Veil Online - Book 1 (a LitRPG MMORPG Adventure Series)

by John Cressman

  She suddenly brightened. “Well, since we’re both stuck here, maybe we can work together to get to another village.”

  Jace thought about that. He needed to make it to the capital and that was going to be difficult by himself. Having another player help him would make things easier. At the same time, he would be helping her to leave this village. It did seem like a good idea.

  A thought hit him. This almost seemed almost too convenient. He was in a small village with no other players except one. And that one was a cute girl who needed his help. It seemed almost like a setup.

  Was it a setup? Could he trust her? Was she working for WorldCog? Were they watching him?

  Did he have a choice? If she were the only other player around, what choice did he have? None. Not if he wanted to make it to the capital. But he wouldn’t trust her. Not until she had proven herself. Maybe not even then.

  Smiling, Jace nodded. “Sounds like a plan! Let’s work together and get out of this village!”

  Chapter 12

  Charlena and he had agreed to meet the next evening and then she had logged off, leaving Jace alone. He looked at the sun and saw there wasn’t much time before it would be dark and he’d be weathering the cold night in nothing but his loincloth. He didn’t even have anything to make a fire with. Too bad that half-demoness wasn’t here. She could warm him up.

  He chuckled. Sure, she’d warm him up. And he didn’t mean in bed. He’d rather sleep with a viper. The little backstabber would probably roast him alive. But that gave him a flash of inspiration. He brought up his HUD and looked at the human’s special ability.

  Adaptable: Humans can change classes with experience penalty. Note: Normal multiclass restrictions still apply.

  Smiling to himself, he realized there was one class that could do damage and mount a defense in nothing but a loincloth. Mages. And since he was human, he could switch classes and not incur any of the normal experience penalties.

  But did he want to do that? He’d grouped and fought with casters but he’d never played a caster. In fact, he barely knew anything at all about them, other than the useful spells they had at the higher levels. He didn’t remember anything about the lower level mages.

  The nice thing about switching classes was, he retained abilities from his other classes. The limitation was the health and mana. Only the highest class received an increase in health and mana.

  So, while a player might have tons of abilities as a multi-class character, they were limited by their mana in how many they could use. Plus, trying to level multiple classes took time away a player’s your main class and you advanced more slowly. There were definitely pros and cons to multi-classing. In Jace’s case, the biggest drawback, the experience point penalty, wasn’t an issue since he was human.

  He debated for nearly half an hour before the sinking sun finally convinced him to just do it. After all, he could always switch back after he reached 2nd level. He went into his HUD, chose his class and hit the change class button.

  Available classes:

  Fighter

  Rogue (current class)

  Priest

  Mage

  All of his choices were the generic classes. He didn’t have access to any of the more powerful premium classes like wizard, warlock or sorcerer. Jace gritted his teeth. He had no choice. If he wanted to switch to a spellcaster, he’d have to go with Mage. So be it. He would do the best he could. After all, this was just until he could get back into the Mordred body - assuming he ever could.

  He chose Mage and received some warnings about the experience penalty. Since he was human and had Adaptable ability, he wouldn’t be penalized. He hoped. If that was broken too, he’d really be in bad shape.

  He confirmed his choice and was instantly assaulted by a screenful of system messages.

  Class changed. New class Mage.

  Adaptable: No experience penalty for second class.

  You have gained a new skill: Air Magic

  You have gained a new skill: Earth Magic

  You have gained a new skill: Fire Magic

  You have gained a new skill: Water Magic

  You have gained a new skill: Staffs

  You have gained a new skill: Wands

  You have gained a new skill: Quilted Armor

  Ability gained: Summon Familiar

  You wish to choose a familiar now? (Yes or No)

  Jace read through the messages, noting the new skills he’d gained from the Mage class. They seemed fairly straightforward. He hadn’t received any Health or Mana from the class since it wasn’t his highest class. That was the way they kept balance. Only your highest class received health or mana. Too bad, he could have used the extra mana that Mages received. He looked at the pitiful 4 mana in his pool and hoped it would be enough to cast the 1st tier spells.

  He read further and noticed the Familiar ability. He’d forgotten about that. He’d seen the little fairy dragons that the wizards had or the imps that the warlocks kept. Excited by the prospect of having a little fairy dragon, he chose Yes. In response, he received a list of the available familiars.

  Choose familiar type:

  Baby Griffon (Sorcerer Only)

  Cat

  Faerie Dragon (Wizard Only)

  Ferret

  Imp (Warlock Only)

  Lizard

  Toad

  Seeing the list of familiars he could actually choose from, Jace’s heart sank. The best ones were reserved for the premium classes.

  He looked at his available options and smirked. What, no owl? None of the familiars he could choose had the ability to fly. He didn’t want a toad or lizard. That left Cat or Ferret. He thought about choosing the ferret and naming it Kodo or Podo and calling himself Dar, but he doubted anyone would get the reference.

  He’d always wanted a pet cat when he was a kid but his mom had been allergic. Maybe now he’d finally have one. He chose Cat.

  You have chosen Cat.

  Is this correct? (Yes or No)

  Note: Once chosen, a familiar cannot be changed.

  He glanced at the other choices once more before choosing yes.

  You have gained a familiar: Cat.

  Use the Summon Familiar to summon your (cat) Familiar.

  Jace had expected the cat to appear but apparently, he had to actually summon it. He brought up his HUD and found the Abilities section. He selected Summon Familiar (Cat). Instead of making the cat appear, he was prompted with a system message:

  Summon Familiar (Cat)

  Amount of Mana to invest in Familiar: (1-4)

  This perplexed Jace. What did it mean? Was he giving the familiar some of his mana? Was it permanent? Would he lose access to the mana? Since he only had 4 points of mana from his Rogue class, he really couldn’t afford to lose any.

  He debated cancelling the Summons. It might not be worth it. Having a familiar could definitely come in handy, but losing some of his mana might severely restrict what he could do. He thought for a few more minutes and finally decided to do it. But he only invested 1 point.

  After choosing 1 point of mana, it prompted him for the amount of health.

  Amount of Mana to invest in Familiar: (1-7)

  He read the prompt again. He had 8 health from his Rogue class, and it would allow him to invest up to 7 points. Would that leave him with a single point of health until he leveled? That seemed like a terrible idea. Once again, he chose 1.

  Summoning Familiar…

  Jace had just confirmed his choice when his world exploded. Pain like he had never felt wracked his entire body as it felt like his insides were being sucked out. He collapsed to the ground as blue and red streams of glowing particles burst from his chest and circled around a spot a few feet away. Through the haze of pain, he saw the blue and red particles swirl around until they formed the general shape of a cat.

  Finally, the pain subsided, and the swirling particles solidified into a small orange tabby cat and he received new system messages.

  Fam
iliar (Cat) Summoned.

  Ability Gained: Cat-Vision

  Note: Familiar abilities are only accessible when familiar is summoned.

  Cat-Vision sounded like a good ability to have. He wondered if it would allow him to see in the dark. He tilted his head so he could see his new cat familiar. It looked at him and tilted its head.

  “Food?” it meowed.

  Still recovering from the intense pain he’d just experienced, Jace did a double take. “What the -?! Did you just speak?”

  “Yes,” it meowed back in what he could have sworn was a condescending tone. “Food.”

  Jace shook his head, thinking perhaps the pain was causing him to hallucinate. He’d never heard a familiar speak to its master or anyone else. Pushing himself up, he looked down at the orange cat. “You can speak?”

  The cat glared at him. “Yes.”

  He’d forgotten he was just outside the village until a man came walking over hesitantly. “You okay? I heard you hollering a moment ago.”

  Jace hadn’t realized he’d been “hollering”. He looked at the man and viewed him in his HUD.

  Ernald

  Race: Human

  Class: Peasant

  Level: 1

  “Sorry,” Jace responded. The man was one of the normal non-player characters (NPCs) that populated the villages and cities of the land. He saw no reason to lie to the man. “I was summoning my familiar and it was a little more painful than I thought.”

  The man harrumphed and shook his head. “One of those wizards, eh?”

  “Mage,” Jace corrected.

  The man glared at him for a moment. “Wizard! Mage! Bah! What’s the difference? All that magic and what do you do with it? Nothing!” The man fixed him with a stare. “Now, if you could make some sort of magic to find my dog, that’d be something. Poor thing ran off this morning and I haven’t seen him all day.”

  Ernald of Sinking Springs has offered you the quest, “Find my dog?”

  Reward: 1 gold, +5 faction with Residents of Sinking Springs, +50 faction with Ernald.

  Accept quest? (Yes or No)

  Jace looked at the quest. He’d been high level for so long, he’d forgotten how tedious and unrewarding the lower level quests could be. But it was offering gold and right now he had none. Not having any other prospects at the moment, Jace accepted.

  “I’ll find your dog,” he told the man.

  Ernald eyed him and then smiled. “Well, I’d be much obliged if you could find my dog Rusty. He ran off to the south this morning and I haven’t seen him since. I’m worried something happened to him. My name’s Ernald and if you do manage to find him, I might have a spare coin I could give you.”

  “No problem. Just one question,” Jace told him as he got to his feet. “Which way is south?”

  The man nodded towards his left. “Good luck!”

  Ernald turned and walked off towards one of the houses. Jace looked down down at his familiar. “Ready to do our first quest?”

  The cat eyed him. “Food?”

  Jace shook his head at the persistent cat. “No, quest first, then food - if 1 gold is enough to buy food.”

  The cat just looked up at him.

  Rolling his eyes, Jace turned and headed the direction Ernald had pointed. It was a path that led out of town towards a forest. He looked back and saw his familiar padding along behind him. He wasn’t sure exactly what she’d be able to do to help him, but for now, at least he had company.

  He suddenly remembered the health and mana he had used to summon her. Bringing up his HUD, he looked at his stats. Both his health and mana had regenerated. Both stats were at maximum. That was good to know. The mana and health he used to summon the cat would regenerate. It wasn’t permanently gone. He smiled. At least something had gone right.

  Once they reached the forest, Jace found he had another problem. The twigs and pine needles were wreaking havoc on his bare feet. Geez! Why did everything have to be so painful! Their pace slowed as he had to carefully navigate through the forest to minimize the pain to his feet.

  They made it a hundred or so yards into the woods when Jace began calling out the dog's name. “Rusty! Rusty!”

  As Jace walked, he thought about what he needed to do. He needed to get to the capital. Barring some friendly wizard teleporting him- and given Charlena’s story he may not be able to trust a wizard - the only other way for low level characters to travel was either overland or via caravan.

  Overland was out of the question. Even with Charlena’s help, the area between towns was completely unpredictable. They could just as easily encounter ogres as they could goblins. Or much worse. And if you got far enough, there would be no possible way to retrieve your body if you died. You’d lose everything.

  The other way was to ride a caravan. Players could use an auto-follow feature and march with a caravan, even while they were not logged in. Their character would robotically follow the caravan and the guards would fight off anything that attacked the caravan. Usually. Extremely strong monsters had been known to wipe out caravans. But the risk was minor.

  Yes, a caravan would be the way to go and if memory served him right, they came to most towns once a week. He just needed to earn enough money to hitch a ride. Since Mordred was high level, it had been a while since he’d taken a caravan, but he thought it was either 100 or 150 gold to hitch a ride. That was chump change to Mordred but at the moment, Jace didn’t have a single gold. He’d need to work to get the money before the next caravan came in. At least he’d get 1 gold from this quest.

  Bringing his mind back to completing his quest, they kept moving into the forest with Jace occasionally calling out for Rusty. There was no answer and no sign of the dog. After about twenty minutes, the forest was growing almost too dark to see. Remembering the Cat-Vision, he brought up his HUB and saw a small icon of a cat in the lower right corner. He toggled it on and the world was transformed into what seemed like full daylight.

  “Wow,” Jace said and looked down at the cat next to him. “Is this how you see in the dark?”

  The cat gave him a smug look. “Yes.”

  Jace smirked. She was certainly a sassy cat. “You need a name.”

  His familiar just stared at him unblinkingly.

  He started thinking of names but quickly realized he didn’t even know what sex the cat was.

  “Are you male or female?” he asked.

  He thought the cat actually glared at him. “Female.”

  “Sorry,” he apologized. He began thinking of names, dismissing them as quickly as he thought of them until one popped into his head that made his eyes moisten. “How about Luna.” He swallowed a lump in his throat. “It was my sister’s name.”

  His familiar seemed to consider the name and then nodded. “Luna.”

  Jace smiled sadly. It had been years since he’d said her name aloud. It felt good. Sad. But good.

  “Come on Luna,” he said to the cat. “Let’s go find this dog.”

  It took them another 30 minutes before they found a small, bare clearing. With his Cat-Vision, he spotted some tracks and bent down to look at them.

  You have gained a new skill: Tracking

  Noticing the new ability, Jace smiled. The tracking ability came in much handier later in the game, but right now, it was also a godsend.

  He focused on the tracks and they began to glow faintly. Standing up, he saw a glowing trail of footprints that lead further into the woods.

  “Let’s go,” he told Luna and they hurried after the trail. A short time later, they heard howling. It was a sad, troubled howling and Jace guessed it was the dog. He continued following the tracks until he came to a large pit. Looking over the edge, he saw a dog at the bottom of a six-foot pit. It saw him and began wagging its tail and barking happily.

  Jace didn’t see a good way to free the dog. He could jump down into the pit and try to lift the dog up, but there was no guarantee that would work and he could get stuck down there himself. He had no rope t
o loop around it and pull it up.

  He began to look around the clearing until he saw what he needed. At the edge of the clearing was a large branch that must have broken off one of the trees. It was eight or ten feet long and maybe a foot wide. If he could push it into the pit, the dog could climb up it. Hopefully.

  The log ended up weighing more than he thought and it took him a while to drag it to the edge of the pit. Once it was there, he pushed one half of it down into the put so it made a makeshift ramp.

  “Come on boy,” Jace called to the dog. “Come on!”

  Rusty looked at the log but obviously didn’t know what to do with it. Jace was about to jump into the pit and help the dog up when Luna scurried down the log. She went all the way to the bottom of the branch and stopped. She looked right at the dog, then turned and climbed back up.

  Rusty looked from the branch to the cat at the top of the pit. Slowly at first, Rusty began to climb up but quickly picked up momentum and made it to the top.

  “Come on,” he said to the dog. “Let’s go home.”

  Rusty seemed to understand “home” and lead them back through the forest to the village. The dog ran right to the door of a specific house and started barking. It only took a moment for the door to open, revealing Ernald. His face broke into a huge grin and he bent down to pet and scratch his dog. “Rusty! You’re home!”

  “He’d fallen into a pit in the forest,” Jace told the man.

  “Bad dog,” Ernald said but there was no venom in his tone. He was obviously happy to have Rusty home.

  Ernald stood up and reached into his pocket and brought out a gold coin. “A deal’s deal. Here’s a gold for finding Rusty. Thank you stranger.”

  You have completed the quest, “Find my dog?”

  You gain 25 experience. Experience to next level 975.