Drinking down our coffee, Hung and I went into our capsules. His task was to keep watch over Tiamat’s temple and assess the situation. And to level up as much as he could in the group with the guardians.
…I was expected. I don’t mean the two guards from the Widowmakers, who raised their hackles as soon as I returned. Maybe Apophis the White Snake had been elsewhere an instant before I logged in, but he was waiting and appeared right away.
I saw space distort, saw the walls bend as if pulled apart. I saw the guards fly off into the distance, ending up dozens of yards away. The stone floor of the cell audibly cracked and flew apart, and the gigantic snake came rippling in, first its triangular scaled head, then its long, sinuous body. Amber eyes gleamed. The snake touched me with its forked tongue, hissed.
My first priest wants me to pick you up and drop you off wherever you wish, the snake told me, not in words, but somehow straight into my head.
To Kharinza, I nearly said, but bit my tongue. The guards could hear, and… No, I had to strike back right away. This wasn’t a vengeance that could be served cold, it was necessary. The punishment had to be inexorable.
“Take me outside the castle,” I whispered.
The snake wrapped its body around mine in rings and looked into my eyes.
The space around us rippled like waves… And I found myself outside the tall castle walls. Your wish has been granted, I heard the snake hiss in my thoughts. Apophis slithered off my body and disappeared into thin air.
“I’m out. How s the temple? I asked Bomber.
Clear, my friend answered.
I activated Call of the Supreme Legate, then, without waiting for my minions to appear, took off into the air to look around. A piercing siren call sounded out from the castle. Archers and mages were forming ranks on the walls, and the corner towers flashed with purple flame. If Eileen is still at the press conference, shell have to change the subject from Scyth’s capture to his escape, I thought malevolently.
A huge pit and four more smaller circles were already filling with plague slime that began to form into the figures of my minions. The map hinted that the castle was southwest from Shak, near the Ursai Jungle. The zone was called Howling Winds Plateau and was designed for players at level three hundred. The rear of the castle itself extended into the cliff face, serving as a natural defense. Behind the cliffs was a gorge, on my side a stone shelf bereft of trees.
“Hey, boss,” Nega tilted her head and waved at me. “Party time?”
Ripta shrieked out a greeting and Anf chirruped something that sounded like ‘dratuti/
“I heard you got kidnapped,” Flaygray added. “Glad to see you well. Show us the crazy people that took you.”
My heart warmed as soon as I saw the guards, especially Sharkon’s huge body. He was already starting to tunnel his way into the stone out of habit, and just as easily as into sand. I knew that every second counted, that Eileen was probably already on the phone. The whole Alliance would be here soon. All the same, I couldn’t help myself. I descended, hugged the stunned satyr, carefully stroked the insectoid’s chitinous plates without cutting myself, then shook the raptor’s clawed forearm. The succubus was blown away by my sudden attack of tenderness. I hugged her impressive curves last.
I quickly shared my plan with the guards, received unanimous approval, then pointed at the lock and ordered:
“Sharkon, little buddy—dig!”
My ‘little buddy’ aimed his diamond-drill body at a forty-five degree angle and shot into the stone, leaving the smoothly polished walls of a spacious tunnel behind him. Before I rushed forward, I glanced at the faces of the nearest guards up on the wall, focused and saw their surprise.
I was wrong in my guess that the forcefield dome was really a dome and not a sphere that fully surrounded the castle even underground. Even a select raid group of top players would have needed more than a single hour to break it down. But it was a rank-three shield, designed to take damage from players beneath level four hundred. I was at five hundred and sixty-four. All the guardians, including Sharkon, were above level seven hundred. It took the diamond worm only a few seconds of drilling against the magical shelter for the defensive sphere to break apart with the sound of ringing glass.
Once through the obstacle, the monster changed his drilling angle. The tunnel began to rise, and soon Sharkon burst through to the surface, roaring within the fortress walls. We ran out next, covering each other, right into a hail of enemy fire. I activated Spirit Shackles to keep anyone who died from reviving in the clan graveyard.
The dark elves and vampires, minotaurs and werewolves, trolls and ores held back their panic. In a clan at this level, castle defense was honed to a science. Everyone knew what to do.
But they weren’t ready for this. They focused their attention on the gigantic terrestrial shark-armadillo, which meant that too few reacted to the satyr, who ran out of the tunnel first after Sharkon. By the time I got out, Flavgray was starting to cover the whole area in hellflame. In mere moments, the castle defenders melted away as they tried to form defensive ranks.
Nega lashed the soldiers at the front with her whip and took control of one of the enemy mages at the rear. She made her subject release a mass spell, hitting his comrades from behind.
In a feat of stunning acrobatics, Anf and Ripta made it up to the castle wall and started sweeping away ranks of Widowmakers so smoothly that I could only shake my head in amazement. I wasn’t even needed. I could barely see
