We both agreed, then James clapped his hands together in glee. He led us back onto Spinefall Boulevard and continued in the direction that we were already heading. Right through the ribs, towards the misshapen spires of the Trash Palace. I was struck by just how many people there were down here in Dregswyk. The streets felt even more packed with people than the streets of Eldin above.
We eventually reached another open square, but this was no merchant's marketplace like the last. Men and women plied their trades at forges, tanneries, gunsmiths and tinker stations.
A few imposing looking warriors provided instruction on how to use different weapons and shields. Right next to them were a group of what appeared to be elves. They looked as though they were teaching adventurers how to use throwing weapons and bows.
It was the first time I had managed to get a good look at any elves since the tutorial. The elves teaching the skills had mottled black and gray skin. Dusk elves. Their skin reminded me of the distinctive patterns that appeared on people in the real world who were afflicted with vitiligo, the skin disorder that progressively stripped skin of its pigment in gentle, flowing curves. The coloration was strange, yet beautiful.
This place looked to be somewhere an adventurer could find new armor, weapons, and hone their skills for the quests to come.
"You there! Boy!" one of the warriors in the sparring ring called at me. "I see you gawking! Do you know how to use that sword?"
"A little!" I called back.
I glanced over to James, hoping to get an indication of whether I should engage further with this person.
James shrugged. "I need to take Ellie to get some new armor, so you've got time for a quick lesson before we sort out your new threads. You've got raw talent, kid, but you could certainly use some finesse."
I turned back to the big warrior and headed towards him. "I've always got time for some tips though!"
He spoke in a strange accent I hadn't heard before. "Good man. Nobody ever knows enough about the sword that they should turn down a chance to hone their skills! I am Jorai, and I will show you how to use that sword of yours."
"Thank you. Where is that accent from?" I asked.
"I am a Kigarian!" He flexed. His thin shirt bulged as his muscles strained inside their bonds. "I am a long way from home, and I miss the salt air of the Kigari Isles every day. But it is here in Dregswyk that I find myself, and here I must stay. Now! Draw your sword and let us begin!"
I drew my sword from its scabbard and held it in front of me.
He sucked air through his teeth. "That is how you've been holding your weapon? And you're still standing? You must be a lucky one!"
I narrowed my eyes and studied his stance. He stood slightly side-on, with his weight balanced on his back foot.
I tried to copy his stance.
"Good!" he said. "You do not want to hack like some child with a wooden practice sword! A true warrior fights with grace and honor. Now, come at me!"
I stepped forward, swinging the sword towards Jorai in an arc. His blade met mine with a sudden clash of steel and sent me spinning backward. He was so strong! When I turned back to face him, the grin on his face was infectious.
"Not so bad! Not so good, but this I can work with. Tell me, which parts of your sword can you use in a fight?"
"The blade," I answered. Obviously.
"Wrong! Every single part of the sword can be used in a fight. The blade, the tip, the side, the cross-guard, and the pommel! Know your weapon more intimately then you know your lover. Your life will depend on your weapon more than any woman."
"Show me," I said.
"It's easy! You already know how to hack and slash, and that will serve you well for any number of beasts and unskilled fighters. However, if you are fighting an enemy that is well-armored, you would not hack and slash to take them down. No! You would jab at them with the tip of your sword. Precision strikes between the armor plates will slow them down enough for you to finish them off. The most important part of this is that you make sure that you distribute your weight so that you have enough force behind your sword that the blade sinks deep enough to do damage!"
"My group and I were attacked by a pack of roach hounds in the tunnels leading down here. That's how we defeated them. We focused on their weak points and took them down."
"Good!" Jorai grinned.
"Ellie, my companion, used her hammer to crush the armor of some of them, which worked well too."
"Yes! Good! This was my next lesson! The cross-guard you have there can be used to bludgeon foes when the sharp edge of your sword will not work. Good for stunning enemies. It will not do as much crushing damage as a hammer but may give you enough time to find an opportunity to counter-attack!"
"So show me," I said.
"Very good!" Jorai said, then came at me without further warning.
His blows came hard and fast. The force he could put behind his sword was staggering. I found myself using every ounce of my strength to recover from each blow just to defend against the next. He didn't seem to be coming in for the attack, just holding me at bay.
I found a reserve of strength somewhere and met his swing. Our blades clashed, then parted. As he drew back for the next swing, I took the blade of my sword in my hand and swung the pommel and cross-guard right towards his face. My feet left the ground for a second, trying to reach his height.
His eyes went wide as the blunt end of my sword slammed into his smooth, tanned cheek.
He staggered backward a step.
"Ha! Very good!" Jorai said. "Sometimes in a fight, all you can do is defend until you have a chance to make an escape, but you waited for the right opportunity to counter-attack, and you connected! If that was a real fight, the moment you stunned me you should have finished me off. I am glad you didn't, though! Perhaps I was wrong to assume that you were still wet behind the ears."
"I am still learning, but now my skills are even sharper thanks to your instruction."
Jorai waved a finger in front of me. "We are not done here yet. There is one last method I must teach you, and it is not so useful for fighting against other people, but very effective when fighting against other things. On the Kigari Isles, we have much sand. Most sand in all the world. We have islands made from shifting sands, and the islands move a little every year. On those islands, the forests can move. The trees can walk, and thanks to you Imperials, they have decided that they do not like little squishy things on two legs."
That sounded familiar. If there was one thing that humans were good at, it was destroying places to harvest their resources.
"Your people came to our islands in the mists and you cut our forests down to make your ships. We Kigarians are left to deal with the forest's wrath. You cannot stab through the bark of a tree, and you cannot slash it. You cannot crush it, so you must chop it. For enemies that have thick skin, chopping away at their defenses is sometimes the only way to open an opportunity to attack. If you're chopping down a tree, walking or not, you should use an axe. It will always be better than a sword for chopping. However, not all weapons can do everything. A longsword is the most versatile weapon. You can stab, slash, crush and chop. But your friend, with her hammer? She can only crush. Good for one situation, but maybe not so good for others. Axes, maces, polearms, and whatever else you want to wield, they all have strengths and weaknesses, but it's always good to keep your options open. In my opinion, as someone who is still living, the sword is the best weapon for a warrior who wants to stay alive."
It started to dawn on me exactly what was happening here. This interaction with Jorai was a way to introduce me as a player to the concept of different damage types that could be achieved using a single weapon.
With my longsword, I could stab, slash, crush and chop. I maybe wasn't as effective at crushing or chopping, but I could certainly still inflict that damage type if the situation called for it. The Acid-etched Sword gave me a bonus to slash damage, but I had other options available to me in the heat of bat
tle.
If I hadn't decided to take the opportunity the game had presented to me, I may not have learned that information.
Prior to meeting Jorai, I thought that damage was damage, and the bonus from my sword for slash damage was just added flavor. I hadn't really considered that my approach to how I attacked would change the damage output at a fundamental level.
I slid my sword back into its scabbard. "Thank you for your instruction, Jorai."
"No worries, mainlander! You come back to me if you ever need to hone your skills. Jorai is always ready for a rematch! But I won't go so easy on your next time." His grin said otherwise.
Walking away from the sparring ring I scrolled through some notifications that showed that my Swordsmanship and Dodge skills had leveled up as I sparred with Jorai.
Then I caught sight of Ellie and James crossing the market square towards me. The sight of her new armor took my breath away.
Chapter Twenty-Eight
New Threads
Ellie's new armor was a combination of heavy steel plate and chainmail comprised of thick interconnected rings. It wasn't as big and bulky as the Judiciary's plate, and the distinctive Judiciary blue and steel coloring was gone. Now she looked just like any other mercenary looking for work down in Dregswyk.
This set of armor did accentuate her natural curves, and I found my gaze lingering a little too long on the curve of her hips. Her hammer, Paragon's Might, hung from her hip by a loop of leather, and a new round shield hung from her back.
"Looking good," I said.
"Ugh. It has boob armor!" Ellie said.
I glanced at her chest, and immediately away.
Why had I done that?
"Yeah, take a good look, idiot," she said, and my cheeks burned with embarrassment.
"No, I didn't- I mean I-" I stammered.
Ellie smiled ruefully. "It's fine. This is going to take some getting used to."
"You'll blend in wearing this," James said. "Just stick to the story I gave you and we'll all be just fine."
"What's the story?" I asked, happy for a subject change.
"Come on, I'll fill you in while we walk." James motioned with his head, back towards the market.
"You there!" Jorai said, pointing at Ellie with the tip of his sword. "Do you want to learn how to use that weapon of yours?"
"Keep yourself entertained while I take Lucas shopping," James said.
"I learned a lot about the mechanics of damage from fighting him," I said. "You should definitely use him."
Ellie nodded. "You're on," she shouted to the Kigarian, then turned and headed towards the sparring ring.
"Ha! A hammer wielder, eh? This will be fun!" Jorai said as James and I walked away from the ring.
James took my shoulder in his hand and squeezed. "You need an upgrade, kid. I'm taking you to a friend of mine, and he'll sort you out. We'll get you an outfit that's just as ready for battle as it is for a royal audience."
"I can't afford that," I said. "I only have the clothes on my back, and a bit of silver I found on the monsters in the sewers."
James waved the problem away. "You've got potential, kid. If you're going to be with us for a while, you need to look the part, and you need to be able to defend yourself against the horrors you're going to face. That's the only certainty in the work we do at LSI. The horrors are always waiting for us. You're planning on sticking around for a while, yes?"
Those words sounded ominous. James couldn't have known about Ellie and I being trapped in Crematoria Online. He didn't even know that he was a complex artificial intelligence construct trapped in a game world. To him, everything here was real.
Then again, to me, I was real too. Both here, while I was trapped, and in the real world.
Was there really a difference between the two now?
Not until I got my hands on that Celestial Offering.
"Yeah, I'm not going anywhere," I said.
"Very good. Then you'll have no trouble repaying me for my investment in your future, will you?"
"I'm sorry?"
"This outfit isn't free. I'll spot you the gold, and you can pay me back at some point in the future. Does that sound reasonable?"
"Sure," I said.
I didn't like the idea of being indebted to another character in this game, but once I had my way out, I never needed to worry about it again.
James clapped his hands together. "Excellent! Come on, it's not much farther."
We followed the curve of the market around the edge of the ribs, and the sheer volume of things that one could buy down here was incredible. We passed a stall that sold a huge selection of small flasks and glass bottles, and next to it stood another stall filled with all manner of dried alchemical ingredients.
I noticed two people there at the stall looking over the ingredients, talking quietly between themselves. One was a tall, lanky man in an ornate robe and turban with caramel-colored skin. He had a black mustache that curled up at the sides and a pointed goatee.
The other was a young woman with purple hair tied back into two pigtails. She was wearing a vest covered in pockets and had a belt cinched around her waist that held innumerable pouches and glass flasks within easy reach. She wore a satchel on her back that looked heavy with contents. As we passed close by, I thought I heard the young woman saying something about what she would do the next time she leveled up.
My head snapped to the side as I heard the words.
Other players! They had to be other players!
I wanted to stop and introduce myself to them, but we were on a mission. I didn't want to get sidetracked, but maybe they would still be there in the market when we returned.
Instead, I committed their faces to my memory. There were here in Dregswyk, and I would track them down.
A tall, lanky man with a goatee and mustache, and a short young woman with purple hair, wearing an abundance of satchels and flasks.
I followed James away from them. It took all my willpower to stop myself from turning around and going back. Ellie was the only other person I had come across in Crematoria Online so far, and there was no social or friend management system in the game as far as I could see. The only way you could speak to your friends was by having a face to face conversation.
This was the opposite of how things happened in the real world. These days, if you didn't send an online meeting invitation when you wanted to talk to someone about something, you were an antiquated old fuddy duddy.
Why on Earth would you want to waste time and money traveling somewhere simply to cohabit in the same location to pay exorbitant amounts of money for something like coffee that you could inexpensively prepare at home?
It seemed like here in Crematoria Online, they used a very high-tech interface to implement a forced low-tech existence. I was sure that things would get easier as we leveled. It usually worked that way in video games. The frustrations you had at Level 1 were forgotten by the time you reached the level cap, replaced with a whole new set of problems.
Once I got my hands on that Celestial Offering and made it back to the real world, would I ever come back here long enough to reach the level cap?
What exactly was the level cap, anyway?
"Ah, there it is!" James said.
In front of us was an unassuming shop front with a sign hanging from the front awning. The sign showed a needle and thread, embellished with a shooting star.
"Willoughby's Haberdashery! For when traditional tailoring simply won't cut it," James said.
"What's different about this place?" I asked.
"There's a reason Mr. Willoughby operates down here. His clientele has a specific set of needs that would attract undue attention up above. A Fateweaver does not want to make himself known to the Empire; I can assure you."
"What's a Fateweaver?"
"Mr. Willoughby is a talented tailor. His clothing is impeccably crafted and fashionable to boot. However, that is not the only thing that sets him apart from the rest. He can imb
ue the garments he creates with magical augmentations that bolster a person's natural skills. He cannot craft a cloak that lets you fly, but he can craft a jacket that might make your already handsome face seem even more alluring. Or perhaps fashion a pair of glasses that increase your ability to see those things that others would prefer to keep hidden."
"So they're magical items, then?" I asked.
"In essence, yes. But they're tailored to you. Anyone can go adventuring and find an outfit of enchanted armor, but they won't work as well as something that is made just for you. Besides, this will be a full matching outfit, which always has greater efficacy than a mismatched outfit."
I noted that James was explaining things to me in a way that conveyed the mechanics behind how the game worked but didn't acknowledge the fact that it was a game. It was as though the non-player characters had been programmed to understand the mechanics in an organic way, which allowed them to understand how their world worked without peering behind the curtain.
What James was actually saying was that I would get a bonus from wearing an entire set of matched armor, and if the armor was crafted for me personally, then it would have a greater effect on me than other armor I might find while out adventuring.
That in and of itself was a big difference from other games. Crafted items were usually the same, no matter whether you crafted them for yourself or to sell. It looked as though a set of armor created personally for you would give an increased bonus compared to a mass-produced set of garments.
Interesting.
So far, I hadn't found a profession for myself either. I simply hadn't had the time. I'd been swept up in this difficult quest and was so focused on getting my Celestial Offering that I might have let other opportunities pass me by.
Maybe taking one of the easier quests would have been a better option, but then I wouldn't be working towards a reward that could get me out of the game.
Rise of the Crimson Order: A Crematoria Online LitRPG Novel Page 23
