by Rachel Aaron
"Roxxy!" Frank yelled frantically behind her. "Isn't that Howling Strike?"
It was, but unlike the mountain of Grel'Darm--whose Howling Strike attack could and had pounded her into a stonekin-pancake--Prototype-GD wasn't even level eighty. He was only twice her height, his club only as long as a tree branch rather than an entire tree. Charging him head on was still a stupid, reckless thing to do, but Tina was feeling stupid and reckless and way too ready to punch something, so she ignored the attack signals and threw herself at the boss like a stone wrecking ball.
Prototype-GD's Howling Strike landed as she came in. Tina swerved at the last second, avoiding the tree-limb-sized club by less than an inch as she leaped forward to tackle the monster around its bony knees. The sudden impact was enough to make the monster stumble, but the real magic didn't happen until Tina took a page from James's book and twisted, throwing her weight to the side just as her brother had done during their fight.
Her spin wasn't nearly as well executed as his had been, but the weight difference between her and the mini-Grel was a lot smaller than it had been for her and James, so it still worked, spinning them both so that they landed on the cobblestone street with her on top. The moment they hit, SilentBlayde and ZeroDarkness leaped from the skeleton's shadow, their flashing blades sending clouds of bone chips into the air. The other Roughneck Berserkers and Knights arrived a heartbeat later, adding their weight to Tina's as they swarmed the giant skeleton and started hacking it to bits.
"Grab the other leg, Frank!" Tina yelled over the deafening ring of steel on bone. "Hold it down!"
Holding one kicking leg each, the two tanks kept the skeleton from kicking its way off its back or kicking anyone into the nearby buildings. They were still struggling to hold it still when the ghostfire in its eyes flashed.
"Chain Fire incoming!" Tina yelled as the heat began to build. "Healers--"
"On it!" NekoBaby yelled from surprisingly close by.
Startled, Tina looked up to see the jubatus standing right behind her, holding a massive ball of water over the melee's heads. Even more surprising, Anders was next to her, feeding golden holy magic into the Naturalist's water spell. The end result looked a bit like a giant water disco ball, but before Tina could ask what they hell they were doing, the skeleton screamed, and the Chain Fire began. Screams filled the air as raiders erupted in blue-white ghostfire. Tina was struck as well, her body exploding in fire even as her mind was engulfed with hatred for the living. She was struggling to hold it together when NekoBaby's voice shouted in her ear.
"Holy Water Shutdown!"
Tina braced for the relief of the heal, but the Naturalist's spell didn't fly at her. Instead, NekoBaby swung her glowing staff like a bat, slamming the ball of glittering golden water straight up the skeleton's nose. Prototype-GD shrieked as golden light and aqua energy blasted from every crack in its body. The ghostfire searing through Tina vanished a second later, taking the unnatural hate with it as the boss's Chain Fire snuffed out.
"Oh yeah!" Neko said, preening. "Who's got two thumbs and just shut down an uninterruptable attack? This girl!"
"You were supposed to be healing," Tina said but not angrily. It was hard to be mad at someone who'd found a way to short out a boss's most painful attack before it hit more than a handful of people. Heals were already coming in from the Roughnecks' other casters, in any case, soothing her burned stone and filling her with euphoria as the Roughnecks continued hacking the skeleton boss to pieces. When it was small enough that Tina no longer needed to hold it down, she pushed up and turned to the casters.
"Good job."
Neko beamed. Anders smiled as well, though the happiness vanished when Neko shot him a nasty look and dragged her finger across her neck. Clearly, their team-up had been a temporary truce. Tina was just happy it had worked so well. These fights were going to be a lot easier if they weren't stuck with the same old spells and mechanics from the game.
They were going to need it. In the few minutes it had taken them to take down Prototype-GD, the northern half of the Royal Mile had filled with undead. Packs of zombies and undead hounds were swarming in from the west, pouring into the Royal Mile from every street that connected this part of the city with the Room of Arrivals. It was hard to tell since they were stuffed in between buildings instead of spread over a battlefield, but Tina estimated that the army here was already at least as big as the one that had attacked the Order's fortress--possibly larger.
The only good part was that these zombies seemed to be much lower level than the ones they'd faced in the Deadlands. Cinco's group was chopping them down by the dozens, which was why the Roughnecks hadn't already been overwhelmed, but it wouldn't last. Already, the sheer size of the horde was forcing the Red Sands to spread themselves perilously thin, and the enemy was still coming, pouring into the Royal Mile from every alley and shop window. If this kept up, they were going to be surrounded on all sides.
"We need a bigger push!" Tina yelled, leaving her guild to finish off Prototype-GD to look for another option.
She found it in the form of Assets. The elf was right behind her, leading the main mass of players from Camp Comeback from the back of a white warhorse that looked suspiciously like the one Captain Malakai had been riding when he'd first come in. But while the players behind him were all lower-level fighters from the random and support raids, they were all armed with new, at-level equipment thanks to the quests they'd completed, and that gave Tina an idea.
"We need to secure the Royal Mile so people can get to the castle," she told Assets. "Can your people back up Cinco and push the line?"
"We can do far better than that," Assets said, straightening up on his saddle as he lifted his diamond-tipped cane into the air. "Shields forward!"
At his command, dozens of lower-level Knight players carrying pilfered tower shields from the Royal Knights marched forward in a line. Zombies crashed into their ranks, but while the Royal Knights' equipment hadn't held for beans against the raiders' end-game weapons, they did just fine against low-level undead. Locked together in formation, the players' shield wall didn't even wobble as the Once King's shock troops smashed themselves into it, and the surprises weren't over yet.
"Cavalry!" Assets yelled again, waving his cane over his head like a saber. "Attack!"
Tina's jaw dropped as dozens of Trade Company Sorcerers and Rangers--all mounted on horses just like Assets'--rode past to take up position behind the shield wall. The height advantage of the horses gave them a clear shot over the Knights, and they used it ruthlessly, pouring fire down on the zombies who were scrabbling helplessly against the smooth steel of the stolen shields. When those were down, they fired into the undead's back lines, painting the street with arrows and fire and opening up clear ground for the shield wall to move forward in a line.
"Where the hell did you get the horses?" Tina asked when she got over her shock.
Assets smirked at her from the back of his armored steed. "The Royal Knights were suffering from an over-supply of horses and an under-supply of riders. I merely took advantage of the imbalance."
Tina arched an eyebrow. "Isn't that stealing? I thought we were supposed to be obeying the law now."
"No, no," he said. "On the way out of Camp Comeback, I managed to nab a copy of that contract--which I'm quite upset you agreed to without consulting us, by the way--from the Naturalist working with the king, and the language was very clear that our crimes don't get washed away until after this battle. Until then, what's a little horse theft on top of rebellion?"
Tina couldn't argue with that, especially given how effective Assets's horse thieving seemed to be. The Trade Company's shield wall had already reached Cinco's position, joining up with the hard-core killers of Red Sands to push the front even harder. But as the legions of crappy zombies fell, they cleared the way for more dangerous enemies, one of which Tina could already see coming down the Royal Mile toward them.
"Roxxy!" Neko yelled.
"I see it!
"
Leaving Assets to keep the others moving, Tina ran back to her raiders, who were clustered on top of the pile of bone chips that had been Prototype-GD. NekoBaby pointed down the Royal Mile when she arrived, and Tina set her jaw. Through the sea of clambering zombies, about one block beyond the players' shield wall, two large mounds were crawling toward them. One was a literal moving hill made of dead bodies, its countless torsos and writhing limbs savaging anything that got close. The other was a towering ogre-like creature made from sewn-together bodies that left a river of caustic red slime in its wake.
"Crap," Killbox muttered. "They called in all the B-listers, didn't they?"
Tina nodded. The monsters crawling toward the player line were Corpse Legion and Dreadpool, the final two bosses of Ghostfire Bay, a ghost-pirate-themed--and extremely disgusting--raid that was only two tiers below the Dead Mountain. Normally, raiders could choose which boss they fought first, but this time they were both together, moving down the Royal Mile in formation like a pair of corpse-slugs on parade, and that was going to be a problem.
"Could Cinco's group keep one busy for a while?" Anders asked, his fish-face grim. "I don't know if two at once is doable."
Tina shook her head. "Cinco's busy," she said firmly, readying her shield. "Bosses are our job. Doable or not, we're gonna do it."
The other Roughnecks started shaking at that, but Tina didn't have time for this bullshit. "You're the ones who wanted to fight for the king," she reminded them angrily. "Put up or shut up."
With that, she turned and started jogging toward the Trade Company's shield wall. "Open the line!"
The lower-level players jumped at her bellow, then they got out of the way. A stream of zombies poured through the moment the shields parted, but Tina just bashed them aside, flinging zombies into the air with her shield as she stormed her way toward the double boss pull.
"Roxxy!" Frank called, running up behind her. "You sure you want to do this so far out in front?" He whacked a skeleton's head off with his sword hilt. "Looks a little dense."
"Hell no, I don't want to fight them out here," Tina snarled back. "But we don't have a choice. That shield wall's only holding because the majority of these are crappy zombies brought in from lower-level zones. Corpse Legion and Dreadpool are legit end-game raid bosses from the current expansion. If they touch Assets's baby players, our main line's going evaporate."
"Well, hell," Frank said, his face pale. "Guess we're in for it, then." He whacked a few more zombies out of the way to get a better look at the two monsters they were hacking their way toward. From the look on his face, though, he clearly wished we hadn't.
"Please tell me we can tank these guys without having to touch them."
"No such luck," Tina said bitterly, pointing her sword at the pile of bodies that was crawling over the zombies in front of it on a bed of severed arms and legs like some kind of horrifying human millipede. "That's Corpse Legion. It's a sentient mound of bodies that has to be tanked in a retreating circle. If you stop moving or it gets too close, it'll absorb the tank, which is certain death, so I'll tank him. You tank Dreadpool, the giant made of stitched-together corpses on the right. He's your standard tank-and-spank except for when he Liquefies. When he starts to shake, get the hell out, because he's about to turn himself into a bottomless pool of bodies. If you fall into that pool, it's certain death yet again, so make sure you stay out of the way."
"I'm hearing a lot of certain death," Frank said nervously.
"It's not too hard to avoid," Tina said. "Just make sure you keep Dreadpool off to the side and out of my way so I don't fall into the pool while I'm leading Corpse Legion around backward."
Frank sighed and whacked another zombie. "This sure sounds complicated."
"Welcome to raiding," Tina said cheerfully. "Though, to be fair, we normally fight these guys one at a time. Doing them together's going to be a dance, but just think of it like an achievement run. Just, you know, one we have to ace on our first attempt, or we all die."
That was supposed to be a joke, but Frank didn't even look like he'd heard her. He was too busy staring at the big corpse giant and muttering under his breath about cooldowns and not fucking things up.
"You'll be fine, Frank," she said gently. "You're with us. Everyone here has done a lot of raiding, and these guys are old bosses. We got this in the bag."
She said that a lot more confidently than she felt, but at least the lie helped Frank shake a little less. When she was sure he wouldn't fall apart, Tina picked up one of the zombies trying to bite her arm and hurled it at Corpse Legion.
"Hey, trash heap!" she bellowed as the flying body bounced off the corpse mound's side with a dull, fleshy squish. "Remember me? I farmed your gross ass for a year running! But I'm gonna be your last dance this time, motherfucker!"
It was a good thing that Tina was still so mad. If rage hadn't been pounding through her, there was no way she could have weathered the flood of fear that came when the giant corpse mountain--which looked and smelled so, so much worse than it had back in the game--turned and screamed at her, its mass opening in a black, bloody mouth made of hands to show a throat full of wiggling fingers as it started to charge, flinging zombies out of its way in its rush to run her down.
"Frank, go grab Dreadpool," she ordered, readying her shield for the pickup. "Everyone else, watch your feet and stay out of the tanks' way. All damage on Corpse Legion!"
The rest of her raid shouted their acknowledgment, but Tina could barely hear it over the wet thud-thud-thud-thud staccato of Corpse Legion's thousands of rotting hands and feet hitting the ground as it rushed her. Keeping her shield directly in front of her, Tina sliced wildly at the dozens of incoming arms reaching around her defenses to try to grab her. The sun vanished as the giant monster loomed over her head like a crashing wave about to break. Taking her cue, Tina jumped backward, getting out of the way just in time before a metric ton of mangled bodies collapsed on the spot where she'd been.
Struggling to find her rhythm, Tina kept backing up, using her sword to cut off all the hands, legs, arms, fingers, and teeth the monster tried to slip around her shield. Back in the game, Corpse Legion had come at a fixed rate. Now, though, all the bodies in the pile seemed to be going for her at their own speed, forcing Tina to move in fits and starts as she struggled to balance not getting buried under the constantly collapsing corpses and not getting so far out in front that the boss lost interest in her and went for someone else.
Walking in the right direction was also a challenge. Richard and the Sorcerers had cleared the area immediately around them of undead using their big-area spells, but with so many enemies, there was only so much space they could keep open while still attacking the boss. This meant Tina only had a tight circle to lead Corpse Legion around that didn't have her bumping into the other players or wandering into the space where Frank was hopefully tanking Dreadpool.
Not that she could see the other tank while walking backward. She couldn't even see if the Roughnecks were doing damage over the giant pile of bodies in front of her. All she could see were the bodies that were constantly collapsing toward her head, and even that was almost more than she could handle.
Corpse Legion might not have been as strong as something like Grel'Darm, but all the little hits mattered. For every three limbs Tina hacked away, one or two got through, and all that damage was quickly adding up. By the time Tina started her second lap around the circle, she was bruised and battered. Heals landed on her every now and again when things got a bit too bad, but she could tell her healers were conserving their mana, which was smart. Even after they defeated these two, they were in for a long fight. It made sense not to over-heal small damage, and honestly, Tina kind of liked the pain. It kept her focused on the fight and off the pair of flickering silver swords she could see hacking huge chunks out of Corpse Legion's corpse pile in the corner of her vision.
By the time she started her third lap, the Roughnecks had managed to hack the boss dow
n to half its starting size. She was starting to think this might not be so bad when a shout went up behind her.
"He's shaking!" Frank yelled, his voice surprisingly close. "Scatter, people, scatter!"
"Tina!" SB yelled at the same time.
Jumping at his voice, Tina looked over her shoulder to see that she was not where she'd thought she was. She'd thought she was still walking backward in her circle, but she must have drifted a bit, because she was actually much closer to the little fountain courtyard Frank had been tanking Dreadpool against than she'd realized. Frank was actually running straight past her, his face a mask of terror as he realized what their positions meant.
Tina realized the truth at the same time, which turned out to be far, far too late. Dreadpool had already shaken himself into a growing pool of angry red slime, the edge of which was already touching the heel of Tina's boot. If she kept going backward, she'd walk right into it. If she stopped, though, Corpse Legion would collapse on top of her.
Stuck between two certain deaths, Tina did the only thing she could think of. She hunkered down, making herself as small as possible behind her shield as she popped all her cooldowns.
"Steady Ground! Earthen Fortitude!"
Her feet rooted to the ground, and the embrace of the Bedrock Kings rushed up to grab her a split second before the wave of screeching zombies crashed down on her head. All light vanished as the corpses consumed her, their hungry hands and mouths clawing and biting her from every angle. Blood and bile from thousands of leaking, rotting bodies poured down into her armor, nearly making her gag even though her stomach was as stony as the rest of her right now.
Unable to close her eyes due to her body's hardening, Tina stared into the dark of the grasping bodies, consoling herself that if she had to fuck up, at least she'd gotten eaten by Corpse Legion instead falling into Dreadpool. Her raid had already hacked the corpse pile down. Maybe they could finish killing it before her cooldowns ran out.
