by Deck Davis
I was starting to feel better about things. I’d leveled up, I’d found a weapon, and I was about to join the others. If we could find somewhere safe to stay for a while, we were in good shape. Call me stupid, but a weird kind of optimism had settled over me.
With my distractions gone, with the scuttlers and Johnny Cuthelm dead, I was free to move on. I was alone, and I needed to change that. The whole point of being in a team was that you, well…team up. You could look out for each other. On my own, I was another little Johnny Cuthelm, ready for another team to find me and carve me to pieces.
I cut a half-sprint through the jungle, watching out for the vines that crept across the ground. It was hard to find a true path, given the whole area was littered with exotically-colored thorn bushes, felled logs, and fallen leaves the size of my chest that hid critters underneath. Finally, the purple pin on my nav-wheel enlarged, and I knew I was close to the others. I only covered a few more yards before the tree line suddenly widened, and I saw the stone building where we were supposed to meet.
For a second, it took my breath away. It was an ancient temple of some sort, but it was built on a scale that I wouldn’t have believed was possible. The jungle behind me seemed like such an impenetrable labyrinth of trees and bushes that it seemed unthinkable someone could carve away a chunk of it to pave enough space for a monolith like this. Yet, here it was: a vaguely pyramid-shaped temple built from square chunks of stone. It may have started out white or gray at one point, but it had taken a battering from the fists of time. Snake-like vines slithered and twisted across it, hugging it tightly. A thin layer of moss had taken hold of the stone, turning it a light hue of yellow like the teeth of a smoker. There were at least fifty steps leading up to a grand main entrance. The entrance itself was a darkened hole, gaping like a mouth, and it was flanked by two pillars that had been sculpted to resemble muscle-bound men who were holding the whole structure up with just their arms and shoulders.
The sound here was different. Deep in the jungle, the trees had almost throbbed with humidity. Birds called back and forth while frogs interjected with their own throaty greetings. Now, the trees were gone. The birds were gone. The frogs had no reason to be here. There was a strange kind of silence.
Or there would have been, were it not for Eddie calling out. He was stood in the middle of the fifty steps. Beneath him was a man spread horizontally along the stone, and Eddie had his foot on his chest. He held a short sword in his right hand, and he had it so that the hilt was raised upwards toward his chin, while the blade pointed at the man beneath him.
To the right of the steps, still in the clearing but edging toward the boundaries of the jungle, were Glora and Rynk. They were engaged in a two-versus-one battle with an elven avatar dressed in a black tunic with green stripes. He wielded a holographic book in his hand. Sparks of fire flew off the spine. He must have been a soul scribe, an avatar class that was weak at first, but became deadly in the later stages of a battle if it leveled up enough.
Illey Nugent [Team Riptide]
I’d already killed one member of team Riptide, the unfortunate dwarf named Johnny Cuthelm, which meant that there were only three of them left. Glora and Rynk were fighting Illey Nugent, and I guessed that the man pressed under Eddie’s boot was another member. So where was the fourth? I looked around, but I couldn’t see him.
When I got closer to Eddie, I heard him talking to the man under his foot. “There comes a time when a man needs to decide…” he said. Then he noticed me. He gave me a pearly smile. “Oh, hey, Har.” Oh brother. I’d heard this speech before in the two VBRs I’d fought with Eddie. Whenever he’d cut a fighter down to their last hitpoints and he had them where he wanted, he always started a speech that began ‘There comes a time when a man…” It was a motto that he wanted to be known for outside of the battles.
Just as Eddie focused his attention back on the man on the steps, arrows flew through the air. One, two, three. They hit Eddie on the arm, left thigh, and in his shoulder. He stumbled back against the steps. The man near him, sensing opportunity, struggled to his feet. He looked around for his weapon. At least Eddie had the sense to disarm him before his little speech. Deprived of his main weapon, the man reached to his belt and pulled out a small dagger. Eddie, back to his senses, straightened into a defensive pose.
Okay, Eddie had the bigger sword and was a few steps up, giving him the higher ground. He looked to be in a safe position. With that in mind, I turned my attention to the mystery archer. The arrows had come from the left. When I faced that direction, I saw nothing but the clearing, and beyond it, the dense jungle. Where was he? There, crouched beside a thorn bush with his bow resting against his shoulder, was the archer. He had a faint-looking red crosshair floating above him, which indicated that he’d used some kind of aim-boosting rune.
Sammy Xeron [Team Riptide]
He hadn’t seen me yet, that much was clear. He was focused on helping his friend, who was locked in a wary pre-fight dance with Eddie, strafing carefully from left to right to throw my friend off balance.
I ran to my right, edging toward the jungle but giving a wide berth so that the archer wouldn’t spot me. When I hit the leaf-strewn jungle ground, I started walking in a crouch, taking slow steps in the archer’s direction. It was important I didn’t make a sound.
I edged closer and closer. The archer tensed his bow arm and drew back the string. He squinted and took aim at Eddie. Just then, I straightened up and rushed at him. Twigs cracked under my feet. The axe, though just a wood-felling blade, felt heavy in my hand. Just as I reached him, the archer turned in my direction. Before he could let his arrow loose, I swung my axe at him, sweeping in an arc like an uppercut. The dull blade smashed into his chin, ripping through his jaw. The archer fell onto his back. His legs spasmed. Blood spurted from the fresh wound.
And then he was up again. In VBRs where the pain was dialed up, even the worst agonies were fleeting sensations. Sure, you might feel them when they happened, but they wore off. After all, the audience might have loved fighters in pain, but who in their right mind would enter a VBR if sword and axe wounds hurt as much as they would have in real life?
Although he was upright, I could see he was on his last legs. His movements were slow. His arms, when he raised his bow, seemed almost mechanical. I rushed him, this time sweeping the axe horizontally, catching him in the belly. The axe cut through his flesh. He gave a horrible gurgling sound. He stumbled back. I hit him again, on the shoulder this time. My arm ached from the effort. The archer fell to his knees. Blood oozed from his chin and his belly. He looked at me with eyes that seemed almost pleading.
This was about the time that Eddie would have given one of his speeches. Instead, I plunged the dull axe blade into the archer’s neck. He fell onto his back, slapping the ground like a sack of meat.
25% EXP gained
[60% toward level 2]
Time to loot. Do it, then move on. I had no use for the archer’s bow and arrows, but I took them anyway. Who knew, maybe Glora or Rynk could use them. They might come in handy. The only thing I found in his inventory that was of use to me was a bronze axe handle.
Bronze Handle
A handle that can be fixed to an axe to boost ATT
[Weapon ATT +5]
I swapped out the wooden handle of my wood-felling axe and changed it for the bronze one, boosting my attack to sixty-five. It made my weapon a little heavier, but it was already small for an axe, so it wasn’t much of a burden. Extra attack points always came in handy.
I ran out of the jungle and back into the clearing toward the temple. I felt the faint twinges of blood-lust; an adrenaline soaking me, telling me to find someone to hit. But when I reached the others, I found that the man on the steps was dead, and Eddie was already looting him. Glora and Rynk circled their soul scribe foe, and Rynk ended his existence with one swift swipe of a scimitar. When the man hit the ground, the sparking book in his hand disappeared.
Chapter Seven
111 Teams Remining
We took cover inside the temple. Inside, torches fixed to walls cast a soft amber glow, with the flames twisting and turning when a breeze crept toward them. Although the temple had seemed gigantic on the outside, there was only one room in the interior. It made sense, really. Most structures on VBR maps were smaller inside than they looked. It wouldn’t be much fun for the audience watching our feed to see us get lost in a maze of temple rooms.
Looking around, I saw that there was no loot to be had since Eddie and the others had taken it when they’d arrived at the temple before me, and before they’d been attacked by Team Riptide. Still, there were plenty of other places on the map to find loot.
We sat in a circle far enough away from the temple entrance that the shadows covered us. It was weird being there. Across the map, in the sand dunes and tundra and mysterious shadowed quadrant, fighters would be fighting and looting. Not everyone was as cautious as us; some people liked to have a scrap the minute they touched land. Six teams were gone already. Chaos was brewing. Yet, here we were, sitting in a temple which, in a weird way, was snug.
The amber flames glowed on our skins, and I saw that Glora had a cut on her cheek. Rynk sat in the lotus position like a yoga master, with his scimitar resting on his lap. Flashes of torchlight made it look like the blade gleamed.
“Is that your default?” I said.
He nodded. “I prefer a katana, but you can’t always find ‘em.”
Next to Rynk was his inventory bag. Sticking out of it were the ends of a few twigs and branches he’d collected in the jungle. “Gotta be prepared,” he said, patting his bag. “There’s a tundra quadrant down south. You never know when a little fire wood is gonna come in handy.”
I took a deep breath. The adrenaline was leaving me now. “So…that was a little tougher than expected.”
“You get lost on your way here?” asked Eddie.
“I levelled up on a few scuttlers,” I said. “Then I met Johnny Cuthelm. He was in Team Riptide. We had a friendly chat, and then I came straight here. Have you guys decided what you’ll spend your skill points on when you get them?” I asked.
“I’m gonna load all mine into Sneak Attack,” said Eddie. “Get my sneak on.”
“Don’t put all your eggs into one basket.”
“Why not?”
“Because if the basket breaks, you lose all your eggs.”
“Then I’ll just buy a new basket,” said Eddie.
“What he means, pupper,” said Glora, “Is if you put everything on Sneak and it turns out to be a bad fit against the other teams, then you’ll be useless.”
“Okay, okay, point taken” said Eddie.
Eddie patted his legs excitedly. He was like a big ball of energy, and he constantly needed to fidget. It was as though he was a plane full of fuel making an emergency landing; if he let himself relax with all that energy inside him it was dangerous, so he had to leak it out bit by bit. He did this now by drumming up and down his leg with his palms. “Can’t believe we took out a team already,” he said. “Good stuff, fellas.”
“It’s only the beginning, partner,” said Rynk. “Don’t be congratulating yourself just yet. A lot of blood and blades before we get to the end.”
With the adrenaline gone from my system, I could think clearly. That was when I remembered something that I needed to speak to Rynk about. I glared at him. “It’s time you explained what the hell happened. What’s with the map? It’s completely different to the one you sold us.”
He held his hands up defensively. “The gal who sold it said it was kosher. Maybe they switched it. That ain’t my fault, is it?”
“Maybe. Maybe not,” I said.
“You sound like you’re making accusations.” Perhaps I was. Rynk had stepped in to help us, but he wasn’t doing it out of the kindness of his heart. He wasn’t exactly the kind of guy you could trust, and every instinct I had told me to be wary of him.
Still, we needed to regroup and replan. No point starting fights within the team until I was a hundred percent sure Rynk had done something.
Instead, I turned to Eddie. “You’ve gotta start taking this more seriously, Ed,” I told him. “That little speech you always give… Just finish a guy off when you have him where you want him, for Christ sakes.”
“Finish him off? It ain’t that kind of battle,” said Rynk. Eddie laughed.
I hardened my stare. “This is serious. You’re gonna get yourself murdered over something stupid. Kill first and make your speeches in the post-battle interviews.”
“It’s just a bit of fun. He couldn’t have hurt me.”
“The arrow holes in your arm tell me otherwise. You need to pay attention to what’s around you. C’mon, Ed. Take it seriously.”
Eddie rolled his eyes and muttered something under his breath. From this, I could tell my words hadn’t sunken in. I had no doubt whatsoever that Eddie wanted to win bits for Perlshaw. He was committed, no question. The problem was that he just couldn’t help showing off.
Glora straightened up. On the ground next to her was an axe. It was her default, and it was much bigger and sharper-looking than mine. I started getting a case of axe-envy. “Cheer up, fellas,” she said. “We’ve got weapons. We’ve got armor, even if Harry looks like a dork. We can hole up a little in here, let the other teams duke it out. The numbers will start to thin, and then we can level up and ride the first wave. This might not be as tough as we thought.”
Put like that, she had a point. It had seemed like a disaster at first, with the map being different and us all getting separated when we landed. But we’d come through it. Maybe it was time to be optimistic.
“Okay. Let’s assess things,” I said. “We’ve all looted a little, by the looks of things, so let’s see what’ve got, and we can trade. You should be able to see each other’s inventories since we’re a team. See what each other has, and what you need, and we’ll have a little weapon and armor exchange.”
I opened my holo-menu, and I assumed everyone was doing the same. Here, as well as my own inventory, I could see what everyone else had. Eddie had a short sword that came as a default for his rogue class. As well as that, he’d picked up a restore mana potion, and he wore a set of silver shin guards. Not bad at all. It certainly beat my single bronze shin protection.
Glora, as well as her much better axe than mine, had a three-pronged dagger. Hmm. “Glora,” I said, “your dagger will come in handy for Eddie. Rogues get sneak attack bonuses when they use daggers.”
“Gotcha,” she said.
“Rynk, I can’t see yours,” I said.
“We’ve done this dance before,” said Rynk. “In Bernli. I seem to remember opening my inventory for you and then getting a knife in my belly.”
“Don’t pretend you weren’t gonna screw me over, Rynk. I was just the early bird. Anyway, we’re on the same team now.”
“Huh. Fine. Take a peep.”
Rynk seemed to have gathered the best loot. He not only had an iron chest piece and steel shoulder braces, but he’d picked up a Ring of Quiet Step, and a bulky waraxe. There went my axe envy again.
“Rynk, are you gonna use your axe?” I said.
“Can’t, bud. It’s as much use to me as prot-layer made of chocolate. Blade savants can’t use axes.”
“Any chance I can have it?”
With my new axe proficiencies, the waraxe was something I could use. Yeah, a man could do a lot of damage with an axe like that. Sure, it was bulky, and I wouldn’t be able to swing it quickly, but when I did hit something, it’d be a home run.
Rynk cupped his hand around his chin in a studious pose. “Sure, partner.”
“Okay, trade it to me.”
“It’s gonna cost ya.”
“What?”
“We’re on the same team, you jerk,” said Glora.
“I’m a hired gun, darlin’. You’re paying me to hack, slash and kill, not to share my toys. If pretty boy wants this fine axe, it comes
free with what I call ‘Rynk’s Extra Package.’ Yours for the low, low price of a seven percent cut instead of five.”
The more I heard from Rynk, the more concerned I was. And to think, when we’d had a beer in Sootstein, I’d started to like the guy. Between the map swap and the fact he hoarded his loot like a greedy dragon, I was beginning to think we’d made a mistake. Not that we’d had a choice. Damn it.
“Forget the axe. You’re getting five percent, as agreed, and not a fraction more. We’ve got bigger things to think about.”
“We need to tool up,” said Eddie.
I nodded. “We’re at the bottom rung when it comes to teams. Most of the guys out there have more runes than us. They’ve got coaches, strategists, you name it. But here on the battlefield, we can cancel out their advantages if we work hard enough.”
“What’s the plan, cap’n?” asked Glora.
