“Just do it Wayne, none of us will laugh at you this time, I promise,” Dan tried to help.
“Wait. When were you guys laughing before?” Wayne asked.
“It was behind your back bro, like good friends always do. Now let’s hear what Alex has to say.”
Wayne crossed his arms across his chest and said, “Fine, let’s hear it.”
“Ok, first, Wayne you are right. You aren’t going to like this,” I said. But before Wayne could object I added, “I really want to see how much affect gear has on the game. I mean we tore through that mob pretty easy. I want to know if it’s our levels or our gear that is making the difference. So I want you to take off all your gear and put your old war hammer back on and go at the mob when it comes in. I want to see what other level 4s are dealing with when they are out here fighting.”
Wayne thought about this for a moment and then said, “Alright. I do see merit in that. I don’t like it, but I see the value. Laugh at me though and I’m going to punch Dan in the junk.”
“Why me?” Dan exclaimed.
“Because you laughed at me,” Wayne answered truthfully.
“But we all did! I wasn’t the only one!” Dan argued.
“You were the only one dumb enough to admit it. Once Allister has full mana, let’s give Alex his chance to satisfy his morbid curiosity.”
* * *
“Happy now?” Wayne said.
“Definitely!” I exclaimed. This may have been the wrong choice of words as Wayne stopped putting his gear back on and started reaching for his war hammer. “I mean; we know now that gear really does play a big role in the game. So we need to be cognizant of that and upgrade when we can!” I said quickly.
Wayne held on to the war hammer for a few more seconds before letting it go and saying, “Agreed.”
The one goblin Dan had been able to pull ended up being level 4, but tore through Wayne like paper. It was all Jason could do to keep him healed. And even then Jason needed to take a couple of hits before Wayne could reestablish aggro on the mob. Where before the mob was hitting for 60’s and 70’s, it was hitting for way over a 100 with Wayne in none of his gear. And his hammer was doing far less damage.
Once Jason had restored his Mana, Dan got back to pulling. We had no problem even with two mobs at a time. The only challenge we faced was when Dan pulled two blues at the same time, but even then Jason only went down to 60% mana, and Wayne was able to maintain aggro the whole time. The experience was trickling in and we were seeing our progress bars move at a steady pace. We still hadn’t found the merchant’s goods though.
“Guys, I was pulling farther back on that last pull and I spotted a mob closer to the middle. There is a tent like structure there. I wasn’t able to get a target on it so I couldn’t see what the name was. But I am betting that’s who has the merchant’s goods. What should we do?” Dan asked.
We all stopped for a moment. Not because of the information. We all figured something like this would be the case. A boss of the camp. No, what made us all stop was that Dan sounded like a perfectly normal human being for those few seconds.
“Guys, stop tickling each other’s taints and tell me what you want me to do. It’s not fair if I don’t get to join too,” Dan said.
And just like that, the moment of hope had disappeared.
“Relax there TC, we aren’t going to pull it this go around,” Wayne said.
“I would like to have full mana and all buffs refreshed before we engage an unknown mob,” Jason said.
“Agree with Allister. Let’s do another round, but this time we will get closer so we don’t have to pull the mobs as far,” I said. “What’s the respawn timer on these goblins Dan?”
“10 minutes. We have another two minutes before the first one respawns.”
“Perfect, this way we will shorten the time and we will have time to engage the mob, as long as it doesn’t boomerang,” I said.
Boss fights were often confined to a specific area. If you tried pulling the mob away from its spot it would boomerang back to its location, and usually fully regenerate its health. We were going to try and pull the boss, but if it boomeranged, Wayne would be ready to immediately engage it.
“Alex, I have an idea. Dan, make sure you only pull one on this first round. If we get two this won’t work. My thought is that if this thing boomerangs, and we know it likely will, we might get a respawn before we finish the fight. If that happens, instead of me tanking both and really risking Jason’s…sorry, Allister’s mana, we have either you or Dan grab it. You might die, but we will have a better chance of finishing the boss,” Wayne explained.
I remembered some of the discussions Wayne and I had about tanking strategies, and I knew I was right about him being a natural tank. Dan stepped up on this one without pause.
“I got that. I will be monitoring the timer, so I will know exactly when it should respawn. I’ll hit it from max range with an arrow when it spawns and then take it on a chase. Hopefully by the time we get back around, you guys will have finished off the bad guy,” Dan said.
And like that we were ready to start this next round and make our way to the boss.
* * *
“Someone in programming really does have a sense of humor. One Not a Trustworthy Goblin incoming. Be ready for the boomerang,” Dan said. The name of the goblin was yellow. We all hoped it was three levels higher than us, and not four.
Just like we believed, the mob boomeranged back into place after only traveling a short distance. Wayne immediately led the charge, screaming at the top of his lungs, “For the glory!”
Wayne engaged the mob and we could all see that this guy was going to be a challenge. He was hitting harder and faster than the other goblins. “Damn! He is hitting me for 100 plus. And he hits quick. Get ready to engage guys.”
We had thought that Jason might be able to do some damage in the beginning, but it became clear he was going to need to start healing quickly. We all jumped in and were doing less damage than we were against the white and blue goblins as well. We were only hitting for 30’s and 40’s, with Wayne hitting for 60’s and 70’s. I guessed the mob had around 5,000 or 6,000 hit points at the speed his health bar was going down. I got two Critical Strikes in a row for 80 and 87 each and that turned aggro to me for a brief second. I immediately took 150 damage from one hit. I stopped attacking and let Wayne reacquire aggro again, which happened quickly. A few more seconds and I probably would have been toast.
“Don’t heal me,” I said.
“Didn’t plan on it, now let me concentrate on Naugha,” Jason replied.
For a brief second, Wayne stopped moving and the mob turned and started running at Jason. Before Wayne could reacquire aggro again, Jason had taken two hits and his health was down to almost 50 percent.
“This thing has a bash and stun. It hadn’t landed before, that was the first time. Are you ok Allister?” Wayne asked.
“Just keep hitting it!” Jason said.
“15 seconds,” Dan said. “Moving into position.”
We now had one less damage dealer and the mob’s health bar was moving slower now. Moving closer to the mobs for the pulls had gained us another minute between respawn. But this was going to be really close.
“Engaging the spawn,” Dan said. And just like that we saw Dan run off into the forest with one of the goblins after him. We had waited thirty seconds between when we killed the first mob and engaged the second one. So as of right now we had 40 seconds to finish the boss, collect the loot and get out of the way for the next respawn. The mob had 17 percent left on its health bar. I kept counting down the seconds and announced when we were at 30 and 20.
“When Alex says 10 I am casting my stun. We will have three seconds where the mobs defense will be totally down. This is our only chance!” Jason yelled.
There was no time to argue, and as I yelled out “10!” Jason casted his stun. The mob froze in place and Jason, Wayne, and I ripped into the mob. Luck was on my side and
I scored another double Critical Strike for almost 200 points total, and the mob fell down.
“Loot it quick!” Wayne yelled.
“Looting, run out of here!” I yelled
As I looted the mob, I saw that it had a sack and a ring. I checked quickly to make sure the ring wouldn’t bind on acquisition, and seeing it didn’t, I looted it. Then I ran for the trees, where Dan quickly met up with us so we could dispatch the mob he had pulled.
I inspected both of the items in my inventory. First I looked at the bag.
The contents of this sack were taken and should be returned to their rightful owner
“Good news guys, one of the drops was our quest item. There is also a ring. Linking it now,” I said.
“Unless anyone has any objections, I say we give this ring to Wayne, since he is the only one of us that will get the Bash skill,” I said.
“I don’t get that skill until level 6, but I will be happy to have the extra Strength, Constitution, and Armor,” Wayne commented.
“Are you sure we don’t want to give it to Dan? It is a simple ring and he is our only simpleton,” Jason joked.
“Funny Jason,” Dan replied.
“It’s Allister damn it!”
“Not till you start calling me TheClaw,” Dan replied in a calm voice. It was always entertaining to watch these two go at it. Dan would respond and each time get calmer, which just made Jason even more furious.
“TheClaw is a stupid name!” Jason exclaimed.
Dan mimicked like he was speaking through a radio, “Pot, Pot…come in Pot. This is Kettle. Someone’s black.”
During their banter I gave Wayne the ring and he nodded his head in thanks.
“Hey. Pot and Kettle. Let’s kill some more mobs and then go turn in this quest. We probably want to do the camp a few more times before we go in order to get closer to leveling up,” I said.
Dan looked over at Jason, and as if they hadn’t just been going at each other, said, “Let me know when you are ready to rock bro and I will start pulls.”
Jason just shook his head. He had stopped asking Dan to stop calling him “bro” a long time ago. “Ready now, pull when ready.”
“Alright amigos, I’m bringing the tacos. You bring the picante!” Dan said as he ran back toward the camp of goblins who had now all respawned.
As Jason sat down to continue regenerating his mana I could hear him whisper, “He’s a good puller. He’s a good puller. Just remember he’s a good puller.”
* * *
By the end of our adventure in the goblin camp we had gone through approximately 60 goblins, as well as the one boss. This brought our experience up to 75 percent. What is more, the goblins were dropping around 30 coppers each and the boss had five silver on him. This gave us a total of 23.5 silver pieces, which we planned to use in the market for additional gear. We hoped that turning in the quest would also give us more money, so we held off until the quest was done.
We arrived back at the merchant’s store and the gnome greeted us as we entered. No one said a word. I simply took the Merchant’s Bag out of my inventory and slid it over to the gnome.
“Oh bless you! Bless you all!” the merchant exclaimed. “Please, accept this small token of my appreciation!” And with that, we all had five extra silver pieces in our inventories. This brought us up to 43.5 silver. We were now rolling in the dough.
The other shining moment was as we turned in the quest, we all heard the wonderful “DING!” that signaled we had leveled again. Everyone had huge smiles on their faces, and 2% of experience into level 5.
We thanked the merchant kindly and he told us to stop by periodically for work he might need. It was good to have another quest giver. First thing we did upon exiting the merchant’s shop was find a place to go over our characters and allocate our new skill points.
We continued to follow the same build outs for our characters. All of us spread our points out, with none of us staying to just one skill set. I didn’t add anymore to my Chance as I wanted to see with finality that the error was continuing before I decided how to continue with that skill. In the end, after reaching level 5, we had the following skills:
I wanted to go back to Sir Kenyon and try to get our next quest but none of the others wanted to stay on for an extended period of time in case the quest was timed. At least this is what they all said, but really it was only Jason who was using this bit of logic. The reality for Dan and Wayne became clear just several minutes later.
“Good news is guys, now that we have 43.5 Silver, when we log back in we are going to really be able to fully gear up our characters!” I said excitedly.
“40 Silver bro,” Dan replied.
“3.5 Silver is a lot in this game so far TC, I don’t think we will need that much,” Wayne said after.
I was at a total loss as to what was going on between them, and it appeared Jason was as well. Thankfully, and not surprisingly at all, Dan clarified everything with his next sentence.
“TheClaw is getting wenches and wasted bro! We gonna need that money!” Dan said triumphantly.
“Wenches and wasted?” Wayne asked.
“I was going for alliteration. I thought it more PC than bitches and booze. I’m sensitive to these things,” Dan said with a dead pan expression.
“I’m actually totally in agreement with Dan here Wayne,” Jason said. Dan beamed to see Jason on his side. “I mean, he will probably need lots of money to get even virtual reality girls to pay him any attention.” And Dan stopped smiling.
“That was a totally low blow dude,” Dan said. “But a good one. I got no come back. Allister wins this round.”
We all laughed at that and even Jason gave a high five to Wayne. I was hesitant to separate with the money, but I had promised the guys they could go and carouse at the tavern. And it was their money. So with more than a little trepidation, I handed the Silver over to Wayne.
“Where’s mine bro?” Dan asked.
“Wayne will be with you. And I trust him to not make it rain copper pieces on the people in the tavern.” Dan’s hurt look couldn’t hide the fact that he was thinking of doing exactly that sort of thing.
“I only have one request guys,” I informed them. “I would appreciate it if you went in like the other level 4 and 5 players. I think we can farm that goblin camp for a while and I don’t want other people asking where we got the money for all the gear.”
They saw the wisdom in this and agreed. I whispered to Wayne to please watch out for Dan, and he just nodded his head once, but seriously. Wayne took his role as the protector of our group seriously, and at all times. Dan was just bouncing from foot to foot anxious to go.
Jason and I saw them off, with Dan pinpointing the location of the tavern on our maps, just in case we needed to find them quickly before logging out. Since none of us had Dan’s mapping skill, we couldn’t see the tavern on our maps yet.
As Wayne and Dan were leaving, Jason informed me that he was going to follow them as he wanted to explore some more of the city.
I waved at all three of them as they headed out and decided I would do some exploring of my own. There was an entire town to discover, and I figured the better I knew the layout of the land, the readier I would be to continue exploiting the player market. I factored in a few hours for exploration before I planned to log out, not to return till the next day when we all agreed to meet.
* * *
The gate to enter Port Town was situated in the west of the city, with the sea to the east. Most of the market and the areas we had explored were in the northern section of the town. So I decided I would check out the south, and try to map out the rest of the town, while the guys did more exploration of the north. Well, Jason would do more exploration. Wayne and Dan were just likely to get shit faced at the tavern.
After 15 minutes of walking in the southern area of the town, I saw why no one came down into this area. It was a seedy and dodgy area, and if Resurgence allowed NPCs inside the town to attack players
, I would put money on it that I would have already been stabbed in the back a number of times over. The NPCs on the street gave me a wary eye as I made my way through along the main thorough fare. There were also numerous alley ways, dark and dingy. Hoping that none of the NPCs could attack me, I decided to go down an alley way or two, just to see what was down them.
It was while I was walking down the third of these alleys that a new NPC seemed to materialize out of the shadows. I hadn’t seen him before, but I was still quite a low level and he could have been hiding in the shadows. He was wearing an all-black cloak that came down to just below his knees. The hood on the cloak was up, and I could not make out the features of the man, save to say that he was likely human, given the beard I could see, or a really tall dwarf with a horribly short beard. I was going with human. The cloak was also slightly open around the waist and I could make out the glint of two beautiful daggers. I admired them longingly.
“Well look at what we have here. If it ain’t a baby rogue out for a stroll in The Wastes. Admiring my daggers are ya?” The man asked me.
“I am sir, but you can’t fault a man for admiring such quality. Even sheathed, I can see those are fine blades.” I replied, trying to earn some favor with the man. This could be a quest giver, and I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity by lying to him or being rude.
“Aye lad, they are fine quality indeed,” he answered. “Got these off a beast in the Mason Mountains. Were originally its teeth. Yanked ‘em right out the beasty’s maw,” he further explained. “What brings a young lad like you into The Wastes?”
“I’ve seen what is up in the northern portion of town, and while I am happy to barter with a merchant, the area isn’t much to my liking,” I said, playing up the rogue character.
“Fancy yerself a bit of an adventurer then do ya? Don’t know that you would like the adventures you would find down here though lad, at least not without some back up.”
“For certain, allies are good to have,” I agreed, “but I am a rogue, although young as you noted. And if I am not being too forward, I would say you too are a rogue. We are meant for a more solitary life.”
Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 Page 10
