by Troy Osgood
It was a lot to consider every time a character leveled. While all skills would be useful, some were better than others for what the game had evolved into. There were pages and pages in the various forums and Wikis of the best builds, a combination of specific skills for each class, that worked for high-end raiding and other aspects of the game. That was the min/max gameplay style that had never suited Hall. He had followed most of the guidelines for his class, the best to help out his guildmates, but had never truly enjoyed playing that way.
That philosophy had been designed to defeat the bosses of the game, to rise up and be considered an elite guild and player.
But was it the best way now?
If this really was his new life, then that added a new dimension to leveling up. He had to think long term as well as survivability. He’d already seen the negative effects of not eating or sleeping, two things that had never been a concern before.
He had originally thought to put the point in Strength or Agility, a Skirmisher's main stats. In parties, their role was just pure offense. They were never meant to get hit or attacked by the enemy, so the prime build was laid out that way. Pure attack power for damage. In solo play, the Agility allowed the Skirmisher to avoid hits and get away from multiple enemies as they were restricted to Light Armor. They could take some hits but it was best to avoid it when possible. Most players had leveled their characters with the endgame builds in mind.
Did he have to rethink all that now?
Most skills had been considered roleplaying only but leveling skills would still grant Attribute gains, so most people had still leveled the ones that would gain the Attributes they wanted. At least, until they got high enough that there were no more gains. They never cared about the skills themselves, just the Attribute gains. Want to increase Strength fast? Try mining a lot. There was an additional bonus of being able to make some gold at early levels.
Each character could only learn one-thousand levels of skills, any combination, and three-hundred levels in professions. A Human or Half-Elf, could get another fifty points due to their original Racial Abilities. Because of the roleplay nature, there ended up being some odd builds made of the different skills. Characters would have the few beneficial ones, taken up to the rank that gave the most advantages when combined with others, and the rest of the points would be used by whichever random skill they had used to gain stats.
Hall was already learning two profession skills, Skinning and Herbology, along with three skills, Survival, Tracking, and Camouflage, which would all be useful at early levels. He had some time before had to make a final determination of what his skills would be. And it wasn’t like he couldn’t choose to unlearn one to learn another.
Or could he? Would that aspect still work now? Would he be stuck with the ones he chose to begin with?
Doubtful. People had the ability to learn new skills in real life, so it would make sense to do the same in the game or this new life that they had.
Am I overthinking? Hall thought with a sigh. Before he could live this new life, he had to earn some gold and level first. He put the newly gained point in Wellness, thinking of how painful the wounds from the wolf had been.
He closed the Character Sheet and stood up. His legs felt cramped. The morning was chilly, and he had sat like that for a while. Stretching out his legs and arms, he walked over to the sleeping Roxhard and nudged the Dwarf with his boot.
One blurry eye opened, staring up at Hall.
“Come on,” he said. “Time to go.”
Using the map, Hall found the road easily.
He thought about turning and heading back to Grayhold. They could use some supplies. Blankets, flint and tinder, water, and some food. Could also use some healing potions, but he knew there wasn’t enough money for that yet. Probably not even for some bandages, which were useless without points in Triage to begin with. That would require training. Which would require money.
Instead, he turned north, Roxhard following without complaint. Hall tried to remember where the bridge across the Green Flow River was. It came from the north, the water falling from Edin above to crash onto Cumberland and start flowing south. It went in a pretty southwesterly direction, almost cutting Cumberland in half.
The map was frustrating. It was clouded out, only showing the areas he had been. There had never been a need for mapmaking in the game before, no cartographers, but he could see a need for them now. It had taken about a day to get to the wolf cave, but that had been slow walking and tracking. He had heard that a person could do four MPH walking normally, so could possibly hit thirty-two miles in a day? That seemed high. Maybe twenty-five was more realistic? But without seeing where the bridge was in reference to Grayhold on the map, he couldn’t estimate how far it was by using the wolf cave as a scale.
There was no way to really tell how far away it would be but he had a feeling it would be at least another night in the wild.
He looked back over his shoulder in the direction of Grayhold.
Blankets and food would be nice, but there was the lack of money issue.
Facing front again, he continued the walk down the road.
It was one wagon-width wide, hard-packed. Ruts ran down the middle made from heavy wagons being pulled through muddy roads. Horse tracks filled the ground between the ruts, going in both directions. Evidence of traffic but they didn’t see any.
Trees lined both sides, the road rising up hills and down into small valleys. They could see small animals running through the forest, birds in the trails. The sun was high in the sky, shining down onto the road, part of it in shadows from the trees.
“You were a beta,” Roxhard said after a while of silence.
Hall hoped the kid wasn’t a talker. Not being one himself, he tended to find non-stop talking annoying. Talking was for useful things, not random chatter.
“Yeah,” he replied. “Day one.”
“I always wanted to play a Norn,” Roxhard continued. “Such a cool looking race. Tried all the other races and classes, settled for a Dwarf Warden.”
Hall nodded, thinking of Groven, his former guildmate, a Firbolg Warden and the best one he had ever played with. He shifted the thoughts away, not wanting to think about Groven or the others. Were they dead or alive? Was he alive or dead to them? Did it matter anymore?
“I remember running this road,” Roxhard said after silence had fallen again. “Didn’t take that long to run from Grayhold to Land’s Edge Port.”
“Nope. Even less once got the first horse.”
He wondered how riding was going to work now. There had been horses in the stable back in Grayhold, stood to reason they were still available for the players. Did he still have to wait until level twenty and purchase the ability?
Silence fell again, and this time, Roxhard didn’t try to fill it.
Hall figured they made about twenty miles, give or take, by the time they had to find shelter for the night. He had pushed them, stopping only to rest and for a light meal of berries and nuts, which earned him another gain in Survival. Because they would need to return to Grayhold to turn in the quests, he wanted this journey over with quickly, cut down on the number of days before might be able to get a comfortable bed in the Laughing Horse Inn.
Shelter was hard to find, and they had to venture off the road a quarter mile or so. Hall thought he might be getting good at judging distances but had no real way to tell. He was just making it up as he went but it seemed to comfort Roxhard.
The Dwarf wore leather leggings with steel plates attached to the upper leg, leather boots with metal plates, and a thin chainmail shirt. Starting gear for a Warden. He carried a two-handed axe with only one head and a dagger at his belt. Deep-set black eyes and large nose were surrounded by a bushy brown beard. Long hair hung past his shoulders, the beard almost down to his waist with a single braid down the middle. The ends of his moustache grew out and ran down to his chin. Roxhard looked carved from stone, the face cracked but the eyes looked young… Squat and
wide, powerful. Strong.
Until he talked.
The voice was deep and gravelly, the voice of a person born from the stone under the mountains. But the tone and words were that of a fourteen-year-old boy.
Hall had to remember that when he dealt with Roxhard.
In game it wouldn’t have mattered, but here and now? The kid was overwhelmed, scared, and confused. As they all were. But Hall was an adult, thirty. That made a big difference.
They eventually camped in a shallow cave set into the side of a grass-covered hill. Hall triple checked to make sure there was no sign of an animal living there, or another entrance, before claiming it for the night. Only about ten feet deep, the opening was wide with nothing to block the night wind.
Building a fire, they managed to keep warm but hungry. Neither were able to catch a rabbit, or even a squirrel, that night. There were more nuts and berries, but it was not very filling.
Hall was getting tired of seeing his Vitality bar not regenerate fully. The trek had taken a toll as well. Twenty or so miles would tire anyone out.
He built the fire at the front, but deep enough in to be fully covered. They stoked it high and settled in, each waking up a couple times with the chills. Each time they would stack more sticks and logs on the fire, getting it warm, before falling back into a restless sleep.
The morning dawned cloudy and chill, threatening rain.
The weather on Hankarth was hard to understand. Each island was by itself, floating above nothing. Some islands were lower down, and the lower they were, the colder they were with shorter days. Others were along the same level, offset a hundred feet or ten, similar weather and temperature. Then there were the ones above the others, the hottest ones with the longest days. The sun somehow rotated around all of them, starting on the east and setting on the west. Night came when the sun was blocked by other islands or somehow went below them.
Just the one sun and a single moon that followed the same pattern. There were stars, filling the night sky with areas blocked by the other islands. The ones farther down barely saw the stars because of all the other islands in the way.
Weather tended to be localized, focused on that one island at the time. It might be raining on one and snowing on another.
Some players had complained that none of the weather, or the islands themselves, were possible but they would be quickly shut down. It was a game, a world of magic. It didn’t need to make sense as long as it was fun. There were in-game, lore-based reasons, and that was enough for Hall. The islands stayed floating. That was all that mattered.
Hall hoped it would not rain. With no cloaks, they’d be soaked in a matter of minutes. He was tempted to just stay in the cave longer, so they could wait out the coming storm.
He was surprised how quickly he was adapting. Things that previously would not have been a concern were now influencing every decision.
In a way this was what he had always wanted, just not how he had envisioned it. Fantasy games and novels had always been a big draw for him. He loved those worlds. The magic, dragons, swords, and dungeons. All of it. The ultimate escape.
And now he was living it.
The rain held off.
They were cold, tired, hungry, and miserable but at least they weren’t wet.
There had been some travelers, having been passed by a couple of wagons throughout the day, heading south toward Grayhold. The drivers had not stopped, just nodded at the two as they stood off the road to let the wagons move by.
A couple hours past noon, or what Hall thought was noon, the road rose up a hill, turning as it did so. At the top, they looked down the other side and saw the bridge.
The Green Flow River was wide, about thirty feet across, and raging. It did so for the majority of its length. The force of falling a hundred feet from one island to the other pushed it downriver with great force. White waves formed as the water crashed against rocks, the banks and the supports of the bridge.
Wooden, as wide as the road, the bridge was of simple construction. Flat planks laid across wide beams set on posts stuck into the muddy bottom of the river. Thin rails lined the sides, only a couple of feet high and looking weak enough to fall over if leaned against.
The edges of the bridge facing the raging current of the river were wet, splash spraying up and onto the surface, which was only a couple feet above the water.
They walked onto the bridge, their boots loud against the wooden planks.
Hall scanned the ground as they stepped onto the north side of the road. The quest log had said that Scout Jacobs was north of the bridge. That could be anywhere but there should be some sign or indication. He moved slowly and carefully, eyes searching everywhere. Hall moved to the west of the bridge while Roxhard went east.
“Roxhard,” Hall called out as he spotted the first sign.
Footprints marked a muddy patch of ground near the water’s edge. Booted feet, Human, and three-toed ones that were half the size. They stepped around each other, pointed in all directions, turned and circled.
A fight of some kind.
He recognized the three-toed feet, two long in the front with a shorter and stubbier one in the back, as belonging to Goblins. Foul creatures. Among the most vicious in the world. They stood only about three feet tall, thin but with wiry muscles. Gray-skinned with large heads and even larger bat like ears. Their noses were long with small and yellow eyes, mouths full of sharp teeth. Ugly but cunning. They were not stupid, they used tactics when attacking. Always in packs, never alone. Even though they wore no armor, just rough hides and carried wooden clubs, they were still tough opponents in numbers.
“Jacobs?” Roxhard asked, crouching down and running a metal gauntleted hand over the tracks.
Hall crouched down as well, placing his fingers onto the ground. The mud was still somewhat wet, the tracks fairly fresh. Only a couple hours old possibly.
“Dammit,” Hall said, standing up and moving toward the river where it looked like some of the tracks split off from the others. “Looks to be recent. Not that long ago.”
“But that means…” Roxhard started to say but let it drop.
It meant that if they had moved faster, then they might have gotten here in time to help Jacobs. He had to be dead, Hall knew. There were too many Goblin tracks. But where was the body?
He found the first drops of blood about ten feet away, a thin trail of it on the grass.
If it had rained, the blood would have washed away, and they never would have found the trail.
Motioning to Roxhard, they followed the blood trail. There were few tracks, the Goblins moving lightly through the forest. Alongside the blood and tracks there were odd marks in the ground, long and staggering. It was slow going, Hall having to keep low and stopping to find the next splatter or drop of blood or Goblin track. He wished he could have Roxhard in front. Wardens were tanks, meant to take punishment, while Skirmishers were meant to dart in and deal damage before darting out. But he was the tracker and was gaining in the skill.
He just felt defenseless, vulnerable, as he crouched low to the ground.
About forty feet away, dragged into some bushes, they found Scout Jacobs.
QUEST COMPLETE!
You have found the body of Scout Jacobs.
There is evidence of Goblin activity that led to the Scout's death.
GOBLINS AMOK I
Reward: +100 Essec Reputation, +50 Experience
CHAPTER EIGHT
Hall cleared the quest prompt, not even paying attention to what it said. Reputation and experience. Great. It didn’t matter right now. A man was dead.
Jacobs was torn apart. A bloody mess. There was nothing recognizable, just barely could tell the body was Human. It was Jacobs, had to be, no reason for anyone else to be out here. But what had done this? The Goblins?
They were extremely vicious creatures but this was too much. Even for them.
“God,” Roxhard said, stumbling back. “They tore him apart.”
&nb
sp; Blood was everywhere, splattered across the ground and the bushes. Pieces of Jacobs were scattered around. Large and small. His uniform was torn and ripped, but only the cloth. The armor and weapons were gone, scavenged by the Goblins.
“I’ve never seen Goblins do this,” Roxhard said. The smell was overpowering, and the Dwarf took a couple steps back. He looked around warily, expecting the Goblins to return.
Hall forced himself to stay close, to study the body. He had never seen Goblins do this either but the more he thought about it, the more that was wrong. He had only seen what the developers had programmed the Goblins to do. The lore said they were vicious but within the confines of the game that viciousness had not been truly realized.
Now he was seeing an example of what the creatures were really capable of.
The body revealed nothing. More of the Goblin tracks were scattered around, along with the strange, long marks. He crouched low, studying what he saw, trying to understand it. He now knew what the odd marks were. Jacobs had been dragged, kicking and fighting.
Alive.
Why hadn’t the Goblins just killed him by the bridge? To hide the body from any travelers?
That was a scary level of thinking from the Goblins. It showed they were capable of reason, to think long term. Which made them that much more dangerous.
Walking around the bloody mess, Hall found what he was looking for. Goblin tracks, light steps on the forest floor, leading deeper into the woods.
You have found the body of Scout Jacobs. You have also discovered a trail that could lead to the Goblin raiders. Guard Captain Henry will want to know about the death of his Scout but could use more information on the raiders' location or their destruction.
What will you do?