Alternative Reality Vol 1

by A Uscila

  Wail looked around the barely populated ruin of a village. Broken down huts, mean spirited locals, bored militia.

  Once he noticed that he wasn’t attacked on sight by anyone, Wail decided to check the losses.

  By the looks of it, all the items he lost were a few a copper coins, some scorched rabbit hides and his shoes.

  Wail peered down at his bare feet, toes wiggling playfully.

  “Well, I needed new shoes either way…” – He mumbled to himself. A side-effect of not having too many friends.

  After that, Wail decided to check his status - since dying does bring other unfortunate set-backs.

  Character name: Wail

  Level: 21

  Class: Apprentice Mage

  Reputation: -45

  Title: Slightly Sadistic

  Experience: 97.8%

  Health: 1040

  Mana: 1065

  Stamina: 400

  Strength: 15

  Intellect: 46

  Agility: 10

  Fortitude: 27

  Wisdom: 39

  Precision: 10

  Attack: 5-8

  Defense: 45

  Charisma: 8

  Leadership: 12

  Luck: 10

  Fame: 85

  Health Regen: 5 Health/sec.

  Mana Regen: 6 Mana/sec.

  Magic Resistance

  Fire: 20%

  Water: 20%

  Nature: 15%

  Black: 15%

  Holy: 15%

  Nether: 15%

  *Unspent stat points: 35.

  *-1 Charisma due to appearance.

  *-1 to Charisma due to below 0 Reputation.

  *+2 Leadership due to Fame.

  *+15% all Magic Resistances due to Apprentice Mage.

  *+5% Fire and Water resistance due to Magicians Necklace.

  *Slightly Sadistic title adds the following bonuses:

  +10% damage to lower level creatures and humanoids.

  -5% damage to higher level creatures and humanoids.

  +10% experience for defeating higher level creatures and humanoids.

  -5 Charisma

  Title bonus

  +10% damage to lower level creatures and humanoids.

  -5% damage to higher level creatures and humanoids.

  +10% experience for defeating higher level creatures and humanoids.

  -5 Charisma

  He lost two whole levels, as well as some skill proficiencies. Not too bad. Wail was feeling optimistic. So much that without thinking, he went straight into the nearest shop.

  A narrow room, junk on all sides and a mean stare from the shop-keeper – an old, hunched over fellow, without a single hair seen on that smooth scalp of his. Wail regretted coming here already.

  “What do ya want?” – The shopkeeper asked in a croaking voice, with absolutely no effort spent hiding hostility.

  Loss of charisma, negative reputation and an evil title. Neither one of those helped Wail in bartering. For the first few weeks it slowed his progress tremendously. To such an extent that he was forced to experiment.

  But through trial and error - Wail found a solution.

  With a stuck out chest and an overly-pompous attitude, Wail said some mind-bogglingly insolent words at the host in a ridiculous fashion.

  “Don’t you bark at me pleb. I need shoes and some bread, be quick about it - before I burn this dump of a shop to the ground”

  The shop-keeper gaped at Wail for a few seconds.

  “W-What? You can’t talk to me like that! Get out, you’re not welcome here!” – He shouted, while pointing a shaky finger towards the exit. Eyes glaring, jaw tightly clenched.

  Who could blame him? Not many would be intimidated by an overly gaunt, torn-robe wearing individual -feigning superiority.

  But Wail was expecting this. He simply flung his palm upwards and conjured a fire-ball.

  “You think I’m messing around? I might be doing a favor to society as well. Who knows, I might even get positive reputation for burning this dump. Don’t tempt me old man” – He replied. A sly smile, spooky looking stare. Combined with his simply ghastly appearance and the feigned need to increase reputation.

  The shop-keeper stood frozen with an open mouth for a few seconds, unable and unsure on how to reply, tongue slithering over toothless gums. But soon after he gave in, quickly scurrying off behind the counter - returning soon after with the requested goods.

  Success! Wail even got a discount - once a few more degrading phrases were thrown around.

  -10 Reputation.

  -100 Relations with Lenn village.

  *The shop-keeper now hates you and will spread bad rumors regarding you, whenever able*

  +5 Fame.

  He even got some fame and negative reputation, didn’t care what the village thought of him though. If not for the shops and the guards, he would have already burned it to the ground. Regrettably, it’s quite likely that he’d end up with a bounty on his head after something like that. Might receive some wicked title as well. Not the good kind of wicked either.

  Wail could still remember all the mean words directed at him the second he spawned here. Most of which were pokes and jests at his looks. Not nice at all. Wail was a bitter individual, who held on to grudges and never let go.

  Thus he struggled. Stubbornly refusing to quit, constantly playing with fire, learning new things and never giving up. The result? A new-found way to interact with his surroundings. Usually quite merciless and detestable. But Wail needed to move forward, in any way possible.

  What he found out was that the effect negative reputation had, was quite similar to the positive one. The only difference was that you needed to communicate with the locals differently. Though the method displayed previously only worked when Wail was of a higher level, than his target of abuse.

  Luckily, now the whole village, excluding the rarely patrolling Onnion soldier, was of a lower level than him. Thus, with lips frozen in a smirk, Wail left the village - casually strolling like he owned the place, towards the dark forest looming due west.

  Ironically the forest was called exactly that - “Dark forest”. One might think the company responsible for this game had to cut down on expenses and close down the innovation department.

  Chapter 4

  Dark Forest. A level 24-50 zone, with various dungeons scattered everywhere. Some discovered, some not. A peculiar choice for a single level 21 apprentice mage. Some might even say – a stupid choice. But let them talk is what Wail would say. He felt confident. That wolf he managed to kill before the unfortunate encounter with a patrolling Onnion soldier was level 28. Thus Wail felt like he could just barely manage that zone. That is - if he avoids larger groups of enemies. That and unfortunate forest fires - one can never be too careful with fire.

  On his way there, Wail didn’t miss a single opportunity to thoroughly incinerate every moving thing he came in contact with. Mostly just living creatures. Since setting flowers or grass ablaze served no purpose. Due to his genuine effort…

  You have leveled up!

  +6 to unspent stat points.

  +1 Mana regen and +20 Mana due to constant use of mana consuming skills.

  Skill proficiencies increased.

  Wail checked his skill levels as well.

  Fire Mastery – Novice level 7 (11.3%)

  Increases base and critical damage of fire based spells.

  Reduces the mana cost of fire based spells.

  *Damage increased by 13%

  *Mana cost reduced by 5%

  Fireball – Novice level 8 (0.8%)

  The most basic fire-based spell. Conjures a fireball – can be managed in any way decided upon by the wielder. Can set on fire and cause damage over time. The over-time effect causes damage according to set circumstances.

  Base fire damage – 46-67 damage.

  Base over-time fire damage – 5 damage/sec.

  Mana cost – 14.55 mana per use.

  Casting time – 1.92 second
s.

  *Damage increased by 3% due to wisdom.

  *Mana consumption reduced by 3% duo to wisdom.

  *Casting time reduced by 4% due to intellect.

  His main proficiencies were leveling up quite nicely and just in time. Though that’s only because Wail chose to level up only one magic aspect - fire. In addition - just one skill to boot, out of a myriad of choices. That way he was able to level up the proficiencies quite fast, which in turn made leveling much easier. Although somewhat tedious and bland.

  The truth of the matter? Not much choice was given, since the only skill he managed to acquire was fireball. Tomes were quite a pricy commodity and Wail simply couldn’t afford them.

  For example, the polar opposite of fire - water. The very basic spell book cost 80 silver coins. Wail managed to collect 5 gold coins after spending hours upon hours torturing those weaker than him. But he was not about to spend almost one fifth of his measly fortune for a basic spell. Let alone a weaker one.

  The issue with mages and different magic attributes was that – you couldn’t learn intermediate spells without having intermediate mastery of the attribute. Since he didn’t level up water mastery, he could only learn ice-bolt. The simplest water based spell. Without dual-casting - learning and using an even weaker spell than fireball made no sense to Wail.

  Of course, there were more spells for novice mastery, but most of them were hard to come-by. The rest were over-priced, the same way the most basic spells were. Thus he didn’t even bother.

  Wail trusted his fate. Even though life was always hard on him, eventually he’d persevere. That was his strong belief. Baseless? Sure. But headstrong as well. Maybe even slightly delusional. Most likely, actually.

  You have gained 15% experience.

  With a smirk Wail watched another wolf burn to ash before his eyes. His title gave a very pleasing increase in experience gain when killing higher level monsters. Even though the damage was decreased slightly, the skill proficiencies rose quicker against such foes as well. Thus in the end, everything worked out for the better. And boy was Wail enjoying himself. Jumping from one mob to the other, purging the dark forest of life. Creating light where there was once only darkness. Tripping over roots. Barely managing to put out the burning grass…

  The spot had its’ up and downs.

  -1 Reputation.

  Every now and then, Wail’s sadistic tendencies gave negative results. It seemed like the game had a base set of morals. Morals that were brought down like an iron hammer upon the inhabitants of this world. Though it mainly happened to Wail. He never heard of anyone complaining in or out of Alternative Reality. Though considering his non-existent social-circle in both realities – it didn’t serve as much of a surprise.

  Once his 8 hour long fun-time spree was over, Wail made a bonfire and sat down in front of it. Might not be the smartest thing to do while being alone in a dark forest. Dark as in – the brightest thing in close proximity within the forest was that exact bonfire. Might draw in unwelcome visitors. Wail had a way with not learning from past experiences though. That or he simply did not care. After hunting for so long he gained a chunk of reputation and 10 whole levels. That’s right, Wail was now level 31, and he only spent 2 real-time hours on it.

  Virtual reality had a way with time. Inside, it sped up 4 times. Might have something to do with how the brain managed to work at an amazing pace, where as our body just limits it in a way. Some say this kind of brain abuse might bring upon some side-effects, but after a year of use none were recorded. Though the illuminati fanatics say it’s all a big scheme and the unfortunate victims were simply spirited away by the company – never to be heard of again.

  Quite irrelevant. Not like any of it would ever happen to Wail.

  Finally, he decided it was about time to move deeper into the forest in search of dungeons and the like. If he’s lucky – maybe he’ll find an undiscovered one.

  Undiscovered dungeons gave their own set of bonuses to their first visitors: Double experience for a week and greatly increased chance of quality loot. What’s not to like?

  These two bonuses made undiscovered dungeons the best damn thing to every level crazy individual on the whole continent. Thus most of the dungeons were already discovered in densely populated regions. Yet, Wail started in one that did not seem renowned as such, nor did he find proof to the contrary. Maybe it had something to do with being on the very outskirts of Onnion Kingdom. On the fringes of civilization, with barely developed infrastructure, sparse population and poor security. One could hope that the possibility of finding an undiscovered dungeon because of it all, remained.

  In addition - that’s also the reason why he so rarely met up with other players. One could argue that his horrid appearance had something to do with it as well.

  You’d think that someone would’ve taken him for a killable monster by now, but it seems like Wail was quite lucky at least in that respect.

  Once the bonfire was nice and proper Wail took out another loaf of stale bread and started chowing down.

  It was of absolutely horrid taste, judging by how the magician’s face twisted up with each taken bite. Might as well have been cardboard, with how bland and hard to chew it was. Wail would know – he tried it when he was little, just to feed his curiosity.

  It was cheap though. 2 coppers per loaf. That much Wail could afford without a single tingle in his scrooge-like inner-self. Which was why the sound of money lost after each bite did not haunt his hearing.

  Only half through the stale loaf of bread - Wail noticed the rustling of bushes all around, revealing 5 humanoid forms soon after. Ragged outfits, rusted weapons, unwelcoming facial expressions and mean stares – your standard low-level bandits. Some would jump and do something. Run away, fight, cry - even beg. Heck, anything! While the remainder would have thought twice before lighting a fire in a dark forest in the first place. Alone. Being of a lower level.

  “Oh, Wail! Pleasure seeing you here in the woods, moving up in the world, eh?” – One of the bandits said after noticing who was sitting by the bonfire. His grouchy expression quickly changing into one of intimacy and respect.

  Wail felt relieved. Another of his beliefs just proved itself – lightning never strikes twice in the same place!

  His negative reputation was finally paying off as well, since the bandits showed a completely different attitude towards him than the last time they met. Last encounter almost turned into a death-match over a few copper coins found lying on the ground. Poor people have it rough. Did not end too well either.

  “What a pleasant surprise, come friends – sit, sit! Have some bread” – Wail replied with a humble smile, worried that even that much might just scare them off. He welcomed the unexpected guests with open arms and even offered food. The cheapest food there was, but even this much was quite unlike him.

  The bandits sat down around the bonfire and happily accepted the hospitality. Once the mood was set, they started sharing adventure stories – mainly consisting of robbing and harming those less fortunate. Just like Wail.

  Your intimacy with the bandit group increased.

  +50 relations with local bandits.

  All that free bread finally paid off. If Wail couldn’t increase his standing with the villagers, he would at least do so with the opposite side.

  These circumstances brought additional results though…

  “Oh right, Wail. It’s quite lucky that we just happened to meet you here. Mind helping us out with something?” – Bob, the same bandit who previously spoke asked the host.

  Chapter 5

  Bandit’s Folly

  Quest description: Bandit Bob tells you about a hidden tomb deep in the Dark Forest. The tomb belonged to a very influential man, who right before death – ordered the construction of his eternal resting place. Many say that he hid most of his valuables there, his own remains eventually placed there as well. Help Bob reach the end of the dungeon - Tomb of Borelus.

  Difficulty level
: C

  Requirements: At least 50 negative reputation. Intimacy with Bob The Bandit.

  Reward: Unknown.

  Penalty for failure: Relations with the local bandits will be significantly reduced.

  Penalty for refusing: Bob won’t hang out with you anymore. Intimacy will be lost. Relations with local bandits will be reduced by 20.

  A quest from bandits! Wail struck gold. His mother once told him, that those that didn’t give up would eventually be rewarded. The moment of truth has finally arrived.

  “Of course, I’ll gladly help you with this venture!” – He quickly replied, without giving it much thought. A wide, rotten smile plastered on the face.

  Quest accepted!

  +10 Fame.

  “But you’ll have to share the loot with me, buddies” – He soon added, giving a friendly nudge with his elbow to the nearest bandit. As a bonus, he even added a few cliché winks.

  Intimacy with the bandits reduced.

  …

  Wail should have known. Their strong bond came from a common interest or purpose - greed for money and power. Luckily, things didn’t fall apart and the bandits agreed. Though his attempts at breaking the ice failed, which did make him slightly sad. Socializing is hard even with computer programs.

  Bob and his bandits have joined your party:

  All experience gained will be shared.

  Current experience gain from kills made by you or your party members – 20%.