"The dome!" I yelled. The team of wizards on duty opened the Minor Power Dome.
I pulled the scroll out of my pocket. Selecting the dragon's transparent confinement as target, I broke the seal. In a clap of fire, a ravenous twister rushed upward to the sky, the familiar bolts of black lightning swirling like mad dervishes. We were on the right track.
Until now the Patriarch had stood frozen, his incomprehensive stare searching the crowd. Now he'd discerned the source of all evil. He pointed his gnarly finger at us. "Kill them!" he squalled.
About fifty of his staff flapped their cloaks wing-like, raising their hands and pointing them at the mercs. The skin on the palms of their hands began to burst exposing, in the midst of the bloodied wounds, large colored eyes. Blinking the blood away, they glared at us. The next moment, red, blue and green blades of plasma began slashing at our dome, Star Wars-style, sparking and leaving lingering scars behind.
"What's with the Jedi shit?" I croaked into the staff chat. The High Spell cooldown was already weighing me to the ground.
"It's the bastards of Light with their God's Glare. Deals the same damage as a bolt of lightning from a level-180 wizard. I can tell you it hurts," Widowmaker commented as he watched the battle unfold.
I cast a quizzical look at the wizard team's leader. He shook his head, groaning without unclenching his teeth, "We won't hold it. Another twenty seconds max. Distract the servants!"
I nodded to Widowmaker who was listening in, "Proceed!"
He rushed through the staff chat in a whirlwind of orders,
"Group leaders Sissy, Absinthe and Duke! Change of priorities. Priority target: the servants of Light. Allocation of targets: scheme 3."
About a dozen of our rogues darted toward the cloak-wearers, stealthing as they ran. The epicenter of the magic cataclysm shifted, covering the area all around the Dragon's dome including the servants of Light and the first rows of the more unlucky spectators. A dozen archers continued to draw their bowstrings, sending heavy arrows deep into the flurry of flames.
As if it could stop the Patriarch. Raising his flimsy fists to the skies, he shook them, begging ecstatically, "Oh our Lord of Light, hear my plea! Give us strength!"
His God did hear him. The skies shattered, sending scared clouds flying in all directions. The God's irate face showed amid the blinding light.
Divine Blessing alert!
The Sun God has turned his benevolent gaze to the terrestrial quarrels, granting new strength to his followers.
Effect: +20% to ALL characteristics for all worshippers of Light.
Thousands of shafts of light reached down from the sky, highlighting the selected figures and granting them the aforementioned blessing. The funny thing was, at least one-third of my mercs turned out to be worshippers of Light, so we got a share of his attentions, too. Nil nil.
The irate little man kept raging. His sharp eyes singled me out in the crowd. "You!" he shook with anger. "You filthy spawn of the Dark! Here's a stamp to mark your blackened brow!"
The Curse of the Sun God's Patriarch!
Daylight causes mana regeneration to drop 90%!
Duration: as long as the High God or the Patriarch are still alive.
You scumbag! Now that hurt. Really. Or rather, it would have—had I not switched the Altar mana flow onto myself just in time. That gave me any amount of virtually non-stop mana bath.
The patriarch just couldn't leave it alone, could he? His glare burning a hole in me, he began whispering something dangerously long and definitely just as unhealthy. Time to wrap up the show. I turned to Widowmaker and nodded at the priest.
"Try to neutralize him. Ideally, kill him."
More order-rattling. The epicenter of the magic tempest shifted once more, covering the Patriarch and his bodyguards. He managed to take cover under his own magic shield. Then his eyes widened in surprise: apparently, the pressure on the shield was much higher than expected. Shouting encouragements to his men, he activated a portal and disappeared in a flash.
We'd managed to neutralize one of the threats, at least temporarily. Still, the change in the focus of the attack had cost us dearly, giving time for the stunned crowd—who hadn't expected to be attacked from inside—to shrink back, recover their breath and grasp the significance of what was going on. Now that they'd determined our meager numbers, the enemy became furious. It couldn't have been much fun to realize that you'd just been hysterically scratching the cobblestones with your nails trying to crawl away from opposition thirty times your inferior.
The situation had turned on its head. The human flood surged in the opposite direction trying to get to our vulnerable bodies and trample them into the dirt. In doing so, the enemy had produced a couple of clear thinkers who introduced some semblance of discipline and control. The small fry stepped back, showering us with arrows, magic and crossbow bolts. It might be weak, but imagine a thousand-strong crowd of immortal first-graders, their self-preservation instincts disconnected, armed with sharpened steel bars. Would you rather bank on them? I would. This was the case of quantity turning into quality.
Our second problem were the hundreds of pets, ghosts, familiars and the like who'd attacked us from all quarters. There were quite a few pet controllers in the crowd, so now they unleashed their beasties while keeping a safe distance, thus dramatically increasing the numbers of our opponents.
But the main danger came from the high-level players who had finally found their bearings and were now rolling in on us, pushing the bravest of us aside, threatening to drown the mercs by their sheer numbers. The sound of opening portals announcing the arrival of the King's guard was just the cherry on the cast-iron cream cake which was heading toward us with a speed of a cannonball.
Bang! The human flood hit the wall of steel shields and rolled back, leaving dozens of bodies hanging from the spikes. Bang! Rows of our more impatient enemies lunged at us again, reinforced by the pressure from those behind them. Again the human sea ebbed, losing more of the squashed, charred and pierced human shapes that turned into granite tombstones even as they were dropping to the ground. Bang! The third wave pressed into the line of shields so now we were backing up, our ranks serried, the patch of free space in the center collapsing.
Our loss counter quivered and started spinning, faster and faster. But the enemy's casualties had passed the thousand mark, a lot of them slain by their own hands. While we as a raid were immune to friendly fire, the disjointed crowd kept loosing off arrows into the backs of their own warriors, covering them with blanket spells or just selecting wrong targets. How were you supposed to tell friend from foe in a couple of growling paladins jostling each other with shields and spears? Should you smother both in a cloud of Choky Death? This way even if you killed one of your own, you were sure to take out a few enemies, too. And if you managed to smoke someone on the sly, then crawl toward their body amid the fighters' shuffling feet and pick up a precious item from the hapless victim's body—then it was Christmas! This was the only explanation I can offer as for the amount of dead bodies piling up on our front line. We honestly couldn't take credit for at least half of them.