Noob Game Plus

by Ryan Rimmel

  The only issue Phillip had with that arrangement was that Su-Kar would be upset. She wanted to peel all the skin off Jim’s face, and she would be disappointed if she didn’t get her chance.

  Phillip, Twinkle, and Hardragon watched Jim’s grand entrance from their high vantage point and waited.

  They had front row seats when their whole plan collapsed.

  ***

  “Ready,” I yelled, as Badgelor activated his amulet and leapt onto the side of the tower. Whoever had built the temple did so with the intention of stopping casual climbers from ascending its heights. More accurately, the structure's Durability was so high that climbing it was next to impossible, even if you were a War Badger. Badgelor’s massive claws would not have gained purchase.

  However, Badgelor was a War Badger with an Amulet of Spider Climbing. The badger hit the wall like a champ, and, for a terrible instant, I was afraid the magic wouldn’t work. Thankfully, he got his feet steady and started scuttling up the side of the temple. We were a good three stories up before the kidnappers figured out what to do.

  As the first arrow flashed toward me, I swatted it from the air with my sword. I Dodged a second arrow, barbed with electricity, and it whizzed past my head. The third arrow was going to be a problem, though.

  “Explosive,” I yelled.

  Badgelor’s head snapped up, and the arrow vanished inside his maw. A few moments later, there was a popping sound. Badgelor had tooted out the bomb.

  ***

  Twinkle looked at Phillip. “Did he just swallow that?”

  “He’s a damn War Badger,” Phillip groaned, “but don’t worry. I’ve been saving something special for just such an occasion.” He pulled out a nearly transparent arrow. “Devil’s Glass, also known as the Assassin’s Arrow. Let's see Jim spot this.”

  Lining up the shot carefully, Phillip aimed right for the asshole’s eye socket. He began pouring Stamina into the attack. The Woodsman had been calculating this one for quite some time. An invisible, Powerful Shot should knock Jim’s head clean off. Phillip would have preferred an explosive variant, but Explosive Shot wouldn’t work on glass ammunition. A Power Shot would have to do. Su-Kar would be disappointed that she missed this.

  The arrow vanished silently and shattered, as Jim’s sword smashed it to dust. It had come just short of its intended target. Phillip suddenly became aware of a cold feeling growing in the pit of his stomach.

  ***

  I yelled, “What the hell was that?” as fragments of glass started to pepper my skin. Even the small shards of that arrow were enough to cause a minor bleeding effect where they scratched me. I hadn’t even seen it coming. My investment into Parry Anything was paying off in dividends.

  Also, feck you, Durg.

  “Fifth floor,” stated Badgelor. We continued charging up the side of the building.

  ***

  Phillip shot arrow after arrow, as the unstoppable force continued up the side of the temple. Jim either knocked them aside effortlessly, or the badger took the hits without any noticeable Damage. By the tenth arrow, the cold feeling in the pit of Phillip’s stomach had grown to encompass his entire body.

  Hardragon swallowed audibly, his throat still destroyed from his earlier double roar. He was on double cooldown and couldn’t use that specific trait again for a week.

  Not a big deal. It hadn’t worked anyway.

  “We only need to stop him for an hour,” Hardragon hissed. Phillip was already doing what he did best, and Twinkle was a melee combatant. They needed more ranged support.

  Hardragon’s muscles tensed. He reached over to the massive stone railing and pulled, activating his Rare Power Lift skill. The stonework held for a moment, then shattered free. The Dragonsworn grunted mightily and lifted a gigantic hunk of the multi-ton object.

  “Let's see him avoid this,” growled Hardragon.

  ***

  I smashed another arrow. Badgelor yelled, “Sixth floor!”

  We continued scurrying up the side of the building, finally crossing the point where the temple stopped being straight up and down. Now, we were at a very sharp angle that led to the rooftop. Our opponents were on the overhanging balcony, only three stories above us, on what amounted to the roof of the temple. I was thinking through my first attacks, when the sound of shattering stone hit me.

  I looked up to see the massive stone railing around the balcony being torn free. Hardragon seemed to be throwing it. Well, I would really classify what he was doing as aggressively dropping it. He had broken it from the structure and pushed it toward our direction. The thing with hand grenades and multi-ton chunks of stone is that 100 percent accuracy isn’t necessary.

  The U-shaped structure bounced off the slanted roof once, before falling straight toward us.

  “Badgelor!” I yelled, standing up on his back, despite the nearly straight fall behind me.

  “Not happening,” Badgelor yelled back, trying and failing to move out of the stone’s trajectory. It continued bouncing down the steep facade. For the barest of instants, I thought my new Powerful Parry skill would help. The problem with skills was that you instinctively knew when they would not work. The boulder was just too large.

  Boulder?

  I ran up Badgelor’s back and launched myself toward the railing. Holding my fist out, I screamed, “Railing, No Baka!”

  · Would you like to place this Exquisite Stone Railing into your dimensional storage? ?

  I felt the hard stone on my knuckles, before it began to squish like clay. The entire chunk of structure folded and pulled into my dimensional storage, vanishing into motes of Mana.

  There was no time to feel a sense of relief, though, because an arrow slammed into my shoulder.

  ***

  “Idiot,” stated Phillip, drawing another arrow. The Remort jerked backward, grabbing hold of the damn badger with his functional hand. “You don’t just cast magic like that. It interrupts your Stamina-based defenses.”

  “That looked super impressive, though,” said Twinkle with a grin. Phillip grinned back.

  “That it did,” he nodded. Elves were weird, but they were the good kind of weird.

  “What type of arrow?” hissed Hardragon. At least, that’s what Phillip guessed he said. It made the most logical sense, but it was hard to tell. Hardragon sounded like he was chewing rocks and gargling glass.

  “Ebon wood,” replied Phillip. “It probably went straight through his shoulder, and I coated the entire shaft with poison. If he’s tough enough, he might not lose the arm, but he’s not going to be using it for the rest of the fight.”

  “Check your logs,” hissed Hardragon.

  “He’s hard to read. All I have is that I hit him,” stated Phillip. That was new. Typically, Phillip had an excellent idea of exactly how hard he had hit a target. In Jim’s case, all he knew, for sure, was that he had hit him.

  “He has Regeneration,” stated Twinkle.

  “And I have Brirebane and Stiffroot,” grinned Phillip. Twinkle grinned wickedly. Brirebane was a good, old-fashioned poison that didn’t cause that much Poison Damage. It was used in Falcon more for its secondary characteristic. It prevented all forms of Magical healing for up to fifteen minutes.

  Stiffroot, in comparison, was much less dramatic. It only paralyzed a limb. That meant that Jim’s right arm, currently pointing toward the sky, would remain in that position for an hour or more. All in all, that shot should all but guarantee that the Remort withdrew.

  It was highly likely that O’Really had healing potions on him, but the arrow should have vastly reduced his offensive capabilities. Furthermore, while he might have Damage healing potions, it was far less likely that he had poison treatments. Wound-clearing potions would also be required, since Phillip had crippled his Magical healing.

  Phillip’s smile faded, as the badger crossed the seventh floor. Of course, there was always the possibility that he would keep coming at them, as determined as the damn War Badger he was riding.
/>   “Get Su-Kar,” growled Hardragon.

  ***

  “I can’t move my freaking arm,” I hissed to Badgelor, as I yanked the arrow from my shoulder. Only the arrowhead and an inch of the shaft had penetrated, yet my arm was on fire. It was also locked up, pointing directly toward the sky.

  ● You are poisoned: Brirebane, Magical healing restricted for 2 minutes, 40 seconds.

  ● You are poisoned: Stiffroot, Your right arm is paralyzed for 1 minute, 20 seconds.

  It was a good thing I hadn’t gotten the full dose. Paralysis meant something different on Ordinal than it did on Earth. On Earth, my paralyzed arm would have been hanging limply at my side. On Ordinal, my arm was rigidly locked into the position it had been in when struck. Since I had been Superman punching the railing with my sword still in hand when I was hit, the poison had locked my arm skyward.

  Mitigate and Ignore Injury were both noncompatible with resisting poisons. Only my Poisoner perk, armor, and my Resist Poison skill were helping. At least I was earning some Skill Points.

  “One more floor, and then we are on the roof,” I stated, far less confident in my ability to take on three trained adventurers without the use of my right arm. I growled and bit down on some healroot. Aside from the poison, I’d taken 31 points of Damage from that arrow.

  Suddenly, a blast of magical lightning flashed down from the rooftop. Su-Kar appeared over the edge.

  “So much for her guarding the princess,” I said. Badgelor leapt straight into the magical stream. Due to his massive magic resistance, it mostly ran off him, like water off a duck’s back.

  “Ha, girly doesn’t know who she’s dealing with,” stated Badgelor. His eyes began to glow purple, as I fed him Mana. Without the railing, the enemy adventurers were far more exposed. Badgelor didn’t go all in on the attack, though. We both wanted to save some Mana for healing. He put in just enough for shooting a powerful blast, just as Su-Kar’s second spell, a fire blast, rushed toward us.

  Both blasts met in the middle. Of course, Badgelor’s Destructive Gaze won, blowing through the lesser Elemental magic like wet tissue paper. That’s when I saw the elf. Twinkle was in a downward crescent heel kick, flying through the streams of magic. They parted for him like the Red Sea, as he raced toward us.

  “Spell Cleaving Kick,” yelled Twinkle, using Aerial Control to push himself through an impossible twist and onto the eighth story balcony. He proceeded to run into the dungeon.

  “Fecking Monks,” growled Badgelor, as more arrows started raining down on us. One slammed into Badgelor’s left, front paw. Suddenly, our forward progress slowed considerably. “Fecking archers!”

  Su-Kar was yelling and pointing at Badgelor, while Phillip lined up another shot. Their archer couldn’t fire too many arrows with enough force behind them to penetrate Badgelor’s hide. However, he could do it enough that it was a problem. Before I had a new plan worked out, he hit Badgelor’s other front paw.

  They had figured out a tactic that worked. We were in trouble. I glanced around desperately for somewhere to go. I looked for any place that an archer couldn’t reach us. Finally, I spotted an accessible, hidden part to the balcony that Twinkle had just disappeared from.

  “Shrink,” I yelled, leaping off Badgelor’s head. For once, Badgelor complied. His form began to shrink down, as I got my whip out. Using my Aerial Control, I changed the direction of my jumping path and made the impossible leap onto the eighth story balcony. I quickly twisted around to whip at Badgelor.

  I had invested a single Talent Point into the Bind Weapon Master talent, which allowed me to wrap Badgelor up and pull him toward me. I landed on both feet with enough force to engage Mitigate. Badgelor slammed onto my back with a thunk.

  Activating Hide in Plain Sight, I moved quickly out of the door frame and began scanning for the elf. I found him fairly fast. When I’d landed, he had been resting on the floor. Now, he was up, scanning around for me.

  His eyes glowed brown for a moment. Then, he spun to face me, noting that my sword was still held rigidly in my frozen fist above my head. “Well, Jim, it seems you got a bit too curious.”

  My whip shot out and grabbed him around the wrist. Before he had a chance to react, I cracked it, sending a massive wave down the thick strip of leather. Twinkle realized his predicament. His arm slammed into the floor, and the energy of the wave sent him spinning through the air.

  The elf twisted my whip off himself and landed on both feet. I struck at the elf again. This time, Twinkle was expecting it and danced backward.

  “You seem to have increased your proficiency with your whip since the last time we fought,” stated the elf, all signs of levity gone. I reached into my pouch, pulled out my wad of healroot, and placed a piece in my mouth.

  “I reckon,” I replied. It felt appropriate, as I had a mouth full of chew and a whip.

  The elf frowned. “So, you hang around with orcs? How appropriate.”

  “Elves still hate orcs,” I thought.

  “Duh,” replied Shart.

  “Ancient rivalry, right? Elves lose their sacred land to the orcs? Their god took the orc’s god’s eye?” I questioned.

  “No, elves cannot pull off ten-gallon hats. They view any race that wears hats better than them an anathema,” replied Shart.

  Twinkle adjusted his stance. When he was ready to attack, I began to use my Counterspell skill. Unfortunately, that was exactly what he was waiting for me to do. I felt the stance end almost instantly, as Twinkle damn near magically materialized next to me. He was executing a flurry of kicks that were designed to get under my guard.

  One moment, I was standing. In the next moment, I was on my ass, skidding across the floor. I flipped back to my feet and activated Flash Steps to get some distance. Twinkle knew that trick, as well. The elf was on me, before I’d even fully reappeared.

  He landed a powerful kick to my side, before going in for a foot sweep. I hopped over it easily. When Twinkle came back up, I executed my special attack, Badger Fist.

  “Feck you,” hollered Badgelor, as I flung him into Twinkle’s face. Fortunately, yelling at me had left his mouth open, and he bit down hard on Twinkle’s cheek. The Monk drove a fist into Badgelor’s belly, which caused him to open his jaw. Badgelor’s small form went flying into the air, but it was of little consequence. I had gotten my distance.

  Using my whip, I executed Hack and Slash. My first strike caught Badgelor and redirected him toward my shoulder. The other four strikes I made against the elf.

  It didn’t do that much Damage, but the critical point of a whip isn’t to kill someone. The point is to hurt who you are hitting. All four of my strikes got through, leaving thick, jagged welts on the elf. He cried out, as the final strike latched around his throat. I yanked the elf toward me and executed a Basstown Headbutt, which sent him flying backward.

  Twinkle landed in a roll and was back on his feet in a heartbeat. He moved smartly out of my whip’s range. His appraising look faltered, though, as my frozen arm suddenly loosened up and came down to my side.

  “It seems we are at an impasse,” I stated, stepping toward him and pulling out another piece of healroot.

  “No, human, I have you right where I want you,” replied the elf with a grand bow. I took another step toward him, but he expertly danced away.

  “You might need to explain that a bit,” I stated, allowing the healroot to kick in a bit more.

  “Well, it seems like you are too much for me, but I am too fast for you,” replied the elf, with a questioning eyebrow. I nodded. “However, if I can’t take you, I have another strategy that will certainly work. I’m going to run.”

  “Running away?” I asked.

  “No, I’ll be running to every monster on this floor. Every one of them will chase me, and I’ll bring them all right back here,” stated the elf. “You can either stay here and die fighting monsters or jump out the balcony and die fighting the rest of my party.”

  “I could just nab you with th
e whip and fling you out the balcony,” I said. There was a slight wrinkle in the elf’s expression. Twinkle didn’t consider that as unlikely as he was letting on. We both stood in silence while our cooldowns expired. I pulled out another piece of healroot and started chewing it.

  “If you don’t mind me asking,” stated the elf, “Where did you find that healroot?”

  “Around,” I said, looking at him curiously. He frowned. “Would you like some?”

  He snorted. “Good try, but no. I do follow the customs, you know. I’m not going to take healing from someone I’m trying to kill.”

  “Had to try,” I bluffed. I wasn’t going to give Twinkle anything, anyway. That would be stupid. I certainly wasn’t going to do it for free. “You don’t seem too committed to this group. Are you a Mercenary?”

  He shuddered slightly. “I do not like that term, but yes. In your primitive human language, I supposed that would be correct.”

  “I could give you some healroot if you just leave,” I said.

  The elf laughed at that. “I doubt you could afford me.”

  “Try me. I’m curious,” I responded.

  The elf rolled his eyes. “I suppose you could bribe me for the low, low price of 500 healroot. I assume you don’t have such a princely sum with you.”

  That wasn’t even half my supply. I opened my dimensional storage, which caused Twinkle to step back defensively. I tossed out a brick of 100 healroot, complete with the Windfall stamp on them. I stepped back and gestured at it.

  The elf looked at it for a long moment, like a drug addict looking at a massive score. Then, he snatched it up, swearing at himself. “Clever, I have taken your healing. By the code, I can no longer do battle with you.”

  “So, why did you take it?” I asked.

  “Because my employer is very late on her payments. My people desperately need healroot to survive a plague that is ravishing us,” replied Twinkle. “I have been out in Falcon for six months, searching for healroot. I’ve barely found thirty pieces.”