Team Newb

by M Helbig

  He snapped his fingers and pointed. “Oh, yeah. I outbid you for the Belt of Semi-Awesomeness. Still mad because I made you cry?”

  I shook my head and nocked an arrow.

  “I accidentally killed your party by overturning a vat of acid on them at the flying squirrel fort?”

  “No. I’m Frank’s son, Lucas. You killed me on Earth! And how can you possibly have that many enemies already? We haven’t even been in here a week.” My shot missed by several feet, thumping into the wall above his head.

  Nyytro snorted as he twirled his dagger. He gave me the “hurry up” gesture as I loaded another arrow. “The more enemies, the more important the person, which judging by that crappy equipment and your even crappier aim, must mean you don’t have any. I’ll give you two more shots, and then I’ll put you out of your misery. Wonder if I can one-shot you with my pinky.”

  Not trusting him to keep his word, I hurriedly fired again. The arrow landed in the wood an inch away from the previous one. Feeling it was worth the risk of him breaking his word—and wanting to save my pride by at least hitting him once—I took the time to steady myself and line my shot up. As I slowly pulled the bow back, I made sure to slow my breathing and my heart rate before I launched. I wanted to aim right between the eyes, but his helmet had a long, metal nose guard, so I picked a single eye as the next best thing.

  The arrow flew true, not wavering in the slightest as it rocketed toward his right eye. Nyytro’s mouth opened into a big O-shape as he stood paralyzed by the shot barreling toward him. I let out a whoop of delight and was about to pump my fist when the arrow inexplicably bent far to the left like it’d been pulled by a very powerful magnet or was subject to cartoon physics. The arrow crashed into a window that sat at almost a ninety-degree angle from its target. Shards of glass spewed everywhere, every one of which also bent away from Nyytro when they got within a foot of his body.

  Nyytro turned the O-shape of his mouth into a pucker and blew me a kiss. “God, messing with newbs is fun. I’m almost tempted to let you shoot at me all day, but you know, things to do, people’s days to ruin.” He plucked one of the arrows from the wall behind him and skipped as he walked toward me. When he got a couple of feet away, he threw the arrow at me like a dart and snorted in laughter as I jumped back. The arrow’s trajectory once again cartoonishly bent—this time sending it straight into the ceiling.

  He waved goodbye as he exited the door. “Most player cities are no-combat areas except against members of the other faction, moron.”

  I stared at his back, slack jawed and helpless to do anything against him. My mind raced in panic searching through all my items and abilities for anything that could hurt him. I ran after him. Figuring I had nothing to lose, I fumbled through a Heat spell. The red and green flames arched perfectly toward him at first, but as expected, blossomed out to the sides like they’d struck an invisible barrier when they neared him.

  The walls of the building weren’t so protected, however, and the hallway quickly caught fire. I thought I might have found a loophole and that fire from the building might affect him or burn loose something that might fall on him, but the fire was behind him. He soon exited, likely oblivious to what kept transpiring in the place he’d left. The fire did spread toward me, however, but stopped, spreading out in a circle as it connected with my invisible barrier. Each new step extinguished the fire around me. As neat as that looked, I did not want to test the no-combat rule for loopholes, when those loopholes were for the moment directed at me, and I quickly exited the now raging inferno.

  I half expected Nyytro to be waiting for me just outside the door to throw additional insults my way, but was quite surprised when I was greeted by the nervously pacing Decrona instead. I almost knocked her down in avid search for my casually murderous quarry, but I could find no sign of him. The only other people in sight were the guy with the terrible combover and the panting forms of Alizia and Olaf about a block away.

  I steadied Decrona before she fell over. “Did you see Nyytro?” I asked.

  She waited for her eyes to stop rolling before she spoke. “Yes. He ran right by me.”

  “What! Why didn’t you stop him?”

  She backed up in a hurry. “You can’t attack players here unless they’re of the other faction. Everyone knows that. The only thing I could’ve done was wrestle him into submission, but Inspect showed him having a lot more Strength than me, so I knew that would be fruitless.”

  “Did you at least see which way he went?” I willed my fist to lower, but it disobeyed. The best I could do was hold it still.

  Decrona pointed toward a short alley leading back to the auctions, in the opposite direction from the towering inferno that was consuming the building I’d left. I could see a large crowd on the other side of the alley and no sign of a balding man. Tracking gave me a “Player Not Found” message when I tried his name. He couldn’t possibly have moved out of range, so I assumed he was using something to mask his presence, like Sneak. Before I could move, my attention was pulled back by the panting of Olaf and Alizia.

  “Did you trap him in that burning apartment building?” Alizia wheezed. “If you did, that’s a pretty clever loophole for the whole no-combat thing.”

  “Very,” Olaf sputtered out. “I was wondering what we would do after we grabbed the man we thought was him back in the bar, but this is brilliant. Well done!”

  I took a half step forward again but stopped. “Wait. What? You guys knew we couldn’t fight him? Why didn’t anyone tell me?”

  Alizia shuffled her feet nervously. “We thought you knew and had another one of your brilliant plans.”

  “Oh,” I said. “Well, if we go now, I think we can still catch him.”

  Olaf pulled me back before I charged off. “Listen, Horus. You have pulled off quite a few miracles since I have known you, but would not it be better to have a plan already worked out before you attack a person in public? The market area has a lot of player guards patrolling.”

  “The smart thing to do would be to wait outside town for him,” Decrona said. “That is, assuming we know both when and where he’s going to leave.”

  I moved forward. “I—we’ll—Something will come to me, but first we need to find him. At worst, we’ll sic Alizia on him, and she can annoy him to death.”

  “Since you’re angry, I’ll let that pass,” Alizia said. “Besides, I can’t wait to try out my soon-to-be smash country hit ‘Goblins Have Feelings, But They Also Drop Loot.’ Say, when I start singing, could you guys squeal in pain whenever I say ‘loot’? I think it’ll really add something.”

  Someone smashed a guitar behind me. “Where do you keep getting these things?” Olaf asked.

  As we exited the small alley, I let my anger guide me and tried to push my way through the crowd. Since almost everyone had a higher Strength than me, I barely managed to budge anyone through force, though after one look at me, most of them moved out of the way all the same. If I’d been my normal, polite self, we likely wouldn’t have gotten anywhere, but even with my anger-fueled plowing, it still took us five minutes to move thirty feet.

  “Mittens of Purple Rage. 15 AC, 6 STR, 7 AGI, 5 STA. Only 250 gold!” a squeaky voice shouted.

  “Has anyone seen him or anything out of place, like there’s an invisible person pushing his way through?” I asked as I glared my way past a forest giant in a long, embroidered robe.

  “What?” Olaf asked.

  “I think he said he wants to buy me new boots after this is all over,” Alizia said. “Nothing that used to be alive though—unless it has really high Charisma or enhances my singing voice . . . or if it matches my new cape. Also, if it’s shiny, but nothing red. Pink is OK, though.”

  “Slicer. 18-24 Damage, 6 DEX, 2 STR, Special Effect: Bleeding. 450 gold,” a deep voice shouted.

  “What?” Olaf asked.

  “I think I see him over there,” Decrona said in group chat. “We’ll need to talk in here. It’s far too noisy to hear
each other normally.”

  I spun around and looked in the direction Decrona was pointing. I couldn’t see Nyytro or anything out of the ordinary, but then again, I couldn’t see much of anything past her. I climbed on top of a raised flower bed and knocked the towering stovepipe hat off the wood elf in front of me so I could see. I scanned the crowd back and forth several times in the direction Decrona had pointed but couldn’t see anything unusual. Tracking produced nothing either. After Decrona finished apologizing to the elf with the ridiculous hat, she hopped up on the flower bed and pointed toward a balding man with a black goatee.

  “No, he has red hair,” I said as I went back to scanning the crowd. There had to be at least two hundred people crammed into the football-field-sized area. The good news was there wasn’t much in the way of objects to obstruct the view. The bad news was there was a very good possibility he’d left.

  Decrona went to pointing out every bit of red that she could see. I stopped paying attention when she pointed to an apple, but my heart leapt when I found a balding man with wispy bits of red hair a few seconds later. Hopping over a beaverkin couple, I raced toward him. Armed with the look on my face and my summoned bow, the crowd easily parted to let me through. My target dropped to his knees as I pointed an arrow at him, but a split second before I fired, I noticed his pointy ears.

  I dropped the arrow and cursed. He wasn’t Nyytro, and I’d wasted even more time. The real Nyytro was probably long gone. I dispelled my bow as it dawned on me that I couldn’t attack him inside the city anyway. Turning to renew my search, I nearly bowled Olaf over.

  “Anyone see him?” I growled in group chat.

  Olaf grimaced and took a step back. “No, sorry.”

  “He might be over there,” Decrona said. I couldn’t see her anymore, let alone where she was pointing. I assumed she was still back at the raised flower bed.

  “That’s a lobster. You’re really bad at this, Deccy,” Alizia said. I could barely make out the top of her head about twenty feet away. “By the way, what’s a lobster doing here? And why’s it so big?”

  Screams came from the distance and were soon accompanied by the rattling of buildings. The crowd began frantically moving in two competing directions; half of the people were running away from the noise and the other half moving toward it with weapons drawn. My scowl was no longer enough to move people out of the way, and I was forced to go with the flow of the crowd. Unfortunately, the flow was more like a whirlpool and less like a current. I ended up circling past the same lamppost four times before I managed to reunite with Olaf and Alizia on the edge of the square.

  “Decrona, where are you?” Olaf asked. When she didn’t respond, Olaf asked again to similar silence.

  I sighed under my breath. “Did you say there’s a giant lobster out there, Alizia?”

  “Yup. There’s some elf in blackface on his back too. There’s also a bunch of green guys to the north, though not pretty green like me, more looking like the world’s ugliest football team—you know, lots of muscles, scrunched up faces, and thick tusks. They’re taking their frustration about their ugliness out on the crowd with axes and such. Oh, yeah. And over that way, I saw a huge moving statue who has a vendetta against buildings. Must’ve had a bad breakup with one once.”

  “Don’t suppose you happened to use Inspect on any of them?” I asked.

  “It does not matter,” Olaf said. “If they can knock buildings over, they are far out of our league.” Olaf pointed to an alley behind us. “If those green people are engaging other players in combat inside the city, they must be Shadow. We should get out of here and find Nyytro later.”

  “There’s no way I’m letting him get away.” I moved toward the sounds of battle.

  Olaf tried to pull me back. “Be sensible, Horus.”

  I shook loose from his grip. “Vengeance doesn’t speak sensible. You guys can leave—I won’t fault you for it—but I have to try to find him.”

  I was heartened to see both of their shadows following me as I made my way through the drastically thinning mass, though part of me did feel guilty for leading them toward probable death. As we cleared the edge of the crowd, I could finally see the twenty-foot-tall golem smashing every building in sight. While he didn’t seem to be directly targeting anyone, he did take out a pack of archers when his huge fist sprayed the top floor of a luxury hotel on top of them, taking out scores more with each ground-shaking step. Before I could decide if I wanted to go that way, the golem tossed most of a five-story building across the road, completely blocking that route.

  Turning west instead left me with a choice between an army of orcs and a lone giant lobster. The orcs were fast and vicious, stabbing and bashing everyone who came within their range. While the lobster was cutting everything it could get with its claws in half, it was slow and missing more than it was hitting. A group of mages continually sprayed the lobster’s underside with magic while easily darting back and forth from its claws. Peeking over the top of the lobster’s head, a maniacally cackling shadow elf responded with magic of his own, vaporizing one of the mages in response. I glanced back as the orcs tore through everyone in their path, not letting anything past, and decided to take my chances with the slow lobster.

  “Do lobsters like ballads?” Alizia asked. “No? Sea shanties, then?”

  “Irrelevant,” Olaf said. “Nobody likes your singing. The better question is, how many Hit Points does it have, and what constitutes a vital area?”

  “Doesn’t matter, because we’re not trying to fight it,” I said as we stopped just out of its reach. “Avoid it as best you can, while we look for any signs of a balding, red-headed man.”

  I waited for its claw to crash down in front of us, and then zigged around it toward the huge area between its legs. Fortunately, the shadow elf was still busy with the pack of mages and didn’t even look our way.

  “Where exactly should we expect to find him?” Olaf asked behind me.

  “Probably that way.” I pointed to a group of refugees sprinting past the tail. “He’s a bully. The type who’s tough when he has a sizeable advantage but a coward when it’s an even fight or worse. I can almost guarantee we’ll find him outside of town.”

  “So then he wouldn’t leap on the back of a colossal monster like an action hero to stab it through the brain?” Alizia asked.

  “Of course not,” I said as we neared the tail. “He’d run away. Even for the fame and likely reward for saving the city, the risk’d be too great for him.”

  “Ahh . . . then it must be a coincidence that a guy who looks exactly like him and has the same name is climbing up the lobster right now.”

  An Elf and A Lobster Walk Into a City . . .

  I stopped in my tracks and turned around. Alizia was pointing up the lobster’s stair-like tail to a balding man in freshly polished leather armor as he sprinted upward. He did look like Nyytro from the back, but from that distance there was no way to be sure—or at least not if this had been Earth. I hit the figure with Inspect just before he disappeared as he crested the tail.

  Nyytro

  Level: 15

  HP: ???

  Class: Thief

  MP: ???

  Race: Human

  AP: ???

  Experience: ???

  AC: ???

  STR: ???

  Resists

  AGI: ???

  Light: ???

  DEX: ???

  Dark: ???

  STA: ???

  Earth: ???

  END: ???

  Water: ???

  CHA: ???

  Fire: ???

  INT: ???

  Wind: ???

  WIS: ???

  HP Regen: ???

  Carrying Capacity: ???

  MP Regen: ???

  AP Regen: ???

  Skills:???

  Equipment:???

  “That’s him,” I said as I hopped onto the lobster’s tail. Considering the lobster was moving—albeit very slowly—the tail was s
urprisingly easy to climb. I wondered if that was an intentional design decision to balance the raw power of the thing. “Any response from Decrona?”

  “No,” Olaf said as he skipped up the tail behind me. “Probably too busy running for her life to notice anything else.”

  Alizia gave a fake laugh as she slowly crawled up the tail on all fours. “More likely she’s holding a group of orcs at bay by explaining how inefficient their attack plan is and how she’d have done it better. We can meet her back at the bind spot in Highwall if the orcs don’t decide to make her death slow.”

  A few minutes later, I crested the tail to stand on the mostly level back of the lobster. The shadow elf was again leaning over the side to launch spells at the city’s defenders below. I desperately wanted to use Inspect on him to see what class and level he was but couldn’t risk the tingly aftereffect alerting him to our presence, especially since Nyytro was only a few feet away from him. As much as I desperately wanted to grab Nyytro, I decided to let him try to kill the elf first for the good of our faction, and so we wouldn’t have to worry about him.

  Before Alizia threw out one of her sometimes amusing and always loud bits of banter to alert them to our presence, I gave her the quiet sign. Amazingly, she complied, though that may have been because she was too preoccupied by how high up we were. She still hadn’t fully stood and kept glancing toward the side.

  Nyytro summoned his dagger and flipped it underhand so he could put all his weight into stabbing the prone and oblivious shadow elf. Part of me felt bad for letting the psychopath kill again, but then I remembered this was just a game and the elf would respawn. Besides, the elf was killing many more people through his lobster’s city-wide rampage.

  Nyytro grinned wickedly as he took a few practice stabs, but suddenly unsummoned his dagger and patted the shadow elf on the back. At first, I thought he was trying to push the elf over the edge to his death—and the elf did seem to fall for a second, before he hit some sort of invisible barrier about a foot over the edge and bounced back up—yet when Nyytro’s wicked grin turned to a friendly smirk instead, I knew the tap had only been meant to mess with him. A large crash sounded from the direction of the massive golem.