Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds (14 page)

He appeared to be the third highest level barbarian. What people said about their rarity was true, then. There were a lot more rangers and mages running about. Warlocks. Rogues. DPS were everywhere.

That was nothing new.

In any other case, he would be completely replaceable as a DPS character. It was only by the grace, or insanity, of Miller that he was not.

His mind had already been getting fuzzy last night when they called it. He didn’t recall spending his skill point when he hit level ten. Or his stat points. For that level or a few before. He shook his head. Pathetic. And dangerous. They were only going to keep fighting stronger things, and they needed his help.

He
had
to do better.

He pulled out his phone and tried to head to the wiki to read up on his class… but it was formatted terribly for mobile. Ads all over the place eating up his data while it was still trying to load the content he was there for. And that was just the front page. He still had to navigate
to
the barbarian page.

He was shown his phones’ wallpaper when the browser crashed.

“Oh you son of a…” He sighed and put the phone away.

“Bad news?” Paul had entered the pit without Toby noticing him. He was in the process of removing his tie.

“Mobile browsers are still light years behind normal ones.”

“Checking stocks?”

“Pfft. Going to the wiki. Trying to learn about my class.”

“Huh.” Paul nodded and set his tie on his station. “Admirable. Frankly, there’s not much to know. You’re due for a review, and we have people working on it, but right now? You hit things, and have skills that augment and expand on hitting things. The standing opinion is that trying to make barbarians strong offense with no defense has only hurt them in the long run. Their offense is tempered by the need to disengage to avoid counter attacks, which reduces their DPS anyway. So, you’ll be getting a defensive boost… just not in time to help with our current situation.”

“Sounds about right.”

“We’d push it through if we could, believe me. And a few other things like locking out GM accounts from harming players, but we don’t have access. We take the servers down, Miller would probably be angry. The feds prefer we keep them up while they work.”

“How’s their work going, anyway?”

Paul was quiet a moment as he unbuttoned the cuffs of his shirt. “Well, not as good as ours.”

“That bad, huh?”

“I prefer to think
we’re
excelling.”

Claire’s voice carried from the door. “That’s corporate talk if I ever heard it.”

“Occupational hazard. Rest of the team?”

“Donuts. Be here soon, I’m sure.”

“You see Tim in there?”

“Nope.

Paul sighed. “I really hate that man.”

“He’ll be here. He gets to play with the invisible hat. He won’t miss that.”

Paul nodded to Toby. “Lets get in. I’ll help you through any questions you have.”

“Cool.”

It took awhile for the others to assemble. Somewhere in the area of twenty minutes. Toby and Paul were going over barbarian abilities and combos. Apparently, shock wave was one of the better things on offer, just as Toby had surmised. That, plus building combos was their claim to fame, so he spent points trending that way. He still did three hits, but the damage on them jumped.

The inevitable problem of Rage being a large part of his class and damage potential still stared him in the face. He was five levels away and didn’t want to think about it. The few chances he would get to use it would be rare, and he would need dedicated healers that he couldn’t see to keep him alive. It was ridiculous. Definitely not intended for hardcore rules.

He inverted his strength and stamina spending, swapping to two and three respectively. After the close call the night before… he could use a larger hit point cushion for when things went bad.

Paul agreed, of course.

The others arrived one at a time, appearing out of nowhere as they logged in. Tobin Ironblood still sat upon his throne. They had replaced his wooden chair with a large and more intricate one… keeping up appearances. He tried to look intimidating and bored as he waited for everyone else to show up.

No one seemed particularly impressed with his new chair. It was disheartening.

Claire stopped by. “Go for a walk?”

Outside the little town was in full swing. People were moving about all over. Toby had to stop and lurch forward a few times to avoid foot traffic.

Most of the people milling about lacked nameplates, but none of them seemed to have hoods like Tim. He commented on it.

Claire tilted her head as she looked around. “Oh, right. Those are NPCs. Unless you select one,” she pointed at a young woman walking by with a caged chicken, “their names won’t show unless you have business with them. A quest to complete or something. Differentiates them from players, and removes visual clutter.”

“So the fancy hood turned Tim into an NPC?”

She wiggled her eyebrows. “That’s what other players see, yeah. If they see him at all they’d have to try and select him to notice the name plate still didn’t show up. And well, that takes time, and by then…”

“Bamf. Daggers. Huh.”

She nodded.

The silly hood certainly seemed more… intimidating all of a sudden.

“And what’s more, his name won’t show even when he’s fighting or in the combat log. So anyone he does fight won’t even know who to try and track down.”

Toby blinked a few times, his eyes moving about the crowd of NPCs. Suddenly he felt… vulnerable.

Claire smiled, seeming to read his mind. “No worries here. This is safe territory. But you might want to avoid crowds of NPCs in places you know aren’t safe… an ounce of prevention, and all.”

He nodded… and continued to eye the NPCs moving about.

There were a lot of shops set up. Claire and Toby walked around the new buildings… most of them had bottles. He raised an eyebrow. “We all about apothecarying here? I could use some better armor. I’m not sure bottles will serve.”

She shrugged. “Paul is in charge of this sort of thing. He is the guild leader. He must have a reason.”

“Pfft. Hopefully health pots aren’t that heavy. Looks like we’re going to be drowning in the stuff.” Most of the apothecary stations had the same materials lying out and a number of filled red bottles. Same color as the health bars. Never a coincidence.

“Ounce of prevention?” She shrugged. “Some pressure off me, anyway.”

“Pressure off you? Pressure onto my poor back.”

“Says the guy with one of the highest strength professions.”

There was a blacksmith shop hidden away among all the apothecaries. Toby had yet to find a reason to spend money, so he had a decent pile lying around. It had weight, though he had yet to notice it, so it wasn’t much.

He walked away with a new set of chest and leg armor as well as a pair of armored gloves. He wouldn’t exactly call them gauntlets, more gloves with a few metal bits sewn on. The smith wasn’t leveled enough to produce helmets yet. Apparently they were rare at this level unless your class started with one.

And yet he recalled losing a roll on one just yesterday… that sounded about right. At least Jesse was wearing it. Hell, it might have helped save her last night when that bandit got the drop on her.

He held up his arms as he turned around to Claire. “What do you think?”

She crossed her arms and tapped a finger against her chin. Her old armor had been replaced as well. The new set was much more complex and shiny. “Could use more dead animals. I’m losing the ‘barbarian’ vibe. Starting to look like a dirt poor warrior.”

He looked down at himself. “You might be right. How am I going to intimidate people if it looks like they could buy and sell three of me?”

“Hmm.” She walked up to the counter and opened the menu. She panned through it for a few moments. He couldn’t see what she was doing, only that she was making gestures to navigate menus. “Oh, that might help.” She nodded and clicked a few times in the open air before turning to face him. She held up an object that looked like a folded fur pelt. “Here, give this a go.”

“Eh?” He held out his hands and took it. The stat sheet said it was a scabbard for a two handed sword. It gave a small dexterity bonus and would cost him charisma. “Huh. Neat.”

He equipped it in his inventory, his sword shifted from its default position at his side to hanging on his back. The rough scabbard made of furs was unevenly sewn with jagged fur covered leather bits hanging down here and there. The strap across his chest was the same. The scabbard pinned his cloak to his back a bit, but neither hindered his movement. Benefits of virtual objects in virtual space.

He nodded a few times as he looked it over, then turned his eyes up to Claire.

She was holding her fingers up as if framing a shot with a camera. “Much better. I would almost swear I could smell the dead varmints. Very uncultured mountain man.”

He smiled. “Awesome.”

She laughed softly. “Come on. Lets get back. We should be heading out soon.”

The other members of their group, as well as the other three groups and all of their alternates, were assembled when they neared the front of the church. Paul had a shiny new shield to replace the one destroyed last night.

Tim gave Toby a nod as they approached. “Very chic. Wait, no, the other thing. Hideous.”

“Thank you, sir.” Toby bowed his head.

Carol shook her head from beside her husband. “You look very nice.”

Tim shrugged. “She’s just being nice. Between the pelts and the metal you look like an old army jeep hit a deer and bits of the carcass are still hanging on as you drive around.”

Claire tilted her head. “How graphic.”

Paul shoved Tim away a step. “Okay, it’s time to move out, people. We’re doing well, but we’re not done yet.” He nodded as he looked about, taking all of those gathered in. “We can do this. I want to see level twenty people or better when we call it tonight. Lets get out there.”

A loud peal of thunder sounded overhead, splitting the morning calm.

12

The morning was spent in soaked misery.

Though Toby couldn’t feel the rain, the sound and look of it was enough to mess with his mind. He found himself hiding under branches and the eaves of roofs. He wasn’t physically cold, but convincing his mind that thought it
should
be cold was another matter. Gusts of wind and blowing rain kept him raising his hands to shield his face… only to realize he had no reason to do so.

But a silly notion like that didn’t stop him.

The real problem was mobility. The rain created mud, which slowed their progress. All movement speed was reduced by nearly a quarter. Their feet moved heavily as visible mud caked on their feet.

“Okay.” Toby shook his head. “You guys put too much effort into this. I don’t like the rain.”

Claire scoffed. “I’ve been saying that for years now.”

Tim shrugged. “It’s much more rare than rain actually is, and it helps some people to feel immersed.”

“Yes.” Toby nodded. “I feel immersed… in mud.”

“
Next gen
mud. We worked hard on that.”

“I hate you.”

“And with good reason.”

The morning was disappointing. The sky began to clear well after eleven, but the damage was done by then. They said the mud would remain for an hour at least everywhere the rain had fallen for so long. The storm’s length had been unusual, and Miller was already a suspect in it.

It had certainly ruined their morning momentum. Rain kept most animals hidden away, and even kept monsters and human enemies indoors. It took longer to find them, and checking every random cave and ruin turned up a lot of nothing.

They had only managed to level twice with as much time as they had spent to gain ten levels the night before.

Paul was distraught as he called for the lunch break. They were far afield and didn’t have time to double back, so they took over an abandoned ruin with a roof still dripping in places.

Toby sat against a wall beside Paul while the others discussed food. It was sounding like takeout from a sub shop was going to win out, as they couldn’t abandon Tobin Ironblood this far from safety.

He was less interested in food. He paged through his skills. A few of them were tied to progression and would be granted without him actively picking them. Rage was the next one, but he hadn’t bothered to dig too deep into the skill tree.

“What’s ‘Uncanny Dodge?’ “

Paul stretched his neck. “Gives you a small chance to avoid all damage from an attack once every minute or so. The longer you go without it going off, the better the chance. Once it does, the chance drops back to nothing and the sixty second countdown on it begins. It’s defensive, but it’s also out of your hands.”

“Hmm.” Toby nodded. “Still, I look forward to it.”

“It’s not great. It sounds good on paper, but in practice it’s unreliable and you shouldn’t be getting hit anyway. It boils down to the barbarian, and monks I think, avoiding the first hit when they get unwanted attention. If the tank doesn’t get it back quick enough, they’ll take damage anyway.”

“Sounds like being a tank is stressful.”

“Like you wouldn’t believe. There’s a reason most people don’t do it.”

“I thought we just liked to see big numbers.”

“A convenient excuse. Most people don’t handle stress well. The tank has to let it wash off them like water to a duck. They have to ignore it and keep their head. Watch for changes. Make adjustments. Know when to press in, know when to fall back. And we always seem to be called on to save DPS that just can’t get the concept of aggro through their heads.”

“Well I understand aggro. Have for years. But it does seem a bit… different in your game.”

Paul shrugged. “A bit looser, perhaps. A monster that gets back stabbed isn’t necessarily going to stay on the tank who hasn’t been hurting him, just slinging insults and the occasional jab. A thinking mind would go after whoever hurt them, and probably begin to consider fleeing. That’s what we tried to set up.”

“I see. So that’s why the bandit snuck up last night and dropped one of us, rather than just run in and start fighting. It has some code in its brain that tries to make it mimic a person.”