Alex, Miles, and Croe raced down the hill, but whoever was controlling Janus had a massive lead. They could only watch in horror as their perfectly laid plan was ripped apart. As Janus neared the group of hackers, he threw a grenade and pulled out his knife. The grenade landed in the midst of the group and they stared at it with a mixture of confusion and horror. Then it went off and took out three of them, while scattering the rest. As they struggled to get back up, Janus attacked.
He kicked the legs back out from under a mage and met the back of his neck with his knife as he fell. As an archer fired an arrow, he threw the knife and landed it in the archer’s chest. A paladin tried to slice him with his sword, but Janus performed a block and slapped it aside. The power and momentum of the sword kept it going right into another hacker’s head. Janus pulled the paladin’s own knife out of his sheath, and slit his throat. He then leapt over his victims to land next to a clockwork knight who had finally managed to get up. He stabbed in between the rotating pieces of his neck and twisted, grinding the gears inside and opening up a hole the size of a baseball. He primed his other grenade and jammed it in. The Knight tried to remove it, but the damage to the gears was too great and he was unable to move his hands fast enough. The grenade exploded finishing him off.
By then the rest had caught up to him. Their characters were out of breath, but Janus was barely even sweating.
“Well, that was fun.” Janus said in the same odd voice.
“What, the hell, was that all about?” Miles panted.
Janus seemed to frown under his mask. “Um, it was me taking out those guys in a totally awesome fashion. Weren’t you paying attention?”
“We had a plan.” Miles growled. “A plan that involved stealth. And that was the most un-stealthy thing I have seen in a long time.”
“Oh.” Janus said. “Was I supposed to kill them quietly?”
“We were supposed to not kill them at all!” Alex hissed. “We were going to avoid them entirely! Even if we had to fight, we would’ve done it quietly. Instead, you ran in there and started chucking explosives!”
“Technically, I only threw one explosive. I stuffed the other one down the knight’s throat.” Janus corrected.
“What interests me,” Croe interjected, “is who exactly are you? What happened to Janus?”
“Dude, can’t you see?” Janus spread his arms wide. “I am Janus. Or more importantly, the other half of Janus.”
Suddenly his head drooped again. Within a second, it returned to normal.
“Sorry about my brother there.” Janus spoke in his normal voice. “I hope he didn’t,” he stopped in midsentence when he got his bearings and realized he was standing in the middle of a miniature warzone.
“Wow um, what exactly happened here?” He asked in utter confusion.
“I happened brother!” Came a faint singsong voice from the background of wherever Janus was.
“Garrett!” Janus yelled.
“Mic is still on Janus.” Miles said. “You just told us your brother’s name.”
Sam slapped himself in the face and Janus repeated the action, his gloved hand making a thud noise against the mask.
“So what the heck just happened?” Croe asked.
Janus sighed. “Well, my brother and I, we don’t have a strong enough internet connection to play together. Even if we did, we only have one set of equipment. Since Rune’s gear is hardwired to a character until the character is deleted, we just use the same character.
It made sense. Excluding the entry fee, Rune itself was a free to play game. It raked in money by making the equipment that most players used locked to one account. As soon as the account and the gear were linked, they remained that way until the account was terminated for whatever reason. You could get knockoff brands that didn’t have this feature, but they tended to be hit and miss with the motion control.
“That’s why we named our character Janus.” Janus said. “He’s the Roman god of two faces.”
“That’s great Janus, but we don’t have time for a history lesson.” Miles interrupted. “You probably didn’t notice, but your brother’s little fight made a lot of noise. Unless they’re having a rave party in their hot tub or something, they probably heard us and are coming this way right now. If we want the plan to work, we need to go right now.”
“Right! Plan! Uh, what was it again?”
Miles muttered something and started running towards the castle, Croe in hot pursuit. Alex stayed back long enough to rattle off “Armory, explosives, big boom, tower goes bye-bye.”
Janus tilted his head to the side. “Come again?”
“I’ll explain along the way!” Alex called back.
@0@0@
Two guards patrolled the wall, watching the valley for any movement. One of the guards paused for a moment, certain he had heard fighting, but couldn’t see anything. Dismissing it, he shrugged. What did it matter anyway? No one had breached the wall since the Coder’s last great offensive, well over a year ago.
Continuing his patrol, he ended up at one of the corners at the same time as the other guard.
“See anything?”
“Nope. Quiet as always.”
This was followed by several minutes of silence, punctuated by creaks and groans as they both adjusted in their seats. This was the second night in a row they had pulled the short straws and ended up on patrol; and it was beginning to take its toll. Finally the first one spoke up.
“Hey dude.”
“Yeah, what’s up?”
“You ever wonder why-”
“Dude, I swear to God,” the second guard said, getting angry, “If you ask me one more time why we’re here on top of a wall staring out into a boxed in valley, I am going to literally rip your character’s head off!”
“Hey! I wasn’t actually going to ask that.”
“Oh,” the guard said sheepishly, his anger cooling. “What were you going to ask then?”
“I was just wondering why this game is touted as a medieval MMORPG, yet we’ve got people walking around in Jeans and sweatshirts. I even saw a couple modern hand-grenades in the armory when I had to do inventory last Monday.”
“Wow, you get all the shitty jobs don’t you?”
“Yeah, I never get to go on hunts. It sucks. All they ever ask me to do is guard the wall, or do inventory. The jobs no one higher up wants to do.”
“I hear yah man. If it hadn’t been for the powerups and cash, I would’ve quit years ago. Told them to go hire a freaking NPC to do their job and be cannon fodder.”
“Anyways, do you know why that is? You’d think the developers would consider the confusion when they made the game.”
“Well, it bugged me for a while as well, but I finally figured it out. The reason the developers did that was because-”
Whatever he was going to say never got finished. An arrow flew out of the darkness and embedded itself in his throat. His character gave an awkward squawk, then fell over the side. His partner barely got a chance to realize what happened before a scarecrow came hurtling through the air and hit him with a flying tackle. Being a scarecrow made out of straw and spells, it didn’t weigh much. All the same, it did knock the guard back a few paces. As he stumbled backwards, the guard tried to shout the alarm, but his character wouldn’t obey him. He looked down to realize that the scarecrow had embedded a short scythe in his chest. His health rapidly dropped to zero, and his character died. He never did get his question answered.
@0@0@
Having dispatched the guard, Croe looked both ways down the wall before throwing a line down for the others. He secured it and waved for the others. They came up slowly, trying to avoid further noise. Finally, they all stood on the wall, their characters panting.
“Nice toss Miles.” Alex complimented.
“It wasn't that hard,” Miles replied. “He's a lightweight compared to Saru.”
“He, has a name, you know.” Croe said with a hint of irritation.”
“Sorry what was it again?” Miles said teasingly. “Strawboy? He-who-fears-the-flame?”
“It's Croe.” Croe replied. “As in Scarecrow.”
“Whatever Strawhead.”
“Really Miles? Cut it out dude.” Janus said.
“I was trying to make a joke.” Miles replied. “Tryin' to ease the tensions through humor.”
“No offense, but your jokes are about as good as your agility.” Croe said.
“Hey, at least I don't go flying whenever someone hits me with anything more than a flick. This body ain't going nowhere.” To emphasize his point, Miles hit his fist against his chest.
“Shut up! Both of you shut up! This is supposed to be a stealth operation!” Alex said in as loud of a whisper as he dared.
Croe and Miles stopped they stared at each other for a good long second.
“This conversation isn't over.” Miles said.
“Agreed.” Croe replied.
“Now that you've settled your differences,” Alex began.
Suddenly a bright light hit them. They turned, shielding their eyes to see several mages on top of the towers casting an illumination spell down at them. Hackers raced up the steps to the wall on both sides, surrounding them. Archers joined the mages on the towers and nocked arrows, pointing them directly at them. In effect, they were caught in a trap.
“This, escalated far more quickly than I expected.” Alex said.
“Oh, believe me. It's only begun to escalate,” said a voice in the crowd. The crowd parted to let two players through. As they waltzed up to the four, Miles let out a growl.
“After all, we've got a bit of payback to deliver.” Bearzerker said.
@0@0@
Hey Guys!
I just want to take this time to ask a quick question. What do you like most about HOR, and if anything, what do you think I could improve upon. I ask this as a writer because I constantly strive to become a better writer and storyteller. So if you have an answer, please drop me a PM or a review. I would greatly appreciate it, and it would help me make HOR even better.846Please respect copyright.ＰＥＮＡＮＡAy9BBwv9Pv
-Wrenchinator
ns 15.158.61.16da2
