by A. J. Markam
It wasn’t all good news, though. All around me, exploding missiles cut indiscriminate swaths of carnage through the ranks. Orcs, humans, dwarves, elves – all were just cannon fodder for the war golems. I wasn’t sure if the robots’ aim was bad, if they were just being indiscriminate, or if Krort was willing to sacrifice his own troops to destroy the enemy.
To top it all off, Dorp was doing his damnedest to scare the shit out of everybody. Giant spiders roamed the battlefields. There were a couple of gargantuan snakes, too – hooded cobras fifty feet tall.
Over on my left, the orc ranks thinned, and a group of adventurers burst through – including one very familiar face: a dwarf Paladin with a massive war hammer.
“You bastard!” Hodin roared cheerfully. “I knew you’d pull me into some sort of shit sooner or later!”
He was one of the friendliest players I had ever met, and one of the first people I’d run the Tomb of Tharos with back in Exardus.
My heart soared as I ran towards him. “You fucking ROCK! Thank you, man!”
“Ah, don’t mention it!” he called out as he hurled his war hammer through a group of orcs.
“Where are the others?”
“Brak is around here somewhere. Therasia’s with the ranged fighters, and Jaxos is at the back with the other healers keeping everybody alive. These orcs are a real bitch! The robots, too!”
“Tell me about it!” I shouted as I cast some Darkfire.
“And the fuckin’ spiders and snakes – Jesus! I’ve never seen an army of orcs with a bunch of – ”
“They’re illusions.”
“What?! Really?!”
“Yeah, remember that illusion demon I mentioned in my message? If you see something you’re particularly afraid of, it’s probably fake.”
“Huh… that explains why they’re not even attacking…”
“Did you see Alaria?”
“The robot chick?”
“Yeah!”
“Yup.” He whistled, right before he bashed in an orc’s skull. “If that’s what you get when you’re a Warlock, I’m thinking about becoming a Warlock, man.”
“Was she alright?”
“Yeah, she’s back with the healers, helping to keep them safe.”
I heaved a giant internal sigh of relief.
“What about the angel, where’s she?” Hodin asked. “She’s smokin’ hot, too.”
“She’s still back in Exardus.”
“What?! What happened?!”
“Long story. Can you help me get back to Alaria? I need to – ”
Suddenly a half-dozen orcs ganged up on Hodin all at once. Hodin was a tank, so he drew their aggro away from me. Thank God, or I would have been slaughtered in seconds. At least he had a shit-ton of plate armor to help protect him.
I did my best to help out, but I could only cast Doomsday so fast.
I could see he wasn’t going to make it.
“RUN FOR IT!” I shouted at him, but he ignored me and kept on fighting – right up until the moment an Orcish scimitar ran him through.
He grunted in pain and winked out of existence.
As soon as he was gone, the six orcs all turned towards me.
Being the consummate fighter I am, I immediately turned tail and ran in the opposite direction. The orcs ignored me and attacked the nearest Warrior instead.
As I broke through the front ranks, I raced past dozens of familiar faces I’d met in the dungeon. Some people called out happily, like, Awesome party, dude! Others cursed my name and told me I owed them big time.
I just agreed and kept running. I had to find Alaria.
I finally reached the healers. Colored bolts of energy swirled from their hands out into the fighters, restoring their hit points.
At the center of the group, a metallic figure fired violet death rays at any orc that dare come close.
I rushed over to her. “Alaria!”
As soon as she saw me she cried out in relief, then ran into my arms.
Unfortunately, she still didn’t know her own strength.
“Oof – a little gentler,” I wheezed.
She immediately let go. “Oh, I’m so sorry!”
“It’s okay, it’s okay. Where’s Stig?”
She pointed out at the battlefield, where fiery clouds kept disappearing and reappearing just long enough for a couple of tiny fists to come out and pummel some orc in the face.
Attaboy, Stig!
I switched from watching him to noticing how well our side was organized. First up was the front line, comprised of both tanks and damage dealers. Warriors, Paladins, Rogues, Monks – anybody who used melee weapons (or their fists) was up there in hand-to-hand combat.
Next up were the Mages, Hunters, and other ranged fighters – the players who could strike from a distance. They were supporting the brawlers on the front line.
Behind them all were the healers, mostly Priests and Druids. They were sending out healing blasts to the guys on the front lines and keeping them alive.
I scanned the healers and saw a lot of familiar faces – including Jaxos, the ursine Druid who was part of Hodin’s crew. My heart fell as I imagined having to tell him that his group leader was dead, resurrected God knows where, maybe 50 miles away from here –
And then suddenly Hodin raced past me from behind the ranks of healers.
“What are you doing back here?!” he laughed. “Slacker!”
He raced back into the front lines, leapt 15 feet into the air, and crashed down in the midst of a bunch of orcs.
“What the fuck?!” I cried out as I pointed at Hodin. “He’s dead!”
“He doesn’t look dead to me,” Alaria said, puzzled.
“But – I saw him die not three minutes ago! How the hell did he get back to the battle so fast?!”
“Oh – some of your warlock friends were able to set up a graveyard.”
I looked at her in amazement. “What?!”
“Yeah – like that one,” she said as she pointed at the row of ranged fighters.
“Hold on, I’ll be right back,” I said, then sprinted towards him.
His name was Travos. He was a pretty cool guy who played as a goblin Warlock. His imp, succubus, and a couple of other demons were running interference for him as he cast Doomsday and rained Hellstorm down on the nearest group of orcs.
“Travos!” I yelled as I ran up beside him.
“Ian! Good to see you!”
“You too! Tell me something: how the fuck did you set up a graveyard?!”
He looked at me, puzzled. “Haven’t you reached Level 24 yet?”
Level –
Ohhhhhh yeah.
I had totally forgotten about Robert the QC Warlock’s message.
“No,” I admitted. “What happens at 24?”
“You get Gravesite. It’s the ability to set up a temporary graveyard, so that you and anybody in your group can resurrect wherever you wan. It’s like creating your own save point.”
“Holy shit, that’s awesome!”
“Yeah, it comes in handy. When I read your message I was kind of confused, but when I got here, me and a couple of the other Warlocks set up gravesites. Good thing, too – it’s rough out there.”
I looked out at the battleground. Our front line was losing tanks at a furious pace, but every few seconds a new player would run up from behind the row of healers and return to the fight.
“Without the gravesites,” Travos continued, “we’d all be dead by now. In fact, lemme send you an invite, otherwise you won’t be able to use them to resurrect.”
Travos made a motion with one hand, and a computer window appeared in front of me:
Join ‘Orc Busters’ party?
Invitation From Travos
Accept / Decline
“Cute name,” I said as I hit ‘Accept.’
“The orcs on our side didn’t care for it, but whatever.”
“You said ‘gravesites,’ plural – so there’s more than one?”
“Yup – four total, one from each Warlock we’ve got who’s Level 24 or higher.”
“Where are they? The graves, I mean.”
“Up on the cliff.”
Sure enough, several people were sliding down the ice floes from the top of the mesa. They were resurrecting up there, then coming back down here to rejoin the battle.
Brilliant.
“Awesome – thanks, Travos, but I got to go.”
“Cool – catch up with you later, man.”
Now that I had a nearby gravesite to resurrect to, it was obvious what to do next: head out into battle and kick some unholy ass.
I was just about to do that when the ground shook beneath my feet.
BOOM.
BOOM.
BOOM.
A dozen war golems – the ones who had been firing on us all along – were now lumbering across the landscape towards the battle. Some of them were deliberately squashing players underfoot; all of them were using their arm cannons to blast my friends to kingdom come. (Or, you know, back to the top of the mesa.)
Then something else unexpected happened.
A small, flapping black rectangle shot up over the heads of the war golems, soared high above the battleground, and disappeared over the edge of the mesa.
What the fuck?
It looked like a flying carpet – but whose?
Then I remembered what Grung had said about a certain gnomish Warlock who had one as his mount.
THAT’S not good…
My suspicion was confirmed as a Warrior came sliding down the ice floe. As soon as he hit the bottom he yelled, “There’s a gnome up there destroying the graveyards!”
Shit.
I had to get out up there – but how?
I didn’t have any teleportation or levitation powers, and interrupting a Mage for help in the middle of this fracas would be a terrible idea.
Then I realized that the fastest way to the top was simply to die.
That is, if Orlo hadn’t already destroyed the gravesites up there by the time I bought the farm.
I ran fast as I could towards the nearest group of orcs.
“AAAAAAH!” I screamed as I dove into them headfirst.
“RRAAAAR!” they roared back as they sliced and diced me like a Cuisinart.
Everything went black, and suddenly I was back on top of the mesa. Beside me stood a statue of a dwarf carved from marble with runes carved into the base. Dotted across the plateau were two more objects, each a different race’s idea of a grave marker. One was a goblin’s cairn made of rocks, and the second was a six-foot-tall obelisk with intricately interwoven elven symbols. That was the one Orlo was battering with a blast of black lightning from his fingertips. Over to his right, another patch of ground was already a smoking crater of rock shards and blackened grass.
As soon as Orlo saw me, he started cackling – although he didn’t let up his attack on the obelisk. “I thought you would show up here sooner or later! I should thank you!”
I hit him with Soul Suck. It made perhaps a 0.2% dent in his hit points – but he just ignored it. He was intent on monologuing.
“After that missile misfire that set you free – I don’t know how you managed that, but it very nearly derailed all my plans! Because of it, General Krort wasn’t going to pay me at all! Defective merchandise, he said! And then your friends showed up and slaughtered a thousand of his soldiers in a matter of minutes, and I was able to raise my price by 50%! Of course, I threw in a bonus: I saw your piddly little warlock friends establishing gravesites up here, so I offered to take care of the problem personally. I don’t know how you found so many peons who were able to resurrect…”
That confused me until I remembered that in OtherWorld, only players resurrected. NPCs didn’t come back, and they outnumbered players three dozen to one. So to an NPC like Orlo, ‘resurrectionists’ were a fairly uncommon phenomenon.
“But in the next 60 seconds they’ll be resurrecting a hundred miles away! Hahaha!”
He threw one final blast that shattered the obelisk, leaving a smoking ruin in the ground.
As Orlo started in on the goblin cairn, two of my friends suddenly appeared from the dwarf gravesite: an undead Hunter and a human Monk.
That’s what I’d been waiting for. I was just surprised it had taken that long for a couple of players to die on the battlefield.
“Kill the gnome!” I screamed as I hit Orlo with Soul Suck.
The players glanced at each other, shrugged, and then started to lay a smackdown on Orlo. The Hunter shot him with arrow after arrow, and the Monk battered him with kicks.
“You fools!” Orlo screamed. “Do you know who I am?!”
“Dead meat,” the archer yelled as he let loose another fusillade.
“Hardly!” Orlo yelled. With one hand he kept pummeling the goblin cairn with black energy, and with the other he pretty much evaporated the Monk in two shots.
But it didn’t matter – because the Monk immediately resurrected three feet away, along with a dwarven Warrior and a troll Mage from down below.
“KILL THE GNOME!” I screamed.
The new guys immediately joined the attack. Orlo was so powerful that he could kill them within seconds – but he could only kill one at a time. And they would immediately resurrect just feet away, along with another batch of fresh recruits straight from the Orcish battleground.
As more people joined the fight, we started whittling away at Orlo’s hit points even more effectively. He was already down to 87%, and new fighters were joining us every second.
Unfortunately for the guys 300 feet below us, fewer players were returning to the battlefield because they were all staying to help me fight Orlo. Without reinforcements, things got harder for the front line. Which meant more deaths at the hands of the orcs, which meant more and more players were resurrecting around me every few seconds. We were getting an ever-increasing number of new arrivals to fight Orlo, although I knew it was coming at the expense of the battle down on the plains.
For a brief moment, I allowed myself the hope that maybe we could kill the little bastard and I could finish off my quest in the next three minutes.
It was looking hopeful. After all, Orlo had kneecapped himself by turning all of his demons into war golems. Ordinarily he would have been able to summon a platoon of demons that could have wiped us out – but they were all down on the plains below, encumbered by five-ton bodies made of metal.
Of course, he still had one demon left in reserve.
“You gnats are so annoying, it appears I need my flyswatter!” he yelled. “SORAIYA!”
A shadow passed across the ground. I looked up to see a bat-winged silhouette against the sun.
“Enchant and kill them all!” Orlo screamed.
Whether she wanted to do it or not was immaterial. She still wore a collar, and Orlo’s command was Law.
I had never seen a succubus in her full seductive glory in battle before. Oh, I had had plenty of opportunities to observe Alaria’s charms in bed – but in battle, she often went straight for brute force. I had never seen what a succubus could truly do in a fight when she let loose with her sexuality.
Soraiya flew at a Barbarian and gazed into his eyes with a seductive smile. There was some sort of red glow in the air between them, and then the guy’s eyes went completely blank. I don’t mean he stared blankly; I mean that his eyes turned completely white, with no pupils or irises whatsoever. He went from an ax-wielding maniac to a slack-jawed, drooling moron in one second flat.
Then her fingers curved like claws and she slashed his throat.
There was no blood in OtherWorld, otherwise everybody within ten feet would’ve been sprayed red. But with one strike she took off half his hit points.
Then she slammed her hand through his rib cage and ripped out his heart.
Literally. There wasn’t any blood, but we all heard the CRACK! of his ribs, and then she pulled out his still-beating heart. Total Indiana Jones and the Temple
of Doom moment.
The Barbarian winked out of existence. He rematerialized a few feet away, but he was a little stunned – as any of us would have been had we just had our hearts ripped out.
By that point she was on to the next guy, seducing him with one glance and then gouging out his eyes.
To say she was freaking out my fellow players was an understatement.
“Kill her!” the undead Hunter yelled, and suddenly half of the players focused their attention on Soraiya.
“NO!” I yelled. “Keep attacking the gnome! HE’S THE BOSS!”
But they allowed themselves to be distracted, and Orlo’s hit points – which had dropped to 63% – stopped dwindling quite as fast.
The players managed to kill Soraiya, yes, but Orlo just resurrected her immediately with a wave of his hand.
And in that time, he finished destroying the goblin cairn, blasting the rocks in all directions.
Now there was only one left, the dwarven gravestone – and he turned his attention to it immediately.
More and more players were popping out of it, since it was the only one available.
“KILL THE GNOME!” I screamed at them, and they all joined in on the attack on Orlo – but the master Warlock ignored them.
He knew the key was destroying the gravesite.
Once it was gone, no one could resurrect here anymore. They would all be transported somewhere dozens of miles away.
Whether we killed Orlo or not, the most important thing was to get more gravesites going.
I looked around. Out of the 50+ players on top of the mesa, I didn’t see a single Warlock. They were one of the least-played classes in OtherWorld (or would be until the adult expansion pack kicked in – at which point tens of thousands of horny guys were going to be switching classes and summoning hot succubi as fast as they could).
Unfortunately, when a group outside the Tomb of Tharos already had a Warlock in their party, they usually didn’t choose me to be their guide. Why have two Warlocks when that meant not having a Mage, or maybe a close-quarters brawler like a Warrior or Rogue?
As a result, I had precious few other Warlocks on my friends list – and they were apparently all still fighting the orcs down on the plains of Mor-El.
