The Mountain Valley War
Page 60
“Tanks, watch for bleed effects!” Rose shouted, moving in the lead to the right of the gates and toward the
“Quick buffs on the march!” Olaf ordered. The spellcasters and ranged damage dealers formed a loose line with Olaf.
Between the heavily armored players and Olaf’s range group were several other melee fighters and me.
Baby flew above Olaf, I assumed the other healers were in the same line, hopefully, spread out.
The Captain was slim for a Dwarf, very thin. I thought he might be a half-Dwarf, half-Gnome but I doubted the Duke would allow such a thing in his army. Despite being so thin, this Dwarf looked decidedly sinister with a sword in one hand and a dagger in the other.
“I know this guy. Captain Zephirin. He’s a swashbuckler,” Pwn’s voice called from somewhere behind me. “Watch out for his ‘Flourish’, it can disarm you and weaken your defense. He’s also fast, so watch out for random aggro drops. Tanks, be ready to taunt at a moment’s notice.”
“You heard Pwn!” Olaf shouted.
“The good news is he doesn’t hit very hard. But he hits often, expect him to get two or three hits in the time it takes most of you to hit once,” Pwn added, surprising me more. I kept expecting him to betray us.
As we got closer, I think I saw what Pwn was talking about. The sword was more of a rapier, a thin long blade.
“Charging!” Rose called out as soon as she was in range, her form blurred, signaling her ability was activated. Her form appeared 10-feet behind the Captain. He had sidestepped her. I had never seen anyone dodge a ‘Charge’ before.
“Oh, yeah, he also has some kind of evasion skill that makes hitting him . . . difficult,” Pwn shouted.
“Charge,” Olaf ordered, the other seven tanks blurred from view.
I watched as the Captain sidestepped all but one. The weakest tank among them,
I took that as my signal to attack. I leaped in, striking hard at the downed opponent only for the body to vanish in a wisp of smoke. “What? Oh, no,” I said realizing what happened. “He has illusions!” I shouted just as I heard the first scream from our back line.
I turned to see the Captain in a fencer’s stance, shifting in and out, stabbing our ranged damage dealers at his leisure.
I activated ‘Sprint’ to close in as fast as possible. When I leaped in this time, I scored the first hit on the actual Captain. My spear cut the forearm of the arm holding the sword out in a lunging stance. It was only a glancing blow, but it was enough to get his full attention on me.
I flipped backward several times in an effort to dodge the speedy rapier. Despite the bonus to my dodge while using ‘Acrobatics’ I still took a glancing blow from most of the stabs. I tried to slow him down and cast ‘Lesser Heavenly Blade’. The burning blades fell and pinned the Captain only for his body to fade into smoke again. Then I saw the tip of the rapier sticking out of my lower abdomen before I felt the pinch and saw the damage notification. I looked back over my shoulder at the smirking Captain.
I didn’t like that smirk. I grabbed the tip of the rapier and cast ‘Beginner Holy Shock’ into the metal. I took one hell of a jolt as the stun settled in. I fell forward stunned but also heard the distinct sound of the Captain also falling backward and landing with a heavy thump.
I tried to speak but found the stun of my ‘Beginner Holy Shock’ even prevented that. It might have been the longest 5-seconds ever. As soon as it faded, I cast a heal on myself. I didn’t ask, given the fight going on around me, but for some reason, our healers weren’t helping me.
When I finally got back to my feet, I saw Rose and the other tanks trying to grab aggro and keep the guy in one place.
“Rose, you need to stop his magic,” I called out, before starting another heal on myself.
I don’t know if Rose heard me, but the scream of anger and frustration that tore from the Captain a second later suggested it worked.
“Drain his mana if you can,” Rose called loudly, focusing on using her spell, ‘Drain Magic’. I just hoped this guy’s mana pool wasn’t that large.
Once my HP was back above 75%, I leaped in again, this time trying to land behind him. While his magic was still paralyzed. I needed to do something to slow him down. While I was behind the Captain and he wasn’t able to vanish with an illusion, I stabbed my spear into the back of his knee then activated ‘Ligament Rip’, finally slowing him down.
“Olaf, knee cap him!” I shouted as my spear tore out the side of the Captain’s knee. A second later there was the familiar boom of Olaf’s remaining gun. I watch as the leg I just hit with ‘Ligament Rip’ took another hit designed to cripple. Half the knee was gone and suddenly, the Captain was no longer mobile as the leg couldn’t hold his weight and there was a bright and shiny ‘Cripple’ debuff on it.
“Hit him now!” Olaf yelled. “Give him everything you’ve got!”
I didn’t need to be told twice as I hit with ‘Justice Strike’ first to weaken him to magic damage. Followed by a ‘Beginner Holy Fire’ and ‘Beginner Holy Shock’ to stun him again. I kept going, pushing damage and stuns and trying to cripple the different joints.
As soon as his movement was limited the fight was over. With all the damage concentrated on him, we quickly whittled him down.
When the fight ended, I looked around. At least half our numbers were dead, almost all the healers were among them which explained why I wasn’t getting healed. Allowing Captain Zephirin to run around unchecked at the start of the fight did a real number on us.
“Any healers still alive, please start resurrecting the dead. Everyone else, let’s go reinforce Captain Icyhot,” Olaf ordered loudly.
There was no time for rest as Olaf, Rose and I led the charge across the field where the last Captain waited.
“Aim for the joints,” I shouted before leaping ahead and into the thick of it.
“You guys done, already?” Rock asked as I landed to his left. “Hah, I knew you had the easy target.”
“Easy nothing,” Rose said, appearing next to Rock, her shield edges jabbing at the Captain’s shoulder joint.
“What’s the situation?” Olaf asked from somewhere behind me. His voice barely loud enough to be heard over all the spells and clangs and shouts filling the air around us.
“Just like the brewery Captain,” Icyhot yelled in answered. “Just watch out for the spin up.”
That was good to know. I did what I did last time. I stabbed into the shoulder joint, dealing damage but not getting past the armor to activate ‘Ligament Rip’. I didn’t realize how much I had come to favor that skill. It really was one of my more powerful abilities even if the damage it dealt was minimal compared to some of my other abilities, but that effect was just too good not to use as often as I could. Especially when I figured out that using it multiple times on the same joint could give it a ‘Crippled’ debuff.
Finally, I got into the shoulder joint and tore my spear free, cutting through ligaments, my skill ‘Ligament Rip’ finally hitting. Unfortunately, it wasn’t enough to cripple the joint. I kept trying but it didn’t really matter. With seventy players attacking him and more joining every few seconds, he never had a chance.
The body hit the ground with a thunderous crash that sounded oddly far away.
Siege Status
Outer Gates:
0/10,000
Soldiers:
0/500
Officers:
0/2
Outer Gates have Broken!
Oh, it was the gates breaking
open that made the sound.
Siege Status
Ramparts:
N/A
Soldiers:
96/150
Officers:
1/1
Capture the Ramparts!
I was surprised by the sudden update to the siege. More so that 54 of the Anvilton soldiers on the ramparts had already been eliminated. Some of the cannon shots I thought were misses must have hit on top of the wall and taken out some of the soldiers for us.
There was a loud cheer followed by the sounds of the Hammerton soldiers charging toward the gates.
“That’s not good,” I said, looking at the roughly 350 remaining Hammerton soldiers charging toward the gates.
“No time to rest,” Olaf started. “Healers, resurrect fast. Everyone else, we need to get in there ahead of the Hammerton soldiers or they’ll overcrowd the gates and we won’t get through.”
Once again, we were running, this time to the now smashed and open gates. The courtyard beyond the outer gates was different from Hammerton’s. This one was more of a half-hexagon shape. The middle wall of the half-hexagon was a flat wall with several thin slits for arrows to be fired from. The hail of arrows from those slits made it very difficult to get to either of two gates past the wall of death on the inner edge of the half-hexagon. The outer wall was also a half-hexagon which made up the wall and ramparts. There were several thick doors on the courtyard side of the outer walls we needed to break through to be able to get up on to the ramparts. They certainly didn’t make this easy.
“Heath, see if you can pick the lock to open one of those doors,” Olaf called, pressing his back to the wall with the arrow slits, making it difficult to shoot him.
The courtyard was now filled with players dying quickly under the hail of arrows that rained down from the ramparts. The gate area was filled with Hammerton Dwarfs carrying tower shields I know they didn’t have at the start of the battle. I recognized the formation as a Roman-Turtle, shields all around them and more held over their heads, protecting them from the arrows. I was just glad they hadn’t turned the cannons from the ramparts down on us or we really would be in trouble.
“Open!” I heard a shout. There to the east of the outer gate one of the doors was opened wide.
“Good work, charge team, stack up inside the east door entrance, Tanks first,” Olaf ordered, the hand holding his maul, pointing at the open door.
“Open!” another voice called from the other side. It was Duncan, the Combat Medic I had met when I met Icyhot.
“West door, Cannon team, stack up inside, tanks first,” Icyhot ordered, mirroring Olaf’s instruction. The man looked a little worse for wear. He had a few arrows sticking out of him.
I just hoped there was enough room for us to fit. Once I was finally able to enter, it turned out, the outer wall acted as a supply room of sorts. It ran the entire length of the outer wall with stairs going up about every twenty yards. It ran from the Gate to the mountain.
“Top of the stairs is barricaded,” Rose reported, coming down one of the staircases.
“So, we blow the doors,” Olaf said, fishing through his bag.
“What about Icyhot’s side?” I asked.
“Either he’ll do the same thing, or we’ll open the door for him when we get up there,” Olaf answered.
“Speaking of getting up there,” Rose said. “We should start at the far end or we’ll be surrounded on both sides.”
Olaf nodded his agreement. “Okay, I’ll set the charges, you and the other tanks out first.”
I followed Rose and Olaf to the far end of the storage room, the end that butted up against the mountain. I could only hope Icyhot and his people figured out the same thing. Icyhot seemed to be on the ball with this whole thing, but I didn’t know him well enough to know how he was going to handle this.
“Fire in the hole,” Olaf called, running down the stairs. A few seconds later, my ears were ringing from the explosion and my siege indicator updated, showing three more casualties for Anvilton.
Siege Status
Ramparts:
N/A
Soldiers:
91/150
Officers:
1/1
Capture the Ramparts!
“Go, go, go,” I heard Rose order over the ringing that was quickly fading away.
I followed up the stairs as soon as I could and out through the new door. Whatever explosives Olaf used, they removed the hatch and a good chunk of the stone that surrounded it.
Down the ramparts, I could see soldiers with nameplates reading
Rose was chasing after them, trying to stop their retreat. When she reached them, she slammed into whichever line was up front. It stopped the retreat and allowed us to start attacking.
I was about to join Rose in giving chase when an arrow caught me in the side. It was from a higher placed arrow slits above the inner gates. I was about to call out a warning when Olaf beat me to it.
“Anyone with a shield, form a wall between us and the inner courtyard. I need two tanks out front! This is going to be a slow slog. Healers, call out if you run out of mana,” Olaf ordered. “Everyone else, tuck in behind the tanks.”
Everyone took a few more shots as the tanks shuffled positions and even then, we still got peppered by arrows, though not as badly as the tanks did, thankfully they could take the hits or had shields that could. I also realized we should have asked the Hammerton soldiers with the shields to help us, but it was too late now.
The march down the wall was about as Olaf predicted, slow and with a lot of deaths. Especially when the healers started to run out of mana. We persisted, killing the Anvilton soldiers frequently, capturing them only occasionally. Eventually, we reached the center of the wall directly above the gates, and miraculously enough, almost at the same time as Icyhot and his group did.
Siege Status
Ramparts:
N/A
Soldiers:
2/150
Officers:
1/1
Capture the Ramparts!
There were cheers of victory from some of the players, but my siege status still showed two of the soldiers and the officer still remained.
“What gives?” Icyhot asked, looking around bewildered.
“Not sure, but healers, start resurrecting players as fast as you can. Get MP or SP if you need,” Olaf called loudly down both sides of the ramparts.
I had already started drinking from my two thermoses, casting buffs between mouthfuls.
The loud explosion was the first sign of trouble. At the east end of the ramparts, a large section of the walkway had fallen into the storage room below.
“Duncan, how much explosive did you use?” Icyhot asked, looking to the Dwarf Combat Medic that was part of his group.
“That wasn’t me,” said Duncan, sighting down the barrel of his rifle. “Something is moving in there.”
It was then I saw a large meaty hand grabbing ahold of the stone walkway from inside the storage room. A moment later, I caught a glimpse of what looked like the barrel of a cannon, followed by another arm and then a round head with a small horn and a single eyeball.
“Oh, son of a-” Olaf started to shout but an explosion rocketing out of the cannon silenced him. That first shot landed in the middle of Icyhot’s group of players and exploded. Thirteen of the players were sent to respawn almost instantly. “It’s an Ogre Artillery! Spread out! Tanks, charge in!”
Rose didn’t hesitate as she ran then charged at the brutish looking Ogre that was finally standing on the walkway. I finally saw the nameplate and balked. We were facing an
were two Dwarves standing behind it, pushing a cart with what looked like artillery shells, it’s crew I guessed. I couldn’t see their nameplates behind the Ogre, but I assumed one of them must be the Captain we had just been complaining wasn’t there. I wasn’t complaining anymore.
Rose’s charge did little more than get the Ogre to look down at her. It bellowed loudly, raising both arms over its head and bringing them down hard on Rose’s shields and sapping away a third of her HP almost instantly.
“Rose, bring it toward us. We need to get people behind it to kill the crew,” Olaf ordered.
I watched Rose slam the edge of her shields, one after the other into it, making sure she had aggro. Then she took a few steps backward, for a moment it looked like the Ogre was going to give chase until I heard the crack of a gunshot and the Ogre howled in pain halting its movement. I saw one of the Dwarves behind the Ogre curling up a whip.
“Damn it! The Captain is keeping it there,” Rose said. “We’re going to need to go through it to get to him.”
Olaf cursed. “Okay fine, when all else fails, light him up!”
It was brutal. Melee damage dealers couldn’t get past the tanks to deal damage. The ranged damage dealers were doing what they could but often needed to try to find cover from the arrows that still fired from inside Anvilton’s inner gate. When the melee tried to spread out, they were often rewarded with a blast from the Ogre Artillery.
I was doing what I could with my magic, but I was going to run out of Mana before too long, not to mention the arrows that continued to pepper us with damage. Duncan stopped by and slapped a bandage on me. When I saw him start to move past me, I saw his rifle and a cannon mounted to the wall just past him. It gave me an idea. I put a hand on his shoulder before he could go too far.
“What is it, son?” Duncan asked, turning back to me.
“The cannons, you know how to use them, right?” I asked.