by RJ Creed
“Sounds good,” I said, though I had already come to the same conclusion. I dipped my dagger in the lake water, which rippled and shimmered at my touch, and I wiped the congealed wolf blood off fairly easily on the grass below. When I lifted it to take a look, it was perfectly clean. The system wasn’t going to bother with little droplets and streaks after I’d cleaned it, it seemed.
“Right,” Gellert said. “Lift it up, look at it, and think of a chair. A tiny chair.”
I lifted it up and turned it in my hands. The image of a chair appeared in my mind, and it was more vivid than my usual imagination. I lifted up my dagger to the block.
“Right, now strip it all away, leaving just the chair.”
I glanced at him. This was pretty much the same as Smithing, it seemed, so I just allowed my dagger to do what it wanted to. I began to peel at the wood like it was a tough old apple.
You have discovered a hidden skill!
Whittling: The best skill in the game, if what you’re looking to do is make sawdust for your hamster.
Related Attribute: DEX
“Cool,” I said emphatically, and carried on. I made another few grooves and then dug out another chip. Soon over half an hour had passed and I was still eagerly turning the wood block around in my hands and digging out parts of the block. I could just about see the beginnings of a chair leg sticking out, with a perfectly square bottom. I blew on it and watched the sawdust swirl through the air. Nearby, Ryken kept himself occupied by using his slingshot on birds. He had felled three by the time my second chair leg emerged from the wood.
Congratulations! Whittling has reached Level 1!
I felt the newfound confidence in the activity wash through me, and instantly picked up on an imperfection in the leg that I hadn’t seen before, and scored it away with the side of my blade.
“The problem with this is that it will eventually dull your blade, just as combat would,” Gellert noted, and that made me pause in mid-carve. “Shall we go now?”
I would have happily sat and made things from wood for three days straight, I felt, if he hadn’t said that. I snapped myself out of it and went to put the chunk of wood in my pack. Gellert stopped me with a hand on my arm.
“You have the skill now, there’s no point in keeping that. Just find some more wood and strip off the bark.”
“Can I make anything I want to?” I asked him.
“You need to have a teacher, like me, who is above level 5 in the skill to put the image in your head.”
I recalled just how vivid the little chair in my mind had been, and also how detailed that iron dagger had been when Hrzog had mentioned it before. It made sense. “That’s the only way?” I asked. “How does anything new get made?”
“That’s just the way to make your first item,” he said. “There are other ways to find designs. Ah, you’ll pick it up. Why should I spoil the fun?” He winked proudly at me and I found myself smiling as we stood and began our walk, fully refreshed and in great spirits.
Just like Ryken and I had figured, we arrived at the circled area on the map just after the sun had passed its midpoint in the sky and after we had filled our stomachs again. We still had enough food for a full day of travelling happily, and two days of travelling with slight hunger pangs.
“We should ration our last meal today, just in case,” I told them. They reluctantly agreed; we had no idea what might be ahead of us, and how simple this errand — as Lucius had put it — would turn out to be.
“Witches,” Gellert said softly, running his hand against the bark of a tree. “We’d better be careful. If they are as dangerous as the Collective thinks they are, they’ll have traps. And they’re probably expecting someone to come for them, after they’ve stolen so much Dawnspire property.”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “Be on the lookout.”
“Guys,” came Ryken’s voice behind us, and we turned around to see what he was pointing to. He had pulled aside a blanket of thick ivy to reveal a large hole in the side of a slope. I hadn’t even come close to seeing that there. “I guess you don’t have high Perception skills?”
Damn. I hadn’t even unlocked Perception, which meant I clearly hadn’t even attempted it. What did that say about me?
“Well spotted,” I said. He gave me a sneer. We all hovered outside the opening for a little while, and checked and double checked the map. The cave was definitely right here, if it was anywhere. But none of us seemed to want to go in first.
“You’re the leader,” Ryken finally whispered.
“Fine,” I hissed back, and slowly I crouched and crept through the hole, keeping myself in Stealth mode as best I could. The other two followed suit, and Moro’s glow even seemed to dull as we made our way down the soft, sloping path and deep into the tunnels.
After a while of this, we could no longer see very well from the natural light behind us, but there was a faint flickering ahead of us that looked to me like it was coming from a flame, so I waved my teammates on and we continued to creep through the winding tunnels. I was drawing the journey out, just a little, to see if it helped me level up in Stealth, but nothing seemed to happen. I could tell the skill was useful, since I could barely hear Ryken behind me at all, but every few steps I could hear Gellert’s shoes scuff the dirt, or his breathing.
Soon we came to the end of the tunnel, and I allowed myself to stretch out for a second before returning to my crouching position. My stamina had drained considerably. I figured that when I leveled up my Stealth I would be able to continue to crouch without aching for longer.
“Careful,” Ryken suddenly hissed as I stepped forward, and I turned around to ask what he had seen, but not before I managed to snag a thread with my boot, which snapped, and suddenly a sack of bones clattered deafeningly in front of us onto the soft dirt below.
We remained in a crouch, all three of us wide-eyed and frozen in place. That had been one of the loudest noises I had ever heard, amplified by a dozen because we were trying so hard to be silent.
“You’re fucking lucky it wasn’t an offensive trap,” Ryken snapped in a whisper. “You’d be dead.” He shook his head. “Idiot.”
Maybe I was an idiot, but what was he helping by telling me that all the time? But now wasn’t the time to argue, so I just flipped him off and strained my ears to listen. No one was coming, or if they were, their Stealth was even higher than Ryken’s, because I was aware of nobody in the tunnel ahead of us.
“Should we carry on?” I whispered.
“Your call, boss,” Gellert said, and I could tell that even he was beginning to lose his patience somewhat. I gritted my teeth and continued sneaking forward, careful to avoid kicking any of the bones, and carried on through the only other tunnel ahead of us. Now the path was lit by torches against the wall, and it was getting more and more ominous.
A little way further, we came to a path that sharply led to the left, as well as the larger tunnel that continued forward. I was going to ask my team what they thought we should do, but thought the better of it. They wanted a leader? Fine. I would make my own decisions. I waved them to the left, and they followed me quietly through the thinner path to the left.
We came to another cavern, much larger than the first and just as empty of life. Two torches hung on opposite sides of the wall, proving that even though we found nobody, there were people here, and they had been here recently.
Open sacks of dirty vegetables piled by the wall, and there were bread crusts and hard cheese skins littered around the floor, as well as tattered roll mats. I searched every corner of the room carefully before I took a step. In one part lay another pile of white animal bones, which gave me the shivers. Why did they have so many of the things? What were they doing with them?
Ryken stood up straight suddenly and held out a hand to insist we stay still, so Gellert and I watched as he stepped over to the bone pile, and frowned at it. He leaned closer, and closer, and reached out to touch them…
A cold gust blew over us as if
it had come from the walls itself, and Moro turned and looked pointedly into my eyes, the way she had when the wolves had come for us. She was warning me. But of what? A light, feminine whisper flowed past my ears, and there was a gentle rattling.
The bones were the only things in the room that were moving. They were jumping and rattling like they were the only things affected by an earthquake that we weren’t feeling. Something in the back of my mind was telling me to run, but the less primal part of my brain knew that I had an important quest to complete.
“Get ready,” I hissed, my palm on my sheath. Ryken pulled out his sling, and Gellert got his shortbow. I had played enough games to know full well that none of us had a weapon that would be useful against what was about to appear and fight us.
And I was right about what it was. The bones came together and before us rattled two bizarre-looking bone monsters, about four feet tall and consisting entirely of the wrong bones in the wrong places. They both looked over at us, somehow, which was a feat considering that one of them had an upside down canine skull as a face and the other had drawn the short straw and had only some kind of a shattered pelvis for a head. Another soft whisper tickled the back of my neck, and the skeleton things had glowing swords form in their right hands. Not good.
“Try to bludgeon,” I managed to say, zipping my dagger through the air as I did. Stabbing, slashing and shooting projectiles was going to do very little damage. But we didn’t have anything useful. The monsters split and immediately one went for Ryken, who was backing away, and the other tripped for Gellert. I was closer to the latter, so as it lunged towards Gellert, who backed away and with trembling hands tried to pull out an arrow, I ran to it and punched it with all my strength in the chest.
Congratulations! Hand-to-Hand has reached Level 2!
It trembled, but didn’t exactly explode in a shower of bone, which would have been preferable…
Gellert managed to nock his arrow and with a sharp whistle it sailed just an inch past my ear and cracked against the thing’s pelvis-head. The monster staggered backward, and I glanced up to see that its HP bar was down by almost 15% already. We were going to be fine, I figured, but I didn’t have the time to look and see how Ryken was doing — he was probably fine.
The monster blindly swung with its sword and I just about managed to stumble backwards. My leather jerkin took the tip and remained intact, where my sackcloth would have ripped and let me take the brunt.
With its arm so close, as Gellert nocked another arrow, my hand blurred and within an instant my dagger had cracked against whatever bone it was using as its forearm. The monster jerked as if the attack had been meaningful, and another 5% was knocked off of its bar.
“How you doing, Ryken?” I said through gritted teeth, just about seeing as he slammed his foot into the other monster’s centre and sent it falling back.
“Fine,” he said simply, and then spat on the stone floor.
The next arrow sailed past and cracked against our monster’s bone torso, and I dared to step closer and go for a kick on the lower leg to try and compromise its balance. The health bar fell to just below half now, but before we could celebrate anything there was another rumbling and they began to rattle again. Ryken leapt back, and we followed suit, assuming he knew something we didn’t.
“Could they be dying?” I asked the others, and while Gellert shrugged, Ryken quickly shook his head.
“Don’t lower your guard,” he said, and when I got a proper look at him I could see his leather jack had several long scrapes on it; he looked completely winded.
I turned back to the monsters, fearing the worst and getting it. They rattled violently, the whispers in the room turned harsh, until the feminine noises became almost shouted chanting. The monsters suddenly jumped into each other as if magnetically attracted, and the bones shifted and cracked, until four limbs were easy to see, and the upside down canine skull stuck out from the top.
It was pretty terrifying to look at. I resisted the urge to back away, instead sheathing my dagger. The swords remained, one clutched in each hand, and it stomped towards us.
I thought quickly. “Necromancers must be in the next room. Ryken, sneak over, see if you can spot them. If there are only a couple, pause their chanting with projectiles. Be quick. If there’s too many of them, come back as fast as you can. Gellert, just be defensive, try not to get hit.”
I took my place in front of him, knowing that my defence was probably well above his, and he nocked an arrow and sent it sailing. He must have been nervous because the arrow went wide, and he trembled and went for his next one, but I knew he was probably already running out.
I took another step forward as it cut a wide arc with its right sword. At the last second I pulled out my dagger and it smacked against the sword, defending me from what would have been a huge blow. In fact — what was I thinking? I hadn’t even inspected the thing yet.
I ducked under the wide slash of the left sword, sheathed my dagger, and squinted back at the thing while it recalibrated. It was twice as big, of course, but it was also having much more trouble moving quickly.
Greater Bone Minion
Level 8 Construct
Bone Warrior
Hostile
“Level 8.” That wasn’t great for two level 4s, but it wasn’t impossible either, especially with Ryken, hopefully, trying to slow down the women who were controlling it from the next cavern.
It lumbered a step towards Gellert, who was frantically trying to ready another arrow. “Hey,” I said hoarsely, and then, “Hey!” Bending and pelting it with small stones, I managed to direct the monster’s wrath back towards me. At least I had armour and a close-range weapon.
The monster paused, and raised its two three-jointed arms up and backwards, readying for something. I sucked in a deep breath and launched forward, rolling underneath the arcs as both swords sliced through the air where I had been, and standing up again with only the slightest stagger.
Before I really knew what I was doing, my hand blurred up to clack against its ribcage, and another arrow smacked it square in the head.
“That was my last one, Matt,” Gellert groaned from behind me. “I don’t see how else I can help.”
“It’s fine,” I said through gritted teeth. Ryken would be able to help soon…
...or he wouldn’t.
The monster still hadn’t moved, and it was slightly bent over in front of me. Recovering from that last attack? I concentrated hard — if I could move my dagger that fast from the sheath, surely I could move it almost as fast, at least, without drawing it? I imagined the sensation of my blurring hand, the flick of my wrist, and then I stabbed as hard as I could.
Three hits landed, one after the other in impossibly quick succession, and then the monster began to move again so I took that time to duck and roll away.
You have learned the skill Triple Strike!
WIS +1
What just happened? I had thought you needed someone to teach you an ability in order to learn it, but I had just made that one up? And no increase had come from learning my last ability. As I backed up to the corner of the cavern furthest away from Gellert, I thought about it: looked like if you came up with a technique on your own, you increased an attribute. That was pretty sweet. I made a pact to be more inventive from now on.
Looked like I couldn’t use that attack again straight away though, as the green ‘stamina’ bar was close to diminishing completely. My chest rose and fell hard; I was exhausted.
The monster’s health was at about 80%. I screwed my eyes shut and resisted the urge to yell out for Ryken to return. I was just about done for if this kept happening. Every time I dodged an attack my stamina dipped, and it was returning slower than I was using it. And only the Triple Strike had done anything resembling real damage, but it needed half of my stamina bar by itself…
“Gellert,” I croaked, as the monster crashed towards me. “I…”
“Hey. Ugly! Over here!” he yelled s
uddenly, and I stood up straight and looked at the old man in surprise as he copied my tactic and pelted it with rocks, then glanced over at me. “Look, Matt. I’ll … I’ll just let him kill me. It’ll take him a bit of time, and by then you’ll have recovered some stamina and Ryken will have put a dent in the necromancers, or he’ll return. No argument. I’m doing this!” The beast had almost reached him.
“Wait!” I said, smearing dirt across my sweaty face as I wiped it. “When we die, what happens?”
“When a player dies we spawn back at our faction camp. My body will disappear almost instantly. It happened to me and friends constantly back in beta. Don’t worry! I’ll be back in the spire when you return, alright?”
I could barely think or speak by the time the monster lifted both his swords up high and then swiped them across each other like scissors. But he was probably right, although it was difficult to think of how we were going to go through the rest of this adventure with only two of us. My stamina bar had already crept up over half again since I was sitting still and catching my breath.
“G—” I said, and then hissed in a breath through my teeth as the swords crossed each other with a sharp ‘schwing’, and the old guy was instantly cut in half. His HP bar disappeared from above him, and both halves fell to the ground. His eyes were glassy, his lips parted and stained red. It was so vivid; so real, I could barely stand to look. His dark blood leaked all over the soft dirt, and then the monster turned around to face me.
My heart was beating faster and harder than it ever had before. I could die, and that wouldn’t be the end, sure; Gellert had confirmed that for me. But I would be transported a day’s hike away and Ryken would be left here on his own. And the kid was a non-player; if he died, he died for good. I would feel incredibly guilty about that for the rest of my time in Ilyria … and probably beyond that, too. He was as real as I was. It was difficult to deny that.
I got to my feet, feeling further from the void than I had been before, and charged with a yell towards the bone monster, and it swept its right sword at me. I unsheathed my dagger and blocked it, but didn’t manage to dodge in time as the left sword swiped and dug into my side. The leather caught most of the damage, but the tip of the ethereal blade pierced my skin and I cried out in pain.
