So I sent the girl on her way, though she kept up her wailing for another half a kilometer.
“What do you mean? You’re a warrior of the Light! You’re supposed to fight the creatures of the darkness who attack innocent people!”
Where did she get that from? Happily, she left me alone, though a kilometer later, an old lady came up to me. She was hauling a bushel of firewood that must have weighed ten kilograms.
“Help an old woman? I think my arms are about to fall off!” She jumped straight in without so much as a “How do you do.”
“I’m sorry,” I said. “I’m in a hurry. Things to do!”
“Some valiant knight you are, leaving a poor woman alone and helpless!”
“I’m not a knight at all,” I said. “I’m just wandering along. How far do you have to go?”
“Only seven miles or so.”
“Why didn’t you find branches closer to where you live?”
“I was visiting my sister, and I’ve been collecting this bundle along the way. Here a branch, there a branch. Take it!” The old crone suddenly thrust the whole mess at me.
You have a new quest offer: Volunteer Assistant.
Task: Carry Gerda’s firewood to the old sorceress’s hut.
Reward:
300 experience
Any one of Gerda’s potions.
Accept?
“Ha! Right,” I said, even a bit rudely. “I’m not taking it. Seven miles there, seven miles back. Carry it yourself! And why do you even need it? It’s summer, it’s hot outside.”
“Oh, my dear, you’ll regret that.” The old woman grinned menacingly at me, and I saw teeth that were young and sharp as needles.
I’d have gotten to her hut all right, but that would probably have been the end of the road, I thought.
“Go ahead, old lady, speak your mind,” I said, casually placing my hand on my mace. “I have ways of settling disagreements, too.”
The grin on her face was replaced by a glower she aimed at me before laughing and lightly flipped the brushwood up over her shoulder. I got one last threatening look.
“No worries, sonny boy. We’ll see each other again. You can be sure of that!”
She melted into the bushes on the side of the road with a speed and sprightliness that surprised me.
“Wow. That’s one way to spice things up!” I said and kept walking.
My trip would have continued as smoothly and, if not pleasantly, at least as harmlessly as before, except that an alert suddenly popped up.
Attention. Euiikh, a player you blacklisted, is nearby.
Oh boy, an old friend! Not the best time for him, though.
I sprang from the road into the bushes and was about to sprint into the forest when I heard voices. “He’s here; find him! Probably in the forest somewhere.”
Running would have made too much noise, so I lay still in the bushes.
“Come out, come out wherever you are!” My toothy friend called me. “There are three of us, and we won’t stop looking until we find you. You didn’t have time to get away, so that means you’re still here. Come out and die like a man! I can’t promise you it’ll be quick, but at least we’ll make it simple. If you make us find you, it’ll be long and humiliating. And painful.”
I weighed my chances and concluded that I was up a creek without a paddle. They’d find me, of that I was sure. And if I ran, a-hundred-to-one they’d find me—orcs can run for days. On the other hand, I was now in a clan, though the orcs didn’t know that. Everyone said that PKers, and especially lower-level ones, stay away from clan members. Maybe these guys wouldn’t be anxious to risk the reaction they’d get? If they were willing to risk it, well, there wasn’t much I could do. It was just a shame I’d lose my gold and silver—and Reineke’s gift. He’d given it to me from the heart. Happily, I wouldn’t lose the sword or the dead knight’s amulet. And if I died, Reineke would be the first person I’d tell. I didn’t think he’d take kindly to some ugly green mugs making off with his gift.
I crawled out of the bushes and stood up. The orcs looked at me with tender, anticipatory grins, the way cats look at birds with clipped wings.
“Hello there, gentlemen,” I said, smiling back at them. “It’s like we never even left each other!”
“You’ve been leveling-up.” Euiikh approvingly nodded his head. “Nice work! Oh, and you even joined a clan! Look at you.”
“Yes, and I should warn you that I’m under my clan’s protection!”
“Sure, though that won’t help you much way out here.” Euiikh’s voice was quiet. “Go join whatever clan you want, the best and strongest out there. We’ll still squash you like a bug.”
“What did I ever do to you?”
“You were rude. I don’t like rude people. You went too far, and you made us mad.”
“What, and you aren’t rude?” I already knew I was a dead man walking. I knew my gold and equipment were gone. And I knew I’d spent the whole day walking for nothing. Just then, however, a daring idea popped into my head, and I decided to do what I could to make their lives just as interesting as they were going to make mine. Without further ado, I put thought into action. “Take what you said just now, for instance…”
I quickly turned on my online camera and set it to record.
“What do you mean?” Euiikh asked with a snarl.
“All that you were saying about the clans, what if you said that to someone from—oh, I don’t know—the Hounds of Death?”
“Screw all the clans!” His voice rose. “You’re going to die regardless, and no one’s going to stop us. The Hounds of Death…ha! You seriously think I’m afraid of them? Forget their clan. Screw them! All three of us hate them, and we despise that pig the Gray Witch.”
I had apparently struck a nerve. His whole rant had been recorded, so I knew I would at least be avenged.
“And I’ve had your Thunderbirds roasting on a spit! Oh, and-”
“Who did you have roasting on a what?” A voice boomed out from the bushes on the right side of the road, and two dwarves crashed out of the bushes in our direction. From the badges above their heads, I could tell that their names were Rone and Dorn, they were Level 40 and 42, respectively, and…
I could have jumped for joy when I saw that they were Thunderbirds, too.
“Hey, you green idiot, let me ask you again. Who did you have roasting? Our clan?” Dorn looked less than thrilled.
“Don’t worry, volunteer, we’ll do this the right way.” Rone came over and clapped me on the shoulder. “How did you get them so riled up?”
“The last time they killed me, I might have suggested that they prefer big cow horns to the opposite gender—or even little cow horns.” I looked at my feet as I said it.
The dwarves laughed uproariously.
“Yep, that’s orcs all right. These guys sound like fun. Hey, stand right there!” Dorn barked at one of the PKers, who edged toward the side of the road, obviously getting ready to make a break for it. “I said we’ll do this the right way. I’ll take the left one, Rone will take the one on the right. You, little one, will fight their leader, it looks like. That way it’s fair. He’s a few levels higher than you, but that doesn’t mean anything, believe me. You have good armor, and you’re angry, so I’m sure you can take him. Whoever wins, walks away with their opponent’s loot.”
“Ha, right. I’ll kill this rat, and then the two of you will jump me.” The orc was having none of it.
“Don’t pretend that dwarves have the same code of honor you orcs have,” said Rone in an even voice. “If we say you’ll walk away, then that’s what will happen.”
“And you don’t have much of a choice,” Dorn added. “You’ll die later for what you said about our clan, and probably more than once. Yeah, don’t think I won’t tell them. But for now, you have the chance to get away from this alive, providing you can kill one of us. But if that doesn’t work for you, my friend and I would be happy to just deal with the three of
you ourselves.”
“Walk away from you…” An orc with the appropriate name of Grim hissed his dissatisfaction. “Level 50, and covered in iron.”
“What, you thought this was going to be easy?” Dorn chuckled, and Rone nodded his head in agreement. “Enough. It’s time to answer for your crimes!” The dwarves smoothly and in tandem pulled out the battle axes they had strapped to their backs.
I whipped out my mace as well, before bracing my shield and staring down Euiikh. Now at least, it wouldn’t be so frustrating to die. Although, it wouldn’t have been that frustrating if the plan I’d cooked up had worked either.
“I’m going to tear you limb from limb,” the orc said. He licked his lips.
Oh great, this one’s crazy, too, I thought. With a penchant for cannibalism. How do they always find me? On the other hand, maybe I can use that.
“Why are you looking at me like that? I don’t swing that way,” I said. “Besides, I thought you were into animals?”
My crude trick worked. Euiikh howled like a wild animal from deep in the forest, threw his shield aside, and leaped at me. His scimitar, which he held with two hands in an apparent attempt to land a stronger blow, flashed through the air.
He leaped without any attempt to disguise it, so I simply ducked to the left, and a second later buried my mace in his back. Euiikh spun around, and for a second, I caught his eye. The guy was out of his mind. He aimed his next blow at my side, and I caught it with my shield, but before I could deflect it away, I felt him throw his whole weight behind his blade. He was a good bit taller than me, and the six-level difference between us was significant.
I could tell it was a matter of time before he broke through my defense.
“Get down!” I heard Dorn’s voice chime in.
Quickly grasping what the experienced dwarf wanted me to do, I rolled to my right, jumped up, and assumed my ready stance. The orc held his scimitar in both hands and swayed a bit. Either he was crazed, or he was trying to hypnotize me.
“They really did a number on you,” I said. “Eh, don’t worry about it. If you kill me, you can use my money to buy a whole herd of cows. That way you can have fun with them at night and eat them for breakfast in the morning.”
“A-a-ah!” The enraged orc again tried to charge me, but he no longer had any sense of where he was going and earned himself a hefty blow to the stomach. He awkwardly turned to find my mace in his breastplate, and I expected his health to turn red at any second. We gradually worked our way to the edge of the road, where Rone had just finished off one of Euiikh’s compatriots. Rone had taken his time playing with him, as the difference between their classes and levels was too great to fight on equal footing. I noticed Rone standing there and went around him, but my crazed opponent tripped and fell headlong. I’m not the most honorable person you’ll find. Well, let’s be honest, I’m not honorable in the least. So, when I saw him lying there, I jumped in and smashed my mace right into his head twice. There was no need for a third time, as Euiikh was dead.
“Whoa!” Dorn said. “You don’t go after someone when they’re down—”
“Though that was a PKer,” Rone interrupted. “PKers get what’s coming to them. So, are we going to put them through the ringer again? Think they’ll come back here?”
“I doubt it.” Dorn shook his head. “Why? They know we’ll take everything. No way they come back.”
My inbox dinged. Yet another message from my green-skinned fan.
“I swear I’m going to find you in real life. The game doesn’t even matter; your life here is going to be a living hell. But I’m going to find you in real life, and I swear you’re going to die like…”
I didn’t bother reading the rest. He was obviously just a hothead who couldn’t string two thoughts together. He was probably really young—they’re all like that. There was nothing for me to worry about. He’d be off yelling and screaming for an hour as he bashed in a few walls and thought up a hundred ways to cut me into little pieces. Then he’d convince himself that it would happen just like he thought and go to bed. In the morning, he’d think he’d already found and dealt with me. Just a lot of noise with nothing to back it up.
In the meantime, the dwarves had picked through their victims to see what they’d earned, fair and square. I headed over to Euiikh’s body to see what he had. The scimitar was pretty nice, and it was poisoned, too, while his armor was nothing special. Four hundred and sixty gold and some other little things rounded out the picture. Oh, hold on…
Sprinter’s Ring
+4 to stamina
+5 to agility
+0.5% health regeneration speed
+7% to movement speed
Durability: 96/110
Minimum level for use: 21
Happy birthday to me!
“What did you get?” asked Dorn. “You lit up like a Christmas tree.”
I proudly showed him the ring. In fact, I must have looked something like Frodo, which Rone noted with a chuckle. “You have a long way ahead of you, my young hobbit!”
“Yeah, not bad.” Dorn pronounced his opinion with the air of an expert. “For your level, at least. Anything else?”
“Not really. Some gold, a scimitar, all poor to middling. Bunch of trash.”
They keep everything in their rooms.” Rone spat. “The bastards know everyone picks dead PKers to the bone, all the way to their watches and gold fillings. So, they don’t carry anything around with them. But what’s the point? You kill people, and then you don’t even get to use what you took. Idiots…”
“I think they’re sick,” I said. “Inadequacy complexes. Take Euiikh, did you see him at the end? He wasn’t a person, just a charging mule. Hooves kicking and foam flying from his mouth…”
“Who knows if he’s crazy or just some mutant,” said Dorn. “But we need to let the clan know. They’ll take care of him.”
I almost wanted to tell them about my idea but decided against it. What was the point? Much better to keep it to myself.
“Thanks, guys.” My appreciation was sincere. “If it weren’t for you, I’d be leaving Tocbridge in my underwear annoyed and humiliated right now.”
“Oh, come on, you could have just let the clan know, and we’d have sent you some money,” said Dorn.
I hadn’t even thought of that. Complaining to them had crossed my mind, but not getting some financial support.
“We make sure we always help new members. Within reason, of course,” said Rone.
“Where were you going, by the way?” asked Dorn.
“To Fladridge.” Honesty is the best policy.
“Oh, wow, you have a ways to go. Listen, we just finished an ability quest, and we were going to see the instructor in Khitskern for our reward, but it doesn’t matter which city we go to. We have a portal scroll that costs 1,500 gold. If you want, you can give us 500 gold, and we’ll all go to Fladridge. We’re always up for helping volunteers, but I’m sure you understand that scrolls cost money. No offense?” Dorn looked at me quizzically.
“Sounds great!” I agreed immediately. “I can give you more…”
“No need. Five hundred gold a piece is fair. Plus, we got some stuff from those guys, too, thanks to you. If you’re good, we can go now.”
Dorn pulled a scroll out of a pouch on his belt and used it.
Fladridge turned out to be a pleasant little city pulled straight from Medieval Europe: tile roofs, neat little houses, ladies in bonnets, and men in frock coats. All it needed was a church steeple peeking above the buildings. But where would they find a steeple, and especially a church to attach it to, in Fayroll? They were pagans, after all. Although, wait a second—I guess they were atheists. There were some gods of a sort, but they drove them out. All that were left were legends and four dryads. Even atheists change their minds sometimes, though.
Rone, Dorn, and I split up in the city’s central square, as the dwarves were on their way to get some sort of ability. I made them promise to let me buy a
round of beer when next we saw each other and sent them friend requests. They laughed and looked at each other, but they accepted. Before they left, I asked if they knew where the class instructors were.
“Kids these days are all so lazy.” Rone looked at me disapprovingly. “No running around looking for them. No. Point them in the right direction, so they don’t have to bother to even turn their heads.”
“Rone, let’s adopt him!” said Dorn. “It’ll be so much cheaper, and in the last half hour, we’ve basically become his fathers. There, son, over in that alley between the buildings.”
The dwarf pointed in the direction of a small street.
“All right, see you later.” Rone thumped me on the shoulder. “Send us a message if you need anything.”
“And send us the money when you have it.” Dorn clapped me on the other shoulder.
Off they went.
It was time for my revenge. I’m not that mean of a person, but I had to do something. There wouldn’t be dwarves in the bushes coming to save my skin every time. It was as clear as day, however, that the orc wasn’t about to let me off, and so I had to neutralize him. That or make it so that he would be too busy to worry about me. The good news was that I had an excellent plan.
I looked around and noticed something at the southern end of the square that I needed for my Very Sneaky Plan: a mailbox.
Mailboxes were everywhere in Fayroll, from villages to cities to nomad camps in the Plains to the wildest outposts. You may not find a trader, but you could always find a mailbox. Not only that, but they were always designed to match their environment.
More Than a Game Page 15
