That Wasn't the Plan

by Jason Cheek

  It was all just a dick measuring contest to put it in manly man terms. Yeah, I know that this whole thing started off between Sarka, Kenzie, Jill, and Krystal, but just because they were women didn’t stop them from trying to one up everyone else. I guess it was just human nature. Only, this was the gamer version of women showing off a new purse or pair of shoes to their girlfriends, or a guy showing off his latest electronic gadget to his buds. In an MMO, everyone liked to have the most unique pet to show off to their friends and strangers. It would’ve been the same even if they’d all been non-combat pets. Both were considered “leet loot” amongst players.

  “Why aren’t they angry about our Great Saber-Fang wolves?” Dmitry asked in a quiet voice, as he leaned in close to whisper into my ear.

  “Neristhana has a combat pet too?” I heard Jill ask in a shrill voice, as I nodded towards my friends.

  “Oh, that’s because they haven’t gotten to know you yet,” I said with a shrug. “This is more of a “who has the better loot” between teammates. On top of that, Neristhana and Jill have some history between each other.”

  “Da,” Dmitry agreed thoughtfully, “is same with Russian players.”

  “Ugh, sorry about that,” Thomas apologized, as he spoke under his breath on the other side of me. “They were so excited about showing off their new combat pets and-“

  “We stole their thunder,” I said, knowingly finishing Thomas’ sentence off. “Honestly, I’m surprised you guys recovered anything with the way Kenzie moves through a zone like a one woman ecological disaster.”

  “True that,” Thomas agreed, letting out a small snort of laughter. “It was bad enough when it was just her, but Jill and Krystal’s desire to surpass you in levels have made her that much worse. If not for her love of cats, she probably would have slaughtered the first den we ran across.” He gave me a goofy grin. “Though, once we figured out you could find the monsters’ dens and capture their young as combat pets that changed everything.”

  “I just don’t understand why we’ve been finding so many babies in this area,” I said, thoughtfully looking around at the empty plain. “Is it just because no players have been hunting out here?”

  “No idea,” Thomas said with a shrug, as we looked over at Dmitry.

  “Da, monsters naturally start reproducing in zones where they not being killed by players,” the Russian guild leader explained after a moment. “Is how we have great many Great Saber-Fang Wolves for guild.”

  “Humph,” Thomas said, as he looked out at the bodies around us. “You might want to explain that to your friends.”

  “What do you mean?” I asked, somewhat confused as Thomas nodded at the three figures stomping amongst the corpses. Switching back to Darkvision, I saw that it was Hefe, Bonnie Smash, and AJ.

  “I guess not everyone lucked out on getting a pet?” I asked, watching the trio going about their work. Catching Dmitry’s eye, I nodded at my friends. “So, because these packs are new respawns there shouldn’t be any young, right?”

  “Is hard to say,” the Russian said, giving an apologetic shrug. “This is first time all mobs have been slaughtered on plain for long time.”

  “Damn it, we don’t have time for this shit.” I complained to my two companions, as I checked the time. It was already past midnight and we hadn’t even reached Domenic’s yet. Letting out an aggravated sigh, I called out in raid chat. “Fuck, there’s no way we’re going to get them to leave this area until they’ve completely checked everything out.”

  “There’s nothing I could do but go with the flow,” I said, pressing my fingers into my eyelids as I felt a migraine coming. “What was another hour before I could log out tonight?”

  “Assault Leader Dell,” I said, as my vassal stepped forward. “Go ahead and detail everyone but two hundred troopers to skin the dead. These skins should make some excellent armor upgrades for everyone. Also, have everyone recover whatever looks to be useable.”

  “Immediately, my lord,” Assault Leader Dell said, giving me a salute. Before the swordsman could turn away to carry out my orders, I caught his arm and lowered my voice. “If any of the troopers find any babies that survived the battle, go ahead and have them take it for themselves as a combat pet. We’ll only have the raid roll if a den is discovered.”

  “By your command,” Assault Leader Dell replied with a grin, as he took off to get the troopers organized. Before the veteran swordsman had made it half way back to the main force, Jill’s shrill voice came to my ears.

  “Why the hell did you tell the NPCs that?” Jill demanded, as she got into my face. “Do you even know how many combat pets each of us could have? Can we sell them to other players for money?”

  “What the hell, Jay?” Krystal asked in a disappointed voice, as if I’d royally fucked up. “AJ, Hefe, and Bonnie Smash are still trying to get their first pet and letting the NPCs have them instead?”

  “Seriously, Star, what were you even thinking?” Kenzie added in her two cents.

  “What was I thinking?” I repeated, as my face flushed red with anger. Turning my gaze on Jill, I let her have it with both barrels. “What is the time limit that you can recover a baby monster before they die on their own after their parent dies? Isn’t that a five minute timer?” I demanded as Jill’s mouth snapped closed.

  “Do you know if that first imprinting can even be offered to another individual?” I unmercifully continued my assault. I didn’t know if the timer always showed up for imprinting a new baby or not, but Sarka had told me that a five minutes timer had popped up as soon as Freya had seen her. “Ever since Neysa bonded with me, I’ve been reading up on Combat Pets and Combat Mounts. I can tell you with authority that the in-game Wiki says that once those five minutes are up, the baby dies. Not only that, once you have a soulbound pet it cannot be transferred or sold to any other players.”

  “You’re acting like the people of The World that make up our forces are easy to acquire.” I said, loud enough for everyone nearby to hear my words as I addressed Kenzie, Jill, and Krystal who were rocked back by my words. “I can assure you that’s not the case. And, it’s doubtful we’ll be able to get that many more in the near future now that the large guilds understand just how powerful the people of The World are against players.”

  “What do you mean, chum?” Dangas asked in confusion, as Dmitry spoke up behind him.

  “There NPCs like other games, da?”

  “Nope, most are now at the level of an Advance player,” I gave both men a wicked grin, “and Assault Leaders are at the level of a Nightmare player.” I continued as both men’s mouths gaped open in shock. “Not only that, if you get killed by a person of The World, you start losing ten percent of your accrued experience points with each death.”

  “What about the ruckus going on in the forums about you de-leveling players to zero?” Toxi asked, somewhat confused.

  “Well, that was before this morning’s Emergency Hot Fixes,” I said with a shrug. It wasn’t a surprise that these guys didn’t really pay attention to those parts of the change lists when they logged in. Why would they when they didn’t have any of their own people of The World? So, I explained about the changes that they’d been unaware of.

  None of these players had known that they could lose a level by being killed by a person of The World, or that the recent patch had made the NPCs so tough. For most, it was an unpleasant surprise, while others could see the wisdom in having NPCs that powerful in a game like this. As the designers had explained, the real time strategy portion of The World was mainly going to be NPC armies fighting against one another. None the less, the information caused a small ruckus as everyone argued over the merits of the changes.

  “These are not just NPCs in a game,” I continued, as soon as everyone had quieted down enough for me to be heard again. “They are our forces to fight the higher level guilds with. Even if we combined our guilds together into one force, we’d be rolled up like a day old newspaper in one battle without their
help.” I quickly signaled to remove the next part from my video stream.

  “If we are going to be blocked from purchasing new people from the NPC Recruiter by these platinum sized guilds, how else can we make our forces stronger?” I continued without waiting for an explanation. “Getting things like Combat Pets or Combat Mounts … or both for our forces.” I could see that my words were sinking into the players’ minds about the possibilities of what I was talking about. “How much better of a force will they be with additional Skills and Abilities, or better armor and weapons?” At the same time, I knew I had to address the players’ greed too.

  “Now that’s not saying we won’t have to work out how best to distribute unique and rare loot,” I said, briefly meeting the eyes of the players around me. “But, the focus will be on evenly distributing loot between guilds and players in a team or raid to the best of our ability.” Those words seemed to settle everyone down as I focused on Kenzie, Jill, and Krystal. “So, are we cool?”

  “Ugh!” Jill threw her hands up into the air and stomped away without saying anything else, while Krystal laughed behind the hand that she’d used to cover her mouth with.

  “We’re good,” Krystal assured me.

  “Yeah, I hadn’t really thought about that,” Kenzie said, somewhat sullenly. “I mean, we haven’t been doing that since we’ve met.”

  “That’s mostly because Star has been giving us most of the loot as a thank you for traveling with him to help his friend out,” Phoenix said, speaking up for the first time as Thomas nodded in agreement. “What’s up with Jill?”

  “She just hates getting into a losing argument with Jay,” Krystal explained, giving me a shake of her head.

  “What can I say?” I shot back with a laugh, as I re-enabled the video recording for the Twitch stream. “Logic trumps feelings any day.” Instead of commenting back, Krystal flipped me off, but, before she could turn around, AJ excitedly whooped in raid chat.

  “My very own Elite Earth Shock Wolf for the win!” The Dwarf’s deep laughter rang out over the empty plain as he announced his Combat Pet’s new name. “Meet Brutus everyone!”

  Looking towards where the sound came from, I saw AJ holding up an ugly stone-skin puppy over his head like a champ. It looked ridiculous since he was covered in blood and gore from digging through the dead corpses looking for a left over baby to call his own. Though, what caught me by surprise was the pissed off look on Krystal’s face.

  “That’s why he offered up those Wildclaws that dropped earlier,” Krystal angrily muttered to herself. “He wanted first dibs on a high-level pet.” Completely ignoring me, she scooped her Wildclaw kitten into her arms and stalked after Jill.

  I was smart enough to keep my mouth shut at this point. AJ had a good thing going with his gaming-girl threesome, at least until he was too smart for his own good. The man had a knack for playing the odds to get what he wanted. Not that Krystal and Jill could really complain. AJ must have won two different rolls and gave the Wildclaws up to his girlfriends’ first.

  While that was normal SOP for any man playing an MMO with his wife or girlfriend, for AJ that was plural since he was dating Jill and Krystal. The rest of us knew that AJ looked at things slightly differently than another boyfriend usually would. AJ’s mode of operation would be to pass on the loot rolls he didn’t want so he could get something better. Especially, once he realized we’d figured out the trick for getting Combat Pets. We all knew that if he’d really wanted the baby monster Twin-Tailed Foxes that he would have kept one for himself in a heartbeat. Whatever, better him than me, I thought, as another voice cried out in excitement.

  “OMG!” Bonny Smash exclaimed in raid chat. Yeah, she actually pronounced the acronym and not the actual words like a typical gamer. “Look at what my Pookey Bear found for me! I’m going to name him Lava!”

  Everyone looked over at Bonnie Smash as she held up a baby Elite Molten Flow Strider! Even from this far away you could see the molten lines of fire running through the cracks of its scales. It was a truly epic looking pet. The Half-Orc was standing atop a pile of dead bodies that had to have been waist high as Hefe continued searching for more young like a maniac. It was a gruesome job but one that paid out in high dividends.

  “Alrighty then,” I said to the players standing around me. “If everyone is agreeable, let’s have anyone without a Combat Pet search for babies, while the rest of us do some skinning and meat gathering. This loot is just too good to leave lying about on the ground. Besides, the sooner we get this finished up, the better chance we have of not getting caught by any respawns.”

  The majority of us worked as quickly as we could, while a handful of players searched for babies. It was half a dozen or one of the other as to which activity had the better chance of turning up a baby monster. Out of a hundred and eighty-seven mobs, there was around seventeen babies that were recovered. Two of three Elite Molten Flow Striders went to Bonny Smash and Ulia, while the last went to Angie. Out of the fourteen Elite Earth Shock Wolves that turned up, four went to my companions, three to the Uten Syn guild, and the rest were picked up by the Kayden Troopers going about their work.

  I kept an eye on Suman the entire time the reports of found combat pets were coming in. Each time someone new screamed out in joy, the man’s face just got darker and darker. Especially when so many were from the people of The World. Surprisingly enough, he kept his mouth shut. Although, the expression on his face clearly showed what he thought about the issue. Luckily enough, no one else seemed to be having an issue with how the loot was being passed around.

  By the time we’d skinned the bodies and looted the corpses for what we could, a half an hour had gone by and the new respawns were starting to appear in the distance. There’s nothing like seeing a level 95 monstrosity made from stone and twice the size of a rhino to make people work faster. Five minutes later, Assault Leader Dell had everyone formed up and heading into the pass at a run.

  Chapter One.Twenty-Nine

  (Thursday, May 8th / Day 18 of The World.)

  As soon as we’d gotten clear of the plain, more monsters began appearing behind us. Watching the affect, it was almost like they were being phased in from another world, since they were slowly going about their business like normal when they appeared. Within minutes the way behind us was completely blocked by high-level mobs.

  The way ahead of us was a steep climb to the lowest part of the mountain pass. Most of us took to using the sides of the trail to pull ourselves up over the more slippery areas of the climb. Large boulders and smaller rocks were strewn about the twenty or so yard wide path, which made it that much more difficult to climb. It didn’t help that the stones beneath our feet were covered by frozen snow and black ice with small patches of scrub grass peeking through while we made the difficult climb.

  Otherwise, there was no other signs of life. A good thing since traction to fight would have royally sucked on an incline this steep for our melee classes. For the most part, I spent the climb huddled within the folds of my heavy cloak. It was wrapped tightly around my body to protect against the freezing wind that whipped across the side of the mountain, while my breath steamed before my eyes.

  We didn’t bother raising any zombie pets for the climb up. Maybe that was a bad call defensively speaking, but it would have made the going more crowded. As it was, the Krasnyy Volki pack was traveling in the middle of the path, while Neysa and Helgath scouted ahead. Their presence, I think, gave us all a sense of security in case we came under attack, but even the four footed wolves had a problem with slipping and sliding.

  On top of that, the bright light of the moon didn’t help make any of us feel less vulnerable during the climb. Although, the heebie-jeebies didn’t completely leave me, until Neysa reached the top of the pass and reported that it was clear of enemies. While that allowed me to breathe a sigh of relief, Helgath’s message that they could see the siege going on from on top of the pass sent a cold shiver down my spine. I wouldn’t feel safe un
til we were out of this now dead end trap.

  Pushing my way further up the steep slope, I saw Neysa and Helgath lying down on the frozen snow up ahead as they peeked over the top of the pass. Hearing me walking up, Helgath glanced back as her thoughts came to my mind. ‘Keep low or the enemy below might see you outlined against the light of the moon.’

  ‘Thanks for the warning.’ I replied back, keeping my thoughts to myself that she was overreacting. Glancing behind me, I saw what she meant. The light of the moon would highlight me if I was standing atop the peak. If there were any sentries watching the pass, they’d see me even without needing to use their Darkvision. Crawling up the last few feet on my hands and knees, I glanced over the top to see what was going on below.

  On the other side of the shallow valley, a wall of jagged lightning suddenly lit up the night’s sky as the far mountain slope was hammered by a flurry of actinic blasts of pure energy. The massive strikes were focused on the walls of a large fortress tucked into the base of the rocky crag that rose up into darkness like a lone sentential covered in ice and snow. Instead of dissipating after a few seconds like natural lightning would, the bolts continued to rain down death for nearly thirty seconds as the rolling report of the thunder echoed back from the surrounding mountains.

  As if that wasn’t bad enough, flaring magical attacks swept the top of the battlements with the colors of green, blue, red, and yellow. Some of the glowing flashes of light were enchanted missiles shot from various weapons from the field below the wall, while others were obviously powerful spells that I didn’t recognize from my own repertoire of magic. The continuous attacks were even denser than the hell we’d unleashed upon the Global Brutality players when they were held up in the Uten Syn guild’s fortress.

  Incredibly enough, the overwhelming assault did nothing to stop the purple bursts of magic from raining down on the enemies fighting within the “V” like funnel before the massive walls. In the strobe light effect, I could see odd shapes fighting the wave of players trying to fight their way through the three hundred-yard long gauntlets that led to the fortress’ gates. Each of the creatures towered over the players like eight-foot tall giants. Some glowed with a weird florescent blue that reminded me of Archons from StarCraft, while others looked like piles of moving rock that had come to life.