by Charles Dean
“Hey! I was not the only one.” Reginald turned around and pointed to Locke and said, “He wasn’t in the thick of it either. Why are you looking at me?”
Locke looked up from his work like a deer in the headlights. He already knew the question that was coming next: ‘Well, did you see where Tubal went?’ But the thing was he didn’t have the slightest idea what the answer was. Half of him was focused on mixing as many potions together as possible before they were done with the fight, while the rest was distracted by the spectacular battle. A couple confused bandit hit-and-runs notwithstanding, he hadn’t really witnessed a proper Tiqpa fight since he made it off of noob island, and even though he had only been there for a few days, he didn’t remember a single fight being nearly as entertaining to watch as this one. This Blue Phoenix Brigade out-classed anyone else he had seen in combat, and they had relied entirely on actual skill for the fight rather than the flashy abilities that went by the same term and came with their classes.
Everyone always wants to be the legendary fighter, he thought. He was about to criticize the group’s composition but then realized the position he was in. No, wait . . . Where is Tubal? Prove yourself useful, or they might angrily pop you quicker than a pimple on prom night. Locke looked around, trying to think. No, you idiot, they can see just as well as you can. Do you hear anything? They’re being loud, so maybe they missed something. He closed his eyes and tried to listen for the sounds of either a desperate runner or a giant anaconda-sized serpent. Finally, after hearing nothing, seeing nothing and giving up hope, he braced himself for the question.
“Well, Shy? Did you see which way they went?” Katherine asked, the whole group staring at him expectantly.
If he’s circling around, he’ll either be behind me . . . or . . . flip a coin, Locke. “He’s that way,” Locke said and pointed a little to his left in front of him. “But that was just the last place I saw him. No idea where he is now. I can’t see him at all. Can you?” He tried to deflect any possible blame if his guess was wrong. If you can’t see him, how should I be able to?
“Should we go in that direction in case he doesn’t make it back to us?” Sampson asked. No sooner had his question left his mouth than it became evident that there wouldn’t be any need to try and track him down. A small and almost-inaudible rustle of the brown leaves scattered across the ground in the direction Locke had pointed slowly grew into a much louder series of crunches.
There, still too far away to be certain if not for the bathrobe’s unique black design, was Tubal, running full force in his bathrobe with a giant Knight-Clubber chasing him. Behind the snake, moreover, there were also what seemed like a hundred Tiger-Ants. The Tiger-Ants were tiny, housecat-sized tigers, and they really had no ant-like properties other than the fact that they traveled in large groups just like ants and had two fuzzy little antennas sticking out from behind their ears.
“I brought some friends to the party!” Tubal yelled as he continued his mad dash toward the dumbfounded group
“Crud. Everyone get ready! That snare I cast will only hold the snake, so we’ll still have to take care of the Tiger-Ants!” Reginald shouted.
Get ready? Crap, I should too . . . Locke immediately opened the bottle of poison he had just made and applied it to his weapon as he stood up from where he was sitting cross-legged on the ground.
“Really going to join us, Level One?” Katherine laughed. “Relax and let us handle this. It’s not attractive when a man doesn’t know his limits.”
I’d love to, but those are swarmers. They’re going to wrap around you guys, stream right past and kill me! Locke scowled as he studied the terrain around him, looking for any advantage he could take against the high-level foes quickly approaching. “I’m just getting ready to run if need be . . . Until you can save me, that is.”
“Depending on a pretty woman? Smart man.” Katherine’s smirk managed to grow even wider as she gave him a wink.
Locke’s heart pounded faster as the Tiger-Ants drew closer. Where will I spawn when I die? Did Ash reset my bind point, or will I be square in the middle of the Holy Alliance where they can farm me over and over until a GM bans my account for a second time? Oh, God, I can’t die! Locke’s rapidly growing anxiety had his heart beating three times faster than any doctor would claim is healthy. To make matters worse, he could just imagine Ash watching him from whatever device the GMs used to monitor players and laughing her head off at his situation.
“For honor!” Sparky yelled. He slammed his shield with this sword and charged out in front of the others to intercept the onslaught of incoming foes.
“No! Stop!” Tubal shouted back. “I’ll bring the Knight-Clubber to the snare! They aren’t working together!” It was clear that he was struggling to catch his breath as he ran, and his voice became much clearer when he was no longer a dot yelling in the distance, but almost on them.
Sparky obeyed, quickly backing up to his original position behind the snare, and it wasn’t more than a few seconds after that before the wave of EXP-holders hit. The Knight-Clubber came first and was caught by the trap. Locke positioned himself so that he was a good fifteen paces behind the group, and the battle was actually pretty good for him to watch. As soon as the snake slithered over the trap, magic purple and black chains shot up from the ground and entangled it. One after another, they wrapped around the snake and pulled taut until the serpent was crushed so tightly against the ground that Locke wondered if it would leave a large snake-shaped print even after it was cut up and faded away.
The Tiger-Ants came in behind it, but they didn’t immediately go for the Blue Phoenix Brigade. Instead, they started circling around the Knight-Clubber as if it were an enemy. Three or four of them even lunged out at the immobilized reptile, only to be crushed instantly by its still-free tail which splattered them into the ground with its clubbed end.
“See?” Tubal jumped smoothly into formation with the others like he was trying to take his seat in a class he was twenty minutes late to.
“Can we stain our blades with the lost dignity of these pitiful felines now, Commander?” Sparky raised his sword over his shield.
“Go for it,” Tubal responded. He even managed a chuckle as he pulled out his bow, notched three arrows at once and unleashed them as soon as the string was drawn. Only one of the arrows hit a target, but the one that struck a Tiger-Ant exploded in a flash of blue fire which engulfed the little creature.
What the heck?! Locke mouthed, staring at the burning cat. That is so cool. His mouth continued to hang open in awe as he watched the battle dumbstruck.
The Dragon-Wing and Minotaur, not to be outdone, also charged into the fight against the felines as a good portion of the swarm battled it out with the injured and trapped Knight-Clubber. The Minotaur, approaching the group first, swung his blade a foot or two before he was even in range. Locke thought it was a mistake, but as soon as the axe began to cut through the air, a bright blue flame shot out toward the Tiger-Ants in front of him and incinerated their flesh on contact.
When three felines jumped out from the mass of burning ones, Sparky intercepted them and quickly blocked all three in succession. Whenever one of the attacks struck his shield, a bright blue flame burst out and scorched the attacker in return.
Bianca and Katherine, both still flying above the fray, slashed and whipped the Tiger-Ants with abandon. Unlike their teammates, however, their attacks lacked any of the blue flames signifying special abilities. They used the same, standard whip attacks that they had when fighting the Knight-Clubber, but they were still impressive. The Knight-Clubber died first, and, little by little, the swarm of Tiger-Ants that had surrounded the Blue Phoenix Brigade began to thin out.
“Shy! Watch out!” Katherine shouted.
Since it wasn’t a name he was used to, it took Locke a moment to realize that she was talking to him and that he was about to be jumped by one of the ferocious foot-tall kittens. He nimbly dodged to the right of the cat with a dexterity he wasn�
�t aware he possessed as it bounced past him. He didn’t miss the opportunity and swung his sword down hard on the beast, slicing it as deeply as he could. Unfortunately for Locke, he wasn’t able to deal more than a bare minimum of damage to the creature, even with the extra damage from the poison on his blade. His attacks were so ineffective that he wasn’t even able to slice into the ant-cat for more than an inch before his sword rolled off, leaving it largely unharmed.
Crap, what am I going to do? He panicked when he realized that his weapon wasn’t going to be effective at all. He didn’t have any time to think it over as the cat turned around, made a loud angry ‘mya’ sound and darted at him with another pounce. Locke repeated the motion, scared to death that even a single scratch on his hand might result in death given their level disparity.
“I could use some of that help you mentioned, Kat!” Locke shouted back at the Succubus, but only got a “Busy!” in response.
You’re not going to die like this and let Anthony ruin your life twice in one day, are you? Locke chided himself. If you can’t handle one lousy Tiger-Ant, how are you going to take on the leader of the Holy Alliance? His internal lecture continued as the feline’s angry ‘mya mya’ war cry sounded off before it went in for a third pounce. Make him taste death, you wimp. Wait a minute . . .
This time, as the cat leaped forward, Locke took out three potions and threw them in the cat’s mouth just as it pounced toward him again. One of them bounced off his snout harmlessly, but two landed directly in its open mouth. Locke took a gamble and slashed at the bottles, smashing them open in the Tiger-Ant’s mouth, and dodged out of the way as quickly as he could. The Tiger-Ant’s claws narrowly missed his right side before the monster landed and went into a coughing fit. Between the glass shards stabbing into its mouth and the poison it had swallowed, the Tiger-Ant had gone from seemingly invincible to near death in a moment.
Not one to hesitate, Locke rushed forward with his poison-coated blade and began to stab the Tiger-Ant as fast and hard as he could, jamming his blade into its eye until a thrust finally sank deep enough to land a killing blow. That’s right, and the next one is for you, Anthony. He grinned from ear to ear as he fell back on his butt, finally able to relax.
When he looked up, he saw the faces of the rest of the Blue Phoenix Brigade members staring at him as they moved between the still-twitching Tiger-Ants’ corpses.
“I’m guessing that all those fancy blue flames you guys shoot are why you went with the name?” Locke asked, chuckling before letting his hands slide down and his back lie flat against the ground. As soon as the adrenaline left him, and the risk was over, he felt light as a feather. All he wanted was to close his eyes and savor the feeling--that good feeling that came with not dying an excruciating death from a devil kitty.
“No, we geared our talents towards the flames after the name. Gotta keep our style, you know?” Bianca giggled.
“Impressive work there, stud,” Katherine cooed. “I think I might just have to raise my opinion of you.”
“Honor is not obtained from a giant crushing a thousand ants, but from the weak toppling the strong through tenacity and bravery. You have done well to earn your merits today,” Sparky said, or at least Locke thought it was Sparky from the voice and the heavy role-playing. Sparky clearly took his role as the ‘Honorable Dragon Knight’ way more seriously than most people ever would.
“Yeah, you’re not bad, kid,” Tubal complimented him as he stuck out a hand. “You going to join us next fight? Or you going back to paying with potions? I mean, if you join us, we can wave the fee of five extra poisons. You’ll clearly be as good as us when you catch up in level, which I imagine will be pretty quick.”
Locke sighed. That’s right, I have potions to make. No sleep for you, Locke, you’ve still got a full day of grinding ahead of you. He grumbled to himself as he stood up and brushed the dirt off his back and pants. “No, I gotta keep working. I really appreciate the offer, though. You guys are great.” He gave his best and most sincere-looking false smile. He wasn’t faking it because he thought that they were bad people, but it was hard to feel any sort of mirth when he knew that he was going to be faced with hours of boring, mindless, repetitive tasks and no break.
“Suit yourself, but you’re always welcome to join us on the front line if you get bored,” Tubal said, dropping the matter as quickly as he brought it up.
“And you’re always welcome to join me at the bar,” Katherine winked. “I mean, as long as you’re buying the drinks.”
“Never take her up on that offer,” Bianca giggled. “It’s hard to really get drunk in the game, and she only orders shots.”
“I do not!” Katherine protested.
“Prey awaits! Idle chatter shouldn’t get in the way. Onward!” Sparky pointed his sword in a direction away from the group and then started walking that way.
“Does he know where he’s going?” Sampson asked Reginald.
“Does he ever?” Reginald answered and the whole group laughed a bit.
Laughter, fun, exciting fights like this . . . Locke sighed. I wish I could take a break and do that.
“Cheer up, Shy. We won’t let your work get interrupted next time,” Reginald said, patting him on the shoulder. “But at least you got some levels out of it, so if we do let one slip, you should be fine.
You misunderstand my pain, but who can blame you? You could never know what it’s like. Locke shook his head. Lonely was the worker’s life, and he’d never see the only people who could ever sympathize with him. The only people who would know the pain of twelve- to eighteen-hour work days seven days a week would be the people he could never meet because they’d be working--not playing Tiqpa. These kids could afford to goof off for hours at a time on a video game, so how could they empathize? How could I ever expect anyone not to have Anthony’s reaction to my situation? Disbelief, shock. That’s all that awaits the truth, especially considering it's apparently illegal to do what I’m planning on doing . . . But he is right, though, at least I picked up some levels from the fight. Locke tried to focus on the positive and not spend too much time dwelling on problems he couldn’t solve at the moment. I guess I should check those out. We did get a ton of kills, so there will be plenty of . . .
“WAIT!” Locke shouted, stopping the group.
“What? Are we under attack?” Tubal had pulled out his bow and nocked an arrow before the first syllable even left his mouth. “Where is it? Who is there?”
“Sorry, just give me a minute. I’m going to throw these corpses in my inventory. Can you wait a few seconds? Or help me?” Locke pleaded. If there is a product, there is a way to move it. None of this is a waste, there has to be a market for it all! Locke looked at the myriad of corpses scattered across the ground.
Silence fell across the group like their jaws had fallen the floor as, one-by-one, they all gave Locke an even bigger look of disbelief than when he had managed to use the high ingestion damage of the potions to kill the Tiger-Ant.
“You can’t be serious?” Sparky finally asked. “You are going to desecrate the bodies of worthy foes?”
“I’m going to make money so that I can buy more bottles for my wonderful benefactors,” Locke answered, trying to spin his motives as he quickly shoved one corpse after another into his inventory. He sincerely hoped that there wouldn’t be a cap to how much it could hold. Every second they stood around confounded was a second more for him to pillage the recently-made, above-ground pet graveyard.
“If you’re hocking the items, we’ll help you carry them. But I suspect it wouldn’t be unreasonable to ask for 10% of the earnings on every corpse you manage to sell?” Tubal asked, nodding to himself while he scratched his chin.
Ugh, that sly dog . . . Locke groaned. Tubal knew that Locke didn’t have much room to negotiate, and just like when they discussed Locke joining the group, he was taking advantage of him. But what am I going to do? At least he’s not excessively greedy. “Sure, that seems fair.”
&
nbsp; “Sparky, Sampson, grab the meat, but let’s not take too long.” Tubal issued out the order and then headed off in the direction that Sparky had been charging earlier.
You mean: Let them do all the work so that you can know exactly how many corpses I sell. You’re a clever one, Tubal. Clever, clever. Locke made a note not to underestimate this person. There was a clear reason why he was in charge of the group, and it wasn’t his stylish bathrobe.
Chapter 3
Locke took the opportunity to check out what he had gained from leveling while the Blue Phoenix Brigade was busy fighting a pair of Knight-Clubbers. The fight with the three serpents and Tiger-Ants had skyrocketed him from Level 1 to Level 23. It was rather impressive, considering it would normally take someone a day or more to get from ten to twenty. Then again, that was the benefit of power-leveling. Later on, without a doubt, he would be able to find a way to make money off this EXP-gaining shortcut. The only problem with such a scheme was that you couldn’t return to noob island once you left, so trying to find a way to ferry the starting players over to the high-level mobs on the main continent would be difficult. Later, Locke, one thing at a time. He had to focus on what was going on around him. What I really need to do is find a way to inject myself with caffeine every twenty minutes without leaving the game. Then I could stay awake and on task longer. That would be better than the combined coffee/toilet breaks I have to take now, he mused.
Most of the leveling choices concerning stats were easy. He didn’t need to meet any basic stat requirements to make potions like he had to for swords as a blacksmith. The skill tree, however, was a completely different animal. Any skill he picked would permanently impact his play style forever, and a single bad decision could potentially cripple his future profits. At Level 20, for example, a mage is forced to pick an elemental path such as fire or ice--and then they are stuck with it for the rest of the game. When Level 40 rolled around, they’d have to make another decision and further specify how they wanted to mold their playstyle. They had to choose whether or not they wanted to be an Enchanter, augmenting allies; a Sorcerer, focusing on offensive spells; or a Magus, focusing on defensive spells.