Spectres & Skin: Exodus

by RJ Creed

  My HP was at 90% from that good punch and fall. Nine more solid cracks against my temple and I’d be gone. Bye bye, Matt. My stamina was at 85%, too, from the failed attempt at a Draw Strike. This situation right here was exactly why I should have been more selfish. Asked the Father for a new pendant that gave me +10 in Fortitude, or something. Taken the +10% Stamina shoes for myself and given Xanthe my leather shoes. All of it — every stupid decision — was going to come and bite me right in the ass right here, and I hadn’t even been expecting it. I was going to die in the safest place in the game world.

  The sad thing was, I was sure there was so much I could have done to prevent it. So … I guess I deserved this. Outnumbered and skewered in an alley, and not even knowing why my killers wanted me dead.

  But I would be damned, that was for sure, if I didn’t fight like hell on the way out.

  The slash came for me just as my resolve strengthened enough for me to roll onto my side. The blade clanged against stone and it took him an extra second to recalibrate. In that time, I was on my feet, still wondering why the other two men weren’t helping him, even though they looked ready to go, arms up and eyes alert.

  Congratulations! Dodge has reached Level 3!

  I scrambled to my feet, my ears still ringing from the punch, using my hands on the wall behind me for purchase. His sword surged forward, aiming right for my gut and wasting no time, and I saw no other option but to unsheathe my dagger as quick as I could and smack my blade against the side of his. It made a scratchy clanging noise as the two sharp edges rasped against one another, but it knocked him off course just enough that the blade ramming into my ribs was mostly blocked by the thick leather I wore.

  My HP drained itself by 5%, leaving me at 85% and with a very painful rib. I had managed to curb the brunt of his attack fairly efficiently with just my bad dagger. Of course, Excision was in my pack, since I was in the market district and I didn’t want to get caught red-handed.

  I leaned back and then put all of my weight into a hefty kick right in Varkas’s stomach. He staggered backwards, his face reddening, and I advanced on him this time, pulling my arm back and taking the opportunity, with him being off-balance, to thrust forward with a Triple Strike.

  His HP fell by 15% just by that one attack, but now my Stamina was down to 60% already, which did not bode well. I swore under my breath as he swung his sword, and I concentrated hard, and slapped it upwards with my dagger, knocking his arm off-course, and then I quickly took that opportunity to dart forward and slam my blade into his arm.

  He cried out and his grip loosened on the sword, so I quickly grabbed his wrist, twisted, and booted him in the kidney so that I was holding his weapon now instead.

  All three of them stared at me, and I was a little stunned at how well that had gone, too.

  You have learned the skill Disarm!

  Well, hey, great! They could write that on my gravestone tomorrow.

  I was wielding a sword and a dagger now. I quickly, fumblingly, switched hands so that the sword was in my dominant hand and the dagger was in my left. I circled Varkas, who for the first time since this fight had begun actually looked alarmed. Our level discrepancy was high. I was 5 and he was 10. But he was wearing no armour and now he had no weapon. It seemed he had thought of this as a sure thing since I was outnumbered three to one, but the other two weren’t making a single move, which was bizarre.

  Three to one … actually, it was three to two. I had forgotten, again, that Moro could fight now. My mana pool was full, and my stamina was draining fast. The disarm attack had brought me down to 40%, which was far more worrying than my relatively healthy HP bar.

  “Moro,” I cried, but I couldn’t finish my sentence, as Varkas threw caution to the wind and launched fully at me like some kind of crazed panther man, arms spread wide. I didn’t want to waste the stamina dodging would take, which was my first instinct, so instead I just wildly swung the sword in his direction. It was clumsy, foreign and heavy in my hand.

  The flat, not the blade, slapped flaccidly against his side as he tackled me to the floor with a cry. My head smacked against the stone and again I saw stars and tasted blood.

  You have discovered a hidden skill!

  Swords: You’re only just now learning how to use a damn sword? Do you know how common those things are here? They are literally everywhere.

  He grappled with me for a while as I lay, partly stunned, and finally went for my mostly exposed throat. He wrapped his thick fingers tight around and choked the air out of me. I struggled at first, tried hard to pull air into my lungs to no avail, kicked with my legs and sliced with my two blades. I got in two hits, feeling slick hot blood coat my fingers, but he didn’t loosen his grip even as his face paled. He was a man possessed, his teeth gritted and eyes wild.

  “B...bite..!” I managed to choke out, just as the edges of my vision went black. It was enough. Moro launched from her place beside me, where she had been nervously shuffling, unable to run to my aid without my permission.

  The white wolf was a blur as she knocked him from my throat. I gasped in air and saw the other two men curse and stomp in circles at my lack of death. I sat up and wheezed, rubbing hard at the flowering bruises on my neck skin. Slowly my vision returned to normal and I turned just in time to see a huge chunk of Varkas’s defensive arm get torn out and spat onto the ground as he screamed.

  The man passed out shortly after, his blood draining onto the stone floor and his skin almost as white as Moro’s.

  Now my stamina was 35%, HP at 40%, and mana at about 55%. Moro had one more bite. I had one more ability before my stamina began to drain steadily towards death. Not to mention that my HP was just a few hits away from death, too.

  “Heal the guy,” buzzcut barked to his rounder friend. “I’ll deal with this in the meantime.”

  Serial killer stomped to Varkas’s 3% HP body and began rapidly wrapping various parts of his body in bandages, to my dismay.

  I got to my feet and panted, just as a notice appeared in front of my face.

  You have been challenged to a duel!

  Your levels will be averaged for the duration, and the duel will end when one of you yields or is one hit away from death.

  Accept/Deny

  My hand instinctively went to the Accept text, but then I flinched away. What the hell was he doing? I clicked Deny and backed off, and he growled at me and stepped forward, his face reddening.

  “You’re just delaying your own death, fucker!” he spat, and I furrowed my brow and finally took the second to inspect him.

  Fabio Crazyhands

  Level 5 Human

  ??

  What faction was he from and why couldn’t I see it? I guessed it was the Silver Falchion — so did the question mark come from some kind of a cloaking power, so that the people in the city didn’t freak out when inspecting him?

  Also, the lack of his relationship towards me meant that he was a player, like me. I realised then why he couldn’t attack me, and I couldn’t attack him. They had to get a non-player to attack and kill me, since all they could do in a non PvP area was challenge me to a duel…

  And they very much wanted me dead, for some reason.

  I was in the world’s weirdest staring competition. Buzzcut was grinding his teeth and glaring at me. I glanced towards the exit, and then took off towards it, but he grabbed at me and slammed me against the wall. “You aren’t goin’ anywhere until the old man is healed up and his sword is right through your fuckin’ throat.”

  “This one,” I said, holding the sword up. “How’s that gonna work?” I struggled, but his Strength score must have been higher than mine. He was wearing some pretty expensive-looking armour, now that I could have a close look at him, and his hands were adorned with rings.

  I brought up the sword and smacked his legs with it pointlessly. I don’t think he even really felt it. I struggled and twisted, desperate to get free before Varkas was fully healed and gutted me in this dirty alle
yway.

  “How’s it going over there?” buzzcut, or Fabio, called over to the side as he pressed me against the wall, firmly, but without hurting me at all.

  “It’s the arm, the stupid fucking wolf…” the other guy yelled back, desperately trying to stem the flow of blood from the gouged out flesh that Moro had caused. Varkas was stirring now though, and some colour had already returned to his skin.

  “Just wrap him in the bandages already and get him over here. He doesn’t need to fight his best, he just needs one good stab through the neck. Varkas, get over here you lazy c—”

  The last word suddenly devolved into a wet gargle, and blood poured from a brand new steel point coming out from his throat.

  “Shit, what happened?” serial killer called over. “Fab? Hey?”

  Fabio’s HP bar slid from 100% all the way down to 5%. He staggered and blinked at me, mouth open and blood staining his lips. He had the audacity to widen his eyes as a tear welled up and slid from it, as if begging silently for my help.

  The steel tip exited his throat the same way it had entered, and the blood really started to pour. Fabio fell to his knees and his HP fell to zero. My heart was pounding, and behind him I caught sight of a familiar face, and I let out a breath of relief.

  “Hey, fucker. In trouble already?” Ryken grinned.

  “Thanks,” I breathed, wiping sweat and dirt from my forehead.

  “Knew you wouldn’t be able to last a day without me,” he said, sheathing his stiletto and making his way to the other player. A quick inspection on the guy, who was now at his feet in a defensive stance and backing rapidly away, told me that he was only Level 4.

  “You can take that guy,” I told Ryken. “I’ll take Varkas.”

  “Fine.”

  I hovered above Varkas, unsure of what I wanted to do … I could kill him, but then I would be a killer. The guy was Hostile to me, sure, and he had completely tried to murder me in cold blood, but right now he was groaning and writhing on the ground. He wasn’t a threat to me at all.

  I quickly inspected him to confirm that he was still Hostile, and he was. That meant that when he got to his feet, he would try to kill me again. I could just end his life, and save my own.

  It felt wrong — it felt dishonourable — but my neck was on the line, and I had to stop making the wrong decisions; decisions that meant that I was further back from where I should have been at this point.

  So I took a firm grip of the man’s own sword in my hand, pressed it against his throat, and then drove it straight through until the tip met the resistance of the ground beneath him. Varkas writhed as his HP bar slid to the bottom, and just as I pulled the blade out again it hit 0%, and the man stopped moving.

  You have defeated Varkas Fallbrand (Level 10)

  You have gained 150 EXP!

  Congratulations!

  You are now Level 6.

  You have gained 1 Attribute Point.

  You have gained 1 Skill Point.

  Feeling a little dirty, but still a gamer, I bent down and patted him down, finding a coinpurse in his pocket and counting 56 coins, a ring on his finger and the sheath for his sword. I inspected first the ring, and then the sword.

  Ruby Ring of Intelligence

  Fine Quality

  INT: +2

  Steel Shortsword

  Good Quality

  Attack: +6

  Alright. I slid the ring onto my own finger and felt a brief buzz as a light fog felt as though it was lifted from my brain. Then I stuck the sword where my dominant hand was supposed to go, and left the dagger on my opposite side. I would replace it with Excision once I replaced the ornate, recognisable sheath, I decided. Then I could walk around Dawnspire with it on my person, and the next time I got jumped I would at least have some functional weaponry to defend myself with.

  “He’s getting away!” I heard Ryken yell. I scrambled to my feet and launched into a sprint to get to his side, and we beared down on the fleeing player. Ryken pointed suddenly, drawing my attention to Brother Nickel, walking with purpose down the street, and we tried to get his attention with a wave.

  “Fuck. Go with this,” I grunted.

  “Huh?” he panted.

  “Nickel!” I roared as we jogged, causing the Brother to whip his head around. Silas raised his white head and eyed the galloping Moro as if she were a tasty treat. “Skin magic user, there!”

  “Swear it,” Nickel yelled back, beginning to run and clap his hands to get Silas’s full attention.

  “I swear on my pendant!” Ryken called, thinking fast.

  “Yeah, that!” I added.

  That was enough for Nickel. He pointed at the player, zigzagging through the crowd desperately fleeing from us, and shouted the word ‘Fireball!’

  Silas slid up a nearby wall, raised as high as he could, and opened his enormous jaws as wide as they would go. A powerful blast of white-hot flame shot from his throat and, with laser-guided accuracy, smacked the player on the back of his head, causing him to fall forward and slam face-first onto the stone floor.

  People around us turned and screamed, backing away to the walls or fully sprinting from the streets and shouting. Silas shot forward with the speed of a bullet, not a giant ethereal viper, and as Nickel shouted another order he wrapped around the shaky player, who already only had a sliver of HP left.

  As the boy tried to struggle to his feet, Silas wrapped around him and began to squeeze.

  I could barely watch as the shouts of desperation turned into garbled gibberish, and then all of a sudden the player went totally limp and Silas released his fatal hold and made his way back to his master.

  My heart was in my throat. At the edges of the street people were staring at us, hands over their mouths, eyes shining with fear.

  “It’s alright, citizens,” Nickel shouted, raising his hand. “Please go back to your homes and remain calm. The threat has been dealt with.”

  From the looks on their terrified faces, I knew that he was wrong.

  The Collective was the threat to them.

  “What happens if he finds out we were lying?” I hissed to Ryken beside me, who dismissed me with a wave of his hand without even looking over.

  “I’m sure we weren’t. Every enemy of the Collective uses skin magic at some point. If he didn’t, who cares? He deserves to die.”

  Just as the people began to disperse, I felt a chokehold around my throat and managed to blurt out ‘Not again!’ before jaws closed around my shoulder. I shook off the attacker to the best of my ability and then, praying that I wasn’t making a fatal mistake, used Draw Strike to stick my dagger into the skull of whatever my attacker was.

  Ryken was pale as he watched Fabio, the man he had just killed, slump to the floor once again. He shook his head quickly. “Impossible,” he whispered. “Just like G.”

  “Nickel,” I yelled, spinning in the opposite direction and pointing at the body he was inspecting. “He’ll rise again.”

  The Brother raised his head and furrowed his brow. “Who are they?”

  “I think they’re the Silver Falchion,” I said, guessing to the best of my ability.

  Quest Failed!

  Speak No Evil

  Your reputation with the Dawnspire Collective has increased by 100!

  What?

  No…

  I waved away the text and swore under my breath. No no no! I had been so close! That wasn’t fair, surely? That had been the easiest quest I had ever been given, and I had failed it? It had been so important, too...

  Argh!

  I buried my head in my hands for a moment, ignoring Nickel’s shouts as the body reanimated, and he repeatedly stabbed it in the head and neck until it lay limp again.

  “What was that? Why did the body do that?” he demanded. “Boys, what do you know about this? What do you know about the Falchion’s presence in the city?”

  “Just whispers,” I said, bitterly, staring at the stone walls of the buildings beside me. Fuck. “As for
the body coming back … it’s a problem that’s just started.” I didn’t really know how to describe it. “If people came from a certain … faraway land, they are … infected with this. We’re calling it the ‘Glitch’.”

  “Glitch,” Nickel repeated, and then shook his head sourly. “First the Blight, then the Falchion. Now the Glitch? When will this end? When will our Lady return and save us?”

  I looked over at the man and saw genuine sadness in his eyes, and couldn’t help but feel a little sorry for him.

  “Soon,” I said to him. “She gave me a spectre, remember?”

  “Yes,” Nickel said, making an effort to drop the emotion from his eyes as he got to his feet and looked over at me, and then Moro. “It’s a sign. The prophecy spoke of it. But it also means that the Silver Falchion has their potential Champion, too. And this warrior wields Maledictus, which your wolf is presently no match for.”

  “What is Maledictus?” I couldn’t help but ask him. “A sword?”

  “Yes. A sword with the power to slay spectres.”

  Oh, I hadn’t known that.

  “It’s supposed to contain the soul of No One’s only spawn. No One is the sworn enemy of our Titania.” He clutched at his heart and mumbled the words he was supposed to say. “It’s the only weapon that can kill a spectre, and it can do a substantial amount of damage to flesh, too. It’s imbued to the gills with evil magic. Prophecy says that a spectre is the only thing that can kill it, and the sword is the only thing that can kill a spectre.” He looked at me with meaning, as if waiting for me to say something intelligent. I just nodded. “You know that it will come down to you. To Moro and Maledictus.”

  “So I’ve heard,” I mumbled.

  I still couldn’t believe I had failed such an important quest. How was I going to get Pollux on my side now?

  “Hey,” I said, just as Nickel was getting ready to leave again. He looked back. “Have you seen an Acolyte called Xanthe something?”