The Deadliest Trap

Ten years have passed since this game of death has begun. Countless lives have been lost, even we have lost count of the number of dead but most probably the number exceeds a million. But more worrisome is the fact that H-players are taking a heavier toll on the gamizens, a term used for the citizens of the game; than the wilderness. The H-players now have moreover united under the leadership of Diabolos, the greatest H-player of this game.

The frontline was at Stage 470, and the progress was a lot slower than we thought. May be because now we were more lax about the progress of the game and began to find lively pleasures in the situations. Anyways, it was Tacoma 12, 0010 and the stage was unlocked about two weeks ago.

A meeting was organized by the BDA and attended by most of the clearers. "We are highly obliged for your co-operation. We all know that H-players are a great threat to the clearers and tend to kill players which were till now clearers." Linda tried to set up the stage. It was a well known fact, I stood up "Wait a sec…did you just say till now?"

"Good, you were paying attention after all. Yes, it seems like as the front-lines are progressing and the level gap between them and clearers are increasing; they have begun to target lower and middle level players. This guy's team was ambushed yesterday by a gang of H-players; he was left alive out of the 10 so that he would tell the tale." A tall, thin man came from inside, looking at him one could easily guess that he had an agility-type build and wore minimal metal armor.

"Yesterday, I and my group were farming in a mid-level ground in 187th Stage. We went on for about 3 hours and got much EXP, dor and items. On our way back to the city, we came about a quite desolated place. There were no players, even though it was the peak hunting time and…a little later we were surrounded by 30 players with hostile cursors. They said that if we give them all our items, they'll spare us and let us go. We did and later they killed all of my group members. A guy was going to kill me with a rapier, when another one of them; most probably the leader stopped him saying that they should let me live to tell the tale."

"Diabolos" I muttered. It was his signature attitude that whenever he or his guild carried out a crime they would leave a survivor. Actually, they would themselves escort the lucky survivor to the boundary of the town so that he would recall the terror to other players. They wished to see terror in the eyes of other players, terror far greater than that of this death game.

"I see, one of them said that this game has given a chance to all of its victims to survive, however they would give the chance of survival to only one of their victims." The timid man continued, there was a certain weakness in his voice. Linda had the man escorted to safety when the whole meeting began discussing about the issue.

Though most would agree that we must now take them out, but it was a well-acknowledged fact that their hide-out was unknown and any messenger who went in to find their hide-out never came back. Many suggestions and counter-suggestions came in "Should we investigate the crime scene." "No, they would have probably left the Stage itself, so it's no use going there with hopes to find out."

Even after hours of deliberation, no outcome was deduced. You can't attack an enemy if you don't know its location, moreover their pattern of attacks though was highly randomized they neither attacked on the frontlines nor in the lower Stages. Only middle stages were attacked, but their numbers was too large for even the whole clearer team to patrol.

The meeting was disbanded and we all returned to the normal routine of clearing dungeons. However, after about two weeks a chain of events caused us the worst casualties in the game.

On Tacoma 26, the next day of supposed Christmas the whole clearers were again assembled in the BDA guild castle. Linda, the guild leader was already inside the meeting room with Chi, The Cat. Linda began "She has got us some important news. I guess you all should hear it." The Cat didn't have her signature smile on her face but a heavily serious expression.

"I have got this information about H-players. I must warn you; this piece of information is totally unverified. If you still want me to continue then tell me, otherwise I'll go." The whole hall began a chorus murmuring and yelled, "Continue!!" Chi began "Yesterday, I met a player in Centro the main town of 100th Stage. He seemed worried ­about the menace of H-players and gave me a tip that the hideout of H-players is inside one of the safe-zones of the sub-dungeon of 450th Stage."

"I think this information is worth giving a try." I stood up giving my views. However the whole group assembled out there began giving me a sour look, Chi commented, "Why am I getting a feeling that you knew about this info before hand?" I could feel my face grow hot and I decided not to reply on it. Linda gave out a huge sigh, "As expected of him, he won't co-operate. Don't know how much secrets, is that digital brain capable of storing."

I snorted and sat down. The group noted the grave situation and decided to give value to the info. A group of 70 highest leveled players of the game was assembled, with a single motive; arrest all the H-players and treat any attacking player like a normal NPC monster. The largest assault group ever formed began the preparations of the largest assault on the greatest hindrance in the clearing of the game, i.e. the H-players.

The assault was scheduled on the night of 30th Tacoma and we spent out the days researching about the sub-dungeons of 450th Stage. The stage was based on the Indian epic Mahabharata and its sub-dungeons were not cleared yet. "How would they hide in a non-cleared dungeon?" I asked my group members, to which no one had the answer.

Though we were operating on the basis of unverified information, still it was a common question to be asked. Anyways, we thought it not to be tough as we had a large team of clearers who could tackle the worst situations the dungeon could offer.

The whole 70 member assault stormed inside the only sub-dungeon of the Stage. The dungeon was quite a spacious inside and to our surprise, it didn't have a ceiling of rock and had sky over the head. We went deeper and deeper inside the dungeon when we saw a quest NPC. As we wondered about the quest it offered, a thought came upon my mind, 'What if this dungeon is not a slaughter-type dungeon and rather a single-quest dungeon? If that's so, it would be easy for H-players to hide in a safe zone deep inside the dungeon after clearing the quest due to their large numbers.'

I initiated the interaction with the quest NPC and found out the details regarding the quest. It was named 'The Assault on the Chakravyuha'. The background story was that

Arjun had gone quite far with Lord Krishna pursuing an enemy, when Duryodhana decided to lure and entrap Yudhishthira in a massive Chakravyuha. Chakravyuha is the ultimate defensive formation and needs immense skill with weapons to break.

We discussed for some time and decided to go ahead with the quest, thinking that maybe we will get some help regarding the H-players and get out somewhere near the safe zone where they were hiding.

I hit the ACCEPT button and the NPC turned towards us and began, "Pranam! We are greatly obliged by the decision of yours to help us in the cause of Dharma and fight Duryodhana and the Kauravas. I shall take you to the camps of Pandavas, where Dharmaraja Yudhishthira will brief you about the situation. After the battle, we will make sure that you will be escorted out of the place." The rest 69-member team turned their sour eyes towards me as if taunting, 'Great we wanted to go further inside and you have got a quest to get out of here.'

I sighed and followed the NPC, now a name had appeared over the cursor 'Abhimanyu'. He took us through the battlefield and into an encampment. There were four other NPC's each of them clad in full-body heavy metal armor. The central figure greeted us and apologized that he could not offer any hospitality, then proceeded towards the war room and explained in detail about the quest.

The strategy was enacted that twenty five of us will barge into the Chakravyuha with the five NPC's, while the rest of us provided support by constantly chipping out soldiers from the constantly spinning circles. There were more than five thousand soldiers in the field so taking them out completely was out of the picture. We decided to barge in from a different point a little apart from the NPC's.

I knew that they were going to be blocked by a very powerful opponent who would enact delaying tactics and in the mean time the Kauravas inside the center would kill Abhimanyu and call it a day. And the war horn was blown, we barged inside the Chakravyuha and as anticipated, we reached the center by slaying numerous soldiers just at the time Abhimanyu reached there.

There were seven chariots in the center and the cursors showed hostility and names from left to right were: Dronacharya, Kripacharya, Ashwatthama, Duryodhana, Karna, Dushshasana and Shakuni. "Attack!!!" Abhimanyu charged on them while the swordsmen from our team took out sneak attackers and the archers provided backup support to him. All of them took severe damage from our and soon were in red zone.

Duryodhana bellowed, "Guru Dev! These little kids are of no value. I want Yudhishthira, I; your yuvraja want you to kill all these." And then all other six got off their chariots and began to approach us each with a strange sadistic smile. We were ready brandishing our weapons and then charged upon them. However now, their skills and defenses were at a clear different level; it wasn't much late when we realized that winning now was out of question.

"We must retreat and get out fast." I shouted to the NPC who was busy defending against the now stronger opponents. He replied, "We'll have to wait until sunset, I don't know how to go out." We were left mouth opened in shock, then I recalled from the story that getting out of the Chakravyuha was tougher than to get in. So everything depended on the goodwill of the enemy.

Now it was us, who were losing their HP continuously. Our HP fell back into the yellow warning zone and later in the red danger zone. We stuck to our strategy and took turns switching out; we were four to one in ratio but could hardly manage them. Just as our healing items began to go dry, we heard the screams of many soldiers and more friendly units came in.

It was the other NPC's and the rest of the team. The strategy worked, the soldier density on the outside was so less that they all had bypassed the blockade created and rushed inside. Seeing that the Chakravyuha has been broken and their plan failed, Duryodhana and his commanders retreated and the army went in chaos. The day originally meant for slaughter was saved and back at the camp, we were rewarded handsomely by the Dharmaraja.

He offered the 70 man assault team any one item to choose, all of them of the highest quality and ranked Class-E and above. I took leather armor with 60% resistance to piercing attacks, called Holy Kavacha. We were then escorted by Abhimanyu, Arjun and Krishna to the nearest safe zone. Arjun thanked us for saving his son while Krishna said, "Many events are left to be unfolded. Do not pray for results, just do your part and leave the rest to the Almighty."

"Looks like Chi's info was wrong" Neetto remarked and whole group gave a huge glare. Liza joked jabbing me, "At least from this guy's venture, we were able to get some pretty decent rewards." Suddenly I felt like I saw something moving out of the safe zone. I got up and followed the shadow out of the safe zone.

Liza and others followed me, though my Search radius had nothing I still felt quite hostility in the atmosphere. It was a forest, "Where are we? Are we still in the dungeon" "No, I heard that the stage had no dense forests." came the voices from the assault team who was seemingly confused more than me.

I tried to focus and utilize my Meditation ability to boost all other abilities. Suddenly, I had a strange feeling and stepped behind. About a fraction of second later, an arrow landed right at the place I was standing. "It's the Grave Busters, regroup and get ready!" I shouted but to no avail, they had caught us off-guard with our HP at average 60%.

Out came a full 50 player guild called 'The Grave Busters', the only hostile guild in the game and though we outnumbered them they took the opportunity to ambush us right after we came out from the quest. A bloody battle ensued; many of us who tried to go back to the safe zone were the first ones to fall.

However, we didn't run totally dry on luck. We managed to regroup and beat the savage H-players till their HP dropped to a couple of pixels. Yet, knowing that they wouldn't last a single blow from our high level equipments; they charged on us until their HP reached zero.

Four hours of bloodshed and the problem was solved somehow. We managed to capture the top tier of the guild, Diabolos however escaped. Or maybe he wasn't there in the first place. The battle was the bloodiest one we had till date; we had a total loss of fifty players. Thirty-two on their side and eighteen on ours and out of them five fell from my blade.

I took out the head of two, sliced two in half through heart and took the last one through CPD. Strangely enough, we were not declared H-players by the system and instead it rewarded us with EXP and Dor. The remaining H-players were hauled up in the prison underneath the first Stage and most probably would not come out before long.

As we entered the city, we were hailed as heroes and everyone looked up to us like we were their saviors. Still, deep inside I knew that what I did was wrong. I could have used reasoning instead and of taking their HP to zero, but I gave into the temptation of rage and the urge to survive and didn't consider other options. Just like others, I also tried my best to forget this incident; but couldn't and unfortunately I had to carry thus guilt throughout my life.