While he waited, he opened his HUD and pulled up the notification regarding a new ability.
Hey Cletus, will I receive abilities every time I level?
Nope, his assistant replied. They use Fibonacci numbers; something about adding the last two levels together. You get abilities at 1, 2, 3, 5, and 8. After that you will get a second class and things kind of repeat.
Selecting the notification brought up a screen:
[You may choose one of the following abilities.]
[1. Climb - Scale walls and cliffs with increasing ease.]
Lance had wondered if he would be offered this ability, which he thought would greatly increase his utility. It was a solid choice.
[2. Backstab - Attack an opponent from behind while using sneak for greater damage.]
Again, this was a standard ability but a powerful one. His concern was it did not list any details on what "greater damage" meant. Lance was also unsure he wanted to build his character in that direction.
[3. Martial Dagger - Integrate the ability to integrate your daggers into your martial arts ability.]
Lance saw many possibilities here, and it felt as if the system was acknowledging his martial arts ability. If he cut an opponent while throwing or grappling, his damage output would be doubled. But he wondered if there was any real value here since while earning his black belt, he had already studied how to integrate weapons into many of his attacks.
[4. Speed Trap - Select a trap type and a trigger before a battle and create traps during battle.]
When Lance saw this fourth choice, his mind began to race. The ability to set traps during a battle could be a game-changer.
He considered each option a second time, but in the end, there wasn't anything better.
[Congratulations, you have learned the ability Speed Trap.]
Lance found he knew how to use the ability. So, he set his Speed Trap to earth damage triggered by any enemy in the area.
After a few minutes, a disturbance in the air caught his attention. On closer examination, he realized it had a tag over it.
Lance's stamina was full, so he enabled Sneak. The moment he did, Borgakh's head whipped around and scanned the forest edge in his direction. Lance froze. After a bit, she turned her focus back toward the camp and dismounted. She looked small while on her elephant, but when she was away from her mount, it was clear she was huge. Lance did not know how large orcs were supposed to be, but if they were all her size, he was in trouble.
Borgakh walked up to the upset wraith and began a discussion. The translucent creature bowed to the orc again and again as if it were apologizing. Borgakh stalked into the canyon and emerged a minute later, clearly angry. The priestess glared at the wraith again, pointing to the ground as if to say wait here.
Lance did not stall a moment longer. He backed away deeper into the woods as stealthfully as he could and then turned and moved quickly away from the area.
After some time, Lance thought it strange Cletus had not commented on this interaction, "I thought you would offer more commentary as I'm playing."
"Early versions of me were more vocal, but many of the beta testers didn't like it, and they had to tone it down. There's a setting for this in your HUD. If you want more spice, I can bring it." Cletus winked at Lance and smiled.
"Thanks, maybe later."
Cletus put a little pout on his face.
"No, I don't mean it like that. I appreciate you, and you have been super helpful." That seemed to satisfy his assistant, so Lance let it drop.
After a while, Lance had another question, "Cletus, can I wield a sword?"
"Right now, you could swing it around, but you would not do much damage. Fighters and Thieves can train on new weapons at levels 5, 10, and 15. If you chose sword, you would suddenly be skilled and learn much faster. It's possible to stumble through it on your own, but it takes massive amounts of time, more like learning in the real world."
Walking through the forest was turning out to be quite a pleasant experience. The trees were a beautiful mix of evergreen and oak, with ocCaisinal clearings filled with long grass and ferns at the edges. The sharp scent of the pine mixed with various wildflowers to form an aroma that was healthy and exciting. When Lance couldn't feel the oppression anymore, he found a warm spot in the sun on the edge of a clearing, sat down, pulled a biscuit out of his inventory, and began to eat. His health and stamina bars continued to rise.
He figured this would take a bit, so he took the time to investigate his HUD in more detail. He appreciated that when it was visible, he could still see through it and discovered a setting to change the opacity. He also enabled delaying all messages until after a battle was complete since he had been distracted by them already. He peeked at the numbers behind the three status bars. His health was 12 out of 23, and his stamina was 20 out of 53. Both health and stamina were rising at a point or two per minute. There were two other stats called mana and power, which were 0 out of 0. He was certain these was the ones that allowed you to cast spells. "Hey, Cletus! Mana and Power let you do magicky stuff, right?"
"You got it." Replied the raccoon hovering near his right shoulder.
He found the option to return to his personal instance and thought for a moment: "If I go back to my personal instance, what will happen to me in this world?"
"Stats like health or stamina will not recover. Your body will disappear from the game until you decide to come back. When you do, you will be in about the same place."
Lance pulled up his map and zoomed out until he saw everything from the canyon to the town. He had made steady progress and was half an hour away if he kept moving at a solid pace.
When his stats were maxed, he continued his hike. While the map was far from perfect, the distances were correct, and Lance arrived at the outskirts of the town a little later.
As he drew near, the feeling of anxiety increased steadily, causing him to wonder if he was heading the wrong way and should have heeded the warnings of the goblin map. As he crested a final ridge, he saw a bunch of humans, a village worth, all bunched together on the eastern edge of the hamlet. Just beyond them, the orc priestess, Borgakh, whom he had seen at a distance earlier, was again the source of dread. She sat atop her Elephant with her knight Z'guk next to her. Lance ran the rest of the way and joined the crowd.
"It's hard to believe," she said, "that so few humans have shown up to play. My horde grows, and you pitiful pink-skinned wimps trickle in."
Lance considered what she was saying. From what he studied before entering the game, all prison inmates played as Orcs and would be a permanent fixture once they were in, as they had no option to leave. Several state correctional systems contracted with Fantasy Mainline, and their prisoners would continue to pour in. Humans came from free people who had a choice, people who paid for a subscription. While pre-release excitement had run high, when word got out that it may well be a one-way ticket for paying customers, the interest waned. This meant there would always be more orcs than humans in the game. They could hope to find allies in the dwarves who came in through the Veteran's Administration and the elves who were welfare recipients from various agencies. But convincing them to come and defend the human settlement was a hard sell.
"Do you boys know what the difference in numbers means?" Borgakh said, looking around.
No one responded.
She sighed, "It will be much less fun crushing you with my horde."
"What?" a man with blonde hair and a cloth apron said. "But that's not fair."
Borgakh spun on the speaker, "Fair. Who said anything about being fair." She laughed uproariously, "It's going to be my delight to crush you, to destroy your town. And when you decide to rebuild, I will come with my friends as you are almost ready to reopen, and I will crush you again." She squinted into the distance to the North. "The temple will take a little more time, but we will tear that down, too. Stone by stone, we will erase all evidence of Jearian from this valley." She turned and urged her mount forward and then swiveled back one more time. With a salacious wink, she cooed, "See ya soon, boys."
The group of humans, the majority of them level 2 or 3, stood agape, watching as the level 13 priestess and level 11 knight lumbered away. The dejected crowd began returning to town in small groups or singly, some with heads bowed, others shaking their fists in impotent rage.
This stirred something in Lance. He understood the artificial intelligence for NPCs like Borgakh was supposed to be off the hook, but this was out of whack as if the game was broken. Games like this were hard to balance, so all players had an equal chance, but this was messed up. He shook his head as he headed into town. Someone should fix this.
As Lance walked toward town, he noticed that while everything looked real, something was missing or wrong. He figured out what it was as he entered the village, which the system usefully identified.
There was no trash, filth, or unkempt soil here. It felt like the system was hiding something. Monty Python's peasants would have despised this place.
Looking up, he got his first close up view of another player, a tall and strong woman in chainmail armor. Considering her level, she must have gotten into the game before him. The plate above her head read,
"Jearian, is that her god?"
"Yup, Jearian is the god of Men, Neutral good alignment. He is the 'be kind to people but do whatever you like' deity. He doesn't ask much of his followers, and he does not offer much either. Basic healing spells as you progress and some solid mapping skills. Of course, his devotees can go to his temple for daily blessings."
This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it.
As Lance walked, something nagged at him. Someone should fix the Borgakh problem. Is that someone me? He laughed to himself. Right, good luck. He would need a party, and while that may be useful for adventuring, something like this would require trust, which is in short supply right now. Everyone had abandoned him, his brother, his parents, his fiancee. Nope, he was no leader, he was the wrong guy to fix this problem.
Traville was a very small town. It was more like a medieval village to Lance, but if the game called it a town, who was he to complain? It had a short main street with a few inns and businesses surrounded by a grouping of houses with a market at the east end of the settlement and a temple area to the North. One of the vendors was finishing cleaning some sort of spill. Many of the thatch roofed homes had fenced areas with sheep or goats; some had workshops attached. Lance looked around for the smithy and noticed a building with a tile roof and a steady stream of smoke across town. He walked in that direction until he could identify an open front on the building. Peering inside the dark interior he spied a glowing forge with a large anvil sitting in the center of the work area. He walked over to speak to the proprietor, who was a player,
Dorian was a rotund man but well-muscled. Shoulder-length brown hair framed a middle-aged face. He glanced up from his work at the anvil and greeted Lance as he came up, "Howdy friend, how can I help you?"
"Hey Dorian, what did you think of that?" Lance motioned his head in the direction Borgakh had gone.
"It's Kind of depressing. I want to be a smith, to learn how to craft amazing items, and to serve my fellow humans by making them more well-prepared. But this threat..." He shook his head. "This is existential. I struggle to think of something worse. It's like the game is broken or something."
Lance nodded, "Something needs to be done. This is evil." He shook himself, "In any case, I would love to view what you have for sale and work out a trade with what I've collected. But first, how in the world did you get the role of Smith?"
"Aah, I'm not the official smith, but as soon as I got here, I talked to the NPC who runs this place about apprenticing under him, and he agreed to take me on."
"Wow, that's cool, this game really is amazing."
"That it is, friend, that it is." Dorian smiled, and a window popped up.
On the right side, a scrollable area appeared containing a number of items.
"Best thing about this interface is that little switch up at the top," Dorian said.
Lance glanced away from the items and found the switch: Show only usable items.
"Nice." He turned it on, and the list shrunk to three.
Iron Dagger x 3 - 8 cp
Iron Caltrops x 2- 14 cp
Steel Dagger - 1 sp
"Cletus, how many coppers are in a silver, etc."
His assistant flipped open his book and intoned, "100 coppers in a silver, 100 silvers in a gold, 100 golds in a platinum, 100 platinums in an electrum."
He looked at his inventory. He had forgotten about the pouch and chest. He would have to examine them later. He moved the four short swords over to his side of the trade window and asked Dorian what they were worth. The answer was six coppers for the lot. "That's a little low," Lance responded.
Dorian sighed and pointed to a pile of daggers and swords similar to the ones he was seeking to trade sitting in the corner of his workshop. "I plan on melting them into iron ingots; that is their only value. I could stock up on items, but with the future so uncertain," he shrugged.
Lance moved the shield over and asked again.
The smith was more interested this time. "I can give you 15 coppers."
Lance pushed the short sword over.
Dorian held his hand out, "Let me see that."
Lance summoned the item into his hand, flipped it in the air, caught it by the blade, and handed it hilt first to him. The smith examined the weapon, turning it in his hand.
"This is extremely fine craftsmanship." Dorian's head snapped up, "Where did you find this?"
"My starting area had a goblin sergeant. This was his."
Dorian shook his head, "This is level twenty at least. What was the creature, level four?
"Three."
The smith shook his head again. "There is Nothing magical here that I can perceive, but this thing radiates power. It's the finest work that I have ever held. It doesn't make sense that a goblin sergeant would be carrying this." Dorian paused and then said, "I can't afford this." He handed the sword back to Lance.
Lance considered for a moment. He opened the pouch from the same goblin. It contained five silver, 63 copper, and one dull agate. He pulled up his inventory page and found a list of coins and gems at the bottom of the display. He had five silvers, 79 coppers, and the agate to his name. He moved the two caltrop sets and the steel dagger into the trade window, added one silver and five copper pieces, and confirmed the deal. The items and coins disappeared from his inventory, replaced by the things he had purchased.
"Speaking of enchantments, who around here can identify stuff?"
"Well," the smith replied, "I can take a look. If there is something I can't figure out for you, I can tell you where to go. There is no charge for a little help."
"Well, first things first." Lance lifted one of his booted feet up, "What can you tell me about these."
Dorian glanced at the boots for a moment before breaking out in a belly laugh. "I hope you don't mind me saying this, but whoever designed those was having far too much fun."
Lance smiled back, "Can you let me in on the joke?"
"They are called the Boots of Fit Bitty," the smith began giggling again and spurted out, "The user must achieve ten thousand steps each day, or the boots will administer a mild electric shock. The curse is broken after 100,000 steps." Dorian broke down in laughter, getting the words out with difficulty, "These are a unique item. What a find."
Lance broke out in laughter, too. What a strange thing to experience in an immersive game. He looked again at his boots and could view all of the information Dorian shared with him. He also noted that he had already walked over eleven thousand steps.
"How did you identify this, by the way?" Lance asked.
"When I became an apprentice, that was one of the perks I gained. I can identify armor and weapons up to a given level. I'm not sure how to quantify it, but I just try, and it either works or doesn't. The master smith who is apprenticing me droned on for a while about various things, but one of the bits I caught was that at level 5, I'd be able to take on a profession and leave my class behind. He says I'm useful to him now, but after that, I will move much faster in my skill and progress my character through my crafting."
Lance pulled the belt out of his inventory and handed it to Dorian.
Dorian raised his eyebrows. "You had a rich starting area for sure." His brow furrowed as he focused. He continued to examine it for several seconds and handed it back. "No, can do compadre. This one is beyond me." His eyes darted up above Lance's head and back. "No god, are you a Crescent or a Cross?"
"Why do you ask that?" Lance responded, but he thought he knew the answer already.
"Those are the only two groups that refuse to take a god that I know of, but most will eventually give in."
"I'm a Cross, and I'm going to suffer through whatever it takes."
Dorian nodded, "I don't think you will like what I have to say then. Three mages have a small shop at the edge of town. They can help you with the belt, but you may not want to. That place gives even me the creeps."
"Thanks," Lance said as he turned to leave but thought better of it and turned back. "Last question, have you met any other crosses yet?"
"There was an elvish mage here a few minutes ago. Name was... Flashy or something like that. He asked where he could purchase some ale, so I directed him to the Eagle and Child." Dorian pointed to an inn across the street.
Lance gave Dorian a smile and a wave and headed to the inn.