The Copper Rose

by David Lingard

  The apparition of people emerging from the smoke didn’t seem to stem as more and more people billowed from the abyss and they didn’t seem to be stopping or even slowing down although I was sure that they could see me. When my eyes focussed and they drew nearer I could make out Theodore at the head of the group, with Sano stood to his right. I took the opportunity to analyse the pair.

  Name: Theodore

  Level: 32

  Race: Human/Male

  Attributes:HP: 345/345MP: 20/20

  Strength:-Unavailable-

  Wisdom:-Unavailable-

  Social:-Unavailable-

  Skills: -Unavailable-

  Equipment:-Unavailable-

  Name: Sano

  Level: 25

  Race: Human/Male

  Attributes:HP: 212/212MP: 20/20

  Strength:-Unavailable-

  Wisdom:-Unavailable-

  Social:-Unavailable-

  Skills: -Unavailable-

  Equipment:-Unavailable-

  It appeared that they had done some levelling, and at a paultry level ten, I knew I would pose no threat against even one of them alone, let alone an army. I spared a moment to analyse some of their companions and learned that they were all between levels five and fourteen, so although compared to their leaders they were pretty weak, to me and mine they still posed somewhat of a threat, with the higher levels amongst them still able to even take most of us in one on one combat. The only thing we had going for us was the sheer number of our defending army, safely hidden away behind my obstructive berm – thank god we had created that little structure!

  Some of the approaching enemies had taken a little damage however, not much to be too concerned about, but one or two were as low as half health presumably from fighting the forest dwellers on their pilgrimage to my Creek. I wasn’t complaining as I knew that I was about to need all the help that I could get.

  I knew that time was up, and that this was to be the testing moment for myself and all of the creatures in my care so I inhaled sharply and did my best to project my voice as calmly as I could muster.

  “Theodore! Sano!” I called to no response. The advancing party didn’t falter even a single step.

  “This is your last warning! Leave this place!” I shouted. The party once again didn’t so much as falter.

  I knew there was nothing that I could do that would deter their advance so I turned around on my defensive berm to return to let my army know what was about to happen, but as my eyes fell back towards where I expected to see my village alive with the morning’s movements something very different presented itself to me.

  Every single inhabitant of Coyote Creek had arranged themselves in stoic formation and ranks behind me, below the berm. Not one of them looked worried, nervous or even fazed – each sporting armour and weapons where they were available, or otherwise branches, sticks and stones where they weren’t. I felt like a Roman leader about to command his legions and I let a devious smile wash across my face. Perhaps this wasn’t going to go as poorly as I had expected after all.

  The berm itself was still flat-facing the advancing enemy, so they’d have to either go over or through the newly placed earth – not a particularly difficult task with uncompacted matter but a time consuming one at least. I gave a little thought to the skills that Theo and Sano or their companions might have had and if they would make the task any quicker but there was little else I could do other than speculate.

  I descended the berm to the head of my army in place to give my orders to the closest of my allies for them to relay to the ranks as I couldn’t risk being overheard. Almost as soon as my feet hit the level ground I could hear the digging start on the far side of my earthen wall.

  I quickly gave my orders.

  “Everyone with the highest health and shields to the front, keep narrow focussed on this area here,” I widened my arms into a ‘v’ shape where I estimated the digging was coming from. “When they come through your job is to keep them pressed into their tunnel. If they can’t all get through then we will have the advantage. Behind them anyone with ranged weapons, bows, rocks, spears, things like that so that while the big guys hold them back you do the damage. Anyone else, make sure there are ample supplies of weapons and ammunition.” My plan was to utilise normal game mechanics of tanks, DPS and support as I still had the feeling that this could be the key to our victory.

  The orders rippled through my ranks followed by movements into the corrected positions, it was strange just how good they were at taking orders actually, like they had done it a thousand times before and eventually they were still again, with three giant ogres holding horizontal tree trunks like barriers along the wall. They made Bones, who had been summoned by Rachel and who had grown considerably since I’d first seen him, look more regular sized than I could have ever imagined. Behind them were a few of the more muscular looking orcs and the other ogres, bugbears, some hobgoblins and Grish, who was looking tiny in comparison but evidently recognised his place amongst his peers. Behind them were the troops carrying bows and spears – all of my goblins namely, plus any other creature that had managed to find something that they could throw. I smiled at my forethought but only long enough to see the dirt starting to fall away from the wall and dirty fingers start to claw their way through. The wall had been breached.

  I knew my place – as a healer and of a much lower level than most of our newer allies and of course the enemy, it was at the back of the group so that I could cast my healing spells where necessary. I didn’t really like to think of myself as a coward, hiding behind my allies but that’s what it started to feel like once the first blows had been exchanged.

  The ogres were doing their job well in holding the enemy within their hastily scratched out tunnel – only two enemy combatants were visible at any given time and the gap that they’d created was so small that our ranged troops were able to whittle their health down to almost nothing within seconds. Once they had fallen and the next pair didn’t appear at the tunnel entrance, I could tell that they were seeing if we would advance in our overconfidence and do the hard work for them. Thankfully I was not so naïve. Another pair of enemies arrived at the tunnel entrance when they had no choice but to break the stalemate and once again my troops dispatched of them with little effort.

  Again there was no movement as the enemy seemed to be deciding what to do next, and that is when they managed to change the course of the battle with one swift action.

  I remembered when watching them siege the city when I had first entered Freedom that I had seen bolts of blue light – magic – flying across the battlefield and had never really put too much thought into it, until now. As the memory was firmly recounted, a bright blue ball of flames at least five feet in diameter billowed out of the tunnel and widened it to allow for at least four men at a time to get through – and that is what started to happen, until a second ball of flames erupted from the wall next to where the first had come from, widening their breach even further. This happened once more on the other side of the initial entrance, allowing for a proper advance of the enemy army – war in its proper form had arrived.

  I quickly cast my healing aura spell on the front line, which actually took all of my MP by the time I was through but I knew how important those tanks were to our plans. The fireballs had taken a good chunk of health from each of them with Bones being the worst affected – although I was unsure whether it was because he was of a lower level than the rest or if he had some unknown weakness to magic, or fire, or…blue?

  It wasn’t long until my first ally fell, one of the ogres took one too many arrows and spearheads and with a loud groan fell forwards, flat onto his face. The bonus of this, if one could be so morbid as to attribute it as such, was that his enormous body went some way to blocking up the breach in our wall and the enemy soldiers had to climb and clamber to get around him, temporarily distracting them and allowing my own ranged troops to get in some well-placed shots.

  It was no good though
, there were simply too many enemies emerging from the berm and eventually all of the ogres, as well as Bones had fallen. My defensive front line had perished and Theodore’s men were now streaming through and mingling with my own troops. I tried to heal whenever I could but my mana was depleted almost straight away.

  I could see Theodore and Sano within the fighting, each cutting down goblin, ogre, hob and anything else that they could get their hands on almost three at a time each. It seemed that we weren’t having much of an effect in slowing down their slaughter no matter what we tried. The tide of battle was turning out of our favour now that the battlefield had been opened up, as the enemy were now too strong and numerous to contend with.

  My troops became thinner and thinner until I could see the daylight between them. Hundreds had been reduced to dozens and I could tell that we hadn’t even taken down a quarter of the opposing army. Theodore was actually laughing as he dismembered four goblin warriors at once and I could see Sano practically licking his lips whenever he caught a glimpse of any of the female members of my troops. There was no way out for us, the day was lost and there was nothing that I could do about it.

  “Huzzaaah!” Theodore let the cry reign out as he lifted his arms into the air and his troops followed suit in their cry of victory. My heart sank.

  That was when Theodore decided to make a beeline for where I stood. I wondered if I should just turn and run, forget everything and save myself but something kept my feet firmly planted on the ground. Ten feet away, nine, eight… my window was closing until Ushuk leapt onto Theodore’s back seemingly from nowhere and plunged his little knife into the man’s shoulder. I watched a sliver of health fade from Theodore’s health bar but he cried out in pain and surprise nonetheless. Theodore wrestled for a moment to remove my green companion from his back and eventually caught hold of his arm. With one swift flick, Ushuk hit the floor with an ‘oof’ at Theodore’s feet and before I could cry out in dismay, the shiny silver sword that was already stained red and black with the blood of my allies penetrated and dispatched my best friend. He didn’t make a sound, or if he did I was silent to everything around me now.

  Theodore practically wept with happiness when he saw the look of disgust on my face and his smile telegraphed that glee. He resumed his approach to me completely unimpeded and again I chose to stand my ground.

  My hands had been empty up to this point but at my feet sat a long wooden spear, tipped with a sharpened stone head. Coming to my senses I stooped, picked it up, waited for Theodore to take another step and launched it at him with all of my passion and might. I watched the shaft sail through the air pivoting slightly before Theodore shifted his head just a few inches to one side and it sailed right past him and stuck into the ground a few feet behind him.

  Theodore’s smile widened and in a few more paces he bore down on me and stopped.

  “I think I’m going to enjoy this,” he sneered and he placed both of his hands around my neck. I’d never felt a grip so tight as his and as I struggled to release it, I felt my feet coming off of the floor. My vision started to haze and the sounds of battle began to skip and stutter as my mind began to switch off, starved of the blood and oxygen that it needed to operate. I forced my consciousness to stay with me through the stars that danced menacingly in my field of view, but I knew that everything was going to be gone by the time I made it back. My army, my settlement, my friends. Everything.

  A blur caught my eye over Theodore’s shoulder, up on top of the berm. Well lots of blurs actually. I couldn’t make them out, but I was sure that there were people atop my defensive mound and as they began to glow bright, eye-watering blue I managed to think to myself ‘oh for fuck sake’ before allowing unconsciousness to take me. ‘What else could go wrong?’

  Well it turned out that a lot more could go wrong, but lucky for me this time it went wrong for someone else. I regained my consciousness a few moments after Theodore had blacked me out to the sight of (amongst stars and dizziness) Theodore and all of his men surrounded by a translucent neon blue mist that swirled and danced as though it were alive. It seemed to have two main effects that I could discern, one, none of my enemy were moving at all, they appeared to have been ‘stopped’ by the mist and two, through their stillness I could discern the absolute and abject terror in their eyes, and that made me very happy indeed.

  I raised myself to my feet and looked around at the remainder of my troops as they pretty much scratched their heads and kicked at the mud, unsure of what to do next. I took the lead and punched Theodore square in the nose.

  You hit Theodore for 5 damage

  That was fun.

  You hit Theodore for 5 damage

  You hit Theodore for 5 damage

  You hit Theodore for 5 damage

  I could almost laugh out loud and my troops quickly caught on and followed suit, beating their previously overwhelming enemies to veritable pulps.

  Theodore could take lots of hits. Well, sixty-five to be exact and although it made me seem a little cowardly and perhaps a little underhanded I knew I would enjoy each and every blow. As a nice added bonus, by the time that I removed his last sliver of health the rest of my troops had encircled us, having finished their own little battles and were all cheering me on.

  “This…is…for…Ushuk!” I panted as I planted my foot in Theodore’s groin.

  You have gained the skill Combat: Unarmed

  Through determination, perseverance and sheer willpower, you have gained the skill Combat: Unarmed. With this skill, you will find it much easier to cause harm to your enemies whilst unarmed.

  Theodore and all of the other bodies littering the battlefield dissolved into the ground after just a few moments and I could tell that the war was over. I scanned the crowds for my friends, Rachel, Snafu, Songa, Rok or any other familiar faces but I could either not locate them or they simply weren’t there for me to see.

  What I did see, however, were the figures descending from atop the berm heading in my direction. I could see there were at least ten of them now but although few in number I could recognise their sheer power, and my own inability to protect myself from them. The crowds parted and the first stranger approached me.

  “…Quintus?!” I exclaimed in shocked relief. “What? How?” I struggled to ask the right question so just blurted out “Why do you keep showing up?”

  I couldn’t be sure, but I was almost positive at least that the wisp-like elf winked at me before he spoke.

  “The forest will always fight to defend itself when threatened and your rallying cry was heard by the people of my city.” He explained calmly. “You have achieved victory at a great cost, too great a cost I fear.”

  My thoughts fell to Ushuk. “I know,” I said quietly. “And I think they’ll be coming back.”

  “Back?” Quintus asked quickly, “to the forest you mean?”

  “To find the village again. People like that will never stop,” I explained.

  “Well I think that we…may have a solution for you.” Quintus said matter-of-factly. “We have been given permission,” he gestured to the rest of his party “to invite you and your village to become a part of the Woodland Alliance, as your settlement became a city not long ago.”

  “A city?” I said aloud. Could I have missed the notification? I checked the settlement information panel and indeed Coyote Creek was now listed as a city. We only had two hundred and three inhabitants but we were a city nonetheless. I could only assume that our quick population boom had caused the upgrade and that a normalising fall had not undone the fact.

  “What does that mean?” I asked Quintus who was patiently waiting for me to work my way through these new facts.

  “Well the spell you saw, it is called The Veil and is a very special kind of magic. My partners and I can cast The Veil permanently over your city to prevent this sort of thing from ever happening again.” He explained.

  “The Veil?” I asked.

  “The Veil.” He confirmed.

&n
bsp; “No, I mean tell me how it works.” I said.

  “Well it has been many years since The Veil has been used on a new settlement, as almost none reach the size that Coyote Creek has managed to in its short time but the salient facts are these: The Veil causes everything inside it to shift out of phase in a manner of speaking, that is, everything inside cannot be seen, touched or interacted with in any way – other than in some extreme circumstances. The spell must be cast by a select few individuals in unison for it to be permanent, actually that is why we are here now.”

  “So why could we kill the attackers if we can’t interact with them?” I asked almost as soon as Quintus stopped speaking, the thought popping into my mind.

  “Well that was a bit of a modified version of the spell if you must know but it works in almost the same way. When we cast the spell over your village, anyone that you choose can be allowed to pass through The Veil at their leisure, anyone else will be unaware of its, or your, presence.” He explained.

  This all seemed too good to be true to me, and although I was never one to turn down a free meal, I also knew that if something was too good to be true that it probably was.

  “and the catch is?” I enquired with a squint.

  “um…well…” this was the first time that I had seen anything but complete assuredness in Quintus. “as a default, all of the members of the Woodland Alliance would be…invulnerable to your Veil, and you to theirs.”

  Although I could see why this could be seen as a stumbling block for Quintus, I felt as though that little detail wasn’t as much of a problem as he thought, after all without The Veil, we would be in exactly the same situation.