by John L. Monk
At 180 mana an hour, we had a lot of downtime to go over strategy, sleep away the time, or—in my case—continue reading the manual.
I’d gotten to the part that discussed property ownership.
Heroes’ Landing, when the game first began, had been little bigger than a small country town. It was the players who’d grown it—adding the towers, restaurants, and residential districts. Over time, the walls expanded automatically to make room for the city’s growth.
Businesses like Magical Matters could be started for a fee, paid to a High Council comprised of lucids whose only job was to accept registrations and give out land. For a fee, you could let the game build your buildings. Or, if you were industrious, you could harvest raw materials from outside the city and hire lucid craftsmen (dwarves and gnomes, usually) to build it for you. People like William paid taxes to the council, which served to take money out of the game. This helped prevent inflation from a constant stream of adventurer gold.
It was sort of interesting how we could do more than kill and loot monsters, but Mythian still seemed terribly limited to me. The thought of spending an eternity in the same town sitting behind a cash register seemed almost as unpleasant as fighting the Spider Queen again.
Chapter Thirty-Two
Yes, we kept fighting her. At 2000 points a kill, we had no choice unless we wanted to advance at a glacier’s pace. To reach 20 in time for the goblin thing, we also couldn’t rest longer than the time it took to regenerate mana and health points. This wasn’t so bad for me. With Rita helping, I barely got hit anymore. Rita, however, had to stand up front and fight the monsters toe to toe. Simply put, she got cut, pummeled, poisoned, and occasionally burnt nearly every encounter.
Because we didn’t need to sleep, we cycled machine-like from spiders to salamanders and even the Creeper in our grueling quest for points.
Rita got repeatedly stung by the queen’s scorpion tail, which whipped easily past her defenses. Fighting the queen was pure misery—especially when she switched things up and poisoned me.
It wasn’t by accident that I got stung. The monsters were getting smarter. Instead of coming on like mindless drones, they were now coordinating their attacks and hiding in ambush. Their health stayed the same, but they were harder to kill, and each kill yielded a smaller percentage of the amount we needed for the next level.
When I finally reached level 10, I despaired at the thought of continuing to 11. The game had increased the cost by a factor of ten. I now needed over 21,000 experience points.
Rest was a balm that banished our pain and healed our scars. It also eroded our will to continue. Rita no longer smiled. Gone was her enthusiastic chitchat. She’d been dumping nearly all her points into vitality and agility. The former to soak up what damage she took, the latter to avoid as much of it as possible. Eventually—thankfully—she hit level 9 and picked up a new trance that let her mitigate the pain better, but she still felt every blow that landed.
“I need a break,” she said after a particularly awful spider sting, which tended to critical hit more often than not. “I can’t keep going like this. If we can get a day off, I’ll do some research and see how hard the hill giants are. Maybe we can pick a few off … or maybe there’s something else out there that doesn’t sting so goddamned much.”
I felt terrible. She’d pushed herself like this for me—for Melody. Someone she hadn’t even met. And then I felt worse because I wanted her to keep the ball rolling for fear we’d miss joining the goblin quest.
“Sure,” I said, hating the way it sounded. “You’re right. Let’s go back.”
“You’re upset.”
I shook my head. “Nope, just planning. But if we’re going to relax, I need something other than Bernard’s ale. It’s good, but I hate burping.”
Rita’s sunny laugh returned, and I felt better about the decision.
“Everything’s simulated so perfectly,” she said. “Even burps.”
After leaving Under Town, Rita asked if we could drop by the bank so she could start her account. I told her if she wanted to get in good with the bank manager—Lord Snoot—she should tell him jokes. Otherwise he’d be rude. And snooty.
“But I don’t know any jokes,” she said. “Not the kind with punchlines and setups and all that. I just sort of joke around, you know?”
I smiled. “Those are the best kind.”
While Rita was busy with her account, I dropped off my cut of the gear we’d lugged out. Hard to believe we’d been fighting day and night. I didn’t even feel it. Rather than perk me up, my mood grew darker.
I longed for the untainted memory of my wife, now sullied with all this Mythian stuff. On top of that, I felt guilty about the fun I was having with Rita. Sure, there was pain and long stretches of boredom, but at least we could talk sometimes. It had been so long since I’d enjoyed the company of a woman other than my wife.
Rita was waiting when I came out.
“How was it?” I said.
“He’s definitely snooty,” she said in Snoot’s affected manner. “He said I needed to work on my jokes, but he appreciated the effort. He said almost nobody tries to be social anymore. The poor guy.”
We went to a restaurant called Ellen’s Tavern—an upscale place with polished marble floors, colorful area rugs, paintings on the walls, and gleaming white tablecloths. They didn’t use runes for lighting. Rather, they had glowing orbs that floated around the vaulted ceilings.
Having lived so long on a fixed income, I suddenly worried the food would be astronomically priced. Then I worried there wasn’t room for us. The place was packed with all manner of people dressed to the nines. Way fancier than us. And their faces…
“Would you just look at them?” Rita said quietly. “They’re all so beautiful.”
I shrugged, decidedly unimpressed.
Rita wasn’t done. “It’s weird, though. I look exactly the same as I did in real life, and I’d been considered pretty. But these women? Wow.”
I cast a discrete look her way and tried to focus on her objectively, geometrically, comparing her to what passed for pretty in real life.
Rita laughed. “You can look, it’s okay. What do you see?”
I swallowed uncomfortably. “Well, no offense, but…”
“Go on,” she said with an edge to her voice.
“It’s like there’s this barrier or … I don’t know. Something. You should be a knockout, but…”
Rita snorted. “It’s my comeliness. Too low. It won’t let you find me attractive.”
“Maybe a little makeup?” I said, then flashed her a grin to show I was kidding. “Oh, look—someone’s coming.”
A lady in an elegant blue dress approached. She had long blonde hair pulled into a cascade of curls down one side. Beautiful, yes, but her beauty was understated, like a real human’s.
“Hi, how are you?” she said in a rich, friendly voice. “I’m Ellen. Table for two?”
Her smile was wide, fresh and inviting, and for once I didn’t feel so out of place. None of the customers stared at us, either, which was a nice change.
“Um … would it be okay to look at the menu first?” Rita said.
I flashed her a look of gratitude.
“Why, certainly,” Ellen said. She reached behind the little stand by the door and produced a menu. After a quick look inside, I knew we could afford everything they had to offer, though not in unlimited quantities.
“Looks like we’re staying,” I said.
Chapter Thirty-Three
“If you’ll just follow me,” Ellen said and led us to a table near the back. There were other tables nearby with people at them, so it wasn’t as if she were hiding us.
Quit being self-conscious.
“Your waiter will be along shortly,” she said and started to leave.
“Oh, ma’am?” I said.
She stopped and regarded me kindly. “Ellen, please.”
“Are you the Ellen?” I said. “The one in the sign?
”
She chuckled softly. “The one and only. I suppose we could hire a maitre d’, but I enjoy mingling. How long have you been in Mythian?”
“About a week,” I said.
Rita said, “A little more for me.”
Ellen nodded as if she already knew. “Looks like you’ve been to Under Town. Having fun?”
Rita grimaced. “Not really. I’m tired of being stung by that damned … uh, darn Spider Queen.”
Ellen said, “You’ll be ready for the Swaze Pit soon enough. I hear they raised the level requirement to twenty. It’s much easier that way, trust me. Those shamans are awful.”
“We were thinking about trying the hill giants,” I said.
Yeah, I was fishing.
Ellen made a face. “That’s a really terrible idea. You need to be at least twentieth level for that, and you’ll want a good mix of talented people. At your level, if a hill giant sat down in front of you and said do your worst, all you’d do is tickle it.” She glanced back to the entrance where a group was waiting. “If there’s nothing else…?”
I shook my head. “Thank you.”
Ellen gave a slight bow and hurried away, and I stared dejectedly at Rita. Her expression was haunted.
“Would you be offended,” she said, “if I switched my major to sorcerer?”
“Your major?”
She shrugged. “Reminds me a little of college, that’s all. My whole life, really.”
“What do you mean?”
“I met my husband, Allen, in college,” she said. “We were both studying computer psychology. Soon into our second year, he started getting defensive about how I was doing better than him. I’d won some stupid award. Then I got picked to be assistant to the department head.”
I nodded. “Then he came to his senses, and everyone lived happily ever after.”
“No. He convinced me to switch my major. I chose medicine this time, and did well in that too.”
“What about Allen?”
Rita laughed bitterly. “He got jealous again. Ended up switching his major. A year later and he dropped out. We broke up for a while. Then his father died a natural death and left him a bunch of money. His father thought worlds like Mythian were…” She shook her head firmly as if putting something behind her. “Anyway, Allen was a changed man after that and convinced me to marry him. Then, two years later, he paid his way to a world called Alpha Centauri to fly spaceships or something. The retirement fee cleaned us out.” She smiled sadly. “And I grew old alone.”
My immediate reaction was to tell her how horrible her husband was, but didn’t because she’d heard it countless times by now. She’d wanted to share something about herself, and for that I felt grateful.
“What’s it like to be a doctor?” I said.
“Pretty fun, actually.”
Rita regaled me with stories from her life as a doctor. They were frequently hilarious, yet some were downright scary. She recounted instances of gross incompetence in her increasingly dumbed-down profession where lucids were slowly taking over.
Hours later, during a story about a diagnostic lucid she and a few doctors tricked into thinking a psych patient had “escaped,” our waiter returned. Instead of another round of drinks, he’d brought a silver platter. On top was a folded note with the name “Jaddow” written on it. I accepted the letter and the waiter left.
Rita’s eyes grew wide with excitement.
“Go on,” she said breathlessly. “Open it.”
“All right,” I said.
After a brief hesitation, I started reading:
Fine dining? You should be averaging twenty thousand points a day at your level. Here’s some advice, and you’ll follow it if you ever want to see your wife again: don’t wait for those idiots to gang up and attack the goblins. The Goblin Tide remains weak between attacks. Go to the Swaze Pit now, while their numbers are still low. Ask Bernard for directions. If the monk can keep from crying, bring her along—they make good tanks. And bring a priest or you’ll be forever waiting for her to heal.
When you reach level 25, I’ll know you’re serious and we’ll meet. Until then: get to work.
“He’s a real prick, isn’t he?” Rita said after I showed it to her.
“Seems like it,” I said. “He’s right, though. We can’t fight the hill giants, and Under Town’s almost worthless at this point. We need to hit the goblins now. Together.”
Rita smiled tipsily and raised her empty glass. “For blood and glory!”
I raised mine too. “Huzzah!”
Chapter Thirty-Four
Bernard was more than happy to give us directions to the Swaze Pit, home of the goblins, who lived in the west.
“It’s way off in the west…,” he told us, pointing vaguely at one of the walls.
He also said people would be very upset to arrive there in a few weeks and find no goblins around. Then, in a conspiratorial whisper, he said he thoroughly approved of our decision to go there now rather than wait.
I suspected the bearded lucid would champion any activity that helped players level up faster. Which basically lent credence to Jaddow’s advice to hit the goblins early.
Rita and I inquired around The Slaughtered Noob for a priest, but everyone there had chosen melee or ranged classes. New priests, we learned, typically moved to a temple upon taking the class.
Bernard—a terrific eavesdropper—suggested we loiter outside Crunk’s Junk to see who showed up to sell Under Town loot. After all, he said, only lower-level players shopped there.
It was a good idea, so that’s what we did.
Standing outside the shop, we squinted at everyone who came and went. Warriors and melee types were the most common customers, though occasionally we saw wizards. I would have thought wizards would be more common. Who didn’t want to shoot lightning bolts around? But people seemed to like swords and shields more.
Eventually a tall, willowy player showed up wearing dull green vestments. “Priest 6” floated faintly over his head when we squinted him. We’d wanted higher but could wait for him to level. If his 7th level spell turned out to be as good as mine, he’d have enough to contribute in the way of healing. Also, he was the only low-level priest we’d seen that day.
After he left the shop, Rita and I approached him.
“So how do you like being a priest?” she said.
The man smiled. “It’s pretty weird, not gonna lie. I’m actually … well, technically I’m a Christian. So it feels like blasphemy a lot of times. But then, so was coming to Mythian. The prayers are all mumbo jumbo. In so-and-so’s name, I heal thee. I do have a few offensive prayers, but everyone wants heals.”
“So you’re sticking with healing?” Rita said.
He nodded. “That and utility. Bernard suggested it—said I’d get into more groups. But the group I got into broke up because this woman wouldn’t stop nagging everyone.”
I smiled. “Was the woman’s name Marcy? Was she really, really ugly?”
Rita elbowed me.
The man’s eyes widened. “You know her?”
“Not well.” I held out my hand and we shook. “I’m Ethan. This is Rita.”
“Frank. Good to meet you both.”
Rita suggested we find a pub somewhere to talk about an adventure we had in mind.
Frank laughed. “Works for me. Not that I ever get hungry. Unless I’m thinking about food. Funny how that works now, huh?”
We sat him down and sprang the idea on him. At first, he seemed hesitant.
“Won’t people get mad,” he said, “when they show up and there’s no goblins?”
Rita shrugged. “So they do it next month. They won’t know it’s us who cleared them out.”
“Not like there’s some rule against it,” I said. “Also, Bernard’s on board.”
Frank still looked hesitant.
Smiling, I said, “You could always find Ugly Marcy and her husband and try that again.”
“I’m gonna go with no o
n that one,” Frank said, laughing. “But, you know what? I’m tired of screwing around in Under Town. I got burned alive by a frigging lizard—after I’d used my zeal on everyone else. Count me in.”
With no one to say bye to, we decided to leave as soon as possible. To that end, I asked Rita to get better directions to the goblins from Bernard.
While she was away, Frank and I hauled what gear I had to Crunk’s Junk. After that, I then introduced him to William, who sold him new vestments and a better staff. That basically wiped out the remainder of my wealth, but I didn’t care. I wanted the best possible chance for us to succeed. After all, we were entering what was ostensibly a monthly war zone.
When we got to the western gate, it started to rain.
“Dammit,” I said, and pulled my hood over my head. The rain came down in big heavy sheets, so it didn’t help at all.
“Such language,” Frank said over the patter. “I’m a priest, remember?”
Rita spread her arms wide and spun in a circle. “I love it! We’ll probably get rained on a bunch of times before we get there.”
That stopped me. “Wait a minute, just how far is this place?”
“A lot farther than Under Town,” she said.
The goblin stronghold was somewhere called the “Swaze Pit,” though neither Rita nor Frank knew precisely what that meant. To get there, we needed to travel through a forest filled with baddies, and Bernard wouldn’t say what kind—said it would “spoil the fun.” And we couldn’t question higher-level players because word would slip that we were trying to “ninja” their loot, as Frank termed it.
“Oh, and I heard someone say there’s a deathtrap in the forest,” Frank said worriedly. “If you run into it, you’re never seen again.”
Rita snorted. “I heard it’s a Wyvern. We’ll be fine. Worst that happens is we die. Been there, done that.”