The Guards

Checking Skylar’s HP quickly, I mentally instruct Ivy to heal her, since she’s at a lower percentage of her health bar than I am. I rush toward the door and a quick observe shows that the guy leading the charge is a mere level 16, and his strength stat is lower than mine. He gets to the top of the stairs and starts to close the distance between the stairs and the door, just as I get to him.

I lower my shoulder and use all of my momentum and strength to charge into him, sending the guard sprawling backwards, crashing into his companions. Him and two other guards are flung down the stairs, from the **** of the impact and the tumbling guard respectively.

Luckily for me, the closest guard, one of the people who managed to avoid the one I charged into, is also fairly weak. I swing my axe rapidly, the pace of the fight too quick and the danger too high to worry too much about sparing lives. While nobody dead is the outcome I’d prefer, I’m too pragmatic to believe that I can do that whilst surviving myself. The cut connects and sheers through the guard’s neck, leaving him without a head.

200xp

Ignoring the notification and trying not to think about what I’ve just done, I drop to the ground as a fireball goes sailing over me, right where my head was half a second before. I fire a mana bolt at the offending fire mage, and the spell burns a hole through his stomach. He stares at me in shock and screams a moment later. I let off another mana bolt at him and he goes silent.

300xp

The three guards from earlier manage to regain their footing and I scramble to my feet. There are seven total guards left, three at the bottom of the stairs, two on the stairs themselves and two more on the ground. I unleash a wave of freezing magic at the guards on the stairs, firing the spell again a moment later.

A barrage of spells comes my way from the guards still on the ground, and I duck behind the railing. A lightning bolt hits me in the arm, and my arm goes numb. I return fire with a small volley of mana bolts, noting that my mana is getting dangerously low. Two of the four spells strike, one guard is left without an arm and the other with a hole in his clothes.

I hear rapid footsteps behind me and spears of shadows impale each of the three guards on the ground, with them being too slow to dodge Skylar’s magic. I turn my focus to the guards nearing the top of the stairs, charging once more. I sidestep a spear thrust, firing an icicle point blank at the man’s eye. A scream of pain and an axe cut later, and the now corpse is tumbling down the stairs.

500xp

200xp

300xp

The XP notifications roll in, the extra two presumably from Skylar making quick work of the guards left on the ground. I steady my footing on the even surface of the catwalk, knowing that I have the advantage of the high ground. In the back of my mind, a part of me smiles, remembering the prequel meme. In the front of my mind, I ready my axe and take pot shots with my icicle spell.

300xp

The sudden hail of icicles serves to annoy and disrupt the four guards left on the stairs. A large rock, drawn up from the ground of the mana factory, is thrown at me by an earth mage. Before I can dodge, Skylar throws up a shield in front of me, and the rock disintegrates on impact. A guard suddenly bowls into me as the shield dissipates, and I’m sent sprawling to the ground.

The man attempts to grapple me. His strength stat is equal to mine and we’re fairly evenly matched on that front. He draws a knife from a sheathe in his side and starts the motion to stab me with it. I’m too quick and fire a mana bolt directly at his face. He screams in pain and drops the knife, the handle bouncing off my chest. A blade as dark as night impales him from behind and he’s suddenly thrown off of me, with Skylar nodding at me.

300xp

I nod back, and my eye catches movement behind the umbramancer. “Behind you!” I yell. She turns and dodges swiftly to the side. A sword whistles downwards through the air, and if she hadn’t have moved, it would have split her in two. I send a mana bolt at the attacker and Skylar punches him backwards.

The sword wielding guard hits the railing and falls over, hitting the ground with a sickening crunch. A pained groaning reveals the man is still alive, although wounded. I get to my feet once more, and we face the final two guards together, ready for whatever needs to be done. Looking at us, then looking at each other, they drop their weapons to the ground.

“We surrender.” One of them says. “Right choice.” I comment, my axe disappearing inside my inventory. Ivy walks out the door of Sarah’s office, and it’s only now that I turn to survey the damage that we’ve done. Of the original ten guards that were here, only three of them remain alive. Seven corpses lay on the stairs and the ground.

I’m horrified at the sight of the carnage we’ve caused, but I do my best to shove it aside. It isn’t pretty, but it was necessary for our survival, and to free all of the prisoners. We will not **** in cold blood though, and the three remaining guards will be left to walk free. I’m glad that I have the support of Ivy, Mia and Skylar in this idea.

Walking down the stairs, we shepherd the guards into a corner. Ivy heals their wounds, and fixes the broken legs of the man who fell over the railing. She’s used quite a bit of mana by this point, and I’m hoping she’ll have enough for the freed slaves. It’s easy to see just by looking at them that a lot of the slaves won’t be in the best of conditions.

While Ivy heals the wounds of the surrendered guards, Skylar and I walk to the slaves to try to figure out how to release them. The nearest one looks up at the two of us, a man in his mid 20s. He looks exhausted, and his body bears marks of cruel beatings. His clothes are ripped and worn. His hair and beard are both long and unkempt. I falter when I see his eyes. They’re the eyes of a broken man. Somebody who has suffered so much, so needlessly, for so long.

I cover my mouth with my hands in shock and my eyes widen. I fight back tears as the state of the man and how much he must have endured, sets in. I kneel down in front of him and look him in the eyes, taking his chained hands in mine. “We’re going to get you out of here, okay?” I promise him. Instead of relief or hope, his face contorts with confusion. “What?” My heart breaks again. “We’re going to get you out of here. You’ll be free.” I repeat softly.

“Why would you do that?” He asks, looking at me with a mixture of confusion and suspicion. “It’s the right thing to do. You and all of these people deserve to be free.” I respond. While I talk to the man, Skylar looks around the machine for anything that indicates that we can’t just sever the chains and the IV drip to free him.

“So you’re not going to just take over?” He asks, still sounding confused. “What’s your name?” I ask him, instead of answering. “Mark.” “I’m so sorry for what you’ve been through here Mark. This isn’t right. We killed Sarah and we’re setting you free.” I reiterate. A spark of hope finally ignites in his eyes as Skylar cuts him free from the chains and the drip.

Together, we free him of the chains confining him. “Can you stand Mark?” I ask him. A hint of a smile creeps its way across his face. “I’m not crippled, you know.” He gets to his feet and we call Ivy over to heal him. We go around to all the other slaves, cutting them loose one at a time. Each of them are wearing similarly tattered clothes to Mark and have similar marks of cruel and senseless beatings.

The mixture of different reactions is both endearing and surprising. Some of them react happily, thanking us profusely for freeing them of the **** they were enduring, day in and day out. Others react in the same way Mark did, confused. Some are suspicious and are unsure if this is somehow a trap. But the hope in their eyes after they all seem to come to terms with the fact that we are genuinely freeing them is something that I don’t think I’ll soon forget.

Ivy heals each of them the best that she can, and by the end, she’s completely tapped of mana reserves. There are a total of 19 now freed slaves. I withdraw stacks of cash from my inventory and hand out $20,000 to each of them. “I wish we could help you more, but I’m afraid this is all we can do. I hope it’s enough to help you get back on your feet.” I tell the group of abyssals.

One of the freed slaves, an elf, speaks up. “You’ve done so much for us already. Thank you!” Echoes of agreement ripple through the small crowd and my heart lifts. I’m happy to help these people. “Who are you?” A harpy asks. “I’m Gemma, The Gamer. This is Skylar, and that’s Ivy. We form a guild called The Centurions. We want to make the world a better place.”

“Good luck Gemma. Thank you for helping us.” The harpy replies, as the group of free abyssals start to leave the barrier and walk outside. We still have a bit of work to do before we can leave. I work together with Skylar to smash the mana extraction machines, to make sure that they can’t be used again. We let the guards exit the barrier too.