by Deck Davis
“I don’t think he was talking about physical power. Besides, a quote I always liked is, ‘silence is the ultimate weapon of power.’ How about you show me your ultimate weapon?”
“Hmph.”
“Two can play at the quotes game.”
“How did you know that? Is it from a book on philosophy? Or about a great spiritual leader like Gandhi or the Dalai Lama?”
“It was printed on the beer mats in a bar I used to go to. The guy who owned the place used to hate when people asked why he didn’t have a jukebox, so he got the quote printed to shut them up.”
“Fine. I’m just saying, you’re on an even level with a newborn lamb, combat wise. Putting a point or two into power won’t end the world.”
“You have a one-track mind, you know that? I told you, I’m going to be a crafter.”
“I’m not just saying it for kicks. I’m your guide, remember? Sure, I enjoy a little excitement. I like feeling the digital equivalent of what you’d call adrenaline, and since I can’t fight for myself, I have to live vicariously through you. But I wouldn’t tell you to throw your points into the gutter.”
He decided that he’d better hear her out. She was his guide after all, and if they were going to spend so much time together, he wanted her to feel like he took her advice on board.
“Okay, sell me on spending my points on power.”
She smiled and swirled in the air. “Here’s what I think,” she said, talking hurriedly in her excitement. “Put one point into technique if that’s what gets your blood flowing, sure, but put one into power, too. It’ll make you tougher, and when you want to go finding some rarer raw materials, you’re gonna run into trouble.”
“If I’m a better armorer I can make better swords, and that should solve the problem.”
“Having a sword and being able to use it are two different things. Power doesn’t just govern brute strength; it’s a combat-driven attribute, and it’ll make your aim better than your current level of a blind child swinging a stick.”
He thought about his trouble with the first frorarg and how sluggish he was. Maybe she had a point.
“What about if I put, say, one in every five points into power?”
“Hmph. Not as much as I’d like, but it’s a compromise.”
After allocating one point to technique and another point to power, his total manus and his crafting speed increased. There was no new skill this time, but he guessed that after giving him underlay, Boxe5 must have felt he’d been generous enough already.
When he put a point in power, though, he was happy with the results.
Power increased to [2]!
- Combat speed increased by 5%
- Strength increased by 10%
Not mind-blowing increases, but good enough. Every edge was worth it, and if it helped him defend himself, then he was happy.
Besides, Bee was right. Eventually, he’d have to go to dungeons, caves, all kinds of crazy places in search of raw materials for his crafting, and it made sense that he could take care of himself.
“Let’s get moving, Abe,” he said.
CHAPTER 15
His calves were burning, and his chest was slick with sweat, but those discomforts were washed away when he saw the orc settlement for the first time.
“I didn’t expect this,” he said.
He’d pictured a tribal set-up for the orc settlement; a wooden fence around the perimeter, maybe with heads stuck on the end of spikes. The air thick with the stench of burning meat, lots of well-built orc warriors gathering around campfires, some cleaning their swords, others grabbing whatever orc girls passed by and forcing them onto their laps.
He expected dirt-covered ground, the stench of sweat, orcs wandering around in heavy armor and grunting at each other, perhaps mumbling under their breath about how they hadn’t gotten to kill any humans today.
Instead, the first thing he saw was a wooden sign outside a set of steel gates. The sign read:
Welcome to Tillicult. Stay a while, friend.
This wasn’t Tripp’s first time at an orc settlement. He’d been to orc villages in other games, but usually he was there as a human character with a quest that probably involved wiping the green skins out.
Now, being of the green persuasion himself, he found himself looking at its inhabitants differently. It wasn’t hard to do that, though, because they were different.
No armor, no boots, no swords. Orcs walked around in robes and most of them were bare-footed, made possible because instead of the hard-stone paths you’d usually find in a town, they had grown and landscaped the grass to form a series of green tracks through the village.
Their buildings were like nothing he’d ever seen, made from a shiny, black material that would have been ugly if it wasn’t for the sun bouncing off rows and rows of windows, giving the place a bright feel. As colorless as their building materials were, the structures themselves were feats of architecture; all strange shapes, spikes, curves, arches. If they had been real, tourists would have been visiting all year round.
Just near the entrance, there was a bronze statue of an orc. Thin and rakish and with a studious look on his face, there was something grand about him. There was a sign next to the statue, which read ‘Godden – Orc hero of the Reach. Conquered his domain for the good of his people.’
Dominating the village was a building shaped like a church. It boasted a thirty-foot tall spire and was made from stone as black as night, with a giant spider carved into the middle of it. A door was cracked open a few inches, and the sound of chanting drifted out. Next to the door was a blackboard with the words Green Greetings written on it.
Some orcs walked down the street carrying books, others guided cows and horses over the grass and whispered to them and stroked them. The twang of a lute came from somewhere nearby, and a voice sang so softly it threatened to lull Tripp to sleep. Every time he breathed the aromas of sweet dough, cinnamon and thyme met his nose, and he didn’t try to stop his mind wandering to dreams of fresh cinnamon rolls.
“Are we sure this is the right place?” he said.
“Not all orcs are the same,” said Bee. “They have settlements in the mainland that might match up to your expectations more.”
A female orc walked past him. Her black hair ran in a twist down her robe and to her thighs. She had long eyelashes and an angular face, but her smile was warm, and her skin was a pleasing minty green rather than the pond-water shade of Tripp’s.
“Green greetings,” she said, before moving to pass him by.
“Green greetings?”
She stopped and looked him up and down. “Ah, you are an eastern cousin, no?”
“You mean I’m from the mainland. I don’t know, actually.”
She gave him a sympathetic look. “You don’t know your clan. Displaced when the Glass Children stormed the mainland clans, no doubt. So many cousins wandering without homes, so many children seeking new protectors. Would that we could spread out message east, that we could bring them back here. Alas, Godden’s Reach is not a place for easy living. Were it not for the fruits of the mountain, we would never have spread into a land that does not wish to support us.”
“I never met my clan,” said Tripp. “It’s a long story.”
“Even so, if you are in the Reach, you must know the calendar of the colors?”
“Sorry, I missed orcish culture 101.”
“This is the month of green, traveler. A marking of the rebirth of the land, after Godden claimed it for the Beaman dukedom.”
“Is the calendar a religious thing?”
“A calendar marks the future, yet we mold our calendars around the past. What is to come must meet with what once was. As son follows from the father, the future follows from the past, and like father and son, the past must teach its lessons to the future. Here, we make sure to remember those lessons. If you find the village stained, please excuse our untidiness. Green follows red, and red marks the blood that was shed when Godden recl
aimed the Reach.”
Now that she mentioned it, Tripp noticed splotches of red in parts of the grass, as if dye had been spilled on it.
“You paint this place red during red month?”
“Colors have their power, traveler. I must go; the cows have calved, and one poor thing will not survive. Best that I end its suffering now.” She held up a knife with a curved blade, and Tripp felt sorry for the poor calf that would feel its edge. “Green greetings,” she said, and left.
He’d never felt so out of place. The orcs here reminded him of monks, yet here he was, head to toe in steel armor, breaking the peace like a knight bursting into a meditation retreat.
Moving on, he came to what appeared to be the main square just beyond the gate. This was the hub of Tillicult. Orcs sat outside a tavern and drank ale and chatted to each other quietly under the glow of the sun, and traders had set up their stalls in a market a stone’s throw away. Here, there were people of all races hunting for bargains and peddling their wares; humans, elves, and even a warg on all fours who could speak English. The sound of haggling drifted from all stalls except one, where a young orc was giving away copies of a book called Calendar of the Colors.
“This is the trading district. We need to find the armorer,” said Tripp.
“We’re probably looking for the blacksmith, actually,” said Bee. “He’ll do that kind of stuff. Places like this won’t have a separate craftsman for every discipline.”
He scanned the various buildings and looked at the signs out front, before spotting one with a hammer and anvil painted on it. This was as black as the rest, and even the glass front, where horseshoes, hammers, and knives were displayed, had a dark tint to it.
“Found it.”
As they started walking toward the blacksmith’s shop, figures approached them from all sides until they were surrounding Tripp and Bee.
He knew trouble when he saw it, but in this case he smelled it; an overpowering scent that reminded him of the potpourri his Aunt Bianca used to have bowls of in every damn inch of her house.
The cloying smell came from flower wreaths around the necks of a dozen robed orcs who surrounded him. Their robes were lightweight enough to flap in the breeze, but still covered them. Their skin was a paler green than Tripp’s, and their features more elven than orcish. It was only their protruding bottom fangs and craggy foreheads that betrayed their race.
After they had made a circle around him, they stood with their hands crossed and folded into their robe sleeves, eleven orcs looking toward the twelfth, a taller male whose robe made him look rakish. They waited for him to speak.
Surrounded by the circle, flashes of anger scorched the landscape of Tripp’s mind. It was the feeling of being trapped. It brought back memories of when his older cousin, Gavin, came back on leave from the military and found Tripp living in his bedroom.
This was just after Mom’s accident when Tripp had gone to live with his uncle and aunt, and rather than be a supportive cousin, Gavin was pissed that his room wasn’t his own anymore. He took one of the tarantulas from Uncle James’s collection in the basement and he grabbed Tripp and locked him in the utility cupboard with the arachnid.
This was the same cupboard that had a broken light switch, so Tripp couldn’t see the creature and didn’t dare pound on the door or make any loud noises in case he spooked it. Even thinking about it made his chest feel tight.
After that, being enclosed, surrounded, or trapped used to bring him out in a sweat, as did being anywhere near an eight-legged creature. It got so bad that Tripp used to check every inch of his bedroom before he’d go to sleep in case one of the arachnids had gotten loose. Not only that, but he had to keep the bedroom door open a few inches.
Things couldn’t go on like that. He was a teenager, he’d lost his mom, and his dad was in jail. He couldn’t have phobias to go with it. He finally spoke to Uncle James about it, who was horrified about what Gavin had done and resolved to deal with him the next time he was home. Then he said something that Tripp hadn’t expected.
“You need to man up. Too many people aren’t living in the present; they’re living in their fears. They’re imagining what could happen, instead of what they want to happen.”
So, Tripp decided to do something about it. He started spending time in the basement, looking at the spider habitats and watching Uncle James’s creatures sleep, scuttle, eat. Then he moved on to holding them. Finally, he asked James if he could keep a spider habitat in his room, and he’d fall asleep with a Mexican Redknee just five feet away.
Next, he began seeking out enclosed or tight spaces. The utility cupboard. Busy shopping malls. He’d just stay in them for as long as he could handle, increasing the time as he pummeled his fear into submission.
Now that Tripp had learned to overcome his weaknesses a little they didn’t make him scared; they made him angry.
He needed to keep control over that now. There were too many orcs around him, and he was too low a level to even think about fighting them.
Their leader, the tallest and thinnest orc with a moustache that he had oiled into curls, addressed him. He had an information label floating above his head.
Tireden
Orc Mage
Level 12
“You are not from around here,” Tireden said. His accent was exotic, his enunciation precise. He sounded like one of Tripp’s old college professors.
“What clued you in?”
“An orc always knows his kin, and our green skin alone isn’t enough to establish kinship. Your weapons and armor aren’t permitted here, friend,” said the orc.
“I don’t have much choice about the armor.”
“I must ask you to remove it. Armor is a symbol of violence, and the only symbols here are ones of peace. Red month has passed, friend. Green is a time of calmness.”
“If I take this off, you’re going to see something you can’t unsee. Trust me.”
“A guest will only be requested to disarm twice,” said Tireden, his voice getting firmer with every word.
“This must be a town where people have to store their armor and weapons in their inventory before they can stay,” said Bee.
“That’d be great if I was wearing anything underneath.”
“Friend…” said Tireden.
“I understand your rules, but I’m naked under this. I only came here to speak to your armorer.”
“We have no needs of such trades here.”
“Told you,” said Bee.
“Your blacksmith, then. I assume your horses need shoes and that kind of thing?”
“That is as may be, but we cannot permit you to-”
“What if I don’t take the armor off, but I want to stay, anyway? What then?”
In unison, all 12 of the robed orcs curled their hands into fists, and he saw a purple light glow from their palms. At least he had his answer to his question.
“They must be mages. Purple usually means arcane energy,” said Tripp, looking at Bee. “Looks like this place is so peaceful that violence is banished…until they need to use it.”
“Where words fail, we must defend ourselves. Such uses of magic are a last resort,” said Tireden. “But sometimes we must resort to that which we leave last.”
That did it for Tripp. Surrounded by 12 arcane mages in the middle of an orc village, he knew when his odds weren’t great.
“Can I at least speak to the traders? If I can buy clothes from them, I’ll change out of my armor.”
The orc shook his head. “I think not. I only need a measure of a man to decide his intentions, and I have measured you. You must leave, friend.”
“Fine. C’mon, Bee.”
“May the light guide your way,” called the orc, as they left the gates.
“Yeah, yeah. Stick your light up your potpourri ass.”
CHAPTER 16
‘I’ll always be grateful for the chance Lucas and Eli gave me. No Soulboxe, no career.
That said, I think we al
l saw it coming. I saw it sooner than others because I was on the inside. They didn’t invite me to the meeting with Rudy Beasant, but I knew what it was about.
Rudy’s money saved us when Boxe2 lost his mind and we needed a whole new AI re-write. But it was like getting a transfusion with poisoned blood.
For me, as soon as Rudy’s money started flowing and his influence spread, everything we loved about Soulboxe changed.’
- Julie Ward, ex-Soulboxe developer, an expert in game logic, and co-founder of new MMO ‘Titans of the Other Moon.’
~
“It’s a lovely day to make enemies of an entire race of people,” he said. “I wonder how many more I can before the sun sets?”
He’d angered the orcs within thirty minutes of arriving in Tillicult. He guessed that to make friends he’d have to keep calm and let his natural personality shine through, but he was worried that he would be attacked on sight when he approached the other settlements.
Checking his map, Tripp saw that the dwarf village called Mountmend and the human town of Goddenstone were west of Tillicult. Mountmend was nearest and was the second largest settlement, its boundaries beginning close to the mountain and spreading outwards to form a rough circle.
“We’ll check out the dwarves first,” he said. “Soulboxe lore says they’re good with their hammers and their hands, and besides, there’s less animosity between orcs and dwarves, than with humans.”
“It’s not far away,” said Bee. “An hour as the orb flies, maybe.”
“Good. What the hell was that back there, anyway? Shouldn’t orcs stick together?”
“You’d be surprised.”
“They weren’t like any orcs I’ve seen in games.”
“Soulboxe started as your typical Tolkien-esque fantasy world,” said Bee. “The only thing that put it above its competitors was the ethos of the founding developers, Lucas and Rathburger.”
“Choices, grind, fun.”
“Correct. They wanted in-game skills to be hard to master, because the diamond you dig for yourself is worth more than the one that is gifted to you. Personally, I’d have no problem with people handing me stuff. In any case, people responded to that. You humans don’t like having your hands held.”
