by Rick Scott
Glowing root-like tendrils erupt from the sand and catch around my feet. Fredric and the rest of the party charge at me, their names now listed in red on my HUD. My shock sends my heart pumping. I freeze with incomprehension and disbelief.
What the heck is going on?
I shake it off as I realize these guys are ganking me!
I use Retreat and break out of the hold, flipping backward in a summersault. I draw my katanas and go into combat mode. I still can’t believe this is happening!
“Why are you guys doing this?” I yell as I sidestep an arrow from Fredric while ducking under a sword swipe from Vanessa. Avoiding their hits feels way different than fighting mobs; with mobs, the attacks are predictable and uniform. These guys are all over the place! “Why are you attacking me?”
“Because you suck, Dork Tank!” Ralph, the Voodoo Elemental Mage, readies another spell. “We’ll show you that you’re no Aiko.”
Are these guys Aiko supporters?
Fredric shoots another arrow that I barely avoid. “Sorry, man. I’m just here for the cash. Nothing personal.”
“What?”
“These dudes were looking for someone who knew you and offered me a price I couldn’t refuse.”
Anger flares within my chest. “You set me up? You piece of crap!”
I Charge Strike at Fredric, flying across the sand. I stun him with a katana strike before he can let loose his next arrow. I go all out with my rage and slice into him with blinding speed. His hit points drop in massive chunks as I land four critical hits in a row.
His HP bar is down to a sliver, and I’m about to finish him off when I sense something behind me again. I blow Active Dodge and my body blurs and shifts as Jixer stabs his twin blades into the air where I was standing a millisecond ago.
Glowing white light surrounds Fredric as the Celestial Mage—Orin—heals him up to full.
Dang it!
I spin to face Jixer. I slash at him and get three hits in, but miss one. Darn it, he’s actually kind of hard to hit . . .
He backs off, and I use the opportunity to cast Shadow Copy on myself.
“Fight me!” Vanessa cries.
Vanessa uses War Cry! You can now only attack Vanessa.
A debuff appears on my HUD with a 10-second countdown, and everyone’s names turn gray while Vanessa’s stays red. Crap! Now I know how the stupid mobs must feel when I use War Cry against them. I avoid a set of lightning-quick slashes from Jixer, but I’m so focused on him that I take an embarrassingly slow sword strike from Vanessa, who’s behind me.
Your shadow absorbs the attack!
I backflip to gain some distance and recast Shadow Copy, but nothing happens. Dang it! Still on cool-down. Glowing tendrils surround my feet again, locking me in place. I try to backflip, but its on cool-down, too!
Oh no . . .
“Hey, dude,” Ralph says as he casts another spell. “Dodge this.”
A massive fireball flies from his hands to explode in a thirty-foot radius around me.
Ralph casts Fireball!
You take 573 damage.
You are defeated!
My body hits the floor, and just like before, I have an out-of-body experience.
They all cackle and give each other high-fives. “Toasted!”
“All right, that’s enough, you guys,” Fredric says. “I think he’s learned his lesson. Raise him up so he doesn’t lose his stuff.”
Lesson? What lesson? I lash out at them through a yell. It’s the only way I can communicate now.
*** Reece: You guys are jerks! Why did you do that?
Orin casts Raise on me, and my body’s surrounded by the familiar light and feathers. “Take it easy. You just needed to learn your place in the pecking order. No one tops Aiko. And don’t you forget it.”
Red-hot anger fills my gut. I want to destroy these guys.
“You should have stuck with her,” Jixer says, sheathing his blades. “If you had any brains at all, you’d drop from Val Helena’s team.”
I fume inwardly as I accept the Raise. My body gets to just about upright when another massive fireball goes off.
Ralph casts Fireball!
You take 546 damage.
You are defeated!
They burst out in raucous laughter again.
“Oh, man!” Fredric says, hollering. “He actually fell for that?”
“Talk about no brains!” Vanessa leers at me, shaking her head.
“What a damn noob!”
Anger mixes with impotence and humiliation. I can’t believe this is happening to me. That people would actually do something like this. That someone like Fredric, who I’d thought was a cool guy, could lie and manipulate me like this! My stomach is sick with rage, both at their behavior and at my own naivety. I need to get some distance from them so they can’t do this again. I respawn, and my senses go dark.
I reappear a short distance away, by the rocky outcropping.
A fireball engulfs me.
Ralph casts Fireball!
You take 556 damage.
You are defeated!
Level Down!
You have lost a Level.
You are now Level 68.
What!?
How did he even target me without me fully spawning yet?
I then see that while I was respawning, Fredric’s party have all crossed the short distance from where we fought, which is now marked by my tombstone. They’re standing right on top of me again. I hit them with another yell.
***Reece: Why are you guys doing this to me?!!
“Because we can,” Ralph says with a sadistic smirk. “We’re here to kill you all day, bro.”
No . . . this can’t be.
They laugh at me again. Nasty, vile, hate-filled laughter. I cry out in rage. Are they really just going to keep doing this to me?
“Hey, I wonder what kind of stuff he’s got,” Fredric says, milling back toward my tombstone.
“Probably a lot of Platinum Beast Coins,” Vanessa says. “He was killing those manticores for hours out here.”
She’s right. I must have nearly 300k worth of coins on me!
***Reece: Hey, don’t touch that stuff. I need it!
They can’t do this! I feel on the edge of tears.
***Reece: This isn’t a game to me, you jerks! My mother’s life depends on those coins!
“Oh, well . . .” Ralph shrugs at me. “Guess she’s going to die then, bro.”
I snap with rage. He’s going to die for saying that!
I respawn and try to cast Shadow Copy before he can fireball me again, but I’m too late.
Ralph casts Fireball!
You take 556 damage.
You are defeated!
Dang it!
“I can do this all day,” Ralph says.
This isn’t working. I need help. I’m just about to send a PM to Val Helena for backup when I get one sent to me instead.
Gilly: Reece! Don’t get up again! Just stay there!
What?
Me: Gilly?
A massive cluster of ice shards engulfs Ralph and the rest of his party, then shatters with the sound of a falling chandelier.
Thanus casts Ice Prison!
Fredric is paralyzed.
Vanessa is paralyzed.
Jixer is paralyzed.
Orin is paralyzed.
Ralph is paralyzed.
My heart soars as I hear a familiar War Cry and look to see Val Helena leading the charge across the dunes, half the guild running with her. She’s in Warrior mode, Zeke and Jax by her side. She sinks her massive axe into Vanessa first. The Paladin’s hit points drop to a sliver before Zeke finishes her off with a thrust from his halberd.
Fredric’s Health bar flat lines as Jax suddenly appears behind him, twisting his spine with a dagger through his back. Val Helena performs a wild spin with her axe, lopping Jixer’s head clean off before performing an overhead strike to Ralph’s tattoo-covered face. It cuts him straight in half. Thei
r bodies hit the desert floor, leaving only Orin. Thanus takes him out with a quick lightning strike. As each of their corpses hits the ground, they disappear, leaving tombstones. I notice not a single one of them reappears where I set my home point.
Jerks.
I feel like such an idiot for getting tricked by them. It’s a reminder of just how much of the world I haven’t yet experienced, being a gimp most of my life. Social interaction being one of them. Although, this kind of stuff, I can surely do without.
“Reece!”
I look up to see Gilly running toward me. I can’t believe she’s actually here.
“Hang on! I’ll get you up!”
Gilly casts Raise on me. I’m still dumbfounded as I return to the land of the living. She gives me a quick hug. “Sorry we took so long.”
“So long?” I’m still bewildered. “What are you guys even doing here? How did you find me?”
“You can thank her for that.” Val Helena nods toward Gilly as she fastens her axe to her back. She then steps toward me, along with the rest of the guild. “She damn near blew up my rig with all the PMs.”
“What?”
“I was watching your stream through my portable net browser,” Gilly says. “I didn’t have much else to do with the main house line disconnected and all. I saw them attack you, so I sent a message to Val Helena while I booked it to the hub to use a public terminal to log in.”
“You went to the hub? To a public terminal?”
“Yeah,” she says. “It’s kinda gross in here.”
Zeke laughs. “Now that’s what I call devotion.”
“Sorry you took so many deaths,” Val Helena says. “We could have spawned here, but I wanted to use the main desert spawn point so we could flank them and take them by surprise.”
“Well, it seemed to work pretty good,” I say, relieved that the nightmare of respawning and instant death is now over. I make a mental note to reset my home point to somewhere safe as soon as possible. “Thanks, you guys. I thought they were going to keep killing me forever out here.”
“They probably were,” Thanus says.
“Speaking of which,” Zeke says. He moves to stand amidst the tombstones. “Time for a little payback.”
“I’m down for that.” Jax sheathes his dagger.
“No,” Val Helena says. “That’s not what this guild stands for. Let them collect their corpses. They can live with their own shame when we do nothing to stop them.”
A slow clap fills the air, and we all turn to see Aiko standing atop the outcropping. “Oh Helena . . . forever the shining pinnacle of virtue.”
I leap back, still naked, and wonder if she’s going to attack me, too. But Aiko merely looks at me and grins. “Nice undies, pretty boy.”
Val Helena grimaces at her and brandishes her axe. “This one was low even for you, Aiko. Getting him lured out here to p-kill him? Really? Why don’t you just come take me on, since I’m the one you really want to hurt. Come on. Let’s go!”
Aiko lets out her skin-crawling laugh. “Please. I wouldn’t want to embarrass you in front of your team.”
“Or maybe you’re just a coward like you’ve always been.”
Aiko’s face grows rigid. “Maybe I just take risks that make sense. Perhaps you should start doing the same. Before you lose anyone else.”
What the heck does that mean?
Their eyes lock, and the tension builds.
“Anyway,” Aiko says, cutting her eyes away. “Your anger is misplaced, as usual. I had nothing to do with what happened to your little protégé.”
“Like heck, you didn’t!” Gilly shouts. “Those guys were all your stupid fanboys. They were killing him because of you!”
“Sorry, but I can’t control what my fans decide to do.” She shrugs. “Honestly, I was hoping for a much better fight than what I saw. If he’s the horse you’re betting on, Helena, then I’m going to have fun claiming Vulnar after you all wipe. See you in a few weeks.”
She fast-travels away, leaving my guts burning with anger.
“Geez, what a tool . . .” Jax mutters. I can’t help but feel the same.
“Forget about her,” Val Helena says, replacing her axe. “She’s not worth the effort. Not even to hate.”
Gilly looks upward at the big half-giant. “Thanks for coming, by the way, Val Helena. I didn’t really know who else to call.”
“I’m just glad you did.” Val Helena looks down at me. “Sorry you had to go through that, Reece. This is my battle with her, not yours.”
“No . . .” I sigh as I collect my gear. “This was my fault. I should never have started streaming. I drew way too much attention to myself. Those subs of hers all hate me. They were probably just itching for an opportunity like this.”
“Hey, it was your streaming that saved your butt today, too, remember?” Gilly says, poking me in the ribs. “I’ve always got my eye on you.”
“Good thing, too,” Val Helena says. “I’m pretty sure you were the only one watching, Gilly. I turned that snorefest off after the fifth manticore.”
We all share a laugh at that.
“But you’re leveling pretty fast, Reece.” Val Helena gives me an appreciative smile. “Think you can hit Level 75 by tomorrow?”
“I don’t see why not,” Gilly says before I can say anything. “The day is young, right, Reece?” She looks up at Val Helena. “Oh, I’m his manager now, by the way. I’m the one who picked those manticores. I keep him on a schedule, tell him what to do. That kind of thing.”
“Gilly!”
“Oh . . . I see.” Val Helena chuckles with a bemused smile. “Well, if that’s the case, make sure you’re both at the docks in Swifttide by 9 a.m. tomorrow, and make sure he’s Level 75. Buy a scroll of Shadow Tendrils and a couple Seashell Necklaces, too.”
“Why?” I ask. “What’s up?”
“We’re heading to the Sunken City,” she says. “Tomorrow, you’re going to tank a Beast King.”
Chapter 31: Underwater Raid
I read the scroll of Shadow Tendrils and the parchment disappears from my hands.
You use a scroll of Shadow Tendrils.
You have learned the spell: Shadow Tendrils.
Shadow Tendrils
While under the effect of Shadow Tendrils, all your attacks have an ethereal component that increases enmity.
[Increase enmity of all attacks by 150%.]
Cast time: 5 seconds
Duration: 3 minutes
Recast: 10 seconds.
Cost: 10 TP
Gilly claps for me as she looks on from the side of the pier. “That should help you hold hate nicely.”
“You think?”
The midmorning sun is high and warm, and the squawk of gulls fills the salty air.
Gilly shrugs goofily in response. “That’s what it says, anyway. Go on. Try it out!”
“Okay.”
I use Shadow Tendrils, and the Cast bar slowly fills to 100% as kanji-like runes swirl about my body. When it completes, both my katana blades ignite with eerie, purplish-blue flames. Nice! I perform a series of quick strikes and a glowing blue afterimage gives form to my attack pattern as I slice through the air.
“Cool!” Gilly says.
I smile and can’t help but agree.
It’s almost 9 a.m., and I’ve got butterflies in my stomach waiting for Val Helena to show up. I’m also dead tired. After my ganking ordeal last night, Gilly joined me till well past midnight to kill more manticores. I got my level back, and when I hit 70, I unlocked a new passive that I couldn’t wait to try out: Triple Attack.
We stuck to the Fire Manticores, and while I had to kill more and more for each level, having Triple and Double Attack activate every now and then made farming them much easier. We ended the night with me at Level 75 and my inventory filled with five stacks of platinum coins, which I gave to Gilly to auction.
“Hey, anything sell yet?” I ask.
“Oh yeah,” Gilly says, hopping off the b
ollard she was sitting on. “A ton. The gem sold for 975k net, and the coins went like hotcakes at 450 apiece. Here’s your gains thus far.”
Gilly wishes to trade with you.
Gilly offers you 1,425,000 credits.
“Wow!”
Before I complete the trade, I remember something, and add the digital version of the Sheeba doll to my side of the trade window. Gilly’s big green eyes light up when she sees it.
“Aw! I get Sheeba twice? I’m definitely getting the better deal here.”
We both approve the transaction, and the credits from Gilly dump into my account, adding to what’s left over from my Sheeba money. After buying the scroll, the Seashell Necklaces and a couple of new Level 75 katanas this morning, I now have a grand total of 1,507,230 credits to my name.
It’s the most money I’ve ever had in my life, but it’s still not quite there yet. “Two million to go.”
“You’ll get there,” Gilly says. “We’ve still got a couple days, right?”
“I hope so,” I say, but honestly, I’m not really sure. Mike had said less than a week. Which I hope means closer to a week. That’d mean I still have two or three days left. “Anymore of those jump quests we can do?”
Gilly laughs. “None that reward like that one, but don’t worry. I’ve got a whole new plan of action mapped out for you after we do this.”
Gilly activates the Sheeba doll and, in a puff of sparkles, a black kitten appears at her feet, meowing and rubbing against her legs. She giggles and stoops down to pet it. “Aww, little Sheeba!” She then grins up at me. “Yup, I definitely got the better deal.”
I can only laugh.
The clamber of boots across the pier draws my attention and I look up to see Val Helena in her Paladin gear as she arrives with the rest of the guild. “You guys all set?”
I nod. “Got the scroll and the necklaces, just like you said.”