You have reached Level 12!
Ability Point +1!
Your Creature Indicator range has increased by 2 to 30 meters!
I would save my 3 ability points for later.
Toggling Wink to be invisible to other players, she immediately stopped playing with Peter’s lion and stared up at me.
“It seems we are going to be spending a lot of time together. Are you hungry? Do I have to feed you?”
Looking to Peter, he replied. “No clue.”
I tore off some of my biscuit and offered it to her. She sniffed it and declined. Picky, aren’t you?
“Thanks, Peter. What’s with the pile of stuff?” I asked.
“Over fifty players died last night. We gathered their stuff so they could get it after the gates open. Everyone who could still walk pitched in.”
There were still over two hundred players bunked down, most of them only starting to stir.
Normally such a gesture might be something you did for your guild or group, but never for strangers in a game. After last night though I understood why everyone would do it. We fought together and virtually bled together. Before last night that would have been a joke. No longer.
Wink sat her head on my lap and whimpered. She didn’t want me to feel bad.
Pet AI had advanced extremely far in the last few centuries, just as had all NPC AI. Her actions weren’t abnormal.
“Good. So we are going to wait for them to come?” I asked.
“That’s the idea, but once the gates open we are going to send you and Victoria to the inn to sleep. She stayed up all night taking care of you.”
“Are you sure you don’t need to come with us?”
“Thank you, but I’m fine.”
I had no doubt he got less sleep than anyone, but I wasn’t going to force the issue.
Looking down at her, she seemed rather small and delicate compared to the stature she had last night.
“You sound like you know her well.”
“I’m a friend of her mother's.” There was sternness to his reply. Perhaps a warning. “She’s taking this really hard. In her culture, she is a healer. Normally wounds like yours are easy for her. Not being able to help took a toll on her I didn’t expect.”
“Forgive me if I’m being too forward, but how old is she? She seems a little young to be a doctor.”
“She’s 18. It is common for girls her age to undergo an apprenticeship where she’s from. She would be what you might consider a nurse.”
“Oh. Is there anything I can do? I feel like I owe her.”
He was quiet for a moment as he watched me. “Get some rest. I doubt last night was the last time we will see those creatures. You need to focus on recovering. I’m sure you will be needed soon enough.”
I sighed, nodding to myself.
That was odd. How were they able to end up in the same town together? Wasn’t the place you spawned and who you spawned with completely random for everyone? When I had asked that question during my briefing before entering Freedom, they insisted Chewme and I couldn’t start at the same location. Did Peter or Victoria’s mother have some special connections?
A player’s body disappears after they die, so thankfully there weren’t bodies lying around the battlefield. It was still depressing to looking around the makeshift camp at the other groups who were mostly sleeping knowing there were less of them than before.
When the gates started to open, there was a large creak from the rusty hinges. Standing behind the gate were dozens of players that had been waiting to head out into the forest. Everyone that had been sleeping on the damp grass slowly got their stuff together.
Sitting up quickly while clutching the neck of an iron knife, Kline's eyes were stern and his jaw was clenched. The veins at his temples were at it again, bulging and proud of it. Just as quickly, his arms fell to his side. His shoulders slouched. Then he saw me sitting up.
“Man! Good to see that you are back in the world of the living.”
“I almost wish I would have died,” I replied.
He grunted apologetically leaving a long moment of silence.
“Sorry. That was supposed to come out as a joke,” I said.
“No worries.”
He patted me on the shoulder and stood to stretch.
Before the moment became too uncomfortable, Oliver and Victoria also started to stir.
After sitting up Oliver acknowledged me with a slight bow of his head.
In contrast, Victoria shot to her knees and was immediately sticking her face a few inches from mine.
“How do you feel?”
Opening my mouth to answer, I was stopped short. She brought her hand to my face and forced my eyes open wide with her thumb and index finger. After both eyes were inspected, she jumped to her feet and stepped behind me to examine my back.
“Your armor is ruined. Take it off,” she commanded.
I would normally have hesitated, but Peter had said she was a nurse.
Glancing at him, he wasn’t looking my way. Well, if he had no qualms.
Removing the leather vest, I managed to pull it over my head without help. There was no pain, only stiffness. Anticipating the next demand, I turned my head and looked up at her.
“The shirt.”
Pulling the sweat stained shirt over my head, I sat there red-faced. I was fairly athletically built, but nothing compared to the men around us. Lounging around playing virtual reality all day usually didn’t help. It was only the ramping up of my running and workouts that had put some muscle on me.
Did I mention groups were streaming out of the village? The pile of loot at Peter’s feet made us especially worthy of attention. These were items of much higher quality than most of them possessed.
Numerous sober faces nodded our way or ignored us as they walked by. A few stopped and asked if we needed help. It was good to see kindness knowing that most people still considered this a game. In a month's time, very few people would still see it that way.
“It looks like it may leave a bit of a scar, but the skin wasn’t broken as much as bruised.”
Glancing at my leg wound from the day before I noticed there was also a little scarring from that.
“So, how do you feel?”
“Good. Just tired really.”
“Alright. Then let’s go get a bed. Oliver?”
“Here. This should be better than what you were wearing.” Oliver said, tossing me a large bundle of leather.
I unfolded the stiff hide and found it was nearly twice as thick as the one the Hobgoblin had destroyed. This one lacked studs. The gamer in me grinned. New gear!
Victoria continued to watch me with the eye of a nurse as I put my shirt back on and then slid the leather vest over my head. She didn’t quite seem convinced that I was better. The leather vest was a much better fit than the first one. Not that it really mattered. The game system would resize the item to fit you. It wasn’t realistic, but the added convenience made it forgivable.
That’s when I saw Peter shoot to his feet and yell. “Hey!”
He marched over with his hand on the hilt of his still-sheathed sword to a group of players that had run across an item that had been missed while collecting the fallen players’ items.
We all rose to our feet. The alcohol was wearing off, but I was still a little woozy. The dull pressure behind my eyes was the real problem.
A player with blue spiky hair had reached down and found a decent iron sword. He still wore newbie dirt pajamas and a bronze short sword. He couldn’t have had much of an opportunity to fight yesterday.
“That isn’t yours,” Peter said.
“Hey now! I worked hard for this,” he replied, shaking the sword in the air as if it was a trophy. His group of five other guys, also with newbie gear, laughed.
“Drop it!”
Sniffing and looking down his nose, the newcomer was starting to get visibly agitated. “Oh come on, you saw me bend down and pick it up. That’s hard work right there. Are you wanting to steal my loot?”
The snickers from his gang continued.