by Drew Seren
“Sounds good,” Steelmaiden agreed. “And we’ll make sure to keep in touch if any of us find out anything interesting.”
“Yeah.” Horc head for the door. “I’d still like to know why this place is called Tragiczan.”
“Me too. Honestly, it’s a little creepy.” Steelmaiden followed him out into the hallway.
“Some designer was probably just having fun with it,” Slasher said as he locked the door back and pocketed the key. “These guys have warped senses of humor.”
“Yeah, they do,” Horc agreed. Although he hadn’t seen much of it in Halfworld yet, there were always some kind of odd or hidden meanings behind a lot of the things that happened in games. It was funny enough that all the bosses in the Gnoll King’s dungeon looked like various managers from their company, Total Immersion Systems, he figured there were bound to be more. For all they knew, the mayor or chief of Tragiczan was modeled after an ex of one of the designers and it was just an inside joke.
When Horc settled into his chair on the main floor of the inn, his axe bumped against his back. He reached back and shifted it slightly to a more comfortable position, so the blade wasn’t pressing against his spine. “You know, I can’t decide if I want to get rid of this thing or not.”
Steelmaiden cocked her head. “What thing?”
“This axe. I mean it still has a decent attack, but since Miranda took out the Gnoll King, all I can get it to do is look cheap. Before that it was throwing different power blasts each time I hit one of the crystals. Now… nothing.” He’d really hoped that, after a cool down, each of the crystals would get a charge again, but that hadn’t happened. It was like it only had magic inside the dungeon.
“Let me see.” Steelmaiden reached across the table for the big axe.
Horc pulled it off his shoulder and passed it to her.
She took it and looked closely at the gems set in its handle. She rolled it around in her hand, frowning.
The bar maid, another buxom Orc woman came over and took their orders, then hurried back to the bar area.
“Looks like the magic has been drained out of it,” Steelmaiden said. “I can’t be sure, but from other games I’ve played, that looks like what’s happened. Maybe you can find an enchanter to put charges back into the stones.” She handed the axe back across the table to Horc.
Frowning, Horc put the axe back across his shoulder, careful to position the blade so it wasn’t doing any damage to himself. “Why do I think that’s going to be expensive?”
“Probably because it is, unless we happen to find an enchanter who’s looking for a party and would be willing to trade services, or something,” Slasher said.
“And an enchanter is a class?” Horc leaned on the table, putting his chin in his hands.
Slasher shook his head. “Nope, it’s one of the professions, like skinning.”
“One plus to that is you could request certain spells be laid on the crystals,” Steelmaiden suggested as the barmaid returned with their drinks.
“So, if I didn’t like the cold blast the axe gave off, I could switch that out for a flaming blade or something?” Horc lifted his pewter tankard and took a sip of the ale. It was some of the best he’d ever tasted, not that he spent tons of time tasting beer, but he did drink from time to time, and the one he was drinking in game beat out any of the light beers he normally had.
Steelmaiden nodded slightly as she took a sip of her beer. She wiped some of the foam off her lips with the back of her sleeve. “Exactly. But it all depends on what the enchanter you find has available. While you’re in Red Wind Terrace, you might check around and see who you can find there. Check prices. Or you might wait until Baladara gets back and hits her level twenty when we get the second profession slot.”
“Okay. Yeah. That reminds me, I need to think about what other profession I want to take, don’t I? There should be a trainer of just about anything in a starting city.” Horc took another drink of the beer. It gave him a sense of vitality, without any of the mental clouding he was used to hearing about with beer.
“Right. We all need to think about that. If we’re going to stay a party after we get you out of the pod, we might start to think about complementary professions,” Slasher said. “Right now, we’re doing okay, although I think either Steelmaiden or myself should take some kind of prospecting or mineral craft, I haven’t checked to see what they call it here, but that way the others can get blacksmithing, or weaponry skills and handle all our repairs.” He touched the dent that was still slightly visible on his new breastplate, even after they stopped at the local blacksmith, and frowned. “We’d have to be better than some of the things we’ve run into so far.”
“We’ll talk about it.” Steelmaiden flashed him a wicked grin. “For now, we’ll do some poking about town and see what we can find. I hope there’s a Barbarian trainer. I could use a few things since we went up on the road here.”
Horc finished off his beer. “Good, then sounds like we all have plans. I don’t know how long I’ll be in Red Wind Terrace, but I’ll keep you guys up to date, and if they send me on any quests outside the immediate Orc area, I’ll let you know.”
“And we’ll also see if we can get some quests around here to help with our Orc reputation,” Steelmaiden said.
As Horc stood and started toward the door with his wolf at his side, he felt strange. As much as he wanted his new friends to stop fussing over him, there was an odd sense of leaving them alone as he headed off to somewhere they couldn’t go with him. He hoped everyone was going to be okay until they got back together.
3
A rough stone pillar served as a sign post pointing Horc up a trail toward a deep canyon in the desert. He wasn’t sure how long he’d been walking since leaving Tragiczan. Luckily, there had been a narrow trail of a road that led from the village to the main road running toward Red Wind Terrace. It provided him with a fairly safe route to take. The one scorpion he’d encountered had been a level 20 and had gone down fairly quick between his arrows and his wolf’s fangs and claws.
The sun was starting down toward the western horizon. It made him wonder how the rescuers were coming in getting the debris of his house clear, so they could reach his pod. He’d been in the game for over two days, going on three IRL. Nobody had really said if the game was synched with regular time or not, but he presumed it was. Most of the games he’d played had run on a similar clock, except for a few of the larger, slower planets he visited in Galactic Explorers.
The road dropped off as he came around a bend and the red rocks of the canyon walls spread out before him. The walls were fifty or sixty feet deep and lined with terraces. It reminded Horc of some ancient Native American cliff dwellings he’d visited on a summer vacation in Colorado when he’d been in high school. He was so far away he couldn’t make out details of the people moving around on the sandstone ledges, but there seemed to be a ton of them. The road ran straight down, heading toward the heart of the canyon. A number of buildings sat on the canyon floor, although at the distance Horc was from them, it was difficult to tell much in the way of size. They looked more like boulders than buildings. The only thing that made him think they were buildings was the number of people who seemed to be going into the dark spots on them, which he presumed were doors, or doorways.
“Looks like we found the place,” Horc muttered, and at his side, his wolf whined softly. From the first step on his companion quests he’d been surprised by how real the companion animals were in game. His wolf acted more like a huge lanky dog than how he expected a wolf to act. When he got out of the game—if he got out—he was going to have to congratulate the designers and let them know they’d accomplished something phenomenal with the details they’d programed into Halfworld.
About halfway down the canyon, the walls narrowed, blocking part of his view of the city. Huge wood and iron gates stood open but looked like they could be closed at a moment’s notice by the two hulking Orcs on either side of them. The Orc guards
were in heavy chainmail armor, and each carried a huge axe that looked like it could cleave Horc in half if it barely tapped him. There was a decidedly dangerous glint in their beady red eyes.
The guard on the left glanced at the one on the right who gave an almost imperceptible nod. If Horc hadn’t been watching them so closely as he approached, he’d have missed it. Left guard sighed, straightened slightly, and trudged toward Horc, his heavy leather boots kicking up small clouds of dust with each step he took.
When he was a couple of feet from Horc, his text was visible. Red Wind Terrace Guard, Level XXX. The triple x didn’t feel funny—it felt extreme.
“What’s your business?” the guard grumbled.
“Got a quest to see Ranger Thunderbow.” Horc carefully didn’t look at the guard’s face. He didn’t want to do anything that might antagonize the big Orc.
“Fairly neutral.” The guard nodded slowly. “I guess it’s okay to let you in. Sometimes you halflings cause problems. Don’t ever forget that we have tons of guards here in Red Wind Terrace. You start anything—we’ll be all over you like flies on shit. You’ll lose most of your good rep with us and we’ll kick you out into the sand. You and your little wolf too.”
Horc nodded, not wanting to do anything to cause problems for either him or his companion. “I got it.”
“Good. Now do you know where to find Thunderbow?” The guard looked down his prominent green nose that nearly brushed his long white tusks. “I mean, if you got a quest, you should know where to find him.”
Pulling up his map, the yellow dot for Thunderbow was much deeper into the city. There was something next to it that said ‘L2’. “Yeah… I guess the L2 means level two.”
“Exactly. You can take any of the lifts, but the first one will probably get you there faster.” The guard pointed to the right, toward something on the other side of the heavy doors, something Horc couldn’t see.
“Thanks.” Horc waited until the guard took a couple of steps back toward his post on the left side of the door, then hurried past. The Orc guards were definitely a lot rougher around the edges than the human guards in Stone Helm City had been. But it was a different culture, so Horc wasn’t surprised.
Right after the gate, the road opened up and split into three parts, one heading along each side of the canyon, and one going up the middle. Orcs and many other races wandered around the area. There were a lot more races in Red Wind Terrace than there had been in Stone Helm City. Horc recognized Orcs, and Half Orcs, although the Half Orcs seemed to have a large spectrum of skin tinting, ranging from a pale, almost pastel shade to a deep forest. He hadn’t bothered to go through everything when he was designing his toon, so he was surprised by the variations he saw on the street. The Orcs themselves had a lot of difference in skin tones but it seemed that they never got as dark or as light as the Half Orcs. There were also Elves, but they looked different than Baladara’s classic blonde hair, blue eyed, frail creature. Some had dark hair, eyes, and skin—others were shades of brown, looking more buff than Baladara could ever look. There were also several more animalistic races that Horc didn’t really want to stare at too long trying to figure out what they were supposed to be.
He found a lift, which was basically an open-air platform that went up and down along the side of the cliff dwellings. Horc wasn’t sure it was particularly safe. After watching it go up and down with short stops on each level, Horc figured that it wasn’t completely safe, but he knew how it worked and hoped that neither he nor the wolf would off-balance the thing and cause them all to plummet to their deaths.
Swallowing back a wave of fear that left his hands sweaty, Horc forced himself to step onto the wooden platform that was being lifted up the side of the cliff by a chain that disappeared at the top of the canyon wall.
“Hey hold up,” a light brown elf player shouted, running toward the lift. The text above his head was green and read Greensleeves, Sand Elf, Druid, Level 21.
Horc stared at him. He didn’t know there could be two players with the same name. It must be a bug in the system. “Sorry, can’t stop it,” he called back.
“Wait when you get off,” Greensleeves said, sounding familiar.
“David?” Horc stared down at the man waiting for the lift to return. How had he managed to change races and still keep his level? He hadn’t had time to get a new toon up that high, had he? Did Halfworld even allow people to have multiple toons? He hadn’t bothered to check any of that when he’d created Horc, he’d just done everything random and taken what the system had given him.
“Yeah. Stay there.” Greensleeves held up a hand for him to stay put as he got off the lift at the second level.
Horc got off the lift when it stopped and his wolf followed him. There wasn’t anyone at that level trying to get on, so he stood there and waited. Farther down the terrace, people came out of the buildings, which being closer were obviously shops, based on the signs hanging over their doors. Horc didn’t know what some of the symbols on the signs meant, but from the crossed axes on one, he presumed it was a weapons vendor.
The lift finished going up to the next level above him and started down. A small green man with big pointed ears ran past Horc. “If you’re not getting on, I will. It’s rude to just stand there and block the way.”
“Sorry.” Horc took a step back toward the nearest building, one that had a sign with a couple of sheaves of grain that might be a baker. Seconds later the little man disappeared as the lift dropped below the second-tier floor.
Horc took a deep breath and caught the smell of freshly baked bread, reinforcing the idea that the store he stood next to was a bakery. He wondered if the bread would taste as good as it smelled. So far, everything he’d eaten or drunk on Halfworld had tasted awesome.
“Why does everyone around here stand by the lifts?” The little green man’s voice carried from the first floor. “Geez, you guys need to learn some manners.”
About a minute later, Greensleeves appeared as the lift carried him up to Horc’s level. He was a lot different from his human form. He was shorter, more willowy. His skin was a soft brown and his hair and round eyes were dark brown. “So, what do you think?” He wore loose leather armor that was a soft beige that reminded Horc of the Sandslasher scorpions near Tragiczan. It looked like he was outfitted to blend into the desert.
“How’d you change races?” Horc stopped staring at his friend.
“Had Rick do some game designer magic. After Baladara said she’d gotten a guard to send her to the human-starting city, I got to thinking. While I was logged out, Rick and I talked it over.” He pointed down the terrace, indicating for Horc to start walking.
Not wanting to have another toon go off on him for standing around, Horc complied.
“I thought about either turning into an Orc or a Half Orc, since that would help me stay with you and keep you safe,” Greensleeves continued as they walked.
“You guys do know I really don’t need babysitters,” Horc said, trying hard to keep the irritation he felt at his friends doing their best to make sure he stayed safe. He didn’t want them to think he needed their overprotectiveness, but it was nice to have.
Greensleeves nodded. “I do. But since we’re doing the whole party thing, having members of our group with you makes things easier. I noticed you left Steelmaiden and Slasher in Tragiczan. Right?”
“Right. They’re going to try to get some quests that’ll help bring their reputation with the Orcs high enough they can come to Red Wind Terrace, or wherever my quests take me.”
“And since you’re neutral, there might be places we can’t go unless we’re neutral too,” Greensleeves continued. “I’ve always liked playing elves, and if Rick hadn’t been so adamant about me going through the Gnoll King’s Dungeon, I’d have gone Elf when I started. But I’m glad I didn’t, since you guys are cool and I like running with you. But Rick and I went over the various races—there are a fair number that start out neutral, even a couple of elves. Then we
had to go over the various class limitations. That was one of the reasons I didn’t want to go Orc, or Half Orc—they can’t be Druids. They can do Shamans, but it’s not exactly the same. I didn’t want to do anything to lose my healing spells, but I don’t like Priest or Paladins.”
Horc nodded. “With you there.”
“So, I opted for the Sand Elf. They’re different from any Elf I’ve played before. They actually get a bonus for healing and a fire resistance. The drawback is most of my nature attack spells are sand-based.”
“Sand-based?” Horc frowned and looked at Greensleeves. “What do you mean, ‘sand-based?”
“Exactly what it sounds like. I can summon a sand storm, a jet of sand, create a sand pit, do quicksand. I’m actually looking forward to trying some of these out.”
“What about that tree-form you did?” Horc stopped walking and looked at his map. They’d walked past the dot for Thunderbow.
“Similar, but it now looks like dried drift wood, which I guess is better than a walking cactus.” Greensleeves smiled.
“Yeah, there is that.” Horc turned. “My trainer’s supposed to be around here somewhere.” He glanced at the signs and none of them made any sense to him.
“I guess another Druid Park is too much to ask since Orc don’t have Druids.” Greensleeves looked up and seemed to be studying the signs. He pursed his lips. “Does your dot look like it’s in there?”
The sign above the door was a skeletal deer.
Horc compared their position with the map. “Yeah, I think so. What does that sign mean?”
“I bet they put the Skinning trainer with the Ranger trainer, ‘cause all that deer makes me think of is either skinning or taxidermy, and I don’t think we can be taxidermists in game.”
“Probably not.” Horc strolled toward the door.