by Arthur Stone
* * *
Error: You cannot create a respawn point here.
He had been more optimistic about this try. After all, this was a rock touched by human hands long ago—rectangular and mossy and at least a ton in weight. But there were hundreds of them here. Perhaps some giant child had forgotten to pick up his blocks. More likely they were the remains of some massive ancient buildings. There were no clues as to where they had been originally placed. Yet they were ancient ruins. That much was clear. Why was the game not allowing him to create a respawn point?
They all resembled each other. So Dark realized even ancient ruins did not suffice unless they stood out.
He shook his head. Beyond these ruins, the terrain began a sharp downward slope. That likely ended at the large river hiding behind the forest at its base. He noted the dark green stripe visible above the treetops in the distance. The pine forest on the opposite bank. This meadow looked as though a giant plow had pushed through it, and in the center sat a huge pit of indeterminate origin, large enough to fit a full-size basketball court. Its walls and floor were covered with the same emerald green as everywhere else, so it was not a recent addition to the landscape.
The similarity to a bomb site was striking. Dark realized that might have been the cause: a paved road ran from the river up the slope, and it had been bombed. He looked up above the slope, and saw the ruined road take a smooth turn.
A stone pillar of human height stood by. It was unlike anything else in view.
His observation complete, Dark moved towards the pillar, weaving among the scattered blocks and watching his way closely. Many smaller stones lined the ground, after all. Likely these were the remnants of the same paved road which had perished under the force of some unknown ancient weapon.
The pillar was some kind of monolith, with the upper third of it covered in unknown script. The writing was angular, almost hieroglyphic, and Dark knew of no real-world language which looked similar.
Are you sure you want to set this as your respawn point? Note: Your current respawn point will become unavailable thirty-three hours after selecting a new one. Continue (yes/no)?
As last the game rewarded his persistence.
Dark bound his character to the new respawn point, and at last he relaxed. He sank his teeth into the fruit.
It wasn’t so much of a risk now.
Positive effect received: +1 Carry Capacity. Duration: 0.5 hours. This effect does not stack with other effects received from food, but they may complement them.
Excellent. Not only was he not poisoned, he had boosted one of his stats for a time.
Sadly, that particular stat was worth nothing at the moment.
Note: You have discovered one effect of Fruit of the Gasthos Tree: +Perception. Eating the fruit does not grant this effect, but you can attempt to create an alchemical potion that temporarily increases your Perception.
Warning: Try an unfamiliar food to attempt to discover one of its properties. This is useful for Alchemists. However, you risk losing Stamina, Health, or Mana by doing so, and may incur various short- or long-term penalties. In the most severe cases, the death of the character is possible.
Discovered 1 alchemical property for 1 low-level ingredient. Location sensation level: 20%. Personal sensation level: 70%. 1 progress point received.
Progress points distributed.
+1 Knowledge progress point.
Note: You have discovered an unknown ingredient! No player in the entire modern history of X has tasted Fruit of the Gasthos Tree! You receive +250 Knowledge progress points. You receive a bonus +1 to any skill. Congratulations! Keep discovering new things to unlock more generous rewards!
Dark paused and smiled. The umbrella-shaped trees were everywhere, as far as his eye could see. Hundreds. But they only grew in this region, and no other players had been here. As a reward for discovering a new species, Dark had gained experience.
It was indeed a generous reward.
Now he would try everything—nuts, fruits, berries, whatever grew on bushes and trees—no matter how risky it was. Roots, flowers, and the seeds of respectable herbs were also good candidates. By chewing them, he’d learn more properties and receive more temporary buffs or debuffs.
Dark had received a powerful boost to Knowledge, which was difficult to pump, and had received a free base skill point, all by just consuming a single piece of fruit.
Those distributable points were so precious that he was willing to gnaw through the neck of a dire wolf just for one. After all, some skills were not pumping at all. Despite all he had been through, they still sat at 0. Unless he leveled them up, Dark would never reach level 1.
Immersed as he was in math, still he noticed the unfamiliar sound. It sounded like an overgrown bumblebee was approaching him.
When he turned his head, he was surprised to see that it was indeed a large insect. No bumblebee, though. He had no idea what to compare it to. It was similar to a painfully thin, starving rat, but colorful, with a forked tail of indigo blue, thin legs folded up against its chest, and translucent bee-like wings.
Despite its otherworldly appearance, it was not scary. In fact, it was no bigger than a pigeon, and it seemed to show no aggression. Hovering in the air a few feet away, it stared at the man with its huge faceted eyes.
Then, it slowly buzzed towards him. Its mouth was open, and an impossibly narrow pink tongue emerged. Nor was this an attack: it was reaching for the remnant of gasthos fruit Dark was still holding.
The man’s fist slammed into the bug. With a strange squeak, it spun out of the air and plopped down onto a dusty patch of ancient road at the man’s feet. Then the pickax went to work, straight for the head.
Note: Personal victory! Hesh’ell Hatchling killed! Weak mob. Level 0. Location sensation level: 20%. Personal sensation level: 70%. This was a flying mob. You receive double XP! +2 progress points received. The following skills played a significant role in this battle: Hammers, Hand-to-Hand.
+1 Hammers progress point.
+1 Hand-to-Hand progress points.
Note: You have discovered a new creature: Weak mob. Level 0. Base XP: 1. Note: Flying mob. x2 base XP! Health: 2. Mana: 4. Stamina: 3. Aggression: none. Magic ability: slowdown. Poison level: unknown. Chance of valuable loot: very low. General information: a tiny but voracious creature that loves Fruit of the Gasthos Tree. It is possible that parts of its body can be used for food and crafting.
No player in the history of X has ever encountered a Hesh’ell Hatchling! You receive +250 Knowledge progress points. You receive a bonus +1 to any skill. The leaders of the Explorers League may present you with a reward for adding creatures you have discovered from your personal bestiary to the league archives. Congratulations! Keep discovering new things to unlock more generous rewards!
What a day! In less than an hour, he had tried a piece of fruit and whacked a creature that was a cross between a bee and a hamster and that had given him not only points for an abysmally craft skill but also distributable points for problematic base skills.
Being the first explorer in a new location was a rich way to live!
Now for the final touch.
He stretched out his hand and took the loot he could from the bug: a hesh’ell tongue and a level 0 shining soul essence.
Note: You have discovered a new ingredient: Hesh’ell Tongue. Known properties: none. You can attempt to use this in alchemy or taste it yourself. No player in the history of X has ever found a Hesh’ell Tongue! You receive +250 Knowledge progress points. You receive a bonus +1 to any skill. The leaders of the Alchemists League may present you with a reward for adding creatures you have discovered from your personal alchemy records to the league archives. Congratulations! Keep discovering new things to unlock more generous rewards!
Dark smiled like a child who had just unlocked a candy store.
He was starting to enjoy this game, for the first time in his whole session. Not just because he was earning a lot of XP without too much
pain or effort. No, because he finally defeated a real enemy. Not a frog, nor a fish, nor a beaver—but some impossible insect.
It was the first mob with a magic ability that Dark had killed. The game awarded more for creatures with magic. In certain situations, killing them earned you progress points for stats that you could never grind by slaying beavers and other animals.
Plus, these creatures had soul essences. Those were connected to improving your combat and magic skills. There was a whole soul system, in fact. A player just starting the game received their first skill: their race-specific ability. It started at level 0 and did not gain strength along with the player’s level. In order to level up your ability, you needed 10 progress points toward it. Each level 0 shining soul essence gave you 1 progress point. That only applied to a level 0 ability, not a level 1 or higher. In order to level up your ability from level 1 to level 2, you needed level 1 essences—and 20 of them this time, not just 10.
It was very much like the skills system, except experience was earned not by killing monsters but by collecting soul essences from them. If your level was higher than your victim’s, even by one, no soul essences dropped. So if you reached character level 20 and still had a level 15 ability, for example, you’d have to buy a lot of soul essences from other players.
Thankfully any new ability you gained was always the same level as your character level. Leveling up too quickly became a bad idea. Players were better off hunting at their level for a while. But this only applied after level 15: shining soul essences level 0 to level 10 could never be transferred to another player. Even above level 10, there was a 90%+ chance that soul essences would be bound. In other words, they could only either be used for the player who made the kill or be discarded and thus destroyed. Loot menus wouldn’t even display these essences to other players at all. There was no way out of it: you’d have to earn them for yourself.
Now, since a player’s first powerful ability was earned along with their class specialization, at level 10, this barely inconvenienced players. They pushed to level 10 as hard as they could, ignoring their start skill and the skills they obtained at levels 1 and 3.
The whole game was designed to make it undesirable to spend any time at lower levels. Start abilities were weak, worth too little to waste time grinding them.
Except in Dark’s case. For him, level 10 seemed impossibly far in the future. Despite his progress, thirteen of his skills still sat at an even 0. He knew how to raise three of them, but hadn’t yet. The other ten, well, he had no clue what he would do with those besides distributable points.
And he only had six distributable points. Once he spent them, he would have four skills that he could not boost. In consequence, his player level would remain at 0.
Dark cursed the sadists who invented this game system. Every stat had one or two problem skills. Adaptability, for example. It had seven skills: Perception, Stealth, Luck, Simplicity, Poisoncraft, Hand-to-Hand, and Charisma. He had not received a single Perception progress point this whole time. It was simply not possible to increase this stat in combat against low-level opponents. They didn’t have any Stealth skill, so noticing them from afar was no accomplishment.
Dark’s Charisma was also stuck at 0, and that was no shock. That stat was mainly boosted by interacting with NPCs, not mobs. Quests and so on.
There were no NPCs here, so he could not boost that skill.
The Endurance stat was in the best shape. Thanks to the kindness of Kim’s assistants, it had been pumped to level 5. Dark’s adventures since had boosted it up to 8. The only problem with this stat was that he had to suffer in order to improve it. Endure heat and cold, walk around X carrying weights, fight opponents when your Stamina was low, and experience painful attacks cutting into your flesh. Day after day of this masochism. Endure. That was the only way to pump the skills in this stat group.
He had managed to suffer. In fact, he was quite talented at it.
It was his race’s specialty, after all.
The two magic stats were in the worst shape: Intellect and Magic. Each of these stats had four sub-skills, for a total of eight. And every single one of those sat at 0. Dark had no magic attacks. Nor had he seen the opportunity to defend against any magic attacks.
Perhaps he could figure out a way around this. Hesh’ell hatchlings were, according to their description, magical mobs. All he had to do was let them use their skills on him. He wouldn’t get much from a level 0 enemy, but even 1 progress point to a dead skill was worth it.
Of course, if there were hesh’ell hatchlings in this world, there might be mature parents lurking around, too.
Chapter 25
Hesh’ell Hell
Total stat levels: 6
Character level: 0
Mastery level: 0
Dark was at least a hundred paces from the swarm, but its buzzing was enough to block out the chirping of the birds, plus all other sounds. That made sense. There were at least five hundred of the bugs in this place. Not all of them were hatchlings, either. Some were at least level 3, and perhaps higher. Their wings flapped incessantly, and they crowded from one tree to another, nibbling the ripe fruit they craved so strongly.
If Dark had been following in the trail of a swarm like this when he first arrived, he never would have enjoyed a bite of the treasure of the gasthos tree. None of it remained. They didn’t strip the trees bare like locusts, but they certainly left none of the fruit behind. In order to get some fruit he could use to lure some the mobs off, he’d have to circle around them towards the still-untouched trees in their path.
Approaching the swarm was not advisable. Not all hesh’ells were peaceful, and those that were might have their limits. He could see sentinel hesh’ells attacking any living thing that approached the hatchlings. Dark knew this by experience—he had perished to the guards twice on the previous day.
He would use smarter tactics this time. It was best to keep his distance. As long as he stayed off to the side, individuals along the edge would smell the bait he held. They would fly further and further away, far enough that the sentinels would cease watching them.
Then the man would strike.
Huge as it was, the swarm moved very slowly from one tree to the next. It was easy to catch up to. Low-level hesh’ells had only one magic ability: a short-term Slowdown ability that decreased the enemy’s speed. His slingshot dealt exactly one damage to a bug, as long as it didn’t crit. Then, he would let the angry enemy use its ability before finishing it off.
This algorithm would hopefully prompt the game to give him some progress to Debuff Resist. Until today, he had held no concept of how to increase that skill.
Stronger hesh’ells had more skills. They were too strong for him, for now. He had defeated a hesh’ell harvester and a hesh’ell worker. They were levels 1 and 2, respectively, and in addition to reducing his Speed, they had been able to hurt his Perception (which was already 0) and reduced his Accuracy. Since Dark’s Accuracy was one of his most developed stats, he hadn’t taken offense at that.
But the whole affair would only boost his Debuff Resist. The other seven magic skills were also at 0.
He noticed a hesh’ell cutting off from the swarm, drawing closer, and gave a wave of the gasthos fruit to boost the attraction of its aroma. That was thanks to another tip he had seen in the forums. This game couldn’t be so complex and huge and yet retain originality down to the grittiest details. Many aspects of this world were copied, replicated from one place to another. Monsters may look different, but they often behaved alike.
Dark waved the stick with the fruit tied to it once more, then stuck it into the ground and took three paces back, drawing his slingshot and loading a stone. The plump hesh’ell turned and stared intently, then flew up slowly and began licking the bait, trying it out.
Twang. The rock knocked some of the translucent scales from its wings. Now the tone of its buzzing changed. It stayed in the air, but moved as if it was drunk.
Turning
towards Dark, it shuddered slightly, and a blue shine swept across its whole body.
Hesh’ell Worker reduces your Perception by 3.
Dark sprang forward and attacked with his coarse, short flint knife. It wasn’t the most convenient weapon, and he had spent an hour making it. But he had to grind his Light Weapons skill somehow.
The hit connected but failed to deal enough damage to kill the hesh’ell. He had planned for this—his other arm was already mid-swing, slamming the humming mob with his pickax.
This blow did not eliminate the creature’s life, either, but it did seriously damage its wings. The wings were too fragile, and hitting them directly almost always resulted in criticals.
Only the sentinels attacked physically—the others just buzzed in terror and tried to fly away with their torn wings. This one did exactly that, and Dark finished it off with the knife.
Note: Personal victory! Hesh’ell Worker killed! Weak mob. Level 1. Location sensation level: 20%. Personal sensation level: 70%. Level difference: 1. This was a flying mob. You receive double XP! +34 progress points received. The following skills played a significant role in this battle: Heavy Weapons, Light Weapons, Ranged Weapons, Accuracy, Debuff Resist, Physical Critical Hit.
Progress points distributed.
+5 Heavy Weapons progress points.
+5 Physical Attack progress points.
+7 Light Weapons progress points.
+4 Ranged Weapons progress points.
+5 Accuracy progress points.
+5 Debuff Resist progress points.
+3 Physical Critical Hit progress points.
Much better than a frog. Dark had finally pushed his Light Weapons skill up to level 1. It had taken nothing more than killing a cloud of mobs with a clumsy flint knife.
