Thwap! Thwap! Thwap!
Down the street, the two swordsmen guards turned toward the scuffle.
The pregnant dwarf stopped bashing in the head of the elf, who wasn’t quite dead, but he wasn’t getting up anytime soon, either. I read the name over her head. Eunice. Level 30. Fathom Dwarf. She stood up, glaring at the other elves. Silence followed, punctuated only by the sound of her heavy breathing and the blood dripping from the rolling pin. The harsh odor of urine filled the street.
I stared in surprised astonishment at the tableau. The woman had come out of nowhere. The other elves looked at each other, none of them moving, equally frozen with surprise by the unexpected violence. The summoner elf continued to suck his thumb. The healer continued to scratch at her own face. The scene only held this way for but a moment, though it seemed to go on forever.
The stalemate ended when Mongo yakked the salamander back out onto the street.
The small, now-dead lizard was still tied to the end of a broken stick. It landed in a slimy puddle with a plop.
“Benjamin?” the young dwarf asked, stepping forward. His name was Ricky Joe. Level 2. Juvenile Fathom Dwarf. He looked at the unmoving salamander. “Benjamin?”
It all went downhill from there.
The Icer elf, the first to break from his shock, shot a boomerang-shaped pulse at Eunice the dwarf. It hit the pregnant woman square in the chest, and she rocketed back, frozen solid. Her health moved to the red. A second, smaller health bar appeared over her stomach. This one was also in the red, though not as deep. Frosted appeared with a sixty-second countdown. The young dwarves all cried out, running to their mother. All except young Ricky Joe, who knelt before Benjamin the dead salamander. His lower lip quivered as he picked up the broken stick. Slime dripped off.
At this moment, not a single dot on the map was yet red. But the swordsmen guards clomped noisily onto the scene, unsheathing their massive weapons. They moved toward the frozen, pregnant dwarf. The remaining children scattered, rushing across the street, all except the one with the bandage on his head, who draped himself over his mother’s form.
“Leave me mum alone!”
The guards did not care. They both lifted their swords over their heads.
I was very aware that what I did next would be considered a Very Stupid Thing.
I was also aware that nobody left on the street at this moment was innocent. Nobody except maybe Benjamin, who was already dead, and the baby dwarf in Eunice’s belly. The elves were assholes. The rock-throwing dwarf kid was a prick who’d gotten what he deserved. Eunice obviously had some anger—and birth control—issues she needed to work out. And Ricky Joe the salamander torturer was obviously well on the path toward the life of a serial killer.
All of this ran through my head as I attacked the guards.
I formed a fist, stepped forward, and I punched the closest of the two level-75 village swordsmen as hard as I could.
My fist smashed into the side of the armored creature. It was as if I’d punched the side of a Sherman tank. I left an impression in the metal, but the guard did not stagger. A health bar did not appear. He and his companion paused their attack and turned toward me. Both of their dots turned red on the map.
Uh-oh.
Warning: You have been branded as a troublemaker at this settlement. Guards will now attack you on sight.
The same moment as I punched the guard, young Ricky Joe did decided to also enter the idiot-of-the-day contest.
The boy, still clutching the half-stick of wood with the dead salamander tied onto it punched Mongo the velociraptor in the face.
“You killed my best friend! You…”
The boy moved to punch a second time, but when he pulled his arm back, he found that it was no longer there. Mongo, quick as a snake, had bitten off the dwarf’s arm below the elbow, swallowing it along with Benjamin for the second time.
“Mongo, hold!” Donut yelled, saving the idiot boy’s life. For now. The dinosaur, once again, looked ill.
I leaped back into the midst of the still-gawking magic users as the swordsman’s wide blade smashed into the ground. The blade missed me, instead drilling into Salvatore, who’d just been healed back to consciousness by the face-scratching light healer. He’d been sitting on the ground, shaking his head. He was cleaved in half, cut right down the center like a damn bagel.
Behind the guards, the children swarmed their still-frozen mother and began pulling her back across the street. And standing between the guards was little Ricky Joe, looking at the stump of his arm which was now shooting blood into the air like one of those summertime sprinklers for kids. I reached forward and picked the heavy dwarf child up, shoving him under my left arm like a football as I pulled a boom jug into my right arm.
“Mic drop!” I yelled.
“Are we taking the kid?” Donut cried, wasting a precious second. I jumped out of the way of another sword cleave. These things were strong, practically indestructible, but they were also slow as hell.
“Yes, go!” I lit the torch on the boom jug.
“Set!” Donut shouted.
I lightly tossed the lit jug straight up into the air. I watched it rise as I mentally counted down the two seconds. The jug reached its apex and started its descent right toward my head.
All four of us—Me, Donut, Mongo, and Ricky Joe—blinked away, reappearing on the roof of a building across the street thanks to Donut’s Puddle Jumper spell.
I whirled, facing the scene just in time to see the boom jug hit the ground and fully engulf everyone and everything standing there by the entrance to the temple. The remaining eight city elves were instantly crisped. The two city guards, both of them in the process of swinging their swords at me, recovered and looked at each other. A health bar appeared over both of them, though it barely moved, and they seemed oblivious to the raging fire. They stepped away from the conflagration. They faced the fire and stopped moving. They hadn’t seen where we’d gone.
Thankfully Eunice and the other children were far enough away to not be caught in the blast. The door to the building next to the one we were standing upon opened, and a pair of human NPCs rushed out and pulled them inside as other NPCs rushed into the street to see what was happening.
The fire moved to the entrance of the corrupt temple, and soon the entire building, along with the home next door, was engulfed.
I pulled a health potion and shoved it in the mouth of the still-squealing Ricky Joe. The blood stopped flowing and his health bar returned to the green. His arm did not grow back. The boy turned to the ill-looking Mongo and moved to hit the dinosaur again, this time with his left arm, but I held him back.
“Give it back! Give me my arm back!”
Mongo obliged.
21
We waited until sunset before leaving our hiding spot atop the building. After the brief, chaotic fight on the street down below, the two guards remained in their position facing the fire. They did not move. They did not look up. Multiple NPCs, including skyfowl, came to inspect the burning building. Nobody paid us any heed.
Nobody, except Mordecai, who spent a solid 10 minutes straight swearing at us over chat because we’d activated the guards’ aggro.
Ricky Joe sat cross-legged on the roof, sullenly clutching onto the remains of his severed limb and the twice-eaten corpse of his pet salamander, Benjamin. He’d screamed bloody murder when he learned we wouldn’t be able to reattach the arm, but Donut had talked him into sitting down and calmly waiting for night to descend. Once the building was fully engulfed, it appeared whatever spells protected the immediate area also fled, once again allowing Donut’s charm to be effective.