Despite these victories, I could see that many of my army’s soldiers were already down. Hundreds of hobs lay dead, while the rest struggled to keep on fighting. The enemy still had a chance to overwhelm us with sheer numbers, and their archers kept taking a toll on our forces. The odds were still in our favor, but there was no reason not to make it into a sure thing.
I looked past the crumbled palisade and watched the field awash with green bodies as the foblins still tried to futilely charge the enemy’s rear line of defenders. Thousands of the small creatures were dead, but they were still pouring out of the four portals. All I had to do was help them break through and let them swarm over the enemy archers to ensure our victory.
I spotted Aidanriel’s form amidst the sea of green and frowned. The golem seemed to have been rooted in place and didn’t engage the enemy. What’s up with him? I asked Vic.
I briefly considered taking Broncar with me but rejected the idea. The enemy’s front-liners were right here, and the tier 4 boss, though wounded, was holding back a whole company on his own.
Leaving my clone behind to keep peppering the more densely clustered enemies with Direballs, I teleported behind the enemy lines.
I appeared next to Aidanriel and took in the scene with a scowl. Foblins swarmed all around us, fighting and dying by the hundreds as the enemy soldiers cut them down. The golem was frozen in the middle of a flailing attack, his unmoving limbs poised above the ground. “What the hell is wrong with you?”
I stared at him. You know they only got your body; they can’t gag your mind. Unfortunately.
What was it you were trying to say?
I glanced around the churning battlefield. “Where are they?”
“You lookin’ for me, fugly?” A lone figure stepped into the open before the golem and me. Ragnar.
Five figures holding long staves closed in on me from all sides. I narrowed my eyes. The five mages’ levels were in the higher two-digits. As one, they planted their staves in the ground. The air seemed to fracture as a cage of cascading energy appeared around Aidanriel and me, trapping us inside.
Instantly, I felt myself growing weaker as the mana that infused my muscles was leached away. My connection to my clone was severed, and all my equipment felt heavier. My Demon Staff kept thrumming with power, though.
I realized what was going on; the five mages had erected a cage of null magic around me. All my spell abilities and enchantments were disabled while it was in place. The Epic-ranked staff alone was powerful enough to maintain its enchantments, but I could tell its ability to channel my spells was similarly hampered. Under the powerful dome, it was only a powerful spear. I was at a serious disadvantage here, and Ragnar knew it.
Vic–
“Your ass is finally mine,” Ragnar snarled as he entered the glowing cage. His gear had similarly lost its enchantments, but unlike me, the player was a deadly fighter even without them.
“I’m sorry, but I don’t swing that way.” I swept my hand to gesture at the thousands of foblins around us. “Not judging your personal preferences here. I’m sure you could find a goblin who’ll accommodate you.”
He stopped his approach and his eyes narrowed in a sinister way. “You think yer funny, fugly? I’m gonna carve you up. Let’s see how good you fight without all ‘em flashy spells o’ yors.”
“Where’s your glowy scepter, Ragnar?” I taunted him. “Last time you only made a dent in me with its holy light. Really irritated my skin, I can tell you that.”
“I don’t need that god-cursed thing to take you down. I’m gonna shove my axe so far up yor ass, it gon’ make you its bitch.”
“Again with the innuendos? Told you already, I don’t swing that way.”
“Funny, fugly. I know all ’bout yor fancy piece o’ goblin tail. I’m gonna find her next, and the two of us are gonna play. Maybe even make a sister for yor kiddie to play with.”
Without waiting for my reply, he charged at me. Without mana to empower my body, I was too slow to dodge and too weak to block him. His axe broke through my frail attempt to parry with my spear, and the blade bit deeply into my forearm. He followed through with a shield slam, dropping me back to land on my butt.
The combined attack shaved five percent off my health.
I got to my feet and stared at him. “Are you being serious? At this rate, we’ll be standing here all day while you try to whittle me down.” I furrowed my brow. “Are you trying to make another pass at me?” Instead of waiting for the red-faced player’s response, I retracted my spear-staff and made a lunging strike at him.
Ragnar easily deflected the attack with his shield, though the Epic weapon left a deep groove along its steel surface. “Keep up the jokes,” he grunted. “I’m gonna enjoy carving you up bit by bit, then I’m gonna peel the armor you stole from me off yor corpse.”
“Spoils of war.” I shrugged as I regained my balance. “And actually, I should be thanking you.” I fumbled another dodge, and the player’s shield slammed into my face, breaking my nose. The pain was mildly annoying.
“Oh, there’s plenty more thanks where that came from,” the dwarf said ominously. With a flash, his shield redirected the tip of my staff upward then his axe came crashing down at the shaft.
I felt the last wisps of magic in my Dread Totem Gloves kick in, negating the disarm attempt. “Not gonna work.” I gave the dwarf a smug grin. “But anyway, that’s not what I meant when I thanked you just now. I’m guessing those five mages are the army’s strongest casters, and you’ve just brought them to me. But even more importantly, I’ve been looking for you . After this battle, I was planning on hunting you down. Thanks for saving me the trip.”
“You got me now,” he said mockingly. “What’cha gonna do about it, fugly?”
“Well …” I said conversationally, “after I freeze and disarm you, I’m going to tie you up and take you captive. I’m going to make sure no one kills you by accident, and I won’t allow you to commit suicide – can’t have that respawn mechanism whisk you away, can we? Then I’m going to sit you down, put a holy scripture in front of you, and make you translate it for me.”
“Ha!” he snorted. “Good one. And how are you gonna do all tha’ when ye ain’t got ’nough magic to stand up?”
I smiled. “Null magic prevents me from using most of my enchanted gear, that’s true. But I can still send messages to other players, and I just sent one to a friend. You should try looking up that term, by the way. Friends. They come in really useful sometimes.”
Ragnar halted, his eyes filling with doubt.
“Oh, didn’t I tell you?” I said pleasantly as I felt the ambient information tendrils shift. “I have backup.”
As if on cue, Lirian appeared out of the shadows behind the mages’ circle. Her black Outrider sword flashed, cleaving through two of the mages. It wasn’t enough to kill them, but more than enough to break their concentration.
The magical cage broke, and I felt strength surge back into me as mana shot through my veins. “Aidanriel, get the mages!” I shouted.
“You got it, mate,” the golem said cheerfully, reaching out with two tentacles and effortlessly picking up two of the uninjured casters while Lirian fell on the last one who hastily raised a glowing barrier around himself.
I looked back at Ragnar. The dwarf was warily stepping away from me, his eyes filled with apprehension.
“Remember when you said you didn’t need your glowy scepter to beat me? Well, you really, really did.”
I froze the player easily. Ragnar was only level
46, well within my ability to influence. I made my dagger hover in front of him, positioning it just between his eyes. “You’ll be a good boy and do as you’re told, yes?”
Naturally, the frozen player didn’t answer.
“Good. Now stay here; I have a battle to win.”
***
After killing the five high-level mages that helped brace the enemy’s rear, it was easy to breach their defenses. Several well-placed Direballs opened large gaps in their lines and the foblins flooded in. They rushed over the archers and support casters, climbing on them like small murderous children. In mere moments a third of their army was fleeing the savage foblins, outnumbered five to one.
Without their ranged support to hamper our forces, the enemy’s front-liners fell like flies under the combined forces of our hobs, kobolds, Ogres, and Broncar, who single-handedly slew more enemies than any ten other individuals combined.
From my faraway vantage point, I could see the army’s commander and his lieutenants fleeing on horseback, leaving behind a few squads to discourage pursuit.
It took a little longer to complete the mop-up, but after another hour, those who hadn’t run away were crushed and killed to the last man. My forces stood victorious over the broken bodies of our enemies.
Exhilaration and a drunk feeling of victory welled up inside me. We’d made it. We’d conquered a larger force that had come to destroy us. We broke them – body and spirit – and made them flee in terror.
God, it felt great to be a monster.
I returned to the trapped player who was still held frozen by my magic. Despite my mana dipping dangerously low during combat, I’d made sure I had enough to feed the force holding him.
Lirian and Savol, along with some of the other players, were standing around the trapped dwarf.
“Hi, man,” Malkyr said as I approached. “So, congratulations on winning this battle.”
His sister poked him on his side. “We all helped.”
Kyth chuckled. “Helped? I saw you and your squad take down an entire spellcaster group on your own.”
She shrugged. “I just went where Sullivan sent me.”
Aly looked at our elected strategist. “You and Oren make an effective team.”
Sullivan seemed embarrassed, so I stepped in. “I see you’ve all found our prisoner.”
Malkyr coughed uncomfortably. “Yeah, about that … some of us don’t feel comfortable holding another player against his will.”
Kyth nodded. “I know this guy is a pain in the ass, but he’s still a human; he has rights.”
I frowned at them. “This is war, and he’s a prisoner of war.”
“Yeah, man, but come on,” Malkyr said. “This is still just a game; we’re all just players, even if we can’t log out. You can’t take a real person as a prisoner of war in a virtual war.”
I looked at the other players. Some of them, like Hoshisu, seemed like they had no qualms about carving the captured player if they got the chance, but most of the rest nodded along with the big man’s words.
“You heard what he said last time we faced him,” I said. “He doesn’t care about any of the other players. He planned on torturing me, and probably any one of you he could get his hands on. Real world or not, pain and torture are still very real here. Trust me on that.”
“Then how do you plan on making him help us?” Kyth crossed his arms. “By torturing him yourself? Does that make you better than him?”
I scoffed. “Of course not.”
“Then what? I’d doubt he’ll help us out of the kindness of his own heart.”
“How about we just talk to him first,” Aly suggested. “Maybe we can reason with him?”
“Suit yourself,” I said. “Tie him up.”
A couple of hobs moved to the frozen dwarf with ropes and bound his arms tightly after relieving him of his weapons. Once they were done, I released the frozen player with a wave of my hand.
Ragnar growled at the players surrounding him. He was higher-level than most of them but couldn’t do much in his current condition.
“So what do you say, kid?” Kyth asked in a friendly tone. “How about helping some fellow players out? This war was sort of fun, but it’s time for those of us who are trapped here to work together.”
“Ya’ll‘re a bunch of wussies!” Ragnar glared at me. “That’s the guy who put ya’ here and threw away the key, and you’re dancing like a bunch o’ monkeys to everything he tells ya’.” He spat on the ground. “I ain’t gonna lift a finger to help any of ya’. Not one of ya’s worth a shit.”
“Told you,” I said.
Malkyr tried next. “Come on, man. Be reasonable; you can’t tell me you enjoy living out there on your own. Those NPCs can be cruel.”
“You ain’t seen what real cruel is, boy.” Ragnar spat again. “I’ve seen cruel like ya wouldn’t believe. I know what I know, and I know who the enemy is. Give me a weapon, and I’ll show you what’s what.”
Nero stepped forward. “You have allied yourself with the forces of evil. Now is your chance to repent, fight for the common good.”
Ragnar chuckled humorlessly. “That’s rich coming from a ruddy monster.”
Pandamonium, the crazed female player, said, “You will help us or I’ll break every bone in your body. I’ll cut off your legs and make you crawl around on your stumps if you keep that up.”
“Ha!” Ragnar chuckled genuinely this time. “Someone did a real number on you, eh, girl? Bring it on; we’ll see who cries first.”
“Stop,” I said when Panda reached for the greataxe strapped to her back. “There’s another way.”
“Do your worst, fugly,” the dwarf uttered, looking at me with eyes full of hate. “I ain’t never gonna help ya.”
“Sure about that?” I asked as I closed in, drawing a crumbling scroll from my inventory.
“As sure as you’re ugly.”
“What is that?” Sullivan asked.
“This?” I waved the scroll for all of them to see. “It’s just a simple Race Change spell.”
The widened eyes around me showed that everyone knew what it meant.
“Dude!” Malkyr breathed in awe. “That thing is worth like a million gold.”
“Yep, exactly a million. And it can’t be bought, only found.”
Ragnar lunged forward. Despite the ropes, his legs were free, and his higher level allowed him to barrel through the ring of players. He made it four meters before a thick metallic limb wrapped around him and reeled him back in.
“Thanks,” I said to the golem.
“You got it, mate.”
I held up the scroll and saw uncertainty reflected in the captured dwarf’s eyes. “Don’t worry,” I said. “This won’t hurt a bit, you can take my word for it.”
Then I started casting the spell. The scroll crumbled away after every word as I read it. Swirling, multi-colored lights encircled the captured dwarf.
The golem released his hold, and Ragnar fell to the ground, convulsing. His body transformed, slimming down. The ropes binding him fell away as his limbs thinned and elongated, and a chitinous shell formed around him. Ragnar’s head morphed, his eyes drifting apart, becoming larger and multi-faceted. Mandibles grew out of his mouth, his neck elongated, and his torso transformed into an insectlike thorax.
The defeated player looked around dazedly with his new bifurcated eyes. He had turned into a goblin-sized ant person. He was back to level 1, and all his skills and traits had vanished. A small pile of equipment lay on the ground around him, having been ejected from his inventory and body alike.
But I wasn’t done yet.
I looked down at the shocked player. “As a defeated monster , I hereby claim you as a new member of the GreenPiece Clan.”
The blackness around us rushed to climb onto Ragnar’s body, darkening his exoskeleton and leaving ebony stripes behind.<
br />
“You’re now a monster just like the rest of us,” I said. “You can no longer go into civilized areas, or you’ll be killed on sight. And when that happens, you’ll always respawn at one of our settlements.” I chuckled. “Welcome to the GreenPiece Clan, brother.”
14 - Introspection
The group looked at the transformed player with a mix of awe and shock.
Malkyr shuddered. “I think I speak for everyone here when I say … holy crap!”
I gave the ex-dwarf a few moments to recuperate and turned to Sullivan. “Congratulations on the success of your first campaign.”
He smiled weakly. “Thank you, Chief.”
“I have to admit, I didn’t see those foblins coming. We had over 10,000 back in the clan, too many to quickly move around onto an active battlefield, but somehow you made them come in quickly.”
The strategist nodded, throwing another apprehensive glance at the transformed player. “I sent orders in advance to Goblin’s Gorge to split the foblins among all of our other portal-connected settlements. As soon as you opened a portal behind the enemy line, it connected to one of those settlements, so we received them from four concurrently.”
“Smart,” I said approvingly.
Savol approached and bowed his head respectfully. “Savol finish after-battle assessment.”
“Report, General.”
“All warriors become stronger, level up. Lower ones even got two whole levels.” The purple-caped goblin’s expression fell. “Many, many died … half the army …” he swallowed hard, “… and 4,000 goblins.”
Lirian approached the aching general and put a comforting hand on his shoulder. “You did your best. Thanks to you, many others still live.”
“I gotta hand it to the little guy,” Kyth said. “His contribution was substantial. His skills allowed the soldiers to hold the line for several more precious minutes, buying the rest of us the time we needed to regroup and even up the odds. Without him, that mad dash of energy the enemy received would have ripped our formations apart.”
I looked back at the downcast goblin. “Good job, Savol.” His information tendrils showed that all his skills had increased significantly. “We have more wars ahead of us, and I’m counting on you to lead us to victory.”
Life Reset: Conquest (New Era Online Book 5) Page 25
