“Archers, switch to the next three!” shouted Oygolinn as he himself fired at the far group. As he continued loosing arrows, he stepped back, covered by our swordsmen. “Rodriguez, heal the tanks!”
The three hunters also turned their fire on the far targets. The strategy was a good one: only two got to the swordsmen, and they didn’t last five seconds against their three swords.
“Fall back,” commanded the leader once all the skeletons were piles of bones on the ground.”
“What about stripping them?” asked the archer named Kerv, who until then had been quiet.
“Flosi,” said Oygolinn, nodding to the piles of bones.
Collecting trophies didn’t turn out to be that hard. You just reached your hand out to your opponent’s remains and everything he had turned up in your backpack.
In our case, sure, every time, the question popped up, “Do you need this item?” And you took a second to think before replying.
This time, none of the nine skeletons yielded anything interesting—just bones, shards of rusted swords, and a few grave centipedes. A bunch of crap… Although somebody decided they needed it. Who could possibly have taken it all?
“All right, we need a new strategy. We won’t split into groups of three,” announced Oygolinn. “They’ll overpower us since they’re in trios, too. Swordsmen, you’ll be in the front taking the skeletons on in the center. I’ll be right behind you, also working in the center, with the three other hunters working the left and right flanks. You two,” he said to Liutix and me, “watch the flanks. If the hunters are threatened, you know what to do. Rodriguez, focus on healing the tanks. Move out!”
And that’s how it went. The next nine skeletons were a piece of cake. The archers spread out to the point that only every third skeleton made it to the swordsmen at all, and even their health was in the red. You could almost hear them creaking out something like “Ah, you got me, you living scum,” as they crumbled into heaps of tiny bones before Flosi’s sword could cleave into them.
I was quite happy with how things were going, as I leveled-up three more times and got another message:
You unlocked Strength of the Strong, Level 2.
To get it, destroy 19 more enemies that are 10 levels or more above you.
Reward:
Daredevil, a passive ability, Level 2: +0.6% to the damage you do with all weapon types
Worthy Reward, a passive ability: +2% chance of finding rare items on defeated enemies
To see similar messages, go to the Action section of the attribute window.
I was especially happy about Worthy Reward since I was sure I’d get the ability. I had just gotten to Level 10, and the skeletons were all Levels 28-30, so I had another ten levels to go. That would be enough time to take out 19 skeletons, right?
“Liutix, Hagen, make sure you watch our back. They respawn every four minutes, so we need to make sure they don’t come at us from back there. And keep checking the flanks.” Our commander was comfortable in his role, and there was a new steel to his voice.
His instructions were well-timed. I looked over my shoulder, then glanced to my left…and my eyes opened wide. Forty strides away, an enormous skeleton came out of the picturesque ruins. He wore a helmet and had fireballs for eyes.
“Hey, commander, look!” I shouted with all of my strength.
“Form up, face left!” Oygolinn barked as soon as he turned his head.
“Oh no, it’s the leech!” the halfling said softly and shakily.
“Stay out of this, let us handle him!” we heard from Reineke Lis.
Without even taking the pipe from his mouth, he covered the ground in three large leaps—the same ground it took us fifteen minutes to cross—and, pulling out his sword as he went, moved toward the leech. The latter didn’t react to him in the least, which wasn’t a surprise given the difference in their levels. Bot enemies consider you a target until you get 15 levels ahead of them. Then they ignore you. And, really, you ignore them, too, since you don’t get experience for killing them. So why kill them in the first place?
I didn’t even notice the exact moment the leech died. Two flashes in front of the sun and his helmet and skull were rolling around on the stones and the grass sticking up between them.
“That didn’t take long,” grunted Kerv from behind me. “Must be nice to be that advanced.”
“What are you looking at?” barked Oygolinn. “Form up! Le-e-et’s go!”
And off w-e-e-e went. Over the next three hours, I leveled-up nine times, got to Level 3 Strength of the Strong, and finally received another message:
You unlocked Death of Bones, Level 2.
To get it, destroy another 99 warrior skeletons.
Reward:
Mental Fortitude, a passive attribute, Level 2: +1.5% to your mental strength against grave horrors
0.5% defense against poisons
To see similar messages, go to the Action section of the attribute window.
Our friendly team scattered the field with skeleton bones, and in a few places, you could see the ragged remnants of zombies. They were slower than the skeletons, though they could take more punishment. True, they didn’t give me an action for some reason. We also took care of a ghost that looked like an overgrown Casper and howled savagely. The howls were probably there to scare us, but I had the distinct impression that it was howling because it was scared of us. Still:
You unlocked Light Drives Out Darkness, Level 1.
To get it, destroy another 49 specters.
Reward:
See the Invisible, a passive attribute, Level 1: 0.5% to your ability to see the invisible—secret doors and crypts
0.5% defense against cold
To see similar messages, go to the Action section of the attribute window.
Sometimes we found more than just bones in the piles our dead friends left behind. There wasn’t anything at my level, of course—just usual blue items for levels 27-30. And nothing rare or elite, of course. But that made sense; this was just a normal location with normal bots.
There were five types of items in the Fayroll world:
Usual items were blue, had one or two attributes, and were for any class.
Rare items were purple, had three or four attributes, and were for any class.
Elite items were yellow, had three to five attributes and a class-specific ability, and were for specific classes.
Legendary items were orange, boasted up to six attributes, usually belonged at one point to an ancient hero, and let you learn a new ability or skill. You couldn’t find them doing normal quests, though rare ones gave you a chance. On the other hand, you had to kill especially evil and unusual monsters to get them.
And finally, there were set items. They were gold, and they had incredible capabilities. Complete sets could have from 2 to 15 items, and each of those items was incredibly hard to find. Each consecutive item you found gave you huge bonuses. However, they were almost impossible to find out in nature, so getting them meant killing serious raid bosses—one every raid, and not every time. You could also get them from quests, though only from epic and hidden quests. If you had a full set with at least five items, you were closing in on the Gaming Legend title. Though you couldn’t get set items in normal combat. I mean, you could, but your chances weren’t just close to zero; they were more like one in a billion.
On the other hand, you could get rare and even elite items in normal battles, if very infrequently. We weren’t lucky, and I was especially unlucky; there were a few items for my class, though I didn’t win any of them. Just not my day.
“Let’s get back to the hill,” ordered Oygolinn. “We’ll rest for a bit and distribute points.”
Our formation turned and moved for the hill. There, we lay down on the grass and listened to Eilinn.
“You can rest as long as you want. We have an hour and 45 minutes left. Oygolinn, could I speak with you for a second?”
Our commander headed over, and for a se
cond, I wondered what they could be talking about. I had other things to worry about, however, so I ignored them and set to distributing my points. In total, I’d leveled-up 13 times, earning 80 skill points.
I still wanted to go with a soldier—a simple class that doesn’t do much thinking, is strong, and has lots of health. With that in mind, I added 40 points to my strength and 30 to my stamina. After some thinking, I finished up with six agility points and two each for wisdom and intellect. Why not? I ended up with:
Basic attributes:
Strength: 56
Intellect: 3
Agility: 9
Stamina: 41
Wisdom: 3
Yeah, not very balanced. Still, strong and healthy. And now, it would take more than one blow for the skeletons to kill me! Finally, I could go get a class-specific quest and earn some combat abilities.
Nothing really interesting happened during the rest of the hunt. We kept fighting the skeletons for another hour and a half, but still… Everyone else had leveled-up quite a bit as well, if not as many times as I did, and the skeleton trios that just about had us at the beginning of the raid were barely a challenge by the end. Our hunters took them out as soon as they got close enough to shoot at.
As things wound down, we were all relieved to hear Sergeant yell at us from the hill, “Fa-a-all back!”
After we went through the portal and found ourselves on the cobblestones outside the fortress, we were all set to thank Eilinn, Sergeant, and the other veterans and head offline. We were all pretty tired from the stress. However, before we could do so Eilinn said, “Not so fast; line up.”
We followed his order, sensing that something was up.
“I’m happy to announce, Thunderbird volunteers, that most of you passed the challenge with flying colors. What we did today was less about leveling you up and more about seeing how you behave in extreme and social situations.”
“Did everyone pass?” asked Oygolinn.
“Of course not,” Eilinn answered easily. “That never happens. Though you did well—seven out of ten.”
“Who didn’t pass?” Again Oygolinn.
“Ronin, Kerv, and Aerinn.”
“What?!!” bellowed the barbarian. “I was out there killing skeletons right and left!”
“Yes, you were,” said Sergeant. “But your ability to wave a sword around isn’t the only thing we look at.”
“Exactly,” confirmed Eilinn. “For starters, you constantly and pointlessly fought Oygolinn’s leadership, which everyone else accepted. And then, you were insubordinate. We don’t tolerate that in our clan.”
“But why us?” asked Kerv, and the elf girl nodded in agreement.
“What items did you take during the game?”
“I got shoulder guards with +3 strength and greaves with +3 stamina and +2 strength,” said Kerv.
“I have a mantle with +2 wisdom and +2 stamina and a wristlet with +3 agility,” answered the elf.
“And why would archers need any of that? Well, except for the wristlet. It’s all for warriors and mages. You knew that, and you knew you had both of those classes in the group, but you took the items anyway. That isn’t a huge deal, but it does show that you aren’t yet ready to work as part of a team. And that isn’t a good thing or a bad thing; it’s just that you aren’t right for our clan right now. Come back in a month and apply again if you want—except for you, Ronin. Don’t bother, because we won’t consider it.”
The clan badge above the heads of three of our recent comrades blinked and disappeared.
That’s why he asked to talk with Oygolinn when we were on the hill, I thought.
“Oh, I won’t. Who needs you?”
The barbarian dramatically spat on the cobblestones and turned for the door.
“Listen, elf scum.” Ronin turned at the gate and looked at Oygolinn. “We’ll be seeing each other. Oh, and I’ll have my eye out for you, too, little one.” He jabbed a finger in my direction and left.
“Hey, life’s more interesting when you have enemies,” laughed Krolina. “That way you always have a goal.”
“You can also go,” Eilinn said, looking at Kerv and Aerinn. “I think the experience you got today will compensate you in full for the time you spent with us.”
“Have a good one,” said Kerv, and the girl just nodded. It looked to me like she was doing her best to keep from crying. I think she was just embarrassed.
“I think we’ll meet again,” Eilinn said gently.
“Well,” he said when the other two were outside the gate. “And now the rewards for everyone who passed the test. Right this way.”
And we followed him into the fortress.
Chapter Seven
Into the Village, Into the Wilderness
“Rewards sound good,” muttered Liutix, walking next to me. “But is anyone really going to give us anything good just like that? They’ll probably just hand us each a life potion and a mana potion and call it a day.”
We got to the small clan storehouse, the one I wasn’t “allowed in yet.” It was locked, but next to Sergeant stood a halfling with a set of enormous keys hanging on his belt.
“This,” Eilinn pointed at him, “is Marcho Bigl, the keeper of the large and small clan storages and the keeper of the clan keys…”
“…for all the doors and locks.” I couldn’t help myself.
“Very funny. Ha, ha, ha,” the keeper of the large and small storehouses, the seven seas, and all the homes of men said emotionlessly, with a quick glance at me. “Somehow, I get the feeling that you’ll be last in line to the storehouse.”
“That’s not good,” I said.
“Not good at all,” agreed Marcho. “And I think we can say you’ll always be last.”
“But what if I come alone? And nobody else is there?”
“I’ll think of something,” said the storekeeper with a smile that spoke volumes. “I’ve got time, plus a rich imagination…”
“Okay, okay,” Eilinn said in a conciliatory tone. “He already knows he made a mistake, and he’ll fix it. He’s still new. What can you do?”
“New is right,” Sergeant butted in grumpily. “Marcho, you should have heard him talking to me yesterday!” Tattletale.
“I’ll bet!” Marcho nodded his head in sympathy. “Kids these days.”
“Your highnesses,” said Eilinn, “we’re all aware of how the grass was greener, the sky was bluer, and your socks never had holes when you were new. Maybe we can get on with this?”
Marcho, with a sniff and a groan, pushed open the massive oaken door with gorgeous inlays, and our whole friendly group tramped into the small clan storehouse.
My first impression was one of bewilderment. The clan storehouse was drawn like…oh, I don’t know… Well, have you seen Warehouse 13? It looked something like that. Racks held all kinds of gadgets and different kinds of armor, and there were weapons and mummified heads of epic beasts hanging on the walls. The heads each sported a plaque that read something like:
Three-legged gorgol, poison-spitter, regenerating. Epic monster, boss. Killed by Harvey Ragnarrson during a clan raid in Khittsbro Cave near Aina.
Well, it wasn’t your standard storehouse—more like a locker room. Or our unit’s store room. Our storeroom keeper, a hardened warrior had a vivid imagination, and he set it up to make sure nobody would be walking around or stealing anything. You walked in, took three steps, and found yourself at the delivery window.
Marcho stepped behind the window and said, “I’m ready. First!”
“Just one second.” Eilinn clapped his hands like some elementary school teacher or tour guide. “After today’s test, you are now much closer to full membership in the clan. You showed us—both me and a few of the clan elite—what you can do in combat as well as in personal situations. The fact that you are here means that everything went well. And in recognition of the fact that the clan likes what it sees in you, we would like to give you a small advance in the hopes that you will like
what you see in us. To be precise, we will give you equipment and weapons that match your level.”
“Step up to Marcho,” jumped in Sergeant.” Say your name, level, and class. Take what you’re given and step away.”
“What if I don’t like what you give me?” asked Flosi.
“Are you kidding me?” Sergeant choked. “Don’t bite the hand that feeds you.”
“He wasn’t being clear,” Oygolinn said quickly. “What he meant was, do we have to wear what we’re given? I mean, if we get something better during a raid?”
“Whether you wear it or not is completely up to you,” answered Eilinn. “If you don’t need it anymore, you’re welcome to return it to the storehouse.”
Yeah, right, I thought. Once I get something, I’m not giving it up. And anyway, I can always just sell it.
The group lined up, and I found myself third.
“Hey, funny guy,” said Marcho when he saw me. “Get to the back of the line.”
I saw at once that there was no point in arguing with him, so I went and found Oygolinn standing at the back of the line.
“Why are you last?” I asked him.
“I was in charge, so I should be last,” he answered calmly.
“You’re that proper about it?”
“No, that’s just the way it’s done. At least, it was in another game I used to play. Whoever was in charge of the group or raid got their handout last.”
“Did they hand things out a lot?”
“Yep.”
The line moved quickly, as Marcho seemed to be born for his job. Everyone stepping away from the counter looked over their new acquisitions with satisfied faces.
When it was finally my turn, I rapped out, “Hagen, Level 19, warrior.”
“A warrior, you say?” I couldn’t tell what Marcho was saying by looking at his face, but I had the feeling he had something unpleasant up his sleeve.
More Than a Game Page 9