Chapter 3

  By Any Means

  The songs of the local wood thrushes tickled at the edge of his senses as Nik slowly roused from his slumber. Rubbing the sleep from his eyes with his knuckles and yawning, he stretched his arms and hit a tree. His mind bursting into alertness, he remembered that he was not home.

  No, he didn’t have one of those anymore. That didn’t mean that he couldn’t find a new one, though! He was just going to have to go out there, and make a friend. He just had to find someone that wasn’t going to try to kill or eat him, preferably. The goblins never tried to eat him, but goblin burrows were very hard to find.

  Humans, elves, and dwarves would kill him for XP rather than let him walk free. He might just need to survive on his own, for now at least. Gathering his possessions, Nik strapped the shield to his left arm and swung the spear holding his bedding onto his right shoulder.

  “Okay, today is going to be the first day of my journey to find a new home, and I won’t let these depressing and scary thoughts drag me down. I will find a place to be safe, and I will even find a friend,” he said, speaking more to himself than to the thrushes.

  One step led into the next, followed by another, and before he knew it he had already forgotten about his fears and worries. There was so much beauty and color, sounds and smells he had never known. Oh, oh, oh! he thought, I bet they have different mushrooms here! Thrilled by the idea of new mushrooms to try, his mind turned to his stomach again. He only had a bit of mushroom left. One meal maybe, but he decided it was best to hold onto it in case he didn’t find any good ones.

  At least his new system could help him identify new mushrooms. Now that he thought about it, though, he hadn’t actually tried looking yet. Saving his white-capped mushroom for later, he started looking to the shadowed places along his path. He tried, more or less, to maintain heading the one direction away from the castle, but allowed himself to go a bit off to the sides when there was a fallen tree or large branch on the forest floor. If mushrooms were the same here as they were in the granite halls of the sunken castle, then they preferred to grow dark nooks and moisture.

  Based on the scents of wetted soil and the decay of leaves layering the ground all around him, he wouldn’t need to search long. Most would likely find some close to the damp earth, or so he would have thought. If he hadn’t looked up to see row upon row of the thin waves of clustered fungi latched onto the side of a thick tree trunk, then he would have never believed it. Staring at the fungi, Nik willed the system to display whatever it would tell him about his new find.

  Fungi: Chicken of the Woods

  “Chicken of the woods?” he said with a slight frown tilting the corners of his mouth.

  “Well, first fungi found and it’s named after one of the meats the goblins ate sometimes. That could be considered good luck, I guess.”

  Standing up onto the balls of his feet, and dragging his claw through the spongy material near where it stuck to the tree, he cut a fanned blade of the shelf-like cap from the bark of the oak. His ears were pierced by an unexpected and nearly ultrasonic scream. Nik dropped the screaming fungi, but the head splitting intermittent whistle of a sound only grew louder. Louder and closer, he realized as the direction was becoming more clear.

  Nik, quiet as he could, put his next meal into his bag with his white-caps, and peaked around the tree to investigate the source of the painful noise. At first there was nothing, just the high pitch sounding off and on in the distance. Then he heard the thud as it bounced off of a low hanging branch.

  Its flight was erratic as it zigged and zagged through the air, smashing into branches and trunks alike. He had never even imagined something like this monster. It was small, much smaller than him, and barely bigger than the wood thrushes. It had the arms and legs of a miniaturized humanoid, but it had three sets of long gossamer wings.

  The only problem was that string had been tangled through the base of its wings, tying one arm to its torso. No wonder it couldn’t fly straight. He watched as its chaotic flight ended in a crash to the leafy ground. Nik ran to it. Dropping his pack and spear to the side, he said,

  “Hello, don’t be scared. I only want to help. My name is Nik, what’s yours? I’ve never seen anyone like you before? How did you get tangled up like this?”

  She stared at him through a mess of shoulder length brown curls, half dazed and unanswering, while he cut through the string that bound her.

  Feet crunched over leaves and twigs as multiple adventurer’s voices filled the air. Nik looked up as a bow was drawn in his direction. On instinct he jerked himself forward, covering the tiny, winged girl, and slamming the edge of his shield into the dirt between the two of them and the players.

  No sooner than its rounded edge bit into the leaves and dirt, a forceful thud knocked the shield solidly against his forearm. Lifting her up, he pulled her in close with his free arm as he spun them both behind the nearest tree. His heart pounded in his chest as a bell that was increasing in familiarity rang in his mind.

  Skill gained: Shield Level 1!

  Congratulations! You can hold things in front of yourself.

  What a capable fighter you must be.

  Quest Received!

  Survive

  Reward:

  It seems rather obvious, but also 100 XP

  Optional Quest Received!

  Save the Sprite

  Bonus Rewards:

  Double Survival

  Double Main Quest XP

  Nik swiped the text away, he needed to think. He couldn’t fight one adventurer, let alone a group. He definitely couldn’t do anything while carrying someone else. His shiny marbles couldn’t save him this time. He needed to either outrun them or face them, but he couldn’t face them on their terms. There were at least two voices calling back and forth to each other now. They didn’t sound like they had gotten any closer though, were they waiting? It made sense if they both used bows.

  Looking down at the dazed little sprite, he had already made up his mind. He wouldn’t just leave her to die at the hands of the adventurers chasing her. He sat her down and saw that her eyes seemed like they were starting to come back from the stun of her most recent crash.

  Looking into her eyes he told her, “Hey there, I’m going to distract them, ok? When you can, just get out of here.”

  Smiling down at the little sprite, he left her with a short nod, and stood with his back to their tree. Nik selected a small stone from the ground and threw it to one side of the tree just a split-moment before rounding the other way. Grabbing up the handle of his spear, he lifted it as he moved at the two adventurers, confirming their numbers. One elf and one human took aim as twin arrows fired in his direction. He raised his shield only to hear a single thud. His thigh erupted with pain as his next step nearly faltered.

  He pushed on, moving at his enemies, and drawing closer, hurled his spear through the air at the elf. The elf seemed to be the quicker shot of the two players. He had already drawn back his bow string. With a cry in an unknown language, the elf’s arrowhead lit with a bright red flame. Nik’s spear flew through the air, awkward as it flipped end over end. His first attempt ever was an abysmal failure.

  Or it should have been. Nik watched as the shaft of the spear smacked against the elf’s blonde head. The elf’s head knocked to the right, his bow swung wide. A flaming arrow shot loose. Nik crouched, his shield raised, as he heard two thuds and a cry of pain.

  Neither of the thuds were felt hitting his wooden shield, so he peeked over its top. The elf was lying on his back, eyes dazed. A stunned symbol next to his bloody head that was resting atop a large root. The human was running through the trees, covered head to toe in burning flames. Nik grimaced at the sight of the flaming figure, forcing his eyes away from the sight as he rushed forward.

  The system gave him a message about his shield skill, he slid it away. Putting every ounce of effort into ignoring the agonizing pain throbbing in his leg, and racing towards the elf, he activated the ability the system had just given him. Lunging forward, Nik shouted, “Shield Bash!” Draining 5 MP, his shield banged hard with a successful critical hit against the lifting head of the elf as it started to rouse. The elf collapsed, knocked out with his head returning to the tree root for the second time. Nik snatched up his spear and ran.

  The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.

  Cutting his path past the tree where he’d left the sprite, he saw her still resting against it. Lifting her up and placing her onto his shoulder, he took off through the woods. Once again fleeing for his life. Blood pulsed through his body so fierce and forceful, that he could hear it pounding in his head as he sprinted with as much speed as he could muster between the trees and foliage.

  His leg was slowing him down, and he knew it. He hadn’t looked down at it yet out of simple fear and desperation to escape.

  He would continue to ignore the pain, pretending it was just like climbing all of those stairs, but he knew he was losing momentum. Even though he could feel the shaft of the arrow grinding against the muscles of his thigh, the worst part of it all was that his vision was starting to blur. He stumbled forward and lurched to the side.

  Catching his hands on the bark of an oak, he pushed himself to continue forward. Small translucent wings flashed from each side of his head, dancing across his path from side to side. Growing faint and dizzy, he fell to one knee. Standing, Nik took another step and fell again. He felt the small weight of the sprite lift from his shoulder, as multiple others helped to carry her off into the forest ahead.

  He fell to his face as his vision faded to blackness. Moments passed. He almost thought he could hear a tiny voice comforting him. A small whisper fought its way through his waning consciousness

  “Thank you for helping me, kind stranger. Now it is our turn to help you.” Along with the voice, all faded once more to nothingness.

  * * *

  Sir BlackDagger had made it to level 3. The castle he had fallen in, before waiting the five minute cooldown to revive at his starting point, was empty when he returned. He had begun a livestream, and a few of his old followers had immediately clicked on notifications to watch his return to the game. His viewers had wanted a show, and all they had gotten was a tour of a decrepit and abandoned series of corridors. So he was forced to find an alternative group of enemies to level up with.

  The beasts of the forest offered unique challenges compared to those of the goblinoid or similar enemy types. The going was slow, and the combat was a slog while fighting solo. It was a wholly different dynamic from his previous experience with a group of friends.

  “Alright BroDaggers, it's time for me to party up, and give you guys a show of what a skilled player can do in this game,” he said to his streaming audience, as he turned to face the direction that his basic map indicated as what was effectively the noob-town.

  Between the NPCs and the level 1s who would come straight to the starter towns, there were a few players here and there at levels 2 and 3. Higher tier players, especially those at level 5 and 6, were going to be in the largest city where they would be getting the quests that prepared them for the next tier of the tower. He wasn’t ready to face the trials of the region that belonged to the Kings of the first tier of the tower.

  Looking around himself, he brought up the local chat and sent out a call for level 3 players wanting to party up. A pro and con, all in one, of being in a party was shared quests. Everyone gets to share the rewards, but people could also fight over which quests they wanted to do, part of why they would need a strong leader.

  A brother and sister duo responded in short order willing to do some group action. The elementalist brother ManaSniperBob was a lightning skill user. His sister, GreenWardenOne, spelled with a lower-case x at the beginning and end, was a druid which meant she used nature abilities. It took a while to round out their party, but after half an hour of his newly found elementalist and druid helping with the search, they found another duo.

  StabithaKing, a dwarf barbarian, and her cousin, LootLadDungeonDad, who was playing a divine knight. That made five of them. Perfect, they had a full party! Together they pooled together some quests from the town's various NPCs and went over them to determine a completion order. Forming a sort of zig-zagging path to the next major city, the group set out for their first adventure.

  * * *

  Nik pondered at the odd sensation of nothing. He wasn’t quite dreaming, but he also wasn’t awake. It felt so foreign, almost like falling, but without the rush of air or the fear of an impending collision. There were no sensations at all, except the softest beating of his heart. Living. He was still living. Somewhere outside of this endless absence of sights, sounds, or even touch, he was still alive. At least he had to be, right? His heart still beat within his chest.

  Time didn’t seem to care about Nik’s perception of it, either, as it flowed on its own self-governed course. Moments, hours, even days, and there would be no difference to be found for him in his current state. A dull glow took up a faint corner of his vision. Was it his vision? Nik couldn’t be sure if this was in his mind or in his eyes, but there was something gently breaking all of the nothing that surrounded him.

  That was when he heard it, that voice again. Light and lilting as it was when it had promised to save him. “Don’t give up,” it said, “You’re almost through.”

  Nik focused all of his thought onto that small glow, putting every bit of his will towards grasping onto it with his entire being. “I won’t. I won’t give up. Not ever. I will never give up!” He released with a firm voiced shout. He hadn’t known it until now, but he was a fighter. It was a bit of a revelation to himself that he’d just said those words. Nik was weak, he knew that. In fact, he was one of the weakest creatures on the lowest tier of the Black Tower. But at this moment something had changed.

  Nik had heard his own voice. He had said those words out loud. Screaming from this darkness and into the living world of the forest, his own voice had become the crescendo that raised his mind into awareness of his surroundings. Opening his eyes, his vision shifted from dark emptiness to glowing illumination as his vision adjusted to the comparatively bright light of the clearing he now found himself in. Without any hesitation, the system bombarded his line of sight.

  Quest Succeeded!

  Congratulations!

  You might be a pincushion, but you aren't a corpse.

  Experience gained 100!

  Optional Quest Succeeded!

  Experience Gained 100!

  Congratulations!

  Level Up!

  You are now a LEVEL 2 KOBOLD TRICKSTER!

  All Stats gain +1!

  Strength: 4

  Agility: 6

  Fortitude: 5

  Intelligence: 5

  Perception: 4

  Charisma: 4

  Luck: 22

  Bonus Stat Available +1

  Mana 25 of 25

  XP 25 of 300 to Level 3

  Interesting, he thought. The error message is gone. Nik’s chest swelled with pride as he went back to the part where it said, “Optional quest succeeded.” He had done it. He had saved her. No part of his life had ever been worth so much as this moment. He realized that he would trade any shiny button that he could ever find for those words. Letting his head sink back into what was apparently a bed of leaves they’d placed him on, he let his heart fill with the joy of having been worth something for the first time.

  That little voice, now clear as the blue sky of the forest above him, said, “Hello Nik. My name is Pearl Sparkledrop, and you helped me escape from a snare that the adventurers had set for my kind.”

  Nik didn’t interrupt her as she continued, “You may feel a bit odd, but that should wear off soon. We had to use several very strong herbs to ease your pain and stop the bleeding.”

  “That explains the emptiness and the sensation of falling,” Nik replied.

  With a smile, Pearl put a powder white hand to his head saying in a matronly tone, “Well it has been four days, but your fever is down and you seem alert enough. It looks like you do not have any ‘give up’ inside of you, huh?”

  “Four days?” He raised his brow spikes in surprise. “I guess not. You really do learn something new every moment up here on the surface, even about yourself,” Nik stated.

  She looked at him a bit oddly, asking, “Where in the tower did you even come from? I have never heard anyone who was not a goblin talk about being ‘up here on the surface’ before.”

  Nik took his time explaining everything from his daily life in the castle with his goblin neighbors, to his run in with, and subsequent flight from, the player who the system had afterward called Sir BlackDagger. He told her about their random chance meeting from his perspective, saying, “Once I saw you in trouble, I couldn’t leave you. I needed to save you by any means that I could. It was just as simple as that.”

  “What is the system?” Pearl asked when Nik was done catching her up with his story up to now.

  “I think it’s how adventurers get stronger. It seems to be how they level up from killing us. It gives out quests that come with rewards and increases your stats. Oh, and it displays new skills when I learn them” he explained.

  “And you have this ‘System’ now?” she asked.

  Awkwardly running his thumbs in circles around each other, he replied with a simple, “Kinda, yeah.”

  “Alright, you are just looking for a new home. A place to feel safe and belong, but sprites and pixies live in homes within the canopy, built into the trees themselves,” she told him.

  She paused for a breath, looking away from his eyes as she continued. “There is no place for you here, and the elders have decided as much. The hollow shall remain a home only to the fae, as it has always been. You cannot be anything more than a temporary exception. So here is what is going to happen. You are going to continue on your way, looking for a new home and staying out of trouble, right?” she said, informing him of his path more than asking.

  Responding with more certainty than he would have had even yesterday, he said “Yeah, ok. I get it; I’m not one of you, just like I was never one of the goblinkin. You’re right, though, I won’t stop looking. I will find somewhere that can be a home. Maybe even somewhere safe from adventurers.”

  She looked over him, still lying in his faery-made bed. Nodding as if she had decided upon something. She looked him in the eyes and said,

  “That is right, once your leg is healed, you are going to go searching for a new home.” Nik started to respond but closed his mouth when he saw the look Pearl was giving him that said she wasn’t finished talking.

  “In the meantime,” she continued, “you and I are going to train. You said you can learn new skills. Sprites are wind specialists, young one.”

  Shocked, Nik asked “Wait, are you serious? You’re going to teach me an elemental skill?”

  Giving him a beaming smile, Pearl said, “We start tomorrow. Now rest up, kid. You are going to need it.”