by G. D. Penman
“What do you want, filth-fur?”
Resisting the urge to snap back was difficult, but picking a fight with some random town guard wasn’t part of his plans for the day.
“I just arrived in Strata. Can you tell me where I need to go?”
The guard rolled his eyes.
“Dumb as you are ugly. Go look for Lord Exorcist Khargen. He’ll find some use for your idle hands before they turn to picking pockets. And remember to keep your nose clean. We’ve got our eyes on you.”
With a false smile locked firmly in place, Martin sidled away into the crowd and did everything he could not to look back. There were no maps pinned up around the bustling marketplace, so Martin struck off away from the crowds to try to work things out on his own.
The town seemed to have grown organically outwards from the central hole where all the new arrivals dropped in, with the majority of the larger buildings arrayed around it and the quality and quantity of structures dropping off the further he ventured out. Eventually Martin ran into a fence that encircled town – constructed in the same haphazard way as the rest – and followed it around until he found a gate.
He’d hoped that if he caught a Murovan guard he could ask for directions without a side order of abuse, but most of the guards seemed to be Wulvan, with the odd Sythvan sprinkled in for variety.
As a matter of fact, he couldn’t recall seeing any other Murovan in town at all. The description in character creation hadn’t exactly been flattering, but he’d assumed there would be some rat-lovers who’d choose them anyway. It was strange.
Strolling up to the gate as casually as he could manage did nothing to alleviate the stares of the guards. Beyond them, the truth about the town’s location became clear: there was a wide-open expanse of bare cavern floor, fading into darkness beyond the light of the town’s torches.
With his low-light vision, Martin could see past the edge of the torchlight better than most. He could make out the nearest wall of the cavern, looming up to encompass them. Good thing he wasn’t claustrophobic. He took a step forward, still peering out at what looked like tunnel openings on the cave wall.
“Good riddance.”
Martin blinked, then turned to look at the guard. “Excuse me?”
The Wulvan sneered. “Good luck out there with the rest of your kind. Hope you’re very happy with all your little rat friends. When you get there, tell them that if they try raiding here again, we’re going to burn out the guts of their whole filthy warren.”
“I’m not going anywhere.” Martin would have squared his shoulders, but Murovan didn’t seem to be capable of it.
The other guard snorted.
“Of course not. Haven’t gone to mooch your free gear from the crusade quartermaster yet, have you? Can’t stab us in the back by running off to join forces with the rats if you haven’t got a blade to stab us in the back with.”
Martin bit back his answer again. He was getting sick of this treatment and he’d only been on the receiving end of it for half an hour.
“Where is this quartermaster? And where is Lord Khargen, while you are at it?”
The guards glanced at each other nervously over the top of Martin’s head. “What do you want with that maniac?”
They were nervous. Good.
“We’re both exorcists. Seems like we’ll have a lot to talk about.”
“You? You’re meant to be an exorcist? Stop pulling my tail.”
Martin smirked. That was an expression that worked well on his new face. At least there was one.
“Where is he?”
The first guard sighed and pointed with his spear. “He’ll be in the Temple of Aten if he’s anywhere. Over in the east quarter.”
Martin gave them a curt bow, then stalked off without another word in what he hoped was the right direction.
This Khargen character could give him whatever starter quest he needed and point him in the direction of the quartermaster. It wasn’t a good idea to be roaming around in rags, after all. With that done, he could then see about finding Lindsay somewhere in this chaotic mess of a starter town.
Whatever preconceptions Martin had about what a temple looked like were wiped away when he finally found the place.
Aten’s holy symbol was a rising sun. Someone had daubed that half circle onto a tattered rag of animal hide and stretched it out into something like a banner above the door of an otherwise nondescript wooden shack.
He probably would have strolled right past it, the banner lost amidst all the other colors and scraps of the town, if it hadn’t been for the singing inside. It was like a dirge, the drone vibrating through the stone floor and up into Martin’s bare feet.
Inside, there was very little to distinguish the temple from any other building in town. It had a ceiling so low that the Wulvan in the crowd were scraping their heads on the exposed beams, leaving tufts of fur amidst the splinters.
There was something like an altar up at the front with a golden statue of that same half-sun icon cast large enough that the people at the back could make it out.
Martin glanced around for Lord Khargen, only for his eyes to be inevitably drawn to the Wulvan who sat perched on a stool near the back of the room. His armor bore traces of golden filigree around its edges, a hint of wealth in this otherwise impoverished place, but his clothes did a lot less to convince Martin than the faint golden glow about him.
Being careful not to attract any attention, Martin crept along the back wall of the temple as the dirge droned on. Khargen’s eyes followed him the whole way, but unlike every other pair that had tracked his progress around town, Martin didn’t feel any judgment there.
“Lord Khargen?” he asked.
The Wulvan bared his teeth in what was probably meant to be a smile. “Welcome to Beachhead, young exorcist. Have you been made welcome?”
Martin scoffed. “Hardly.”
Khargen’s smile faded. “Then let me do what I can to remedy your poor greeting. I am Lord Exorcist Khargen, the master of the Crusade’s forces here in Beachhead. It is to me that you shall report until such time as you catch up to our soldiers further down into the dungeon.”
He rose to his feet, startling Martin back a step.
“Come, let us get you a weapon in your hand and armor on your back before you venture forth. This first deep of the dungeon is mostly safe after long months of strife to make it so. But once you have passed through the first Deep Gate, you will be alone with the monsters.”
The next few minutes passed in a blur. The crowds that would have trampled Martin without a second thought parted around the towering Wulvan, and whatever contempt the other people of the town might have felt for him was masked in their awe of the Lord Exorcist.
The Corvan quartermaster handed over a Copper Shortsword [7-12 damage] and a full set of Piecemeal Leather Armor [10 armor] that Martin equipped in the blink of an eye. Literally.
“Now that you have a sword in hand, shall we see what you can do, little one?” Khargen grinned.
There was a patch of bare stone close by, where the buildings had never been allowed to spread. Dotted around it were dummies that looked something like scarecrows designed by people who had never seen a scarecrow before.
The mash-up of features from the different races made for some interesting combinations, although Martin noticed almost immediately that the smaller, rat-sized dummies seemed to be a lot worse for wear than the more substantial ones.
A couple of Wulvan in armor that looked as shiny and new as Martin’s were swinging away at one of the Murovan-sized dummies with some passion. They eyed Martin as he approached but did not dare to say anything with Khargen so close by.
With a little swagger in his step, Martin strode up to the largest dummy he could find and swung his sword. It whacked off the side of the dummy’s body with a satisfying clang, but then Martin had to take a step back, perplexed.
He had felt the blow make contact, but there was no sign that he had dealt any damag
e. Pressing his eyes shut, he pulled up the menu and scanned quickly through all of the interface options until he found Combat Feedback. It was currently set to Realism.
Realism might have been great for a casual player, but he needed to know how all these numbers fit together. The next option was Balanced, but he skipped right over that to Technical. That sounded more his speed.
He rolled his sloped shoulders and readied his sword again. A quick prod at the dummy produced the results he was looking for.
[Dummy suffers 11 piercing damage.
Weak Hit - Minimum weapon damage dealt]
It tracked how hard he was swinging. That was another interesting detail. This time, Martin put the full strength of his wiry little frame into a clumsy swing and it rebounded off the giant tortoise shell that had been strapped onto the dummy as a shield.
[Dummy BLOCKS 16 damage]
Once again that strange numbness that should have been pain spread up Martin’s arm. With a grunt that sounded less human and more rodent, he swung again from the other side and felt the sword bite into the dummy with some satisfaction.
[Dummy suffers 14 slashing damage]
This wasn’t like the usual MMOs where he could just swing away. He actually needed to land his hits to deal damage.
Maybe he should have just picked an invoker; he’d never been the most athletic guy and he wasn’t sure how far the hand-eye coordination he’d developed in all his years of gaming would translate into actual mortal combat.
Of course, if he’d picked a spellcaster, the fact that he had no idea how to use any of his abilities would likely have been more of a concern.
As if he were reading Martin’s mind, Khargen called out, “Now, show me the power of your Celestial Strike.”
“How… uh… how would I do that again?”
Khargen barked with laughter. “Simply focus on the gifts Aten has given you when you wish to use them.”
If that actually worked, then it wasn’t much different from the way Martin had focused on things at the marketplace stalls.
Closing his eyes, he concentrated on the name of the ability, repeating it in his mind. And like clockwork, the tooltip for Celestial Strike popped into his periphery.
Celestial Strike - Deals 6 physical and 6 light damage to a single target on a successful hit. [10-second cooldown]
Holding that thought in his mind, Martin readied his sword. Even though he was planning for it to work, he was still startled when the blade suddenly lit up like a halogen bulb. He snorted with delight and it came out as an embarrassingly high-pitched sound; a little like a mouse’s squeak. He swung, the light blinking out as the blade hit home.
[Dummy suffers 6 slashing damage and 6 light damage]
It was less than a usual sword swing in total, as it didn’t account for his strength score like a regular attack, but Martin guessed that deeper in the dungeon there would be a lot of creatures susceptible to the light.
He tried to call up his Celestial Strike ability again but discovered that he couldn’t even bring up the tooltip until the ten seconds had passed.
There was clapping from the side of the field and Martin padded over to Khargen with a wry smile.
“All right, so I’m not completely worthless.”
Khargen cupped Martin’s furry cheek in one massive paw and rumbled, “Oh, but you are. We are all worthless. Powerless but for the might that glorious Aten allows us to wield in his name. You are just an instrument of his will. Do not think for a moment that this power is yours. If you sin, it will be stripped from you in an instant.”
That explained a little something about that particular statistic.
“All right. So, I’m just another hammer in your god’s toolbox? Then put me to work.”
“Our god. The effervescent Aten.” Khargen’s rumble was more of a growl now. The Wulvan duo messing around with the training dummies started to back away nervously.
“Yeah, that guy. What can I do to help him out?”
Khargen hovered on the verge of apoplectic rage for a moment before slipping on his mask of sanity and formality.
“There will be many here who doubt your devotion. Many who will look at you Murovan, riddled with Sin, and think that you come to the Dungeon of Strata not to purge it of the darkness but to indulge in it.”
The Wulvan exorcist gripped Martin’s shoulder and stared into his eyes.
“Where all others will be trusted solely on the weight of their virtues, you will need evidence of your commitment to the cause above all else. You must prove beyond all doubt that your sympathies lie with the Crusade.”
“And how would I do that?” Martin asked.
The quest tooltip sprang up in front of his eyes so suddenly it startled him.
Level 1 Quest: Rabid Ratmen
The settlement of Beachhead is constantly being raided by a nearby colony of Murovan Deserters. Before you can proceed deeper into the Dungeon of Strata, you must defend your supply lines by ending this threat.
Victory Conditions: Slay 10 Murovan Deserters.
Martin blinked. As far as starter quests went, this should have been on par with killing bears and bringing back their asses, but after a day of being treated like he was subhuman by the people of Beachhead, it was hard not to get emotional about it.
If all the Murovan were treated like him, it was no wonder so many of them deserted.
Martin accepted the quest with a curt nod, and the Lord Exorcist dismissed him with a wave of his hand.
It was time to see what this game was really like.
Five
Rebirth of a Riot
This time, Martin didn’t even slow as he approached the guards. He had heard enough last time. There was some muttering as he went on his way, but when you only came up to someone’s crotch, it was easy to keep your head down.
From the outside, Beachhead looked even more ramshackle than he had previously suspected. The fence was held together with string and hope in most places. Martin didn’t claim to be an expert, but he had a suspicion that it was for show more than it was for defense. Given a running start he was pretty sure even he could break through it, and he was a four-foot-tall rat in starter gear.
The top of the cavern wasn’t actually much higher than the roofs of the two-story buildings. Everything looked much higher than it really was because Martin was still getting used to his new perspective.
The cavern itself was like an upturned dome over the little town, the ceiling starting to curve down the moment Martin was outside of Beachhead. That was another advantage of being Murovan: he was a lot less likely to bump his head on the roof.
With no guidance about the direction of the Rabid Rats even when he pulled up his quest log, Martin just headed off towards the nearest tunnel entrance to start exploring.
He eventually managed to conjure a map out of the menu that appeared when he closed his eyes, but it only showed him the places he had already been, and even those seemed to be fading away gradually. Far from annoying him, he was actually quite pleased about that.
As much as he had loved Dracolich Online, the chance to discover something completely new was gone almost the instant that new content was added to the game. He could have avoided the information other people had gathered, but that would have put the guild at a disadvantage, and he couldn’t have that.
At the back of his mind, he had been pondering why Strata wasn’t the same, but he suspected it was because of the neural interface. It was easy enough to data-mine information from a graphics engine or a database but a lot more difficult to harvest it from simulated brainwaves.
If someone wanted to carry information out of Strata then they would have to memorize it, and while he was pretty sure he could retain a fair chunk of statistics at a time, there was just so much in Strata that he wasn’t surprised it put people off trying.
The technology was probably why there were no Strata streamers either; you couldn’t show yourself playing this game because there was n
o video feed to show.
Someone would probably crack the mechanics of it eventually and flood the whole web with every scrap of information that could be found inside Strata. All of the mystery would vanish and it would become nothing more than another game amidst millions, but until then there was a whole new world to discover.
It occurred to Martin that he probably should have been afraid as he stalked off down a pitch-black tunnel looking for monsters, but the whole scenario was just so familiar to him. He had been delving in dungeons for as long as there had been dungeons to delve in. There had been other video games over the years, and aliens sometimes took the place of goblins, but at the end of the day he always came back to fantasy. It felt like home.
Up ahead of him in the tunnel, there was a snuffling sound. Martin’s hand drifted down to the sword at his hip and he tried to creep forward quietly. It had to be a monster. He was a few minutes out of the starter town, and he had just ambled through the tutorial. It was monster time.
The snuffling grew louder and more guttural the closer he got. There was a flicker of light around the corner, just enough for long shadows to be cast across the tunnel wall.
He drew his sword as swiftly as he dared. He had no idea what would be waiting for him. In most of the games he’d loved, the first monsters were usually animals, or animal people, but in Strata, the players were the animal people.
As he came around the bend, several things happened in quick succession: a huge pig caught sight of Martin and reared up on its hind legs.
Martin, panicking, swung his sword at the beast but instead scraped the tunnel wall, showering them both in sparks.
The last, and most significant, event was that the copse of smoldering mushrooms that the pig had been delicately nibbling let out a gout of flame, searing its hindquarters and flooding the tunnel with the smell of crispy bacon.