by Phil Tucker
I rubbed my face vigorously with both hands. “And I’m still just level one.” I wanted to laugh; wanted to cry. “Fine. Let’s keep going.”
We made our way up alongside the road, keeping an eye on the tower top and making sure we were always close to some kind of cover. Feldgrau grew ever smaller beneath us, until finally the road leveled out and ran straight toward the barbican.
It was basically two round towers connected by a short, heavy wall, the road running through an archway in its center. Behind it the land dropped off into a ravine, over which lay the drawbridge that led to the actual castle gate.
Off to the sides, I could make out two broad siege bridges made of bound logs laid over the ravine, leading up to where entire chunks of the curtain wall had been demolished.
“What do you think?” Lotharia bit her thumb. “Direct approach, or do we try for a siege bridge?”
“Going straight through the gate’s just asking for trouble,” I said. “Let’s try to sneak in through the side.”
We ran off to the left, avoiding the barbican altogether, watching the battlements anxiously until we reached the first bridge where we crouched down once more. It was massively built, each log about three feet wide, and lashed together with huge amounts of rope. Its surface was scarred by countless blows, blackened by attempts to fire it and stained with dried blood. It led over a gut-wrenching chasm to the base of the curtain wall, where huge blocks of masonry had toppled down everywhere, even out onto the bridge itself.
I peered through a hole in the wall at a section of the inner courtyard. Nothing was moving within. Nobody was up on the battlements. The wyvern was quiet atop its tower.
“Ready?”
Lotharia nodded.
I considered activating Adrenaline Surge to speed us across, but then decided to save it. Taking a deep breath, I bolted forward and up onto the bridge, which was so massive it didn’t even flex beneath my weight. I tried to imagine what it’d be like to cross it while under fire from the walls, shield raised to protect my head, arrows and stones and boiling pitch raining down from above. The screams and shouts, the fear and panic.
I reached the far side and leapt down to hide between two huge blocks, Lotharia squirming in right behind me.
Nothing. No shouts, no alarm raised.
Heart thudding, I weaseled through the fallen remnants of the wall until I found a good angle to see into the whole inner courtyard.
The first thing that struck me were the massive wooden spikes that had been driven through the flagstones everywhere, each at least four or five yards tall, their tips carved to wicked points. There had to be scores of them, all of them pointing straight up.
“Defense against the wyvern?” I asked.
Lotharia shrugged. “Could be. None of my skills cover this kind of stuff.”
I looked closer. There were no corpses, but plenty of debris everywhere. The wind blew through the ravine beneath us, sounding a haunting dirge.
I shivered. “Ready to take a closer look?”
Trying to remain as close to the shadows as possible and praying that Stealth: Basic (I) would suffice, we moved through the wall and into the bailey. The space was huge. You could easily gather several hundred people within the walls. The keep rose like a stone gauntlet into the sky, four stories tall. Interestingly enough, someone had nailed huge planks across the doorway and ground floor windows.
I nudged Lotharia and pointed. “That’s not ominous at all.”
I knew a fair bit about castles, having owned my own in Golden Dawn and spent perhaps a little too much time working on all the details. Castles were meant to be self-sufficient, to be able to withstand sieges for months if not years. The bailey contained the burned remains of what had probably been the smithy, the stables standing beside it miraculously untouched. Doorways led into small buildings set against the inside of the wall, most of them in decent condition. There’d be a chapel, a bake house, a granary, servants’ quarters perhaps. The kitchen, pantry, great hall and private chambers would all be in the keep.
“Over there,” said Lotharia. “See the stables? Looks like someone took extra time to fortify them.”
She was right. The huge stakes were tightly clustered around the stable building, with some of them even emerging through its roof.
“Think someone’s using that as their base of operations?” I asked.
“Looks like. Though why they’d insist on staying with the wyvern up top…”
“Let’s take a closer look,” I said. “Seems all quiet for now.”
Together we snuck along the inside of the wall. I had my dagger out, Lotharia her scepter. I kept shooting glances at the wyvern’s tower, then over to the stables, then back to the ruined gatehouse. I felt like I could die at any second.
Which is why when the rat suddenly ran past me I didn’t hesitate, but stabbed down and ran it through.
The XP chime sounded and I grinned. “Finally! A level-appropriate monster!”
“Uh,” said Lotharia. “There’s more of them. Run!”
“What?” I straightened, flicking the rat off my blade, then froze. A thousand beady eyes stared at me from the doorway of the small building we were passing. With a chittering shriek they poured forth, a swarm of rats, their black bodies gleaming as they plunged toward us like an animated carpet.
“Argh!” I hopped back, thought about using Shadow Step to escape, then instead simply turned and ran after Lotharia who was darting away between the upraised stakes.
The ground was torn up, entire flagstones pulled aside, with huge footprints here and there, each the length of my arm. Giants? I wondered, and then a ghastly roar bruised the air, clotted and deep, and I ran straight into Lotharia.
I clawed my way free. An ogre was running right at us. A dead ogre. Its skin was gray and green, huge holes in its side and chest revealing bone and rancid flesh. Worse, we had no time to escape. It bellowed and raised its arms high, ready to bring both fists crashing down, then slammed to a stop as if it had run into an invisible wall.
A huge collar was affixed around its neck, a chain as thick as my wrist running from its back into the dark doorway of the building closest to the stable.
Lotharia and I both tripped over each other, throwing ourselves back and crashing to the ground. The ogre bellowed again, chunks of its throat or vocal chords spattering out of its maw, and swung its arms at us, trying to grab us.
We backpedaled on our asses, shoving with our heels, but then a second roar sounded from overhead.
“Oh, come on!” I shouted. The wyvern had appeared at the tower’s edge, wings spread wide. It dove off the tower right at us.
Instinct urged me to use Shadow Step, but that would have meant abandoning Lotharia out in the open. Instead, we both flipped onto all fours and threw ourselves toward the base of the closest spike.
“Obfuscate the keenest eye, blanket thought and hide from sky!”
Thick, white, cottony fog boiled forth from Lotharia’s scepter, gushing out like a hydrant gone mad.
The ogre bellowed and flailed at us, but with the shock of its appearance now gone, I was able to tune it out. Besides, the chain was clearly keeping it at bay.
Instead, I watched as the wyvern dove and then banked to swoop over the stakes, wings causing the fog to swirl in mad arabesques. It shrieked in frustration, circled around with much awkward maneuvering within the bailey confines, and then hovered above us, jerking up and down with each frantic beat of its wings.
Then the fog closed in, and I couldn’t see it any longer.
Lotharia and I were of the same mind: we scampered on all fours across the ground, weaving between the stakes until we reached the castle wall. No, the front of one of the many little buildings.
Praying it wasn’t filled to the brim with peckish rats, we both hurried inside and split, me going left,
Lotharia going right, so that we could place our backs against the wall on either side of the door.
The fog quickly dissipated. I listened, staring at the gloomy interior of the building but not seeing anything as the wyvern flew about for a minute or two. With a final squawk of dismay or frustration it climbed for altitude. I dared to peer outside and watched it ascend to the tower top and disappear.
We were safe.
My XP chime sounded, as did Lotharia’s. So as to distract myself, to calm my thundering heart, I opened my character sheet.
You have gained 25 experience (5 for killing a rat, 10 for surviving your encounter with the undead ogre, 10 for evading the wyvern attack). You have 25 unused XP. Your total XP is 105.
Congratulations! You are Level 2!
Tiredly, I swiped the window away, barely feeling the flicker of triumph.
Your attributes have increased!
Mana +1
Wisdom +1
Dexterity +1
Constitution +1 (Con increase is dependent on one night’s good rest.)
You have learned new skills. Dodge: Basic (I), Athletics: Basic (II), Stealth: Basic (II)
I sat up. That was good news. I glanced over at Lotharia. She was reading her own screen. Back to the next window.
There are new talent advancements available to you:
I scrolled past the ones that were still familiar: Uncanny Aim, Sabotage Defenses and Minor Magic. Two new ones caught my eye. Looked like I’d always have five talent options available.
Double Step
XP Cost: 55
- Your understanding of the shadows grows, and you can now delve into their depths not once but twice in quick succession.
- Mana Drain 1
Distracting Attack
XP Cost: 35
- A successful blow will befuddle your opponent, causing them to momentarily lose track of you and opening them to a Backstab.
- Mana Drain: 1
My finger hovered over Double Step, but instead I dismissed my sheet and looked over to Lotharia. “You’re not grinding with a level one noob any longer.”
“No?” She smiled and dismissed her sheet in turn. “That’s a relief. Any new talents? Here, I’ll take a peek.”
I watched as she scrolled through my sheet then dismissed it. “Going to wait to spend that XP?” she asked.
“Yeah,” I said, “and I’ll tell you why in a second. What about you? Any new abilities?”
Lotharia shook her head. “By the time you hit my level, you don’t get rewarded for this kind of stuff. A little XP here, a little there, but nothing yet. I’m saving up for a new spell.”
“Fair enough.” I peeked outside. The undead ogre had disappeared, a coil of chain emerging and then looping back into the doorway of the little house set next to the stable. “It’s time we approached this situation professionally.”
“As opposed to what we’ve been doing?”
“For sure.” My confidence was starting to grow. Was that the bump in my wisdom? “We’ve been reacting, running from one encounter to the next, simply trying to survive. I think now we need to take the initiative and focus on leveling up. This castle is perfect for that.”
“It is?”
“Yeah. If we play it smart. There looks to be plenty of rats. We—”
“I don’t get XP for rats.”
“No, but I do. If they respawn, they can prove just what I need to acquire some quick levels and plenty of new talents.”
Lotharia nodded. “Remember, be careful: this area is slowly turning into a raid area, which means random traps and monsters.”
“Sure. All the better. Because once I’ve gained more power, we go for the undead ogre. It’s an easy kill if we set things up right. That should give even you a good boost in power.”
“True enough.”
“From there, we scout out the wyvern tower and plot a way to kill it. You’re right. It’s as dumb as a barrel full of rocks. Once we kill it, we’ll be ready for our next big mission.”
Lotharia raised an eyebrow. “Which is?”
“The keep. Whatever’s boarded up in there is probably worth a ton of juicy XP. We’re just going to have to keep an eye out for whatever’s in the stables. Something I plan to do now, actually, with my raised Stealth.”
“You actually look excited,” said Lotharia.
“I am.” I drew my knife, wiped its blade on my pants leg and grinned at her. “I’m finally starting to feel like myself again. Hungry. Eager for a challenge I can defeat with a combination of wits and power gaming. The monsters in this castle have no idea what they’re in for.”
My confidence must have been contagious, because Lotharia gave me a shark-like smile. “Did your charisma go up?”
I laughed huskily. “Not yet. But just you wait. I feel like I’m finally starting to get the hang of this.”
8
I gave the wyvern five minutes to settle down and get lost in its book or whatever before I slipped out the doorway and back into the courtyard. Whomever was living in the stable could come back at any time, so I kept a weather eye on the front gate as I moved forward.
I couldn’t help but grin. My body had adopted a more intuitive understanding of how to move from shadow to shadow. A sixth sense was developing within me, helping me place my feet just right to avoid crud on the floor, helping me angle my body just so behind different objects, and picking the best path forward.
The closest I could compare it to the real world was the way I knew how to move my shoulders when walking quickly through a crowd. That intuitive sense that helped me avoid hitting other people. Except now it guided me toward the shadows.
Enjoying my soundless approach, I hurried from stake to stake like a flitting shadow and eventually reached the fullest extent the undead ogre’s chain had allowed it to go. I hesitated, peered carefully at the dark doorway into its den, studied the loop of chain, and then took a deep breath and pressed on.
The stable was a large building, with double doors on one end through which to lead horses. As I drew close, the smell hit me like a rotting wet towel to the face: the rich, nauseating scent of feces, the stink of old sweat, and greasy reek of rancid fat.
I knew that smell.
I slunk up to the doors and peered inside through the cracks. Light filtered into the interior through large gaps in the tiled roof, revealing a squalid campsite – if you could even call it that. A large firepit had been dug in the center aisle that ran between the stalls, and over this a massive spit rested, the remnants of a deer charred and half eaten still on it. A mass of old furs were arranged in one corner, looking something akin to a fetid nest, and sacks of what looked like coins and other loot sat close by. Bones lay everywhere, along with unrecognizable hunks of flesh and gristle.
No sign of horses.
My eyes were watering from the stench. I looked around for a moment longer, and then backed away. Forcing myself not to be hasty, I slunk back across the courtyard to the small building in which Lotharia waited.
“And?”
“Ogres,” I said, and spat in an attempt to clear my mouth of the taste. “Maybe even the pair that tried to kill me in the highland meadow.”
“Huh,” said Lotharia. “And the undead ogre?”
“An old friend, maybe?” I shrugged. “They’re clearly using it to guard their lair.”
“But why go through all the effort of lairing here?”
“If this were any other game,” I said, “I’d not look for much reason. But this being Euphoria… you think the AI thinks things through that deeply?”
Lotharia gave me a bemused nod. “Hell yes it does.”
“Then… who knows? Maybe they’ve always coveted the castle and dreamed of living here, and now they’re in they’re not going to let the wyvern drive them off.”
“As g
ood an explanation as any. So what now?”
“Now I’m going to do some leveling and exploring. You’re welcome to join me if you want.”
“Killing rats? No thanks.” She hefted her hemp sack. “Though I would like to try to get into Jeramy’s tower.” She thought about it, then made a face. “Too bad I don’t know the password to get in the front door. Never mind. I found a comfy corner in the back over there where a ray of light comes in. I’ll catch up on my reading. I want to raise my intelligence for my next purchase.”
“Sounds good. If you hear me screaming at the top of my lungs, come running, though it’ll probably be too late.”
She laughed and swatted me, and I stepped back outside.
There was a lot to explore here. Maybe six more little buildings along the inside of the wall besides the rats’ nest and ogre lair. The two non-wyvern towers. The gatehouse itself. But before I found something I couldn’t handle, I’d work on that which I could.
Time for some good ol’ fashioned rat killing.
I studied their lair. Built of the same gray stone as the other buildings, the roof was partially sunken in, exposing the rafters amidst the skewed tiles. There were maybe twenty-five or thirty yards between the roof and the parapet above.
I snuck over to the wall and then followed it to the rats’ house, my blade drawn. Every few seconds I checked the gatehouse and wyvern’s tower, but nothing stirred.
When I drew close to the rats’ lair, I slowed down and watched. Nothing at first, but then a black-furred body emerged from a gap and hurried along the wall toward me. I held completely still, and when it noticed me I lunged forward and stabbed at it.
It gave a strangled squeak, spasmed, and went still. The XP chime sounded and I grinned. Oh, the memories of grinding in my older games!
I used to love the old-fashioned Multi User Dungeons when I was a kid. While everyone else was playing advanced online multiplayer games, I’d be hunched over my phone, reading that old school green text on a black background. Text-based rooms with basic commands and a player base of perhaps seventy. Peanuts compared to what everyone else was playing, but for some reason it fascinated me. I still recall the joy of typing ‘n’ for north, entering a new room, skimming the description and going right to the mob line: “You have encountered a RAT!”