by Jeff Sproul
It would hit them in a matter of seconds. He took several steps back, then looked around quickly, then back to the hand. There was no time.
It rushed past the rooftops.
Riley pulled his arms up, hoping to mitigate some of the damage from what he knew might kill him outright.
With half-lidded eyes, he saw a streak of bright lightning coming at an angle from the sky behind them. The lightning cracked the ground between him, Laura, Red, Green, and other NPCs that were still in the nearby buildings or cowering behind barricades.
CRASH!
A gust of wind rushed past him, almost knocking him down.
Where once there was only the darkness and shadow of the descending hand, there was now a large blue light. It was a wireframe of energy, much like the one of the fist that had crushed him earlier, but this one was in the form of a shield. A shield the size of the world boss’s hand.
Then, Riley saw him. A white cape, and a suit of metallic blue armor. He had long black hair and dark skin. His hair wisped in the intense gush of air that had been created when the hand slammed into the enormous shield, looming just above all of their heads about two stories up.
“Paladin?” Riley whispered. All he could do was smile, as yet again, he found himself saved in an otherwise dire situation.
A hand smacked his back. He turned and saw Laura stepping up beside him. “I think Paladin’s going to need a buff,” she prompted.
“Right,” Riley swallowed and nodded. He shook the surprise from his mind and went back to work. He launched his cord up into one of the dark fingers above their heads and stole more of the monster’s essence.
Paladin’s right hand moved, and with a gesture, a blue wireframe sword appeared, matching the same style of the shield with the electrical blue energy. Paladin gripped his right hand into a fist, and began to swing his arm, as if he was holding it. The sword was easily as tall as Paladin was, but not nearly as large as the shield. The almost ethereal-looking sword slashed and cut into the monster’s hand, causing more of its blood to spurt out to the street below. Red and Green had to focus on parts of the hand that weren’t blocked by the shield, and they joined in on the fight.
“Paladin, buff incoming!” Riley called as he threw his cord to him.
The spear-tip clanged and fell uselessly to the ground, only to be drawn back to Riley.
“Target my left hand, kid!” Paladin called back.
Riley felt a tinge of embarrassment. He wasn’t even thinking. He was just so caught up in everything going on, and that Paladin of all players, was actually there with them.
“Sorry!” Riley yelled.
Laura laughed from beside him. “Noob,” she said, shaking her head.
Riley ran to the left a ways, to get a better angle on Paladin. He launched his spike again, and managed to catch his bare left hand, right in the back. Paladin had lifted that arm, as if he was holding an actual shield, but wasn’t moving it.
The monster’s essence flowed into Paladin, empowering him as it had the others. When Riley’s spear-tip detached, he heard a heavy “Thanks!” come from Paladin, who was still attacking with the materialized sword.
The monster’s hand pulled back from the shield. Its blood leaked around the street, as it retook a hold of the roof it had been on earlier. “Bout time!” the orange tentacle wielder shouted, as he began stabbing into the hand again with his tendrils.
The giant shield shrunk to the same size as the roughly six-foot sword. Paladin pulled both weapons down in front of him and looked up to the monster’s head, which was surrounded by blue mist coming up from the other street.
“I need to get up on that roof in the center,” said Paladin.
“Can’t you just zap over there, like you just did?” asked Red Shotgun, who stood nearby.
“I used the cooldown on that item,” said Paladin. “I’m not good at climbing.”
“There’s a portal guy in the other street,” Laura called out to him. “But you’re gonna need to wait your turn big guy.”
Paladin turned his head and looked to Laura, but a series of blue lights appeared in the sky and drew his attention back up to the monster.
Twenty small blue portals materialized all around the boss. Then, twenty copies of Laura dropped down from all of them at once. Their purple hoodies fluttered above them as they dropped ten feet or so to land on the monster’s hands, arms, and even its neck and head. Without hesitation, they began to attack using a plethora of weapons, hacking and slashing away at the boss.
Laura held her new revolver and closed her left eye. She lifted her free hand, displaying a twenty-sided die for a moment, before crushing it in her fist. She spun the chamber and pulled the trigger.
A single red bullet streaked up at the monster, catching it in its right eye, causing it to close as its mouth opened in a terrible roar.
“I pissed it off!” Laura said as she covered her ears, along with everyone else.
Riley held his hands tight to his ears as the monster’s head swung from side to side, roaring as it did. The sound disoriented some of Laura’s copies, but they all kept their footing and continued their attack.
The boss’s roar ended, and Riley noticed Paladin running for the mid-street.
A bit of movement pulled Riley’s attention further up the street.
Three individuals ran towards him. The one in the middle had tanned skin, short frosty blue hair, blue pants, and a white blouse. She was ahead of the other two, and as she got closer, she brought her hands up and clasped the base of her palms together and aimed up to the nearby hand.
A stream of snow shot from her palms. But it wasn’t just snow, it was sleet and hail, mixed with a freezing element. It was like a concentrated and directed stream of a snowstorm.
She froze part of the roof of the house, but also froze the side of the hand she could see. In doing so, she was anchoring it to where it was. It was also likely that her powers caused freezing damage per second to the boss.
The guy to her right wore a pair of green cargo pants and a tight gray shirt. He had pale skin and red hair. He veered off, following Paladin into the mid-street.
The guy to her left took up a position nearby and held his hands out to the ground. He had narrow eyes, short black hair and wore a gray suit. His hands took on a gray energized glow, and then a stream of particles raced from his fingertips, as if he was spraying the ground with them.
Riley wasn’t sure what he was doing, but decided to use the opportunity to steal more essence from Saros. “Pale red-haired guy! Buff incoming!” He called, before the guy got too far out of range.
The guy turned and noticeably nodded back to him.
Riley sent the cord over and buffed him up, but didn’t know what sort of abilities he had. These new arrivals didn’t have a PKer vibe from them, not that he had any qualifications to tell, as he was so easily tricked before. But at least this time, Paladin was in the area, along with Laura and her friends. There were more eyes on the battle and the surrounding area, making it harder for a single PKer to take advantage. He just hoped a PKer group didn’t come around, like those three cloak-wearers. That was the last thing they needed.
Once the pale guy was empowered, he focused on stealing more essence. Next up, he powered up the snow-shooter.
“Thanks!” she called back, seeming to have no issue with him sending the spike her way. It was likely that all the new arrivals had seen part of the battle on the news. The fight had been going on for a while already, and there was undoubtedly players in the nearby vicinity, pushing their live-feeds to various news organizations for profit. He wished he’d taken the initiative to set that up, but he hadn’t had powers for long, so it hadn’t been a concern. If he made it through this fight, he’d have to see what he could manage.
After empowering the snow-woman, he took more essence and looked to the guy wearing a gray suit. By the time he looked back to him, he noticed a gray wireframe statue standing about ten feet high in th
e street. It had a pyramid top to it. The guy’s hands lowered away from it and then he turned and started doing the same thing to the other side of the street, working on creating another pylon, it seemed.
Riley was about to ask what the hell the statue did, but before he could utter a word, the tip of the pylon began to glow and pulse. Several seconds later, a gray and white beam shot out in the direction of the monster. It was some sort of turret, or trap? That could shoot on its own?
Riley moved his arm to throw the spike out, but the guy seemed to notice. “Don’t tear the suit!” he said as he lifted his left hand out, which slowed the building process of the particles collecting on the ground. “Hit my palm!”
“Alright! Sorry!” Riley said, not thinking that someone would be that concerned about their clothing, when clothing was usually very cheap to mend in all sorts of places around town.
He threw the cord to catch on the guy’s palm, and transferred him the helping of monster essence. Upon doing so, the suited guy’s pylon and particles, took on a dark purple aura.
Riley looked around to see if he had missed anyone, as he then threw his cord back to take more essence from the world boss.
“Get to the other side,” said Laura from nearby. “I’ll stick with you, so no one tries PKing you again.”
Riley looked to her, his eyebrows raised. “You saw that?” he asked.
Laura smirked. “Yeah, there’s a few live feeds going, and the news anchor thought you were a goner until Red saved you.”
Riley sighed. “Glad I disappointed them.” He then turned and ran to the mid-street.
“Yeah, it was kinda sad,” said Laura, following after him. She’d only taken that first shot. She probably wanted to get the most out of her gun, which meant that she could only fire it when it was fully loaded. “Thought you were gonna bite it and lose those helpful powers.”
“Glad I could disappoint you too!” Riley called, without turning his head back to her, as he headed into the side street. Paladin was already on the other street, but the red-haired pale guy was kneeling in the center, between both streets.
“Are you ok?” Riley asked, nearing him.
“I’m fine, don’t worry about me,” said the guy kneeling.
“Alright,” Riley said, running past him, but glancing back to him, still a bit worried as to what he was actually doing.
Riley reached the end of the mid-street and looked around from the somewhat safe location, to size up the current situation on that side of the plaza. Everyone was pretty close to where they were before.
He took in a slow breath. Well, back to buffing everyone up again. He had a really exhausting power.
Chapter 18: Reinforcements
Paladin was deployed via portal, to one of the two-story structures in the center of the plaza. With rapid strikes from an enlarged energy sword, he managed to taunt the monster and draw its attention to him. Through the next hour of fighting, the boss launched numerous attacks upon the combatants. Each time it attacked with one of its hands, Paladin would block the blow with his shield.
Riley kept both sides buffed as long as he could and made the rounds back and forth, supporting everyone as best he could.
Riley also discovered what the pale red-haired guy’s power was, when the world-boss launched an area-of-effect attack, using the mist from his mouth.
Paladin used his shield to defend himself, but in the blink of an eye, a soft green aura expelled outward from the center of the mid-street and encompassed everyone in the plaza. The green field wrapped everyone in a tingling green glow that mitigated damage and healed a small portion of everyone’s health.
Riley learned that the guy’s name was Shell, and he was actually a paragon, like Snow, the wintry caster, and Constructor, the guy in the gray suit who was building auto-firing pylons. Shell only had the stamina capacity to create the protective ‘shell’ for about a minute, before he needed to regain his stamina. Luckily, there was usually a decent amount of time between attacks, which let Shell regain his strength.
Riley crossed back and forth and ended up back on Seth’s side, with Laura nearby, watching over him as his protective guardian.
Riley crouched behind a makeshift slab of concrete that Todd had pulled up for them to hide behind. Seth was on the right side, with Riley in the middle and Laura on the left.
“We’re closing in on it,” said Riley. “Looks like it’s at twenty, twenty-five percent?”
“I just wish I had my old powers!” Seth groaned. He then glanced over to Riley. “Not that I’m not grateful for this sweet clasp-weapon you lent me, but I think I’m a bit underpowered for this fight.”
“You’re probably equal to one of my clones, if that makes you feel any better,” said Laura, who had apparently learned about Seth’s situation at some point.
“I think I feel worse now,” Seth teased.
“Well, you better keep firing, else you might not qualify for any loot!” said Laura.
Seth groaned again and brought his arm up, to fire at the boss’s nearby arm, up above the rooftops.
“This fight’s taken forever,” said Laura.
Riley threw his cord out, and targeted nearby players, one by one. He no longer had to warn people, since everyone knew what he was doing. Not to mention that any new arrivals, had probably seen his powers in action on the news. There were still other players filing in from time to time, lending their powers to help fight Saros. One of the more recent players to join them, had told him that Saros was implemented in the last game update, but they didn’t know what had triggered him. It could’ve been a time-delay, or simply a percent chance per day. Or, there could’ve been some requirement that must’ve been met. It was hard to say, since the developers were so cryptic about how some of the content worked.
“I’ve already lost seven of my clones,” Laura murmured as she took aim with her revolver. She had another die in her hand, which she promptly crushed. She then spun the chamber and then took a shot with a loud bang.
“Hope Shell has that shield ready, looks like Saros is preparing another attack,” said Riley, as he watched the monster’s head lift back up into the sky.
“He should be ready,” said Laura. “But we would be smart to mitigate as much damage as we can, regardless.”
The entire while, numerous attacks were being thrown at the large world-boss. Energy bolts, discs, orbs, snow, javelins, acid, and regular cutting weapons like the ones Laura’s clones wielded.
Saros’s head came back down, its mouth opening as it lowered. There was no smoke or mist. There was no gathering of energy or bolts of purple light. Instead, an object was expelled from its enormous mouth.
The dark expelled mass fell to the roof of the same building Paladin was occupying. His energy weapons shrunk to a more manageable level of about six feet high, as he looked over to the object that had fallen to the other side of the roof.
The object remained still for several seconds, before the dark purple shadows fell away from it. The object moved, and stood up. With the dark purple shadows no-longer encasing it, its bleached chitinous exoskeleton could be seen. Its black eyes opened to peer out at Paladin. Its segmented legs and arms extended as it rose to its full height of about six feet.
Paladin smirked. “The White Weevil reveals itself,” he murmured to himself. He pulled his arm back. “You won’t last long enough to sway this fight!” he called out as he swung his blue energy sword at the awaiting skeletal-like monster.
The sword slashed at the monster—aptly named ‘White Weevil,’ by members of the Sigil Online community.
A white chitinous hand swept up in the blink of an eye, and caught the oncoming blade.
Paladin’s eyes widened, as the momentum of his attack and the blade itself, had been blocked by the rare monster’s hand. He hadn’t expected such speed or power behind a monster that had been able to control other creatures to terrifying effect. This rare spawn was going to be formidable after all.
Paladin rushed in with his shield brought close to his body. He slammed the shield into the White Weevil’s body, only to have it blocked by the monster’s other hand. Its hands then pulled side to side, drawing both armaments out, as it lifted a leg and promptly kicked Paladin square in the chest.
Paladin’s chest-armor dented in the center, as he was propelled back along the roof, smashing into the stone railing at the far end. His head hung off the roof, but he quickly pulled himself up.
Using his left hand, he gestured to bring up his inventory. With a single tap, he materialized an item in his hand. He brought it to his lips and drank it down. His hand obscured any visibility to what the liquid actually looked like. He then dropped the vial, for it to shatter against the roof. He pulled his weapons in closer, shrinking their size even further until he could grasp them directly with his hands.
“I won’t lose to some rare spawn filth!” Paladin proclaimed as he charged at the monster again.
From below in the street, Riley stared with wide eyes, up to the rooftop. He could see just the upper portions of their bodies, due to how far back he was in the street.
“Crap,” Seth muttered. “That thing’s here?”
“What the hell is that thing doing in a fight like this?” Laura asked. “This isn’t some dungeon fight! This fight was bad enough!”
“What are we going to do?” Riley asked, unable to tear his eyes away from the fight.
Paladin continued to attack the White Weevil with quick sword swipes. It seemed as though the smaller his energy blade was, the more wieldy it became. The White Weevil dodged and struck out with its legs and fists, only for Paladin to block the attacks with his shield and then follow up with a counterattack from his sword.
From what Riley could see, now that he’d focused the energy of his weapons into a smaller form, and drank whatever the vial had contained, he seemed evenly matched with the physical prowess of the White Weevil.
“I didn’t think the White Weevil was supposed to be that strong?” said Riley.
