by Rick Scott
“Thanks, Bro…”
* * *
Gilly aims her short bow at the lone buffalo, pulling the string taut. “You sure you’re not going to let it hit me, right?”
I chuckle as I admire how great Gilly looks with the new weapon in hand. It’s a level one item she picked up from one of the villagers, who had some weapon crafting skill. If she’s going to be any good with that Goblin Queen’s Spellbow, she had a lot of skill levels to make up for between now and level 80.
As I gaze around the meadow I notice it looks nothing like how it did in my dream. For one, the sky is overcast and not blue, but that’s a good thing, since it blocks out the sun and made for a cooler trek along the river to reach the place. The meadow looks more like a hay field, with grass at least a couple feet tall. And the buffalos are ten feet tall behemoths and look more like wooly mammoths.
As Gilly prepares her shot I check our target.
Mountain Buffalo
Level: 60
These hardy beasts are the gentle giants of the plains, but can be unforgiving when provoked.
Affinity: Earth
I double check my HUD to make sure my buffs are still up: Shadow Copy, check. Shadow Haste, check. Shadow Tendrils, check. “Go for it, Gilly.”
“Okay!” she says and lets her arrow fly.
Gilly misses the Mountain Buffalo.
Her arrow falls painfully short of the mark and gets lost in the tall grass.
“Aw, shoot!” she says.
“No worries, try again.”
As she materializes another arrow from her inventory, I think back to both my conversation with Val Helena and my brother an hour ago, and not to mention my dream earlier. I wonder if I should tell Gilly about it at all. Not about the dream, of course; at least not the first part of it. Things have moved so fast that we haven’t really discussed what spending more physical time together might mean, or lead to—or if we’re even ready for that. But besides my brother, we were basically unsupervised out here. And that has my teenaged hormones working overtime when I think about the opportunities. Bah, get your mind out of the gutter, man! I shake the thoughts away and focus on what I’m really supposed to be agonizing over: Should I tell Gilly about the mine or not?
I’ve already blown telling the truth to Maxis and Val, maybe I should just keep it to myself altogether. Maybe I can just pretend I never knew about it and then act surprised when it’s ‘discovered’ down in the mines.
“You okay?” Gilly asks as she nocks her arrow.
“Yeah, I’m good,” I lie. “Go for it.”
She lets the arrow go and she lands the shot this time.
Gilly hits the Mountain Buffalo for 1 damage!
“You did it!” I shout and the beast turns and snorts in her direction.
“Save me, Reece!” she cries with a laugh as the huge animal begins to charge.
I launch myself into the buffalo’s flank with Charge Strike, sinking my kunai into its wooly hide for 10% of its health. The beast bleats and bucks and then lunges at me with a headbutt, but I avoid it easily. I slash into it with my blazing katanas and drop it down to 30% health before I have to side step another attack. Gilly then shoots another arrow into it.
“I got a skill up!” she says triumphantly.
I laugh with her as I take the rest of the buffalo’s health down to zero.
You defeated the Mountain Buffalo!
You gain 13000 experience points.
“Wow nice!” Gilly says. “That 30% XP bonus from the village really helps. Let’s do some more of these!”
I press my palm against the huge corpse of the buffalo and convert it.
You find 3 Nano Fragments.
You find a portion of Buffalo Meat
You find a portion of Buffalo Meat
You find a portion of Buffalo Meat
“It dropped a lot of meat too,” I say. “Maybe I can add it to the village stores later.”
“Or we can barbeque it tonight!”
I chuckle. “Good idea! Let’s take on some more.”
We go about the process of leveling and pick off lone buffalo to hunt. Maxis was right, they’re the perfect mobs for us to duo. They’re big and powerful, but they attack slowly and don’t team up. I tank them easily while Gilly continues to use her bow for practice. After a few, she begins alternating between her bow and using her Holy Fire spell to burn the mobs down faster.
Gilly gains a level every three or four kills, but that eventually slows down to one every five or six when she hits level 50. We chat idly between the mobs, but my attention starts to drift as the conundrum sits in the back of my mind. I push on through it, though, and try to enjoy the fun of simple combat again. I level up once and by mid-morning I get my second level for the day compared to Gilly’s ten.
Congratulations! You have gained a level!
You are now level 80!
You have learned a new ability: Assassinate
Base 25% chance to instantly kill an enemy that is in a weakened state or 15% health or less.
Activation: 1 second
Cool-down: 30 seconds
Cost: 15 TP
“Congrats!” Gilly says with smile, waving her bow in the air.
“Thanks,” I say and check out my new ability. It seems kind of weird to me. If something is already at 15% health, it would probably be faster to just kill it outright, than rolling the dice on a one in four chance of insta-killing it.
“What’s wrong?” Gilly asks as she nocks another arrow, ready to take on the next Buffalo.
“Nothing,” I say. “Just checking out this new ability I got.”
“Is it good?”
I shrug. “Not too sure.”
I read the description again. Maybe it’d be useful on a boss or something.
“You sure you’re okay?” Gilly says. “You don’t seem like yourself today. Did something happen this morning?”
“Huh?”
“If something’s wrong you can tell me, you know?”
I look into Gilly’s deep green eyes and feel the concern and compassion within them. She’s such a special girl; someone who cares about me no matter what. I think about the mine again. Should I tell her about it? I’d feel a bit bad for spreading the burden, but if I can’t share this with Gilly, then who can I? I let out a sigh. “Actually…I do need to tell you something, Gilly.”
She lowers her bow as her brow furrows with even more concern. “What is it?”
“Maybe you should take a seat.”
We sit down together in the tall grass and I tell her the whole story, starting from when I fell down the hole. I tell her about the crystal forest and the giant shadow monsters I saw and the huge thing in the distance I couldn’t quite make out. And then I tell her how the giant chased me and how I just barely made it out before the ceiling closed back up.
When I’m finished, Gilly is looking as pale as a ghost.
“I’m sorry,” I say. “You’re the only one I’ve told this. I didn’t want to mention it in front of Rembrandt at the time, because then he’d tell my brother. And I didn’t want this to detract from our mission of saving Val’s friend. I figured he might bail on her, if he knew that maybe Citadel could be down there.”
“You really think it could be?”
I shrug. “I dunno, but it’s underground and that’s where Citadel is supposed to be. And it looked to go on forever down there.”
“Hmmm,” Gilly says pondering it. “And you said you haven’t you told Val either?”
I shake my head. “I thought about it, but… I didn’t want her feeling torn about it either. Especially after dropping the bomb about Aiko. She has too much on her mind.”
Gilly nods. “That’s just crazy what you saw, though. What do you think they were?”
I shrug. “I couldn’t scan them so I’m not sure. Maybe they’re those omega things Blacktop mentioned.”
“Maybe…” Gilly says.
“So what do you think?” I as
k. “Should I just tell everybody?”
Gilly focuses her eyes on the ground in thought. They go back and forth a few times and then she looks back at me. “Well, when you do eventually tell your brother, you know he’s going to be super pissed, right?”
I sigh. “I know… and we had this big heart to heart this morning too. I couldn’t even tell him then.”
“On the other hand,” Gilly says. “He always gets pissed at you, so who cares? And Val would probably appreciate you sparing her the added stress too. At the end of the day, we already made the decision to help Val first. That hole isn’t going anywhere. We’ll tell everyone when the time is right. I agree that it would be too much of a temptation to pursue if we mentioned it now. Plus we can’t do anything until we level up anyway, right?”
Gilly smiles and I feel a wave of relief wash over me. “Thanks Gilly. It feels good to hear someone else say that. I hate having to keep secrets. But I seem to be doing it more and more these days.”
She shrugs. “They’re necessary sometimes. Just like with my dad I guess.”
I pause to think about Bruce Peters and the massive secrets he’s had to keep in order to preserve the greater good. I pray that I’m doing the same.
Gilly chuckles and ruffles my hair. “You really overthink things, you know. But your heart’s always in the right place, Reece. That’s why I like you so much.”
I find myself blushing and then surprised when her lips touch mine.
I return her kiss and we fall back into the grass.
It’s just like in my dream. But better. This time it’s for real. My brother’s warning to remain respectable comes vaguely to my mind, but I could give two hoots about that now. This feels way too good to stop. We’re alone in a new world, just the two of us. And the possibilities are endless. I think I’ve never been happier.
Then the ground shakes.
What the heck?
Again just like in my dream…
Both Gilly and I sit up startled.
“What was that?” she says looking about.
I do the same and spot an enormous buffalo in the center of the meadow that’s twice as tall as all the others. And it’s completely white. Its massive horns are curved downward, reaching the ground, almost like tusks and through its nose is a massive black iron ring.
Lakota
Legendary Monster
Level: ???
This ancient mountain spirit is the protector of the great herd. Folklore tells of its bellow causing avalanches and its hooves strong enough to break solid rock.
Affinity: Ice
A new Quest is available: Taming of the Herd
Defeat Lakota to gain access to the Buffalo herd resource.
Rewards: +100 Favor Brookrun Village, Herd Resource
“Holy cow, they have LM’s here too?” Gill says.
“Holy cow is right,” I say looking at the giant beast and then I check the quest and begin salivating. An advancement like that would be awesome for the village. Plus the lure of being able to defeat that thing is just too much. “Imagine if we could duo that, Gilly. You’d probably hit 85 right away!”
Gilly laughs nervously. “You aren’t really thinking that are you?”
If this was still Crystal Shards maybe, but here was a different story. “Have you tried sending a PM here yet?”
“Yeah, when you fell down the hole. It said you were out of range though.”
I try contracting Val Helena with a PM and get a similar error message.
[That person is not within communication range]
I sigh. “I guess it’s for short distances only out here in the real world.”
“What are we going to do?” Gilly asks.
“Wait here,” I say as I activate Sprint. “I’m going for back up!”
Chapter 14: Lakota
I’m exhausted by the time I reach the village. It’s not a far distance away, perhaps just a couple of miles, but I’ve been sprinting and jogging the entire time. I run and check the common hall first and find it empty. Darn. Where are these guys?
I check the village square next and find Wilbur seated on his favorite bench. He waves at me in greeting. “Master, Reece. How are you? You look flustered.”
“Hi Wilbur,” I say in between pants. “Have you seen Maxis, Rembrandt or Val Helena?”
“Yes,” Wilbur says. “But they left some time ago. They’ve set off for the quarry to bring back stone for the forge you ordered. I think they may have gone to visit that trader fellow Blacktop as well.”
Darn. Even Blacktop’s place is a good half hour’s hike from here.
“Is something the matter?”
“Sort of. A large monster appeared when we were in the meadow. I was trying to find them to help fight it.”
“A large monster, you say? Do you mean Lakota?”
“Yeah.”
Wilbur’s eyes widen. “That beast has not appeared for years. Perhaps it’s your felling of the Goblin Queen that did it.”
“What?”
“We used to possess control of the meadows, but lost it once to goblins took over. If Lakota has appeared, it means the herd is about to move.”
“Move to where?”
“To some other village perhaps. Lakota does not stay for long. It’ll soon disappear and take the herd with it. If we had the strength to defeat it, the herd would remain for a few years more perhaps.”
“How soon will it disappear?”
“I don’t know. An hour maybe?”
Crap! “And they’re all gone to this quarry you say? How far away is it?”
“Not too far. I’d say twenty minutes each way if you run.”
Double dang! I’ve got to make a choice here. No way can I go looking for them at the Quarry. The LM would have disappeared by then. But maybe I could engage it in combat to keep it from disappearing. I’d just have to kite it until they showed up. But would that be the same out here as in the game? “Wilbur can you do me a favor?”
“Sure.”
“Can you send someone to the quarry for me? Tell my friends to get to the meadow as soon as possible! I’m going to start the fight without them.”
“That sounds dangerous. Are you sure?”
Do you wish to accept the quest: Taming of the Herd? (Y/N)
“I think so,” I say. “Please tell them to hurry!”
I accept the quest and take off running back to Gilly.
I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here, but an opportunity like this won’t come by again. Plus those buffalo were dead easy to tank. An LM version of them shouldn’t be too much harder. I hope. I just need to keep an eye out for the AOE attacks and keep Shadow Copy handy. That’s right. I’ve got to remember I still have that game breaking ability to draw upon.
I can do this.
I’m a Dodge Tank.
* * *
“Gilly!” I shout when I reach the meadow again. “We’re going for it!”
She looks at me perplexed as she stands from where she was sitting in the tall grass. “What?”
I give her a quick rundown of what Wilbur said and she’s left biting her lip. “Are you sure about this?”
I shake my head. “I don’t know, but I have to try. If it starts going bad we can just run away, right?”
She doesn’t look so hopeful. “I suppose so. You want to wait it out some? It hasn’t really been doing much besides just standing there.”
I focus on the giant white buffalo again but don’t see any kind of timer. The only thing I do know is that I just wasted a good half hour or so running to the village and back.
“Fifteen minutes tops,” I say. “After that I’ve got to engage it.”
We go over a simple strategy while we wait it out. Gilly will stay just within casting range, but as far away as possible. And if it performs an AOE attack, her job is to run away just to make sure she isn’t hit by it. My plan is to play hide and go seek with it. Just like I did those dockworkers back in Swifttide. Backstab, run
away, Shadow Cloak, repeat. I give my character sheet a check and make sure all my points are spent.
Name: Reece
Class: Ninja
Level: 80
Strength: 6+25
Dexterity: 80+5
Agility: 80+5
Intelligence: 4
Mind: 6
Vitality: 17 +20
HP: 982/982
Stamina: 277/277
TP: 166/166
I have 6 points to spend and decide to dump them into vitality again, raising my HP by 120 points and bringing my total to 1102/1102. Finally four digits. Hopefully that will be enough to take a stray hit. My stomach flip-flops at the thought of it. This isn’t the game anymore. If I’m wrong, I won’t just have to respawn, I’ll be dead.
Dead, dead.
The idea sends a weakness to my knees.
“What should I spend all my points on?” Gilly asks. “Mind?”
“I guess so,” I say. But then I think again when I recall that arrow she took from the Goblin Queen. “Maybe save some for Vitality as well. You’re our main healer. We can’t have you falling down on the job.”
I smile at her and that gets her to chuckle a little, but I can tell she’s really nervous. And so am I. But I can’t chicken out. The victory will be worth the risk. Not only will killing this LM fast track Gilly and I toward our goal of leveling, it will make us able to leave sooner to help Val’s friend. Plus it’ll help the village too and give a lot of nano as well, I hope. And that’s still the ultimate reason we’re here, to get nano, to save Citadel. To save my mom. We won’t be able to do any of that if I let opportunities like this slip by.
I’ve got to be brave here.
I’ve got to tank the crap out of this.
My heart is racing with anxiety when I see the timer I set in the corner of my vision pass the fifteen-minute mark. “It’s do or die time, Gilly,” I say.
