A Slave in the Locked Lands

by Arthur Stone

  “Pickaxe of an Experienced Miner, made of excellent steel, with a bronze pin. Item quality: Good. Tool and crushing weapon. Physical damage: 14-24. Tool bonus: 28-48 to damage to rock. Level required: 17. Weight: 2.68 kg. Durability: 280/280.”

  Ros gave a whistle.

  “It’s a good pickaxe. I mean, its quality is good.”

  “Purple?” Tangh asked him.

  “It is. I’m reluctant to enchant it now lest it breaks.”

  “Show it to me,” the norder asked. He studied the tool and made his conclusion. “I don’t need any enchantments. This’ll do just fine. Hey, Danger Babe! How about I give this one to you, and you give me yours? You’ll work faster, too.”

  “What about you?”

  “There won’t be much difference with my Strength and Attack.”

  “All right, then.”

  Ros slapped himself on the forehead.

  “I’m an idiot! I’ve forgotten everything after our encounter with this bastard. Here you go, Danger Babe. There are six rings here. They give bonuses to Intellect, Stamina, and a few other things, too.”

  “Where did you get them?”

  “I crafted them last night. I had originally intended to give them to you in the morning, but then I got a little distracted.”

  “Thanks so much, Ros. I’m being showered in presents for the second day in a row.” Danger Babe waved her pickaxe menacingly.

  “When I was young, we didn’t give young ladies gifts of pickaxes,” the norder sighed. “Ros, you know how I hate asking others for things, but could you think of something you could do about weapons and armor? You have plenty of talents, it would appear. And I’ll pay you back as soon as we get out of here.”

  “It’s not about the money. I have no blueprints whatsoever, not even the simplest kind. And it’s hard to make something decent without them.”

  “You’re pretty good with staves and rings. Pickaxes, too.”

  “There’s an in-game concept called crafting relativity. Items you’ve already used and those that resemble them are easier to make, and you don’t have to rely on blueprints. Since you’re a tank, I understand that you need armor, a helm, a shield, and a sword. Am I right?”

  “You are. Boots would be nice, too.”

  “Are there any boots made without leather?”

  “I’ve never seen any.”

  “They’ll ask me for leather when I’ll try crafting something like that. Where would I get it?”

  “What if a mob drops a leather cuirass or cape?”

  “I’ve never seen anything like that happen here.”

  “Well, you never know.”

  “We’d have to make leather strips and scraps out of them.”

  “I can do that.”

  “Well, I might give it a try, in that case. As for heavy armor, or a sword and shield, that’s unlikely. I’ve never owned any of those. All I can try for is really light armor.”

  “Anything would be better than these rags. And you’d have a tank of your own, too. Those can come in handy.”

  “I’ll do some experimenting at night, but I can’t promise anything. I’ve wasted an enormous number of rings to make these six. My Jewelry even went up a bit.”

  “Danger Babe has told me a lot about your talents,” said the norder, then paused, as if expecting something.

  Probably for Ros to divulge something—some of his secrets, if not all of them. But the rrokh deflected instead.

  “Try to get as much ore as you can. I’ll need all the raw materials I can get for the night.”

  “Mark as many ore veins as you can. I can only find copper, and the same goes for Danger Babe. “I rarely manage any of the other stuff, and it’s even harder to produce it.”

  * * *

  When evening fell, they walked Tangh to the exit—that was the time he’d announced for handing out meat to the other slaves. The norder ascended the meandering path slowly, seeking to provoke an attack, but the accursed archer never turned up, much against Ros’ hopes.

  He must have been hiding somewhere.

  Ros nearly gnashed his teeth. What was he supposed to do now? If he left Danger Babe, their adversary would kill her, and Tangh would not be able to protect her. His plans to grind in the dungeon while mining for crystal would not come to fruition today—he’d die before letting that scumbag do any harm to the two players that had cast their lots in with him.

  An old man who had rejected real life, and a girl who was a minor. He did have the knack for cultivating the strangest friendships.

  Indeed, these two were almost as strange as he was.

  He wouldn’t have abandoned them even without the strange dream, which wasn’t really a dream. There was something special about them. Also, seeing as the night visitor had been spot on with his predictions the first time, it would behoove Ros to heed his words again.

  A team. A team was what he needed. Ros was told in no uncertain terms that he shouldn’t just count at himself in the future. He’d need other players to help him.

  He just wished he knew who this night visitor was…

  Or, perhaps, what it was.

  * * *

  Only about half of the players surrounded Tangh, eager to get their handout. The poor souls were barely moving for lack of strength. The rest of them remained at the bind point, abandoned by their owners. Those lot must have decided to take a month-long break from the game, given the circumstances, and hadn’t so much as bothered to read the forum.

  Their loss.

  “Follow me, Danger Babe.”

  “Where are you going?”

  “You’ll leave your body on the other edge of the crater, and I’ll try to make sure that creep doesn’t come back.”

  “What about Tangh?”

  “He can see where we’re headed. He’ll find us—it isn’t that dark yet.”

  “All right.”

  Ros asked her as they approached:

  “You never told me what happened yesterday. You’ve just dumped your character without any warning.”

  “Well… I had to log off. Very suddenly. I’m sorry.”

  “You’ve put us in a right pickle…”

  “I’ve already said I was sorry!”

  “All forgiven, don’t worry about it.”

  “Ros… I have to thank you. I would have given up if it wasn’t for you. I just can’t express it… I’m really sorry. There was nothing I could do—I had to log off right there and then.”

  “I’ve already told you—I get it, and I’m not accusing you of anything.”

  Danger Babe nodded.

  “All right, then. Here goes, just in case.” Her eyes became expressionless for a second, and Ros was starting to suspect she’d gone off without saying goodbye again, but then she rapped out:

  “Danger Babe grants Tarros4 permission to move her body to the distance of up to fifteen hundred feet if she goes offline. Will that be enough?” That last part was addressed to Ros.

  “Sure. Just enough to drag you into the woods, where the wild wolves roam. So, I won’t get any more electric shocks?”

  “You shouldn’t. But mind how you use my permission. Only as a last resort. All right, then, I’m off. Thanks, Ros.”

  “See ya, Danger Babe.”

  He sat down next to the girl’s stiffened body, and proceeded to flush his mana for simple gem enchantment. He wasn’t interested in effects as much as in growing the stat. Ros had a plan. He would do all he could to level it as far as he could, and once diminishing returns made any further leveling irrational, he would use up his undistributed auxiliary stat points to raise it even higher. He had five of those so far.

  High Enchanting would enable him to create expensive items. No longer would he have to spend days and weeks sweating and fighting in perilous dungeons to procure them. Besides, after the recent events, he might not even have access to the thylbit cave anymore.

  Ros sincerely hoped that, with his extraordinary Luck, Enchanting would become a r
egular and plentiful source of income.

  Otherwise, he’d have to come up with another plan altogether.

  Chapter 18

  A sword wasn’t that hard a weapon to make. But no matter how hard Ros tried, the system wouldn’t budge, denying him the ability to craft the weapon, either offering no explanation at all or citing the lack of proper ingredients.

  “Ingredient required: lead counterweight. Possible substitute: gold or platinum counterweights. Ingredients required for substitute: gold or platinum bar. Ingredient required: leather strip. No substitute available.”

  So that was it, then.

  Ros filled the bag with the talons and fangs of moss dwellers, bars and alloys of different metals, adding a few hard pieces of wood, and activated crushing weapon crafting with a rough idea of what it should look like in his head.

  “You craft a Mace of Despair from the Locked Lands. Attention! You have crafted a unique item! It has no duplicate anywhere in Second World! You receive a reward: +1 to Magical Transmogrification, +1 to Invention, +1 to Creation, and +1 to Learner. You gain a level. Points left until the next level: 323,472. You can craft blueprints for a new item: Mace of Despair from the Locked Lands. New auxiliary stat unlocked: Calligraphy. Attention! You have crafted an item using ingredients no one had ever used before. Some of the properties of the following ingredients have been studied: Moss Dweller’s Talons, Moss Dweller’s Fangs. You have demonstrated real ingenuity. You receive a reward: +1 to Inventing.”

  Ros decided to go for broke this time, producing a soul crystal and performing an enchantment.

  “Enchanted Mace of Despair from the Locked Lands. Item quality: Enhanced. Melee weapon. Physical damage: 116-174 (crushing). Additional stats: +9 to Strength, +8 to Stamina. Enchantment effect: +6 to Stamina. Requirements: Level 48. Weight: 3.85 kg. Durability: 710/710.”

  “Are you asleep?” he asked Tangh, who was sitting right next to him, in a soft voice.

  “How could I possibly be asleep when you’re making me a weapon?”

  “Sorry, I couldn’t get anywhere with the sword. I would at least need a few noob blueprints, then have a good look at them, and add the corresponding items to the list of those studied.”

  “That’s a pity. Well, you can land a good hit with a pickaxe, too.”

  Couldn’t he see the mace that Ros held in his hand? Then Ros remembered his eyesight. The norder could see next to nothing at night, so he couldn’t see the weapon.

  Ros couldn’t use a floating sphere as a light source like Danger Babe, so he lit a small flame with his finger, and handed the mace to Tangh while providing as much illumination as he could master.

  “Take a look at this. Might be a decent replacement for a sword.”

  The tank took the mace, swung it this way and that, grunted, and swung again.

  “This should do. But I won’t be able to use some of my skills. My character is a sword specialist strictly.”

  “I can’t make a sword.”

  “I get it already. Thanks, Ros. I felt naked without a weapon.”

  “Well, there’s no equipment on you, so technically you’re still naked.”

  “Not as much as before. Will you try to do something about the armor?”

  “Sure, I’ll do my best.”

  Even though Ros knew nothing about armor, he made surprisingly quick progress. Unfortunately, none of his attempts to craft anything out of iron yielded any result. Bronze turned out to be much easier to handle, and he went on to craft a bronze cuirass, vambraces, and greaves. Then he got stuck. All the previous armor items had required leather, which he’d managed to substitute with strips of untanned hide. The helmet was outright refusing to be crafted using the same method, as were the boots. And the shield also demanded wood.

  But there wasn’t a single scrap of leather anywhere.

  Bronze made with tin was considered a noob metal in Second World. It could only be used for low-level items with weak stats. But Tangh seemed pleased—he didn’t frown once.

  “I’ll carry on with the rings now.”

  “Could you think of something for Danger Babe? That pesky archer nearly halved her HP with a single arrow made of makeshift materials.”

  “She’s a mage, so she can’t carry heavy stuff. She needs cloth, though leather would do in a pinch.”

  “She cannot wear any heavy armor at all?”

  “She may be able to wear it, but her casting speed would drop drastically. By an enormous factor. Heals would take her much longer to cast, and she would also get interrupted a lot.”

  “Bad news, that…”

  “Well, that’s why us mages are called squishies.”

  “I’ve seen you in battle, and I wouldn’t call you squishy.”

  “I don’t take much damage. I keep away from mobs, and the two of us keep ‘em under control.”

  “You should have less health than Danger Babe, but you seem to be able to take a lot more damage. That’s pretty strange at your level.”

  “Well, we all have our secrets.”

  “True enough.”

  “I’ll start on the accessories. It’s going to take a while, so you might as well sleep.”

  “Are we talking bracelets and amulets?”

  “We are. They use quite a bit of metal, but still a lot less than armor.”

  “But didn’t we produce enough already?”

  “You have no idea how much of it just gets wasted.”

  “That makes sense. Jewelers aren’t a popular profession for a reason.”

  “I can see why—the cost is enormous. Less than Enchanting, but not by much with so many resources wasted.”

  The norder squinted.

  “Am I to understand you’re leveling both without any care for the cost?”

  “Is it a sin to be wealthy?”

  “Few of the wealthy are free from sin. But you’re right, it’s none of my business.”

  “Would you go to sleep already?”

  “What about you?”

  “The rings will take a while to craft. I’ll leave myself some three hours of sleep.”

  “I’m afraid the little git might sneak near when it gets dark.”

  “Set up attack notifications for all party members. As I found out this morning, they could wake even the dead.”

  “You were sleeping in the mine? Weren’t you afraid?”

  “I was too tired to bother.”

  “I see you’ve leveled up.”

  “That’s thanks to your mace.”

  “How’s that?”

  “I received an achievement for inventing a new weapon. No one’s ever used the local fangs or talons before, after all. I got enough XP, though I don’t think I have the exact value in my logs anymore.”

  “Try inventing other stuff, Ros, while there’s still time. It would be insane to waste such an opportunity.”

  “I’ll do what I can, don’t you worry. I’m already enjoying it here. There are some great incentives for ingenuity.”

  “I’ve already realized you didn’t want to leave.”

  “I exaggerated a bit. But one thing’s for certain: there are opportunities here, and you can be the first to exploit them. Like this quest.”

  “We don’t even know if it’s a quest yet. There are many who think otherwise. Everything is just a bit too murky, and the term too long. It’s a complex game, after all, and it has its bugs, so this might be one of them.”

  “If you open your quest journal, you’ll see you have to deliver ore to Agythric.”

  “I’ve seen it. But you typically get detailed log messages when you do a quest. That wasn’t the case here.”

  “I saw mentions on the forum about quests that weren’t easily understood. Plenty of them, too.”

  “That’s true. The world is changing. It is becoming more complex.”

  “Have you been playing long?”

  “I have. I used to be very casual, but now I hope to remain here forever.”

  Ros said
nothing. It would be interesting to find out how this person came to the decision to abandon reality, but players had an unwritten rule about prying into the real lives of others. Any personal information shared had to come of their own free will.

  Ros started on the most monotonous work in the world—the transformation of metal bars into wire and strips of metal. All of this would soon become rings, and, if luck remained on his side, there may be a few good-quality ones among them.