Adam Drake - Blackout

I glanced over at the river and its opposite bank. There was no one here. None of Kragg’s cronies had arrived, yet. But I did not doubt they were coming. We may have trapped the ogre in the Orb, but that did not prevent him from using the in-game chat to call for help. While we were interrogating him he was calling in favors.

Mudhoof must have been thinking the same thing. “We need to make tracks, Vee. The cavalry may be coming.”

“Agreed,” I said, “let’s find the closest Locators Guild, then try to get a bead on this Wally’s Womp.” I pulled up the local area map and did a quick search.

While I did so, a chat request appeared at the edge of my vision. From ‘Bishop The Red’. I rejected the request out of annoyance. Whoever it was could wait.

Mudhoof snorted and kicked at the sand. “Wally’s Womp? Nonsense. We couldn’t trust that guy to tell the truth, anyway. Yeah, it was worth the shot to trap him, and kinda fun, too, but come on. Can’t trust him as far as I could throw him.” He thought for a moment. “Oh, wait. I did throw him, and damn far, too. Never mind.”

I tuned the minotaur’s rambling out and found what I needed. “Ingot’s Perch has a Locators branch. And, hey, it’s just down the river from us, not that far.” I closed the map. “Okay, we need to-”.

I didn’t get a chance to finish. Mudhoof was looking at me when something over my shoulder caught his attention. As he opened his mouth to shout a warning, I was already moving.

But not fast enough.

My simulation suit registered a sudden deep pain under my left shoulder blade.

The combat log window at the lower right of my vision blared a message in bright red font:

Perriwinkle KillUGood Backstabs Vivian Valesh for 388 hit points of damage.

Then beneath that:

You have been poisoned. Poison unidentified.

My avatar was stunned and collapsed to the sandy ground. I twisted around to look at my assailant.

A man wearing a dark hooded cowl whirled away. In one hand was a long crystal dagger, covered in blood. My blood. Across his back was a quiver, and a sword sheathed on one thigh. He had struck from a point of camouflage.

Another Shadow! I thought as I watched Perriwinkle run away.

Mudhoof roared, a double-bladed axe appearing in his hands, and gave chase. But Perriwinkle was quicker and made a dash for the river. Had Mudhoof not already used his Charge ability back in the chamber to knock Kragg’s orb, he may have been able to use it now to catch the fleeing Shadow.

As Perriwinkle reached the edge of the river he dived into its rushing waters and vanished. Mudhoof stopped at the edge and screamed filtered profanities at him. I know he wanted to keep chasing him, but I needed help.

Fuming, the angry minotaur returned to my side. “Sorry, Vee! He came out of nowhere. Nothing I could do.”

I nodded and tried to get into a sitting position. Mudhoof eased me up a little, cradling me in one massive arm. “No worries,” I said. “Now I know what it’s like to get attacked my a Shadow.” I managed a laugh but my avatar coughed up blood, instead.

Mudhoof looked me over. “How bad is it? Tell me you ain’t gonna have to re-roll. Not now.”

A green icon shaped like a water drop appeared in the top right corner of my view-screen, indicating my poisoned status. That backstab took almost eighty percent of my health in one fell swoop. Had I not turned when I did, I might have been killed instantly.

But now, what little health I had slowly ebbed away because of the poison.

“No re-roll. At least not in the next few minutes. But time is counting down.”

“Here, take this Health Boost,” Mudhoof said passing a little square packet with a red cross on it. “Should buy you some time.”

I didn’t have the heart to tell him I’d already used a Health Boost during my initial encounter with Kragg. Applying this one so soon after would dull its effect. I still used it though and my health bar only went up fifteen percent. This was looking grim.

“I need a Temple,” I said, stating the obvious.

“Right,” Mudhoof said, nodding vigorously. “Good idea. I’ll just-”.

An arrow suddenly thunked into the side of Mudhoof’s head just below a horn.

“What the…?” he said. He grabbed the arrow and yanked it out. He looked around, angrily. “Who the hell did that?!”

I pointed weakly upward.

Far above, on the edge of the cliffs that encircled this little sandy patch, stood a row of archers. From what I could see, there were close to ten of them.

“Oh, FILTERED,” said Mudhoof as he gazed up at them. “Kragg called in an army?”

“They’re not players,” I said when I tried to focus on one of them.

“Huh?” Mudhoof said, then another arrow hit him in the back. Several others hit the surrounding sand.

Frustrated, Mudhoof brought out a shield from his inventory. It was a black segmented shell from a huge beetle. From end to end it was almost as tall as Mudhoof.

Braced against an arm, Mudhoof put it over us as he hunched down. A volley of arrows cracked against its surface and were deflected. None of them could even pierce it.

“Nice,” I said, trying not to stare at my dropping health bar. Got to keep an upbeat attitude in the face of impending doom.

“Picked this baby up while doing a Daily Quest, believe it or not,” he said with a wide grin. More arrows struck the beetle shield. “Sometimes mindlessly grinding experience points can pay off.”

I had pulled up the local area map, again, this time enquiring about the nearest Healer’s Temple.

“Ingot’s Perch,” I said.

“What?”

“It has a Temple!”

“Oh,” Mudhoof said as if realizing our current situation. “Right. Well, Vee, there seems to be only way to get out of here.” A machine-gun like cracking of arrows assailed the shield as if to emphasize his words.

“What’s that?” I dared to ask.

“Time to pull out the big Sausage,” the minotaur said with an even wider grin.

I shouldn’t have dared. “What? Sausage?” I said confused.

“Don’t mind while I whip this out, ma’am?” Mudhoof said. He dismissed his battle axe and motioned the free hand toward his waist.

I was beside myself in disbelief. “What the heck are you going on about, Muddie? Now is not the time for juvenile jokes about your-”.

Mudhoof laughed and tipped the shield up a little and pointed at a patch of sand next to us. “Here, check out my big Sausage.”

At that moment, a massive pig popped into existence beside us. No, not a pig. A warthog!

I blinked in surprise. Huh?

“He’s my new mount!” Mudhoof said with pride which was partly drowned out by a staccato of arrow impacts.

The creature was nearly twice the size as Smoke, and easily a million times uglier. A jumbled forest of tusks stuck out at all angles from its mouth. Thick tufts of hair bristled from unspeakable nooks and crannies along its dark pitted hide.

Fastened to its arched back was an almost comically small saddle.

“You named your giant pig mount, Sausage?” I said, shrinking health bar momentarily forgotten. Then I started to laugh, and couldn’t stop.

“That’s the spirit!” Mudhoof declared. “Now let’s get out of here!”

With that he hoisted me up with his free arm and, while keeping the beetle shield over our heads, ran to his mount.

Mudhoof leapt into the saddle and wedged me between him and the enormously wide neck of the warthog. Arrows thunked into the animal’s thick hide, but it didn’t appear to even notice.

Mudhoof grabbed the reigns and kicked at Sausage. “Go! Go! Go!”

Sausage snorted loudly, spraying an ungodly amount of mucus and spit all over the place. Then he wheeled about and charged toward the river at full speed. Arrows continued to rain over us, and I grudgingly had to acknowledge the skill of those archers, so far up.