Day in the Life of an Archer

Diary of: A New Archer

Getting a new job is always a nightmare, the nervous feeling washing over you on your first day after somehow making it through the interview after stumbling in and making a fool of yourself. Now you have to try and not make a fool of yourself in front of your peers. My job is a little unique: I work for the gods. Every religion claims that their gods are the only real ones, yet here I come to find out all of them are real. Better yet, they need people like me to ‘fight’ for them. Of course this isn't like normal wars, we mortals won’t be lastingly harmed.

This job is supposed to be really simple, I'm an archer (and a pretty good one if I do say so myself!) all I need to do is walk through this magical portal and appear upon the battlefield of the gods. After that it’s pretty simple, run down the middle of that lane and shoot arrows at anything that tries to stop me. I decided to keep this little diary to document my journey into this new job!

The first time through the portal is seriously disorienting, blink and suddenly you go from one place to another. It doesn't help we’re in a barracks of sorts with hundreds of others dressed exactly like us that aren't too well lit and then thrust out into a sunny area.



We’re given a bit of gold before being thrown through the gate, and they say that if we can make it to the other side of the map without dying near a god or goddess we can keep the money! This counts as a bonus for our “duty to the gods” so it doesn't count against our daily wages, either!

First Spawn:

Apparently the job description left out the fact that we little “minions” (as they call us) aren't just fighting one another, but also the enemy gods. It was one “Hel” of a shocker to be running along and suddenly finding yourself scorched by a beam of pure sunlight by Ra. I have to say, though, and I mean this in the best way possible, he’s not as scary as I expected a god to be. Of course I'm going to have sunburn for the next three months, but that’s okay. It didn't take much longer before I was sliced, diced, and shot full of arrows and sent spiralling into the abyss. That’s when I woke up back in the barracks, forcefully pulled out of the darkness.

We get some time off between spawns. There are enough of us that we only have to spawn once every three minutes or so, and each time we can appear in a different lane. I spent my downtime chatting with a few of the other archers, and there is a rumour that another goddess has joined the fighting recently, apparently she’s out there fighting right now. No one will tell me who it is, but I did notice some of them seemed to be covered in stones… Great, I'm going to be swallowed up by the ground now, aren't I?



Second Spawn:

This time I was shot out on a different lane. Last time I believe I was sent into what they call the “Middle Lane” but this time I'm on the “Left Lane.” This place is not as large as I first thought. I was expecting the place called “The Battleground of the Gods” to be immensely large! The run to enter the front lines is pretty long, but I did notice that this time there was some loud guy screaming, something about a double kill?

I finally get into the fight and start firing off arrows when suddenly I'm frozen solid! Through the ice I see a moving giant block of ice-- no wait! That’s a frost giant! Ymir hits me with his giant weapon and I find myself back in the barracks, suffering from frostbite like I've never felt before. First sunburn now Frostbite, what’s next? Actually, I better not ask.

Third Spawn:

Seems like I'm going mid again, looks like I’ll be defrosted at least…

We didn't even get to start fighting, because as we passed a destroyed tower, Zeus came running past us in the opposite direction. Suddenly we burst into flame. Ra really hates minions.



That was a really short run, but our centurion told us that once he took a step through spawn and was instantly blown to bits by five different gods; this was no where near his shortest or most painful trip into the realm. Apparently the gods just really enjoy killing us.

Fourth Spawn:

Apparently two of the gods on the team I'm playing for did something called “rage quitting” because while running to lane, I heard that same announcer guy say “an ally has left the game” twice. The archer in front of me started cursing about rage quitters; without the allied gods to protect us we die more, and dying freaking hurts!. Also, when our gods leave the match our chances of winning go down, which means there’s less of a chance we’ll make it to the other side of the map without dying and be able to keep our money! All the towers in the middle lane are down, but apparently the enemy team didn't want to push any more. Xbalanque pushed straight down with us and took us all the way to the enemy phoenix, a fire bird that shoots flaming balls of death at us. We managed to take it out before being blown away (heh) by Kukulkan. I think it was a good run, considering that’s the first time I've actually managed to get anywhere close to a tower without being killed.

Fifth Spawn:

Oh no! Oh sweet Zeus! I walk through the spawn point, and suddenly I'm on fire! It doesn't hurt. Apparently it’s good fire? This job is seriously weird. Unfortunately, we only took a few steps with Xbalanque by our side before I found out who the archers from earlier were talking about. It’s always fun to be strolling down a lane and suddenly be turned to stone, and that last thing you see is a crazy gorgon, freaking snake hair and everything.

Apparently the “match” (as they call it) ended after that, but I have to say, I am not sure if I really even want to come back to work after all of this. Who wants to be turned to stone, frozen solid, and burned to death? Seriously, this pay isn't all that good, and while it’s great that I can meet the gods, they kinda seem like jerks--and they talk funny! They treat us like we’re not even humans, using us as human shields and seemingly enjoying killing us. Plus, what in the name of Zeus is up with that weird voice that seemingly comes from nowhere?

 

Yes, they have much more respect, i agree with you