CHAPTER 11: FIRST DEATH

I walked out into the plains. My first encounter went well. I did some ranged damage to soften up the beast and then drew my axe on the cat as it approached. I only had 14 damages, much better than yesterday. I recovered my hit points as I moved from one encounter to the next. I made sure only to fight one cat at a time. I was headed west, away from town. I was looking at a herd of five deer when six orcs appeared fully armored, rising out of grass that was much too short to hide them. This must be some stealth skill.

“Human. We are looking for some thieves. We think they are in the village to the east of here. You came from there. Have you seen them?” Ah, shit. Figures. I now wished I had taken that damn speed amulet so I could run the fuck away. Coulda, woulda, shoulda.

“I don’t know, what did they look like?” I asked, stalling. But then the orc next to him elbowed him and pointed at my bracelet. Double shit. If I had been kind to Kytalia and let her keep everything, I would have had a chance of getting out of this. Now I was fucked, karma for taking it had just bitten me in the ass.

The orcs all drew their weapons, some kind of scimitar. I gripped my axe. “Human, it appears you know exactly who I am talking about.” I extremely doubted my speed was faster than any of these guys, and they also had bows on their backs anyway. I had no way out of this but waited for them to make the first move. The speaker then said the words I feared, “Kill him!”

I would like to say I put up a good fight, but that was not the case. I landed two blows on the leader and one on a subordinate before I died. I learned the scouting party’s levels, at least as their blows pummeled me. One level 20, four level 15, and one level 14.

YOU ARE DEAD, RESSURECTION TIMER 60:00

Well, that was a FUBAR on my part. Overconfident, stupid. The timer counted down while I waited in what appeared to be a doctor’s office waiting room. Some light music played. I would say it sounded like elevator music. Simba appeared on a couch. And looked at me with a serious cat expression, “So you died? How does it feel?”

I looked at myself. I only had my bag of holding and my clothes. My magic items and my weapons were gone, as was my pitiful armor. I wanted to get angry, but it was only one person’s fault, mine. “I am ok, but as soon as I get out of here, I am going to get some revenge.”

I was able to open my interface. I sat down on the couch and worked on my village map. I was able to parcel land for housing. Each lot in the ‘city’ would be 50 feet by 100 feet. It was big enough for a house and a small garden in the back. I made road maps through the main town. Then, I placed large lots for commercial buildings. They lined the road where the inn was scheduled to be built on my lot.

The general store had a few lots of housing between it and the new commercial district, but oh well. Then, I thought I would build the commercial district buildings to have housing on the second and third floors, making them multi-purpose. This would allow us to concentrate the population for protection and interaction. I zoned some out lands for farming and livestock, 4 acres for each, which the game noted as the best size for a family of four to work. I only had six plots of farmland inside the future walls. The rest were outside the walls. I had just finished the 40th farm lot when my timer expired.

YOU WILL BE RESURRECTED AT YOUR LAST FLAGGED POINT

I was worried because I had not flagged a point yet but relieved as I appeared in my bedroom. Simba came with me. I went to the general store and bought the only axe she had. I then found Galana and told her we were going orc hunting. On the path to the tower, I told her what had happened. I told her the orc levels and believed we could take them.

She tried to stop me, but I was too angry. Her concern was an ambush. Had I seen all the orcs? Where were their horses? I got to the tower and summoned the guards to me. I told them the plan was to find orc and kill orc. Galana looked unhappy the entire time.

The two remaining sentries at the top of the tower yelled riders coming. We all scrambled up to the top, and the building felt more like concrete now instead of wood from Sanso’s work. I told eight men to wait at the trap door. That put just the two guards, Galana and me, on the tower. Sure enough, six orc riders approached slowly, riding massive mounts. The mounts looked like jet-black Clydesdales. The horses looked fit and muscular as well. I was impressed and wanted one…or six. I stood behind Galana so they wouldn’t recognize me. The orc leader spoke first.

“We have come for our kin. Turn them over, and we will do you no harm.” Standing behind Galana, I spoke.

“Do you attack all travelers you find out in the plains?” I then stepped from behind Galana for my big reveal. The orc leader fidgeted for a second. Galana motioned for the archers to come up and stay low so they could not be seen from where the orcs were on the ground. The orc responded.

“So you are an outworlder. It matters not. You were weak, and we slew you easily, and we will do it again and again until you return to us what is ours.” He was yelling by the end. I got to the edge of the tower and noticed all the orcs were ready to attack.

“I have two words for you,” I said, pointing my finger at him, “Kill him!” My archers stood up, and the barrage of arrows took down the leader. Three earth elementals emerged from the earth behind the orcs and detained two of the mounts. “Try to spare the horses!” I told my archers as the orcs began to fall.

Stolen from its rightful author, this tale is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings.

Galana was deadly. The sound of her arrows hitting was heavy and echoed with a loud thud. Two of the bastards turned and fled. The archers took one down, and Galana got an arrow into the other, but he stayed in his saddle and continued galloping away out of range. Shit, I had a feeling his getting away was going to be a bad thing down the line. I briefly thought of hopping on a steed and pursuing him, but I had no idea how to ride.

I descended the tower and went over to the corpses. I found my lost gear on the leader in a bag on his hip. I took it and returned it to my person. Two militia helped me loot the corpses. In all, they had 92 silver and 242 copper. I handed out two silver to each of the militia and pocketed the rest of the silver and copper for the town coffers. I also got two minor magic rings.

Black Onyx Ring of Health, +2 constitution, +100 health

Brass Braided Ring of Endurance, +3 stamina

Galana took the rest of the non-magical gear into the tower that was now our ‘armory,’ and I put the rings on. Guess I needed to build a barracks with an armory. So many things to do. I was also prompted to learn a new skill called analysis. I went to the wiki to find out what it did. It allowed me to identify items and also to get information about enemies in combat. Only unique, scarce, epic, legendary, and artifact items needed the analyze skill.

Analyze could also be used on anything. For creatures and NPCs, you had to be at an equal or higher level than the creature being analyzed. Leveling up the analyze skill helped. It was intelligence-based, so I would get a little magic when it gained a new tier. I had wanted the skill but had left it off my preferred list for some reason. I accepted as it seemed useful. I didn’t want to start combat only to find out my opponent was ten levels higher.

Analyze, Level 1, Tier 1, +1 Intelligence, success in analyzing creatures up to one level higher than current level

So, being level nine meant I could successfully read information up to level 10 on a person or creature. I tried the skill on the tower.

Guard Tower belonging to the village of Malcum. This building is made of petrified wood. Health 5000, Armor 40.

I noticed a small lizard nearby and analyzed it.

Gray Grass Gecko, Level 1, Health 2, Experience 1, Attack: None, Defense 0

I turned to one of the big horses and tried.

Black Mountain Steed, Level ??, Health ??, Experience ??, Attack ??, Defense ??

So, the horse was at least level 11. My soldiers were waiting for instruction as I had been distracted playing with my new skill. I had Galana reduce the guards to just four in the tower for the next two days. We would do excursions into the plains to level up as much as possible to prepare. I had a feeling we were going to need to get stronger quickly.

As we walked back to the village with the horses, I began analyzing everything.

Galana Hearthome, Giantkin: Storm, Level ??, Health ??, Experience ??, Attack ??, Defense ??

Shantil Crestvale, Human: Common, Level 7, Health 355, Experience 250, Attack: 25-65, Defense 24

Gregor Waterhouse, Human: Common, Level 7, Health 385, Experience 260, Attacks: 28-56, Defense 24

Very interesting. All the militia were either level seven or eight. At least the ones walking with Galana and me. The analysis skill gave a quick overview of a creature that would allow one to decide if it was capable of being defeated. I tried to analyze myself.

Tallis, Level 9, Health 705, Experience 405, Attack: 26-132, Defense 10

From this, I was able to figure out that it included my stone bullet damage as the minimum and my axe as the maximum. It would have been nice to see the attacks broken down, but oh well. My crappy defense was a big concern now. My militia had a better defense than me. I needed to upgrade.

I looked at the wiki. The defense was divided by ten to give armor before other modifiers. Armor reduced damage from each attack by that many points. Some attacks could ignore armor as well, and some special defenses added armor versus specific attacks. The defense also had another component. It reduced the percentage of damage.

The baseline was 1000 points of defense, which equaled 10%. Did that mean 10,000 defense individuals were immune to damage? It said up to 50% max here, but the higher defense would still add to the armor. Still, that meant someone with 5000 defense would only be damaged by attacks that did over one thousand points each hit. Damn, one could dream. There are lots of layers to the mechanic, and it is somewhat confusing for having just looked at it. I would figure it out more at another time…

I continued to analyze everything from grass to bugs to individual pieces of gear on the way back. How did I ever live without this skill? It was a lot quicker than going to the wiki every time.

When we got to town, the elf, orc, and human children were playing some kind of hide-and-seek game. Simba looked to be hunting a mouse, and I guess he had upgraded from insects. Villagers were going about their daily lives. Looking around, it felt real, and I wanted to protect this.

There was a commotion when the horses were led in. The children were excited, the orcs looked fearful, and the humans were inquisitive. I announced that if anyone knew how to care for horses, they would be my new Master of Horses. No one stepped forward. Did anyone want to learn?

Every child suddenly volunteered, and two teenage-looking elves were among them. I told the children they could get jobs when they got older but gave the responsibility to the sibling elves for now. The two elves were Opheela and Trista. They appeared 14ish to a human, but as elves in this game, they were probably older. The massive black steeds dwarfed them. The horses seemed to respond well to them, though.

I called in Jaesmin from digging, and together, we went to my mill to get lumber to build a fenced pasture. It took the rest of the day, but we got a two-acre sturdy enclosure built next to the mill. With horses secured, the elf girls brought them water and grain. They were so excited about their new duties. The horses were also very calm around both of them, so I hoped the elven teens would not get injured as their dad would kill me.

I went to my house with Jaesmin, and she prepared a meal while I was at my drafting table. I spent the evening designing a stable with twenty stalls. It would be stone for the first three feet of the walls and then wood for the remainder. It was more like an old-fashioned barn with the stalls facing each other and a wide central walkway. The loft would have hay and grain storage. Unfortunately, I didn’t have enough lumber to build it. We had enough for a chicken coop after the fence for the horses today. I was getting frustrated with the lack of materials, but I could do nothing.