Today’s Earth date: July 31, 1991

As a Paladin, it looks like I get the following buffs as a default:

-A status menu that feels like it’s from Final Fantasy

-Knowledge of how to use a sword and a shield

-A Heal spell

-A Paladin ability that raises the defense of my party

-A Paladin ability that banishes undead

Two of the Chosen Heroes, one boy and one girl, are refusing to participate. They were on board originally, but the first goblin they saw decapitated turned them off. The scholars are insisting it’s destiny and whatnot, but they haven’t left their rooms for a few days.

Can’t say that I blame them. The violence is a lot to take, and it’s very clear to us that dying here is easier than dying in a video game.

-The Journal of Laszlo the Paladin

***

Pirates! and Railroad Tycoon were not as much of a waste as Wayne feared.

For Pirates!, this entry appeared under a new menu option labelled Skills:

Fencing – Gives you well-trained reflexes that make enemy actions and reactions seem sluggish by comparison.

It didn’t change any of the stats he could see, but he could feel an innate understanding of swordplay when he held a weapon. The style was quite different from what the soldiers in this world taught him, which was an adjustment. Everything he learned from Pirates! was for, well, pirates. Far more swashbuckler than knight, a fast and loose fighting style instead of one meant for facing foes with platemail.

The catalog blurb for Railroad Tycoon read:

Your ambition. Your control. Your railroad. You are an early 1800’s entrepreneur when factories are rising, the population swelling. There’s opportunity for phenomenal wealth and power. Big Business. Big decisions. Big excitement.

Big excitement was a strange descriptor to attach to a railroad management simulator, so Wayne braced for the worst.

Railroad Tycoon added a “Display” option to his menu. He could toggle the following on or off:

Regional Display – This display shows the entire world chosen for your game.

Turning the toggle on gave him a heads up display. Like he wore AR glasses, a small 8-bit map followed his vision, and he could position it where he preferred. He went upper right. The display was fairly simplistic pixel art, but it was more detailed than most of the handdrawn maps he’d seen so far in this world.

That was a pretty good get, actually. Better navigation skills could only be beneficial for a long journey around this world.

Like his other game entries, the new titles each had five rows of [Locked] listed for each.

With those two new additions to his system, finding and slaying goblins was disturbingly easy, giving him the feeling of a kid nuking ants with a magnifying glass. His sword always found its mark, drawing blood and parrying goblin attacks with ease. His new Regional Display made the forest easier to negotiate, and he found himself grinding far more efficiently as a result.

The only way grinding would have been easier was for Regional Display to show enemies as well, but it didn’t. Only map.

As he hoped, using a sword put Power Ring to use, and the Fencing skill made his new athleticism that much more effective.

Soon, he felt the vibration that signalled some form of success. This ability from Crystalis appeared under the Skills menu:

Sword of Water – It launches an ice wave.

He remembered that Crystalis had a charging mechanic. You needed to focus your power before activating a special attack.

It felt as silly as it sounds, but he imagined building energy in the sword and letting it go when he swung. A jagged ball of ice, somewhere around NBA regulation size, launched forward with the velocity of a catapult stone. That didn’t quite live up to the ice wave the description promised.

The attack was effective, and the results were messy.

In other contexts, the elemental factors in an ability like Sword of Water could make a meaningful difference, but for hunting goblins, Sword of Water was like smashing them with a large rock. His attack didn’t have cannon-shot velocity, but the ice still broke skin and fractured bones, taking goblins off their feet and leaving them hissing as they clung to life.

Trying to deepen his feel for his mana supply, he paid close attention to what a spell felt like. The Ultima spells fatigued his mind while his Crystalis abilities fatigued his muscles. Going back and forth was less tiring than burning one to zero and then doing the other.

The preparations for his adventure were going swimmingly.

***

“That’s the opposite direction…” Wayne said, looking at the world map spread out across the table of Fergus’ library room.

“I know, that’s why I’m saying it’s a favor,” Fergus said. “We borrowed this from the library in Taobh, and it’s a difficult source to find. If I sent this off with some random courier and the book got lost? Black mark on my career for the rest of my days.”

“You know what? I will do it. This would be a good test run for my bigger adventure.”

“Splendid.” Fergus slid a tome of weather records across the table. “You owe me, anyhow.”

“How do you figure?”

Fergus sighed. “I was asked to let you know that ‘he works late on weekends.’ As a friend, let me tell you that this is one of those signals we were talking about. Also as a friend, what you plow is your business, so keep me out of it. I don’t know how I got stuck whipping the bull.”

“I tried to help, and I failed. I’m not going near that, signal or no.”

“Not your type?”

“She’s married.”

“Not late on weekends, it turns out.”

Wayne laughed. “Still a no.”

***

Taobh was a full day of walking away. Wayne believed that his two lives of city-living made him pretty comfortable with professional pedestrian-ing, but walking cross country was new.

And it sucked.

He knew that fast travel was a limited mechanic in the 80s and 90s era of gaming, but several RPGs had items or abilities that teleported the player back to town or at least out of a dungeon. That’d be nice.

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Wayne was all of four hours into a proper adventure, and he already wished for shortcuts. Yeah, being one of the Chosen Heroes would not have suited his tastes.

But the scenery was nice, like the proportions for nature in this world were all oversized versions of what he knew on Earth. Small trees sprouted, sure, but they rapidly grew to the heft and presence of wide, mighty oaks or red woods. No mountain he had seen or read about was small either. When he saw the Rocky’s in person on Earth, the sight had left him speechless. In this world, mountains had the same presence and beauty, but then they continued upward, disappearing into the clouds.

Crossing mountains in this world was like passing through a small eastern european nation in terms of distance, and doing so was a rarity. Even roads through mountains were unusual. For practical purposes, a mountain range was the equivalent of an impassable wall that spawned monsters to bother residents on both sides.

The road to Taobh was wide and well-traveled, rolling gently through the grasslands in the valley. Travelers passed in both directions on foot, by horseback, and by wagon. Most offered some sort of friendly acknowledgement. Then a wagon going in the same direction pulled up next to Wayne. A young boy worked the reins, pulling their mule to a stop while his grandfather leaned over.

“You any good with that sword?” the old man asked.

“I do alright.”

“Trade you a ride to town and a room for a night if you help us with a problem.”

Wayne said he’d like to hear more.

“Got a nest of rattlins bringing hell on our corn fields. Got a rough idea of where they might be but can’t say for sure.”

Rattlins were to ratmen what goblins were to orcs–lots of things in common but one was weirdly smaller than the other. Wayne had never fought rattlins, but he gathered that they were furry goblins for the most part. And goblins? He killed them with ease, finding it more difficult to restrain his gag reflex when he carved off goblin ears to exchange for gold.

“Give me another night or two if it takes longer, and you got a deal,” Wayne said. He climbed into the back of the farm wagon a handshake later. A piece of lettuce stuck to his boot, and he realized too late that he sat on an old, mushy carrot.

“You staying in Taobh for a spell or moving on pretty quick?” the old man asked as the wagon continued toward town.

“Just doing a favor for a friend. I doubt I’ll stay all that long.”

“Well, it’s a nice little place with some pretty nice folk. If you’ve got a thirst, I’d recommend Big Benny’s over the Narrow Harrow. Unless you prefer watered down ale, then go get your kicks at Narrow Harrow.”

Wayne thanked him for the recommendation, sincerely. Rapid access to restaurant reviews on Earth was a luxury he had not appreciated until coming to this world. He also missed health codes, but he’d gotten over that particular hangup a few years ago. Had no other choice, really.

He asked if Taobh had any must-see attractions.

The old man scratched his head at that question. “We do alright on account of the Capital being so close, but we’re still just a farming town. There’s singing at the taverns sometimes but isn’t much else unless a bard or acting troupe is visiting.”

***

The route to the old man’s farm took them by Taobh, but at a fair distance, so Wayne didn’t get much of a look at the town. It was small, though, just as the old man said it would be.

They arrived at the humble family farm late in the afternoon. Their one-story home had wood shingles, fieldstone walls, two bedrooms, and a fairly open kitchen and dining room. The boy, who Wayne confirmed was the old man’s grandson, slept on the floor in the kitchen for the duration of his stay because Wayne took his room.

As soon as Wayne dropped his bags, the old man pointed him in the direction of the corn field, a short walk over a low hill.

The rattlin damage was plain to see. Nearly half of the cornfield had been smashed down and picked over, looking more like vandalism than like something searching for food. Wayne couldn’t find any ears of corn in the aftermath, so while the rattlins may not have been subtle, they were thorough.

Their repeat raids on the field carved three trails into the grass between the cornfield and the nearby forest, easy paths for Wayne to follow to their nest.

His walk through the trees was relatively brief. The trail led to the ruins of an old home or perhaps a small castle, but little remained beyond a few low walls and piles of large stone bricks. The map on his HUD suggested the original structure may have been four times the size of the farmhouse he just saw.

But that was ages ago. The giant trees Wayne had come to accept as the norm for this world punched up into the sky all through the ruins, so whatever used to be here was abandoned quite some time ago.

Three rattlins, each about three feet tall and looking every bit of their rat-person reputation, attacked from the brush, armed only with fangs and claws.

Repel.

The spell appeared to have no effect on the rattlins.

Missile.

The fireball mangled the shoulder of a rattlin but didn’t down it. If Wayne’s aim was right, he could probably kill them in one shot, but he never got to try. The rattlins got in close, so he killed two with chunks of ice and the third with a swordthrust to the chest.

The dugout entrance to the rattlin nest was roughly two feet tall and seemed to angle below the footprint of the old structure. Depending on what had been here before, Wayne guessed that the rattlins took advantage of an abandoned cellar or basement to shorten their building time.

He saw six rattlins scurrying about as he approached the nest entrance. They hissed and stood as if to fight, but they saw the blood on Wayne’s sword. All of them fled into the hole after that.

That left Wayne standing in the woods alone. He occasionally heard movement in the burrow, but nothing entered or exited the nest for the two hours he watched. Like the hardened urban rats he knew from his world, rattlins were survivors. They were smart enough to stay underground when he was around. To hold up his end of the deal, he’d need to devise a way to eliminate all of the rattlins in the nest, whether that meant drawing them out or destroying the nest with them in it, Wayne wasn’t sure.

***

Wayne could kill a rattlin just fine, but he wasn’t a professional monster hunter. Nor would he ever go into the burrow himself. Absolutely not. He had watched too many Vietnam War documentaries to go crawling around on his stomach underground.

He searched for an alternate burrow entrance but found no secret escape routes. That didn’t mean they weren’t there, but with some luck, the rattlins would have just the one tunnel and nothing else. One way in. One way out.

The next morning, after another night of rattlins feasting on corn, he stood in front of the burrow tunnel and charged Sword of Water.

Again. And again. And again. He carefully pushed his own limits but stayed well away from risking passing out. The rattlins would kill him for sure if he did.

Every block of ice he summoned went into the burrow. Even if it took him until sundown, he intended to use Sword of Water to flood the rattlin nest. His father had done something similar with a garden hose and ground wasps, but that was only because he didn’t have any gasoline on hand to pour down the hole instead.

Wayne also did not have gasoline.

After thirty minutes of sending ice bouncing down the tunnel and into the burrow, the screeches, hisses, and growls of agitated rattlins grew. Hearing his next ball of ice hit meat instead of dirt alerted Wayne that rattlins were trying to surface.

He cut down the first three to charge out of the borrow, their fur wet, their bodies shivering.

Seeing the fate of their brothers, the next wave of rattlins hesitated. He could see the glints of their eyes down the burrow tunnel.

But they weren’t coming out, so he went back to Sword of Water.

That cycle repeated for most of the day. Wayne would send ice block after ice block into the burrow. Eventually, a group of desperate rattlins would attempt to reclaim the surface only to fall to Wayne’s sword shortly after.

Seventeen rattlins suffered that fate. He couldn’t say how many died within the burrow from cold or from drowning, but he was reasonably certain they were dead. Enough ice had melted for the water level to be visible from where he stood at the entrance.

He watched and listened until an hour or so after dark. He neither heard nor saw any sign that any rattlins were still alive. Absolute certainty wasn’t possible, but he was satisfied and began the walk back to the farmhouse, tripping repeatedly on roots and rocks in the dark before remembering had had the Light spell.

As he approached the farmhouse door, he felt two phantom vibrations. Reading the first notification made him hesitate to go inside.

Warrior Ring – Shoots a level 1 shouting wave continuously.

What the hell was a shouting wave? The upgrade was a Crystalis ability, but it didn’t appear under any menu but Christmas List. It wasn’t a skill he could activate, nor could he toggle it off or on. Not for the first time, Wayne wished he had game manuals to reference.

After some experimentation well away from innocent bystanders, he concluded that the Warrior Ring eliminated the charge delay for Sword of Water. He couldn't see or hear anything continuous happening around him, definitely no shouting. Then he remembered how bad translations for old video games could be. Maybe this was a result of that?

His other upgrade came from Pirates!:

Medicine – Helps you preserve your good health longer, and to suffer less from injuries.

That read like a healing skill at first, but it was another one-time bonus like Power Ring, taking his total hitpoints from 73 to 80. A small disappointment, but not too bad all things considered.

When Wayne returned to the old man’s home, he found him standing outside, speaking to two soldiers.

“This is the boy I was telling you about,” the old man said to the soldiers. “Offered to deal with our rattlin problem.”

The soldiers turned and regarded Wayne, shooting him steely gazes from beneath their kettle hat helmets. Wayne always found that style of helmet to look odd, like someone dipped a straw hat in iron.

“Any goblin experience?” one soldier asked.

“Not an expert, but I’ve killed a few.”

“We’re short on men. Most of our unit is away, pursuing reports of orc sightings. We have enough to secure the town but can’t spare any to take care of a new goblin nest. They attacked two farms over. One dead. Rest of the family is shaken up.”

“What kind of help are you looking for?” Wayne asked.

“Stay with the family until morning, then clear the nest. We’ll pay double the usual rate for goblins.”

More gold and an excuse to grind more experience?

“Let me grab my bag,” Wayne said.