by Arthur Stone
A smile crossed his lips as he looked through the menu. He had entered this location with thirteen level-0 skills. That number was now ten. Light Weapons and Debuff Resist were up to 1. And by thrashing mobs with a shield of woven branches, he had pumped Shieldbearing up to level 1—at the very moment the shield fell apart.
As a bonus, he had gained four more distributable skill points, for being the first player in the game to ever kill a hesh’ell harvester and a hesh’ell worker. Dark hadn’t killed any of the other kinds of mobs yet, and eating other plants had not resulted in any new discoveries, though they had often given him debuffs on his skills and occasionally on his stats.
He had 10 distributable skill points now. And ten skills that were at level 0. All of these skills were those which Dark had no way to level up without distributable points. Or at least no idea of how. He could search for mobs that attacked with damage-dealing or control-effect magic. How much time would that take him? That was a great unknown.
His arsenal needed some work, too. Nearly everything he had built on the river bank was broken by now, and what was still intact had perilously low Durability. A few more fights, and he’d be reduced to fists. His light armor and a sword he had crafted of wood and stone were no more, and he had no more flint pieces with which to repair his pickax. The work would take hours, and the search for raw materials might take days.
Not that he was in any hurry to get anywhere. But he had enough of spending hours making powerless weapons which broke quickly. Finding better raw materials and making stronger items sounded much better.
Dark could also greatly strengthen his character right here and right now. With a few quick mental taps, all of his skills would be at level 1. His character would at last level up. Even without armor or weapons, he would become a little more difficult to defeat, since he would take a little less damage.
Even simple wooden spears could now be more easily made, with a flint hand ax, out of any usable stick. A spear dealt 3 damage, and that was multiplied by his Strength plus 1. Since Dark was at level 0, that meant a multiplier of 1 + 0. But if he increased his Strength stat, that would grow to 1 + 1. Doubling his damage. A spear would now deal 6 damage.
The same old spear would be doubly effective.
That would make quite a difference. There was more. Once he hit level 1, Dark would be able to choose an additional ability. These low-level abilities were famous for being worthless. But beggars couldn’t be picky.
Of course, the best part was yet to come. Players above level 0 not only received normal experience for killing mobs—they also received distributable progress points. The fight Dark had just had might have given him one, for example. It hadn’t since he was still level 0.
That meant that a mere twenty hesh’ells would drop enough for him to level up any skill to level 2. As long as the victim’s level was not too far below the player’s level, every victory dropped these points.
It would have made sense for Dark to immediately level up the remaining ten skills and enjoy the benefits.
But he paused.
Official posts and player comments both recommended that players be very sparing when distributing these skill points. Everyone was encouraged to save them up for higher levels, when character growth was very difficult. Whether you were level 0 or level 100, a skill point was a skill point. But the progress points required to make those moves were 10 and 1010, respectively.
With each skill level, the progress point difference increased.
Dark pondered for a few more minutes. Then, he realized the stupidity of planning for level 100 when he was stuck at level 0. He decided to ignore all of the forum advice. It was targeted to players who cleared several levels on their first day. They could handle stuck skills with distributable points dropped from mobs. But he didn’t even get those points at level 0.
He went through the menu and added points to the remaining skills, one by one.
You have leveled up. Current level: 1. Congratulations!
You have leveled up. Current level: 2. Congratulations!
There, that was done. At last, ten days after escaping Kim’s dungeon, Dark was no longer level 0. An ordinary player could have reached level 15 easily during that time, or even level 20.
But normal game start conditions were quite a bit different.
Why had he leveled up to level 2 immediately? Since all of this skills were now greater than 0, normal level calculation went into effect. His overall level was equal to the sum of his stats divided by six, rounded down. And Dark’s Endurance was now 8, so it pulled his overall level up to 2.
Note: You can now choose an additional race skill.
Dark looked through the options the game provided. There were three of them. He had hoped for more. Since his race was unfinished, the developers must have abandoned it before adding more skills.
The first ability let Dark role-play a hesh’ell hatchling. He could spend some magic energy to slow opponents a little. That could come in handy when he was trying to catch something.
Or, as would likely happen more often, when he was trying to escape something.
The second option was a healing ability, but with a catch. It was only usable when his life bar was lower than maximum. As long as Dark was undamaged, he could neither use it on himself nor heal an ally.
The final option strengthened his skin for a few seconds, providing decent resistance to incoming damage. That one was a non-magical combat ability, so Dark ignored it. It barely spent any Mana, but it ate up Stamina, and its cooldown was too long, plus it would not help him level up any magic skill, which was his primary goal. Only one of his magic skills was pumped naturally, thanks to the hesh’ells.
There was no fourth option. No offensive magic skill, which Dark had been strongly hoping for.
But after another moment’s thought, he chose the second option, the healing ability.
Note: You have chosen an additional race ability: Stream of Regeneration. The Ethrians are a race that has not chosen their path. They remained balanced between light and dark, and there the void consumed them. All of the Ethrian race abilities are contradictions and can include both light and darkness. Stream of Regeneration is no exception. It can only be used when its wielder is on the precipice, between life and death.
Ability Description: A single target receives a continual stream of healing. The strength of the healing is determined by the healer.
Mana Cost: one mana point per health point regenerated.
Can be used on self, on other players, and on NPCs, including monsters. Cannot be used when your health is full.
His choice was made. All of the insults he had heard thrown at low-level abilities had been correct. They were vastly inferior to the options that could be purchased at level 10 and up. In addition, pumping them was difficult, since beginners had few options for finding level 3 soul essences, not to mention level 1 essences. There were really no mobs that dropped them, unless you were on a non-standard path like Dark’s.
Since his Intellect had risen to level 1, his max Mana had increased from 50 to 75. That meant Dark could heal 75 Health. That was less than a third, seeing that his max Health was 250. This spell seemed terrible, since healing abilities usually traded 1 Mana in for 10 or more Health, not just 1-for-1. But it wasn’t completely worthless. How many times had he been in a situation where all he needed was a few more hits on a beaver, but there simply hadn’t been time to deal them? This ability could gain him some time if he was in a difficult battle.
Wait. Dark shuffled around in his bag.
He had accumulated nine level 0 soul essences, eleven level 1 essences, and four level 2 essences. Not enough to level up Stream of Regeneration. When a player received an ability, the ability’s level was equal to the player’s character level, so players tried to get them as quickly as possible. This ability was level 1, and he needed twenty soul essences to increase it to level 2. Nine to go.
Dark used the level 0 and level 1
essences to pump Avalanche of Feeling to level 2. The result was a masochist’s dream, boosting his pain not by 100% but 120%, and for two more seconds than before, for a grand total of 32 seconds.
Well, the swarm was going nowhere fast, and he would keep hacking at hesh’ells, just like he had at level 0. But killing the level 0 hatchlings was no longer profitable. He had to attract level 1 and level 2 beasts, since only they had the soul essences he needed.
* * *
After about an hour of hesh’ell extermination, Dark had the essences he needed to bring his new ability up to level 2. Now every mana point he spent regenerated 2 hit points. Meaning that his whole mana scale would restore 150 health instead of just 75.
That was much better. No longer would he fear the malicious beavers. In fact, he could probably take them down blindfolded with a magical band-aid like that.
His weapon did break during the insecticide, however. Only the slingshot remained, and it was on its last legs. He could spend hours searching for flint and more hours creating the same fragile crap.
Or, he could look for better materials.
Dark knew where to go for the latter. He remembered that suspiciously shaped hill he had spotted from the top of the cliff.
That was his target.
Chapter 26
The Abandoned Mine
Total stat levels: 13.
Character level: 2.
Mastery level: 0
You have left the Outer Omertis location. Welcome to the Omertis Copper Mine.
Note: This is the third location you have visited that no player has seen before! Special skill unlocked: Pioneer. This skill begins at level 3 and levels up for each new location you discover beyond this one. Each subsequent Pioneer level will give you +1 Perception, +1 Luck, +1 Charisma, and +1 Simplicity.
That was a nice surprise. He knew the game rewarded exploration, but that was something above and beyond. Perception and Charisma were not skills he had leveled up with distributable levels, after all. He could have saved those levels by wandering around a little more, if he had known.
The location name confirmed Dark’s suspicions. This hill was exactly what he had hoped it was. Its shape was characteristic of a waste rock dump from a mine.
Sadly, the metal was copper. That was the first raw material that novices could work with, true. Players could develop his crafting skills and make simple weapons, armor, and jewelry. Everything they needed early on.
But it was still metal, not a rock. Mining it would be a trick. Copper was mined as copper ore, a form in which it was worthless. In order to use copper ore for crafting, it had to be smelted into ingots.
And that meant finding a smith’s furnace, or at the least building a primitive oven. It also meant finding coke or charcoal. The former was made from coal, which required a coal mine. The latter could be obtained by burning wood. Coal mines were not exactly plentiful.
And with level 0 Metallurgy, he would require a whole lot of coal. The product of many days of sweat and tears. If he found a coal mine. But if not, he would have to get to cutting down trees with primitive tools. Which also meant sweat and tears. That was in addition to mining and transporting the copper ore. Even for players wielding better than a primitive pickax and more than meager Strength, that was a challenge.
Alright, Dark, just take each problem as it comes up. No sense crying about the ore when you haven’t even seen it yet.
The tall thickets of raspberry plants began to thin. They had been scratching his flesh for the past few minutes. He emerged onto an open slope that descended to a shallow, long depression in the ground. At the closer end of the depression, a rundown log dam held back a small blue lake, from which he could see a narrow river flowing. A large wooden structure was visible, as well. It looked like a waterwheel.
The farther end was more interesting. There, a ruined wall of unworked cobblestone surrounded a pathetic mine. Dumps of waste rock were piled around the entrance and had long since become overgrown with stunted grass. Every building had collapsed in whole or in part. There was one exception: a tower of massive stone blocks. It was attached to a structure as long as the tower was tall, made of the same stone blocks. Even the roof still survived, though some of its tiles had fallen.
It was an ominous sight due to the lack of vegetation and the pitch-black entrance to the mine sitting nearby. But no matter how hard he tried, he failed to spot anything dangerous. The biggest creature he saw was a crow. Frogs croaked by the river and small birds fluttered among the scant bushes and lonely trees placed here and there along the water.
Spear at the ready, Dark descended. He had become quickly used to the pastoral land of the hesh’ells, and this cold land made him uneasy.
As he walked past the dam, he made sure that the ruins there were indeed of a watermill. Indeed, the blades of the wheel were visible, though their mount had fallen into the water. So long had it sat on the bottom that it was nearly covered in algae and was swarmed with freshwater fish of all sizes. At least he had a place to hunt, if it came down to it.
For progress points and provisions both.
The only gates that the mine still possessed were wide open. One door still held to its rusted hinges by some miracle, but the other was flat on the road. He wouldn’t have cared if they were locked and bolted shut. The wall had crumbled in places, and it was short, in any case.
Dark moved towards the tower first. It seemed to be the anchor of the whole complex, and easily the sturdiest structure that had stood here. Anything valuable that still remained from the civilization before would probably be inside.
Its doors were intact. And locked. No matter how hard Dark tugged at the rough copper handle, it refused to budge.
Something seemed wrong. If the inhabitants of Ethria died off long ago, wouldn’t this door have fallen apart, or been destroyed, or at least been left open? There was no keyhole he could see, so he surmised it was locked from the inside. Was someone still living here? Unlikely.
Not that an abandoned game location needed to follow the laws of logic. Although games had their own logic. Anything preventing easy access to a location was evidence that something valuable could be found there.
Dark inspected the door. It seemed decently strong, but not vault-like enough to hold immense wealth. And it was locked from the inside. Perhaps if he opened it, he would find a guard devoted to this site, decomposed into a skeleton over the centuries.
A strong allergy to skeletons had appeared in Dark’s system not long ago.
Stepping back, he examined the walls. The large stone blocks were smooth and carefully fitted, with minimal gaps between them. Attempts to climb them directly were unlikely to succeed. With enough of a boost, though, he could reach one of the first-floor windows. Its barred shutter was ajar.
He looked towards the nearest pile of rubble. Perhaps he could bring enough stones over and stack them up beneath the window. Or perhaps he could search the large, long building connected to the tower. It might have a ladder or something analogous to one. That was the lazier option, so he took it.
As he circled the building, he stumbled into something. Dark swore under his breath, but this time, it was out of pure joy. A large metallurgical furnace, and next to it, a dilapidated coal shed with a pair of anvils.
He really had been foolish to worry so much.
This was everything he needed to smelt and forge copper. Coal was at hand, and perhaps some mined copper ore, too.
He enthusiastically ran to check. The game certainly rejected the laws of the physical world in many ways. The coal had not turned to dust—it was preserved in large, black chunks, as if it had been mined this morning. This despite the fact that its shed was on the brink of collapse. An icon helpfully informed him that the furnace was in working condition.
A smaller shed was situated behind the coal shed. It was equally likely to collapse, but within, Dark found gleaming, green-tinted stones.
He picked one up, catching his breath a
t its weight, and grinned.
Chunk of rich copper ore. Two of these chucks are sufficient to smelt a copper ingot.
Amazing. He didn’t even have to spend any time mining! The smelting could begin immediately. He had no idea how long the available ore would last him, but it looked to be a greater quantity of material than all of the flint Dark had ever found.
The forge was in great shape. A working furnace was present, of course, and a set of tongs and hammers, which were the tools he needed most. Several ingots of copper and iron lined sat on the racks, along with a level 11 longsword. Despite the centuries it had spent out in wind and rain, the blade was neither rusted nor dull. Its Durability was even at maximum.
This was still a game, after all. Players had the most fun when they enjoyed finding useful items rather than gritting their teeth at yet another pile of worthless dust.
Dark wanted to try making something right now, but he suppressed that impulse. The sky would grow dark by the time he got the furnace up and running. Starting in the morning was a better idea. He could devote the whole day to smelting and smithing.
So he returned to his original intentions: the long annex and the tower window.
Nothing he found in the sheds nor near the furnace could help him reach the tower window. He would continue his search.
The building proved to be a warehouse. Huge racks ran along its walls, and its floor was covered with barrels, crates, and even bags which had, like the sword and coal, been spared the effects of time by the game. Unfortunately, this did not apply to everything. Some items had evacuated to dust, and even the information panel did not appear. Perhaps these had been foodstuffs of various kinds. But there was salt, and in great condition. Honey, too, its smell as alluring as ever.
