Rebirth Online 4 Read online

  Rebirth Online 4

  Michael James Ploof

  Copyright © 2019 Traveling Bard publishing

  All rights reserved

  Chapter 1

  I gazed at my kingdom with a grin on my face. From our small tower on the hill I could see for miles. To the west, the Trinity Mountains rose from the horizon like jagged teeth. To the east, a forest filled the valley, engulfing the wide river that flowed through it. To the north, the hills rose and fell as the ground became rockier. But the south offered a long valley and fertile land prime for farming. I imagined the homesteads and towns that would eventually crop up there, and the city that would soon surround our small tower.

  My guild mates and I had won the Guild Wars Tournament more than a week ago, and our prize was all that I saw before me now; The Kingdom of Ozara.

  Well, that was what was advertised.

  In truth, we had won a virgin land with the potential to become a kingdom. The second part was up to us. The land may have been a new expansion of the game, but it had still been programmed and seeded with NPC’s who thought that they and the land had been there forever. There was a barbarian tribe in the foothills to the North, and elves were said to live in the Great Wood to the East. Humans and dwarves inhabited this land as well, as did orcs, trolls, and presumably other less savory creatures.

  For the last week since the Guild Wars, my guild and I had been clearing out the land around the only structure that came with our ‘kingdom’, which was a three-story tower situated on the only hill in the valley. The girls had insisted that we name it Samson Tower, and I hadn’t put up much of a fight. Along with the tower, we had inherited a small group of human warriors and one wizard who had been programmed to believe that I was the rightful king returned to them, and they were loyal to a fault. They were a good start as far as armies went, and the wizard, a tall, bald black man by the name Miramar, proved to not only be powerful, but a very useful personal assistant.

  The warriors had more than one use as well. Among them there were blacksmiths, bakers, cooks, lumberjacks and carpenters. With the surrounding forest thinned, and the ground made ready for planting, I was eager to put them to work building the first houses in what would eventually become a grand city.

  But there was still a lot of work to be done. Irrigation trenches and sewer systems had to be dug, a bridge needed to be built across the river, and most importantly, people had to be recruited to join our little kingdom and populate the city. There was one hitch, however; Heavy Metal Thunder was broke. No riches came with the tower or the kingdom, and we had spent all our money on weapons, trinkets, and healing talismans to win the tournament. Now, we were hopelessly vulnerable, and the ban on other players venturing to our kingdom was going to be up in just three days.

  We knew that we had to prepare for the other guilds that would be vying for a shot to dethrone me, but we only had a week to get ready, and we were hopelessly behind. Even with twenty-five able-bodied men and women, we had only just cleared the forest and finished digging out a trench around the tower. Long spears had been arranged in a circle around the mote, and a drawbridge had been installed, but that wasn’t going to stop a determined guild, especially those that we had beat in the tournament.

  There was already word on the streets of Aeorock and other cities that the Orc Chieftains, Doom Lords, and Dragons of Fury had plans to take what we had won, and I was growing more concerned by the day that they just might be able to do it.

  I needed to make alliances, and for that reason we had planned on setting out for the nearest human village at first light. From the tower balcony I watched the dark sky begin to brighten, and I turned to find a sleepy-looking Anna walking toward me in a thin white nightgown. I smiled at her and allowed my eyes a quick sweep of her voluptuous body. Her nipples pressed against the soft fabric, and I could just make out the circular darkness beneath. Legs that belonged to a gymnast carried her gracefully to my side, and she rested her head on my shoulder and enjoyed the view.

  “It’s beautiful,” she said in a hushed tone as the first rays of light lit the thin clouds above, and the long dark forest began to burst with color and the delighted symphony of birdsongs.

  “Is it?” I said glancing down at her. “I guess I was too caught up in your beauty to notice.”

  “Tease,” she said punching me playfully in the stomach. “Sweettalking me when your cooldown still has hours to go.”

  I grinned. She was right. The girls and I had leveled again last night, like we had every night. We had leveled naturally as well, having been so hard at work clearing the land and preparing the tower defenses. I was now a level 65, and the highest among us, Stormy, was a level 70 already. There was no way that the three guilds that were gunning for us had gained more than one level, which gave us a bit of an advantage.

  Lord knows we needed it.

  “I can say that you’re beautiful without it being a come on, you know,” I said to Anna.

  “What fun is that?” she said with a fake pout.

  “You know, if you’re still in the mood, there’s things that I can do that don’t involve a cooldown.”

  “Mmmnnn,” she hummed as she pressed against me. “Like what?”

  I grabbed her by the throat playfully, and she took in a shocked but delighted breath. I kissed her passionately, gently biting her lip, which always made her drunk with lust. She wrapped her arms around me, and I lifted her up and slowly lowered her onto the balcony rail. She grabbed the column to her right as I slowly trailed kisses down her neck, my tongue teased her left and then right nipples, and continued down between her legs. When my tongue found her clit, she nearly fell back off the balcony.

  “Oh Sam…” she breathed as I moved my tongue in quick circles.

  I inserted two fingers in between her deliciously soft folds, hooked them upward, and quickly found her G-Spot.

  “Ooohhh Saaammm!” she cried and grabbed two handfuls of my hair.

  I continued to wiggle my curved fingers, while at the same time spinning my tongue like a propeller around her swollen clitoris. When her orgasm reached its crescendo, she pressed my face into her and gyrated against my mouth, twitching and giggling as the waves of pleasure washed over her.

  “Oh my god,” she said drunkenly as she fanned herself.

  I stood and grinned. “Please, call me Samson.”

  “You ass,” she said and swatted at me weakly.

  “Come on,” I said with a laugh. “Let’s wake up the others. We’ve got a long day ahead of—”

  A deafening blast rocked the tower, followed by the frantic voices of our warriors and the blare of a horn.

  “What the hell was that?” I said as I ran back to the balcony.

  “Oh shit!” said Anna as she pointed north.

  Oh shit was right.

  An army of at least one-hundred trolls was charging from the hills and judging by the blast that had just hit the tower’s energy shield, they had a magic user among them.

  The other seven women came racing naked out of the bedroom and joined us at the balcony.

  “Son of a bitch!” Trinity swore as she beheld the troll army.

  “Sweet!” said Ember. “I get to try out my new daggers.”

  “Everyone to your positions,” I said evenly. “We’ve got a tower to defend.”

  I tapped on my interface as I ran to the stairs leading up to the battlements and chose my battle robes. I armed myself with my enchanted sword as I raced up the stairs, and I soon felt the buffs of my guild mates wash over me.

  “Report!” I said to Miramar, who met me at the top of the stairs.

  “I’ve enabled all shields surrounding the tower, and the traps have been activated on the northern side as
well,” he said as we raced across the battlements.

  The trolls were about five-hundred yards away and advancing quickly.

  “I can’t see from here, Miramar. What level are they?”

  “Fifty through sixty,” Miramar reported, his dark brow furled as he scrutinized the distant horde. “They have a powerful sorcerer with them as well, my liege.”

  “Any others?”

  “None, Sir. They’re power lies in him alone.”

  “Sever the head, kill the dragon,” I said under my breath.

  “Sir?”

  I ignored him and turned to regard my guildmates.

  “Nanaya, its dragon time. You and I are going to try and slow them down. The rest of you know what to do.”

  Everyone nodded and prepared to defend, and Nanaya changed into her white dragon form. I climbed up her back and settled in between her spiked shoulder blades, and a moment later she leapt off the battlements and sailed out over our gathering soldiers.

  “Defend the tower at all costs!” I commanded my troops, and they responded with a hearty cheer.

  Nanaya flew west and came at the trolls from the side, rather than fly straight into them. Arrows and spears sailed through the air toward us, but they all lost momentum before coming close.

  I performed the hand gestures to conjure Firestorm and unleashed it as Nanaya drowned the entire left flank with dragon fire. Meteors slammed into the horde as they ducked beneath large metal shields, and the howls of those caught up in the flames echoed throughout the valley.

  “Watch out!” I warned when a green fireball erupted from the group and streaked straight at us.

  Nanaya banked hard right, and I held on for dear life. I glanced back and found that the fireball hadn’t continued on a straight course but had turned and was now following us like a heat-seeking missile.

  “Nanaya…” I said pensively.

  “I see it,” she said determinedly. “Hold onto your dick!”

  She beat her wings so hard and quick that my head snapped back, and I was nearly jerked from my perch. We rapidly gained altitude, but the green fireball was hot on our trail. Nanaya growled when she glanced back and saw it gaining, then she barrel-rolled to the right and tucked in her wings. Soon we were falling like a stone, and I desperately retrieved my flying goggles from my interface. When Nanaya abruptly spread her wings, I thought I was going to puke. We shot over the heads of the growling trolls at least a hundred miles per hour, and I glanced back to see if the green fireball had been able to pull off the maneuver. When I saw it slam into a group of trolls racing down from the hills, I let out a victorious cry.

  But the horde’s sorcerer was far from out of tricks. Three more green fireballs streaked toward Nanaya, and she was forced to take to the clouds once more. I watched the fireballs gain on us and noticed that our human warriors, led by Trinity, were about to collide with the troll horde.

  “We’ve got to get back down there!” I told Nanaya.

  “Then get rid of those damned fireballs on my ass!” she yelled over the wind.

  I conjured Arcane Lightning and twisted from my perch to unleash it behind me. The spell webbed out and crackled against the fireballs, but they passed through the electrical web unscathed. Next, I tried Firestorm, and I cheered victoriously when one of my meteors slammed into a fireball and blew it to pieces.

  “Banking left!” Nanaya warned me, and I held on as she deftly twisted into a cloud.

  We flew blind for a few seconds before coming out and swooping downward. The fireballs were still behind us, only now they were closer. I took careful aim and unleashed a magic bolt at the closest fireball and was rewarded by a grand explosion.

  With just one fireball left, I conjured Firestorm again and took aim, but before I could get off a shot Nanaya cried out, and an electrified net suddenly wrapped around us. We dropped out of the sky like a bird with a broken wing, and I braced myself for impact. Nanaya let out a frustrated growl, then I was blinded by her dragon fire as she tried to burn through the enchanted netting. She finally broke free moments before we hit the ground and managed to pull up in time. She kicked off the hilltop that we had almost collided with, sheering off a large stone as she did so, then lobbed it at the trolls as they collided with our human warriors.

  I leapt off her back and rolled as I landed, coming up behind a troll and unleashing a fireball that exploded its head. I had landed behind the troll army, and I unsheathed my enchanted sword as I brought up my Fire shield. Before the trolls even knew they were under attack, I had taken out two of them. A dark green troll about seven feet tall turned when the one next to him fell to my blade, and he brought his big club around in a powerful sideswipe. I couldn’t stop such a blow with my Fireshield, so I rolled with the attack, moving under the club and springing up behind it. The troll hadn’t expected me to be so quick, and its eyes widened when my enchanted sword took off its nose. The club came back toward me, but I was already inside the troll’s reach. I spun and swung the blade, taking the arm off at the wrist. The troll howled, and I buried my sword down its mouth.

  Soul Shatter Strike!

  The troll exploded into a million pieces of gore, and I charged through the bloody mist and slashed the legs of the closest enemy. Spells slammed into the troll horde from my guildmates on the other side, and I took advantage of the chaos, weaving through the tall skinny trolls and striking with deadly precision.

  I searched for the sorcerer among the horde, and I found him by following his streaking spells. He was surrounded by a thick posse of heavily armored warriors, but that wasn’t going to stop me.

  Our human warriors were now fighting toe to toe with the trolls, having stopped the horde a few hundred yards from the tower. Anna, Kit, and Cecilia were healing the warriors, while Trinity, Stormy, and Ember cleared a path toward the sorcerer. Meanwhile, Tweak and his purple monkeys were tearing up the left flank.

  Experience points, silver, gold, and loot floated toward me as I hacked and chopped my way through the troll horde. I traded out my enchanted blade for my spells when I got to within fifty feet of the sorcerer, and I unleashed Nuclear Thunderclap right in the middle of the gnashing trolls. The explosion lifted every nearby troll off their feet and deposited them unceremoniously on the scorched ground, and I stalked toward the exposed and injured sorcerer as the mushroom cloud slowly bloomed upward in all its hellish glory.

  “Surrender!” I said as I aimed a glowing palm at his head. “Or else feel the wrath of the King of—”

  Nanaya suddenly flew out of the smoke and fire and chomped down on the sorcerer with her sharp dragon teeth. Then she tossed her head back like someone swallowing a pill.

  She looked at me with those big dragon eyes, burped, and said, “Oh, sorry, did I interrupt your monologue?”

  “I was going to get him to surrender the army,” I told her.

  “Meh, what fun is that?” She turned and spewed a wide swath of flame at the surrounding trolls, then she winked at me and took to the sky once more.

  It didn’t take us long to defeat the remaining army once the sorcerer was out of the picture, and we all gathered together on the smoldering battlefield to go through the loot. It mostly consisted of worthless odds and ends like copper daggers, rusty nails, various ragged animal furs, and rotten mushrooms, but there were valuables as well. All told, we received four thousand and ninety gold from the trolls, as well as a few pieces of armor that would fetch a decent amount at the markets.

  I instructed the warriors to cut off every troll’s head and put them on pikes in a wide circle around the tower. As they set to the gruesome work, my guild mates and I prepared the horses for the long ride to the nearest human village.

  It was time to start gathering allies.

  Chapter 2

  The journey took us two hours by horse on old roads that hadn’t been cared for by anyone in ages. When we finally arrived a few hours before noon, a horn blared, and men began moving quickly atop the ramshackle battleme
nts. The fence surrounding the small village couldn’t have even stopped a group of unruly teenage boys, let alone any sort of real attack, and the battlements were nothing more than long planks set upon thick beams, all bound together with leather rope. The village itself was a collection of wattle and daub houses ranging from one to three stories. The larger buildings often had a stone or brick first level, and there were a few buildings made completely of stone as well. While the architecture indicated that they had been built by someone with knowledge and skill, the buildings hadn’t been kept up very well.

  It didn’t take long to realize that this was a village on its way down. The buildings, once beautiful, were now in disrepair. The banners that hung atop the battlements were tattered, the livestock was skinny and malnourished, and the crops surrounding the village didn’t look to be doing well.

  I told my bannermen to proceed, and we rode down from the hill overlooking the village and approached the gate. Three young men holding what were most likely some of the only metal swords in the entire village stared down at us from the battlements, and an older man in full knight’s armor approached with two more young soldiers wearing leather. They carried long wooden spears, and their eyes revealed their apprehension and fear.

  “Hello!” I said loud for all to hear. “I am Samson, King of Ozara. These are my knights, Heavy Metal Thunder. We come in peace.”

  The villagers had begun to crowd the other side of the fence. They gawked from the safety of houses, peering out through open windows or climbing to rooftops to spy us from a safe distance.

  “Greetings Samson,” said the knight in a deep, bearish voice. His right hand rested on the hilt of his sword, and his left hung half bent at his side. Twin mustaches twitched as he regarded me and my guild mates, and I could see the scrutiny in his suspicious eyes.

  “Might we speak with your village council?” I asked.