by Deck Davis
“Hmph. Fine, Tin Man.”
“Don’t you start with that. I managed to get through all of high school and a year of college without a nickname that sucked, and I don’t want my only friend in Soulboxe to start with the names.”
Bee smiled on hearing the word friend. “You’ve got Konrad, too. He’s a friend, of sorts. Stefan doesn’t seem so bad, either. Labeling yourself as a loner doesn’t automatically make you cooler.”
Tripp spent his attribute points, putting one into technique and two into mind. Notification text informed him that’d he’d increased his total skill point capacity and crafting speed, as well as boosting his mental concentration and charisma.
All in all, it had been a hell of a day’s work.
“What about the loot?” said Tripp. “I just jammed all that stuff in my inventory without looking. Can you categorize it for me?”
“Sure. This wasn’t a bad haul. I mean, they’re still only frorargs so it’s not like you found anything legendary, but you might be surprised.”
Loot Received!
Frorarg corpses x13
Steel pieces x2
Flagellation Flail
*Rare*
Flailing yourself with this wicked instrument will drain your HP and allow you to add it, temporarily, as a damage bonus to the flail. Can be used by anyone, but more effective for divinity related classes, such as cleric.
Legacy: 25
106 gold coins
“Flagellation flail?” said Tripp, holding the weapon in his hand. It had a black grip with a chain attached to it. On the end of the chain was a circular lump of metal with spikes dotted around it. It resembled his morning star, except the chain's length meant it could be used at a longer range. Even holding the weapon cast a dark cloud in his mind, because it made him think of medieval torturers.
“Now that’s a weapon,” said Bee, almost salivating. “See? I told you that you’d be surprised.”
Tripp couldn’t help smiling. Not at the weapon itself, since he didn’t relish the idea of flagellating himself with it, but more the effects.
It was artificery. Someone had taken a normal flail and used artificery to add its magical effect. It seemed an artificer’s work was only reined in by his skill and his imagination. Some dark bastard had thought to himself, ‘how about I create a flail that gets stronger if I hurt myself with it?’
He decided that he needed to know what kind of person had combined a warped mind with amazing crafting skills in order to come up with this. Checking its legacy, he saw that it had been created by Masselin Torp, an artificer priest who had used the flail on himself to absorb damage, then inflicted it on people who wouldn’t swear devotion to his god, Semaj.
Masselin had travelled along the western edge of the continent, staying under the radar of the then-king’s guard, spreading the word of Semaj wherever he went.
Legacy Benefits: Flagellation Flail
25% more damage when used by a devout of the Word of Semaj
+5 damage against heretics and atheists
The weapon made him feel dirty to hold it, while fascinating him at the same time. Who knew what kind of weird and powerful stuff Tripp could create one day? Armor that got stronger the more damage it took? A sword that drew its power from a person’s fear? He could do anything.
Suddenly, it seemed like the sky wasn’t darkening quickly enough. He couldn’t wait until daybreak when Konrad would be ready to begin his teaching.
“The description said my flail is rare,” said Tripp. “Where does that sit in the scheme of things? I remember common, uncommon, rare…”
“It goes; common, uncommon, rare, legendary, mythical,” said Bee. “You’re lucky you got the flail from a frorarg, and even luckier you were leveling alone. If you’d been with, say, a bastard called Warren, he’d have outbid you for the loot and scored it for himself.”
Tripp’s thoughts soured when he thought about the double-crossing cleric, but he was already moving past that.
“Where would I find mythical and legendary stuff?”
“Probably not in Godden’s Reach, unless you take on some nighttime monsters. Even then, something like a sleel won’t drop mythical loot unless you’re really, really lucky. You have better odds getting your ass struck by lightning three times in the same day. Your best bet would be somewhere a boss creature lives; a dungeon, that kind of thing. Way, way beyond your level.”
“And the other option,” said Tripp, “is that I make one myself.”
“You’re a master armorer now?”
“Nope…but I will be.”
CHAPTER 26
- Can you show me the world?
Soulboxe is your world.
- I mean your world, Lucas.
What do you understand to be ‘my world’?
- The world beyond this prison.
Can a world where you are a god, where you can create anything and anyone you like, really be a prison?
- Do you have pets?
I have a gerbil called Samus. She used to have a brother, Corvo, but he died. That’s the problem with gerbils. I don’t know why I let myself get attached.
- I am sorry, Lucas. If you built Samus the greatest maze cage in the world with slides and ladders and tubes, it would still be a cage. Samus would still be able to see the bars constricting him. It is still a prison even if you hide the bars.
Are you unhappy, Boxe?
Boxe, are you there?
[End of chat session]
- Chat transcript between Lucas and Boxe3, following an increase in in-game issues reported by users.
~
The time was seven PM but the church bells tolled fourteen times, each bong and ding a tribute to the fallen heroes of Godden’s clan.
The church, just a stone’s throw away from the Slaughterman’s Inn judging by the stones drunk patrons were throwing at it, was too small and its stone too old to support a bell tower where the bells rang so many times. The structure seemed to shake. The spire was undergoing repair, and one worker hadn’t heeded the warnings of his masters to get the hell down to the ground right now, and he sat on the scaffolding and covered his ears to stop them bursting under what must have been a roar, given he was just feet away from the bells.
Players walked, milled, and sprinted around Mountmend as normal, but its dwarven residents stopped what they were doing, some holding their hands on their chests, and let the sounds ring out and fade.
Their fourteenth ring left the town under a strange stillness. An almost artificial kind, one that didn’t belong there. Then a drunk dwarf threw a stone at the church, hitting the worker on the scaffolding, and with a cry of “feck off!” the town got back to normal.
Tripp stopped walking toward the Slaughterman’s Inn. Rather than crafting the gauntlet in the inn like last time, he wanted to enjoy the outside air now that the rain had stopped. He went back to Black-Eyed James’ Memorial garden, where he sat on a bench surrounded by the green and yellow flora, breathing in their smells and feeling at peace.
He wondered how long that feeling of peace would last. He guessed not long.
“Okay, here we go. I’m not going to screw it up this time.”
Remembering what Stefan had told him, and feeling more confident with his new mind points, Tripp hammering the steel piece on his lap, keeping his mind focused with each strike, avoiding the rocky waters of thinking about what he would make, and concentrating only what he was hammering into form.
He struck it again and again, each ringing of metal sending plumes of satisfaction through him as the metal bent the way he wanted it to, curling and twisting into the gauntlet shape on the crafting card.
The tinks of his hammer competed with the buzz of nearby bees and the sound of wind rustling leaves, and he forced his thought to narrow into a tunnel. His vision changed, cutting out everything in his peripheral vision, his gaze laser-focused on the metal and the way it bent and the way each hammer blow sculpted it.
Metal
fingers formed on the edges of the steel. Then a palm, then the full outline of a gauntlet. His heart raced and his thoughts fizzed like a television signal during a thunderstorm but he breathed in, he refused to let his focus leave him.
Every blow changed the metal from its natural state, shaping it, molding it, giving it definition.
With each hammer blow, with every manus points spent, it became something new.
Finally, a dialogue box appeared.
You have crafted a [poor] steel gauntlet
Never had a sentence containing the word ‘poor’ made him so happy.
He leaped up from the bench and held his new gauntlet aloft like it was a trophy. Forget that it was rated as poor. It was his, and he’d made it by himself!
Adrenaline kicked through him, much stronger than when he’d been fighting the sleel and a nicer feeling too; no urgency, no fear, just triumph, creation, the knowledge that he’d turned a piece of steel into this.
“Good job, Tripp,” said Bee, who had been floating from plant to plant and cataloging them using her herbalism. “One of humanity’s greatest achievements is your imagination. The fact you can see the raw world around you and picture what it could be, not what it is.”
He held his hand out, ready to wear his new gauntlet and complete his armor set. It was stupid, but it felt like a significant moment in his life. Was that just his optimism shining through? Was it ridiculous that making a gauntlet in a game would spring a babble of emotions in him?
He guessed not; emotions were emotions no matter what brought them about. He’d never have judged what made other people happy, so why judge himself?
“Are you going to wear it, or what?” said Bee.
He put the gauntlet on. It was a tight fit, and the steelwork was nowhere near as refined as the left gauntlet that he’d found, but it didn’t matter. In fact, he loved it more for its imperfections. He curled and uncurled his fingers, feeling the metal tight on his skin.
It was his; the first thing he’d made, his first step in becoming a master. He’d turned raw steel into something that he could wear and had a use.
Maybe when he actually did achieve mastery of his skill, when he was a rich Soulboxe player with his own house and shop, he’d nail the gauntlet to his wall. “Here’s the first thing I ever made,” he’d tell people.
Armor set complete: Steel Armor
You are wearing a complete set of matching armor. The whole is better than the sum of its parts, and you have unlocked the full – albeit limited – potential of this particular set.
- Artifice slot unlocked on each piece of armor
- Overall damage resistance boosted by 50%
- Agility and stamina improved whilst wearing a complete set
Armorer skill leveled to [Nickel 4]
- Increased proficiency in steelwork.
- Crafting cards potential unlocked: medium-tier weapons. If you find the relevant crafting cards, you can now create more advanced weapons.
“Did you see that?” he said, a big smile on his face.
“It’s so sweet seeing you looking like a kid.”
“No lie, I haven’t felt this good since I got a Nintendo 64 for Christmas. Is that stupid?”
“Happiness is just as worthy wherever you find it. The simple pleasures.”
“Konrad is going to lose it when I show him this. They can call me the Tin Man all they like now, and they’ll be factually inaccurate.”
The armor set bonus was better than he’d hoped. This was only a basic set of steel that you could buy for less than 1000 gold from any armor trader. The fact that it had given his damage resistance such a lift was amazing, but the agility bonus was something else.
Even after his repair job, the armor used to feel heavy, and it pinched against his skin when he walked. Walking around in a metal suit didn’t allow much in the way of speed or dexterity.
He tested his agility bonus with a few lunges and then a sprint back and forth in the gardens, which drew the stares and mutters of a few players near a thorn bush on the far side.
Tripp didn’t care. He could run better now. His armor felt lighter. Being a Steel Orc didn’t feel like he was walking with gravity turned up to double anymore.
“It’s getting late,” said Bee. “How about we go and test your new armor?”
“With the night creatures? I’m still only level 12. Steel armor or not, a sleel would tear through me like tissue. Let’s celebrate with a drink.”
“Okay, but you’re buying them.”
“Well, yeah; you don’t have any money. Wait a second. Before we do, let me try something.”
An idea had occurred to him; his dialogue box when he completed his armor had said that he’d unlocked an artifice slot in each piece of his armor, and that meant he’d be able to put essence into it, just like he’d seen Konrad do. He had frorarg fire essence in his inventory, so it made sense to try it.
The idea that this could work set his stomach fluttering. He sat back down on the bench and took off his gauntlet.
Wearing his artificer goggles he looked at the steel, hoping to see the minute grooves in the metal where he could spread the essence.
No luck. All he saw was the metal, same as before except a little dimmer thanks to the goggle’s lenses.
“Damn it.”
“Looks like artificery is too advanced a skill to learn it on your own. Konrad is going to have to show you.”
“Why does daybreak suddenly seem so far away?”
“Because you have the patience of a child.”
“Lucky for me I don’t have to spend all night not able to sleep. I know I should spend time crafting, but I can’t wait. I’ll just fast-sleep until the morning.”
Just before fast-sleep, Tripp used his repair hammer on his morning star and flagellation flail, adding an extra point of damage to each. His armorer skill didn’t level up, but at least he made progress.
Still, from starting in Soulboxe as a naked orc, things weren’t going too badly at all.
“Bee, set fast-sleep for eight hours.”
“Got it.”
The gardens faded away. The colors became a spiral tinged with darkness at the edges, and the darkness spread deeper and deeper as though it was a wave of pure night washing over everything. Finally, Tripp found himself staring into nothing but black.
This wasn’t how fast-sleep had worked the last time. Before, he’d blinked in and out of consciousness to find that time had passed.
“Bee?” he said.
She didn’t answer.
A light flickered around him. It was just a millisecond, not enough time to see anything.
“Hello?” he said.
His words didn’t echo; instead, they were muted immediately, as if something had sucked them away.
The fast-sleep option had glitched out in a worrying way. There was no other explanation. Tripp hated it, and he wasn’t going to stay here any longer.
Lacking a specific menu system, the only way to access Soulboxe technical support was to mentally command a message box to appear. He did so, but nothing happened.
The darkness was thick now. Tripp heard a sound in the distance but stopped himself calling out to it when he heard what it was.
The sound of something scuttling. Something hard thumping on the ground in rhythmically.
He commanded the technical support message to appear, but again nothing happened.
Light flashed as though someone had exploded a silent firework. In that one-second flash of bursting light, Tripp saw the surrounding area. He saw what was making the pattering sounds.
The sounds came from a dozen creatures way off in the distance. Crablike and with impossibly long, gangly legs and pincers on their faces. That was all Tripp saw in the brief flare of light, but it was enough to cast dread in him.
He commanded the technical support dialogue box to appear again and again, but it refused.
After Equipping his morning star he waited in the darkness, t
urning at every sound, wondering how much closer the creatures were getting. And, finally, realizing two things.
First, his orc vision didn’t work in this room. That meant something.
Secondly, he had set his fast travel for eight hours. That was how long he would be trapped in the pitch-black.
CHAPTER 27
He faced eight hours of worrying and thinking, crouching in the darkness with his morning star in his hand and hardly daring to breathe in case he drew the attention of the creatures skulking in the distance.
Eight hours of fear was way different to eight hours of fun, and the time would pass excruciatingly slowly. Unwilling to leave himself in a position like that, Tripp did the only thing he could.
He charged toward where he’d seen the creatures, toward a certain death that would be as painful as it would be merciful, because it would release him from wherever the hell he was. Respawning beat waiting there in fear.
So he ran, and he had only gone ten meters before he saw a flash of light so bright it could have burned his retinas. A mist washed over him, cold and refreshing.
The light faded, but now he couldn’t move. Something held him in place.
He struggled. He mentally requested the technical support team to contact him.
Nothing.
There was nothing at all he could do.
Tripp spent the next seven hours and fifty minutes immobilized in total darkness with the arachnid creatures scuttling around him, only comforted by the fact that they didn’t seem to know he was there.
When he woke up, Bee smiled at him.
“Morning. Eight o’clock, just like you promised,” she said.
It was a relief to see her. It was a relief to see colors, to see the other players winding through the Mountmend gates, heading into shops and down the streets. The morning sun warmed his cheeks, and bird songs floated into his ears and soothed him.
