by Pavel Kornev
I didn’t feel safe. Every time I remembered the sensation of the creature’s sword sinking into my belly, I really wanted to be somewhere else.
I thought I glimpsed a motion. I swung round: no one. And what if there was someone? Fifteen points stealth was quite a lot: unless I stuck my neck out myself, no one would ever notice me. Unless there was some sorcerer nearby with high Perception. Or an archer…
An archer? Shit!
Oh please, I tried to reason with myself. There was no other archer nearby; there couldn’t be. Nor would a sorcerer have lurked in the shadows all this time: he or she would have already attacked me in the open.
Reluctantly I stole toward the Nagini. I’d already looted her before so I just sliced her chest open and slid my hands down the incision. It was the grossest thing I’d ever done in my life, especially because I hadn’t fished out anything, only got myself soiled all over in sticky green blood.
Oh no, flailing definitely wasn’t my thing. I felt like throwing up.
I cussed and moved on to the second archer. There I became a composite bow richer, plus the scimitar and a few useless trinkets and coins. But although I’d failed to locate anything even remotely valuable, I didn’t seem too upset by the fact. Instead, I moved on to the last archer.
He didn’t have much in terms of loot, either, so I walked over to the staircase and just stood there, peering into the dark recesses of all the niches. There was no one around — no one and nothing, not a creaking noise anywhere, not a single rustling sound. My reservations somewhat appeased, I ran down the stairs toward the snakemen slain by Goar and hurried to frisk them, too.
Some money, a couple of gold rings, a spinel earring (not charmed, unfortunately), a money bag, a dagger…
Flop!
At first, I didn’t even realize what had happened. All I’d felt was a slight poke. I looked down. An arrow shaft was stuck between my ribs.
Then pain came.
Damage taken: 65 [155/220]
A blinding agony pierced my stomach, turning every muscle into jelly. I forced myself to stand up and headed for the exit.
Flop!
A powerful jolt to my back sent me onto the cold cobblestones. I pushed myself up and saw an arrowhead, black and lacerated, poking out of my chest. I coughed up blood and began crawling toward the safety of the exit.
The next moment, my head boomed as darkness assaulted it. The world went pitch black.
Critical hit!
You have been killed by a Naga Scout!
The darkness sucked me in, wiping away the pain, dissolving me in its void, then spitting me back into the world.
My resurrection was neither painful nor even unpleasant: I simply materialized by the Tower of Power next to Old Gardens. Which was exactly where I was supposed to respawn. You could say I was back to home base, I suppose.
A few newbs trotted past. I shook off my slumber and rather stupidly felt my chest which was predictably free from wounds. No arrow sticking out of my long-suffering head; no arrow shaft between my ribs… and the penalty to the expired Equilibrium blessing was luckily gone too.
“Better than nothing,” I grumbled, opening my stats.
Experience: 10 750/12 900
My death hadn’t affected my level: until I made level 25, I was immune to losing any. My XP had marginally dropped, but that was nothing to worry about. Not yet, anyway.
I glanced at the Logout button. It was still there. Somehow I found the fact soothing. Everything was going according to plan, no nasty surprises anywhere. But I really needed to speak to Goar and give him a piece of my mind. He shouldn’t have dumped me like that. I’d speak to him… but not before my level was comparable to his.
My vindictive smirk hurt me, for some reason. I touched my face; the white witch’s mark was still there. Against all the rules, my resurrection hadn’t rid me of the scar which was now an integral part of my character.
Cussing her, I touched the Tower of Power, opened the teleport travel interface and selected the capital of the Dark side as my destination. I couldn’t spend another hour in this hole in the wall.
Still, I was too greedy: my modest savings couldn’t even buy me a teleport to the nearest point available.
So what was I supposed to do? Sell my trophies? Not an option, unfortunately. I couldn’t expect the local shopkeepers to offer me a correct price. It wasn’t as if I had a lot of junk on me, anyway. Because most of it was real junk, I had to face it.
I pensively walked around the tower, wondering what to do next. I really didn’t want to repeat my earlier journey by hiking all the way to the Stone Harbor and hire a boat from there. Before, I hadn’t really had a choice — but this time I’d fully expected to arrive at the Old Archer Inn within the next fifteen minutes, have a couple of whiskeys with Mark and enjoy a hearty meal afterward. And now this…
Cussing, I opened my private messages. Luckily for me, Isabella was online, so I messaged her.
“Hi, would you loan me some money?”
She replied straight away:
“Why, did you get hacked?”
“Don’t try to be funny. You know very well I’m back in the game. Mind wiring me fifteen hundred? I’ll pay you back as soon as I get to Lloyd.”
I doubted I could raise anywhere near that with what junk I had, but I had no choice. I’d have to wing it. Once I was out of this hole in the wall, money would take care of itself. I’d pay her back. It might take me some time but I knew I would.
Still, Isabella wasn’t in a hurry to open her purse strings:
“Now why would kitten need so much money?”
“I need to port to the capital.”
“What’s wrong with walking?”
“Are you joking? It’ll take me a week just to get out of here! I’m in Old Gardens at the moment.”
“Kitten, get real. Just go to the nearest Tower of Power. You know very well that prices in playpens go through the roof. It’s done for a reason, to ensure that newbs joined the world in small doses.”
“What are you like? I’ll pay it back to you!”
“Byeeee!”
I cussed and walked away from the tower. When I came across a small shop, I bought the first flask I saw, filled it with water from a fountain and drank until I couldn’t drink anymore. I didn’t bother to stop for lunch, either: I just bought some dried fruit from a grocer and some hardtack from a baker, and headed for the city gates.
I really wasn’t looking forward to traveling across the wilderness alone. Ignoring the map vendor, I beelined for a small square packed with wagons and carts. A supply train had just arrived. Apparently, this mode of travel was quite popular among newbs because the caravanner had already struck up deals with loads of players. In the end, there were about fifteen of us standing there waiting.
The problem was, the supply train was heading for the territories of Light.
Never mind. I still wasn’t affiliated with any faction — and in any case, I wasn’t a deadman anymore. The way I looked at it, I had absolutely nothing to fear. I might be having more problems with the Darkies right now: somehow I doubted the Spawn of Darkness had forgotten my escapades, judging by the fact that they’d blacklisted me. Just think of all of their sorcerers I’d smoked by the Tower of Decay…
It’s all right. I’d sort it out. Let’s solve the problems in the order of their arrival..
12 hrs 38 min…
WHEN THE CARAVANNER announced we were leaving, I took my place in a cart, next to a few other players who kept themselves to themselves, apparently not interested in approaching me. When you’re just starting out in a game, the difference between level 10 and 20 is huge, so I wasn’t really offended by all the distrustful sideways glances. I just didn’t care. I had no intention of striking up any long-term friendships now, anyway. So I just helped myself to the food I’d bought in town, drank some water and enjoyed a moment of inactivity. You just can’t smoke monsters non-stop, prowling about fetid underground tunn
els. I’d deserved a breather.
I knew that very soon the same inactivity would drive me up the wall with boredom, but right now it was irrelevant: this was only a five-hour trip to reach the nearest town of Rotten Woods. What a name! And that’s if the caravanner hadn’t lied about the length of the trip. Then again, he was only an NPC — like all of his coachmen and guards — so I didn’t think he was too prone to exaggerating.
But Isabella! What was she like? You’d think she might help a friend out for old times’ sake?
I nibbled on a piece of hardtack and sighed. Never mind. Whatever. I wasn’t doing too bad, either. The sun was shining; the birds were singing, the air smelled of flowers and warm meadow grass… heaven on earth!
Our course lay across summer fields from one tree grove to the next. No monsters showed any intention of eating us alive — and as for an occasional mob brazen enough to climb up onto the roadside, my fellow travelers jumped to the attack, hurrying to snatch whatever meager XP it had to offer. I’m surprised they didn’t kill each other arguing who would hit the monster next.
The caravan’s guards had nothing to do, so I too kept my hair on, sitting on the cart’s edge dangling my feet in the air and practicing various types of dagger attacks.
Thrust, swing, change grip, a downward blow, change hands. Thrust, thrust, change grip back, a slashing blow, change hands.
My travel companions watched me without even trying to hide their bemusement at such an unorthodox rogue like myself. They must have thought I was off my head. Not that I cared, really. About four hours later, when the sun was on the decline and the trees’ shadows had grown long, I finally received the system message I’d been waiting for:
Achievement received: Stubborn. Type: Dagger
Elven Dagger: +2% to both Damage and Accuracy.
Any other type of dagger: +1% to both Damage and Accuracy
You see? My time on the road hadn’t been wasted! And I hadn’t even had to argue with other players over the right to smoke some puny low-level mob.
Gradually the landscape began to change. We left the tall trees behind; now we were driving past marshes and moors overgrown with shrubbery and studded with low hills. The sun almost touched the horizon now, occasionally peeking from behind one hill or another. It was getting colder. Monsters were now way angrier and stronger than before, so that even the caravan’s guards had to occasionally interfere.
“It takes so long,” a sorceress complained, shivering in her light robes which fluttered in a sudden breeze.
An Elf archer sitting next to her nodded. “Such a waste of time! I have to log out soon. If I don’t change my respawn point in time, I’ll have to start all over again!”
“Well, I’m hungry,” a burly dwarf sighed, stroking his plaited beard.
In the course of the journey, all the newbs had split into several small groups. Although the caravan never stopped to wait for yet another melee to end, forcing the fighters to catch up and take whatever places were still available, these three had been traveling with me for quite a while. Unwilling to play scrooge, I invited them to share what was left of my food with me.
“Please help yourselves,” I said.
The dwarf grabbed a piece of hardtack. After a moment’s hesitation, the others joined in, polishing off the rest of the bread and the dried fruit.
“What brought you to Old Gardens?” the Elf archer asked me, apparently considering the level of intimacy sufficient to strike up a conversation.
I used my standard excuse. “It just happened.”
The sorceress exchanged glances with the Elf and smiled. “So where are you heading to now?”
I could see these guys already had a plan to make me join their team, hoping I might rush them a few levels. Normally, I’d be all for that. The girl was quite pretty — I could see that she’d spent hours working on her character’s appearance, and in her flimsy robes she could charm your socks off. And seeing as I wasn’t dead anymore and had no embarrassing problems with blood circulation… why not have a bit of a fling on the side?
The problem was, I had other plans — and no amount of dead weight, no matter how pretty, could compensate for disrupting them. My itinerary was perfectly clear: the Tower of Darkness; my plan had no place for newbie players.
So I just shrugged. “Don’t know yet.”
“But-” the sorceress began, then fell silent without finishing.
Twang! A short arrow pierced her throat, its bloodied shaft exiting her neck like some gory piece of costume jewelry.
I was saved by my good reflexes — or rather, by my high Dodge. Before my brain could even grasp this new development, my body jumped off the cart. Just as it did so, two arrows sank into the place where I’d just been sitting.
Stealth mode: activated
I dove under the cart. The archer Elf collapsed next to me — the difference being, he was already dead and on his way to his respawn point. A gang of highwaymen poured out of their ambush in the roadside bushes, mainly orcs level 30 to 40. Either we’d been unlucky enough to bump into a Chaosite avant-garde, or they were local scumbags who must have decided to do a bit of PK-ing on the side.
The caravan’s guards had no chance of mounting a half-decent defense. Most of them just legged it, not even bothering to draw their weapons, and barged directly into the quagmire, just as the orcs must have planned.
I chose not to give in to the surrounding panic. Instead, I stole from under the cart into the nearby bushes. The sounds of battle filled the road: the clanging of metal, the desperate screams, the whooshing of arrows.
When a fireball exploded in the center of a group of caravan guards huddling together, I lost all desire to join this losing battle. I couldn’t kill a level-30 warrior even if he turned his back to me. All of the orcs were wearing full armor; the moment I stuck my neck out, they’d send me on my way to meet my maker.
So I didn’t. There was no way I was going to respawn in Old Gardens again. Besides, a whack on the head with a sword hurts a lot. Really a lot.
Another bolt of lightning hit the road — a normal one this time, not a magic one. Stealthed up, I dug deeper into the bushes and wormed my way through them away from the carts and the wagons where the orcs were still busy finishing off newbies and caravanners. The whizzing of arrows over my head never ceased, so I gave the hill a wide berth before finally climbing it from the opposite side.
By then, the archers had already stopped shooting and begun climbing down the hill, heading for the road. Their shaman, however, took his time joining them.
Big mistake.
He was a young orc, about twenty-five years old, thin to the point of being scrawny. Next to his burly friends, he appeared a total wuss. He must have minimized Constitution when he’d created his character, aiming to invest into Intellect and Perception instead. Another big mistake.
The temptation was just too big. Clinging to the ground, I began crawling toward him.
The shaman tensed up, swung round and began casting wary glances around. The tall grass concealed me well, though. As soon as he turned back and hurried after the archers, I caught up with him in two leaps and covered his fanged mouth with my hand in an already well-practiced motion.
The shaman tried to fight me off — but apparently, his strength was just as lacking as his constitution. I easily overcame his struggling. My dagger entered his chest with a surprising ease. The orc shuddered and went limp, slumping to the ground.
Player Three-Handed Gho has been killed!
Experience: +1021 [11 862/12 900]
I didn’t get a PK mark which was understandable: they’d been the first to attack, and technically, the shaman and I had been engaged in a fight when I killed him. I picked up his carved staff, cut the money purse off his belt, ripped off his earring and stood up, searching for someone else to carve up. In the end, I decided not to risk it, so I ran off the hill and wisely walked along the roadside, unwilling to expose myself.
Wisely? Wi
sely my ass! A wise man wouldn’t have killed that orc but would have made himself scarce at the first opportunity. And I, in my fool’s wisdom… who was I after that?
The orcs must have been following my trail all along. I discovered it by chance when a murder of jackdaws took to the wing behind me, screaming their indignation. I looked around at them and saw orc rangers emerging from the bushes in an extended line, skirmishing me.
Pointless trying to outsmart them. Concealed by the foliage, I darted off and kept on running until my Stamina was firmly in the red. Only then did I slow down to a trot. I had no desire to receive an arrow or a tomahawk in the back, but I just couldn’t keep going. Neo’s amulet was not as powerful as I’d have wanted it to be, and my rogue wasn’t meant for either short or long distance running.
