Chapter 99: Overthinking

Chapter 99: Overthinking

Pyri waited patiently in Jael’s office on the top floor of the Wizard Tower in Kordas, staring around at the books on the shelves quietly, tapping her foot on the tiled floor beneath her leather boots. Jael remained sitting silently behind his desk, reading documents and shuffling papers around.

“Ahem hem hem.” Pyri cleared her throat loudly, but Jael ignored her and continued what he was doing. “AH HEH HEH HEM.” She went louder, and he continued to act as if she wasn’t there. “You really want me to keep going? I can blow the lid off this tower, I was in my highschool’s choir.” Pyri threatened, but Jael still didn’t react. “Alright, fi-” Pyri was preparing to scream as loud as she could, but Jael suddenly stood up from his desk. Pyri went silent to the sound of his chair sliding across the tiled floor as he moved from behind the desk around the outside of the room, tracing along the bookshelves that lined the walls. Pyri watched him intently as he eventually singled out a book and took it from the shelf. He then walked across the room over to Pyri and held the book out for her.

“Lesser invisibility. The Wizard's way of the rogue.” Pyri read the title outloud, then looked up at Jael expectantly. He said nothing, just continued to hold it out towards her. “You want me to read this? If I read this book and learn this spell, would you give me my intermediate class quest? Is this the spell I’m missing or something? Because I looked up the class I wanted online, and it didn’t req-” He forcefully shoved the book into her hands with a visible loss of patience, then without a word turned from her and walked back behind his desk.

“Fine, I’ll read your stupid book and learn this spell, then you better give me my damn quest.” Pyri grumbled angrily as she turned and left his office with the book. “Stupid buggy NPC. Back in my day we had beta testers for stuff like this.” She mumbled under her breath as she left the room.

Travis stood in the training grounds that afternoon pacing in front of Sherry, Rakkan and Darkshot. Rakkan was having trouble looking Travis in the eyes due to his character's odd appearance, while Darkshot kept glancing at Sherry in admiration for how cute she looked, drawn in by her star-shaped pupils and tiny horns.

“Unarmed combat, or martial arts, is an important fundamental skill for any martial class. You might think ‘I’m using a bow... a spear... an axe... Why do I need to know how to punch?’, and if you’re thinking that, don’t waste my time and go back to failing your quest.” Travis said aggressively as Rakkan and Darkshot suddenly stood very attentive.

“Right now, every single one of you is breathing. Your body has been breathing to keep your heart beating and blood flowing throughout your body since you were born. It’s something so basic to you that you don’t even register in your mind that you are doing it, unless I tell you that you are doing it, like right now.” Travis explained as he stopped in front of the three of them.

“Just like breathing, when you aim to fight another creature, in this world or the real one, there are certain things you need to be able to do without thinking about them. Just like you do with breathing, you need to be able to maintain balance.” He said as he stood on one foot, lifting his right foot to his left knee. “You need to be able to track, and read an enemy's movements.” He waved his hands from left to right. “And you need to be constantly aware of your own reach, strength, and speed.” He suddenly dashed to the right, so quickly that it almost looked as if he’d teleported. “If you have to stop and pause at all during a fight to think about any of these three things, you will likely lose, or be at a disadvantage against an enemy that doesn’t. And I assure you, an AI NPC in this game does not need to stop and think about these things, especially not the elite ones.” Travis continued.

“Unarmed combat is the best basic skill for learning all of these fundamentals. Once you can do all three of those things without thinking about them, like you do breathing, you are ready to start adding on more complex skills such as shooting a bow, or swinging a sword. You don’t learn to do tricks on a bike before you’ve taken the training wheels off, so don’t expect to do that here.” Travis explained.

“Letting the game’s skill handle the learning for you defeats the purpose of these lessons, so go into your skill options menu in your interface and disable skill assistance for your unarmed combat skill, and we can get started.” As Travis said this, all three of them began pressing buttons in their interface to do exactly that.

The first of Travis’ lessons centered around balance. He made them repeat the same motions over and over again, first aiming at the air, and then practicing on the training dummies. They were gaining experience in their unarmed combat skill very slowly and got a few levels in it over the course of the following few days, but with the skill assistance disabled, the levels didn’t aid them in improving their technique at all.

It felt incredibly repetitive, and at times almost pointless for both Rakkan and Darkshot. Travis would wander around and give them instructions, then leave for several hours and come to check on them.

“Before you learn to use a weapon, you must understand that at all times, your entire body is a weapon. It can cut like a sword. Pierce like a spear, and crush like a maul.” Travis explained as he watched them practice jabs and kicks on training dummies. “Once you understand your body, you will understand any weapon in this game world.” He continued. Tidbits like this appeared over the next few days and Darkshot, Rakkan and Sherry soaked them all in, until finally after 5 days, Travis came to say farewell.

“The Night Hunters are beginning a dungeon delve, and I’ll be joining them. Can’t hang around Kordas all the time, or I won’t ever get to flex these muscles.” He said proudly while patting his biceps. Darkshot, Rakkan and Sherry all stopped what they were doing to watch and listen to him.

“So that’s it? What should we do? We didn’t even get done with unarmed combat.” Darkshot sighed with disappointment.

“All you’ve done is taught us some basic punches and kicks.” Rakkan complained.

“That’s all you need to practice right now.” Travis replied as he glanced between them. “I said you could join in with the training for Sherry, but I didn’t say it would be fun, or easy.” He crossed his arms. “You’re always welcome to give up and go take the easy road to getting your quests completed.” He motioned up to the Training Hall behind them, across the training grounds and up the stairs. Darkshot and Rakkan glanced towards it, then back at Travis.

“I suggest you both take some time and think long and hard about why you are willing to go through all this trouble to learn how to fight properly. No one is forcing you to do it, or holding your hand through it, so you need to make sure you’ve got the proper motivation and discipline to see it to the end. I’m not sticking around to babysit you, And you-” He looked at Sherry. “It’s not your job to babysit them either. You’re a member of the Night Hunters, so I expect you’ll be ready for the next steps when I return from the dungeon in four weeks. I'll be messaging the next training regimes as you progress to them through the friends list. You can relay them to these two, if they're still around after I leave.” Travis said and Sherry gave a reaffirming nod.

“Toodles.” He wiggled his fingers at them, turned, and headed out of the training grounds, leaving the three of them standing in front of their training dummies. A few seconds of standing around later, Sherry went right back to kicking and punching her training dummy. Rakkan and Darkshot both looked at her, then at each other.

“This aint helping with anything.” Rakkan sighed.

“I’m not going to be able to shoot my longbow no matter how much we do this.” Darkshot shrugged, but Sherry ignored them both and kept practicing the punching and kicking motions Travis had taught them. They both went quiet and watched her, listening to the sound of her hands and feet hitting the wood of the training dummy, until she got annoyed by their stares and stopped.

“You followed us because you didn’t want to take Christoph’s shortcut, right?" She asked, but got no immediate response from the two. "Travis has trained all of the Night Hunter’s new members through the intermediate quests, he knows what he’s doing, but, like he said, if you just want to keep leveling up quick, you don’t need to be here practicing with me. So, why didn’t you want to take the shortcut?” She asked, and Rakkan and Darkshot couldn’t answer her clearly, both thinking hard on the question.

A young Derrick was sitting out front of his middle school on the stairs leading out of the school. He was looking up at the clouds drifting by in the sky above, occasionally glancing down at the drive-way of the school in front of him at the base of the stairs and beyond a short sidewalk. Several other cars and Autopods were pulling up, parents picking up their children from school, and then driving off, but Derrick knew he’d be stuck waiting for a bit.

After 10 minutes, most of the other children who’d been standing or sitting around on the stairs near him had dispersed, save for Eli, a boy with short messy blonde hair who was leaning up against the wall of the school building beside the front entrance doors. His backpack was at his feet and he was holding in his hands a large textbook, flipping through the pages.

It went quiet for a while, with just the two of them waiting. Only the sound of Eli occasionally flipping the pages of his book, and the distant chirping of birds and moving cars on the street could be heard.

Derrick recognized Eli, he’d seen him waiting out here nearly every day. Derrick waiting for his dad wasn’t a regular occurrence, but in Eli’s case, he was always reading books out front. Though Derrick had never talked to him before, he decided he was bored enough that he might as well this time.

“What’re you reading?” Derrick looked up from his comfortable seated position on the stairs at Eli. Eli didn’t react at all, as if he wasn’t aware Derrick was even talking to him. “Yo, Eli, right?” Derrick said louder, this got his attention.

“What’s up Derrick?” Eli asked, looking up from his book.

“You know my name?” Derrick asked him, surprised.

“Seriously, dad, what the hell is up?” Derrick asked.

“Your dad normally doesn’t drive like this?” Eli asked Derrick with concern.

“Nah, never.”

“I told you- I’m-” Eli suddenly leaned forward from the backseat and looked at Rob closely.

“You’re breathing heavily. Your pupils are dilated. You shouldn’t be out of breath, you’re sitting in a car.” Eli paused as if he was stopping to think about something.

“Yo, you’re right he is breathing a bit heavy.” Derrick commented.

“Do you have any pain in your chest?” Eli asked as he put his fingers on Rob's neck suddenly to check his pulse as Rob turned to look at him funny.

“Huh? No, I told you I’m fine.” Rob replied dismissively.

“Do you have any pain in your left arm? Or any numbness?” Eli asked in monotone.

“What? No... well,” He paused as he started wiggling his left fingers around. “I guess, a bit... but I get that sometimes.” He said dismissively. Eli, without any prompt, reached over Derrick’s dad and yanked the key out of the ignition. “The heck? Derrick, what's wrong with your friend?!” Derrick’s dad shouted angrily as Eli moved back from the front to lean back in his seat.

“What’s going on?” Derrick asked, confused. “Don’t just take the keys out yo, we’re in the middle of the street.” Derrick shouted back at Eli, annoyed. Eli ignored both of them and tapped his ear implant, signaling that he was going into a call.

“Mom? I know you’re at work. No, he didn’t pick me up, listen, my friend’s dad is having a heart attack.” Eli said nonchalantly, causing both Derrick and Rob to spin around and look at Eli like he was insane.

“He’s having a - what?” Derrick shouted.

“That’s- that’s none-... that’s nonsense.” Rob struggled to get the words out, and it was enough to put Derrick into full on panic mode.

“Oh shit. Oh shit! Dad! What should I do?” Derrick shouted at Eli worriedly as Eli gave the address to the person he was on the call with.

“Lean his head back, focus on breathing and lowering his blood pressure.” Eli replied calmly.

“How do I do that?” Derrick asked as his Dad leaned back and went quiet, breathing heavily. Several cars behind them in the street were now honking at them. The next few minutes felt like hours for Derrick. Eli ran out of the car to move around outside to the driver's side door and opened it, positioning Derrick’s dad to help him relax and breathe properly while Derrick did his best to help from the passenger seat. It was only 5 minutes until the ambulance arrived and the paramedics came to help, but it’d felt like an hour for Derrick. He remembered climbing in the back with his dad, leaving Eli alone with their family car in the middle of the road.

Darkshot found himself dwelling on this memory, of the first time he’d met Eli as he watched Sherry hitting the target dummy repeatedly.

“He’s always there to help, even if you don't ask him for it. But what he’s trying to do now, he’s not going to be able to do it on his own. He’s going to need my help.” Darkshot said as Sherry stopped and she and Rakkan both turned to look and listen to him. “Taking short cuts ain’t gonna cut it for those aiming for the top. I’ve gotta be good enough, so I can be there for when he needs me.” Darkshot concluded as he started repeating the motions that Travis had taught him, causing Sherry to smile slightly with her tiny satyr snout. Rakkan watched as he did this, then watched as Sherry joined back in, leaving Rakkan the only one not practicing, as he too found himself dwelling on what he was doing standing there.

“This is gettin’ ridiculous, man.” Seraxus shouted out to Renault as he stood in front of an army of 1000 Puagas soldiers, all trained up to level 60, several of them elite. They stood in front of the walls of a fortified Puagas city. Behind Seraxus stood his party members Gambit, Hajax, and Zuon, all looking bored.

“Renault, bro, just give it up. You’re way too into this lore shit.” Hajax said in a condescending tone. “How many armies have you tried to train up already? This is like the 5th one.”

“Face it man, you’re just not that good at fighting.” Gambit shrugged.

“You’re welcome back to the party anytime. You’re the best when it comes to puzzles and all that mind shit, but, man, how many times you gonna make me smack you around? You aint no fighter.” Seraxus sighed. “My audience is starting to feel bad for you, that’s how pathetic it's getting.” Seraxus motioned to his live streaming icon.

“Let’s just go, leave this town alone yo.” Zuon said to the others.

“Look, you’re even makin’ Zuon feel bad for you.” Seraxus chuckled while motioning to Zuon. “I’ll prove a point. Look.” Seraxus unequipped his Black sword of Hatred, and hid away all of his battlemaster weapons. “One on one, I won’t use any weapons, not even the OP one. If you win, we’ll leave this city alone.” Seraxus said as he spread his arms out and spun around, putting on a show for everyone. Renault didn’t hold back, he pulled his staff off of his back and charged forward ahead of his army, throwing out spells left and right. He used his Sage shell spells to contain and move around Seraxus forcefully, controlling his movement for a good while, but any large attacks he tried to land were avoided by Seraxus, and eventually, when Renault’s mana got low enough, Seraxus closed the gap and landed a good clean uppercut on Renault, followed by several more hits.

Once the first hits had landed, he didn’t let up, he kept hitting Renault and prevented him from getting words out, or making proper hand motions to cast any more spells.

“You forgot that I was already the best before I got that sword, didn’t ya?” He said as he landed a hit in Renault’s chest, then shoulder. “Y'all forgot who the top player in Counterstrife was?” He added, hitting Renault three more times. “Y'all forgot who the number one mid-laner in League of Warriors was?” He knocked Renault down to the ground as the army of soldiers looked on worriedly, seeing their commander beaten so easily. “Don’t ever forget it, you ain't no fighter, you just a walking encyclopedia.” Seraxus said before finishing Renault off, killing his character and kicking him out of the game.

Rakkan stomped over to the training dummy and started smashing it with his fists and feet, following the motions Travis had taught him, with great effort and high aggression, making loud impact sounds which distracted Sherry and Darkshot from their training, causing them to stop and watch him.

“Yo, Rakkan, you okay?” Darkshot asked him worriedly, seeing his angry face as he punched the training dummy.

“I’m fine. I’m not weak. I’m not a walking encyclopedia. I can learn how to fight too.” Rakkan replied angrily.