Bright and early in the morning Elora logged in. She stretched and then went to find her great great grandmother. Elora had just managed to finish her heritage quest and had been allowed to meet her family founder. Countess Vanessa Leafholder was one of the 4 most powerful shadow mages in the Coven. Elora had spent considerable time and effort assisting her elven people and she felt it had paid off with the amount of support they had mounted. Looking upon the army that was arranged on the plains she couldn’t help but feel pride that 11,000 shadow elves had come to fight. The goblins had sent 28,000, and while they had the highest number, all the other races knew they would do the least damage this fight. The orks had managed to round up a combined 6,000 warriors and shamans. The Undead had sent 9,000 soldiers, which was odd since Dredmonte Castle belonged to their portion of the Dark empire. Finally the humans and Demons had put together a joint force of 6,000 imps and corrupted fighters. If you judged based on the numbers provided the Elves were winning in the quality and quantity department. Since there was only one goblin tester Elora doubted he had been able to do much to influence how many goblins were sent.

As she stood there musing over the differences of their fighting force the new beta testers started logging in. They were starting at level 10 with a preselected class and basic weapon. Elora helped her shadow elf noobs get sorted into ranks. The cursed swordsmen were sent to the front lines to bolster the shadow elves ranks while the archers were sent to their ranged unit. General Varlace, a large obnoxious level 215 Elite demon, was in charge of the ground army. He had put the army together in blocks. the forward block was entirely goblins. Behind it stood the undead. On their right flank were the elves and on the left flank were the orks supported by the demons. All the archer units were being held near the command area in the back of the midline. Elora wondered why Varlace didn’t want the archers on either flank but did not think much of it. The left flank of their formation bordered a river that flowed south from the castle. The right side, where the elves stood, had no border defining it. Elora finished sorting out the new elf players and looked south towards their enemy. The army of light was coming into view in all their splendor. It looked like they had barely managed to bring 40,000 soldiers to the battle but their formation was far tighter and more coordinated than the empire’s. straight lines of human paladins and pikemen marched in the forefront. On both flanks of the heavy infantry moved dwarven shield bearers and Beastmen warriors. Each of the flanks and the central army was supported by their own squads of elven archers and mages. Rounding out the army was a small 2000 man cavalry force of light elven swordsmen riding what looked like Elks.

Behind the army a smaller army of supply officers and cooks started setting up a mobile support base. As Elora was wondering why they were building the base so close General Varlace roared, “ charge!!” and the entire army lurched forward at a run. Elora, and many of the elves were thrown by this abrupt order but quickly ran to catch up to the Goblins who had launched themselves immediately towards the enemy. The armies were separated by 2000 yards before the order was given, and those 2000 yards proved to be some of the longest yards of Elora’s life. By the time she caught up to the army their goblin frontline had been slaughtered. First by the archers and Elemental mages supporting the enemies front lines, and then by the almost unbreakable wall of shields and spears that the poorly armed and unarmored goblin survivors had attempted to breach. The undead that followed up made some headway but even they had a tough time when the paladins started using their holy attacks.

Even through the hard start Elora believed that they still stood a good chance at victory. The Cursed swordsmen of the right flank struck the dwarves and were quickly doing large amounts of damage to their forces. Coupled with the curses that Elora and her fellow acolytes were throwing out victory was going to be decided in minutes. Then the elven cavalry slammed into their flanks and whatever control had existed in the right flank vanished. Elora found herself cut off from her allies and fighting a duel for her life with Shard (her sword) in her hands. One of the elvish cavalry shot towards her and it’s rider swung hard with his scimitar. Elora blocked with her blade and was amazed as it’s durability immediately dropped to 0 and shattered. The smirking light elf dismounted and approached her to deal a finishing blow. She quickly sheathed her blade and drew it again before getting into a basic fighting stance.

Seeing the blade fixed good as new gave the light elf pause and Elora used that hesitation to hit him with one of her shadowbolts.

-14 damage

After the opening spell she rushed forward and engaged the elf in battle. His scimitar was far heavier than her own sword so she quickly learned that she could not block his attacks. instead Elora switched to deflecting them as she could. The fight between the two fighters went evenly and then suddenly the elf jumped back and smiled. “Your decent, maybe we'll meet again.” he said before calling his horseback and riding off.

Elora stood there gasping for breath, and soon had another opponent to fight. The running plus the long fight had drained her of all her stamina. In desperation Elora slashed out at the new opponent only to have her attack deflected and to receive a nasty slash on her arm. The enemy light elf vanished in a flash of light and Elora felt something cold slide across her throat. Weakly raising her hand to it she saw a popup informing her she had received a heavy bleed along with a silence. Unable to heal herself, and out of stamina, Elora sank to her knees and died as General Varlace’s army retreated to the safety of the Castle.

[Log in]

Kif logged into Global conflict and looked around. His goblin companions stood there waiting for him. Everything seemed ready for a new day of adventures, until he noticed His two brute companions. The beautiful bronze tower shields he had spent half of his savings on had been rolled up into 2 ugly bronze clubs. Kif had forgotten that clubs were the only weapons that Brute’s could equip and apparently shields counted as weapons in this world. Crying silent tears at the wasted money he led his companions out of the sewers and above ground into the city. Orcs, Undead, and Demons could be seen running frantically back and forth between the cities central citadel and the outer wall. Wondering how the fight was going Kif moved over to the wall. He instructed his companions to wait at the base as he climbed up the southern edge of the wall. He belatedly noticed there were no goblins within the fortification except for his group but had no time to worry about that as the full spectacle of the battle came into view. The area in front of Dredmonte Castle was filled with an army of Humans, Beast’s, elves and dwarfs. The humans easily made up the largest chunk but the other races held a decent percentage of the battlefield as well. There were so many enemies in front of the castle that It was like looking at a sea of red names. 17 of those names stood out in bright silver or gold. Depicting Elite and legendary champions of the side of light. Looking at his own side Kif only saw 6 such Champions manning the walls. Four of the side of darknesses champions were simply high level elites. The last two were Legendary champions, the Grand general of the undead army General Warclave, and Countess Vanessa Leafolder the head of house Leafolder.

“What the hell did the morning shift’s players do that the situation got this bad!” Kif exclaimed. As he continued watching one of the lights champions pushed their way forward and ascended the outer wall. They quickly slaughtered several of the defenders before the elites were able to respond and chase them back off the wall. Kif watched this continue several times and realized that the side of light was slowly bleeding the defenders down. Something needed to be done. Something stupid, but brilliant at the same time. Luckily Kif was here and he had 5 safe lives with which to act. Having determined the pattern Kif called his two brute companions up to the wall and had them crouch down out of site. A legendary champion, Magni the Crusher, a level 360 dwarf physically leaped on top of the 40 foot wall and with one swing Cleaved a shadow elf mage in half. Kif’s brutes moved into action immediately, grabbing the dwarf and pinning him to the ground. No matter how strong Magni was the brute’s innate racial ability to not be overpowered by any being smaller than them let them pin him down. Kif then approached and picked up the dwarf’s axe.

“It is well known that axes hit for more damage than swords do. I can barely lift this so it is within my strength limits. Let’s see how many strikes it takes to down you.” Kif stated. Having given his supervillains monologue like a bouse Kif raised the Axe above his head and swung it down hard at the dwarf’s neck.

-35500 Crit

Floated up and a third of the dwarfs lifebar vanished. Kif delivered two more strikes and the dwarf collapsed dead. He then instructed the brutes to push the body off the wall inside the city so that the enemy would be none the wiser. His ambush plan worked perfectly for the next legendary figure that reached the wall. In this way he was able to quickly end one of the Wolf type beast races elites. The next legendary was a mage and started out her assault by hitting the area she reached with a large aoe fireball. Dropping the waiting axe Kif tackled the elven mage and stuffed his crippled limb into her mouth. (he was still missing a hand)

-6

-12

The elf bit him several times as she tried to get her mouth free to speak another spell. After several seconds of struggling the fight was settled by Countess Vanessa’s arrival. The shadow elf placed her hand on the prone mage's chest and muttered a quick spell. With a muffled scream of agony the elf died as her heart burst out of her chest and floated to the Countess's hand. The Countess patted Kif on the head and said good work before turning back to the battle.

Kif didn’t notice his Racial stupidity triggering and dampening the fear that all the other defenders in the area had been struck by upon seeing the brutal death. Burning 80 mana he resurrected the two Goblin brutes and continued attempting to ambush the champions that the light was sending. Unfortunately they had noticed their numbers drop and started working in groups, both increasing the casualties they inflicted along with making ambushing them harder.

Kif continued fighting, and spent his life's carefully. The dead dwarf’s axe made a large difference in the battle as he was able to chunk even the highest level champions health by a reasonable amount. Their retaliation cost him his life twice through coincidence, with him being too close to the wall when one of them arrived and dieing to a level 200+’s aoe attack. His third death ended up being to a human swordsman with the title [King’s Champion] but to Kif thought that he managed to make a decent trade as he injured the champion greatly and even disarmed him before the champion was forced to leave. Resurrecting for the fourth time Kif knew he had one more life in him after this. He quickly spent his respawned 80 mana bringing back the two brutes and rushed to the southern wall to continue the defence. All the rest of his companions had died in the fighting and he had long ago lost Hrolk’s sword on one of his previous deaths. Retrieving the axe from where he had dropped it Kif looked out at the enemy army. It’s size had shrunk a little, the constant fighting was bleeding both sides down. Kif estimated there were probably 25000 attackers left. The true threat was the remaining 10 Elite and Legendary commanders. It looked like they had decided to get serious as 9 of them were moving in a group to attack the walls.

General Warclave called the 4 remaining high level combatants together. “We will hold them here.” the undead declared as he readied his sword. Kif pulled his brutes close but did not actively join them. He had the idea that ambushing the enemy elite’s should hurt their morale more than just being beside the general when they arrive. The first of the monster NPC’s to reach the top of the wall were a pair of elite human swordsmen.

[Jill Dalingston level 218][Dan Dalingston level 215]

These two split up around Warclave and moved to attack the Countess before she could get any spells off. Kif quickly ordered the Brutes to tackle Dan while moving in and taking a swing at Jill with his stolen dwarvish axe. Some danger sense warned her of the threat but seeing only a hobgoblin approaching her Jill ignored the damage he could do and sped up to slash the Countess.

-45200 Crit, [You have inflicted deep wound. All damage is doubled to the affected area until the wound is sealed]

Kif’s strike hit Jill for over half her health points. Moreover it had stopped her momentum and gave the Countess the time necessary to raise a shield around herself.

[You have died, remaining safe respawns 1, do you wish to respawn?]

[Yes/No]

“Yes” Kif said. He didn’t even know what had killed him there. Thinking the brutes might still be alive Kif hurried to the wall to see that the only allied survivors of the last attack were General Warclave and the Countess. Their remaining elites and his Brute companions had all died to the last attack. They had not gone silently though as 3 Legendary and 2 elite enemies were the only survivors of the latest push. Kif looked out across the wall into the valley. He had no more lives to spare, he had given almost everything he possibly could for this defence. there was no dam of lava to through the battle into a stalemate, no last minute reinforcements existed. Knowing that he could not make enough of a difference at the wall to win the battle Kif returned to the sewers. Dying 5 times in only an hour had left him mentally exhausted and he needed somewhere quiet to think. Absently he paced and focused on what resources the dark had available.

Minutes passed by and Kif grew despondent. He had no plans, there was no hope. He felt a tugging at his arm.

“I’m hungry,” little goblin Mi said. Kif looked at her then absently pulled up his own stats. All his pacing had spent 5 of his stamina points. “Wait,” he said.” Thats it! The new beta testers were all given level 10 characters for this battle, and they are all about as strong as the regular army enemies. Since they just spawned none of them should have any food stored on them. The only race that can ignore stamina demands is the undead with their infinite stamina. Furthermore that patch yesterday made it so neither side could eat any food above their level. If low level food only recovers a small amount of stamina then the enemies legendary champions have to be barely holding on. Their eating majorly low level food since anything of their level would kill their army!” The adage that an army marches on it’s stomach ran through Kif’s mind.

“So the original fight took place about a mile from the castle. that means their base camp and kitchens need to be somewhere south of that. “ Pulling out his map he looked at the area around Dredmont. there was a river that ran near the castle and flowed south into the plains. The sewers he was in likely linked to that river for their runoff. All he needed to do was get to the camp, sneak in, and poison everything he could find. Kif quickly gave goblin Mi a hug then told her, “Gather as much of that black mold on the walls as you can. Bring it back here but don’t eat it.” Spending 40 mana he summoned one of his regular goblin companions. “here, Ubne take this to General Warclave and tell him that if the enemy starts retreating they need to push with all they have. Both our armies are on the edges of their stamina.” Kif pulled out the Eggroll and handed it to Ubne. Sitting down he started cooking some rat meat and sewing a small leather pouch together.

[You have created, flimsy alchemy pouch. (seriously no one wants this just throw it away)]

As the rat meat finished Goblin Mi came into view with two armfuls of the Black mold. In the real world Black mold was nasty to someone's health. Kif was hoping in this magical world it would be even worse. He quickly filled his alchemy pouch with the stuff then placed the pouch in his equip slot. Taking up the stolen dwarven axe He started winding his way through the sewers heading south. After several minutes Kif came across a large iron grate blocking off the sewers. Rushing water could be heard beyond it. With three quick swings he shattered the gate. Kif left the axe behind as it would be useless for what he had planned. Taking a deep breath he jumped in.

The water carried him quickly threw a tunnel system. Kif struck several rocks head first but, in part due to his skulls strength, he only received minor injuries and was able to hold his breath. After 4 minutes in the pitch black water system Kif saw light and started desperately swimming for it. He surfaces in the fast moving river half a mile to the south of the Castle’s location. Kif drug himself out of the water and collapsed on the plains catching his breath. Wearily he then spend what was left of his mana and re summoned Goblin Mu. The two goblins stealthily moved towards the main camp of the light. Hiding behind a bush Kif noted that the guards pacing the camp appeared to be beta players as they were spending more time bitching to each other about not being able to fight than watching the camp. Kif took some time to explain his suicidal plan to Mu and pulled out the pouch full of black mold. Both goblins made sure to rub all of their sling marbles in the stuff, and Kif handed the remaining pouch of it to Mu. “I will go for the cooking area and draw all their attention to me.” he said. “I need you to sneak into their food storage area and spread this in everything. Use the sling to hit anything you can’t physically reach. You ready?”

“i’m ready” Mu replied.

With a yell both goblins straightened up and ran for the camp. Through luck, and the beta players laziness, They were able to enter the camp before the guards reacted. Alarms started ringing everywhere as Kif headed straight for the smoke of the cooking section. He loaded his sling and started launching poisoned marbles as soon as he caught sight of the place. He continued firing them as he approached and once he physically reached the cooking area he started just throwing the marbles into various pots full of food. the cooks and servants froze at the sight of the crazy goblin before several of them started trying to chase him out while brandishing their cooking knifes. Kif continued spreading the mold until he was cornered and cut down.

[You have suffered a true death. Mania goddess of death reserves a special place for goblins who think they can cheat her of their souls. -5 levels]

Kif was surprised that he was not immediately logged out. instead he was in a dark place with no light at all. A voice from everywhere and nowhere spoke. “Hello there little goblin, you took longer than i expected to reach my abode.”

[-5 levels]

“Wait a moment, hey give me those back.” Kif cried. He was only supposed to suffer 5 times the death penalty for true deaths, not 10.

“Of course I will return this to you.” the voice said, “ that is, if you can complete my challenge.”

[Mania dislikes goblins immensely, however, since you have worked with one of her acolyte’s before she is willing to be reasonable, sort of. Complete the 10 challenges of Hell to earn Mania’s forgiveness for being a goblin.]

[Do you wish to face the 10 challenges of hell?]

[Yes/No]

“Yes” Kif cried, and immediately the area he was in grew bright.

[Stage one, Champion’s revenge, The spicy food champion wants a rematch after the humiliation you gave him last time. Eat more Ghost peppers than he can in 15 minutes to complete the challenge. Taste bud settings locked to Max]

“Oh my.” Kif said in a quiet voice.

(author's rant. The end, or is it. In other news let’s go back 16 hours from the events Kif just participated in to introduce the newest player from the original beta players.)

Sam Wellington, son of Carl Wellington, stretched as he got home from work. Sam’s family were police officers. It could be said that the work was in their blood. His father was the police chief of the Houston department. His brother was an up and coming detective. His grandparents on both sides had been well known policemen. In fact police work went back in his family 6 generations. And then there was Sam. Sam was born with asthma, He had flat foot syndrome. He only barely made his way through college with C’s and D’s. The academies didn’t want him and his family thought he was a failure. Having the drive so deeply ingrained in his blood Sam got the closest job he could to the real thing. He became a midnight security guard for a walmart. Christmas was a nightmare.

His real life may have been in the dumps but his virtual life had been going great. Sam got himself a spot in the first 2000 beta players to the latest VR game. Calling it latest was something since it was the only one out. Both Japan and Korea had tried to make VR games but, their over ambition to give players 3-6 times more speed compared to real life had been their downfall. The human mind was not meant to handle game speeds any faster than it did in reality. Both countries had suffered several alpha testers entering permanent coma’s before the new laws had come out. No time dilation was the name of the virtual game.

Sam Wellington closed his eyes and put on the gaming headset.

[Log in]

And Hrolk the ork opened his own. Having just gotten off work in real life Hrolk planned to recover what had happened in this one. Ork’s racial traits allowed them to gain 3 times the experience other races gained from doing the same tasks. As he stood, baking in the sunlight of the field before Dredmonte castle Hrolk thought about what had happened to get him to this place. Everything had been going fine in his game until the racial survivability quests. there, he had used his high level and familiarity with the orc commander to gain himself a spot in the goblin subjugation force instead of staying behind to protect his race. All he had to do was show off his ability to command and he would have been on the fast track to becoming an ork warlord. Unfortunately he had underestimated a low level goblin and had ended up bleeding to death in the middle of the battlefield. even worse, his sword had been lost. He had spent a lot of money to craft that blade himself and to drop it the first time he died was just eating at him.

Since that failure he had been demoted to scout. Now he stood with many of his fellow orcs in the dark army awaiting their enemies to take the field. Hrolk noticed the new wave of beta players logging in. The majority of them were logging in as demons and shadow elves, but a few joined the orc legion. A loud horn blow signaled the arrival of the enemy force. General Varlance, the demon of the forward army ordered their forces to charge. Hrolk thought this was a terrible mistake as it threw their entire formation out of order but he dutifully followed his fellows. Their goblin comrades met the enemy army first and broke like water against the shields and spears of the human paladins leading the assault. Hrolk participated in the fighting for hours, unfortunately the first order had thrown away their numbers advantage and the army was forced to retreat. They fell back and General Warclave, ruler of Castle Dredmonte took charge. Watching his commands was amazing to Hrolk as the general recovered their morale and was seemingly everywhere at first. Then the enemies champions started attacking and a lucky one Crippled the Undead general. Several shadow elf acolytes started healing him but his health was so high it would be hours until the crippled condition was removed. Hrolk stood on the wall fighting off ladders as he could. He refused to fail another quest after that subjugation. As time went on he noticed that the enemies champions had dwindled in numbers, looking around he spotted a familiar goblin wearing HIS SWORD and wielding a dwarven axe fighting upon the wall. Hrolk didn’t notice nor care about the desperate battle happening between the 5 champions of darkness and the goblin, versus the 9 champions of light. Quickly moving up behind Kif he beheaded the little fucker and reclaimed his blade.

“It’s alright baby, i’ll take care of you.” He said as he backed up from the fight. Everyone was too busy to notice the backstabbing so Hrolk quickly moved to a different location and went back to defending. Armed as he was he fought on for 2 more hours. Then the army of light started retreating. Unbelievably they had held on!.

[Bwooooo]

A horn was blown by General Warclave. “Open the gates, I am not about to let these weaklings leave after messing up my rock garden like this.” the undead commanded. Hrolk watched as the general handed something to Countess Vanessa but he was to far away to see what it was. He did however notice it’s affect. The countess ate it and a deep purple glow suffused her body. “I feel 200 years younger.” she declared before leading all the surviving shadow elves out of the Castle and following Warclave’s spearheaded attack.

Hrolk quickly left the wall and rushed to the front of the army. there he saw the enemy force, and they looked exhausted. Many of them were dragging and stumbling as they backed up. They were moving slow enough that the General, still crippled, was able to catch up with them. That day Hrolk participated in the most one sided slaughter he had ever been in. The remaining champions of light gathered together to try to save their army but whatever the Countess had eaten had apparently given her infinite mana for the 1 hour it was in effect. At the end of the day there were no survivors on the side of the Crusaders. Before he logged out Hrolk spent several hours celebrating with the survivors. He had his sword back, he had completed an amazingly hard quest. Life was looking up.

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------

The effects of the army of lights defeat were far reaching within the virtual world. Most of the elite champions lost had been key quest holders and members of power throughout the different warrior and magic guilds. The summary of legendary figures that died was as follows.

The dwarven king Magni the crusher

The human king’s Champion, leader of the holy knights

The Wolf tribe’s head shaman Ferrer

The Katian tribes best archer Genner

The Light elves heir to their Forest empire Gly Sandra

Losing some of their best and strongest the surviving leaders of the side of light were forced to form unified country to stand against the Dark lord’s empire. This of course, took some time.

(author's rant 2, ok now i’m done for the moment. I um, i kinda called in sick to work because i was inspired, i mean i'm sick, ya im sick. cough cough.)