The Scout of Artemis (LitRPG Series): Press X to Loot Book 1

by Gregg Horlock

  It was midafternoon by the time we found the end of Jack’s tracks. The afternoon sun was starting to dim now, and the glow in the forest had paled. The smell of spring onions and pine needles was strong in the air. Rex carried the eagle egg in his hand, cradling it against his body as though he were the mother eagle.

  There was a tavern in front of us. Aside from the village, it was the only man-made structure I’d seen on Artemis. It wasn’t much more sophisticated than the wooden shacks. This building had two windows, though a film of steam covered the glass and I couldn’t see beyond it. A sign above the door read “Burr’s Tail Tavern”. Smoke trailed out from a chimney on the roof, and I smelled the faint aroma of stale beer.

  Tracking increased by 30% - 70% until level 2

  We approached the tavern to go inside when the door burst open and a figure came hurtling out of it head first. He flew a few feet then hit the ground. When he straightened up, I realized that it was Jack.

  There was no time for pleasantries. No sooner had Jack got to his feet and nodded at me, then three men exited the tavern and walked toward us. They all had long hair and bushy beards. They looked like triplets, and the only thing to set them apart were the colors of the stripes on their shirts. One of them had rolled his sleeves up to his elbows, showing forearms thick with muscle.

  He looked at me. “So, the cheat has friends, does he?”

  I read aggression in their faces, but I didn’t need a study in body language to know they were ready to fight. The sight of their clenched fists was a much plainer sign. Behind them, in the doorway of the tavern, an older man in an apron stood and watched. He looked like the men in front of us, except much older.

  I walked forward and stood beside Jack. “You better explain,” I told him.

  One of the men answered me. “This little git arrived at the Burr a few hours ago, and started ordering drinks. When we asked him to pay up, he said he had no money. So, he offered to play cards with us. Double or nothing. If he lost, he’d give us everything in his inventory.”

  “Shouldn’t have trusted him. I said, didn’t I? Don’t trust him,” said one of the other men.

  The one in the middle, with a ginger beard and blue stripes on his shirt, held a hand out. “What have I always told you, Ron? I do the talking. Now shut up.”

  “What’s going on?” I said.

  “We agreed to play your little friend in cards. I believe in giving a man a chance. But this little bugger starts winning every hand. Then I noticed something strange. I was sure he was cheating. So, this time when I dealt him a hand, I made sure to know what cards I’d given him. Low and behold, a few turns later, his cards are completely different. He’s a cheat.”

  Yep, I thought, looking at Jack. Sounds about right. I’d always known his tricks would get him into trouble, I just didn’t think it’d happen in a tavern in the middle of Artemis.

  “There has to be a way of resolving this,” I said.

  Blue Stripes nodded. “Aye, there is. Pay up.”

  Jack made an exaggerated show of turning his pockets out. “I told you, slowpoke. I’m broke.”

  Blue Stripes nodded at me. “What about your friends?”

  The air was starting to turn ugly, and we needed to fix this. “Listen,” I said. “we were in a shipwreck, and we lost all our gear. We don’t have anything to give you right now. But let us leave, and I promise we’ll be back. We’ll pay you triple what you’re owed.”

  I waited a few seconds, hoping my words had the right effect.

  Charisma check failed!

  “Give us the egg,” said Blue Stripes, looking at Rex.

  The barbarian backed away. “Not a chance in hell.”

  Blue Stripes rolled his sleeves up even further. “Then we’ll just have to take what’s owed to us.”

  The three men advanced on us now. It was clear from their physiques that they had melee and hand-to-hand abilities, and I had no doubt that they were at least a few levels above us. I still held Death Bringer Mark 2 in my hand. I guessed it would be more effective against the fleshy body of a man rather than the hide of a Burr, but I didn’t fancy our chances. From the look on the men’s faces, it didn’t seem like we had any option but to fight.

  The first man reached me. He threw a punch at me, but I dodged to the side, thankful of my agility. As the man lumbered around to face me, I stabbed Death Bringer into his side. I hoped that I’d shoved the sharp end with enough force to hurt the man, but instead…

  …it snapped.

  Damn. I really needed a better weapon. At least this time I didn’t lose HP. Two of the men advanced on Jack now, ignoring Rex who was sloping off to the sides. Jack shouted out, whilst facing the men walking toward him.

  “What are you waiting for, Rex? Swing your bloody sword!”

  Rex held the egg close to him. It was clear he wanted no part in this battle, and I cursed Terence Pierce for sending us such an ineffective barbarian. One of the men, Yellow Stripes, punched me in the face, and I felt my jaw shake.

  10HP lost! Total: 88/137

  I felt anger burn through me. I swung my fist at him, connecting with the center of his nose. The man stumbled back, and I saw his eyes begin to water. He shook away the pain and advanced again. It was no good; they were simply too strong for a scout and a gambler to deal with.

  Blue Stripes tried to grab Jack, but the gambler ducked under his grasp and edged a few feet away, toward Rex.

  “Pass me your sword,” he said.

  “You won’t be able to use it. You need strength 10 at the least.”

  “Just pass it to me!”

  Rex unsheathed his sword and gave it to Jack. The gambler closed his eyes for a few seconds, and I saw a yellow glow gather around him. The glow seemed to shimmer and then it burst, sending tiny dice-shaped bolts of light all around.

  “It’s my lucky day,” said Jack.

  “This doesn’t feel so lucky,” I answered, ducking out of the way of a punch.

  “No, I mean it’s my skill. Lucky Day. When I use it, I get the chance of quadrupling two of my stats for an hour. Either that, or they’re reset to zero.”

  “Risky,” I answered.

  He shrugged. “That’s what being a gambler is about.”

  With his strength and agility stats quadrupled, Jack was more than a match for the three men. Two of them rushed at him, but with two swings of his sword, he cleaved them at the neck.

  Only Blue Stripes remained now. He looked at his dead brothers on the floor, and then started backing away from us.

  “Bloody eternals,” he said, then turned and ran through the woods. I watched as he disappeared away from us. Just before he left my view, I saw him trip over a root and fall onto the floor.

  As we caught our breath, I looked at Jack. He still held Rex’s sword.

  “How did you survive the shipwreck?” I said. “There’s no way you have enough endurance to swim far.”

  He shrugged. “I can use Lucky Day once a day. I activated it to get my endurance up.”

  We looted some GD coins and three healing potions from the dead men. Jack took a pair of boots, which he wore instead of his own, basic footwear. With that done and the party finally together again, we needed to move.

  I looked up at the sky and saw that the sun was dipping painfully low.

  “Night’s coming,” I said.

  We looked at each other. After having already spent a night on Artemis, we all knew what that meant.

  Chapter Twenty-Four

  “Where’ve you been all this time?” said Rex, looking at Jack. “Gambling? Getting into trouble?”

  Jack folded his arms. “It’s night, I’m freezing my nuts off-”

  “Why do we always say ‘nuts’?” I asked.

  Jack carried on. “and I just got a message saying the cold weather has slowed my movements by .1%. I don’t need a moral lecture.”

  “This isn’t a moral lecture, it’s a practical one. You should have tried finding us, or look
ing for our gear. Anything but playing cards.”

  I held my hand up. “That’s enough, guys,” I told them. It was darkening too quickly for my liking, and I knew we were miles away from our shelter.

  Jack wouldn't be deterred. He looked at Rex. “And what’ve you been doing, egg boy? Prowling around chicken huts?”

  “It’s an eagle egg.”

  “Eagle, chicken, whatever.”

  I walked over to Jack and put my hand on his back. “Good to see you, bro,” I told him.

  “What’s the plan?” he asked.

  I didn’t have time to answer, because a message filled my screen.

  Night has fallen – Prepare for the wave!

  We all looked at each other. It was clear that they’d gotten the same message as me.

  “Think that answers our question,” I said.

  I wondered where the wave creatures respawned from. I doubted they parachuted into the island, and they certainly didn’t get here by boat. That meant two things. Either they had dens hidden away somewhere, or they respawned when night fell. I knew that a game like Pana demanded servers the size of small islands, and the makers would be looking to cut costs. It made sense, then, that during the day when they weren’t needed, the wave creatures simply didn’t exist. Then, when the sun fell, they respawned somewhere. So, were the respawn points set, or were they random? If they were pre-determined, there was a possibility we could find them and lay traps during the day.

  The howls sounding out around me told me that it was too late to think about that for tonight. The chirps of birds and calls of Burrs were gone, replaced by the shrieks of the creatures that melded into the night.

  “Where’d you survive your first wave?” I asked Jack.

  “In the tavern. They have a basement hatch round the back, and they keep the beer barrels down there. I snuck in. It wasn’t the worst night I’ve ever had, if I’m honest.”

  The tavern sounded like a good place to wait out the wave. I walked over to it, but I found that the door was locked. I heard tapping on the glass next to me, and I looked to see the tavern owner staring at me.

  “Bugger off,” he said. “We’ve had enough trouble from you. Bloody eternals.”

  We decided that the best thing to do was to make our way to our shelter, since it was the only place in Artemis we knew was hidden. The problem was that it was miles away.

  There was nothing for it. We spent the next hour making our way through the woodland as best we could. I walked at the front, using my Awareness to listen out for anything. Although I heard the creatures scream, I didn’t smell sulphur, which meant there were none nearby. It was a good thing, too. Rex’s boots clomped on the ground with each step. Although he hadn’t taken any barbarian skills, there was little he could do about his heavy feet.

  We decided to avoid climbing the cliff and took a chance on following the stream. The crocodiles, wherever they were, had obviously decided to nest somewhere, since there was no sign of them either on the stream banks or in the water. Going this way cut an hour off our journey, and I was relieved that it meant I wouldn’t have to scale a cliff in the darkness.

  Shelter was just thirty minutes away, when a smell crept up my nostrils. It was an industrial smell of matchsticks, of sulphur burning and leaving behind an acrid odor. I listened as hard as I could and couldn’t hear them, but the smell was unmistakable.

  “We need to take the longer route,” I said.

  Jack sighed. “I’m beat, Columbus. I need to lie down and dream of Sarah.”

  “Who the hell is Sarah?”

  “A girl I’m seeing.”

  “In Pana?” asked Rex.

  “Of course not in Pana. Jesus.”

  “You didn’t tell me about this,” I said. Then I shook my head. “Anyway, now’s not the time.”

  I heard something crunch fifty meters to my right. Then, a twig snapped to my left. The wave creatures nearby, however many they were, knew we were here. We needed to do something.

  “We can’t go back to the shelter,” I said. “Because we’ll lead the creatures right to it. It’s not marked as our official base yet. Other than being a good place to hide, it won’t give us much protection when they know we’re here.”

  “There’s also the possibility that they have memories,” said Rex. “Finding our shelter tonight could mean that they return to it tomorrow. And if their howls are a form of communication, we could have a pack on our doorstep.”

  “Are they a pack?” said Jack. “Or a pride? Or a murder?”

  “They could be called a posse for all I care. It doesn’t matter,” I told him. “I’ve got an idea.”

  After telling them my plan, I found myself running through the woodland alone. I made enough noise to attract every creature within 500 meters, then set off. I knew that Jack didn’t have the endurance for a long pursuit, and Rex didn’t have the agility. We needed to throw the creatures nearby off our track. I was the only one who could do it.

  My agility was 9 and my endurance 6, which gave me an advantage. Added to that was my Favored Ability. It granted me attack, defence and movement bonuses in wooded areas.

  I set out, leaving my friends behind. As sneaky as the creatures were, speed wasn’t their greatest asset. I wondered if they could actually see, or if they moved using another of their senses. I was sure I heard one run into a tree.

  Ten minutes later I’d thrown my pursuers off track. Making sure to run in a loop to confuse the trail, I then veered back toward Dostooth, where I’d agreed to meet Jack and Rex.

  I couldn’t see them outside the main gate. Despite the darkness, I kneeled and looked for their footprints on the muddy floor. My eyes had adjusted to the black around me, and the moon struggled through a cloud and cast a pale glow on Artemis. Eventually I saw two sets of footprints; one of them large and made by boots, the others small. I followed these around the outskirts of the village to the opposite side of it.

  Tracking skill levelled up to level 2!

  As I approached Jack and Rex, Jack stepped forward. “Sorry brother, I already asked,” he said, nodding at the darkened village beyond the fence. “There are no night clubs open around here.”

  I looked around. Something wasn’t right. I couldn’t tell what it was, but I felt it. It was like something had reached into my skull and was tugging on my brain, screaming at me to look at the area around.

  Something was here.

  Chapter Twenty-Five

  Seeing that I ignored him, Jack spoke again. “You okay? They didn’t hurt you, did they?”

  “I’m fine,” I said.

  “We should think about getting back to the shelter,” said Rex.

  I held my hand up. “Give me a minute.”

  I didn’t know which of my skills was giving me this feeling. Was it my Awareness? Tracking? Something was amiss in the area around us.

  And then I saw it. There were tracks on the floor, but ones that were different to Jack’s and Rex’s. These were made by the wave creatures, I realized. I walked over to one set of tracks and followed them. Jack called out after me, but I ignored him. The tracks led around the village fence in an arc. Then it looked like they went toward the fence itself.

  This was strange. I walked over to the fence, and I saw that the wooden beams in this part of it were loose. Not only that, but there were dozens of sets of wave creature footprints at this part.

  As I wondered what this could mean, my breath caught in my chest. It was obvious.

  I heard footsteps behind me. My pulse fired, and I turned around. To my relief, it was Jack and Rex.

  “It’s the villagers,” I said.

  “What is?”

  “The wave creatures. All the tracks lead to and from the village. Think about it, it makes sense. The village closes after 5 pm, and there’s no good reason for that. Unless….”

  “Unless the villagers turn into something else after dark.”

  “The Pana guys sure have sadistic minds,” said Jack.
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  A cry shrieked out somewhere in the woodland beyond. I didn’t know if it meant they’d spotted our trail, but we needed to go. One thing was clear; we needed to talk to the villagers in the morning. This time, I wanted answers.

  Our shelter wasn’t far away from the village, but we made sure to walk back as quietly as we could. Rex had trouble keeping his steps soft, so Cal used a skill called Coin Flip. Like Lucky Day, this gave a chance of doubling stats. There was a 50% chance a person stats would increase, and 50% that they’d decrease by half. Unlike Lucky Day, though, Coin Flip affected the whole party. Jack being Jack, he only told us he’d done this after the fact.