4

Somebody once said, “The most unfair fight is a sniper ambushing someone.” Some other guy said, “Never fight fair if you want to win.” I gotta say, I agree with both of them. I kinda felt sorry for the guy. Here he was, just hiking down the trail, minding his own business, on some patrol he probably thought was boring as all get out. He probably walked this route every day, maybe more than once a day.

Kinda like the perimeter guards at the prison. Except those were real people. I was pretty sure this guy was not actually a person, but a computer-generated non-player character. Because if I logged into a game like this, which had to be on the pricey side, and my role was to just patrol a mountain trail waiting to be ambushed by newbies…I’d want my money back.

I figured he was about fifty or so meters out, the pistol’s maximum range. The shot went right over his head. And there went the element of surprise.

Pistol Skill +1 (1)

I got off another shot while he was scrambling for the limited cover his position could provide, catching him in the side. His Health bar showed up and went down by about a quarter. Three more hits like that, that sounded doable.

He found a large rock to kneel down behind, but more of him was exposed than I was. As far as I could tell. But I was pretty sure that was the case. We both aimed, both using solid rock to steady our weapons. I was pretty sure his was both more accurate and more powerful than mine.

We both fired. My shot hit his rock pretty ineffectively. His hit my rock for a shower of dust and debris. Yep, his was definitely more heavy duty. After that we both started firing, trying to stay as much in cover as possible.

I got a hit on him, taking him down to about half, and he hit me in the shoulder. It hurt more than the lizard thing had, and my Health bar dropped about a quarter. I slid backwards and let myself drop off behind my boulder. His weapon hit harder, but I was tougher, all things considered.

Pistol Skill +1 (2)

I sprinted across to another rock and crouched down. It was his move now. I aimed at the open space he would have to come through to get to me.

It was nine deep breaths before I saw him. Naturally, I missed, and he ducked back. Things were feeling stalemated.

“This is your last chance to surrender,” the man announced.

Really? I shoot at him out of the blue and he’d be willing to accept my surrender? Either he was far more forgiving than I was or he was ballsy.

Two clunk sounds preceded a round object bouncing to land pretty much at my feet. A grenade? Seriously?

It was a really good thing this game worked through a neural connection instead of any other kind of interface. Sure, it many games a grenade isn’t fatal. But instinct kicked in and I jumped. Hard. I’d forgotten in that moment that I had boosted jumping, which took me even higher. And a little forward. By the time the blast happened the boulder was between me and the majority of the blast.

As it was, it took me down to about twenty percent left. And I was coming down on the other side of the boulder. The same side as a guard who was about to step around and finish me off. He hadn’t caught me leaping to...safety?

I turned down and came down behind him. I wish I could say I came down claws ready. Or that I shot him in the back on the way down. Either of those would have sounded cooler than what actually happened.

I landed behind him a bit like an idiot. I tried to turn mid-air, but it seems the game had more physics than I was prepared for. Or there was some Aerial Acrobatics skill I needed to level up first, maybe. So we both spun around to face each other.

Normally, this is where I might point out that pistols work better in close quarters than rifles. Which on paper is true. The guy was better than I gave him credit for. He full-on butt smacked with his rifle and knocked the pistol out of my hand, then brought it back around and up to his shoulder.

As a general rule, any gun wins in a fist fight. So I knew this was going to end badly if I didn’t do something. You know when a rifle is at its least advantageous? In a wrestling match. I dove and tackled him.

We rolled on the ground, at first trying to get control on the rifle. We rolled right, we rolled left. We stirred up dust. Now that’s attention to detail.

He was bigger, and clearly better trained. But I had one edge he did not have. Actually, it was four edges. Serrated ones. I snicked them out and punched him in the gut over and over in classic “button mashing” glory until he stopped moving. And then a couple more times, well past the point where his red Health bar was gone.

I rolled off him and got up to my knees, noticing the decrease in my green Stamina bar. It was down maybe ten percent, if that. I would have expected more. That +100 from being a cyborg must have helped.

A transparent window had popped up when the guy died.

Quest completed: Intro to Tactics

Quest Rewards:

Level gain Class gain

Level gained! (Total XP 1000)

+15 Health, +15 Stamina, +10 Focus

Class gained: Hunter

+3 Agility, +3 Con

+100 Stamina

+10 Evasion, +10 Speed

+5 Sneak, +5 Dodge, +10 Track

Choose one:

+5 Melee Attack, +5 Ranged Attack +10 Melee Atk +10 Ranged Atk

“In addition to gaining a level, you have gained points in skills. The more you use a skill, the better at it you will become.”

The man’s body lay in a pool of blood. Now I had the time to notice details I had been too busy before. I suspected he was designed with some randomness around a basic template. Who knew how many I’d see before I found duplicated faces. Or would I? He was not wearing the ever-fashionable plain jumpsuit, but pants, boots, a shirt and jacket. The shirt and jacket were pretty ruined, especially on the side with all the claw damage. It was a detailed game.

I took things that looked valuable. He had two small rectangular things that looked like ammunition cartridges on his belt. I took those and put them on my belt, yielding a pop-up confirming them as “Basic E-Rifle Magazines (50) x2.”

The small communicator on his left shoulder I debated with myself about. On one hand, it was bound to be valuable. But would it make me trackable? In the end, I concluded that if they were standard issue I could get one if I needed one.

The rifle rounded out my gains for this encounter.

Item acquired: Basic Laser Rifle

Range

Accuracy

Damage

Durability

75m

+5

50

35/50

That definitely looked like an upgrade. I kept the holstered pistol, though, seeing no reason to discard a usable weapon.

I had another weapon, and a class. Hunter sounded about right. Hunt a woman down and then protect her. Hunter was a good start. Certainly better than “Dead Soldier.”

I waited around while my Health bar slowly recovered. Newbs die easy in a lot of games, and so far I wasn’t convinced this was one of the more forgiving ones. In the process I confirmed that I did heal faster when specifically resting. So there was that. When I was fully recovered and ready I hopped up and trotted down the path, toting my new rifle and ready for more. I was especially on the lookout for anything that looked like a potential ambush.

Generally a tutorial will tell you when you’ve finished it. Since I had been told no such thing, it was safe to assume I was not done. Or it was not done with me. Tutorials exist to teach new players valuable lessons. I kinda figured “avoid ambushes” might have been one the developers wanted to teach the newbies. Learning quick is an important element of survival in new games. I was determined to be a quick learner. Especially given the potential consequences for not.

“It is time to learn about your character sheet. It will display whenever you want it to.”

More tables popped up in front of me. I stopped, not wanting to trip--or get caught off guard by another patrolling sentry--while studying new information.

The sheet had a number of different sections. Primary Attributes, Secondary Attributes, Tertiary Attributes, and short skill list. I started with Primary Attributes:

Strength

15

Agility

18

Constitution

18

Appearance

10

Intellect

17

Magic

0

Willpower

12

Charisma

8

All in all, not bad, I supposed. Charisma was lower than I would have liked, especially if I was going to have to be asking around to find Silleste. I was pretty sure the game wasn’t going to just give me that quest with NPCs leading me from place to place until I found her. If it did, I was going to be really creeped out about what that meant for the game reading my brain and acting accordingly.

Secondary attributes started at 100 and were modified by Primary Attributes and class and race modifiers. Cyborg and Scout in particular did good things to Stamina, considering these all maxed out at 1000.

Health

180

Stamina

330

Mana

Focus

124

Tertiary Attributes were the longest section, and had some of the more important numbers, I figured. Attack bonuses, Evasion to take less damage, chances for critical hits and how hard those crits would be...all good things adding to survival, which had to be the primary mission, no matter what the suits outside said. Can’t rescue anybody when you’re dead, right?

Ranged Attack

115

Melee Attack

115

Evasion

125

Toughness

Resistance

Melee Damage

15

Magic Damage

Crit Chance

16

Crit Power

11

Mitigation

Speed

28

The skills list looked like it needed work. But I was just starting, after all. Presumably it only listed the skills I had. I couldn’t believe that might be all the skills the game had.

Dodge

5

Melee Combat

2

Pistol

2

Sneak

5

Track

10

I had five skill points to spend. I put two into Melee Combat and three into Pistol. Early on, fighting skills were probably going to be a big factor in survival.

An inventory tab listed what gear I had, with all kinds of stats about it all. It seemed just about anything could have some possible use or stat modifier.

The sun crept across the sky and shadows changed accordingly. Clouds trekked from horizon to horizon. I passed through valleys and over ridges. About half the day went by before I came to another wide, shallow valley.

Burning wreckage bookended the valley, with a line of what I thought was the demise of a vehicle convoy at one end and the smoking corpse of a larger air vehicle of some kind. A group of soldiers and a more ragtag group skirmished among rocks and shrubs and tall grasses in between.

“Welcome to the end of the Riftworlds Online tutorial,” my ever-present narrator said. “One last thing to discover is that in most lands you will encounter rival groups or factions. Choose carefully which side you help, for your friends and enemies can have a direct impact on your game experience.”

Game experience. There was a euphemism if I’ve ever heard one. Life or death. Pick your friends and enemies carefully. Got it.

“Federal troops and rebel Separatists struggle for control of this system. Will Relkit remain a part of the Federation? Will their fight for independence lead to freedom or civil war? What part will you play in a drama that spans countless systems and planets? It is time for you to choose your destiny. Welcome to Riftworlds Online. Good luck.”

Quest: Choose a Side

Federalists and Separatists are clashing nearby. Choose which side to help. Defeat all opponents.