The Bathrobe Knight

by Charles Dean

  “Yeah, specifically like fifty to sixty thousand. It’s why they will spread even. Then the north flank will cave in instantly from the pressure of all the troops, and the line will crumble into a constant open flank on the north side that will leave the native side to be slaughtered,” Darwin said, watching as Alex drew out his words with his Spear on the dirt map.

  “So that means that the enemy’s line is a feint, and they are betting everything on the north part crushing its opposition fast and quick?” Kass clarified, doing her best to crouch down by the map without letting her Dress reveal too much. It was a struggle that bemused Darwin very much.

  “Yes. They could win a head to head collision, but if they make this move, it will likely prevent them from suffering any significant casualties and leave them with a large enough standing force on the continent to roll over any rebellions,” Darwin finished his explanation and stood up.

  “I hate being the one to ask, but what does this have to do with us?” Kass asked.

  “Little to nothing except those boats,” Darwin said, pointing at the approaching opposition. “The battle is likely to decimate the only harbor where we can acquire friendly boats, and if they aren’t defeated we won’t have any vessels capable of ferrying us to the mainland. As ignoble as it may be, we may have to consider violence as the only leverage we have in obtaining the sea craft we desire.”

  “So, we have to make sure the Human White-Horn Black-Wing alliance wins? Darwin, at this point, wouldn’t it just be safer to let the fight happen and try to make our own boats? We can easily farm the material we need. It won’t set us back more than a week. Why are we rushing to get to the mainland this fast?” Kass asked.

  “Do you want to spend your days farming lowbie trash here?” Darwin asked her.

  “I don’t, but I definitely don’t like the idea of our Faction members dying,” Kass said, surprising Darwin. “I can wait a week if it means we don’t lose anyone here.”

  “Thank you, Lady,” Alex spoke before Darwin could respond. “The sentiment behind your concern for us is noted, but I cannot accept the course of action you suggest.”

  “Why not?” Kass asked, her flustered red face betraying her frustration with Alex’s stubbornness on the topic. “Is bravery really worth dying for?”

  Darwin looked at Alex, who was hesitant to answer the question. His facial expression was sterner than Kass’s was red, and the subject was obviously very close to home for him. He wanted to answer for Alex, but Alex’s face told him that even if he was taking a moment to answer, he wanted to answer himself.

  “Lady Kass, what do you think will happen to the people of this land if those White-Wings and Fire-Walkers, as you called them, win? If they defeat that army, what do you think will happen to the people of every village that army comes across?”

  Kass didn’t answer, but her face lost a bit of its color.

  “How long do you think it will take them to fly out over the continent and enact their desires on every person in every village across all the nations here?”

  Kass still remained silent, the red having completely vanished from her cheeks. Darwin knew it was an awful feeling to lose an argument. He had lost several in his day. Kass wasn’t just losing an argument though; she was losing an argument about keeping the people of her Faction safe. Darwin hadn’t thought they had grown on her, but they must have if she was willing to give up a week of her time to make sure none of them perished in the coming fight.

  “I remember what it was like, coming home to bury someone I cared about and being told that I had to run and hide and that I wouldn’t even get the time to give the dead a proper funeral. I don’t want to die anymore than you do, but if we don’t stop those things here, then we may as well be hand delivering that fate to mothers, daughters and sons across the island.”

  Kass stared at Alex for a moment that seemed to drag on for a day. Darwin hated to interrupt this type of awkward silence--it always made him uncomfortable--but he knew someone had to. He also knew that there was a middle ground for the two.

  “Kass, the level restriction, it’s the same for every island, right?”

  “Yeah, there shouldn’t be anything over 40, and the NPCs should average around Level 20,” she answered, sighing as she did. “Why?”

  “Alex, if I can guarantee that the invading force will be broken here, that they won’t succeed, will the men be okay with sitting one fight out?” Darwin asked Alex, putting one hand on his shoulder.

  “No, Sir, they’d rather be there, but they will if you think it’s for the best,” he said, pausing for a moment before adding. “We will if you command it, Lord Darwin.”

  “That’s great because I think I have a way to break the army and have everyone walk out of here alive. I just need you,” Darwin said pointing to Kass, “you,” then pointing to Alex, “the re-risen and five Guards. If I can get y’all’s cooperation--and there aren’t any surprises--we should be able to all come out of this alive. We’ll even come out of it with all the boats we are going to need to sail out of here. If I’m wrong, if we all die, at least the Stormguard Alliance will live on. Is that okay with you both?”

  They looked at each other for a moment, then both said, “I’m in,” at the same time.

  “Good. Then I hope you don’t mind getting wet because here is where we start,” he said, using the edge of his Sword to draw a small box far north of where the conflict was, and clearly in the water. “And we have to make sure not to start until the clash happens.”

  “Why that far out in the water?” Alex asked this time.

  “Because we can’t let anyone see us--any of us,” Darwin said, looking over at one of the especially tall zombies he had made. “If we make a stir too early, we’ll be fighting them head on and not flanking them smoothly.”

  “So the plan is just to wait in the water until the fighting starts, and then flank them?” Kass asked for clarification, not sure that it would be simple enough.

  “No, it’s not just that. That’s just the timing and where we hit. This strategy is going to be heavily dependent on our own unique abilities and how we combine them,” Darwin said, walking away from the first map and to another clear patch.

  “Ok, so what do you have planned?” she asked.

  “Well, first, we’re going to need to run the front line like this,” Darwin said, drawing out the formation. He wasn’t sure if it would work, but years planning the raids on Emerald Gardens had definitely taught him that confidence and clearly articulated orders were just as, if not more, important than a good strategy.

  Kass watched intently as he finished drawing out the plan. “This will really work . . .” she said, the words half question and half statement.

  “Do you doubt the great Lord Darwin?” Darwin said, standing up from the etched out formation, proud of his work.

  “Not at all, Lord Darwin,” Alex said as he stood, not understanding the rhetorical question was a half joke. “I have no doubt you will dye the waters red before the sun sets.”

  Valerie:

  “So what are we going to do when the fight starts?” Daniel whispered to Mclean.

  “Grab the first boat we can, pop on some flip flops and sail to the mainland,” Mclean answered.

  No, they’re not getting away with what they did to Tim, Valerie wanted to say, but was doing her best to not let them know exactly how personal this had become. They killed Tim, and they threw me in jail for trying to do the right thing. “This cult of madness can’t spread.”

  “Valerie?” Daniel asked, his eyebrow raised.

  “We can’t just walk away from this war,” she said, looking at Daniel and Mclean. “Would you be happy with yourself if you knew these jerks took over another starter island, if they put someone else through the same ordeal they put us through? Just for doing the right thing? Fire-Walker or White-Wing, we have to make sure others don’t go through what we did.”

  We have to make sure another Tim doesn’t die needles
sly. She gripped her Dagger.

  “Damn straight,” Daniel agreed, Mclean nodding. “You had me at ‘cult of madness.’”

  “So what’s the plan?” Mclean asked, still chuckling at Daniel’s response.

  “I’d say we murder them all until there is only a small enough number left for the natives of the island to finish off, but I think there may be too many for the three of us to kill by ourselves,” she admitted, knowing that there were probably even other players close to Level 40 that she would have trouble fighting one at a time.

  “So we’re just going to give up like that?” Daniel asked, confused. He seemed pretty happy when Valerie had told them they needed to stop the Sun God’s spread.

  “Not on your life,” Valerie reaffirmed. “I’m just saying we need to get in the air when the fight starts and look for an opportunity. This is going to be like playing chess: we might be pawns, but if we wait for the right moment we can take the queen and corner the king.”

  “Chess, really? You really are a dork,” Mclean said, putting a hand on her shoulder, “but if we have to talk strategy, a dork is exactly what we need.”

  “So do we fly up now?” Daniel asked. “Get a good bird’s eye view?”

  Valerie liked the feeling of the two of them looking to her for directions. Even before, when she was leading the group, she had just been part of the planning, not really in charge of it.

  “No, not yet,” Valerie answered. “We need to wait for that clash to hit. Once it does, we can go airborne without any issues.”

  “Issues?” Mclean asked.

  “Yeah, we need to make sure that when we take to the air for a good vantage point, we’re not stopped along the way. If we start the fight too soon, we’ll give away our cards, and it’ll be a uphill fight from there,” Valerie explained. There were some cases where a quick trigger finger could really cause issues, and this was definitely one of them.

  “Well, Boss,” Daniel joked at Valerie’s new attitude, “the good news is I think the fight’s about to start, so the wait won’t be long if that’s when we’re going.”

  “Alright, wait for the sound of clashing then, and let’s get into the air,” Valerie said, still holding onto her Daggers tight enough that it was hurting her knuckles. Tim, I won’t let them get away with this. Just you wait. One knife in the back deserves another.

  They waited in silence for moments that dragged on forever. At one point, Valerie even wondered if they would be able to hear the initial clashing, that the shouting of the men would deafen it out. Then it happened. A sound like a gushing torrent of thumbtacks and paperclips striking a metal surface started to sound off in the distance.

  They looked at each other one last time, planted their feet into the ground and shot into the air just like everyone else on the boat. The only difference was that when they took off into the sky, they just went up, not west towards the enemy. They went higher and higher until they could see almost the entire battle in a single glance. At that point, Valerie signaled to the others to hold the position.

  “We may be about to try and stop them, but by the looks of it, it’s going to be really hard to get the other side to win,” Daniel said with a frown as he looked at the scene below. “If the opposing side doesn’t put up a fight like it’s the Alamo or they’re Spartans at Thermopylae, this is going to quickly turn into a fight more one sided than a chocolate chip double doozie going up against the cookie monster.”

  “We’re lucky then,” Valerie declared without hesitation, “. . . the cookie monster is a vegetarian now.”

  “Really?” Mclean said surprised. “How can anyone give up chocolate chip cookies?”

  Daniel frowned, “Probably the same way I did. Gotta make sure I don’t gain any weight.”

  Valerie ignored the rest of the banter between the two: chocolate chip cookies weren’t important right now. There would be plenty of time to discuss them in the future, but right now the battle unfolding below didn’t look to be in their favor, and the right opportunity to strike likely wouldn’t last more than a moment.

  She watched to the west of her as White-Wings were running into and clashing with Black-Wings. They hit each other hard, using Knives and Daggers to cut off wings and Arrows to shoot each other in the chest. As fast as they were hitting each other, they were dying one after another as blades and arrowheads dug through their flimsy Armor. Below them, White-Wings were diving by the scores in a near suicidal effort to land on and crush the opposition. Some were successful, instantly killing their targets, while others were unlucky, finding that the Axes, Shields and Swords of the Humans and Minotaurs proved far sturdier than the glass blades of the Fire-Walker heretics.

  “Ummm . . .” Daniel said pointing to something Valerie had failed to notice. “What’s that?”

  Mclean and Valerie looked to where Daniel was pointing. Below the glass ships on the north-most flank of the army was something definitely out of the ordinary.

  “Is that a wave?” Valerie asked, not being able to make out what it was. It definitely looked like a wave, but waves were supposed to move to and from the shore, not to and from the players.

  “No, I think that’s what we were hoping for. I think it’s our ‘surprise,’” Mclean said. “It’s not a wave--it’s a small army!”

  “That’s . . . that’s not a player army . . . that’s a monster army! Look!” Daniel said, loud enough to make other White-Wings passing them from below take notice too.

  Whatever was moving under the waters to make the effect of a wave broke the surface to reveal a small forty- or fifty-man force of wolves with red eyes, turtle shells and Spears popping out of the water. Each one was equipped with a small helmet made of ice that they shattered themselves as they broke the surface. Were those air bubbles to keep them breathing under water? Valerie thought as she watched the spectacle of rising, shell-wearing werewolves, who seemed to be commanded by a very small group of regular Humans directly behind them. That wasn’t the scariest part though: that was the creature in the middle. As it rose in the water and its top broke the surface, it sent a wave strong enough to almost knock the shell-armored wolves around it off their feet. It was a giant, seven-headed Hydra with black armor and red eyes, and on it’s back was a beautiful, brown-haired woman in a white Dress holding a blue Staff.

  For a moment she was awestruck. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene. The woman, as soon as she got above the surface and broke her ice bubble, slammed her Staff with both hands onto the back of the black-scaled Hydra, and white snowball-looking things began to shoot out in a stream at every nearby White-Wing. It was a fatal spray of snowballs that made it look like Olaf finally got his summer holiday on the beach. Each snowball was fast and precise, ripping a White-Wing out of the sky as they instantly froze the wings of their victims. The Hydra wasn’t for play either. It was ripping apart every White-Wing that tried to dive at the girl using its seven massive jaws.

  Is that a player? Is that a Boss? Is this an event that no one knew about that the game masters planned to stop a noob island from being conquered? Valerie began to ask herself as she watched in wonder. She couldn’t take her eyes off the Turtle-Wolves that lunged and cleared the way for the Hydra, pressing and pushing the White-Wings on the ground into a slanted line with the north-most part the furthest east. They are breaking the push. There aren’t more than forty of them and they are breaking the push! If we help them out, then we can definitely win!

  “What the . . .” Daniel started to say before Mclean interrupted him.

  “Is that guy wearing a bathrobe?!” she yelled, pointing to a man that Valerie had somehow failed to notice.

  Valerie rubbed her eyes. Sure enough, at the furthest part penetrating the White-Wing line was a man in a Bathrobe wielding two Swords. He was moving like a miniature tornado as he ripped his Swords in and out of everything in arm’s reach.

  Umm, guys, I don’t think the Bathrobe he is wearing is our problem. I think we have much bigger issues,�
� Daniel said, managing to finish his sentence. “Do you see what I am seeing?”

  “No, what is . . . oh,” Valerie was about to ask what he saw, but she noticed it as soon as she knew to look for something.

  Everything he stabbed either vanished like a player normally does or got up, howled and took off in the air to kill other White-Wings. It was a White-Wing on White-Wing fight going on just above his head as the number of converted White-Wings kept growing. First there were ten, then twenty, then thirty and forty. At this rate, the small group of forty or fifty turtle-armored wolf men would be the least of the White-Wings’ problems--it would be the rapidly growing army of undead traitors, Zombie White-Wings that seemed to be far better at fighting in their second life than they were in their first.

  “That’s just not fair,” Daniel muttered, watching the carnage. “Forget that cool Bathrobe, how the Hell did she get a hydra to ride? Hell, I’d settle for a pink version of the mount if it was that cool.”