Ultimatum: The Proving Grounds (8 page)

Amos nodded. “One of the main reasons to group up. Casters all have some built in support. It’s only guys like you and Tim that are pure damage.”

“Huh.” Toby’s eyes widened as a humming sound grew around him. He held up his arms to see blue light swirling about them. The light coalesced into the shape of plate armor, the parts standing open and floating in the air before clamping shut around his arms. He could still see his arm through the clear blue armor, which faded from sight after a moment. An icon appeared next to his name in the group list.

A shield. One just like it was beside Paul’s name, and a bright blue line linked them.

Claire gave Paul a level stare. “Shouldn’t the tank be guarding the main healer?”

Paul nodded. “While that
is
standard practice… you already have a higher defense than he does. He’s melee DPS, so taking hits is largely unavoidable. Barbarian’s aren’t designed to be marathon fighters. He needs all the help he can get right now.” He held up a hand. “I know, I know, he has to fight, too. Fine. But lets have an ounce of caution, at least.”

Claire shrugged. “Fair enough.”

“That
does
mean you need to be a bit more mindful of your healing aggro.”

“Yeah, yeah.” She waved dismissively as the goblins started to close. She held the hammer’s handle in one hand and bounced its head on the open palm of her other hand. It didn’t appear she had much intent to heal anything.

Tim appeared out of nowhere and laid a hand on her shoulder. “Hold up. Let’s test this sword of his.”

“Beg pardon?”

He shrugged. “We have plenty of time here, and he needs to get some batting practice in anyway. Let me and Amos go at a few, then send him. Our weapons have stats so it should give an idea of how much stronger his is.”

Paul rubbed at his chin. “I guess… healers-”

Claire rolled her eyes. “I’m watching, I get it.”

Jesse sighed. “I’m not healer speced…”

The cleric looked aside at her. “You’re level one. You’re not
anything
speced. And you do have a heal.”

“Blah, blah, blah.” Jesse held up a hand with a ball of flame above her palm. She moved her fingers about causing the flames to dance.

Amos and Tim charged toward the flaming goblins approaching. The rogue cut a pair down with a few strikes each, clearly not showing much effort. The ranger plucked them with arrows from afar, dropping each with three or four shots.

A loud gong sounded behind Toby and light washed out his screen. He held up a hand to shield his eyes, but it didn’t help at all. The lights passed after a moment on their own.

The words, “Level 2!” floated before his eyes.

“Wow.” He shook his head a few times. “That was loud. And bright.” He glanced around to see everyone else tapping spaces in the open air before them.

He held up his empty hand and pressed on the happy “Level 2!” lettering. His character sheet opened showing stats and his equipped items. He had five stat points to spend.

Hmm.

His barbarian brain was arguing that improving his strength was all that mattered. He had a visible carry weight on the sheet, and hovering his finger over strength said it improved that as well as his physical damage.

But… he also needed to survive what the world was going to throw at him. The sheet listed his health at one hundred, with an additional twenty added when he leveled for a new cap of one hundred and twenty. But he could get five more for each point placed in stamina.

He knew what Paul would say about surviving and all, but he needed to carry his weight and hit Miller as hard as he could.

Hell with it. He went for a three two split, strength and stamina. One hundred and thirty hit points, and his carry weight improved by fifteen pounds. Groovy.

Where the estimate of his physical damage should be there were only a few characters of gobbledygook. Random characters and symbols when he was pretty sure that spot should have discernible numbers.

He hefted his sword as he closed the window. Only one way to find out what it could do. “My turn?”

Amos lowered his bow and Tim vanished from the front line in a burst of black smoke and appeared beside the rest of the group. “Go for it.”

Paul raised his voice as Toby walked away. “I trust you put your points into stamina to make all our lives easier?”

“I totally put
some
points into stamina, yes.”

Paul sighed.

A blinking light off to Toby’s left was bugging the hell out of him as he walked. He stopped and turned his head a bit, but the light moved with it. He shifted just his eyes, and then swept his empty hand that way.

Oh. He had received a skill point when he leveled, too. Okay.

He blinked at the list before him. There were tons. Way to many for him to read through or weigh the pros and cons of right now. Umm… he glanced at the first row. An icon with a sideways V stood out.

Duo: the second attack in a chain causes additional damage and has greater range.

Perfect.

He tapped the icon and closed the window.

Toby swept the sword through the air before him a few times as he approached a group of goblins. There were red trails arcing behind the blade sometimes, other times nothing. He carefully lined up a horizontal swing with the sword behind him and to the right.

“Let’s do this you Gremlin knockoffs.”

The green critters charged in screaming.

He let loose the horizontal attack. Two of the goblins were caught in its glowing red wake.

As soon as he sword stopped, he swung back the other way, careful to keep the sword level for a second horizontal slash.

What followed the blade the second time was different. The red effect grew brighter till its center was tinged with white. The arc behind the blade stretched out beyond the reach of the sword. The blade cleft two more goblins that charged in, but the red energy arc the sword created struck a third that was too far for the metal to touch.

It fell down in two parts as well.

Toby stood up straight and looked down at the five dead goblins. He had only swung twice. Everyone else had needed multiple strikes to drop one.

Tim was the first to appear beside him. “Well, that was a hell of a thing.”

Toby nodded.

Amos and Jesse followed. The ranger knelt down and started poking at the goblins.

“Oh, score.” His hands came up holding a thing made of leather and scraps of fur. “Who wants a hat?”

Jesse gave Toby a mild glare with narrowed eyes.

“What?” He glared back at her.

“We use similar gear. Wanna roll on it?”

Paul and Claire showed up last. The tank raised a hand. “We should give it to Tobin, he needs-”

“Yeah, yeah.” Jesse crossed her arms. “But we
all
need gear, and it doesn’t seem like he’s so fragile as you feared.”

Toby shrugged as he looked her over. He had a chain shirt along with his leather armor and fur mantle. She had nothing metal on her. Just leather and pelts. “Take it.”

She shook her head. “No, no. We need to be fair about this. We should roll on it.”

Amos muttered. “Claire and I can wear it, too…”

“Oh please, as if either of you would be caught dead with a rotting animal on your head. It’s clearly meant for we outdoorsy types.”

“I am a ranger. I practically define outdoorsy types.”

“Yes, but it’s visibly unrefined. You have such nice and clean armor.”

“I really don’t care how I look. Stats are important.”

“Hush, now. The adults are talking.”

“I am older than both of you!”

She ignored Amos as she held up a closed fist before Tobin. “Best out of twenty.”

He shrugged. “Shoot.”

She shook her fist as one does with dice, though she hadn’t taken one from a pouch or anything. The game just seemed to understand her intent. More of the gesture reading. She opened her hand and a twenty sided die fell from her grasp.

He was concerned it would be lost in the grass under their feet… but it struck a glowing flat surface that appeared about a foot off the ground.

Seventeen.

She raised an eyebrow at him.

He mimicked the gesture, completely sure nothing would happen, but a die appeared when he opened his hand.

Five.

She smiled and cheered. “Awesome.” She held out her hands to Amos. “Gimme.”

“Not-uh.” He shook his head and a closed fist. He opened his hand and a third die landed on the flat surface.

Fifteen.

Amos’ shoulders slumped. “God damn it.”

Jesse stood with her arm held out to Amos, her hand opening and closing repeatedly.

“Yeah, yeah.” He handed her the hat.

She wasted no time plopping it onto her head. Her blond hair, still containing a few sticks and leaves, stuck out around the edges. “Victory!” She held up her hand, her fingers making a V.

Paul shook his head. “Yes, yes. We’re not done here, though it looks like we cleared out the north end. Lets press south to the center and see how everyone else is doing.”

7

There were a few more items to distribute from the pile of dead goblins. Paul got a set of bracers and Claire ended up with a belt. Both were plate and had stats weighed to the given class, so no arguments were necessary.

Apparently Toby had been getting money each time a goblin died. He’d had no idea. It was just appearing in his inventory.

Strangely enough, the money had weight. That was kind of uncommon. It had been a few years since he needed to bank money to move around… but he was glad upping strength would ease that requirement. He was going to up strength anyway, after all. The more things it benefited, the less he could feel he needed to only spend on stamina.

He pondered whether or not he would drop money when he died… only to realize the answer didn’t matter. He only had one shot. There was no respawn.

The other parties were still fighting to the south. The goblin camp was holding them at bay rather effectively.

They kept on toward the fight, readying their weapons.

Tim scoffed as he pulled his hood a bit lower. “They’re afraid of dying. Taking no chances.”

Paul shrugged. “What’s wrong with that?”

“It’s not going to help us win. We don’t have time to turtle, we have to burn through everything we find as quickly as we can. Not dying is a great secondary goal, but making it to the level cap has to come first.”

Jesse nodded. “If we don’t make it to the end, we lose anyway.”

Amos drew back his bow as he aimed at the goblins ahead. “And we lose
worse
. We lose by default.”

Paul seemed to consider it as he walked. “Right, well, I don’t think throwing caution to the wind is best… but you have a point.” He raised his shield and drew his sword. “Let’s be done with this and move on.”

He charged ahead of the others and leapt. His raised shield bashed against one of the goblin’s hastily constructed defenses. Two goblins standing atop the wooden structure fell down as the thing toppled.

Toby blinked a few times. “Wow. And I’ve been pissing him off all day.”

Claire smirked. “He’s coming around.”

They charged in with weapons readied. Toby swung his sword in great arcs, breaking the defenses as goblins fled them.

Jesse had set the entire place on fire in less than a minute. Toby wasn’t sure if that was an admirable goal, but it was proving to be effective.

Toby didn’t see Tim much, but that seemed to be how he operated. He had some sort of shadow step ability he wasn’t the least bit afraid to abuse.

Amos stayed further back and took potshots at Goblins that tried to escape.

A red flash caught Toby’s attention. He turned to see a goblin at his left with a spear. For the first time, is hit points became visible. A red bar on the upper left side of his vision. A chunk was missing, and now represented by black.

“Oh, a wise guy, eh?” Toby lifted his sword high and brought it straight down.

The goblin held up its spear to parry the blow… but the spear was cut in half as the sword continued its downward swing until it struck the ground.

The two halves of the goblin fell opposite ways.

Another flash of red appeared, now from the other side. He turned, grinding his teeth. He needed to keep an eye on the damned things.

This one was less his fault. The goblin was several yards away and readying a second arrow to fire at him.

He held his sword behind him. “Well, lets see how well horizontal works here.” He held his arm as far back as he could before sweeping the sword forward and releasing it, casting the sword through the open air.

A red trail appeared behind the blade as it spun through the air.

The sword struck the goblin in the chest and sent it flying back to the ground. Its bow was cleft in two.

The sword reappeared in Toby’s hand a moment later.

He grinned. “Okay, I like this thing.”

White light washed around him. He turned to see Claire standing a few feet away while his hit point bar refilled. “Bit more situational awareness, hmm?” The hand she held out hand the palm facing him with all the fingers closed against the palm except the index finger pointing to the sky and the thumb sticking out perpendicular to it.

He stared a moment. “Are you giving me the good guy gang sign from Big Trouble in Little China?”

Claire looked at her own hand. “Am I?”

Jesse shook her head. “Healing is the ‘loser’ symbol.” She held her own hand the same way in front of her forehead. Green light sprouted around her hand as a brighter green washed over Toby and filled his hit points back to the cap. The bar faded from view entirely.

Amos smiled. “No, he’s got the right of it. It’s totally referencing Big Trouble in Little China. Good on you for recognizing it, kid.”

“Psh.” Toby scoffed. “John Carpenter, man. It’s a classic.”

Paul stepped up beside them. “Agreed. But right now we have bigger issues. Let’s get this done, then you can talk movies.”

Amos’ smile grew into a grin. “Says the man who designed the healing gesture.”

“I was not questioning the classics.” Paul shrugged. “But right now, go hit some goblins. I want this camp torn down ASAP. Chop chop, you slackers.”