A Slave in the Locked Lands

by Arthur Stone

  “We’ll see. We have nothing to lose. What should we do about Danger Babe?”

  “What do you mean?”

  “She cannot stand upright. She just keeps falling.”

  “Well, why don’t you just leave her lying down?”

  “Doesn’t quite seem to be the right thing to do.”

  “In that case, lean her back against a rock. She can sit like that.”

  “I wonder what happened to her. It’s still three hours till evening. Could her parents have chased her out?”

  “No idea. She’ll tell us herself if she wants to. That’s not the kind of question you ask anyone. Bad manners. You’d better get on with the rings. And don’t forget to craft yourself a better staff. Our equipment and weapons are trash noob grade, and look at us, planning to descend right into the depths of those caves.”

  * * *

  “Hey, my GF also unplugged me once during a boss fight. Wouldn’t wish it on anyone—I had burst vessels in my eyes and looked like a vampire. Barely managed to stop the nosebleed, too.”

  “Oh, come on. That’s all BS. My old ISP connection kept dropping all the time, and nothing like that ever happened.”

  “You’re a nincompoop, try reading the thread from the beginning! It did not happen before, but it does now, and if you log off unexpectedly, you’re in for some nasty stuff. All sorts of things happen.”

  “I’ve heard of a guy who had a stroke when his wife unplugged his modem. Or it could have been his kid, I’m not quite sure. But he went linkdead suddenly.”

  “You might want to read the end user agreement. It says that you need a reliable connection to play, and that you have to use the interface logout option.”

  “I don’t care about that. I use 3D interface, and don’t need immersion.”

  “3D lags the way 2D used to lag way back. No one uses 2D anymore, and the same will happen to 3D shortly, too.”

  An excerpt from a forum thread: Frequent Logoffs: Latest Impressions.

  Chapter 20

  Just like many other people her age, Danger Babe forgot to say good morning, but immediately expressed a vivid interest in jewelry.

  “Ros, have you managed to make any of those bracelets?”

  “So, we don’t say hello anymore these days, do we?”

  “Oops. Don’t be so fussy about it! Hi!”

  “Where did you disappear last night?”

  The expression in the girl’s eyes was that of someone intending to lie, and she said in her overemphasized earnest manner:

  “I have connection problems. I got kicked off. Couldn’t log back on.”

  “Well, these things happen. Here you go: a pair of bracelets and a necklace with a pendant.”

  “Thanks! It’s a pity this bracelet has such a huge bonus to Accuracy. It’s not like I need it for anything in particular.”

  “You’re an archer as well, aren’t you?”

  “Not here, though, and not at this level! I told you, I only used the bow at the lowest levels.”

  “Don’t worry about it. That’s just how it turned out. The second bonus is a few points to Stamina, which will sure come in handy.”

  “Did you make anything for Tangh and yourself?”

  “I have.”

  “And, as usual, your own stuff is probably the worst of the lot?”

  “Didn’t manage anything worth mentioning. Not the luckiest of nights.”

  “Are we just going to jabber, or shall we get down to business?” the norder asked.

  “Let’s go.”

  “All right, then would you please explain your plan while we’re on our way?”

  “No plan, really. We just get as far in as we can in order to make it back before nightfall.”

  “Sounds good to me. Especially given my senility. Real easy to remember.”

  * * *

  Nothing of interest happened during the first hour. The group of three kept on moving deeper into the cave, easily dispatching individual and well-familiar mobs. The first surprise came when they entered a large hall with a high stalactite-covered dome. There were three tunnels leading out of it, and Ros stopped for a while, trying to choose where to go next.

  He barely managed to notice the movement, and yelled as he jumped away in the nick of time.

  “Up there!”

  The mob that dropped down from the ceiling had chosen the norder, apparently impressed by the size of the quarry. That was good news, as the beast’s very first attack took off a quarter of the tank’s HP bar. What it would do to an unequipped flighting was obvious enough.

  “Shield!” Danger Babe yelled.

  “Sleep!” commanded Ros at the very same time.

  “Your target reflects the damage towards you.”

  Ros froze, unable to move so much as his pinky. He could not even look sideways, having gotten hit with his own spell.

  Danger Babe didn’t take tong to realize what was happening. Tossing a big heal and a few regens at Tangh, she dispelled Ros right after. As soon as he could move again, he ran back a little, and then hit the mob with Chaos Aura.

  The creature looked familiar, resembling an animated black bear hide. He’d already came across its like in the caves—it was a shadowcrawler. They were rare and always attacked from an ambush, dealing a lot of damage, but their defenses weren’t that strong.

  This one was no exception. While Tangh held it at bay with his abilities, drawing the mob’s attention to attack the tank and not the other party members, Ros showered the beast with Chaos Arrows with impunity. Whenever it would get upset about it and switch from the norder, Danger Babe would root it, so it never managed to get far.

  “You kill the Moss Shadowcrawler. XP received: 4527. Points left until the next level: 233,684. Attention! You have found a creature that has not yet been added to the world bestiary! You receive a reward: +50 to mana. You can receive the reward for discovering a new creature at the Academy of Magic. Your Mental Power grows by 1. Congratulations! Your party has destroyed a monster 70 levels above the party’s strongest player! Achievement earned: Brave Companions, Part Two. Achievement bonus: +1 to Attack. Bonus effect: permanent. Achievement unlocked: Brave Companions, Part Three. Kill 50 monsters whose level exceeds that of the party’s strongest player by 70 or more using your party’s resources to complete the achievement. Achievement bonus: random. Condition: the party cannot contain more than six players. The party’s median level must be at least twice less than that of the monsters.”

  “An achievement!” Danger Babe yelped.

  “Yup,” Tangh nodded. “He damaged my cuirass.”

  “I’ll repair it,” said Ros.

  “You know how to repair?”

  “I know how to craft them, so repairing shouldn’t be a problem. I’ll need some bronze to do it, though.”

  “Have you got any?”

  “I have. There are a few bars left that I haven’t used up. Take it off.”

  “Could I check for loot?” Danger Babe asked.

  “Do you have any hunting skills?” Tangh inquired.

  “No.”

  “In that case, better let Ros do it. Haven’t you noticed he always picks up more?”

  “Why doesn’t he do it once I’m done?”

  “It doesn’t work like that. You can only pick up loot once. There are a few exceptions—quest items, soul crystals, and class-specific items.”

  Danger Babe moved away from the mob, looking a little upset. But Ros cared nothing about that—he hurried to loot the mob, rejoiced at finding another soul crystal, and shared some of his recollections with his friends.

  “I have already seen these critters. Also inside caves. But those were a lot lower in level. They were just as dangerous, though. They were called cave shadowcrawlers.”

  “This seems to be a hybrid between shadowcrawlers and moss dwellers,” said Tangh as he took off his cuirass and handed it to Ros.

  Danger Babe, still holding a grudge, started to wander around the hall, starin
g at walls. Then she yelled out in surprise:

  “Wow! Well, this is a first!”

  “What is it?” asked Ros and Tangh in unison.

  “There was this shiny gem within the rock. Looks like an amethyst. And I have unlocked Perception. And they gave me three points to it at once. From zero to three, imagine that. So cool! It’s a secondary stat, after all!”

  Ros approached the girl, gave a closer look, and whistled:

  “I can’t believe my eyes. You have found a sapphire!”

  “Is it expensive?”

  “You need your Mining & Quarrying skill to be at 104 to mine sapphires. There are no miners whose skill is anywhere near that level, unless you equip items that raise it, and those are rare and expensive. How did you manage to notice it in the first place? My Perception is at 18, but I only noticed it when it was right under my nose, following your eyes.”

  “Not sure. I kept on wandering around, and there was this greyish vein in the rock. I started to trace it, and found this pretty gem at the end.”

  “You might want to examine grey veins more often,” the norder suggested. “And ones that aren’t grey, too. And bring your ball of light closer to the rock—it appears to be useful. I don’t know much about the prices of these gems, but I’d be surprised if it costs less than five hundred.”

  “In silver?”

  “In gold, my dear girl. In gold.”

  “Wow! Hey, Ros! Will you be able to get it? You have the highest Mining & Quarrying among us.”

  Ros shook his head.

  “Mine’s just at 19, and you need 104 for something like that. There chance of success is miniscule.”

  “Well, you still have a higher chance than either of us. Try it,” said Tangh.

  “Oh, all right. Danger Babe, I’d like to use your pickaxe. It’s the best one we have.”

  “Here. Do you reckon it will help?”

  “I’m not quite sure, but I’ll be able to do it quicker that way. And this should take more than a few taps.”

  The rock kept resisting Ros’ onslaught for some ten or fifteen minutes. Then, a small miracle happened. The gem didn’t become damaged, crumbling to useless rock dust under the noob’s pickaxe, and there he was, holding it in the palm of his hand.

  “Sapphire Crystal. Blue, with cavities and inclusions. Weight: 3.3 g.”

  “Your Mining & Quarrying grows by 1. Your Mining & Quarrying is now at 20. The damage you deal to the resource grows by 25%; your chance of receiving an extra resource grows by 2.5%; your chance of discovering an unexpected resource grows by 0.01%.”

  “We did it!” Ros smiled.

  “Hooray!” yelled the girl.

  Her yell was answered instantly by a triumphant roar from a distance, accompanied by a choir of blood-curdling screeches.

  “You shouldn’t shout here!” said an irritated Ros.

  “Oops. Let’s run! Oh, no, we cannot! Tangh won’t be able to keep up! They’ll catch up with us!”

  “You run; I’ll try to hold them back,” said the norder.

  Ros shook his head.

  “We’re in it together. So, we’ll meet them in battle.”

  “And then we’ll die together… you fools…”

  “So be it. Danger Babe, cast a regen on him in advance, and give him a shield. Tangh, you try to get as many of them as you can to attack you. If they’re anything like the shadowcrawler here, Danger Babe will be down in two hits, if not sooner, and without her we’re as good as dead.”

  “If they’re anything like that beast, we’re as good as dead, anyway,” replied the norder. Then he laughed, for some reason, and said something odd. “You go, Ros. We believe in you. Show us what you’ve got.”

  The mobs poured into the hall. They were small, reaching just up to Danger Babe’s neck, and she was of a petite build. They resembled bats that no longer knew how to fly, but retained rudimentary wings of a characteristic shape, which, for some reason, grew from their backs. Their wide maws with rows of razor-sharp teeth were the source of all that horrid screeching.

  There were about ten of them.

  The norder leaped up, landing heavily, with a circle of light spreading around him. As it reached the mobs, their bodies became engulfed in cocoons of electric sparks, taking off some of their HP. It was no wonder that the whole pack attacked the tank, making short work of his shield.

  “Heal!” Danger Babe yelled.

  One of the mobs turned to attack her, but Ros cast Sleep on it, then proceeded to pound away at the nearest one, anxious to kill off as many adversaries as quickly as he could. Seven Chaos Arrows proved enough for one.

  “You kill the Scrum Underling. XP received: 4293. Attention! You have found a creature that has not yet been added to the world bestiary! You receive a reward: +1 to Agility. You can receive the reward for discovering a new creature at the Academy of Magic.”

  He started on the next scrum—the one that stood still and slept—trying to keep an eye on how the others were faring all the while. Tangh was down a third of his HP, but things didn’t look too dire. The mob broke free of the rooting spell, but went down at once a few feet from Ros.

  Two down.

  He got lucky with the third—it only took three Chaos Arrows. The third must have hit some vital organ, and a critical hit by a mage was no joke.

  Things appeared to have stabilized a little. Tangh’s HP bar was almost full. Danger Babe was healing him without any strain, and casting Sleep on the mobs that would switch their attention to her. The tank would then proceed to attack those very mobs, drawing them back to himself.

  Another scrum burst into the hall—only this one was so huge, it made even the norder look diminutive.

  “Unknown creature. Aggression: unknown. Sociality: unknown. Level: unknown. Abilities: unknown. Stats: unknown.”

  “A boss!” There was a hint of panic in Danger Babe’s voice.

  “It’s just an elite mob!” Ros decided to reassure his companions a little. “It hasn’t got a name! Danger Babe, keep hitting it with Sleep! Come on!”

  The girl’s spell missed. The boss became irate, and gave another roar like the one they had heard from a distance earlier.

  “Effect received: all your effects are dispelled. Attention! All your current effects have been removed! Your buffer will have to cast them again!”

  Right, like he would ask Danger Babe to re-buff him at a moment like this.

  Ros’ Sleep took, and the enormous bat-like creature froze. Unfortunately, it wouldn’t last long given the level difference and his relatively low skill.

  Ros fired off a couple of Chaos Arrows at the smaller mobs. Then the boss woke up, and rushed toward Danger Babe. Ros turned and shot at the giant beast, whose plans changed instantly.

  The rrokh watched its enormous bulk approach, counting the seconds till his Sleep would come off cooldown, keeping an eye on Danger Babe and their tank’s health, and trying to finish off one of the smaller mob.

  The mob fell. The boss—or the elite mob—hurled a swarm of black dots that looked like insects at Ros from some ten feet away.

  “You successfully reflect the effects of an unknown skill. Your opponent is stunned. Your opponent is blinded.”

  The mob howled in pain and surprise, rubbing its eyes furiously. That was pure luck—Ros’ unique belt came in handy. The chance of it working was only eleven percent, but this was the second time it had helped him out of a tight spot.

  “It’s blind, leave it alone! Let’s get the underlings!” Ros yelled.

  They downed two more before the “leader of the pack” came to. Danger Babe cast Sleep, and missed once again. Then the pesky bastard reflected Ros’ Sleep as revenge for the blinding spell earlier.

  Ros went out of commission for a while as the boss refocused on Tangh. It was all Danger Babe could do to keep him up.

  “I’ll dispel you after the Shield!” she shouted.

  At least his hearing was intact.

  “Shield! Dispeling!


  Upon coming to his senses, Ros instantly cast Chaos Aura on the mob, taking off a tenth of its HP bar. The scrum retaliated with some nasty skill that left nearly nothing of the norder’s health. They had to drop everything and heal the tank together. Unfortunately, his health restored very slowly, as he was taking quite a beating.