Raven- The Beginning

by David Wadsworth

  As I neared the crossroads that I was walking towards, I did manage a smile, as along the road to the left sat buildings to on each side with signs indicating what types of treats lay inside to those brave enough to enter. The first building to my left had an engraved sign that was hanging over it’s door that read, “Timberdenn’s Tavern.” I gave a Cheshire type of grin, as I would most definitely be a frequent visitor to that particular shop for my stay in this small village. Judging by how the developers of this VR platform got the smells of the village, I was looking forward to what they could do with the sense of taste.

  To my right, was the shop that Isbeil mentioned, the blacksmith. “Open quest log,” I said out loud so that I could review the details of the quest. Not only did I need to purchase a weapon, I also needed to speak with the blacksmith of the village as well. There was a line through one of the requests, “Speak to the Innkeeper,” as I had already met Isbeil, to my annoyance. Giving the command to hide the quest log, the window faded from my view.

  Satisfied, I immediately started walking towards the entrance of the blacksmith’s store, which had a wooden sign next to it with a carved engraving that showed a sword and axe crossed over an anvil. I also took notice of the other signs from the other buildings. It seemed that this was the market street, as I saw signs that indicated that there was an apothecary, trader, and even a small bank.

  “What is that awful smell,” I commented as I entered the store, my nose wrinkling from the soot that permeated throughout. In front of me was a U-shaped counter, behind it, a variety of weapons and shields that were showcased on several shelves and on the walls. There was also an door that was opened behind the counter leading further into the building.

  “What? You never smelled the inside of a blacksmith’s shop before, stranger?” a woman asked as she came out from the back of the building, wiping her hands off on her heavy, brown apron.

  Frowning, the young dark elf leaned up towards the counter, putting her hands and elbows on it. Her hair was black with gray powder that could only be ash was crusted within her hair, and a blacksmith’s hammer was securely lashed to her belt by her hip.

  “You are..” I asked the woman behind the counter.

  “The name’s Moire, and I’m the local blacksmith for Timberdenn. If you ever need some actual equipment rather than that rawhide you’re wearing, just let me know and I’ll have it made for you. And girl, get some damn shoes on!”

  Looking behind the counter, I saw a rusted dagger that was sitting on one of the shelves, seemingly forgotten.

  “Raven, and I’m actually new to this area. I’m curious, but is it common for most villages to have woman working as their blacksmith?” I asked as I raised my eyebrow.

  It was odd that the developers made the NPC a female, as with all of the human cities that I visited with my main character were all male. I was curious that this might be a Dark Elf culture thing.

  Raising an eyebrow, Moire responded in kind, “I’m not sure about other villages, but I’m the best one this town has seen in ages. So, Raven, did you want to place an order, or does something catch your eye? Depending on the item, I can give you a great price for it, though, looking at you, I’m not sure if you can afford the prices.”

  I cringed when she said this, since it was obvious that I was almost penniless, comparatively speaking.

  “Well, yes. Outside of town I ran into some trouble, and I seemed to have dropped my dagger somewhere. I was hoping you had one for cheap that I could purchase?”

  Moire stood up straight and put her fist up to her chin, thinking. Grabbing the rusted dagger off the shelf behind her and a worn out sheathe that looked like it wouldn’t hold anything, let alone a dagger, Moire laid both on the counter. It was clearly not as forgotten as I had thought it was.

  “I suppose I could give away this dagger. Let’s say, for 50 copper,” she asked, going for bartering rather than a straight sale.

  “I can go as high as 25 copper since it’s just the one and not the set, let alone it’s rusted…” I said as I started to lean on the counter.

  “Are you sure you’re a blacksmith,” I added with a smile.

  Moire squinted her eyes as she looked at me, her lips going from a tight smirk to frowning. “Fine, take this garbage out of my hands. Perhaps if I had some iron ore from the mines, you would be surprised at what I could forge that might be in your price range.”

  “Negotiation increased to level 1,” a voice informed me.

  Smiling, I took out 25 copper coins from my inventory and slid them towards Moire, after which, I grabbed the dagger and it’s sheathe.

  “I might be able to get that ore for you, how much do you need,” I asked while strapping on the dagger’s sheathe.

  “Mm, let’s say 5 iron ore for a single dagger. Get me 15 of them, I’ll make you a set of iron daggers. Though, you might want to take a few people with you to the mines. I heard that there are some goblin miners and an overseer in there, not too mention all the rats.”

  A new quest window appeared in front of me, “Moire’s Proof.” The reward for this quest was 2 Iron Daggers, and all I needed to do was to get 15 Iron Ore from a dungeon called Timberdenn Mines.

  “I’ll keep that in mind, thank you,” I replied, accepting the new quest.

  With a weapon at my side, albeit a rusted dagger that seemed like it might crumble away at any moment, I finally felt like myself as I walked towards my next stop, the apothecary.

  I went inside of the apothecary, and I almost felt as if I was back in the dreamworld, with how much smoke filled the air. However, it didn’t smell like smoke from a fire, but almost had the smell of metal mixed with various types of flowers. It both amused me and irritated me how the developers came up with this.

  There was a tall, stone pedestal off to the side of the wall, with an elderly woman that looked to be mixing things with a mortar and pestle, and to the side of her was a table with an alchemy set which held a flask that was over a fire; green liquid boiling inside.

  “Excuse me, are you the local alchemist,” I asked the woman who was clearly focused on what she was doing.

  She stopped what she was doing and set the mortar and pestle on the pedestal and turned around. She looked at me with disgust.

  “Yes I am, now go away. I was trying to get this order completed before I was rudely interrupted.”

  I was stunned to say the least. How rude! I hoped that not everyone I met in this town wasn’t like this. How did she expect to run a business with that kind of attitude was beyond me. I breathed in and out, clearing my head of evil thoughts, like the one urging me to break her legs.

  “I do see you’re busy, do you need any help,” I asked as kindly as I could.

  “Fine, fine! Go to the fields outside and get me some fangs from those blasted wolves that are running around. Three of them should be fine,” the alchemist told me, giving me another quest, “From Their Dead, Cold Jaws.” At least it showed me that the alchemist’s name was Moleari and that I would be rewarded with 25xp.

  I left the alchemist’s store a bit perturbed with her attitude towards me. Sighing, I reviewed the meet and greet quest. I still had to meet with the barkeep and the trader.

  After meeting with the two people in the village, I automatically completed the meet and greet quest and was rewarded 25xp for my trouble. I then decided to head outside so that I could kill a few wolves and get their fangs. As I neared the exit of the village though, one of the guards called out to me.

  “Veil-walker! If you are leaving the village, could I ask you to kill five wolves for us? They are starting to attack the traders’ caravans. Please, kill five of those wolves and I’ll give you a silver piece and 50XP!”

  Reviewing the quest window, I quickly accepted it before deciding to leave the village and start the quests that I had so far. Hopefully the wolf quests and experience for killing them would get me to level 5. Smiling at the thought of doing some simple tasks, I thought to myself, “L
et the games begin!” as I walked out of the town with a swagger.

  Immediately after I left the town, I activated Stealth. Although the wolves might be able to sense me since they were classified as Beasts, the range which they would engage would be significantly reduced, allowing me to scout out potential hunting spots before attacking. The only real problem with using Stealth at these low levels was the run speed, which was a craaawl. Once I had 20 points into the skill though, I would be able to walk at normal speeds, and above that, even become faster when I was stealthed.

  After exiting, I looked around and from what I saw, it seemed like this village was in a mountain region. There were various types of very tall and lush pine, spruce, and fir trees, which smelled exquisite. I started to wonder if the game took into account my Dark Elf race and made the scents stronger. It did seem like it did.

  The dirt itself was packed, and I wanted to get off the path as soon as possible, since it was still as uncomfortable as it was in the village. Hopefully the grass would be much more comfortable in my current state. I went to the side of the road, not yet into the forest area, but followed the path until I could barely see the village.

  I got to an area in the road where it started gently curving and sloping downwards, and a hill to the side. What caught my eyes though was an overturned cart, and what could only be dried blood covering the ground in front of it. I immediately realized that this would be an ambush point that the wolves would use, and I didn’t see any bodies on the ground. I really wasn’t looking forward to that with my heightened senses.

  Both sides of the road had trees and other foliage that went deeper into the forest, and I silently made my way towards the hill that went higher, since it would give the wolves an advantage when attacking the caravans that were on the path.

  After getting to the top of the hill, I spotted a pack of three wolves in the distance. The lead wolf was walking in the front, with 2 other wolves walking behind it in what appeared to be a V formation. The feeling of being on the hunt within the forest gave me the chills. It was never this intense with my crap VR equipment that I owned! The only bad thing was that I wasn’t able to tell what their health was at, however, with this being a level 1 quest, it didn’t really bother me. One thing that did bother me though was that I didn’t have the damage log that would have normally been on the left of my peripheral view, so I wouldn’t know how much damage I would be doing. No matter though.

  I made my way behind the wolves, and allowed them to walk in front of me as I pulled out my rusted dagger. I hoped that they wouldn’t be able to sense me before I could use Backstab against the one that was now on my right in front of me. They were moving a bit more slowly than I was thankfully, and I was able to get within melee range.

  Just as I was within striking range, the wolf stopped and was starting to turn around just as I performed Backstab. Luckily, the attack was successful, and I stabbed the wolf. It yelped and turned to face me. As luck would have it, the other two wolves kept walking and were now outside of aggro range, so I just had to deal with this one wolf.

  Since I didn’t have any other abilities, I just slashed and thrusted at the wolf wildly as it attacked me back. I must have done some decent damage with my Backstab, as the wolf died shortly after. I did notice that when the attack was able to bite me, I was able to feel a throbbing sensation from where it attacked.

  Since I couldn’t see my health, stamina, or mana bars that I would normally have, I pulled up my character stats screen to see where I was at. It showed that I had 619/825 health and 775/875 stamina remaining. I also had 35xp which meant that the wolf was worth 10xp each. I should be able to get to level 2 by just this one wolf pack.

  The wolf had a feint white glow around it signifying that I was able to loot it, and when I inspected the dead wolf, I saw that it had one Wolf Fang that I could take, which I did and deposited it into my inventory.

  I reactivated Stealth and sat down so that I could regenerate my health faster and opened my stats window so that I could keep an eye out on it. I didn’t want to risk a death, especially at this stage. What type of assassin would I be if I died to a level 1 mob?

  “I should be a damn zen master with as much patience that playing an assassin, or even a low level rogue, takes,” I thought to myself with a smile as I waited.

  A minute later, I was back up to full health, so I closed the stats window and started stalking my prey once again. I could see the remaining two wolves in the distance, and it looked like stopped walking. I began my slow walk towards them once again, silently cursing the slow speed which I moved at when stealthed.

  Before I could perform Backstab this time however, the wolf that I attacked was able to turn around and sniffed at the air and then growled. It obviously detected me, so I took the initiative and attacked him with just a normal attack. At least I was able to pull the wolf away from the pack’s leader.

  This time around, I tried to strafe around the wolf, hoping that it would increase the chances to evade it’s attacks. While strafing around the wolf, I hoped that I was slowly eating into his health. I did manage to kill the wolf, as I knew I would be able to, but I could tell that my health was fairly low, at least below 25%, since my vision dropped into the red, as if there was a haze over my eyes.

  I opened my stats window to confirm, and as I expected, my health was now at 198/825. At least in one more kill I would be level 2 and I would be able to pick up a couple of skills that I could use use when out of stealth, and actually do some decent damage. After looting this new corpse of it’s fang, I re-activated Stealth and sat down again, waiting for my health to regenerate.

  As I waited, I let my thoughts wander, and felt the wind move across my skin, the damp grass against my feet. The smell of the forest was extremely pleasant, and as I was in awe, I thought to myself that I could do this forever, just live inside the game. It beat my real life by far. The freedom of the game and it’s visceral way of life called to me. The real world in comparison was dull and lifeless.

  After about five minutes, my health was at 100%, and the pack’s leader was making its way back to where I had killed the first wolf. I stood up and stalked towards it when it stopped and smelled the ground where the dead wolf was at, not yet disappearing. It almost seemed like it was trying to find the enemy that killed on of it’s pack.

  As it was sniffing the corpse and looking up, I was able to make my way behind it without the wolf noticing. Getting into range again, I performed Backstab, which was successful. As before, the wolf yelped, growled, and turned around to attack me. Just like with the second wolf, I started strafing while attacking with my dagger, the wolf returning my attacks. After a few rounds of this, my eyesight started to go into the red again, and I wasn’t sure how much health the wolf had.

  “Shit, shit, and triple shit,” I started to say, repeating it as if it was my own personal mantra.

  The pack leader stopped attacking and leapt backwards a few feet, digging it’s back legs into the ground. I could tell that it was going to leap towards me with a special attack which was worrisome. I crouched down as well and yelled at the wolf, “Bring it on, mutt!”

  Just as the large jaws of the wolf, which I could easily fit my head into closed in on me, I felt myself slide to the side of the wolf, the system automatically making me evade the attack. As it started to pass me, I sliced at the wolf’s neck which connected. Since it was an attack to a weak spot, it would guarantee a critical strike, even if I couldn’t see the damage it did.

  The wolf landed with a thud, clear that this battle was over. I somehow got lucky and manage to kill the wolf. I had the feeling that since it was the pack’s leader, the difficulty of the mob was at least one level higher than the other two. In the World of the Veil, mobs could fall under four difficulty levels. Those levels being Easy, Normal, Hard, and Elite.

  Regardless though, as the wolf landed as a corpse, I was surrounded by a soft, golden glow before it quickly dissipated. I heard the sy
stem’s voice ring out, “Congratulations, you are now level 2!”

  I looted the wolf’s corpse and was pleased to find that not only did I get my Wolf’s Fang, but also it dropped two pieces of Rawhide Leather. “Now, let’s see about my new stats and skills,” I thought to myself.

  I opened my available skill list and saw the skills that I could either purchase or upgrade. I had three new skills that I could obtain though two of them were going to be of any use, Eviscerate and Garrote.

  Knowing exactly what I was going to do with my skills, and since I wouldn’t be running into any caster types of mobs until at least level 10, and while my low speed while I was stealthed was an inconvenience but not exactly detrimental, I used all four skill points on Eviscerate, which would bleed the target for 2.2 seconds. The damage itself would be applied every 0.5 seconds, and would do 2% of the target’s health per tick.

  I also had a plan for my stat points as well. With each level, I would gain 5 stat points that I could increase my base stats with. On ShadowBlood, I sort of went everywhere with them in the beginning since I was a noob at the class and didn’t do any research. Now though, I knew what I was doing.