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The Glitch King

Part 2: My Kingdom for a Horse

“Holy shit that was way too close,” Aksel huffed, the knives in his hands disappearing into his inventory as he panted against a rock.

“Don’t worry young master,” Cheshire came over with a canteen of water. “We’ll get you leveled up soon enough.”

The young buck took the canteen and drank deeply from it, the water level indicator on the side of it slowly going down before he broke off it with a gasp.

“Fuck these level caps,” Aksel huffed. “I know they are meant to help Heroes and their progression through the world, but it’s a serious setback.”

“I understand young master,” Cheshire took the canteen back and put it away. Being an actual player, the black panther didn’t need to drink or eat if he didn’t want to. His stats were cared for via other means. “Would you like me to help you with your leveling again later today? I’m sure we can clear the dungeon if we push through.”

“No,” Aksel sighed while pulling up his stats. He was a level five merchant at this point and the small raid they bailed on only gained him a small trickle of experience. “You go rest your body for now. I’ll see you when you get back.”

“Of course young master,” Cheshire bowed and logged out.

Aksel sighed as he looked over the Valley of Beginning’s fields and forests. The Valley was always full of people who just entered the game so he didn’t need to worry about rendering when in such a highly populated area, and once Aksel knew the Midas Curse afflicted memories and actions outside of his world when people logged off, he was able to firmly establish a set guild for himself. Given, it was Cheshire’s gild, but all the people who logged in under his name had taken Aksel’s gold at one point or another and were all brainwashed into his loyal band of thieves.

He never removed the curse when he logged them out originally, so as soon as they logged back in, it was easy enough to use his deception skills to make them his personal party, but that didn’t make the games natural restrictions any easier.

Being an NPC had its advantages, but some serious drawback’s as well. Leveling up worked much the same as it did for Hero’s, but the world had level caps on who could and could not be in specific areas. It was made to cater to Hero’s starting out, but ever since Aksel obtained his class and a level set, he was locked into the Valley. The game simply wouldn’t let him cross the border into other lands so long as he was under the level cap. Normal players could traverse the world freely, but NPC’s had to obey the laws of the land.

Despite the Grand Exchange being a relatively safe place to traverse, it was in the heart of level fifty territory. He had been working at this game for a week already and he was only level five. Sure he had moves, but each level took longer to get to, more effort, and when you fought against monsters of equal level, then there would be penalties to the experience earned. The game rewarded parties ganging up and taking down larger foes. Even if the experience was split amongst the party, the bonuses for fighting above your station outweighed what you would normally get. Though, with the slow moving inertia with how Aksel needed to earn experience, it was an impossible slog.

“There has to be an easier way to grow levels,” Aksel scowled as he scrolled through his skills. There was an experience share mechanic in the game where he could have people fight his battles for him, but unless he landed at least one hit, he wouldn’t gain any experience, and even then, the amount was minimal. If only he could get to the Grand Exchange, he could scatter his coins, lock in the players, and have them work for him tirelessly.

Sure, a handful of about fifteen thieves was nice, but he was only gaining a small trickle of the experience they were earning. Suffice to say, his Midas thralls were gaining experience faster than he was. He thought about locking in players at the start, but Cheshire warned him against raising too many red flags. His party members already rose some suspicion when they couldn’t logout before. So, adding a small trickle of people wasn’t the way to go. He needed to wash the system with his curse or he would be weeded out. He needed to hit hard and deep, not languid and shallow, but at this point all he was capable of was languid and shallow.

“Fucking hell,” the buck snarled. “But there has to be some way of making this go faster.”

The merchant class had some serious perks in ways of deception and seduction, but in combat it was almost like a summoning class where your hired hands did the majority of the work for you. Even though he didn’t need to spend the money on moves like most merchants did with their mercenaries, he was still limited because the experience gained primarily went to his thralls and not himself. Again, if he had more people under his influence, it wouldn’t be so bad, but currently he was stuck grinding away as he was.

Cheshire was now a level thirty one trickster, but that only showed how much harder it would be to get to level fifty at this rate. If all the limited points only got Aksel to level five amounted to one level for his panther thrall, how was that going to equate down the road? Months? Years? It compounded quickly.

“Hey there!” Someone spoke to Aksel.

“What?” Aksel looked up to see a Clydesdale paladin. The massive rust-colored horse was built like a brick house and filled out his armor nicely, but was only a level ten scrub from what the buck could see.

“I wanted to know if you wanted to join our raid?” The stallion asked. “I know you barely meet the level requirements, but we only need one more party member to round out the numbers. You in?”

Aksel looked up at the horse, the guy was a tower of power and potential. He wanted to conscript him bad, but he heeded Cheshire’s words. He couldn’t just throw his curse around lest the people called the “moderators” got involved.

“I guess,” Aksel sighed. “What’s the raid?”

“Thanks my guy!” The Clydesdale shot him a thumbs up. “It’s the one right over here. We dive in two minutes. Get your gear equipped.”

“Sounds good,” Aksel shrugged and got his armor equipped, the leather armor hiding under his expensive looking silks.

***

Aksel had just tried the dungeon with Cheshire moments before, but it was going much more smoothly with a balanced group of players. With a healer they could be more aggressive, the mages could take out the mobs with their AOE magic, and the AD classes could focus their damage on the big baddies. Aksel was using a small crossbow and his knives to keep in the back, the paladin horse keeping close to allow him to smack things and gain experience from the battle. It was the same strategy he had with his underlings, but this team was so much more well streamlined.

“You doin’ good back there?” The Clydesdale asked, his tied up tail flicking in excitement.

“Yeah, I’m doing just fine,” Aksel shot back. At least he was gaining experience faster than normal and they were making great time.

“Good, because the next boss here is going to be tough. He’s level nine so not terrible, but we should stand our ground.”

“Right,” Aksel nodded as they finished the last of the mobs and the barrier to the boss chamber fell.

It was a very simplistic dungeon where a band of thieves were terrorizing the Valley of Beginnings, and their final boss was none other than the bandit leader. A large bear with a beast tamer class that granted him a duo of wolf companions. It wasn’t any surprise that he was there in the center of the cave chamber with his two dogs. His ugly mug had been plastered on wanted posters all around the forest. Everyone got into basic formations before heading in and triggering the opening dialogue.

Aksel assisted with keeping the wolves distracted while the casters flung their spells and the AD carries swarmed adds and took them out. It wasn’t a difficult battle, until we got to the last ten percent of the bandit leader’s health. A small cut seen triggered.

“I won’t go quietly into that goodnight!” The bear roared, ripping out a new dagger from behind him. It was blood red and jagged, clearly magical in nature. He swiped the air and a red arch of energy ripped through their AD carries, all of them instantly marked with a unique status condition.

“Guys! Look alive!” The paladin shouted. “If he strikes you again, he’ll heal. You got to pull back when you’ve got that status!”

A couple of the people noticed and pulled back, but some were just hacking away before they got smacked again, the damage they dealt instantly being replaced with positive health points.

“DUDE! Pull back!” Someone shouted before the bear pulled out another knife, this one black with a blue tint. He swiped it, the blue arch slicing through the air and going farther than the red one did. A new status condition popped up on everyone it passed through.

“Stop casting!” Someone shouted.

“What do you mean?” A mage asked, casting a spell and their HP dropping to zero instantly. Their body went limp as the person now occupied a ghostly version of their body.

“It’s a mana burn curse! Any mana spent while cursed will double back as damage!” The Clydesdale shouted orders, trying to get people back into line, but their formations were falling apart, some people tried to push forward and knock out the leader with a final push, but the point of the dungeon was to learn how to work together. The more chaotic it got, the more the bandit leader’s health bar continued to grow.

“This isn’t good,” Aksel huffed, loading his crossbow up and aiming at the boss. “I don’t have the damage output and we’re losing bodies fast. We might need to retreat.”

“Not yet,” the Clydesdale grunted as he lifted his hammer and went back to barking orders, casting healing spells as best he could and getting ready to revive someone. “If we do one more simultaneous push, I think we got this.”

Aksel huffed and turned to leave. He wasn’t going to get killed in a place like this. He was about to cross the exit when a barrier pushed him back.

“What the fuck…” Aksel looked at the magical field. A voting system popped up, if enough people said yes, they could fail the dungeon immediately, but be ported out. Everyone voted no. A droplet of fear trickled down Aksel’s spine. He was stuck in here with these idiots!

Aksel spun around and started to asses things. If he died, he would be teleported back to his shop. He was lucky the last time, but it was a level locked area as well. He would be stuck in a high level area with no way of getting out, and that’s if he’s lucky enough to have it rendered when he pops in. He had to make a stand here or his team would be wiped.

Aksel looked over his skills but there wasn’t anything useful, but something in his inventory caught his eye. It was a single bolt for his crossbow. It must have been picked up earlier in the raid. It was a rare drop for this area and it appeared to be unique to the merchant class.

“Bandit’s Bane?” Aksel smirked and equipped the bolt onto his crossbow and aimed at the bear before pulling the trigger. The bolt whistled through the air before smacking the grizzly in the neck. He shouted, his body seized up, all his buffs were removed, and his armor class reduced to zero.

“NOW! CHARGE!” The Clydesdale shouted. Everyone got ready for one final push and jumped in. The boss was paralyzed for ten seconds, his body twitching, almost glitching as the players hacked away at him.

“Good riddance,” Aksel lifted his crossbow and shot one final bolt, smacking him and finishing off his HP.

The boss fell, dozens of chests popping up as players were revived. There was a chest for each player based off their performance, and the biggest chest was there in the center with Aksel’s name right on it.

“Damn! The newb got the rare drops?” Someone complained. “Lucky bastard.”

There was some grumbling, but with the dungeon being so low level, they didn’t really care. Aksel smirked as he noticed some more experience points trickle in, it was like a quarter level for him, but still. He went to the chest and popped it open, some gold being added to his pocket, but also the dual daggers from the dungeon boss as well as a golden scroll with a unique name.

“Dungeon Deed?” Aksel cocked a brow as he pulled up the scroll and looked it over. A unique item giving him ownership of the dungeon and a cut of the rewards that come from every raid.

“Every raid?” Aksel cocked a brow, but before he could really dig too deep into the information, the Clydesdale came up and smacked him on the back.

“Damn dude! Had no idea you had a skill that powerful! What the hell did you pull out of your ass there and why didn’t you use it sooner?”

“Oh,” Aksel smirked and scratched the back of his head. “It was just a rare bolt for my crossbow. I only had the one though.”

“Damn, but still, that’s a hot technique,” the Clydesdale smirked. “The name is Vermillion, but my friends just call me Verv.”

“Thanks Verv,” Aksel put the items in his pouch and equipped the unique blades, the red and blue glinting in the low light. “Looks like I got some really rare drops.”

“Yeah, the merchant class has a higher chance of those to compensate for their lack of damage…Wait, you’re still level five? I would have thought you would have leveled up by now. That blows dude!”

“Yeah,” Aksel chuckled. “But I’d love to do more raids with you.”

“Well, at your current level, this is the only one you have access to, but I’ll add you to my roster and we can hit each other up once you gain a few more notches.”

“Sure,” Aksel smiled as they made their way out of the dungeon. They exchanged contact info before Verv ran to catch up with the rest of his small party, but just before Aksel exited, a tingle ran up the buck’s spine. A green screen popped up in front of Aksel, the display gave a rundown of assets obtained by a raid party and the cut he would be able to take.

The options were clear. He could take a cut of the gold, a random rare drop, or…

“A cut of the experience gained,” Aksel smacked that option right away. A sudden burst of power ran up the buck’s spine, his every fiber tingling as his experience bar started to steadily slide up until he smacked past level six, the bar going on just before about a quarter of the way through his next level.

“Holy shit,” Aksel gasped, new skills and attribute points caused his perception to increase, his muscles to flex and get a little deeper and more defined. He took a deep breath, his chest puffing out a little as his antlers grew thicker, the faintest nubs of new points making him a shy six pointer.

Then, one final screen popped up after accepting his rewards. It was a roster of the people he had just raided with, a toggle by each name already defaulted to yes.

“Would you like to apply the Midas Curse to the raiders of your dungeon?” Aksel grinned darkly. Another way to spread his influence, another layer of control he could inflict, but he heeded Cheshire’s words. He needed to keep things covert in order to avoid the moderator’s gaze. He unchecked them all except for one.

Vermillion.

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