The Small Blight of West Virginia

Eragon draws in a deep breath as he and his army advance towards the blighted zone, and the small cave dungeon that exists just inside its borders. Ahead of him, the Endarkened army is forming up to attack. He lets out his breath slowly and, after sparing a moment to look up at the drakes circling and colliding with the DD’s, he looks forward. “Signal attack.” He says to the elf at his side. That elf raises a trumpet up to his lips and blows out a deep, long note. The army begins to rush forward, the Endarkened rushing to meet them.

The battle is joined with a loud crack as swords clash against shields. The mages in the back ranks start to hurl massive fireballs up into the sky to land in the enemy’s formations behind the front lines as other mages hurl large bolts at gunbeasts who are bringing their firepower to bear on the advancing fantasy faction forces. Already some people are respawning. Today is going to be a long and bloody day, Eragon thinks. “Signal enemy engaged to Rias.” He says.

Rias, upon receiving the message, nods and stands up. “Let’s go.” She says to Akeno and the others. “We have to hurry with this. We need to get in, get those prisoners, and get out.” A quick fifteen minute journey and they have met up with no enemy resistance. Miya signals a halt. “Ok, the cave mouth is just over there.” She says. Rias nods and casts invisibility over the group. With Elias in the front and his wife Akeno just behind him, they move across the open area and into the mouth of the cave. Once inside, Rias drops the invisibility. Two more groups appear next to them, a bunch of fantasy players who went with them to help in securing the prisoners. “Let’s go.” Rias says in a low voice so as not to create echoes.

The Main Battle

“Sir, enemy forces are attempting to flank us!” Eragon’s second, a unicorn named Oglan, calls out, pointing to the north where five gunbeasts and about three hundred Shadowed Elves and Humans are moving around.

“Send in a wing of gryphons.” He responds. The flags start to wave as he sends the message and ten gryphons take to the sky, heading to the indicated flank. The gryphons come in low, skimming just over the friendly army. They dive into the ranks of the Enemy, carving a bloody path through the Shadowed Elves and humans and pulling up at the end, coming around for another pass. The flanking attempt by the Enemy has slowed down but isn’t stopping entirely. Several blasts from gunbeasts race up, a few hitting their flying foes. Green mist surrounds the gryphons as the mages in the army tasked with healing keep up with the action.

“Enemy flank is collapsing.” Oglan says, pointing. “The Golden Arrows are holding their position though.”

Eragon nods. “Good. Let the enemy keep attacking us. Have the Golden Arrows fall back as well and cover our exposed flank.” He’s trying to make it look like this is ALL that was brought with them. So far, the Endarkened are falling for it. All they need to do is hold in place and make sure their smaller army is not completely destroyed before Rias can make good their rescue operation.

Like a coordinated dance, the Golden Arrows guild falls back through the guild behind them, that guild stepping forward to await the next attack from the first wave of Endarkened defenders. The Arrows then run through the rear and take up position, having just enough time to set up before the Endarkened flanking force rushes to meet them.

A flare of magic kicks up as the mages once again renew their defense spells as one. All of the players are coated in a fresh covering of magical defense. So far, they are holding admirably well. Nobody has died so far, though about twenty players have fallen back to the second line.

Blighted Cave

Rias and her group advance quickly, looking around the cave for any and all split offs. When they find one, the main force halts while one of the scouting group rushes down the side passage to see if it leads anywhere. They have already found three players being used as breeding tools, two females and a male. All were pulled out and brought to the group, the small number of mages who came with them teleporting them back to the guild zone with teleportation spells.

“Ambush!” Calls out the advance guard as a large group of Endarkened leaps upon them from the shadows. One of the men cries out in pain as he is slain outright from the combined force of two of the creatures. A few seconds later he shimmers in a white haze and gets back up, joining the fight just as the main group reaches the combat zone. After five minutes of brutal fighting, Rias’ group defeats the ambush and pushes farther into the cave.

“How many have we rescued so far?” Rias asks Akeno. After a second or two of thinking, she responds. “Three.” Elias moves on ahead, looking around. “The cave splits off into two directions here.” He says.

“Alright, scouts, split up. I want to know what’s down both of these ways. We’ll wait here.” Miya says in a commanding tone. Rias casts defense spells on both parties. They are going to need it. As the two scout groups head off, Rias looks behind them. Something about this entire thing seems off to her. “Is anyone else getting a bad feeling about this?” She asks.

Miya looks at her. “What do you mean?”

“Well,” Rias says, a worried expression on her face. “We’ve already gone in much deeper than we did at Gryphon Cave and we haven’t hit the main nesting area yet. Hell, we’ve only rescued three people!”

Elias blinks and raises an eyebrow. “Maybe this place is more than we thought. Could be an underground palace?”

Rias hmms at that, biting her lower lip. “I don’t think so. If there were a queen here, there’d be many more guards and we wouldn’t have gotten in so easily.”

It’s Aurora who gets it first. “Oh my God. This was one of the guild skirmish zones. Do you think maybe the Endarkened took over this place like they did our guild plots after the Fall?” She asks, a bit terrified.

If that were true, they would need the whole army down here to help them clear the place out. Before Rias can respond, the sound of swords clashing swords from the right hand tunnel catches her attention. “Quickly!” She says, rushing down the right tunnel. The scene they arrive upon is bad. Their scouts are pinned down, hidden behind a flush rock outcropping. There are Endarkened on a crest that looks to be a section of ceiling that caved in. Other Endarkened are at floor level, waiting for the defenders to have their mana reduced and shields expended before attacking.

As Rias and her group come up, she gathers up her energy and flings it, burning the Endarkened off a crest overlooking the battlefield. It looks like there’s an opening into the blight above them due to the light coming down from a hole in the ceiling.

“Ma’am, the other way is a no go!” Comes a call from behind them. “There are a shit ton of Endarkened chasing us too!” The other scout group comes up behind Rias’ group and draws their swords.

“Shit, we’re trapped!” Akeno says, putting up a magical shield around the new scout group.

Rias quickly sets off her magical distress beacon.

The Main Battle

“Oh no…” General Eragon says as he feels that magical beacon activate. He turns to Oglan. “Send some of our reserve forces to help out Rias’ group!” He orders.

“It’ll take them an hour to reach them!” Oglan says, the concern in his voice raising the pitch a little bit. No one wants to lose Rias, or worse, have her condemned to the fate of being breeding stock for any length of time.

“Send them anyway. If Rias can hold that long, they can pull her out.” He says while contemplating in his own mind whether or not to show their hand now. If the battle was won, the entire army could reinforce Rias’ group. But no, they only have one shot to pull out those poor people being breeding stock. If they hold the Enemy’s attention here and keep their focus, they will think that the attack in the cave was a diversion. His best bet to keep their leader alive and free would be to keep the focus of the enemy’s forces here.

Oglan blows a series of notes on his trumpet and some of the visible reserves head off towards the direction of the cave. He Who Is has his own plans, however. A large group of Dark Elves and Humans come out of cloak spell. “Shit! The second line is ALREADY here!” Oglan says, pointing to where the forces they had sent out are being intercepted.

In fact, before Eragon’s eyes, cloak spells dissipate across the field behind the first wave. “He sent up both waves…No. This must have been the forces He Who Is had assembled to attack us like they attacked the human faction a few days ago.” Eragon says. This are a LOT more dark forces than he was expecting but still, he could hold. It would mean exposing all his troops, but he could hold. “Get everyone into the fight. ALL of our reserves!” He yells. As the notes start to ring out, shimmering into existence, the entirety of the Knights of the Blood Oath move into battle, forming a horseshoe shaped battle line with both ends starting at the beginning of the Blight.

Eastern Edge of the West Virginia Blight

“Sir, I’m picking up a distress call.” Radios the pilot of the UH-60 Blackhawk. Bordraab blinks at this. “Who from way out here?” He asks.

“Sir, it’s a distress call from a Fantasy Faction magical beacon. It’s roughly 50 miles away.” Responds the pilot.

Bardock looks over at Bordraab and smirks. “Well, we were out here patrolling around for just this sort of thing.” He says. “Just never figured it’d be from the fantasy faction. What do you recon they’re doing way over here so close to the border? And in a blight no less.”

Bordraab shrugs. “I don’t know buddy, but hell, we’re not doing anything else…”

Bardock blinks at this and then, after taking a second or two to process what his leader just said, breaks into a grin. “Lock and load boys and girls.” He says to the rest of the platoon.

“Pilot, take us to the distress signal.” Bordraab calls over the intercom as the troops ready up. He then switches over to his radio as the pilot responds with a confused “Roger that.”

 “DMZ base, this is DMZ Actual.” Bordraab calls over the radio.

“Actual, this is base.” Comes the response immediately.

“Tell Hitaka to get Phoenix flight ready for takeoff. We don’t know what kind of enemy presence to expect. Tell her I want CAP and CAS on standby near the western tip of the blight in West Virginia. She is NOT to enter the blight however. Not until we know where this distress call is coming from and why.” Bordraab says into the radio as Bardock starts talking.

“Alright boys and girls, listen up and listen good. We got a distress signal coming in from some fantasy faction yahoos engaged in the blight. Get ready to go in and pull their asses out of the fire!” He says in a tone showing his eagerness to get into the fight.

“HOORAH!” Comes the call from the troopers of Wildcat Platoon.

West Virginia Blight, Cave

Rias groans as she reads the message. “Enemy force is larger than expected. I had to bring up all of our forces just to hold. We are unable to send help your way. God be with you.” Eragon had sent.

“When will our backup be here?” Akeno yells, throwing a fireball down the tunnel they had come from.

“It’s not! We have to make our own way out!” Rias says, throwing a fireball herself. Two Shadowed Elves are hit, one by each fireball, and burn down to a crisp, with more coming.

“I will NOT be breeding stock again!” Aurora yells out, healing up Elias as he stands next to the scouts, clashing against the enemy with his big axe.

“You won’t have to! We’ll make it!” He calls out, cleaving two enemies in half. Miya comes up next to him, quickly chopping down the shadowed human that was about to drive a short sword into Elias’ side after he delivered that blow.

A magical blast comes sailing in and strikes the ground between two scouts. They both are blown from the impact point. The first scout slams into Akeno, knocking them both down. Both Akeno and the scout get up and one of their mages heals them. The second scout is not so lucky. He is blasted into the horde of Endarkened. Four flashes of white light, each accompanied by a blood curdling scream, and then his screams start to fade as he is dragged off after the Endarkened drain away his respawn tokens. It’s a horrible reminder of the fate that awaits them, the Endarkened looking to restock and add to their stock. Still, they could hold for now.

The Main Battle

Eragon looks around a near 360 degrees. All around him, players are engaged with Endarkened. The battle had been joined now for a full hour and a half. The addition of his hidden forces brought things to a bloody stalemate. He knows his army can’t hold up under this kind of pressure for much longer given what they are currently doing in terms of spells and just hopes the second wave is a little bit farther off. “It seems we didn’t do enough scouting.” He says to Oglan, who nods. “Yes sir. We should have figured that if they attacked the human faction, we could not be far behind.”

Eragon sighs. “If that second wave will be kind enough to stay back, we can hold the Enemy back and possibly win. Start to rotate out our mages, give them time to refresh their mana. Also, see if Goldie can get one of her drakes free to send back to our forward camp to get what remains of our respawns.” He says. Oglan nods and sends messengers to do just that. The rate of fire of the spells starts to slacken off as the mages start taking breaks by even and odd.

The air battle also picks up in pace. Goldie has been managing her forces well, keeping drakes in formations so that no one fought alone. The DD’s weren’t in formation and only their sheer numbers were keeping the skies from falling to the players. Two different arrowhead formations wheel around and head towards the rear. The enemy, seeing this, darts in with an equal number. The formations wheel about and engage the enemy in close combat, a single player drake rushing out of the blight and heading back west as fast as the creature’s wings can carry it.

Blighted Cave

Rias spares a quick moment to glance at her health and mana bars. Her health bar is at about the two third’s mark, but her mana bar is getting dangerously low. “Running low on mana.” She says. The other mages nod in agreement. The Endarkened, sensing that their enemy is running low on mana, start to press more firmly forward, meaning to force out the last spells of the mages and then capture the lot of them.

“No you don’t!” Rias calls out, gathering up the last of her magic in a ball and blasting back the way they came. The enormous ball of crimson energy, her signature attack, blasts through a large group of the shadowed humans and elves at their rear, clearing a hole. “Run!” She yells, pointing back the way they came. The mages start running, Miya pressing back the swordsmen to their front, then ducking as Elias swings his axe in an ark. They had practiced this move for just this situation and it pushes back the front ranks of the enemy’s force, allowing them to turn and run. “What about the people still down here?” Miya yells out.

“We’ll come back for them with a larger force!” Rias says as they run. She’s really out of breath from using so much energy in the fighting. They had lost roughly a third of their force though, there’s nothing to be done for it. Much as she hates to admit defeat and retreat, being defeated and captured was worse still. Just as they are running through the main area to reach the exit, the ground shimmers and about thirty goblins rise up in front of them from out of the very ground itself. Not a force capable of defeating them, but certainly one that could slow them down enough for the Enemy to catch up. The wind coming in from the mouth of the cave is blowing their stench back into Rias’ face as well.

“I hate that smell.” Elias complains, rushing towards the goblins. They shriek at him and jump back away from his blows, making their intentions clear.

“We don’t have time for this!” Akeno yells, flicking out her hand. A lightning bolt races out and strikes one of the goblins in the chest. The small beast howls in pain and flings out its arms, current breaking out through its wrists and blasting into the two next to it, continuing down the line until they are all dead.

Akeno collapses to her knees. “Akeno!” Rias calls out, stooping down to help her up. “Don’t stay put, go!” Miya says, beginning to move. More Goblins pop up through the floor though, and behind them, the Enemy’s main force catches up and finishes surrounding them. Rias can feel her heart pounding in her chest as the Endarkened start to close in on them. She has no mana left. Akeno is so exhausted she can’t even stand. A tear comes to Rias’ eye as she contemplates her future now. She’d be cut and stabbed until the five respawn tokens she had bought were depleted. Then, she’d be dragged off with the others, deeper into this cave. Her first time with a male would be when one of these Endarkened beasts forces himself upon her. She’d be down here for who knows how long, forced to have babies with these monsters until someone rescued her. If they even could.

“FIRE!” Comes a loud call from the cave mouth. There’s a rapid series of loud cracks and goblins and shadowed humans and elves start falling from…from bullets! She whips her head around towards the cave mouth just in time to see eleven figures with assault rifles coming into the cave through the middle of a group of about ten, five on each side, firing at the Endarkened to her group’s either flank. The wind coming from the cave mouth had stopped entirely.

Elias roars out in challenge and charges at the Endarkened to his front, Miya right there with him along with the remains of the scouts. Their attack pins the Endarkened center in place as the riflemen come into the cave, still firing. Within a few minutes, the force pursuing them is completely knocked out and a familiar form comes up to her. “We got your distress signal.” Bordraab says to her, a smile on his lips. “Figured we could come and give a hand.”

Rias is almost in tears at this point with all the relief she is feeling. “Oh thank you so much!” She says, giving the Saiyan a hug that squeezes her to him. She breaks the hug, blushing, and quickly masks her embarrassment by going into her inventory and deactivating the beacon. “Can you stay with us? There are players held captive down here and we were here to get them out.” She says.

“We’d be happy to. Colonel Bardock! Get ready to move out!” He says, then puts his hand to his head. “Chalk three, continue to track our position. I think you may be able to use that hole in the ground that we saw here very soon.”

“Swordsmen to the front!” Rias calls out. “Spread out a bit too.”

The swordsmen do just that, leading the way back into the cave, riflemen following behind them with weapons at the ready.

The Main Battle

Eragon blinks as he feels that locator beacon shut off and for a moment there, he fears for the worse. Suddenly, explosions in the form of large showers of sparks and dust start rocking through the back ranks of the Enemy’s army, tracing a long, bloody swath through the enemy. A few seconds later he hears a sound he had heard what seems like a lifetime ago. A loud BRRRRRRRT. He looks up in time to see an A-10 come passing by overhead. Another A-10 swoops in low and its nose cone is masked in a puff of smoke. Another BRRRRRRT and another swath is carved. This A-10 drops two cylinders from its wings.

The cylinders break apart in midair and dozens of small bomblets spread out from the descending container. The ground is covered as the two cluster bombs detonate on impact, showering the Enemy with hundreds of explosions. Cheers come up from the army and a loud, angry roar from the DD’s overhead. Two of them swoop for the second A-10 as it starts pulling out of its strafing run, the familiar sound of the A-10’s engines are briefly the loudest thing in the air as it picks up speed.

A missile streaks in and slams into the side of one of the DD’s, knocking it out of the sky and crashing into the ground. An F-15 swoops low, for an F-15, over the battlefield at full afterburner and pulls a near vertical climb to avoid the second DD. That foe never got a chance to attack. A friendly Drake comes up fast on it and slashes into it, ripping apart its right wing and sending the dark beast spinning out of the sky to crash into the ground. The sight and noise is almost enough to distract him from another sound, one far more reassuring. Eragon turns around as he hears the thudding sound of helicopters closing in. He can’t help it, the memories of his time in Afghanistan are too vivid to feel anything else but the soaring sense of relief and joy. He throws up his arms and cheers loudly, Oglan doing the same right beside him.

The two AH-64A Apache attack helicopters of Snake flight come in right overhead and split as they pass over the command group. They begin unloading their rockets on the rear of the enemy’s center, moving in fast strafing attacks to keep any enemy gunbeasts from hitting them as more missiles begin to knock DD’s out of the sky. A full squadron of F-15s is in the skies above, with two more A-10s beginning their own strafing runs.

His ecstatic relief fading away some, Eragon turns to his signalman. “Sound the charge!” He says with a wide smile on his face. The horn blows out a sharp series of notes and as one, the army yells at full voice and charges at the Enemy.

Blighted Cave

It had taken Bordraab only a few minutes to grasp the entire situation. The distress signal was coming from inside a cave. It had to be. There was no one above ground where the beacon was centered and it was moving steadily west. As they had found the cave mouth, he had gotten a report from Phoenix telling him that there is a massive fantasy faction force engaging an Endarkened force of equal size. They did appear to be winning, but she wanted to send in Boomer’s A-10s to make sure of that while she and her squadron of F-15’s helped the fantasy faction’s drakes finish clearing the skies. He had taken her gloves off just as he and Bardock were deploying, having the troops in the third helicopter stay overhead in case they needed the element of surprise. There were no enemy air forces, all of them having responded to the fantasy incursion. He sent Snake’s flight over to assist the friendlies and had gone underground.

Now, advancing through the cave, he is glad he kept such precautions. As they come to the spot where Rias and her group were pinned down, they can see the Endarkened had taken possession of their chamber once more. The swordsmen charge just after the mages, having had time to recover, had cast their protective spells. “I want NO friendly fire!” Bardock calls out, shouldering his rifle and firing at the Endarkened up on the crest. The other riflemen start opening up as Otis and Spirit set up their M240 LMGs. Rias taps Otis and Spirit on their shoulders just as they are about to fire. “Wait, the last time we did this they hit us from behind as well!” She says. The two soldiers look at Bordraab, the leader closest. “Set up where she wants you to.” He tells them. “We can hold this.”

The two men nod and get up, turning around and setting up to the rear. Rias goes with them and hurls a globe of mage light up. Just in time too. Fifty meters away it lights up a group of shadowed elves coming their way. The two machine guns open up, scything down the group in seconds. The second platoon comes up and takes up positions facing that direction, firing at enemies they see in the mage light. The two machine gunners grin at Rias and get up, moving back to the front where Bardock has them line up on the two entrances he sees. The two machine guns start firing, ripping into the endarkened who are coming out of the tunnels. The ones already in there are pressing forward hard, but the combination of swordsmen holding the front combined with the riflemen behind them bring the best of both factions together with lethal effect.

The final nail in the coffin is when the third chalk rappels down through the hole in the roof, taking possession of the crest the endarkened liked shooting at them from. After that high ground is secured, the third chalk has an easy time of picking out targets and taking them down. Once all targets are down, the team rushes into the room. “Multiple passages.” Kenichi reports. Miu speaks up. “Each of them is a dead end except for two. I think we’ve got people inside them!”

Missy, their squad designated marksman, looks down each of those tunnels with her scope. “I think we’ve got nesting chambers down there. Nothing is alive in there though, just eggs.” She says.

Bardock nods. “Put some incendiary on those nests.” He orders. Soldiers nod and go to follow their orders, soon lighting up those two passages with thermite fires as their incendiary grenades end the nests in those tunnels.

A radio call comes from the surface. “General, we’re seeing another cave entrance here, roughly a half mile to the north of your position.” Bordraab nods. North was the direction that other passage was leading. Makes sense, Rias’ people were hit from behind by a force from the surface.

A series of blue flashes draw his attention up to the group. His soldiers and the swordsmen were bringing players out, players who looked to be dazed and in deep shock. Rias and her mages were teleporting them away. “Ok, we’ve got helicopters orbiting overhead. Can you all make it out?” He asks as his soldiers bring up a wounded man. He’s about to be teleported when he says “No, I want to walk out with my party.” He says. It’s the scout, the wolf had his armor stripped away and is bare ass naked save for his thick layer of fur. After getting up and being healed, he picks up his sword.

Rias looks around. “We can…I think we’ll be able to make it out.”

Bordraab nods. “We’ll loiter overhead of you and make sure you can get out then. For now, we’ll help you evac the rest.”

The Main Battle

“This is Snake. Friendlies are advancing.” Snake calls over the radio.

“Roger that Snake. Boomer flight, gun runs only.” Phoenix calls over the strike net.

“Rog.” Boomer calls. The four A-10s begin sweeping the combat zone for pockets of heavy resistance in a twin flight. The first A-10 would fly over a target and drop a line of flares along the attack path. Any friendlies would immediately fall back as the second A-10 came on soon after, strafing the ground. The fantasy force then rushed forward through the carnage to engage what was left. The battle was pretty much all but over at this point.

The air threat has been all but eliminated. There are roughly fifty drakes in the air and only one DD, that creature rapidly trying to leave the battle zone. Every formation of drakes has a pair of Eagles overhead providing it with high altitude cover.

From the ground, Eragon looks over his people with pride, then looks up at the loitering helicopters and A-10s. He blinks as he receives a message and then breaks into a wide smile. “Signal all forces to…” Suddenly, the ground under his feet shifts. Looking down, he sees he is no longer standing upon scorched ground, but upon grass rapidly growing up to cover the ground. He gapes at this, not understanding for a wild few moments. Finally, with a broad smile on his lips, he turns to his second. “Signal victory. We have cleared out this zone!” The cheers that rise up when the victory is sounded are loud and proud. A hard battle fought, a victory won. And a total of thirty players rescued from a living hell.

Thirty minutes later, three Blackhawk helicopters fly in from the south. They are moving very slowly for those kinds of aircraft, the General knew. However, five minutes after he spotted them, he could see why. Riding on horseback towards the army was the small force that had gone into the cave with those three helicopters flying protectively around them. Rias comes up to Eragon about fifteen minutes later and smiles to him. “Hello General.” She says.

Eragon smiles back. “Hello guild master.” He says and smiles to her. “We are victorious. We have about twenty dead and about two hundred with no more respawn tokens but we held and delivered a massive defeat to He Who Is. These fighters orbiting the army saved us from having many more dead.”

Rias smiles to him and looks over as a Blackhawk sets down, shielding her eyes from the blowing wind. The door opens and Bordraab and Bardock get out. The helicopter lifts back up into the air as the two Saiyans come over to the General and Guild Master.

“I suppose I have you to thank for the close air support.” Eragon says, offering his hand to Bordraab. Bordraab nods and shakes the hand offered to him. “We picked up her distress call and I called in the clans. They reported seeing your battle so I had them support you while we went underground.”

Eragon smiles widely. “Then I have you to thank for keeping my guild leader intact and unmolested.” He says. “I owe you a debt.”

Bordraab shrugs. “Keep it. We’ll be needing each other if we want to win this. When everything’s said and done, I think we’ll both be able to agree that all debts were paid in full.”