In a blink of an eye, a flash of white light tore across the sky — a line so bright it bleached the world around it — and darted toward NakedFlesh's location with a sound like wind sucked in at high speed, followed by a blast that detonated outward with apocalyptic force. And unfortunately for me, I was too close. Which meant I was about to become a ragdoll flying through the air like a damn pinata.
"Not again!" I shouted, but the volume decreased and the camera moved away from me in despair. Cinematic tragedy. My own personal director's cut of failure.
Then, out of nowhere, a figure dropped on me and in a flash carried me away before the explosion could reach us.
A loud bang like thunder roared. A rush of air and debris surged outward in our direction — hot wind, shattered wood, the stench of burnt flesh.
"Thank g—"
"You're welcome," she said.
Wait. She said? My mind registered slowly, like a loading screen stuck at ninety-nine percent. She sounded eerily familiar.
My vision started to focus on my saviour, and I can't believe my eyes. It's her.
Heightened Awareness tagged her.
"Adelai—"
"Yes?" She blurted, cutting me off. Classic Adelaide.
Her eyes were cold light blue — searing heroically, dragging every ounce of attention to her hair, unruly and wild through the running wind under her hood. Her freckles were… uhm… cute? I'm out of adverbs to describe this beautiful heroine carrying me in her arms, out of danger, in an awesomely heroic kind of way that made my battered heart skip.
Her regalia shimmered in changing colors, trying to blend in with the environment. Must be a unique set perk. Camouflage armor that shifts hue like a chameleon on acid. Cool.
She leaped with finesse from broken huts, carrying me in her arms like I weighed nothing. My eyes were bubbly in awe. I looked like a damsel in distress — but not the beautiful one. More like the rugged and battered chimp drooling at the sight of her heroic deed. Very handsome. Not.
Finally, she dropped into a small caving — an indentation carved into the earth by some ancient force — and set me down before immediately pulling two arrows from her empty quiver.
Uhmm… How did that happen? Well, it just popped out of nowhere when she pulled them from it. Yeah, must be… inventory magic? Inventory space logic? Whatever.
Drawing her bow in one fluid motion, jolts of electricity brewed one after another around her arrows. Heightened Awareness tagged her attack: Thunder Strike.
She shot two arrows mid-flight — electric crackling wrapping around each shaft like living serpents. They punched through two zombies, dropping them to the ground with twitching, smoldering holes burning through their bodies. An "uuh" sound came from the fallen undead, as if saying, "What happened!?"
Oww come on, I thought, even landing and shooting, she was so awesome! My game geek brain was in absolute awe. This is what main character energy looks like.
More explosions erupted from our past location, snapping me out of my drooling, geeking state.
I looked back and saw the lich, NakedFlesh, summoning more tentacles from the ground. Zombies and skeletons reanimating faster than I could count.
Then heroes and humanoids entered the scene. Clangs. Fireballs. Slashes. Arrows hitting undead as they go. A full-blown battlefield.
"Stay here," Adelaide said as she lightly tapped my shoulder, passing me by and hiding behind a ruined hut.
"Where a—"
"I'll be joining the boss fight," she cut me off. "Stay here or better yet, leave this place. It's dangerous and no place for a newbie."
I felt a wave of shame wash over me — leaving this maiden to fight my battle was a little degrading. But the pain screaming all over my body reasoned otherwise. Yeah, tough crowd, body. Real supportive. Maybe humility is part of the growth arc.
"Alright, I'll…"
"Great!" She stuffed a healing potion into my mouth out of nowhere — literally jammed it between my lips — blurring cuts me off once again. I totally forgot her talking style. My bad. "Head southeast from here. The goblins retreated there. They are being protected by the Coalition."
I waited a beat, then said hastily, "What coalition?"
"I don't have time for this!" She shook her head like I'd asked something ridiculously obvious. "The Coalition: a reclusive group in the game. A hidden side quest, difficult to find at that. Newbies—*" She gestured vaguely at me with pity. "Now go!"
She barked the last word and jumped away to the fray without looking back.
"Uhh, than—"
"You owe me one. Go!" She said, cutting me off mid-sentence again — and this time she was midair.
Oh, Kiko, I told myself, you never learn.
"Southeast huh… How do I even know what the Coalition is?" I muttered with pouted lips, sulking like a kid who just got sent to his room.
"Wait, I think I forgot something…" My brain scrambled. "Kala!" I remembered my eyeball familiar.
"Yes, K?" He said beside me, which startled me big-time. I jumped and shouted, "Whoa! Where'd you come from?"
"I was beside you the whole time," he said, blankly staring at me with his single unblinking eye.
"What? You were being pinned down by the undead the last time I saw you."
"Well, there was this explosion, and next thing I know I was set free. I saw you being carried away by that girl, so I instantly followed." He raised two tentacles to his side, gesturing emphatically that's exactly what happened.
I looked back at the battlefield, searching for Adelaide.
I saw the lich now clinging to the shoulder of a big, hulking lump of flesh. My eyes widened as the horrific creature fully registered in my vision.
It was bulky — towering over fifteen feet. Made of flesh and bones, reddish and pulsing. It looked like the Incredible Hulk's body gone wrong: long upper extremities, short lower limbs, with a head shaped similar to a bison but constructed from different body parts sewn together. Eww. And scary at the same time. Like a nightmare crafted by a mad surgeon with no respect for anatomy.
General Awareness:
Flesh Golem
The lich waved his wand dangling on the golem like a plushie toy on a car's windshield, creating diagrams in the air. More tentacles sprang out of the ground, lashing around in a frenzy. Greater skeletons wearing armor, shields, and swords roared — they did, I don't know how because they don't have vocal chords, but they really did. Anywho, skeleton mages sprayed elemental projectiles. Ghouls sprung to life from corpse explosions, pushing back the heroes and humanoids.
Humanoids? I looked closer. Troglodytes. Gnolls. Goblins. Fighting alongside the heroes.
It dawned on me. A eureka moment.
Side quest. Reclusive group. Hidden. Toni…
"The Coalition," I said blankly.
"Hey, snap out of it!" Kala wrapped his tentacles around me and pulled me quickly, forcing me to stumble to my right — toward his direction.
A big log crashed through where we'd been standing, nearly hitting us. It continued to bulldoze through ruined huts along the way, sending splinters and debris everywhere.
"Sorry," I said. "We need to move."
I was partially healed by the potion Adelaide dumped in my mouth, but I was still severely battered. I didn't want to die. Honestly, this battle was way beyond my pay grade. I was a level one NPC in a world boss fight.
"Yep," Kala agreed.
"Wait, my sword?" I remembered.
"Here." Kala placed it in my hand — somehow he'd retrieved it from wherever it had landed.
I grabbed my sword and looked at Kala. He winked. I don't know how — he's a single-eyed beholder with tentacles — but he just did it. Impressive. A miracle of facial geometry. I donned my sword to my back, and more explosions rocked the surroundings, each blast sending tremors through the earth as we moved away from the battlefield, heading southeast — toward the Coalition, toward safety, toward whatever came next.
Behind us, the Flesh Golem let out another earth-shaking roar that rattled my ribs, and the lich's purple fire painted the smoke-choked sky in hues of dying stars.
But that was someone else's problem now.