We were headed to an apothecary supplier and formulating our strategy for taking on Mad Morgan, when a deep horn sounded somewhere in the depths of the mountain.
“What the hell was that?” I asked as the crowd’s chatter became loud and excited.
“A warning horn,” said Ember. “The city is under attack.”
“Does this happen often?” Trinity asked.
A large boom came from the other side of the chamber, where a pair of forty-foot-tall gilded doors separated the city from the wild winter world outside. Again, the boom sounded, and the big doors shook on their hinges.
“Yup,” said Ember. “The mountain trolls come down occasionally. Come on, this is going to be fun!”
Ember ran with the crowd in the direction of the doors, and I could already see players buffing their guild mates in preparation for battle. Something slammed into the big doors again, and the top hinge on the left side door broke loose. Hundreds of players ran toward the entrance, their staffs, wands, weapons and armor aglow with magic.
My excitement grew with every passing moment, and I instinctively knew that this was going to be epic.
“Citizens and friends of Aeorock!” came a booming voice. I looked up when I realized that the voice had come from the forty-foot-tall statue of a dwarf that stood to the left of the doors. The statue had come alive and was now turning a pensive frown on the crowd. “Fight with me, defend Aeorock from the cursed mountain trolls!”
The crowd of players rushing the doors cried out, and I with them. I felt a wide smile spread across my face, as again something hit the other side of the doors. Trinity, Ember, and I were about fifty feet away when one of the doors was blasted right off the hinges by a giant hand, and a forty-foot-tall mountain troll peeked its ugly head into the cavern.
A hundred multicolored spells shot through the air, hit the troll in the face, and exploded against the door. The beast roared and reeled back from the magical assault as another volley of spells chased it beyond the threshold. However, another troll took its place and crashed through the doors with a huge, tree-sized club in its wart covered fist. The monster lunged forward as it brought down its club, and I pushed the women out of the way and dove to the side as that massive club came down on a few dozen hapless players.
I shot a fireball at the newest mountain troll, but the streaking red missile was lost in the sea of rainbow-colored spells that bombarded the monolithic beast. Our glowing spells were like little bees, buzzing around the troll’s head, and they seemed to be pissing it off more than harming it.
“I don’t think this is going to end well,” I told Trinity and Ember as we regrouped.
A heartbeat later the troll bent and let out a deafening roar. Its rotten breath hit us all like hurricane winds, and our entire army was knocked on its ass. The troll laughed and stomped a big foot down on a guild of players who had been huddled together and reduced them to dust. The big club swept aside thirty more and sent them careening into the shops along the wall.
“Look!” said Ember, pointing behind the towering troll.
The giant dwarf statue cocked back his big double headed axe, gave a war cry, swung for the monster’s neck, and chopped the head clean off.
The crowd cheered as the head slammed into a cart full of armor, then the stone dwarf yanked the mountain troll’s corpse back through the threshold. We all redoubled our efforts and focused our spells on the remaining troll. The incantations shot through the air like little missiles, but they might as well have been wooden arrows attacking King Kong.
“You’ve got more heart than that!” the dwarf yelled down at us. He then raised a hand and light shot out of his palm and washed over us all. I felt the magic within me surge. Where once it had been akin to a strong wind, for a moment it became a tempest of power. I conjured my Magic Bolt, took aim with the group, and let loose the shimmering spell. It shot out of my palm with an earth-shaking rumble. The spell was four times the size of anything I had yet conjured, and the sheer power that I had wielded took my breath away.
The hundreds of spells hit the troll and took him clean off his feet. Magic bolts like mine ripped through his flesh like it was crepe paper, fireballs blew holes in wart covered flesh, and quivering beams sliced long oozing lines across the troll’s body. More spells hit the beast as it was slammed up against the wall, and its thick right arm shorn a pillar in two. Stone and debris rained down on our army, and a heartbeat later the troll crashed to the floor in a bloody heap.
Thousands of gold coins suddenly flew from the corpse and distributed themselves in our coin purses, and I saw that I had earned 12 gold for my part in the attack. I was also shocked to see my experience go up by 50%, and I was excited to find a glowing icon in one of my packs.
The crowd began to talk excitedly as they all discovered their mysterious loot.
Me and the girls shared an eager glance, and I selected the glowing item on my interface.
I tapped on the new icon and dragged it to my avatar. A second later I was wearing long black robes with emerald trim. Trinity and Ember had also gotten a Trollslayer set. Ember’s were black leather with green hems, and Trinity’s was matte black metal armor with jade chainmail peeking through the gaps.
“These are pretty sweet,” I said as I gazed out at the hundreds of other players trying on similar armor.
“Beats what we had,” said Trinity.
“Thank you, warriors,” said the giant dwarf statue. “For your bravery and loyalty to the mountain, I name you all friends of Aeorock, and bestow upon you the Heartstone of the King!”
The new item appeared in my inventory, and I eagerly looked at it.
“This is going to come in handy,” said Ember.
“So is that,” I said, and pointed at the portal that one of the higher-level players had just opened. Through it, Riverton shimmered in the sunlight. “Come on. Let’s go find Mad Morgan and his goons!”
Chapter 12
I stepped through the portal into the shadow of the big clock at the center of town. Trinity and Ember followed me through, and we all ducked down and dispersed with the rest of the players coming through or crowding around to use it to reach the dwarf city.
We moved through the town with our hoods drawn low, not wanting to be seen by the guards. Anna had already been gone for hours, and we didn’t need any more distractions. We sure as shit didn’t need to be thrown in jail either, so I led the women out through the southern gate and down the road. After ten minutes we came to the spot where I had been killed by Mad Morgan and the Creepers, and Ember began laying her traps.
“These should take care of the casters,” she told us as she spread dirt over the small enchanted crystals.
“I’ve been saving this bad boy,” Trinity said as she produced one of the objects that she had taken out of her bank vault. “It creates a doppelganger that lasts for two minutes.”
“A doppelganger?” said Ember.
“A copy, a mimic,” Trinity explained. “Basically, an NPC that will fight like I would. Anyway, cost me thirty gold, so let’s hope this fight goes in our favor.”
“We’ve got plenty of healing potions,” I said confidently.
Once the traps were ready we settled into our hiding places on each side of the road. Ember took the right side, while Trinity and I waited crouched in the underbrush on the left. Once the casters tripped the magical landmines, Ember and I would attack at the same time. Meanwhile, Trinity and her doppelganger would take on Mad Morgan. With any luck, we could drop two or three of them in the initial ambush.
After about ten minutes crouched there on the side of the road, I heard the telltale laugh of Mad Morgan coming from the south. Ember nodded at us from the other side of the road and indicated that they were coming.
I prepared my magic bolt, ready to take out the healer among the group as quickly as possible, but then a voice rang out coming from the opposite direction of Mad Morgan.
Was it a reverse ambush?
The voice was belting a silly song that sounded like nothing but gibberish, and it was distinctly female.
“What the hell is that?” I whispered to Trinity.
“I just heard a meow; did you hear that?” she asked. “Yup, that’s a furry.”
Just then a cute cat woman with orange and white fur came skipping down the trail. She wore knee high boots covered in bright green leaves, and vines wound up from them to connect a mini skirt made from wide leaves. Her slender abs were covered in a thin coat of soft white fur, and a bikini top made completely of woven vine and flowers pressed her breasts together. Her orange fur was luminescent in the sunshine, and her tail swayed lazily behind her as she skipped along.
Then she stopped, dropped into a crouch on all fours, and sniffed at the air.
“I smell you…” she said coyly. “Two females...one male.”
She purred as she spied the underbrush, but then she perked up when Mad Morgan’s voice echoed farther down the road.
“Pst!” hey, you, Furry!” Trinity hissed. “Get the hell off the road before you ruin our ambush!”
The cat woman saw us then, and she scampered over playfully and crouched between me and Trinity.
“Who are you ambushing?” she asked as she licked her wrist. “Not a furry I hope. I could smell you all from a mile off.”
“Mad Morgan,” I whispered, stealing a glance at her.
“You’re going to have to go through the woods or something,” said Trinity.
“Can I join you?” the cat woman asked. “I haven’t been in a good group in days and taking out Mad Morgan is one of my quests.”
Trinity glanced at me, and I considered the cat woman.
“You’re a druid, right?” I said.
“Yup, the names Kitcat,” she said as she extended a furry hand. “But you can just call me Kit.”
“I’m Sam,” I said as I shook her soft hand. “This is Trinity, and over there on the other side of the road, that’s Ember.”
“Nice to meet you all,” said Kit.
Mad Morgan came into view about one-hundred feet down the road, and I slunk lower and indicated for Kit to do the same.
“Can you act as our healer?” I asked.
“Yup,” she said. “I’m a druid. Geared toward nature healing.”
“Great,” I said. “Just follow our lead and don’t let us die.”
“That’s your plan?” she asked, and her golden, feline eyes regarded me skeptically.
“Quiet, they’re coming,” said Trinity.
We hunched down and spied the approaching NPCs. There was Mad Morgan, of course, along with the ice mage and cleric that I had seen before. There was also a dwarven warlock among the group now, but I didn’t see the assassin from before, and I wondered where he was lurking about. With any luck they would step on one of Ember’s traps, and I could repay the assassin for the kidney shot he had given me on my first day.
Mad Morgan rode on the back of a big black horse, but the other members of his group were walking, and he was going on about their latest raid.
“Why, a few more takes like that and old Mad Morgan might just be able to retire,” he said with a laugh.
“Where you going to retire, eh boss?” said the warlock of the group. He was a stubby little dwarf with glowing green eyes.
“The Pebble Islands of course,” said Mad Morgan, and then his horse stepped on one of Ember’s crystals.
There was a loud whooshing sound followed by a globe of magical energy that surrounded the group. The casters among them cried out in alarm, and I knew that the spell had taken affect.
Now we had five seconds until they could cast any spells.
I jumped out from the cover of the bushes and lit the ground beneath them with Scorched Earth. Then I hit the healer with a fireball that lit her white robes on fire and slammed her into the side of Mad Morgan’s horse. At the same time, Trinity leapt a good fifteen feet into the air and landed among the group, sword first, right into the neck of the healer. Ember ran around the group and hamstrung the warlock and even Mad Morgan’s horse, and the leader went down with his mount. I hit the warlock with magic bolt right before the magic dampening spell wore off, and he fell dead at Trinity’s feet.
“Come on!” I said to Kit and downed a mana potion. Once it kicked in I unleashed another fireball that hit the Ice Mage in the chest as she tried to summon a spell.
Ember, Trinity, and her doppelganger were busy keeping Mad Morgan and his sword and dagger at bay, so I focused my attention on the ice mage. She had some impressive robes, but I had a druid at my back, and after an exchange of spells that left us both weak, I finished her off with a magic bolt to the head.
The assassin finally showed up as we all faced Mad Morgan, but to our surprise, he didn’t attack us, but rather stabbed his boss in the back and ran for the hills laughing his ass off.
Mad Morgan fell to one knee and Trinity put her sword to his throat.
It had all happened so fast that I couldn’t believe it was over, but I stared at our captive, and the memory of my quest brought me down to Earth.
“I want my gold back,” I said as I produced a fireball in the palm of my right hand.
“Your gold, what gold?” he asked hoarsely. Blood began to dribble down his chin, and I could see that whatever the assassin had hit him with was sapping his health about 1% a second.
“You stole 100,000 gold from me a few days ago. Where is it?” I demanded.
“One-hundred thousand?” said Kit dreamily.
“Awe,” Mad Morgan laughed weakly. “You’re the little magy with the deep pockets we rolled a while back. Well how do you like that shit?”
“My gold, where is it?”
“Sorry, Magy, but I done got it stolen from me too.” He laughed again, and the health bar above his head dropped down to 3%
“What do you mean?” I shook him. “Stolen from who?”
“Said his name was...name was...he said…”
“What’s the name damn you!”
“Kin...Kincaid,” said Mad Morgan, then he went limp in my arms and closed his eyes.
“You’ve got to be shitting me,” I said to the corpse as about 50 gold floated out and dispersed itself evenly to each of our pockets.
“Who’s Kincaid?” Kit asked.
“Anna sold us out,” Ember said as I got to my feet and dusted off my robes angrily.
“What if they tortured her for the information?” I asked. “We don’t know that he didn’t force it out of her.”
“You can’t torture other players,” Ember said annoyedly.
“Can’t you? Shit, it appears that players can kidnap each other.”
“Who was kidnapped?” Kit asked.
“Anna,” I said as I paced the dirt road.
“The Anna who sold you out?” she asked.
“We don’t know if she did that or not,” I reminded them all.
“Either way,” Trinity put in, “Kincaid found out about Mad Morgan taking your money, that much is for sure, and now we don’t have a way to buy the gear we need to take on him and his crew.”
“Well, if Anna back stabbed you guys, why would you take on this Kincaid guy to get her back?” Kit asked.
“Good question,” Ember said.
“Screw that noise,” I said. “Anna didn’t intentionally screw us over, she—”
“How the hell do we know?” Ember asked. “What if she was working with him all along?”
“That doesn’t make sense,” I told her. “It’s not like she stays in a cottage in the woods waiting for some noob to enter the game with a shitload of money.”
“You'd be surprised,” said Kit. “There are a lot of assholes in this game. It’s like they’re finally being who they wish they could be in real life, and it isn’t always good.”
“Anna’s not like that.”
“You sure about that, Loverboy?” Trinity asked with an arched brow.
“Either way, we still have to get o
ur gold back,” said Ember.
Kit’s feline head swiveled on her furry orange neck, back and forth between each of us as I tried to figure out what the hell to do next.
“Well, Sam, you’re the guild leader,” said Ember. “What’s our next move?”
“Alright,” I said, glancing up and down the road. “Let’s get back to the hideout in the mountains and we’ll go from there.”
“Can I come?” Kit asked. “You guys seem like fun players, and, well, you need a healer until you get Anna back, right?”
I glanced at Trinity and Ember. The blonde warrior shrugged, and the dark elf assassin looked Kit up and down.
“That’s one more person to share your special ability with,” she told me.
“I…” I stammered. “We don’t even know if...you know...she’d want to.”
“Want to what?” said Kit,” her feline eyes dancing with intrigue.
“It’s nothing--”
“Nothing?” Ember interrupted me. “Ha-ha!”
“Loverboy here has a magic stick,” said Trinity.
“Sorry, Magic stick, like a wand?” Kit asked.
“Yeah,” Ember said with a chuckle. “It’s definitely a wand.”
“Hey, ladies, you mind?” I said. “This stuff is on a need to know basis, and right now, Kit doesn’t need to know.”
“Need to know what?” she said with mounting frustration.
“If you have sex with Sam…” said Ember, eyeing me slyly. “You’ll level. That’s his special ability.”
I grimaced and glanced at Kit to gauge her reaction.
“Hah! You’re kidding me, right?” said the cute furry.
“Nope,” said Trinity with a wink. “He was a level 9 two days ago.”
“Wowzer…” said Kit, regarding me with renewed interest. “Well then, in that case, I’d like to test that theory on my own.”
I could only shake me head and grin. Women acted so differently in VR, or maybe I had just been hanging out with the wrong women in static world.
We used the portal trinkets that we had received from the dwarven statue and returned to Aeorock, and then took the mountain pass back to the hideout. It was nighttime when we arrived, and we were all starving, tired, and freezing.
Rebirth Online Page 11
