Forever Fantasy Online

by Rachel Aaron

  Chapter 17

  Tina

  “Keep pulling!”

  The morning was crawling by, but still nothing had changed. The Knights and Berserkers heaved with all their might, skin flushed and muscles bulging as they fought to bring the walls down. Killbox had even tried moving all twelve Strength classes to one side to double their pulling power, but the damn stones still weren’t budging, and Tina was rapidly running out of tricks.

  At least Frank was back on his game. Once he’d recovered from being knocked out, he’d hit every switch perfectly, taking his share of Grel’Darm’s Howling Strikes without so much as a wince. Unfortunately, there were still only two of them, and Grel’Darm had found a new formidable weapon in the iron bar that had once held the gates closed. It was shorter and lighter than the club he’d broken on Tina’s shield, letting the giant hit faster than ever before. Faster than their abilities could keep up with.

  “Frank!” Tina yelled as she deflected another crushing blow off her shield. “Change of plans! Neither of us has the abilities for this many hits, so we’re gonna try to split the damage. My Steady Ground is up now, so I’ll go first. You hit yours the moment you’re off cooldown.”

  Frank nodded and stepped in beside her. When he got close, though, Tina realized he was shaking.

  “Stay with me, man,” she said gently, using her shield to bump his back to the correct angle. “We can do this.”

  “I know,” Frank said, his voice cracking, “It’s just…I thought I’d come to terms with dyin’ years ago, but I just can’t stop shaking.”

  “It’s okay,” Tina said, bracing her feet as Grel raised his iron bar again. “Just remember: you’re a superhero covered in magical equipment that was forged by ancient gods. Compared to you, this guy ain’t shit.”

  Frank cracked a nervous smile behind his helmet. “I don’t feel particularly super right now.”

  Neither did Tina, but she knew better than to let that show. “We got this,” she said firmly, preparing her shield for the iron bar that was now high in the gray sky above their heads. “Just follow my lead.”

  With a ghostly howl, the colossal skeleton hammered his iron beam down on top of them. They braced their shields on their shoulders and locked the edges together, then Tina grabbed Frank around the waist with one arm and leaned into him as hard as she could.

  “Steady Ground!”

  The earth beneath them hardened into a column of bedrock as the iron bar slammed down with the sound of a plane crash. The impact vibrated down through shields, armor, bones, and finally into the ground itself. Both Tina and Frank were driven to their knees before it was over, but the hit didn’t make them bleed this time, and Tina’s spirits lifted. It had worked!

  Then Grel’Darm tried to kick them.

  “Fuck!” Tina yelled, yanking her shield down. “Big Boot! Angle shields!”

  Frank followed her lead, slamming his shield into the ground next to hers at the exact right angle seconds before Grel’s boot hit the combined wall of their bulwarks and slid up, perfectly deflected. Grel howled with rage and brought his iron bar up again, but he’d moved so fast that Tina’s Steady Ground was still going, and she yanked Frank back into position beside her. They threw up their shields to take the hit again.

  The blow hammered them both into the stone again, only this time, it didn’t stop. Grel just hauled back and kept hitting, slamming the iron length down on them again and again like he was trying to jackhammer them into the pavement. Frank used his Steady Ground the moment Tina’s ran out, but the attack showed no sign of slowing. The giant skeleton just kept going, beating them farther and farther down into the pulverized stone of the fortress’s entrance.

  As Frank’s defense ticked down, Tina focused all her strength on her shield and prayed for the sound of a catapult. This kind of beating was not part of her plan. If things didn’t turn around soon, something was going to break. Tina was terrified that it would be her, but reality turned out to be much, much worse.

  Between her team-up with Frank and Grel’Darm’s new super-speed mode, Tina hadn’t been able to keep an eye on the casters, but she still knew the moment they ran out. All of a sudden, the constant stream of fireballs and lightning that had been shooting past her to blast the lesser undead pouring through the broken doors behind Grel began to dry up. The arrows were still flying, but eight Rangers weren’t enough to hold the door by themselves, and as the barrage of magic fell silent, the rattle of bones in armor grew louder.

  “Shit,” Tina whispered, peeking around her shield. “Shit, shit, shit—”

  She cut off with a gasp as an enormous undead boar jumped through the shattered door and ran between Grel’Darm’s feet, straight at them. As braced as they were for the boss’s overhead assault, neither tank was in position for an attack from that direction, which meant Frank’s front was wide open when the boar plowed into him, its giant tusks stabbing right under his raised shield and into the heavy armor of his chest.

  Smashed by the boar’s shoulder, Tina was flung to the ground. Fortunately, Frank’s armor was good enough that the boar’s tusks shattered instead of sinking into his chest, but the blow still threw him into the caster camp, forcing the Rangers to scatter as he crashed into the fortress’s bolted inner door. The moment they got clear, they turned and started pouring arrows into the boar as it charged after Frank. The undead beast went down with a scream, but Frank was still stuck in the door, leaving Tina alone with Grel.

  “Pry him out!” Tina screamed, scrambling to her feet. She’d barely made it up before Grel’Darm slammed his massive iron bar down again. This time, though, she had nothing left to take it.

  “External!” she yelled as the black plank of iron filled her vision. “External on me now!”

  Both a circle of thorns and a sanctuary appeared around her, and the attack bounced off. Cursing the waste of two big abilities, Tina got her shield up to prepare for the next attack only to discover it was already coming, and she still had nothing to stop it.

  “External!” she yelled again.

  Another golden shield appeared above her, blocking the attack, but Grel was back to his insane rhythm, slamming the bar into her so fast, it sang in the air.

  “External!” Tina cried as he hammered her. “Keep it up!”

  Again and again, the raid found new ways to stay her execution, but Tina knew it couldn’t last. Only a handful of classes had big-damage shutdowns, and most of those had an hour reset. One of these attacks, she was going to call for an external, and there wasn’t going to be one, but there was nothing she could do. Now that the damage casters were dry, Frank was stuck in the back, keeping the undead off their healers. The moment they’d gotten him out of the door, he’d had his hands full, grappling with another giant boar and a pack of zombies. If the casting camp folded, they were all done for, so Tina sucked it up and set herself to facing Grel alone, keeping her shield high as he slammed her down with blow after blow.

  “Exter—” she started to yell then cut off as her heart skipped a beat. This was it. How she knew, Tina wasn’t sure. Maybe it was instinct from nearly a decade of tanking, but she knew in her bones that there wouldn’t be anything coming to save her this time.

  Sure enough, no golden feathers or ironwood vines blossomed in the air above her head. The healers were out of big abilities. She was on her own.

  “Earthen Fortitude!” she yelled, bracing her shield. “Iron Wall! Steady Ground!”

  The time being supported by Frank and the rest of the raid had given her best defenses time to reset. She’d been hoping to limp through this using only one at a time, but Grel was howling again, which meant this was going to be a big hit. There was no way she was getting through that alive, alone, without her best shit. If she died, everything was over, so Tina blew her full stack again as the bar crashed down.

  Tina had taken a lot of hits from Grel at this point, but the force of his blows never ceased to amaze her. He crashed his bar into her sh
ield with the force of a rocket. Metal screamed as the iron length bent across her shield, smashing her to the ground. It hit so hard, her vision went dark for a moment. Then the weight lifted, and Tina staggered up from her knees.

  She was shaking her head to clear it when the bus that was Grel’s boot suddenly filled her vision. There was no time to react, but Iron Wall—the ability that guaranteed her a perfect defense no matter how badly she messed up—must have still had a second left, because her body moved on its own, slamming her shield down at the perfect angle to send the fight-ending kick up and over her head.

  For a glorious moment, Tina felt the rush of victory. Then the supernatural confidence of Iron Wall faded, leaving her heavy, sore, and alone. Above her, Grel regained his balance and lifted his bent weapon high over his head. With nothing left, Tina raised her shield to meet him, hoping more than believing she had enough health left to soak up an attack with no defenses. But then just when the warped bar was all she could see, Frank appeared at her side, locking his shield with hers as the massive iron bar crashed into them.

  “Iron Wall!”

  Gasping, Tina clung to Frank as his shield deflected blow after blow. Iron Wall’s perfect defense made up for his lack of experience, but beneath the perfect movements, Tina could feel him shaking inside his armor. Or maybe it was her. Either way, it was clear neither of them could take much more of this.

  “We need to kill this guy!” Frank yelled desperately. “The Rangers are ready. They’ve killed off all the undead on the back lines. Zen said she can—”

  “No!” Tina yelled. “We stick to the plan!”

  “But the plan isn’t working!” Frank cried, his voice pleading. “We gotta kill him now!”

  “I know, but we can’t,” Tina said angrily. “Grel has more HP than any boss in the Dead Mountain except the Once King himself! Even when our casters were full, we never had the damage to burn him down before he killed us because we were never a full raid! This group would have struggled to kill him back when this was a game, and that was before we lost two people. That’s why I came up with the plan in the first place! If we bury him in rocks, it won’t matter how long it takes us to kill him, but if we try to go all out now, the undead will flood us under, and everyone will die!”

  “Looks like we’re going to die anyway,” Frank said, but he kept his shield up, looking to her for their next move. Tina wasn’t sure if she was impressed or terrified by the amount of trust he was giving her, but she was determined not to fail him.

  “We can tank this,” she said, locking her shield more tightly with his. “Just stay together!”

  Above their defense, Grel’Darm was swinging harder than ever, his ghostfire eyes flaring with rage. But while the boss was doing fine, his improvised weapon was looking sadder with every hit. Now that Tina’s shield had bent it out of shape, the metal beam was warping all over, growing hot and pliable until it was moving more like a whip than a sword. As he kept hammering anyway, Tina realized with a start that Grel’Darm wasn’t smart enough to go for a better weapon, which was probably why they weren’t dead. Frank’s Steady Ground had faded ages ago, but though Grel was as strong as ever, his weapon was no longer transferring that strength into his targets. Attack after attack, the squishy iron was the only thing saving them from obliteration.

  It was still a pounding, though. They didn’t need externals or cooldowns, but every hit still took a chunk out of their health. The constant clang of metal left Tina deaf and numb, and her shield arm felt like it was going to fall off. They had to get this plan to the next phase, but the catapults outside were still silent. Tina clenched her teeth as she took another hit. Where the hell was SilentBlayde?

  A few hits later, Tina began to fear it didn’t matter. She didn’t dare take her eyes off Grel, but every time the clanging cleared from her ears, she could hear the rattle of bones all around them. With the Sorcerers out of mana, the Rangers had been keeping the undead back by themselves, but they were starting to fall seriously behind. When Tina risked a look over her shoulder, she was horrified to see the undead were behind them now, as well, only a few feet from the caster line. The only thing that kept them off the tanks was the fact that Grel’s constant pounding was crushing them as well, pulverizing any skeleton or zombie that got too close.

  That wouldn’t save the casters, though. Some undead were too stupid to get out of Grel’s way, but plenty more were running around him, building up on the line the Rangers were holding with their frantic arrows. Frank could help clear them out, but then Tina would be alone and flattened. If they didn’t do something, though, the whole fight would fold.

  The bitter bile of defeat began to rise in her throat. On either side of the walls, Team Hulk was red-faced and flagging. Some of them weren’t even pulling anymore, turning instead to help keep the undead off the others. There was no sign of SilentBlayde or the other Assassins. For all Tina knew, she’d sent them to their deaths by ordering them to take catapults in the middle of an enemy army. She might have just gotten them all killed, because the walls weren’t coming down, and without external help, Grel was too much for them.

  The ugly truth sank into her stomach like a rock. It was over. They’d lost. She’d lost, and if she wanted to save anyone, she was going to have to call the retreat. If she gave the order now, there was a good chance the healers and other casters would escape. The Rangers were fast, so they’d be fine, and if she did her area taunt to get all of the zombies on her, she might able to buy enough time for Team Hulk to get out as well before she went down.

  It was a long shot and a deadly one for her, but it was the least Tina could do after miscalculating so epically. But just as she raised her voice to give the command to fall back, she was drowned out by a huge, fiery explosion as something crashed into the gooseneck’s left-hand wall from the outside.

  The resulting force wave was enough to make even Grel’Darm stagger. As he listed sideways, his blow went awry, the metal bar sticking deep into the stone on Tina’s right. He was yanking it back out when a second, equally huge explosion hit the stone box’s right wall, opening a sprawling crack right down the middle. As she watched the stone crumble, Tina felt her strength kick back in. The Assassins had done it! They’d captured the undead’s catapults and fired them at the walls! They weren’t defeated after all!

  She shot to her feet and turned to Frank in a rush, sheathing her sword so she could yank him up. “Go help Team Hulk!” she yelled in his face. “They’re out of gas!”

  He stared at her like she was crazy. “But you’ll be alone with—”

  “Go!” she shouted, shoving him toward the cracked walls before turning back to Grel. “This is it, people!” she bellowed, raising her voice until it bounced off the crumbling stone. “Healers, snares on Grel’Darm now! Do not let him move!”

  A flurry of magic went off behind her, and Grel was suddenly draped in golden chains and stone hands as six snares went off at the same time. The giant looked down in confusion, but no matter how hard he pulled, his feet stayed rooted.

  The moment Tina was sure he wasn’t going anywhere, she ran to help Killbox. The snares would only last on a boss that big for six seconds at most, but if this worked, six seconds would be enough. Bashing undead out of the way with her shield, she grabbed the end of the iron chain. “Now, Team Hulk!” she screamed. “Bring these walls down!”

  “You heard her!” Killbox shouted, bracing his trunk-like legs. “Pull!”

  Everyone heaved together, pulling on the chains until their eyes bulged and their veins practically burst. Tina leaned back with all her weight, putting every bit of the strength she had left into her arms as she tugged on the giant chain. For a terrible second, nothing happened, but then the crack on the left slipped sideways with a crunch, and the whole wall began to fall inward. The right wall gave a second later, and suddenly the air was full of dust as the gooseneck’s stone walls—and the towers attached to them—began to cave in. Tina and the rest of Team H
ulk jumped out of the way as the massive chains they’d been pulling ripped free. Giant gears and pulleys rained down as the counterweights tore through the side of the falling towers, the giant iron blocks hurtling down straight toward Grel’Darm’s head.

  “Run!” Tina screamed as the shadow of the falling wall closed over their heads.

  There was no need for an order. Everyone was already sprinting as fast as they could toward the casters as the artificial canyon that was the gate yard collapsed in on itself, burying the undead—and the boss who was still trapped in the middle—under a mountain of man-sized white granite blocks.

  As the walls fell, Tina finally saw why they hadn’t been able to topple them themselves. The sidewalls had looked small in comparison to the rest of the fort, but the support stones inside were the size of cars. Now that they were down, though, the miscalculation actually worked in her favor, because the same weight that had defeated Team Hulk was crashing into Grel’Darm.

  The collapsing wave of stone knocked the giant from side to side like a pinball. He reached out a bony arm to grab what remained of the front gatehouse in a last-ditch attempt to keep his balance, but with the towers on either side gone, that was collapsing as well, sending the monster flat on his face as the stone landed on top of him.

  The undead army that had swarmed in was crushed out of existence as well, the zombies, skeletons, and undead boars collapsing like paper dolls under the tremendous weight of the rock. It would have crushed the raiders as well if Tina hadn’t ordered everyone to stand inside the lee of the fort’s inner gate.

  Pressed against each other with their backs to the heavy wooden doors, they were protected by the main fort’s wall as everything else came down. Tina and the other heavily armored knights made a wall in front of the rest of the raid to protect them from any stray stones, but it almost wasn’t necessary. Once they’d started to fall, the walls landed exactly where Tina had wanted, leaving the raid staring at a forty-foot-tall mound of rubble with Grel’Darm’s arms and legs just barely poking out from the edges.