Fantasy Online_Hyperborea

by Harmon Cooper

  It’s as good a place as any to start, that’s for sure. Besides, there’s no telling what kind of riffraff Hiccup will bring back to the guildhall.

  Ryuk rounds the corner and scans for the bulletin board.

  To his left, across the cobblestone street, is an Empress Thun gift and souvenir boutique. Stinkerbells flit in and out of the broken windows and rummage through the heaps and mounds of trash piled around the establishment.

  Business does not appear to be booming.

  To his right is a fishmonger’s shop featuring dried fish from the Endless Sea. These fish are difficult and expensive to obtain, as the flying fishing smacks must descend from the continental shelf to harvest them.

  Pressed against the fishmonger’s is a non-descript Dr. Dandy Dave’s Apothecary with heavily barred windows and a pair of massive, beastly, heavily armed and armored orcs loitering nonchalantly outside.

  A scrum of scruffy, jittery, twitching PCs, NPCs and RPCs anxiously await entry and surge forward as the solidly reinforced door swings outward. The orcs lay into the crowd with the flat of their swords to drive them back as an equally scruffy, jittery, twitching NPC zips out and nervously skirts those waiting to get in.

  “Only one of yaz goes in. ONE! YOU!” The wider of the two Orcs bellows, and the would-be patron he’s pointed out slinks into the shop.

  Ryuk sighs and shakes his head at yet more wizardous addicts. Damn fiends.

  The guard orcs are clad in Thulean armor and dragon helms, which are most uncommon on the continent of Hyperborea. Their carriage and demeanor reminds Ryuk of the muscle that secures the lobby of his apartment building back in the real world, and the Thulean armor is similar to the armor worn by the Thulean NPC that attacked him in his bedroom.

  He shudders at the thought of it happening again.

  In a welter of flying feet, fists, knees, and elbows, a pair of half-sized goblins roll out of the doorway just in front of him. The larger of the two beats his opponent to the ground and goes to put the boot in just as a third pops out of the doorway and delivers a penalty kick right to Mr. Big’s goolies.

  Number one bounces up off the ground and sinks his teeth in the goal-kicker’s neck while Mr. Big clutches his tender nether region, rolls on the ground and noisily and abundantly soils his ragged knee breeches.

  Damn goblins. Ryuk sees the bulletin board not too far ahead just as a goblin woman uncorks a blood-curdling shriek.

  A Mutt and Jeff team of sinewy goblin nogoodniks have a granny goblin backed up against the wall, a slim dagger dimpling her throat. The little goblin footpad tears at her bodice and exposes her flabby, saggy bazongas as he roots around for any hidden valuables.

  Goblin Thief Level 1

  HP: 65/65

  ATK: 11

  MATK: 1

  DEF: 3

  MDF: 4

  LUCK: 2

  Goblin Thief Level 2

  HP: 79/79

  ATK: 14

  MATK: 0

  DEF: 4

  MDF: 3

  LUCK: 1

  Ryuk springs into action. He reaches into one of two pockets on his belt for a clear marble, loads it into his slingshot, draws and looses at the little guy.

  The clear marble strikes and the goblin lights up from within by a tremendous bolt of electricity. He spasms, crackles, pops and collapses in a sizzling puddle of his own goblin grease.

  Instakill!

  The second goblin lunges at Ryuk pointy end first. “Fickin’ bring it, you ficktard!” he snarls as Ryuk fumbles for another marble.

  Ryuk ducks the first attack and dances out of the way of the backhand riposte. This is the one good thing that has come from being a resetter – he’s kept some of his fancy ninja legwork. He gets a marble out, gets the slingshot up, and avoids the goblin’s third slashing attack.

  At ‘can’t miss’ distance, the black marble blasts into the goblin’s chest, explodes, and takes him off his feet.

  -15 HP!

  Ryuk launches another black marble into the goblin’s head and blasts it into bloody vapor.

  -19 HP!

  The headless goblin spasms and dies.

  Ryuk collects a few experience points from the goblin, but not a single rupee. Goblin muggers usually don’t have much unless they’ve just robbed someone.

  “Thank you, thank-you kind sir!” The nana goblin approaches Ryuk and bats her eyes at him. “I almost forgot!”

  “It’s fine,” he starts to say.

  The granny goblin unselfconsciously stuffs her dairy pillows back into her bodice as best she can. She cocks an eyebrow at him as she reaches under her apron and purrs, “Let me reward you for saving me from those two dreadful beasts. They were absolutely awful!”

  “Um … ”

  He doesn’t see the oversized kukri she slams up under his ribcage, but he most definitely feels it when she jerks the blade up and out and cuts his ribs away from his sternum.

  -75 HP!

  “Fuck!” he cries as he falls to his knees, his vision pane flashing.

  “Let’s see what you have for your old Mimi then,” she chortles as she rummages through the pouch of his belt. “Ooh! I’ll be having that.”

  The goblin wench takes his last healing potion out of the pouch and tucks it in the front of her blouse. She picks up the first goblin’s dagger, tests its edge and balance, pulls Ryuk’s head back and cuts his throat.

  Damn goblins!

  Chapter 5: Paradise of the Insane

  Tritania’s AI apparently has it in for him.

  Ryuk spawns outside his guildhall again. He swipes his stats away – no need to remind himself of how far down the totem pole he is or how badly he just had his ass whooped.

  Betrayed by a goblin; a filthy, nasty, ungrateful, front-stabbing goblin granny.

  There’s fresh graffiti on the door, but the muffled rattle-bang-clank coming from inside catches his attention.

  He takes his magic slingshot from his belt. With a black magic marble in the slingshot’s pouch, he half-draws, takes a deep breath in and kicks the door open like a SWAT team at a crack house.

  With a bellowed war-cry, Ryuk leaps in with slingshot fully drawn.

  Hiccup screams like a sissy, emits a blast from south of the border, and nearly propels himself out of his chair. “What the fick was that all about, Marbles?”

  Ryuk bristles at the nickname Hiccup has chosen for him. The goblin has done no tidying up, neatening, straightening, cleaning, or repairing of any description aside from stacking some of the debris in the middle of the floor and balancing the broken table top on it.

  A suave-looking, expensively accoutered Player Character sits across from Hiccup in the only other unbroken chair in the place. He runs his hand over his slicked-back blond hair and his stats appear before Ryuk can lower his slingshot:

  FeeTwix Fajer Level 8 Berserker Mystic

  HP: 231/231

  ATK: 56

  MATK: 24

  DEF: 39

  MDF: 27

  LUCK: 11

  His arctic blue eyes change to solid black as he stands and extends his hand. The PC sports a pair of stylishly frayed fingerless phorusrhacid skin gloves, which is one way to show that you’re balls-deep in rupees.

  In a digital world, anyone can customize anything, and Tritanian fashionistas have turned to adjusting the minutest details of a player’s outfit. Nothing is safe from this world’s high-end fashion designers.

  The fact that this level 8 Berserker Mystic has custom fray on his fingerless gloves, a bejeweled and damascened clamshell armor, and a hand-embroidered overcoat made from Attla spider silk featuring artistically tattered cargo pockets immediately turns Ryuk off.

  “Felix Arvid Fajer, from Sweden,” the guy says, “but you can call me FeeTwix.”

  Ryuk eases the tension on his slingshot, lowers his arms and his weapon disappears.

  FeeTwix grins. “Magic Slingshot, huh? Hold tight real quick so my viewers can get a good look at you.”

&n
bsp; “Your viewers?”

  Ryuk turns to Hiccup, narrows his eyes and glares.

  “What the fick are you looking at me like that for?” the goblin huffs. “Fickin’ FeeTwix here is the best of a very bad lot.”

  “Seriously? Kuso!”

  Hiccup throws his hands up in the air. “It’s not like the high rank players are fickin’ falling all over themselves to join up with some gangly, slingshot-toting level 2 resetter, now are they? Slim pickins, Marbles, let me tell you. There were some level-nothing noobies with their poncy Bryanboy fan-fic outfits and plucked fickin’ eyebrows, and one over-brawned, under-brained steroid monster of a hobgoblin cranked out the wazoo on wizardous. And this guy.” He cocks a thumb at the Swede.

  “Wizardous?” asks FeeTwix.

  Hiccup snorts, “What? Haven’t heard of wizardous? This fickwad of an immiNPC from some other Proxima World introduced that shit to Tritania like fifteen years ago. Goes by the name of Dirty Dave ... ”

  The goblin’s face goes blank as he trails off. “Where was I?”

  “You were talking about recruiting,” Ryuk grumbles.

  “Oh yeah – this big muscly fick-boy of a hobgoblin I was telling you about was all for joining us, but first he wanted me to stick a satchel of wizardous up his fickin’ bunghole so he could smuggle it to Polynya on one of those fancy-schmancy airships. And you wouldn’t believe how he wanted me to do it, neither! So when this fickin’ backdoor bandit turned, I cut his fickin’ head off and sold the wizardous to one of the poncies in the Bryanboy outfit.”

  Hiccup lifts the hobgoblin’s head from the floor by its elaborately braided topknot, sets it on the table and turns it so Ryuk can fully appreciate its expression of extreme surprise. “I should be able to score some rupees for it, too – I know a guy who turns these into novelty beer steins.”

  “Ha!” The Swede claps his hands together. “This is great! He’s polling quite positively with my fans right now. Check for yourself.”

  Ryuk swipes the chart away, still not sure of what FeeTwix means by his fans. “Hiccup, I really don’t want to deal with your shit right now. Get that head out of here, now. And don’t let it drip on the floor!”

  Hiccup rolls his eyes, stands, and uncorks a trouser-fluttering blast in Ryuk’s general direction. He sighs again, grabs the severed hobgoblin head by its convenient grab handle, slings it over his shoulder and heads out the door.

  “Okay, explain to me why you want to join our guild.” Ryuk moves to Hiccup’s chair, eyes the fresh skid mark and elects to remain standing.

  “Glad to.” FeeTwix turns his chair around and straddles it cool-teacher style. He grins, and Ryuk notices that FeeTwix’s eyes are blue again. “Here’s the short version, but first, I need to ask – do you really not know who I am?”

  “Should I?”

  FeeTwix clears his throat. “Most Proxima heads have at least heard of my TwitchTube Red channel. No, I’m not as popular as #RocketRocket, but I’m often in the top twenty when it comes to viewers.” He points at his eyes as they turn black.

  “Your viewers are watching now?”

  “Of course they are! Approximately 353,339 people are livestreaming this.”

  The door slams shut. Hiccup reenters the guild and heads straight to the ripped and stained chaise that’s missing all four of its legs. He plops down onto it, kicks his feet up, and accesses a scrollazine entitled Hot Wet Goblin Holes.

  “No livestreaming,” Ryuk says, “for the moment at least.”

  “Fine, fine. Sorry guys, you heard the man. Keep playing one of the games on my feed during the down time – remember, one lucky winner gets a free three-year TwitchTube Red subscription as well as a ton of schwag personally autographed by me! Also, earn extra points by viewing my earlier feeds. Check out my latest feed from Steam for double pointage!”

  FeeTwix finger waves goodbye to his own face and his eyes revert to their normal icy blue. “Sorry, my fans get pissed whenever I have to turn off the stream, and I have to keep them entertained.”

  Ryuk nods. “I see.”

  “Where were we? Ah yes, my backstory. Tritania’s becoming popular again, and it’s a thus-far highly underserved advertising market. My sponsors pay me for every single person who streams my feed or views my archives, so I’m partly here for the ad cash. I chose Berserker Mystic as my main class so that I can play the game the way it should be played, the way my hero and role model – the man, the myth, the Legendary Quantum Hughes – would play it. Ever heard of him?”

  “I was a guild member of the Knights of Non Compos Mentis up until a week or so ago.”

  FeeTwix gives him a confused look. “That’s nice for you, but so what? Who’re they?”

  Ryuk sighs and rubs his forehead. “Never mind. Yes, I’ve heard of Quantum Hughes. He’s one of the founders of my former guild.”

  FeeTwix leans back in his chair. “Good, so then you know how I mean to play – anything goes – and I’ll equip just about anything as long as I can avoid a ton of damage from in-game penalties.”

  While outside weapons are frowned upon in Tritania, it is totally legal to use them. Firearms are a different story – a player who uses outside firearms takes HP penalty.

  Ryuk glances over to the map of Tritania that hangs in the center of the room. Three continents – Hyperborea, Polynya, Ultima Thule – all floating above the Endless Sea. They’ve got a long way to go, and he knows firsthand that it isn’t a walk in the Hamarikyu Gardens.

  He turns back to FeeTwix. “If it’s advertising dollars you want, there are other guilds whose sole purpose is to generate ad revenue.”

  “Your goblin–”

  “I’m not anybody’s goblin, and I have a name!” Hiccup growls from his perch on the broken chaise.

  “Hiccup explained to me what happened to your guildmate in the real world, and I’m sorry to hear that. I know it doesn’t mean much coming from a stranger, but I really am sorry to hear it. What a horrible way to die. I also find it very curious that her Reborn Player Character has been kidnapped by the Shinigami.” FeeTwix bites his lip and thinks for a moment. “That sounds real fishy, if you ask me.”

  “Actually, it gets stranger.”

  Ryuk quickly briefs him on his real-time attack by an NPC, what Hajime’s collated data seems to indicate, as well as the contents of Tamana’s final message.

  “So she very obviously didn’t commit suicide.” FeeTwix purses his lips and nods. “Clearly she didn’t.”

  “Exactly, I think she was trying to lead the creature in front of the train and misjudged her jump. And since the Shinigami took her as soon as she spawned here, they probably had something to do with it too.”

  FeeTwix considers for a moment. “You will find that I am a different person when my feed is off. I’ll be frank with you: sure, solving this will give me ratings and it will also allow me to tap into a huge number of new fans and I’ll get new endorsement offers like crazy mad. So there’s that, but there’s also this … ” His flamboyance all but disappears; he leans in and lowers his voice. “About two months ago, a long-time fan of mine named Tomas committed suicide. He was one of the first ones to get the word out about my TwitchTube Red channel, so I owe him something. And just like your friend whatzername … ”

  “Tamana.”

  “I call her Tammy,” Hiccup barks.

  “Yeah, Tamana, my fan’s RPC-spawned here and almost immediately disappeared – poof, gone. Something’s not right; something’s going on.” He places his hands on the table. “These are all connected, they have to be. Can’t prove it, but it sure feels like it. I’d like to get to the bottom of this and put a stop to it and get some payback for Tomas, for your friend, and for you. So what do you say? Are we doing this?”

  A prompt appears:

  FeeTwix Fajer would like to join your guild. Will you allow it?

  Ryuk takes a few steps forward and bows his head. “Welcome to our guild.”

  FeeTwix Fajer, Level 8 Berserker Myst
ic, has joined your guild!

  “Do we have a guild name?” FeeTwix asks.

  “The Mitherfickers.” Hiccup tosses his scrollazine over his shoulder. “I keep telling him how catchy it is.”

  FeeTwix cracks a genuine grin.

  “We need to start leveling up,” Ryuk tells them both. “We have two days to get stronger.”

  (0)__(0)

  “We got sort of a sausage party going here,” Hiccup informs Ryuk and FeeTwix after they’ve spawned in the Hills of Hillshire, “Just saying.”

  A gray mist scattered with turquoise and lavender covers the lower portions of the hills. The place smells of brimstone and wet grass.

  FeeTwix places his hands on his hips. “These, my friends, are the Hills of Hillshire.” He looks out over the hills so his followers can get a glimpse through his black eyes.

  “Let’s just focus on finding a good place to level-up,” Ryuk tells them.

  “Oooh, that looks fun!” The Swede points to the entry point of a mist-covered path on the hill closest to them.

  “What are you going on about, Twixy?” Hiccup asks.

  “There’s a hidden sign over there.” FeeTwix approaches the goblin. “Do you mind?” He makes a peace sign and crosses his two fingers together.

  “What kind of ass fickery are you trying to pull here, mate?”

  “I’ll show you.” FeeTwix lightly touches the goblin’s temple. “It’s about the only thing I’ve found useful with my mystic abilities.”

  “Dragon ficks! There’s a sign and a whole lot more that way!” Hiccup’s face goes from excited to apprehensive. “Do you think there are ghosts over there?”

  “I don’t see anything … ”

  “Look now.” FeeTwix lightly touches Ryuk’s temples and sure enough, a sign appears on the opposing hillock. Carved into a wooden sign are the words: Paradise of the Insane.

  FeeTwix takes his hand away and the sign disappears.

  Ryuk is unsurprised by the invisible sign. When Tamana was still a White Mystic, she solved plenty of puzzles and found an abundance of hidden pathways and badass treasures with her mystical abilities.