“What is it?”
“I’ve been flagged by administrators for saying killing spree. Shit! They’re saying it violates the Real World Threat Act of 2041. What do I say?”
“Don’t worry,” says BramToker, “I’ve done this before. Just send the admins the password to your GoogleFace account so that they can check that you haven’t been visiting jihadi websites or serial killer fanzines or anything like that, and a PDF copy of an approved ATF 4473 background check. They’ll check again later today or tomorrow, but there’s usually a backlog. Even with the Anti-Cyberbullying Act of 2025 as well as the ban on licensed concealed firearms in university campuses and hospitals, most federally-mandated random gun check programs are underfunded. It’s the only thing that keeps us safe.”
The two PKers continue on their way, playing out the legalities of making an in-game threat in a world managed by an overly cautious Federal Corporate Government.
“We should do something,” I say as soon as they’re gone.
I hear the sound of fabric ruffling. A torch lights on Veenure’s fingertips, adding an orange hue to the passageway.
“Too risky.”
“They were both level seventy,” says Aiden.
“But there are five of us.”
“Two of you are level four; the NPCs are level three. I’m level eighteen. Those two would have stomped a mudhole in our asses, both individually and collectively.
Zedic says, “But they’ll get to the Frog King before us!”
“Not necessarily.” Dolly presses her fingers to her temples like Jean Grey. “There are two paths ahead. The Frog King lies on the path to the right, but the Player Killers will take the left path, which is fraught with peril and ultimately leads to a dead end. They’ll have to fight their way in, and then fight their way back out.”
“What makes you so sure?”
Veenure answers. “She cast Confusion on the two. Mind magicians can also cast certain spells on actual players – even incredibly low level mind magicians.”
“Why don’t more people pick it as a subclass?”
“Because it’s difficult to manage. The fact that she’s an NPC makes it slightly easier for her.” Veenure takes the lead. “Come on. We need to get to the Frog King. Those PKers will eventually find out they’ve been duped and they’ll turn back around. We’d better defeat the Frog King before they do, otherwise they may try to interrupt our battle and squeeze us out.”
~*~
Hustle becomes our friend. We move rapidly through the cave, ducking stalactites, avoiding loose stones underfoot, and doing our best to get to the Frog King before the two PKers can realize the error in their path.
The walls shake at the sound of a colossal RIBBIT. Warm, moist air and a warmer, moister froth of frog juice blows past us, mucking up our duds and matting down our hair.
“That’s some Battle Toad,” I say as I wipe my face.
Rocket: He’s a dirty bastard.
“That’s the spirit, kid!”
Veenure looks at me funny.
“Sorry, answering the voices in my head. Sometimes we talk.”
No time to comment. Aiden has already blitzed ahead, engaging us in battle. The Tritania battle system is funny. The battle begins whenever a player in a guild or a traveling group makes contact with an enemy. Even though we were a good fifty yards away, we’re immediately transported to a huge underground lair, where we’re placed directly in front of a Rana from a different mama.
If Kermit had bumped uglies with the scabrous, diabetic, seven hundred pound adult Honey Boo Boo, the resulting unspeakable crime against all carbon-based life would closely resemble the Frog King. Green, googly eyed, yellow-bellied, girthy, wattled and warty, it is now clear why Michigan J. Frog’s prison pen pal is an object of fear and distaste.
The battle trumpet sounds and we’re greeted by an epic tongue lashing as the Frog King, takes a ten percent cut of each of our life bars. Zedic is up to bat with a series of magic arrows, which give each of us a little boost.
“Strategy?” I ask. I scroll through my inventory list just to make sure I don’t have any frog poison. Nope, but my rat poison, item 442, would have come in handy earlier though.
“Move forward with Aiden – sync to combo. Equip whatever you’d like. The games AI will take over from there,” says Veenure.
“Frog legs it is!” I equip my milspec 20 liter gas can, item 117, and dangle it at Aiden. I pop the lid off and he gets the picture. A Molotov cocktail takes form in his hands. We charge forward and ‘sync’ in the strangest way. Aiden drops and I leap frog over him, chucking the can of gas at the seething frog. I land in front of Aiden and he leap frogs over me, pitching his Molotov cocktail. The explosion and fire would have put a tent pole in Trashcan Man’s trousers and puts a serious singe on the Hypnotoad.
Zedic laughs. “That leap frog-thing looked like something from the Rainbow Coalition’s Inclusivity Fest – and I should know. The explosion was pretty good, though.”
“The AI has a mind of its own!”
Through the magic of in-game physics, Aiden and I are completely uninjured. Unfortunately, our impromptu home-made FAE didn’t shave much off the Frog King’s life bar, barely five percent.
Luckily, Veenure is too busy engaging the Frog King in some sort of dark magic space time continuum attack to hear me. A black hole filled with floating lightning bolts opens up; the tattoos on her cheeks blaze under her hood. The vortex grows, writhes, and suddenly implodes, dealing Boss Frog another ten percent damage.
Frances Euphoria: Hi! I just logged in to monitor what’s happening. I’m at the Dream Team office now with Indian food. Finish the battle and we’ll have lunch.
“Sweet!” I say as Dolly moves forward. Her Witchblade exoskeleton forms around her hand and she rakes it across the big frog’s belly.
“He’s down twenty percent,” says Aiden. The frog moves forward, his expression that of a dyspeptic Winston Churchill after an all-you-can-eat bean burrito extravaganza, and then returns to his ready position.
“What’s up with Frogger?” I ask.
Aiden says. “He’s charging! The Frog King has two types of charge moves – Frog Stomp and Swamp Belch.”
“Which is worse?” asks Veenure.
“Frog Stomp – he’ll instantly take half of our life bars.”
Veenure nods. “Quantum cast shield on yourself; Aiden cast Crazy Mofo; Dolly – Ultra Target.”
“That won’t work,” Aiden says. “The Frog King won’t fall for Ultra Target.”
“Crap! I forgot.” Veenure’s hand comes up and she scrolls through her inventory list. “There must be something here that will help us.”
Frances Euphoria: Ask Aiden how many times it can cast Frog Stomp!
“How many times can it cast Frog Stomp?” Zedic and I ask simultaneously.
“Once per battle.”
“That’s fine!” I say. “Let’s keep up our attack, taking twenty percent per round. He’s already at eighty… we’ll beat him!”
Veenure grins under her hood, her teeth flashing white. “Good call. All right, let’s give him everything we got!”
“With pleasure.” Zedic pulls back on the string of his Hero’s Bow. A luminescence radiates from his hands to his shoulders; pixilated blips of light swirl around his arms as they charge. He pulls back just a little more, unleashes an arrow that transforms into a gargantuan spectral eagle. It connects and the Frog King’s life bar drops about five percent.
“Nice! What was that?” I ask.
“Shaft of Feathered Vengeance,” says Veenure. “Common White Archer attack. He’s low level now – wait until he’s at level thirty or so.”
“My turn.” I equip my stylishly rococo hose gun filled with Almost Universal Solvent, item 566. I trigger the nozzle; the Frog King sizzles and the hose gun goes back to my inventory list. Legal indeed!
“What was that? Where do you get this stuff from?” Veenure asks.
“AUS Ho
se Gun,” says Aiden. “Dissolves everything except gold. Works well on big-ass frogs too, it looks like. He’s now at fifty-five percent.”
Veenure does her Interstellar trick again, black-holing Señor Frog for another ten percent. Dolly’s up next with an exoskeletal fist, shaving off a little more of the amphibian’s life bar.
“Almost at forty percent!” Aiden says. “We got this!”
“Not so fast.”
~*~
The PKers from earlier have joined the battle on the side of Prince Charming’s fugly uncle. BramToker and CoutneyLuv99 stand before us, vogueing for an audience that only they can see. The broad has scaly skin, black pointy teeth, and an ooh, so scary writhing snake Medusa hair do. She’s decked out in a Tim Burton parody of a Goth-esque Wonder Woman outfit, which cantilevers improbably large and decidedly non-reptilian mammiferous attributes.
Seeing him up close in personal, I realize that BramToker is the same vampire we saw floating back in the blacksmith’s village. Taller than Abe with a Gene Simmons’ widow’s peak, the lanky man is Zuckerburg pale with creepy eyes to boot. Clad in the obligatory all-black with a white collared shirt and a Banderas cape with red lining, the Count is ready for his B movie close up. I’m not impressed – all paisley, now that would impress me, but I guess I’m not his target audience.
“Can’t the Frog King attack them?”
“Not while they’re on his side,” says Veenure. “They’ll finish us off and then they’ll get the toad. We should have bought some healing potions – my fault. I have a few, but not enough for all of us.”
BramToker says, “You used a mind confusion attack against us.”
“That’s not all we’re going to use.”
Since the two PKers spawned on the Frog King’s side, the game allows us to make the first attack.
“Make it count,” says Zedic as I scroll through my inventory list. For his part, Zedic pummels them with arrows, which saps some of their life bars, but not much.
CourtneyLuv99 laughs. “It’s been a while since we fought some ultra-noobs. This is going to be great!”
Rocket: Forfeit the battle – if they win, they’ll take your weapons and armor.
I glance to Zedic, who confirms what Rocket has just said with a subtle nod.
“I really hate to leave when we’re this close.”
Veenure catches on. “Chrono’s armor and your weapons.”
“What happens if we forfeit?” I ask.
“We go back to our last safe location – Kiya.”
A whip made of red neon light appears in CourtneyLuv99”s hand and fills the air around us with a prickly, itchy static. She cracks it against the ground and gives us crooked, pointy grin. “Hurry up, newbies – times a-wastin’.”
Aiden reads her stats. “That’s the Lasso of Wretchedness. It’ll take twenty-five percent of all our life bars and infect us with Tritanian Recalcitrant Plebney, which is horrifically fatal. We’ll be dead in two turns or less.”
“We should forfeit now,” says Dolly. “If this were another Proxima World, I’d turn these two angsty teens into chickens and spit roast them myself. Tritania has rules.”
“Some rules are made to be broken,” I say as I scroll through my inventory list, “but if I’m going out – if we’re going out, we’re going out with a bang. We might as well fudge up their impending battle with Superfrog.”
I equip my hack ax, good ol’ 554.
Zedic shouts, “That’ll kill you! Forfeit the battle, Quantum, we need to save our gear!”
I won’t let you die.
“Relax, Zedic, I’m just going to give them a taste.”
I look down at the mutant hack bubbling up my arm and forming a huge muzzle rimmed in electric blue zigzags. I notice a switch on the forestock that I haven’t seen there before. The words ICE appear on the bottom, NORM on top.
“Ice or norm?”
Ice.
I keep the toggle switch in its current position and aim it Lestat and the Kinderwhore queen.
“A mutant hack gun?” BramToker laughs. “It’ll kill you!”
“Where did a noob get a mutant hack?” asks CourtneyLuv99, who is clearly smarter than the Count.
“Let’s just consider this a parting gift.” One icy blast later and Vlad the Inhaler is frozen solid. My life bar shrinks to one percent. Everything blinks red; a button appears in front of me asking if I’d like to forfeit the battle. I select yes and the world pixilates.
~*~
Back to Kiya with a grin on my face. Sure, we chickened out, but at least I left the two PKers with a hell of a battle ahead of them.
“They won,” Veenure says as soon as she has materialized. Her fingers come out of her robes revealing a floating quest orb: BramToker and CourtneyLuv 99 have rescued Empress Thun!
“Seriously? That quickly?” I glance to Zedic, who is sitting on the edge of a well. Aiden is next to him, not as relaxed as he should be, but relaxed nonetheless.
Dolly says, “The female player likely used her whip on the frog.”
“But we literally just respawned.”
“There’s a slight lag,” says Veenure. “Anyway, there is another way to get the two of you enough EXP to travel to Polynya.”
“What about the rest of our guild?”
“The NPCs don’t need to be a certain level to travel. However, if they’re in a guild, they must be with guild members who are at the right level. This is so Mind Mages can bring the characters they turn with them wherever they go.”
“Got it.”
A Clydesdale in elaborate black barding enters the town. The rider, a man with more armor than an Andromeda 309 Comsuit, glares at us through the Y-shaped opening of his Barbute. He rides past and his horse rudely depletes the Tritanian ozone layer and whips its tail at us.
“Anyone up for another battle,” I say, cracking my knuckles.
“Please,” Veenure says under her breath, “your life bar is still at one percent.”
I watch the Black Knight ride off, wishing for the first time since entering Tritania that we were actually diving in The Loop. Home turf has its advantages; his armor would be like rice paper to my BFG 9000.
“Easy, Tiger,” Dolly says, her fingers dancing up my arm. I turn to her and my heart melts. What I wouldn’t give to hide away with her for eternity, watching the world slip away.
“Sorry, I just don’t like forfeiting a battle.”
“It was the smart thing to do,” she says. “He who fights and runs away, lives … ”
“Maybe you’re right.”
“She is right.” Veenure removes her hood. “And all is not lost. We have about five hundred pounds of Octiron, which Chrono will gladly trade for the armor you’re wearing.”
“And there’s also a way for you and the Zedic get to level fifteen by tomorrow.”
“What’s that?”
Rocket: Oh yeah! I forgot to tell you this.
“Dammit, Rocket.”
Veenure gives me a funny look.
“Nothing,” I say. “It’s just an expression I like to say … popular back in Baltimore.”
Rocket: Sorry!
Frances Euphoria: Cut him a break. There was a lot to process about Tritania.
Veenure says, “Every new player in Tritania is allowed ten auto-player levels.”
“Auto-player levels?”
“This turns your avatar into an NPC who can level up while you sleep. Some players hold off until they are level fifty or sixty to take advantage of this. After all, it’s harder to reach a new level at that point. However, if you really need to get to Polynya, this is a great way to rapidly advance your levels. Of course, you’ll need to manually get the levels in Polynya. Only people that are level thirty-five or above can fly to Ultima Thule.”
Zedic says, “So we logout and our avatars stay here, leveling up. Is this right?”
“Yes,” says Veenure. “Just select it in the main menu and choose how many levels you’d like to advanc
e. I’ve used half my auto-player levels. I’ll use the last five when I reach the sixties.”
“Good, let’s do that then,” I say.
“What happens if we die while we’re fighting?”
“You can’t die in this mode,” says Veenure. “Your avatar will auto-spawn in an area with low level characters that reward high EXP for each battle. Players can’t attack other players in the Leveling Plains. No way to die or get robbed.”
“Sounds like we’re going to wake up a little stronger tomorrow,” says Zedic.
Veenure smiles; the tattoos on her face stretch wide. “There is only one disadvantage to auto-player leveling.”
“What’s that?” I ask.
“While your avatar is engaged, you’re prevented from logging into other Proxima Galaxies.”
“Think you can go that long?” I ask Dolly.
“I’ll manage,” she says with a hint of a smile.
“Good,” Veenure says. “I’ll deliver the Octiron to Chrono.”
“Perfect. Let’s meet tomorrow in Aramis,” Zedic says. “Once we regroup and stock up on potions, we can head south to the Cape of Chukchis to see about this dragon.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
“Good,” I tell Veenure. “Also, invite Chrono to come along if he’d like. We may need all the backup we can get against these orcs. I’m expecting a bloodbath.”
“Expecting or hoping for one?” she asks.
“A little of both.”
Aiden rubs his hands together. “I’ll be sure to get some backup in The Loop.”
“Yeah, and keep people out of my hotel room too. Friggin’ Burly with his hookers and blow!”
Chapter Fourteen
Feedback butterflies flutter through my skull. Feedback the sound, the pain, the fall. False zenith, truth ringeth. Dream layeth, death playeth. I awake on the other side of consciousness, in a vat of liquid.
“Relax,” says Frances Euphoria, her hand soft on my shoulder. “It’s me. I’ll help you out.”
The Feedback Loop (3-Book Box Set): (Scifi LitRPG Series) Page 44