by S. A. Devane
Roy was looking at me for a little too long. “What can I do for you Roy?” He scratched his sideburns, “well I don't get it. You’re the only person here that chose a monster race.” Splintir looked at me, his eyes exploding. “Charlotte and Splintir didn’t have a choice. Kraznick chose to be a dwarf to get rich. Why’d you choose to be, that.” I thought about my answer carefully, “I spent the last forty years in jail. Do you remember the Mayor's speech, about that guy he framed for murdering two innocent girls?” They all nodded except Splintir. “I was that guy. I was drunk on my couch, the police busted in and beat the ever-loving crap out of me, saying I resisted. Then my picture was plastered all over the internet and television saying I was a child killer. I didn’t even know why I was arrested for the first 24 hours. I felt helpless. I thought putting myself in a fearsome body would change that. And I like my racial traits.”
“So, when are we going after the Mayor again?” I asked eagerly. The group was silent, but it didn't stop Kraznick from sipping his beer ever so steadily, his eyes peering over his mug. Roys face took on a look of seriousness, “we aren't.” “What do you mean we aren't?” I asked. “Even with Splintir we aren’t strong enough. If you didn’t destroy the dungeon core we’d all have died. That's the most experience I have ever received on a bounty, and I failed. We all need to be at least level twenty to beat him, but by the time we wake up tomorrow he’ll have a newer, stronger dungeon. You have to put your revenge on hold.” I was visibly shaking at this point. Charlotte put her hand on my wrist, “he’s right. We need better weapons, I need more spells, and we all need to be stronger.”
“Another round bar wench!” Kraznick called out slurring his words. “It’s okay Joe, we’ll get him. We all want revenge, but we have time, we have all the time in the world. Now drink your beer, I’m getting sloppy tonight.” I smiled at him and followed his lead. After hours of drinking and reminiscing on our little dungeon crawl Charlotte began to fall asleep, leaning on Splintir’s soft black fur. Splintir carried her up to their room. Roy kept looking at the two women at the bar he eyed throughout the night. They would smile back at him and giggle. “Well gentlemen, you know the saying, youth is wasted on the young and money is wasted on the old. Now I have both and I won’t be wasting it.” He walked up to the two women, zigzagging, and crashing into the bar between them and he dropped a pile of gold coins on the counter. Their looks of surprise and disgust turned to smiles of greed. In a smooth swipe, he picked the coins up and placed them in his pocket. With his arms around both of their shoulders he winked at me grinning as the women led him upstairs. The Kraznick and I drank in silence and made our way to our rooms after we finished our drinks.
Chapter 12
Fed, rested, and clean we left the inn together and headed for the Trade District. First on the agenda was getting Charlotte some new spells. As we passed through, the crowds dispersed in front of us once they noticed Splintir and me. The trading district was filled with merchant carts, guards and when you peered in the alleys, homeless. “Mr. Troll, Mr. Troll,” a woman grabbed my leg. It was a young woman and I could see she was beautiful, she had clear lavender eyes and underneath her dirt mat hair and dusty torn clothes was a gaunt frame. With desperation in her voice she pleaded, “You’re a player right? Right? Please if I don’t get a platinum I won’t be able to pay this month’s fee. I’ll be perma killed. Please.” She sobbed thick tears that streamed down her cheeks cleaning the dust off her face. Startled I went to say something, but she gasped and her body flew towards the ground. A guard hit her in the stomach. She laid gasping for breath in the street as the flowing crowd stepped over and sometimes on her. “Begging is illegal and you know that wretch.” The guard spit out as he walked away chainmail clanking together and his red tabard flowing in the odorous breeze. I watched as she held her stomach and crawled to an alley away from the traffic. I took a step in her direction then Roy spoke, “don’t.” His face showed pity. “Don’t help her. She's there because she chose to be there. A beautiful player like that doesn’t become a beggar making good choices. This isn’t the real world where people are born into poverty. We all start out wealthier than 95% of Alleria’s citizens.” I ignored him and walked to the alley. “What are you going to do? Give your money to all of them?” The alley was lined with filthy attractive humans. Some were sprawled out across the ground and others with their backs against the stone brick walls. “On earth these were the richest, the five percent. Look at them now that they don’t have their inherited money and companies churning out cash for them. You see the ones drooling? They’re cubists.”
“Cubists?”
“Yeah, it was the original idea for Arielle. Give the players a cube world where they can conjure anything, women, alcohol, drugs. They were essentially gods in their own little world. But they became bored of that, they thought of themselves as gods after a few months. Creating creatures and men to torture and kill as they saw fit. They went insane with power. These were the alpha tests. I guess the developers needed another way to kill the players in here. This isn’t some vacation, they want to remove you from the population. Once they take all your money, you die. Think about it, you have to pay a mystic coin to revive. Sure, you start with a lot, but deaths common here. You have to pay a monthly fee or you die. The world is in conflict, a world filled with creatures and players that want to kill you. They could have done a normal world like earth, skyscrapers and jobs and families or they could have created a sci-fi utopia, but a world where everyone works together, all diseases are cured, people live for thousands of years, where's the money in that? The only way to truly become immortal here is to grow strong and accumulate wealth.”
“Is that why you’re staying with the group?”
“It’s one of the reasons, but mostly, I trust you. Lottery winners are the most trustworthy. The dwarf is a gruff jerk sometimes, but he’s honorable.”
“So why should I trust you?”
“Because, the higher level you, Charlotte, and Splintir become the stronger I will become and all three of you will out scale any human. The racial traits you have will make you unstoppable. You’ll be able to fight off twenty men at once, even if they are the same level. I didn’t think about it before, I was too attached to my human body. I see now that I made a mistake. But being your friend and ally will benefit us both, we can become a force to reckon with.”
“Was this speech supposed to make me trust you?”
“Not now, but I was hoping that my honesty would let you know that I’m in it for the long haul. We need to keep this group together. The only thing we need now is a healer.”
“Where can we find one?”
“Well one of us can get our intelligence to 15 and become one or we can find one here. Before we leave the city.”
“If you want the group to have trust, you should be saying this to everyone.”
“I’m telling you because you were in prison. You understand the wisdom of strength in numbers. We need to convince the group to stay together. Now that Charlotte's found her brother I can tell he's not comfortable with us.”
“With us, or you?” I pointed at him.
“I’ll tell you later, we’re losing the group. Just because players can’t kill each other in the city doesn't mean it isn’t dangerous here.”
We rejoined the group, Splintir followed closely behind Charlotte while Kraznick led the way. “Outta the way you peasants, Dwarf coming through.” With each brush of his hand people almost toppled over and then glared at him, once their eyes caught sight of Splintir they walked away as if nothing happened. While Kraznick pushed through the crowd Splintir cried out in a screech. His head swiveled to see a group of humans smiling at him, the leader had his boot on his tail. Splintir whipped it away. “What the hell is a filthy giant rat doing in my city.” He said as he tapped the longsword on his belt. Four goons were behind him with mismatched armor and weapons. Splintir growled at him and Charlotte took out her wand. “Oh, is the little
girl going to do some magic,” he mocked as Kraznick turned to see what was going on. Roy placed himself between them. “Don’t, they’re baiting you. If you attack a PVP marker will pop up and any player can attack and kill you without repercussions.” Splintir growled again.
Typical bully tactic. Taunt until you get attacked, then feign innocence. I strode over, “what seems to be the problem here ladies? Seems you stepped on my friend’s tail.”
“A troll and a rat, they’ll let any ugly monster in the city now.”
“We are a troll and a rat. What's your excuse for being so damned ugly? Actually, I see the resemblance, you have the same mustache as your mother.”
“My mother is beautiful.”
“That’s why you sleep with her?”
“She also passed away years ago, you filthy troll.”
“All the more reason you should stop having sex with her.”
“Say one more thing about my mother and I’ll cut...”
I cut him off, “your mother, is, a, whore.”
He pulled a dagger out of his belt and started walking towards me.
“Oh come now, your mother wouldn’t approve of you sticking me, she might get jealous.”
He slashed my arm, and blue blood trickled down. Right then Roy shouted, “free kill!” A red orb glowed above the scumbag’s head and the beggars peered out from the other alley, postured like a pack of hungry dogs. Beggars streamed from behind the wall stepping on and over each other, tearing him limb from limb. His friends tried to help, slashing at the beggars, then red orbs appeared above their heads. More beggars came and were cut down, but for every one cut down another two desperate mongrels punched and stabbed them with their fabricated shivs. In a matter of moments, the street was littered with bodies and a few injured beggars walked away with new armor, weapons, and I assumed 10% of their money. Most of the players and NPCs watched in horror.
“Now let's go get Charlotte some magic books.” I said extremely satisfied with myself.
Chapter 13
We arrived at Crumb the Gnomes, Home of Tomes, which was etched into the stone above the entrance. As we entered a ding, ding, ding, sounded with each of us and the gnome like metallic golems turned their heads towards us. Once inside the smell of people sweating in the sun changed to a pleasant library aroma, a mixture of books and oak. There was a large desk on the right and a doorway to the left covered with long strands of colorful beads that hung to the floor. And straight ahead were books, hundreds of books with shelves and little signs, but of course I couldn’t read them. I need to get my intelligence to level 10 I chide myself. “Charlotte what does the sign say?”
“Aisle 13, Fire.”
Startling me, a cheery squeaky voice came from behind the desk. “Welcome welcome. Please give me one moment and I’ll be right there to assist you.” Seconds later a gnome climbed up a tiny stairway, first came blonde hair, slicked backwards, then two large gleaming amber eyes, followed by his bulbous nose, then his shiny white grin. He stood face to face with Roy. He spoke quickly and cheerfully, “My name is Crumb, what can I help you with?” He looked at all our faces, smiling to each of us. Charlotte spoke up, “I need a few new spells.” “Oh but of course, let me see, let me see. Charlotte, level 7 Childkin. Oh my, what wonderful racial traits. You will be a force to reckon with one day. Death magic, I see, I see. You are in luck; my death magic section has been overstocked for quite some time. Death mages are quite rare in these parts.” He leaned over to whisper, but spoke just as loudly. “Some people are biased against anything that says death or dark as if that makes you inherently evil. I can see by your company you are not one of these small-minded people. I can see the rest of you are not casters, I have a lobby just through the beads where you can wait for her. There’s tea and water and a few snacks. We’ll only be about fifteen minutes or so. Come with me Charlotte, come with me.” He hopped off the pedestal and out of sight and came around the desk. The gnome was about a head shorter than Charlotte, and he led her down through the stacks and to the right.
The beads clacked together as we went through. Three more gnome golems stood still around the room, one by the long table filled with crackers and cookies, on the far side was a pot of boiling water and bags of tea. I sat on one of the large leather couches and looked around bored. “A bar!” Kraznick said excitedly. I was beginning to think the dwarf had a drinking problem or it could have been one of those new genetic adaptations that being his race gave him. I mean Splintir ate human flesh and the thought of human blood made my mouth water the way a rare steak would have when I was human. Should I succumb to my new desires? Splintir seemed to have and no one was judging him for it, but I had always been human, how could I eat my own kind? Then I thought, they were no longer my kind. I went back and forth like this for the fifteen minutes it took Charlotte to return and Kraznick to drink an entire bottle of whisky. Splintir was silently brooding, pacing around the room with his hands behind his back. I still hadn't got to know him, it was something I needed to do.
Charlotte stuck her head through the beads, “I’m done, let’s go.” While we piled through the doorway Crumb rung her up. “That will be 5 Platinum for death drain, 50 Platinum for death barrier, and one mystic coin for consume corpse.” She opened her interface and pulled out the platinum coins and one glowing prismatic mystic coin and tentatively dropped them into the gnome’s tiny hands. “I understand your hesitation Charlotte, but with these spells you will be a great death stronger. I mean a great deal stronger.” He smirked. “Offensive spells are great, but useless if you have no mana or life.”
“You already sold me Crumb, no need to sell me again.”
No wonder he put bottles of liquor out in the lobby, he was making a killing, I thought.
Smiling Crumb nodded. “Once you have used these in battle and gained more Intelligence I have no doubt you will be back for stronger spells. I wish you all safe journeys.”
“Mr. Crumb.” I said getting his attention. “What can I do for you Joe?”
“What magic classes are the best for healing?”
He crossed his nimble fingers in front of his lips and thought. “It depends on what kind of healing you need. The three main healing specialized magics are life, light, and water. But they all have their own drawbacks. Now if you make an undead friend you won’t be able to heal them with light magic. You could heal them with life, water magic, and death. Now undead are the only creatures healed by death magic. Charlotte, if your trying to fight the undead, don’t use any of the spells I gave you.”
Her mouth dropped, “what?”
He nodded vigorously, “yes, yes, yes, I understand the dilemma. Death magic is extremely powerful, but all magics have some drawbacks. Fire magic is weak against dragonkin and many other monsters are immune. Water magic useless on mermen and anything that lives in the water. Wind is useless in combat, till you get to the highest echelons where it suddenly becomes devastating. It depends on what you are looking for.” He looked us all over again. “I see, I see. Your groups looking for a healer. Well Roy there isn’t far from 15 intelligence. Humans make excellent casters and can to use every type. I would recommend doing research on the big three of healing. I have a few books here I could sell to you. Since they are only research books they are only a few gold each.”
Roy protested, “wait, why do I have to be the healer? Splintir’s Intelligence is just as high as mine.”
Crumb nodded. “That is true, but his racial traits will make him the most dangerous killer in the group by far. Spending his attributes on intelligence past being able to read would be quite a waste. It was simply a recommendation, you asked, so I answered.” He began putting the books away, but I stopped him. “I’ll take the books Mr. Crumb. “Oh, okay Joe. Do you wish to be a healer?”