The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online Page 22

  The guard’s eyes grew wide. The sword was worth a couple month’s pay if he were to sell it in the market. “Thank you sir! Much appreciated!” The guard accepted the sword, a smile of wonder on his face.

  Alexander noticed the other guard looked a bit jealous. “Max, didn’t that boss drop a shield as well?” he asked, nodding discretely at the second guard.

  “Ah, yes.” Max withdrew the shield from his inventory and handed it to the now equally wide-eyed guard. “Thank you, young man for your service to the realm.”

  The group turned and began to walk down the path toward the gate, when the Corporal called out. “Your pardon, sir. But the captain briefed us all on those PWP scum you brought in the other day, and warned us that more might be coming to town. Well, sir, it may be nothing, but Foster and me, we noticed a small group poking around the cemetery earlier. They showed up just after you went inside. We figure probably they were a dungeon group that just lost heart, but we thought maybe you should know anyway, just in case.”

  “Thank you once again, Corporal. I shall commend you to the captain when I see him. What is your name?”

  “Jenkins, sir.”

  “Well, Jenkins. We’ll investigate on our way out. If you see that we’ve been attacked, please do not engage. I have a plan to deal with them if they are indeed PWP. Tell me, is the cemetery still within the city limits?”

  Catching on, Jenkins smiled and nodded emphatically, “Aye sir, it most certainly is! If it’s alright with you, sir, I think it’d be best to have Foster here port back to alert the captain. I have a feeling he’d want to see this.”

  Laughing, Alexander nodded his approval, and the group set off down the hill. “Turn your cameras on, guys. If Jenkins is right, these idiots are about to attack us inside a safe zone. Let’s walk a little way down, then stop for a quick snack. Maybe take a minute to see what the second boss dropped. Like Jenkins said, the captain is going to want to see this. He’ll need a few minutes to get here.”

  The group continued about halfway down the hill, until Max spotted a glimmer of reflection up in a tree further down the path. It was a good spot for an ambush, with several tall monuments and a couple of crypts to hide behind. After a whispered warning, Alexander stopped and casually looked around. Pointing to a mostly open spot with just a few low stones off to their left, he said, “Let’s stop there for a bit”. The group moved to the area and casually sat down. They began to munch on apples and cheese, while Max rummaged through his bag.

  After just a few minutes, the ambushers lost their patience. Then they made three mistakes in row. First, they gave up their ambush positions and revealed themselves, all but the archer in the tree that Max had spotted. Second, rather than surrounding the group and attacking from all sides, they elected to form a standard battle formation as they moved up the path; two tanks in the front with shields, and behind them the warriors who were either dual wielding or carrying two-handed swords, followed by three casters, and at least one of which was almost definitely a healer, as he was being guarded by a man with a crossbow. So, nine altogether counting the sniper in the tree. Alexander had expected more.

  “You know the drill,” Sasha whispered. “Silence on the healer, stun or interrupt the other casters. Kill the healer first, then burn the other casters down. Save the fire for the warriors and tanks.”

  The group stood, but remained casual as the likely PKs approached. Nobody had drawn any weapons yet. Alexander raised a hand in greeting. “Ho there! Off to try your luck in the dungeon? We just left, but I’m sure it has reset by now!”

  One of the casters spoke for the group. “No… no, we’ve come to speak with you, actually.” They continued to draw closer. Alexander couldn’t tell what level they were as player levels only appear when you’re grouped with that player, or in combat with them. But from the quality of their gear, he guessed they were all 15 -20 or so.

  “To speak with me? Do I know you, sir? I apologize, but I don’t think we’ve met.” Alexander put his finger to his chin and adopted a thoughtful look, “Ah! I suppose you’ve seen the video where we made fools of those PWP morons, and you’ve come to ask about joining the guild? We’ve had a lot of that the last few days. Seems most players really dislike PK assholes!” Alexander smiled his friendliest smile at them. They were now just about 10 feet away.

  “Oh, yes,” the mage said. “We’ve seen the video.”

  Max decided to have a little fun. “Can you believe those morons? First they let a bunch of low level noobs kill them. Then, KNOWING they’d killed some NPC’s, they allowed us to just walk them into town. It’s like PWP doesn’t train their people at ALL. But hey, we got two levels worth of xp for killing them, then turning them in. And a big fat reward, too!” Max did a little happy dance.

  That was when they made their third mistake. The crossbowman shouted “PWP!” and fired a bolt, hitting Max in the leg. Instantly, the whole group had red PVP skulls above their heads. Alexander could see they were actually all 18 to 25, slightly higher than he’d guessed.

  Lainey shot the leader in the eye with a stun arrow (only 20 feet away, she really couldn’t miss), while Brick activated shield rush and slammed into the two tanks, knocking them back just enough to push them into the warriors. Sasha cast a thorn AOE under all three casters and the crossbowman, shredding their legs and interrupting all their casts. Max recovered and shot a single arrow at the sniper in the tree, knocking him off the branch he was standing on. Then Lainey and Max proceeded to fill the healer with arrow after arrow. Max hit him first with a silence arrow, so he was unable to heal himself. The healer was dead in less than 10 seconds. Alexander was alternating hitting the remaining casters and archers with magic bolts, while Sasha was focusing on healing Brick.

  With the healer dead, Lainey and Max had moved on to the leader. The first shot to his eye had been a crit, and had taken him to about 60% health. Sasha’s vines had done significant damage as well, so just three arrows finished him off. The crossbow guy had managed to reload, so Lainey hit him with a stun arrow causing his body to stiffen. His finger pulled the trigger as it spasmed, but the crossbow was, unfortunately for him, pointed uphill. The bolt hit Jenkins in the shoulder as he stood watching the fight. He was too far away for it to penetrate his armor, but the hit counted as an attack against a city guard.

  Lainey and Max targeted the third caster. He had managed to get off a fireball spell, which had hit Sasha and knocked off about 25% of her health. She quickly healed herself and was back in the fight. The fire mage took two arrows to the face and went down. Not dead, but out of the fight for a bit. Then they both moved to crossbow guy. They each put an arrow in his head, then Lainey shot him in the balls with a shock arrow for good measure, and Alexander hit him with a couple magic bolts to finish him.

  The archer from the tree was back up and firing. An arrow had barely missed Sasha, and he’d managed to hit her in the leg with a second one. She cried out in pain, but kept going. Alexander hit the archer with wizard’s fire, and left him screaming as he rolled around. His bow had caught fire, so even if he lived he was no threat for a while.

  “Heal yourself for a minute, Brick!” Sasha yelled. She pulled the arrow from her leg, cast a quick self-heal, then cast her AOE thorns under the tanks and warriors who were still pounding on Brick. As soon as she’d cast the thorns, Alexander hit both tanks and the two warriors on either end with wizard’s fire. The vines caught fire, and the DoT’s started ticking away. Brick smiled as the fire began to help heal him. Alexander noted that the heat from the fires was actually reflecting off the inside of the tanks’ shields, acting almost like an oven wall, which gave him an idea. He focused on his earth magic spell, and raised a wall of stone about 8 feet wide behind the warriors. Now the heat from the fires would reflect back off of that as well. He quickly made two more walls, then he was out of mana. Dropping his staff, he pulled out his sword and shield and moved to help Brick. Lainey and Max poured arrows into the warriors as they s
creamed and burned. Brick cast holy smite on one of the two tanks, and hit the other with his hammer. Alexander reached over a shield to stab one of the distracted tanks in the face. The heat was so intense it actually burned his hand. Not having a magic fire shield like Brick, he backed off a bit.

  Between the vines, the fire, and the arrows, the warriors were all dead. One of the tanks was gone as well. The other was apparently a paladin, and used a holy spell to bring himself back to full health. But his shield and weapon were too hot to hold, his armor was melted to him in several places, and he was still standing in what was effectively a burning oven. Brick took pity on him and stepped back, allowing the man to drop his shield and get some relief from the heat.

  “I surrender!” he gasped, falling forward onto un-scorched grass.

  That was a mistake. He obviously didn’t realize they were still standing within the city limits, or that crossbow guy had shot Jenkins. He was now guilty of multiple offenses and would be facing at least 30 days in a cell. It would have been better for him if he’d died and respawned wherever his home base was.

  Level up! You are now level 16!

  Your wisdom has increased by +1. Your intelligence has increased by +1

  You have 6 free attribute points available

  They’d killed six of the nine PKs who’d attacked them, all several levels higher than them. Good for enough xp to level us again. Sweet!

  The captain and several guards came striding up the path with the badly burned archer, who had managed to survive the wizard’s fire after all. Jenkins trotted down from his post by the crypt, crossbow bolt dangling from the chainmail on his shoulder. The guards picked up the surviving tank, as well as the fire mage who hadn’t died from the arrows to his face. He was allowed to drink a health potion and remove the arrows. Brick and Max were quietly betting on whether he’d try to kill himself with one. He didn’t.

  Captain Redmond addressed the three prisoners. “You three are under arrest for five counts of attempted murder of citizens of Stormforge! In addition, you are charged with the attempted murder of a city guard!” He pointed to Jenkins, who yanked the bent bolt free from his shoulder, taking several rings of mail with it. “Each charge carries a minimum sentence of 30 days, but your trial will determine your actual sentence. Take them away!”

  The guards manhandled the prisoners down the hill and toward the city’s east gate. The captain had detailed two of them to take up the now empty posts by the crypt. Jenkins was needed to give a statement to the prosecutor. Alexander and the group looted the dead players, then followed the captain and the guard procession back into the city.

  Someone had clearly seen the fight, and had alerted others. There were players and NPC’s lining the streets as the three players with red skulls over their heads were led through town. There was much waving and shouting of “Seee ya PWP!”.

  Alexander and the group followed all the way to the Hall of Justice, where they each gave statements to the prosecutor’s assistants. With corroborating statements from Jenkins, the captain, and a dozen guards who had all seen the PWP attack a group of picnicking adventurers, there was no question of their guilt. Facing 6 times 30 days, these guys had just become useless for half a year. That was 8 players total, or 10% of PWP’s total membership locked up. They were all low level, but still Alexander felt a sense of pride. He felt sure that by morning there would be several new PWP videos on the forums and networks. A good day’s work!

  The adventurers stopped by Gregor’s and let Lainey haggle over the sale of all their dungeon loot. There was nothing worth putting in the auction house, as the items were all low level. The guild had more money that it needed, so it didn’t matter if Lainey got a good deal. They were just leveling her tradecraft. As it turned out, by the time she was done Gregor looked slightly afraid of her. She had bargained hard, even growled at him at one point. They all smiled and waved at Gregor as they left the shop. Brick was all for hitting the Ogre for a celebration, but they dragged him away. They still had a crazy wizard loose in their house, who was likely quite hungry by now.

  As they walked home, Max noticed they were being followed. He whispered in group chat. “Tall dude, high level epic looking black armor, about a block back. Been following us for at least three blocks now.”

  Alexander led them slightly off their normal route, taking a couple of side streets, then turning back to the main road. The man still followed. “Just act casual. He won’t attack us here.”

  The man followed them all the way to their front gate, and leaned against the keep’s wall across the road to watch them as they walked through the bailey tunnel and into the house.

  Chapter Ten

  Don’t Feed the Bears. Or the Wizards

  There was no sign of Fitz in either of the sitting areas or the kitchen. Alexander figured he must have finished his design and headed home to find a meal. The group sat down in the lounge at the front of the house, under the watchful gaze of the demon lord’s head. From the window, Max observed that the stranger was still standing across the street from their gate, just watching.

  “He must be a higher up in the PWP,” Max offered. “Who else would have reason to be tailing us across the city?”

  Brick heft his hammer. “Maybe we should invite him in?”

  Lydia nodded her head, “It makes me nervous, him out there being all stalkery. Even if he is high level, all of us together could kill him, right?” she asked.

  “I’m afraid not, Lainey,” Sasha answered. “We did ok against those 20+ level guys today because they were morons. They made a lot of mistakes that helped us kill them, but anybody above level 30 or so could wipe the floor with us at this point. Our old toons were all in the 70’s, and with our gear we could have taken on even their guild leader, but now we’re basically noobs again. So we need to be a little careful.”

  “Don’t worry, Lainey. The protections Fitz put in place will keep everyone out, no matter how high level. And he was going to improve them. I wish I knew what he’d done. I’d like to test them with this guy,” Alexander mused.

  “Well, it’s dinner time,” Sasha said. “Lydia brought over a ton of food at lunch time, so there should be enough left to cook. Let’s get cleaned up, eat, and if the creepy dude is still there, we’ll figure out what to do.”

  They headed upstairs, but only reached the second floor before they were greeted with the sound of snoring, so loud they were surprised they’d not heard it downstairs. They followed the sound to the guest suite Alexander had claimed. Sitting in a comfortable chair by the window, the wizard was basking in the late afternoon sunlight, head thrown back and mouth open. His snoring not bothering Rufus in the least. The squirrel was asleep on Fitz’s forehead, its bushy tail hanging down the wizard’s cheek, perilously close to be inhaled with each snoring breath. Max and Brick immediately began wagering on whether the wizard would inhale the squirrel entirely.

  Deciding to just let the wizard sleep, and admittedly a little curious as to the fate of Rufus’ tail, Alexander moved to another guest suite while the others went upstairs to their own. After a refreshing shower, Alexander stowed all his gear except his sword and his mithril shirt. He also emptied his inventory and coin purse. If he had to confront the player outside, he would most certainly die, and didn’t want to lose anything valuable. The sword was easily replaced, and the legendary shirt would stay with him through respawn. Taking a few minutes to look at his stats, he decided to leave his available attribute and skill points for later. He would get access to more at level 20 (a point of each was earned at each level, but only awarded every 5 levels), and he wanted to see what additional training was available to him before he committed any points.

  Passing the still snoring wizard, he headed downstairs to help Sasha with dinner. She had him peel and slice stacks of potatoes and carrots while she prepared some wolf steaks Lydia had left in one of the coolers. When he was done she dumped the veggies into a pot of boiling water along with several ground
herbs. Then she sent him away with instructions to set the table and let everyone know dinner would be ready in ten minutes. Alexander did as he was told, though he didn’t know why Sasha couldn’t just alert everybody in group chat herself.

  He had noticed Brick heading out front, so he went to see what the dwarf was up to. He was standing at the side of what they had discovered was the armory and barracks building, poking at the stones on the outside wall. “What’s up, buddy?” he asked as he walked toward the dwarf. He took a moment to confirm that the stranger outside hadn’t moved.

  “I think this’d be a fine spot for me forge,” Brick replied. “I could build it up against this wall. This stone be sturdy enough to stand the heat.” He looked up. “A small roof to keep out the rain, a bench for me tools, a few barrels for quenching… do ya think we can manage a water line?” he asked. “I don’t fancy carrying buckets of water from inside.”

  Alexander smiled and patted the dwarf on the shoulder. “We’ll get you whatever you need, buddy. After all, you are our guild’s master smith. You should have a proper place to work!”

  “Right!” Max added from behind them. “We need you to take care of the important things. Like horseshoes, door knobs and a pitchfork for the stables.”

  “Fork you, stable boy!” Brick grinned. “I’ll not waste me valuable time on somethin ya can buy down the street for a few coppers! This forge will create epic weapons and armor fit for heroes. None o’ tha’ crappy cow skin ye walk around in!”

  “Speaking of stables,” Max began, “I think after dinner we should go claim our mounts. We can pay for Lainey to get her training and buy her a mount as well. We should also pick up the horse and wagon, and bring them back here. I was thinking tomorrow might be a good day to make the dwarf’s beer run to the Broken Mountain?”

  “It be a full 2 days ride to me people’s fortress in the mountain,” Brick reminded them. “And we be scheduled to log out in just over a day.”