by Rachel Aaron
The moment she gave the okay, the rest of the raid fell over. They didn’t even bother with beds or fires. Everyone just picked a comfy-looking rock or tree and retreated into their cloaks. Cowls and visors were pulled down as players tried to hide from the glow of their enchanted gear to get some sleep.
Tina picked a withered log for herself and sat down with a sigh of relief. She had a lot of Endurance on her gear, which clearly helped with the marching, but she was also wearing a massive suit of armor, which did not. She debated taking her armor off, an action unheard of in game, but thought better of it. This hill was only “safe” in that nothing was actively attacking them, but that could change at any moment, and she needed to be ready.
As she got comfy, SB settled down beside her. They stayed like that for a while, too tired to plan, joke, or even speak. Even the wind seemed exhausted by the day, finally dying down to leave only the lifeless silence of the Deadlands and the dusty coughing of the raid.
She must have fallen asleep sitting up, because when Tina became aware again, she was in her bed back in her room. It felt incredibly real, but this wasn’t a lucid dream like the ones she’d had about FFO, just a normal one.
A lovely one. Tina luxuriated in the warmth of her lumpy mattress, basking in the beauty of not having to run for her life. The worn sheets and heavy blankets made her feel soft and small again. Human. She was reveling in the sensation when a faceless friend walked in and asked how she’d done on her test.
Tina leaped from the bed in a panic. She’d forgotten all about her public librarianship final! Still in her pajamas, she charged out the door into a blizzard, the blinding sort they never had in Seattle. It was bitingly cold as she frantically tried to find her classroom, but nothing on campus made sense. All she could do was keep running, begging faceless strangers for directions as it got colder and colder.
At some point, SilentBlayde joined her. Or at least, there was a tall guy who looked like he was part elf, part Japanese. All these years playing together, and she still didn’t know what SB looked like in real life. Her dream self firmly believed this guy was him, though, especially when dream SB wrapped his arm around her shoulders and promised to help her find her class. She was hugging him back in relief when a tremor went through the ground. Tina looked down in alarm, wondering if it was an earthquake, when another, even stronger tremor hit, knocking her over. The lovely warmth of Dream SB vanished as she fell to the ground. She was struggling to get back up when—
“Roxxy!”
She woke with a start to SilentBlayde, the real one, yelling in her face. The elf was standing between her legs with his hands on the collar of her breastplate, using his whole body to try to shake her awake. Tina stared at him groggily, wondering why he was so upset, when a huge tree fell over right behind them.
The crash snapped her completely awake. All around the little forest, players were staggering up from their sleeping positions. Tina surged to her feet as well, cracking the sheen of frost that had formed on her armor while she’d slept. When she looked around for the threat, though, she couldn’t see a thing. Night had fallen, and the world was as black as pitch around them. The only light was the rainbow glow from the raid’s gear, but that only lit the icy ground at their feet, making everything else even darker.
Another tree crashed somewhere in the forest to her right. As the cracking boom faded, Tina heard scratching, clanging noises moving through the woods on all sides. The other players were up now, drawing their weapons, but when they looked at Tina for orders, she didn’t know what to do.
They could run again, but between the dark and the noises, she had no idea which direction to run to. She wasn’t even sure where the road was anymore, and anyway, she was tired of running. The hill was a good position, and the raid had had a lot of practice. If they killed Grel’Darm here, then this death march would finally stop. It couldn’t be any riskier than charging through a forest into unknown numbers of enemies in the dark, and now that her raid was finally following orders, they had a chance.
“Roxxy?” SilentBlayde asked, his voice trembling. “What are we doing?”
“Sshh,” she said, trying to listen for the enemy. How they fought would depend entirely on where Grel was and how many enemies he’d brought with him. If they were lucky, this was only a forward patrol. If Grel himself was still somewhere down the hill, they could take out this group quickly and engage him alone on their terms. But as Tina opened her mouth to order the raid to form up behind her, the whole forest went silent.
The tremors stopped. The scraping sounds stopped. Everything was still except for the players’ frantic breaths puffing in the ice-cold air, then…
“It’s here!” screamed a jubatus Ranger.
Before anyone could react, the feline archer loosed a fire arrow into the forest. Tina watched in silent horror as the flaming orange arrow sailed up, and up, and up. Then when it was just a tiny spark sailing over the tops of the looming trees, the arrow hit something huge in the blackness, and its fire winked out.
For a second, there was only darkness again, then a pair of ghostfire eyes the size of funeral pyres opened in the empty black above the forest. More eyes followed in the woods below, countless smaller flickers of blue-white fire igniting like waves down the hill behind their master.
That was the moment Tina knew they should run. Before, Grel had been little more than a pair of boots to her. He was so big, that was all she could see while she was tanking him. Even when she’d seen him walking around inside in his room at the beginning of the Once King’s fortress, he’d just been another oversize art asset. A big, annoying obstacle on their way to better bosses.
All that was different now.
This time, when Grel’Darm the Colossal stepped out of the forest, fear came with him. This was no art asset, no in-game mob. This was a giant, an armored skeleton the size of an eight-story building. He emerged from the darkness like a cargo ship, his enormous boots crushing the trees as he stepped forward, breaking the hardwoods like dry grass. That one step carried him all the way through the forest into their clearing, and as his foot crashed down, everything went to hell.
The undead army howled, but their thousands of voices were drowned when Grel’Darm roared. The deep, primal bellow echoed across the whole Deadlands, declaring the Once King’s endless hatred for all the living. His hatred for her.
Tina’s body began to shake. She had to move. They all had to move, right now, or they would die.
“Run!” she yelled, waving her sword at the cluster of players cowering at the middle of the clearing. “Retreat down the hill! That way!”
No one moved. She didn’t even know if they’d heard her through their fear. The only reason Tina wasn’t frozen, too, was because this was her second time experiencing the new mortal terror of the undead. The giant was much, much bigger, but the ice that formed on her bones when he raised his massive club was the same as she’d felt yesterday when the Dead Mountain patrol had nearly executed her. But despite their skirmishes with random monsters on the road, this was the first time the others had faced a true servant of the Once King, and the shock of it left them still. Even SilentBlayde wasn’t moving. So since words weren’t working on her people, Tina decided to try Grel instead, yelling out her taunt to focus the raid boss on her.
She wasn’t fast enough. The giant’s head swiveled toward her, but its huge club was already falling. She and SilentBlayde were lucky—they were on the edge of the clearing. The healers were not.
Because they were the most fragile, Tina had positioned the Naturalists and Clerics in the middle of the makeshift camp. Unfortunately, that was exactly where Grel’s club landed. Some, like Anders, managed to snap out of their terror and dive out of the way. Others, like NekoBaby and David, did not.
The jubatus healer was on the edge of danger, but David was right below the strike. Tina caught a glimpse of the terror in his fish eyes as the mountain of iron-banded wood filled his vision, and she knew
that David knew he was hosed. The Cleric didn’t even try to run as the club came down, cratering the rocky ground where he’d been standing.
There was a flash of white light right as the club hit the dirt, then the impact of Grel’Darm’s attack blasted them all backward. Tina scrambled back to her feet just in time to see the giant’s club lift, revealing a bloody crater with a tatter of white robes and a shattered staff. A second later, SB appeared like magic beside her, carrying an unconscious NekoBaby.
“I’m sorry, Roxxy,” he said frantically. “I couldn’t get close enough to save David. He must have used his knock-back ability to blast Neko out of the way.”
A lump of ice formed in Tina’s throat. It had happened again—she’d hesitated, made a mistake, and now someone was dead. A friend, this time. Her eyes locked on Grel’Darm’s club as it lifted off the ground, but there was nothing left of David in the crater. Just blood and broken bits.
Her vision blurred after that, forcing her to look away. David had been a troll and a dick for as long as she’d known him, but if there’d been any body left to gather, she would have run in to grab it. She would have run after the healers herself and held Grel off with her bare hands while they cast the rez, but there was nothing to bring back. David’s body had been obliterated, and like the sorcerer, she couldn’t bring him back.
Something awful happened in her stomach at that thought, but there was no time for further remorse. As if that opening strike had been their cue, hundreds of undead monsters charged out of the woods, their ghostfire eyes flaming bright white. Above them, Grel roared and hefted his club again, searching for the next target.
Cursing under her breath, Tina was looking frantically for some way to stop what was coming when she spotted Killbox standing by a huge tree. The guy was hurling rocks the size of beach balls at the oncoming army of zombies and skeletons. The boulders smashed and crashed through their ranks, sending the lightweight undead flying, which gave her an idea.
“Killbox!” she yelled. “Hulk out on that tree! Get us some space!” She made some swinging motions to make sure he got the idea, and Killbox gave her a thumbs-up. Plan in motion, Tina and SB ran to the dead center of the clearing.
The raid was falling to chaos. Spells and arrows flew randomly through the trees at the incoming army, but the attacks were spread out and did no good. Grel’Darm roared again as his forces rushed ahead to attack the scattered players. A defensive line could have stopped them, but between the raid’s fire and the incoming army, the melee players couldn’t attack, so they just stood in confusion, unsure whether to charge or defend.
“Form up on me!” Tina yelled, banging her shield.
The others jumped then ran to her instinctively. As she got the raid into position, Tina waved her sword at Killbox. The crazy-strong Berserker had done exactly as she’d asked. At her signal, he used his ludicrously oversize ax to finish felling the tree he’d already weakened, sending the massive trunk crashing into the clearing in front of her to form a six-foot-tall wall of wood between the players and the incoming undead.
As she’d hoped, the charging army slammed into the tree like a speeding car. Skeletons bounced off the wood, falling to pieces on the icy ground, but Tina wasn’t done. She motioned to Frank and Killbox, and the two huge humans teamed up to lift the entire tree by one end. Once they had it, they started swinging, sweeping the giant trunk back and forth across the undead army like a baseball bat.
It worked even better than expected. Most of the undead were skeletons and zombies—things that had lots of magical health but little actual mass. The ancient tree swept them off their feet easily, completely fouling the remainder of the enemy’s formation as entire squads were flung off the hill. Satisfied they wouldn’t die in the next five seconds, Tina grabbed the Ranger next to her—a dark-skinned elf whose uniquely curly, bright-green hair stood out even in the dark.
“Zen!” she shouted, relieved she’d finally recognized someone without the aid of nameplates. “Flare Arrow that way! Now!”
To her credit, Zen didn’t ask questions. She just calmly nocked an arrow and yelled, “Flare Arrow!” before firing over the trees behind them. The arrow sailed high into the night and exploded, blossoming into brilliant-yellow light that illuminated the forest to their left.
With a nod of thanks, Tina banged on her shield and bellowed over the din. “Everyone, follow the flare! Retreat! Retreat!”
Puffing from the effort, Killbox and Frank continued to wave the giant log around while backing up, buying the others time to race down the hill. They were almost out when Grel’Darm reached down to grab the top of the felled tree. With one hand, the colossus ripped the improvised weapon from the players’ hands, then he rocked back and threw it with hurricane force at the fleeing raid behind them.
Tina’s eyes widened. She could already see what was coming. The giant hardwood was going to flatten everyone. They’d all be crippled or killed, then the army would finish off what was left. It was doom any way she looked at it, so Tina did the only thing she could think of. She stopped running and whirled around, raising her shield as she charged to intercept the incoming tree.
As the massive oak filled her vision, Tina realized this was probably not the smartest idea she’d ever had, but it was too late for second thoughts. The tree was going to hit her no matter what she did at this point. She twisted her feet and called out her anti-knockdown ability.
“Steady Ground!”
The dust beneath her feet turned to stone, anchoring her to the ground. Ducking behind her shield, Tina gritted her teeth for impact. There was a terrifying empty second as she waited, then a tree with a six-foot-wide trunk, traveling at a hundred miles per hour, slammed straight into her.
The impact blasted through her. The boar had been nothing compared to the strength of Grel’Darm’s throw. Tina’s shield flared with magic as its enchantments struggled to hold it together. If she hadn’t had metal for bones and stone for skin, the force would have turned her to paste inside her armor. But she wasn’t a squishy human anymore. She was an elemental monster, and she held together, standing her ground as the trunk splintered and cracked in half across her shield, the two pieces flying off to her left and right.
Hardened in place, Tina couldn’t look to see where they landed, but she didn’t hear any cries of anguish. That was a relief, but while it seemed she’d saved her raid from death by log roll, the defense had come at a brutal cost. Even hardened in stone, Tina’s body ached from toes to scalp, and her head felt as if there were rocks rattling around inside it. When the bedrock’s blessing finally faded, she swayed on her feet, falling forward to lean on her shield for balance. She was still trying to get the world to stop spinning when a shadow engulfed her, and Tina looked up to see the bottom of Grel’Darm’s iron-clad boot.
“Oh shit.”
****
SilentBlayde shoved the unconscious NekoBaby at Frank. The Knight blushed and stammered as the cat-girl was dumped into his arms, but SB didn’t have time for his modesty. Friend secured, he turned around to go make sure the rear of the raid was getting its move on, which meant he was just in time to see Tina vanish beneath Grel’Darm’s dump-truck-sized foot.
“ROXXY!”
The blast of wind from the giant’s stomp knocked him off his feet. He was back up again in an instant, unable to breathe as he raced through the woods toward her. In the back of his mind, a calm voice reminded him that Roxxy had the most health and armor of any of them, and she’d tanked Grel’Darm countless times before. But the reality and unstoppable force of the giant threw all of those experiences out the window, leaving only overwhelming fear and the desperation to do something, anything, to get her out.
“Frank!” he shouted. “Get aggro! We have to help Roxxy!”
Dimly, SB was aware that he shouldn’t have said that. Frank didn’t know enough about tanking to handle Grel’Darm in a proper raid yet, let alone solo. The guy might die trying, but in that moment, SilentB
layde didn’t care. Saving Roxxy was all that mattered, and suddenly, no cost was too high.
Behind him, he heard Frank hand NekoBaby off and charge back into the undead army. SB raced through the dust ahead of him, dancing around the skeletons that were already regrouping.
“Hey, big guy!” Frank yelled at Grel’Darm, banging his sword against his shield. “Your mom’s so basic, she denatured my enzymes!”
High overhead, the giant’s massive head turned.
“Yeah, you heard me!” Frank shouted, banging louder. “Why don’t you come over here and—”
The rest of his taunt was drowned out by the monster’s roar. Like a barge, Grel’Darm turned toward the taunting knight, finally lifting his foot out of the crater where Roxxy had been. The moment the giant boot was out of the way, SB dove in, sliding nimbly down the embankment of the monster’s giant footprint. When he got to the bottom, though, he didn’t see Roxxy anywhere.
Heart pounding, SilentBlayde ran around the crater, frantically kicking at the packed ground. When his foot clanged painfully on something hard and metal, he dove to his knees and began to dig. Thankfully, all the undead were zeroed in on Frank now, leaving him free to dig until he finally unearthed Roxxy’s head from the ground.
“Tina!”
Roxxy’s copper metal hair was wet with her silver blood, and her eyes were closed. SB could feel her breath when he held his fingers under her nostrils, but it was so weak it made his stomach sink. “Hang on,” he said, prying his fingers under her glowing armor. “I’ll get you out.”
He braced his feet and yanked, pulling as hard as he could, but it was no good. As a level eighty, SilentBlayde had about a hundred base strength naturally. That made him four times stronger than the average human but still way too many average humans shy of the strength needed to lift a heavily armored stonekin out of the ground.
Releasing her with a curse, SB looked around for something, anything, he could use to pry her out. What he really needed was help, but Frank was already vanishing under a pile of undead, and Grel’Darm was almost to him. “We need help over here!” SB yelled, hoping that someone in the retreating raid was still close enough to hear.
