Chapter 3 - Fished Out
A football did not wiggle after being picked up, but a six-year-old and his catch of the day did. The fish hopped about on my back before flopping on the ground. The fish was a fin longer than Tristan’s half-gnome and human character, Triangle. His catch was an archerfish based on the black stripes on the silver body and the shapes of the dorsal fin.
But for an archerfish, the fish was far too large, a giant compared to the small ones I remembered catching with Uncle Rick. This large monstrosity, a forty-pound fish, would have covered my back with bruises and knocked the air out of me if it wasn’t for my constitution.
I stood up and helped Triangle up in his little blue robes. The purse tied to his belt resembling a fanny pack had a big red ‘T’ embroidered into it. His young age, even with the beardless, half-gnomish features, stuck out just like his nose. The kid smiled and laughed at seeing the fish flop around, unphased by the trouble he caused to our family.
This was all a fun adventure for him.
“I’m going to name it Goldy!” Triangle flicked the tip of his tall, red hat out of his gray eyes and to make it fall over his back instead. The hat could easily fit my character’s size, not Triangle, who didn’t even come up to my hip.
Triangle grabbed the fish by the hook line, removed it, and put both away into his inventory. I picked him up and put him on my shoulders. We’d been playing this game for a month and we still hadn’t had the chance to do a photo pose of me holding both kids once again on my shoulders. If we cleaned up this mess, we should try for it. Elaine grew too big in reality, but in this game, it would be a great photo with our characters and my character was strong enough to do it.
I called up to Triangle, “I’m going to give you a guild title of T.T. for Trouble Triangle. We need to go help your sister.”
Triangle replied in a light voice, “I like Terribly Terrific Triangle more.”
The crowd from earlier hadn’t dispersed. If anything, it was denser around the port and guards. One player stood out the most, a human man with a trim goatee dressed in tight black leather garb and holding out a thin sword, pointing it at Naiad. The player made it obvious he wanted to catch her if she broke free from the guards. He was a player hunter, and likely an overall enthusiast of the player-versus-player, PvP, gaming style. I was just as annoyingly cocky when I was younger, but I was actually good.
Seeing Naiad threatened caused guilt to settle into my stomach. From years of gaming experience, I picked a PvP server instead of a casual one, thinking about how fun the fights would be. Playing with kids made the game a lot more nerve wrecking.
Naiad squirmed against the chains that held her. A guard shoved her shoulder as a retaliation, pinning her down on the docks, muddying up his knightly metal armor. A guard, wearing a red feather in his helmet and a red armband displaying the city's sigil—a sheep and a wolf divided by a fence—approached. The armband denoted his rank as captain.
He pointed at Naiad and spoke in a rough voice, “Take her to the cell to serve out her time.”
“What’s a cell?” Triangle asked, tapping my forehead with his fingers. Within moments, he was twirling my reddish shoulder length hair.
“The NPCs of the game decided that Naiad has to go to timeout, with no toys, or the fun of the game. It’s because you stayed on the ship and fished.” I explained, hoping he learned his lesson, or at least listened.
“She should’ve gone fishing, too.”
“You were about to teleport to Temistu!”
“Yeah! They have narwhals there! We should go.” Triangle placed his elbow on my forehead and pointed his hand out. “Now you have a tooth like one!”
“Your sister couldn’t get on because of her class quest. And if she did, she would lose the quest chain to it. You almost ended up somewhere very far away. Alone.”
“Like a camp?”
“Yes,” I answered. It was a close enough representation. Summer camps went on during the day for hours, which for a kid felt like days or minutes, depending on how much fun they had.
The guards were moving, but the Goatee-player-hunter still kept his sword out, following the group around in the back. The guy couldn’t be more obnoxious. At one point, a guard told the player to back up and put the sword away.
Naiad could outsmart that player. I walked along the side of the street, ready to react to whatever Naiad would do, passing the restaurant from earlier and other tents of the market. Most were crafting and armor shops. An herbalist would make a killing next to that restaurant selling nausea relief potions. The crowds of people stopped and stared at the rare player capture.
[Team Chat]
[Boulder: Do you think you can break free? Don’t yet, there’s a Player Hunter on you. He’s tail wagging his sword out.]
[Naiad: Ew! I can see he’s ready to swing his blade. Say that next time.]
[Boulder: I meant his grip is loose and you can knock the sword free.]
[Naiad: Any advice on what to do about the six guards dragging me through town and the chains? They’re “only” twenty levels above me.]
“Well, if it’s camp, you just come back and get me at the end.” Triangle said, ignoring the team chat going on.
He could read, but not fast enough to keep up with our conversation, and it frustrated me at times because it felt like we were alienating him from the game. That would be a future problem, not one for right now.
“It would be a long time, a month, and you would be on your own every time we got into the game,” I replied, looking for a solution for Naiad.
Some players could teleport from nation to nation, but it cost a lot of mana and gold, with a week long cool down and it only allowed two people through it. Thankfully, our family was still together, and I didn’t need a solution about how to reunite across different countries, only within the city.
Triangle pouted. “I was fine fishing on my own!”
“We’re a family and need to stay together. Your mom would be furious if she learned I sent you off on your own in this game.” I explained, my voice stayed level thanks to years of practice through three-nager years.
The kid did not understand a word I said, or didn’t listen with how he started wriggling around, wanting to be put down to chase after something else. I tightened my hold on his legs, preventing another family member from running off and getting into trouble.
The guards escorted Naiad into the prison, a white stone building that forbad natural sunlight from entering it. A few player hunters loitered outside, nodding toward the goatee player that followed the escort. He swung his sword and pointed it at Triangle and me before putting it away.
“Oh, so menacing,” I joked with Triangle, who giggled.
I didn’t build this character for stealth. I wanted to be a tank and made it obvious, with bright leather armor and solid boots that tapped on the cobblestone path. It would be insulting if the player hunter didn’t notice me.
Waiting outside of a prison was not on the docket for the game today. The first two items on the list were to grab some falafel and start my daily quest of collecting broken pottery parts for Mrs. Crockery of Earthenware. Slowly, I was building a reputation with that NPC so I could unlock my own class quest.
Our slow pace in the game was frustrating. A month of on and off gaming and we were still unequipped to handle threats like Goatee player chasing Naiad. I wasn’t strong enough to tank all these player hunters and needed a better passive skill. Like the one that was unlocked by having good relations at the Earthenware store.
[Guild Chat]
[CheezWiz: What’s up everyone? What happened?]
[Naiad: Great, now it looks like I am going to be stuck in the hold cell for four hours. Thanks Triangle.]
[Triangle: :P]
Triangle lived for that face, and every time he typed it out he would do it in the game, too. I could hear the hum as he stuck his tongue out right above my head.
CheezWiz was one of the random gamers that joined our guild when we first started out in Seconds-Over early access. The guy was a legend of information and would know what to do.
[Guild Chat]
[Boulder: Naiad just started her class quest and tried sneaking past the guards on a ship.]
[Naiad: It’s because Triangle didn’t want to stop fishing and see penguins.]
[Triangle: Narwhals.]
[CheezWiz: …]
[CheezWiz: Wow, that’s the most excitement you’ve had outside of dailies. I’ll help ya out as an exchange for all the keys you guys keep getting at the stronghold. Hold on.]
I put Triangle down, who immediately took off to pet a nearby tabby cat. Hearts popped into the air, showing the plus reputation happening. Triangle had the easiest time becoming friends with any NPC, like the game knew he was a kid and he was on easy mode. It wanted to keep him in the city doing safe courier quests.
The game couldn’t code for child chaos. His class quest was done by the time I recovered from the plague that hit the house, and it was the exact opposite of safe.
A soft metal bell chimed. It startled me and I grabbed my small wooden shield on my back, putting it near my chest and put my back up against the wall. I glared at Triangle, waiting. The sound emitted again from the small silver bell on the collar of the cat he petted. Neither Triangle nor his fanny pack made the sound.
I sighed with relief and put my shield away, ignoring the looks the player hunters gave me. They were a mix of level eight and nine.
The whole gaming day had me on edge. I still wanted to punch Mr. Goatee for threatening Naiad, but looking at his stats and gear, he wore piercing armor, had a thin blade, with throwing knives ready on his legs, a crossbow across his back, and he was three levels above me. If Triangle tossed his snappers as a distraction, I had enough health to take a hit and still punch the level eight Goatee Player Hunter.
Doing that would open up the gate for PVP fighting–along with the guards joining in the brawl. A thrill I loved to do before Elaine was even born.
In the multiplayer games like Globe of Battlecraft, unexpected battles would break out as players vied to steal each other's gold and potions. Even any items that weren’t bound to the player. Gaming became thrilling because I could simply revive and come back with no concern. I could easily hunt for revenge.
In Seconds-Over, when a player died, they got teleported elsewhere, to a whole new continent. If a player was in the middle of a class quest, they lost it and the reputation they had with the associated NPC. Player-killers could ruin a guild, and the general community looked down upon them. The only player-killers with any respect stuck to bounties for the city. It was also a safe way to avoid having powerful guilds seek revenge, even if they put bounties out for themselves.
Completing daily quests gave us the keys CheezWiz had mentioned, and because we did things as a family a lot, we acquired a bunch of them. The dailies were finally paying off.
[System Notification: You Got Mail!]
A mailbox next to the prison glowed in my vision. The notification in my interface vanished when I rotated my head away from the mailbox. It was time to cross the street.
“Are you ready to go?” I asked Triangle.
Triangle patted the cat one last time and picked up some flowers that bloomed nearby into his inventory before following me to the mailbox. The player hunters moved aside as Triangle ran up to the prison. One player even nodded his head at me, like we were two parents passing each other at the grocery store in a supporting nod.
Once I opened up the mailbox, I instantly received four thousand gold coins from CheezWiz with a note saying, “This should be enough to free Naiad. Do something besides dailies.”
I nodded, even though CheezWiz couldn’t see it. The same old dailies bored me and there was still a lot to see on the Fanamel continent.
I glanced at my stats; I had the lowest ones in the guild.
Player Name: Boulder
Level: 4
Race: Human
Class: N/A
Affiliations: None
Status Buffs: None
Expanded Details: Skill stats:
Strength 3 | Dexterity 2 | Constitution 6
Fortitude: 1.25 | Reflex 1 | Will 1
I wasn’t ready for grand adventures and neither was the family. We were too under-leveled.
[Guild Chat]
[Boulder: Thanks, CheezWhiz.]
I never got a reply. The man was likely concentrating on a real altercation. I wanted to do a battle today, one that wouldn’t scare Triangle too much, but at least get rid of today’s tension by swinging my axe around.