The fifth and final Elemental charge was dribbling down the enemy Earthfriend's finger about to fuse with his
-Henry Flower: He’s not dodging this one. Godspeed, Justinian.
An arrow from the south penetrated the Earthfriend's ear.
While it hadn't been enchanted with a special spell-negating effect, the destruction it wrought with a basic
Tipping over with the force, he lost foot contact with the ground, and the thunder in his palm dissipated.
“No!” screamed Lightning Legolas, tracing back the flight path of the unforseen arrow.
There, on top of the dragon's treasure chest, stood the rude newcomer in human form with a shortbow dangling from his wrist.
He couldn't believe it.
Coordinating the ambush...throwing the drum...gorilla punching three Tizcans...scaling the dragon's chest and aiming an arrow through a minuscule earhole in the side of the Earthfriend's helmet...that guy had executed all those actions within the 6-second
What was this bullshit?!
A pair of smug eyebrows peeked over the rims of Henry's sunglasses.
In Saana's north, the archipelagos of Rongbit—not to be confused with Rangbit, which was founded by ancient Rongbit explorers—were composed of hundreds of tiny islands and atolls. To adapt to this environment’s limited space, the Bowmen of the region had invented a close-range style of archery, Small-Island Shooting, which focused on quickdraw shots while maintaining mobility.
Henry'd studied Small-Island Shooting in The Overdream, in part, because it resembled the shortbow art he’d been using since Saana II and, in part, because it suited the confined 50x50 metre dimensions of his battlegrounds.
After the years of practice, he'd reached the point where he could pick out a microscopic individual Glass Faerie in a dazzling swarm of thousands and snipe it in flight. In comparison to that feat, hitting a target as massive as an earhole was a joke, even after a drink or five.
The arrow was timed so close to
Indigo spears shot out from their palms, ripping through the air, blasting the surrounding oxygen molecules, and splitting them in two.
Justinian, seeing the message from Sir Henry and the Earthfriend toppling over, gave the
“Two hammers!”
Using his mutant motor skills, he rotated sideways, dodging between the
An enemy Fighter and Crusader tried to intercept him. He dived through their legs and ninja rolled upright behind them on the base of the dragon's tail, instantly bypassing the Tizcan frontline.
While the other rushing Byzantines collided with the enemy and entangled them in a flurry of swordblows, he sprinted, almost glided, up the dragon’s spine towards the enemy backliners, his zweihander hungering for a taste of warlock flesh.
Xarax Throtep and the other Arcanist leader retreated by jumping down through a broken rib-cage into the skeleton dragon’s inner cavity. The rest of their backliners merely stepped back, safe in the knowledge that Justinian always single-mindedly pursued their leader.
When the Crusader dived in after the fleeing Arcanists, he fell into the last trap designed by Lightning Legolas.
Below him, waiting for this moment, were two stealthed Cutthroats who he did not see until too late due to him not investing any Stat points in Technique. Beside them, the Tizcan Arcanists were armed with spears to provide assistive damage, their class having a Basic Attack,
Justinian, with his allies' view of him obstructed by the rib-cage, used a chat-command that burned
But three was insufficient to mitigate the four incoming stabs. If he were maimed by the damage that slipped through, his assailants would use his recovery time to reposition for a follow-up attack to finish him off.
He was dead!
-Henry Flower: Nope.
A
The attacks were repelled.
“It seems even in the darkest corners,” Justinian laughed as he landed safely amongst the enemy, his body glowing gold with the activation of
Before the enemy could respond, he took three steps forward, one to the left, and drew a ‘V’ with his zweihander.
Xarax Throtep and the other Arcanist, the sword cleaving from shoulder to waist, waist to shoulder, disintegrated together.
Outside, Lightning Legolas’s face contorted into a constipated grimace when he spotted two clouds of soul-lights floating out from the ribcage, neither of which was the Crusader’s.
18-13.
His
Battered Daisy and Team Friendship Forever's Fighter were chasing the isolated team’s Earthfriend. They'd killed two additional enemies during the remainder of
A Tizcan Crusader in the frontline had also been extinguished when a
18-10.
Team Friendship Forever's Arcanist and Miracleworker emerged from the third decoy
Brain Flea’s
cathysong31’s
18-9.
As the first
18-7.
An arrow to the eye of a Tizcan Earthfriend
18-6.
Justinian, his
18-5.
A
This
18-4...
Lightning Legolas, red-faced, glanced back at the treasure chest to the one who’d spoiled his scheme, who was casually dealing death with arrow and spell alike.
The sight, which could have been imposing, was made silly by the newcomer’s sunglasses.
He gasped.
Sunglasses!
That couldn’t be!
The yellow eye glow when one used
Lightning Legolas had been struggling to track the action with bullet-time. This newcomer, however, who was orchestrating it, who was performing half the critical roles himself, was doing so with his raw, naked senses.
Stolen from its rightful place, this narrative is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.
An expert!
An expert of unfathomable proportions!
Mouth agape, he turned to his team’s Beast Tamer, his co-conspirator. Equally stunned, they'd also been observing the swift fight without contributing.
The two remained in silence to the battle’s end and afterwards when the Byzantines celebrated their perfect 18-0 win. Since the Villagers lacked the strategic depth to comprehend the who or how of their triumph, they crowded their leader Justinian and lifted him with cheers of, "Rush! Rush! Rush!"
From their elation, Lightning Legolas realised that his efforts to undermine the Crusader had been utterly demolished. He was back to ground zero.
Maybe worse off.
-Xarax Throtep: Hairless baboon! Pay the ransom for our gear, or I'll tear your soul from your corpse!
But those problems could be solved later.
He stared at Team Friendship Forever, at the expert, who
?
A few breaths later, they reappeared in the queue for a cask of honey wine that a Villager had summoned to mark the occasion.
Lightning Legolas was certain—from their accusations, from their counters to his treachery—that this expert knew he'd been in cahoots with the enemy. With that knowledge, they could insist that he hand over footage of the brawl from his perspective, which would show his incriminating communications.
‘Expert.’
-Henry Flower: Yo.
‘When will you tell them?’
-Henry Flower: Soon or never. Option one, you exit the scene without a word, you fade from memory. Two, you can stay and keep your leadership position, but in exchange you now vote on my side - always. When I say, "four hours on spell coordination drills", I expect six 'yeas' from Team Green. Three, I snitch. Choose.
This reply, which Henry thought was rather generous, seemed to trigger something in Lightning Legolas, who clenched his teeth to suppress a shout.
‘Look, punk, whoever you might be, here in The Slums, I’m a Knight! If it’s my word against yours, they’re siding with me. Worst case scenario, I can use my Slum Points on an official Second Chance. They'll have to forgive me!'
The expert, reaching the cask, pulled out one flask and began to fill it.
-Henry Flower: Is that how it works here? What a scam. How about this then: three, I’m going to walk over to you after this refreshment and beat you to death. When you respawn, a gang of thugs, hired by me, will beat you again. Henceforth, everywhere you go, you’ll continue to be beaten up by randoms - not when you least expect it, always. You’ll hop on a ship to Heimland to flee the beatings, then the second-mate will beat you with a paddle.
Lightning Legolas sprang to his feet. “Who are you to threaten a Knight of The Empire?!”
His outburst attracted several concerned glances.
-Henry Flower: Everyone always wants proof; I should conquer intimidation. Hmmm...pyramid of coins? No, too much attention. Guild tag? Same prob. Got it! Legolas, search my username on the forums.”
Lightning Legolas, complying with the odd request, navigated to the forums, his character ceasing to shake with rage momentarily.
The first hit was a fan-made thread compiling information on the Flaming Sun guild. In a section on their Scholars, a blurb for ‘Henry Flower’ described him as a low-ranking member with a language specialisation who inexplicably owned a bookstore right next to The World Palace, headquarters of The Company.
-Henry Flower: If that failed, log out and try google.
Lightning Legolas re-examined the rude newcomer—who was refilling a sixth flask much to the annoyance of the others in line—then turned to his Beast Tamer companion and informed him that they both had to go.
“What’s wrong?”
“I’ll explain afterwards.”
With the Byzantines too busy celebrating to notice, the two exited the arena and made their way through The Slums.
When they found a secluded alleyway, Lightning Legolas got down on his knees and began to shovel dirt with his bare hands. The Beast Tamer’s Spotted Lion companion sniffed around the dig-site curiously.
“What've you buried?” asked its master.
“Nothing yet. He figured out the scheme.”
“The rude guy? So what? Buy a Second Chance.”
“He’s from Flaming Sun.”
"Oh. I need to organise a caretaker for Oscar.”
“Message me your new username.”
“Will do.”
With the Beast Tamer departing, Lightning Legolas continued digging away.
Forget being beaten up by thugs, what'd been his ultimate goal in taking over Byzantium's arena team? The small extra chance it would haven given him in placing in The Company's recruitment tournament and being one of the prestigious few selected to join their elite ranks. By demonstrating his deceitfulness to a member of Flaming Sun—which everyone knew was The Company’s PR-friendly crafting guild—he'd set himself up for assured rejection.
Worse than that, if this ‘Henry Flower’ guy were insistent, he could claim that Lightning Legolas had attempted to murder him, which might result in a demotion in The Company’s karma system to the status of Hostile.
Then, he'd lose access to their services. And without The Company’s ships, how could he travel? Without their Public Zones, he would be stuck at these noob-levels unless a progression guild who’d conquered their own zone accepted him - but progression guilds refused membership to Hostiles in order to continue trading with The Company. Even The Slum Empire gave Hostiles the boot.
In short, a death sentence.
After digging a metre and a half deep, Lightning Legolas stripped naked and dumped his gear inside, filling out the hole with his coins.
Living with the guillotine dangling above his head would be insufferable. Better to start anew.
WARNING: You have chosen to delete your character. Please hold while a human staff member is contacted to confirm your choice.
While the Bowman was deleting himself, the Byzantines were parading back to their Village through The Slums, offering a shot to anyone who shouted their name.
Henry, having been awarded 300 Slum Points by a grateful Justinian for devising the two hammer plan, was strolling amongst his friends. With their low attention span, the conversation had already switched from the brawl to the dungeon they would spend the last part of their evening speed-running. A video guide of it had been sent to them by Walker showing his team fighting a horde of mummies that vomited scarabs, the dungeon apparently having an undead x insect crossover theme.
“It’s a shame that Team Friendship Forever will have to split apart,” lamented Cathy.
“Why’s that, Big Sis?”
Brian wrapped an arm around his handsome shoulder. “You and Big Bro are level 11, so you’ll be doing the complex’s 0-3 dungeon instead.”
The system barred Henry and Dan from the Tier 0-4 dungeon being speed-ran, while his friends entering the lower one would trigger Sentient Bloodlust in the monsters, making the fights borderline unwinnable.
“You guys could suicide down to our level,” said Henry. “I’ll supply the Steel gear.”
The dungeon would be an excellent way to continue training. While PVE lacked the dynamism of PVP, one of its benefits was not needing to wait for an opponent to recover, so every second could be devoted to self-improvement.
The suggestion disturbed Cathy. “Suicide is a sin...”
“Why? It's a game. There’s no pain.” He cracked a wicked a grin. “But, if it’s an issue, you guys could join the 0-3 dungeon with us and intentionally trigger Sentient Bloodlust. Imagine, bosses that ignore threat mechanics and overlap their spells to burst you down, wouldn’t that be more engaging, more fun?”
"Fun?" Cathy piped up at the mention of her third favourite word.
"That would be more dramatic..." said Anderson.
Abigail brandished a dagger at her manipulative friend. “Enough! They might be ignorant, but I understand what you're proposing! It's too strenuous! Not all of us can be secret gaming gods battling endlessly while trashed! If you try to trick me into more of this hell training session, I’m logging off!”
Henry raised his palms in innocent surrender. “Fine. You think you’re worn-out, I get it. Relax. We’ll stick to conventional dungeoneering. Then, Dan and I will run ahead, I’ll power-level both of us to Tier 0-4, and Team Friendship Forever will reconnect when you guys arrive.”
Training could not be escaped so easily. The dungeon site would be about two hours ride north of Suchi for the Village. With the transportation speed bonus from Henry's Merchant secondary class, he could reach there much faster, then use his Spelltomes to clear the 0-3 dungeon in a snap.
Donkey Bro neighed angrily (“My legs are unfit for long distances!”)
The monster tried to headbutt Henry, but he put it in a headlock and whispered in its ear, “You can tag along and eat the insect mummies.”
On further thought, Henry remembered some other monsters he could power-level, too. It wasn’t strictly necessary, but it could be a useful group-bonding activity.
Donkey Bro shook the human off and snorted with the ferocity of a war horse. “We fly! My ascension awaits!”
It trotted over to Handsome Dan and nudged him to jump on its back.
Henry, meanwhile, acquired a mount by tossing a jingling bag to a horseman riding past. He then glued a gold coin to Donkey Bro’s forehead, creating a magical tether to himself that shared the Merchant movement bonus.
As they zoomed off, Abigail watched their dust trail with a tired gaze.
Sigh.
At least she could nap during the trip.
Henry stopped briefly by the markets to fill his inventory with monster hearts, before leading them out of The Slums. The roads out were packed with convoys of players heading to the dungeon and opportunistic NPCs accompanying them to make a buck.
Splitting off from the traffic, they rode westwards, three kilometres, crossing a bridge that traversed the pitiful flows of the Suchi River.
On the river’s west bank, they galloped through a township that contrasted greatly with disordered poverty of The Slums. Players wandered along litter-free, paved streets that connected clay buildings shaped in non-clashing uniform designs. Of note, their clothing was untarnished by any Village insignia.
When the locals saw the two riders passing through with armbands, they gave them suspicious looks and considered calling upon their functioning police force.
“What was that place?” asked Dan, as they rode out north into farmland hugging the river bank.
“This place is the WBAE or West Bank Autonomous Exclave. Anyone in good stead with the Ibangua can build here without fear of it being destroyed during The Cleansing - the owner earned a special exemption. Hence, it’s more developed.”
“Oh, why don't we move here then rather than rebuilding every month? It seems empty. Is the rent too expensive?”
“No. It’s affordable. For the drones of The Slum Empire, the internal culture discourages them from cosying up with the Ibangua. As for non-members, well, first, you should know that Central City is the heart Suchi for them, where the guilds, craftsmen, quests etc. are based.”
“What’s Central City?”
“The ginormous walled city in the middle of The Slums. In most zones, real estate somewhere so central would be prohibitively expensive, so non-moneybags relocate to outskirt areas like this. However, as a result of the Slum Empire swallowing up three-quarters of Suchi’s playerbase, plenty of vacancies have opened up in Central, causing the demand and price of property there to crash to pleb-obtainable levels. On top of that, anyone travelling to Central from the WBAE is forced to pass through the sprawling eyesore of The Slums, reducing the appeal further. Finally, Suchi is a trash region overall, so you’d need partial brain-damage to want to establish a base here. Combine these issues with eleven more, and the WBAE sits well under its pop-cap at a measly 20k.”
For now. The population would skyrocket soon.
“Wow, Big Bro, you sure know a lot about this West Bank...”
“Autonomous Exclave. And I should, I also own some land here - although I'd never manage such a dump personally. ”
The permanent building rights were from The Trials of Nerin, the main questline in Suchi, which enabled players to enter Central City and other higher privileges. He’d only planned on using them to develop the port and his guild’s trading posts, but he ended up accepting the WBAE from Suchi's royal family in lieu of a debt.
Donkey Bro hee-hawed indignantly (“What?! You possess one of these bounteous estates, yet you dare to dirty this regal mouth with street-made filth?! This is a travesty!”).
“Cool! Aunt Ruby always says that property is where the real money is.”
“Sometimes. This land is worthless, though. Most of it goes to waste growing cheap crafting resources and produce, like these farms.”
As they travelled further north along the riverbank, the scenery transitioned again to woodland. Aside from the rare homestead hidden in the greenery and a few teams of workmen with material-laden wagons, the area was deserted.
Henry, who’d become accustomed to the solitude of nature in The Overdream, felt a tension fading as he absorbed the breeze free from the stench of sweat. Feeling content, he was happy to answer questions from Dan about today’s training and ignore the complaints from the donkey.
When they eventually arrived at a fenced-off compound that was heavily forested, Henry’s horse neighed restlessly at an alarming scent it sniffed on the wind.
“What are we doing here, Big Bro?”
“Meeting the other slaves,” grumbled Donkey Bro.
Henry dismounted and hitched the horse to the outside gate, giving it a reassuring pat. “If they trust me enough, we’ll be picking up a couple Grey Wolves I’ve tamed to power-level with us. If not, we’ll—intruder.”
Fresh human footprints lead into the compound.
This was a different private forest from the one where he’d been recognised by the fan of peaceloveharmony. Following the discovery, he'd relocated the base of his monster army operation.
Rubbish zone...why were people always trespassing?
Dan, preparing for a fight, equipped his armour.
“No metal,” said Henry. “Too noisy. Stay at least two hundred metres behind.”