To Kill Gods or Die Trying

Pranav Verma

"Quest six," I sigh with content. We've been grinding the Deadlands for a few weeks now like other Wood-rank players. We've met a couple of them for some kick-ass co-op, but they are more business partners than friends.

The way quests work is that there is a mile-long arena, and in that arena, you have a quota of mobs that you need to kill. The more quests you progress to, the higher the quota and more classes of mobs to kill. Based on your party size, the ratio of one player to one mob class increases by one every quest you pass. For example on the first quest, the ratio is 1:1 while quest seven is 1:7.

Right now, the ratio is 1:6 meaning that each one of us will fight six different classes of the Lycan King's werewolves. Since there are seven of us, that makes 42 enemies to kill. The classes are the same as the player classes, with the exception of Beastmaster.

We exit the respawn/safe zone by stepping onto the magic circle on the ground, acting as a teleporter. It glows a blinding white underneath us, then fades, revealing our fighting ground.

The battlefield is dark—gray grass, dark gray sky and black clouds, mangled dead trees and brown thorn bushes, and an eerie feeling about the place. My HUD is updated with a kill counter:

Warrior: 0/8 Spellsword: 0/8 Healer: 0/8 Priest: 0/8 Pirate: 0/8 Elemental: 0/8

"Eight?" I ask confused. We turn around to see a guy behind us with the bright light of the portal fading below him.

"Oh, nice!" he exclaims, examining us. "Didn't know there were gonna be this many people."

"Welcome stranger, the more the merrier," Alo assures. "I'm Pranav Verma—Warlock-"

"Introductions later, the wolves are coming," Margot warns.

Right, back to it then. "Alo with me. We'll take front-guard, so you be my finisher. Essej and Rachel, flank their formation guerilla-style. Margot and Havanna, fight on the rear-guard. Mack, take middle but keep moving forward," I order. With no organizational structure, the 48 werewolves run at us. "New guy, show me what you've got. Let's kick some ass!"

The first wolf goes down through my sword, then is finished by a hefty axe strike to its head from Alo. I continue forward, duck under the swing of a Pirate class, slash it across its furry chest, and let Alo finish it once again. I spin around to build momentum, then strike a werewolf in the neck and continue.

Essej and Rachel close in on the sides, slashing, stabbing, and dodging the werewolves with speed and agility. Mack uses a torch to scorch the dogs who pass Alo. Havanna runs around casting tier one spells that can only debuff, like snooze, nausea, blindness, and stamina reduction. Margot snipes the mobs from afar with the accuracy of her slingshot and spears.

The new guy, Pranav, has some weird class. The Warlock he said? It's like Essej's Spellsword, but instead of a physical magic and stealth hybrid, it's a projectile magic and vanguard hybrid. Dark magic actually. As I fight, I observe him. He fights in the front guard with us, and then when he runs out of stamina, he retreats to the rear guard to fire small balls of dark shadow magic with Havanna and Margot. Then when he, replenishes his STA and his MP drains, he comes back to the front. Smart tactic. Speaking of stamina... I begin to slow. A werewolf Spellsword quickly slashes me as I sluggishly fail to block. Exhausted, I collapse to the grass.

Alo steps over me and blocks the massive attack from the same wolf, parries it, then splits its head with a powerful strike. The wolf fails to die and punches at Alo with a first charged with a bit of force magic. Alo blocks with his shield and is knocked back.