“There’s the mortal that would dare to defile our glorious race! Kill him! Kill him now!”

Words echoing from a roaring shaman’s lips that caused almost 500 troops to turn around and charge right for Eric. And truly it was a sight, seeing the murderous bloodlust in their eyes as the massive eight-foot tall orcs charged full speed through the grass towards him. The stuff of nightmares that would have plagued Eric’s sleep mercilessly, just a few short months ago.

But as it stood now…

Eric began loping away as the air cracked with gunfire, knowing he was well out of their range, before hissing with alarm when he felt no less than three lead balls smack against his naked torso.

They stung no worse than a slap. But there was no way those shits should have been able to hit him at this range.

And the cold smiles he received...

His heart was pounding.

Then he felt it. The peril slowly building over his head as the air slowly built up with the weight of a fearsome chant.

Eric hissed in sudden alarm, a cold spike of dread piercing his gut.

This wasn’t the quickly cast lightning strikes that had so humiliated him earlier that day.

This was the ever-growing buildup of spiritual pressure Eric didn’t need the mocking smile of the shaman to know would end with a strike that would send him straight to hell. And probably hundreds of the orcs that had been goaded into a frenzy as well.

Goading the orcs to close, and simultaneously block line-of-sight to the shaman wouldn’t do shit to save his life.

And the most horrible thing about it all, Eric thought, immediately changing his tactics and racing away from the frenzied orcs now howling with dismay as they were left in the dust, was that the knowing eyes of the shaman made it clear that he had read Eric like a book.

His taunt with earlier lightning bolts for his ass had been a goad. A taunt.

So Eric would overestimate his own prowess and underestimate theirs.

A truth he should have realized when his overconfidence had him facing a level fifty trident master backed by a full dozen level thirty something assassins armed with arcane blasters.

A deliberate trap devised by a tactician who had no reason to think that Eric would actually dare both territories in a single afternoon, but had prepared for just such an eventuality. It was a trap that should have killed him. And it had only taken a single orc actually getting a lucky round off to nearly do just that.

Yet here Eric was, once more charging in like a fool, thinking that the tactics of less than two hours ago when he had been all but shepherded further in, would be all that this monster was capable of.

And Eric had just stumbled to the ground, lead cannonball slipping free of its pocket as he groaned, forcing himself upright once more.

The red-eyed orc shaman roared with laughter. “Fool! Did you actually think you had a chance against us? You were permitted to flee only because we allowed it! For we are the shepherds and you are but the sheep, readied for the slaughter! Now feel the weight of your sins, the crushing vertigo of despair!”

The creature’s grin stretched wide, revealing blackened teeth filed to points. “I shall make a gift of you, mortal fool! A gift to my soldiers. Far more than the commoner trash who dared to set foot on this planet before us! The air will tremble with the chorus of your screams as they savage your helpless flesh with bayonets of razor sharp steel!”

Eric couldn’t help it, his eyes drawn once more to the furious, red-eyed countenance of what truly were orc Classers. Every last one of them. No matter that they were kitted out as musketeers, holding their weapons in fearsome grips even more competent than the conscripts specializing in those tools.

Eric’s heart began to pound as the world suddenly began to spin.

He struggled just to lift himself to his feet, finding after a moment’s effort that it really wasn’t that hard, after all. And for all that the chortling shaman looked momentarily surprised, the sudden wave of vertigo Eric felt as the ground suddenly became a sharply angled hill, the entire world seeming to tilt at a sharp sixty degree angle, made it clear that the shaman truly was the master of this engagement.

Eric felt the cold claws of panic grip his heart as he was sent tumbling and rolling right toward the rapidly approaching orcs.

Fucking hell!

Gravity magic. And not simply a crude crushing weight, but angled to send him flying, tumbling into the foes reaching the height of their frenzy, his enemies only seconds away from puncturing his flesh with hundreds of razor sharp bayonets.

Because they really were armed just like standard conscripts.

Which mean that Eric still had one card left to play.

“Ignis! Plures! Hodie!” Eric cried out with every fiber of his being as he struggled for all he was worth, just to get back to his feet.

Finesse check made! Perception check made!

It wasn’t easy. It took everything he had just to half lurch, half climb back to his feet.

Just in time to catch the shaman’s surprised snarl. Turning into a hate-filled roar.

“Kill him now!”

A heartbeat before the closest twelve orcs erupted in flame.

“Ignis plures hodie! Ignis plures hodie!” Eric shouted the runic chant as fast as he could while desperately compressing and squeezing his sense of the runes into one compact whole. Far faster than he had been able to when he had dared to expand the chant to encompass what had been a regiment, the last time he had dared this casting. Yet now, with just seconds before contact, he strove to keep it simple. To be true to the heart of his chant. No more than a dozen targets at a time, one for every meridian gate he could claim as his own. A chant he then compressed and uttered as fast as he could while still keeping true to every nuance and inflection of his runic phrase, compressing the chant down to what was almost, but not quite, a quick-cast spell.

Runic Lore skill check made!

Eric flinched against the flash of fiery white light. The spray of hot steaming flesh slapping against his face as the closest clusters of berserkers were blown apart by the grenades in their midst, generating massive clouds of billowing white smoke as the powder horns strapped to the base of their spine exploded with more vigor than even the ones that had ignited to such devastating effect in the conquest of Queensland, making it clear that his enemies didn’t quite know all his secrets, and that there were limits even the corrupted wisdom of goblin seers.

And thank god for that, Eric thought, even as gravity and reality abruptly jerked him entirely off his feet once more.

The Shaman's furious guttural chant becoming a crescendo pounding through Eric’s skull, one word echoing louder than all the others as his eyes bulged in alarm, a cold surge of dread shivering through his soul as the world seemed to topple end over end, and suddenly it was only the inhuman strength of his hands clawing into the web of thick, intertwined roots that made natural grasslands so resilient that kept him from flying off the face of the Earth entirely.

Eric desperately choked down his own surge of panic, terrified of being sent falling into the clear blue skies that had suddenly become an endless pit. Desperately clutching fingers were all that kept him from falling right into the skies, hurtling endlessly into the endless vastness of deep, dark, soulless space where his final screams would be silent as he boiled away into the void.

Yet somehow, despite the hideous terror Eric felt as he hung from what was now, for him, the roof of the world, a terror that the vicious grin on the face of the shaman still chanting clearly savored seeing in Eric’s eyes, he still kept belting out the three words that were all that stood between him and being eviscerated hundreds of times over by not just Berserkers but what his Identify skill now pinged as actual Spearmen, the perfect Classers to use those bayoneted muskets to absolutely devastating effect, hurting him a hell of a lot more than any classless orc conscript, no matter that the air now rang with explosions almost the equal of the piercing howls of Classers charging Eric for all they were worth.

And so many times the bastards actually managing to plunge their sharpened bayonets into his body, sometimes repeatedly, before Eric’s bitter words finally sent them to oblivion. The handful of hits that had pierced his flesh at least a few inches deep made it clear that there was a world of difference between a mundane musket ball and a Spearman’s combat feats.

Eric swallowed the shriek of pain he wanted to holler, daring only to say the three words now making the difference between life and death as the air grew thick with the white haze of gun smoke. It was painfully clear that he would find no mercy and no quarter in this desperate fight for his life, no matter how high his stats.

Eric’s mind raced in desperate panic as clusters of Berserkers and Spearmen that just wouldn’t quit continued to rush him through the haze, even if they had to slowly plod through the growing morass of bodies to do it. Because a few had gotten clever, thrusting with their bayonets not for Eric’s remarkably resilient flesh, for all that he was covered with a dozen trickling wounds, but for the far less magically enhanced tufts of grass Eric was gripping so tightly.

Grass that was tearing free even as he screamed out his desperate chant once more.

“Ignis plures hodie!” He cried, and another dozen Spearmen were sent flying with massive gushing rents at the bases of their spines as the air filled with ever thicker gouts of white smoke, knocking prone his closest opponents, save for one.

A single snarling berserker that howled with triumph as he managed to close, thrusting the barrel of his musket for a killing blow.

Only for his eyes to widen in consternation when his prey seemed to disappear, squealing with alarm when he felt his gun wrench… reflexively holding it so tightly and… yes! Keeping it! The berserker snorted with relief as beady eyes scanned around for his prey before bulging wide at a sudden sharp CRACK that shuddered through its spine.

Eyes blinking wide with panic, it was only then that the orc felt the clamping weight of legs hooking around his neck. Desperately, the Berserker tried to claw its opponent free. But for some reason, massive arms just wouldn’t respond to a dying brain’s furious commands. He couldn’t even twitch his fingers or inflate his lungs… he needed to breath! Silently howling inside the shell of his own body, it was only the legs locked around his neck that prevented the orc from slumping over completely as his vision faded, his final scattered thoughts a screaming need for air, release from his ever growing torment that just wouldn’t end. Not until every shrieking neuron had died to a need that would never be fulfilled.

Unarmed Combat skill check made! You have successfully grappled your opponent!

You have locked your legs upon your opponents neck!

Soul Link summons your prize!

It was a desperate Hail Mary pass.

Eric hadn’t thought it would work, but he had been utterly out of options. Such that when a final orc allowed through his kill zone had jabbed him for all he was worth, drawing fresh hot blood, Eric hadn’t hesitated to let go and grab tight to that musket shaft, a lifeline the berserker had instinctively gripped all the tighter.

Just as Eric had hoped he would, at least long enough for Eric to flip to the creature’s back before snapping its neck… and hold on tight to his fresh anchor upon his hideous upside down world, now dangling from the roof of the world, as far as he was concerned, taking advantage of the very brief moment of confusion afforded by the massive quantity of white smoke all the black powder bombs had generated as he locked upon the infravision outline of his true target, the roaring shaman still telling his men to charge and kill the intruder in their midst.

Eric’s grimace was one of desperate terror, his lifeline the broken neck of a foe even now flopping uncomfortably as he embraced absolute insanity, twirling his sling for all he was worth.

He was all too aware of just how mad a stunt he was pulling, but it didn’t change the fact that he was completely out of options.

All he could do was scream out the three words that had saved his life a dozen times over and then release, taking full advantage of lessons learned every other time he had dared to face orc shamans. He timed his release to the pulsing of his opponent’s ward.

Earning nothing but a contemptuous snort for his trouble, when his shot went a good twenty feet wide.

A feat that earned only a mocking chuckle from his foe, even as the beast clenched both hands tight and snarled his hate, as if trying to tear Eric free of the Earths gentle bossom by will and fury alone.

“Fool! You think your pathetic weapon can harm one such as I? Even as you dangle for life upon the roof of your world? Just seconds from falling endlessly into the heavens, and I shall savor your screams for the countless minutes and hours, it takes you to freeze to a block of ice, never to know the earth’s embrace ever again, for daring to cross your masters!”

Eric swallowed his growing sense of panic, ignoring the furious staccato beat of his heart as he did the only thing he could as the hoard of orcs gathered up the courage to charge him once more.

“Ignis Plures Hodie!” Eric screamed, before releasing his re-summoned rune-marked cannon ball yet again.

The mocking shaman’s roaring laughter stopped with a faint look of confusion.

The creature was blinking comically as a trembling hand slowly lifted up to feel the top of its head, just above its eyes, that was no longer there.

A single glare of horrified alarm flashed Eric’s way before the massive beast toppled over on its back, and Eric toppled to the ground.

You have successfully hit your target!

Find Weakness skill check successful!

Multiple bonuses are now in effect.

You have successfully ruptured your opponent’s wards!

You have critically struck 52nd Level Orc Shaman!

Sling is now Rank 13!

Runic Lore is now Rank 10!

You have achieved Journeyman Status in Runic Lore!

Congratulations! You have achieved Journeyman Status with your first Class Skill!

Arcane Potential and Spiritual Energy have both gone up 2 points as you unlock the secrets of your own potential!

(Journeyman Perk has been temporarily deferred.)

Master Adventurer is now Level 34!

The shock of his opponent’s death, the sheer wondrous joy of the world spinning about once more as Eric tumbled from his perch back to the wondrous ground would have had him kissing the grass with tears in his eyes at any other time.

But not now.

Not when there were still over four hundred Berserkers and Spearmen still screaming for his death. And now he was rolling, rolling, as the monsters sensed his momentary distraction, all of them roaring and snarling as they plunged the bayonets of the rifles into the ground with such force that one or two bent or snapped so determined they were to riddle him with holes as he rolled, rolled, rolled for all he was worth, an entire level’s potency dedicated solely to making him just a bit faster than he had ever been before.

Just barely fast enough to avoid one Berserker’s furious jab to his throat, and then another.

Quickness check made!

Until he twisted around and leaped to his feet as two more bayonets thrust for his rear using a class ability he was almost certain worked exactly the same as his Piercing Strike weapon feat, earning the mocking laughter of his foes when Eric screeched at the feel of hot steel pricking his as.

But at least now he was upright running, running for all he was worth as panicked alarm and the terror of his his near death experience turned to the sweet manic joy of surviving against monstrous odds as he summoned his blood spattered cannon ball in the blink of an eye, now back where it belonged, in the pocket of his sling. A sling he twirled about with more grace and savvy than he ever had before as he snapped around and released, the air cracking with a boom as his cast-iron ball tore completely through the tightly pressed company of orcs, felling well over half a dozen as the cannon ripped right through them before being summoned to the pocket of his sling once more.

And now it was Eric’s turn to laugh, laughing with fiercest glee as he led his foes on a merry dance of death, happy to take full advantage of their Berserker’s fury to line them up, funneling them just behind him, before snapping around to blast gaping holes through the lead orc and everyone right behind the lead. Yet the roaring Berserkers and Spearmen refused to shy away, now seeming more desperate than ever to close with him. Perhaps it was a calculated gamble, fearing that he could pick them off at leisure if they didn’t try to rush him when he seemed so within reach. Or perhaps it was mindless aggression, highlighting the obvious flaw to what would otherwise be overpowered Standard melee Classes, his enemies now desperate to strike the source of their struggles, the orchestrator of so many defeats from what should have been countless triumphs.

Yet it seemed that greed as well as insensate fury compelled them onward, and perhaps the inability to accept how utterly and completely the tables had turned with the removal of a single rook from the board, the air thick with guttural cries about claiming their weight in gold, should the vile half-breed finally fall.

So many tidbits Eric overheard as they roared their fury, declarations of vendetta and war already in effect, their howls making their sentiments abundantly clear.

As Eric made his own. With the twirl and snapping release of his sling, sending cannon balls hurtling through his foes with increasingly devastating speed and power as Sling leveled up two full ranks. Because Eric wasn’t just training or blitzing through near powerless level 10 equivalent classless orc musketeers.

He was fighting hundreds of Spearmen and Berserkers, and his kill notices made it clear that not a single one of them was below Level 20. They were the elite forces of 50th level Battle Masters who were clearly happy to break the very covenants of a new world’s Ascension in a final effort to crush the Sylvan Alliance once and for all.

So he happily welcomed the fearsome surges of potency pushing his Primal Adventurer Class ever closer to 35 and demanding absolute mastery of the skills he most needed to survive as he lost himself in the dance of battle he and his foe so willingly embraced.

Belting out Runic chants that set countless dozens of them ablaze, interspersed with 17-pound balls of killing fury cracking through the air at close to the speed of sound and tearing through tightly packed swarms to absolutely devastating effect. A bloody ball of soul-linked death that he happily resummoned to his sling, time and time again.

And finally, as numbers dwindled to just a fraction of what they had been, Eric knew it was time to make full use of what would be his greatest art.

Taunting them no longer, Eric abruptly spun about to face the hoard of still charging orcs with a fearsome grin. Before roaring and charging right into their mass, unsheathing and striking with his sword as fiery hot mithril became a blur and he moved with such speed that his foes could barely keep track of his passage before he had already passed them. Though not without leaving gifts behind as furious beady eyes were forced to look down at the massive spurting rents through their bellies, stumbling upon thighs that could no longer hold their weight as femoral arteries released great frothing fountains of rich red blood, snarling arms eager for a final strike at their passing foe unable to do anything but gesture with bloody stumps, before the squealing frustrated orcs at last toppled over in death’s embrace.

Iado skillcheck made! You have drawn and struck in the blink of an eye!

You have successfully dismembered Subchief!

And there were a few, still, that could make out the near 240 Quickness blur that Eric had become. The high level Berserkers among them drew their dual hand axes after discarding their muskets, all of their shots long since fired, no longer using them like spears in the charge. Yet countless other glaring orcs held the de-facto spears as if they had held and mastered that weapon over their entire lives. And Eric had no doubt that hey had.

Confident mocking laughter rang through the air from so many foes high on battle fury who knew only that Eric had raced through their number, and that far too many of them had fallen to arcane tricks and a human’s sling. Those snarling orcs roared and charged with axes and spears eager to drink the blood of the coldly smiling half-breed who had actually been foolish enough to stop and face them!

Yet guttural challenges and boasts quickly became howls of frustration when their foe’s brilliant mithril blade so easily chopped through their spear and axe hafts, before weaving away and slipping past all attempts to guard or parry while carressing porcine flesh with sweeping strokes of crimson.

Yet the Roundear in their midst had learned his lesson. Even as he dared to face them in the arena of melee combat, he did so on his terms alone.

Eric never allowed them to surround them, darting forth like an adder to strike them at their periphery, one after another. His almost leisurely stride and taunting smile made it clear that he would indeed take them on.

Yet somehow, no more than a few could ever seem to corner him at a time.

And the result was almost always the same.

Exquisitely sharp mithril twisted effortlessly past desperately thrust steel to kiss porcine flesh time and time again, to the sounds of sizzles and screams as one Berserker and Spearman after another collapsed to their knees, flayed wrists no longer able to hold their weapons as even the fiercest of orcs were reduced to broken heaps of maimed flesh now being forced to glare up at their master. Just an eyeblink before their skulls were cleaved in twain and they would never look Eric’s way again.

Save in utter devotion.

“Surge, centuria! Imperator imperat tibi!”

But not all the orcs were fools. First dozens, then hundreds of Classers finally took in the battlefield devastation as if wiping the fog of war from their eyes, perhaps noting to their horror the countless brethren with bloody craters where their backs had been. Or the scores of orcs that had been blown apart by what looked to be solid iron cannon balls. As if they had been struck by a Gunner’s shells, the wounds far too devastating for any Classers sling. Not even orcs would hit level 20 by being complete fools. Countless dozens of their number began to squeal with something besides battlefury, growing alarm as they stole glances at the madly laughing Roundear quickly transforming to wide-eyed terror, and by some unspoken command over half the remaining Classers turned tale and ran back towards the border, now clearly desperate to leave the battlefield and never return.

Before cloven hoofs abruptly halted with panicked squeals before the sight of countless dozens of their own number rising from the ground to pin the terrified survivors with eyes of living flame as lethal wounds repaired themselves before the shrieking orc’s very eyes. All of Eric’s revenants radiated an unholy strength in death they had never possessed in life, forcing what were now well over a hundred panicked orcs to take ever more circumlocutory routes in their desperate attempts to escape.

“Ignis plures hodie!”

Yet they didn’t get far as the air rippled with the weight of runic chants a heartbeat before the explosions of countless cartridges and powder horns made it clear that in the heat of battle, without any commander putting the pieces together, countless orcs insensate with terror at the sight of their former brethren rising from the dead to stop them, few soldiers thought to wonder if they themselves were carrying the tools of their own destruction.

Because of all the orcs that had survived thus far, less than a dozen Berserkers or Spearmen had had the presence of mine to tear off their powder horns, and the one screaming at the rest to do so was the first of the fleeing orcs to lose their head to Eric’s furious flurry of cannon balls.

But it certainly wasn’t the last as the air rang with the sound of arcane chants and the crack of cannon balls exploding into ever more panicked troops, time and time again.

Until the chorus of squeals had been reduced to a final despairing cry. And then utter silence, when the desperate squeal abruptly broke off with a final crack and boom, the air alive with a crimson spray of brain and bone as a final headless body collapsed to the ground.

You have successfully slain 207 Enemy Classers with Custom Made Artillery Sling!

Sling is now Rank 14!

Sling is now Rank 15!

You have successfully slain 234 Enemy Classers with deliberate application of a Class Skill! (Mad Bomber Perk and Class-Skill Catalyzation of antagonistically aligned explosives minimizes experience penalties!)

Runic Lore is now Rank 11!

Runic Lore is now Rank 12!