by Sam Ferguson
Kassim and another NPC must have realized the danger, because they started firing with little hand crossbows that Brian hadn’t seen before.
“Lucky devil,” Mike said. Three more jellyfish died, and Chris harvested their ichor. His HP had just a sliver left, but he made it back to shore.
“What was the point of that exactly?” Augustin asked.
Chris shrugged. “I wanted to see what was in the water beyond the jellyfish. And I wanted to test my armor a bit.”
“You realize that we don’t yet know if the armor and weapons respawn with you at your last save point, right?” Mike asked. “What would you do if this game forces you to reclaim the items from your dead corpse?”
Chris shrugged. “Attack them again I guess.” He then smiled and walked up to Mike. “Shoot me with one of your lightning bolts.”
“What?” Mike asked.
“Shoot me,” Chris said. I’m on land, so if I spawn back at the campfire without the armor, I can retrieve it easily from here. If I respawn with it, then it won’t take me long to catch up either.”
Mike shook his head. “Let’s just go.”
“I’ll do it.” Barry walked up behind Chris and happily bludgeoned the last bit of HP out of the character. “Nothing to it.” Barry grunted. “Hmm, says I lost ten reputation points for betraying my party and ten more from the Greencaps.”
Brian snickered to himself. They were all part of the same faction, the Greencaps. That’s how the game was set up. Everyone had to play for the same faction in order to use all the comms functions and have it work for the intended dual function of aiding their research. The Greencaps were a faction created by a union of noble families. Each of them supported the Greencaps financially in the hopes of discovering great knowledge. As with any RPG, there were some that hoped for purely scientific breakthroughs, while others looked for magical relics or other advantages they could use for entirely selfish purposes, but Brian doubted they would get to explore all of the possible intrigue the game had to offer. Brian had spent an unconscionable amount of game time to beat the last Terramyr Online game’s main campaign, and he had loads of “real” work to get done before the season would be over here in Chile.
Still, he thought it fitting that the group had settled on the Greencaps. It was the one faction that most closely mirrored what they were doing in real life. Granted, they were digging up old sites and looking for signs of ancient peoples now long lost to the world while the game was centered on discovering new life in an uncharted continent, but still—the parallels had a nice symmetry to them.
“Ooh, looks like the gear stays with the body,” Barry said.
Brian looked over to see Barry kneeling over the dead corpse. A moment later only underwear remained on the dead avatar. Once bereft of everything it held, the image vanished and left just a small bloodstain on the sand.
“That’s cold,” Mike commented.
“What?” Barry shrugged. “I should get some compensation for losing reputation points, right?”
Brian meandered to the edge of the forest while the group waited for Chris to respawn and rejoin them. There was no gong like before, likely because you could only hear the gong if you were near the spawn point, kind of similar to the smart comms system. Brian almost thought to DM the prof, but then thought better of it. Professor Rojas was pretty chill, but no use in crossing Meredith. Walking along the forest edge, he picked berries from ferns and examined his inventory.
[+4 dewberries]
[+17 sand berries]
[+5 fiber]
“Looks like plants give more than food and ingredients,” Brian called out.
“I bet the fibers are used for clothing or shelter. Maybe a tent or something,” Rhonda commented. “Is anyone a ranger class?”
“No, just a warrior,” Augustin replied.
“Assassin,” Barry said.
“No,” Mike said. “I am going strictly wizard this time. I like to change it up each time. I was a ranger last time, a warrior the time before that, and a dwarf engineer before that.”
Brian looked back at Mike. “If memory serves correctly, you were also double class as a thief each time, right?” As soon as he caught sight of what Mike was doing, he started laughing. “Dude, enough with the jumping, man.”
Mike was jumping onto everything he could. “Whatever, noob. I’m already a level three just by jumping as we walk. I mean, what else are we going to do? And it isn’t like jumping slows us down any.”
Brian laughed and started jumping around too. “All right, but all I am saying is everyone should watch their coins around you.” He jumped back from the forest, feeling like a massive kangaroo as he neared Mike. “You might have everyone else fooled into thinking you’re just a wizard, but I know you better. The first time I come up missing coins I’m looking at you, bub.”
Mike started laughing. “I am already two levels above you. By the time I strike, you’ll never be able to take it back.”
It was all in good fun. Mike and Brian had played together for years. The banter between them had an entirely brotherly feel to it. Brian knew the threat was still at least sixty percent legitimate though. Mike was a closet clepto. And as others already said, the point of the game was to do the things you couldn’t do in real life.
“I’ll stop you,” Barry said.
Killjoy. Brian muted his mic and let out a couple unsavory insults under his breath.
“Only if you can catch me,” Mike taunted. It was the ship hold all over again. Mike zinged Barry with a playful bolt and then hopped away like an easter bunny that delivered shocks to bad kids instead of jelly beans.
Thing was, this time Barry took it playfully as well.
“A hop-off, eh?” Barry started jumping around in a wide circle on the beach.
Pretty soon Rhonda and Augustin joined in as well.
Everyone was jumping around like a bunch of idiots and laughing while the NPCs just stood there, looking around for signs of danger and intermittently commenting that they should hurry, or “Nightfall brings danger.” No one listened to them. Everyone was too busy hopping around.
[Acrobatics +1]
Hop, hop, hop. Jump up onto a pile of rocks then down again.
[Acrobatics +1]
Everyone was giggling. It felt pretty fun. Brian figured it must either be late at night, or perhaps it was just the stress of a dig site in the middle of three volcanoes suddenly awake like they hadn’t been for centuries. Granted, the center of the three, Quetrupillan, had been overdue for an eruption of some sort about two hundred years ago, but Brian just couldn’t get over the inconvenience of the timing in terms of his personal career. Whatever had gotten into them all, the group had officially cracked. Feels good to be a little cracked though, Brian smiled to himself.
Chris arrived just after a trumpet sound alerted Brian that he had reached level two.
“What the heck are you all doing?” Chris asked.
“Building our acrobatics stats,” Mike explained casually.
“And you all called me crazy?” Chris snorted. “At least I was exploring and trying new things.” Chris looked around on the sand and sighed. “All right, who has my stuff? I respawned with just my initial cloak.”
“A crab ate it,” Augustin said.
Everyone jumped in line.
“Yup, a daddy crab bigger than the momma crab,” Rhonda chimed in.
“Even I couldn’t get it,” Barry said with mock astonishment. “I mean, I tried, but it was too fast, jumped right into the sea after eating your corpse and taking your stuff.”
“Come on guys, I don’t even have my weapon.”
“Sorry, man, can’t help you. Maybe ask an NPC for their crossbow,” Mike said.
Brian couldn’t tell who cracked first, but soon all of them were laughing. Well, all of them except Chris.
“This bites. You guys suck. I was testing the game for you all.”
“Sure, sure,” Barry said. “And that’s why you
killed yourself like five times already?”
“I killed myself three times,” Chris corrected. “You killed me the last time.”
“Meh, you told me to, ergo, you killed yourself.”
As much as Barry annoyed him, Brian had to give him credit for that one. A point for Barry... finally.
“Whatever,” Chris said with a huff.
“So, looks like the game will respawn you at your last save point,” Mike said. “Since Chris never saved, it knocked him all the way back.”
“And you guys look like morons,” Chris mumbled. “Jumping around like a bunch of slinkies.”
“Slinkies don’t jump, Chris, they tumble,” Rhonda put in.
Muting his mic, Chris started walking ahead of the group. Brian and the rest of them had a few muted laughs, but the group tried to quiet down after that. After a few in-game miles, which fortunately went faster than real miles, the coast became treacherous. Jagged, rocky outcroppings dropped off into water already teeming with jellyfish and who knew what else among the large submerged rocks and patches of kelp.
The group moved inland.
Sunlight filtered playfully through the green canopy of tree leaves, while birds sang and launched from branches overhead. A pair of monkeys threw small tree nuts at the group.
“They look like capuchin monkeys,” Augustin said. “Those are some of my favorite in real life.”
Rhonda picked up a conversation about monkey species with Augustin and the two carried on while Brian wandered a bit farther into the forest than the rest of the group. He didn’t want to go in so far as to get into trouble, but he definitely wanted to get a look at what this environment had to offer. Surely there was more than just crabs, monkeys, and jellyfish.
In the distance there was a hill. Beyond the hill he could hear heavy footsteps and just make out the plates of what appeared to be a stegosaurus. He couldn’t tell for sure, seeing just the plate tips, but he was definitely intrigued. None of the other Terramyr Online games had featured actual dinosaurs. They had all stuck to the more familiar fantasy tropes. But then, all the other games more closely mirrored areas where the books had taken place. This was the first game to venture beyond the written lore and show something different.
Brian crouched into his sneaking position. A small eye appeared in the top left of his HUD. It started out as slightly open. He turned around to see that Mike was in the back of the group, so his line of sight must have still had an effect on Brian’s sneaking. As soon as Mike passed to be more south than Brian, the eye fully closed and went dark, signaling that no one could see him.
Perfect.
Brian crept up the hill slowly, keeping an eye on his sneak meter.
[Sneak +1]
Reaching the hill, he peered down and frowned. It wasn’t a steggo. It was far more strange. The creature was about eight feet tall at the shoulder, judging by the height of a nearby sapling, and at least thirteen or fifteen feet from nose to tail. The spine rose up another half a foot in an arc, sloping back down toward the tail. Along the spine were two rows of alternating plates, just like a steggo’s, but the head and face were all wrong. The head was much more like a massive bull: square, thick, and adorned with threatening horns. It also had two lower tusks that jutted up from its lower jaw. Instead of large foot pads, it had massive hooves that tore at the dirt with ease. Along its side it had a row of what looked like long quills or possibly some other kind of spine. They all laid flat against the creature’s green and brown skin, but Brian assumed they’d flare out if the creature was threatened.
The tail had similar rows of spines down most of its length until the last foot or so, which was a massive, club-like growth covered in spikes that definitely stuck out as weapons.
The lumbering giant took a heavy couple of steps toward a bush and made short work of the vegetation. It lowed and grunted, then turned due south and started ambling through the trees, stopping at one briefly to scratch a spot on its side.
Another hundred yards farther to the south, Brian saw six or seven more of the creatures. They appeared to be mostly the same size, or very close to the same size, as this one. Two were obviously juveniles, less than half the size of the others.
He watched them for a minute as the straggler continued to catch up.
Before the first creature was halfway to the rest of the herd, the birds in the trees stopped singing. Taking in a breath, he cautiously looked around. He remembered what Chris has said about a pair of wolves to the southeast. Perhaps they were near.
A louder footfall crashed through dried timber, and branches on far away trees snapped. Birds took flight en masse, crying out their warnings.
The strange steggo-like creatures seemed to realize they were in trouble. The juveniles ran to the center of the herd while the adults circled in formation. The straggler began running toward the herd, frantically bellowing and arcing its tail upward.
Brian’s mouth fell open when a pair of legs first became visible through the trees. Branches and leaves crashed to the ground as some gargantuan beast leaned down, busting through the canopy and bathing the herd in newfound sunlight. The creature was like a T-Rex, but much larger than anything Brian had ever seen in a museum. More than that, it had longer arms nearly like that of a spinosaurus, but thicker and deadlier.
It dropped down and reached out with an experimental strike. One of the steggo things batted the arm away with its tail, but apparently the predator had expected that. Recoiling its arm, it lunged in with its massive jaws. It caught the adult in the side and ripped a hunk of flesh out of it. The creature slumped to the ground, crying in pain but obviously mortally wounded.
Stepping in close, the predator reached down again.
This time the adults in the herd shook their bodies violently. Their plates rattled together, creating a drumming sound, and a few of them shot their quills out at the predator’s legs. A couple of the quills stuck, but the health bar on the beast barely blinked. Whatever it was, it was far out of Brian’s league. Still, he wasn’t about to move just yet and risk being detected. He was going to watch this play out.
The straggling steggo turned and ran for the predator. That’s when Brian realized that the straggler was the head of the group. It was his job to protect the herd. The straggler came in hard and fast, knocking over a couple of saplings and running right into the predator’s exposed ankle with its horns, goring the predator quite well. Blood coursed down the giant dino’s ankle, but it wasn’t about to give up its meal.
It reached down to snap at the steggo, but the steggo rattled its plates much louder than any of the others. Hesitating, the giant dino shook its head.
A sound weapon to disorient the predator. Brian smiled with fascination as the steggo slammed its tail into the ankle it had already gored. Now the predator’s HP dropped enough to see. The predator didn’t give up though—it launched its arms and raked at the plates, lessening their effect and stopping a couple of them from rattling altogether.
Bucking and leaping around, the steggo swung its tail and then charged the uninjured leg. The predator tried to turn around, but without its momentum the trees made it cumbersome to move. Branches snapped and fell around the attacking steggo while the rest of the herd continued fleeing to safety.
Eventually they disappeared in the distance, the first steggo continuing its attack. It scored two hits on the previously uninjured ankle and forced the predator back, but it didn’t emerge unscathed. For its efforts the steggo was raked twice more along the plates, rendering them almost entirely useless.
Now with the plates unable to rattle effectively, the predator kicked the steggo and then came in for a finishing bite.
The HP bar filled back up as the predator ate both of the downed steggo creatures. Their bodies disappeared entirely, and then the predator went back in the direction it had come.
Brian slowly moved back toward the group, glancing back over his head every few yards to ensure he wasn’t being followed. He didn�
�t stop sneaking until he could see his group’s gamer tags within twenty yards, when he felt he could safely run to them. He ran up over a bushy hill and then down to find a small cave opening on the other side, stopping just in front as Rhonda, who whipped her crossbow up at him.
“Whoa! It’s me!”
“Sorry,” Rhonda said. “We heard what sounded like some big monsters. The NPCs heard the roars and told us to hide in this cave.”
Brian walked in and smiled. “It was epic!” He held his hands out wide. “The things were huuuuge! Like, big stegosaurus things were eating the plants and then BAM! Some T-Rex on steroids that actually had arms came in and devoured two of them. It was so cool!”
“Anything left to examine?” Rhonda asked.
“Nah,” Brian said. “The T-Rex thing ate them all the way.”
“Did you get close enough to see their names?” Mike asked.
Brian shook his head. “Nope, and I don’t plan to for a very long time. Those things were nuts!”
Kassim moved to the cave entrance. “SHH! The beast will hear you!”
Brian shrugged. “No way, I saw it move away. It’s gone.”
A flash of teeth the size of a man reached into the opening of the cave with such precision and speed that Kassim was bitten in half right before their eyes, the ground shaking around them.
“GAH!” Augustin shrieked.
“Woof... that got me too,” Rhonda said breathlessly.
Brian had to wipe away some of the blood spatter from his HUD. “I didn’t see that coming. I swear it walked away.”
A massive pair of claws hooked the inside of the cave mouth and tore hunks of rock free.
“To the back of the cave!” the other NPC shouted. “We can’t fight this. To the back!”
“Do as the man says!” Barry shouted.
“Mike, have a mage light spell?” Brian asked as the group rushed farther into the cavern.
Mike conjured a pathetic, level-one spell that barely cast the same light as a small torch. “Best I can do,” he apologized.