I unleashed Scorched Earth, setting fire to the entire alley. The goblin leapt over the flames and flung three daggers at me as he descended. My fire shield deflected the projectiles and I leapt to meet him above the flames. My speed and strength were now nearly three times as high as they had been when I entered the game, and my leap brought me ten feet into the air as I crossed a span of fifteen feet.
My sword swept aside the thrusted dagger as we met in the air. We collided shield to shield, but my greater weight gained me the advantage as he was thrown off balance and bounced off me to crash into the wall. He landed on his feet like a cat, as I too hit the ground in a crouch.
I had produced another Fireball as I was landing and thrust my arms forward when I hit the ground. The goblin and I had traded orientations, and I was now between him and the street. He leapt ten feet straight up as my Fireball zipped by, barely missing his crotch, and retaliated with a stream of daggers that shot from his open palm. I crouched behind my fire shield and ducked as the enchanted daggers pounded into my shield. My armor meter slowly drained as I endured the onslaught, but I kept an eye on the goblin through my semi-translucent shield of fire. He was racing toward me as he unleashed his barrage, and I cocked back my sword to strike once the last dagger had been deflected.
I swung at the goblin as he came into range, but to my surprise he suddenly disappeared. He appeared in the corner of my eye behind me, but before I could turn my shield to block, he stabbed me in the side with a quick thrust of a black dagger.
My enchanted robes absorbed the blow, but a warning appeared in my field of vision.
Warning!
Armor below 10%
The goblin assassin disappeared again, and I turned in anticipation of the move and thrust my short sword out into the empty air. He appeared in front of the tip of the blade at the last second, and my blade broke through his armor and impaled him where he stood. I pushed the sword deep and spun away from a dagger strike, letting go of the sword in the process. I spun away from the blow and conjured a Magic Bolt as I came back around.
The spell ripped through the air and hit the goblin in the right cheek bone, obliterating a quarter of his face and skull.
He hit the ground and began twitching, his one eye jiggling as it tried to focus on me. I bent down and grabbed the goblin by the unmarred left side of his head.
“Who sent you?” I demanded.
The goblin only laughed as green blood oozed out of the hideous wound.
“Who sent you!”
“SSSee you in the Underworld, SSSammy…”
His one good eye rolled back in his head, and he let out his last breath.
I staggered back from the corpse as it suddenly burst into flames, and a thousand little black spiders with skull and crossbones on their bulbous abdomens were born from the flames. They came scurrying after me, and I cast Scorched Earth as I retreated. Flames burst from the ground, completely consuming the spiders, and I let out a sigh of relief. I glanced around to make sure that there were no other surprises in store for me, and quickly exited the alley.
Chapter 5
The girls were waiting for me at the pub, and I ordered a beer as I joined them.
“What happened?” Anna asked. The look on her face told me that she could tell something was wrong.
I told them what Dr. Marks had said, and how he had been killed by an assassin while he was trying to tell me how I might defeat the glitch that called itself Kincaid.
“Kincaid is the Lord of the Underworld?” said Cecilia with disbelief.
“That’s what the doctor said. But it’s not really Kincaid, I mean, I don’t think so anyway. Arthur Gaines is still in a coma but is seems that somehow his consciousness was imprinted on the game when I defeated him.”
“And now he’s gunning for you,” Ember surmised.
“Yeah, and for whatever reason, he tried to frame me for Tweak’s murder.”
“But why?” Kit asked.
“To keep Sam distracted,” Anna told her. “If there is anything that this new version of Kincaid fears, then it’s definitely Sam.”
“But why go through all this trouble?” I asked. “Why not just send his minions to kill me?”
“Maybe he doesn’t want you in the Underworld,” Trinity suggested. “If he truly fears you, then he won’t want you in his realm at all. He may have simply been trying to get you locked up for the crime.”
“I don’t know,” I said. “I can’t imagine the lord of the Underworld being afraid of a a mid-level mage.”
“The doctor said something about possibly being able to trap Kincaid,” Cecilia reminded us. “Do you think he meant like in another realm in-game?”
“Your guess is as good as mine,” I told her. “If Doctor Marks is trapped in the Underworld like the other players, then the only way to find out what he meant is to go there as well, and I have no intentions of doing that.”
“Yeah, well, you might not have a choice,” said Ember. “The undead are going to attack Aeorock again tonight, and it won’t be long until everyone in Rebirth Online, including the NPCs, are all down there with him.”
“Let’s hope it doesn’t come to that,” said Trinity.
“Come on.” Cecilia got up from the table and finished her beer in one long swig. “We’ve got about 8 hours until nightfall, and we’re going to have to defend. Might as well level up while we’ve got time.”
We retired to Cecilia’s quarters in the back of the pub and piled onto the bed. I was a little distracted given recent events, but when the five women all stripped out of their clothes I forgot all my troubles.
I emerged from Cecilia’s bedroom an hour later a level 22, and a notification informed me that I had 30 attribute points to spend. The girls all needed to go see their trainers as well, so we all went our separate ways with intentions on meeting back up at the pub.
As I walked through Aeorock, I couldn’t help but notice how scared and defeated everyone looked. The place was packed with players ranging from low to mid-level, and all the way up to the 30’s.
But even the higher-level players looked concerned.
I found my trainer and spread my attribute points around evenly across my six attributes. After a quick scan of my character sheet I decided that it might be smart to stock up on some potions and weapons. I still had over a half a million gold in my account given to me as a reward for saving Aeorock, and I figured now was as good a time as any to spend some of my money. I made my way into an apothecary shop and picked up some major mana and health potions, as well as six necklaces for me and the girls that would offer 50% resistance against necromantic power.
Other players seemed to have the same thing in mind. With the night soon approaching, they were eager to empty their bank vaults and buy up just about everything they could get their hands on that might help them in the coming battle. The wand shops that I entered had been just about stripped bare, but I did manage to get my hands on a very expensive wand that the owner of the shop said would unleash a devastating area effect spell.
By the time I met back up with my guildmates at Cecilia’s pub, it was 6 o’clock, and nightfall was less than two hours away.
“Want a shot?” said Kit as she tossed back a drink.
“Are you girls drunk?” I asked, none too amused.
“Relax, Loverboy,” said Trinity. “This is Cecilia’s special magic juice.”
Cecilia handed me a drink and nodded. “It’ll buff all your stats by 10% for six hours. Trust me, you’re going to need it.”
“Oh, thanks,” I said, and handed out the necklaces. “Here, I got you all something.”
“Necromantic resistance,” said Ember. “Smart.”
“Thanks, Sam,” said Kit, offering me a kiss on the cheek.
“I don’t know how much use it’ll be,” I said as I glanced at the playback of the battle from the night before on the looking glass above the bar.
We spent the few hours before nightfall preparin
g for the coming battle, and though the mood was dour in the dwarven city, the pending doom brought all the players together like only a common enemy can.
The guardian statue of Aeorock came alive shortly before sunset, as all the players in the city gathered near the big gilded doors.
“Defenders of Aeorock,” he said as he raised an axe that must have weighed over a ton. “Evil stirs in the world beyond our halls. Only together shall we defeat the scourge that seeks to destroy all. I enlist you all to give yourselves to the cause fully, to fight when you nary have the strength to do so, to stand tall and defiant against those who would see our great mountain burn.”
A prompt appeared in my field of vision, and I noticed that others had been given the same message.
You have been tasked with defending Aeorock.
Will you accept the call to arms?
Yes
No
I tapped on Yes and nodded to my guildmates. Few in the group of thousands chose not to accept the task, and those who did filed away from the door with their heads bowed low.
“The gods shall sing of your bravery,” the guardian told those of us who remained.
Outside, a horn blared shrilly. The crowd stirred, and I heard angry proclamations issue through clenched teeth, along with brave reassurances to those whose mettle was shaken by the thought of the coming nightmare.
“To the battlements!” said the defender of Aeorock in a voice that shook the cavern.
NPC dwarven defenders rushed for the wide staircases on each side of the doors, and the players began to file up them as well. My guildmates and I followed the crowd to the right staircase and hurried up to the battlements as the drums of war began to beat outside.
The battlements Aeorock’s main door spanned five hundred feet from one end to the other, but there were seven of them stacked one atop the other with about twenty feet of space between each one. My guildmates and I raced out onto the third level battlement as the sun disappeared beyond the horizon. Hundreds of other players and NPC dwarves filed out onto the battlement as well, and Kit gasped when she saw the army marching toward us.
“There must be ten thousand of them,” said Ember with venomous ire.
It was hard to make out the army from such a distance, but it appeared that they had giants with them, as well as trolls, goblins, and great winged demons. I looked to the sky and saw scores of ragged-winged bats and dragons flying overhead, waiting for the command to attack.
“Who leads the army?” I asked. “Kincaid can’t escape the Underworld, but he must have commanders.”
“I believe that he is controlling them all himself,” said Trinity. “Look at how their eyes glow with hellish green light.”
It was true, thousands of tiny green lights, the eyes of the undead horde approaching the mountain, glowed like lightning bugs from hell in the valley below. Mist came down from the mountains and filled the valley, creating an eerie green fog.
“Well, I’m not sitting here and waiting for these assholes to attack,” said Cecilia. She produced a red figurine and spoke the name of her dragon. A red spark of light floated out of the figurine, flew three circles around her, and then sailed out over the edge of the battlement. An ear-piercing roar issued from the spark, and with a flash of light the dragon suddenly appeared hovering before us, huge and fierce and looking ready to fuck shit up. I noticed that the one-hundred-foot-long red dragon had six saddles, and each appeared to have a cannon attached to it. “I recently upgraded Crimsar to battle mode,” Cecilia said proudly. “Whatcha think?”
“Sweeeet…” Kit whispered.
“Hell yeah!” said Trinity.
“Cece, you’re awesome, did I ever tell you that?” I asked.
“Come on,” she said as she ran to the ledge and jumped off.
The girls and I followed Cecilia’s lead and leapt off the battlements and onto the red dragon. We strapped ourselves into the saddles as Cecilia gave us a crash course on how to use the enchanted cannons. They were connected to the saddles, which could be swiveled left or right by twisting the left control in the desired direction. Meanwhile, the cannon could be aimed up or down with the right-side handle. I felt a little bit like a young Luke Skywalker in one of the Millennium Falcon’s gunner bays.
“This is way too cool!” Kit declared as she spun her saddle around with a mischievous laugh.
“Alright, let’s do this,” said Cecilia in the forward saddle in front of me.
The dragon banked right and swooped down toward the valley full of undead. As we glided over the screaming horde, Cecilia tilted the dragon to the right, and we got our first chance to try out the cannons. The trigger was located on the right handhold, and I wasted no time squeezing off a round. A thunderous retort issued from the end of the long barrel, and to my delight a cannonball-sized glowing orb exploded out of the end. I watched its trajectory as it was followed closely by five more fired by the women. The enchanted cannonballs slammed into the ground in the middle of the horde and exploded like a patriot missile. Scores of undead monsters were instantly disintegrated upon impact, and I let out a whoop of delight as copper, silver, and gold coins shot through the air and deposited themselves in my inventory.
“Incoming!” Ember yelled behind me.
“I see ‘em,” Cecilia said coolly. She pulled back on the reins and the dragon suddenly barrel-rolled before ascending through the green mist toward the clouds.
Six giant bats with half shredded, leathery wings nearly clipped us as they flew by. I turned my gunner saddle around 180 degrees and let loose another enchanted cannonball. But it missed the last bat by a longshot.
“They’re gaining!” Kit warned from the back.
The cannons needed a five second cooldown, and once my timer hit zero, I fired upon the bats that were now hot on our tail.
“Die, die, die!” Kit screamed as she squeezed off another shot.
The others fired as well, and two of the bats exploded in a puff of green mist.
The three remaining bats swooped down toward us, and I took out another with a blast to the face. Trinity scored another hit, but the last remaining bat got through the barrage and opened its little mouth. From the dripping maw came a glob of green acid that hit our dragon in the wing and burned right through. The dragon roared, then abruptly spun around in mid-air and bit the bat in two.
With the girls’ help we took them all out, and Cecilia steered the dragon around for another pass at the undead horde.
Other players had summoned their flying mounts, and now the sky above the valley was thick with hundreds of dragons, bats, and to my dismay, large winged demons. Dogfights ensued, and streaking multi-colored spells ripped through the air. The demonic dragons that fought for the undead spewed terrible green fire, and the bats spit acid and shot laser-like beams out of their eyes that ripped through dragons and riders alike.
I looked to the Aeorock battlements as we dove for another pass, and my heart sank. Thousands of undead were descending upon the mountain door led by a group of fifty-foot-tall trolls. The guardian of Aeorock had been joined by a dozen other stone defenders, but it was apparent that they would soon be overwhelmed.
“Cecilia--” I began.
“I see them,” she said over her shoulder. “Everyone aim at that big ugly green bastard!”
Her dragon shot across the valley, straight at the giants that marched on the mountain door. We came up behind them and unleashed a barrage of enchanted cannonballs on the tallest of the giants. Our cannonballs slammed into the creature, but it was shielded by a magic enchantment, and our projectiles only took a fraction out of the creature’s green armor bar that floated above its head. But other players had the same idea as us, and they relentlessly attacked the giant with spells, enchanted harpoons and cannonballs of their own.
Cecilia pulled up and we flew almost straight up the mountain face before twisting in the air and coming back down to finish off the now badly injured giant. I aimed carefully and fired wh
en we were as close as Cecilia would dare to get, and my cannonball tore through the air and slammed into the monster’s head, which exploded in a satisfying shower of gore and green ichor.
“Fuck yeah!” I screamed as we barrel-rolled over the horde of undead monsters.
Experience points appeared like a ticker tape across my field of view as we wreaked havoc on the undead army, but our efforts did little to thin the overwhelming numbers that we faced. Other dragons and riders were steadily falling from the sky, and Cecilia had all she could do to not slam into the unfortunate souls that fell screaming to their deaths with their bloody mounts.
I was about to unleash another barrage on the horde below when a dragon suddenly appeared off our right wing and doused us with green, hellish flames. I instinctively ducked as the fire rolled over us, and our dragon let out a pain-filled roar. I expected to be turned to smoldering ash, but a sparkling magical forcefield suddenly flared to life and stopped the flames from touching us.
“We can’t take many more direct hits like that!” Cecilia yelled from the forward saddle. “Keep those fuckers off our wings or warn me next time!”
“We’re trying!” Ember yelled as she fired her cannon at an approaching bat.
“We’ve got a demon on our tail!” Trinity called from the back.
I spun my gunner saddle around and nearly shit myself when I bore witness to the beast that hunted us. It must have stood over one-hundred feet tall on land, and its wingspan was nearly as wide as the red dragon’s. Its crimson skin was covered in smoldering embers, and its eyes pierced my soul like lasers. In its right hand it held a wicked, fifty-foot-long pitchfork, and in its left was a flaming whip.
I let out a defiant scream and fired at the thing’s head, but the demon only grinned and batted the cannonball away with the long pitchfork. Cecilia tried to shake it, but the demon was more agile than our red dragon. I watched helplessly as the flaming whip suddenly snapped forward and wrapped around our dragon’s tail. We were all jolted forward as the dragon cried out in pain as it was pulled nearly to a stop in midair.
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