Shadow Corps

On the first day of Darien's three days off he received an interesting message.

-You have received a contract proposal! Log in now to check!-

There was an indicator flashing on his monitor when he walked back into his room from taking a shower. He quickly threw on some clothes and sat down at the computer.

"I'll check to see what it is then make some coffee." He muttered to himself as he excitedly opened up the game. He quickly logged in and allocated the new stats that Sin had gained while Darian was AFK (away from keyboard or offline). He believed he would make Sin into a magic type knight so he gave him a basic fireball scroll they had found and gave him points towards his mana which would allow him to string together more skills while also having points into his health to be able to take lots of damage. Right after finishing up the details he moved towards the desk of his building and found a letter symbol indicating that he had new messages for his formed group.

"Hello, I am a new player and am having some troubles leveling. After seeing your group's stats already I wanted to hire you for the minimal price you set? I hope that is okay as I don't have a lot of gold yet." Darien read then stood up to start making coffee. He thought about what he could do to respond. Helping someone level? That seemed simple enough and if he brought Sin along he could gain decent experience points for all of them to level up.

"Since there is only one player, I have plenty of room in the party if I decide to make another NPC too." He muttered as he finished and sat down with his coffee. He typed out a quick reply and sent it back only to receive an automatic message that the recipient of his message was offline and would get the message when he was back online. He sighed and hoped that they would not be online at the same time he was offline.

Darien then moved his character around to see what he could upgrade. the little building had two rooms that he could upgrade that would allow him to recruit more members into his group including NPC's. He currently could have only one other member as he had already created the mercenary Sin. Darien scrolled through some more of the settings before finally settling on upgrading the building itself. It would allow his group to purchase upgraded gear from nearby NPC merchants as well as increase the happiness of any NPC mercenaries he had.

"This should help me manage Sin's happiness a little better" He muttered and kept clicking away at allocating gold towards upgrading. When it was done he realized he had spent most of the gold he had earn the last few days.

Realizing he wouldn't be able to get any gear upgraded he decided he would Go out and find a few monster spawn chests. It wasn't until an hour into grinding* the area did he receive a notification about a letter that had arrived in his mercenary drop box. He read the second email as it was a request for boar tusks to be given to the newly made player village to the south of the dragon temple.

"They call themselves the Royal Dragons? Sounds like a new nation is about to be born already." Darien thought to himself with a chuckle and accepted the quest. He already had the required number of tusks and only needed to head down to the village to turn them in. He took the time to get some more materials and experience points along the way. Sin also grew to level fifteen within that time and acquired a beginner class. Deciding he would need a knight type character to help take the enemy monster's attention away from him, he made Sin a squire so he could begin learning defensive techniques with shields.

When the pair arrived at the town they were met by a few players that called themselves a temporary guard until they can get the resources to recruit more NPC units. "At the moment we are trying to level a few of them to make them guards for the village. Our leader already got the gold needed to make a guild!" The 'leader' of the group told Devi who only replied with a shrug emote. "I normally didn't get involved in politics before. However I am curious, is your guild leader trying to make a nation right away?" Darien typed out then sorted his inventory to get the items requested. He traded them with the town leader and gained experience points and a decent amount of gold. "Thanks for your patronage." the message above Devi seemed foreign to Darian who normally didn't deal with other players but where he was the only one in his group, he would have no choice.

"Don't be so stiff. We are all players in a great game!" the leader typed out before continuing. "I think he does, I'd just be happy with more players or NPC's to help keep this place safe so I could go level." He used an LOL (laugh out loud) emote before waving and moving back towards the gate.

After the transaction Darien decided he needed a break. He sent Sin back to the mercenary lodge and logged off.

"Still nothing from the guy who wanted to level." Darien sighed and scratched his head. He finished up his coffee then went to make another. His little apartment held a bedroom, single bathroom, a small kitchen unit and a little living room he used to hold a few boxes for the moment. "I really should go through this stuff at some point. It's been sitting here for a few months." he groaned then started up the coffee pot and waited. The smell of freshly brewed coffee filled the apartment as the dark liquid began to pour into the glass pot. "Perfect." He smiled to himself while preparing it with a few table spoons of sugar and a dash of creamer he had bought the other day.

"I think I'll message Giel to see how he is doing then just serf the web a bit." He sat down and set to work on an email asking about Giel and his adventures so far, he then typed out about what he had accomplished so far with his little mercenary group. How he had accepted a leveling request and even accomplished a materials request from a nearby player made village. "Royal Dragons huh...?" He sat back and stared out the window, Rune Union was gaining popularity and those who started early would get better benefits. "Would the ompany do a nee player event like they did towards the end of the last version of the game?"

*grinding is a common term used in online games meaning repetitive actions within the game to achieve a goal. A similar term to grinding is farming or to farm.