by K D Brand
It was one he thought he could exploit.
He spent a moment contemplating his idea, wondering if he felt confident enough to put it to the test, and then finally decided it was worth the risk.
What did he have to lose…besides his life, of course?
Weak as he was—and the one level he gained was hardly going to impact that in any noticeable way—he knew he needed more experience than the noob quests in Altunn would provide.
The rats in the sewer had offered up a mere 25 XP each whereas the goblin he’d killed had earned him a cool 200. If he could take out a few of them, he could snag another level fast and maybe not be quite so underpowered.
That’s if everything worked out, of course.
He sighed, realizing the only way to find out was to take a chance. No matter how much he knew about UO, the game, he’d already determined he couldn’t rely solely on his game-playing experience in the real-world Umbra Online. Things just weren’t the same.
Still, he had to try.
So, that in mind, he made sure the guard was occupied, then marched toward the open gate as though he belonged there, ready to meet his fate, whatever it might be.
Fate, however, decided to gate-block him right off the bat.
“And where do you think you’re going?” the guard asked, setting a warning hand on Ty’s chest.
Where he’d come from, Ty had no idea. The guy had been twenty feet away, deep in his endless pacing, staring off the other direction, when Ty had last looked. Now, he was planted firmly in front of Ty, a leathery mitt holding him in place. His green glowing name tag read: Cord.
“Uh…I was going to take a look around outside?” Ty sputtered, trying to talk his way outside.
Cord shook his head. “Negative, young traveler. I cannot let you pass. You are not yet experienced enough to survive the world outside these walls. It is my sworn duty to protect you…even if it’s from yourself.”
Ty glanced around the sentry as he thought of a counter to that, when he spotted an elderly woman hobbling determinedly through the open gate, headed for who knew where, her cane thumping on the hardened earth. No one impeded her progress.
“Seriously?” Ty asked, pointing at the woman. “Are you telling me that Father Time’s grandmother over there is capable of defending herself from whatever’s out there?”
Cord cast a quick glance over his shoulder, then looked back to Ty. “Madam Elem is a seasoned resident of Altunn. She needs no looking after,” he said.
“She’s seasoned all right, like Colonel Sanders got ahold of her,” Ty chuckled. “I bet she can knit a brutal yarn-ball catapult.” He eased to the side, looking to skirt past the guard and race for the gate while he talked.
Cord moved with him, pushing Ty back a step. “Please, I ask that you respect and abide by the rules of Altunn. You must remain within its sphere of protection until you’ve gained more experience.”
“And…if I don’t?” Ty questioned.
“Then I’m afraid I’ll have to use force to keep you from leaving town,” he answered matter-of-factly.
One of Ty’s eyebrows rose questioningly. “So, let me get this straight, you’ll kill me to keep me from getting hurt outside the walls?”
“I that’s what it takes.” Cord nodded. “I will do what’s necessary.”
“Like completely disregarding common sense and reason?”
The guard shrugged. “If need be, yes.”
Ty couldn’t help but laugh at the absurdity of it all. But rather than test the guard’s willingness to kill Ty to keep him from dying, he raised his hands in a gesture of surrender and backed off a few paces.
“You know, living in Chicago, I learned long ago not to challenge crazy. It always wins,” he said. “You have yourself a wonderful day, sir.”
Cord offered a curt nod in return. “And you, too. It’s such a beautiful afternoon, isn’t it?”
Still chuckling, Ty back up until Cord decided he was far enough away to forget, and the sentry started up his pacing again. Then Ty shot off toward the same guard shack he’d used before to get onto the wall. The cluster of crates still in place, he quickly assembled them like steps once more and clambered onto the battlement.
Cord, ever-vigilant, and oh so worried about Ty’s wellbeing, continued to wear a trail in the dirt like a good soldier, whistling to himself without ever noticing what Ty had done.
On the other side of the wall, Madam Elem trundled about without a care, plucking wildflowers that grew in bright yellow patches in the barren dirt of the dusty killing field. She stuffed them into a wicker basket she carried, hung over her forearm. In the distance, the horde shuffled and howled, making their presence known but doing nothing more raising a ruckus.
Ty didn’t know if they stood their ground because the only target available was a helpless NPC, or if they were expected to stay put until the invasion began.
Guess I’m about to find out.
Ty, seeing no reason to put it off any longer, slipped over the wall. He clasped the edge to shorten the drop and fell the short ten, twelve feet to the ground.
Once outside, he laughed at the meager wall and the pathetic protection it provided. “No wonder the horde attacks the town all the dang time. What kind of idiot builds a wall the enemy can peek over without so much as having to stand on his tiptoes?”
Unable to stop laughing, he turned his attention back to the horde. They remained in place, not a single one of them having broken ranks to come after him or the deadly Madam Elem, happily picking her flowers.
Ty took a few extra moments to make sure the horde didn’t suddenly up and storm down on him, some kind of delayed response to his crossing the barrier that separated Altunn from the wilds. After he decided they weren’t coming, he swallowed the last of his hesitation and marched straight toward the enemy lines, one determined step after another.
He passed the old woman along the way, and she offered up a wrinkled smile and a casual wave.
“I’ve got this, ma’am. Don’t you worry,” Ty told her, giving her a thumbs-up. “I’ll holler if I need the power of the cane, okay?”
Fear the cane!
Madam Elem just kept on smiling, going back to picking her bounty without any concern for Ty’s antics.
Obviously the strong, silent type.
He moved on. Fifty yards from the horde, he slowed a little. He kept imagining that all the hooting and grunting of the creatures was a secret code for, “Let the moron get closer, then we’ll skewer him and eat his brains out of the bowl of his skull,” or some orcish crap like that.
At about twenty-five yards, he eased across the point of no return in his estimation. If they wanted him dead, he’d pretty much delivered himself right into their clawed clutches. There was no way he could turn around and make it back to town before they caught up to him.
So, he continued walking.
Fifteen yards, ten, five…the distance between slipped away, and Ty could practically feel his MPs getting ready to shrivel up and crawl away to find someplace dark and warm to hide. It wasn’t until he stood less than three feet from the front line of the horde that he relaxed a little, certain his earlier assumption was correct.
Positioned outside of the starter town, their sole purpose to invade on the full moon, the horde hadn’t been programmed to attack anyone before then since no one in the starter area was allowed to leave town until the horde was defeated during their invasion attempt.
The horde narrowed their jaundiced eyes and glared at Ty, goblins to the front, orcs to the rear, grunting and growling, swaying in place threateningly, but not a single one broke rank and came at him.
“There’s no aggro out here,” he said with a laugh, glad to be right. “No matter how close I get, you won’t attack, will you?” Ty inched closer and stuck his tongue out.
The goblins, of course, didn’t reply to his words or his gesture. Well, at least not in a language he understood. The foul looks they gave him, however, spoke
volumes as to their feelings on the matter.
“Well, pomegranate your mother, too,” Ty fired back as he moved closer and closer to the horde, testing the limits of their game-defined patience.
It turned out to be absolute.
He slipped between two of the goblins, whose heads turned to snarl at him as he bumped past them, but neither did more than coat him with spittle as their mouths churned, rumbling empty threats.
Now, within their ranks, his point proven conclusively, he circled back to his starting point and squeezed out between two more goblins, once more confirming they had no agency to initiate combat with him.
“Well, ain’t that something,” Ty muttered.
That’s when he reached for his sword to do what he’d come there for, only to realize he’d returned it to Char back at the tavern.
“Dang it!” He sighed, shaking his head at his idiocy. “Didn’t think this one through now, did I?”
Then he realized the answer to his problem was right before him. Literally.
Ty chuckled. “This is what we call insult to injury, boys,” he told the horde, grinning at them.
Then, casually, Ty reached out and locked his hand around the pommel of the nearest goblin warrior’s sword and tugged it from its sheath. The sword came loose with a whispered scrape, and Ty held two and a half feet of jagged, rusty steel out before him.
You have stolen a goblin’s sword! It’s barely better than a wooden splinter, mind you, but at least it’s got a stabby point. Plus, it’s likely to give tetanus to anyone wounded with it. Bonus!
The goblin stiffened in shock and outrage in equal measure at being disarmed in such a brazen manner. Its lower lip quivered as it glanced to the sides to look at its companions for support. They shrugged, no surer as to what to do than it was.
Ty ended its confusion a moment later.
While the goblin stood there questioning what had happened, Ty raised his stolen sword and swung it at its previous owner.
+30 slashing damage. Foe is caught off guard. +15 additional slashing damage.
The goblin shrieked, and then went silent. Eyes wide, it’s final glare one of rueful accusation, it toppled over, dead.
You have killed a goblin!
You have earned +200 XP!
The horde roared and thrashed about in a frenzy at the brazen death of their companion, and Ty made ready to run to avoid their righteous retribution but, despite all their bluster, not a single one of them pulled a weapon or came after him.
“You’re seriously going to let me do this?” he asked them, amazed that his idea had worked.
He took their thunderous grunts and growls to mean yes, they were going to do exactly that.
A mischievous smile broke across Ty’s face, and he moved to the next goblin in line. To its credit, it actually looked concerned.
It had good reason to be.
Ty raised his new sword again and brought it down like a headsman’s ax.
Only a last-second twitch saved the goblin from having its skull cleaved in half.
+23 slashing damage.
With blood gushing from a severed ear and a deep gash in its shoulder, the goblin shrieked and launched itself at Ty, its one good arm reaching out for him. Stunned by its ferocity and the unexpectedness of its attack, Ty stumbled back as its claws slashed across his chest, tearing through the leather of his already damaged jerkin.
-10 HP!
Ty hiss as his flesh tore, fire screaming across the crimson trenches the goblin had gouged across his chest. His left hand flew to the wound and clutched to it uselessly, doing nothing to stop the blood oozing between his fingers.
He only thought to raise his sword after the goblin clawed him again. This time, jagged nails drew red lines across his barely armored gut.
-4 HP!
More out of instinct than anything, Ty whipped his sword out backhand, and it caught the goblin across the throat.
+14 slashing damage.
A gusher of blood spewed from the creature’s throat, and it staggered once, then fell. It hit the ground hard, but it didn’t feel a thing, already dead. A dark puddle pooled around its head.
You have killed a goblin!
You have earned +200 XP!
+1 to Small Bladed Weapons!
Hey, look at that! You might actually not suck one day.
Ty groaned, tendrils of agony running through his torso. He hadn’t seen a notification amidst the barrage that said he was bleeding, so he knew he was in no danger of dying, but that didn’t make him feel better.
A goblin had dang near gutted him.
“That was…stupid,” he mumbled, berating himself for thinking he could hack his way through the horde ranks without any threat of reprisal.
Now he knew better.
-1 MP!
Ty groaned at the loss of a mind point, but he’d kind of expected it. He’d approached the horde with an appropriate level of caution, but once the first goblin had died so easily, he’d lost perspective and figured he could walk through a legion of them and grind away a few levels by using the limitations of the game’s programming to his advantage.
It clearly wasn’t going to be that easy.
“I’m an idiot,” he muttered.
None of the horde challenged his assessment.
He took a few seconds to let the sting of his wounds subside a little, then got back to work, but he knew he had to approach it differently. He wasn’t AzzKickerofTheGodz420 anymore, he was Ty, level two nobody. His days of walking through the enemy were over. He had to be smarter, trickier.
“Hey! Is that your mother over there? She really needs to cover them things up, you know what I’m saying?” he shouted.
Several of the horde urked and turned around to glance behind them. That’s when Ty raised his sword and brought it down with everything he had on the skull of one of them.
Backstab!
+33 slashing damage. Foe is caught off guard. +15 additional slashing damage.
You have killed a goblin!
You have earned +200 XP!
Hearing their brethren die, the horde turned back around and hissed and screamed at Ty, no doubt commenting on the nature of his lineage, but Ty had figured out the secret to taking them out without having to face them head on.
Distraction and dirty tactics.
For the next several minutes, he strode the length of the horde’s front line and convinced another six goblins to look away long enough so that he could effectively stab them in the back and kill them outright, earning a bonus.
+2 to Backstab skill!
Only one of the goblins survived the initial attack, having glanced back at Ty just as he readied to deliver the blow, but Ty was ready for that, too. He suffered the loss of 2 HP in the counter attack, but he cut down the goblin right after.
Notifications filled his vision as the goblin thumped to the ground, but only the last of them held any significance for Ty.
You have leveled! Congratulations! You are now level 3!
“Woot!” Ty shouted, doing an awkward little dance, laughing all the while.
The horde glared at him, apparently more disturbed by his lack of dance skills than the fact that he had been cutting them down for the last ten minutes.
Eyes half-closed as he celebrated, wiggling all around, Ty caught a blur of motion at the edge of his vision.
Ty stopped dancing—or whatever he was doing—and looked around.
“Oh…Cheese Nips!”
Where he’d initially thought he’d just seen one of the goblins or orcs thrashing about, furious at his casual decimation of their ranks, he realized it was something else entirely.
Halgor himself was coming!
Ty squealed like a frightened mouse, his voice cracking, and turned tail immediately, bolting toward Altunn. Halgor charged forward, the horde parting before him and scrambling aside to avoid being trampled. The earth shook underfoot.
The troll king roared at Ty’s back. “You dare sl
aughter my minions?” His threat rumbled like thunder across the intervening distance. “I’ll flay your skin from your bones!”
It was enough to send goosebumps skittering across Ty’s skin.
-2 MP!
The notification was nothing more than a blur against his hazy vision. It didn’t so much as register in the background of his mind, Ty too busy trying to get away before Halgor squished him.
Ty leaned forward, arms stretched straight out behind him, and bolted across the open plain. “Naruto run, don’t fail me now!”
Every breath a huffing bellows, he heard the deadly stomping footsteps of the troll king growing ever closer.
“I’ll gouge your eyes from your skull and devour them,” Halgor threatened. “I’ll use your guts for stew!”
Darkness fell over Ty as he edged closer to the safety of the wall. Wafts of rancid breath warmed his back and tickled the nape of his neck, and Ty could see the troll king’s shadow hands rising, ready to strike him down.
I’m not going to make it!
Every last fiber of Ty’s being screamed at him to keep running, to make one last desperate push toward the gate, toward safety, head down, feet flailing, stopping for nothing.
But Ty did the opposite.
He dug his feet into the ground and ducked low, flinging himself backward the instant he gained enough traction to do so, eyes closed and hoping for the best that his sudden change of direction didn’t get him squished.
The troll king, clearly never imagining such a maneuver, lurched forward, arms swinging wildly to rip apart a foe who was no longer there.
Ty nearly bit his tongue off as he hurtled through the legs of Halgor. The great beast thundered overhead, lunging, his massive arms cleaving through empty air. And then he stumbled.
His momentum flinging him forward, Halgor growled as he lost his balance and crashed face-first into the hard dirt of the barren field. Clouds of dust were kicked up in his wake, and the troll king skittered along, bouncing and skidding until he came to a shuddering halt.
As much as Ty wanted to watch and pull a Nelson from the Simpson’s—a point and snarky ha-ha!—he knew better.
Self-preservation lit a fire under him, and he shot off before Halgor registered he’d even hit the ground.