The Bathrobe Knight (42 page)

“We’re lucky then,” Valerie declared without hesitation, “. . . the cookie monster is a vegetarian now.”

“Really?” Mclean said surprised. “How can anyone give up chocolate chip cookies?”

Daniel frowned, “Probably the same way I did. Gotta make sure I don’t gain any weight.”

Valerie ignored the rest of the banter between the two: chocolate chip cookies weren’t important right now. There would be plenty of time to discuss them in the future, but right now the battle unfolding below didn’t look to be in their favor, and the right opportunity to strike likely wouldn’t last more than a moment.

She watched to the west of her as White-Wings were running into and clashing with Black-Wings. They hit each other hard, using Knives and Daggers to cut off wings and Arrows to shoot each other in the chest. As fast as they were hitting each other, they were dying one after another as blades and arrowheads dug through their flimsy Armor. Below them, White-Wings were diving by the scores in a near suicidal effort to land on and crush the opposition. Some were successful, instantly killing their targets, while others were unlucky, finding that the Axes, Shields and Swords of the Humans and Minotaurs proved far sturdier than the glass blades of the Fire-Walker heretics.

“Ummm . . .” Daniel said pointing to something Valerie had failed to notice. “What’s that?”

Mclean and Valerie looked to where Daniel was pointing. Below the glass ships on the north-most flank of the army was something definitely out of the ordinary.

“Is that a wave?” Valerie asked, not being able to make out what it was. It definitely looked like a wave, but waves were supposed to move to and from the shore, not to and from the players.

“No, I think that’s what we were hoping for. I think it’s our ‘surprise,’”  Mclean said. “It’s not a wave--it’s a small army!”

“That’s . . . that’s not a player army . . . that’s a monster army! Look!” Daniel said, loud enough to make other White-Wings passing them from below take notice too.

Whatever was moving under the waters to make the effect of a wave broke the surface to reveal a small forty- or fifty-man force of wolves with red eyes, turtle shells and Spears popping out of the water. Each one was equipped with a small helmet made of ice that they shattered themselves as they broke the surface.
Were those air bubbles to keep them breathing under water?
Valerie thought as she watched the spectacle of rising, shell-wearing werewolves, who seemed to be commanded by a very small group of regular Humans directly behind them. That wasn’t the scariest part though: that was the creature in the middle. As it rose in the water and its top broke the surface, it sent a wave strong enough to almost knock the shell-armored wolves around it off their feet. It was a giant, seven-headed Hydra with black armor and red eyes, and on it’s back was a beautiful, brown-haired woman in a white Dress holding a blue Staff.

For a moment she was awestruck. She couldn’t take her eyes off the scene. The woman, as soon as she got above the surface and broke her ice bubble, slammed her Staff with both hands onto the back of the black-scaled Hydra, and white snowball-looking things began to shoot out in a stream at every nearby White-Wing. It was a fatal spray of snowballs that made it look like Olaf finally got his summer holiday on the beach. Each snowball was fast and precise, ripping a White-Wing out of the sky as they instantly froze the wings of their victims. The Hydra wasn’t for play either. It was ripping apart every White-Wing that tried to dive at the girl using its seven massive jaws.

Is that a player? Is that a Boss? Is this an event that no one knew about that the game masters planned to stop a noob island from being conquered?
Valerie began to ask herself as she watched in wonder. She couldn’t take her eyes off the Turtle-Wolves that lunged and cleared the way for the Hydra, pressing and pushing the White-Wings on the ground into a slanted line with the north-most part the furthest east.
They are breaking the push. There aren’t more than forty of them and they are breaking the push! If we help them out, then we can definitely win!

“What the . . .” Daniel started to say before Mclean interrupted him.

“Is that guy wearing a bathrobe?!” she yelled, pointing to a man that Valerie had somehow failed to notice.

Valerie rubbed her eyes. Sure enough, at the furthest part penetrating the White-Wing line was a man in a Bathrobe wielding two Swords. He was moving like a miniature tornado as he ripped his Swords in and out of everything in arm’s reach.

Umm, guys, I don’t think the Bathrobe he is wearing is our problem. I think we have much bigger issues,” Daniel said, managing to finish his sentence. “Do you see what I am seeing?”

“No, what is . . . oh,” Valerie was about to ask what he saw, but she noticed it as soon as she knew to look for something.

Everything he stabbed either vanished like a player normally does or got up, howled and took off in the air to kill other White-Wings. It was a White-Wing on White-Wing fight going on just above his head as the number of converted White-Wings kept growing. First there were ten, then twenty, then thirty and forty. At this rate, the small group of forty or fifty turtle-armored wolf men would be the least of the White-Wings’ problems--it would be the rapidly growing army of undead traitors, Zombie White-Wings that seemed to be far better at fighting in their second life than they were in their first.

“That’s just not fair,” Daniel muttered, watching the carnage. “Forget that cool Bathrobe, how the Hell did she get a hydra to ride? Hell, I’d settle for a pink version of the mount if it was that cool.”

“Guys, that force, that force is our key to victory,” Valerie announced. “That force is how we’re going to stop these lunatics.”

“You’re right, but how do we make sure they don’t kill us in the process though? How do the reanimated ones tell the difference between friend and foe?” Daniel asked.

“It’s the eyes. The risen ones all have glowing red eyes!” Valerie said, her face turning as red from the excitement as the eyes she was talking about. “If we can just start taking out the ones without red eyes, they red-eyed ones might see us as friendly or at the very least not attack us while we help them.”

“That’s an awfully big maybe,” Mclean said, pulling out her Daggers again. She might have said one thing, but her actions let Valerie know she was already onboard.

“Yeah, we might not make it out of this one alive,” Daniel said, also pulling out his blades. “Shall we play this just like the Fire-Walker dungeon?”

“No one won a war without taking chances,” Valerie said. “It may be mostly like the Fire-Walker dungeon, but the big difference is this time we’re going to win the war, save the people and come out alive,” she said as she closed her wings and leaned in to dive ahead and join the fray where the Bathrobe Knight was fighting. She didn’t care if he took her on his team. Tim was going to get his vengeance and no one else was going to go through what they did. That was enough.

It’s all or nothing, again, and I’ll be damned if I die twice!
she thought, cutting the wings off the first White-Wing she came across in her dive.

“What are you do--” the White-Wing next to her victim started to ask before Valerie’s Dagger found it’s way right into his throat. She flapped her wings as hard as she could, reaching him, ripping out the weapon and quickly landing on another unsuspecting victim’s back, both her Dagger’s firmly driven into the base of his wings.

“Don’t die too quickly," she whispered into his ear before dragging the blades downward and pulling his wings off. Valerie propelled herself up off of his back, leaving him screaming in both terror and pain as he plummeted through the sky towards his inevitable death.

Two White-Wings who saw the whole thing started to dive at Valerie, but she was ready. She flew upwards to meet them, and right before the impact, she used her wings to force herself to the side. As they shot past her, Valerie thrust out her daggers and used her enemies’ momentum to split open their ribs. Her next victim, just like the last one whose back she landed on, didn’t even see her coming as she put her Dagger right into his spine.
Don’t be upset. This is what you blind zealots did to Tim. A Dagger in the back from the people he trusted . . . it should be old hat for you by now.

Kass
:

Kass did her best to channel her spells, firing more snowballs per minute than she had ever managed to before. It was probably because, for once, she didn’t have to constantly run after Darwin. She got to sit still happily on a giant Hydra that stopped her from even worrying about having to walk.
The snowballs are fast, the enemies are weak and the mount is awesome,
she thought, watching as her spells carved destruction into the feathery foes’ wings.
Video game life just doesn’t get better than this.

It was mostly Darwin’s idea. He said that he often used roots and the terrain to kite and beat bosses that couldn’t be straight tanked back on his old video games. He learned quickly that for melee classes, which he is now, range and terrain are a significant disadvantage that flying-type mobs can easily leverage. Unfortunately, fliers who would try to leverage it against him would find out that root and stun Classes were their worst nightmare. While in the old MMO, it wouldn’t cause them to fall to their death, it would stamina leech them. He guessed that the same principle could be easily applied again.

Unfortunately, since Kass was the only one who could cast a spell with any significant range, it meant that the second the fight started, she wouldn’t only need to pick up the slack for everyone, she’d be the center of attention for any non-friendly party in a fifty-meter radius. That’s why Darwin had given her the Hydra for the battle--because even if she was the center of attention, the Hydra had seven heads, Frost Step for faster movement, Frost Edge for more Damage, and the boosts from her items and Darwin’s red eyes. It was, by itself, a fully buffed Boss mob guarding her, and all she had to do was stop one of the other high level players from taking it out while she rode comfortably.

In front of her, Darwin was leading the charge and zombifying everything he could. The plan was simple--flank them--but the complicated part was how to build a wall that would grow perpetually bigger. So long as everything was focused on her and her Hydra, Darwin would be able to start amassing an army before anyone noticed what he was doing. The plan was simple, and it was working.

Kass looked at Darwin, dancing through the enemies with a bloodthirst that made her grimace.
Darwin, you don’t have to do this,
she thought as she watched his back.
I know you’re not a normal player. I can’t get it out of my head that there is a good chance if you die here, you die for good. Why do you risk so much for these people? We could have just taken our time,
she thought. It hadn’t been until the Hydra fight that she ever worried about him dying, but when she did, she couldn’t help but remember the paper she found him writing in the bar. It all added up, and it was impossible to ignore no matter how much she tried. He was always on; he never slept. He didn’t log in or out like other players: he was always in the game, twenty-four/seven. The only creatures that could maintain that kind of schedule are NPCs, but he wasn’t one of those either. Something was off about him, and she would need to talk to her dad to figure it out. The only problem was, she wasn’t sure if her dad would help Darwin or help ‘solve’ Darwin.
Stop it, Kass, get your head back in the fight,
she had to tell herself as her thoughts wondered to Darwin. Granted, that’s where they were more often than not lately--on Darwin.

“Lady Kass, your buffer zone is big enough, and Darwin reports that he has enough White-Wing red eyes to hold the line temporarily. It’s time for us to enact phase two. Bring them down,” Alex said as he appeared on the Hydra next to her. After finishing his message he threw the Spear he was holding into a White-Wing twenty meters away from them and vanished. Only a moment later did Kass see him standing atop the dead White-Wing pulling his Spear out.

I swear, that boy is more of a magician than I am,
Kass thought, always annoyed that Alex could sneak up on her so well.
If the Stormguard Alliance ever gets rich, it’s going to lose all of its money treating heart attacks that he will cause startling people.

Kass calmed her nerves, stopped the snowball shooting gallery, closed her eyes and began channeling something new. It was her first time casting the spell in what felt like forever, but it felt like the spell was programed for just this moment.
‘Winter is Coming,’ don’t fail me now!
she thought as she started summoning the ice chains from the ground beneath the waters. One after another they started shooting out of the water and into the air, shackling the flying White-Wings. As she kept channeling the spell, more and more chains began shooting up at a time. After only holding the channeling process open for two minutes, the chains were already starting to shoot up over a dozen at a time.