“I hate zombies. You kill something and it should stay dead. It shouldn’t stand back up, filled with hunger for flesh and the stench of supernatural decay. Seriously, magical zombies reek. You can turn pain down in the game, why can’t you turn down smell? WTB clothespin blueprint for my nose.”

  NEMO Forum Complaint

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 16, 22:30

  The monster bodies around the city reanimated in a grotesque parody of the living. Tens of thousands of zombies rose and clawed their way forward to push against the walls of the city. The players on the walls poured arrows into the mass of corpses, sending a few back to their true death. The burst of necrotic energy attached itself to the surviving gates, weakening them and causing them to crumble under the weight of the undead press. The weight of thousands forced the defenders out of their hasty barricades and the mindless hordes began pouring into the streets of Miller’s Crossing.

  Living monsters followed the horde in. They attacked any knots of defenders they came across while the zombies swept towards the keep at the center of the city in a wave of dead flesh. Ovarrix immediately ordered people off the walls and into the streets to contest against the undead army. “Slow them down, direct them down alleys, keep them from the city center. Kill any living monsters supporting them first, the zombies appear to be mindless, just bent on destruction of the town hall.”

  Allestor led the way into the teeming mass of undead. His swords chewed through them as the rest of the party joined him. Dusty covered his flank while Hyperia and Torgon blazed through their abilities. The surviving Risk of Injury members broke through the initial wave of zombies and ran ahead to help organize defensive fortifications. Wooden barricades were erected across streets and fallback positions sprouted all over.

  Torgon set up behind the barricades and began filling lumbering zombies full of arrows while he scanned for more immediate threats. “Ovarrix, have the mana cannons set up around the central keep?”

  Ovarrix paused his shooting and replied, “They have. We’re trying to slowly collapse towards the keep as a last stand. There are way too many zombies and any time they catch someone in the open they tear them apart. More monster units have broken away from the forest to push inside the town as well.”

  Down the street, Torgon noticed goblins running around throwing torches at buildings. Fires began to spread, and smoke started to fill the streets. The reduced visibility hampered the efforts of the ranged fighters to deal with threats outside of knife fighting range. “We just lost Mark’s team. They were cut off and swarmed by zombies. They’ll be back in the fight in three hours.” Torgon passed the word to his group while they fought. He turned around and swore loudly as he noticed zombies spilling from an alleyway behind them.

  “Everybody, pull back, we’re about to get surrounded.” Torgon fired behind them as they pulled away from the barricade, thankful that they had slow zombies and not the Olympic sprinter zombies so popular in many movies. They moved through a residential area of town. Panicked residents had their doors and windows barricaded. Torgon reflected that it was a great move against the zombies, not so great against the arsonist monsters following them. “Let’s climb, see if we can start shooting at any glowing moving torches. The darkness is not our friend, and those zombies don’t seem bothered by the smoke.” They found a series of barrels and quickly climbed onto a tavern. They managed to make their way to the roof, coughing under the increased smoke.

  The team found a good vantage point and began using their bows and spells to counter the firebugs around the city. They were behind the zombies, unable to reach the town center, but it was holding. Torgon focused on any living monsters, only firing at the zombies when nothing else presented itself as a target. The battle raging inside the walls settled into a stalemate. The barricades held the zombies long enough for the defenders to reinforce them. Walls of zombie flesh stacked against the positions, held at bay by the defenses. Time passed quickly with constant light skirmishing. The living monsters sent saboteurs into the city and in turn they were sniped down by rooftop archers. No large units were pushing towards the keep.

  “Torg, we have a problem.” An alert from Mark flashed on Torgon’s interface.

  “What is it Mark, and this better be good.” Torgon fired his bow while waiting for his friend to fill him in.

  “There are orcs spawn camping the portals into town. We lost a third of our group when we took the portal from the guild base. We’re pinned down and it’s going to keep any reinforcements out of the fight,” Mark updated Torgon on the situation.

  Torgon shared Mark’s predicament with the group. Allestor said, “Does this mean no more comfy roof?”

  Hyperia rolled her eyes and Dusty laughed. “Let’s go Champ, we’ll save that group and make a push for the town center.”

  They scrambled down into the streets, avoiding the thickest clumps of zombies and raced towards the portals into town. Zombies kept streaming into the city in clumps as the bodies from farther outside the walls joined the fray. Allestor and Dusty were on point, engaging foes while the rest kept their bows out, picking off any monsters they could in the distance.

  Allestor motioned for the group to pause when they were almost in sight of the portal square. “There are at least fifty orcs over here. They aren’t looking in our direction, but they’re all armed with bows.”

  Ovarrix directed the party into position. Hyperia started the attack with her frost shards, and they were followed by rapid double shots and other ranged strikes. Mark pushed his force out into the orcs when they turned to deal with the danger to their rear. A short sharp engagement followed with all the orcs being slain for the loss of two Risk members.

  Ovarrix reformed the group into a flying wedge formation. Allestor and Dusty stayed at the point, and they started moving with purpose towards the city center. Their force had swelled to nearly 200 people by the time they ran into the packs of zombies. The melee fighters braced to hold the line and give the ranged fighters time to wreak havoc on their undead foes. The healers stayed close to the front, burning through mana to keep the warriors healed.

  Stolen story; please report.

  “Boss, we have more trouble,” Ovarrix moved to Torgon and spoke loud enough to be heard over the din of battle. “There are undead giants moving this way. Apparently, the bigger monsters take longer to animate, but they’re starting to come inside the city. If they reach the town hall, they’ll smash through the walls quickly. The mana cannons are keeping the hordes at bay for now, so there is some good news at least.”

  “How many giants are we talking about?” Torgon groaned.

  “Enough,” Ovarrix answered grimly.

  Torgon roared orders, “Disengage from the zombies. We’re switching to go stop a bunch of giant zombies. Yeah, the giants from the eastern gate. The priority will be immobilizing them. Go for leg damage, they’re zombies, they don’t regenerate at all. When you die, and I do mean when, craft anything with area of effect damage you can while you’re stuck at the guild base. Any questions?”

  Mark joked, “Yeah, how do I get out of this guild?”

  “Too late for that one mate,” Torgon laughed. “Any real questions?”

  “How long do we have to keep fighting and dying?” Curious Kate asked.

  “Until we can push all the monsters back outside the city. The siege should break then.” Torgon paused to take a deep breath then finished, “Let’s move out, kill fast, die hard.”

  The force reoriented and advanced towards the giants, moving at a loping run, outpacing any zombies trying to follow. They reached a broad avenue and stopped as they witnessed damn near a hundred giants trying to force their ungainly bodies down the thoroughfare. They quickly fanned out and used ranged weapons to strike the giants in front. They absorbed dozens of arrows each before any collapsing. They moved slowly, but being giants, their slow movement still ate up yards with every step.

  Soon the giants were among the forces, ponderously swinging their tree trunk clubs at the scurrying players. The first casualties came from players engaging in close range. They were caught by wide swings of clubs and plastered against walls. The giants kept pushing forward, and the two forces became mixed together. The fight was a swirling ball of chaos with blood from pulped players and coagulated goo from the giants covering the street and buildings.

  The brave players from Risk of Injury held their own for several minutes before disaster struck. A slain giant zombie fell on Dusty, trapping her legs. Her torso was crushed soon afterwards by another giant and she was sent to respawn. The front line began breaking down as the close-range fighters became separated from the healers in the confused melee.

  Allestor found himself trapped against a wall in front of three giants. He dodged, dipped, ducked, dived and dodged to the best of his ability, but eventually a club clipped him. The huge tree trunk spun him around and planted him against the wall where two more clubs finished him off. He was sent to respawn leaving behind the most gruesome graffiti on the stone wall.

  Hyperia and Torgon burned through their entire energy and mana pools in the fight. They inflicted far more damage on the giants than they thought possible, but the numbers were too great. Hyperia’s body was crushed underneath a club and Torgon was pinned by a falling giant, his back broken, before he too was finished off.

  Ovarrix found himself yanked into a narrow alley by Curious Kate. The two of them were among the handful of survivors of the battle with the dead giants. They ran furiously down angled alleys and paths until they were sure they couldn’t be pursued. Ovarrix said, “Let’s make for the observation tower. We can be the most useful there while we wait on the respawn timers for the rest of our teams.”

  The pair darted from street opening to street opening, dispatching lone enemies they encountered. They found the tower open and unoccupied. The duo ascended the steps and perched on top of the observation tower scanning their surroundings for enemy movement. Ovarrix focused on the city center and Kate kept watch on the surrounding areas. Ovarrix began feeding troop movements to the teams in charge of the mana cannons so they could reposition to deal with larger attacks.

  Sir Malik and his knights, despite their reduction in levels, were still overwhelmingly strong against simple monsters. The prodigious numbers of the foe held danger, but so long as the walls held, they could protect the keep. The players respawning and picking their way through the city to reinforce them after their deaths gave them a strong edge in a battle of attrition. They focused on the dozen incoming giants that remained after the heroic battle in the streets. Those huge zombies made excellent targets for every caster, archer, knight and random player that could huck rocks.

  Sir Malik had dispatched four of his men to hide in the city and emerge when they thought best. They were currently out guiding citizens of the town to the docks and helping them onto barges where they could sail to safety if needed. Keeping extra bodies off the field in case more undead animators showed seemed prudent beyond the basic humanity of defending the townsfolk. He cursed the formation that kept him from displaying his full power. He knew that if they weren’t limited, that he could sweep away these foes and drive them from the field.

  Torgon and the unlucky members of their giant fighting group took advantage of their respawn downtime to make more special ammunition and grenades. The freshly not dead not survivors entire supply had run dry in the fighting. They didn’t have time to make a lot, but they could give each person a few. Reducing their xp debt was a nice benefit of the crafting during the three hours they were forced to remain in the guild base. At his level, each death gave him an experience debt of nearly 1,500. Not much in the grand scheme of things but it slowed his progress.

  Torgon listened to relayed reports from the crafters who never went to the field of battle. “Ovarrix is coordinating the defense. It’s stable unless something changes. We need to go back as a group and start clearing the backlines. We have another hour of crafting until then.”

  The dawn of the new day was nearing inside the city. Flames still licked at buildings and smoke filled the air. The stench of the dead, the undead and the re-dead lingered everywhere. Ovarrix and Kate manned their lonely watch post, unable to fight themselves but providing critical battlefield intelligence to Sir Malik at the city keep.

  The lines of magic in the air began to pulse once more. The dome of magic tendrils solidified, losing its translucent quality to become more of an opaque shell of iridescent corruption around the city. He quickly messaged Torgon. “Torg, some new effect is occurring, we don’t know what it is but it’s concerning. How soon will you be here?”

  Torg looked over the two hundred members of Risk of Injury, eager to return to the battlefield. “We’re just about to go, we’ll be cautious.” He led the formation forward to the town portal at a trot. When he reached the archway, instead of carrying him to Miller’s Crossing, the magic inside fizzed and turned solid black, knocking him backwards onto the ground. “Uh, Ovarrix, I think we figured out what the new magic is. We can’t teleport to Miller’s Crossing. There won’t be any more respawns from the bases.”

  Ovarrix gazed down solemnly as a fresh column of orcs in orderly ranks with excellent gear entered the city and headed towards the keep. “Sir Malik, you have incoming elite orc forces. Respawns are down, what you have now is all you have for the time being. Good Luck.”