Insomniac Player

Doctor Smoke and the others looked up as Damien came back over the rise. No hesitation left on his face this time.

He stopped in front of the group and looked at each of them in turn. "Let’s go." He dusted off his cloak, almost casually. "This raid’s easier than I thought."

Four sets of eyes landed on him at once.

Naked Nun tilted her head. "...Did a knight hit you in the head?"

Madam Marvel’s nose wrinkled. "Or the stress finally cracked him."

DeluluGirl rushed over first, scanning him top to bottom. "Bestie! Are you okay?"

Damien laughed. "I’m fine. Really."

Doctor Smoke let smoke drift out slowly. "What changed?"

He crouched and started scratching lines into the dirt with a stick. "The patrols." He sketched out several crossing routes. "Same trumpet schedule as before, still on rotation. But every sixty minutes there’s a one-minute window where the western patrol overlaps the southern one." He circled a narrow stretch of road. "For that minute, nobody’s watching this route. We could walk straight to the castle wall without being seen."

He looked up, pleased with himself.

Doctor Smoke didn’t return the smile. "That gets us to the wall. We already knew that part. Half the teams that tried this gate made it that far."

Damien blinked. "...Oh."

She flicked ash off the end of her cigarette. "Getting there was never the problem." She pointed toward the fortress. "Getting inside is. Killing the Lord while a Level Thirty commander and twenty elites sit on top of him is."

Madam Marvel folded her arms. "The castle itself is the wall nobody’s cleared."

Naked Nun nodded. "Everyone reaches the front door. Almost nobody walks back out of it."

Delulu’s voice dropped. "That’s where most of the seven hundred eighteen came from."

Damien stayed quiet for a moment. Then the smile came back. "I know."

Doctor Smoke didn’t bother hiding a yawn. "You know."

"I’ve got a solution." He winked at her.

The wind seemed actually to stop. Doctor Smoke stared at him long enough that even Delulu started fidgeting.

She cracked her knuckles. "Don’t wink at me, dumbass." She stood up. "Talk."

"Sorry." He erased part of the dirt map with his palm. "We’ve been thinking like invaders. What if we don’t invade at all?"

Everyone frowned at once.

He pointed at the castle. "The Commander never leaves the Lord’s side. Half the elites stay near the throne, the rest and the regular knights handle outside threats." He nodded toward the town beyond the walls. "So we give them an outside threat. Something big enough that the Commander has no choice but to go deal with it himself."

Madam Marvel caught it first. "You want to lure him away."

"Exactly. The Lord trusts the Commander to keep him safe. Something attacks from outside, the Commander leaves to handle it, and for a few minutes the Lord’s sitting there with nobody standing between him and me."

Doctor Smoke stayed quiet, listening.

"We don’t need to beat three hundred knights. We just need them out of that castle. Once they’re gone, I get in, and the Lord dies before anyone realizes what happened."

Delulu raised a hand slowly. "...Bestie. Can you actually pull that off?"

"Trust me."

Doctor Smoke fixed her eyes on him and didn’t move, didn’t speak, just watched. A long beat passed. Whatever she was looking for, she didn’t find it. She lit a fresh cigarette off the last one.

"...Fine." She turned toward the town. "Lead the way."

Naked Nun grinned. "Lead the way, sexy scout."

Madam Marvel adjusted her grip on her staff.

Delulu pumped both fists. "I knew bestie had a plan!"

The five of them started down the hill, and right on schedule, the patrol rotation shifted exactly the way Damien had said it would.

He raised one finger. "Now."

They moved fast but quiet, no running, every turn already mapped out in his memory. Left through a narrow alley, past an abandoned stable, across a cramped courtyard. Patrols marched only a street away the whole time, boots ringing off the stone at every corner, and not one knight so much as glanced their direction.

The castle wall rose up in front of them before long. They’d crossed the entire town without a single fight.

Delulu’s eyes went wide. "...We actually made it."

Even Madam Marvel’s expression cracked slightly, something close to impressed.

Doctor Smoke gave one short nod. "...Good scouting."

Damien’s eyes went to the gate ahead. Armored footsteps sounded from just inside. He counted quietly. "...Four guards. Two elites, two regulars." Nothing they hadn’t expected.

Doctor Smoke leaned in. "What now?"

He looked at the four of them. "You hold them here."

Nobody argued. Doctor Smoke cracked her knuckles once, slow. Madam Marvel settled into a ready stance, mana already curling around the head of her staff. Naked Nun stretched her arms overhead. "As long as I don’t have to put more clothes on." Delulu spun her twin pistols once, grinning. "Guess we’re really doing this."

They dropped into position without another word between them, and something about the ease of it, no hesitation, no second-guessing, told him more about how many times they’d done this together than any conversation could have.

Doctor Smoke’s eyes cut to him. "One shot. Don’t waste it."

"I won’t."

He reached into his inventory. A flash of blue, and something solid dropped into his palm, an old, crude horn, dark green, primitive carvings worn smooth along the edges.

Doctor Smoke’s cigarette nearly slipped out of her mouth. "...No."

Madam Marvel’s composure finally broke. "...Impossible."

Naked Nun’s playful smile dropped away.

Delulu’s jaw hung open. "...Bestie, is that—"

"The Horn of the Goblin Chief." He said it like it was nothing.

Nobody spoke for a second. Doctor Smoke looked at him like she was seeing him for the first time. "...You killed a tutorial boss?"

He scratched the back of his neck. "My team helped."

"Do you have any idea what a relic like this is worth?"

"...Not really."

She laughed, short and genuine, shaking her head. "You unbelievable bastard."

He just smiled, lifted the horn to his lips, and blew.

BWOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOM!!

The sound rolled across the whole valley, not loud so much as savage, something wild and old buried underneath it, nothing like the clean brass calls the knights used. The air itself seemed to hold still after it faded.

A few seconds passed in silence.

RUMBLE

The ground shook under their feet. Delulu grabbed for the wall. "...Leader?"

Doctor Smoke’s expression went cold and flat. "They’re coming."

The rumbling built. Dust rose over the western hills in a slow gray wall.

Then, far off, another horn answered. Deep. Old. Nothing human about it.

BWOOOOOOOM!

And another. And another after that.

The ground shook harder now, thousands of footsteps rolling through the valley at once.

Doctor Smoke turned to look at him, dead serious. "Didn’t you call this raid easy?"