The Savant Lands_The Lost Class

by Lucas Dunn

  Back in the game, dawn was breaking and people were passed out all over the fort. I don’t know when or how the dwarven smiths got alcohol but I could see its effects everywhere. Sighing at their antics, I noticed three prompts I had ignored earlier at the feast.

  Congratulations! You have reached level 50 in Strength, as a result you have gained a new skill. Heavy strike: Next hit does x3 damage (Cost: 50% stamina)

  Congratulations! You have reached level 100 in Strength, as a result you have gained a new skill. Tremor: Stomp the ground to send nearby opponents falling as the earth shakes. (Cooldown: 30 minutes)

  Congratulations! You have reached level 100 in Dexterity, as a result you have gained a new skill. Speed attack: Next attack is twice as fast. (Cooldown: 1 hour)

  All of the skills suited my new build very well. As I went over my stats I compared them to the real world. I was clearly stronger and faster than anyone, but at the same time I was not yet what one would consider a superhero. At best guess I was somewhere in-between. Comparing them to anyone else excluding the Light One’s main disciple, I was without a doubt faster and stronger than other players. The sad thing was that NPC’s in major cities could probably give me a run for my money, and the guards would wipe the floor with me. The average NPC in the human city was 20 while the average guard was 80! I wish my NPC’s came like that because I had a long way to go before I became the top power here. Sighing once again as I made it to the altar of the Dark One, I wished I could live in this world instead of the other.

  “Why can’t you?”

  Swiftly spinning around I saw the dark one sitting in one of the pews. Flustered, I thought of how to respond the question. In one hand he was a god of this world and would want an answer. The only problem is how was I supposed to tell him this was all a game. About to speak up he once again spoke.

  “Are you so sure this is a game? Does it not seem real to you because our history is very very real. In fact, it goes back further than yours.”

  Confused, I thought something was wrong with the AI but once again I was stopped before I could say anything.

  “It is my fault for not explaining this before. Let me tell you a story. You have heard part of it from you friend Raken, but let me tell you the truth of our world and yours. You see, we came along centuries before your world and while the creator took one approach with your world, you can see the approach he took with ours. After the war Raken told you about, our world was out of balance. As the light won, it continued to take more and more until finally The creators servants had to step in. Rather than descending and resetting the balance themselves by having to destroy all life, they took a different approach. They took the technology from your world and used it to send your souls here through the use of your “Game capsules”. They then gave me a chance to come back from endless oblivion. This is so the balance may be true once more.”

  My mind reeled at the explanation. Could it be true? Was this some prank the developers put in? After gathering my thoughts for ten minutes, my heart rate finally slowed back down to normal and I asked the one question I really wanted to know.

  “How do I permanently join this world?”

  “Check your log out menu” he said smiling.

  Doing as he asked, I saw there was none! This is all I ever wanted! To be in a world such as this, almost with tears of joy I kneeled in front of The Dark One with no words that could express my feelings.

  “Rise disciple, you have learned much in the past few days and we must plan our next moves carefully.”

  Doing as he said, I gratefully rose to my feet already strategizing. This was my new world and it was time to stop treating it like a game I adored, but my new life.

  Nodding his head in appreciation of my epiphany he spoke. “As you know, there can be multiple people of your race. Currently there are only two in this world. You and one of the Light Ones followers. If one of us creates another the balance of this world will shift in the others favor. That is why there are no more. Since I can no longer bring in powerful soldiers, you must gather the forces of the dark. Now is the time for unity, and with the amount of followers the light on has, you must join together. I will give you these three weapons so the main dark forces know you are serious. I will continue to assist however I can. The gods will not interfere with the battles for now, but they will eventually and you need to know about them. Continue on in the dungeon and you will gain the cores of gods. Visit other planes of existence and explore. These are but a few of the way to get cores. When you get the cores bring them here and place them on the altar and you will know what to do from there. As for your race, it is time I answered that for you. You are known as demi-gods, created by gods for one purpose. Slay the gods themselves. While we couldn’t grant the power to a mortal to make them a god, you are more than adequate to take one on as you grow strong, not only that but your abilities can even surpass theirs. I must leave again but should you need me, come here and I will answer.”

  With many more questions on my tongue he vanished into the air leaving me once again, sighing.

  Congratulations! You have received the ancestral relic known as Earth Splitter!

  Congratulations! You have received the relic known as Winds Demise!

  Congratulations! You have received the relic known as The Twin Fangs!

  Congratulations! You have finished the quest: Find out your race. No reward given.

  Stunned I choked as I saw the stats on the weapons. Sadly, they were for the Dwarves, Drow, and Elves. Without a place to put them, I went to the forts vault and placed them against the command center. It would take as army to get in, and the vault door only opened for the keeps master which of course was me. Getting all my troops back up I sent them to collect the loot from the slaughtered soldiers. I went straight for the player grave, but it hadn’t been 24 hours so sadly I couldn’t loot it yet. Setting 10 soldiers to guard it, I helped loot the other bodies.

  Sadly, no bones were salvageable because of the rot but the amount of armor and weapons was stunning. Now all of our troops were outfitted with decent armor and weapons and we had a huge surplus which I sent to the storage area behind the barracks. I allowed the troops to keep 50% of the coins they found and watched as my money pouch grew and grew. At the end of the looting I ended up with 48 Platina, 4,000 gold, 5,000 silver, and 12,000 copper. I was truly rich! I could buy at least a house with all of this money! Laughing at the thought of starting another siege just for money, I went back to the forts inner gates. The most valuable thing I had gotten besides all of the coins was a flawless level bag that had a 100 by 100 slot limit. Looking inside the walls I saw that without time to build any new houses It was still a square mile of undeveloped land angling slightly upward which was going to have to change. Assembling all troops again excluding the skeletons which I sent back to the wall, I Called over my squad and Elif spoke.

  “Welcome to our world my lord.”

  With a confused expression she spoke again with a wry grin.

  “You didn’t think we didn’t know where you came from did you? A bunch of people appearing from nowhere asking for silly quests and getting themselves killed only to come back again, not to mention your silly nametags above your heads that tells everyone your identity! Always acting like this was a game and laughing at stupid “NPC’s” as your world called us.” Laughing, Elif and the rest of the group practically died from suffocation as they realized that was exactly what I thought. Who knew! While our world was laughing and playing around with “NPC’s” there were actually the ones getting the true laugh in. In their eyes we were the stupid ones! Chuckling myself at our stupidity, it took us a few minutes to regain our composer when I remembered someone important! Sending someone to fetch Raken we waited for him and discussed how the troops were progressing.

  With Raken now with us, I told them what had happened between the Dark One and me as well as the battle fought that Raken had no idea about. From their I went on to discuss how I was going
to hire more NPC’s that would need to be trained but I needed to know what else we would need as a new town that would eventually become a city. After going over a few necessities I started pulling NPC’s from the draft. First I hired three carpenters to bring us to a total of ten. They would be working on rebuilding the housing and other needed buildings. Next I hired nine stone masons bringing us to ten. They would be working on building a new wall. The current one was so busted it would not have held off the Ogres if they brought more siege equipment. Not only would they be building a new wall but the wall itself would encompass a larger area that included Raken’s home and the dungeon entrance Jake and Grimm found. After that I got 40 mages and 40 basic guards obviously for defense, but also so the mages could use earth magic to create stone homes. Taking a little more time to discuss, Raken reminded me that if I wanted better materials I would have to clear the lower floors. Promising I would, we then discussed building an underground school/barracks in the caves since I couldn’t host everyone once our army got big enough. Agreeing Raken promised to put his miners to work. Once we finally finished planning, I hired a couple of cooks and even an attendant named Jenson to help me manage the castle. Pleased, I then discussed my plans to visit the other races which was met with a lot of protests that I needed to be here. Ignoring them I told them they would be coming with me, including Raken and that we needed to train together to get a feel for how we worked together. With high hopes we headed to Raken’s home to clear some more floors.

  Once at the place where I slayed the giant skeleton we headed down and I was met with a sickening smell along with a hoard of undead moaning. Upon entering the cavern, we saw the mass of zombies in front of us. I didn’t want to cast a tornado because of the thought that the ceiling would collapse, so the only option was to charge right in. Jackson buffed us with speed and a recently gained buff that raised our stamina, and we entered the hoard of at least 200 level 40 undead. Unlike my zombies these were clearly slower, stupider, and smellier. The flip side was that they were tougher and in a hoard, that all surged forward at once.

  Raising walls to funnel them in, I quickly got used to my new speed and strength, tearing through the zombies as they surged through the wall’s opening. During all of this it was using no other magic besides the walls. Jackson cast slowness debuff’s on the zombies making it even easier for me to tear through them while Elif him. Blade stood next to me helping manage the flow of zombies with his twin short swords. Raken and Elizabeth also stood back allowing us two melee fighters to find our flow together. Towards the end of the battle my stamina started flashing dangerously low reminding me of the small flaw in my build. Cursing I continued on until the last few zombies were slain and we all had a collective level up. Placing all of my points into stamina I decided to take a thorough look over my abilities and skills again as well as my new level in dual wielding.

  Name

  Lucian(Lord of Shadow’s Edge. First Priest of The Dark One.)

  Race

  ???

  Class

  Warrior God

  Level

  39(Percent towards next level: 2%)

  Fame

  1,830(Respect)

  Health

  780

  Mana

  2,580

  Intelligence (1 point = 30 towards mana)

  86

  Constitution (1 point = 20 towards health)

  38

  Wisdom (1 point = +.5 mana per second)

  50

  Strength (1 point = x.1 physical damage.

  125 [Damage modifier = (damage * 12.5)

  Stamina

  27

  Dexterity

  110

  Luck

  5(+10 from Ring)

  Abilities

  Dark Sight: See with 100% proficiency in darkness. (Non-Passive)

  Dark Shroud: Unable to be heard or detected by the followers of light through divine or mundane magic. (Passive)

  Divine Fortitude: Resist the strongest attempts to influence your mind(Passive)

  Elemental Merge: Merge with the elements for five minutes increasing all stats by 100% (Cool down: 1 hour)

  Mana Sacrifice: Trade health points for mana points.

  Precision Strike: This skill allows you a single strike that will strike with one hundred percent accuracy if not stopped. (Cool down: 5 minutes.)

  Skills

  Mana Magic: 70% towards next level. 50% resistance [Level two]

  Water Magic: 14% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level two]

  Earth Magic: 55% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]

  Fire Magic: 25% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level three]

  Air Magic: 20% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level four]

  Dark Magic: 100% resistance. [Max level]

  --Necromancy—Skeleton: Level 3. Ghoul: Level 1. Zombie: level 1

  Light Magic: 10% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level three]

  Lightning Magic: 86% towards next level. 50% resistance. [Level three]

  Mana Manipulation: Process of efficiently using mana. 99% towards next level. Cast speed, damage, success rate. +12% effective. [Level five]

  Spell Creation: You have the ability to create your own spell. Current limit of four runes. 12% towards next level. (Non-Passive) [Level Four]

  Sneak: You are able to slightly conceal your presence and noise. 10% reduction to noise and noticeability. -45% reduction to speed. [Level two]

  Tracking: You are able to follow game by their tracks. [Level One]

  Pain Constitution: You are able to ignore 1% of pain. [Level one]

  Appraise: You are able to see name and level of all mobs. [Level two]

  Tame: You are able to tame creatures level five or under. [Level three]

  Charm: Convince any mob of equal level and lower fortitude to listen to you. Limit: 2. Length: 2 hours. [Level 4]

  Swordsmanship: Practitioner. You know which end to hold the sword by.

  --Dual Wield—Practitioner. You can now hold both weapons by their handle…right?

  Mana creation: Create any object at the cost of mana. Can’t be magical [Level 1]

  Speed attack: Next attack is twice as fast. (Cost: 5% of full stamina)

  Heavy strike: Next hit does x2 damage (Cost: 20% of full stamina)

  Tremor: Stomp the ground to send nearby opponents falling as the earth shakes. (Cost: 50% of full stamina)

  Quests

  Summon a minor god

  Looking at the stats for a few minutes I contemplated the difference between skills and abilities and realized why I lost stamina so quickly. Skills cost something, be it mana or stamina while abilities didn’t cost anything. The only downside to an ability was the cooldown which only applied to most combat moves. I would definitely have to start working on leveling up my skills as well as using my stamina a little wiser. I looted the zombies of their bones and continued on constantly using Mana Creation to create common daggers and placing them in my bag. By using the castles recently restored mana I made sure to keep mine full and hopefully I would level up the skill.

  Traveling through the tunnels we started to hear a familiar groaning and got into the same position as last time. The tunnel naturally funneled the zombies this time but I could tell we were being slowly pushed back. The zombies were a lot tougher being at level 43. As an endless amount came I noticed my stamina dropping once more and focused on conserving as much as I could by using as little amount of skills as possible and sure enough my stamina regen balanced out with my dropping mana and I was able to control the flow of the battle a little better. Four hundred zombies later we finally finished them off. We had been pushed back completely to the first cavern and I had to once again cast walls to funnel them in.

  I collected all the bones from the zombies and finally took a break. For some reason I felt weary, not out of stamina, but just a feeling that I needed to sleep. Laughing at my stupidity I realized that I would need to sleep! I liv
ed here and like my other world I would need to complete bodily function. The thought that this was real was starting to set in even more as I thought about the things I would have to do from now on to stay alive. I probably couldn’t respawn now that I was a part of this world. It was a little daunting but at the same time it was the best feeling I’d ever had! A true way I wanted to live my life!

  Calling the break to an end I decided to finish up the floor so we could head to bed afterwards. Traveling through multiple tunnels that lead to dead ends, we finally came upon the boss chamber to find it a little lackluster until I appraised the zombies.

  Congratulations! You have leveled up to level 3 in Appraise. From now on you will receive a short description of simple mobs and objects along with stats of all mobs.

  Level 50 Denounced Zombie: Denounced Zombies have no master and were created by an influx of dark mana. Though simple minded, these zombies are extremely tough and dangerous at higher levels and in groups.

  Seeing it as pretty straight forward, we cautiously drew one out of the fifty or so zombies to us to gauge its strength. Though they were definitely tougher I didn’t see a problem until it half health. The zombie’s eyes turned red and it forced itself forward with twice as much strength and speed. Luckily, I was quicker and jumped backwards regaining my startled composer. I quickly dispatched the zombie in the tunnel by slamming my pick into its head. Still fairly confident we let them come to the tunnel while I created another wall so only two could come through at a time. Happy with the easy experience it was a slow hour but finally we finished and were able to sweep into the cavern that held a small brown wooden box. Cautiously opening in a rippling wave of purple darkness shot out. Covering myself, I peeked out as I realize it did no damage. Laughing nervously, I once again looked in the box and saw a simple gem. Using my upgraded appraise skill, I read the description.