“You got lucky, punk!” the scarecrow champion said, baring a mouth that had altogether too many teeth for a creature made of straw. Oh well, the bigger they are, right? Right?
“It’s not luck. It’s pure skill!” I replied, mouthing off to the monster even though the thing was generated by a computer program. Still, being mouthy had always helped me deal with the stress of combat. What did it matter that it was an NPC? What was important was how I felt, and I felt like taunting it.
As the creature swung its scythe again, I steeled myself and stepped inside its attack and slashed my bokken at its wrists. The force of the blow connecting with its treelike wrists nearly knocked my own weapon from my hands. Even still, the force reverberated painfully down my arms and drove me skidding backward across the grassy knoll.
Crack!
The scarecrow grunted in pain as the combined force of my attack and its momentum caused the branches making up its arms to snap. Its hands spasmed like it’d been electrocuted and the scythe flew from its hands, whipping through the air before stabbing a furrow into the ground a few feet away.
Before it could recover, I swung my bokken with all my might at its face. Unable to block, the creature took the full brunt of my attack right on the side of the neck. Another earsplitting crack filled the air as the creature lurched to the left like a broken mannequin.
That’s when the glint of sunlight off the scythe caught my eye. It was lying there, ripe for the taking. Unfortunately, turning my eyes from the creature was a mistake. Agony exploded through me as its wooden right arm crashed into the side of my skull like a Louisville Slugger.
Stars flashed across my eyes and my vision went ten kinds of blurry as I stumbled sideways and collapsed to the ground. Laughter filled my ears as I struggled to throw off the pain and get back up. Part of me had expected the creature to finish me off, but instead, it turned and ambled toward the fallen scythe.
Well, that was no good. If it picked it up, I was as good as dead. No. I had to get to the weapon before the monster did. I got to my feet, took a step forward, and hurled my bokken with all the force I could muster at the monster’s back.
I didn’t stop to see if it connected. Instead, I dove toward the scythe with all the strength my legs could bring to bear. I hit the ground just in front of it, rolled on my shoulder like they’d taught me in self-defense class, and came to my feet right beside the weapon. The monster was still lurching forward, my bokken embedded in its straw-filled torso.
Before it could reach me, I grabbed the scythe by the bone handle and jerked it free of the ground. Behind me, the scarecrow’s ominous steps filled the air, but I didn’t turn. I waited until it was right on top of me. My nerves went absolutely ape shit, and my blood pounded anxiously in my temples, but I forced myself to wait until it drew into my range. If I didn’t I’d miss, and that wouldn’t help.
Once, I was sure it was close enough, I spun, swinging the scythe with all my might. The curved metal blade caught the champion in the center of the torso, and the gleaming edge cut straight through the creature like I was harvesting wheat.
Surprise filled both of our faces as the scarecrow champion took one second to look down at its rent straw body. One hand fell toward the wound as if it would examine it in disbelief right before it exploded into shards of light, leaving me standing there and staring in awe as the creature’s black leather coat tumbled to the ground in a lifeless heap.
As I stood there in awe and thanking any and all deities for my survival, blue light exploded from my body and the words “Level Up!” danced in front of my face in glowing white script. Power surged through me, and like magic, my bleeding hands healed over, and I found myself back to tip top shape. Hell, I wasn’t even tired or hungry anymore.
“Sweet,” I said as I cast a quick glance at my stats window. My health had increased by twenty two points, and my mana had increased by twenty points. I wasn’t sure if my damage or anything had increased because there were no other notifications under the new stats box, but decided I’d ask Ivan about it when I saw him. After all, he’d said you only gained stat points at level fifty, and I was only at level two.
Fortunately, my experience bar revealed an additional surprise. I was already halfway to level three! The scarecrow champion had been worth a butt load of experience!
“I wonder if it was some kind of special monster like a mini boss,” I asked allowed, hoping Ivan would hear me in response, but as silence descended over the clearing, I couldn’t help but feel a little dumb. For a guy, in charge of helping us win the game, he didn’t strike me as particularly helpful. Definitely more mad than scientist, that was for sure.
I picked up the coat it had dropped, and as I did, it shrank to my size. As I stared at it, I thought “stats,” and crazily enough, a little thought bubble appeared next to it.
“Unidentified item. Identify to reveal hidden stats.” After that was a message letting me know the already identified stats on the item. In its unidentified state, the coat provided one armor and one percent chance to hit.
“Sweet!” I slung it on, and as I did, I gripped my new scythe and examined it as well. Unlike my bokken which had done one damage to both large and small monsters, even unidentified, the scythe did three damage to both large and small monsters and had an added bonus. It did an additional ten percent damage against plant-based monsters.
“I wonder how I identify items,” I wondered aloud. This time I hadn’t expected Ivan to pop in and tell me, but well, yeah, I sort of had. Clearly, I was on my own, which was really fucking scary. I mean, you’d think he’d be here helping me, and while I remembered him saying he had other players to monitor and I was supposed to be in a relatively safe area, I was still annoyed. He should have known or warned me about the scarecrow champion… unless he didn’t know? Was it possible Ivan wasn’t as aware of what was going on as I thought he was?
I resolved to ask him about it when I saw him, but that would have to wait until later. While I’d been standing there looking at my new items, all the dummies had reappeared.
“Gee, and here I have a new scythe I need to test out,” I said, a smile crossing my face as I approached the closest scarecrow. I reared back and swung my new scythe at the first dummy. The metal blade tore through its straw torso, obliterating it in a single hit and gaining me a few experience points. Glee surged through me. This was going to be way easier than using the bokken.
Unfortunately, or fortunately, depending on how you look at it, my scythe cleaved right through the remaining nine dummies in a mere ten seconds, netting me a total of ten percent of level two. As I stood there looking at the empty training ground, I realized I had a problem. I would have to wait forever for a respawn. Well, that was balls.
“Time to take this show on the road,” I said, venturing forth from the training area. Like the training dummies I’d killed thus far, the scarecrow champion hadn’t dropped any money, and I was dying to make some. Only, I wasn’t sure where to go to do that.
6
“Um… Ivan?” I called as I wandered back toward the guards, but like usual he didn’t respond to me. Sigh. I needed a way better handler. There was no way James Bond would put up with this shit. I mean, I was no 007, but still. Still.
“I’m not Ivan,” the bow wielding guard said as I approached them. “I’m Roy, and that’s Nantucket.” He gestured to the spear wielding one who nodded at me. “Ivan is on the west gate.”
“Oh, sorry,” I grinned sheepishly at them. “I was looking for my friend, Ivan, not the guard. I wanted to know where else I could hunt since my new toy obliterates the scarecrows too fast.”
Roy took an appraising glance at the scythe in my hands and shook his head in admiration. “Wow, you saw a scarecrow champion? Those only spawn once a month. You should count yourself lucky both to have found it and to have survived.”
“Really, I hadn’t realized it was that rare,” I replied, looking over my coat and weapon with obvious pleasure. I
was willing to bet Ivan hadn’t known about the boss. Hell, I bet most no one did. I certainly hadn’t known about it, and I’d read a lot about Titan Gate. Something told me I was really damned lucky to have found it.
“Still, you might want to get those identified. Unidentified items lose durability twice as fast and obviously aren’t operating at their full potential,” Nantucket said, sidling over to me. “But I’m guessing since you were fighting scarecrows, you don’t know how to do that, right?”
“You would be correct, sir,” I said because there was no cost for being polite. “I tried to ask my friend, but he isn’t responding.”
“Well, it’s no problem,” Roy answered, still smiling, which made his freckles stand out on his pale face. “Cain will be happy to identify your items. He’s in the middle of town by the fountain. Be careful though, he likes to tell stories that go on for days.”
“Alternatively, you can buy identification scrolls from the shop. They’re only thirty Rhuvians, which might seem like a lot now, but really isn’t,” Nantucket added, and I wondered if the two shared a mind because talking to the pair of them was like talking to a single person.
“Thanks, I’ll go find Cain.” I smiled at them, and then because I figured they might know, decided to ask them a question. “Do you have any idea where is good to hunt at my level?”
Nantucket gave me a close look and smirked. “If I were you, I’d try the clearing by the north gates.” He jerked a thumb at the gate he was guarding. “This is the south gate so if you walk straight through town, you’ll hit the north. As long as you stick to bunnies and avoid the foxes, you should be fine.”
“Um… thanks, Nantucket,” I said making sure to use his name because I’d heard that sometimes helped endear you to people, and while he was just an NPC that didn’t mean I didn’t want him to like me. Besides, what would Weed have done in the Legendary Moonlight Sculptor? He’d have been nice to the NPCs too. After all, if these were all ultimately controlled by the same AI, maybe it would influence the game in my favor somehow.
“Don’t mention it,” Nantucket replied, grinning at me from beneath his metal helmet. “Oh, if you see an old guy in green and white robes, you should chat him up. He sometimes casts a haste buff on new players.”
“Ugh, Gereng is a creep though,” Roy added, glancing at me. “Just keep an eye on your pocket book when you talk to him.”
“All right,” I said, nodding to the both of them. “Thank you so much.”
With that, I waved to the pair of them and made my way through the gate and stepped into town. As soon as I found myself on the cobblestone streets, I had half a mind to stop and explore, but decided I’d rather do as the guards had said and find Cain. If I just wasted time wandering, I might as well stay and wait for the scarecrows to respawn.
After a few minutes of retracing the steps I’d taken with Ivan, I saw the fountain. An old, haggard man in blue robes stood by the fountain, regaling a group of children with a tale I couldn’t discern because I was too far away.
“That must be Cain,” I muttered, smiling to myself as I approached him. Once I got within earshot, he glanced at me, and a grin spread across his face, stretching his white beard to the limit.
“Hello, there, adventurer. Any interesting tales to share?” As he spoke, the children surrounding him, glanced at me with a look that said, “sucker,” and scampered away before he could turn his attention back to them. That was not a good sign. Still, I wanted my stuff identified, so I decided to play nice.
“Actually, I was hoping you could help me with a couple items I acquired from the scarecrow champion outside.” I flashed my best smile at him, but it was unnecessary because he looked like I’d just handed him a free pass to bang Scarlet Johannsen while she wore her Black Widow costume.
“I’d be more than happy to help,” Cain replied, reaching his gnarled hands toward me in a way that suggested I should hand him the items.
“Thanks so much,” I said, offering him the scythe and coat. Admittedly, part of me was worried he’d steal them, but I wasn’t that worried since NPCs usually didn’t steal from players unless it was part of a quest.
“Oh these are excellent items,” Cain said, taking them from me. As he touched them, they glowed with golden light for a second. “I can tell you about their history if you’d like to stay awhile and listen.”
I nodded to him as I took the items back from him, but as he started talking, I was too busy looking at their stats to hear him.
The leather coat had become the Champion’s Leather Coat and now provided three armor points with an additional ten percent damage reduction against blunt attacks.
My scythe had become the Champion’s Bone-handled Scythe. It now did four damage to both large and small monsters with an extra fifty percent damage to plant based monsters.
Strangely, they both had an additional message attached to them that said, “Both items are now eligible for enchanting and experience.”
“What seems to be the matter?” Cain asked, sensing my confusion.
“Both of these say they are eligible for enchanting and experience, but I have no idea what that means.” Then, like an idiot, I tried to show him the message bubble next to them. I wasn’t sure if he saw it because it may have just been displayed on my HUD, but he nodded sagely anyway.
“Items in Ruul will level up as you use them. So your scythe, for instance, will gain experience when you kill monsters with it. All weapons can increase their level to ten through use. Additionally, most items in Ruul can be modified via enchanting, of which there are three main kinds. Would you like to know more?”
“Yes, please!” I said, suddenly feeling like Cain was infinitely more helpful than Ivan had been. After all, the bug-faced jerk had every reason to tell me since he needed me to beat this AI virus, but I couldn’t make him tell me anything since he wasn’t fucking here.
“The first kind of enchanting is done by changing the composition of a weapon say from iron to mithril. A blacksmith breaks down an item into its soul shard before reforging it into a new item. In this way, experience can be retained.” Cain smiled at me. “Do you understand?”
“Yes. I’m guessing this is fairly common?” I asked, figuring all you had to do was find powerful metals and take them to a blacksmith.
“All three are common,” Cain replied. “The next method is probably the most common but also the most dangerous. It is done by infusing magic into a weapon to increase its stats. It’s not so bad at the first few enchantment levels, but as the magically inflated stats grow, the item has a greater chance to dissolve, leaving you with nothing.”
“That seems fairly dangerous,” I replied, figuring it was bets saved for new weapons that hadn’t been leveled yet. It would suck to level a weapon and then blow it up.
“It is, but the scrolls to enchant weapons and armor are relatively common drops from enemies and can be purchased at most stores.” Cain shrugged. “Usually adventurers enchant their items before they level them though. It’s less heartbreaking that way.”
“Yeah, I figured it would be,” I replied, wondering how much those enchants cost. It might be a gamble but creating a powerful weapon to start might be worth it, even if you had to blow up a few to get a really strong one.
“The last method is called augmentation. It usually involves affixing a crystal or gemstone or something to a weapon to make it do special effects like steal life or mana from an enemy or absorb magic.” Cain looked at me as he spoke and I got the feeling we were nearing the end of our little lesson.
“Well, thanks for your help,” I said, slinging on my leather coat. Putting it on immediately made me feel like a bad ass even though I was only level two. Now that it was identified, the black leather coat fell to my ankles and had a hood so it covered the majority of my body in armor. Combined with the scythe, it served to make me look like a leather-clad grim reaper.
“You’re very welcome. Have fun, and next time, bring back some m
ore cool stuff,” Cain replied, waving at me.
“I’ll do my best. For now, it’s time to visit the North Gate.” I waved back at him and took my leave while feeling strangely accomplished.
7
When I reached the north gate, I was completely unsurprised to see guards who looked similar to Roy and Nantucket both in appearance and garb. Standing next to them, however, was a dude with white hair in a green and white robe. He must be Gereng, the guy Roy and Nantucket said could give me a haste buff. I checked my wallet, realized I had no wallet, let alone money to fill it, and decided to approach.
“Hello!” I called, walking toward them with my scythe over one shoulder because I wasn’t sure how else to hold it and look non-threatening. The three of them looked over at me, and the archer smirked.
“Let me guess, you killed the scarecrow champion and found you didn’t like waiting for respawns?” he asked in a voice oddly similar to Roy.
“Yes, actually. Roy sent me this way.” I glanced over my shoulder and was about to point out the south gate, but before I could, the guard kept talking.
“Thought so. It usually happens when someone is lucky enough to fight a champion and live,” the archer replied. “I’m Marth. Roy is my brother. So if you’re a friend of his, you’re a friend of mine.” He glanced at Gereng. “Say, Gereng, why don’t you give the kid a haste buff.”
Gereng grimaced like he’d tasted something he didn’t like, but before he could reply, the spear guy elbowed him in the side.
“Yeah, Gereng, be a pal. Can’t you see he’s new?” the guard said in a distinctly Nantucket-like voice.
“Fine,” Gereng replied, giving me the stink eye as he raised one liver-spot covered hand and waggled his fingers at me. White light streamed from his hand and struck me.
Soulstone: Awakening (World of Ruul Book 1) Page 4