He heard the pounding at the portcullis and rushed over that way. Charles was their only melee defender inside the walls, as far as Eddie could tell, so he felt justified in worrying. He ran into Dominic on the wall over the portcullis.
“Hey Eddie,” Dominic said. “Hm, about thirty Orcs, think it's worth it?”
Dominic gestured with the bottle in his hand.
“Is that the other poison you never used in Rotthorpe?” Eddie asked, recognizing the bottle.
“Yup, warn Charles, would you?”
“Hey Charles, incoming AOE. You may want to hold your breath and back off from the portcullis,” Eddie yelled.
Charles gave him a thumbs up and took several steps back. When Dominic saw that he lofted the bottle up towards an area right over the center of the Orcs below them. It came down and smashed on the shield of an Orc who saw it at the last moment and ducked beneath his shield for protection.
A wave of smoke rolled out from the broken bottle filling the area. In the light of the Eternal Day spell, the poison looked to be a bluish-purple color and the results were almost instant. Orcs started dropping left and right and when the cloud dispersed a minute later there were only five still standing out there.
Eddie pulled his bow back out, nocked an arrow and fired as the portcullis rattled up its track. A roar echoed up from beneath as Charles rushed the remaining Orcs. Eddie kept firing as well and Dominic threw out a couple of fiery arrows.
The remaining Orcs at the gate had already not been in good shape from the poison, with the attacks from the three men they went down quickly.
By the time they got back to the other side of the walls, the missile Orcs and shamans had all been cleared. Eddie was expecting his vision to get obscured and see flashing letters, but instead his notification light started flashing. He called it up and gaped since he hadn't expected that message for a while yet.
Success:
You have obtained enough experience to advance to Level 16
Do you wish to advance?
(Y/N)
~ ~ ~
Chapter Twelve
Aaron had acquiesced to Lydia's request for dinner and drinks again. He really liked her, especially her attitude, and was hoping for more again.
I mean, it isn't official, but her asking me out again that quickly? I hope that she wants more also, and I'm not just talking about her 'negotiable breakfast's, he thought.
Aaron was still watching Eddie's logs intently. He'd just gone through another attack and it didn't look like it had been anything he hadn't expected, at least the huge group of adventurers that he'd recruited had handled the thing easily enough.
Although, from the looks of things he's using tactics and sneakiness on his side. I wouldn't have expected that of him, Eddie never struck me as the type to do a lot of planning in advance.
Aaron glanced up, checking the time.
Well hell, I hope he's okay for the next one because I'm not going to trash Lydia's plans in order to observe it, not when this one went down the way it did. I don't think they even lost any adventurers to respawn this time, he thought.
He shut his workstation down and headed for the entrance to the building. Lydia was meeting him there again and taking him out to some unspecified Asian restaurant that she liked.
Fortunately Aaron was adaptable. When the main course arrived, he discovered that the food was expected to be eaten with your fingers, not tableware. He grinned at Lydia.
“Heh, I bet you thought this would throw me off my pace,” he said. “But, trust me, coders are used to using their fingers to eat, even when it isn't the way food was intended to be eaten,” he said, raising a piece of some sort of breaded seafood and tossing it into his mouth.
“Well, I did want to see how well you reacted to the unexpected,” she said. “But I admit defeat on this one, you've taken it in stride just fine.”
She grinned at him, the smile stretching all the way across her face.
“Although I should've known just from how you've reacted to me. Most coders I know would flee in terror from a strong woman who's opinionated and somewhat aggressive in their relationships.”
“I don't know why,” Aaron said. “Having a strong woman who's rather forward makes things so much easier.”
He realized that he did have a type. The description Lydia had put out fit Cynthia to a 'T', as well as all the former girlfriends he could remember. There hadn't been an awful lot of them, but he consoled himself by remembering that his relationships tended to last quite a while longer than those of the other people he knew, at least the ones that weren't married.
“So, I'm guessing that explains why you aren't just a coder anymore,” Lydia said. “You said you do R&D, debugging, and coding?”
She grabbed her own piece of seafood, dipped it in a sauce that had left Aaron sweating after he tried it, and popped it into her mouth.
“Yeah, I don't exactly have a job title that fits it all, but I do have my own team under me, skilled in both hardware building or modification and writing code. Plus, I got picked as the member of the debugging team that has to go into the game to be the liaison with the players when that's necessary. Although I think they've got someone else doing that now that I have extra responsibilities on the R&D end.”
He leaned over for a sip of the drink she'd ordered for him, non-alcoholic, but spiced in a way he'd never encountered before, some variant of a spiced tea.
“Well, I dug into that issue you mentioned,” she said. “And I'm sure it's Greenshaw. I don't have solid proof, but his is the only room up there that hasn't been making registered connections, and I know he's in his office for hours every day.”
Her face was flushed from the heat of the sauce she'd used and Aaron stared as her lips closed on the straw for her to take a drink. He shook his head to return to the moment, instead of the memories he'd been savoring.
“Well, I was going to do something like that. It looked like process of elimination was the only way to track it down, but it sounds like you managed it already. Are you sure you want to be involved in this though? If we're dealing with Greenshaw it could get nasty. The man gives me the creeps. It's like the first thing he does any time he looks at me is determine if I'd be a difficult opponent in a fight, and then determine just how to take me down as quickly as possible.”
Her reply was louder than normal, with clipped words adding emphasis and showing just how she felt about things.
“That is the only unregistered connection on my network. I hate sloppiness and that makes for a sloppy network. I also hate the fact that there can't be any accountability for whatever that connection does. It's my network, my responsibility, and I can't do anything about that connection. I've tried blocking it, but it didn't take any more time than making a normal connection for it to get around what I tried. So yeah, I want to be involved,” she said.
“Okay,” Aaron said, drawing out the word. “I didn't realize it was such a thorn in your side.”
“Well, I didn't quite tell you how I felt about it the other day. I needed to make sure you weren't involved with it somehow, especially with you being in R&D. I did some digging though, like I said, and now I'm sure you aren't so I can tell you how I really feel. Especially since I feel like you have some of the same problems with it.”
If you only knew, he thought. I'm pretty sure that connection is how Loki is accessing the internet. Something really unsettling for an AI with the capabilities of the ones we use to be able to do. Never mind the fact that somehow the head of our company is involved in him doing so somehow. I won't tell her, at least not yet, but somehow I think that my problems with that connection are a bit bigger than hers. She wouldn't, after all, be held accountable for the AI's actions, I don't think. I might though.
He didn't say any of that, simply gave her a quick nod and smile and then returned to eating.
~ ~ ~
You have advanced to Level 16.
You have 3 stat points to distribu
te.
Your Health has increased.
Your Mana has increased.
Your Stamina has increased.
Eddie was still staring at the message that told him he'd leveled up when the, now familiar, sequence of his vision getting blocked set in. A moment later the flashing message showed also. 'Wave 9' flashed in his vision for a few seconds then disappeared.
Okay, level sixteen already. Why though? I should check my experience logs, I haven't looked at those in forever.
He pulled them up and immediately got his answer.
Huh, not only are these Orcs better experience than the ones in Rotthorpe, the exp per Orc seems to increase with each wave on top of that. In addition to that I've been getting bonuses at the completion of each wave. Looks like a thousand experience per wave number, so that's...
The quick mental math was almost too much for him in his current state, but he got an answer.
That's like thirty-six thousand experience on top of the exp from the Orcs. Okay, then, that explains the quicker than expected level, he thought.
He was about to pull up his character sheet when a familiar face caught his attention. Although it wasn't the face that caught his attention first, it was all the grass stuck to the man's back and equipment.
If he laid down like that, he'd look just like a hummock or thick patch of grass, Eddie thought. I think I know where those flankers came from now.
“Cooper, what's up? Was that you and your group on the flanking maneuver?”
“Me, I'm up, at least for now. Pulled a level in that fight. And yeah, that was me and my guys, plus a bunch of other loose end melee types that didn't want to get left out of the fight.”
“Sweet camouflage, your idea?” Eddie asked.
Cooper blushed.
“Yeah, that and the little trenches we dug to lie down in until Charles gave us the signal. Speaking of Charles, have you seen him?”
“Last I saw he was in hand to hand with the Orcs at the gate. He does have some healing capability, so he might be out giving the healers a hand.”
“Well, if you see him, tell him I'm looking for him. Although I suppose I could talk to you also, we captured their catapult and it's mostly intact, Charles mentioned wanting one, but...”
“But?”
“Well, Karl's one of your guys, right? He's trying to lay claim to it.”
Eddie groaned.
“That sounds like Karl. Did he say why?”
Cooper shook his head.
“Nah, but I want to see what Charles says since he organized the flanking attack and a lot of the defense. I mean, technically he says you're in charge, but still. You know, chain of command and all that?”
“Well, tell him I'll back his decision if you see him first, okay?” Eddie said. “I don't know why Karl wants a catapult, but I'm also not sure I want to find out. I know him well enough to know that.”
Cooper threw out what looked like a halfhearted salute and then turned to continue searching for Charles. Eddie glanced around quickly, hoping no-one had seen the salute since he was sure it was the kind of thing that would catch on since Karl, at least, knew it would bug the hell out of him and do it over and over. That was something he'd rather avoid so he was relieved when he found no-one watching.
Alright, I should check my character sheet, after adding my new points anyways. Add one point to agility, one point to wisdom, and one point to strength.
Eddie had decided to continue to add one point to agility each level to keep it higher than average, another point to wisdom each level so he could access the higher levels of spells that he could get now, and alternate strength and heartiness based on Charles' recommendation.
Crap, why am I even putting points in wisdom if I'm not even checking out my new spells? Didn't I get a new one at level fifteen? I can only think I was too out of it, tired and busy, to check it earlier. It was some new heal spell, wasn't it?
Character sheet, Eddie thought.
Edward Hunter
Human Male
Level: 16
Class:Warrior (Ranger)
Strength:16
Intelligence: 16
Agility: 33
Wisdom: 22
Heartiness: 19
Charisma: 12
Willpower: 19
Health: 340 (350)
Endurance: 18
Mana: 374
Luck: 14 (17)
Stamina:833 (843)
Experience:
547,381/600,000
Base Attack: 15
Base Armor: 10 (80)
+2 attack melee (strength)
+60 armor (studded leather, helm, boots, bracers, greaves, pauldrons, gorget)
+9 attack ranged (agility)
+10 armor (agility)
Skills:
General:
Acrobatics: 4
Animal Friendship: 1
Animal Handling: 2
Animal Husbandry: 4
Bowyer/Fletcher: 5 (+2 to checks)
Carpentry: 14
Climbing: 1
Cooking: 13
Evaluate: 5
Farming: 2
Fire Building: 1
Fishing: 5
Herbalism: 3
Hunting: 3
Improvisation: 2
Masonry: 5
Rope Use: 4
Tracking: 3
Weather Sense: 1
Weaving: 4
Combat:
Bows: 6
Staves: 2
Small Blades: 1
Short Swords: 4
Special:
Conjunction: 7
Magical:
Nature Magic: 6
Accel Plant Growth: 2
Arc: 5
Create Food/Water: 2
Fox Fire: 2
Nature's Binding: 2
Safe Site: 1
Wall of Thorns: 2
Create Spring: 1
Along for the Ride: 1
Frostbite: 4
Accelerated Heal: 1
Languages:
Common (Human)
Goblin Speak: 3
Yeah, there it is. Accelerated Heal, let's see what it does. Help Accelerated Heal, Eddie thought.
Accelerated Healing:
In nature, many wounds are inflicted and healed. In some cases there are areas which can speed along the process of healing. This spell allows the caster to temporarily create one of these areas.
Target: A circle with a ten foot radius.
Range: The spell may be cast up to fifty feet away from the caster.
Type: Nature
Effects: Physical healing is accelerated by X5 when within the circle. This multiplier increments with increases in spell skill level, increase is 1 multiplier every 5 skill levels.
Duration: X= Accelerated Healing Skill level. Y is Nature Magic level. The spell will last for ten minutes plus ((X+Y)/2) additional minutes.
Cost: Varies (20-50 mana), based on skill level in Accelerated Healing. The current cost of this spell is 50 mana.
Cool, another HoT. An area of affect one this time. I wonder how many people you can fit in a circle that size? Eddie thought. Better still, I wonder how many archers can effectively fire from inside a circle of that size. It'd be a nice way to keep the healers off of the wall walks and out of danger.
He knew he shouldn't be thinking like that. Most of the priests and priestesses he'd met in game were just as likely to hop into the front lines of a fight if they were needed, but his past game experiences still had him trying to think of ways to keep them out of danger.
I'm just glad no-one got hurt badly in this last attack, or I would've felt like an idiot having that and not using it, he thought. I don't have to feel too bad about the earlier ones though, the adventurers that got sent to respawn were more than fifty feet away from me so they were out of range.
He came back to himself to realize that most of the adventurers were already looting. He went out onto the field himself, hopin
g to find a pair of better boots than the ones he had on. He really didn't need their bonus stamina anymore so if he could find a pair that were just a touch better armor, he'd be all over that.
By the time they were done he'd found himself a bunch of coins plus a pair of half-gloves and a helm that was identical to the one Karl had given him earlier on. Adventurers were starting to pack up and leave now. Not wanting to miss the chance, he called out.
“Hey, I got a duplicate helm here, studded leather, not too bad armor values. Anyone find a pair of boots on these guys that they don't need and want to trade?”
For a minute or so, he didn't think anyone was interested, but then one of Cooper's men, he couldn't remember which one it was, just that he was a priest, trotted over.
“Yeah, we're trying to kit our whole party out fully. Everyone has boots now, plus the group has one extra pair. There are two guys without helms though, even swap?” the priest said.
“Even swap, you got it. Here,” Eddie replied, proffering the helm.
The priest produced a pair of boots with rounded metal studs on the soles and thicker studs on the surface leather.
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