Chapter 18 - Innocent

Peter mounts his warg, waiting for me to charge off into battle. We follow the quest marker to the no-man's land, the same region where we crossed into human territory to do the goblin quest. I start to wonder which orc on the battlefield full of them is our quest giver, my thinking arrested by an orc astride the biggest warg I've ever seen.

Woghuglat. Fourth Son of Honorlord Mergigoth Dragonslayer. Level ??

“Why do all of his son’s names start with a W?” I lean over to ask Peter

“I think it’s so the Honorlord can just shout any one of their names, and all of them will come.” he says. “Like, Warblegarble! Come here!” he jokes, holding his lower lip with both index fingers to mimic orc speech. I laugh.

“That makes sense.” I admit. We ride up to the son, meeting his scornful gaze with cheerful, eager faces.

“More lambs to the slaughter” a voice like rolling thunder erupts from Woghuglat. If orc supremacy was measured by base, this guy would be the Honorlord instead. I shiver.

“Reporting for duty, sir.” Peter says, jumping into action.

“Join the forward line” Woghuglat tells us, his attention somewhere else. I follow Peter, assuming he already knows where we’re going.

“How do you know the monster team quests so well if your other character is a human?” I ask Peter casually. He goes ram-rod stiff.

“I watched Thunderspank’s leveling stream when he made a new character” He says, red in the face.

“I see. What class was his new character?” I ask, simply curious. Peter answers me under his breath. “What was that?”

“A succubus.” Peter whispers

“That’s something you can play?” I laugh out loud at the idea. “That big tough minotaur has a hot demon babe character?” I laugh even louder

“Yeah.” Peter says, still blushing hard. “She is”

“Oh?” I smirk.

“Game recognizes game” Peter states, shrugging. We reach the front line, composed solely of non-orc species. That’s rough, buddy.

“Why didn’t he make an incubus?” I ask, waiting for whatever happens next.

“A what?” Peter asks

“A male succubus. An incubus." I repeat myself.

“Huh. That’s a good question.” he nods at an orc riding along the front line, shouting something or other. “That might say something about him. Most guys will say they would rather stare at a female character’s ass while playing games, but that always seemed suspect to me. You can’t even play from third person in his game, anyways. Maybe they just look straight down while they’re playing? Seems dysphoric.”

“Brothers in arms! Today, we retake our lands from the human scavengers! All land belongs to the orcs, this land most of all!” the orc tells us as loudly as he can manage. “Take no prisoners, spare no innocents! When their homeland burns to ashes, ours will rise from them!” the orcs behind us cheer, the cyclops, minotaur, beastmen, and goblins of the front line don’t. Their grim expressions tell me even if they live through today, tomorrow will be just as bad under orcish rule. “Charge!”

We do, crossing the battlefield on our wargs, ready to jump into combat at a moment's notice. I spot the enemy forces, a mixture of elves, dwarves, and halflings, backed by a host of humans. A reflection of our own army. Are those non-human species as glum as our non-orcs? While we charge, fireballs rain from the sky like artillery, along with arrows. I feel the heat of some impacts that are too close for comfort, and catch an arrow or two on my shield. Peter dodges, the advantage of his agility build I suppose. The front lines collide as the ranged attacks continue pelting our respective backlines. Orcish archers and spellcasters return fire.

My first opponent is a dwarf with a huge two handed warhammer, he tries to sweep my legs, finding my thunderbolt in his way. I quickly lift the tip, wrenching the weapon from his gasp. Before he has the chance to recover, I push the spear through his abdomen. An elf takes his place, wildly swinging two shortswords at my face. A few slices get though, leaving shallow cuts, before I end her assault by decapitation.

“Wait a second,” I say to no one in particular. “why am I fighting fair?” I cast Wall of Swords, introducing barbed wire to this battlefield and catching a few enemies in it, then cast Tornado Edge, electrocuting dozens of groups as I will the thundercloud across the battlefield. When that spell ends, I fire up Circular Saw, sending the blade sweeping across the enemy forces at chest height for the elves and neck height for the dwarves and halflings. Next comes Split Sword, an angry swarm of little thunder bolts flying through the army like hornets, stinging deadly electricity into them. The field is all but deserted of non-human enemies, I charge forward, preparing to go Thunder God on their asses.

“ᚱᛖᛏᚱᛠᛏ!” A human mounted on a decorated horse shouts. The humans fall into full retreat, abandoning their non-human allies. Sympathetic but undeterred, I use my temporary spells to make quick work of the remaining forces. As the dust settles over the empty battlefield, a dungeon portal archway appears on the enemy side. Players stand around it, none of them or it having been there moments before.

“The battlefield is like a dungeon, we phase out of the outside world while we’re doing the quest.” Peter tells me, noticing my confused face.

“Ah.” I say, walking over to Woghuglat to turn in our quest.

“The humans have retreated, but the battle is not over. Push into their territory, root out their remaining forces.” He commands us.

Uniting the Forces completed! Experience gained.

You’ve reached level 52!

Strength increased by 64%!

Agility increased by 64%!

Intelligence increased by 64%!

Finish the Fight Accepted.

Knight Captain Manard the Titan slain 0/1

“Nice” I comment.

“Let me find a few more people so we can do the dungeon” Peter says, making his way over to the dungeon arch. He speaks with the players congregating there. I suddenly miss needing no one's help clearing dungeons.

“We know what you did” Woghuglat says to me, now that we’re alone.

“What we did?” I ask, a thousand activities racing through my mind. Oh, he must mean killing his older brother. Oh, fuck. I swallow.

“The circumstances are obscured by the fae’s tricks and a lack of first-hand witnesses.” The son informs me. “They saw the five of you enter the Faewilds, only the two of you walked back out.” He nods to Peter. “Only one logical conclusion, traitor.”

“Makes sense from the outside, sure.” I begin speaking, maintaining eye contact. “But that’s what the fae do, right? Play tricks on your mind. Nobody really knows what happened in there, not even us.” I lie. Woghuglat grunts, turning away from me. I might have just bought Peter and I enough time to reach a high enough level to stand up to these bastards. I have to hope so.

Onetwothree has joined your group.

Twointhebush has joined your group.

Whatwhat has joined your group.

“Ay yo whuddup” a newcomer says in our voice chat.

“Not much.” Peter responds.

“You guys done this before?” a second new voice asks.

“I have” Peter tells him.

“What about the tank?” new person number two asks.

“I’ll help him along, don’t worry. let’s just have a little patience, huh? We were all new once.” Peter points out.

Whatwhat has left the group.

Peter sighs. He goes back to finding us a fifth group member. I make my way towards them, keeping an eye on Woghuglat as I go, making sure he doesn’t attack me from behind. He doesn’t move from his place on the battlefield.

Robotchicken joins the group.

“Alright let’s go” Peter says, not waiting for some other stupidity to occur. We all enter the archway, the loading screen overtaking my vision shows me an idyllic cottage in a lovely, tranquil forest, engulfed in flames. That does not ease my guilty heart.

“Leeeerooooooooy!” shouts someone. They charge forward, aggroing two groups, more humans than is reasonable. Peter groans, waving me forward. I cast Telekinetic Taunt set to area mode, redirecting the mobs to me. They wail on me for a few seconds, my health bouncing up and down as they try to kill me, but our healer keeps me alive. A third group of humans catches us out in the open as they patrol. With my taunt on cooldown, I cast Wall of Swords instead to slow them down. The group manages to kill all of them before they manage to kill us.1

“Let the Tank pull, please.” Peter requests. He points me in the right direction, through the sparse oak forest, towards the next group. I pull them, so this group goes down much smoother than the last three. There’s only one more pack of human fighters between us and the first boss, we deal with them in short order as well.

Sir Aalot the Prodigy. Level 51

“Anything special about this boss?” I ask.

“He’s immune to slash damage. That shouldn’t be a problem with your spear.” Peter informs me.

“Cool” I say. Peter nods, and I start the fight.

“Back, you beasts!” Sir Aalot shouts. Why can I understand him? Putting that question aside, I taunt him to make sure I don’t lose his attention as our three damage-dealing players beat his ass. He gets me good with a few sword slashes that I don’t manage to block, parry, or otherwise avoid. The healer keeps me topped off, thankfully.

“ᚻᚢᛗᚪᚾᚳᛁᚾᛞ ᚹᛁᛚᛚ ᛈᚱᛖᚠᚪᛁᛚ.” The knight says in his native language before dying. We loot him, one of the damage dealers other than Peter got a new pair of gloves. Good for them. The boss had been guarding the cottage I saw in the loading screen, a chill runs up my spine. The other members of our group grab torches from the sides of the road, lighting them with fire spells, then toss them overhand onto the cottage. It goes up instantly. A family of five humans run out of the burning building.

“ᛏᚪᚳᛖ ᚦᛖᛗ ᚪᚾᛞ ᚱᚢᚾ!” The father tells his eldest daughter. She grabs her two younger siblings by the hand, and runs. The father raises a pitchfork, the mother prepares a pathetic looking fire spell.

“Pull?” one of the damage dealers impatiently inquires.

“Do we have to kill them?” I ask

“Yes.” says Peter, definitively.

“Fucking hell” I say, reluctantly taunting them both. I unenthusiastically deal just enough damage to them to maintain their attention on me, letting the dedicated damage-dealers do most of the dirty work. The parents die quickly. We move on in the direction the children ran in, to my immense discomfort. I give Peter a questioning look.

“Not them.” He says, understanding my question without having to ask it. I nod, still deeply disturbed. We arrive at the village proper, an inn and church among scattered cottages. Groupings of knights stand at the ready, a solitary rider behind them.

Knight Captian Manard, the Titan. Level 52

“We will drive you from our home, beasts.” Manard announces. The first group of knights charge us, swords in hand. I do my thing, taunt, protect, hold them back. We repeat this two more times, leaving only the captain to deal with.

“Anything to worry about?” I ask Peter, staring down the boss.

“Every minute, he’ll charge away on his horse and joust at a random one of us. It’s something for the healer to worry about, not you. Just do what you normally would, and wait for him to stop running around.” Peter tells me.

“Understood.” I say. Taunting, the boss and I run at each other. He uses a sword and shield to swing and block, and I follow suit with my own spear and shield. We trade blows for a minute before he runs away, returning five times, once for every member of the group. The less hearty members lose half of their health when he strikes them, I only lose a quarter. We re-engage, slashes, stabs, blocks, parries, metal sparking off of our armaments. My spear rarely makes it past his defences. Another minute passes and the charging begins again.

Annoyed, I use Wall of Swords in his path. As he makes for Peter, his horse’s legs get caught up in the wall, it collapses into the points and sends the boss flying off.

“Woah!” Shouts Peter. Sensing an opportunity, the damage dealers and I start popping off with our hardest-hitting abilities, raining blows down on the boss’s prone form. Even the healer gets in on the action, our health steady with the boss down. He struggles to his feet, unable to stand on a leg that’s bent the wrong way. He dies, face down in the dirt.

“I have never seen him go down like that.” Peter says, sheathing his daggers.

“Me neither” says another group member.

“Gee Gees” says a different group member. All of them loot the boss, leave the party, and vanish from the dungeon one after another. I look around, spotting what I'm searching for. The surviving children hide inside of the chapel, watching out of the window. The youngest sobs openly, the eldest trying to shush him. The middle child stares daggers at me, likely wishing more than anything to drive a sword though my heart.

“I’m going to fucking kill the Honorlord and all of his brats for making me do this.” I grind out through gritted teeth.

“You’ll get your chance in another eighteen levels.” Peter tells me. “Loot anything good?” With his prompting, I loot the boss.

You’ve looted Knight Captain’s Pauldrons.

Knight Captain’s Pauldrons - Rare Shoulders - Requires Level 50 - Minimum Strength - Minimum Armor

“New shoulder pads” I report, equipping them. They’re shining silver, not matching my rough looking iron armor or my golden crown of leaves. I wish the bosses dropped levels instead of loot, what's with this meager experience gain?

“Nice.” Says Peter. He only loots a few silver.

“Now what?” I ask

“We turn in the quest to the Honorlord and he sends us to the dragon territories.” Peter informs me, using his Hertston.

“Dragons huh?” I comment, following his lead. He doesn’t immediately respond, waiting until both of us have teleported to the inn.

“Now that we’ve cleared a path through human territory, there’s a way to the Ganalam Highlands, where some of the dragons live. The Honorlord wants the dragon’s hoard there.” Peter says

“Well. That seems significantly less morally questionable than slaughtering innocent humans.” I say, turning to Peter. “What’s the catch?”

“The dragons come back with a vengeance later.” he says, shrugging.

“And there it is.” I say, shaking my head.

I nod to Bert, who nods back. We’ve seen each other so many times since I departed, but never in any meaningful way. I can’t believe so much has happened in less than a week. I hear Peter yawn while I’m distracted by my thoughts.

“It’s really late Earl, mind if I catch up with you tomorrow?” Peter asks.

“No problem at all, kid. you get some sleep.”

“Alright, catch you later.” he vanishes from where he’s standing next to the bar.

“Have some time for me to catch you up?” I ask Bert.

“Adventurers are welcome anytime at the inn.” Bert repeats a canned line. I sit at the bar and recount everything that’s happened since the last time I got the chance. I leave out some of the sensitive details that pertain to Peter and the Monitor. “Quite the tale.” Bert says flatly. I nod.

“Well, I guess I ought to see if there’s any new armor I could afford to craft. Catch you later.” I wave, moving to leave. Toebark is nowhere to be found, a frown spreading across my face as I realize why. Players killed him, and he’s yet to respawn. I walk out the front door, resolved to do something about his circumstances.