The swordsman had stayed logged in, but had removed his head gear in reality. He had to check on his younger brother, that game had been so realistic.
“Yo!” He called out as his brain came back to he and his brother's gaming room.
He didn’t get a response. Maybe he had gone out to get some food. Their apartment didn’t have much, neither of them knew how to cook much. Ling looked around the dirty room, once this beta test was done they would have to spend a whole week cleaning.
The room was the main area of their apartment, it wasn’t large by any means, but their parents had very little to pass on when they died. This small one bedroom apartment with its tiny kitchen and bathroom was a luxury stay compared to what some of Ling’s friends now stayed in.
Some of them had been forced to live in small one room dormitories. A few that didn’t do as well in school had dropped out and found themselves living on the street, begging for food. Ling just wanted to escape the reality of this bleak world for a little while longer. His coding job at a security company was waiting for him on the other side of the weekend. He didn’t want to waste any more time not getting to play before then.
His brother's chair was empty, maybe he had run out to get a takeout order. Hopefully he would log back in soon and tell Ling that there was food waiting on his desk.
“Well I guess I’ll just jump back in. Hope he’ll have food for me when he gets back.”
Slipping his head gear back on, he blinked a few times as the change in reality caused his brain to flicker. A quick memory of his childhood, from when his parents were still alive, passed through his mind. Sitting on the park bench, it was still winter, he and his brother had been throwing snowballs at each other until their father scolded Ling for throwing a ball of ice instead.
He hadn’t meant it, but the injury his brother sustained left an impression. They never had another snowball fight, or any fight really. Even though they were twins, Ling had felt bad for what had happened, and their father had impressed upon him the importance of protecting family instead of arguing with them.
Back in his swordsman, sitting in the tavern, alone, Duerlin sighed.
“Why is everyone gone? There’s not even a barmaid here anymore.”
He stood, checking himself, then his inventory, to make sure all of his items were still in the right spot. Nobody robbed him while they deserted the place. How long had those few moments in reality been in here?
An explosion echoed faintly from outside. Duerlin jumped slightly at the sound. A second and a third explosion followed. Echoing blasts in the distance made him think this city was suddenly a war zone with battling tanks.
Several more loud explosions and thuds. It sounded like trees splintering apart, followed shortly after each explosion. Duerlin ran outside, hand holding the hilt of his sword, ready to draw it in an instant if need be. The town, now barely lit by the disappearing star in the sky, was in chaos.
The port in the bay, down and behind the tavern and merchant district he was in, was surrounded by ships. Several of which were firing cannons at the buildings and people running about. Without even a slight hesitation, Duerlin was sprinting down to help as fast as he could. His blade flashed as he ran, the steel heating up with his pyro-energy.
Duerlin activated his aura ability, giving him a sense of everything that moved around him in real time. It was like having a live radar pinging targets for him. It didn’t show different classes of people, or if they were friendly or not, but it did show projectiles vividly.
When the next cannon fired, Duerlin launched himself into the air.
“Burst fire!” He yelled, slashing once at the explosive projectile in front of him.
Three sparks lit up around him as the missile was cut in two. His body was falling just before the explosion triggered. The wave of force pushed him a bit farther towards the water line, but he had saved a building from being destroyed.
“Where is everyone?” He asked the empty streets around him as he landed.
The port was deserted, the buildings were quiet even though most of them burned and were in states of collapsing. Six ships outside the barrier of the port continued to fire upon the city, Duerlin couldn’t stop all of them by himself.
“What do I do now?”
New Quest: Stand Your Ground.
“Well that's almost helpful.”
Complaining wouldn’t get him anywhere though. He just gritted his teeth, then charged forward. Stand his ground? That meant defending the port, not destroying the ships. Cannon fire resounded over and over, his senses saw the dozen projectiles now zooming towards the port. Each of them were closing in on where he stood.
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“Oh fuck…” Duerlin barely had time to think about his action before he leaped up.
The fire that he used to slay monsters would only ensure that a missile packed with explosives would blow up in his face upon contact. He got lucky with the first one, only getting away because that ability used a slight delay in the explosion of heat.
He sliced out anyway, the projectiles had closed in on him faster than he could anticipate them. The first cut flared and destroyed the projectile as he continued rising through the sky. The explosion had the side effect of pushing him even faster, right towards three projectiles that were about to collide mid-air.
Duerlin spun his body, concentrating his aura into his blade. This ability took a second to warm up, then he had to trigger it manually by slicing through something. It wasn’t meant for direct combat, instead it was meant for fleeing an indefensible position.
“Fire Gate!”
White hot flame spiraled out from his blade, the missiles about to collide were his target. This would also send him flying forward at an incredibly fast pace, higher into the sky. Duerlin hesitated, not sure if this was a smart idea or not. Then the moment came, just as the first projectile was in front of him, only a couple meters from the second with the third only a meter behind that one.
He slashed, cutting though the first missile, heating the air around him and rushing forward into the second and third missile before his swing completed. Duerlin felt the rush of air from the explosion beneath him. His body was thrown upwards, twisting and being pelted by debris from the nearly vaporized projectiles.
“That’s a long way down.” Duerlin couldn’t help from noting how far up he had been thrown.
He could almost see outside the city, he definitely saw the explosions from where that crazy girl and beast of a man had saved him. Duerlin had a moment to wonder where his brother would re-spawn, then he felt gravity pulling him down.
Flailing, he became desperate for a way to stop his descent. His sword was gripped tightly in his right hand, with a moment to think, he wondered how much fire he could muster at once through it. It was called the Flamethrower Sword, would it be able to throw enough flame to counteract his fall?
Ling had watched several large aircraft using extreme firepower to act as thrust control for landings, what would be the difference at this point? Duerlin was a falling aircraft, and his sword was the counteracting thrust control. He just needed to aim and focus.
With explosions on the ground around him, and several more incoming projectiles making themselves known to his senses, Duerlin tuned them all out. He focused solely on his altitude and channeling his pyro-energy down through his sword. He was closing in on the ground, his fire was doing very little to slow him down.
He was only a handful of meters from the ground when his sense of an incoming threat overwhelmed his focus on landing. A projectile was coming and would land right on top of where he was about to splat. Duerlin panicked, and without much thought, twisted out to slash at the missile that was suddenly only a foot away from him.
The heat in his sword, and the explosion of the missile generated a massive concussive wave. Duerlin didn’t feel the heat so much as he felt the pain of slamming into a building. His eyes were closed, the pain unbelievably real. He could still feel his sword in his right hand, his left was holding onto something hard and round.
When he opened his eyes, a flashing red notification warned him of his depleted health. His senses picked up three more projectiles that were soaring over his head. Duerlin coughed and sat up straight, looking around at the rubble that used to be a busy port.
“Well, I made it down. There isn’t gonna be much ground to stand on soon though.” His voice was weak and he felt like his body was having a hard time recovering.
He had never before even noticed a stamina drain on himself before. Even after fighting for hours, and then running at nearly full speed all the way back to the city hadn’t made him as winded as he was now.
“I guess that is what five percent health does to you.”
Quest Complete: Stand your ground. Rewards are available.
New Quest: Re-group with the extermination squad members outside of the city.
“So it’s not over then? Fuck, why can’t I just lay here for a few minutes?”
His question was answered by a sudden siren, loud and alarming. The cannon fire stopped suddenly as the siren reached max volume. Duerlin looked out over the bay, each of the ships was trying to turn around.
“Where are they going?”
Just as Duerlin asked, the ship farthest to his right exploded. It simply deconstructed itself into minuscule pieces in an extremely rapid time frame. Blinking, Duerlin thought he was hallucinating for a moment. Then the ship next to it blew up in a similar way.
With two ships suddenly combusting, Duerlin thought the city must be saved. That new quest must be to try and get him to join the others in finishing that Mandragola quest. Maybe he could just lay here for a minute to catch his breath before running out there.
Within a few minutes a shrill whistling sound roused him from thinking he was safe. Nothing seemed any different. The ships in the bay had all stopped firing and were beginning to turn away.
Boom!
Duerlin jumped up, suddenly nowhere near as tired as he was a heartbeat ago. That explosion had been right behind him. The buildings around him were already battered by the cannon fire, the latest explosion simply left a large crater where there used to be a house. His heart dropped, thinking of the people who might have been hiding inside the buildings.
Two more loud explosions went off in the heart of the town. The merchant and tavern area that he and the rest of the players had all been using, they would all be destroyed in those blasts. Duerlin started walking, wondering what would be left to fight for here, but knowing it would be suicide to stay. If he could get out of town and meet up with the rest of the players and fighters, maybe he could survive and they would move on to what came next.
He tried to walk back up the hill to the gates, but a rain of missiles came down to block his path. Explosions rocked the town, leveling the buildings and churning up the sandy earth beneath. Duerlin was forced to turn and run back towards the water. Seeing nothing but destruction and fire all around him.