Merric Wallbreaker nudged his mount forward as the portal opened and it stepped from Tanner’s Bend in the West Empire to the steamy humidity of Kishik. The rest of his twenty-four man strike team followed behind him on their own mounts or driving the two big covered wagons. The portal snapped shut as the last wagon trundled through and the players took a moment to organize themselves before heading towards the town gate.

“So where’s this place at?” Asked Merric’s brother Austin as he rode on top of one of the big wagons.

“Didn’t you read the brief?” Merric asked.

“Of course not. No point when I’ve got this long ride to ask questions during.”

Merric rolled his eyes. “We’re headed for the Blood Houd’s guild hall. Simple job, standard package. Just break the ward and we’re out.” Merric told his annoying younger brother.

“Shouldn’t the guild who hired us be here? What’s the point of us breaking the ward if there’s no-one to attack afterwards?” Austin asked.

“No idea and it doesn’t matter. We got 50,000 gold for this little deal. If the client pays us to break a ward we break it. No questions asked. Questions are bad for business.” Merric said. “

“You sound like a mobster.” Austin grumbled. “A really cliché one too.”

“Unlike questions, clichés are good for business.” Merric said with a smile. His brother shook his head in disgust before he spurred his dire-tiger mount forward.

The trip was a long one and they took a break after a solid ten hours of riding to get some sleep before getting up and heading out again. Merric looked a chipper as ever on top of his shadow-lynx but Austin was looking worn.

“Didn’t I tell you to sleep.” Merric muttered.

“Just because you’re in college now doesn’t mean you can boss me around.” Austin grumbled. “In fact since your not at home I can do whatever I want. How much longer? I feel like we’ve ridden across half the continent.

“It’s been three zones, and we were only in the one for an hour. Stop whining. It’s forty minutes until show-time and we’re nearly there.” Merric explained.

The procession headed between a small gap between hills then descended as the path lead down towards a distant beach. Up a few hundred yards from the beach was a large compound made of trees and vines that were grown together to give it shape. The wall seemed to have some stone, but it was overgrown was large plants until the entire place looked like some sort of elvin stronghold.

“There guild-hall is right on the beach? Ours is in the middle of a damn desert. How is that fair?” Austin yelled as it came into sight. “Now I really wanna smash this place up.”

“Well that’s good. Because its just about time.” Merric said. They descended the hill down onto the sands and approached to within a hundred yards of the base. Then they started to fan out into a rough line.

Some of the men walked back to the wagons dragging our weapons and shields, while others brought out two large javelins, that were attached to stakes by long silver chains. Yet more men grabbed large handled cranks on the sides and the wagons and started to turn them.

The wagon-tops split in the middle and folded down as the men cranked revealing two massive siege ballista. Once cranked down, the same men hopped up into the wagons and started to load the siege engines.

The men with the javelins walked forward in two teams of four. One member of each group carried the javelins, another a hammer and the last two summoned domes of force for protection as they walked. Although their shields were ready, no fire came from the base as they approached to within thirty yards of the wall. Then the men the the hammer grabbed the stakes on the end of the chains and started to hammer them down into the sand.

“This is almost sad. Don’t they have anyone on guard?” Austin asked as he helped lift a ballista bolt the size of a large man into place and set it carefully on the loaded string.

“It is two in the morning Mountain time. That’s 4am Eastern and 1am on the west-coast. I bet there is only one or two actual players guarding the place and they are probably sleeping or watching youtube.” Merric said as he watched his men’s practiced movements with pride.

“I would think someone would have noticed something. If this keeps up we’ll crack this baby open without anyone even fighting back.” Austin complained.

The men with the hammers finished driving stakes into the ground which prompted to men with the javelins to lift them up and step forward. They took two steps then hurled the javelins up and over the wall while the silver chains played out behind them. The javelins slammed into the ward and the tips pierced through before the bodies of the javelins stuck fast in the ward. Magic started to crackle and flash as the ward attacked the weapons but the enchanted weapons absorbed the magic and started to glow. The glow crept down the silver chains to the stakes and then grounded into the earth.

“Those things are almost cheating. Expensive as hell, but they can siphon off 10,000 mana a minute from a ward if no-one knocks them out.” Austin mused thoughtfully.

“Fire!” Merric cried and the wagons jumped backwards as the ballista hurled there missiles into the guilds protective dome. As the large projectiles hit the dome let of a clap of thunder and a blinding flash of light but it held. Yells started coming from behind the wall and a few desaltery arrows and spells flew outwards but they were stopped easily by mage-shields.

“What do you make it 15 mins?” Austion asked his brother as he and another player lifted the next bolt.

“Depends, if they get the grounding javelins out, maybe 20? If not, less than 10.”

*************************************

Trish groaned as the text alarm on her cell-phone drug her up out of her dream. Her arm flopped around for a moment before it landed on her bed-side table and she pulled her phone over to herself. She cracked open one eye to look at the screen.

[Guild Alert! Guild Hall Under Attack!]

[Everyone get in game immediately!]

“I did warn them.” She muttered as she held down the power button on her phone until the screen went black.

*****************************************

Jessica sat on a small hill looking down on the beach and Blood-Hound’s guildhall. The matte-gray of her dark-elf skin blended perfectly with the night and her black tight-fitting leathers didn’t even creak as she stretched her legs. It was one of the benefits of a masterwork armor and Journeymen V in stealth.

She had managed to round up six of her guild’s stealth types, three assassins including her, a thief, a rogue, and a spellthief that specialized in magical locks. She could have gotten more and likely at higher levels but this should be enough for a smash and grab and it was hard to mobilize a large force at 2:30 in the morning.

She watched another ballista bolt slam into the ward and the giant dome wavered for a moment before firming back up. A large fireball shot out of the keep and slammed into one of the shields around the ballista, the shield broke but another sprung up in its place before the next volley from the guildhall.

“Looks like the defense is finally stiffening up. They must have started dragging people out of bed and getting them back online.” Said the spell-thief. She was a short girl with mousy-brown hair and glasses a few years older than Jessica. The two didn’t see much of each other in the guild normally but the girl had been more than happy to tag along for the job.

“Not soon enough.” Said the thief. “They only got one of those Javlin’s down, and the ward is already fading. Another one or two shots and it’ll be go time.” He was a dark-haired boy a year younger than Jessica. He kept staring at her breasts but she did her best to ignore him as the siege engines reloaded again.

“You’re right.” Jessica said as she stood up and gave a wave. “Let’s start to move in, the ward will go down soon. Rob, Cindy, get the grappling hooks ready. We’ll go over right as the ward breaks.”

The group started to rush down the hill and onto the beach where they circled to the opposite side of the guildhall, away from all the action. Right as they got into position the ward broke with a sound like shattering glass. Two grappling hooks flew upwards and caught, then they climbed up, entered stealth and quickly dispatched the NPC guards on this part of the wall before they hopped down inside and got to work.

********************************************

“THIS IS BULLSHIT!” Vera yelled as she pounded the desk with her fist. Her entire face was red and the veins on all her muscles seemed to pulse with her heart beat. He just humiliated our entire guild and you just sit there like it has nothing to do with you.

The three leading members of the blood hounds were one more sitting in their small cramped meeting room but the mood was quite sour as Alex and Vera glared daggers at Trish.

“It doesn’t have anything to do with me.” Trish said calmly. “This was never about the guild. This was some stupid personal vendetta that Alex cooked up and you went along with it. I told you to leave it, once he agreed to pay you your money but you got your feeling hurt and now the entire guild is paying for your arrogance.” Trish told them.

“You act like you don’t even care.” Alex said, his voice was calm as well but his eyes blazed with anger.

“I don’t. You guys have made it perfectly clear over the last few months that you’re in charge of this guild and I’m just along for the ride.” She shrugged. “But now that everythings gone to hell I’m suddenly back on the team. I’ll pass. You two can sort it out.” She waved vaguely. “Besides it’s just money.”

“Just MONEY! We saved for months to buy that ward and it’s completely smashed. “That alone would put us in a bad spot but we’ve still got report coming on about all the stuff that was stolen. They didn’t make it into the main vault, thank god, but even that ward was mostly destroyed and we’ll have to be re-done. Where are we going to get all the money for that?” Vera shouted before she rounded on Alex. “What are the latest numbers.”

Alex waved at his interface. “It looks like around 200,000 in damages counting the main ward, the one on the vault and the armory they destroyed. They stole another 120,000 gold worth of items. Mostly high-end reagents, but they grabbed a couple of rare-paintings, and that jeweled sword that was hanging in the main hall, and a huge list of smaller stuff. We’ve still got more reports coming in so that number is likely to go up.” Alex said, his voice flat and completely lacking his usual friendly tones.

“I find it very curious your boyfriend knew exactly where to hit us. We had multiple store-rooms breached and they made a good run at the main vault. Those are spread all over the guildhall and it's unlikely someone would know where they all were unless they knew exactly where they were going.” He continued accusingly.

Trish snorted. “I didn’t give Win a map of our base. Hell, I doubt he had anything to do with that.”

“I think that little message in the main-hall says otherwise.” Vera snarled.

Trish laughed, she couldn’t help herself. That had been a rather nice touch. In the main hall of the guild someone had written ‘You Should Have Just Let Me Farm’ in glowing orange paint that seemed to resist any attempt to clean it off.

“Oh I’m sure he had it done, I just mean he wasn’t in charge of the operation. The Sword’s did it and I’m sure they have at least one spy in our guild.” Trish said with a shrug.

“If you didn’t know his plan how do you know it was the Swords.” Alex said with narrowed eyes.

“He did tell me late last night but Winston’s brother is dating the little sister of one of the Sword’s council members and they owed him a favor.” Trish said.

“So you know about this and didn’t tell us!” Vera snapped.

“It’ll take us months to recoup these losses. Not to mention all the people we had port back from the Expansion Zone. We’ve taken a massive financial hit and this will badly damage our reputation with our allies in the alliance. This is on you!” Vera shouted.

“I poured my time, sweat, and blood into this guild for three years. I helped build this guild up from NOTHING! Now we’ve climbed the ranks, have a sweet guildhall right on the beach and can actually play with the biggest guilds.

“I asked you for one thing and you refused. Out voting me to have our guild bully a solo player? Are you kidding me? That’s the sort of underhanded shit the Sword’s or Crimson’s would do. That’s what we were supposed to be fighting against! This is you guys reaping what you sowed. I’m done!” She said as she stabbed at her interface and a moment later her guild tag vanished.

“I can find my own way out.” She said as she stood up. “I am the one that helped design this place.”

***************************

Winston sighed with relief as he walked into Rhaunar. The walk had taken forever but two-zones and a solid eighty-miles later he’d finally made it to another city. It wasn’t a huge city but it at least had a few players milling about and none of them were from the Hound’s. The city sat right on a river that lead out to the sea fifty or so miles from Daggersport. Scows and small ships headed down river carrying hemp, fruit, and lumber where they’d make the short trip over to Daggersport to be loaded into larger ships to head overseas.

Winston asked around and checked the forums for any portals but with none to be found he paid five gold to an NPC and rode a scow downriver with a load of bananas. He tried to decide how he felt as he watched the land drift by. His time in Kishik had been pretty rewarding in terms of knowledge and skill gains but he was tired of always having crap falling on his head. Losing his farm had infuriated him but with his revenge complete and his bank-account now fattened back up he just felt wrung out. He supposed it would be nice to do something other than farm for a while. He did have that quest to knock out, although now that he’d lost a level it would take quite a bit of work to get to 20.

We’ll he’d built a farm from scratch once, it should be easier the second time. Especially now that he had more resources and a better construction skills. Maybe he’d try a greenhouse this time. The cloudy sky finally let loose and a light rain began to fall. Winston gritted his teeth. That was one thing he would not miss. Maybe he should try desert farming for a while the West-Empire had at least one big desert and he could grow dates and sorghum as easy as coffee and chocolate. Winston dozed off as the boat rocked in the shallow coastal waters and dreamed of blowing sands and a complete lack of rain.

End Of Arc 2