I swear to you I did not intend to upload this late.
Okay, Here's what happened. College. I had a Precalc exam yesterday, and Mondays are hell on earth. The time I would have normally spent uploading a new chapter was instead spent on trying to do everything I normally would do on Tuesday during the time I took the exam. I hated to do that, but it was necessary.
Anyways, I hope you guys enjoy the chapter. I'll see you all in two weeks!
The two Hackers on the first floor of the Keep stood staring at the door that used to open up to the courtyard outside. It still opened, but instead of opening to hard packed earth, it instead opened up to a small wooden balcony immediately followed by a hundred meters of open air. And then the hard packed earth.
The Hackers were bored out of their minds. When those four Coders had attacked last time, they had been on guard duty on the wall and had been shot by that masked guy before they knew what was going on. By the time they'd respawned and gotten their bearings, the Keep had fallen down and exploded, taking them out once more. When they'd heard earlier that day the Coders would probably be attacking again, the two had been exited to finally do some fighting. To their dismay, they'd been assigned not the wall like most of the Hackers, but the Keep instead. No one was going to get past the wall. They were going to miss out on the fight again.
It was to their surprise then when there was a knock on the door in front of them. Curious, one of them walked up and unlocked the door and cracked it open slightly. He was immediately knocked backwards by a powerful shove from a heavily armored man wielding two massive battleaxes. He skidded to a stop as his partner frantically leveled his spear and thrust it at the armored man. The man easily flicked it aside with one axe and used the other to slice through the shaft like it was made of butter. The man laughed at the Hacker's expression having lost his weapon so easily. "Haven't you ever played Fire Emblem?" he asked. "Ax beats spear numbnut."
By now the other Hacker had gotten to his feet and was pulling his mace from his belt to help his friend, when a dark clad redhead who had been lurking behind the door up until then burst into the melee and hacked downwards at the arm holding the mace, severing it in one blow. The Hacker looked up in surprise at his assailant before a look of dread filled his face. "Oh God, not you guys," he moaned.
"Yes us guys." Alex finished as he stabbed the Hacker in between the ribs. "Although if by us guys you mean me, Janus, Croe, and Miles, then I guess not us guys. Just this guy."
"They should be here soon," Axinator said as he unslung the satchel of explosives from his shoulder and grabbed the struggling Hacker by the front of his shirt, dragged him through the door, and tossed him off of the balcony. "Unless they were killed, which I highly doubt."
Alex nodded in consent. As he did so, he spotted a rolled up rope ladder lying in the corner. Grabbing it, he dragged it towards the door and to the balcony where he attached the ends to two iron loops build into the balcony. With the ladder secured, he gave it a push and it tumbled off towards the ground. As soon as he did so, an arrow burst through the wooden floor coming within mere inches of his head. Startled, he scrambled back. "Sniper!" he cried out.
Axinator immediately dropped to a crouch and carefully peered over the edge. When he looked back up, he was shaking with laughter. "A sniper to be certain," he said, "but not one we need to be worried about."
"Curious, Alex peeked over as well. The arrow itself was attached to a long rope falling down to the ground.
And on the rope, clambering up hand over hand, was Janus.
"Last I saw, Croe was okay," Janus assured them. "Although he may still look like a porcupine when you next see him."
Alex breathed a sigh of relief. When Croe didn't immediately follow Janus, he had feared the worst. But now at least his friend was still in the fight, albeit sitting the next few rounds out.
Janus peeked in through the doors and whistled. "New flooring. The old stuff must've been destroyed the last time we were here. Gotta say, it looks quite nice."
"Really Janus?" Alex asked. "We're in the middle of the most important battle in the history of Rune, and you're admiring the flooring the Hackers put in?"
"Hey man, if you don't stop and appreciate the scenery now and again, what's the point in turning your graphics up to the max? Besides, in a couple of minutes, it's going to be gone anyway, so you might as well enjoy it now."
"Janus," Axinator said, getting the back on track, "How close are the Hackers to getting then Core?"
Janus' head drooped for a moment as Garrett asked his brother. A moment later, he perked back up. "The firewalls my brother put up are holding, but my brother doesn't think they'll last much longer," Janus replied soberly. "We've got maybe, half an hour?"
Axinator cursed. "Then there's no time is there, eh. You two go on ahead. I'll make certain no one comes up that isn't supposed to."
"But we could use your help," Alex pleaded. "Janus is the good one here. I've been here just over two months!"
Axinator shook his head. "I'm slow GN. On those stairs I'll be holding you two back. Right now, you two need speed if you're going to set those charges.
"But,"
"Go, Godamnit!" Axinator yelled. "Right now you two are the only ones who can get the job done in time. If I go with you, you'll never get there in time. We won't have another chance at this!"
"GN, he's right," Janus said. "Thirty minutes is the maximum we've got. My brother actually estimates fifteen minutes or less."
Alex looked over the balcony forlornly one more time. Down below, battles ranging from single combatants to full on melees raged through the courtyard. Coders and players alike fighting desperately to protect the game the loved.
And all of them were counting on Alex's plan to work.
Alex shook his head, clearing the thoughts. "Right, let's go then. We've only got fifteen minutes, after all."
"Fourteen and twenty two seconds actually," Janus corrected.
Alex briefly turned to Axinator. "Stay safe," he ordered.
Axinator grunted. "Same to you," he replied.
Alex nodded and raced back into the Keep. As he passed the satchel of explosives that Axinator had dropped in the center of the room, he scooped it up and headed up the stairs, Janus in hot pursuit. They reached the first floor, which was thankfully empty. Alex reached into the satchel for an explosive, primed it, and tossed it in the middle of the room. He then took out a bag of gunpowder and opened the top up slightly, allowing for a small trickle of the explosive material to fall out of the bag and create an impromptu fuse.
The next floor was noticeably not empty. Three Hackers that had just respawned were waiting for them. The nearest one, a large troll, immediately swung at them with his club, scattering Alex and Janus. Janus rolled to a stop at the feet of an iron golem that immediately produced a ball and chain from his left arm, and began swinging it at Janus. Janus sidestepped the first swing and stabbed the golem with his knife, digging into the base of the neck and damaging the gears. The golem swung again, but Janus grabbed the arm and twisted it downwards, stabbing the elbow joint and severing the wires that controlled the arm. Janus then primed a grenade and shoved it in the Hacker's mouth. Hearing the telltale click of a primed grenade Alex, who at that moment was fighting both the troll and a fellow ninja, shouted "No explosives!" for fear that the grenade would set off the explosives in the bag and end the mission before it really began.
"Don't worry dude," Janus assured him as he shoved the golem into a nearby window, sending it falling to the ground. "I got it all under control."
Alex meanwhile did not exactly have everything under control. A hit from the troll had sent him crashing into the side of the keep, knocking his health dangerously into the red. It was only through the ninja getting in the troll's way that he escaped the second and certainly finishing blow. The ninja sliced down at Alex and he raised his saber to block it mid strike. The two struggled there for a moment, before the ninja disengaged and threw shuriken at him. Alex ducked and conjured a fireball, tossing it at the ninja. The ninja disappeared in a puff of smoke and reappeared in time to stab at Alex, who deflected the sword into a wall.
"You, are a disgrace to other shinobi," the ninja spat. "You who wears beanies and handkerchiefs, and wields a western sword."
"Coming from the guy who's fighting with magic teleportation from Anime, and black clothing from who knows where," Alex replied, punching the ninja in the face. "Besides, isn't a ninja who stays and fights a dead ninja?"
The ninja hissed in anger and pulled a kunai knife from the folds of his clothes and stabbed at Alex. It scraped Alex's side and a warning appeared on his screen that he'd been poisoned. Swearing, Alex conjured another fireball, and grabbed onto the hand holding the kunai, roasting the appendage. Alex head butted the ninja and the Hacker collapsed, stunned. Taking advantage of the moment, Alex began riffling through the ninja's inventory, searching for an antidote that would hopefully counteract the poison that had lowered his health below ten percent.
The troll, who at this point was staying back for fear of killing his partner, was moving up on the unsuspecting ginger and hefting his club to bash his skull in. Before he could, however, his character stumbled sideways as an arrow shaft appeared in his side. Confused, the troll turned in time to see Janus release another arrow straight into his forehead. The force behind the arrow sent it into the troll's skull all the way to the feathers. The troll's knees gave out, and it collapsed in a heap on the floor.
Alex, who had found both an antidote and a health potion on the ninja, looked up at the thud and saw the troll and snorted in amusement.
"What's so funny?" Janus asked.
"Dude, you've got a unitroll," Alex said, stifling laughter.
"A what?"
"You know, a unicorn coupled with a troll," Alex said.
Janus stared at his friend. "GN, sometimes I don't understand you in the slightest."
"Good. That means no one else does as well."
At that moment, the Ninja finally became unstunned. He leapt to his feet just in time to be simultaneously stabbed by Alex, and shot by Janus. He fell to the side and landed on the spawnstone that he had come from less than a minute before.
Noticing the stone for the first time, Alex walked up to it and slashed at it with his saber, cutting the central gem in two, rendering it useless. Janus then tossed an explosive onto the base, and trailed gunpowder from it to the line they had been making until the Hackers had shown up.
"Well, that went well," Alex commented.
"That was way too close," Janus said. "I don't know how we're going to do if there's any more up above. There's only two of us."
"What about all those times you've taken out twice as many Hackers?" Alex asked.
"Dude, I had surprise on my side," Janus replied, pulling out another bag of gunpowder to replace the one that had just run out. "And besides, I'm more worried about you."
"Me?" Alex asked confused.
"Yeah. Listen Alex, I'm not trying to put you down and all, you've improved way faster than anyone I've seen on the server in the two months we've had. But out of the four of us, you're the only one still at level twenty five. The rest of us are high level or maxed out at sixty. Even Croe is at level forty one. Being mid-level means you can take on some higher ranked players if you're lucky, but those guys were way out of your league. I hate to say this man, but the Hacker virus was the only thing that let you take on higher level players from the get go. And since Qilin's update took care of the virus for everyone, you've lost it."
"So what are you saying?" Alex asked, a little irked by his friend's comment, but at the same time understanding where he was coming from. "That I should hang back and let you do the fighting?"
"No, of course not dude!" Janus said hurriedly. "What I am saying though is that you should be a bit more careful today. Try to take Hackers out before they get to stabbing range."
"Which they shouldn't, with me here," a voice said from behind them. Alex and Janus whirled around to see Miles standing behind them, his character panting and out of breath. "I didn't screw anything up, did I?"
ns 15.158.61.20da2
