With a clash of metal Jim slid into a rack of weapons, collapsing the farthest rack into a pile and scattering numerous weapons across the floor.
Jim looked at the new countdown timer hovering in the air in the middle of the room. The sound of a ticking chime overlayed the visual display of a digital clock. The giant bold red letters moved with each second going by.
09:40.. tick, 09:39… tick, 09:38… tick.
Jim frantically looked at the display of weapons on the rack, immediately grabbing the first sword he could reach.
As he began to ready himself, to defend himself, a message appeared in his Hololens view.
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Mul are fine warriors, legend tells of their formidable shield walls.
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The words disappeared in a fine smoke as quickly as they appeared and Jim looked at the clock again.
09:00.. tick
“I have time to think this through” Jim said as he dropped the sword back onto the rack.
He began to walk along the display of weapons, taking the hint from the message prompt to find a shield.
He had really made a mess of the weapons on display when he barged into them. A pile of weapons was at the far end of the rack and with no shield in his view he assumed one must be in the pile.
07:41… tick.
Jim started to frantically pull the weapons out of the pile as he completely underestimated how heavy the weapons were. He was sweating, lifting war hammers and long swords and throwing them onto a new pile next to the rack.
05:27… tick
An idea crossed Jim’s mind as he looked at the pile and then down his arm, to his watch.
He rolled up his sleeve and started pressing his dimensional watch against all the weapons on the pile one by one. In clouds of swirling dust the pile shrunk and shrunk.
He could hear the ding of notifications but had no time to look at those right now, he had to find a shield and hopefully he might be able to survive longer than 30 seconds when all hell breaks loose in the hall.
04:03.. tick.
After a huge wooden wizard staff decorated in a plume of feathers and beads popped into a dust cloud Jim saw it, a medium sized shield. He grabbed it from the ground and placed his left arm through the straps.
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Item equipped
Item: Vanishing shield of the lark
Rarity: Rare
Condition: Perfect
This shield makes anything that attacks it “vanish” up to 30 feet away in the direction it is facing. 5 uses at full mana charge.
Charges remaining 5/5.
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“Ok, I have a shield, now I need something to hit things with” Jim said to himself as he continued to look through the pile of weapons. He swiftly got into the habit of anything that didn’t look useful as a one handed weapon to simply touch with his watch, getting it out of his way.
As he scoured through a pile of short swords, hammers and daggers that he’d thrown into a smaller pile at his feet, he looked at the clock.
02:49.. tick.
“Ok, what’s going to be useful? If I’m using a shield I’ll need something jabby right? Something quick. Bye bye hammers” With clouds of smoke the hammers began disappearing one by one.
Jim looked down at the display of 5 items. 3 swords, 2 daggers.
01:12.. tick.
As Jim gazed back and forth over the items, the weapons appeared relatively “normal”. They looked just like the ones in the movies he’d grown up watching and he had no recollection or knowledge of what the different shapes and lengths meant for actual combat usage. Focusing in on the finer details, a soft purple glow began to emanate from two of them. One sword and one dagger.
He could see the lashings of what he could only compare to runic tape underneath the outer layers of the weapons. The sword’s runes were bright, shining and organised into a stack of moving rings from the hilt to the tip. The dagger however, was a far deeper tone of purple with its runic rings intertwined and weaved into themselves. The light in the dagger gathered around the handle, with the blade showing no signs of the magic purple light.
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere.
A claxon sounded and drew Jim’s attention to the clock.
00:05.. 00:04…00:03…00:02
Jim grabbed the closest weapon and started to sprint away from the now very empty weapons rack.
00:01.. GONG!
The sound of a gong rang out across the room as the other creatures dropped their meals and goblets. Tables began to be thrown into the air as the hoard of Jim’s made a dash for the weapons racks, the sound of wings flapping and claws scraping the marble floors filled the room, drowned out quickly by roars and thunderous cracks of fists.
In the centre of the hall a hulk of a silhouette destroyed two tables as it stood. The 10 foot tall Draconid screamed fire from its mouth and immediately burnt two dwarven height Jims into ashy clumps. Its wings spread wide, catapulting an elf 40 feet clear across the room in a spin. The elf crashed into the wall and hit the floor behind Jim, only to be impaled by a small gnome wielding a rapier. The elf spontaneously exploded into a powder of bloody dust as the gnome maniacally laughed as he swept guts and blood from his face.
Our Jim, with his shield and dagger, jogged away from the madness towards the corner of the room. Trying to put as much distance between himself and the weapons racks as possible.
The crack of an arrow rang off the wall in front of him and he raised his shield in the direction of the line of fire. Crack, crack, crack. Arrows were raining around him. He peered over the lip of the shield to see an air elemental flinging arrows in clenched groups towards Jim. He raised the shield and as quickly as the ring of metal on metal clanged, the sound of a pop from the same direction crossed Jim’s ears.
No more arrow fire came and when he peeped again over the lip of the shield, only a pile of arrows appeared on the floor where the air element version of Jim once stood. About 30 feet further back into the room, Jim could see familiar groups of arrows start to fly again, this time at the Draconid.
Jim, with his dagger gripped firmly in hand, continued his jog along the side of the room. Ducking and covering behind furniture he came across, trying to get his bearings for his position in the brawl. He kept his shield tight to his body as he started to reach the corner of the room.
In each corner of the room giant golden statues stretched from floor to ceiling. Jim took full advantage of the cover provided by the huge legs of the statues and huddled behind the ankle to get a view of the battlefield.
There seems to be a lot less “Jim’s” now, the field of combatants being culled by the strongest and those with immediate use racial weapons.
Jim looked to where the countdown clock was previously floating in the air and saw it was replaced by a countdown of remaining Jims.
The huge red letters said 25/50. Shock and a small glimmer of pride crossed Jim’s face, he’d survived half way through already?
Just as that thought swam through his mind a green skinned Orc holding a massive bloody double sided axe met Jim’s eyes. He’d been spotted.
The axe was resting on one of the Orcs shoulders, drenched in guts which dripped to the floor as the lumbering behemoth of muscle made its way steadily towards the statue. Jim knew this was not a fight he wanted to be in. The only other time Jim had been in a fight was in school, when Jimmy Olsen decided to kick Jim’s brother Luke off of a swing. He didn’t necessarily win that fight, but he didn’t lose either. Either way, he was not ready to take on this giant thing holding a damn axe!
The Orc spread its arms to full width as he approached Jim, bending its knees to lower its height in preparation to catch Jim if decided to run.
Jim ran from leg to leg of the golden calves of the statue as the Orc shimmied with him, matching his movements with ease.
In a muffled deep voice the Orc taunted Jim, axe in hand ready to swipe at any moment.
“Come on you little thing, time to dieeee”
“No thank you” Jim replied as he continued his sprint from calf to calf.
The Orc stopped following Jims movements and came to a standstill at the base of the statue. With two hands the brute grabbed the battle axe and roared towards the heavens, the green glow of his skin brightening and muscles swelling.
With a perfect baseball style swing the axe slammed into the right leg of the statue, then the left, then the right again. Jim could hear the cracking of stone as splinters of gold ricocheted off the walls around him as the Orc continued its assault.
Jim knew he was in a tricky position as he tried to form some kind of strategy. He had nowhere to run and his only place to hide was being destroyed on top of him.
With a reverberating crack the legs of the statue gave way and Jim saw the golden undercarriage of the statue begin to fall towards his head.
The Orc began to sprint back towards the battle in the centre of the hall, jumping into the air with its battle axe ready to strike an enemy below him.
“Ahhhhhhhhhh!” With a scream Jim raised his shield above his head as he crouched down and anticipated the weight about to flatten him.
As the statue's torso fell towards him, it hit his shield and Jim heard a… Pop!
The hips and arms of the statue crashed around him as he peered over the shield to see the statue bust was falling towards him again.
“Ahhhhhhhh!” He screamed again as he ducked underneath his shield.
Pop!
Jim was confused, what was going on?
“The shield!” Jim yelled, as he quickly realised something was happening with the magic shield, he vaguely remembered something about vanishing in the description.
He stood up and looked upwards again, the bust was closing in on him. This time not being in a crouch Jim raised his shield above his head at a slight angle so he could try and see what was going on. As the golden body touched the lip of his shield a glimmer of light shined with a Pop!
In the air, about 10 feet in front of him Jim saw the golden body appear to hover for a second and an idea came to him.
Jim sprinted towards the centre of the room, he could see maybe 10 figures swinging swords, axes and staffs at each other. He glanced up, seeing the bust falling through the air. He had to time this just right, and at the right angle.
He spoke to himself as he ran. “They’re about 25 feet away… that is falling straight down… Pythagoras would mean… around 60 degrees?”
With heavy legs Jim slid to a halt underneath the falling bust. He glanced at the battle, back to the bust, back to the battle and back to the bust. He angled the Shield and braced himself…
Pop!
He quickly looked over the battle as the huge golden bust appeared above the group of bloody skirmishers.
A smile crossed Jim’s face as he knew they had no idea what was falling towards them.
With a crash of tables, bones and marble the golden statue flattened the group, and the red score board in the air lowered to 4/50.
“YES!” Jim roared with his hands in the air. He jumped in place celebrating, he could not believe that plan worked.
With his final cheer, arms still in the air, a glimmer of a metal tip caught his eye as something pierced his torso and sent him flying backwards.
The room turned into a blur as he lurched forward, his hands feeling for what hit him. A Javelin had hit him square in the chest, pinning him to a table.
As everything started to turn black the taste of blood rose into Jim’s mouth as the figure of a green Orc walked towards him. The Orc slapped the end of the Javelin embedded in Jim, the wobble of the spear pulsed back and forth, sending crushing pain throughout his lungs. With a wide smile the Orc grabbed the end of the weapon, twisted and pulled it out in a spray of blood.
The last thing he remembered was the eyes of the Orc as he drifted into the blackness.