Everlast Online

The guild war had come to a tie, the final event would decide everything and so the crowd's excitement had risen a level further as both Annie and Dex began to disappear from the stage - marking the end of the most heated fight of the duels.

Ironically, the fight that the crowd had enjoyed the most was the least exciting for Loki. Frankly, they were glad it had come to an end and quickly moved on, manifesting their familiar slot machine back into reality.

People were confused as to why Loki had bothered, seeing as there was only one event remaining; but of course Loki would not make things so easy.

“It’s the final spin everyone!” Loki called out, eliciting a round of cheers, “The deciding match to determine which guild is superior!”

Finally, Loki pulled the handle and allowed the machine to spin, a mischievous glint in their eyes as the outcome was already decided - just not in the way the players expected.

Instead of landing on the symbol castle, indicating the last event, all three slots thudded to an end on a symbol of a deck of cards - each marked with a grinning fool.

“It’s Loki’s Game!” Loki cheered, far more excited than they had ever been until that point, with their form shifting rapidly alongside the sounds of laughter.

In an explosion of confetti and fireworks, Smokey and Wolf appeared in the arena that had not really changed since the last round of duels - all of the damage to the area still being present as well.

Loki grinned as both guild leaders looked around in confusion, guarded against one another. Unfortunately for those expecting a fight, Wolf quickly found that he could not initiate any hostile action towards the small doll creature next to him; Smokey also found this out too, though far more subtly than her opponent did.

“Now.” Loki said with a clap of their six arms that quickly retracted back into their body, “Here’s how it works…”

Loki then threw a deck of cards into the air, releasing thousands of playing cards that initially looked ordinary, but upon closer scrutiny displayed some troubling images.

To her left Smokey saw a picture of a stickman melting on a card and to the right was a card of a stickman being brutally eaten by some creature. There were other less graphic pictures, but those two stood out the most. Wolf had similar cards floating around him.

“You will both pick one card at random within the time limit of one minute.” Loki explained as they grinned widely - their face stretching to widen the grin further.

“Your next event, [Collapsing Castles], will be altered based on whatever card you chose.”

“The contents of the card can be almost anything.” Loki could hardly hold back a giggle as they said that.

“You could gain a new and powerful skill, or your opponent could.”

“One of your guild members, or the entire guild, might instantly die.”

“You could even become omnipotent for the duration of the game, ascend temporarily to god-like power.” 

Loki’s grin had become more horrific the longer they spoke, the god’s true nature becoming obvious as their game was revealed.

“Essentially something good, bad or neutral could happen that changes the game drastically or not at all. And neither of you will know what it is until it happens.”

“Of course you could not choose.” Loki laughed, “But that would upset me. And you don’t want that, do you?”

Loki had become increasingly sinister and both Smokey and Wolf felt a deep rooted fear inside them bubble up for just a moment at Loki’s threat; resulting in the same thought between them:

I have to choose something. They thought, quickly glancing around at the cards they were presented with.

“And so, your minute begins…” Loki called out, spreading their (now) many arms wide to gesture towards the numerous playing cards floating around Wolf and Smokey, “NOW!”

Above the arena a giant analog clock, reminiscent of a stopwatch, appeared and began ticking down with loud and thunderous movements of its single arm.

Wolf looked around for no more than two seconds before grabbing a card at random, one with the picture of a single muscular man surrounded by beasts and monsters. 

“And Wolf chooses his card with fifty seven seconds remaining!” Loki laughed, “Drawn to the muscles I’d bet. About what I expected from an idiot like him.”

The crowd laughed as well before turning their attention to Smokey who had decided to take much more care in selecting a card.

Her button eyes skimmed dozens of images to try and find one that was not horribly violent, but also not unnecessarily ambiguous like Wolf’s.

Each thud of the moving clock rang out like cracking thunder that signalled her impending doom.

Her nerves built as time was running out and she was left with just ten seconds - Loki’s mocking of course didn’t help.

“I’d hope little Smokey is taking her time to think properly. “ They chuckled, setting up yet another joke, “Of course she might just be trying to find a card she can actually reach.”

With little time remaining Smokey had no choice but to choose the lesser of many evils since she had not found a card that perfectly met her requirements - likely by Loki’s design given their divine jurisdiction.

“What a choice.” Loki grinned, looking at Smokey’s chosen card, “I can’t wait to see how that plays out.”

Loki continued to laugh, much to Smokey’s annoyance given it was at her expense, however, since she could do nothing without facing their wrath she simply sat and waited for the final event to begin.

“Haaa…” Loki released a sigh as their laughter stopped, before snapping their fingers and bringing both guild leaders to a new location once again - a dark void quite similar to one Smokey had been in a handful of times.

Wolf looked around with confusion before attempting to lie backwards - a difficult feat since finding backwards was not easy in an endless void.

It did not take long for Loki to appear once again, bringing a large screen once again.

“Okay then, time for the final event.” Loki smiled, their eyes going between both of the mortals before them, “Normally you would simply fight on a flat battlefield with two forts on either end until one was destroyed.”

“Buuuuuut…” Their head swung over to Smokey with a nasty grin, “The little necromancer chose a card that’ll make that battlefield a little bit more… Fun.”

With another click of the god’s fingers Smokey’s card appeared floating above their index finger - a card that depicted a stickman stood on an island.

“Now, let's decide the arena!” Loki said, causing thousands, possibly millions, of different environments to blink on and off of their screen.

Smokey was feeling anxious as she watched. She didn’t know much about Loki, but could tell they were not the most virtuous god and began to expect every card would backfire on whoever chose them regardless of the card.

After an agonising ten seconds of different pictures the screen finally settled.

“Hahahahaha!” Loki laughed as they saw what had been selected, “This’ll be fun!”

Smokey found any excitement Loki had to be… Disconcerting to say the least, but even she could see why they had muttered such a thing.

The arena that had been settled on was a giant volcanic cave.

In the image displayed to both guild leaders were many geysers that spewed molten lava across walkways that could have been seen as safe.

The heat won’t be a problem, but undead don’t do well with fire. Smokey immediately began strategizing how to take advantage of and not struggle against the decided environment, meanwhile Wolf just looked impatient.

I finally get to fight her. He thought with a toothy grin, staring directly at his enemy. If only that golden prick hadn’t forced me to use his guild members. It’s not like they won anyway.

Eventually, the pair of guildmasters began to dissolve into particles of light, but right before they both disappeared completely Smokey heard Wolf speak:

“I can’t wait for our fight.” He said, his fangs bared right at her.

Smokey only nodded slightly. She was certainly interested in fighting, but what she cared about most was ending the guild war and she intended to win.

Every participating member of the guild war found themselves being teleported, the heat rising dramatically to an uncomfortable level as they realised where they had been dropped.

Both sides, Walpurgis and Wolf Fang, found themselves in the courtyard of a single-walled fortress with a metal gate that was rapidly increasing in temperature.

The final deciding match had begun.

- - -

The act of teleportation was uncomfortable in any circumstances, but it was especially disorientating when performed by a chaos god like Loki. However, Liz quite quickly regained her bearings and overcame the momentary nausea she had begun to feel after the transport; as a result she was able to establish a certain amount of order by cutting the useless chatter of her guild short.

Everyone turned to look at her diminutive figure as she called for their attention, this of course included Magnus, Piper and her friends as well as the allied forces of united elements.

“Everyone calm down.” She called out, silencing the crowd. In the brief moment she had taken to look around the fortress Liz - and almost everyone else present - had managed to determine the objective of the final guild war event, “My guess is we need to protect that!”

Liz pointed her finger at a large, blood-red crystal that floated above an arcane pedestal; it also seemed to be releasing a certain aura that everyone present found comforting, a sort of hidden buff for the guild. As if to confirm the guild’s suspicions a system message appeared before everyone - their enemies included:

Moments after the notification that displayed the explicit goals of the final event, a visual phenomenon began. The crystal released a crimson wave that did nothing to affect the players present, but seemed to infuse itself into the rest of the fort - reinforcing it. 

This was accompanied by a burst of red light shooting into the sky, only stopping as it collided with the cavern’s roof; this unrefined light then began to be released in a uniform pattern until it took the form of a blood-red beacon, one that was mirrored by the blue beacon that appeared in the distance.

So even if we try to move or hide it, they’ll know. Liz thought, before shutting down any ideas like that. We already have the advantage.

Liz rightly assumed that both guilds started with the exact same resources, the only difference would be the players of each guild - they would decide the outcome, not the fort itself.

However, that was not to say the fort was useless.

The walls alone seemed incredibly sturdy and were at least fifteen feet thick. The courtyard that housed the crystal itself was quite barren, but stairs lined the walls that allowed players to reach the top of the fortress walls and atop those walls were a number of useful items.

The most important were of course the pair of ballistas above the fortress gates and the cannons that were spaced evenly along the entire wall.

“Man the defences.” Liz commanded, taking charge as the leader even if most of her guild was made up of Magnus’s gang, “We can win by playing defensively.”

“Don’t we have to destroy the other crystal to win?” One of Annie’s guild members asked.

The allied forces from United Elements were incredibly small, making up no more than twenty people, but they were noticeably stronger than the average Walpurgis player since they were actual gamers. 

And of course their question was entirely valid, playing nothing but defence was a surefire path to losing. At least that would be the case, if not for Liz.

“That’ll be my role.” Liz stated, causing most of the people present to mutter in concern. Liz was quick to assure them of her chances of success.

“As a necromancer, I command an entire army alone - that is our advantage!” Liz grinned viciously, her ability as a military strategist taking front and centre as she explained her point of view, “Wolf Fang has to split their forces into attack and defend, but we can focus entirely on defence while only sending off one player.”

“While I may be the strongest, if you can focus on maintaining the fort our success is almost guaranteed.” Her logic seemed solid to those present, but she knew Walpurgis could not stand up to the elites of Wolf Fang. Everything would come down to her speed.

“While I’m attacking, Magnus will be in charge as the commander.” Liz stated, talking as though it were common sense.

Magnus was the real boss of the members of Walpurgis even if he defaulted command to Liz thanks to her ELO experience, which made him the perfect second in command during situations like the war.

He even had some experience in commanding a military force.

It was nothing like ordering around superhumans in a mediaeval fortress, but there was enough crossover between gang turf wars that he could present some confidence.

However, Liz had other plans for United Elements.

“United Elements will obviously default to Annie.” Liz said, turning to face the high elf who looked slightly shocked since she had not expected such freedom while assisting another guild master, “I want you as the last line of defence on the crystal in case they break through.”

“Understood.” Annie responded and Magnus also nodded in agreement, understanding the value of higher levels.

“Finally, I’ll tip the scales even further in our favour.” Liz smirked while opening her inventory.

Before the guild war began Liz had spent a lot of time improving her abilities as a player; this mostly expressed itself as increasing her level and bolstering her undead army with more and new undead - but Liz did not slack on improving her skills either.

Liz had advanced to level 158 and improved the levels of a fair few skills, even evolving two of them into a fusion skill; transforming [Greater Bone Spear (E)] and [Blaze Torrent (A)] into the infinitely superior skill [Ghost Flame Skull (A) (1)]:

[Ghost Flame Skull (1) (A): Create and fire skulls burning with ghost flames that then explode upon contact. 10% chance to inflict {Bleed}. 5% chance to inflict {Burn}. 5% chance to inflict {Mana Drain}. Damage scales with INT and skill level]

The skulls were noticeably slower than both skills and the chances to inflict effects had been lowered significantly, but the skill was still certainly superior.

[Mana Drain] was an offensively powerful skill that took 1% of the target's (total) mana every second upon infliction until it faded - that alone made up for everything that Liz had lost from the other two skills.

However, this was not even the greatest feat of growth Liz had acquired before the war; that honour would go to [Bone Shaper] and [Flesh Stitcher], which had risen to 94% and 100% respectively after Liz had discovered the trick to level them up faster.

Both skills improved based on Liz’s crafting ability with skill XP being rewarded based on the utility and complexity of whatever Liz had desired to make. As a result, all it took was Liz searching the internet for the blueprints to some old era weaponry before copying it exactly to rake in both the XP and the weapons.

Those blueprints were not even hard to find since they were readily available for public viewing on multiple museum websites.

The entire fort of players - and the currently unseeable audience for the guild war - watched with open mouths as Liz pulled out numerous siege weapons made entirely of bones and flesh.

There were small catapults, carroballistas and even a single large, portable tower that overlooked the walls.

(A/N: Carroballistas are smaller, handheld ballistas - at least from the info I found)

“Holy shit.” Annie muttered under her breath, recognising the different kinds of power Liz had at her disposal - her undead and spells were merely a fraction of what she was capable of.

“Good luck to you all then.” Liz said with a wide grin as she turned to head out of the fortress, only to turn back once again with an even wider and even more vicious grin, “Actually…”

Thus began the series of Liz dumping more and more advantages into her fortress before finally leaving to attack Wolf Fang - hoping desperately that it would be enough.