Steel Orc- Player Reborn

by Deck Davis

  “Sure! I mean, he might not want to, but I’ll suggest it.”

  “That’d be great,” said Tripp. “But about this Julia dev; she was all about programming consequences into actions?”

  “Yep. If you make a choice in a game but that choice has no effect, then you lose your sense of agency. Everything you do feels a little flat. Like a game where you’re given four dialogue choices, and at first it feels like you have influence over what happens. You pick one, and you get a result. Cool – you think your choice caused that to happen. But if you reload the game and choose a different option each time, you realize that you get the same result. It’s only the illusion of choice.”

  “I’ve played games like that.”

  “Soulboxe is the opposite. That’s the key to its addictiveness; what you do here matters,” said Bee. “Take your quest. Since you have to kill a sleel, Boxe will increase the sleel night-time population in Godden’s Reach when you go into the plains. In turn, that’ll draw loot hunters like Jon, Warren, and Lizzy, and maybe even higher-level guild members. They’ll hunt the sleels and get loot and sell their flesh or whatever, and then they’ll visit the towns, flooding the shops with their new gold. Boxe will then evaluate the increase in spending and maybe judge that the towns around here are due an upgrade, which will mean more buildings, more quests, more players…”

  “Wow. All that from one crummy orc going to visit an armorer? I can’t be the first to ask Konrad for training.”

  “You’re the first that approached him in your mindset, as an orc in steel armor, saying the things you said. Boxe has taken the things you’ve said to me about your desire to craft, and he’s decided that you want it more than most people. So, he’s gonna put bigger skills up for grabs, but he’s going to roast your ass before you get them.”

  “So I just have to figure out how to kill a sleel,” said Tripp.

  “Yup. That’s all. Do you mind if I fly around the garden a little?”

  “You don’t need a hall pass from me, Bee. We have our 500-meter boundary limiting us, but you’re free to fly within it.”

  “600 meters actually,” said Bee. “You leveled up.”

  “Knock yourself out. I’m going to think about this.”

  As Bee buzzed off, he turned the problem over in his mind. The first thing to answer was, did he even want this apprenticeship enough to try to kill a sleel?

  There were hundreds of skills to learn in Soulboxe, and none of them involved having to kill a level 60+ flying eel before he was out of his training pants. He could kill a few frorargs, get some loot, then go buy a fishing rod and become a master fisherman. Or he could get an axe and go become a lumberjack. He could be a miner, thief, fighter, anything.

  None of them got his pulse racing the way armorer did. Maybe it wasn’t just armorer, but all the skillsets that Boxe5 had told him were related to it when he had earned it.

  Crafting skills. Ones where you made something, something that, even if it was digital, was still tangible and valuable. Soulboxe was a vacation from real life, huh? So why did he desperately want to do the kinds of things here that he did for a job outside, except making swords and axes instead of wardrobes?

  Maybe because he might lose everything. Tripp didn’t want a vacation from real life. He wanted his old life back.

  It was hard to stop his mind racing forward, almost as if he needed to keep it on a leash. If he gave it some slack and let his imagination roam, he saw himself not just a master armorer but an artificer, too; someone who could insert magic into weapons and armor in the way Konrad wanted to with his shock effect.

  Hurtling even further forward, he knew that crafting wasn’t limited only to items. In Soulboxe you could build things on non-questline land. He could build a house, a manor, a castle…woah, steady on.

  Still, the possibilities were so enormous he felt dizzy.

  Tripp wanted to do two things; create armor so amazing that people stampeded to try to buy it, and then build a base in Soulboxe and start training up his own apprentices. That was something a master could do – pass his skills on.

  But it wasn’t just that; he was sick of flitting from hobby to hobby on the outside, getting hooked on something, getting intense about it, but then moving onto something else. It was the only part of his personality he’d say was flaky, and he wanted to get rid of it.

  So, he’d kill the god damned sleel, and he’d persuade Konrad to take him on as a student.

  Now, he just had to figure out how.

  CHAPTER 18

  Bee shouted something to him, but her voice was drowned out by an angry buzz. It came from a nearby hive, where wasps the size of tennis balls floated in and out holes in the side. It reminded Tripp of an airport terminal, and he imagined a controller wasp within the hive, studying their flight paths and giving his yellow and black compatriots permission to land.

  Crusty and yellow and thrumming with buzz of a thousand insects, the hive was nestled in a berry bush, and this bush was the only one in the garden whose fruits hadn’t been harvested. There was a wooden bench next to it, but the bench was dirty and the bush had started to encroach on it. Rather than having to deal with the nest, the gardeners of Mountmend had just surrendered the wooden real estate. What was one less bench if it meant they didn’t have to take on giant wasps? Tripp couldn’t blame them.

  He moved as far away from it as he could. “What did you say?”

  “I need your hands,” shouted Bee from across the garden.

  “My hands?”

  He headed toward her, following a path through the garden and noting the different plants and bushes as he went by them. There was a pair of gardening shears left beside a patch of lotus plants. Since this was a public garden someone had been tending them, and they had put little labels marking what each one was. He saw boxwood, bitterweed, sweet orchid. An herbalist would have been in heaven here.

  Bee was hovering in front of a plant that looked like a rhododendron, except it was purple and had fleshy droplets hanging by threads from its leaves.

  “Here’s where things get interesting, and here’s where we do a deal,” said Bee.

  “What kind of deal?”

  “I guess it’s not a deal as such. After all, you can tell me to do what you want, and I’ll have to do it. Time to see if you were serious when you said you’d treat me like an equal.”

  “You’re going to have to clue me in,” said Tripp.

  “For every three levels, you can let me unlock a skill of my own.”

  “Right! I’ve been so wrapped up in everything I hadn’t thought about that.”

  “I wanna choose the herbalist skill,” she said.

  Tripp looked around the garden, feigning amazement. “Bee? Hello? You can come out now, Bee!”

  She blinked at him, completely unmoved by his poor theatrics.

  “This is something called a compromise,” she said. “It might seem strange, but from what Konrad said about armory and artificery, you will have to put all sorts of materials into the items you make to create magical effects.”

  “Right, but I assumed that I was the one who was going to have to learn herbalism, not you. It doesn’t sound like a skill you’d choose.”

  “This is part of the deal. I’ll choose herbalism, and I’ll mark herbs and stuff on your map as we travel. If I choose herbalism now, then the next four slots get to be my choice.”

  Thinking about it, he guessed he’d rather have a happy Bee with him than one who followed his instructions with no enthusiasm. Besides, herbalism was going to help, and it was even better if he wasn’t the one who had to level it up. It was a bonus, and one of the perks of paying for a guide orb.

  “I wanna ask you something,” said Tripp. “And I don’t want you to get offended.”

  “It’s tough to offend someone who doesn’t give a sleel shit about what others think. No offence to you, of course.”

  “I was thinking that you’re pretty brazen for a guide orb; you have li
kes, dislikes, opinions. I can’t help thinking that would piss some players off. Like, if a guy commanded his guide to take the woodcutting skill and she moaned about it, he’d tell her to go to hell.”

  “That part of me is a setting you can change,” said Bee. “If you want to seal my lips, that’s your call. You’re not going to do that, are you?”

  He shook his head. “Not a chance, unless you annoy me. It’s good to know I have the power to mute you, though.”

  “Hey!”

  “Kidding. Bee, I accept the proposal you have made, and I’m not going to mess with your settings. I’ll keep you as you are, for better or worse.”

  She swirled around in a circle. “Woo!”

  “Now get your ass to it,” he said. “Catalogue some of this stuff for me.”

  Bee floated around the garden now, stopping at one plant, floating up close to it and inspecting it, before darting to the next one. Soon, Tripp got a notification.

  Bee has learned a skill: Herbalism

  Level: Nickel 1

  The study of herbs and plants for various uses, mostly for medicinal purposes but sometimes with darker intent.

  Bonus: Already-known herb types appear on your map automatically.

  Need: Basic plants can be studied by a Nickel herbalist. More advanced or rarer species require either a) training from a master herbalist or b) a copy of the Herbalist’s Almanac

  Related skillsets: Alchemy, apothecary, poisoner, brewer.

  “Great stuff, Bee. How does it feel to have a skill that doesn’t involve hacking someone’s head off or eviscerating them or something?”

  “Kinda dull, but a deal’s a deal.”

  “Now we just need to get you an herbalist’s almanac, and then we should start learning what kind of stuff is out there.”

  “Can’t wait.”

  “Before that,” said Tripp, “I’ve gotta figure out how to kill a sleel.”

  “Now I really can’t wait! No sarcasm this time. What do we do?”

  “I have a few ideas.”

  First, he went back into the oval plaza and bought a pair of trousers and a shirt with the gold he’d gotten from the frorargs, so that at least he had something to wear under his steel. One thing they never mentioned about armor in the stories about old knights – it chafed like hell.

  After that, he set his respawn marker at the dwarven town so that when he inevitably died over and over again taking on a sleel, he’d at least respawn there.

  Next, he found the Mountmend library on a street just outside of the plaza. It was an old building with a façade decorated by stone carvings and gargoyles and other creatures that Tripp had never seen before. It smelled musty inside, and it was empty save the NPC librarian - a dwarf with an oiled ponytail and braids in his beard - and a few players who went from shelf to shelf in search of books. The librarian glanced at him once, nodded, and returned his attention to organizing a pile of books.

  Tripp felt at home straight away. After his parents’ accident, he’d spent hours in the local library just to be alone. He read obsessively because he found that the more time he spent reading, the less time he spent thinking about what had happened.

  It made him feel like a jerk sometimes. He knew that Rory needed him and that Rory couldn’t find escape in books like Tripp could. So, for his brother’s sake, he decided to spend less time at the library and try to bond with him again.

  By then, it was too late. Rory had made friends with a group who frequented the local bars, and he was hardly at home anymore. Instead, he was getting drunk, causing trouble. Uncle James had to bail him out of the sheriff’s cells a couple of times, and that made things worse. In a small town like that, rumors spread like an STI in a brothel.

  To make sure Tripp didn’t go the same way, Uncle James decided to spend more time with him. First, he tried teaching him how to care for his tarantulas in the basement, but Tripp couldn’t go near them after what had happened in the utility cupboard.

  When that didn’t work, James took Tripp into his garage. There wasn’t a car in there since he kept his pickup truck outside the house. Instead, the garage was his woodwork studio. Tripp felt a bond with the place straight away, and from then on, he spent all his time learning his craft from Uncle James. He’d never forget the proud look on the old man’s face when he told him he had gotten a real carpentry apprenticeship with Tommy Jonas & Sons. Aunt Bianca wasn’t too pleased, but once Tripp had decided something, that was that.

  Remembering Lizzy’s advice about Soulboxe lore, Tripp walked to the history shelves and leafed through a few books. They were dense reading; far from the scant books you’d find in a lot of games, there were fully-written encyclopedias and histories on the history of Soulboxe, its various wars over the centuries, and the rise and fall of various rulers. It made him think how insulated he was in Godden’s Reach, how cut off from the game’s mainland where there were castles and kingdoms.

  After flicking through a fourth book and barely skin-reading any of it, a dialogue box appeared.

  Skill Gained: Loremaster

  Level: Nickel 1

  You are on the beginnings of a journey, and how far you travel is up to you. Some spend their whole lives seeking out new knowledge and the rewards it brings, but you need not dedicate decades to such a pursuit. Every piece of knowledge gained has its uses.

  Bonus: As you are an armorer, both the armorer and loremaster skills combine to bestow an added feature; you will now see the legacy of weapons and armor. A higher legacy brings power and benefits.

  “Bee? You see that?”

  “Interesting,” she said. “You’re going to see things that others don’t.”

  “Legacy, you mean?”

  “Sure. Check your weapons.”

  Tripp didn’t have much in the way of weaponry to check. He took his bone dagger from his bag.

  Bone Dagger

  A crude dagger wrenched from a skeleton in the plains. It barely qualifies as a dagger at all, doing so only because it has something resembling a pointy end.

  Legacy: 1

  There it was! It seemed that legacy came in the form of points, and his dagger only had one. That wasn’t a surprise; legacy suggested power and history, and his dagger had none.

  Next he checked his steel armor. Since he was wearing it, he only needed to look at it and concentrate before its properties displayed.

  Steel Chest Plate

  Armor designed to protect the chest from low-level melee weapons, both blunt and sharpened. Although made from steel it is thin and the craftsmanship is poor, and as such does not allow much protection from projectiles fired at close range.

  Legacy: 8

  “Looks like my armor has some legacy,” said Tripp. “I knew from the state of it that I wasn’t its first owner, so I guess that figures.”

  “What is its legacy?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “I mean, check out its story. Concentrate on the legacy field.”

  Tripp narrowed his gaze on the armor again, this time focusing on the ‘Legacy:8’ part of it. When he did, the field of text expanded.

  Steel chest plate created by player: Rex Darugar [Legacy: 1]

  Rex Darugar sustained damage from a sleel and lived [Legacy: 3]

  Rex Darugar suffered damage from giant and lived [Legacy: 6]

  Rex Darugar killed ice troll [Legacy: 8]

  Tripp was fascinated. Not only did it tell him that his steel armor been created, and abandoned, by a fellow player, but more importantly, this opened up possibilities.

  It seemed that using a weapon or armor added to its legacy, and he knew from the loremaster benefit that the greater the legacy, the more chance of getting a benefit of some kind.

  “Shall I get you a plate?” he said.

  Bee looked puzzled. “Huh?”

  “For your words. You know, for you to eat them.”

  She rolled her eyes.

  “I never would have gotten the loremaster legacy benefit
if I hadn’t already earned the armorer skill. If I hadn’t, I’d have just gotten regular loremaster. So I’m guessing that every weapon in Soulboxe has a legacy, yet not everyone can see it.”

  “Looks that way.”

  “So what other stats are out there, hidden and just waiting for the right skill to unlock them?”

  “I guess that’s for you to find out. But I seem to recall we came here for a reason?”

  “Right. Go keep yourself busy while I look for something.”

  After searching Mountmend library for a while, Tripp found a book called Creatures of Soulboxe. It was so old that the spine looked ready to fall apart, and someone had torn a page from near the end of it.

  While he settled at a desk and flicked through the pages, Bee flew off toward the military section where she read the titles of the combat books with a wide look in her eyes.

  Tripp turned page after page, stopping at the ‘S’ section.

  Sleel:

  A giant, flying eel that prowls Godden’s Plains at night. A high-level monster that should only be taken on by characters of a suitable level themselves.

  Strengths: Speed, flight, shock effects, thorn-lined tentacles.

  Weaknesses: Water-based spells, water-artificed weapons.

  He closed the book. He was more clued in on how a sleel could be beaten, but no closer to having the means to do it. He had no magic, no artificed weapons, just his crummy bone dagger.

  Thinking about that stirred something in him.

  He took out his bone dagger and his repair hammer and he put them on the desk. If this were a real library, he wouldn’t have flashed weaponry around. He’d heard librarians could get pretty pissed about things like that.

  He picked up his hammer and gently tapped away at the bone dagger, and soon he had a pile of bone dust on the table. His dagger looked sharper. Still weaker than a whittling knife, but sharper than it was a minute earlier.