Gathering Strength

by Aaron Jay

  “No. Unless they manage to capture me, I can always suicide out. If I bind here, I have no place they can’t grab me.”

  “Glad you aren’t a total fucking idiot,” commented Vultan.

  Barin sighed and Pulling shrugged.

  With that we started off again.

  As the day passed, our pace started to slow. The Eastmans were flooding the hills with players. Twice we had to move off the route we had been following to avoid groups beating the wilds. Another time, Vultan spotted a mini-boss we had to avoid.

  My stamina was blinking red. We stopped and I collapsed against the hillside. The other three were doing better than I was, but were also starting to look a bit ragged. I gave a tired smile to Pulling and she gave one in return.

  “Fuck!”

  Given the language, I was surprised that it wasn’t Vultan. Barin pointed up. Someone on a flying mount ran a search pattern two hillsides distant. The Eastmans couldn’t have many of those, but given how thin the top cover around here was they didn’t need many.

  The pace, stress, and lack of rest were getting to us.

  Later that morning we had another encounter. Some sort of minor earth elemental erupted from the hillside. For a pick up group, we handled it ok, but once again I was left with a fraction of my hit-points. More worryingly, the thing was loud.

  I was angry that the rangers hadn’t spotted the damned thing before we tripped its aggro radius. Neither had Pulling.

  Our party balance was… let’s call it suboptimal. I kept ending up as the tank. The rangers were--as their name implies--ranged damage dealers. Pulling did her best but she was all spec’ed out as a rogue type. I understood why Pulling had set this up the way she did. We needed speed and ability to evade in rough wilderness more than we needed to be able to take down mobs. But it still left me chewed up at the end of each fight.

  I couldn’t even loot the thing, as it would leave more of a track for our pursuers.

  “At least your bind point isn’t too far away,” joked Barin.

  “Yeah. Great,” I said. I had just been beaten half to death and hadn’t had any sleep in a long while. Some part of me was convinced that his comment was a dig.

  “Just saying,” he finished.

  “Spot the mob next time,” I said.

  “What?”

  “Spot… the… mob…,” I repeated.

  We stared off against each other. Then realized that turning on each other was stupid. We were just tired and stressed from the constant fear of being discovered.

  This is why pick up groups, or PUGs, are the worst. Going into combat with strangers is a good way to get killed. Militaries go to great lengths to cultivate unit cohesion. It tends to be one of the main things that keeps soldiers alive. Our PUG didn’t have a long history of trust to draw against the stress of the situation.

  “Sorry,” I offered.

  “No problem,” he responded and we went back to the march.

  The morning passed towards noon. The sun climbed until it was beating straight down on me. Now and again I would hold my palm up to block it from my eyes and I’d scan the skies for an Eastman flying over.

  My survival skill had ticked up to 63% complete. Living in a constant state of vigilance while roughing it in the wild was good for something.

  As the day moved on, my need for sleep was getting unavoidable. I was making mistakes doing things as basic as walking. I slipped more and more often.

  Pulling was looking ragged too. The rangers might have been doing a bit better due to their skills but it was hard to tell. Vultan always looked a bit wild due to his beard. Barin was one of those people who never end up looking wiped out. He just looked artfully mussed and tousled.

  I was happy to let go of my jealousy at his unruffled composure under rough living when he came back from scouting and reported, “I found a cave up ahead. Looks like an ok place for some sleep.”

  We might have cheered if we weren’t exhausted and being hunted.

  The cave wasn’t very deep but we certainly wouldn’t be spotted from above. A saguaro cactus blocked most of the entrance. A patch of rocky soil looked like a down filled bed by then.

  Vultan did a final cast of the track erasing spell and we settled in for some sleep. We agreed on an eight-hour break. With each of us taking a two-hour shift on watch, we would each get six hours of sleep.

  I was asleep before my eyes shut.

  Two hours later Pulling shook me awake. Two hours of sleep feels fatal after staying up for forty-eight. Shifting my head felt like shifting the entire world on its axis. My eyes were sown shut and someone had decided to give me a lobotomy.

  Pulling started kicking me until something like consciousness came back to me. I actually took some damage. I couldn’t blame her since I was the thing standing between her and her own shuteye.

  I stood up because I knew that if I let myself sit, I might fall back asleep.

  It was dark outside the cave and so was my mood. My luck was absolute shit when we rolled for who got what sentry shift. My crappy roll might be an artifact of my screwed up luck stat. Was I doomed always to lose every party roll?

  But the plan Pulling and I had made was working so far. Tomorrow would be the test. To fight off sleep, I did my best to dwell on all the things we needed to have come together and on my terrible, desperate situation. A life of slavery to a system that was dooming the human race. The odd thoughts and impulses that had been plaguing me.

  No matter how much I tried, none of it could overcome just how damned tired I was. I’d be Maya’s serf if she just offered me a pillow.

  Finally, my shift was finished and I passed along some grumpy kicking to Vultan so he could take over the watch. If I wasn’t so exhausted, I might have bothered to feel jealous of Pretty Boy Barin who won the first six uninterrupted hours of sleep. Instead I just fell into a sleep that felt like a welcome death.

  CHAPTER FIFTEEN

  Waking up this time was merely awful. I groaned quietly along with Pulling and Vultan. Barin had a smug grin on his face. The small amount of muss and tussle he’d had before was washed away by his six hours of contiguous sleep. He probably spent his two hours on watch grooming himself. Bastard.

  “How do you put up with him?” I asked Vultan.

  “The prettier he looks, the more people think I must have some some fucking depth and substance,” said Vultan and scratched at his giant mess of a beard with pride.

  Pulling had gotten the other six-hour shift. She looked pretty good first thing in the morning. Her attitude wasn’t as pleasant.

  “You are all shallow and ugly till I have some coffee. Probably after too.”

  One nice thing about the Game is that breaking camp is no work at all. You throw whatever you want to bring with you into your inventory and off you go. I was stumbling through the new day before I had fully finished waking up.

  “Which way?”

  “Can you finally tell us what the fuck we are doing?” asked the two rangers.

  “That way and no,” answered Pulling.

  Every day we weren’t captured, we widened the possible range the Eastmans would have to assume I might be in. Even with the Eastmans’ massive resources and endless recruits, they should be spread thin. Even so, our steps were dogged at every turn. We found signs of searchers over and over again. Dead and looted mobs, tracks, the remains of a camp.

  We hugged every fold, dip and piece of cover the land offered. Thankfully, we were never spotted, but our pace was slowed to a crawl. The two rangers had us swing wide from our line of march again and again.

  Screw the Eastmans. The amount of resources they were spending to capture me was insane. I was just one player. It was just one bet. But of course, it wasn’t. The Party has to keep every player feeling like bucking the system is pointless and dangerous.

  Authoritarian regimes keep power by convincing dissidents that they are alone. Going against the party line (or is that the Party line?) has to be punished. If eve
ryone is afraid to make a fuss, then people think they must be the only ones who hate our dear leaders. If people find out how many other people also think the Party system is corrupt, the whole thing implodes. So, crushing me was cost effective. How many other possible dissidents would they kick back in line by crucifying me?

  The rangers led us wide around a small herd of gazelle-like monsters. The gazelles’ legs and necks were unutterably delicate. More compellingly, each had two straight horns made of yellow crystal. Zaps and pops could be heard as arcs of electricity ran up between the prongs. Saying you survived to collect them, those horns had to be worth serious gathering points for my quest. I had to get somewhere I could play in peace. We left them alive and unlooted and my bet as far away as ever.

  The rest of the morning and into the afternoon we pushed along under the beating sun. Talking was out. First, even the possibility that some trick of the terrain would carry a voice off to our enemies meant conversation was not worth it. Sound is kind of unpredictable out in the wilderness. Some places echo and carry. Others deaden. All we needed was one Eastman to hear us and the jig was up.

  But more importantly, it was about not losing focus and attention. So we marched on in watchful silence. I moved along, hustling from one scrap of cover to the next, ever mindful of possible ambush. I watched every slice of land where my enemies might hide. I tried to move without leaving traces or sounds.

  Beyond keeping humanity alive, the Game was also good for rewarding focus and effort. Running and hiding for your life for days in the wilderness paid off.

  You have learned the skill:

  Survival

  You can keep yourself and others safe and fed in the wild. This skill does the following:

  Increases your overland speed while hunting and foraging.

  Diminishes the chance of being spotted by predators or prey in the wild. This effect increases while stationary.

  Increases resistance to severe weather effects while you move at up to one-half your maximum overland speed. This effect increases while stationary.

  Keeps you from getting lost and avoids natural hazards, such as quicksand.

  Synergizes with skills such as Herbalism, Climbing, and Knowledge (Nature).

  Nice.

  I felt more attuned to the wilderness. My steps felt a bit lighter. It was easier to move over uneven land. Choosing the best place to put my next step took less thought.

  Another aspect of my newfound skill was that I could see breaks in the natural pattern of our surroundings. Which is why I noticed the bent twig when Vultan slipped past.

  At first I thought it was an accident. But then I noticed that every so often he dropped a small stone. If I hadn’t been looking for it, I’d never have noticed.

  Every now and again the edge of his foot would leave a crease in a muddy or sandy patch we passed. A branch would be broken more than necessary by his weight. A small stone would be left in his wake that must have come from his inventory.

  We stopped to have Barin cast the spell that hid our tracks once again. I kept my eye fixed on a leaf that had been twisted until its lighter underside was facing up. All the incidental and accidental traces of our passage disappeared. That grey-green leaf stood out amongst its brothers. The spell wouldn’t hide a trail that someone had blazed.

  Well crap. I liked Vultan.

  My prejudice had wanted any betrayal to be Barin’s. The good-looking, smooth guy who never sweats would be far more satisfying as a villain. Maybe he reminded me of Jude. Anyway, pettiness and resentment get so few permissible outlets. It would have been so much more satisfying to have an excuse to go after Barin.

  I picked up my pace until I passed Pulling.

  “Vultan,” I whispered. We had planned for this.

  Pulling and the two rangers had been trading off taking point. Her shift scouting ahead came up in about a quarter hour. I did my best to act like I hadn’t just found out that Vultan was a traitor and the Eastmans had a good idea where we were this whole time.

  Shift change time came. Pulling headed out in front, fading into stealth. A few minutes later I stopped and signaled to Vultan. Barin was covering our back trail.

  “Hey Vultan,” I said.

  “Keep it the fuck down,” he whispered. “You want to give away our position?”

  That was pretty funny considering what he was up to. That was the thing: I did get on with him. We shared a similar sense of humor.

  “Sorry. Last thing I’d want is to screw this up. I shouldn’t be distracting you. It might get you killed.”

  “Wha…”

  And that is when Pulling’s hand covered his mouth and her blade sliced across his throat. I jumped away from the arterial spray. He made a wet gurgle. I grabbed his arm to keep him from getting an attack off. She planted the knife in his kidney next and he died.

  “What the hell?!” cried Barin, running over.

  Pulling was breathing deep, trying to shake off the adrenaline. She looked to me to give Barin an explanation. Actually, she wanted one too.

  “Vultan was marking our trail. I saw him do it. He was dropping stones and snapping twigs to let the Party track us.”

  Barin looked down at the corpse.

  “It’s hard to believe. He was such an ornery son of a bitch,” Barin said.

  “I saw him do it,” I repeated.

  Pulling’s dagger disappeared from her hand. I couldn’t tell where she had sheathed it. She wiped her hands, ignored the corpse, and looked around into the wilderness.

  “Why haven’t they come at us then?” asked Pulling. It was a good question. I was sure Vultan had been marking the trail.

  “They need to capture me. Right now, they have me trapped in the middle of nowhere. They had me tracked down with a spy next to me. I think they were waiting for the right moment.”

  “Well, now you know that they know where you are. Maybe we can do something with that,” offered Barin.

  “Maybe. You got an idea?” I asked.

  “Lead them… huh. We could… Hmmm. No,” he admitted.

  “In just a few minutes Vultan is going to respawn. He will let them know that you know anyway,” Pulling pointed out.

  “Crap. Think they will keep on keeping their distance?” wondered Barin.

  “Can’t count on it,” I said.

  “Actually, I have an idea,” said Barin. Vultan is going to tell them everything he knows: where we are, where we went, AND where your respawn point is. That’s our angle. This is the perfect chance to change it and slip them.”

  Pulling and I looked at each other unconvinced. Barin continued, “We should reset our respawn point here. We can probably make it quite a bit before they make their move. They show up to capture you and we kamikaze them. Take as many of them as we can, dying a glorious death drenched with the blood of our enemies, yadda yadda yadda. They set up again at the entrance, but we pop back here. Simple,” he said.

  It sounded plausible.

  “We aren’t going to fight our way out. And our chances of sneaking free just went to shit,” offered Pulling. “We need an angle and this is an angle. But Miles, you are the one with the most at stake. You can always die a glorious death and respawn back in the instance. We can try to think of another way out later.”

  I nodded my head in thought. His plan had something to it. Vultan would tell them that I hadn’t changed my respawn point. If I reset it now and we made it far enough away from here before they killed me, they would expect me to respawn back in The Mines of Madness! But if I reset my respawn anywhere but the mines, I couldn’t escape via suicide.

  “Alright. My luck is crap in the Game but maybe that means I’m due for a break. Let’s try your plan, Barin.”

  We moved off into a small thicket we hoped would hide the light from resetting our respawn points, and after a count of three the golden light of resetting our respawn points competed with the bright sun. I was committed.

  Now the whole chase and hunt began again. If
I had known that the last two days were a sham and they knew where I was the whole time, I could have looted all those mobs we took down and gotten a decent night’s sleep. What a waste. Although then Vultan would have reported that I wasn’t trying very hard to hide, so I guess I couldn’t have grabbed the loot after all.

  Once again we set off, afraid that the Eastmans would descend on us any minute. Race for your life, take two.

  We made for the edge of the foothills. The terrain was getting ever drier. Even the small and desiccated trees and brush were growing more sparse. We would be out to the desert beyond the hills in hours.

  “Where are we heading? Can you finally tell me?” asked Barin as we hustled along. “Vultan is gone. What is the plan?”

  Pulling and I shared a look. I tried to shrug as we ran, gave up, and just waved my acquiescence. She knew Barin. She trusted me enough to kill Vultan on my word. I’d trust her to handle this.

  “We are heading to the Pit of Qarqoon. It’s past this hill country out in the desert,” she told him.

  “Why?” asked Barin.

  “Once a week a flying ship swings through there. You can hop it to the next sector over.”

  After an hour at my best pace, we had to stop for a rest. Pulling was doing her best not to nag me back on my feet. Sometimes someone obviously biting their tongue is a sharper use of it than any words they could say.

  She knew I was keeping the best pace my level and stats could manage. But our pursuers didn’t care if I was doing my best. They would grab me if they could. Vultan knew our exact location and even if he didn’t know our destination, he knew our general direction. We were screwed.

  Barin must have been thinking the same thing about our odds of escape. He came over to me and handed me a potion vial.

  I examined it:

  Arborian Woodbeast Poison