Heralds- The Proving Grounds, page 13
Jen shrugged. The third set was going faster. Who would have thought adding the etched designs would make it take so much longer? She wasn’t actually using a chisel. Crazy.
When she looked up again Anna was decked out in her iron armor. It was much nicer than the old rusty stuff Jen and Sam had found. The plates fit together properly and with the gauntlets and pauldrons, it looked like a complete suit of well fitted armor, minus the helmet. She looked downright knightly.
She held up her hands as she looked herself over. “Wow. Impressive. You do good work.”
“I just tell it what to make.” She pointed at the anvil. “It makes it. Boxes. Progress bars. I don’t think I’ve swung a hammer yet.”
Anna raised an eyebrow at Jen. “Take the compliment.”
“Yeah, yeah.” She waved dismissively. The last set of boots had just finished. Only the pauldrons and helmet were left. By the time those were done Jen had equipped her own new iron armor set and broken apart the bronze sets. Destruction was much faster than construction, of course.
Anna’s head tilted to the side as she noticed the sword at Jen’s hip. “Wow, that’s pretty. Did you make it?”
Jen wasn’t entirely sure how much to share… she couldn’t drop the relic without dying… and Annabelle was capable of killing her. But would she? She seemed nice enough. The last thing Jen wanted was all the Heralds fighting over a relic weapon. They needed to be on the same side. Best to not acknowledge it at all.
“Yeah, was a critical crafting success or something. I was trying to stack up all the fancy pointless detail options. Guess I lucked out.”
Anna nodded. “Cool. You deserve something nice for all the work you’ve put in here. I’ll start figuring this crafting stuff out myself the next time we get a bit of downtime. Should be often enough, if we keep out leveling everyone.”
“Fuck ‘em.” Sam stifled a yawn as she spoke. She was leaning against the door to the crafting room. Crafting house? Crafting building. Workshop. That worked. “How’s the sweatshop going?”
Jen raised an eyebrow. It had taken her long enough. “Just finishing up what I was working on.” She pointed. “Made you a sword, and some armor.”
Sam leaned inside. “My sword isn’t gaudy like yours, is it? I prefer to be less… noticeable.”
“Quite plain, I assure you.” Jen kept from letting out a sigh, but it was a weight off her mind just the same. Sam didn’t like the sword, so hopefully she wouldn’t look at it too closely. She was the kind to not only know of relics, but to recite their stats. She’d probably had fond dreams of swinging the relic dagger from the beta.
It didn’t take Sam long to get into the new armor. It looked a lot like her old set, except less torn to shreds and burnt up by the unforgiving sun.
She nodded as she looked over the sword. “Looking forward to trying it out. Thanks.”
Anna blinked a few times. “So all it takes to win her over is weapons, huh?”
The sword was already hanging at Sam’s hip. “Weapons certainly help.” She glanced around. “We doing this thing?”
Sam lead them back to the ruins from the day before. It was still devoid of players, as it probably would be until the lethality of the skeleton army was back to just being an inconvenience.
Jen was hesitant to draw her sword. It might look a tad intricate in the scabbard, but the blade didn’t shine like steel…
She equipped the metal shield Sam had found the day before. So far there had been no shields in the crafting interface. Maybe early ones were from woodworking? She didn’t know.
The new armor made the shields seem pointless, anyway. The difference in the damage resistance was almost silly. Anna had forgone her shield entirely, holding her new sword in both hands.
Sam was swapping back and forth between two handing her sword and holding the shiny new dagger in her off hand. Her head tilted left to right and back as she stared ahead at empty air, where her interface would be.
Maybe they wouldn’t notice the sword?
It was entirely possible she was worrying for nothing. Neither had seemed terribly interested.
And why was she coveting it so anyway? It wasn’t like she planned to use it to its potential. It was meant to topple kingdoms, not smash a few mobs here and there while leveling.
A raspy sigh behind her almost made her jump. She smashed the shield backward almost hard enough to lose her balance. She was lucky her hand hadn’t struck the wall.
The skeleton broke apart, jagged bits of bone cascading backwards, with a few odd bits actually falling forward over the shield. The skull landed at her feet, the voice still sighing out from it.
Anna tilted her head. “Maybe I do want my shield.”
“Pfft.” Sam settled on two handing the sword. She gave it a few practice swings. “Shields are for tanks and cowards. Neither of you is tanking, so…”
“It smashed that thing to dust.” Anna pointed at the remnants of the skeleton.
“So?” Sam swung at a pair of encroaching skeletons. Both were felled with a single swing. “So does a sword. We need to move up the hill, this part is too easy now.”
“I thought the area was supposed to keep pace with the average player level?”
“It does. We’re ahead of that, and we out gear the area. So…” She pointed with her sword. “Onward.”
Jen kicked the skull away. She would swear it was looking at her. “One of my abilities is shield bash… so how’s that work without a shield?”
“It turns into ‘Bash.’ Which it kind of is anyway. You have a shield, so it’s ‘Shield bash.’ Without one, you just bash.” She held her own sword up in front of her, as if she was going to stop someone swinging at her. “Like so.” She shoved her arms forward swiftly.
Nothing happened.
But it wouldn’t, since rogue’s didn’t bash things, shield or no.
Sam lowered her sword and glanced at Jen expectantly.
Well… nothing for it now. Jen unequipped her shield and laid her hand on the hilt of her sword. The relic Soulshine… one of thirteen powerful world shaping weapons…
Hell with it.
There was almost no sound as the sword was drawn free of the scabbard. The leather was much quieter than the metal scabbard.
It didn’t shine nearly as much as it had when she made it. It still didn’t look exactly the same as steel, the light glinting off of it was brighter… but it didn’t glow like she had feared.
“Ugh.” Sam was shielding her eyes. “Shiny. Glad mine doesn’t do that. Never be able to hide.”
Anna nodded. “It is sort of… bright. But I guess that’s befitting of a paladin.”
Whew.
She held up the sword as Sam had shown, one hand on the handle, the other held up flat behind the wide side of the blade. She pushed the sword away from her with both hands.
Blue light trailed the sword and flew outward a few feet before dissipating.
“Huh. Neat.”
Sam nodded. “Not exactly damaging, as I understand, but it will get you some breathing room.”
The handle was definitely long enough for both hands… and then some. The blade was pretty long as well, though that wasn’t odd for video games. Big swords were all the rage.
She lowered the sword as Sam started forward with Anna behind her.
Neither of them seemed overly interested in the sword. That was good. Crisis averted.
13
They were well on their way up the hill when a strange thought popped into Jen’s mind.
She had teleported out with Soulshine in hand… but what she had left there wasn’t really something she could hope to handle. It was doubtful they could as a group, either. Those creatures had been well beyond their level.
“Umm… as a small aside… last time we were here I sort of saw some big, I dunno… things after you left, Sam. They were a little ways off, but I got close enough to target one. Had skulls instead of a number, so at least ten levels beyond me. Probably more. And it wasn’t alone. We might want to be careful.”
Sam glanced back over her shoulder. “Weird. This place has always had a pretty gradual progression curve. Maybe we were closer to an area transition than I thought.” She shrugged. “Oh well. Sounds interesting.”
“Not the word I would pick.”
“Well maybe you should use that shield, then.” Sam shrugged.
Jen narrowed her eyes. Sam had said shields were for cowards. “Rude.”
Anna glanced around, seeming to ignore the exchange. “I take it this is where all the great rusty stuff came from.”
Sam leveled her sword at a few skeletons up the path. “Oh yeah. This place is a rust goldmine. Fortunately, thanks to Jen that doesn’t matter. It’s all about the XP.” Bones shattered to dust as Sam crossed into melee range. “Okay, yeah, I like this.”
Jen leveled her own sword in both hands. “We’re happy you’re happy.”
The skeleton moving in was taking its time… she would have sworn they were faster the day before. Or maybe they were just more intimidating then.
She swung the sword… a bit more like a baseball bat than she had intended. The game seemed to still consider it a horizontal attack, a blue trail cascading behind.
The shining blade struck the skeleton soundly, and a spot of bright light appeared for an instant where the creature’s heart would have been.
And then the skeleton exploded into dust.
It didn’t just break apart… it exploded. It was there, then it wasn’t. A cloud of dust and tiny bits of bone rained to the ground.
Sam paused, a few more dead skeletons littering the ground around her feet. Anna was staring with a raised eyebrow.
Jen made a show of looking over the sword. “Huh. That didn’t happen yesterday.”
Anna shrugged. “Maybe it’s a paladin thing?”
Sam tilted her head. “Well, these are undead. Paladins are pretty much anti-undead.”
“Well… as a child of darkness myself, remind me not to piss you off.”
They fought their way up the hill, deep into the forgotten city. Nothing stood in their way for long. Less than an hour in they had passed the furthest point Jen and Sam had crossed the day before. They didn’t slow… except for the brief lunch break.
Whatever the creatures were that had appeared when Jen took the sword, they were gone now. A small mercy, that. Undead slaying or not, Jen didn’t want to see those again. Levels mattered for registering damage, and she had nothing on them.
The sword didn’t make such a show every time it was used. It seemed to be a random effect… but every time it happened, the thing it hit disappeared.
She was getting more accustomed to swinging the sword properly. Even putting some finesse into it. It was definitely growing on her.
They gained seven levels in a few hours, with Anna picking up an eighth. She was still behind, but closing the gap, and numerically she was on par. The bright flash and deafening sound wasn’t nearly as much of an issue with more people to watch each other’s backs.
The helmets Jen had made completed the ensemble well, though they were open faced. Common of low level helmets. Higher level ones tended to hide more, or have a visor, yet even this one limited her vision a bit. It helped to keep the sun out of her eyes, though.
She had hit level twelve before she remembered the helmet was waiting in her inventory… for level ten.
It turned out the sword was leveling with her. So the random internet guy’s thoughts on that were confirmed. She considered posting a response later… but that would reveal a relic had been found. That, or no one would believe her. They were end game items, after all. It didn’t really matter anyway.
A bridge separated the area from the next level bracket. Most of the transitions seemed to have natural barriers to make plain you were moving on.
Anna stopped at the bridge and put her sword away. “Dang, didn’t realize it was already pushing five. I need to get dinner started.”
Jen blinked and opened the menu.
4:48 p.m.
“Holy shit.”
Sam rolled her eyes as she put her sword away. There was nothing threatening nearby. “Yeah, I was kinda hoping you wouldn’t notice that. I guess we’ve made decent progress, though.”
Anna opened her menu, but glanced aside at Sam. “I doubled my level. That’s more than decent.”
Jen nodded. “We’re probably some of the highest levels by now.”
“Eh…” Sam didn’t look convinced as she shrugged one shoulder. “Maybe. At any rate, this place has slowed down too much to be of use. The average level is definitely well below ours now.”
Anna gave a bow. “True enough. Find a better place, and I’ll help out later this evening. Bye, bye.” She waved and vanished.
Jen’s friends list said she had returned to the island, but she was listed as offline a moment later.
Sam sighed. “Oh well. Break time, I guess? I’ll see if I can’t find a better place to level.”
“We doing anything for food? I haven’t seen you eat today.”
“I had a few granola bars.”
“That’s… kind of food. I guess. Though let’s get something real before we come back.”
Sam rolled her eyes. “Yes, mother.”
It was downright eerie, really. Even the burger joints near the campus were empty.
Jen sat at a table nursing a strawberry milkshake while Sam was lost in her phone. No doubt searching for hunting grounds or some such nonsense. She could be a bit single minded.
The wait staff seemed rather sparse. Only one register going, maybe two people in the back. “Guess this place employs students.”
“Duh.” Sam didn’t look up from her phone.
“No need to be rude. I never stopped to think about it.” She glanced back at the giant cup she needed both hands to lift. She would still be drinking this stuff tomorrow. “I guess I just figured everyone was sinking hopelessly into debt to learn stuff, like me.”
“You should have signed up for more scholarships. I got some. Hell, I got a couple hundred bucks for wearing glasses.”
“Which you don’t.”
“I have a prescription. That’s what they checked.” She shrugged.
“You probably should get some, given how much time you spend in front of monitors.”
“Would be uncomfortable in the headset.”
“You’re right, clearly. Being blind is better.”
“Some things must be sacrificed for fashion.”
Jen rubbed at the bridge of her nose. It wasn’t just the cold messing with her head. Some of the irritation came from the other side of the table.
“Hmm.” Sam flicked her finger across the screen of her phone. “Seems Tobin and company are chasing events to level. That’s probably smarter than just camping appropriate areas.”
“I guess? But events are… unpredictable. I’ve never seen one, and I played some in the beta.”
“Only seen a few myself, but they figured something out. Hmm.” She set the phone down. Her own gallon of chocolate shake nearly untouched. “I bet they’re recruiting. All those people? Probably sending them around to look for opportunities. Scouts. Then they just have to teleport over and reap the rewards.”
“Except they’re moving in force. We can only teleport ourselves.”
“I guess. That would be a ton of walking, though.”
“What other option do they have? Revealing they can teleport? Might as well show people they don’t suffer permadeath like all the other players.”
“Probably a bad idea, given them recruiting normies.”
“Normies? Really?”
“What? They’re normal. Normies.”
“That makes you an abnormie.”
“…That’s just silly.”
“Although… you might be onto something.”
“Of course.” Sam shrugged. “… like what, exactly?”
“The people they have working with them. They probably don’t know what’s up. Those are the ones we need to talk to, to sway. Building our own side is one thing, but thinning theirs out seems more important right now since there’s more of them.”
“That would mean finding them.” Sam nodded a few times and snatched her phone back up from the table. “That shouldn’t be too hard, really. Look at you, being all smart and stuff.”
“What, paladins can’t be smart?”
“Not generally, no. Smart people choose better classes.”
“How rude.”
The sun was just starting to set by the time they got back to the dorms. Logging in was faster now, so that was nice.
Of course, that probably had something to do with the vast number of people that had been locked out for dying.
So, less nice. But still convenient… in a terrible sort of way.
The gentle breaking waves of the beach greeted her. It really was quite nice here. They lived in a land locked state, so this was kind of special. It had been years since she had seen the actual ocean… she wasn’t entirely sure how well this imitated it. Still, it sounded right.
She didn’t see Sam, but her friends list said she was already back and on the island. She was probably up in the map room. She had no doubt made her way up there before logging out.
Jen liked it better down here.
Most of the friends list was lit up now. Bulorn had managed to out level them. No real surprise there. He had a growing army at his back. Questionable folks… but it seemed to work for him, and he seemed to have them well in hand. They were all about respecting the strongest, and how could he not be with the experience granted by the other Heralds?
Jen couldn’t see that as a good thing in the long run. It made for dictators with angry underlings. Fortunately they didn’t need the Seven Eyes for long. It might work out.
Kail was off somewhere on his own. His level was on par, so he had been busy. The stockpile of experience Jen, Sam, and Annabelle had built up probably helped, of course.
Annabelle’s was the dark name on the list this time. The “last seen” note beside her name said she hadn’t been back on yet.
