The Copper Rose

by David Lingard

  Wisdom:?

  Social:?

  ‘Hmmm,’ I thought. The information that was offered up on this new enemy was very limited indeed. I did like the way they only had eight health points each, but I didn’t like the way everything else was truncated. Did they not have any skills or could I just not see them? In any case I thought, my goblin friends at level ten and six, and me at level five and from what I could see with far higher collective health, we shouldn’t have any problems in dealing with even five of the creatures.

  My questions about skills were promptly answered as the closest spider did an inanely spidery thing – it turned to face away from us, and fired a web from the rear of its bulbous black body directly at Ushuk. Presumably, because he was the smallest of our group.

  Ushuk had the mental fortitude to duck as the webbing fired at him, which unfortunately left the glimmering string to fly directly at me, with no chance of me being able to move out of the way.

  Spider Web hits you for 0 damage

  You have been Slowed

  Effect duration: 10 seconds

  ‘Oh good,’ I thought as I tested my new ‘slowed status’. I pulled my axe in front of my vision and saw with a mild degree of comedy that my movements were producing a kind of trail behind them. It was as though I was high. Everything went in slow motion and my movements were laboured as though I was underwater.

  Before I even had a chance to get the munchies, the other spiders had joined in with webs of their own, covering my two goblin companions and attributing them with the same ‘slowed’ status that I’d received. Thankfully when I was hit by another string of slowing web, the timer that was counting down from ten seconds didn’t accrue any additional time, and I didn’t seem to get any slower either – their attacks weren’t stacking. What’s more was that they didn’t actually do any damage, and just as I was expecting the webs to be made of some kind of poisonous acid. Thank the gods.

  I thought about how spiders worked in the real world, they were kind of assholes to their prey, locking them up and injecting their venom before eating them, it wasn’t really much different to what was happening here – we were slowed down so that we posed less of a threat to the beasts.

  One of the spiders seemed a little braver than it’s compatriots, taking a step forward towards Ushuk who had been waving his little green hand back and forth before his eyes, presumably watching the trail that it made. By the time the spider had made it within striking distance of Ushuk, there was little he could do to prevent its attack. The spider swiped at Ushuk with its front leg, causing the green health bar next to his name in my peripheral vision to drop by a small chunk. Thank god that these spiders were of such a low level, for all their nightmarish looks, bladed legs and fancy slowing skills, they couldn’t dish out much real damage.

  The attack itself seemed to snap Ushuk back to reality, and he swiped back with his own bladed appendage – by way of his knife – right back at the spider. The spider’s health bar dropped to about half way but was extinguished seconds later by a reinforcing slash from Grish, who’d come to Ushuk’s rescue.

  You hit Black Forest Spider for 6 damage

  You hit Black Forest Spider for 2 damage

  You have killed Black Forest Spider

  You have gained 8xp

  My own spidery adversary didn’t warrant help from the level ten goblin, and I was very pleased to see that the amount of experience gained from killing just one of these things was equal to that of around four beetles. Of course the danger was a little more real out here but It didn’t seem like anything we couldn’t handle at this point.

  Three spiders down by the time my own had been defeated, the two remaining creatures turned tail and scurried off. I wondered if they would be returning with friends or if they had simply decided that we weren’t worth the trouble, either way I was pleased to be out of combat again.

  None of my party had levelled up, which really was to be expected, as we hadn’t done much fighting – but I was still curious about how the war party would share its experience. I saw through my analyse skill and with a quick check of my own status that we had indeed all been bestowed with some form of bonus experience, but numerically it was still a mystery.

  When I looked to the ground to where the fallen enemy had lain I was surprised to see their bodies replaced by lightly shimmering cloth bags, fastened at their tops with a length of rope. I bent down and picked the first one up curiously.

  You have found Spider Legs

  Spider Legs are dropped from spiders who have fallen in battle. They can prove to be a useful component in many things, most notably as an ingredient in various potions.

  Do you wish to add these items to your inventory? Yes/No

  I selected the all too familiar ‘yes’ option and did the same for the second bag on the ground, both disappearing as soon as I’d touched them. This was turning out to be an amazing use of my time – experience and loot to go with it, it was just like the good old days - real bread and butter stuff.

  “So do we just keep going?” I asked aloud as the pair of goblins readied their knives to cut the webbing in front of us again.

  “Yes, easy spiders outside, stronger closer to nest” Grish replied before Ushuk could offer his own answer. I must admit that I liked the way Grish thought these first spiders had been easy, which of course they were, but I didn’t really like the sound of whatever ‘stronger’ meant. It didn’t matter come to think of it, we had come here to do a job and that’s just what we would do. Besides you never pull out in the middle of a raid.

  It only took a few minutes for a new group of spiders to fall upon us, and literally this time. The five spiders fell silently from the trees above us and employed the same slowing tactic as they had done the first time. If I’d paid a little more attention I might have guessed that two of the spiders were the same two that had escaped the first time around, as I thought they must have gone to get some friends. Their new tactic had worked better this time, shaving a sliver of health off of all of our party, however with the spiders still only at level three, they proved no match for my band of plucky adventurers. We were here for XP, and XP was what we would be getting, unfortunately, that spelt bad news for our new spider friends here.

  It didn’t take long for me to fill my rather pitiful inventory with the rate that we were quickly becoming the bane of spiderkind. Don’t get me wrong I was grateful that I didn’t have to struggle to carry each and every one of the small parcels that the creatures left behind, but I could help but wonder how exactly useful these leavings were going to turn out to be, and eventually what loot I could be missing out on to keep them. There was still one place I had available to me that I could make use of, at least I thought as much.

  “Ushuk, Grish” I said as we despatched another group of five spiders. Truth be told they were getting a little predictable – turn up as a group of five, we kill three or four of them then one escapes and comes back with another crew.

  The two goblins looked at me awaiting my instruction.

  “Do you have space in your inventories to carry some of these spider legs?” I asked and to my delight, Grish answered my question by scooping up the shimmering loot piles and promptly making them disappear.

  “How many can each of you hold?” I asked, to which both goblins held up what seemed to be a random number of fingers and said “seven” and “twelve.” So goblins could count past ten after all. I decided to impart our complete loot haul to my newfound backpacks when I was greeted with an unexpected message.

  You have gained the skill Packmule

  Through determination, perseverance and sheer willpower, you have gained the skill Packmule. With this skill, your inventory size will increase as the skill does. In addition, you can now overburden your inventory at the expense of movement speed.

  ‘Wow another skill’…and paired with my already budding collection of analyse and lumberjack it made me seem like…well a real joke actually. I was shaping
up to be nothing special so far, nothing more than your average run of the mill worker. Actually did my workers have the packmule skill? And did it mean that carrying things was actually pleasurable to them? It didn’t matter right now and I shook my head to remove the thought, we had spiders to kill!

  One more group of three spiders was easily dispatched, and this time I was able to anticipate the attempted escape of the last spider before it could make its move. I wondered if this would have any bearing on the mechanics of mob spawning once we started to move again after the loot collection, but knew that as with most things in Freedom Online, there would be no way for me to know definitively.

  As if in answer to my internal pondering, we came to a clearing in the webbing that didn’t require any work for us to cut away, and before us stood the entrance to a dark cave.

  “Is this the middle of the nest?” I asked nobody in particular. I decided not to hush my voice as I was pretty sure that most of the spiders probably knew we were here already due to the racket we were making cutting the webs away from the trees.

  “Yes. This where main spiders live,” Grish answered and I noticed that Ushuk was being decidedly quiet. His health bar was at around the halfway mark, short of Grish’s by about twenty five percent. I had only dropped by about twenty percent myself, the spiders either preferring to go for the smaller prey first or for some other reason – I could have just been lucky I supposed.

  “Uh, Ushuk?” I asked in an effort to allow my little friend into the conversation. He looked up at me silently and I could sense his veiled fear.

  “How do you get your health back up?” I asked the question that I hadn’t had to think about up until this point.

  “Rest mostly,” he said quickly. “and food.” Well that was a no-brainer. At least it sounded as though health would regenerate on its own, but that didn’t help me right now.

  “Isn’t there a spell or a uh…health potion?” I asked, trying to figure out if there was anything more immediate that could be done. The little green goblin took a moment to think before answering. “Yes, both. But I don’t know spells, and never see potion.” I was happy that I’d coerced him into investing in his intelligence, his explanations of things were much easier to swallow than some of the other crude goblin phrasing that I’d been exposed to.

  Nevertheless, it sounded like there was nothing that could be done to push our health bars back up to their maximums at the moment, I simply made the decision that if anyone got to below twenty-five percent then we would turn tail and run. I conveyed this to the two goblins who seemed agreeable to the idea, even if it looked like retreat was a concept that Grish wasn’t too familiar with.

  A rustling interrupted my internal monologue from inside the cave before us. It sounded like rats scratching for food and grew louder and louder until a thick black spider leg protruded from the darkness. This wasn’t like the other spiders’ legs that we had seen, this one wasn’t bladed – rather it was at least three times as thick and as it continued to emerge it was something like twice as long. The spider unfolded itself from the dark opening just feet away from us to display its full size. It was bigger than both of my goblins, but still a shade smaller than myself.

  Name: Nest Guardian Spider

  Level: 7

  Race: Spider

  Attributes:HP: 24/24 MP: ?/?

  Strength:?

  Wisdom:?

  Social:?

  ‘Holy shit that’s a big spider,’ I thought and before I could even complete the notion, he was straddled on either side by a twin. Three of these big ugly fuckers, each of them at a higher level than both Ushuk and myself and my only ace in the hole the advanced status of Grish the former clan leader.

  How I wished he was able to taunt the enemy into only attacking him so we could chip away health from afar. If only he could bash a shield and yell, forcing a red halo atop the enemies’ heads but alas, it was not to be. The three spiders all bore down on Ushuk, being the smallest of our party. I watched as his health was knocked down by just a few percent – which was kind of a surprise as I’d expected far more damage to come from their attacks. Not wanting to waste time, and to try to prevent damage done to Ushuk as much as possible, I attacked the closest of the three huge spiders with my axe.

  You hit Nest Guardian Spider for 4 damage (Armour ignores 2 damage)

  You hit Nest Guardian Spider for 4 damage (Armour ignores 2 damage)

  I managed to land two strikes before the spider turned its bulk towards me. When I was I close quarters with the thing, I was surprised at just how terrifying the beast was.

  Nest Guardian Spider hits you for 2 damage

  The spider made its first move against me. It hurt. Quite a lot but I was both surprised and relieved that it had only done minimal damage. The only reason that I could come up with for their lack of damage and high armour value was so that they would act as a tank so that other spiders could do the real damage for them – the exact tactic that I desperately wanted to employ. As it was, with three tanks as the only enemy it was going to be a war of attrition over anything else, and at that a war that my party would certainly have won.

  You have killed Nest Guardian Spider

  You have gained 16xp

  Congratulations, you have reached Level 6

  You now have 1 unspent attribute point

  Note: If you do not spend this attribute point within 3 days it will be lost.

  Finally, a level up again! And Ushuk had also gained a new level too – unfortunately for him, this did not mean that his health replenished as it did in some of the other games I’d played in the past. In truth the three guardian spiders hadn’t posed much of a threat but looking at our statistics, with my health down to around half way, Grish’s down to about two thirds and Ushuk’s having turned red in some kind of early warning system. I didn’t spare a moment to think about how close we really had come to our demise, but after making sure my allocated mules picked up the loot bags we turned as one to return back the way we’d come from. As much as I wanted to explore the nest, with our collective injuries it wouldn’t have been wise to continue onward, especially if the enemies we’d encountered were going to get much stronger.

  We turned as one, took three steps and was almost instantly surrounded by a veritable horde of level three forest spiders.

  “Oh fuck” I announced loudly as the cacophony of stringed webs covered my party to cause no damage but inflicting the slow status onto all of us.

  Spider Web hits you for 0 damage

  You have been Slowed

  Effect duration: 10 seconds

  At least there were no nasty surprises like extra damage or poison this time, just the same old painless slowing webs again. Regardless of that fact, there were at least ten spiders within striking distance or my party. With the highest health remaining, Grish positioned himself before us and I instinctively hid Ushuk behind me as he was in the most danger. It took us all of fifteen minutes to finish off the spiders for one last time, and once it was over not only was my heart beating out of my chest, Ushuk and I had gained yet another level and our packs were all completely filled with spider loot.

  “Let’s get going” I announced as I overburdened myself, making great use of my latest skill, however when I turned to greet my companions after picking up the last of the available loot, Ushuk was nowhere to be seen.

  “Over heeeeree,” rasped a feminine voice as though in answer to my searching gaze. I followed the sounds until I noticed a rising shadow approach from the nest’s mouth.

  Name: Spider Queen

  Level: 10

  Race: Spider

  Attributes:HP: 85/85 MP: ?/?

  Strength:?

  Wisdom:?

  Social:?

  At level ten her health seemed a little disproportionate to the other spiders that we’d seen so far and the only reason I could come up with was that this spider queen, was a boss monster.

  As she stepped forward and into the what co
uld be called light, I could see her in more detail. Her legs were almost twice as long as the guardian’s and it looked as though they were needed to keep her bulging body off of the ground properly. Her legs were difficult to see, as fine as needles the thought of them anywhere near me made my skin crawl.

  “Why do you insist upon your own death?” The rasping female voice filled my mind. It seemed as though the queen wasn’t speaking aloud, rather she must have had some sort of telepathic abilities.

  “What? Hello?” I said aloud in order to re-center my reality.

  “You come into my home and kill my children?” she continued with her soliloquy.

  “Not listen to her words.” Grish was speaking loudly and facing me now. “Not let her get into head.” His voice was quieter than usual and sounded far away but I could sense the urgency in it.

  “Get out OF MY HEAD” I shouted as the world around me that had been fading away snapped back into focus.

  As I watched her the queen transferred a small figure from her back legs to her front, making sure I could see clearly. It was the limp form of Ushuk.

  Chapter Twelve, Fear

  “N

  O!” I shouted but before I could make any movements toward her, the queen pierced Ushuk’s body with one of her needle points, causing his health bar to fall to just a sliver above zero.

  “You will obey me or you will all die” The queen rasped in my mind. She began to turn Ushuk slowly between her needle-point legs as though wrapping him in a cocoon – it must have been some special spider ability, however as Ushuk turned it was apparent that he wasn’t being wrapped at all, his body was beginning to bleed from thousands of tiny cuts and punctures all over his small green body. He didn’t even have the energy to cry out in pain before his health bar disappeared and his name turned grey in my party. I couldn’t help but feel that we had bitten off much more than we could chew with this one. I had the distinct feeling that the queen was enjoying this torture as she increased the speed that Ushuk spun until he was almost a dripping-red blur. Finally, the queen finished with her attack and dropped her victim unceremoniously to the ground with a thud.