“Well I believe me and the rest of these lot are going to log out…because I can barely stand as is” Zzoid’s apparently speaking for the group of mostly ladies…looks like he’s going up in the world.

“Fair enough, ah, I’m going to be doing some leatherworking tomorrow if you want to log back in to give some input”

“Ah” Oh I love his perceptiveness “Yeha, I’ll pop back in around midday, got to check on my brothers too” He gives a warm hearted chuckle before opening his menu.

His finger goes towards it but a sudden, morose squeaking of wooden wheels catches our attention and everyone turns towards the northern gate, spotting a horse-drawn carriage stopping by the well.

The driver; a hooded man starts muttering to himself as he gets off, untethering the red-eyed, blood encrusted horse and opening up the carriage.

Well whatever’s inside is…probably not nice; the carriage is a black rectangle covered in melting candles, skulls and other bits of bone and flesh.

The door opens to a horrified scream and the driver quickly shuts it back again…what did he open it for then?

“Erm hello?” I call from a small distance away

He jumps to face us, obviously startled?!

“woah you startled me there” He looks down mumbling incoherently

Excuse me what did you say?

Moving towards him to hopefully be able to hear him better

“Who are you and what are you doing here?”

“I’m Casper the Dullahan and I’m here to collect your souls” He’s getting quieter! And the awkward tapping of his fingers while he looks towards the floor (well his hood) really doesn’t help.

A door opens nearby and out comes the mortician with his slicked back brown hair and sharp blue eyes.

“Casper you’re at it again” He leans on his doorway, stroking his stubble rather amusedly.

“I’m sorry its just weird talking to people before they die”

I think I heard the word die…well I don’t think I want to know what he’s talking about now.

“I know” Wait Marty can hear him? “But if you don’t talk to them they won’t know what’s going on”

“Ahem” Oh I can barely hear him now! “I’m Casper and I’m a Dullahan who’s come here to collect your souls when hallowed’s e-”

“Casper” Marty looks at the fidgeting being as he’s struggling to speak, his tone like a father scolding a child.

Rolling his eyes, Marty bounces down towards this Casper and removes his hood

…

..

.

His decrepit and definitely not living head looks downwards in embarrassment.

“Casper comes here every year around about now to collect souls, since the death rate around this day is abnormally high”

“Yes, Hallowed’s end is the day of night where the natural protections given by Aiag is diminished allowing for a culling of the weaker races”

It really doesn’t help that he’s saying it all in one long stringed together word…but I heard culling so that sounds like we’re in trouble.

“What he’s trying to say is that Aiags protection over this village is nulled as long as the moons are covering the sun, which is usually the next 24 hours

”

“WHAAAT?” Everyone looks pretty shocked at that news…no village protection, that’s awful!

“Monsters will attack you because you’re candy to them and others will attack you because you are candy to them” I’m hearing candy now, not sure If he’s speaking a different language or?

“Just show them and it’d be easier to explain”

Casper takes out a blood red sweet in the shape of a heart (not the pretty cartoon ones…no actual living beating heart shaped, eugh). “This is candy and I’ll give it to you for every soul you give me”

“So how do we get this candy?” Dillydally asks, well seems like even he can’t hear that well.

“Kill things and don’t die…because if you do-”

“I will collect your souls” Somehow I heard that…might be because he wasn’t speaking to the floor but rather looking at us.

“But how are you collecting our souls?” Charmine asks yet for some reason I think she suspects the answer

“Well I’m a Dullahan so in my carriage of course”

Marty pops Casper’s head off, to the screams of a few people.

…

..

.

YOU JUST KIL…HE’S NOT DEAD?

Casper’s head looks downwards embarrassed while everyone looks shockingly at his body which scratches the air where his head was moments ago.

“He’s a Dullahan, kind of his job” He gives us a smirk, probably amused by our shocked reactions.

The fact that you are completely cool with a dullahan is pretty terrifying Marty!

Capser’s face reddens “Oh I’m not good enough to be called a Dullahan yet by someone like you, I’m just simply a soul collector, but I’d love to become a proper Dullahan one day” He’s mumbling to himself again on god knows what.

“You’ll get there one day Casper. But until then, be ready to collect some souls; these Orphans are a bit too foolish for their own good” Hey, we’re perfectly smart people…well most of us.

“So tell me if I’m wrong, if we die, we die?” Squirrel asks

“Well yes, what else do you think happens when you die?” Fair point Marty, fair point. “Now you should get some rest while Aiag still protects us, because Hallowed’s end always ends in a death. Last one was poor Belix” He lunges his arm over Caspers’ shoulder, carring his head in the other hand and driving him towards the carriage.

Opening the door, Marty chuckles towards the screams while Casper frantically tries to close it again.

Warning! Seasonal Event: Hallowed's End will begin in 1 hour 13 minutes.

If you are not logged in by then, you will not be able to log in.

Ok, so Halloween is a thing here…and we get candy…by killing things

…

..

.

Wait, didn’t he infer that you get candy from killing other players too?

The black lion-beastman looks shiftily around, ok he did!

“Well, seems like no rest for the wicked” Zzoid sighs as he logs off, surely coming back for an event, since it’s an event!

Though I think if we die our character gets locked I’m guessing…since their soul is taken…which is mortifying (I like being a hobgoblin).

I log off to get myself fed and watered before 24 hours of hell that never seems to freaking end!!

…

“Turuturuuuuu”

A horn blows from the small guard tower that the village apparently has...but never used it until now...?

Well that’s a first.

“Well who’s ready for some candy?” Marty gives a slightly worrying laugh as he trots down to the south of the village, all of us dogging him, even Casper.

SEASONAL EVENT:Hallowed's EndEvery year upon this day, the Sun is eclipsed by the moons for a whole 24 hours, causing Aiag's protection of civilization to disappear and monsters to go mad with hunger for souls.This event will last 24 hours and rewards will be given upon performance

Waves survived: 0

Deaths: 0

Souls Collected: 0

Candy Collected: 0

Kills: 0Death is permanent within this event and logging out will result in temporary ban till end of eventThe theme for this Hallowed's End is Nature's Wrath

Oh ok, this sounds…like a macabre Halloween game...which I don't exactly want to take part in...

Especially since it’s waves and nature’s wrath? Well we kind of deserved that.

So this is quite literally survive for 24 hours…and I count barely 30 of us…we might be screwed.

Wave 1: Blazes

Remaining Monsters: 82

Almost immediately, the entire small horde of white flamed zipping blazes turns round towards us, their usually fiery eyes now burning black.

“TIKARI” Both me and Dillydally shout while I step in front of the others, most of which look confused as to how to deal with them.

Casting detect magic

“Tail, head, mid, head, tail” I call out from closest to the next one…since Marty seems to have rushed out and is now killing them at the speed of me saying where their weakpoints are.

Wow he’s trusting…and good with the twin pair of daggers too.

“T T H T M H T H M T H” Squirrel points at each blaze and Squad Animal each take one, killing it and then retreating.

Within moments, the horde is quartered and Zzoid, perceptive is already telling the rest how this works.

“T M M H H M T M H M, Back off!” I call towards Marty as he nimbly jumps into a pack of blazes as they uncaringly race towards the village, stabbing each one in conjunction with what I’m spouting.

Damn he’s good.

Zzoid now gets the others to come charging up as the blazes get only a few metres from the gate, but without my help the results are very mixed; every two attacks or so, one is a hit so the amount of blazes that were destroyed was only one digit’s worth, but everyone’s now injured to the point of almost death.

Dammit, really could use Anoobis or even Miss Nameless right now…

Luckily we’re a biggish group so we can switch out and with my mana regenerated somewhat, I call out shard positions and the closest kill off the blazes.

Within maybe another minute, all the blazes are dead.

Wave 1 complete!

Personal Kills: 0

Total kills: 82

Total deaths: 1

MVP: Marty: 46

Someone died? And Marty, wow..I thought he's just a mortician?!

Sure enough the dead burnt corpse of one of the fish sisters lies in the ground, ruining the small train of thought as to who the hell Marty actually is apart from a normal mortician...

Marty, carries her over to Casper, who places her ceremoniously in the screaming inside…getting a candy in return.

Well that’s just dark…

“What happened?” I ask Zzoid as rubs his slightly burnt sword.

Man those weapons really helped them not get hurt…well most of them.

“Her spear caught on fire and then she got overrun, stuck between us and them”

Damn, only 5 minutes in and we’ve already lost someone…

And I’m not the only one who doesn’t seem pleased by the idea.

“Hey guys, this candy is amazing!” Gristle grunts halfway through chewing a third one he pops into his mouth…wait how’d he get his?

Well they may taste good but that shouldn’t warrant choking yourself with them Gristle…

“Oh wow!” Others begin exclaiming as they eat their first (ah Caspers giving them in trade for shards) and then continually shove the rest of theirs in without pause.

…

..

.

Apparently he won’t take shards from other kills…damn

“Hey Marty may I have a candy for helping you?”

“You want just one?”

“Well I just want to try them, not much of a sweet tooth though” Sweets are meh I’m more of a savoury guy.

“Sure” He chucks on disturbing looking miniature heart to me and I take a bite into it

…

..

.

It is actually quite nice; kind of like a sugared strawberry covered in melted chocolate...even if I feel like a bit of a savage eating heart shaped candy...

Candy effect 1/100

Hmm? Candy effect, what is that?

Checking my character sheet…nothing’s changed…so what is this effect?

Maybe I need 100 Candy to find out what it does?

“Right everyone, instead of just golloping it down, how about we all gather the candy and get one person to get to 100?”

Some guiltily stop chewing, especially Marty. Wow some people really do like sweet stuff…

“And I assume you’ll be first?” Zzoid, dammit stop that.

“Well since the candy is from a Dullahan and is in return for souls…the effects could be horrible…so let’s ask Marty what candy does”

Marty stops chewing maybe his thirtieth heart (like seriously, how much can he fit in his mouth) and with puffed up cheeks tries to swallow

…

..

.

“Don’t worry, take your time, not like we might all die...”

*GULP*

“AHHH…phew, too many at once” No, I never would have guessed “I have no idea what the effects of the candy are… it could be good or bad” He simply shrugs and continues eating, so I’m guessing he’s pretty sure he’ll be safe from the effects.

“Ok, so let’s have those with the highest Health eat them first” Zzoid muses out loud, smart idea.

Gristle, Ragreud and BC all stand forward and I don’t doubt their health is anywhere near low.

Trading the remaining candies (just under 25 left) we decided to give them to BC for now…since she looks the toughest and meanest out of the lot (she is!).

Scoffing them delightfully…well nothing else to do now apart from waiting for wave 2.

“Coming through” Ah I hear the wheels but not you Casper.

Making way for him, he sweeps the ground with an airy brush, cleaning the battle area, dust heading towards the screaming inside of his carriage…Well ok then…

Wave 2: Living Ash

Remaining Monsters: 841

Wait a second, that’s like 10 times the monsters!!

“We only have to kill 29 each” Thanks for that Squirrel, really helping here.

“SQUAD ANIMAL NORTH GATE NOW! JOAT YOU TAKE SOUTH WITH MARTY AND THE REST” DillyDally barks his orders and Squad Animal quickly march over to north gate.

Here’s to hoping they don’t all come at once.

“Right, so like blazes they have a shard inside them, work in groups of 3 and hit everywhere you can, I’ll direct you Marty”

Everyone nods and hunkers down, ready for wave 2

*boom*

“Er Marty, how bad is Hallowed’s end usually?”

“Well honestly it’s normally just a few goblins and maddened animals…this year looks like it’s going to be quite different.

Great, just great.

From a short distance, I can see a small wave, quickly growing as it comes towards us…a wave of ash.

This is not going to end well.

“YALALALAALALALLAAAAAAAA”

*CRASH*

…

..

.

Someone just jumped from the guard tower…into the wave of ash.

Immediately the wave stops rolling towards us and encapsulates the blast area.

“QUICK SAVE THAT PERSON” Zzoid shouts at the rest of us. Oh yeah, if that’s an Npc they’re not allowed to die! That’d be worse than all of us dying!

All of us charge towards the wave, which just looks like a huge mound of ash right now…

“MACES UP FRONT” Zzoid’s taking charge, fine by me; I have no ideas how to use weapons.

The 3 mace wielders (BC one of them…not surprised) and begin smashing into the wave, which doesn’t seem to care.

Using detect magic, the shards are all over the place…wow so this is actually hundreds of them put together?!

And we don’t seem to be doing much, apart from making a bit of a useless dent.

“Zzoid, we’ve got to take out the shards closest to us, which should make a gap” I then begin pointing towards where they are and Zzoid directs the 4 spear wielders to go about that task.

Apparently destroying a few shards annoys the huge pulsating wave of ash as some individual ones drop out from the wall and rush towards us.

“AXES AND SWORDS” Zzoid rushes to meet one, chopping clean through the rough arm, which regenerates within seconds.

The other 4 begins their own fights against a living ash each. Ok so we’re not too bad off yet.

I direct the spearmen (well mostly women) to the shards while Marty helps out the rest, zipping through, daggers hitting multiple locations and more often than not finding the target.

Within no more than a minute, I’m out of mana but we’ve broken maybe a dozen shards allowing our macemen to pile through a good chunk, but not enough by far.

Who or whatever’s in the middle is somehow still alive…

As the macemen pile through the supposedly weakened section, arms start blasting out from the sides, punching and slapping them.

“GET OUT OF THERE” I shout and rush in there to half drag them out before they’re killed.

Back to square one.

“Everyone, we’ve got to open it all up in one go, in and out, everyone”

Letting my mana regen to full, I start directing the spears once more.

“NOW” Macemen power into the wall of ash along with the axemen and swordsmen hacking away in a rough arrowhead shape.

Marty remains behind agroing the ash and dodging attacks from half a dozen of them with ease.

“PUSH” Everyone pushes forwards, macemen smacking with axemen while the rest defend from the sudden hands of ash shooting out from the walls.

I just punch whatever gets too close, to little effect in general I believe.

The wall closes behind us, but we continue through and burst through the other side into a small open area where the ash doesn’t seem to be going…why?

*Shingshingshingshingshing*

Oh wow.

Half a second and more attacks than I could see…he’s good.

From the dozens of hands spurting towards the being clad in metal from head to toe, only a few actually reach him but even those seem to have little effect against his heavy armour and large shield which seems to be as easily wielded as the large sword in his other hand.

“What the hell are you bastards doing here?” A light voice speaks angrily…oh it’s a she!

OH it’s Roirra!

Ah…I remember that she hated me before…so now she probably hates me even more.

“To help”

“Ptah” She spits on an arm before slicing it off, bashing another with his shield “All you ever do is destroy things around us, what help could you offer”

-12

“A way to kill this thing rather than just play with it” I try to ignore the ashen fist that just smacked me in the jaw quite hard, ow.

Everyone around me is battling against arms and hands, blocking with their weapons, metal already looking rather blunt.

“You think this is my first elemental, Monster? I know how to deal with them, so you just get your ass out of here and start killing it off…I can last for a short while…and if you haven’t killed it by then…I will come back from the dead to skin your sorry corpse”

Scary woman indeed, especially as she’s somehow dealing with a 10ft wall of ash with more than a few dozen arms attacking her at once…

“LET’S GO” I shout to the others, directing spearmen towards shards while the rest charge through the thankfully not quite fully strengthened ash, once more.

Reaching the other side, we burst out to find Marty stabbing the last one to pieces and giving us a wink as he tosses a dagger, narrowly missing me and stopping the fist that was about to punch my lights out.

Retreating a metre or two away from the wall, I check that everyone is alive…which they are not.

DAMMIT

We’re missing a maceman.

“We lost BC” Zzoid growls towards the wall but doesn’t go near to it for his low health “Got grabbed on the way back”.

I feel sorry for it…but at the same time…

“RAAAAAAAAAH” Oh no

The wall explodes in front of us and Holy mother of Aiag BC is alive…eyes mad with fury as she literally tears into the wall of ash without care.

“She’s gone berzerk…” Zzoid, master of the obvious…

Right…time to move away from her…just in case.

“Everyone, circle round to the other side” I whisper to the rest, hoping the message is passed on as I begin to sneak away.

BC looks like she’ll kill everything in sight right now.

Sneaking a small distance away we then begin sprinting till we reach the other side and then begin the slow extermination once more.

But this time, the number of living ash coming at us doubles, no triples to the point where we simply ignore the wall and begin fighting these since there’s so many.

Dealing with two of them at the same time (badly), Marty comes in for the rescue killing them both but I get no respite as more burrowed ones race towards me, bursting where my feet were just seconds ago.

Well at least they don’t deal much damage.

Dodging a fast swing from one, but getting a punch in the stomach from the other, I use detect magic to spot the shard in its head and bash that, destroying it in one go.

Thank Aiag for brutality.

“NOOO” A womanly wail comes from my right; Charmine’s going to die!

-8

My momentary distraction gets an ashen fist to the stomach, bending me over double , uppercutting me right in the jaw.

Flat on my back I roll away the dizziness, just dodging the next attack before the Blue deer-beastlady stabs her spear through it’s head, doing little, but still re-agroing it momentarily.

Kciking out towards the shard in the lower left leg, it shatters and I stumble back to my feet to deal with the next two that are incoming.

“EVERYONE TO ME” Zzoid’s shouting and happily we all make our way to him, grouping up, battered but alive “AXES TO THE SIDE, MACES AND SWORDS FRONT AND DEFENDING, SPEARS BEHIND”

Immediately in a formation, I’m just between the two rough lines telling them where the shards are and the killing starts to get better; spears are doing the killing while the rest just focus on blocking the attacks.

Though when there’s close to 20 of them attacking, more than a few attacks get through…

“WALK BACK”

We all start frantically walking back, trying to make distance between us and the small mass of Living Ash, which just keep coming…must’ve killed two dozen of them by now.

Thankfully Marty is taking quite a bit of the heat off of us, aggroing and then running around with a whole horde of them trailing behind.

Killing off our third dozen, spears go to the front as meatshields while everyone who is under 20 hit points (literally everyone but me and 3 spears…) retreat back so they don’t get hit and die.

Marty is somehow not out of breath running around so much and slowly, we focus on his train, killing one at a time and making sure agro stays on him.

Within 5 minutes, they’re all dead and no more come to fight us.

Phew.

Actually, why is it so quiet…?

Peering round, I spot that the wall of ash has decreased to the point where it looks like just a large unmoving mound.

Did we kill it?

Detecting magic and sure enough I don’t see a single shard left!

Wave 2 complete!

Personal Kills: 5

Total kills: 841

Total deaths: 2

MVP: Marty: 112

Marty is good!

Suddenly bursting from the ash is a black-faced, punched up Hispanic looking woman with unkempt raven hair and a vicious look in her eyes.

Spitting blood on the floor she stumbles towards us, using her chipped sword and slightly dented shield as a support.

“You took long enough” No jokey tone, just a look of pure anger...well we tried!

Her mouth crunches and she spits out a tooth, looking at it worriedly.

“Hey, took you guys long enough” someone comes sauntering from the other side, wearing battered leather armour (finally remembered to give it to them) along with an entirely black squad of people shuffling like zombies towards us with partially toothy grins.

“Er Dillydally?” I’m not sure because he’s completely black and he has short black hair.

“Yup”

“What happened?”

“Bit of a rampage” He gives a mostly toothy grin, mirroring the rest of his squad…who are as black and partially unrecognizable as him.

Just what did they do?

“You’re missing 2” Zzoid perceives something I don’t…oh yeah there are 2 missing…

“We lost Ragreud and Migdrellik” He looks down; saddened I’m guessing (can’t really see his face) for a long moment while some look down at the floor in guilt? “SQUAD, REST UP”

They all collapse on the floor, a few even starting to snore within seconds.

He himself lies down and starts sleeping lightly.

Wow they’re tired.

“Well we better find BoneCrusher…don’t want her death added to the list too” Zzoid looks around at our own, less haggard group.

“The big orc?” Roirra gives a surly grin “It’s passed out in the pile” She thumbs the ash pile and Zzoid quickly has everyone go looking for her.

Within a minute we’ve found her, snoring away the same as those guys

…

..

.

Don’t tell me…no…that can’t be…

“Dillydally, did you all go berzerk?” I rush up to him; this seems like an awesome skill!

“Yes, and no I’m not going to teach you how to get it…it will take far too long and we have neither the time nor the energy to teach you”

Dammit…well at least I know I can get that skill. Adding it to the lengthening list!

Wave 3: Fire Elementals

Remaining Monsters: 14

“Well talking about no time” Zzoid thank you for being so damnably obvious

...

…

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-TRUE NORRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRRD