“And I’ll be monitoring his vitals through the session,” Dr. Berg said reassuringly.
“Of course.”
Jim looked at me with serious eyes. “We can complete the anti-logout adjustments and be ready for another attempt in 20 minutes.”
I nodded. “I’ll be there.”
***
Twenty minutes later, I was escorted back to the lab. Tal walked me to the heavily customized FIVR capsule which slowly opened on its own. “You’re sure about it, bro?”
I smiled at him. “I can do it.”
“But you don’t have to. That demon-spawn lawyer didn’t hesitate to exploit your sense of friendship to get what he wanted.”
“He is a bastard,” I acknowledged. “And if I ever meet him in-game, I’ll make sure to turn him into an Ogre dung pile, but at least he had the decency not to slam the fact in my face.” I entered the now open capsule and leaned back into it.
Tal frowned. “What fact?”
“That it had all happened because of me. I was manipulated by the VI, yes, but without me, Shiva would have never been created. All those trapped players are in there because of me.”
My friend bristled. “That’s not on you! The company created a broken system. They made Guy and gave him the power to engineer this entire thing. If they had been more cautious, we wouldn’t be here. But all they cared about was proving their little experiment worked. You were just caught in the wrong place at the wrong time, bro. This is not your fault.”
After Shiva’s speech to tens of thousands of players, the truth about the company’s real purpose had become public knowledge.
“You have a point,” I said as a technician started typing a sequence on a keyboard. Dr. Berg was studying one of the monitors nearby. “But it doesn’t mean I don’t feel guilty about it. Maybe checking up on the other players will be a small payback for my involvement.”
Tal sighed. “You stubborn ass. Once you set your mind on something …”
The capsule’s lid started to close.
“They’ll keep you inside for a ten-minute test run,” he said hurriedly. “You’ll have about five hours in-game. Good luck!”
The lid slid shut, and I was left alone in the silence.
A woman’s smooth voice filled the emptiness.
“Welcome back, Oren Berman. Initiating login sequence. Logging in in 3 … 2 … 1 …”
2 - Reunion
Reality faded and Goblin’s Gorge, my clan’s hidden valley, appeared before me.
The familiar headache returned, but it was thankfully less intense than it had been at the previous login.
I was standing at the base of the valley’s northern cliff, just behind the farmland. It looked like the VI’s super-kick didn’t actually kill me, and the time spent off-game was enough for my little goblin to make a full recovery. Being a level 50, tier 3 boss had its advantages.
I tried accessing my character sheet again, but just as before, all I got were a few undecipherable characters flying across my view.
Giving up, I turned to survey the settlement I’d worked so hard to build.
The farmland looked to be in good shape. Tall stalked mushrooms grew in orderly rows. The stone pens on my right looked a little crumbled but still mostly intact, and I could hear the shuffling of large bodies beyond its walls. It seemed the oxsaurians, the thick-skinned dino-cows, were alive within.
The Dreamer’s Lodge, its obsidian walls and magic crystals gleaming in the darkness, stood intact farther off to my left. It was a high-ranked construct for enchanting and had withstood the damage of time.
Just beyond the farm was the construction yard. Tall stacks of building materials blocked my view of the settlement beyond, though I could still make out the Chief’s Haunt, my old house, beyond it.
I frowned. Where is everyone? Despite the Eternal Darkness, I knew it was still daylight. My Shadow-Touched clan was asleep, but I still expected to see a few guards or some of the other players.
I needed answers, and there was one person especially suited to provide them.
“Kaedric?” I called, looking around.
Back in the days when I was still stuck in the game, my loyal seneschal never failed to make an appearance the moment I needed him. But this time, he was nowhere in sight.
Kaedric? I called again in my mind, but I could tell it didn’t work. Back then, sending out my thoughts felt different. They weren’t just ideas in my head; they interacted and shaped the world around me, pushing intent and giving instructions. Now, it just felt like I was shouting in my own mind.
Giving up the idea of summoning my hobgoblin administrator, I started walking through the mushroom field toward the Chief’s Haunt. It wasn’t the most likely place to find someone who could answer my questions, but it was the most probable place to answer the most important one.
“Oof! Ged’off’me,” a small voice squeaked below me. I had inadvertently stepped on someone lying under a mushroom.
I tensed and took a step back. My heart was racing as I reached for my sacrificial bone dagger, but for some reason, it wouldn’t come out of my belt. I felt vulnerable standing there with no weapons or magic to protect myself.
But I relaxed as a goblin rose from the ground and stood before me.
He was a small one, even for a goblin, with the top of his head barely reaching my chest. He wore only a simple dirty loincloth and a vacant expression and was covered in dirt and grime – a foblin. This type of goblin couldn’t work or evolve. Foblins were only good as fodder, used mainly by new players as targets to gain experience.
The foblin stared at me, taking in my larger size and magical armor, then fell to the ground in an awkward bow. “Me sary, sary! No kill me, big-head Totem.”
“Stand up,” I said. “I’m not going to kill you.”
He did as I ordered, trembling before me.
“Where is everyone?” I asked.
He scratched his head. “Me ‘ere.”
“Not you. The others, where are the others? Was there a battle while I was gone?”
“Batle!” He brightened and hurriedly bent down. He stood up a moment later, proudly holding a fat beetle. “Batle?” He offered me the disgusting-looking insect with colored eyes and a fleshy belly.
“No thanks,” I said, scrunching my nose. I had nearly forgotten how real NEO could feel, especially as a monster.
The little miscreant shrugged, plopped the beetle into his mouth, and chewed happily on his crunchy meal. Green slime dribbled down his chin.
I swallowed back my bile and tried again. “Where are the other goblins?”
“Goblin?” He looked at me hopefully.
“Yes. Where are all the other goblins?”
“Goblin!” he declared. He looked around and let out a shrill whistle.
I stepped back as a head popped up just next to me, then another, and another. Soon, a throng of heads appeared, peeking between the tall mushrooms and beyond the farm. It was like watching a wave of rising heads. More and more goblins stood up from where they slept, all looking my way. Hundreds, no, thousands of goblins. And they were all foblins.
“Goblin!” the one I’d talked to declared proudly.
“Goblin!” The others around us repeated the word, spreading out to those beside them. Soon, thousands of goblins were all declaring proudly, “Goblin!”
I put a hand over my face in exasperation. This was not going well.
“Move aside,” I commanded and continued walking toward my house through the parting foblins.
The rest of the settlement came into view as I walked. The Research Center was dark. The rabbit warren looked intact with its low surrounding wooden wall. Roads stretched between the buildings, coming together around the small pond in the center of the valley.
As I approached my house, I could also make out the scorched remains of the Breeder’s Den. The once glorious, Master-ranked building I had received as a direct favor from a god was now just a broken, hollow husk.
I shook my head at the sight. The Breeder’s Den was the only irreplaceable building in the entire settlement. It was the main reason I’d managed to develop the clan so rapidly. Its ability to instantly summon workers and soldiers in exchange for food was invaluable. And now it lay broken, sabotaged by a person I had trusted.
Reaching the Chief’s Haunt, I saw no indication of light or life within. I pushed the door, and it swung open with a rusty screech, raising a cloud of dust. My home was in dire need of maintenance.
There was no one in the main entrance, so I wandered farther inside, looking through the other rooms.
The war room was empty, just like the rest of the house, and the large table in the center was covered with a thick layer of dust.
A metallic glint drew my attention. Two curved falchions were mounted on the wall. I smiled fondly at the memory of how I obtained the weapons. They were a simple drop, looted from enemy hobgoblins before I took over their camp. The blades were low-quality, suited best to adorn a goblin’s walls, but in my current state of unarmedness, they were a huge asset.
I reached up and took one of the falchions. It was a little too big and heavy for me, having been designed for the larger hobgoblins, but I could still wield it with both hands. I stuck the weapon in one of my armor’s leather straps. Luckily I could still do that much. As an afterthought, I put the remaining falchion on my other side. It was always good to have a spare.
I continued walking through the house. Despite the direness of the situation, I couldn’t help grinning at the image of a black goblin walking around with two curved falchions. “All I need now are purple eyes, and I’d be risking a copyright lawsuit,” I said with a chuckle. A falchion looked pretty similar to a scimitar, after all.
The second floor was empty as well. I found the treasure chest in my old bedroom and opened it. There were hundreds of gold coins inside, but nothing else I could use.
“Note to self,” I grunted. “Next time, leave some backup equipment on the offhand chance you have to come back with no gear or abilities to save thousands of players.”
Shouts of alarm and sounds of metal striking metal wafted in through the thick house walls. Someone was fighting outside. I let the chest’s lid drop and ran out of the house.
I didn’t see who was fighting, but it wasn’t hard to discern the direction.
Thousands of foblins were streaming all around me. Like a wave of water rushing down the drain, they were all funneling toward the cave at the western side of the valley.
Nihilator’s cave.
***
“Get out of my way!” I shouted as I tried to force my way through the throng of bodies.
After a few moments, it seemed like the skirmish up ahead ended as the flow of foblins eased and they started to disperse. They soon thinned out enough for me to approach the dark opening.
I stopped a few meters before entering the cave. Several dozen foblin corpses were scattered across the ground. I drew one of the falchions and slowly walked inside, sparing a single glance upward at the Dark Temple that loomed above the entrance.
At the entrance, I encountered the first non-goblin corpse.
The creature was small like a goblin, but its body was scaly. Its head looked like that of a tiny dragon with small protruding horns, an elongated snout, and a mouth full of tiny sharp teeth.
“A kobold?” I said to myself. I didn’t understand what the small underground dwellers were doing in my settlement. Why are they attacking? I wondered. What are they attacking?
I crept on ahead and entered the cave. More kobold corpses were strewn around the ground, about 20 of them, mixed with even more foblin bodies.
A larger shape lay dead in the center of the corpse mass. A hobgoblin.
I crouched to examine the hob. He was a muscular specimen. Standing, he would have towered over me by a full two heads. He was wearing a dented and rusty metal brigandine that covered his upper torso and gripped a large battleaxe in his dead hands. Too big for me to carry. He was one of my soldiers. A lieutenant. I tried recalling his name. Orrq. He was one of the last batches of lieutenants I’d summoned. They were all around level 20.
How the hell did mere kobolds manage to kill him? The small critters were almost as weak and frail as goblins.
I took a closer look at his wounds. There were only a few shallow cuts on his forearms and legs, definitely not enough to bring him down. With some effort, I turned him over and immediately found the cause of death. Two huge wounds were gouged in his neck, just above the armor. They were still oozing blood, and the red liquid had a green tinge to it. It smelled strongly acidic.
Oh, right – I can smell things now, I recalled with a start. It was just one of the examples of how my goblin character differed from the average player. My senses were much more developed, as well as the depth of pain I was able to feel. Though now, according to Shiva’s booming declaration, all other players’ pain sensations had increased as well.
I drew myself back from those gloomy thoughts and stood up. There was no point in dwelling on the past. I had a mission to accomplish.
The hob soldier had been assassinated. Looking over the kobold corpses, I noticed a couple that appeared different from the others. They were better armored, for one, and were both still holding serrated daggers with fresh blood on their blades.
I didn’t like that scenario one bit. Before I’d left, my clan supported about 60 hob soldiers around level 20 or higher. We also had a small squad of Ogres and a few battle-hardened bosses. For the kobolds to dare assault them, even with assassins, was inconceivable. Before I left, my clan’s military strength was enough to annihilate any but the largest monster clans. We’d taken on a high-ranked player’s guild, after all. Things didn’t add up.
I walked deeper into the cave.
I took four steps before a kobold jumped down on top of me.
The surprise attack caught me completely off-guard. I felt a stinging pain as the needle-sharp daggers sank into my neck, and an even sharper pain as my minute attacker drew out the serrated blades. I cried out in pain, my hands flying up to my neck, and it was all I could do to keep an eye on my attacker. The pain built even more as I felt something eating away at the wounds, burrowing into my flesh.
The small kobold just stood there, staring at me in disbelief and fascination, as if I were an art piece in a museum.
Despite the pain, I struggled to maintain my balance and fumbled for the falchion hilt at my side. The kobold watched my movements with surprise. The little bastard obviously didn’t expect me to survive his sneak attack, and he had good reason to. I couldn’t see any game indicators, but from my experience, that attack was strong enough to deal several hundred points of damage; more than enough to deal with most of the creatures in this part of the game.
But I was not one of those creatures. As a boss, I had over a thousand hit points. I wasn’t going to go down easy.
I drew out the blade and swung clumsily, feeling the weight of the falchion hindering the movement. The kobold nimbly dodged the attack. I cursed. I had some experience in using melee weapons, but I was not proficient at it. My strength lay in wielding magic and casting spells.
The kobold almost lazily evaded another one of my swings. Waiting for an opportunity, he slashed my arm with one of his daggers, drawing blood.
“Shadow-crap!” I shouted, enraged. A strange sensation passed through me as the waves of anger filled me up. My body started glowing dimly, and the flow spread over the weapon I was holding.
With a rush of power, I swung the suddenly much lighter blade. The small kobold’s eyes opened in alarm as he was too slow to evade the unexpected attack, and the falchion slashed him across the chest, parting his leather armor and marking a deep line in his flesh.
With an angry hiss, it drew an item from its belt and threw it at me. I was too slow to dodge, and it exploded in a cloud of white dust around me. Whatever the dust was, it wasn’t flour. The cloud blinded me, and
as I took an involuntary breath, it entered my mouth. I could feel it tearing at my throat and entering my lungs. I swung blindly but didn’t feel a hit. Then a sharp pain erupted from my stomach and another from my thigh. The small lizard-headed monster was slowly winning the fight.
I coughed blood and white dust as another strike sent me sprawling on my back. Despite the pain and blindness, I still couldn’t believe I was losing to what had to be a lower-level monster.
Suddenly, two twanging sounds came from deeper inside the cave, and something warm fell over me. I rubbed my eyes and blearily made out the kobold lying on top of me. Two arrows were sticking out of his back.
Then a different face came into my hazy view, looking down at me with concern and compassion. “Oren?”
I felt my heart skip a bit.
“Tika?”
***
I took the offered arm and slowly got to my feet. I was still bleeding from half a dozen wounds, my neck especially, but I ignored it all as I took an awed look at my goblin spouse.
Tika had changed.
The goblin huntress had her bow slung across her back and was wearing her usual tight black leather clothes, which were patched and worn. Tails of small animals adorned her elbows, and tooth-filled jawbones were fastened to her knees as macabre knee guards. She had a new scar on her cheek, but that didn’t diminish her beauty. If anything, it only made her seem more experienced. She looked like a little green Amazon, ready for a fight at a moment’s notice.
Despite all that, her large round eyes still shone with emotion as she looked down at me. “I knew you would come back, Oren. I missed you.”
I was still a little out of it. It had only been two weeks since I’d last seen Tika, but it was also a lifetime ago. Despite having looked forward to this moment, her appearance brought up a surge of feelings I was not ready for.
Tika didn’t share my qualms. While my mind was still reeling, she reached up and tenderly caressed my face. Her fingers gently grabbed the back of my neck, and she lowered my head toward hers. Her full green lips met mine with a passionate kiss.
Life Reset: Human Resource (New Era Online Book 4) Page 3