by Deck Davis
- Buff: Speed +40 [Temp]
The boost in stats from Assault Leader, though temporary, gave us an edge. Now we needed to find two or three more.
Rindelfa and George weren’t in the mood to give us any time. A swarm of crossbows bolts flew at us, hitting the pod with a series of thwacks. One caught me in the arm. The VBR pain magnifiers made it sting like I’d angered a bee.
15 HP lost!
I pulled the arrow out of my arm and let it drop to the ground. Thank God the pain modifiers and in-battle injuries weren’t set to ultra-realistic. If they were, not only would I have been in agony, but the bolt would have put my arm out of action.
In the corner of my eye, I saw the pale blue and white of another ice blast gathering in Rindelfa’s palms.
Think. I need to do something. With Rynk and Glora occupied on the ground, the pod wasn’t turning. We were halfway to the top; too far away to reach the summit of the quarry cliff, but high enough that trying to jump out of the pod would cause too much damage when we hit the ground. So, escape was out. We needed to take out Rindelfa and George in the pod opposite ours, but how? I had an axe, and Eddie had a short sword. these were decidedly not the weapons for a long-range battle. We needed a way to get to them and fight hand-to-hand.
Rindelfa’s ice blast was ready. This time, I was sure her aim would be better. We were facing a blast from a freezing ball of hitpoint-sapping fury.
“Eddie, use snuffer. Drain her magic and stop the ice-bitch from hurting us.”
Eddie used his Snuffer skill. He pointed at Rindelfa, and a black smoke trail drifted from his index finger. It swirled away from the pod and crossed the gap toward Rindelfa, where it coated her. I heard her coughing.
When the mist faded, Rindelfa’s ice ball was gone.
“It won’t last long,” Eddie told me.
“It’s bought us a little time. Now we just need to get close.”
A volley or bolts hit us. This time, one stuck in my chest, while another got me in the gut.
10 HP lost!
Critical hit!
60 HP lost!
Damn it! The only way George could have been firing so many arrows at once was if it was a skill that allowed him to. That meant that he was an archer or something like that. So, not only was crossbow a proficiency for George, but it was a specialty. That made things much worse.
I looked at the pod across from us. I watched the way both our pods swayed, and I heard the ropes and pulleys creak. It seemed that even the slightest movement was enough to make the pod sway. I got an idea. It made my stomach churn, but it was an idea all the same.
“He’s loading up again,” said Eddie, with urgency in his voice, “and Snuffer won’t hold the ice witch for long.”
The adrenaline wasn’t just seeping through my veins now; it was rushing through them. I felt cold all over. Is it just me, or are the ropes starting to fray? No. That’s the vertigo talking. Clear your head.
I put my hand on Eddie’s shoulder. “I have a plan. I don’t like it, but I’ve got one.”
“We better hurry, then. Old eagle eye over there is looking to put another load of bolts in our bums.”
“One sec,” I told him.
I activated TeamSpeak. “How you guys doing down there?” I asked.
“We can take ‘em… I think,” said Glora.
“Damn right,” joined Rynk. “Darlin’, you take the big, hulking, monster of a man. I’ll take shorty with his fishing net.”
“You’re such a gentleman.”
Feeling a little more assured about my friends on the ground, I focused on our enemies across from us. George held his crossbow up and was squinting through the sights. He seemed to be taking more care with this shot; maybe he was running out of bolts.
“Wave number one is closing in!” said Eddie.
“We’re safe, right?”
“It’s gonna hit the cliff. We’re only safe if we get to the top.”
“Then we have to get to the summit and winch Rynk and Glora up. Otherwise, the wave’s gonna hit them. But, first, they need to deal with the guys on the ground.”
“We’ve got problems of our own,” said Eddie, nodding at George and Rindelfa.
“Okay, do exactly as I say.”
Here it goes. Then another thought hit me. What the hell am I doing? I shook away my vertigo. I just needed to forget the big drop below us, forget that the pods were made of rickety wood. Forget how brittle human bones were, especially when they hit the ground from a high drop.
“Stand in front of me,” I said.
“Kinda cramped,” said Eddie.
“Just trust me.”
Eddie moved so that he was in front of me. I lifted my left foot and then shifted my weight to the side of the pod. Then, I lifted my right foot and did the same. The pod started to rock.
“C’mon, Eds.”
Eddie and I moved in tandem, shifting our weight from left to right. The pod started to sway violently. The ropes wobbled, the pulleys creaked. My stomach started to lurch, and I felt my brain try to force me to look at the sheer drop below us. Don’t look. If you don’t look, the sickening drop isn’t there.
The pod started to take its own momentum, swinging wildly to the left, and then back to the right, like a pendulum attached by ropes. Each swing brought us inches closer to the pod parallel to us.
Rindelfa spread her palms and began to gather an ice ball. Damn. Eddie’s Snuffer was wearing off.
“Can you cast it again?” I said, the swaying of the pod making my voice wobble.
“It’s on cooldown.”
“We better pick this up, then,” I said.
We swayed left to right. Up and down our feet went, with each careful placing of our weight making the pod move further and further. The pulleys wined so much I was scared they might break, but this was our only option. Come on. Keep it together.
And then, with one sweep, our pod swayed inches away from the pod to our right, almost close enough for me to touch George. The next one would do it. Our pod swayed all the way to the left, and then the momentum started to shift to the right. As the ropes twisted and the pod shook, and our enemies got closer, I activated Armorer. Our pod rushed through the air. It came inches away from the other pod. George aimed his crossbow at my face. Before he could shoot, the pod took me close enough that I could touch him. I poked his chest with my finger.
Armorer Activated!
Select a proficiency to steal:
- Crossbow
- Bow
- Throwing Daggers
Just as the momentum started to shift us away from their pod, I selected ‘crossbow.’
Crossbow proficiency learned!
Then, the movement of the pod took us away from Rindelfa and George. It didn’t matter. With his proficiency stolen from him, the crossbow in George’s hand was useless. I watched his face twist in confusion and then anger as he tried to fire but couldn’t.
Rindelfa shoved her palms forward and fired an ice blast at us. It hit me square in the face, a shock of cold worse than the coldest, hardest snowball. My vision was jolted so much I felt it go fuzzy like I was seeing stars. The pain spread across my cheeks, cold, like a slap in the face on a freezing day.
60 HP lost!
Damn it. Even with the boost Assault Leader had given me, I was getting low.
“On the next sweep, stick one in Rindelfa,” I said.
Together, we lifted and then stomped our feet, shifting the pod once again. The whine from the pulleys was so loud now I was convinced they’d snap and we’d plummet to the ground, but there was no stopping it. Momentum had been taken away from us, the pod’s swaying wasn’t ours to control now.
The wind rushed at my skin, still frozen from the ice blast. The creaks and screams of the pulleys sounded all too loud in my ears, but I shook it out. I concentrated on George. As our pod smashed into theirs with such force that I felt it vibrate in my stomach, I grabbed hold of the rope connected to their side. Wit
h all my strength, I held on.
Our pods were lashed together now, but I knew I couldn’t hold on for long.
“Stick her!” I said.
Eddie, with one thrust of his short sword, pierced Rindelfa’s stomach. She wailed in pain. She stumbled back, but Eddie reacted with milli-second reactions, stabbing her in the chest. The ropes burned my hands as momentum tried to move our pods away from each other, but I held firm. Rindelfa’s robe and shirt offered her no protection. As a magic user, her hitpoints must have been low. I watched as she stumbled back, gasping. She lost her balance, hit the edge of the pod, and then tipped over the side and plummeted to the ground.
“Have a nice trip!” shouted Eddie.
The ropes were twisting against my palms now, burning them. I quickly wrenched George’s crossbow out of his hands, letting go of the pod. It swung back with a fury, so fast that I stumbled and fell onto my back. The wood dug into my spine, and the air left me.
“He’s pulling a bow out!” said Eddie.
I felt Eddie hook his hands under my armpits and drag me to my feet. I lifted the crossbow. The pod lurched again. I almost fell forward, straight over the edge, but Eddie pulled me back.
“Got you, buddy. Kill him.”
The crossbow had one bolt loaded, and two ready to spring into the center once it was fired. I’d never used a crossbow before, but it didn’t feel strange to hold it. With my new proficiency, something about it just felt right, as though it was a weapon that had always belonged to me. I lifted it and squinted as I took aim. In the pod across from me, George pulled the string of his bow. I fired first. The bolt tore through the air and caught him in the eye, piercing through his eyeball with such sickening speed that I almost couldn’t watch. George fell back onto the floor of his pod.
Critical hit!
I loaded the second bolt. I breathed in and held the air in my lungs. My face hurt now; the heat of the dunes was melting the ice, and the competing temperatures were cracking my skin. I shook the pain away and just concentrated on George, ready to fire another bolt. After twenty seconds, he still hadn’t moved, and I lowered the weapon. George was dead.
A tinkling sound indicated that post-combat messages awaited me, but now wasn’t the time to check them. Instead, I went down on my knees in the pod. I was done standing up in it. If I never had to stand up in a rickety piece of wood twenty-five feet above the ground again, I’d die a happy man.
Although Eddie and I had taken care of our enemies, things weren’t so hot down on the ground. Rynk and Glora faced what must have been the melee duo of Team Elk. The big guy—and big was an understatement—had a long enough reach that Rynk couldn’t get close to him without taking a mace blow to the face. His shorter friend twirled his lightening-net around in his hand, waiting for a chance to snare Glora with it.
I aimed my crossbow. I had two bolts left, but it would be no easy feat to hit moving targets twenty-feet below me.
“C’mon, guys,” said Eddie. “Zap ‘em! We’re dangling here.”
“Don’t you think we’re trying?” said Glora.
Rynk feinted to the left, trying to sucker the big guy into taking the bait. Wise to such a basic combat trick, the mace-wielding giant instead stepped forward and to the right, closing the gap between him and Rynk.
“Wave’s coming our way,” said Eddie.
I fired a bolt at the big guy, catching him in the shoulder. He barely flinched, and he didn’t even bother to pull it out. Instead, he swung with his mace at Rynk. Rynk was quick enough to roll out of reach. No sooner had he straightened up, had the giant closed the gap again.
“I’ve gotta get to the traps,” said Glora.
She’d laid two mana traps near the crank handle, but, thus far, Team Elk hadn’t stumbled into either of them. Given they were Glora’s traps, they wouldn’t be able to see them, so it was just a case of making them stumble into them.
“Snare one of them,” I said. “Then, one of you keep the other schmuck busy while someone hoists us the hell up.”
“Roger that, partner,” said Rynk. He was on his feet now. “Okay, big boy,” he said to the big man. “You look like you’d be a clumsy dance partner, but I’m gonna try and teach you the foxtrot anyway.” He ran at the big man straight on in what looked like a suicide sprint. As the giant reacted with a swing of his mace, Rynk ducked and launched himself forward like he was diving into a swimming pool, sliding straight through the gap between the big man’s legs. It took him less than a second to recover, leaving the giant’s back on show as he turned with all the grace of an articulated lorry.
Rather than attack head-on, Rynk retreated towards Glora.
“What’s he doing?” said Eddie.
“Go to the crank handle and get those boys out of the air,” said Rynk. “I’ll take care of these two.”
“They’ll pummel the crap out of you, Ryan. You can’t deal with them alone.”
Glora using Rynk’s real name was surprising since I’d always been used to calling him Rynk, but what happened next was even more surprising. Rynk seemed to take a second to consider what Glora had told him. Then, he said, “If they kill me, they kill me. Just you three get out of here.”
I had only a second to wonder if I’d really heard the words. Was this Rynk, or had he been replaced by a doppelganger? Maybe I’d misjudged him after all. Nah, surely not.
Before I could decide one way or the other, my attention was drawn to Glora. While Rynk led the net-wielding guy into one of Glora’s traps, which zapped him with a jolt of ice-infused mana, Glora ran to the crank handle. The big guy turned to her.
“Wooo!” shouted Rynk. “Over here, you lumbering hunk of shit! Let’s see if you can actually hit me with that little toy of yours.”
I smiled. Rynk had a way of getting to people, of really burrowing under their skin. Rather than go for Glora, who was easier prey, the big man lumbered over to Rynk. I couldn’t see his face from up there, but I imagined it’d be a picture of fury, and he’d want to tear Rynk limb from limb.
Glora grabbed the crank handle and started turning. The pulleys near our pod screeched, and then the pod itself jolted. Ropes turned, and I felt us start to move. Up and up we went, thirty feet, forty feet. The summit of the cliff drew gloriously close until, finally, our pod crashed against it.
I didn’t hesitate for even a millisecond. I grabbed the edge of the cliff and pulled myself up onto the summit, leaving the rickety old pod behind. Eddie soon followed me, grunting as he hoisted himself out.
There, away from the fall, away from the pod, I felt like kissing the cracked, stony top of the cliff. I’d never been so glad to be on solid land. There was no time for that, though. We had to get the others up here.
“Wave’s closing in!” shouted Eddie. “You’ve got less than a minute, tops.”
Panic hit me. The wave was closing, and Rynk and Glora would be trapped in it. When they were, it would slowly drain their hitpoints. We had to get them up here.
On top of the quarry cliff was another crank handle fixed to a post, just like the one below us on the ground. The ropes fed through a pulley system. All we had to do was turn the handle the opposite way and lift Glora and Rynk toward us.
“Okay, we’re here,” I said. “Get into a pod and we’ll pull you up.”
“I’m in,” said Glora.
A second passed. Then a few more. They felt achingly drawn out.
“Rynk, where the hell are you?” I said. I wanted to go look over the edge, but I couldn’t leave the crank handle.
“The waves coming! It’s gonna hit any sun-damned second,” said Eddie.
“Oh, shit. I can see it,” said Glora. “Get in here, Rynk. Stop screwing around!”
“Sounds like what you used to say to me in the bedroom,” said Rynk.
“You never change, do you? Get your arse over here.”
“Your trap’s outta mana, and the big guy is closing me off,” said Rynk. “I can’t get to you.”
I
felt sweat trickle down my forehead. I wiped it away with the back of my hand. To think how optimistic I’d been after we’d leveled up in the sand dunes. I’d thought that things were going our way. Now I saw that it wasn’t so. The map was being worked against us, I was sure of it, and I was going to have to replace optimism with caution. That was one thing that self-help books preaching never-ending positive affirmations didn’t acknowledge; sometimes, pessimism was a good thing, because it made you think harder, and smarter.
“We can’t wait much longer,” I said.
“He’s dead if he doesn’t get to the pod. He’ll be stuck in a wave with those two bozos,” said Eddie.
