Forever Fantasy Online

by Rachel Aaron

  Tina nodded at the storehouse full of mundane weapons across the yard. “When Grel attacks and everyone goes out to fight, I say we make a play for the armory. The Order’s crap is nowhere near as good as our stuff, but we can still rearm ourselves and make a run for it. I’ll tank whatever Garrond sends to catch us while the rest of you go out the back door and flee into the Verdancy.”

  SB’s mask hid his frown, but his perfect golden eyebrows were furrowed in a deep, worried crease. “That’s not a plan, Roxxy. What about you?”

  “I’ll figure it out,” she said stubbornly. “It’s my fault we’re in this mess. I don’t mind taking a risk to get us out.”

  “Staying behind wouldn’t be a risk. It’d be suicide,” SilentBlayde argued. “There has to be something we haven’t thought of yet. An angle we can use.”

  “He’s got a huge Grel’Darm problem!” said a shrill female voice from nowhere.

  Tina and SB both scrambled to their feet as ZeroDarkness and KuroKawaii stepped out of the shadows behind Tina’s massive back. The elven Assassin and her jubatus companion both looked tired, but they were overall in much better shape than anyone else in the raid.

  “Whoa! Hey, guys!” SilentBlayde said, hugging both Assassins. Other players perked up as well, raising their heads to see what the fuss was.

  “Good to see you’re both okay,” Tina said, and she meant it. Despite Kuro’s open hatred of her, she’d never stopped worrying. Seeing them both looking so good now made her smile. “So what was that about Grel’Darm?”

  The catlike ZeroDarkness gave her a fanged grin. “Commander Dude knows he can’t win a fight against Grel. He’s surprisingly knowledgeable about the raid mechanics, and he’s already figured out that Grel’Darm can’t be taken down by the one-skull troops he’s got here no matter how many he throws at him.”

  “How do you know that?” Tina asked.

  “We might have been spying on him,” KuroKawaii said, eyes glimmering with mischief. “He was just bitching about Grel’Darm’s Chain Fire ability and how it had ‘no known limit on targets.’ If Grel uses that in this crowded base, one chain would be enough to kill every soldier here. Right now, his strat is to fight Grel alone out front and hope his siege crews and archers can kill the rest of the army before it kills him. It’s a crap plan, though. He’s totally screwed and knows it.”

  Tina looked at SilentBlayde, and they shared a nod. As happy as she was to hear this new information, though, there was one part she still didn’t understand.

  “Why are you telling us this?” Tina asked the Assassins. “No offense, but I thought you’d both had enough of me.”

  ZeroDarkness smiled at her. “Seeing you apologize was great! That’s all I wante—oof!”

  He cut off with a wheeze as KuroKawaii elbowed him.

  While he recovered, Kuro picked up the story. “What he means is we’re stuck here, too. The portal’s gone, and like hell are we sneaking through that gross swamp.” She made a face then shrugged at Tina. “You’re the only show left in town, but don’t think that means we’re taking orders like the rest of your lackeys. I still don’t trust you.”

  Tina sighed at the hostility in her voice. So much for making up. “I’m just happy you two are still alive. I’m not going to tell you what to do, but why don’t you stick around a bit and see if you want to be in on our plan. Deal?”

  The Assassins looked at each other. When Kuro nodded, ZeroDarkness did as well. Tina nodded back, and the two went off to catch up with the other raid members.

  “What do you think?” SilentBlayde asked as they watched the exchange of hugs and fist bumps.

  “Not much to think about,” Tina replied. “Garrond and his army can’t take Grel. We can. That’s our leverage. ”

  Even as she said it, though, Tina wasn’t sure it was true. The return of the Assassins had perked people up, but the raid still looked broken. The Rangers had used the fake stick arrows from their quivers to make a small fire, and most of the casters were still sleeping, their faces pale and haggard. They certainly didn’t look like an army that could take down a giant, and that was all her fault.

  “I’m such an idiot,” she muttered, dropping her head to her hands. “The others were right. I bet we could have taken Grel before, but we’ve got nothing left. No energy, no ammo, no trust. I used it all up. Even with this new information, we might still be screwed.”

  “We’re not screwed,” SB said sharply. “And you’re not an idiot, Tina.”

  Tina’s head shot up at the unexpected use of her real name to find him staring at her, his blue eyes deadly serious above his mask.

  “We’re on our last legs,” he said quietly. “But we’re not out yet. Have some faith in us.”

  “I do,” she said. “I’ve actually got some new ideas for taking down Grel if he’s alone, but I just don’t see how we can fight like this.” She waved her hand at the deflated raid sitting in the courtyard like prisoners of war. “I used everyone up. If I push again, we’re gonna crumple.”

  “I disagree,” SilentBlayde said. “Check this out.”

  He scooted a little closer to her, then he pulled off his helmet and mask in one smooth motion, sending his long, golden, salon-perfect hair tumbling down around his shoulders. The sunshine-colored mass fell perfectly around his face, framing his bright-blue eyes and handsome features so flawlessly it was uncanny, like watching a scene from a movie play out in real life. Even with Anders’s warnings about her shifting physical attractions, Tina was floored. He just looked so…beautiful. Like an honest-to-god elven prince.

  “Uh…umm…okay,” Tina stammered, unsure where to put her eyes. “Did you just feel like having a shampoo-commercial moment, or is there a point I’m missing?”

  “This is the point,” SB said, flashing her a dazzling smile. “Look at us, Roxxy! I look amazing! Plus I’m strong, tough, and fast like a superhero. And you! You’re incredible, a literal mountain of invincible, unstoppable power! Don’t you think that’s awesome?”

  Tina’s stone face couldn’t show it, but mentally she was blushing lobster red. SilentBlayde was closer than ever now, his hair glimmering like golden sunlight despite the smoky light of the guttering torches. It would have been incredible if not for the fact that his nearness was making her feel like her old awkward self again. The pathetic, weak self she played FFO to escape.

  “I-I guess it’s pretty cool,” she said at last, heart pounding. “But I’m still not following. What does this have to do with fighting?”

  It might have been her imagination, but she would have sworn SB sighed in disappointment. If he had, though, it was over in a flash as he pointed over her shoulder. “Look at Frank and Killbox.”

  Glad for the distraction, Tina turned to see Frank and Killbox sitting on their packs with their armor off. They were face to face, taking turns flexing their ridiculous canned-ham muscles at each other and grinning like idiots. Then the two of them dropped to the ground and started doing one-armed push-ups, jeering at each other to see who could do more.

  “They’re wasting energy,” Tina grumbled.

  “They’re having fun,” SB replied. “Look at Neko.”

  Growing annoyed, Tina turned again to find NekoBaby sitting with the raid’s other jubatus Naturalist. They were both making tiny gestures in the air that caused little flowers or grass blades to pop up between the flagstones, their tails twitching in unison as they intently explored their nature magic. A few seconds later, both the healers were distracted as Zen used a crystal from her pocket to run a spot of light on the ground between them. The catlike casters stared at it in absolute fascination for several seconds before Zen pocketed the crystal with a smug grin. They both glared at her, but then everyone started to laugh at the absurdity of it all.

  “Do you see?” SilentBlayde asked.

  “I’m sorry, dude, but I don’t,” Tina said, shaking her head as she turned back to him. “It looks like we’re losing our marbles to me.”

&nb
sp; “I’m trying to show you that we’re not all drowning in dangers and horrors,” he said patiently. “Some of us actually like it here, Roxxy. Sure, it’s been dangerous, but some of us think this whole trapped-in-the-game thing is really great despite the mud and the blood.”

  He lowered his voice, clearly not wanting others in the raid to hear him. “For example, I’ve been talking to Frank. He’s eighty-six in real life. Back home, he lives trapped in a chair, hooked up to both oxygen and insulin while his family argues over who has to care for him. Now he’s got a new young body that’s stronger and better than his old one ever was. To him, that’s a miracle, and I can’t say he’s wrong. My former ‘real’ life wasn’t that great, either, but all that’s changed now. Whatever happened gave us a new start, so I don’t care how much I have to fight. I’m gonna live in this new world as the amazing, incredible SilentBlayde! Complete with that damn Y in my name.”

  SB reached out to place his gloved hand on her larger, gauntleted one. “I can’t speak for everyone, but we’re not all as beaten as we look,” he said with a dazzling smile. “Yes, some people are mad at you, but mostly we’re just hungry, tired, and hurt. But that doesn’t mean we can’t fight. We’re players! We’re here because we like a challenge, so if anyone can do this, we can. Just don’t give up on us.”

  Tina stared at him in wonder. Whenever she looked at the raid, all she saw was defeat, but maybe that was her fault. She was sitting here wilted just like them. But SB was right. No one who got into raiding was the sort to give up easily. The Assassins’ tip about Garrond had given them a fighting chance, but it was all for nothing unless someone stood up and grabbed it, and that someone had to be her.

  She took a deep, satisfied breath. This was the reason she’d rolled a tank. Not because she liked taking damage, but because when tanks stepped up and said “we’re doing this,” the rest of the party followed. Her whole life, people had always told Tina she couldn’t do it, with “it” being everything from earning money off a game video channel to getting into college to making a living as a library sciences major. No one ever thought that Tina—short, scrawny, awkward, game-obsessed Tina—could do anything, sometimes not even herself.

  But Roxxy was different. From the moment her level-one stonekin Knight had said, “Let’s go that way!” people had followed. She’d said it when she’d made her guild, and people had joined. She’d said it when they’d started raiding, and bosses had started dying. Seven FFO expansions later, her Roughnecks had followed her into the Dead Mountain, the dungeon everyone said no one could beat. But Roxxy had led them in, stomping stubbornly forward through wipe after wipe until they’d scored a world-first kill. That was her pride, her accomplishment, and it had only happened because she’d made it.

  This was no different. No one else here was going to stand up and say, “Let’s do this,” but she could. So long as she was Roxxy, Tina could lead the charge anywhere.

  “Thanks, SB,” she said, rising to her feet. “Hold down the fort. I’m gonna go see if I can’t get us a fighting chance.”

  “Always,” he replied, hiding his bright smile behind his mask once again.

  ****

  Twenty minutes and several traumatized guards later, Tina scored an audience with Commander Garrond.

  He looked up from his huge desk as she marched into his office, surrounded by a ten-squad of soldiers, many of whom were now sporting fresh black eyes. “If you intend to keep giving me trouble,” he said darkly, “I’m going to tie you to the front door as extra armor.”

  “I needed to talk to you,” Tina said with a shrug. “Before hell and high water arrived. People around here didn’t get that, so I explained it in terms they understood.”

  She cracked her stone knuckles, and Commander Garrond sighed.

  “I don’t have time for player arrogance. If you have something to say, spit it out.”

  “Easy enough,” Tina replied, leaning her weight on his desk until the wood creaked. “You have a giant-sized problem, and I’m the only one with the solution.”

  Garrond’s hands clenched into fists. Then without warning, he shot to his feet and dismissed the guards. When the retreating men closed the door behind them, the commander walked out from behind his desk to stand face-to-face with her.

  “Explain.”

  “Grel’Darm,” she said. “You’re a four-skull badass, but the rest of the Order are all level-eighty one-skulls. You can’t change that no matter how much gear you give them, so now you’ve got a problem. You’ve got the armor and hit points to tank Grel by yourself, but once you get him down to half health, he’s gonna cast Chain Fire. It’ll hit you first, then the damage will jump to the nearest two targets. From there, it’ll split to the next four, then eight, and so on. There’s no limit to how many times Chain Fire can jump. Players can take the hit and get healed up after, but your scrubby little one-skull soldiers are gonna get insta-killed, then it’s bye-bye Order of the Golden Sun.”

  “You underestimate us,” the commander growled. “I know more than you think about the mechanics of your game. I was frozen in that courtyard for a very long time, learning English by listening to you players talk on ‘spatial chat’ about your raids and cats and tacos and 420 and so much other nonsense. I’ve seen your own Roughneck Raiders die, rise at my shrine, and run back to battle countless times, so you’ll understand if I’m skeptical about your effectiveness.”

  Tina had to scramble to hide her surprise. She’d already accepted that the game world had been real to the NPCs, but she hadn’t considered that Garrond would have known her guild personally. The implications of that were crazy, but she didn’t have time to get into them. She was on a mission here, so Tina stowed her questions for later and got back to the point.

  “You’re the one underestimating Grel’Darm,” she said. “You might have heard about raid bosses, but you’ve never tanked one before.”

  “You don’t know anything about me,” Garrond snapped.

  “Don’t I?” Tina snapped back. “You’re not the only one who’s had to stand around in this stupid fortress. I’ve wasted hours here, getting raids together to go into the Dead Mountain. I’ve seen players kite plenty of monsters into your fortress, and the guards always take them down before anything can get to you. You might have the stats for it, but I’d bet the rest of my gear that you’ve never tanked anything real in your life, let alone a boss as technical as Grel.”

  Garrond snorted. “And you can?”

  “Can and have,” Tina said proudly. “You saw my guild running back from wipes, but you’ve never seen us on all the nights we won. Grel is the first and weakest of the Dead Mountain bosses. I know his mechanics inside and out. You think Chain Fire is bad? That’s just one of his abilities. There’s also Howling Strike, which does double damage to anything it hits. You got any big defensive abilities to suck that up with, Mr. NPC? What about his Big Boot attack where he randomly kicks the tank? If you don’t block it just right, he’ll launch you into orbit. Oh, and he’ll lose aggro if you get kicked more than fifty yards away. If you don’t have a second tank ready to pick him up when that happens, guess who he’ll attack? Your healers.”

  Tina shook her head. “Seriously, dude, this boss was made to be a challenge for veteran raiders with good gear. If you try to take him yourself, every one of your Order is going to die. Your only chance of survival is to have an elite force kill Grel somewhere his Chain Fire can’t reach your men.”

  “And that would be you, I take it?” Garrond said flatly.

  “Damn straight,” Tina said. “He’s death for you, but I’ve killed Grel more times than I can count. I could tank the big bastard in my sleep. He’ll be a cakewalk for us.”

  “Then why were you running from him when you came to my gate?” Garrond asked, his eyes sharp. “If you’re so good, why was your ‘raid’ fleeing for your lives?”

  “Because Grel doesn’t normally have an army with him,” Tina said. “We’re good, but even we
can’t fight Grel and every trash mob from Once King’s mountain at the same time.”

  “Then it seems you are still useless,” Garrond said with a sneer. “Because his army is still there.”

  Tina rolled her eyes. “You know, for a supposedly smart commander, you sure are acting stupid. I’m not saying we can handle everything by ourselves. I’m offering to fight Grel’Darm with you.”

  That was her big drop, but even as she said it, she saw his eyes flash with the same murderous hate she’d seen in all the soldiers since they’d arrived. “Never,” he snarled. “I will never permit a group of over-powered children fight on my battlefield! The Nightmare forced us to treat you like heroes, but I’ve seen who you really are! You’re fools and drunks, braggarts and cowards. You play at being soldiers, but you give up and ‘rage quit’ at the first sign of real difficulty. I know what you are, player, and I will never trust the lives of my soldiers or the safety of this world to careless monsters like you.”

  He turned away as he finished, signaling that the conversation was over, but Tina caught his arm.

  “Maybe we were like that before,” she said when he glared over his shoulder. “But things are different now. This isn’t a game for us anymore, either. Grel’Darm isn’t going to care who’s a player and who’s not when he busts in your door. This is a do-or-die situation for us, too. You can’t ask for more commitment than that.”

  “To yourselves,” he sneered. “But I’ve seen the way you treat us NPCs. You used to feed my soldiers to monsters for fun! The only reason you’re willing to lift a finger for us now is because you can die, too.”

  “Exactly,” Tina said, ignoring the hostility in his voice. “We’re all in the same boat. But before you go slandering our character, you should know that I’m not offering to save you for free.”

  The commander did a double take at that, and Tina mentally crossed her fingers. She’d known from the moment the hate had flared in his eyes that he would never willingly work with players, but if she could get him to see them differently, maybe they could compromise. It was all she had left, in any case, so Tina gave him her best marble-toothed smile and went for the kill.