First Login

by Kevin Murphy

  “Not totally, no,” replied Dakkon, now with a grin of his own. “I’m level 24.”

  “Woah, Tian’s been good to you, huh?” remarked the well-outfitted archer.

  “… says the guy wearing a matching suit of armor with more clasps and buckles than a strait jacket,” Dakkon said.

  “Oh, these old duds?” asked Cline, clearly proud of his new equipment.

  Whether or not he liked the style, Dakkon had to admit that, altogether, the armor was much better looking than what he was wearing, and he assumed that held true for the stats as well. Dakkon had neglected buying himself any new armor, and with his decision to not take the money for his weapon, he had a spendthrift’s mentality about acquiring any more. “Guess I’ll just have to avoid getting hit,” Dakkon thought.

  A stocky warrior with a large, shiny, and unblemished shield strapped to his back bumped into Dakkon.

  “Oh, sorry. I’m still getting used to the bloody thing,” said a smiling Damak.

  “New shield, eh?” Dakkon asked.

  “I couldn’t very well use the old one now, could I?” he asked.

  “I suppose not,” said Dakkon, who turned to Cline and pointed to the dwarf-like warrior. “This stubby little guy is Damak—he’s one of the reasons I’m doing so well here. And this,” Dakkon shifted his directing hand to the tall, blonde, and be-leathered ranger, “is Cline. Easily, and uncontestably, my earliest in-game friend. He wasn’t wearing bondage gear in public when I first met him.”

  The two scowled at their respective descriptors, but chuckled good-naturedly as they shook hands.

  “Pleased to meet you,” said Cline.

  “You betcha,” replied Damak. “Are you two joining the expedition?”

  “That’s the plan,” said Cline as Dakkon nodded.

  “Great,” said Damak. “It should be smooth sailing. We’ve got a team of shamans to try to calm the spirit, and a team of exorcists for when things go south.”

  “You said it should be smooth sailing,” said Cline. “Don’t you mean ‘if’ things go south?”

  Damak looked at Cline dryly. “Have you ever seen a group of Shamans working together to reach a common goal?”

  “Well, no, not really—b—” began Cline.

  Damak cut him off. “Neither have I. No one has. As soon as we get close to that powerful spirit, they’ll all try to dominate it to form a pact. That’s what they tried the last two times from what I’ve heard, and apparently attempting to break their will really pisses spirits off.”

  “Don’t be so sure about that,” said a young, blonde girl dressed in roughly fashioned pelts who had apparently been within earshot. Dakkon saw that it was Zelle, the helpful shaman who had explained how shamans learn spells on his first day in Tian.

  Dakkon smiled and nodded in recognition of Zelle, who returned the gesture.

  “The last two sets of shamans met their ends, so we’ve all agreed to do everything in our power to calm the spirit instead of controlling it. After it has calmed down, we plan on taking turns performing the pact-forming ritual. There shouldn’t be any trouble this time.”

  Damak grunted.

  Cline asked in a voice tinged with concern, “Wait, were the last two expeditions successful?”

  “Yeah, after the shamans all pissed off and died—followed by half of the expeditionary force,” said Damak, clearly displeased at his role as tank for the upcoming battles.

  “We may not even need to fight the ancestor spirit,” said a man in dark gray robes—like rich mahogany charred half-way to ash—who had been seated nearby, but was in the process of standing up with the assistance of a black staff tipped with a golden hoop which acted as a sort of key-ring connecting several more hoops. When the man got to his feet he slammed the staff’s butt to the ground, causing the rings to clatter against each other. “Even if we do have to fight, you’ll have me there.” The gray-robed man’s lips curled into a grin. The blue name that appeared in towns above each visible player’s head read Saden. “Oh, and Sift, too, I guess,” he added as an afterthought—motioning toward a seated man with tanned skin and short, neat black hair wearing a white, silken tunic. The man was sitting cross-legged and stood in one fluid motion, using no support, save for the strength of his legs. From his demeanor, he clearly thought nothing of his odd way of standing. He walked up to the growing group conversation and bowed.

  “Forgive my brash friend,” the man said. “But he is not incorrect. You should have no cause for alarm.” The way the man spoke was concise, though it followed an irregular tempo. Dakkon wondered passingly if this was Chronicle’s translation software at work, or if the man was simply a little odd.

  “Why do you have to stand up in such a flashy way?” complained Saden in blatant hypocrisy.

  Sift looked confused by the question.

  Saden sighed. “My friend here is some kind of superhuman training machine. You wouldn’t believe how difficult it was for me to convince him to take a few days off from training to come out and gauge his strength.” Then, as if muttering to himself, he added, “It’s about the only way I could think of to show him he’s way-way-way over-trained for his level.”

  The comments seemed to cause the listening crowd to reexamine Sift, who met each gaze unabashedly.

  “Anyway,” said Saden, with a snap from the fingers of his free hand, “if the shamans can’t handle it, the exorcists will. Again—nothing to worry about.” Saden turned abruptly and walked away.

  Sift put his left fist into the palm of his right hand and bowed his shoulders forward slightly before turning to follow his companion.

  Cline looked somewhat relieved by the others’ firm expectation of success. Dakkon would have to talk to him about that. Death in the game sucked, sure, but it wasn’t nearly as bad as Cline seemed to believe.

  Before Zelle and Damak had a chance to get back to their bickering, Dakkon sought to learn about how, what looked like, 60-80 people would manage to work together.

  “Hey Damak, how are parties going to be set up?” asked Dakkon.

  “This won’t be one large raid group with a few leaders calling the shots. That requires too much cooperation,” said Damak. “So everyone will form their own groups. If they’re found to be contributing and survive, they should have a shot at any loot.”

  “That loot distribution seems like a headache to manage,” said Dakkon.

  “Not really,” replied Damak. “We’ll let the AI figure it out and distribute items however the system deems fair.”

  “If we form our own groups, what do you all say to joining forces?” asked Dakkon.

  “No can do,” said Damak. “I’m employed by the city on this one, so I’m stuck with the other career warriors.”

  “Zelle?” asked Dakkon.

  “Sorry, Dakkon,” the shaman replied. “I’d love to, but the chance to learn from other shamans is a lot rarer than you might expect it to be.”

  Dakkon shrugged. “How about you, Cline?” he asked in a joking tone.

  “I don’t know, Dakkon, you seem to be pretty unpopular,” Cline said. “Maybe I can stick around for a reasonable bribe.”

  “Ha. Ha,” said Dakkon dryly, as he sent Cline a party invite.

  |Cline has joined your group.

  “So then, we’re two and growing,” Cline said after accepting the invitation. “A healer and a tank would be nice. Maybe we can ask the guy with the cane and the martial artist?”

  “From my understanding, it’s a long march to the cave. Actual days of travel. We should have plenty of time to meet some willing party members. I just hope the rewards justify all the walking and waiting around we’ve signed up for. I’ve never played any game that required that sort of dedication to a quest.”

  “Yeah, me neither,” said Cline.

  The two set to buying provisions together over the next half-hour before heading out. The expeditionary force departed in a nice, neat formation at the head—made up of a proportionally small group of
Tian’s soldiers. Behind them, the rough lines devolved into an amorphous mass which shifted tirelessly.

  Walking was slow, but it was relaxing. Dakkon and Cline shared stories about what had happened to each in turn. Cline had moved from group to group, progressing smoothly along with little-to-no downtime, as far as Dakkon could tell. Dakkon told Cline about meeting Letis, their travels, unethical business practices of their own design, and the trouble his small party had found in the woods. He spoke freely about events to his friend about everything, save for any mention of his dagger and the target that was now metaphorically painted on his back.

  The whole of the first day’s journey was slow, at best, and left most participants in the march feeling rather bored. Players would take any opportunity to strike out at whatever random woodland creature wandered too close to the traveling force, but even that was a rare distraction as most animals were too scared or too clever to come near the disorganized rows of stomping men.

  As dusk approached, the leading military party—consisting mostly of NPCs, insisted that the expeditionary force halt for the night to the protests of many-a-player who just wanted to be there and be done with it. After a day’s worth of walking, much of the enthusiasm for the large expedition had waned. Despite their grumbling, players and NPCs split into smaller social circles which began to build fires and even lay out a few bedrolls amongst the trees of the darkening forest.

  Dakkon and Cline found themselves a nearby, newly-kindled, and welcoming campfire where they hoped to ingratiate themselves when, from deeper into the woods, came a loud, intimidating snarl.

  “Are there—uh—any large, night-time predators in the area?” asked a young man of about 18 years seated by the fire.

  “There are,” said an old man squatting next to a large metal pot which rested in the center of the young fire. “There’s worse, too. Why did you think we’d need an army to go talk to a spirit, hmm?” The old man wore dirtied, brown skins with small tufts of fur that had been mostly rubbed away by wear. He stooped, cracking small branches to place fuel around the pot. When the older man stood to grab more wood, his movements were surprisingly spry.

  “Worse?” asked the startled boy.

  “I take it you aren’t a local,” said Damak, who had just walked up to their small camp area from the direction of another. “He’s talking about the Tribe, boy. Since it looks like you’ve got the gist of it, I’ll be finishing my rounds.” Damak turned to leave as soon as he’d come then added, “Be on your guard. It could be a busy night.”

  “That explained nothing,” said the young man once Damak was out of earshot. “Is there some kind of hostile settlement out here?”

  Dakkon and Cline watched the woods as they listened. The old man broke apart more twigs to feed the growing fire.

  “The Tribe is ancient,” said the old man. “Probably older than men. They all look… hmm, like me—but shorter and a lot less handsome.” The man gave a broad smile at his comparison, showcasing several missing teeth. Dakkon took that to mean he was an NPC. There was no easy method to differentiate player from NPC when outside of a city, short of asking them he supposed, but Dakkon doubted that any human player would choose an old body with only a fraction of teeth.

  “You can’t tell the men from the women, if they even have sexes,” the old man continued. “Their skin hangs loosely ‘round their body. When they fight, they imbue themselves with spirits which warp their shape and frame, stretching their sagging skin tight. They fight like demons, and they don’t abide men in their lands.”

  “And where exactly are their lands?” asked the youth.

  The man raised both of his fists in parallel, then spread his arms grandly as he opened his hands to the area surrounding them. They were in it.

  A man near the fire yawned loudly, making a statement that he wasn’t worried about the situation. The old man chuckled eerily as he fished a ladle out of his rucksack.

  “Oh,” said the young man after a realization of sorts. “You think that’s funny old man?” The young guy seemed to believe he was being teased, though Dakkon wasn’t as certain—his last group had mentioned some tribe being dangerous, and Damak seemed to acknowledge the same only a moment ago.

  The older man only shrugged in response to the challenge, as he returned to his meal preparations. Then, after only about five minutes, the old man was offering fully-cooked stew to men who hadn’t had the foresight to bring along their own bowls. Dakkon didn’t know much about cooking, but he was fairly certain stew should take considerably longer to prepare—hours even.

  Dakkon saw Damak heading back from alerting the remaining camps to the situation, and went to talk with him. Cline followed his companion.

  “You look a little on edge, despite the dull light,” said Damak with a grin. “That’s probably good, but—despite what I said—I doubt we’ll be attacked tonight. We certainly aren’t welcome here, but my understanding is that the Tribe will try and warn us away on the first night. They probably won’t have the numbers to fight us in earnest.”

  “With sounds like growling?” asked Dakkon.

  “No healthy animal local to these woods would come anywhere near this many people setting fires and making noise. If you hear something coming from the woods, you can bet it’s the Tribe.”

  The certainty in Damak’s voice took away some of the irrational dread that had begun pooling in Dakkon’s stomach. Dakkon had never been camping, he didn’t study wildlife, and he wasn’t familiar with the area. The unknown origin of the predatory noises had been somehow more unnerving to Dakkon than certain knowledge that an age-old tribe of man-hating shapeshifters was lurking mere meters away. He nodded to Damak.

  “Why didn’t you mention the Tribe earlier—when people were signing up and before they left?” asked Cline, unnerved.

  Damak looked at Cline appraisingly then answered with snark. “The job is to travel to and subdue a big, angry, long-dead wolf. Did you expect we’d bring a coalition if the trip was risk-free?”

  Cline was visibly upset, but before he was given the chance to unleash his anger, Damak spoke up once again.

  “Look, had you been a local or asked around, then you’d know all about the Tribe. Their existence is no secret. And, with our numbers we shouldn’t have any trouble—just don’t stray too far off from the others and don’t go follow any little old men.” Damak shook his head as he walked off towards the military camp. Dakkon could tell he was trying to calm Cline down, but his method left something to be desired.

  Dakkon, feeling much more at ease himself, placed a calming hand on Cline’s shoulder. “Nothing to worry about. Let’s just find ourselves some strong, like-minded allies who we can count on when the shit hits the proverbial fan.” Then, after a look around at the rapidly-darkening forest, he added, “First thing in the morning, when we’re less likely to get picked off walking from camp to camp.” Dakkon removed his hand from Cline’s shoulder, having realized that his additional comment probably helped his friend’s mental state even less than Damak had.

  The two returned to their campfire and conversed through the night with the others, except for the old stew chef who had gone to sleep on his bedroll. Occasionally throughout the night, barking, growling, gnashing, and a few noises too exotic for Dakkon to place—but no less threatening—drew the attention of the camp. After hours without an attack, however, they were growing more confident with their position.

  Just before dawn, in an act of bravado surely intended to display his manliness, the young man of around 18 years chased one particularly close noise behind a nearby cluster of trees and brush before anyone could stop him. An explosion of movement could be heard as the young man was set upon. He let out a cry of pain and surprise loud enough to be heard by the whole expeditionary force. Afterwards, the woods were silent, save for the heavy, husky breathing of several animals where the boy had been ambushed. No one followed after him until day broke and any sound of those lying in wait had vanished. Then
, there was no sign of a scuffle and no remains save for the large, varied tracks of unknown creatures.

  On the second day’s march, there was a sense of unrest amongst the ranks. NPCs appeared to be lacking in rest while players had been forced to stay huddled near a fire all night, to try to sleep, or to log out for just the right amount of time to re-enter as the anguished scream of a young man’s end demanded recognition. The experience was unlike any Dakkon had experienced before from playing other games. He felt drained despite not needing to rest. The atmosphere was one where any of them could be hunted down at any moment. It was far from pleasant, but no one would grow bored of marching.

  For a half day, the procession continued onward, unabated. Dakkon was able to show off his thermomancy skills as he practiced to Cline who, in turn, happily demonstrated his remarkable accuracy with a bow. Things were beginning to normalize. Then, a scant few minutes into the march’s break for a mid-day meal, chaos descended.

  It all started when a small, feeble-looking and hairless old man walked casually out of the forest toward one bulging side of the mostly-seated force. The short man was nude save for a flesh-colored sash which covered his loins. His stride was agile and smooth, in stark contrast to the folded, sagging skin that hung in pockets from his body.

  The sight of the man might have been somewhat comical in other circumstances, but here, in the woods, everyone was tense as they watched the delegate of a hostile faction walking into their midst. Damak and the military group as well as a smattering of other players rose to arms, but they were not near the tribesman who had just appeared from the surrounding forest. The old man stopped about four meters back from a group of seated players, raised both hands, palms open, and made a combined swiping motion as two mangled, humanoid forms leapt from a tall, nearby tree clawing and rending the group caught without their defenses raised.

  The group of four were dead within seconds. One of the two flesh-colored beasts had long, ear-like protrusions poking from the top of his head, two short legs, and a mesh of pulled-taut skin which stretched wing-like to his deformed hands. His nose was offset forward and his mouth enlarged, like the face of some horrific combination of man and bat. The other’s monstrous form stood on all four limbs—his legs and joints rearranged to somewhat mirror one another. His coccyx had elongated beyond human proportions and his face deranged to give him the threatening maw of a large, predatory cat.