A New World, an immersive game experience

Chapter 362: What can a few more people do?

Eldrian took the 'and more' as his queue to look through the guild interface, that for the first time was unlocked in his menu.

He was quite disappointed when he saw what their reliability of unknown and untrusted resulted in, but luckily one did not need to broker deals as a guild representative. At least as long as they did not dip into the lacking and untrustworthy reliability. At those levels it was equivalent to stains (Opposite of titles).

Interestingly though, being part of a guild allowed one some perks even before having proven oneself. This was not too great in general, especially if you had people skills or just a few connections. But to players with none, it allowed them an easy way to get custom-made items and any spell up to Tier 5.

Naturally, the items had a mark-up price of 10% on the average. The spells instead a 15% markup. Still, one simply needed to go to any organization guild, proving your membership in a similar manner to showing a title, and then you would be able to order from there.

The organizational guilds, such as the adventurer guild, would then go and sort it out for you. The markup could be more considered a commission. The true aim for this was naturally when planning to arm a team. One could go to one location for what everyone needed. Instead of needing to run through a city oneself to get it all.

On top of that, each day the guild could claim a C-Ranked quest. Though Eldrian quickly realized they were not to be trifled with. Learning this from a log the players kept on each type of quest they participated in and how it had gone.

In the same vein they had a bestiary. Curious Eldrian quickly read through it, most of the beasts and animals they had in there he had already met too. Along with this they also had a log on magical plants and where to find them.

These all appeared to all players similar to the forum. Allowing them to even take photos and add them for reference.

'Funny how I completely missed this, but I have been neglecting the forum and early guilds likely wanted to keep this a secret.' Eldrian thought deciding to add a bit of information on the undead he had faced.

As he was inputting the ghoul's description, one of the archers sounded an alarm. Unlike the place where Vivian was before, there were no platforms here. Or rather there had been but due to them being repeatedly broken they had given up on maintaining them.

"How many?" Vivian shouted, awakened roughly from her sleep.

"Around forty it seems, most skeletons. A few zombie centaurs and demi-humans."

"Right..." Stumbling to her feet, like many of those who had been there for days, she got ready for combat. The players suddenly rushing past and over the fence. Eldrian joining them.

"With the zombies focus on their vitals like normal. While it does not outrightly kill them, it does do more damage. Leave the skeletons to me." He shouted as they formed awkward ranks before the fence that one day would hopefully be a wall.

With that said they waited. The players trying to get into proper formation after their rush. The mages sending spells at the charging undead, the archers, arrows.

When the undead were just ten meters Eldrian suddenly charged forward, executing Flowing Winds as he did. His first upward strike cutting through the ribs of a skeleton and splitting it in half, his following downwards strike splitting another from the head. His spin shattering two more, followed by his last sweep that shattered another two.

The skill truly worked well against weaker and slower foes who could not keep up with his movements. When the skill ended Eldrian thrust his spear into the skull of another skeleton, casting Therepeia (Tier 3 heal) on one of the zombies as he did. Killing both outright.

Clang!

Shrugging off the hit to his shoulder, Eldrian returned the favor. The pauldron having completely blocked the blade. His returning of the favor split the skeleton from the pelvis to the right shoulder, after which Eldrian jumped back and cast Volida on the ground. Setting the ground aflame as he fell back to catch a breather.

Normally at this time the soldiers would cover for him, however, now the players were here and raring to go. They did not wait for him to finish disorganizing the undead. Judith had long since run into their mass and started her own slaughter. Gray cutting through bone and rotting flesh with ease.

Therdul instead had managed to distract four undead, while Ilmadia cast her most destructive fire spells on them. Zyviss truly felt useless, he had tried but his arrows did little to nothing to the undead.

When attacking their vitals the aim was not to damage the vitals, but rather to pulverize them. Arrows did a really poor job at this and realizing this he had stored his bow and rushed in with his shortswords.

Watching the chaos that was the players fighting, Eldrian decided to take a backseat. Casting Therapeia on the stronger undead or on the players near death. While it did not fully heal them, it gave them the burst of life they often needed to survive. Eldrian also made sure to spread Anthise around.

By the end of the fight he was out of mana, however, no one had died. Stepping back he smiled, and so did the soldiers. The players instead started scavenging the undead for loot. Most returned to the fence disappointed but a few with wide smiles.

The soldiers quickly apologized for their rude greeting of the players. Doing their best to actually make friends as they realized that the players would actually help their situation. Many of them were shocked by the display.

While the players had certainly not been very organized, they clearly knew each other and what each of them could do. They had let Judith rampage, some following behind her to kill those she did not care to finish.

Others had protected their spell casters and healers, doing their best to just stop the undead from moving past them. Not at all trying to kill them. Then there were the others who worked in two's or three's to tag-team an undead. Making sure to be somewhere between the group who defended and Judith.

"That isn't that hard," Therdul said as he sat next to Eldrian, who laughed hearing this.

"Yeah, 1 wave isn't too bad. But this was a rather small one. Also, it was just the first attack."

Therdul had shrugged it off as nothing, but two days later he could not help but grumble when the next wave came.

"The hell!? When are they going to run out of fodder to send our way?"

Most had been ecstatic the first day. Many had even managed to gain a level. However, as they stayed online to help the fatigue had grown. While they had been forced to log out to eat, this did not give them much respite from the constant fighting.

"I am more surprised-" Eldrian ate his words as everyone came to realize that the vibrations they were hearing were not from a small group.

"Cast the alarms!" A soldier shouted as the first line of undead came into vision through the treeline. A thick black smoke making it hard to see them even after they exited the trees.

Yet, there was no mistake. A handful soon turned into dozens, and this soon turned into thousands. The worst part was that there was many undead they had never seen before.

The mages had not waited for the shout, their spells already halfway into the air when those resting realized what was going on.

'Thrall, ghoul, existential vampire, lich, revenant-' Eldrian gave up as his mind kept being filled with information from mana sense. Most of the undeads' stats it showed him he could not even see through the thick smoke. Though the list made him feel despair.

...

"Finally!" Farest sighed in relief as he turned around and charged towards the signal. They had lost the undead in the forest, a thick blanket of black smoke having covered kilometers upon kilometers. The undead clearly had hoped to launch a surprise attack.

Following Farest was the Thunder Legion, apt to their name it sounded like thunder as they charged.

"Are we sure it is just the one location?" Evale asked those around her, mostly towards her brother.

"No, but we can't let them breach anyplace. Trust that the Blackguard has our backs."

...

"Fucking hell! This is insane!" Tymmos shouted, one of the players. "How are we supposed to succeed?"

"Reinforcements must be on the way!" Elizabeth shouted back, shaking in her boots herself. The sight left her without any hope. Even knowing she would not die, she could not keep the fear from almost overtaking her.

Eldrian stayed quiet and looked at the mass of coming undead as he stopped mana sense. Turning towards Vivian and then the other NPCs. Sighing...

"Vivian," Eldrian said, knowing that they stood no chance against the coming waves.

"Yes," Vivian replied as she gripped Nelida's Flame till her fingers bled. Eldrian placing his hand over hers.

"Get ready to take everyone and retreat," Eldrian said, not letting her argue as he threw her back and shouted the same to the others.

"Go now, run. We will halt them for as long as we can!" Eldrian shouted, digging deep and wondering just how on earth they were supposed to even half the thousands of undead for even a second.

Even if they were just plain skeletons it would have been impossible, yet one ghoul would be able to wipe their entire makeshift squad.

His shout and charge was met with silence, the other players quickly following his example. Not out of courage but rather as sheep not wanting something to distract them from the fear they felt.

Yet before they could make contact an arrow flew between the two. Exploding in a massive white-hot flame. Sending Eldrian and the others flying back, while burning all the fastest undead.