RD: Chapter Fourteen - Reunion Massacre

Dolli knew exactly what that stone was, but she wasn’t afraid. She’d known Keegan would return with reinforcements—she’d counted on it.

Keegan threw the stone to the ground. It exploded in a blinding flash that made Dolli cover her face. When she opened her eyes, a blue-white portal shimmered below Keegan. A hooded woman in robes of azure silk and a tall glowing staff stepped through; Gamergrl12. Then a tall brute with a massive hammer emerged with a wide smile; Jelly-d.

He’d brought the whole murderous gang for a reunion massacre.

More bodies emerged from the portal: a black-leather clad rogue, an archer, a man in opal robes with a wand, on and on until twenty heroes formed a line below the hovering Keegan.

“But wait, that’s not all!” Keegan declared.

The azure hero smiled and raised her staff to the sky. Blue-white light shot out from her Spark conduit and ripped a hole in the clouds. Another portal ten times the first appeared over the outskirts of town. A flying machine unlike anything Dolli had ever seen rippled through into her realm It was bulbous on top with propellers on each side, and a thick, metal undercarriage.

Keegan flapped his wings and came closer, but not so close it was time to Fold Reality. He stopped ten feet from Dolli. “I’ve decided if I can’t have my quest reward, there’s no reason for you to exist. Last chance Dollitrice Grandmeir. Give us what we’re owed.”

Nerves bit at Dolli’s inside. Her spell was pulled like a taut rubber band, and the strain was making her arms ache. She had to complete the fold soon. “Like I said, I’d rather die than reward evil like you.”

Keegan frowned. “Do it.”

The mage cast her staff to the sky again and shot a burst of color over the city. The flying machine whined and accelerated forward across the mountain range. Sparkling spheres dropped from the bottom of the craft and rained down on the place where Dolli’s cottage once sat.

Fire erupted into the sky where the orbs fell, and the ground rumbled in anger. A notification blared in Dolli’s vision stating her land was under attack, but she ignored it.

“Time to die, witch.” Keegan lunged forward and his army charged.

Dolli released the second Fold Reality marker an inch from her face, and smiled. Keegan, Jelly-d, and two melee blundered through the invisible portal and Dolli heard painful screams in the streets behind her. Magic bolts and fiery blasts soared toward her, but all vanished right before impact.

Gamergrl pointed her staff in anger. “Hacks! Call a GM!”

The spell expired, closing the rift and trapping five of the twenty heroes in the first leg of the maze. Dolli used Burst of Speed and zipped back through the narrow slats of the front gate. Sizzling yellow magic blasted against the gates and an arrow pierced Dolli’s chest. She winced with pain but wiggled on, getting to the first street where the other maze would begin.

Dolli pressed a hand to her chest and looked down at the faded gold and pink around her midnight blue. Her health bar had dropped by 20% with that single arrow, but she could recover, slowly, if she got out of combat.

Metal clangs and whines came from the eastern gate as the heroes railed against the barrier. She knew it wouldn’t hold them—she was counting on that too—but it would slow them down enough for her to get to the next trap.

Monstrous snarls and the sounds of steel on steel rang from the alley over, where Dolli had teleported the first few heroes. She peered around the corner to get a look at the situation.

Keegan was nowhere to be seen. Two heroes lay dead in the pit of spikes, and on the ground next to Jelly-d lay five of Dolli’s monsters. The brutish hero swung his warhammer around in an arc and smashed a Belgrus in the gut, dropping her health to zero. That was it for Dolli’s monsters at this trap. Jelly-d wouldn’t be stuck there long, and Dolli had no idea where the rogue character had gone off to.

She hurried back around the corner and sprinted toward another alley. Shouts of “There,” and “Get her!” followed. Dolli knew she’d only get away with this trick once, so they had to make it good. She wriggled around another alley and into an open area that had been used as a market.

Another iron fence blocked the path on the other side and Dolli slipped through. She saw the notification for Symbiosis appear in the upper right of her vision and she smirked, then turned and cast Gravity Sink.

Three melee heroes blundered right into the trap, each one slowing to a snail’s pace. The casters stayed in the back, out of the area of effect, but that wasn’t safe either. Rufus charged in with a group of Stagarth, antlers first. They speared the healers and mages through the chest, then skidded to a halt, launching the screaming, flailing heroes into the center of the Gravity Sink.

But that hadn’t been all the heroes. Behind Rufus, Jelly-d and the rogue sliced and smashed their way through. Stagarth’s with snapped legs and lacerated guts limped from the alley, trying to get away.

“Healers on the Stags! Creeping Moss tanks! Bronzite, shields up! Starfire the pit!” Dolli called out commands, but they went unnoticed in the volume of the chaos. They were being overrun, but this was still just a fraction of Dolli’s forces. They’d have to fall back to the next trap point.

Dolli had enough Spark and knew she needed to help her troops, so she began the channel for Solstorm. Golden light inked out from her chest and burst into the next closest dungeonfolk. Their health bar shot up and their wounds mended themselves in an instant. Then, the gold burst from that monster into the next, and the next, until it reached a hero. It was only at 40% potency at this point, but the resulting explosion of gold fire took a decent 5% health away from a dagger-wielding hero.

“To me, champions!” Keegan’s voice boomed over the noise and the heroes pulled back.

Half of Dolli’s dungeonfolk lay wailing in the bloodied street, grasping at their severed limbs and screaming for it all to end. She opened her Overlord menu and quickly pulled all the gravely injured back into the Lifewell once the Heroes were out of combat range. They burst in a shower of green and floated up toward the sky, then zipped over to Dolli’s cottage at the center of town.

But Keegan and his heroes were leaving… why?

A shadow blotting out the mid-day sun answered for her. Dolli looked up to see the flying machine, orbs poised to drop, sailing toward her cottage. Dolli checked the cooldown on Fold Reality; still another five minutes. That thing would be right over her home in half that, and then every citizen of Little Crossroad would be doomed.

Dolli rushed toward her cottage, desperate to do something, anything to prevent those explosive orbs from reaching the ground. She cast a Spark Lance, but the dirigible was out of range. The magic arced, then returned to the earth.

She opened her menu and sent a frantic message: Any Crawfen, take to the skies and get that thing out of here!

Within seconds, six black-feathered bodies were racing toward the machine. Blasts of fire and melon-sized projectiles blasted from two cannons along the side of the ship. One Crawfen went down, and the others circled higher, attacking the balloon. Dolli watched in horror as their attacks did little to deter the ship.

“No, no, no,” Dolli wracked her brain for any solution, feeling hopelessness setting in.

A shrill scream pierced the air, and a second, much faster shadow passed overhead. Nubiri dove at the machine, pulling up at the last second and dragging her claws along the unarmored balloon. The material ripped and hissed as the hot air escaped into the clouds.

The machine listed to the right and warning sirens blared. Little green goblins leapt from the bow. They cast sparkles of blue light at their feet, slowing their decent as the dirigible moaned in complaint. When their little feet touched solid ground, Dolli got a barrage of notifications: all requests to join her dungeon.

Dolli smirked. The heroes’ own weapons turned against him.

But there was no time to gloat now. Dolli accepted all ten of the requests and panic returned as she watched the machine fall. The ship was nearly out of the way, but Dolli knew if there were more orbs onboard, it could be the end of the entire valley.

Nubiri swooped down and grabbed the metal frame of the machine. The wyvern called to the sky for strength with a burst of yellow light. Wind whooshed through the streets of the village, blowing Dolli along with it. The ship was still sinking, but Nubiri pumped her wings and strained against the inevitable.

The wind slowed, but Nubiri didn’t let go of the explosive craft. She pulled and dragged to the very last second when the dirigible crashed into the ground. A fireball engulfed the air above the craft, consuming Nubiri in a torrent of red and orange. The ground shook and a hot blast of air rippled through the streets, but the cottage was safe; Nubiri’s baby was safe.

Dolli opened a zone-wide message: You’ve fought bravely my friends! Now, it’s time to end this. Converge on X Marks the Spot. We’ll make the heroes pay for every inch of ground they think they can take.

It wasn’t the rallying speech she’d hoped for, no crowd of whipped up citizens to cheer and get their spirits high, but Dolli knew they’d fight hard all the same. They were fighting for their home. They were fighting for each other.