The Whales base is under attack by the Timberline Beavers, plucky gamer high school students with a LOT of school spirit. There’s about one hundred and fifty of them, but our saving grace seems to be they’re a relatively low level, most of them falling between 12 and 15. Though I don’t know how much consolation that is when I’m about to solo the entire roster of the Beavers’ basketball and baseball teams at once!
I brace myself for the first wave as their fighters rush me on the bridge. It’s a maelstrom of swords, axes, shivs, flails, morningstars and lances, but so far, it’s not too bad.
I got an extra 18 points in Constitution from the new gear, bringing my score to 83, adding an additional 180 HP for a massive 1370 total. I also got an extra 120 armor from the set effect. Plus Sherbie’s Nature’s Power buff gives an additional 2 Con and 50 armor, beefing me up even more.
Hits that manage to get past my shield seem to be hitting me for anywhere between 15 and 45 damage, with a couple skills hitting around 60, and my shield cuts the damage down by 70% if I manage to get it in the way. So I’d say the tank build is working.
As for healing, in battle my base HP regenerates at the speed of 36.8 HP/s, plus the extra health I’m getting directly from the players. On top of that, I’ve got my healer, whose overtime heal hits me for more than fifty every 1.5 seconds or so, and his Rejuvenating Touch heals more than 80 HP per cast.
I am the immovable object. No one is getting me off my bridge!
That’s when the head cheerleader takes notice of me.
“Archers!” she yells over the other cheerleaders’ cries of:
“Beavers! Beavers! We’re the best!”
“Take out that tank!”
“Go! Fight! Timberline Beavers!! Yay!!”
Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk!
So many arrows! Fortunately, they don’t do a ton of damage, between 17-35 on a normal hit, though a couple of shiny arrows which I assume are skills hit for over 50 if I don’t block them.
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
The additional peppering of a few mages hits a lot harder, a couple of the spells hitting for up to 120. I watch with dismay as my health bar takes a sudden dip. Then, a hand reaches from behind me and stuffs something in my mouth.
“Mushroom!” Sherbie yells, and, remembering the unique ability of his cloak, I chomp into it gratefully.
Disgusting! It tastes so bad!!
[+208 HP]
Thunk thunk thunk thunk thunk!
So many arrows! They’re needling into me non-stop!
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Damn magical damage!
“SHERBIE!”
“REJUVENATING TOUCH!”
“B! E! A! V! E! R! S!” The orc cheerleader’s bass sounds like a terrifying war cry in the midst of this battle. Their cheers, combined with the marching band’s snappy rendition of ‘Vehicle’ by The Ides of March, are all actually bard spells designed to empower the other players, turning their whole school into a giant, unstoppable war machine.
“Quiz team, bring down those walls!”
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Fwip! Kablooooom!!!
“Captain Moon!” I bellow. “Doesn’t Bax have anything to put out these fires?”
“You think that jerk takes orders from me?!” Captain Moon yells back from the wall where he’s fighting off a pair of rogues that managed to climb inside. “You’re the only one who can command our wizard!”
“Bax!” I cry, to no avail. The wizard’s tower is silent.
“Quiz team! A++ volley!!”
“QUICK MATHS!!”
“Bax!!!”
Fwoosh! Fwoosh! Kablooey! Baboom!!!!
“Leader-san!” Misa screams from the walls where she fights alongside Captain Moon and his men, using her whirlwind attack to send the football players flying into the moat, where KassInFlight stalks like a shark, a silent killer, pulling the players under to murder them beneath the water. An undead, he doesn’t need to come up for air, but kills unceasingly, with terrifying precision.
“Leader-san! The wall’s not going to hold!”
Damn it, Bax!
Fwoosh! Fwoosh!
Between the melee fighters on the bridge, the arrows and the fireballs being launched at me, once again my health is dangerously low.
If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
“Mushroom time!”
Oh god. Blagghk! Buuuhhhh! Poooo!
[+208 HP]
Between the mushroom power and Sherbie’s rapid fire heals, somehow I’m still standing. But not for long. Not unless—
Putting all my guts into it, I roar at the top of my lungs:
“BAX!!! THEY’RE STOMPING YOUR ROSE BUSHES!!!”
With this, there comes a rumbling from the tower at the center of the base, and I hear the wizard bellow:
“YOU KIDS GET OFF OF MY LAWN!”
An enormous fireball whizzes from the tower, exploding on the quiz team, sending wizards, sorcerers, warlocks and druids flying in every direction. The only ones he misses are the two goth kids off to the side in their black robes and long stringy hair, smoking cigarettes and summoning skeletons.
“Thanks, Bax!” I cry. “Now, can you do something about the wall?!”
Bax’s great voice thunders across the battlefield as he calls out a spell in another tongue, and a huge transparent bubble of swirling darkness spreads outwards from the tower. Its power quenches the flames on the wall and adds a barrier of protection, so all projectiles bounce harmlessly off of it. By now, the mages have mostly regrouped and they’re redoubling their efforts, though for the moment their efforts are futile.
“Now that’s what I’m talking about!”
“You have two minutes before the shield wears off!” yells the wizard from his tower. “I’d suggest you wrap this up sooner rather than later!”
“Hey, hey! Whaddaya say?! Beavers here to win the day! Yayyyy!!!”
Without the archers and mages pelting us, I’m able to recover a little of my health. But I’m realizing we’re at a stalemate. They have healers, and their fighters on the bridge aren’t dying.
I have two minutes to figure something out. Without Bax’s shield, I know I won’t last.
“You boys wanna touch Misa-pyon’s oppai? Ecchi! Kya!” Misa-pyon sends more of the football team flying with her twin Minotaur axes. How is she even holding both of those enormous weapons? They should be two handed weapons for a human. Oh well, they’re certainly doing a great job eviscerating their fighters. Some of them are even dying in a single attack. Those that don’t die right away fall into the moat for Kass, the silent killer, to dispatch.
“Are you the quarterback? Ara, senpai! Accept Misa-pyon’s friend request! Misa-pyon will send you pictures of her feet later!”
CHOP! CHOP! SPLAT!
“The Whales aren’t gonna lose to these guys in spirit!” Sherbie says behind me. Then he surprises me by bursting out with his own improvised cheer:
“Lock it down! Shut it tight! Whales defense! Win this fight! Peach! Brown! Goooooo, Whales!”
“Come on, man.”
“Sorry…”
Maybe a minute passes where I continue to hold the bridge against the melee fighters. There are so many of them, all pressing against me, but I stand firm, holding my ground.
Realizing the futility of facing Misa on the wall, the football team has given up on climbing the ladders, effectively moving outside of her reach. They’ve lined up along the moat, stabbing the water blindly in an effort to catch Kass. With so many of them, it seems like only a matter of time before they get him.
Our defense, it’s not going to hold, I realize with a sinking feeling. There are just too many of them. The second Bax’s barrier goes down and the ranged attackers resume their volleys, I’m going to fall. Then the Beavers will swarm into this base like a flood, and overrun us from the inside.
There’s nothing I can do. We’ll lose the Whale Base, I think with dismay. Come on, Rev, think! But though I hold my ground and rack my brains, nothing comes to me. No good. At this rate—
“Time’s up!” shouts Bax from the tower, and I watch helplessly as the shield dissolves before my eyes.
Guess this is it.
Then, out of the corner of my eye, I see a streak of yellow and red fly from the wall to land just behind the wall of fighters attacking the moat.
Misa?!
She looks back at me, a glint in her eyes, and smiles her cute kitty smile.
“Ore wo dare da to omotte yagaru?”
“NANI??!”
Before my eyes, ChuchuMisa-pyon switches to full berserker mode, with dazzling red lights flashing all around her as she charges into the cheerleaders, chopping them to bits, sending them flying with her whirling axes.
Spells and arrows, attacks from every direction fly at her, but she dodges almost all of them, running at blinding speeds, blazing a line straight into the Quiz Team.
“ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA ORA!!!”
Again with the NANI?!!
She’s eviscerating them. In seconds there’s not even a single spell caster left. Even the goth kids have not escaped her wrath. But for this offense, she’s paid a heavy price. Her health is almost gone!
“Sherbie!” I cry helplessly, but I know he’s too far away to be of any help.
Just then the last remaining cheerleader, the orc, materializes in front of a blood soaked Misa-pyon, pulling out her weapon for the first time. She grips an electric guitar by the neck, its body is shaped like an axe with spikes coming out of it. With a roar, she slashes Misa down the front, collapsing her in a heap before flipping the guitar over and shredding with a gut busting death metal growl.
“OOOOOOOOOOOHHHHHHHHH!!! GO BEAVERS! KILL EM ALL! GO BEAVERS! KILL EM DEAD!”
The metal orc cheerleader gets the remaining beavers fired up, and they all charge at me with a terrifying roar. But I’m not afraid.
I can’t let Misa’s sacrifice go to waste!
“Brace me, Sherbie!”
“Yes, Sir!”
I hold my place on the bridge, and the tide of angry beavers breaks against me. Without mages to supplement their health, they’re draining rapidly now in my aura. Overhead, I hear Captain Moon ordering his handful of archers to fire. From the tower, Bax has resumed intermittent volleys of overpowered spells, blasting the attackers to kingdom come.
I don’t know when Kass came out of the moat, but I see him now, flying through their ranks, a precision killing machine with not a single wasted movement. I watch as he zigzags through the crowd, ending in front of the final bloody cheerleader.
She wields her axe-guitar to duel him, but he slips easily under her attack and cuts her up in two swipes. Her final dying howl rings across the battlefield and over the last two trumpet players, just barely holding on to play ‘Land of 1000 Dances.’
There are only a handful of them left and my last shield is approaching its limit. But at last the Beavers have seen the futility of their attack. The trumpets sound the retreat to the final remaining fighters, and I watch them turn on their heels and run with a sense of burning indignation.
Oh, no, you don’t!
With a ferocious battle cry, I run after them, heart beating exuberantly as I hold them in my aura just a few seconds longer, and watch the last of them crumple to the ground.
Looking around, it’s almost with dismay that I realize there’s no one left to kill. They’ve all fallen. Every last jock and nerd, every last annoying cheerleader.
[You have successfully defended the Whale Base. Guild Timberline Beavers cannot attack the Whale Base again for seven days.]
We defeated them. 150 vs 4. We won.
Throwing down my busted shield, I throw my head back to roar my victory cry to the treetops.
“Whale Power!!!!!”
“Excuse me.”
Jump!
Startled from my epic cinematic moment, I look over to see a wet, blood streaked Kass standing there without expression.
“In a guild battle, players have a 10% chance of dropping pieces of their gear for the opposing team to loot. May I suggest we check the bodies before they despawn? We may find something interesting.”
“Oh, ahem. Right. Carry on.”
