A New World (Gamer, Book 1) (14 page)

That in itself is a weird thought as most of
his life has involved not trying very hard. At the grand old age of
twenty-five, he hasn't achieved much. Then again in the year 2222
it's not so uncommon among people of his age group. Around about
2100 the world changed significantly economically and the
youngsters of the world have been feeling the pinch ever since. He
just needs to figure a way to get some money to those who are so
violently requesting it and he will be free to waste away the rest
of his life.

He looks over to Josh with the look of
determination on his face.

"When can we get started?” he asks.

"As soon as we get you some new
armor."

Harry stands up and Josh gives him an amused
look. It looks like things are going to get heated from now on in.
Harry's training is beginning.

*****

It's the second day and Harry's slowly
bleeding to death. The pigs, which used to be so easy to kill, are
now much harder to finish off. Josh has spelt out quite clearly
that the fastest way to improve one's skills is in real combat.
Apparently, the game gives a greater amount of adjustment in a
combat situation than it does from just training on one's
own.

Harry tries to stand up, but the weight of his
body and especially his weapon is incredible. The first day out
Josh cast a small spell that increases Harry's body weight fifteen
times. He then explained that stats, which Harry didn't even know
about before they were explained to him, are very important for the
weapon classes. Strength and power in particular are essential for
performing strong, clean and powerful strokes. Also the additional
slowness created by the heaviness of Harry's weapon is – apparently
- very handy for giving him the opportunity to perfect his strokes.
Of course, this explanation doesn't help the fact that the pig he
is
TRYING
to fight (and doing a very poor job of) has had
the upper hand on him for most of the last five minutes.

He is tempted to remove some of the armor that
he is being forced to wear. The steel weighs a ton with the weight
increase, yet, thankfully, it mitigates the damage from the pigs to
near zero. That doesn't stop Harry from hurting himself though,
which has been his downfall three times over in the last two
days.

The pig charges and collides with Harry's
chest. It drifts to the side after the severe impact, but proves to
be resilient enough to continue.

Harry focuses on his sword, which, of course,
increases in weight tenfold and tries to slash out at the beast.
It's a weak effort and barely nicks the creature as it scuttles
back defensively.

He looks upwards to the top of his screen and
finds what he's been waiting for is still not there.

"That damn blue bar. How much longer do I have
to wait?"

Magic in the game has limits and once one has
learnt to summon the magic in-game reliably enough a blue bar
appears at the top of the player's screen that represents the
maximum amount of magic they can cast. Harry has been waiting for
two days for the stupid thing to appear, yet it doesn't seem like
it's going to happen for him at this rate.

A black portal opens and Josh steps through.
He watches in amusement as Harry guards against a three tusk combo
attack performed by the beast.

"Still no luck?"

Harry groans as his jaw is too heavy to speak
and Josh mutters a few words to release him from his
torment.

He cries out in shock as it becomes suddenly
much easier to move. He slashes down at the pig and ends its life
with a single stroke. It's a surprisingly proficient and accurate
movement for one who so far has shown very little skill in the art
of swordsmanship.

"Well, at least your technique and strength
have improved. How many points did you gain today?"

Harry opens a screen and examines the
numbers.

"Three up in strength and two in power. I also
got a little bit of dexterity, among other things."

Josh sighs and looks at Harry
sadly.

“
In my experience your progress is
too slow for your two week time limit. You need to be much further
ahead than this.”

He thinks a moment and then clearly makes some
form of decision.

"It's time to step up the training a little
bit. The pigs are clearly not getting us anywhere.

Harry looks to the dead pig and nods his head.
He knows it as well.

They step through the portal together and
appear in some kind of desert. The ground is coated with red sand
similar to the sand found around the colonies of Mars that Harry
has seen on the Internet. The one major feature of the place seems
to be a large number of hulking humanlike rock forms that appear to
be made of stone.

Harry looks to Josh and the man
smiles.

"This is the area where wizards begin their
training. Those big meatheads may not look tough, but I did my fair
share of grinding on them and learnt the foolishness of
underestimating them,” he says, “and so will you.”

Harry looks to the lumbering hulks that,
although vaguely human in shape, have no real outward appearance.
He wonders if they'll be as easy to kill as the pigs. They are
probably about the same level.

They walk over to a mass of the things and
Harry slashes at the nearest with his weapon. His sword pings off
the hard outer coating of the creature's bodies and does no damage
whatsoever.

Josh laughs loudly and looses a burst of flame
from his fingers. The creature disintegrates into dust and he comes
to stand over it, pushing his finger into the remains as the other
creatures flee.

"They aren't so tough at our level, but for
people using edged weapons they can be very difficult to deal
with."

He picks up some of the dust and lets it sift
into the air. It slowly disappears in little flickers of blue light
as it travels into the distance.

"Do you remember the first spell I taught
you?"

"The
slashing fire attack
?"

"That's the one," he says pointing to a group
of monsters in the distance. "It's the only way that you are going
to be able to damage them with your weapon. These things are going
to test you to your limit. I hope you’ll improve a little more
quickly from here on out."

He summons a portal and steps through. Harry
turns towards the monsters and starts to walk.

"Oh yeah," Josh says as he ducks his head back
through, "I should probably recast my spell."

He mumbles a few words and Harry glows bright
red. Seconds later he is looking back at Josh with a look of agony
on his face

“
Have fun!”

Harry wonders if weighing fifteen times more
than normal will ever be fun.

*****

He doesn't have to wait very long for his
answer. After crawling to the creatures because he doesn't have the
strength to stand in the sand, which sucks at his knees and his
hands, he tries to leap upwards to slash out at a creature. Three
of the beasts turn as his weapon pings off the closest one’s back
and set themselves to defend their comrade.

Harry is soon being slammed into the ground,
losing no health, but finding it very difficult to stand as the
creatures use a pounding technique that is very difficult to defend
against when you are fifteen times heavier than normal.

He spins around and lies flat with his arms
out to his side. There is no pain and he can only feel the crashing
of the big creatures’ fists on him, but it's still hard to
move.

He tries to lift a hand, but his body tells
him that he should be sleeping not fighting.

I don’t have time to be weak like this. I
have to speed up
or
they will kill me when I leave the game.
I can’t afford to waste a second of my time here.

One and a half months remain and he’s
desperate. With only a few gold to his name, he’s not going to be
able to pay the debt collection officers. He needs gold and lots of
it to make that sum.

Ripping his sword from the sand, he focuses on
the steel length of it. He can feel the heaviness of the weapon
growing and he knows that it's now or never if he wants to continue
his training.

He focuses on a flame in his mind stretching
out from behind his weapon and performs a half hearted stroke in
front of him. A small flare of fire slashes over the creature and
cuts into its stone body. It’s not enough to hurt it, but it's
better than nothing.

Slashing out again in the opposite direction,
he manages reasonable a reasonable amount of fire this time. It
damages the legs of the monster enough for it to fall to its knees
where Harry performs an upward thrust that pings off the thing’s
body without any fire.

Try harder,
he thinks,
I’ve got to
try harder!

Focusing all of his mental energy, he pushes
the sword up twice. The first thrust glances off the creature’s
neck and the second time pushes through to impale it. The monster
falls aside and a stream of dust appears.

“
One down,” Harry
whispers.

He brings his weapon up again and slashes
across. It’s a misfire and he doesn’t get the flame with this
one.

“
Come on! Just die!” he
mutters.

Hacking and slashing require a huge effort
from his body and he is soon sweating and breathing hard after just
a few strokes.

The second creature falls to his cuts, which
take its legs out from underneath it and he stabs it through the
centre. He is still fighting with his back to the ground as
standing up is a mission and then some for him in this
state.

He finally manages to take down the last
creature and lies there breathing hard like he’s never breathed in
his life. He notes that his life has gone down a little bit from
the continued effort and realizes that the strokes are so
exhausting that they are actually affecting his health.

He looks up on hearing a heavy footfall
nearby. Ten of the creatures are coming his way.

Harry laughs manically. There is no rest for
those with gambling debts. No way, no how.

*****

“
Anything?”

“
No.”

“
Are you sure?”

“
Nothing is coming to
me?”

Josh sighs. Today is day five of Harry's
training with Josh and so far he hasn't had much luck in
successfully obtaining the blue bar that is so necessary for
consistent spell casting. They have gone to various lengths to get
the bar to appear, yet it is very resistant, much more so than it
has been for the other players Josh has known.

He sighs and opens his eyes. They are sitting
just outside the mage starting area where Harry has been
training.

"Well, I guess today is not the day again. How
about you show me your fire slashing technique? Maybe it has
improved some."

Harry has been struggling with this one easy
technique for a number of days now and has managed it, yet very
inconsistently. He has been a bit shy of showing Josh, who has
proven himself to be quite critical of Harry’s sloppy technique
when he wants to be.

He lines up the skyline in the distance and
performs the simple focus and picture technique. He slashes out and
a stream of fire follows along behind his weapon.

"That's interesting. It usually isn't quite
that thin. I wonder if it’s the weakness of your concentration or
something else that’s doing that?”

"No idea. This is how I’ve been doing it since
you taught me."

Josh smiles to himself and reaches inside his
pocket. He pulls out a small black stone, which looks like a
regular pebble from where Harry’s standing.

“
Come on. I want to test something
out.”

He walks out on to the sand and Harry follows
along behind.

“
This is one of the items that
I’ve been working on at the mage shop. It’s called a
grinding
stone
and I think it’s just perfect for our little
situation.

He places it down on the ground and asks Harry
to stay put. He then jogs back to the edge of the zone. Harry
wonders if he's going to live through whatever Josh has in store
for him.

The man waves and does something that makes
him glow a bright purple. Seconds later the stone also glows a
purplish-navy blue and there is a great rumbling from the desert
around Harry.

He looks about, but it's not clear where the
sound is coming from. Minutes pass and a dust cloud starts to
appear on the horizon getting closer and closer.

He looks back at Josh, who is sitting on a
rock, drinking a bottle of beer. Looking bored. Harry turns back to
the dust cloud and looks at it in concern.

It soon becomes apparent that the dust cloud
is being created by hundreds of large shapes. Harry starts to jog
back towards Josh, but encounters some resistance a dozen meters
later. To his shock a golden shackle appears around his left ankle
and connects him to the stone.