“I’m sick of just sitting here!” Cain, wearing his new helmet, had reached Level 21 almost at the same time as me. He was moving fast in a Level 21-30 zone.
Cain had told me he thought this whole idea of a vote was stupid. I wanted to have some semblance of democracy if we were going to commit blood to this. “I’m not saying we just sit here, but we can’t just rush into-”
“Why don’t we take the deal?” Everyone went silent. Graham leaned back, watching the effect of his words settle on the crowd. 7 Representatives from Harehill and 7 from Whispercreek had met. I was the tiebreaker as Guild Master. The 15 people in the room all sat, quietly weighing the option.
Graham decided to push the issue. “We can all see the leaderboard. Liberty is up to 5,000 official men. Abilene Crusade is at 985. Who knows who else they’ve vassalized? Red Liberty could have 2,000 combatants or more ready to fight at a moments notice. We’ve got less than 30. The power difference is massive. We all live forever. What’s a few decades under Liberty control? Hell, in 1,000 years it’s not even going to matter. If we’re dead, their is no 1,000 years later.”
I looked at him. “Graham, why would you suggest we just roll over and take it? We can fight.”
Graham gave a shrug. “I was the Sheriff of Albany. I was second only to the mayor. I watched everyone, including the mayor, get massacred. Now…I’ve got some position of power here, even if it doesn’t have a title. Only person I feel like actually outranks me is you, J. It’d be nostalgic if it wasn’t so fucking traumatizing.”
You could have heard a pin drop in that room. Nick looked at me with a frown.
Jerry gave a big sigh, his white Santa beard muffling him clearing his throat. “We all gave this a shot. We got food, water, goods, opportunities, and homes. We got ourselves a good setup here. A fight with Liberty means we’ll probably lose all of that. They’re saying we get to keep everything we’ve earned and we can keep doing everything we’re doing.”
Discussion was turning into debate and the debate was turning into arguments. The calm, one person at a time, approach that we had started with devolved into several groups on either side speaking to themselves. On its face, I could see where they were coming from. It was a practically unwinnable war with the result of death for either most or all of us put up against what seemed to be living our normal lives with a distant overlord making the ‘big calls’.
I had to regain control of the group. We weren’t going to be at all productive without a sense of diplomacy. “Listen! Listen, everybody. This is how it all starts. One guy rolls in and says, ‘join or die’ and then we give up some of our freedom. From there, all it takes is another person and then another person to slowly take away our freedom piece by piece. We are in a world fighting actual zombies and hyenas with axes and, according to some of you, giant skeleton dragons. Why the hell would we also deal with being worker slaves underneath some tyrant 200 miles away?”
The group was quiet. I got the sense that I didn’t really convince anyone, I just said the right words to get them to be silent.
“Look…we’ll just take a vote. There’s 15 of us. We’ll go around the table. I vote fight.” I turned to my right. “Graham?”
Graham looked at me with a rough expression on his face. “Submit.”
I nodded. “Elsa?”
“Fight.”
“Bill?”
“Submit….I have kids here.”
And so we went. At the final 2, it was 7-6 for submit. “Cain?”
“Fight.”
7-7. One vote left. “Theresa?”
---------------------------
“Knock, knock!” Captain Raphael called over the wall of Harehill.
I walked up to the top of the ramparts, looking over the force below. 61 men, presumably the company Raphael was in charge of, stood behind him. In the middle of their group was a wagon. A large rectangle shape was covered by a sheet. “What’s on the wagon?”
“A present for you, Jeremiah.” Raphael smiled at me from below. His toothy grin contained a malice that I wasn’t quite prepared for.
“A present?”
“A present.” Raphael waved his hand and three men removed the sheet.
Cain and Graham stood on either side of me as the sheet went down. It’s a good thing they did, as I nearly jumped over the wall. The sheet contained a large rectangle made up of iron bars. Hooked to the bars by all four limbs, and her neck, was my sister. “Katrina!”
She looked up, blinking in the random burst of sunlight. “J?!” She shook against her chains as she tried to get up before remembering that it was impossible in her current position.
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“Let her go, Raphael!” Cain had an authority in his voice that I hadn’t heard before. He sounded like a veteran general.
“Of course! We want all of our new vassals to be properly thanked for their co-operation.” Raphael glanced at the three of us on the wall.
I nodded. “Alright….”
“Alright…what…Jeremiah?”
“If we don’t accept…you’ll kill her?”
Raphael laughed. “Kill her? We don’t do executions, Jeremiah. No…she’s far too pretty to kill.” One of the men by the wagon reached a hand in the cage and grabbed her.
I could feel the warmth leave my body. My hands were freezing cold. I felt Graham’s hand on my back. Was he stopping me from doing anything stupid or telling me too?
Raphael watched us like a snake watching its prey. “What’s it going to be, Mr. Lakewood?”
[Quickdraw] was truly an incredible skill. With how I had leveled it, no amount of [Detection] or [Analysis] or [Hawk’s Eye] or [True Sight] was able to predict my movements. From a frozen cold standing position, I was able to draw my pistols, aim, and fire in less than a second. That’s exactly what I did. The [Multi-Shot] scattered across the field, but I saw the notifications.
A single critical hit out of 6. Still, I saw his profile go red. The soldiers on the other side of the wall began to draw their weapons and fire back. That’s where my newest ability got to shine. [Cover Fire] delivered a furious stream of bullets into the enemy lines.
Raphael crawled behind the wagon as his men desperately searched for cover. The open field provided very little.
I gave a nod. “GO GO GO!”
The doors erupted open a platoon of human players and guard-rabbits stormed the fields. The four foot tall, spear-wielding beasts hopped their way to the enemy and began to stab out at them.
I had a random strike of frustration as I realized that those fighting on the field, on both sides, were all people. They had all spent the last 8 months in this hellscape. Every man and woman on that field had their own reasons and paths for being where they were. The young man who’s profile I pulled up made me frown.
Ryan K. - Level 19 Barbarian
Trainee? He looked like his age matched his level. Raphael had brought a child to a potential warzone. This kid…man…whatever, had probably spent 8 months in fear. He had most likely enlisted in their army with no other choice. I knew they were paying some form of professional compensation. He was probably receiving 3 hots and a cot for himself and whoever else he considers family. He was just a man like me. That thought didn’t stop me from rapidly firing two critical hits into his skull. Ryan K, the Level 19 Barbarian, was now a corpse among several on the field.
The thirty members of the Harehill Commonwealth who charged out were joined by another fifty or so guard-rabbits. Those numbers started to fall. A few of our lower level fighters died first. That was more or less expected, even if no one would voice that out loud. What wasn’t expected, however, was the fire mage who directed a critical fire ball into Matt. Matt was standing on the railing near me as he rained balls of energy onto the field. The strike knocked him down to a red profile and the fall from the wall to the ground below took the rest of his health away. Matt was dead.
I fired my weapons as fast as my skills allowed. [Multi-Shot], [Cover Fire], [Ranger’s Mark], and my regular materializing bullets were my rotating weapons of death. I’d pick a target, fire until they hid or dropped, and then moved to the next. From my position, I was able to see the tides starting to turn. A healer had filled Raphael to full health, allowing the Level 25 to charge towards Jerry. Jerry parried a strike, then another. Jerry used [Ferocious Shout] to try to force the assailant back. Raphael was fast, though. He was too fast. A few stabs and slashes and Jerry was dead.
Graham sliced apart a Liberty soldier a few hundred yards out from the wall. The soldier who appeared behind him was stopped only by a guard-rabbit with a lucky strike. The Rabbitfolk guardsman impaled the Liberty woman over and over again until she was dead. Graham wielded his Tachi and his [Spirit Blade] with an intimidating level of efficiency as he moved man to man. I watched as several soldiers seemed to see him coming and avoid the Samurai.
I watched Bill swing a few strikes at a Level 22. He was horribly outmatched. I tried to support him, but he was too far out for my bullets to be accurate. All I could do was watch the [Spinning Blade] decapitate another one of my combatants.
We were losing. We had caused significant casualties, but we were losing.
The sound of war horns off in the distance caused the whole field to slow down and pause for just a second. “REINFORCEMENTS FROM LIBERTY! RETREAT!”
I called the order, even as I saw the confusion of Raphael’s face. As my men desperately try to retreat, I saw at least a dozen men emerge from the tree line half a mile out from the wall. The men were riding large, ebony wolves. As they rode forward, I could see an assortment of bows and daggers equipped. At least a dozen wolf-riding rangers were descending on Harehill.
My men pulled back as best they could behind the gate. Of the 30, 16 were left. Theresa and Bailey did what they could to heal the wounded. I watched the wolf riders, just as Raphael did.
We were all equally surprised when volleys of arrows descended on the field and struck the Liberty soldiers. The wolves charged on to the field like a Khan’s cavalry and began to thrash and snap and devour soldiers. The wolves were Level 20. It was shocking to see players riding them. Each of the players was Level 22 or 23. As I scrolled person to person to see the profiles, one struck me.
Lincoln T. - Level 23 Ranger
Lincoln! He was not only alive, he was a higher level than me.
I watched Lincoln as he fired three arrows into a Liberty soldier at once, killing him instantly. I realized that he was using a [Multi-Shot]. The tides were turning yet again.
The wolf-riders dispatched man after man. Kills racked up amongst the rangers as they destroyed the Liberty company. I watched Raphael stumble away, trying to escape the field. A small wolf charged out of nowhere, small being a normal sized wolf compared to the massive monstrosities the warriors were riding, and tackled Raphael. He tried to fight the wolf off as Lincoln approached. "Good boy, Shocker."
Lincoln drew his bowstring back one more time. A single arrow through Raphael’s skull spelled the end for the last of the Liberty military company. They left none alive.
Lincoln turned up to the ramparts, removing his hood and allowing me to see his familiar bald head and serious face. His seriousness broke as he gave me a wide grin, taking a glance at Katrina’s cage and then back to me. “Who’s the girl in the cage, J?”