Meishir was a small town, the Mill crossroads was a tiny guild compared to some of the powerhouses ruling the alliance but they had legacy avatars and his Gal'Or was powerful enough to gain their town a spawn point and their guild a place in the alliance.
Hanlun knew the town was lost before he logged in, it was lost a week ago when Shermond fell and they lost the main trading hub for the region, but it was his home town and he was going to defend it for as long as possible and pay the despawn tax when he died at the last stand.
Sails on the horizon made him hold his breath, and then moved on at full speed, completely ignoring Meishir and just moving on to the next major city, not sure if he was glad to be spared or annoyed to be scorned he breathed out.
Hundreds of ships, more Players than he ever saw in one place outside starter cities and alliance yearly market on the steppes, all rushing past him carried by the wind.
Two ships turned and were moving in his direction, when they drew closer he could see they were dreadnaughts, each carrying more Players and NPCs than his whole town population, why bother fighting that? Pride didn't pay for groceries, the spawn point did that but it will soon be under pirate control, but he could still hurt them, and two ships could be easily repelled by the town defenses, the other sails on the horizon were the real threat but mocking him with such a tiny force will not come cheap.
They were perfectly aligned, one keeping slightly to the back, "tidal horror", was his legacy ultimate, imbuing illusion and evocation it created a small ebby that halted a ship while at the same time conjuring the image of a sea monster rising from the depths, the ships shot at it and now came his mastery, following each shot with a tentacle of ilusion made the people on the ships think the monster hit them, causing more shots and more damage to both ships, when they both had their broadsides turned to the 'monster' he breathed in and as the light flashed from both ships he dipelled the illusion and let the pirates enjoy their own light show, one ship was covered in steaming black tar that seemed to drip through the wood and stripped a quarter of its flank armor and hall, the dreadnaught held in place for another half a minute before it sunk right in front of his astonished eyes.
The remaining ship was not unscathed as it turned to its original course he could see smoke rising from several locations along its center and flank, "greater illusion" making it appear like the whole ship caught on fire and watching in satisfaction as its crew was jumping off, it wasn't easy to dispel a greater illusion but the pirates had their own spell casters and it was soon removed, more substantial spells needed them to be in range and by that time their cannons will decimate the whole wall and their men will be jumping over the rubble left from his battlements, ignoring the cheers from his people he signaled them to retreat, leaving only him and the NPCs to hold the last stand, pirates were notorious for mistreating Players and he wasn't about to let his family and friends suffer through that for a lost cause, already seeing more ships parting from the line to attack him, feeling proud to be the thorn in the emperor's side.
Entering his long range for mortar fire he started pulsing the shots to slow down their advance, forcing them into evasive maneuvers and even scoring a few solid hits when the captain missed a beat, smiling in satisfaction at the thuds of crushed wood and broken timber he heard the first whistle of their own mortars, aiming at his battlements and towers was a better gamble than thinking there was only one defender and guessing his location.
Managing another full salvo before losing two of his eight mortars, he knew where to aim his next shots and scored another solid one on their aft mortar before losing three more of his own, they weren't lucky, they were well trained professionals doing a good job.
There was no time to appreciate their proficiency as they entered his cannon fire profile, conentrating on the different gauge fans required his full attention, the ship was huge and armored to extreme measures, boasting over eighty cannons on each broadside for his meager sixty all along the wall, seeing the whites in their eyes he now knew each emplacement was a double barrel and the first salvo turned a third of his wall to rubble sliding into the sea or blasted at the warehouse district behind it.
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Not bothering to turn they reloaded, taking on his direct shots to their flanks and then blasting another part of the wall, if he let some of his guild members stay they could take the cannon fire on themselves and he could use his avatar's skills to confuse their aiming but with so many cannons it was useless, some would hit on pure statistics and if they wanted to shoot faster all the pirates had to was turn to their other broadside, it wouldnt double their pace but it could add about twenty percent to their firing speed as it took time to actually turn such a monster.
Following the second salvo they didn't bother to fire again, just rammed the ship at the docks and marched into his once peaceful town, from his tower Hanlun didn't understand their actions, they didnt just loot the defenseless NPCs, raping and maiming the computer controlled avatars was just disgusting, seeing some of the NPCs fighting off a group of pirates in the corner shop he decided to join them, flying down and flinging lightning bolts at the low level pirates was satisfying, the computer generated gratitude of the NPCs was nice but would be very annoying if not for the prizes they gave him and the small clearance quest a burly barkeeper gave him.
Killing twenty pirates was easy when hundreds of them were all over town and he the only other Player, repulsion from their actions of sadism toward the NPCs gave him motivation to kill another thirty on the second stage of the quest before the bigshots noticed him, he kept killing the lower level Players even as they chased him through the streets, blasting fireballs and chain lightning spells when sighting them was a lot of fun.
He flew to a roof, evading the barrage of knives from the rogue that cornered him, the Player was quick and agile and Hanlun couldn't get rid of him with illusions and subterfuge, looking down he could see the Player running up the wall, jumping from brick to brick like they were horizontal, shooting a lightning bolt the player evaded with ease and Hanlun turned to flee once more.
Narrowly evading the sword slash and sidestepping to regain his bearing, Hanlun cast "thunder clap" to purchase another second before flying to another roof, hearing stone crushed he looked back to see the warrior smashed parts of the roof in his jump and was gaining on him fast.
Barreling through Hanlun's wind wall the warrior rolled past him when the rogue made a graceful jump lead by a fan of flying daggers, a "gust" spell pushed them aside but put him in the countdown for another spell.
After doing the math he dropped from the side of the building and cast feather fall as soon as the timer filled up and almost too late as he hit the street almost at the same time and started running.
A sea oriented legacy avatar had no business fighting on land, his most powerful spells useless in the enviroment he could only delay the inevitable and finally when cornered on three sides he stood straight and put his hands in his sleeves as the universal sign of peace.
Ready to despawn at any moment he watched them catch their breaths as more lower leveled pirates joined the group surrounding him, he only had one question, "why are you abusing the NPCs?"
"Because its fun", appeared to be the only answer he was going to get, "and because they aren't really artificial intelligences", what was the man saying?, "let me prove it to you", signalling one of the others to bring a random NPC into the circle, "I can't tell you their crimes", he laughed, "but it probably wasn't anything like a NPC soldier would have got", all around laughs, "so it's a lot easier to break their inhibitors even through the blockers"
The man pulled out a knife and stabbed the NPC in the eye, "that kicked in his blockers", he explained the gruesome action, "now comes the fun part", tracing the knife across the NPC clothes and tearing them apart, "a hundred credits if you put new clothes on", the Player said and to Hanluns astonished eyes the NPC was clothed again, "now we are past the blockers", and Hanlun could see tears streaming from the avatar still good eye, "ten credits if you try to run", and the NPC bolted into the arms of the pirates surrounding them, "you need to offer them things they want to get past the blockers", grabbing the man's arm and pulling him back to before Hanlun, "then you can start demanding the things you want them to do because they disabled their own blockers for a few credits"
Looking at the NPC Hanlun didn't know what credits were, "a thousand credits if you fail my voight-kampff test" was a strange wording of what the man tried to prive before Hanlun realised what it meant, a machine can't fail on purpose, put numbers in a calculator and it couldn't give you a false answer, unless you taught it how, but then the NPC wouldn't function in its original design, "well done my friend", the Player congratulated the NPC on succeeding to fail, "see how much fun we are having?"
Sick in his stomache Hanlun didn't want to believe, "chain lightning" killed the poor tortured man and jumped to a few others before he despawned centimeters before the dagger pierced his heart.