I was starting to think that it would be a good thing to pick up that second level, but an hour later, Merkutia barked an order. “All right, that’s enough of these guys. Let’s go find something else more dangerous to kill.”
Just before that, I had leveled-up again, so I was very happy with our trip to the dunes. I had a finished quest, an action, and, most importantly, two more levels. Of course, that just meant that continuing to level-up would be that much harder. The further you went, the more experience it took.
It took us twenty minutes to walk to the desert, where I saw a spot in the distance. As we approached it, I realized that it was an oasis. I could already see the palm trees and the colorful birds circling above them.
“Okay, everyone,” said Merkutia, stopping us, “listen carefully. The iblisi are very different from the nagas. They’re tough, all at Levels 38-40, and they have fangs and claws they’ll use to go all Jack the Ripper on you. Don’t trigger more than five of them at a time or we’ll all die before anyone has time to heal. We’ll use the same formation as last time. Got it?”
“Sounds good,” our mage answered for the rest of us.
Four iblisi jumped us when we were still fifty meters from the oasis. They popped out of the sand like mid-range ballistic missiles targeting us with incredible speed.
They were terrifying—much more than your average western devil with horns and a tail. They were tall, they moved on two legs with the occasional help of their long tails, and fiery red eyes gleamed out from under low, sloping foreheads. Their bodies were covered in ragged fur.
The group immediately formed up, meeting the iblisi with our blades. But they brushed aside our attack, and one landed a strike that cost me a third of my health. The fourth, which we didn’t have enough swords in the front to cut off, threw a hunter to the side and started slashing away at the mage. The latter, unaccustomed to hand-to-hand combat, yelled, tried to fight the iblis off with his staff, and took a big hit to his health. The second hunter got either confused or scared, and didn’t risk taking on the enemy with the short, curved sword he was already holding.
Happily, the fourth swordsman, who we’d been keeping in reserve, realized what to do. He jumped over to the iblis as he was trying to finish off the mage and ran off so the iblis would follow him. That’s when Merkutia jumped in.
“Stop! If you wake any more iblisi, we’re all goners!”
Our leader finished off his opponent and jumped over to help the fourth warrior. Two swords made for quick work.
At the same time, Grinya ended his fight and came to give me sorely needed assistance. I was successfully defending myself, but there was no way I could go on the attack—the five-level difference was just too much for me.
There was no action for the iblisi, though the loot, both gold and items, was excellent. Some of the other players in the group apparently had a quest I hadn’t come across for the fiery buggers, as I saw them collecting something. Ah, well. Although, I knew I’d be retracing my steps over the sand, so I could get whatever they had later.
Those four first iblisi gave me my first nice find of the day.
Ifrit Pauldrons
Protection: 330
+13 to strength
+7% protection from fire damage
+11% protection from blunt weapons
Durability: 230/240
Minimum level for use: 35
Sure, they were boring. Okay, there was nothing special about them. But, still, every little bit helps. Legendary and hidden quests are great, and we all love the great rewards you get for completing them, but there’s nothing like getting your hands dirty with a little old-fashioned farming.
And that’s what we did for the rest of the time. We figured out where the iblisi were and what their respawn times were, and that saved us from making any more mistakes.
By the end of the day, I had reached Level 37 and won a helmet I stuffed into my bag. It wasn’t as good as the one I was wearing, so I figured I could just sell it at the auction.
Finally, Merkutia signaled a cease-fire.
“That’s it, let’s head back to the city. We’re done for the day.”
He disbanded the group once we got back to the city, thanked everyone, and asked me, Grinya, and the healer to stay. The latter, whose name was Ftang, was a human-orc half-breed. That seemed like an odd mix to me, especially given his class. Sure, a warrior, but a healer?
“Gentlemen, you did great work out there today,” started Merkutia, “which is why I’d like to offer you membership in the Desert Storm Clan. We need good players like you.”
I must have been tired, because I didn’t realize what he was offering at first. As soon as I did, my eyes widened in surprise.
“But I’m already in a clan,” I said.
“So what?” answered Merkutia calmly. “Leave yours and join ours. Nothing wrong with that.”
“I’m not sure about that. I’ll have to think about it.”
“Take your time,” said Merkutia just as calmly. “I’ll be here for another week, and then someone else will take my place.”
Ah-ha, that’s what he gets out of this! It wasn’t a bad system. His clan sent people to set up a group of players looking to do some leveling-up, and then they got to see how they handled themselves in battle. The pick of each litter got an offer to join the clan. Everybody wins. The players got a clan, the recruiter got some experience and a reputation boost in the clan, the clan got some proven fighters, and everyone was happy. Both of the other two who were selected accepted at once. And why not? The clan had already proven to be worth their while.
“Sounds good.” I nodded. “And if you’re here again tomorrow, would you mind if I went out with you one more time?”
Merkutia paused to ponder my request.
“Sure. You already know what’s going on, so that will make things easier for me. Be here tomorrow by 10 a.m., and I’ll save you a spot in the group.”
I was about to log out of the game right there, but then I remembered the thieves infesting the place and decided to head over to my room. That way, I could be sure everything would be safe.
Back in real life, I plopped into my bed in preparation for another day that would be just as long as that one had been. Farming isn’t for the faint of heart.
Chapter Seventeen
In which it turns out that some questions answer themselves.
Perseverance has never been a strong suit of mine, so taking two whole days to just knock out one opponent after another could be considered a personal achievement.
Just as had been the case the day before, I joined Merkutia’s group and headed out onto the sand, where we spent almost ten hours fighting those who stood against humans, dwarves, and elves. I made it to Level 40 and even earned a bit of change. If it hadn’t been for the pair of interesting incidents that had occurred the previous evening, the second day might not have been worth discussing at all. Those events had consequences, however, so the story lies straight through them.
We focused on nagas. The group level the second day was a bit lower, as was the quality of the players who showed up. Merkutia didn’t want to risk going after the iblisi, fearing what they could do to our little troop, so, I eventually had a message pop up after yet another of the snake-people fell to our weapons.
You unlocked Snakeface, Level 3.
To get it, destroy 199 more nagas and Sviss, their king.
Reward:
Serpent’s Tooth, an active ability: 20% chance of doing poison damage
7% less poison damage taken
To see similar messages, go to the Action section of the attribute window.
Well, then. Obviously, I was happy to see that nice of a reward, though I wondered where I was going to find that Sviss. Fayroll was nothing if not well made, however, and so that question answered itself.
You have a new quest offer: Sviss, King of the Nagas
Task: Kill Sviss, the naga king, in Fattah Cave.
Reward:
Completion of part of the Snakeface action
1000 experience
600 gold
Warning:
This quest will be almost impossible to complete on your own. You should probably take 6-8 friends with you.
Notice:
This quest can be completed at different difficulty levels.
Accept?
Suddenly, everything made sense, so I just relaxed and focused on killing the nagas with relish. The more I took out, the closer I got to the final reward. You know, I should really work on my other actions, too. I hadn’t realized how juicy that third level was.
Toward the end of the day, after we’d already left the dunes, Merkutia decided to give us a try against the iblisi, after all. Soon thereafter, I got another pleasant surprise.
You reached Sword of Retribution, Level 2
Boosts the strength of your blows by 60% and increases your chances of landing a critical hit by 40%
Activation cost: 40 mana
Recharge time: 40 seconds
Not only was that a pleasant surprise; it also meant that I was doing things right.
By the end of the day, I’d reached Level 41 and had a clear plan for my third day in Selgar: kill nagas once again. Then Merkutia went and complicated that plan.
“Don’t even ask to join us again tomorrow. Your level is much better, and you’re not going to join our clan, so I can’t have you taking up space in the group. No offense, I hope?”
I assured Merkutia that I hadn’t taken offense, thanked him, and headed for the caravanserai so I could log out of the game. To be honest, I was disappointed. I was used to his style, he was a good leader, and he found good people. I’d seen how he dumped two obnoxious swordsmen at the drop of a hat.
I didn’t spend too much time that evening thinking about the group I’d have to collect the next day or the nagas I’d be killing. I knew the road, the target was simple enough, and Merkutia and I wouldn’t be getting in each other’s way—there were enough dunes and nagas for both our groups. Instead, I focused on the looming battle with Sviss.
The internet had plenty of information, and the naga king turned out to be quite the exotic creature. He was one of the ancient ideological minions of Evil, and he served all the Dark Lords who crawled their way to the Black Throne. During the last Great War, he fought on the side of the Great Dragon, killing many servants of the Light, and after the war, was sent to Fattah Cave in some godforsaken oasis. He was ruthless, treacherous, and tenacious, and he had plenty of unpleasant debuffs. As if that weren’t enough, he was flanked by a horde of lower-level nagas and two officers that posed plenty of problems on their own. Even trying the quest on standard would be tricky, not to mention extra… Although, wait a second. Maybe that’s the ticket?
But what’s extra? you ask. It was a reference to the different difficulty levels Fayroll offered as well as the monsters available at different access levels.
In this case, I had the option of beating the cave at the normal difficulty level. The number of opponents I’d face would be appropriate for the situation, they wouldn’t go too hard on me, and I’d get exactly the rewards listed in the quest description.
The second level was hard. There would be more enemies, and they’d be stronger, though they’d give me twice as much gold and a 40% better chance of getting items from them. The main reward would be the same as for normal.
The final option was extra. The enemies I’d face would be insane and twice as strong, plus the whole thing would be timed. On the other hand, the reward would be much better as well: a river of gold from dead enemies, almost double the chance of getting items from them, and a 35% chance of getting elite items and other goodies for any level. Needless to say, that was the difficulty high-level players always went for. They loved the rare items and the improved reward—though, to be fair, the improvement was always random. Each case was something different, and the only thing you could be sure of was that you’d be getting something good. People on the forums said that they’d even gotten set items for beating quests at the extra level. Sure, that happened very rarely, but it did happen. You just had to be careful; one false step and you’d die on quests with extra difficulty.
The developers weren’t idiots, and they were very well aware that raids like that one were a piece of cake for high-level players—it was practically cheating. So, they set up a number of restrictions for caves, fortresses, dungeons, and other areas you could beat at different difficulty levels. First of all, those areas were all quest-related. Groups trying to beat them had to include a player who was going through the relevant quest for the first time. That player and at least half the group (the most you could have was eight people) had to be within ten levels of the quest location. Finally, the level spread in the group could not exceed eighty levels. Take me, for instance; I had the quest and was at Level 41, so nobody higher than Level 121 could join my group.
There weren’t that many multi-level quests in Fayroll. They were mostly for actions, though not all actions featured them, and you could only get them once, hence why they were so tricky.
Given all of the above, players with that kind of quest were always welcomed, and it was generally pretty easy to put a group together when you wanted to beat a quest at extra difficulty. That wasn’t the problem. First of all, your chances of beating a quest with a pickup group weren’t great, seeing as how you were dealing with other people you’d never fought with and maybe didn’t even know. That didn’t fly for a serious raid. Second, there was nothing keeping your groupmates from turning on you once the quest was beaten. What if my body got dropped right next to the dead naga king? Everyone would keep me alive until the quest was finished, as the group would fail if I died, but after the rewards were distributed the higher-level players could simply slice up the lower-level dead weight and keep everything for themselves. They’d laugh their way off into the sunset while I’d be stuck sitting next to the headstone in my underwear listening to the accusations being thrown my way. No, that won’t work either.
I couldn’t ask clanmates to come either. They’d help, clean out the cave, and bring along a few lower-level clanmates so they could do some leveling-up. But then they’d take everything back to the clan storehouse. They’d even take the best of what we got along the way. And what was the point of doing the quest in the first place if that was what was going to happen? The main goal would be achieved, of course, but…the juicy items were important, too! I mentally crossed that option off as well.
Things would have been the other way around if I’d tried to beat the quest at normal difficulty. I wouldn’t have been able to find anyone to go with me. Players at my level were all too ready to go farm, but marching into almost certain death was very different. Of course, I could find some daredevils to go with me, but they weren’t the kind of people who were used to teamwork. High-level players wouldn’t go for hard, not to mention normal. They only went for extra. A little circular reasoning that could go on forever. There was the possibility of finding a group of players with the same quest, but who knew how long that could take?
The cost of making a mistake in my calculations was very high. If I didn’t beat the quest with my first try, I could kiss both it and the action goodbye. And that would have been a shame.
I read a little more on the forums and gave the problem some more thought before deciding to just go kill nagas the next day. I’ll cross the rest of the bridge when I come to it. That decision was made easier by the fact that Vika, who’d arrived as planned and sat by the door for half an hour while I was in Fayroll, had already made dinner. She was patiently waiting for me to deign to come eat. That was something new, as her predecessor would have long since tossed my monitor out the window. Or was she just getting comfortable? Either way, the food was good, and Vika was adorable, so the evening went off without a hitch.
Speaking of Vika’s predecessor, Elvira was gone without a trace. I wasn’t exactly expecting her
to call and yell at me, but I certainly didn’t expect things to be as quiet as they were. She probably just realized that we were both tired of each other. Thank God.
The next morning, Vika left to run some errands, asking me before she did what I would be doing that day. I told her I would be demolishing some nagas and was happy to get a “sounds like fun” in reply, and, after going back and forth on it for a bit, I gave her my extra key and told her she was welcome to come back that same day. She sweetly blushed, kissed me, and left.
There isn’t much to tell about the third day I spent slaughtering nagas. It took me all of half an hour to get a group together, and we happily worked the little monsters over for about seven hours straight. As a result, I finished the first part of the quest, leveled-up twice, collected some gold, and picked up some items I didn’t really need. I was about to head over to the auction and sell off everything I’d accumulated over the two days, but I decided to put that off until the next day. And that was that.
I should note that I was really starting to like my new lifestyle. I didn’t have to jump up when my alarm went off, stuff a sandwich down my throat, or deal with the crowd of other people rushing to work. It wasn’t a bad way to live.
Still, the alarm woke me up the next morning. Vika had set it, and I looked over to see her sleepily mumble something and sweep her legs off the side of the bed. Her feet fumbled around in an apparently reflexive search for the slippers she probably kept next to her bed at her apartment.
“Why are you up so early?” I asked her.
“It’s time for work…?” she answered, finally prying her eyes open.
“Go back to sleep.” I stroked her naked back. “I’m in charge, and what I say goes. The other three can get the job done.”
“Sure is nice sleeping with the boss,” she purred, turning over and falling back asleep under my arm.
“I wouldn’t know, I’ve never tried it,” I said before falling asleep as well.
Two hours later, she was on her way to the office, having fed me breakfast and making sure that I would be expecting her that evening. There’s a girl here on day number three, and she’s not getting on my nerves? That hadn’t happened once since my divorce. To be honest, it hadn’t happened before that either. On the other hand, she was the first in a long line of girlfriends who could cook well, didn’t nag at me for sitting at my computer all the time, and didn’t start talking about who we would and wouldn’t be inviting to our wedding. I’m not one for feelings or sentimentality, but, when it came to what she had to offer, she was well out in front of the pack. That was good enough for me for the time being.
The Road East (Epic LitRPG Adventure - Book 2) (Fayroll) Page 21
