The Survivors Part 1: The Masacre

by Brian McGoldrick

  *There is one part of this complex we haven't been able to inspect. A blast door is blocking access to a room and with the Power broadcaster blocking our communication and scanning spells we don't know what is inside.*

  Connor mentally sighs. *I'm not holding my breath on the chance of a miracle.*

  I look at Agun. “Can you open a gate between here and Connor's position?”

  Agun draws a complex spell pattern, and with his brows furrowed, he appears to be looking at something in the distance.

  “They seem to be on that small peninsula. I have several places on it memorized well enough to open a door to them.”

  “Do it!”

  “Thorrin?” Dacbold is staring at me with a questioning look on his face.

  “The orcs somehow overran the ridge to the west. Everyone at the west wall was lost. Connor and the rest have been forced to retreat to the spit of land. I'm going to go fight with them.”

  Agun finishes drawing his spell pattern and another grey doorjamb appears in the tunnel. As he knocks, the dimensional door opens up on the spit of land to the south. The setting sun has tinted the brownish-grey stone red and orange. Less than a hundred feet away, the wind tossed grey sea is covered in whitecaps. The whistling of the strong wind drives the partial cloud cover across the dusk sky in puffy streamers.

  The three of us step through, and the not so distant din of the battle reach our ears. The middle of this spur of rock is twenty to thirty feet higher than the shore, and I lead our small group to the highest point we can easily ascend to.

  To our north, mushroom clouds of black smoke and blood red flame from fireballs rise into the sky. Crackling blue-white lightning bolts bathe the lower parts of the clouds with an actinic glare. Dirty grey whirlwinds throw out dark grey wind blades. Underneath the hellish displays of Power, players clash with the orcs in a brutal life and death struggle.

  Scattered along the shoreline and around the bowl valley, groups of players that were cut off from reaching this spit of land are desperately fighting for their lives. They are battles the players are destined to lose. Surrounded and vastly outnumbered, they don't have a snowball's chance in hell of escaping. Dying would probably be the kinder fate than being captured.

  Anger and frustration fill me, eating away at the last remnants of hope that I've been futilely clinging to. We're trapped and the underground complex is a ruin. Without powerful intervention, we're all going to die or suffer fates worse than death.

  *Don't give up, Thorrin. No matter how bad thing have gotten, I've never seen you despair.*

  When I look at Dacbold, he seems to be projecting an air of unyielding determination.

  *I'm tired. This time, I can't see any way out. I've seen too many innocent people die, because of this madness.*

  Still, Dacbold is right. No matter how many are dead, I have to think about the living. Until my last breath, no matter how difficult it may be, I have to keep fighting. I can't give up. We don't know what is inside the room with the blast door. There may be something there that will give us a chance at survival.

  “Agun, I want to know what is on the other side of that blast door. Do you know casters with spells that could cut through it?”

  “A few who might. That door should be as old as all the ones that collapsed into piles of rust and it's still standing. We might not be able to cut through it at all, but at the worst case, that shouldn't apply to the walls around it. As long as the room behind it isn't walled with similar metal, we'll get into it.”

  Dacbold nods. “Get them over here.”

  “I have to find someone who has seen two of them. They don't like whisper charms.” Agun steps away and begins contacting people through a whisper charm.

  After a few minutes, Connor arrives with a few of the guild leaders in tow.

  “How many made it here?”

  Connor shrugs slightly. “Less than three thousand. We lost too many.”

  “How did the orcs get on the ridge in broad daylight? I thought we had patrols up there.”

  Connor's face turns cold. “That's what I want to know. There should have been enough people patrolling to counter any attempts to scale the north wall, but they got up without anyone seeing.”

  “Did anyone make it back from the patrols?”

  “I haven't had time to check.”

  “Silver Horn was part of the patrols, right?” Agun's voice has as cold and hate-filled a tone as any that I've ever heard.

  Connor's expression turns questioning. “Yes. Is there a reason you're asking?”

  “Have you checked to see if the Dark Guardian is here?”

  “I haven't had time to figure out who is here. Where are you going with this?”

  “Ashir's Pass.”

  Ashir's Pass was one of the worst losses we faced during out journey through the Lands of Despair. Over five hundred players and thousands of mercenaries died in what would have been a complete route, if not for Talon's actions. With the help of three others, he destroyed a horde or undead under the control of some kind of lich like creature. There were a lot of recriminations and finger pointing, but we never did get to the bottom of what happened.

  The questioning expression on Connor's face turns into one of cold anger. He lost friends that day. “What's the point?”

  “I was there. I used to be in Silver Horn. Dark Guardian pulled out with Silver Horn's officers and the POSes that were his biggest ass lickers. The lines collapsed when we were overrun. The only reason I'm alive is Talon's insanity. I don't know where he came from or why he was there, but he was like an engine of destruction cutting down the walking corpses.”

  Agun may not know why Talon was there, but I do. Some of the Bohemian Cats were there, and Selestra was one one of them. His capability for obsessive loyalty was even more frightening than his rage or combat ability.

  Connor looks toward one of the other guild leaders. “We're in no position to do anything about them now. None of us are likely to see many more sunrises. Just find out if Dark Guardian is among the survivors and do it quietly.”

  “You got it, Connor.” The guild leader nods and heads back toward the battle line.

  “Right now, the battle is all ranged fire. Orcs really do suck at swimming. We're trying to keep them from filling in the trench Dacbold dug between here and the mainland, but it doesn't stop them from tossing over attackers or keep their shamans from casting spells. Our geomancers are running out of steam. They were already tired. So, they won't be able to much more than slow down the orcs by shifting the rubble a bit.”

  Connor's assessment of our position just leaves me more depressed. We start talking about plans to delay the orcs, ways to slow them down. There are no ideas for actually winning. We're just trying to find ways to survive a little longer. Is twelve years of struggling going to end here? Are there no other options left?

  Three Casters arrive while we are discussing the best way to drag things out. One man and two women. Like the majority of the player's bodies, these three are all of above average appearance, but they have that reclusive, standoffish demeanor you find in a lot of tech geeks. The three of them cluster up behind Agun, and he makes not attempt to introduce them. They are all the kind of people that stay to themselves in the middle of a crowd. I know I've seen all three around over the years, but I can't remember ever saying a single word to any of them.

  “You ready?”

  Agun nods. “Good to go.”

  “Open a gate back into the tunnels.”

  Without a word, Agun draws the spell pattern for his dimensional door, and the grey doorjamb appears in midair. At his knock, the door opens into the tunnel again, and a surprised orc turns to gape at us.

  Before I can react, Dacbold hurtles through the dimensional door, his shield slamming into the orc's chest. As the orc bounces off the wall, an upward swing of Dacbold's axe splits it open from balls to sternum.

  As Dacbold spins to confront a second orc to his right, a third moves on hi
m seeming to appear out of thin air as it passes through the space where the dimensional door is. My axe cleaves through the back of its armor and severs its spine between its shoulder blades.

  “Aaaaarrrrrrrrr!”

  With a wordless scream, the orc falls to the ground. Its arms and head flail around helplessly, while the rest of its body lies limply on the stone floor like a sack of flour. The shouts and scream of at least a dozen more orcs echo through the dimensional door. The few words that I can pick out of their dialect are mostly curses or crude references to biological functions. Orcs must have at least fifty different ways to refer to shit and shitting.

  The three Casters behind Agun shrink back and start retreating from the dimensional door. I have never understood why some of the extremely timid players like them ever joined the expeditionary force rather than staying at Emer with most of the dedicated crafting types.

  Dacbold glances through the dimensional door. “Now! Left!”

  Not hesitating, I step through the dimensional door, while blindly slashing toward the left side of the door. The startled orc barely manage to halfway block my strike, and it doesn't penetrate the chainmail covering its ribs. Still, the force of the blow staggers the orc, and the impact probably bruises or breaks its ribs.

  Connor comes through the dimensional door behind me and engages an orc to the right of it, followed by two more of the guild leaders who move to support us.

  There are already at least twenty orcs in the tunnel, and another one drops through the hole bored from the surface by the geomancers. A human body, even many of the players, would have a hard time dropping through that hole and not breaking at least a few bones, but orc are an entirely different beast from humans. Their strength and physical durability make the majority of humans look weak and frail.

  Putting the tunnel wall at our backs, we form a small box facing the dimensional door, with Dacbold and myself in the front. With only a single orc able to attack them at a time, Connor and the other guild leader should have no issues holding their own. Connor is good enough to take on two or three orcs himself, but I don't know how solid the other guild leader is.

  “Get reinforcements!”

  Following Connor's command, the last guild leader quickly starts communicating with someone through his whisper charm.

  The fight in the tunnel quickly turns into a nasty knock down drag out battle. If not for the stone of the tunnel wall giving us an unassailable rear flank, we would be overwhelmed.

  “More of them keep dropping down the hole! Why are they sending so many orcs down here?”

  “There must be half a million of them. What's the big deal if they drop a few hundred down a hole? Just keep fighting!” Connor's tone of voice is calm in comparison with the other guild leader, but I can still hear the tension in his voice.

  We keep killing orcs, but their numbers don't diminish. For every one that falls to our weapons, at least, one more drops down the hole.

  The last guild leader kills the orcs that try to squeeze through the dimensional door. His attacks are flashy, surrounding his sword with visible ability effects at ever strike. Too many of the players are dependent on those types of combat abilities. Even after twelve years, they still are only halfway competent at using weapons without them. That kind of fighting doesn't make for good longevity in combat. As soon as they run out of Mana, they can't fight effectively.

  Every time he has a clear shot at an orc's back, Agun turns the orc into meat paste with one of his force balls.

  It takes close to three minutes for reinforcements to start pushing through the dimensional door. Ahlred and Wihtred are at their head, and they tear into the orcs like a pair of berserk demons. Orc body parts begin to fly through the air, and orc blood falls in the tunnel like rain.

  Leaving the orcs still coming into the tunnel to them, Dacbold and I attack the orcs that are already past the dimensional door. Neither of us are as driven as Ahlred and Wihtred, but we still slaughter every orc that stands in front of our axes. Still, with every orc that falls, I feel a bloody rage rising inside of me.

  Human players back us up on both sides, but they do little more than clean up the orcs that look for an easier target than pairs of Dvergar.

  With a clear space opened up around the dimensional door, Agun comes into the tunnel, but the three Casters he summoned do not follow. Seeing the orcs dropping down the hole bored into the tunnel, he begins casting his high powered force balls at the hole. Each orc hit by one turns into meat splatter and blood mist drenching the orcs beneath.

  “The spell for this door has run through its timer. If I keep it much longer, it's going to drain my Mana.”

  Connor glances back over his shoulder. “Let it close. You can open another when we need it.”

  With the last of the orcs on our side dead, Dacbold and I turn back toward the bore hole, but Ahlred and Wihtred have the orc there well in hand. There are only ten or fifteen left standing, and no more seem to be dropping from above. Orcs may be dumb, but they are not generally suicidal.

  “Can you go back to Danleib and Cwichelm and tell them what happened?”

  Dacbold nods and turns to head back down the tunnel.

  “Torak, Morris, go with him!”

  Following Connor's command, two of the human players chase after Dacbold. Seeing the two leave, Connor starts contacting people through his whisper charm.

  Except for cleaning up a few orcs that get past Ahlred and Wihtred, the rest of us just watch them work. With just the two or them, unless the orcs have a way to drop a hundred or so warriors into this tunnel at once, this battle is basically over. Their murderous efficiency is impressive, and judging from the human players' expressions, more than a little eye opening for them.

  The speculative gazes that these players turn on me leave me feeling a cold lump in the pit of my stomach. Every time we Dvergar fight like Ahlred and Wihtred are, we strip away more of the illusions the other players have about our being anything close to human. I have never thought of myself as someone who seeks the approval of others, but I also know that I don't want to be feared by others. The normal sheep-like herd of humans fear things which they don't understand and things which are stronger than they are.

  After the last of the orcs is ruthlessly butchered by Ahlred, the tunnel quiets down. While the problem is passed up the orc chain of command, and now orders come down, we will have at least a short respite.

  “Connor, I'm going to see what's behind door number three.”

  While never stopping his whispers, Connor half-smiles, and waves in acknowledgment.

  “Agun, get your friends in here!”

  Neither questioning nor acknowledging me, Agun begins to draw the pattern for his dimensional door once again. He is sweating and starting to breathe heavily. Even though he seems to have a fairly large Mana pool, the strain of casting multiple high power spells is catching up with him.

  With the dimensional door open, the three faint-hearted casters enter the tunnel. Looking around at the mangled corpses of the orcs, they shudder before looking at the bloodstained pair of Ahlred and Wihtred with naked fear in their eyes. There have been other ugly, bloody battles along the way. How did these three manage to make it through twelve years with the expeditionary force? Did they somehow mange to avoid all combat?

  When I look at Agun, he shakes his head slightly and opens a whisper channel to me. *As long as I've known them they have been like this. They were orphans on Earth. They never talk about growing up in the Foster Care system, but it must have been pretty bad. I don't know why they played Taereun, or how they were able to deal with the violence.*

  *They probably just death-ported if they got in over their heads.*

  Agun frowns. *Probably. As long as they don't have to fight, they'll do what you tell them to. If you waited long enough, you would eventually be ejected from the Land of the Dead without having to fight.*

  *Really? I never know that.*

  Death-porting, it's
as old as online gaming, but I'm a little surprised Agun knows it. In some of the early games, when you wanted to get out of someplace quickly or when everything went south, you could just die and respawn at your bind point or the nearest spawn point. Death-porting was what old timers like me called it, but the term seemed to fall out of use fairly quickly. In the Battleground of the Damned, there were respawn points like in a game. When our bodies were killed, after fighting our way out of the Land of the Dead, we would reappear in the world only at certain locations. In our ignorance, we thought that they were respawn points. Now, I have no clue what they were, or why we would reappear there.

  “You three, come with me! You're going to open a hole in a metal blast door.”

  With their heads bouncing up and down like bobble heads, the three Casters follow me down the tunnel. By the time we reach the cavern with the solidified magma column, Dacbold has already disappeared into the ramp tunnel on the south side of it.

  The Casters point at various things and whisper among themselves. They give me the impression of a gaggle of geeks at a convention. While they are Casters, their bodies are still a little bit robust. Twelve years ago, their bodies were probably athletic marvels that they could have only dreamed about, but without maintenance, human bodies will naturally go to pot. Now, while still retaining a little of their past development, the Casters' bodies have mostly deteriorated.

  The Casters' real bodies are probably pasty faced and pimply. Modern Earth medicine could cure both of those conditions, but people like them tend to ignore or not realize the existence of the treatments. They were probably so wrapped up in their games, models, and wish-fulfillment light novels that they didn't care enough about how people viewed them. I worked with too many of them during my corporate IT days to not recognize the type.

  Seeing the disabled construct, the Casters run over toward it, but they are too timid to approach it closely. Most likely, the futile spasms of the construct's crippled limbs have them all but ready to piss their pants.