by M. Coulray
The trees and fog began to thin out. The walkway branched into two paths, and I stopped. For the first time, I was able to see the walkway for a significant distance. It didn’t matter what path I chose, because they both met up again. The boardwalk formed a loop that surrounded a body of water about twenty meters in radius. On the side of the loop opposite to where I was standing, a short stub of walkway projected into the body of water.
I paused for a moment. Was this some kind of swamp swimming pool? Not that I was going to dive in. I’d had enough of that already. I chose to go left and approach the pier-like stub from that side.
I found the going to be very slow. The logs were not anchored at any regular interval, and the walkway shifted dangerously with each step I took. More than once I fell to one knee on the slippery surface. It was one of those times, when I had fallen down and was taking a brief break before standing again, that I felt the logs shift.
I turned back to where I’d entered the strange open area. At the branching path, someone stood and watched me. I squinted to try to determine what race they were, and then my heart sank. It wasn’t any of the player races.
The figure stood slightly more than six feet high, although it was hunched over. It wore nothing I would have described as clothing, but there was something tied around its waist, like a rope with a sack attached. In its hand it held a bundle of some kind of stick, long and straight with something bright white at the head. They looked like spears to me.
The figure itself was reptilian. Its legs were digitigrade and it had a long, heavy tail that swept out behind it. Its arms were proportionally long and hung low, and its body tapered from broad shoulders to a narrower but still powerful waist. Its back was covered in dark green scales. Its face had a short mouth or muzzle, and a black tongue flickered out from between its jaws.Despite the distance between us, there was no mistaking its gaze. Its eyes focused unblinking on me, and then it moved.
With a rapid, graceful motion, the being spun one of its spears in its hand, and then stabbed it into the walkway. It looked at me again, then started walking around the perimeter path, opposite the direction I had chosen. It showed none of the difficulties that I had with the logs, and it moved faster than I thought possible. I knew instinctively that if I tried to run, it could catch me without effort. I stayed put.
If the branch of the path was twelve o’clock and the pier projection was six, I was at about three, and the lizardman was at ten. It stabbed another spear into the walkway at that point, then proceeded to the seven o’clock position and repeated its action. It proceeded past the six o’clock position and stabbed another spear in at five. The thing was close enough to me that I could see its green, vertically slit eyes. A membrane flashed horizontally across in a feral blink, and we stared at each other. It held two spears, and then stabbed one into the small walkway projecting into the water. The other it held in its hand.
I hadn’t taken a breath in what felt like forever. The lizardman turned from me and started working at a bundle tied to the rope around its waist. I watched it intently. What the hell had I stumbled into here?
When the bundle was free, the lizardman held it up in the air. I had no idea what it was. Its mouth moved and I heard sibilant hisses. It was too far from me to make out if it was speech, but I wasn’t sure if I could understand it anyway. Gift of Tongues didn’t work on monsters, as far as I knew. Then the lizardman stood to its full height and threw the bundle into the water.
It splashed down near the centre of the pool and sank. I watched the disturbed black surface return to smoothness, and so did the lizardman. Both of us seemed to be waiting for something: me for a chance to escape and it… well, I didn’t know what it was waiting for. Then I saw it.
Bubbles started rising from the water. The mirror surface was shattered and my heart started racing. Something was coming up. Then it arrived, and I fell on my ass.
A massive shape came blasting out of the water like it was jet propelled. It landed on the walkway at the eleven o’clock position. My guts froze. My escape route was well and truly cut off. I took a moment to really look at what had arrived.
It was like the lizardman, but somehow more bestial. The newcomer stood over eight feet tall, in the same hunched posture as the lizard. Its figure was far less lithe, however. The arms were plated with heavy scales and the torso was more powerfully muscled. The most telling difference was in the face. Its head was fully crocodilian and completely without the intelligent character of the first creature. My AR HUD identified it as a Level 12 Degenerated Lizardman, but didn’t tell me much more.
[Degenerated Lizardman]
Level: 12
Vitality: Unknown (no Assess Target skill)
Mana: Unknown (no Assess Target skill)
It looked at me, then at the spear-wielding lizardman.
The lizardman, incredibly, was watching me! It shook its shoulders and jerked its head. Did it expect me to run? No way. I shook my head in the universal sign of negation. It turned away from me and faced the monstrous thing from the swamp.
I expected the two of them to charge each other, but that didn’t happen. Instead, the Degenerated Lizardman leapt back into the water and disappeared. It was obviously more comfortable swimming than walking. Instantly the lizardman moved. He dashed towards me and came to a stop at about four o’clock, and the moment he stopped, the big bastard came for him.
The black water exploded and the monstrous arms of the Degenerated Lizardman reached for its more civilized foe. The lizardman took one nimble step back and to the side and thrust out his spear in a weak jab. The crocodilian’s jaws seized on the shaft and shattered it. The shaft of the weapon fell into the water and the blade flew end over end towards me. Instantly the lizardman ran to where it had stabbed the spear into the projecting walkway. Now I understood his earlier action of sticking spears all over the place!
The giant creature dove back into the water. The lizardman held his position at the small jetty, watching the water as the waves settled into ripples. When the water was glass-smooth again, he began walking along the circular path, away from me.
There wasn’t going to be another chance for me. I slowly started walking toward the original path. As I passed the blade of the spear, I bent down to pick it up.
[Boneforged Spearhead]
ATK: 4 (base 3, +1 from skill Knife Fighting)
DEF: 0 (base 0)
Weight: 1 unit
Durability: 10/25
Quality: High
Other: Penalty to accuracy due to awkward shape.
This was better than my dagger! I held onto the weapon, hoping that the lizardman wouldn’t notice me stealing it. While I was at it, I hoped that he wouldn’t notice me skulking away, either.
I ran into an immediate problem. In the time I took to travel less than a quarter of the way back to the juncture of the paths, the lizardman had already arrived there. He fixed me with his unblinking gaze and I froze. Something stupid inside me made me raise my hand with the palm open. Maybe he wouldn’t think I was an enemy worth bothering with.
When the water exploded again, the lizardman was far more ready than I was. I fell back, having barely made it to the one o’clock position on the circular path. The Degenerated Lizardman was on the walkway, and his heavy steps rocked the logs even as far back as I was. The lizardman didn’t seem to have any trouble with it; he waited steady and patient for the monster to get close enough to engage with his spear.
I watched the two cold-blooded predators size each other up. The Degenerated Lizardman towered over its foe. Its scales were black and heavy and grated on each other as it moved. In comparison, the lizardman looked almost dainty. He moved slowly forward, his digitigrade legs giving him the appearance of a graceful predator in comparison with his brute foe.
When they clashed, I barely saw them move. The lizardman dashed forward, leading with the blade of his spear. It didn’t seem to have pierced the hide of the Degenerated Lizardman. He duck
ed and spun with his spear, first striking the monster with his tail and then jabbing again with the blade. The monster attempted to slash his opponent, but his movements, while strong, were just too slow.
The two of them danced back and forth as I watched. The Degenerated Lizardman’s greater reach was nullified by the spear of the warrior facing him. After a few exchanges, the Degenerate Lizardman roared in triumph. It had shattered another spear. The lizardman warrior retreated, but only as far as the juncture. There, he pulled the spear he’d stuck in the logs and returned to worrying his foe.
The warrior’s movements were fascinating. His tail acted as a counterbalance, letting him apply torque in ways impossible for a human. The Degenerated Lizardman was slowly being worn down. Ichor trickled from half a dozen small wounds, while the lizardman warrior remained unharmed. His speed and agility was enough to keep him safe from the powerful but clumsy blows that his attacker threw. Then everything changed.
The lizardman warrior took a leaping step back, no doubt in response to some cue from his opponent that my inexperienced eyes missed. The Degenerated Lizardman charged forward, and the warrior set his spear to receive it. His weapon pierced the breast scales of the monster and he hissed a cry of triumph.
The Degenerated Lizardman didn’t stop. He pushed forward until he was close enough to seize his opponent’s arm. It didn’t seem to care that it was forcing the spearhead deeper into its chest. The warrior didn’t panic, as far as I could see, but he was unable to free himself from the grasp of the monster. The creature snapped the spear with its other hand and pulled the lizardman warrior off his feet. In that one moment, the fight had gone very wrong for the lizardman.
Did the monster’s eyes meet mine? They didn’t need to. I knew exactly what was coming once the lizardman warrior became dinner; I was about to become dessert.
7
The Degenerated Lizardman had the warrior completely in its grasp. It lifted him in the air by his arm, and the lizardman scrambled his legs until he could brace them against his opponent’s chest. I watched mesmerized as the two of them struggled silently, one pulling and one pushing. The power in the warrior’s legs was barely enough to hold the creature at bay. Then it grabbed him with its other arm, and the balance shifted.
I did the only thing I could think of to keep myself alive; I cast Physical Barrier on the lizardman. The spell immediately cancelled off me and the bugs descended, but I didn’t care. If he died, I was next, and I had no idea where I’d respawn. If it was somewhere in this swamp, I’d be right back where I started, only naked and unarmed.
The monster twisted its arms, trying to dislodge the warrior and pull him towards its massive jaws. He was unarmed, and the nearest spear was far around the perimeter. By the time I ran back around to get it, he would be dead. Instead, I ran towards the pair of them, like an idiot.
I somehow made it to them without falling. Panic apparently made me a touch more agile, or maybe it was just my Luck stat kicking in. Either way, I was close enough to get in the fight. But now I realized there wasn’t much I could do.
The lizardman warrior’s right arm was slowly being bent towards the crocodilian jaws of the monster. His fingers flexed helplessly, the talons on their tips curved and deadly but useless to him. I had to help somehow.
I darted forward and immediately had to fall back. The monster’s tail swung around and almost knocked me into the drink. It hadn’t been intentional, I was sure. The thing couldn’t possibly see little old me as a threat, but all that thrashing around meant collateral damage was always a possibility. I took a deep breath and moved again, and this time I reached my objective.
I slapped the broken haft of the spear into the lizardman warrior’s hand, somehow evading the monster’s teeth and claws in the process. His eyes met mine and widened slightly. His tongue flickered past his teeth. I fell back, hoping like hell I hadn’t just made a huge mistake.
The warrior’s strength seemed to be flagging. The broken spearhead in his hand wasn’t much use to him with his arm so fully under the control of his opponent. The monster roared again in triumph. It pulled the lizardman closer, and engulfed his arm in its jaws past the elbow. The hand clenching the dagger disappeared into the darkness of its maw. When the Degenerated Lizardman’s teeth came together, I winced, anticipating the crunch of severed bone. The warrior hissed in pain, but it was the Degenerated Lizardman that lost the fight.
At the top of its head, an inch of white bone thrust from between the scales. Its eyes opened fully and it shook as if it was seizing. I realized at that moment what the lizardman had done. He’d sacrificed his arm to get a shot at the unprotected palate and brain of his foe. When the monster had clamped its jaws down, it had driven the broken weapon into its own skull.
My HUD was flashing several messages, but I ignored them. The beast fell down and dragged the lizardman with it. Blood flowed from the monster’s mouth and slipped between the logs to feed whatever lived in the water below. I winced at the thought of what those teeth must have done to the lizardman’s arm, but then I was surprised.
With a dexterous twist, the warrior forced the jaws of the Degenerated Lizardman open. He withdrew his arm. It was cut and injured, but the combination of his hard scales and my Physical Barrier spell had protected him from the worst possible result. He twisted his wrist and flexed his fingers. The broken spearhead he left inside the monster’s skull.
The lizardman stared at me with those green, unblinking eyes. His tongue flickered between his teeth. Sibilant hisses left its mouth, but they weren’t just animal noises.
“I was hoping the Scaleless would act as bait, but it helped me. I won’t kill it. Run along now. Do not follow me, Scaleless.”
I could understand him! I had to speak to him. I needed friends out here.
“If you died, I was next, right?” I force-laughed and the lizardman leaped backwards from me. He crouched and flexed his claws.
“The Scaleless can talk?!”
I held my hands out wide. “I can talk. I can understand you.” I paused for a moment. “I hope we don’t have to fight.”
The lizardman stood. It stared at me silently for almost three minutes. “Does it… do you think? Are you a beast?”
“Uh yes. I mean no. Yes, I think, and no, I’m not a beast.”
The lizardman visibly relaxed. “You will come with me. I am Votess of Goddess Watch.”
The AR HUD finally gave me some info on my new companion-cum-captor.
[Votess]
Race: Lizardman Remnant
Level: 11
Vitality: Unknown (no Assess Target skill)
Mana: Unknown (no Assess Target skill)
“Nice to meet you. I’m Daniel.”
Votess made a strange noise. “You are Scaleless.”
Votess knelt beside the dead monstrosity. Its scales were much darker than his, and thicker. He cast around until he found another broken spearhead, a remnant of the battle. Then he set to work severing each of the monster’s fingers.
“Trophies?” I wasn’t sure why he wanted the fingers, of all things.
Votess hissed a negation. “The talons and poison glands can be of use to the wise ones in Goddess Watch.”
“What’s Goddess Watch?”
He looked at me. For a lizard with no real expression, he did a damn good job of making me feel like he was rolling his eyes. “It is where the people watch for the Goddess and defend her temple.” His tone told me that everyone knew this. Well, sorry, pal, but this was my first day on the job, so to speak.
Votess walked the perimeter of the pond walkway, collecting his remaining spears. Then he set off back down the path I had taken to get here. After a moment, I followed behind him, watching his tail adeptly balance his motions on the shifting logs.
While we walked, I addressed the prompts I’d received.
[Level Up! You have reached level 2! ]
[Level Up! You have reached level 3! ]
[Level Up!
You have reached level 4! ]
You have reached the maximum amount of experience for an encounter at your level. Excess experience has been lost.
You have gained 6 skill points.
You are eligible to learn the following skills:
Swimming
Perception
Stealth
Assess Target
Do you wish to spend two skill points to learn a new skill?
Nice! Three levels at a shot! I checked the progress bar that reflected my current experience; it was a hair away from full. Apparently helping out Votess had granted me a share of the experience, although according to the prompt I’d lost some to overflow. Now I saw what the whole skill learning thing was about, too. I discarded Swimming right away; I had no intention of ever going into the water again, and if I did I’d muddle my way through like I had before. I also discarded Stealth for the moment. I probably got that as a potential skill when I was trying to sneak away from the fight, but it didn’t seem that useful to me right now. Perception seemed like it might be handy, but so did Assess Target.
In the end I chose to learn Assess Target. It seemed my dream of living a quiet, normal in game life was not going to happen anytime soon. At least this way I could see a little more info about what was trying to kill me at any given time.
I was left with four skill points. I put one into Barrier Magic and checked the results.
[Skill: Barrier Magic 2]
This skill enables the casting of barrier magic.
Bonuses: 10 Mana per level. There may be spell specific bonuses.
You have unlocked a spell modifier talent: Ablative Barriers. Do you wish to learn Ablative Barriers for the cost of one skill point?
You have unlocked a new spell: Mana Barrier. Do you wish to learn Mana Barrier for the cost of one skill point?
Let’s hold off on those for a moment, I thought. Another prompt had appeared in higher priority than the ones that were waiting in the queue.