Digitized Online

by Richard J Thorn

  "Bring me the dagger, Trexxa!" Esmerelda encouraged.

  Wagging her tail like a happy dog, she grabbed the dagger and dropped it in Esmerelda's lap. With a flick of her wrist, she tossed the dagger at the prone assassin, putting him out of his misery.

  1000 (x2) xp gained

  "Did the others run away?" I asked, grabbing my arrows and recovering his dagger.

  Trexxa poked her head out the door and sniffed, then pointed toward the bushes. "They're out there!"

  I waited until my cooldown was up, nocked two poison arrows and duck-walked my way to the door. I didn't have Trexxa's keen nose, so I squinted and waited until I saw the bush move ever-so-slightly. I knew it wasn't from the wind, so I aimed dead-center and released both arrows.

  From the cry and thud I knew I had scored a direct hit. Nice!

  But that still left one roaming around.

  Once Esmerelda regained her mana, she came up beside me. "Where do you think he is?"

  I shrugged. "Trexxa? Do you know where he's hiding?"

  She shook her head.

  "I've got an idea." Esmerelda said suddenly. She called forth her fire imp and whispered instructions to him. "He'll draw their fire, revealing their whereabouts."

  I nodded, found another poison arrow and watched the surrounding forest like a hawk. The moment the fire imp walked out the door, a poison-tipped arrow pierced his body.

  "There!" Esmerelda shouted, pointing at a blur behind the tree.

  "Get em, Trexxa!" I drew my bow and followed the cagey raptor outside. I watched an arrow whiz far too close to Trexxa's head, which pin-pointed the assassin.

  Trexxa got there before I did and brought the last assassin out into the open. A fireball whizzed past me, hitting him square in the chest. I released a root trap right at his feet, freezing him in place.

  He cast a bunch of unintelligible insults at us, but with a couple well-placed shots to his pie-hole, he shut up real quick.

  Between the four of us, he went down real fast, leaving us breathless and shaken.

  1000 (x2) xp gained

  "That was close." Esmerelda said, wiping the sweat from her brow.

  "Too close." I agreed. "Let's cook up some grub."

  Trexxa hissed in agreement. I was starting to realize that she hissed for everything.

  Once the steaks were on the fire, we turned our attention to the problem at hand.

  "She's getting desperate." Esmerelda said, taking a deep gulp of the ale. "I think it's safe to say she's out for blood now. She knows we're here and may even know what we're up to."

  I stared into the flickering flames as the enticing smell of cooked flesh filled the room. Esmerelda was right. Things were only going to get worse.

  "The problem as I see it," I chose my words carefully, "is that I'm not prepared. Those assassins were yellow to me. If they'd have caught me alone, I wouldn't have survived."

  "Thank goodness Trexxa alerted us to them." Esmerelda said as we both rubbed her belly. She may as well have a big sign above her head that reads: Will work for meat and belly rubs.

  "Yeah, no kidding." I turned the meat over and contemplated our options. "I really don't think we have much time left. Do you?"

  She shook her head. "I think we're going to have to get your ass up to 10 faster than not." She jerked her head up. "How far away from level 9 are you?"

  I brought up my HUD display and saw that I was actually getting pretty close. "22k. It shouldn't take long. Orge implanted a chip that gives me double xp on all quests."

  Esmerelda arched an eyebrow. "Really? That's a bit...cheaty, isn't it?"

  I shook my head. "While I'd normally agree with you, this is a literal fight for life and death. It's absolutely imperative that I'm strong enough to take on whatever she throws at us."

  Esmerelda nodded. "I agree. Anyway, we've got to get you leveled." She looked out the window at the slowly rising sun. "We can either run into Jakarth and pick up some new quests or go back into that dungeon and see if we can't finish up the quests we've got there. Maybe stuff has respawned by now.

  I grabbed the steaks off the fire, threw a raw one to Trexxa and handed Esmerelda hers. "I've been thinking about that. I think I'd like to grab a couple new quests in Jakarth, do them real quick, then go back to the dungeon."

  She nodded as she bit into the tasty, juicy steak. "First, though, we need to grab our mounts."

  We agreed and ate the rest of our meal in silence. The assassins had caused some damage to the house that was going to need to be repaired. But I was really looking forward to seeing what kind of quests they had for us there.

  When all our bellies were full and we'd chased it all down with tasty ale, we set out at the crack of dawn. First back to Patch's inn to pick up our trusty steeds, then we'd hit up the big city. Esmerelda was right. I needed to get these last two levels so that when the time came - and the time was very close, we could all feel it - we'd stand more than a passing chance to take down the spider queen.

  But what nagged at the back of my mind was what if we failed? Would all of humanity simply be lost? Would the entire earth now be controlled by a ruthless, evil AI?

  So far, we'd been lucky as to have fairly escaped her all-seeing, roving eye. But now she was catching on. She was starting to realize that these 'anomalies' weren't what they first appeared.

  Fortunately, we had the protection of the game. She couldn't fight us directly. She could, however, make our life a living hell. She could make it storm all the time, cause the sun to never come out, turn every NPC against us. You name it, she could do it.

  I shivered at the thought.

  We simply had to keep bringing more and more people down. We had to raise our army so that we could fight back against her and whatever bs she threw our way.

  And, most importantly, we had to level. We had to use the game mechanics to defend against her. At least until a way to defeat her in her own realm was found.

  Which may, or may not, ever be found.

  We found our horse and mule in good health. April whinnied in excitement when she saw me. She tried to tell me that she was starving to death and hadn't eaten for days. But I didn't believe her.

  I gave her a handful of oats and let her eat them out of my hand. Esmerelda stroked her mule and gave her some food. We were going to need to pick up some more oats in town.

  "Ready?"

  Esmerelda nodded.

  "Trexxa, can you run alongside and keep up?"

  She hissed and nodded.

  "Good. Then let's get going. We've got the whole day ahead of us and I don't want to waste another minute of it."

  We climbed on our mounts and started off for Jakarth city at a leisurely pace. I watched Trexxa and she seemed to have no problem running beside us. I think she liked it, in fact.

  "What kind of quests are you looking for?" Esmerelda interrupted my thoughts when we were about half-way there.

  I shrugged. "I thought maybe we'd look for some fetch/delivery quests. Something not too difficult. Maybe we'll pick up a fight quest to make things interesting."

  An hour after we set off, we pulled into town. The guards let us in and we took our time looking around. I still had some gear I needed to upgrade. There had just been so much going on that it had completely slipped my mind.

  And furnishings. We keep forgetting that, too. Who knew adventuring could be so hard?

  "So, where do we look first?" Esmerelda asked, stopped her donkey and looked around.

  "Maybe the local tavern?" I couldn't imagine a tavern without Patch.

  "Sounds good."

  We asked a local where the nearest tavern was and he pointed toward the end of the main street.

  'The Howling Wolf' was a small, out-of-the-way, quiet, cozy tavern that smelled vaguely of cigar and rum.

  We tied up our horses out front and walked through the front door.

  "Howdy, folks! Name's Drak." The proprietor came out from behind the counter and greeted us warmly.
r />   "Oh, hi..." Esmerelda stuck out her hand and shook the older-looking gentleman's hand. "I'm Esmerelda and this is my partner, Ivanhoe."

  The place was nice and cozy, but with no one inside, it was a bit eerie.

  "What can I do for you?" He asked, moving back behind the bar table.

  I felt sorry for the guy. I'm sure that at its peak, the inn was a hopping place. But right now, as there were very few players in the world, it was cold and empty and lifeless. I'm sure that, like Patch, he was feeling the effects from the emptiness.

  "Yeah, I would like a mug of ale." I said, fishing around in my pack and pulling out a couple of silver.

  Esmeralda looked at me and cocked an eyebrow, but did the same.

  We shot the shit with the proprietor while we greedily drank down our drinks. When we were finished, we asked him if he had any leads on any interesting quests.

  His eyes widened. "I sure do! In fact, this one just came in this morning." He took us around to the back of the inn and showed us the adventurers' billboard where there must've been at least a dozen or more quests.

  "Wow!" Esmeralda said. "There are a ton here."

  "Yeah," he lowered his head. "I don't know why, but the place has been awfully empty recently. Until you guys showed up, I was beginning to think that it had something to do with me."

  "No!" Esmeralda placed her hand on Drak's shoulders "I'm sure there is a more logical explanation for what's going on."

  Good call. We really didn't want to have to explain to him the details of why no one was around. It would just cause problems.

  "So what was this quest that just came in this morning?" I asked, indicating toward the adventurers’ board.

  "Oh!" His eyes lit up. "It's this one." He pointed to a posting.

  New quest: Skin the Wolves

  Objective: Kill 10 wolves and skin them

  Reward: Choice of weapon

  "Hey, that looks like a perfect quest. Does it say what level these wolves are?" Esmeralda accepted the quest.

  Drak shook his head. "All I know, is that all the wolves in this area are 11th level. You won't have any difficulty with them." He looked in my direction and thumbed. "But he might."

  "That's exactly why we're taking it." She explained. "Isn't that right, Trexxa?"

  Trexxa hissed and then did something that surprised everyone.

  "Did she just?" Drak asked, his face full of wonder.

  "Trexxa?" Esmeralda knelt down on the floor in front of the raptor. "Did you just take that quest?"

  She hissed and nodded her head vigorously. "Trexxa adventurer now!"

  I looked down at my pet raptor and wondered just what the hell was going on. Did she seriously just turn into a player character? How was this going to work out?

  I shook my head and looked back at the board. "I wonder if there is anything else good here." Esmeralda and I both studied the quests. There were some pretty good ones, but I wanted something that wasn't too hard – unlike the wolf quest.

  "Here's one." Esmeralda pulled the advertisement down.

  I looked at it. "It looks like a delivery quest to Patch. I wonder what's in it?"

  All 3 of us took the quest. Did we want to take any others?

  There were a few halfway interesting quests, but nothing that really caught our eyes.

  "Why don't we finish up these 2, then we can come back and get more if we still want." Esmeralda suggested.

  I nodded and headed for the exit. "Oh, one more thing." I turned to Drak. "Is there a bank in town? I need to drop some of this loot off."

  He nodded and pointed me in the correct direction. We thanked him and made our way to the bank.

  "I'm going to put most of my money in here. What about you?" I asked Esmeralda.

  "Same." She replied.

  I heard a hiss and looked down to see Trexxa holding her coin purse out.

  Esmeralda laughed. "Look! She wants you to put her money in the bank too."

  I don't know why, but that cracked me up. It took me several minutes before I could compose myself. This whole thing was getting more and more absurd.

  "Honey," I took the coin purse from the silly raptor. "Do you really want me to save this back for you?"

  "Yes!" She hissed and leapt a foot off the ground.

  I turned to the teller. "This may sound stupid, but can you open an account for my raptor?"

  I didn't have to worry about anything as the banker was already laughing.

  "Sure." She said and emptied the pouch out onto the table. "That's one smart pet you've got there. How did you teach her all those tricks?" She asked.

  "I don't know." I shrugged. "Some days I think I'm the pet and she trained me."

  The lady laughed again and Esmeralda had to turn around to keep from busting up.

  "It was a pleasure doing business with you, Ms.…"

  "Trexxa!" The raptor replied, shaking the banker's hand with her small, clawed paw.

  "Well Ms. Trexxa, you take good care of your hunter pet now." She patted the silver coin. "We'll keep this nice and safe for you until you're ready for it."

  She nodded and hissed.

  When we left, Esmeralda turned to Trexxa. "So does that mean you want to become a full member of our party?"

  "Yes!" She hissed. "Want share of loot."

  I stopped and looked at my raptor. "Really?"

  She nodded vigorously.

  "How much do you think we should give her?" I asked Esmeralda.

  She shrugged. "Why not equal portions? After all, she does her fair share of the fighting."

  "That sounds just fine to me." I agreed. "Is that good, Trexxa?"

  "Yes!"

  "What about loot?" I asked. "How do we want to split up the loot? Trexxa, do you care about potions or armor or anything like that?"

  She thought about that for a moment, then shook her head. "Sell it. Give Trexxa half."

  "Well then, I guess that settles it." Esmeralda laughed as we headed toward the wolf quest map marker.

  When we got there, we tied up our horses in a safe location. I pulled out my bow and Trexxa sharpened her claws. We could see a few wolf packs off in the distance. From what I could tell, there were 2 or 3 lower-level wolves and one Alpha wolf who was of a higher level.

  "You ready?"

  Esmeralda nodded. Trexxa hissed. I activated my freezing arrow and double arrow spells, took careful aim at the alpha wolf, inhaled deeply to steady myself and then released my 2 arrows.

  The second my arrows hit, the other 3 wolves growled and attacked immediately. Both were level 9 and had 115 hp. With the leader temporarily out of the equation, we all focused on one of the wolves. Trexxa hissed and raced to meet them as Esmerelda and her minion began casting fire spells at them.

  Trexxa attacked one, grabbing its tail as it tried to pass by her, its yellow eyes burning with hatred. I plunked it for 6 damage, bringing it down to 104.

  Esmerelda and her imp struck it for a combined 20, leaving it with 84.

  Trexxa tried her best to keep aggro on the wolf, but he wanted me. She did shave a couple hp from him, though, but the second I got off my next shot, he was on me.

  I tried to side-step the vicious wolf, but he was too determined. Apparently, attacking his leader pissed him off something terrible. Who knew?

  When the wolf lunged, I kicked out as hard as I could, connecting with his chest and sending him reeling. I could hear the air whoosh from his lungs as he yelped and crashed to the ground.

  750 (x2) xp gained

  One of the other wolves was on Esmerelda and I turned my attention to helping her. I activated my root arrow and pinned him down while everyone but Trexxa burned him down.

  Trexxa had managed to gain the attention of the other wolf and was now fighting both at the same time. I knew she wouldn't last much longer without help, so I threw a fire arrow at the damaged wolf.

  The alpha was just starting to thaw out. Fuck.

  Trexxa may have been a plucky raptor, but she
was no match for three vicious beasts who were above both our levels. Just as the first wolf fell, so too did she.

  Seeing my pet die in front of me enraged the hell out of me. In a blind rage, I activated every spell I had and unleashed them all upon the hapless wolves.

  Esmerelda finished off her wolf and peeled the alpha off me. Now I just had to worry about two very angry, very hostile wolves. They weren't going to give up until I was dinner.

  I brought one down a quarter health before they both leaped on me, knocking me to the ground. I fought and struggled, but they both got a bite on me, slashing my health from 120 to 94.

  Esmerelda saw that I was in trouble and threw a fireball at one of the wolves, knocking them off me. That gave me the energy to roll out from under the other, dodging its savage bite at the last second.

  I really wished Trexxa was fully grown and able to hold out longer. But I guess that was asking too much.

  Too close to use my bow, I threw it down and pulled out my dagger. I hated using it, but at close quarters the bow was practically worthless. Each time one of the wolves lunged at me, I stabbed it with the dagger and tried to dodge.

  I'll be completely honest: fighting two wolves with a dagger was not the easiest thing in the world. Esmerelda couldn't help much as she was pinned down by the alpha. From a quick glance I could see that he had 200 hp and was level 11. He was a fucking beast.

  God dammit! Why did I have to let Trexxa die?

  I stabbed one of the wolves until he was down to half health. The other remained untouched. If I was going to survive, I was going to have to use potions. No doubt about it.

  Just as one of the wolves snapped a small chunk of flesh off me, I heard a familiar hissing sound. Trexxa? Could it be?

  I grabbed the wolf by the scruff of the neck, plunged my dagger into its face, then threw it aside.

  Yep! It was my Trexxa! How on earth did she manage to get back? Then I remembered that she was considered a full player - or something like that, I wasn't exactly sure.