[SD:BOW] The Battlefield - Chapter 3

Gem crouched behind a rock wall as a fusillade of fire darts sprinkle against the unyielding stone, pulled up from the ground just moments before.

A wave rises up barely in front of the wall and sweeps outward in an attempt to clear away any hidden fire traps that might have been hidden within the barrage.

Gem looks to both sides as they wait. The wall extends for hundreds of feet, crossing a large portion of the battlefield. Though the wall isn’t without damage. Sections have clearly been blasted apart. Likely by the enemy’s commander because a regular combatant wouldn’t be able to even stuff the wall right after it was pulled up and still brimming with magic.

Gem jumps out from behind the wall and races across no-man’s-land. Spells, predominantly of water and air, begin to target them. They just laugh harder, colliding with the enemy’s front line like a blender. Gem had found that their claws worked wonders against other people.

Unlike animals, the straight design acted more like human weapons. Clean slices without any attempt to hook into their “prey”. Not that they couldn’t hook the claws with a little shapeshifting. It just wasn’t as useful in this sort of all-out war and insane bloodbath of a PvP mess.

A stone spike pierced through Gem’s side as they used a one-finger punch to get through an eye and into the brain. Then a spear pierces through the dead enemy in an attempt to get another hit on Gem. The enemies not caring if they hurt their teammates if it brings Gem down.

Almost as if that one incident was enough to make Gem a feared enemy. It wasn’t even their fault! They and their team had been intending to sneak around the battle lines to get to their quest. The front lines are not where Gem meant to be at all!

Yet of course, the religious idiots had to snag a few good scouts and so detect the four. Quite unfortunate. For them. Gem had always been a bit of a left hand at multicasting.

Not anything the group had really paid attention to. After all, so what if they could hold two wind blades instead of having to cast them sequentially? Well, that changed with the ambush.

As with the platform spell, Gem managed to hook into a modification. Except this time, it was for multicasting and two turned into four. So for a short blaze of glory, it was wind blades for everybody! Then Gem ran out of Mana and died.

This led to two weeks of trying to skirt around the fight and being picked off time and again. Now though, they changed their plan. If around doesn’t work, why not through? Well, except this time is already a failure as the other four died to a sneak attack. Almost as if their group was being targeted!

No shock there. Gem was simply a teensy tiny bit recognizable at this point. Not just for spamming wind blades, but also because some groups had made them the figurehead for what is wrong with digitization and the SAI. Oh, and Gem killed them a lot when they confronted them about “abandoning their humanity”. Good thing they’re currently at war or doing that would have landed Gem in jail for a while!

Instead, the nearby town saw Gem as more of a lightning rod. Since most spies at this point are actually just players who ended up on the wrong side, they don’t exactly have the training and can’t help, but attack them.

Which, to be fair to them, this is a game and so why should they hold back? Some even managed to win the fight! They promptly died to the town guards, but still. The fact Gem could die and wasn’t some crazy OP gamer god made people a lot more likely to attack in the first place.

And now? With Gem a few rows into the enemy’s front line? Well, they were up for showing everyone just what all those PvP sessions taught them!

Gem vaulted over the next group by using air platforms.

Two casts of Wind Blade charge up as they fall on the next row.

Gem smiles as the blades extend from their wrists. It was a shame not to have their spear on them, but going into active PvP zones with your good gear was asking for trouble. Besides, it gave them an excuse to do this!

The blades swipe out, but not from being launched. Rather, while formed and charged, they were kept at the ready. Then, the first blade met neck and a head went rolling. The end of the blade shatters like normal, but the part closer to the hand remains intact. Gem continues the momentum and by the end of their landing, has killed five enemies. One blade removing two and the second blade getting a lucky hit at the very edge allowing enough space for an extra target.

This was an interesting application of charging through the multi-cast hookup. Now, if the blades got shot out, they’d act like normal. The secret sauce to all this was that while still being held, the spell was stable enough to remain intact close to the body. It wasn’t anymore efficient, except it turned a ranged attack without any targeting into a melee attack Gem can swing around until they hit something.

Though now that Gem is in the middle of the enemy’s front line, there isn’t much time left. Worse, they still have 11 Wind Blades and it would suck to die with Mana still in the tank and enemies to kill! So it was time to show why they stopped sending squads to ambush Gem’s team and went right to elites.

Gem cackled, fangs glittering in the light, fur standing on end. “Abra-Ka-Boom your bigots!” And Gem dies, but so do most of the people around them. In fact, at least 15, maybe even up to 20 of the enemy soldiers would eventually succumb to the wounds from this final act of defiance. Gem isn’t a fan of this sort of action, but the ability to respawn warps a lot of things when playing a game.

The terrain around where Gem was just standing is now slashed up something fierce, let alone the soldiers. Of course, the worst off is Gem who doesn’t even leave a body. All because of one fun little overlooked fact about spells. You can cast them externally and internally.

After all, how else would buff and healing spells work? In fact, even the idea of casting a spell inside of an enemy isn’t anything new. More than a few water mages have wondered about controlling the blood in someone’s veins or an air mage trying to control the air on a person’s lungs. It is just that the enemies own magic resists such things, and you need multiple ranks on someone to do that.

Even healing isn’t immune from this effect! If there is any hostility at all, the healing fails. A safety feature to prevent the horrors of “reverse healing”. No warping your enemies for fun and profit.

Which is a fine safety measure and does nothing to stop you from messing yourself up because your own Mana doesn’t interfere with itself. Also, spells like self-buffs are some of the fastest to cast because you can start them right at your Mana pool.

Gem simply took that concept and warped it a bit. Found it funny they had figured out this kind of attack before the enemy zealots managed it. Not that they would anymore as the devs did a hot patch to prevent such moves. Gem just got to keep it since one person who is known won’t be able to abuse it in quite the same way.

So yeah, multicasting wind blades in your Mana pool? A bit explosive and as already noted, spells closer to you are stabler. So when the wind blades explode while still touching your Mana pool? Turns all that Mana into shrapnel.

Gem groans as they wake up on their not-a-water bed. “I swear! Once we get through the front line, I’m having the admins fix it for me as well. That stings.”

Gem sighs and rolls off the bed. Because honestly? If they stayed on it any longer, they weren’t getting off. Some devilishly clever designer had made a mix between a water bed, memory foam mattress, and oobleck. All wrapped in a layer of regular mattress foam. This certainly wasn’t possible irl, but Gem wasn’t going to complain about digital space being unrealistic. Especially not when it allows for non-Newtonian memory foam fluid.

Gem stretches and checks their messages. Yep, June had already gotten a room.

One mental command later and Gem is inside a cozy little room with a couple of chairs, a table with some snacks, and a big screen on the wall. June is already in the far chair, so Gem plops down in the other and with a few commands, the chair turns into more of a recliner.

June nods over at them, “Welcome to the chat.” And on the screen, Emrys and Samuel both wave.

June puts down her can of orange soda after a final sip, “So, you seem to have lasted longer this time.”

Gem sighs, “Through no fault of my own. This battle our side had an earth bender as the commander. I swear he is a B if he is anything. I doubt the other side had much more than Cs running around.”

Emery’s, “But it was a lot of Cs.”

Gem, “Bah, I’m already level 26 despite the deaths! I’m sure we’ll be Cs ourselves, soon enough. After all, war is a great time to level.”

June snorted, “And what is your body at now?”

Gem pokes her shoulder, “Hah, jokes on you! My Body stat has actually gone up!”

Samuel, “Wait, what? You haven’t really been exercising or getting hurt. All you do is run around and explode.”

Gem grimaces, “Yeah, that hurts. Though I suspect the fact I do feel the pain means that is where the gains are coming from. The system doesn’t care how you take damage, it just judges the damage while you’re alive.”

June sighs, “I wonder if we should report that as a possible bug?”

Gem shrugs, “Eh, just because I don’t survive the damage, doesn’t mean it didn’t happen. If they made that the bar, a lot of tanks would get angry at them. Especially since it isn’t like death is free. Though I do wish they’d tell us what it cost!”

June, “I already told you, there isn’t a set penalty for death. The system judges the reason and doles out commiserate penalties. You’re just angry that it keeps hitting your Wind Blades.”

Emrys, “Also, it isn’t like certain things aren’t known about it.”

Gem laughs, “Okay, you got me there. The clips going around of that one guy who thought he’d take the reaper express back to town after loading up on loot was hilarious. I wish we could have seen all his gear dropping to the ground when he died. Though the look on his face when he logged back in at town and was down to the whites!”

June smirks, “He should have felt lucky the system still generated him a set of privacy clothes like that. Of course if you’re trying to cheese the system to get stuff back to town safely, the system’s going to strip you of everything.”

Samuel, “That is quite the fair punishment. Though some of them don’t make as much sense. Why did the guy who died when jumping off a ledge have their Body tanked, while Gem is growing theirs?”

Gem scoffs, “Different situations. Those idiots weren’t trying to do anything. They just wanted to jump off a cliff and it seems yes, people will do that if their friends do. Anyway, my deaths are as a result of combat with an active goal of defeating what enemies I can. The system will take you seriously, if you take the world seriously.”

June, “I think he was more getting at the fact that the major injuries in both cases are caused by stupidity. Though since we’re on the topic of stats. I’m happy to report that all the buffs I’ve been spreading to the troops have gotten my Mana up to A! And yes, Gem, I know you’re proud of once again reclaiming an S+ rating on yours.”

Gem shrugs, “I’m more happy about the A+ in wind resistance. I actually made it into the enemy line now.”

Emrys, “Well, then I have good news, because I have a new battlefield for us to slam into. This one might actually be the key! There’s more focus on entrenched positions instead of two sides standing across from one another. We might be able to sneak close enough to them to make a break for it.”

Gem shrugs, “Once we finish doing the damn paperwork on respawn, I’m up for it.”

Samuel nods, “Even with the death, we have been advancing pretty quickly these last couple weeks.”

June sighs, “Back into the grinder, I guess.”

Gem pats her on the shoulder, “This time will be different! I know we can manage it, we just need the chance. Even if that chance ends up waiting till we’re Cs ourselves. Though I wish I knew how those zealots were pumping players at rank C like they are.”

June shrugs, “The devs have looked into it and whatever it is, it isn’t illegal.”

Gem's Naming Sense - Chapter 2