by Dean Henegar
Elven Rogue Level 2/Gladiator Level 1, Npc.
Human Barbarian Level 2/Gladiator Level 1, Npc.
Angry Prisoner Level 0 (40).
*Note, level zero opponents tend to have the stats and abilities of an average adult of their race without any specialized training. When a person is determined guilty in the eyes of the Imperium, the act of imprisonment enacts a penalty to experience and level. If this penalty drains all the prisoner’s levels, they revert to a Level 0 with no special skills or abilities and must complete quests or win in combat to gain experience. When a prisoner is released, they will receive back their prior levels and specializations while also being granted a small portion of the experience they had gained while incarcerated. Their behavior, the prison authority’s recommendation, and stipulations placed at sentencing determine the percentage of experience the prisoner will receive.
The two multiclass warriors were overpowered for this match, each having three total levels. I had a good idea what a rogue and barbarian could do but could only guess at the abilities the gladiator class gave them. I looked to Septimus and could see he was already stalking over toward the stands, shouting at Asif. The two shouted it out for a bit and a defeated looking Septimus stormed back over to us.
“That deceitful little man. The trick was so good I should have thought of it myself,” Septimus said, shaking his head in a combination of disgust and respect for his rival. “The fine print in our fighting contract had another line added to it stating ‘the host could add fighters of the same kinds and quality to the match and would give the challenger the opportunity to match numbers at the time of the fight.’ We also only have five minutes to do so, and I used most of that time up arguing with Asif, unfortunately,” Septimus advised.
“Was there anything in there about having us fight gladiators? I see two of them hidden in among that mob over there,” I said pointing toward our foes.
“No, there wasn’t anything in the contract about that. We were supposed to face off against similar kind and quality of fighters. Still, if he can break the rules a bit so can we. Gather your men around quickly, Raytak.” Septimus had an evil grin on his face as he had a quick conversation with the ten guards that had escorted us in. The guards unbuckled their swords and handed them over to us. I looked on in shock as I took the sword that was presented.
Worn Bronze Imperium Gladius: This stout blade is the standard weapon of newer troops. Sturdy and balanced well enough for novice troops. Item-level 10.
Septimus beat a hasty retreat from the arena floor now that the prisoners were better armed than his guards. The guards followed their employer and left us to our devices as Asif’s halfling announcer began to walk to the center of the arena to announce the fight. I gathered the men over to me, motioning the other prisoners over as well.
“That was a huge weapon upgrade for us. Hand over your old gear to the others. They may not be trained but better weapons can only help us all. Do any of you prisoners have combat experience?” I asked hopefully, eyeing the dozen prisoners that were to fight alongside us. Two of those assembled raised their hands and I examined the information of our new recruits.
Level 1 Rogue, Npc.
Level 1 Bruiser, Npc.
Decrepit Prisoner Level 0 (10) Npc.
I handed my old gladius to the rogue—a skinny looking human—as I strapped on my new blade. Then I motioned for one of the men holding a machete to give it to the bruiser. I addressed the two npcs with class levels, hoping they would be the best matches for helping to lead the other prisoners.
“Each of you take the five men closest to them. Form up to our left a few feet behind our line,” I said to the rogue before turning to the bruiser. “You will form up to the right. Try and keep the other prisoners with you together. If you work together, you’ll have a better chance at killing your opponents. Most of them will likely hit our shield wall, once they’re concentrated there, try and come around behind them,” I ordered to the other prisoners. I had no idea if any of them would follow my orders but to their credit, when I lined up my men in a shield wall, the rogue and the bruiser gathered their charges right where I told them to. They all seemed a bit relieved to have somewhat better weapons in hand, even if it they were our castoffs.
The halfling in the ridiculous turban addressed the packed crowd. I hadn’t noticed until just now that the stands were nearly full. The crowd had assembled even at this early hour, eager to witness mass bloodshed.
“Dear guests of the great Asif! He has assembled an amazing spectacle for you this bright morning. Assembled before you are the despicable traitors of the Imperium. These murderers, shirkers, and cowards are an affront to any good citizen. To face these devious denizens, the great Asif has gathered together a brave band of repentant criminals who only wish to atone for their crimes by defeating these traitors. Today’s fight will be a battle to the last. Only one side can survive. Only the great Asif can give you such great entertainment value for your coin. In honor of today’s grand melee, the concession stand is offering refreshment specials!” the halfling shouted. The crowd cheered as the little man hobbled slowly out of the arena. Asif stood up from the stands and raised a red cloth in his hand; once it dropped the fight would start.
I addressed the men in our line before the fight started.
“You may all be a bit rusty, but I’m confident that you will remember your training. Hold the shield wall and look for openings to attack. They will likely rush us, trying to bowl us over with sheer numbers. We will hold! Once we stop them, we’ll give them a taste of Imperium bronze. Sergeant Wrend, the soldier’s creed!” I ordered the sergeant, taking a chance he would remember his oath of service.
Sergeant Wrend belted it out without thinking. The phrases, drilled into every one of us over and over in training, were impossible to forget. As he spoke, the rest of the former soldiers began to pick it up. Soon, we were all belting it out at the top of our lungs, gathering strength and camaraderie from our shared experience as soldiers.
“I am an Imperium soldier.
I am a warrior and a member of a team.
I serve the people of the Imperium and live the Legion’s values.
I will always place the mission first.
I will never quit.
I will never leave a fallen comrade.
I am disciplined, physically and mentally tough, trained and proficient in my warrior tasks and drills.
I always maintain my arms, my equipment, and myself.
I am an expert in battle, a professional soldier without peer.
I stand in the line of battle, ready to hold, engage, and destroy the enemies of the Imperium.
I am a guardian of freedom and the Imperium way of life.
I am a soldier of the Imperium!”
As Wrend and the squad finished, the rabble across from us looked taken aback at our display. The AI seemed to agree and granted us a welcome bonus.
You have inspired your troops and demoralized your enemies. +1 to morale for your forces and -1 to morale for all opponent during the current battle.
We were as ready as we could be for the coming fight.
Chapter 11
Asif dropped the cloth and the battle began.
Our line held in silence, the prisoners to our rear shifting about with nervous energy while waiting for something to happen. With a shout, the barbarian across from us grew frustrated and charged our line, glowing red as he activated what I figured was some kind of rage ability. The rest of our foes followed behind the barbarian, some belting out war cries but most just plodding along with the crowd. There were only twenty yards separating the two groups, so our foes covered the ground quickly. Thumps rang in the air as they hit our shields. There was no coordination among our foes. They ran toward us at different speeds, the braver or more foolish in the group hitting our line first, while many of the rest hovered behind their allies or tried to go around our flanks. Pressure built as more of the enemy pressed against our
shields. I could feel my own shield beginning to crack under the pressure.
It was time to act.
“At my command, execute one step back. Now!” I ordered as I activated Incite. The ability hit most of our line and affected many our enemies. At my command, our line made one step back. The sudden relief in resistance caused many of the attackers to stumble and fall, in some cases tripping up the ones behind them. I wasted no time and thrust several rapid strikes down at the prisoner who had landed at my feet.
You have hit Angry Prisoner for 12 damage.
You have hit Angry Prisoner for 8 damage.
You have critically hit Angry Prisoner for 14 damage.
Angry Prisoner has died.
I raised my shield just in time to block the prisoner behind the one I had just killed. The soldier to my left landed a blow on my attacker, distracting him and giving me a moment to review the battle.
The maneuver had given us a bit of breathing room and eliminated five or six of our foes. Now the immediate danger was at our center. The soldier there was down, his shield cleaved in two by the barbarian opponent. Wrend had pulled back from the line and was making his way over to plug the gap. Looking to our flanks, the decrepit prisoners were holding their own against a slightly higher number of foes. The additional buffs and the fact that the ones they were facing were the more cowardly of our foes helped tip the balance in our favor. I didn’t see the enemy rogue, which worried me. Rogues and stealthy enemies were my least favorite opponents.
Angry Prisoner has hit you for 5 damage.
I focused back on the fight in front of me as an angry prisoner slipped through my defense and jabbed me with a warped spear. I blocked his next blow and began to counterattack. A few blows later I had defeated my opponent, only to have him replaced with another. A hand grabbed my shoulder and pulled me back, dragging me to the ground. Pain lanced through chest as the rogue made his appearance, driving two rusty daggers into me.
The Gladiator/Rogue has tripped you. You are prone and taking a -5 penalty to your defense.
You are hit with a sneak attack for 22 damage.
You are hit with a sneak attack for 21 damage.
At least the damage from the crummy weapons wasn’t too bad, considering the rogue had been given a sneak attack bonus. I still had my gladius in hand and pulled my shield up to cover my upper body, waiting for the right moment to strike. As the rogue stepped in to land another blow, I lashed out with my sword toward his leg.
You have critically hit the Gladiator/Rogue for 16 damage. Target is hamstrung and bleeding. Movement reduced by 50% for the next 20 seconds. Target is bleeding for 2 points of damage per second for the next 20 seconds.
I turned off the combat notifications with a thought; they were becoming distracting. My blow had sliced off a portion of my opponent’s calf and chopped down into the Achilles tendon. The gladiator rogue fell to his knees from the damage, giving me time stand and bash out with my shield, knocking the gladiator rogue over. I continued to rain blows down on my foe, chipping away at his health pool. The level 0 opponents health pools were only 25 health as near as I could guess. The combined three levels of my opponent had to give him significantly more, though likely less than a regular player would have had. The health bar of my opponent continued to drop, but before I could finish off the rogue, two more of the angry prisoners attacked me. I was driven back toward our left flank, desperately trying to defend against the two opponents.
The rogue regained his feet with only a sliver of health left as the bleed effect wore off. He began to circle around me, a grin crossing his face as I lost sight of him; I knew a backstab wound was likely in my future. Taking another weak blow from a prisoner, I went on the offense, charging forward with my shield. I bashed away one of my opponents’ spears with my shield and then attacked with several quick sword thrusts, finishing him. The other prisoner’s eyes went wide as he faced me alone, wavering. But before I could take the initiative, a weight fell against my back and I whipped around, expecting a knife attack from the rogue.
The gladiator rogue lay dead at my feet. The prisoner rogue on our side stood over our foe, grinning, holding up the bloody gladius I had given him in mock salute before stalking off to find another target. My opponent used that opportunity to thrust his spear into my back. The wound hurt, but there was no backstab bonus from the unskilled prisoner. I turned and finished off the prisoner quickly, taking only minor damage. My health bar was down to sixty-one percent from all the wounds I had accumulated so far.
Seeing no other threats, I made a quick assessment of the battle. Our line had closed the gap left when the barbarian had broken through and we were still holding against the bulk of the remaining angry prisoners. The line now only held seven soldiers as more had fallen since I last checked. Still, my men had taken a bloody toll on the angry prisoners to their front and I could count only thirteen remaining that faced our line. So long as we weren’t flanked, we would win.
Wrend, the bruiser, and another of our own decrepit prisoners were facing off against the gladiator barbarian that had broken our line. The other decrepit prisoners on the right flank had been slain but they had also taken out the few foes that had tried to assault that area. Our superior weapons and having the level 1 bruiser on that side had made the difference. On the left flank, the rogue had returned to help our three surviving prisoners against a similar number of foes.
With a bellow, the barbarian facing Wrend activated a cleave attack. His axe slashed through, dropping both the bruiser and the prisoner in front of him. Wrend leapt back, barely avoiding the blow. His leap left him off balance and a quick follow up strike from the barbarian knocked him prone and dropped his health bar to twenty percent.
For a fleeting moment, I thought about letting the barbarian finish Wrend. The disgraced sergeant had done nothing but make my life miserable since I found myself in this situation, after all.
After hesitating a moment, I charged forward. I was an officer and would not let a man under my command be slaughtered by an enemy. No matter how much I despised Wrend, I would only be demeaning myself if I gave up my honor just for the pleasure of seeing his life end. The barbarian was caught off guard as I slammed into his side with my shield. Still, it felt like I had hit a brick wall, and the blow did no damage to the barbarian. My follow up thrust knocked a good-sized chunk from his health bar, but the barbarian just grinned down at me as he wound up for an overhead power-attack. I struck again before I was forced to raise my shield in defense.
The powerful blow hit my shield, shattering the shoddy piece of equipment. Unfortunately, the blow continued down and hacked my shield arm off just below the elbow. Pain flared as my lifeblood began to pump from the ragged stump of my arm. A serious bleed notification popped, and I could see my health was down to 20% and plummeting. On the bright side, the barbarian’s axe also broke in half, the low-quality gear my opponent was also forced to use coming to my rescue.
Fighting back the pain, I thrust my sword into the barbarian once more before shoving my stump toward the barbarian’s face, aiming the spurting blood into his eyes. I smiled as a temporary blindness debuff showed for my opponent, giving Wrend the time to regain his feet and hack the last of the barbarian’s health away.
I sat down and tried desperately to staunch the flow of blood from my stump. Using my sword, I hacked a piece of cloth from my tunic and attempted to bind my wound.
You have failed your first-aid check.
One-handed bandaging was a skill I had never acquired, and this game universe had yet to invent the CAT (combat application tourniquet) I had been issued in my real-world army days. With only seconds to go before I bled out, Wrend knelt beside me and tied off the bandage quickly and correctly, stopping the bleed effect while my health bar hovered at five percent. As my health recovered after the fight, my missing arm would regenerate. It was kind of strange since npcs were able to suffer permanent wounds. Once a player’s health regenerated past 30%, t
he missing appendage would reappear as good as new. Ty was the only exception and the only player I had seen with a missing limb; I had to ask him about how the game allowed that sometime.
“Killing you off is my job, sir, not something I’ll let this garbage do,” Wrend said as he kicked the barbarian’s corpse before returning to the fight.
I still couldn’t read Wrend. Was he planning to keep killing me or had we turned a corner?
Shaking off my thoughts I stood and looked for where I was needed. While we had been busy fighting with the barbarian, our rogue and the prisoners assigned to him had finished off the foes on their flank. The rogue was now maneuvering to get behind the mass of prisoners in front of our shield wall. The soldiers in the line were down to only five, but they had whittled their opponents down to only nine angry prisoners. With Wrend and I joining the fight, we quickly finished off the last of our outnumbered foes. This time there was no mercy given. These foes were comparable to our own; they weren’t starved and helpless like the others I had refused to fight.
You have defeated a force of prisoners. Experience received, 126.
Quest updated: Retribution. You have defeated Asif’s forces despite some trickery. 500 experience received. 100 bonus experience due to the unexpected increase in difficulty.
