Noob Game Plus

by Ryan Rimmel

  He glanced at the armor and then at me, “It was delicious. Besides, you can just make a repair kit.”

  “I don’t know any plans for those,” I started, but then checked my Smithing skill. I was wrong. I had a plan for making repair kits. I just didn’t have the materials to make one. I was up to Journeyman in Smithing, though, due to my latest repair. I had a perk to choose from, so I started examining my options.

  ● Material Substitution Savant: You can substitute materials of a greater variety when crafting items and gain better results when using them.

  That looked interesting. You could already substitute certain materials when crafting items, depending on the plans. Plans were the blueprints used to make weapons, but they had requirements. Those requirements were often vague, though, like 4 ingots of metal. The plan didn’t necessarily care what kind of metal you used. You just had to be able to work with it. That said, the higher quality of the metal, the better your result would be. Obviously, different kinds of metal would affect the type and strength of the weapon.

  “Yup, if you use that perk, the stats will be about the same. Isn’t that all that matters?” supplied Shart sagely.

  I looked at the armor. I could now repair it with more than just some Scorpider Carapace. The restriction had changed to Magical Beast Hide. That would have been handy, except I didn’t have any Magical Beast Hide on hand.

  Wait.

  “I’ll be right back,” I said, walking to the main hall. I looked up. The Ghoulster was still there, looking down on me with unflinching eyes. I stood directly below it, pulled out my whip, and caught it around the neck before pulling it into the room. The whip didn’t do any Damage, as I expected. The fall certainly did, though.

  The Ghoulster got up snarling. I cast Smite and decapitated it in one stroke. The anti-magic field blocked unhelpful Magic while letting my Magic work normally now that I was attuned to the temple. While blatantly unfair, I hated Ghoulsters, so feck ‘em. Badgelor strolled out, as I set about the unfortunate task of skinning the creature.

  “Do you mind?” I asked.

  “I suppose not,” replied the badger, parking himself below the hole. “Man, I’m so full of eating your friend down here. It would be a shame if someone came in to finish me off. Ack, I think there is dirt in my eyes! Whatever shall I do?”

  “Do the Ghoulsters understand you?” I asked.

  “In proper speech, it's all about your inflection and pronunciation,” presented Badgelor.

  “So, you’re acting?” I asked.

  “Yes,” replied the badger, theatrically.

  “Genius,” I said.

  “Thank you,” he saucily replied.

  Eventually, a second creature stuck his upper body out, and Badgelor, now just as immune to the fear effect as I was to the UnHoly aura, used his Laser Vision on the creature's crotch. A hardy chuckle was emitted by my badger, as the Ghoulster stumbled forward. It fell fifteen feet to the ground, only to be beset upon by a pissed off by Badgelor.

  Six creatures later, I was back in the Smithy finishing up my new and improved Undead Scorpider Armor.

  ● Scorpider Armor, Modified. Defense: 19, Threshold 9, 25% Poison Resistance, 25% Shadow Resistance, Shadow Meld 25% more effective.

  “I’m pretty sure that is evil,” stated Badgelor.

  “I put on a racing stripe. That makes it look awesome, not evil,” I said, slamming the helmet onto my head. Thankfully, at my current Skinning level, the material became leather directly. I didn’t have to deal with a long tanning process. I did have to deal with losing some Poison Resistance. The armor used to be 50% resistant, but the materials I’d used to repair it didn’t grant that buff. Now, I was better able to resist Shadow Damage and enter into a Shadow Meld more deeply.

  Unfortunately, Stealth in heavy armor was a bit of a chore, because it required a constant stream of Stamina to accomplish. It really was a bit of a mixed bag, like finding out your sports car has a turbo mode that lets you get up to 250 miles per hour but only gets one mile per gallon while using it.

  “Well, the stats are ‘about’ the same,” chuckled Shart, “And that’s all that matters.”

  I frowned, glancing back up at the hole. “Any chance we can drag any more of them down here?” I asked.

  Badgelor shook his head. “I’ve been yelling that I broke all my legs in that last fight. They aren’t budging.”

  “We could try insulting them,” I ventured. “Your mother was a hamster, and your father smelt of elderberries.”

  Badgelor wheeled on me in shock. “Jim! Seriously, where did you learn one of the unmentionable insults?”

  “Unmentionable insults?” I asked, looking back at the hole.

  “One of the ancient insults that Charles used to use,” said Badgelor consideringly. “Wait, it's an Earth thing, isn’t it?”

  “Yup, and if you question me, I will say Ni.”

  Badgelor nodded respectfully and shuffled ahead of me.

  As we spoke, another Ghoulster finally got curious and stuck his head out. I quickly latched onto him with my whip. One tug later, and Badgelor had him torn to shreds. We had progressed from hide collecting to just thinning out their numbers. It was not going as well as I’d hoped. All the stupid ones had already been suckered down here, leaving the more intelligent, or at least lazier, ones up top.

  “They don’t seem to like us much,” stated Badgelor as he shredded the Ghoulster to bits.

  When the next one approached, I yanked him down as well. He started to rise, then collapsed back into a pile. I examined him with Lore.

  ● Ghoulster, Level 6 Undead

  ● HP 60/60

  ● Stamina: 60/60

  ● Mana: 30/30

  ● Ghoulsters generate a fear aura that will overwhelm weaker minded individuals. When operating in groups, this aura is amplified.

  Was he only level 6? All the other ones I’d checked above had been level 25. I decapitated it and waited for another to stick his head around. When I spotted it, I checked with Lore first before using my whip. It showed level 25.

  “What gives?” I asked, yanking him down. The creature immediately dropped to level 6.

  “In the room above, there are multiple overlapping magical fields that enhance the strength of the undead monsters. Up there, fighting them would be a significant challenge,” stated Shart. “Down here… not so much.”

  I had forgotten that Ordinal assigned the level of a creature based on its threat to ‘an average’ adventurer. It didn’t look at the creature’s experience points or other values. It was what the thought the threat level was. Down here, they were not much of one.

  “Well, I’m not earning any experience this way,” I said, walking directly under the hole. “Badgelor, you coming?”

  “Into that scary room filled with horrible monsters?” asked Badgelor. “Probably not.”

  Another one walked through the shattered doorway high above us, and I reviewed him with Lore. Each time I saw a given type of creature, the amount of data increased slightly. While most of this information was useless, this time, I noticed something amusing.

  ● Ghoulsters generate a fear aura that will overwhelm weaker minded individuals. When operating in groups, this aura is amplified. This aura can be overcome if the attacker can focus on a happy thought.

  “No, I think you can come with me. It’s going to be fine,” I announced.

  Chapter 35 – Chamber of Secrets

  Badgelor was laughing like a loon. I turned a corner, and he spotted yet more of the Ghoulsters. He dug in his claws, as the purple glow of his Laser Vision began to recharge. Badgelor was acting like a shoulder-mounted laser turret, and he was certainly relishing the job. Some of the Ghoulsters were smart enough to run away, but one of the new batch must have had a death wish. He barreled straight toward us.

  ● Laser Vision: Targeted Effect, Base 33, Total Damage 66. Damage is from a happy emotion. Targeted. Effect: Target’s crotch is obliterated.
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  The Ghoulster stumbled before falling. The creature writhed on the ground for a few moments, a massive smoking hole at its waist, before going still. There had been somewhere between thirty and fifty of them when we’d first come back up. After Badgelor held his impromptu wiener roast for the first dozen, most of the rest had begun the brilliant job of fleeing.

  That’s how I found the exit. Tucked into the corner of the room was a shaft going up. You might ask, “Why not have Badgelor dig a tunnel to the surface?” If we did that, we’d just be popping up into rooms like this, as we went up against each floor to the surface. It was an option, but it was not an ideal one.

  That also assumed we didn’t dig into a vat of acid or lava or something. I’d played Minecraft, and the fluid physics on Ordinal were much less forgiving.

  Like everything else, the Ghoulsters had a weakness. Their oppressive aura all but crushed your will to fight. However, if you got into the correct emotional state, it did not affect you at all. You had to be happy when attacking them, which their aura of fear made challenging.

  However, they had vastly underestimated Badgelor’s love of blasting things in the crotch with his Laser Vision. Few things in life brought him greater joy than what he was doing right now. Each shot left him temporarily blind, though. In this environment, that was not ideal. Instead of running around on his own, he had elected to ride on my back. I kept us moving, though I was not at all confident that Badgelor wouldn’t get careless and catch my ear in his rampant firing.

  It turned out the anti-magic area only extended to the temple's edge, and we were now outside of that. In the UnHoly field, the traditional rules of Undead death were not applicable. Just carving them up with my sword was not cutting it. Without the tiny amount of background Holy energy to tell them to stay dead, they kept getting back up.

  What I’d figured out, like many D&D players of yore, is that I needed a blunt weapon to crush their bones into paste. That action would cause them to stop moving. My sword carved off chunks and fractured bones, but I really needed those Ghoulsters innards converted to paste for them to stop for good. I could have tried headbutting them, but they were undead. Their faces opened up into something resembling what I believe Satan’s vagina looks like.

  One of the Ghoulsters lunged at me. I activated my only effective sword combo against these beasts and hoped for the best.

  ● Powerful Quick Hack and Slash: You attack 8 times, Damage to target 6 x 8

  The actual strike didn’t kill them. Each slash did make a Ghoulster’s day measurably worse, though. With my final slash, I used the Powerful Blow’s impact to send them slamming into the ceiling. The fall from there to the decrepit market’s tile floor was enough to finish the job. I hadn't killed a single one, but each one I’d attacked had so many broken bones that they had not gotten back up and if that didn’t work the falling hunks of the ceiling usually kept them pinned in place.

  I exhaled, checked my cooldown, and started moving again. The attack took thirty seconds to recover, and I still wouldn’t have all my Stamina back before it did, if I continued using Powerful Blow and Quick Strikes with it. Quick Strikes only added 9 Stamina to the cost, but I had to pay 6 points per Powerful Blow. That meant the strike took a total of 60 Stamina to make, including the base 3 for the unenhanced attack.

  I was still at 390 Stamina, so I had a few more attacks in me. However, there were a significant number of targets. Fortunately, one of the other Ghoulsters ran down a different hallway as another landed in a heap. Shart perked up.

  “To the left, keep going. That way,” he said. Shart could see what I saw, and his version of pointing stuff out involved lots of yelling. “There is a powerful magical font that way.” We’d drained the temple of power, but it had been even less potent than the Temple of Logan. I’d left the relic there, for the moment. It would give me a place to retreat to if necessary.

  “I don’t think we can go that way. It’s too confined. Badgelor might get overwhelmed by their auras,” I said. Happy Badgelor fried crotches; scared Badgelor ripped chunks out of my back.

  “Hardly, boy-o, I just earned a Talent Point. I’m spending it now,” stated the badger. “Partner Perks! Now I have access to one of your perks, and I chose Mental Fortress.”

  I flipped open my menu and found that I also had access to one of Badgelor’s perks. Better still, I found that I could change perks, as long as I gave it at least twenty-four hours between choices. Sadly, Ultimate Form was not a perk, but a talent. Badgelor only had a few perks. Most of his abilities came from the Beast Lord talent tree.

  I activated his Badger’s Toughness perk, which granted me a small Defense boost. It was probably not the best choice, but standing in the middle of a room surrounded by hostile monsters wasn’t the best place to be making clear choices. Something was better than nothing, and I could always change it later.

  I turned and ran down the fleeing Ghoulster. Another creature immediately launched itself toward me, but, despite the short range, Badgelor shot it in the crotch.

  “That’s downright manageable, more thrilling than terrifying,” stated Badgelor. “You are full of surprises.”

  “Ha,” I replied, tearing another Ghoulster a new butthole. We continued down the short hallway that ended in a room full of eggs. “Well, this is like Aliens.”

  “Aliens can’t live on Ordinal, Dum Dum,” stated Shart.

  “It’s a movie,” I responded, rolling my eyes.

  “I’ve never heard of it. It can’t be very good,” replied Shart, as he scanned the room.

  “The first couple were, but the rest sucked. The cross-overs really jumped the shark,” I said.

  Badgelor turned to look at me. “Jumped...the shark?”

  “Yep,” I confirmed. “Total money grabs.”

  “Shart?” Badgelor called.

  “Huh?” responded the demon.

  “Do...do sharks live on land on earth?” the badger asked.

  “No, I don’t think so,” Shart answered.

  “And humans can’t walk on water?” Badgelor inquired.

  “Oh, wait! I know this one!” Shart responded excitedly. “One of Earth’s religions believes that there was a man that could walk on water.”

  “But not all men? It was just the one?” Badgelor asked.

  “Correct,” Shart confirmed.

  “Did he jump sharks while he was walking on water?” the badger asked.

  “I don’t know. I don’t think it is mentioned in their religious book. I don’t remember it, at least.”

  “That seems like the kind of thing you would remember,” Badgelor nodded sagely. “But then what is this ‘jumping the shark’ nonsense?”

  “For Grebthar’s sake, it’s just a phrase,” I yelled, finally having enough. There was literally no way I was going to explain the phrase's actual origin. It was not the time or the place for a discussion about Happy Days.

  Poor Chuck.

  “Well, it’s a dumb phrase,” Badgelor said.

  “Hm, I agree. I hate agreeing with Badgelor,” Shart added.

  I continued my examination of the eggs. Badgelor sniffed around, declaring, “Well, if we break open these eggs, it’s gonna be game over, man!”

  Rolling my eyes, I pointed to a sizable, multi-step pyramid in the middle of the room. A giant bird, the likes of which I had never seen, perched at the pyramid’s apex. The creature was all black feathers and sharp beak, but strangely human hands kept materializing from it to gently stroke the eggs. The hands would dissipate, only to materialize again moments later.

  “Font’s under the pyramid,” I said, using Heightened Senses to survey the room. Several nearby eggs cracked open, and full-sized Ghoulsters stepped out.

  “Of course,” growled Badgelor. “The thing you want is never someplace handy.”

  ● Necrovictii, Boss

  ● HP 1200/1200

  “My Lore isn’t picking up much detail on that,” I indicated the bird, as I slunk off into t
he shadows. “Do you have any ideas, Shart?”

  “Give me a second,” replied the demon. “It's a Unique-boss type creature.”

  “Does the rarity of bosses matter?” I wondered.

  “It can, depending on the boss,” said Badgelor knowledgeably.

  “Uniques are usually pretty tough, regardless of level,” stated Shart. “However, I’m having trouble parsing this. I have the boss listed, but it doesn’t seem to match up to what I was expecting.”

  “What about the big, scary, dead bird weren’t you expecting?” I asked, confused.

  “Well, the bird is not quite dead,” replied Shart.

  “Not quite dead,” I said consideringly. “Then, explain why her children are all undead.”

  “So, the font that she is sitting on top of is pulsing with UnHoly energy,” said Shart. “All living creatures need Holy energy, as well as Life energy, to survive. Holy energy tells your body important information, like how to grow up healthy and when to pass on.”

  “So Holy energy tells you when to die?” I asked.

  “Holy energy tells living creatures how to behave. Without it, bodies don’t know how to die properly,” replied Shart. “Case in point, that bird creature should be dead. Without Holy energy, it never got the command and continued sustaining itself on only Life energy.”

  “But the eggs can’t develop properly without Holy energy,” I realized.

  “Correct. She lays the eggs normally, but, without the commands to grow up and develop, they turn into big containers of rot. Eventually, their bodies go necrotic and turn into Ghoulsters,” stated Shart. “This is a fascinating case. I’m surprised I didn’t see it in an earlier log and end this little error.”

  “Think it’s another glitch?” I asked.

  Shart considered for a moment. “Probably. There shouldn’t be a font able to suppress all the Holy energy in an area. I bet whoever found the glitch placed it in that pyramid or built the pyramid over whatever is causing the problem. I wish I were there. That sort of error just shouldn’t exist!”