by John L. Monk
“Oh, yeah,” I said, remembering the term from my research. “I got seven hundred. But the message said the points were shared.”
Rita grimaced. “They are. Looks like the game divvies it up based on who does the most work.”
I held out my hand. “So what do you say? Partners?”
She grabbed it and we shook. “I’d be honored to travel with you.”
Chapter Fourteen
After checking if Jim was alive—he wasn’t—Rita and I hunted through the rubble for coins, weapons, and armor. We then piled anything that looked useful on the dais.
Our progress was slow at first due to the pain of our injuries, which the game simulated with sadistic attention to detail. Within an hour, though, we’d each healed back to full, and moving around came easier.
We talked about the fight. The constant status messages, we agreed, were incredibly distracting, and we dialed those down to World and Critical messages only. If needed, we could always look at our combat logs for the gory details.
Rita had also leveled. I asked her about the “stat points” I’d gotten, and she cautioned me not to allocate any until we talked to Bernard.
“He’s part of the tutorial system,” she said. “An old standard in games, but useful.”
“Right,” I said, impressed with her deeper understanding of such things.
In total, we found 175 gold pieces. All were shiny and new as if minted yesterday, and stamped with the Everlife logo.
“Who are they advertising to?” I said, tracing one of the tiny engravings with my finger.
Rita laughed. “Let’s figure out which of this stuff we want.”
I dropped the coin back on our little pile and joined her at the equipment.
“I did a lot of research before coming here,” she said. “Some games have an inventory system. You declare an object is in your inventory and poof, it’s whisked out of sight and stored. Mythian’s different. More realistic. Closest you get to convenience are bottomless bags, micro-universes, N-dimensional spaces, that sort of thing. We don’t have any of those yet, so we need to decide what we’re taking out with us.”
There were eleven swords, nine daggers, a couple of maces, four shields, and a handful of war hammers. There was also a mysterious book bound in black leather. Sealing it was a buckle made to look like a demon’s face.
“What the heck is this?” I said.
“Ooh, that’s cool,” Rita said. “I bet it’s a spellbook. You should open it!”
Smiling blandly, I said, “But I already know how to spell book.”
Rita covered her mouth and shook with laughter. She had a nice laugh, and I was in a good mood now that the simulated danger had passed.
“B-o-o-k,” I said. “See?”
“Can you spell dead horse?”
Almost negligently, I popped the clasp. The book flew open and the pages fanned by at a dizzying speed. White-hot fire stabbed into my eyes, causing me to scream in pain. The last thing I saw before I fell on my ass was the book bursting into flame and vanishing in a puff of smoke.
Game messages scrolled up my field of vision:
RARE CLASS UNLOCKED: Sorcerer
Tap the secrets of creation itself and twist reality to your will as you battle the most terrifying beings in all of Mythian. The road ahead is long and lonely, and power and the thrill of battle your only rewards. Ah, but the state of your soul? Well, that is the question…
“What the heck just happened?” Rita said from a karate crouch a few feet away.
“I’m not sure. Listen to this.”
I read her the messages from my status log.
“Wow, Ethan,” she said. “You found a rare class. Sorcerer. Bernard sells training for the base classes, and sorcerer isn’t one of them.” She shook her head in wonder. “Imagine that—leveling up from 1 in a rare class, you lucky stiff. Soon you’ll be too powerful for the likes of little ol’ me…”
I wasn’t sure what a rare class was except that it sounded exclusive. In life, my accomplishments had been limited mainly to a few academic publications nobody ever read.
Rita was waiting for me to say something.
“I don’t know what to do,” I said finally. “You really think I should put my points into this sorcerer business?”
“I would,” she said. “In a game, anything special is an edge. But if you’d rather hack stuff up with swords, you could buy training back at the inn. If you don’t like blood and guts splashed everywhere, you could try the stealth route. More stabbing, less slashing.”
There was a section titled Stealth in the manual with a lot to say about the assassin and thief classes. Those didn’t fit my personality at all. Neither did warrior. Fighting that skeleton with Jim’s sword had been difficult, and painful when I’d gotten cut. Shooting monsters with magic seemed far more palatable.
Having made up my mind, I closed my eyes and willed my only class point into sorcerer and watched my character sheet go through a series of changes. It now had three new entries that hadn’t been there before: Mana with a 10 next to it, Mana Regeneration with a 5, and Current Mana with a 10.
I also received a blur of notifications:
SPELL AVAILABLE: Zap
Rank available: 1
Mana cost: 10
Cooldown: 20 seconds
Damage: 1-6 per class rank
Description:
Reach out and electrify your opponent with a powerful static discharge. Warning: excessive use may cause frizzy hair.
SPELL AVAILABLE: Weak Shield
Rank available: 1
Mana cost: 8 (Deferred until triggered)
Cooldown: 1 hour
Duration: Infinite/Special
Absorbs: 20
Description:
Place an invisible field of protection around yourself or a friend. Lasts until used, canceled, or hit by an angry butterfly.
SPELL AVAILABLE: Sprint
Rank available: 1
Mana cost: 10
Cooldown: 10 minutes
Duration: 1 minute
Description:
Escape your oppressors with a short burst of speed. Works best if they’re missing a leg!
After skimming the Spell Available messages, I ended up turning them off. They were long and needlessly snarky, and I worried they’d blind me to an incoming attack.
Next, I told Rita about my new stats.
“Mana’s an old fantasy staple,” she said. “If you add points to int—intelligence—it’ll probably go up. But let’s hold off and see what Bernard says.”
I nodded. That guy seemed to know a lot—claimed he knew everyone’s name in the game. I hoped to test that and grill him more about Cipher and his friend, Jaddow.
Chapter Fifteen
Rita used a rusty dagger to cut a large section of cloth away from Jim’s blood-splattered tunic, which she then fashioned into a bag for the coins. I could never have done that. With his head a bloody pulp, Jim looked about as dead as a dead person could look.
“We’ll split it up back at the Noob,” she said. “I mean, if you trust me.”
“Of course I trust you. Hold on—got an idea.” I pulled the biggest shield from the pile, about as long as a human torso. “I figure we can pile the nicer weapons on here, then sell them at the weapons shop we saw on the way in. I remember that store from the manual. They have to buy whatever we bring them. It’s a part of the world—like Bernard and his ale.”
Grinning wickedly, Rita said, “Should we save something for Jim?”
She was kidding, but I gave it serious thought. “He came here with us and even helped a little with the creeper. But he’s not very dependable.”
“He’s also a total loot whore,” she said.
I barked a laugh. “Loot whore? Never heard that one before. But yeah, that fits him. Still, if we see him again, we should give him his cut.”
Rita nodded.
We stacked two small shields on top of the big one, followed by
four nice swords—one of them glowing faintly—and added a mace. We almost left the mace because it was heavier than all the swords combined. But the craftsmanship was quite lovely, with evenly-spaced hex-shaped nodules for crushing bone, and we figured it’d bring a good price.
What a pain hauling it out. With two strength points between us, we had to stop every ten feet or so to rest and work the blood back into our numb fingers.
“I thought … this game … was supposed to be realistic,” I huffed. “We should gain … more strength points … for exercise. Or something. This is ridiculous.”
Rita was stooped over, trying to breathe. “We … could always … add a point now. Otherwise … take us hours to get out.”
“Let’s just rest,” I said, and flopped onto the ground.
A few minutes later, I nudged her foot with mine. “You’re definitely going for a fighting class?”
She nodded. “Always wanted to kick butt. Now I have my chance.”
“Fighters need strength,” I said. “Why not put one in now? If it makes a big difference, I’ll do it too.”
“May as well,” she said … and her eyes glazed over … and her back straightened fractionally. She smiled. “There. Grab your side and let’s see.”
Ten feet in and I had to rest again.
“How do you feel?” I said wearily.
“Like I can go twice as far,” she said. “My guess is if I add another point, I could go three times as far.”
“Should I do it?”
Rita nodded. “Even a mage needs some strength. You’re gonna need more survivability, no matter how many lightning bolts you can throw around.”
Nodding, I opened my sheet. The section with the major stats, like strength, was at the top. I willed it to increase by 1 and it did. Immediately, fresh energy swept through my body.
“Wow,” I said. “It’s amazing how they managed to make non-existence feel good. Almost like we’re alive.”
Rita grimaced. “Um … Ethan?”
“Hmm?” I said, flexing my muscle and staring at it curiously. It seemed a little bigger than before … or maybe not. It sure felt bigger.
“Ethan, stop staring at your muscle.”
I lowered my arm and looked at her.
“If we’re going to pal around,” Rita said, “maybe don’t talk about that. It’s upsetting.”
“What is?” I said, genuinely puzzled.
A degree of anger crept into her voice. “I’m a real person and I have a soul. I’m not a computer program.”
Finally, I understood. “Sorry. I didn’t mean it that way. What I meant was—”
“I know what you meant,” she said crisply. “Let’s just get this stuff back.”
Feeling like I’d said something completely accurate yet somehow wrong, I grabbed my end of the shield as inoffensively as possible and helped her lift it.
Together, over the course of an hour, we worked our stop-and-go way to the antechamber. The time was confirmed when I checked the clock at the top of my character sheet.
The other two chambers awaited us—spiderwebs in one, sulfurous hot air in the other.
“Maybe next time,” Rita said.
“I was thinking the same thing.”
We left the way we’d come in, slowly climbing the hundred-or-so steps from Under Town to the fountain entrance. I breathed a sigh of relief when, as Rita had predicted, it opened at our approach.
Chapter Sixteen
“It’s all junk,” the grizzled dwarf said when we hauled the shield onto the counter.
“But your name’s Crunk, right?” I said.
“Yeah, so?”
“Your sign outside says Crunk’s Junk.”
“What’s your point, human?”
I looked at Rita.
“So you have to buy it,” Rita said. “It’s in the manual.”
Crunk threw back his head and laughed. “Listen to you! O’course I gotta buy it. Doesn’t mean it’s not junk. How much you want?”
“Ten million gold pieces,” I said automatically.
“I’ll give you one thousand three hundred and seventy-six.”
“Two thousand,” Rita countered.
“Nope,” he said. “I’ll give you the current game value—no more, no less—and that’s one thousand three hundred and seventy-six. You got something to carry around all that coin? It’s heavy, just like in your so-called real world.” He snorted derisively and shook his head. “O’course you don’t got nothing—you noobs never come prepared.” He ducked under the counter and pulled out two purses, each about as big as a fist. “Holds an infinite number of coins, see? You can tell how many you have by touching it. And you can transfer coins to other purses by touching them together. With permission.”
“How much does it cost?” I said.
Crunk’s voice rose in an angry growl. “They make me give ’em out free! Got no damned choice. Here—take ’em!”
He launched both purses spinning through the air. I missed catching mine. Rita caught hers easily.
“I already put two points in agility,” she said sheepishly.
Crunk pounded the counter. “No sheepish bantering in my shop!” He pointed at a carved wooden sign overhead. It actually had the words No Sheepish Bantering! written on it. I could have sworn upon entering it hadn’t said anything at all.
Rita completed the transaction and we sidled down the counter to split the coins.
Watching the dwarf snap and grouse at the other customers, I couldn’t help wondering if he was really angry or if this was all a computer-programmed response routine—like Bernard’s constant need to tell us the history of Heroes’ Landing and the “ancient race” that once lived here.
Crunk caught me looking at him. Slowly—angrily—he pointed back at the sign. The words were different. Now they read, No Damned Staring!
Rita poked me in the ribs. “Hey, pay attention. We need another purse for Jim. You wanna ask or do I have to?”
“Crunk likes you more,” I said.
Rita rolled her eyes and went to get another purse. Sure enough, Crunk wasn’t happy about it, but he gave her one.
“Should we maybe buy some stuff?” I said, staring at the racks of fantasy gear deeper in the store. “I’m getting sick of this tunic. Everyone outside stares down their noses at me.”
Rita fingered her own tunic and nodded. “Yeah. We need better gear for sure.”
Under the suspicious eye of Crunk, Rita and I went shopping.
An hour later, I left Crunk’s Junk wearing polished knee-high black boots with a +5 vitality enchantment, and a ridiculous blue robe with a +5 intelligence boost. The points in intelligence didn’t actually make me smarter, but they directly affected my maximum mana, mana regeneration, and my resistance to “Mind Control.” The simple black staff I purchased upped my maximum mana by +10, but that was it. Now my mana was 70 (10 for the staff, 10 for my base intelligence of 1, and 50 for the robes). At 5 mana regeneration per point of intelligence, my mana regeneration was 30. Health and health regeneration factored similarly to intelligence. Thanks to my new boots and my single vitality point, my health was 60, and my health regeneration was 30.
Ah, those boots … Putting them on felt great—like stepping fresh from the shower to a waiting cup of coffee.
The cost of my gear had nearly wiped out my newfound wealth, leaving only 12 gold pieces in my brand-new coin purse. Rita had been more frugal with her money. She now sported a formfitting black outfit that upped her “Armor” by +10, and a black headband with an agility enchantment, +5. She didn’t purchase any weapons because she said she wanted to buy monk training from Bernard.
“What makes you want to be a monk?” I said. “You don’t seem like the vow of silence type.”
Rita laughed. “Not that kind of monk. A fighting monk. It’s actually good strategy. When you die, you lose all your stuff. It’s still sitting on your body. Look up Walk of Shame. It’s funny.”
The manual had a
glossary of terms. Walk of Shame was the unofficial name for dying and walking back to your corpse to loot it. The manual showed a picture of a skinny woman in a tunic running with an armload of stuff from a mob of toothy monsters.
“We actually have to get our stuff back that way?” I said.
Rita nodded. “Pretty much. If you can. Keep in mind, anything that killed you is probably still alive. Being a monk makes things easier. I’ll always have my fists. And you’ll always have your spells. Warriors with armor and swords, not so much.”
“So what do they do?”
“Get people to help them,” she said. “I guess. Or have backup gear handy. Or maybe they multi-class as a thief and sneak in. Probably only need a few levels in that.”
We talked about this and other game mechanics as we made our way through the busy streets. The new gear helped our reception a little—fewer sneers from armored/robed/sword-wielding people we saw.
The sun was now hidden behind an enormous ruby-colored tower that seemed at least partially translucent. This allowed a nearly-complete view of the multiple moons in the sky, each colored differently: from yellowish to conch shell pink, and even green.
“Pretty, huh?” she said. “I wonder if we can go to them.”
I was about to reply when someone shouted, “Outta the way, noobs!”
“Make way for the Crimson Sigil!” someone else shouted.
Seconds later, a huge swordsman with an entourage of slightly-less-huge swordsmen and swordswomen marched through as if they owned the city.
“Fresh off the bus,” one of them said, sneering at us.
Another said, “Nice stick, noob.”
A minute later, they were gone.
Chapter Seventeen
It was under a pall of inferiority that we arrived at The Slaughtered Noob ten minutes later. More specifically: we opened the door, stepped inside, and…
YOU HAVE SUCCESSFULLY COMPLETED A QUEST: Investigate Under Town, 6000 EXPERIENCE POINTS
TRIVIAL PERK AWARD: Summon Apple
For completing the Vine Creeper Scenario, you have earned a trivial perk. Summon a delicious red apple to your hand with a wish, whenever you feel like it. No worms! No brown spots! No original sin!