Coop glanced at the ridiculous number of timers on the edge of his vision and tried to parse how far along they had come as left the basement and made his way back to the courtyard. He’d lost track of the time and was surprised to find it was night again when he reached the open air.
[000:00:00]
[000:00:00]
[000:00:00]
[012:36:24]
He counted on his fingers as spells flew around the battlefield. Just five and a half days so far? The system should have given them a progress bar instead of all these timers. For some kind of supposedly omniscient entity, the system’s UI left a lot to be desired.
They had a solid two weeks to go before the last timer was completed. The days and nights were bleeding together for Coop. It was just one constant fight punctuated by desperate moments of flux as new complications made themselves known. He shifted his focus to the defenders that had surrounded the gaping chasm that had become the centerpiece of the northern town circle to see how the defenders were handling the current wave.
Even Charlie had joined the defense. She was maintaining a whirlwind that swirled around the exit of the sinkhole. It was weaker than her previous tornadoes because she was doing more long term crowd control than damage. The monsters were being whipped back into their hole or lifted helplessly in the air. Other casters seemed to be experimenting with skill combinations that could make her winds more deadly.
The glass droplets that Coop had witnessed devastating the Enraged Defenders seemed particularly potent as the tiny projectiles were swept into Charlie’s winds. The underside of the hard carapaces on the Frenzied Excavators weren’t tough enough to protect against the glass bullets when they picked up speed. The tiny volcanoes also seemed like a natural combination. They launched fiery magma balls that temporarily made streaks of flame among the winds when they collided with monsters.
The residents of Ghost Reef weren’t only getting class levels from experience, but also actual battle experience. It seemed like it was yielding some unexpected methods of coordination. Coop liked that. He had hoped his residents would focus on building their own potent classes that they would be passionate about, rather than stuffing themselves into a particular archetype, because he wanted to encourage the type of enthusiasm that might lead to creativity. He wasn’t sure how much customization they could have possibly accomplished at this point, but he still imagined the freedom to do as they wanted was motivating them to push the limits of their abilities.
His own enthusiasm had led to discovering a variety of hidden possibilities with his own skills after all. Mistjumping was of course the ultimate example.
Coop crossed the fortifications at the beachhead which were leisurely protected by shielded melee phantoms who weren’t seeing any action at the moment. He crossed the bridge and found Shane, Arthur, and Kayla near the civilization shard.
The Charon’s Gaze phantom was sitting cross legged on the edge of the town circle and gave Coop a polite nod as Coop walked past. The man’s stare was unnerving, but Coop returned the downward nod.
“You already met Charon?” Kayla asked him by way of greeting as he approached the group.
“Met is a strong word. At most we’ve made eye contact. Is he one of yours?”
Kayla chuckled. “He’s the Captain of Sea Burial. Gives orders with his eyes, but he’s always run a tight ship.” Kayla explained. “I’d say eye contact means you’re already friends.”
“His name is Charon and he’s known for his gaze?” Coop wondered, perplexed that the system would give him a class that specific.
“It’s not really his name, like I’m the Siren and Sharkbait is Sharkbait, but you’ve got the idea.”
“Your class shoulda been Siren.” Coop reflected.
“You think I could lure men to their deaths with just my voice?” She mused for a moment. "Of course I could.” She answered with barely any hesitation, self-assuredly, and not giving him a chance to agree or disagree. “A Siren is a type of Sea Witch isn’t it?”
Coop shrugged. “Gonna have to ask Jones after we fix him up.” Coop ceded historical and mythological facts to the experienced caretaker.
Arthur and Gideon joined the group, both looking just as tired as Coop felt. Shane looked relatively fresh compared to how he looked before, but Marcus looked absolutely awful.
“Damn Marcus, what happened to you?” Coop wondered. His first advisor was a wreck of tattered cloth and blood stains, like he had been put through a blender.
“Ah, well, turns out my class is quite the counter for both the Prowlers and the Excavators. I have an ability called Sign of Devotion that lets me detonate afflictions and heals me for each affliction removed.” He looked down at his ruined gear. “If there was an easier way to get afflictions, I don’t even want to know at this point.”
Coop sympathized, one look was all it took, but he also felt a little envious of being able to remove afflictions. He’d like to have a skill that could do that too, but he was always greedy for skills.
“Alright.” Shane cleared his throat and grabbed everyone’s attention to start their semi-official business. “Just to bring everyone up to speed, the southern wall defenders had a 12 hour break and have now taken over defense of the Excavator cave. Everyone else will now have their own 12 hours to recuperate. One hour before the next wave, we’ll have all hands on deck.”
“We’re anticipating Primal Kites to make up the next wave, but even if that prediction is correct, it doesn’t tell us where and how they would approach the fort. They are mobile ranged attackers that will be difficult for most melee to engage with. We’ll most likely have the melee fighters resume fighting the Excavators to free everyone else up to deal with the new wave.” Shane paused and glanced at Marcus and Coop.
“We lost the Fletcher during the Field Boss battle. Our non-class based archers will run out of arrows quickly, and they might be needed to handle the Kites. Replacing that service might be crucial for keeping everyone in the fights.”
Marcus responded, having had more time to explore their options while Coop remained fighting. “Settlement construction is locked along with just about everything useful until the mana dome is removed.” He glanced up into the darkness of the sky where the red dome continued to loom. “It’s meant to disappear after each wave, but since our waves appear to be overlapping, I don’t think we’ll have a chance to build anything until the event is all over.”
“Maybe not all of the waves will be the same.” Coop suggested, though it wasn’t an entirely helpful thought, introducing another variable to mess with their predictions.
Shane nodded and continued. “In that case, we’ll be relying on manually conjuring and crafting arrows. It isn’t a complete loss, since most of the actual archer classes have their own ways to provide ammo. It’s the melee fighters who were supplementing their skills with a ranged option that will run out. We’ll get everyone that has professions that could contribute to do so.”
“Other than that, morale is good. If anything, facing the challenge together is boosting the fighting spirit among the residents, but that will only last as long as we can continue managing their physical exhaustion and providing breaks from the constant fighting. The biggest influence on morale has been having Coop on the frontline, so you should keep that up.”
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Coop scratched at the back of his head, slightly embarrassed, while Kayla snickered at his reaction.
Shane went on. “The naval crews have been bolstering our forces, but we’ll need them in the water for each countdown. We know not all of the waves will come across the dunes now that one started underground, and even though they seem to be coming from their regular spawn locations, we don’t know where everything spawns. ”
Kayla saluted. “You got it boss. The Eye of the Storm’ll stay where she is, along with Windchaser, but we’ll have the fleet spread to the edges of the territory before every timer.”
Shane nodded and looked around at each of the others. “That’s about it. If no one has anything else…” He waited a moment for an interjection. “I’ll be taking command for now, the rest of you have until the next countdown reaches one hour to rest up.” Shane neutrally dismissed the group.
Shane left them to head back across the bridge and help maintain the frontline, Kayla went to her ship after slapping Coop’s shoulder. The rest headed toward the apartments or barracks.
Coop accessed the shard and confirmed that they couldn’t do anything other than observe the status of the settlement. They wouldn’t be respawning phantoms until the event was over and they wouldn’t be able to get the medical center either. He tried to look at the bright side: not having to worry about it being destroyed immediately after spending a fortune constructing it.
He went to the Clumsy Shark. He didn’t plan on resting for 12 hours, but he’d take a nap, grab some food, and collect all the buffs he could before he went back underground. A little rest would do him good, but he also wasn’t about to waste an opportunity to keep getting experience and it seemed like they needed to actively participate in order to receive any.
The inside of the tavern was more crowded than ever, but people were subdued. Small groups were eating quietly together and others were just resting on their own. The few non-combatants were holed up in the safety of the building, so it reminded Coop of some kind of bomb shelter. He had thought the tavern would be the safest place in the settlement, but judging by the library’s fortifications, it might only be the second safest.
The muted atmosphere inside was stripped away when Elly’s laughter broke out from one of the booths where Maeve was serving. The small burst of happiness spread through the room and even the most melancholy of visitors were involuntarily smiling to themselves as they ate or relaxed. It was a small reminder of the things they were fighting for. Even Coop needed it as he was wrapped up in leaderboards, stats, and level ups, but they were also securing their safety, their survival, and a future.
Coop sat at the bar and Desmond served him a bowl of stew with a side of Vronk bread.
“How’s it going out there?” The bartender asked.
“A few dicey moments, but we’re managing.” Coop responded, but he was worried about the difficulty ramping up. If the monsters continued to escalate in levels, he really hoped that the other residents would be able to keep up. So far, they had risen to the challenge.
Desmond nodded approvingly before moving on and helping other customers. Coop ate his food quickly, tapped the bar to settle his bill, and headed back outside. Instead of taking a bed for a power nap, he decided to just go relax underneath his second favorite palm tree. It might be his first favorite now by default. He wasn’t sure if the one on the beach outside had survived the surging Defenders and the cannon barrages. It was on the edge of what ended up being the battlefield.
Coop laid on his back looking up at the palm fronds and considered the weird relationship they all had with sleep now. He suspected that at least part of the tiredness that he felt was psychosomatic. His mind knew that fatigue should be setting in after a hundred hours of physical activity, but mana seemed to throw everything off.
He woke up from what he intended to be a quick nap when the sun crested over the fort walls and began shining on his face. Brushing the grass off of himself, he got up and stretched. After checking the timers again, he realized he had been asleep for a solid eight hours. He certainly felt better.
Coop headed to the town circle where Mikey B greeted him.
“Yo, Coop!” The Honorguard called as he jogged over.
“Hey Mikey, did you guys get the message delivered?” Coop responded.
“Yeah, man. Check it out.” He answered as he pointed to the west end of the canal where Amanda was watching a giant pig splashing around in the deep water along with the whole herd. He seemed to have claimed the shallows on the outside of the moat as his wallow and was taking the time to splash around in the unusually deep water when he was normally too big to actually swim.
“The little ones climbed on board while the big one followed us.” Mikey explained as Coop inspected the beast.
[Gluttonous Wild Pig (Level 60)]
[Eater of Worlds (Body)]
[Chosen of the Shepherds of the Lost]
Judging by the scrapes and scratches he had been forced to fight through the previous waves even on the next island over, but all the normal pigs were still accounted for. Coop thanked Mikey and told him to pass it on to Amanda before Coop went and found Madison. He interrupted her meal to see if she could heal the beastly pig.
“I’m not a vet! I’m a human doctor! For humans!” Madison scolded him for suggesting she was also a veterinarian, as if being a doctor wasn’t enough, before she did in fact leave her meal to go heal the pig. The pig seemed happy enough with her treatment.
Without wasting any more time, he headed back to the beachhead, checked in with Shane, and headed down to the pearlescent chambers. The chamber that they had access to through the basement tunnel was completely under control. Using his spear to mistjump across the gap, he claimed an adjacent chamber for himself while the residents took care of the first.
Five hours of smashing with his morning star while maintaining Fog of War and the fourth timer beeped the last 10 seconds before buzzing to indicate another wave had begun. Coop remained underground, waiting for a wraith messenger to summon him if it was necessary, otherwise he would keep stifling the Frenzied Excavators for another 25 hours.
The first pearlescent chamber continued to be occupied by Gibson and the rest of the squad that had relieved Coop. Between Coop and the rest of them underground, half of the Excavators failed to even reach the sinkhole. They kept at it even after the next wave started.
Eventually, a wraith arrived at the edge of his fog with a message. The ghostly woman teleported across the cavern to deliver it to Coop, not showing any fear of the abyss and waited for him to poke his head out. She let him know that the fourth wave had been level 40 Tormenting Kites and that he should stick with the underground until the Excavators ceased spawning. Afterwards, they would be leaving the entire western flank to him.
The Tormenting Kites were attacking from the sea, from the West, North, and East, so they weren’t nearly as dense as any of the previous waves. This meant that the area skills that they had been relying on in previous waves were less effective and the monsters had more freedom to dodge. They were digging into their stock of arrows for now.
The Kites weren’t even trying to damage the walls and were instead exchanging fire with the defenders on the ramparts. Some flowed into the channel, but Kayla’s navy was taking responsibility for preventing them from getting inside the fort while the huge pig eliminated any that approached his herd.
After she finished her update, she fearlessly teleported back out while Coop kept his grind going, terrorizing the Frenzied Excavators while he planned for how he would engage with the Kites. He hadn’t even found a good way of fighting the regular ones yet, so he didn’t already have a grind mode to fall into. The monsters wouldn’t be ambushing him as they tried to assault Ghost Reef, so he didn’t think he would have the same problems.
—
Tzultacaj slammed his heavy spiked greataxe against the red barrier and roared in fury.
The army had braved the mountains and jungles for weeks in order to reach the settlement’s territory and carry out their vengeance. Thousands had fallen to the elite monsters hidden deep within the untamed wilds. The beasts tormented them as they traveled, and thousands more had died in combat with the Cult’s priests and adherents, but even more had replenished their numbers as they liberated villages and cities. They could all see the grip of the Cult of Chakyum was being broken by the Jaguar Sun.
The Cult had expanded throughout the region, well-beyond the limits of their settlement territory, establishing enclaves in secluded corners where they practiced their vile rituals, or openly took control of the remnants of civilization. They threatened shackles and death upon those who resisted and promised the rest that they would be welcomed into the settlement as it grew, so long as they were good sheep. Tzultacaj led the Jaguar Sun as they exposed and destroyed the priests time after time until they could reach the center of the corruption.
Once they finally made it to the edge of the settlement’s territory they were locked out by a massive dome of red mana. Worse yet, they had been harried by monsters too strong for anyone but a tiny few to defeat. The wilds had become a frenzy, with monsters aggressively leaving their dens to go on the hunt.
With their backs against the impenetrable barrier, they were routed by the monsters of the wild jungles after just one day and one night. They didn’t even have a chance to challenge the core of the Cult.
The Jaguar Sun was squashed.
Tzultacaj returned to the battle. There was no breaking through the mana dome. He would give his temporary allies more time to flee and make sure the monsters couldn’t chase them anymore. The ancestral greataxe that never left his side was charged with red lightning as he jumped back into the fray.
Tzultacaj vowed in blood that this wouldn’t be the end.