by Adam Horne
“That’s good. I’d hate to have to spend ten minutes working every time I wanted to craft one of my recipes. What skills did you learn?”
“I can taunt enemies and force them to fight me, and I can bash opponents with my shield to stun them.”
Kelath grinned. “That will make it easier for me to get in a sneak attack.”
“Yeah, fighters and rogues pair up well, if you have the right skills.”
“So what’s next?”
“If you’re done in town, we can try a quest.” Througar pointed at the bulletin board he’d been reading when Kelath joined him. “Normally you would get quests by talking to NPCs—non-player characters—in the towns. This village doesn’t have that many people, so new quests are posted here. Anyone can accept them. There’s one that involves killing goblins, which drop coins. They’re the best option at our level for making money.”
There were several scraps of paper nailed to the board. Througar pointed to one of them, which Kelath read.
Quest Discovered: Trouble in the Mines I
A goblin clan moved into the copper mines north of Millville two nights ago. They attacked miners on their way to work and brought production to a standstill. Any adventurers willing to drive the goblins off will be paid for their efforts. Report to the mine office for full details.
Rewards: experience.
A confirmation box appeared to ask if he wanted to take part in the quest, and Kelath accepted. An indicator flashed for a few seconds, pointing in the direction of the quest objective. He followed its lead and spotted a road leading north out of town into the foothills of a mountain range.
“I’ve got the quest,” said Kelath.
Througar winked at him. “Let’s go kill some goblins!”
Chapter 6
The mine office was a small, wooden shack at the side of the road with a trail leading into a canyon to the west. A number of miners lounged on a porch on the front of the building, and Kelath had to pick his way through them to reach the door. The inside was one large room, about twenty feet to a side, with desks along the north and east walls. A bell rang as the door opened, and a man with disheveled hair stood up from his seat and greeted them.
“Welcome to Copper Canyon Mine,” said the man. “How can I help you?”
“We saw a notice saying you had a goblin infestation,” said Througar.
Kelath added, “We want to help.”
“Boss, more adventurers.” The clerk returned to his desk and paid them no more attention.
Quest Completed: Trouble in the Mines I
You received experience that was credited to your assigned skills.
A male elf who had been standing by the window since they entered looked them over before saying, “Just what I need…more adventurers. I should have taken that bulletin down hours ago.”
Througar looked confused. “Did somebody already clear out the goblins?”
“No.” He turned to look back out the window. “We’ve had people coming by here all day, offering to help clean up the mines. I give them all the same spiel, and they head down into the canyon. The problem is, half of them never come back.”
Kelath looked at Througar with concern before asking the foreman, “Are the goblins really that tough?”
“Any adventurer worth his salt should be able to handle them, but the goblins aren’t the problem. The adventurers keep killing each other! I had to go see for myself, but most of them start fighting amongst themselves before they even reach the mine entrance.”
“That’s crazy!” said Througar. “Why would they do that?”
“No idea,” said the foreman. “Only about a quarter of them actually go into the mines. The rest stay outside because they’re too scared of the other adventurers. It’s a bloodbath, but if you’re stupid enough to head down there, I’ll reward you for bringing me ten of those necklaces the goblins wear.”
“All right,” said Kelath. “We’ll come back when we have them.”
Quest Discovered: Trouble in the Mines II
The foreman has asked you to kill the goblins who have taken over his mine. Bring him 10 necklaces to prove you accomplished the task.
Rewards: experience, money.
Kelath accepted the quest and thanked the foreman for his time. The elf grunted but said no more.
They left the mining office and followed the path that led to the entrance of the canyon. The dirt trail sloped downwards until walls of bare rock rose thirty feet above them. The ravine widened to about two hundred feet across, and they came upon two players fighting each other. One wore leather armor and wielded a curved dagger with a steel blade. The weapon was obviously of much better quality than the simple copper knife Kelath had received at first level. His opponent was a wizard in plain, brown robes.
After watching only a few seconds, Kelath decided the wizard was likely to lose. Blood dripped from wounds on his arms, and the skin around where he’d been cut had taken on an ugly gray color. With the rogue stabbing at him, he kept getting distracted in his spell casting and had to repeat some of the words. He took almost twice as long to cast a spell as other wizards Kelath had seen. The rogue lunged when the wizard’s health was nearly gone and plunged his dagger into his opponent’s stomach. The mage let out a final cry and crumpled in a heap on the ground. The rogue quickly searched through the loser’s pockets then disappeared behind a pile of large rocks beside the cliff face.
“Did you identify the rogue?” asked Througar.
“No, he was moving around too fast. I couldn’t focus on him long enough,” said Kelath.
“My skill must be a little higher than yours. I couldn’t catch his name, but I did see his guild affiliation.”
“Let me guess…Noblesse Oblige.”
“Yeah,” said Througar, shaking his head. “How much you want to bet they’re behind the player killing? We’ll have to be careful.”
“You’re probably right.”
Kelath drew his dagger from its sheath and pulled the tin of poison out of his bag. He swiped a scrap of leather across the surface of the tarry substance and smeared it onto his blade. When he felt the weapon was sufficiently coated, he wiped the remainder on the tips of his throwing daggers then returned the container to his backpack. Througar strapped his shield to his arm and held his longsword at the ready. Sufficiently prepared, they continued into the canyon, Througar leading the way.
In the distance, a series of cavern entrances cut into the north wall of the canyon. Campfires dotted the landscape leading up to the openings, and adventurers ran around them, sometimes fighting goblins who emerged from the mines but mostly fighting each other. There was no organization like in the beginners’ area where each person claimed a small section of ground and owned any monster that appeared there. Everyone ran from one spot to the next, converging when a goblin was spotted and trying to do more damage than anyone else for the right to loot the body. Usually this led to someone yelling that their kill had been stolen and attacking the person who collected the items from the body. There were more corpses of players littering the ground than those of goblins.
Kelath watched in disbelief as players attacked each other over and over. “If we go into that, we’re going to get butchered the first time we kill a goblin. What do we do?”
Througar absentmindedly stroked one of the braids of his beard as he watched the scene before them. After a minute, he said, “I’ve identified several of the people who are attacking other players. The majority of them seem to be from Noblesse Oblige. They’re staying close to the mouth of the cave and killing anyone who tries to go inside. Most of the other players seem to be working solo, so I think if we stay out here by the campfires, we can out damage them and claim the bodies.”
“I like that better than wading through all that carnage.”
Througar pointed at a couple places around them. “I’m going to stand between those two camps. You go between those two and wait for goblins to spawn there. If you get one, br
ing it back to me, and I’ll taunt it away from you. That way you can sneak attack and do more damage. You’ll hear me yell when I find one, so come running and help me kill it.”
“Sounds like a plan.”
Througar activated his stealth skill and crept over to a spot between two campfires. Other players ran around him, some stopping and peering in his direction when they got close. He couldn’t tell if they’d seen him or not, but nobody tried to jump him. After half a minute, a goblin appeared and sat on a log in front of one of the campfires. A human wizard who had been scouting the area stopped and began chanting the words of a spell. The target was too far away for Kelath to stab, so he ripped a throwing knife from the holster on his arm and threw it at the goblin’s back. The creature screamed as the projectile struck it in the lower back and punctured the kidney.
Sneak attack success.
Poison applied.
The goblin’s health dropped by twenty percent and continued draining slowly from the poison. It jumped up from its seat on the log and ran towards Kelath, brandishing a club. The wizard finished casting his spell, an ice bolt hitting the mob in the legs and slowing its speed. Kelath turned towards where Througar stood, unaware that he’d found a goblin to fight.
“I got one!” yelled Kelath.
“I see him.” Througar ran towards the goblin, who was struggling to reach Kelath despite his frozen leg. “Your mother was a garden gnome!”
The goblin screamed in a language Kelath didn’t understand and changed course, heading straight for Througar. His club swung down and bounced off the shield Througar held. The tip of the longsword whistled as it flashed through the air and bit into the goblin’s hip. Kelath crept up behind the goblin and aimed a stab in the same spot his throwing knife had hit earlier. The wound opened wider, and black blood flowed down the creature’s back and dripped from his ragged linen pants.
A fire bolt flew in from the direction where the wizard had been before, and flames danced across the goblin’s clothes, causing his health to drain even faster. Kelath stabbed again, this time between the creature’s ribs, and with a gurgling sound, the monster slumped against Througar’s shield and slid to the ground. Before either of them could celebrate though, the wizard came running up.
“That was my kill!” yelled the wizard. “I saw him first.”
“So what?” said Througar. “We did the most damage, and that’s how the game decides who gets the loot.”
“We’ll see about that.” The wizard began chanting arcane words and gesturing with his hands.
Before he could complete the spell, Througar’s shield shot out and smashed into his gut. The wizard rocked back and forth, unstable on his feet, and grasped at his stomach. Througar stepped on the goblin’s body so he stood almost as tall as the human and yelled in his face.
“You saw what we just did to this goblin! Do you really want to take on both of us?”
After a few seconds, the wizard straightened and glared at them. Througar brandished his shield and raised his longsword in a position to strike. The wizard stumbled backwards a few steps then rushed away. Througar chuckled and jumped down.
“That was fun!” said Througar.
Kelath watched him, one eyebrow raised. “‘Your mother was a garden gnome?’”
Througar laughed even harder. “The taunt skill works better if I tailor what I say to the monster type. Goblins and gnomes are always fighting each other, so I figured he wouldn’t like that. The taunt worked, didn’t it?”
“I guess.” He tried to sound skeptical but couldn’t help laughing.
“Anyway, you can loot the first one since you found him. We’ll take turns until we each have enough necklaces to finish the quest.”
“Thanks.”
Kelath found ten copper coins in a pocket of the goblin’s threadbare trousers and dropped them into his money pouch. He wouldn’t get rich this way, but earning actual coins felt good. He pulled the necklace over the goblin’s head and held it in his hands for several seconds to identify it.
Goblin Necklace: Quest item. Soulbound.
“Only nine more to go,” said Kelath as he twirled the string of beads around his finger.
“Don’t get cocky,” said Througar. “I don’t think this is going to be easy.”
Througar’s prediction turned out to be right. With all the people running around, they had trouble finding a mob that wasn’t already being attacked by someone else. The goblins used rudimentary tactics, charging straight at the first person to harm them and staying focused on their target unless someone taunted them away. After ten minutes of fighting for kills, they’d only managed to claim one additional goblin for themselves.
“We’ll never finish the quest like this,” said Kelath after another mob was stolen from behind them.
“We could always move closer to the cave entrance. Goblins seem to come out of there more frequently than they spawn here.”
“It’s worth a shot.”
They pushed their way through all the people standing around the campsites and approached the cliff face. Two players stood just outside the opening to the mine, both members of Noblesse Oblige. One was a level 4 wizard, and the other was a level 5 fighter. While they watched, a number of characters tried to enter the cave. The two guards ignored anyone from their guild but attacked all others. The wizard would hit them with an ice bolt to slow them down, and the fighter would finish them off if they didn’t immediately turn and run. Most players were careful to stay out of range of the wizard. In addition to blocking players from going into the caves, they also killed any goblins that appeared nearby, leaving the corpses strewn about without bothering to loot them.
“What a waste!” said Througar. “Half these people would be done with their quest if they’d gotten the necklaces from all those dead goblins.”
“I think that’s the point,” said Kelath. “They’re purposefully slowing down other players so members of their guild can progress faster. I have an idea about how we can get past them. They should let you walk by since you’re in the guild. I can use the stealth skill and sneak past them when the fighter runs over to attack a player who gets too close. Hopefully there won’t be a big crowd inside, and we can finish the quest quickly then move to a new area.”
“That just might work!”
“I may need a few minutes to find an opening. You can head inside and tell me if it’s worth trying.”
“Sure, I’ll send you a tell after I scout out the cave.”
Kelath activated stealth and crept to the cliff face at a safe distance from the fighter. At the same time, Througar crossed the no man’s land towards the entrance. As Througar approached, the wizard watched intently, and a smile spread across his face.
“Well, well, well…” said the wizard. “We’ve got us a traitor trying to gain entrance to the caves.”
Througar stopped. “What’re you talking about?”
“You must have done something to piss off an officer, because your name is on the list. I suggest you turn around and head back the way you came, traitor.”
“Now listen here!” Througar took a step forward.
“I warned you.”
The wizard began waving his hands and chanting the words of a spell. An ice bolt flew out and struck Througar, encasing his legs. He pulled his longsword from its sheath and stumbled towards the mage on his frozen legs. The other player guarding the mine readied a two-handed axe and sauntered over to where Througar was struggling. Unwilling to watch while his friend was murdered, Kelath pulled one of his poisoned knives and threw it at the back of the fighter’s head.
Sneak attack success.
Poison applied.
Kelath gave a cheer that was cut short when he saw he’d only removed about a tenth of the fighter’s health bar. The poison damage barely even registered. Fighters tended to have high hit points, and the fact this one was three levels higher probably didn’t help. The fighter looked around in surprise, unsure of where the attack
had come from since he’d been focusing on Througar. Kelath took advantage of his confusion to close the gap and sink his dagger into the aggressor’s side. It was another sneak attack which refreshed the poison counter, but the fighter still had over three fourths of his health left.
The fighter raised his giant axe into the air and brought it down in a crushing blow that removed over a third of Kelath’s hit points. Kelath slashed with his dagger, cutting the fighter’s face and causing him to bleed, but there was no overcoming the difference in level. The fighter ignored the tiny bits of health he lost each time Kelath stabbed at him and swung his axe in a wide arc that was impossible to dodge. The combat only lasted about fifteen seconds before Kelath collapsed on the ground. As his screen went dark, he caught a glimpse of Througar’s body lying at the feet of the wizard.
You have been slain. Resurrecting at the nearest graveyard in 5 seconds.
Througar was pacing around the graveyard when Kelath finally regained control. “Well that sucked!”
“Yeah.” Kelath checked his inventory and saw that five of the copper coins he’d collected earlier were gone. The loss wasn’t big, but he still hated the thought of members of Noblesse Oblige making money off him.
“I think I’m done for tonight,” said Througar. “It’s getting late, and I’ve got work tomorrow. We can try the quest again when I get home.”
“All right, although I’ll probably log in during the day. Maybe people will be at work and I can gather the necklaces faster.”
Througar waved then disappeared. Kelath opened the main menu and pressed the logout button, watching as the timer counted down until he could safely disconnect. He really hoped things got better the next day, because otherwise there would be no point in continuing to play the game.
