Tokens and Towers Chpt 7

Chapter Seven: Revenge of the Gnomes

When you boil it down, everything in life, and apparently in Genera, is some sort of bait-and-switch. Case in point: while hungry, I was stoked as hell to be able to do something with the whopping two skill points I’d received from completing Drozard’s half-baked challenge. Sure, it was only two measly points, but I should have been able to get something, and it would take my focus off the hunger pangs I was experiencing.

Great, right?

Not the case.

<Skills start at three points and work their way up from there. More skills will be available to you once you are able to select your first class.>

“For fuck’s sake, Lily,” I mumbled, even if this wasn’t her fault. “Can you at least explain the classification system?”

<Your classification is related to the weapon that you chose upon arriving in Genera. Since you have chosen an axe as your primary weapon, you will be granted one of the various combat classifications. There are two to choose from once you reach Level 5. They are Barbarian and Fighter.>

“How original. Isn’t a barbarian essentially a fighter?”

“Are these loaded questions?” asked Clovis, who floated alongside me, only hearing one side of the conversation.

“I’m trying to figure out what the hell is going on here, Clovis. Someone has to. I’ll key you in later.”

“Sounds good to me!”

<A Fighter isn’t as strong as a Barbarian, but fighters are able to use multiple weapons. At Level 15, you will be able to take on an additional classification, but your abilities for this second classification will be limited.>

“Multiclass at Level 15, huh? Then I could be, I don’t know, a spellsword?”

“You mean spellaxe, right?” asked Clovis.

“Sure.”

<Yes, you could have your first classification as Barbarian and your second classification related to one of the spell classes.>

“So…” It dawned on me how this would work, at least in a way. “At least multiclassing is possible. And do I get a third classification?”

<Yes, the next classification is obtained at Level 45.>

“Quite the jump…” We came to a bubbling brook, the water fresh enough that I actually bent down and drank from it. It was good, but it did little to satiate my hunger. “We’ve got to find us some food, Clovis.”

“I’m fine.”

“How would you eat anyway?”

“I have a gluten allergy, so that could make things complicated.”

“In that case, maybe becoming a book was a good choice for you. A Level One spellbook, I should add. Still ignoring the voice?”

He nodded as only a floating spellbook can, Clovis nearly losing a page.

“But you have stats now, right?”

“Yeah, they said something about that.”

“Your AI isn’t a British lady?”

Clovis shrugged. “I’m not assigning a gender at the moment.”

“Suit yourself. So, I’m going to go out on a limb and say you have quite a bit of mana, you know, MP. Dang, I wish I could see what you’re working with.”

“More MP than HP, yes.”

“So you’re definitely magical.”

“Not only that, I clearly have alien hand syndrome.”

I paused to look up at him, a bit of water dripping from my beard. “You never explained what that was.”

“Alien hand syndrome is a phenomenon in which one hand is not under the control of the mind. My uncle had it after his stroke.”

“Holy shit, Clovis, you shouldn’t say you have something like that without a clinical diagnosis. That sounds like some serious shit.”

“How else would I randomly be emitting laser beams?” he asked, referring to how he had freed me from the muck not so long ago. It felt like ages ago, but it couldn’t have been more than an hour or two.

No wonder I was hungry. It had been a rough afternoon.

“Yeah, I guess you have a point…”

“I’m just going to call it alien hand syndrome for now until I can get a proper diagnosis.”

Your issue may have something to do with all the pages that are sticking out of your body… I thought. I had a feeling that I would do well to get to know Clovis better before making a suggestion to tuck in his pages. Hell, if I could just get him to trust his AI companion, I’d be happy.

“Token, tokens, tokens,” I said, changing the subject. “That should be our number one goal, aside from getting to the tower and starting our climb.”

“So number two?”

“Who does number two work for?” I asked, hoping to elicit a laugh from Clovis through my late 90s movie reference. Once he didn’t laugh, I cleared my throat and continued: “Like I was saying, tokens, tokens, and more tokens. They’re crazier than I originally thought. They can modify our basic stats, grant us all sorts of powers not associated with our classifications, plus we can buy, sell, and trade them.”

“You have a classification?”

I quickly launched into an explanation of everything I’d learned up until this point, and was nearly done regurgitating what little I knew when I noticed a rustling in the brush around us.

“Clovis—!”

I lunged for the book just as a small horde of camoed gnomes exploded out of the forest. They quickly surrounded us. Clovis floated behind me, confused as always as I withdrew my axe from its breakaway sheath and began swatting at the gnomes. “Get back, assholes! Back!”

<Kill the gnomes and proceed to the tower.>

The adrenaline raced through me as I counted seven gnomes, these ones much bulkier than their counterparts from earlier. They were all taller, and if the ones before had hit the gym on occasion, these guys were supplement-pounding beefcakes, several of them carrying clubs, the group dressed in head-to-toe black, including their cone-shaped hats, paint smeared across their faces as if they were about to hunt the Predator.

This was a straight up hit squad.

“Are these your friends from earlier?” Clovis asked, oblivious to the threat. He was apparently terrible with body language, the spellbook floating there as if we’d just arrived at the company picnic and these were his workmates.

“Friends?” I ran Axl Rose through the air, nearly grazing a gnome who had gotten too close. All of them growled in high pitch voices, a few frothing at the mouth, their actions at odds with the fact that gnomes are supposed to be friendly, closer to angels than Hell’s Angels.

Not this bunch.

“You’re going to pay for what you did earlier!” said a gnome who was grinding his teeth as if he were coming down from an all night meth binger, his nostrils red like the wolf of Wall Street, his eyes bloodshot, brow so furrowed that it resembled a ski slope.

I should have known there would be more of them.

Several gnomes flew out of the trees and slammed into me. My face met the ground, and I nearly bit my tongue off as I struggled to get to knee and elbow my way to safety. A couple of the gnomes pinned my axe arm, but they forgot to pin down my other arm, allowing me to get a few solid punches in before they started stomping me.

“Clovis!”

Struggling to fight the bunch off was no use, their bodies covering me, the gnomes using every dirty trick in the book, from scratching to biting me, tickling, kicking at me, and trying to get a grip on my proof of manhood.

(I still don’t know which gnome had taken it upon himself to grab my balls, squeeze and twist, but if I ever find him…)

Wham!

One of the gnomes tried to strike me in the head with his club and ended up clipping my shoulder and chest. The pain was unlike anything I’d ever experienced, and thinking about it produced a quick flash of my HP.

I had already dropped seven points, from sixteen points to nine…

Shit!

Something else became apparent as I continued to struggle.

The drop in my HP came coupled with reduced energy, my muscles screaming as I kicked and tried to elbow my way out of the pile of gnomes, everything on the periphery starting to blur.

This was what it was truly like to have my ass handed to me.

I’d written dozens of fight scenes. I’d read books on writing believable fight scenes, been in a few scuffs myself, and I’d watched enough backyard swordsmen on YouTube to have a second career at any Renaissance Faire in America if the writing thing didn’t pan out (which it currently wasn’t).

Nothing had prepared me for what I was experiencing now, the overwhelming nature of it all, the pounding, the pain. But I had to survive this. There was no way in hell I was going down in a gnome dogpile. If I had to fight a dragon later on, sure, that would be a way to die, especially for a down-on-his-luck fantasy writer, but fuck these gnomes.

I call upon the powers of the Mad Lad!

No, I didn’t scream this aloud, but I did think it, and as stupid as it was, it helped to some degree. I began squirming my way out of the pile of gnomes, blasted with nasty smells and hot stanky breaths as I finally pushed free. I saw Clovis panicking, his pages fluttering as he tried to conjure his power.

“Clovis!” I shouted, reaching out for him. “Just… help!”

For once, we were on the same wavelength.

Clovis swooped down to my hands and snapped shut. I launched myself in his direction and grabbed hold of the spellbook. As soon as I did, he yanked me out of the pile of gnomes, sending several of them scattering.

Even with my added weight, Clovis managed to get several feet in the air before one of the taller gnomes latched onto my leg. I kicked at him, Clovis moving higher and higher into the air.

“Keep going, Clovis! Fly! Fly!”

“Those gnomes are not friendly!”

“No shit, Clovis… just… just keep going!”

At about fifty feet up, Clovis began to putter out like the 1983 Toyota Corolla I once owned. He lurched forward, and dipped twice before stabilizing.

“Randy… Randy!”

“Clovis just focus, dammit, keep going! You can do it!”

“We have a problem!”

WHEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEAMMMMMMMMMMM!

Clovis flapped open and emitted a blistering burst of energy, which seared the ends of my fingertips. That wasn’t all. His lack of control over his power had a way of throwing both of us off balance, and with the tips of my fingers burning, I wasn’t able to hold onto the spellbook any longer.

Thud!

I hit the ground like a brick tossed out a window of the Empire State Building. Clovis landed somewhere around me (I think), and that was all he wrote.

There was no way in hell either of us was getting up from a fall like that.