by A. J. Markam
Which meant that was where I had to go.
“Don’t stop attacking the gnome!” I shouted, and ran in the opposite direction.
“Where are you going?!” somebody yelled.
“We need more gravesites!” I yelled, and jumped down the nearest ice floe.
The ride was terrifying and thrilling all at once. It was like riding a combination waterslide and ice toboggan. I screamed as I zipped down the icy incline, then tumbled across the grass.
As soon as I came to a halt, I leapt up and headed for my goblin friend Travos.
As I ran, I saw the toll of our sustained assault on Orlo. The orcs were ruthlessly beating down the remaining tanks. A few green uglies had even broken through the front ranks and were taking out Mages and Hunters.
If we lost our gravesites, it was only a matter of minutes until the orcs massacred every single player.
Not only that, but the war golems had struck several nasty blows against the rearguard of healers. The robots must have run out of missiles, because now they were relying mostly on their arm cannons as they waded through the orcs and headed for the rear echelon of players.
Several robots had been turned into burnt-out shells, but the majority were still steadily advancing like AT-ATs on Hoth.
I couldn’t distinguish which war golem was Grung, though I hoped and prayed he wasn’t one of the dead ones.
I ran over to Travos, who was casting Doomsday as fast as he could.
“Dude, what the hell is going on?!” he yelled as soon as he saw me. “We’re getting slaughtered down here!”
“We need more gravesites!”
“What happened?!”
“There’s a Level 90 Warlock destroying the ones up there – hurry, set one up NOW!”
“Okay,” he said, and began moving his hands in complex patterns. Tendrils of black energy began to swirl through the air and build the latticework of a familiar outline on the ground: seven small boulders stacked in a pile.
Suddenly, two shapes shot into the air over our heads: a black, flapping rectangle to the right, and a winged woman to the left.
SHIT. Orlo must’ve destroyed the last gravesite.
I hesitated to do anything, fearful to call attention to Travos, but my fears were in vain. Orlo knew exactly what was going on, and the flying carpet banked around and headed straight for us.
Shit, shit, shit –
I tried casting a Darkbolt at the flying Warlock, but the bastard knew my limitations and stayed just outside my firing range.
However, Travos and I were both within his.
The goblin grave was almost finished when bolts of blue lightning shot down from the sky into Travos’s back. He fought valiantly to complete the gravesite, but he was already at 53% hit points when he’d started. Orlo’s spell finished him off within seconds – and as Travos disappeared, the spell he had been weaving evaporated, too.
DAMMIT!
I looked around wildly for another Warlock – and saw Soraiya at the other end of the field, ripping out someone’s throat.
I would’ve bet money it was a Warlock.
Orlo was targeting the only people who could help us win this battle. And the crazy thing was, no one else realized it except me.
I began running through the ranks of Priests and Mages, desperately searching for a Warlock who could create a gravesite.
Unfortunately, Orlo had a better vantage point, and he could see where all the demons were fighting and all the black magic spells were being cast. The flying carpet sped a couple hundred feet to the right, and more blue lightning shot down and obliterated another player.
Then Soraiya took off into the sky, and no more attacks emanated from the flying carpet.
Orlo had gotten them all.
At the same time, dozens upon dozens of players were sliding down the ice floes towards us. As soon as they hit the ground, they started shouting at the top of their lungs.
“No more graveyards!”
“This is it, this is the last stand!”
“Give it everything you’ve got, people!”
Players continued to die, winking out of existence – but this time they didn’t come back. They were resurrecting dozens of miles away, unable to return to the battle.
We were losing – one death at a time, unable to replenish our numbers.
Despair overwhelmed me. I glared up at the black flying carpet. Even though I couldn’t see him, I was absolutely sure that Orlo was sneering down at me with his smug little grin.
“Ian, what is it?” a familiar voice asked nearby.
I looked over to see Alaria five feet away. She was firing as fast as she could, trying to protect the healers as much as possible.
“It’s over,” I spat, my gut wrenching as I said it. “Orlo got all the warlocks, and there’s nobody else left who can set up graveyards. As soon as people die, they’re not going to resurrect anywhere close enough to the battle.”
“What about you? Can’t you do it?”
“I’m not powerful enough yet.”
“How much more powerful do you have to be?”
I paused.
That was a good question.
In my panic to kill Orlo, inform the other Warlocks, and run around like a chicken with my head cut off, I had completely forgotten that I was on the path towards Level 24.
I checked my stats.
Holy shit!
I hadn’t gotten any XP for my fight against Orlo, since I’d never killed him (or anything else) – but all of Stig and Alaria’s efforts out on the battlefield had raised my experience level considerably. I was within spitting distance – only 10,000 experience points left.
I lunged at Alaria and kissed her, which surprised the hell out of her. Then I backed away.
“If things go bad, promise me you’ll fly away as fast and as far as you can. Got it?”
“But – ”
“PROMISE ME!”
She glowered. “I promise.”
“Okay.” I kissed her again quickly, then turned back to the orcs.
Time to level up.
I cast Doomsday as fast as I could, making sure to keep my hit points as high as possible just in case Orlo came for me.
Apparently he was in a gloating phase, though, because neither he nor Soraiya made a move for my position. Either that, or he wanted to wait until I reached my goal – and then destroy me.
But I couldn’t think about that now. I had to get 10,000 XP.
Twenty seconds after the first Doomsday spell, they began to detonate one after the other in three-second increments. 750 XP, 750 XP, 750 XP –
A band of orcs cut down the last Paladins standing between them and me, and headed my way.
Shit.
I turned tail and ran back behind the ranks of Mages and Healers.
“Hey man,” one of them shouted angrily, “we’re here fighting your goddamn battle – the least you could do is fight it with us!”
I could understand her anger, but I didn’t have time to reply. I just cast more Doomsday spells on the advancing orcs, praying that I would be able to reach Level 24 fast enough.
The orcs chasing me got too close to the Mages and Hunters, who cut them down one by one. I added to the slaughter using Hellstorm –
And then suddenly a golden column of light enveloped me, along with the sound of trumpets.
‘LEVEL 24’ appeared in front of me in golden letters, along with some of the most beautiful words I had ever heard (outside of things Alaria said to me before, during, and after sex):
You have a new ability: Gravesite.
YES!
I immediately punched the button, and black tendrils of energy began to swirl from my fingertips. The black energy coalesced into an oval shape on the ground, then began to spread and flesh it out.
A flash of light later, and a slate gray headstone was standing upright in the grass.
YES!
In the next two seconds, five players resurrected in front
of me. They looked at me in surprise – then whooped and hollered and headed back out into battle.
YES, YES, YES, YES, YES –
Suddenly a black lightning bolt shot down from the sky and began to eat away at the stone on the gravesite.
My eyes bugged out and horror, and I saw that the attack was coming from the flying carpet far overhead – just out of my range of attack.
NO, NO, NO, NO, NO –
“KILL THAT GUY!” I screamed at the Mages and Hunters around me, even though I knew it was fruitless. He would destroy the gravesite before we could even reduce his hit points by 10%.
And that’s exactly what happened. Most of the Hunters and Mages were too low a level for their attacks to reach Orlo. The few capable of hitting him got in a couple of shots – and then the flying carpet backed up another ten yards, tantalizingly out of their reach.
Six seconds later the gravesite blew up.
Shards of stone blasted through the air. All that was left was a black, smoking crater.
FUCK that guy.
No problem, I’ll just make another –
But when I hit the button on my action bar, it was greyed out.
What the fuck?!
Oh no – no no no no no –
I could see by the timer beneath the icon that there was a ten-minute cooldown.
God DAMN it!
Ten minutes in battle was an eternity! Everyone would be dead by the time I could create another grave!
That’s why Orlo had waited. He wanted me to feel the full, crushing weight of my failure. I was sure of it.
I cursed at the sky and blasted every orc within range, but I knew it made no difference. We were doomed to fail.
But if we were going to die out here, at least we could ensure that the orc army couldn’t do any more harm. Including those goddamn war golems of theirs.
I started attacking the nearest metal robot with gusto. I figured maybe I could spite Orlo at least a little by destroying a couple of his toys.
I was wrong.
As though to say I give zero fucks, the carpet flew back towards the orc camp and the dozen war golems still standing in a line. Soraiya followed her master, ignoring the melee below.
Then all 12 golems in the camp turned and began marching AWAY from the battlefield.
They were leaving.
Either Orlo didn’t give a shit because the orcs had already paid him, or he was leaving them to die out of spite.
Asshole! I raged inwardly.
Not because he was screwing over the orcs. After all, that was helping me and my friends out immensely.
No – I was angry because the little prick didn’t even consider me worthy enough to kill.
I know that’s stupid. I was still alive, and should have been grateful. But when you’re so beneath the contempt of your enemy that he doesn’t even bother to kill you – or just keeps you alive to taunt you – it starts to get to you.
My friends and I had made astounding inroads against the orc army. There looked only be a couple thousand of them left. The entire plain was strewn with their corpses.
And there were only six golems left, which was astounding in and of itself. How the hell had we managed to kill that many when they were mostly out of range of our fighters?
Then I realized that they were taking friendly fire from a single golem in the rear – Grung! That’s why so many golems had been destroyed!
But without any gravesites left to resurrect at, we were toast.
The orcs were advancing in a wave, taking out Warriors and Paladins and Rogues with abandon. They’d finally reached the Mages and Hunters and were destroying them, too. It was like stories of the Civil War, where Grant had been willing to sacrifice two Union soldiers for every Confederate they killed. The orcs didn’t care how many men they lost at this point. They overwhelmed the ranged fighters with numbers, decimating them.
When they reached the healers, it would all be over.
And then, just when I thought it couldn’t get any worse, it did.
Out of nowhere, a dark blur whizzed through the air and THOCKED into my shoulder.
“GAAAAAH!” I screamed in agony.
Even though the arrow took off 10% of my hit points, it shouldn’t have been that painful. I’d turned down my sensory levels to 1% back when the orcs were curb-stomping me in their camp, so what the fuck was going on?
A delightful little window popped up to tell me.
WARNING! Torture Arrow has pierced your armor, negating all potions and magical spells, and restoring pain levels to 50%! Time left: 20 Minutes.
WHAT?!
The message was strangely similar to the one that had appeared when that other arrow had hit me just a few… hours ago…
Oh no… please, God, no –
The angle of the arrow meant it had to have come from up above. I craned my neck and looked to the skies in terror, and saw something almost as scary as any of the illusions Dorp had thrown at me earlier.
A hundred feet above the battlefield, a gigantic bat was hovering in the sky, its wings beating the air. The creature was enormous, with a wingspan of at least 30 feet. It was also hideous, with its snub nose and six-inch-long fangs covered in blood.
But that wasn’t nearly as terrifying as what was on its back.
Shyvock.
NO! I screamed inwardly. NO!
He had survived. Goddamn him, somehow he had survived.
The Hunter gave me a mocking little salute, then drew back another arrow as the bat hovered there midair –
Suddenly a rocket shot through the sky and blew up the bat’s left wing.
I followed the trail of smoke back to a war golem at the very rear of the battleground.
“ATTABOY, GRUNG!” I screamed with joy.
The flaming bat plummeted down to the ground, taking out a good two dozen orcs as it plowed through them like a fiery meteorite.
As awesome as the sight was, I knew that there was no way the crash had killed Shyvock. I just wasn’t that lucky.
He was coming for me – which meant I had to get somebody else the fuck out of here, NOW.
I ran towards the healers again and found Alaria still blasting away.
“Ian, what are you – ”
“Shyvock’s back,” I interrupted.
Her entire face lit up in terror. “What?”
“Did you see that giant bat get blown up a few seconds ago?”
“Yes – what about it?”
“That was his mount. Grung shot it down, but if Shyvock survived the quicksand, I’m absolutely sure he survived the crash.”
She shook her head, not wanting to face reality. “Maybe you’re wrong – maybe he died – ”
From the battlefield came a massive explosion and the shriek of rending metal.
Both Alaria and I looked back and saw a war golem – the same one who had blown up the bat, and thus almost assuredly Grung – with a smoking crater in its chest. A second later, three arrows shot up out of the crowd of orcs and exploded in Grung’s chest.
I watched helplessly as the gentle giant staggered backwards and toppled to the ground with a CRASH!
Shyvock had taken his revenge.
I turned back to Alaria. I could see by the horror in her expression that she knew it was Shyvock.
“You have to go, NOW,” I ordered her.
“But the healers – ”
“I don’t give a fuck about the healers if it means sacrificing you. They’ll resurrect – you won’t.”
“Then come with me!”
I shook my head. “I asked all these people here to help me – I can’t leave them.”
“Well, I’m not going to leave YOU, either!”
I grabbed her by the arms. “You don’t understand – if he kills you, I HAVE NOTHING LEFT. If you die, NOTHING else matters to me!”
She was crying. “Ian – ”
“PLEASE, just GO!”
She gave me one last anguished look – kissed me har
d – and then out popped the rocket engines and fins.
A second later she took off and flew away.
Relieved, I turned back to the battle.
Shyvock was heading this way. I could see his progress through the ranks of orcs as he cut them down. It was like some nightmarish creature moving through a cornfield, trampling every single stalk in its wake – but you never see the creature itself.
It was the weirdest fucking sensation. I was scared, yes, but also elated. The boogeyman was coming for my head, and yet he was wiping out all my other enemies in the process.
No matter how many soldiers he killed, though, the remaining orcs were going to slaughter my friends before Shyvock reached me.
I checked my action bar and saw that I still had five minutes until I could create another gravesite.
That was it. The fat lady had sung.
I saw by his icon that Stig was dead, too. I could summon him, but what would be the point? I wasn’t going to bring him back just so I could watch him die all over again, too.
One by one the remaining Mages and Hunters were cut down. The healers worked heroically to keep them alive, but the orcs were just too powerful.
I cast Doomsday after Doomsday, trying to help but failing. My comrades in arms fell like dominoes, and I was powerless to stop the massacre.
The orcs killed the last Mage, then started in on the Priests and Druids. Their powers were geared for healing, not self-defense, and they were wiped out even faster. We all retreated, step by step, until our backs were against the cliff – but the orcs surged forward with bloodthirsty abandon.
Within thirty seconds, every single one of my friends was dead. I alone remained.
Forty orcs stood just a few yards away, panting and wild-eyed – but they didn’t attack.
Then I figured out why I was still alive:
They’d been saving me for last.
30
“Make way!” a voice roared out, and the group of orcs split right down the middle.
General Krort emerged with Dorp by his side. Krort eyed me with a hatred so powerful I could feel it like electricity across my skin – but the power of Dorp’s loathing dwarfed even his.
“YOU!” Krort roared. “YOU are to blame for this! I will string you up and have you tortured for weeks, human! I will have healers keep you alive so I can take my time killing you!”
