by Galen Wolf
When they'd gone, we got men to push open the south gates. They were locked. No matter, we went around to the north gate.
The village of Pennred was devastated. All the buildings were ruined. They lay blackened and burned out, their stone walls spilled out onto the streets. The pretty flower gardens were tramped over and dug up. I shook my head and sadness rose into my throat.
Elfhair took my hand. "You'll build it up again. I'll help you. This time you can open your shop!"
Uzug had left no gold.
Only the Forge was not pillaged. The dwarf blacksmith Khuzud had barricaded it. When he saw me, he took down the barricades and came out onto the street. He was dirtied and bloodied but hearty. His children hugged his legs and shied back.
"Well," he said. "It's the mayor returned."
"The mayor? I was only the head-man when I left." I hesitated. "I didn't want to leave."
He grunted. "The most important thing is you came back. And you brought your friends." He bowed to Parzifal and Elfhair. "I know Astral Bob," he said.
Astral Bob nodded. "All right, Khuzud, mate?" And in explanation he said, "We used to play poker, him, me and Romeo in Romeo's theatre in Vinab."
I turned to Parzifal. "What now?"
"Onto Horrabia?"
"Maybe tomorrow, I just want to take stock here before we move on. I've also got to get Ahn from Woodheart."
27
Sunset
It took all day to move our army up Ermine Street, up the Vale of Tears to Horrabia. The evening the next day we stood at the end of the Vale of Tears with the ranger forces. With us was the main Vinab army and what remained of the Keld resistance. With the mangonels and trebuchets in place and our eagles controlling the skies, we had drawn up the siege around the city of Horrabia. Our engines prepared to smash down its walls and our troops prepared to assault it but to avoid as much bloodshed as possible, we planned to siege them until they had no more resources. Once their population could not feed itself, it would diminish and Horrabia would reduce to the size of a village within its mighty stone walls.
The Vinab Navy had sent warships up the Great River and they now patrolled the Midnight Lake not allowing any passage for Horrabian warships or traders. Our stranglehold was complete.
But still the Horrabians did not sue for peace – too proud, too arrogant, or too stupid to see that their aggression had failed.
I stood with Ahn and Ajora, and Elfhair as the red sun set on the red walls of Horrabia. I’d wanted to get time with Elfhair to tell her I wanted to go with her to the Snooty Fox in Vinab, but not with Astral Bob or Romeo el Mejor – just with her, but every time I cleared my throat and worked up my courage to ask her, someone said something about the war.
"Hey, Barcud."
"Me?"
"You're the only Barcud I see around here. In fact I've never met anyone else called Barcud ever."
"Oh. Well. What?" I felt strangely anxious.
"I've got something for you."
"For me?"
"A momento."
"A momento?"
She peered at me. "Do you need some kind of cure spell? You seem to be stuck repeating things."
I shook my head.
She winked. She reached into her inventory and gave me a pendant on a chain.
"What's this?"
"It's a star."
"Oh right. Nice. Lovely. Thank you."
The others were preoccupied with their chat. What did this gift mean? Did she like me?
I felt the cold silver chain slip through my palm. A silver five pointed star hung on it.
"Should I put it on?"
"Well, you could melt it down?"
"Really?"
"No. Put it on."
I put the necklace round my neck. It wasn't magic but it was special to me because she'd given me it. I looked back to her but she was talking to Ajora.
I watched as she pulled back her lovely red hair into a bunch. She looked tired, beautiful, but weary. She yawned. "At least I'll be able to get a bit more sleep now they're holed up in there."
Ajora shook her head. "I hate them all. I want them all dead."
"How long do you think they'll hold out?" I asked Ahn.
"I don't know – a week, two weeks?"
Ajora shook her head. "Don't write them off so easily. The Horrabians have plenty of tricks up their sleeves yet."
Glossary
For those who aren't familiar with gaming slang—which dates like all slangs...—
AI - artificial intelligence
AOE - Area of Effect; an attack or spell that effects a group of enemies.
AFK - away from the keyboard - not to be attending to the game.
Aggro - aggression. To get or pull a mob's aggro = to get the mob AI to fix its attention on you.
Alt - Alternative - a player may have several alts or characters on his or her MMO account.
Bind - to set your log in place in the game.
Buffs - abilities or spells that enhance a toon's abilities. Usually they last a certain period.
De-buff - to remove buffs.
Dev - Developers. The Gods of the game world.
DOT - damage over time. An attack that causes damage over time.
DPS - damage per second
Drops - loot.
Dual Boxing - where a player has two characters running at the same time and plays them both.
Farm - to repeatedly re-do a quest to get certain items.
Flavor Build - a toon designed to copy an idea or character from fantasy book rather than being maxxed out for effectiveness.
Glass Cannon - a toon that does good DPS but has little resilience.
Grind - to carry out repetitive game actions designed to increase level or gather crafting materials
Healbot - a healer who can do little other than heal other players. Little offensive capability.
HP - health points.
Kite - to run from an enemy while attacking with a ranged weapon.
L33T - someone who thinks they are pretty good.
Min-Max - a necessity to make your character as awesome as possible. A zero sum game.
Mobs - Mobiles, NPC monsters and AI enemies
MMO - an online game with many players. Variations are MMO+RPG, and VRMMORPG - Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online Role Playing Game.
MP - mana points
OOM - Out of Mana
Nerf - done by developers, to reduce the abilities of a skill or loot item
Noob - a new player
Nuke - to destroy an enemy, usually by magic. Not always
Path - verb, when a mob's AI plots a path to get across terrain to reach a player.
PK - Player Kill(er)
Pike - to stand around doing nothing while benefiting from the efforts of your team mates
Pwn - to own or defeat an enemy
Proc - from 'procure'? When a weapon effect triggers.
PUG- a pick up group. Grouping with people you don't know. Used as a verb as well.
Pull - to get usually one mob's aggro. Mobs can be carefully pulled one at a time.
PVP - Player Versus Player
PVE - player versus environment
Re-spawn - after being killed the action of a mob returning to the game to fight again.
RL or IRL - in real life—i.e. not the game—
Spawn - where mobs are generated. It leads to spawn camping.
Toon - cartoon, a player character
Twink(ed)- a low level character who has benefited from higher level loot, usually provided by an alt.
Uber - see L33T, but often used of objects and loot rather than just players.
Vendor Trash - loot that is only worth selling on for gold to NPC vendors
XP - experience points - needed to level
Zerg - to zoom to the end of a quest paying little heed to dangers
About the Author
Dear Reader,
Thanks for reading. Hope you liked the story
and if you did, a positive review would go a long way to make me happy
And If you want to get advance notice of my new stories and stuff, why not join my mailing list?
LitRPG: http://eepurl.com/cDVnBn - you get a free story - The Bard, which fills in some detail on the Greenwood and the Bard class.
Could you like my Facebook Page?
https://www.facebook.com/galenbleddyn/
[email protected]
