13

“Ears?” I asked, my stomach sinking.

“Ears,” Quicklily replied flatly.

“Fuck.”

“Left ears. Five.”

“This is some off-the-rails-in-Vietnam level shit, Lily,” I replied with a resigned sigh. She only looked at me evenly, not a shred of sympathy in her eyes.

“If you can stab ‘em, you can hack an ear off. Be grateful I didn’t ask for tongues.”

“Alright, alright. Ears it is. Five,” I said. I waited. Any time now, I thought. On cue, a piano flourish sounded, and a new notification flashed onto my screen, the golden script reading:

You’ve received a quest!

Slay 5 goblins in the Northern Antelli Forestlands and return their left ears to the Adventurer’s Guild representative in Spade’s Rest, Quicklily. Completion of this quest will result in the following rewards:

* 1 Common Chest

* 1 Uncommon Chest

* 100 gold pieces

* 50 Faction Points with the United Antellion Adventurer’s Guild

The notification shrank and pulled itself over to the right side of my field of vision, its text slightly smaller and situated below the quest timer for the goblin raid, the way a subquest would normally be arranged. Below, it helpfully read: Goblin ears: 0/5.

“At least I’m not gathering body parts for free,” I muttered to myself as I looked back to Quicklily, who stood beside Gerard. The man was leaning on his walking stick, unphased. We were flanked by Tally and Squish, who were bickering over the legacy of some Nithian Archmage I’d naturally never heard of. Lily was eyeing me with obvious scepticism as I prepared to venture out of the town and into the wilderness where I would hopefully find some sign of the impending goblin raid.

I flickered my daggers out of my inventory and checked them over, ignoring the slight tremble in my hands, hoping my pre-performance jitters weren’t showing too much. This little hunt would be my true combat debut, and I needed to make it memorable. Hopefully I could trigger an achievement or two, and anyway, Convincing Lily and Gerard of the goblin threat was clearly the first step in this meta questline.

“I’m not unreasonable, boy.” Lily said after a moment, turning her gaze to the vast forest that extended out over the nearby hills and into the visible horizon. “You’ll be wanting membership in the Guild. You’ll be needing it when you get to Estaren.” She looked back to me, her eyes steady and very green. “The gods’ll steer you to the dungeons, and that’s the most likely spot on the way to Trayst. Killing five goblins is a fitting enough task for a recruit’s entry quest. Bring me those ears, and I’ll write you a recommendation.”

I met her gaze and nodded. “Thank you, Lily,” I said. I looked out over the rolling hills draped in the foliage of the forest’s endless canopy before I pulled up my stats screen for one last look before I headed out. If I included the bonuses from the mask, my adjusted stats were:

Str: 12

Dex: 26

Con: 24

Int: 12

Cha: 9

I looked at my 9 in Charisma with distaste. I would address that when I could; it was essential to my eventual build. With the Honey Badger ring, I had an armour rating of 6, a slew of resistances and my adjusted constitution gave me a nice chunk of additional HP. If I equipped Smokeshadow’s mask, depending on the painted pattern I chose I gained damage bonuses, and I could significantly boost Cunning Strike, Stealth, Tracking, Jump, Balance and Dodge.

I was armoured, but I left the mask off for now. I hadn’t yet shown it to either of the adventurers, but I had let them take a look at the ring. Gerard had eyed its design with distaste until he spent a moment focusing on it intently, his pupils becoming gently luminous with a subtle purple hue, after which he raised a brow and exchanged a look with Quicklily. The druid had seemed unimpressed, saying only “Kinnion is a god for fools,” and spitting unceremoniously on the ground. I looked down at the ring for a moment then took a slow breath, gathering myself.

“Time to go,” I said, looking over at the two adventurers. “I’d say ‘wish me luck’ but that would just piss me off.” I gave them a grin, settling into my role. Luck lived for the fight, and this was just the beginning of what I needed to make into a veritable career of…you guessed it, blood and fury. That prick had been right. That’s what it was going to take. I could fight it and agonise over the violence - I could agonise, but that’s not how I was going to play it. Luck did not give one millimetre of a fuck. Luck was going to revel in it.

“How many do we have streaming, Sage?”

1 214 531. The chat is very active.

“If you can, give them a shot from the front at a high angle. From about six feet away.”

Done.

I looked up to meet the eye of Sage’s stealthed camera pod.

“Good afternoon, you bloodthirsty bastards. I’m going to give you your daily dose of raging violence soon enough, but I was hoping you could all deliver a message for me.” I let the words hang, then continued, “I’m sure a humble rogue like myself is beneath their notice, so I need you to pass it along. It’s a message for the gods. It’s this: You don’t know me yet, but you will.”

I stared steadily into the camera, spread my arms and flashed a wolfish grin that cared absolutely nothing for consequence. A grin that said, ‘Just fucking watch me.’ A grin about a thousand times more cocky than I ever would have dared on Earth. This wasn't me, this was Luck. This was the asshole who believed he could do anything, say anything, fight anyone. This was who was going to get me home, and there was only one way to get there. “By the time I’m finished, you’ll know me well. You will know me by the trail of dead.”

It then occurred to me that I probably looked ridiculous, antlered as I was, making my overly bold proclamation whilst my little red maple leaves undoubtedly rippled in the wind. It didn’t matter. I could get away with it, as long as I fulfilled one prerequisite: I had to back it up. With this in mind, I equipped Smokeshadow’s mask, willed its painted pattern into that of the Dancer and tossed one more look at Gerard and Lily.

The necromancer was looking at me with a dubiously raised brow. “This is all a bit melodramatic, Luck” he said as he lit a cigarette, a tiny flame bursting into life above his index finger. “Between this and yesterday’s outfit, I’m beginning to think good taste escapes you entirely.”

I grinned beneath the mask, and shrugged. “A man far more clever than me once said 'All the world's a stage.'”

Gerard smirked at me.

“That says nothing about the quality of the play.”

I laughed. “It’s alright, I’m still a D-Lister,” I stretched and sighed as I felt my back crack with several tiny pops. “For now.”

I gave Gerard and Lily a lazy salute. “Off I go,” I said. I then darted forward, flowing into a leap that took me in a long arc down the hill, powered by my drastically increased Jump skill.

“Good luck!” I heard Gerard yell behind me, and I could hear the grin in the asshole’s voice. I laughed and gave him the finger over my shoulder. I wasn’t sure if the gesture had an equivalent on Feyhold, but I figured he probably got the jist. I sailed down the hill leading away from the town and hit the ground running, dashing into the treeline, bounding over the snaking tree roots and between the huge trunks like I was born to it. A golden notification faded onto my screen as I plunged into the forest.

Now entering: Upper Antellion, The Emerald Expanse - South

As the notification faded, music began to swell around me, sweeping strings that rose into an orchestral burst accompanied by a rolling beat that thundered along as I ran. Beneath the mask I had to grin. The sun was bright, the air was clear, and I was fast. My dexterity was twice what it had been when I arrived on Feyhold. My movement speed and my Jump, Balance and Dodge skills had all jumped significantly, and holy shit did it feel amazing.

I was faster and more agile than I’d ever been; I could easily launch myself forward from a stop, dart and weave around obstacles, pivot and surge into an entirely different direction with relative ease. Pick a sports field, and I’d be Holy Hell on any of them. It was intoxicating. The absolute coolest feature of the Dancer’s variant of the mask was Double Jump. This shit was bad ass, full stop. I could run, leap with full force, and at any point in the air I could trigger Double Jump, which placed an invisible surface right beneath each of my feet that seemed to float with me, and I could propel myself again - up, forward, or even backwards. It had Wuxia-style vibes, and if I could combine it with flips, I would be like a god-damned ninja.

Now, it seems to me that flips would mostly be useless in real-world Earth-style hand to hand combat. If we’re facing facts, it’s really kind of a pointless expenditure of precious energy that ultimately accomplishes nothing more than looking cool. It reminded me of certain opponents I’d faced in karate tournaments when I was a teenager.

The odd kid got the idea in his head that stuff like spin kicks were an effective way to fight. Like me, they had probably watched the American Ninja movies; but unlike me, they inevitably tried to land three or four of the things in a match. I was a calm fighter, not showy, and the solution to this was very simple. You just blocked or otherwise avoided the kick, waited for their spin to almost terminate, then stepped in and hit them. Their balance was terribly fragile at that moment, and worse, they just turned their back and briefly surrendered their vision as they spun. They were effectively making themselves completely vulnerable in the instant the rotation began. I figured flips probably worked similarly; you simply waited for the one performing the flip to land, then hit them before they regained their balance.

You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version.

Here, however, things would be different. This was an action-fantasy game; we were going to have superhuman abilities. Let’s face it; If you’re an agile character in a video game, flips are mandatory. Spin kicks are mandatory. As deadly as this place was, there was an audience, and that meant we were still operating under the Rule of Cool. Frankly, it was ridiculous - like, batshit crazy - but I was supposed to be doing this with some semblance of style, and I would need to do my best to recreate the choreography from the fucking Matrix movies if I wanted to earn achievements and chests. So, that’s what I would do. Eventually. I needed to remember that as overpowered as my first pieces of gear were, I was still only a level 1 baby rogue. For now, I would settle for how awesome these new physical abilities felt, and look forward to new growth.

It was nearly an hour of field-testing my new capabilities before I remembered that I had a very specific reason for being in the forest that had nothing to do with playing ninja in the backyard like a kid on summer break. In my child-like glee at discovering that I could now exceed olympic style long jumps and high jumps with ease, I had completely forgotten about the audience.

“Let’s just call that a warm-up” I said companionably to the air. “Sage?” I asked her aloud. She replied externally as well.

“Yes, Luck?”

“Let’s head back to where I had my first encounter. We’ll hunt for scouts along the way, but I think it’s a good starting point for our search.”

“Understood. Proceed to the North West. I’ve marked the location on your map and added a directional indicator to your mini map.”

“Perfect. One more thing,” I added. “Can you make one camera pod visible to me, and have it follow me, at eye level, about the distance another humanoid would be from me if we were travelling together? Can you just go stealth when other people are around”

I watched in mild surprise as, nearly instantaneously, a gleaming white sphere, about the size of a large baseball, materialised into the air about four feet away, hovering at eye level. I could see about a third of the sphere was made up of a complex set of lenses that focused on me, whirring and adjusting as it slowly hovered, bobbing gently in the air. “Done,” said Sage. “May I ask the purpose of this, Luck?” she asked, sounding curious. I thought for a moment before responding.

“Hm. It’s hard to explain. I was thinking about how strange it is to travel and speak with a disembodied voice, so I thought if we made one of your pods visible to me, it would feel more like we were sharing physical space. It’s like you being here, kind of,” I said, almost sheepishly. She didn’t respond, but the little camera pod zoomed around me to take up position just above and behind my right shoulder. I looked back at ‘her’ and grinned. “You know, this kind of reminds me of Alex-”

Don’t even say it. Sage said instantly in my head, a warning in her tone. I know of whom you speak. Don’t say it, Luck. I gave a sideways smile, and innocently continued.

“But it’s just bec-”

Luck? She interjected sternly, and I stopped.

“Yeah…?” I asked hesitantly, sounding like a kid about to get yelled at by his mom.

I won’t be compared to your glorified calculator. Also, I don’t sound anything like that. Shit. She sounded offended. She continued in a clearly irritated tone.

I’ll draw a comparison you can easily comprehend: If “she” is a slingshot; I am a fighter jet. “She” can fetch you recipes for apple crisp. I can detect and calculate the trajectory of an intercontinental ballistic missile down to within a metre, while at the same time I compile a detailed comparative analysis and portfolio of each of earth’s most influential leaders from the last 500 years. In seconds. If properly equipped, I can deploy countermeasures to neutralise such a missile, all while I edit and fact check the research papers of Harvard’s entire student body for the last 4 years. All this before breakfast, Luck.

Yeesh. “Phew,” I said, not hiding my grin. “That was…a lot. Sorry, Amazon,” I apologised to the air. I wasn’t sure why. “I think I just learned more about you than ever before. You know, I kinda like you when you’re mad, Sage.” She didn’t respond, but the little camera pod was silently staring me down, its lenses accusing. I noticed that a little LED-style light had appeared above the lens portion of the pod. It pulsed red. I imagined it ‘Harrumphing’ as it zoomed away to take its place behind my shoulder.

I absolutely didn’t tell Sage that I had effectively turned her into one of the little non-combat pets you could get in most MMORPG’s. In this case, it was a lot like something you’d see in Star Wars: The Old Republic. An adorable little floating droid. Anyway, I wasn’t about to compare Sage to a pet. It might prove to be a tipping point, and she’d ruin my plan entirely by taking the pod away. The whole Alexa thing had clearly hit a nerve.

I got back to business and pulled my full-screen map up and reviewed the area I’d unlocked through my brief travels. I activated the Hunter’s pattern on the mask, which I had noted earlier was unlike the static painted pattern of the War Mask. The Treetop Dancer pattern, on the other hand, turned the mask entirely black, and had several small white stars scattered over the eyes and ‘forehead’ of the mask with a large seven-pointed white star set above and between the black-slashed eyes. The Mask of the Great Hunt was not a static pattern. It was made up of a mottled, blurry, flowing cacophony of greens and browns that reflected the forest around me. It reminded me instantly of those Elf cloaks from Lord of the Rings, but in mask form.

I didn’t know a damn thing about true military scouting, but I did have my improved Tracking skill to work with. I hoped I wasn’t making a critical error when I decided to work outward in concentric circles from the first point of goblin contact. I would also seek out vantage points or high ground that might give me a broader view. It seemed like an efficient way to do things, but I’m sure the internet would have a litany of experts prepared to tell me otherwise. I activated Stealth and started making my way through the undergrowth of the verdant forest around me towards my original spawn point.

The increased stealth skill courtesy of the Mask gave me the ability to move much quicker while still hidden, and I crept through the shaded world of snaking tree roots and sparse undergrowth beneath the canopy. The huge trees made an endless maze of bark-strewn columns in the subdued light, broken by shafts and pools of sunlight streaming down from above. Insects buzzed in the noonday heat, and I heard scattered birdsong piercing the din of the forest. Little yellow dots flickered onto my mini map, then away as I continued on. I wove my way through the trees, scanning for signs of life, sounds, footprints, or anything that may have been discarded by travellers or scouts moving through the area.

It was mid-afternoon, and I had crested a long hill that ended in a small cliff, perhaps ten metres high. The sun was bright, the sky clear, and the forest spread out before me like a sea of endless green clouds, rolling over the hills and creating a carpet of foliage that obscured the whole of the ground beneath it. I was scanning the horizon when I saw the smoke. A lazy, thin trail of grey-black wove up into the sky perhaps a kilometre away. I watched for a time, and a second trail of smoke joined it a few minutes later, not far from the first. Camps, maybe. Multiple camps. I couldn’t see any movement from the area, as it was obscured by the trees. I wasn’t sure if anyone but goblins would be in this part of the forest, but I obviously couldn’t ignore the activity. I grimaced as I thought about the likelihood of a coming fight. Pre-show jitters crept up on me, and I tried to suppress them by telling myself those ears were not going to sever themselves.

I deftly descended the small cliff face to slip once more beneath the trees. I had to smile wryly as I climbed down; less than two days ago I would have been hesitant to even try. Scared to try, I had to admit. I wasn’t good with heights. Now, however, my heightened dexterity made climbing much easier, and not only that, it vastly increased my confidence in my ability to do so. The movements felt easy; simply calculated and executed. No real fear was involved, only studied caution. It was a change I welcomed. As much as I despised the circumstances, I was in better shape than I’d ever been. I had more speed, precision, agility and considerably more endurance than I’d ever had before, thanks to my boosted constitution.

“Sage, to the extent that you can, warn me if anything approaches from behind,” I said internally as I slowly wound my way down the hill towards the point where the land flattened out, then started into the trees.

Done. she replied, all business. Her little white pod zoomed after me, matching my speed, flying just a short distance away. I adjusted my cloak, reactivated stealth and began moving towards the place the fires had been.

Camera pod re-entering stealth mode, Sage said. I silently thanked her. That was prudent. I could no longer see the smoke rising over the trees from where I crept, but I maintained my direction steadily until I finally saw movement ahead, just edging on to my minimap. Two red dots. I slipped behind the thick trunk of one of the trees, crouching to use as much of the undergrowth as I could for camouflage, then slowly edged my head out to study the scene. They were definitely goblins. Two of them were situated at the fire closer to me, and the other camp was about 10 metres from the first, populated by at least one more goblin.

They had set up ragged tents of what looked like hide, and had some type of meat roasting above a small fire. Two goblins, with mottled green skin rippling over corded muscle, mouths filled with crooked, jagged teeth, were seated across from one another, one on a log, the other on a decaying tree stump. The little green monsters appeared to be chatting while the one closest to me poked absently at the fire. It was a bit like watching a weird, evil version of a Boy Scouts campout. I examined the two closer goblins, and their health bars appeared, full and green. Their descriptions read:

Gordon - Level 2 Blackmarrow Goblin, Class: Scout

Gash - Level 2 Blackmarrow Goblin, Class: Pig Sticker

Gordon..? I thought, sighing. This place is so fucking weird. One minute it’s agonising over flowery attempts at deep lore, and the next it’s hitting me with zombie accountants named Todd. It might be whimsical if murder wasn’t an essential component.

I wasn’t able to pull up descriptions for the further camp, but as I watched, something with mottled brown fur moved around the more distant campfire, pacing slowly back and forth. A dog, maybe? I thought. Shit. I knew enough to know that meant trouble, so I quickly pulled a glove off and tried to test the air to feel for wind direction; I was relieved to catch a faint breeze winding through the trees. Thank god, I sighed. I was downwind; whatever it was, it was less likely to smell me if I approached from this direction.

I slipped back around the trunk and rested my back against it as I thought the situation over. There were at least three goblins, possibly more, and an animal of some kind, probably a tracking beast or something like a guard dog. Obviously a direct assault would leave me outnumbered and wasn’t a risk I was willing to take. They were level two; this should be doable if I didn’t have to fight them all at the same time. I still had no idea how my improved combat skills were going to hold up, so it was hard to gauge what I could or couldn’t handle.

My mind raced, trying to trace paths and potential outcomes; who would attack when, what weapons would they use, how fast they would react. I tried to consider whether they would fight together, coordinated and efficient, or be scattered and chaotic. Chaos would be my friend here. If I could kill the first goblin outright, I would have a few seconds of surprise to handle the second. The other camp was sure to be alerted, and I figured my next opponent would likely be the dog, as it was probably faster than the other goblin…or goblins. That was what this hinged on; how many goblins occupied the second camp. I would try to separate and kill the dog, or whatever it was, before I dealt with the remaining enemies, ideally one by one. I reminded myself of the old adage that all plans fell to shit once the first bullet was fired. Be prepared to fucking improvise, I told myself as I made sure my healing potions were added to my hotbar.

I just rested there, still, for a few long moments. Those pre-show jitters were wracking my stomach and causing my hands to tremble. I took long breaths, doing my damnedest to centre myself before the chaotic storm. It’s just like a show, I told myself. Surrender to the violence just like you surrendered to the crowd, right in the middle of shrieking guitars and crashing drums. I stood, willed the mask into its War variant and flashed my daggers into my hands. I took one more moment, feeling the anxiety like it was a necessary component to the dance that was about to unfold.

I let the pre-performance nerves sweep over me, and I forced myself to revel in it. This was always how the first step felt. Remember, Luck loves this shit, I said to myself. He lives for this. The nerves, the fear, the thundering of my heartbeat, the shuddering of my breath; I felt it all. I embraced it. Then, I surrendered. I let go. Something inside me switched on, and it all washed away. Every last bit of it, blown away like so many grains of dust in the wind. What was left was the beautiful silence at the heart of the chaos. I’d found it again. Welcome home, Luck, I thought. I gripped my daggers and I stepped onto stage.