by Dante Doom
“Well, we’re four and we need to be five,” Van replied, glancing at his character sheet. There wasn’t too much more experience needed to level up, but they had already camped in the region, meaning that they couldn’t get more experience for that unless they were in a new area or had been in a fight. Since the Harshlands Swamp weren’t a particularly populated region, this meant they’d have to either find a quest in a tavern or look for a random event.
“According to O’Hara, there’s a Swamp Giant nearby, and he carries enough experience to level us up,” Sang said as she pointed off the trail.
“We’re gonna get lost. Part of this game involves navigation, so if we get off the trail, we might end up in here for actual game days. Let’s not risk it,” Van said, feeling a little agitated that Sang was getting a guide pumped right into her ears by the CIA agents. Outside game guides were a little unethical, and Draco had worked very hard to ensure that most of the information in those guides was made up mostly of lies. A game built around exploration and interaction was meant to convey a sense of wonder, so by using an online guide, you were basically defeating the entire point of the game.
“I don’t care, Van. A Giant should be easy to kill, so we go,” Sang said as she abruptly turned to walk off into the deeper waters. Van felt his agitation increase, but he had no choice—he had to follow, so he gritted his teeth and splashed deeper into the swamp waters behind her.
They walked in silence for quite some time, until they came across a little hut in a clearing. It was beautifully crafted and ornately designed, but far too small for a giant to inhabit. There was smoke rising out of the chimney of the hut.
“This is the Giant’s dwelling,” Sang said as she equipped her bow.
Van glanced at the building and then back at her. “You’re kidding, right?”
“That’s what the guide said,” she replied.
“Those guides are nothing more than crappy attempts to make money by making stuff up. Draco uses all sorts of tactics to take the real guides down, and lets the fake guides stay online so people learn not to trust them.”
“Well, then, how do you explain this hut?” Sang asked.
“I don’t know, but it’s not a Giant’s hut due to the fact that a Giant clearly couldn’t fit inside of it!” Van replied. How was she this dense?
“Intelligence indicates—”
“Use your intelligence! How could a Giant fit inside of this stupid hut?”
As they bickered, Van noticed that his screen was blinking red, meaning that an enemy was nearby. “Ah, crap!” he shouted as he pulled out his darts. A tall, spindly woman emerged from the hut, dressed in silver and purple robes. Her face was completely gone, as if someone had erased all of the facial features from her head. ????? appeared over her head.
“What is she?” Sang asked as she aimed her bow at the woman.
“Oh, man, I think that’s a Soul Fiend!” Van said. “I’ve only heard rumors about them from other players—they’re these extremely powerful sorceress characters who are hard to find.”
“They must be worth a lot of experience then,” Sang replied as she loosed an arrow at the creature. The word missed flew over the Soul Fiend’s head as it opened up its hand and released a torrent of silvery energy at Sang.
“Look out!” Van shouted as the silver burst crashed right into Sang. She immediately began to hover in the air.
5 damage! 5 damage! 5 damage! appeared rapidly over Sang’s head.
“It’s crushing me! I can feel it crushing my body!” Sang shouted, struggling in vain to get free of the ethereal force. “Kill it, Van! Kill it!”
“Uhhhhh, you can’t kill these things! You’ve got to, uh, do something… crap, what was it?” Van stammered as he shuffled off to the right. The creature only seemed interested in targeting Sang right now, giving him a moment to think.
“You coward, get back here!” Sang shouted. Her health bar was rapidly dwindling downward as the spell continued to crush her bones. Van could hear the sickening sound of the crunching of her body.
“Ahhh, come on, think!” Van muttered to himself. “Of course!” He stooped down and grabbed some mud, and quickly ran up to the door of the hut. He smeared up the shape of a heart with the mud. The fiend immediately stopped attacking and turned to face him. He shivered as he looked at her featureless face.
Sang crashed to the ground and stood up—her health bar was incredibly low, but she was alive. “What happened?” she demanded.
“Be careful! We’re, uh, doing the gift offering thing. These creatures are immensely powerful and aren’t meant to be fought; we have to curry favor by offering them a gift. I remember someone telling me about this a while back... you’ve got to signal good intent because they don’t speak any language. That’s why I put the heart on her door.”
“Okay, so then what?”
“We need to present her, or it, with something. Something valuable. Or else it’ll kill us both horribly. And then we’re even further from our goal due to the loss of experience and items.”
“What does it want?”
“I dunno, something shiny or valuable. Like a locket or an amulet.”
“We don’t have anything like that, do we?”
“Well, go find it!” Van shouted
“Why me?”
“Because if I move, it’ll kill me,” Van replied. “Go find something—quick!”
Sang looked at him and shrugged. “I don’t know what’s in this swamp.”
“Well, we’ve got two choices; you can either go search for an item or we can both die.”
“Can’t we run?” Sang asked.
“You’re at 20 health, so it’ll kill you instantly,” Van said. “Look, I’ll be fine while you search, unless I try to attack or leave this area; it won’t do anything more until you put something in its hands, okay?”
“Alright, fine, I’ll go looking for something. Just don’t die,” Sang insisted as she hurried off.
“I’ll do my best not to,” Van replied, gritting his teeth. This was a terrible plan, but there wasn’t much else he could do, was there?
Sang scrambled through the waters, rushing on heedlessly. She couldn’t believe that this had been some kind of a trap. And now, she was heavily injured and had no ability to navigate—there was no question that her Map skill just wasn’t nearly high enough for her to be able to navigate through this swamp. The worst part was that, if Van was killed, it would slow her down significantly because he’d need her help to level back up again, bringing the mission to a crawling point. Searching for some solution, she was pissed at him, though she couldn’t have said why. She wanted to blame him for this, really, but he had been the voice of reason.
Having been focused only on trudging through the water, she finally stopped to catch her breath. Her stamina bar was low, and her Health certainly had no chance of increasing without a campsite or a town. She rested against the side of a tree and panted for a few minutes, waiting for her stamina bar to come back up. As she tried to think of where she could go to find a trinket, though, she realized that the tree she was leaning against wasn’t a tree at all... because it had begun to move.
“Ah!” she cried as she leapt back. She glanced upwards to see a massive, green Giant standing in front of her. The words Swamp Giant Level 27 appeared over his head. He had a huge axe at his side and was busy breaking off the branches of another tree to eat them. It took a moment, but as she watched, the Giant slowly glanced down at her... and smiled.
“Well hello, traveler!” the Giant said as he shifted to face her. He was incredibly large, and she could read his stats from where she stood.
Strength: 35
Health: 560
Damage: 300
She gulped as the giant continued, “I am Bramford, a Swamp Giant, and this entire swamp is my home! What is it that you wish?”
A dialogue menu appeared in front of her, meaning she had the option to select anything she wanted to say to him. She wasn
’t sure what to pick.
Hello, Giant, I am travelling through this swamp and am lost
Greetings, friend! What are you doing?
Die, Fiend!
Sang shrugged and selected the second option. The giant immediately smiled widely. “Why, I’m looking for delicious cuisine, of course! Trees and stones make for good eating, but you know what I love more than anything?” Another dialogue box appeared.
Human meat?
Animal meat?
Trees?
Sang, still completely unsure of what to do, selected the ‘animal meat.’
“That’s right!” boomed the Giant as it slapped its knee in excitement. “I love to eat animals, but the problem is that they are hard to catch because I’m big and slow, while they’re small and fast! The only thing I can catch are humans, but I don’t like to eat them unless they try to fight me!”
Sang glanced at her inventory. She had plenty of meat from the deer that she was routinely hunting. She glanced at the Giant and caught a glinting from the side of his ear. It was a diamond studded earring… probably very valuable. Maybe she could trade for it?
“Do you want to trade?” she asked, ignoring the dialogue menus. The Giant looked at her blankly. “Trade! Do you want to trade?” she asked as she pulled out a burlap sack of cooked deer meat that she had stored for safekeeping.
Upon seeing the bag, the giant nodded at her. “Oh, I see you have some food! Maybe I could have it? I’ll trade it for ten pieces of gold per pound!”
Yes
No
Sang looked at those dialogue options. It didn’t really help her if she got some gold, because that wasn’t going to be enough to satisfy that raging Fiend she’d left Van with. She needed those earrings, but the Giant was so high in his level that he would smash her to pieces if she tried to kill him. She checked her character sheet quickly to see if there was something that could help her.
She grinned upon seeing the Climb skill. Maybe she didn’t have to kill the Giant—maybe she just needed to trick it somehow.
“Yes!” she said as she lifted the meat up toward the giant. It laughed gratefully and leaned down to grab a hold of the bag. She took the opportunity to scurry up the side of the Giant’s leg, grabbing onto its long, mossy tunic.
“Hey! Get off of me!” the Giant boomed as it swatted at her.
Sang scrambled upwards, trying her best to avoid getting hit. Her Climbing skills were enough to help her move faster, but she knew it was only a matter of time before she was going to get the crap kicked out of her by this thing.
“Rawrrg!” it screamed out as it swiped at her again. She leapt upwards onto its shoulder and grabbed its ear.
“Sorry!” she shouted as she pulled at the earring and tried to yank it out. It didn’t put up too much of a fight, as she had the sufficient strength needed to pry it out from his ear.
The Giant shouted in agony as she tore the earring loose and then leapt off of him just in time to dodge his axe.
She rolled as she hit the ground, splashing in the water. Her Health had dropped down to 2, but she was still alive. She hadn’t known falling would deal that much damage to her.
“Get back here, you thief!” the Giant screamed as it chased after her, the creature’s massive feet causing the swamp water to crash about everywhere as it stomped.
Sang had hurriedly gotten up and scrambled back the way she’d come; she had used her Ranger skill to mark where her ally was waiting. She just had to get the diamond earing to him, and then they’d be able to deal with escaping the Giant later. At least the Giant didn’t have any kind of magical powers. At least, she hoped it didn’t.
The creature chased after her for quite some time, but she was finally able to reach the small clearing and the hut where Van was still waiting.
“Did you get something?” Van asked.
“Sort of!” she said as she hurriedly ran up to the Fiend. It hadn’t moved an inch from where it had been when she’d left. That alone was extremely creepy, and she tried to ignore the fact that it didn’t have a face. Instead, she threw the large earring into the hands of the creature. The Fiend nodded in response, and then melted into the ground, leaving them alone. Several thousand experience points rushed to the screen.
“Nice work!” Van said. “I thought we were done for!”
“Yeah, about that…” Sang started, knowing there was no time for her to even check her level.
“I bet that hut has all sorts of treasure—” Van’s words were interrupted by a loud screaming as the trees behind them smashed to bits and the Giant strolled out.
“Give it back! Rarrrrg!” the giant screamed.
“Why is there a Giant? And why is its ear bleeding?” Van asked.
“Long story short, I stole that earring and we’re going to die if we don’t escape!” Sang replied as she scrambled in the opposite direction of the Giant.
“Are you kidding me? Why? Why do you hate me?” Van demanded as they ran away from the massive creature stomping along behind them.
“Is there any way to stop it?”
“Kill it!” Van yelled, glancing back at the thing. “It’s way too high-level for us to even hope to kill it, though! One hit, and we’re both gonna die.”
“I’m well aware of that,” Sang screamed back as they ran.
“It’s chasing you, right?” Van asked.
“Yes!” she cried back as she narrowly dodged a massive tree trunk that had been hurled at her by the Giant. The tree crashed into the water right in front of her, blocking her off from where she’d been heading.
“Then use your Stealth skill! Hide from it and it won’t bother me!”
“Oh, right…” Sang glanced at her character sheet as she ran and saw her Stealth skill. Why hadn’t she thought of that before? She activated her stealth mode and felt a strange sensation overcome her as her skin became translucent. An outline around her indicated what her level of camouflage was: she was at 50%.
“Find better cover! Like in a bush or something!” Van instructed as he stood off to the side. The Giant stomped right past him and over to where Sang was. She crept over to the bushes and saw her camouflage rating increase to 80%.
“Where are you?” the Giant shouted. He scanned the area for a few moments and shook his head. He turned around then and began to walk back in the direction from where he’d come. She could see his silhouette turn from red to gray again, meaning that he was neutral.
“Did… did he just completely forget about me?” Sang asked.
“Yeah, it’s called Aggro. When you lose a monster’s Aggro, it usually goes back into neutral.”
“Will it remember me?”
“Depends on the AI, but a Swamp Giant usually won’t,” Van explained. “I think we’re in the clear. Nice work!”
“Thank you... Well, we’ve leveled up, haven’t we?”
“I’d wager to say we got plenty of experience from both encounters; let’s take a look and then get to Hearthborne,” Van said.
Sang paused a moment and fixed up her character, improving it greatly.
Looking over the sheet, Sang smiled at her character choices. Even though she didn’t particularly like gaming, she was getting better at understanding the world and the logic behind all of it. She had successfully improvised enough to snag the diamond from the Giant, and had accomplished some set goals on her own. She eyed Van, who was sitting on the ground mumbling to himself about improving his skills. Maybe if she were lucky, she’d be able to learn enough about this game to where she wouldn’t need him for very much longer.
It made sense that eventually she’d be able to part ways with him, right? If teamwork was so important, then perhaps they’ve to bring another agent in, if anything—someone she could better depend on. Van wasn’t an agent, and nor was he disciplined enough to be a good accomplice. Rather, he was too unreliable to be a good teammate in the long run, she told herself. Eventually, they were going to run into some kind of real trouble an
d his own selfish ambitions would get the better part of him. She didn’t particularly dislike the man, but there was a frustration in the fact that the only thing motivating him was his motivation for gain. The CIA had some dirt on him, and that was the sole reason he was with her. She wasn’t an idiot... she had pressed enough to gain information on the arrangement, and realized that if Van’s loyalty was coming from a sense of being threatened, then it meant that he would eventually end up being a liability. She knew that you could only force a man to comply for so long before he would snap. This was no different.
“Done?” Van asked as he stood up and stretched out.
“Yes, I am,” she replied.
“Great! Let’s go get to the town as quickly as possible,” Van said with a friendly smile. She scowled a little at him, but didn’t say anything. She knew it was only a matter of time before his true colors emerged, and then what?
Chapter Nine
Sang quietly followed Van through the town of Hearthborne. The scenery had changed significantly since they’d been in the bright village by the ocean. Now they were at the base of a massive mountain range and it wasn’t particularly pretty outside. The sky was blood red, and the town seemed to be hushed, even muted. NPCs scuttled from house to house, and there were very few people outside at any given time. There was the perpetual smell of charcoal and ash that had made Sang gag initially, though, and with each breath it seemed to just get worse. The smell of smoke was simply ever-present.
“Here’s the place!” Van said as they walked up to the tavern. “Here’s where we can find a party for our first dungeon.”
“I said we were doing this all alone,” Sang protested.
Van spun around and faced her, shaking his head. “The problem is that we can’t get the right questline without the proper amount of people. See, in order to unlock the Mountains of Mortal Peril, we must get an NPC. There’s one quest coming up that can help us get a companion NPC guide, The Thorne in the Sheriff’s Side, but we need people to do that.”