by Rachel Ford
As soon as the cutscene ended, Jack left the king in his hall to go join the battle at the gates. Karag roared with excitement. Arath took up a post on the palace steps. “I’ll make sure no one gets through to the king,” he assured Jack.
The goblins followed him, but they kept out of the thick of things. They climbed buildings and even the cavern walls sometimes; and from these vantages, they would rain down death on anyone who made the mistake of getting too near. Sometimes, they dropped boulders. Sometimes, they flung themselves down, knives flashing as they went. A kind of mania seemed to seize the little beings. They would shriek and stab over and over, until their opponent finally fell to their unrelenting attack. Then the bloodlust would vanish, and they would squeal in fright, scurrying off to find the nearest bit of shelter – to scale a wall, or duck into a basement, or otherwise get out of sight.
Jack’s initial approach was to throw himself into the thick of things and tank his way through. After the aggravations of the last few days, it felt almost therapeutic to take out his rage on demon NPC’s.
But they were no pushovers. Even the low-level demons, whose hit points were low enough that he could kill them with two good hits, carried a serious punch. Nor did they stick to any one style of fighting. Some were brawlers, some swordsmen; some relied on huge, heavy weapons and wore similarly heavy armor. Others were spellcasters and wizards, who unleashed devastating magical attacks from a safe distance. They had little in the way of armor, but they didn’t need it; not standing behind a line of heavily armored allies.
Jack took heavy damage, and dealt heavy damage. But after a while, the pattern of slaughter, retreat and heal, then slaughter again, lost its appeal. It didn’t help that the city guard seemed too overwhelmed to provide much ranged assistance. The demons hemmed in their archers and drove them behind cover.
So Jack switched tactics. Bashing warrior skulls was fun, of course. But not while you took fire – so much fire that you didn’t even dare pause to loot the fallen. No, he had to even the field a little.
He threw a glance around, looking for the giant. Spotting him – Karag was, at the moment, stomping enemies like it was a game of whack-a-mole – he yelled, “We need to target their wizards and archers.”
Karag went on squashing demons, but called, “Copy that.”
Jack surveyed the field. They were about half a block from the gates, holding the enemy back as best as they could. So far, they’d been able to halt their advance. But for every demon they cut down, it seemed like ten more jumped up to take their place.
The vanguard of the invasion were tanks: giant, hulking demons in thick, sturdy armor, wielding massive weapons. They moved comparatively slowly, thanks to the armor and weapons, but they dealt devastating damage – especially the higher level baddies.
There seemed, as near as Jack could tell, to be three distinct ranks of demon. The weakest and lowest level were the Youngling demons. They were slighter in build, with fewer tattoos and runes; their weapons and armor did less, and was valued at less. There seemed to be no restriction as to class or career path – he saw Younglings wielded axes and loosing arrows, casting spells and leading charges.
Then came the Reviled demons – a middle tier demon rank, with better weapons and armor, and better stats. They dropped better loot, too – when he had the chance to grab it, anyway.
But worst of all was the Pestilence tier. These demons glowed all over with red runes, and dealt devastating attacks. Jack didn’t know what kind of loot they dropped, because the one time he’d gone toe-to-toe with one, it had ended in his own hasty retreat: one blow had siphoned off half his health and left him with a lingering hit point drain that lasted for half a minute. Their armor looked more badass, though, and their weapons were more ornate, and less crude.
The first wave of the invasion seemed to consist mostly of Younglings and the Reviled, with a few Pestilences giving the orders. Most of the heavily armored melee fighters that composed the front ranks were Younglings. Most of the archer and spell casters were Revileds. All of the generals were Pestilences.
He figured taking out the Pestilences would probably be a good move. But he hadn’t quite worked himself up to that yet. So for now, he focused on getting past the Younglings, and to the ranks of mages and archers. They were lined up at the far edge of the city, using the furthest line of homes for cover.
The problem, of course, was obvious: a veritable wall of demons decked out in midnight black armor lay between him and his target.
Here, he turned to Karag again. “Can you draw them to you? Clear a path for me?”
The giant grinned. “With pleasure.”
Jack fell back and waited for his moment. It came almost immediately. Karag charged into the thick of the demons, hacking and slashing and stomping as he went.
The Younglings broke ranks. Some in the immediate vicinity fled, while others flooded in to fill the gap and fall on the attacker.
Which opened up a nice hole in the line. Jack dashed through, dodging blows when his movement was noted and generally trying to stay out of sight. He ducked into homes where he could, and used alleys where he couldn’t.
He backstabbed one Youngling and cut the throat of another. He covered most of the block before he took an arrow in a bit of open space. He kept running and cast a healing spell as he went.
His eye fell on an old outbuilding behind one of the homes at the edge of the city, and he ducked inside. It was dark and dank, and spelled of potting soil. He couldn’t see anything, not in the darkness; and he didn’t dare risk a light spell to check out his surroundings. But he figured he was alright. It seemed to be only a gardening shed. And if he had company, well, they would have already done something about his arrival.
So he caught his breath and thought. He was close now. He could hear Karag carrying on far away, crushing and taunting his enemies. He could hear the roar of flames and the crackle of magical energy from the mages just beyond him. Which left him reconsidering the wisdom of his plan.
Yes, he had reached the mages, or as good as. But now what? He was one man. There were dozens of enemies just beyond the walls he’d sheltered behind – most of them Revileds, too. He’d be able to take a few of them on himself. But then what?
“Bless me if not’s Jack,” a voice whispered in the dark.
Jack spun around, knocking into a pile of clay planters as he did so. They landed with an awful clash, and shards of pottery flew everywhere. Fortunately for him, the cacophony of noise seemed entirely appropriate, given the circumstance – crashes and booms were the norm right now.
Only when the dust settled did he register the voice. “Varr?”
A throng of pale faces neared in the darkness. One of them was indeed the dwarf’s. “Aye, lad, it’s me – me and two dozen others.”
He had no idea how twenty-four dwarves could possibly crowd into the tiny space. But he didn’t bother himself with that right at the moment. A much more pressing idea was taking shape in his head. “Two dozen, you say?”
“That’s right. We got separated from the rest of our group when they came through the wall. We had to take cover here.”
He grinned into the darkness. “Listen, Varr, I need your help. I’m going to take out their archers and mages – but I can’t do it alone.”
“I’m ears, Jack. What’s your plan?”
So he laid out his plan, and the dwarf nodded and bobbed his head. Then, he gave the command to move out.
They did, crouching and keeping low as they crept out of the building. When the dwarves crouched, they barely reached above the tops of the weeds. Jack stood out a little more than that, but not enough to draw the attention of the Revileds.
They skirted the side of the building, keeping low. Three demonic mages stood before them. Jack nodded, and a volley of arrows hissed past his shoulder. The spell casters went down. No one seemed to notice. The other casters went on attacking the main dwarven army.
Jack waited a moment any
way, staying behind the cover of the outbuilding. Then he signaled for the party to move out. He crept out beyond the shed, toward the house.
In the open, he spotted another two mages. These, Varr’s men dispatched without being told.
They moved on, reaching the house itself. Here, the larger building provided better cover, and they could pick up speed. They hurried along until they reached the edge of it. Jack stuck his head around the corner.
And blinked into the equally surprised face of a Reviled wizard. The pair scrambled in unison to kill one another. Jack grabbed at his opponent’s wrists. It was a quick, unthinking act – he needed to interrupt the other’s ability to cast a spell, and locking up his hands seemed to be the best way to do it.
Of course, that meant tying up his own hands too – which was the part where thinking hadn’t come in to play. Because now, he had no idea what to do next.
The demon didn’t seem similarly stymied, though. He delivered a vicious headbutt to Jack’s forehead and yanked to free his wrists.
It was everything Jack could do to hold on; and doing so pulled him into the open, out of cover. A flurry of exclamations and demonic grunts followed. Fire spells rained down on the grappling pair. The smell of singed flesh – his own, and the demon’s – filled the air.
Somewhere behind him, two dozen yelps of alarm sounded. Jack barely noticed. All he knew was that he needed to get behind cover, and fast. So he loosed his grip on the Reviled, and stepped backward.
But the Reviled caught him up by the wrists this time, sneering evilly. “Not so fast, my lad.”
Oh shit. They talk. It shouldn’t have come as much of a surprise. He’d heard Kalbidor in the cutscenes, after all. Still, there was something grim and unsettling about the demon’s voice – something cruel and otherworldly.
Then, though, the demon’s face contorted in pain. Jack didn’t understand why, until an arrow whizzed past his face and planted itself in the Reviled’s eye. Varr and the dwarves had come to his rescue – and shot terrifyingly near him.
The demon went down, and Jack gasped and shuddered and stepped away. Arrows kept flying past him, though – because they were not alone. They’d drawn the attention of a good eight wizards.
So Jack clamped down on his surprise, cast a healing spell, drew his blade, and charged the line.
Chapter Forty-Five
He made it about two steps before a blast of blue energy washed over him. The game told him,
You have been hit with a paralysis spell. You will remain immobile for 5 seconds.
He cursed aloud. “You’ve got to be flipping kidding me. I don’t flipping believe this.”
But the dwarves kept the mages busy, and soon enough the spell wore off. Jack resumed his original plan, and this time he reached the mages.
He went toe-to-toe with a Youngling wizard. The demon raised his staff overhead and delivered what could have been a crushing blunt attack. But Jack ducked out of the way and struck his own blow – a swift, hard jab up through his opponent’s armpit. The demon writhed in pain while he pulled his sword loose. His next strike ended the creature’s suffering, though, with a quick cut to the neck.
The Youngling’s head rolled over his shoulders, and he sprang forward. His next foe proved to be a Reviled: a tall, gray-skinned monster, with a few red runes emblazoned on his forehead. He hit Jack with another paralysis spell – this one lasting seven seconds – and got two brutal strikes and a fireball in before it wore off.
Jack’s health hovered just above fifty percent. He gritted his teeth and dove for the demon. His sword caught just between ribs, and the blade dove straight through, jutting out the other side. Thank God for shitty mage’s armor.
But the Reviled didn’t go down. He staggered backward a step, and cast another paralysis spell.
You have been hit with a paralysis spell. You will remain immobile for 7 seconds.
He wasted two of those seconds healing himself. But then the Reviled poured his full wrath into the immobile man. He struck with his wizard staff first, and then unleashed a torrent of some kind of horrible green energy.
You have been hit with Demon’s Breath. You will lose 5 hit points per second for the next 60 seconds. Your movement will be reduced by 10%. You will be unable to cast spells for the next 20 seconds.
Three times the thought flashed through Jack’s mind, and as his health drained first at five points per second, then ten, and then fifteen, he realized with a sinking feeling that the effects stacked. Sugar.
Then, not a moment too soon, he staggered out of the spell. His movement was thirty percent slower – meaning he could only get around at about two-third his normal speed – and his health had plummeted. Instinctively, he tried to cast a healing spell.
You cannot cast a spell for 55 seconds.
“Suds and biscuits. Even the duration stacks.” So he paused the game and whipped open his inventory. First, he chugged a healing potion. Then, just for good measure, he flipped through to his poisons. He bypassed the ones that dealt with health losses. Those were important, but he was looking for something particular.
And in a moment, he found it: Spellcaster’s Bane. The poison restricted the victim’s ability to cast spells for ten seconds. Jack applied it to his blade and smiled grimly. Ten seconds is all I need.
He dove for the demon, poisoned blade aimed straight for his chest. At the same time, the Reviled conjured up a spell. The blade met its mark at the precise moment the spell hit Jack.
You have been hit with a paralysis spell. You will remain immobile for 7 seconds.
He froze in place, cursing. His blade had only nicked the Reviled. He doubted it had impacted the creature’s health at all. And he, meanwhile, was stuck – losing fifteen hit points a second.
The demon swung his staff overhead, casting some sort of spell.
Nothing happened.
So he tried again, and again nothing happened. At which point he changed tactics, falling back on the tried and true method of battering his opponent upside the head. A few seconds in, he switched things up by jabbing a dagger into Jack’s ribs.
Jack’s hit points dropped precipitously. By time the last second of his paralysis wore off, he was down to eight points – less than he was about to lose in the next second.
In a panic, he paused and brought up his inventory. He swigged a healing potion, and then grabbed a few food items too. He didn’t know how much the healing potion would restore in the first second, and he didn’t want to take any chances. He figured whatever immediate boost the food would give him in combination with the potion should be enough.
Then, he returned to the game. He had three seconds before the Reviled could cast another spell. Three seconds to kill this bastard.
He moved like a turtle. But he moved with a vengeance. And the demon had gotten close to knife him. Now, that closeness worked to Jack’s advantage. He got two strikes in before the three seconds were up – one to the torso and one to the guts.
It wasn’t enough to kill the wizard, but it was enough to stun him – which bought Jack the time he needed to finish the job, with one last brutal jab to the chest.
The Reviled went down.
Jack glanced around and saw with a measure of relief that they’d dispatched the full party. There were more just beyond the next house, of course. But for now, at least, he could breathe.
He set to work scouring the fallen – in part, because he wasn’t eager to rush right back into combat. Not with active health drains and restrictions still in place. And in part because he hoped he might find something useful. He’d come dangerously close to dying, and his luck might not hold up next time.
He scavenged a few healing potions, some gold, and some pricey enchanted items. But the real treasure was one he pulled from the gray finger of one of the tattooed Revileds: a ring of warding. It did exactly one thing:
+ 75% chance of resisting magical attacks
Jack cackled and slipped it onto his hand.
<
br /> Varr shivered. “Not sure I could wear something that came from one of them.”
Jack, though, didn’t care where it came from. Not if it meant he survived. He told the dwarf as much and earned a skeptical glance in return.
“Well, shall we move out, then? There’s more of these blighters to kill.”
He waited until all the magical effects wore off. Then, he nodded. “Let’s give ‘em heck, Varr.”
And they did. Charging out, the force of one man, twenty-four dwarves, and two goblins – when they popped their heads out of hiding – cut through the unsuspecting mages. Not that it was an easy fight. Every fourth spell seemed to break through Jack’s protective magic, and the dwarves had none at all. They lost four of Varr’s party within the first five minutes, and another six before the last of the enemies had been dispatched.
But then it was done: the line of mages and archers fell. Jack and Varr set upon the invasion force from the rear, and the sight of their captain of the guard returning from the dead rallied the dwarven forces. They swarmed the demon horde from all sides. Civilians joined the fight – men, women and children, defending their homes.
The battle raged long and hard, but decisively. The demons started to fall back, fleeing toward the shattered gates.
“The day is ours,” Varr shouted triumphantly. “The day is ours, Jack – and it’s all thanks to you.”
Jack hollered and dove for the nearest Reviled, trading blows with a bloodthirsty gusto. This was cleanup. This was the last step, and then he’d be on his way – one step closer to killing Iaxiabor, and getting out of the game.
He cut through demon after demon, his XP climbing in leaps and bounds. The last stragglers ran for refuge, with most being cut down before they could escape.
Jack surveyed the field, panting a little. Bodies littered every street. Buildings burned and smoldered all around. But the demon horde had been vanquished.
