Shawn weaved between trees as he ran, while I struggled to keep on his heels. His endurance was at a higher level. My lungs started to burn while I ran. This is what I get for wanting full immersion. The distance noted under the quest’s waypoint marker on my compass quickly ticked down until we were within fifty meters of our goal.

“Alright,” said Shawn. “Here are the traps.” On the ground were a couple snares, probably for rabbits. “Look around for clues,” he said. “We’re looking for blood or signs someone was dragged off. She won’t be too far, we just need the right direction.”

I looked at the ground closely. No blood, just sticks, leaves, bullshit. Stretching my back, I saw a depression in the ferns to my right. Walking closer, I saw the body of what looked like a hunting dog. “Hey, Shawn! Did the sister have a dog?”

My friend jogged over. “Yep.” He raised an arm. “Looks like there’s some blood trailing off that way.” Before I could say anything, Shawn took off and again.

****

After a couple hundred meters, Shawn stopped abruptly and held a fist up. I jogged up and caught my breath. All around us was dense brush but there appeared to be some kind of clearing ahead. Suddenly crouching, Shawn leaned over, “When you crouch, it’s harder for them to detect you. Crouch and sneak up behind unsuspecting enemies to execute them.” He dragged a finger across his throat.

I moved to follow but Shawn held a hand up and pointed in a different direction. I turned, and we closed in on the clearing in a pincer movement. In its center were six green-gray skinned goblins. Three were spaced out, walking around and inspecting hunting equipment scattered about. Tied to a thin tree in the middle, surrounded by three goblins, was a lifeless woman being carved up and eaten.

Moving low through the brush, I noticed the stealth icon was still displayed, a silhouette of an eyeball with a slash through it. All the goblins in my line of sight were tagged with their levels displayed over their heads in red, all level 3. My hands felt clammy. If I fucked up, I was dead. Levelling up with no equipment or gold would be a bitch. I tried not to think about it and drew my rusty sword. At the very least, I had a strong friend with me to help.

Across the clearing, I saw Shawn’s gamer-tag moving through the bushes. The nearest goblin to me was a squat creature with bowed legs that wore moldy leather armor and had a necklace of human tongues. It looked in my general direction, making a clicking noise and then turned around. This was my chance.

I moved as quickly as I could until I was at the creature’s back. As I readied to strike, an indicator flashed: Execute? The prompt also revealed the goblin’s health bar above his head, the portion which my attack would deplete was highlighted in red while the rest remained white. My stealth attack would deplete 24/30 of its HP. Gotta start somewhere.

With Execute selected, the first-person animation commenced. I grabbed the goblin with one hand across its mouth and jammed my sword into its back. Upon impact a red -24 appeared above the creature’s head and vanished as it broke free from my hold. The goblin wheeled around and drew its sword, swinging wildly.

Gripping my sword with two hands, I blocked the first two swings, side-stepped and brought my blade down on its shoulder. A red -2 appeared over its head. Just a few more hits. The goblin’s jagged blade swung in front of my face which made me stumble backward, I leaned out of the way of the next strike and hit the goblin in the leg, -2.

Behind my enemy, I saw another goblin charging at me. I parried the next blow to the side and countered, slashing my immediate foe in the head, -2. The creature stumbled to the side and seemed to be briefly stunned.

Seizing the chance, I struck again and the second, the killing blow animation took over. I saw my blade thrust into the goblin’s belly, then rip upward into its ribcage. Black blood spilled out of its torso as I withdrew my weapon and the goblin fell face down on the ground.

LvL 3 Goblin Slain, +25 Exp.

A smile creased my lips. I was now over a quarter of the way to my next level, and realized I was still being charged by another goblin. I rolled out of the way of the attack in time to see the creature’s blade pulled from the dirt and my enemy wind up to take my head off. The goblin staggered away with a damage number above its head. Shawn stood there with his sword and shield ready. “Get up and kill it!”

Again on my feet, my sword pointed toward the enemy. “Come on you ugly piece of shit!” yelled Shawn. The goblin snarled and swung desperately at him, a good distraction. I slashed the creature in its back.

The goblin turned to face me, but Shawn front kicked it. Staggering, the goblin wheeled back towards my friend. One more hit should do the trick. My arms thrust the rusty blade through the goblin’s back, pulled it free, and swung it around cleaving through its neck. The ugly head fell to the ground followed by a gush of black blood from the neck.

LvL 3 Goblin Slain, +25 Exp.

With my breath returning to me, I glanced around. The other four goblins lay in pools of dark blood, Shawn had cut through them with apparent ease. I pulled up my stats.

LvL: 1

Exp: 60/100

HP: 10/10

Atk: 2

Def: 3

Stl: 1

End: 1

Mgk: 1

Almost level 2. “The next quest we do will have better loot,” said Shawn as he doubled back to the goblins he killed. “You can have most of it.” I leaned over the bodies in front of me.

Goblin Blade, LvL 3: +3 Atk

Leather x5

Goblin teeth x 3

Gold x 2

I wasn’t thrilled that I couldn’t use the new sword yet but there are worse things to worry about.

Shawn’s character was standing still with a blank look on its face, probably scrolling through his inventory. I walk around the massacre looking for items he might have missed. All the goblin bodies were picked over. Turning around, I give the area one last scan for anything valuable. My eyes land on Saxa’s poor, mutilated sister. Her corpse was pale and glassy eyed. I let out a sigh, might as well.

Walking over to the body, the option to Loot comes up. That was weird, there wasn’t the usual glow of available items over the corpse. Selecting the option, a picture of a piece of bronze came up. The item looked sort of like a key, rounded on the top and jagged on both sides as it tapered down to a point.

+ Broken Key Shard (1 of 3) (mission item)

“Hey Shawn, what’s this?”

My friend walks over, “What’s- oh.” He pulled up the in-game photo I sent him. “I don’t know. Where’d you find that?”

“On the sister’s corpse.”

Shawn shrugged, “Maybe…maybe it’s a co-op item?”

“You didn’t find this when you did this quest solo?” I asked. Shawn shook his head. “Let’s see what Saxa has to say about it.”

We ran back to the hunting camp. Saxa stood by her dog, just like when we had found her. “Over here!” she shouted on our approach, as if we weren’t running directly at her. “Did you find my sister? Is she alright?”

“I’m afraid she was killed by goblins,” I said almost apologetically. “I’m so sorry.”

Saxa’s lip begins to quiver and her eyes tear up. “Was…was it a quick death?”

“Yes,” I lied.

Shawn rolled his eyes, “Ask her about the thing already.”

I pull my inventory screen up and grab the mission item. “What can you tell me what this is?”

Drying her eyes with the back of her hand, the huntress picked up the bronze piece. Turning it carefully over, she held it up. “This is a shard of the Khugor Key, a magic item forged to lock Khugor away.”

“Who’s Khugor?” asked Shawn.

“A servant of the eldritch titan Uzuthl,” she replied. “A malevolent being, driven mad by seeing its master’s true face.” Saxa stood very still, seeming like she had more to say. There were no dialogue prompts, which seemed to mean that you had to read the body language of NPCs to make sure you weren’t missing anything.

“Okay, where can we find Khugor?” asked Shawn.

“It’s said that it is sealed deep within a goblin cave.” Reaching into her impossibly shallow pocket, she pulled another bronze shard and handed it to me. “Using all three pieces of the key, the chamber can be opened. My sister and I promised to guard these until someone came along who could use them to vanquish the evil within. With her dead...I don’t believe I’m worthy of the responsibility. Please, guard this with your lives.”

Broken Key Shard (2 of 3) (mission item)

An elbow jabbed my ribs, I turned to see Shawn’s excited face. “There’s gonna be some epic shit in there. We gotta find that last piece.” We walked away from Saxa.

It’s a Trap- Quest Completed + 150 Exp.

LvL Increased: 2

HP +1

Atk +1

Def +1

New Quest: Goblin’s Greed, recommended LvL 5

“Let’s go!” shouted Shawn as a waypoint updated on both our compasses.

“SERIOUSLY!” I yelled, trying to catch up. “I NEED TO LEVEL UP FIRST!”

“It’ll be fine! We’ll do it on the way,” said Shawn. “Bro, we’re going titan hunting!!!”

Fuck.