Haven Square, lobby for sleeping adventurers. Meet your enemies. Share a drink. Invulnerability filter on. No one dies here, but you can plan a murder.

Lone girl at her spot by the giant window. More people this time, shouting with enthusiasm, laughing.

Enoch poured himself a beer, blonde ale, clear, icy cold. Someone noticed his arrival and a murmur went through the crowd. His peg leg.

Eyes followed him as he walked to the blackboard, making dull wooden sounds on the shiny floor of polished obsidian.

He looked at the list of dead players. Eight now. Three since yesterday. A slow day. Ninety-one left. The next board offered two player quests. He peeked. Nothing relevant for him.

One beer went down, then another, followed by one more. Alone in a corner. His eyes stayed shut a tiny bit longer with each blink. Free fall nods brought him back a few times until he left for a room.

Double sleep. His avatar sleeping down there in the fort, his second avatar sleeping up here in the space tavern, his real brain blessedly unaware for a few seconds in his station, stretching time through algorithms who had evolved past human comprehension a long time ago.

He slept some more, then opened one eye to a cursed vision. Three silhouettes, cloak and a bow, fur and an axe, pointy hat and a staff. The butthurt club.

“You guys again? The leg is not enough for you, wasting another day on me? I’m still standing.”

“Not for long,” said the axe woman, “next time you won’t get away.”

“Boasts. Boring. Do what you have to do down there. Leave me alone up here. Just remember, what ever ends up happening, you had it coming.”

They growled and groaned. Insulted him at a distance. The crowd looked at them. Poor etiquette, bringing up personal stuff up here. The archer shrugged and to left for the opposite corner.

The girl by the window glance at Enoch, amusement in her eye. “Kill them quick, or we’ll get a repeat every night.” She winked and disappeared in cloud of silver pixels.

She had a point. Time to go.

***

The fort behind him, up the slope. Bright sun. A happy lo-fi chill played. The fluttering golem core pulsing to the tune. A new gambeson, standard issued. Scout helm. Steel gloves. One leather booth. The large duffel bag too, now patched up along with the chainmail roll. The soldiers didn’t have a healing potion or any high-end alcohol left to refill his cargo. They had, however, given him a stack of four shields, brand new, two rings found on the empty shelves of their armory, and a rope. Enoch had clapped twice. He loved rope.

Generous folks. Desperate for help. They had tied in a delivery quest and sent him on his way.

Spook Bark Shield | Shield | Rarity 5

Resist 4 | Damage Resist 4 | Damage 3

Casts Root 1 | Mana vines immobilize the target |

Duration 4 seconds | Refresh 5 minutes

Cost 25 Mana | Range 3 |Charges 10

Ring of Strength 1 | Ring | Rarity 1

Strength 1

Ring of Intellect 1 | Ring | Rarity 1

Intellect 1

His stats changed to:

Strength 3 | Attribute | Rarity 1

Multiplier x4 | Health +15 | Speed 2

Intellect 1 | Attribute | Rarity 1

Multiplier 2 | Mana +10 | Reroll 2%

And he got that quest:

Spook Shields Delivery | Local Quest | Rarity 3

Deliver four Spook round shields to the garrison at the Drone’s Shaft.

Reward | 350 XP | Keep one shield

One geezer had commented on his bundle of wands, “And you say that one of them casted Artillery Fire? Geez.”

Enoch nodded.

“Is that how you lost you leg?”

Enoch had denied with his head.

“Oh, I see, interesting,” continued the guy, “In any case, no one here has Identify to confirm what type the rest of them are. Probably one charge per wand. It’s the trade-offs for Siege spells, it drains everything all at once. Too much power.

Enoch already knew. Not his first rodeo. Only six wands left.

He could see his destination now. The typical eroded mound of a Drone Shafts. Drones, a common species. Single minded constructs, gears, plates and soul gems. They dug the worlds’ entrails around Ooloo, the gas giant, center of the game. Why did they dig? To find new resources. Why did they need resources? To dig.

The shafts were openings to the surface. They led to their abandoned tunnels. Sometime, their active digging sites were close enough to allow commerce. Which was the case here if it was worth a war.

Mutants, humanoids who had voluntarily, or not, went too far on mutations, hence the name. Something eventually broke on the inside and they lost themselves to mad hunger. Some of them emerged as natural leaders. Acted as beacons for a convergence, mutants gathered in a crazed horde, dedicated to glory and greed. They made for great villains.

Great Perception, he had to admit. No competition really, with their freak ears, dog nose or eagle eyes.

Enoch had killed three already, spotted on the way down. They surveyed the path but were too dumb to retreat and find help when they saw him. Attacked him one by on one instead. He speared them easy while Choo Choo bashed their head in with his brand-new animated shield. The magical damage put to good use. Damage 3 wasn’t a literal + 3 Health damage, more like an order of magnitude, 3 up the scale, out of eleven. It upgraded the shield to a lethal weapon, same as Enoch’s Steel Spear.

Real Health damage came from an hidden table. It considered Damage Resist, Defense Types, Damage, Damage Types. Sprinkled it with random rolls.

All well and good but it didn’t solve the three mutants on his tail. Enoch had been spotted. Weird group, as usual. These one ran on all four, or all eight for the especially disturbing one. Crab legs. The dude, or gall, was committed, even walked sideway. Worst of all, it was the fastest of the bunch. Losing Enoch slowly, as opposed to pretty fast for his two colleagues.

Damn his injury. With both his legs, they wouldn’t had time to realise he was coming their way before he was gone.

No point in wallowing. He did what he had to do. Ran awkwardly to the jolly soundtrack as the fortified mound grew bigger and the chasing mutants grew smaller, crab thing included.

The mound itself had eight guard towers. Four short and stubby ones on top. Four bigger ones at the bottom connected to the top ones by fortified bridges. Wooden palisades protected each level.

The mutant army surrounded the position with a thin circle of troops. They stayed at a safe distance, or as safe as possible in a world with spells of mass destruction. Siege warfare was kind of a mess in this game, not the fault of the developers per say but the logical conclusion of legendary skills and high magic. High level fighters could slaughter entire armies. High level mages could scour a whole area down the rock substrate, or worse.

Armies and civilizations coped as they could, betting on the rarity of high level individuals, on their disinterest in world affairs, or, hopefully, on their mutual destruction. Outsiders, after all, were here to kill each other.

Equilibrium often arose, wizards countering themselves while the grunts fought. Because it was an interesting scenario, the game favored it even if it made little sense.

Typical case here. The charge started as Enoch came to the scene. Big wink from the game AI.

The circle of attackers ran toward the fortified shaft. Battle cries rose, reverberated in the narrow plateau. Giants drums imposed their rhythm. They merged with Enoch’s soundtrack, enhanced by an orchestra of electric guitars.

Enoch dove in the madness, the pungent smell of mutants hitting him hard. Lances of pure Mana zipped by, sparkles rained down, multicolored and deadly. Most of them fizzed, absorbed by defensive runes on the palisades and raised effigies. Other vanished in puffs of teal pixels, the telltale color of counterspells. Mana on Mana made a terrible, overwhelming sound. Thunder and breaking ice shelves, laced with static, amplified by echoes.

The charge moved fast, two volleys of arrows from the ramparts and the mutants were at the first wall. Six giant chunks of muscles ran over it. Grotesque, bloated, formidable. Tusks, hooves and tails flattened everything, comrades included.

“Shit bits,” said Enoch. “I’m going to fail my quest if all the defenders die.”

Choo flicked a pebble at the mutant’s ranks.

“Keep your Mana, you’ll need it,” said Enoch.

He bolted down the slope. Tossed a wand to Choo. Passed a few scattered slackers. No fuss, no alarm. Good. He came from the rear, closer that he wanted but he couldn’t afford to take a chance on the wands’ range. Long jump next. His peg leg bounced on a mutant turtle. His good foot landed on a large boulder.

“Shoot them.” He pointed to a division of heavies, bolted in rough irons, well ordered in the chaotic see of their allies. They’d be a major threat if they engaged. If.

Choo Choo lit up, neon purple. Ribbons of white light coiled around the wand and pounced at nothing, lost in the afterglow of its own explosion. Enoch’s retina burned through his closed eyes. He grabbed the boulder as the shockwave hit him. His hands tired to held on.

The force picked him up. Inevitable. [-23 Health]. He tumbled backward, felt his peg leg fly lose, stabilized, folded in half [-6 Health | Dazzled 8 seconds].

Enoch unfolded, saw a world of inverted blacks and whites. Blinked. Blinked again. Rubbed his eyes with the palms of his hands. Another peek. The scenery somewhat back, fuzzy.

Body parts rained down, trailing red pixel in between bits of equipment. Psychedelic. No music, just a constant buzz building up to a higher pitch. Enoch rolled three time, picked up his leg, put it back on as the giant boulder he’d perched on fell toward him. Great.

Another back roll to be in the clear. The heavy mass stroke the ground, silent to his deaf ears. Two disoriented mutants disappeared under the gray rock. Too bad.

Achievement unlocked | Optimized Shot

You killed way too many enemies in one shot.

Reward | 500 XP

Grinning, Enoch glanced at the chat.

“What are we seeing?”

“Argh, my eyes.” Tag | Dad

Yellow light surrounded Enoch as the catchy tune played, lost to the humming in his ear. Level up.

He picked up his spear, held it in his left hand with his shield, took out a wand and ran toward Choo, now a tiny, distant dot. The silly thing had been caught by the shockwave. Enoch imagined the scene, the golem core spinning out of control, propelled at high speed with a long, “weeeeee.” That’s exactly what had happen. He considered as canon now.

An oversized great sword missed him by an inch, swung by a bipedal elephant. The enemy force had noticed him. Not good. Dash, then Sprint, under an axe, over a polearm, quick rolls between gross legs.