by Baron Sord
My Health was only at 80%, but the dripping blood drop icon was gone and my Stamina was up to about 70% and climbing slowly by the hour. Despite all the magic healing, I still felt tired from the ordeal. I figured it was best to eat and rest awhile before heading back on the trail to find that damn village, wherever it was.
Luckily, rats weren’t the only thing on the menu this afternoon. Everyone also got a strange lump of wet paste piled on a big banana leaf. Not surprisingly, it tasted like bananas and something… crunchy. Probably some kind of jungle bug. I wasn’t going to ask. I wolfed mine down because I was starving.
Acquired: Banana & Giant Caterpillar Mush — Your hunger is sated. Stamina recovers 10% faster for 2 hours.
Was there a way to turn off these alerts? I said I didn’t wanna know.
“Ha ha ha,” the Layna voice laughed in my head.
The rest of Moggor’s tribe were all busy eating and talking to each other in Koboglinese.
Tiygar and Qoorie were wolfing down rats like potato chips. Between rats, Tiygar said to me, “Yo, you level up during combat?”
“Yeah. You?”
“Yup. Jumped to level 3 from all that fighting.”
“Did you two just start playing?”
“We did. Logged in today. For I ran into you. Good thing you was there. No way I coulda handled all them Koboglins myself. How you know the purple ones was good? You examine them?”
“I did. Didn’t you?”
“Tried. How you do it?”
I explained it the way Layna had explained it to me. After a few minutes, Tiygar and Qoorie both got the hang of it, testing it out on the various Koboglins around the cooking fire.
“Nice trick,” Qoorie said. “If we’d known that, we might have avoided the entire battle. Now that I think about it, the blue-green Koboglins started everything. They were trying to steal the canoe when we showed up. We thought it was theirs. The purple guys must have been off hunting for rats. Anyway, the blue-green ones attacked us on sight, so we fought back. When the purple ones showed up, we thought they were ambushing us, so we fought them as well. I guess they were just trying to protect their canoe.”
“True that,” Tiygar said.
I nudged Moggor and said, “True that. Right, buddy? True that?”
He beamed a huge toothy smile. “Kikka rum!”
“Exactly,” I chuckled.
After we finished eating, I said, “How are you guys dividing up your stats? I’m not sure how to spend mine.”
“What your Endurance?” Tiygar asked.
“Ten.”
“Boost that, it’ll boost your Stamina. You have any power attacks yet?”
“Yeah. Just one.” I remembered disemboweling that Koboglin warrior earlier. Deadly Disembowel. The memory made me shudder.
It was just a game. Just. A. Game.
“Power attacks cost you Stamina, so build up your Endurance. Then you can use ’em more.”
“Great idea.”
I tapped the roof of my mouth 3 times and navigated to my character sheet. I dumped 5 points into Endurance. After that battle, I needed it. I dropped the last point into Dodge. Although the Koboglins had healed my hamstring, it still ached. I didn’t want to get hit again. Some armor would be nice, but there wasn’t an Armormart around the jungle anywhere I could see. Maybe in the village? I hoped so. If I didn’t find any armor soon, the next time I leveled I’d put all my points in Speed to help my Dodge skill.
When I checked my Health and Stamina, they were up to 200 and 160. That was a substantial jump from the 150 and 110 I’d started with. I also noticed my skills had all gone up, several of them to level 2.
• Disarm: Level 2.2
• Dodge: Level 3.5
• Fight Dirty: Level 1.4
• Grappling: Level 1.7
• Short Spear: Level 2.4
• Stun: Level 2.7
• POWER ATTACK: Deadly Disembowel. Level 1.1
• Examination: Level 1.6
I couldn’t help but smile. So much easy leveling. This game was almost too easy.
I said, “Hey, Tiygar?”
“Yeah?”
“Can I call you Ty?”
“Sure. She do.” He tipped his head at Qoorie. “What we call you, dawg?”
“Logan.”
Qoorie said, “How come when I examine you,” she held in a giggle, “it says your name is King Fart Hurt?”
Ty chuckled, “Was wondering about that my damn self…”
Embarrassed, I shook my head. “Seemed genius at the time. Just call me Logan. Anyway, Ty, how did you attack so fast during combat? You were killing it, man. Literally.”
“Oh, you get a racial bonus as a Tigaren, you know. +5 Strength, +5 Speed, and +5 Endurance at Level 1. That doubles your attack speed, gives you a +4 armor bonus, and boost your Health and Stamina right out the gate. I put my 10 starting points on Speed. That boost me up to 3 attacks per second and buffed my damage bonus to +8 total, my armor bonus to +13. You dig?”
“Uh, yeah.” Sort of. Barely. Reternity was a lot more complicated than old school D&D.
“See, all Tigaren get the Tiger Fury power attack at Level 1. That give you a +15 buff to Speed and +10 to damage, and that all boosts my attack speed to 4 per second, my damage bonus to +18, and my armor bonus to +20. All that for five full seconds, yo.”
“Whoa, dude. You lost me.”
He grinned fangs, “It mean I can deal out 500 points a damage in five seconds. One enemy, two, three, however I wanna break it up.”
“At first level? That’s ridiculous!” I snorted.
He grinned, “Sure is. Thing is, Tiger Fury cost me 50 Stamina each time. I use it twice, I’m outta gas, feel me? That why you be smart to build up your Stamina. Raise your Endurance. You get more power attacks. Also, you can boost your Stamina by raising your Willpower, but it don’t have the same multiplier as Endurance.”
“Huh?” I chuckled. I couldn’t keep track of all the info he was throwing at me.
Qoorie leaned toward me and smirked, “Don’t mind Mr. Math over there. He has an Excel spreadsheet back in the real world and he’s analyzed all the stats to figure out the bonus structure. He had his character min/maxed for combat before we ever logged on.”
“No shit?” I mused.
Ty grinned. “I won’t bore you with the formulas, but yeah, boost your Endurance. That be the most important stat early on. Unless you wanna be a spellcaster, then you wanna boost your Creativity, feel me?”
“I’ll keep that in mind.” I grinned. I liked these two, even if they were both hella nerdy. Dad had never made D&D this math intensive. “Now I’m wishing I’d picked tiger man like you guys did. Instead of human.”
“Naw, you good. Tigarens got all kind a limits at higher levels. They best as warriors. If you ever wanna be any kind a high level spellcaster, or Mentalist, you gotta be human. Tigaren can’t be Mentalists, and they ain’t the best spellcasters.”
“Is that the only reason you two picked Tigaren? For the power attacks?”
Ty flashed a look at Qoorie.
She rubbed his furry arm then looked at me with twinkling eyes, “Haven’t you ever watched the movie Beauty & The Beast?”
Ty snorted and they both gave me a look.
I knew that look.
The sex look.
I chuckled and shook my head. “Are you guys furries or something?”
They both smiled sheepishly.
I laughed, waving my hands. “I don’t wanna know! Whatever happens in Reternity Online, stays in Reternity Online!” I said it theatrically and we all shared a laugh. “Qoorie, what I want to know is, if you guys are playing Beauty and the Beast, shouldn’t you be human instead of a Tiger… what was it again?”
“Tigaren,” Qoorie offered. “Let’s just say it’s better this way. I’m not so fragile.”
They both laughed guiltily.
I shook my head, “I think we’re bordering on TMI, you two.”
&
nbsp; Qoorie winked, “Tiger Mating Information?”
I groaned and we all broke into friendly laughter.
Moggor laughed too. Could he understand English?
I narrowed my eyes at him.
He waved his hand like he wanted to whisper in my ear.
I leaned over.
He leaned against my side and made a circle with his thumb and forefinger so only I could see it. Then he jabbed his other forefinger quickly in and out of the circle.
I busted into hearty laughter.
Moggor cackled along with me, elbowing my side. He jabbed his finger into the circle harder and faster and made a funny face, which was twice as funny on a Koboglin. “Kew! Keeeew! KEEEEEEW!!!” Kew was obviously Koboglin for moaning orgasmically.
I was losing it, crying tears of laughter.
Qoorie chuckled, but wasn’t sure what to make of me and Moggor rolling on our backs, both of us howling and crying hard at her expense.
“What?” Ty asked innocently, tiger eyebrows high, pretending to not be embarrassed. “Ain’t you people never heard a the birds and the bees?” His question and the innocent look on his face made me laugh that much harder.
I laughed, “Don’t you mean the Beauties and the Beasties?”
Qoorie broke into guilty laughter, her whiskers shaking as she shook her head and hid her eyes behind her tiger paw.
Ty rolled his tiger eyes, blushing under his fur.
—: o o o :—
“I should probably get going, guys,” I said late in the afternoon.
“Where to?” Ty asked.
“There’s supposed to be a village not far from here. I really need to get there and find a Divination Guild. Do you know anything about that?”
Ty shook his head. “I know what one is, but I don’t know where one is.”
“No worries.” I stood up and grabbed my spear. After the healing from Moggor and the meal, my Health and Stamina were both back to about 85% and slowly climbing. “You guys wanna come with?”
Qoorie glanced at Ty and they exchanged a look. She said, “The sun is going to set soon. Maybe you should wait until morning. Get a good night’s rest first. We can go with you then.”
I sighed. “I wish I could wait, but I’ve got… pressing business. It’s really important.”
“But you don’t even have a torch or a lamp.”
I smirked and tugged the corners of my loincloth, “Yeah, no pockets. No room for my smart phone either.”
“The jungle is more dangerous at night,” Qoorie offered.
“I’ve gotta risk it.” Even if it meant my life. Well, my fake life. It wasn’t like I could die out here. It was just a game. If I died, I was pretty sure I could log back in and start over. But Emily might die for real if I didn’t find her. I couldn’t wait. Too big of a risk.
“You don’t even have night vision,” Ty said.
“I know, I know. But I gotta go.” Obviously, I was on my own. “See you around?” I held out my hand to shake.
“We do,” Ty said, looking at Qoorie, who nodded.
“Huh?” I was confused.
“Qoorie and I both got night vision.”
“Oh. So, uh, you’re…”
Qoorie smiled, “Offering to go with you.”
“Really?”
She stood up. “We can’t let you go off alone. You might get eaten by dinosaurs.”
I swallowed hard. “Wait, seriously?”
Ty nodded, “T-Rex. Allosaurs. Carnotaurs. Spinosaurs. The dreaded Velociraptors. Wooooo-wee!” Ty made a scary face and wagged his tongue between his big canines.
“You’re messing with me,” I chuckled. I was busy picturing every kind of clawed and fanged dinosaur I could imagine.
“No,” Qoorie said. “They’re out here… Somewhere…” She said it ominously before breaking into a giggle.
“Fuck you guys. You coming or not?”
They both laughed as they grabbed their stuff.
We said our goodbyes to the Koboglins and I thanked Moggor last. I wasn’t sure if he understood me or not.
He patted my arm and said, “Moggor gogara figga figga! Fip booga grak, fip fip!”
The other Koboglins raised their fists and cheered, “Fip booga grak! Booga grak!”
“Thanks guys,” I waved as we started off into the jungle.
The sun hadn’t quite set, but its orange rays drenched the jungle with subdued hues. It was still quite warm and my loincloth was more than enough, but a cool breeze was blowing in from opposite the sunset.
While we walked through the big leaves and bushes, I asked Ty and Qoorie questions about game mechanics. “Okay, so the four physical abilities obviously apply to combat.”
“Right,” Ty said. “More Strength equals more damage. Harder you hit, the better. Hit a dude in plate armor with enough force, force’ll go straight through the plate and break his arm or crack ribs.”
“Through metal armor?” I was surprised. The only thing I knew about plate armor was it meant you needed a higher d20 role to hit it. I’d never thought about the physics of it.
“Damn right. Cave it in. But you gotta hit it hard, feel me?”
“Yeah. What about Speed? Is that like Dexterity?”
“Sorta. More Speed mean you attack faster and run faster. More Accuracy mean you hit what you aiming at. Bow or sword, it don’t matter. Aim counts. Also mean you got better balance and coordination overall.”
“And the mental stuff?”
“Intelligence, Creativity, Wisdom, Willpower, all them give you more Mana and make your magic strong. More Mana mean you cast more spells per hour. Social attributes, Beauty, Charm, Respect, Leadership, well, you know what them do. Same as real life.”
“Damn,” I shook my head, grimacing. “Sounds like I wasted 5 of my starting points.”
“Where you put ’em?”
“5 in Strength, but the other 5 in Beauty. I’m thinking that was a dumb idea.”
“Actually, if you plan on becoming a Mentalist, it ain’t.”
“What’s a Mentalist again?”
“They use Mind energy to control other sentient beings. What your Mind stat at? It’s on your character sheet next to Mana.”
I checked it while we walked. I smiled, “180. That’s my second highest stat.”
“Next time you in a social situation, try using your Beauty to influence the outcome. You probably unlock a mental power.”
“No shit?”
“Yeah, dawg,” Ty grinned.
“Wow, thanks man. That’s good to know. So, add more points to Beauty and I’ll get more Mind juice?” I winked at him.
Ty chuckled, “Yeah. Or Willpower. That the key factor. Beauty second. But you can also add to Leadership, Charm, and Respect, in that order. All a them build your Mind juice.” He winked at me. “But Willpower gonna buff up your Mind the fastest.”
“Cool. Next time I level up, I’ll add to it.” I didn’t know why I was worrying about it. I didn’t plan to stay in this game any longer than it took to find Jason and rescue Emily.
My sister was what mattered.
Not leveling up.
—: o o o :—
“Can you guys see?” I asked as I set my foot down carefully on the trail, trying to avoid tripping on yet another tree root in the dark. “It’s pitch black for me. Anybody have a flashlight?”
“Sorry, bro,” Ty said, walking a few steps ahead.
“We’re fine,” Qoorie said, a few paces behind.
The sun had gone down about an hour ago. The weather was warm enough that I wasn’t shivering, but if we stopped walking for the night, my loincloth wouldn’t cut it. For now, I was good. As far as light went, there was none. Living in the city, you took light at night for granted.
“The moon should be up later,” Qoorie offered. “That’ll help.”
I chuckled, “Somebody wanna hold my hand in the meantime? I’m flying blind here.”
Qoorie said, “Why don’t you grab Ty’s tail?
Let him lead you.”
He and I both blurted “Hell no!” at the same time.
“Men,” she laughed. “I didn’t tell you to grab his dick. I said tail.”
“Come on now,” Ty said nervously.
I wasn’t too excited about the idea either.
He said, “Qoorie, you know we both men, right?”
“Fine,” Qoorie barked. “I’ll lead and Logan can grab my tail.”
“No!” Me and Ty blurted at the same time, again.
“She crazy?” Ty whispered back at me. “I think she gone crazy.”
“She’s your lady, man. Don’t drag me into it.”
“I heard that,” Qoorie grumbled. She brushed past me. “It’s just my tail, Ty. Get over it.”
I wasn’t grabbing his lady’s tail. “You sure this is a good idea?” I wasn’t sure who I was asking, him or her. Probably both.
Ty sighed loudly. “Come on, Qoorie. You know I’m not down with anybody putting hands on my lady—”
“Tyyyyyy,” Qoorie warned.
“Fine,” he grumbled. “Logan, you heard the lady. Grab her tail.”
I didn’t like the sound of his voice. “You sure you want me grabbing your lady’s tail? Wait, that didn’t come out right. You know what I mean.”
Ty sighed, “Not my call, dawg. It’s up to the lady.”
“If you say so, man,” I said. Something furry brushed against my outstretched hand. I couldn’t see anything in the dark.
“Grab it, Logan,” Qoorie said. “I don’t bite.”
“You best not be biting nobody but me,” Ty growled.
“Hey, man,” I grunted, “this wasn’t my idea.”
“Mine neither,” Ty grumbled.
“You two through?” Qoorie said, irritated. When neither Ty nor I said anything else, she brushed her tail against my hand again.
I grabbed gently.
“It won’t fall off,” she said. “Get a good grip.”
“That what he said,” Ty sighed, slightly amused.
I chuckled and squeezed her tail. “Hey, Ty. I think her dick is bigger than yours.”