There was a trumpeting sound. Slade and I were bathed in a column of light.
Achievement: Level 5
New options for classes are available
“What the?” Slade said. He wasn’t breaking the embrace, however. He seemed far more interested in maintaining physical contact than whatever the cryptic message meant.
“Sweet,” Max said from behind me. “We can morph our initial class or take something entirely new.”
I had to shove Slade hard to get him to let go of me. Max looked awkwardly at me, and ignoring whatever was going on in his head, I threw my arms around him. Yeah, I was glad he was still around as well. Slade, of course, hooted and threw his arms around both of us. At Slade’s insistence, Emma joined as well. She’d been quietly watching everything. Slade was the last one to let go, trying to keep us locked in the group hug well after it started getting awkward.
I wanted to talk with both Max and Emma, but there was a lot of work to do. The aftermath of the battle was something I’d never really thought about before. There were wounded that needed tending, animals to gather, and prisoners that had been captured.
Max and I gathered the horses that had fled. I used my tracking abilities to follow not only their tracks but also floating glowing trails in the air. It took a while before I realized it was scent, and when I sniffed the undulating trails, a message would scroll in my vision telling me what type of critter it was. Yeah, I thought it was weird.
We kept our eyes out for any other goblin war parties in the hills around us. I had to admit I was surprised at how far some of the horses wandered off. Once we collected two or three, Max would ferry them back to the main group while I continued tracking stragglers. This all became a lot easier once I found Princess. I gave her some extra loving for surviving the fight on her own.
In addition, we gathered a couple of swiftscales as well. They were nasty beasts, hissing and spitting as we tried to get their reins. Once secured, though, they would follow Max docilely.
Slade spent his time with the raiders gathering more goblin prisoners while Emma tended to the wounded.
We’d lost five raiders in the battle and eight horses. We’d gained seven prisoners and four swiftscales. I felt bad for the raiders that would have to ride those things, but it beat walking. Emma, according to the raider leaders, was responsible for saving the lives of a half dozen raiders that they would have written off without her healing spells. The raiders were especially interested in the loot and divided it up amongst themselves, with some arguing and wrestling. When that was all sorted out, they presented Slade with a jagged sword the lead goblin had carried.
Slade approached me with the two raider leaders, “We need you to talk to the goblins.”
“The raiders, the guys living on the edge of the known world, don’t speak goblin?” I asked.
“Apparently not,” Slade said.
“What am I supposed to talk to them about?”
“Erik, son of Erik, and William the Tall, have some questions for them.” Slade shrugged.
The game devs really need to come up with more creative names for everything.
The seven goblin prisoners were huddled in a mass, surrounded by an equal number of raiders with spears and swords at the ready. The goblins looked more malevolent than fearful, their big yellow eyes constantly scanning the guards, waiting for a chance to escape or overpower them.
“Ask them what their numbers are to the south,” one of the raider leaders said. He was well over six feet tall, inches taller than Slade. He wore chainmail but with all sorts of little credit card-sized pieces of metal bolted all over it. It was dusty from all the riding but looked well-kept otherwise. This must be William the Tall.
“Hello,” I announced to the prisoners in goblinese, not entirely sure how such things went. They glared at me with open hatred. One smiled, showing a set of nasty-looking pointed teeth. I doubted vegetarianism was popular among their kind.
Snarling, one dared to speak back, “What would you do with us?”
“Well, that’s actually a good question. I’m not entirely sure what we mean to do. I mean, I’m sure we’ll release you. We’re not bad people. It's not like we’re planning on keeping you imprisoned or anything.” I rambled, realizing this was meandering when I needed to get to the point. “My well-armed friends here would like to know how many more goblins we will meet as we head south?”
The goblins looked at each other quizzically as if confused. Their leader, however, answered quickly, “Many more than have ever gathered. We number in the thousands of thousands.”
I relayed this back to Slade and the raider leaders. The smaller raider leader, a man roughly my height with a much broader chest and smashed nose, replied, “And how many lie in the path to their king?”
I turned back to the goblins. “So… we are trying to meet with your king. We wish to make a deal with him to see if we can’t maybe co-exist. We understand there is something chasing you from your lands. Maybe we can help?”
“A horde the size never seen before marches in front of King Malworth. He will crush your tiny warband before you can assassinate him.” The one that spoke before said. He had dark, grimy reddish hair pulled back in a ponytail. His eyes were squintier than his comrades and were peeking up at me from behind a long pointed nose.
“No. No, no.” I said, “We don’t plan on killing the king. We just want to talk. See if there isn’t some way we can work this out.”
The goblin cocked his head, and an eyebrow shot up, “You mean to lure King Malworth into a trap.”
“No, just talk. Honestly.”
You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story.
His eyes shifted back and forth. He was thinking things, and I could envision the gears in his head spinning around. Finally, he said, “You wish to parley. You seek an audience with King Malworth?”
“Exactly,” I said, feeling dubious about his sudden change in heart.
“Perhaps I could arrange such a meeting,” the goblin said.
“Yes,” I said hesitantly. I didn’t like how he only mentioned himself and not any of his fellow prisoners. “If you could arrange a meeting, that would be helpful.”
“Release me, and I will tell King Malworth myself.”
I relayed all this back to the others. William the Tall asked if he could grant us safe passage.
“Can you guarantee us safe passage?” I asked the goblin.
“Of course, of course,” he said, “Tell any horde you meet that you travel to pay honors to King Malworth. Tell them you were granted passage by Grumesh Sharpnose. They will let you pass.”
Sharpnose, I groaned. The devs really had to do better. I told Slade and the raiders what had been said. Slade was on board, ready to let the goblins go to arrange the meeting with their king. The raiders were a more suspicious lot. They wanted to torture more info out of the goblins.
“What?” I said, “No. Just no.”
“You have a soft heart. These beasts will betray us.” William said matter of factly.
“Slade,” I said. “We are not torturing creatures. No.”
“It's just a game? Right?” Slade replied.
“No. It's not just a game.” I explained. “We are here to report bugs. To solve a sort of problem. Finish the main quest. If we resort to torture, that could turn the good ending off.”
“I don’t follow,” Slade said. From the looks on their faces, neither did the two raiders, but I wasn’t worried about what computer-generated characters thought.
“Shooters only have two endings: you win the match, or the other team does. In roleplaying games, games that tell a story, you can have multiple different endings. If you follow the wrong path, you get the bad ending. The main character dies or is forced to marry someone they don’t love, or the evil duke takes control of their kingdom. Stuff like that. But if the player does all the right things, they get the good ending where they triumph over evil and live happily ever after. That’s the ending we want.”
Slade nodded but said nothing.
I continued, “We don’t just want to win this. We want to nail it. We want to rock this game so hard that nobody gets a higher score than us ever again. So, let's not do what they are suggesting here. Let's take the high road and win this with the best ending.”
Slade sighed and said, “They say these guys will turn on us and lead us into an even bigger ambush.”
“Okay,” I said, struggling to think of ways to explain so that even Slade would understand. “We have two bad choices. We let them go, and they try to kill us. Or, we torture them and become monsters ourselves. Even if it's just a game, I can’t play the bad guy. I need to go home with a clean conscience. And I think you do, too.”
“Alright,” Slade told the lieutenants, “We’re not torturing them. Victoria says we should release them and trust that they get the message to the king.”
The raiders were definitely pissed, glaring at me, but didn’t argue with Slade. I breathed a huge sigh of relief, happy we hadn’t stooped to the level the raiders had suggested. He may be boneheaded, brash, and loud, but I was genuinely proud that Slade hadn’t gone down the road to barbarism.
I left the goblins, who were being marched away by the raider guards and ran into Max.
“Have you leveled up yet?” he asked.
“I totally forgot about it,” I said.
He nodded, “When you do, be sure to check out your other class options. Unless you are super happy being a Hunter.”
“Yeah, will do,” I said.
I found Princess and gave her a few pets. Then climbed up into the saddle. The raiders were moving about with purpose, getting things ready for travel. A couple of them were trying to figure out how to ride the swiftscales. Even though shorter than the horses around them, the lizards made up for it in their bulky width. They were stout and didn’t complain when humans got on their backs. Trying to control them, however, was a different matter. They would hiss and turn their heads trying to spit on their riders. To the annoyance of the unlucky few forced to ride these foul-tempered lizards, the rest of the raiders laughed and hooted.
With nothing better to do, I opened my menu and checked out the level-up page.
Victoria – Level 5 Hunter
New classes and morphs are available
Skills:
* Hunter’s Mark
* Fighting Style: Archery
* Crippling Shot
Boons:
* World Knowledge
Please choose a new class or morph your existing one:
New Class
Morph
Reviewing my skills, I had to kick myself once again. In the huge battle we’d just fought I had forgotten to use either my Hunter’s Mark or Crippling Shot. I was literally just doing base damage without any of the benefits of having advanced skills. No wonder my team had to come to my rescue constantly. Once again, I vowed I’d do better.
Unsure what the new classes were, I selected that option.
Bard
Defender
Healer
Naturist
Scout
Warrior
Wizard
Bards, Healers, and Wizards all used spells. I’d already determined that I wasn’t so great at remembering which tools to use in battle, so I’d need a class that had a lot of passive skills. It seemed that anything that required active use would just be forgotten when things got spicy.
Naturists sounded interesting, but they also had too many active things I’d need to remember. Looking into Defender, I saw that it had the most passive skills, so I’d never have to try and remember all the things I could do. But I didn’t like the idea of getting hit a lot and soaking up damage. That shit hurt.
Scout sounded like fun. It was all about sneaking, but they also had a lot of questionable skills regarding stealing things from others. The notion of being some grubby pickpocket was not to my liking, and so that one got axed as well. Warrior ended up being a lot more complicated than I thought. There were so many things warriors could do, but nearly all were weapon-related.
And that left Hunter. I liked being able to shoot things from afar. It meant not getting hit with swords and axes. That was a huge plus in my book. So, Hunter it was. Now I had to morph it. I checked to see what my options were.
Beastmaster
Ranger
Sniper
I looked through the morphs carefully. Sniper was enticing, but solely focused on combat which I didn’t like. There was a lot more to this game and I didn’t want to limit myself to only thinking in terms of combat. Beastmaster was also enticing. My favorite childhood book had been Doctor Doolittle. Who didn’t want to have a bevy of animals at their beck and call. But the truth was I could barely take care of one doggo in real life, how could I manage with a whole menagerie?
I looked into Ranger and knew it was the right path. They were described as masters of archery, with a loyal companion, and best of all: possessed a deep connection with nature. That was my jam totally. I selected it as my morph and my stats changed.
Victoria – Level 5 Ranger
* Beast Knowledge +1
* Nature Stealth (Camouflage) +1
* Tracking +1
Skills:
* Hunter’s Mark
* Fighting Style: Archery
* Crippling Shot
Boon:
* World Knowledge
Choose next skill:
* Pathfinding
* Snare
* Speak with Animals
Speak with Animals? That sounded so amazing I took it without even looking at the other skills. Whoops. Max would be disappointed. I decided, fine, he can look down his nose all he wants. I’ll be too busy talking to all my new animal pals to even care.
Regrouped, healed, and ready, we set out again, moving South. Deeper into goblin territory. We were rushing to a head-on collision with a goblin king.