Endless Fantasy Online

by Devin Auspland

  Rose displayed a warm expression and took Luke’s hand in her own. “An adventurer’s life can be hard. As an immortal, you will probably die a lot in your journeys. That is something you will have to cope with. Non-travelers who choose an adventurer’s life aren’t as lucky.” She looked at Luke but he felt as if she was looking past him, as if her mind was recalling something. Her eyes started to well up before she let go of Luke’s hand and wiped her face.

  100 Reputation Gained with Rose the Alchemist.

  New Status: Liked.

  Reputation can be gained or lost by performing specific actions, completing quests, or speaking with various factions and NPCs. Reputation starts at Neutral but can be gained to a status of Family or lost to a status of Blood Feud. Positive and negative reputation comes with additional boons or detriments depending on your level of reputation and will affect your social interactions with anyone in that given faction.

  Note: This is a one time system message.

  He smiled at the system prompt and cursed the Crimson Shadow for killing him and, inadvertently, hurting this kind woman. Woman? He thought. She was technically just an NPC with a real person’s personality imprinted on her. Nothing more than 1s and 0s in a computer game. Aren’t I just 1s and 0s though? With my mind imprinted on this character? He shook the thoughts from his head. Contemplating this was like contemplating the meaning of life and he wasn’t a scholar by any stretch of the imagination.

  “How do you feel about herbalism?” Rose inquired as she went behind the store’s counter to grab something.

  “It’s fun, I guess. I saw what you did with those plants in the back and that looked neat.”

  Rose returned to the counter carrying a large thick book. She was definitely struggling to carry the book up the stairs but the look she gave him said “Help me and you’ll lose a finger.” She threw the book down and a bloom of dust flew around the room. “This is a basic herbalist’s book. It should teach you everything you need to know to take care of the plants in my greenhouse.” She raised one eyebrow.

  “You want me to take care of your greenhouse?”

  Her face went warm again. “I can offer you a fair wage, lots of herbalism experience and a bedroll to sleep on if you need a place to sleep. I’m offering you a chance to learn before you venture out on your own again. Keep you from dying and all that.” She smiled.

  “This seems kind of sudden.” Rose had a hurt expression on her face. “I didn’t mean it like that.” He quickly recovered. “I just mean… why are you helping me? Aren’t there a ton of people who come through your shop that would be more qualified?”

  Rose gazed through him for a moment before her attention went to him again. “You remind me a lot of someone I knew a long time ago. Someone I was close with. I can offer you one more thing.” She took one of his hands in between both of hers and there was a quick flash of white light.

  Rose the Alchemist is offering to teach you the Herbalist profession. Herbalists gain +2 Intelligence and + 1 Wisdom while they have Herbalist set as their primary profession. Herbs and plants will also emit a glow that brightens the closer you are, making them easier to find. Accept / Decline

  Professions offer a different style of gameplay. Choosing your first profession will mark it as your primary profession. You will gain faster exp for activities related to your profession, but be careful before accepting any profession. You can only have one primary profession and will be unable to change your primary profession or learn a secondary profession until level 10. You can then change your professions every 10 levels after level 10. Note:

  This is a one time system message.

  Luke had no reason to leave the city, and he definitely didn’t want to run into the Crimson Shadow again. This sounded like a great offer to him, so he waved away the system message and hit the accept button on Rose’s offer.

  The next couple of days went by fast. After he accepted his new profession, Rose showed him to the small greenhouse behind her shop. She gave him a bedroll to put on the floor inside. It wasn’t that bad, and it didn’t give him any debuffs when he woke up in the morning.

  Rose would meet with him every morning to show him a variety of plants and how to take care of them. She was even kind enough to give him the Nature’s Regrowth spell that he returned to her. After tending to the plants, he would join Rose in her shop and handle the register while reading books on various plants, growth techniques, and even alchemy.

  All this learning resulted in huge gains for his character. He learned several skills like alchemy, gained points in herbalism, and even gained a few points in intelligence after he finished reading several books. It surprised him to gain attribute points from reading, but Rose explained that he could gain attribute points from all sorts of activities. For example, if he made enough wise decisions he could gain a point in wisdom, or if he ran a few marathons, he had a chance of gaining a couple points in agility or strength.

  Another great advantage was that Rose would have him go out and buy reagents for her at various shops. Not only was he quickly learning the city’s layout, but he would also get quest prompts to fetch her the items and gain small amounts of exp upon his return.

  The city was also changing. Every time he went on a shopping run he noticed fewer guards around town, and that a lot of the players spent most of their time at the local bars or doing small quests around town to earn enough money for drinks but rarely did they ever leave the city. A wave of depression seemed to hit them all. Luke would be in the same boat if it wasn’t for Rose keeping him occupied.

  Returning to the shop, Luke put his backpack full of Rose’s reagents on the counter and began to unpack them. “Hey Rose.” She raised her head from her current experiment and looked at Luke. “Do you know why there seems to be fewer guards in the city?”

  Rose went back to her experiment while answering him. “Ofcourse. Didn’t you listen to Guard Captain Holtz the other day? He's sending all spare men outside the city to search for the Queen and Princess. Apparently no one has completed his quest for information.”

  Luke scratched his head and tried to remember something about the Queen and Princess. With a Eureka moment he remembered. The King had passed away a few days ago! Captain Holtz was telling everyone about it before Rob interrupted with that lawyer to tell us we couldn’t log out. That must be hard for Rose and the other citizens to cope with.

  “Hey Rose. Are you ok with all that? I mean, he was your king right?”

  She looked up and gave him a warming smile that he was growing fond of. “Yes, my boy. King Henry was a good king and his passing saddens me but as long as we find the Queen and Princess, I think the whole Phoenix Kingdom will be fine.” She paused for a moment before continuing. “Ask me again if they don’t find them,” she concluded with a cautious smile.

  The bell above the door rang as the next customer entered and Luke returned to customer service mode. “Welcome to Rose Alchemy. Is there anything I can help you find?”

  The woman walking in was wearing pieced together armor. Her gloves, hood and leg guards appeared to be leather. Her chest piece was definitely chain mail and her boots appeared to be generic work boots. The most massive feature was a shield strapped to her back. A major grin of excitement at every little thing in the shop,and her armor choice, told him right away that she was a traveler. All of the NPCs he met who wore armor had matching sets. To be honest, he understood why. She looked downright ridiculous.

  “Do you have any health potions?” the woman questioned.

  Luke pointed to a bookshelf near the counter that had boxes full of various quality health potions. She perused them for a short while before pulling out two lower quality health potions and handed them to Luke. They were stored in two small red vials, about the size of his index finger, with cork stoppers in them.

  Low Quality Health Potion (Uncommon) x2 obtained. Restores 25 hit points when the contents are drunk. The whole contents must be drunk for the effect to take pl
ace. Health potions can not be shared.

  “Sure, that will be thirty gold.”

  The woman's jaw dropped. “Thirty! Don’t you think that’s kinda expensive? Would you take twenty?”

  He smiled as this had become one of his favorite parts of the job, bartering. Rose had spent a full day explaining her pricing to him and how much she would accept for all her items. She left the rest to him and trusted he wouldn’t give away her shop. After the first couple successful bartering attempts with various NPCs and travelers he gained the bartering skill, which gave him a small bonus to all bartering attempts.

  “Sorry, we simply can’t accept twenty.” He knew Rose would take as low as fifteen gold per potion of this quality, but he thought he owed it to her to get as close to retail price as he could. “We have more than that invested in them. I could go as low as twenty-seven gold for the pair.”

  “Hmm… I can only spare twenty-five. Mind meeting me in the middle?” she quickly rebutted.

  He grabbed his chin and attempted to seem like he was thinking hard on her counter offer. He nodded and a system pop-up rewarding him a skill point in bartering appeared. Smiling, he took the woman's money, added it to the register and handed her the potions.

  “If you don’t mind me asking, what level are you?” He inquired to the mystery women.

  “I’m a level three shielder.” She responded with pride. “The name’s Penelope, but everyone calls me Penny.” She extended her hand in greeting.

  “The name’s Luke, level two beginner.”

  Her eyes went wide. “Wait a minute. You're a traveler?” He nodded in response. “How the heck are you working at an NPC shop?”

  Luke explained his brief time in Endless Fantasy Online. His starting quests, meeting Rose, unlocking his elemental affinities and finally being murdered and offered a job.

  “The Crimson Shadow are the worst!” She shouted.

  “You know them?” He questioned.

  “They’re a guild of Player Killers. The sickos actually get pleasure from killing other travelers. I would be level four if it wasn’t for them. They killed me right before hitting level three and I lost a whole level’s worth of experience.”

  “What did you do in response?” Luke was curious if he could turn off some feature that allowed other players to attack him. Maybe a menu option he didn’t see.

  “Nothing really. Nothing I could do. I tried reporting the crime to a guard, but he laughed at me. Said I couldn’t have been murdered because I was standing in front of him. How could I be standing in front of him if I was dead? he kept repeating to me.” Luke chuckled a bit at the mocking baby voice she used when saying the guard's line. “I ended up joining a guild of my own though. A bunch of us get together and adventure outside of town. The Crimson Shadow seem to only go after lone players.”

  “A guild?”

  “Yeah, Travelers 4 Hire or T4H for short. We're currently working on saving up gold for a guild building.”

  “Hay beds in the inn giving you back pain?” He giggled briefly at the thought.

  She looked at him with a serious look in her eyes, signifying she knew exactly what he was talking about. They held their gazes for a few moments before they both broke out laughing.

  “You know, we're recruiting nice people to join. No requirements at the moment, other than not being a jerk.”

  Luke contemplated her offer for a moment but he didn’t want to leave Rose. “I’m sorry. I just got this position with the shop owner and I really…”

  “Nonsense, boy!” Rose came from the back room and up her regular stairs to the counter. “You’ve been cooped up here for almost a week now. I know an adventurer when I see one. Of course you do owe me, so I expect you to still help take care of the plants from time to time and run the shop when I need to take care of errands.”

  He allowed a grin to cross his face before responding. “You got yourself a deal. As long as I can still sleep on your greenhouse floor.” He visibly shuddered when thinking about returning to the straw beds at the inn.

  “You can go around back and let yourself into the greenhouse. Just don’t come in the shop and wake me up if you get in late.” She gave him a serious look.

  He nodded and faced Penny. “I guess I’m gonna meet with your guild, Travelers 4 Hire.”

  CHAPTER FIVE

  Travelers 4 Hire

  Penny took Luke to a large warehouse toward the bad part of town. He was getting concerned that he was being lured into a trap until they opened the large double doors to reveal a well lit room with many people going about their business. Everyone was smiling and seemed to be having a good time. It reminded him a lot of The Winged Pig Inn because of all the tables and chairs that were set up.

  “Guild Master Shrapnel!” Penny shouted across the room as she waved her arm in the air. She quickly pulled on Luke’s shirt, dragging him toward the man in question. “Guild Master Shrapnel, I have a potential new recruit for you.” Penny told Shrapnel everything about how she met Luke and what happened to him. At the mention of the Crimson Shadow, Shrapnel balled his hands into fists and his expression changed to one of anger.

  “Listen. If you are against the Crimson Shadow, I would be happy to give you a probationary spot,” Shrapnel stated while gesturing his hands at Luke.

  “Probationary?”

  “As a guild in the Phoenix Kingdom, we are only allowed a specific number of members based on our standing with the Kingdom. I don’t know if you know this yet, but reputation is hard to come by in this game.” Luke knew that. After working for Rose for almost a week and completing a laundry list of quests for her, he still hadn’t advanced from the liked status into friends.

  Luke pushed up his glasses and responded. “Sooo, what do I have to do?”

  “Join one of our parties and complete a couple of quests. I’ll ask your party leader in a couple days how you are doing and we’ll see where we are at that point. Sound fair?” Luke nodded in response and a pop-up appeared.

  New guild request: Guild Master Shrapnel of the Travelers 4 Hire (T4H) guild would like you to join on a probationary period. Accept / Decline.

  Joining a guild is a great way to mingle with fellow travelers and complete quests that are above and beyond your solo experience. Warning! You can only be part of one guild at a time and while part of a guild, a portion of all your exp, quest rewards and reputation will go to the guild. You didn’t think everything in life was free did you?

  Note: This is a one time system message.

  “Wait, I have to give up part of all my future experience, gold and reputation?” He was hesitant in hitting the accept button. Maybe this still was a trap.

  “Don’t worry. While you are on your probationary period, we collect nothing. If our guild likes you and you decide to stick around, I will give you a standard new guild member contract. We will only take one percent of all your gains to start unless you want to contribute more. It’s to help the guild gain good reputation and earn some money to buy a guild house in the city. We're renting this warehouse at a high daily rate and we really want to buy a headquarters.”

  “What about the experience?”

  “Guilds can level up in Endless Fantasy Online. The higher tier our guild gets to, the more perks all the members share. Currently all members get a small percentage to HP regeneration.”

  HP was hard to gain back when lost in this game. Luke had a spell to take care of that now, but to offer that to the whole guild would be a big boon. He wondered what other benefits came to the guild and thought the offer was pretty good. Plus, he could always leave if he didn’t like things.

  He hit the accept button and a sound of fanfare trumpeted in his ear. A new guild screen came into his vision with a list of known members, levels, classes and statuses. The screen also showed the current guild level, which was two, and the current boons, small HP regeneration. There was alo a message board of people talking about forming parties, asking for quest help and general chatter. L
uke’s current status in the guild was listed as probationary so when he tried adding a message to the message board, he got an error stating it was for full members only.

  “This is kinda neat. I’m glad to find some players who are doing more than drinking their days away in sorrow about our current status of being stuck in the game.” Penny, Shrapnel and most of the surrounding people within earshot all sighed in near unison.

  “We don’t really talk about that around the guild. Kinda a debbie-downer thing to say. We are all just trying to forget about it for now and make the best of our situation,” Penny blurted to break the mood that was settling over the room.

  “I’m sorry. I didn’t mean anything by it.”

  Shrapnel and Penny shook their heads and suggested to Luke that he forget about it.

  “Penny, would you mind taking Luke out on your team today? You’re the one who brought him to the guild in the first place and I know you’re looking for a fourth anyway. Kinda works out nicely.”

  Penny nodded and sent Luke a party invite that he quickly accepted. Penny laughed out loud when she read Luke’s title. Then the two of them headed for the city gate while they waited for their other party members to join them. Looking over his party list, Luke noticed two other people. There was someone named Backstabber Backstab and Nanoc, the Shirtless. They were both level three.

  “I see that you’re still a beginner but what’s your primary focus? How do you fit in the team?” Penny inquired.

  “I’m ranged with some support, I guess.”

  “Do you know about choosing a class yet?” Luke shook his head and Penny continued. “When you hit level three, the system will offer you a list of classes to choose from. They are all basic, but they advance into higher tiers as you level up your skills and meet certain requirements. They base the list of classes on your current skills and character statistics.”