Rebirth Online

by Michael James Ploof

  “Ready?” she asked, practically dancing on her toes.

  “Hell yeah,” I said. “What’s the plan?”

  She held up a finger with her left hand, placed her right palm on top, and twisted her hands in opposite directions. Then she grinned and extended her hand toward me. I was suddenly hit by a puff of glowing mist that sent a surge of pleasure and strength through my body. At the same time, words appeared in the air in front of me.

  Holy blessing

  200 health regeneration per second

  10 second duration

  “Alright, go!” Anna urged.

  “What do you mean, go? You want me to tank those slimy bastards?”

  “Hurry up, you’re wasting the buff.”

  I hurriedly performed the hand gestures to summon Arcane Lightning, let it build while at the same time watching my mana bar closely, and unleashed a blast right at the middle of the group of snakes. My mana instantly drained to 80%, and the pissed off snakes uncoiled and started toward me through the grass. The spell had left them all with about 75% health left, and I hurriedly followed it up with a fireball. One of the snakes took the brunt of the blast and turned to ash before my eyes.

  But the other snakes kept coming, at least a dozen in all.

  Anna unleashed a glowing spell that slowed them all down to about 50% speed. I hit the group with arcane lightning again, completely immobilizing them, and charged toward the stunned snakes with my sword held high. I chopped down on the closest and cut off its head, then I hacked and slashed the others, severing bodies and stabbing through soft snake skulls. Our stunning spells must have worn off, because one of the snakes shot toward me and bit me in the ankle.

  “Son of a bitch!” I screamed when the fangs pierced my flesh.

  The pain was a terrible shock, only made worse when the snake’s teeth got stuck in my skin. I hacked at the thing, trying to break it free, but another snake attacked, landing a strike to my left forearm.

  Venomous strike

  400 health drain per second

  5 second duration

  “You gonna help me out here?” I asked Anna as I watched my health bar begin to drop like the fuel gauge on a gas guzzler. Before she could answer, I backpedaled, tripped on a rock, and fell on my ass.

  “Best way to learn is through failure,” she said as I hacked wildly at the snakes. “Come on, you can take a dozen snakes, can’t you?”

  I was about to answer her with a colorful curse, but a snake flew at my face a second later, and I instinctively chopped at it with a lucky strike that took off its head. The rest of the snakes slithered toward me, hissing and rearing back their long cobra-like necks, and I scrambled to my feet as I unleashed another blast of arcane lightning. The electrical surge cascaded over the group, stunning them momentarily, and I took the opportunity to go ape shit on their slithery asses.

  Ten seconds later, I stood panting amidst a pile of black ashes that had been the snakes, and coins shot from the pile into my coin purse. I watched happily as my money grew from 3 copper to 5 silver and 8 copper. A moment later the loot floated into my pack, but it all happened so fast that I didn't get a very good glimpse at any of it. I tapped on my inventory and scanned through the new items.

  “Sweet,” I said as I selected the robes. They instantly replaced the ones I was wearing, which were returned to my inventory. I marveled at the flowing robes as they glowed like campfire embers. “Hey, where can we sell our old stuff?”

  “There are venders in town,” said Anna. “Good job by the way. I never had a doubt.”

  “Yeah, well, how about we take on the next group together?”

  She offered me a wink and moved deeper into the woods. We came across another group of spiders and killed them all, before taking on some wild boars, more snakes, and a few devilish looking sprites with a nasty bite. I sustained my share of injuries, but Anna’s buffs kept me constantly healing. It was a strange experience. With pain and fatigue added to the experience, it made me a lot warier than I would have been if I were simply playing the game through a consol. But feeling every bite and every magical attack as keenly as I would if it was real made me fight smarter.

  Soon Anna and I got into a rhythm. I lured them out one by one, and Anna finished them off with her staff. In this manner we grinded it out until morning, only stopping to let our health and mana regenerate. Anna explained that our health would regenerate on its own, but it would take a long time to naturally return to 100% without healing spells or potions. Mana returned to max levels more quickly, but we didn’t want to be slowed down, so we used the minor potions when needed.

  When the sun had crested the eastern horizon, we finally took a break and went through our inventories. I was excited to have made nearly 5 gold, and Anna had made about the same. Better yet, we had about forty pieces of random loot between us. We hadn’t picked up anything too powerful, mostly just level 8 & 9 armor, but I did get a pair of boots that added 20% to my max mana.

  All in all, it was a good session, but I was a little dismayed to see that my level had only increased 18% toward level 10.

  “We need to find some higher-level baddies,” I told Anna. “At this pace it will take days to level.”

  “I like your gumption,” Anna said with a grin. “There’s a cave with some ogres about a half a mile to the north, all level 11 and up. I’ve never tried to kill more than a few of them, but I bet there’s some good loot in that den of theirs. Wanna check it out?”

  “An ogre den?” I said with a grin of my own. “Hell yeah!”

  Anna led me north up a slowly steepening incline, and soon large stone formations grew beyond the tall pines. We crept beneath the bows along the knotted roots of the big trees and spied the ogre den through the underbrush. Anna was right, they were all a few levels higher than us, with vitality that topped 400. While they were slow as hell with speeds of only 50-100, their strength was pretty high, and a few of them were casters.

  “We’re going to have to clear them one at a time,” I told Anna, and she nodded agreement.

  Just then an ogre guard appeared from behind a tall rock formation to the right of us, and we both ducked down quickly, but it was too late, the big nasty gray ogre had seen us, and he turned beady red eyes our way as he let out a growl.

  “Intruders!” he bellowed in a guttural voice and charged straight at us with his big club cocked back.

  “Shit!” Anna said as she grabbed my arm and pulled me with her.

  We ran through the forest with the ogre hot on our heels, and I could hear at least two more crashing through the woods behind us. I glanced back and saw that the ogre was gaining. He was less than a hundred feet from us, but he was tearing through the forest like a t-rex. The ogres had to be at least seven feet tall and over 500 pounds, and though I knew this was just a game, I was scared shitless of the pain that they could inflict.

  “We’re not going to make it!” Anna yelled. To my surprise and horror, she stopped and turned to face the charging ogre. Behind him, two more were closing the distance quickly.

  “Well, then, let’s kill the ugly bastards,” I said as I conjured arcane lightning in my palms.

  I felt Anna’s buff wash over me like tickling tendrils, and my heart skipped a beat. I let out a war cry as Anna hit the lead ogre with a bright white spell that slowed its movements. I unleashed my lightning, leaving the ogre not only smoldering and charred, but pissed off as hell. I followed the lightning with a fireball that missed, and I was forced to unsheathe my sword as he charged in. The ogre swung its massive club, but I easily ducked under the club and slashed the ogre’s stomach as I sped by. The beast let out a pained cry as I skidded to a stop, sheathed my sword, and unleashed my fireball on one of the two ogres charging behind it.

  Anna cast her enchantment over the small glade, and I easily dodged away from the slow ogres’ attacks, then hit them both with arcane lightning that made their short red hair stand on end.

  I was overjoyed to see that
I had gotten all the ogres below 30% health, but a heartbeat later one of them cast a spell of its own, and their health began to climb rapidly. A club swept for my head, and I brought up my sword to block, but there must have been a thousand pounds of force behind the blow, because my sword broke in half from the impact, and the club continued unhindered and caught me in the left shoulder. I was lifted off my feet as pain shot through my left arm. The momentum of the strike sent me flying twenty feet through the air into a thick elm tree.

  When I hit, the air was blasted out of my lungs and something inside me broke.

  Warning: Health 20%

  I hit the ground and tried to catch my breath as one of the big ogres stalked over to me. Anna was fighting the other two and keeping them at bay with her spinning staff, but she found the time to bless me with an enchantment that healed me back to 60% instantly. I suddenly gulped in a breath of air and sprang to my feet, and that’s when the closest ogre grabbed my arm and yanked me hard enough to dislocate my shoulder. He brought me around in a wide arc like a ragdoll and slapped me against the ground with bone shattering force. Pain filled my body and I screamed through my torment as my health dipped to 10%. But then I was buffed back to 50% by another of Anna’s spell.

  “I can’t heal you all day, Sam, fight!”

  I ignored the pain racking my beaten body and growled as I conjured a fireball. The ogre reached for me again and I unloaded my spell right in its face, blasting off the top right corner of its thick head. The ogre’s health dropped to 12% and it fell back into a pine tree, but before I could finish it off another ogre broke from Anna and swung its big club right at me. I instinctively shot a fireball at the club, and to my surprise, my spell broke the heavy weapon right in two. The ogre stared at it dumbfounded, and I wasted no time finishing the stupid thug off. With as much strength as I could muster I thrust my broken sword up into the bottom of the beast’s jaw, but the blade was now only about ten inches long and no longer had a point on it. Rather than stab the ogre I only managed to scratch the skin as it grabbed for me weakly. With no other weapons on hand I began wildly pummeling the ogre with the hilt of the broken sword. I must have struck the beast 25 times before it finally died, and I staggered back from it nearly spent.

  I saw movement out of the corner of my eye and spun on the ogre with low health that I had blasted into the trees. Its health was now back to 20%, but an arcane lightning blast finished it off.

  “Sam!” I heard Anna cry. I spun around and watched horrified as the last ogre lifted its heavy club high over its head, meaning to crush her.

  I tried to summon a fireball, but a big warning flashed in my field of view.

  Mana too low!

  “Shit!” I said and grabbed a small dagger strapped to one of the dead ogre’s belts. In one fluid motion I pulled it from its sheath, cocked it back, and threw it as hard as I could. The dagger flew end over end toward the ogre, and to my amazement, it actually stuck.

  Right in the ogre’s earlobe.

  Anna was forgotten instantly, and the ogre reached up and pulled the dagger out of its ear as those beady red eyes regarded me murderously.

  “That hurt,” it said in a deep, gravelly voice.

  I drained a mana potion, summoned my fireball, and hit the ogre right in the chest.

  The creature instantly turned to ash, and I ran over to Anna’s side.

  “Are you alright?” I asked breathlessly.

  “That, was, AWESOME!” she cheered and sprang to her feet.

  “Right?” I said and laughed as silver coins floated into our bags from the piles of dust that had once been the ogres.

  We also gained 1 gold, a spider leg, basil, elderberry wine, a short sword, and a level 9 fire wand.

  “Come on,” she said as she handed me the wand and the new sword, “Let’s go back and lure some more into the woods.”

  “I’m right behind you,” I said, and together we ran back toward the ogre den laughing like giddy kids on Christmas morning.

  We returned to our spot in the underbrush, and to my surprise, we saw a tall human woman in sleek silver armor stalking toward the ogres. She didn’t have a ward active to hide her stats, and I saw that she was a level 12 human warrior.

  “She looks pretty bad ass,” I said, and Anna offered me a dry look.

  “Yeah, and her tits look like they’re going to fall right out of that scanty armor. I mean seriously, her entire midriff is exposed, and you can see like 60% of her ass. What kind of armor is that supposed to be anyway?”

  “Awesome armor,” I said with a laugh.

  “Men.” The elf healer shook her head and watched the warrior woman approach the ogres as though she had not a care in the world.

  When the bad ass beauty was finally spotted she pulled a giant long sword out of its sheath and spoke an incantation. The sword blazed to life with blue fire and cast her in a brilliant glow. One of the ogres rushed toward her and yelled, “Tharg see woman!”

  The woman suddenly shot forward in a blur of motion and closed the ten foot gap between herself and the ogre in a heartbeat. Her sword found the ogre’s chest, burst through his thick back, and sprayed the other approaching ogres with bright green blood. The fearless female warrior then spun into her attackers, chopping clubs in half and severing limbs. She made short work of three of the ogres before continuing toward the den.

  I glanced at Anna with an arched brow, and she shook her head.

  “We could really use a tank like her in our group,” I said.

  “What group?” Anna asked hastily. “I told you that I don’t do groups.”

  “Yeah, that’s why you’ve fallen back from level 12 how many times? Come on, if we’re going to get anywhere in this world, we’ve got to work together. I’m a caster, you’re a healer, she’s a tank. It’s perfect.”

  “Look,” Anna said suddenly and pointed at the entrance to the den.

  The warrior woman had disappeared inside while we had been talking, but now she came running out of the dark den clutching her badly injured left arm and running for her life. As she approached our hiding place, I summoned my arcane lightning.

  “What are you doing?” Anna asked. She was clearly annoyed, but I didn’t care.

  “We’ve got to help her,” I said, and rushed out into the opening when the warrior approached.

  I hit the closest ogre in the chest with lighting from my palms and followed it up with a fireball that blew a two-foot-wide hole in his chest and turned him to ash. The beautiful warrior downed a health potion as she ran toward me, and I could have sworn that she was scowling.

  “Sam! There are too many!” Anna yelled from the tree line.

  I turned my attention back on the den and the approaching ogres and counted four of the mean looking bastards.

  “Are you alright?” I asked the warrior.

  She came to a stop in front of me and glanced at her left arm as it finished healing. Her hair was so blonde that it was almost white, and it protruded from the top of her helm in a loose ponytail. Red streaks had been smeared down her face from the corners of her bright blue eyes to the top of her lip. Her features were deliquiate and incredibly feminine, but fierce at the same time. She had the body of a CrossFit champion, with just the right amount of muscle, and curves in all the right places.

  “I’m fine,” she said as she looked me up and down. “Who the hell are you?”

  “I’m Sam, my healer is Anna. What’s your name?”

  “Trinity,” she said as she eyed the approaching ogres.

  “Nice to meet you.” I offered her a hand and my best smile.

  “You better start slinging those red-hot balls of yours,” she said with a scowl, and then swung her sword in a wide arch as she turned and cut an approaching ogre right in half. She kicked the top half of the body and it flew into three trailing ogres, knocking them down like mammoth bowling pins.

  Not to be outdone, I summoned my power and unleashed a fireball at the entrance to the den and f
ollowed it with a crackling web of lightning.

  “Come on, Anna!” I yelled back toward her and charged after the smoking hot warrior goddess.

  Chapter 5

  I didn’t see Anna follow us into the den, but I felt her healing buff as it washed over me. Trinity stopped and glanced back, seemingly surprised by the buff.

  “Get down!” I yelled when I saw movement behind her in the darkness.

  She dropped to one knee and I unleashed a fireball that took a creeping ogre right in the smacker. Then Trinity leapt up from her crouch, cocked back the massive sword, and split the ogre’s head in two.

  Coins flew from the ash that the ogre became and flew into both of our pockets, causing the fierce woman to scowl at me further.

  “What do you think you’re doing?” Trinity asked as Anna came to a skidding halt behind me.

  “Uhhh, saving your ass,” I reminded her.

  “I had everything under control.”

  “Can you believe this bitch?” said Anna. The warrior’s eyes flashed. “Excuse me?” she said and took a step toward us.

  “Anna, this is Trinity, Trinity, this is Anna,” I said with a weak laugh as I glanced behind the pissed off woman. “Look, it sounds like there are about twenty pissed off ogres in there. So how about we play nicey nice for just a little bit? Once we clear this den, you two can mud wrestle or something to settle your little pissing match.”

  “Who asked you?” said Trinity.

  “Screw this chick,” said Anna. “Come on.”

  I stood between the two women as they scowled at each other and extended my hands toward both. I had a good line ready about how we should all work together, but I never got a chance. A second later a net fell over the blue-eyed warrior, and she was yanked backward by a ten-foot-tall ogre.

  I instantly summoned a fireball and flung it at the creature’s balls. His crotch exploded, and he stumbled back, which gave me the few seconds that I needed to skewer him with my new sword. Before I could pull back, a spear sailed through the air and grazed my arm, drawing blood, and a warning flashed on my interface.