6

The action had wound down; bodies lay strewn about like scattered litter. Two rebels remained, kneeling down and tending to the other. Victory. Cool. But, ow. In most games, being hurt doesn’t actually affect you until you run out of Health. Just then I could have done with a bit less realism.

Quest completed: Choose a Side

+300 XP (Total 1900)

The almost-forgotten voice of NarratorChick came back one last time:

“Congratulations. You have completed the tutorial. You have learned the basic of how to navigate and survive Riftworlds Online. There is an enormous amount of content for you to explore. More than any one person can explore. Your next step should be to find and talk to a class trainer. Perhaps the people below can help you with that…”

And so close to level, too.

Quest: Find the Hunter Trainer

Seek out and talk to the Hunter Trainer in nearby Outcrop.

I figured things would only get harder from here. Tutorials are usually more forgiving than the rest of a game. That did not bode well for the rest of my time here. I was going to need better gear.

GrenadeDude had been very close to the ridge, counting on the blast being on my side. The whole back of him was...gross. Let’s just leave it at that. I really doubted there was going to be anything lootable, and even if there was I didn’t really want to touch…that. I shuddered instead and headed down the slope to the other two.

These were in much better shape. You know, for people who had been laser-burnt to death. No jumpsuits for these guys. Black uniforms with jackets and pants. I really considered taking a jacket, just so I wouldn’t look like a newb toon. I also didn’t want to look too much like one of the Federalists. Maybe I didn’t really want to take sides just yet, and if I did, looking like my chosen enemy would probably not win me friends. And that’s what I needed.

Their rifles looked better than mine, so I grabbed one. Yep, a little better than mine. I kept it, and worked my way down the slope.

Item acquired: Federalist Laser Rifle

In most ways just a basic rifle, but more accurate and with slightly better range.

Range

Accuracy

Damage

Durability

85m

+10

50

45/50

The hurt one kept an eye on me as I approached, and eventually tapped the woman wrapping bandages around his abdomen. I could not see exact hit point numbers, but he was down pretty badly. Bandages covered four separate wounds.

She stood up, drawing a pistol. The move would have looked better had she not winced while standing and nearly fallen over. HurtGuy--no name floated over his head, so I gave him one--raised his rifle and both gave me skeptical looks.

“Hey, if I was gonna kill you wouldn’t I have done that from further away?” I held up my flesh hand and my alloy hand, wondering if racism was a thing here.

“True,” the woman conceded. “Who are you?”

“Max,” I said, puffing up my chest and trying out the whole heroic main character thing. “Max McAlloy.” I did feel a little heroic. I had taken on more than my share and come out...well, sore, but winning. These two had survived against seven. I was pretty sure that three more would have tipped the scales. Which meant I had saved their lives. Of course, they were NPCs, non-player characters, and thus might not even care.

The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

“I’m Reck,” the man said, setting down his rifle.

“You look like a wreck,” I joked.

“Have you seen your...face?” the woman asked. “I’m Dara. Thank you for helping out. Things weren’t looking good there for a while. We were already a bit messed up when we ran into these guys.”

I didn’t have a mirror, obviously. I couldn’t pan a camera around to see myself. I felt my face with my fingers--the flesh ones. About half my face was steel skull. Wonderful. I didn’t look Terminator enough, huh? I half expected a further Charisma reduction, so I checked. No change there, although Appearance had taken a hit from 10 to 6. Wonderful. Their Health bars were recovering about twice as fast as mine. I wondered if it would take magical healing to make me look normal again. All the more motivation to find that elf cleric, huh?

“So, what happened?” I asked. Dara wasn’t bad looking, but unless she liked her men shiny I suspected flirting wasn’t going to go far.

“We were out scouting. We ran into some trouble and was on our way back to report it when we ran into these lovely individuals.”

Reck stood up with a groan. About half his health was back. “We should get moving.”

“Where are you headed?” I was pretty sure I knew, but it never hurts to ask.

“Outcrop. The starport,” she explained, packing up her medical supplies. She hesitated, looking back and forth between Reck and me.

“You’re with the rebellion, right?” Hello there, elephant in the room,

“Yes. You’re at least no friend of the Federation?”

“No, I guess not.”

“Well, then here’s the thing,” she said, standing, “We have a hideout in the city. I’m not authorized to tell you where just yet. You can come with us to the gate, after that, if you want to be part of us, we’ll arrange a meet.”

“Well, are we going?” Reck asked.

It was still going to be quite a hike on foot, but the vehicles were way past repairing. So we hiked off. Reck set the pace, limping along, and we had no problems catching up. I felt more comfortable about all of it after finishing healing. My face was still about half missing. It had to have been a nasty sight.

“So, what’s the story here, anyway?” I asked when I got bored of the quiet and had seen enough mountain views to stop being impressed by it.

“With?”

“The Rebellion. How come?”

Dara squinted one eye and raised the other eyebrow, as if they had to balance each other out.

“I’m new here.”

“The Federation had kept things peaceful and good for a good hundred years or so. Now there are new rules all the time, each one more oppressive than the last. They’ve rotten from within with corruption. They want to control all interplanetary shipping. They board ships randomly for inspections, and confiscate cargos with new, trumped up charges. Licensing fees for all kinds of things. Increased taxes, increased surveillance and scrutiny. We stand for freedom and independence.”

I could understand that. I’d heard the story plenty of times in other settings, and not just games. I suppose my time in prison might have biased me a little. Still, not my mission.

“Head down,” Dara barked after about three hours of hiking. We all took cover where we could, glad we were off the sheer rock face with its barely wide-enough-to-walk-on trail.

Some kind of hover Jeep cruised by, with four soldiers on top and a laser machine gun on the bottom. It passed by at about a good running pace, not slowing down to investigate if anything had given away our hiding.

“There’s a mining operation not far from here. They arrest anyone who gets close.”

Now, that sounded like the thing that would involve a number of quests. That might be a good thing to keep in mind for later. I marked the current position on the map as “Mining Base Quests nearby.”

“Well, they say it’s a mining operation. But they have a lot of guards around it for something as simple as mining. No, there’s something there they don’t want anybody seeing. Classic Federation. Anywhere they don’t want you to go is off limits, trespassing.”

“Don’t get arrested,” Reck warned, coming out of a moping silence he’d been nursing, the hangover of grief, I suspected.

“Let me guess, no right to a trial?”

“Oh, that’s not it, you get a trial. Not even a show trial, at that. But they all happen at far away planets. So they can have an ‘impartial’ jury. Usually they’re on planets either nobody would want to live on or nobody can afford to live on. So there you are, halfway across the Federation, with nothing. Even if you’re found not guilty, you’re still stranded somewhere you either hate or can’t afford, and by this point you’ve got no job, so no income. Then they get you for vagrancy, or you end up in an indentured servitude.Vagrants tend to become fuel miners. You wanna guess the life expectancy of fuel miners?”

‘No, not really,” I freely admitted. They were really playing the recruitment angle. If I were here just to play, I’d have gone for it. “But I’m sorry, it’s not my mission. I’m here looking for someone.”

“A woman, with pointed ears,” I said, not sure if people in each World knew there were others.

“An elf?”

“Yes. She’s a healer. Her name’s Silleste.”

“Maybe she can fix your face,” Reck taunted.

“When we get in I’ll ask around. Maybe we can help you find her,” Dara offered, much more helpfully.

“I’d appreciate it.

By the time it got dark we still weren’t there. A cluster of flashing lights passed more or less overhead, a ship coming in.

“We should be there about noon tomorrow.” Dara shrugged out of her pack. We all picked smoother patches of ground to rest on. Dara passed out Ration Bars, which came with a Stamina buff I didn’t really need. Clearly what had been rationed to stretch as far as possible was flavor.

We all rested quietly as the darkness deepened faster than I expected. Stars came out brilliant diamonds against black velvet. One moved straight across the sky. It came across the same route once more before I fell asleep. Something in orbit. I couldn’t help but wonder if there was an actual ship or station up there, or if it was just a cosmetic feature.

The last thought I was aware of having before drifting of was, ‘Do we dream in the game?’