The Mayor of Noobtown

by Ryan Rimmel

  I had almost glossed over Accuracy initially but checked it just to be safe.

  Accuracy: Your level is considered doubled when attacking a higher level target, reducing dodge chance and damage resistance.

  The other abilities were nice, but I kept glancing back to Accuracy. If I fought another higher level creature, I’d like it to not be able to dodge my strikes with ease. I selected it.

  “Hey, I wanted to talk to you about something,” stated Shart, much to my absolute shock, as I continued flipping through menus.

  “The hell?” I replied, but strangely. It sounded like I was shouting in a very empty, very concrete room, complete with slightly faint echoes. “How can you talk to me when I’m like this? I thought this was some kind of private, slowed down space.”

  “I can talk to you when you are doing anything and everything,” stated Shart. “I can’t really see what you are doing very well, but I do so enjoy ruining your day.”

  “If you can talk to me whenever you want, why didn’t you help me with the Shadow Goblin?” I growled.

  “Really,” stated Shart, as I slowly adjusted to feeling his presence in the back of my mind, “because I couldn’t. You already knew he was a Shadow Goblin and what the fuck am I supposed to do about that? I’m as tall as I am wide, and not much of either. I don’t have any mana; that’s why I bonded you.”

  “So, you blustered, but you basically couldn’t do anything,” I stated.

  “Nothing useful. All I can do right now is offer you some occasional advice and peek into your mind,” replied Shart.

  “Good to know that the privacy of my mind is at your beck and call,” I stated dryly. I tried to look around to see Shart; after a moment, I found him, sort of. He was not as demonic as in the regular world. He seemed more of a glowing orb of absolute darkness, or an orb so dark that it stood out in contrast with his surroundings at the edge of my consciousness.

  “Anyway, the broad might mention something about a Dark Overlord. You should probably be somewhat concerned about that.”

  “Why?” I asked, flipping quickly through my menu screens, until I got to the Woodsman one.

  “Well, he is who we were setting you up to fight,” replied the floating globe of evil.

  “Good to know,” I said, as I stopped really paying attention to my sheet, “What class is he?”

  “Godling, of course,” replied the demon, “It's the most powerful class. He has a reality warping attack.”

  “Does he know where I am? I responded. I wasn’t keen on fighting someone like that, even if I had been a much higher level than I currently was. Still, if the Dark Overlord already had a notion of my location, a near future fight might be unavoidable.

  “Not yet,” replied Shart, whom I hated, “but he might start looking eventually, and I think we need to avoid that.”

  “How?”

  “Well, I can’t help you right now because I’m totally out of mana. We are going to fix that.”

  “Since if he finds me, he’ll kill you too.”

  “You are a clever monkey,” replied the Demon.

  Breaking out of the Menus, I continued walking. Shortly afterwards, a wave of exhaustion hit me, despite my Stamina bar being nearly full. I was trudging through the woods carrying an insane amount of weight with me. I had tried to carry everything, but I didn’t have the strength stat for it; instead, I’d carried everything just shy of my limit. The problem there was the difference between a video game and real life. In a game, my avatar would have walked on uncaringly. In real life, I was carrying just short of my maximum load and I could taste bile from the strain.

  What happened was that after an interval set by this world, you had to rest or your Stamina started take damage and would begin to deplete. If it went too long, you’d actually strain yourself and it would cause more significant Stamina damage.

  My Hiking skill expanded the time it took for my Stamina to become damaged, and then further expanded how long it would take to become exhausted. Stamina damage most typically resulted in your Stamina recovery being slowed. Exhaustion prevented Stamina recovery at all for some period of time, typically hours or days. One did not want to become exhausted.

  Having to travel on my Stamina recovery pattern meant that for every 30 minutes of traveling, I needed to spend 1 minute not moving heavy objects. AvaSophia and her kids had it easier as they were not carrying nearly as much as I was and didn’t need to slow down to keep up with me. Shart, of course, was having the easiest time of all; I was still carrying him on my shoulder.

  “So how did the goblins catch you?” I asked, as we continued marching through the woods.

  AvaSophia glanced around again before looking at me, calmly walking, before responding, “We were ambushed. Is that not a concern here?”

  “Not here. Nothing hostile is nearby,” I said, figuring that Shart would warn me if that wasn’t true. My Perception and Lore skills weren’t triggering either, so I figured the odds of being ambushed at this moment were close to zero.

  She watched her children again, both staying very close to me, and then continued, “We were escaping from the Armies of the West.”

  “Ah, the Dark Overlord,” I said, nodding.

  “Huh? No, King Harcharles army. He’s trying to take control over the coastal territories, burning villages, and I happened to live in one of those villages,” replied AvaSophia.

  “Oh,” I replied. Well I looked like an idiot. I doubted the demon was wrong though. I’d never seen him wrong at least, and I knew he hadn’t outright lied.

  “The Dark Overlord,” giggled EveSophia, “Like in the stories!”

  “The hero would come and rescue us and then challenge the Dark Overlord,” laughed JoeClarance.

  “Children, stop it,” chided their mother, “Jim... is a good and nice man who helped us when he didn’t need to.”

  “That’s like the stories,” smiled EveSophia, “And I like Jim, even though his name is silly.”

  “Thanks,” I said.

  “Don’t worry Jim,” smiled JoeClarance, “No one was expecting Grebthar the Destroyer to rush out and save us.”

  I learned facepalming was universal.

  Chapter 13: What’s in a Name

  “You can’t change your name,” stated Shart for the fifth time, “You are stuck with ‘Jim’”

  We had gotten to a clearing to rest and recover my Stamina a bit more. I was perfecting the trick of shifting to menu time to talk to Shart, so that the others didn't’ think I was crazy. I’d gone four out of five so far, and they only thought I was a bit crazy, which I could live with. My minute rest would have been up a few minutes ago, but I kept swinging back into menu time to talk to the demon.

  “Could I just lie?” I asked.

  “How? Your name appears in the tracker,” replied the annoyed demon.

  “But I could lie,” I stated.

  “And when they looked in their experience tracker, they’ll notice they got conversation experience with Jim. It won’t be hard to figure out who that is.”

  “Fine! Explain how to make you less useless, then.”

  “Further, you were the one who chose. . .,” started Shart, before finally realizing that the argument had finally moved past my name, “Oh, just focus on me and give me your mana.”

  “That’s it?” I asked.

  “Why would it be more complicated than that?”

  “Why didn’t you ask me for mana earlier?” I yelled into the vast open emptiness of my mind.

  “You wouldn’t have given it to me,” replied Shart, “Before the battle with the Shadow Goblin, you’d have thought you didn’t need my help. Now you know you do, so you will.”

  With no answer, I reverted back to regular time and tried to focus on the demon. Just as my concentration clicked, someone tugged my arm.

  “Shouldn’t we get going now?” asked JoeClarance.

  So, I walked, trying to focus on the demon as well as not falling down. I assumed sharing
mana would be easier if I was able to concentrate, but the universe liked to throw me curve balls. After a few minutes I finally felt something click between the two of us, but instantly lost it. the demon was revolting!

  Moving back into menu time, I growled, “What the hell man? Your spiritual form, or whatever, is disgusting.”

  “Oh ya?” replied Shart, “Well, then find the bond cord and power that instead. Just don’t take any back and it should work.”

  On we walked, and I focused on the bond string, or finding the bond whisker. It took longer than I’d like to admit. We had time for a whole one minute break before continuing. Finally, I found the string and managed to grab it with my mystical ‘hand’.

  Then came the second part, which would be even trickier, as I had no idea how to transfer mana. I started to relax, which was problematic while walking, and nearly lost control over my bladder. Eventually, I recognized a different sensation. It felt quite a bit like needing to use the bathroom, but higher. I worked that part of my mind for a moment and then felt the tiniest trickle of mana escape me.

  Slowly, the rest of my mana pool flowed out like a drunk relieving himself after a night of debauchery.

  I’d suffered another Mana Crash after dumping my entire Mana Pool into the demon. In many video games, that doesn’t mean very much; you just get your magic back later. Here, it was the functional equivalent of working so hard you exhausted yourself mentally.

  Seriously, I could not concentrate in any capacity. I could not think, I could not form words, and walking became impossibly complex all of a sudden. I tried to methodically move forwards, but I couldn’t even bring up the emotional will to do that. After a few stumbling paces, I just stopped.

  As I was leading this little procession, that did not turn out well. The little girl bumped into me and fell over. The boy drew his dagger, as did his mother, and they all searched the forest for threats. I stood there unmoving for about 8 seconds, until I finally regained my first point of mana. Then, I just had a terrible headache.

  That’s when I fell down, the heavy pack landing on me and knocking the wind from my lungs. It took me and AvaSophia quite a while to get it off because I couldn’t catch my breath or get into a position to move it myself. By this time, my mana pool had jumped over the proverbial quarter of my points and my mind was working again. However, I also now had a Mana Crash status effect, which translated into a horrible migraine. Imagine someone having a drill and shoving it into your temple, only to meet a second drill that has already been shoved into your other side, and where they meet stews your brains together.

  Flipping to my character sheet, I saw that I had 18 hours of Mana Crash. The pain was not abated in the slightest while in my character sheet, so I closed it. Gritting my teeth, I stood up and continued walking, utterly ignoring not only questions coming from AvaSophia and her children, but also the disappearance of a demon shaped weight on my shoulder. It was a rough few hours back to the village.

  Chapter 14: Return to the Village

  I hadn’t explained the sudden change in my mood. AvaSophia whispered to her children that I must have been more injured in the battle than I had let on. We continued marching towards the village. After another 3 hours 28 minutes and 36 seconds, we finally reached the edge of the woods and could see the village.

  “Your town has a wall,” she stated wide eyed. From our higher vantage point, you could look down onto the large plain that the village sat upon. Well behind it, the ocean lapped at the beach, though the state of the dock told me no one had tried coming ashore there in many years. There were even a number of taller buildings that were just intact enough that the place actually looked respectable from this angle. In fact, we actually had walls, technically. From this side, the walls even looked mostly intact. There were massive breaches in them, however, from whatever had initially laid the village low.

  I scanned the horizon for the goblin riders and didn’t see them. There was over a mile between where we were at the edge of the forest and the outskirts of the barrier. Further still, to get into the village proper. If we had a good path and the goblins weren’t expecting us, then just maybe we could get across without too much trouble.

  I moved to menu time, seeing the outside world slow.

  “Shart, where are those goblins?”

  “I’m looking. Hold your horses,” replied the demon from a spot that was not my shoulder. He seemed a bit put out with me still, for allowing him to be knocked from his perch and left behind when I fell. Fuck him. He had mana now; at least enough that he could fly normally. Which reminded me...

  “How are you spell casting with so little mana?” I asked. I had given him all my mana, but to him that was just a drop in the bucket. His mana pool, I could tell, was over 800.

  “Oh, Demon’s Racial Ability. We don’t suffer Mana Crashes, but we also don’t regenerate mana normally,” stated the demon offhandedly, while he continued doing his mental gymnastics.

  “How can you use your spells in menu time?” I asked. That ability would be really handy.

  “What?” asked Shart, as he considered what I’d said. “Oh, this is my regular time scale. Your menu time is my normal.”

  “It takes forever for anything to happen in menu time, though. This journey would have felt like it took years.”

  The demon was silent for a moment, “No, just about a month.”

  Oh crap, and that was just coming back. I’d wondered why the demon’s attention seemed to be flaky at times. There was the answer. He must have some sort of trick to keep his mind occupied. Then again, he had almost no mana and slowly regenerating wounds. The wounds always hurt. That meant he’d been in agonizing pain for months, effectively because he’d saved me.

  Well, maybe I could help him open his Demon Door, if he didn’t screw me when it was over.

  “I see them,” growled Shart, “They are running a patrol around the village. If you move now, you should be able to reach the barrier before they see you.”

  Returning to real time, I gestured to AvaSophia as a familiar weight landed back on my shoulder. “We need to get to the village quickly. There are more goblins, but they cannot come into town.”

  Both children quivered. JoeClarance recovered more quickly and held his dagger. AvaSophia looked at me, “Are you certain you can deal with them if they get close?”

  “I have my bow,” I responded, “And my injuries will not stop me from killing goblins.”

  She nodded, and we all began to move briskly towards the barrier. I couldn’t run with the supplies and no one seemed to want to get too far away from me. For 6 long minutes, everything seemed to be going well, until JoeClarance suddenly fell, screaming.

  I pivoted around, nearly falling due to my burden. The boy had fallen into the grass, but the way he had done so looked wrong instantly. His mother got to him before I did, so I cast about looking for the goblins. The pack that we were avoiding was still a good distance away and, even with my heightened senses, I couldn’t make out enough detail to know if they’d changed paths.

  As I turned back to AvaSophia, who had already gotten JoeClarance back on his feet, I saw a second group of goblins. They were much closer than the first group and also wolf mounted. There were 5 of the larger goblins, and a sixth who was carrying some sort of staff.

  “There are more goblins,” I called out.

  “Don’t worry, I think I see the problem!” replied Shart, “Yup, they had an anti-scrying spell up, so I didn’t see them.” Very handy to know as they were bearing down on us.

  I also learned that Lore had a range, and they were not inside it. I could tell that the wolves had lots of hit points and very little mana. I could also see that the Warriors had similar, but not identical, hit points and Stamina to the previous ones I fought. Also, the one that looked like a spell caster had quite a bit more mana than the rest of them. But that was it; no additional information, like levels or how potent the caster was. I might have been able to take all 5 fi
ghters, but the caster was a wild card and I had too many people to defend around me.

  The protective barrier was painfully close.

  “Run,” I called out, waiting to see if everyone responded. I was still faster than them, even carrying this much weight.

  EveSophia screamed and started running, but straight from the wolves instead of straight towards the town. I snatched her from behind, holding her like a football. JoeClarance looked miserable as he hobbled forwards, but he couldn’t run. He had fallen into a mole hole of all things and wrenched his ankle badly. He was much larger than his sister, but I still managed to pick him up, too.

  A small icon saying I was overburdened appeared in the corner of my vision. Gee ya think.

  We tore off towards the barrier, AvaSophia staying close to me and her children. The wolves were behind and to the left of us but were closing distance quickly. The barrier was temptingly close, a small creek almost perfectly marking its edge. It was going to be a race, a battle of endurance. They might have massive wolves and goblin magic, but I had Mobility and Hiking.

  I was counting on Hiking to save my life.

  We had been jogging to conserve energy. Now, we spent it like wastrels. I watched as AvaSophia’s Stamina bar started dropping. With my heightened senses, I could tell where the wolves’ heavy footfalls were behind us. We might just make it, so long as AvaSophia could keep up her desperate running for a bit longer.

  An arrow flew past me, and then another. I felt a third strike my pack. Then, came a fourth. The goblins were firing from wolf back and had decided to hit the larger target, which happened to mainly be my pack of supplies. Suddenly, I felt a sharp pain and realized that they’d hit the back of my leg. I didn’t have any Stamina to mitigate the damage but, glancing at the log, I was relieved to find that arrow had only done 2 points of damage. That was barely a scratch.