They scaled another small ridge and, all of a sudden, a minor Orkish settlement was right in front of them.
Location Marker Added: Boyz’n’Girlz Border Outta-Post Zero (0.5 leagues)
This place bears a different name in beautiful Elven language, and Humans call it “The Green Outback”. This is a big Orkish town of sorts, which is more of a stronghold the visitors of The Swamplands encounter on their way into the land. Orks are territorial creatures, and they will protect their land from any outsiders with all of their might, which makes this little stronghold a very dangerous place to approach when you’re a stranger.
The place looked pretty peaceful: it wasn’t under a demonic siege at least. It didn’t look like anything Mordor or Isengard, either. Within Tolkienist aesthetics, the village looked closer to a settlement of evil oversized hobbits, its round clay buildings resembling huge sharp-toothed wasp nests, its onion and mushroom gardens peaceful and festive if a bit outlandish.
Right next to them, at the settlement’s border, Zack could see a windmill of sorts, its huge leather-bound blades rotating slowly overhead like giant lazy batwings. If not for a crude automatic ballista attached to the windmill’s rotor, Zack would take it for a peaceful building as well.
Even the black smoke turned out to be merely an exhaust of the Orkish analog of a blacksmith, its huge billows chugging away in the middle of the little village. Another remarkable structure looked like a small bloated lighthouse, a grotesque lens of a telescope peering into the cloudy sky from its dome, multicolored clouds of fumes hanging above it and replacing each other like a muffin of semi-transparent clown hair the building was wearing.
“It’s a Goblin Alchemist lab,” Zack said. “Right? It has to be.”
“It is,” Mike the Shaman confirmed. “In fact, I bought this Blood Golem spell in there. Cost me a fortune.”
“May a Human Alchemist buy it?” Zack asked.
“Not sure. It’s a premium spell anyway. I sold my old bike to pay for it.”
Zack sighed. All the best stuff was premium. It had to be.
A border patrol of five NPC Orks riding big hairy boars was slowly moving through the village. It was advancing straight at their party, the Orkish halberds and battleaxes gleaming under the shifting daylight.
“Alright then,” Zack said. “It’s pretty obvious, isn’t it? Lizardfolk it is. We cannot stay in the open, it’s too risky.”
“Oh my,” the Shaman said. “I dunno. I hate Lizardfolk.”
“Humies!” There was a sudden shout, and the next moment, the entire Orkish cavalcade broke into a gallop. The ballista near the windmill clicked, loaded the first sharpened log inside its launching mechanism, and yawed around like a hungry snake.
You encountered Outta-Post Zero Border Patrol
Thirsty Bloodrida Lvl 65 Elite Gutletta Lvl 67 Thirsty Bloodrida Lvl 65
Ax-Throwa Lvl 64 Ax-Throwa Lvl 64
Elite Sickboy Lvl 67
“I think we were just spotted,” Zack said.
“YOU were spotted,” AliceX retorted. “He didn’t shout Elves or Ork Shamans, did he?”
“How do we deal with them?”
“Them?” she echoed. “There are five of them, with an elite medic. I say we die.”
“You always say this, though,” Zack replied.
“She’s right, you know,” Mike said. “Well, if you manage to kill off a couple of them, I could summon my Golem, and we’d finish off the rest. But honestly, I cannot see how it will happen.”
“Then what do we—” Zack began.
An infernal spore screamed through the air and crashed right in front of the advancing NPC guard, bringing up a huge cloud of dust and dirt and fire. Something horned and roaring, with a multitude of hooved legs, broke out of the explosion, and lashed at the Orkish patrol guards, swinging a flaming chain with a spiked metal ball.
The Orkish NPC party scattered, and then recombined in a defensive formation. Two riders left their armored boars, and the beasts were now charging the new demonic threat all by themselves, paying Zack’s party no mind.
You encountered: A Horned One
Horned One Lvl 86
“We best leave,” AliceX said. “We better leave NOW.”
“Let’s run,” Zack suggested, setting the example.
And so they ran, off the road and through the reeds and lilies, then through a small peaceful swamp with fireflies circling above it, then through a maze of reeds and swamp and passable water towards a ridge nearby, then over its crumbling mud and onwards through another swamp. In short, they ran until they felt safe enough to stop and catch a breath.
“There’s a bonfire up ahead,” AliceX said.
“This is great,” Zack replied, who was out of breath for real. “I think I’m low on Stamina. We need a break.”
As they approached the fire, Mike the Shaman stopped.
“Wait,” he said. “This place doesn’t look right.”
“Why?” AliceX asked.
“Well, it’s not an Orkish bonfire.”
“How do you know?”
“Well, there’s nothing Orkish in here,” Mike said. “No skull totems, no crimson banners, no spiky metal things, nothing.”
“Which means?” Zack asked.
“Lizardfolk!” the Shaman said.
“Watch out!” AliceX shouted from behind their backs.
Right the next moment, the shadows at Zack’s feet swirled and changed their meaning. What he thought was a clump of dried vegetation sticking out of a pile of rocks unfolded and became a slick grey-skinned creature with a humanoid body and the head of an alligator (or maybe a Komodo dragon): triangular, lizard-eyed, with an elongated maw full of sharp fangs lined up in no less than three rows, the bifurcated black tongue sliding out of it and back in between them as he watched.
You encountered a Small Tribe of Lizardmen!
Lizardman Lvl 28 Lizardman Lvl 28
Lizard Witch Lvl 27
An ornate Elven arrow hit the Lizardman in front of Zack and threw it back, making it slither and shimmer again, trying to become invisible as it disengaged from its target.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was CRITICALLY hit by AliceX and lost 19 hit points
“Lizardmen!” he heard the enraged voice of the Elven Ranger. “Misogyny at large, again! There are no female Orks, and I’ll let it slide. But LIZARDMEN!”
“There ARE female Orks,” Mike said, falling back and activating some damage-dealing aura which looked like a crown of thorns swirling around his feet. “They’re not very different from male Orks, anatomically, but they exist I mean.”
“There’s also a Lizard Witch with them,” Zack said. “I’m sure it’s female.”
He dashed towards the retreating Lizardman and stabbed it with his dagger, then dashed and stabbed again as the creature kept trying to fall back and dissolve into its surroundings.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 4 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 3 hit points
“Stop torturing the poor thing,” AliceX said. “Step aside, let me take a good aim.”
“It’ll disappear,” Zack said. “I think it will go invisible again.”
“Well, stun it.”
She’s right, Zack realized. He just had to learn teamwork while they were facing NPC mobs and not human players.
“Fire in the hole,” he said, and popped a Potion of Dizziness next to the creature. WHOOSH!
The effect was more than Zack expected, for not only the first Lizardman materialized at his feet, stunned and helpless – two more creatures appeared behind it. One was its identical twin, and the other looked like a giant piranha on top of a hunched humanoid body, a glowing stick in its hands, gnarled and ugly, too short to be a staff and far too heavy to be a wand.
“Must be the Witch,” Zack said, stepping aside.
“I’ll deal with yours first,” AliceX replied.
TW
ANG! Three Elven arrows planted themselves into the nearest stunned Lizardman – Alice must have used her special attack, something a Ranger would spray multiple enemies with at a distance. At close range, against a single enemy, it was as effective as a shotgun. The giant lizard screamed and died on the spot, its two companions still stunned.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by AliceX, lost 25 hit points, and was killed!
TWANG! The very next moment an Elven arrow hit the Lizard Witch… and broke apart, then fell on the ground in a handful of small harmless debris.
IMMUNE!
Lizard Witch Lvl 27
Physical Resistance
“Oh no,” AliceX said. “Magical damage, anyone?”
“I’ll hit it with a Poison Dart,” Zack said.
“No—" Mike the Shaman started to say something, but the dart was already in Zack’s hand, and the next moment, Zack tossed it at the piranha-headed creature in front of him.
IMMUNE!
Lizard Witch Lvl 27
Poison Resistance
“Now this is simply not fair,” Zack said.
“They’re all immune to poison, man,” the Shaman said. “They’re lizards.”
The next moment, both the Witch and the remaining Lizardman came alive.
“Watch out!” Mike said, but it was already too late.
Lizardman Lvl 28 reveals Lizard Tongue!
Lizard Tongue: Pull the target towards Self and immobilize it
“AAARGH!” AliceX shouted as a black tether shot out of the open Lizardman’s mouth and connected, sending her flying through the air towards the open maw of the creature.
“I’ve got you!” Zack dashed to intercept. He struck the Lizardman with all his pitiful Copper Dagger might, not causing much damage but making the creature reel and lose its grip on the prey.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 2 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 5 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 3 hit points
“Hit it with your Ranger thing again!” Zack shouted.
“It’s recharging,” AliceX replied, falling back. She peppered the Lizardman with arrows as she retreated, to little avail it seemed.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by AliceX and lost 3 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by AliceX and lost 7 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by AliceX and lost 5 hit points
“You can do it!” Mike said. “It’s nearly dead, keep chipping at it, you can do it!”
The Lizard Witch, left alone, raised its glowing wand-like stick.
“A Firebomb!” Zack said. “I wish I had a Firebomb.”
Firebomb (0/0)
Not Enough Ingredients!
“Almost there,” AliceX said.
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 3 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 1 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by AliceX and lost 5 hit points
Lizard Witch Lvl 27 reveals A Swarm of Gnats!
A Swarm of Gnats: release a swarm of blood-sucking mosquitoes attacking a single enemy and draining them of HP with stacking swarm damage.
“Oh no,” Mike said. “I hoped SO much it didn’t have it.”
The next moment, a huge swarm formed around the Witch, a whirlwind of little black mosquitoes brought into existence by the swinging glowing stick. The cloud of insects buzzed audibly as it grew to a size of a big Orkish brute and then trickled away, towards AliceX of course, marked by the AI to be the primary damage dealer.
“I’m outta here,” AliceX said. “Zack, hit me with the Nightshade Potion. I cannot counter them; they’ll swarm me and eat me up.”
“Give me a second,” Zack responded, hacking on the Lizardman in front of him like crazy. “Just a second!”
“Do it!” the Elven Ranger shouted. “Do it NOW!”
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 5 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack and lost 3 hit points
Lizardman Lvl 28 was hit by Zack, lost 4 hit points, and was killed!
“It’s dead!” Zack shouted. “It’s dead, Mike, two corpses, bring up the Golem!”
WHOOSH! The next moment, the fresh Lizardman corpse underfoot blew up in a cloud of viscera and ketchup, same as the older corpse next to it, and the Blood Golem appeared in front of Zack in all of its bloated Frankenstein monster glory.
“It only deals Physical,” Mike warned. “We still have nothing to take out the Witch with!”
“They’ll swarm him,” AliceX said, watching the black cloud of mosquitoes leave her alone and trickle towards the bloated giant instead. She added, “No way can he bring these things down, right? He’ll just flop around some, and then die.”
“I wish so much I had a Firebomb,” Zack said.
Firebomb (0/0)
The Swarm of Gnats wrapped around the Golem, draining him visibly out of blood, the only substance the giant was made from. He must taste real good to them, Zack thought. Pretty much like Alice predicted, the Blood Golem could do little to resist this swarm attack – he just roared, his stubby arms flailing wild all around him, not disturbing the swarm of little mosquitoes at all. The bugs were, as Zack now observed, immortal one by one, or rather they all were just one big creature with a single health bar, which could be quite long for all Zack knew, given they barely had something to resist it with.
“It’s okay,” the Shaman said. “Trust me, it will be okay.”
POP! The Blood Golem popped all of a sudden, a huge explosion of blood washing the entire swarm away in an instant. Not a single mosquito remained in the air – the dying Golem took them all with him, and their trio was left with a single Lizard Witch.
The Swarm of Gnats Lvl 29 was hit by 127 hit points and was killed.
Oh yes, Zack thought. That’s quite a long healthbar.
“What now?” he asked.
The Witch opened its piranha mouth and screamed at him.
“What do you think?” AliceX said. “RUN.”
Mike and AliceX both darted away, leaving Zack alone. He lingered for a second more, then remembered no corpses to loot were left around anyway, so he set off after the Ork and the Elf, cursing. The Lizard Witch was left behind to scream at the empty space.
Chapter 13: The Altar
They did encounter more of the Lizardfolk, and Spiders, and Swarms of Gnats of course, of all possible levels and behaviors – the Swamplands seemed to be buzzing with them. A Demonseed Blossom even spawned in front of them once, and a couple little evil Imps behind them.
They eventually had a glimpse of the Orkish capital from a distance – not a city but more of a huge military camp, its tents red and fanged, black smoke billowing from its blacksmith and Ogre Pit and some other buildings Mike the Illuminatus knew no meaning of.
“To think of it, I’ve rarely been to the capital, you know,” he said. “I saw it on live streams a lot, so I thought why even go there? It’s not like I enjoy questing much anyway.”
“Because you’re here to earn?” Zack asked.
“Nah, it’s just, every quest is a courier job or a murder job or two in one, right?” the Shaman said. “It’s like math all over again. Point A to point B. Bring item or items. Maybe kill. If it’s not like this fun slaughter where they give you some high reward, it gets really boring, right?”
“Sounds right,” Zack agreed. “But not all quests are like that.”
“Ah, this is interesting,” AliceX said. “You see, life is like that. So the quests which are NOT like that often seem arcade. You know? Not realistic enough for an RPG. If this world would be real, we all would be just brainless killing machines, right? Not able to build a house or plant a tree or whatever. We would just go from one place to another, moving items from point A to point B and killing X people and Y animals in the process. It’s realistic.”
“And boring,” Mike the Illumina
tus confirmed. “So I say why quest at all? Go straight for the best stuff the game has to offer. Big fights. Dungeons. Cool PvE exploits.”
“Not PvP?” Zack asked.
“No, I hate PvP,” Mike said. “It’s like school all over again. Marks. Results. Phys ed. Everyone trying to be better than the others, measuring up all the time. When you rock at it, you’re a hero of your class and a local school legend. But if you suck at it, then you’re totally lame. I have enough of it in real world without games involved. I’m not even sure I can kill a human character in a game. Never done it before.”
They gave the huge barbaric camp a wide berth, watching for pig-mounted patrols and demons alike, but saw none.
Only after they had completed the detour, the reason for such unusual luck became apparent: the Orkish capital was under heavy demonic siege. Tens of Basilisks were advancing on it in waves, greater and lesser alike, and horned spiked-ball-wielding centauroids also, and little flocks of Impish creatures. Demonseeds circled over the big battle area like a giant maelstrom, showing the true epicness and the global scale of the encounter.
“So this is where most of the Orks are,” Zack said.
“Not only here,” Mike replied. “Many are as far away from here as possible. This is a very pay-to-win thing, I took part in it just to have a taste, and I only lasted until, like, Wave Three, and then they just butchered me in one place, so I didn’t like the taste of this event at all.”
“So you mean no one was surprised when this entire demonic invasion started, on a global scale?” Zack asked him.
“Man,” Mike the Shaman replied. “We were expecting something like this to start. It’s summer.”
“Who expects a demon invasion?”
“Not invasion. This.” Mike pointed at PCs and NPCs hacking at each other, advancing and falling back in timed waves. “This is a, a big tournament event. With a, a progress ladder and all. And new loot introduced. And new quests. Fresh stuff, with everyone’s good ideas from the forums included. But they include nothing that could be bad for their steady income from these events. They control what we do. All of this was planned by the developers. Everything we do in this game was planned by them.”
The Alchemist of Aetheria: A LitRPG Adventure Page 21
