by Galen Wolf
The wing comes down but I block it, then hack at the leathery limb.
It swings its other wing across hitting me for 200. But I jab and slice and hit twice doing a total of 920. Luminous green blood runs down its chest where I’ve cut it, but it doesn’t look weakened. Who knows what health it has?
Fitheach shoots a ray of healing off at me and the warm cotton wool feeling enfolds me as I go up to full health. Then I see him gallop in on my left, striking at the cockatrice with his wooden staff. The beast shakes off his attack and buffets him off his mare. He goes tumbling onto the blackened earth, knocking the wind out of him, and the cockatrice follows up with a withering breath attack. I see Fitheach roll, very agile for an old man, and then he’s lit up with the silvery glow of his own healing.
Elizabeth is more sensible. She’s sitting back on her horse and playing dark rays of necrotic energy onto the cockatrice. I see the flesh rot and go gangrenous where the sickly dark green energy strikes it.
I rush in and lunge and chop and score nearly a thousand more damage on the thing.
It breathes at me, but I can take that. Then it lashes out and crits for 600. That hurt. I pull back. Spirit is bleeding badly. I can’t afford to lose him. I turn and gallop away, leaving Fitheach and Elizabeth. Then when I’m far enough away, I dismount and leave Spirit with Henry and Bessie and sprint forward, brandishing my sword. I almost forget to sip health potion, but I stop and do, going up to 450. I roar out, ‘For my God and King!’ and rush at the Cockatrice.
Fitheach has got up to his feet, looking dazed, then he snarls and runs at the cockatrice. He doesn’t have the armour. It’s going to kill him.
‘Fitheach! Get back! Stand back and heal us.’
He looks at me, still not right from the blow he took, but then he nods and backs off. I see him fire a healing charge at Elizabeth as he goes. She’s now got the beast’s aggro. It screams at her, and pushes her, smashing with its taloned wings that open up a huge gash in her shoulder. Red blood floods out and soaks her dark cloak. Fitheach heals her again.
I yell, ‘Hey, chicken-head! Over here.’
The thing blinks its fiery eyes and looks my way. I really can’t afford to lose more of my team or else this mission is definitely an abort. The cockatrice moves towards me but I don’t give it the opportunity to attack. Though I’ve lost my mounted bonus, I can get closer and under its guard. I run in till I’m nearly overcome by the rancid stink of the thing but I jab and lunge and I hit every time. Its luminous blood drips down onto me.
That’s great. It’s got poison blood to. I back off and sip. Fitheach heals me at the same time so my draught of potion is wasted. Still, I’m at full health. I jab it in the guts again and back off as the blood spouts out. We must surely be wearing it down. Then I notice it stand and shudder and a leprous glow envelops it. The thing is self-healing. This is bad news. It’s a matter of dps: can I cause more damage per second than it can heal per second?
I rush in and hack and hack. I get a Doublestrike and one of them crits. That’s 1820 damage. Maybe we can.
I yell out, ‘Hit it with whatever you’ve got. As fast as you can. We need big numbers.’
I hear them call out and I see the dark green rays blast from Elizabeth’s hands and a wave of shimmering blue-white light come from Fitheach. The thing screeches and reels, it pulses with its dirty healing but I jab and hack and hack again. I’m getting good hits too. We must be doing huge damage to it. As we hurt it, it pauses heals more and more frequently and that means it doesn’t attack as much. I press my attack.
It whines and screams in pain. It’s backing off and it flaps its wings trying to fly. I jump up and slash down on the leather membrane, cutting it to ribbons and making it useless to fly. They’re still hitting it with their energy bolts. Then it lashes out at me and knocks me backwards, and I fall. It’s damaged me for 200 and I’m winded. It breathes at me, hitting me for a further 50 but I force myself up to my knees and then my feet. The thing’s nearly dead. I roar and sprint at it. I defend myself with my shield from its beak as it tries to peck down at me and under my shield I plunge my sword into its belly. The luminous blood sprays out and burns into me but Fitheach heals me up. I jab again and the thing finally screams and falls. I back off so I’m not crushed by its lifeless bulk.
I look around panting. The thing is breathing its last on the ground chopped up by our combat. Behind me Spirit and the mules are safe. Elizabeth is sitting on her horse, grinning. Fitheach looks worn out, his face lined and pale, but he’s smiling too. At least we didn’t lose anyone else.
Out of habit, I check — I need only 1920xp for Level 15.
We regroup. Fitheach wipes his brow and gets back up on his mare. ‘I’m guessing we continue?’
I nod. What else?
I mount Spirit who’s hurt. I’m about to get some potion to give him when Fitheach smiles and with a pass of his hand, bathes Spirit in a silvery glow. Spirit snickers in thanks.
Then we go on. Ahead is the sea, still glittering under that baleful moon.
‘We nearly didn’t make that,’ Elizabeth says. ‘You still haven’t told me where we’re going or why.’
I glance at her. ‘I’ll tell you when I need to. Remember, you’re still a new recruit.’
‘But I’ve proved myself. I contributed to that fight.’
I nod. ‘You’re proving yourself. It’s not a done deal yet.’ I look forward along the line of the old road, highlighted by the moonlight as it strikes the burned and blasted heath. ‘We’ve a way to go yet.’
‘And who knows what more monsters we’ll run into on the way,’ Fitheach mutters.
I laugh. ‘What happened to your warlike spirit?’
He shakes his head. ‘I’m still for fighting them, just it’s harder than I thought. We’ve lost two already.’
That wipes the smile from my face. He’s right. I nod at him in encouragement. ‘He wins, who endures.’
‘Perseus,’ he says. And he’s right. Those hours watching Perseus weren’t wasted.
But it sure looks like we’ve got a bit of enduring to do.
About an hour later, I’m riding alongside Fitheach and he says. ’I trust her. I wasn’t sure at first, but now I do.’
‘Elizabeth?’
He nods.
I was going to ask her to leave before Bernard died, but with our team being depleted, but now we need all the firepower we can muster. We have to get the Jabberwock, and somehow get back to Silver Drift afterwards. I’m still not sure if I trust her but I can maybe work round it.
I say, ‘I don’t want her to know much, Fitheach. Don’t tell her about the Jabberwock or the blood or even that we’re going to Lindisfarne.’
‘Sure, fine. But I think we should give her the benefit of the doubt. What does she have to do to prove her loyalty?’
I give a cold smile. ‘Not betray us? Remember, we’re doing this for the King.’
I glance back at Elizabeth. If she knows we’ve been talking about her, she gives no sign.
Then I look forward again. The sea is closer.
Lindisfarne
I log off after killing the cockatrice. Henry and Spirit and the other horses will be vulnerable while we’re away, but I’m dead beat. I can hardly see straight because I’ve been playing for such a long stretch.
When I come back to the game, it’s just after dawn. The place doesn’t look any more welcoming, in fact the enemy’s damage to the countryside is even more evident and it goes on for mile after mile. Spirit is glad to see me. He comes up and nuzzles my hand. Henry says, ‘Ah you’re there. Me and mules and
horses are starving. Not much edible for us round here.’
A quick look at the withered and diseased state of the grass tells me what he says is true. I didn’t count on this happening so I’ve brought no oats. ‘Sorry, buddy,’ I say. ‘But I’m guessing there’ll be good grass when we get to Lindisfarne. It’s not under evil control.’
‘And oats. There’d better be oats.’
‘Yeah, there’ll be oats too.’ I promise.
I hope for my sake that there are.
Fitheach and Elizabeth haven’t logged on yet, even though we synchronised when we were coming back. Then I glance at the game clock and see I’m early. I have plenty to do though. I look through my character sheet and inventory. I have a hundred skill points sitting there and I hesitate before committing them.
There are lots of things I could spend a hundred skill points on. I’d neglected my mining skills because I’d left all that to Thorvald, but now if I invest in Mining, I’ll be able to find crystal, and if I invest enough, I’m sure I’ll be able to prospect and mine for Smoky Crystal. Then again, I could use some points spent in Archery. As it stands, I can’t hit anything with a bow. If I put the skills into Smithing, then I’ll be able to work high level materials like Crystal and enhance my weapons and armour. It’s a debate, but it isn’t really because I’m focused on this Smoky Crystal. So I put a hundred points into Mining.
Chromium can be put into armour to give protection from disease damage, so the spells that the necromancers and heretics throw around like Leprosy and Blight will be resisted by armour with chromium alloyed into it.
The next material I get is Crystal.
Finally I can find and mine crystal. That means I can now find crystal but I still need to get the skill in Smithing so I can upgrade my crystal lance and double fold, enhance and reinforce it to get four times damage and four times base protection on my stuff.
Diamond gives a base 5% anti-crit defence. But in armour that’s got diamond and is double folded you get 10%, and with reinforce it’s 15% and then the best each piece can be that I know of is Enhance that gives each item 20%. As you wear five items, that gives a stacked total of 100% protection against critical hits. But this is only to mine it, not to work it. Even so, nothing to sneer at.
I get nothing more until I commit the last points of my hundred. Then I get the message:
That’s all my points spent, but at least I’ve now got the ability to find Smoky Crystal, and I’m pretty sure there will be some in the Silver Drift Mine. All we need now is Jabberwock blood and the job’s done.
Five minutes later and Elizabeth appears. She stands almost shyly and says, ‘Hey, how’s things?’
I’m cooler. ‘Good. You?’
‘Sure. Fine.’
‘We don’t have far to go now.’
She smiles. ‘I wouldn’t know. You haven’t told me where we’re going.’
‘East.’
‘I got that.’
There’s an awkward silence until Fitheach appears like a Star Trek transporter. ‘Sorry, I’m late.’
‘It’s okay. Ready to head off?’
‘Sure. Not far now to Lindisfarne.’
I glance at Elizabeth who meets my eyes and smiles. She still doesn’t know why we’re going.
It takes us about an hour of riding until we come to the sea shore. The beach is strewn with blackened wood and the remains of ships among the pebbles. The rock pools among the stones are dead and stinking, whatever sea-life that was there is now gone. The smell of the waves is heavy with rot and I see why; rafts of rotten seaweed float like dead men among the breakers.
The waves are rough and I’m looking for an island out there when Fitheach indicates left. ‘There.’
I follow his finger, there is the low shape of an island. It’s not far off shore but we’ve come too far south so we turn our horses into the wind and bend low to minimise the effect of its cutting cold. We trek across the shingle for about half a mile and it’s hard going. When we’re closer, I see the island is covered by a shimmering white force dome. I’ve seen something like it before, when I was a squire and we went up to Alston and saw the chapel of St Ninian who’d set up a holy forcefield to keep out the minions of Satanus. I guess St Cuthbert’s done the same.
‘There’s the causeway.’ Fitheach’s looking ahead and I can see a roadway dipping down from the shore and plunging into the troubled sea. Fitheach says, ‘When the tide goes out, there’s a way across.’
I guess this periodic swallowing of the road is part of the reason why the servants of evil have left the island alone. They probably figured the reward of taking it and losing men wasn’t worth any reward they might get from the barren island. ‘I suppose we’ll have to wait until the tide goes out,’ I say.
‘I suppose you’re right.’
And so we wait, my eyes travel to each direction just in case enemies have followed us, but there’s no one. Yet at least. Maybe our encounters after leaving New World Order were completely random and the enemy doesn’t know where we’ve gone? Maybe.
Then the tide slowly ebbs and the sand is revealed as if by magic. There’s a slightly higher causeway visible now while water stands on either side. Puddles of salt water still dot it but I’m impatient so I order the advance. We go slowly across the causeway and follow the tide as it drains ahead of us. Halfway across, between the two shores I get a strange anxiety as if the sea might suddenly rush in and sweep us away, but it soon passes.
Lindisfarne is a low island against the sea, but it’s green. Grass still grows there and I see hunched thorn trees bent into shape by the prevailing wind. There’s the ruins of a castle there and other low buildings constructed from the local stone. A chapel is in the middle of the clustered houses and the forcefield shimmers in front of us blocking our way there.
Fitheach says, ‘Don’t worry, it’ll only burn people who’ve got evil alignment.’ He pauses and glances at Elizabeth before asking me, ‘What’s yours?’
‘Pure,’ I say.
‘I might have a problem,’ Elizabeth says. ‘My alignment is still wicked. It shifted from Evil when I fought against the pig men and the cockatrice. If I fight more evil creatures, it’ll shift to good, I guess.’
‘Yes,’ Fitheach says, ‘But it’s still Wicked now, so that forcefield will hurt you badly.’
‘Could you heal her?’ I ask.
He nods but rubs his beak-like nose. ‘Yes, of course, but I don’t want to offend Cuthbert’s hospitality. He’s put a barrier up against evil creatures and for me to enable one to get through…’ He turns hurriedly to Elizabeth. ‘Not that I don’t trust you, just that your alignment hasn’t yet shifted far enough towards good.’
‘It’s fine. I’ll wait here until he gives me permission to enter.’
I point at the sea on either side of the causeway. ‘I wouldn’t wait exactly here.’
She laughs and indicates back to dry land behind us. ‘I can wait there. Just send me a personal message when you’re ready.’
I look at Fitheach and say, ‘It’s for the best. You wouldn’t want to upset St Cuthbert.’
He smiles weakly at Elizabeth. ‘Sorry, Elizabeth. We’ll get permission as soon as we can.’
‘Come on,’ I say. The two of us ride on, trotting along the causeway with Henry and Bessie following behind us. When we’re out of earshot, Henry says, ‘I never did like her anyway.’
I’m interested in the mule’s opinion. He’s unusually perceptive for a dumb beast. ‘Tell me why.’
‘It’s just the feel of her. She’s not what she seems.’
‘Henry, be charitable,’ Fitheach says. ‘She wants to come over to our side, but it’s a long journey and she needs to build up trust. But for our part, we need to be prepared to accept s
he is genuine.’
The mule snorts. ‘She’s as genuine as chocolate covered oats.’
‘I guess not very then.’ I turn to Bessie. ‘What about you, Bessie?’
The female mule snickers and says, ‘I think what Henry thinks.’
Henry grins and shows his tombstone teeth. ‘Good lass, Bessie.’
They’re only mules. What do they know? After another ten minutes the causeway rises and joins the island’s pebble beach. There is real seaweed here on the tide line, green and brown and alive. Seabirds and waders flock by the water’s edge. Ahead we see the ruined castle and further still the old stone church and its associated buildings. As we leave the beach, a handful of soldiers emerge from nowhere, halberds in hands. These must be ‘The Holy Rollers’. They are wearing armour covered by surcoats with the red dragon of the Britons on it so that means they’re loyal to King Arthur. I could almost cry to see loyal soldiers after so long.
‘Who are you?’ They approach with weapons levelled but as they get close, even before we say anything, they realise we’re not minions of the Evil Ones. There’s nothing we two could be but a Knight of the Round Table and a holy saint.
‘Lovely to see you, my sons,’ Fitheach says.
‘Your grace’, they say. ‘We apologise and crave your blessing. And you too sir knight.’
Fitheach dismounts and goes to give them his blessing. They glow as he gives them a long lasting buff to healing. I say, ‘I am Sir Gorrow of the Bloody Field, a knight of King Arthur and this is Saint Fitheach, loyal also to the true king.’
They look amazed. ‘How did you get here? We heard the whole mainland fell to Satanus.’
‘Not all of it. The King lives, and he will return. Could you show us where St Cuthbert dwells?’
‘Of course. Let us escort you.’
