Chapter 8: Bets and battles

As I walk outside, barely keeping myself from stomping like a little girl, I keep my eyes down only bringing up my gaze briefly to asses the young apprentice who was forced away from his work as a waiter and told by the chef to go follow me. I was already halfway across the restaurant by that point so I didn’t hear what the chef said to him, but I assume he knows the terms of the bet as he hasn’t asked any questions.

He looks nice enough with hazel eyes and reddish blond hair. A rather average face that is neither gaunt nor chubby with a sizable portion of freckles smattered across the bridge of his nose. He seems a little gangly and has 2 or 3 inches on my height (which while not record breaking is above average). He is dressed in all white with a tall hat (just like the head chef) despite being a waiter and I would put him at 17 or 18 based on his looks and slight clumsiness.

Well, back to the fields I guess. I pull out my map because although I have been to the hunting grounds before i’m not very confident in my ability to remember where it is. Ah, this way then. I turn left and head towards the edge of the city once more. The young apprentice who has been staring of into space with a blank, smiling expression gives a jolt as I start moving.(Should I really call him young considering that he is probably very close to my age? Whatever.) I turn back and motion for him to hurry up. “come on I don’t have all day”

After passing a few streets he hesitantly turns to me with a small smile and says “my name is Keith. What’s yours?”

I glance at him with an eyebrow raised before shaking my head and turning back to the street and answering with a monotoned voice “Blade”

He frowns slightly at my less than friendly response (what can I say, I don’t particularly like most people and as a side effect of growing up in a slum sector I naturally assume that most people who talk to me are just trying to take advantage of me), but then shrugs it off and puts on another smile. He seems like one of those perpetually cheerful people that never stop smiling for more than a few seconds. Unngh. For a pessimist (what else would you call me?) like me this is going to get on my nerves really fast.

We are have another 5ish blocks to go and he doesn’t seem to have gotten the message that I prefer silence to pretty much anything he has to say.

“how has your day been going?” he asks in a conversational way

“fine, or at least it will be until I get that discount from your boss. Then it will probably get upgraded to good” I state with the same toneless and flat voice from my last answer. This guy is currently on the low side of my annoyance meter, but is getting dangerously close to the ticked off portion. I think that meeting stressed me out more than I realized. Don’t get me wrong I’m not a nice person, however I usually don’t let people annoy me this much this quickly.

I let out a deep breath through my mouth and then inhale through my nose before I stop walking and turn to face the surprised Keith who looks like he was about to make another attempt at communicating with me (judging by the open mouth and full lungs). “Sorry about earlier” I say with an apologetic tone and a downcast gaze “I’m just a little stressed out about everything that’s happening. Your boss wasn’t far off when he said that I couldn’t have been in this world for more than a few days.”

I can see his smile getting bigger as he looked at me “No problem, it’s cool of you to apologize. Not many people here in the Demon Lands have the guts to admit that they screwed up. And I totally understand the ‘overwhelmed by all the crazy stuff thing’ I’ve been here for a few weeks now and I still can’t deal with all the new stuff I see every day.

Hmmm. They must really have gone the extra mile here when they made the AI’s for all of the locals because I couldn’t tell a real person or at least someone who used to be a real person (remember, to enter the game you have to get “digitized”) apart from them. Maybe this guy isn’t so bad after all either. I start walking again, but this time with Keith next to me instead of slightly behind.

“Thanks for understanding” I say “got any advise for the new champion?”

“Well all I can say is don’t be an idiot and buy everything that looks cool. Save what money you have. You may have been a millionaire back in the ‘real world’, but this game doesn’t care who you were, everyone starts of with nothing and you can’t just make money on demand, if you want to make cash then you have to work for it.”

I may have been too soon in judging this guy. Despite his optimism (*shudder*) he is surprisingly down to earth (or templa as the case may be) on issues like money. He doesn’t fit the mental profile I had of people from the rich sectors so I guess the game changes people. I certainly hope everyone else can be as nice as Keith, but lets get real, he’s probably the exception (Ah bless my pessimistic heart).

I don’t say anything else and Keith doesn’t either so we walk in silence, but this time the silence is much more relaxed. Make no mistake, I still wouldn’t trust him with anything of mine and we are definitely not friends, but we are on the path to friendship and he doesn’t make me want to stab him every time he speaks now. That, ladies and gentlemen, is improvement.

Ah we are finally here. Hello again rock. (I am referring to the rock I sat on, on my last visit to the hunting grounds. See chapter six if you don’t remember) Hello again field of weird yellow - white grass (again see chapter 6 if you don’t remember).

I glance at Keith, who nods and gestures me forward with a sweeping gesture, indicating the whole field, and the ever-present smile. “Kill a Poisonous High Jumper, any Poisonous High Jumper” he says with a chuckle. “I have no idea how your planning on accomplishing it at your level, but I believe in you *thumbs up* ” (Just endure the optimism Blade you can do it)

Surveying the field I see two other players on it about 50 feet from each other both of whom look like they are better geared than me, but not by much. One of has a sword instead of the default knife and the other has a chainmail chest plate along with a dagger much like my own but covered in a mysterious and dangerous looking green slime that I would guess is poison (apparently the first upgrade to get is a weapon) and both of them are combating Poisonous High Jumpers. Neither of them are doing well. Sword man (yes that is what I’m calling him), on the left, doesn’t seem to have understood that a massive sword is massively heavy and didn’t put the required points into strength and agility (It would be dexterity too, but his slashes are so slow that it doesn’t really matter if he can aim or not) As I watch sword man blocks one of the tusks by driving it into the ground with an overhead smash, but gets pierced by the other one as the Poisonous High Jumper shakes its head the other way. The wound is directly through sword man’s spine about two thirds of the way down his back. He yells out in pain before his body, to my amazement, poofs into mist which condenses into a smaller version of him about half a foot tall. Apparently this is how all creatures die (remember my first kill after getting down from the mountain?).

While all this was happening I can only assume that the final yell sword man gave out attracted the attention of chainmail dude, because he keeps looking at the blue mist with what seems like longing. It’s actually really bad for him because he keeps getting distracted from his fight and actually trips, falling backwards, after a particularly long look at the mist. That fall might have been the turning point of this fight. Before, he might have won. The Poisonous High Jumper has scratches and gouges all over it (although the poison on his dagger doesn’t seem to be working), but when Chainmail dude falls the beast does it’s jumping move and lands directly on top of him. Bye bye chainmail dude.

This seems like quite the opportunity. I don’t know if dead players can drop equipment, but if they can then this could be a very lucrative opertunety I may be able to get my hands on that dagger which would be amazing and if I can get any tother pieces of equipment then I can sell them to buy my own. I shouldn’t get too excited though. Maybe they dropped nothing. Well, only one way to find out.

I activate stealth and wave a transparent hand at Keith. “I’m going to go loot the dead guys. Then I’ll kill a Poisonous High Jumper, ok?”

He nods and with a slightly longing and regretful tone of voice, says “Sounds good. Man this is quite lucky for you. Getting loot from two dead players without having to kill them is a chance that may never come again for you. I wish I could go out their and get the loot myself, but I’m not a combat class just a support one. Oh well, its not the end of the world” (aaaaand the optimism is back)

I wonder what a support class is. I’ll have to ask later, but right now there’s killing and looting to do (wow that sounded bloodthirsty).

I slowly creep over towards the closer mist, from chainmail dude. Unfortunately the Poisonous High Jumper that squished him has only taken a few steps away from the “body” so I’ll have to get within 3 feet of a gigantic spotted frog with tusks and poison. Great. I really wish I had that stealth cloak in Roth’s shop right now.

I’m maybe 10 feet away from the mist and nothing has gone wrong yet. I keep having to resist the urge to sprint for it and then run away with my low stats I’m not confident in being able to stay ahead of it. Not worth the risk. Of course, knowing that doesn’t make it any less difficult to endure the composition to do so.

I’m only five feet away from the mist now (which, because I circled around a bit, means I’m eight feet away from the deadly tusks of a giant animal. yay.) and I drop down even lower from a crouch to my stomach and begin army crawling the rest of the way. Good thing Poisonous High Jumper’s aren’t very observant creatures.

Stretching out my hand in a very slow manner my fingertips are a mere six inches from my goal. I’m soooooo close. I bring my arm for a back into it’s army crawl position when I hear a sudden ribbit and feel a drop of something, burning on my neck…

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Sorry for the short chapter guys. I have a big trip coming up in a few days and have to plan/pack. I'll hopefully be able to write to you from the plane (which I will be on for what seems like forever) so I'll try to make it up to you next time.

On another note, the results from the poll say that apparently you guys are just lazy. That's fine I am too, but could you please just give a rating. It takes like five seconds, all you have to do is select how good it is and click submit. If you want to (pretty please ) here is a link: http://royalroadl.com/fiction/6880