Umbra Online- Halgor's Horde

by K D Brand

  Char glanced at his waist and grinned. “That’s fantastic. Now, we just need to get you some armor that fits, a real belt, and maybe some men’s pants.”

  Ty sighed. “Here we go about the pants again…” he mumbled.

  The three NPCs laughed, but Ty ignored them and marched on after Vile One. Once they made the last turn that the PC had, Ty realized exactly where Defiler’s friend had gone. Ty couldn’t help but smile.

  “Ooooh, you are in sooooo much trouble, buddy,” he muttered under his breath.

  Ty pressed on, pushing the pace, but the NPCs slowed at his back.

  “Uh…those are the Silent Woods ahead,” Char warned. “Not really a place anyone wants to be after sunset.”

  “Not tonight,” Ty countered. “Tonight, is the best time ever to be here.”

  “I disagree,” Amon muttered, eyes wandering, head on a swivel. He sniffed at the air. “The place smells of…death.”

  “You’re not wrong.” Ty chuckled and kept on walking.

  The NPCs shuffled about, then reluctantly followed after until Ty finally came to a halt at the edge of the murky tree line. Wisps of fog crept serpentine along the floor of the forest, muting every sound into silence.

  “What’s that?” Deven asked, cupping his hand over his ear, and angling his head back toward town. “Yes, Shady Orchid, you think this is a bad idea? You have beer? Yes, I think turning around and coming back is the best idea ever.”

  Ty grinned. “Look, if you want to go back, that’s fine,” he told the NPCs. “But, for what it’s worth, I don’t plan on staying here long.”

  “Why are we here at all?” Amon asked, still sniffing, his nose a flutter of motion.

  “Like I said, I can’t really explain it, not in detail at least, but our buddy there…” he gestured to the woods, where Vile One’s glowing tag shined blue, popping in and out of sight within, “is doing something he’s not supposed to be doing.”

  “Just like we’ll be if we enter the woods and follow his example,” Amon argued.

  Ty shook his head. “No, I don’t mean him just being here.” The clatter of combat interrupted him, and Ty stopped for a moment to listen before turning back to explain further. “What he’s doing, the weirdness you guys saw at the Orchid, that’s not normal.”

  “Is this where we suggest one of those capes you offered to Theolin in the Shadow Walk?” Char asked.

  Ty let out a barking laugh, then covered his mouth to block the sound. “Good one. But no, I mean that Vile One is doing something he shouldn’t be doing game— Er, in your world.” He pointed to Amon. “You said he his arrival at the Orchid was like clockwork, right?”

  Amon nodded. “Every hour he would arrive, do his thing, then depart.”

  “And he never said anything to anyone, right?”

  “That’s correct,” Amon confirmed.

  “That’s because he’s bot—” Ty bit down on the word to keep it from slipping out. He paused for a second, staring at NPCs’ inquisitive faces.

  How could he explain to them that Vile One was botting? That Defiler’s friend was running a script that moved his character about while he was AFK, allowing him to continue earning XP and loot while Vile One’s human controller was of somewhere sleeping or doing who knows what?

  The three NPCs struggled enough as it was with simple concepts, and could barely comprehend the idea of a person controlling the PCs they saw every day. There was no way they’d understand that a computer program could be used in place of a person, in order to cheat the system and, essentially, allow the PC to level his character 24/7.

  Unless…

  “It’s magic,” he finally answered. “Vile One is under a spell that’s controlling him.”

  Char’s eyes narrowed. “And you’re worried about that? Seems a fair consequence for all the bad he and his companions have wrought here in Altunn.”

  “Well, if the spell caused him to suffer, you might be right,” Ty clarified. “Unfortunately, this particular spell is helping him. It controls him, allows him to travel and fight and earn experience without him ever needing to stop or sleep or even take a break from anything.”

  “And that’s a bad thing?” Amon wondered. “I mean, if I miss out on a nap, my whole day is ruined.”

  Ty laughed. “Yeah, I hear ya, but in this case, it’s a good thing. It means Vile One gets to keep making coin so he can buy better and better gear. It also means, once he and his friends finally leave Altunn, they’ll settle in and start doing there what they’re doing here. Other people will have to suffer their actions.”

  Of the three, it seemed Char was the most moved by that. Her expression turned sour, while Deven and Amon seemed stuck trying to determine if Defiler’s goons moving on was a good or bad thing.

  “So, what do you propose?”

  “I’m going to break the spell,” Ty laughed. “But, if it’s the kind of spell I think it is, I’m going to have to do it carefully.”

  Ty ran his fingers through his matted hair, letting his mind wander. If Vile One had a halfway decent bot-script, Ty would have to be careful how he approached him.

  While Ty was hardly a threat to Vile One in direct combat, he had no doubt that Vile One’s player would have set up code to defend against the arrival of Ty. As soon as Vile One spotted him in a PvP-allowed area, his script would cut the connection and instantly log him out.

  The same would happen if Ty attacked him. There was no way Ty could do enough damage in a single attack to drop the guy, so the script would warn of PvP and drop connection before Ty could land a second shot.

  He wasn’t even sure he could get himself and the NPCs close enough to the guy to take that first swipe, anyway.

  No, there was no way he would be able to take out Vile One quick enough to overwhelm the automated responses of the script he was running.

  But…

  Ty grinned. Maybe he didn’t need to.

  “Come on,” he told the NPCs and started into the fog.

  He heard Amon grumbling under his breath, but the three of them followed him into the Silent Woods.

  Which, as it appeared, was a misnomer.

  Once past the tree line, the woods erupted with sound. Wolves howled in the distance, and the chittering of insects reverberated all around them. What had been muffled sounds of fighting before, Vile One making his rounds, was no full-bore battle.

  The repetitive clang of a sword clashing into opponents echoed through the trees, the mist swirling in rhythm to the sound. Eerie moans drifted through the fog, and the shuffling of creatures making their way toward the excitement sounded loud in their ears.

  Ty, hunkered low with eyes open wide, pressed on through the trees toward the unmistakable glow of Vile One’s name as it shifted and weaved in the distance. It paused now and again after a fierce battle, and Ty realized the script was resting, making sure his health points were topped off before moving off after another enemy.

  The party weaved their way through the trees, relatively quietly, and they’d made good time closing in on Vile One until Ty heard a heavy crunch just a short distance away. He hissed and raised a closed fist for the party to stop moving.

  Unfortunately, they had no idea what he was signaling, so they came over to stand beside him.

  “What is it?” Deven asked, his voice loud and demanding.

  Ty groaned. “Oh, only that.” He pointed to the shifting mist, something coming out if.

  “Oh…” Deven muttered as he stiffened in place, eyes going wide.

  A spider the size of a Doberman Pinscher crept toward them, its furry legs low to the ground, readying to charge at them.

  “Aaah, spider!” Amon screamed. “You could have warned us, you know?”

  Ty sighed and unsheathed his sword, then stepped between the NPCs and the approaching spider. Much as he really, really didn’t want to do that, he didn’t think he had a choice.

  The spider didn’t give him a chance to second-guess himself, though.
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  It skittered across the dark earth and came straight at him, mandibles clacking. Ty trembled and forced his hands to hold his sword steady and to keep his feet from backpedaling out of terrified instinct.

  Why, though, he really wasn’t sure.

  The spider advanced fast; way faster than Ty could have imagined. No time left to consider his options—as few as they were—he simply acted.

  He juked left, holding the motion just long enough to think he saw the spider shift angles, then spun away to his right. His arm swung out wide on the tail of his momentum, sword whipping about. The spider charged on, its mandibles jutted forward, clanging as one of them collided with the nandao. There was sudden impact, then a sharp crack, and Ty hissed as he finished his spin, fearing the worst for his weapon.

  His eyes flew to the blade, but the spider’s shriek answered his question as to what had happened before he confirmed his sword was in one piece.

  The spider, not so much.

  One of its mandibles had been sheared off about two thirds of the way down. Blackened goo oozed from the wound. The giant spider reared back, letting loose a screech so loud that Ty’s eardrums felt ready to burst.

  He gasped and stumbled back a step, holding his hands over his ears, turning his right side away from the spider since the hand with his sword pommel clutched in it barely did anything to block the piercing noise.

  The spider thrashed and flailed about, but gathered itself quickly. Its six eyes gleamed crimson as it launched itself at Ty.

  He wasn’t ready.

  Ty screamed as the spider moved to bite him. He felt the barest of pinches, and then he was sent tumbling to the side from the blow.

  -2 HP!

  Ty scrambled to catch his balance and glanced down at his arm. He imagined the worst, limb mangled, bitten off, but only the tiniest of scratches lie red across his arm, just above his wrist. Black ooze stained the area around it.

  That’s when the health point notification registered.

  He glanced at the spider to see it looming there, looking about as forlorn as a spider could look. It clacked its mandibles together, or at least tried to. The one on the left just seemed to hang there, crippled by Ty’s first blow.

  Only then did it seem to realize its only weapon had been disabled.

  Ty realized it, too.

  “Kill it,” he cried, launching himself at the wounded spider.

  Char and Deven shot forward, each delivering a blow of their own to the creature’s back, wet thwacks reverberating. Ty darted in behind them and stabbed the spider in one of its gleaming eyes.

  It glared at him as the blade sunk into its skull, then it stiffened. Ty felt the full weight of the spider on his sword then, and the nandao slipped free as its legs curled in on the body, and the spider slumped dead to the ground.

  You have killed a giant forest spider.

  You have earned +100 XP!

  “Whew!” Ty muttered. “That was—”

  “Uh…guys…” Amon whimpered.

  “You know…you coulda joined us and—” Ty started to say when he turned to face Amon, but the words died in his throat.

  The mist at their backs swirled like tiny storms, and out of the gray haze appeared dozens of shiny red eyes.

  “That’s not good,” Deven mumbled, taking a step back.

  Ignoring the obvious understatement, Ty cast a hurried glance about and realized they were nearly surrounded by the advancing spiders.

  “That spider’s scream must have been more than just its pain,” Char suggested.

  “It was calling the cavalry,” Ty finished, not liking the odds.

  A cold tremor ran through him as he wondered—quote unwillingly—as to whether or not he could die in the woods since it was marked a PvP zone by the system.

  That’s when an idea hit him.

  He looked about again as the spiders crept free of the fog and started toward them, hunkered low and ready to bite. The NPCs, to their credit, formed up around him—even Amon—ready to fight.

  But Ty had something else in mind.

  He spied a flicker of blue in the distance, and Ty didn’t hesitate. He grabbed Amon by the shoulder and yanked him along as Ty darted off, screaming, “Run!”

  Amon stumbled but managed to get his feet under him, his feral attributes quite suited to grace despite his obvious cowardness.

  Char and Deven kicked up humus in their wake as they raced to keep up with Ty and Amon.

  “Where are we going?” Char shouted.

  Ty just shook his head, saving his breath as he ran.

  The spiders skittered after them, closing quickly, issuing ominous warbling sounds that trilled through the trees.

  Ty shuddered at the sound, but there was no way the party could take out the ten spiders on their heels. But he didn’t think he had to.

  They could distract them.

  Like the old joke goes, I don’t have to outrun a bear, I only have to outrun the guy next to me.

  That particular guy happened to be Vile One.

  Ty flew from the trees and broke into a large clearing, where Defiler’s buddy just happened to be hovering over the corpse of a spider just like those at their backs.

  Vile One didn’t so much as turn and glance their way, despite the spiders’ chittered warnings or the bellowing huffs of breath, or even Amon’s whining about how they were all going to die.

  Vile One simply stood there, rigid, doing absolutely nothing.

  If Ty wasn’t sure before that Vile One had been botting, he was now. And that only reinforced his determination to do what he was planning.

  Vile One had urged Defiler on, wanting him to kill Ty when he’d first popped into the world and crashed their card game.

  A sly grin crossed Ty’s face as he remembered it, just desserts on its way in the form of a group of rampaging spiders.

  Ty veered off and angled toward Vile One’s back. He didn’t want the guy to notice him of the other NPCs coming at him. A smart botter would have his script programmed to hang when he saw a PC enemy approaching. But from behind, Vile One wouldn’t even notice Ty until it was too late.

  He dragged Amon along, though, in reality, Amon was quite a bit faster than Ty. It was more like the feral struggled to outpace Ty, but he wouldn’t let go of his arm, so Among was forced to drag him along.

  The party flitted past Vile One’s back, and Ty maneuvered the group around him, shifting back in line so the spiders would come straight toward them, Vile One right in the way.

  It was right then that Vile One’s script seemed to notice Ty and the others. His head snapped to the side to glare at them. Ty defied his mother then and flipped Vile One off as he ran.

  “Sorry! Not sorry!”

  That’s when the clutter of spiders hit Vile One from behind.

  He never saw them coming.

  He went down under the rush of skittering legs and snapping mandibles, ten spiders going at him at once, burying the glimmer of his blue name tag beneath their mass.

  Then the blue was gone.

  Ty ducked into the trees and pulled the NPCS to him, forcing them to their knees and hissing at them to be silent. They obeyed, only the muffled attempts at catching their breaths could be heard. He glared out from behind the cover of his tree.

  The spiders, having crowded their new foe, their aggro transposed from Ty and the others to Vile One as soon as they crossed his path, milled about over the place where he’d died.

  Then, their bloodlust faded since there were no enemies within range, they turned and clambered back in the direction they’d come, returning to the woods, and disappearing the fog a moment later. Their warbling cries went silent a moment after that.

  Ty grinned and hopped to his feet. Without waiting for the others, he marched off toward the place where Vile One had fallen.

  “What are you doing?” Char asked as she raced to catch up. Deven was right behind her, and Amon, only motivated to move since he realized he was now alone, raced
after them a few seconds later.

  “Collecting treasure,” Ty laughed, and as they got closer, he pointed to the pile of gear left behind in Vile One’s wake.

  “Wait! That’s his equipment,” she argued, pointing more or less to the spot where Vile One had died. All that was left was a red stain on the green grass.

  “Not anymore,” Ty countered with a grin. “It’s ours now.”

  “That seems…rude,” Char went on.

  Ty shrugged. “So is encouraging a friend to chop your head off,” he argued. “Besides, this is part of the gam— Er, the world. Had Vile One caught me alone out here in the woods, do you think he would have just left me alone?”

  “Probably not,” she agreed, “but you’re not him, are you?”

  “Awwww, come on,” Ty whined. “You’re going to guilt trip me after all this?”

  A sly smirk crossed Char’s face. “Naw, I’m kidding. I just wanted to get the first look.” She scrambled over and dropped to her knees before the pile and started digging through it, whistling while she did.

  Ty chuckled. “I thought we were headed toward some deep conversation about morality.”

  “Had it been anyone but one of Defiler of Souls!’ people, we just might have,” she told him. “But, even if it does feel a little dirty from an ethical standpoint, Vile One has done nothing but make life difficult for the people of Altunn. He doesn’t deserve our compassion.”

  Deven nodded and went over and examined the pile along with Char.

  Amon hung back, sniffing at the air, and glancing about, head swiveling on his neck. “Morality argument aside, we need to finish up quickly. I can smell a number of spiders in the area, and they seem to be getting closer.”

  Ty nodded and squeezed in alongside Deven and Char so he could look to see what Vile One had dropped.

  Disappointment struck quickly. It was mostly crap.

  “That’s why he’s running back and forth to his room above the tavern,” Ty said. “He’s dropping off all his money and drops just in case someone does to him what we did.”