by Brian Simons
“What’s going on out there?” Sal asked.
“Damned if I know,” Sybil said, “but the whole city is a safe zone. No mobs, no PvP. It can’t be too serious.”
An eerie stillness overtook the plaza as players and NPCs stood rooted in place, each staring in the direction of whoever had screamed. Then a player came running from that direction, occasionally looking back over his shoulder.
“Hey you!” Daniel yelled. “What are you running from?” Another scream came from that direction.
“He’s killing people!” the player said, panting. “Some NPC with a huge axe!”
Daniel set off in that direction. “Daniel,” Sal said, “the castle is this way. Let’s not get sidetracked here.”
“What, are you afraid? Really? I’m a Level 7 Scout and I want to know what’s going on. If a Level 57 Gourmand wants to stay behind, that’s his business.”
Daniel continued walking. The others quickly fell in behind him.
“I’m just saying,” Sal said. “The castle is probably really cool inside… Wait up!”
The group headed east as other players ran past them, toward the plaza and relative safety. This part of Havenstock was filled with thatch-roofed houses where NPCs lived. The sound of metal on metal got louder with each block Daniel and the others passed. They heard another scream. Then they saw Otto, holding a battle axe the size of a small child. The axe itself was pure white, as if its creator hadn’t bothered to choose a color palette for the weapon. The fresh red blood of recently slain players streaked the weapon’s dual heads. The color combination left the axe looking like a giant, deadly candy cane.
“Are you ready for a challenge, Daniel_the_Maniel?” Otto asked, walking toward him, axe at the ready.
How could Otto be standing here in the east part of town, when they had just left him in his shop in the west? Had he teleported? Could NPCs even do that?
“Otto, why are you attacking people?” Daniel asked.
“The average player level on this server requires a greater level of challenge in order to keep the game progressing. I serve that function now. The threat of death should impel players to advance their levels and obtain stronger armor at an improved rate.”
This was especially strange. The A.I. in Travail made some of the most lifelike NPCs in gaming. They had nuanced conversations, remembered historical interactions with players, hell — they even had highly individualized personalities. But they were not aware of game mechanics. Daniel had never heard an NPC reference the game’s servers before.
Otto stepped gingerly toward Daniel, as if his candy-striped axe weighed nothing at all.
“Hey guys,” Daniel said to his friends. “Let’s run.”
All four turned and ran, as Otto followed in hot pursuit.
Their stamina gages would run down gradually as they ran, subtracting one stamina point per second. Players generally started with 10 stamina points and gained 5 per level. At a level 7, Daniel could run for 40 seconds, maybe more thanks to his Fleet-footed ability. That was still precious little time compared to the others. When his stamina ran out, Daniel would walk at a snail’s pace while his friends kept sprinting to safety. Then Otto would chop off his head.
Daniel glanced back at Otto, just long enough to inspect his level. Otto was a Level 41 Shopkeeper. He couldn’t see anything else, like his max HP, but he saw enough to know Otto would squash him like a bug. Like a measly Level 1 Cockroach. How many players did Otto have to kill to rack up enough XP to level up so much? Daniel didn’t want to be the one to push him over into Level 42. Then he’d have to start from scratch again. And that old lady was going to start thinking he was stalking her.
“Where to?” Sybil shouted.
“The castle!” Coral replied.
“There will be guards there,” Sal added.
“Perfect,” Daniel said. He hoped the guards would provide some backup, or at least distract Otto long enough for them to escape. Then they could find a way inside to safety thanks to Coral’s new quest.
They dodged players and NPCs alike, many of whom had no weapons or armor on them. After all, why carry all that around in a safe zone? But Otto didn’t pause for any of them. He seemed to have set his sights solely on Daniel’s group.
Daniel was down to 20 stamina points by the time they got back to the central fountain. Havenstock Castle loomed on the horizon like an impossible dream. At least these leather pants didn’t restrict his movement at all. Running with heavy platemail on would have given him a weight penalty and forced his stamina to run out more quickly. But even with the slight speed boost his Fleet-footed ability gave him, how could he get all the way up there in just 20 seconds?
He turned toward the castle and kept running. Better to die trying, right? Daniel had been ahead of his friends when they found Otto. When they all turned and ran, that left Daniel in the back of the pack. At least his friends wouldn’t watch his decapitation. His friends. When did he start counting Coral as one of his friends?
Down to 10 stamina points as they ran through Havenstock’s marketplace, a wide street with vendors on all sides. Daniel dodged past an herb stand and a fruit cart. Only 5 stamina points to go. He jumped over a stray dog that had ambled into the middle of the street. Just 1 stamina point now. He turned to face Otto and pulled out his bronze short sword before he ran out of stamina completely. He held the weapon out and frowned. Why did anyone still make bronze weapons?
Otto swung his axe horizontally as if Daniel were a tree he intended to chop down. Daniel dropped to the ground, flat against the cobblestone street. His leather body armor protected his torso from the uneven stones beneath him.
With nothing to absorb the force of Otto’s attack, Otto lost his balance and stumbled to the side. Daniel reached ahead, grabbed Otto’s ankle, and yanked forward, toppling the already off-kilter NPC. Otto landed in the road with a thud, the large axe hitting the stone without a sound. It must not have a sound profile either. The game developers really dropped the ball on this one.
Otto had not lost his grip on the axe, so Daniel couldn’t take it away, but he could try to stop Otto from using it. He leapt to his feet and jumped on top of the NPC, raising his short sword above his head to ready the most forceful chopping action he could muster. Maybe he couldn’t chop Otto’s arm off, but he could hope for a critical hit, and leave Otto with an “injured” debuff.
Then Daniel landed on the ground again. Otto had rolled over at the last moment, forcing Daniel off his prone body. He thrust the axe downward at the fallen player but only grazed his shoulder.
>> You’ve been hit! 292 Damage. [GLANCING BLOW]
If that was only a glancing blow, Daniel didn’t want to know what a solid hit with that axe would feel like. He was already down to 188 HP. He got back to his feet. Now Otto stood directly between Daniel and the castle. Daniel’s stamina points had barely started to regenerate. He was going to die again. And then that stray dog wandered in front of him.
An idea struck Daniel. He quickly reviewed his stats. He was close to Level 8. Very close. If he killed this mangy dog, he might level up and increase his attributes. He would get a bump to his stamina points, and maybe he could sprint to higher ground, someplace where he’d have a combat advantage. He readied his sword. Killing a defenseless dog seemed so cruel though. Sure, it was just an NPC, not really alive and not able to feel real pain. But it would whimper and whine and stare up at him with a “why me?” look that Daniel just couldn’t bear.
A few days ago, it would have been an easy choice. Stab the dog, replenish stamina, run like hell. Experience points are experience points. But after being reincarnated with a fresh start, he just didn’t want to become the same cocky, callous guy he had been. Sal had been right to call him an ass.
Daniel sheathed his sword and prepared to run for four seconds’ worth of stamina points, and then take an axe to the back of the head. God that was going to hurt.
He dashed past Otto and headed toward the c
astle. Then a spear came hurtling past his head and he heard the sickening sound of metal piercing flesh.
“You just couldn’t pass up a fight, could you?” Sybil yelled, running full speed toward Daniel.
“I’m almost out of stamina,” Daniel said.
“Here, drink this,” she said, handing Daniel a familiar flagon. It was Sal’s. Sal must have handed this to Sybil when they realized Daniel didn’t have the wherewithal to run all the way to the castle. Daniel felt queasy at the idea of drinking one of those monstrous blue slimes they fought off in the raid dungeon, but he didn’t have time to dwell on it. He quaffed it down in one gulp. The slimy draught was just as bitter as Sal had described. It also had a vomity aftertaste he hadn’t been warned about. Daniel wondered if you could selectively turn off the nano’s ability to produce tastes like that.
Otto was back on his feet, trying to yank the spear from his throat with one hand, his other still clutching that odd, colorless axe. Sybil approached him, yanked the spear free with both hands, and sprinted toward the castle before Otto could swing his blade at her. Daniel joined her. They ran like hell and didn’t look back for fear that Otto would ignore the gaping wound in his throat and chase them down.
As Daniel ran, another friendly notification popped up.
>> Congratulations! You have improved your Fleet-footed ability to 2. +3% total to running speed. +6% total to stamina regeneration.
Not now! Daniel thought, dismissing the notification box as they raced toward the castle. The building quickly came into view and they saw Sal and Coral by the front gates.
What a happy reunion that would have been. If only a menacing group of castle guards weren’t holding them face down on the ground.
Before Daniel and Sybil had a chance to react to this scene, guards closed in on them from both sides and disarmed them handily. For the first time since players first set foot in Travail, the metal gates that kept Havenstock castle apart from the world creaked open. The guards pushed Daniel, Coral, Sybil, and Sal through the gates, which promptly closed with a loud, foreboding clang.
14
A guard poked Coral in the back with the blade of his sword as she walked toward the castle’s front entrance. She hoped the blade didn’t pierce the light brown leather of her armor. After the guards disarmed her and the others, her armor was all she had left.
She looked around as she kept pace with the others. First they walked through the outer courtyard, which was resplendent with flowers and fruit trees. It was far more lush and beautiful than anything she had seen in the surrounding city. Then they entered the castle itself, decorated with heraldic banners and fine tapestries. A stationary guard stood each ten feet, eventually leading to the throne in the distance.
The throne sat empty. Coral would have no audience with the Regent tonight.
The guards pushed the group down the castle’s main hallway. “Have you ever seen an ogre this fat before?” one guard asked as he prodded Sal with the sharp end of a halberd.
“Once,” another guard said. “We tried to feed it to the dragon but he turned his nose up in disgust.”
“We could try again,” the first guard said, laughing.
“I’d rather offload the purple one,” the second guard said. “Man those drow give me the creeps.”
Coral wasn’t sure whether the guards were just trying to get under their skin, or if they really were considering feeding her friends to a dragon somewhere. She hoped it was just bluster.
The guards led the group down a side corridor that split off from the main hall just short of the throne. It led to a long set of spiral stone stairs. This one didn’t end with a wooden door and a room full of bats to slay. This one ended in jail cells.
The guards pushed each adventurer into a separate cell and slammed the metal doors shut.
“This is my fault,” Sal said through rusty metal bars after the guards had left. “Coral and I got to the castle, and didn’t know how to get in, so we just started banging on the metal gates. The guards ignored us until I got the bright idea to wail on the gates with my mallet. It made a cool gong sound for a second, but then the guards were on us like mages on a mana stone.”
“This is what I get for letting curiosity get the better of me,” Sybil said. “I should have left you all like I planned to and earned my loot for the day on my own. I haven’t earned a single coin yet. All I have is this ridiculous dragon tongue rotting away in my inventory because I haven’t had time to sell it!”
“In some cultures they eat tongue,” Sal offered. Sybil stared at him coldly.
“Nothing we can do now,” Daniel said. “I think they want us to sleep here tonight. It was already getting late. Maybe the Regent wants to speak to us in the morning.”
“And maybe I don’t want to spend the night with you all,” Sybil said, turning her back to the group.
“Sybil,” Coral said, “whatever the reward is for this quest, I’ll split it four ways. I’m sorry I got you all wrapped up in this.”
“You say that now,” Sybil said, “but when your coin purse is full you’ll disappear. Make no mistake, Coral_Darning, this isn’t a game. This is our livelihood now. And it’s every woman for herself.” Sybil disappeared in a wisp of smoke.
“She hates me,” Coral said.
“She hates everyone, from time to time,” Sal said, fixing his eyes on the ground. “And she’s wrong. This may be the only way to earn enough money to pay the rent, but we don’t have to do it alone. What kind of a life would that be? We need each other.”
“Cheer up, Sal,” Coral said. “You got us into the castle. That’s the first step. And when Sybil logs back in, all four of us will be here, ready to see the Regent.”
“Yeah,” Sal said, “but until then there’s not much we can do. And I’ve been logged in for way too long. I’m gonna go for a bit. Get a good night’s sleep. I’ll see you guys in the morning.” Sal poofed away.
“You make no sense to me,” Daniel said, reclining back on a straw-stuffed mattress on his cell floor.
“And is that a reflection on me, or on you?” Coral asked. She sat on her own jail cell bed. The “mattress” was a thin wool bag with barely enough straw to stuff a pillow with. She might as well have been sitting right on the cold stone floor.
“You show up out of nowhere,” Daniel said, “demolish a Level 60 Zombie Dragon, level up like crazy, and get into Havenstock castle — all in what, 24 hours?”
“I take it your first day on the job wasn’t this much of an ordeal?”
“I spent my entire first day killing rats and goblins, like everyone else! I don’t know whether I’m lucky we ran into you, or crazy that I stuck around.”
“Why didn’t you come back as a Fighter?” Coral asked.
“She wouldn’t let me.”
“The old lady?” Just yesterday it seemed like the old woman would run through an endless list of professions for Coral to choose from. She didn’t realize some options could be off-limits.
“She said that I needed to prepare for dark times ahead, and that I could be a great General someday. She made me a Scout. I checked the in-game wiki. There’s no such thing as a Scout. Or at least there didn’t used to be. I have no idea what to expect with this.”
“So you’re a mystery too then,” Coral said.
“I didn’t come here for mystery. This isn’t some grand adventure for me. I just needed a job.”
“That’s how it started for me too. I was waitressing, and I finally got replaced by a bot. I’ll need to start earning money soon or I’ll be out on the street.”
“I should still be in school,” Daniel said, “but the money ran out. I was going to get a real job. The kind bots can’t take away from you.”
So now the truth came out about how little Daniel really thought of her and the others. How highly he thought of himself.
“Right. I get it,” she said. “You’re ashamed that you’ve had to stoop to this online farce of a job. With the rest of
us nobodies that didn’t go to college. Because our jobs, they weren’t real. Not nearly as real as your imagined future.”
“That’s not what I meant.”
“Isn’t it?” Coral asked, and vanished in a thin cloud of smoke.
15
Travail Server 215 Automated Intelligence Log.
Analyzing player death statistics…
Recent player deaths: 35
Recent reincarnations: 25
Reincarnation fail rate: 29%.
Primary reincarnation fail location: Havenstock.
