by Oliver Mayes
He estimated they had a total of sixty imps, not including his. More or less. Maybe a dozen succubi? He checked the occultist raid group and found just over half of them were still alive, though he had no way of knowing which minions had been lost with them. In the past, he’d always been able to adapt because he still had some idea of his available resources. At this scale, it was impossible.
If managing the occultists and their remaining minions was difficult, he had no chance of dealing with the assassins, rangers and mages. One of the mages stuck his head over the top of the parapet, trying to understand what the situation was on the other side. He promptly found out when his head was blown off. Snipers, again, trained on the top of the wall. Lovely. He kept his head down as he made his way through the rabble to the center, trying to warn away others from suffering the same fate.
“Everyone keep your heads down! Wait until we get—”
A ringing ran through his head, a voice chat invitation from Lillian to a group chat called ‘Carlisle Raid’. The sound had completely cut through his train of thought, but no one had been listening to what he was saying anyway. The same thing was happening over and over again, all along the breadth of the wall. Players assuming they were somehow special, that they knew how to peek over a wall better than the person who’d just died doing the same thing and that what had happened to others who’d done exactly that, sometimes even within their view, would not happen to them.
Damien had nearly made it to the center when he joined the group to the sound of Lillian shouting:
“Hammertime is dead, Aetherius is in charge of the new recruits now! Andrew, I have eyes down here, we need you up there to guide the support.”
Andrew’s voice cut in over her just before she’d finished:
“That won’t work, Lillian, I can’t get—”
“Hold on tight.”
“Hhhhhnnnnnnnngggg—”
The strained yell cut out and a second later Andrew appeared out of Blink before tumbling onto the ramparts in a heap. He took a moment to lie facedown on the floor, mumbling into both it and the comms.
“I hate when you do that.”
“You’re alive, good, get in position.”
Then he was up and assessing the wall. He braced himself against the stone, failing to make the same mistake as the players he was now in charge of. Damien crouched down next to him as he and Lillian took it in turns to shout over the same connection.
“Everyone keep your heads down until Lillian gives the go order—”
“Noigel, put the demons on the sides of the gate, Queen’s Guard and tanks fall in behind them—”
Andrew looked directly at Damien while still talking into the comms.
“The imps will go out first to draw fire, any that make it should Imp-lode over the front line. While they’re en route, the assassins will run down the wall—”
The hollow thuds of another round of mortar fire prompted Lillian to talk even faster and Andrew to match her. The shells thrummed through the air in front of the wall and the two of them struggled not to overlap their speech as they raced to finish before the shells dropped.
“—Tanks and melee go straight for the cannons, ranged units go directly left or right when you get through the openi—”
“Anything that flies goes out in a straight line to take pressure off the kill zone—”
Damien was handing out his imps into the Soul Summon Limits of any occultist he could see, trying to spread them out evenly as he conveyed Andrew’s instructions to his out-of-the-loop occultists while adding a few specifics.
“Occultists, control your own succubi and imps, leave the incubi and consumers to Noigel, Imp-losions over the heavy artillery, fly the succubi overhead and use all their mana as fast as possible, Circles of Hell starting from the front line and moving back, then drain the rest of the mana with Chaotic B—”
Lillian had already started counting down:
“—two, one, GO!”
The imps went over the top and the bullets immediately started flying all around them. As soon as the first salvo was over the assassins went over the wall and began hurtling down it. The mages followed after them, lightning mages on their thunder clouds and ice mages stepping off the ramparts to create slick sheets of ice which began at the ramparts and which they rode on the balls of their feet. The succubi flew overhead and began pointing with one hand while charging bolts with the other. The back of the ramparts was crowded with rangers firing volley after volley. The roar of cannon fire meant that down below, Lillian’s group was also on the move.
Damien remained stood back from the edge, watching the imps fly outward. Now the minions had cleared the wall and were directly over Magnitude’s forces they were being largely ignored. The dwarves had their hands full suppressing the more immediate threat of the players coming for them. The cannons could not aim up, but the snipers, rifles and Gatling guns could. They were doing their utmost to mow everything down before anything was close enough to do damage. Ignoring the imps.
“All imps dive, break the front line!”
Damien sent his own imps streaking to the ground and moments later the rest of them dive-bombed. As his remaining five imps reached the correct point, right over the middle of the cannons, Damien pointed and his first imp Imp-loded. The two cannons he’d managed to encompass within the effect rocked backward off the floor and crashed back down again, trained in the wrong directions. The dwarves loading them and the line of gunners stood behind them were tossed through the air, creating a hole in the middle of the defense. The rest of the imps began arriving soon afterward, each Imp-losion breaking the formation a little more.
Archimonde appeared, Demon Gating in from further back. He cast back his hoggish head and glared upward at the approaching waves of imps. They immediately pulled out of their dives and flew instead toward the gate. They were now enemy imps. Go figure. Archimonde intended to use them to suppress Lillian’s advance. Just one Imp-losion in that choke point would cause untold mayhem. It was a good thing Damien had spent a week preparing for this. He stared at the imps as they drew closer to the gate, thinking the same thing over and over again.
You’re mine. Come here.
Their names turned blue and they flew up onto the wall before landing behind it. Damien looked out at Archimonde, which had watched their approaching flight. Nine imps recycled. A crushing Imp-losion/Corruption combo culled in its infancy. It was a shame Damien couldn’t see Archimonde’s face clearly over the distance and through the gunfire smoke. He’d just have to superimpose the despair he imagined Archimonde was feeling onto the creature’s piggish features with his imagination. It wasn’t hard to imagine, given the despair he’d felt when Archimonde had done the same to him. He stuck his arm above his head and gave his rival a hearty wave, rubbing it in. How do you like it?
Noigel’s intelligence wouldn’t be much use to Lillian with so few imps, but it didn’t seem like she’d asked him to do anything complicated. The incubi and consumers had a very easy role to play in her plan: cannon fodder. Their muscular armored bodies and immense bulk respectively made them ideal to both draw concern and absorb heavy ordnance. They faded away to dust shortly after being killed, which was just as well considering the number of corpses already piling up. Lillian scaled the pile of corpses, followed immediately by her Queen’s Guard, with the survivors of the mortar assault piling through after her and fanning out as they passed through the gate.
The Gatling guns that had not yet been put out of commission all stopped what they were doing and fired on the approaching squad, with little effect. Lillian was running with her shield in front of her, the bullets echoing off it. The effect of those that penetrated both her shield and her armor was mitigated by the heals landing on her from her retinue and the healers who’d passed through the gate and panned out to the sides, reducing pressure on the choke point.
If she and her Queen’s Guard made it into melee, removing them would be next to impossible
. Magnitude clearly thought the same. He rose out of the ground in front of his tattered vanguard and drove his fists back into the earth from which he’d so suddenly appeared.
Damien watched his hit points plummet until the ability that was draining them obscured him. A solid slab of rock shook itself free of the earth and rose up, blocking the valley from one side to the other. It stopped suddenly at just five meters high. It would not be high enough to stop Lillian from jumping over it, but enough to divide her forces between those who could scale it and those who couldn’t, in so doing blocking line of sight for the healers.
At the very moment Lillian had put them on the back foot, Magnitude had presented yet another obstacle. He was buying his army time to regroup, preventing Lillian from hitting them while they were out of formation. She’d got what few players remained through the choke point. Yet if the cannons could all be pointed back in the right direction and the gunners could be regrouped into their formations, and if they all fired simultaneously when Magnitude lowered the wall, the damage would be catastrophic.
Andrew’s voice came calm and clear over the chat, just a fraction of a second after the wall stopped rising.
“Lillian, the wall’s thin, you can smash it. Do it.”
While the other players had faltered, Lillian and her Queen’s Guard had not slowed down. When Andrew said “Do it”, she sped up. Divine Might enveloped her and she leaned into the run, leaving everyone else behind. Damien held his forehead and forced himself to watch, the spectacle turning him into a spectator. Andrew was already firing Arcane Bolts, arcing them over the wall to soften up her targets before Lillian did what she’d always done. Just before she reached the wall, Damien noticed Magnitude running back to the safety of the rearguard. Andrew grunted, but kept his suppressing fire arcing over the wall rather than chasing Magnitude with it.
Damien had seen Lillian go through thicker walls when she was more than ten levels lower, before she had a legendary weapon. Excalibur remained firmly in her grasp as she raised her shield, braced behind it and slammed into the slab at full tilt, more bloody-minded and destructive than any cannon ball.
Lillian was not a good choice of target for a bluff, least of all with Andrew providing oversight. She burst through and the whole facade cracked and came tumbling down.
Oh yeaaaah.
Through the rubble and dust, Lillian set to work. The Queen’s Guard and battle-worn players were soon to follow. Magnitude’s dwarven reinforcements were not melee combatants and his remaining Carlisle-Elites were not Lillian. Now they’d finally got into melee range, this battle was going one way and one way only. Upon watching his safety net collapse and the fighting break out, Magnitude turned and vanished into the ground, repeating the move three times to get all the way to the back line. Archimonde was waiting for him.
Magnitude turned to Archimonde and shook his head. Archimonde extended out its palm and it glowed purple. The creature was summoning a portal. They were leaving! Just like that. The very players who’d precipitated this war didn’t intend to see it through. It had all been fun and games while they had held the advantage, but now they were happy to let the players they’d led into this situation die in order to cover their escape.
On the plus side, if they were leaving then the battle was all but won. That was good, right? It would be better to let them go, rather than drawing this out. Damien wasn’t too pleased with the idea.
“Andrew, your brother’s leaving. Is that alright with you?”
Andrew’s eyes darted upward. He took it in, then his fingers twitched. The Arcane Bolts he’d been guiding into the front line curved upward, flying straight over their heads toward the only two players who were not in combat. Archimonde was concentrating on making a portal. Magnitude was not. He drove his hands into the earth and a new wall appeared. The first two Arcane Bolts collided with it. Those that followed curved up and over, then burst on the ground behind it. Andrew began screaming into the comms.
“Lillian, Richard is escaping! Catch him! Don’t let—”
That was enough for Damien. Nine imps took to the sky. He looked up and appropriated the nearest succubus into his Soul Summon Limit, immediately ordering it to Bloodlust. It didn’t have enough mana. For crying— he possessed it and its wisdom stat doubled, along with its remaining mana. Just enough. Bloodlust. Cancel Possession. The red mist chased the imps out and their movement speed increased. They were nearly there.
Had Andrew’s bolts connected? Even if they had, how long would it be until the game defined those hit as ‘out of combat’? Always with the details. More Arcane Bolts overtook his imps on either side, curving around the wall before colliding with each other to keep the targets pinned. Just before Damien’s imps disappeared from view he Demon Gated, his kunai raised over his head, and dropped down.
He’d had eyes on the wall the whole time yet they were gone. He looked all the way to the end of the valley, just in time to watch Archimonde plod past the edge of the valley wall and out of sight. Demon Gate and that stupid ground-tunneling ability.
Damien sprinted after them. The movement speed he’d been so proud of was not fast enough. He put his hand over his chest and transformed back into his Pride form, his long strides covering the ground much faster. What would he do if he caught up with them? Fighting one or the other would be difficult, fighting both of them together would be nightmarish. He’d have to at least keep them busy until more players arrived. That he could probably manage, if he was careful.
It was such a long way. Every second felt agonizingly slow. Damien came out of the mouth of the valley and saw them. Right as Archimonde finished summoning the portal. Magnitude turned as Damien arrived, his annoying sixth sense preventing Damien from catching him unawares. He was only a few feet from safety. Archimonde followed his gaze, turning its back on the portal.
The portal would either close the moment the caster passed through it or a few seconds after the caster first entered combat. If Damien attacked Archimonde to try and prevent their escape, the portal would still take ten seconds to close. Archimonde was standing right in front of it. Preventing it from leaving would be next to impossible. Magnitude wasn’t using his own Portal Stone, and during his long run Damien had figured out why. It was likely attached to the wall. That’s why he was relying on Archimonde to make his exit.
Put it all together and Damien only had one option.
Damien Charged straight at Archimonde. Magnitude had already curled his hands into fists and was driving them downward. Too late. Damien’s kunai went straight through Archimonde’s head as it turned to face him, a perfect combat initiation. He’d almost expected to kill Archimonde outright, but no such luck.
The damage had to be extreme. He didn’t have time to assess how extreme, because Archimonde was falling back through the portal. Damien immediately pulled on both chains and was dragged through after the creature.
The portal snapped shut behind them.
32
Order Versus Order, Chaos Versus Chaos
Lillian had activated her Divine Might as Damien had Charged past the edge of the valley and out of sight. It had not been difficult to extricate herself from combat: most of the opposing forces fled at her advance, only for Lillian to pass them. There were some who had attempted to block her, assuming that since they were comparably leveled they’d also be evenly matched. Quickly turning Divine Might on and then off again a few seconds at a time allowed her to disillusion them without compromising on speed. She jumped over them or cut them down, as if they weren’t even there.
When you’re really powerful, you get to pick your fights, a fact Magnitude and Archimonde were inverting in their favor. Which was interesting, considering Damien and Lillian were picking a fight with them.
Damien had dropped in front of her just as she passed Magnitude’s last line of defense. With her stamina low and Damien both fresh and ahead of her, Lillian slowed to his speed and allowed it to tick back up. Even when he changed back
into his demon form, Lillian still felt it was prudent to let him stay ahead so she could recharge. It was only when he Charged out of her field of view that her concern outweighed her pragmatism.
She rounded the edge of the valley, fully expecting to dive straight into combat to help Damien against not one, but two high-level special-class enemies. She arrived and found Magnitude all alone, staring into empty space. Where did Damien go? Where did Archimonde go, for that matter? In the time it took Lillian to figure out what had happened, Magnitude caught sight of her.
He froze. Lillian deactivated her Divine Might. Magnitude was already at full health, but her stamina and mana would take a while to regenerate. She needed to buy time.
“Hello, Dick. We have something to discu—”
Richard’s hands clapped above his head and the ground swallowed him up. It’s not so easy to goad enemies into maniacal speeches revealing their master plans when their master plans have already collapsed. He reappeared a short distance away with 85% health, his hit points already regenerating.
Lillian watched Richard’s health bar, timing his regeneration as she pursued him across the Wastes. This movement spell was essentially Blink with a different flavor. The only real differences were that it cost health rather than mana and that the caster came out of the ground rather than appearing in midair. To most players, the health cost would be a disadvantage. Not for Richard. Despite his legs barely carrying him any additional distance at all, he was at full health and back in the ground before Lillian reached him.
Richard’s Blink either had a preposterously short cooldown or no cooldown at all. That wasn’t the worst part: he was regenerating 5% of his health per second. Richard could go from nearly dead to full health in twenty seconds. How do you fight something like that?
