The Games of Nuva
Chapter 1
Rules of the Game
Captain Logan took a step forward and thrust out the round shield strapped to his left arm. The edge struck a goblin on the bridge of the nose, and the creature dropped its sword to grasp its face. Logan ran his straight sword through its heart, not stopping to pick up the inferior goblin sword, and kept walking to the next goblin. Logan blocked a clumsy overhand swing, and in a single side swing decapitated the short vermin. Logan looked to his right to see his lieutenant wipe his sword on a different dead goblin’s corpse. To his left another squad member chopped off a goblin hand, the hand and copper sword both dropping to the cave floor. After a quick thrust to the heart, the woman stooped down to pick up the goblin sword.
“I told you before we entered to leave the loot until the end.”
Logan huffed and continued down the tunnel. He didn’t look behind him but he knew who followed his footsteps: closely followed the woman, then his lieutenant, then three more axe wielding dwarves, and finally two elf archers. The squad came to the final battle in the maze of tunnels. In a large, open cavern were four hobgoblins, twenty goblin warriors clad in iron armor, and the queen.
She stood ten feet tall, and had even more magic than the dreaded hobgoblins. The four hobgoblins pointed their staffs towards Logan’s squad and all eight members dove out of the way. Blizzard 2, Shock 2, Flame 2, and Poison 1 flew at the squad. Logan and the two elves rolled to a kneeling position and pointed at the spells, and they all yelled “Dispel shield!”
Three translucent magic shields appeared, each magic shield eight feet by eight feet. Three of the hobgoblin spells hit the shields and lost half their potency before striking Logan and the elves. Logan was hit with a minor form of Blizzard and his body shivered, but he only lost 13 health points. One of the elves suffered a minor electric shock, and the other caught a common cold and began coughing and sneezing. The human woman didn’t cast her shield spell in time and a fireball impacted her chest, superheating her iron cuirass. She screamed in pain and cut off the straps, dropping the plate armor to the ground.
The goblin warriors closed ranks around their queen, and she cast a Poison 3 spell at Logan’s entire squad. A thick green and black cloud flowed out of her outstretched hand, and the humans, dwarves, and elves scrambled to get out of the way. Dispel shields wouldn’t have much effect against a spell this powerful.
The poison cloud engulfed a dwarf, and she clutched her gut and liquids dripped out of both ends. The human woman also didn’t move in time, still in pain from the scorch on her chest. The elf archer who got a mild dose of Poison 1 also got trapped in the gas cloud. The other elf rolled out of the way in time and began unleashing arrows at the hobgoblins.
The goblin warriors remained standing in front of the queen, and the hobgoblins ran away from the elf’s projectiles. The remaining two dwarves, Logan, and his lieutenant rushed the warrior goblins. Dwarf battle axes easily cut into the goblin iron armor. Logan was more strategic and stabbed them in the joints of the armor, easily dodging clumsy counterstrikes. The lieutenant chased the hobgoblins, and he got hit with a few minor spells before all four were headless.
The queen kicked one of the goblin warriors in front of her, and the goblin flew into Logan, knocking him down. Logan dropped his sword, grabbed the goblin under an armpit and rolled it off him, tossing the three foot goblin a few feet away. When he got to his feet again, Logan saw the two dwarves had killed another six goblins. Logan pointed at the queen and cast spells at her in rapid order. “Ice one, lightning one, fire one.”
All he had to do was point at his target and say the name of the spell, and his hand would tingle for a half second before the spell shot out of his finger.
The queen cast her own dispel shield, fully blocking all three spells, but that wasn’t the point. Logan’s intention was to get her to drain all of her mana.
With the queen fully occupied with Logan, and the hobgoblins dead, the remaining elf had easy target practice at the remaining goblin warriors, assisting the blood thirsty dwarves. Soon the entire squad was pummeling a magic shield the queen had cast around herself. Once that shield fell, axes, swords, and arrows finished her off.
Logan walked back to the three sick squad members. “I don’t have heal three, only heal two. You’re going to have to live with that dysentery until we get back to the village.” Looking at the others he said “Loot anything you want in here. I’m heading home. Remember ten percent of your spoils go to the mayor, and remember Brun is watching.” Logan picked up his sword, cleaned it with a rag, and walked out of the tunnels to the exit. He put his earned experience points into stamina, bringing it to 31/90.
Gary was leaning against a four foot tall stone wall. “Your feet are too close together and your grip is too tight.”
The man didn’t look at Gary, but spread his legs far too wide and loosened the grip on his sword so much he dropped it. His opponent smashed him on the top of the helmet so hard the man dropped to the sand. Gary shook his head. “You’re lucky he’s using a wooden sword. If that had been a steel sword, you would be unconscious. Get up and try again.”
The man crawled to his hands and knees and glared at the old soldier. He was about to speak, but Gary cut him off. “Don’t you dare give me that look young whelp. Listen to my advice and become a warrior, or pack up and find a job washing dishes.”
As the man stood up and the two trainees faced off again, Gary patted the sword strapped to his waist. He was old, too old to use it effectively anymore. He was a hundred and fifty-one when the first human was born on this planet, and that was a hundred and ten years ago. His strength and stamina had dropped considerably in the last couple of decades, but he knew more about swordsmanship than anyone else, except of course the three overseers. He was the only one left alive of the original squad after the tyters made the three immortal. Gary’s squad members Joe, Tyler, and Nikko had died years ago.
The three overseers, Torger, Rome and Brun, still visited him as often as they could, but none of them wanted to tell the other humans the truth about their origins. The three had been brought here to Nuva to be hunted by the tyters, but a group of seven humans had won the hunt. Four returned to Earth, and the three became demigods of this planet for their victory in the hunt. These men were now wizards, powerful enough to wipe out all life on Nuva if they chose, but the three were also the best of friends, and Nuva was in a golden age as humans had populated the planet over the past hundred and ten years, the oldest two thousand humans having been spawned by the tyter’s technology.
Torger sat in the top of his tower and looked through his scrying globe and saw his favorite pastime, baseball. A young woman was teaching human children and dwarf children how to play.
Sax called out “Your feet are too close together and your grip is too tight.”
The dwarf spread his feet too far apart and loosened his grip until he dropped the bat. Sax shook her head but had a big smile on her face. The dwarf picked up the bat and swung at the next pitch. A crack of the bat and he ran to first base.
A couple hundred miles away Torger watched and still thought it was funny how dwarves run, their short legs pumping fast, unable to take long graceful strides. But it was fair to have human and dwarf children play together, since both were three and a half feet tall. Humans grew until they were eight years old, and dwarves until they were fifteen, and on Nuva they would never gain height or strength until they invested ability points into strength, or worked very hard to earn a strength point. Dwarves never grew taller but grew thick legs and large round chests with strength points, but humans grew one inch in height every time they invested into their strength stat, and all their muscles became ten percent stronger for each point invested, but both races capped at a strength of twenty.
The next pitch hit a human boy in the face and broke his nose. He began crying as blood flowed freely. Sax pointed at him and said “Cure one.”
A golden light flew out of her silver staff and the boy’s nose straightened back to its original shape. Sax walked over and wiped the blood off his face. “It’s alright. As long as you’re near a healer like me you can’t get seriously hurt. Keep an eye on the ball and hit this one back at the pitcher.” She gave the kid a wink.
The kid wanted to look brave in front of everyone and held back some of the tears.
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Aspen called out “Flank them. There are too many to my right.”
She shot another goblin in the face. “Get over there now. They’re surrounding us!”
She shot another goblin and another, each arrow quickly released and with pinpoint accuracy. The melee fighters were breathing heavy. Their armor was too heavy for this big of a tunnel network. She kept releasing arrows as fast as she could, but a couple dozen goblins remained, and the mages were out of mana. Clearing this dungeon had taken over two hours. The scouting reports had been… misleading.
The four tired dwarves ran to get to the mages, but were too tired and too slow. Ten goblins began hacking at the two elf mages, and by the time help arrived, the spell casters were dead.
Aspen surveyed the battle scene and saw the dwarves could barely lift their axes anymore. All mana and stamina potions had been used in this dungeon, and in a minute she would be alone. Aspen saw a ledge on a wall above her head. She climbed up the rocks as she heard copper goblin swords bounce off dwarf steel armor. By the time she climbed into the small raised alcove, seven more goblins and the last four dwarves were dead. The goblins then turned and ran at her, but these were all regular goblins; all the warriors, hobgoblins, and the queen were already eliminated.
She couldn’t stand up in the small space, being six feet off the ground and with a ten foot cave ceiling. In a crouched position she plucked off one creature after another, but ran out of arrows with two foes remaining. The nearest one jumped up and swung its sword, and cut her forearm. She flinched from the pain, then set down her bow and withdrew a dagger from her waistband. The next time the goblin jumped up, she grabbed the sword and wrenched it out of its grasp, deeply slicing her hand in the process. As expected, the unarmed goblin turned around to pick up another sword from its dead kin, but Aspen threw her dagger and the blade stuck in its back. It didn’t die, but rolled on the ground trying to pull out the metal. The other remaining goblin jumped up and sliced her boot, but the leather took most of the damage and she only bled a little from her shin.
She then picked up her bow, and the next time the goblin jumped, she jammed an end of the bow into its face. She gracefully jumped down from her perch and kicked the goblin. Aspen picked up a discarded goblin sword and decapitated both injured monsters. As soon as the last one died, a message came into her vision.
Worldwide alert. All goblins on Nuva have been exterminated.
Rome sat in the top of his tower, watching Aspen’s fight through his scrying globe. He smiled broadly as the last goblin on the planet had finally been extinguished. Now the golden age could truly pick up pace.
Rome was the lord overseer of the eastern realm, Brun was in the middle, and Torger in the west. As part of the agreement with the tyters, they were responsible for maintaining balance in each of their realms. When they were hunted as tyter prey more than two hundred years ago, there were no humans on Nuva, goblins were beginning to swarm the whole planet, dwarves and elves had an uneasy truce with each other, and villages across the planet were small and scattered.
Since the three overseers took over, they united the dwarves and elves and treated the planet as a massive city building game. Commerce was booming, trade relations were open, and unemployment was low. Most importantly was that globally speaking, morale was an astonishing 89/100. It had been 24/100 when they started their reigns.
It took the tyters a little over a hundred years from the hunt to start spawning humans, and they started with a thousand men and a thousand women. Nuva now had fifteen towns in each realm, with humans, dwarves, and elves living in harmony with each other.
A privilege of being a wizard was that Rome could see and hear anything within his realm through his scrying globe, and he could teleport to anywhere on Nuva instantly. An advantage of being infused with tyter DNA was that he could respawn if he died, which he hadn’t since becoming an overseer.
A disadvantage of the position was that he received a message for every prayer of every human directed to him. The first time it happened it was shocking, but endearing that one of the first native humans was asking for his help. Within a month he was receiving hundreds of requests a day, and sent a worldwide message that he would answer only one prayer per day. Torger and Brun had done the same thing. The messages he received were minimized in the corner of his vision, and the ones he sends can be targeted to specific people or to everyone, and written text rolls across their vision whether they want it to or not. He thought about the message he just sent, saying all goblins are now dead.
Rome walked to a wall and spoke to an enchanted bronze mirror hanging on the wall. “Brun, can you hear me? Are you there?”
“Yes Rome, I’m here. What’s up?”
“We did it. All the goblins are dead.”
“Great! I’ll tell Torger.”
The Ley Line didn’t allow him to cast a spell that would reach all the way to Torger, so Brun, being the middle kingdom overseer, had to be a go between for the outer two realms to talk.
The problem with having three humans as wizards was that some of the dwarves and elves complained that they weren’t represented fairly, but that was beyond the wizards’ control. They were essentially middle management under the tyters.
The tyters supreme technology allowed them to terra form Nuva once every three years and a squad of tyters would hunt their prey, then would leave for the next three years. All roads, aqueducts, and sentient beings not in the protection of a village shield would be destroyed during the terra forming process. But the dwarves had become fast at rebuilding the roads and aqueducts. This hunt cycle made the land of Nuva into pleasant grass covered rolling hills, not like a couple years ago when it was desolate rocks and unbearably hot. No matter what the land looked like for each tyter hunt, the land was always a single land mass, the rest of the planet covered in ocean.
As Rome was thinking these things, a pale green light surrounded him, and he was teleported to the tyter mother ship in orbit around the planet.
Torger, Graul, and Rome all appeared at the same time, standing in a conference room they had seen many times before. Commander Karzik sat in a chair, across from the three wizards. Two tyters sat to his right, and two to his left. Tyters are eight foot tall bipedal lizards, with stubs of tails, and each hand has one middle finger and two thumbs, and their skin is dark grey and green scales. Their faces look like apes, but also covered in scales, and they have six antennae on their heads.
Torger was the first to get his bearings. “Thanks Karzik for not removing our clothes during these unexpected meetings. At first it was uncomfortable standing before this council completely naked, but we got used to it. The last century you’ve allowed us to stay dressed. So what is today’s meeting about?”
The tyter on the far right roared. “You grow too bold, prey, speaking to your superiors like that. Apologize to the great commander.”
Karzik waved him off. “We have more important things to discuss than formalities and pleasantries. You have failed in your roles, humans. The goblins are dead, and the land has become unbalanced.”
“They’re vermin and we did the world a favor!” spat Brun. He never did get over his time as a goblin slave.
“That is how you see them,” continued Karzik, “but they are nearly intelligent, certainly sentient. More than that, they provided experience for young dwarves, humans, and elves to level up. Now they will hunt our prey, robbing them of accumulated experience points, and making our hunts more boring. We will need to bring more goblins here, or another species, for your puppets to hunt.”
“Not more goblins,” complained Brun. “How about making a section of the planet a home for billiks or simmets, or something low level like that?”
Karzik nodded. “Fine. No goblins. We have goblins on ten other planets. But that’s a minor inconvenience. More importantly are the humans.”
The three overseers cringed. They were hoping this day wouldn’t come, but they could see as clearly as the tyters that something had to be done.
Karzik continued. “They are breeding faster than we expected, and their mortality rate is too low. The dwarves and elves don’t start having children until their fifties or sixties, but the humans start in their teens or twenties. That would be fine if more of them died from monsters. We will remove the humans during the next terra forming.”
“No! You can’t just eliminate an entire race!” yelled Rome.
Karzik raised an eyebrow, or would have if he had an eyebrow to raise. “You just eliminated an entire race.”
“But they’re our own kind,” retorted Rome.
Karzik looked at him. “One of the three races has to go. Dwarves make great metal weapons, and elves give huge spell bonuses to those weapons, and humans are wise enough to keep them cooperating. Eliminating the humans will eliminate the production of these high level swords, axes, and bows, and mortality rates will rise again.”
“What if you made the humans weaker?” asked Torger.
The tyters communicated with each other silently by waving the six antennae on the tops of their heads. Karzik spoke again. “We will remove all magic from the humans. That should cause many more of them to die during monster hunts.”
The wizards cringed again. As top ranked spell casters they saw eliminating everyone’s spells to be an atrocity. Karzik continued “We will also make half of all humans infertile.”
Torger shook his head. “It seems one of the races has to go, but we should make a competition to see which one gets their spell caps and fertility rates cut in half.”
Karzik countered “The humans are not as great at spells as the elves are, but in a couple hundred years they will be almost as good at metal working as the dwarves. But your idea of a competition sounds intriguing. Each race will lose some of their power, depending on how well they do during the games. What did you have in mind?”
“I want the winning race to have no power taken away. The winning race still has a three hundred year life span, with current strength, stamina, health, mana, and spell level caps. The last place race gets their fertility and caps cut in half, and the middle ones lose ten percent from their caps.”
“The humans have too much of an advantage as they can figure out tricky situations and adapt. We will give big strong beasts to the dwarves to fight, and magically powerful monsters for the elves to fight. The humans must fight both.”
“That’s not fair!” complained Brun. “They should all have to fight all the monsters.”
Rome nodded. “Make this planet the same as the training zone we were at, TZ eighteen, and squads have to clear all sixteen caves.”
Karzik thought about it. “This competition will be great for our viewers to watch on our home planet. They will be glued to the hologram centers to watch these battles. But a few rules. First is you can’t tell them anything is at stake. To the three races it’s just a game. Second, all squad members get reset to level one. Third, the experience and ability point system will be similar to the training zones, not like how it works on Nuva. And fourth, only one human squad can enter the competition. Regardless of the outcome of the game, humans will suffer some hindrance to their exponential growth. If not infertility, then shorter life spans. As it is, each woman could have a hundred kids during her life.”
The wizards complained about the rules, but they were overruled. When the discussion finally ended, each squad would have only four members but the overseers could hand select their squad, and the overseers could eliminate any squad that hindered or helped another squad.