A man wielding a magic sword rode forward towards the massive bastion in the distance. He had no goddamn idea how he had somehow managed to escape certain death, nor had he any theories as to how he had crossed through what seemed to be both time and space to reach the place he was at, but in the end, none of that mattered.
He was like all of the others here, all guided by a single purpose that transcended time and distance. All of them had come from different time periods, all from different places, and all were different in any number of other ways, yet they all had the same grudge that needed to be settled.
The dragons, their lesser kin included, all needed to be purged, and this battle here would mark the end of the Dragon’s Domain. Each one of them had been extracted from just before their demise, and all had been restored to their peak.
Some would have been over a century old by the time their deaths had come, and yet they retained their wisdom and skill while also gaining back their youth. Others had fallen in their prime, yet now were back and ready for action, their equipment restored and in some cases replaced with the best that they had ever had in their possession.
“Rally to me, brave heroes and villains alike!” the leading man yelled, his voice booming with the use of a Class Skill. “Let us fight for the freedom of all those who dwell here, and for the vengeance and justice we so deserve! Come, to victory!”
A loud cheer arose from the throngs of people, and the ‘army’ surged forwards. The reason the word ‘army’ is in quotations is rather simple, and likely something that could be easily understood based on assumptions alone, but in case it could not or would not, then the reason was that there was no cohesion nor plan beyond simply ‘run headlong into the enemy position and hope for the best’.
There was no organization, nor were there any battle lines, and the mass of people were so mixed together that if a mage wanted to sling a fireball they would, more than likely, need to either fire it straight up or else risk immolating the various people around them. Likewise, the variety of Classes, equipment, physical ability and so much more was so varied and non-uniform that the ‘army’ would ultimately end up tearing itself apart as those more physically gifted went faster and the ones who were more bookish were left behind.
However, what ultimately sealed the fate of this time-warped force was the fact that they all were generally of a lower Level than the forces manning the fortress they were about to attempt to storm. Forget being able to kill a true dragon, the vast majority of people in the horde would be hard-pressed to kill a single kobold, and that would be if the kobold let them try and hit it more often than it would have normally liked.
But despite that, the force eventually made it, all in one group, and after many breaks, to the edge of the fortress’ reach. There, the time-warped people began to do what was to be expected and bickered among themselves as to who would go first/ who would be sent forward first.
There was no need for them to do that, though, nor were they particularly smart for doing so, as a few massive ballista bolts were fired from the walls of the fortress and landed among the mass of people, skewering a few before the magic runes on them caused the all-metal poles to explode, causing even more death and destruction.
Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon.
This forced the hand of the members of the Races, and while it wasn’t clear who was the first to try and bum-rush the walls, in the end, it didn’t matter, as the horde followed their lead and all pretense of order was thrown out the window like a man in Prague.
And so, with all forms of sensible tactics and strategy having left for greener pastures, the mass of elves, dwarves, humans, and werean rushed towards the wall, even as ranged fire rained down on them. But, of course, they were just taken from the place they were about to die, so how would they have been able to scale the walls?
And that, my dear readers, is where we get to one of the many creative things that the makers of the MMO came up with specifically for this kind of scenario. In the MMO, there were sieges, but how would you take the walls without ramps, towers or ladders?
Well, the devs, and now the people attacking the walls, had a solution that another game series found to be acceptable and that the fans of that game series memed the hell out of. As a player of the Total War games would say, they used ‘Ass Ladders’.
Yes, they literally pulled ladders into being from nowhere, which of course led the ever juvenile players of such games to remark that they ‘must have hidden the ladders up their asses’. Well, these ladders were just popping into being, as per the remnants of the game, and that, my dear readers, is how they managed to start climbing the wall.
Not that those ladders did them much good, though, as they were exposed and the act of climbing them left one winded at best once one reached the top. Plus, there were people up there on the walls who were none-too-happy about the attempted acts that were on the invading army’s agenda.
As one person reached the top of the ladder, of any of the ladders, they would be met with a swift blow to the head and sent falling back down to the ground, possibly taking one or two people with them as they left their perch. But, while they could knock down many who climbed the ladders, the defenders could not stop them all, and this was especially true when ranged fire from the base of the wall arced up and caused the defenders to try and protect themselves.
And so, eventually, the numbers of both sides on the walls began to gradually shift in ratio, and a vicious melee began to unfold. Of course, there were still those who didn’t care about that in the slightest, as they saw the invading Races as no real threat due to various factors.
But there were people that needed killing, so they would have to bite the bullet and do something about that growing number of lesser creatures polluting the glorious fortress with their sickening presence.
And if they managed to disturb their game of cards, well, that was just even more reason to kill them.