by Dan Thomas
Max chuckled. “Or maybe go and visit your girlfriend?”
“Ha! She’d go nuts if she had to keep me entertained.” Chopsticks laughed. “Don’t want to distract her from her college course.”
“Okay, so what’s the plan when you respawn?” Sam asked, getting them back to the game. “I mean if you two girls want to sit here and explore your emotions, that’s fine with me, but I thought we were doing this for revenge.”
“Point taken.” Max grinned and then picked up his headset and held it in his hand.
“So, your weak character. Did he have any coins? You’ll still have most of them in the account when you respawn.” Sam was the best when it came to strategy. She was always so cool under pressure.
“Yeah, when you respawn at the Hub, you can buy some better gear,” Chopsticks suggested.
“I might have had a few coins. It’s a shame, I don’t think I stashed anything. The character’s at such a low level, he’s gonna get wiped out by most of the stuff he comes in contact with.” He sighed.
“Yeah, if you were starting out normally, you’d meet some people, build a base, and just accept you’ll probably die a few times until you get some decent gear and experience under your belt.” Chopsticks shook his head. “Man, I know revenge is a dish best served cold, but our revenge will be deep-frozen if we can’t get you home.”
“Then I guess we’d better hope you respawn close to the base and that Pez can get to you fast.” Sam checked her watch. “It’s gonna be a long wait, so at least Pez has some time to gear up. In the meantime, let’s talk strategy.”
“Sure.” Max settled back into the sofa, it had only been a week, but he’d missed his friends, the planning and scheming. “You know, this isn’t exactly what I had in mind for the evening. I mean I was looking for a change of direction, but this was not it.”
Yet, as the three of them talked through ways to get his levels up and what skills he should aim for, Max realized it was exactly what he needed.
Chapter Seven
The title screen of Terra Verse slowly faded away, the sensations of the game world once again coming to him. Max was at the Sacred Spring inside a Garden of Renewal, a place in every Hub where all players spawned who weren’t tied to a Crew Nexus—a quartz construction that allowed a group of players to form and manage a Crew, set their respawn location, and protect their base when no one was online.
He took a moment to breathe in the heady scent of the large, tropical flowers that filled the garden, which was a place of peace.
The natural fountain of gently running water, and the soft buzz of lazy insects moving between the plants added to the serenity.
Max turned his attention to the few players who accompanied him in the garden, most had just popped into existence beside him, one of them cursing before running out of the garden and into the rest of the Hub, the others walked out at a less hasty pace.
Max followed them toward the ornate stone exit to the gardens. Player vs. Player combat wasn’t allowed in the Garden of Renewal, and fighting was also frowned on inside the Hub in general, with many non-player guards stationed throughout the Hub among the AI civilians. But some players ignored game etiquette, which was why these gardens were created. The game would be no fun if someone was waiting to kill you the instant you respawned.
Of course, that didn’t mean that if you were in a particularly lawless, hostile Hub, you might get skewered by a sharp blade as soon as you set foot outside the garden gates by some sadist.
Something Max was about to test out here.
“Good luck,” Chopsticks said.
“Try not to die too many times.” Sam’s helpful words didn’t ease his nerves much as he crossed from the garden into the rest of the Hub.
“Great, it looks as if these guys play nice.” Max looked down the main street he stood on, the stone and gravel track hemmed in on both sides by rows of stone and thatch buildings, dispersed with the occasional structure made of sturdier wood and gray bricks.
Chopsticks and Sam were probably staring at the TV, trying to figure out where he was, while he had the job of trying to find any advantage he could in this place, even if it meant doing a couple of small jobs for either a non-player character or a fellow player.
With a mental command, he brought up his Character Screen. The semitransparent screen that appeared over his vision showed the five basic Character Statistics that every player had: Strength, Constitution, Agility, Dexterity, and Intuition.
Most actions a player performed in Terra Verse would reward a certain amount of experience toward the relevant stat. While the actual numbers were hidden, the difficulty of the task in comparison to their level determined how much progress was made. So, while Max always struggled with motivation to get to the gym in real life, he had no trouble finding the enthusiasm to lug around heavy sacks in-game filled with ore to get his character’s strength up.
Each character stat brought with it its own Trait Tree, and for every five levels gained in that stat, the game awarded the player with one Trait Point to spend, and reaching the 50th level would reward players with an extra 2 points to spend. The catch was that those Trait Points could only be spent in the relevant character statistic, which meant that Trait Points gained by shifting heavy loads could only be spent on Traits from the Strength Tree.
The Traits available also evolved as a character leveled up so that the actions involved in reaching the 5th level milestone dictated what Trait would be available to unlock. Therefore if you leveled your Strength up by swinging around a heavy weapon, you’d be able to unlock Traits that would help brute force combat, or wield heavier weapons, whereas if you spent your time instead carrying heavy loads around, you’d be presented with options to improve how much you could carry or reduce how much more stamina was used carrying heavy weights.
This meant that grinding out experience by mundane actions would often be punished by less interesting or useful Traits being available. With the exception of certain milestone Traits which could be expected to become available at certain levels in spite of how the experience was gained, such as Pysch up-an often essential Trait giving a temporary boost to Strength which usually showed up around level 50.
Alternatively, you could place any Trait Points earned into a World Unique Trait Tree, or what players called WUTTs. Every world had its own Trait Tree that could only be accessed when on that world, Primeva’s being the Primal tree. These often offered up themed Traits or allowed players to learn the skills needed to better interact with the world. The Primal Trait Tree brought many abilities that improved senses or unarmed combat, whereas the Gyromeda WUTT, Erudition, allowed the ability to craft and research better tech weapons, like lasers.
The Traits unlocked in WUTTs could often be used on other worlds, but sometimes with lesser effect. For example, better night vision gained from the Primal tree would be useful anywhere, but Energy Weapon Modification Traits gained in Gyromeda would only be useful in high-tech worlds. WUTTs also used a combination of the five base character stats and could be leveled up with any Trait Point.
Max sighed as he looked at his measly statistics, feeling even worse with minus numbers, showing what he had lost upon death:
(-1) Strength: 7
(-1) Constitution: 6
(-1) Dexterity: 4
Agility: 3
Intuition: 1
WUTT: Primal: 0
Seeing zeros felt pretty bad, even if it was only the Primal tree, which Max had never really invested much into as Holic either.
Everyone started at level one in all character stats, while level one hundred was considered respectfully high after spending a good deal of time being productive in-game, especially as character stats became harder to level up the higher they were, with a harsh drop-off around the 50s. No one knew if there was a limit on how high you could level up your statistics, though the common belief was that it would be at 1,000, but no one had managed to reach that high so far. Last Max had checked, t
he highest level anyone had managed to achieve was 672 in Dexterity, which the player Edkas was something of a celebrity for, selling tools and weapons they’d crafted from across the various worlds for large sums of coins.
Max was used to an average of 150 in his stats. He wasn’t punching through brick walls, but he could wrestle a raptor to the ground on a good day, and it was an awful lot better than what he had at the moment.
“Yikes,” Chopsticks said. “That’s not a lot of anything.”
“No kidding.” Max windowed the skill screen and moved it to the side of his vision so he could see the world around him, and began making his way down the street, avoiding the small crowds of people that milled about, several non-player characters going about their day, and some players jogging around, likely gathering supplies.
A death in Terra Verse enforced a 10% experience penalty on all levels, and if you fell below the 5th level milestone from the death, you also lost the Traits associated with it. Whenever your character stats changed, the amount the stats were altered by was shown in brackets when they were next looked at. Max hadn’t lost much from his character’s first death, but it had set him back away from reaching his next Trait Points and losing enough XP on a few of his stats to drop back a level, and it looked like he had dropped below level 5 in Dexterity.
“You’ll have lost the ability to use any ranged weapons, looking at your dex,” Sam sighed. “Let’s at least see what two skills you decided to start with.”
Max selected his Strength stat, which opened the Strength Trait Tree. Although it wasn’t much of a tree right now.
Normally the Trait would be arranged like a mindmap, branching off the first few unlocked, with each Trait labeled with what level the Stat was when it became available. Right now, Max only had only one Trait unlocked in the center of the screen, the rest a cloudy black.
(S Lvl 5) Encumbrance I: 5 lb increase to weightlifting (Total: 20 lb)
Max flicked to his Constitution Traits.
(C Lvl 5) Conditioning I: +10% Health (Total: 1160 Health Points)
There wasn’t much to look at, so he backed out, taking one last glance at his character overview.
Health: 1160/1160
Stamina: 997/1060
Hunger: 97/100
Thirst: 91/100
The base health and stamina of a player started at 1,000, each level gained in Constitution putting both up by 10 unless there was something that changed that, such as a Trait.
Hunger and Thirst would begin to affect stats if it dropped below 60, getting worse as it lowered until it started doing damage.
“You’re just lucky everyone starts being able to use simple weapons, otherwise you’d be truly boned,” Chopsticks said.
“You’re not wrong,” Sam said. “You’re going to have to just make sure your character stays well-fed and hydrated to keep your health and stamina as high as possible. You’re also going to have to really forage for your five-a-day.”
Max snorted. He always found it funny when he heard the reference. Sam was talking about the five Staple plants. Found across all the worlds, they could be eaten to gain a temporary bonus, as well as an experience boost, to one of the character’s stats. There were five stats, each with a plant that could be consumed to improve it for a little while.
“Constantly foraging for plants will also help level up my Intuition some, I’ll be back to tracking in no time.” Max eyed a group of players walking past him.
With his experience of the game, he could hold his own against a player some levels higher than this character, despite his lack of combat skills, but his own knowledge of the game would only get him so far with a dud character, and he had nothing to help him out in any scraps with the wildlife of the world.
He’d have to play it smart for now and get some easy XP under his belt.
If not, then his only other option would be to sit tight until Pez came to get him. Which was kind of a waste of time, not to mention embarrassing. Max had forgotten just how useless his main character had been at such a low level.
Cursing, he checked his inventory, empty now except for a small handful of coins in his account, 168 to be exact. Which was at least more than what he’d have had if he were starting fresh. Yeah, look on the bright side, Holic.
Only he wasn’t Holic anymore.
“You need to get a move on,” Sam said from outside the game. “Find a weapon, food and water, and a flint and steel.”
“He needs to get his levels up, and taming something would make things easier,” Chopsticks reminded her. “So, some Shards would be good, I’m sure you can find some Pygmy Amica outside the Hub to grab an easy tame.”
To tame anything in any of the worlds, as far as Max knew, you had to find Amica plants and burn them. The smoke from the plant is what allowed animals to be tamed once they’d been incapacitated and had a Shard put on them. There were four tiers of the plant needed to tame larger or more valuable animals, Pygmy, Bushy, Creeping, and Ephemeral, each more difficult and dangerous to find and harvest.
“Yeah, so would a bow and arrow, but he doesn’t have much coin or the skill for it anymore.” Sam let out a long, drawn-out breath. “You are going to be dino dinner until Pez reaches you.”
“I’ll just have to play it smart.” Max closed his character screen. “I’m not gonna keep dying. I’ll just have to run and hide.”
He quickly scanned the Hub, trying to figure out where he was. Or who he could ask without sounding like a total noob. He glanced at his levels one last time before he shut down the interface. Who was he kidding, to any other player here he was a total noob. Which might not be a bad thing, now that he thought about it.
Jogging forward, he tested out his body. Sluggish with slow reflexes. He’d have to factor this into every encounter, both with players and dinosaurs.
“There’s a weapons trader. Go see if you can afford anything.” Sam was no doubt pointing at the screen, forgetting he couldn’t see her.
Scanning the traders in the Hub, he spotted the weapon master’s shop, a low construction set away from the other buildings, with a training yard around the side filled with dummies and targets. He’d need to barter a low price if he were to get anything worthwhile out of this.
He strolled into the shop through the open doorway, admiring the arrays of various weapons adorning the racks along the walls. Most were crude steel weapons, probably imported from other worlds, with a few well-crafted obsidian and stone weapons dotted in between them.
Max took some time to look over the weapons, to at least pretend that he could afford something decent, hoping he looked like an experienced player who had just met with unfortunate circumstances rather than a fresh character. He was less likely to be taken advantage of if the former was the case.
He turned his eyes away from the obsidian blades. Obsidian was much sharper than any other material Max knew of in any world and more durable than flint. But it was difficult to find and work with, so Max focused on looking for flint weapons, ideally with damage to them, in hope that they might be discounted.
After a couple of minutes admiring the stock, he moved toward the counter, where an older man wearing a large amount of finery stood, watching Max with hawk-like interest.
“Hello there,” Max said in greeting, a smile on his face, which the weapons master returned. The poor guy obviously scented a good sale. He was going to be disappointed.
“Good day there. How may I help you today?” The weapons master bowed his head. “I have a large selection of weapons. All crafted by my own hands. The steel is from Mythia, while the obsidian and flint are the finest from the Merride Mountains.” He lifted a black-bladed knife and dangled it on his finger.
“These are some fine weapons, but...” Max complimented as he perused the various knives, axes, spears, and swords on display behind the counter. “What’s your cheapest?” Max cursed himself for being so blunt, but it wasn’t often that he bought from traders, leaving that duty for Sam and
Pez.
“Nice,” Sam complimented him sarcastically.
“Cheap? Cheap is not a word I would associate with my weapons. Long hours of hard labor go into each and every blade. The handles are carved from wood specially selected and cut by my own hands, even the seemingly dullest of chert blades are of the highest caliber.” The weapons master lifted his hands and showed off the calluses as proof.
“Forgive my friend,” a voice came from behind Max. “He is new to this land and our customs.”
Max turned around. The voice belonged to what must be a high-level character. He wore thick padded armor, which Max could see plates of something moving beneath the hide expertly sewn together and carried a beautifully carved bow that probably cost the equivalent of a month of Max’s real-world salary.
As the player walked past Max, he could only gawp at the large weapon strung across his back. A Macuahuitl. An ornate, cricket-bat-shaped club of dark gray Kousa wood, the edges inlaid with long, thin, incredibly sharp obsidian blades. Max had only seen a couple before, due to the difficulty with which they were crafted and wielded rivaling that of the pronunciation. However, it was said that with enough strength to use, they could decapitate even the largest of raptors in a single sweep.
“I see.” The weapons master sounded slightly mollified. “Then he is forgiven. I suppose.”
“Grudges give you wrinkles, my friend, so let this go.” The smile on the silver-tongued character’s face encouraged the weapons master and with a grunt, the slight caused by Max was forgotten.
But he still needed a weapon. He opened his mouth to speak, but the other player placed a leather-gloved hand on Max’s shoulder and turned him toward the exit, talking quietly. “Believe me, you cannot afford anything he has. Anyway, his weapons are expensive for their quality. We can find something better for a lower price.”
“I thought he seemed a little sleazy.” Max glanced over his shoulder.