“When we sent you to look for the node, I could have sworn you were asked to find it, tell us, and maybe try and keep people away from it until we take the city. I don’t remember asking you to crack open the top of the cloud, unleash an enormous monster and put the node on display for the entire population.” Mary said, fuming as she tapped her fingers on the table she sat behind.

When Oda had taken Jicker into the guild hall, they’d been greeted by people running in all directions, panicking and not knowing what was going on. Oda had grabbed someone by the collar and had them set up an emergency meeting with the guilds heads.

“So in short,” Mary continued after Oda had briefed them of the situation, “only two weeks before we launch the attack, you accidently unleashed a titanic monster above the city, causing chaos and panic, giving away the nodes existence and putting the city on high alert. Did I miss anything?”

“Apparently it’s also probably going to respawn, but at the moment we’re not sure how big it will be, or where,” Oda added.

“Oh good, so we have that to look forward to as well,” she sighed and dropped her head onto the table. “Do you have any idea how much this is going to push back our plans?” she asked despairingly.

“Come on Mary, it’s not that big of-” Oda began trying to reassure her, when her hand lashed out and grabbed the front of his shirt.

“You were supposed to be keeping an eye on him,” she said in a low voice. “now everything is ruined!”

“Is it ruined? Or is it...Awesome?”

Everyone turned as Gabe, apparently thinking it was a good idea to ride Princess through the building, entered the room.

“Yes Gabe, it’s ruined. You’d know that if you showed up on time,” Mary said as she turned to her brother.

“I went and had a look at the city, and if you shift your thinking a bit, we have an opportunity here.”

“Ardenvale is on high alert now. How is that an ‘opportunity’?”

“The city might be, but the people are all busy try to fix up the place from all the falling rock.”

“Speaking of which, we didn’t want them to find the node because it could be a huge problem to deal with, which we know for a fact after this incident. Now they know exactly where it is!”

“And it’s completely protected,” Gabe countered, making Mary hesitate.

“What?”

“It’s currently sitting on a relatively thin column of stone almost half a mile above the ground. They might know where it is, but they’re not going to be able to reach it for a long time. There are only a few thousand players that have managed to achieve flight, and barely any of them would bother looking into earth energy.”

“Ok, but what about the fact they’re withdrawing patrols to reinforce order in the city? They’re going to be better armed than we’d planned.”

Gabe shrugged. “With less patrols about, we can get our forces way closer before we get detected, which was one of the big problems we had wasn’t it?”

She gritted her teeth. “Fine! What about the fact that our plans to get past their defences don't work anymore?”

“Well, they shouldn’t be too hard to replace. After all, half of those defences got crushed by falling debris.”

Mary’s expression slowly turned thoughtful. “You know, maybe you’re right. But if we’re still going to manage to pull this off we’re going to need to move things forward. Arcus, how far along with preparations are we?”

One of the council members looked at a folder. “We’ve got all the soldiers we need, though they’re all in standby at the moment. All our other equipment is primed and ready to go, except for the node itself.”

Mary nodded. “Right, in that case, have people open up the vault and start waking up our soldiers to get them prepped for war. Arcus, begin work on getting the node mobile; we need it up and running as soon as possible. Ladies and Gentleman, we attack in two days.”

“Actually,” another person spoke up. “could we push it back to three? I've got an assignment I need to finish off.”

Gabe winced. “Ooh actually now that you mention it I've got to finish that off as well.”

Mary stared at them and sighed. “Fine, just... fine. The assault begins in three days.”

Another person raised their hand. “Umm, I have work that day so could we...” They saw the death stare Mary was giving them and slowly lowered their hand. “Actually, I'm sure I can swap my shifts around...”

Mary stood up and addressed the room. “Three days people. Make sure you’re ready.”

~~~~~~

Since Mary had given the orders to mobilise, the guild had become a hectic mess, with people rushing from one place to another to get things organised for the upcoming battle. Logistics were being managed, weaponry being repaired and checked and an endless number of other small jobs. Even with all the preparations that had already been done there was always something else that had to be done at the last minute.

The biggest task was the army itself, since with a large number of necromancers involved it was almost entirely undead. Rising Moon had been stockpiling bodies in a huge underground vault for some time now, and while most of the work had been done, they needed to be taken out of the stasis they’d been put in. Undead creatures would normally rot and degrade over time, and while measures could be taken to extend their lifespan, eventually they’d decay. So instead, the bodies had been taken, raised, and then put into an enormous freezer that Gabe had created.

Now they were being thawed out, restored, armed and arranged into the growing legions under the command of the more combat based members of the guild.

While everyone was rushing about, Jicker went to find Mary and asked what he could do to help.

“No need, right now we have everything in hand. Besides your ‘help’ has already been more than enough.” she said as she looked at a map of the area and made some notes.

“Are you sure? Maybe I could try and-”

“You have some interesting and potentially powerful abilities Jicker, but we have a lot of powerful people already. Sorry if it hurts your ego, but you’re not exactly crucial to our plans.”

She was right of course, Jicker knew. He wasn’t actually part of the guild in the first place, but it still left him at somewhat of a loss with what to do with himself. In the end he headed back to the crafting hall to make up some more of his poisons and restock on the rest of his supplies. It wasn’t anything important, but it was something to do, and it all added up in the end.

The place had become almost entirely deserted, as all the crafting needed for the assault had been finished long ago, which left him to his own devices. The manager of the hall checked in on him a few times, but for the most part he was left to work quietly alone, pausing occasionally as he heard people crashing around throughout the base. After a while he began to lose track of time, until someone tapped him on the shoulder.

“Hey Jicker, you got a moment?” Oda asked.

“I swear I’m going to put a bell on you if you keep sneaking up on me, but yeah. Right now I have nothing but time. What do you need?” Jicker said as he put down the flask he’d been cleaning.

“Like that would make a difference. Anyway, can I get some more of those drops from you? I figure I should grab a few more before things get too hectic.”

“Sure, just grab some from the pile over there and make a note of how many you take. We can worry about payment later.”

“Cool. Secondly, how do you feel about a field trip?”

~~~~~~

Oda wasted no time in taking him out of the base and heading towards the city. From where they stopped Jicker could see that repairs were already under way, with teams of people hauling away the huge chunks of stone that had broken off of the cloud.

“So why are we out here?” Jicker asked.

“Well, I don’t have a lot to do until fight time, so I started thinking. Though the city's defences are in a pretty bad shape at the moment, there’s still a decent chance that this ends up being a long, drawn out siege.”

“Makes sense, but I assume Mary already planned for that.”

He nodded. “She has, at least as far as our supply lines go. But in a siege, the big thing is how long both sides can hold out. As long as both sides have food and water, sieges can go on for years.”

“I'm pretty sure the city can be taken before then. They’d get reinforcements before then anyway.”

“True, but if things do get rough they might try and hold up as long as they can. If we can be ready to shut down their supplies, we could shorten the siege by a lot.”

“And you plan on achieving this by...?”

“Ardenvale gets the majority of its water from the river, so I figure if we repeat what we did with the well on that farm, we can take it out.”

Jicker looked at him. “You are aware there’s a difference between a well and a major river right?”

“Well yeah, I mean, I know we’re going to need a lot more, so I figure we can come out here now so you can see how much we’d need and then-”

“Not what I mean.” Jicker paused for a moment as he tried to figure out how to explain it. “A well is a fairly stationary body of water, all in one place. A river is...a river! Its massive and is constantly moving, you can't just drop a few barrels of stuff in it.”

“Yeah I know, but...I kind of got chewed out about the whole ‘earthwyrm thing’ and I want to show that I can plan ahead.”

“Really? That’s your reason?” Jicker asked doubtfully, raising an eyebrow. They stared at each other for a few moments before Oda threw his hands up.

“Ok, fine,” he said, “I don't have anything to do until the fight so I'm bored. Like, you would not believe how bored I am. So I figured looking into the river would kill some time?”

“That I’ll believe. In that case, since I’ve got nothing else on, lets head further up river; maybe we can find a spot we could put up a dam or something.”

“Works for me.”

~~~~~~

The two travelled along the river’s edge, trusting in Oda’s skills to keep them from being spotted as Jicker took the time to tell him a bit about the upheaval. Along the way they saw a small group of poppits moving amongst the plants nearby. A fox appeared as well and began to stalk closer, but long before it got close enough to pounce, the poppits spotted it, swelling up and causing the fox run away.

“How far do you think those things are going to spread?” Oda asked after watching the interaction.

Jicker thought about it. “I'm not sure, but they shouldn’t get too out of control. I don't really think it through all the way when I put together something like that.”

“Yeah, that’s probably a habit you should break. Last thing we need at the moment is another city-destroying monster.”

“One mistake, and now I'm never going to live it down am I? It’s not like I'm the only one who ever-”

“Quiet,” Oda said cutting him off.

“What, don't like being told about your own-”

“I said quiet,” he repeated, straining his voice.

Looking at the assassin’s expression, Jicker stayed silent. As he motioned for them both to get into cover, they both quickly ducked behind an outcrop of rock and waited. Jicker desperately wanted to know what they were waiting for, but seeing the normally relaxed person suddenly turn serious made him hold his tongue.

After several minutes, he managed to pick up what Oda had been listening to. A large number of people were marching along the river bank, hauling carts and wagons. Deciding to risk a look, the pair peeked out for a moment to see who had come from such an odd direction. What they saw were soldiers, people in armour and robes and carrying weapons of all descriptions. In short, they were an army.

~~~~~~

“Why are they here now?” Oda muttered to himself for the fifth time.

The two had waited until the group had passed by to follow them at a safe distance. When the travellers were several hours from the city gates, they set up a campsite, apparently wanting to enter the city while fresh and rested.

Once the camp had been set up and they saw that people had begun to turn in for the night, Oda went to investigate, leaving Jicker to sit alone in the dark. After a few minutes, the assassin silently reappeared, and began swearing.

“Why are they here now?” he said again.

“Who are they?” Jicker asked, looking towards the camp.

“They’re the Seekers, and they shouldn’t be here for a month!”

“That... doesn’t tell me anything. Who are the Seekers?”

Oda looked at him. “You really need to pay more attention to in-game politics, but I suppose this one’s fair enough. Until they did a whole rebrand after the upheaval, they were called Compass.”

Compass. Now there was a name that Jicker remembered. Back when the game had first come out, and Genesis was still a wild and unexplored continent, the guild of Compass had formed—a group of pathfinders, trailblazers, treasure hunters and everyone else who wanted to go out and explore an unseen world. They’d become known for being a friendly guild, willing to share their information with anyone who asked, at least, at the beginning. However as time went on, Compass began to realise the advantage of reaching dungeons and locations first, keeping some of them secret. Suddenly the friendly guild changed overnight and began to protect their information fiercely, and with all of the rare equipment they’d collected in their travels, they were a force to be reckoned with. Over time that information became public knowledge, and the guild's iron grip began to fade.

But apparently, according to Oda, since the upheaval and the new dungeons being produced, the guild had gone through a resurgence. Once again there were unknown and unclaimed spaces on the map, and the remaining members of Compass had regrouped and brought in new members. Now, as the Seekers, they travelled around seeking information on any areas that either hadn’t been explored, or dungeons that hadn’t been cleared.

“So, why are they here?” Jicker asked. “ There’s nothing around here that hasn’t been looked through.”

“You’re right, there’s nothing around here. The only dungeon even nearby is the cloud itself, and they already decided it wasn’t worth their time.” His eyes widened in realisation. “Except a giant monster just revealed itself from inside.”

Jicker swore. “And so now it’s caught their attention. Damn it, with their strength in the mix, taking the city is going to be far more difficult.”

“It will be, unless...” Oda began, trailing off with a thoughtful expression on his face.

“Unless what?”

“Unless we can take them out now.” he flatly stated.

“I know you’re an assassin but seriously? Your first thought is to kill them all?”

“Like you said I'm an assassin, and you’re a... monster-making, poison-brewing weirdo. What part of that sounds like diplomacy to you?”

“Ok, so we can’t talk them out of it, but you think we can beat four hundred soldiers?”

“There are two hundred and thirteen of them, ranging from levels twenty seven to a hundred and eighty three, with an average of fifty six. The majority are at sixty percent health or lower and are currently afflicted by a variety of debuffs.”

He saw the uncomprehending look Jicker gave him and sighed. “Perception skills man. If I can see your hidden information, you think I can’t see levels and hit points? My guess is they’ve come straight from whatever dungeon they’ve been clearing out and are still suffering from its effects.”

“Okay, so they’re already hurt, but they still outnumber us by a hundred to one, and they’re at a way higher level than me at least. There’s no way we could take them in a fight.”

“I never said we’d fight them, just that we should take them out. Fighting them fairly would be suicide, but if I'm careful, I should be able to take out about a third of them,” he said, looking thoughtful.

“You could kill that many?”

“Maybe? It would depend a lot on when they started waking up and noticing me. I don’t suppose you could... make up some kind of distraction.”

“I’ve got some vials of choking gas that could disrupt people if we threw it around.”

“I meant you could, you know, make up something?” he said, stressing the words.

Jicker looked at him incredulously. “I'm sorry, but for some reason repeating the thing that brought them here in the first place seems like a bad idea.”

“I don’t mean another city eating monster, just something to keep their attention off me.”

Shaking his head, Jicker replied, “Sorry, I'm pretty much at my limit for now. Any more, especially something that comes out of nowhere at a group of players, is going to give me away pretty obviously. Although... maybe we don’t need something new. You said they’ve been busy in a dungeon right?”

“It’s just a guess, but it makes sense considering everything. Why?”

“Well, that means they might not be up to date on the latest events,” Jicker grinned as he started to draw out a plan in the dirt.

“Heh,” Oda chuckled as he looked at the plans. “Even if they are aware, they won’t be expecting this. Come one, we’ve got work to do.”

~~~~~~

The camp had fallen all but silent as the night went on, with people either going to sleep or logging out entirely. It had been a long trek to the city and would likely be just as long tomorrow, so few people were willing to pull sentry duty. Being as close to the city as they were they didn’t have any real fear of attack, but some habits shouldn’t be broken.

Oscar had drawn the short straw and was currently leaning on his pike while trying to stay awake. He had ended up on watch last night as well, but trading shifts in exchange for an enchanted sword was a good deal, or it seemed so at the time, he thought as he yawned. His train of thought was interrupted however, when a small animal moved out of the darkness and started to move closer to the fire. Looking at it absently, Oscar hefted his spear, seeing something to occupy his time. If he hadn’t been looking at the animal in front of him, he may have noticed a number of small shapes being launched over head into the camp. But as it was dark and cold, and his senses were dulled from lack of sleep, he only looked at the small animal while thinking he hadn’t eaten rabbit in a while.

~~~~~~

As explosions began to ring throughout the campsite and people started to wake up in panic, Oda moved in. Watching from his hiding place, Jicker was amazed at the man’s skill, barely able to follow the mans movements even while knowing the plan.

Gathering up dozens of poppits had proved easy enough, the critters not reacting to them before being carefully scooped up and bagged. After letting some loose and herding them towards the sentries, Jicker threw the rest deeper into the camp. The result was chaos, pure and simple, with a few officers trying to shout over the din and restore order as people screamed from injuries and searched for whatever had attacked them.

It was these officers that Oda targeted first with near surgical precision. Moving within an arm’s length of his victims while remaining unnoticed, he would perform a single, calculated strike to an exposed vital area and move on before they’d even processed that they’d been injured. The few that survived the initial attack died within moments from blood loss, leaving their surrounding guild mates to look around in shock and search for whatever had killed their friends.

It didn’t last forever, obviously, and eventually the poppits had all detonated and order slowly restored. Oda was still chipping away at their numbers, and his actions and the explosions had claimed almost half their number. But as the camp recollected itself, Jicker saw that Oda had been left trapped in the centre, with no easy way out. Going into his bag, he pulled out a few of his vials and wondered where he could use them to help. Seeing a cluster of people gathering on the other side of the camp, Jicker hurried into the tree line, flanking around to get into position.

He’d only gone in a few feet before he ran head first into a darkened shape that appeared in front of him. Stumbling and falling back he looked up to see Penumbra looming above him, head cocked to one side while studying the fallen figure on the ground. As Jicker scrambled to his feet, the alpha turned and walked away a short distance, before turning and waiting for the gremlin to follow.

“I get it, you want my help with something, but I can’t!” Jicker desperately cried as he picked up the vials he’d dropped and spun around to figure out which way he needed to go. “My friend needs help, so I have to go.” He started to run forwards back to the campsite when the shadows in front of him blurred and Penumbra blocked his path again.

“Damn it, I don’t have time for this! Look once I've done this, assuming I survive, I’ll come and deal with your thing, but right now either help me or get out of the way,” he shouted, staring at the creature above him. Penumbra seemed to consider something for a moment before singing out a long, echoing howl. The pack appeared out of nowhere, and the moonlight reflected off their eyes as the silhouwolves surrounded him.

“Is this your way of forcing me to help you? No...It’s not is it; you could do that on your own. You’re going to help? Then let’s go.”

As he ran through the trees the pack followed him, with Penumbra silently keeping pace beside him—the only sign that the wolves were there at all. Reaching the edge of the tree line, he looked out over the camp and saw that people were busy putting out several of the fires that had broken out in the chaos.

“Okay, if you can follow this then try and understand,” he said to turning to the pack, “that camp down there is the enemy. My friend is stuck in the middle somewhere, but don’t worry about him, he can look after himself if we can distract the rest. We go down there and attack whoever we come across. But some of these people are strong, so if you are in danger, run. If you can kill someone safely, do it, but if you can’t then just harass them and keep out of the way. Understood?”

Jicker had never seen a wolf roll their eyes before, but watched as Penumbra did so and gave another howl to the pack while showing Jicker a look that plainly said, “Don’t tell me what to do.”

Like a wave of shadow the pack swept forth out of the forest, breaking over the unsuspecting Seekers. The camp was immediately alive with cries of alarm, though Jicker noticed many were cut short. Deciding to help out directly, he glanced around and saw people attacked by wolves that they could barely see. Launching vials of choking gas towards any groups of soldiers he saw, he did his best to disrupt any attempts to form a defence against the pack's onslaught. He had been worried that wolves would be wiped out, but it seemed he’d underestimated how well they could capitalize on the already panicked guild as he watched more than one high level player dragged into the forest by the hungry animals.

Before long the number of opponents dropped to only a few. These were the elite, the original members of Compass, and they stood head and shoulders above the rest of their guild.

“What is going on here?” one of them screamed. “What the hell is going on?! First those rabbit things, then that nut job started stabbing people and now these things?”

“Focus!” another shouted. “We’ve been through way worse than this. Just calm down and get it together. We’ll finish off these ones, and then retrieve everyone else’s equipment. It’ll be fine; just focus on healing us.”

“But we’re right next to a damn city! Why are these things here? We should be safe-”

“I said focus! There’s still the four of us left, and we’re more than enough to deal with these...dog things, right guys?...guys?”

The speaker turned around to find Oda standing behind him, with the other three members falling to the ground and the healer still gurgling from a slit throat.

“You might have been, but you can’t deal with me,” the assassin simply said before bringing his knife around in an arc towards the shocked fighter. As the last body toppled over, the assassin cleaned off his blade on a nearby body and looked around with a satisfied expression.

“Man,” he said to Jicker as he turned to him. “Your wolves do not play around do they? We should totally put them on the city's coat of arms when we take over!” He laughed as he pushed over one of the bodies and looked at their face. “I know some of these guys, real asshats. Hopefully that and the fact we won the battle will keep Mary from blowing up at me for starting a fight right before we go to war. Hey, I need to make a call to have some of our people come and collect all of this stuff, and the bodies as well if you can keep the wolves from eating them?” he added as an afterthought.

Jicker nodded. “I think they already took their share into the forest, but I’ll see if I can get the gear off of those ones. Speaking of which, I need to go and do something for them. Are you right out here by yourself?”

“Please, between the two of us you’re the one who is in more danger. Go on and play with your friends while I sort this out. Head back towards the guild when you're done yeah? Someone will bring you in.”

“Roger that,” Jicker replied with a salute before heading back towards the forest, the pack fanning out around him.