Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds

by Wade Adrian

  Electricity arced across the air before him. He shielded his eyes from the light. The hairs on his arms stood up from the electricity in the air…

  When he lowered his hand Soulbreaker was in his grasp. The steel black save for where it shone with bright light.

  The creatures lumbering forward wore faces he didn’t know. Not his friends. Not his people. Just some trick.

  He gritted his teeth. How dare they seek to mislead Tobin Ironblood.

  The phone blared its infernal ring.

  “This is your 7 a.m. courtesy wakeup call.”

  “Thank you.” He mumbled as he mashed the receiver back down. He realized it was probably a recording as he sat up and swung his feet off the bed. He had slept on top of the covers. It wasn’t cold enough to bother burrowing in.

  He was the first one downstairs again. It was rather nice to drink his coffee in peace.

  The TV was still talking about the explosion, though it was losing time to other stories. They mentioned federal law enforcement was investigating the incident, but that’s as far as they went.

  Other guests came and went, but no one from across the street. He shifted a bit in the chair to get comfortable and propped his feet up on a chair across from him.

  His eyes shot open. Jesse was standing in front of him, shoving his feet that were in the other chair. He sat up and shook his head as she took the chair over.

  “Long night?”

  “Kept waking up.”

  “Need more coffee?”

  “Doesn’t seem to be helping.”

  “Clearly.” Her eyes had shifted to the side.

  He turned his head to find Claire asleep in the chair beside him. He stretched his neck. “Not the best way to start the day, especially when it’s likely to be a long day.”

  Jesse nodded as she returned from the counter with juice as she had the morning before. She held out a small box of cereal to him. “Sugar. Wake you up a bit.”

  “Maybe.” He nodded his head politely. The stuff inside definitely had sugar. Flakes were caked in it. He just tipped up the box, no time for silly things like bowls or milk.

  Jesse nudged Claire’s foot. The younger woman was having none of it, shaking her head before letting it fall again. She ended up leaning against the arm rest with her head resting on Toby’s shoulder.

  He tried not to move around as he ate his breakfast.

  Jesse rolled her eyes. “We’re going to need to head out soon.” She kicked the toe of Claire’s shoe. She didn’t respond, so Jesse kicked her foot again. And again.

  Claire lifted her head with a groan a few moments later. The assault upon her shoe had been relentless. “You suck.”

  “Good morning to you, too.”

  “Bleh.” Claire sat back in the chair with her arms crossed. Her hair wasn’t as neat as usual.

  “You didn’t sleep either?”

  “Going to unhook that fucking phone.”

  “Hardly professional.”

  Claire shook her head. “This isn’t my job. I miss my office. I miss my desk. I miss filling out stupid reports and answering emails to people who have no idea what we’re doing but insist on telling us how.” She sighed. “You’d think playing a game for hours on end would be fun.”

  Jesse shrugged. “Bad situation. Up to you to make the best of it.”

  Claire stared at the other woman for a few moments. “It’s entirely too early for that kind of shit.”

  “Speaking of which.” Jesse hopped up and stretched her arms up over her head. “We should be going.”

  Claire grumbled.

  Toby stood up and held out his hand to help her up. “Can’t make it through this without you.”

  She nodded a few times. “That’s certainly true. Buncha scrubs.” She took hold of his hand and lurched to her feet.

  The morning went better than the day before, but was still unremarkable. A few fights here. A few more there. They stumbled upon more crafting materials than anything. They made notes of the locations and sent them to members of the guild dedicated to that sort of stuff.

  Things started to shape up in the afternoon, though that’s not to say it was free of irritation. The last event had cost them, so Paul had spent the morning avoiding the subject and just looking for appropriate mobs to fight.

  “God damned… motherfucking…” Toby turned his head swiftly left and right, his eyes trained low as he held his sword aloft.

  They were somewhere nearby.

  “Shh.” Amos had forgone his bow, wielding a short sword instead. He was watching closely. He had the tracking system on his side. Toby couldn’t see what Amos saw, but he had described it as glowing footprints with each target in the area having their own color. Toby was supposed to get access to tracking late in the game, though even then it would probably be more limited than what Amos was using right now.

  Jesse was looking at the footprints too. She stood still a moment before green light and smoke washed over her leaving only the form of a sitting wolf. Her nose moved about as she turned her head left and right. “Got something.”

  Amos scoffed. “That’s bullshit. Rangers are supposed to be the best trackers.”

  “I’m not tracking. Beast forms can follow scent trails.”

  “That’s tracking.”

  “Except it’s not. Tracking is sight based and uses footsteps. Scents float and use little bright clouds.”

  Paul shook his head. “Argue the semantics later. What do you have?”

  “At least two more of them close by. They won’t stop moving around, though.”

  Tim rolled a dagger over his fingers. “Little shits. Here brownie brownie brownie. Remind me to punch Danny in the face for creating these monstrosities.”

  A high pitched cry pierced the quiet as an elflike creature maybe ten inches tall landed on Tim’s back and immediately set to stabbing him repeatedly with a tiny wooden spear.

  “Ah, fuck. Get it!”

  Toby swung, but his sword was slow compared to the brownie. He got a piece of it, but it dropped into the tall grass and was long gone before he could swing again.

  Things were getting stronger now. Even his unbalanced sword wasn’t delivering one hit kills anymore.

  He knew, deep down, that part of his class potential was being denied by not using Rage, but he still hoped the sword would make up for it.

  Jesse reverted to her human form and cast fire at the creature, but she missed. A pathetic puff of smoke rose from the ground as the fire died away. She followed it with further bursts of flame, but none struck the thing.

  Claire patched Tim up with a wave of her hand. “This is stupid. I never thought I would miss tab targeting.”

  Amos nodded. “Agreed. There’s a million tiny footprints. Like somebody spilled a bag of radioactive skittles.”

  They all looked about, the ranger and druid trying to track movement.

  Paul took a single swing of his sword.

  A high pitched scream appeared and faded away to nothing a moment later. He nodded to himself as he opened his eyes. “Much easier when everyone isn’t complaining.”

  Jesse tilted her head. “Wait, you just listened for it?”

  He shrugged. “Tiny feet moving through grass, not to mention the breaths? Yeah, I could hear it.”

  “Huh.” Her human form faded away in green smoke as the wolf reappeared. The ears atop her head twitched about, her eyes shut.

  She bounded off through the tall grass and another high pitched yelp followed. She walked back casually, the dead brownie in her mouth. She set it down and sat with her tail wagging.

  Claire looked away. “Eww.”

  “What? I hunt, therefore I am.”

  Toby put his sword away. “Remind me to find something else to fight in this level bracket next time.”

  Tim nodded repeatedly. “Yes. That.”

  They’d made it to level twenty three now. Not exactly half way, but moving toward it. They were progressing, even if it wasn’t as f
ast as they would like.

  “Hey!” Carol’s voice sounded distant. Toby turned to see her running towards them, waving her arms.

  All four leveling groups were relatively close together now. There were only four alternates left, so they merged into a single group to scout for everyone. Carol and Bill were still noted as group one alternates, unless another group needed them first.

  Paul nodded as she stopped. “What’s up?”

  “Event close by. Pretty big orc camp. We figure all four groups can be of use, like the goblins.”

  Paul rubbed at his chin.

  Claire shrugged. “Safety in numbers.”

  Tim nodded.”And we are behind.”

  Paul sighed. “Okay. Let’s go.”

  The orc camp going up was reminiscent of the goblin’s camp, except where the goblins made things from roughly hewn wood the orcs seemed to prefer poorly cast metal. Every piece seemed to bear rust and pits from careless hammer strikes on its surface.

  It looked like one giant tetanus shot waiting to happen.

  Well, one giant flaming tetanus shot. There were controlled fires burning all over the place. Most of them were obviously not clean materials either as they belched black smoke into the sky while the sun crept lower. It would be touching the horizon before long.

  Those moving about below were far more industrious than the goblins had been. None of them were milling about or relaxing. Everyone was working. Whether that meant construction, destruction, or swinging the whip to keep the rest in line, they were about it.

  The orcs themselves ran the gamut from ruddy green to a pale gray. All of them were taller and wider than a man and bore protruding tusks. They wore rough furs covered in shoddily crafted metal armor as pitted and rusted as their walls.

  The four groups had assembled, as well as the four person alternate group. Paul was observing the camp from a copse of trees where the rest of his forces were hidden away. Group one was in close, Toby stood beside Paul.

  “I don’t like it.” Paul shook his head.

  “It’s not so bad. Coat of paint, a few throw rugs, hang some drapes…”

  Paul’s emotionless stare spoke volumes. He didn’t respond to Toby. “There’s too many of them, and they’re too social. If we try to move in we’ll get the whole camp.”

  “We can’t just face pull them?”

  He shook his head. “The zombies weren’t social beyond fighting together. The orcs will raise an alarm just seeing us. We might be able to take that many, but not with them all pressing us on one side.”

  Jesse stood a few feet away, her back to a tree trunk as she snapped her fingers and sent little gouts of flame into the air.

  Toby tilted his head as he watched her. “What about something other than us?”

  “Eh?”

  He nodded toward Jesse. “I’ve seen her set things on fire before. How would the orcs respond?”

  Paul shrugged. “They’d split up. The larger group would try to put it out while a smaller number searched for the source.”

  “Sounds better than the whole camp.”

  Jesse smiled. “I can do you one better. I can throw lighting. Generally a bad idea in close quarters, but perfectly common occurrence when a storm rolls through. Doubt they’d spend much time looking for the source. They’d just curse the sky.”

  Paul scratched at his beard. “But that would necessitate finding something we could set on fire with one lightning strike. Any more than that and they will assume something is up.”

  Amos nodded. “We should have made stupider monsters.”

  “Hindsight.” Tim shrugged.

  Claire pointed into the camp. “What’s that one doing? The one with the barrel.”

  Paul shaded his eyes. “Defenses of some sort.”

  Another orc came by and dunked a club into the barrel. It came back out covered in a black substance that clung to the wood. He held it over one of the nearby fires and it burst into flame. He held the torch up high before affixing it to a pole at the edge of the camp.

  Jesse rolled up her sleeves. “Well, that answers that.”

  Paul held up a hand in front of her. “Just… be careful, yeah? We’re after precision.”

  “You saying I can’t be precise?”

  “I’m saying you’re not exactly known for it.”

  Tim nodded. “You’re more carpet bombing.”

  “Pfft. I’ll precision the hell out of this thing.” She raised both hands before her, palms almost touching, her eyes focused on a growing ball of electricity playing between them.

  Toby held up a hand. “Wait. If there’s only one strike, won’t that seem more suspicious? What about dropping a few more outside the camp. Spread them out a bit. Make it look more random.”

  Paul shook his head. “If we were hitting thinking people with it, sure. But these are just AI. We only need to avoid aggroing the lot.”

  Jesse had never stopped working the spell. Her hands were now more than a foot apart, the ball of electricity covering half the distance while arcs of current stretched out to lick her palms almost constantly.

  Paul frowned at her. “Jesse, throw the thing.”

  “Shh. I’ve got this.”

  He shook his head.

  Toby glanced aside at Claire and kept his voice low. “What’s she doing wrong?”

  “She’s overcharging the spell. Dumping more mana into it for a greater effect. All casters can do it, but most of the time it’s not a great idea. Leaves you resource starved for the rest of the fight.”

  “Okay…” Toby nodded. “But then why do it?”

  “Bigger boom. It’s a risk versus reward thing. If you can drop a stronger mob with one cast it makes up for having to rest before doing it again. There’s no way she will take them all down with one shot, but she’s hedging her bets on taking out more than one with the initial attack.”

  “Sounds good to me.”

  “It is, and it isn’t. Mana regeneration is slowed while you’re in combat. She’s trying to do as much damage as possible with the first strike, but Paul is worried it will mean she sits the rest of the fight out. Especially troubling to him since she’s the backup healer.”

  “That does sound a bit like she’s being reckless…”

  Claire shrugged. “Paul is always cautious. It’s his default state of mind. No one knows Jesse’s spells better than she does. She knows what she’s doing.”

  The ball of electricity shrank to nothing in an instant, a bright flash was the last sign of it before the space between her palms was empty again.

  Toby glanced about, confused.

  Everyone else was watching the camp.

  Jesse let her hands drop and rolled her shoulders a bit before raising one hand, a finger pistol pointing at the camp. “Bang.”

  A bright white bolt of lightning rent the sky. Perhaps Toby had never been so close to lighting before, but this bolt seemed much larger and thicker than usual. It struck the barrel in an instant, wide enough to hide the entire thing from view in white light.

  Toby held up a hand to shield his eyes, watching through his curled fingers.

  The bolt itself knocked more than a few orcs from their feet. They had no time to recover before the barrel burst apart in an explosion more than two stories high.

  Orcs flew through the air like toys cast about by a careless toddler, their arms flailing through the empty sky, their voices crying out.

  Toby stood staring at the carnage. The camp had a new crater where the barrel had been. There were motionless orcs all around, while those beyond the blast radius were rushing to put out the lingering fires. Their constructs were mostly metal, but the oil burned even when it landed on metal. Every scrap of wood seemed to be in danger of catching and more than a few orcs were rolling around on the ground trying to put out the burning oil that had struck them. The least fortunate among them managed it only to roll into a burning puddle in their haste.

  Jesse tilted her head back and forth as she exami
ned her handiwork. “I get an achievement for that, right? World first? Most damage or kills with a single spell?”

  Paul shrugged. “Afraid you’re not eligible for world firsts or leaderboards, being an employee and all.”

  “What? Fuck that. I earned that shit.”

  “Would still look like favoritism, and people would doubtlessly claim you cheated.”

  She crossed her arms and pouted. “That’s bullshit.”

  Toby patted her on the shoulder. “Well I’m impressed.”

  She grinned. “It was pretty good.”

  Tim scoffed. “Pretty good? That was probably a war crime.”

  “I await my tribunal. I will dance as they dub me ‘Orcslayer.’ ”

  Paul shook his head as he drew his sword. “Come on Orcslayer, you missed a few. Still work to be done.”

  16

  They charged into the camp as one large group. The crater was their point of entry. Most of the orcs there were still running around unsure of what to do.

  Those on the ground caught arrows or Tim’s daggers as he dance between them in black bursts of smoke.

  Group one leveled before they even encountered the enemy force. Apparently Jesse the Orcslayer’s efforts had counted for a great deal. She stayed at the center of the group now, well behind Paul and Toby. Her mana was low, and was likely to stay low. She tossed out her typical fire DOT on targets that approached.

  Paul taunted the orcs that approached by bashing his sword against his shield. It didn’t seem particularly taunting to Toby, but it was a bit more refined than insulting their mothers. Maybe the orcs has a warrior culture and saw it as an unquestionable challenge. Who knows?

  What Toby knew was that he had no intention of living up to any such warrior’s code. He moved around and struck them from behind without any second thoughts.

  They were tough customers compared to everything else they had faced. They took more hits than even the zombies, though at least they cared they had been hit and flinched when damaged. It made it easier to avoid return blows.

  He could barely see their black blood upon the black blade of Soulbreaker.

  There were plenty of orcs to go around. Each group, aside from the alternates, had its own tank who was working to pick up orcs as they came. The DPS were not being picky with their targets or stick to their own group, more just trying to clear them as quickly as they could.