Bathed in a blue light the golem crashed into the battle line. Its large size towered over the men around it three times their size. Massive fists of grey rock slammed into armored forms left and right and metal clad figures were turned to pulp or hurtled skyward. The knights fought valiantly but they could do little against the construct.

“Mages, focus dispels on that golem. Engineers, we need armor piercing on those knights. Now!”

The golem suddenly took a back step. With the enchantments taken away by the mages it received a mana disruption to the energy which kept it alive. Reeling around like it was drunk it was a matter of time before it continued its killing spree.

Not taking the pause for granted the knights with the benefit of having their weapons buffed started hacking huge chunks exposing the creature’s core. A form suddenly hurtled at the golem hitting its core and with a tremendous explosion it blew apart shredding the knights with burning rock near it. Serion watched as a fellow mage cheered, the caster of what he believed was a magic spear.

A prompt appeared.

8200 Experience Gained!

“Moron, we could have taken it out without losing those knights,” Serion muttered.

“Don’t worry about it, we have plenty more men. These NPC constructs are just the prelude to the real fight. What have we killed about two dozen of them now? Besides they are only sending forces forward to probe our weak spots,” said Drecksis a fellow guild mate and heavily armored knight. He was in charge of guarding the group of mages behind the NPC knights who made up their own side's front line.

“It’s the basis of it all, we just lost a quarter of our knight group over a single golem, one of the last too. Men lost, mana lost, if the enemy had followed with another group we could be quickly overwhelmed and cut down,” said Serion.

“Are you saying I might actually get to kill something myself? I’ve been looking forward to it,” joked Drecksis while hefting his light eating great sword and shield the size of a door.

Besides the small setback the day was going well. It had been two days in and the forces on the battlefield looked ready for the final confrontation. Thousands of players were present and for every player there were a handful of NPC soldiers.

In the distance he could see archers exchanging fire while mages threw up barriers blocking clouds of arrows. On the edges cavalry made passes and veered off trying to goad soldiers into chasing them and become easy pickings. A handful of flying creatures could also be seen soaring over treetops in the distance hunting enemy scouts.

They stood in an ocean of red and grey the livery of the Kingdom of Reckett arrayed before the opposing forces of blue and gold, the Clans of Treageia.

He knew this was all just a prelude to the real fight. The two forces had been gathering and probing each other for almost a week now.

Their guild had sided with Reckett because they had paid the best and had few laws when it came to post battle looting sprees. A week before the Treageian army had assaulted and overtaken the nearby Reckett trade city. After breaching the walls the place had quickly fell to looting and slaughter, little was left of the once large bordering city. Even with a good amount of players inside the enemy had proved too numerous to hold back for any length of time.

The Reckett army had been waiting in the nearby hills letting the city take the brunt of the enemy force. They had even given out special quests and rewards for taking out key elite forces. Players had covered the city with traps and led ambushes for hours. For all that the two armies were almost equal in size, the players that fell had been resurrected after the in game 24 hour death cooldown.

Serion and his guild had struck down numerous players while they held out. The NPCs in the battle however were lost for the upcoming battle. Reckett had lost a city and numerous low rank soldiers but at the cost of destroying some enemy elite forces along with some battalion leaders.

Horns started blowing on both sides. The days attacks and probing’s were done. Back to camp and on the morrow the real fight would begin.

Drecksis led the group back to camp while he and the rest of their companions went to their own guild hall. The camp had hundreds of neat orderly square tents, the main army making a giant rectangle with player guild tents in the center. They however went to the far edge of camp where the animals were penned.

They didn’t have a tent for their own hall, they used a wagon instead. Uncommon but practical to how their guild functioned, they moved around a lot and having a transportable guild hall being near them at all times more than made up for the cost and magic they had put into it.

After walking though the perfect orderly tents of the NPC army the animal yard was complete chaos. Quickly erected wooden fences with ropes held hundreds of horses. Nearby goats, pigs, and other food animals were roped to poles and the smell would have been overpowering if he’d turned the setting on.

As they neared a stable housing the officer horses Serion could make out their wagon. Higher than the stable the large two story wagon was painted in a solid black with no ornamentation whatsoever. The ever present driver sat slumped in the front holding the reins looking ready to takeoff at a moment’s notice.

A door was set below his perch one on each side. The top had firing ports for any occupants inside and hatches covered nearly every inch of it. Overall it looked slapped together made up of two wagons, one being dumped on the other then hammered together before a fresh coat of paint and called done. The ramshackle appearance was all by design of course.

Entering the closest door they were transported to a high ceilinged room made of large stone blocks that would be more at home in a tower then a wagon in the middle of an army. Torches illuminated the countless trophies that covered every exposed surface. In the center of the room sat a massive table made up of skulls and twisted pieces of metal. Around it sat thirteen thrones each unique in design. Serion took his seat at the top of the skull.

“Tomorrow will be the battle won’t it?” Drecksis mused.

A cloaked shadow that was the guilds sole rogue Revenance spoke “All signs point to it. I led a scouting group and fought other like-minded squads, little movement overall but the field before us it the best spot for a large fight. Our right flank has too many trees and hills for cavalry, men at arms and archers on both sides making sure nothing sneaks past. The left flank is a marsh with sand traps and acid pools, a few archer groups were stationed there for any flying threats.”

“Even the dead have trouble with those acid pools. My strike force caught a few foolish players, turns out the dead are perfect for dragging players into them,” said Legion their minion necromancer specialist.

The guild mates laughed imagining the unlucky players going to such a burning demise. Their guild focused on pvp (player versus player) and hunted down other players at every opportunity. They were a small guild but strong, each guild member specialized their characters to take others down. Even their two healers had a plethora of tricks for killing others.

At the beginning Serion’s guild had started out with a handful of friends playing together group hunting others. They had eventually fought another pvp group and had a several week back and forth of murder and mayhem.

Finally the two leaders had come together and decided to form a single guild. Not for any idea of peace between themselves but to hunt other people down. Together they had cut a swathe through players in any area of the world they visited. On public forums the names of The Dread Thirteen were spoken with hate and anger. This only incensed the group to kill even more.

Eventually the guilds Blood Born, Rage, and the Corpse Defilers had come together creating a legacy of death and hate. They were all known as PKers (player killers), greifers, gankers, or hunters as they liked. It didn’t matter if you had just started the game or your group was fighting a tough monster. Everyone was fair game in their eyes.

Serion pulled up his group information. Along with his guild he had two others guild group aiding them in the fight. With them they numbered roughly 50 and along with the knights that escorted them they made a formidable group.

“Our fellow players are idiots and I’ve made a list of who to kill off first. Drecksis that mage today with the golem.” His friend grinned while running a thumb down his great swords blade. A rivulet of blood seeped down and then sizzled and disappeared into the blade. A dark knight and fallen paladin with a demon bound sword, he grew stronger off his kills and the longer a fight went on.

Serion had died to that common looking great sword a handful of times. He still remembered it cutting through his enchantments and doing tremendous damage in its lust to taste blood and death. Eventually he had realized that constructs were its weakness, no blood and no souls to power up from he had stalled its bearer long enough to blast him with several deadly spells. It was that ingenuity and shut down of key opponents that had led to both their guild leaders coming together and discussing what they both wanted.

When they had all come together Serion had even offered a handshake to the fearsome knight that had slain him at least a dozen times. Drecksis taken aback by the man at the show of respect expecting only hatred had taken it and they both shook hands.

From that day on a friendship had been born. The two were now the best of friends and complimented each other’s fighting styles well. Drecksis rushed the enemy keeping them on the defensive while Serion blasted them with powerful spells.

“I expect tomorrow will be it. I can’t imagine the developers forcing us to wait any longer. They’ve already dropped hints of another expansion when all the worldwide battles are concluded. Until the time to spill more blood.”

“We are the Thirteen! We hunt, we kill!”

Serion logged off looking forward to tomorrow.

The King of Reckett sat in his tent holding a mirror. Even with his army around him he felt ill at ease. So many plans and work was culminating in a short time.

“We’re sure it will work?”

“All signs point to it my friend. We’ve worked long and hard getting those ‘heroes’ to gather the items needed with these ‘quests’ they love so much. We’ll all be free soon. The price our men pay is a deep but worthwhile sacrifice, everyone will know it even if they don’t understand in the beginning.”

“After tomorrow let us usher in a golden age,” he told Urth’Garrett high clan lord of all Treageia.