by Arthur Stone
And it looked as though he was in luck this time. According to the map, the pine wood that he was currently approaching was part of the battle zone. But he could hear no sounds of battle, or see flashes of magic, and there were no piles of charred trees blocking his path.
However, this didn't mean he could just saunter through without a care. Ros managed to get far enough away from the strange couple, and he doubted that either Macho Strongman or Nail-in-the-Head had any leveled-up tracker stats. Their kind would be too bored with something like that. So chances were he would never see him again.
Although you never know… Anything might happen, given the sheer number of their oddities. For all he knew, they could emerge from behind the next line of trees, wave their hands in a friendly manner, smile idiotically, and ask him to roast some more meat. They were so fond of it they could consume any amount, after all.
He tried to step quietly, stopping every now and then to listen and to take a good look around. Everything was quiet, with no one to be seen anywhere, but it didn't feel promising at all. The forest is never completely silent at night. It should be alive in its own way—bats fluttering hither and thither, owls toowit-toowooing, other night birds chirping, small animals rustling through the fallen pine needles, and hungry foxes trying to pick a hare's scent.
But there was nothing of the sort going on. Everything seemed dead for miles around. And that never happens without a reason. The forest was frightened, and Ros didn't have an inkling of what may have frightened it.
However, he strongly suspected this was due to the fact that the invisible border between the two warring factions lay across this woodland.
Could this be the time for him to summon a pet? Ros got some Soul Crystals of a suitable level from the monsters killed by Macho Strongman and Nail-in-the-Head. However, the problem was that although a pet would be useful in battle, moving noiselessly through a forest at night might not be its forte.
Ros weighed all the pros and cons of both options, and decided to skip the summoning. Silence and a good disguise were more important to him. The most recent monsters he sighted were of level 152 and went around in twos or threes. He also saw the kind whose parameters could not be read from a distance. That meant they were even more dangerous. A low-level pet would be a bad bet in a fight with high-level opponents. All it might do is help Ros live a few seconds longer.
Not much point in that.
But what was that sound? He could hear some noise from the direction he was heading in. It stayed more or less the same, which was suspicious. On the other hand… Nothing to be afraid of. There was a river nearby—it had even been marked on the battle map. However, Ros was moving blindly. His own topographical data about this area were nonexistent.
So he was in luck. He could use the river as a landmark. If the game forum could be believed, Ros would be safe once he managed to cross it. It the sense that no hordes managed to reach that far. There were a few recorded attempts, but those efforts were most likely thwarted.
Which presented a much greater problem.
Why would that be? Well, fighting back an invasion like that was no mean feat. Therefore, there were players on the other bank capable of dispatching the monsters from the wild hordes.
Ros came across some of the mobs from the invading army, and all of them were high-level fighters. He could have fought a duel with one of those if he had still had any of his earlier pets at his disposal, but any attempt he would make now would be doomed.
So the players across the river were just as strong. Or, perhaps, much stronger. It wouldn't make much of a difference to Ros—he wouldn't be able to challenge them either way.
Ros's best bet would be to find a squad of Imperial soldiers. His name was as white as driven snow, his reputation was more positive than most players ever manage, and if he opened his stats to the public, there would be many titles there to earn the respect of any NPC. In the worst-case scenario, they would just let him pass without laying a finger on him. In the best-case scenario, they could also provide protection and transportation. He had already wasted too much time roaming dangerous steppes and forests on his own.
Things would get much hairier if there were squads of fellow players on the other bank. Some of the higher-level ones let this fact go to their head—especially if they don't manage to achieve much IRL. One of those would find it perfectly normal to waste a strange noob with a single hit, and then even brag about this "brave deed" to their peers. Alternatively, they might hit whoever they hear rustling in the bushes with high-level magic. They were fighting a war, after all, and every war is rife with mistakes.
And the death of a lowly noob wouldn't even classify as a mistake. Even the red color of the killer's name would soon get washed away. Victories over high-level opponents facilitated that process, and there were plenty of those among the Wild Hordes.
Those who like war worship death in any shape or form that it takes. Many of them try to waste no opportunity to please the Grim Reaper.
Ros had never been afraid of dying inside the game, but right now he tried to avoid it at any cost. Those were the conditions of the quest that he had agreed to take. If he died, he would find himself back at the mine and be forced to start over once again. It would be the same old tedium of steppes and forests, and the same fruitless attempts to find a safe way through the front line. It would also cost him lots of time.
And he also had to bear in mind that the NPCs that had given him the quest might charge other players with the same mission. In that case, only one of the parties would be able to complete it. Everybody else would have to eat dust.
And dust never made it to the list of Ros's favorite dishes. Even though he had enough achievements to make a hundred average players happy, that was no reason to decline new opportunities. Too many of his plans depended on his success in the game.
As a matter of fact, all of his plans were related to the game in one way or another now. That was the only life he had right now.
In the meantime, the sound of the river kept getting louder. The forest started to thin out. He saw a line of bushes with many gaps in it right in front, with many felled trees strewn all across the ground. They had broken branches, and many of them looked singed. There was a sharp smell of pine resin and acrid smoke in the air. And what was that thing among the trees? Ros saw a skeleton of an enormous creature—something resembling a stegosaurus with enormous spikes on its spine and fangs the size of large logs plunged into the ground. He had no idea of what kind of creature it may have been or the level it may have had, but it had clearly been a boss once, and a strong one, at that. It was enough to see the damage done to the terrain to realize as much. The victors must have gotten away with their loot, but monsters of this sort never disappeared quickly. They were important characters, and so their carcasses had to decompose, even if the decomposition followed the game's laws. A few days later there would be nothing here but fangs, and a week later, the only reminder of the battle will be the tree trunks scattered across the clearing.
Ros could see another clearing on the left. It was much smaller, and there were no giant skeletons anywhere in sight, but all the trees around it were well-charred. It looked as though a whole squad got hit by a mass spell.
This was indeed the front line.
Ros approached the bushes sneakily enough for a wild cat to applaud him. His progress was slow—he moved forward a fraction of an inch at the time, trying to hold his breath and even refraining from blinking. He peered over the bushes cautiously, without touching so much as a single leaf. There were a few feet of river meadow right beyond the bushes, followed by a hairpin bight. The water lapped at the shattered logs of what once had been a watermill. The building itself was nothing but a char, with a wooden shed, miraculously intact, standing nearby. But even the shed suffered from the warfare—its roof was badly damaged.
There was nothing and no one in sight. The only sound that broke the silence was the monotonous babbling of the water seeping throu
gh the blockage.
Ros still didn't quite trust the silence. There was a battle here, indeed, and, possibly, more than one, but the in-game environment recovered quickly from all kinds of damage. If the animals are still in hiding, he might have reasons to be worried as well.
Ros checked one of the sides, and then the other. He heard a faint rumble of thunder in a distance and saw a faraway flash of lightning lighting up half the sky. Was it someone fighting the horde, or just a thunderhead headed his way? The latter was more likely, for the flash was somewhere in the north, and what lay that way were peaceful lands behind the lines.
Ros thought he might as well wait it out until the storm hits. It would be to his advantage right now. The river might be nothing much, but it formed a large open space together with the adjacent meadows. His Disguise skill may have been good, but not good enough to hoodwink high-level opponents. He'd likely be spotted by observers as soon as he'd leave his shelter. Anything could happen after that, and it would no longer depend on him.
If he got lucky, the players he'd run into would not be the kind that attack first and thing later, or the aggressive sort that would waste no opportunity to demonstrate their superiority at the expense of a mere noob. However, it would be stupid to count on nothing but luck.
The game offered many opportunities and aspects of disguise. It could be assisted (or hindered) by a wide variety of random and naturally-occurring natural factors. The light and the dark times of the day were among the naturally-occurring ones. It was logical that the night time offered many more opportunities for concealment—the player would have to be much closer to be discovered. Fog, snow, and driving rain had the same effect.
Therefore, Ros didn't mind getting wet to the bone if that gave him a better chance of getting across the open space. It made no sense to look left or right in hopes of finding a better place. This borderland was extremely dangerous. The fact had he had managed to get this far did not guarantee that he wouldn't run into a bunch of bored idiots eager to kill someone just for kicks in a few hundred feet.
He regretted not having chosen a class specializing in invisibility back in the day. Rogues and Assassins could shed invisibility at the distance of just one pace from another player, only to be noticed by one the moment a poisoned blade would be driven into their back. They were the best mage killers out there.
And Ros was, technically, a mage.
He really wished he would run into no such invisible players anywhere. They had class skills that amplified their Perception considerably, and it would be a great challenge to stay hidden from their sight—some of them could see you through a thick layer of shrubs.
X-ray eyes, if anyone ever had one.
The lightning was flashing closer and closer, and the thunder was getting louder. He felt a gust of fresh breeze, and then another one, stronger this time. Finally, he heard the heavy monotonous patter of heavy droplets hitting the earth and the foliage. The wall of trees he could see across the river became blurred behind the veil of the downpour, and the water in the river started to make gurgling sounds as the raindrops kept hitting it. Then Ros was soaked in an instance—the rain was so hard he was nearly swept off his feet.
In weather like this, you'd be hard pressed to see the fingers on your hand if you thrust it forward. That was precisely what he needed. He had to get going at once—such downpours are known to end as suddenly as they begin. This one was unlikely to be an exception—no one can get that lucky.
He couldn't move fast, since the downpour made it hard to see any landmarks. There was so much water Ros didn't even notice the moment he reached the river. He had thought it to be yet another puddle, and was surprised when he found himself waist-deep.
The river wasn't that wide, but it was deep enough, and the current was strong. Ros got caught in it, but he didn't get too far downstream—he grabbed onto a log. He knew where he was now—the remnants of the dam next to the destroyed watermill that he had seen earlier.
It was an extremely uncomfortable crossing—he slipped on wet clay a few times, trying to crawl up the bank. It may not have been that high, but it was pretty steep. He only managed to crawl up once he realized he could use the logs for support.
"You are cold. The character's Speed and Vigor stats have been reduced. Find a way to warm yourself up."
The good news was that only two of his stats became reduced so far. That was just the first stage of the in-game hypothermia. It was bound to get worse eventually. The rain wasn't exactly warm, and the water in the river must have come from some glacier, so there was nothing to be surprised about. Fortunately, he felt none of the physical discomfort that he would have been certain to feel IRL.
He wouldn't die from the chill, at any way, so he could bear with the related setbacks. The worst thing he could do would be lighting a fire in a place like this. That would be tantamount to sending everyone in the area the message that a completely brainless player had come into the area with the intention to run into some trouble.
He could get dry after the rain. The mud that he was covered in would disappear as well. The game had many advantages over real life—even the dirtiest miners who'd spent twenty hours in the damp bowels of a coal mine can clean up without much trouble in no time at all, even without having to use a shower.
The shed with the fallen-in roof should be somewhere in front of him. That might be the only structure left intact for miles around. Someone less bright could have tried to use it to warm up, but Ros was nowhere near as simple as that. If the idea had occurred to him, it may also have occurred to anyone else. Risky encounters were the last thing he needed right now; thus, he'd have to make a short detour, and then fade into the woods. And he'd better hurry—the downpour was ceasing rapidly, which meant better visibility.
Another step, followed by yet another. He saw a movement in the deep shadows next to the wall of the shed with his peripheral vision. He fell face down, getting even filthier from the dirt and the soot left from the burned-down watermill, without even thinking.
Thud! He knew the sound of a bow shot well enough. The arrow buried itself in the mud right before his nose—only the idiosyncratically-fletched rear part stuck out. If the arrow was of regular length, it must have been shot by a high-level archer with a great deal of strength. Anyone else could but hope vainly for achieving something like this.
If Ros got hit, the arrow would go right through muscle and bone. Even if such a wound didn't kill him at once, he'd have so many critical hits that he wouldn't manage to fight back or make a successful escape.
He just wasn't strong enough.
Archers were the game's main DPS class. They're the characters capable of dealing enough damage per single attack that even a strong opponent can become a cripple. The only thing that saves Second World from being dominated by this class is that arrows are subject to all the laws of ballistics. This means they don't fly in a straight line—their trajectory is affected by such factors as wind, raindrops, drag, and gravity. Mages can exploit those vulnerabilities to fight off archer attacks with a certain degree of success. But that only happens when the attack wasn't unexpected. If a master archer ambushes you, your chances are, as a rule, pretty slim.
The archer who had tried to attack Ros missed his chance of a certain kill. He missed. Ros was warned now, but that wasn't much of a solace. His opponent was definitely high-level—you could tell as much merely by observing how deep the arrow had gone. It was certainly someone who knew all the pros and cons of their weapon. He might not get as lucky the next time—and there might be a third or a fourth attempt, and so on.
He had to jump up, make a sudden dash in one direction, and then another, at a 180-degree angle. He had to make his movements unpredictable. After all, an arrow took a certain time to reach its target, and there was always a certain delay you could use to escape fletched death.
Thud! Another miss. The arrow got lost in the woods, piercing leaves and branches. Ros thought he should follow suit
—he'd have some sort of advantage in the thick of the undergrowth. No archer can shoot through shrubs. They need to see their quarry. Unlike mages—those can hit a whole area with an expensive spell, destroying the guilty and the innocent alike.
He feinted, as if he was trying to find shelter behind the nearest tree, and then dashed forward, only to strafe right in a second. The third arrow thudded through the bushes, making a cloud of powdered greenery rise up right in front of Ros's nose. That was good enough, and likely to get easier shortly.
"Hey, noobster!" He heard a self-assured voice speak mockingly from behind his back. "You should never try to dodge an archer, or you'll be real tired by the time you're killed!"
That was hardly the encounter he would have wished for. The bastard tried to kill him without so much as trying to engage him in conversation first. He must be really bored and wet in that shed. Or maybe not. Judging by the laughter, there was a whole company of players whose idea of fun was to shoot a waylaid noob in the area.
He might as well make them run for it. Ros might be cold, but his Speed (as well as a few other stats) were at high enough levels. He resembled Macho Strongman and Nail-in-the-Head in that respect—his stat point distribution was just as weird. But the sheer amount of those points exceeded what the two of them had put together. The Great Korean Random Number Generator spread bonuses around in any way it could, and the only points Ros could diligently invest into the skills required for a successful dark mage were those earned by sweat and toil. His heroic skill of resetting the accumulated points was also a huge boon.
## The Great Korean Random Number Generator is a concept that has got little to do with real life, yet plays a very important part in a variety of games. The name and other details identify it as a phenomenon dating back to the epoch when the gaming market was dominated by Korean MMORPGs. What it was all about was that in-game events whose probability was less than 100% could never be predicted; there game is also subject to very low-probability chains of coincidence. For example, if the basic chance of getting a specific object from a slain monster is 10%, this doesn't yet guarantee that one would get what one wanted after killing ten. One could actually kill a hundred and receive nothing, while another player could get three such objects after killing three monsters. The Great Korean Random Number Generator is known to behave much more egregiously by bringing about those very chains of events that seem so unlikely. To take the same example further, a player can get the desired object ten times after killing just ten monsters, whereas another player can spend hours vanquishing dozens and even hundreds of the same kind of monsters without getting anything at all. This doesn't happen often, but any case suffices to fire up the players' indignation.