Book 4, Chapter 31
The Palace
"Nice idea!" Pa.s.serby applauded.
"Possible.This means everyone must die once right?" Razor looked among all thepeople. "We should carefully go over the plan, and maybe bring thenecessary members only. I don"t think we ALL need to lose level. Besides, youshould change your setup. Put on something cheap. Level 900 enemies will easilykill anyone whatever we wear, and you don"t want to lose your valuableequipment by accident."
"Razormade a good point." Elfy nodded. "Yuri and Rose can stay behind, wedon"t really need healers this time."
Ilooked at Elfy. "You should quit too. We need tanks or anyone with enoughHP to move the cannon as close to the palace gate as possible. Let"s try makingthe casualty minimum."
Hawknodded to Elfy. "As he said. Stay outside and help me carry extraequipment."
"Iwant to go with you!" Elfy gave Hawk a stern look. "We all know you"lldie, then let me at least be there with you. That"s what a wife does!"
"Elfy!!"Hawk held Elfy"s shoulders and called her name in a really dramatic way.
Elfyalso threw herself into Hawk"s arms. "You big fool!"
"Ahem!!"Big Pot turned his head away. "Knock it! There are d.a.m.n singles here! Alot of them! Be kind and don"t hurt our feelings further, okay??"
"Leave us alone. This is family problem! "
Ipatted on Big Pot"s shoulder. "Easy. Don"t you already know they"re coupleof the year?"
BigPot brushed my hand away and grabbed Pa.s.serby. "You don"t understand howwe feel!"
Pa.s.serbyplayed along. "Yeah! You have enough pretties around you. Give us somes.p.a.ce!"
Rosewalked behind them and gave each of them a good knock on the head using her mage staff.
"Backto topic!"
Icleaned my throat. "Okay now, still, the less people the better. I"ll nowdecide the team. No objections.
First, me and Zirai. We can"t go without ourcompanions.
Hawk is in. He"s the besttank we have.
Wayne stays behind. A caster won"t help much in this case.
Yuriand Rose will stay outside. This will probably only take several minutes, there"sno time for you to heal us. Rose should be on reviving duty. Itwill be of great help if we lose less level."
Roseopened her mouth but didn"t anything. She knows my decision will bebetter.
Icontinued: "Elfy"s shooting skills aren"t really effective here, so don"tgo. You can observe the situation and give us orders accordingly.
Coin willcome with us. We need your speed and your knowledge of the palace layout.
Mercilessis out. Your a.s.sa.s.sination skills won"t work against those level 900 guards.
BigPot and Violet will join. You both have good defenses, and Ashura is prettystrong.
Pa.s.serby...you can decide for yourself. I don"t know about your cla.s.s."
Hequickly stepped up. "Of course I"ll join. You haven"t seen my specialskill! That"s a perfect skill to draw monster attention!"
"Youcan do that?" Zirai turned to him. "You never told me about it."
Pa.s.serbyscratched his head. "It"s a skill of my Roachy. It kinda...stinks, I don"tusually use it in front of girls. But I a.s.sure you it works wonders!"
"Alright,come with us then."
I need enough people and also need to make sure less peopledie at the same time. Guess I can"t satisfy both.
"Razor is fast but youwon"t work well against high level enemies, stay with Elfy and help us withsituation control."
Henodded without a word. He talks the least among us. Besides Merciless, maybe.
"Dowe start right now?" Zirai seems anxious about getting the cannon. Shecame up with the plan first!
Ichecked the system clock. "Not now. The NPC army should be still up. Thecannons will fire at us at this moment."
Yuriraised her hand: "Um, there are THREE major cities, right?"
Ziraidragged her over hugged her tight. "I love you!!"
Yuriis blushing hard. I think that"s the same expression when a girl goes on thedate for the first time.
???
Oh dear. I hope she"s not looking at Zirai in place of me.
"Greatidea!" Hawk interrupted my random thought. "We can go to theCelestial City or Cloudtop! Which one"s the target?"
"Cloudtopthen." Pa.s.serby suggested. "It"s my home city so I know it well. It"s alsothe smallest city among the three, which means the palace must be smaller. Thiswill make the quest a lot easier."
"Let"stake Pa.s.serby"s advice. Now, gather up in front of the palace gate in Cloudtop.Share your teleport scrolls if anyone doesn"t have any, go to any city and usethe teleport station to our destination."
Then I held Rose"s hand anddirectly teleported to the station in Cloudtop city.
Everyonewalked out of the station soon. Pa.s.serby has several scrolls to this city onhim. As he said, you should prepare enough major city teleport scrolls becauseyou will need to get to them often.
Wesoon reached the palace gate in the city center. The gate arch structure is astall as the main city gate itself!
"Howdo we get in?" Hawk looked up at the impressively fortified rampart.
Pa.s.serbygave him a mysterious grin. "Time for my Roachy to show his wonders again!"
He summoned the giant bug.
"Whatare you gonna do?"
"Ifanyone doesn"t know how to climb the wall, come here and hold onto one of hislegs. I"ll take you in."
"Forreal? You want me to hug a c.o.c.kroach leg? I"d rather die!" Violet moved back a bit.
I totallyunderstand why Violet would say that.
Coinnodded, supporting Violet. "No, no, not c.o.c.kroach, never. Zirai has adragon right? She can bring a dozen people without problem. And Ziri hasanother!"
"Yeah!"Big Pot nodded quickly. I can also understand why he doesn"t want to hug ac.o.c.kroach. As a man. "Two dragons, a phoenix, that"s enough to transportseveral teams of people!"
Ishook my head. "We"re going stealth. This is not a sightseeing tour. What do you think will happen if a giant dragon went into the city palace byair?"
"Oh...Isee." Big Pot tilted his head.
Withthe dragon transport plan busted, Pa.s.serby began to sell his bug bus again. "Comeon come on! Try Roachy, fast, and safe! No noise! No hazard! Almost."
"Rosa!"I ignored Pa.s.serby"s advertis.e.m.e.nt. I already have an idea. And personally Idon"t want to choose the c.o.c.kroach either if I have a second choice.
"Make aladder for us."
Rosacrossed his vines onto the wall and created a plant ladder within seconds. Itook off my armors and handed them to Rose. The ladder is narrow but shouldn"tbe a problem to climb as long as we"re careful enough. As for coming back out...Wecan just jump. That little fall damage won"t cause any issue for us Warrior types.
Thepalace must have that virtual s.p.a.ce technology as well. It"s too large comparedto what we saw from outside!
Justas we landed on the ground, a group of imperial patrols appeared around thecorner ahead.
I rolled on the ground and hid myself behind a garden rockwork, followedclosely by Hawk. Violet jumped into a flower bed, followed by Big Pot (clumsily). Coin ran around behind another big rock. Zirai panicked alittle before she squeezed herself inside an open gap in the rock.
Pa.s.serby is theonly one exposed now. He insisted on riding on Roachy so he landed a bit slowerthan us. When the NPCs appeared he hasn"t balanced himself yet!
Iprepared for a fierce fight, which never happened. The patrol team walked infront of Pa.s.serby without doing anything.
We all left our hiding places when theypa.s.sed around.
"Whatthe fuc?? You almost ruined everything from the start!" Coin said angrilywhile trying to keep her voice low.
"Didyou use skill or something?" Hawk asked. "The guards can"t miss youout without a reason."
"Yeah,one of Roachy"s skills. It"s called [Mimic]. We can blend into the backgroundas long as we stand still. That"s why I didn"t move an inch back there."
"Ooh.Nice trick buddy." Big Pot commented.
"Heh, thanks."
Anotherteam showed up. Everyone dashed away into their original covers. Expect forPa.s.serby, who still stood there like last time.
When the guards pa.s.sed wequickly looked around the area and tried to change location.
"Thisway!" Coin rushed into a door across the path. But a patrol came up beforeanyone can go after her, so we hid again. Thank G.o.d no one went too fast or they"llbe caught in the middle of the road.
Whenit"s clear, Coin poked her head out of the door and contacted us via team chat.
"One at a time. Run!"
Iwent first. The patrols appeared mid-way, I immediately expanded my cape andstood still. It was a good choice to keep my cape and other accessories insteadof leaving them all behind.
Thecape perfectly covered my body. The guards marched past me about only a meteraway from my face. I had to hold my breath!
I reached Coin"s room when theydisappeared. I told the others to wait and observe the patrols.
We noticed there weremore than one team patrolling this area. Two teams are walking on two differentpatterns, that"s why there will be a certain point when they both show uptogether.
Findingtheir patterns means finding a solution. I"ve played the Commandos before, thatgame was way harder than this. The rest of the group went into the roomsuccessfully, following my command.
Coinguided us outside the other door of the room, into a courtyard. We proceeded pastsome distance while hiding, running, hiding, running again. We finally reachedright below the crystal cannon.
Ha! There"s no guard here!
Wheneveryone"s ready, I gave the signal and we all moved. With the experience fromlast time, Zirai first summoned her t.i.tans to lift the giant half-sphere coveroff the cannon. Loong"er hooked the cannon up using her tail, while Skyfirehelped her carry the cannon towards the gate. We should be safe as long as wecan get the cannon to the exit!
AllNPC guards in the city moved the moment we touched the cannon. Countless citydefenders sp.a.w.ned. They surrounded the palace but couldn"t do anything else.
Severalimperial patrol teams also noticed us. Rosatrapped the approaching soldiers but his tentacles were all cut down within 5 seconds. These enemies are way more terrible than the city defense out there!
Skyfirecan only fly a little above the palace wall height with the cannon, whichmeans the intercepting guards ahead can attack him. A team of archers andcrossbowmen appeared in our path. They aimed their weapons high, obviouslyplanning to shoot Skyfire down!
Hundredsof arrows and bolts went into the air before we can react. Lucky is the onlywho managed to do something -- he simply placed himself in front of Skyfire asa meat shield. The projectiles decoratedLucky into a porcupine. Thankfully, his thick scales absorbed most of thedamage. He looks badly hurt but those arrows didn"t go deep. However from thestatus bar I can see he"s not going to survive another attack like that.
Lucky"smove gave Skyfire enough time to fly past the archers. When they turned aroundand loaded their next attack, Phiona and Loong"er launched their skills at the same time, covering the shooters in both flame and ice.
Thefirst long-range team is thrown off their feet but a second team appeared soon.Lucky blocked their attack again, which of course, resulted in his death.
Phionatried to replace his position and she was killed soon by the fierce attack. Evenif she can instantly resurrect where she died, she got instantly killed for asecond time.
Thismeans I"ll need to wait for a while to summon Lucky or Phiona again. The 4thround of arrows didn"t give us any time to arrange our defense. Dart jumped infront of Skyfire in time and intercepted a good number of arrows. But the restof the attack can be still deadly.
A shadow appeared and protected Skyfire. It"s one of Zirai"s t.i.tans. As we watch the giant body fell, we all came up with the sameconclusion.
Weproceeded with the rest of our escape plan while keeping Skyfire in the air bysacrificing members. We each ordered our companions to take the attacks, and when there"sno companion left, we go in ourselves.
Now only me, Pa.s.serby and Zirai are still alive.
Whenthe main force of our pursuers got close, Pa.s.serby"s Roachy suddenly moved. We were expecting the c.o.c.kroach to hold off the last round of attacks, but it decided to stay behind for some reason.
I saw itsbelly swelling up.
Fffffffffffffft!
A terrible stench spread in the air. I almostvomitted on the spot. Then we fell the ground shaking. Endless c.o.c.kroachescrawled out from under our feet!
Pa.s.serby"scompanion must be a c.o.c.kroach king or something. It can summon allies!
Thetiny c.o.c.kroaches swarmed up against the NPC army. They don"t have much damagebut the sight of them is terrifying enough! In the next second, every singleNPC soldier is covered in c.o.c.kroaches. They tried to clean them off but morebugs will get onto their bodies even faster!
Theysoon realized it"s impossible to get rid of these nuisance so they decided tokeep coming for us, while carrying all the bugs on their faces. However, thebrief chaos provided us enough time to reach the palace wall. The outside isjust within reach, our mission is finished.
Thefollowing NPC army readied their bows and unleashed the last arrow rain, pinningus onto the wall. Our corpses all carried smiles instead of fear, before we vanished.
Oursouls were teleported to the resurrection hall after the time limit. The NPCresurrection wizard rushed to us to provide business, which of course, wasdeclined. Rose is already running to us with Elfy and Yuri following behind. ThoughRose is the only one who can see us now.
Rose"sreviving skill is quite impressive. Violet is the only one who got unluckyenough to lose two levels. If we let the old NPC do the work we probably wouldhave lost way more than that.
Itook my armors back from Rose, put them on, and headed to the palace witheveryone. According to Coin, the dropped cannon should be absolutely safe there.But I"m not sure until I get it into my own hands. That"s why I asked everyoneto run as fast as we can.
It"sbeen half an hour since we died. The palace perimeter is completely clear ofany city guards. I summoned Rosa again to take us over the wall. Zirai quicklyordered Skyfire and her remaining t.i.tan to get the cannon out. It only tookless than a minute. When the imperials found us we had already escaped.
AsCoin said, the imperials didn"t come after us outside the wall, and the cityguards totally ignored our actions. We were quite nervous when we saw a team ofcity patrols walking in front of us. Thankfully they didn"t even spare a glanceat the giant cannon we"re holding.
That doesn"t mean the players will ignore usthough. A lot of people decided to come to us and satisfy their curiosity. Thisis expected. We already know a t.i.tan carrying a big cannon walking in the citywould cause a scene.
"Whatis that, miss?" A blind dude asked me.
"Lookfor yourself! You can"t even tell man from woman??" I hate these kind ofpeople!
AWarrior player spoke: "It looks like a, I don"t know, cannon? The game gotcannons? Wait a minute..."
Following his words, everyone turned their heads towards the tall ornamentalcolumn in the city center.
"Theycarried the city defense cannon away!!" Someone yelled.
And it invoked aserious panic among the people. More players came and stuffed the road withoutgiving us any s.p.a.ce to move!
It were the city guards who helpedus out of the situation. AnNPC team came and started to break up the player crowd because they are "holdingup the traffic". There are still too many players around for us to walkeasily though. It took some effort to reach the city gate.
Then the t.i.tan madea huge mistake!
Heb.u.mped into the gate while holding the cannon! I don"t know if we"re justunfortunate, or the cannon got some problem with it. It miss-fired again! Acannon sh.e.l.l went out and landed among a player crowd in the city!
Beforewe can take in the situation, the t.i.tan turned around too fast which caused thecannon base to b.u.mp into the gate again. A second bullet exploded right underour feet and sent us flying out of the city wall!
The damagedt.i.tan let go of the cannon. Dammit we worked so hard to get this one, we can"tafford to break it again!
"PhantomKnights!" I summoned my ace card. "Catch that thing!"
Theknights followed my finger and saw the falling weaponry. They all charged andplaced their bodies under the cannon with professional baseball player style. Nowthe cannon is safe, I can finally breathe again. Pheeew!
"CATCHTHEM DON"T LET THEM GET AWAY!!"
A voice behind us startled me for good. ButNPC guards never shout like that!
Could it be...?!