by Dean Henegar
With only twenty seconds left before we entered the fight, my focus was pulled to the left as the Centaurs charged the goblins.
All twenty-five flew at the goblins, the spears out in front with the sword-wielders just behind. The goblins must have had another group hidden out of my sight armed with slings, because I saw a shower of stones land among the centaurs, causing minor damage and forcing the lancers to raise their shields. The goblin shaman finished casting and the ground underneath the charging centaurs erupted in clinging vines. The spell reminded me of the one I had seen Yendys use against the ghoul lord’s forces.
Then the countdown hit zero and the men snapped into action.
As we had rehearsed over and over again, the men charged into the arena and began to form up: two squads on the left and two on the right, both lines angled so that they met at a point. The point of our V-shaped formation pointed toward the center of the arena. The fifth squad armed with spears split, one section holding behind each of our lines. This gave us some depth to our defense and enabling the spears to reach enemies engaging our main line. I ordered Wrend to lead the forces facing the Mindblank team as I commanded those facing the Sisters. The infiltrators waited hidden, covering the open area of the V and watching for any signs of stealthed or invisible opponents sneaking up on us. The Sagittarii archers waited to fire at targets I designated. Each archer had only two quivers, a total of forty arrows, so I wanted them used in the most efficient manner.
Just as we got set, the Sisters charged our line, the big cats leading the way. I knew from yesterday that the Sisters were just as deadly as the cats. The Mindblank looked to be fully engaged with the necromancers so I issued the next orders to every soldier.
“Archers, fire at the cat-handlers, all others ready javelins! Throw!” I ordered and fifty javelins came down in a wave on the forces of the sisters. Nearly two dozen hit, bringing several cats down to below half-health. The beasts were not deterred and continued their charge.
“Ready! Throw and prepare to receive charge. All spears to this side,” I ordered, and the next volley flew out. More hits landed, and the men drew swords, readying themselves to receive the charging foes, dropping the first cat, which burst into several small copies of itself. We were ready for this; the men knew to keep an eye on their legs, wary of the smaller versions of the tigers slipping under their shields.
Heavy tigers hit our shield line, which surprisingly held. Four of the tigers impaled themselves on the waiting spears and burst into small cats. The infiltrators and I focused the smaller cats while the rest of the line began to strike back. The tigers were dying quickly, and the small cat swarm increased sharply.
“Spears, draw swords and focus on the little ones,” I ordered. The spearmen dropped their spears, drawing swords and laying into the cat swarm. Damage on our side was mounting; nobody had died yet, but several men were very low on health. A cry of pain behind me let me know the rogues from Mindblank had chosen to attack our distracted line. Three rogues appeared, two behind soldiers in Wrend’s line and one behind Wrend himself. The two soldiers were killed instantly by the brutal critical strikes of the rogues, but Wrend was battling back with his health still high.
“Go help Wrend, I’ve got this side,” I said to the infiltrators who went into stealth and began stalking our foes. In my user interface, I noticed an icon appear, showing the disadvantage I had requested was available. I activated it, knowing it was supposed to be targeted at the opponents on our left. After a moment, nothing happened, and a notification appeared in my view.
Disadvantage negated. Your target has purchased protection from disadvantage.
That was a waste, and the Sisters were starting to turn the fight against us. The tigers had all been slain, but over fifty smaller cats were still running about, clawing and biting at every soldier they could reach. The main line was ruptured, six of my twenty soldiers on this side were now dead, and only one of the Sisters was down. In close combat, without our protective formation, the were-cat women were much more powerful than my soldiers. I need to even the odds, so I activated Goon Squad. Four of the “goons” appeared and began to attack the closest foe. I also activated Incite to give my men a boost as well as a debuff to the formidable Sisters.
I re-entered the fray to lend my own sword to the fight. I flanked one of the sisters attacking two soldiers, landing my first strike and causing a bleeding wound on the foe. The men had the Bloody Brutes upgrade and would be doing some damage over time to their targets, too. The sister turned to me, hissing, and swiped at my head. I was a tad too slow raising my shield, and I felt a burning sensation on the side of my face as her claws connected. While she was distracted, the two soldiers landed blows of their own. The sister in front of me was now at half health and I was at still at ninety percent.
“Ouch, bad kitty!” I yelled as one of the smaller cats bit my ankle and raked its claws across my calf. The damage was negligible, dropping my health by only one percent . . . but it was extremely annoying. I stabbed down into the cat, killing it in one blow. The small versions of the tigers had tiny health pools, I suppose to make up for powerful ability the tigers had. After dispatching my feline foe, I heard a loud crash and the squealing of the sisters. Looking up I could see three of the centaurs had charged us; two held spears that had impaled sisters on them, while the third had lopped off the head of one of my soldiers with its huge sword. The centaurs continued to attack foes at random, each glowing the faint red haze that I associated with a rage effect. The sisters were down to four and there were only a couple dozen small cats still running around.
The sister I was fighting took in their hopeless situation and hissed out a plea.
“The Sisters yield!” she shouted, and glowing orbs of blue immediately flashed into being around them, healing and protecting them. The little cats looked cute in their tiny, blue bubbles as they trotted over to the remaining sisters. The centaurs continued in their rage-fueled rampage while this was happening.
“Surround them and take them down. Archers concentrate on the centaurs,” I ordered. The centaurs were much taller than my men and would make good targets for the sagittarii, even as we engaged them in melee. Just as the men complied with my orders, the centaur wielding the giant scimitar made a mistake. His rage effect didn’t allow him to think, forcing him to mindlessly attack the nearest foe. Unfortunately for the Steelpoint Herd, the closest target was one of the small cats. The scimitar swung and popped the protective bubble, cleaving the cat inside into two pieces.
The response from the mages and clerics stationed around the arena was nearly instantaneous. Balls of magical light slammed into the centaurs, easily penetrating their armor and leaving gaping wounds. Lances of divine energy from the clerics flashed down, immolating every centaur in the arena. They broke the rules and had reaped the consequences. Knowing the rules of the fight, the powerful but foolish centaurs should have planned some way of stopping their rage ahead of time.
The surrender of the Sisters and the destruction of the centaurs gave me time to rebuild our shattered lines. Of the three squads on this flank, I had only twelve men still alive. Most of us were wounded to some extent, a few were seriously low on health. Wrend had lost six men on his flank. The rogues had also gotten to the archers, killing two before the infiltrators took them down. Now, three rogue bodies laid among our troops, but we had paid too high a price for taking them down. All told we had lost half our force and the remainder was battered. On my orders, everyone began to use the bandages that Ermey had given us; the bandage didn’t restore a huge amount, but every bit was a help.
Looking across the battlefield, I could see the centaurs had focused heavily on the goblins. Hundreds of goblin corpses were mounded around the dead centaurs. The shaman and the two hundred or so of his remaining forces were finishing off the last necromancer that had attacked them. The necromancer was frantically trying to raise more undead, but the undead goblins were even weaker than the zombies he had
started with. The goblins would take some more casualties but would win their fight.
To my right, the Mindblank team were finishing off the last undead that had attacked them. The fight had gone mostly their way, with the last necromancer raising two of the dead rogues who seemed to still retain some of their skill, even in undeath. The necromancer himself was almost dead, his two companions were already down, and there were only a few of original zombies still heading toward the illusionists.
There were four illusionists still on their feet. They blinked around occasionally, easily avoiding the slow undead. The rogues they had accompanying them had taken much more of a beating. Only two were still alive and both were below half health. As I watched, the last undead rogue fell before the blade of his living kin. The necromancer realized he was done for and activated a final ability, a wicked grin appearing as the last of his health drained to power his final spell.
The corpses of the original undead began to shake before a powerful force ripped them to pieces. Shards of broken bone flew through the air, shredding anything in their path. I normally didn’t want to be distracted by it, but I pulled up my combat log to see what the spell was.
Corpse Bomb: A final-strike necromantic spell that allows the caster to sacrifice his own life to destroy all his summoned undead. Every corpse that the necromancer had summoned will explode in a flurry of bone shards, dealing damage to all within a 15-foot radius of the corpse. This spell doesn’t differentiate between friend and foe.
The explosions killed the two rogues that had been ready to attack him, one dropping from stealth as the shards riddled his body. The illusionists flash-teleported at random, trying to avoid the strike. Two were able to avoid serious damage while the remaining two found themselves right in the heart of the damaging blasts, dying instantly. The surviving illusionists looked to the still numerous goblins and back to my reforming forces. They realized the hopelessness of the situation and yielded. The two survivors fled to the nearest exit, protected by the blue bubble.
Across the battlefield, the goblins had already finished off the last necromancer before the others yielded. Unfortunately for my team, he didn’t activate corpse blast. The goblins turned to face us, the shaman working them into a frenzy as they realized we were the only opponent remaining. I counted approximately 200 of the goblins still on their feet, including a score of slingers. We were down to twenty-eight soldiers, two infiltrators, one archer, Wrend, and myself.
“Soldiers, form single line. Archers, fire at the shaman if you can, otherwise start thinning their numbers. Everyone ready javelins but keep those shields up and watch for stones from those slingers. Infiltrators, Wrend, and I will be the reserve. Listen for the command to refuse the line and fill any gaps quickly. They have numbers but imperial discipline will cut them down regardless,” I said with a confidence I didn’t necessarily feel. While the goblins were the foes I feared least in this fight, their sheer numbers could easily overwhelm my depleted forces. We had enough javelins for three volleys, and I intended to make the most of them.
The archer began to fire, his arrows dropping goblins with nearly every hit. The shaman hid in the crowd, but with the remaining arrows from the dead archers our last remaining shooter had plenty of ammunition for the time being. The arena was large, and the goblins were out of range for their slings. The group cautiously approached until they were within range, heedless to the minor losses the archer was causing. Once in range, the slingers began to rain a hail of stones onto our men. Wrend used his shield to help cover the archer who needed both hands to shoot. There were thirty or so of the slingers and it looked like they had plenty of ammo to spare.
The thumping sound of rocks hitting shields was loud, broken only by the occasional yelp of pain as a stone found a gap in the shield wall. Under fire, our archer was much less accurate than before, only landing one in three shots. Doing the math on his remaining forty arrows, I realized that he would run out of arrows long before we ran out of goblins. True to my estimate, the archer soon ran out of ammunition, leaving us without a response to the hail of stones. More than five minutes having expired, the timer on our bandages ran out and I had the men scrounge any unused ones from our fallen, distributing them to the most injured among us.
“Sir, we can’t go on like this forever. Should I order the advance?” Wrend asked. Blood trickled down his cheek.
“I’m going to try to goad them into attacking. If they charge us, we’ll get the most value out of our javelins. I don’t really want to try and advance while they pelt us with stones. Moving will leave us more exposed than we are now,” I replied.
Thinking of no other option I summoned the corrupted wolf from Tessel’s Promise, calling it up right in the midst of the slingers. The wolf caused chaos in the goblin ranks as it tore into them. The wolf was level 10 and easily killed a goblin with each bite. Nearly a dozen fell before I heard the shaman shouting to restore order. The shaman also began to cast, pelting the wolf with balls of nature energy. Goblins swarmed the wolf, more afraid of the shaman than the creature. Individually they did little damage, but the cumulative effect would bring it down eventually.
“On your feet, everyone double-time it until we get into long range with our javelins,” I ordered. The men jogged forward fifty yards to bring us within throwing distance of the goblins. While we took more damage from the goblin slingers, the distraction my wolf caused was going to help us break the stalemate. “Ready, throw!” I shouted as thirty-three javelins arced over toward the goblin horde. The majority of the horde was focused on the wolf and the few goblins shouting and pointing out our advance went unnoticed in the chaos of battle. Our foes never realized they were under fire until several were impaled by falling javelins. The goblins had low health pools and one solid hit would kill or seriously wound a goblin. The goblins milled about in confusion, torn between focusing on our advance or dealing with the corrupted wolf in their midst. We advanced to medium range and halted.
The goblins did the worst thing they could have done: they separated into two groups. The swarm currently focused on the wolf remained while the shaman led most of the others toward our lines. We had just over 100 goblins charging our way while two dozen fought with the nearly dead wolf.
“Ready . . . release!” I ordered and our second volley went out. The goblins were more spread out, but the range was closer, so we still had a decent hit rate. Fourteen goblins fell over dead as they closed to short range and I ordered our last volley thrown. Sixteen more goblins fell from our final volley, and their advance faltered. The shaman stopped with about twenty of the survivors while fifty continued their charge.
The fifty goblins hit our line in a disordered mass, their fearful nature leading them to bunch up when they could have overrun our flanks. The men held the line and began to strike at their unarmored foes. Our first sword strike killed twenty. The second strike another dozen, and then the remainder broke and ran. The shaman shouted obscenities at us and the fleeing goblins. His anger didn’t overcome his cowardice, and the goblin soon joined the retreat.
“Forward, march!” I shouted and our line began to advance once more. The shaman rallied his forces once he joined up with the goblins left behind to deal with the wolf. Between the survivors of the wolf fight and the ones who had fled, the shaman was left with only around fifty troops. He ordered the three surviving slingers to fire at us as we advanced. Their fire was wild and inaccurate as their fear mounted.
As we proceeded toward the goblins, Wrend had the men recover any javelins that were still useable. We recovered fifteen and the men hurled a final volley as we closed in. Ten more goblins fell and that was enough to force the panicked shaman to yield. Blue bubbles covered the goblins and they hurried from the arena. A welcome victory prompt appeared as the men shouted for joy at their victory.
Experience gained from defeating your foes, 477.
Quest Updated: Retribution. You have won the Grand Melee at Shraza and have qualified to ent
er the championship at the capitol. Experience awarded 2500. Bonus experience for 32 survivors, 320.
Quest Updated: Retribution. Win the Grand Melee at the Imperium capitol to earn your freedom and a chance to prove your innocence. Reward: 5000 experience, bonus rewards available based on performance.
Congratulations! You have reached Level 6. Open your character sheet to review options/changes.
I swiped the notifications from my view and saw a jubilant Septimus make his way to the arena floor along with Galba and some of the guards. I delayed updating my character until I had more down time; it was a task best suited to the evenings when the npcs slept and I didn’t.
“Congratulations, Raytak. You and your men made it look almost easy. Such an exciting fight, such an entertaining variety of opponents,” Septimus’ false praise was interrupted by the announcer coming over to us along with an exquisitely dressed half-orc.
“Brave victors, may I introduce Morkon Shraza, the governor and namesake of this town,” the announcer said with a bow. The green-skinned governor was dressed in fancy clothing, but I thought I detected the gleam of mail armor peeking out from under his robes. From his demeanor and movements, I could tell this was a man of battle, hardened in the fires of combat.
“Well done, commander. Your victory is a testament to your skill as a leader and to the dedication of your men. I know fighting men and appreciate a good battle. The oddsmakers are in a tizzy. They thought you had no chance in this match . . . luckily, I received word from a clerk of mine that you personally performed very well in a one-on-one duel yesterday, so I bet accordingly.” Morkon paused as he shook my hand.
“Now, to this man goes the purse,” Morkon said as he handed a very heavy bag of coin over to a smiling Septimus. “I cannot award you with coin, but I can grant you a boon for giving such a good spectacle to my audience this day. Is there anything you would wish in order to help you in the capitol? I should mention that our town gets honors and tax breaks if you win the Grand Melee as you are now our champions,” Morkon advised.
