The MMRPG Apocalypse

I had underestimated Lazemus, clearly. The fact these guards were driving the cart Lucas had prepared meant his information gathering was beyond what we had realized. The danger level he represented went up in my mind at this moment as well. We were dancing in the palm of his hand.

“How far is it?” Anna whispered to Lucas, whom clearly had no idea.

“Excuse me, how far is the journey?” he called forward as a proxy in her place.

The guard on the right side of the seat turned his head and shouted through the clattering sounds of iron-bound wheel on cobbles, “About ten minutes due east.” He turned forward again. Neither of them had any interest in small talk, or even us for that matter.

This was to be a shorter journey than expected, which was a pleasant surprise. My entire body was being rattled as if in a washing machine, and the ache in my backside was growing steadily. Hopefully, a few gnoll bodies would weigh the cart down and stop some of this incessant shaking.

We had discussed our tactics already, and had a contingent plan in place—mainly for how to capture gnolls and bring them back alive. First, though, we needed to confirm the difficulty of the encounter. The guards, too, might play a factor, but looking at their indifferent demeanor I expected they would have nothing to do with the combat.

The cart came to a stop after a dozen minutes of horrible rocking, “This is as close as we can bring you. The gnoll camp is through the trees east of here. The horses and carts will go no further, but I will accompany you,” the guard who had spoken to Lucas got off the cart. Presumably, the other would watch our transportation.

I accepted this statement without any objection. The forest was no place to bring a cart and horses. Moreover, even if we could have found a path wide enough, the gnolls weren’t without intelligence, and anything to hinder us was on the menu, and that included killing our horses if they came across them.

The cart wasn’t exactly the cleanest, and I found myself brushing off straw and chaff immediately after hopping out. Just east was a daunting forest, and the sun didn’t fully penetrate to the forest floor. It was dark and uninviting, but we needed to move forward. I reminded myself that getting paid for this work was our best bet at acquiring new gear.

Jessica led the front and our guard stayed at the back. His indifferent demeanor vanished as we entered the forest, replaced by a look of caution, anxiety even. There was no road, and I suspected this was the most likely reason the cart had stopped where it had.

The sound of the guard’s armor clanked behind me constantly as he checked every direction. His head was on a pivot, and although he tried to look confident whenever he caught my eye, he failed. I couldn’t help but take a few steps back, “We have someone who can track, nothing should be sneak attacking us,” I told him. He gave a stern nod, but didn’t make any change to his behavior. I smiled to myself and then moved back into my position in the center of our own party.

Jessica stopped suddenly and raised a hand before looking back at us. “Dozens of enemies just ahead,” she came back and whispered. We grouped together around her and peered through the dense foliage, barely able to make out the encampment ahead.

There were dozens of gnoll warriors and just few shamans. It was clear getting a large harvest wouldn’t be so easy, and this was probably why the gold offered was so generous. Jessica then pointed out the gnoll scouts that were perched in trees around the area, each held a heavy bow with long arrows that would pin a man to the ground.

We had discussed our plans ahead of time, and on the assumption there would be guards around the outskirts of the camp, determined they would be the first and best targets. I used Vast Shadows and went to pull my horde of undead out: the abominations, however, didn’t appear. I had never experienced this phenomenon before. Was there a time limit on them? They had been my reincarnations for quite some time, and they’d never failed to appear.

I shook off the dismay and told myself it was for the best, as even in this densely packed woodlands the large abominations would stand out like a sore thumb. Staying lowkey was the best way to stay safe, not just for us, but also the guard behind us.

If push came to shove, I was confident we could get out unscathed, especially given how we had an unthreatened line of retreat. Nothing could keep us here if we wanted to leave, except perhaps a boss with unexpected powers.

We activated protocol and moved forward slowly as a group in formation. The plan for these scouts was to approach as carefully as possible, and then see if Anna and Jessica could dispatch them in an instant with Anna’s glacial spells and Jessica’s Godless Arrow. It all depended if these gnolls were any tougher than those outside this dungeon. If they were the same, they could be taken down by the ranged attacks. We opted as a group to leave Maria’s attack out of it, as her explosive arrow would cause too much destruction and noise.

According to Jessica, there were three scouts, and the closest was just fifty or sixty yards away. The gnoll scout’s relaxed body language told us they didn’t get many visitors, and their scouting was almost a formality. In fact, this first scout may have just been completely asleep.

There was no reaction from our enemy when we were just thirty yards away from him, which was amazing news for us. Jessica stood next to Anna and allowed her to begin the process of attack. Her Godless Arrow materialized, which meant it could reach the target in an instant, and as of now we had seen nothing that could counter it. The name Godless Arrow was extremely fitting for the ability, and it matched its high coin cost from the secret shop.

An ice spear whistled through the air a moment later and landed directly on the neck of the gnoll. Its eyes opened in fear and no voice could escape its already mangled and destroyed throat. The confusion lasted merely a moment before its face exploded into a mess of gore from Godless Arrow and the body fell to the forest floor with a thud.

The guard behind us finally stopped rattling and I couldn’t help but look back and see the shock in his eyes. We must have been much stronger than he was expecting, and his expression changed immediately to one of respect.

This reaction was odd, because he didn’t show the same admiration when I summoned my army of undead, which I felt was particularly intimidating. I guessed seeing was believing. “The next is around eighty yards away, opposite side,” Jessica whispered and slowly led the way.

As I had done no damage, reincarnating the gnoll was out of the question, which was unfortunate. I did have an idea I thought might be interesting, something I’d not considered until part of my undead squad didn’t appear from Vast Shadows.

We moved like assassins as we rotated around the small camp. Jessica checked the gnoll scout for loot as we stepped over the lifeless corpse. I tried to reincarnate it out of sheer determination, but received an unwelcome message:

Skill has failed.

It was expected, though.

The second scout was dispatched as easily as the first, and we moved towards the third, which was surprisingly far away. It seemed this camp was less like a circle and more oblong-shaped. I didn’t mind, it just meant that many more enemies to dispatch and more gold to gain.

Some of the unease of our guard escort subsided, and the noise of his turning head disappeared completely. Our abilities had bolstered his confidence, surely? Especially when the third scout was dispatched as easily as the first two. We had infiltrated the camp with great success.

Given the shape of the encampment, we determined that this far end of the oblong was the best location to begin. Not only was the area of the camp before us less concentrated with gnolls than at the other end, but the forest here was less open, our likelihood of being outflanked or swarmed was low. As I studied the gnolls in the camp it seemed from the ones moving around that the mobs weren’t tethered or in groups, which meant pulling single mobs was probably possible.

The question was: how to pull them? Similar to before, we didn’t know how these enemies would react to our presence. Pulling one might mean pulling fifty, and continuing to sneak attack them would only get us so far.

“Let’s lure them out with some noise.” Mark suggested after a back and forth discussion. Alan wanted to rush right in, and Maria was all for picking them off one at a time from a distance. The reality was though, we needed to separate the shaman from the camp and other gnolls.

“What about a fire?” Thomas asked. It was another good idea, but could also backfire. If the flames drove the shaman away from us, chasing them down would prove difficult in the smoke. Despite how strong we were, I doubted we could handle heavy smoke inhalation and fire.

“Let’s just go with the noise making and see what happens,” I proposed before turning to Maria. She had a skill that literally exploded with a bang. It wasn’t so loud as to alert the whole camp, but all the gnolls within a good twenty or thirty feet would hear it clearly and perhaps come look out of curiosity. From there we could start a manageable fight.

“What are you looking at me for?” she asked, evidently feeling nervous. That just got everyone to look at Maria and Alan even took a step towards her, which turned her face ugly. “I’m not being bait no matter what anyone says! I WON’T DO IT.” She put her foot down, which got a laugh out of everyone.

“Relax, we just want you to use Explosive Arrow,” Jessica assured her.

“Oh…, okay.” Her face went from fiery to embarrassed in a moment. I was amazed at how fast she could switch gears. Alan was in for it, no doubt.

We moved a good thirty feet away from the edge of camp and concealed ourselves well. Alan was crouched on one knee with Richard just beside him. My undead soldiers had been spread around the woods to our left and right, their job was to catch any runners and encircle our enemies once they came close enough.

Our teamwork was phenomenal and everything was put into place. Maria nocked an arrow and then let it loose. The fiery arrow distorted the air from its heat before landing on the trunk of a tree that reminded me of an oak.

The arrow exploded with a bang but the fire was extinguished immediately. I stared at the impact in surprise, as the tree had not the slightest bit of damage, nor was there even a scorch mark. It seemed that burning this forest would have proved difficult if we tried.

Still, the noise had been effective. I crouched even lower, and then the cackling came. First it was just once, and then as if contagious, dozens of cackling sounds echoed through the forest and disappeared, diffused in the dense foliage.