Skylair Online

Episode 10

Ben added Leo to his party and then pressed his ‘find game’ button.

A few moments later, 3 flashes of blue light heralded the arrival of their teammates.

The first was called Bandit43. His face and torso were completely wrapped in what looked like large, black bandages, completely removing any features from him. He had a pair of pistols at his sides and a bunch of grenades slung from a belt that wrapped around him from shoulder to waist.

The second was a guy wearing a similar set of robes to Ben, called Death By Fire, except his were red with lots of flame motifs adorning them. He had a staff that was taller than he was in his hand and a book bound in red leather in a holster at his side.

The last newcomer was a giant, encased in a full suit of silver armour and wielding two shields that were built onto his gauntlets. His name was Tortura.

Ben looked at the guy in robes and said, “Rock, paper, scissors for mage?”

Death By Fire looked back at him imperiously, “Not a chance, you go artillery.”

“That’s not fair, you should at least gamble for it!” Ben replied.

“I’m not giving up my role to some kid, you play artillery or I’m going to just sit in spawn.”

“Cryoarts, please, just go artillery, I’ll look after you, don’t worry,” Tortura chipped in.

Ben sighed then walked over to his screen. He came back a few moments later in a set of camo gear and a rifle, looking rather frustrated.

With that the countdown hit 0 and they were transported onto the starting zone.

On landing Leo found himself looking up at a sabre-toothed tiger that was about a head taller than him and longer that a horse.

“You must be Twiggles,” Leo said apprehensively.

He thought about how he was supposed to get up on top of the tiger but as he did his vision snapped and he found himself looking down at the rest of the team from atop the tiger.

“Gambit,” Ben said, “Just be careful, the companion AI in this game is pretty advanced but it still has its flaws and it can be really inconsistent at times.”

Leo nodded and patted the tiger on the back of the neck. It didn’t respond.

“The assault on the Skylair begins in 60 seconds,” said the announcer.

Leo looked at the display at the bottom of his vision, it was counting down from 25.

He pulled up the map on his arm, it was the same as before except this time there were green dots all over the place. He presumed these must be the trees he could jump to.

Looking at the arrangement of trees, it made it so that it was roughly the same distance to all the shrines. His countdown hit 0 and he urges Twiggles on, heading for the nearest tree.

The cat was insanely fast and Leo had to keep a razor focus to keep it from running into things on the way. They reached the first tree and Twiggles bounded right into it. Leo’s vision went black and then a large map appeared in front of him. Each of the trees shown on it was glowing.

Also a blue bar appeared on the bottom left of his vision, it quickly reduced until it was just above half full.

He reached out and touched the one nearest the shrine closest to the enemy spawn and the map disappeared. A point of light appeared in front of him, getting bigger and bigger until he could see the world outside of it. He and Twiggles bounded out of the tree and he found himself on the other side of the map.

He took a second to look at his map and confirm his location then headed for the shrine.

He bounded along until he reached the earth shrine and dropped a scout sphere in a patch of bush.

“The assault on the Skylair has begun,” said the announcer and Ben and his team were released.

Leo looked about to see if he could see anyone approaching then decided to head off to the south.

“The shrines have been unlocked. You may now claim their blessings,” said the announcer.

“Any sight of them?” Ben asked Leo.

“No,” Leo responded.

As he ran he noticed the blue bar on the bottom of his vision was slowly filling back up.

He reached the next shrine and threw down a sentry sphere.

After he was done setting up vision he checked his map, he could now see four red dots around the earth shrine.

“They have just reached the earth shrine,” Leo told his team.

“Okay, we’re at soul,” Ben responded.

Leo watched as the enemy team captured the earth shrine and then split up, three went north and one kept heading west, towards his team.

“I think, three are heading towards the sky shrine and the assassin is heading straight for you, he’s going through the mountain.”

“Okay, we’ll set up a little welcome party for him,” Ben said and laughed, “You track the three going north and we’ll kill the assassin.”

“Okay,” Leo said and headed for the nearest tree.

He then saw a new line of orange text appear at the bottom right of his vision, ‘Reduced cooldowns of abilities – 3:00’.

He headed into the tree and picked the tree that was just north of the sky shrine and popped out a few seconds later.

The blue bar appeared at the corner of his vision again, this time it was about a quarter full.

He checked his map and headed south towards the sky shrine.

The area around the sky shrine as a field of large rocks that were constantly being struck by lightning.

As he got close, Leo jumped of Twiggles and climber a rock, trying to keep as low as possible. He crawled to a vantage point overlooking the sky shrine and waited for the enemy to arrive.

He nervously drew his bow and kept checking all around him.

“Okay,” Ben said, “We’re in position, he should be here any second.”

A few seconds later, Leo watched as the three enemies appeared over a ridge and descended on the sky shrine.

“Oh, and Gambit,” Ben said again, “If the assassin has stealth we might need you to use your ability that reveals invisible enemies.”

“Sure,” Leo replied.

“Hi,” said a voice from behind Leo and he flipped over onto his back.

Looming over him was a man dressed in camo gear with heavy face paint and a pistol pointed at Leo’s head.

Then Leo noticed that there was also a small device in the man’s hand which he threw onto Leo. It snapped open and attached to Leo with metal spikes before disappearing.

At the bottom of his vision a line of read text appeared that said ‘Coms Disabled – 1:00’.

The man then opened fire.