Collide Gamer

Rave looked at her phone as her connection was suddenly cut. “Shit,” she mumbled, “and he just called to warn us.”

“We've been pretty unlucky recently,” John stated, eyes scanning for enemies. He tugged at the mental connection he had with Aclysia. No reaction. The typical state when he was inside an Illusion Barrier and she was not. Even if she did guess something was wrong, it would take at least twenty minutes to get to them.

“From the sound of it he just went through a fight of his own.” Rave explained as the two of them looked around. “A full-on trap barrier, huh?” She exhaled with tension.

“What’s the difference from a normal one?”

“They only pull in selected targets and block most communications. My phone normally shouldn’t lose connection even in a barrier.”

In other words, someone was targeting them. The name of the barrier had given as much away anyway. “If Aclysia was with us I would feel a lot safer…” John mumbled. “Where are the ene-“

“Rooftop!” Rave suddenly warned him. Immediately his eyes snapped up and saw a black dot on the flat roof. Pointing his hand up, he shot a Mana Ray as quickly as he could. The attack stopped midway through the air. A moment later, the loud boom of a gunshot echoed through the air. “So much for us being unlucky!” Rave grinned dangerously and charged towards the school.

Running serpentine, she dodged a second gunshot, then leapt towards the school’s wall. In an impressive display of her Agility, she scaled the three storeys. John would’ve been enticed by the sight if he hadn’t felt the searing pain of a gunshot piercing his ribcage.

-37 HP

Barely, he caught himself mid run. The pain was terrible, but disappeared swiftly, leaving only a hole in his uniform. ‘A second one and that’s the end of my lease on life!’ John thought. He breathed just the slightest bit easier when he made it into the building.

The relief was short-lived. A stone sword swung for his head

Having expected some kind of assault, he managed to dodge that at least. The sword hit the ground and John positioned himself a few steps back. The assailant was a cloaked figure. Skeletal hands held onto the black sword. A black skull peeked out beneath the hood.

John kept his distance and stayed on the lookout for any other assailants. Black bones rattled, as the golem began his attempt at another strike. ‘Here goes nothing,’ he thought and cast Possession.

The Soldier Golem stopped with its hands raised high. Now they were John’s hands. He lowered them, just as two more Soldier Golems charged into the opening area of the school. Quickly, math ran through his head. Currently he had 290 Mana and regenerated 21 and paid 12, that meant he still had 9 Mana per Minute to spare.

Strategies opened up with his resources taken stock of. Either he could support his newly acquired frontliner, or he could use Possession to get the numbers advantage. He had already turned this from a 1vs3 into a 2vs2. Only problem was that he hadn’t tested yet if he could Possess two objects at once. ‘I need to do more testing and less fucking,’ he scolded himself and tried.

Okay, that was that plan gone. No reason to despair though. He diminished his presence inside the Soldier Golem until he was just an influence on its target selection. The natural abilities of the creation did the rest and it met the charge of its kin.

‘Gnome!’ the Gamer reached out to his earth elemental and then turned her corporeal. The little girl in the yellow dress manifested right next to him. Her stature was unimpressive, but what he needed wasn’t appearances, but results. ‘Grab its leg!’

Gnome obeyed with the sheepish neutrality of a being not quite intelligent enough to know what was at stake. Regardless, when the second enemy golem missed its swing at John, the earth elemental secured a hold on its skeletal leg. The golem attempted to set after John and instead slammed into the ground length-wise, the weight of the earthborn being too much to drag with it.

John pulled the Sword of Glory from his inventory. He had barely any experience with the weapon, but even he could hack apart an immobilized target. While he dispatched one enemy, another one joined the fight. Two overwhelmed his Possessed ally.

Whirling around after cleaving the head of the shackled Soldier Golem in two, John pointed a finger at the more intact of the two. “Wololoooo,” he made a wheezing sound and the newly Possessed golem swung for its former comrade. Possession only working one at a time wasn’t a huge drawback if he could keep using them as sacrificial pawns.

Two golems wrestled with each other, until Gnome stomped over and pulverized the skull of the enemy one with a heavy drop of her foot. With that, the initial combat seemed done with. Which meant it was time to hurry up the stairs and check on how his girlfriend was faring.

Sending the golem ahead and keeping Gnome close as insurance, John advanced deeper into the building. More of the enemies were scattered about inside. Since he already had a working strategy and they supplied him with disposable bodies alongside the enemies, he only had to make sure he wasn’t overwhelmed by numbers. The Soldier Golems had nothing in terms of actual cohesive tactics, which meant he was miles ahead of them by coordinating attacks between himself, the self in the golem, and Gnome.

Before long, he had pushed his way up to the roof. He carefully peeked out of the open door, not wanting to eat a load of lead. The Soldier Golem stepped out first.

Up there he found Rave in a melee fight with somebody who obviously didn’t want to be in one. The person disengaged over and over again as Rave set after him or her. John wasn’t able to tell. The person was wearing another one of the thick black robes and had the hood pulled deep down, an unnatural shadow covering the face.

Smoke suddenly filled the air, emerging from the person. “Over here!” John shouted, and Rave dived into the cover of the staircase. The two of them expected to be assaulted with more gunshots, instead, John got a window.

They left the barrier together as soon as John dispatched the last golem and Gnome was incorporeal. All they found was the empty rooftop. However or wherever the person had left the Trap Barrier, they had done so in a manner that gave them the opportunity to hide.

“That was weird.” Rave said and walked over to him. “What took you so long?”

“The building was filled to the brim with golems. Had to hack my way through those first,” John told her. “Surprised I pulled it off, honestly. I’m halfway dead.”

Rave’s eyes moved in search of his HP bar. “Oh damn, you really are… that’s not good.”

“No, no it’s not,” the Gamer responded and fixed the bullet holes in his uniform with Craft. Luckily, the projectile had punched straight through, or he would have had to worry about lead poisoning. Probably. He didn’t know what Gamer’s Body did about things stuck in him.

“All in all that wasn’t the worst…” Rave looked down the chain link fence surrounding the rooftop. “Guess we’re skipping today though.”

“Yeah. Call Travolta, we have to find out what this was about.”