Highland Goblin The hills are alive with these dirty little creatures. What they lack in strength they more than make up for in numbers and tenacity. You'll find each one carries a gourd of whiskey, which they're constantly taking swigs from -- yield not to the temptation to drink from it yourself, it's vile stuff. Powers:
Drunk With Power - Adept: Stronger when intoxicated
Skills:
Spear - Adept
The goblins had surrounded the two Players. The one still standing was a tall black man wielding a sword, its long blade covered in flickering flames. The bodies of two dead goblins lay at his feet, but the wide, slow swings of his sword were not meant to attack, merely to keep the goblins at a distance. He was doing an admirable job of keeping them at bay by lashing out with the weapon, but trickles of blood oozing from small wounds all over his body showed where the goblins had managed to get past his defenses. His clumsy swings betrayed how tired he was. It was only a matter of time before they overwhelmed him.
For their part, the goblins were taking their time. They'd take turns, one stepping back to pull out a gourd and take a deep quaff from it while the others poked at the Player with their spears, then shifting so another could pause and have a drink. That was bad news for the Player. Every sip from the whiskey in those gourds would only make the goblins stronger. What a crazy power.
Wayne Powell Affinity: Death - Novice Gifts:
That Voodoo That You Do - Limited immortaility
Powers:
Affinity Blade - Imbue weapon with Affinity
Minions, Arise - Novice: Summon creatures
I Can Make Fire - Novice: Additional Affinity with Fire
Skills:
Affinity Control - Novice
Painting - Novice
Sword - Competent
Interesting. Combination of necromancer and melee fighter. Potent class mix.
Sigrid was about to charge forward to join the fray but I stopped her with a hiss. At the last moment my All Shall Be Revealed power had lit up three Status windows over creatures hidden in a copse of scraggly shrubs between us and the other Players. I could barely make them out, sleek figures prowling low to the ground among the shadows. It was sheer luck that I’d been using my power on Wayne at the exact moment they’d crept into my line of sight so I noticed their presence before it was too late. They blended so well into their surroundings it was impossible to make out what they were. Well, impossible for other people, but not a problem for me.
Shadow Wolf Big enough to be used as mounts by smaller humanoids, nobody knows how Shadow Wolves reproduce, only that they do it quickly and these blights can now be found all over, hiding in the shadows, waiting for the opportunity to pounce and feed on whatever flesh they can chomp down on. Powers:
The Power Of The Pack - Adept: Deadlier when hunting in a group
I Lurk In The Shadows - Competent: Extra stealth when hiding in shadows
Skills:
Pounce - Competent: Launch an deadly attack from a distance
Bite - Adept: Sharp teeth make short work of prey
They were on the move, slowly creeping towards us.
“What is it?” Sigrid asked.
“Shadow Wolves,” I said. “Up there in those bushes. Three of them. One coming straight on, the other two circling around either side. They’re pack hunters so don’t get surrounded, and watch out for a pounce from a distance.”
“How do you...?” Sigrid said, then she stopped herself. “Right. That power of yours.”
“That’s a pretty handy talent,” Jane said, glancing sideways at me. “As a rule I don’t normally take in strays, but I think I might keep you.”
The fight with the wolves was terribly one-sided and didn’t last long. Sigrid started it by hurling her spear at the one coming from the front and impaling it through the head, stopping it dead. It was a great throw. I attacked next. The effectiveness of the shadow ropes that had twice immobilized me was fresh in my memory, so I figured I’d try something like that now. I waited for the wolf on my side to get inside a cluster of prickly bushes about twenty feet away before using my Affinity Control to cause the shrubs around it to grow and entangle it.
It didn’t work very well, but well enough to tie up one of the wolf’s legs. It would only take a few moments for it to break free, so while it struggled I dashed forward and, avoiding the snapping jaws, slashed at it with my dagger until it stopped moving. Jane finished hers off by waiting until the last moment before using her power to teleport a few feet to the side after it had pounced. Her sudden disappearance messed with the wolf’s landing, and while it was recovering its balance she ran it through a few times with her rapier.
“Whoop whoop!” she said, pumping her hands in the air. “Look at that: your mastery of Sword has evolved.”
“Nice!” Sigrid said. “My Spear skill went up too.”
Jane surveyed around. “Any more of them?”
Sigrid shook her head. “I can’t sense anything.”
“Right. To the rescue!” Jane cried as she charged forward, and we followed. Sigrid yanked her spear out of the wolf’s skull as she ran by.
When we got closer, Sigrid threw her spear again. It missed the goblin she was aiming for but it did manage to draw their attention toward us. The besieged Player used the opportunity to lunge at one of them while they were momentarily distracted, and the little creature emitted a high, piercing squeal as Wayne’s flaming sword stabbed it through the body.
Jane vanished, reappearing instantly behind another one of the goblins, and jabbed her rapier through its neck. The goblins were now in total disarray as Sigrid drew her sword and she and I continued our charge toward them. I threw a knife at the one closest but it flew right past, disappearing into the shrubs behind it. Jane blinked out again, teleporting behind another one and running it through too.
She was like the wind. That teleportation power of hers was truly devastating.
“Screw these knives,” I muttered, then used Affinity Control to attack the one remaining goblin with a fireball. My throw was a bit off and instead of hitting the creature in the body like I’d intended, it landed at its feet, splattering fire that immediately fizzled on the ground. The next moment the goblin’s head separated from its body and flew off to the side, decapitated by a slice from Wayne’s flaming sword.
Wayne looked back at us to see who his saviors were, then his eyes rolled up and he dropped to his knees, the fire that had been flickering along the length of his sword suddenly extinguished.
“That felt good,” sighed Jane, tugging her rapier free from the dead goblin.
“A bit anticlimactic,” Sigrid said, dropping her sword and shield and rushing forward to grab Wayne and gently lower him onto his back. “I thought it would last longer than that.”
“We are just that good,” Jane said.
“Thanks to Daniel,” Sigrid said. “Having that kind of intel is super-helpful, we would’ve run straight into those wolves.”
“True,” Jane said, wiping her rapier clean on the goblin’s rags. “And if I hadn’t known about the pounce that could have been a lot trickier. Almost makes up for the fact that he’s otherwise pretty useless in a fight.”
I know she thought she was joking, but it only hurt because it was true.
“How is he?” I asked Sigrid, nodding toward Wayne.
The narrative has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
“Alive, but in rough shape.”
I used All Shall Be Revealed on the other Player. He had no color in his face, appearing pale and corpse-like.
Bruce Cannon Affinity: Light - Novice Powers:
Light Em Up - Novice: Cause targets to glow
Ray Of Light - Novice: Create a beam of light from the sky
Who Needs Guns? - Novice: Fire force bullets
Skills:
Fortune Telling - Novice
Writing - Novice
Light affinity? Nice. And those powers were pretty much standard RPG magic spells, not too shabby at all. This guy was totally a wizard. He looked like a middle-aged Weasley brother, with premature balding and a neatly-trimmed beard in matching ginger color to the hair that still clung dutifully to his scalp in open defiance to the inevitability of his genes. He also looked in pretty rough shape. I had to force my eyes away from the beads of sweat on his bald spot, it was like watching raindrops collecting into rivulets that flowed across the rounded skin: hypnotic, in a Chinese-water-torture "when is this gonna start to move?" way.
I'd been staring at him to see if he still breathed and gotten distracted.I still didn't know if he did.
“What about this other one?” I said, afraid that he was dead. I’m not proud to say that I was more interested in keeping this person alive so I could recruit them to the team than for any humanitarian or altruistic reasons.
Jane bent down and felt for a pulse at his neck. “Also still alive. Barely.” When I looked closer I could see the slow, haggard rising and falling of his chest as his body struggled to breathe.
I pulled out the healing potion. "Here, pour this in his mouth."
“Are you sure? It was expensive, and we don’t know this person.”
“This is one of those life or death situations I was talking about.”
“Won’t he just respoon like you did?”
“It’s respawn, and we don’t know that for sure. Better be safe and use the potion.
Jane took the vial and smiled at me. “That was the right answer.”
“What about this guy?” Sigrid said, still cradling Wayne. “He could use some healing too.”
“We only have one potion,” Jane said. “And my guy’s in worse shape.”
“Here, let me try something,” I said, and knelt beside Wayne. I held my hands over his body, the way Sifu had done to me when healing my injuries, and used the Laying On Hands skill I’d learned from him.
“What’s that you’re doing?” Sigrid said.
“It’s something I picked up from Sifu,” I told her. “It’s a healing skill. Not nearly as good as the potion, but it’ll do the trick until we can get him proper medical attention.”
“Why didn’t you use it on your leg earlier?” she said, forcing the unstoppered vial between Bruce’s lips. Almost immediately, the color flowed back into his skin and his breathing evened.
I didn’t answer. Better to say nothing than admit I hadn’t thought of it at the time.
“Daniel, with your wolf, what was up with the plants?” Sigrid said.
“What plants?” Jane said. She’d been too intent on tracking her wolf to notice what I’d done.
“Nature affinity,” I said. “I used it to trap the Shadow Wolf. Nature’s the opposite of Shadow, so I figured I’d give it a whirl. Monsters like them are nothing if they can’t move.”
“No way!” Jane said, sounding genuinely impressed. She jammed her sword away and immediately tried doing it herself. Almost at once the scrub under one of the slain goblins extended, wrapping its spindly branches around the corpse. “Sweeeeeet!”
I used All Shall Be Revealed on the dead monsters to see if there were any drop items like with the Jackalope, but there was nothing except Yellow Mana Crystals in the wolves, and White Mana Crystals in the goblins. I explained to Jane and Sigrid about the crystals that seemed to be inside every monster.
“What do they do?” Jane said.
“I’m not sure,” I said, “but I think there must be a way to use the mana in a crystal. I just don’t know how yet.”
“Well then,” Jane said, pulling out her stiletto and crouching over a goblin. “Let’s get this over with.”
Sigrid and I did the same with the other goblins, then we did the wolves. While Jane dug into her first Goblin, dry heaving the whole time, I whispered to Sigrid.
“What about her?” I said, gesturing toward Jane. “Did she join me because she wanted to use me too?”
Sigrid looked over at her friend, watching her refuse to give up on getting the mana crystal out even while she continued to retch.
"And I thought they smelled bad," Jane muttered, "on the outside."
“Who knows?" Sigrid said. "Only Jane knows why Jane does anything.”
Then Sigrid went back to her goblin corpse, muttering the different parts of the monster’s anatomy as she dug around for the crystal hidden somewhere within them. I listened to her rattle off the proper names of various bones, muscle groups, and organs. I had a bit more experience in obtaining drop items from monster bodies, but I was no means used to it. Her recitation helped distract me from getting nauseated like Jane, which I suppose was exactly why Sigrid was so focused on naming the body parts instead of paying too much attention to what she was doing to them, too.
A few minutes later, there were nine tiny colored crystals, three gory wolf corpses, six disemboweled goblins (one also decapitated), two unconscious men, and three pretty grossed out people.
“There has got to be a better way to do that, urp,” Jane said, wiping the blood off her hands with a wolf’s pelt. The retches had petered out a few carcasses ago, now that it was all done all she had left in her was the occasional burp. She had adjusted well, all things considered. She and Sigrid started to work on dragging all the bodies away, but they quickly gave up, deciding it was much easier to just move away ourselves. We carried Wayne and Bruce to a place on a different hillside that was covered in soft moss and not drenched in blood, well out of sight and smell of the battle site. Sigrid broke out some bread, cheese, and water, then handed us each a strange but delicious local fruit that was somewhere between an apple and a mushroom. We rested in silence until regaining a bit of strength from the food.
After another Laying On Hands treatment Wayne woke up to see the three of us looming over him. Sigrid pushed us back, demanding we give the man some space. He looked up at us, then down at his somewhat healed wounds. I was still only a Novice at the skill, so its effectiveness was lacking. Then his eyes widened and he looked around in a panic, only relaxing when he saw Bruce lying nearby.
“Is he...?” he said in a deep, mellow voice.
“He’ll be fine,” Sigrid said.
“Thank you,” Wayne said, lifting himself up onto his elbows. “If you hadn’t shown up we would’ve been goners.” Then he groaned and lowered himself back down onto the grass, closing his eyes. “Holy hell, I am wiped.”
“You’re out of mana,” I said. “Here, have some of this.” I broke off a chunk of bread and handed it to him with some cheese. He took it and nibbled, then sat up and started gobbling it down. The revitalizing effect was almost instantaneous.
“Food helps,” I told him, giving him some more.
“Thank you again. I’m Wayne, by the way.”
We introduced ourselves, and explained what had happened.
“I wish you’d been with me earlier. An NPC gave me a tip that there was an abandoned town to the North so I checked it out.”
“By yourself?” I said.
Wayne sighed. “Yes, I know. Dumb dumb dumb. I found the town, and as soon as I stepped in I got this message that it was the Death Dungeon. I figured since that’s my affinity I’d give it a shot. Turns out it was more literal than I’d thought.”
“How so?”
“Imagine a ghost town with actual ghosts.”
“Eek.”
“Exactly. My timing was good, though, I found Bruce here fighting off some skeletons and zombies – he must’ve shown up just before I did — and we were lucky to escape them together with our lives. We both would’ve been goners if the other one wasn’t there. Then we met those little green guys while limping back and, well, you know the rest.”
I remembered Wayne from the convention. He was a tabletop miniature game aficionado, and I’d seen him playing at several tables, a different game at each one. For each game he’d brought his own collection of intricately painted miniatures to use. He was a few years older than me and an excellent player: thoughtful, creative, and observant. Based on his affinity with Death I’d expected him to be grim, but he turned out to be one of the friendliest people I’ve met. He was also a talker, and his sharp wit and contagious laugh kept us chatting while we waited for Bruce to regain consciousness. And of course by ‘us’ I really mean the two girls; I just did my usual and listened from the sidelines, quiet and awkward. Fortunately, it was a good healing potion and it didn’t take too long for Bruce to recover enough that we could head out.
The rest of our trip back to the city was blissfully uneventful. Bruce was more reserved than Wayne, more guarded. I knew why System had given him the powers it had. At the convention, he’d stood out at the tabletop RPG tables because he was a clever roleplayer. He didn’t take charge, but was intelligent, quick to see an opportunity and come up with an innovative way to take advantage of it.
The guards at the city gate weren’t the same as the ones we’d met on the way out, but they all sported the same green armbands and didn’t bat an eye as we passed, they just took one look and nodded us through. Membership did indeed have its privileges.
We were walking up Dagger Street when Jane broke from the group to hang back with me. “So, what do you think of them?”
“You mean for the team?” I said. She nodded. “I think they’d be great. Super nice guys with rare affinities and excellent powers.”
“Great. I’ll ask them then.”
When we reached the Dragon Clan dojo, Jane explained that we were forming a team and asked Wayne and Bruce if they’d like to join. They accepted immediately, and although we invited them to stay at the dojo, Wayne said he had some belongings at an inn and would spend the night there, and Bruce said he had other plans, whatever that meant. I could tell a flimsy excuse to avoid a situation when I heard one. We agreed to meet at the gazebo at noon the next day. If System had a clock window we hadn’t found it yet, but noon seemed a safe time to choose, being when the sun was at its zenith, or around when there were about six hours left on the quest timer. Then we bid our farewells.
Quest: Be A Team Player - Assemble a team of 10 Players before the end of the Tutorial
Restriction: [Hidden]
Assembled Players: 5/10
Quest time remaining: 18:55:13
I ached all over, and by the time I said goodnight to the girls and collapsed onto the bed in my room, I was more than ready for this day to end. I still had half of my quest to accomplish before the end of the Tutorial, and time was rapidly running out.
That could wait for tomorrow, though. I was exhausted, and all I wanted to do was sleep.