by M Helbig
I was grateful that I passed out. With the test pattern playing in my ears and my vision only capable of seeing in black and white when consciousness returned, I stumbled away from Olaf’s creepy corpse (which became doubly creepy when the newly resurrected Olaf’s voice pipped up in group chat).
The battered green buildings of the city loomed above me—the ones that were still standing anyway—and not below us as they’d been before my unexpected nap. Several looks at the motionless lobster claws parallel to me and at the people scampering nearby allowed my swaying brain to piece together what had happened. The fact that Alizia was now skipping toward me should’ve immediately clued me in.
“So, Clewd killed the lobster?” I groaned as I rubbed my temples.
My usual cure for this kind of headache was either copious amounts of coffee or more alcohol. Alizia handed me something even better. I’d have questioned a bubbling, bright green liquid, but dying would’ve been an improvement, so I yanked the cork off and downed the strange liquid in one gulp. I opened my notifications to see what it had done and inadvertently caught all the skill ups I’d missed since entering Fen as well.
You have gained 2 skill points in Sprint! 5/25
You have gained 1 skill point in Nature Magic! 5/25
You have gained 1 skill point in Regen! 10/25
You have unlocked the Potion Master skill!
You have been cured of Disoriented status!
My vision immediately stopped swaying and I felt like I’d woken up from a night of magnificent sleep. I handed the empty back to Alizia to add to her collection. “Thanks. What was that? And why don’t they hand those out at every bar before you leave?”
The vial disappeared into Alizia’s pack. “Greater Cure Potion. Clears out most ailments. And probably because they cost 1,000 gold a pop. It’s why most people only buy the lesser cures for specific problems, like Cure Bleed, Cure Poison, etc.”
My mouth dropped open. “What, do they make that stuff out of actual gold?”
“Partially. I’d charge ya for it, but it was a gift from one of my creepier admirers. Couldn’t bring myself to drink it. So, now that you’re back, what’s the plan?”
I surveyed the scene. Clewd was nowhere to be seen, but I had a feeling he was responsible for the regular intervals of temporarily flying orcs in the distance. Most of the players I could see seemed to be heading in that direction, so I assumed that was where most of the fighting was happening. For the sake of our faction, it was probably where we should’ve headed, but we had other things to worry about.
“Decrona, where are you?” I asked in group chat. “If you’re in trouble, show us where you are on the map, and we’ll come get you.”
“Excellent thinking, Horus,” Olaf said. “I resurrected back at our bind point in Highwall. I do not see her, so she must still be there—unless she started making her way back. I should probably do that now.”
“Bind point?” I said. “Wait! Nyytro died too. I know he may not still have the same starting bind point, but do you mind checking around for him just in case?”
“Sure thing. Could you make sure nobody—AKA, Alizia—does anything to my handsome corpse until then?”
I glared at Alizia, and she winced as she unsummoned her makeup kit. “Will do,” I said, “but don’t take too long—maybe enough time to get a quick look around the merchant area near the gates—while we try to find Decrona. Decrona? Say something. Are you all right?”
“Decrona dropped group a while ago,” Olaf said. “Sometime after we climbed on top of the lobster.”
I sent a message to Decrona, worried that in my haste to get Nyytro I’d inadvertently upset her. The agonizing silence seemed to stretch for hours—though the clock built into the interface indicated it was only a few minutes—before a message appeared.
“My apologies,” Decrona said in her message. “I died somewhere in the north of the city. I needed to group up with others so I could safely make my way back. I can’t wait to find you, Olaf, and even Alizia after only a few minutes with these halfwits, but it’s safer than being alone. I mentioned this in group chat, but in the chaos you must have missed it.”
I felt responsible for her death, but with the huge crowds and number of enemy players rampaging around, I knew there wasn’t much more I could’ve done. “I sent another message to Decrona asking her where her corpse was,” I said in group chat.
“Yeah!” Alizia said with a grin. “And I won’t touch it, just like I promised.”
Decrona responded to me. “I got turned around in the chaos and got lost. I remember seeing that raised flower garden we were standing on in the distance right before I fell. The large golem was to my left.”
Alizia finished sliding Olaf’s corpse into a secluded alley and then bent his mouth into a goofy grin. I rolled my eyes and moved it back into its previous, somber state. “I’ll keep an eye on her,” I said in both my response to Decrona and out loud to Alizia. “And we’ll get your corpse to safety for you.”
“And I promise to keep an eye on Horus.” Alizia giggled as she pointed the Glass Eye she’d looted from the kobold at me and pushed me back into the main road. “Come, my personal healer, we have the remains of my previous personal healer to save from this evil, rampaging horde. It will be an epic journey for the bards to sing about for decades after our demise, which hopefully won’t be during this journey. Although, a good tale of tragedy would probably make it better—not that I don’t have faith in you.”
She did her best superhero pose and then pointed forward. “To destiny!”
I turned her around to point toward the north, where Decrona had indicated her corpse was.
She put her other hand on her hip and pointed again. “To destiny!”
Ways to Travel Faster Than a Horse Can Without Getting Crapped On
It turned out the enemy force wasn’t entirely composed of orcs. Short foxkin and lithe goblins darted between legs, biting, clawing and bludgeoning anything they could get their paws on. Centaurs trotted around the crowd firing arrows or lancing any stragglers who found themselves isolated. Shadow elf mages unleashed deadly magic from the back rows. Despite their diminutive stature, I was surprised to see several pixy warriors and bruisers going toe to toe against their much larger opposites without difficulty. They even had quite a few humans in their ranks, though you could usually tell them apart from ours by their scars, eye patches, unshaved faces or dark clothing. I was quite heartened to see that even the supposed evil faction had such diversity, until it dawned on me they were between us and our fallen friend.
Alizia banged her scepter against her shield enthusiastically. “Woo-hoo! I can hear the bards singing our song now. It’d be nice if it wasn’t a funeral march, but hey, we got a song!”
I barely managed to grab her and pull her back before she charged in. “How about we come up with a plan, first?”
“Alizia, listen to him,” Olaf said in group chat.
Alizia scratched her forehead with her scepter. “The song probably would be better—not to mention longer— if we managed to take a few of ’em out first. All right, I’m listening, O master strategist. What is this plan you speak of?”
I climbed back on top of the giant lobster corpse to get a better view. The raised planter took a few minutes to find, given that most of the flowers were now either trampled or covered by corpses. Unfortunately, none of those corpses were wearing immaculate though mundane mage robes. All the combatants I could see had some sort of magical, glowing effect on their armor, marking them as several levels higher than our group. While that didn’t bode well for our chances of surviving, it did, at least, make coming up with a general strategy easy: avoid combat at all costs. I triangulated the general area she was talking about by positioning the remnants of the golem to its left and the flower garden before it, but after several scans couldn’t locate a dead mage. I was about to conclude that she was mistaken when a foxkin Bruiser was pushed back by a glowing blast of wind
to reveal exactly what I’d been looking for.
Alizia saw it a second after I did, and I barely managed to prevent her from charging off again. “That’s a goal, not a plan,” I said. “Give me a minute.”
She crossed her arms and pouted. “I still contend that ‘charge’ constitutes both a beginning and an ending to a plan, but I guess I owe it to you. You have one minute.”
“What are they doing here?” Olaf asked.
I nearly tripped in surprise. “They, who?”
“Sorry,” Olaf said. “Only one person. I will let you know more when I find out.”
I turned around, momentarily forgetting that though Olaf’s voice was crystal clear, he was miles away in another city. “Nyytro,” I whispered spitefully under my breath.
My mind raced as I tried to come up with some way to get to him. But how? There were super-fast flying mounts in the game, but they cost the equivalent of a mansion in real world money. It would have been incredibly unlikely for a higher-level player to loan me one under normal circumstances, and impossible under current ones.
I’d heard about there being teleportation scrolls, but they were very expensive. No idea how expensive, but even if the paltry fifty-three gold I had on me was somehow enough, there was no way anyone around me had the time to sell me one. Well, there is one person who’s free, and she does tend to have random expensive items on her, I thought.
I grinned a little too much as I looked at Alizia, causing her to jump back. “I’ll promise not to run off, if you promise never to make that face again. You look like a guy who says he wants to sell me a car but is really only interested in my dirty underwear.”
I stopped grinning. “Do you happen to have a teleportation scroll?”
“A TP scroll?” I could barely understand the rest of her statement through the giggles. “Jeez. I only flirt with the fellas a little. I don’t do—For that, I’d have to go well past PG-13 and all the way into . . . No. I don’t have one of those. If I did, I’d sell it and buy a replacement for Decrona, who’s mute and has better hair.”
“Darn.” I looked at the fighting unfolding in front of us, hoping to find an answer there. The only thing the action told me was that Alizia and I’d be lucky to survive in there for a few seconds. There were quite a few lower levels in the melee, but all it took was a stray area effect spell or a quick blow from one of the big boys to turn them into corpses. I imagined that the starting bind points were getting rather crowded. It was a good thing Olaf had moved from the one in Highwall to trail Nyytro . . .
“Alizia!” I said. I must have made another awful face because she jumped back and covered her eyes. “I want you to go guard Olaf’s corpse. We’re going to have to get Decrona’s later, since we have no chance of getting to it now anyway. I have a plan.”
Alizia saluted me over-dramatically. “Aye, aye, Captain! And I must say, I love it when your plans leave me unsupervised. What are you going to do, if I may be so bold as to ask?”
I pointed to the alleyway behind her, where we’d stashed Olaf’s corpse. “Probably better that you don’t know, but I promise you’ll figure it out pretty quick.”
Alizia made an O with her mouth. “Mystery. Suspense! I love it. If you need to borrow any makeup, dresses or anvils, just say the word.”
I rolled my eyes and pointed back to the alleyway.
“I still say cartoons are an excellent source of plans and strategies,” she grumbled as she made her way to the alley.
When I could no longer see her, I turned back to the melee. It took me about a minute to find my target, but as soon as I saw her, I knew she was perfect.
I could barely make out the orc’s face through all the spikes on her armor. I had to wait a bit for her to finish off the brave dwarf she’d been engaged with. He (?) put on a brave show, but he should’ve known that with his holey, rusty chainmail tunic and dented, mundane axe, he had little chance against the orcess in her obviously heavily enchanted gear. A laughing skull shot out from her hand, enveloping the dwarf’s head. He coughed uncontrollably and his axe drooped, leaving him defenseless as the head of her staff cracked into the darkness, dropping him in one blow.
She immediately searched for her next victim, and I obliged by charging her. Her face crinkled in doubt as she scanned me for some sort of hidden trap, but her instincts took over and she swung as soon as I got into range. I didn’t even have time to begin coughing when the skull covered my vision as the staff bashed in my skull less than a second later.
You Have Died.
You have lost 11 gold. If you make it back to your corpse in less than 24 hours, you will recover 5 gold 5 silver.
Do you want to resurrect at your last bind location: Highwall Main Gate, or wait for another player to resurrect you?
Say “Yes” or “No.”
The Meeting Wasn’t Secret. I Just Didn’t Want You to Know About It
“Worst plan ever!” Alizia said into group chat. “If you can launch that plan into space, drown it, and crush its self-esteem by not ever calling it again, I highly recommend it. And those things are not at all what I was doing to Olaf’s corpse when that happened.”
“Odd that the corpse she isn’t guarding is probably safer,” Olaf grumbled into group chat. “What happened, Horus?”
I hit “Yes” and reappeared in Highwall. The bind spot was full of people. It took me several minutes to push my way through. Once I got out, I found the market area to be elsewise empty besides the NPCs. Nearly all the players were either in the bind area or running toward the gate to head back to the battle in Fen. It was easy to see that neither Olaf nor Nyytro were there.
“Where are you, Olaf?” I asked as a huge lump developed in my throat.
“Still in Highwall,” he said in group chat.
I summoned my map and thought of Olaf. A blinking red dot appeared in the middle of the Military District right next to my class training hall.
The dot that represented Olaf began to advance which also probably meant that Nyytro was moving as well. I quickly found where they were headed on the map and confirmed my suspicion: The Mage Quarters contained the city’s second gate. I’d heard that led to a higher-level area, but I wasn’t sure how high. I turned on Sprint and rushed toward the dot.
The deserted streets made a trip that would’ve normally taken at least twenty minutes, take about two; however, as I neared Olaf’s position, I came to a halt and ducked behind a wall as I spotted his target in the distance. With my Action Points nearly empty, I couldn’t afford for Nyytro to see me and use Sprint. Olaf was on the other side of the street, hiding behind a stack of barrels.
There was only one other person in the street, so it was easy to tell who we were following. When the figure turned around a corner, I ran across the street to meet Olaf. Olaf’s eyes bulged when I tapped him on the back.
“I thought you were only asking out of curiosity. Why are you here?” Olaf asked. “Did Alizia kill you?”
“Hey!” Alizia said in group chat. “I—OK, yeah. I can see why you’d assume that, but no, the dummy did it himself this time.”
“You said you saw someone important, so I killed myself to get here and see.”
“What?” Olaf asked. “You did not need to come here for that. I could have just recorded this and sent it to you. Oh! She’s getting away.”
I didn’t have time to puzzle through his words as I was too busy pushing myself as hard as my non-Sprint-assisted movement speed would allow. When we hit the corner, no one was in sight. The street zigged to the right a block later and emptied out to a massive plaza. There was only one person in view, and as Olaf sped past the purple-haired forest giant named Testicleeze, I figured we were after someone else.
I took a step toward the gate to the leave the city, but Olaf pulled me back. “If our target went through there, the ettins and onis would kill her in one hit. She must have gone that way.” He pointed toward a huge seven-story building made of marble, outlined by what seemed like
gold. I had to shade my eyes to read the gleaming sign, but I eventually made it out to simply read “Library.”
“She who?” I asked.
Olaf hurriedly climbed the roughly thirty steps to the entrance, too intent on whoever it was we were after to answer me. “I will look inside, and you cover the outside.”
I glanced up at the towering structure. “That’s a lot of ground to cover by yourself.”
“There’s a clerk at the entrance who can tell me if anyone entered recently.”
He was already through the door before I could open my mouth again to ask him who we were after. It didn’t matter, as there was barely anyone around, and I knew Tracking would give me my answer. Only about fifteen names popped up and only four were shaded white to indicate they were players: Olaf, Testicleeze, someone named Cedra, and Decrona.
Decrona? But she’s supposed to be making her way back . . . Reeling from the swirl of thoughts, I wandered into an alcove and almost connected with another player.
My jaw dropped, and judging by the other player’s face, she wanted to drop a lot more than just my jaw. One eyeful of her armor and I decided to revise my estimation of what “expensive” looked like, as every edge of the middle-aged woman’s plate seemed to glow independently. With each slight movement as she crossed her arms, I was greeted by a slightly different shade of blue, at least from the few parts of her that were actually covered in armor. I wasn’t really sure how having most of her torso, arms, thighs, and three-fourths of her chest uncovered could protect her from much, but then again almost none of the female armor I’d seen had seemed like good protection from even the slightest of breezes, let alone a deadly weapon.
“Oh, sorry,” I said. “I was—I mean, I—”
I wasn’t sure how she managed to speak without moving a single muscle in her face besides the bare minimum around her jaw as she responded with a simple, “Leave.”