Brawn: 10
Agility: 10
Hardiness: 10
Intellect: 10
Piety: 10
Personality: 10
Jace gritted his teeth. Could this get any worse?! His Brawn, Agility, Hardiness, Intellect, Piety and Personality attributes were all 10s. Those were the baseline attributes for all races. Each race started at 10 and were given certain bonuses based on race choice. Elves got two points in Agility and Intellect. Halflings received more two points to Agility and Piety. Dwarves received two points to Brawn and Hardiness. Each of the premium races received a total of 4 points between their two attributes.
Even a single extra point would have been helpful. A Brawn score over 10 would have given an extra point of damage with his melee attacks for each point over 10, while Agility would have done the same for his ranged attacks. He would have received an extra point of health each level for every point of Hardiness over 10 and bonus points to man for each point of Intellect or Piety. Personality didn’t affect any combat options, but it certainly did help to influence the type of reaction he received from NPCs, as well as allowing him to buy items cheaper and sell items for more.
Instead, he was a human. Humans were the original race. They normally received only two bonus points they could distribute wherever they want but would always be two points behind one of the premium races. And Jace didn’t even have that. All of his scores were set at 10 with no bonuses whatsoever.
Jace was becoming more and more agitated. Although he wasn’t a monster anymore, he was completely screwed as a player. Not only did he have a subpar class, but he was also a subpar race. No one played human anymore for a good reason. Those 2 extra attribute points didn’t seem like much, but the higher level you were, the more they counted.
Not to mention, humans received no special abilities or skills like the premium races. The only boon they received was a lack of penalty for multiclassing, which was next to useless since no one multiclassed. You were much better putting your experience into leveling one class than trying to level several classes at once. You know the old saying, “Jack of All Trades but Master of None”. And in VEIL, you needed to be a master.
Shaking his head at his misfortune, he looked at the Skills section. That gave him pause. He’d expect to have the base rogue skills and that’s it. Instead, he had some extra skills.
Combat
Leather armor: 1
Piercing weapons: 1
Class
Acrobatics: 1
Bluff: 1
Dodge: 1
Lockpicking: 1
Pickpocket: 1
Stealth: 1
#$%#&
Monsterspeak: 1
Trapsetting: 1
Most of the skills were exactly what he would have expected. He had his Rogue class and combat skills. What grabbed his attention was the last category. The name of the category was corrupted, and he’d never seen the skills underneath it. Trapsetting seemed self-explanatory but no player class had access to it. And what was Monsterspeak? Could he speak with kobold-ish? Or was it kobold-ese? It was interesting but not particularly useful.
Considering his possibilities, Jace switched over to his Inventory section. He was not surprised that it was completely empty. He didn’t have any items or money. Just great! How was he supposed to do anything without equipment?
He threw his hands up in exasperation as he dismissed his HUD. This was ridiculous. He was a subpar version of a subpar race with no equipment. Oh, but wait, he could talk to kobolds! Kobolds, who would attack him on sight! That would come in so handy!
He began pacing back and forth across the grave, trying to think of what to do. How could he get equipment without having equipment? He couldn’t kill anything barehanded. Not with a Brawn score of 10.
He was still pacing when suddenly someone appeared in front of him in a golden glow. Unable to stop his momentum, he crashed into the person and they fell to the ground in a heap.
“Ow,” said a feminine voice from beneath him. “Do you mind getting off me?”
“Sorry,” Jace muttered as he pushed himself up. He rolled to his side, getting a good look at who had just respawned right in front of him.
The girl next to him had fiery red hair and long tapering ears, marking her as an elf. She had the lean, athletic frame of a dancer and was only clad in a loin cloth and something equally scant covered her small breasts. She had a pretty face that was lightly freckled, and she had dazzling bright blue eyes. Her proximity and lack of clothing made Jace both excited and embarrassed. He felt heat in his face and knew he must be blushing.
The girl blushed too and tried to get up, only to fall over on top of him. Jace looked down to see their legs were still intertwined.
“Sorry,” she said, as she landed on him. She blushed an even deeper crimson and this time, the blush made it all the way to the tips of her pointed ears. She rolled off and stood up just as he did the same.
“Sorry about that,” he said.
“It’s okay,” she told him. She had her arms crossed over her chest, obviously embarrassed at the small amount of clothing covering her. “It was an accident.”
Jace quickly examined her in his HUD.
You have gained a new skill: Inspect
Almedha Pressalor
Race: Elf
Class: Scout
Level: 1
The Inspect skill was useful for evaluating other players, especially enemy players of other factions. It was the player equivalent of the Monster Lore skill for seeing the class, race and level of monsters. And he’d just gained it by using it.
Dismissing his HUD, he looked at her but couldn’t think of anything witty to say. They both stood there for a long moment before she took a step towards the entrance of the small graveyard. “I have to go retrieve my body.”
She started edging towards the entrance when Jace thought of something. “What day is it?”
The elf stopped and blinked. “What?”
“The date,” Jace said. “What’s the date?”
“Uh… May 8th,” she replied, giving him the type of look only reserved for crazy people.
Inwardly Jace was stunned, but he recovered quickly. He gave her a grin as he said the first plausible thing that came to his head. “Sorry, I was pulling an all-nighter and fell asleep in my pod.”
Her expression softened and she nodded. “Well, bye.”
“Bye,” Jace replied numbly as she hurried away. Even the sight of her half-naked bottom couldn’t pull him from his thoughts. The girl had said it was May 8th. The last memory he had was April 5th. He was missing an entire month.
Chapter 11
He’d lost an entire month. How was that possible? Normally, when someone died, their last brain backup was inserted into the game within 24-48 hours. Occasionally, it took longer if the backup had to be shipped to WorldCog but Jace’s last backup was done in WorldCog headquarters.
Jace had never heard of it taking an entire month to insert someone except when a will was contested. But in his case, he had no surviving family to contest the will. He should have been inserted minutes after he was declared brain dead. It didn’t make any sense.
Taking a deep breath, Jace pushed thoughts of the missing month out of his head. He’d think about it later. Right now, he had more immediate concerns.
The sun was sinking in the sky and that meant night was coming soon. Since he couldn’t logout, it meant he’d be spending the night in the game. Right now, he had no clothes to protect him against the cold and no weapons to protect him from any monsters. He also had no money to buy food. He didn’t need food to live anymore, but after a certain period of time, he’d get a debuff called Hungry if he didn’t eat. It was a penalty to his abilities and skills and couldn’t be cured until he ate in-game food.
That meant, he needed to find food, clothing and weapons. He looked to the right of the cemetery where he saw an outcropping of crude, Tudor style buildings. There was a vil
lage. And where there was a village, there were quests. It was time to do some quests.
Jace took a step towards the cemetery exit just as a golden form materialized in front of him. He couldn’t stop in time and for the second time, he went down in a tangle of limbs with another player.
“Ahhh!” screamed a familiar voice underneath him. “Get off me!”
He rolled off and the elf he’d met earlier rolled on her side towards him. “You again?”
“Me again,” Jace smiled. “I take it you died again?”
The elf made a sour face. “Yes! The goblins were still there, hiding. I went to get my body and they ambushed me.” She looked him over. “You die again too?”
Jace chuckled. “No, I never left. I’m trying to figure out what to do.”
“What do you mean? How far is your body?”
Knowing he couldn’t really explain the truth, Jace came up with a believable lie. “I had to cover a co-worker’s shift and my body aged out. Now I have nothing.”
It worked. Her expression softened and she looked genuinely sympathetic. “Sorry to hear that. Maybe you could just delete your character and create a new one. You’d get new starter equipment, right?”
Jace raised an eyebrow. She was right. He was only level 1, so he could technically delete the character and create a new one. Of course, that required access to a pod, something he didn’t have. He was stuck with this character until WorldCog fixed him.
“Good idea, but I’m kind of attached to this character,” he said honestly.
She shrugged and stood up. “Well, I need to go get my body before it expires. Good luck.”
Jace waved. “Nice bumping into you again.”
The elf gave him a small chuckled and then turned to leave again. As she started to walk away, Jace realized he could help the girl get her body and called out. “I can help you get your body.”
She stopped and spun around, eyes narrowing. “Why would you do that?”
Jace was taken back. He’d just offered to help her. Did she think he had some ulterior motive? He shrugged. “Because it’s the right thing to do?”
She gave him a furious look. “Listen, I’m not going to have virtual sex with you or anything like that just because you help me get my body!”
Jace took a step backwards. This girl was crazy. All he’d done was offer to help and now they were talking about in-game sex. “Woah! Woah! Woah! Nevermind then! I just wanted to help. I didn’t want you to be naked and penniless like me.”
She looked at him for a long moment, her face slowly losing it’s anger. “No catches? You’ll just help me get my body and that’s it?”
Jace held his hands up in a placating gesture. “No catch. I help you get your body back. That’s it.”
He could see the conflict on her face but finally she made her decision. “Okay. You can help. But I’m not doing anything for you in return.”
Jace nodded. “Fair enough.”
“Fine. We’d better hurry,” she said, turning back around. “I have to log off soon.”
Jace followed her out the cemetery and to the right through the village. They jogged through the village and then down a road through some hills. He noticed that the gravel on his feet felt remarkably painful. It felt real.
A terrible thought came to him then. Normally, a player could control the feedback level of the game using a sensory level. Most players kept theirs around 10-15% of normal, meaning they’d experience 10-15% of the pain (and pleasure) of the game. So when they were stabbed by an enemy, they’d only feel a fraction of the pain. Few people wanted to feel what a real fireball would feel like or a real spear thrust.
The sensory level was tied to the person’s FEVRE pod and Jace had no pod. He quickly brought up his HUD and looked for the sensory level. As he feared, it wasn’t there. He had no way to change how much pain he would be experiencing. Judging by the agony in his feet right now, he guessed he was permanently at 100%. He’d be experiencing everything as if it were really happening.
Mercifully, the elf finally called them to a halt between two large hills. She bent over to catch her breath and then pointed up the right hill.
“Okay,” she said as she caught her breath. “My body is just on the other side of this hill. There were two goblins hiding nearby and they killed me each time I got close to my body.” She looked him up and down, as if just realizing he was as naked as she was. “How exactly are you going to help me?”
Jace grinned. “By being bait.” He savored the shocked expression on her face before continuing. “I’ll run up and lure them away and you loot your body and run back into town.”
She blinked but nodded. “That’ll work.”
Without another word, Jace ran up the hill waving his hands and screaming at the top of his lungs. Behind him, he heard the elf laughing. She had a nice laugh.
Then he topped the hill and saw her body about 20 feet from where he was. He didn’t see any goblins but that didn’t mean they weren’t there. There were plenty of boulders and large rocks they could be hiding behind. Jace ran straight for the body as fast as he could.
As if by magic, two goblins stepped out from behind rocks and ran at him on an intercept course. If Jace had intended to stop at the girl's body, they would have caught him. Instead, he kept running right past her body as fast as he could. He could hear them puffing behind him.
He thought he might outdistance them until he slipped on some loose rocks and went rolling across the rocks. He felt the brush burns across his mostly naked body as he slid across the rocks and nearly screamed. Then the goblins were upon him.
“Stupid hoo-mon,” said one and sliced him across the back with a rusty axe.
Forest goblin slashes YOU with rusty tin axe for 5 damage.
Jace arched his back as pain exploded from the gash across his spine. He tried to roll away but the other goblin was there with a large knife.
“Die hoo-mon,” it said and then stabbed down at his chest. He felt excruciating pain as the dagger plunged into him. He tried to scream but it came out a gurgle.
Forest goblin pierces YOU with rusty dagger for 3 damage.
You have died.
Do you wish to respawn at your last spawn point? (Yes or No)
The pain ended and everything went black for a moment. Then the world went gray and he jumped out of his body in spirit form so he was looking down at his corpse.
This was good. When he had died as a monster, he’d jumped right into another monster body. What he was experiencing now was what happened when a player died. Thankful, he chose yes to respawn, and the world dissolved around him.
The next thing he knew, he was back in the graveyard, gasping and holding his chest. Looking down, he realized he was whole again, and the wound was gone. He sighed in relief. That might have been the most painful thing he’d ever experienced.
He stumbled away from the gravestone where he’d respawned and looked around. Had the elf gotten her body? He hoped so. Jace began to walk towards town, occasionally wincing when he stepped on a particularly sharp rock.
He had just gotten to the first building when he saw her coming from the opposite direction. Now she was dressed in a pair of tight fitting leather leggings the color of spring grass with intricate leaf patterns. She had a cropped leather top of the same leather that exposed her midriff and arms. On her feet she wore high leather boots that came just above her knees and she wore long leather gloves that came up past her elbow. These were the brown of tree bark. On her back was a quiver of arrows and in her hand she carried a recurve bow. She looked every bit the elf warrior maiden.
Jace flashed her a grin. “I didn’t recognize you with clothes on.”
She blushed but smiled. “Thanks for helping me get my body.”
“No problem,” Jace replied. He put on a mischievous grin. “Now about that virtual sex…”
The elf’s face went red and she opened her mouth to say something, but he stopped her with a raised hand as
he burst out laughing. “Just kidding! Just kidding! I couldn’t resist.”
“You…” She struggled for a moment to say something but then she broke into a smile too. “Fine, you had me going.” She looked at him a moment and her eyes went glassy. She scrunched up her nose. “Your name is Dedrurrurth? That seems a bit hard to pronounce.”
“Call me Jace,” he told her and extended his hand.
She hesitated only briefly and then took his hand and shook it. “I’m Charlena.”
“Nice to meet you,” he told her. “What’s a nice elf like you doing in a place like this?”
A cloud passed over her face. “I was tricked.”
Jace gave her a curious look and motioned her to continue.
Charlena let out an exasperated breath. “Fine. Some wizard was in the elf newbie area and offered to take me to a special leveling place. He said it was a secret. I agreed and we grouped and then he teleported me here. Then he ungrouped and told me if I didn’t give him sex, he’d leave me here - in the farthest village in Karlandia. When I refused, he teleported away and left me here. I’ve been stuck here ever since. What a jerk!”
Jace had heard of players doing similar things and then blackmailing the girls to have virtual sex with them. WorldCog was trying to crack down on it but it still happened.
“I’m sorry you had a bad experience like that,” he told her. “Did you contact support?”
She grew more agitated. “Yes. But because I came here of my own free will, there’s nothing they can do.”
“Ouch,” Jace sympathized. Given what he’d recently learned about WorldCog, he didn’t put anything past them.
“Tell me about it!” she said angrily. “What a bunch of idiots!”
“On that we agree,” he told her.
She looked at him curiously. “Did you get trapped here too? Is that why you’re here?”
Jace thought about it. He didn’t want to go into his whole story with someone he just met. He needed time to process it and think of what to do next. For now, he had to keep it to himself. “Something like that.”
VEIL Online - Book 1 Page 7