The Dragon's Wrath: Ashes of the Fallen (8 page)

Taking advantage of the situation, I quickly jumped to my left as I changed my angle of approach and swiped my axe at the fazed mage who was largely unhurt but unable to cast anything.

He raised his hands in a vain attempt to defend himself as I easily chopped through his forearms, causing him to scream in terror. The fright of pure horror displayed on his face reflected in my eyes as I readied another swing, and right as I was about to bring my axe down on his exposed neck, an instant cast flame hit me in the side of my chest causing me to jerk to the right.

"Ah fuck!" I cursed under my breath as I lost my aim on the man in front of me.

Grimacing and attempting to ignore the smell of burnt flesh, I shook my head and quickly looked to the mage I was previously attacking.

Throwing my shield out at the mage that had hit me, it knocked him back and forced him to retreat another step in fear.

The wounded mage that I had failed to kill was now running away with his severed arm lying on the floor. With his back exposed to me, I took my one-handed axe and threw it with all of my might as it flew through the air and lodged itself deeply in the man's spine. As the one-armed man collapsed on the ground, I switched my attention to the other mage that had turned tail as I stood my ground and gathered electricity in my hands once more.

"Through power, darkness turns to light, render all to ash," I muttered as I traced out the path that the man was taking. He could only run so far as the room ended a few paces away. It wasn't long before he found himself stuck at the tunnel that led to the next room of goblins; they were trapped. He stopped, as the archer had stopped, when they realized that I had been standing between them and the dungeon exit.

I had all the time in the world now.

They didn't notice it before the fight, but I had circled around the party for this specific reason. When they would undoubtedly attempt to flee, they would run away from me rather than through me. Thus, I positioned myself between the exit.

While they were busy insulting me, I was carrying out my plans.

Now, they were forced to die by my hands or by the goblin's hands.

Realizing the futility of their situation, they both turned and raised their arms in one last act of defiance. The mage began to cast another fireball, while the archer drew back his bow to fire once again.

I silenced them.

"Lightning bolt," I whispered as I let the overcharged ball of electricity fly out of my hands. In the blink of an eye, it completely traversed the forty feet between us as the dazzling array of light pierced through the ashen air.

The mage couldn't even hope to dodge the lightning as it hit him, nearly too fast to track with your eyes let alone time enough to react and dodge. With a violent explosion of discharging energy and tails of electricity floating about, the man collapsed to his knees as he was paralyzed and couldn't move.

His resistance was high though, and he began to fight it and started to stand earlier than expected, but an arrow found itself lodged in the center of his forehead as he slumped to the ground. I rotated slightly and put an arrow into the other mage that was still barely alive while lying prone on the ground, with an axe sticking out of his back and his left arm missing at the elbow.

Now, there was only one man left.

I continued to pace toward the archer who was afraid for his life, panic finally settling in. He turned and ran through that narrow passageway that led to the second group of goblins, too afraid of me in the moment to realize an escape was impossible.

I took my time, picking up my shield and axe, and ensuring that the dead were in fact dead. I looted their bodies of the coin they dropped, the five-percent that was available after a player was killed by another player. It didn't amount to much, but I did get almost two silver… the healer had quite a large purse it seemed.

Keeping my shield raised, I entered that dark passageway with a loud trudge, as I did my best to torment the man on the other side.

I began to knock my axe-head against the wall, with a
clink
every other step.

Then, I started to tap the shield against the wall on the other side, giving off a dull
thud
in conjunction, and alternating with the sound of the axe.

Clink
,
thud
,
clink
,
thud
,
clink
,
thud
.

I was drumming up noise, just for him.

And then, the end of the tunnel came and light could be seen from the other room a little ways ahead. The outline of my body slowly appearing to the man caught between a group of goblins and the axe-man out for blood. An arrow was fired, but it fell harmlessly into the rock wall. Another came, but landed in my shield.

Then, a voice followed.

"Uh-h hey, you know we were just kidding right?" said the archer. "We were just trolling you know, we didn't mean any of it, it was just for fun. Just a joke, don't take it personally."

I stopped outside of the passageway and set my shield and axe down.

"Ah you get it, yeah?" the archer said, laughing nervously.

Of course, it was all a lie.

I could see him grasping for an arrow but he had run empty.

He had shot all of his arrows during the two fights and didn't have any time to collect them since he was too busy running his mouth, now he was unarmed and helpless. Now, he wanted to buy time, maybe even lie his way out of the situation. He didn't apologize, of course, it was "just a joke."

Drawing my bow, I released a shot into his shoulder.

"AHH WHAT THE FUCK MAN!" he screamed at me.

His face told me all I needed to know; he wasn't used to pain.

I drew the string back once more, lining up my elbow and bringing my right thumb near my face. Aiming at his ribs, I inhaled and as my chest rose, I let the sinew-string slip off my finger-tips as a
thwack
could be heard.

A
thud
followed, as the man in front of me cried out and screamed profanities at me once more. The arrow lodged solidly in his ribs, and he was now grasping both spots as he hesitated to move. He was panicking, but he couldn't go anywhere.

I let another arrow fly, this time into his thigh.

He collapsed to the ground, writhing and screaming bloody murder.

Now, he tried to crawl away from me.

So, I put an arrow into his back as he yelped once more.

Well, he had hit me with his arrows, five times, in the same spots. The only thing left was the neck, which would be the finishing blow. I had no reason to go easy on the guy, but I figured I had tortured him enough. I wasn't even sure if we were allowed to do this in the game, it was possible I could be reported for slowly inflicting pain on a player.

Of course, there were pain settings though.

Mine were at the maximum allowable pain-threshold, since it was tied into the Ultra-Realism program. He probably had his somewhere around the middle, in order to brag that he was tough. It didn't really matter though, even at the lowest pain setting, it still hurt to get shot and stabbed. The whole point was to represent a virtual reality anyhow, a pain free game wouldn't make much sense.

The developers wanted people to experience reality.

Most people were somewhat oblivious to the extremes of the world, anyhow.

I nocked my final arrow and steadily drew the bow back, then released with an elegance befitting an archer. As I watched the arrow sail through the ash filled air and straight through the man's neck, a pleasure washed over me, both from the satisfaction of a well-placed arrow and the knowledge that the fight was over.

A clean hit, and the man was now in a critical state with only seven-percent of his health remaining. He would bleed out in fourteen seconds unless he was healed to over twenty-percent. There were no heals here though.

I walked over to the man and crouched down beside him, whispering to him.

"You might want to practice your archery before joining another group. Also, if I ever see you or your buddies in the North, I will kill you without a moment's hesitation. Consider yourselves lucky, I'm only going to kill you once today."

Having finished saying what I wanted, I stood up as he stared at me with rage-filled eyes. He wanted to say something, but his vocal chords were damaged by the arrow sticking through them as blood poured out of his neck.

"Enjoy the death, punk," I said as he finally died.

Grabbing the coins he dropped, my total loot amounted to nearly three silver plus the drops from the five goblins I basically killed by myself. It wasn't much, but five trash swords added up to at least fifty copper coins.

I wasn't going to argue with free money after all.

Heading out through the dungeon portal, I quickly found myself amongst a crowd of players on the other side, staring at me, eyes filled with intent. And then it clicked, my name was red. I had killed four players in PvP and was branded a player killer.

I was free game right now for all of these players to kill with impunity.

"Eh, quite the crowd today," I muttered to myself as I met the eyes of the players in the crowd. I was free experience and money, to all of these players.

I watched as a few started to grasp at their weapons, preparing to attack me.

It was a dire situation, since there was no way I could take more than a couple people out in the open… not yet, not with such limited skills and weaponry.

Like a standoff between duelists, I matched the gaze of the select few people who were preparing to attack me as the other bystanders stepped back to get out of the way. It was one versus eight in this situation and I was most definitely the prey. No one wanted to make the first move, in case they were somehow cut down which gave me a bit of time to think over a possible strategy. The only thing they knew, was that I came out of a dungeon with a red name alone, without anyone else behind me.

That meant four were potentially dead.

The lack of information played in my favor, since they didn't know how strong I was.

"Oi, what kinda hell 'ave ye gotten yerself into this time Sigurd!" yelled a man from the distance, cutting through the tension like a sharpened knife through soft flesh.

I nearly coughed as I let out a small guffaw, then chuckled at the dwarf in the distance. A familiar face appeared right when I needed one, and none other than that little dwarf Barik Grimsson.

He waved at me and came over with a bellow, "so, what did ye do this time?"

That Aussie, he had great timing.

The other players backed off slightly as if they weren't sure if they should attack or not. A fight between unknown numbers scared people, especially in a large open space. Barik walked right up to me and stood in front of me, fully aware of the eyes that were watching our every move but without a care in the world.

"Well, funny seeing you here Barik," I greeted as I shook his hand.

Letting out another laugh, I couldn't believe the turn of luck that just saved me some money and experience. An unbelievable coincidence, but I would take it. With a bit of a grin I figured it wouldn't hurt to briefly explain the situation.

"Unfortunately, I had to teach a few young upstarts a lesson in manners."

"You don't say, well good on ya," he replied with a pat on my shoulder.

"You guys hitting the fourth?" I asked seriously, and loudly enough for the others in the vicinity to hear. There were a few people still eyeing us with their weapons held loosely at their sides, so I wanted to put a little fear into them.

"Gonna give it a burl, see how far we take it," he said with a lackadaisical attitude while looking around at the strangers surrounding us. "Got five, you locked for a bit?"

"Yeah, about an hour anyways, maybe another time," I said with a shrug.

It couldn't be helped, he wasn't online when I started nearly twenty minutes ago and he was most likely with his guild. New parties were always coming and going here anyhow, so if I wanted to return with another group it wouldn't be an issue. I mainly just needed to escape unscathed while the people here were distracted.

"Oh, what do we have here, sweet child of mine," I said playfully as my ex-party members had appeared outside the portal. It had been fifteen minutes now, and they must have resurrected right after their death timer expired. The two casters saw me and one instantly sprinted off into the forest as the other threw up his hands.

"Don't kill me, please!" he begged shamelessly. He was the one that didn't say anything and only nodded, the one that was chased by the goblins. I found him the least bothersome, so I let him go.

"Get going then," I said plainly as I tossed my hand over my shoulder and pointed behind me with a thumb. "I've got no further business with you."

There was a hint of fear in the man's eyes, though to call him a man was somewhat misleading. They were definitely kids, late teens or early twenties at the most. Young adults, by all accounts, really. Though it was a bit strange to think about, the fear of dying to another player actually made sense in this virtual reality.