Sir Beryl
"AI?" I ask softly while looking around, wondering if I would get in trouble for what I was about to do. "Guys from the tutorial? You there? I have a question…" I say with thinly veiled urgency, wondering for the first time where the oddly personal or interactive message windows had gone.
[Acquired Skill: Barter]
[Acquired Title: Dauntless]
[Congratulations, Life Hack, for killing an enemy that was over twice your level. As well, congratulations for your first sales and many other lesser achievements recently. Was there something you needed assistance with?]
"Oh, wow," I cant help but say in blank surprise at the sudden and large response, opening my Character page to check my new gains. Dauntless granted me a ten-percent resistance against psychological debuffs and status affects from overwhelming enemies while Barter was… different. Most people would get Haggling from discussing prices with people they made trades with but somehow I got a skill that let me peddle any wares to anybody anywhere.
The difference was probably in the method and the sale. I had simply tried to gauge the value of materials and crafts but ended up convincing the guy to buy them with the subconscious idea of gifts for friends. Most players would be dealing with actual shop owners when they acquired Haggling.
Shaking my head to clear my thoughts, I say, "Thank you, I never even thought about things like this. But, I was wanting to find more of these really strong enemies. How do I know if there are any points of interest in my area?"
[If you open your player menu and go to Map, you will find a Global, Regional, and Local options. If you go into Local you will find the option to turn on a transparent mini-map or compass bar and this mini-map will display icons in the directions of nearby points of interest. These can simply be temporary event locations or minor disappearing dungeons, but now and then you will find a proper dungeon you can clear repeatedly for certain rewards.]
Following their directions while reading I simply turned on the compass bar and already there were three navigation icons on the bar. "Thanks, again, but may I ask why this isn't on by default?"
[During the tutorial, nav-points would help to dictate player choices. Normally, when one logs back in they will receive a set of basic help and information messages, you currently have some in Social, but my responses were not automated because you are still completing your tutorial by technicality. After you have escorted young Ms. Lana to her aunt's, the tutorial and your second bonus stage will be completed]
"Second bonus stage?" I ask curiously, suddenly not liking the way that sounded. "How many bonus stages were in my tutorial? Or am I not allowed to know?"
[Now that it is irrelevant, your tutorial had two others which would have provided one more skill book, one hundred gold, and slightly better quality gloves and boots]
"I won't tell anybody you told me that," I reassure them, feeling guilty as if I had just bought inside stocks information. "Can you tell me anything about what the different icons mean?"
[Only that the closest is on the right side of the bar]
Looking back through Map under Regional, I find an icon only a mile or so away from me on the road that looked like a horseshoe and probably represented the coach. "No, thank you so much, that much is fine," I assure the AI gratefully while turning to the right until the icon of what looked like a campfire centered in my compass bar. "Alright time to do some REAL hunting."
Setting off through the moonlit forest at a brisk and steady pace, not even caring about the attention I might attract, it is not long before I can see the light of what looks like a small fire in the distance coming from between the trees. A pair of large ferecats appeared soon after a combat alert not long after my destination came into view, though, forcing me to rethink my tactics.
Once these creatures became experience and a proper ferecat's core, I started more stealthily sneaking up on the camp until the actual campers started coming into view. At first it was just a couple of small bodies that were darkened by being between the fire and I but they eventually turned out to have greenish brown skin. It was a camp of about five goblins.
Considering the goblins here were around level ten while the hob from my tutorial could not have been above level five, going up against five of them alone was asking a lot. However, while I was still more than sixty yards out, I retrieved my javelin and bow from my player inventory. Then I slowly and quietly used the back of my chitin trench knife to saw the bottom foot of shaft from either short spear.
Once they were both only three feet long and had the same attack rating as the bow, I started slowly and carefully creeping forward. Testing the ground lightly with the outer edge of my boot before placing either foot each time, I made minimal noise slowly laying the rest of my foot down from the outside heel to my big toe while feeling for sticks and the like in the relative dark. In this way, I easily got within thirty yards of the camp before stopping.
Placing the sawed notch at the bottom of one makeshift dusk arrow on my bowstring while crouching, I carefully take aim while holding the bow at a slight sideways lean so the arrow rests on the smooth plank and my hand while drawing. Once the butt of the arrow was next to my face and I feared weakening the shitty bow, I spent only a second more steadying my aim before firing.
[x2 sneak attack: Snipe]
[x4 critical: vital strikeS]
[One Shot Kill]
[+20XP+*2]
[Leveled Up]
[All stats raised by 1]
[Received: LVL10 Free Stat Point]
[Acquired Skill: Bow Hunting]
[+10XP]
The arrow landed almost perfectly high in one goblin's ribs from the side, punching most of the way through to hit at least one lung and its heart. However, I would not call an arrow shot from only thirty yards away sniping. Then again, there was no way I was going to argue about it with the AI when I just got handed sixty experience and level ten.
The other goblins were only just getting to their feet when I was drawing back the second arrow swiveling their heads about in search of where the arrow had come from. They had been alerted but they were only moving about in place and still had no idea that I was here. The fact that they were not running for cover spoke of a lacking experience in their AI.
Content to keep them from gaining that experience, I finish aiming and loose my last arrow with a new resolve to spend my morning crafting proper arrows. And another bow.
[x2 sneak attack: Snipe]
[x2 critical: vital strike]
[One Shot Kill]
[+20XP+*2]
[Bow Hunting Leveled x2]
[+20XP]
The arrow punched straight through the goblin's back and out of its through only a little off from its spine, striking its heart or a lung for vitals and coupling with the stealth critical to finish in one shot.
With a combined attack of twenty-four that was doubled and then quadrupled, the first arrow had nailed the goblin for a whopping one hundred and ninety-two damage. The second arrow was still just as impressive, dealing a twice doubled twenty four damage that totaled out to ninety-six damage. Archery was going to be my new best friend.
Running out from cover behind a tree and bush with my sword held low and at the ready, I soon have the attention of the entire forest right on me. The first goblin to react ran forward while wielding a crooked forked stick to which a large rock was tied like a hammer's head. However, once he came within reach and struck down with the weapon I stuck up and across.
The weak wood of the broken branch handle broken when I directly attacked the goblin's weapon, allowing the blade to pass through and into the side of its neck.
[x2 critical: vital strike]
A bar of health missing two thirds of its contents appeared over the goblin's head as it staggered back but before I could finish the job after pulling my sword back the other two had arrived. One wielded a short naked wooden spear and repeatedly thrust at me, trying to force me back and keep me at bay while the other with a more solid club set with numerous small pieces of sharp rock tried to flank.
Instead of giving any ground I simply took five damage accepting the third thrust to my abdomen so that the goblin came within reach. As soon as it struck me it was struck in return, receiving a gruesome cleaving down into its head.
[x4 critical: Bi-capitation]
[+20XP*2]
[Swordplay Leveled]
[+12XP]
I was so shocked by the fact that the game had a term for splitting something's head in two that I barely even noticed the other goblin had come within reach. Before I knew it I took a sudden fifteen damage and lost three percent of health to a sudden bleeding. However, I simply mule-kicked the goblin dead in its face after being shoved forward from its hammering blow to my back.
Losing the contest of Strength against my stat value of twenty, the goblin falls flat on its back after losing roughly ten-percent of its health. Once it was down, I spun around and pounced so that I landed on to of the goblin plunging my sword through its chest and into the ground.
[x4 critical: vital strikes]
[+20XP*.75]
[Swordplay Leveled]
[+12XP]
[Acquired Rocky Club]
[Acquired Goblin Ear x5]
[Acquired Goblin Fang x12]
[Acquired Goblin Claw x6]
[Acquired Goblin Skin x3]
[Acquired Gold x15]
[Reclaimed: Dusk Claw Arrow x1]
Seeing such a long list of dirt-cheap but numerous loots entering my player inventory was almost as gratifying as the new skill and skill levels I had gained from the fight. This was one of the facets that help under-powered classless characters level quickly, not only the lesser versions of skills for upgrading but also the fact that a mage had to focus on raising their magic skills and an archer their shooting and so on to raise their proper skill versions.
I could practice all of the combat styles freely even if it was to slightly less effect in the early parts of the game before I upgraded Swordplay or Bow Hunting into Swordsmanship and Archery. However, I would need to be very lucky to upgrade Archery into a bow martial art or to pick up a proper sword style for advancing Swordsmanship. As well, I would never be able to truly master an element or the real high class magics.
Hoping to rest and recover the little bit of health I had lost, I sit down next to the fire and my cutting board, dagger, and a pound of ferecat meat that I slice into five even steaks. Then I cut the steaks into five even strips that I spit along a long and narrow length of wood. With this spit of roasting meat strips held over the fire, I spent half an hour cooking and healing.
Because I was already fully healed by the time the food was done cooking, I simply put five pieces of meat that heal ten HP apiece in one of my pockets before storing the rest of it fresh in my player inventory. I was not worried about carrying healing items on me before because I was simply hunting by randomly spawned enemies. Now, though, I was seeking out minor event locations like that goblin camp and was at risk of getting hurt.
Since the closest to my last position had been the goblin camp and one of the others was gone from my compass bar to be replaced, I simply turned toward the new icon of what looked like a brick well and started walking north because I figured it was once again the closest. Luckily, I was right.
[Discovered Location: Eldest Oak Passage]
When I suddenly found myself at my destination after walking through a taller area of meadow grasses that worried me for ambushes, I received a sudden notification and looked up to find myself standing only fifty or so yards beyond the hundred-yard reach of the limbs of the biggest oak tree I had ever seen. It towered at least three hundred feet in the air with a rounded top that spread further and further out the lower the branches became.
The grasses came to an end under the reach of those branches that blocked out the light of the sun, making all of the ground underneath completely barren. However, despite the fact that the locations was a giant oak tree the only icon on my compass bar was the well. Curious, I opened my menus to Map and in Regional found my player arrow icon right beside a massive white tree in a rolling hilly landscape of green about eight miles out from the carriage and off to the side from the city.
As I walked out of the grass, though, the 'well' came into view. At the base of the oak tree between two tall and massive roots was a giant gaping hole that angled underground. In front of this hole a small campfire burned with a large figure in brightly gleaming plated mail armor sitting in its light next to a massive two-handed sword stuck in the ground and waiting.
Unequipping my only slightly damaged armor and sword, I walk forward with only my walking stick in hand and dagger at my belt for weapons. Ready to run at a moment's notice as the man by the fire snaps is head around at the sound of my first footstep under the tree, I raise my empty hand and call out, "Hello!"
There was a second or two of silence in which the man watched me 'calmly' walking forward before he finally calls back, "Well met, Traveler! What brings you to this forgotten half-acre of hell?"
Pleased by the way the man sounded openly happy to see me as he stood up and walked away from his weapon, I calmed down a little and said, "I was night hunting and wandered too far from the coach when I saw your firelight while climbing a tree to find the road. Instead of attracting a nightwing, I decided to try asking you."
Laughing heartily after stopping about twenty yards away from the fire, the man says, "A wise decision, my young friend. Worry not for I am Sir Beryl, an honorable knight under the banner of Baron Canfor. You may not want to come much closer to these cursed grounds, though!"
Suddenly stopping in my tracks at his warning, I hesitantly ask, "Are… a bunch of undead about to crawl up and try to drag me down?" Such a scene had been in the trailer for the game and I could not imagine too many worse ways to die.
*