by J. A. Hunter
For the next two hours we went over basic fighting techniques, first covering a variety of stances, then launching into guards, defenses, and attacks. As tough as the Stealth session had been, the fighting lesson proved to be even more difficult. Certainly more challenging than any MMO I’d ever experienced. In most games, attacks consisted of a few key strokes or the right combination of buttons. Not here. Here I had to actually perform the maneuvers, know the techniques, watch for the openings, and respond with the correct block or counter.
I did seem to be learning the techniques much faster than I would have IRL—it almost felt like remembering something I’d once forgotten, even though I’d never done anything even remotely like this in my life. The fact that Cutter constantly stabbed me when I did things wrong may have also contributed to the speedy learning curve. Once again, though, Cutter’s grueling regimen paid off, earning me another level up, while also unlocking a new skill:
Skill: Blunt Weapons
Blunt weapons, such as maces, hammers, and clubs, can cause massive damage to foes. Blunt weapons are especially effective against undead creatures and heavily armored opponents. This skill is always in effect and costs no stamina to use.
Skill Type/Level: Passive / Level 1
Cost: None
Effect: Increases blunt weapon damage by 5%.
We finished up our training session around noon, then beelined for the tavern—lunch time at long last—which Cutter assured me would help with the aches and pains from our practice.
We grabbed a table in the corner, well away from the few other patrons loitering around, and ate some meaty stew with thick gravy and freshly baked bread, warm and fluffy. I was more than happy to admit that Cutter had been right. Just like this morning, the food set me straight in no time, easing my sore muscles as effectively as a great night’s sleep with a couple of painkillers thrown in for good measure. I still had a couple of hours to kill before I was supposed to rendezvous with Abby, but I decided heading over early wouldn’t be a terrible idea.
I could always wander around and grind out some EXP.
“Cutter, you have any plans for today?” I asked off the cuff, eyeing him over the edge of a hefty beer stein.
He shrugged noncommittally and ripped off a chunk of flaky bread. “Nothing official,” he replied, smacking loudly as he chewed. “Why, you got something in mind?”
“A job,” I said curtly. “One from a friend of mine.”
He swallowed, took a gulp of mead, then wiped his face with his sleeve and belched. A real smooth operator. “If it’s lucrative enough, you might be able to twist my arm. What do you have?”
I filled him in on the scant details and watched as his smile grew wider and wider with every sentence.
TWELVE:
The Grind
At just after 12:30, Cutter and I teleported into a wide, grassy clearing, ringed by trees on every side. Warm sunlight washed down from above, warming my exposed skin as a cool wind rustled my hair. I turned in a circle, staring at the wildflowers dotting the field, taking in the distant mountain vistas; I halted as the fallen ruins at the northern end of the clearing came into view. A circle of drunkenly leaning stones, remarkably similar to Stonehenge, butted up against the tree line. In the center of the stone ring was a yawning pit with a set of crude stairs leading down toward an elaborately wrought door.
My first real dungeon.
I pulled up my player map to see where exactly this ruin was located. The map came up fine and detailed my surroundings, but it refused to show my in-world location at all, which was odd in the extreme. I could’ve been ten minutes outside Rowanheath or on the other side of the world. “Cutter,” I said, turning toward the Thief, “do you know where we are? My map won’t display the world location.”
“What do you mean the map won’t display the world location?” he replied with an eyeroll. “You’re probably just reading it wrong, because you’re a moron. Give me a second.” His face went strangely blank for a long beat. He stood unnaturally still with his head slightly canted for a full minute before finally snapping out of it and offering a soft whistle. “Bollocks. You’re right. I can’t pull up world location info, which means this is supposed to be a restricted area.” He gleefully rubbed his hands together. “We’re not supposed to be here.” He sounded excited by the prospect.
And for once, I shared his delinquent enthusiasm. My inner gamer was practically doing backflips at the thought of getting the first crack at a new, restricted zone. Maybe Abby really had discovered something game-changing.
“We’ve got a couple hours before my friend shows up,” I said. “Any chance you wanna go out and hunt down some mobs with me? Get a little extra experience before we tackle those ruins?”
He pressed his lips into a tight line and gave me a you-must-be-crazy look. “Yeah, no.” He flopped down into the lush grass and lounged back, lacing his hands behind his head and staring up at the clouds. “As thrilling as hunting down generic forest critters for mediocre loot sounds—and trust me, it sounds great—I think I’ll just camp out here and wait for the real action to start. Keep myself fresh. You understand.” He closed his eyes and smiled, basking in the sunlight.
“Fine,” I replied. “But I’m going on record here—you’re the worst teammate on the planet.”
“You’ll change your tune when we’re in the thick of things, I think,” he said, never bothering to look at me. “Now run along.”
I turned away from the sunbathing Thief and headed east into the forest, grumbling the whole time about how worthless he was. When I finally made it to the tree line, I took a moment to open my limited map, set up a personal quest marker, then set an alarm for 1:30 so I’d have plenty of time to get back to the clearing. With that done, I took off, weaving my way haphazardly through the forest until the ruins vanished completely behind me.
It didn’t take long before I heard something big and heavy rustle through the brush ahead of me.
I pulled my warhammer from the leather frog at my belt and quickly dropped into Stealth, creeping from tree to tree, clinging to the shadows. After a few heartbeats of tense stalking, I glanced around the trunk of a leafy birch and saw the source of the commotion: a pair of shambling creatures, [Corrupt Valdgeist], composed of discarded branches, rotten greenery, goopy black mud, and odd bits of stone or bone. They were bigger than me, broad across the shoulders, and oddly lopsided.
They also looked about as slow as a couple of three-toed sloths, which was good news for me since running was still high on my defensive strategy list.
The pair milled around listlessly and didn’t seem particularly alert. Should be easy game, perfect for a little leveling. Still, a tight bead of fear sat in my belly, spurred on by the memory of Cutter’s painful knife jabs during our training session. I didn’t really know what these things were or what they were capable of, and there was a good chance they’d hurt me. Badly. You’ve got to suck it up and get over the fear, I scolded myself. This was my new life now, and yes, getting injured was unpleasant, but it was also the only path to success.
I steeled myself, resolve sharpening to a knife’s edge, and pushed on, moving forward with only a whisper of sound.
I circled around until I was behind the creatures, then slipped into the open, bringing up my hammer for a brutal killing blow. I lunged into the swing, putting the full weight of my upper body into the strike. The first creature’s head exploded in a shower of forest debris, its legs crumpling as its body dropped to the floor. Critical Hit! Stealth Attack Damage! The words flashed over the corpse, but I paid them no mind, turning my attention to the second Corrupt Valdgeist. I spun just in time to see a huge fist, capped with a wrecking ball of stone, sail toward me.
I saw it, but I wasn’t quick enough to avoid it.
I shuffled back, bringing up my hammer in an awkward block, which diverted the strike. Instead of pulverizing my face, the creature’s rock fist slipped down, colliding into my chest. The
sledgehammer hit knocked me back into a nearby pine tree and ate up a fifth of my HP, despite being a glancing blow. I reeled from the vicious thump and lost my footing, hitting the ground with a thud. With a grimace, I clutched at my battered chest and tried to gain my feet, but couldn’t. Something was holding me down.
Roots. Brown snarls of foliage had emerged from the ground, twining around my ankles and thighs, wrapping tight and pulling me into the dirt.
A message flashed in front of me:
Debuff Added
Rooted: You have been entangled and are unable to move; duration, 30 seconds.
I beat and clawed at the brown and green tangles of vegetation ensnaring me, but it was no use, and before I knew it, the bulky, slow moving creature loomed over me. A crude, earthen fist cannonballed into my mouth, knocking my head back and conjuring a gout of bloody saliva, which trickled down the back of my throat. I wasn’t sure if I could lose teeth in this game, but I was going to find out. My life bar flashed: less than 10% of my HP remained. That last strike had been a monster.
I frantically fought to bring up both my warhammer and the crude wooden buckler strapped to my left arm—anything to stop or divert another attack long enough for the “root” debuff to vanish.
The Corrupt Valdgeist swatted away my weapon with a lazy backhand, leaving me rooted to the ground, completely defenseless, with next to no HP left to my name. In my gut, I knew I was dead. The creature raised its clubbed fist again, ready to deliver the killing blow. To bludgeon me into a bloody smear.
Cold rage boiled inside me at the thought of dying like this. At the indignity of it. I flatly rejected the idea of having my head caved in by some mindless, muddy shambler in some forgotten backwoods while Cutter sunbathed in a meadow twenty minutes away. Especially since I didn’t actually know how respawns worked here—would I end up back in the meadow or all the way back in Rowanheath? Would it be instantaneous or would it take several hours? I didn’t have a clue, but I absolutely refused to find those answers like this.
A familiar chill radiated out from the blackened handprint on my forearm, roaring through my body, fueled by the sudden flash of anger. The creature’s fist descended, slicing through the air.
“No!” I yelled, throwing one hand forward in a final act of desperation, hoping to somehow halt the attack—
My mouth fell open in shocked surprise as a bolt of angry, withering shadow erupted from my palm, slamming into the creature’s neck like a dull machete.
The creature staggered from the impact, shuffling stupidly, before its head finally tumbled from its lopsided shoulders and to the forest floor. Its body shortly followed suit, collapsing into a heap of sticks and rock and mud. I sat there, staring at my hand, totally flabbergasted.
What did I just do?
Several status windows popped up, one right after the other:
x1 Level Up!
You have (25) undistributed stat points! Stat points can be allocated at any time.
You have (5) unassigned proficiency points! Proficiency points can be allocated at any time.
Quest Update: Plight of the Maa-Tál
In an act of desperation, you’ve tapped into your inborn Shadow-Spark ability, drawing on the dark power of the Umbra. In doing so, you have spent (1) Proficiency Point of the Spell Umbra Bolt and initiated the specialized path of the Shadowmancer. In order to unlock the Shadowmancer class kit, speak to Chief Kolle of the Ak-Hani clan in the Storme Marshes and complete the Maa-Tál initiation ordeal.
Quest Class: Rare, Class-Based
Quest Difficulty: Hard
Success: Report to Chief Kolle and survive the Maa-Tál initiation ordeal.
Failure: Die during the Maa-Tál initiation ordeal
Reward: Class Change: Dark Templar, Shadowmancer Kit
Skill: Umbra Bolt
Launch a fierce bolt of shadow energy that causes damage and also temporarily blinds the target. As your proficiency with Umbra Bolt increases, both damage and the duration of blindness increase. At higher levels, Umbra Bolt also has a chance of causing confusion—your target may become panicked and start to randomly attack friendly forces.
Skill Type/Level: Spell/Initiate
Cost: 75 Spirit
Range: 100 Meters (Sight)
Cast Time: 1.5 seconds
Cooldown: N/A
Effect: Shadow Damage (160% SS)
Effect 2: Blindness, duration 5 seconds
Restriction: Due to current class restrictions, you may only use Umbra Bolt when your health drops below 15%. To remove this restriction, you must change your class to Dark Templar.
Wow. There was so much awesome I didn’t even know where to begin.
First, I’d reached level five as a result of my training with Cutter, and the last I’d checked, I’d needed almost 3,000 experience points to hit level six. To level up off of two forest mobs was huge. They must’ve been packing some serious EXP, which meant I was in the right place at the right time for some solid grinding.
Second, wow again, I’d just blasted a bolt of deathly shadow from my hand!
Awesome hardly began to cover it. Yes, the Umbra Bolt skill was badly restricted since I didn’t have the proper class yet, but it was still incredibly, wickedly cool. Not to mention, I now had the option to gain the Dark Templar class. I instantly pulled up my wiki, hoping to gather some intel on what type of skills Shadowmancers had, but frowned in disappointment. The wiki was currently unavailable due to my restricted in-game location. Probably the same reason my in-world map hadn’t been working properly earlier on—the Devs didn’t want any information about this particular location leaking to the general public.
Finally, I gained my feet, brushed my clothes free from dirt and dead leaves, and retrieved my warhammer from the forest floor. I took a minute to loot the Corrupt Valdgeist. Each carried 5 gold—but nothing else. Not a huge surprise, considering the creatures were basically trees. Still, 10 gold from two mobs was nothing to scoff at. Part of me wanted to play it safe and go back to the clearing, but the gamer in me screamed that this was way too good an opportunity to pass up. After all, if this was a restricted area of the game, it meant no other players were farming here. Which meant great EXP and decent loot—all good.
So, yielding to the jabbering voice of my inner greedy gamer, I made my way further into the forest.
THIRTEEN:
The Hamadryad
I wound my way deeper and deeper into the forest, stealing from one copse of trees to another, encountering larger and more aggressive groups of Corrupt Valdgeist as I progressed. The battles continued to be intense and grueling, but after the first five or six, I started to notice certain predictable patterns in the way they moved and fought. A big haymaker was almost always followed by a short jab and a lunging kick, which offered a narrow opening I could exploit. And exploit it I did: sidestep right, avoid the kick, plant my warhammer into an exposed chest cavity with devastating results.
But those openings and gaffs evolved and changed.
Apparently, I wasn’t the only one learning. No, the Corrupt Valdgeist picked up on my strategy almost as quickly as I picked up on theirs, and they adapted accordingly. Just when I found myself falling into complacency, one of the tree creatures would change tactics, lashing out with a surprise uppercut or catching me off guard with a wild blow that’d knock me from my feet. Smart. Dangerous. And even more troubling, the deeper I went, the faster the creatures became, quickly eliminating one of my major advantages. It made things more difficult overall, but also more interesting.
Grinding often got mind-numbingly boring because it was so repetitive, but this was never that. I was never quite sure how things would play out.
It’d been nearly an hour—and about twenty Corrupt Valdgeist later—when I heard the guttural rumble of an inhuman voice coming from a small clearing up ahead. I pulled up my in-game clock and checked the time: 1:25 PM. I frowned. I really needed to turn around and head back if I wanted to meet Abby on time,
but my curiosity got the better of me. I crept forward, wrapped in Stealth, cloaked in shadow, feet silent in the undergrowth, and pressed my body up against a tree, stealing a gander around the side of the trunk.
The breath caught in my throat …
I counted thirteen or fourteen Corrupt Valdgeist wandering around in a lopsided meadow—a few shuffled listlessly, a few more were curled into hollowed-out burrows of mud and stone. Fast asleep. Some were even eating, stuffing their misshapen jaws with clumps of dried dirt or munching on handfuls of rotten leaves. This was some sort of den. Strangest of all, though, was the large, gnarled birch tree in the center of the clearing, surrounded by a fairy ring of brown-capped mushrooms.
The tree, labeled as a [Hamadryad], had a face on it.
And not just some crude picture carved into the bark. No, an actual face protruded from the white bark: a bulbous nose of knotted wood, deep-set chestnut-brown eyes, a thin gash of a mouth framed by mossy facial hair. “You make me sick, all of you,” the tree bellowed in an earthy voice. “Why can’t you leave my forest in peace!” His mossy beard fluttered as he hollered. “You come in here and spread your rot around, corrupt my brothers with your presence. A pox on you, on all of you.”
The Corrupt Valdgeist ignored the tree’s accusatory rant, carrying on about their business as though they were alone in the world. None of them went near the tree man though; they avoided the toadstone fairy ring as though it carried a deadly poison. The tree continued his ineffectual muttering, offering up colorful curses, occasionally taking a break to complain about how bad the Corrupt Valdgeist reeked or fondly reminisce about better times, back before the infection in the forest.