This left us with one wave creature left to fight.
“Don’t let it touch you,” I told Rex, who held his sword in front of him in the vague approximation of a seasoned fighter. He took wary steps back as the creature faced him. I saw plumes of steam rise from it as the creature’s hot breath drifted into the chilly air.
“I wasn’t about to shake hands with it,” said Rex.
The monster raised its hands ready to strike. I sensed that Rex wasn’t fully attuned with his barbarian class, and I doubted he’d be able to block the blow. I ran forward, shouting incomprehensibly, trying to get the creature’s attention. It turned toward me.
“Now!” I shouted.
Rex struck with his sword. The creature howled in pain, but it didn’t go down. Rex hit it again and again, and this time the wave monster crumpled to the floor. We didn’t leave it to chance, and Rex struck it a final time. The creature writhed on the ground for a second, and then was still.
I sat down and caught my breath. The forest was silent now, with only the sound of the wind whistling through the trees. Rex put his sword back into the sheath on his back and walked over to me.
“Here,” he said, passing me something.
I took it from him. It was a pile of crushed leaves.
“Great,” I said. “Just what I’ve always wanted.”
“I took herbalism as a skill. Eat it,” said Rex. “It’ll restore some of your HP.”
I took a tentative bite of the leaves. They tasted sour, but soon I felt a glow rush through me.
43 HP gained (Total: 98/123).
I stood up. I couldn’t hear any more of the creatures now, but I knew it wouldn’t be long until the rest of them found us. With daybreak seeming no closer, we needed to move.
“You took herbalism?” I said. “That’s not exactly a classic barbarian skill.”
“I told you. I never wanted this class. Father chose it for me.”
Chapter Eighteen
We made our way carefully back to the shelter. Thankfully we didn’t come across any more of the wave creatures, though we heard them scream and howl around us. When we made it back to the shore, I had never been so glad to see an alcove cut into a hill. It wasn’t the Hilton, but it was our base now.
Hours later, the sun finally made an appearance and started to banish away the traces of night. As I stepped out of the alcove, a message flashed on my screen.
Quest complete – Survive Your First Wave
Reward:
- 15 EXP
- HP Potions x2
Bonus: 1.10 x endurance modifier defence against wave creatures
I don’t know how, but Rex had managed to doze away whilst we waited out the night. I left him to sleep for a while, and I spent an hour gathering wood and constructing basic traps around our shelter. I hoped that they would offer some sort of defence against the next wave of creatures. Not only that, but they would hopefully catch a hare or two. Maybe Rex could take cooking as a skill as well as herbalism. God knew his herb mixtures could use a little flavor.
After constructing my fifth trap, I was greeted by some text.
Level up Trap to level 2 – increases trap radius.
Level up Trap to level 3 – increases trap damage and camouflage.
I took a few minutes to check the Pana forums. I found that at level 5, my trap skill would allow me to make better constructions using blue prints. This was good; the more defenses we could build around our shelter, the better. It looked like we were free to explore Artemis during the day, but at night we’d have to wait in our base whilst the creatures stalked the woods.
When Rex woke from his sleep, he stood up, stretched his arms, and then looked around.
“Is this where you washed up after the wreck?” he said.
I nodded. “Not sure where we are, though. We need a map.”
“Any sign of Jack and the sailors?”
“Nothing so far. I tried party chat, but nothing came back. Listen, do you think we should message your dad? Ask him to buy us more equipment?”
Rex shook his head. “He won’t give us any, trust me. He’ll tell us it’s a life lesson, or something. Besides, I don’t want to give him the satisfaction.”
“What’s the deal with you two?” I asked.
Rex ignored me. I couldn’t help but feel I’d been given the wrong impression of him. Terence had told me his son was a jock, but I just couldn’t see it.
As I walked around our shelter and positioned the traps as best I could, I noticed something. A set of footprints were dotted all around our base. The strange thing was, it looked like they were in a circle. It was as if something had paced around our alcove for hours during the night. The tracks seemed too small to be made by the wave creatures.
“What are they?” asked Rex, kneeling on the ground and looking at a footprint.
I shrugged. “Wish I knew. It’d be good to be able to know this kind of thing.”
Skill Gained – Tracking [Int, Agi] – Do you accept?
With one last skill slot left to fill, I decided I needed to take tracking as a primary. I was a scout, and Helder’s Bane was a pursuit. Being able to track things through the forest would come in handy.
Rex straightened up. He rubbed his eyes, then looked at me. There was something strange about the way he looked at things. He always seemed thoughtful, as if he stared at everything around him and tried to make it all fit into a pattern.
“We better get moving,” he said.
“We’ve got a long day ahead,” I answered. “First up, we need to find Cal. Jack, I mean. He might have died and respawned, or he could be out there somewhere. Whatever’s happened, we need to find him. We’re stronger as a group.”
“Yeah. After all, there might be some NPCs we need to trick in a game of cards.”
I knew that Rex was starting to form a bad impression of Jack. “He’s a gambler. He has sleight of hand, but his class had much more to it than that. Trust me, you’ll see.”
“We need a respawn rune too,” said Rex. “Otherwise, one death and we’re screwed.”
I nodded. “Easier said than done. There’s a village nearby, but we don’t have any money.”
“I can make one,” said Rex.
I looked at him. He was full of surprises.
“Yeah,” he carried on. “I took crafting as a skill too. I’ll need to level it up, and I’ll need a blueprint and materials, but in time I’ll be able to make a respawn rune.”
“You’re going to be the worst barbarian ever, you know,” I said. “You could at least take some fighting skills.”
“Don’t call me that.”
“What?”
“A barbarian.”
“But that’s what you are.”
“That’s what father wants me to be. But it’s not who I am.”
Respawn runes were high-level items. Rex was right; in time, he’d be able to level up his crafting skill enough to make one. The problem was that we didn’t have time on our side. Even after our setbacks, we still had an advantage over other players, in that we’d gotten to the island before them. Soon, though, the public ships would land. I wanted our search for Helder’s Bane to be well underway by then.
“We don’t have time to level up,” I said. “We need to buy a rune from the village.”
“I don’t think they give things on credit,” said Rex.
I shook my head. “No. But we do have something we can sell.”
“If you’re talking about selling your body, I don’t think people will be interested.”
I laughed. “Not that. Your armor. Your dad must have spent a fortune on it. It’s the best armor a noob can wear.”
Chapter Nineteen
We headed through the forest and toward Dostooth village. The forest was different in the day; pale streams of light found their way through the gaps in the trees. Burrs roamed in the distance, and every so often we’d see a flash of flame as they incinerated a woodland creature. I thought that
I might find it hard to locate the village again, but I seemed drawn to it. I guessed that it was my Awareness and Tracking skills mixing together to give me a sense of direction. I was satisfied with my skill choices. We still needed some fighting skills, but I hoped that I could convince Rex to take at least one barbarian ability.
“Is this the place?” said Rex.
We found ourselves stood by the wooden fence that ran around the village. The main gates were open now, and I could see activity beyond them. Children ran back and forth on the dirt ground and played tag with each other. A man stood outside one shack and stretched an animal pelt on a rack. Another walked to a well in the center of the village and lowered a bucket into it. The smell of meat was in the air, though I couldn’t see who was cooking it.
When we walked through the gates and into the village, activity seemed to cease. The man stopped stretching out his pelt and eyed us with suspicion. One of the children saw us, and his eyes grew wide. He grabbed his friend by the arm and the two of them ran into a nearby hut.
As we walked through, people whispered. My awareness helped me hear them better, and I heard one woman mutter “eternals,” in a low voice.
Looking around, I saw that some of the huts had signs outside with icons printed on them. One sign showed the image of a set of weighing scales, and I guessed it to be the trader’s hut. Another had a picture of a book on it. That could have meant two things; either it was a bookseller, or a mage shop.
We headed toward the trader’s hut. I reached the door and went to push it open, but I found that it was locked.
“Go away,” said a voice from inside.
The hut didn’t have windows, so I couldn’t see who was speaking to us. “We just want to trade,” I said.
I heard rummaging from behind the door, but whoever was inside made no move to unlock it. “Get lost,” said the voice.
“They won’t talk to you,” said a voice behind me.
I turned around to see a little girl stood in front of us. When I faced her, she backed away a couple of steps. She eyed Rex with his armor and sword, and I could tell she was uncomfortable.
“Nobody will talk to you,” said the girl. “We’ve all heard of you.”
“Then you’ll know we don’t want to cause any trouble,” I answered.
She shook her head. “We knew you were coming. You’re Eternals, aren’t you?”
Rex tilted his head. “Eternals?”
“You don’t die,” said the girl. “Or you do, but then you come back. Dad says you’re all witches.”
“Birta!” cried a voice, from a shack on the west side of the village. “Get back here now before I sell your hide to Andal!”
I looked over to see a man striding toward us. His arm muscles were well-developed, no doubt from physical labor. The people of the village were self-sustaining, I realized. They lived off the land around them, and we were intruding in it.
The man reached Birta and pulled the girl close to him. He gave me a threatening look.
“You lot are here to bring trouble, aren’t you?” he said.
Rex held his hands out in a placating gesture. “We’re here to buy a few things. Nothing more.”
The man spat. “Eternals bring monsters with them. We’ve heard of you. I have a cousin on the mainland, and he says you draw strength from killing things. You get innocent people caught up in your fights.”
“We just want to trade, and then we’ll go, “I said.
He shook his head. “Nobody in Dostooth will trade as much as a leaf with you. Now get lost, before we chase you out.”
Quest received – Improve the Villagers’ Opinion of You
Reward:
- 120 exp
- Unlock village dialogue options
“Did you get that too?” I said, looking at Rex.
He nodded. “Looks like we have to help them in some way. But I don’t know how.”
I sighed. There had to be a way to get the villagers to talk to us, but right now, I had no clue how to do it. We’d already wasted 2 hours of the day so far, and I didn’t want the night to come without making any progress.
“Okay,” I said. “Let’s find Jack. We can think about what to do about the village on the way. He’s got better charisma stats than us; maybe he can talk to them.”
“Great. But where do we start?”
I pointed north, beyond the village. The trees were sparser in that direction, and I saw a cliff that rose thirty feet into the air. Birds swooped above it.
“That’ll give us a vantage point. Or at least, we’ll be able to see a little more of Artemis and get our bearings. It’s a starting point.”
Chapter Twenty
If there’s ever a time where high endurance comes in handy, it’s when you have to climb a cliff. It didn’t take us too long to reach it, though our journey through the woodland was extended when we encountered 2 Burrs. Rex wanted to avoid them, but I forced him to attack and kill them. He did so wearily, as if he hated every swing of his sword.
“You need to level up,” I told him.
After killing them, Rex wouldn’t go near their bodies. It was left to me to loot their corpses, and I gained 2 Burr pelts in my inventory, as well as 2 Burr tail tips. The tips, I discovered, could be lit, and they would act as torches.
The cliff ran up in a slope that seemed too gentle to have been programmed for the island of Artemis. I expected the coders to have made the climb impossible, but it seemed that they didn’t make hard work of everything. Rex and I climbed the slope, stopping every so often to make sure of our footing. Sometimes, rocks loosened and then tumbled down to the ground below.
By the time we reached the top, my stamina had dropped below halfway. I expected Rex to fare better than me, but instead he reached the summit and then sat down, panting.
“Come on, pal,” I said. “If my endurance can take it, then yours surely can.”
“I told you, my character was preloaded. Dad spent most of my attribute points on strength, with 1 point on intelligence.”
“But that’s so imbalanced that it’s ridiculous. Why the hell would he do that?”
“Because that’s what he thinks of me. He thinks I’m all brawn, no brain.”
“Has your dad ever actually spent a minute with you?” I said, wondering how, in a few hours, I could know Terence’s son better than he did.
“I don’t want to talk about it.”
I walked over to the cliff edge. The wind seemed stronger so high up. I wondered if one gust would send me over the edge and into the air, where I'd flap around like a kite. When I stood at the edge and looked around me, I forgot about the wind.
About a mile away, at a different part of the shore from where I’d washed up, I saw a boat. This one was twice the size of ours, and it had a mast with a sword logo painted on it. Holes lined the side of the ship and oars were stuck through them. Next to the ship and on the beach, I saw a party of men and women.
I knew that the public ships wouldn’t sail for another 2 days, so this must have been a private one. I’d guessed that we weren’t the only people so desperate for Helder’s Bane and its rewards. We also weren't the only ones to charter a private vessel. Still, the size of this boat made it clear that whoever these people were, they had more resources than us. Not only that, but they’d manage to sail to Artemis unscathed.
There were three men and two women. They seemed well equipped, with leather armor and various weapons. None of them had a Death Bringer, preferring sharp metal to frail twigs. They walked back and forth from the ship and unloaded brown sacks of items. They seemed to be working under the supervision of one man. He was shorter than the rest, and he wore robes that were completely black. He had a hood drawn over his head. It was hard to make out anything in detail from so far away, but his face looked to be covered by something. I wondered if it was a skill tattoo.
As I watched, I saw a creature approach them. It was small and ran on four legs. It edged closer to the group, unwo
rried about the appearance of five Eternals on the shores of Artemis. I wondered if the animal was going to attack them, but when it reached one of the group it stood up on its hind legs. It seemed crazy, but I was sure that it was waiting for the woman to stroke it. I guessed that not all NPCs on Artemis were hostile.
The hooded man walked over to the creature. He kneeled next to it and stroked its head. The creature leaned in toward him and basked in the affection. Then, in just a second, the man drew a knife from his belt and plunged it into the animal’s throat. The woman next to him stepped back. The man grabbed the dead animal by the throat, stood up, and then threw it into the sea.
The Scout of Artemis (LitRPG Series): Press X to Loot Book 1 Page 7