviscerated. It looked like whoever had killed him had gone out of their way to make sure that he suffered every possible second of his death. He had been reverse-flayed, with many of his tendons and muscles ripped out through deep cuts while leaving the skin intact.

  “That’s messed up,” one of the girls commented, and a few others began backing away from that corner after noticing his body there. “How do you even do that in a fight with everything else going on?”

  “I don’t k
now . . .” Lucas shook his head, and as he saw the horror on everyone’s face, he did his best not to show a smile. “But this is the type of barbarity we should expect from those traitorous men.” He glossed over the fact that basically all of his followers were traitors themselves. They had abandoned their parties, friends, and lovers to join him, but he didn’t want them to think about that. Instead, he was doing his best to tap into his inner scummy politician as he demonized their opponents. “Us? We fight to live. We fight for honor, for glory, for riches and wealth that have been denied to us. But for them? They don’t have to fight. They’re only here to kill, to butcher us, and to torture us for entertainment. They’re monsters.”

  Everyone started to look a little apprehensive, but their eyes couldn’t be drawn away from the dead pyromaniac. Lucas had done a lot of grotesque things in this game, but whoever had mangled this man’s body had managed to one-up most of his attempts at butchery. Lucas paused as he struggled to come up with the right words to demonize the people attacking him and captivate his audience the same as the savagery did.

  “But no matter how monstrous they are,” Lucas continued, “we can protect ourselves from this type of thing in the future if we work as a team. Together, against these cruel heathens, we can scratch out a sense of safety and peace that we could not earn without each other’s help.” He paused and let his eyes wander across the room while trying to gauge their reaction.