Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  Ty steered clear of the massive troll king’s reach and ran as fast as he could toward the gate. Halgor blustered and howled somewhere behind him as he clambered to his feet, but there was no way the troll could catch him now.

  Ty flew past the old woman, still puttering about and picking her flowers. “Might want to run, Madam Elem!” he called out as he passed.

  She offered him a pleasant wave and stood her ground, smiling.

  “Oh, you have got to be kidding me,” he grumbled.

  Ty dug his feet in once more and managed to scramble to a halt. He cast a quick glance at Halgor to see where the troll king was, sighed, and then ran back to Madam Elem.

  Halgor was up and running again, headed their way. Each of his massive strides brought him closer and closer.

  “If I die, Elem, you better splurge with your flower money and put something nice on my headstone, you hear me?” he told her, snatching the old woman up and flinging her over his shoulder as if she were a sack of feathers.

  “Oh…my,” she muttered as he started off again.

  Flowers spilled from her basket, raining down over Ty, their fragrant scent an odd juxtaposition to the rank stench of the approaching troll king.

  Hunched with age, and built thin like a bird, she was probably the only person in all of Altunn who was smaller and weighed less than Ty. And thanks to the magic of adrenaline and terror firing the blood in his veins, he was able to carry her the rest of the way to town with only a little effort.

  He burst through the open gates, screaming for the guard to close them. “The troll king is coming!”

  +2 RP!

  Your reputation has increased for risking your life to save Madam Elem. You might want to start fitting yourself for a cape soon. You might never be a hero, but everyone looks better in a cape.

  Lungs like out of control forest fires in his chest, Ty staggered to a stop and set Madam Elem down as gently as he could manage, turning his attention to the gate and the monster raging beyond.

  Only…there wasn’t one there.

  Halgor was gone. Disappeared.

  “What the…?”

  He did see Cord, however.

  Red-faced, the guard came over, his upper lip peeled back in a mustached sneer. “Didn’t I already tell you that you can’t leave town yet?” he asked, fury like bits of gravel sharpening his voice. He shoved Ty back toward town. “I don’t know how you got around me, but if I have to say it again, I’ll…”

  Still huffing, Ty struggling to catch his breath, he aimed a weak wave of contrition Cord’s direction and stumbled back to get the man to stop shouting at him. It worked, and Cord once more forgot about Ty and went back to patrolling.

  Hand on his thighs, Ty stood there, bent over, sucking in desperate breaths, when a notification popped.

  +1 to Fitness!

  “Oh, the irony,” he muttered, still gasping for breath, but grateful to be alive.

  When he finally managed to get his wind back, he looked up to see Madam Elem heading toward the gate again, her cane clomping on the ground in rhythm with every slow step. Her empty basket dangled on her arm as it waited to be filled again.

  “Are you kidding me with this?” he growled, shaking his head in disbelief. “I’m not saving you next time!” he shouted at her back as he hobbled through the gate, headed back toward danger.

  “I can’t even…” he grumbled and turned away, hands reaching for the sky in frustrated disbelief.

  His heartbeat finally settling, he thought back on what had happened, wondering why the troll king had been independent enough to come after him while the goblins and orcs hadn’t, despite him cutting them down right in front of one another. He hadn’t been anywhere near close enough to aggro the troll.

  So, how was Halgor different?

  The answer wasn’t immediately apparent, and Ty’s head hurt just thinking about it. He didn’t know enough about the specific circumstances of his version of UO to make a remotely educated guess. So, instead of bothering and making his brain ooze from his ears, he jabbed a pin in the question, promising to come back to it when he learned more about the world and how it operated.

  While maybe not more important, he had more interesting things to think about right then, anyway. Like leveling.

  With that, he marched off toward the trainer huts, contemplating what he was going to spend his level points on.

  Worn to the bone from his panicked flight, something that increased his cardio sounded good right then.

  Or maybe a nap.

  Eleven

  Ménage à Montage

  OUTSIDE OF THE trainer huts, Ty found he suddenly had a dilemma.

  He’d unconsciously started toward the warrior trainer when it struck him that he was no longer AzzKickerofTheGodz420, weapon master and slayer of all things. He was Ty, muffin snatcher and aspiring rat murderer.

  There was no doubt in his mind that he needed how to better use a sword, or a weapon of some sort, since Umbra Online was a game—er, world—based on combat and survival. But he wasn’t built like his character was. No, if Ty was completely honest with himself, he was the exact opposite of AzzKicker in every way that mattered.

  He didn’t have the frame to support heavy armor or the strength to wield massive, two-handed weapons. And he didn’t have Soulreaver anymore, or any of his other magical weapons that enhanced his ability to kill monsters, and for the foreseeable future, he couldn’t see having the opportunity to gain those weapons to help even the odds.

  Heck, his earlier run-in with the troll king made it clear just getting out of town was going to be a chore above his ability to manage. He’d only survived because he was small and squirmy, like a greased-up Chihuahua, and had juked Halgor at the very last second and made the troll stumble over his own feet.

  So, given all that, he didn’t think it made sense for him to try and be a warrior when he clearly wasn’t built for it. He’d be the smallest warrior since Rambo Smurf.

  Cleric was out for pretty much the same reasons as warrior. They were devoted to heavy arms and armor, not to mention that whole shaving their head thing.

  Scribblenaut that!

  Ty ran his hands through his hair, definitely deciding he wasn’t down for cutting it all off or being overly chummy with any of the gods in the game. That was looking for trouble.

  He also couldn’t see himself being a straight-up mage, druid, pscionicist, or alchemist. Those were traditionally classes that required a party to keep them alive and kicking early on in their levels before they came into their own. And while Ty had Char, Deven, and Amon to help out—sort of—he didn’t know if he could rely on them. Not clued in to any of the game aspects, Ty felt they would need him to protect them more than he would them.

  He could go with ranger, the most martial of the classes available outside of warrior and cleric, but he remembered playing one in-game once, and he struggled too much in the early phase of his character evolution. He was no Aragorn, that was for sure.

  Frodo woulda died.

  He’d gotten better later on as he played the ranger, enjoying the ranged attack options available to the class, but his melee skills lacked. Too often, he ended up respawning because his support team had collapsed around him, and he’d had to go toe-to-toe with monsters on his own. That rarely worked out well, and he could see that happening again.

  Sadly, all that didn’t leave him much of an option.

  “So…what should I be then?” he asked.

  Unfortunately, no omniscient voice provided him with an answer.

  He already had an idea, though. “Much as I hate to admit this, training to be a thief right now might very well be my best move. Barring the actual stealing bit, being small and stealthy and fast are all traits that make for a good rogue, and those traits can be amplified by the thief skill set. Right?”

  As he often did, Ty talked through his problems aloud. He always found it easier to wrap his head around an issue if he could hear it in concrete t
erms, even if it was only him discussing it with himself.

  His brother, J, always made fun of him for doing it, catching him at the awkwardest of times, but it helped for whatever reason and, right now, Ty needed something remotely resembling normalcy in his world. If it took talking to himself to figure things out, then that’s dang well what he was going to do.

  “Thief it is then,” he decided, albeit reluctantly, then marched toward the rogue trainer hut.

  The door was open a crack, and a sliver of light shined through it, illuminating the porch where Ty stood. He caught a subtle whiff of flowery incense wafting in the air and heard a quiet, shuffling noise sounded inside.

  Ty went to knock when a soft voice called out to him just as his knuckles grazed the door. “Come in, traveler.”

  He eased the door open, it giving way with a moaning creak, and walked inside. Ty realized it was his first time there, having never trained a character in the rogue profession line before.

  This ought to be interesting.

  The inside of the hut was easily three times the size of the outside. It totally threw off Ty’s perspective of the place, and he paused at the doorway to take a look around.

  To the left was an open area with a smattering of training dummies. They looked as if they’d had their fair share of abuse. Little more than bags of stuffing tied to poles of various heights, tufts of padding stuck out all over where blades had been driven into the dummies.

  The floor was covered in scuff marks, with the occasional scorch mark thrown in for good measure. Ty wasn’t sure what effect had caused the burns, but it made him curious. He’d never paid much attention to thieves or their sub-class, assassin.

  One the opposite side of the hut was an armory. Hung on curved hooks was an array of different types of daggers, short swords, chained weapons, and even a couple of shorter spears, designed more for speed than heavy damage. There were also throwing knives, shuriken, and some small axes, as well as a number of exotic weapons Ty didn’t have a clue about.

  The incense hung heavy in the room, clouds of it floating along the ceiling. Ty breathed through his mouth to avoid the thick, cloying scent. It seemed to grow thicker the longer he stayed in the hut. He waved a hand to clear a particularly thick haze of it away, then started when a voice came out of the clouds just a step away.

  “So, you wish to train in the ways of a rogue, do ya?” the voice asked.

  Ty started, nearly jumping out of his skin.

  “Uh…” he managed gracefully.

  Standing before him was an older man who looked as if the only thing he were capable of training Ty was how to lose control of his eyebrows. They looked like a pair of fat caterpillars, wiggling across his brow, threatening to ascend his nose and invade the bridge.

  He wore a simple outfit, a loose black shirt stuffed into black leather bracers and tucked into a wide leather belt. His pants were similar to Ty’s—only not for women—and his boots were a soft leather that obviously, given how easily he’d snuck up on Ty, were the prefect complement for stealth.

  “Quick-witted and decisive,” he grunted a with a nod. Almost bald, the trainer had a ring of soft white hair that encircled his skull as though he were wearing a snowy Christmas wreath. His glowing green tag read: Morit. “That’s how we like our rogue candidates.” He rolled his eyes a bit, and his voice came across like a pipe a day smoker, or that he’d been hitting the incense on the sly.

  “I mean…uh, yeah. I’m looking to train,” Ty clarified. “I need some weapon skills and better stealth to start, so I’d like to focus on those instead of the traditional thieving skillset.”

  “We can do that for you, but it’s more than a simple choice to train under me, traveler,” Morit warned. “It’s a commitment to the guild. Of course, that comes with certain…commitments.” A sly grin stretched his lips at the last bit. “Are you willing to accept the terms?”

  Ty stood quiet a moment, contemplating his options. And like he had earlier, though he hadn’t really considered being part of the rogues’ guild, he’d pretty much already decided what he was going to train in.

  Still, he wanted a little information the commitments. They sounded a tad…ominous.

  “So, these commitments you refer to…what are those?”

  “Well, the first is that you pay your dues consistently,” he answered. “The guild is no fan of tardiness when it comes to its tithes. Then, there’s the possibility that the guild will call on you when they need your services. You never know when the guild might need someone to step up and take care of something at the last moment. Of course, the job will be a match for your skill level and abilities, so you needn’t worry there, but you’ll be expected to help the guild.” He offered up a sly smile. “These commitments, however, cut both ways. The guild will provide you with access to places in town no others can enter. There’s also a market you can use to buy or sell items outside of the norm.”

  “A black market?” Ty asked.

  “Well, I’d proffer it’s a bit more gray than black…” Morit winked.

  Ty chuckled. He thought for a moment, then nodded. “Fine, I accept.”

  Morit grinned. “Then I agree to train you…for a small fee, of course.” The old man chuckled low in his throat.

  Ty sighed, but he’d expected that. He remembered how much of a pain in the butt it was to level early on in the game because all the trainers expected some kind of tribute, be it gold or having to do a task for them to prove your dedication.

  “How much?”

  “Tithe as you will, traveler, but a rogue trains best when he is unburdened,” Morit answered, the words squeezed out between a sly smirk.

  “Is my first lesson extortion?” Ty asked as he dug into his pockets and passed over a gold coin.

  The rogue trainer weighed the coin in his hand, examining it closely—as if Ty had the skills to counterfeit it—and then offered up a welcoming smile once he’d decided it was real.

  “Your tribute is accepted, traveler,” Morit told him. “Your training begins now.” He gestured to the area where the weapons sat. “Choose your armament but recognize you already have a slight proficiency in short blades. Perhaps you would like to expand upon this skill.”

  It was more a statement than an option Ty realized. He went over to the weapons and fiddled with a couple, choosing one that was slimmer than the one he’d borrowed from Char, yet about a half-foot longer. He wiggled it about, and the weight and balance felt good to him. It was a blade he felt comfortable holding, not too short, or too long, and not so heavy that he thought he’d struggled to wield.

  Satisfied with his choice, he went over to the open training area where Morit had settled. The old man nodded at Ty’s choice of weapon.

  “That is a good choice,” he confirmed. “Given your slight stature, you need a blade that is both light and fast and which offsets some measure of your reach disadvantage. The nandao is perfect for such use.”

  Ty glanced at the sword, glad to know its proper name. He’d seen it used in a million martial arts flicks, but he’d never known what it had been called beyond sword.

  “Now that you are armed, you must learn how to use the weapon with grace,” Morit told him.

  “You mean hacking and slashing isn’t the best way?” Ty grinned.

  The rogue master shook his head. “Were you a warrior, perhaps,” he answered. “And while speed and strength might well win fights now and again, precision and timing win out every time.”

  “Did you get that out of a fortune cookie?” Ty joked.

  Morit shrugged. “Come, let us train.” He gestured for Ty to advance. “Attack me, and do not hold back,” he said. “This area is a wounds-free zone. No injuries sustained here will affect your health or linger longer than the round of combat.” A mischievous grin brightened Morit’s face. “At least no physical wounds. The injury to your pride might well last forever.”

  Ty grunted. “That’s encouraging.”

  “Have at
me,” the master ordered, his voice shifting from playful to serious in a heartbeat.

  Ty sighed and stepped in, raising his blade for a downward slash.

  Morit sidestepped before Ty even had a chance to get the blade into position and drew a red line across Ty’s throat.

  Ty gasped and stumbled back, hist sword toppling from his hand as he pawed at his throat. His palm came away red, soaked with blood. He choked, unable to breathe. Then he could, just like that.

  You have been healed!

  “Holy Apple Jacks!” he cried out, glaring at the master. “You slit my dang throat open!”

  Morit offered up a half-nod, half-shrug gesture. “You fight as you train, so you must take this task seriously or you will find you will have your throat slashed open far more often, and under far direr consequences, than you experience here.”

  Ty stared at the blood on his hand; his blood. His stomach churned, and he sucked in a deep breath to calm his guts. “I-I just didn’t…didn’t expect that,” he admitted softly.

  Morit’s expression softened. “Our world is a harsh one, my child. The days of peace are long behind us. Should you survive what Emerhant has become, you must be strong like steel, yet you must also bend like the limbs of a great oak in a storm or you will break. It is my charge to prepare you for the horrors of this world.”

  Ty drew in another deep breath, a shudder running through him. He hadn’t expected the brutality of the training, and it had caught him off guard. Playing his character in UO, the training had been easy. He stepped in against his warrior master, and they fought, the spatters of blood nothing more than a background effect that dotted the screen comically with red. But to have it all occur firsthand was something he just hadn’t been ready for.

  But Ty knew he needed to get through it. This wasn’t the game anymore, or at least not the one he played safely from his squeaky chair in his bedroom. No, here, now, this was real, and death was a likelihood he needed to face. If he wanted to avoid it, he needed to get better.

  At everything.

  Ty wiped the blood from his hand on his pants, picked up his nandao and nodded to Morit. “I understand.”