Apotheosis was trying his luck with stealth. He’d always been intrigued by games that let you pick and choose abilities from a huge list, with no regard to what would actually be a viable build. Of course, more often than not, he’d end up back at the drawing board, visiting the expensive re-roll NPC and adopting some top-tier build he’d read about online. The latest ORBs rebalance, revision 7.0, was supposed to fix that age-old problem of having to min-max to achieve satisfying results in various situations. Time to see if it actually worked.
First he reflexively looked to check his streaming stats on Twitch.
Just to the left of his character’s name was the viewer count for this stream: 1. He knew it was Ella, supporting him as usual, as she went about the daily grind of crafting with her insanely leveled character Sintari. She’d been playing ORBs much longer than he had.
Focus, he thought. At least get some good gameplay video.
The Chtonik Keep loomed over him, an oily shadow just barely gleaming among its brethren in the dark of night. It might have been resplendent in the light, but the beauty of its walls and terraces, towers and spires was wasted in the darkness.
He’d planned for weeks to make this incursion into the Keep, and had been gathering Orbs to power his armor and spear for the attempt. Somewhere in there was an Epic Spear named Orthrus, after the monster that guarded it. The game’s wiki said the spear had five enchantment sockets, five power sockets (where Orbs would be inserted to make the thing functional) and a passive boost to Piercing Damage, +10%. It was an unusually hard boss to fight in a relatively low level area, and the world of ORBs was huge, drawing high level players off to distant places, so there were only a scarce number of Orthruses floating around the markets, all of them selling for a hefty price.
Going into it, Ape - everyone said his character’s name was too long, so he just let them call him ‘Ape’, even though Apotheosis sounded really cool when you said it right - knew he couldn’t take the fierce, two-headed demon dog Orthrus in a toe-to-toe fight at his current combat level of 50. But he also knew no streamer had ever attempted to steal the Epic Spear using Invisibility. If he pulled this off, he’d be an instant headline.
Whew, he breathed, wiping sweat off his brow before it seeped behind his VR display. I should invest in a headband. Alright, let’s do this.
In the region of Chtonia, it was always night-time, and a single gigantic spotlight pretended at the role of a moon, hanging far above from the deep cavern’s ceiling. Ape edged toward the Chtonik Keep in a Stealth stance, crouched low and moving almost silently. He’d had to remove his usual Plate Boots and wear some Enchanted Leather Moccasins instead. They were brown and hideous, not helped at all by the incongruous presence of Ley Wires lit up with the green energy of a Grasslands Orb to offer him Speed and Vitality. Ugly, but expensive, for Ape anyway.
There were no guards outside the Keep, and its moat was dry. The area’s habitual neglect from other players meant the wiki info on this place was a little lacking, but Ape had figured out that he could sneak into the lower levels by way of the dry moat bed, skipping the labyrinth of halls above. There was an open grate, barely concealed, that would give him access to an empty cellar. He’d have to wing it from there.
Ape dropped down into the moat and followed it around a corner to where the grate should be.
Right there, as promised, he thought.
Looking left, right, not believing it could be this easy, Ape slipped into the unsecured cellar. His avatar’s feet splashed in the puddles left by the draining of the moat, and his feedback gear tried to approximate wetness by getting colder around his actual feet. It was almost as uncomfortable as the real thing.
He crept toward the cellar door, still Stealthy, avoiding bones, pebbles and other detritus on the stone floor. Ape rested one hand on the slimy blocks of the wall, and gently pushed open the door. A mob had just walked by, a low level Skeleton Patroller with a measly combat level of 5. Its level and Health Points hovered over its iron-helmed skull, semi-transparent. He snuck out of the cellar to follow it and thrust his Silver Spear into it without hesitation.
Critical! 4983, the luminous orange damage numbers read.
The Skeleton Patroller rasped in an ethereal voice and threw its head back in anguish, bones crumpling to the damp floor in a pile, leaving its armor and sword behind. An obsessive part of him wanted to collect the loot, but it was so common as to be nearly worthless.
Focus on the mission.
Ape’s Silver Spear wasn’t too special, but he’d brought this rather than something more rare due to its increased effectiveness against Undead. The night kingdom of Chtonia was predictably crawling with such things, and he was pretty sure he wouldn’t need a fancier weapon this day. The spear’s single Power Orb was a perfect silver sphere Sintari had refined for him, and he tapped it habitually to check its charge - 9,990/10,000. Naturally. He’d barely even used it.
As the Skeleton’s remains faded away, a chime sounded and electric blue text appeared in the air above: Stealth XP + 30. Stealth up! Level 5. Ape tried not to look at the level number too long; he probably should have trained it up more before coming here…
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But shoe-stringing this was kind of the point.
Ape slew a few more Skeleton Patrollers for miniscule XP gain, and none of them had seen him Sneaking up. He rounded the next few corners and came upon a long, winding stair with dewy walls and torches burning with green flame. The sheen of a one-way barrier was just visible in the dim light. Once he entered, he’d have to nab the Spear of Orthrus without being detected, and use his Recall Gem to teleport back to the nearest village. If the Orthrus boss caught him, well, his chances at winning were nil.
Taking another deep breath, wiping his brow again, Apotheosis strode through the barrier and into the stairwell.
Orthrus was asleep on a central dais in the cold, cavernous room below, curled up with its heads on its paws just like a real dog. Ape appreciated that the simulated fur rustled gently in the faint current of air blowing in from the stairwell. Orthrus snarled groggily as it dreamed, most likely of all the noobs it had and would ever consume, their virtual guts heavy in its large belly. High alcoves ran all along the circular wall, but none offered a place to hide. On the far side of the room stood a single statue, headless and one-armed, holding the Spear in its remaining hand. The Epic weapon gleamed in Ape’s sight like a precious thing.
Ape glanced at the Invis spell on the right of his Hud, and the eye tracker in his headset registered the command. His avatar became transparent, showing only a slight distortion of the air so he could see his own limbs and weapon.
He snuck around to the right, hugging the wall, moving painfully slow. No sense rushing this. Orthrus showed no signs of detection.
Keeping his cool was excruciating, the seconds dragging on as if he were experiencing a moment of shock or emergency. Finally he reached the statue that held the Spear, and he reached for it, heart racing.
The chest-piece of his feedback gear vibrated violently as it registered an attack, and for a moment Ape was certain he’d awoken the Orthrus. Then he saw his health drop to 10% as a huge Dragonslayer arrow pierced him through, its head sticking so far out of his body he could have craned his neck to lick it.
That was a weird thought.
Before he could turn toward the stairwell or claim the loot, a second arrow impaled him, his avatar’s blood running freely down his apparently useless armor. He fell to the floor, feedback gear shaking his knees, then his side. Ape was in Bleed-out mode, with no one to Resuscitate him. How had anyone seen him? Must have been a Detection spell. Now his Invis was nullified by entering combat. He sighed, heart still pounding, and looked dejectedly toward the stairs.
A bow-wielding Exfiltrator in ridiculously loud Diamond Plate Armor stood there, taking careful aim at Orthrus. He had knocked two of the long, thick arrows, and released them with a thwoop!
Critical! 150,207
Critical! 150,323
Those were insane hits.
The two-headed dog awoke just long enough to release a mournful howl, each of its skulls sprouting an arrow and streaming dark blood, and then it fell in a heap, one rear paw twitching as its life ended.
“You one-shot it?” Ape asked incredulously. His avatar’s voice synthesizer garbled his voice, reflecting the pain of his injuries.
The Exfiltrator flipped up his heavily stylized faceplate and grinned. Ape flicked his eyes upward and his killer’s name was revealed - Deuces. It figured…
Deuces stepped up to the corpse of Orthrus and skinned it. The pelt would be worth a small fortune to Ape, probably pocket change to this guy.
“How’d you even know it had respawned?” Deuces asked, coming nearer.
“It, what? It’s on a timer?” Ape asked stupidly.
Deuces laughed. “Noob.”
“I’m not a noob,” Ape protested. “I’ve been playing for a year.” He was furious, but trying not to show it.
Deuces laughed again, put a fist proudly to his chest and said, “Alpha!”
Seventeen stinking years? Ape balked. Even Sintari had only been playing for eight or so. Ape had always thought people would grow out of the game at some point.
Deuces loomed over Apotheosis, looked down and said, “Cool name bro,” and reached up to take the Orthrus Spear. It was glorious, shaft made of alternating gold and silver segments, with an ornate relief of Orthrus’s two heads, their tongues lolling out of their mouths and melding together to form the foot-long head of the spear. Ape stared longingly as Deuces collapsed the spear into its sheathed form, just a single segment long so it could be stored on his belt.
Deuces knelt next to him and Ape groaned, “Nah man, come on… You got the spear already.”
Full loot drop in competitive online games had been outlawed as gambling and bullying several years before, but Foxhole, the developers of ORBs, were still allowed to include a partial drop. A player’s killer could take his prey’s Orbs right out of their slots, and from his inventory, but none of his weapons, armor, or other items. This essentially left a victim classless until he could be Resuscitated or respawn, and get new Orbs to power his gear. He’d be able to defend himself to some degree, since all armor still had base stats, but any meaningful play would be effectively suspended until more Orbs had been slotted.
“Welcome to ORBs, bud,” Deuces said as he casually plucked the Orbs from each and every one of Ape’s power and enchantment slots. The armor emptied, Deuces inspected the Silver Spear and whistled as he extracted its shining Orb.
“Nice work man, you do this?” he asked. Ape shook his head.
“It’s a Sintari,” Ape said. “Check the info.”
“Ah, too bad, I woulda brought you into the guild,” Deuces winked. He drew a shortsword from his side and let its blade extend. It was a nice piece, with the blacksmith stamp of NotHatori just above the hilt.
Ape groaned again. Would the humiliation never cease?
This was the other concession made to hardcore PVPers in the game. Besides being able to take all of their prey’s Orbs, one’s murderer also had the option to mutilate their opponent in the goriest ways possible. This had to have been Ape’s worst stream ever.
As Deuces began to methodically, joylessly, dismember Ape from fingers to toes, Sintari pinged Ape with a /whisper.
“That really sucks, man.”