Skylair Online

Episode 7

After thirty seconds of being locked in the starting point, Ben, Extreme and Dash were let out. However, Leo, having died twice now, had to wait a whole minute.

“They are probably going to go from dragon to the Titan, there is nothing else to do. They should wait for our shrine blessings to wear off, but let’s just hope they don’t,” Ben said, “We head for the Skylair and wait in ambush. Obsidian meet us there, and Gambit, you catch up, you’ve got the increased movement speed so you should be able to get there in time.”

Leo nodded reluctantly and the other three headed off.

“We need to set up an ambush on the north face somewhere,” Extreme said as they ran.

It took them nearly a minute to reach the north face of the mountain.

Obsidian was already there, confirming that enemy team had not already started attacking the Titan.

“Group up around me,” Extreme said, “I took Immortal Citadel.”

They nodded and all of them gathered around Extreme

Leo eventually caught up and took up a position behind the other members of the team, unsure about what was about to happen.

They had positioned themselves behind one of the giant boulders that littered the mountainside, Ben peeking out occasionally to see if they were coming.

“They have to come soon,” Dash said, “The shrines are about to run out.”

“Here they come,” Ben said, hushed excitement in his voice.

Extreme took a look round as well.

“Brace yourself,” he said and the team crouched as if doing a squat.

“3… 2…” Extreme counted down, “1… Immortal Citadel!”

There was a tremor in the ground below them and the ground beneath their feet shot into the air, carrying them up. Towers rose around them and a whole fortress emerged from the ground behind them.

They looked down through the battlements of their newly formed wall at the enemy team, who seeing the castle rise before them were scrambling to get into battle formation.

Leo made a motion as if to draw an arrow and his bow snapped to his hands. He loosed the arrow and watched as it sailed wide.

“I am Legion!” said Dash and suddenly the battlements started filling up with copies of himself, all of whom drew their bows and launched volley after volley of arrows down at the enemy.

Ben too seized the opportunity to unleash bolts of ice down at the enemy team.

The enemy, to their credit, immediately managed to split up and find cover. Their artillery began firing arrows up at them, but Extreme raised his shield and expertly deflected the oncoming projectiles.

As arrows and magic flew back and forth, any of the copies of Dash that got hit immediately disappeared.

“I can’t hit them behind all this cover,” Dash said.

Ben nodded and said, “Icescape.”

Around Ben’s feet the ground began to become covered in a thin layer of ice that rapidly began to spread, first covering the fortress, turning into a sparkling palace of ice that looked like something straight out of a fairy-tale. But as it hit the side of the mountain, the ice replaced the rugged terrain as it went, erasing boulders and crevices and leaving the side of the mountain a perfectly smooth piece of ice.

Suddenly exposed, the enemy team began running to get behind their guardian, but the army of Dash’s took quick aim and two of them shattered into pieces.

Then there was an almost deafeningly loud c***k and the ground in front of the enemy guardian split open, the new ravine slicing open the terrain, proliferating towards them.

As it raced towards the fortress Extreme yelled, “Jump!” and pushed them all off of the wall.

They landed in a pile at the foot of the wall, Leo’s vision turning red but Extreme had managed to cast a protection spell on them mid fall.

They didn’t have time to recover from the fall as the wall behind them cracked open, then it hit the fortress itself and the whole citadel turned to dust around them

They then stood facing down the remaining three members of the enemy team, the guardian, the artillery and the scout.

“The shrine blessing is gone,” Ben said.

“We’ve got this,” Dash said and loosed an arrow.

It deflected harmlessly off of the guardian’s shield and the enemy charged.

“Obsidian, get the artillery,” Ben said and then shouted, “Ice Age!”

There was a brief pause and then the world began filling up with snow, appearing in the sky around them and swirling about. It should have been dense enough to obscure vision but Leo could still see through it.

Obsidian began running in a looping path around the enemy, who had stopped in their tracks, in an attempt to get around the back of them.

Leo took another shot at the enemy, hitting the scout in the side but he didn’t find a lethal point and didn’t get another shot off before the scout backed behind his guardian.

Obsidian was now flanking behind the enemy, his daggers drawn and ready to jump them.

The artillery swivelled round, dropped his bow into the ground and it turned into a cannon.

Obsidian hesitated then had to jump out of the way as a canon shot blew up the ground he had been standing on just a moment before, sending a massive plume of ice and dirt into the sky.

“How can they see?” Obsidian asked.

Ben clicked his tongue in annoyance, “The scout must have true sight.”

Obsidian rolled out of the way as another canon shot was fired at him.

Ben launched a blast of ice at the guardian, who deftly took it on his shield.

The third cannon blast took Obsidian in the chest and immediately shattered him into a thousand pieces.

“Damn,” Ben said, “Dash you head that way, I’ll go this way, the guardian can’t point his shield both ways, one of us will get him.”

Dash nodded and they split up.

“What should I…” Leo managed to say before a cannonball took him in the chest and his vision turned white.

“Oh,” he finished as he was once again greeted by the sight of the starting point.

Obsidian welcomed him there with a shrug a head scratch.

Meanwhile Ben was watching as the cannon transformed back into a bow, which in turn snapped back to the enemy artillery’s hand.

Dash fired as he ran and the guardian turned his shield to track him.

Ben flicked through pages in his book, then when he was directly behind the guardian he said “Ice torrent.”

A cascade of ice a meter wide, each icicle sharpened into a deadly point, hit the guardian dead in the back.

The guardian was nocked flat on his front and Dash switched target to the enemy artillery.

Ben smiled as he saw the enemy artillery scrambling away.

The enemy scout came out of invisibility right in front on him, looking him straight in the eyes as he stabbed him in the head with his twin daggers.

Ben’s vision went white and a moment later he was sat next to Leo in the starting point.

“Go Extreme!” they heard Dash yell.

A few moments later Dash appeared next to Leo and then Extreme followed suit, appearing next to Ben.

“Well,” Ben said, “They used a lot of abilities with long cooldowns to kill us at least.”

“We’re in here for a full minute,” Dash said, shaking his head, “They take the Titan here.”

“There are only three of them alive, maybe they can’t do it.”

Obsidian shook his head, and sure enough, just as they were let out of the base they all heard a tremendous roar from the mountain and the text ‘The enemy team has claimed the Skylair!’ appeared on the bottom of the vision.

Leo’s vision flashed white and they were transported back to the large, circular room with a screen on the far wall.

“Well, good game,” Dash said and walked over to the screen, “See you guys around maybe, hopefully when Gambit has unlocked more abilities.

He laughed, touched the screen and disappeared.

Extreme followed him and then Dash wished them luck in their next game and left too.

“So, what do you think?” Ben asked.

“I don’t know, it’s definitely got a bit of a learning curve to it,” Leo replied.

“It will be fine, the first few games are hard because you don’t have a full set of abilities. Once you’re actually on even terms with everyone else it will get a lot more fun.”

“Sure, I guess,” Leo replied.

“I’m sure you will have got something for this game, so go press end game on the screen and then we’ll see what you’ve got.”

Leo nodded and walked over the screen. At the top right of it was the End Game button, he pressed it and Ben disappeared.

On the screen was the chest icon that was slowly bobbing up and down. Leo pressed it and it opened up, revealing a Starter Pack icon and then 2000 gold pieces.

“What did you get?” Ben asked as he appeared behind Leo again.

“A starter pack and 2000 gold pieces.”

“Nice, that’s enough to get you a legendary content pack, or two rare ones… or four normal ones. But get the legendary one, it’s more fun to use one really cool ability than four little ones.”

Leo nodded and opened the starter pack. Inside was a list of about ten abilities that he absently flicked through.

Suddenly Ben disappeared.

Leo looked about but he was gone.

“Mum, don’t rip my headset off!” Ben’s disembodied voice said.

A moment later he reappeared, “Sorry Leo, I’ve got to go, I haven’t done the maths homework for tomorrow, so, I’ll see you tomorrow, have a look through your new abilities. We’ll play again tomorrow and it will be super awesome.”

“Okay,” Leo chuckled and Ben disappeared.

He took another quick look through his abilities. They seemed pretty generic which he guessed was normal for a starter pack then pulled his own headset off.

He sat up his room, blinking as his eyes readjusted.

He sighed and flipped open his computer. He opened the browser and opened his chess site, staring morosely at his elo.

“I’m never going to be a master at this rate.”