The True Enemy Revealed

by Jason Cheek

  Cutting into the two men’s conversation, I asked Dell if it was okay to bring the rest of our forces in. Getting a heartwarming clap from the old veteran, I sent the all clear through raid chat, asking for Tinyr to keep his team on the inn’s roof for overwatch. I figured we’d rotate out the watch teams to let everyone have a chance to relax, when the entire inn freaked out.

  Immediately, calls of alarm rang out around the inn as three groups in matching black leather armor shimmered into view with their weapons still drawn. Two of them were Kenzie and Phoenix’s groups who had positioned themselves behind the bar to block the exit to the kitchen and the back alley. Behind the center table where my friends’ sat, Sarka, Yun, and Unalia suddenly appeared to everyone’s surprised gasps as AJ, Hefe, and Bonnie sprang from their bench reaching for their weapons.

  “What the fuck, Jay!” AJ bellowed as he looked around in confusion at the armed players at his back, while Assault Leader Dell did his best to calm Randel down, when the veteran swordsman shot to his feet in consternation.

  Before I could answer my friends, the sounds of many booted feet quickly coming down the stairwell caused another commotion as Thomas rushed down the last flight of stairs into the main room with the rest of his Devil Dogs at his back. At the same time, the front door to the inn suddenly opened as Neristhana popped out of Stealth. Before anyone could react, Neysa came barreling through the iron-bound door with Helgath on her back.

  Charging the crowd of patrons that were on their feet with their daggers drawn, Neysa abruptly slid to a stop as the men and women fell back in fear, tumbling over tables and benches. The presence of the massive Silver Dire Wolf standing inside the inn with a Half-Orc on her back and an armed Gnomeling standing ready at her side stunned the entire room to silence. Seeing Randel and my friends’ eyes looking at me in utter shock, I rolled my eyes in exasperation as mentally communed with my ladies.

  ‘Nice entrance by the way.’

  ‘It stopped anyone from trying to play Alpha.’ Neysa sent back, giving me a mental shrug.

  ‘It was either that or casting multiple Cleansing spells.’ Helgath replied with a smirk that made me shudder. I had a mental picture of everyone around me vomiting black goo out of their mouths.

  ‘Okay, good call on that one.’ I admitted as both of my ladies giggled. While she couldn’t have cast such a spell on her own, she could have managed something like it if she could have reached me. A disturbing thought to say the least. One that made me once again thankful that she was on my side. Ending our communion, I raised my voice to be heard by everyone in the inn.

  “What, did you really expect me to come here alone after blabbing our plans to a roomful of strangers?” Shaking my head, I began issuing orders. Seeing that we’re all friends now, how about everyone put away their weapons and sit down, the next round is on me.

  The ex-troopers looked over to Randel who nodded and waved for his people to do as I said, while my own people unworriedly sheathed their weapon and waited. With uneasy looks towards the Silver Dire Wolf, everyone around the inn slowly followed suit and began cleaning up the mess. On more than one occasion, I heard complaints about the bar being busted up twice in one night as Neristhana made her way forward with Neysa.

  It took a couple of minutes to introduce everyone. Bonnie was excited to meet the other gaming women, especially Sarka and Unalia. Kenzie tried to come off as a hardcore bitch, but the Half-Orc easily brushed the attitude aside without any concern. I figured she had a lot of experience in dealing with Jill over the last two weeks, so Kenzie wasn’t a problem. AJ and Hefe finally got their heads out of their asses and settled down as I introduced the rest of my people. Mostly they were annoyed at being caught by surprise, but they got over that in a hurry once Neysa reached my side. Both of my soulbound companions created quite an uproar. Helgath caused a flurry of questions from Randel and Bonnie, while the boys oohed and awed at my cool combat mount.

  Once Assault Leader Dell assured me that we could trust Randel and his ex-troopers that filled the inn, I told the story of what had happened to us on the Wind Dancer, our battles with the Meer Lizards, the Sekolahians, our battles with the Sea Orcs, and rescuing the princess. I finished the story with our taking back the city of Darom from the Dread Pack. While I’d briefly talked about everything in email, none of my friends had truly understood the extent of my accomplishments, let alone what I was trying to build. Honestly, I don’t think they would have believed half of my story if not for everyone vouching for the truth of what happened. Even then, it wasn’t until Assault Leader Dell and Sir Hemmet admitted that we had a thousand troopers along with us that the truth of the matter really sunk in.

  By the time I’d finished my tale, my new friends were joking around with AJ and Hefe without any problems. The Devil Dogs especially seemed to know how to handle my friends as they began trading war stories, while toasting one another as they talked shit. Thomas had the Cobra Kai twins and Sara swap places with Tinyr’s group. As soon as he arrived, there was another round of introductions as everyone got settled.

  Hefe immediately started talking shit about his adventures to Ulia and Keela. His favorite being how he rescued his companions from the Giant Rat Boss in the training ground. Never once did he admit to running a train and nearly killing the whole party. Instead, he made it sound like they’d saved the entire town from a Giant Rat infestation. He was truly a sight to behold as he loudly told his animated tale, while standing on top of the bar bench for everyone to see him. Never once realizing they were laughing at him and not with him.

  With everyone settled down, I got back down to business with Randel, Sir Hemmet and Assault Leader Dell. There was no question Randel had no respect for the pompous Sir Hemmet. Obviously, there was a history between the three men that no one was sharing. While knowing what was going on behind the scenes was important to a point, everyone deserved to keep their secrets. At least, as long as that secret didn’t put the mission in jeopardy.

  I will say this about my friends, they did find the right informant. Randel did indeed have all of the information I was looking for, besides being the head organizer for the local resistance against the Chaos Storm guild. He wasn’t thrilled that I was a newfar, though he trust Assault Leader Dell’s judgement implicitly. At the same time, regardless of if he wanted it to or not, my charisma, reputation, and accomplishments affected him quite a bit as well. Especially after hearing that, even as we spoke, my people were in the process of saving as many of the slaughtered men and women of the Royal Forces in the refuse pit outside of the city.

  Randel promised that he could get me near to where Princess Reeva was being held, but warned me that it would be easier breaking into the King’s bedchambers than getting through the newfar that were guarding her cell. He knew that because he and his fellow compatriots had wanted to rescue the princess too, but didn’t see how they could possibly take out the high level newfar guarding her, before they put her to the sword. They’d actually been waiting for me and my people to arrive, since there’d been warnings posted all over the city with a hefty reward for information leading to my capture.

  Seeing the surprised look on my face at that information, Randel waved away my concern. He explained that there was no doubt in anyone’s minds that the reward would actually be given. Since the Chaos Storm guild had taken over the city, all the nobles in the city had been slaughtered along with their entire families. While that had been going on, the officers of the Royal Forces had been rounded up and slaughtered too. Except for a handful of Sub-Leaders that had managed to disappear into the lower city, every officer above the rank of Team-Leader had been put to death and the Royal Forces disbanded.

  From Hefe and AJ’s big talk, it sounded like there’d been an impressive bar fight when my friends had first found the inn. As they talked up their part of the story, Randel lowered his voice and admitted that was the only reason he hadn’t had them put to death was because he was waiting to see who would show up.
My entrance had greatly impressed him. At least, it had once he realized I was using myself as a distraction to get my forces into place inside the inn.

  Listening to the man talk, my mind began restructuring my original plan. Seeing the thoughtful look on my face, Ulia, Neristhana, Sarka, Yun, Tinyr, Unalia, Thomas, and Kenzie all began to wander over while everyone else continued telling their stories and drinking. Seeing the expectant looks on my friends’ faces, I smiled and laid out the beginnings of my plan.

  Unlike one of my normal plans, this one was a mess. Unfortunately, there didn’t seem to be anything that I could do to make it better. At least, not without more information. Everyone began adding their two cents into ways we could save Princess Reeva and force the Chaos Storm guild and their allies out of Telrain, but all of us were just throwing shit at a wall and hoping something would stick.

  The more we talked, the more I realized Plan A was going to be built on the two things I hated most. Having a plan that depended on others and working with people I didn’t know. On top of that, somehow I was supposed to coordinate all these forces together. It was enough to give me a migraine.

  You might ask, what was the difference between what I was doing now and the plans that I’d made with both the Russian and Australian guilds? The difference was, that the base of my plan wasn’t built on having either one of them show up to the party. They were just icing on the cake, so to speak. Added muscle for the force I was already bringing along to the event. If they showed up with a hundred players or ten, I wouldn’t complain. It would just give us that much more to pull Domenic’s ass out of the mess he was in.

  So, I did the only thing I could do. I began making a whole bunch of fall back plans. Nothing complete, just a bunch of possibilities that could be implemented depending on how things went. Hopefully, one of them would work to save our asses, but honestly, I wasn’t feeling it. We’d been going around the same circle of point and counterpoint for ten minutes, before I finally called it. Time to get some boots on the ground.

  With a whistle, Randel called over a nondescript level 38 Swordswoman named Rani Lamkin. We unobtrusively studied each other as the Sub-Leader explained the mission. The colors of her clothing were a patchwork of muted dark-browns and a charcoal-gray hooded cloak, perfect for sneaking around the city in the shadows. As the man finished up, the swordswoman gave me a meaningful look.

  “You don’t look like much of a Lord.” She said, pointedly looking at my armor and weapons.

  “Thank the Dark,” I shot back in the same tone. “I guess being able to fight your own battles isn’t very noble.” Rani’s mouth snapped closed as Randel and Dell scoffed in laughter, while Sir Hemmet’s face turned red. “Not that you look like much of a swordswoman right now.”

  “I have a subclass in Rogue.” She explained, holding her head high as if daring me to challenge her. I guess my entrance to the inn from earlier had ruffled some of the troopers’ feathers. Whatever, I was more interested in hearing about subclasses. That’s when the Devil Dog guild leader caught my eye.

  “How do you want to do this?” Thomas asked, giving me a meaningful look.

  “We’ll move as a group like we did earlier.” I said, holding up my hands to forestall any arguments. “Discovery means the mission is blown. In that case, we’ll kill everyone and head out. Smaller groups only means we’ll lose more people. Besides, how much do you want to bet they’ve got the graveyards covered?”

  There was a low grumbling from everyone as I continued. I don’t want to worry about any of us getting caught in a spawn-camp loop. Best to play it safe. While all that was true to a point, the problem was that I didn’t exactly trust Kenzie right now. She still was acting like she wanted to go on a killing spree and I’m sure that, in her present mood, she didn’t need much of an excuse. Standing up, I continued explaining how I wanted this to go down.

  “We’ll use the same group leaders as before, only Thomas and the other non-Stealthers will be staying put in the inn with Sir Hemmet and Assault Leader Dell.” I said, helping Thomas to his feet as I clapped him in a brotherly hug. Unobtrusively, I used the movement to whisper into his ear. “Just keep the watch on the roof going. We don’t want any ugly surprises.”

  “On it,” Thomas whispered back, under his breath.

  “Everyone else-“ I began to say, when AJ suddenly cut me off.

  “Is heading out with you.” Slurring, AJ cut me off as he used the table to climb to his feet.

  “Like hell you are.” I snapped back without hesitation. “The three of you can barely stand on your own two feet.” Seeing Bonnie’s raised eyebrows, I gave an apologetic wink. “I mean, the two of you. Can barely stand on your own two feet.”

  “I’m not drunk!” Hefe announced in a loud mumble, lurching to his feet. As if to prove the point, he lifted the pint of beer to his mouth with a two hand grip, and slowly poured the nearly full mug down his throat. Each swallow of the golden liquid seemed to make his body shake.

  The amused looks on everyone’s faces was almost too much. I could barely hold in my laughter as I watched the show, while Thompson began taking bets from Zhou and Darkhorse. The mug was larger than Hefe’s head. On a regular sized person, it would have been the same as downing one of those super-sized punch bowls you’d see at a school dance or a wedding. None the less, Hefe guzzled the beer down like a trooper.

  Honestly, I had no idea where his little Gnome body put it all. The laws of physics were definitely different in The World. As he held the nearly empty mug away from his lips to catch the last few drops, immediately I realized something wasn’t quite right a second before Hefe continued backwards right off the bench. He hit the floor with a muted thud, laying their passed out with the beer mug clutched to his chest like a teddy bear.

  “What are you doing lying around, Hefe?” AJ bellowed, as he staggered around the table to Hefe’s side.

  Seeing the coming train wreck for what it was, Sarka began to move towards the pair, but I waved her back. Seeing the questioning look she gave me, I nodded for her to watch as AJ tried to drag the unconscious Gnome to his feet. Finally realizing one arm wasn’t going to cut it, the drunken Dwarf leaned over to grab Hefe under both arms to haul him up. Only, he never stood up again.

  Like a slow falling tree, AJ fell face first into Hefe’s chest as the copious amounts of alcohol rushed to his head. He came to a stop with his knees bent and his ass sticking into the air. With their bulbous noses touching and their cheeks side-by-side, it looked to inappropriately precious that I had to take a screen shot of the two of them canoodling. As I turned away, I saw my friends looking at me with a range of emotions that went from disapproval and shock, to laughing high fives. Well, the only looks of disapproval were coming from Sarka and Unalia.

  “Look, it’s a guy thing,” I started to say holding my hands up. “We have a going rule that if you get drunk and pass out in a compromising situation, you’re fair game.”

  “That’s so immature,” Unalia said in a disgruntled huff, crossing her arms over her chest.

  “You’re not going to let them stay like that, are you?” Sarka asked, giving me the look.

  “Their lucky no one’s drawing dicks on their foreheads.” Kenzie said with a knowing smile.

  “Exactly!” I said wholeheartedly agreeing. “Besides, they were just going to demand to be part of the Stealth group and I’ll bet you five golds that neither of them have Stealth.

  “It’s probably for the best,” Bonnie Smash agreed from behind me as I nearly jumped in surprise. Turning around, I saw her getting in close to AJ and Hefe’s cuddled faces for a close-up. “Pookey Bear is so cute.” She purred, completing the screen shot. “Just wait till they see my pictures.” With a little happy dance, she turned around to face me. “But you’re completely right, they’re both terrible at being inconspicuous. That’s why I’m the party’s Rogue.”

  “Hmmm … do you want to stay here or come along with us?” I asked, unsure of what I shoul
d do in this situation. While I didn’t want to be rude, I had some serious questions about anyone who found Hefe attractive. Not catching my drift, Bonnie looked at me happily. “Do you need me to come along?”

  “Not really …” I said, looking around for support from my friends. Instead of backing me up, they were all giving me a shit eating grin. ‘Thanks for nothing, guys’ I thought sourly, before turning back to Bonnie. “We already have pre-set teams.”

  “No problem, I’ll hang out here then and keep a watch on these two.” She said with an unconcerned grin. “But, I’ll be needing some more beer for that.”

  “No problem, I’m sure the Devil Dogs remaining behind would love to keep you company.” I said, nodding to my friend. “Right Thomas?”

  “Mm … mme?” Thomas nervously stuttered, looking around for help as the rest of us just backed away.

  “Well don’t be a stranger,” Bonnie happily roared. Using her impressive strength, she pulled the uncomfortable guild leader down on the bench beside her. Raising her voice, she called out to the bartender. “We need more pints here!”

  With a nod to everyone going on the mission, I pointed to the door as the rest of us made our escape. Back in the main intersection, I nodded for Rani, our Rogue guide, to guide us on where to go. I didn’t have her in the lead, but kept her by my side while Kenzie and Tinyr scouted ahead. Everyone got their head into the game pretty quickly as we moved through the silent streets. It was a little surreal traveling the ancient stone avenues in-between the glowing will-o-wisps of colored lights; reds, yellows, greens, and pinks brightened our path, while the Stealth groups kept watch. Kenzie and Tinyr’s groups lead the way while Sarka and Phoenix’s brought up the rear.

  Our first set of stops were the four graveyards that were evenly spaced throughout the city. There was no way to hit them quickly, so we silently made our way through the older sections of the city, before sneaking up silently to our target. Each graveyard we visited had at least a hundred players on guard at their center. Most were camped out eating and drinking or playing dice, while small groups of ten patrolled the boundaries.