Templar Assassin: In Defense of The Temple (Two-shot excerpt of ongoing novel)

1.1

Username: GG
Player name: Jin'zakk
Title: Batrider

My avatar build is perfect. Fire can pass through Lanaya's Refraction Shield. And we are both solo mid players and gankers. Once I reach level 6 and learn the Flaming Lasso, that bitch will burn, guaranteed.

As I spawned in to Dire base, I directly bought a tango, an iron branch, and a magic stick. The tango can give me small amounts of health regeneration, the branch increases my stats by 1 point, and the stick is for instant health and mana regeneration (well, depending on the charges stored, but it's worth it.) These items will help me survive early game. I then proceeded to the middle lane.

Lanaya, here I come.

"30 seconds to battle," the game reminded.

I was feeling rather confident and decided to check out the rune near the bottom lane. You know, for some extra 100 gold. Runes give us bonus attributes which most likely last up to one minute, except for the bounty and regeneration rune, which could be used almost instantly.

"The game begins."

I could see that the bounty rune has spawned from the far off distance. It was pretty quiet and a bit dark. All I could hear is my bat's flapping in mid air. I actually wished my team bought wards since I don't want early game ambushes.

As soon as I was about to pick up the bounty rune, it seems that it has already disappeared and before I could do anything, a flash of purple blades came straight at me.

Lanaya!

I tried to hit her with my Sticky Napalm, which is supposed to slow the movement of an enemy and amplify my damage, but the bitch was quick enough to run away from it. She directly went up to her territory and chased me to mid lane. I spammed my Sticky Napalm on her tracks but I had bad aim and my hero build has slow movement speed during early game stage, so I couldn't aim my first skill in front of her.

When I finally got to mid lane, she was already harassing the Dire creeps with last hits. I tried to deny some, which is to sacrifice your own creeps so your opponent couldn't get the gold from last-hitting it, but she is too professional in last-hitting. It wasn't long before she reached level 2 and learned the Psi Blades. Shit. Her positions are well-oriented that her blades, which are hitting the creeps, are angled towards me as well. She moves to the left as I move to the right, as if she knows that I'm going to. This gives her perfect angle for her blades to slice through her creeps, then at me. Before I knew it, I'm already half my health bar. I had to retreat to use a tango.

I 'ate' a tree and started to regain health but the +8 regeneration is not good enough. My gold count is not good as well, since she denies her creeps and leaves me without money to collect. I can't level up fast for a mid player in this situation. Fuck.

To give myself some time to regenerate, I traveled to the rune near the top lane. And as soon as I picked up the bounty, Lanaya suddenly appeared before me and slashed me with her Psi Blades. Her annoying Meld Invisibility skill produced a 100 Bonus Damage.

I gave her the Napalm to slow her down and quickly ran to avoid her harass. I can't turn my back and attack her since her Refraction Shield will just block my attack, which also means that she can give me plus damage as well. However, my movement speed is still slow that she was able to quickly catch up to me.

[ ] (Templar Assassin) activated a Double Damage rune.

I looked back and saw her electrifying blue aura from her DD rune.

Refraction Shield + Refraction Bonus Damage + Double Damage rune. To be honest, I'm probably the one toasted here.

All I could do was to keep on spamming my first skill, a stacking debuff ability,  on her and run for my dear life until my mana almost ran out. I mean, even if my Sticky Napalm gives her 10 Damage, she still has that DD rune activated. And she's probably a level or two higher than mine. Completely OP.

Suddenly, Lanaya's blades doesn't hit me. I turned my back to check my surroundings and yet I do not see her. It's very impossible to get a Blink Dagger this early in the game, right?

I checked my hack engine.

In game DOTA 2: No detection of cheat codes.

If she didn't hack that Blink Dagger then where the fuck is she?

As I was moving my eyes from tree to tree, my head was getting dizzy. She won't get away. With eyes narrowed, I recited, "3rd skill: Firefly."

My wings began to form a fury, but of course, my bat is immune to that fire. My speed is faster this time and as I move toward where the assassin probably is, a trail of burning liquid fire is on its wake. This is DOT. Damage Over Time. This is gonna destroy her.

As I approach her route, I'm suprised that my Firefly hasn't caught her yet. Lanaya can't move when she's invisible or it will break her spell and her chance of a critical damage. And if she's ever still around here, my trail of fire would have caught her by now and it would give me sight of her.

But she's missing. I've been circling over the water for some time now, but my flames seem to be doing nothing.

I was about to go back to mid lane when she appeared at the corner of my eye.

[ ] (Templar Assassin) just pwned GG (Batrider)'s head for 409 gold!

[ ] drew first blood by killing GG.

WTF.

I turned on my mic and spoke, "Bitch, fuck you."

She doesn't say anything.

She doesn't even type anything in the chat.

She simply drank a regenerating dose from her bottle and proceeded to the Dire mid lane to help her creeps destroy the tower.

[ ] (Templar Assassin) destroyed a tower!

WTF, indeed.

xx

This DOTA 2 story is completely fiction, and may or may not apply to a real match. (Although it is true that Lanaya can harass Batrider early game, even if we all know that Batrider is the perfect counter for her.)

My upcoming novel is not really based on DOTA 2, but this game would be featured. I kind of altered the usual things 'we know' about DOTA 2. (e.g. picking your hero)

In my version, players get to design their own hero. Just like in a usual MMORPG. In this story, [ ] designed a ganker in the form of Templar Assassin. And yes, the username [ ] is based on the main characters of No Game, No Life who never fills up the username space and are soon famous for the nickname: Blank.

And one more thing, in here, DOTA 2 is not only played on a computer.

This is all for now. Vote if you like it.