Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  The rogue trainer grinned. “Good! Now, let’s do it again. This time, keep your blade in close to your body, the point upright. Grand movements might intimidate the uninitiated, but a trained fighter sees only the opportunities you provide him.”

  Determined to get better, Ty did as he was told and moved his blade into position before his torso. Then he darted forward in an effort to take advantage of his speed. The master held his ground as Ty waited until he got close, then unleashed a short, quick slash at Morit’s stomach.

  The master parried easily. He turned Ty’s sword aside and twisted his wrist, bringing the sharp edge of weapon around and slashing Ty’s weapon hand.

  Ty shrieked and staggered back. Several of his fingers dangled from his hand. The world spun around him as his sword dropped from his useless hand, darkness closing in on his vision as a tingling lightheadedness washed over him.

  You have been healed!

  Then he was suddenly fine.

  He let out a sharp exhalation, his hand trembling as he forced himself to examine it. There was nothing wrong with it. All his fingers were in place, and while there was a dark splattering of his blood, it moved and clenched just fine.

  “I really don’t like this,” he muttered.

  “Then work harder,” Morit told him, no sympathy in his voice.

  Ty went to say something nasty to the man, but he realized Morit was right. Ty didn’t stand a chance in the world if he couldn’t defend himself, couldn’t avoid getting cut down.

  So far, he’d been lucky, stabbing goblins in the back and running from Halgor. But what would have happened if any of those had been a fair fight? The gnoll had shown him just how dangerous this world could be. There was a real chance he could die. What then?

  He had no idea, and that scared him more than anything. It was one thing to realize you were going to die on day, eventually, at some point in the distant future, but that wasn’t how it worked in UO. No, death was part of the equation every single time he accepted a quest or left town. He needed to be ready for that.

  And this is where all that started.

  Ty collected his sword again, doing his best not to picture his fingers hanging by threads of skin, and moved back into position.

  “I’m ready,” he told Morit.

  The master offered a genuine smile this time, bowing slightly in Ty’s direction. “Then let us train.”

  They went at it again and again, for how long Ty didn’t know, but he was exhausted by the time Morit called an end to it all.

  Not once had Ty gotten even remotely close to winning one of their exchanges, Morit simply too good Ty to overcome, but even he had to admit there was a distinct difference between how well he did initially to how he was performing when they’d called it quits.

  Morit bowed to him once more, then set a gentle hand on his shoulder. “You have done well. I see great potential in you.”

  +4 to Small Blade Weapons.

  Ty grinned at the notification. As the words scrolled across his vision, he realized his efforts had been worth it.

  Even if it had meant his seeing his body sliced and diced in ways he would never have imagined—would never have wanted to imagine.

  “Now, for your training in stealth,” Morit told him, squeezing his shoulder.

  “Wait!” Ty groaned. “I don’t even get a few minutes to—”

  Morit disappeared, and then reappeared behind Ty, thumping him in the back of his skull with his fist.

  “Aaah!” Ty cried out, stumbling forward, clutching to his head. “What the Fraggle, man?”

  But Morit wasn’t there. Ty hissed and spun about just as he was struck again, the trainer punching him in the ribs.

  Doubled over from the blow, Ty gasped, wrapping his arms around his gut. “How is this supposed to teach me stealth?” he shouted.

  “First you must learn what stealth is,” Morit said from somewhere behind him.

  Ty spun about only to have his leg kicked out from beneath him from an attack coming from the complete opposite direction. He crashed to the ground, snarling.

  “I really think you just get off on beating people up,” Ty complained as he scrambled to his feet, readying for the next attack.

  A chuckled reverberated around the room. “That’s simply a bonus.”

  Ty spun about, guessing at the direction of the voice only to get punched in the nose.

  “Aaah!” he screamed, struck three more times before he even stopped cursing about his broken nose.

  You have been healed!

  Unable to see, eyes filled with tears, Ty whipped about, swinging a wild backhand. He was surprised at the loud smack that accompanied the old man blocking his blow.

  Morit chuckled and came to stand before Ty. “While that last strike was simply a lucky blow, I find that you have grasped the basics of stealth. You can rest now.”

  “Good,” Ty grumbled, “because I was just about to open a can whoop-butt on you.”

  Morit laughed.

  +4 to Stealth.

  “I have shown you all I can for your second level of advancement,” Morit told him. “Should you wish to continue training, I must ask you for another tithe to the guild.”

  “It’s good to be the guild,” Ty sighed.

  Morit smirked. “It is not without its advantages, child.”

  “So you keep saying.” Ty stalked back to the weapon’s area and returned the nandao to its place. Once that was done, he headed back to the main room where Morit had positioned himself.

  The old man examined him closely, eyes narrowed. “Now that you have trained, perhaps you should assign your stat points to better accentuate your abilities.”

  Ty stiffened. He’d completely forgotten about his points once the trainer began beating on him.

  “How do I do that?” he asked. It wasn’t like he could simply click a button on his mouse and bring up a stat sheet.

  “You simply assign them,” Morit answered matter-of-factly.

  Ty chuckled under his breath. “Uh…no offense, but that’s not particularly helpful. I don’t have any idea as to how to bring up my stats or to look at my skills or anything like that.”

  “I can bring them up for you, if you wish,” Morit replied, “but I think it best you learn how to master such a basic, necessary skill on your own.”

  “That’s also not helpful,” Ty groaned. “How about a hint?”

  Morit relented. “I do this only because you are so new to our realm,” he said. “First, you must focus inward, take calming breaths, and then imagine what it is you wish to view. It is only through calmness and belief in yourself that these things will reveal themselves.”

  “That’s some serious self-help, Tony Robbins bunk if I ever heard it,” Ty complained. Still, he did as Morit advised.

  It reminded him of when the teachers told the class to read quietly. While he loved reading, school and read quietly were two things that just didn’t seem to go together well. They were no chocolate and peanut butter, that’s for sure.

  He forced his mind to slow, and all Ty could think of was not falling asleep. The last thing he wanted to do was drool all over the place once he knocked off. His street cred couldn’t take another hit.

  For a few moments, he stood there doing nothing, his thoughts bouncing all over the place, not used to settling into silence so long. It didn’t help that he had a touch of ADHD and all he wanted to do was run off and do something that didn’t involve…well, nothing.

  Finally, he shut down all the screaming voices, playing Whac-A-Mole with them, imagining a giant hammer crushing them back into their holes, and silence settled over him. And that’s when it popped.

  Ty nearly choked when the Umbra Online character sheet appeared inside his head.

  He stared at it—mentally—taking it all in, amazed by how it looked exactly like the sheet that appeared inside the game when he clicked on his character’s stat view. Then he saw it.

  “Seriously,” he growled. “Th
at’s the avatar the game chose for me?”

  Morit stifled a laugh, covering his mouth.

  “Is that how I really appear to you guys?” Ty asked.

  “One’s appearance is not related to how one feels inside,” the trainer replied.

  “So, that’s a yes then,” Ty grumbled. Then he thought about it, glancing down at his rope-reinforced jerkin, slashed up from the goblins and gnoll. Maybe his avatar wasn’t so bad considering what it could be.

  Over it already, he refocused on the character sheet so as to not lose it, and he groaned as he caught sight of the scores listed there.

  “Oh, I am such a wuss,” he moaned. “A 4 in strength? I’m lucky I could even lift that muffin I stole.”

  Morit chuckled, watching as Ty went over his stats.

  They’re pathetic.

  Ty had understood he needed to level before and get some skills under his belt and increase his stats, but he hadn’t even imagined how weak he truly was until he’d examined the sheet.

  Char, Deven, and Amon might have meant to port of his character, but what they’d actually done was summon a fourteen-year-old kid with an inflated sense of self-worth. Now, seeing his true values laid out before him in the context of the game system, doubt crept in hard.

  -2 MP!

  He sighed, seeing the notification. Sick to his stomach, he wondered if he could actually help his friends after all.

  Still, in the back of his mind, he knew he was more than just the sum of the numbers on his character sheet. He could quest and grind and gain more experience and build those stats up. And while he might never be what AzzKicker was, it was clear he could advance in the game and earn his way upward, getting stronger and faster and more capable.

  While little more than a Band-Aid on his bruised ego, Ty decided he wasn’t going to let his meager start deter him. Even AzzKicker had been a noob once, and he’d built that character up into a beast.

  He could do the same to himself.

  Ty licked his dry lips and finally lifted his head to meet the trainer’s gaze. “So, uh, how do I insert my points into my stats?”

  “Simply picture the stat you wish to advance and envision the new rating,” Morit answered. “You will be prompted whether or not you are certain of your adjustment to each, and then it will become permanent once you accept the changes.”

  “And it’s still one for one at this point, right?” Ty asked, unsure if the game he was in was structurally different from the one he’d played on the computer.

  “That is correct, for the most part,” Morit replied. “Once you reach 5th level, your cost is two Attribute Points spent for every one point advanced in each stat, and then it doubles for every ten points after that. Also, twenty is the max natural stat, and you must pay double to advance beyond that. And dependent upon what class you ultimately choose, your costs might vary, all costs based on how difficult a path you choose.”

  Ty stiffened, latching onto something the man said. “Wait! What do you mean depending on what class I choose?” he asked. “Haven’t I already committed myself to the rogue line by training with you?”

  Ty glanced back at his character sheet and grunted. Where his class identifier was located was a string of gibberish rather than any sort of recognizable class. He didn’t have a clue what it said.

  Apparently, neither did Morit.

  The trainer appeared unsure for the first time since Ty had walked into the hut. “Though I am capable of training you as a rogue, it appears as if you are not limited to only to the rogue line of abilities. I can’t explain why, though,” he admitted. “It is…strange. I have only seen this once before in all my time here in Altunn.”

  “You’ve seen this before?” Ty asked. “Who was it?”

  “Her name slips my mind, I’m afraid, for it was so very long ago,” the trainer said, “but she was an odd one. Much like you, actually. She went on to train in several disciplines at once, if I recall, though I have not seen her since she abandoned Altunn and moved on into the greater realm of Emerhant.”

  Ty swayed on his feet. There’s someone else like me.

  His head whirled as he pictured someone else in the game facing the same challenges as he was, only having stepped up and faced them, overcome them—to some degree, at least—and who was out there. If Ty could find her, he could ask her about everything, learn how this new world worked for people like them and, maybe even find a better way out of the game than the uncertain plan he’d concocted to use the summoning spell in reverse.

  And…more important to the moment…he could multi-class!

  Ty stifled a giggle, turning it into a cough to not look like a total noob in front of Morit.

  Umbra Online didn’t allow for multi-classing. A player could choose from a subset of the main classes like paladin instead of warrior, or assassin instead of thief, giving them a wider range of abilities, but there was no crossing of the ability pools in the version he’d played.

  But now, Ty could do just that.

  He grinned, knowing he had another full level of ability training he could use somewhere else if he wanted, having only trained up one level with Morit

  But what do I want to be? he asked himself.

  “Man, too many dang choices,” he muttered, thinking his conversation with himself earlier was difficult. Now, it would be damn near impossible.

  “What’s that?” Morit asked.

  Ty waved him off. “Sorry, talking to myself. I do that.”

  He glanced back at the character sheet in his head and examined his Attribute Points. He noticed then that he only had the ones for his two levels gained. There were none of the normal points a noob character would have had just entering the game.

  I guess those were spent transferring my real stats into the game, he thought. And it was a miserable thought, he realized, considering how weak he was. That sucks.

  Not only were his starting points lower than most normal characters in the game, but he hadn’t even been able to adjust his skills the way he wanted. The game had simply defined him as it saw fit.

  Ty growled at his luck, but there was nothing he could do about it. So, he pictured his current stats, deciding where best to plug his points in to fix the deficits of him being…well, him.

  “Strength is a must,” he said aloud, imagining placing two points there.

  You have elected to add 2 Attribute Points to Strength. Is that correct? Y/N?

  “Yes,” Ty replied.

  You have increased your Strength from 4 to 6.

  You have 18 Attribute points remaining.

  Ty nodded to the notification as though it were a person and moved onto the next stat he wanted to adjust: Agility.

  He spent a quick 4 points, moving it to the natural max of 20, and then accepting the change. Then, picturing himself training to learn a few spells to help augment his attack and defense efforts—perhaps I’m not so lost as to what to do next—he plugged 5 points into Wit in order to bring it up to an 18.

  “You look smarter already,” Morit quipped, grinning.

  Ty ignored the trainer and focused on his sheet, wondering where to put the last of his points.

  Fitness seemed to be an obvious choice. It helped not only to increase Health Points, but it also helped him to resist poisons and toxins and inebriation, not that he was thinking about the last bit.

  I really do want a beer now, he thought, chuckling.

  He plugged 6 points into Fitness, his score now 17, and then, he spent the last 3 of his points in Charm, bringing it up to a 7.

  Ty felt a little dirty bumping Charm, a relatively innocuous stat in every game he’d ever played, but no matter how much he argued with himself that those points should be spent someplace better, he just couldn’t get past the idea that he was about as interesting as Jaden Smith and he needed the boost.

  Most of Ty’s life had been spent with his mom and brother. Even when he was at school, there weren’t more than three or four people he hung with who
didn’t judge him and look down on him for being a little guy, more interested in video games and D&D than girls and sports.

  I do like girls, though, he thought with a pout. They just don’t like me.

  Regardless, he just couldn’t picture himself being the exact same person here that he was in real life. That was the whole point of playing a game like Umbra Online. You got to be the hero of the story, not just your story.

  Picturing what he was capable of doing now, Ty couldn’t help but grin. He’d been dragged into the game, helpless and hopeless, but now, he began to see he had more options than to simply mope around and let the system dictate his actions.

  He had agency in this new world. Enough that he could truly see finding a way home…after he helped his new friends.

  Ty smiled and bowed to Morit. “Thank you for training me…master,” he said, adding the bit at the end, not knowing how best to address the man.

  Morit returned the bow. “You are welcome here anytime, my child. You still have much to learn. Come back when you wish to explore the realm of the rogue deeper.”

  Ty assured him he would and left the hut, the bright sun nearly blinding him after being inside the incense-fogged building for so long.

  Once his vision cleared, he stepped back so he could see all the trainer huts splayed out before him. Their banners waved overhead, marking each, and Ty took his time deciding which one would be best for him.

  Finally, he swallowed back all of his doubts and walked toward the mage trainer’s hut. If he was going to make it home, he’d need knowledge of magic so he could examine the summoning ritual the NPCs has used to bring him here.

  That would be his focus from then on.

  Well, and maybe learning how to create a fireball.

  Twelve

  Lesson and Distressin’

  TY ENTERED THE mage’s hut, amazed by how different it was from the rogue’s.

  The place looked more like a library than a place where potentially flame-based magics would be hurled about. A crystalline chandelier hung overhead, illuminating the one massive room in a soft, yellow light. Shelves stuffed with books and journals and who knew what else were positioned all over the place.