A Trap for the Potentate

by Michael Atamanov

  “Big-ears, here’s your chance to try out the new regeneration potion!”

  I in complete agreement with my sister, as I had come to the same conclusion already. All in all, I needed to practice Alchemy seriously in order to prepare all the necessary elixirs both to finish the quest, and to heal the chef. I started heading to my tent, planning to set out vials and herbs, but Valerianna stopped me:

  “Wait, Amra, don't rush. Alchemy is important, but it isn't going anywhere. I just got a curious idea for how to quickly level Herbalism. If you can find new types of plants no one has ever seen before on the banks of the Styx, just imagine how many you'll find under the black water, especially at night! When Max Sochnier and I dove down to search for the body of the drowned Rat King, we could barely move due to the overabundance of seaweed, floating and underwater plants, flowers and roots. All the flora wasn't marked for us at all, because we don't have Herbalism, but you should definitely take a look at the underwater vegetation! I suspect that, in these dangerous waters, no one has ever searched for plants before, especially at night. This is basically Klondike for an Herbalist! And don't worry about safety. The nereid Olilissa is reliable protection. I almost fainted when I saw her for the first time. Now that's power and grace!”

  “By the way, did you find the body of the Rat King?” I asked, and the forest nymph took a glowing purple scepter from her bag with pride.

  “Anything useful?” I asked, because I couldn't see the object properties myself due to low Intelligence.

  The forest nymph laughed in satisfaction and loosed a purple lightning bolt into the dark cloudy sky.

  “Decent bonuses to Intelligence and mana regeneration. But the most interesting part is that it allows access to the same death magic spells available to an equivalent-level necromancer, and the ability to cast Kiss of Death once a minute without wasting any mana. In fact, I was planning to take death magic at level one hundred as a primary skill, but now I don't even see a particular reason for it. This scepter isn't legendary, nor unique, but it has interesting properties. It can serve me will until level one hundred twenty easy. The Rat King also dropped heavy armor. I gave it to our Ogre Fortifier. Of course, it looks a bit strange to see him with the extra head hole, but the armor has simply excellent defensive characteristics!”

  Over our conversation, we reached the very edge of the water. The bank was boggy. My goblin was almost up to his knees in the black oozy muck. The mavka was equally deep in the slow-flowing black water and dragging her feet. She stopped short and started looking attentively, as if expecting something. I was standing a step from my sister not understanding why she hadn’t yet placed the underwater breathing spell on me.

  Suddenly the water just one step from me stirred up. Huge jaws gnashed with terrifying teeth only one centimeter from my nose, and the long scaly body went back under the water, giving a lash with its tail one last time on the surface, soaking the mavka and I from head to toe. I froze for a few seconds in surprise, then reached for my knife, but the forest nymph stopped me:

  “Amra, put your weapon away! It's just Olilissa having some fun!”

  “If that's what you call fun!” I objected justly, although I still took my hand from the weapon. “I'm still worried. My heart is beating a mile a minute and cannot calm down! What if there was an elderly person in my place? I wonder if many players of Boundless Realm have died of heart attacks?”

  The water stirred again but, this time, I was morally prepared. Her shark-like nose popped out of the river and she stared at me with huge unblinking eyes. After that, the nereid's lips stretched into a smile, making her toothy maw all the more terrifying.

  “Hey there, little goblin! You must be Amra. Maxy told me about you. He warned me that you'll need some of my blood. I'm ready to share.”

  I turned in incomprehension to the mavka, but she just shrugged her shoulders in surprise. Meanwhile, the huge nereid flicked her tail a few times and came even further into the shallow water, allowing me to see her in all her glory. The huge predatory fish's seven-meter-long body was covered with scales, but the front third was still somehow reminiscent of a human. It was far from the complete resemblance of mermaids, but she did have hands (or more likely strong muscular flippers with webbed fingers to hold her trident, which was sharper than a razor), and something like shoulders. At any rate, that was where her similarity with humans ended. Over her neck, there was a toothy fish head. Before me was a creature that inspired respect with just its appearance and was ideally adapted to kill everything that moved in water. And that which didn't move, she could also kill with a flick of her wrist or trident.

  “Here, I'm ready. Stick me with your knife and collect some blood,” Olilissa turned her stomach up, presenting her less-armored belly. “ Maxy said that you'd need one flagon of my blood for alchemy experiments, no matter how much I don't like it.”

  I walked up to the gigantic creature and carefully pierced the thin fine scales on the nereid's belly with a dagger. I took one flagon of blood and put it in my inventory, not wanting to risk demonstrating my vampiric inclinations in the presence of Max Sochnier's girlfriend.

  “Is that all? Or do you need something more from me?”

  I thanked the nereid for her help and politely asked Olilissa to protect me while I gathered plants and seaweed underwater.

  “Of course! I'll do anything for a friend of my sweet Maxy!”

  * * *

  It was a long, but very fruitful night. First of all, I really did manage to significantly improve the Herbalism situation, going up by eight whole levels! My sister, as usual, was right. The banks and bottom of the Styx had abundant plant life, and I found new species there that had never been picked or described before. Six new kinds of lily-pad, lotus and riverbed seaweed gave me +6 to Herbalism and +6 to Fame, while the other two skill points were earned the usual way simply by gathering plants. In the end, I brought my Herbalism skill to 27, and for the first time felt a glimmer of hope that I might complete my mission and level the skill to 45 in the five days I had remaining.

  At Herbalism level 20, I could choose a new perk. There were plenty of options. I could improve my plant-detection radius, or luck in finding rare species, take the mushroom or epiphyte specialization, increase the number of useful ingredients I could gather from a single plant and lots of other stuff. But I chose Replanting, the ability to not only pick flowers, leaves and berries, but dig them up carefully with the root and transfer them to another place. Sure, roaming actively around Boundless Realm as I was now, that skill seemed quite useless, but I was hoping to eventually find a secure place to call home, where my Goblin Herbalist could set up a rare-plant farm.

  I also got my first perk in a secondary skill, Athletics. As it turned out, this skill was excellently levelled by swimming and diving. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to be clever, and chose to have my Endurance restore quicker. Beyond that, while gathering underwater plants, Amra reached level-51. My Strength and Constitution grew by one point automatically, leaving the other three free, which I distributed according to my habitual scheme: two into Charisma, one into Agility.

  During my night swim, my sister and I had also had a good think about my Amra's further development. It was clear that we needed to make some adjustments to our former plans because, due to the bonuses from Fenrir’s Cursed Regalia, Strength and Constitution had become my goblin's main stats, no longer Agility. Along with that, Amra also needed to pick a weapon for high Strength, some kind of axe or hammer, or even hand-to-hand combat. But, we decided, I should make that skill a secondary not a primary, so I wouldn't be punished by the goblin race’s 50% penalty to Strength growth.

  Valeria asked me not to rush that decision. My sister wanted to first study the Boundless Realm forum and see what high-Strength weapons were recommended by more experienced players. But at that, the mavka now suggested I move Riding from secondary to main. Amra regularly rode VIXEN or Fimbulthul, so I was using it a lot, and it also lev
eled Agility which, with my 30% racial bonus to Agility, was very nice.

  My sister also suggested I make a choice: would Amra become a powerful lone wolf with a team of predatory pets at his beck and call, or remain in command of a large squadron of NPC warriors? These two different paths demanded different skills, and a slant toward different stats. The issue really was leading to the following: was the orcish crew a temporary whim for me, a single-use tool for completing the concrete mission of reaching the upper Styx, or was I truly planning to develop that skill, level and strengthen my soldiers, and increase the numbers and power of my NPC army?

  I had already long determined my answer to that question, so I told my sister that I would not abandon my orc pirates and would lead them further. And that was exactly what Valerianna was expecting:

  “What can I say then, Tim? You need to think about leveling the army. The average level of the orcs is about fifty now, but the enemies here are eighty to one hundred and, higher up the river, it'll only get worse. You have to level your warriors quickly, that's obvious. To do that, you also need to add strong new soldiers to the squadron, and increase the level of those you have. But level isn't everything. Discipline, coordination, and the ability to work in combat formation are also important. Beyond that, you need to provide useful bonuses to the army — defense, morale, and number of hitpoints... What can I say? I'll think about how to help.”

  Taking advantage of the fact that there was no one around except the big coils of Olilissa twisting around us, I asked my sister about the death of the Human Healer Antonius Just. For some reason, I had no doubt that my sister had somehow been involved in the very timely end of the high-level player from my blacklist. Valerianna Quickfoot confirmed my guess:

  “Tim, I didn't lay a finger on the healer, just... how can I put it... I didn't point out a crude error he was making and let that kill him. Antonius Just was squandering his mana for no good reason. He was supposed to be healing the NPC orcs. And although he was standing at the back, he placed a bunch of protective spells on himself that ate up his magical energy. He was constantly demanding more and more elixirs of magic from me to prop him up. What did he think I was, a walking storehouse or something?! You have to agree, it looks strange to see a level-one-hundred-thirty character in battle totally wasting his own mana, then taking advantage of a level-sixty-three player! When the orcs wavered, I simply 'didn't make it in time' to give him another portion of vials and didn't warn him about the breach in the line, hurrying away together with the rest so I wouldn’t get caught on the front lines. But the healer must have slept through our retreat. He was too busy writing angry messages to me in a private chat, demanding mana elixirs. In the end, he was left without mana and surrounded by enemies. Antonius Just died almost instantly...”

  I had some doubts about whether the healer dying by the teeth and claws of NPC monsters counted as me fulfilling my oath before the gods of Boundless Realm. All the same, Valerianna Quickfoot was fairly convincing, arguing that all the conditions of the oath had been fulfilled, and the Human Healer's death was not so different from the time I'd let VIXEN chop down the she-elf bowwoman, another player in my blacklist.

  Finally, my inventory was filled with water plants, and I crawled up onto the shore. Valerianna, who was accompanying me during the underwater work, also came out of the water and removed the underwater breathing spell from both of us. My sister yawned in exhaustion and was preparing to quickly leave the game.

  There was around an hour and a half until the sun came back up, and I was preparing to devote that time to Alchemy. When Valerianna heard me say that, she unexpectedly laughed:

  “Big-ears, your Intelligence is obviously limping with both legs. It’s been like that for a while. But your Perception isn't supposed to be so bad. Have you really not noticed?”

  What was I supposed to notice? I looked all around for something unusual. Darkness, swamp, the loud croaking of gigantic toads in the distance, the well-lit orc camp in the other direction... What was the matter? The sky in the east was turning slightly pink, but it looked like today would be a cloudy day. So, I said as much to the mavka.

  “Tim, are you so lazy you didn't even read the reports of the last twenty-six expeditions? There are a lot of threads about the river Styx and its weather on the Boundless Realm forums. It's always cloudy here, Amra! And higher up the river, there will be such thick cloud cover, that you can't even see past your own hand. There's no reason for you to play only at night, Tim. This is the ideal place for a vampire!”

  Emissary of Darkness

  MY CAMP HAD an unexpected visitor at dawn. By that time, I had already finished my alchemical experiments and was preparing to go wake up Shaman Ghuu Gel All-Knowing and tell him I'd finished the quest. Everything it needed was already prepared: there were thirty Minor Elixirs of Healing and five Elixirs of Cure Disease lined up in neat little rows on my alchemy table. Other than that, I had made a whole bunch of Middling Elixirs of Healing and Middling Elixirs of Magic, one vial of the rare Elixir of Regeneration made of Miraculous Cloudberry, three portions of Elixir of Underwater Breathing made of seaweed and a few poisons with all kind of different effects. All that raised my Alchemy skill by four points to level twenty-eight.

  Other than Alchemy, I had been intensively levelling Stealth. To that end, I did all my alchemy in a hidden state. Being inside a tent in the middle of my military camp, I was technically in the sight radius of hundreds of NPC's, but unseen. In theory, in such conditions, Stealth should have been levelling quickly but, at first, I didn't notice any effect. For some reason, the skill didn't want to activate, as if someone could still see me. The fabric of my big tent was not transparent, Irek and Yunna were sleeping inside on bedrolls. Other than them, there was just the Mythical Hound lying at the entrance. I checked. Both of the goblin teens were really asleep, and even had their faces turned to the wall, so they clearly wouldn't be able to see me. That meant they couldn’t be the problem. I had to put the dozing Fimbulthul outside the tent with the rest of the Gray Pack, despite his protests. He must have grown used to his privileged position next to the master and clearly did not understand why his status was being lowered.

  After that, my Stealth bar started to quickly fill. I was potentially in the detection zone of three hundred different NPC creatures, but none of them had been able to detect me in the last two hours, which raised my Stealth by six points to level thirty. What a great way of rapidly levelling Stealth! I was very satisfied with the result and was not preparing to rest on my laurels, but my preparations were interrupted by a piercing buzz from the signal horn of an orcish sentry, having spotted a potential danger.

  I already knew that the sounding of the orcish horn could mean different things depending on the type of threat, so I perked up my huge ears, listening to the melody. A one note staccato, meaning this was not a mass attack, nor a natural disaster, just a lone enemy. I immediately calmed down. Clearly, this was just a high-level creature near our fortification, which would quickly get spooked by the loud sound and leave. But the sounding of the horn didn't stop. What was more, the sound of that one alarm horn was soon joined by several others, which clearly overturned my theory about a random wandering creature.

  Around the walls of my tent, I could see the shadows of soldiers tossing about. The orc camp was hurriedly waking up, getting ready to meet the rude stranger. So, I quickly threw all my new elixirs into my inventory and hurried to the exit.

  Successful Perception check

  Experience received: 100 Exp.

  I was struck and put on guard by the fact that the whole Gray Pack had their tails between their legs and were whining mournfully. The Hardened Forest Wolves, normally striving to show their fearsomeness at every turn, were now cowering behind me and clearly not burning with desire to meet our morning guest. Darius and Darina, with the arrival of morning, usually took on human form, but were still in their warg shapes for some reason, baring their teeth. Fimbulthul, taking adv
antage of the open tent flap, immediately hid inside. Even the huge Baron lost his proud appearance and was now more reminiscent of a terrified beaten puppy. To put it lightly, my pack was acting strange...

  Before I could come to any conclusions on their unusual behavior, though, I heard a wave of moans and frightened cries from all around the orc camp.

  Darkness Magic resistance check failed

  Damage taken: 0 HP (spell Wave of Horror, immunity to fear)

  What a way to start the day! Before, I was yawning wide, insanely tired by the long difficult night. But, after the attempted magical attack, I instantly shuddered. Not a trace remained now of my former sleepiness. Based on what I could see, I was now being protected by the Fenrir's Paws gloves, which gave complete immunity to fear. But what was this creature that could bring a whole military camp to a state of terror?! I ordered the Gray Pack to follow me, then hurried to the fortifications.

  At the barricade, seemingly all soldiers who could hold weapons were already gathered. In the ranks of the orcs lined up to meet the enemy, I even saw a few who still should have been in the infirmary. The mood of the defenders was determined. I didn't see any signs of fear, much less panic. Ziabash Hardy and the Troll Vaash were loudly commanding and generously slapping their yawning or confused warriors awake, setting the spearmen in two rows with large shields, and placing crossbowmen behind them. Shaman Ghuu was doing a strange wild dance behind the formation, waving his crooked staff and putting some blessings on the orcs as they prepared for battle.

  All in all, these were positive signs. The lesson of our recent battle hadn't been in vain. The division commanders were working carefully. The soldiers mostly knew their places in formation, and even the threat of a ghastly creature didn't stop the orcs from quickly taking up defense. But where was the enemy? Amra was too short to see anything over the much taller warriors.