by Mia Archer
“I’m sure your reward will be like nothing you could imagine,” I said, then took a shot in the dark. “But would Calixia be happy to be left out of her cut?”
“Do you work for her or something?” he asked, panic suddenly crossing his face. “That was just a little joke between friends. I always give her the proper cut! I even bring her girls if they're promising.”
More and more interesting. Also frustrating. I had more information, and no idea what the hell it meant. I also didn't dare push this too far for fear of revealing I had no idea what he was talking about.
“I don’t work for her,” I said. “You seem awfully scared of her though. I wouldn't think a big strong man like you would be afraid of anything!”
I batted my eyelashes again. It turned my stomach to do it, but I figured he might not notice I was pumping him for information if he was distracted by the sexy.
“She's on the warpath ever since that explosion. Word is someone got a screenshot of one of her high level gatherings, but you didn’t hear that from me,” he said.
“My lips are sealed,” I said.
We walked on in silence, and I thought about what I was getting myself into. This guy had a pretty good racket going. Hang out in one of the newbie areas. Find pretty girls who looked like they needed help. Offer to tag along. And if there weren’t any pretty girls around who were willing to give him his preferred payment then he could find someone to pay him for his trouble in real money.
Not to mention he was in cahoots with this mysterious Calixia, for all that he seemed to be a foot soldier who didn't know all that much.
The fucker. Literally and figuratively. And I fully intended to make this asshole pay for what he’d done to me. What he'd done to those other girls, for that matter.
Even if there was a good chance the plan I’d worked out was going to get me killed too.
21
Revenge
“I’m Aleric, by the way,” he said as we made our way down the path that led to the goblin lair.
He was just making conversation. Insipid conversation that maybe worked on other women, but it wasn’t going to work on me.
We’re talking it wouldn’t even work on me if he was a hot girl rather than the pile of muscle, armor, and asshole that he actually was.
I smiled. “You can call me Koiva.”
“Koiva,” he said, rolling around the name for a moment with a stupid grin. “I like the sound of that. It’s pretty.”
Pretty? If this was his A game then I could understand why the hell he was hanging around the starter zone trying to trade dungeon runs for whatever the hell it was he was getting in payment.
“Oh I’m sure you say that to all the new girls who come through this zone,” I said. “I bet you’re very nice to all the girls you see trying to fight goblins.”
Aleric missed a step. He stared at me sideways. As though he maybe suspected we’d had an interaction before. If this was a move he pulled with all the newbies who came through here, at least all the pretty ones, then it stood to reason that a girl moving through here would run the risk of seeing him a second time.
“Right,” he said. “Are you sure we haven’t met before?”
“Oh I’m sure I’d remember meeting a man like you,” I said, batting the old eyelashes again.
What I wanted to do was launch myself at him and maybe use some of the new magic I’d gained with this new character to knock him on his ass. I was looking at this asshole who’d just left me for dead with a bunch of goblins doing the in-game equivalent of a gangbang with a bunch of swords and knives, after all.
The only thing that stopped me was the sure knowledge that even if I did attack him he’d be able to take me easy. No, I was going to have to be crafty and scheming about this.
He angled off the beaten path towards the goblin lair. Which had me wondering what the hell he was up to.
“Um, where are we going?” I asked. “Doesn’t the path lead that way towards the mine?”
I was pretty sure that was the path. I’d found them a little farther down the path with the mine entrance in sight. So why the hell was he heading off into the forest now of all times?
“There’s a better path to get behind some of the goblins if we go this way,” he said. “The front entrance is okay if you have a decent sized group, but if it’s just the two of us we need to be sneaky about this.”
“Oh,” I said. “Well I guess that sort of makes sense.”
Still, I was on my guard. It wouldn’t do for me to get him out here with the intention of killing his ass if he managed to kill me before I could get to him.
I looked to some of my spells. There were a lot more ranged attacks with this character than I had before, after all. I figured if this asshole was going to try and pull a fast one on me like he did when I was playing on my Bladedancer then I could hit him with a couple of spells that would hopefully distract him long enough for me to get away from him.
Maybe.
“Here we are,” he said as we came to a clearing.
“Um, I can’t help but notice that there aren’t any goblins in here,” I said.
At least I was pretty sure there weren’t any goblins around. They’d been pretty good at hiding the last time I faced them down, so it was entirely possible they were hiding out somewhere around the tree line.
Though even that seemed off. Like if there were goblins hiding in the trees, and we’d been walking through those trees, then it stood to reason that some of those goblins would’ve attacked us. We were well within aggro range.
They didn’t seem like the kind of creatures that would take too kindly to someone moving through their territory, after all.
“What the…”
I felt something snaking around my stomach and anger filled me along with a rush of adrenaline. Though that didn’t stop him from leaning in close and whispering in my ear.
“I was thinking we could get to some of that payment now,” he whispered in my ear. “Before we go in and get all messy with all that nastiness. What do you think?”
I put my hands down on his. He snickered and it felt like he was about to press his lips against my ear. Only I hit him with a light spell that sparked against his hands.
There was a surprised yelp followed by a thump. I turned around and saw a tree swaying. Which was the sort of thing a tree did when something slammed into it hard enough that the wood splintered and left an Aleric shaped hole in the front.
Well, sort of a hole. He was still in that hole, after all. Wearing a tree didn’t suit him.
“What the…”
He looked up at me and frowned. Stood. Put a hand on his sword.
Meanwhile I was wondering what the fuck had just happened. I’d only meant to give him a little spark. Yet somehow he’d flown across the clearing.
Again I thought back to that goddess and all that crap she’d said about me being her Chosen One, whatever the fuck that meant. Did this have something to do with that?
“What the fuck was that?” he asked.
“You don’t put your hands on me,” I said.
“What the fuck are you talking about?” he asked, throwing his hands wide. “We were just having a little bit of fun!”
He didn’t have his hands on his sword anymore. That was something. I figured that meant he didn’t plan on using it. Maybe. With a little luck.
“You have a lot to learn about having fun,” I said, taking a step back. “And you’re not having fun with me. Not ever.”
He opened his mouth to say something, but before he could say it harsh voices drifted across the clearing. Harsh voices speaking a language I didn’t recognize, and I figured that couldn’t mean anything good.
“Goblins,” he growled, turning to the edge of the clearing and frowning. “Just what I fucking need when you’re being a bitch.”
“Fuck you,” I said.
Okay, so this wasn’t going exactly how I’d imagined it going, but if there were goblins comi
ng along then I could do something about it. Maybe.
The goblins burst into the clearing. There was a group of five of them. Aleric looked at them and his face went pale. I guess he didn’t like his chances against all those goblins.
He let out a loud shout that felt like it was way more than a shout. A ring of faint red shot out from around him and slammed into the goblins. As the ring of whatever the fuck it was hit them their eyes glowed red for a moment and then they all turned towards him.
Which was a good thing from my point of view considering it looked like there were a couple of those goblins who’d been about to turn towards me and give me some of the business.
They drew their weapons and the first one to enter the clearing crashed into Aleric. He dug his feet into the ground and managed to hold against it easily enough by bringing a shield up.
Because of course he could hold against it easily enough. Watching him fighting those goblins, even if he did seem a little nervous about that fight, suddenly brought to mind something I hadn’t considered when I was coming up with this plan.
Namely that he was a higher level than all of those goblins. So even though they were dogpiling onto him, he was able to hold his own to some degree.
He shouted again. It was an incoherent shout filled with rage. Again that circle went out, though it was more solid this time. Again there was a glow from the goblins’ eyes and they redoubled their efforts to hit him.
He was taunting them. Of course. Trying to draw their attention to him even as his health bar went down. Because that’s what tanks were supposed to do in a game like this.
Tanks drew enemy attention. DPS wailed on the enemy and lowered their health bars while the tank held their attention. The healer kept the tank and any DPS who weren’t doing things right topped off with health.
If everything was working correctly then the monsters never stopped looking at the tank. If things went bad in a fight then the monsters started paying attention to the damage dealers and the healers. Usually monsters paying attention to the DPS was the fault of the DPS, and usually the monsters paying attention to the healers was the fault of the tank.
Right now he was keeping their attention well enough. Their health bars were going down, but as I looked at the goblin health bars moving down, the one he was concentrating on was on the verge of death, I could see that this was a fight he wasn’t going to win for all that he was holding his own for the moment.
His health bar was going down faster than he’d be able to take out these four. Heck, he’d be lucky to take out one of them.
Aleric turned to me. Grunted. Looked annoyed that he even had to say something.
“Why aren’t you healing me?” he shouted.
That shout was just a normal shout. Not a taunt to draw the digital monsters’ attention. The goblins were wailing on him and he was losing health and the healer right next to him wasn’t doing anything.
My plan was working. Sure I felt a little bad that my plan was working when he was doing his best to keep these things off of me, but that didn’t change the fact that he’d kicked me to the ground and left me for dead yesterday. That didn’t change the fact that he probably pulled this kind of bullshit drawing women off the beaten path and asking for payment when they were in no position to stop him.
“Y’know we have met before,” I said.
His face screwed up in confusion as he held his shield up and bashed one of the goblins moving in on him. He was moving in a complicated dance that never had more than one goblin actually bringing its weapon down on him at a time, and it would’ve been impressive if I wasn’t working up a good head of anger.
“What the fuck are you waiting for?” he shouted. “I need to get healed if we’re going to survive this. That’s how this works!”
“We met yesterday, actually,” I said.
Again he looked confused. “I don’t remember meeting you, and believe me I would’ve remembered meeting a girl like you!”
“Yeah, you probably don’t remember meeting me because I was a Bladedancer with short hair yesterday. A lot more butch than what you’re looking at today,” I said.
He was so surprised at the big reveal that he stopped and stared. Stopping and staring wasn’t good considering that gave one of the goblins an opportunity to land a hit that sliced into his shoulder. He went down to his knees and cried out in pain as the sword landed.
I winced. That didn’t look like much fun. I briefly wondered if I should maybe change the plan and help him out after all, then he opened his big mouth again.
“Fuck you!” he shouted. “And your stupid fucking Bladedancer. If you’re the sort of idiot who thinks that’s a good choice of class then you deserve to get killed by goblins you kill stealing bitch!”
Another goblin ran him through. He cried out in pain again. I winced again. It looked like the pain simulation in this game was some hardcore shit if he was feeling every poke and prod that was hitting him.
“Oh yeah?” I said, holding my hand up. It started to glow with the energy of a healing spell, but I didn’t let it loose. Aleric looked at me with hope that he might actually get out of this in one piece, but that hope didn’t last for long as I let it sputter out.
“If you think I deserved to die yesterday and you were so willing to help me along the way then I think you should get the same treatment today. How about that?” I asked.
He might’ve been working up something to say in response to. Unfortunately for him one of the goblins picked that moment to ram its sword through his face. Blood spattered everywhere and his body twitched a couple of times as his vital internal organs, or at least their digital equivalents, were introduced to the business end of that goblin’s pointy sword.
Then the goblin pulled that sword out and that was that. It was over. What was left of Aleric slumped to the ground. He still twitched, but the fight was clearly out of him. A moment later his body faded away as he released to the nearest graveyard.
It was done. My plan had worked. I couldn’t believe it!
22
Hot Pursuit
I didn’t even get a moment of satisfaction watching his ass dying, though. No, no sooner had he literally dropped dead than all the goblins turned their attention to me, and it wasn’t the good sort of attention.
No, they were looking at me in the way that a man might look at a woman he was interested in. The only problem being I wasn’tt interested in a bunch of scary digital monster things being interested in me like that, thank you very much.
Though one of them, at least, collapsed to the ground even as it took a step towards me. It looked like Aleric had hit the thing with some sort of damage over time attack that caused it to bleed out. At least he was doing me one small favor from beyond the digital grave.
That didn’t stop the other four goblins from moving in on me though. They were moving nice and slow. Grinning nasty grins that showed pointy teeth. Basically they looked like hunters who knew they had all the time in the world, and so they weren’t going to bother exerting themselves too much.
Okay. Not good. Maybe letting Aleric die hadn’t been the best plan, after all, if it meant these goblin fuckers were going to come after me now that they knew I was defenseless.
I pulled up one of my offensive spells. It was a short ranged spell that used light magic to attack creatures. It wasn’t much, but it was the best I had with those goblins at range. Besides, I had the example of what’d happened with Aleric earlier getting tossed a hell of a lot farther than I thought a little spark from one of these spells would toss him.
So I threw a light spell at one of the goblins.
The results were nice, but nothing near to what I’d done to Aleric earlier. The goblin went flying back and slammed into a tree, but we’re not talking end of the world type stuff here. No, the thing stood and dusted itself off, its health bar down a little bit but otherwise no worse for the wear.
Shit.
I was faced with a situation where t
here were three goblins who were looking more bemused than anything as they advanced on me, and one goblin who was looking good and pissed off now that it’d been thrown directly into a tree and was shaking itself off.
And now they looked like they were getting ready to move in and really fuck with my shit. So I did the only thing that seemed like a great response to this situation.
I turned and ran in terror. Though it could’ve been worse. I could’ve been pissing myself as I was running in terror.
My breath came in ragged gasps as I ran through the forest, pumping my legs as quickly as I could.
The only problem with that idea being that "as quickly as I could" was a hell of a lot slower than I would've preferred considering I had four goblins on my ass looking forward to doing God knows what to me.
Unfortunately the forest seemed to be doing its best to prevent me from getting away from these goblins. It was almost enough to make me wonder if the game devs had done something to make the terrain hostile to people who were getting chased. Every time I thought I was about to get away I found myself getting whipped by a branch or a twig or… Something.
As though that thought was enough to summon something to really fuck with my day, I pitched forward as a root or something snagged my legs.
It really made me pine for the good old days of video games back before collision detection was so realistic that you could get tripped up by a root. Though of course this was the first game I was aware of where you could actually get tripped up by a root like this. Whatever.
I screamed and my arms went out in front of me out of instinct as the ground came up to meet me.
It turns out the sensation of getting the wind knocked out of me was just as realistic in this game as it was in the real world. I rolled onto my back and tried to take a couple of deep breaths, but unfortunately my traitorous body didn't oblige me.
Something was still crashing through the forest behind me. Something big. Maybe a few somethings, even, and I knew that didn't mean anything good for me. I had to get out of here even if I couldn't draw a breath yet.
