The Mountain Valley War

by M. A. Carlson

  “I kill you dead,” the Russian accented voice said clearly, Misery the Bearman was alive, low on health, but alive.

  “I killed you, mate,” Olaf grumbled, checking his own HP, which was undoubtedly low, much lower than he would have preferred. He was less than pleased.

  “My wife, she magic good,” Misery replied in broken English. “Reborn buff spell, bring me back if die.”

  “Hax,” Olaf complained. At least Misery wasn’t fully recovered. Still, the level difference and Olaf’s weakened state didn’t give him much hope. Bye-bye had impeccable timing, the familiar whitewash of energy that came with his spell gave him hope and more importantly, a chance for a fair fight. Until it stopped a few feet short of hitting him and Misery.

  Misery snorted. “Maybe as you say. But now, I kill you, like I kill weak woman.”

  Olaf was a hair’s breadth away from going berserk. His wife was dead, his UI confirmed it. And a moment later she was alive again. In the graveyard, but alive. He could feel his blood pressure elevate at the thought of her being killed while defenseless. He also knew he couldn’t lose his head right now or he would fail to protect Hammerton, and then his wife would be really angry with him.

  “Worry later, Olaf, old man,” Olaf mumbled to himself, activating ‘Bull Rush’ once again, he needed to focus everything on this fight, or he was as good as dead himself. With the extra running room, his horns pierced the thick armor of the Bearman, doing a lot more damage than before.

  It just wasn’t enough to kill him. Misery struck back, his meaty paw slamming into the side of Olaf’s face, knocking the Minotaur away and dropping his HP even lower.

  Doing his best to ignore the damage he received, Olaf buried both barrels of his hand-cannons into Misery’s gut and pulled the trigger on ‘Double Blast’.

  Not to be outdone, Misery brought both hands down together, striking Olaf in the chest.

  Olaf knew he only had one hit left in him, just 2% of his HP remained. Swapping quick to his maul, he swung upwards, unintentionally striking at the crux, a critical hit and deathblow all in one.

  Misery cringed momentarily before his eyes rolled into the back of his head and he toppled over backward, dead. For good measure, Olaf struck the corpse one more time, in the head. When the body vanished a second later, he knew the Bearman was well and truly dead, off to the graveyard to respawn.

  Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 11!

  +3 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Endurance

  Olaf was surprised by the notification. He had only hit level 10 that afternoon. Was that because of the experience he stole from killing an opponent in player vs. player? Misery must have had a lot of experience points to take Olaf from the beginning of level 10 to level 11. A quick check of his status showed it was even more than that, he was almost halfway to level 12 already.

  Level:

  11

  Experience:

  38.47%

  Olaf would have liked to take a moment longer to admire his handiwork, but the sound of fighting drew him back to reality. There was more fighting to be done.

  Chugging down a healing potion and bringing his HP back to a respectable 12%, Olaf rushed back to the edge of the battlement. The courtyard below was a mess. Players were fighting all over the place but there was no way to tell who was on which side, though he would bet the ones that looked more bloodthirsty were not the good guys. A quick look at his interface showed Bye-bye was dead again. Looking down at the courtyard, it appeared Pwn Star69 was also dead . . . well, dead or had run away, either way, he wasn’t a concern at the moment.

  Then Olaf looked again to see the Captain and a few remaining cannoneers fighting , it seemed the woman had died or run away. Sighing, Olaf started running again.

  As soon as Olaf had an unobstructed path to Mantis, he triggered ‘Bull Rush’, causing the familiar tunnel vision that accompanied the skill to obscure his peripheral. Olaf’s horns impacted Mantis tearing away most of his remaining HP.

  Olaf and Mantis kicked at each other, pushing away. Except Olaf was already pulling his hand-cannon and taking aim.

  “Damn,” Mantis said, seeing the weapon aimed at him. “You guys put up one hell of a defense. Too bad we’re on the opposite side this time.”

  “Thanks, mate, better luck next time,” Olaf said, pulling the trigger and ending Mantis.

  Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 12!

  +3 Strength, +1 Stamina, +1 Endurance

  Olaf holstered his hand-cannon before looking to the Captain.

  Captain Grandmite looked horrible. She was covered in small cuts, most of which were slightly discolored suggesting poison. It didn’t help that her HP was still falling.

  Grunting, Olaf approached her, taking one of the antidote’s he kept in his bag and holding it out to her. “Drink this before the poison kills you,” Olaf said, holding out the vial.

  Captain Grandmite hesitated, looking between Olaf and the vial. “You . . . are . . . not . . . going to . . . kill me?” she asked, panting from exhaustion.

  “No,” said Olaf, prompting her with a small shake of the vial.

  “But . . . I killed . . . your . . . friend,” Captain Grandmite said, sounding confused.

  “Yeah, so? He came back,” Olaf replied.

  “Adventurers,” she said, looking pained as she shook her head. She took the vial and downed the contents.

  “Look, I know you’re hurting, but there is absolute chaos going on down there,” Olaf said, pointing toward the courtyard. “You also still have Anvilton knocking at the front gate,” he added. “And oh yeah, the eastern gate is stuck open.”

  “I am open to suggestions,” the Captain replied, her breathing normalizing and the ill coloring of her skin fading.

  “You need to use your soldiers, the ones inside, to secure the eastern gate until repairs can be made. I would also use that eastern gate to send out riders to attack the Anvilton cannoneers, if you can capture their cannons, all the better,” Olaf started, looking back toward the courtyard. The few cannoneers that had been helping the Captain seemed to either be lying in wait to die or crawling to the medical tent for treatment. “Can you tell the difference between Anvilton adventurers and Hammerton adventurers?” Olaf asked, looking down into the chaos of the courtyard.

  Captain Grandmite, limped to Olaf’s side. “No, they all look the same to me.”

  “So, we bluff,” said Olaf. “Can you fire one of the cannons into the middle of that mess, preferably somewhere that won’t kill a bunch of them?”

  “Of course,” Captain Grandmite replied, smirking as if Olaf should have known better than to ask her.

  “Then do it, I just hope it gets their attention,” said Olaf, watching the Captain set about retargeting the nearest cannon, aiming down into the courtyard.

  KRACKADOOM!

  The cannon fired, the shell exploding just over the heads of the players with an unexpected concussive force that knocked everyone in the courtyard off their feet but did almost no damage to them.

  “Attention Adventurers,” Captain Grandmite shouted. “Attention Adventurers!” she repeated, getting the full attention of all the adventurers in the courtyard.

  Olaf stood, waiting to hear what she would say.

  “Ahem,” Captain Grandmite coughed, glancing at Olaf.

  “Oh, right, my plan,” Olaf said softly. Then yelling, he addressed the adventurers from both sides. “Adventurers, if you side with Anvilton, you have 30-seconds to retreat or every cannon on this wall will target the courtyard. For those of you who are player killers with ‘Judgments’ against you, this means back to level one. For the rest of you, it just means back to the beginning of your current level. Either way, you lose experience. For those of you who came to fight for Hammerton, sorry about this.”

  As if the floodgates opened, a dozen of the players below suddenly turned and ran for the exit, most of them above level 30. They were quickly joined by about two dozen more u
nder level 30 until there were maybe twenty players left standing, looking around in shock.

  “Good choice,” said Olaf. “Now, hopefully, those of you who remain are here to fight for Hammerton. In that case, I welcome you. Is there anyone among you that can vouch for all of you?”

  “Bushy can,” volunteered a player .

  “Yeah, Bushy knows me. I think she knows everyone here,” said another player, .

  “Okay, and where is Bushy?” Olaf asked, looking around.

  “She uh, she was killed . . . I might have . . . and it was totally accidental. Like, she just stepped in front of my arrow kind of accident,” said, blushing red to the tips of her long Elven ears.

  “Great, well, when she gets back, she can vouch for you. Until then, all of you, put your weapons away and stand against the wall,” Captain Grandmite ordered, picking up on Olaf’s almost plan.

  As if it was planned, the inner gates swung open with a loud bang. “Charge!” shouted a child’s voice.

  Olaf just closed his eyes, already knowing the owner of the voice would come flying out of that gate any second now.

  Chapter 14 – Heath

  Heath leaned back against Gras’s wagon, guitar in hand, strumming lightly, not really playing a song. Still, it was experience to his ‘Guitar’ skill. The skill didn’t do much yet but that would hopefully change once he became a ‘Jack of All’, for now, he just found it amusing to see the experience counter tick up 0.01% with every ten notes he plucked.

  Guitar II

  Level: 6

  Experience: 69.14%

  Skill Effect: You are able to play the guitar.

  “They are taking their sweet time. What do you think, Ash, should we go grab a pint?” Heath asked, the boredom finally getting to him.

  Gras just shook his head, seemingly content to wait.

  Heath sighed, slipping his guitar into his bag. If he was going to wait, then he might as well check his progress on his quest.

  Class Quest Alert: Jack of All 1 (Thief/Bard/Illusionist Only)

  You have shown a multitude of talents but a mastery of none. But what if you were to master them? What would you become? What could you accomplish? Should you master 5 spells of the Illusionist class, 1 instrument of the Bard class and the 4 basic skills of the Thief class you might have what it takes to ascend. Complete Rank I for the aforementioned skills and spells.

  Reward: Experience, Hidden

  Heath had the illusion spells mastered long ago, back when he was a player killer, not his proudest achievement but it was part of his past whether he wanted it to be or not. It might seem odd for a ‘Thief’ to master magic first instead of his basic Thief skills but for Heath is just made sense. If everyone thought you were a Thief, they would never expect illusions. Plus, when he became a ‘Thief’ he thought he was going to use it for adventuring, helping a team break into treasure vaults, steal from villains and the like, not going on a murderous rampage.

  Anyway, as a result of said murderous rampage, his actual ‘Thief’ skills had fallen behind. But now, Heath was on the cusp.

  Lockpicking II

  Level: 12

  Experience: 98.14%

  Skill Effect: You have a 99% chance to pick a simple lock.

  Skill Effect: You have a 12% chance to pick an improved lock.

  ‘Lockpicking II’ was the pride and joy of his Thief skills having already exceeded Rank I. It shouldn’t have been a surprise considering how much time he spent breaking into houses to have a look around.

  Stealth

  Level: 100

  Experience: N/A

  Non-Combat Movement: Speed reduced by 55.00%

  Chance of Being Revealed: 50.00%

  Skill Stamina Cost: 2 per second

  Subskill: Ambush

  Critical Strike Chance: 100.00%

  Skill Stamina Cost: 120

  Subskill: Vanish (Requires Distraction)

  Skill Effect: Vanish from view, instantly becoming 'Stealth'. Cooldown: 60 seconds

  Subskill: Stealth Entry

  Chance to Enter a Room Undetected: 10.00%

  Skill Stamina Cost: 150

  Stealth, the skill he was training almost constantly had finally hit level 100, not even an hour previous. The fact there wasn’t another Rank definitely rankled him though.

  Espionage

  Level: 89

  Experience: 13.41%

  Skill Effect: You can store 356 images.

  Subskill: Eavesdropping

  Skill Effect (Active): You have an 89% chance to successfully listen in on private conversations at a distance of 8.90 yards.

  Subskill: Codebreaking

  Skill Effect (Active): You have an 89% chance to decipher simple coded messages.

  Not as close as he would like it, but he was getting there. A few more days and it would be done.

  Pickpocketing

  Level: 99

  Experience: 99.95%

  Skill Effect: You have a 49.50% chance of successfully picking the pocket of someone with a lower level than you.

  Skill Effect: You have a 12.375% chance of successfully picking the pocket of someone with a higher level than you.

  ‘Pickpocketing’ may have bothered him the most at the moment. Level 99 and 99.95% experience, it would take maybe one more use and he was there and with so many people walking around there were plenty of targets to choose from, except that he needed to watch Gras.

  “Ash, what do you do for fun?” Heath asked, looking up at the Dwarf.

  Gras huffed, crossing his arms and purposefully looking away from Heath.

  “No need to be rude, mate. I was just asking,” Heath said, trying to exercise his boredom by taunting the Dwarf. But seeing he was getting no reaction, he pulled out his guitar again and began to strum.

  Heath’s fingers barely brushed the first chord when the sound was jarred from a ringing bell, his head snapping to look in the direction of the sound. It was coming from the barracks.

  “What’s that?” Heath asked, looking to Gras. He hoped the Dwarf would be willing to answer him this time.

  “Attack,” Gras whispered, just barely loud enough for Heath to hear.

  “Attack?” Heath repeated but with a questioning tone. “Do you mean Hammerton is under attack?”

  Gras nodded.

  “Is there any way we can help?” Heath asked.

  Gras shook his head.

  “Great, and I’m stuck in here with you,” said Heath with a huff of his own, his eyes drawn to the health bars of his friends who were no doubt out there having all the fun without him . . . again. Then Bye-bye died, not a slow gradual death but a big sudden death where he went from full to dead in a near instant.

  “Bye-bye just died,” said Heath. “If Anvilton breaks through, where is the best place to be to fight back?”

  Gras hopped off his wagon and motioned for Heath to follow him, the Shale Dwarf walking back toward the inner gates.

  “Heath!” a child’s voice shouted, drawing both Gras and Heath’s attention.

  Heath easily saw Baby flying as fast as her little wings could carry her right toward him.

  “Sup, Baby?” Heath asked.

  “It’s a trap,” Baby said, probably too loudly as some of the Dwarves on the street started running away from the gate, there were even a few soldiers mixed in with them.

  “Not so loud,” Heath warned, not wanting to cause a panic. “And what do you mean?”

  Baby quickly relayed what happened on the walls and what Bye-bye saw.

  “And now Bye-bye is dead,” said Heath, finishing the story for Baby. “This might be a lot of fun after all. Ash, can you show me to the inner gate’s gatehouse?”

  Gras looked a little hesitant but nodded.

  “Great, let’s go kill some adventurers,” Heath said with a broad grin.

  Baby and Gras both shuddered, that grin had no business on anyone’s face.

  Gras
led them easily to the gate area.

  It was not at all what Heath expected. When they entered Hammerton, the soldiers were in perfect columns and looked ready to fight and win. Right now, that was not the case. Soldiers were deserting, some of them were huddled over shaking with fear. Then something exploded outside of the gates and a few more ran, something that repeated every time an artillery shell hit and exploded outside the gates. They were completely demoralized. Heath wasn’t sure this could still be considered an army anymore.

  Heath tried to look around for any kind of leadership, another Captain, a Sergeant, anything, but all he saw in the sea of nameplates was and a level somewhere between 8 and 12.

  “Ash, just get us to the gatehouse,” Heath said, trying to ignore the state of the soldiers. He could only deal with one problem at a time and right now, keeping that gate closed was the more important task, especially if you consider that if the gates did open the army would be slaughtered.

  Gras nodded, leading Heath and Baby past all the soldiers, not one of them questioning why they were there.

  Then Heath heard it, music.

  “I . . . I’m not . . . not sure we can do this,” Baby said from behind Heath, her little feet smacking against the stone ground as she dropped from the air.

  Heath was confused, why was Baby faltering now? He had never known her to back down. Then he noticed Gras was also slowing down, slowly shaking his head.

  Was it just Heath or was the music getting louder? Heath slowed down, something felt wrong about this. And why was there music playing? Soft, melancholy music that struck bone deep.

  “I hate this song,” Heath voiced, finding himself sitting next to Baby.