Last Horizon: Beta

by Daniel Schinhofen

  “What is it? You've been apparently waffling about something for the last few minutes.”

  Terets eyed him for a moment before replying, “I got a friend request from someone I don't know and was debating taking it to find out why. A person named Amythyst, so I would assume female but ya never know.”

  “Oh, maybe it was one of the ladies earlier, who wants to thank you,” Kittish opined.

  “Hmm maybe,” Terets waffled a bit more then accepted the request. Amythyst immediately sent a whisper request, which he accepted to find out what was going on.

  “Ummm hello, it's ummm Dancing Angel, err... I just wanted to thank you again for the help at launch. Ahh I was wondering if maybe we could catch up and talk... maybe have a drink and ummm...” The voice was the same as Dancing Angel's, and the lady seemed really nervous.

  “Well hello there Amythyst. I was quite happy to help you, no thanks needed. Next time me and my friends are back near civilization I would be more than happy to have a drink and talk. A little perplexed as to why you're nervous. I promise I don't bite or grab.”

  “Oh, you're out on a quest with your friends. Oh of course you are. I mean it doesn't need to happen right away just, you know, when you get a chance. Just, ummm send me a message when you're nearby and available.” Amythyst's voice sounded slightly more confident but with a tinge of nervousness still.

  “Probably be a few days but as soon as we're back that would be great. I look forward to hearing how things have been going for you. Oh what type are you going for, maybe I can help?”

  “Ummm well yeah ummm, oh you mean what kind of character my avatar is going to be oh hehe, ummm oh stealthy, yeah definitely stealthy. Better to get away, I mean it is just better right?”

  “Hey, that's great. I picked up leatherworking, I can probably make a nice leather outfit for you. Should easily be able to get the skins out here. Anyway my friends are waiting for me. I'll see what I can do and see you when we get back to town, okay?”

  “You want to make me a leather outfit... do I have to give you my measurements? I mean I remember what you said about being over endowed and I fixed that this time and...”

  “Oh yeah, well turns out armor fits a character no matter, guess the Devs decided that would be easier than actual fitted clothing. Definitely be easier for the crafters. I look forward to helping you out.”

  “That's... wow... I mean... how do I even... err... ummm... I look forward to your message, just be careful, okay? Thanks again Terets.” With that she broke the contact. For a moment Terets swore she seemed to linger over his name as she said it.

  Starting forward again he studiously ignored the hopeful expressions of his friends. “Not going to say anything other than it was Dancing Angel, who has a new avatar and wanted to say thank you. Don't even start and let’s go.”

  “Spoil sport,” muttered Dumadin catching up to his friend. “At least she picked a better name this time, which means she can learn.”

  Kittish gently bopped Dumadin on the head as they fell back into step together. “Leave him be for now, hopefully he'll tell us more later after he's had time to think about it.”

  Terets smiled gratefully at Kittish and nodded slightly, “Yeah, you never know. And he might not be a jackass one day.”

  “Dreamer,” Kittish laughed.

  DECISIONS

  A few more sessions of walking netted them another two dozen furs and almost another hundred herbs. The way became rougher as the ground began to slope up, and Kittish found fewer herbs as they went.

  “Starting to look kind of rocky. Might be able to do some mining soon. Oh, Terets did you send that report of the auto-completed quest from Smee in? Still thinking that was odd.” Dumadin asked.

  “Yep, sent it off the other day to Jazzy. She sent back her thanks, and said quests like those are built in. Apparently they wanted surprise rewards for those that do good deeds. She did say that for some of them the profession of the player matters, too.”

  “Bet Smee was one of those, and Kittish had the right profession. Lucky for us,” Dumadin responded and gave Kittish a half hug as they walked.

  “What you offer an NPC also matters, you can't just go around giving people trash and expect anything. She also said she hopes we're enjoying the game so far, and definitely wants us to keep sending her reports. Not too many people are out and about yet, most of them are still checking out towns and villages first.” Terets informed his friends as they continued the hike.

  “That's kind of silly of them, it's been very profitable for us so far,” Kittish added. “We're level four already. Hopefully we find some ore for Dumadin soon so he can catch up with us on xp, don't want to leave him too far behind.”

  “Wouldn't that be nice, feel like a redheaded stepchild compared to you two,” Dumadin playfully grumbled.

  “You are a redhead here, shorty,” Terets laughed and side stepped Dumadin's halfhearted grab. “You're also ugly and slow, jackass.”

  “What was that, don't taunt next time and let the wolves eat you? Well, if you insist,” Dumadin said as if hearing Terets say something different. “Far be it from me to remove your joy of having sharp canine teeth digging into your gut.”

  Kittish laughed at their antics and put an arm around each of them, “You two, even after twenty years, can't help yourselves.”

  Dumadin tried to keep the mutterings going but couldn't, just glad to be able to have so much fun at his age with his closest friends. He started to say something when he noticed a glint off to the left near a boulder. He broke free of the hug and ran to it, seeing the seam of copper ore he broke into a jig. “Finally ore, beautiful wonderful ore.” He grabbed at his belt and brought out a mining pick, as his friends laughed at his impromptu jig. He wrapped his arms around the rock as far as he could, “It's okay baby, don't listen to them, they're just jealous that we finally found each other.”

  This caused his friends to laugh harder and him to chuckle as he backed up and studied the vein of ore. He began to see a ghostly version of a mining pick tapping at the seam of ore. He copied the motions with the pick and a full minute later the boulder disappeared and a chunk of copper ore fell to the ground in front of him. Laughing he grabbed it and shoved it into his bag. A pop up informed him that he had received one hundred experience.

  “Frickin frack,” he muttered and walked back to his friends. “Seems mining really takes it out of you. It cost be twenty stamina to get that one vein. It gave me a hundred xp, but good gods, that sucks compared to yours.”

  “It'll depend on how many bars you get out of that chunk of ore. If that one chunk is enough to craft a weapon or piece of armor by itself then it balances out. Might also mean ore is rarer too, compared to my flowers or Terets's ability to get skins. This matches what we've seen so far” Kittish said, playing devil's advocate while glancing at Terets.

  “I can see both sides of what you guys are saying. It's not like we're in a hurry though. Break out the portable smelter and see what you get out of it.” Terets added, truly interested in what the answer would be.

  Nodding, Dumadin put the pick away and grabbed the portable smelter from his crafting kit. As soon as he set it on the ground, it was ready to use, like the cooking fire at Smee's had been. The smelter was a small cauldron over a fire. Dumadin put the ore he'd gathered into the cauldron and a moment later ghostly hands mimed pouring the now melted ore into a mold that appeared near the smelter. Dumadin copied the motion, and a moment later was able to pick up the bar. He looked it over, then blinked at his friends.

  “Five bars of copper is what it says. Cost me another ten stamina to smelt it but, that's a nice haul. I hope,” Dumadin informed the group. The smelter vanished into his crafting kit. “My blacksmithing profession tells me that with access to an anvil I can make a sword, hammer, or axe for one bar each, or I can make a staff for two bars. I can also make copper buttons which are good for leatherworking. One bar makes twenty buttons.”

  Terets c
hecked his crafting UI and browsed through the recipes he knew, “Here it is. Looks like it's about three buttons per top or two per pants to make better armor. Seems like they'll be difficult for me to craft yet, so I'd probably end up kind of crappy gear if I tried it now. Good to know for later, though.”

  “Sounds good all around,” Kittish rummaged through her bag and handed Dumadin a wolf steak. “Eat this to get some stamina back and let’s go, bet we'll find more ore closer to the mountains. We should only be an hour or two from the cave.”

  Nodding, Dumadin accepted the steak even though he had some in his inventory, and took a bite. His eyes widened and he quickly devoured the meat, to his friend’s astonishment. “That was so frickin good, it was like a strip steak perfectly cooked. The juice, flavor, texture oh my gods, so frickin good.”

  Terets eyed him, not sure if the dwarf was being genuine or trying to trick them into trying one. He glanced at Kittish, shrugged and bit into one of his own wolf steaks. Less than a minute later the steak was devoured and Terets was licking the left over juice from his fingers, much as Dumadin had done.

  Kittish decided in for a penny in for a pound and tried one as well. She wolfed hers down as quickly as her friends had and they exchanged glances.

  “Right, I know this is a game based on the idea of dreaming but that is just not fair. I worked as a cook for years and to get that in a RL steak takes practice. Here, just slap a piece of meat in a pan turn once and done. Makes me wonder what other food will be like.” Dumadin finished and looked at his friends.

  “Next time I will break out some of the hard cheese Bjorn gave us and we can try that.” Kittish offered as they began to walk again. This was meet with agreement from both guys.

  Almost an hour later Dumadin noticed another boulder that glinted slightly and informed his friends. Walking towards it he pulled the pick from his belt and located the seam of ore, iron this time. A minute's work netted him a chunk of ore, which he turned into three bars with the smelter. His stamina took another hit from the crafting and a pop up informed his that he'd reached level four.

  Kittish handed him some cheese once he was done. “Iron this time, should easily be able to upgrade our gear when I find an anvil. I also hit level four with that node.” With that he popped the cheese into his mouth and chewed. The best hard cheddar he had ever tasted greeted his taste buds. “It's so not fair, everything tastes so frickin good.”

  “Grats on the level.” Kittish smiled and kissed the top of Dumadin's head as he blissfully munched.

  “A real cooked meal at an inn tasting like this is one thing, but rations tasting like this is just silly. I'm going to mention to Jazzy that they might want to tone that down a notch or two. Also grats man, glad to see you're getting decent xp off those nodes.” Terets pulled up his UI and began composing the message to be sent via email.

  “I want to disagree but yeah probably for the best. Rations should taste good, but not this good.” Dumadin shook his head and hugged Kittish while they waited for Terets to send off the email.

  “I think the path up the mountains is right over there to the left,” Kittish said point it out to Dumadin.

  Nodding, Dumadin looked to the right and pointed to something, “I bet that over there is Theodore's cave, then.”

  Kittish looked where he was pointing and nodded. There was a patch of darkness that could only be a cave in that direction, not far from the path she'd spotted. When Terets was finished with his email Kittish pointed out both locations to him.

  “So do we check the cave first and see about this bear? Or should we go see the Hermit first?”

  “We haven't had many issues with the wolves, so we might want to just see what the teddy looks like,” Dumadin opined.

  “Yeah but the quest says we will get equipment, and we keep being told to be careful of the bear. I think we should go up first.” Terets added looking at the path. “Guys, does that path look like it narrows a little bit up?”

  Dumadin squinted and peered at the path, “Possibly, let’s go take a look.”

  They walked towards the path leading up the mountain, and sure enough Terets had spotted that the path lead though a nook. It was narrow enough that Dumadin was going to have to turn sideways to slip through. Gouged into the rocks and dirt near the crevice were large parallel grooves, marks made by very big and sharp claws. “You think the bear wants to get up there but can't because of this narrow spot?”

  “Possible Kittish. And now we know that the bear can't chase us up the path at least,” Terets said. “I really think we should go up talk with the Hermit and collect the rewards then come back down for the bear.”

  “That makes sense, I have to agree with him, hun,” Kittish said to Dumadin.

  Shrugging Dumadin looked towards the cave, “Well, okay. I just wanted to gauge this bear we keep hearing about. I mean how tough could it be? We got the quest at level one in the starting town.”

  A might bellow shattered the quiet. They each received notice that a debuff, Terrifying Roar, was affecting them, which momentarily froze them in place. A massive bear came lumbering out of the cave. Theodore was easily bigger than a real Kodiak bear, easily ten feet long and five feet high at the shoulder. His paws were massive and tipped with sharp claws that dug furrows into the ground as he stretched. His head turned toward the three friends who were rooted in fear. Chuffing, Theodore turned and charged towards them, roaring again as he came.

  Terets was the first one to shake off the paralysis and he grabbed Kittish and shoved her into the gap. Her debuff wore off and she quickly moved deeper though the crevice. Terets turned towards Dumadin only to be pushed by the dwarf into the crevice and told to run. Knowing he wasn't going to have the time to get into the hole himself, Dumadin turned and planted his shield facing the bear.

  “I'll see you guys in half an hour when I can respawn. Just get though the crevice and make sure it's safe, then log out.” A thousand plus pounds of bestial fury slammed into him. His shield was mangled and ripped from his arm and his life bar dropped rapidly towards zero. He just watched as the fangs of the mighty Theodore lunged at his head, knowing he was about to die.

  A sword flashed by his ear and deflected the bear's snout, cutting into the nose of Theodore. Terets's sword was knocked from his hand as the bear swung its head back with alarmingly quick reflexes. Terets grabbed Dumadin by his weapon arm and yanked his friend into the crevice.

  Terets started to breathe a sigh of relief when an agonized yell came from Dumadin's lips and his health bar dipped to 1% as he was shoved backward into Terets and they both were thrown deeper into the crevice. They collapsed at Kittish's feet and she began casting her healing light, concentrating on the badly injured dwarf first. While she worked to restore their health Terets and Dumadin stared at each other in shock.

  “Good thing we were near the crevice when Theodore woke up,” Kittish stated and hugged both her friends as the adrenaline began to fade. “I was so fucking scared, first that roar then watching helplessly while you two were still on the other side.”

  Dumadin wrapped her in a hug and made soothing sounds at her, his own adrenaline rush fading as well. “Shh, hun, it's okay we made it. Everything is alright.” He knew it was just a game but good gods for a second he'd felt like death was reaching out for him. Now his nerves were winding down.

  “Had to try and be the hero, sacrificing yourself for us, huh? Jackass, that nearly went completely pear shaped.” Terets snapped at his friend, not that he meant it but his adrenaline was fading as well and he felt the ebb. Without warning he wrapped both his friends into a group hug and rocked in place with them. “Fucking gods that felt so fucking real. God damn this game rocks, and sucks at the same time.”

  The laughter erupted from each of them and they stood there just relishing the moment for a bit longer. They could still hear Theodore rampaging around just on the other side of the crevice.

  “I guess our decision's made then, to the Hermit it is.
Hope he has a fucking vorpal blade.” Dumadin said as they finally separated.

  “Or an anti-tank missile,” Terets added and slapped his friend on the shoulder.

  “A tank for us wouldn't go amiss either. Just a fluffy teddy bear, right?” Kittish added as they made sure they had all their stuff and looked up the winding path. “It's almost six hours so let's take a break, meet up at our favorite food place and then log back in and see the Hermit.”

  THE HERMIT

  Meeting back up after food the trio started the climb to the Hermit's cave, pausing for Dumadin to grab a couple more iron ore veins and for Kittish to gather the few mountain blooms she found. After an hour of twisty, winding, steep incline hiking they came to a box canyon with a small pond and stream. Growing on the banks were more mountain bloom which Kittish harvested. Swimming in the pond and the stream were silver trout, from where it came down from the peaks and flowed into a cave to the west. Terets and Dumadin stood by watching the cave and making small talk about the best way to catch some fish while Kittish gathered the herbs. Kittish rejoined her friends and they moved cautiously towards the cave. As they approached another pop up message appeared to each of them.