“You are both idiot born!” Hilna screamed and went after me.
I backed away from her and kept my hands up defensively. “Just hold on. You asked us to kill some rats in the cellar, and that’s what we did. How were we supposed to know that thing was down there?”
“You’ve ruined me!” Hilna yelled. Man, this woman only had two volumes. Loud and louder.
Behind her, Hull put his hands on his hips and stared at Hilna’s home.
Quaint crossed his arms and stared daggers at me.
“What, guys? We just did a simple job. Hey, I’ve got an idea. Tomorrow, after a good night’s rest, we’ll come over and help put all of that stuff back on the top of the house. Cool?”
“Uh, Walt?” Oz said.
“It’s all good. We’ll get you back in your house in no time. I used to watch a lot of the home and garden channel when I was a kid. This place will be ready to flip in a week, tops,” I smiled.
Oz grabbed my shoulder and spun me around.
“Oh shit,” I said in dismay.
It must have been the candle we’d used to illuminate the cellar.
Flames licked the walls and spread as they caught all of the thatch and spread outward.
“To arms, to arms,” Hull shouted. “Man the buckets.”
So anyway. That’s how we simultaneously made the town live up to its name, and at the same time got tossed out.
SO IT BEGINS
When version 1.5 of Realms of Th’loria came out three years ago, I thought the game couldn’t get any better. It was still hard to locate places because they hadn’t yet added the helpful little arrow that always pointed you toward your next quest, provided it had been selected in your journal.
I spent a few weeks leveling a Ranger to level 25 but the whole bow and arrow thing was kind of lame. Hiding in trees and sniping was about as exciting as it sounded. The other problem was once a mob was on your ass if you tried to engage with an arrow at point blank range the weapon took a huge hit to how much damage it could inflict. I respected the rules because they seemed pretty true to life. I’m not talking about LARPing here, I’m talking about what medieval times were like. That was one thing I had always respected about the game. It was a fantasy world, sure, but the developers tried to keep things somewhat realistic.
Not as realistic as being stuck in the game for real though.
I tried to plead with the guards, but Quaint and Hull would have none of it.
“Guys. We were doing a quest. We didn’t set out to burn down poor Hilna’s home. Did you even see the size of that momma rat? She was bigger than a damn horse. What if it had gotten out at night and killed a kid?” I tried to reason. “You should be thanking us, not kicking us out of town.”
“Out.” Quaint pushed us toward the gate. “You’re a danger to the citizens of Candleburn. I don’t even want to tell Ansel what happened here. Don’t want to face his wrath. He’ll probably have us marching around in full plate for half the blasted morning thanks to you two.”
“It really was an accident,” Oz tried.
“Accident or no, you nearly burned down the entire village. Were it not for our ability to muster the town and put out the flames, these other buildings would have succumbed to the fire. I’d say we were the only heroes here,” Hull said and clapped his friend Quaint’s shoulder.
I peppered them with reasons why they should let us stay as they marched us to the busted gate and then onto the dusty street beyond.
We had been here for nearly a day and hadn’t even seen anything outside of Candleburn. Now we were about to get a crash course on what lies outside and Oz and I simply weren’t ready for that.
“Can we do something to get back in the town’s good graces? Maybe a quest? Something that’s been bothering the villagers like a witch or another monster or something? We’re versatile. We’ll go and slay whatever needs slaying,” Oz tried to reason with the men.
We reached the edge of the Candleburn, and the guards marched us right over the remains of the busted gate, around chitterling bodies, and the unholy mess we had made with the bug guts.
“Off you go now,” Quaint said and gave me a little shove.
Hull pushed Oz as well, just to be a dick I guess.
“Nothing we can do? Really?”
“You can both bugger off, that’s what you can do. Have a wonderful life for the day or two you’ll be alive,” Hull said. “And don’t let us catch you back in the village. Hate to have to kill you.”
Hull spun on his heels and Quaint followed him, but neither bothered to make sure we left. Cocky bastards the both of them. But they had the right to be like that. They had armor and very large, very sharp swords. Plus, they knew how to use the weapons whereas Oz and I could barely kill rats. I didn’t want to find out what it would feel to die in fantasy land if we tried to take on the guards.
“What did you do with that sweet dagger we pulled out of a chitterling’s guts earlier?” I asked Oz.
We walked away from the village because we didn’t have a choice. The road was hard packed, and runnels ran like two long valleys along either edge. Probably from the wagons bringing in food or leaving with other goods. The sun looked like it was going to set soon, and the second star behind it had already fallen away.
The village lay next to a couple of long fields that might have provided crops at one time. Now they were dusty rows with weeds poking up instead of food. A half mile or so up the road a forest poked out and formed around our path.
“Ah shit, man. I had the dagger in my belt, but I forgot all about it when things got crazy. I think it fell out when we went into the cellar. That sucks. At least we still have that gem, right?”
I dug into my bag, and my fist closed around the treasure. “Yeah. I was hoping we could sell it in the village and find a place to sleep for the night.”
“Looks like we’re going to be sleeping under the stars unless there’s an inn ahead,” Oz said.
I grumped along beside him for a few minutes, putting one foot in front of the other, and shifted the mace from hand to hand. I wish I could have dropped the heavy weapon, but then I’d be defenseless.
“I hope it’s not too cold,” I said.
“Yeah, but we can get a fire going to stay warm.”
“Yeah, cool,” I said. “Wait a minute. How are we going to start a fire? Rub two sticks together?”
Oz’s head dropped. “Shit. Didn’t even think about that. How do you start a fire in the game?”
“I never have. I usually slept indoors. Or using up my camp gear. I used to carry a few sets with me just in case,” I said.
“Right. The little icon. I wonder what those look like in this world?”
“Probably like a ridiculously large bag you have to carry around on your back,” I said.
My legs were tired, and I’d taken a beating trying to kill the big rat. The mace felt like it weighed fifty pounds in my hands. We finally reached the edge of the forest, and I spotted a fallen log a few feet from the brink of the road.
“I need a break,” I said.
“Thank God you said something. I didn’t want to seem like a wimp,” Oz sighed.
“Oh, man. I thought I sounded like a pussy suggesting it,” I said. “That fight took a lot out of me.”
“Me, too. Who knew running and swinging a sword for a few minutes could take such a toll.”
WE ROUNDED a bend in the road, but I kept my eyes on my feet as they tromped up and down. Each one a blast of pain as blisters formed.
“What is that?” Oz pointed toward a small structure up the road.
It was set off the beaten path and had found pillars that met an arching roof. Something glowed in the center and cast a light straight up into the clouds.
“That my friend is a binding crystal.” I practically giggled with joy. This might not have a lot of the old features the current version of Realms of Th’loria, but at least this was here.
We approached and mounted the three st
eps before stepping in front the blue crystal. The lore said that these had been created of shards and they were the protectors of the people of the Realm. Their use was unique. Once bound, if you died in the game, you would reappear at the spot, and then it was time for a corpse run.
Corpse runs had gone the way of so many harder aspects of the game, like being forced to travel by foot or steed across the lands. When they added portals, I loved how it made leveling and traveling much faster, but part of me missed traipsing across the beautiful landscape. Following old paths and trails looking for adventure. Seeing a building in the distance and running off to investigate.
Oz knew the drill and touched the glowing shard. It pulsed brightly, and he was briefly outlined in hues of red, blue, and green. He sighed and then stepped back.
I was next and after an elated moment, I felt refreshed and ready to take to the road again. The brief moment of euphoria passed and I once again felt as if I had been dragged behind a cart while a couple of horses stomped and pissed on me.
“Man. That didn’t restore any health at all,” I said as I checked my HUD.
“Felt good for a second and then it was back to the suck,” Oz nodded.
We stomped over rough vegetation and took a seat on another fallen log. After a minute of silence, I slipped down and put my back against our perch. It wasn’t comfortable, but it was better than being on my feet. I slipped one of my sandals off and inspected my left foot. A huge blister had started to form near my big toe. I rubbed it and knew what I had to do.
“This is going to hurt,” I said and pinched the skin and ripped a little tear. Clear fluid flowed out as I squeezed.
“I have one, too,” Oz said and worked on his foot.
Something slithered through the vegetation a few feet from us. I slipped back up on the log and hefted my mace.
“What is that, a snake?” Oz asked.
“I hope not. I hate snakes. Any and all snakes. I can’t even stand garter snakes,” I said in revulsion.
Oz slipped his sandal back on and winced when he stood up. He slid his short sword out and advanced on whatever had made the noise. He poked around the dead leaves, and dried branches with the sword but whatever had been out there was gone.
Since my HUD had gone active, I hadn’t had the opportunity to inspect what it had to offer. I took the brief respite to do that now. I also took out my book and opened it up so I could look over the page with weapons entries.
The HUD wasn’t much to write home about. The two pools were health and an empty globe with no color. The red one was close to full, but with every injury, it had diminished somewhat. Even breaking open the blister had caused a sliver of health to disappear.
My experience bar was about half full, and I wasn’t sure when it had advanced more. In the old Realms of Th’loria, using certain skills like speechcraft could gain a few experience points. Maybe my attempt to reason with the guards had affected it in a positive way.
The compass flashed back and forth like we were near a magnet. Maybe it wasn’t a compass at all? There were a bunch of hashtags and some scribbles that I couldn’t make out.
The book was less of a mystery. The list of weapons had expanded so it displayed everything we’d come in contact with. The mace bar was nearly full. There was one for a dagger, and a sword and neither one had budged. There were many empty spaces for other weapons, but none of them had filled in yet.
“Do you have a mace and dagger icon in your book?” I asked Oz.
“Yeah. Just noticed that. Neither one is filled in yet,” Oz said as he flipped through his book. “So many blank pages.”
“I bet they will open up the more we explore. Oh, look at this,” I exclaimed as I reached the middle of the book.
I spun it around and showed Oz. He leaned over, squinted, and read the entry out loud. “Giant rat. A nuisance to experienced travelers. In a pack, they can be very dangerous. If a traveler finds himself near a brood, don’t be afraid to make a run for it. The mother can be very protective, and will fight until her last breath to protect her babies.”
“No shit,” I muttered.
There was an entry for chitterlings as well. I turned the book around and read. “Chitterlings emit a sound like grasshoppers rubbing their legs together. Taken in single combat, they are not much of a challenge, but beware a tribe of chitterlings because they make a formidable foe.”
“This is the part of the book that should be labeled no shit, Sherlock.” Oz grimaced.
I nodded and then sat back against the tree and tried to relax, but I was thirsty, and my stomach grumbled because I hadn’t had anything to eat all day. Maybe we should have gone after that snake so we could have dinner.
On second thought, it was probably deadly, and one of us getting bitten, with no way to access the temple back in Candleburn, would have been an absolute disaster.
“So where does this road lead?” Oz asked.
“There used to be a large city. In the game, it took a few minutes to reach on horseback. I used portals most of the time and can’t remember the landscape,” I said and thought back to my first few months in the original version of Realms of Th’loria. “I think it’s called Weslori.”
“I didn’t see a portal in town,” Oz said as he took a seat on the log next to me.
“I didn’t either. They didn’t exist in the original version. It was all about exploration even if it meant spending fifteen minutes looking at the landscape as you trudged along the road.”
“That covers what we’re up to now,” Oz said and took his second sandal off to examine his other foot.
“It does, but I get the feeling that distances here are a lot longer,” I said.
“More realistic. Everything is more realistic including the blisters and dusty roads.”
I sneezed several times like the mere mention of allergies triggered me.
“And the lack of fire,” I said.
“We can rub sticks together. Actually, I used to watch this show where two naked people had to survive in the wild. They typically had a fire starter that relied on rubbing the sharpened end of a stick against a split piece of wood. When it got hot enough, it created a glowing piece of coal. Then they put that in some kindling and blew on it. Voila—fire.”
“Sounds like we can do that, right?”
“Yeah but we might want to get off the main road and back into the woods a little bit. Are there any, like, bad guys out here at night?”
“Son of a bitch,” I muttered.
“What?”
“There’s a bandit cave near here. Another starter quest. Go to the cave, kill the bandits, and then bring back a piece of treasure to the village. I think it was some old golden idol of worship or something like that,” I said as the memory came back to me.
“How many bandits?”
“Just a couple but the sweet part was that if you went at night, the guard was usually asleep in front of the fire. You could wander up to him, dispatch him, and then steal his food and gold. The cave has a couple of rooms. There are even beds, and it’s only guarded by a pair of pushover mobs.”
“Well hell, brother, that sounds like our next move. We can get rid of these guys, get some sleep, take their gear, the idol thing, bring it back to the village, and just like that they will welcome us back with open arms,” Oz enthused.
“You know something? That’s just so crazy it might work,” I said with a lopsided grin.
“Dude. You just cursed us,” Oz chuckled.
“What? The good guys always say something like that,” I argued.
“Cool. Yeah. If you never say that again, it would be great.”
I couldn’t help but laugh at Oz. Now that I thought about it, it did sound pretty corny.
Our luck was about to change. I was sure of that much. The game was designed to be challenging at first, but you overcame a few quests, got some XP, and leveled up. It wasn’t meant to be impossible, it just required players to be smart and have a little bit of
strategy. Now that we had a plan, I felt like this was going to be the turning point.
How wrong that turned out to be.
CAVES AND BANDITS
It turned out that Karian liked to play Realms of Th’loria, but she wasn't hardcore about it. She knew the game, of course, because her job was to help design smart NPCs. To be accurate, she was a graphic designer who occasionally got to work on bits of code. She once told me that she had a bunch of pet characters she had created and would play just so she could find them in the game, and drag them around on easy quests.
She was fun to talk to. She had this self-deprecating humor that came from also being a writer outside of work. She had completed a couple of manuals on 3-D design, but I also knew, through the grapevine, that she wrote epic fantasy novels, under a pen name.
Karian was secretive about her outside life, and no matter how much I tip-toed around the stuff I liked to read—epic fantasy, of course—she never let me in on her secret.
I kind of liked that about Karian, but it also drove me nuts that I couldn’t find her work. I would have loved to read her books because she is such a creative person. I do realize that’s probably the crush talking.
If I ever got out of this stupid real-life game, I promised myself that I was going to talk to her about how much I liked her. Really. This time for sure.
The question was: would Oz and I ever get the hell back to our world?
Oz and I cleared away a bunch of foliage, so I had a piece of ground to work with. I used a stick in the dirt and roughed out a map of all I could remember of the road, the trail, and the cave. My memory of that quest from years ago was foggy at best. What I did know was that there was a clear marker of some sort to indicate that there was a trail and it led to a cave. That meant we would have to stay on this road until we hit some hills or a mountain. Looking in that direction, it wasn’t clear how far away we would have to walk.
Something moved in the undergrowth again. I jumped back because I had almost stepped on what I thought was a fallen tree. A snake with a body as big around as my leg coiled up and hissed at us. It had green skin and thin yellow stripes every five or six inches. Teeth the size of tiny daggers made me back the hell up and almost shit myself. It must have thought we were a joke because it turned it hissed at us one more time. Nictitating membranes fluttered over the snake's eyes before it turned and slithered away.
SHARDS OF REALITY: A LitRPG novel (Enter the Realm Book 1) Page 7