by Eric Ugland
No choice but to try it!
It was going fine until I did something stupid. (Also the title of my forthcoming autobiography.)
I came to a very slick section where there weren’t any easy handholds. It was just layers of ice. Thinking that I had a tool to make this easier, I pulled the pickaxe from my belt, and I used it as an ice pick, slamming the pointy bit into the ice until it held. Then I hung off the handle and reached out, trying to get to the handhold I could see on the other side of the ice patch.
It’s possible I’ve gained some weight since I came to Vuldranni. In fact, thanks to having a character sheet, I knew that I most certainly had gained weight as my strength stat went up. I felt like I was pushing the limits of what even looked realistic. I had a substantial amount of muscle on my frame, and I was somewhere north of 6’6”. This meant that the little pick, the basic tool given out as noob gear, was really being asked a lot.
I became suddenly aware of the seemingly endless void below when I felt a slight give. My eyes shot up to the axe, but the pick was in solid. The head hadn’t moved. It must have been my damned imagination.
It wasn’t. The wooden wedge that held the iron pick to the wooden handle was compressing. The handle slipped free on the second give.
I felt like I hung there in the air for a moment, like if I had had a sign tucked in my belt that said “Yipes!” I would have had time to pull it out and present it to the audience before physics resumed, and I gave into the irresistible pull of gravity.
I fell.
Chapter Four
If you’re not that worried about dying, falling is fun. I’d never been skydiving before, but I had the sense this was similar. I’d fallen from an immense height, and the cliff pulled away from me, which meant I was basically free-falling. The mist down below, or low fog, came up quickly. It made my inevitable sudden stop not quite as frightening, because I couldn’t really feel it. So I did my best to get into the skydive position I’d seen in so many movies, and just enjoyed the sense of flight.
The mist came up so fast, and going through it felt like a cold slap to the face. I took a shocked sort of a breath as I went from seeing almost everything to seeing almost nothing.
Remember how I said falling was kind of fun? This part wasn’t. Falling through mist, falling when you can’t see, is pretty awful. Shadows rushed up from below, and in the span of a heartbeat, I was crashing through the thick branches of trees. Which hurt a fair bit, but also slowed me down. So that’s a plus. Minus, these were really tall trees, so they had a bunch of branches at the top, and then a whole lot of trunk with no branches. So I got smacked around a bit, slowing down some, but with enough momentum to tumble through the last of the branches before getting back to open space and falling another hundred-plus feet. Finally I smacked into the dirt, but immediately started sliding.
Because, you know, mountain.
The trees were on a slope, and I bounced right down. I probably would have broken a lot of bones if it weren’t for the whole unbreakable bones thing, but as it were, I was basically going through what I could only describe as a macro-dermabrasion.
After who knows how long, I slid to a stop in a spot of thick mud, my feet uphill, my head down. I looked up at the mountain.
“Ow,” I said.
Cool Beans, you’ve leveled up the skill Falling. Maybe learn the skill landing soon…
“Fuck you, game,” I said in response. What a prick of a world.
There was a metallic chime, almost like a bell ringing out, followed by a bit of a whooshing noise. I saw something rushing toward me. Having just gone through some reasonable head trauma, I couldn’t move, and the thing hit me right in the face with a solid and disconcerting ‘THUNK’.
The world disappeared into blackness.
Chapter Five
My face hurt when I came to.
Which meant I hadn’t been out too long.
Naturally, a notification waited for me:
Hey-ho, let’s go! You’ve discovered an ability: USING YOUR HEAD. You’ve found that your head seems to be great at absorbing blows and stopping your movement. Your callous disregard for head trauma has served to be a boon, and now you are more likely to shake off what would a debilitating brain injury to others. Negative effects from brain trauma are significantly diminished.
Well, shit. I suppose that was a good thing. Bit of a backhanded compliment, but whatever, I’d take it.
The land around me was flat and muddy. And looking up through the soaring pines around me, I saw the wispy mists floating at the base of the cliffs. Far above that, the peak loomed. My peak loomed. It had been a long trip bouncing along the ground. And a ridiculous one.
Slowly, I got up.
I picked up the axe head and examined all the nicks and dings it’d acquired. It had been pristine just a few days ago, but now it looked like junk. I sighed. I had the distinct feeling Mister Paul was laughing at me right this very moment. I found the wooden handle sticking straight up out of the mud nearby. The pick went into my mostly-intact knapsack, and the handle went into my belt. I pulled the hatchet out of the bag, and gave it a bit of twirl, gripping the haft and trying to get a feeling for it. For now, it was my only real weapon.
Hatchet
Item Type: Trash
Item Class: One-handed Melee
Material: Ash, Steel
Damage: 10-20 (Slashing)
Durability: 20/20
Weight: 4 lbs
Requirements: n/a
Description: a somewhat sharpened chunk of iron attached to a wooden haft and mainly suited for light chopping of kindling.
I was ready for battle. Or at least, you know, beating people. Battle wouldn’t exactly be my strong suit any time soon. Not until I got some armor.
I looked at the mountain, saw where the sun was, and guessed which direction to head to get to Arenberg. I was already basically in the neighborhood, might as well look in on some of the friendly faces there? Maybe some of my old pals from Rumib Pass would have settled in Arenberg. Maybe I’d get an update on the whole stalemate-war situation with Mahrduhm.
I had a plan. It felt nice.
I marched through the trees with purpose, watching little birds flit about. The area was drier than I remembered the area outside Arenberg being. But it had been summer then, and it was fall now. There were certainly changes in humidity during the year. But then again, these trees were all huge conifers, and I remembered the forest having all leafy trees. Oaks and elms, that sort of a thing.
I stopped. Everything seemed a little off. Then I realized it was completely silent. All the small critters of the forest had stopped making noise.
“Now what form of hideous dangerous beast is this?” came a gruff voice.
I turned around to see a group of men and women, all wearing black armor and carrying nasty-looking weapons.
“Uh,” I said, “hello.”
“The beast speaks,” said the man in the front. He had a ragged face full of scars, and a heavy layer of stubble that was in danger of turning into a beard soon. His eyes were mean, full of malice. While staring at me, he unhooked a weapon from his belt, a hunk of spiky metal on the end of a wooden club. “Seems to me, there was talk of something lookin’ a bit like you massacring a group of the Queen’s finest. That you?”
“Doesn’t sound like something I would do,” I lied.
“Not a whole lot of mountain men wearing suits of snowbold fur with long blond beards around here.”
“See, that’s where you’re wrong,” I said, watching warily as the other members of the patrol spread out more and more. “Up there in the mountains, I’m a dime a dozen.”
“A dime?”
“Something super common.”
“I think you’re lying,” Gruff said, giving his club a little swing. He smiled, and I saw a few teeth missing. The ones which were there? Well, they’d seen better days. “Thing is, you don’t seem like you could take down a man like the Skull Captain. Y
ou look more like the kind who’d shit his britches in the face of an actual soldier.”
I made a show of checking my pants.
“No shit,” I said. “Guess you’re not an actual soldier.”
“At last you’re right,” he said. “We ain’t soldiers. We’re killers.”
“Seems like a matter of semantics.”
“Oh, but there’s a difference.”
“Less skill?”
“Maybe, but more kill.”
“Ooh, nice rhyme.”
“The more you talk, the more I think I’ll enjoy gutting you and bringing your head to get my reward.”
“There’s a reward for my head?” I asked.
Gruff nodded, his creepy smile unchanged.
“Then I have an alternative deal for you, a special sort of thing.”
“Oh? You think to pay us to betray our queen?”
“Never. What if I give you my hood, and shave off my beard, and you put your own head inside. Give that to the—“
“What are you going on about?” Gruff asked, his smile fading as his brain struggled to keep up.
“Just thinking that maybe some of these soldiers you’ve cowed into being your killers might want a piece of the action.”
The gruff man stopped, then started laughing. “You think these folk are cowed? You think they don’t want to be here? Butcher, you want to be here?”
“Definitely,” a woman called out. She was off to my right, an oversized cleaver on what looked like a battle axe haft. Apparently that’s where she got her name. “Wouldn’t miss this.”
“Best company in the kingdom,” another guy called out.
“Queendom,” a woman to my left said, and various soldiers — sorry, killers — laughed at that.
There were ten of them, plus the leader, and they were encircling me. It wasn’t the best place to have a fight, with lodgepole pines sticking up straight into the sky, and lots of pointy broken branch spots to get hurt on while trying to move around quickly. I had a mild advantage with the soft forest floor — layers of needles provided loose footing I didn’t need to worry about with Art of Movement.
I pulled out my hatchet and handle, and I tried to keep all my opponents in my view.
“Itching for a fight,” Gruff said, “are you?”
“Seems only fair, considering all the trouble you’re going to,” I said.
“I reckon this’ll be fun,” he said. “Kill ‘em.”
And, sure enough, the fun started.
Eleven versus one.
The way the killers moved made it clear they had familiarity with their weapons, and with violence in general. It was a pain in the ass that I couldn’t use my identify spell anymore. I mean, I guess I could, but was it really a good idea to risk exploding? That’d definitely be a fantastic surprise to my opponents. Prepare to kill the dude! Wait he exploded? Success!
I actually chuckled at the image, which made some of my opponents back up a step or two, ruining their little circle.
I watched some of my new friends take extra care in placing their feet, making sure they had decent traction in the slippery needles before putting full weight down. But just as I watched them, they watched me. Everyone was sizing each other up, figuring out where the first attack would come from.
You’ve probably figured out by now that normally, that’d be me. I prefer going on the attack, even in situations when I am totally outnumbered. But as I was trying to figure out who I would go for first, some motherfucker jumped the proverbial gun.
A big guy with a long two-handed sword leapt forward, bringing his weapon high above his head.
I had just enough time to move to the side, knocking the big blade a tad off course with the hatchet handle. But that move put me right in the path of an asshole behind me who stabbed straight out with the pointy bit on the top of his warhammer. And that fucking pointy bit went right into my side.
These motherfuckers were working together.
I let my momentum spin me around to keep the point from going in too deep, and brought the hatchet down on the thruster’s arm. He cried out in anguish as the hatchet buried itself in his arm.
But then the damn handle snapped.
I looked at the remains in my hand, my opponent almost as stunned as I was. With no other option, I threw the wood at his face. He closed his eyes reflexively, and I snatched his warhammer by the haft, ripping it free from his weakened grasp.
Just as I felt a little satisfaction from that, a horrible pain spread through my stomach. I looked down just in time to see a blade poke out for a moment. But then it disappeared, and quickly got replaced by a spurt of blood.
The other killers all moved back, getting out of range. Smart move.
It had to have looked like a mortal blow, since swords to the gut usually are.
“Pity,” Gruff said. “Thought you’d be tougher. Makes me rethink all those legends of the Skull Captain.”
I smiled, but then burped up a mouthful of blood. So I spat it out, and smiled again. It was time to use the scary skill. These were all men trying to kill me, and my nearest ally was on the other side of the mountains. I could, in a sense, afford to just kill everything.
“Battle-frenzy,” I said softly.
“What was that?” Gruff asked, like he was actually curious.
A furious warmth spooled up out of my midsection, radiating out to the farthest points of my body. The bleeding debuff seemed to halt, so it was barely a factor. Everywhere I looked, I could now see elements clearly highlighted. Inherently, I knew they were weak points. Spots I could hit and do more damage than normal. Not just joints on people, but rotten spots on trees. Breakpoints on stones. Anything and everything weak, I could sense. Laughter started coming up, unbidden.
I spat another mouthful of blood, this time aiming at an opponent’s face. The gob flew through the air and splashed on the man’s face. He screamed in outrage.
To match it, I roared. And mid-roar, I hauled off and threw the warhammer at Butcher. I wanted her cleaver.
I put as much English onto the throw as I could. The warhammer whipped through the air with a painfully high-pitched whistle.
Butcher started to get her cleaver up and in position to parry the throw, but she wasn’t fast enough. The hammer sailed right over the big blade, smashing her face into a red mist. I followed the throw, snatched the cleaver out of her dying hands and sliced to the left in one motion.
The man to the left of me got his axe up, but I saw the weak point in its handle immediately. With a slight change in direction, I got the cleaver right through the axe handle, and cut deep into the man’s midsection. Not all the way through, but enough that I had to get my foot up to kick the pre-corpse off the blade, and jumped back and out of the circle.
“Eight,” I said, looking at the killers trying to come to terms with what had just happened.
I struck to the right, the cleaver clanging off a big bastard of a sword, hard enough to drive the sword back into the wielder. Then to the left, where a woman got her warhammer up in time to parry my block, though it caused her to stumble back. I threw the cleaver as hard as I could at the young man charging me with his zweihander, the blade held high.
He had no chance. The cleaver went right under his blade and sliced his face right down the middle.
The charger’s hand went limp, but his sword continued on. I grabbed it out of the air, using its momentum to bring it around my back in a stabbing motion. I caught the asshole trying to sneak up on me, slicing right through his armor like it wasn’t there. Then I brought the zweihander up and took a few steps back, checking how things were.
Gruff was still in the back, but it was pretty clear him leaning against the tree was just an act. There was some tension there.
Six killers remained standing, but one had a pretty good gash in his face from his own sword. He was having trouble seeing, what with blood flowing into both eyes at a pretty prodigious rate. Damn scalp wounds. His helmet absorbed
enough of the blow that his skull didn’t break, so you know, he had that going for him.
Normally, I might have made some quip at this point, say that we had gotten off on the wrong foot, that we could reset and just be friends. But there was no possibility of that right now. Every fiber in my being screamed out that I needed to kill these people. That I needed to kill all people.
The others finally attacked as one. I got driven back by the onslaught, parrying, blocking, and dodging as best I could. My feet scrambled for purchase in the needles, but I never lost my footing.
The clanging of metal rang out through the forest in a staccato beat, and I was thankful for the hard lessons I’d gotten at the hands of all my tutors. I was holding my own, but everything turned into a bit of a blur.
Fights are exhausting, and the full-tilt attack took a toll on them. The pudgiest of the group already stopped. The killers were getting tired, and sloppy.
Sure I had cuts all over my body, some worse than others. But I just laughed, still moving at full steam, and I took the killers out with little trouble.
Gruff finally stood up straight. No longer looking quite as satisfied with himself. I was slightly embarrassed that I had to hold my guts in, but I’d done that before. Hell, it barely stung.
“I am almost impressed,” Gruff said, swinging his spiked club a little, limbering up.
I didn’t say anything. No reply was coming. I had nothing clever to say.