by Oliver Mayes
Not all occultists who’d taken the ‘Hell’s Angels’ trait, imbuing their imps with wings, were built for physical damage. However, all occultists who were built for physical damage had taken the ‘Hell’s Angels’ trait; the remaining level 10 traits were ‘Contagion’ and ‘Controlled Chaos’, imbuing Corruption and Chaotic Bolt respectively with bonus effects. The utility of these traits was less than apparent for anyone built around the lost occultist art of stabbing people.
For this reason, most of the imp army being fielded had been allocated to these physical damage oriented occultists, along with one succubus each. This was not simply because their imps could fly. Their handlers also possessed the knowledge and experience required to implement the tactics Damien had employed over the course of his career. Only this time it would be on a much larger, coordinated scale.
The melee occultists pointed. The imps Imp-loded all across the wall, from the inside, pulling it in on itself across the middle. Like crushing a tin can. Each Imp-losion was accompanied by a hard screech of the metal wall and a softer clatter from the cogs in the machine being thrown around inside it.
The brittle caster classes were being smashed into the walls of their defense turned prison. More imps continued infiltrating the structure in their wake, at which point the same occultists who’d triggered the Imp-losions Demon Gated in to finish what they’d started.
The succubi flew upward and assailed the ramparts, where the snipers and rangers had congregated. They covered the platform with Circles of Hell and rained Chaotic Bolts down upon their enemies. Their stats were considerable, now they were wearing consumer steel. Those arrows and bullets that did manage to thread the imps orbiting them either had their damage significantly reduced or turned away entirely by the high-grade armor Damien had insisted the succubi be coated in.
In the span of five seconds after the first imps had reached their destinations, the wall was warped, twisted and filled from top to bottom with dagger-wielding melee players, supported by any surviving imps. It must’ve been cold and dark within the wall for the Carlisle-Elite, the only light sources either tiny slats from which to view their enemies or massive holes in their defenses created by those who wanted their advantage destroyed. They’d defended it to the last even when they had to know what they were doing was wrong, or hadn’t bothered thinking hard enough to know why it was wrong. Now they were all dead. How sad.
Damien opened his menu.
“Alexa, play ‘Despacito’.”
He hung back as the occultist line moved past him, checking everything was working as it should. He had no complaints. The only remaining attacks were coming from the top of the wall, where the snipers and rangers were located. Damien was still watching, allowing his stamina and health to regenerate passively, when Lillian’s second voice call blared into his ears.
He eyed it up. The only thing worse than answering it would be not answering it. Not a whole lot of choice, then. Damien cut the music track off and picked up, diplomatically deciding to let Lillian speak first. He hadn’t let her speak at all the first time. She probably had a lot to say. She did, it just wasn’t what Damien had been expecting.
“You must think I’m a complete idiot.”
“I have no idea what you’re talking about.”
“Yeah you do. You could’ve done that this whole time, and I was too focused on what I was doing to listen.”
“Y-you were very busy. I thought I should step in.”
“And that speech you made? Calling the whole Empire your ‘protection racket’? Genius! You really got them riled up. I had no idea how to get our players back in the field after those losses. After what you said, it was a struggle to stop them from running in to kill you before we were ready!”
Lillian had handed Damien a way out. He seized it with both hands. For a deeply self-involved moment, Damien had been certain he’d been left to die alone. Thanks to Lillian, he could pretend it was all calculated.
“What can I say? Happy to help.”
“Okay, cool. Because I told them to go for it. Look behind you.”
“You what?”
Which is when Damien registered the thundering of feet. Lillian was flanked by her Queen’s Guard front and center, her sword raised over her head and her eyes locked onto him. He could see her lips moving in time with the words echoing in his head. Damien started running forward, looking over his shoulder as thousands of human players advanced on him with wild abandon. Disturbingly, every single last one of them was grinning at him manically as they brandished their weapons and ran toward him.
“Yeah, no, I mean, you must’ve known that’s what would happen. Right? Since the wall is done for, you’re the biggest threat to the Empire and we’re all conveniently gathered here to deal with you. I offered 1000 gold to the player who lands the killing blow.”
As powerful as Damien had become, he didn’t really have the capacity to fight thousands of players at once. Assuming he wanted to, which he didn’t. That was more Archimonde’s scene, with the Contagion trait and the consistent spell-vamp, and even Archimonde hadn’t attempted to go for Lillian directly.
Damien scanned the wall, looking for an imp he could Demon Gate to while glancing behind him to make sure the army hadn’t caught up yet. His imps were all suddenly unavailable. Better yet, Hammertime had extricated himself from the wall and was running toward Damien from the other direction, his Berserker Rage still up. Damien could probably handle him, but he didn’t want to do that either.
Damien had no way out that didn’t involve killing. Lillian’s army was getting pretty close, and the wall in front of him and the army of players behind his Charge wouldn’t help either. Damien twisted each way, waiting for a sensible course of action to reveal itself.
“Lillian, you’ve got to be joking, right?”
“Everybody stop!”
Just like that, the entire army drew to a halt. No confusion, no one falling out of line. They all stopped dead. Yet if anything, their grins had become even more manic. Some of them were laughing. Lillian turned to address them, which is when Damien spotted that she’d made a friend. Noigel was clinging to her back, a living rat-skin backpack. The imp slowly turned his head 180 degrees and delivered unto Damien a scathing, malicious grin.
The pieces had started falling into place even before Lillian addressed her troops, her voice still ringing out loud and clear in his head through their voice call.
“Good job everybody, he was properly terrified. Go finish off the wall, I’ll be with you soon. I need a word with my friend.”
They cheered and filed past Damien in a much more orderly fashion, still giving him a wide berth. Reactions to him were mixed. Most of them ogled him in awe, while some of them stuck their tongues out at him only to quickly set their gazes forward when Damien glared back at them. As the throng moved around him, Lillian set Excalibur at her waist and entered his personal space, alone. She reached behind her, plucked Noigel off her back and extended the imp to him.
“This is yours. He’s great, that whole trick was his idea. If he wasn’t already helping you out I’d offer him a seat at the Round Table. I need smart advisors.”
Damien plucked the imp up between his thumb and forefinger, resisting the urge to squeeze, and dropped him on his own shoulder.
Lillian grinned. “I patched the first call through to the entire army, so they could all hear me formally recognize occultists as allies of the Empire. They all heard you blow me off instead.”
Damien, the Sin of Pride, smacked his open palm into his face. It would’ve been comical had he not been so embarrassed.
Lillian took a step closer. “I needed to get you back or I’d have lost them forever. I’d like a fresh start. Clean slate. We square?”
Damien drew in a huge breath and rattled out a sigh, prompting the human players still passing to give him a few more feet of leeway. He extended his hand and frowned. These hands were designed for breaking, not for shaking. He was gingerly
sticking out his pinky when Lillian seized the top of his palm and grabbed it tight. Her hands were smaller, but that didn’t mean they weren’t built for breaking. Damien couldn’t even move his hand.
Lillian dialed down her power to the point where they could shake hands as equals. Well, that was a reality check. Lillian let go and looked him up and down.
“I thought you’d be stronger. Size isn’t everything, eh?”
“It’s more about how the abilities stack on top of each other. Maybe when we’re done here we can trade notes?”
“Or just have it out in a duel, if you’re up for it?”
Two reality checks, right on top of each other. Damien wouldn’t go one versus one against Lillian under any circumstances.
“Maybe just trade—”
There was a tumultuous crash from the front line, loud and sudden enough to make Damien wince. He swiveled and saw the gate had been utterly destroyed. The enormous doors had been rent from their hinges and knocked over onto the players standing in front of it. There had been a lot of them crowded there, each looking to make their own mark on this auspicious moment in gaming history. Yet as happens all too often, history had instead made its mark on them.
Hundreds were crushed under the weight of the doors as the gates were knocked down from the other side. Magnitude was standing in the gap they’d left behind, cutting an imposing figure in spite of his diminutive form. This was partly down to the two vast stone columns protruding from the floor on either side of him, the battering rams that had destroyed the gate. They were already receding back into the floor. His health regeneration was more imposing than that. He had 65% of his hit points by the time Damien spotted him and was back at full only a few seconds later. But the most imposing thing about him by some margin was his level, which Damien could see for the first time. He was level 60.
31
Why Do I Hear Boss Music?
Magnitude put his hands above his head, the symbolism of which was somewhat marred by the previous crushing of hundreds of players, preceded by the wholesale slaughter of thousands.
The players were hesitating. Everyone wanted to go in, but no one wanted to go in first. Damien could only just about perceive Magnitude’s level, and to the rest of these arrayed players it would simply be question marks, same as his class name. He did not imagine knowing their opponent was only level 60 would provide them with a great deal of comfort.
Nevertheless, it was a large group of players. Only one of them had to step out of line. It was Hammertime who broke rank first, his hammer raised high. The moment it happened, three followed him. Then a dozen. The bystander effect was broken until all the players were running into range to make their attacks.
Magnitude did not move as they came for him, his hands remaining above his head. It was only as they drew very close – close enough for the first of them to stop – that they saw what was arrayed behind him in the distance. It was only then that Magnitude’s hands clapped together and he hopped up. The players at the front had been trying to force their way backward, while the players behind had forced them onward. Damien was tall enough to see over the top of them. He saw when Hammertime stopped running and allowed the head of his weapon to hit the dirt. Damien couldn’t argue with his assessment.
Cannons. Gatling guns. Mortars. The bleeding edge of dwarven tech, operated entirely by their creators. The dwarven forces all wore the same armor and flew the same banner. Clan Eitri. Lillian was not the only one who’d brought a major power to bear. Magnitude was halfway into the ground when the salvo started.
Hammertime evaporated. The players at the front were mown down in droves. The cannon fire wiped them out in long steady lines of obliteration while the Gatling guns finished off what little was left. The wall was no longer manned, but it was far past having served its purpose. Lillian’s huge army was being funneled into a tiny space, upon which outrageous ordnance was being unloaded.
Lillian did not know what was happening. She could only tell her forces were being obliterated from the sounds. The situation was grim enough without the leader remaining unaware. Damien hoisted her up over his head, just in time to watch the second wave of her army running in. Her complaints at being so handled stuck in her throat as she saw the extent of the carnage. Then she saw the players heedlessly running in. Then the extent of what they were running toward.
“Everyone stop! They’re using—”
Her words were drowned out by whistles overhead, prompting both her and Damien to look up. The mortars were not limited by the wall. They’d fired over it and their payloads were on the way down. Into the massed troops. With seconds to spare, Lillian yelled even louder. Trying to substitute urgency in place of expediency.
“Sanctuaries up, shields up, evasi—”
The rest of it was lost to the roar. A few moments ago, everyone had thought the battle was all but won. Their guard had been down. Even Lillian thought she’d had a spare moment to talk with Damien before they wrapped things up. At the very moment they’d relaxed, her army had been decimated.
Their levels counted for nothing. Their experience counted for nothing. Their cause counted for nothing. Heavy ordnance does not discriminate between right or wrong, skilled or noob, team-oriented or self-serving. Only between those who are lucky and those who are in the wrong place at the wrong time. Lillian’s army was in the wrong place at the wrong time.
This was a poor scenario in which to have a large character model and no armor. Damien dropped Lillian and yelled as he smashed his open palm over his chest, reverting back to his human form. He was still trying to decide where to run when Lillian landed on her feet and forced him to the floor by the back of his head, then held her shield over them both. She was shouting something Damien couldn’t hear, not even as she screamed directly into his ear.
The explosions abated and she hauled Damien to his feet, still shouting into his face. It was all white noise. She scanned the battlefield, her lips still moving even as she assessed the damage. Damien looked across the battlefield with her. They’d been shattered. It was over. A dozen craters were scattered all around them, the players pointlessly running from the points of impact as if those particular areas were dangerous, not the projectiles that had caused them. The bulk of Lillian’s army had become an illogical, fearful mob. If her hand hadn’t been on the back of his head, Damien would’ve been among their number.
The players had lost all sense of direction and purpose. Some were fleeing, some were advancing through the gate only to being mown down by the cannons trained on it. The guild leaders had more sense, guiding their troops to the edge of the wall where the mortars’ trajectory made it nearly impossible to strike them. They’d already sustained heavy casualties. The damage had been done.
“—occultists are left? Damien!”
She shook him and Damien’s head snapped back.
“How many occultists? How many demons? Damien!”
“Uh, I don’t know, let me—”
“Incubi and the fat ones on either side of the gate, take the succubi, imps and occultists to the ramparts.”
“I don’t understa—”
“Tell Noigel to follow my orders.”
“I don’t know if tha—”
The hollow thunks of a second round of mortar fire echoed from beyond the wall. Lillian burst into white light, grabbed Damien by the collar and dragged him toward the wall. He didn’t slow her down in the least. Her speed was not as dramatic as his Charge, but it was considerably faster than his own unaided movement which he’d been so proud of. It was more useful here, because while Damien would lose momentum as soon as he made contact with something, Lillian’s regular movement had no such restriction. She could force her way through the crowd with impunity, and she could drag dead weight behind her with no loss of momentum whatsoever.
They made it, crowding into the mass of bodies of those who’d also sought refuge there. Lillian took Damien’s collar in both hands and shook him like a rag doll
as the second wave of bombs fell.
“Leave Noigel here and tell him to obey me. Take the occultists to the top of the wall and fire back! I’ll send Andrew to help.”
“I have Demon Gate, how is Andrew going to ge—”
“Stop thinking and do what I tell you! This is a battle, not a discussion forum! You wanted to be part of the Empire, that means you follow my orders. Go! Now!”
Damien had still not recovered. He was too used to everything going to plan. Lillian was frustrated, but very much engaged. She’d already started yelling into her comms. Not desiring a third briefing and without any plan of his own, Damien submitted to her instruction.
“Noigel, stay with Lillian, do whatever she says. Send all the other imps and the succubi to the top of the wall. Occultists, are you the— ah, crap you’re all muted – okay, any of you who hear this, head for the top of the wall. Take control of your minions as need be. I’m on my way.”
Noigel had moved to Lillian’s shoulder before he had finished the first sentence. There was an imp ready for him just a few seconds after that. Damien Demon Gated and pulled himself over the edge of the ramparts, just as the rest of the forces were arriving: ‘Ninja’ trait assassins with wall-walking, cloud-riding lightning mages, ice mages creating their own platforms, double-jumping rangers exploiting the holes in the defense.
No priests, no warriors, no paladins. Only rangers, mages and assassins, limited to those with the necessary traits to reach the top of the wall. And of course the occultists, whose ability to reach out-of-the-way places was built into their skill set. Damien examined his Soul Summon Limit and found his imps had taken their share of hits: twenty-six of his forty-five imps remained. He was nonetheless doing better than most of the occultists arriving.
