That Wasn't the Plan

by Jason Cheek

  Congratulations! You have killed Xissiauzzix the Shadow-Fang Assassin!

  Congratulations! You have reached Level 30!

  You have 5 Attribute Points Unspent!

  You have gained 1 Attribute Point in Stamina.

  You have gained 1 Attribute Point in Strength.

  For a long moment, Zeven laid atop the unmoving bloody mound that had been the Mini-Boss while he stared numbly at the message window that had popped open before his eyes. He could still taste the leftover flavor of the monsters hot blood in his mouth as he laid there feeling somewhat guilty. With the emotional and physical release from his fight with Xissiauzzix, he felt better than he’d felt in the whole last year of his life. It was truly the first time he’d felt at peace since the loss of his lower leg. Counseling, therapy, self-help groups … nothing had truly helped him deal with the loss until he started playing The World.

  Zeven was sure that if he’d ever told any of his previous therapists how emotionally satisfying it had been for him to take out some virtual monster inside a game world that they would have been horrified at the thought. Possibly, they would have even questioned his sanity. Honestly though, after feeling so helpless for so long, taking out such a nasty monster alone had given him such a feeling of accomplishment that Zeven couldn’t even begin to put it into words. Some people might have argued that his feelings of wholeness was only in-game and that none of this would transfer to the real world. He was sure they’d argue and say that such feelings would just make him want to escape reality that much more, but as far as he was concerned, this was his new life … his new reality. What did his old life have left to offer him now?

  Rising up onto his clawed feet, Zeven smiled at the clarity of his own thoughts as he got to work, since his hit points and mana were once again at a hundred percent due to the level up. Still, the last thing he wanted to do was get caught by surprise from some random mob and taken out because he wasn’t paying attention. Casting Soul Biter on his claws once again, Zeven used his hands to rip the Mini-Boss open as he began searching for loot. Digging into the monster’s stomach, he let out an excited shout of glee holding up the first item.

  Rucksack of Holding

  Item Quality: Unique

  Item Type: Uncommon

  Slot: Back

  Weight: 4 lbs

  *The bag is considerably larger on the inside than the outside. It can hold up to a thousand pounds without ever exceeding four pounds of weight. The limit to the items that can be placed inside the rucksack is only limited by the opening of the bag.

  Talk about an epic find, Zeven thought happily as he went back to work. Additional digging in the creature’s body cavity gave up some coins, gems, and a few basic weapons. Although it was thoroughly disgusting work, it needed to be done. Besides, after all of the looting he’d done in-game, the blood and gore hardly phased him anymore. Zeven was about to call it quits and start dressing the meat when his hands bumped into something hard. Digging around in the lower intestines, he pulled up a leather brace of hand axes covered in viscera. Checking the stats, he let out a silent whistle.

  Hand Axe of True Aim (2)

  Item Quality: Good

  Item Type: Common

  Attack: One-hand Edged

  Weapon Type: Axe

  Damage: 40-50*

  Durability: 100/100

  Weight: 4.3 kg

  *True Aim means the hand axe will hit the targeted location only when thrown. Hand axes will automatically return to brace in five seconds.

  Not bad, Zeven thought as he carefully searched the rest of the creature’s digestive track. Finding nothing else worth mentioning, Zeven dug out his skinning knife from his old rucksack, before placing everything into his new bag and getting to work. Skinning and collecting the important parts of the Mini-Boss was important but messy work. Not that he could be any bloodier than he already was, Zeven thought with a snort, as he collected the skin, meat, claws, and fangs in half an hour. Giving one last look at the picked apart carcass, he debated taking the Mini-Boss’ head or not, before finally deciding to stuff it into his bag too. Who knows, maybe he’d hang the head of his first Mini-Boss over the fireplace in the keep’s central room.

  Once he’d packed everything away into his new Rucksack of Holding, Zeven collected the rest of his gear from his gravestone. Yeah, maybe he should have done that sooner, but he just couldn’t pass up looting a Mini-Boss’ loot. As he began getting dressed, he was annoyed to see that most of his gear was damaged. Obviously, his shredded kilt had taken a beating from his earlier death, but at least it was still wearable. While his fur kept him from feeling truly naked, no one wanted their junk flapping in the breeze, Zeven thought with a snort, truly understanding that statement for the first time as he got back underway.

  Chapter One.Forty-Three

  (Wednesday, May 7th / Day 17 of The World.)

  Even though his pace was at a fast jog, it was going to take another two hours of traveling north for him to reach the outskirts of Blaidd Ogof Hold. Those two hours quickly turned into five as Zeven took time out to hunt down herbs for cooking and alchemy, while making his way through the thick woods and underbrush. On top of that, there was a handful of monsters he had to fight along the way. While it was mostly smaller groups of Gore Boars and Forest Wolves, it did give him the ability to skill up his Spirit Shaman magic along the way. The only negative was that it took time to skin and collect the meat from each of the kills. Nonetheless, it was worth taking the time to help his people, especially since he had the cool new rucksack to store it all in.

  It wasn’t until around eleven in the morning that Zeven started seeing the familiar landmarks that signaled he was nearing the outskirts of his lands. It honestly surprised him at how much coming home put his soul at ease. Already, he was looking forward to Nahi’s special meal of haggis, potatoes, and beer that she always liked to cook upon his return home, when he cleared the edge of the forest and his eyes swept the planted fields of his hold.

  Instead of being filled with joy at the sight of his people happy and well, Zeven tasted bile in the back of his throat as he took in the scattered and broken corpses of his clan in the empty fields and the mostly burned down town. There were literally hundreds of bodies lying dead before his horrified eyes as the sun chose that moment to peak out of the cloud-covered sky causing him to race across the wheat fields with his breath puffing in the cold. Zeven’s heart wrenched in his chest when he saw that his people were obviously hacked to death while at work tilling the fields.

  Whoever had slaughtered them had spent some time at the task. Most of the bodies were hacked apart as if the killers had made a party of the event. Limbs were tossed around the fields, while the torsos had been placed in sickening poses with their heads stuck on top of a shoulder or an ass. Seeing the desecration done to the dead bodies drove Zeven to his knees as he puked out the quick meal of dried meat that he’d wolfed down earlier that morning. It took several dry heaves to get control of his stomach once again. By then, he was down to green bile. He climbed to his feet with something of a plan, as he wiped at his mouth with the back of his hand.

  With shaking hands, Zeven did his best to reconstruct a corpse, the best that he could, of one of the Badger-Kin that were in better shape than the rest, but even then his Revive spell was unable to target the body. Meaning, that the corpse was too damaged to be brought back to life with his basic resurrect spell. Wiping away the tears of anguish that kept streaming down his face, Zeven jumped to his clawed feet and headed for the main village that ringed the fortress’ outer walls hoping to find someone who yet lived, berating himself the entire way for not making the villagers move into the keep while he was gone. He’d expressed his concerns with the village’s location repeatedly to Elder Tor’Narc, but the old Badger-Kin had laughed off his concerns, saying that they hadn’t been attacked in decades by anything other than starving Worgs.

  Zeven could barely see through the tears as he ran past the hac
ked apart corpses. This wasn’t the brutality that he’d seen of any monsters yet in-game. Not that the monsters didn’t torture their victims … because they did. Every time he’d fought against any of the northern demi-humans, the dead had always been partially eaten. No, this was something very different … this was done by a group of sick individuals having fun.

  It wasn’t that Zeven didn’t understand the why. He’d learned through trial and error those he could revive and those he could not. The Essence Shaman quest he’d accepted to acquire the spell had taught him that much. This though, Zeven harshly thought, as he looked at the purposefully posed corpses was beyond fucked up. This was someone playing at being evil or using the horrific poses like Vlad the Impaler or Genghis Khan to fuck with him.

  Coming to a stop at the main road through the village, Zeven’s eyes scanned the destruction from the attack. He was surprised to see that there had been barricades placed at the openings of the streets to hold off the invaders. Those wooden trunks had been blasted away by some overwhelming force, but it wasn’t anything that he recognized magic-wise since there wasn’t really any obviously identifiable damage.

  Zeven’s mind struggled to understand the evidence he was seeing as he numbly made his way through the deserted streets. If there were barricades throughout the town, then that meant the attack had been expected, but … if that was the case … then why were there corpses slaughtered out in the fields. Slowly his mind began to make sense of the details through all of the death he was seeing. The corpses were not from any of the civilians inside the town. All of the deaths here were from the clan’s warriors. If that was the case, then where did everyone go?

  It took some time, but Zeven realized that a good portion of his people had managed to escape. Where or how many was unknown to him, but knowing that they were alive gave him hope. That, and he’d come across an important clue to follow up on. Beathan, the War Leader of the Clan’s Guards, had managed to send him a message from beyond the grave. With words left in his own blood on the outer walls of Blaidd Ogof Hold, his clansman had managed to scrawl out “Newfar” and “AAA,” before succumbing to his injuries.

  Beathan hadn’t died alone. The Warrior had fallen while protecting Torrac Tor’Narc, the clan’s elder and previous leader. Torrac had lost that position once Zeven had completed the Nightmare quest. Nonetheless, Zeven and him and been close. Seeing his crumpled body lying in the dirt snapped something deep inside his heart. Kneeling down into the dirt, he cradled the old man in his lap rocking back and forth as the tears streamed down his face. No matter how many times he tried casting Revive, the spell couldn’t find anything for the magic to take a hold of.

  The fury filling Zeven’s veins needed to be let out as he wordlessly rose to his clawed feet and raged at the unfairness of it all. His fists hammered the hold’s stone walls as tried to release his pent up anger. Picking up the pieces of destroyed furniture, Zeven smashed it into the ground until it came completely apart. Moving through the burned buildings like a bull in a China Shop, his clawed feet kicked at the leftover ash as he hollered out his hate. It wasn’t his fault that he’d been unable to log in to save his people, he silently raged. Still, nothing seemed to help the heartache in his chest at the loss of his clan. It wasn’t until after he’d collapsed in the center of the village square that Zeven calmed down enough to think rationally.

  There had to be some way he could find his missing people, Zeven silently wailed to the heartless sky, when he suddenly remembered that Nahi was his companion. With his thoughts a jumbled mess of emotions, he hurriedly opened up his Character Sheet as his eyes urgently searched the menus. Zeven quickly found what he was looking for. Under the Companion subtab, he found Nahimana Tor’Narc listed there with the notation that she was alive. With some additional poking around, Zeven realized there was an option for searching for your individual companions. While the information didn’t show up with a nice pretty marker for a Nightmare player, it was enough to let him know that he needed to head north to find her. It was akin to the feeling he’d had when searching for his gravestone earlier.

  That brief bit of hope was enough for Zeven to get his head together. If he could find Nahimana, then maybe he could find the rest of his people. His tumultuous thoughts seemed to settle down now that he had a clear course of action to follow. The clarity allowed him to take in the deaths of his clan mates and the destruction around him with a more level head. While he wanted to rush off to find Nahimana immediately, there was no way he could leave his clan mates mutilated bodies on the ground like monsters to be looted. Wiping the tears from his eyes, he knew what he had to do. With a heavy heart, Zeven numbly rose to his clawed feet and got to work.

  Chapter One.Forty-Four

  (Tuesday, May 6th / Day sixteen of The World)

  First, he went to the empty remains of Blaidd Ogof Hold to see if he was truly the owner of the fortress. On the lowest floor of the central keep, he opened the trap door and entered the control room. The empty cradle was the perfect size for the quartz-octagonal crystal that he removed from his Rucksack of Holding. He’d recovered the power gem for the final part of his Nightmare quest. As soon as he’d picked up the shimmering power crystal, he’d received the system message saying that he’d successfully completed the requirements of his Nightmare quest and that he could now claim ownership of Blaidd Ogof Hold.

  Nonetheless, Zeven hadn’t been able to actually claim ownership of the fortress before he was forced out of the game. Mentally crossing his fingers that the completion of his Nightmare quest still counted as long as he possessed the power crystal, Zeven carefully set the crystal into the cradle and pressed the activate button on the panel. Instantly, power ran through the walls of the room like glowing veins as a system message popped up before his eyes.

  Congratulations! You have taken ownership of Blaidd Ogof Hold!

  To understand how to use the capabilities of your fortress, look through the menus or check the online wiki.

  Surprisingly enough, the power level of the crystal was at one hundred percent as Zeven went through the various menus as he tried to decide what to do. Maybe it was foolish of him to power up the fortress now, but he’d been worried about whether or not he was still considered the rightful owner of Blaidd Ogof Hold. At least, now he had his answer. The only problem was that he’d lose the fortress if anyone ran across it fully activated and empty. The Emergency Hot Fix on Land Ownership made that plain enough. He was still trying to figure out what to do, when his eyes alighted upon a travel mode option.

  A quick perusal of The World’s online wiki explained that some fortresses had a travel mode and could actually be picked up and moved around by their owners. Zeven read the basic information for how to pack up the fortress and how to reactivate it upon finding a new location. It all seemed pretty straightforward. Truthfully though, he couldn’t even imagine how that might look. Closing the in-game wiki window, he selected the travel mode with a silent shrug.

  The horrendous grinding noise of stone rubbing against stone shook the air as Zeven pressed himself back between the control bars to stop from falling. Above him, the night’s sky suddenly became visible as the walls of the keep slide away and began folding on top of themselves. It was amazing and scary all at the same time as massive sheets of stone folded like magic above his head while the entire fortress shrank further and further down. Thirty-seconds later, Zeven peeked his head out of the hole to stare at the one-yard long, one-foot square stone block lying on the plain dirt ground in front of the hole.

  Although the stone was heavy and took two-hands to move, it was relatively easy to stand up on one end and slip the Rucksack of Holding over the end. Once it was inside the magic backpack, Zeven had no trouble picking the magic bag up and slipping it onto his back one-handed. With that headache out of the way, he turned back to the semi-destroyed town that was now all that remained of his clan’s holdings. With a heavy sigh, he got to work collecting the dead next.

 
Setting up a makeshift travois from a mostly burnt section of a wall, Zeven went through the fields gathering up the body parts of his people and brought them to where Blaidd Ogof Hold had previously stood. By the tenth trip, he’d stripped down to only his kilt and weapons, putting everything else into his Rucksack of Holding. It was exhausting, soul wrenching work. The hideous poses weighed on the mind and turned his anger into the cold fury of revenge. The only surprising part of the night was when Zeven realized that the same effort of horrid mutilations hadn’t been expended on the dead warriors inside the village itself. The only thing that made sense was that once the AAA players had realized their prey had flown the coop, they must have decided to chase after them.

  That thought just made Zeven more anxious to take off after Nahi. Though, in his heart, he knew that wouldn’t help anything. If the AAA players had caught up to his people, they would all be long dead. Nothing could change that simple fact now. While that was a very real possibility, Nahi being alive gave Zeven a kernel of hope. Besides, he wasn’t about to go off in search of her only to tell her that he’d left their people like this. Those thoughts helped to keep his mind focused on the grisly task at hand as he worked on throughout the night.