I turned to Emmett, as he sat down on his bed in our new room.
"You know what I miss?" I asked
"Fucking Tumblr, and my DS and shit man." I said
"Yeah, I know how you feel." He said back
The clock in our room struck midnight, and the door opened up. Seth stood in the doorway, with Kristina trying to look over his shoulder (she’s not the tallest girl after all.)
"Seth! Move over! I can’t see!" She said playfully
Seth stepped aside, and Kristina appeared behind him and walked in.
"Heeeeeeeeey guys." She said
"Hey Kristina." I said "Where were you two?"
Kristina turned to look at Seth and he shook his head from side to side suspiciously.
"Oh-we were uh, just exploring the town." Said Seth
"Exploring, with Seth, the man who never went outside in real life." I said sarcastically
"Well who else would have taken me?" She asked
After some awkward silence, Kristina beamed at the fact that she proved her point.
They sat on the beds with us and shot each other looks of release, and told us about the massive castle, Mjolnir, and how cool it looked at night. We then told them about the guild tournement, and how we wanted to enter it.
"Sounds like fun." Kristina said "Is there food involved?"
I paused for a second to think of and answer.
"Well it is a big festival, there’s bound to be food vendors everywhe-" I said
"IM SOLD!" Kristina interrupted
The three of us looked at Seth.
"Cool." I said "The tournemant is next week, so we have some time to goof around."
A week passed, and the Hornets were ready for the tournemant. We spent most of our time training and honing our skills. Like, for instance, I developed a new black smithing skill called “Merge”. It allows me to combine a larger weapon with a smaller weapon, allowing me to carry it easier, with less weight. During combat, the smaller weapon morphs into the larger one, and the stats combine.
I merged Home-wrecker and a steel war hammer together, making it even more deadly. Seth mastered some very high level spells, one of which allows him to create two magical whips of fire and ice, each one fifteen feet long from handle to tip.
Kristina of course, spent most of the time before the festival preparing for all the carnival food that was sure to be there. One night I looked at our tab at the restaurant, and it was all pies, cookies, and cakes.
An arena was erected in the middle of the town, right in front of the castle. The giant wooden structure housed a small battleground, littered with stone ruins and scorch marks. No doubt from previous rounds of today’s fighting.
Their was a section of the seats with a band playing songs from the actual world. No doubt that the npc’s aren’t connected straight to ITunes. I definately want to go hit up the band. It’s been a while since I’ve listened to real music.
The hornets and I sat down in the stands to watch the competition. I pulled out the brochure each team got to see the tournemant bracket. One of the teams seemed familiar.
"Shit guys, one of the teams on the list was the Hunters from the woods." I said with guilt
"Don’t feel bad man, they did try to kill us after all." Garrett said
"Yeah, except now it would have been legal to beat the living shit out of them!" Yelled Matt
"Still, I feel bad for killing some-"
"All of them." I corrected myself
"Ryan, Chandler killed Nick, and was about to have all of us killed. That asshole earned it." Emmett said
"Yeah, I guess your right." I said
We turned our attention back to the program to look at our first match. After looking over the brackets, we saw our first battle.
"The rainbow humanities…" Emmett and I said in union
"Jesus Christ not them!" I yelled
"They kept that stupid name, and made it a guild in game. Kill me now." Emmett said
The rainbow humanities are a group of people, ranging from Sophmores to Juniors, that all shared a lane in the pool during swim team season. It was sort if an in-joke, until they bought Randy.
Randy is a stuffed manatee, with rainbow ribbons tied to its tail. The humanities practically worshipped that thing, almost to the point where they would cry if it touched the ground.
The victory gong rang as one of the fighting teams finished pummeling the other. The way the tournement works is that the officials monitor a hidden stamina stat, that determines how long you have until you can’t recover from your wounds.
Our round was up next. While my team walked down to the arena, I walked over to the band.
"20 gold coins to listen to 4 songs of your choice." Said the Conducter
I pulled 20 coins out of my inventory and handed them to the man.
"What songs would you like sir?" He said
I thought for a second. Then told him my list of songs.
"One moment for us to process your request. It should start playing the first song during your next battle." The Conducter said
I walked away from the band and hopped the fence into the arena, joining the others behind some ruins.
"Aaaaand I’m back." I said
"Good. We need a plan." said Garrett
I walked around the ruins to get a look at the other team. Then I saw their levels, and the armor some of them were wearing.
"Yeah, were at a major disadvantage." Emmett said
"Maybe we could all focus on one of them, and whittle them down that way." Said Seth
"That may be able to work, but what do we do about the rest of them. Surely we can’t keep them off of us while we fight." I added
"We could cut them off using the ruins!" Emmett yelled out
"The ruins, why the fuck do they matter?" Replied Matt
While we were arguing, we hadn’t noticed the battle timer counting down to zero. There was a high pitched whining, and the ruins we were hiding behind exploded in front of us.
I pulled out home-wrecker and swung it behind me. The handle extended until it was down to my boots, and the wooden hammer expanded and morphed into massive cast iron hammer head.
The remains of what was our cover became massive chunks of concrete in the air, and they were falling fast. I jumped up and swung my hammer at one of the chunks, causing it to fly forward over the manatee’s heads.
The distraction allowed Emmett and Kristina some time to go in and attack.
"Seth! I have an idea!" I yelled back to him
I slammed my hammer into the ground, causing a chunk of it to shoot upward.
"Use some of your fire magic underneath the chunk. If this works, we may as well have a makeshift catapult." I said, all ready making more open holes.
Seth shot red hot flames underneath the broken earth, and the pressure caused them to fly forward through the battlfeild.
"Nice." He said, blasting another hole.
Garrett had found himself face to face with the leader of the Rainbow Humanities, Katy. A fellow swordsman and one of the highest leveled Sophmores in the game, he was suprised he was hanging in this fight. Garrett was an avid swordsman himself, ranked in the top 20 sophmore fighters, but this was insane.
He could feel his shield cracking after every strike.
"She’s gotta have some sort of skill, because this is just unbearable." He thought to himself.
He blocked another of her strikes, and looked up to see flaming boulders hurtling through the air. The flying debris caught Katy’s attention too, and he took his opportunity to swing at her.
He caught the back of her shield and cut the straps holding her arm to it. She quickly turned around as her shield dropped from her arm. Katy stabbed her sword right through Garrett’s shield, and it splintered apart.
"I guess we’re even now." She chuckled
They both swung their swords and continued their clash.
Matt darted behind another set of ruins and readied an arrow. He was facing Josh (remember him from chapter 2), the Humanities resident lightning Mage. Normally, fighting another Mage would have been Seth’s job. But, seeing as Seth was busy with the makeshift catapult, it rested on him to take him down.
"If you come out, I’ll make this quick!" Josh yelled to Matt
Matt paused for a second.
"Suck my dick asshole!" Matt yelled back as he sent an arrow at him.
Josh zapped the arrow out of the air.
Josh proceed to hammer the ruins Matt was behind with his lightning. The ruins wouldn’t last forever, and Matt had to think fast. He primed a smoke bomb arrow, and shot it at Josh.
Josh took the bait, and zapped the bomb, releasing a cloud of thick, black smoke. Matt jumped out if the ruins and equipped his steel knife. He darted through the smoke, slicing at Josh every time he passed by.
"Damn these guys have a lot of health." Matt thought
Matt went in for another strike, and josh ducked.
Josh focused on the sound of Matt’s voice and shot another arc of lightning at him. The lightning cut through the smoke like a knife with butter, causing the smoke to fizzle out and dissapear.
The bolt hit the ground in front of Matt, causing him to fly backwards. One more shot like that, and Matt would be teleported back to the stands, and out of the fight. Matt ducked out of the way of the second bolt, and watched as it went straight for Garrett.
As Garrett was fighting, the bolt of electricity went right into his sword. Garrett swung again, and out flew the bolt of electricity, this time with double the power.
The crowd in the stadium went wild with excitement.
…
Matt realized what was going after Garrett had threw back the lightning.
"Garrett!" Matt yelled "Switch!"
It took Garrett a second, but he ran towards Josh. Matt passed him and ran at Katy.
Josh shot a bolt at Garrett, and he absorbed it with his sword. Confused, he shot another bolt at him. Again, it was absorbed.
Garrett swung his sword, and with a crack of thunder, a wave of lightning shot out. The bolt slammed into Josh, and he was teleported back to the stands.
"Point, Hornets." Said the announcer NPC
"Ryan, I think we stop shooting the rocks now." Seth said
I pulled my hammer out of the ground, and equiped the frost bitten knife.
"Yeah. Now that one of their heaviest hitters is out of commision, we should have a bit of breathing room." I replied
Seth conjured up his fire and ice whips.
"Time to try out these bad boys." He said with a smirk
"Combatants Kristina and Annie are unable to fight. Points to the Humanities and the Hornets." Said the Announcer
The combat had moved to the center of the arena, with the remaining combatants duking it out. We jumped right into the fight, weapons ready.
Seth wrapped his whips around Dylan Whitmers fists, saving Emmett from a swift fire punch to the dick. The heat from Dylan’s attempted fire punch melted Seth’s ice whip, and he turned around and punched him in the face. With his other arm free, Dylan began to fight Seth.
I found myself face to face with Julia Wadding, who also wielded a hammer. This particular hammer was the “Hammer of Dawn”, which causes a blinding light every time it hits something.
I activated my beserker rage to make my strength stat at the same level as hers, then I re-equipped my hammer. We both swung at eachother, and are hammer met. A blinding ray of light shot out from between the two hammer heads, and I looked away. That brief moment I let my gaurd down earned me a fist to the face.
I swung my hammer, and caught her in the gut, sending her into the air. She used the weight of her hammer to make her flip forward. She hit the ground hammerhead first, and more blinding light appeared.
…
Emmett and Seth decided to take Dylan on together. Emmett used Seth’s little whip distraction to grab his spear from off the ground. Dylan ran at Emmett, his fists infused with scorching hot flames.
Seth shot two balls of water at Dylan’s feet, causing him to slip in the muddy ground. Seth then used some of his own fire magic, causing the ground to harden around Dylan’s arm. Emmett then went for the kill, charging forward towards Dylan.
The ground began to shake, as twin geysers of magma shot up, no doubt caused by Dylan. Emmett dove between the two geysers, right before the magma came down, melting the ground where he had just been.
He regained his footing, and reached Dylan. Emmett held his spear up in the air, and Seth shot a bolt of lightning down onto the spearhead, causing it to become super charged.
Emmett slammed the spear tip down into Dylan’s back, and he teleported away, a crater replacing him.
"Point Hornets!" Yelled the announcer.
Emmett and Seth went to high five, when Matt flew back into Seth. The two of them tumbled over eachother, hitting the ground with a hard thud. Matt and Seth teleported back to the stands.
"Two points, Humanities!" The announcer yelled again
Emmett turned to the direction where Matt had came from, and saw Katy and Garrett dueling.
…
I unequipped my hammer, and decided to fight Julia with my fists. Atleast that way, I wouldn’t risk being blinded every time I went for a swing.
She smacked a chunk of the ground into the air, and swatted it at me. Using my beserker skill, I punched the rock back at her. We continued with this, launching the rock back and forth at each other. With each successful hit, the rock got smaller. I went to punch it, and my fist went right through it, creating a boxing glove made of solid rock.
She ran at me, and I punched her hammer out of her hands. I shielded my eyes from the light, and kicked out her legs. As she fell, I punched her backwards, using the rock glove. She hit the ground, and teleported back.
"Point Hornets! There is one more Humanitie left on the battlefield!" Screamed the announcer
I ran over to Emmett and Garrett, and joined the three on one fight. The fight continued, and after 10 minutes, the berserker rage ran out. I dropped to one knee, and my teammates came to my side to help me up.
Big mistake. As they helped me up, Katy charged up her skill, Celestial Barrage.
"Oh shit!" We yelled in union as hundreds of small meteors slammed into the ground around us
One caught us, and we were teleported back to the stands.
"And the winner is, The Rainbow Humanities! What a fight!" Yelled the announcer
The crowds cheered and clapped.
The Humanities who had been eliminated came over to us.
"GG guys." Josh said, extending his arm for a friendly hand shake
"You too." I said as I shook his hand.
Katy teleported back, and her team hoisted her up onto their shoulders. After celebrations from both teams, the hornets and I decided to stay for the rest of the fights.
After six more hours of fighting, the Humanities ended up taking 3rd. The other guilds had analyzed out fight, and decided to take out Katy first each time, taking out the Humanities ace up their sleeves.
We ended up taking 9th out of 15 guilds, which isn’t that bad, all things considered.