Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds (12 page)

The real prize in his eyes was a cloak that added to strength. As soon as he saw it he threw down his dice. Sixteen.

Paul seemed to consider it, but shook his head. “Stamina is more important for a tank. I keep you people around for damage.”

Tim shrugged. “Finesse weapons. I use Dex to attack.”

Jesse tapped a finger against her chin. “I use strength when I attack in animal form.”

Tim scoffed. “So you’d deny melee DPS of melee DPS gear on the off chance you decide to bite something for sub par damage?”

“Well… it doesn’t sound great when you put it that way.” She shrugged.

Toby won the roll with no competition. Which made sense, of course. Had to waste those high rolls when no one else bothered.

He couldn’t feel the weight of it when he equipped it, but the material in game fell sharply to the ground and was barely stirred by the wind. A gray fur mantle rested about his shoulders while the dark blue cloth beneath it stretched down to, and landed on, the ground. So, it meant to imply it improved strength by being heavy. Now he just needed to train in the hyperbolic time chamber.

Tim looked it over. “Seems like it expected you to be taller.”

Paul shook his head. “The length and design implies the weight.”

“Psh. I know. I was being snarky. Way to ruin it, man.”

“Way to ruin it,
sir
.” Paul corrected.

Carol sighed as she wandered into the clearing. “Is my husband making trouble again?”

Claire muttered. “Well he
is
conscious.”

The mage bowed her head. “Please accept my most heartfelt apologies, and rest assured he will be punished accordingly.”

Paul nodded. “Of course.”

Toby walked around in circles kicking up dust as he dragged the cloak. It was a neat little effect.

Tim looked aside at him and sighed. “Can we move on? Clearly we’re breaking our barbarian’s brain with all of this not killing things.”

Toby nodded. “No am brain good.”

Jesse tapped the side of his head. “Yea, but did it ever?”

“I’m sorry, what’s your intelligence?”

“Seven.” She shrugged. “But I don’t need it. Intelligence is knowing a tomato is a fruit.
Wisdom
is knowing to leave it out of the fruit salad. And I got all kinds of wisdom. Wisdom for days.”

Amos shook his head. “Crazy people. I’m surrounded by crazy people.”

Paul nodded. “Crazy people with a deadline. You can argue on the way.”

Carol hooked a thumb over her shoulder. “Main bandit camp is that-a-way.”

“Not for long.”

10

The bandit camp in the ruins was surprisingly built up. Surprising to Toby, at least. It looked like they had been at it for weeks, what with walls patched with wood and tiny things like hanging doors with hinges… things people wouldn’t do right away when squatting in an old building.

Unfortunately, though he could marvel at their home repair acumen, their disposition left much to be desired. There were arrows flying at them long before they got close to the building.

Further proof of just how mindless the goblins and other monsters had been. The bandits had scouts and were using them.

Toby rubbed at his chin as he hid behind a tree, arrows whizzing by now and then. The AI might not have much of an approximation of life, but it did a good job of mimicking an organized group trying to protect their home.

Of course, they were categorically bad, so that didn’t matter. And they were not people, so Toby needed to put that out of his head. Just more mobs.

They worked their way inward, clearing from the furthest resistance. Scouts lead to ranged guards lead to melee guards lead to bashing at the gate.

None of the bandits had been any more difficult than the ones out on the road, and with group two pressing the other side of the camp, they couldn’t bring their full force to bear against either group of invaders anyway. The alternates were grouped up again, but with so little resistance people were already talking about sending them out scouting again.

Not exactly the days of high adventure.

Until the gate exploded.

Toby was reintroduced to his old friend spacial dissonance as it took his character a moment to regain his feet several yards back from the gate. Red washed out the world before him. His hit point bar was blinking.

His stomach didn’t do quite as many flips this time… which was good, as it had been hours since he had eaten the last time. He had a stomach full of pizza now.

Claire appeared in front of him a moment later. She was talking, but he couldn’t hear her.

He shook his head.

She frowned and held out a hand to him.

The screen’s red tint faded some as white light washed over him.

“Can you hear me now?”

“Yeah.” He nodded. “The hell was that?”

“A trap.” She glanced around at the others getting back on their feet. Tim and Paul had been hitting the gate as well, but they seemed better off. Of course, Paul was a tank decked out in heavy armor and a shield, and Tim was capable of teleporting about at will. Toby, on the other hand… had almost no defensive capability other than a pile of hit points. Which he had nearly exhausted.

Huh. Paul had been onto something with the stamina points. This might have been the end of his run… on the first damn night.

More points into stamina would probably be good moving forward. Maybe swap the three two setup.

Paul seemed concerned as he approached. He lifted his own hand and blue light washed over Toby, sending his screen back to the normal coloring.

He nodded. “Much obliged.”

Paul let out a sigh. “Okay, lesson learned. We shoot gates from now on. Hell, anything that can be trapped.”

Green light played over Paul as Jesse approached with her hand raised. “That would include floors. We don’t have that kind of time.”

He shook his head. “I… okay, yeah. Sure. But doors and chests we bash from a distance.”

Claire glanced back as she lowered her hand, white light fading. “No lasting harm done.” She nodded. “Don’t usually have to be so careful.”

“But we do now. Watch for plates, tripwires, damn well
anything
.”

Tim patted Paul on the shoulder. “On it boss man, but we need to keep moving.”

“Right, right.” Paul drew his sword. He narrowed his eyes “Looking forward to this now.”

Tim bamfed along in front of them as they charged the gate. His eyes were low and his head jerking about as he looked for traps. He stopped twice well ahead of them to kneel down and fiddle with something. When they caught up Toby could see a wire lying in the dirt.

The second gate opened without incident, breaking into a pile of scrap and splinters.

They climbed to the top of the ruins, clearing out bandits as they went. There were fewer up high than down below.

The AI must have assumed the exploding gate did more harm, because most of the bandits left were on the other side of the ruins firing at group two.

Tim and Amos made them regret that. By arrows or disappearing and reappearing daggers, many of the defenders at the back were thinned out without those in front becoming aware.

Toby heard a voice… outside the game. “Oh what the shit?”

It was Jesse.

He turned to see her lying on the ground with a large bald figure standing over her brandishing a club. Her health bar was low, but not empty. There was an icon beside her name depicting a head with stars circling it like an old cartoon.

Paul’s eyes went wide. He glanced aside at Toby. “I’ll get him. You get her out of the way.”

He nodded and raised his sword.

Paul threw himself forward, bashing his shield against the man and sending him back a few steps.

Toby followed, but grabbed hold of Jesse and pulled her away from the fight.

Claire was already casting when Toby got close. He gave her a nod and charged back to the fight, hefting his sword.

The large bandit didn’t fight like the others. They tried to move and avoid melee. This one reveled in it. He bashed Paul’s shield with his club repeatedly, never letting him lower it long enough to attack. It was visibly misshapen when Toby ran past and swung backwards.

The club made a wooden thunk sound as it stopped the sword.

But it gave Paul a moment. His sword cleft the open air but gave another wooden thunk as the club intercepted it as well. Paul retreated a step, but the bandit stayed put as he glanced back and forth between his attackers.

“Tch.” The man scoffed. “Cowards.”

Toby adjusted his sword stance. “Says the guy that knocked a girl senseless. Let’s dance, Tiny.”

“I didn’t attack two on-”

The bandit’s voice cut off as he moved to parry Toby’s strike.

He swung again, and again. Red arcs appeared behind the second and third swing as ever, though the bandit managed to keep the club between himself and the black steel.

That was fine. All part of the plan.

The club stopped one final attack before Toby backed up a step and swung the sword dramatically. The club was looking like a poorly logged tree at this point. It had chunks missing everywhere, splinters standing out of many of them.

Meanwhile, Soulbreaker still looked pristine and new. The broken thing that should not be, created by a rogue GM. Durability was one more thing he couldn’t see listed for the weapon. It either didn’t have one, or it was ridiculously high. The sword looked just as it had when he first picked it up.

Toby feinted to the man’s left to try and get him to lower the club, but he didn’t go for it. Instead he turned and swung with all his might at Paul, who had been approaching as quietly as his armor allowed.

His shield crumpled as the club struck it soundly.

He dropped the shield and raised his sword with both hands. He couldn’t hope to defend as well without the shield.

A red shock wave struck the bandit’s legs from behind. He gave a cry and dropped to his knees.

Paul thrust his sword ahead with both hands.

The bandit ‘s wooden club struck the ground as he fell over dead.

Toby leaned on his sword. “Whew. Well that sucked.”

Paul gave him a nod. “Well done.”

Green light played over Jesse as she walked up, hand raised. “This whole bandit excursion has sucked. Tricky opponents, explosions, this asshole.” She twisted her hand into the fire gesture and set the bandit corpse alight.

The bright light show and loud gong of a level up surrounded each of them.

Toby blinked. “Was it delayed?”

Paul nodded toward the fight still going on below, where Amos and Tim were helping the others. The yard had thinned out considerably. They were cleaning up the last few. He looked back with a sigh. “More close calls than I like this time.”

Claire nodded. “Definitely.”

“Psh.” Toby waved dismissively. “We had it.”

Jesse and Claire both stared at him with narrowed eyes.

“What? We won. Seems like what we’re after.”

Tim appeared beside them in a burst of black smoke. “Hello my fellow level 10 brethren. What’s happening in this chat room?”

Toby pointed down at the fallen bandit. “We kicked some ass.”

“Sweet.” Tim ducked down and brought up the bandit’s loot window.

Amos had to climb up the old fashioned way, finding the stairs. He blinked at the corpse. “Is that a bandit lord?”

Paul nodded. “A dead one.”

“Wow.” Those are like level twenty something, right?”

“Yes. Almost killed Jesse just with his sap attack. But we handled it.”

Jesse the wolf was growling and chewing on the bandit’s foot.

Amos nodded. “I see.”

Tim laughed. “Oh, no way.” He held up a white bit of cloth. “That’s rad.”

Toby tilted his head. “You surrender?”

He smiled. “Nope. And never again.” He reached up and pulled his hood and cloth mantle off his head. He had short hair reminiscent of his actual hair. Seemed he and Paul didn’t go in for altering the given characters much. He held up the white cloth and pulled it over his head. Once it was on, it looked practically identical to his old hood, aside from being white instead of black. “Ta-da.”

“Uhh…” Toby looked him up and down. “So what?”

“What’s my name, kid?”

“Umm, Tim, duh.”

“No.” He shook his head. “What’s my name
here
?”

Honestly, it had been awhile since Toby used it. He glanced up over Tim’s head to see… nothing. No name, no guild tag, no nameplate at all.

“Huh.” He glanced to the party names on the side. “Killian.”

“Right. Now do a /who search for that.”

It took Toby a moment to bring up the menu to type, a virtual keyboard appearing in front of him. He input the command and…

Killian

Huh. That wasn’t much. He tried it on himself.

Tobin Ironblood Level: #&%&0 Location: #%%^@$%@

Well, that wasn’t exactly normal either, but that was probably Miller’s fault. It still showed just how much the hood was hiding.

“Neat. But what is so special about that? I can still see you.”

Paul shook his head. “Sure, but you’d see him through stealth anyway. With that, no nameplate and no discernible data when searching, he could be standing in a bush or up a tree, or in a river, and you’d have no means of finding him without your eyes. There’s no nameplate to spot as an odd color against the terrain, and you can’t even check what zone he is in.”

Jesse spit out the boot. It was still a bit unnerving to hear words coming from the wolf’s muzzle. “It’s a PVP item. For ganking. Not sure what use it is to us. No stats on it.”

“Pfft.” Tim turned away. “Stats aren’t everything. What can this do? How about keep me close by, functionally invisible while people try to murder you. I can pop around knifing them and they won’t be any wiser. They couldn’t even search for me without knowing my name.”

Toby nodded. “I see. So we need… like thirty of those.”

Paul shrugged. “No such luck. It’s a pretty rare drop, though I seem to recall bandits do have the highest chance for them.” He swung his arm, taking in all the dead bandits. “Even for this many, getting one is a pretty lucky drop. And we’re fresh out of bandits.”