Book I - Last Advent
The way I’m hurtling along this untrod path down the hillside is all too visceral: the ground wheezes dust with each of my footsteps, twigs bend and break and crack, shrubs and grasses brush against my boots, and rocks slide and skid away underfoot like discarded toys. Each of these sensations flows and ebbs in my consciousness like the laughter that accompanies a cruel joke.
Feels like I’ve been running since I entered the game.
The town below, which must be Losthearth, grows closer and closer, and I notice my stamina lasts much longer when it’s expended on a downhill sprint. I’m surprised I can think—I’m surprised I have the peace of mind to think—but then again, I’m surprised I’m even in a position to be worried at all. But I can’t afford to look back.
Just as I skid down onto a level stretch of gravelly earth wrapping around the hillside, I hear a sequence of strange grumblings, like the sound of a banquet of people talking with food in their mouths. I’m in such a determined mood as to completely ignore these and sacrifice no momentum to observe their source, but when my eyes dart to my right-
No.
I see a band of fluffy, horned humanoid creatures—maybe ten, single-file, marching along, pitchforks and cudgels and shanks in their hands and gray tunics billowing. The first in line chokes on his songful grumbles just as we make eye contact—his eyes are bronze, with oblong, horizontal pupils—and he waves a claw behind him that causes his group to skid to a stop.
Goblin Watchman - lvl 3
Alert! This mob is grouped with (10) Goblin Patrolmen - lvl 2 and (1) Goblin Shaman - lvl 3
I hear them skid and scramble and raise up brassy shouts, but I quickly lose sight of them in my charge. What recalls my attention is a huge breath like a balloon inflating, and then the bawoooooooooo, bawoooo-bawoooo! of a war horn. A tumult of rough hoofbeats and honking snarls tells me they are, in fact, chasing me down the hillside.
I turn my head to glance at the group and find their little legs, probably half the length of my own, aren’t carrying them too close behind me. But a couple are gaining speed after diving onto all fours and bounding onward, pointing their twisted horns toward me.
“Fuck off!” I shout.
“Grabhalgagumolgahrtagargen!” the leader replies, prompting a unanimous snarl and following this with another hornblow.
The shrubs and rocks are flickering past, and we enter a forested patch of the descent where the ground is littered with decomposing leaves and pine needles and the trees are deathly still. Free of the howl of the wind, the goblins’ voices sound much louder, and I notice how heavily I’m breathing, how rapidly my virtual heart is beating.
Should I hide? Could I possibly hide? Should I try and fight them? No, no, and obviously no.
I am neither what one might call a minmaxer or really any kind of strategic thinker. My sole intention in making this character was to mess around, and I’m realizing that although my Second Wind’s cooldown has elapsed, my other active abilities are worthless or worse in this situation. Buffer might allow me to stand my ground if I had any intention of doing so; Adrenaline would likely kick in too late to be of any help; and Overload, with its allowance of “one final attack,” might make me self-destruct altogether. So, apart from my self-healing ability . . .
“Gahgar! Gahgar!” The watchman’s voice issues incessantly from behind, and I glance to find him on all fours with what must be the shaman riding on his back and shaking a gnarled wooden staff at me. The staff sparks as I turn away to focus on my slalom through the trees; there’s an undoubtedly electrical noise; and an arc of blue electricity bends just inches over my left shoulder. The mob of goblins break into a fit of snarl-shouts at this.
Up ahead, I can see a narrow crevice between two steep, sloping boulders—what looks like a single boulder split in half by some great force. A rivulet twinkles between the hemispheres, lichen colors their faces gray-green and goldenrod, and the roots of a copse of ancient trees compete to embrace them. The brush is thick on either side except for along a perpendicular path that seems to curve only lazily downhill, and I’m guessing I’ll encounter obstacles whichever way I go within this forest, so I make for the crevice. As I do, I notice myself slowing down. The ground’s too flat here!
I sputter inside to find the crevice stretches for maybe thirty yards, and I immediately step over a toad I find staring at me with glowing green eyes between some similarly luminescent pink mushrooms. The grumbles echo deafeningly as the goblins pile into the crevice behind me—a glance reveals the whole line crashing and tangling in, with one tripping over the toad and splashing into the muddy water, only to be leap-frogged by its fellows. The watchman and shaman have separated, and the former blows the horn again—
BAWOOOOOOOOOOOOO!
Hornblows, shouts, snarls—the splashing of water under my boots and then the same water churning with a dozen goblins’ hooves—my own merciless virtual breath, reminding and reminding me where I am—all of this is nearly enough to break me. When a lobbed cudgel hits my back for 7 dmg, my mind tightens painfully back into focus, and I jettison an item to which I’d already grown sentimentally attached.
Phmp.
My gnoll pelt flies weightily behind me, and I hear it smother the watchman, who staggers, falls back, and knocks down a couple of other goblins, creating a traffic jam that may just buy me enough time to escape the group.
Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon.
But as I exit the crevice, a faint, crooked shadow cast down from the top of the boulder sends a chill down what I can feel of my actual spine. Even if I had the opportunity, I needn’t look back to know what’s coming.
Tzzzzzzzzrrrrrck—
I’m zapped for 25 dmg—and, worse, I feel my limbs immediately stiffen so that I fall onto a smooth, stony surface for another 5 dmg and bounce and skid to a complete stop. The goblins erupt from the crevice with a vengeance, and a new detail beneath my HP,
Status - Paralyzed (10 sec . . .)
foreshadows my imminent fate. Bthmp. Bthmp. Bthmp. Unlike before, I cannot be calm. I have none of the nonchalance or abandon of the player I was just over an hour ago. My thoughts flare into what would be shouts if I could speak—with my voice confined to my own head, and even then almost drowned out by the goblins, I cry for Adelaide? I’m sorry, Ad! MercuryPoisonin? MercuryPoisonin, are you there? Can you save me again? Anybody!? but the woods are devilishly dark and empty except for this black sabbath, and the pile of white wooly bodies building atop me and scratching and stomping and striking and stabbing for 2- 5- 7- 5- 7- 10- 2 dmg writhes with one impulse:
to kill me.
Bthmp. Bthmp. Bthmp. Bthmp.
5- 2- 1- 5 dmg
Second Wind:
Restores (40) HP on use and gives a temporary increase to all stats (dependent on user level)
Activation time: Instant
Duration: One minute
Cooldown: One hour
3- 5- 8- 5- 12- 1 dmg
bthmpbthmpbthmpbthmpbthmpbthmpbthmpbbbbb
“. . . let your heartbeat resonate, through your weapon.”
~ FeeFiFoFum - lvl 1 ~
18/100 HP
Status - Paralyzed (1 sec . . .)
Adrenaline is active.
Driven by some boisterous impulse within me, 2 dmg I slowly press my shoulders 1- 1 dmg and then my arms up and against the wooly mass, and I feel 5 dmg a blade lash my arms as I heave a couple of goblins off of my right side, through which small window of relief I pull my hammer from my back and 2- 2 dmg wrench the hilt while my teeth grind and I bbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbbb into the hammer—and swing it into the face of I don’t know what for
27 dmg.
A sickening crunch and a splurch and they all gasp and shout. I bbbbbbbbbb 12 dmg them and I bbbbbbbbbb 11 dmg them and 7 dmg them until the mass is wriggling off of me even as one bludgeons me for 2 dmg, and the faintest awareness of my proximity to death urges me through an opening in the pile with a sensation like the untangling of a knot as I hurl myself away, farther and farther and farther with pathbreaking footsteps while thrown rocks and cudgels tumble behind me and a streak of lightning sears the earth some paces back. I emerge from a thicket of shriveled, crooked ashen pines into a rejuvenating breath of azure: I’m out of the woods, and one last gradual slope approaches the valley in which Losthearth is nestled. I can see the sunlight shining on the distant roofs. When I reach a pool of leaves at the bottom of the slope, my stamina meets its limit again. I must drag my dead-heavy virtual body into its destined grave of valley grasses.
I put up a fight. “Help! Please, anybody, help! I need help here! Help!”
“Gahgargahgargahgargahgargah-”
“Please, anybody . . .”
“Gahgargah-ah?ah?ah?”
Ffth-fth. Ffth. Ffth fth-fth-fth-
I’ve fallen to my knees. Tears trickle from my wide-open virtual eyes to become dew on the grass blades below. Atop a low windswept hill in the valley ahead, a couple of archers aim into the forest behind me, and three players rush with greatsword and hammer and shortsword drawn. As they pass me and drive their weapons into the remaining goblins, I turn with them and crush the abdomen of the watchman—whose pitchfork clatters on the ground beside me, ruddy with my own virtual blood.
~ Chat/local ~
. . .
cynythya: Everyone, please remain calm and join us on the hill with the red flag, right next to the Lost Road. We are fortifying the area and protecting each other while we await supplies and reinforcements.
OCherryO: What s happening ???? I can’t logout
Siegfriedrice: Laaaaarpers
DimensionZ shouts, “We’re making another potion run! Hold the line!”
cynythya: If you have your map filled in, the location is Polgarth's Prospect! We will be escorting the wounded to the city once preparations are finished!
Sarge: Ohhhhhhhh nonononononono no no no
Prim21 shouts, “Everyone get the fuck away from the forest! Stick together!”
Koaline shouts, “Jessie’s down! Oh my God, Jessie is down!”
ampm shouts, “No!”
Siegfriedrice: Wait wtff
FeeFiFoFum shouts, “Help! Please, anybody, help! I need help here! Help!”
Xenophone: One being chased! Eastern woods.