Endless Fantasy Online

by Devin Auspland

  “What the hell was that?” Penny sounded angry as she looked at Nanoc and Luke. The pair looked at each other and then back at Penny before giving her ‘no idea what your talking about’ expressions. “Those skills. Why were you hiding them, and what else are you two hiding?”

  “I don’t know about Nanoc but I just got my skill from becoming a Ranger. I really didn’t think I was hiding it.” Luke was being defensive.

  “I got mine from practicing axe throwing with the guards,” Nanoc added.

  Penny scoffed. “You have to let me know your capabilities so I can plan our encounters. It worked out this time but we may not be so lucky next time. These are goblins. They aren’t geniuses but they are capable of formulating plans and working as a team. This is a new kind of enemy for us, a more intelligent enemy. I need to know everything you guys can do if you want me to keep you alive.” They both apologized and promised to let her know about their abilities in the future.

  “Hey guys, looks like we finally got some loot!” Backstab called the party over and pointed at the pouch tied to one of the goblin’s waists. Opening the bag revealed a handful of gold coins that he gave out to the group.

  Gold Coins x3 obtained.

  “Not a bad haul and a good experience. Let’s push on, but everyone be on the lookout. Those spears did real damage.” Penny cautioned the team and pointed at the next door.

  Backstab approached and after a few moments, gave the go ahead. The door let out a large creak as he attempted to silently open it. Letting out a few choice words, he continued to open the door and look around. There appeared to be no one in the next room and he relayed that to his team. Penny gave him the go ahead to enter the next room.

  The door let out another loud creak as they opened it to reveal a circular room. There didn’t appear to be anyone in the room and there was nowhere for someone to hide, so the group decided to enter. There were lit torches around the room and a variety of open and closed crates scattered about. In the middle of the room was a large hole with a rope ladder hanging down.

  Luke checked the hole and saw the flickering of torchlight at the bottom. Checking the crates, he found mining tools in some and raw ore in others. This appeared to be the entrance to a mining site. There were even buckets attached to a crude pulley system for getting ore out of the hole.

  “The group we just encountered must be the advance defense party. Most are probably down there. I was wondering why they didn’t get reinforcements. I mean, we weren’t exactly quiet during the fight.” Luke looked directly at Nanoc when he said the last statement. He turned a little red and not from his rage ability.

  Backstab walked up to the ladder and promptly jumped off the edge. The others ran over and looked down. Backstab was holding on to either side of the ladder, sliding down at a fast pace. Before hitting the bottom, he tightened his grip and came to a stop. He dropped the last few feet into a roll, spring-boarding forward into the shadows and vanishing from sight.

  “All clear,” he shouted up to the party.

  “Show off,” muttered Penny as she proceeded down the ladder at a normal pace. The rest of the party were quick to follow her down.

  The group could hear the banging of pickaxes against stone as they approached the opening in the room. When they peeked inside they saw a massive chamber lit by glowing crystals. They were at the top of the chamber but it appeared to go down for hundreds of feet, disappearing into fog. There was a snaking path leading deeper into the chamber and goblins hung from ropes in various spots as they bashed rocks with pickaxes.

  Looking around Luke saw an ornate set of doors about two stories down on the opposite side of the chamber. The path leading to it appeared to connect to the snaking path in front of them. He pointed the doors out to everyone, and they planned to try and sneak there.

  Clinging to the wall in fear of the sheer drop, the party began another descent. Nanoc seemed to fear the edge the most and was progressing at a speed that was slower than a crawl. He had his back to the edge and his body pressed firmly against the rock wall.

  “Hey Nanoc. Do you happen to be afraid of heights?” Backstab said in a mocking tone. Nanoc gave him a choice hand gesture before quickly moving his hand back against the wall.

  An arrow landed in the wall next to Penny, who was leading the charge, and her head turned to find the offender. One of the hanging goblins, about thirty feet up and to her right, was shooting arrows at her. Other goblins quickly joined in and the party was now facing six goblins freely firing at them.

  “Get behind me! Luke, Backstab, do your thing!” Penny slammed her shield into the soft dirt path, creating a wall of metal between the arrows and her group.

  Luke and Backstab were forced behind the shield wall by the numerous counterattacks that met their every attempt to take a shot. Nanoc refused to move away from the wall and was taking serious damage. Luckily Luke was close enough to cast nature’s regrowth and the barbarians’ health started refilling.

  “Not really sure what we do here. I can’t get a shot off.” Luke complained.

  “Most of them are too far away for me to even hit.” Backstab added.

  Luke tried again to lean out from the side of the shield to shoot an arrow and was struck in his arm as a result of his efforts. He waited for the cooldown of his healing spell to be up and quickly cast it on himself.

  “I’m open to ideas here.” Luke attempted to hide the growing panic in his voice. Looking at his party’s status bars, he noticed Nanoc was below half and Penny’s small amounts of damage from using her shield wall were starting to add up. She was close to half as well. The group was taking damage faster than Luke could heal and if something didn’t change quickly, they were facing a full party wipe.

  A high-pitched howling started coming from Luke. Backstab and Penny looked at him and spotted Ringo attempting to howl. She took a deep breath and released another high-pitched howl. Luke had to blink several times because he was seeing the sound waves of her howl rippling outward from her.

  Your animal companion Ringo used Confusing Howl. Confusing Howl adds the confusion debuff to all enemies who hear it, unless they are able to resist.

  “I’ll explain later but we need to attack!” Luke was speaking as quickly as he could before jumping out from Penny’s protection. He released as many arrows as he could, as quickly as he could. By the time one arrow left his quiver he was already reaching for the next one and preparing to release it, aim be damned. Most of his shots were missing their targets, but he was shooting so many that he was still hitting most of the goblins.

  Backstab was slower to react but quickly joined Luke by throwing knives at the closer targets. The goblins were all holding the sides of their heads in pain. They tried several times to retaliate, but their aim was way off. The nearest shot was aimed at Nanoc and landed in the stone wall about seven feet from him.

  A few moments of this went by until all the goblins were floating lifeless from their ropes.

  New skill acquired: Rapid Fire, Beginner 0. Most people take careful aim at their targets to ensure they hit, but not you. You just keep shooting until something sticks. Cost: 2 stamina per second. Effect: Increase arrow firing rate by x + 2% and decrease your aim by x + 5% while channeling the spell where x = skill level.

  Goblin Scout x6 defeated. 185 party participation exp gained (150 base + 25% discovery bonus - 1% guild contribution).

  “I got a new skill. It's called rapid fire and for a constant stamina drain it will increase my firing rate but reduce my accuracy by a fair amount. Also, it appears little Ringo was holding out on us. He used something called Confusing Howl that added a confusing debuff to the goblins.” Luke was patting Ringo on the head.

  “That's great Luke but haven’t you reviewed Ringo’s abilities yet?” Penny questioned. When she got nothing but a dumbfounded look in response, she continued. “Ringo has a character sheet just like yours. Well, it's a dumbed down version since he's a companion but it should still list h
is skills.”

  “How do you know that? Was that in the user manual?” Luke was really starting to hate the fact that he wasn’t given a user manual.

  “Not exactly. They mentioned something along those lines but a pet store owner told me.” Luke nodded at Penny’s response but pushed for more information. “I was really missing my cat the other day, so I went to a pet shop and spoke with the owner. He mentioned that the pets you get in the shop are just vanity pets. They are real, require food, and attention but they aren’t like animal companions. He said those are on a whole different level from pets and can be used in battle. He explained that they were a lot like adventurers or travelers and had a limited character sheet of their own.” she paused. “You know, you should really get out more and spend less time in your garden.”

  Luke’s eyes went wide. How could he be so stupid and not explore the city more? Sure he knew where the local shops in his area were but the city was huge and if he explored it more, he would know a lot more about this game’s mechanics. “Thank you Penny. I really do need to get out more.” She agreed to show Luke to the pet shop when they got back to town so he could speak to the owner and get advice on how to take care of Ringo properly.

  “Well, this sucks.” The group, excluding Nanoc, all looked at Backstab. “I can’t get the loot.” The group all shared a laugh at Backstab’s feigned annoyance.

  Continuing down the path, they began to hear pounding-metal noises. A few more meters down they saw a large outcrop in the wall. The pounding-metal sound was coming from that room and had gotten so loud that the group could easily sneak up on the opening without being detected. The room was a makeshift forge and metal processing area. There was a pair of muscular goblins pounding on anvils while a handful of others were processing metal in a large cauldron. The blacksmith goblins were easily a foot taller than the ones they had fought up to this point. The walls were lined with various weapons and makeshift armor, all goblin sized.

  “Damn. Those smiths are level six and have a ton of HP.” Penny cursed as quietly as she could.

  “How do you keep doing that?” Luke asked.

  “Doing what?” She replied.

  “Seeing the enemies level and stats,” he responded.

  “It’s a skill called inspect. Focus your sight hard on the enemy and try to determine their strength. Keep focusing until you get the skill. It's one of the first ones I acquired,” she commented.

  Luke bore his eyes onto the enemy, looking him up and down and trying to gauge his strength. He continued to look and began squinting his eyes so his vision would focus only on the creature.

  New skill acquired: Inspect, Beginner 0. Knowledge is half the battle. By focusing on your opponents, you can now glean basic knowledge of them. Leveling up this skill will grant you more information and allow you to inspect a wider range of enemy levels. Effect: Gain basic knowledge of enemies up to double your level.

  Inspect Successful!

  Name: Goblin Smith

  Level: 6

  HP/MP/Stamina: 500/0/100

  Status: Hostile

  “That seems incredibly useful.” Penny nodded at him and surveyed the room.

  “I count four of the helper looking goblins and the two smiths. I think our best bet is to take the helpers out first. They should drop pretty fast. Nanoc and I can hold the smiths off until you two can join us. Agreed?” Penny proposed.

  “I have an issue.” All attention moved to Luke. “I only have a handful of arrows left.”

  “I’m also really low on throwing daggers…” Backstab added.

  “Luke, we're gonna have to hope there are arrows in those piles of weapons. Unless you're still holding out, I don’t recall you having any melee weapons or skills.” He shook his head to confirm. “Tssk. I didn’t think so. Hmm… Backstab, you go into melee with those four and Luke will give you cover fire. Use your arrows wisely! When those four go down, search quickly for arrows in the area but if you can’t find any, then grab a random weapon and join us. As always, watch our health the best you can.”

  She held up her hand and counted down with her fingers. Three, two. On one, she and Nanoc ran into the outcrop. Nanoc was smiling as he now had an open space that didn’t face a sheer drop. He activated his tomahawk ability and threw his blade at one of the smiths. It connected but, unlike before, the smith didn’t go flying back. Instead, the axe landed in his upper chest and stayed firmly planted.

  Luke ran out and took aim at one of the confused workers. To ensure a kill, he activated water shot and released. The arrow struck the worker in the middle of the worker’s chest and it fell backwards from the arrow’s momentum.

  The remaining workers charged the travelers, grabbing weapons from racks as they ran. Backstab engaged the three workers with his dual daggers as Penny and Nanoc were occupying the blacksmiths. The workers swung swords at Backstab but, to Luke’s amazement, he was gracefully weaving in between their attacks. He wasn’t able to dodge them all outright, but he could dodge the attacks enough to only take glancing blows.

  Luke readied another arrow and released at one worker. The worker saw him take aim and was able to dodge the arrow. Dodging caused an opening that Backstab took full advantage of.

  “Double strike.” Backstab’s body had an aura of purple for a brief moment as he launched his attack on the off balance worker. His arms moved so quickly that they almost became a blur before he leaped out of the way of another attack. A moment later, four large lacerations appeared on the goblin's body and blood spurted from them. The goblin became covered in its own blood and it fell to the ground lifeless.

  Luke shot another arrow that caught a worker in the leg and it fell to one knee. The last unharmed worker stood in between his injured ally and Backstab, holding his sword out. Backstab backed up a few feet and began a full sprint toward him. The goblin raised his sword but as Backstab was about to reach him, he leaped into the air, arcing over the defensive worker. In midair, he threw both his daggers at the wounded goblin, finishing it.

  The remaining goblin let out a laugh, noticing Backstab was out of weapons and charged him. Backstab waved goodbye to the goblin who now displayed a confused look on its face as an arrow drove into its skull.

  “Nice shot.” Backstab commented.

  Luke nodded and turned his attention to the blacksmiths. His comrades weren’t faring as well as he had hoped. Penny’s shield had large pieces missing from it and Nanoc was on full defense, barely able to keep up with the hammer and sword wielding smith. Both of them were missing half of their hit points with sweat and blood flowing off their bodies.

  Luke quickly cast Nature’s Regrowth on Nanoc and followed up with a Water Shot toward the smith he was fighting. The smith saw the attack coming and smashed the arrow out of the air with his hammer. Well, that's new. Luke reached for another arrow, grasping at thin air. Looking at his quiver he realized he was out of arrows. He also only had enough mana left for one more healing spell. Remembering the plan, he ran to scavenge through the weapons in hopes he would find some arrows.

  “Switch!” Penny screamed as she took a large leap backwards and away from the smith. The smith performed a leaping thrust at her but Backstab had appeared to fill the hole in combat that Penny just created. He parried the thrust by driving his daggers down in an X formation. The smith’s sword was driven into the ground, but he followed up with his hammer in an uppercut motion. Backstab was caught off balance and had no time to bring his daggers up to block. Unable to avoid the blow, he rolled his shoulder forward in an attempt to mitigate the damage.

  A crunching sound of bones breaking could be heard as Backstab went soaring backwards. The smith pulled his blade from the ground in pursuit but an empty bottle smashed into the back of his head.

  Penny was wiping her mouth, having just drank a potion and regenerated some of her lost health. The smith turned to continue pursuing the downed rogue but Penny quickly activated her taunt and the two were back in the throes of battle.


  Are there seriously no arrows? Luke was rummaging through crates of weapons, not finding what he was hoping to. He ran to the downed workers, pulling arrows from them. The arrow he shot with water shot was broken, but he still could salvage two of the other arrows. He quickly grabbed them along with a fallen sword and ran to Backstab.

  “You alright?” Luke asked.

  Backstab sat up but he had clearly broken the bones in his collar and shoulder. He grunted in pain but couldn’t hold back the tears streaming from his eyes. He fumbled while grabbing for a potion in his pouch so Luke grabbed it for him. Helping him drink it, Luke saw his health bar regenerate, but it stopped at 75%.

  “Your health isn’t going up all the way?” Luke questioned.

  Backstab gritted his teeth and was short with his response. “Potions heal damage, not breaks.”

  Looking over the battle again he could tell Nanoc was getting exhausted and was taking more and more glancing blows from the smith. Large welts were forming all over his body and his health was already below half again. Penny had recovered with her potion but was unable to attack.

  “We need to focus on one enemy together. I think I have a plan.” Stated Luke.

  “I thought I smelled burning, must have been you thinking,” joked Backstab.

  “You have a shattered collarbone and you're still making jokes?” Backstab gave him a shaky grin.

  Penny blocked another overhead smash from the smith that sent another large piece of her shield flying across the room. Her tower shield, normally the same size as her, now more closely resembled a small circle shield. When the smith went in for another attack, an arrow came soaring at him from the side. The smith had a shit-eating grin on his face as he parried Penny’s attack with his sword while simultaneously knocking the arrow away with his hammer.