Of course, if someone killed me and took the Cloak then my character would be pretty gimped as a result. More than gimped, actually.
I tried not to get irritated at the prospect.
“Okay,” Thorm finally said. “Done.”
“Where’d ya put ’em?”
“Initiated a Hit Point Regeneration ability, which I didn’t have before. After that near death encounter with the orcs I think having it passively active might save my butt in the future.”
“Good call,” I said, a little jealous. No hit point regeneration for Shadows, unfortunately. We’re Health Boost addicts.
“So, Wally’s Womp,” Thorm said. I’d filled him in on my entire situation. It was good to have an ally on board.
I took out the map the Locators Guild cartographer had given me and unfurled it.
It had changed from when I first looked it over. Before, I was in Ingot’s Perch and the route of gates started out from there. But now I was in Farewell Falls. The map had adjusted itself to take that in account presenting a new route.
“Lots of gates,” Thorm said. “I think I spend half my time in this game just traveling to the next one.”
“Yeah, but I’m grateful that this game even has fast travel. There are hardcore servers without it. Takes weeks, even months to get anywhere. And do not get me started on how those players get to other planets.”
“Okay,” he said, looking at the map. “The first gate is just north of here.”
We both mounted and rode out of the keep’s entrance. The soldiers there cheered. By completing the commander’s quest Thorm had raised his reputation with this group fairly high.
“I’m a rock star!” Thorm said.
Past dead bodies of orcs and humans, we rode away from the keep and its carnage and into the forest. Within a few minutes we found a narrow dirt road and followed it north.
“Any word from Mudhoof?” Thorm asked as we thundered along. His snow-leopard ran with a strange loping motion.
“None,” I said. “I’ll try him again.”
I sent the chat request and waited, bidding my time by watching the forest pass by. It soon became apparent Mudhoof was still unavailable or just didn’t want to answer. I canceled the request.
Part of me felt Mudhoof was angry, but I tried not to let it bother me. Or maybe I was just making a big deal out of nothing.
The terrain changed, and the trees thinned out to the point we were running across a grassy plain. Far in the distance I could see the circular outline of a travel gate.
Thorm turned to say something when he looked past me. “Look over there.”
I did.
Close by, a river meandered its way through the plains. At its edge were a group of adventurers who looked to have recently slain some orcs. Orc bodies were everywhere, and the victors were busy looting them. But what gave Thorm concern were a few of these players were looking in our direction with intense interest.
A group that size wouldn’t be threatened by a pair of players riding by.
Then it hit me. Maybe we were being assessed. If they happened to be bounty hunters, things would get interesting fast.
As we moved on past, the players who watched us turned to speak to the others. Soon all of them had stopped looting and stared. Even over this great a distance they could pull up our information.
And my character’s information prominently displayed its bounty status.
“Not good,” I said, and glanced at the distant gate. Still far.
“Yup,” Thorm said. “And here they come!” The other group had all summoned mounts and began to ride straight at us.
“Maybe they just want to use the travel gate, too,” I said, but couldn’t convince myself. About twenty players were now coming after us at full speed.
“You certainly have a large fan base, Miss Valesh,” Thorm said.
“Everyone wants an autograph,” I said with a forced laugh. This was annoying. All because of Ogden Trite.
It became apparent we’d reach the gate well before the group would catch up with us. They shouted. Some even tried firing arrows at us but came up short.
We focused on pushing our mounts to their maximum speed. The travel gate sat on a patch of barren earth surrounded by tall grass.
“Once we’re through, we’ll make a b-line straight to the next gate. Eventually they’ll get bored or we’ll lose them,” Thorm said.
I nodded as we charged up to the circular travel gate, its silver surface shimmering like water.
The moment before we jumped through the gate I glanced back to find some of our pursuers alarming close. Their expressions were intense.
These guys weren’t going to stop. What the heck was I going to do?
Then we crossed over the gate’s terminus and the world changed.
CHAPTER NINE
Thorm and I emerged at a seaside port at the edge of a large city.
A myriad of ships were docked here, loading and unloading goods. Stacks of crates and boxes formed a mountain range down the wharf. There were people everywhere, mostly workers.
A small group of players were next to the gate, about to use it.
Without slowing we ran right past them, and I nearly knocked over a sorceress in a black robe.
“Hey, watch it you FILTERED!” she shouted after me.
“She’s not a fan I take it?” Thorm said as we raced off the dock onto a cobblestone street. The next gate was at the other side of the city.
“I’m not feeling appreciated,” I said.
There was a commotion somewhere behind us, but I didn’t turn around to see. I knew what it was. The other group had crossed over the gate and were chasing after us.
But this city was big, and its labyrinthine streets gave us a good chance to lose them. Soon, we would break their line of sight and our chances of slipping away would be greater.
We barrelled through the city, sometimes careening around turns to bounce off walls or knock over carts.
“Sorry!” I yelled out to a group of children whom I narrowly trampled.
“Thank the gods for auto-pathing,” Thorm said with a grin. The wind mashed his thick mustache against his face.
I agreed. Without it, Running through this confusing jumble of buildings and streets would have driven me crazy. Simply select the next destination on the map, and our mounts took over. They would get us there eventually, but it was our job not to run over or kill anyone along the way.
When we found ourselves on a long street, I looked back.
There were players on their mounts far behind us, still in hot pursuit. Their numbers were thinning from what I could tell, but they still came. The front-runner wore a bright white cloak which flapped behind him. As long as he kept us in view he could relay our location to the others.
Thankfully, our pursuers were having the same problems as us navigating the streets.
We burst into another open square, this time with three travel gates.
“That one,” I said, but with annoyance. The gate was in direct line of sight of the street we had run down.
As we jumped through I didn’t bother to check to see if we were being followed. They had to have seen the gate we entered.
We appeared on a rocky beach along a roiling ocean. Rain assailed us as a storm approached. Lightning flashed with deep rumbles of thunder.
Down the beach we rode, our mounts kicking up mud and sand. Behind us the first of the pursuing group, the white cloak, emerged from the gate and followed.
Another travel gate appeared, this one a solitary sentry against a rocky cliff. We went through.
Finally, to my great relief, we appeared within a large assembly of travel gates placed close together. A blighted desert stretched out in every direction. Shimmers of heat warped the flat horizon. Two orange suns seemed to bake our shadows into the dry ground.