by Jakob Tanner
Skren Bandit
Level 5
HP: 380
MP: 8
380 HP! Level 5 too. We were so dead. I called up my HUD and noticed a flashing buff under Shade’s status bars.
Feline Vision (Passive Racial Ability) (Level 4): The senses of a cat are strong in you. You can know your enemies sometimes better than they know themselves. Reveal the level, HP, and MP of all enemies eight levels above or below you.
Wicked ability and because we were in a party now I got the benefit of the information as well.
Shade brushed past me and headed towards the front of the caravan. “Oi! You guys really going to eat me because I beat you lot in a game of cards?”
The guards turned to Shade. Their snouts wrinkled with hostility. “Shut up prisoner. You’ll be feeding our clan soon enough.”
“I’d be careful what you do now,” Shade replied. “You wouldn’t want any visits from angry Lirana now would you?”
One of the guards stuck his snout through the bars. “I’d shut your mouth now kitty cat.”
What the hell was Shade doing?
“Consider it shut,” said Shade, running his fingers across his lips as if he were zipping them closed. He returned to the back of the caravan.
“Was that your master plan?” I asked. “Piss them off?”
Shade smiled and shook his head. He then lifted up his tail. Hanging from the tip of his furry rear end was a silver pair of keys.
6
Shade fiddled with the keys and undid his hand cuffs. Then he unlocked my wrists and the debuff icon disappeared. The cat thief grinned and said, “Now give me a hand with killing these stinking rats.”
The Lirana crouched and said, “Follow my lead.”
He crept over to the front of the caravan and silently unlocked the gate, escaping the notice of the guards. A new buff appeared on Shade’s status bar.
Stealth (Buff): Stay hidden in the shadows, silent in the dark, unnoticed even in the open. 0.5% x LUCK your actions go unnoticed by your enemies.
The buff icon disappeared as Shade kicked open the door and punched
one guard in the face. The Skren growled and screeched. Its red health bar fell by a sliver, going down to 375/380 HP. The pitiable damage did not make the guard appear any less pissed off.
The rat bandit pulled out its rusty sword and swung it towards Shade. The thief jumped out of its way. The bandit slashed his sword in all directions. Shade dodged and rolled around the incoming swipes. He leapt forward and delivered a punch to the bandit’s stomach.
The caravan door swung open. A Skren guard rushed into the wooden carriage and unsheathed his sword. The creature panted with an excitement to fight, a hunger for blood. Its pink tongue lolled out of its mouth, resting over its large cracked yellow teeth.
It was now or never.
I squeezed my hands into fists and ran at the Skren. It took a step back surprised by my sudden burst of energy. I aimed my punch for the head, guessing it was the critical spot. My fist slammed into its skull.
Blocked!
What!? The Skren shook its head, more surprised by my weakness than any actual pain. His head was unprotected, yet the creature was so much stronger than me my hit was automatically blocked. The bandit didn’t waste anymore time and slashed its sword at me. The blade swung through the air and dug through the skin of my upper arm. Bits of blood-soaked flesh flew across the caravan.
A hot pain coursed through my arm. My HUD showed my health bar drop by a quarter: 17 damage taking my HP down to 78. My heart raced. My breathing was frantic. My vision blurred. Shock overtook me. The pain in my arm was too intense.
Bleeding (medium) (debuff): You have an open wound. You will lose 3 HP every thirty seconds. You cannot regenerate health until you stop bleeding.
The bandit swung its sword again. I fell back and avoided the hit. I had to do something quick. The pain in my arm pulsed. Blood spurted from the wound. I frantically searched the caravan for something to fight with. Anything. To the left of me were our old rusty handcuffs. I grabbed them and my HUD prompted me:
New Item Alert! Old Rusty Handcuffs (ATKP: 3-4. Durability 4/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
Yes, I thought and gripped one of the cuffs. This was truly pathetic but this was life or death now. I spun around and slashed the air with the handcuffs. The Skren jumped back and then crept towards me again. It was overly cautious for someone kicking my ass.
I picked up the other pair of handcuffs and duel-wielded them like nunchucks. I ran at the Skren, completely freaking it out, and threw a barrage of metal blows at the creature’s head, arms, and legs. I closed my eyes and swung like a mad man. It held up its sword to block me and a few blocked and missed alerts flew by in my retina display. But I kept going. I’d keep swinging until this unforgiving game debuffed me with lung cancer for being out of breath. Bring it on. I wanted to survive. I whipped the metal cuffs against the Skren’s arm shielding his face. As I swung, the creature’s health bar barely diminished. It was now at 369/380 HP. After all those hits—somewhere between twenty and thirty blows—I’d only dealt 11 damage.
The Skren bandit stopped cowering, thrusting his sword right into my stomach.
Critical hit!
The rat bandit wrenched its blade out of my gut, leaving a hole the size of a water faucet. Dark crimson blood leaked out of me. The blow did 28 damage. My health bar fell below fifty percent. I dropped the nunchuck handcuffs to the floor in shock. Next I fell to the ground. The pain overwhelmed me.
Bleeding (heavy) (debuff): You have an open wound. You will lose 3 HP every ten seconds. You can not regenerate health until you stop bleeding.
Even if I didn’t take anymore hits from the bandit’s sword I would be dead in under three minutes now. My vision was blurring. My cloth shirt was soaked in red. Blood leaked from my body, draining through the hole in my stomach.
The bandit approached me with its sword, now dripping with the blood of my intestines. Only two more hits from the sword and I was a goner. In the corner I noticed a loose nail lying on the ground. I reached out for it.
New Item Alert! Metal Nail (ATKP: Depends whether you have a hammer. Durability 8/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
I gripped the nail and thought yes, this is my last goddamn hope.
I rolled onto my side and cranked my arm back and thrusted my hand forward, releasing the metal nail like a dart. The nail flew through the air and—
Critical hit!
The nail rammed straight into the Skren’s left eyeball. 20 HP slid off the creature’s health bar. The Skren’s arms flailed as he tried to pull the wedged nail from his eye socket. Blood leaked out from the wound.
I rose up and hurried over to the bandit. I punched it in the stomach and grabbed it by the head and wrenched out the nail and jabbed it back into the creature’s bleeding eye socket. I did it twice more, landing two more critical hits.
The bandit screamed in pain. He grabbed hold of his sword and lunged the blade at the gaping hole of blood and guts that was my stomach.
I jumped but the blade touched the tip of my stomach wound, ripping more flesh off me. I tumbled back onto the caravan floor. I was down to 17 HP now. The Skren walked towards me ready to deliver the death blow. The nail remained lodged in its head where its eyeball used to be. It was no use to me there. But hell even with all my critical hits, I still hadn’t gotten it below half of its health. What would one more shot to the eye do?
The bandit loomed over my cowering and defeated body. It lifted up its sword with both hands, ready to lunge the blade for the final blow. The sword came down towards me. I lifted my hand to protect myself.
A bright light burst forth and filled the room.
7
A ball of bright golden energy formed outside the palm of my hand. The power coursed from my chest and down through my arm and veins to the focal point of my palm. The ball of light shot from my hand. It burst forth
and knocked the Skren bandit right in the stomach. The blast left a burn mark on the rat’s skin and then dissipated in the air. The bandit stumbled back a few steps. Its HP bar dropped by 20 points; now at 278/380.
A new window appeared in my HUD.
Innate Racial Ability Unlocked: Energy Ball (Level One)
Manipulate the mana coursing inside of you into a ball of energy to damage your foes.
Skill Type: Spell
MTKP: 7-10
MP Cost: 5
The bandit charged at me with its sword raised. I lifted my hand again and—with a sliver of determination—seized the energy coursing in my arm and created a ball of light and launched it at the attacking creature. He flew back, losing another 20 HP.
I only had 8 HP left and less than thirty seconds before the bleeding killed me. I threw out another blast at the creature and then another and another. I stretched my fingers and shot my palm in the direction of the bandit but nothing happened. I bent my elbow and stretched my arm out again, hoping to reignite the blast. Again: no energy ball. I was out of MP.
The creature picked itself off the ground and ran at me with its sword. This was it. There was nothing left to do. I would have to face death. I closed my eyes as the creature dug its sword into my chest—
I waited for the blade to rip through my intestines. I waited for the prompt telling me I was dead. But I didn’t feel a thing. No pain. Nothing.
My body glowed with a bright golden hue; my open stomach wounds had miraculously resealed. All my debuffs were gone. I was completely healed. My HP and MP bars refilled to the max.
Congratulations you have leveled up!
You gain +4 HP
You gain +1 MP
You have (3) unused attribute points that can be applied to any of your five base stats.
But how? The creature was still in front of me. I hadn’t killed anything. The answer to the riddle came in the form of a blade slicing right through the neck of the Skren bandit standing in front of me.
Critical Hit!
The Skren bandit’s health bar dropped to a sliver. Shade ripped out his sword and did three rapid thrusts to its chest. The rat toppled over in death.
+87.5 EXP!
“Holy shit,” I panted.
Way too close a call. If Shade hadn’t killed his bandit, triggering a level up with an automatic health replenishment, I would’ve been dead. Nothing I had done from stabbing it in the eye with an old nail to blasting it with badass Aeri magic had been enough to kill it. I would have to be careful with mobs (hostile mobile NPCs) too far above my level. I had been rewarded for it though; I had gained a level and was now only 25 experience points away from gaining another. Still, I’d rather gain levels grinding out against level one mobs than come an inch away from losing my life.
Shade looked back and forth in concern.
“It’s not that I dislike hanging out in this caravan but I’d much rather we got the hell out of here. You know, before the rest of this rat gang notices we’ve killed two of their brethren. But that also doesn’t preclude us from looting on the way. Nothing—and I mean nothing—should ever stop us from grabbing the loot. Be it a fire breathing dragon or the moral ambiguities around stealing from the elderly. That’s my life philosophy anyway.” He gestured to the dead bandit at our feet. “I’d pick up the sword over there if I were you. Throw on the vest as well. I doubt those cloth rags you’re wearing are doing you any good.”
I bent over the dead bandit and hesitated as I reached for the vest. The scraggly fur was now patched red with blood. The body was still warm. I had to lift the skinny rat arms up and wriggle the vest off the corpse.
New Item Alert! Rough leather vest (DEF: 7. Durability 6.5/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
I selected yes and the cloth shirt I’d been wearing disappeared from my body and was replaced by the rough leather vest. When I had picked it off the bandit, it had been way too small for me but the vest appeared to grow with its user. Computer game logic for the win. Next I pulled the shorts off of the creature, keeping my eyes away from its gross rat underpants.
New Item Alert! Rough leather shorts (DEF: 6. Durability 7/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
My old cloth pants dematerialized and were replaced by the Skren’s rough leather shorts. They came with a belt already attached—no extra stats, but a nifty sheath for a sword. Next I pulled off the bandit’s rough leather boots and equipped them for another +2 to my defense. Finally footwear; bye bye splinters. I was very pleased with the new bonuses the loot brought to my stats. This new equipment meant I’d be getting a +15 defense bonus, which was 8 points more than the crummy cloth starting gear. Not bad. After such a horrendous fight, I’d take every advantage available. I picked up the bandit’s sword off the ground.
New Item Alert! Thin Rusty Rapier (ATKP: 8-12. Durability 7/10)
Do you wish to equip (Yes/No)?
I twisted the grip in my palm. The sword felt good in my hand.
“Let’s go,” I said.
Shade winced at me with suspicion. “There’s definitely something not quite right with you but I can’t put my finger on it. I’ll let you know once I figure it out.” He then looked at the dead bandit. “Are you not going to cut off its tail?”
“What?”
“Cut off its tail. You can sell it to a merchant for a couple of coins. If we ever get out of here.”
I shrugged and bent over. I grabbed hold of the Skren tail and sawed it off from the top. It took a few seconds but it was easier than I expected.
New Item Alert! Skren Tail (x1)
Do you wish to add this to your inventory (Yes/No)?
I answered the prompt and the long rat tail pixelated and faded away until there was nothing in my arms anymore.
“Perfect. Let’s leave this decaying pit of rat dung,” said Shade. “Now follow my lead.”
He crouched and I noticed the stealth buff appear under his status bar.
“Do as I do,” whispered the thief. “Crouch so you’re low to the ground. Walk on your toes with the quietest touch. Cling to the shadows.”
I mimicked him and received a prompt for learning stealth. A special buff icon appeared alongside my status bar too now. We crept out of the caravan and poked our heads around the corner. The entire Skren encampment laid completely before us. At the center of the tall cavern was a big fire, the flames lighting the whole place in a warm orange glow. A metal spit hung over the fire with the charred remains of the Haeren woman. I grimaced at the sight.
There were guards assigned to watch and manage the fire pit. Others carried logs and tossed them into the flames and turned back to the lumberyard to get more fuel for the fire. A few sat on benches, drinking and socializing. A couple of Skren danced, their shadows crisscrossing the cavern walls. To the right, the cavern went even deeper. Bright balls of flame hung from a wire leading down a dim path. I made out a few Skren with goggles and pickaxes, hammering away, mining the rocks.
These rat creatures had their own tiny civilization with jobs and social customs. Families and friends. It made me think of the two Skren bandits we had slain. Did they have children and spouses waiting for them back at their burrows of corrugated metal? Had we just wrecked homes?
This freaking game. The developers had really wanted you to feel everything. Excitement, pain, even guilt.
Beyond the big communal fire pit was a large ramp made of scrap wood and metal. We had gone down it on the back of the snail on the way in. It was the only way out here.
“How are we going to get over there without being noticed?” I whispered.
“We need some kind of distraction,” said Shade, wagging his blue tail excitedly.
A silver light glinted from the fallen bandit Shade had slain. I hurried over to it and scanned the body. Shade had emptied the creature of all of its loot except for one item.
New Item Alert! Stable Key
Do you wish to add this to your inventor
y (Yes/No)?
I picked the key up. The glowing green tentacles of the imprisoned slug perked up.
“Today’s your lucky day friend.” I put the key in the gate and unlocked it. “Feast on your masters!”
The slug pushed the door open and slid towards the center of the encampment. The mollusk loomed over the screaming Skren. The slug dipped its head, opening its mouth and slurping a guard down its throat without swallowing.
Shade and I didn’t waste any more time. We crept around the caravan. We stuck to the shadows, hurrying across the black open space until we were covered by the lumber shed. From there, we approached the ramp from the opposite end. These Skren weren’t half-bad architects even if they didn’t choose the best material. Shade grabbed one of the wooden bracings and gave it a tug. It was firm. Next he jumped up and balanced himself on it. He then lifted himself onto the next. He peered back over his shoulder.
“Hurry—we don’t have much time till they tame that slug and notice we’re gone.”
I shivered. I guess I didn’t have much choice. I jumped onto the bracing, wobbled, and grabbed hold of the next one for balance. I held onto the corner column and lifted my foot onto the next bracing and then pulled my other leg up. I did this repeatedly until more than halfway my stomach lurched. The ground was far below where I hung. If I fell from here I would lose all my HP and die.
I pushed myself off the last bracing and dragged myself onto the top gravel floor. I stood up and crouched, going into stealth mode. Where was Shade? In the shadows of a few rocks, a pair of sharp silver eyes glowed out like two floating orbs in the darkness.