“That’s exactly the kind of thing someone working for Horizon would say,” she said.
My face grew serious. “Say I work for Horizon one more time and I’m going to pick up that fucking sword and do my best to kill you. I don’t give a fuck if it’s a monumentally bad idea.”
The girl stepped forward and the shadows that seemed to surround her lessened to the point that I could get a good look at her. The first thought that ran through my head was “damn.”
Lotus didn’t seem like the kind of game that stuck women in ridiculous chain mail or plate bikinis, but clearly the art department wasn’t above having armor sets that showed off the assets on the ladies playing the game.
The girl was beautiful. She had hair that shimmered somewhere between gold and blonde and seemed to have a slight glow to it. Her ears were slightly upturned to a point. She also looked just as pissed off as I felt.
“Talk fast,” she said, hefting her bow and arrow. “Because if you don’t do some pretty good convincing I’m going to kill you.”
“Um. Haven’t we already covered that I’m not flagged for PVP?” I asked.
I wasn’t sure how she did it, but one moment she was standing a good ten feet away from me with her bow drawn and the next she was right next to me with her hand wrapped around my arm. A hand that held my arm in a surprisingly strong grip.
Clearly she’d been doing some leveling of skills that affected her strength. That or I was such a monumentally low skilled noob that she had no trouble manhandling me like a cat batting around its frantically squeaking and squirming lunch.
“Do you think you have a monopoly on being clever or something?” she asked, still gravelly and growling like she was doing an impression of one of the many Batman actors who’d been doing impressions of Kevin Conroy over the past century. “Because I can grab you as long as I’m not trying to hurt you. I don’t think the game will care if I drag you deep enough in the forest while I wait for your PVP immunity to wear off. I have the time. Do you?”
“Fuck. It wears off?” I asked.
She rolled her eyes and muttered something about “fucking noobs,” and the disgust plain there told me she wasn’t lying more than any words might.
“Fuck,” I said.
“That’s right,” she said. “You’re gonna be in a world of hurt very soon noob. Even if I don’t feel like waiting for your PVP immunity to wear off I could just drag you to a monster den, toss you in, and listen to your screams.”
I stared into her deep purple eyes, she’d obviously taken the opportunity to go for some colors that couldn’t be seen in nature when she created her character, and I thought I was in love.
Not only was she pretty, not only did she look good in that armor, but on top of that she’d figured out a way to kill me that circumvented the game’s mechanics. That was almost more of a turn on than the hotness.
“Why are you looking at me like that?” she asked.
“I didn’t know the PVP flag was a time based thing,” I said, shaking my head to clear the little crush that’d just hit me.
“Afraid it totally is for now,” she said. “They’ll probably change that when they realize gamers are doing things like what I just described, but that’s not going to save your cute ass if they patch it out next week or next month.”
I was so surprised that she referred to me as cute that I couldn’t think of a response. There was a part of me that wondered if she was manipulating me because she saw the way I was looking at her, but her half smile said otherwise.
Or maybe that was wishful thinking on my part.
“Great,” I finally managed to choke out.
“So talk fast,” she said. “Or slow. I guess we have until your PVP immunity wears off, whenever that is. Or we have until I get bored with your lies and find a monster to throw you at.”
A gurgling caught my attention and I turned to Kris who was staring at the two of us with her eyes bugging out. She had a hand over the arrow still lodged in her neck, and she didn’t look happy that I was in the middle of a meet cute with her murderer while her hit points were rapidly ticking away on the game mechanics side of things as her blood ran down her neck and messed up her armor on the art direction side of things.
“Oh, um, I appreciate that you’re about to torture me for information I don’t have and all, but do you maybe have something you could use to help my friend before you kill me?” I asked.
25
Ineffective Healing
It struck me how ridiculous it was that I was asking her to help Kris before she killed me, but this girl didn’t seem all bad. She definitely didn’t seem like the kind of crazy cruel that Gregor and Kravos showed off.
“Not much,” the girl said with a fatalistic shrug. “I have the whole stealth archer thing going for me.”
“You and just about everyone else who’s played an RPG since Skyrim,” I muttered.
The girl giggled. Which was odd for a girl who was going for the whole “gravelly badass who didn’t give a fuck about the world” look. Then her face lit up as her eyes took on a far off look that said she was looking through her menu. When she came back her hands glowed slightly.
“I played around with this ability when I started the game thinking it’d be useful. Fat lot of good it ended up doing me, but maybe it’ll help your friend.”
When she talked about whatever she was about to do her voice sounded almost normal. When it sounded almost normal there was something even more familiar pinging at the back of my mind.
Those thoughts were interrupted as Kris gurgled and used her free hand to reach for the hammer still strapped to her back. For all the good that hammer had done her against this girl so far.
The archer paused with her hands glowing and eyed me warily.
“Um, could you tell your friend to cool it? She’s not going to hurt me if she hits me with that thing, and she’ll interrupt the cast which means she doesn’t get any healing.”
And suddenly I knew where I'd heard her voice before. My eyes went wide.
“You’re that girl from the clearing. The one who saved the goblin and shot those assholes from Horizon Dawn who were trying to gank us!”
Her eyes went wide. She looked at me and then to Kris.
I followed her gaze to Kris, and it suddenly hit me exactly what’d happened to get a girl who’d been saving our asses the first time we met in a dark and scary forest to switch to killing us the second time we met in a dark and scary forest. Kris had been carrying weapons that glowed with the Horizon Dawn mojo, and that’s all this girl had seen through the trees.
“You thought we were them,” I said. “From a distance all you saw were a couple of noobs carrying that stupid Horizon Syndicate gear.”
“I didn’t get a good look at you the last time we met,” she said. “If I’d seen you and realized who you were…”
Kris gurgled some more. She obviously wasn’t doing so hot. And this time around it’s not like she even deserved it. I mean sure she’d been a little stupid grabbing some Horizon Dawn gear, but that didn’t rise to the level of taking an arrow to the neck in terms of karmic retribution.
“I think my friend is trying to tell me to shut the fuck up and let you heal her,” I said. “I mean I can’t be too sure, but…”
Kris nodded vigorously and then moaned as the nodding caused the arrow lodged in her neck to move around in a way that couldn’t be pleasant. Blood shot out of what looked like a major artery causing her health bar to tick down a good chunk.
“Lose the hammer Kris,” I said. “I think this whole thing was a big mistake.”
Kris frowned, but finally she rolled her eyes and pulled her hand away from the hammer.
I wasn’t sure how much of that business about Kris not being able to hurt the girl was the truth and how much of it was the girl bluffing to keep us from doing something stupid, but if she did have a healing spell and she really was out here looking for Horizon people to off then I was more incli
ned to trust her than I'd been moments ago.
I thought back to the combat in the town circle where Kris got in a hit on that Gregor asshole. Sure the hit had ultimately ended in Kris’s untimely demise, but still.
If she could hit a character who was obviously higher on the skill trees than us then it was possible she could also get a lucky hit in on this girl. she wouldn’t have a prayer of killing her, even with a sneak attack, but that would mean no healing magic to fix up the gaping wound in her neck.
The girl’s hands glowed and a white light surrounded her. It sputtered like a candle that was guttering and about to go out, but it was something.
The light transferred from the girl to Kris, but nothing seemed to happen. Kris was still knocked on her ass with an arrow in her neck, and she didn’t look too happy about it.
“What the fuck?” she croaked out in a whisper that sounded like she’d had a pack a day habit for a couple of decades that’d finally caught up with her.
“Huh. Well I guess that’s better than not being able to say anything at all,” the girl said.
“I don’t know about that,” I said. “Listen to her bitching around you all the time then tell me whether or not you think it’s a good thing she can talk again.”
I inspected the arrow still lodged in Kris’s neck. Then I did a closer inspection that brought up Kris’s character sheet and saw that her hit points had gone up. Sort of. They weren’t ticking down steadily towards an untimely death, at least.
“Yeah, definitely an improvement over how she was,” I said.
“I still have a fucking arrow stuck in my neck!” Kris croaked.
“See what I mean about the griping?” I said to the archer.
The words were probably meant to come out as a shout, but the arrow blocking Kris’s wind tunnel or damaging her voice box meant everything was still coming out as a rasping whisper, which wasn’t the greatest for being understood.
“Fuck you,” Kris spat, blood gurgling around her lips.
“She has a point,” I said. “Wasn’t that supposed to heal her?”
“It was,” the girl said with a sigh. “But it’s a low level healing spell. Like really low level. I took it when I thought I was going to be a healer, but the people I played with…”
She paused and sighed. Looked away.
“They all wanted to be a bunch of badass stealth players?” I asked. “And they figured a healer was going to cramp their stealthy style?”
I’d always liked healing classes back before I went on my vengeance quest for Diana, and I was familiar with all the headaches and frustrations that came along with being the resident HP regen in a group.
“Yeah,” she said.
“Idiots,” I said. “No one ever appreciates a good healing class until they need someone to heal their ass, and then it’s always a bunch of griping about why you aren’t healing them fast enough.”
“Right?” the girl said, the frustration clear in her voice. “And it’s like if you don’t want to lose your hit points faster than someone can heal them maybe don’t stand so close to something that takes your fucking hit points away faster than I can replenish them. Ever think of that?”
“Yup,” I said. No one appreciates a good healer even when they need one. It’s nothing but bitching about how they need a heal now, and never mind the tank who isn’t standing directly in the fire you stupid fucking DPS!”
I took a couple of breaths. The girl smiled a little half smile at me. She knew the pain I felt. It was something only a fellow former healer could understand.
“Excuse me, but could the two of you cut the bullshit and help me the fuck out?” Kris rasped. “I’m getting sick and tired of getting stuck by people. First those Horizon Dawn assholes and now this bitch.”
The girl eyed Kris like she was thinking about finishing what she’d started with that arrow. I thought we might be on the verge of having more blood spilled, but she surprised me.
“You were having trouble with Horizon Dawn?” she asked. “Was it because of what I did with the goblin earlier?”
“I wish,” I snorted, then reached out and nudged Kris with my toe. That earned me an annoyed grunt from my prone friend. “The guys recognized us, but we were fine until Kris mouthed off to some guy named Torian and dropped her PVP immunity without realizing what she was doing.”
The girl let out a low whistle. “Couple of noobs like you are going to have a bad time of it around here if Horizon Dawn has a problem with you. Especially if Torian is the one with the problem.”
“We’re not noobs,” I said. “And they’re going to pay for what they did.”
“Right. If I had a gold piece for every time I heard someone say that after Horizon Dawn fucked with them I’d be rich,” she said.
“My fucking neck!” Kris gargled. “Can we do the info dump conversation fucking later please?”
“Right,” I said, leaning down and inspecting Kris’s wound. It looked bad, but… I wiped away some of the blood and let out a low whistle. This wasn’t good.
“What?” the girl asked.
“Um. It looks like that healing spell did heal something,” I said.
“That’s what it’s supposed to do,” the girl said. “I mean it’s low level, but you’re new to the game so I figured maybe it’d work on her since her stats aren’t that high and…”
“Yeah. The problem with that is it healed that arrow right into the middle of her neck. Like the skin is fused to the arrow now.”
“And it fucking hurts,” Kris rasped.
“I imagine it does,” I said. “How realistic is the pain anyway? Does it feel like you really have an arrow stuck in your neck?”
“I’ve never had an arrow in my neck, so I can’t tell you how it stacks up to the real thing,” Kris snapped.
“Right,” I said. “Guess I deserved that.”
“It probably hurts like a motherfucker,” the girl said. “I’ve been stuck a couple of times, and it’s never fun. Dying in this game is really freaky. Makes me not want to ever do it for real.”
“You and everyone else,” I said.
Kris stared at us with her eyes wide.
“It’s just a little arrow in your neck,” I said. “Honestly. You’re acting like it’s killing you or something.”
Another glare.
“Well it isn’t killing you,” I said. “Your HP has stabilized and the wound has healed, and that’s the problem because…”
Kris let out a wailing howl that was louder than the howl I heard from the goblin that came at us in the starter area.
I held the bit of the arrow I'd broken off up so Kris could inspect it. I can’t imagine that felt good, but it had to be done. This game was math underlying realism, with a heavy emphasis on the realism. And in the real world if you had something stuck in you then it needed to come out before the wound could be healed.
“You’re being a huge baby about this,” I said. “Besides. I had to distract you so you wouldn’t stop me. I know how much of a wimp you are even putting alcohol on a cut.”
“I’m being a big baby about you ripping a fucking arrow out of my fucking neck?” Kris gargled. “There should be a fucking way to turn pain off!”
I blinked. “Kris, you’re a fucking genius!”
She glared at me.
“No, seriously,” I said. “I didn’t tell you about this earlier because it was funny watching you getting all pissy about smelling lizard shit, but there are sliders for your senses.”
“There are?” the girl said, sounding genuinely surprised.
“Think about adjusting the pain settings,” I told Kris.
Her eyes went blank for a moment as she stared off into the nothing of a menu. Then she smiled and sighed in relief.
“Fuck that’s better,” she said, her voice still rattling from the blood being reintroduced to her trachea, then glared at me again. “Nice of you to tell me about that after you broke that arrow off.”
“Sorry,�
� I said, sheepish. “I forgot.”
Kris rolled her eyes and tried to say something, but it came out as a bubbling gurgle. Both from her mouth and from little air bubbles appearing around the arrow which hadn’t been there before. Not good.
Apparently having part of the shaft snapped off in her neck was enough to reopen the healed bits. An inspect showed her health ticking down again, but I figured a quick heal would stabilize her.
Kris didn’t say anything else, at least. Probably because she was busy trying not to drown on the blood making its way down her windpipe. I grimaced. That was a hell of a way to go.
“If you hated that part then you’re going to really hate this,” I said.
I nodded to the girl. She nodded right back. She got what we were doing even if Kris wasn’t going to like it. I found myself drawn to this girl all over again. She was willing to do what had to be done, and she was smart enough not to say anything that’d tip Kris off as to what we were about to do.
Which was a plan after my own heart. If I had a gold piece for every time I did something Kris didn’t like without telling her about it until we were in the middle of it I'd be rich.
“What are you…”
The gurgle was cut off by another piercing shriek. A shriek that had its own fair share of gurgling. The rest of the arrow came out of her neck with a spray of blood as I yanked it, and she started twitching. That definitely wasn’t what I was going for when I pulled that shaft out.
Also, that had to hurt like a motherfucker if she was shrieking like that with her pain bar turned down. Or maybe turning the pain bar down only made the pain dull faster. Honestly there’d be physical trials involved in figuring that out that I didn’t really want to undertake myself.
“That’s disgusting,” the girl said.
“Um, so are you going to do something about it?”
“Oh, right,” the girl said.
She knelt over Kris and did the whole flickering light thing again. The only problem being this time around the flicker guttered and died.
“Damn it,” she growled. “This is not happening!”
Spellcraft Page 18
