by Brian Simons
“And we should aim for soon,” Coral said. “I was poking around on message boards last night and found out that our Otto problem is localized. He’s just on our server. But he’s trying to find a way to jump to other servers and kill whole new swaths of people. If he does that, he’ll effectively destroy Travail.”
Now Daniel was certain this “Otto” wasn’t just an NPC. It must be some kind of glitch or cyberattack on Travail. Whatever caused it, they had a chance to put an end to it.
“Then that settles it. We head east to The Ersatz,” Daniel said.
“Not we,” Sybil said.
“What?” Sal said. “Absolutely not! We’re a team. I could never do something like that without you guys. We won’t let you go through that alone.”
“My people are wary of outsiders,” Sybil said. “When the elf queen banished us from our ancestral homeland, no one came to our aid. No one welcomed us into their kingdom when we lost ours. When outsiders show up in The Ersatz, dark elves get… defensive. They’re likely to kill on sight.”
“That doesn’t sound very defensive,” Coral said.
“The best defense,” Sybil said, “is a swift and deadly offense.”
“I’m going with you,” Daniel said. “I’ve been leveling up my Sneak ability. I can stick to the shadows and stay unnoticed as long as we rest occasionally to replenish my stamina. If things go sideways, I can fight alongside you.”
Sybil opened her mouth quickly but then closed it. She pursed her lips for a long while before relenting. “Fine.”
“What about us?” Sal asked.
“Well, is there anything worth doing in the Ogrelands?” Daniel asked.
“I’m sure I could scrounge up a quest or two,” Sal said, “but what would Coral do?”
“Don’t worry about me,” Coral said. “Wherever I go, I need to work on my Tailoring ability until I figure out how to make the right armor.”
“Then here’s the plan,” Daniel said. “We cross the River Rove, just east of Havenstock, and head into the Hollow Hills. Sybil and I can move north through the Dokkal Pass and into The Ersatz. Then Sal and Coral go south to the Ogrelands. Today’s Thursday. We’ll meet up at Havenstock Castle on Saturday at noon.”
29
As Coral listened to Daniel lay out another plan, she had to admit she was impressed. He wasn’t just thinking about himself anymore. He wanted to make sure the whole team was safe and strong, and he was willing to face off with Otto himself if the Regent’s forces weren’t up to the task. If they kept this up, they might just have a chance at putting Travail back on the right path. She felt her confidence start to swell.
And just as quickly it went flat again when she saw a massive head and shoulders rise above the hills in the distance. “Daniel,” she said, trying to stay calm and reserve judgment. Maybe her eyes were playing tricks on her. “What’s that?”
“That’s a hill giant,” he said, sounding not at all terrified.
“And we’re walking toward it,” she said, “aren’t we?”
“Yep.”
“And you’re not concerned?”
“Nope. Hill giants have terrible vision. They probably won’t even notice us. And if they do notice us, they probably won’t care about us because we’re not large enough for a meal.”
“I take offense to that,” Sal said, lifting his gut with both hands. “I worked hard on this!”
“Even so,” Daniel said, “hill giants prefer large game like bison and catoblepas. The only real risk is getting stepped on.”
She started to doubt him, but forced herself not to. He wouldn’t lie to her about the danger ahead, not anymore. The giant’s head started to disappear under the hills in front of them. She imagined climbing up a hill and finding a giant sprawled out on the ground below taking a nap. The image was oddly comforting.
“Sal,” she said, hoping to take her mind off the giants, “what can you tell me about the Ogrelands?”
“Well!” he said. “The Ogrelands are a lot of fun. Ogres don’t like to work very hard, so they have a lot of games set up. Like, Log Throw, which is a game where you throw a log as far as you can. And Friend Throw, where you throw another Ogre. Oh, and Rock Throw, where you—”
“I get the picture,” Coral said. “Anything other than Throw?”
“Sure. There are contests to see who can eat the most food without throwing up, or sometimes to see who can throw up the most food. It depends on the season. And contests to see who smells the strongest.”
“High society,” Sybil said, “at its finest.”
“Hey,” Sal said, “no one’s perfect.”
“Tell that to the ‘pure’ elves,” Sybil said. “They think the ground itself worships the feet they walk with.”
The terrain had been fairly flat after the group crossed a narrow footbridge over the River Rove. Here, though, it started to incline. The grass underfoot was long and lush, with occasional flowers providing sustenance to hungry butterflies.
“Does anyone know why these are called the Hollow Hills?” Coral asked.
“Because they are — get ready for this — hollow,” Daniel said. “A lot of them have giants living in them, one per hill. Many of the hills have holes carved out in the bottom and the giants climb in at night to sleep or whatever else they do there.”
So, she might be climbing on top of a giant this very moment. She wished she hadn’t asked.
“Sometimes people use the hills as a hideout when they get banished or when there’s a warrant out for their arrest,” Sal said. “And some have monsters in them, which means there’s loot.”
“Come here,” Daniel said. He was already at the top of the hill. Coral spared a few stamina points to hurry to the top a little faster.
Daniel pointed out toward the horizon. All Coral could see were hills. “This should give you some sense of how many hills, giants, and dungeons there are out here.” There must have been a hundred hills ahead of her, and who knows how many beyond what she could see. She also saw a few giants in the distance. She only saw them from the shoulders up. It looked like they wore simple shirts or tunics with short sleeves. She couldn’t imagine having enough fabric in one place to make even one shirt for a giant.
She also noticed something that looked like a bird flying toward them from far away. “What’s that?” she asked.
Daniel peered into the distance for half a minute as the shape got closer. It wasn’t a bird at all. It was a person, zooming toward them in midair with a cape flapping behind him. “Goddamn,” Daniel muttered. “It’s FighterFluid.”
Coral and the others stood on the hilltop waiting. It was clear from his flight path that FighterFluid was coming to pay them a visit. The figure propelled toward them at great speed, slowing down as he approached. His golden boots touched the ground toe first, then heel. The midday sun reflected off of his armor, bathing him in a near-blinding aura. He placed his hands on his hips as the wind toyed gently with his cloak.
“Daniel,” he said, disdain dripping from his slightly nasal voice. “I hear you let yourself die. Pity. You were almost a match for me before. Now what use are you?”
“One day I will destroy you, FighterFluid,” Daniel said through clenched teeth. “But right now, we’re a little busy. Get out of our way.”
“You know, killing you was a favorite pastime of mine. I’m glad to hear you’ll still play along. Here are some teleport orbs for the Arena, when you’re ready.” He tossed a few small orbs, which Daniel caught in one hand. “Bring your friends. I’m sure they’d love a good show. Might want to level up first though. Right now I doubt you could even take on a measly hill giant.”
“I have nothing against hill giants,” Daniel said. “I do, however, hate pretentious assholes.” He stared right into FighterFluid’s eyes.
“I’d be hurt if I cared what you thought,” he replied. “If this were a PvP zone I’d kill you where you stand and use my new Cloudborn Cloak to levitate on out of here. What is it you’re so busy wit
h, anyway?”
“We’re going to kill Otto,” Sal said. “Not the puny shopkeeper one, the one with the huge white axe.”
FighterFluid laughed. “Why would you want to put yourselves in the way of that character? He’s massively overpowered. Even I wouldn’t risk fighting him.”
“His axe inflicts permadeath,” Daniel said. “If we don’t stop him, he’ll wipe everyone out.”
“Newsflash,” FighterFluid said, “every death is about to be permadeath.”
“What are you talking about?” Daniel asked.
“Otto’s next target is Januar. It’s all over the message boards. Otto figured out that Januar is the reason people are ‘free to die without repercussion.’ Once he kills Januar there will be no reincarnation for players or respawning for NPCs, no matter how they die. So give up, Daniel. Save yourself for me instead. I want to be the last death you ever suffer.”
If what FighterFluid said was true, Otto was even more of a threat to Travail now than ever. If he figured out how to switch servers and kill Januar, the game would unravel quickly all over the world. They were wasting precious time trash talking. They needed to get rid of FighterFluid pronto.
“So,” Coral said intentionally loud, turning to Sybil, “this is FighterFluid? He’s smaller than I imagined.”
“Not me,” Sybil said. “I read on the message boards that he was tiny. They were right.”
FighterFluid was not amused. “Yuck it up, hags. I came here to make his life hell, but if you’re stupid enough to cast your lot with him, you deserve what’s coming.”
“What are you talking about?” Coral said. “You said it yourself, this isn’t a PvP zone.”
“It’s not. But it is rife with giants.” His eyes lit up and he pointed to the base of the hill they stood on. A few dozen feet below them were two giants, sitting by a fire with a pile of charred bones. One giant lifted a roasted cow to its mouth and ate it whole, spitting bones onto a pile to his side.
As FighterFluid pointed at the giants, a ring on his finger began to glow. It shot a red beam, which he pointed at one giant and then the next. Their eyes took on that same red glow and a faint icon of a red eyeball appeared above their heads.
“He berserked them,” Sybil said.
“Yep,” FighterFluid said. Before Coral saw him move, he had grabbed her and Sybil by their shirt collars and lifted them off the ground with his levitating ability. He pulled back from the hilltop and out of Daniel’s and Sal’s reach. He hovered in midair above the angry giants for a moment and then let go. Sybil and Coral hurtled toward the ground. “Next time,” he yelled after them, “don’t be so petty.”
They plummeted five stories. Coral slammed against the ground with a thud and a crack.
>> You fell 52 feet! 489 Damage. [Broken Bone]
She was pretty sure the cracking sound was a bone breaking but she couldn’t tell where. Every inch of her body screamed with pain. The wind had been knocked out of her. She saw a large hand descend above her. She tried to push herself to her feet so she could run away, but a new pain screeched in her nerves louder than the chorus of aches that had already overtaken her. So it was her leg that was broken. She wouldn’t be running away after all. A giant hand scooped her up from the ground.
30
Daniel and Sal scrambled to get down the hill. Sybil and Coral had landed a few feet away from one of the giants. Sybil just lay there on her back. She was unconscious. Luckily the giants didn’t notice her lying there, vulnerable. Coral, on the other hand, had tried to scramble away from the giants and was now held in one’s grasp. The fist holding her was so large it hid her body completely.
The other giant took a large step toward Sal and Daniel and attacked them on the side of the hill. The giant was unarmed, but that didn’t make it any less dangerous. A berserked giant would have a Strength bonus increasing its attack damage, though it would have poor concentration that would reduce its Defense.
The giant’s foot flew toward Daniel and Sal, but they dodged in opposite directions and out of harm’s way. Sal got to his feet and used his Distracting Belch attack to draw the giant’s aggro. He stood ready with his mallet and his full reservoir of HP. “Go,” he said to Daniel. “Get Coral before she’s a goner!”
Daniel dug in his bag for the bread he had been saving and handed it to Sal before he skidded down the rest of the hill and toward the giant holding Coral.
Sal ate the bread while he distracted the other giant on the hillside, taking frequent hits but restoring some of the lost HP with his dry vittles. As a Gourmand, he got three times the HP benefit from food as other classes would.
Daniel’s giant bent down to aim a clenched fist at him. Daniel ran between the giant’s legs, leaving the giant to slam his fist into the ground instead. The earth shook beneath them. Daniel abandoned his hope of using Surveil. He didn’t have 28 seconds to spare. Instead, he grabbed onto the giant’s bare foot and started to climb its calloused skin. He made it up to the giant’s knee before the creature stood on one foot and shook his leg vigorously. Daniel dropped to the ground and rolled.
>> You fell 15 feet! 34 Damage.
One squeeze of its fist and the giant could grind Coral’s bones to a pulp, but it seemed to have forgotten about her for now. The giant was focused instead on Daniel.
He had to try again. He needed to reach Coral and pry the giant’s fingers loose. He ran toward the giant’s foot and grabbed at a thick flake of calloused skin. He pulled himself up onto the giant’s big toe. Again the giant tried to shake him loose, but Daniel grabbed a tuft of hair growing from its toe and held on. The giant failed to fling him away. When it put its foot back down, Daniel sprinted across its foot and leapt onto its pant leg.
This time, he went inside the pants. The giant couldn’t see him anymore, which would make it easier to climb. He grabbed onto the thick threads of the pants’ material and climbed it like a rope ladder. He wiped sweat from his eyes with each fabric rung he ascended. The giant’s body heat made the climb sweltering and oppressive.
The giant seemed to be doing a jig now, hopping from foot to foot to shake him loose. Daniel made it to the waist of the giant’s pants and used his sword to cut a hole in the fabric so he could get out. The cool outside air was refreshing, but he couldn’t stop to enjoy it. He scurried up the giant’s shirt and moved around to his back.
The giant threw himself into a sitting position on the ground and started to lay back. This would have flattened Daniel between the giant and the grass. Daniel saw the ground quickly approaching his body as the gap between the giant and the earth closed. He leapt from the shirt threads and dove out from the giant’s shadow. The giant didn’t seem to notice that Daniel had jumped off his back. The creature shimmied against the ground as if he thought Daniel were trapped under him.
Daniel stood a few feet from the giant’s head, looking up at a big, hairy ear. Coral was trapped in the giant’s far fist, under fingers that seemed to be twitching. The giant would be back on his feet any moment now. There was no time to climb on top of the giant and sprint across its chest, nor could Daniel run on the grass around the giant’s head and down the length of its arm in order to pry Coral out of its hand. He could try to climb onto the giant’s face, but then what? Stab him in the eye with a short sword? Wouldn’t the shock and pain of that make this creature ball his hands up into fists and squeeze the life right out of Coral? Daniel was out of moves. He was desperate.
“Hey you!” he shouted. “Let her go! Let Coral go!”
The giant froze. Then it slowly rolled its head to the side to look right at Daniel. “Let her go!” Daniel continued, hoping he was having some effect. The giant’s eyes still glowed red, but there was something else there now. A spark of something golden in the center of the giant’s pupils. “Let her gooooooooo!”
The giant’s face showed the characteristic seething anger of a creature possessed by a berserk debuff, but he followed Daniel’s instruction nonetheless. He unfurled
his fingers. Inside his hand was Coral, covered in sweat and blood. It looked like she had been hacking at the giant’s fingers from the inside with her fabric shears to keep it from closing up its fist.
Coral climbed down from the giant’s outstretched palm. She winced in pain, dragging one broken leg behind her as she slowly crawled away from the giant and toward Sybil. Daniel didn’t know why the giant did as he asked, but he hoped the effect wouldn’t wear off now. “We’re not your enemy!” he yelled. “Distract your friend so we can escape!” Daniel pointed to the other giant, who kept Sal dancing left and right in his constant attempts to dodge attacks.
Daniel’s giant paused for a moment. He rolled his head to one side to look at Coral and Sybil, then rolled it back to look again at Daniel. He got to his feet, clenched his fists and then lunged at the other giant.