by M Helbig
Sarge sighed and held his hand out in front of me. My vision was blurry, and I could barely see the faded outline of my HP indicator telling me I was close to death. I couldn’t make out the numbers or even see my attacker very well. A few notifications popped up telling me I had several status ailments, but I couldn’t make them out.
A bottle of a thick, red liquid was thrust into my mouth from behind. Normally, I’d have questioned anything held by the dirty, meaty hands of the surly half-orc, but I was desperate and too maddened by pain to debate the source. The red liquid was the most wonderful thing I’d ever tasted—smooth, cool, and rejuvenating. Every molecule of my body tingled in ecstasy. I screamed in joy and took a step forward, ready to fight.
I was invincible. No one would be able to stop the reinvigorated me! With my sight fully returned, I was surprised that my opponent was actually my height and not a half-orc like Sarge at all. As I took in his handsome face and dark hair, I realized why I knew he was exactly the same size as me. He was me—right down to the dirty creases in his undershirt from Sarge’s earlier blows. I made a note to get a comb as soon as I got out of there.
“Self-loathing jerk!” I said as I took a swing at myself, the irony of the statement not dawning on me until it was already out.
It should’ve occurred to me that hitting myself would likely also damage myself, but fortunately I was in no danger, as my blow missed by a good three feet. In case I wasn’t sure, the faded, gray word Miss floated from the middle of my mirror image’s chest. The other me smirked as he landed a well-placed blow to the exact spot where I’d been aiming, but on the real me. The bright red 3 that floated up put a convenient number to how much my chest hurt as did the accompanying 1 when I landed hard on my butt.
Sarge laughed as he picked me off the ground. He put his hand out again, and my gorgeous opponent lowered his club. “Ya have to aim when ya attack, newbiecakes.”
I lined up my arm and then swung at my now stationary opponent. A Miss floated in the center of my vision for a bit too long, like it was taunting me.
Sarge covered his eyes in embarrassment. “No, not like in your world. In this world, yer an avatar of destruction, designed by the gods themselves with the potential to one day take them on. You have to think ‘aim’ to unlock the potential they gave to ya.”
I thought really hard about aiming this time and only missed by a few inches. My next few attacks were worse, but by that point, the doppelganger had resumed attacking me.
I could hear Sarge slapping himself in the face behind me. A prompt did pop up telling me I’d unlocked the Unarmed Combat skill and asking me if I wanted to use a skill choice and learn it. I wasn’t sure how precious skill choices were, so I hit “no.”
“Jeez,” Sarge said. “You’d be better off swinging at random.”
Another message appeared on my screen, but I was so angry I dismissed it. I put all my focus into my next punch. As it landed, I could hear teeth rattling as the other me’s head cracked to the side. The white 3! was bigger than any of the other damage notifications I’d seen before. Sarge informed me the exclamation point on the end meant I’d landed a critical hit. After two more hits interspersed with a couple of misses, my clone dropped to the ground and vanished in a puff of smoke.
“Fantastic,” Sarge said, “you’re now capable of going toe to toe with ants, baby gerbils, and maybe a wounded, elderly squirrel. Oh yeah, and other newbs who just finished this tutorial. Now to set your stats . . . I probably should’ve told ya that before ya fought the freakishly ugly fella.”
The stats page popped up. I’d played a lot of tabletop role-playing games and non-VR MMORPG in the past, so the stats were familiar.
STR – Strength plays a large role in the calculation of most melee damage and determines your carrying capacity. It also plays a minor role in the damage of most ranged weapons.
AGI – Agility determines your chance to dodge most non-magic attacks. Your non-mounted movement rate is also influenced by Agility.
DEX – Dexterity increases your attack speed and chance to do extra (critical) damage on attack. It is a major component in the calculation of most ranged weapon damage.
STA – Stamina determines how much damage you can endure. Each point of Stamina translates into 1 additional Hit Point (HP) per level.
END – Endurance determines how many special actions you can perform both in and out of combat. Special actions include in-combat abilities such as the Warrior’s Shield Slam as well as out of combat skills such as Sprint. Each point of Endurance translates into 1 additional Action Point (AP) per level.
CHA – Charisma determines how charming you are when interacting with NPCs (non-player characters). A higher Charisma will increase how much merchants pay for items they buy from you and decrease how much they will sell things for. In addition, certain quests will only appear at higher Charisma levels. A small number of skills and spells are also affected by Charisma.
INT –The higher your Intelligence, the more spells you can cast. Each point of Intelligence translates into 1 additional point to your Mana Pool (MP) per level.
WIS – Wisdom determines how long buff and debuff spells last on your target. It is also the main factor in the calculation of healing or damage for most spells.
AC – Armor Class determines the damage you take from physical attacks. It cannot be raised with stat points. The primary method to raise your armor class is through equipment.
Resists – Increases your chance to resist a spell, skill, or effect of the listed type (Light, Dark, Earth, Water, Fire, Wind). It cannot be raised with stat points.
I got a base of ninety points to distribute plus a bonus one for being a human. Remembering what my dad had told me, I knew I wouldn’t get spells until I picked a class at level five, so if I wanted to focus on DPS, I’d have to be a melee for now. That meant I needed to focus on Dexterity and Strength, with some points thrown into Agility and Stamina for survivability. I’d probably have to run occasionally (and probably more than I’d like to, being I was such a newb), so I put a few points in Endurance too. “Do I get more stats when I level, or is this like some of the tabletop games where you’re mostly stuck with your starting stats?”
“You get two more points at every level, but don’t worry so much about them. When ya hit level five, ya get to pick your base class and ya also get to redistribute all yer stats for free. The same thing happens at level twenty-five when ya pick yer sub-class. Ya can also have a class trainer reset them at any time but ya have ta pay.”
I nodded in thanks and went about implementing my plan. Since I got more points when I leveled and would get a free redo in a few levels, I didn’t put too much thought into it. I made a note to learn more before I hit level five, though. As a human, I also got ten points to put in resists. This is what I came up with:
Level: 1
HP: 15/15
Class: Adventurer
MP: 4/4
Race: Human
AP: 8/8
Experience: 0/1,000
AC: 0
STR: 19
Resists
AGI: 13
Light: 0
DEX: 19
Dark: 5
STA: 15
Earth: 0
END: 8
Water: 0
CHA: 9
Fire: 5
INT: 4
Wind: 0
WIS: 4
HP Regen: 1 per minute
Carrying Capacity: 0/380
MP Regen: 1 per minute
AP Regen: 1 per minute
Skills: none
“Great,” Sarge said through a yawn. “Two things left, and then I get to play with a different clueless moron. Now I want ya to Inspect me.”
I gave the yellow, green-skinned mound of muscle a hard look. He rested his arms on his hips and offered a lopsided grin, exposing his discolored right fang down to his blood red gums. As I continued looking at him with no response
, he finally got bored and began aggressively scratching the left side of his body. A notification covered my view, but I dismissed it quickly out of fear that it’d prevent me from seeing whatever it was Sarge meant for me to see.
“So?” he asked. “What ya got for me?”
“You probably have gingivitis and fleas.” I backed away in case he either decided to hit me or pass his fleas on.
He shook his head in exasperation. “True, but that’s not—Let’s try something else.”
He tossed me his wooden practice sword, and I caught it. It was much thicker and wider than the longswords I’d seen in other games, yet it still felt light in my hands. I assumed that was from all the points I’d put in Strength. I took a few practice swings and noticed that my limbs seemed to move quite a bit quicker than they had earlier. Sarge cracked his grapefruit-sized knuckles and advanced on me.
Miraculously, I attacked first. I focused as hard as I could on aiming directly at his wide midsection and swung parallel to the ground. My wooden blade made a whooshing sound as it sailed awkwardly toward him. When it was inches away from him, my arms twisted suddenly, and the gray Miss floated up as my momentum took me past the muscular half-orc. Sarge hit me on the back as he twirled behind me. I had a feeling the red 2 meant he was toying with me. A notification annoyingly popped up on my screen, but I pushed it away so I could see.
“And now?” Sarge asked as my next swing sailed wildly over his head.
I managed to twist around to face him. “That you’re awesome and I suck. And since I suck so much and you don’t, would you happen to know how to turn off notifications? It’s really distracting in a fight to have those getting in the way.”
Sarge looked straight up into the air in silent prayer to whatever god he followed. “I’m really going to have to talk to my union about regular time off to visit a shrink . . . or a whore. Ya turn those off by thinking about bringing up the menu to turn 'em off, like ya do for anything else, but in this case, think about bringing them back up. Those were the things I was trying to teach ya about: skills. When ya do an action that’s related to a skill, there’s a chance for ya to unlock it. In the case of basic things like, I don’t know, Inspect and 1-Handed Swords, ya should get them to appear the first time ya try them.”
I thought about the notifications and a screen appeared in front of me. “It says I’ve unlocked the Unarmed Combat, Inspect, and 1-Handed Swords skills. Where do I see what my skill level is?” I thought about that and another menu appeared. “It says I don’t have any skills, and I have seven unused skill choices. I thought I learned three.”
“Unlocking isn’t the same as learnin’. Don’t learn something unless you plan on using it a lot, as it costs one of your skill choices. Skill choices are a highly limited commodity. Everyone starts with five plus the bonus ones they get for their race, or two extra fer humans like you. You get one more every other level too. Also when you pay fer a class change or hit level five, twenty-five, and fifty, ya can unlearn any you have, so you can spend the points on something else. Warning, though, any skill advancements for ones you drop get lost permanently. Those seven you have might seem like a ton of points, but there’s a catch. If ya want to go past twenty-five in a skill, ya have ta spend an additional skill choice, and another at fifty and one more at seventy-five. So, you probably want to think long and hard about spending ’em.”
I focused and brought up the notifications again. When I looked closer at each one, a description popped up for the three skills:
Unarmed Combat: Like hitting things but too cheap to buy a weapon?
Description: The higher you advance in the unarmed skill, the more accurate and damaging your punches become. You can also equip a limited selection of special weapons that use this skill, like the cestus and brass knuckles, though these weapons do quite a bit less damage than most other weapons, unless enhanced by the Fists Like Rock skill of the Bruiser class. Even if you plan on taking up a weapon skill, it never hurts to have your fists as a backup, because your fists can never be disarmed . . . de-fisted? (Technically that’s not true, but if your hands get chopped off, you probably lost the fight a long time ago.)
Inspect: I’m not staring at you; I’m only using Inspect. I swear!
Description: Inspect mainly helps by getting more detailed information about items and opponents, which might not seem like a lot, but trust us, it is! Hard to know if you can take that rabid teddy bear if you don’t know how strong it is. The higher your skill, the more likely information will be revealed. Not the flashiest of skills, but one of the most underrated.
1-Handed Swords: It slices. It dices. It . . . OK, that’s about all it can do, but do you really need more?
Description: The 1-Handed Sword skill makes your sharp thing hit the thing you’re aiming at more often, and not the thing you’re not aiming at. Kill your enemies while not inadvertently killing your friends. A real win-win of a skill!
I debated taking one or both the weapon skills, but decided that since skill choices were so precious, I’d hold off on them at least until I got my first weapon. I did pick the Inspect skill since it seemed like a very valuable skill for someone who knew so little about the game. If I didn't like it, I could always remove it at level five. I immediately tried the skill out on Sarge.
Sarge
Level: ???
Resits:
Type: Boss
Light:???
Race: Half-Orc, All Stud
Dark: ???
Faction: none
Earth:???
HP: 1 Gagillion/1 Gagillion
Water: ???
MP: ???
Fire: ???
AP: ???
Wind: ???
AC: 1,000
Special Attributes: Nose Picking, Pointing Out the Obvious, Horticulture, Pwning Newbs, Sarcasm
Weaknesses: Baths, Half-Orc Boobies
“Lookin’ at something sexy?” Sarge winked. “When ya Inspect someone, they can feel it. Good thing ta know, as some people don’t take kindly to it.”
A tingle washed over my body. I assumed it meant he’d used Inspect on me, so I returned the favor. “What’s with all the triple question marks?”
“Means your skill check failed. When ya use Inspect, a separate check happens on each stat, as well as their skills and equipment. The equipment check fails a lot more often than the others. Even with a 100 in Inspect you’re still gonna fail sometimes, especially if the other person is a higher level. You can always try again, but ya might fail on different stuff. Welp, guess it’s time we part.”
He smirked sweetly, which I took for a bad sign and braced myself for whatever he’d planned. After a few minutes of nothing happening, Sarge scrunched up his brow in confusion.
“Didn’t you say there were two more things left for me to do before I left?” I asked.
“Oh, yeah. You were such a dummy with the skills that I forgot. Give yerself a name so I know what to curse when I can’t sleep tonight. Not that I sleep or anything. Be creative because ya have to pick one no one else has.”
I said my normal character name of “Lucellent” and then the names of every alt in every game I could think of, but the names were all taken, even “Stabbington Bladesworth III.” Not sure what to pick and deathly afraid of what Sarge would do if I kept him waiting any longer, I remembered my dad’s favorite joke when I was little. He’d tell Lilly and me that if we weren’t good, we’d end up like our fictitious half-brother Horus. Horus was evidently terrible, so terrible Dad buried him in our backyard. We both knew he was joking—Dad made that obvious—but the message stuck. I said “Horus” and the game made sure I got it right before it appeared as my name.
“Great, Horus,” Sarge said. “I’ll add it to my list of curses. Now since yer extra stupid, I’ll give ya some advice. First thing ya should do when ya get to town is buy some gear. And if ya see any half-orc babes, send em Sarge’s way.”
Sarge gave me an elaborate bow. I wasn’t sure
if he was mocking me, but I decided to take it as a sign of respect, so I bowed in response. Before I could ask another question, a strong force pulled me from behind.
Well, That’s One Way to Learn About Combat
I couldn’t hear Sarge’s laughter through the powerful wind, but it looked like he was going to literally bust his guts as I was sucked through some sort of portal into a bright blue sky. The whipping wind made it feel like I was falling off a hundred-story building, but fortunately it didn’t last as long or hurt nearly as much as a fall like that should have. It was mostly just disorienting. I abruptly landed with a thud on a patch of worn grass. I was lucky that I hadn’t landed a foot to the right on the brick road, but I suspected the game was designed for me to not die as soon as I entered. Several similar patches dotted the field around me, and my suspicions were confirmed when another player landed to my right.
