Almost immediately after they left, the remaining Misfits and elven crew came under attack. While Smashit had anticipated that the undead might continue chasing them he’d hoped that they’d given up. Instead of sending smaller flying skeletons this time, they were surrounded by four larger ones that looked like small dragons.

“Get us out of here quickly!” he ordered the helmsman.

Thag and Linca were already firing on the dragons using Thag’s aura. Smashit found himself wishing he’d thought to bring his Paladin instead but it was too late to change his mind. With only half the guild here, this was going to be a tough fight and they really needed to get back with the airship intact this time.

Fortunately, before they’d left Deathberry had recruited some of the dwarves from the town to help them. He’d promised to share any of the technology they had back at the bunker. However, what had sold them on the idea was the opportunity to study their airship. Prior to takeoff their leader Gunther had been inspecting every square inch of the Empress, trying to learn all of its secrets.

Gunther had a contingent of about fifteen dwarves with him and while some were engineers, many were fighters too. While the fighters were attempting to knock some of the bolder undead out of the air with their long halberds, the engineers prepared small catapults with what appeared to be Greek fire.

Seconds later a wall of fire appeared in front of the airship and Smashit could feel the heat warming his armor. The engineers had managed to catch two of the dragons in the wall of flame and Thag and Linca added to the damage dropping massive healing on them at the same time:

-802 fire

-674 fire

-9041 holy/fire/aura boost x12

-430 fire

-974 fire

Even though the wall of fire didn’t do that much damage it ticked the dragons’ health down quickly and the added non-magical fire damage in addition to the casters’ fire and holy damage. This created the perfect combination to wreak havoc on their undead foes. The only problem was that the dragons were each level 75 and had a massive amount of health. It took another ten seconds before the first one died and Smashit could see the mana bars of their casters going down faster than he would have liked.

He didn’t have much time to be distracted through because the other two dragons were still free of the fire wall and were targeting the ship. One of the dragons landed right next to him and he barely had time to react before it brought a claw down on his head:

-4077 slashing/unholy

Hell, that hurt. Linca managed to cast a spare healing hot on him and that soothed the pain somewhat although he’d need to be careful facing this monster. Using his shield bash he dashed right into the creature’s face which knocked it off the ship and caused it to freeze up. Although it was a magical creature it had to flap its wings to simulate flight and therefore without the ability to move it plummeted off the Empress toward the ground. Despite the effectiveness of his attack, he knew the bone dragon would be back soon and there was still one more of these monsters on the loose.

Spinning around he sensed rather than saw a blue lightning bolt rushing toward him. Electricity was his bane but he couldn’t let it hit the ship. Using shield wall he deflected the spell right back at the dragon. That ought to give it pause, he thought. Unfortunately, it was immune to its own electrical attacks. The other dragon was smarter than the previous one and didn’t come down to try and claw at him but instead spat another electrical beam at him. The shield wall still had a couple seconds left on it so the second beam bounced harmlessly away as well.

The engineers were reloading their catapults and had aimed them at the dragon Smashit was fighting. If he could just keep it distracted for another few seconds they should be able to hit this one with flame as well. His shield wall dissipated. Suddenly, he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand up. He’d forgotten about the one he’d knocked off the deck. It had probably recovered from the stun and flown immediately back to attack him. He was knocked down to the deck, taking massive damage:

-11704 slashing/unholy X2 critical

He was lucky to survive. Although Smashit had about 15,000 health, fully buffed, between that hit and the last one he was down to less than 3% health. He would have been dead if not for the heal over time that Linca had dropped on him earlier. Hitting his Last Stand ability, Smashit taunted the two dragons and attempted to at least get them both facing him instead of being in a flanked position. As the seconds counted down he watched his health bar carefully after downing a healing potion. He wouldn’t survive another hit even being back at 10% health.

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He could see Linca and Thag finish off their second dragon and turn their attention back to the remaining foes. Linca dropped several Enhanced Healing Lights on him and his health bar looked a lot better. That holy aura that Thag produced was a life saver and tripled the amount of healing that Linca could do. The dwarves blasted the flying dragon with the remaining Greek fire, while Linca and the elven wizards burned it with holy and fire damage. The dwarven soldiers kept the pressure of Smashit until he could recover and continue tanking it.

Finally, after several more minutes of non-stop healing, tanking, and DPSing, the two remaining skeletal dragons turned to dust. Looking at his experience bar, Smashit saw that he was nearly level 66. The helmsman had been making good time and when he checked it looked like they were nearly back to their base.

One of the elves cried out, “Dragon incoming on the starboard side.” Smashit looked up and saw a massive skeletal dragon head looking right at him. Scrambling, he got his shield up just in time as it swiped the deck. Crew members’ screams and the tearing of wood assaulted his ears. The creature’s crimson eyes pulsed within its bleached white skull as it let forth a blood chilling roar. It was Level 100 and clearly a raid boss based on its size and name. ‘Sapphire the Mad’ read its name tag.

Smashit wasn’t sure they would have had a chance even if they’d had the entire guild here. He knew they were in trouble. They’d lost most of the dwarven engineers and several elven casters with just that one swipe. The three Misfits, four elven mages, two dwarven engineers, and six dwarven soldiers were all that was left. The elven sailors and helmsman were also still alive but they were noncombatants.

The giant dracolich opened its maw and an orange glow formed at the back of its throat. Throwing the helmsman to the ground, Smashit charged forward and placed his shield high, bracing himself against the helm and throwing up shield wall. When the blast hit, the magical energy nearly swept him off the ship despite the fact that the helm was holding him in place.

-5041 fire

Even with his shield wall up, that blast had taken nearly a third of his health. Shield wall reduced all damage by 90% so if that had hit him without a cooldown up that would have been the end. “Abandon ship,” he yelled out to the crew. “Linca try to get everyone floated down and then run. I will keep the beast here as long as I can.”

“Wait, you can’t,” she shouted.

Smashit would probably die and lose his Gear, just as they had on the asteroid. However, they had found an entire bunker of Gears. Also, there really wasn’t any choice. They could all stay and die or he could stay and die. In any event someone had to.

“You must get them to safety,” he commanded.

The next minute was a blur, as the crew abandoned ship. Linca had to pull double duty healing him enough to stay alive while he rotated through his cooldowns and use her float spell to get everyone down safely. Finally, it was just him and Linca standing on the deck of the Empress. After fighting so hard to keep her safe and just getting repaired she was headed to the scrap pile. Deathberry would be pissed, he thought ruefully. But there was no question that he’d made the right call. This thing they were fighting was a death machine and he wasn’t sure they could have faced it with all their allies.

Smashit had four tank cooldowns plus his artifact and Linca had two healer cooldowns. They had used everything at this point and there was still another fifteen seconds before his next tank cooldown would be back up. “Go,” he yelled.

She looked at him wordlessly pleading. “Alison, go,” he said quietly as they stood face to face. He pushed her away. She turned around and looked at him one more time before jumping from the deck.

A second later, the creature’s maw opened for another blast of fire he roared in defiance and jumped from the deck onto the top of its head. Weaving his sword through its eye sockets he levered its head using all his strength, trying to keep it from roasting Linca as she made her descent.

His armor burned his feet as the creature spewed its flames, missing the Empress and his guildmates. Smashit didn’t have time to relish this victory as he was thrown from the beast’s face and was now weaponless. Shield wall was back up and he pushed his shield into position to block the bone dragon’s claw.

Smashit’s cooldown ended. He charged downstairs and lit the remaining Greek fire the engineers had onboard. Seconds later when the fireball hit the side of the ship, the concussive force of the explosion didn’t quite knock him out before he was incinerated.

***You have died in AO***

Waking up to his own screams was not a pleasant experience. He’d intentionally blocked out how bad it had been last time. Being pierced through the gut was one thing but being burned to death was quite a bit worse. He was getting so good at dying in game that he’d know exactly how to go out in real life -morbid.

As soon as he was himself again he pulled off the micro-transmitter. Alison was by his side, her face drawn. What had happened now? He knew they didn’t have long before the undead army got here but he’d hoped that the explosion had at least slowed down the raid boss.

“It’s Emmy. You should come see,” was all she said.

Looking over to her pod, Sean could see that she hadn’t come out of the stasis yet. She was sweating all over and writhing. “Aeon. Status report for Emilia Maesterson,” he barked.

“Plague infection is approximately 70% complete. I’ve injected her with several sedatives and something that will slow the contagion. She should be able to log off once they’ve taken effect in approximately 30 minutes,” Aeon replied robotically.

“I’d almost forgotten that she’d been infected. It seems like we are running out of time,” Alison said.

Yeah, there was a lot going on. End of the world, killing their boss who’d become a raid boss, undead armies, and their friend was dying.

After Alison had left the control room, Sean sat by Emmy’s side and looked at the rest of the guild who were still logged in. Miles was going to freak out.

“It’s a good thing I have my shit together and totally know what I’m doing,” he said quietly to himself with a chuckle.