Death Acolyte

Locke left the smithy and began his trip to the guard station on the border. It was generally a comfortable walk, also the best part of his day. Weight had an active effect on your character, even when below your limit, movement speed is still reduced. The box of reforged scrap iron was already beyond his limit, so he experienced a considerable speed reduction.

This wasn't really an issue since the roads were very safe. The town guards and the border guards regularly patrolled it and monsters knew to stay off the path. However, the main reason he was chipper was his new grinding spot. The zombies there moved so slowly and had such little health, he could one shot them.

Thinking back, he cringed in embarrassment for starving the moment he got there. At the peak of his excitement, he had suddenly gotten sent out of the game with the death message. The spot was perfect for him, because low level undead are too weak to kill him. While his health was only 5 at level 0, with his armor, no level 0 monster can do more than 2 damage to him in one hit.

While his head was in the clouds, the sound of shouting made him turn his attention to the road. He heard a group of players screaming for help, running toward the town he just left. Locke froze when he saw what was chasing them. He saw a large skeletal horse with ruined black armor and ghostly flames throughout its hollow body; And on top of that horse was a knight wearing all black, with a flaming great sword. With a few swings he cleaved the fleeing players.

"Death knight? What is Wild Boss doing here!? Wait, this is bad, if you get killed by a Death Knight, your death penalty is doubled. This is fine for normal players but for me…"

Locke started running back to town, tripping the other fleeing players with precision. However, the weight of the box of reforged scrap iron slowed his movement by 80%. Just as he was about to enter the towns safe zone, he felt his body get impaled by a sword.

'Dammit, dammit, dammit. Why am I so unlucky? I curse the developers, I curse the guilds, and I curse the AI!'

Ding, ding!

[You have been slain by Level 3 Death Knight. You have met the requirements for hidden class: Death Acolyte. Do you wish to change class?]

'What?'

[Do you wish to change to Death Acolyte class? Level will be reset to 0, soul chips will be reset to 0. Confirm Y/N?]

'A hidden class? Let me see if the forums have any information on this class...'

He spent 15 minutes searching the forums, but he didn't find any mention of this particular hidden class. Only a few people who were slain by the Death Knight and received between 2 to 3 times death penalty. The post was titled 'Scumbag Who Tripped Me to Escape' which made Locke chuckle.

After searching for a while longer, he was disappointed in the lack of results. Locke did, however, find someone asking about a different hidden class: Sword Hermit. Apparently, his conditions were losing all weapon skills and equipment.

'So, the conditions for hidden class are usually very strict. It seems he was able to become much stronger within a few days of retraining, and he's now in the top 50 on the leaderboards. Well, the penalty for me is practically negligible compared to his, no reason not to.'

In Vellen Online, all players started as Commoner class. It allowed you to equip all non-class specific gear and had few skills once you started leveling. Contrary to other games, you can class change at any point after level 1 as long as you find an NPC instructor to teach you.

There were some exceptions of people finding Unique class books that started a quest to changing to a Unique class, and Hidden classes that had very specific unlisted requirements.

The biggest issue for many players was the same: coins! All class changes and skills required coins to learn from instructors. And the price wasn't low either. The cheapest class change was Explorer at 5 silver, but required you to have been to at least 3 different cities. And the most expensive was Blacksmith, at a whopping 30 silver. That's 9000 credits! With that much money, you could buy three years' worth of meal replacement bars!

Locke pulled up his stat interface to compare the changes.

-----------------------

Name: Lucky Skeleton

Class: Commoner [Lvl. 0]

Status:

0/5 HP

5/5 SP

STR: 1 AGI: 1 END: 1 INT: 1 MYS: 1 LUK: 1

-----------------------

Name: Lucky Skeleton

Class: Death Acolyte [Lvl. 0]

Status:

0/10 HP

16/16 SP

STR: 1 AGI: 1 END: 2 INT: 2 MYS: 4 LUK: 1

Skills: Early Grave [Lvl. 1]; Soul Anchor [Lvl. 1]; Soul Harvest [Lvl. 1];

Details:

Early Grave [Lvl. 1]: Target enemy with level less than Early Grave's level plus user's total level. Spend soul points to trigger a natural death between 5 minutes to 50 minutes. Cost: 1-200 Soul Points Cooldown: 1 hour

Soul Anchor [Lvl. 1]: When your hit points fall to 0, you may choose to active Soul Anchor. After 5 seconds, restore hit points to full, lose all soul points and gain the debuff [Weakened Soul] decreasing soul point recovery by 100% while this is on cooldown. Cooldown: 24 hours.

Soul Harvest [Lvl. 1]: When a creature dies near you, recover soul points based on their INT. Increase the item drop quality and experience of that creature by %MYS. Range: 15 yds

-----------------------

[Do you wish to activate Soul Anchor? Y/N]

Locke was so shocked when he read his new stats and skills that when the system reminder to use his skill came up, he almost passed out in fright.

'What the hell, this class is overpowered! Three crazy strong skills right away? Even blacksmiths only get two skills when they class change! And my stats went up by a total of 5, most classes only get 3 attributes per level. It looks like this is a Mysticism based class.'

Mysticism was a stat primarily used by faith based classes. This included clerics, warlocks, paladins, etc. It increases your soul points at a 1:3 ratio, for every 1 MYS your SP goes up by 3. This stat also increases your mental connection with your object of faith.

Locke selected 'Yes' on the popup and felt the darkness around him flow into his body. As the surrounding space peeled away and enter him, he saw the light of the sky above. Locke simply lied on his back until he realized he was alive. Locke felt a little dizzy since his SP was at 0, but eventually stood up. There was no one around him and everything seemed peaceful, as if the Death Knight was never here.

Locke waved his hand to open his inventory and realized the crate was still there. 'Nice, with the increase in endurance, I can hold more reforged scrap iron. I'll get more from Bria then head over to the guard station.'

As he turned back to head into town, he realized the quiet atmosphere was very eerie. Several town guards lied on the ground with stab wounds. He didn't feel any compassion for these NPCs, he only felt it was a pity he couldn't take their armor and sell it. As he walked through the town, he saw more and more bodies.

'That Death Knight really did a number on this place.' He reached the smithy and entered seemingly unaware of the stillness inside. As he looked around, still cheerful about the potential profit, the sound of the system alerted him to a shocking truth.

[Hidden Quest 'Blacksmith's Regret' has been triggered.]

Blacksmith Bria always dreamed of becoming a master and had studied in the capital. However, when her father died due to illness, she quit her studies and returned home to Carisle Town to run the business in his place. She always regretted not finishing her studies, even to her last breath.

Requirements: Bring Bria's Hammer and news of her death to Sergeant Albert Carisle in the border guard station.

Rewards: Unknown

Failure: None

[Accept? Y/N]

As Locke read the contents of the quest, and finally noticed the body of the only NPC that he often interacted with, a strange feeling welled up in him as his chest started burning.

'God dammit, curse you developers, how dare you take away my income! If you didn't want people to earn money from the beginner town then don't make it an option to begin with!'

He walked over with a scowl as he accepted the quest. He picked up the familiar hammer and stashed it in his inventory.

'What the hell, why does it weigh so much? Sigh, I wonder, when will a new blacksmith will arrive? Guess I'll go do this quest, maybe I can negotiate for some extra coins since this will be the last shipment in a while.'

He tried to inspect the hammer out of curiosity as he was walking. It came up with the name "Bria's Hammer" and all of its stats were a string of question marks. Intelligence was necessary to identify most items, even his cloth armor's stats were still unidentified. If not for the forums, he wouldn't know what bonus they gave.

Locke headed north once more, planning to leave town immediately. As he was about to pass the north gate, a notification popped up that made his skin crawl.

[Congratulations, you are the first to discover Carisle Ruins. +1 free attribute point.]