Silima wanted to go out and fight with Djin, but Leon had forbid it.
"That fucking idiot! He's too cocky Leon! Why the hell would you invite him into our guild?"
Hanazure spewed insults at Djin's back while Leon watched patiently. He hadn't know Djin for long, so he was curious as to how the man could have so much confidence in his actions. However, if Djin was indeed overconfident, it was going to take the three of them and as many as ten pawns just to hold off this wave. Leon was ready for an orc and maybe three goblins. The other orc would be the problem, none of the pawns would hold longer than two blows, Hanazure wouldn't last even one.
Silima would need to kite the orc until Hanazure and the pawns cleaned up the goblins. If the Field Marshal was here it wouldn't be a problem, he could command the pawns to act autonomously in combat. Hanazure would be commanding them about constantly just to keep them from being picked off. Monsters were quite vicious at exploiting bad orders.
The three of them watched as the assault closed in on Djin.
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Djin saw the orcs leading the charge, he tsked in annoyance. He'd have to make them hold back if he wanted his plan to work. He gathered roughly 500 mana Fireball in each hand, his palms glowing with power. He flung out one orb and struck the first orc, a giant explosion erupted but the orc barely looked phased, he let out a snarl and the goblins took lead in the charge.
Djin turned and started running back to the gate, he had set the activation area of each runeword wide enough, he just hoped it would cut their numbers down by at least half.
The lead goblin was sprinting at full speed, better to show maximum effort than to be beaten nearly to death by an orc later. He saw the puny human mage so close now, he wasn't scared of the magic either, the stupid human couldn't hit a fat orc then he couldn't hit a fast goblin.
His left foot hit the ground hard, then his right foot missed. Missed? The goblin looked down and saw the ground was now hundreds of feet away.
Djin looked as his runewords took effect, five goblins had fallen for the trap before the rest had slowed. A second runeword was nearby but the goblins stopped cold instead of moving towards it.
Featherweight trap, combining the runes for: Less, Weight, and Body. Less Weight was the effect while Body was the target. Touching the runeword would take a hundred pounds off the target's weight, a goblin didn't even weigh 90 pounds so, having become neutrally buoyant with the air, their next step pushed them far off the ground. Djin grinned as he released of the magic at once, five goblins fell to the earth at once from over a hundred feet up. Only one survived the fall, but he was in no shape to continue the fight.
Two orcs and three goblins continued forward, a slower pace but undeterred. They had seen Djin placing the runes earlier, they knew he had only placed them in a small area and once they got past that spot they could kill him. Djin had made it back to the campsite and Leon clapped him on the back.
"You're definitely going to be explaining what you did after this fight, good work."
Leon strode forward, he was flanked by seven pawns on his left and three on his right. Silima loosed an arrow at the orc to the rear and ran off to the north, the orc roared and gave chase after her. She'd have to stay close enough to the raid to have it not count as retreating but so long as she kept hitting him with the occasional arrow then she'd hold his aggro. Hanazure was in the guard tower, gesturing frantically as the pawns took up a position to box in the greenskins. RTS games did not seem to be her forte. A prompt appeared in front of him, indicating he should move to a position on the left flank behind the pawns. He nodded to himself and followed it, just as he reached his spot the orc and Leon first clashed.
Leon swung his large axes with reckless abandon against the orc, who was brandishing a large wooden shield and a club. There was no style or form to Leon's attacks, he swung from top to bottom, then from left to right. The orc, troubled at first, now fell into Leon's rhythm and started predicting the moves and getting in some blows of his own. The goblins thrust crude spears at the pawns, getting in little jabs while the pawns were frozen in place, unable to reach back with their short swords.
Djin facepalmed at the situation, he was starting to wonder what he had gotten himself into. He checked on Silima and she was doing decently, keeping a good forty feet away from the orc at all times, but she telegraphed her attacks too much and the orc was blocking most of them with his own shield. Djin moved out of position to get an angle on the goblins and orc from the left, getting around the pawns who stood as a guard between him and the fighting. The position indicator flashed red at him but he ignored it. As soon as he got around the side, the goblins changed positions and turned on him.
Djin shotgunned two Magic Barrages of twenty missiles each and the small bodies exploded, despite only a fraction of each spell connecting. That left just the orc and Leon... wait... five, six, seven...
One goblin was missing.
Djin heard Silima scream and he desperately looked for her. One goblin had managed to flank her from another direction and was wrestling with her legs, slowing her down. It would only be a few seconds before the orc was upon her. He couldn't save her, he was too far!
Djin sprinted to get close enough to cast, none of his magic would kill the goblin without hurting Silima though. Before he got more than fifty feet from the camp, a pile of slush and ice fell on Silima and the goblin. Ice Pile! Djin turned and saw Hanazure finishing her cast from the tower. She'd be able to maintain the spell for a while and the orc wouldn't be able get to his prey.
The furious orc turned back towards the camp and raced towards the fight, Leon had one orc tied up in... terrible combat to be honest, but with Hanazure maintaining the spell, the pawns were defenseless. Djin weighted his options, let the pawns be killed while helping Leon kill the first orc... or take on the second orc solo to keep the pawns safe. With how his earlier Fireball barely affect the orc, he wasn't sure he could do much to help Leon win before the second orc returned. Djin rummaged in his inventory before pulling out the Braced Heater Shield, it wasn't much but he'd make it work. Djin quickly worked a temporary fire enchantment into the gear, then applied runewords to it.
"Shield, Self, Strike, Explode"
Runewords could be tricky, his goal was to have the shield create a powerful explosion when struck that would hopefully disorient the orc long enough for him to blow the rest of his mana on a powerful Magic Barrage to finish him off. He'd only have one chance, so he needed to make it count. Djin ran out to intercept the returning orc, shield braced in front of him. He heard Hanazure call out to him from the tower and his position indicator flashed red at him in anger, he ignored it.
Stolen story; please report.
The orc was on Djin in mere seconds, angry at having to work so hard to catch his prey. Djin braced the shield in front of him while readying all of his remaining mana into a Magic Barrage in his other hand. The orc brought down his club onto the shield and everything went white.
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Silima's world has been white for the last minute, she knew she was buried under Hanazure's Ice Pile, which was fine because she had been moments away from certain death from orc trauma. The goblin that had grappled her ankles was already dead, taking damage from Hanazure's skill. Lucky for Silima though the skill didn't do friendly fire damage, it was a common theme with signature skills. Silima watched her party's health and mana bars while she waited, Leon was allowing his health to be chipped down as usual so that he could get the most out of his Berserker skills to finish the fight. Hanazure's mana was dipping slowly but she was fine, and Djin... his mana was emptying out fast he must be getting ready for something big...
BOOM!
The earth shook under Silima and the snow and ice started to quickly dissipate. Hanazure must've released the spell or lost her concentration from the explosion. Silima quickly got on her feet and surveyed the fight. Leon was finishing off his opponent, having forced the orc into a slower pace then changing up his attack patterns to decimate the creature. Hanazure was still in the watch tower, she was looking off to the east. Silima followed her gaze and saw the smoking crater, the remains of an orc dissolving into light but she didn't see Djin.
His HP bar still had a sliver, he could still be alive! She wouldn't let him die, not when everything was going right! She started towards the crater, hoping to get to him in time to fix this mess. She wasn't two steps towards it when Djin's body hit the ground, dead.
"No..." Silima whimpered, slowly coming to a halt on the outside of the crater. Leon finished off his orc and walked over to her.
"Ah, damn shame that. One hell of a hole in the ground though." He said as he pat her shoulder.
Leon continued, "Well he did very well for a battle he should've had zero contribution in. Hanazure is going to take care of clean-up but overall it's a good start."
"Good?" Silima's voice squeeked out. "He's dead, our plans are shot!"
"Our plans were shot when we came out here unprepared, I didn't expect the orcs to be this far from their territory, they must've grown a lot since the last subjugation. I'll be calling on Sammael and Rodes to rush ahead of the main group to reinforce our position. We won't be doing anything more than scouting until we get an idea of their positions."
Leon laid out the plan and jumped down to Djin's body, the small token floating just above it. He snatched it from the air and tossed it to Silima.
"Throw this in one of the tents so he'll have the choice to spawn at the campsite. Then try to reach him and see if he'll be on as soon as he can. We'll send word to Irel to speed along his timer with prayer. She hates doing it though and I don't blame her."
Leon trudged off to catch up with Hanazure and see to the spoils of battle. Silima obliged his request and went over to the camp.
She held the token in front of her face before sighing and tossing it into a tent.
"See you soon Djin..."
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Djin opened his eyes to a white void with a single black door nearby. Before he had a chance to think, the door opened and out came Khayn. He clapped as he walked over to where Djin was standing.
Clap... Clap... Clap...
"Well, that was one helluva show you put on. The goblins, the orcs, and the tragic sacrifice! Indeed, I believe that you're due some favor."
Khayn's Favor Awarded
For your innovative methods of dealing with little green nuisances and your ability to fight enemies that should have squashed you like a bug.
+2 Favor
Djin dismissed the pop-up window and sighed.
"So I'm guessing that my rune word grammar is still a bit weak."
Khayn smirked. "Ah yes, without putting an object before shield, shield itself became the object. Tricky isn't it? It defaulted into the noun when you wanted it to act as a verb. Thus instead of shielding yourself and exploding when struck, it was that the shield itself should explode when struck. Next time try something more like... Self, Shielding, Strike, Exploding"
Djin nodded, he knew his structure was off the moment he put it onto the shield. He was rushing to make it work and the orc wasn't about to give him any extra time to correct.
"Well, I'm dead. I'll be back when my timer is up."
Djin opened his menu and logged off. Khayn grinned as his latest project started to become his favorite one.
"Luke... I think you're going to be exactly what this world needs..."
He turned and went back to the black door.
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The death timer on Luke's character was already ticking down. 23 hours and 57 minutes until his character could respawn. He sent a message to Kreo in game letting him know he was out of commission until the next day.
> Djin: Got myself killed while out with the Ashen guild.
>
> Kreo: Oof, that's rough. What happened?
>
> Djin: We got hit by an orc patrol, I tried to use a few tricks to show off and my last firework made me a spectacle as well.
>
> Kreo: lol, how bad?
>
> Djin: Not sure, I know that the moment it happened I died quickly. I'll message Silima after you and see if they made it out fine.
>
> Kreo: So you are offline for 24 hours... well there's pizza in the fridge at least. :)
>
> Djin: Yeah thanks, I'll do something. Enjoy the game for me will ya?
>
> Kreo: ( -_-)7
Closing the chat, Luke saw that he already had another chat request waiting. "If she's reaching out then they must've finished the battle... hopefully I was the only casualty."
> Silima: Djin! What the hell did you do?!
>
> Djin: I know, I'm sorry I died. I messed up that last spell.
>
> Silima: Messed up? You left a 15 foot crater in the ground! You're only level 10! You shouldn't be capable of that kind of destruction!
>
> Djin: Oh, that's not normal, I ended up detonating a magic item unintentionally. But a 15 foot crater you said? That is indeed impressive for sacrificing just one magic item... I'll need to keep that in mind.
>
> Silima: Do you plan on blowing up more magic items? You're going to be a walking money pit.
>
> Djin: A dangerous walking money pit... you're right though, probably should avoid throwing gold away if I can avoid it. How did everyone else make it out?
>
> Silima: Everyone is fine, you were the only casualty. Hanazure is freaking out a bit after you nuked the orc though, she is seriously reconsidering calling herself a mage if you're already that far ahead.
>
> Djin: Ah she'll be fine. I have a few tricks to pull but it's nothing she can't learn. Was Leon upset?
>
> Silima: No, he blamed himself more than you. He wants you back online as soon as you can.
>
> Djin: Well that's... 23 hours and 49 minutes from now. :|
>
> Silima: Not necessarily. We're going to get our nun Irel to start praying for you. For every minute she prays, you can get up to 5 minutes off your timer. You might be able to get back on in 4 hours or so if she can start soon.
>
> Djin: Damn, four hours of prayer? I'd owe her big time for that.
>
> Silima: Don't sweat it too much, I heard she puts her character on auto-pilot and watches youtube videos. She still has Leon believing that she is doing all the prayer herself though.
>
> Djin: lol, still though... I'll find a way to repay her.
>
> Silima: You'll be able to do that when you get back on and work with the guild.
>
> Djin: Right, I'll be back in my pod in 4 hours then.
>
> Silima: Enjoy your break.
Luke got up from his pod, he had only been back in it for an hour before dying but that's just how it can go sometimes. He walked out from his room and into the dark kitchen, he started heating up some pizza and turned on the TV.
"Man... 4 hours is going to suck. Might as well make sure to get everything taken care of for when the timer is up."