Ritualist Read online

  “Oh, they are going to be so pissed that they ignored you!” She chuckled, eyes sparkling. “Can you prove it? I got hurt the other day and healing in this game is really slow. If you get hurt badly enough it might be days before you get back to full health. You need to fully respawn to fix issues sometimes.”

  “Sure.” He inspected her health bar, which was indeed missing a few chunks. Strange, it was like the last bits of the bar were greyed out. Perhaps her health couldn’t increase past that point without magical assistance? That unless you did something like physical therapy, were directly healed, or sent to respawn… you just never got back to full health? He reached out and placed a hand on her, activating his touch healing spell. She shuddered as ice cold water dripped down her shirt.

  “Ahh! You bastard, that’s not funny! I never signed up for a wet tee shirt-” her voice cut off as her health maxed out. “Hot damn, you’d better come with me before someone assaults you with unrelenting guild invites.” They went to a local tavern where she introduced him to a few people, including her guild leader.

  “If you join The Wanderers, I promise you won’t regret it. I’ll make sure to set you up with a solid team and we’ll get you to level ten within three weeks! At that point you should be able to resurrect people. Well, that’s the hope anyway; there aren’t any other clerics right now so the data is unclear. This will be a huge advantage to our guild, and I’ll make sure you are properly compensated; you’ll be a guild officer right away! Tiona, set up a standard officer contract and we’ll…” the guild master was cut off abruptly as Joe shook his head.

  “Sorry, I can’t accept the guild invite. I have a quest line which I’m sure is going to take me across a huge amount of land, so I can’t promise to stay tied to a guild or the city without talking to my deity. I’ll go crazy worrying about it otherwise,” Joe informed the guild leader in a quasi-sad tone. “If I don’t complete my quest, I could lose all of my cleric abilities.”

  The man scoffed at this, “You are level one! It can’t be that great of a quest. Plus, the weakest monster out there–a rabbit–is level three! You are supposed to spend at least a week doing social quests in town before ever going out there. Whatever god you follow won’t be that much of an asshole, right? Sending you out defenseless? Without help or a team?”

  “I’ll make you a deal,” Joe offered frankly. One of the most important things he had learned in the army was to be assertive. “I’ll join you, on a temporary basis. I’ll heal people, you help me gain levels and skill. At any point, I have the option to leave with no hard feelings. I will not leave the guild if my leaving will make a party member fail a quest. Wait, I’ll add a qualifier to that. I won’t leave so long as the quest is finished within a timely manner; none of this faffing around to keep me in the guild indefinitely. I’m just not sure that joining a guild is the way to-”

  “Done! If it is a choice between that or losing you to some crap guild like the Hardcores, I’ll take that offer any day.” The GM set down a new piece of paper that his scribe had handed over, detailing every aspect of the conversation and deal they had just talked about as well as other standard guild details. “You can stay here; we own the inn. Did you want to go hunting today? The faster we get you leveled, the better for all of us.”

  “Yes, please. How long will it take to get to level five? I’m really looking forward to getting a profession,” Joe mentioned offhandedly. He read the contract carefully and signed after making sure there were no hidden loopholes.

  Minor achievement: Joined a Guild! Good for you. Have some experience. Exp: 10.

  At least the system wasn’t overly snarky like some other games tended to be. For some reason, programmers seemed to think people only responded to mean messages. Sometimes it was nice to get just the details.

  “Hrmph. Well, it usually takes a week or so when power leveling like this. If you were able to fight monsters directly, one-on-one like a warrior, it would be a lot faster. As a cleric, I have no idea,” the guild leader told him. “You might gain more, you might get less.”

  “Fair enough. Whose team will I be on?” Joe looked around at the people bustling around, all of them seeming to be in a hurry. Oh, right, it should be Sunday right now, people were trying to maximize their play time before the work week.

  “Well, since she found you, and hers is the only team not full right now, head out with Tiona. Good luck.” The man looked at his interface, going far too still. He must have taken off his helmet and was getting a drink or something in the real world, leaving his character to sit unattended. It was painfully obvious the conversation was over, and Tiona seemed a bit overexcited. She grabbed Joe with powerful hands and basically dragged him out the door.

  Not that he was resisting. This was getting fun.

  ~ Chapter Six ~

  Super minor achievement: Joined a party! Nice work, have some experience. Exp: 5.

  “So, here is the deal. Those rabbits are the nastiest thing around until you get about a half mile out, then foxes show up to eat the rabbits. Also you, if you aren’t strong enough or smell like a rabbit. Later, foxes get eaten by wolves, bears keep the wolves away, and so on till you start seeing magical monsters. There are also Wolfmen walking around out there, but they don’t seem to fit into these categories. They aren’t too much of an issue if you stay out of their territories, but there are a lot of quests to hunt them,” Tiona told Joe. “Don’t worry about that though. Today you have one job and one job only. Don’t die. Can you deal with that?”

  “I was a medic on active duty in the army for the last few years,” Joe proudly informed her. “I got this. Piece of cake.”

  “Oh good! How did that go? Enjoy your time in the service?” she muttered as she stared down an extra-large rabbit. She loosened her sword and drew it as they got closer.

  “Not so much… my last day was when my chopper got blown out of the sky.” Joe coughed, face red with embarrassment. He should have kept his mouth shut.

  She paused. “Yeahhhh. My order stands. Don’t die.” She used some blade skill, sending a strange energy out as a slash. A moment later, there was a quickly cut off squeak followed by squeals of rage as a small group of bunnies ran at them. The rabbits had a small, blunt horn on their heads, and it seemed their main attack was jumping and bashing their opponents. The largest man in the group smoothly intercepted the blow, and a ping was heard as the animal fell in multiple chunks from the oversized sword. Two blades and an arrow worked together to quickly erase these minor threats from existence.

  Angry Horned Rabbit x5 defeated. Exp: 20.

  Joe was a bit disheartened; it looked like quests were indeed the best way to gain experience points. Four points per rabbit? No wonder it took so long to level up.

  “Let’s roll. We have a lot of ground to cover.” Tiona set a brisk pace, and within a few moments, they had left the blood-stained ground behind. They didn’t even collect the furs; at this point, they were so common that they were totally worthless. Joe nearly collapsed as they went too fast for him to regenerate stamina, his poor constitution catching up with him again. On one of their frequent rest stops–where they did not actually stop, just slow to a crawl–Tiona grouched at him to increase his constitution so they could jog further at one time.

  “There are… more important… things for me… to focus on,” Joe wheezed while glaring at his slowly refilling stamina bar.

  “Hmm,” Tiona replied in a non-committal manner. “Well, you are the only one with a mana bar so… I guess whatever you say goes.”

  Local event! ‘Trespassers!’ Survive the swarm to gain rewards!

  “Ambush!” one of the others shouted, making Tiona whip around with her sword in hand.

  Dylan appeared resigned to his fate. “Crap! It’s a swarm! Good game all, see you tomorrow.” It appeared that one of the members had gotten too close to a rabbit warren, and the horned rabbits were scampering out of the ground in an attempt to overwhelm the humans.

 
“Stop spouting that defeatist crap and get set!” Tiona ordered them to form a defensive ring with their backs to a tree. Joe was stuffed into the protected center as the first rabbits began their attack. Red numbers began appearing above the other party members, and a small list of names with total health appeared in Joe’s vision. Only his years in the army kept him from freezing up as cries of agony from both sides began reaching his ears. One of the important features of this game was realistic feedback–specifically pain–which made people play much more carefully.

  Joe started healing, and since he was so close to the affected individuals, he simply used his spell ‘lay on hands’, restoring ten hit points every three seconds to whomever was the most damaged person. Luckily for the group, each individual attack from the rabbits only took a little health from the target and even that was somewhat mitigated by the armor they were wearing. Unfortunately, however, there were so many attacking rabbits that those points were adding up quickly. Working as fast as possible, Joe kept the mana flowing and the health points increasing.

  “I cannot believe how useful you are!” one of the men with them chuckled as he skewered a rabbit. “I don’t know any other teams that survived a swarm this long–even if they had a higher overall level–and if we win, I’m buying you a drink!”

  “Keep your mind on the target, Dylan!” Tiona snapped at him. “You’re slowing down!”

  Dylan rolled his eyes. “That’s stamina drain, not my fault.”

  “Push past it! Use more skill and less strength with each swing. They don’t all need a full-power attack. Go until you collapse, or we’re going to lose our cleric on his first day!” Tiona ordered, furiously swinging her blade into the wave of fluffy animals.

  “I’m doing it! Jeez.” Dylan stumbled on his next swing, his low stamina making his attack too slow to kill the rabbit he was aiming at. He overextended and tripped, falling forward and away from the group.

  “Damn it! Dylan!” Tiona called as the hoard of rabbits focused on him.

  Joe was watching Dylan’s health as it swiftly trickled lower and lower. Ignoring the shouts from the others to stay back, he leapt forward and grabbed Dylan's foot as the man struggled weakly to protect his head from the abusive bunnies. Dylan was down to five health before the first wash of healing water flowed over him, and he hung on a few more moments as Joe alternated to the regular healing spell, waiting for the touch version’s cooldown to reset. Using a spell as soon as it was ready, Joe worked to heal his fallen teammate through the brutal beating.

  The others had stepped forward as a unit and were killing the rabbits that were entirely focused on Dylan. They were able to kill two or even three at a time, the population was so dense. Thirty seconds and twenty healing spells later, Tiona finished off the last of the stragglers and glared at Joe.

  “I thought you said you were new to the game!” She pointed her sword at him accusingly.

  Joe didn’t look away from Dylan, he required too much healing. “I am.” Another wash of water swept over the bruised and battered man.

  “Then how did you know that monsters will almost always focus on helpless targets? You would have died if that weren’t the case!” Tiona was looking at him oddly.

  “This has been my job for years. I was a combat medic; putting myself at risk to save others is just a part of the job,” Joe calmly replied as he sent another heal into Dylan. He was up to half health now and was able to sit up to begin regaining stamina.

  “I don’t care what your job used to be! From now on you follow my orders or you are out! I don’t care how useful you are!” Tiona barked at him, breaking his concentration. “I don’t care if you were a dang-nab General, if you cannot do what I tell you, when I tell you, I will leave you out here to die. You put all of us at risk by breaking formation. The only reason we survived was because we got lucky.”

  Dylan looked up at Joe and nodded. “She’s right. If I had died it would have been my own cockiness that killed me, but you dying would have killed all the others when that swarm rolled over them. There are different rules here, and you don’t know ‘em. I do appreciate it, though. Waiting for respawn sucks.”

  Joe sat back with a sigh. “I understand. My bad. I’m not used to seeing someone come back if they die, so I kind of freaked out. Everything here is just so… real.”

  “Hmph. Well, dying here isn’t great. You can’t play for twelve hours, which is twenty-four in-game. If you are in a long-term capsule, you just have to sit and wait. You can access the internet, but it is still boring. VR helmet is a bit better ‘cause they can go do other things,” Tiona described to him, though anything else she was going to say cut off as the experience points came rolling in.

  Angry Rabbit x35 (swarm) slain! Local event ‘Trespassers’ complete! Experience increased due to low average party level! Exp: 210 (4xp * 35 rabbits * 1.5 difficulty).

  New (hidden) chain quest: Playing your fake role I: Heal at least 50% of damage dealt in five battles before combat ends. Reward: Title: I’m a healer! I swear! Effect: Gain bonus experience for every battle that you heal at least 50% of the damage taken before combat ends. 0/5 complete.

  Nice! Joe would work to get that quest done as soon as possible. It was surprising how difficult it was to level up, but Joe supposed that they were fighting rabbits. The party started walking, ignoring the ruined carcasses of rabbits in their hurry to find wolves to fight. Dylan broke the awed silence, “I got eighty-four experience off of that! I’m getting close to level six!”

  “Congrats.” Tiona sent a lopsided grin at him. “You would have been there last week if you had bothered to show up for training.”

  “Hey, not all of us can afford not to work and hang out in pods all day.” Dylan laughed aloud, but Tiona’s face went white with rage.

  “Shut it!” she hissed at him. “What if PK-ers heard you?”

  Joe looked between Tiona’s angry glare and Dylan's admonished face. “What? PK-ers?”

  “Player killers,” Dylan muttered shamefacedly. “My bad, boss. Joe, PK-ers hunt people in pods for a couple reasons. Pod people can feel more pain than a standard player in a VR headset, and obviously, people playing on the older VR versions can’t feel much of anything. When you die to a player, you are out of the game for a minimum of three to six hours, up to twenty-four if the game AI judges your death to be from something really stupid that was your fault. People in long-term pods are in the game until their contract is up, so dying is not only annoying, it is a huge waste of time and really expensive in real world money.”

  “So people kill other players… just to be assholes? No other benefit?” Joe couldn’t believe humans could be so terrible.

  Tiona turned her glare away from Dylan. “Worse than that. It is actually actively punished by the game. When you kill another player–and if they could see who you were–you have a bounty placed on you. Masks and other gear could hide your name, but you need to have contact with shady organizations in order to get them. While your name was red, anyone can kill you without repercussions, you have a chance to lose gear if you die, and NPC’s will attack you if you try to enter the city. The bounty does wear off over time, especially if you killed plenty of monsters, but there is a good chance that you just don't survive the experience.”

  “Yup. You don’t drop anything if killed by a player, and they don’t get experience for it either. Usually PK-ers are outdated VR gamers who are pissed that they don’t have the funds to experience modern virtual reality themselves,” Dylan informed him. “So you really wanna keep that info on the down-low, ya dig?”

  “I… sure?” Joe was a bit nonplussed about the terminology. He had been out of high school for over a decade. Why can’t people just speak properly? This sort of crap led to miscommunication and misunderstandings. He shook his head.

  Tiona snapped her fingers. “Foxes ahead, focus please.” An arrow snapped out, hitting a fox in the eye and killing it instantly.

  “Heh. Critical hit.” The te
am’s ranger chuckled.

  Something was bothering Joe; he finally realized what it was. “So, real world damage is the same here?”

  “Meaning?”

  “Hit an eye, cut a throat, stab a heart and they die?” Joe clarified for her.

  “Yup,” the archer offered verbosely.

  Joe looked at his character sheet. “Also, I didn’t get any experience for that fox.”

  “Didn’t participate, did ya? I’m betting that as a healer you will need to be in a battle mindset in order to get experience. You didn’t think of yourself as a participant in that, since it was a ranged attack. The AI in control of the game takes that into account; the more you contribute the better the reward. That's why you prolly got decent experience for that swarm and maybe some from when they get real close to you.” The archer nodded sagely at him.

  “I see.” Joe didn’t offer his experience gains to the group, preferring to remain mysterious. “I did just get a quest that will give me experience for healing when I complete it. All I need to do is heal fifty percent of the damage done to us five times before combat ends.”

  Tiona perked up. “Oh really? That will make leveling you into a useful player a lot faster and easier. We try hard not to get hit, so you won’t need to heal much to complete your quest.”

  “Thanks?” Joe was fairly certain she had insulted him. “I’m useful!”

  “A little,” she conceded, attacking a fox that burst from the underbrush, “but until you gain a few levels, you won’t really be useful. You can just heal a bit.”

  Joe looked on dejectedly as the foxes were eliminated before he could get in a swing. He swung his scepter when one got close, but it easily dodged. He looked at his status bars; that single attack had drained his stamina by half! He really needed to find some attack magic. His enthusiasm ramped up again as a fox got close enough to bite Tiona on the ankle. “Yes!”

  “Ow!” Tiona glared at Joe as her sword sliced into the offending creature. “What the heck are you cheering for? I got bit!”