Apocalypse online 2, p.49
APOCALYPSE ONLINE 2, page 49
It was an important question. From the numbers Alan had given him, they would need at least thirty people, maybe forty to deal with the orcs.
“Can we bring up forty?” Brad asked. “The ones at the beach gave us a hell of a time, but we had gnome support back then. This is all on us.”
“I’ll get Graston,” Ceres said. “I’m sure he’d love a chance to crush some orc skulls.”
“Nokor’s coming too,” Jake added.
This was going to be a huge mobilization for them. Brad wasn’t sure how well it would work navigating the narrow roads leading up to the radio tower, but they didn’t have any other means to get there.
Teleporter pads would be a fantastic purchase from that shiny new printer of yours. But they’re an expensive one, Frank said.
We’ll go shopping later, Brad said, then returned to the guild chat. “Good. I want everyone ready to go in five. Let’s go, people.”
***
Michael slammed on the pedal as they sped through the mountain roads leading up to the radio tower. Behind them followed Jake, Darius, and several other vehicles, one of them a bus Sam had brought back from her trip.
Their raid was jam-packed with fighters of every class, but most of them were only level one. That fact worried Brad more than anything. His own party was level two when they nearly died to the orcs attacking Xaxi’s ship back on the beach. A bunch of level-one humans weren’t going to stand much chance against whatever the orcs would throw their way. But Alan and his people were holding the fort down; maybe it wasn’t entirely a lost cause.
“You’re awful quiet tonight, Brad,” Graston said. “Nervous about the battle?”
“Yeah,” Brad said. “I’m worried our people are too green for this.”
“Like orcs?” Graston asked, genuinely puzzled.
Brad shook his head. “Erm, no. Not what I meant. It’s an expression we use to say someone doesn’t have enough experience, or levels in this case.”
“Ah, yes, I understand. Unfortunately this is the fighting force you have, and there isn’t much we can do about it.” Graston stretched his neck. “We rarely get to go into battle with the army we wish we had. So we must make do with the army we do have. We’ll pull through this, Brad. Don’t you worry, lad.”
“What makes you so sure?” Ceres asked.
Graston laughed. “Because if we don’t, Captain Thunderbottom will have my hide for letting her new trade partners get killed.”
Michael burst out laughing. “Oh man… Thunderbottom.”
Graston blinked. “What’s so funny?”
Brad sighed. He may as well get the explanation out of the way in case they got themselves killed. “Yeah, that name, uhm… It sounds a lot like thunder thighs. And your captain is uh—physically gifted.” He hoped he’d put that as politely as possible. “So it’s like her name is focused on her assets.”
“Oh! Well, I suppose that is rather humorous when you put it that way.” Graston couldn’t help chuckling. “As I understand it she chose that name for herself. Odd, considering her chosen craft is trading.”
“Why haven’t you changed your name, then?” Ceres asked.
Graston frowned. “Because as talented of a warrior as I am, I still haven’t done anything worthy of note to replace the legacy of my father Twinguard. So I carry his name. At the very least it is a fantastic legacy to live up to.”
“Don’t worry, little man. Stick with us and you won’t find any shortage of great deeds to name yourself after,” Michael said. “Ten minutes out, people. Get your game faces on.”
Graston put his mask and goggles on, then readied his hammer. “I will hold you to that promise, big man,” he shot back at Michael.
Brad grabbed his shotgun and braced himself for a fight.
He’d expected an ambush to come from the forest, but none ever came. They made it up to the radio tower where part of the fence was knocked down. The rest of it was reinforced with wooden boards and slightly on fire from Alan’s magic.
Michael and the rest of the convoy pulled up within the radio tower’s perimeter and everyone disembarked.
Alan waved at the new arrivals. “Brad, you made it. And with backup to spare! I always knew Willy was full of it when he tried to get rid of you.”
Brad ignored the comment about Willy. They had more pressing issues to deal with. He was about to ask for a situation report when all hell broke loose.
Furious roars echoed through the night as the earth trembled beneath them.
“Big greens are coming,” shouted one of Alan’s wall guards. “All of them at once!”
“My side too,” shouted another.
“They’re behind us too,” Jake shouted.
“Damn it,” Brad cursed under his breath. “The orcs baited us into a bigger fight.”
Kurtis hefted his heavy machine gun and chambered a round. “No point crying about it now. We gotta shoot our way out of this mess.”
Brad nodded. “Jake, Darius, guard the rear. Mark, Angie, take your teams and watch the east wall. My team will guard the north.”
The different teams rushed out to their defensive positions as gunfire and cries of battle erupted from all around them. The orcs were already right on top of them.
Groups of the raging beasts rushed up the mountainside from every direction before Brad’s people could get into position.
Kurtis opened up with a stream of fire into one of the orcs smashing through the gates. The constant hail of fury slammed into the orc, slowing him to a crawl before Jason and Kurtis joined in, pouring on the hurt until the orc collapsed to a bloody heap. But more of the green savages rushed over their fallen like little more than an inconvenience.
Jake swept his hand out across his and Darius’s party, casting Aether Shield on all of them before drawing his pistol. His charged aether shots blew chunks out of the orcs, but all it seemed to do was enrage them.
An orc’s eyes flared to life with a murderous red glow. She charged Jake with what looked to be the sharpened bumper ripped off a bus.
Jake blocked the weapon with his axe, but the orc was too fast, too furious and put him on the defensive.
Nokor stepped in with a swift kick, sending the orc flying back. “You are quite a good fighter to keep up with a berserking orc, Jake. But you still have much to learn,” Nokor said. “Come, little friend. I will instruct you.”
Jake laughed. “Right now? Talk about learning on the job.”
Brad blasted at a group of orcs ripping down the northern fence. His slugs pushed at their powerful bodies, but it didn’t stop them from carving through the two guards stationed there like little more than wet tissue paper. Their bodies fell in pieces.
“Bobby, Ricky, no!” Alan shouted. With a surge of power, he swung out a Fire Storm over the rushing orcs.
The muscle-bound aliens barely had time to look up before it started raining fireballs on top of them. The blasts knocked them aside and ignited their bodies, but the huge orcs merely pushed themselves back to their feet and went into a berserker fury.
“Seriously? Even getting lit on fire just pisses these things off?” Les said. “Brad, back me up here.” She took off running with her sword at the ready.
“Right behind you.” Brad ran after her, firing slugs into the rushing orcs.
He slammed into an orc’s chest without much effect. Clearly, shooting the orcs’ torsos wasn’t cutting it with his shotgun. Even the orcs’ exposed flesh was covered with so much thick hide and muscle it acted as its own layer of armor. He would need to spend a lot more ammo there or on their heads before he could hit anything truly important. Their legs, on the other hand? Those were big, juicy targets, even while moving.
Before Les could get into range with her sword, Brad shot off to the side and blasted away at the lead orc’s legs. The first shot slammed through its thick thigh, sending the beast staggering. The second shot took out the orc’s knee with a spray of blood and bone fragments. As he fell on his good leg, Les slammed her blade halfway through the orc’s neck before it got stuck.
The second orc was fast approaching her with a pair of axes.
Les planted her foot on the now dead orc and tore the rest of her sword clean through.
The other orc was in the air, coming down right on top of her.
Brad fired his shotgun into the orc’s skull, but the shot only jerked the monster’s head back. “Les, no!”
Les brought up her sword to block, but there was simply too much weight and momentum coming down on top of her. She wasn’t going to hold against the crazy beast.
A wave of ice spears slammed into the orc midair, followed up by a ball of lightning that erupted on contact. The orc flew back smoking and crashed through a group of orcs rushing through the breach.
“Do try and be more careful, Les,” Teresa said as she advanced. “These beasts can take far more abuse than I’m comfortable with.”
Ceres nodded. “And we only have so much mana.”
“Gotcha,” Les said. “Oh, and thanks for the save.” With a toothy grin, she rushed on ahead to finish off the downed orcs.
Teresa groaned. “This new girl is going to get herself killed.”
“Not if I can help it.” Michael rushed out alongside Les.
He managed to slash a downed orc’s throat before a nearby orc lunged up at him. Michael tore the orc’s hand open with a slash of his knife, and as the monster recoiled he put a bullet through the each of its eyes. The orc roared and flailed blindly at Michael, even as Michael backed away.
“Pardon my French, but what the actual fuck?” Michael shouted as he backed away. He poured more bullets into the orc, but his little pistol just didn’t pack the punch needed to break through the orc’s skull. It took a new wave of ice spears and another lightning blast from Teresa and Ceres to bring the beast down.
“Don’t underestimate them,” Brad said as he moved to Michael’s side. “They’re built stronger than anything else we’ve run into.”
Michael reloaded his pistol, for what little good it was going to do him. “I don’t know, those storm hawks were pretty nasty!”
Brad’s eyes widened as an orc seemed to appear out of the shadows. Armed with a huge knife, the orc plunged right for Michael’s back. Brad shoved Michael out of the way in time for the orc to impale Brad to the floor.
You have taken 50 damage.
You are bleeding.
You are poisoned.
The huge orc knife had punched clean through Brad’s stomach. Blood spurted out of his mouth and all over the orc’s grinning face.
“My my, yous a fast one, ain’tcha?” The orc laughed. “Say, you wouldn’t happens to be da humies giving those other boys on the beach trouble, would ya? Demz sound like a fun, proper fight.”
Brad couldn’t believe this orc was chatting him up in the middle of a fight, after damn near killing him in one blow. Xaxi was right about orcs: they really were just out for a good fight. This was nothing more than a game for them.
“What if I was?” Brad wheezed as he struggled to raise his shotgun.
“I’m coming, Brad,” Les shouted as she broke off from her fight to rush to his aid.
The orc didn’t seem to notice Brad’s movements as he swung his own shotgun around to blast at Les, then at Teresa and Ceres.
Michael, for all the bullets he’d poured into the goggle-wearing orc covered in red ink, went ignored.
“Then I’d have ta kills yas real good and tell da rest of da boys! We ain’t seen a humie who could do any real fightings yet until yous lads showed up,” the orc said.
Brad couldn’t help but smile at the orc as he slammed his shotgun to the side of his skull. “Well tonight’s your lucky night, orc. Because we’re them.”
He pulled the trigger, expecting a shower of gore to cover his vision. Instead the orc was flung off him by the close-range blast of the shotgun, ripping the knife out of Brad’s chest.
You have taken 20 damage.
Brad wheezed in agony, watching his health tick down to five points from his wounds and poisoning. He quickly cast cure and anti-venom spells on himself, clearing the negative status effects before pouring the mana into healing the gaping wound ripped through his body.
The goggle-wearing orc rose to his feet, blood streaming down the side of his head. “Oi! Who said yous could shoot me, humie? I wasn’t done talking to yas. Ain’t nobody shoots Big Boss Gutwrencha and gets away with it!”
Brad couldn’t help but agree with the big part. Compared to the other orcs rushing up to the tower, this big green savage was massive. So Brad shot him in the face again for good measure.
Gutwrencha’s head jerked back and his eyes flared red as he flew into a berserker rage. He charged after Brad but Les got in the way, parrying the orc’s huge knife before he could reach his target. Gutwrencha twisted Les’s sword out of her hands, then slammed his fist into her skull, dashing her head against the asphalt. Michael climbed onto the orc’s back, stabbing at his neck only to be ripped away and flung across the way into the side of the radio station. Teresa and Ceres hammered the rampaging orc with their magic, but his eyes were firmly locked on Brad. All they could do was slow him down.
As Brad staggered to his feet, he cast Blood Siphon on the charging orc. This spell had saved him before, and it might do so again. The dark tendril of aether shot out and coiled around Gutwrencha as he fought through the ice and lightning magic slowing him to a crawl. But ferocious as he was, this beast had a much bigger brain than his followers. He brought up his shotgun and leveled it at Brad.
Brad’s breath caught in his throat. Compared to his own gun, Gutwrencha’s was a damned cannon.
The orc pulled the trigger.
Brad’s spell went off.
Enormous pellets erupted in a brilliant muzzle flash from Gutwrencha’s shotgun and ripped clean through Brad, sending him flying back. But as Brad’s spell went off, he tore a huge chunk from the orc’s torso in a shower of gore.
You have taken 45 damage.
You have received 200 aether.
You have received 60 health.
Brad slammed into the ground with the strangest sensation he’d ever experienced in his life. He suffered agonizing pain all throughout his body while simultaneously feeling relieved and refreshed. Anyone who saw the pool of blood around him would have called him insane, but that was just one of the perks of their new reality.
Unfortunately, the orc was still on his feet. Shaken, furious, his chest heaved up and down. He ignored the wound at his side and turned his shotgun on Brad once more. “Good try, humie. But not good enough.”
Graston rushed at the orc and slammed the gun out of his hand with a furious swing of his hammer. “Not today, greenskin. That human is the Sparkgear Consortium’s latest trade partner and I will not allow you to cut his life short.”
“Oi! Who smashed me gun? And who said that?” Gutwrencha looked around without a clue as to what he was dealing with.
Graston’s hammer crashed down on his foot. The orc screamed and staggered back. “Down here, you big green idiot!” Graston swept the orc’s legs out from under him with a swing of his hammer. The orc crashed down onto his back as Graston rushed right up to the big beast.
It was at that moment Gutwrencha realized he was dealing with a gnome. Before his skull could be turned into a crater, the orc threw a hand up, catching Graston’s hammer and ripping the weapon out of his hand.
Graston didn’t hesitate, though. In a flash, he pulled a small device from his belt and slammed it down on the orc’s face.
A brilliant blast of light and smoke erupted on Gutwrencha’s face. The orc screamed and flailed. As for Graston, he was nowhere to be seen. By the time the smoke cleared, though, Gutwrencha was back on his feet. But so were Brad’s allies.
Les and Michael gathered on either side of him as he cast a group heal around himself. A sphere of white light engulfed them, restoring their health. Even Graston dove into the sphere to get himself topped off. It was an expensive spell, but one well worth using to get his party back in fighting shape.
“This ends now, orc.” Brad aimed his shotgun at the beast.
Gutwrencha looked at the chaos around him. Orcs and humans lay dead and scattered around the battlefield while many more still fought. Only, there were a lot more dead orcs than there were humans. “Yeah, I thinks yous right, humie. I’z taking my boys home and leaving. Was a good fight this was, but it ain’t fairs now.”
Brad blinked. “What? Not fair how? You outnumbered us, overpowered most of us, and now it’s not fair?” He was absolutely baffled by the nerve of this creature.
Gutwrencha nodded. “Yeah. It ain’t fair when you bring healers to a fight. You humies were getting right proper smashed until yous cheated. So we’s gonna go and comes back later. Bigger and better than before. So yous better learn to fight fair.” With that, the orc started backing away. “We’z getting out of here, boys! These humies fight dirty.”
Brad couldn’t believe what he was seeing. Part of him wanted to open fire and just finish the fight, but one look at his raid party told him to take the awkward victory. They’d lost half of their people in that fight, and the orcs, while battered and wounded, still had more than enough numbers to wipe them out. In the absolute best-case scenario, Brad and his people would win, but at a huge cost.
“Let’s get these orcs, Brad,” Les said. “Let’s send them back to wherever the hell they came from.”
Brad couldn’t agree more, but one look at his own mana bar and Tim’s left them in a very dangerous position. Whatever damage they took now, they weren’t going to be able to recover from for some time. Time that could cost them more lives.
“No, let them go,” Brad said grudgingly. “Get out of here, orc, but next time we’ll be ready for you.”
Gutwrencha laughed. “I doubts it, humie, but I like that spunk of yours. Would make a fine, proper orc if you weren’t so puny and soft and ungreen-like. Now learn to fight and quit being so runty.”
“Whatz we going to do now then, boss?” asked another of the orcs.
Gutwrencha never shifted his shotgun from Brad and his people. “Them tiny dwarfs is mucking about in the mountains not far from here. Howz about we go smash them? They knowz all about right proper fighting.”
