Chapter 29: Sniper

Miguel tried to pull away and scramble back from the striped lizard across the sandy ground, desparate to get back on his feet and regain the initiative. He dodged a bite – the lizard getting a mouthful of sand – then turned around onto his hands and knees, and surged to his feet.

As he moved, he called out a now-familiar command: Enemy stats!

Attacker profile Type: Giant whiptail Maximum hit points: 44 Current hit points: 42 Speed: 16 Attack: Bite; tail Maximum damage: 14 XP gain: 120

Did the creature’s speed stat scale in the same way as his own attributes? If so, with his eighteen to its sixteen, he could potentially outrun it... In fact, that might be his only option, given that he had left the torch behind at the hatch, and had no other melee weapon.

With this in mind, Miguel began to cross the beach area in a wide semi-circle, heading towards the water and closer to where Sid was pinned back.

The big man was now at the very end of the jetty, and was striking out at the other whiptail with his hand axe. It briefly occurred to Miguel that the narrow platform might be advantageous to Sid, as there wasn’t space for the great lizard to turn and use its tail weapon.

Meanwhile, Miguel was staying just ahead of his own attacker. It seemed that he was right; with his own speed of 18, he was just a little faster than the beast, meaning that it couldn’t catch him to land a bite. At least, not as long as he was able to keep running. If he could just find enough clear ground to run onto, he could stay ahead, and lead it away from the others, too.

But just then, he became aware of the four rival players on the opposite side of the stream shouting and pointing at him. There was a streak through the air, and then an explosion of pain in his lower abdomen.

You have lost 7 hit points You have 12 hit points remaining

Miguel gritted his teeth and kept running, though three things were immediately obvious. First, he couldn’t handle too many more shots like that. Second, any further wounds might slow him down sufficiently that the giant whiptail would catch him, and finish him off. And third, he would need to find some way of getting something solid in between him and the shooters.

Unless...

Miguel skidded to a halt and then dodged to the side, and as he had hoped, the whiptail ran right past him and then came to a halt itself, turning with a snarl. They were only around ten yards from the confrontation on the jetty now.

Equip bow

Once again using the bow mainly as a defensive tool, Miguel jammed it towards the lizard’s bony mouth as it lunged back towards him, jaws gaping. And he succeeded in pushing the thing right into the creature’s throat, then flexed his muscles as he pushed it down towards the sand, trapping its lower jaw with the end of the bow. The creature groaned and shrieked as it tried to get free and retreat, but Miguel pushed harder, trying to duck down lower so that he was standing in line with its body as he struggled against it.

Another crossbow bolt flew past his shoulder, but then there came two fleshy thuds as further shots hit not into him but into the whiptail, which was now positioned between him and the enemy team. True to its name, the whiptail tried to squirm around and lash down at Miguel with the end of its tail, but with its mouth still pinned down at ground level, it was clearly finding it hard to move freely, and the attack was weak:

You have lost 1 hit point You have 11 hit points remaining

Now a third thumping noise sounded out, and the creature screamed again. Miguel heard a woman’s voice in the enemy team shouting commands, and realized that they wouldn’t fall for his tactic for ever. He might need to give them more of a target to aim at, and soon.

Pulling back the bow, he equipped it, scrambled back, then shot at the whiptail. And to his delight, the shot was enough, for the beast slumped down to the sand, dead.

Notification: You have gained 50XP

It was annoying that he had lost such a large share of the available experience to the other team, he reflected – no doubt proportionate to the damage each had done – but it meant that one threat was out of the way. Now, Miguel was able to rush forward and duck down behind its corpse, protected once more. He pulled out the arrow that he had just shot. He couldn’t waste them.

His abdomen was hurting, and he regretted not having the armor that he had benefitted from during the early tasks. His stomach area was coated with blood, though perhaps due to the nature of the game mechanics, he didn’t seem to be taking any further damage, and the pain was gradually fading.

Looking out from his sheltered vantage point, he was able to see Sid sustain a brusing whip from the other lizard’s tail, only for him to leap forward and slam the axe down onto the creature’s back, killing it outright. Sid then took a crossbow bolt to the arm, and immediately leapt from the jetty into the water. He, too was seeking cover.

Aluna was presumably still in the rowboat, though she had hunkered down inside the vessel, and currently could not be seen.

From his position behind the giant whiptail’s carcass, Miguel took a moment to look at the composite bow that was still in his hands. He was worried that being thrust into the whiptail’s mouth might have damaged the string, and sure enough, he could see some fraying. For now, though, it was still intact.

It would have to do.

He leaned over the top of the lizard’s corpse and shot on impulse, then ducked back down. The cluster of enemy players made a clear target even with the overturned rowboat in the way, and he was pretty sure that he had hit one of them, though he was immediately the target of return fire, two bolts whistling just past his head. That was ok. His only intention was to give them reason to take cover behind the boat.

Unequip bow

Now, if he was going to rescue his companions, he would have to hope that he was both faster and a better shot than them.

Miguel crouched down behind the giant whiptail’s corpse, legs raised and tensed, as if he was about to begin a sprint.

Then, assuming that at least one of the enemy would be looking, he grabbed a handful of sand and threw it behind him. As he had hoped, there was a twang as one of the enemy fighters shot in that area. But Miguel had already begun to sprint in the opposite direction, racing towards the trees.

His advantage didn’t last for long; he looked to the side, and saw that three of the group were already aiming their bows at him. “They must think this is easy!” he muttered to himself, annoyed that his own team had found themselves in this position, rather than sneaking up on their foes and ambushing them.

But it was too late now.

He ducked down and wove around as he ran the last few paces towards the line of trees, sustaining a glancing blow despite his efforts.

You have lost 3 hit points You have 8 hit points remaining

With that, Miguel was back among the trees and out of sight – and hoping that their enemies would assume that he was simply fleeing the scene. He heard further bangs as crossbow bolts hit the tree trunks, and was satisfied. As long as the other team were shooting at trees, they weren’t shooting at Aluna and Sid.

Now he was approaching the bank of the stream from among the trees, crossing the rocky area just before it. He had mentally sized up the width that he would have to jump, but now that he was approaching, it looked bigger. He gritted his teeth and leaped.

Feat: Long jumper. You have gained 50XP

The award had been generous. His landing was very clumsy, with one foot scrabbling on the slope of the bank and splashing down into the river, and moments later he ended up on his hands and knees, panting. But he was on the other side. That was what counted.

Now, could he manage to be stealthy enough to regain the advantage, despite his crappy agility stat?

He began to move as cautiously as he could through the new area of trees, closer to the shore on the other side of the stream, and towards the enemy players who remained close to the second rowboat. Their voices could now be heard, and Miguel made out one of them saying ‘ammunition’. Could they be running low on bolts? They had certainly sent off a large number of shots compared to the meagre six arrows that he had left.

Five, he corrected himself.

Now, he came up to a broad oak tree that was almost at the edge of the trees, and peeked around it at a low angle. Three of the enemies were directly ahead, two with their crossbows trained on Aluna’s rowboat, and the third facing towards the jetty. The fourth member of the group was now wading across the stream lower down, presumably closing in on Sid’s position.

“Good luck with that,” murmured Miguel under his breath. He was aware from past experience that it was unwise to underestimate Sid.

Miguel was just about to equip his bow again, when he paused. As soon as the others spotted his position, they would attack, three against one, and he would be killed for sure.

But then... Miguel looked up. The trunk of the oak split into two around six feet up, forming a small natural platform. It might be a better spot to shoot from. He would lose a little bit of time getting up there, and risk being seen, but it may well prove worth it...

Reaching up, Miguel gripped a branch and pulled himself up. Strength stat helping again, he told himself, as his muscles bulged with the effort. It was so much more worthwhile than people realized!

Looping one arm over the branch, he managed to swing one boot up to the crotch of the tree, though scuffed against it clumsily in the process. He froze, hoping that the ripples of the lake and any activity from Sid and Aluna would be much more audible from his targets’ position.

After a few seconds had passed, Miguel braced himself between the branch and tree trunk, and carefully shifted his weight until he was fully standing on the split area of trunk. Sure enough, he could still see the enemy group well from here – albeit with a bit of foliage in the way – and it would be harder for them to get at him if and when they realized where he was shooting from.

This was it. This was his moment.

Equip bow

Equip arrow

He focused first on the nearest two, both of whom were aiming at the rowboat that Aluna had somehow gotten hold of. One of them was a tall, rangy man with short dark hair and a pencil-thin mustache. The other was a woman, stocky and sour faced. Miguel aimed at the small of the man’s back, and shot. His arrow flew out, and the man staggered forward, yelping in pain, crashing down onto the sand in front of him.

Equip arrow

Miguel didn’t waste any time focusing on the injured man. He was already ready with another arrow, and this time took the bulky woman in the throat. She dropped her crossbow, sank to her knees, and collapsed. Miguel was fairly sure that she was the one he had hit earlier, and could be their leader, judging by the commands he had heard in a woman’s voice. Perhaps she was now done for... but he would be ready for his next shot all the same.

Equip arrow

The other crossbowman was a bald man with shiny dark skin, and he now swung around, moving behind the overturned rowboat. He had obviously realised that shooting was coming from the trees. Miguel got a further shot away against him, too, but it missed, the arrow thumping home into the overturned boat and quivering there for a moment. The man shot back, but it was a fairly random effort, the bolt going many yards wide of Miguel’s position. All the same, he hunkered in close to the tree trunk, and gauged how things stood.

Besides the crossbowman at the overturned boat, the other foe still standing was a blond man with a circular bald patch and a goatee. This was the one that had been walking along the jetty, but on seeing that his comrades were under fire, he now raised his own crossbow, circling around to face the trees.

Just then, Sid raised himself out of the water, gripping the edge of the jetty, and hacked out at the man’s ankles with his hand axe. The blond man screamed and fell to the ground, whereupon Sid clambered up and began hacking at him again.

The wounded man with the mustache had now crawled behind the boat, and Miguel was momentarily without easy targets. He instead focused on the blond man who was now struggling against Sid.

Equip arrow

His latest shot flew out, thumped hard into the man’s side, and that brief struggle was over. Miguel hadn’t ever seen himself as the sniper type, but now he was getting a feel for the thing...

Equip arrow

Sid now began to charge the pair that were hidden behind the rowboat, and Aluna was also approaching the scene, paddling her own boat shore-ward with her hands. Moments later she had leapt out of it and was splashing through the edge of the water towards the pair, daggers in hand. As the bald-headed man rose to face this pincer attack, Miguel saw enough of the man’s head, neck and upper back to fire away another arrow of his own. It was another hit, and the man collapsed at Sid’s feet.

With that, Miguel decided it was time to join his companions, despite the risks that entailed.

Unequip bow

He half slid, half fell from his vantage point in the great oak, then sprinted across the closest area of sandy beach, rounding the overturned rowboat. But as he arrived on the scene, he saw that the fight was over. Sid and Aluna stood over the two men that had taken shelter there, weapons dripping.

Whoever the team in blue-and-red fatigues had been, they were now out of the competition.

“That couldn’t have gone much better for us,” said Aluna with a grin, unequipping her daggers and rubbing her bloodied hands together.

“It looked pretty bad for a moment,” said Miguel, stooping to retrieve an arrow from the body of the bald-headed foe, “but we got there in the end.”

Miguel then stooped again to pick up the man’s fallen crossbow, and noticed that several other items had fallen to the side too. Presumably once players died in the simulation, their items became free to loot. He quickly gathered up a pair of vials, an orange ammunition pack, a mysterious brown package, and a canteen.

“Nice shooting, by the way,” added Aluna as Miguel stood up again, “and we...”

But she didn’t finish what she was about to say, because Sid was pointing further up the beach away from the jetty, a look of fear upon his blood-spattered face.

“Guys,” he said. “Razor-lizard coming this way...”