by K R Dimmick
I crossed to the side of the arena farthest away from the gate that they’d raise to let the mobs in.
“Pull!” My leveling partner shouted to whoever was controlling the gate.
The gate went up, letting in a large vampire bunny, before clanging back down again. I couldn’t believe they had corrupted monsters in here. No wonder they were leveling fast, I’d got 500 XP from the first one we’d killed as a party. How were they catching them to get them into the arena? For that matter, if this was how they’d leveled up the others and now me, how many of these corrupted monsters were there? Maybe Mikael had a point and I should have listened to him. Oh well, too late to worry about that now.
“Are you going to hit it? I’m not doing this for fun you know,” yelled Gail.
Oops, I’d gotten lost in my thoughts again. I fired at the bunny, hoping I wouldn’t hit my teammate.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Basic Shot.
Basic Shot is part of the Archery Skills
It is linked to the stats Strength and Dexterity.
Increase your Strength to increase your physical attack damage.
Increase your Dexterity to increase your physical attack speed.
Increase your Archery skills to increase the accuracy of Basic Shot.
I hit the bunny right between its eyes and it fell over dead. Looking at my green XP bar, I watched it go back up as I regained the 500 XP I’d lost by dying the previous day. I was about to ask why I hadn’t gotten an extra 500 XP courtesy of the tasty cheese soufflé I’d eaten that doubled my XP gain rate, but then I remembered the Timer Reset potion that took 50% of my XP. Today was going to be a long day.
Just over an hour later, we’d taken out another thirteen corrupted mobs and a bright white flash of light erupted out of me.
Congratulations! You are now level 2.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 30,000 XP for your next level.
“Congrats. One level down, three to go. Put your five stat points into Strength now, so you’ll hit harder. That way, I can get more players in here to help me and we can take on several mobs at a time and still have you doing enough damage per mob to get full credit.”
That sounded great, because at this rate of 4-5 minutes for each kill, it was going to take another five hours just to get the 30,000 XP I needed for level 3. I put all five of my unassigned points into Strength.
A couple of minutes later, another 4 people joined our party and materialized through the portal. I took a quick peek at their levels and all five of them were level 15. I wondered how long they’d each been in here.
“Here’s what we’re going to do.” My first teammate snapped me back to the present. “Each of us will take a single mob. You’ll have to concentrate hard to make sure we have agro before you hit it, but as soon as we’re engaged with it, you need to hit each one, preferably at least twice to be certain you get credit. This way, we can get five times as many kills going at the same time and we should be able to get you to level 5 in the next four and a half hours plus breaks.”
“How many minutes do you have left of that food buff?” Asked a large, dark-haired, stocky guy.
“50 minutes. I do have another soufflé in my inventory though, the chef said you’d all tell me when I needed to eat that. Plus, I have some roast vampire deer heart too, for later.”
“Awesome. Then, as soon as this buff runs out, we’ll take a break. Don’t eat the next soufflé until you’re back in combat again, though. That way, the act of thinking about eating it will consume it and give you the buff instantly, without you actually having to spend time eating.”
Well, it was a shame I wasn’t going to get to taste that gooey deliciousness again, but at least I’d get the great buff.
“Pull!” He shouted and my power leveling started back up in earnest.
As each of them gained agro on their target, I danced in and out, making sure I got several hits on each of the corrupted monsters that were being slaughtered in the arena. It was a good thing that the game seemed to have some kind of filter to minimize the amount of blood and gore we could see, or we probably wouldn’t have been taking this quite so lightly.
We kept the massacre going continuously for fifty minutes to make the most of my food buff. Then, as soon as it ran out, we all took a few minutes to rest. I was over 80% of the way to my next level. Struggling to keep ahead of my stamina running out, I couldn’t wait to get my next 5 points. They were going straight into Endurance so I could keep up with this crazy schedule.
I looked around the arena. Every one of the corrupted mobs had dropped loot and it was now littered everywhere. Each mob had dropped a crafting resource, which I thought was a little strange. There were claws, fangs, venom sacs, chunks of meat, eyeballs, bones and other body parts all over the place. I walked around, picking them all up, thinking that this would hopefully help me start leveling my various crafts quite quickly.
With the rest over, we got back to the grind again and I immediately consumed my second cheese soufflé as soon as I’d hit the first mob. He was right, it simply disappeared from my inventory and the XP gain rate buff appeared in return. My taste buds mourned the lost opportunity.
Congratulations! You are now level 3.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 40,000 XP for your next level.
My Endurance increased by 5 and the level up also reset my falling SP to 100%. Suddenly, I felt like I could take on the world.
Nearly an hour and a half later, I hit level 4 with a third blinding white flash of light.
Congratulations! You are now level 4.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 50,000 XP for your next level.
I quickly placed my 5 points into Dexterity without skipping a beat, and once again, I felt as agile as I’d felt in my old dragon spirit armor. We all kept the brutal pace up for another half an hour, with each of my teammates downing stamina potions as fast as a thirsty alcoholic. Finally, my buff ran out and everyone collapsed on the floor.
Before we started again, I made my way around the arena, picking up yet more crafting resources and stuffing them into my inventory. No one else seemed to be bothering though, which I thought was odd.
“Do you guys get any loot drops or does that stop at some point?” I asked.
“We do, but if you leave them on the arena floor for long enough, they seem to disappear into the guild crafting resources storage anyway without us having to bother picking them up.” The large, dark-haired, stocky guy said. “We let the noobs work it out for themselves. It’s more fun that way.” He laughed. “Okay, final stretch. What’s your progress to level 5?”
“30% in,” I said, willing my face to stop glowing red.
“Your next food buff should give you a 40% boost to your XP gain rate, so we should be done in less than two hours. Let’s go, peeps,” he stood up and yelled, “Pull!”
Off we went again.
Mob after mob came and went in an exhausting display of arrows, knives, swords and hammer swings. Finally, I reached level 5 as a blaze of white light covered me from head to toe.
Wait. Something about that thought sounded familiar.
Congratulations! You are now level 5.
You have 5 unassigned stat points to use.
You have also gained 5 HP, 5 MP and 5 SP.
All changes are final. Place your points mindfully.
You need 60,000 XP for your next level.
You may increase one skill by one level and go to 0% progress of the following level. Must be used before leve
l 6.
Now that you are learning the game, you have unlocked the Karma stat. How you treat others will be reflected here. You have been warned.
14
Bull Fighting 101
I absentmindedly said my thanks to the guild members who’d power leveled me and left the arena. Digging around in my memory, I tried unsuccessfully to work out what had triggered that reaction. Nothing. Maybe if I stopped thinking about it, I’d work it out.
To distract myself, I decided to put my last five points into Fortitude because that would help me later, if I managed to become a magic user. Plus, in the meantime, it would make my shots more accurate. Probably a very good thing since I’d had a couple of near misses while I was being power leveled.
I decided it was time to have a quick look at my stats to see how they were doing now since I’d seen several notifications during the fighting showing I’d leveled up in both my Dodge and Archery skills. I focused on just looking at my stats and combat skills only, since nothing else was going to have changed while I was in here.
STATS, ATTRIBUTES & SKILLS
NAME: Orianna
RACE: Human
LEVEL: 5 (Progress 0%)
GUILD: The Dragon Hunters
HEALTH (HP): 340 (10 x 32 + 20 + 0)
MANA (MP): 120 (10 x 10 + 20 + 0)
STAMINA (SP): 480 (10 x 46 + 20 + 0)
STRENGTH: 44 (15 + 29)
DEXTERITY: 45 (15 + 30)
INTELLIGENCE: 10 (10 + 0)
TOUGHNESS: 32 (10 + 22)
ENDURANCE: 46 (15 + 31)
FORTITUDE: 35 (15 + 20)
WISDOM: 10 (10 + 0)
KARMA: 0
Physical Combat Skills:
Archery: 5 (Progress 23%)
Dodge: 3 (Progress 17%)
I was dreaming about reaching level 6 when I remembered I’d gotten a skill up reward for reaching level 5, which had to be used before level 6. So, before I forgot about it, I reread my skills again, trying to work out where I wanted to put it. Hand-to-hand, stick fighting and bargain had my lowest progress to the next level, so it made sense to increase one of those. On the other hand, they were also my least used skills. As part of the Dragon Hunters, I had little need for bargaining at the moment, so that left one of the two combat skills. I was determined never to use hand-to-hand combat again if I could at all avoid it because it just hurt too much. That left stick fighting. I guess if I ever managed to lose my weapon, I might find a stick on the ground. Not that it had done me much good last time, but maybe if I raised the skill up a bit it might help. I thought about level up bonuses and a pop-up filled my vision.
Select which skill to apply your skill increase level bonus to.
I thought stick fighting and watched the progress increase on my stats sheet to level 2, progress 0%.
Finally, it hit me and I remembered what had triggered the thought. It was a line from the riddle. When I’d leveled up, the phrase the white light covered me had gone through my mind. I pulled up the riddle. Sure enough, there was the line that had poked at my memory.
see the blue light cover you.
Maybe the game marked a certain level with a different-colored light? Time to hit the library and see what I could dig up.
I ran down the path to the library, straining to contain my excitement. Books had never failed me before, hopefully they’d come through for me again.
Pulling open the heavy oak door, I stepped into the library. Growing up, libraries had always been a haven for me. I could disappear in there for hours at a time, learning all kinds of things. It was my idea of heaven on earth. This library was no exception. Looking up, I could see the domed ceiling covered in beautiful renaissance style paintings. Shelves of books covered the bare stone walls from floor to ceiling. Every shelf was full to bursting with old books. Taking a step forward, my foot sank into the plush rugs covering the wooden floorboards. The place smelled of old leather, dust and ancient knowledge. I was in heaven.
I scanned the shelves for books on game lore. Nothing specifically mentioned the riddle, but that would have been too easy. Plus, if people could solve it, everyone in this guild would have already progressed to the next zone. I stood still and really thought about what I wanted to find. I needed a book that would cover what happened at each level.
Suddenly, a notification flashed at the side of my vision. Pulling it up, I discovered the one single thing that could have improved this library. Online search capabilities. Now we were talking.
Search: Level up rewards & features.
Do you want to run this search? Yes / No
I quickly thought yes and was rewarded by the name of a single book and what I could only imagine was its location on the shelves.
Travelers by Arik Vidende. 85227
I scanned through the pages, looking for anything that might mention blue light. Thanks to the wonders of game mechanics, every instance of the word blue was highlighted in the book, so it made searching extremely easy. Turning the page, I nearly dropped the book. There it was, just as I’d hoped. Level 10 and other major levels, 20, 30 and so on, were all characterized by a flash of blue light upon leveling up, instead of the regular flash of white light.
Okay, so getting to level 10 was part of solving this riddle. What about the lines before this one?
Once twice wise,
now clever two,
It was odd how ‘two’ was clearly a number. Could it be as easy as needing a certain amount of Intelligence and Wisdom? After all, being wise could equate to having Wisdom, and clever probably had something to do with Intelligence, didn’t it? If so, that meant that Andrew’s guild approved builds were actually keeping us all from being able to solve the riddle. This was a definite breakthrough. I wondered if he knew this. I might even be able to get my old gear back if I brought this up to him and showed him that we all needed to focus on getting slightly different stats. I had no idea if you could get stats from anything other than leveling, but hopefully you could. I certainly remember reading gaming books as a kid where the characters were running around carrying huge weights in order to get their Strength up. I should give it a go to find out. Maybe if I read every book in the library, I’d get some Intelligence points. Not that I needed an excuse to read a book, but that was worth a try.
“I was told I’d find you in here,” boomed Andrew as if my thoughts had summoned him. “I see you’re level 5 already, so I think it’s time to get you pulling your weight. I don’t want the guild NPCs outside the castle getting killed off by the wildlife, so I need a party to go out and pick up various plants and food items, as well as some animal skins for our leather crafters. I’m sending your entire entry party out on an excursion. You leave in 10 minutes. Be at the guild entrance portal for party instructions.”
Before I could share my breakthrough, he turned around and left. Well, I could tell him later, it wasn’t like there was a huge rush anymore. I’d come back to the library this evening and see what else I could find.
“I’m assigning Colt as your leader,” Andrew declared.
If it was possible, Colt stood up even straighter and looked down his nose at the three of us. A feat that was quite impressive, given Baynor was nearly a head taller than him.
“We need more vampire deer meat and hearts, since you’re all going through our stocks quickly. We also need several herbs and a few other crafting ingredients. I’ve sent you all a list of what we need. I expect you to also be leveling while you’re out, as we need more XP for the artifact I’m creating.”
I heard a muted ‘ding’ that heralded the arrival of a new message. Sure enough, there was a long list of items we needed to get, along with details about the quantities. My mini-map flashed to indicate it had been updated with possible locations of the items we need to find as well.
“Does everyone have 10 HP potions and 10 SP potions, as well as food buffs, so we can make the most of this?” Colt asked. “If not, then get yourself to the kitchen. You need to always have these
things in your inventory at all times, in case we have to leave quickly.”
Andrew nodded in approval and I thought Colt might actually start floating off the floor soon. I, however, didn’t have any food in my inventory and only a few of each potion. So, I headed back to the kitchen before anyone could stop me. I’d be better prepared next time.
As I got back to the group with my inventory full of everything I could think of, I could hear Colt once again pontificating about how we were going to proceed.
“Any questions? No?” He asked without letting anyone even take a breath. “Okay, let’s go. First stop: Milgate.”
I pulled up the guild menu to find the option to leave the guildhall. It had a drop-down list of all the places I’d uncovered so far. Granted, it only had two things on it at the moment, but this would be interesting in a few years’ time. Selecting Milgate as my destination, I stepped into the temporary portal.
We headed into the forest again, this time in search of vampire deer. Apparently, they were a real thing, not simply a corrupted monster like the bunny had been. With strict instructions to keep an eye out for various plants and small animals we could kill off for their pelts, we followed behind Colt.
“There,” whispered Saris, pointing at a deer on the far side of the clearing.
We crept forward as quietly as we could in order to get closer to it without losing the advantage of surprise.
Congratulations! You have learned the skill: Stealth.
You are 10% more likely to remain unseen.
