by Shawn Wyatt
I could hear his snores through the wagon top.
"I agree," I said. "Not that his nose is much use to us if he's asleep."
The wagon came to a halt. "Hey, Ren," Wish called. "We have a problem."
"What is it?" I asked.
"The brambles don't want to let us pass."
I looked to where she pointed. The brambles that grew across the road had risen into something that resembles a wall, six feet high and at least ten deep. The spines gleamed in the sunlight. "No way can we move through that," I said. "But I have an idea."
I climbed onto the top of the wagon and waved to those behind us. "I need all Spellweavers up here," I shouted.
Word spread through the caravan, until Anireth and Abracadabra stepped forward, along with four other Spellweavers from the second raid group whose names I had not yet learned. "What can we do?" Anireth asked.
I pointed to the brambles. "Torch it," I said. "They have HP gauges, so I don't want melee getting too close lest in case the vines strike back. We're far enough away here that we can counter any retaliation they might launch against us."
Abracadabra grinned. "Consider it done."
Anireth looked at him. "Fire Aspect and Fireball?"
"That's what I'd do."
As one, the Spellweavers closed their eyes, and a dull red glow burst forth from within them. They all held up their staves and wands and muttered, "Spiritus igne manu formare."
Balls of fire exploded from them, a volley of destruction energy that singed the air and slammed into the wall of brambles. The vines burst into flames, turned black, and collapsed to the ground. Another volley took down more of them. The Spellweavers melded flame to their will and burned down the obstacle until nothing remained.
Someone shouted from behind. "The brambles are receding!"
All around us, the scattered vines that had reached into the road now pulled back into the forest. "That doesn't mean they're gone for good," I said. "We might have just pissed them off. Stay alert." To the Spellweavers, I nodded. "Thanks. First time I've seen you guys in action. Glad to have you with us."
"Not a problem," Abracadabra said. The tall girl gave a little nod and walked back to her wagon, and the rest of the Spellweavers fell in behind her. It seemed they had elected her a de facto leader of their little group.
I climbed back into my wagon and nodded to Wish. "Let's go," I said. "I don't want to stick around if we've angered some huge vine monster. If I remember correctly, there should be a significant clearing a few hours away. We'll make camp there for the night."
"Alright."
The journey continued, the tension more overt than before. Every player kept their eyes peeled for an attack. But when none came after several hours, the members of our group relaxed once more, and the rest of the day passed without incident until we reached the clearing.
"Pull the wagon into the center," I said. Bastion had taken over driving. Beside him sat a dog, its snout turned skyward.
Cathbad had thought it better to transform and use his animal senses than to rely on eyes alone, so after an abrupt exclamation of, "I have an idea," he shifted. Somehow, Finn had not been filled in on Cathbad's abilities yet, so the sudden shape change of our party member into a Golden Retriever came as something of a shock.
"Circling the wagons?"
"Yeah," I said. "It worked for the settlers for a reason."
"Look at you, channeling that inner cowboy," Evey said.
I scowled and turned my attention to directing the other wagons into place. When all of the other groups had settled into place, I called all of the players into the center. "We're going to stop here for the night. We're farthest from the forest on all sides, so at least here we have the best shot at identifying trouble before it reaches us. We'll take watches in shifts, one hour per party. Any objections?"
No one said anything.
"Alright. My group takes first shift. We'll rotate through the primary raid group first, and once Group 4 has stood watch the next raid group takes over. Come to me if you have any questions. Finn, you stay in the center so you can use support spells on anyone that needs it."
I pointed out where to watch from, and my group scattered. Boris patrolled the edge of the forest, his nose on high alert. This had been the same area Bastion, Evey, and I had camped on our way back from the airship landing the first time, when we had rescued the soldiers. I hoped our next foray into the area had better results.
I sat on top of the wagon. Both pistols dangled from my hands, a relaxed grip that would let me snap them into firing position at a moment's notice. From within the circled wagons, someone strummed a lute, and music began to play. I cast a look over my shoulder. Finn and IndianaCohones had started up a duet. Finn played the lute while Cohones sang.
The first song started out innocently enough, but the second one took on the more bawdy tune about a woman, her husband, and a red-hot poker. I tried to tune them out, but the lyrics broke my concentration and had me in stitches before long. It had the same result on the rest of the encampment, and it broke the flood gates.
Soon ale flowed free and several fires had sprung up with spits on them. The entire group of 24, minus the five of us on watch, sank into a spirit of merriment. When our watch shift ended, I climbed down from the wagon and met everyone in the center of the camp. Rune shoved tankards of ale into our hands and invited us to join the fun as his group took over the watch.
P!xel sat on a fallen log and illustrated his story he through gesticulations, his massive form almost comical in his portrayal of the way a goblin collapsed under his axe. Cohones' next song started up, and though the din of the party made it difficult to hear, a few lyrics broke through.
"Why, then the man ripped a thunderous fart, the likes of which blinded to the heart. Though it stole away his darling's love, he smelled as sweet as a morning dove."
Any conversation in the camp disintegrated into laughter. "You know that doesn't make any sense, right?" Shinkicker asked. I wondered how his name came about, but the man's diminutive size made that easy enough to guess.
Cohones grinned. "Doesn't have to make sense," he said. "It's hilarious." His comment was met with more laughter.
Cathbad was engaged in a deep conversation with Pronstar. "Do you miss the ability to transform?" he asked.
The woman shook her head. "Not at all. I didn't like the idea of transforming into an animal. What kind of effect would it have? Would I take on the animal's senses? What if I enjoyed being an animal more than a human? I prefer the Cosmic subclass."
Cathbad nodded. "I see. That makes sense. I have the same opinion, but in reverse. I would rather use raw strength than invoke magic. So tell me, what does Pronstar mean? Does your tribe name their youth after the great heroes of legend?"
I didn't need to hear more of that conversation. I could not fully relax, so I stood and walked around the camp. I made it a point to speak to every player, to remember their names and faces. I would need to direct all of them in battle the next day. Whether they fell in combat or survived to continue fighting, I would not let them go unremembered.
When I grew tired of talk, I checked in with those on watch and checked the supplies in our wagon. I had spent the past two days gearing up, and had crafted far more Caster Shells than I would have a chance to use. In the process, my crafting ability had leveled up even more. The process of forming the shells and imbuing the magic had grown significantly easier. I hoped to be able to make multi-enchantment shells before long.
As the night wore on, the fire died down a bit and the music grew softer. A sense of contentment settled over the camp, and I sat back and relished the silence. It would be the last chance to do so before the battle.
Leaned against the wagon, my gaze focused on the stars above, I fell asleep.
The next morning, the wagons once more set forward. The merriment of the night before had settled our hearts. The anxiety and fear had been replaced, at least for the moment, with a sense of
determination. The players believed they could win. I believed it, too. I needed them all to hold on to that hope. "I hope everyone is ready for this," I said. "Rest while you can. We reach our destination today, and I have no doubt that we're riding directly into a fight. Raid Two, be ready to take over combat against the trash mobs. It's your job to clear a path for us to the airship landing and keep the way clear while we infiltrate it."
The players nodded. They all watched me with a sense of respect. The night before, Evey had told me that many of the players respected my determination, and that word of our goal had spread through the city before the raid departed. "You're a bit of a celebrity," she said. "You don't need to win their respect. They'll give it to you willingly."
I cherished that.
The road remained clear of brambles, but the closer to the airship landing we drew, the more wild and twisted the flora became. Trees grew gnarled, with knots that looked like faces trapped in agony. The clouds above hung so thick and heavy that day hardly different from night. Evey and I sat at the reins and set the pace for the wagons.
We crept along the road and scanned the tree line with our eyes. The airship landing loomed in the distance, and dark, haunting shapes hovered around its trunk. The clouds obscured the highest branches.
Boris sat up on his seat and huffed a warning. A creature darted from the tree line and charged our wagon. The crack of my pistol startled several players, but the creature fell dead. Howls sounded in the distance, and all around us the forest seemed to writhe at our presence.
"Get ready!" I shouted. "Here we go."
CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE: THE TWO RAIDS
The second raid group surged forward, their wagons taking to either side of our group. As planned, the main raid group fell back and allowed themselves to be protected. Behind me, inside the wagon, I heard a lute strum before a burst of light washed over the entire group. "That's a temporary shield," Finn called out. "It will absorb around 100 points of damage before it breaks."
"Thanks," I said. "They may need it."
Monsters darted inside the forest. Our pace had been slow until now in an attempt to not draw too much attention to ourselves, but the initial attack threw that to the wind. Every wagon driver cracked the reins and we charged forward. The airship landing was in sight, but a veritable army of monsters stood between us and the entrance, their bodies a living wall that would only let us by when they all lay dead.
Behind the creatures crouched an owl. Its body hunched into itself, its head cocked 180-degrees to the side as it watched our approach. Blood dripped from its beak, and its feathers looked more like sharp spikes than limbs meant to give flight. And it laughed as we approached.
A wave of spells and arrows shot from the wagons to either side of us as the second raid group fought to keep the trash mobs at bay. More monsters surged into the road behind us and blocked the escape route. I shot a glance at Evey. She just nodded, then loosed an arrow.
We had no way out now. We would either win this fight, or we would die here.
One of the members of the second raid group fell from the wagon and monsters swarmed over him, but his axe cleaved through the creatures as he stood and shouted a battle cry. He activated a sprint ability that brought him to the wagons and leapt into the nearest one, where a healer purged the poison debuff one of the creatures had put on him.
If he could fight like that, even unproven in combat, then maybe--just maybe--we had a chance. I hoped the second group would survive long enough on their own when we disappeared inside.
The wagons in front parted and our group surged forward. The Master of Transportation had given us warhorses to pull our wagon, and the beasts reared on their hind legs and caved in the skulls of the creatures in front of us. The three other wagons of the main raid group caught up as we plowed our way through the line of monsters with nothing more than spell, steel, and determination.
The owl-demon laughed again as we came face to face with it. "Not bad for humans," it said. "I'll be waiting for you inside." The creature turned and crawled across the ground at an unbelievable pace, every movement of its body an unsettling sight. As it vanished, the rest of the monsters roared and charged.
Our group sprung into action. We had fought together so often in the past that no words needed to be said. Cathbad morphed into his bear form, and Boris stood beside him and roared a challenge. Evey, Wish, and I stood at the rear of the group, and Bastion leaned against his sword in the center, the flames flared in time with his heart.
I had already loaded two Caster Shells, one into each pistol. I fired the bullets and watched as flame reduced two of the monsters to ash. Another monster fell with an arrow in its eye socket, and a shard of pure magic blasted a hole through the skull of another. Boris lashed out and downed a Withered Ape with his claws. The creature's attention was solely focused on Boris and Cathbad, and that allowed the rest of our group to burn them down with wave after wave of spells, arrows, and bullets. Even Finn dove into the fray, his thin sword a blur of movement as he stabbed hole after hole into the monsters.
Beside us, the other three groups fought with the same ferocity. I kept an eye on the HP gauges of every member of the raid, but the healers proved their worth. Each time someone took a hit, their healer cured them right away. Their mana gauges hovered near 90%--everyone except IndianaCohones, whose mana dropped precipitously.
I fired a bullet and brought down a monster that broke through the spells, then turned. A blue-green mist surrounded IndianaCohones as he strummed his harp. His song regenerated the mana of the other players. "Clear this area out fast," I shouted. "Let's get inside!"
"Use AOE heals," Bastion said. "It hurts the Withered Creatures. Prophets of Truth, use Prayer of Healing to hit the entire area and we can whittle them down."
In moments, overlapping circles of golden light landed on the battlefield. The Spellweavers followed it quickly with Fire Blast, a spell that shot a 15-foot cone of flame in front of them. The mobs fell to the assault one by one until nothing remained. I sat down on the ground, took a breath, and surveyed the raid group.
No one had lost more than 27% HP in the fight. The healers had done well to keep everyone alive, given the large number of trash mobs we had killed. I hoped every fight would not be like that. If they numbered that high throughout the rest of the raid, we would need crowd control abilities we didn't have.
I turned to the group. "How's everyone feeling?"
"Not bad, all things considered," P!xel said. He rubbed one arm. "It doesn't hurt now, but one of those critters got its teeth on me. Not a pleasant feeling."
"That heavy armor help any?"
He laughed. "A bit. I'd rather have it on that the flimsy leather you're wearing."
"Everyone else feel ready to take on this place?"
They nodded. Several people cheered.
The second raid group approached from behind. "All done," their leader said. "The trash mobs around the forest is dead, and the escape route is clear. We'll stand guard here. You all go on inside and kill this monster, but save some loot for us."
I gave him a thumbs-up. "You got it. Let's go."
I led the party forward. Cathbad and LeeRoy matched their pace to mine so they would always be ready to taunt. The airship landing loomed over our head, a tree that stretched so high toward the sky that its highest branches could not be seen for the clouds. A pair of massive wooden doors inlaid and reinforced with iron sat ajar, an invitation to the unwary player to come inside.
This was it. Once we set foot inside the raid, there would be no turning back.
I took two steps forward and pushed the door open.
The tunnels had a cavern-like quality to them. Sound echoed from a dozen directions and made it impossible to distinguish where it came from. The light from the door only reached a few dozen feet at most. Beyond the edge of the light lay a darkness, thick and impenetrable. We would have to rely on torches until we found the lighting mechanism.
"We
move slowly from here on," I said. "No idea what waits in the darkness."
Growls, yips, howls, and barks sounded through the tunnel. The airship landing had been carved out of the interior of a massive tree, with dozens of smaller rooms to house the staff and to store goods and supplies. An inn had even been established inside, but all of the men and women that ran the facility had vanished when the corruption took hold.
Those rooms were now the home of an untold variety of creepy-crawlies. When we reached the darkness, I lit a torch and held it aloft. The torch had been made with an enchanted pitch that cast light farther, but the tunnel's size made the effect seem miniscule. Cathbad peered around the darkness, once more in his Sylvan form.
"This room would be dark under normal conditions, but this darkness is different. The corruption has gripped even the air, made it opaque." He knelt, eyes closed, and spread his fingers over the floor at our feet. "The tree still lives, but in agony."
When Cathbad stood again, the fierce determination in his eyes had been renewed.
"I don't know how big the first floor is. Maybe we should clear this area as a staging zone to retreat to?" I asked.
"Do you think the zone will stay clear once we complete it?"
I shook my head. "No idea. This is a game, so there are certain rules. What day is it in the real world?"
My party looked at each other in shock, and the expression spread to the other members of the raid. No one had asked that question in quite some time.
LeeRoy's eyes glazed over. "It's Tuesday," she said. "Hard to believe. Normally I'd be at work at this time."
"In most games, raids reset on the weekend. This zone should stay clear for at least four days after we clean it out," I said. I tried not to think about my normal Tuesday routine: usually studying. Double-checking my code for bugs before class the next day. The semester would be over now.
I shook my head. No point in reminiscing about life. "Let's move slowly," I said. "We'll check these rooms one-by-one, but be wary of traps. Group One will take point. Groups Two and Three fan out around the edges. Group Four, stay in the center so you're defended from melee attacks."
