Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  Despite the stiffness, he felt pretty good otherwise, attributing it to the game mechanics of sleep. Six hours of uninterrupted rest in-game was pretty much all a player needed in order to be fully healed, barring some catastrophic injury like losing a limb or being poisoned or certain long-lasting spell effects. Even the cuts on his arm from the window had healed up, leaving no trace he’d ever been wounded.

  Speaking of healing…

  Ty glanced over to where Deven had been resting, and he realized the man was no longer there. In fact, none of the NPCs were.

  They’d vanished.

  He hopped to his feet and glanced about, frantically wondering where they’d gone, panic washing over him as he imagined what might have befallen them while he slept. He ran over and examined the ground, looking for bloodstains or other signs that they’d been hurt, when he remembered something else about Umbra Online.

  NPCs were normally force reset after big events, returning them to their pre-event stations.

  “I’d say the horde attack fits that category,” he mumbled to himself, letting out the worried breath he’d been holding in since he’d noticed they were gone. “They’re probably back at their posts now.”

  He wasn’t even sure they’d remember him now that the horde had waltzed through Altunn and laid waste to the village. They might have been completely reset, for all he knew.

  Then again, how they’d come to know enough to learn how to summon him in the first place was still a mystery. One he needed to figure out.

  He suspected they’d retain some part of their memories given how different the three had appeared to be in comparison to the other NPCs hanging out. The three were already off-script in the game, and Ty needed to know just how far that difference went.

  Quickly, before he stumbled across a PC with a quicker knife-hand than Theolin, he made his way out of the labyrinth of the Shadow Walk and back onto the streets of Altunn.

  Daylight greeted him, his eyes slow to adjust after spending all night in the dark depths of the Walk. But that wasn’t all that greeted him.

  Altunn had been completely restored.

  Where just the night before, the starter town had been a raging inferno, the streets thick with orcs and goblins, the buildings burning and filling the night sky with black smoke, there was now the same idyllic village Ty had first arrived in. People wandered the walks, chatting casually and going about their daily business. Guards stood at ease at their posts.

  It was as if nothing had happened.

  And while Ty had pretty much expected that, the town resetting alongside the NPCs at the conclusion of the Horde scenario, it was one thing to suspect the change might happen, and another thing entirely to actually see it.

  Playing the game from the comfort of his bedroom, the destruction wrought around his character had never been anything but a reflection of the game’s programming and the quality of his video card to translate it.

  He remembered struggling to up his visual settings to get the most out of the fire and magic and chaos of each battle, wanting to see the blood and guts and gore splattering around him.

  Now that he’d seen it all happen in real life, Ty wished he could mute the brutal savagery of the world. Images of both NPCs and PCs dying stuck out in his mind, the coppery tang of blood rising in the air and tickling his nose, settling on his tongue; the acrid stink of burning buildings, and the bone-rending shrieks of the horde as they carved their way through the city, slaughtering everyone they came across.

  All of that was gone now, except in his mind. He swallowed hard at the thought, realizing he would never forget what he’d seen. There’d be no scrubbing that crap away.

  And no matter what he wanted to believe, this was no game anymore. This was his life for the foreseeable future.

  He took a moment to collect himself, ignoring the stares he received because of his new, yet still completely abnormal outfit, before heading off down the street, aiming toward the tavern.

  Soon enough, he’d be hungry again, so he figured he could find something to assuage the hunger pangs once they hit, but he also wanted to find Charice, Amon, and Deven. Even though, deep down, he figured Deven was fine, the system having voided his wounds as easily as it had the town’s destruction, Ty still worried about the man. He’d taken one heck of a beating.

  Once Ty made it to the Shady Orchid, he found it hard to reconcile the damage he’d witnessed happening the night before with the absolute lack of it now. There wasn’t so much as a scratch on the door or a scorch mark on the walls from where the place had been set alight. He even circled around and took a look at the window he’d broken. It had been replaced, and there weren’t even any crystalline shards of glass left on the ground below the sill. Even the sheen of grime was still there, mocking him.

  All was right with the world once more.

  Ty cast a quick glance through the window and spied the three NPCs at table just inside. To his surprise, Charice actually noticed him. A flash of a smile illuminated her face before she wiped it away and waved at him. Amon and Deven turned in their seats and motioned for him to come inside and join them.

  “Guess they didn’t forget me after all,” he said with a pleased grin. He felt unexpectedly glad they hadn’t.

  It was a surreal feeling to interact with NPCs in the game the way they were. Just as surreal as it was to realize he was actually in the game itself.

  Ty circled back around the building and went inside the Orchid. On instinct, he glanced around, examining the patrons with a wary eye, looking specifically at the table where Defiler of Souls! and his knucklehead friends had been camped out when he first arrived.

  To his relief, they were nowhere to be seen, the table empty.

  Grateful he wouldn’t have to deal with them, he stopped off at the bar and forked out a copper for a non-alcoholic drink to sip on, then marched over to where the NPCs sat. Amon scooted over to give him room and pulled a chair out for him. Ty sat with a nod of thanks, plopping his mug on the table.

  “Good to see all of you alive and well,” he told them, his gaze lingering on Deven, unable to resist double-checking that he was okay. The butcher didn’t have so much as a mark on him, though his leather apron retained the crimson stains that’d been there when Ty first met the man.

  “Yeah, we’re fine…thanks to you,” Charice told him. She struggled to meet his gaze, fingers entangled on the top of the table.

  Deven reached out and shook Ty’s hand, nodding his appreciation.

  Amon grinned. “Care for an ale?”

  Ty chuckled and waved the offer off. “No thanks. Much as I’d like to flaunt my being fourteen and sucking down a beer in public without legal consequence, I’ve seen the in-game effects of alcohol on my character. I don’t even want to know what it would do to me the way I am now.”

  Amon’s eyes narrowed. “In-game? Character?”

  “Ahh, yeah… You know, never mind. It’s nothing,” Ty clarified. “Just a figure of speech.” Ty lifted his mug to his mouth to give him a reason to avoid going further into detail.

  Amon shrugged, accepting his explanation easily.

  Once more, Ty felt bad for being dishonest, even if he’d only meant it as a way to avoid overly complicating things.

  As clear as it was that these NPCs had an idea as to some of what was going on in the world, his summoning being the obvious indicator of that, it was also clear they weren’t so clued in as to really understand his situation…or theirs, for that matter.

  Ty doubted anyone was, which didn’t sit well with him. He’d have to figure things out on his own but, at least, he could press the NPCs for what they did know. It might be enough to give him a better idea as to how to proceed.

  “So, I’m kinda curious…this summoning thing…” he started, “how’s that work?”

  The three glanced around at each other, clearly deciding who was going to answer his question, or whether they were going to answer it at all. After a protracted moment,
Charice sighed and relented.

  “It’s all kind of complicated,” she admitted.

  “It’s not like I’m going anywhere,” Ty shot back. “With the horde invasion over, we’ve got some time, I’m thinking.”

  Charice stared at him, eyelids narrowing to the point Ty couldn’t see anything but piercing black dots stabbing his direction. “What do you mean over?” she asked. “Has something transpired we’re unaware of?”

  Surprised by the question, Ty floundered for a few seconds. “Uh…it happened last night, remember?”

  She shook her head and grunted, suddenly back to the gruff, no-nonsense woman from the night before. “The full moon approaches. Halgor and his horde will soon ride down upon us. It will never be over. Not until we can find a savior to help us defeat the horde. We must continue our search since our initial effort wasn’t quite…successful.” She quickly added, glancing at Ty, “No offense intended, of course.”

  Only a little taken, but whatever…

  Blowing off the comment, Ty went on. “Then, if the invasion hasn’t occurred, what were you all thanking me for when I arrived?” he asked, pressing, curious to know just how out of touch with reality—such as it was—they were.

  “That was for…” Amon started, then trailed off, confusion warping his features.

  “For the…uh… The…uh…” Deven tried to explain. Like Amon, he clearly found the words hard to conjure because he didn’t seem to have a clear idea of what had really happened. “For saving us?” When he finally spit it out, it was more a question than it was a statement.

  “From what?” Ty pushed.

  The NPCs seemed to be in a state of uncertainty. It was as if they understood that something different had occurred, that nothing was quite the same as it used to be but, at the same time, they really couldn’t put their fingers on what had changed.

  “From the…horde,” Charice finally managed. “You saved us from…the horde, but…”

  All three of them sat there, looking as close to shell-shocked as anyone Ty had ever seen at her admission. He figured it flew against everything they were programmed to believe.

  “You guys really don’t understand that the horde raided the village last night? That they razed the place to the ground, but the world was reset and everything’s gone back to the way it was before the invasion?”

  “No,” Charice said, her voice quavering, but she struggled on. “The horde has yet to come. Halgor has amassed his army at the forest’s edge. I spied his dark forces there just this morning. He will come when the moon is full. We must be prepared.”

  “The moon was full last night,” Ty reminded her.

  The NPCs looked ready to fall apart at the seams. They shook their heads in defiance, but Ty could see that each recalled some small part of the chaos of the night before, the death that had befallen everyone around them. They’d seen it play out before them in this very room.

  “What about the window over there?” Ty asked, pointing across the tavern. “You remember me breaking it, us escaping through it when the goblins attacked?”

  “Yes!” Deven shouted, thumping his palm against the table as if to steady himself. “I was…wounded…” he began, then looked down at himself with wide eyes, examining his arms, running a hand along his chest and stomach. “Wounded badly. I was…nearly killed, I believe,” he stated. A pallor fell over him at the memory, his skin turning white. He looked ready to be sick.

  Amon stared at his friend. “We hid…the alley…the thief…”

  “But how…?” Charice asked, unable to finish the question.

  It was as if none of them could speak. They were remembering what had happened, and yet they still couldn’t quite picture it as real. The game had reset and taken, if not their memories, their ability to reconcile the two states of their being: the cyclical nature of their old existence and the new reality of having summoned a real-life person into their world and what had happened after that.

  Ty realized then that his very presence was likely anathema to everything they knew and understood. His just being there had to change the very foundations of their life, sowing confusion. While they’d become semi-self-aware at some point in the past, having the wherewithal to draw him into the game world somehow, they were still limited by their initial programming. Everything they thought and did now was contradictory to how they were expected to behave, and it was wreaking havoc in their heads.

  “I-I-I don’t understand,” Charice muttered. “How is all this possible? I remember the horde attacking, Altunn burning, our friends dying, but I…”

  Ty patted her on the shoulder, feeling the sour taste of pity creeping over his tongue at having pushed them so hard. “I’m not sure I understand it either,” he admitted. “Things are different now. My being here, you’re bringing me here, has changed everything.”

  The NPCs sat there, glancing back and forth between themselves with wild eyes, feet shuffling uncomfortably over the wooden floor, unsure of anything right then. Their flushed cheeks made them look ready to explode, their thoughts like dynamite, the fuse lit and spitting sparks.

  As a distraction, Ty pulled his borrowed sword from where he’d slipped it between the rope and his armor and slid it to Charice across the table. “Here’s your sword back. Thanks for letting me use it.”

  “I told you before, I don’t have a…”

  For a split-second, the old Charice was back, confident and brash, blunt, certain she had a grasp on everything, but then her fingers wrapped about the pommel of the sword as if she simply knew it was hers, and her gaze shifted to her waist. There, she spotted the empty sheath at her belt. She swallowed hard, eyelids fluttering as she made the connection between the two items.

  Ty took another sip of his drink as he watched her process everything.

  “Oh…” she said, barely a breath above a whisper.

  She lifted the sword, staring at it, and inserted the blade into the sheath. It fit perfectly, sliding home with a thump.

  “Nothing is like it used to be,” Ty told her, turning in his seat to look at the other two, offering each an encouraging nod. “I’m not quite sure why yet, but I can’t help but feel it’s important that all of you recognize that fact.”

  Ty didn’t envy them their confusion. He’d been there himself just a short while ago. Heck, he was still kinda there now, if he was being honest with himself. While he couldn’t explain what had happened beyond the crazy idea that he had been literally summoned into Umbra Online, there was no denying he was really there any longer.

  And if there was any chance of him making it home, or simply surviving another day, he needed their help. He needed them lucid and clued in.

  “I…saw the village burn,” Amon admitted. “I saw Sully cut down by goblins right here in the Orchid.”

  “You mean that Sully?” Ty asked, though he did so quietly enough not to summon the man’s attention. The last thing he wanted to do was see if the man remembered Ty knocking the display over and stealing the muffin.

  Amon glanced across the room to where the baker rested against the bar, chatting with the older woman stationed there, the baker alive and well despite what Amon had witnessed.

  The two whispered and giggled, some subtle flirting going on, until Sully sighed and said he had to go open the shop and start his day. The woman—her gleaming tag above her head marking her as Eunice—nodded and rested a casual hand on his as he collected his things and made ready to leave. She gave a quick squeeze before they separated.

  He was on his way out a moment later, a heavy thud sounding as the wooden door slammed shut behind him.

  “That door was…was destroyed. The goblins…” Amon went on. “They were here. Right here.” He glanced to where Deven had been brought down by the goblin, as though picturing the scene in his mind.

  The pieces were falling into place.

  Ty nodded. “Here and gone,” he replied.

  “But the moon has yet to shine its fullest,” Cha
rice argued. “How could they have already been…?”

  “They come again and again and again,” he supplied, desperately wanting them to understand, no matter how uncomfortable it was. “That’s how your world works. How many times have you seen them tear this city apart, murder your friends? How many times have you died in the onslaught?”

  Ty wasn’t sure how often the horde scenario replayed, but he couldn’t imagine it was all that long between invasions. The game needed to supply the constant flux of new PCs with the opportunity to defeat Halgor and his minions before they moved on to other scenarios. That meant the attack was a common occurrence. It likely happened every few days,

  Amon took a huge gulp of his ale, his beard glistening from the bits dribbling down his chin, and Deven and Charice sat there, looking like Medusa had paid them a visit, each as stiff as stone. Ty realized then that they’d hit the wall. It was time to reel them back in a bit so they didn’t lose their minds completely.

  “So…back to the summoning…” he threw out, waiting for them to shake off the haze of their thoughts and focus on him. “You said something about wasting all your ingredients when you tracked me down outside of Savan’s, what did you mean by that, Deven?”

  The butcher took a long pull from his mug, setting it on the table with a thump before replying. “The spell…the one that brought you here… it’s…difficult to explain. Since none of us,” he gestured to the other two NPCs, “has any sort of magical aptitude, and old Varus wasn’t willing to help with the actual ritual, it relied solely on a number of mystical ingredients to power it, to give it the energy it needed to work.”

  “We used up all those ingredients,” Charice continued. “And now, the only way to activate the summoning spell again so we can…uh, you know,” she said apologetically, “we’d need to find and procure them again.”

  “And it’s not like the things just grow on trees,” Amon said. “Well, maybe some of them do, but not any of the trees around here, anyway.”

  He shrugged, shoulders sagging in defeat.