Forced Login

by R K Billiau

  Stretching, I got up to see a few others from the tribe rising. I wandered outside to get fresh air and pulled up my mini-map. I kept an eye on it as it changed from the cave to the outside world and my breath caught in my throat as I saw the two groups of red dots. I let the breath out when I saw that they were just rabbit nests. I didn’t remember them being this close to the cave but maybe time of day had something to do with it. I shrugged and went back inside.

  I was about to rouse people for the day ahead of us; I had an inspiring speech and everything but was derailed by another world announcement.

  Attention world! A player Reincarnation has occurred! Where will they be reborn? What will they be reborn as?

  What will YOU choose when YOU reincarnate?

  Someone else had died a hundred times. I had a sinking suspicion that it had to do with Tim and his death trap. We had to act fast.

  I raised my voice enough to be heard, but not enough to scare away the precious potential attunement sacks outside. “Hey! We’ve got some rabbit nests real close, let’s form up and see if we can get a core or two and maybe some sweet XP.” Arnold got up then and roused everyone. I watched as Madison sat up and winked at me, then waved her hand.

  Madison has asked you to join her party!

  Do you accept? Yes/No

  I selected YES and grinned at her. The rest of the tribe trickled into the group and we made our way to the entrance. There were a few gasps at the mini-map showing up for everyone and I pinged the direction I had seen the nests in.

  “Okay everybody remember, we have skills to handle this now, and they designed this world for us to go out and kick ass, so let’s do it!” I picked up a rock and motioned for the rest to follow suit.

  “Hold on Huddy,” Madison called, “I wanna try something.” She made a quick slashing gesture and a glowing green X showed up on the ground. “Go stand on that, it looks like I’m able to access a formation setting in the group menu. I did as she asked and watched as others also moved into position. I noticed the green X didn’t go away, but its opacity dropped to be barely visible. When I moved off, it would lighten up again.

  You have entered a basic formation!

  Combat bonus +5%

  Looking behind me I saw that we had formed two columns with Hunter Steve and I in the front and the members with the least HP, the Gatherers, in the rear. Looking at the ground I saw a transparent glowing X for the other members of our party to stand on. “Well that’s neat,” I said.

  Madison grinned and nodded. “This is part of the Party skill that I hadn’t used yet, let’s go test it out!”

  Arnold raised his hand, pausing us before we went. “Just a second if you please, I have something that might help.”

  Quest: ‘Raise Tribal Morale’ has been canceled.

  You have been offered a quest! Quest: Kill for the cause - Form a party and kill as many creatures as you can! Reward: 5 bonus XP for each creature killed. Each time a member of your group levels up, 5 bonus XP.

  Do you accept this quest? YES/NO

  I selected YES and watched as the rest of the tribe finished reading.

  “Let’s get this going!” one of the Gatherers shouted while Chief Arnold nodded. With no further hesitation I nodded to Steve, my partner in the lead, then pinged the first rabbit nest.

  To say it was anticlimactic would be an understatement. It might have even been called boring. As a group we strolled up to the nest, stayed at a range far enough to throw, but not within aggro range so we didn’t hyper-aggro the little buggers who would leap at the party members missing attunement.

  “Front to back, each pair of us target a rabbit and fire on my mark.” I pinged the first rabbit for the start of the formation. I aimed for a solo kill knowing my Sucker Punch would take down a rabbit and guessing that the damage from Steve’s spear was high enough to do the same. “Fire!” We all threw our weapons and within seconds we reduced the nest of six, to one, that came running towards us. We threw again, and we reduced the one to pulp.

  You have gained 10 XP!

  Quest Update: Killed a creature - 5 XP!

  Quest Update: A member of your party has leveled up! - 5 XP!

  Nice! I watched as one of the Gatherers exploded in light. “Oh yeah baby!” she exclaimed. “Give me a second to assign my points.”

  I looted the dead bunnies while she did so, Scavenging them afterwards. I would have left them to be processed by the Hunters and Gatherers, but we had plenty of resources at the cave and getting powered up as much as possible as fast as possible was my plan. No Lucky Find though, sadly.

  I pinged the next nest, and we repeated the process. Nobody lost even a single hit point. We repeated this several more times, just hunting rabbit nests in this newbie zone. It was awesome working in a group to take down mobs and level up. This was what the tribe needed more than anything, a few good days to get them into the mindset that this game world could be fun. We found a few cores, my Core Manipulation bonus helping, and we finally got everyone attuned.

  When we reached the point where everyone was level 2 and had stopped receiving XP from killing the rabbit nests, I stopped everyone. “We’ve gotten some power now, and the only other things I’ve seen on these plains to fight have been the occasional deer and the bison herds, so maybe we should head to the spawn points and start saving our tribe mates.”

  Madison gave a huge, evil smile. “Maybe we can kick some necromancer ass while we’re at it!”

  “What’s your idea of a plan Hudson?” Chief Arnold asked.

  “While I was spawning through the death trap, I noticed that occasionally one of the spawn points would have fewer zombies than the others. I think Tim was using zombies to hunt bison and gain XP, so I think the first thing we should do is scout out each zone and see if there are any with fewer zombies.”

  “What if we run into Tim while we are out there?”

  “Well it’s bound to happen at some point. I mean, there is no way we are going to screw up this guy’s plans without him being royally pissed and trying to do something about it. If we see him, he will either run or attack. Then we just kill him and hope that takes him out of our hair for a bit.”

  “That’s fine, but what about Cora?” I could tell by his body language that this was the real question he wanted to ask.

  “Dude, she killed me. She betrayed us I-”

  “NO! She wouldn’t do it like that, there has to be more to the story.” Chief Arnold was really getting on my nerves about this.

  “What kind of hold does she have on you man? She. Stabbed. Me. To. Death. Then she made out with Tim over my dying body like a sick horror flick.”

  “Fine, I understand it may seem that she betrayed us, but I still want to talk to her.”

  “STABBED. ME!” I shouted.

  At least he ducked his head in acknowledgment of this, but he still stuck to his guns. “I want to talk to her, I don’t want to kill her, I think she can be reasoned with.”

  I sighed. All of this was at least easing the sting of the rejection from last night. If this is where feelings got you, maybe I didn’t want to pursue them. I glanced at Madison who was watching us. Okay, I was lying to myself. I still wanted it. “Fine. If we run into Cora, I’ll give you a chance to talk to her. But I won’t hesitate to take her out if she makes a move against us.”

  “That’s fine, a chance is all I want.” Arnold nodded at me and I tried to empathize with him about the situation. Sure, he didn’t see Cora betraying us, and he had feelings for her. I rolled my eyes then pinged the spot on the mini-map where the first spawn point was.

  “Let’s go,” I said and started off without looking back.

  We made it about halfway when I saw the buck ahead of us. I stopped and pointed toward it. “There’s a buck, I don’t think it will aggro because we are all attuned, but we should be careful. I saw one of these things take down a zombie, so it’s for sure a step up from fighting rabbits.”

  Madison looked at it
and squinted. “It’s level 3, should we try to take it?”

  “Is that one of your skills?” I looked at her. “How you could tell the level?” That was a skill I wanted.

  “Yeah, I can tell what level things are. I can’t tell much more than that, but maybe if I level the skill higher. What do you think, should we try to aggro it?”

  “Hell yeah we should, man!” Steve shouted. Before I could say much more, he leveled his spear and threw it at the buck. So much for getting off a Sucker Punch. “Dude!” I shouted at him. “You should have let me pull!”

  “Whatever man, we got this!” Steve yelled back at me right before the buck hit him like a freight train, antlers impaling him and lifting him off the ground as it ran past us shaking the poor Hunter violently. Steve must have gone into an instant high-level Pain debuff because he panicked right away, becoming an ineffective, flailing, Steve-kebab. Crap.

  “Everyone target the buck and throw! Don’t let it kill Steve!” Steve’s life bar was plummeting in our Party window, and I chucked a rock at the buck, hitting it for a negligible amount of damage.

  It must have tough skin to take so little damage. A few more rocks went sailing by, hitting the deer and drawing its aggro to us, which actually sucked. It charged back in, not being able to impale anyone because of, well, Steve being interlaced into its antlers already. But now instead of a piercing weapon, it had a blunt one that could deal out some serious damage. It swung its head around beating Steve into us and sending a few to the ground and dropping off some of my health bar. Then it spun around and kicked with its hind legs.

  I grunted as my health bar dropped by a considerable chunk, and I felt my eyes cross for a second. No one besides Steve was hurt too bad, but I could see us losing to this thing if we didn’t shape up. “It’s in melee! Madison heal Steve and Boost him! Its hide is tough, so if you have daggers, use ‘em!”

  The party jumped to attention, snapping out of their shock and wailed on the buck. Sarah, the Shaman, took a step back and wiggled her fingers at it, a faint white light coming off them and hitting it in the forehead. It stopped moving, stunned. The party laid into it, swinging with fists, feet, and stone daggers. “What was that!?” I shouted at Sarah as the buck shook its head, moving again.

  “Spirit shock, it’s a stun spell for things that have a spirit.”

  “Can you do it again?”

  The buck chose that moment to focus its anger on Sarah and beat on her with Steve. “OOOF! It’s… on cool down… it should pop soon!”

  We must have reached a threshold for the buck soon after that though, as with a final kick at Sarah it took off, running away from us, with each bounce of its body draining Steve of life faster than Madison could heal him.

  “Don’t let it get away!” I shouted, picking up a rock and throwing it, pegging the buck in the hindquarters. We all ran after it, throwing rocks, hoping to bring it down. Even with the weight of Steve on its head it was faster than us.

  “Sarah! Stun it!” I shouted at her.

  “Right! Sorry!” She wiggled her fingers again and the white light hit the deer, but nothing happened. “It resisted!”

  “DAAAAAAAAMNIT!” I shouted and reached down to throw another rock. When I stood back up, I saw Steve’s arm reach out with his stone knife and plunge the tip hard into the buck’s eye bringing it to an earth chewing halt, dead. We ran over to it and extricated Steve.

  Your party has slain a buck!

  You have gained 18 XP!

  Quest Update: Killed a creature 5 XP!

  Quest Update: A member of your party has leveled up! 5 XP!

  “Oh man,” Steve said. “That thing hurt! Like, real bad man! I was freaking out until the end when the Panic debuff went away. That like, really sucked man!”

  I smacked him upside the head. “Why did you attack it? You should have waited for us to come up with a plan!”

  “Yeah man, I get that. You don’t have to hit me, man. I just thought we could take it, we smoked those rabbits like they were nothin’, man!”

  I rolled my eyes. “Dude, if you want to be successful in this world, it will take being smart and using teamwork, neither of which you did there. You could have died and been sucked into the death trap.”

  “Okay man, I get it! You don’t have to beat a dead horse, man!”

  “Deer,” Madison said.

  “I don’t know if you do get it… wait, what?” I turned to Madison.

  “Dead deer, you don’t have to beat a dead deer,” she chuckled.

  I paused at that, then squinted at her. “What grade did you teach again?” I smiled then looked back at Steve. “Look, sorry I got all pissy. We need our team to be as strong as possible, which means we can’t just charge ahead. Later, once we’ve got the tribe back, and dealt with Tim and Cora, we will form a party and go adventure as much as possible.”

  “Yeah man, that’s cool. It really sucked getting impaled like that.”

  That little adventure over, I looted and scavenged the deer, getting some meat, skin, and a sharp antler. It would be interesting to see what we could do with all this stuff.

  “Shall we continue? Steve how are your wounds?” the Chief asked.

  Steve checked his status. “Damn man! I got two wounds from all that.”

  I sighed. I knew a reduction in our capabilities was bound to happen on this mission, but I had been hoping we could avoid it until we got to the spawn points. Ah well.

  Madison cast her Self-Sacrifice spell on Steve until he was fully healed. “Woohoo, dinged that spell. One more time and it’ll be 20!”

  Arnold raised his hand towards the direction I had us headed. “Are we ready then?” I nodded in return.

  “Let’s go save our tribe.”

  Chapter 27

  We made our way to the copse of trees that was the first spawn point with only another rabbit’s nest to fight. As we were walking, I had everyone practice the Camouflage skill so we would be comfortable using it. It was a weird experience. When I activated it, I could feel the skill taking effect on my skin. I would say it was like the gentle caress of a loving woman, but I would be lying because I’m not all that familiar with that concept. It was more like the light touch of ants crawling all over your exposed skin. So yeah, kinda weird.

  As we approached, the mini-map showed this was not a spawn point that had a smaller number of zombies. I counted twenty on the map, and we sent ahead someone to scout who confirmed that many if not more. Backing off before we got close enough to draw aggro, we proceeded to the next spawn point.

  I put my arm out to halt the tribe and motioned to a large buck up ahead. Without any fools rushing in, I got off a Sucker Punch. This felt like a tribe. Sarah landed her Spirit Shock and we functioned like a well-oiled machine! I leaned down to pick up a core that dropped and held it up. “This is how it’s supposed to work! Awesome job, guys.”

  The next spawn point had just as many zombies around it, and we had front row seats to one of the tribe members spawning and meeting instant death with brutal efficiency.

  “Tim will pay for this,” Arnold said turning away as the rest of us watched in horrible fascination. I wanted to help the poor souls, but it would be a suicide mission and that wouldn’t help anyone.

  We moved on, walking with caution to the last spawn point, the one Tim had been collecting his treasure in. We were shocked when we got there to see even more zombies than the other two spawn points. They were spread out in a circle, with only a few gathered in the circle’s center. When we got closer and could see with our eyes, instead of just the mini-map, we saw why.

  The glade in front of us had changed. A ring of large rocks forming a wall of sorts around the glade, with a large, empty area inside the circle. Zombies hedged the outside of the rocks like a living… unliving… whatever… wall, their arms outstretched ready to grab and eat anyone that came close. Within the large circle was a fire pit lit up with fire, with many non-zombie people around it.

  I sto
pped in my tracks, which forced the rest of the formation to as well.

  Almost all of our missing tribe members were there. Some were harvesting a large bison, some were crafting things (it was too hard to tell what from this distance) while others were tending the fire or cooking. There was also a large Tipi off to one side, covered in bison skins and painted with something dark.

  What. Was. Going. On?

  A flash of light drew my attention and my eyes snapped to an area within the larger circle, a smaller circle of boulders, containing four zombies. A guy I didn’t recognize, at least from this distance, materialized within the circle. The area was so small he spawned literally on top of the zombies and his corpse didn’t even touch the ground while he was chewed apart.

  The mass of zombies on the outside shifted and pushed forward, trying to get to the fresh meat. A Hunter inside the circle watched as the zombie wall shifted around, and with furtive glances left and right, dashed toward a hole in the horde.

  That’s when Tim came out of the Tipi, Cora in tow, shouting expletives to the runner. I couldn’t actually hear what he was saying, but the way he was throwing his arms about, I’m pretty sure it wasn’t anything you’d say in front of your mama.

  The escapee climbed one of the large rocks and attempted to leap off only to be blasted by what I recognized as Spirit Shock from Tim and sent crashing to the ground, providing the zombies a fresh feast.

  Tim moved toward the others who had stopped working to watch as their compatriot died. He spoke to them, but I couldn’t hear. His body language was easy to read though as he stabbed his finger at the workers, shaking it and his head.

  “Looks like Tim has been busy,” Madison whispered.

  Arnold, watching all of this in shock narrowed his eyes to see Cora, looking disheveled from whatever they had been doing in the Tipi. “What do you mean?” he said, a hint of danger in his voice.

  “Last time we were here, this was just a glade with zombies, he’s made a camp of sorts now,” I said.

  “A slave camp,” Sarah said, her voice tinged with anger. “He’s forcing our people to work for him. What are we going to do? We’ve seen all the spawn points, none of them will be easy to clear. We have to do something. What’s the plan?”