by James Hunter
“This is what I think we should do,” I said, leaning into him and outlining my plan. He nodded along in agreement, but a seed of worry bloomed in my chest as I spoke, my eyes unwaveringly fixed on the Lesser Fiends in the next room. I sort of liked Cutter, but I didn’t trust him. Not even a little. My plan might work, but only if Cutter didn’t leave me high and dry.
And he might leave me high and dry. He’d said as much earlier on.
I stamped down that doubt, because really there was no other way. He would come through for me or he wouldn’t. And if he didn’t … Well, I guess I’d find out what dying in Viridian Gate Online was like. “Sound like a plan?” I finally finished, an edge of uncertainty in my voice.
He nodded, slipped a long black-bladed dagger from a sheath at his waist, then shot me a wink as he crept forward, disappearing after he was a few feet away. I had to admit, that Stealth ability was pretty incredible. Because he was a friendly, a ghostly blue glow outlined his moving form, showing me his location, but that was all I saw. He angled right and padded in as close as he could get to the guards, before slipping between a pair of heavy beds and shifting into a low crouch. Ready. Waiting.
I took a deep, shuddering breath, readjusted my grip on the warhammer, then stole into the room, likewise cloaked in Stealth. I inched closer to the guards, step by stressful step, whispering a silent prayer that this all went well. I was about four feet from the nearest guard when I saw the blurred form of Cutter stand—there was a subtle flash of movement, followed by the resounding clang of metal on stone. Both of the hulking, mail-clad figures before me turned to investigate—only to find a cheap knife lying in the center of the room.
Sleight of hand at its finest.
I leapt forward while both guards had their backs turned, lashing out with the hammer, aiming right for the side of a misshapen skull. The heavy face of my weapon slammed into an unprotected temple, clipping the guard on the right with a sickening crack. I’d played a little baseball back in high school and that crack sounded just like a Louisville slugger slamming into a well-placed fastball.
The Lesser Fiend staggered left, a harsh bark escaping its throat as it dropped its poleaxe and groped at its head—trying to stem the sudden flood of rancid black blood. It looked badly wounded, but it wasn’t dead, which is what I’d been hoping for. I raised the hammer again, preparing for an adrenaline-fueled follow-up strike—only to have a stupid notification flash in front of me, obscuring my field of view:
<<<>>>
Skill: Backstab
Those who rely on the backstab skill know fighting fair is highly overrated. Dead is dead, and a blade from the shadows is often far more effective than a sword blow to a well-prepared opponent.
Skill Type/Level: Active / Level 1
Cost: 20 Stamina
Effect: A brutal backstab attack can be activated while an adventurer is in Stealth. 5x normal damage with a knife; 3x normal damage with all other weapons.
Effect 2: 5% increased chance of critical hit while backstabbing.
<<<>>>
I glanced at the screen and dismissed the notice in a second, but a lot can happen in a second. When the notification finally disappeared, it was immediately replaced with the sight of an incoming axe blade heading straight for my face. The first guard was still reeling from my surprise attack, but the second one was all over me. With a squawk, I dropped below the incoming weapon, the blade whipping over me with a whoosh of displaced air. I felt frantic, panicked, but I knew I couldn’t afford to hesitate.
So instead of simply turning tail and running, I darted in, swinging my hammer.
Somehow, my weapon had twisted in my grip, and the railroad spike of metal on the opposite side slammed into the creature’s unarmored knee. Not what I’d been planning, but the move was viciously effective. Bone snapped, blood spurted, and the horned guard dropped with a howl. The wooden shaft of its poleaxe caught me across the forehead, followed by a flare of pain, but I managed to scramble away before the fiend could get me with the bladed bit. Without thinking, I pulled my hammer free and brought it whirling around in a devastating arc.
Busted-Knee collapsed as I caved its head in; the Lesser Fiend dropped fully to the ground with a wet thud. Dead. Of course, yet another notification filled my vision.
<<<>>>
x2 Level Up!
You have (10) undistributed stat points! Stat points can be allocated at any time.
You have (2) unassigned proficiency points! Proficiency points can be allocated at any time.
<<<>>>
This one I dismissed without a second look. “Deactivate notifications during combat!” I shouted into the air.
“Alert,” came Sophia’s ever-familiar voice inside my head, “notifications have been deactivated during combat.”
“Down,” Cutter shouted, bringing my attention firmly back to the present.
I looked up just in time to see Cutter sink his black-edged weapon into the back of the spellcaster near the portal. Unfortunately, he didn’t do it before said spellcaster unleased a roaring column of flame my way. I threw my body left, flopping gracelessly onto my side, narrowly avoiding the blast of raw power, which blanketed my skin with unpleasant heat. I landed at the hooves of the still-staggering guard I’d clocked with my stealth-attack blow. Its pointed ears quivered in manic motion as it turned its muddy gaze to me, confusion evident on its blood-splattered face.
I tried to roll left, away from its hooved feet, but I wasn’t quick enough.
This isn’t gonna be fun, I thought as a cloven foot crashed down into my belly, connecting with the force of a car crash. A dull pain exploded in my ribs and radiated into my chest and lungs, making it hard to breath, hard to think—the sheer intensity of the sensation was almost blinding. A red-tinged bar materialized in the upper right corner of my vision. On top of being horrendously painful, that nauseating stomp had also cost me a quarter of my available hit points.
The guard raised its foot, ready to curb-stomp me again—
I acted without hesitation, my survival instinct kicking in. I swung my hammer upward, throwing every bit of strength I could muster into the blow. The blunt face of my weapon collided painfully with the Lesser Fiend’s tender bits, assuming it had tender bits, which had to hurt worse than stumbling face-first into a hornet’s nest. Predictably, the creature lurched, stumbled, lost its footing, and toppled forward as it groped its nether bits.
Unfortunately, it landed right on top of me.
The mail-wearing fiend hit me like a rockslide, its immense weight crushing my chest, its rank stink—a combination of old meat and wet dog—filling up my nostrils. I struggled to fight back, flinching away from its teeth-filled jaws, but quickly realized it was already dead. All hail the cheap shot. Still, even dead, the creep weighed about half a ton, and struggle as I might, I couldn’t get the corpse off of me. My health bar flashed again—my hit points were now down by more than 50% and dropping by the second.
This thing was literally going to crush me to death.
“Hold on, Grim Jack,” came Cutter’s voice as I strained against the corpse, working to flip it off. My health was still falling rapidly and I felt light-headed, probably because I couldn’t breathe. Cutter’s face flashed into view a second later, and then the weight on top of me shifted. Cutter grunted and cursed as he worked. “Am I the only one doing anything here? How’s about you push, princess,” he grunted. I gritted my teeth as black crept into my vision and threw everything I had left at the beefy body. Finally, slowly, the creature slipped to one side, and suddenly I could breathe again.
NINE: Rowanheath
The inrush of air was foul with death, metallic blood, and old sweat, but I greedily pulled in great lungfuls. The corpse still pinned my legs to the floor, but after a few more seconds of wriggling, I managed to free myself and gain my feet. My health bar was at a quarter now and flashing a brilliant red—warning, warning, warning it seemed to scream—but at least its meteoric
descent had halted. In fact, it actually looked to be replenishing. Replenishing at the pace of a snail stuck in frozen molasses, but replenishing.
“Thanks,” I said to Cutter, nodding at the blood-covered Lesser Fiend.
“Welcome,” he said curtly, then planted a kick into the corpse’s ribs. “No good, heavy bastard. These things don’t even have the good grace to die without causing trouble. Arseholes all the way to the end. All things considered, though”—he glanced around, a smug grin on his face—“we did pretty good. Nice work with the distraction. That spellcaster didn’t see me until I slipped a blade into his kidney. Now, best we loot this room and move on before any more of these beasties turn up—can’t imagine we’ll fare too well against five or six of ’em.”
Cutter and I quickly broke apart, raiding the three bodies, then ransacking the footlockers at the end of each wood-framed bed.
I’m not sure what Cutter picked up—he was strangely covetous of loot, which seemed odd since I was still fairly certain he was an NPC—but I made out alright. I found a bunch of coins, 40 copper pieces and a handful of silver, plus a few low-quality gemstones. On top of that, I scrounged some crappy starting gear, which I could hopefully sell off to pad my wallet. Lastly, I scored a plain silver ring with a +1 Vitality stat from one of the chests and a rough-worn cloak with a 1% bonus to Stealth from the guard that’d nearly crushed me to death.
Those last two items, I equipped in an instant.
After pilfering what we could, Cutter and I mentally prepared ourselves for whatever threat might be on the other side of the shimmering portal, then jumped through, weapons at the ready. Part of me was expecting the portal to drop us off at the entrance to some new dungeon, full of new enemies we’d have to battle past. I was pleasantly surprised, however, when we ended up in a shallow cave, which exited onto the rocky slope of a forested mountain overlooking a walled city in a valley below.
And it was a city. Not some no-account, backwoods town, but a sprawling metropolis.
A broad river meandered through the valley; scattered farms and small wood-walled homes dotted the green landscape to either side. Beyond those rose a fortified stone wall—an enormous thing, which formed a giant horseshoe across the front of the city proper. The rest of the sprawling city sat in a natural valley formed by a series of treacherous mountain peaks, which effectively enclosed the place in a ring of formidable stone.
Looming high above the rest of the buildings, casting a long shadow over the homes and shops below, was a hulking fortress: all hard lines, gray stone, high walls, and domineering circular turrets carved directly into the mountain face itself. At a glance, the city seemed designed for practicality instead of extravagance. A stronghold built for defense. For war. There was nothing particularly beautiful or majestic about it, but there was a certain harsh beauty to everything.
“Thank the great gods above,” Cutter barked, before giving a rough laugh.
“Good news?” I asked, stealing a sidelong glance at him.
“You’d better believe it, friend. Eldgard’s a big place, after all. That portal could’ve dropped us anywhere. Maybe even someplace over in West Viridia. Yet, fortune smiles on us, because Rowanheath”—he swept a hand toward the sprawl of buildings—“is my home. She was a Freehold city until a couple of years ago when the Viridians finally breached the walls, but she’s still a good place to be. One of the best. About as far from the Viridians’ grubby mitts and unreasonably high taxes as you can get without ending up in the Storme Marshes or the Barren Sands.” He clapped me on the shoulder, then gave another little laugh. “Staring at it won’t get us there, friend. Let’s get walking, eh?”
It was early evening by the time we finally made it past the outlying farms and through the main gate. It’d been a long march—easily four hours of hard walking, which spoke to the sheer expansiveness of the game world. I’d have to find a horse or some other kind of way to speed up travel; there had to be the medieval equivalent of a bus system. I was sure of it.
A mean-looking NPC guard, a [Legionary], sporting vaguely Roman-looking lorica armor—segmented, overlapping leather plates in dark reds and blacks—and a crested centurion helmet, stopped us at the gate. A few quick words for Cutter, followed by a suspicious monetary exchange, almost certainly a bribe, saw us past the looming gate and into Rowanheath.
From above, the city had appeared well organized and orderly, but up close, the place was a chaotic warren of twisting cobblestone streets and dirty alleys. Most of the buildings stood two or three stories tall and were built in a sporadic, haphazard fashion, many leaning drunkenly to one side. The place was a patchwork of homes and shops—some smooth stone, others rough wood, a few a pasty white plaster—which reflected a wide array of backgrounds. Rowanheath certainly wasn’t like any other MMO city I’d ever been to. But despite the chaos, the clutter, and the slapdash clash of cultures, it felt brimming with life and possibility.
So incredibly real.
Cutter took off with a goofy grin plastered in place, his movements sure, confident, and comfortable. He was a man coming home after a long time away. I followed, weaving through a constant throng of foot traffic, mostly composed of burly Wodes in rough, fur-lined clothing and what I assumed were Viridians—men and women with olive skin and Mediterranean features, many wearing long robes trimmed in purple, red, or gold. But I also caught the occasional glimpse of dusky-skinned Murk Elves, like myself, and a spattering of the other races I’d seen during the character creation process.
The strangest thing, though, was that I couldn’t tell which characters were players and which were NPCs.
Cutter led us down the main thoroughfare for a few minutes before slipping into a narrow alley, which connected to a smaller side street of dirt and gravel. We trudged on while hawkers cried their wares—meat pies, knives, skill training, potions, and just about everything else under the sun. For the most part, the vendors ignored us, instead focusing their attention on characters with gleaming, expensive-looking armor or the occasional robe-clad Viridians. With our cheap gear, Cutter and I probably didn’t look worth the effort.
After a few more minutes, we hooked right, cutting through a claustrophobic cross-street, which dumped us onto a wider boulevard of paved stone worn from hard use. Carts lumbered along, drivers flicking crude whips at snorting horses or passersby that didn’t move out of the way fast enough. Open storefronts adorned this section of city; there were tailors, weavers, apothecaries, grocers, fletchers, bakers, and blacksmiths. Wooden signs, decorated with pictures displaying each shop’s purpose, hung above rough doorways.
An anvil and hammer on one, as though the resounding ring of metal on metal weren’t enough. A pair of scissors and a bolt of fabric adorned another.
Cutter paused at the mouth of a shadowy alley, waiting with his arms crossed as a band of soldiers, attired like the Roman sentry at the gate, passed by, escorting a covered sedan chair. Cutter pulled me over and watched the little procession with a phony smile, boarding on a sneer, as the covered chair swayed and bobbed through a sea of grimy bodies. “Worthless, pompous Viridian bureaucrats,” he grumbled under his breath. “Probably some braindead Quaestor, thinks he’s better than everyone else.” He bent over and spit onto the dusty street. “Only thing their kind is actually good at is raising taxes and putting on airs. Stuck-up pricks.”
Despite Cutter’s earlier assertion that he didn’t care about the rebellion, there was obviously a great degree of animosity simmering under the surface. Maybe, buried somewhere deep, deep, deep down in Cutter’s soul, there was a glimmer of human decency—a hope that he wasn’t quite as selfish as he seemed on the surface. Or maybe he just really hated bureaucrats.
Once the procession turned a winding corner and disappeared from view, he grabbed my shoulder and dragged me into the alley, steering me toward an unmarked three-story building of plaster with a black door.
“Welcome to the Broken Dagger, friend.”
&nbs
p; TEN: The Broken Dagger
Despite being unmarked and not having a sign, the Broken Dagger was clearly some sort of tavern or inn. A very questionable one, filled with very questionable looking men and women. The interior was murky, thanks to the absence of windows, illuminated mostly by a roaring fire at the far right-hand side of the room. Blue-grey smoke drifted lazily around in great billowing clouds, and the smell of sweat, dirt, tobacco, and stale beer clung to everything. Rough, dirty patrons packed every bench and table—talking, laughing, gambling, drinking—while servers whisked through the crowds bringing full glasses and removing empty ones.
A fair-haired woman with the golden skin of the Hvitalfar, in a gown so sheer it left little to the imagination, sang some jaunty tune in a language I didn’t know, accompanied by the sharp trill of a flute. Cutter draped an arm around my shoulders and dragged me through the muddled interior to a long wooden bar, presided over by an innkeeper with a balding head and a prodigious gut. Cutter shot the man a wink, but then guided me toward a whip-thin guy in black leathers, perched on a stool in front of a door leading to the back.
“Cutter, you sod,” the leather-clad man exclaimed, slapping a hand against his thigh. “Thank the shadow—everyone thought you were dead. It’s been weeks, man. Weeks. What happened?”
“Not dead,” Cutter replied with an easy smile. “Who could possibly shuffle me off this mortal coil, eh? I’m far too good for that. Besides, the gods won’t let me die—I’m too damned handsome to end up in a shallow grave where no one can see my pretty face. As to what actually happened … well, I’ll need to see Gentleman Georgie about that. But my friend and I could use a few drinks first—maybe a bite to eat. But in a private room if you take my meaning.” He nodded at the door behind the man.
“Sure, sure,” the guy said, bobbing his head. “Not a problem. Georgie’s out, though,” he said with a dismissive sniff, “won’t be back for a few days. Still, you and your friend are welcome back.” He stood, pushed open the heavy wooden door, and ushered us through.
