SpeedRunner (Tower of Babel Book 1) Page 5

  With over eight million people on the first floor, heading anywhere for quests was a fool's errand. The quest givers would be swamped, the objectives camped, or worse yet, sitting smack dab in the middle of a farming operation. Cayden could easily find himself spending three to four hours for a simple fetch and carry quest, not to mention the time spent navigating cramped confines of the Crown City of Albieth that gave the floor its name.

  Even the smaller settlements were overwhelmed with new players who thought they'd be the only ones intelligent enough to try and pick up quests in an out of the way spot. No, quests on the first floor were a fool's errand. Grinding was the name of the game.

  And grind he did.

  He slew thirty-three more goblins over the course of the next three hours, mostly individual skirmishers, archers or shamans he could peel away from their camps without drawing a whole pack down on him. He only failed a single time in that endeavor, and even then he only pulled a pair of them. Easy enough to fight, and it gave him his first taste of chain experience, the 10% per mob XP bonus that was earned when you killed mobs back to back within the same combat.

  At 18-21 XP a piece, the afternoon of combat had earned him 648 XP, bringing his total to 667. Two-thirds of the way there. Even better, he'd already raked in just over 900 Zeni. Between that, his inventory was positively bursting with vendor trash, and some smart auctioneering, he should be able to put his plan for level two into action without a hitch.

  Have to get there first. Cayden chided himself. He had a bad habit of looking forward to the next thing while ignoring what was right in front of him. That mindset was reckless when he was sitting in front of his desktop trying to beat a world record; it was arguably much worse when he was locking blades with feral sub-humans.

  Cayden closed his inventory and drew up his map once again. Goblins that he could pick up individually were comparatively sparse at his original spawn point, and he'd spent part of the last several hours working his way from the hills to the plains where they would be more common, and he would be closer to the dungeon entrance when he finished leveling. It was a bit of a long shot, but he was hoping against hope that he'd be able to enter the dungeon before nightfall. If he managed that, he might just be able to make it to the second floor before the dungeon reset. If not, he'd have to wait until morning.

  I reaaaaly hope I don't have to spend the night there. He frowned, his eyes drifting to the east where the crown city sat gleaming at the center of the floor. It was miles away, but even from here he could see the lines of carts and plumes of smoke Twice as many people had taken up refuge in the thing that had destroyed Manhattan as lived in the city when it had been destroyed, if that didn't say something about human perseverance, Cayden didn't know what would.

  “Help! Someone help us!”

  The shout snapped Cayden out of his reverie. It had come from his left, probably echoing from just behind the small ridge line that separated him from one of the nearby goblin camps he had been trying to avoid.

  "Enable Callouts." He ordered, and the system obeyed. A trio of green names appeared hovering in virtual space, their grayed out nature and distance indicators confirming his suspicions.

 

 

 

  Callouts were a relatively common feature in any online game, and in Babel, they were enabled by default. The problem was that if you wanted to see them, you had to leave yours active as well, which led you to be vulnerable to any enterprising PKer who wanted to put another notch on his belt. Cayden toggled his with relative frequency to see if he could spot anyone creeping up on him, and he was surprised he hadn't noticed the three of them so close until the shout had alerted him.

  New Skill Learned!

  Perception

  Type: Passive

  Skill Level: Novice Level 1

  Effect: Improved situational awareness. 5% increased hearing and vision within 200ft.

  "Yeah, thanks for that." Cayden replied snidely to the skill notification. He was already on a run up the slope, well aware of his surroundings thank you very much. As if to spite him, the mirror in his back pocket buzzed once again, and a new alert appeared on his HUD.

  Skill Level Up: Sprint

  Type: Passive

  Skill Level: Novice Level 2

  Effect: Improved running speed by 6%.

  Cost: 9.9 TP per Second + Penalty for Armor weight.

  Achievement Unlocked

  Get a skill to Level 2!

  Skill mastery certainly can't be very far behind.

  “No. Seriously, thank you!” He half expected a third alert to chime into existence alerting him that he'd just gained a level in irony, or perhaps sarcasm awareness. In spite of the situation he smiled, though it was short lived as another shout rent the air. This one was wordless, just a sharp cry of pain that sent a shiver up his spine.

  Cayden slowed as he reached the top of the ridge, lowering his stance to try to minimize his visibility to those on the other side. Player Killers were rare this early in the game, there typically just wasn't much to steal. Still, it did happen, and Cayden had no desire to become a statistic by running in half cocked.

  The other side of the ridge was a disaster. Somehow the three of them had managed to chain pull nearly eight times their number in Goblins from the nearby settlement. The creatures were swarming after them, sparks zapping at their heels from the staves of shamans while crossbow bolts and throwing daggers thudded into the ground or clanged off of armor.

  They wouldn't be able to outrun the goblins. One member of the group was clad in the dark red robes of a beginner Pyromancer, which meant he'd likely have comparatively low TP. The other two, a leather-clad member of one of the Rogue classes and a full-plate clad knight archetype might have gotten far enough to break aggro, but not unless they were willing to leave their comrade behind.

  They weren't. Even as he watched from the ridge line, the mage's quick run faltered, and his friends turned to face the encroaching horde. Cayden knew from experience how disorienting that felt. If he had even a single point of TP, he didn't feel the slightest fatigue from running, but the moment it ran out he felt as if he had just finished a second consecutive run through of the Boston Marathon. Worse yet for the mage, allowing his TP to empty entirely cut the regeneration in half and locked him out of all TP use until he regenerated the entire pool. A rookie mistake.

  Cayden took a few steps forward on instinct, but logic held him back from racing to the trio's aid. He needed to help them, but could he? Cayden counted seventeen individual goblins in the mob of green flesh, six to one odds for the three players below him, a TPK if ever he saw one. The question was whether or not intervening would save them, or just add to the body count.

  He didn't have long to consider. Already the battle below him was joined. The mage launched a cascade of flaming missiles into the crowd of goblins, staggering the beasts just long enough for the greatsword wielding fighter to interpose himself. The clash of metal and flesh was terrifying to hear, even at such a distance, and Cayden winced in spite of himself while numbers ran through his head. If the players didn't suck, they had a fighting chance. But these players had managed to pull a children's birthday party worth of goblins, so they sucked by definition.

  He had to decide now.

  “Who dares wins.” Cayden said with confidence he did not feel, starting down the hill at a full sprint. It was a common expression for him, one he'd often dropped before attempting, and more often than not failing, a ridiculously risky move.

  "Join Party Request, Crazy... Qwazy... ugh. Join Party Request, John3." He instructed as he further closed the distance between the two groups. Without their permission he could still butt in on the fight. However, he wouldn't have access to critical information like their HP, MP or TP remaining. He also wouldn't get XP, and that would be downright criminal.

  Your Join Party Request has been accepted.

  “Personal Skill Use: Taunt!” Much
of the previous three hours had been spent in trial and error with his Personal Skills, attempting to learn and memorize the motions. Of his three active skills, he figured he had about a fifty-fifty with Southern Cross and a sixty or so with Shield Bash. Taunt though? Taunt was easy.

  Cayden yelled, slapping the flat of his blade against the wood of his shield as he neared the creature. Used normally, taunt took about three seconds and left him wide open to attack, used as a personal skill he could do it mid-sprint, he just had to be intimidating while he did it.

  The skill worked. Sixteen head snapped in his direction in almost pure unison, creepy children of the mutated, red-eyed, green skin corn. It was enough to send a shiver of revulsion through him as he neared their lines. "Personal Skill Use: Southern Cro-"

  Personal Skill Use Activated: Southern Cross. -150 TP.

  Goblin Juggler hit you for 62 Physical

  Personal Skill Use Failed: Southern Cross. -150 TP.

  "Oh come on, I hadn't even finished starting it!" Cayden cried, slashing his sword down through the nearest goblin for moderate damage instead of the more impressive personal skill. It was not the ideal way to start a fight like this. He didn't have time to complain any further, however, not while a horde of screeching green skinned creatures were stabbing, slashing and biting at him from every direction. Their very numbers were threatening to force him to the ground. "Skill Use: Grasp the Earth!"

  The wave of goblins had turned their course to meet his taunt, which left the three he rescued in the rear of their lines. The roguish type was engaged in a long ranged standoff with the one creature that had resisted or been outside the range of his taunt, trading lightning bolts for arrows in a battle he wasn't winning. Cayden wondered if the shaman was a champion type if perhaps that was how they'd managed to end up in the middle of his catastrophe, but he had bigger issues at hand.

  Chief among them was the wary eyes of the warrior and the mage. The pair had the same look in their eyes that he must have had standing up on the ridge. They were deciding whether or not it was a fight worth having, whether it was worth committing themselves to the attempt, or whether it was better just to let the sucker who had saved them pay the price instead of them.

  “Help or don't, but decide quickly or it won't matter!”

  It was a petty move, but Cayden was willing to be petty if it helped him make it through this in one piece. His skin was already glowing a bright green in a dozen places where the creatures had gouged into him. Pain was muted in Babel, enough of a sensation that he was aware of the wounds without being debilitated by it, each puncture a bee sting, each slash like a cat's claw dragged along his skin. It hurt, but not enough to faze him while adrenaline pounded through him. What did faze him was the state of his pools.

  Current HP: 889/1140

  Current TP: 256/790

  That was not a good number to see this early in the fight. He'd staunched the worst of the bleeding with Grasp the Earth, but with his current totals, he had less than five minutes assuming he didn't use any other skills. Not that he was likely to last that long if they didn't start thinning out the goblin's numbers. Even with perfect blocks stopping the majority of the attacks, he was still getting struck half a dozen or more times a second, and he simply couldn't block them all. Worse yet, now that he was rooted, they'd be sure to try and encircle him, increasing their number of successful attacks and bringing him down in short order.

  “Skill Use: Cleave!”

  “Skill Use: Will o' the Wisp!”

  That was more like it! The mage's fire tore into the back ranks of the goblins who were so focused on him that they weren't even bothering to defend themselves. If these were any smarter sort of mob or even any monster with a sense of self-preservation Cayden's group wouldn't have a fighting chance. Goblins didn't care for their own lives, and that made attacks like the two-handed cleave of the greatsword utterly devastating. In just two attacks a half dozen goblins lay smoldering or in pieces, their bodies already turning to ash as the battle raged on.

  Even stupid as they were, the goblins couldn't ignore a threat like that. The attacks had generated considerable aggro, enough for a number of the critters to break off their attack on Cayden and turn their attention and stabby blades in the direction of the comparatively squishy DPS.

  Cayden was having none of that. Another taunt ripped through the air, and the goblins faltered in their mad rush on the mage, then turned back to redouble their initial efforts on the party tank. The unintentional ping-pong kiting had bought them a lot of breathing room, and Cayden mentally kicked himself for the TP he'd wasted on that failed initial strike. Without Grasp the Earth he'd be a sitting duck, which meant at best he had only a single taunt left in him to hold threat on the goblins.

  “Lay it on as fast as you can. This is a sprint, not a marathon!' Cayden shouted, going on the offensive for the first time since the initial clash. He'd take a little bit more damage this way, but attacking at all generated some threat, and he needed to hold the attention of the goblins long enough for the pair in the rear to thin their numbers further.

  “Skill Use: Fan of Flames” The mage shouted, followed by a series of unintelligible mystical chants that culminated in a grand gesture and a wave of flame erupting from the mage's outstretched fingertips.

  Immolatus Fan of Flames hit you for 126 Fire

  “Not on me you...” Cayden bit back obscenities. There would be time for that later when the mage didn't still have the chance to ditch him and run. Fortunately, the attack hadn't been a total waste. A glance at his combat log told him that it had struck every single goblin for similar damage, and it had slain two of them. That left eight. Seven, after QwazyDaddy, finished decapitating one more with a wild swing.

  Unfortunately, much like the last time, the Fan of Flames drew the ire of the goblins who were wisely more interested in the man setting them on fire than the one yelling at them. Cayden reminded them that he wasn't toothless, planting his blade through the back of one of the creatures as it drew back a throwing knife aimed at Immolatus. Six left.

  "Skill Disable: Grasp the Earth." The skill had brought him down below 150 TP, and in a few moments, he would have to use 100 of that to reacquire the goblins for the final push. With only six left and at just over half health, he should be fine, even without Grasp the Earth, provided the others did their part.

  Wait. No. There are seven left.

  The realization hit Cayden harder than any of the green skins had managed to thus far. A glance at the bottom right of his HUD had confirmed his suspicions moments before an arc of lightning struck the back of Immolatus, sending the mage sprawling. He'd lost track of the goddamn shaman.

  John3 was down; his HP bar shifted from the normal red to purple. Currently, he was at 97/100, but Cayden knew without even checking that number was decreasing by one every second.

  “Immolatus, finish off the caster! Daddy, the goblins!” John3 had given a good accounting of himself against the Shaman despite losing the fight, and a glance at its HP bar told him that even the wounded mage should be able to drop it in one or two skills. Which left the other six for him and Daddy.

  He taunted one last time, roaring in actual rage as he discarded his shield and rushed the goblins with his long sword gripped in both hands. The two handed grip increased his damage by 50% and right now this was nothing but a damage race to finish off the remainder before the timer ran out on John3.

  He met the first goblin with a hard slash to its exposed midsection, taking a gouge to his own for the trouble. It was a fair exchange, 72 HP for one of six goblins, but it wasn't one he could keep making. He parried the next, dodging a clumsily thrown throwing knife from still a third before pirouetting to open up one of the feral creatures from navel to groin. Half ashen bodies of their compatriots littered the field, disappearing into clouds as the goblins rushed headlong through their fallen to reach Cayden.

  Another fell to his sword, and another to QwazyDaddy, though the cost was h
igh in HP. Cayden spared a glance for his meters and frowned. He was sitting at just barely 200 now, one bad critical hit away from joining John3 down in the tall grass. There was some good news. However, he'd recovered just enough TP for one skill.

  He circled the remaining goblin, waiting for it to commit to an attack. Perhaps it was afraid, or it recognized the haste in his eyes, maybe it even understood that John3 was in bleed out and only wanted to delay him. Whatever the reason, the goblin was damnably passive. It wasn't going to run in and let him use his skill, which meant he had to go to it.

  "Personal Skill Use: Southern Cross!" Cayden intoned. The heat of the power enveloped him, and he didn't hesitate, slashing forward with a half step he knew wouldn't strike the goblin. It didn't matter; the second blow landed as the creature advanced into the gap in his defenses it thought it saw. The horizontal slash caught it mid-pounce, the strength of the blade cleaving through flesh and scattering ashes as it tossed the goblin aside.

  Pinned between two more competent warriors, the last of the tribe fell quickly.

  Thirty-five seconds. Cayden frowned. With the goblin shaman already slain by Immolatus' flaming arrows, his status window seemed ready to burst with notifications. He muted them with a gesture, looking to the two remaining members of the group. "He's right over there. Get some bandages or a healing potion ready."

  “I... we don't have any.” came QwazyDaddy's reply.

  Cayden rounded on him with incredulity in his eyes, looking ready to shout before he caught sight of the other man's horrified expression. It was the first time he'd ever actually looked at him, and QwazyDaddy seemed a remarkably apt name. He was a man in his late forties, maybe his early fifties. He was balding, with a paunch that even the thick steel of his armor couldn't entirely conceal. His skin was soft and unblemished, an office worker by trade maybe? He practically screamed middle manager, like one of the Lumbergh's without the shitty attitude.