Shevla was often serious business. People had been killed for cheating or simply because they couldn’t handle a loss, especially to a player whose deck was draconid faction. If the need arose, he would start building a deck again, but he did not intend to be around for that long.
“Just myth and wild imagination, then,” Frost concluded. “Not something any of you actually believe.”
Nebsamu snorted. “All nonsense. Only the staunchest among them stick to this idea when death comes calling. I give Nif her respect and praise as any god-fearing erada should, but not for a moment do I think she will come to save me.” He absently brushed his stump of a horn before returning his hand to his reins. A wolf howled. “Night comes. And a storm’s brewing.”
Frost took in the sky. The sole clouds looked as if they were afire. “How can you tell?”
“I feel it in the air.” Nebsamu shrugged. “A storm’s always coming. Just like death.”
“You brood too much.”
“So I’ve been told. But does that make what I said less true?”
Frost shrugged. “Guess not. I just prefer good thoughts.”
“Everyone likes good thoughts and a good life. Happiness. Prosperity.” Nebsamu shook his head. “No one wants to struggle, to suffer, to live with adversity.”
“Of course not,” Frost said, grimacing.
Nebsamu continued, “But you can’t have spring flowers without rain, and where there’s rain, there’s bound to be clouds, and where there are clouds, there’s the likelihood of a storm.”
“I guess.” Frost still didn’t see these storm clouds, but he wasn’t about to argue. It might lead to another speech. It was clear to him that Nebsamu liked to hear himself talk.
The scavenger pointed ahead of them. “There’s an old mine up in the hills where we can make camp and hide a fire. Saba should be there already. She will take first watch. Melori, you have second. Tell Gilda she will be third. Keep your eyes open for plague wolves.” He peered at Frost. “You won’t be on watch duty tonight. Not with all you’ve been through. Take this time to rest.” With a kick of his bolsters, Nebsamu surged forward.
Frost followed Melori to Gilda and Tia. Melori relayed Nebsamu’s orders. They trailed after Nebsamu, who turned off into a narrow pass, where cliffs rose to either side of them, the way ahead falling into gloom even as the sun’s fiery glow lit the upper slopes and peaks.
A wolf howled again. Several others picked up the dirge. The crevids snorted in displeasure.
Eventually, they came upon an old overgrown path, which they followed up to an excavated area and the black mouths of several mineshafts. A campfire lit one of those mouths. Saba Nerubi stood near the flames whose capering hues highlighted the chestnut hair covering her equine half and the lighter bronze of her humanoid upper body. Her hair was cropped short and the color of dark honey. The centaur was turning game of some sort on a spit. Frost’s stomach grumbled.
Melori took their mounts off to graze and fed his lupine while Nebsamu, Gilda, Frost, and Tia got their waterskins and sat down near the fire. Nebsamu provided bread from his supplies.
Saba gave them some dented tin plates. She sheared off meat from the animal’s haunches, the juices dribbling into the fire and giving off the most righteous scent of roasting. Frost licked his lips. The dresdor served Nebsamu and Tia first then walked over to Frost, her hooves clip-clopping on the hard ground.
“Cervin.” Smiling, Saba handed the plate to Frost. “Cousin to the crevid. They have no horns, but are untamable. Some of the tastiest meat you will ever have.”
“Thank you.” Frost blew on the meat, then picked it up and tore off a chunk with his teeth. It was soft and succulent. And tasted like chicken. He paused, once again amazed by taste and texture. Incredible. Simply incredible. He resumed chewing.
“This is really good,” he said, words garbled. “Where’d you catch it?”
“The forest over that slope.” Saba nodded toward the hill. “Was easy enough to snag one with my bow. I’d stay away if I were you, though. It’s infested with plague wolves. You’re not ready for those.”
“I’ll remember that.” Frost nodded.
Soon after the meal, Frost sat with Tia. They chatted about Anefet and the times they spent together. They chuckled about stories of begging for alms and running from Azureguards who acted more as town watch than the warriors they’d become. He and Tia had pulled their share of pranks on rich kids who’d bullied them at one time or another. Such implanted recollections amazed Frost.
“Remember the time I filled dried crevid bladders with piss, tied them off, and threw them from rooftops as those bastards walked by.” Frost chuckled.
Tia laughed. “The expressions when the bladders burst! I won’t ever forget it.”
They reminisced until Tia fell asleep. Frost put her to bed on some old sacks. He placed Noobstick next to him and sat with his back to the wall where he could keep an eye on everyone. Then he pulled out the letter and read it by way of the campfire. When he was finished, he tucked it away in his left trouser pocket.
Gilda came over. “Mind if I sit?”
“Knock yourself out.” Frost shrugged.
She took a seat and folded her legs under her. She got to turning that aether ring of hers again. “Your sister sleeps as if someone dosed her with dreamweed.”
“Might be her way of coping with all this.”
“Might be.” Gilda nodded. “You’ve been acting funny.”
“Funny how?” Frost asked, frowning.
“As if you don’t trust me.”
Frost arched a brow, and then stared her directly in the eye as his father had taught him. “I don’t know you. And I’m not the trusting type.”
She didn’t flinch or avert her gaze. “I can relate. But if there’s one thing I learned, it’s that sometimes you have to do things you don’t like to get what you want. Or to save those you love.”
“You mean like Nebsamu killing all those innocent people?”
“There’s that. But I was thinking more along the lines of playing with others. Looks like you can’t wait to ditch us.”
“It’s crossed my mind.”
“And?”
“And nothing. That’s as far as it’s gotten.”
“Okay, but I wouldn’t advise it.” She climbed to her feet. “You’ll understand when you see how much harder this version of the game is. I’ll leave you to get some rest.” She strode away in that willowy walk of hers.
Frost couldn’t help but to watch her body and horns until she disappeared into the night. He lay back on the sacks and stared up at the moon and her court of stars. He thought of Anefet’s letter and how he would fulfill her last wish. His mind soon drifted to real life, to getting the help Mom needed, then finding a way out of Equitane Towers. He imagined the day they were free. He smiled. Sleep called to him, his body only too happy to oblige. A wolf howled.
Frost woke to the twitter of birds and the gray pearl of dawn. The air was cool and smelled of smoke from the now dead campfire. Frost sat up. Nebsamu and Melori were asleep against the mineshaft’s opposite wall. Saba was a few feet outside the entrance, lying on her side, also asleep. Of Gilda, there was no sign. He assumed it was her watch.
He glanced at his slumbering sister. Tia seemed at peace. Her face reminded him of the letter. He felt his left trouser pocket, but it was empty. Frowning, he checked the right. And felt the paper. He pulled it out to be certain. And let out a relieved sigh.
He looked to Tia once more. If there was ever a time for him to go solo, find this Adesh Hamada, and make it to Maelpith Island as he felt he should, it would be now. Tia was in capable hands.
Not dealing with other people sounded like bliss. As did not having to wait. I could make much better time. Yet, a part of him argued against it. If h
e were to survive solo, he needed to level up and improve his skills.
With a sigh, he got to his feet. Noting his aether was fully replenished, he picked up Noobstick and headed outside to the hill Saba had shown him. He chose a part of the incline that didn’t look like much of a challenge. He climbed it. On the other side was the forest. Trees spread below in a hundred shades of green, early morning mist worming its way among trunks and brush. Birds piped high and low in a euphonious serenade.
Frost worked his way down the rock-strewn slope and along the tree line, picking out the telltale signs of plague wolves: green droppings, decaying grass where slobber landed, and the fetor of mold. He encountered a cervin’s half-eaten carcass, rips in the body rife with poisonous saliva. When he found a good spot to enter the forest, he flicked the power down on Noobstick so as not to draw attention when he fired. He became aware of an objective for curbing the plague wolf threat.
He wove his way among the trees, ears twitching at padded footsteps, eyes tracking blurs of movement, flashes of green-gray past trunks. A moldy stench hung in the air. His heart sped up. His skin tingled. The anticipation built the same as if he lived it outside the game.
Near a tree trunk, he found a pile of tattered clothing, bones, and a rusted sword. On the fingers were two rings. A bracelet adorned the wrist. Frost assumed it was a dead player who’d not returned to reclaim his belongings. A quick rummage through the remains netted him a skill shard.
Skill Acquired
Concussion Blast
Skill cannot be absorbed due to attribute deficiency
“Bah.” A quick calculation of the needed strength and agility told him he wouldn’t be able to utilize the skill until level five.
He took the rings and bracelet. The rings were identical. IM was there in an instant.
Braided Loop:
1 attack power
Steadfast Bracelet:
1 stagger resist
With a sigh, he slipped them on. He’d hoped they would have increased his stats so he wouldn’t need to wait to use Concussion Blast. Or at least been something less basic.
Something is better than nothing, he thought.
The crack of a branch made him snap his head up. Some four hundred feet away, a plague wolf stepped from behind a tree. Nearby birdsong halted. The plague wolf bared its teeth. Slobber leaked from its jaws. Its fur was a mottled gray and green.
Frost sighted down the barrel, took an easy breath, and fired. The pulse was low, almost inaudible. The Aether Shot’s cyan pulse streaked toward the plague wolf. And flew right by. Its impact kicked up dirt and detritus far beyond the animal.
The plague wolf snapped its head around for a moment at the area of impact. But then refocused on Frost. It growled.
He adjusted his aim and fired. This time he struck the plague wolf square in the chest. The animal collapsed. Frost smiled. Aether drifted into the air, swirled for a moment then zipped toward Frost. He felt a bit refreshed as it seeped into his skin.
IM made him aware of experience points gained.
“A hundred exp. Not bad. Seventy-eight more kills to level. Time to grind.”
He spent the next two hours hunting and killing plague wolves. The forest and its denizens would be better off with a lesser number of the invasive beasts. An extended two seconds of Cannon Kata after every kill proved to be better than he thought. The fifty percent speed boost for seven seconds helped him chase down the next target or flee when a second plague wolf tried to ambush him.
He also started to notice something peculiar when he walked. Reverberations that resolved into forms. Now that he considered it, he’d sensed the same during the fire and the Aether Flame Bombardment. If he focused, he could feel, could use the sound of his footsteps to pinpoint things. Extending the sense, he vaguely discerned trees, animals, and other objects without actually seeing them. He smiled. This had to be another facet of echolocation at work.
Recalling the clicking sound common among eradae, the sound he’d made so naturally on several occasions, he emulated it with his tongue. And stood in awe. The forest was revealed to him as never before. Not just the things he could see but also those hidden or beyond his actual vision. They might as well have been right before him. He could tell where a plague wolf was hiding, know the limb from which a beardbeak sang. With his eyes closed he could weave a path through the next two hundred feet of forest. It made hunting even more fun.
As the rising sun burned off the mist, he got a much better handle on the aether cannon and good practice at stopping to focus on Replenishment. A dozen shots were all it took to completely diminish his aether even after Absorption. Thirty minutes focused on nothing but the air, willing his mind and body to replenish aether brought him back to full.
His capacity was a sense. A natural sensation similar to a full belly. When he ran out of aether, he kept Korbitanium Projectiles handy for any surprises. He repeated the process.
On rare occasions when he was full, he felt aether gained by Absorption or Replenishment shift into a reservoir. IM told him it was Aether Overload at work. The ability gave him a sense of euphoria.
Curbing Plague Wolf Threat
Objective Complete
Depleted plague wolf threat in Snakewood Forest:
1000 experience points.
Gained 100 Khertahka dominion credits
Frost grinned. He loved the idea of miscellaneous quests. He continued to grind. Slowly, his accuracy improved. As time wore on, the plague wolves became harder to find. He wondered about the respawn rate. But there was something else more disturbing. The ones he did see avoided him now.
He clicked and waited. For a moment, he thought his echolocation caught something close by, but he saw nothing. He strained his eyes. Spun in a circle. Echolocation said something was there.
“Grinding is the absolute worst way to level,” Gilda said from less than three feet away.
Frost flinched but tried to act as if he’d known she was there the entire time. “It’s also the best way to improve my skills and attributes. You’re lucky I didn’t shoot you, dawg.” He scowled. He made a mental note to practice echolocation until it became as easy as breathing.
“I’m not your dawg.” She appeared out of thin air. “And trust and believe you couldn’t shoot me if you tried.” She gave him a smug smile.
“Don’t tempt me. What level are you, anyway?”
“Almost ten.”
“Damn. How the hell did you level so quickly?”
“Told you this was my third Void Legion alpha under Total Immersion. I didn’t need the extra prep you noobs did. I was logged in hours ahead of you. Also, a lot of the noob stuff is the same. I know the easiest way to level, the easiest quests to do.”
“Makes sense,” he said. “Maybe you can help me with something.”
“Go ahead.”
“I’ve been trying to find ways to tell a player’s level outside of waiting for them to use a particular skill. Or by their weapons, armor, and the like. Are there any?”
“Nope.”
Frost sighed. He stopped to think. “Been having a hard time separating NPCs from players, too. I know to start with playable races, but beyond that, how do you tell the difference without a HUD?” Although he liked the IM aspect, he did miss the familiarity of a Heads-Up Display.
“You can’t really,” Gilda said. “Not without talking to them, discovering who’s aware of certain game mechanics. Like you did with Nebsamu. And that can still be guesswork because of role players who won’t reveal themselves. BioGen says it’s to make the human experience as real as possible.”
“Fair enough,” Frost said. “Don’t know how much I like it, though. I see you used Concealment, but you’re walking around with chakrams. What class are you exactly?”
“My main is a
sorcerer. But I used KDC to buy the first few cutthroat skills for the Concealment and Hand-to-hand Combat.”
Frost smiled inwardly at the choice. And almost said he didn’t blame her for walking in his footsteps as a sorc.
Her eyes narrowed. “You can wipe that look off your face.”
“What look?”
“The smugness. I know what you’re thinking. Trust and believe, it ain’t even like that.”
“You’re in my head?” Frost widened his eyes, but a grin leaked through his feigned shock.
She blew out an annoyed breath. “Whatever… dawg.” That last word leaked sarcasm. “Anyway, although a lot remained the same, just as much has changed. Some more important than others. Like weapons themselves might not necessarily define a class. Later on, we’ll have to start looking at players as being classless or multiclass.”
Frost nodded. “I loved the idea when I ported into the game. Really looking forward to that sort of development.”
A plague wolf popped out from the brush several hundred feet to their right. Frost took quick aim and fired. The animal ducked out of the way and leaped into the brush. Frost gaped.
“Did that plague wolf just… nah… did you see that?” He stared at the spot. Perhaps, it was his imagination.
“I did.” Gilda chuckled. “That’s another thing you’ll need to get used to. The game learns. You won’t be able to kill the same type of creature too many times with the same exact tactic. Variety is key. You’ll have to use every advantage you can find, like our echolocation. The higher the level, or stronger the monster, the better its AI. Elites and GUMs are the worst. Or maybe the best. Depending on how you look at it.”
Though shocked, Frost was no less intrigued. And excited. “Let me guess, I can’t tell the difference in AI until I engage them and see how they react, right? The same way I can’t tell their strength.”
“Exactly. Just like IRL.”
“Cool and scary all at once,” Frost said. “And challenging. Players will need to be really creative. Especially when the game’s been out for a while. Things will only get harder. Since you mentioned echolocation… got any tips?”
Void Legion Page 14