by Tom Hansen
Creepoid.
“It’s under the sea, you wouldn’t know about it because your kind always has their heads in the cloud.”
He was a real piece of work, that one. She wasn’t sure half the time if she should be offended by his racist remarks, but he never once brought up her IRL race, only that of Litlin.
He clearly had spent way too long studying in-game lore. She’d never said this about any guy in a role-playing game before, mostly because she would never wish the worst of her gender on the likes of him, but the dude needed to get laid.
Seriously, there needed to be a lottery or something. If he was going to continue to run these raids on the Tau’raj, some chick needed to step up and take one for the team.
Hell, she was about ready to volunteer if he’d just tell her where he lived.
“Brendalynn Bobbins of the South Furnztown Mecho Guild.” He greeted her with his expected over-the-top exaggerated manner, biting his ‘b’s and extending his ’s’s like the rest of the NPC’s all did.
Were her eyes mistaken or was he larger than last time she’d seen him?
Seriously, get a life, dude, and lay off the ’roids.
His eyes seemed to be glowing a deeper blue each time she saw him, and the fin on the back of his head was starting to glow as well.
“Here to give more bad news?” He constantly slithered back and forth in front of his tent. Not in it, like a normal leader would, but in front of, for the whole camp to see.
Behind him, the whole of the Nagos army stood at slacked attention, like they had been doing for hours since she arrived via portal. It wasn’t her fault the previous guy had done a shitty job on his prep work and the first Zeppelin deflated as it tried to take off.
Crashing and catching on fire is usually a bad thing with airships, but this one with its precious top-secret cargo had sprayed its payload all over the maintenance crew and most of the supplies they had brought over.
Oh, and nearly a thousand of the troops. All of which were either badly scalded, went berserk from whatever juice they had in there, or died in the fire.
One-thousand lost troops, and over two-hundred Engineers. Most of which were players, who were now starting back at level one.
And yet he thought it was a good idea to replace a thousand seasoned players with two thousand npcs?
He needed to understand that his impertinence was what caused the last accident.
Besides, there was something unnerving about using in-game chemical weapons against others. It seemed to mirror real life a little too much. Her people understood what it meant to have weapons like this used against them. It wasn’t something she took lightly.
What was next? In-game atomic weapons?
A shiver ran down her back.
“We are finally ready. The valves have been pressurized, and everything else has been double checked.”
Miraculously, he stopped his slither-pacing. “Good, so finally we have progress. By the Trident of Vnrak’dor, maybe we can start this invasion with proper areal support. I will hold you personally responsible if anything should befall my army again.”
She’d had enough. The rage that had been building inside of her for the last grueling hours with his constant interruptions had done her in. It was time to lay into him, regardless of their difference in size.
“Now you listen here Slack-Bore the Wanker or whatever you call yourself, all the delays were because of you, because you forced the previous Engineer to rush, to not take his time.”
She was hopping mad at this point. Fired-up simply didn’t cut it to describe her mood. Spittle flew from her mouth as she wove herself into a righteous rage over his accusations.
“I am the Engineer! I am in charge of the safety of this raid! And if you want my air support, which was shoddily built by NPC’s, then you will have to wait for my approvals. I work too damn hard teaching to get yelled at by some nerd in his parent’s basement. Do you understand?”
He looked down at her, his expression one of boredom. He thought her a child, didn’t he?
She felt the rage boiling inside of her yet again, ready to unleash it on him when he said. “My commendations. Let us get airborne.”
With that, the new Nagos Battle Commander, Grath’gar the Impetuous, slithered off, barking commands at his generals to begin the attack.
She stood there for a moment, watching him slither away, the groove left in the soft red sand wider than her entire body.
The Air Shard that stood a dozen meters away hummed, filling the silence as she tried to process what had just happened. Suddenly the mass of overturned ships that was the Nagos’ camp felt confining.
“Let us get airborne.” She replied, followed by sticking her tongue out and flipping him the bird. She doubted he would even recognize the gesture if he bought this role-play shit as much as he had.
“Okay, level off at one-hundred meters altitude and I’ll head aft to prepare the cargo deployment.”
“Aye, captain.”
Now that they were finally off ground and into the sky, Brendalynn was feeling more in her element. The open cockpit design of these class-five zeppelins was right up her alley. She loved the wind whipping through her ultra-curly blue hair.
She had to admit, The Eternal Plains was a nice place, especially this high up in the sky. The moon was beginning its descent already but bathed the entire countryside in an iridescent white light. The massive alien-looking trees that dotted the landscape cast long eery shadows in the moonlight.
Behind her, the thrum of the magically-ran engines chopped through the air with a strum-strum-strum that matched her heartbeat.
It should match it, it was her magic running the zepp. She even had three patents on the design. Five if you counted the new propeller.
She climbed up the ladder from the cockpit on the bottom of the vessel and wriggled into the cramped cargo hold, tucked just under the massive ballonette that kept the ship aloft.
The dispersing mechanism took up most of the cargo bay. It was an ugly design, that was definitely bodged ten ways till Sunday just to get it working.
Once this was over, she wanted to redesign the mechanism and see if she could sell it around Eloria. Taking a break from fighting to become a vendor sounded like a nice break from the grind of the game.
She chuckled to herself. Five days in and she was already getting bored of the gameplay enough to take up the life of a saleswoman?
Didn’t matter though, this AI-driven game allowed you to pretty much do whatever you wanted in-world.
Want to become a master painter and just sell your art by a roadside? She’d met two of them already. Submarine operator, book printer, cobbler, hell, she’d even seen a mafia-run lemonade stand business that had recently bumped off all the competition in the Vulcan lands. They supposedly even had some of the best health care plans in all of Eloria.
Maybe she could settle down there after this raid was over.
A Litlin mechanic’s stubby legs poked out of the underbelly of the machinery in the cargo hold.
She glanced at him briefly when he came up the ladder and was able to see him studying the underside of the weapon.
He was pretty cute, if she had to admit, with long straight, black hair hanging down to his waist.
He was muscular too, for such a little guy. She didn’t think she’d seen any Litlin NPC’s as beefed out as this dude was.
Maybe he was a player? It was hard to tell sometimes with how sophisticated the AI that ran that game was. Unless you noticed their repeated actions or were clued-in via their odd speech patterns, it was difficult to tell everyone apart. This guy’s movements were calculated as he looked over the equipment.
Definitely a player.
A sudden desire to flirt overcame her. She’d been without a boyfriend for so long she almost forgot what a good toss in the sheets was like. A flash of what it would be like to immerse herself fully into this AI driven world coursed across her mind. Scratch her retireme
nt plans. She wanted a harem. Maybe she could be a Madam for an all-male brothel?
He was underneath the equipment now, so she couldn’t quite see his face, but he had a thick, black beard that looked rather striking against his dark brown skin.
Strange. She’d never seen a Litlin with this dark of skin.
That was when she noticed his tail and her little fantasy of making out with this guy after the raid turned into concern, worry, then out-right terror.
Seeing a Litlin with darker skin was one thing, but she knew she’d never seen one with a tail.
“Who are you?” Her mind raced, dreaming up rationales to all the reasons this didn’t add up.
The not-Litlin scooted himself out from under the monstrous machine, wiping the grease and dust off his hands.
Were those horns poking out of his hair?
She blinked, not quite sure what she was looking at, he looked like he was a product of Litlins and Tau’raj. Was that even possible? The male Tau’raj were huge and the thought of something that huge—.
“Who are you and what are you doing here?” Worry flashed across her mind, along with ten different ways this situation could go. She didn’t like any of them.
He grimaced. “I’m afraid there is an issue with this machine, ma’am.”
Her chest tightened in a stress-induced panic.
She’d personally checked every rivet, valve, and joint on this monstrosity. How could anything be wrong?
Then she saw it. In his hand he held the Cyclotronic Nebutron.
The machine wouldn't work without it, but how would that even come loose?
Her sudden shock at the situation made her miss the other not-Litlin sneaking up behind her; this one with green skin and long, pointed ears.
Chapter 39
Scarhoof almost felt bad for the female Litlin with bright blue hair. It was kinda cute how she questioned him when he was working underneath the disperser.
He didn’t want to knock her out, but luckily Jaxyl was there to help with the assist.
“Did you have to hit her so hard?”
Jaxyl’s green-tinted Litlin form shrugged. “Doesn’t bother me. What’s it to you?”
Scarhoof frowned. This nuance with the Way of the Shaman wasn’t something he’d brought up with anyone else. The strange thing was that it wasn’t just the quest that compelled him to do this, there was more to it. It was like he truly believed in the Way to his core.
Like he was made to be a Shaman.
Spirit had said he was specially chosen, hadn’t she?
“Just don’t kill them unless you have to, that’s all I ask.”
Jaxyl twirled one of his blades around in his hand. Its jade hilt glinting in the strange gas-based lamps they used in the compact airship. “You didn’t seem to have this qualm while we were were fighting the Nagos. You starting to take a liking to the little ones?”
Scarhoof wasn’t sure if he should wretch or laugh. He chose to punch Jaxyl in the shoulder.
“Just finish up here and veer the airship off, assuming the others did their job, this should have been the last one to take out. Just don’t kill anyone or crash the airship unless you absolutely need to. Promise?”
Jaxyl shrugged, frowning at his injured shoulder. “You’re the bossman.”
Scarhoof smiled and tossed him a heal maxing back out the 0.05% of damage he managed to inflict from his weak punch.
The delays on the Tau’raj side would have normally meant that the Nagos invasion should have started hours before, but sentries who had been keeping an eye on the preparations said that an explosion from the first airship to deploy had caused some pretty catastrophic repercussions throughout the Nagos ranks.
Soon after cleaning up the mess, a portal had been opened and a new round of Engineers and troops had shown up, pouring over the remaining airships and their cargo.
While the Tau’raj had itched to get in there and attack while the Nagos dealt with the chaos of the downed airship. Even with thousands of soldiers going berserk, the reality was the Tau’raj were still the vastly outnumbered force, and the Nagos were in a defensive position on the beach.
Normal land-dwellers would have been pressed with the sea on their backs, but not the Nagos. They thrived on water, so a land-based attack was preferable.
The Tau’raj needed them to come inland.
Because of this, Chieftain Bloodhorn had taken the extra hours to redeploy some troops to the other side of the ridge. They would have been followed for sure, given the Nagos spies, but it was exactly that sort of distraction they needed to help divide the troops.
Mages had gone with the lot and sent all but a handful of troops back with portals once they had disappeared into the forest. This gave the illusion that an expeditionary force was amassing to the south as a surprise, when there wasn’t anyone left.
Anything to help hedge their bets.
Scarhoof and Jaxyl had their own plans however, and after a quick concoction from Eldermother, had both transformed into Litlins and used a mage’s portal to warp up to the four remaining workable zeppelins.
He looked at the layout of the battle below him. From here he could just make out the yellow shard in the center of what looked to be an arena. Hundreds of overturned boats formed a circular maze leading to the yellow dot in the center.
Finally, he looked around at the air. Three other zeppelins all spinning in circles, effectively disabling their ability to assist in the war. He’d accomplished his mission and needed to get back to the ground with the rest of the troops.
Quest Update! The Fight for the Eternal Plains:
You have discovered a way to bring balance to the fight, thus sparing many lives! (Gained 500 XP!)
Way of the Shaman!
By completing the quest with no loss of life, you demonstrate your willingness to follow the Way to true balance. +1 Spirit!
He chugged the potion to dissolve the Litlin shapeshifting spell that would convert him back to a Tau’raj over the next 10 seconds. He followed up with Tether Recall back to the campsite below.
Only, the entire camp was gone. Chaos surrounded him. He spun in all directions, trying to make sense of the unexpected situation. Where were the command tents?
What once were rows and rows of battle-hardened Tau’raj soldiers were replaced with hundreds of scattered Nagos and Tau’raj troops battling for their lives.
Bodies from both sides littered the ground. Pools of blood dotted the landscape, shining eerily calm in the stark moonlight.
The sounds of fighting were difficult to hear, like they were distant. But as his eyes began to focus on the battle, as his mind began to process the carnage, the sounds slammed into him from all sides.
Friend and foe alike screamed, cried, and cursed. Grunts and groans, the clack of metal against wood, metal against metal, and fist against flesh filled his ears with a grotesque miasma of pain, death, and depravity.
He was back in the thick of it once again. Memories of his last large-scale battle flooded his mind. His leg throbbed in pain once again as it remembered the damage it sustained from his last big battle.
He wasn’t ready for this. It was too much.
His heart raced as he took in the sights, the sounds, and the smells.
The smells were the worst. Copper-tinged air tore at his nostrils as the scent of death blew on the hot westerly wind.
He wanted to throw up, but he couldn’t react. He wanted to move, but he couldn’t budge.
STOP!
Sudden clarity washed over him. He was beyond this. This was not his past, this was not his nightmare. This was real, and he needed to not wallow in indecision and self-doubt as he had done for so many years prior.
He was a Tau’raj, and a soldier, and he would not stand idly by while his brethren were torn asunder. He was a healer.
Heal.
He commanded his arms, but they didn’t move.
Heal!
His fingers twitched, but no magic flowed.
A flash of movement beside him told him he was in danger.
Beside him, a female Tau’raj grunted as the tip of a trident struck clean through her shoulder.
The soldier had placed herself in harm’s way to protect Scarhoof.
HEAL!
And he did.
His hands flared fiery white as he healed the brave soldier who had taken the trident. He immediately turned and healed two more nearby soldiers. Magic surged through him, direct from the heavens to his hands. Full command of his power was in his fingertips.
Three more Tau’raj in his range were healed to full as he spun back and forth, looking for more wounded. White hot rage filled his vision, clarifying friend from foe, focusing his power, feeding his righteous fury.
He switched to Tendrils, rooting two Nagos soldiers with broadswords in place until the remaining Nagos threat was dealt with.
“Form up! We have a healer!”
The Tau’raj that had taken the trident meant for Scarhoof called out to the remaining troops. One by one, they all closed ranks, guarding their precious source of life with their lives.
“Thank you, what is your name, soldier?” Scarhoof said as the brave soldier cleaned the blood off the hilt of her own blade.
“Kotovaya Keenmane, Sir. Thank you. We were goners for sure.”
“Where did the rest of them go?”
She pointed to the north. “The Nagos hit us directly causing us to get split up. We’ve been trying to hold your bind point, but we kept losing soldiers.”
Scarhoof sent out a party invite to the seven Tau’raj surrounding him. Three Battlemasters, a Beastmaster with no pet, a Mage, and two Mystics. All of them were level one or two.
“Well, I’m here now. I need to get back to command, but I think we need to take as many of these Nagos bastards out on the way.”
The Tau’raj pounded her fist into her chest. “Sounds good Sir. Sounds very good.”
It turned out that most of the soldiers in their army were low level, but, as luck would have it, so were the Nagos.
