“Oh, stop scaring the kid,” giggled Krolina, as the veterans had gone into the storehouse with us. She wagged her finger at the storekeeper before jabbing me in the side with it. “And you, don’t let him get to you.”
“Our hairy little miser here likes to have fun. But he gives you good stuff, and he’s honest, so don’t worry about it. By the way, King Leer, did you not know that Elina herself invited him to the clan?” Reineke Lis continued.
“Really?” Marcho answered in surprise. “For something he did?”
“Who knows?” Lis responded. “But maybe you’ll find out if you give him something nice.”
Marcho turned and headed deep into the room, made some noise, rustled around, and shouted back, “What do you fight with?!”
“A mace!” I shouted back.
We heard more noise from his direction before he finally returned holding an enormous shield loaded with different items.
“Here, take this. And remember what old Marcho did for you. When you level-up and decide to get new stuff, stop by and return this—maybe someone else will find a use for it.”
“Thanks, Marcho,” I said sincerely. “I’ll try my hardest.”
“Don’t try your hardest.” The halfling was completely serious. “Just do it.”
I only stopped to looked at what he’d given me after I left the storehouse, which was where I found everyone else busy doing the same. The ones who’d gotten their handouts first were already wearing them.
The things I got were pretty good. Maybe not extraordinary, but they would have cost me a pretty penny at an auction. Although, maybe not; I wasn’t sure what the prices were yet. The equipment I got included a breastplate, greaves, shoulder guards, a helmet, gloves, and boots—all with two attributes that added strength and stamina. Oh, and Marcho had splurged on the mace. It was rare, it was violet, and it had four attributes.
North Wind Mace
Damage: 25-45
+5 to strength
+7 to stamina
+5% to critical strike chance
+14% fire damage
Durability: 80/80
Minimum level to use: 15
Quite the snazzy little guy, and much more than I expected. The shield was also pretty good, if blue and usual.
Warrior Shield
Protection: 220
+6 to strength
+23% chance of reflecting blows
Durability: 180/180
Minimum level for use: 15
“Well, everyone happy?” asked Eilinn with a smile.
“Yes, thanks, this is great!” we answered without any unison whatsoever.
“Then before you leave, let me say this—remember that the clan has your back. I hope you remember your rights and responsibilities. However, with that said, we have one main responsibility and one main right. Your biggest responsibility is to avoid discrediting the clan in any way, either in word or deed. And for your most important right, remember that you are now part of the clan and can ask for help whenever you need it. I’m sorry if that sounds too dramatic…”
“Everything clear?” Sergeant’s voice rang out. “Don’t make mistakes, and don’t be afraid. That’s pretty much it.”
Eilinn sighed in frustration and turned to head toward the fortress.
“Regarding transportation,” Sergeant bellowed. “Lis will take anyone who wants to go to Aegan with him. The rest of you can leave the fortress, as you’ll be fine in this area at your level so long as you don’t do anything stupid. The bots around here are Level 33-35.”
“You should go to Aegan,” Reineke Lis said, walking up to me. “You haven’t been to the class instructor yet, right?”
“Right,” I responded.
“Then come on, I’ll show you where he lives in Aegan.”
And we walked through the portal.
Aegan was as loud, colorful, and picturesque as ever. Players and NPCs darted around like pizza delivery boys, arguing as they went.
“Thanks, everyone,” said Oygolinn. The portal rolled up, and we were left standing on the street.
“That was great,” said Fladr suddenly, and I realized that I hadn’t heard a dozen words out of him the whole day. He turned to Oygolinn. “You’re a fantastic leader. If you decide to get a group together, let me know.”
“Me, too,” said Flosi.
Flosi wants to add you as a friend.
Accept?
Fladr wants to add you as a friend.
Accept?
I accepted all their requests—Flosi’s, Fladr’s, and everyone else’s. Then I sent one of my own to Oygolinn. He glanced at me and nodded his head slightly.
“Well, are we all friends now?” asked Krolina jovially.
I grunted and sent friend requests to her and Reineke.
“That was fast,” nodded Lis.
“As lightning,” said Krolina with a laugh. “Bottled…”
Reineke Lis accepted your friend request.
Added to friends.
Krolina accepted your friend request.
Added to friends.
“All right, I’m out,” said Oygolinn, slinging his bow over his back and heading toward the market.
A second later, everyone else had scattered as well.
“That guy’s a born leader,” Lis said quietly to Krolina.
“You think Eilinn didn’t notice?”
“What are you still here for?” Lis turned to me.
“You wanted to take me to the instructor,” I reminded him.
“Oh, right. Kro, are you coming with?”
“No, I’m going offline. See you, boys!” Krolina stuck her tongue out at us, turned on her heel, and disappeared into a shadow that meant she’d logged out of the game.
“Let’s go,” said Reineke, and we started off down the street.
“Have you known each other long?” I asked Lis.
“Kro and I? Yeah, it’s been a while. We’ve been through the ringer together. A while ago, we were together in a different clan, then we jumped over to the Thunderbirds. She did a little before me. Doesn’t matter. Turn left here.”
As we chatted away, we came to a small alley with six or seven buildings lined up side by side. The entrance to each had a carved plywood sign above it: a shield and sword, a staff, a bow, and so on.
“This is the instructor street,” said Reineke, and pointed toward the building with the shield and sword. “That’s where you’re going. Stay here and wait for me when you’re done.”
I walked in. Fayroll does nothing if not break down stereotypes. I expected some gray-bearded and gray-haired old warrior covered in iron, maybe even missing a limb, who would greet me with a thundering voice of steel, “Hello, hero! Have you come for your lessons?”
Well, something like that.
Ha! The interior of the building looked something like an old wooden hut, just without the fire pit. And inside it, sat a gray old man carving something out of wood. He looked at me and asked, “What can I do for you, sonny?”
“I need skills…I guess. Maybe I’m not in the right place?”
He’s probably playing a joke on me. I thought about Lis. This must be where they teach crafters! What a little joker!
“Are you a warrior, by any chance?” the old man asked me.
“Yes, a warrior.”
“And what level are you?”
“19.”
“Then you’re in the right place.” He smiled again. “Who would you like to be?”
“What do you mean?”
“Well,” the old man began, spinning his short knife in the air, “there are all different kinds of warriors. Some attack, others defend, and all of them have their own kind of weapon. Some prefer swords, others go with maces or balls and chains. So who are you? Or who do you want to be?”
“Phew, gramps, I’m not sure. Well, I don’t want to protect. I have a shield, so I guess I don’t want to go with dual swords. And really, I’d rather do without swords altogether for now. I do h
ave this pretty nice mace, though.”
“Well, there you go. So, you’re an attacking warrior whose main weapons are the shield and mace, at least for now. Right?” The talkative simpleton suddenly turned serious and got down to business.
“Yeah, pretty much.”
“Great. Then I’ll make you a warrior. Just bring me ten enemy swords, clubs, or just any melee weapons, but make sure you get them in battle. Then I’ll make you a warrior. Okay, that’s all for now, off you go. I have to finish this whistle for my granddaughter.”
You have a new quest offer: In Search of Steel.
Task: get 10 weapons from defeated enemies.
Reward:
400 experience
Opportunity to get your first class skills
Accept?
I was mad as a hornet when I left the old man. All I needed was a quest back in the lowlands; those swords were everywhere.
“What, the old man got you all confused?” Reineke walked up to me.
“No, not that. Where am I supposed to get ten swords? There are only animals around the city, so I’ll have to go a ways to find them.”
“I’m starting to feel like the Wizard of Oz!” laughed Reineke. “Calm down, my good man, I’ll help you in your hour of need. I’m about to port to a little village where the bots are all around Level 20 and mostly goblins. Well, there are animals, undead, and unhuman, too, of course, but mostly it’s just humanoids. You can get everything you need from them, and you’ll even do some leveling-up. What do you think, want to come with me?”
“Well, of course!” I nearly jumped for joy. “I’d love to!”
“Oh, and here.” Reineke pulled an amulet on a chain out of his pocket. “This is for you.”
“For what?”
“Just a gift,” Lis smiled. “I carried it around for a while when I was at your level. Someone gave it to me, as well, and I left it in my room after I leveled-up and found something better. Honestly, I almost never sell my old weapons and armor. I feel like I’d miss them. Anyway, you don’t need armor, since they gave you a good set, but you could use this amulet. Take it.”
I opened my exchange window, received the amulet, and checked it out.
Temple of Strength Amulet
+9 to strength
+13 to stamina
+7 to agility
+14% to critical strike chance.
When combined with the Blow from Below ability, 50% to your ability to instantly repeat it.
Class limitation: only warriors
Minimum level for use: 15
Elite! He gave me an elite amulet. I was in shock, to say the least.
“Cat got your tongue?” Lis asked amiably.
“Like you don’t know. You don’t mind giving me something elite?”
“My dad once told me to pay it forward,” he said. “Let’s head to the village.”
“The scroll isn’t too expensive?”
“Well, I need to go there regardless. By the way, have you forgotten anything?”
“To say thank you?”
“What do I need your thanks for? If the goblins kill you right when we get there, where will you respawn?”
“Oh, da-a-amn!” I even felt a little embarrassed. “Where’s the northern gate? I had my respawn point there.”
“Whatever, let’s go. You can relink in the village. You’ll probably die at some point anyway…”
“How will I get back from the village?”
“Well…by walking. You don’t have the money or abilities for a horse yet. But it’s okay, the locations between there and Aegan aren’t too bad. Although there are PKers… And it’s far. Or you can go to a different city—Khitskern and Fladridge are nearby.
“But I have to get back to the old man to finish my quest.”
“You can finish it with someone else. They’ll ask you if you’ve already been to another instructor, and you’ll say you have. Then you just tell them what you got, and you’ll finish the quest. They all have the same abilities.”
After I linked to the respawn point and confirmed it by seeing the stone blink, Reineke pulled out a scroll and used it. We stepped into the portal that opened.
It left us in the middle of a village square. I could tell that it was the square thanks to an obviously communal well, a few stands, and some tongue-waggers sitting around discussing everything under the sun. Well, the respawn stone also helped. I didn’t get a message with a story like, “…this village was founded by two brother hunters after a long trek through forests, mountains, and dales…” It turned out that not all settlements and sites deserved their own backstory. Or the developers were just too lazy to think one up for all the different places in the game.
The little village, from what I could tell, was small, with maybe a bit less than 40 homes. It was surrounded by a palisade wall, behind which, judging by the treetops peeking above it, was a forest. My map, which I opened as soon as we left the portal, helpfully told me that the village was called Tocbridge.
“Reineke, where are those two cities?” I asked Lis, correctly assuming that he was pressed for time.
“One is here, the other is here.” He pulled his map out of his bag and pointed to them.
“Oh, wow, you have a map, too. Not just the built-in one.”
“Yep. You can get one in a quest after Level 40. Or you can buy one, though they’re really expensive.”
“Does it show everything? The whole continent?”
“Not everything for the quests, no. You reveal it as you go along, and it shows where you’ve already been. The one you can buy shows everything, though, except dungeons and secret areas. But it’s seriously expensive.”
If someone at his level thought it was really expensive, then for me it was unthinkable. But who really cares? I had the built-in map, after all. The cities were very close. While it was a five-day walk to Aegan, the other two were just a day and a half or two days away. One was to the north; one was to the east.
“Okay, I’ll see you. Send me a message if you need anything.”
Reineke shook my hand and headed for the village gate. When he got there, he turned and called back, “Don’t forget to do some quests!”
“I won’t,” I said to his retreating figure. “Tomorrow.”
Afraid to trust my memory, I immediately linked to the local headstone, which is what I had decided to call the respawn points. I sat down near the well and hit the log out button. I pulled myself out of the capsule with a groan and massaged my low back.
“I’m spending too much time lying down. That’s not good, I need to move around more,” I said to myself. “Maybe I should call up Elvira? Maybe I should eat first. Or I could combine the two: she can come, cook, and then we could get to work. First one, then the other.”
My pleasant thoughts were interrupted by my phone ringing. I stepped over to the table and checked the screen—Mammoth was calling.
“Hi, Semyon Ilyich,” I answered.
“He-e-ey, Nikiforov! You deigned to pick up your phone! I guess you’re just drinking your life away.” The boss’s roars echoed across the phone line.
“Yeah, right. I’m doing what you told me to do—spending every day sitting in the game…well, laying.”
“You aren’t doing crap! Where’s my article? Where’s my article, you twerp?”
“What am I, a meteor?” My confusion was completely sincere. I’d only spent three days in there…or had it been four?
“You have a month to write a nine-part article series. Every three days, get out and write something!”
“What do you mean, nine-part series? Okay, so it may have grown a little, but not by that much. Six-part! We talked about six articles.”
“Okay, fine. Six. But the first one needs to be in my inbox tomorrow morning. No matter what!”
“No matter what?”
“No matter what. Make it happen!”
“I’ll figure something out,” I said dejectedly and hung up the phone. I look
ed to see who else had called and saw that that was Mammoth’s sixth call that day.
Looks like some clients of his are turning up the heat, I thought. They paid money, now they want to see some results. They should have just paid me. I’d have written the whole thing for them without ever even trying the game. This way…
But what frustrated me most was that my plans for Elvira were off. Girls and writing serious material generally go together as well as “evil” and “genius.”
After scarfing down some pelmeni, I sat down at my computer and confidently typed in my title: “A New World for Millions.”
I hammered away until 2 a.m. The article didn’t turn out too badly, and Mammoth would be happy, at least, with the gold-star treatment I gave Radeon. I brushed my hair back and said, “Nice work, nice work. Genius! A star in the modern literary firmament.”
And with my debt paid, I went to bed with battle waiting in the morning…again…
***
It was morning in the village. Roosters crowed in the yards, some bird squawked away annoyingly from behind the palisade wall, the villagers walking up to the communal well added to the hubbub, and an elder or just some old guy bellowed along. I went over to see if he needed anything, though the noise he made could have just been his normal manner of speaking.
“Can I help you?” I asked him for the third time.
“Definitely,” he nodded his head. “E-e-eah, for sure—good timing!”
That “e-e-eah” was starting to get to me.
“E-e-eah what?”
“E-e-eah, I need help!”
“Help with what?”
“Exactly!”
“What, your ear?”
“No, no, no, my ears are fine. My eyes, too! And my teeth…the few I have left. Don’t worry about them. I need help!”
“What kind of help do you need, you simpleton?”
“Definite help!”
“O-o-okay… Oh, by the way, how much will you pay?”
“Ah-ha, down to business!” The old man’s face instantly went from moronic to focused, and his manner altered markedly. Apparently, he took me for someone in charge, or maybe just some rascal. “We’ll write a receipt for 300 gold, and you’ll get 230 if you do the job. What do you say?”
“270.”
“240.”
“285.”
“250.”
“Got it!”
More Than a Game Page 10
