NOVEL NEXT Chapter 24: Area Spells
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Marie: So you decided on the 'Outlaw' class?
Gordon: Yeah. I was picturing more stagecoaches and fewer zombies. Ammo conservation's no joke with undead hordes–I'd have chosen something else.
Marie: I can picture it now: my knight in shining armor.
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Sunday, November 10th, 2091, about 11:00 am MST, Ghostlands, Kingdoms Server, Far Gate (14,552 viewing)
"What the hell, Claire!" Karen coughed, swiping at her watering eyes. Her sabers felt heavier in her hands, her grip slick with sweat.
"Tear gas," Claire said quickly, her voice tight. "The hound has enhanced senses!"
Karen squinted through the haze, her gaze snapping toward the snarling fae beast. The hound's movements were jerky, its glowing eyes narrowing to slits as it whined and shook its massive head. Its enhanced senses—so deadly before—were clearly working against it now, the acidic mist burning its nose and eyes far worse than the others.
Admittedly, Claire's other option had been to hit it with a stick.
The beast's growls deepened into frantic, guttural noises, its claws scraping the icy ground as it lashed out in unpredictable bursts. Harry, still struggling to keep it pinned, grunted as it twisted violently beneath him, nearly bucking him off.
"I can't see through this!" Gordon complained from somewhere beyond the haze. His voice carried a sharp edge of frustration. "Aw, what the hell."
Karen heard him before she saw him—the rapid pat-pat-patpatpat of his boots on the ice, growing louder and faster. Then he burst through the stinging mist, his holstered pistols slapping against his thighs as he sprinted directly toward the knight.
"Gordon, what are you—" Karen started, but he didn't stop.
In a single, fluid motion, Gordon launched himself at the knight from the side, his arms wrapping around its helmet from behind. The impact staggered the massive figure, its feet sliding slightly on the icy ground as Gordon latched on with his full weight.
"Do it!" Gordon growled, tightening his grip. His boots scrambled for purchase against the knight's back as he wrenched its head upward, exposing the vulnerable mail coif at its neck.
Karen was already moving. Karen's saber darted forward, its reinforced tip angling for the gap in the chainmail coif. The blade bit through with a faint crunch of links giving way, the enchanted steel piercing where mundane weapons might have failed.
The knight spasmed, its limbs jerking violently as it let out a metallic growl. But instead of collapsing, it twisted sharply, using its momentum to throw Gordon off balance.
Karen adjusted her swing, but instants too late.
The knight jumped backward, its full weight crashing onto Gordon and driving him into the icy ground. Gordon let out a sharp grunt of pain, his arms releasing the helmet as the knight rolled off to the side.
"Gordon!" Karen shouted, her sabers coming up as the knight pushed itself to its feet.
Its sword was already in motion. With a sweeping strike, it lashed out in a wide arc, the tip of the blade catching Karen across her thigh. Pain flared, sharp and immediate, as the force of the blow sent her stumbling back.
She hissed through clenched teeth, her left saber dropping instinctively to guard her injured leg. Blood welled beneath the tear in her leather pants, staining the fabric as she tried to steady herself.
Unauthorized duplication: this tale has been taken without consent. Report sightings.
Before she could recover, the knight turned sharply, reversing its blade for a false-edge cut aimed at Gordon. The movement was fluid, almost too fast to follow, and Gordon was still in the middle of rolling to his feet.
The edge caught him across the ribs, the blow glancing off his coat but hard enough to knock the wind out of him. Gordon tumbled sideways, and Karen heard a pistol clattering on the ground as he scrambled to recover.
No, not on the ground.
She engaged the autopilot for just a second, allowing the AI to take over positioning her and defensive fighting as she raised her headset. The disorientation passed quickly, revealing Gordon's prop pistol, fallen, lying within the cup-like depression of her omni-treadmill. She stooped and recovered it for him. As always, the dissociation from the game to reality made her actions feel desynced and dreamlike. Gordon's headset was still on, but he intuited what she was doing and held out a hand in more or less the right direction.
"You're doing this live?" She realized, an instant too late, that her mic was still active.
He was frozen in mid-movement, looking guilty. "I had to go live to beat my own canned draw animation," he confirmed. "I usually am anyway, though. Keeps me grounded."
She shook her head and pulled her headset back into place. "Show-off."
> x_TremeSnooze: Do my ears deceive me?
> 6stringbeans: No, he said he's doing this live.
> Randoon_the_Wizard: What a guy.
Harry and the knight were still at it, hammer and tongs. The clash of metal on metal echoed through the battlefield, each strike punctuated by the knight's guttural growls and Harry's grunts of effort. Karen couldn't see them through the dense, acidic fog, but she could hear the sheer intensity of the fight—blades ringing, boots scraping against ice, the occasional sharp intake of breath.
She glanced down at her leg, where the burning cut was still oozing blood, and realized she'd stepped completely out of the mist. No more burning lungs, no more stinging eyes. She wasn't sure when she'd wandered far enough to escape its radius, but she wasn't about to complain. It was a relief, even if it meant she was temporarily out of the action.
Nearby, Gordon stood reloading his pistols once more, the motions smooth and unhurried, almost meditative. He'd retrieved his speed loader from his duster pocket and reloaded its slots with loose bullets, one by one, his face calm despite the chaos still swirling around them.
"I didn't know if the world AI would find a workaround if I mentioned my plan in-game," he said casually, as though this were a strategy session instead of an ongoing battle. "If it would care or not. And I wasn't sure I'd be fast enough to beat myself anyway, so I just kind of didn't mention it to anyone. But I realized last year that the point of the Far Lands doppelgängers was to make you outsmart the AI—since you have the same stats. But—it worked out. For a cowboy, it just seemed thematically appropriate to do it for real."
He tucked the speed loader back into his duster pocket and gave his revolvers a quick spin before holstering them.
Karen shook her head, a dry smile tugging at the corners of her mouth. "You didn't think to mention any of that before we got here?"
"Nope," Gordon said, deadpan.
She rolled her eyes, but the faint amusement lingered. "It was pretty cool. Worth the build-up."
Before Gordon could respond, a sharp screech cut through the air, Karen stiffened, her eyes snapping toward the fog.
"Claire?" she asked, her tone cautious but not alarmed.
A violent glow began to pulse from within the mist, growing brighter with each passing second. The sound of crackling flames and pinging metal grew to a roar.
"She's got this," Karen commented after a moment, her voice more certain. She slid her sabers back into their scabbards with a practiced motion, her attention shifting to the injury on her leg.
Digging into her belt pack, she retrieved a small jar of health poultice. The sharp, minty smell hit her nose as she scooped a dollop of the mixture onto her fingers and spread it over the cut. The burning pain eased almost immediately, the magic-infused balm knitting the torn flesh together in seconds.
Her pants, however, were a lost cause. The leather was shredded where the knight's blade had bitten through, blood darkening the fabric in jagged streaks.
"Well, that's ruined," she muttered, dusting her hands off as she straightened. "I really liked these, too."
"Sorry," Gordon said innocently. "I don't carry spare lady's pants with me."
They watched the field of fog for a moment of silence.
"So… devs made the matrons killable yesterday," Karen noted.
He nodded without any pressing interest. "I'll update my to-do list."
The mist drifted off the field as they talked, revealing—yep—a field of lava, no knight in sight, just Harry and Claire relaxing in molten rock as though in a hot tub.
"So much for loot," said Gordon darkly.