Defenders of the Realm

by Dave Willmarth

  “King Thalgrin sends his compliments. And a few lads what had nothin better ta do.” He raised a hand toward the dwarven column and instantly the chant came to a halt along with their marching feet. The last step was like a clap of thunder followed by a few seconds of complete silence. Silverbeard closed the portal behind them, then shouted “We be fightin undead beasties, lads! Ye got something for em?”

  One hundred dwarves slammed one hundred swords and hammers against shields in perfect unison. “Rawr!” Silverbeard turned back to Alexander grinning wildly. “If them undead had any brains, they’d be shittin’ their pants when they see this!”

  Alexander shook his head. “Nearly did myself.” He clapped a hand on the old dwarf’s shoulder. Looking out over the dwarven force, he said “Thank you for coming! And welcome to Elysia! We’ll be fighting in a mine against a force of more than a thousand undead.”

  A voice in the back shouted “That be just enough for me! Ye boys can have yerselves a nap!”

  As the other warriors chuckled, a small voice rang out from the direction of the bank “Gnomes rule!”

  Alexander asked the dwarves to step forward two ranks at a time, and teleported them after the others, one group every thirty seconds. When the last of them were gone, Alexander’s mana was beginning to run low. Sending so many large groups so quickly had been draining him at a rapid pace. He pulled out a mana potion and gulped it down as Silverbeard spoke to him.

  “They’re good lads, every one. They’ll watch over ye.”

  “It’s not me I’m concerned about, Master Silverbeard. It’s our people, and Thalgrin’s. I’d rather be killed a dozen times than lose even one of them.”

  “But lose some ye will, Alexander. Ye need to be prepared for that.” The old dwarf’s voice had gone quiet. Alexander shared a moment of silence with him, then said “And you… you keep yourself and my keep safe. If there’s an attack here, I want to know the moment it happens.”

  “Aye. We’ll be fine here. Ye show em Elysia ain’t to be poked at!” Silverbeard bowed his head and stepped away to see to his duties.

  Chapter 11

  War!

  Alexander teleported himself to the garrison tower. Bodine and several of the farmers and loggers were gathered near the barn. They were fully geared with weapons and armor, just as Collin and his men had been. When they saw Alexander approaching, they got quiet and saluted him. Apparently, this was a new thing the citizens had decided to adopt when he refused to let them bow.

  He returned the salute, “I’m glad you’re all gathered already. I was just going to recall everyone. I want you all to stay inside and defend this tower if necessary. Do you have all the gear you need?”

  Bodine stepped forward. “We’re well armed and protected, Alexander. And ready to fight with you.” As he said this, his wolves—who had been seemingly lazing about the courtyard—were instantly on their feet and growling in anticipation. The men and women all raised weapons and cheered.

  Alexander held up his hands until they grew silent. “Thank you, all of you. You make me proud. But the fight we face now isn’t one for you. And we expect the river current will scatter the undead soldiers across the length of the plateau. I need you all here to defend this tower and destroy any enemies you see. Bodine, you can set your wolves free in the surrounding forest to scout and hunt as they see fit. And you must alert me if any enemy force of more than a scattering engages you here.”

  When the others took their marching orders and scattered to man the walls and tower, Alexander held Bodine back. “I’ve invited the minotaurs and orcs to take up residence in the village where the orc army rested. Please tell your pack they are friendly, for now. And ask them not to attack.”

  “Of course, Alexander. I’ll let all the animals know. The birds will alert us to their presence first. I will pass along their reports immediately.” Bodine assured him.

  With the garrison tower settled, Alexander said goodbye and teleported himself to the mine. He found all his people and the Broken Mountain dwarves had moved inside the walls. A gate had been constructed and connected to the walls as well. It stood open at the moment. A shrill whistle caught his attention, and he turned to see Lorian standing on a branch above him, waving.

  Returning the wave, he called out. “Are you sure?”

  “There are only six of us up here in the trees. The rest are atop the towers. We’ll be careful not to draw too much attention. I’ll be looking out for any demon commanders that need killing!” The half-elf called down. A moment later he disappeared into the foliage.

  Alexander walked through the gate and was greeted by his guildmates. They had all arrived shortly ahead of him on their mounts. He’d loaned Tigger to Jules and Fibble. The little goblin appeared to be half asleep, curled up atop the white tiger’s back. With a mischievous grin, Alexander dismissed Tigger, and Fibble dropped through the fading body to land on his butt. He spluttered and looked around confused as Alexander turned his back and acted casual. Sasha punched him in the arm, but he could see she was fighting a smile.

  “Alright General Sasha!” He raised his voice so all those around them could hear. “The army of Elysia is yours to command!” There was a cheer from the gathered troops as they saluted her with weapons in the air.

  A chant of “Sasha! Sasha!” That sounded like it originated with Max soon spread through the ranks.

  She had apparently been adding everyone to her various groups, and opened up raid chat to speak to everyone at once. She quickly designated commanders for each group and gave them assignments within in the enclosure. Then she began to explain the order of retreat.

  “We’re not going to fight the entire battle out here. We’ll hold them at the wall as they begin to approach, and kill as many as we can as quickly as we can. Groups 3, 5, 6, and 7 will have light cannons. Use them to the best effect you can. When their numbers grow enough that they can climb their own corpses and top the wall, we’ll make an orderly retreat into the mine. Alexander will prepare a choke point just inside the entrance. We’ll let them bunch up, then massacre them until they begin to overrun us before retreating to the next point.”

  She assigned each group a place in the retreat order, then added “Remember! These things are already dead. Head shots or decapitation are about the only way to kill them. That, and fire. Which you’ll be seeing plenty of. Stay away from the wizard’s fire! It’ll burn you just as badly as them.”

  Alexander tuned out the rest of her briefing as he stepped inside and began to prepare the first chokepoint. About a hundred paces back from the entrance he pulled stone inward from the walls on either side, slanting them toward the back end of the shaft on a diagonal. When he was done, he added short walls that ran parallel with the shaft so that the whole thing looked like a big funnel. At the narrow end, the opening was wide enough to allow four or five of the enemy to approach at once. Brick and the tanks would be able to plug that hole without any trouble.

  When he was done, he stepped a hundred paces further into the shaft and created another identical funnel. Then he moved back toward the entrance. In the space between the second and first funnel he hollowed out a deep trench pit ten feet wide that stretched the width of the shaft and extended down ten feet. He left the shaft floor intact above the pit, keeping it thick enough to support the weight of his troops and the undead army. At least, until he didn’t want it to.

  With their chosen battlefield as prepared as it was going to get, he walked to the top of the wall to observe the forest around them. There wasn’t much of a clearing, as the mine had not been worked for a thousand years. Giant trees surrounded them on all sides. Even on the hill above.

  The hill! How could I be so stupid! They don’t have to scale the wall if they just circle around and climb the hill. Then they can just drop down on us from above.

  Alexander quickly shouted for his troops to clear two sections of the enclosed area. As soon as they had, he raised two thick columns of stone to a height
of forty feet. Then he reached into the hill and pulled a sheet of stone forward to extend over the enclosure and out beyond the wall. It covered the left half and sat on the column for support. Next, he pulled a second sheet forward to match the first. Now he had a stone overhang that would protect his people from falling zombies. Any undead that climbed the hill would drop off outside the walls.

  Taking a break to recover his mana, he sat atop the wall and chatted with the dwarves on either side of him. They were all armed with crossbows and a supply of bolts blessed with light magic. He decided to start a little competition. “A bonus of 500 gold to the one who kills the most undead with those crossbows of yours. I’ll rely upon your dwarven honor to keep accurate count!” Cheers went up from the dwarves as his announcement was passed down the line in each direction. Apparently, his challenge had taken the form of a quest, which they gladly accepted.

  A few minutes later Lorian’s voice came across raid chat. “Their first line is coming into view, they’re moving slowly. I see maybe two hundred of them, heading right to the gate.”

  Alexander stood up and faced his army. “Jeeves, loudspeaker please.” After a short pause, he began to speak.

  “To all the brave people of Elysia, and our honored guests. The enemy approaches, and we will engage them in just a few minutes. You’ve all trained for this, and I am proud of every single one of you. We are more than a match for these undead filth!”

  He paused as the crowd around him cheered. “We lost nine brave souls in our last battle, and I do NOT want a repeat of those losses here today. We have a large group of adventurers here who will gladly lay down their lives to protect the citizens of our nations. Do not take any foolish risks! Let the adventurer fools take the risks!” This earned him a spattering of laughter.

  Lugs got even more when he raised both hands and waved, doing a little dance.

  “This is your chance to win a glorious battle against a foe that outnumbers us at least five to one! So I say to you all, you are now Defenders of Elysia! Help us rid our home of this dark army, and grow stronger!”

  He could tell, by the looks on their faces, that every single one of them had just received a defender quest. A notice popped up on his UI asking him to set the rewards for a quest called:

  Defenders of Elysia

  Part 1 of 2: Dead and Buried

  He quickly set the monetary reward at 500 gold each. The experience reward was on an adjustable scale, with dropdowns. He could choose to grant a set amount of experience for an overall victory, or a variable amount that would grant each of them a single level. Or even an amount equal to a percentage of the overall experience each citizen had earned since character creation (or birth for the NPCs) And he could add bonus experience for individual kills. He decided to set the experience reward at 50,000 for the successful defense of the mine. Then added bonus xp of 2,000 per kill.

  The NPC’s had all frozen while he made this decision. They unfroze as he clicked the last button, and the quest rewards showed up on their interfaces. For some, 50,000 xp would grant them more than a single level. For others, less than a level. But for a group so large, that was the best he could do. Nobody in the compound complained. Those still in the courtyard climbed up to man the wall.

  Alexander looked at his UI. His forces seemed small compared to the enemy. There were the hundred dwarves from Broken Mountain. Sixty of his own guards, hunters, and miners. A rock troll, a goblin, and twenty players. Less than two hundred total.

  Faces turned grim as they turned outward toward the oncoming horde. There was a cheer on the wall as a flash of light shot out of a nearby tree and an arrow embedded itself into the foremost undead’s forehead. What had once been a human warrior screamed in agony as the light magic missile pierced its brain. A moment later it dropped limply to the forest floor to be crushed by the following army.

  “So much for keeping a low profile!” Alexander shouted toward the tree. A half-elven hand appeared from among the leaves and gave him a thumbs-up. Alexander took a good look at the oncoming enemy horde. There was a mixture of humanoid races—humans, orcs, goblins, elves, dwarves, even a few big ogres and a rock troll—and a wide assortment of creatures. He saw wolves, bears, large cats, and some type of lizard he didn’t recognize. He inspected that one, and a few others.

  Undead Lava Lizard

  Level 56

  Health 18,000/18,000

  Undead Human Warrior

  Level 60

  Health 21,000/21,000

  Undead Orc Shaman

  Level 62

  Health 23,000/23,000

  It seemed most of the undead army were within a few levels of 60, plus or minus. With more than a thousand of them, this would be great experience for his own troops. If not much for Alexander and the core group. He also noted that their health was lower than one would expect at those levels. A drawback of being dead, he supposed.

  Beatrix, who was standing a few feet down the line from Alexander, lamented “It’s going to take forever to loot all these things. And it’ll probably be all squishy eyeballs and toenails.”

  Still, she gamely waved her hands at a leading undead and created a globe of water around its head. Alexander saw her look of consternation grow as the orc warrior continued its forward progress unhindered. After several seconds she slapped her forehead. “They don’t breathe! Damn, that was stupid!”

  Misty, who had been watching the exchange, said “Hold on.” With a flick of her finger she froze the globe solid. The warrior began to stumble around blindly, turning into the tide of undead behind it and tripping up several of them. Taking their cue from that, Beatrix spread a sheet of water across the path of the oncoming creatures, and Misty promptly froze it. Just like on the bridge against the orcs, the undead began to slide and stumble, causing a pile-up across the ice sheet. The army on the wall laughed and pointed. Much of their fear from moments ago dissipating at the ridiculous sight of zombies on ice.

  The laughter died quickly when a bolt of black magic streaked from the crowd of zombies and struck Beatrix directly in the face. The force of the blast knocked the little gnome off the wall. She fell backward and slammed into the ground three stories below. The impact didn’t really matter. She was a caster with a short health bar. The black spell had nearly ripped her tiny head from her shoulders. She was dead before she hit the ground.

  A roar of outrage erupted from the throats of Alexander’s army as the spunky and well-liked little gnome fell to her death. A shouted command rang out and a hundred crossbows fired simultaneously.

  The impact on the enemy army was devastating. The rotting undead bodies offered little resistance to the fast-moving heavy bolts. And the blessings upon the ammunition seared dead flesh and drained health as they burned through the front line, then the second, and in some places third line of undead. Heads exploded with the initial impacts. Gaping holes were burned through chests as spines were severed. Those one hundred bolts mowed down at least that number of undead that would not be rising again, and did considerable damage to maybe a hundred more.

  Several of the creatures in the second and third rows that ended up with blessed bolts stuck in their flesh began to moan or scream and thrash about. A few who held weapons actually inflicted flail damage upon their neighbors.

  As Alexander assessed the damage, the line of crossbows had already reloaded and fired a second volley. Another wide swath of the enemy force fell.

  He opened up officer’s chat and said “This is too easy. No way they’re just going to keep walking into range and get mowed down in wave after wave.”

  Brick responded “They be controlled by a necromancer. Might be they haven’t noticed yet.”

  “Nearly 20% of their overall force is already gone. How do they not notice that?” Alexander mused mostly to himself. Almost by reflex he cast Wizard’s Fire on several of the undead scattered across their line. Some just burned as they walked, others bumped into additional enemies and spread the flames.


  Sasha practically shouted. “If something changes, we’ll deal with it! For now, burn them down as fast as we can!”

  Their army was busy doing exactly that. The crossbowmen fired a third and fourth volley before a call rang out to cease fire. The initial wave was nearly decimated, and the following ranks were out of range. Lorian and his hunters picked off the last few dozen from the trees one by one. Every shot hit an eye socket or drilled into the top of a skull.

  As if hearing Alexander’s previous words, the second wave halted in unison just outside of bow range. After a pause of several seconds to make sure they weren’t going to continue, Sasha called out “Max, Lainey, Lorian! The second wave has halted. Whoever’s controlling them might be in visual range! See if you can spot them!”

  There was silence for a while as the hunters searched the woods from all sides. Those on the wall replenished their ammunition and took drinks of water. Or in the case of the dwarves, stout ale. Every single Elysian kept one eye on the enemy force. The thing about undead was they had a habit of getting back up. It was certainly possible that not all those who had fallen were permanently dead. And just a few steps forward would bring the next wave into range. They could see more of the creatures shambling forward to bolster the ranks in front of them.

  Alexander once again spoke in officer’s chat. “They’re waiting for something, the demons? Maybe the necromancer thinks a zerg with his entire remaining force will overcome our defense?”

  “Look at the line of bodies on the ground. They all died within a band about thirty feet wide. Even ten times as many wouldn’t make it all the way to the gate. They just don’t have the speed.” Sasha observed.

  After another minute or so of inactivity, a flash of light sped from one of the trees and a light-blessed arrow embedded itself into an undead bear’s eye. The beast roared in pain and shook its head violently. One paw tried in vain to work the arrow loose for a moment before the rotting carcass fell over and lay still.