I grinned. Good. I wanted her to hear my conversation with Kris.
“You doing okay?”
“Taking care of business,” Kris said, her voice echoing out across the dark alley as our group chat was broadcast. There was a thunk followed by a splorch, and then another thunk. Then Kris came back on the line, breathing hard. “We’ve got one newbie working for the forces of darkness who’s had her head bashed in.”
There was a pause.
“By the way. PVP combat in this game is really disgusting.”
“I can imagine,” I said after imagining some very unpleasant ways Kris’s fight could’ve ended even if she was the victor.
I turned back to my would-be attacker. I also noticed movement at the alley entrance. At first I worried it was Horizon Dawn reinforcements, for all that they couldn’t hurt me right now, but then I grinned as I realized those shadows were a little too low to the ground to be human player characters.
“So… Looks like this is done. You want to go pick up the remains of your friend? I can assure you my friend isn’t going to be there by the time I get there, but you might be able to save her stuff.”
I really hoped Kris picked up on the unspoken order there. She needed to get the fuck out of there.
“Fuck you,” my would-be assassin hissed. “We’re going to follow you and we’re going to do everything we can to make sure that… What?”
Oh good. She noticed me looking over her shoulder. Several goblin guards had appeared to darken the alleyway, no doubt summoned by someone trying to attack a protected noob, and from their predatory grins they looked like they were happy to see they’d been called to deal with someone wearing the Horizon Dawn tabard.
I knew they were all NPCs in a game that was designed to have NPCs that were strikingly realistic, but I could swear they were showing some real emotion there. Satisfaction, maybe even some glee.
I’d been hazarding a hell of a guess, but after that attack in the town circle I figured the game must have some sort of tracking system in place that summoned the guards whenever someone made an attack on a player who had PVP immunity.
I figured the game didn’t care for that. At least the game didn’t care for it here in town. I’d probably be fucked if I was out in the forest all by my lonesome where there were no guards to summon, but it worked out for me in this case.
“Nice talking to you,” I said, wiggling my fingers at her in a little goodbye wave. “But I don’t think you’re going to do any more hunting in the near future.”
“We’re going to find you and make you regret the day you ever crossed us,” she hissed.
“That’s funny,” I said. “Because Horizon pukes keep telling me that, and so far it hasn’t come true. And we’re talking far higher up the corporate ladder than some idiot willing to trade their soul for some glowing loot.”
She flipped me the bird, but it was interrupted by the guards moving in around her. They were grinning and none too gentle about pulling her away.
She didn’t bother to fight them. Obviously she didn’t have the same pull with the guards that the asshole Torian had.
Whatever. I waited for them to cart her off, it wasn’t nearly as dramatic this time around as it’d been in the main circle when the guards went after Gregor, then stepped out of the narrow alley and looked both ways to make sure I didn’t have anyone else hanging around following me.
I didn’t think they would. Whoever ordered these two to follow us, one guess as to who gave that order, probably thought me and Kris would be easy targets considering we were new to the game. They probably thought two of their minions would be more than enough to take us out, and by the time they got more people out here to track me I planned on being long gone.
Still, it never hurt to be careful. Careful was a big part of the reason why I was so good at what I did.
“Where are you now?” I asked in party chat, but not before making sure I’d muted myself in local so no one who might or might not be hanging around would hear me.
“Heading your way,” Kris replied.
“Are you being followed?” I asked.
“Pretty sure I’m not being followed. That girl who was chasing you just went by surrounded by a bunch of guards though. She must be really clumsy because she kept falling over and looked really beaten and bruised,” she said.
I smiled. It sounded like the local NPC population was taking their revenge against their would-be masters in whatever small way they could. I wasn’t sure what I could do with that, but I was pretty sure I could use it. It was one more bit of information to file away for future use.
I looked at the town in one direction and then turned to the forest not far beyond the town’s borders in the other direction.
“I’m going to go ahead and leave town,” I finally said. “I don’t think it’s a good idea for us to spend more time in this place than we have to. At least not until we get some more skills and a better feel for local politics. Sticking around is inviting them to have more “fun” with us.”
“I agree,” Kris said. “We landed in a hell of a place to get started.”
“You’ve got that right,” I said.
Though I got a sneaking suspicion that if there was a guild cosplaying a bunch of Horizon sycophants in this town then we were likely to find the same thing in other towns as well. Horizon was the kind of company to hedge their bets by throwing around enough money that they were betting on everything at once.
Unfortunately I had no way of checking that theory short of hopping on one of those airships and going for a little trip I didn’t have time for right now. Or maybe logging out and checking the official forums which I also totally didn’t have time for.
Besides, there were Horizon wannabes, or maybe Horizon agents, here in this town right now. I figured that made it as good a place as any to fight the pricks. I’d take care of this corner of the game world first, and worry about the rest of the world later.
“Meet me out there in the woods,” I said. “I figure we can find some stuff to bash in and get some experience, at least. Maybe the next time we go up against those assholes we won’t be as easy for them to pick on.”
Though I couldn’t shake the feeling that it wasn’t going to matter how many skills we gathered. Those pricks had a head start on us, after all. Sure things would probably even out at the higher levels where abilities tended to flatten out and gear started to matter more, but that wasn’t going to help us for awhile.
Especially when Horizon Dawn had that custom gear. I didn’t know how Horizon was pumping that custom gear into the game, but it was giving their lackeys a clear advantage over other players and I didn’t like that.
“Got it,” Kris said. “I’ll be right behind you.”
Of course I kept quiet about the main reason I was interested in going out to that forest. It didn’t have anything to do with bashing monsters and forest critters to gain some combat skills, though I figured that was a good ruse to get Kris out there. She probably would gain some of those skills, even while she was covering my ass.
Because I figured there were going to be lots more reagents waiting out there, and I couldn’t wait to see what there was to gather as we explored and Kris ran defense for my flower picking.
I’d even stopped off at a shop while Kris was playing cat and mouse with Horizon Dawn. I’d grabbed a pickaxe for mining, a trowel that was supposed to give me a bonus gathering herbs, and a skinning knife whose purpose was asked and answered right there in the name.
I double checked that those items were still safe and sound in my inventory, then headed off for the forest.
Despite everything that’d happened, I whistled a happy tune thinking about all the fun I was about to have gathering things while Kris did the head bashing. And I probably wouldn’t even have to listen to Kris bitching since I’d just saved her life.
Not too much, at least.
24
Into the Woods
“Are you seri
ous?” Kris asked.
I looked up from the base of a tree where I'd been digging into the dirt and grime with the trowel I’d bought special for this occasion. There were some mushrooms under here I needed to get at.
It’d been a surprise that I even knew there were mushrooms here. I shouldn’t have known they were there considering how well hidden they were, but I'd started looking around the forest and a faint glow appeared letting me know where there were herbs I could find.
That’d been a pleasant surprise, and I'd leveled up my Gathering:Herbs skill a couple of times in the time it took Kris to get out here.
“Took you long enough,” I said.
“Yeah, well you’ll excuse me if I wanted to make my way out of town nice and quiet like,” Kris said. “The last thing I needed was more of those Horizon Dawn assholes coming after me.”
She tapped her temple. “I’m thinking things through now. Like you.”
“Fair enough,” I said with a shrug. “Gave me plenty of time to do some gathering without having to listen to your constant bitching.”
“Yeah, well wait until you see what I got for you,” Kris said.
I pulled myself up and dusted the dirt off my fingers. This being a video game, the dust crumbled off in an obvious animation and then disappeared entirely.
Clearly the art department hadn’t put that much thought into the animation for dirt dusting. Not that I could blame them. It was a big game and I figured not everything could be hyper realistic. Gregor and his disappearing daggers came to mind.
“Okay, so what do you have for me?” I asked.
“Well that depends,” Kris said, pausing to look around as though she was afraid more assholes from Horizon Dawn were going to appear and give us trouble.
I sincerely hoped they didn’t. I didn’t have any plans to get rid of those assholes here in the forest, and I wasn’t about to flag myself for PVP so I could die alongside my friend. I also wasn’t sure how long my PVP immunity was going to last, for that matter.
I could be ticking down to an ignominious end. I should’ve logged out to look it up, but I’d been too preoccupied with digging up herbs.
“Honestly I don’t know if I want to give you this present now,” Kris said, the hint of an annoyed pout playing around the edge of her face.
“Come on man,” I said, standing and double checking my inventory to make sure the mushrooms I'd been digging for had made it in there. The inventory screen appeared as a translucent overlay, and sure enough I saw the stack of mushrooms.
Though I'd have to wait just a little bit before I figured out what I could do with them. Right now I needed to manage Kris’s bruised ego.
Not that I could blame Kris for having a few bruises. I hadn’t asked her what it felt like to die in the game, and it wasn’t an experience I was eager to learn about firsthand. I could understand someone being pissed off after getting killed and hunted for a good chunk of the evening.
Not exactly a relaxing evening of gaming right there.
“Well let’s think about this,” Kris said. “I have this awesome new item for you, but so far you haven’t acted like it’s an item you’d want to use.”
“Will you just tell me what it is?” I asked. “Because if you don’t tell me then I’m going to go look at that glowing thing in that small hill over there that I’m pretty sure is an ore vein of some sort.”
At least I hoped it was an ore vein. Picking plants was all well and good, but the real money and game breaking usually was on the armor and enchanting side of things. I was happy to level up my Gatherer skill with some herbs, maybe even make some money selling potions, but what I really wanted to get into was manufacturing weapons and armor and putting bonuses on them that made them irresistible to buyers on the Auction House.
Maybe I’d even come up with something that would rival the junk Horizon was outfitting their people with. Maybe something better. I didn’t know if that was possible, but a guy could dream.
“What are you talking about?” Kris asked. “I don’t see anything glowing through the trees.”
“Of course you don’t,” I said. “You didn’t bother to level up the skill so you don’t see anything.”
“Whatever,” Kris said. “Take a look at this!”
She held her hand out and a sword materialized. A sword that glowed with red runes. A sword that had that disgusting stylized Horizon “H” from their video games on it.
I inspected it and saw that it was a very low level version of some of the more impressive stuff the other Horizon assholes had been wielding. Disgust and a strong desire to puke welled up in me.
“Ugh,” I said. “Where the hell did you get that?”
“Off that girl who attacked me,” Kris said. “Duh. And you’re supposed to be the brains of our operation.”
“I am the brains of our operation,” I said. “And there’s not a…”
I trailed off. The hurt look on Kris’s face told me it was going to be more trouble than it was worth to turn down this offer of a nice new sword. Even if it did have the Horizon logo and their taint all over it.
“Fine,” I said. “Hand it over and I promise I’ll use it.”
Once. Maybe. Honestly I felt dirty even thinking of having it in my inventory, but she’d had a bad enough day as it was. I’d toss the thing as soon as I could and try not to feel too disgusting for having held a Horizon sword.
Kris’s face split into a wide grin. That grin lasted for the space of the breath it took for an arrow to appear through her neck. She dropped the sword and it fell to the ground with a dull thud rather than disappearing back into her inventory.
I wondered if that was because items were designed to fall like that if they were dropped in combat, or if items dropped after a player kicked the bucket stayed where they dropped. Or maybe it fell like that because she’d been in the process of giving it to me and the game knew by reading our minds that it was no longer her property which was freaky.
I’d heard of old school MMOs where people lost their stuff when they kicked the bucket, and those little treasure chests Gregor and Kravos left behind, not to mention the fact that Kris was able to loot the chick who’d been trying to kill him, made me think this game worked under similar rules.
I looked around the forest for the source of the arrow. That it was from a player there was no doubt. There was something about that shot that seemed too precise, too refined, for a random monster. I felt like a monster wouldn’t hit in such a deadly spot considering the stuff around the town should’ve been low enough that we could take it on.
Then again what did I know? It was entirely possible there were goblin fletchers somewhere out there in the game world. Given how pissed off those goblins seemed about how they were treated in town I could understand why some of them might get annoyed and go off the reservation, as it were, to inflict a little harm on their player character tormentors.
I pulled my sword just to be safe. My ordinary starter sword that didn’t have any impressive runes on it, but that was just fine by me since it also didn’t have the Horizon logo on it.
Not that I thought it was going to do me a damn bit of good. Not if the thing targeting my ass was able to shoot with the kind of accuracy that let whatever it was put an arrow through Kris’s throat.
“Drop it,” a decidedly feminine and non-goblin voice said.
“Who are you?” I asked.
There was something familiar about that voice. Whoever was talking was trying to sound gruff, but there was no hiding that it was a girl. Woman. What the fuck ever. If it was a player character then I imagined she would be a pretty good looking girl, at that, considering everyone tooling around in here looked like an idealized model version of themselves.
“None of your business,” she said. “Now drop the sword or I’m putting an arrow through your neck too.”
I grinned and leaned on my sword like it was a walking stick. It’s not like the thing was going to be good for anything else.
Not in this fight. I guess I’d just discovered an easy way to figure out if this was a player or NPC.
“You can forget about trying to kill me,” I said. “I’m still new, so I’m not flagged for PVP.”
An arrow came streaking out of the trees. It hit the same invisible barrier that the girl from Horizon Dawn had run into, then bounced into the grass. I also saw a flash of red among the trees, but no guards came since we weren’t in town.
I shrugged and reached down to grab the arrow. As I did several more flew at me. One went over my head, but the followup was right on target on the top of my head. It tickled a little where it bounced off the invisible shield.
“Damn it,” I said. “Could you please stop doing that? It’s really annoying!”
The girl finally stepped out from the tree she’d been hiding behind, the spot where I’d seen that red flash as she attacked a PVP immune character, and I suspected there was a little bit of game assist helping with her hiding. There was no way this girl would be able to hide behind that tree without some assistance brought on by a higher skill level.
“That’s an impressive trick,” I said. “Did you learn that all by yourself?”
“Shut up, Horizon scum,” she said. “If you don’t shut your mouth then…”
“Um. Then what?” I asked. “You can’t hurt me, remember? We seem to be at an impasse here.”
“Clever,” she muttered. “Sending someone out here who can’t be PKed. Are you supposed to be scouting or something? How much did they pay you to come out here? I might not be able to hit you, but there are things walking these woods that would kill you without breaking a sweat or feeling any regret.”
“I don’t know what the hell you’re talking about,” I said. “The bit about being a spy, I mean. The bit about monsters out here that can kill me is pretty clear.”
Spellcraft Page 17
