Two guards stood in the market building and three receptionists served a couple of players behind purple, magical barriers. Arcane magic. The interior of the building was sleek and light, white-marble floor shining under crystalline windows and smooth, granite walls conveying high-security. It’d keep low-level players in-check at a minimum.
One receptionist reached into a crystal box on the counter and pulled out five mana potions in quick succession, handing them to a level 8 player.
Rowan shrugged. The immersion of the game had to break somewhere to accommodate the markets. A replica of a real-life item market would be far too cumbersome. Thankfully, the AI controller wasn’t daft here. He walked to the nearest market receptionist, a young lady wearing black leather.
Better not test the AI this time.
“Hello,” he said, face and voice pleasant, “I’d like to receive what I bought off the markets.”
“Name and which items would you like to retrieve?” Her tone was polite but bored. Understandable.
And only a name? No other security features?
No, there had to be hard-coded security checks here. Real money was involved.
The receptionist’s features twisted and he finally said, “Rowan Black, everything please.”
She nodded and began pulling out his purchases with comical speed, lining each onto the counter with impressive precision. Quite professional. Perhaps this one would be useful in his dark kingdom. Though she wasn’t attractive, below average. A shame.
And Dark kingdom?
He wasn’t quite sure where that suggestion came from. A good idea, actually. Maybe it was because the VR tech impressed him and destroying this world without creating something better was a great waste. And a final boss needed subjects and a base—or a kingdom. An undead or demonic kingdom. Cliche but it was all he had to work with.
Rowan filed away the thought and studied the bone wand and sapphire ring.
For the wand, six thin tubes of white, polished bone twisted in an intricate pattern to a point. Rowan held the wand’s onyx handle and felt nothing. He was far too weak to use it. It was basically a level 1 common wand at this point.
As for the ring, a brilliant sapphire swirled with black vortices atop a band of engraved metal. He attempted to slide it onto his finger, but an invisible force prevented him from doing so.
Rowan thanked the receptionist and left after strapping the steel daggers to his legs and charged wand to his arm. He donned the black cloak without the hood up and wandered the town, gathering information, seeking weakpoints, drawing cool air from the swaying amulet at his heart. He threw an Examine at anything that moved or stood out, finding nothing but mundane crap. He entered the melee-weapon store and queried the shopkeeper. She was a level 3 merchant and knew nothing but town gossip! Rowan would’ve slashed her throat if it wasn’t for the guard at the door.
Where were the low-level mentors? Where were the damned low-level quests?! Maybe that dwarf knew something and didn’t cough up the information yesterday. Rowan vowed to gut the dwarf. He backtracked down a back-alley and another, heading for the town square to pleasantly interrogate that helpful present dwarf.
And as if the AI controller heard Rowan’s plight, a strained, pleading voice drifted from an open window.
“Please. Have mercy!”
Rowan ducked behind stacks of crates.
New Active Skill: Stealth
You are less silent and stealthy than a scurrying rodent.
Skill Level: 1, 5%
Skill Tier: 0
Effect: 5% less visible in shadows and night.
Tier Effect: You are 5% less audible
He brushed off the notification and listened.
“You have failed us, Marcus,” a voice said.
“Please! The stupid half-blood caused a scene and now the guards refuse to leave the courtyard!”
Stupid half-blood? The quivering fool was talking about Rowan! His fingers tingled as the cold void seeped through his body, a simmering calm settling in his chest. A good mental pet it was.
“Then you have outlived your use.”
“No! Gareth! Ple—”
A slicing sound whispered from the room and two objects thumped to the ground. Rowan guessed the idiot had lost his head.
New Quest: The Courtyard
You lucked out yet again. The guards are hiding something in the courtyard. Will you investigate and be dragged off to the jail again?
Difficulty: B
Length: Short
Recommended Level: 1 (You manage to divert the guards), 120+ (You foolishly fight the guards)
Failure conditions: Gareth achieves his goal. The guards discover the plot and you die while fighting them.
Success conditions: Stop Gareth. Find what’s being hidden in the courtyard.
Reward: ?
Rowan dismissed the prompt as Gareth walked to the door, his boots scuffing on the wooden boards.
Rowan pulled his charged wand out of its holster as quietly as possible and pointed at the door. This was his chance. It all begins here. Right here with one little surprise and interrogation—as long as Gareth doesn’t die in one hit.
The door clicked. The strange amulet whispered.
Gareth stood in the doorway.
Rowan aimed for the eyes and willed the wand to fire, a bolt of electricity arcing from the tip and piercing Gareth dead on. The bolt crackled and sparked as it fried the man’s upper-face.
You dealt 763 lightning damage to your target (+100% Critical)
Gareth screamed and reached for his sheath, smoke wafting from his bloody, charred eyes. Rowan flicked an Examine.
Gareth (Bandit Thief): Level 64
Health: 932
Mana: 510
Stamina: 950
Debuffs: Blinded
Holy hell. The forum post had been right. Levels 1 to 100 really were tutorial levels. 50% damage with a single hit against a target 60 levels than himself was unheard of in other MMOs. This new scaling was a breath of fresh air. A bit unintuitive, yes, but not too bizarre. Rowan could work with it.
He fired another bolt, aiming for the neck as Gareth fumbled with his sheathed sword.
You dealt 788 lightning damage to your target (+100% Critical)
Gareth (Bandit Thief): Level 64
Health: 102
Mana: 510
Stamina: 950
Debuffs: Blinded, Minor-Bleeding
A magnificent scream tore through the alleyway. Gareth reached for his gushing throat. Rowan watched in fascination at the damage he’d done with just a stick and two thoughts. Magic in virtual reality was so, so good. There was nothing comparable in real-life. The ice in his veins swirled in a storm. His heart pumped strong, steady, slow beats behind his ever-frosty amulet.
The thief bled from his cauterized neck. He collapsed to the ground and moaned in pain.
Rowan couldn’t enjoy the show forever—he needed information. He stood and cleared his throat. “Hello, Gareth.”
Gareth gurgled incoherently, blood dripping to the dirt.
Rowan mentally slapped himself. Of course, his voicebox would be ruined! There was no way he could talk now.
In a spit of frustration, Rowan pulled a dagger from his leg and stomped to the guard. He pressed the blade against Gareth’s cheek. “Nod for yes. Shake for no. Answer truthfully and I’ll heal you. Understand?”
Gareth nodded.
“Good,” Rowan spat, not removing the dagger. “Is there something hidden under the courtyard?”
Nod.
“Is there a hidden entrance?”
Nod.
“Do you know what’s hidden?”
Shake.
A scowl pulled Rowan’s face tight. There wasn’t a way to know for sure if he lied—apart from one: fear. “Don’t lie!” The dagger cut into his cheek, drawing a trickle of blood. “Do you know what’s hidden under the fucking courtyard?!” He moved the dagger to his cooked neck and poked.
Gareth shook and shook, now gurgling whimpers.
Dammit!
Rowan picked a different line of questioning, “Is the entrance obvious?”
Nod.
“Fountain? Well?”
Shake.
“A basement?”
Shake.
Sighing, Rowan looked at the sky, then swept his gaze across his surroundings. Everything in this town was mundane and tripe, especially in the courtyard. Nothing stood out.
Except for the—
“Dwarf’s booth?”
Gareth nodded.
A wicked smile pulled at Rowan’s cheeks, a fountain of glee erupted in his chest. “Thank you, Gareth,” he purred and plunged the dagger into an eye. Then twisted.
You dealt full damage (Instant-kill critical)
Quest Update: The Courtyard
Your luck is astounding. You managed to kill Gareth by exploiting one of his few weak resistances and found the entrance to whatever is beneath the courtyard.
Failure conditions: The guards discover the plot and you die while fighting them.
Success conditions: Find what’s being hidden in the courtyard.
Rowan nodded the dialog away and wiped his dagger on Gareth’s linen shirt. He didn’t care if he got lucky because he had at last done it. He’d begun his reign of terror upon Aeon Chronicles and done it without suffering a single injury. This world would soon be his, all having started with one electrocuted bandit thief.
Though the rush of the kill was already fading—fast. The bandit was just an AI.
Rowan dragged his first official kill into the building and dumped the corpse behind a desk. He paused, looking left and right. Where was Marcus’s body?
A moment later, Rowan found it tucked into a large cupboard, a trail of blood dripping from the bottom. He opened it and it was indeed there, head on stomach. Rowan had thought it despawned for a moment there. What was the despawn timer? He waited for two and a half minutes but both bodies body remained, blood seeping into the floorboards. Strange. Rowan shrugged and left the house, looting the sword as he walked to the courtyard. He Examined.
Mithril Short Sword
A sword forged from Mithril
Rarity: Common
Requirements: 65 Strength, 35 Dexterity, level 10
305-525 Physical Damage
Terrible. Rowan dropped it into his pouch, planning to either vendor or chuck it onto the market. It’d bring in a few silver.
As Rowan walked, he checked the notifications that he’d ignored at the left.
New Passive Skill: Wand Mastery
None would call you a master at your current level. Don’t poke yourself in the eye.
Skill Level: 1, 10%
Skill Tier: 0
Effect: 0.1% additional spell damage with spells cast with a wand
Tier Effect: 1% additional wand accuracy
New Passive Skill: Dagger Mastery
None would call you a master at your current level. Most would be surprised that you haven’t stabbed yourself by accident.
Skill Level: 1, 5%
Skill Tier: 0
Effect: 0.1% additional physical damage with daggers
Tier Effect: 1% armor pierce with daggers
You have leveled up! (3X)
You have 3 undistributed stat points
You have 3 undistributed skill points
One skill and stat point per level wasn’t impressive. Rowan sighed and approached the final road before the courtyard, the icy void in his body curling in anticipation of the dwarf’s death. Oh yes, he’d enjoy this.
Chapter 8
Graybeard
Rowan sat on a bench and ate a hot, steaming steak pie bite by bite as he Examined everything in the courtyard down to the birds in nearby trees. His Examine skill had gained four more levels, its effect and tier effect unchanged apart from the number of maximum targets now being two. Examine was one of those early basic skills that had a lot of empty levels. This was common in many MMOs.
A guard stood at each entrance to the courtyard, levels ranging from the mid-eighties to over a hundred. The guard captain lingered by the fountain—twenty meters away from to the dwarf’s booth—like it was his life mission to protect the square.
In retrospect, it was a smart hiding place for treasure—hidden in plain sight. No new player or even a veteran would suspect the friendly gift-bearer NPC for newbies stood right on top of the town’s coffers no matter how out-of-place it looked. No wonder guards now swarmed the courtyard since Rowan caused a scene. Though he had no real desire for more gold, he hoped for perhaps one or two artifacts or decent gear or just something that could help him on his dark path. Maybe… a dark tome too.
He’d taken another peek at the forums and hadn’t found any information on Necromancers or Death-Knights—apart from darker classes and professions all sharing a dark, primordial language. Which no one seemed to know. Every other class utilized the standard primordial language to invoke their skills. Basic, simple skill didn’t require an evocation—just a more-complicated thought command. One received fluency in the primordial language in an instant when consuming any class or profession tome.
None had found a dark tome, yet. A few had found scrolls for dark skills but without knowing the dark language, they couldn’t be read or consumed. Rowan strongly inclined that the strange amulet’s whisper was exactly in that dark language. The cracked onyx pendulumed at his chest, providing cool air under the morning sun. The lightning was perfect. His admiration of the VR tech grew by the minute. If only this game wasn’t so bland.
The guard captain caught Rowan’s eye for a couple of seconds. He innocently looked away, nibbling on his pie and Examining a group of passing children, all level 1 to 10 except for a level 21 teen. They’d make for some easy experience. Rowan’s fingers twitched towards his charged wand. He shook his head and resumed scouting as the little buggers chatted loudly and sauntered by. One was quite chubby and obnoxious and piggy-like. The brat pointed at Rowan and said something to his little gang exactly like Max.
He’d be the first kid to die in this town. The icy void rumbled in agreement. Perhaps he should give it a name.
One of the guards looked up, squinting at the sun. He exchanged a nod with the guard-captain and sauntered off. A new guard replaced the post two minutes later, similar in level and stats.
Rowan wracked his brain for a solution, for a diversion, for a strategy to either send all these guards away for an hour or a way to kill them all in a single bout along with the rest of the damned town. They certainly deserved it. He had a few ideas for the former, none for the latter which he preferred. By his estimate, he’d gain at least fifty levels if he killed every one of the sixty or so guards. Experience requirements grew in an exponential curve and there was a penalty for kills high above one’s character level. It made power-leveling difficult but still feasible for those who had high-level friends and wanted to quickly catch up to level 100.
Rowan considered hiring a few players to do just that for him in a dungeon. Some offered this service on the forums. The thought of hunting rabbits and deer in the surrounding forest for experience scraps like a newbie almost disgusted him. He was a future raid boss, not some lowly archer.
After swallowing the final bite of his delicious pie that was indistinguishable from those in reality, Rowan exhaled and resigned to just creating a diversion—a fun diversion: fire. Perhaps a few of these damned guards would burn to death in the process. A wisp of giddiness curled in his belly.
And for fire, he needed magic. For magic and most other combat skills, he needed the Mana Mastery passive skill which can only be taught by those who already know the skill and also possess the Tutor profession. Many key skills couldn’t be made into scroll form: they either had to be learned from a tutor or granted under special, unique, and unknown conditions. It was time to go shopping on the markets again and visit the magic shop. Magic shop owners should typically be tutors, according to the forums.<
br />
In under five minutes, Rowan had purchased one of each basic skill and profession ability scroll available on the gold market for one gold and thirty-five silver. You’d never know when you needed a skill. Another four minutes passed and Rowan had bought a set of neutrally aligned leather gear that granted an evenly distributed stat bonus and a Lesser Agate Teak Wand.
Lesser Agate Teak Wand
A teak wand with a small agate gem at its tip. Good for casting low-level fire spells.
Rarity: Common
Requirements: 20 Magical Power, Level 3
+3 Magical Power
+5% damage with fire spells
The guards began to glare at Rowan for doing nothing apart from staring off into the trees for ten minutes. The guard captain crossed his arms, his hard eyes unmoving from the bench. What an asshole. Rowan had every right to sit on a bench and do nothing all-day, every day.
Aeon Chronicles Online_Book 1_Devil's Deal Page 9
