A Player in the Greenwood: A LitRPG Novella

by Galen Wolf

I got Camouflage, which adds 2 per level to my Hide roll in wilderness areas, and

  Blowpipe - allowing me to blowpipe poisons, which is fast.

  Survival,

  I got Swimming, and

  Smoking (able to smoke healing herbs).

  I didn't take anything in Trapping at this point.

  Herbs:

  I got Dandelion, and

  Comfrey, which I had before on my previous, now deleted, toon.

  Poisons,

  I got Toadflax, a hallucinogen (no idea what this does, but I need it to build up progress in the Poisons skill tree) and

  Clamb (1-10 health damage)

  And then I entered the Greenwood.

  #

  I emerged as a newborn at the central square of my old home city Vinab and looked around—the place was as I remembered it. The Central Square was the main market hub of the city and all about were traders' stalls selling food and clothes and toys. Above the sky was clear blue with a few wisps of cloud. I felt the warm breeze on my cheeks. Then I looked down at myself—dressed in rags. This was the starter outfit of every newborn who comes into the Greenwood. I had no shoes on my feet and my pants were ragged shorts of cheap sacking material.

  I stood there rather dazed and then I saw someone approaching. I remembered him as soon as I saw him stroll across the Square waving like I was his oldest bestest friend. He was a curious-looking man with red cheeks and a blue shirt. I noticed the jingly shiny gold buckles on his brown shoes and the gleam of his wide leather belt. He had a cap with a pheasant feather in it. He looked about 22 years old.

  "Hello!" he said. "Barcud, isn't it? And welcome to your home city of Vinab." He looked me up and down. "I see you have chosen the profession of the Ranger."

  I didn't need his interference. I frowned. "What of it?"

  He kept smiling. "Before you progress far in that profession you should learn the basics of life in this World. The best way to develop your skills and gain experience, is to do the quests we tailor to little ones like you." He went to tickle me under the chin, but I stepped back scowling. Not put off, he beamed, "I can show you some beginner quests to help you to Level 2. Would you like that?"

  "No."

  He cocked his smiley face to one side. "No? Are you sure? Really sure?"

  "No, thanks."

  "Any reason?"

  I spat on the ground like they do in Westworld. "I've got things to do and places to be."

  I waited for him to leave. He didn't.

  "You want to go somewhere looking like that?" He raised his eyebrows.

  "It'll do for now."

  He winked. "Well it's up to you but the offer still stands. Most people who refuse help are dead within a quarter hour."

  "I'll take my chances."

  "Righty-oh, but I won't be offended by your refusal of my generosity. Come back and find me before you hit Level 4 and we will train you and feed you at the city orphanage."

  "No thanks, I'm good."

  "As you like." He gave a cheery wave and walked off. I studied the bustling crowd. Everybody was better dressed than me. They probably thought I was a bum. In fact, I saw a few of the NPCs raise their noses and give me a wide berth like they thought I was going to ask them for a copper piece.

  I saw other beginner adventurers--true newborns fresh to this world, being taken off by their mentors to whatever school or orphanage they had decided to start their lives here in Greenwood. I had no time to mess around; I had something to do. I needed to get into the Old Forest and retrieve that Easter Egg before someone else stole it. I wasn't worried about being jumped by other players because I was so little—they would get a penalty from attacking so little a newborn. I smiled. It should be a breeze to retrieve the egg.

  I knew where the Old Forest was from the Market Square of Vinab—due north through the city gates. And so I set off trudging northwards, the dust coating my feet. The sun was hot and a sheen of sweat filmed my forehead. I hated to think how bad my armpits would smell by the end of the day.

  I walked on through the crowds of happily shopping NPCs, and the odd player character, ignoring everyone. You could tell the difference between NPCs and PCs because the player characters had blue names floating over their heads, while the NPCs had yellow. There was a convention in the Greenwood that once one player took a name, no other player could have it—even if the first player stopped playing and never came back even after many years. That led to some outlandish and weird names. Some of them were full of exclamation marks and asterisks. I realize how lucky I had been with mine: simple, plain Barcud.

  I got to the city gates after a quarter hour stroll. I had no fast travel at this level and was going to have to walk everywhere. Also small stones covered the ground and dug into my feet. I would have to get some shoes—never mind about their armor bonus, I needed them to stop my feet hurting.

  I wandered out through the stone gate of the city. Looking up I marveled—it really was magnificent. It looked like had been there for centuries and was solid, but I remembered from my reading of the history of Vinab online, that the city had been taken by the forces of the evil enemy city of Horrabia and burned to the ground only a couple of years ago. This was the trouble in a world where PVP and combat were rife - the cities were never peaceful for long; there was always an invasion going on or an attack by enemy troops. I felt sorry for the poor NPCs trying to live their AI lives.

  Ahead a drawbridge lay across the moat. I crossed it and the wood was warmed under my pattering feet. Under the drawbridge a branch of The Great River flowed. In times of attack, they pulled the drawbridge up to prevent the access of enemy troops but this was of limited use when the enemy had flying carpets. This hadn't been a problem to the designers of the original castles in Medieval Europe, after which our cities were modeled, but it was sure a design fault in this fantasy realm.

  The wide road to the Old Forest was open before me.

  Butterflies fluttered at the edge of the path. The highway itself was dusty, and I kicked up pebbles and again wished I'd got some shoes. But that would be difficult because I had no money to buy shoes. The currency of the Greenwood was gold pieces divided into silver pieces and below that copper pieces. All pretty standard for a fantasy RPG world. How I'd sneered at copper pieces in my previous life and left them lying on the dirt as I picked up fatter loot. How I wanted that copper action now.

  I rambled on my way. Merchants' carts rumbled by. Some of the merchants' carts had player character floating names above the drivers' heads. These were the people who lived their lives in the Greenwood not as fighters but as traders. There was a good living to be had if you sold the right things. People always needed food but also weapons and magical implements and supplies. Sometimes these traders would use player characters as bodyguards if they were going through dangerous areas, but mostly they bought hireling NPCs who didn't prattle on as much.

  Small cottages dotted the road edge with gardens chock full of spring flowers. Some of them had NPCs sitting in the gardens with golden goblet icons above their heads. These NPCs gave beginner quests about collecting honeycombs. I'd never bothered much with the collect ten pig ass quests or obtain six pints of rat's piss and take it to the tavern keeper NPC. I noticed though that some of the houses were owned by player characters. You could buy your own housing in this world and live in it and get furniture to deck it out and purchase ornaments and paintings. You could even do the gardening, take out the trash and pay the city taxes. I guess the only difference between that and real life was that in real life most players couldn't afford nice cottages in the countryside with beautiful flowers and thatched roofs.

  Of course if you had a house that opened you up to being burgled, and you had to take counter precautions like buying special protective runes. The skilled thieves knew their ways around all of these precautions and so it was always a fair chance that your prized possessions you had labored for, and traded for, and quested for would be gone the next time you logged in. It a
lways seemed too much trouble to have a house, but maybe if I got rich I'd change my mind.

  The problem with my previous incarnation here in the Greenwood was that I had no real focus to my play. The place was a sandbox—you could choose whatever path you wanted, but the danger with that for someone like me was I didn't choose any particular path at all. I'd gone through having lots of different alts with different classes and wasted hours and hours achieving nothing. Now I had a focus. I picked up the pace into the Old Forest.

  I left the cottages behind. The sun was high in the sky and sweat was trickling down the back of my neck. It was a peaceful day, and I had seen no fights. The NPC guards at the city gates were almost unkillable, and they existed to fight off mobs who followed players into the city. The NPCs would not intervene in any PVP fighting; their AI was coded so they didn't do this, which could be good or bad depending whether you were winning or losing the fight.

  After another quarter mile, I was under the eaves of the Old Forest. I scratched my head looking into the forest edge. The trees contained lots of hostile mobs. I guess I was arrogant in thinking I could get the Easter Egg at Level 1, but I'd thought of nothing else since I let it roll away from me that day. I didn't dare wait in case someone else snaffled it. I thought could to sneak there through the trees, get it into my inventory and then relax and get on with the business of leveling.

  And inside the Easter Egg would be the puzzle I'd crack to get me onto the next stage of the mega loot quest.

  But it would be dangerous walking through here. I tried out my level 1 Hiding. At Level 1, you couldn't actually move round and hide — any movement would break the stealth, but no one saw me and that made me feel a tiny bit successful, until I remembered there actually was no one there to see me. I felt less successful, sighed and moved on.

  The forest was shady. Birds flitted from branch to branch above my head. I smelled the grass and the vegetation. It was very pleasant. It was also nice to be in the shade out of the burning heat of the day. But there were things I couldn't see in here, I knew that — predators both player and NPC.

  I went more warily. The Old Forest Road was infamous for the bad guys that lurked to waylay passers-by and steal whatever they were carrying. I looked down at myself—it should be pretty obvious that I wasn't carrying anything of value and I hoped they'd leave me alone, but plenty of people just like killing people because they enjoy murdering. This is what real life would be if there were no police: people aren't good because they're good, they're good from fear of punishment.

  Then I wondered if my experience of being stripped of all my possessions had made me bitter and cynical. No — real life made me bitter and cynical. I'd come here to experience the wonder of creation again. At least that's how it started out. Then I ran into people again. At least here I could grow powerful and kill them all.

  My feet really hurt now. I had blisters on my blisters and was bleeding from various small cuts. Pain in virtual reality was weird. You could get minor pain like this but the pain of a death blow, or major wound was muted down.

  Minor though my foot pain was, it still sucked. I wished I'd taken up the trainer guy's offer and gone with him into the orphanage—they would probably give me some starter clothes, and maybe even a starter weapon. Certainly they would give me shoes, and they would have filled my belly. You had to eat in the Greenwood and there were certain poisons that made you hungry and you could die of anorexia. Weirdly most people subsisted on eating only apples. They would buy hundreds of cheap apples and sustain themselves completely by scoffing these one after another.

  I rested on a big stone by a small stream. The vegetation to either side of the path was thick. Bees buzzed and flies flew. The sun was still high overhead but its full heat could not penetrate the foliage of the great trees. It was really quite beautiful. I had seen no one for a little while—although the Old Forest Road was well travelled. I wondered if that meant that something was going on further up the road. I decided to keep out of that one.

  I got up and continued on. I was near the Stone Cross now and I knew if I took the little path I could get to the Silver Stream near where I'd lost the Easter Egg. I could feel the excitement building in me at the thought of getting my hands on that beautiful golden baby full of sweet puzzling surprises that would lead me to the überest phat lootz, with which I could cut off the fucking head of my assailant. Once I'd worked out who he was.

  Something rustled the branches behind.

  I stopped and listened. The wind shifted the leaves. A blackbird sang. Nothing else. I breathed out in relief and picked a flower. It was pretty, but without a high enough herbs skill I couldn't identify it or use it for anything. I should be able to identify something in this wood. I squinted up at my HUD and called up my skills. Dandelion and Comfrey. No other herbs had snuck in there while I wasn't looking. I saw some dandelions. Hooray! That would give me 5hp for each batch. I had 35hp in total so it was a good proportion. I got more excited. Dandelion grew in woodland but - my heart fell: I had to boil it to make an infusion for it to be of any use—I couldn't just chomp it down. Not good. I sighed. The only other herb I could identify was Comfrey, that grew in mountains and you had to smoke it and they were miles from here and I had no pipe nor the funds to buy one with. Comfrey cured Itch. I didn't know what gave Itch.

  Then I heard movement again. There was definitely something or someone moving behind me through the woods. And then to my right. Two of them. My heart beat faster and my palms grew sweaty. I was defenseless and couldn't fight for shit. I sighed. Here we come death. But then I slapped my forehead—what a defeatist loser. I wasn't far from the Silver Stream. If I ran there and put the Egg in my inventory, it would be mine and remain with me even if I did die. Okay, that's what I would do. I walked fast. Whoever was stalking me moved fast too.

  As well as the one to the right and the one behind me, there was one to the left too - at least three enemies. I didn't even have a letter opener to defend myself with. I broke into a run. Spiky branches stuck in my face and I put my arms up to protect my eyes as I ran through the woods. I tripped and stumbled over tree roots, my breath came in ragged gasps. And as fast as I ran, my enemies kept pace with me.

  I was being hunted.

  Then a paranoid thought burst into my brain —what if they knew I knew where the Easter Egg was and were stalking me hoping I'd take them to it? I stopped dead, and bent over with my hands on my knees to get my breath. (Fatigue was built in to make combat more realistic.) How could that be? Someone had hacked my account? No, but I was a different character now. It was the meat and blood version of me who knew where the egg was. The electric and graphic part was wholly new. I was close to the Silver Stream now, very close to where I'd lost that egg.

  Fuck this. I burst into a sprint. My hunters ran after me, I heard them crashing through the woods. They were on my heels and I didn't dare turn to see what they were because that would lose me time. I left the tree-line, and saw the water sparkling in front of me. There were the boulders and rocks and there, my sweet lord, was the gleaming Easter Egg, glittering in the afternoon sun like a small golden ball. Which it was.

  I ran, gasping, my chest burning. They were close behind now. I wondered why they hadn't filled me full of arrows, but I dove and landed and my finger tips touched the egg - and I knocked it over the stones into a deep pool of the creek. "Fuckity-fuckoh," I yelled as the prize evaded my grasp. It rolled then plonked into the water. I saw it tumble down into a nest of waving green weeds. I stretched out my slim elf hands but the egg sparkled out of reach.

  Fuck my life. No really.

  There was a munching sound. I turned to see it came from my legs. Like I said, the pain of serious wounds was muted by the system. In that instant I also learned why my hunters hadn't shot at me with bows. It was because they didn't have any. They didn't even have hands. They were wolves - five of them - big grey bastards with yellow eyes and teeth like swords. Wolves. They set about me like they had
n't eaten for days and I was pork chops.

  My life was over in seconds.

  The wolves chomped me while I observed in ghostly form nearby — a weird spectator sport watching carnivores carve up your giblets. It was all too rich for my blood. I raised my ghostly hands to the heavens and hit resurrect.

  #

  After I resurrected, I noticed some wear and tear on my rags, but as they were rags, it didn't show much. I accepted the smiley man's offer to go to the Vinab Orphanage where they fed me and dressed me in a smock and sandals. They also let me go on some trainer quests which are too tedious to describe in full here. You're familiar with the kind of quests: go as a messenger to City X, collect 10 pelts of a sewer rat, kiss a girl and see whether you like it. I made that last one up.

  Anyway, I got a level out of it.

  Level 2:

  45hp, 0 mana

  Saves: Dodge 8, Toughness 5, Willpower -1

  In Poisons I got:

  Blacktip - To eat. Kills instantly after 5 seconds unless Athillias is eaten. Successful toughness save negates. Grows in woodland.

  Kura - Grows in freshwater. Causes paralysis for 1 second per bestower level. Successful Toughness save negates. Bad news - the victim has to drink it. I could conceive of some way I might persuade someone to drink a paralysis poison. If they had their sword out, not so much. But the thing with all of these skills is, you have to learn how to use them. The developers are clever - there are ways to do things that are not immediately apparent.

  From my Ranger Core skills:

  Tree Climbing. Not just any trees. In any forest there were specially marked trees, usually standing alone in the middle of a glade, that only rangers could shin up. It allowed rangers to escape from bows.