Escape from Darom, page 27
“Funny that you should mention that,” I drolly said as I took a look around the impromptu morgue, looking around at the mess, “Helgath had the same idea but the rest of us were like fuck that. We figured it would be a lot more fun to piece the corpses together later on.” I flashed him a toothy smile. “You know, like an adult version of Operation and Monster Lab mixed together into a new boardgame but with real body parts.”
“God, I sometimes forget how much of a jerk you can be at times,” Domenic unhappily muttered as the Dwarves standing around us looked at me in horror.
“Well, what did you want me to say when you’re being an ass?” I unapologetically asked, waving at the dead, “That entire battle was a complete cluster fuck. You should be happy we found as much as we did-”
“You’re not getting it Jay,” Domenic exclaimed, cutting me off as if I wasn’t getting the problem, “There are not enough body parts to go around!”
“What do you want me to do about it, Dom?” I demanded back in the same tone. “We did the best we could in the time that we had. Be happy we managed to get everything that we did.” As he opened his mouth to complain, I cut him off. “There were literally piles of bodies on top of piles of bodies and we had what, a half-hour to find everyone while a battle raged on around us? I still have blood and viscera under my armor from digging through the bodies.” Taking a step back, I let out a ragged breath, trying to rein in my temper.
“You can thank Angie, Lyeneru, and the rest of the Druids for making sure there were enough heads to go around,” I said not giving an inch, “because that’s the one thing we were counting. I can tell you without a shadow of a doubt that, without their heightened sense of smell, the rest of us would’ve never found the missing body parts in the time that we had.”
“Ah … um …” Domenic stuttered as it started to dawn on him that he was being an ass.
“Look, I know all of this sucks,” I said, letting out an explosive breath as I stared out over the thousand or so bodies surrounding us, “Just know that we’ll be doing the best we can to raise everyone,” I flashed him a weak smile, “Besides, we’re old pros at this by now.”
“By now?” Domenic asked, cocking an eyebrow at Helgath and me questioningly.
“Yeah, this isn’t all that bad in comparison,” I said as Helgath nodded her head in agreement.
Glancing over at his hard face, I could tell he didn’t believe a word I was saying, Whatever, I didn’t have the heart to argue with him about it as I thought back to the piles of corpses that we’d found in Darom and Telrain. While those cities were nightmares in their own right, they had nothing on the freakshow that Auris Shaeras had turned into. Even now, my skin crawled at the memory of the victims filled with Meer-Lizard eggs that would hatch and eat through their host.
“That might be the case,” Domenic said in a low but urgent voice, “but what the hell am I going to tell them about their missing arms and legs?”
“That we did the best we could,” I simply said as Helgath nodded her head in agreement beside me, “That we’ll do our best to craft a replacement limb. That we’ll work to find a healer that can regrow their missing limbs if possible.” I dropped my arm and shrugged. “What more can we do?”
“It just sucks, Jay,” Domenic grunted, turning pale at the thought of so many of his people being left crippled.
“This ain’t no ice-cream social, Dom,” I said, pitching my voice to sound like the old crotchety Sergeant from Red vs Blue.
“That’s not even funny, man,” Domenic said, smiling in spite of his words.
“It was a little bit,” I disagreed. As he rolled his eyes, I continued in a more serious tone, “Come on, let’s see how bad it is.” I jerked my chin at the Dwarves standing around us. “We’ll need maybe fifty or so people to help hold the bodies together while we cast the group resurrects.” Seeing the confused look that flashed across his face, I clapped Domenic on the back reassuringly, “You’ll understand once you see the process.”
“You, you, you, and you,” Helgath abruptly spoke up, pointing to the Dwarves standing around us, “hold those bodies’ heads and arms in place.”
“Milord Burnslinger?” the Dwarf asked, glancing questionably at the Half-Orc.
“Do you want our people resurrected or not?” Domenic growled.
“Of-of course, milord,” the Dwarf nervously stuttered.
“Then, do as she asked,” Domenic said, waving for his people to get moving.
“The same for those bodies over there,” Helgath continued without hesitation, pointing to another set of Dwarves who scrambled to follow her orders. As the Dwarves kneeled next to the bodies to hold the severed parts in place, the Half Orc sidled up next to me. ‘Ready,’ she reported, wrapping a clawed hand around my bicep.
‘Let’s do this,’ I sent as Gutirrg silently padded up behind Domenic to watch. Ignoring the Gnoll, I started the all too familiar minute long cast.
As the spell began to take shape, I once again felt Helgath reaching through our soul link to mix her mana with mine as she helped me to form the spell. We’d chosen to go with the regular Resurrection spell instead of the newer Enhanced Resurrection spell that I’d picked up in Telrain. While it took longer to cast, the thousand mana cost that it came with was a lot easier to handle then the three-thousand mana requirement that the upgraded version came with. It also gave us the extra reserves necessary to cast the heals that would be needed once the ten Dwarves came back to life.
The painfilled gasp that came from the ten Dwarves as they returned to the world of the living caused everyone to jump in surprise, especially the blood that began spurting out everywhere. “Keep holding the body parts in place!” Helgath commanded, ignoring the concerned shouts coming from the Dwarves as we focused on casting heals. I began hitting the Dwarves with Regeneration as the Half-Orc cast a quick group heal. It took about thirty or so seconds for everyone to stabilize and another minute for their health to get into the yellow of minor damage.
“Get some food and water into them,” I said to the Dwarves helping us, before collapsing to the ground where I stood. As Neysa came up behind me, I leaned back against her furry chest as Helgath dropped into my lap, “That’ll get them to full health.”
“You’re not already stopping, are you?” Domenic demanded, looking down at us in confusion as the Dwarves began helping the injured up.
“We are until our mana regenerates,” I replied back, handing Helgath my waterskin. As he opened his mouth to argue, I spoke first, “Just give us a minute or two and we’ll do the next batch of ten. Every group cast nearly completely drains our mana,” I nodded towards the corpses, “we’ll probably need the same number of helpers too for the next batch.”
“This is going to take all night!” Domenic grunted. From the unhappy look on his face, I could tell that he wanted to say more but was trying not be an impatient asshole.
“It’s not as bad as all of that,” I reassured him as I started pulling out a few strips of smoked cuttle meat, “The Wardens of the Uten Syn guild just got some new “Group Resurrect” that they can cast. As soon as they log back in, they’ll be giving us a hand.”
‘Food!’ Neysa’s mental shriek of excitement reverberated through my skull as Domenic looked at me in surprise.
“I thought everyone was just logging out,” Domenic said not understanding what was going down, “and screwing me over in the process.”
“Not at all,” I patiently said, handing a strip of jerky to the Half-Orc in my lap, “which you would’ve known if you hadn’t blown off our strategy session.”
“Really, is that what you think?” Domenic accusingly demanded.
“Of course, it is,” I shot right back, “How many times did I tell you we’d resurrect everyone as soon as we could take a break?” I pointedly looked around at everyone resting, eating, and logging out. “That plan has never changed. Now, everyone’s just taking a quick bio break before we deal with the situation in Darom.”
“Great, I’m stuck here with a damn forty-eight-hour lockout hanging over my head while everyone else can logout and chill …” Domenic irritably began to complain as I held the piece of jerky between my teeth and focused on pulling out a wrapped cloth package from my bag. As I unwrapped the meaty bone, my words suddenly caught up to Domenic, “Wait, what did you just say? What situation in Darom?”
‘Give me … give me … give me-’ Neysa’s excited thoughts singsonged in my head.
“Hu-d u-k,” I grunted to Domenic trying to talk around the jerky in my clenched teeth as I mentally sent to Neysa, ‘Here you go.’
‘Yay,’ the Silver Dire Wolf mentally cheered as she snatched the bone from my hand and turned around sideways. With a lot of jostling, she managed to plop down behind my back. As Neysa began happily chomping away at the bone, I leaned back against her flank and took a bite of jerky as Helgath settled more comfortably against my chest.
‘That hit’s the spot,’ Helgath said, closing her eyes with a sigh.
“What situation in Darom?” Domenic repeated in barely concealed annoyance as I glanced back up at him.
“Julie decided to attack the city when she came back from her lockout after Telrain while I was helping you evac,” I said with an indifferent shrug as I finished off my piece of jerky.
“That fucking bitch!” Domenic exclaimed as he began pacing back and forth.
‘Huh, that really does hit the spot,’ I sent to Helgath as Domenic began to rage.
Instead of cutting him off, I let him get it out of his system. My focus was on carrying out the plan. Well, that and getting everyone resurrected so we could use the undead that had been carrying everyone around for their intended use. As I finished off the jerky and washed it down with a swig of water, I checked to make sure both of our mana pools were topped out, before nudging Helgath. Climbing to our feet, we got to work on raising the next batch of Dwarves.
It went much the same as the first group resurrect had. This time, the Dwarves helped to hold the bodies of their people together without being asked. Also, there wasn’t such an uproar when we completed the first cast and blood started spurting out everywhere. Like before, it stopped as soon as we started the second round of heals. Not that any of this was a surprise to either of us. By now, we’d pretty much had the process down pat. As we plopped back down on the ground again to recover our mana, Domenic squatted down beside me.
“So, what’s this great plan of yours for dealing with Julie?” he said, finally getting a handle on his temper.
I quickly laid out the basic plan for him that I’d told everyone else. Focusing on just rushing through the Chaos Storm Alliance’s lines while they’re stuck dealing with the undead. The idea was to give us enough time to get everyone loaded up onto the ships in the harbor before the PKers could get organized.
“Just a sec,” I said, nodding to Helgath. Standing up, we quickly resurrected another group of Dwarves. As we sat back down with Neysa to recover, Domenic flashed me a toothy grin.
“If the plan is to keep those assholes off balanced,” he excitedly said, “I have just the trick.”
Quickly, Domenic laid out his idea as Helgath and I listened intently. I couldn’t help the bark of laughter that came from my lips. It was perfect, I thought, realizing that none of these assholes had dealt with Domenic’s bag of tricks yet.
As we were figuring out the specifics, Helgath surprised us both as she interrupted our conversation with a plan of her own. I almost kicked myself as she spelled it out for us. It was perfect with the levels that the Dread Pack and the rest of the Chaos Storm Alliance had lost. Talk about being blind to the obvious. I planned on talking to Krishna as soon as he logged back in. Seeing that our mana pools had filled up, we paused the discussion and resurrected another group of Dwarves.
That was more or less how the discussion went, as we planned out both guild’s roles for the attack, it almost felt like old times. Instead of Domenic being stressed out and bitching about every little thing, we were laying down some solid plans for dealing with the enemy. Not that I blamed him for being so stressed out about the whole situation. I would’ve been fit to be tied too if I’d been in a similar situation.
‘Not likely,’ Helgath’s derisive snort echoed through my mind, ‘and that’s from your own memories of the skill-level difference between the two of you.’
‘Okay, maybe not the same,’ I agreed, sending her the mental picture of rolling my eyes as she let out a snort of laughter, ‘but I’d be stressed as hell and ready to rip people’s virtual throats out after going through the shit that he’s been through.’
“What was that about?” Domenic asked, narrowing his eyes suspiciously at the Half-Orc.
‘It’s not like you had it easy either,’ Helgath said in a severe tone, probably knowing better than anyone else what I’d gone through to get to where I was.
“Nothing, Dom,” I said a little too quickly as I nudged Helgath to stand up, “we just need to start on the next set of resurrections.”
“Rrriiight,” he said not believing a word I said as I stood up behind her. It didn’t help that Helgath was covering her dark-green lips with a clawed hand as she tried to choke back her laughter.
Fortunately, Domenic dropped the subject as we focused on resurrecting the next group of Dwarves which was probably for the best. He was always sensitive about being picked on about his lack of general strategic sense from the past, but then again, most of my old LAN party friends were that way to a point. As soon as we sat back down to recover, the conversation continued as the three of us came up with a handful of good ideas to possibly buy our people a little more time to load up onto the ships in the harbor. Even so, I had no doubts that it was going to be a rough ride at the end.
Domenic’s main worry was that we wouldn’t be able to get everything coordinated in time but I assured him that it wouldn’t be an issue. The distance would only be getting shorter with each trip. That, and Tengsly was already on his way back to Darom to inform Captain Lightouch and Sub-Captain Windcoat of the Wind Dancer with the basic outline of my plan. There were also additional messages for Sub-Leader Butcher’s command and the Brat Pack due to how the Giant Flying Squirrel’s messaging worked. Basically, multiple messages were fine but one single long message was a problem.
A frown came to my lips at the thought of the Brat Pack loose in Darom. Seriously, those kids needed to get on a ship and out of that active battle zone now. I was going to be beyond pissed if Alanah got herself killed doing the exact opposite of what I told her to do if Darom came under attack. I let out a heavy sigh. Worrying about it wasn’t going to help any. Right now, I needed to focus on getting everyone resurrected as quickly as possible.
This time, when we paused to resurrect another batch, two of the Dwarves were brought back missing an arm. It was heart wrenching in many ways as I saw them being led away by our village helpers. It wasn’t that either Dwarf raged at the injustice of it all or were pissed at either Helgath or I. It was actually the exact opposite. They thanked us profusely for resurrecting them and took the missing limbs as an expected outcome of a hard life. I found myself promising to get them healed or into a prosthetic limb like I wanted for Alanah. We were just sitting down to rest up, when a shout from behind caught me by surprise.
“Hey Star,” Yun called out as he walked up, “We just logged back in. I figured you could use a hand with the resurrections.”
“Always,” I cheerfully said, immensely glad for any help. Seeing Tinyr walking behind him, I gave the Rogue a two-fingered wave, “Did you pick up healing when I wasn’t looking?”
“Not at all,” Tinyr said with a laugh, “I’m just here for moral support.”
“That, and the girls are still freshening up,” Yun explained, elbowing his teammate.
“Yeah, Unalia says she needs another half hour,” Tinyr added with a shrug.
“Works,” I said, nodding at the remaining Dwarves, “We need all the help we can get holding the severed body parts in place during the resurrect.”
“Gah,” Tinyr said with a shiver, “that’s just wrong.”
“It is what it is,” I said with a shrug as Yun nodded in agreement.
“As Star always likes to say,” Yun said as he gave a big ole smile, “don’t be a pussy.”
“Whatever,” Tinyr said, rolling his eyes, “So, are we doing this or not?”
“Go ahead,” I said, nodding to the remaining Dwarves, “we’ll be with you in a moment.”
Instead of using Resurrection, Yun chose to raise the Dwarf with his newer Enhanced Resurrection spell. The cast was finished thirty seconds later. Though, by the time he’d followed up with enough extra heals to stabilize the Dwarf, he was swaying on his feet after nearly draining his mana pool dry.
“Damn, this is going to take forever,” Yun gasped, plopping down beside us as Domenic gave him an incredulous look.
“That’s it?” Domenic asked, looking back and forth between Yun and Tinyr.
“What do you mean, that’s it?” Yun asked, glancing at me in confusion.
“You just raised one Dwarf,” Domenic exclaimed as if that said it all.
“Of course, I raised just one corpse,” Yun said in exasperation, “not all of us have a genius soulmate to help us tweak the spell like Star.”
“Next time, go ahead and use your lower-level Resurrection spell,” I said, giving Domenic a “chill out” look, “You should be able to get three Dwarves up before bottoming out your mana pool.”
“Ugh, this is going to take forever,” Yun grumbled as Helgath and I rose to our feet.
“Naw, we got this,” I assured him as we walked over to the same group that he’d started working on, “it’ll start going really quick once the Wardens join us with their group Resurrect.” I nodded to the Dwarves waiting around to give us a hand. “With all of the missing body parts, your single heals are safer to use until you get the hang of resurrecting these damaged bodies.”
