I wouldn’t be surprised if those that are able to log out do once they see what the fire is all about.
“This way!” Sam shouts.
I whistle for Wolf and Sam drops her hand, catches mine, and for a moment, we run through the soon-to-be battle like two little school kids in love.
I let go and leap over a barrel that has been knocked over. We need perspective, a vantage point, and I can tell by the way the tents span in the distance that they slope up a hill.
I point towards it, and Sam and I advance on the hill.
The Stater military has set up a lookout on this hill, as it is the highest point on the battlefield. Men with industrial-sized spyglasses observe the battle, and make notes on charts. The area is well lit by lanterns affixed to high poles, and a table with a map on it has been erected at the back of the lookout.
Once we’re near the men, I turn and try to get a sense of the battle.
Just as I predicted, the right side of the battlefield is all fire, and upon closer examination, I can see the fires reflecting off the polished armor the Stater soldiers wear. Trebuchets are being rolled out, and I can barely make out the outlines of warrior women on horses, moving south and west with the hopes of flanking the ambushed Staters.
“See anything unusual?” I ask Sam.
A trebuchet fires, the rock smashing into a pile of approaching afflicted. Their flames fan out, but unless one is directly under the rock, the eternally burning corpses press forward.
I hear the griffin’s screech and look left, watching as one lifts into the air.
“It’s Talonas,” I say, even though the man riding the griffin isn’t fully clear to me. I can see his cape though, and my gut tells me it’s him.
Sam shakes her head. “That’s not who we’re here for, much as I’d like to kill him as well.”
“Got it, I know.” Deep breath in and I clear my throat. “But if he’s going out to play, Broken likely isn’t too far off. Let’s keep an eye on him. Better yet …” I move to the top of the hill and ask one of the observers for a spare spyglass. He obliges, and I bring it back down to Sam. “It’s amazing what wearing this armor can do.”
I take a look through the spyglass, and while it is a bit hard to make out, I can definitely tell that the man now hovering above the battle is Florin. Red cape? Check. Flowing blond hair? Check. Commanding gestures? You got it. I’m too far to get a reading on his handle, but it’s definitely him.
Come on, I think as I scan the area, looking for any sign of a high powered mage. My sign comes in the form of a dragon made of light, which appears seemingly out of nowhere.
A triangle filled with sigils forms around the dragon as it zips towards the front line of the afflicted.
“It’s Broken,” I tell Sam, “and the motherfucker has a dragon.”
Chapter Thirteen: Breaking Broken
Before I ask Sam to teleport us closer to Broken and his dragon, I take all of two seconds to reflect on the oddity of our current situation, how we’ve gone from heading north to see about the Red Plague, to an assassination mission bequeathed to us by the world’s NVA Seed.
My how shit changes.
I reach out for Sam’s arm and she touches Wolf. One pink flash later and we’re much closer to the action, Broken and his dragon of light circling above us.
Stater soldiers work on making perimeters, which makes me think that Florin Talonas is near.
Not our target, I remind myself.
A few of the afflicted have made their way to this part of the camp. The burning zombies shriek and bat their hands at a guild consisting of rogues and thieves. The cliché guild members use their speed to avoid the attacks, but the afflicted have strength in numbers, and soon one of the rogues has fire burning off his body.
“Give me some of your throwing knives,” Sam says. “Just in case.”
“Good call.” I hand her two blades and she pockets them. The afflicted move away from us, their bodies lighting the tents as they pass. In their wake are the guild of rogues, all of whom writhe as flames overtake them.
Gruesome.
“Oric.”
Wolf barks, also an attempt to get my attention.
“Sorry. The afflicted. They get to me every time.”
“Ignore them and get into position,” Sam tells me, taking charge.
“You stay on Wolf. If anything happens, I want you to be able to get out of here.”
A group of Stater soldiers riding wolves tear past us. Their wolves bark and snarl, the riders clearly a tier above some of the fighters we saw logging out earlier. As it does in all battles, the air has an electric feel to it, a kinetic energy.
“Oric!”
An NPC Stater soldier wielding a buster sword lunges for me, somehow recognizing we don’t belong here; I just barely manage to get out of the way in time.
I flourish my blade out of habit and go to meet him, not certain how he recognizes me, but knowing that now isn’t the time to stick around and try to get to the bottom of his sudden realization.
[Stater soldier, level 14]
He swipes his blade at me, I duck, and I charge forward with the three prongs of my broken sword aimed at his gut. They won’t pierce his Stater armor, so I pivot left at the last moment and swing my blade with my right hand, connecting with an exposed portion of his neck.
-83 HP! Critical hit!
He falls, blood squirting out of his wound. I kick his helmet off, and he looks at me with ice blue eyes.
“Please, don’t!”
Instakill!
Wolf leaps to meet another approaching soldier.
The big Tagvornin canine takes him down and goes for his patented ‘maul the guy to death’ method, his big jaw around the guy’s throat.
-52 HP! -36 HP! -43 HP!
Wolf keeps at it until the man’s neck snaps like a carrot.
Instakill!
Fwhooom!
A fireball tosses me backwards.
My fuck am I lucky that the brunt of the fireball hit my chest plate, or I’d be needing another skin graft right about now. I fly into a tent, and from there, I hit a cot and tumble over, now wrapped in the tent and constrained by the cot.
The ends of my hair burn and I pat them out; I can suddenly smell charcoal, ash. My hands on my chest plate, I wipe away what’s left of the fireball, nothing more than a blackened residue.
Ignoring the twirling stars spinning around my head, I sit up, and in an instant, I’m in my Jagraj the Giant Slayer armor.
Cover’s blown anyway, I think as I push my way out of the collapsed tent. A flaming catapult falls in the distance, sending sparks into the air.
The crimson sky above is cloudy now, the large explosions reflecting off the bottom of the clouds and making the sky even more sinister than it already is.
I can hear the screech of a griffin; Talonas is near, but for now he’s busy engaging the afflicted. A Metican blasts by on her tiny horse, the woman’s blonde hair beating behind her as she rides standing up in the stirrups.
The Metican shouts at the top of her lungs, her war cry that of a coyote.
I spot the Pyro Mage that just tried to level me with a fireball. Before I can so much as lift my Splintered Sword, a lightning bolt of pink magic strikes her down.
Sam gives me a thumbs up, and I press forward, noticing the weight change of my recently equipped armor. While it appears bigger and bulkier, it is actually quite light, and as I move to meet the next Stater soldier – an orc with a helmet made of bone – my armor has me feeling like I’m floating on air, a bounce to my step if there ever was one.
Our weapons meet, his a long sword, and tricky bastard that he is, the orc ducks and forces me forward. He comes up with a small axe and strikes me in the side, my armor deflecting the brunt of his attack.
Splintered Sword in hand, I punch him in the face, still holding the hilt, which must feel like being struck with a pair of brass knuckles.
-112 HP!
The orc
stumbles backwards. I kick him in the side of his knee and his legs buckle.
-16 HP!
He falls, his grip loosening on his weapon, just as three Meticans on horseback scissor past.
The women are aimed at something in the distance, and pay me little mind as they gallop by, their weapons at the ready and the war cries accompanied by the bray of their horses.
“Arcane Tide!” Sam gets my attention with a wave of her wand, the tip of which is sparking with pink chromatic magic.
I don’t know why Sam has chosen pink for her magic color, and I recall her having the same color when she was an illusionist. The color is at odds with the damage it can do; it’s almost cute, until your wound is metastasizing, or a delayed lightning bolt strikes you in the back and fries you from the inside.
Almost as if to prove my point, a tsunami of pink magic appears in the air and smashes into Broken. Sigils and Unigaean script flash in the air, the fireworks of chronomancy a sight to behold.
To my surprise, Broken’s dragon screeches and shakes the mage off.
The dragon flaps its wings, and excretes from its mangled maw something that resembles an exploding lava lamp, which coats an approaching troupe of afflicted, but does little to stop their advance.
The Arcane Mage hits the ground like a meteor, his hands covering his hooded face.
He rolls around, kicks his legs, and as I charge over to him ready to make the kill, he gets hold of himself and sits up, his eyes shining red beneath his cloak.
Broken is muscular, and like Deathdale, his lack of armor only makes sense in a fantasy world.
He wears a black, hooded cloak that is held together by a brooch at the center of his chest. The rest of his chest is exposed – the motherfucker is shirtless – and once you get past his rippling abs, his legs are covered in black dragon scale armor, his boots formed of steel coated in what I assume is sea dragon leather.
What in the actual fuck is he wearing? I’d love to give the Player Character shit for looking like a douche hat, but he’s airborne by the time I reach him.
His dragon long gone, Broken takes a scepter out of thin air and points it at me.
The First Artifact.
I know what it is the moment I see it, mainly by the size and grandiosity of the weapon, which looks like something straight out of colonial England. A glorious red ruby sits atop the scepter, the shape of which reminds me of a bedpost.
“Shit!” I take off as a line of flaming rocks barrel towards me, each closer than the last. I see someone running after me out of the corner of my eye, but I ignore the person as I try to find a better vantage point to get my bearings.
Another pink lightning bolt strikes Broken.
The rocks stop.
He turns his attention to Sam. Blue orbs fire out of the end of the First Artifact.
“Sam!”
The smoke and debris obscure the battlefield.
“Sam!” I cry, running towards her. My heart returns to its original position when Sam tears out of a cloud of oily smoke on wolfback.
Wolf zigzags, avoiding more of Broken’s blue orbs, which burn enormous holes into the ground as soon as they touch down. Not having any other way to engage the floating Arcane Mage, I equip my crossbow pistol and mentally turn the handicap on.
A reticle appears on the center of Broken’s exposed chest; I’m just about to fire off a shot when I’m broadsided by the orc from earlier that I stupidly forgot to kill.
The seething inbred fucker gets his calloused hands around my neck and starts choking me, blood dripping from his nose onto my face as he squeezes harder and harder.
I kick my legs but the orc latches on tighter.
My hands go to his hands as he squeezes the life out of me, as I try to calm the digital adrenaline roaring through my bloodstream.
“You’ll die now!” he spits into my face.
The orc loosens his grip for a tenth of a second, and I seize the opportunity.
I flip the orc to his side and the two of us roll sideways, each struggling to get the upper hand as more Stater soldiers appear on the scene. We slam into a lantern and it falls, the fire igniting the grass.
I finally get the upper hand and jam my fingers into the orc’s eyeballs.
-129 HP! Critical hit!
On my feet again, I stomp the orc’s face out, fire now raging around me.
-84 HP! -162 HP! Instakill!
The approaching Stater soldiers see me. A pinecone IED in hand, I place the wick to the fire and toss it over to them.
Insta-Insta-Instakill!
+1 Infamy!
I follow up with another pinecone just as the first explodes, which causes a chain reaction explosion midair.
Need to get to Sam …
A few steps back, and I light another IED and toss it over.
Insta-Instakill!
The explosion sends gravel and body parts into the air.
My attention returns to Sam, who has just barely missed Broken’s last glowing blue orb. A flash of pink and …
Sam is in the air, now on Broken’s back.
The wind whips around them as Sam pulls his hood back, revealing a face covered in scars and burn marks. She holds tight, her legs wrapped around his waist as she jams my throwing knife into the side of his neck.
“Sam!”
They fall together, Sam still driving the blade into his neck until they hit the ground.
Instakill!
(^_^)
I sprint towards Sam, oblivious to the chaos of my surroundings.
I see Wolf charging too, his eyes fixed on the Hourglass Mage as she pushes herself off Broken. The two landed with Sam on top, her knees still wrapped around his sides.
I reach her and go to one knee, cradling her head with my hands.
“My legs are broken,” she says as her eyes roll. “And something … else.”
From the light of the raging flames I can see that there are red marks under her skin, that she’s bleeding from the ears and that, to my utter horror, she’s starting to bleed from her eyes.
I gently lift her as blood now gushes from her nose.
“Sam! Are you okay!?”
“We … need … to … go.”
“What happened to you?” I whisper as I set her down.
Wolf is at my side now, whimpering anxiously. We’re on the same wavelength – we’d better get the hell out of here – but without Sam’s ability, we’ll have to go it on foot.
She coughs, lifts her shoulders, and vomits blood all over the front of her robes.
“Can you use your magic?” I ask as more blood bubbles out of her mouth. “Sam, please, talk to me!”
Her teeth red and her voice raspy, Sam turns to me and says, “He cast … Blood Drain. Something like that ... ” More blood seeps from her eyes and nose as she tries to wipe it away with her sleeve.
“He cast it before he died?” I ask in full panic mode now.
She nods and I hear a screech above me. Not twenty feet away, a griffin hovers overhead, its rider none other than Florin Talonas. The governor of Stater peers down at us, his cape beating in the wind caused by the griffin’s wings.
Motherfucker.
“Oric … the First Artifact.” Sam lifts a shaky finger towards the dead Arcane Mage.
“Wolf.” I nod towards the mage’s scepter and Wolf gets the picture. He trots over, grabs it, and brings it back.
[The First Artifact]
I am just finishing adding it to my list when I hear my name.
“Oric Rune!” Florin Talonas has dismounted from his griffin. On his back is a crossbow that can fire two bolts at a time; in his hand is a Mycenaean longsword with a gleaming golden hilt.
Florin takes a step closer to me and sheathes his sword. He lifts his free hand over his head, and returns with his double bolt crossbow, which he also aims at me.
“What in the actual fuck is wrong with you?” I shout, my blood boiling with rage.
“I can’t seem to
kill you.”
A pyro afflicted charges at Florin, and he levels the flaming zombie with two shots from his crossbow. The two bolts, now sticking out of the afflicted’s face, catch fire as the monstrosity tries to drag itself towards the governor of Stater.
“So what will it be, Oric?” asks Florin as he loads two more bolts into his crossbow. I narrow my eyes at the man, my hands trembling as I reach for my weapon.
Rage.
My muscles swell beneath my armor as liquid fury enters my bloodstream.
RAGE!
Chapter Fourteen: Lost in the Periphery
And I run. Sam over my shoulder and Wolf trying to keep up at my side, I charge towards Lothar’s location, towards the frontline of the battle.
The cries of Meticans all around me, the flames of the afflicted as they engage Stater’s finest, the snarl of wolves, the death moans of those whose luck has run out, the screech of a griffin overhead – everything is tunnel vision for me now, lost in the periphery.
Rage surging through me, I’ve used my ability to save Sam rather than engage Florin Talonas.
Sam is all that matters.
The Hourglass Mage’s face and body is covered in blood, her robes completely soaked. Thrown over my shoulder, I can’t see her now, a good thing, as I’m afraid that seeing Sam in such a sorry state of affairs will turn my trajectory back to Florin, the root cause of this terrible war.
“Oric,” Sam says, her voice raspy.
“Hold on, Sam!” I shout, my rage voice something I’ve never used before to my knowledge. It is like a voice speaks through me when I open my mouth, almost as if I’m having an out of body experience.
I’m fast, but Wolf is faster.
He blazes ahead, barking and looking back at me as he keeps a perimeter. The afflicted charge past us, flames flickering off their bodies, their faces death masks and their limbs flailing at their sides as they run.
Everything is a fiery blur.
My rage ability is overpowering; I’m too focused on escaping to pull up the map with Lothar’s location marked on it. I know he’s to the northwest, at least a mile away, and my only goal, as my feet slap into the soil below me, as my lungs fill with air and my muscles bulge and swell, is to get away from this battle.
The Red Plague: A LitRPG Trilogy (The Last Warrior of Unigaea Book 3) Page 12
