THUNK!
The arrow pierced Kalika’s ghostly form and took away a third of her HP.
“Geez! I’m glad I upgraded this thing. She really needs more health.”
Now it got harder. Kalika continued running forward, now towards Sam, in a random zigzag pattern. She rolled sporadically as if trying to predict the intervals of his shots. Aiming his next shot felt impossible with the way she was moving. He wanted to just give up and run towards her, but he couldn’t squander his range advantage so easily. He needed to damage her as much as he could before she was in his face.
He tightened his own movements and timed them with hers. Her strange patterns began to make some sort of sense. His led shot now had what he guessed was a forty percent chance of landing, the best he could do under the circumstances.
He was startled when he lost her for a second. She was now only a few yards away. As he anticipated her movements, she suddenly stopped and stood still under a dark tree. Sam was shaken by her strange pause, and had no idea what to expect next. One thing was certain. His bow was aimed right at her chest.
“What are you up to? I swear, I hate the way you play.”
Sam was still as stone and more focused than he had ever been in his life. Kalika, now with her attention focused directly on him, approached slowly, menace in her every step.
“You’re crazy if you think I’m going to let you stroll towards me like that.”
He let loose his arrow and watched it pierce Kalika right in the chest as he loaded another one. It did much more damage than he expected, causing her to stumble backwards and leaving her at under a third of her HP.
“Got your heart, bitch!”
He could feel himself sweating now, a very unfortunate feature in VR. Kalika rolled backwards then shook her head and wagged her hands from side to side like a referee calling a penalty. She then put her hands up in front of her with her palms facing Sam, as if to say ‘I’m innocent.’ Sam just couldn’t buy into the bull of an encroacher feigning innocence while encroaching on another player in Survival Mode.
“What the hell are you up to?”
He trained his next shot at her chest, once again, but this time he waited. He wasn’t sure if she’d make a sudden movement or not. She continued to hold out her palms then began to move forward again.
“You must think I’m stupid, Kalika. I don’t trust you!”
He shot at her again, but she rolled forwards, right over the shot.
“Dammit! Skillful bitch!”
He took aim again, but once again Kalika was shaking her head and standing still. She took something out of her pocket, leading Sam to almost shoot her right there. He waited though, not entirely sure why. She knelt down and wrote something in the dirt. When she was done, her message glowed white and she backed up a safe distance from it. She waited then beckoned Sam forward and pointed at the message.
“Fuck that. This isn’t reading time. Have you forgotten that you tricked me twice before? Do you think I forgot that?”
Kalika pointed at the message again and shook her head as Sam remained in his shooting position.
“Come on! Fuck this! Stop being weird. The moment I get your ass in a box is the moment you want to start playing like a dumbass.”
Sam let out a sigh and continued aiming at Kalika. When he saw that she continued to stand still, he became more frustrated.
“Why are you even here?” he yelled. “If you don’t want to fight then leave!”
It was pointless. She couldn’t hear him. He sighed again and walked forward with his bow still drawn. He felt like a fool.
“I can’t believe this. The moment I get a fucking advantage ...”
Kalika remained still. She remained at a distance where Sam could get two more shots on her before she even got to him, so at least he still had that advantage. He looked around for any kind of traps that she might have left, but didn’t see anything out of the ordinary. The message she left was right at his feet. He tensely read it, never lowering his bow.
Follow The Walker
Relevance 0
“What? No way!” Sam answered, shaking his head. The Kalika Walker placed her hands on her hips then shooed him away. Sam slowly backed up to the spot he stood before.
“Oh my god, this is so stupid.”
Kalika’s message faded away and she slowly walked up to the same spot and wrote another one before returning to a neutral distance. Sam walked forward again to read her message.
Helpful Walker, Useful Item Ahead
Relevance 0
Sam lowered his bow and looked at her. He pointed to the ground and she erased her message like he’d wanted. Sam used his menu to scroll through his inventory and placed his Envoy Scriber into his Quick Select slot. He took the magical writing tool in his hand and scribed his message into the dirt. The game didn’t allow for messages to be directly written. You had to use prewritten terms from an archaic language. Some of the terms were easily comprehensible to Sam, despite having no history with the language. He picked a word that was easy to understand in all languages.
Liar ...
Relevance 0
He backed up to let her read it. She shook her head and pointed to the south. Neither one of them moved for a while and when she saw that he wasn’t taking her bait, she knelt down on one knee and clutched something to her chest before fading away into the wind.
IMMORtAL_Kalika Has Returned To Her Own Plane
Sam was left with an uneasy feeling.
“Just what the hell was that about? That was so pointless, I swear.”
He was more disappointed than anything, because his last strategy would have actually given him a well needed victory over her. He couldn’t see himself catching her off guard like that again anytime soon.
“What a fucking waste.”
He sat there, under a tree, with no idea how to proceed. Kalika’s encroachment had shook him really bad. Theoretically, he should’ve been safe from permanent death, but he wasn’t one hundred percent sure his theory about staying in human form was correct. Maybe he could still die for good in these battles.
As he was thinking, something caught his eye. It looked like another envoy message. Strangely enough, it was in the same place that Kalika had left her previous messages. Sam got up and went over to read it.
Helpful Walker Ahead
Relevance 0
Just as Sam finished reading that one, some other bright light caught his eye. He walked over to the spot where Kalika had stood earlier and touched the bright golden letters. A bold question popped up on Sam’s HUD.
Will You Summon The Charitable Walker, IMMORtAL_Kalika
Yes No
“No way! She can actually do that?”
Sam didn’t think he stood anything to lose from summoning her, so he did. She came forth, out of the ground and greeted Sam with a bow. He looked at her and thought that she actually looked pretty cool with a golden glow similar to King Herke’s emitting from her eyes and the mist surrounding her.
She was currently wearing what looked like a replica of Ji Susano’s robes and armor. They were a lot smaller to match the shorter avatar Kalika had chosen for herself. Sam reluctantly bowed to Kalika in return. He wasn’t sure what she wanted from him. Was she really trying to help him?
She beckoned him forward and started walking towards the southeast. Sam reluctantly followed. Surprisingly, the area they were heading to was new territory for Sam. In his zealousness before, he had overlooked a large swathe of the forest. The path they walked dipped lower than the rest of the forest Sam had explored so far.
She led him to a dark cave, not much different than the one he frequented with the Soul Beacon. Sam eyed her suspiciously when he saw some nearly naked revenants nearby. Their brown dried out flesh was on full display with only the tiniest bit of soiled cloth covering their private parts.
When he neared, all three revenants arose and focused on him, their eyes nearly hollowed out completely but for t
he small specks of fire that they called pupils. One brandished a knife, the others broken swords. They ran at him, all at once. Sam took a few quick steps backwards, then put up his shield to block.
The closest revenant’s knife bounced off of his shield, leaving the poor wretch wide open. Sam thrust his Rapier forward with great force and pierced the creature’s chest. It fell down to the ground and faded into a cloud of souls that Sam quickly absorbed. The other two approached with their poor excuses for weapons. Sam aimed and found the throat of the closest revenant with a heavy thrust. It dropped to the ground and Sam quickly finished the remaining revenant with two quick thrusts. He let out a nervous breath and looked ahead at Kalika, who was giving him a thumbs up.
“I’m glad they were as easy as they were,” Sam said to himself.
Despite saying that, his heart was still beating a mile a minute. The way he’d engaged them all at once had been foolish. He had to rethink his tactics now that his life was honestly in danger. He was also wondering where Kalika was leading him. She hadn’t lifted a finger to help while he was fighting. Was she trying to get him killed? Maybe she just considered the enemies too weak to interfere.
“What am I doing? Can I really trust her?” he asked himself.
He didn’t have an answer yet, but he didn’t think she could hurt him. He resolved to keep his eyes wide open for any nasty surprises.
She led him down a long tunnel to the bottom of the cave where it ended with a beautiful moonlit opening. She stood there grinning and pointing at a wooden treasure chest. Then she knelt down to one knee, clutched some kind of dark jewel to her chest, and faded away.
IMMORtAL_Kalika Has Returned to Her Own Plane
Did she expel herself? Could she expel herself? Sam was very confused. He was sure that he didn’t trigger anything to cause her expulsion. His interest in answering those questions was quickly waning with a treasure chest sitting in front of his face. There was also a nearly naked dead body nearby that looked to be holding an item as well. Sam kicked the dead body and treasure chest to make sure he wouldn’t be hit by any sudden surprises. He opened the treasure chest first and got five Blightstone Pieces.
“Nice!”
He then knelt down and with trepidation picked up the shining item from the hands of the revenant. It was another scriber, this one a Charity Scriber. If it were anything like his other two scribers then it would be a tremendously useful item. He had a good guess as to what it did. He quickly read the descriptions of both items.
Blightstone Piece
Reinforces weapons with a poisonous effect. +1 to Weapon.
A poisonous ore, mined from deep underground. It is said that the ore was made when a foul archdemon was slain. Its tainted blood seeped throughout the earth and poisoned all that it touched.
Charity Scriber
Allows cooperation with other players.
One of the legendary writing tools crafted and enchanted by the eminent linguist, scholar, and mage Letraym. Letraym believed that good relations could be fostered between two worlds if denizens from each worked together towards a common goal. To that end, this scriber was made to deepen the bonds of kindred charitable souls.
When Sam was finished reading the descriptions of the items, he noticed another message right under his feet.
“When did you get there?”
He knelt down and read the message.
Use Item and then Be Ally
Relevance 0
“Be ally? To who?”
The message had to be from Kalika, but what did she want? Who did she want him to help? Was it her? But if she needed help, why didn’t she just stay? It was so frustrating. All of this could easily be answered with a simple voice chat feature. Of course, Milner probably avoided putting that into the game just to make it more difficult for the testers to communicate.
“Whatever. I just need to keep moving forward with the game. I don’t have any more time for multiplayer right now.”
27 Deadly Cooperation
Sam walked past a drifting Forest Barker, this one taller than the rest. There were two others just like it nearby and Sam was tremendously glad that the creatures didn’t automatically aggro. He had carelessly walked right past one earlier after mistaking it for a small tree, but it hadn’t attacked. He wouldn’t make the same mistake of assaulting it as he did its smaller cousins before.
He continued on, past them, until he found the path from before. He stopped and recalled what had happened on the path the last time. It was the first time he had seen Caesar and at that time Caesar had brutally killed a huntsman right where Sam was staring. Sam had been killed for the first time, not far from that very spot. He took a breath and pressed on, down the side of the moonlit path. The trees over the path were cleared leaving Sam to wonder what had caused the clearing. As he walked into more new territory, Sam saw more Forest Barkers and rose men throughout the forest. Then he heard footsteps. There were two pair. One was heavy and gave a clinking sound with each step. The other was light, barely crunching on the dying forest foliage.
“Shit! They’re coming from two different directions.”
Sam braced himself for combat, his back against a large tree.
“There he is, over here!” yelled a familiar voice. Sam then found himself in a situation that he was only half prepared for.
“Both of them? Seriously?”
His questions were as much to the gods of misfortune as they were to Fulton Milner and his crew. He was now face to face to face with the merchant from the cave and Caesar the forest killer.
“It is just as you said, he is alone.” said the armor clad killer. Caesar, as before, was in his black and crimson plated mail. The bleached vulture skull adorned the top of his head with white feathers hanging down to his upper back, while his crimson cape fell down to his calves. Caesar’s face couldn’t be seen at all, only the hollowed out eye sockets of the vulture helmet. Caesar’s greatsword stayed in its scabbard on his back, but Sam knew better than to expect it to stay there.
“Of course. I knew from the start that he wasn’t very bright, but he’s outdone himself now, hasn’t he?” said the grinning merchant. Sam hadn’t trusted the man before, but now seeing him with Caesar showed him in a completely different light. He was a snake, plain and simple. As before, he wore the same Cutthroat armor as Sam. He didn’t wear it to hide from other Cutthroats as he had lied before. He wore it because he was a Cutthroat. Sam just had to confirm his identity before he proceeded.
“It’s not that I’m not bright, Mr. Coward and Mr. Crazy. The reason that I’ve messed up so much so far is because I didn’t expect your A.I. and voice recognition programs to be so sophisticated, meaning I expected you to be much more stupid. It’s more of an underestimation than anything else. I underestimated your creators is all.”
“You call us crazy, yet you speak nonsense,” said the merchant. Neither he nor Caesar had made a move yet, but they were blocking the better escape routes.
“No, I called him crazy. You’re just a coward, aren’t you Rondo? I mean, what else can you call an assassin hiding away in a forest pretending to be a merchant? Maybe I’d be scared too if I were you, given the severity of your crimes against the king.”
The merchant smirked then seemed to ponder something.
“You must be proud of yourself, eh? I could lie to you and tell you that you got the wrong guy, but then again, there’s no point. I think it’s much more satisfying to kill you while you know the truth. Innit that right, Caesar?”
“I have to agree,” said the lunatic wearing the vulture skull. “Beauty is born from struggle, true art.”
“Yes fool, I am Rondo and in this forest I am king ... king of assassins that is. My word is law here and you have desecrated that law with your meddling. As for your ‘just’ king, he is a bigger fool than you. What I did, I did for coin. He’s no better murdering me than he is murdering some other stranger. His hunt should’ve been for those that ordered my services.
Those nobles that wanted him and his kin removed from the throne because of his cursed bloodline. We were both expendable in their eyes. The buggers killed me before I was even able to cash in on my contract. Luckily it turned out I was cursed. Rose right out of that shallow grave they put me in. And they were right about the king as well. Turns out he was just as cursed as his foul son, the kin killer. Now the mad king is right here with me, in the land of the undead. So why can’t he just let it all go, as I have?”
Was all that true? Sam didn’t know what to believe. Rondo could just be playing him even further. Whatever the case, Sam was determined to put an end to the assassin. He couldn’t stomach hearing him talk of killing a man’s family like it were some random thing to cross off his to-do list. He realized that he was getting upset at a situation that wasn’t truly real, but he couldn’t help it.
“That so? So after the king kills you, he should go after the douchebags that hired you. Will you give up the names of those nobles?”
“Why? They are long dead. Despite that and the time that’s passed, the foolish king’s anger hasn’t subsided.”
“That’s because his justice was robbed from him when he was sent to this place.”
In truth, it was revenge that the king craved. That was easy to see. Since he couldn’t punish those petty nobles who had sentenced him to such misery, he’d have to take out all his anger on Rondo. There was no way around it. The king would bring an end to Rondo’s existence. Sam had no problem with that.
“I don’t care. Both he and his followers will be put to the blade. That includes you,” said Rondo.
He drew an ornate shortsword from the scabbard at his side. It had a golden lion’s head pommel and looked as if it had barely seen any use. He also grabbed a black dagger from a sheath on his lower back and twirled it in his offhand. Caesar drew his greatsword as well.