The Arena Read online

  The Arena

  The Adventures of Horc:

  Book 2

  by Drew Seren

  All rights reserved. No part of this book may be used or reproduced by any means, graphic, electronic or mechanical, including photocopying, recording, taping or by any information storage retrieval system without the written permission of the publisher except in the case of brief quotations embodied in critical articles and reviews.

  Except where actual places are being described for the storyline of this novel, all situations in this publication are fictitious; any resemblance to living persons or places is purely coincidental.

  See what Drew Seren is up to.

  Visit his website www.drewseren.com

  And sign up for his newsletter

  Copyright 2018 © MysticHawker Press

  http://www.mystichawker.com/

  ISBN: 978-1-945632-34-1

  Edited by Robert Brownson

  Cover design by Silver Circle Images

  1

  The bright sun blazed down as Horc and his party trudged across the Scalteon Desert. For a couple of hours, they’d walked along the packed dirt road with very little distinction from the rolling white sand that made up the desert dunes. Horc never imagined he’d be able to sweat in a game, but that’s what he was doing as he stared across the bleak landscape. He wanted to stop somewhere in the shade and take a nap, but there was no shade; there was just the seemingly never-ending rise and fall of the sand dunes.

  “Okay, this is really getting monotonous,” Steelmaiden, the large Barbarian woman next to him, said. “I can’t wait until we can get mounts. Does anyone know what level that is?”

  “Let me check and see if anyone’s reached it yet,” Slasher, their Fighter, said.

  “The way our luck is going, probably not,” Horc mumbled. Although he’d been having a lot of fun in the game, long times of travel made him tired and frustrated. They gave him time to think about how his body was trapped in his gaming pod in his basement after a tornado wiped out his house and neighborhood. From the last report he received from one of the game admins, the rescue team had reached his house, but were having to proceed very carefully to excavate things in hopes of getting him out alive. As he traversed dune after dune with his wolf companion, and his party members at his side, his mind kept going back to how close to death he was. He felt fine in the game of Halfworld, but if his pod malfunctioned further than it had already, or something heavy managed to break through the titanium steel casing, he was going to be a goner.

  “Looks like level thirty,” Slasher said. “Someone from the Berlin office posted in the Wiki a little while ago that they’d managed to get a mount and it was really making getting around a lot easier.”

  Horc let out a long heavy sigh. “So, ten more levels. Since each level takes more to complete than the previous one, that’s going to take a while.” He reached down and scratched his wolf’s ears, wishing his wolf was big enough he could ride it and stop some of the pain in his feet.

  “It’s all part of the game,” Steelmaiden said. “Although I was hoping for level twenty-five, since it didn’t happen at level twenty. I guess we should be trying to kill everything that’ll get us points, but not kill us first.”

  “I think, if anything happens to Horc, Greensleeves and Baladara will kill us,” Slasher said.

  “Then we pick our targets carefully,” Steelmaiden replied. “It’s not like there’s much out here in this desert besides snakes, scorpions, vultures, and tortoises.”

  “Right,” Slasher agreed. “But that last pair of vultures nearly took you out, remember. Without our healer, we’ve got to be careful.”

  Steelmaiden frowned but didn’t say anything.

  Horc stayed quiet too. It felt weird playing the game, actually going to a new area without Baladara and Greensleeves, who’d been with him since the beginning of the game. But Baladara, the party mage, was the only member of their group who wasn’t using a game pod, just VR goggles and gloves. In real life, his body got tired from hours of game play. He declared himself in need of a little rest.

  Greensleeves, their druid and healer, had logged out to see if there was something any of them could do to help cover Horc during his time in Red Wind Terrace. The Orc starting city wasn’t exactly friendly to humans unless the players worked on building their reputation with the Orcs. Since none of their party, other than Horc, had any reputation with the Orcs, they would have to wait outside the city for Horc unless they could find a neutral area for them to relax in while Horc went to complete his quest. Horc only had a neutral rep with the Orcs due to him being a Half Orc. If he’d been full Orc, he’d be in good standing with the Orcs as opposed to neutral.

  “Maybe there’s just one of those guys.” Steelmaiden unsheathed her massive sword and pointed up the dune to the white scorpion that was a shade off from the color of the sand and the size of a Mini Cooper that was starting down toward them.

  Sandslasher, level 21, proclaimed the red text above the scorpion.

  “Maybe.” Horc pulled out his bow and strung an Impact Arrow.

  “Bring it down,” Slasher said as he stepped up next to Steelmaiden, his own sword bare and ready to swing.

  Adding a Flaming Arrow spell to the Impact Arrow to do more damage, Horc let his arrow fly at the Sandslasher. It hit and knocked about a quarter of the creature’s health bar down.

  The scorpion hissed and rushed toward them, kicking up a cloud of white sand in its wake. It moved so fast that Horc wondered how fast it could’ve moved without the Impact Arrow slowing its movements.

  Horc got off another shot, a Razor Arrow with a Poison Dart spell on it. The damage wasn’t as much, but the scorpion was within range of Steelmaiden, the wolf, and Slasher. It only took a couple more rounds of attacks to bring the Sandslasher down. As soon as Slasher finished looting it, Horc skinned it. It blinked and faded from existence seconds after Horc pulled the tough but valuable shell from it.

  “You know, we’re going to need to get into a town soon,” Slasher said. “My bags are about full, and I think you two aren’t much better off.”

  Horc pulled up his inventory and frowned. “Four slots for me.”

  “Six for me,” Steelmaiden said. “Another drawback to missing the rest of the party, we can’t pass things around to get nice stacks. Not that a ton of the stuff we’ve gotten stacks right anyway. So many different critters, so many different drops.” She pulled a rag and wiped her sword free of bug guts before sheathing it. “And it wasn’t even worth that much as far as XP goes. I’m still a long way from not having to walk everywhere.”

  Closing his inventory screen, Horc shouldered his bow. At least he wasn’t having to worry about arrows anymore, not after finding the Everfull Quiver in the Gnoll King’s Dungeon. But he still had bag-space issues. They’d all emptied as much as they could before they set out. It was obvious, from looking at the maps of the area, that it would take them a while to get there, and the odds were that they’d run into a few mobs along the way. The maps had been accurate, and with the drops from the mobs, they were quickly running low on space.

  Steelmaiden got a faraway look, something that was indicative of her either checking her wiki, or maps. The game wiki was quickly adding entries as more and more players explored the world, but there was still a lot to do to get it up to the level of being extremely useful when players got stuck on what to do next. After a moment, Steelmaiden blinked. “Okay, that might be a good option.”

  “What?” Horc asked as he pulled a chunk of meat out for his wolf. After every fight, he tried to give his companion a little something, just to make sure his health was maxed out in case they ran into trouble.

  “There’s a small village not far from here.” Steelmaiden pointed
to their north across the dune the scorpion had come from. “According to the map, it’s a yellow village for me, so it’s neutral. We’re about an hour or so from Red Wind Terrace. Maybe Slasher and I can stay there while you go complete your quest. We might even be able to pick up some quests that’ll help with our reputation among the Orcs, since we’re on the edge of their controlled zone.”

  Slasher nodded as he sheathed his sword. “That makes sense. If we can up our rep with them, we’ll be able to enter their city, so we don’t have to break up the party.”

  “Except for the asshole players who haven’t adapted to the idea that this game is reputation-based and not totally faction-based,” Horc said, remembering how some of the human players in Stone Helm City reacted to a Half Orc wandering around in the human starting zone. Although the NPCs hadn’t had an issue with it as long as his rep with the humans remained decent, he’d had a couple of challenges to his right to be there by overzealous players.

  “There will always be those,” Slasher said. “And if we’re in a party, we’ll be better equipped to handle them.”

  Steelmaiden nodded. “He’s got a point. So, let’s head over to Tragiczan and settle in there while you head on to Red Wind and hopefully by the time you’re done there, the others will be with us.”

  “Okay.” Horc looked up the dune the scorpion had come over and hoped there wasn’t a nest full of them on the other side. Even staying on the road hadn’t stopped them from running into mobs. He was fairly sure getting off the road and going cross country was going to be even more of a challenge. At least they hadn’t run into anything they couldn’t handle.

  2

  “That’s it, I’m full.” Horc closed his inventory screen after pulling in the last hide he had skinned from yet another Sandslasher.

  “Me too,” Steelmaiden agreed. “But I think Tragiczan should be just over this dune. If the map’s accurate.”

  Slasher made it to the top of the dune and looked back over his shoulder. “We’ve got a town down there.”

  A wave of fatigue washed over Horc. “Let’s get down there and empty these bags out and get off our feet for a little while.”

  Steelmaiden headed up the dune first. “Sounds good to me.”

  Horc hurried to follow with his wolf companion at his heels. He was incredibly tired of wading through the deep sand that made up the dunes and often spilled over onto the roads and paths that crisscrossed the desert. He felt like he had sand in everything he was wearing with at least two inches filling his boots and socks. Since he hadn’t taken time to look at the map, he had no clue if there was a road between Tragiczan and Red Wind Terrace. He hoped there was, as it would make the going a lot easier, both in terms of avoiding some mobs, and the sand that seemed like the prevailing element in the desert they’d trooped through.

  From the top of the dune, the village of Tragiczan was visible. A series of large tents spread around a central square that looked to be of a similar packed-earth creation as the road they’d been on for hours. The tents were mostly bright colors, some dulled by obvious exposure to the wind and sand. There were two black tents at the farthest point from the dune they were walking down.

  “What’s with the black tents?” Horc asked as the warm wind picked up and blew even more sand into his clothing and face.

  “We’ll have to check them out when we get there,” Steelmaiden said. “In a lot of games, something like black tents means trouble.”

  “Maybe it’s how the town got its name,” Slasher added. “The black tents bring something tragic with them.”

  Horc wasn’t in the mood for something tragic. He wanted to empty his bags and get off his feet for a few minutes before continuing on with just his wolf at his side.

  A large burly man with short tusks sticking out of human lips, and white hair poking from under his helmet stepped in front of them as they neared the edge of the village. “Hold.” His voice was human, but his skin had a faint green shading to it and he was broader than even the guards at Stone Helm City. His armor was leather, and well scarred, and he held a huge, wicked-looking spear. The yellow lettering over his head declared him to be Tragiczan Guard, level XXX.

  Steelmaiden stopped in front of him. “Is there a problem? We’re just travelers looking for an escape from the desert.” Her tone was soft, and her posture the least aggressive Horc had ever seen.

  “We don’t want any trouble here,” the guard said. “We’re neutral. That means no fighting among Humans and Orcs. If you start any problems, they and you will be dealt with. Is that clear?”

  Steelmaiden smiled at him. “Of course. We’ll be good. Do we look like the types who would cause trouble?”

  The guard studied them for a moment, then shook his head. “A Ranger, a Barbarian, and a Fighter. Not a really diverse party. No real blemishes on any of your reputations. Okay. But I’m serious, start any trouble and you’re out of here. I don’t care if there’s a sandstorm going on, you’ll be out of my hair faster than a viper can hit a hare.”

  “Thanks.” Steelmaiden flashed him another smile and they moved on past. “They might be neutral, but they’re serious about their security.”

  “Probably have to be,” Slasher said. “They’re on the border of Orc territory. That could be rather dicey at times, I bet.”

  “Depends on what the AI does with it, or what kind of sods the players are wanting to be.” Steelmaiden angled them over toward a tent that had several tables full of wares set up along its shaded edge.

  A tall Orc woman leaned over the table as they approached. “Adventurers, come, come, see what I have to offer.” The yellow text above her head read Asheena, Merchant, Level XXX.

  Seeing the way the woman’s low-cut tunic barely contained her immense bosom, Horc bit back a laugh. The XXX had too many connotations in that moment.

  “I think we’re more interested in selling,” Steelmaiden rested an elbow on the table, obviously careful of the ends of several wicked-looking swords. “But if you’ve got anything I like the looks of.” There was a slightly flirty tone to her words.

  Asheena smiled. “I always like buying from experienced adventurers such as yourselves. Come, let me see what you have, and see what bargains we can make.”

  They haggled for a good half an hour over everything in their inventories they wanted to sell and over a massive long sword Asheena had that Steelmaiden liked the looks of. In the end, Horc walked away from the tent with his coin pouch several gold heavier. Steelmaiden didn’t make as much money, but she had the new sword strapped to her back and a swagger in her step. Slasher came out ahead with some stronger armor, even if it did have a badly repaired dent on one shoulder. Asheena was also nice enough to point them toward the blacksmith a couple of tents away for armor and weapon repairs, which they were all in need of after their trip across the desert.

  Two hours later, they made it to the small inn, that was actually underground. The place had a front that resembled a tent, but there were instantly steps going down a good floor and a half underground. The air there was a lot cooler than what Horc was slowly becoming accustomed to in their journey across the blazing parched landscape they’d been traveling through.

  “You know, we still don’t know why they call this place Tragiczan,” Slasher said as they walked down the narrow hallway to the room he and Steelmaiden were going to share for a day or so while Horc went to the Orc starting city.

  Steelmaiden shrugged. “Hard to tell, really. It might just be somewhat of a joke with the developers, or there might be some tale we can learn as we talk with the local NPCs. While Horc’s away, we can do some digging and see what we can come up with.”

  Slasher opened the door to their room. “Sounds like a way to keep things from getting too boring.”

  “And we don’t want you two to get bored,” Horc said as he followed the others in. “You know, if you need to, you could just log out for a little while.”

  “Nope.” Steelmaiden shook her head and sh
e flopped on the closest bed. “Not going to do that. We promised the others we were going to look after you while they were gone, and that’s what we’re going to do. My pod’s working right, or I would’ve had an error pop up, so I’m in this for the long haul.”

  Horc didn’t doubt her, but he was getting tired of his friends watching over him like a bunch of mother hens. He was looking forward to getting away from them for a little while and seeing what was waiting for him in Red Wind Terrace. Sure, there was a good chance that if he died in game, he might die in real life. But they didn’t know for sure. They had no way to know until something happened. With his pod buried under the remains of his house and his log-out button grayed out, nobody knew exactly what was going on. The fact that the game was still in beta-testing didn’t help. The documentation was minimal, but what Horc did know was he wasn’t going to sit around and ‘stay safe’ the way the game admins wanted him to.

  “She’s right.” Slasher patted the other bed and causing a small cloud of dust to roll up around his hand. He frowned. “Besides, we might figure out some things about the game, and we can spend a little time updating the wiki. Remember that message we all got through the system a little while ago about the added bonus for every addition to the wiki we make. Gives us all an excellent opportunity for more real money from playing.”

  “I bet they’re getting complaints about the wiki being all-but useless,” Steelmaiden said as she got off the bed and dusted herself off. “You know, sometimes this game is just a little too real, but I guess that’s not a bad thing. But if they included bedbugs, I’m going to be pissed. That might require me at least talking to Greensleeves’s husband. There’s no point in going that far with virtual reality.”

  Horc chuckled. After what they’d endured with actually sweating in a game, he was a little surprised she was complaining about bugs, but he wouldn’t be surprised if the game designers had thought of that too. “Well, if you two are satisfied with the room, why don’t we go eat, and then I’ll head on to Red Wind Terrace?”