Yvvaros: The Clash of Worlds (6 page)

“It’s hard to tell,” said Silverstrike. The moon and stars didn’t offer much illumination. The settlement ahead of them was at the base of a mountain, but even from a distance it looked unnaturally quiet.

“You can smell it in the air,” said Luke. “It’s definitely smoke. Come on, let’s hurry.”

He and Silverstrike broke into a run. As they drew closer to the settlement more details became evident in the darkness.

“Oh my god…” said Luke. “What happened?”

The guild town was in shambles. It looked as though it had been small to begin with, just a single guild hall and one other building, but there was nothing left other than ashes and two stone foundations. A small fire burned within the charred wooden remains of one of the structures. It was the only sign of movement within the settlement.

“This looks bad,” said Silverstrike. “Do you think-”

A high pitched, garbled cry came from the air above them. Before Luke could react, something came from the sky above them and smashed into Silverstrike, knocking him to the ground and taking a chunk out of his health bar.

“What the…” Luke had to dodge as another of the flying creatures whipped by, coming within inches of landing a strike on him.

Wrye Wings… Of course, that’s where the island’s name comes from, after all.

Luke pulled his sword out of its sheath and swung it through the air blindly. It wasn’t his first encounter with the ghoulish flying creatures, each one a winged mouth of razor sharp teeth and strange, humanoid legs. 

He managed to land a swing at one of them and heard it cry out. Silverstrike was pulling himself to his feet, and moved into position behind Luke, each of them covering the other’s back. Luke looked up into the night sky and saw a moving black cloud blocking out the stars.

“Get ready!” he shouted. “There must be hundreds of them!”

As the two of them gripped their weapons and prepared for the ensuing violence, another noise came from the edge of the forest. It was an ear splitting screech, enough to make Luke clamp his hands over his ears.

FALXION: The Falxion, or Scythe Demon, is a large apex predator from the caves and mountains of Yvvaros. It divides its time between lurking in the dark and setting up ambushes for unsuspecting prey. Nocturnal, these creatures are most deadly at night.

“This… doesn’t look good.” Luke could only make out the silhouette of the new threat making its way toward them, but it was enough to give him chills.

The Falxion was huge, at least four meters high even slumped forward as it was. Its legs were the shape of massive tree trunks, and every step it took shook the ground. Attached to each of its four front arms were large, hook like claws, which it opened and closed rhythmically as it approached them.

“Look out!” Silverstrike pushed Luke just in time to keep one of the Wrye Wings from taking off his head. Luke used the momentum to spring back up to a standing position before leaping into action.

MIRROR IMAGE 2

CONJURE SWORD 3

Two copies of Luke appeared, along with three magical replicas of his sword. Silverstrike was fending off Wrye Wings behind him, and he shot the blades toward the cloud of the creatures as they swarmed through the air.

The Falxion took another step in Luke’s direction, and he began to run toward it with reckless speed. Wrye Wings descended down on him as his flank opened up to them, but the Mirror Images each took a single hit for him before disappearing into nothingness.

PIERCE ATTACK 3

Luke shot forward at the Falxion head on, holding his sword in front of him as though conducting a symphony of death. He caught the creature by surprise, managing to bury the entire length of his blade into its torso before it could react.

What…?

The Falxion’s health meter dropped, but only by a small fraction. Luke tried to pull his sword out and retreat, but it was stuck in the monster’s flesh, as though he’d stabbed it into cement. Its hook claws were perfectly positioned to attack and trap him in a death grip, and that was exactly what the creature moved to do.

Damn it!

Luke pulled his conjured swords back to him, using each of the three to block one of the Falxion’s claws. The fourth claw, however, was unobstructed, and he felt the razor sharp, serrated edge of it digging into his back.

“Arrrghh!” Luke twisted, finally getting his blade free and managing to roll out of the way. Half of his health bar had been erased by the single attack. He slowly backed away from the Falxion, glancing over at Silverstrike in hope that his friend was faring better.

As a Rogue subclass, Silverstrike had enough natural speed to go up against most of the monsters in Yvvaros without being outpaced. Unfortunately, there were dozens of Wrye Wings, and even attacking more slowly than Silverstrike, they were still able to land frequent strikes. The image of him desperately swatting them away with his daggers reminded Luke of vultures descending on carrion.

PIERCE ATTACK 3

Luke took a risk, jumping into the air before activating his combat skill. He flew toward the swarm of Wrye Wings, managing to skewer one with his first strike and to cleave another in half with his second.

“I think we should consider retreating,” said Silverstrike. “This is more than we can handle.”

“Not yet!” yelled Luke. “Just stay focused!”

He spun in a circle, pulling one of his conjured swords into his free hand and positioning the other two directly in front of and behind him. The result was a whirlwind of death, several Wrye Wings took critical damage as they moved into range, unable to shift direction quickly enough in midflight.

The Falxion was only a few meters away from them, having closed the distance while the two were distracted. Luke ducked away from the Wrye Wings and charged forward at the lurching monster, his swords still whirling around him.

Several of his blades struck true, but just as before, the damage wasn’t significant. The Falxion snuck another hook claw past Luke’s defenses, tearing it across his chest. The blow wasn’t as bad as the previous one had been, but it was still enough to drop his health dangerously low.

We’re going to get ourselves killed!

“Kato!” Silverstrike was being overwhelmed by Wrye Wings, the creatures descending on him from every direction. Luke could see his health bar, and knew from a glance that it was nearing the same perilous point that his own was at.

“No!” Luke shot his conjured blades over toward the monsters attacking his friend. The action left him wide open, and the Falxion pulled its claw hooks back, readying itself to attack with all of them.

Something dropped down into the darkness behind the Falxion. The monster was still focused on Luke, and it moved forward to attack. Its two top arms suddenly stopped in place, and the monster moved back slightly, or rather, was pulled back.

“Fire! They’re weak against fire!” A voice called out from the darkness. “Attack it now!”

ELEMENTAL INFUSION: FIRE

Luke pulled all of his swords into his spell’s proximity, waiting until each of the blades was afire before starting forward. The Falxion’s upper arms were still restrained by something, but the two bottom ones shot out to counter attack. Luke used two of his swords to block them, and then jammed the other two flaming swords in his hands into the Falxion’s chest.

The monster’s health bar sank like a rock. It tipped backwards and fell to the ground, shaking the earth as its hulking body came to a rest.

“The Wrye Wings!” yelled the voice. “Quickly”

Luke nodded and charged. Silverstrike was crouched low, fighting off the flying monsters with only the tiniest sliver left in his health bar. Luke speared several through with his conjured swords, and the new arrival took down several more with strikes from strange, whip like weapons.

LEVEL 16 ATTAINED

MIRROR IMAGE 3 ATTAINED

The last few Wrye Wings took to the air, flying off into the darkness as quickly as they had arrived. Luke breathed a sigh of relief and helped Silverstrike to his feet. He quickly dropped his five newly acquired stat points into strength, speed, endurance, and luck, before turning back to his friend.

“Thanks,” said Silverstrike. Luke shook his head.

“Don’t thank me.” He turned toward the mysterious new arrival and waved a hand. “Thank you, stranger.”

“It’s no trouble.” The figure stepped a little closer, and in the dim light of the stars and moon, Luke could see who had come to their rescue.

It was a man, wearing one of the long duster coats that Luke had seen on some of the Rogue subclasses in Stark Town. He had medium length black hair, and coiled around both arms were long black whips.

“My name is Kaoru,” he said. “If I had to guess why you’re here on Wrye Island, it’s probably because of me.”

“Are you the one?” asked Luke. “The one who killed an Arbiter, and stole his armor?”

Kaoru laughed.

“When you put it that way it makes it sound like a much bigger deal than it really is.” He flicked a couple of strands of hair out of his face and smiled. “I’m doing what every citizen of Yvvaros should be doing. Taking a stand.”

He started walking back toward the burned out settlement, and Luke and Silverstrike followed.

“The town…” Luke increased his pace so that he was even with Kaoru’s long stride. “Did the monsters do this? Or…?”

Or did you do it?

Kaoru shook his head.

“The Arbiters have adopted a scorched earth policy when it comes to dissidents,” he said, stopping as the three approached what was left of the guild hall. “The Watchmen, the guild here on Wrye Island, was full of likeminded players. Most of them were here because of how remote it was. That’s the same reason why I came.”

“The Arbiters did this?” Luke raised an eyebrow. “This is complete destruction. I didn’t think they’d-”

“It’s more than just destruction,” said Kaoru. “Uh, what did you say your name was, again?”

“I’m Kato. This is my friend and guild mate, Silverstrike.”

“Kato.” Kaoru nodded. “Most of the members of The Watchmen had gone all in.”

They aren’t coming back. The people that were killed here are gone, permanently.

“That’s insane,” said Silverstrike. “How can… how can that be?”

“I asked myself the same question while I was watching it happen,” said Kaoru. “Quentin, the guild leader, made me swear that I’d stay hidden in the cliffs, and not reveal myself no matter what. I think he figured that the Arbiters would just search the guild hall and be done with it.”

“And you didn’t come out of hiding?” Luke didn’t mean for his words to sound like an accusation, but it was clear from Kaoru’s reaction that he took them as one.

“No,” he said. “I didn’t.”

Luke and Silverstrike didn’t say anything.

“I saw what they did to the players in the settlement,” he said. “To the people in the settlement, that lived here peacefully.”

Luke could only stare at Kaoru, open mouthed and in shock.

They slaughtered them…

“What you’re feeling right now, Kato, is the only logical response.” Kaoru held his body almost unnaturally still as he spoke, as though it was taking an immense effort to keep his emotion in check.

“I don’t know what I’m feeling right now,” said Luke.

“You do,” said Kaoru. “And you know what needs to be done. It just so happens that I have an idea about how to do it.”

CHAPTER 7

The trip back to Megwin’s Bay felt like it went by much more quickly than the trip out. Kaoru refused to give any further details about his plan, even after Luke and Silverstrike had committed themselves to sheltering him in Dunidan’s Rest.

Is this too much of a risk? If the Arbiters get wind of what we’re doing, our fate will be the same as the Wrye Island settlement.

The sun was slowly creeping up the eastern horizon when they arrived back in port. Luke felt fatigue beginning to wear at him, both in-game and in real life. He and the others had a small meal of dried beef and bread as the boat pulled into dock. His stamina was restored in Yvvaros, but there was nothing he could do about his physical body right then.

“I see you were successful.” Megwin was waiting for them outside of his guild hall, and smiled when he saw the three of them. “As the Hero of Kantor, I expected nothing less from you.”

Kaoru looked surprised, and Luke sensed him looking him over, searching, for something in Luke he might have missed.

I’m just like any other player, sorry to disappoint you.

“Did you know?” asked Silverstrike, anger seeping into his tone as he glared at Megwin. “Did you know about what was going to happen to the settlement?”

“Easy, Silverstrike,” said Luke.

“I had my suspicions, but I didn’t receive word of the attack until after the two of you had already left.” Megwin shrugged. “There is no safe haven in Yvvaros anymore. It doesn’t matter if you’re hiding a wanted man or not. Other towns have been destroyed by the Arbiters in the same way.”

“Come on, we don’t have time to waste here,” said Kaoru. “Megwin, we will have a lot to  discuss in the coming days. Keep your ears open.”

Megwin nodded, and Luke, Kaoru, and Silverstrike headed out of the settlement. They traveled at a brisk pace. Kaoru walked between them, his cloak covering his head.

“What happened to the armor, anyway?” asked Luke. “The rumors said that you had taken it for yourself after…”

After killing an Arbiter.

“The rumors say many things about you as well, Hero of Kantor.” Kaoru smiled. “In this particular case, the rumors are true. I was hiding it in the guild hall on Wrye Island. The Arbiters recovered it, I believe.”

“That’s a shame,” said Silverstrike. “Having a set of it around would be a great tool to use to inspire rebellion, or whatever it is we’re getting ourselves into.”

“If everything goes according to plan, we will not be lacking in tools of inspiration.”