Shadow Sun Rebellion

by Dave Willmarth

  There was a metal door leading out of the stairwell on the lower level. It looked like the goblins had broken through it during their attack. The frame was bent, and the handle completely missing. Allistor moved to one side and stuck a finger in the hole where the handle had been. Michael positioned himself on the other side of the door, and when he nodded, Allistor quickly yanked it open.

  Michael waited a second for any goblins on the other side to attack. When nothing happened, he took a deep breath and moved through the door. The other tanks were right behind him, followed by Allistor, Logan, and Sam. The tanks all held up shields as they spread out across the corridor, their other hands holding swords or hammers, with one using a hand axe. Allistor raised his bow, as did Sam. Logan was holding a massive two-handed axe.

  The tanks moved forward, making room for the others to fill in behind them. They made it about twenty feet before goblins came rushing out of rooms on both sides of the hall. A few dozen at first, then a few score.

  Allistor cast Restraint on one just as it appeared in a doorway, causing it to freeze, then fall as the goblins behind it pushed it over, then tripped on it. He quickly did the same at two more doors, slowing the flow of enemies. Raising his bow, he began to fire the titan bone arrows downrange, not needing to aim much as he couldn’t help but hit something as hundreds of the goblins packed into the long corridor.

  Fireballs and light globes shot over his shoulder, the light causing the goblins to shriek and cover their eyes while the fire spells plowed into them. Several in the front line were knocked back. Sam was firing his compound bow, his immense strength allowing him to pull a heavy draw and send the arrows punching clean through two, and sometimes three, goblin bodies.

  The tanks took advantage of the goblins’ blindness and rushed forward, slamming shields into the front ranks and stabbing or smashing every target in reach. Screams of pain increased as the little monsters lost limbs, or felt steel penetrate their bodies.

  One of the second rank monsters used a corpse in front of it to leap up over the tanks.

  Goblin Reaver

  Level 35

  Health: 11,500/11,500

  Logan was waiting for it. The seven-foot tall man dwarfed the three-foot reaver, and Allistor saw its neck stretch as its gaze rose from Logan’s feet up to his head far above. Logan waited for it to gain its feet before stepping into a home-run swing with his axe. The weapon itself was larger than the goblin, and the curved blade cut deep into its torso. The impact launched the little monster back over the tanks and into its clanmates, knocking several of them down.

  Another tried to follow the first’s example and launched itself into the air. Both Allistor and Sam hit it with arrows, killing its momentum and knocking it back into the melee. Bodies were piling up in front of the tanks, making it easier for the goblins to launch themselves.

  Michael shouted, “One step back, in two… one… now!”

  All of the tanks moved in unison, taking a single step back and maintaining their shield wall, giving themselves some space to work. As the goblins stumbled over their dead, four of the raiders cast Erupt on the ground in front of the tanks. Stone spikes shot up, skewering several of the little monsters. Allistor decided to add to the chaos.

  “Vortex! Right behind the spikes!” he shouted before he began casting the spell himself. Five seconds later half a dozen of the small tornadoes formed in the cramped space. Allistor shouted, “Take cover!” and the tanks hunched down behind their shields as they and everyone else backed away.

  Goblin bodies were lifted and thrown around. Some were smashed into walls. Many more were flung free to bash into each other. Allistor saw one unlucky creature get caught between two different vortexes and ripped in half.

  With all the battles they’d been through, the dungeons, the successful Stronghold defenses, and the hundreds of goblins already killed that day, Allistor’s raiders were all at least level thirty. One on one they were a decent match for the level thirty-to-forty goblins, their larger stature and higher strength giving the humans a slight advantage that offset the level disparity. The steel shields and weapons evened things out a bit more. But the magic that the humans were able to bring to bear was overwhelming what was left of the goblin horde.

  Fireballs raced in over top of the tanks even as goblin bodies were flung back in the opposite direction. Logan, Chris, Ramon, Sam, Daniel, and the three remaining airmen stood between the tanks and the less armored casters, hacking and pounding at the stunned and wounded goblins as they landed.

  Allistor heard Meg cackling something that sounded like “Goblincue” before he saw three of her napalm grenades fly past him. They shattered among the goblins, the chemical being whipped up by the now flaming vortexes and sprayed everywhere. Goblins far back from the front began to scream as they burned.

  Unfortunately, that also meant the tanks were liberally coated with the flaming liquid as well. Most of it stuck to their shields, but inevitably some of the spray rained down on hands, heads, and any exposed areas.

  “Everybody focus heals on the tanks!” Amanda shouted as the men began to scream.

  At the same time, Michael was shouting, “Hold the line! Heals are coming!”

  All but one of the tanks managed to grit it out, holding their positions as a mass of heals fell upon them. The man on the far right had taken some extra damage as the napalm spray rebounded off the wall, around his shield, and directly into his face. He fell back, a gurgling scream telling everyone that the burning chemical had gotten down his throat.

  Logan leapt forward to take the man’s place as Ramon grabbed an arm and pulled him back from the line, pouring a health potion down his throat. Allistor and Sam focused their fire, sending arrow after arrow into the space in front of Logan to help him defend. Without a shield, he was taking dozens of small cuts and stab wounds as he swept his axe back and forth. Allistor cast Barrier in front of him, and the man shouted, “Thanks!” without taking his eyes off the enemy.

  Allistor saw several goblins in the space on that side began to fall apart under Andrea’s Dissolve spell, and another round of stone spikes erupted from the floor. Still, the raging goblins pressed forward, flinging themselves at the tanks’ still burning shields, hammering and stabbing, biting and clawing. Once again, the bodies began to pile up, and the little monsters launched themselves over top of the tanks.

  Lowering his bow, Allistor began to channel his Storm spell. He targeted the very center of the seething mass of goblins. Defying every law of nature, wind began to whip through the corridor, screaming through the stairwell behind them even as the vortexes expired. A dark cloud formed below the ceiling, and lightning began to crash down. In the tight space, with the goblins pressing against each other trying to get at the humans, each bolt took out several of them. Some were roasted on the spot, others were stunned, or flung aside. The screams were drowned out by the constant crash of the strikes.

  His people continued to fire into the monsters as Allistor channeled the spell. He watched his mana bar grow smaller with each second, but with his increased levels and stats, he could maintain the spell for maybe ninety seconds before it got dangerously low.

  So he did.

  Lightning poured down, the frequency of the strikes increasing as the corridor filled with the smell of ozone and burning flesh. Several bolts were striking every second now, and few of the goblins were still standing. Most were only injured or stunned, but each strike finished off more of them.

  The tanks got themselves upright again and Michael shouted for them to step forward. They hacked and smashed their way through the few goblins that were trapped between them and Allistor’s storm. Several attempted to retreat, only to be stunned or burned by a lightning bolt.

  “No friendly damage!” Allistor shouted, letting Michael and the tanks know that the lightning wouldn’t hurt them. They moved forward more quickly, stomping on necks and skulls as they hacked at stunned bodies. They moved right into the storm, hesita
ting for a second to be sure the lightning wouldn’t cause damage, then continued on.

  Allistor’s mana got down to twenty percent, and he ceased channeling. The storm faded slowly, but the tanks continued their march. Sam and the others were right behind them, even the healers using their melee weapons to finish off the wounded goblins.

  Near the back of the horde, some of those that had been merely stunned or slightly wounded charged forward, their eyes blood red and primal screams erupting from their scrawny throats. Logan cursed as a goblin that had been playing dead stabbed upward as he stepped over it. The small blade narrowly missed his family jewels as it bit into his inner thigh. It severed his femoral artery, and blood fountained even as Logan stomped the monster’s face into the floor.

  Nancy called out, “Big heals on Logan!” and at least six healing spells fell on him. He wobbled slightly, the bloodloss combined with the exertion of the fight leaving him unsteady. The wound closed and the flesh knitted itself back together, but Logan had already lost a lot of blood.

  The tank that had been so badly burned was now back on his feet, and moved to step in front of Logan. The big man nodded gratefully, taking a few steps back and leaning against the wall before sliding to sit on the floor.

  Another round of stone spikes erupted from the floor in front of the tanks. Four of the charging goblins were skewered, their screams cut off as tanks removed their heads or crushed their skulls. The horde was thinned considerably, only about forty of them were still on their feet and pushing toward the tanks.

  As the humans pushed farther, the remaining mobs paused as one, taking several steps back. The screaming ceased, and a chanting could be heard echoing down the corridor. The remaining monsters’ eyes began to glow a bright crimson. Their bodies shook as they each seemed to grow several inches and add twenty pounds of muscle. As they roared in pain and rage, even their teeth grew longer and sharper.

  The chanting reached a crescendo, then halted. The moment it did, the enraged goblins surged forward. Michael shouted, “Hold!” and his tanks all leaned into their shields and braced themselves for impact.

  As the uber-goblins charged, more spikes shot up from the floor. Four columns of flames shot down from the ceiling, engulfing several of them. A dozen others screamed and fell to the ground, holding their heads as Mind Spike spells ravaged their tiny brains.

  Allistor only barely took notice of all these things as he focused on the source of the chanting. From the room at the end of the corridor, a new type of goblin emerged. It was wearing a bright purple robe with dozens of symbols roughly stitched into the fabric. Several chains and charms hung from its neck, and it carried a staff with a crystal affixed to the upper end.

  Goblin Shaman

  Level 50

  Health: 28,100/28,100

  It was already chanting again, holding its staff high with one hand while it waved the other in some kind of pattern. Allistor raised his bow and fired, but the shaman completed its spell before the arrow struck. A wave of insects erupted from his staff, speeding like bullets past his goblins and into the human ranks. The tanks were mostly protected, but those behind them began to scream as thousands of the two-inch long bugs began to bite and sting. Spells were interrupted as people tried to swat them away and protect their faces.

  The arrow struck the shaman, slamming into its chest just after the spell launched, knocking it backward and shaving off a good chunk of its health bar.

  Goblin Shaman

  Level 50

  Health: 24,210/28,100

  The little boss monster yanked the arrow free from its flesh and cast a heal on itself, then waved a hand and threw up a magic barrier much like Allistor’s own. The next arrow struck the glowing purple shield and was deflected. As was the one after that. The shaman looked at Allistor and laughed as it began to chant again.

  A quick check of his people showed the tanks struggling to hold off the buffed goblins. Most of his people were still distracted by the bugs, and weren’t offering the tanks much support. If he didn’t do something quickly, they were in danger of being overrun and losing people.

  The only one seemingly unaffected by the bugs was Fuzzy. He charged forward, roaring a challenge at the goblins. The tanks opened a spot just long enough for the massive bear cub to pass through, then closed ranks again. Fuzzy launched himself into the goblins, his paws swiping left and right, tearing apart limbs and knocking the monsters down. The moment the first one fell, he latched onto its neck and snapped it with a shake of his head. Another got its skull crushed between his powerful jaws.

  Allistor cast a heal on his bear, who was taking damage from every direction. The tanks, having been given a few seconds to breathe and regroup after the bear’s distraction, advanced and surrounded Fuzzy, leaving him to finish off a couple of the mobs.

  Allistor turned back to the shaman, whose chant was rising in volume. He focused on the ground behind the magic barrier and cast Erupt. The spike that shot up from the floor pierced the goblin’s robe, then his crotch, turning the chant into a high-pitched scream. Allistor cast Mind Spike on it while it was distracted, and the screaming only intensified. It dropped its staff and put one hand to its head, then moved both hands to the spike, trying to push itself off.

  After a quick check of his remaining mana, Allistor cast another heal on Fuzzy, then focused on a spot right behind the shaman. A quick cast of Dimensional Step, and he was standing behind the boss goblin.

  The shaman must have had a higher Intelligence than Allistor expected, because the effects of the Mind Spike wore off after just a few seconds. Allistor was drawing his sword when the little monster shouted something, flinging both hands toward the remaining thirty or so goblin berserkers.

  Allistor swung his sword with all the strength he could muster, separating the shaman’s head from its shoulders. As the head struck the floor, the insect swarm that was still torturing the others fell dead.

  But Allistor had been a second too slow.

  The shaman’s final spell hit the goblins, and their bodies began to swell. Seeing this, Michael shouted, “Get back! Get in rooms!” and the tanks began to move backward, hunching behind their shields. The others either ran back toward the stairs or ducked into one of the rooms on either side of the hall. Allistor cast Barrier into the space right in front of the goblins, hoping to hold them back from the tanks for a few seconds.

  But the goblins didn’t advance. They continued to grow and swell for a few more seconds, then exploded. Bits of flesh, bone, and weapons became shrapnel, while the force of the explosion knocked the tanks down. A few of the casters and melee that hadn’t managed to reach cover were shredded by goblin bits, Meg and Sam among them. The two elders hadn’t moved quite fast enough. Meg’s left leg below the knee disappeared even as the rest of her ducked through a door. Sam, who was pushing her from behind, got it much worse. His health bar dropped to just a sliver as thousands of tiny projectiles blasted into his left side.

  Allistor immediately began chain healing his friend, struggling to keep him alive as he screamed for heals. Heads stuck out of doorways and more heals began to fall on Sam. Slowly but surely, his health bar rose to twenty percent, then fifty.

  Several of the healers left off targeting Sam and shifted their attention to the tanks. Two of them had been killed outright. One had been slammed into a wall, his neck snapping on impact. The other had failed to get behind his shield quick enough. The force of the blast had caught him in the face, along with what looked like a chunk of goblin jaw that had pushed right through an eye socket into his brain.

  Nancy shouted from inside the room next to Sam. “Need some help here! Meg’s pretty bad!”

  Two more healers charged into the room, and Allistor couldn’t see what was happening. But a check of his interface’s raid icons showed that Meg was alive and being healed.

  Allistor bent to loot the shaman. He received two thousand klax, the staff, a scroll that glowed red, and a bag of what looked like gems
tones. Straightening up, he threaded his way through the burned, smashed, and shredded goblin corpses until he reached Sam and Meg. Both were back to full health, and Sam was grumbling about having bits of goblin bone under his skin.

  Besides the two tanks, one of the caster dps had succumbed to the insect swarm. She had been wearing loose clothes, and suffered two or three times as many bites as the others. The relatively weak poison that was still making the others sick had hit her much harder, eventually killing her. Allistor saw she had a potion vial gripped in one hand.

  “Looks like she tried to drink a cure potion, but wasn’t fast enough.” Dawn mumbled, standing next to Allistor.

  Nancy passed around Cure Poison potions to everyone who didn’t have one. One by one their debuffs disappeared and their health bars stopped ticking down.

  “Loot these things, wrap up our dead, and let’s get out of here.” Allistor ordered, his gaze never leaving the dead woman. Her body and face were covered with so many swollen lumps that he couldn’t even recognize her. His raid interface told him her name was Nicole, but he couldn’t picture the face that went with the name. A wave of guilt washed through him.

  “I should know who she was. I should have made sure she was better geared. Not down here dressed like that. I should have protected her. And the others.” he whispered to himself, watching as Amanda pulled a body bag from her ring and bent down toward the woman.

  “Bullshit, boss!” Dawn moved from beside him to directly in front of him, blocking his view as she got in his face. “You can’t think like that! None of this is on you. You’ve done more than anyone to keep us all alive and safe. There are more than ten thousand citizens of Invictus now. You can’t know every face or check everyone’s gear before every fight. You just can’t. We all knew what we were getting into when we volunteered for this. If she wasn’t properly geared, that’s on her. Not you!” The woman was glaring up at him, hands on her hips and tears streaming down her face. “I didn’t know her either, before we got on that ship this morning.”