by Arthur Stone
"Think faster, those guys won't wait.
Where's your respawn point?"
"What's it to you, anyway?"
"I need to know."
"I made a bind point next to the village we had missed. Do you remember that fork in the road?"
"I do."
"That's where you turn left and go toward the village. There'll be two old oaks near the edge of the wood, and my bind point is next to the one that's farther away from the path."
"There's a way of leaving them empty-handed…"
"So tell me already."
"If you die right now, they'll lose you."
"Well, there's nothing but bunnies and squirrels in this forest. A doe was the biggest animal I've seen so far. How am I supposed to die here? Who could kill me?"
"Well… all you need is the will to accomplish something. I might be able to help."
"You're so low-level it would take you three days to kill me."
"I only look nice and harmless. I could actually surprise you."
"Well, it doesn't seem too plausible…"
"Trust me."
"OK, what if I do? Are you offering to kill me?"
"I'm not quite comfortable with what I'm offering, but I'd hate to see them take their revenge on you once they catch you. And I see you cringe at the very thought, too."
"Sure… no one would like it to happen to them. They're gonna have a field day today—they'd never managed to catch me before. So they're gonna have all the revenge they want…"
"Well, you really helped me out back then, by the riverside. And I won't forget it."
"And you're gonna kill me as a token of your gratitude? I must say that's pretty original."
"Well, that's the only way I can help. Sorry about it. If you lose any stuff, I'll carry it to that oak. Just wait up for me there."
"Well, they're gonna kill you, too. Is your bind point far away?"
"It is."
"Well, that sucks."
"I'm not planning to respawn. I'll try to get away. And I'm not the kind of quarry you can deal with easily."
"Sorry for breaking it to you, but you're just a noob."
"Hey, I'm a weird noob. A very weird one, actually."
"I've noticed that. You're quick, but their trackers will get you in the end."
"I'll give it a try, anyway."
"Well, okay, let's do that. I'd really hate it if they managed to get me. And they will—I don't have enough Stamina for running around."
"You've put everything into Accuracy, didn't you?"
"Almost everything, yes."
"Thought as much."
"Once they realize I'm gone, it will be a matter of honor for them to try and catch you. They're gonna need a whipping boy, after all."
"Didn't you say you had nothing of value except for the rings?"
"I often die when my name is in red lettering. I mostly lose everything before I manage to get rich. The rings and the bow are the only things that are worth anything. The rest is total crap."
"Give me your boots, if you don't mind. I'll need them to escape the pursuit. I'll give you another pair later on."
"Duh, I won't mind walking barefoot, as long as they don't catch up with you. Here you go."
"They're common as muck, and there's hardly any Durability left."
"Yeah, I got them from a mob, they're nearly done for. Nothing of value, so I wouldn't miss them."
"Another thing I need is a map of this terrain. If you leveled up your Cartography at all, now is the time to share."
"Bubble, have decided to kill me and rob me as well?"
"Well, my moral standards are pretty low."
"I'm sending you this part of the map. Here goes."
"Thanks. Well, are you ready?"
"Sure. I really wonder how many hours it's gonna take you to do away with my HP bar completely. Those guys will be here much quicker than that," Thyri pointed at the sky emphatically, as the wyvern was making yet another round.
"A few minutes are all I need."
"Don't lie to me."
"Don't twitch. That's all I'm asking for."
Ros took a few steps, then turned back and hit the girl with a Chaos Aura. The spell was rather tricky—when he had first received it, he didn't manage to make sense of its mechanics, and thought it to be perfectly useless.
It turned out to be anything but; nevertheless, there was usually no point in using it more than once during a battle. The spell affected one's HP bar, lowering it by ten percent for a few seconds. That is, if one's full HP bar was 100 points, it would shrink down to 90.
Once the spell would run its course, the bar would expand to its former size. But what was the point of the spell, then? The point was that even though the HP bar got restored to its former 100-point glory, one would still have 90 HP. The lost points were not restored.
If you used the spell twice, it would no longer have any effect. It wouldn't lower one's HP bar lower than 90 points, at any rate. It also made no sense to use it on an opponent with just a few health points left, for their bar would not be full. But it was useful in a fight against an enemy with lots of HP. You could use it on a strong boss, and it would lose ten percent of its health instantly.
There was another thing. The most important one, most likely. Chaos was an unusual school. The overwhelming majority of players had no resistance to Chaos spells. And there were spells that could get through all types of defense, anyway.
So Ros didn't miss.
Thyri cringed,
"You didn't even take a single point off my HP bar. This is pointless."
"Wait for a second or two."
"Yeah, like anything is gonna happen… Hey, what's this? My HP bar has just shrunk. Not bad at all, that's pretty decent damage."
"It's not quite damage. It would take a long time to explain."
"Get on with it already, don't just stand there."
The Chaos Arrow didn't hurt Thyri much. It only took off two or three percent. Fortunately, he had managed to level that spell up back in the days when he used to hunt monsters so much stronger than him that he was a mere midge before them. The high-level pet really came in handy back then. It was a pity that the laws of the game had changed and he could no longer do what he could. Nevertheless, he did manage to use it many a time, and hold a few useful features back. In particular, his cooldown time was a lot shorter now than originally.
Skills grew the same as levels if you used them often enough against serious foes.
Another strike, followed by another. He managed to deal some critical damage, and the HP bar shrunk a lot more visibly. For a character of such an advanced level, Thyri sure was a rag doll. He understood why Highlander Assassins were so unpopular. Even noobs of the most pathetic sort were a danger to them. They got serious damage where others would get off without a scratch.
But this was not the real world, where death would be considered a tragedy. While Ros kept taking off the girl's HP, she bantered with him about her plans for the nearest future.
"Bubble, it's gonna take you a while to get to that tree. If you manage to get there at all. And if you feel like coming in the first place."
"I told you I would come, didn't I? Have you forgotten that I'm the guy to be trusted?"
"Somehow, that sounds like a lot of BS to me."
"All right, let me put it another way. You've managed to make a certain impression. And I have a certain amount of sympathy for you. I'd rather we stayed in touch."
"Well, now, that sounds more plausible."
"So wait up, and I'll get there."
"It's too boring to wait. I'll go offline. We'll get in touch once I'm back."
"All right. I'm almost done here, you'll respawn any moment now."
"I see. Catch you later, Bubble."
"See you later, Thyri."
"You kill Thyrinawerria Raynayila. XP received: 862. Points left until the next level: 891284."
Ros's name didn't redden, even though the
girl didn't hit him once. PKs can be killed in any condition. One could even use them for leveling up. He got some decent XP. However, killing such players time and again and rejoicing at one's progress was a non-option. They lost a few unvanquished karma points each time they died, and became white eventually.
And killing a player with a white name would no longer give you any experience. On the contrary, your own name would be displayed in reddish lettering.
Thyri was right to worry about her expensive rings. One of them did get lost. He was surprised once he took a good look at it.
"Silvered Ring of Concentration. Properties: merging. Item quality: Good. Auxiliary stats: +5 to Accuracy, +1 to Attack. Requirements: Level 33. Weight: 0.01 kg. Durability: 71/115".
The ring was merely yellow, which corresponded to the "rare" class. Such items weren't actually all that rare—you could get one dropped by a simple mob easily enough; as for elite mobs and low-level bosses, those could drop a couple of those at once. They were also rather easy to make, so the items were common enough and available to all players.
Thyri must have been in a real tight spot money-wise if she valued a bunch of cheap knickknacks that much.
Ros wasn't stingy, and he was rather impulsive. He felt somewhat out of sorts about having had to kill his companion. Even though she came from out of nowhere and he could discern no reason for her being there, he intuitively felt there was nothing to fear from her. She wasn't a representative of one of the clans hunting him or anything like that. What could she have been, then? So far, he had no idea.
Thyri was easy to get along with; he didn't have to hide. It would make no sense to try to conceal one's secrets from someone who kept finding you in a place where any search was a challenging enough affair.
They didn't just find him, either—they could predict where he would appear next. Thyri had been waiting for him in one of those places.
He hadn't enchanted anything in a while—if he kept going like that, he would probably forget how it was done altogether. He wasn't doing any repairs either. That wasn't good.
"Soul Crystal. Trapped creature: Grey Moss Dweller. Trapped creature level: 149. Special stats: enhanced creature. Stats: Agility, Accuracy, Stamina, Fire Resistance, Critical Hit Chance, Vigor Regeneration."
All those stats would fit Thyri perfectly. Ros didn't just pick a random crystal, after all. Stamina would not do her any good—a few extra points wouldn't make a difference, and she'd keep dying just as quickly. But Ros could pick other stats.
"Attention! Do you really want to enchant the Silvered Ring of Concentration? Yes/No."
He chose "Yes," obviously.
"Choose one of the soul crystal’s properties. Attention! The item in question is guaranteed to take a single effect. When you choose two properties or more, the chance of bad luck increases."
He hesitated for a while before he chose Accuracy, Agility, and Vigor Regeneration. Thyri would probably have chosen an increased chance of a critical hit instead of the latter, but Ros remembered just how frequently she had to take breaks. It slowed them down, and it was annoying to boot.
"Item received: Enchanted Silvered Ring of Concentration. Properties: merging. Item quality: Good. Auxiliary stats: +5 to Accuracy, +1 to Attack. Enchantment effect: +6 to Accuracy, +7 to Agility; Vigor Regeneration enhanced by 1 point per every 3 seconds. Requirements: Level 33. Weight: 0.01 kg. Durability: 115/115."
That was perfect. The ring had been fixed and got three useful enchantment bonuses. Thyri would love it. The difference between the new item and the old one was rather substantial. Ros felt like patting himself on the back.
Instead, he slapped himself on the forehead, saying (albeit without much vitriol),
"I'm such an ass!"
An enchantment was never a perfectly safe procedure. There was always the risk that the enchanted item would get destroyed, be downgraded to a lower class, or just disintegrate. His beefed-up Luck and other bonuses made that a lot less likely, but there still was a risk. Especially seeing as how he had forgotten all about it and used a triple set, which was a lot more dangerous.
Had he failed, he naturally could have made another ring or choose one of those he had been carrying in his bag, but that still wouldn't feel right. He had given the promise of bringing this particular ring to her, and not any other, after all.
Right. It was time to get down to business. The pursuit would not stay put forever, and he has spent enough time where Thyri's body had disappeared into thin air for any trace of that event to be erased.
He got one of the crystals with a matching level out of his bag, and summoned a creature that looked like an ape crossbred with a frog—a flat amphibian head mounted on a body of a primate.
"Reed Quacker. A creature from the Locked Lands summoned from the realm of darkness. Level: 88. Abilities: Sticky Slime and Insulting Slap. Stats: Defense: 124; Attack: 106."
Hardly the most impressive specimen of the Locked Lands fauna. It was one of the unaggressive monsters—everybody else attacked Ros as soon as he'd get into their aggro range. It was useless as a battle pet. Its Attack was nowhere near as strong as its level might have implied, and its Defense was low, too. No matter how much you buffed it, your helper would be rather mediocre.
It wouldn't last longer than it would take to be struck once by the kind of players that had been tracking Ros. A single arrow, a medium-strong spell, a sword slash—or even a dagger slash—would put it out of business at once.
But Ros did not intend to fight. His plan was to use to pet for something else.
He took a few leather strips from his bag that he had planned to use for crafting weapons or ammunition. Then Ros crouched next to the pet and put Thyri's boots on its feet. He did his best to make sure the boots would stay put, and cast a Chaos School spell on them that he had purchased previously. It was known as the Chaos Mold. It was one of the few that players could actually buy. It didn't affect players, but could be used to destroy certain items, such as small pieces of wood, strips of leather, dried meat, and other organic materials. They would all decomposed in a few dozen minutes.
Obviously enough, the spell would be useless in battle; coupled with its exorbitant price, it was hardly among the most popular ones. The Guild NPCs were baffled by the fact that some stupid noob would buy something quite as worthless. He had no idea why he had bought it in the first place—that was during the time when he tried to get his hands on anything remotely associated with Chaos, which he had developed quite an affinity for. He had never used it before, and almost forgot he had it.
But it came in handy now.
Once he was through with the preparations, he gave the pet a perfectly simple order—to run in a single direction, avoiding open spaces. The forest was large, and there were few open spots; one could evade airborne detection if one avoided them. Even if the wyvern's rider noticed the quacker, they'd pay the mob no attention. It was just a regular monster, after all—something one saw as a part of the game's background all the time.
Why did he start that operation in the first place? Well, first of all, he could divert the pursuit's attention toward the pet and be left alone as a result. The realities of the game were such that a tracker could be fooled by a simple trick involving somebody else's boots. That wouldn't last long. Even some low-level tracker would identify the swap for what it was. Someone of a high enough level would be able to do that much faster.
Not this once, though.
Ros had already seen that the quackers could move fast. In a few minutes, it would be far enough away from Ros where his Summoning would no longer be sufficient to maintain the link with the pet. The game's mechanics worked in a very simple way in such cases—the summoned creature would simply dematerialize. Or, as it were, dissolve into thin air.
The Tarantulas would find themselves with a right conundrum once they found Thyri's boots and nothing but at the end of the track. They wouldn't find any leather strips—those would be completely destroyed by Ch
aos Mold by then.
What would they do next? They would obviously return to the point when Thyri and the noob parted ways, and then start tracking Ros. They'd be real interested to find out how the girl had managed to get away, after all.
And her current location would interest them just as much. No one but Ros would be able to answer those questions.
All he had to do was wait for the system message. There it was.
"Your summoned creature dies."
The quacker dissolved into thin air, leaving nothing behind but a pair of cheap boots. Once the pursuit got to them, Chaos Mold would make the leather strips disintegrate, and there would be no remnants left.
He thought he should take care of himself first, lest the pursuit reached him while he was still idling. There was holding him there anymore.
He took out another Soul Crystal, releasing the creature contained inside. Its level was nothing to write home about. Ros could no longer someone a high-level pet. It bore a slight resemblance to the "lizard ostrich" that had carried the other member of the couple that had ridden to him as he had been roasting the meat. Its size wasn't all that great, but it would do for a cunning plan.
The monster in question wasn't the kind normally used as mounts, but the game mechanics permitted mounting them and commanding them to move. Necromancers and other summoners, however, weren't particularly fond of this means of transportation. Unlike a pet one would normally use for riding, it offered no comfort at all, the experience was rather unpleasant, the speed was low, and it required lots of Vigor. Too many drawbacks by any account.
But Ros could deal with those for the time being.
Two tracks left the place where he and Thyri had parted ways, having trampled heavily over everything around them. One was left by a mob wearing a woman's boots; the other, by the "ostrich" that had carried Ros away on its back.
The trackers will have a hard time trying to find out what had actually happened and who went which way.