Chapter Four
Saved from the Respawnable Noobs
"He should be back by now." I said. Kysin had promised he'd be back before dawn, and the sun was up and shining now. I was growing frustrated with Kysin off Guthix knows where, and me sitting here doing absolutely nothing... Nora too, was getting frustrated.
Maybe it was because she'd been pacing the floor since dawn, or the way she kept teleporting outside, or how she consistently urged me to contact Kysin gave me the idea that yep, she was getting annoyed.
The sun rode high in the sky, and Kysin still hadn't returned when we heard it. Quietly at first, so quiet it was dismissed as wind in the hedge, or birdsong. As it grew, it was unmistakable. It seems that we both realized what the sound was at the same time, for Nora looked at me, her pudgy eyes wide and mouth slightly open at the same time I looked at her in a similar way.
We were frozen immobile with fear before we acted. In the same moment, we jumped out of our chairs like the wooden seats had inexplicably transformed into sharp nails, pointing upwards. We ran into the garden, and peered through the hedge. The noise was louder now, and its cause was passing us. At the front of a giant line of assorted fighters, marched a heroic-looking figure, obviously the noob's leader.
We watched, awestruck at the sight of this massive army coming our way. Even I hadn't known the noob army was this large. We watched the noob's leader march up towards the stone alter to Guthix. He stopped.
As one, the entire army behind stopped as well. The leader said nothing; he simply raised his left hand and pointed. First at the Guthix alter, then...at Nora's house. As one, the army started moving again. This time, it was an unorganized, yelling rabble that charged up to the Guthix alter, and began tearing it apart. Beside me, Nora shrieked one word, "RUN!" I obeyed instantly, and sprinted through the house and out the front door.
We headed west, with no clear idea of where we were going, except to get away from this army. The shouting, charging noobs were sprinting flat-out behind us. We ran east as far as we could, which was only a mere three hundred or so meters from Nora's house.
Gasping for breath after three hundred meters run in heavy amour, I stopped. Beside me, there was a bang and a flash of purple light. Nora T. Hagg had teleported somewhere. Where? Away from here. I whirled around, ready to face the inevitable onslaught.
It was seconds before the noobs were upon me. If it had been one, ten, or even up to fifty individual, unorganized noobs I would've destroyed them all easily; messaging friends while I did so. But this was more. Hundreds, thousands even. And they were led by one individual; one single man of power commanded them with a word, a gesture, a tiny sign...
He was south a little, standing on a boulder on the lower slopes of White Wolf Mountain. His right arm was outstretched, forefinger extended, pointing straight at me. I had seconds only to observe him standing there.
CRACK! My whip sliced the air, doubling back at a speed rivaling that of Zamorak's lightning bolts. A noob screamed out in agony as the arrow shaped tip gashed across his throat. Rich, warm blood sprouted fountain-like out of his torn neck, drenching all those around him. He fell, dead before he had hit the ground. His lifeless corpse was trampled by other noobs, eager to follow their masters pointing finger.
I pulled back for another swing. As my arm lifted, a steel-plated noob stuck his steel dagger in the weakest part of my amour, directly underneath my right arm. I pulled the dagger out of me with my left hand, flipped it around, and thrust it between the bars of the full helmet the noob was wearing. I heard him choke, and then I saw blood pouring out through the bars of his helmet, and his attempts to pull the helmet off before he drowned in his red liquid. Through the death of the steel-plated noob, my right arm hadn't ceased its swing.
I whirled it around expertly, throwing it forward and pulling it backwards at almost the same time, while spinning slightly to the left. The result: its razor tip sliced in a deadly circle, maiming everything in its path. Everything I had been facing as I spun was gashed. Flesh, amour, weapons. Noobs.
The attack from the steel-plated noob had weakened me slightly. Not by much, but every little bit adds up... For every little wound they dealt me, I had slain about twelve of their number. The carcasses were piling around me, creating a wall-like structure.
Still able-bodied noobs poured over the top of it. I was standing in a basin of blood basically. My continuous movement, and trampling of the immediate ground had lowered it slightly, and all the blood was draining onto the ground beneath my feet. I'd been fighting for a while now, and the blood was beginning to stick to my feet and legs, making movement difficult and disguising corpses beneath my feet.
In rare, occasional split-second lulls in the fighting, I could see to the south. The noob leader hadn't moved his arm in the slightest since this fight had begun.
My breaths came in slow gasps. How long had I been fighting. Since the sun was high. And now it was leaving, going down for the night... I couldn't keep this up for much longer, I knew. The noobs were still coming, I could see them.
I'd realized a while back how hopeless this task was. I must've killed every noob in the army at least once. I swear I'd seen the steel-plated one more than once. They must've arrived at Lumbridge, then headed back here at a dead run. Can't...keep...this...up...long...much...
I swung my whip again in a wide arc, adding more writhing corpses to the walls around me. In this small moment of peace, I looked to the west, towards the mountains, towards the sun. I had to know how much daylight I had left.
The sight at first made me freeze, with the beauty of the picture then the hope it gave me. There was a ranger, poised on a high, sharp point on the snowy mountainside. Silhouetted against the blazing orange sun behind her. Her bow was ready, an arrow notched and pointing straight east. She stood there for a moment like that, then aimed her arrow downwards, and slightly south.
She released the missile, and it went true and fast. I couldn't follow it with my eye. By the time I looked to her target, The leader was already falling... slipping off his boulder...making no attempt to stop himself...and an arrow imbedded in his neck. As he fell his finger pointed away from me...It pointed skywards... And the noobs stopped coming.