The Battle

by D. Rus

  Finally, a loud bang rang out over the enemy castle. It was as if a bunch of rampageous gods had knocked a three-hundred-foot wall down with a brick. That’s it, Medium Dome’s baked.

  The enemy safety zone shrank all the way back to their castle walls. The Minor Dome Shield artifact ran at full capacity, barely stretching itself out enough to cover the majestic Nova. A guaranteed energy overexpenditure for the Chinese.

  And now, for the real blow. The shell-shocked Badaboom took out his third scroll. At this point, the Chinese were no doubt shouting into all the alliance’s channels, demanding tens of thousands of reinforcements to teach the insolent Russians a lesson.

  Surely, they’d get their reinforcements. But they wouldn’t be anything extreme or impossible to beat. Flint had tied up most of the free powers.

  A few minutes ago, a hundred castles had lost their shields. Scores of assailants burst into Control Rooms. Therefore, all the castles needed reinforcements immediately. To withdraw whole ranks, to put them back on their feet and ready for a new fight was no quick task.

  The clanging of chains, thunder, and shaking ground made me look up in alarm.

  The drawbridge, which had been covering the vulnerable gates up until now, dropped across the moat. Boots thundered over the wooden bridge as all the NPCs incapable of long-range combat rushed out. That included everyone from the sinister guards armed with spears to cooks with heavy tavern knives.

  Hoping to crush the Mobile Dome, the Chinese sent out all their hand-to-hand combat forces. They didn’t dare send players because if we took over the battlefield, they’d be cut off from the players’ graves for the next three hours.

  I’d give them a C+ for their efforts. Theirs was an act of desperation rather than a real threat.

  Now had our Dome been poorly built, spluttering on its empty tank as it sucked the mana from the last crystal, their suicide attack might’ve worked. They’d cost us some HP, so their chances of success were above zero.

  Our warriors were tired of waiting and met the enemy with joyful cries. The full mana pools intoxicated them. The ticking timers of the short-lived buffs craved blood. Seeing our cover wizards faint only fueled their thirst for revenge.

  Crossbows clanged. Bow strings twanged against arm guards. Spears, darts, and other flying steel slashed the sky to the accompaniment of groans.

  A horde of pets raced forward. The astral world moaned, twisting as hundreds more wizards joined the fight.

  The clan chat flooded with bewildered messages. The people grew indignant. The world lagged, lengthening the time it took to cast a spell. The chances of making a mistake or losing concentration sharply increased. Mana restoration speed noticeably dropped. The temperature grew cooler.

  Damn, did our wars stir things up. We sucked the astral world’s energy like parasites, quickly transforming it into thousands of magic formulas.

  But playtime was over. The real game physics could not realize all of the game designers’ wants. Mana didn’t just appear from nowhere. It had certain properties, including quantity parameters, density per square foot, regeneration speed, and the Fallen One knows what else.

  Indeed, we were in for several more surprises. Reality is no treat. It didn’t have 500-level wizards for us who could crack a planetoid by lifting an eyebrow. The world sought balance, which was completely understandable.

  Full-blown wars for sources of magic were a guaranteed thing of the future. Accumulating crystals would go up in price. Where were we getting them now? That’s right: buying them from merchant NPCs at any wizard guild for solid gold. Not a bad extra income for the admins, for there was no known recipe for making crystals yourself.

  But what about the day when the game algorithms would fail, and the merchandise one fine morning would not get regenerated?

  Are not fantasy books a sort of prophecy? They tell of tiny power rocks the size of your pinkie nail that cost as much as a downtown villa. Was this not what was going to happen in a thousand years from now?

  I could tell even from where I stood that one accumulator in the cart had cracked. Now imagine that replacements couldn’t be purchased? A calamity.

  My greedy pig made a note that ten percent of the available budget should go into buying crystals. And also crystal fragments. It didn’t matter that they were useless now. I could see our great-grandchildren kissing the feet of our statues, thanking us for saving up these treasures.

  Yes, I shall have my own statue! Yes, a large one! No, not of gold! They’ll melt it down, that’s why! But the Granite of Pharos, on the other hand, is indestructible after a magic treatment. That’s it, now write it down!

  Dividing up my consciousness, I jotted my thoughts down in my planner as I encouraged the greedy piggy within. My eyes were fixed upon the rapidly unraveling massacre.

  We held up all right. The golems hit from the flanks and trampled the assailants into the mud. The kamikaze NPC horde had cost us another crystal – a hundred thousand gold wasted. These crystals were just not made for fast energy discharge. They burned up like flimsy wires under an immense load.

  The bloody action did not prevent Badaboom from finishing reading the High Spell. He fell to the ground, crushed by the recoil a mere second after the destruction of the enemy dome.

  The Chinese instantly lost interest in the overpowered enemy spot. They took cover behind the spiked bridge again and froze, refilling their mana and awaiting an attack on the gates.

  The magic flame slowly died down. The long-lived DoTs fine-tuned their cycles. Puddles of acid fumed everywhere. Clouds of poisons began to dissipate. Only the enemy’s NPC archers kept firing as no one had told them to stop.

  When Badaboom crawled out, heavily shell-shocked and spitting out pieces of his lungs, he instantly got pumped full of sharp arrows.

  A smart spotter sat in one of the towers. The siege machines opened up with blanket fire, hitting the dense ranks of Chinese hard. The loss counter went through the roof.

  The warriors that got away with a sixteen-foot spear in their gut saw the end of their career underneath a fridge-sized big-ass stone.

  Upon respawning at the bind point, each warrior sent a clan stealth character to retrieve their grave, then awaited their turn to resurrect. The Chinese had NPCs operating their machines. Thus each death took away precious XP points.

  I charged at the gunners with my guards. It was time for phase two of the operation. I had doubts about our success as it depended heavily on the half-finished creations of one mad genius.

  The restless Gimmick was already pulling the tarpaulin from the massive ammo carts, impatiently spurring on the slow-witted loader ogres.

  I completely understood the NPCs. A Gunner Droid left without power had been fitted into the ancient vehicle, crushing its wooden sides. It was the two-ton mini-boss from Station-8.

  Quite a sight for a fantasy world.

  "Come on, lift him outta there! Don’t fret! Ya couldn’t break ‘im if ya tried; he’s a solid mithril-based armor-composite!" Gimmick yelled, slightly swelling with pride as he searched my face for approval.

  "You kick ass, no doubt! How many did you bring?"

  "Four, plus some smaller ones. I woulda brought more, but the right 6th Generation Processing Units and Modular Memory Slot kits are hard to come by. External weapons also required some thinking through. We hoarded everything that was compatible with the Droid’s universal fire-control system."

  "Gotcha!" I interrupted the understandably proud expert and snapped at the ogres myself, "Take them to the trebuchets. Snowie, help these weaklings!"

  Snowie chuckled and slung his wonder-club over the back of his divine armor. Grabbing the lugs of the Droid’s external armor, he raised the Droid over his head.

  He looked around for Bomba, who was now holding the first line together as she bestowed a photogenic smile upon the guard taking screenshots. Sinking into the ground, Snowie marched to the trebuchets.

  "Here! Set it here!" Gimmick fussed, poi
nting at the wide trebuchet pouch.

  Checking the strap anchors on the Droid’s homemade parachute system, he snatched a Power Crystal off his belt and carefully stuck it into the complex slot. Closing the latch, Gimmick looked around and quietly ordered,

  "And now, beach party’s over!"

  Then he signaled to one of the orcs. "Now!"

  The trebuchet’s beam went down, hit the counterweight stopper and sent the Droid flying. Gimmick quickly yet lovingly brushed the controls, bringing the machine into action, then swiftly stepped aside.

  The Droid’s faceted eyes began to glow. It wanted to get up but immediately crouched, absorbing the throw of the catapult.

  Whoosh, the twelve-ton counterweight went down. The sling shot up, sending the Chinese our surprise.

  In the first second of its flight, the Droid flipped over like an agile cat, pointing its gun barrels right at us.

  The tiny laser dots found our frozen bodies. We made anime eyes in fear. The Droid fired plasma at us in huge amounts.

  "Danger!" cried Gimmick, instinctively throwing himself into a crack between two stones, thus demonstrating impressive agility.

  "Shit," was all I could say as I dove behind a heap of troll guards' bodies.

  Now I understood why Gimmick got beat up in the Crypt. Inventor my ass!

  Plasma looms went straight through the bodies and the trebuchets. They blew up any rocks they hit. Burning shrapnel showered us from all sides, pounding on our armor.

  We had to endure these few seconds of plasma gun fire before the Chinese who were scared by our surprise. They took the aggro upon themselves by attacking the Droid with everything they could.

  The Droid flipped in flight again and fired at them, confused for a second due to the abundance of targets.

  Actually, the Droid was nothing extraordinary. A 380-level creature, upgraded a bit by the skillful Gimmick; external shields, better armor config, and twice as many guns as the default version.

  The top ten warriors familiar with our tactic could have slaughtered it in five minutes. But again, they had to know what they were dealing with, be masters of their techniques, and have adequate equipment. Surely, having such a Droid suddenly drop on your ass meant chaos and serious losses.

  The flashing Droid flew over the castle a bit too high. The braking parachute wasn’t on time either. Lines tightened, and the smooth flight path turned into an emergency landing somewhere beyond the donjon. The dome shield’s area turned out to be too small for such a huge robot. We might just as well have launched a Jeep at them.

  "Overshot," Gimmick commented as he left cover.

  I disagreed. True, we missed the yard, but the robot still landed in a good spot. At least the Chinese stopped firing at us for now, and the first fires started up on their territory.

  "Yeah, party’s over!"

  A second Droid was launched. The noise of its launch was made worse by the racket of the trebuchet’s counterweight.

  Fortunately, I was a quick learner. Diving behind a rock, I called to the NPCs, "Get down!"

  This Droid was armed with two Gatling guns. The electric motor's noise rent the air. The guns reached the optimal speed quickly, and a hail of lead rained down upon us.

  The sound of the parachute opening rang out frightfully close. The Droid went down halfway between us and the enemy.

  "Undershot," I read Gimmick’s lips as the desire to tear his head off seized me once again.

  One of the trebuchets cracked and collapsed, sliced in two by the Droid’s fire. A cloud of dust covered us. Apparently it was not an obstacle for the Droid’s sensors as the robot kept firing accurately and incessantly.

  The trolls, ogres, and other huge, meaty characters had it rough. But I too caught a few shots with my back, each taking a thousand HP. Holy fuck...

  The Chinese came to our rescue: the NPCs on castle walls predictably fired at the target that was now within their firing range. Many players also joined in on impulse.

  Attacked from behind, the Droid instantly spun around, cut the parachute obstructing its path, and charged at the castle. Phew.

  "We’ll be alright now; I got the pattern!" Gimmick assured us as he saw the bullet-ridden bodies and met several angry glares.

  "I swear on Juggernaut..." he added just in case and hurried over to the third trebuchet.

  A loud bang resounded two hundred yards away. Someone’s portal opened for ten seconds. Stealther raiding parties came at us from the rear.

  "Tighten the ranks! Alpha-group - cover sectors B3 through B9! True Flame torches to the right flank!"

  The officers proved themselves worthy by responding instantly and effectively. The next second, another portal opened nearby. A personal iridescent gate appeared far away.

  I wondered if they wanted to split our attention, or if these were on-lookers from different alliances. Probably both. Striking the back of the wounded winner was the favorite approach of many rowdy clans.

  "Now!" a voice bellowed.

  The counterweight banged and the Droid, flashing with machine gun fire, flew right into the enemy Nova’s main square.

  "Bingo!" the satisfied Gimmick raced to the last trebuchet.

  I came back to the first, which the orcs were already setting up again. Our kamikaze with his aerial bomb 500 was already getting in.

  His Holy Unmercenary status had us hoping for some fine spoils. Although looting was just a nice bonus in the given situation. The main goal was to bust the gates and send as many of the Chinese to their eternal hunting grounds as we could.

  "Ready?" I asked the pale suicide lieutenant.

  He nodded silently, buckling on his leather harness and hugging the mithril bomb tightly.

  Deathbringer, that’s how our boys signed the present. I hoped it would live up to its name and wouldn’t misfire.

  The main thing was to hold the bomb tightly, otherwise it was unclear which side the game mechanics would attribute the victims to.

  "Launch the drone! The clan’s ready!"

  The Big Bertha 3 fired with a bang, launching a low-level stealthed warrior into the sky.

  "Shit... Boom!" came the report of what we all expected; a bloody splash on the fourth floor of the donjon. I hoped he'd taken screenshots.

  After a thirty-second analysis, the Headquarters sent us a lotta info,

  "Preliminary debriefing data. Two thousand enemy warriors total. Up to 20% calculating error. Most are on the walls and in the yard. Preparing to contain the gate attack. Setting up barricades! Nine light and medium golems total! Locating the two resistance zones – the Droids are almost gone! Two portal arches open on the portal pad. Traffic capacity: three hundred warriors per minute!"

  I nodded. It’s time!

  I leaned over the bomb, tore out the first safety catch, removed the cap and unscrewed the second catch which was an airscrew vane. That way, nothing would prevent the kamikaze from detonating the whole thing manually in case of a collision with a surface.

  I slapped the lieutenant on the shoulder. "Launch!"

  The counterweight creaked again. The beam whistled, and the man-projectile shot into the sky.

  I watched his flight path anxiously. My greedy pig was pacing the bottom of my soul, its fingers crossed as it whispered,

  "I think I can, I think I can get more, and more, and more!"

  Boom!!! reality replied.

  "Headshot!" shouted the Analyst, monitoring the logs. "Over a thousand frags and twice as many loot items!"

  I tossed my head, making my hearing return, and raised my staff over my head,

  "Charge!"

  Chapter Sixteen

  Secret residence of the Shui Fong clan.

  A one-off three-floor dungeon covering one square mile.

  Discovered over two years ago. Suspended for nine months to grow and ripen.

  Protected by the Youdie farm group. Total loot equals 2.180.000 gold plus three artifacts.

  Self-destruction is prevented by slav
es bricked into its walls, 12 in total. Routine replacement: once in three months (following personality disintegration).

  Location access: by portal only. The only exit point had been turned into a massive mountain ridge by a wizard of the nature.

  A Phantom Dragon soul had been let into the dungeon to perform daily housekeeping. Duration of agreement with the entity: 99 years.

  (Portal coordinate retrieval is blocked by the emanations of Stones of Pain).

  Ops Headquarters

  "The warriors Si-Ling and Si-Lu had interrupted the current battle mission. They are attacking the neutrals!" said one of the analysts monitoring the situation.

  His voice made Prince Cao Cao hunch his head into his shoulders. Why did the Grand Prince appoint him as leader of this riffraff, of all people?

  The best shock troops were currently finishing off the domes of the Russian castles and freeing up space for excellent spoils. Fresh straw was put into the slave pens. New feeding troughs were set up for the lovely Slavic girls.

  And Cao Cao, who had been embarrassed at the negotiations with the First Priest, was put in charge of the scum of the Alliance to beat the already dead bones!

  Having caught the Grand Prince’s eye, Cao Cao quickly rose. "The warrior Si-Wu has been publicly insulted! Only blood can wash this away! Another half hour, and he’ll wipe the foul neutrals from the camp territory. It’s in our best interest: the lightsters wanted to follow the Invincible Armada and storm the Super Nova all on their own."

  The Grand Prince, who was incredibly powerful in both realities, raised his brow in irritation. "You have ten minutes. A hundred warriors from the Tiger Guards will be sent as reinforcements. Si-Wu is to be punished. Cast him into the fire for a day so that he loses his ego and stops putting his own needs before the clan’s."

  "Yes, my master..."

  Cao Cao let out a sigh of relief. He himself could have easily ended up being the warlord that had fallen into disgrace.

  The analyst spoke up again, "Code Orange! Portal opened by Shui Fong-3! Attackers identified as the Mao’s Legacy clan, 430 warriors in total. Not enough for a siege. The Dome will hold up for at least two days. Our defense consists of a hundred and ten warriors, all level 200+ according to the rear subdivision ranks. Available NPC guard reserve amounts to 40,000 levels in total."