9

So far I liked the town; I wasn’t sure if I was willing to call it a city or not. In most games, a city could either be something a dozen blocks or so across you could explore fully, or it could be a number of zones, each containing just the area needed for the relevant quests. This, so far at least, seemed to be an entire town. For all I knew, every building could contain people with potential quests to offer.

Quite a few buildings were unlabeled, although I saw some that were probably restaurants or bars. One I was pretty sure was a strip club, although the silhouette dancing on their sign wasn’t entirely humanoid. I watched a hovering robot moving from building to building collecting scrap, or maybe recyclables.

I was about two blocks from the market on a narrower, more shadowed street between buildings four stories tall on the right and five on the left. The shadowing wasn’t intense and didn’t seem to affect me at all, thanks to cyborg nightvision, although I could make out where its forty meter range ran out.

I don’t know what made me look up. I hadn’t seen any birds, or any wildlife at all really, in town so far. So I couldn’t tell you what I expected to see, other than a robed figure falling towards me was the last thing I would have.

I dove forward, rolling out of the way and coming up to my feet as quickly as I could. As it was I barely avoided a spinning kick I hadn’t risen enough to be hit by yet. He must have thought I’d be faster.

The blue-skinned figure with short, purple horns and purple ridges and stripes was a Mordian. Between the metal staff and the whirling mass of blue, gray, and black robes I was guessing a Monk class. That meant close-in, melee fighting. Whether there was armor under the robes, or what degree of protection they might grant him, I couldn’t say. He’d hit fast, but maybe not as strong as others.

He wasn’t a spellcaster, or he would have opened up with magic.

The two ends of the staff came at me one after the other. The first one whacked me in the left arm just above the elbow for a hefty 30 damage. The second I was more ready for; I brought my cyborg arm up, blocking with that and getting a popup I dismissed quickly to get it out of the way:

Ability unlocked: Cyborg Arm Block

You can block melee attacks with your cybernetic arm, protecting softer body parts. Agility scores are compared to determine whether to apply +10 Toughness to reduce damage. Reduced damage is done directly to cybernetic HP which cannot be healed magically. Use with caution.

Stamina cost 5, no Cooldown

I dodged the next several blows, hopping back with each. Was he herding me? If so, it was back towards the last street I’d crossed. Close-quarters fighting wasn’t going to work in my favor.

He leapt forwards and right; I ducked low and avoided a hard swing. He kept his balance with the swing, and started circling me.

Ah, old-school PVP combat--me against another player. Strafing, the tactic he was using trying to keep me spinning while he circled me, was definitely old-school. It hadn’t worked as well since VR games made keyboard controllers obsolete. I kept turning and avoiding, letting him think I couldn’t turn fast enough to get him. But I knew how to counter this, and I had just the thing for it.

I stopped, throwing some of my weight the other way, and let my claws extend as my arm snapped into place. I hit him hard, slashing him across the chest.

Ability unlocked: Power Attack

Make an extra strong melee attack. Doubles melee damage.

Stamina cost equal to base melee damage, Cooldown 10 seconds

I traded 15 Stamina to do 45 damage in one hit. Not bad. That knocked him down by something like a third. He stepped back, a look of surprise on his face.

“PVP the noob, huh?” I taunted him while he glared at me. Maybe I wasn’t the easy fresh meat he expected. He jumped forward. I slashed at him but he blocked it with his staff. A sparking flare of silver light flashed at the hit, like with my arm block. So we each had some kind of special defense move.

We traded some back and forth blows, both missing more than hitting. Our Health bars seemed to be suffering relatively evenly. We were both at about one third left, both suffering penalties for being under half, when his hand flashed up to his face, drinking a healing potion with his staff in just one hand for that short moment. His Health bar doubled. That was not good. Cheater. I didn’t have any of those!

But it also delayed him a moment, which meant time to change tactics. I jumped up and back and drew my pistol mid-air. By the time I was back on the street I had already fired four times.

Only one of them hit, but that was another 25 HP chipped off of him.

He charged forward, clearly wanting to negate the pistol’s range advantage, but again I was ready for him. I jumped forward--a regular jump since my booster’s cooldown timer hadn’t run out--and threw everything I had into a claw slash. The jump lifted me enough, with his staff off to the side winding up for his own power attack, I raked him across the face.

Critical Hit! 81 Damage!

He went down sprawled on his back. I landed, barely, on my feet.

+500 XP (Total 2400)

“Hah! Who’s the noob now?”

That was when it hit me, looking down at the dead body. This guy was a player. He had started it, but I had killed him. That meant somewhere in the real world, hooked up to a game system, a real person had just died. I had killed a real person.

Should I have tried to talk him down? He might not have listened, he never even said anything. But I had no doubt. This had not been some NPC spawned randomly. He was a player out to kill other players for their loot. Murdering jackass or not, I had killed him. The blood on my claws looked real. I retracted the jagged blades knowing the blood would be gone the next time I needed them.

I had also leveled up.

Level gained! (Total XP 2400)

+18 Health

+18 Stamina

+ 10 Mana

+ 12 Focus

+5 Primary Characteristic Points

+10 Skill Points

The characteristic points I put into Charisma for 2 to get that to at least not penalty status, in case less than the default ten brought any penalties, and Willpower for 3. The skill points I split between Dodge and Melee combat. I considered one of the weapon skills, but it was seeming like I came back to my claws a lot.

Then I was able to really turn my attention to the dead Mordian. The robes were monk-only, of course, but I took them to sell. The staff didn’t seem like something I’d be as likely to use, but still wasn’t something I was going to leave behind. He also had a communicator, which I figured this time I’d keep, plus 14 gold chips and 7 silver ones.

Item acquired: Combat Staff

This metal staff is well balanced,

with non-slip grips. Two-handed.

+100% Melee Damage

Durability 41/75

I dragged the body--heavier than it looked--off to the side to be less obvious before I continued my way to the commotion of the market.

The market was a square about three blocks to each side, pretty sizeable. Buildings around the edges sported shops at ground level and three to five stories of apartments with balconies above that. Holographic signs projected out above doors for each shop. Names on larger signs on the walls rotated through different languages. One cycled through eight different ones before returning to what I could read.

A flea market of a fanboy’s dreams filled the center space, like the vendor room of a convention. Tables in rows sported a bizarre assortment of goods. I was thinking all player-crafted, but you never know. I spent a fair amount of time looking things over before I made any decisions. In the end I decided to stick to the shops around the edges. Those should be NPC merchants, and I thought my luck might be better with them than with other players. So far my first interaction with another player had left me reluctant to seek out more.

“You might want to be careful toting that rifle around like that,” one shopkeeper suggested, pointing at the Federalist rifle slung across my back. “Might find yourself getting into trouble like that.” Perhaps that, as much as the jumpsuit, had signaled newbie to the monk. Tutorial gear, dead giveaway.

I sold the rifle, the staff, and the robes for 8 gold chips and 5 silver. In the process I confirmed the expected exchange rate: 10 copper per silver, 10 silver per gold, 10 gold per platinum. That brought my total wealth to 23 gold 2 silver. I also gained a point of Bargain. Eventually I was going to want to upgrade from the starting pistol, but I was willing to wait until after finding the trainer. There was a good chance there would be a better weapon merchant there.

What I did want was a better outfit. I spent some time looking at the market crowd, getting an idea for local fashion. I wanted nondescript. I paired a red shirt and brown jacket with black pants and boots. The ensemble gave me a whopping 4 Toughness, one from each item, and 10 Resistance, from the jacket. All for 63 copper. I got quite a look when I asked if I could sell or exchange the jumpsuit I was wearing.

Now I felt more relaxed trekking the streets to the trainer. I found the black-framed, green door without any further issues. No sign marked the door. If Dara hadn’t told me to look for it I don’t know how I would ever have found the place.

Weird was about the best word I could think of for the place once I stepped inside. People and beings in a range of sizes and colors lounged on chairs and couches surrounded by the a freakshow zoo of trophy heads mounted along the walls below a tall ceiling. A red-skinned lizard-thing stood behind a bar serving a smoking drink to a tall elf with a green shoulder cape thrown over one shoulder. The hunting lodge of the future. Now if only one of them had, “Hunter Trainer” floating over their head.

When in doubt, ask a bartender. Hopefully the couple of points into Charisma had been a smart move. I strode up to the bar and slid onto a stool, leaving one empty between myself and the wiry elf. The exposed right arm was bare, with lean muscles and a circled crosshair tattoo.

“Hi, I’m new around here, but I was told this was a place hunters hang out. From the looks of it, I’m thinking the guy wasn’t lying.”

The bartender laughed, a staccato croaking sound I could have lived without hearing. The elf turned, giving me a long, weighing look. He looked along the walls, from trophy head to trophy head, with a proud gleam. “You’ve come to the right place, kid.” His voice was soft, deeper and throatier than I expected. No high-fantasy melodic voice for this guy. Maybe it was a Space Elf thing.

Quest completed: Find the Hunter Trainer

+250 XP (Total 2650)

“You look like you’ve got the eye for it, I’ll give you that. I guess we’ll have to see what you’re made of.” He finished his drink and slid off his stool. “Come on.” He led the way to a door at the back, and from there down a stairway to a shooting range. Rifles of all description lined the back wall. He led me past them, through the room to another.

This room was smaller, about the size of a decent living room. Couch seating circled the room leaving an empty space maybe five or six meters across. He sat sideways on the couch and patted it in front of him. I sat, seeing a nicer and larger pistol on his thigh than mine.

“Why don’t you tell me why you’re really here?”

I was really hoping for a simple prompt asking me if I wanted to increase skills. His right hand rested atop his thigh, much too close to that pistol. No doubt this was some kind of test, but at the same time this didn’t strike me as the room you take someone to kill them. If it were my couch I wouldn’t want to kill someone on it.

“Look,” he added at my hesitation, “people come here for training. To either become a Hunter or to become a better one. I don’t have to ask to know you’re looking for that, too. But why you want to be a Hunter, that interests me.”

“Honestly, I have a mission. There’s someone I need to rescue. I can’t do that as some brawler or staff-spinning monk or straight-up soldier type. I need to be able to find her, maybe track her. If she’s in trouble--and I’m expecting her to be--I’ll need to scout out the people who have her, and then slip and and rescue her. Can you honestly tell me Hunter isn’t the perfect choice for that?”

There. Honest and flattering at the same time. Curry favor where you can, you know? I didn’t think the guy would refuse me, but still. True, nothing had indicated that she’d be in trouble. Maybe I was just looking for problems where they didn’t exist. But Murphy’s Law can be a bitch sometimes, and I’d rather be prepared for the worst than not.

“I can respect that. Thanks for being honest with me. Not everyone is. Some are looking for revenge, some for worse. I’m Bellan.”

I introduced myself and we spent the rest of the day going learning basics. Again, I was really hoping for just, ‘poof, here’s a bunch of skill points.’ We spent about an hour of him criticizing my inability to move quietly enough for him. But after that there was a sudden +10 Sneak notification.

We broke for dinner, which we ate upstairs at in a large dining hall attached to the lounge, decorated in similar fashion. More people had gathered, most in camouflage cloaks or other hunting gear. Four long tables of boisterous talkers made quite a din.

An odd couple the next table over caught my attention as food was served. While the food itself was quite good, it was less captivating than a man in one of those old British safari hats, complete with monocle, gesturing flamboyantly with a clockwork mechanical hand.

“It had to be an instanced zone, I’m telling you.”

“Yeah, so?” the pointed-eared elf across from in asked. A carved, recurved longbow ran across his back over a brown cloak. I listened to their story enough to catch the lack of elven clerics. Mostly they were comparing which world’s Hunter class was the better for soloing. They each had their merits, apparently. The fantasy Ranger was less for showmanship, if nothing else.

I really weighed introducing myself, possibly even making a case for laser weapons, although I was clearly nowhere close to their level range, whatever level they were. What this game really needed was a Consider system to tell you how much more or less powerful a target was.

A little powerleveling or some twinking with high-end gear could do a lot for my odds. But what did I have to offer them?

“Those guys regulars?” I asked the woman beside me. She looked much more like I expected, garbed in green and brown armor with compact weaponry mounted to the forearms.

“The blowhard is,” she nodded. “The archer I’ve never seen before.” She went back to her meal, not offering more. I figured I’d leave it at that. If Captain Steampunk was a regular, I could probably come back and find out more about him later if I wanted.

The evening I had time to kill, but no desire to go anywhere. I relaxed in the lounge with a datapad catalog of the animals to be found on the planet. The diversity was impressive. I made special note of the flying ones. Space Dragons were certainly something better avoided.

Training resumed in the morning, and filled every minute up to dinner. We spent hours at the shooting range, which gained me +10 Rifle skill and unlocked a new Sniper Shot ability.

Ability unlocked: Sniper Shot (Class Ability)

Each second of aiming with an appropriate rifle adds +10 to Ranged Attack and to Crit Chance up to a maximum of +50. This is on top of the normal +50 Ranged Attack for aimed shots.

The first part of the afternoon was spent wandering the streets, following people. Bellan pointed out body language to indicate which way they were likely to turn. He talked about how to stay out of sight and look inconspicuous. That netted me +10 Track, which was also for following people.

After that I climbed on an AirScooter behind him. It was basically a flying Harley. We zoomed along low to the ground downslope towards a patch of forest. I spotted a tusked mountain goat thing called a gusker I had seen in the animal database. It’s short, boxy head turned to watch us pass.

The rest of the afternoon we spent tracking things through the forest. Okay, most of that time was spent just looking for tracks. It was frustrating, but it was also relaxing and pleasant. A musty scent hung in the air and sunlight cast dappled light on the shrubs and ground cover.

“So, just to be clear,” he said at one point when we stopped to rest under a sprawling tree with coarse reddish bark, “hunting animals and hunting people aren’t the same thing. Both in methodology and...morality. Bounty hunters can be a dangerous sort. If that’s where you think you’re headed, I’ll help you out for now, but there will be a point where I’ll have to refer you elsewhere for training. You saw the people at dinner, right?”

“Yes. An interesting mix.” My stomach tightened up, and it was not from hunger.

“People come from different planets, even through Rifts from other Worlds. There is some fantastic hunting around here, up and down the range. We track and stalk our prey. We study it and observe it and learn its behaviors and patterns. Then we set up the right approach and we take that animal, as cleanly as we can. It’s a predator/prey relationship. We’re never careless about it, and we respect the animal’s place in the ecosystem. We live by rules. One of those rules is we don’t hunt other people.”

His face hardened, especially around the eyes. He was serious. Dead cold serious. Possibly as in I’d be left out here dead if I got this wrong.

“I understand where you’re coming from, Bellan. The girl I’m looking for isn’t a bounty. We already talked about this. I’m not trying to become an assassin. There’s no revenge, no dark motive at all. She’s...someone important. I have to find her and keep her safe. I...I made a promise. And I intend to keep it.”

Was it technically true? Not really. I hadn’t promised the President I’d succeed. But failure just didn’t seem an option. Would they just pull the plug on me if I failed? I’d like to think not, but it would be an awfully convenient and easy option. The scarier worry was whether they’d backstab me even if I got her home alive.

“I just want to make sure we understand each other. Our hall has a reputation. Sully that reputation and I will find you.”

I raised my hands defensively. “Whoa, yeah I got it.” A long moment passed while he regarded me with that cold stare.

“Alright. Good,” he said, nodding approvingly and standing back up. “Let’s get back to work.” He was back to the more cheerful, if sometimes harshly judging, self. By the time we stopped to head back I’d scored another +10 Track

Before dinner he presented me with a new pair of boots. They were taller and sturdier, but also lightweight and more flexible. “You aren’t going to get far trying to sneak around in those boots.

Item acquired: Basic Hunters Boots

Sturdy boots for any terrain

Toughness

Resistance

Durability

+1

+2

45/45

+10 Sneak, provides -10 modifier to others’ attempts to track you.

Dinner was similar to the night before, except tonight’s bragging--storytelling--came from a slender Fenurian who rocked from foot to foot as she talked. I guess being covered in fur negated the need for clothing. Pants and a tail seemed like it could be an awkward thing. Harness straps did cross over much of her, with a range of gear and weapons attached to her. A dark green cape around her shoulders, the only piece of clothing per se, came to about her tail and seemed to shift between green and brown depending on the angle.

“So, you’ve got a pistol,” Brellan said the next morning at breakfast. “Perfect. I wouldn’t want you doing today’s challenge from too far away. I’ll drop you in the foothills. There’s a bird called a grawk. When you have killed one you can signal me and I’ll pick you up.”

“You want me to track a bird?” Really? As part of an epic quest, I could see. But at level 3? This bird was not in the database I scrolled through, or if it was it was in a section I didn’t get to.”

He laughed, and several others nearby joined in. If this was going to be one of those initiation-type jokes I was going to be upset. Or it could be a string of go here, go there, go to this other place. I never liked those quests. Who does?

“Only partly. Grawks feed on little vermin that follow murse. Well, live on them, basically.”

Murse I had read about. Huge, lumbering things somewhere between an elephant and a moose. The murse head on the wall was about as wide as my arm span.

“If you can’t follow a murse, then you’re hopeless. You’ll find one, or it’s tracks. You get close enough, you shoot the grawk. Mind you, grawk are skittish, so you’ll need to be quiet.”

Quest: Stalk the Grawk

Brellan wants you to track, stalk, and kill one Grawk.

“And,” one of the other guys added, “don’t startle or anger the murse. You get trampled by one of those and you’re...never coming back.”

Brellan confirmed I had a communicator, paired them, and and we zoomed along the mountains again. He banked through sharp turns and hopped over low ridges as if to test my stomach. Maybe it was metal, too, because I was fine with all of it.

Once he spotted one, and pointed it out, he took us down a good kilometer away and dropped me off. He started me in a clearing at the border between denser and thinner forest. The denser zone stood between me and my prey.

“Good luck, kid,” he said with another laugh.

I glared at his back as he sped away, still sticking close to the terrain. I wanted one of those bike things. Sure they the game had mounts in it. Hopefully they didn’t come with some stupid level requirement.

“Well…,” I said as I puffed up my chest and set out. First was finding a path through heavy underbrush. Several times I had to work my way around large patches with wicked looking thorns. A red tint on the thorns made them look as though they’d already found prey.

It was warm work. I had to move quietly among places that generally weren’t clear enough to pass. Brellan probably dropped me off at the worst starting place on purpose. Dank air hung, lifeless and breezeless. Decay was the perfect word for the scent that relentlessly pursued my nose.

A good three hours passed while I wormed my way through. My patience and dilligence paid off with another +1 to Sneak, bringing it up to 17.

Eventually I did break through to a wide clearing. A shallow, broad valley crossed my path, sloping downward to my left. Yellow grasses, sparsely speckled with pink and blue flowers, waved in a welcome breeze. On the far side and downslope, some three hundred meters away, a murse munched away at low-lying growth. It followed the treeline, moving slowly away before stopping to much again.

Pistol range was seriously inadequate for the distance. In some games I’d just slowly move forward, and see if it reacted based on distance. In this case, I wasn’t going to take that chance. For one thing, it deciding to aggro and stampede me out in the open was not going to end well. For another, there was a deadline here. Following it waiting for it to calm down was not going to be the best use of my time. So getting close quietly was the only thing for it. I was supposed to be a Hunter, after all. That really should have involved me using a rifle. Who hunts with a pistol, anyway, right?

While I was debating with myself, however, I did see a bird swoop down from the trees and dive-bomb the murse. It swooped back up and perched up in the branches somewhere. Yep, this was definitely the target for me. Stupid one chance missions.

I made my way up the valley, further away from the thing, before moving across. I still moved slow, and froze when the thing lifted its head. It ambled away to another clump of undergrowth. Once in the cover of the far treeline I crept through the trees after it. Time can be such a weird thing. Sometimes an hour goes by in a flash. Other times? Other times creeping through trees trying not to make a sound is the when time…slows…down. Agonizingly slow. I did end up gaining 2 points of Sneak, now 18, 28 with my boots.

The sun had passed its zenith by the time I got close enough to get a better view of the beast. Shaggy brown fur rippled in the breeze like grass. I could probably have walked under the thing as it stood on legs I could take cover from gunfire behind. Behemoth as the thing was, it’s head wasn’t as big as the trophy one back at the space-safari lodge. Still, it took whole bushes in a single bite to gnaw on patiently like a cow chewing cud. Well, bull in this case. Yikes.

The birds, now they were distinctive. Bright, vivid blue, royal-looking birds the size of a hawk with a short beak and talons that actually seemed undersized for it. Its feathers shone in the sun as it swooped down for another attack run along the beast’s back. Without a sound it rose back into the branches, with something that must have been the size of a mouse in one talon.

Again it moved, clomping its way to another bush to be ripped up in one chomp. I moved on ahead of it while it chewed ponderously. All I had to do was wait for it to come close enough to me. A bird struck again, lighting in branches closer to me but still too far for a good shot. Sure, +50 aim bonus was good, but closer would be better.

The huge head rose. Soccer balls with pupils scanned the ground in my direction. I didn’t even breathe. More lumbering brought it closer before it pounced and bit a bush like a cat going after a fluffy toy. It was far more agility than I’d ever have expected from something that big.

That was when an extra complication showed its head. A complication in an oh-so-familiar jumpsuit. A complication with a rifle. They get a rifle but not me? The jerk just strolled out of the treeline across the shallow valley, which was narrower at this end.

Seriously? I hadn’t seen anybody in dorky jumpsuits at the lodge, so he had to be out on some other class’ training quest. Either way, the last thing I needed was some noob scaring this thing off. Kill stealers are the worst. Well, I’d actually put PVP spawn campers lower, but that didn’t seem to be an issue in this game. You can’t gank somebody at their spawn point over and over again when they only die once.

The wannabe hunter started across the grasses, rifle ready, moving slow. Not a complete idiot, just a partial one. The murse tromped closer. A bird swooped over it, coming up empty taloned, to land in a branch not ten meters from me. I held as still as I possibly could, drawing the pistol ever so slowly, hardly daring to breathe. I drew a bead on it, waiting for the next exhale.

I barely hit it. Winged it, in fact. Literally, got it in the wing. But it went down. Which was enough to make me happy just then. +100 XP (Total 2750) Laser pistols in Riftworlds Online don’t make noise, which worked in my favor just then. There was the red beam of light momentarily connecting me to my target, though. And those eyes, each the size of my head, swiveled up.

I’d swear the thing stared right at me, maybe sizing me up. Snow-shovel ears twitched and turned, though, and it shifted its attention back up the valley. That head turned, scanning for something. It was too much like scanning for predators for my liking. Whatever natural predators this thing could possibly have was not something I wanted to encounter without serious, military-grade…military.

It ended up seeing the noob now almost halfway across the valley. It reared up and snarled a groan that shook my heart like a sick nightclub base rumble. Its front...feet came down hard with an earth-shaking whump. The newbie turned and ran, full-out, while the thing yanked it’s feet back out of the ground.

The mammoth turned and worked its way back up the valley. I fetched my azure prize and signalled Brellan for pickup. It was about ten minutes before he showed up with a much too happy smile.