The Lich King felt optimistic about this attack. There were almost half as many defenders this time as there were for his first offensive into this village. He had used much of his stored-up death magic to raise the zombies. He knew they were merely cushions for enemy spears, but coming around the flank might still tip the scales.
Then he saw a human start to cut down his newly raised undead. He had to keep concentrating until all 50 zombies were risen, but they were being made dead as fast as he could make them undead.
He only had so much concentration, so it was turned back to the front lines and raising the zombies. That's when he felt intense pain in his head and neck. Losing concentration completely as he felt for holes in his head.
Not undead himself but infused with death magic, he could not be killed through mundane means. He shouldn't feel pain either, but those projectiles must be magical. They also weren't healing. Damn that human!
He could feel his troops on the front line get slaughtered as they lost all semblances of power. With pain raging, he pointed to Travis, “kill him!!”. He then turned to focusing on the battle in front, also ordering his skeletons forward. He really needed to get stronger so his raised forces would act independently in future battles.
**
Javier watched as the skeleton army started moving to the front line, at the same time the three bodyguards went after Travis. If he waited a bit, he'd have a clear shot at the enemy leader, or he could turn his attention to the foes attacking Travis.
What swung his decision was the fact that the lich was still alive after getting shot in the face; what could his arrows do? So, he leaned out and activated a skill.
---
Travis knew he was in a tough situation now. The zombies had stopped coming, and the hole was filling up; that was good. But he now had three boss-type monsters bearing down on him. The closest was the Goblin as his spider mount was skittering towards him at a fast pace.
He hoped bullets would work better against these things. Travis started backing up towards the rear of the building but unloaded the rest of his clip between the Goblin and the spider.
Now that his handgun had been upgraded, it no longer needed ammunition. That didn't mean he had unlimited shots though. Each clip could fire 16 consecutive shots before a cooldown of 15 seconds ensued. If you emptied that next clip without a break, then the cooldown doubled, and so on. It was more complicated if you fired in bursts or had gaps in the time you used it.
The Goblin, like almost all of the monsters in the game, did not know what a gun was. He continued to charge right at Travis. A barrage of bullets tore into his chest, knocking him off the Spider. The goblin was strong in the dark arts, but six magical metal projectiles grouped tightly in his chest was too much, he was dead before he hit the ground.
The spider was a different animal altogether, literally and figuratively. It had also had six shots fired at it, but due to the angle, only three hit it. Two pierced its flesh but didn't hit anything vital, the other one was stopped by a chitinous shell on top of the spider.
Travis saw this six-legged monstrosity coming at him with speed. Behind it was the half-orc half-tiger, and then there was whatever the heck the other thing was.
For now, though, he needed to take one threat at a time. He dropped the empty clip; magic or not, it still worked like a regular gun. Loading up an armor-piercing clip, Travis fired as many shots as possible into what looked like the face of that thing before it was on him.
Momentum took the spider straight at Travis, but the 8-10 bullets that he got into it had an impact. The spider was leaking black goo and slowed down considerably. It still had enough strength to bite at him with its pincers.
With all the boosted speed, he dodged the strike easily, pulling out his sword in the same motion and cutting off its front two legs. This caused the spider's front to drop down as it tried to compensate with the back legs. Travis turned his sword around and in a slightly dramatic and satisfying move brought it down with two hands into the top of the spider.
Looking up expecting to see one of the other monsters coming at him, he was pleasantly surprised that he did not. There was commotion to the right and Travis peaked over. He had the freedom to do that because his sword was driven through the spider and into the ground locking it in place. Regardless its lifeforce was draining out faster than its disgusting black blood.
The reason Travis was not being overcome by elite undead king bodyguards was for two reasons. The first was responsible for the commotion to the right—the Slayers. They had come to the aid of Travis and his party at the perfect time.
It was all good, though he could see one of their fighters on the ground and another kneeling over with a pretty bad wound in its chest. The armor-clad leader and the Game of Thrones-looking female fighter were hanging in there.
Travis still had his armor-piercing bullets loaded, so he raised his gun and fired. The monster was so big that accuracy was not a problem.
Luckily for the two remaining fighters, the bullets ripped into the monster's right arm and side. It was lucky because the monster was in the process of unleashing a special attack. It would jump up and slam the ground, causing some type of shockwave in a circle around it.
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Right before it started up was when the bullets tore into it. In rage, it screamed, then turned towards Travis. The Slayers were fast, and as it turned around, they each took the opportunity to stab it with their weapons.
In reaction, the monster swung its arm back, smashing the Slayer leader and knocking him down. Travis started to jog over, switching clips; he went with the bunker buster. Something this big needed a weapon with as much gusto.
He got the clip in and was about 20 feet away; that's when he saw the monster go to finish the injured leader. As it raised its arms to come down, Travis put three bullets in its armpit, exactly where he wanted.
The bullets were designed to destroy fixed positions, so they penetrated into the body before going off in mini-explosions. If they thought the monster roared the last time, then they didn't actually know the meaning of the word.
This attack seriously hurt it, and the monster bellowed, loudest sound many of them ever heard. It turned and ran at Travis far faster than he thought it could. He barely was able to roll aside, even with his enhanced speed and reflexes.
The beast kept going, though; Travis turned to try and finish it, but the last standing member of the Slayers started screaming, “Help, please come here!”
Reluctantly, Travis turned around and ran over. It turned out this was her husband, and he was in pretty bad shape.
“Please help me with him.”
Travis looked and couldn't see what was wrong, but the man had blood running out from under his armor. Travis pulled out a potion and gave it to her, “Here, give him this and take his armor off; it might be stabbing into him. Then get him to safety.”
She nodded and took the potion, “Where are you going?”
He didn't mean to snap at the woman, but it should have been obvious, “To win this damn battle, it's far from over.”
He got up and started to head towards the building, wondering where Javier and Gary were.
The second reason why Travis wasn't overwhelmed by monsters had to do with the marksmanship of Javier and, believe it or not, the fighting spirit of Gary.
Once Javier finally had a line of sight, he activated the concussive force scroll. His intelligence wasn't high enough for it to be an easy read, but due to some convoluted and complex mechanics going on behind the scenes, he was able to activate it very fast.
It was because his primary weapon and skill aligned with the use of the scroll. Also, a complex interplay of other attributes—suffice it to say that Javier pulled the scroll, read it, and then had the first concussive force arrow nocked within seconds.
Lucky for Travis, he didn't know just how lucky he was. As the sword was impaling the spider and trapping it, the Slayers were occupying the monstrosity, but the half-orc was still rushing at him.
That was until an arrow with the force of a punch from the Hulk hit it above its back legs. The speed of this monster was hard to gauge, so the shot was a bit off-line. Still, when it hit the back of the monster, the thing's legs flew back as if someone pulled them with an invisible string.
This, of course, carried the rest of the twisted abomination with it. It flew 5 feet off the ground and fell into a squad of skeleton swordsmen.
Javier was covered up well, and he got ready to fire again. The monster got up and was looking around when Gary finally snapped. Gary was not a PC but had skill book knowledge using his axe, which made him skilled enough to be out here, but not enough to dictate when to fight.
All day he had chased around Travis and Javier, covering backs and flanks. Seeing his friends almost die but then come back and kill things, he had no opportunity to do any of this. It was taking its toll.
All stress and no outlet. So when Javier shot the arrow that knocked the Half-Orc (he needed to refer to it as something in his head and Half-Orc was as good as anything) into the skeletons, Gary was ready, but to his surprise they were still hidden. This made Javier happy, but it drove the most recent surge of adrenaline almost out of Gary.
Internally, somewhere in his mind, a decision was made. He would rather fight undead than just stand here and wait. He screamed and ran out towards the skeletons.
Javier was outraged but only for a moment. He would use this opportunity to kill monsters from cover while they focused on that mad man. He would be ready to move out and engage with his knives once Gary got in trouble. The man obviously wanted to fight, so why get in his way.
Let's set the scene: In the foreground, if someone were looking straight ahead, there is a large building, some type of farm-based structure. On the right side of it was mostly open ground, where Travis had fought the zombies and spider rider. Further off to the right is more open farmland, where the Slayers engaged the monstrosity.
To the left of the building, there are a couple of sheds for storage and some trees. In between one of these sheds and a large tree is where Javier had set up.
Moving forward from the large building, there is open farmland where the Lich King was deployed. He was facing west, or to the left, because about three-quarters of a football field away is where the sheriff had his main forces set up; that's also where the village is.
When the Lich summoned the skeleton army, they appeared facing towards the sheriff's forces. Javier shot the Half-Orc as it came across his field of view towards Travis on the other side of the building. That's where the tail end of the skeletons was, the rest marching towards the village.
Gary saw the Half-Orc get knocked into the skeletons, those in the back half of the line. He assumed they would know where the shot came from. Gripping the axe so hard his knuckles were white, then realizing he was going to have to remain on watch, it was too much.
He charged out from behind the shed and large tree, swinging his axe like a force of nature. The sound of the axe head hitting undead skeleton bone was very satisfying, fueling Gary's vendetta against inaction.
The skeletons were better troops than the mummies and zombies but still not good fighters. They had better weapons, wielding short swords and shields. But if you could avoid an unskilled lunge from one of their swords, then you had little to worry about. Of course, numbers could overwhelm you.
Javier saw Gary and got caught up watching the show until a few of the undead soldiers started to get around Gary for a surround.
Javier nocked his second concussive arrow and fired into the middle of the ones trying to flank his partner. The shot was perfectly placed. These arrows hit with tremendous force, and the skeleton shot back, knocking a line of its clones onto the ground with it. The one hit by the arrow exploded into individual bones.
By this point the half-orc had finally gotten up and slightly recovered from getting shot. Now it took in the scene and tried to decide what to do. Its orc brain was made up of the smarter Marauder and it also had the death magic essence which added cunning. Looking around the monster could tell that they were not winning, yet it wasn't so bad that victory was out of reach.
The half-orc made a decision in that moment it thought could turn the tide of battle.