by Dante Doom
They continued walking in silence as Van considered their next action. Suddenly, however, there was a rustling of bushes in the distance and Sang slid to a stop, putting her hand up to halt Van, as well. She crouched down and went translucent. Van tried to do the same, but without the Stealth skill, he couldn’t do much other than crouch low near some bushes.
“What do you mean they were just killed? It was a Manticore—not a big deal!” said a female voice. There were more than a few people’s voices chatting as the footsteps continued to get closer.
“I don’t know... we just got a message from Kraggoth, who said he was just killed and he’s mad. Said he’s gonna log for the night. The others aren’t responding either,” replied a stern voice.
“Well, if we lost Kraggoth, we might as well kiss this mission goodbye!” said a higher pitched voice. It sounded like a twelve year old.
“No, none of that kind of talk, team. We’re going to complete this mission, no matter how many people we lose. Besides, Kraggoth always comes back after he rage-quits,” the leader of the group said.
The rustling was growing worse, and Van felt his heart rate increasing when he realized there were legs right next to him. He had lain down in the shrubs and been perfectly still, but if anyone saw him, they’d probably just kill him.
“Alright, whatever. I just can’t believe a stupid Manticore killed them,” said the female again.
“Yeah, well... Let’s just find the Manticore, kill it, and then keep looking for the Bladed Noose Tree; that damn root’s gotta be somewhere,” the leader said as the pair of legs that were standing next to Van began to walk away. There was a great deal of commotion for some time before the party finally seemed to vanish from earshot.
“Are you kidding me?” Van asked as he stood up. “They were with another party! Another party looking for the same root we’re looking for! And you murdered their buddies! Murdered them! Without cause!”
Sang shrugged. “I bet we can take them, too, if we have to.”
“This isn’t Murder Spree Simulator, Sang! This is a game about cooperation and teamwork! You just blew our big chance to make friends with these people. They had the same agenda we did!”
“Yeah, but they would have taken the only root! Then what?” Sang replied.
“Joint quests don’t work like that; everyone gets their own reward,” Van replied. Sang shrugged off the comment and just continued to walk.
“Look, maybe it was a poor judgement call, but at the same time, we have some better items and a leg up on the competition. Maybe we should stage an ambush and take them out.”
“Take them out? First off, there aren’t two of us in this fight. My character is weak, dumb, and practically useless in a fight! I can’t fight worth a hill of beans, so it would be you versus three. Secondly, there is no way in hell I’m agreeing to killing more innocent players.”
“Innocent? They’re going to want angry, violent revenge on us for killing members of their team. So, if we take them out now, we won’t have to deal with them later,” Sang replied.
“I understand the ruthlessness of your logic, I do, but at the same time, I don’t think we have a legitimate chance of doing it. I don’t think you can kill three people on your own. We don’t know who they are or what their stats are, and they wouldn’t be low on Health when we met them. They’d be fully prepared to fight, and we’d get torn up.”
Sang nodded after another moment’s consideration. “I can understand your concerns, I guess. Well, if we meet them, use your flute to enchant them and I’ll pick off one of them. Then we retreat into the woods and figure it out from there.”
“We’re not picking anyone off!” Van said as he walked through the jungle. He was growing nervous and worried about the sheer amount of problems Sang was causing. After their jumping those players, it was only a matter of time before their buddies found out. Then it would be a case of search–and-destroy, and Van knew they didn’t have a chance against a group of experienced players who were no doubt loaded to the brim with powerful artifacts, magical weapons, and other nasty things that would kill them relatively easily. He had to figure out some way to rein Sang in; if she didn’t recognize that it was dangerous to mess with other players out in the wild zones, they’d probably end up in a lot more trouble than they were already in. After all, if players were feeling particularly vengeful, they could even hire a bounty hunter—someone paid to follow and kill targets in any area without punishment. Bounty hunters weren’t cheap, but were often a great way to get rid of people who you didn’t like or who had screwed another player over. They were usually pretty high level and would have very little trouble with killing Sang and himself. This only added to the pressure that Van was feeling in the moment.
As they walked on together in the stillness of the jungle, a loud shout came from the bushes. It was a decidedly human-sounding voice.
“Help! Help!” the person called. It was feminine, but Van could tell there was something off about it.
“What’s that all about?” Sang asked, pointing toward a cluster of bushes that was next to a banana tree. The voice seemed to be coming from inside of the bushes themselves.
“Dunno,” Van said as he glanced at the rustling leaves.
“Help! Help!” the bushes seemed to cry out again.
Sang crossed her arms. “I’m not use to plants talking... is this some kind of side quest, or a trap or what?”
Van shrugged. He had never been particularly a jungle dweller, preferring instead to explore the dark recesses of the mountains and cavern areas. Jungles were full of weirdness, and it seemed that whenever the developers made a new jungle area, there was always a higher number of traps and surprises waiting for unsuspecting players. He preferred the mountains, where most of the quests and side jobs were based around survival and fighting against the elements.
“Well,” Van said, “let’s just ignore it.”
“I think I heard some people talking over there,” called a voice from the distance. It was the feminine voice that Van had heard earlier from the group.
“This way!” said the voice of the leader of the group of three.
“Crap—hide!” Sang insisted as she turned translucent and leapt into the bushes. Van had no time to hide, though, and nor did he have the skills, so he was left completely out in the open as three players ran into to the small clearing he was standing within.
“Help! Help!” said the bush.
“Who are you?” asked the woman. Her name was Savorn and she was a Level 10 ranger. Her bow was instantly trained on Van. Next to Savorn were Pullmin the Knight and Ace the Mage, both Level 11s. Van could see that all three were immediately suspicious of him.
“Ummm, hi!” Van said, expecting his next moments to be full of intense agony as arrows and magic crashed into his face.
“Who are you and what are you doing here? Don’t you know this area is controlled and patrolled by the Junglefoot Guild?” asked Pullmin. His sword was drawn and Van could see that the weapon itself would deal around 100 damage per hit, and also caused a character’s move speed to decrease by 25%, meaning that he had very little chance of running away at this point.
“Sorry, no, I didn’t know any kind of guild was in charge of this place!” Van replied, putting emphasis on the world ‘guild’ to try and communicate to Sang that she had just successfully made enemies with not only a party of fellow players, but also an entire community of them.
“Well, we don’t allow people to traverse our jungle without paying dues or tribute. If you want membership, there’s a formal process for that, as well,” Pullmin said as he strolled up to Van.
“Have you seen any Manticores around here?” asked the wizard.
Van shook his head frantically. “No, not at all.”
“Curious... so why do you have Manticore meat in your inventory then?” asked the ranger.
“Oh, well, we saw one a while back, but nothing in this area,” Van said; he was beginning to
sweat a little, which was curious... it meant that the game had detected that he was nervous enough for it to actually impact his character.
“Interesting,” Pullmin said as he slowly walked in a circle around Van. “Are you alone?”
“Oh yeah, just out here, doing my lonely bard thing,” he replied.
“But you just said ‘we’ a minute ago,” Savorn said. She looked exceptionally suspicious of Van now.
“Oh right, right. That was my friend, but she logged out,” Van said. He was wondering if it would be easier just to be stabbed at this point instead of having to deal with this kind of interrogation.
“What class was she?” asked the wizard as he leaned against his staff. They didn’t seem to be on high alert, but that was probably because they knew they easily outnumbered Van.
“Oh, she’s a barbarian,” Van said. “Big spiked club.”
“Not a ranger?” Pullmin asked.
“What? Nah, sorry. I don’t want to be rude, but a ranger is completely nerfed. Waste of a class, in my opinion,” Van replied. He figured that, maybe, if he were to piss off the other ranger about something like this, it would spark a longwinded gaming debate that would make them forget about the whole suspicious-figure-wandering-alone-after-the-murder-of-their-buddies thing.
“Well, everyone has their own opinions,” Savorn said, her bow never changing its focus from aiming right at Van’s face.
“Right, right,” Van wheezed. He glanced past them and saw that Sang had climbed up one of the trees and had her bow ready. This was going to be a horrible fight unless he were to solve this problem somehow. “You know, I’m so sorry that I’m trespassing here, but I’ve been poisoned and need a root in this area; that’s why I’m here.”
“Poisoned? By the chest?” Pullmin asked.
“Yeah! The chest in the middle of the road...”
“Why… why would you open a chest in the middle of a road?” asked Savorn.
“Um, because treasure, duh!” Van said.
This elicited laughter from the entire group. “You can’t be serious,” Pullmin said as he slowly backed away from Van. He looked more at ease than before. “You’re meaning to tell me that you saw a treasure chest in the middle of the road, and decided to open it up in the hopes of getting treasure? An unguarded chest?”
“Well, I thought it was gonna have a lot of free stuff in it. Like treasure. And maybe some cool magic items,” Van said. Perhaps if he acted like a moron, they’d be less apt to brutally stab him a bunch of times.
“Wow, you are a real card, you know that?” Savorn asked. “We rarely ever get people who were poisoned by the chest. Normally, they’ve been poisoned by the Manticore King from the east.”
“Our guild collects this special root. It only grows here, making it the perfect item for us to sell. That Manticore King quest is repeatable, and it pretty much poisons everyone who fights it,” said Pullmin. “So, one day our founder, Kraggoth, said it would be a great idea to just stick around this area and consistently harvest the root, selling it for a high price. Anyone who tries to steal the root gets killed.”
“Oh, I wasn’t trying to steal anything... I’ve just got a quest to find it, that’s all!” Van protested.
“Yeah, that quest is a rare one, but it requires that you have to pluck the actual root itself from the tree where it grows. So, we can’t sell you one anyway. But we’re going to have to charge you for entering our area,” Pullmin replied.
“How much?” Van asked.
“2,000 gold pieces,” came the reply. Van’s eyes bugged out of his head. They barely had any gold due to the fact that they were bouncing around all over the place, and any money that they did have was needed for buying better weapons and healing potions.
“Oh, man, I don’t have that kind of money,” Van replied.
“Sorry, but those are the breaks. Either pay up or get out,” Savorn said.
“Well, how about some kind of exchange? I’m a professional bard! I can boost your stats for an entire 24 hours with a song!”
“We have a bard back at our base camp, so there’ll be no trades, no discounts—either pay up or get out,” Savorn said, growling a little this time.
Van shook his head. “I’m sorry, but I don’t have the money, and I really don’t want to die due to this poison; can’t you guys be cool and just help me out this once?” Van asked. “I’m just a down on his luck bard who doesn’t have the skills to pay the bills!”
That description elicited a chuckled from Pullmin. Enough that he glanced at the other two, who shrugged. “Well... alright, fine. We’re going to be cool just this once, and whenever you meet people who are looking for good herbs for good prices, you point them to the Junglefoot Guild, okay?”
Van grinned with excitement; he couldn’t believe he was pulling it off! Maybe he was a lot cleverer than he thought.
“We’ll escort you to the root,” Savorn said as she put her bow away. “It’s the only way to guarantee that you won’t steal more roots than you need.”
“Oh,” Van said, “uh, of course!”
“It’s this way,” Pullmin said as he sheathed his sword and began to walk toward the main road.
“Help, help!” screamed the bush.
“He, that bush lures people every time,” Savorn chuckled.
“Yeah, it sure is realistic,” Van said, glancing over to the hidden Sang. As long as they didn’t notice her following, it should be fine. At least he hoped.
Chapter Sixteen
They travelled for quite some time, moving at a decent pace until they reached a massive, solitary tree in the middle of the mangroves. The water had been deep, up to Van’s waist so that it slowed him down as they trudged through the increasingly swampier land, and he was tired when they reached their apparent destination. The tree was impressively, and Van could see dozens of vines dangling from it. Each vine looked like a noose of some kind. A few dead bodies were hanging from the tree’s vines. They were far too high up to have hug themselves, however.
“Be careful! The tree isn’t particularly friendly to interlopers. If you get too close to it, the vines will try to strangle you.”
“Oh, that sounds… lovely,” Van said as he looked up at the tree. He could see razor-thin blades on the insides of the vine nooses. It looked as if the tree strangled and slashed the throats of those who got too close. It made for a nasty sight, and he didn’t want to experience the highly accurate haptic biofeedback simulators which were sure to assist him in feeling every iota of pain as if it were really happening to him. Perhaps, of all the ways to die in this game, this looked to be the worst. He certainly didn’t want to deal with the ramifications of getting wrapped up in one of these vines.
“Alright, the root’s located under the water, so just dive under and find it at the base of the tree. Don’t come up or you’ll die. And only grab one,” Pullmin said.
“Right, of course!” Van agreed as he trudged through the water and took a deep breath. Then he dove. The water was cold, but he didn’t mind it too much as he swam down to find the root. The mangrove marsh wasn’t too deep, either, but it was deep enough for him to get his entire body under the water. He could barely see, but luckily there were the words STRANGE ROOT hovering not too far from him. He swam up to the root and began the harvesting process. The loading bar moved a little slowly; he didn’t have any ranks in herbology, but luckily anyone could harvest the item since it was quest-specific.
Once the root appeared in his Inventory, he surfaced, taking a deep breath and feeling the rush of oxygen to his body. It was crazy how realistic the haptic pods were; it had felt as if he’d really been without air for a few minutes. Then Van glanced up and saw Kraggoth standing with his back to Van, and talking to the party that had been escorting him to the tree.
“And so, this archer just picks me off! It was crazy!” Kraggoth said.
“Yeah, we found your bodies looted, and there were arrow wounds in both of you,” Savorn replied.
/>
“Yeah, I swear as soon as we find those two, we’re gonna kill them,” Kraggoth said, brandishing a massive axe.
“Good. Hey, did you find the root okay?” Savorn asked Van when she noticed he’d surfaced. Kraggoth turned around and his eyes went wide as soon as he saw Van.
“There he is! The bastard who was working with that ranger! They lured me into some kind of trap! I thought say saved me, but they killed us both!” Kraggoth shouted, hatred in his eyes. He raised his axe high and charged at Van.
“Oh, come on!” Van shouted as he desperately splashed around, trying to avoid the violent attack. The water was impeding Kraggoth’s charge, slowing him down enough for Van to scramble back away from the psychotic barbarian.
A LITTLE HELP! Van sent to Sang via private message. There was no reply. She hadn’t abandoned him, had she? That would suck... especially when it was her fault that he was in this mess.
“I’m gonna kill you!” Kraggoth shouted. “Back off!” he snapped as an arrow barely missed Van. He turned to face his companions and stopped them from advancing. “No one mess with him but me! He’s weak enough to chop into pieces!”
“Hey, hey, hey, listen, I know you’re mad at me!” Van said as he narrowly avoided an axe to the head. “But trust me, that crazy ranger was holding me hostage! I’m a slave to her! You know there are slaves in this game!”
“Quit your yapping—slave or no, I don’t care! You mess with the Kraggoth, you get the rage!” he shouted as he continued slashing.
Van grabbed his flute and began to play it in the middle of the fight. It was the only thing he could do to avoid getting chopped in half. The word STUN! appeared around Kraggoth’s head. The stun wouldn’t last very long against an actual player, but it would give Van enough time to escape. He turned and sloshed his way toward the landmass at the base of the tree. In his panic, though, he completely forgot that the tree was actually a monster in disguise. The Noose Tree immediately turned red and its vines began to whip around, slapping and splashing at the water as Van narrowly avoided the attacks.