Wep - Part II

HB’s powerful trotters made short work of the road out of Vargo, heading for the new goblin capital, Refuge. Wep had had a long-shot quest in Quarternell’s last true military base about a year before, and while it hadn’t panned out, it had achieved two things. First, going there had unlocked the ability to [Teleport] to the small Traveler’s guild on the outskirts of the town. Second, it had allowed him to level up his [Merchant’s Intuition] to level twenty.

As a third benefit, though he hadn’t really recognized it as such at the time, he had met a young lady named Rouge the Rouge. The girl had barely been level twenty at the time, and when he met her, he’d thought the most important thing about her was that she was the reason [Merchant’s Intuition] had leveled. After all, it wasn’t every day that he followed his intuition in an attempt to sell something that would normally be utterly worthless to almost anyone, failed, and then happened to meet the exact right person to buy that thing in a place he never otherwise would have been.

That sort of thing usually didn’t happen more than once a week.

He chuckled at his own internal joke, enjoying the way his laughter boomed out over the line of players exiting Vargo. When he was young and healthy, he never would have thought that hearing his own voice emerge without wheezing, wincing, or breaking could be such a pleasure.

He grinned back at the players who were glancing around, and winked at one particularly attractive lady. Attractive to him, anyway. Maybe she was a bit mature for most of the youngsters he met online, but the confident set of her shoulders and the honest smile on her slightly-seamed face was enough for him to take a second look. She flushed a little, but gave him a firmly dismissive look, as well, which was fair, since she hadn’t invited his flirtation.

He nodded at her and urged HB on, ducking so he could fit between two wagons whose wide loads nearly blocked the road. That might be an obstacle for other players, who generally made their characters as tall as they could, and also rode horses that came in at at least five feet high at the withers. Wep was almost as broad as he was tall, and so was his mount, HB, and they easily passed under logs that protruded on one side, and the huge bales of hay that stretched out on the other. Once he was through, he flicked a salute at the lady, who was still waiting to get through the gate. She shook her head, but grinned at him.

Ah, another conquest. It was good to be alive.

Once past the gate, Wep clucked to HB, tapping his heels against the big boar’s sides. The thickened skin of the pig’s shoulder shields kept him from feeling it much, but they’d been partners a long time, and the hog knew where Wep wanted to go.

As they trotted around the crowd, HB easily making his way through the muck that lined the sides of the road, Wep checked his minimap for the marker set by [Merchant’s Intuition]. The marker still hovered at the northernmost edge of the map, slightly off center to the west, solidly in the direction of Refuge. Now, it could be indicating something closer than the new city, or he could be chasing after something further away, but somewhere in that direction was the exact person who needed his shiny new egg.

The crowd thinned a bit as he passed beyond the watchtower that guarded the entrance to the mountain pass. After all, most players who had made the journey before would use the stone circle at the guild to [Teleport], and while NPC merchants now had a reason to make the difficult and hazardous journey, not many of them bothered yet. It seemed that a certain merchant had mostly cornered the market for selling to the city itself, and demand hadn’t yet grown beyond what that merchant could transport.

Fortunately, with Refuge as a draw, more players had been making the trek through the mountains. This had led to the discovery of a few paths that led across the mountains more directly than the main road. All of these paths had areas that required climbing gear or were too narrow for more than one person at a time, which explained why the merchants still took the old, slow road.

There were rumors that Refuge had a powerful Earth Mage who was working on actually digging a tunnel through the mountains. Wep was looking forward to that, since he was certain that the game wouldn’t let the opportunity pass to spawn a few dungeons or new underground mobs. New places always meant new loot, and new loot meant new business opportunities, and as a dwarf, Wep was particularly suited to exploring and battling underground.

At level one hundred and three, there wasn’t much for Wep to worry about in these mountains any more. Though his character wasn’t optimized for fighting, that didn’t mean he couldn’t fight, and simply by virtue of having spent a lot of stat points, he was pretty damned powerful. Even the Wyvern zone boss wouldn’t be too much of a threat, though flying mobs were always tricky to deal with until you could bring them down to the ground.

He glanced around as HB easily climbed another steep incline. He had left the NPC merchants behind, of course, but this was the straightest path between Vargo and Refuge, so there were a few other players around. The horses most players used as mounts were decent climbers, unless the player was too stupid to have realized yet that they needed to spend some money training their mount’s speed and agility at a stable. There were always a few who seemed to prefer running around on their own two feet, though, and while these weren’t as fast, they were better at making their way over the more difficult terrain.

“Not a problem for you, eh, HB?” He patted his mount, who snorted back at him almost interrogatively. Wep knew mounts had to run on a pretty basic program, but he couldn’t help but feel like his old boar was smarter and understood him better than a fancy horse ever could. Non-equine mounts were pretty rare, after all, and though Wep had gotten a good deal on his pig during a special holiday event, he had still cost enough that the dwarf hoped the mount’s AI was at least a little better than average.

Even as he thought this, HB stopped dead in his tracks, huffing and snorting. Wep looked up, all senses on high alert. While his instincts for a good deal were always on point, HB’s instincts for danger were far better, so when the pig looked worried, Wep paid attention.

Sure enough, screeching echoed up from a valley nearby. What monster was making the sound, Wep didn’t know, but the ferocious howling and shrieking would probably strike fear into a less experienced player.

You have resisted Fear debuff. Your resistance to other Fear-based attacks has increased by .1%

Wep’s shaggy eyebrows lifted. Basic mobs didn’t have attacks that caused debuffs other than poison or disease. That meant that whatever this thing was, it was probably a Greater beast, or even a magical one. Grinning, he reached up and loosened the axe strapped to his back, and pulled his triple-crossbow from his belt. Hand-drawing the bow, he inserted three bolts into it, and settled it across his forearm.

“Come on, Ham n’ Beans,” he said, grinning broadly enough that his mustache tickled his ears, “let’s go see what’s for lunch.”