by Galen Wolf
She didn't take it, but she said, "Elfhair, a Priestess."
Healers are always good to know. "Elfhair," I said. "Good name. I mean you're an elf and you've got hair."
She twisted her mouth. "It's what I thought of at character creation."
"You can pay to change it."
Her scowl deepened. "Nah, I'm good. You were on your way?" She nodded at the rod. "Just I've got fishing to do, you know."
"What level are you?" I blurted. It's considered bad form to ask a lady her level. There was a guild once called: She Told Me She Was Level 19.
"Twenty."
"Major." Maybe I couldn't have killed her so easily.
"Indeed. Took a lot of work to get to 20."
"I feel humbled."
"So you should." She finally smiled. "I'm a friend of the Rangers Guild. I used to be a ranger way back, with Ajora."
I shook my head. "Sorry, I don't know her. I'm not inguilded."
"You should be. They're a helpful bunch."
"I'm a bit of a loner."
She grimaced. "Loners die round here. You need powerful friends. Especially when you're such a helpful, skill-less, little one."
"Thank you for that."
She beamed. "You're welcome. It's true though."
I liked her. I shrugged. "I haven't run into any of them yet so I don't know them, or how to find them."
"They know you. They watch all members of the ranger profession, in guild or out." She gestured around her. "This is their forest."
"Okay thanks."
She nodded at the forest. "You should be careful here. It's PVP. You could get killed."
I raised an eyebrow.
She lifted her hand. "Not by me. I'm sworn only to heal."
I shrugged. "I'll be going then."
"Sure."
"I've got things to do."
"Of course." She picked up her rod and cast the line out into the fast flowing river.
I gave a wave. She waved without looking.
"Maybe see you again?" I called back.
"Maybe. Who knows?"
Ah well, I wasn't in the game for love though I always seemed to fall for chicks who hated me. I maybe need to see an analyst. In fact you could go and see a Druid to talk about your personal problems. I'd never done it but plenty did.
I needed to go west from here to get to the Silver Stream, then I'd have to head a wee bit south. I switched stealth on again and snuck my way through the forest which here was all small hills, rivulets running between mossy rocks and slender beech trees, the leaves of which were the freshest green I'd ever seen. The scent of the forest was invigorating.
I was heading to pick up the Easter Egg when a black clad figure moved across the dell in front of me. I was on a small hill. He hadn't seen me. I dropped into a crouch. It was a forest bandit NPC. They would be on their way to waylay travelers through the Old Forest. Two more stalked along behind the first.
It looked like they were programmed to walk around this area of the woods. I switched on my stealth and went forward, hoping I could get past them and to the Silver Stream. I got close and a big red eye icon appeared on my HUD. They were suspicious I was there.
I stopped dead and dropped down. I heard the bandits crunching through the ferns. The eye icon was bigger and flashing. They were searching for me now.
I believed the bandits were Level 5 but I had the advantage because they didn't know I was there.
When I fired, I would break my stealth. With my pitiful starter bow, I wasn't going to one-shot them, but I doubted I could sneak past them, and I needed to get past to reach the Silver Stream.
I knocked the arrow to the bow-string, sighted and let fly. I guessed the bandit would have about 65hp. My arrow would do approximately 15, depending on the roll. It was going to take a while to kill him with arrows alone. He jerked back as the shaft thudded into his chest. Then he looked round snarling. My second arrow hit him in the throat and helpfully critted (5% chance).
He fell in a heap. Fucking A.
The two others saw me now my stealth was broken. I took a few seconds to draw out arrows from the quiver. glanced up. They were only feet away, big ugly bastards with black cloaks, black hoods, black pants, black belts, black boots and black swords. I wondered about their underwear, but that nearly cost me my life. I jumped back, turned and sprinted. I thought about kiting them. The danger was if I ran backwards through the forest I would certainly fall on my ass then it would be goodnight Vienna. Or at least goodnight Vinab.
As I ran, I put an arrow on the string, turned and loosed it, catching a bandit in the knee. An arrow to the knee can stop anyone's adventuring career to be sure, but it was nothing to this angry faced man, who was in need of a shave, better dentistry and something for those bags under his eyes: I hear hemorrhoid cream works wonders.
Thank the gods I invested in high DEX. I dodged and rolled out of their way. I shot him again, and again, and he fell.
His pal looked at him horrified and stopped to say something. I had never considered that AIs had feelings, but it seemed they did. Amazing, but I had no time to get into philosophical discussions about the nature of machine consciousness and whether the bandits would pass the Turing Test. I put another arrow on my bow as I ran, turned and shot the grieving friend. I was hitting because of my high DEX. Good choice with the stat allocation there Barcud boy.
I stood, one hand gripping my trusty crappy bow, the other on my hips like I was straight outta Men in Tights that classic movie from 1993. Then I shot again.
The poor bandit put his hand to his throat, gurgled and fell in a heap to the ground.
I checked my XP. I'd got a few more millimeters on my journey to Level 4. I ransacked their corpses. It's not a pretty job, but necessary. I got some bones, string, a rusty pocket knife a toffee bar (don't know what that was doing there, but it was covered in dustballs) and 7gp from the lot of them.
Branches broke with deafening cracks as something wicked this way came.
He was an eight foot Orc - huge, big club studded with nails, tattoos, facial piercings, boiled leather armor, tusks. Really, tusks. He saw me and roared, "I am Anago Gruzzlefist, Bandit Captain. You killed my father. Prepare to die!"
I glanced at the corpses of the stricken bandits and wondered which one was his father. This was a bandit under-boss. He stared straight at me with his bloodshot eyes, big as pickled eggs. I wondered whether he had a thyroid problem, but this was no time for a clinical interview. I hit Blend, and I blent. He looked round, puzzled. He wasn't the brightest button on the waistcoat that's for sure. "Where you go, you scrawny pig ranger?"
Like I was going to answer. In full stealth, I tiptoed away. In the wrong direction from the Silver Stream and the Easter Egg. Big boy stood between me and my treasure.
My bow was going to take some time against him. I had my new dagger, Biter, but I didn't want to get close to him or his club. My plan to run away like a little girl was going well until the Blend effect wore off and I was relying on my regular Sneak skill. The Blend bonus to hide was now gone. I might not beat his spot skill. I heard his roar. Guess I didn't.
I went to hit Blend again, but it was on cool-down. I ran like a forest hare, if there are forest hares, but he was fast. Faster than me. I heard his pounding feet; I smelled his rank breath; I imagined the feel of his fist as he grabbed a bunch of my smock and then hit me with his club. I was so fixed on my impending death that I almost ran into a tree.
A tree! I could climb those now. I jumped at the tree trunk and went like a rat up a drainpipe, straddling it and pulling myself up to the first branch. He snatched at my foot and grabbed my boot. I kicked it off, and it came away in his hand.
"Not fair!" he yelled.
In this world of murderers and thieves, what is fair, I thought. But I had no breath to spare to engage in witty banter, until I was on a fat bough a long way above his head. I sat with my legs dangling from either side. I got my bow, fitted an arrow and let fly.
>
"Oww!" he said, clutching his head. He would have a lot of hp, but the AI was programmed to path to me and when it couldn't path, it would just stand there, impotently raging. I fitted another arrow and shot it.
"Oww!" he yelled again. I groaned. This would take some time, and all that time, the Easter Egg was lying in a pool inviting people to find it.
Another arrow.
"Not fair." His stereotypical replies were the most annoying thing. I sat there and chipped away at him with my pathetic arrows and pathetic bow. Luckily he had no re-gen or else I would have to get used to living in that tree.
After what seemed about an hour, he collapsed to the ground and died. His body vanished in a fading of black motes and in its place a small chest appeared. The chest opened with a musical chord and golden light spilled out. I dropped down and rummaged through its contents. Some athillias, 25gp, a potion of invisibility, level 5, so five minutes duration, and best of all a +1 Longbow of Flame. I pulled it out and examined its beauty. Flames licked around the bow, without burning it of course. My HUD told me it was 1-8(+1) damage, plus my DEX bonus to hit and hurt, plus 1-6 fire damage. Much much better than the thing I had. As you can't trade starter equipment, I threw my old bow away.
I felt really badass with my new bow and didn't even switch stealth on as I walked down a path between tall ferns. After around 15 minutes going through this part of the forest, my little trail joined the Old Forest Road. I looked both ways, but there was no one coming, and darted over. I was close to where I got jumped and that meant I was to where the egg was. I stumbled and slipped through the pine needles and moss towards the sound of the Silver Stream. After a few minutes I located the weedy pool the egg had dropped into.
I reached my arm down into the cold water until my finger tips touched the cold metal. I put both hands in and pulled out the egg from the slimy fronds. I took a few seconds to see the button on the narrow end of the egg. I popped it. There was the sound of an angelic chorus and the egg came open.
I looked inside the open egg. Inside in yellow letters was a riddle. It said:
The Height of K
Lasts for One Day
Make it Right
To get a sight.
Speak Friend And All Will be Revealed.
Not a clue. I shrugged. At least I had the egg. Time to get back to town.
There was also bountilicious XP from opening the egg. Another lovely Level!
.
#
Level 4.
1 new Stat Point, which I allocated to DEX, making my DEX now 21.
65hp, Mana 10.
Saves: Dodge 10, Toughness 7, Willpower -1
Poisons:
Riddlewort, causes asthma and effectively stops them smoking and thus stops them curing afflictions by smoking herbs.
Lallo: Causes 50-100 hp damage.
Amal: Reduces Dodge save of an enemy by 10.
Herbs:
Borage, underwater breathing ability, one minute per level.
Hale Fruit, restores 50-100hp.
Stealth:
Trueblend, I could now use the Blend skill in fully lit areas.
Trackless, I could now eradicate my tracks so I couldn't be followed using the Track skill.
Ranger Skills:
Rapid Shot, doubled my rate of fire with a bow.
Swing, allowed me to use the vines of the trees to swing through the woods.
Survival:
Sea swimming. Why you need a separate skill for this, I don't know.
Spitting. Despite its name, spitting is a very useful skill for delivering herbs and poisons. You basically chew them up, no matter how they are normally absorbed (e.g. smoke, drink, eat, apply) and you deliver them to a friend or enemy.
Dodge save is against traps, and certain dodgeable spells, like lightning bolt. You can dodge spitting if you succeed on a Dodge roll. Toughness is against disease, some poisons, and general physical resistance) and Willpower saves against spells and enchantments.
I had my Bow of Flame giving 1-8 piercing damage plus 1-6 fire damage + DEX bonus to hit and ranger class specific bonus to damage, so with DEX 21 that means + 5, giving me a total damage range of 7-19 hp when I hit and because my DEX was high, I was going to hit. My dagger, Biter, was +1, but I was on -1 damage from my low STR score, even with the 1-3 acid damage.
I was going to prefer my bow. Rapid Fire gave me the ability to significantly increasing my damage. And remember, I could add poisons to each shot.
At Level 10, my Ranger class skill would allow me to put two poisons at once on my dagger per stab with a skill called Double venom, and at level 15 that increased to 3 and at 20 to 4. So, I could distribute crippling inflictions with one stab at level 20. I almost drooled in anticipation.
Still my ability with poisons wasn't shabby now. I could rub Blacktip for instant death, unless they succeeded in a fortitude save or ate Athillias, the antidote. I could rub Coech for blindness or Kura for paralysis. Given, I had no money; I had to find and pick these poisons.
Otherwise I had no good items - nothing to give stat bonuses or armor bonuses. I decided to go hunting in the Old Forest. If I was going to face my nemesis, I needed Levels, but I also needed gear.
#
I was now a big tough Level 4. I strode down the leafy lanes of Vinab and then swaggered down the Forest Road and through the scrubby woodland. There was a place in the Old Forest, near the river where a big NPC bandit leader lurked. Not the one I'd killed; someone worse than him living in a Triangular House. I wasn't quite tough enough to meet him yet, but I skulked about, potting bandit grunts who were out doing his errands. It was a slow climb in terms of XP, but I scrabbled for their copper coins and shoved their shitty daggers in my inventory to sell to vendors back in Vinab. My travels led me by the muddy banks of the Great River. This was a good fishing spot, but few players used to auto-fish here because it was a PVP area and bad guys would jump you and steal your stuff while you were AFK.
I said that few players would auto-fish there because of that, except Elfhair, who had become my secret crush. She seemed either not to know about the danger or not to care. Maybe she was really bad-ass and thieves avoided her? That made her even more attractive in a funny sort of way and I wondered whether I was a sub. I'd just read about that. I frowned. I didn't want to be a sub. The thought worried me, but my worries cleared away every time I saw her standing there in her gleaming silver armor, casting out fishing flies and pulling in trout. Her basket overflowed with the wriggling silver critters. I used to approach stealthed up, but then I thought it was pervy, so I switched the stealth off and sometimes even stood next to her, ready to shoot the breeze if she looked my way. But she rarely did, she was on automatic mostly and when she wasn't she would just go, "Oh, it's you."
I don't know why I liked her so much, but I've always been a sucker for a red-haired elf maiden in a tight cuirass. Who isn't?
One morning, I was doing my Old Forest circuit, running the group of low level quests I did as part of my daily grind. I had got into my Greenwood routine and was enjoying myself, climbing the levels, building my skills and enjoying being in the beautiful fantasy surroundings. The urgency that drove me to roll Barcud had faded a little. I didn't think of revenge on my shadowy robber every minute of every day, just around once an hour. As I walked along the forest path, scaring bunnies, the sun filtering through the lime green leaves, I thought how splendid everything was. I strolled on through the forest until I was close to where Elfhair generally fished and was looking forward to seeing her. She might even say more than three words to me today.
I parted the ferns and there she was. I stopped in my tracks. She wasn't alone.
A shadowy figure stood by her, stealthed up, a mix of blurs and shadows on the river edge, silhouetted against the rippling brown water of the Great River. I could tell by Elfhair's stance that she was on her guard. Then he lurched forward and stabbed her. My heart went to pieces. I pushed forward through the bushes. I s
aw Elfhair get off a light spell, and this illuminated him like Faerie Fire, sticking to him and revealing his form. I was certain this was the guy who robbed me. I ran at him, forgetting to draw my bow or that I only had my little Biter to combat this guy who was almost certainly Level 20.
The Faerie Fire burned off and he drew shadows around him and vanished.
I was almost up to Elfhair and I saw her eyes widen in horror. "Get out of here! He'll kill you."
I shook my head and spun round trying to see where he was.
His crackling electric dagger pierced my gut and stole my life.
I fell in a crumpled heap and felt the strange whooshing sensation of my ghost being extracted from my body. Vision in the ghost state is not good - everything goes dark and smudged - but I could still see Elfhair attempting to fight back against the shadowy figure and losing. I stood by, watching in my helplessness as a ghost, as he trussed her paralyzed form in his ropes and ordered her to give him her possessions.
"Elfhair, I'm sorry." I sounded pathetic even to myself.
But she was poisoned and could not speak. I saw her shrug her shoulders as if to say, thanks for trying. There was nothing more I could do, so I resurrected back to my binding site at the Temple of Time in Vinab. Then I logged off. A loser once more.
#
I didn't play The Greenwood for two days. I didn't delete Barcud, but I didn't play either. My mom even asked what was wrong with me, but I muttered and went to my room.
I could not believe a game existed that allowed people to demonstrate such bare sadism. This shadowy figure must get real perverted pleasure out of doing what he'd done to me and then to Elfhair. Trouble was, he was good at it too.
I lay in bed, tossing and turning in a seething mix of hate, anger and despair. If I went back into the Greenwood, all he'd do would kill me, and kill those I cared about, because I did care about Elfhair, stupid as it seemed. I couldn't protect her yet, however much I wanted to. How could she like me now? I'd been totally unable to help her in her hour of need. She would think I was pathetic.