by Charles Dean
Every part of the great leader seemed shaken by the explosion. The leader’s sword--which at this point could have even been the Face-Slapping Stick in Locke’s inventory and would have still killed Locke in a single hit thanks to his near-zero vitality--wavered as the once-confident leader’s eyes popped open, and his self-assured visage shattered as quickly as the poisons against his wing. His blade, which had originally moved so fast that Locke couldn’t see anything but the blurred after images of its strikes from a distance, now hesitantly inched toward Locke in an uncertain motion that could easily be dodged. Locke was painfully aware of his single remaining hit point as his sword continued its path, the final poisons shattering into more and more colorful explosions.
“What . . . ungodliness . . . is . . . thi--” the leader started to speak, yet his voice, just like his strike, wavered and then quit. His eyes rolled back, and Locke saw that the crummy starting weapon that he had strung up with poisons had pierced his wing. The leader, like himself, probably only had a few hit points left from the after effects of the vitality debuffs, and he died instantly as his once damage-resistant, almost-metallic exterior turned to paper under the poison. The flesh wound the White-Wing received normally wouldn’t have done anything more than hinder his flight at best, but it left the now-frail warrior dead.
Congratulations! You have earned the title “Feather Plucker, the Usurper” for slaying the last remaining Faction Leader of the White-Wings. You have been awarded one unique skill as a bonus:
Holy Finger of the Sun God: Summon a beam of light. The beam will do damage to anything, friend or foe, that it touches. Limit: Instant beams may be used every sixty seconds by the caster. Effect may be channeled once per Tiqpa day for no longer than one minute.
You have also been awarded +10 skill points as an additional bonus for this achievement.
Locke fell backward as he put the pieces of what just happened together, stunned by his success and weak from having his vitality drained to next to nothing. The effects were evident everywhere on his being: His bones felt like they were struggling to hold his body up, his lungs felt like they were going to collapse, and he was extremely aware of the fact that if an ant bit him on his rear end, he’d probably die from it. The game didn’t let any of these details go unfelt.
But all of these ailments together couldn’t make Locke feel less satisfied with the result. Staring at the collapsing foe in front of him, watching his revenge manifest itself right there, Locke’s mood couldn’t be better. If Anthony had stayed around to see it, that would have been pure icing on his cake. Locke wanted nothing more than to watch that creep realize that his dreams of Sine Nomine in the Holy Alliance’s hands had been crushed as quickly as Locke’s own account had been banned. Nevertheless, even without rubbing that salt in Anthony’s open wound, Locke grinned happily as he plopped down on his back and splayed out as if he were going to make snow angels, his breath coming in large gulps, as he took in the feeling of victory.
So, this is why people love raiding so much. They had now killed several bosses, and Locke had played an instrumental part in every victory, but none felt as good as this one. This one wasn’t just killing a boss, it was achieving a victory that he would have thought impossible only a few days ago.
His last-ditch assault on the White-Wing leader may have played out in slow motion within his own mind, every minute detail and reaction caught by his over-hyped, adrenaline-spiked senses, but it had happened in real time for Eliza. Locke glanced up at her warily and found that she was still in the same defensive position that she had assumed after dodging the leader’s last attack.
“Well,” she began, lowering her swords and slowly walking toward him, “I guess that’s one way to go about it. I know you’re probably enjoying yourself down there, but I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to hang around up here. It won’t be long before someone realizes what happened, and this place is going to be swarming with White-Wings when they do.”
“Give me a moment. I’m kind of weak here.” Locke cracked his neck as he sat up and looked at the scene in front of him. He didn’t want to move an inch. He wanted to either stay right where he was on the floor or hide in a box until the five-minute duration on the vitality poison wore off so that he wouldn’t have to worry over whether or not an aggressive mosquito would kill him.
“Wait, if you’re here, what happened to Anthony?” Eliza asked, turning to peer at the exit where Locke had last been babysitting him.
“He’s probably crawling to freedom, going to get . . . help.” Locke looked at Eliza and frowned. He didn’t want to die. In fact, he hated the idea. But he had broken Anthony’s plan. As much as he didn’t want to perish, he could. He could afford to die, and despite whatever death penalties he incurred from either the game or Ash, it wouldn’t be permanent. For her, however, it was game over. The second Anthony got help, and an army of soldiers flooded into the tower, she was done for. He didn’t harbor any particularly strong feelings for this psychopathic Demon who had met him at sword-point, threatening his life before even saying hello, but he also didn’t like the idea of someone he knew dying. She may have just been an NPC in a virtual world, but it didn’t seem to make much of a difference to him when it came down to it. It didn’t make sense, but for some reason, he just couldn’t stomach the idea. This put a fire under his rear and got him up and moving instantly.
He was about to run to the door with Eliza and start his way down, but some nagging thought in the back of his brain stopped him. He took one last glance back into the room, looking for anything that would have given him pause, and he realized that the White-Wing leader’s corpse was still crumpled on the ground. Loot! I have to get loot.
“Hold on. We’ll get out of here in a moment,” he said as he turned back and approached the body and started to take the once-proud leader’s now-unneeded vestments and weapon.
“Really?” Eliza asked in exasperation. “You want to waste what precious little time we have so that you can pilfer the dead bodies?”
“This will only take a moment,” Locke answered without ever stopping what he was doing as he went through the dead leader’s belongings. “But do you really want one of them, the Holy Alliance members, getting their hands on his weapon and armor? Think about it: A moment now, and we won’t have to go against this blade ever again.”
The first thing Locke took off the corpse was his armor. It was, for all intents and purposes, the most magnificent piece of armor he had ever seen. While the stats for the item weren’t anything to brag about, with barely +20 to power and +10 to vitality, what made it amazing was that it had the same damage reduction as plate armor, but not the mobility restrictions that came with it. In terms of stat reduction, it was actually better than most leather armor. While most leather armor would reduce the user’s speed by a small amount, anywhere between 20 and 30 percent, this particular item only reduced the user’s speed by 15 percent. It would be a godsend for any rogue. I bet someone would pay an arm and a leg for this, Locke thought as he took it. The item even came with a description that he glanced over as he looted it, unlike most items that just listed out their stats:
General Sun’s #13 Special: The Sun God himself was said to have come down and chosen the leader of the mighty White-Wings, his most beloved race. In order to ensure that his reign was long and his achievements were great, the Sun God gave him leather armor fit for the king of kings, able to make the user invulnerable to the slings and arrows of all assailants. But then again, if you’re reading this, then that means he died, and the armor probably wasn’t as good as it was said to be. In fact, someone probably made it a long time ago and then made up the story to go with it. Either way, it’s still a great piece of armor.
The next item he grabbed was the blade that the White-Wing had crushed them all with. When the leader had held it, it was in the shape of a two-handed blade that ignited with light as a special ability. As soon as Locke grabbed the handle, however, it transformed in
to a solid metal blacksmith’s hammer that was shinier than freshly polished chrome wheels. Locke quickly opened up his inventory to inspect it, surprised by the transformation. Even though it was shaped like a smithing hammer, it did more damage than most of the weapons he had seen. The weapon was named “The Light Within,” and its damage seemed to be proportionate to his level. On top of the hefty damage bonus, it also had some additional stats, and after some quick math, Locke realized that those attributes were multiples of his level as well.
“Satisfied?” Eliza asked impatiently when she saw that he was finished rummaging through the corpses.
“Yep, let’s go.” Locke stood up and gripped the hammer in his hand. It felt right, powerful, and most importantly, it added vitality. Thank God for the armor piece and the hammer. Locke was relieved to no longer feel like a paper cut from turning a book page too fast would leave him fatally wounded. He didn’t have enough hit points to take more than a few hits, but not blowing over like a stick figure in a hurricane was enough for him as he made his way to the door and down the hallway.
When they reached the stairs, he stopped to take note of the trail of blood Anthony had left as he crawled to freedom. Why didn’t he just log out? Locke wondered, staring at the place where the corpse should have been. He could have even killed himself and teleported back to his bind stone instantly that way. The only reason he’d crawl is if he thought he could reach help faster this way, right? Locke slowed his pace and fell behind Eliza.
“I have a bad feeling there are going to be enemies up ahead.” Locke gulped, readying his hammer as he hid behind the tiny woman in front of him.
“Probably. We’d have had a better head start if you didn’t waste so much time sitting around. They’ve had more than enough opportunity to sound the alarm and start gathering people, so I’m sure it won’t be long before all the ants start scurrying home to their hill, looking to be heroes.”
“And you’d be dead if I didn’t help you.” Locke was kind of annoyed with the lip. I give up my fortune to fight him, win the battle, and you give me flak for taking a breather and trying to recoup my losses? Excuse me, lady, not all of us are used to almost dying multiple times a day. He was tempted to let loose and vent, but he bit his tongue and hoped that the first comment would be enough to at least afford him a breather from the quips.
“I didn’t ask for your help,” she replied heatedly, her voice slowly rising with every word. “‘It wasn’t your call to make. You shouldn’t have helped me. Do you know what happens when you go out of your way to try and save someone in the middle of a fight? Someone dies. You die. He dies . . . He dies . . . Her voice finally reached crescendo before it cracked. She faltered for a moment, pausing where she was and staring off into space. Her cheeks had initially been growing redder with every word, but now the color disappeared almost as quickly. It may have been an illusion because of the sudden change, but she actually looked paler than usual. It wasn’t noticeable at first, but as she kept going on, it was evident that her speech was becoming shaky and her eyes were starting to water ever so slightly.
“I’m . . .” Locke was at a loss for words. “I’m . . . I’m sorry. I didn’t think . . .”
“Of course you didn’t. That’s the problem. You’re all the same: The only thing you ever think about is yourself. All you wanted was to be the hero, to rush in and save everyone so that you could claim all the glory for yourself.”
“No, I didn’t.” Locke found himself choking on his own words worse than when he tried to argue with his younger sister about what guy she should date. “I just . . .”
“Your job was to guard the prisoner. It was a position you volunteered for and then abandoned just so that you could run in at the last minute, so that you could make a grand entrance, thump your chest and be everyone’s savior. If you had a way to kill them that quickly, you should have done it. You shouldn’t have let other people sacrifice their own lives just so that you could look good. Someone else could have watched the prisoner, and things would have been over with everyone still alive. If you had done what you said you were going to, we wouldn’t be standing here alone and having to worry about how many peons are swarming towards the building at this very moment.”
“I didn’t know if it would work,” Locke pleaded. He hated being wrong, but her words felt like a knife in his gut. She was right: He could have done it all from the start. As much as he hated burning his trump card, risking everything on the attack and losing all of his potions, she wouldn’t understand it. There was no way for her to know that this was just a game and that it wasn’t a big deal if they died. This was life or death for her, and she was fighting to save people that she cared about. People that wouldn’t come back if they died. It left him just as speechless as the first outburst. What does someone even say to that? He frowned, swallowing hard before finally settling on the only two words he could think of: “I’m sorry.”
“I actually thought that you were different from the rest of the newcomers. I actually believed that you understood what teamwork and friendship were about. When I watched you guys make it through the underwater cavern and fight together against the Holy Alliance, everyone was always looking out for someone else. I thought that you understood what it meant to act as a team and to trust someone else. You abandoned your role because you didn’t have enough faith in your so-called friends to do what they said they would. You didn’t believe in them; you didn’t trust them. I’m so mad that I made the mistake of trusting you and thinking that you were different.”
“I’m sorry.” Locke’s face managed to sink even more. There was nothing else to say. He hated apologizing to her--he still thought of her as a bit of a psychopath--but in a way, she was right. However, it wasn’t the team he didn’t trust, it was himself. If he’d had more faith in his own abilities, more faith that he could recover from losing that many poisons and still make a profit, he’d have gone out and fought with them from the start. If he’d had more faith in himself, the team wouldn’t have died. “I shouldn’t have left the twerp. I just didn’t want to see you die,” he added, hoping it didn’t come off as an excuse.
“If there is a next time, see that you don’t,” she answered coldly. “I understand that life and death have no meaning for you newcomers, so perhaps you just don’t get it. As soon as we’re out of here, you can go find those people and gloat about being the hero. You’ll never have to worry about who you could have saved if you had the power to do it from the beginning, and you’ll never have to worry about who might have been killed because you abandoned your duty.”
Eliza’s was cut off by the sound of footsteps charging up the stairs they were still descending. “No chance it’s room service?” Locke laughed as he pulled out his hammer.
“Room service?” Eliza asked, readying her own weapons.
“It’s . . . uhh . . .” Locke hesitated. If I try to explain this, how many other things will I have to explain, too? I’m not going to have to talk about hotels, bellboys . . . You know what? “Never mind.” It was a lot easier to just dismiss the question outright than to try and talk about the real world to an NPC. Unfortunately, her continued ignorance meant he wouldn’t be able to make any corny jokes like ‘they better not expect a tip’ or ‘here’s my version of turn down service.’
As the footsteps drew closer, Locke instinctively went to grab one of the vitality debuffs, his most effective contribution to most fights, only to remember that he had burned them all killing the boss. He looked at his hammer, and then at the poisons he still had, and decided to just give his new skills and weapon a try instead. As happy as he was with the new skill, the title, and all the loot he had gotten from the boss, he was a little frustrated that there wasn’t any damage listed on Holy Finger of the Sun God. Leave it to a programmer to get lazy and not type it all out for the player. What is it with games creating skills and items and never bothering to explain how they work? He sighed. It wasn’t just this game. Most games had this prob
lem. They’d tell you that a skill does ‘heavy’ damage, but then not specify what ‘heavy’ was. Sure, Internet communities had a habit of data mining the game to figure out what everything did and subsequently publishing the results for everyone to see, but was it really that hard to just have the programmer copy and paste the damage formula for the spell into the tooltip?
When the enemy, a fully-plated White-Wing with a mace in each hand, came into view, Locke immediately blasted him with his fancy new light beam skill before Eliza could even begin her attack. The incinerating ray of light, the instant version that he could only cast once a minute, shot through the air like a laser and pierced right through the opponent's chest, leaving a cauterized hole where his heart was.
“What in the name of the Great Lord?! Don’t tell me you had that all along!” Eliza snapped at Locke. “What else are you still holding back?”
“I . . . I just got it from the fight.” Locke wasn’t entirely sure how to explain the concept of bonus skills to Eliza. He could only imagine what type of terrible trauma it would cause someone to find out that not only were they created for the caprices of others, but that killing beings like them was often rewarded by their very creators.
I can just imagine someone like that crying out, ‘Dad! Avenge me!’ but his programmer taking a sip of his 64-ounce soda, folding his arms and replying nonchalantly, ‘I thought about it, and then I decided to give your murderer the title ‘Wimp Slayer’ instead.’ The scenario played out in Locke’s head as he thought about how horrible it would be to have one’s parents rewarding the person who murdered you. Yeah, let’s avoid that. “I think the light must have a master.” Locke went with this lie instead. “When the original master died, I gained his power.”
