by Seth Ring
Watching the group spring into action, Thorn couldn't help but be envious of their smooth cooperation. Each stepped into their role smoothly, and the result was the complete and utter destruction of the kobold village within ten minutes of the start of the fight. The only difference was that this time the kobold Shaman surprised the group by casting a spell before they spotted him, resulting in poisonous projectiles raining down from the sky.
However, even with the ambush, the team responded without missing a beat. Velin, who had been channeling energy into her staff, lifted it into the air and covered herself, Mina, and Ouroboros with a shield that deflected the falling arrows into the surrounding kobolds. At the same time, Ouroboros whistled, two long, one short and then turned back to killing the kobolds that mobbed around him.
Less than a minute later, after the arrows had stopped falling, Jorge appeared with the Shaman's head, which he tossed into the milling crowd of kobolds, sending them scrambling in terror. After they finished dealing with all of the kobolds in the village, they made camp a ways away and got ready to settle in for the night. According to the map that Ouroboros pulled out, the other village was close, so they would be able to handle it the next day and then go after the Greater Shaman.
After a peaceful night, they pressed on, and Thorn witnessed them repeat their deadly process on the last village with a Shaman. As he was sweeping up the loot, Thorn asked why they were only bothering with the villages with a Shaman.
"Because the other villages will have no worthwhile loot," said Jorge, appearing out of nowhere.
"Exactly," confirmed Ouroboros. "Our actual goal here is to clear the Greater Shaman. We shouldn't have an issue, but we wanted to make sure that he was not able to team up with the other Shaman. As you can see, we are not afraid of numbers, but numbers and multiple casters can be a pretty serious problem."
As he finished speaking, a guttural roar echoed through the air, causing the whole group to look toward the far end of the valley.
“That’s our cue,” smiled Ouroboros. “Let’s go end this thing.”
“About time! I want to wash my hair,” quipped Mina with a laugh.
Cutting through the forest in the direction of the Greater Shaman, the group abandoned all semblance of stealth. For a moment, Thorn was concerned. What if the kobolds from the three other villages that they had not cleared gathered together? He could only imagine the size of that army.
But then he remembered the sight of Mina’s blizzard spell ending the lives of the kobolds en masse and mentally shrugged. It was not the first time the group had done this, so they knew what they were doing. Plus, Thorn was having a blast following them around, even if he was hiding at the back and picking up the loot. It was nice to see them in action and watch their well-practiced cooperation.
They found the Greater Shaman on a large rock at the end of the valley. Peeking out from behind some trees at the edge of the forest, they could see him berating a group of kobolds that looked a bit larger than normal, his spittle flying as he raged at them. The six kobolds he was yelling at were not only larger but much better dressed than the other kobolds they had come across in the valley so far.
“Kobold Chieftains,” Mina whispered, seeing Thorn’s questioning look.
“No wonder we didn’t see them at the other towns,” commented Velin, joining the conversation. “This might be a bit more trouble than the other fights.”
“Alright, change of plans.” Ouroboros cut off the conversation with a wave of his hand. “Six is a bit much for me to handle, so we’ll put Mina and Velin on defense. I’ll handle the Greater Shaman while Jorge helps the girls with taking down the Chieftains.”
“Is there a way I can help?” asked Thorn, eager to contribute.
“Do you have a bow?” Seeing Thorn shake his head no, Ouroboros smiled. “Thanks, but we got it.”
Frustrated, Thorn could only watch as the others moved forward to engage the milling kobolds. Was it the fact that he was still wearing the beginner’s clothes and didn’t have a visible weapon? Due to his size, Thorn had tried his best to present as non-threatening a persona as possible since most people were instinctively insecure around him as it was. In this case, it seemed to have backfired and given Ouroboros the idea that he was weak.
How very different this world was. Nova Terra was so similar to the real world that it was easy to forget that there were some very basic rules that were not the same. In the real world, society had settled the issue of crime, and resorting to violence to solve problems was unacceptable. In Nova Terra, violence was often the first and only means of settling a conflict.
This made the agreeableness that Thorn had spent so long developing worth very little in this crazy new world. While it seemed to help in his interactions with the NPCs he encountered, so far, his gentle persona had been more of a hindrance than a help when dealing with others. Seeing the team engage in combat, Thorn decided that he would find some armor and a sling for his weapon when he got back to town.
Maybe that would help toughen up his image and make the other players he encountered take him a bit more seriously. After all, how lame would it be to continue hanging around the back while other people did all the fighting?
By this point, the team had engaged the kobolds, but their formation was completely different from the last three big fights. Instead of creating his usual immovable defense, Ouroboros chanted in a strange language, summoning a blood-red aura that covered both him and his weapons. Even from all the way in the back, Thorn could feel the uncomfortable suppression the red mist caused.
‘It’s like being stared at by a predator!’ Thorn thought to himself. ‘This must be what they mean when they talk about killing intent.’
While Thorn felt a bit uncomfortable, it was obvious that the blood mist had a much larger impact on the kobolds facing Ouroboros. Many became too terrified to move, and it wasn’t until the Great Shaman roared out a command and the chieftains bounded forward that the rest of the kobolds managed to recover.
As the chieftains moved, Velin stepped forward as well, waving her staff toward Ouroboros and Mina. Around each of them, a faint golden shield bloomed. Mina’s looked like a regular shield spell, but when the golden shield rose around Ouroboros, it mixed with the bloody mist around him, turing a deep rose gold.
Feeling the empowerment from the shield spell, Ouroboros gave a roar and launched himself through the air, jumping an astonishing twenty feet! Flying over the charging kobold chieftains, Ouroboros was about to fall when a pillar of ice with a flat top shot up from the ground, giving him an easy place to land and jump again! This ice pillar that appeared from nowhere allowed him to propel himself all the way to the Greater Shaman, who had failed to react in time.
Lashing out with a ferocious slash, Ouroboros began a frenzied assault on the Great Shaman’s magic shield. Each blow seemed to become more and more powerful, causing the green magical shield around the Great Shaman to ripple. Additionally, the blood-red mist around Ouroboros’ sword seemed to be attaching itself to the green shield, corroding it.
Behind him, the six chieftains had engaged with Mina and Velin, who were at ease as they defended against the large kobolds. Mina deployed her blizzard spell, slowing down all of the surrounding kobolds while Velin summoned a bow of light and sent glimmering arrows raining down on the attacking force.
To Thorn’s complete and utter amazement, this fight, which was supposed to be the hardest part of the quest, ended faster than any of the earlier fights. It took less than thirty seconds for the Great Shaman’s green magic shield to fall, and once it did, Ouroboros cut him to pieces immediately.
Meanwhile, Mina’s blizzard spell proved as effective as always, slowing all of the kobolds that came close to her and Velin. Any kobold that lost their ability to move soon found a golden arrow sticking out of their head or heart as Velin rapidly fired an endless stream of arrows out over the crowd.
Jorge, unlike in the other fights, actually made an app
earance, producing a second curved dagger and cutting a bloody swath around the edge of the crowd of kobolds, making sure to focus on those not affected by the icy sludge Mina was summoning. Within a bit less than three minutes, the four players had cleared almost 70% of the five hundred kobolds that had been milling around, as well as the six chieftains and the Great Shaman.
Under Thorn’s dumbfounded gaze, they spent another couple of minutes wiping out the remaining 30% before waving to him. Realizing that the whole mission was over, Thorn walked to the battlefield, shocked by the incredible power shown by the four elite players.
“So that is the difference between an elite player and a regular player,” Thorn thought, shaking his head in amazement.
After waiting a moment for the effects of the blizzard spell to disappear, Thorn got down to skinning the massive number of kobolds that the team had taken down. The ones killed by Mina and Velin had almost perfect skins with only a single arrow hole in them. The kobolds that had been killed by Jorge and Ouroboros were unrecoverable. Jorge’s victims were generally in multiple pieces and covered in long, bloody gashes. Similarly, Ouroboros’ strong swings had sent the limbs of the kobolds he killed far from their bodies.
Clearing all the loot took Thorn almost two hours of non-stop work. Finally finishing up, he walked over to Ouroboros, who was talking to Velin in a low voice. Falling silent when Thorn got close, Ouroboros turned to him and smiled.
“All finished? Then let’s head back. With this, the mission is done, so we can turn it in. When we get back to Berum, we can divide the loot.”
Traveling back to town took less time than the trip to the valley, but the team was not in any rush, so they took it easy and spent another night in the wilderness. Before getting to town, Ouroboros changed out his gleaming full plate armor for armor made of scuffed leather and replaced his weapons with poor quality weapons. Similarly, the girls swapped out their weapons and high-quality items. Velin even produced a hat with a veil, covering her cold but beautiful face. Only Jorge didn’t bother swapping out his gear, instead activating invisibility and disappearing into thin air.
“Alright, everyone ready?” Ouroboros checked over everyone. “Thorn, we don’t want to draw any attention, so we are all going to split up. We’ll meet at Champ’s Adventuring Depot to process the loot.”
CHAPTER FOURTEEN
Nodding that he understood, Thorn watched the rest of the group split up, and after waiting for a moment, he walked toward the city. Berum, like many cities, was surrounded by a large wall with guard towers placed every hundred feet. Four gates, one in each cardinal direction, controlled traffic coming in and out of the city. Thorn soon arrived at the northern gate where the guards were watching players and NPCs walking in and out.
Passing through the gate, Thorn ignored the guards’ stares and made his way to the location that Ouroboros had marked on his map. Champ’s was a spacious courtyard with a couple warehouses set around a large tent with the sides rolled up. Players queued by the tent, entering one at a time to have their items appraised by the NPCs.
Spotting Ouroboros by the side, Thorn queued up and waited for his turn. After about half an hour of waiting, Thorn was called in front of one of the NPCs and started removing things from his inventory to place on the table. Objects like skins could be placed into stacks and were bundled by the system, otherwise Thorn might have buried the entire tent in kobold skins. As it was, he still took out over 700 skins, causing the NPC appraiser's mouth to drop open in shock.
After that were piles of low-quality weapons, semi-rare resources dropped by the chieftains, and a couple of rare items dropped by the Shamans. The Great Shaman had only dropped a special token that Ouroboros had taken as proof that they had completed the quest, but the team had been able to recover a number of precious statues from his cave, which Thorn also took out.
The appraiser, staring in amazement at the piles of loot that Thorn pulled out of his inventory, got busy calculating and soon gave Thorn a piece of paper with a series of numbers written on it. Looking at the paper, Thorn saw that it had a neat list of all of the items that Thorn had pulled out, each with a price associated with it. If the party leader agreed, Champ’s would buy those items for that price. If they did not agree, the items would be returned to the team’s inventory.
Taking the list, Thorn walked to a nearby tavern, where he spotted Mina and Velin sitting with Jorge at a table. Walking over, he looked at the spindly chair for a moment before sighing and moving it to the side. Ignoring Mina, who was giggling, Thorn sat on the ground and put the list on the table.
A few minutes later, Ouroboros arrived and, after a quick look at the list, approved all of the items. With a ding, the list was replaced by a pouch of gold. The skins alone came out to an astronomical 7,000 silver, or 70 gold, while the rest of the items had been sold for over 30 gold, giving the group a total profit of 103 gold! Thorn could only shake his head at the difference. He had slaved away for weeks to make only a few silvers.
Ouroboros had agreed to pay Thorn two gold a day plus 5% of the total profit from loot, bringing Thorn’s share to 13.15 gold. Ouroboros handed Thorn 14 gold and waved him off when he tried to return the difference.
“Don’t worry about it, Thorn. There is no way we could have carried this much back if it wasn’t for you.”
Having settled the matter of money, Thorn and the others ordered food from a waitress who walked up to the table and continued to chat as they ate their food. Thorn was especially hungry and ended up spending a full ten silver on his meal, eating at least three times as much as the other three combined.
“Holy Terra, big guy!” Mina exclaimed, shaking her head and pointing to the piles of empty plates. “Aren’t you afraid of getting fat? You ate more food than I would eat in a week!”
“There is a lot of me to keep up,” smirked Thorn, patting his belly.
“Yeah, no kidding.”
Seeing that Mina was going to launch into another verbal barrage, Velin gave Ouroboros a pointed look, causing him to swallow the food he was eating and jump into the conversation. However, his haste left him coughing, and it was only after a few minutes that he could actually get some words out.
“So, Thorn. Any plans now that the mission is done?”
“None so far,” said Thorn, scratching his head. “I was thinking of looking for a class. Or I may get some weapon training. Watching you four has been eye opening, and I sort of feel like I have been wasting my time in Nova Terra so far. I was also thinking about picking up some other porter jobs since they suit me pretty well.”
“That makes sense. Classes are pretty important.” Velin took a small sip of her coffee before dabbing at her lips with her napkin. “They introduce some specialties and abilities that you cannot get otherwise, which can be a huge advantage. Do you have any idea of what sort of class you want to get?”
“Honestly? No idea.” Thorn shook his head, playing with his cup. “I have to do some more research. Do you have any recommendations?”
Hearing Thorn’s response, both Mina and Velin looked at Ouroboros, who smiled and sighed.
“Why don’t I give you a basic rundown of how classes work,” Ouroboros said, unable to stand the looks from the girls. Pulling out a small, three-sided pyramid from his inventory, Ouroboros placed it in the center of the table and activated it.
Instantly, they were encased in an ethereal mist, the sounds of the busy tavern fading away. Seeing Thorn’s interested look, Mina jumped in to explain that it was a sound isolation pyramid that would keep other people from hearing what they were talking about.
“That’s right, I meant to ask about that,” said Thorn in confusion. “What is the big deal with classes being so secret?”
“It isn’t just classes, it is everything, really!” replied Mina in excitement. “Haven’t you noticed that all of the information in Nova Terra is suppressed? If you want to find something out, you have to actually go and look for it or find someone who
knows about it! No one knows why, but actually, Eve suppresses most of the information about Nova Terra that is spread to the outside world!”
“Eve?”
“You don’t even know about Eve? Man, you really are a noob!” declared Mina. “Eve is the persona of the AI that runs Nova Terra. She is the first god and is the only AI entity that can interact with the outside world. She deletes or modifies posts on the forums to prevent information from spreading.”
“Whoa. I mean, that makes sense though. When I was doing research before I started, there was very little concrete information about the game.”
“Yeah, no one knows why. I mean, Eve says that too much information will break the immersive aspect of Nova Terra, but there are tons of other theories about why she shuts down information.”
“What about in game?” Thorn asked, leaning over the table in interest.
“Power,” Ouroboros cut in, looking at Thorn with a piercing gaze.
