The Mayor of Noobtown
Page 6
“When did you start being a rogue?” Shart retorted.
I focused on my character sheet again. There was a Rogue tab there, with the same general outline as the warrior tab. The Warrior tab was still there as well. They were both there. The sheet looked weird with both unlocked, kind of filling up my mental buffer for looking at this sort of thing. It was like visualizing too large of a thing in your head and being unable to keep track of it all. I focused on the various tabs and realized that all of the class tabs were there, too. They were just all hidden.
“Oh,” I stated, “I have them all.”
“What?” asked Shart, sounding very curious as he continued examining me.
“Warrior and Rogue are both there,” I said, “I can still select both of them and they are both active.”
The demon boggled, “You have 2 classes. That’s not possible. The
“Maybe that’s because you just suck. I have two,” I stated. At least two.
“I’m going to have to consider this. Let’s get to the town.” I knew Shart had to be truly confused, as he let the insult go unreturned.
“One second, let me try something.”
I went to the skill screen and focused on it. I had three open selections there and I wanted to use them. Several skills I had were starting to become clearer. One of these was Perception, which I selected.
You achieve amateur rank in Perception, you are now much more observant.
Instantly, I started seeing smaller details more clearly. Further, I could process information better. The skill icons were still muddy, but now I could see it was because they were actually writhing around rather than just being hard to look at.
Flipping back to my character sheet, it was easier to process the whole thing. Several of the other tabs were starting to fill out. The woodsman tab was almost ready to level. I was able to filter the skills better, cutting out unnecessary details until I focused on them. That was going to be helpful.
I was still just wearing a loin cloth and that was alarmingly breezy. I examined Skinning and realized I wasn’t anywhere close to leveling it. Still, I selected it, figuring that it would be a good revenue source if nothing else. I instantly saw how to skin the Goblin’s pet for maximum effect. I set about that task while trying to figure out what my final skill choice should be. My guilt over killing the goblin’s dog was offset by my desire for pants.
Reviewing, I determined that I could select any of the random skill icons that were in my list. Problem being that those were all crap shoots. I could get something useful, or I could get something that wasn’t going to help me at all. That said, it was only an amateur rank, I quickly tested and could not increase my existing ranks with one of those buffs, so that wasn’t going to be the end of the world.
Searching for something like leatherworking, I didn’t find anything. There were so many icons, over 2200 that I could see with my Perception skill, that just randomly guessing was out. They did seem to flow in a few patterns, though. All the Simple Weapons skills more or less were bunched together. The Martial Weapons skills too. I found Skinning again, near a still unknown central skill. I decided to gamble and selected that central skill as my final power up.
The world seemed to twitch again, just for a moment. Shart noticed it, watching me even more intently, “What did you do?”
“I selected Crafting, a world shattering event.”
“What kind of crafting?” asked Shart.
“Just crafting,” I stated, “good old generic crafting.”
“There is no generic crafting skill that I know of. Did you take Leatherworking?”
Reexamining my sheet, I saw:
Crafting 1 (1000/100,000) Amateur You have basic crafting ability.
Shart continued grumbling, but I sat down and cut some of the leather I’d taken from the goblin. I stitched together a not terrible pair of leather pants and a shirt. The shirt was terrible in every way, and I decided to remove it after only a few minutes. When we got closer to town, I could always put it back on and not appear to be a savage in hastily made pants. I’d also made two sheaths for my daggers. One turned out okay; the other one, not so much. I put the good dagger in the okay sheath.
You have acquired: Shoddily crafted Leather Shirt, Defense 1, Durability 8/8 and poorly crafted Leather Pants, Defense 1, Durability 10/10.
“How do I look?” I asked.
“Well, you don’t have the leatherworking skill,” Shart snarked, “but I guess it's better than seeing your mostly naked body. If you are done being lazy, let’s go.”
I glanced at my skills. My leatherworking and crafting had both gone up 4 points. Reviewing, crafting skills were based on two things. First, was the value, in silver, of the items you yourself had crafted. The second factor whether the crafted item was used to cause or prevent damage. The cool thing was that the crafter didn’t have to be using the item themselves; they gained the experience whenever an item made by their hands was used.
We started walking back towards the road and the village. Well, I started walking. Shart sat on my shoulder and muttered strange things about how the world worked. Getting back onto the road, I’d considered that maybe I should have taken hiking. I was hoping that that would resolve itself soon enough.
Tuning Shart out, I again pondered time in this realm. I was nearly certain that time was moving differently here than on Earth. The wolf hide was the latest example I had. In the time it took for me to stitch the hide together into crude clothing, it had completely dried. I had never been a hunter, but I was relatively sure that curing leather should have taken hours, if not days. I resolved to pay closer attention to time.
Traveling with Perception was different. The first thing was that my peripheral vision was almost as acute as my primary vision. That was hard to wrap my head around; it was like I could suddenly see that thing out of the corner of my eye as if I was staring directly at it. Furthermore, I could track multiple objects at once. I watched two leaves fall that were caught up in different breezes and I could have pointed at either at any moment during their fall. When I tried the same trick with three, I found I could do that as well. However, it started slowly draining my Stamina.
All my other senses were likewise improved. I could hear and identify sounds more readily. It would be much more difficult to attack me from behind. My sense of touch was greater as well. I could probably identify my dagger just off the small flaws in the blade. I could smell both Shart and myself; one of us badly needed a bath. I’m certain Shart still smelled like my pee.
This was almost like a low level super power. I was quite pleased overall. If only I could find a puddle to throw the stinky demon into.
Chapter 7: The Village
Name: Jim
Hit Points: 36/55
Stamina: 70
Mana: 20
Class: Rogue 1
Strength: Above Average
Dexterity: Good
Endurance: Above Average
Willpower: Average
Spirit: Average
Charisma: Average
Skills:
Demon Lore amateur
Unarmored Amateur
Light Armor Amateur
Medium Armor Amateur
Defense Skills:
Dodge Unskilled
Mitigate Unskilled
Shields amateur
Martial Weapons amateur
Simple Weapons amateur
Staff Amateur
Powerful Blow
Dagger Novice
Puncture
Wounding
Two Weapon Fighting Unskilled
Twin Weapon Unskilled
Hiking unskilled
Stealth Amateur
Skinning Amateur
Cooking unskilled
Perception Amateur
Crafting: Amateur
Leatherworking Unskilled
Woodworking Unskilled
&nbs
p; The final leg of the walk had taken two hours. I’d drawn both of my daggers like a badass twice, until Shart made it clear that I looked like an idiot. Then, I’d turned to whittling. So far, I’d made a bad cat, a bad dog, and a wolf’s head medallion that looked less crappy. I’d also found a length of wood that I thought might make a good bow, if I didn’t ruin it.
Good luck with that.
We had finally arrived at the village and the results were less than impressive. It was theoretically well placed. It was on top of a hill, and there was a wall around it, although the wall had several large fissures in it that would allow just about anyone to walk through it. There were no guards, or any sort of inhabitants to speak of, and the road outside looked like it hadn’t seen a cart in basically forever.
“Well, that sucks,” I stated.
“This place is so old that I think the village is abandoned,” replied Shart.
“I thought this was the noobie area,” I groaned, “isn’t the village supposed to be safe?” Most games had a lower level noobie area, where new players could learn the ropes. This area was full of wolves and goblins.
“Well, sort of,” stated my shoulder sidekick, “it looks like this is the old starting village. They built a better one quite some time ago. This village should still be protected, but I’m not sensing any of the magical defenses.”
“Like, how long?” I asked, dreading the answer.
“A couple centuries,” he replied, “And yes, they get stronger the longer they remain undisturbed. But the village should have an enchantment upon it so long as a single person occupies it that would render it protected.”
“How many people are in the village?”
“None. The village is totally empty of all people,” replied the demon, “That explains why 6 goblins are in there right now.”
“You constantly disappoint me,” I said, as I started towards the village.
Shart frowned. “If I’m such a disappointment, perhaps you would just prefer to roam around with your head up your ass for a bit.”
I sighed. God, I hated that little fucker. However, he had a point. “What do I need to do?”
“Head to the town hall and activate the lectern.”
Vague, but whatever.
Creeping into the village was easy due primarily to the giant holes in the wall. The goblins were not paying any attention to the village’s boundaries. These goblins were apparently not feral goblins, but rather tribal goblins. That made them a bit stronger, and less prone to having animal companions. Mixed bag there.
As we cleared the edge of the village, we headed toward what I believed to be the town square. As we walked, Shart explained further. Apparently, if I got to this magical town hall lectern, I could reactivate the enchantment that would render the village a safe zone. Shart assured me this was a good thing. I had Shart performing constant scans to see if there were more than goblins lurking about. Our difficulty with this was his extremely limited mana pool. A hard choice needed to be made; he could scan for wolves OR goblins, but not both at the same time.
We spent a good five minutes with him scanning for every type of monster individually that he could think of, over 100 in total. Finding nothing, we continued deeper into the village. I slinked between dark, dilapidated buildings that were missing roofs. Many had rotted out walls and several appeared to be collapsing in on themselves. The wind would occasionally blast through the village and, if not for my enhanced senses, I’m pretty sure I’d have bailed even with Shart calling out enemies.
But now that I had my super power, I had confidence. So, when Shart told me there was a lone goblin wandering nearby, I changed course towards him. The goblins were all concentrated in a camp outside what appeared to be the village’s inn. They had a fire outside, so I reasoned that the chimney inside must be clogged or they could just like the outdoors. It was nice out.
The goblins were all milling about, mostly in twos or threes. Some were in the inn; some were at the stew pot, which was a rusted, battered iron thing that occasionally hissed and popped. Whatever they were cooking smelled terrible. I’d been sustaining myself on wolf’s meat and the occasional berry. I wasn’t hungry, but I could eat. Just not that.
My target had decided to be a proper young goblin and relieve himself somewhere downwind of their makeshift campsite. He squatted and started grunting. I was on him before he had a chance to understand what was happening, driving both daggers into his back. With that one furious motion, he died instantly and silently.
My rogue level had paid off already.
I doubled back to my original course towards the town hall, leaving the body there in a pile of its own shit. I was a badass, and those stupid goblins should fear me. I followed the shadows until I got into the town hall. The door stood open and I brazenly entered. Casting my eyes around the abandoned hall, I searched for the lectern as Shart had instructed.
I didn’t have to search long. The lectern was clearly visible in the center of the room. This was mainly due to the giant hole in the ceiling letting in the sunlight. The entire building was more or less destroyed, with massive signs of neglect everywhere. Specks of dust floated in the sun’s rays, making my newly sensitive eyes water. The front hall was intact, except for the door which beyond warped. It would never be able to be closed again. Walking over to the lectern quietly, I placed my hands upon it and waited for the prompt.
You have found the Windfall Village. There is not a current mayor to the village. Would you like to claim the village?
Grinning as the entire town hall lit up in a display of power that must have been visible for miles around, I savored the moment before selecting yes.
There are hostile creatures inside the village area. The village cannot be claimed until they are removed. Have a good day.
And the lights died.
“Shart?”
“All five of them are coming here now,” stated Shart, “and I just found a patrol of another 20 goblins coming down the road. They will be here in about 5 minutes.”
I rapidly moved to the entrance of the town hall and jumped with all my might. I actually managed to get myself almost even with the top of the door frame before hiding in the shadows. I imagined I looked like something of a dark knight, with a little ugly bat on my shoulder. The goblins were approaching, I could hear them. They were all yapping at each other in their language, but I could now catch bits of it. I couldn’t understand exactly what they were saying, but I got the basic gist of it. There were not happy goblins. Huh. Perhaps, murder assisted with language learning here. I would have to ask Shart about it after these were disposed of.
I knew there were five. Two were coming through the front entryway with their weapons ready. Three more were outside and I could only hear what they were doing. One sounded as if he were running away. The other two sounded like they were just outside the door. I could work with that.
Dropping down on top of the two, I drove each into the floor with a dagger in their backs. They both died instantly as I turned to face the remaining three. One goblin was larger than the other two and had a short sword and shield. The one next to him was more commonly sized and was carrying a short sword as well. The one fleeing had a short bow and he ran faster as I launched myself out of the town hall towards his friends.
Hoping to knock out the big one quickly, I slashed at him with both daggers. He blocked one with the shield and parried my other strike, nearly taking off my thumb. Being a badass, I then literally front flipped over him to attack him from the rear.
In the movies, it would have worked. Here, the Goblin brought his shield up and wildly swung at the only place I was going to be in a few moments. I landed just as his short sword completed its arc, carving through my light armor and into my leg for 12 points of damage. I also fell, mainly due to the fact that I think the strike chipped the bone.
His companion went in for the kill and accidentally saved me. He rushed between me and the larger goblin, who had to pull back to
avoid striking him. I used that moment to get to my feet, but not before driving my crappy dagger into the goblin’s foot. He screamed, reaching down and I slashed his unarmored throat.
The larger goblin rushed forwards, swinging his weapon. Now that I only had one dagger, I was at a decided disadvantage against a shielded opponent. Just then, I heard a whistling and managed to dodge wide as an arrow zipped past me. The other goblin hadn’t been running away, he had been moving into position and now was shooting at me with a shortbow.
My Stamina bar was depleting, not quickly enough to be a danger yet, but it was a concern. Dodging arrows was Stamina intensive; a second shot almost hit me. I could probably bail now, but if I left, the local goblins might put a permanent garrison in this town that I’d never overcome.
An idea struck me, but it would have to be timed just right. I moved so that my back was to the archer, causing all the hair on my neck to stand up. I was now between him and the larger goblin. I waited, dodging and striking at the larger goblin. Finally, I heard the whistling again.
Feinting wide to the left, the goblin tracked me with his shield just as the arrow shot through where I was. It buried itself in the goblin’s chest. He stumbled backwards, and I used my free hand to grab his shield and pull it down from his now limp arm, before driving my dagger into his eye.
The final goblin stared in horror for a moment before dropping his bow and starting to run. I still had more Stamina and now, with my improved dexterity, I was much faster than him. I caught up to him in seconds, killing him from behind.