Gambit and Rick waited while Daniel retrieved the slightly damp hammer from behind the bush and took it to the blacksmith to turn in the quest. The smith barely cracked the door to take it. Even as he handed it over, Daniel was washed in a wave of light. He came back to Rick and Gambit with a big grin on his face.
"Level three! Now I'm caught up."
They had all shared in the experience from that quest. Rick didn't point out that he was only barely level three, while Rick and Gambit were nearly four. Still, it was good that Daniel was catching up.
There had been two quests on the board that looked like potentially easy combat quests, but the party agreed to get some rest. They returned to the inn and rented a room. The rental was party-based, with a flat fee. As soon as they paid, one of the doors on the back wall glowed and changed its description to "Your Room." Rick went over and tried the door. It opened easily. Inside were three beds and three chests.
While his endurance bar wasn’t completely drained, he was starting to feel the strain of the long day. He picked the bunk farthest from the door and stretched out, still wearing the tattered SpacecruiseR jumpsuit. He fell asleep almost immediately, without even unequipping his ship boots.
The next morning, Rick woke up feeling refreshed but hungry. Daniel was annoyingly chipper. Gambit seemed as determined as the night before. The quest had given them a few silver, so they purchased breakfast from the innkeeper. After a short wait, they were presented with hot plates of scrambled egg-like substance, though it was green. It came with some bright red sticks that turned out to be not unlike sausage and a cup of something almost, but not quite, entirely unlike tea.
After eating, they returned to the quest board where they spent a few minutes debating the relative merits of several of the offerings. Rather, Gambit and Rick argued, while Daniel stood to one side very conspicuously clasping his hands behind his back and not messing with the quest board in any way.
"I really think we should do one at a time,” Rick argued as he highlighted the three quests they were considering. One, to the north, asked them to locate a source of firewood for the town, while the other two were to the east, one to investigate a disappearance, while the second was to clear out a bandit camp in the same area.
“But these two are right next to each other. That means they’re probably designed to be done at the same time,” Gambit countered. “Otherwise, we’re going to go there, look for this lost Rork, and accidentally end up killing all the bandits when it turns out he’s tied up in their camp.”
Rick sighed. “You could be right. What about trying this firewood quest first?”
“It’s going to be one of those dumb quests where you have to cut down eighteen trees to get ten sticks of wood, guarantee it. Come on, it’s one bandit camp. How hard could it be?”
“Fine,” Rick conceded.
Next, they set about outfitting Daniel with a weapon. After a few minutes of debate, they settled on three points in ranged weapon proficiency, which granted him a skill called [Poison Arrow]. The ability had a twenty second recharge time, but in addition to its usual damage would add a lingering Slow effect to the target.
Daniel claimed to have never used a bow, but the system awarded a point of proficiency just for picking the thing up. After three draws of the string, it gave him another point. He had a base ‘Ranged Weapon Proficiency’ that was pretty high, and according to the text he read back to the others, it meant his basic arrows dealt 4 damage each. “I guess basic training was good for something in this crazy place..”
"Still, the system seems awfully generous," Rick commented. "That explains why I have three points in almost everything I've ever done."
The bow they bought with their limited funds allowed Daniel to shoot up to ten per minute. Gambit haggled until the shopkeeper threw in a cheap quiver. When inspected, it claimed to hold 50 arrows, though only three were visible. Every time Daniel pulled one out to shoot it, there were still three sticking out.
Minimal preparations complete, they made their way out of town to the east.
The road to the east wound through some rocks and then climbed up into a jumble of boulders. The red stones had lighter colored, almost pink patches, where they had broken away from the cliff face high above. The trail wound between narrow places, forming a path that would be perfect for getting ambushed.
Rick tried to climb the rocks to get a view from above, but slipped and fell twice before he stopped and compared skill points with Gambit. He was dismayed to find his Climb was only three while Gambit's was a four. The single more point allowed the other man to climb up the boulders easily. He earned another point before he reached the top, shouting the news back down to Rick and Daniel triumphantly.
Rick resolved to try every physical activity he could think of and level these stupid points up as quickly as he could. There was a smaller rock nearby, waist-high and not useful for getting up onto any of the surrounding boulders. While they waited for Gambit to report what he saw, Rick climbed it twice and earned another point of climb proficiency. The point assignment didn't seem to have much relation with how difficult tasks actually were.
"None of this makes actual sense,” he gripped to Daniel. “It’s like a game designed by geeks who never left their offices during daylight hours.”
“You’re the gamer nerd. I’m just going with it. My climb’s seven, by the way.”
“Seven?”
“Yeah. I did extensive rope work and canyoneering when I was deployed.”
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Rick glared at him but stopped short of asking why he hadn't volunteered to go up. Daniel seemed very out of place in this game world, overly cautious to try anything. Maybe it made sense for an ordinance disposal guy to be cautious and not jump in before he understood what was going on.
When Gambit returned to the ground, he described the area around them. "There's a camp of Rork bandits up ahead. At least, I think they’re Rorks. Four arms and lumpy heads, but the skin color's a bit different. There's maybe a dozen of them. They’re armed with long spears, no ranged weapons I can see."
"That sounds too dangerous," Daniel shook his head. “No way we can take on a dozen.”
"No, not really.” Gambit disagreed. “They're only level three and they're spread out. We should be able to take them one or two at a time."
Daniel gaped at him. "That's ridiculous. We kill one of them and they'll all come rushing."
“The camp looked well laid out for some clean pulls. I think we’ll be fine."
Rick trusted the veteran gamer's judgment, but Daniel seemed baffled.
As they got near the bandit camp, the rocks thinned out. They snuck closer, keeping boulders between them and the main camp. There was a sentry on a large boulder nearby, probably 12 feet above them.
"Don’t let him spot you,” Rick hissed to Daniel. “He’ll sound an alarm.”
Daniel immediately began to retreat back up the slope. Gambit grabbed his arm. “He can’t sound an alarm if he’s dead.”
“And how does he get dead? He’s way up there!” Daniel hissed, pointing.
“You shoot him with an arrow. Rick hits him with a force way. He’s only got…” Gambit peered, “eight HP. We can take him.”
Daniel was turning gray. He unslung his bow and nocked an arrow with shaking hands. His first arrow sailed past the Rork's ear, but the sentry didn't turn. His second thudded into the four-armed man's side. Rick immediately fired a Force Wave; the sentry was within his 18 meter range. The creature barely had time to gasp before the wave knocked him off his perch. He tumbled out of sight into the rocks beyond.
“Think we got him?” Daniel asked excitedly even as the experience notification popped up.
Gambit whistled. "I only have a sliver of experience left until level four!”
Rick thought he’d need to kill most of the camp before reaching four himself. They skirted the boulder, staying away from the camp, and looted the fallen sentry. The bandit dropped one silver, a spear, and a pair of tattered boots.
On seeing the loot, Daniel stopped looking so fearful. "This is great. Think what the whole camp will give us!"
They worked their way around until they found a pair of bandits around a fire at the edge of the camp. They were roasting sand rats on sticks. This time Daniel's first arrow struck a bandit squarely in the back. The mob lunged up. Rick's Force Wave knocked it face first into the fire. The bandit started to scream, but then the fire damage ticked and killed him. The wave of XP hit the party. Gambit glowed with light. There was a chime audible even to Rick’s ears.
The second bandit jumped up and rushed them with a shout. Gambit, still glowing from hitting level 4, met it with the point of the spear he had looted from the sentry and impaled the Rork halfway down the shaft. The bandit wasn't dead and snarled at Gambit while Daniel and Rick stood by, hesitating to fire so close to their companion. Gambit calmly punched the Rork in the face three times in rapid succession and then kicked it in the shins to take out the last of its health points.
"These things are easy," Daniel said as he picked up one of the spears. "Maybe we can just stick some of these spears in the ground and goad them into running into them."
"I don't think that would work," Rick said, but Gambit held up his hand.
“Wait, did you special forces guys learn anything about making traps?”
Daniel nodded. “Sure. I mean, I’m more an EOD but if you can take it apart, you can build it.”
“How many points do you have in traps?"
Daniel frowned as if that hadn’t occurred to him. His eyes got that far away look as he consulted his inner face.
"Ten," he said in wonder a moment later, "into trap making and fifteen into trap disarming."
"What about trap setting?"
"That wouldn't be..." He broke off. "Oh, yeah, it's there separately. Twelve."
Gambit rubbed his hands together and chuckled. "Oh, we have to try this."
He set about looting the two Rorks, then piled a dagger, a broken breastplate, their two spears plus the one he had looted into a stack in front of Daniel.
"So, what can you build with all this?"
Daniel stared at the pile and shook his head. "I don't think I...” His expression changed. He turned his head, looking at the pile from different angles. "Maybe if I had some rope?"
There was a pathetic little tent not far from the campfire. It looked too small for either of the Rorks to actually use, but it was staked down with thin cords. Rick and Gambit tore it down and turned it into scraps, adding them to the pile.
"Yeah, I guess I can make something now." Daniel shook his head. "Man, this makes no sense." He grabbed the pieces from the pile and set to work. The contraption he came up with looked ridiculous. It was a pile of spears, with their handles cut short and tied to each other with rope and strips of leather, as well as a few charred sticks from the fireplace. It didn’t look like much, but when Rick inspected it, it called itself a [Level 3 Spike Trap], and it boasted an impressive claim for damage.
“Oh, we have to try this immediately,” Gambit said.
Together they all went deeper into the rocks. They skirted around the camp, staying just out of sight while Rick and Gambit debated the merits of various positions. Finally, they selected a spot four feet across between two high boulders that made it a narrow bottleneck.
Daniel crouched and began setting the trap. A progress bar popped up over his head. “Look at that!” Rick said to Gambit. “That’s pretty cool.”
Daniel turned. “What? What are you talking about?” The progress bar paused.
“Forget it, concentrate on your trap,” Rick said.
When the bar was nearly full, Rick turned and crept toward the camp. At the end of the gap between bounders, he sighted in on the three Rorks close together at yet another fire ring. Rick lined up a Force Wave and let fly.
Then he turned and ran, rounding the boulder as the Rorks exclaimed and grabbed their weapon. The other two had fallen back, as planned, but the trap was gone. He stumbled and almost stopped running. Of course it was invisible. His own detect trap skill was 1. They should’ve marked the spot. They should’ve checked if allies would set it off. They had to start taking this more seriously or someone was going to get killed.
He took a flying leap over the place where he was sure the trap should be. His jump took him a good ten feet forward, but he stumbled on landing. Rick fell, rolled, and jumped up as the angry bandits charged into the bottleneck between the rocks.
The narrow passage forced the Rorks close together. It slowed them, but they didn’t stop. Two of them hit the trap’s location almost on top of each other.
Spears shot up out of the ground. A floating [-18] and [-20] drifted up as the Rorks took far more damage than their 10 health. They both exploded in a spray of gore.
Purple blood splattered the team. Daniel was so shocked that he didn’t react when the third Rork charged through the carnage and came at them. Rick hit it with a Force Wave just as it reached Gambit. The mob stumbled and Gambit whipped out a melee weapon.
The weapon was Rick’s Spine Feather Lizard. It looked absolutely ridiculous biting onto Gambit’s fist. He slammed it down on the Rork’s head. Its face disappeared in purple spray and it fell backward, dead.
A glow of light surrounded Gambit and Rick, then faded. They all stared around wide eyed at the horror around them. Daniel looked like he wanted to be ill.
Gambit was radiant. “That was freaking awesome! We’re going to need a lot more spears.”