by G. R. Cooper
First, he needed to be able to travel widely. He had no idea what he was going to face or who he was going to have to deal with. The mention of ‘stealth’ appealed to him. The best way, he thought, to deal with the unforeseen problems he imagined that he was going to have to deal with was to avoid them in the first place.
So, ten points to Agility. He wanted that maxed out. That left fifteen points. He was a little put off, in that there was no explanation about the scales involved - but that was pretty much standard in his limited gaming experience. Was ten points ten times better than one point? Was it several orders of magnitude better? Was it a Richter scale where each additional point was ten times more powerful or a simple proportional increase, as in two was twice as much as one, and four was twice as much as two? He really didn’t feel that there was enough information to make what felt like a permanent choice. All he could do was to try to guess what kind of ‘game’ he was going to play and tailor his choices accordingly.
There was no mention of ‘hit points’ or anything like that - just that strength provided a modifier to how much damage he could take. He assumed that meant that any sort of hit points was proportional to his level within the game - that seemed to be one of the classic ways of dealing with it.
He was beginning to feel a little overwhelmed and just decided to go with his first, best, gut instinct. After maxing out Agility, he decided that doing the same for Strength was probably a safe bet as well, leaving him five points for the other three. He just threw the rest into Intelligence - he wanted to take advantage of any experience bonuses he could get. He would let any problems with Personality and Luck take care of themselves.
Once he had taken care of his attributes, he was given a list of choices covering his origin. He scanned down the list. There were several varieties of human, as well as the standard spread of the various fantasy requisites - elf, dwarf, gnome, goblin. In addition, he saw two that were familiar to him from the outer Omegaverse - the Arn and Canis Arcturus.
All but the human choices, however, were grayed out - unavailable - to Wulfgar. He wondered if that was just for him, due to his special knowledge about the makeup of the player base, or whether all newly resurrected humans were limited to beginning their new existence, once again, as a human. Did his special knowledge, that the Arn and Canis Arcturus - at the minimum - were not AI but representatives of their respective alien species, put him in a special place among human players? Clive had said so, and Wulfgar was determined to keep his promise; to keep Clive’s secret. No other players would find out that they were part of a alien study on humans, at least not from him.
Wulfgar hoped, at the least, that keeping that secret would count as favorable within the study. He suddenly felt something like the weight, the responsibility, for the entire human species as a representative to the varied alien cultures of the galaxy. He shrugged it off - all he could do was his best, and hope that his actions painted humanity in a positive light.
Scanning through the long list of options, he found what he thought he was looking for, the Highlanders. Given their origin in the mountains, they had a natural physicality that gave them an added boost, +1 in Agility, as well as the first level of the Climbing skill.
Since he was planning on playing a stealthy, low profile kind of character, he used his first skill choices in a way that he thought would best suit his style. The first of his four skill points he spent on Stealth.
“Congratulations!”, he heard, as though his inner voice was actually addressing him. “You have gained a level in Stealth!”
He thought about it and the information about the skill seemed a part of his mind - something he had seemingly known and, in fact, he felt like there wasn’t a time when he couldn’t remember what Stealth’s skill gave him. Weird. By trying to be stealthy, he lowered his detection radius. Each level he gained would reduce by 1.5%, multiplied by his Agility, his visual and aural radii. Each level he gained would allow him to move stealthily for ten seconds. Once he used the skill, there would be a cool-down period of ten minutes before he would be allowed to use it again. His success depended upon a number of a variables, including his clothing and gear, line of sight between him and anyone he was hiding from, and even atmospheric conditions - it would be easier to use Stealth during a thunderstorm at night than during a clear, blue day at noon.
Knowing that even the most successful sneak-thief was occasionally discovered and needed to have some sort of combat ability, he read through the fighting skills associated with Stealth. One that jumped out, and he immediately selected, was Hidden Stab. If he attacked someone while in Stealth mode, it increased the damage of a small blade, and it factored in the bonus not only on his Hidden Stab and Small Blade levels, but on his Strength and Agility as well. That seemed, to Wulfgar, to suit both his attributes and play style perfectly.
“Congratulations! You have gained a level in Hidden Stab!”
His next choice, he thought, was obvious. Small Blade. He quickly chose it, gaining the first level, so that he would have to-hit and damage bonuses when using a knife or short sword. Given that Hidden Stab used that skill to factor in damage bonuses, it seemed a no-brain decision.
“Congratulations! You have gained a level in Small Blade!”
That left Wulfgar with one skill point left to spend. He saw nothing that told him that he had to spend it immediately. It would do him no good until he did, but he decided that he wanted to have at least one point in reserve. For now.
Wulfgar began walking toward the north, through a beautiful mountain valley. Though more or less level, the glade was near the peak of the mountain chain, a few hundred meters above either the ocean to his right or valley floor to his left. As he walked, Bear by his side, through the fresh, bright morning, he breathed deep of the intoxicating combination of mountain air and ocean breeze. He couldn’t ever remember feeling at once so relaxed and so invigorated. Bear, seeming to match his mood, ran ahead and began to roll through a small patch of gorgeous, blue flowers.
Feeling playful, Wulfgar joined his dog and they began to wrestle. The mountain dog rolled onto his back and snorted, then sneezed.
“Allergic to the flowers?” he asked the puppy lightly.
He reached over to one of the blooms and looked at it closely. It didn’t look like any flower he knew, but, he admitted to himself, he was no botanist. He pulled on the stem just below the spread of the flower, and his fingers slipped, crushing the plant.
“Your Herb Lore level is too low to harvest this plant,” his inner voice said to him.
He thought, and brought to mind what Herb Lore was. The skill added the ability to detect valuable plants. Each level in the skill increased the amount he could harvest from a single plant as well as his detection range.
Wulfgar rolled onto his back and thought out loud.
“I am going to need some skills besides the ones that will let me disappear,” he mused. “I’m sure this wouldn’t have been created as a skill if there weren’t some use for these plants within the world.”
He looked around the little valley spread around him. It was covered with a large number of plants. At this point, he had no idea if this was some sort of herbal treasure trove or just one of many little vales spread throughout the world. He shrugged. He wouldn’t need the valuable plants for an income - when he had cleaned out his earthly bank accounts before entering the Omegaverse permanently, he had purchased almost one hundred million credits in game currency - he was set for life, or whatever this was. Still, plants were usually valuable in games for more than their monetary value.
He shrugged again.
“What the hell,” he said, and spent his last remaining skill point on level 1 Herb Lore.
“Congratulations! You have gained a level in Herb Lore!”
Instantly, the field around him changed, subtly.
The flowers, in an area about five meters in every direction, were, somehow, known to him. He knew that the blue flowers were called Sheph
erd’s Piss. Wulfgar rolled his eyes and thought, “Stupid name.” His knowledge - at least at this point - held no information about how it got that name. He did, however, now know that the flower only grew in high mountain vales and was considered uncommon in this part of the world, rare in others. It was a vital ingredient in a potion called Scampering Goat, a potion that gave the drinker the equivalent of ten levels in climbing ability for one hour.
That could come in handy, Wulfgar thought, as he began pulling up flowers. He began to notice that he was able to successfully gather the required potion ingredients from a flower about a third of the time. Two thirds of the time, however, he only managed to mangle the flower and produce nothing useful. About one in ten times, however, he was able to gather twice a ‘normal’ take from a flower.
After a few minutes, he’d cleaned out the area around himself, then moved off to the next patch of flowers. As he approached them he recognized them as more of the same - Shepherd’s Piss. The process repeated itself as he cleaned out five patches within the little valley. The little leathern bag that hung from his rawhide belt - wrapped around a large blanket that, kilt-like, enveloped his large frame - began to fill.
At the last patch of flowers he noticed a single, rose-like flower that grew forlornly near the middle of the valley. As he looked at it, he could discern nothing about it, so he turned his attention back to the Shepherd’s Piss. As he pulled up one of the last of the blue flowers, his inner voice again spoke.
“Congratulations! You have gained a level in Herb Lore!”
Wulfgar straightened, put the last of the blue flowers into his bag, and his attention was drawn back to the rose. He now saw, he assumed thanks to his higher level in Herb Lore, that it was called Billy Goat’s Rope. A rare flower, chewing it gave the eater an increase of plus one then ten times their Climbing level for twenty-four hours - even if you didn’t have Climbing as a skill, gnawing on this plant would give you level 10 for a day. As new to the world as Wulfgar was, he could still recognize what a powerful find this was. He thought more about the flower and knew that it only grew, like the Shepherd’s Piss, in high glades and was only found around that blue flower, but only seldom found at all. Wulfgar wondered if there was some sort of symbiotic relationship between the two, then bent to pick it.
As he rose, with the successfully harvested plant now in his hand, he looked back to the patch of Shepherd’s Piss. New information on the plant came to the fore of his consciousness, and he knew that the little blue flower bloomed once a month. He looked down to the Billy Goat’s Rope, but had no idea what its life cycle was.
“Maybe at third level Herb Lore,” he muttered as he whistled for Bear.
Wulfgar and Bear left the little valley and made their way up a small hillock that was actually the peak of one of the taller mountains in the chain. As they came out of the protective cover of the glade, the wind, never absent, picked up. Wulfgar’s kilted blanket lifted in the breeze and his bare thighs chilled. He began to step over small, pointed stones - his unshod soles offering little protection. He wondered why he wasn’t even given shoes.
“I know the poor, barefoot mountain folk is pretty stereotypical, but this is ridiculous,” he muttered as he crested the peak and looked down to the valley below.
After filling out his character sheet he had emerged, clad only in his dingy belted blanket, from a small cave in the high mountains. He wasn’t sure what he expected - maybe waking up in a small village inn would have been nice - but leaving the bright, clean room and entering a dank, dark cave wasn’t high on his list of “Great Ways to Enter a New World”. He turned and, unable to see the back of the cave, felt the slime covered wall for any sign of the door he’d just come through. He could find none.
The morning he had spent making his way toward the city whose tallest buildings he could just make out in the distance, well below his vantage high in the mountains, had ended at the valley that was just above the city. As he made his way over the edge of the peak, he finally got a look down the slope at the path he would have to take to get to civilization.
The drop dizzied him. It wasn’t as sheer as El Capitan, but it wasn’t a stroll down his Blue Ridge Mountains either. He tried to focus down the mountain, looking for paths. As he did, he began to notice routes, and that they were somehow highlighted to him.
“That must be the Climbing Skill,” he told Bear as he looked up to steady himself and regain his breath, “showing me the possible ways down.” He gulped, “Unfortunately, buddy, most of the routes are in red, with only a couple in orange.” He assumed that ‘red’ was more difficult than ‘orange’, and the obvious danger of the really difficult looking routes assured him that he was right.
He began to walk toward the least intimidating of the orange routes when he stopped, and, remembering the day, pulled the leafy Billy Goat’s Rope out of his bag. He looked at the plant, knowing its value, not wanting to waste it. Then he looked back to the route down, not wanting to die.
Wulfgar crammed the leaves into his mouth and began chewing. It tasted vaguely minty. Not bad at all. As he watched, the routes down the mountains solidified, changed colors. While some of the red lines remained red, a few changed to orange and one or two to yellow. The easiest one, however, the one he’d been heading for, became a bright, calming, comforting green.
He wondered what his current skill in Climbing was and was answered by an ethereal scroll like parchment appearing in the side of his view. He looked toward it and it leapt into focus in front of him. He quickly scanned down the sheet until he found the skills listing. Underneath, first in the list, was Climbing. In parenthesis after the title, the number twenty was italicized. That tracked with what Wulfgar expected. His level one Climbing, then the plus one gave him level two, then times ten gave him level twenty. For the next day. None of the other skill levels he read were italicized, and he assumed that was meant to indicate the temporary nature of the skill level.
“No time to waste, buddy” he said to Bear and they moved toward the edge.
“Green or not,” said Wulfgar as he edged out over onto the cliff-face, “this is going to be one hell of a climb.” He lowered himself down, to a small ledge that jutted out into space. It left him with just his head poking above the cliff. He looked directly into Bear’s eyes, the dog was now laying on the ridge just in front of him, both paws hanging off into space.
“How they hell are you going to get down?” Wulfgar muttered. “Even with the additional skill level, I doubt I can carry a beast like you.”
Bear responded by dragging his tongue from Wulgar’s chin to his forehead.
Wulfgar rubbed his face onto the part of his blanket that was draped over his right shoulder, trying to dry himself. As he did, Bear liberally spread what felt like at least another pint of dog spit on the side of his head - and it felt like most of it wound up in his left ear.
“Aww, cut it out, buddy,” said Wulfgar as he lowered himself outside of Bear’s tongue range. He tried to shake out his ear while maintaining a grip on the wall face in front of him. He turned and dropped to the ledge he was standing on, sitting with his legs dangling off into space. He mused on how different he felt than before - he was either becoming used to extreme heights or his new racial characteristics were rapidly overcoming his earlier fears.
He looked between his legs and noted that a much larger ledge was just below. He scooted his butt over the edge and dropped his feet down below. This ledge was much wider and ran around to the side of the mountain out of his view. As he looked, Bear bounded around the corner and ran up to him, then dropped onto his back for his usual belly rub.
Wulfgar bent and began a vigorous rub, “Well, that answers the first question. At least I know you’ll be able to get down by yourself.”
He laughed, “I wonder if I could have just ridden you down the side of the mountain.”
As if in response, Bear snorted, then rolled onto his stomach and looked up at Wulfgar, seemingly waiting to
watch his friend attempt the next stretch of his decent.
After several hours, Wulfgar was nearing the bottom of the cliff face. He stood back on the largest ledge yet - they’d been gaining in size as he got lower in altitude and soon he would be able to walk the rest of the way to the valley floor. He looked up, to take in the totality of his climb. Just as his face raised, a shadow crossed over his head as a large eagle flew by.
He was just starting to wonder whether the eagle was a danger to him when he felt a slight, wet slap in between his eyes. Startled, he backed a step and raised his hand to his face.
“What the fuck?” he muttered as he felt his forehead.
He brought his hand away and looked at it.
“Bird shit?”
He was stunned. He looked to Bear.
“That eagle shit on me.”
Bear tilted his head sideways.
Wulfgar turned, incredulous, and began to walk toward the next step in his descent, when his right foot shot out from underneath him and he fell squarely on his ass.
“What the fuck?” he shouted, louder this time.
He felt an ooze between his toes that was matched by a slimy, cold feeling under his right thigh. He rolled off to the right and stood, favoring his left, clean, foot, while holding the kilted portion of his covering off of his ass. He looked down at what he’d slipped in.
“You have got to be kidding me,” he muttered. He’d stepped in, and slipped on, a large, brown, stinking pile of shit from some unknown animal. Whatever it was, he thought, it was much, much larger than an eagle, if its spoor was any indication.