War Aeternus 2: Sacrifices

by Charles Dean

  Your party has killed Neil the Page. Your party has been awarded 81 silver, 125 copper, a high-quality bow, a fine steel dagger and 602 Experience. Your share of this is 21 silver, 32 copper, a fine steel dagger and 151 Experience.

  Your party has killed Fletch. Your party has been awarded 7 silver, 14 copper, a well-polished steel helmet and 803 Experience. Your share of this is 2 silver, 3 copper and 201 Experience.

  With Ling’s three additional kills, that thirty-five dropped down to thirty-two. It was an improvement, but it came at the cost of space. The group of men who had just exited the building formed up into ranks and then straightened out into two neat lines and charged.

  “That’s good! Serve well! Even in death, I will reward your families for generations to come!” Devin called out to them before he raised his hand and pointed at Lee and Ling. With that, ten of the people near him formed up into two lines of five and attacked. They were moving so quickly that Lee had to make a decision: just run or try to attack while running. If he just ran, he had no confidence in being able to outdistance them.

  It was at that moment that Dave and Pelham reached the scene. Dave sprinted into the snow globe with his giant two-handed flail, swinging as hard as he could at the closest man. His flail was slightly slowed, but there was still enough force behind the blow to crush the man’s skull.

  Making a snap decision, Lee pulled his Molotov cocktails back out and threw a few of them as quickly as he could at the group approaching from his left, desperate to slow their advance as much as possible. One of the bombs crashed directly into the lead soldier, coating him in the fiery liquid from head to toe. Rather than stopping, however, the man continued his progress forward. He veered off toward Devin and the flame-extinguishing snow globe, but he never made it. He stumbled forward and collapsed, still a distance away, his agonized screams choked off as his consciousness fled him.

  Your party has killed Corman. Your party has been awarded 56 silver, 76 copper, a ruby pendant, a fine steel longsword and 844 Experience. Your share of this is 14 silver, 19 copper, and 211 Experience.

  Unfortunately for Lee, however, that was it. He was out of tricks. Even Ling’s arrows began to lose their effectiveness as the soldiers hid behind their shields. The men in front looked like pincushions, with arrows popping out of their legs and arms, but they were still alive and moving.

  “Well, Ling,” Lee laughed, “should we run about now?”

  “You think you can?” Ling shook her head.

  I could always use another page . . . Then he remembered that it had taken nearly ten minutes to write everything out as it needed to be on the sheet he had used for the dragons. Dammit, Augustus, why didn’t you let me use the damn page?! Even if I couldn't have killed the Herald with it, at the very least I could have made sure that the guards around him died. I could have--

  “It doesn’t work like that. You won’t understand, but if you had used them, you’d be dead!” Augustus snapped back. “Stop complaining and save your own ass and those two women of yours!”

  Lee grumbled, but he didn’t doubt Augustus. It was the deity’s life on the line too, so he had no reason to trick Lee into doing something stupid. Taking one last look in both directions, Lee grabbed Ling’s hand and took off running.

  “Dave! Pelham! Take to the alleys!” Lee shouted over to his new friends. He took a peek through Little Ethan’s eyes and saw them retreat backward, but the two warriors were caught in the snow globe, and their movements were becoming more and more haggard as time wore on. Pelham took two cuts in the back before Dave grabbed him and dragged him outside the sphere’s blue aura, and both escaped its effects. The Herald’s troops didn’t give pursuit, obviously unwilling to leave the protective barrier, but circled back to protect Devin instead.

  “You took out six last time in one of the narrow alleys. You gonna go for a repeat?” Ling asked. “Maybe I can help you get that count up to ten or fifteen.”

  “Let’s try to kill them all. I’m not as weak as I was when we were corned last time,” Lee assured her. He had been training on the sands and getting power-leveled by Dave. There was no way he was going to get hurt as badly as he did before.

  The first alley they came to was only about six feet wide and was framed on either side by two tall stone buildings. Rather than following them inside, however, the Herald’s troops bunched up at the entrance.

  “Yeah, that’s not going to work,” Devin shouted. “Send a man to go gather some reinforcements. Tell them we need thirty or forty archers here as soon as possible.”

  Lee gulped. Welp, there goes that plan. At least I’ve bought myself some time. He glanced ahead down the alley and found that it was a dead end. A quick look at the buildings on either side of the alley told him that he wasn’t going to find an escape route there either. Yeah, you picked the worst spot you could, Lee chided himself.

  A soldier turned to relay the information as instructed, but before he even left the park, a series of arrows buried in his flesh, killing him on the spot.

  Who in the heck? Lee was stunned. He didn’t expect that turn of events at all, and given the fact that Devin looked shaken for the first time since the skirmish began, the Firbolg Herald clearly didn’t either.

  Your party has killed Viktor, Proclaimer of the Herald. Your party has been awarded 100 silver, 300 copper, a scroll and 721 Experience. Your share of this is 25 silver, 75 copper, a scroll and 180 Experience.

  “What’s going on?” Devin shouted. “Who is there?! How dare you attack the messenger of the one true god’s own personal guard!”

  “You should know by now,” a very recognizably-angry Firbolg voice yelled out so loudly that Lee would have been able to hear it easily without use of his golem’s ears. “Justice cares nothing of who you are. A poor beggar, a rich king, a foul deity--all will perish the same under my blade of justice!”

  Ling sighed. “I knew he wouldn’t stay and guard that checkpoint.”

  “Yeah . . .” In retrospect, Lee should have anticipated this. “I should have known too.”

  Lee continued to use his mouse to watch as Miller and all thirty of his troops charged toward the Herald’s personal guard, stowing their bows and pulling out spears as they went. Lee signaled to Ling what his intentions were, letting her know he intended to escape the alley and join the fray himself.

  Dave and Pelham, who had been watching the whole thing from afar, also started running around at full speed trying to reach the fight.

  “Don’t think that you will win just because you have reinforcements!” Devin dropped the protective snow globe, crouched down and rested his hand against the ground. A moment later, a dozen twelve-foot-tall ice creatures sprang forth from the earth around him.

  They were massive, broad-shouldered creatures with column-like arms and legs, and their appearance on the battlefield had an immediate effect. Miller’s group quavered, and their advance slowed as their confidence in an easy win was knocked down to belief in a probable loss.

  “Form a line! Giant slayer formation!” Miller called out commands and shaped the battle as if he were a seasoned commander. “Right flank tilt! Back flank to arrows!” The troops split up into pairs along the front line, and the other half dropped back and pulled out their bows once again. “For Augustus!”

  Lee, on the other hand, had a different idea. “Ling, I’m going to need you to join Miller. I have to go fight the Herald,” he said, looking at the wall of troops. Miller’s men hadn’t freed him from where he was in the alley and getting through them to reach the Herald was going to be a difficult feat, but if he didn’t, he feared the Herald and his posse of Ice Giants were going to slaughter everyone whom he had led so confidently into this fight.

  Chapter 12

  Name: Lee

  Race: Human

  Class: Herald - None

  Level: 25

  Health: 350/350

  EXP: 30707/32500

  Primary Stats:

  Power 35 (36)
>
  Toughness 35 (36)

  Spirit 35 (36)

  Secondary Stats:

  Charisma 25

  Courage 20

  Deceit 29

  Intelligence 161 (169)

  Honor 3

  Faith 784

  Personal Faith 242

  Skills:

  Unarmed Combat Initiate Level 7

  Swordplay Novice Level 8

  Sneak Journeyman Level 2

  Cooking Initiate Level 7

  Trap Detection Initiate Level 6

  Knife Combat Initiate Level 8

  Mental Fortitude Initiate Level 1

  Sleight of Hand Initiate Level 3

  Blood Shield Initiate Level 3

  Glass Smithing Initiate Level 10

  Divine Skills:

  Golem Sculpting Journeyman Level 1

  Appreciative Drunk Novice Level 8

  Nectar of the Gods Initiate Level 4

  Spirit Smithing Initiate Level 3

  Faith Healing

  Divinity Powers:

  Life in Death

  Titles:

  Cheat Code Fighter

  The Great Deceiver

  “How are you going to pull that off?” Ling asked as she looked at the wave of troops separating them. The enemies were no longer bunched up in a perfect wall in front of them but had spread out to incorporate the ice giants their Herald had summoned.

  “Because we both know that, in a few seconds, it’ll be Miller time.” Lee began to laugh. He wasn’t laughing because the terrible reference he had made to a beer industry titan was particularly funny, but because he was nervous. There was a ball of knots in his stomach, and it seemed to tighten as he considered how deadly his plan would be if things didn’t work out just as he wanted. Still, he had some hope. His experience so far in this world had taught him a valuable lesson about his enemies: they were, on average, terrible drunks.

  Yup. Lee took a deep breath after he finished laughing, trying to assuage his fears. They might be stronger and have racial bonuses that let them handle a lot of things I probably never could, but over half of them can’t hold their liquor at all.

  “Miller time?” Ling asked, and then her eyes widened with understanding.

  “Yep, Miller time.” Lee turned and patted her on the shoulder. It was obvious that the soldiers were just waiting to charge in, but the command hadn’t come down from the enemy Herald yet, so they were forced to wait. “I need you to run the creek to widen the banks then flow into the river.”

  Ling nodded. “I can do that.”

  “Look at you two,” the Herald called out so loudly that, even with all the noise from the ice beasts, the incoming people from Satterfield and the reorganizing of his own troops, Lee could hear every word as if the Herald were right next to him. “It’s so touching: a last moment between lovers before entering the abyss together.”

  Lee winced. Lovers? Me and Ling? Don’t go throwing that title around so easily. Amber will kill us both! Their relationship was likely much more to her--and even to him--than that of close friends as he had previously told himself they were over and over again during his trip to the real world.

  “Get ready to start the water flow,” Lee urged, edging down the alley and closer to the group of soldiers blocking the entrance while keeping an eye on both them and Miller. The closest enemy soldier kept looking back over his shoulder, trying to see if the Herald wanted him to lunge forward and kill Lee or maintain the blockade, but Devin did nothing. He just watched them with a smile.

  “Miller, I could use a drink!” Lee shouted at his comrade, whose forward progress had gotten slower and slower as the confidence of his troops had broken.

  Miller looked over at Lee’s position and then over at the golem Lee was using to watch everything as if he had known where it was all along. Miller nodded. “A drink? You think a drink will suffice? We’ll all need at least one drink of liquor for every unjust bastard we kill in Augustus’s name today!” Miller shouted back. Completely ignoring Devin’s numbers, the fact his own troops weren’t joining him and the giant ice demons that had crawled out of the ground, Miller charged forward alone and at full speed.

  “Water! Now!” Lee shouted to Ling. She nodded and unleashed a stream of arrows to Lee’s left while running straight toward him. The soldiers she aimed for had turned and adjusted their shields at an angle so that they could stop any arrows that came from the Satterfield archers, and as a result, a couple of Ling’s deadly barbs struck their mark immediately. The leftmost soldier died from arrows in his eye and throat, and the remaining men hastily closed up their ranks in order to prevent the same feat from happening again. Ignoring Miller’s group, they all turned to halt Lee’s advance and Ling’s sudden onslaught.

  Your party has killed Angus. Your party has been awarded 32 silver, 34 copper, a fine steel dagger and 788 Experience. Your share of this is 8 silver, 8 copper, a fine steel dagger and 197 Experience.

  Ling immediately switched her focus to Lee’s right, but her sprint forward seemed to dramatically reduce her accuracy. A couple arrows took to the sky, shooting off into the distance, and the rest harmlessly bounced off of the soldiers’ shields. Still, the soldiers kept their shields up and in front of their bodies.

  Then, with perfect timing, Miller’s shout hit. “IN THE NAME OF AUGUSTUS, I WILL SMITE YOU ALL!!” Miller shouted out so loudly that it momentarily drowned out the noise of battle as he let loose his drunken roar. The wave of inebriation slammed everyone in the area, and Lee’s senses altered as he felt his blood become imbued with the power of alcohol and his skills switched to their drunken counterparts.

  The shield wall in front of Lee wavered, and one man took an arrow to the shoulder as he struggled to remain upright and hold his weapon and shield in place. A few seemed unaffected, but Lee was able to spot the weakest link in the chain: a soldier on the edge of the knot who had moved forward to fill in for his fallen comrade. Lee instantly changed his course to run straight into him. An ounce of luck is worth more than a pound of wisdom, is it?

  It wasn’t more than a second later before Lee awkwardly slammed into the drunk with his own spiked shield, knocking the soldier back off of his feet and into the man behind him. Lee careened off and to the right, his momentum carrying him forward into the spear that was waiting for him. He came to a staggered halt as 22 damage was peeled away in a single blow, and he barely had enough time to dodge a downward slash that came from behind the spearman. He dipped and weaved to his left, but he was struck across his shoulder by a waiting blade for 28 damage.

  Lee turned and stepped back, slashing out as hard as he could in a sweeping motion to try and push the enemies back, but his blow was blocked by the first shield he came in contact with. Come on! Make a little room, you bastards! Lee desperately repeated the action only to be blocked and stabbed at once more from all directions. Unable to react to every angle, all he could do was cringe back and watch as the blows rained down on him, chipping off 22, 28 and 26 hit points.

  The group of soldiers collapsed in around him as they all shifted in the heat of battle, each trying to get in an attack since their spears allowed them to easily thrust their weapons through the mob. Lee’s Blood Shield seemed to move him with a mind of its own, twisting his arm around and blocking nearly half of the incoming thrusts so quickly that even he was surprised, and he only took 72 more damage.

  It was at this point that Ling’s arrows began to really do their work. The man who had first struck Lee had turned to make sure his spear could easily pin right into Lee’s side, but he was killed instantly by an arrow through his ear. The drunk who had been knocked down was struck twice in his left shoulder, and the man behind him had his weapon rendered useless when an arrow pierced his hand and buried itself in the shaft of his spear, pinning them to each other.

  Your party has killed Aidan. Your party has been awarded 44 silver, 27 copper, well-polished steel helmet, chainmail and 861 Experience. Your share of this is 8 silver, 8
copper, a fine steel dagger and 215 Experience.

  The enemies recoiled from the flurry of arrows, backing up and trying to reform their line while adjusting their ranks to accommodate the fallen and wounded members. The shift away from Lee wasn’t much, only two feet, but it was enough for Ling to make an exit. She pressed herself against the wall, leapt over two dead bodies and darted straight toward Miller’s archery line. She was grazed in the arm while running but otherwise cleared past without trouble.

  As per their code, Ling had successfully cleared a path so that they, the creek, could return to the river, or the main army, but Lee’s modified plan sent him running straight for the Herald. Rather than making a beeline toward Miller and the group from Satterfield, he took off through the line of ice giants. Thankfully, like most monsters, the brutes seemed to be even more vulnerable to the effects of Miller’s drunken shout than most of the soldiers. They struck out at him as he whizzed past, but their inebriated state prevented them from doing any real harm. Most of their attacks went wide, and he was easily able to turn aside those that were properly aimed. He broke through the pack a moment later, and as he suspected, he quickly realized that they were far too unsteady on their feet to give chase. Out of the entire group, only two were able to move in a straight line, and they were too occupied with Lee’s men to give chase. Unfortunately, Lee also noticed that most of the soldiers that had been blocking his egress from the alley were strung out behind him now.

  Abandoning any hope of an offense altogether, Lee stored his sword and shield in his inventory as soon as he was out of spear range so that he could run at full speed unencumbered. The choice paid off, and he was quickly able to create some distance between himself and the men clunking along after him. Unfortunately, being unarmed also invited other problems.

  The nearest drunk ice giant looked over at Lee woozily as he ran toward it, opened its mouth and forcefully blew out a spray of icicles. Lee dodged to the right as fast as he could, but the continued breath attack followed after him. The frozen shards were fairly small, close in size to a sewing needle, but he still took another 42 points of damage when the icy spray struck him in the face. It hurt like hell as the tiny, little shards dug into his exposed skin, and to make matters worse, he felt his face and shoulders go numb. His gait was throwing off by the unexpected change, and he struggled to pump his arms as he ran.