by Jeff Sproul
Riley wanted to defend his past character, but Seth had a point. “Thanks,” he said again and brought the drink back to his lips. He gulped the drink down, enjoying the taste, but he would’ve preferred an iced coffee or something. He didn’t remember this drink being available when he was finding parties out of Bunker 7. When the glass was empty, he pulled up his status screen. He looked to his stats and instead of seeing a zero beside each stat, he now saw that he had two endurance, one strength, one dexterity, and two constitution. It was essentially a low-level survival drink, as far as he was concerned. The stats he’d gained would make him last a little longer in a run, and make him a tiny bit more durable if he were to get thrown into a car again. The drink had also recovered the rest of his health.
“I also heard you mention some names before I stepped on over,” said Seth. “I haven’t heard of any of those people, except for Shadow Gorilla. He doesn’t really come here anymore though. He’s been over in Colossal City. He joined a guild and moved in over with them, so he groups with them now. He was a cool guy. I don’t remember him ever saying anything bad about Radiance though, if that’s any help to you.”
“A little,” said Riley. “I mean, you probably heard me talking earlier, but I’m just trying to crawl my way back up, you know? I need to find some T-one powers. But I’m also realizing I’m going to want to get some levels as a civilian. With how my walk over here went, I’m not sure I’m going to survive as a low-level civ without some more stats.”
“Ain’t that the truth,” said Seth. “It’s tough sometimes even for T-ones. We get strong monsters that spawn in town, and so sometimes we all team up, ten of us or so, just to destroy them. Even when a T-two is around, some of the monsters take ten of us to defeat. So when we don’t have higher levels around, there’s a chance some of us T-ones won’t make it.”
“I guess I had it easy when I started the game when it first came out,” said Riley. “I didn’t realize how difficult things had become for lower players.”
Seth nodded. “Yeah, it can be tough at times. You never know what’s going to get patched in next. There’s been a few improvements since the release of the game, or so I’ve heard. Certain quests they’ve added in on the billboard, to help low-level civs.”
“I was looking at it earlier,” said Riley. “Carrying water to a shelter didn’t seem like a great way to make money. And after what happened on the way here, I’m not sure I’d survive more than a single run.”
“Civs don’t have the longest life expectancy,” said Seth. “Sigil Online is harder on low players, now that there’s a lot of high players flying and shooting around and waking all sorts of creatures in the game. Kinda like that white insect thing that killed your old character.”
“Yeah, that thing looked creepy as hell,” Marcella spoke up. “I sure hope the devs didn’t make that a common new feature for monsters. If I go into the amber caves and find spiders spitting up other things that give them extra powers, I’m just going to log out and never come back. It’s too much!”
“It was a pretty high-level boss,” Riley spoke up. “I doubt they’re going to make that a common mechanic going forward. It might not of even been the devs that added it. It could’ve been the game’s dynamic monster-creating AI. I kinda hope it was the devs though. I’d prefer that I got beat by someone designing a strong boss, than an AI that just mashed things together.”
Riley’s eyebrows lifted. “Oh right, that reminds me. Did either of you hear about what happened to that group? Did anyone else die? I didn’t see any other major deaths last night.”
Seth shook his head. “I only saw that Radiance died. Apparently the group had to flee the fight.”
“They ran?” Riley asked.
Seth nodded. “Yep, that’s the word I heard. Apparently that beam was some tough crap, as you learned first hand. Without heals, none of them wanted to risk continuing the fight, especially with that white bug thing.”
“Makes sense,” said Marcella. “I know I’d run if my healer dropped and we had no way of getting health back quick. Potions and special items only get you so far. Gotta have those dedicated heals to stay alive.”
“Yeah, and the worm still had plenty of health,” said Riley. “Who knows how much health that bug thing had.”
“There was a lot of speculation on the news and from analysts, that your group should’ve targeted the bug and gotten rid of it fast, that it probably didn’t have a lot of hit points,” said Marcella.
“Yeah, I heard that as well,” Riley sighed. “We were all caught off guard and spread out too much from the attack. Only a few of us had a good line of sight on the bug. The worm was blocking it for the others.”
“I’m sure the fight was a lot different in your shoes,” said Seth. “Than it was for those of us watching it on a TV screen after everything was said and done.”
Riley nodded, then took a slow look around Bunker 7. “Well, it looks like my plan to mooch off some friends has failed,” he said. “I was hoping for some cheap items that no one needed. But it looks like all my old friends...or at least people I thought were my friends, have all moved on.”
“Well, I’ll tell you what,” said Seth. “I’ve got some friends meeting me here. We’re gonna go out and clear some monsters out of the amber caves. If you’re not too traumatized by mines, you can come with us and see if there’s any scraps you can pilfer. I sure as hell wouldn’t mind and I doubt my friends would either. I can’t guarantee there’s going to be anything useful, but you never know.”
Riley’s eyes widened. “Really? You’d do that for me?”
Seth shrugged. “Sure, why not? It’s not like we’re going to let you grab anything more useful than trash drops, but that would still be better than hauling water down a bunch of city streets, right?”
“Absolutely,” said Riley.
“Then it’s a deal,” said Seth. “You’ll come with us and be our scavenger and trash-item hauler. Hell, you may even gain a little experience from it.”
Despite his eagerness to be doing something other than low-level questing, Riley could only muster a partial smile, since he was effectively going to be a pack-mule and scrounging around in the dirt in a cave. “Well, it’ll definitely be a new experience for me, that’s for sure.”
Chapter 5: Amber Caves
Riley walked at the end of a group of tier-one players. He wasn’t sure what their levels were, and didn’t bother to ask. No intelligent player would reveal their level to someone they’d just met. Not in Sigil Online.
The group of five had just left the city limits and were walking out into a somewhat broken landscape with an ocean in the distance. There wasn’t a whole lot of plant life in the area, it looked to be a sandless desert.
“How you doing back there?” Seth asked, turning his head to look back to Riley.
“I’m good. We almost there?” he questioned.
Seth nodded. “Almost. It’s a bit of a walk but we can’t easily grab a vehicle to come out this far.”
“Makes sense,” said Riley as he pulled on a pair of straps around his shoulders. He shifted the empty backpack, which was easily three sizes larger than he’d ever seen a real backpack. He was the only one in the group with one. He wondered what sort of loot they’d find in the amber cavest. It was an area that he’d never been before. It had been added a couple patches ago and it seemed like a place that he’d been overly qualified for as Radiance.
A girl with dark skin looked back to him. She appeared to be a little older than he was in real life. Perhaps her early twenties? If her in-game character was to be believed. She had black hair drawn to her shoulders, a black skirt, a green corset and she wore an open black jacket with green trim. She had on a pair of thick black boots which made somewhat heavy footsteps.
“You got your scavenging skill active?” she asked.
“Oh, right, forgot!” he said as he moved his hand to trigger the active-effect that was available to all players. He made th
e gesture, which he’d never really used, but was always aware of. When he did, the faintest flecks of a white aura had encircled his vision. It wasn’t nearly as intense as the bright red flashes that occurred when he took damage, but it was a noticeable change to his vision. He was also aware that he took several penalties to his stats by having ‘scavenger vision’ on. It raised his perception and chance to find hidden item locations, but it also lowered his max speed. He wasn’t going to be doing any running until he turned it off, and even then, he had to wait a little time until the after-effect wore off.
“Got it on now,” he said with a smile. “And it’s Erica, right?”
“That’s me,” she said with a returned smile. ”Let us know if we need to stop for a moment if you spot something. You probably won’t see anything till we get to the cave, but you never know!” she said to him, then looked forward.
A stout man named Todd was at the head of the group. He had short-cut black hair and thick arms. He wore a torso-fitting black shirt and a pair of blue denim pants.
A girl about the same age as Riley, was walking alongside Erica. She had blonde hair down to her mid-back and wore gray denim pants and a black long-sleeved blouse with a ruffled hem. Over her shoulder was a steel crossbow. The girl didn’t have any bolts, but Seth had told him that she was able to create them when she needed them. Her name was Brenda and he was curious to see her powers in action.
A few minutes later, Brenda glanced back to him and spoke up. “When we get into fights in there, you know what to do, right?”
“Uh,” Riley muttered for a moment before adding, “I hide?”
“Already knows what he’s doing!” Brenda seemed to congratulate him without bothering to look back at him again.
“I told you he wasn’t new to the game,” said Seth. “He had a bad encounter and can’t find his friends he was playing with. So we’re helping him out. You know, being good people and all that.”
“I was just making sure he wasn’t going to get killed the moment we break into an encounter, ya know?” said Brenda. “Else we’re down a backpack.”
“He doesn’t have that ‘new look’ to him,” Todd spoke up from the front of their group.
“I got that same feeling as well,” said Erica. “He doesn’t seem like a complete scrub.”
Riley wasn’t sure what to think, as they talked about him, almost as if he wasn’t there. At least they weren’t saying anything bad about him. For the most part.
“Maybe we’ll find a power item of some sort,” said Erica. “Some low-level trash item that would give him a little boost.”
“Even if we find a couple of cheap things for him, he’s going to need to get some levels to build his stats and survivability up,” said Todd.
Riley kept quiet for the moment, but he was in agreement with Todd. He felt that he needed some levels to balance him out so he could at least survive without issue.
“He’ll get them. I’m sure he’ll knock out a few levels today while we’re in there,” said Seth. He then turned his head. “If you get the chance when the monsters are low, try and throw a rock at them or something. It won’t be a lot of experience, but it might help a little.”
“Will do, I’ll be more concerned about making sure I don’t have to remake my character though,” said Riley.
“Right, right. Survival first,” said Seth as they closed in on the amber caves.
When they reached the entrance of the cave, it actually looked more like a hole in the ground with a bit of an amber glow emanating from it. It appeared to be of similar design to the glow mine that he’d been killed in. He took in a slow breath. As they got up to the pit, he noticed that it curved downward at an angle, almost like a staircase.
“Here we go,” said Seth. “Form up, Riley to the back, keep a watch for anything shiny.”
“Will do,” Riley confirmed as Todd led the group down with Seth right behind him, followed by Brenda, then Erica, and then himself.
The sloping tunnel was wide enough to fit all of them side by side. Similar to the green glowing crystals in the glow mine, there was crystaline amber in the walls, floor, and ceiling. In certain places there was more than others, and all of it created this soft amber light so that they could actually see without external light sources.
The fact that they were in a cave, didn’t really bother Riley. As he followed behind the group, he tried to remember what he’d read about the patch logs. Each log report was filled with cryptic content updates from the developers. Had there been anything in the last patch for the amber mines? If there was, he wouldn’t have bothered committing it to memory anyway. Hopefully there wasn’t anything too strong down there, but then again, the amber caves didn’t seem to be a high level area like the glow mine.
“So what sorta monsters are usually in here?” Riley spoke up.
“Lots of different kinds of spiders,” said Brenda, who was closest to him. “We’ve seen scorpions, large worms, other types of insects.”
“So, mostly bugs?” Riley asked, feeling more uneasy than when he’d first entered.
“Kinda,” Brenda answered. “Lots of bugs. Some mutant abomination type things. Occasionally we catch sight of a rare spawn, but sometimes they’re pretty clever, so we don’t manage to kill them. They just get away.”
“Oh? Are there a lot of rare spawns here?” Riley asked, referring to creatures that were more unique than the mass of monsters that the game usually created. Rare spawns tended to have higher intelligence, stats, or unique powers.
“We’ve seen plenty,” said Brenda. “This place is more out of the way than other hunting and questing spots, so it doesn’t get as much attention. We’ve bumped into a rare spawn hunting group a few times. They like to pick the caves clean of rares, then they’ll leave it alone until the rares repopulate. Or I guess I should say, when the system spawns more of them down there.”
Riley nodded, keeping quiet for the time being as he used his scavenger vision to look around. Every time they passed a large rock or any sort of outcropping or alcove, he’d look back or peer inside. He hadn’t seen the telltale shimmering signs of any hidden loot yet. It was likely that someone had already picked through the amber caves and grabbed everything that could be scavenged. Scavenging was a skill that everyone had, and it was a cheap and easy way to make some money. But when you were doing it in a monster-filled cave like this one, then you needed to be in a group that could deal with the creatures. There was no way he’d be able to survive anywhere that had monsters, on his own. Not without a weapon or power item, that is.
“Coming up to the first chamber now,” said Brenda.
Riley eased to the side so he could see ahead. The group walked to the end of the passage and slowly entered the first chamber. As far as the scenery was concerned, it was more of the same dark brown earthy rock and amber crystals lighting the area.
Todd was the first to enter the room. He looked all around, then the rest of the group followed in afterwards.
“Nothing here,” he said. “Which tunnel should we take?” he asked, looking back to Seth.
Seth shrugged. “How about five? We haven’t been down five in a while.”
“Tunnel five it is,” said Todd as he turned and headed for the fifth tunnel from the left side. There were what looked to be about nine passaged in all, and it was likely that each of them branched into other passages and chambers.
The group moved through the next tunnel which didn’t take more than two minutes to walk through. As they neared the entrance to the next chamber, Todd lifted his bulky arm and clenched those thick fingers into a tight fist.
The group stopped. It was then that Riley noticed the unique smell to the cave. Whereas the glow mine had smelled of a faint decay, the amber caves had a strange sulfur odor.
Todd turned his head to the rest of the group. He was a good five or so feet ahead, able to see into the room better than the rest of them. “There’s an amber slime in there,” he said. “Cube shaped.
Doesn’t seem to be moving.”
“How big is it?” Seth asked, slowly inching closer to where Todd was.
Todd looked back, but Seth managed to get into line-of-sight of it before Todd answered.
“Oh, that big,” Seth said, his eyebrows lifting.
The rest of the group all eased further up, crowding around the entrance to the chamber. Riley was the last one to get into position, looking over Brenda’s shoulder to see the monster.
To the left of the chamber, a gelatinous cube sat dormant. There were small stones and other debris lodged within its confines, and at the center was a small solid black cube which couldn't be more than a few inches across. However, that small cube was surrounded by roughly a twenty-five by twenty-five foot cube of mostly-solid orange slime. The monster didn’t have any eyes to speak of. Above the top of it, was a white-lettered name that read ‘Amber Slime.’
“How strong is it?” Riley whispered from behind. Some monsters could pick up on sounds or vibrations, so he made sure to keep his voice low.
“We should be able to handle it,” said Seth. “It’s really damage-absorbent, but as long as nothing goes wrong, we can take it down.”
Riley looked to Seth. In Sigil Online, when did things ever go according to plan? He was first-hand experience of that.
“Well, no time to waste, right?” asked Seth. “Let’s get in there and take it out. Todd, grab its attention. Same as usual. Riley, stay back and keep out of sight. It probably has some strong area-wide attacks, so be careful. Let’s go.”
Upon hearing ‘let’s go,’ Todd moved into the chamber and ran for the seemingly dormant slime. With a sweep of his arms, a deep rumbling within the cave echoed around. The gelatin-like substance of the amber slime quaked and quivered. A stone cylinder shot out from the ceiling of the cave; it was easily several feet in diameter. It plunged down and stabbed into the slime’s orange mass. The slime’s body contorted around the impaling stone. The large slime-cube pulled through it, slowly propelling itself towards todd as the surface of the slime that was in contact with the ground moved somewhat like a snail would.
