by Domino Finn
I stormed from the media room to find Kyle wandering the halls. He had a knowing smile on his face. "Already?"
I rolled my eyes. I was all for taking my mind off things but Jenna had creeped me out. "Can't we just go adventuring like a normal MMO?"
0130 Wild Hunt
Kyle and I marched toward the exit to Stronghold. I gawked at the daunting wall as we got closer. Built from stones larger than a car, wider at the base than the top, it rose almost a hundred feet in the air.
"Why would walls need to be this tall?" I said to myself.
Kyle shrugged. "It's a video game. No one needed to actually build it."
He was probably right. Besides, I assumed the size helped ease the rendering load of the simulation. Residents in the busy city didn't need to visualize a vast draw distance. The wall kept city business contained in the city.
Battlement towers stood slightly taller, at regular intervals. City watchmen were lazily posted at a central double gate made of triple layers of wood, currently swung open. One of the guards eyed us dubiously as we approached.
"Inexperienced adventurers, eh?" The man had a half-helmet made of straw with a leather strap wrapped under his chin. Besides a vest of chain mail, he was lightly armored. "What's yer business leaving Stronghold?"
"To become experienced adventurers," I said pointedly. That just made the guard eye me harder.
"You folks full citizens?"
"Sure are," said Kyle. "Born and raised."
I chuckled. "You gonna make us walk through a metal detector next? What gives?"
The guard squinted sharply. "A metal what?"
I waved it off. "Sorry. Bad TSA joke."
"The TSA!" His eyes lit up and his hand moved to the hilt of his sword. "We don't take kindly to the Throne of Salt and Ash. You two wouldn't be spies, would you?"
"If we were, would we—"
Kyle cut me off. "No, no. Not spies. Concerned citizens." Kyle constructed some elaborate explanation to excuse the gaffe, but I'd stopped listening. It blew my mind that this watchman didn't know what the Transportation Security Administration was. Kyle did. I did. All the players in Haven did, of course. But there was a whole world of people here, NPCs, whose only basis for knowledge was the simulation. It enforced role-playing, or led to misunderstandings like the one Kyle was scrambling to explain.
I let him speak and turned my attention to the gate towers looming high overhead. The sun glinted brightly off the banded plate armor of a captain. He stared down at us, red long shield in hand. Already we'd attracted the attention of the higher-ups. The city watch appeared to have order well in hand.
I wisely kept silent as Kyle schmoozed us past the guard with a promise to buy pints later. That seemed to be his go-to move to make friends, or at least commiserate with others who had none. The watchman nodded us past with a grunt and we were more than happy to move on.
"They like to put on a show," explained Kyle. "Everybody's first time, the city watch wants you to know who's boss. They're tough and they're watching. I bet they let you walk in and out unmolested from now on."
I liked how that sounded. I liked what I saw before me even better.
The city of Stronghold was large, but it was dense and cluttered. Views tended to be obstructed by walls and columns and death arenas. Outside the city gates, the land opened up to a wide span of light-brown fields and gently toiled earth. The horizon was limitless. A perfect day greeted us: Sun. Warmth. A breeze rolling over the wild grass. It was peaceful.
Now this was Heaven.
"Gah!" screamed Phil, bouncing across my field of vision in his loin cloth and pink socks. "Gaaah!"
Three players chased him. One shot arrows at his feet. A wizard filled the air with bursting missiles of light. Now that we were outside, I noticed health bars over everyone's heads. In seconds, they all ran out of view.
I reined in my wonder and studied the full bar under Kyle's name tag. There were no numbers—just a proportionate level of health. "How safe are we out here, exactly?"
"We don't need to worry about other players," he said knowingly. "They're just griefing each other. Players can't fight on tended land, and PvP doesn't start until level 3 anyway."
"What's tended land?"
"Just the area around big towns. This flattened grassland. It'll be obvious when we leave it, but it's even more obvious on the map."
Map. I smiled at the thought and went into my menu. Sure enough, I had a new map tab. An overview of the surrounding land popped up with the heading: the Midlands.
We'd exited Stronghold from the west gate. A single road stretched to the left, passing the bubble of safe tended land before hitting a forest.
Kyle fell in beside me and pointed to my map hovering in the air. "We follow the road west," he said. "It cuts through the forest—all the way to the other side in relative safety—but most players break off and head into the trees to find mobs."
I nodded. The strategy was simple and direct, if a bit dull. "Let's do it."
We took a straight shot to our destination. A few players returning to town passed us but we ignored them.
"First thing," said Kyle, "is we should form a party." He swiped into his menu and a dialog prompt appeared before me.
Kyle would like you to join his party.
I accepted. The only thing that outwardly changed was the color of the name text above his head from green to blue.
"It's the best way to level," he explained. "Parties divide experience, but experience gets divided anyway. Like if you and I killed a mob, just the two of us, we'd get the same XP whether we were in a party or not."
"So how's it the best way to level?"
"The benefit is a single member can pull the entire party into a new experience pool. So if you kill a mob alone, we all get XP. In a max party of five, that's four other people pulling you in. Grouping shares the load, includes the support classes, and keeps everyone in sync."
Kyle: Plus, there's this.
I recoiled from the text that splayed across the bottom of my view. Embarrassed, I joined in.
Talon: Oh, I get it. Party chat.
Kyle: Right on. No matter where we are in all of Haven, you can speak to party members in chat. It's huge because we don't even get email outside of town.
I glanced at the inbox icon on my profile bar and noticed it was indeed grayed out.
Talon: And no one else can see this, right?
Kyle: Nope. Just party members.
Talon: Sw33t.
Kyle strayed off the dirt road and I followed. He equipped his sword and I once again took his lead. The woodman's spear popped into my hand and felt comfortable there. Every guy in existence ever immediately feels tougher with a weapon in hand. Traipsing through the Forum, experiencing the movies in the Pleasure Gardens—those things were cool but holding that spear pumped me with adrenaline. I suddenly wanted to get down and dirty with Haven combat.
As we crossed into the tree line, I narrowed my eyes and stalked silently, imagining I was a lethal assassin. Kyle trampled the plants and whistled the tune of Super Mario Brothers. "There!" he said.
A [Dirt Beetle] skittered into view. It was twenty feet away and I could barely see the insect itself, but its name text glowed yellow, giving away its location. I took a stride toward it but Kyle grabbed my shoulder.
"Green is friendly. Yellow is an easy mob. Orange means you're in for a tough fight. And if you see a red, stay away."
I nodded. As I went to attack the beetle again, two level 1 soldiers sprinted up and stabbed it with swords. They congratulated each other on the "total owning" and moved on.
My frustration was evident.
"Don't worry," said Kyle, only mildly annoyed. "It happens all the time."
"It's always this crowded?"
"Kinda. But sticking to the edge of the forest is safe. It pretty much guarantees we won't get killed."
I huffed, keeping my words of complaint to myself. Kyle didn't have the reputation of
a good player but he'd taken the time to show me around. I signaled with my hand for him to lead the way.
The forest was sparse. The ground was flat and easy to travel, with plenty of space between the trees. This clearly wasn't tended land, but with the number of players out here, it might as well have been. Safe was right.
We wandered another five minutes. I was just beginning to wonder what kind of MMO didn't populate its world with mobs when a giant rat squeaked and bit down on my spear.
[Pack Rat]
8 Health
I twirled around and yanked my weapon. The rat, hunched over with yellowed eyes, wasn't large overall—maybe two feet in length—but it was damn large for a rodent, and it had teeth for days. Instead of ripping my weapon free, my hand slipped off the handle. The [Pack Rat] bolted in the opposite direction.
"My spear!"
"Talon, wait."
I broke into a run.
The scavenger skittered through dried leaves, my spear scraping a line in the dirt. We tailed it to a small warren in a circle of trees. Thick roots twisted over a large hole in the ground. The pack rat was stuck trying to pull my weapon into the narrow hole. If you've ever seen a dog try to go through a pet door with a stick in its mouth, you get the idea.
"Don't get too close!" yelled Kyle.
I didn't listen. I met that rat at the mouth of the hole before I could think. I gripped the spear and gave it a good tug, planting the sole of my sandal into the beastie's face.
You dealt 2 damage to [Pack Rat]
It yelped and released the spear. Then it disappeared inside the burrow.
I sighed and made my way back to the edge of the warren. Kyle kneeled beside an overturned log, chuckling. I cracked a smile and sat next to him.
"Let's keep that little adventure to ourselves."
"I've seen worse," he said. "At least you got it back."
I shook my head. I'd be an infamous explorer in no time.
My roommate pulled a glass orb from his bag. It was crystalline and rounded but sturdy enough to take a tumble without cracking. Inside the hollow ball was a mass of thick black gel.
"What is that?" I asked.
"Pretty cool, right? It's this new thing I'm trying with the artisan class. Glasswork."
"Heh, I never realized what class you were."
"Seriously? You need to get in the habit of examining players more."
I did. Beneath [Kyle] and the health bar I read [Level 1 Artisan]. Unlike Lash, who sported a class kit, Kyle and I were still branded with core disciplines from the class cruciform. My explorer to his artisan. Opposition classes, I realized. That didn't mean we were at war or anything, it just meant our classes didn't have much in common. For strategic reasons, mixing up play styles was great—as long as we could work together.
"I've tried all the classes at this point," he said. "Mystics are complicated. Soldiers are boring." He nodded my way. "I tried explorer a bunch but didn't take to the always-on-my-toes thing. I wasn't fast enough and died a lot." He looked downward. "I'm not especially good at games unless they're shooters."
"Or beer pong."
"Yeah."
"They let you reroll classes like that?"
"Sure," he said. "When you die you lose all progression from your current level. Your latest skill points get unassigned. So you usually just repick the same skills, but you can change them around and experiment. Between that and the wipes, I've tried a bunch of loadouts. Artisan's new. I figured as an artisan I can build up my strength and use cool toys. I guess we'll see what happens."
"I guess we will." I stared at the glass orb. "So, glasswork, huh? What's inside that thing?"
"It's a corrosive. My first branch of the alchemy skill."
A chittering sound interrupted us and we instinctively ducked. More squeaks followed and we peeked from behind the log. Two pack rats were sniffing around the outside of their hole.
" 'Nade out!" barked Kyle with military gruffness. He flung the black-gel orb through the air and it shattered right between the rats. Black goop plastered their fur.
Blinded!
[Kyle] dealt 4 damage to [Pack Rat]
DoT: 5 dmg/5 secs
[Kyle] dealt 4 damage to [Pack Rat]
DoT: 5 dmg/5 secs
The rats screeched and ran in circles. The grenade hadn't caused a ton of damage, but the damage-over-time was driving the little critters crazy.
Kyle laughed. "I call it the Call of Duty: Medieval Warfare. Get it?"
I didn't want to reward him for the bad joke but I had to admit, the grenade was pretty clever. Both pack rats succumbed to their injuries.
40 XP awarded
"Cool," I said. I opened my character sheet to check my level progress.
Talon
Level
1
Class
Explorer
XP
190
Kit
NA
Next
1000
My excitement dimmed. Only 40 experience points per rat. We killed two but split the total across the party. At that rate we'd need to kill forty more rats to level. I closed the menu and approached the corpses optimistically. Checking their bodies brought up small inventory slots.
Loot:
3 silver
Okay, my excitement dimmed a little more. I wasn't even sure how to split 3 coins two ways. There was an option to share the money across the party and I accepted. It gave Kyle 1 silver and left me with 2.
"It's not much," he said, "but we'd need to tackle humanoids to find better loot. They'll have more health, obviously."
"But these things are pack rats," I countered. "They steal things, right? They gotta have more than silver. Hell, they almost had my spear."
I dug around at their hole with the tip of my weapon, aware more baddies might be lurking down there. I traced the tunnel to the other side of a tree root and a notification popped up.
Loot Stash Found!
"Holy..." trailed off Kyle. His face went dumb as he contemplated the stashes he'd left behind in the past.
I shrugged. "Tricks of the trade." I checked the contents of the stash.
Loot:
23 silver
[Raw Emerald]
[Mixer's Smock]
This time when I split the coin, Kyle got the odd extra. It was cool the game balanced that kind of thing out for fairness. As for the actual loot, we needed to work that out on our own.
"An emerald has to be good," I said.
"Gems have various magical and alchemical uses but it's probably better to sell at this point. Nice find."
"And the mixer's smock?"
"I could use that," he said excitedly. I handed it over. "This gives me bonuses to mixing time. Thanks."
I nodded. "Let's move on."
We continued through the forest, emboldened by our minor success. The trees grew closer together, partially blotting out the sun. I held my hand up for Kyle to stop. To our side, something was trampling through the brush.
"Ready," I said, pointing my spear out. Kyle nodded and produced another corrosive grenade. We waited as the snapping branches grew louder.
Suddenly, a giant pig with spiky bristles crashed through the bushes right next to Kyle. He fell backward and dropped his orb. It bounced into the brush without breaking.
The beast brandished his tusks.
[Wild Hog]
19 Health
I swooped in with my spear, scraping the pig's side. It glanced across thick hide.
You dealt 5 damage to [Wild Hog]
The pig snorted and turned on me. It was quicker than I'd anticipated, but I had a trick up my sleeve. I'd been waiting to use my crossblock skill since Stronghold. The boar came at me and I triggered my block. Its head rammed against the solid shaft of my weapon and bounced away. The animal snorted in anger as I repositioned.
I knew to do real damage, I needed a strong thrust. I braced the weapon against my body and held the point to the hog's fa
ce. We squared off, pacing sideways.
I lunged, driving the tip of the spear forward. Its head jerked. Iron clanged against tusk. My spear was batted off target, a glancing blow that did minor damage. I tuned out the notification because, with my weapon canted off center, the wild hog now had a clear shot at me.
It lowered its head and charged. A split second of panic transformed into pure instinct. Like a trained matador, I waited as the animal bore down on me, only rolling away at the last instant. Except, instead of doing it with style and flair and a red cape, I tumbled face first into the dirt with a thud.
Kyle scrambled for his grenade but the pig circled back around to him, never slowing down. Kyle drew his sword and fended it off, both sticking each other but neither dishing serious damage.
I grunted and hefted my spear. With the hog's back to me, I barreled forward and drove the iron deep into its side. It squealed and collapsed. An added whack with Kyle's sword put it down for good.
45 XP awarded
Loot:
[Ham Hock] x2
[Hog Tusk] x2
Kyle and I breathed heavily for a minute. I wasn't sure if my brain thought it needed oxygen or if the game had some kind of stamina feature or if it was just neural adrenaline.
"You hurt?" I asked.
"Nah, I'm fine." He stood and dusted himself off. "That was pretty cool, you know. Wild hogs are pretty vicious for their size."
"But their loot sucks."
He shrugged and recovered his dropped grenade. "Dude, we're getting closer and closer to making level 2."