The disciplined formation of Modus, the Azure Dragons, Excommunicado, Mizaki and the Children of Kratos was hiding behind the backs of ordinary players and NPC soldiers, but its many battle standards gave it away. Crag wandered somewhere among those preventers, disguised.
Thousands and thousands of fanciful battle pets mingled with the sentients. I saw spectral tigers and chimeric scorpions, war boars and fire deer, three-headed hydras and steel golems.
The entire mass shouted, screamed, clanked with armor, growled, cluttered, screeched and roared, eager to crush the scant defenders at the temple of the Sleeping Gods.
Three priests of Nergal formed the final line of troops on the northern front. They were surrounded by seven crystalline structures that bent the light in strange ways.
Aspect of Light, level 6yg Reflection of Nergal
“You see those too, Scyth?” Crawler’s voice squawked from the comm amulet. “The Aspects of Light. The last time they appeared was during the Swarm War. How big are they? Around two hundred feet tall?”
“A little less. Strange—they have no health bars. Can they be killed?”
“No,” Yemi answered, connected to our network. “And they’re always a hundred levels above the highest-level player in Dis.”
“Is that legal?” Infect asked.
“Its part of the game mechanics,” Yemi answered. “Nergal and Marduk can’t directly involve themselves in the affairs of mortals, but they don’t want to stand aside either. So they thought up that trick. The god’s reflections are made from the highest-level ability of the high priests. It costs a year’s supply of Faith. Marduk is a little weaker than Nergal, so his priest could only summon six Colossi ofDai’kness.
I turned to the south and saw what he was talking about. The Colossi of Darkness were the same level as the Aspects of Light, but there was one less of them. Black cones standing sixty yards tall, they swallowed up the light, swimming through the air above Marduk’s priests. The servants of the dark god rode mammoths with giant blackened tusks.
The clans of the Alliance stationed themselves nearby; the Travelers, Zuldozer and Warsong. I couldn’t see the Widowmakers among them. Next came a long procession of more casual players, with the vanguard full of Emperor Kragosh’s legions of the dominant dark races: ores, trolls, ogres and minotaurs. The standard-bearer uruk-hai from the planes stood out on their giant wolves, each a head taller than any ore. Black and red strips of cloth fluttered above them. Emperor Kragosh’s army howled and roared.
“The Colossi and the Aspects will disincarnate if we kill the high priests,” Yemi continued. “But nobody has ever done that before. We don’t have a chance!”
“Why are you here if you think we’re going to lose, mage?” Bomber asked.
“There’s no honor in the strong defeating the w^eak, heh-heh.
There’s no shame in losing this battle, even if it’ll hurt. Anyway, Scyth is full of surprises, so…”
“Yemi just doesn’t wanna lose his castle,” Crawler interrupted.
The mage laughed. Something in his crowing laughter reminded me of a new ability that I hadn’t factored into my strategy for the coming battle. The Path of Sacrifice! I thought for a moment, did some calculations in my head, shouted into my comm amulet: “Yemi, get your ass to the temple right now, and bring Babangida, Francesca and your best healers!”
“How many healers do you need?”
“Even^ single one you have! Crawler, Bomb, Infect, bring Patrick, Gyula, Irita and the guardians back to the temple! Now!”
My heart, once again alive, tiled to beat its way out of my chest. The enemy approached Tiamat’s flourishing oasis. Once the players reached the hospitable zone, I had no doubt they’d saddle up their firing mounts.
There were mere minutes left to carry out my plan—the circle around the temple was tightening, and an endless stream of attackers was about to descend on the scant rows of defenders.
My allies took up defensive positions on three dunes, covering the approach to the temple. The cultists of Morena and the troggs from Stone Rib took up positions on the northmost dune. I sent the Montosaurus, Sharkon and Storm to help. Iggv and Crusher stayed with me and waited in the temple.
On the crest of the southwestern dune, the mercenaries from the Goblin League and the motley crowd of Arena gladiators dug in. Those boys wouldn’t be easy to shift—they were near the top of the leaderboard in levels, and their battle skills were so honed that each could take out a dozen Empire soldiers at once.
The third dune in the east wasn’t as large as the other two, and Yoruba’s soldiers occupied its peak. They were fewer than the troggs and cultists, but when they died, they could come right back into the fray after reviving at the clan graveyard and passing through a portal that would still be active for forty minutes. If it got tough, they’d retreat to me at the temple, where I’d cast Spirit Shackles.
My thinking was that we had no chance at all against an army with twenty times our number. But I could balance the scales by knocking out the siege legions of Bastion and Kragosh, and maybe some of the players. Sleeping Vindication didn’t work the same as Plague Fury, which dealt the same high damage to everyone within its area of effect. Vindication hit with full force only against the closest targets. It lost roughly one percent of damage every twenty yards—that is, with my current level of Perception.
The important thing was to be the first to take damage so that Sleeping Justice activated. Alongside Aid of the Sleepers, it gave me hope that I wouldn’t even need healers. Anyone killed by Sleeping Vindication would restore my health by forty percent, and that seemed to be my main cheat—considering the health supply I was counting on. The damage that my group took might return to the attackers with Reflection, but I hadn’t yet had the opportunity to test that.
I dropped sharply, flew through Tiamat’s incorporeal avatar and approached the troggs.
