The Curse of Hurlig Ridge_World Tree Online_1st Dive
Page 9
“Okay, that makes perfect sense,” I replied, feeling slightly stunned. He was absolutely right, if I was going to pursue Lore as a profession, then cartography would be paramount.
“As for Runes. Runes are power lad, no two ways about it,” said Homer, the shuffle of keys prominent as he tried yet another key.
“What do you mean? I know it’s different from enchanting but how is it power?” I had honestly wanted to get enchanting if I could only pick one evolution, it would be nice to be able to enhance my gear with bonus stats and abilities.
“Runes communicate power, which makes it one of the hardest professions to learn and develop.”
“Sorry for so many questions, but what do you mean ‘Runes communicate power’?”
“Correct me if I am wrong but, you have read a couple of those books you referred to as a skill book we offer right?” he asked, still fiddling with his keys, which was become comical at this point.
“I have,” I answered, his comment pointed to Runes being linked to skills in some way.
“So those are not true skill books. A true skill book or scroll contains knowledge, something a person can learn instantly and those use runes,” he replied simply.
I was stunned by his response. The town’s books weren’t true skill books, but they were books capable of teaching skills . . . if you had the patience to study them. Which meant, a true skill book would be able to instantly impart the knowledge of a skill, probably applied to spells too. All of this led me to the idea, if I learned Runes, I would be able to create and sell skills and spell books. But again, I came back to the question of how this would help me with lore. I looked at him again, but as soon as I opened my mouth to question, him he cut me off.
“Some runes have been lost to time,” he answered my unasked question.
Lost runes meant lost skills or spells, things unable to be recreated otherwise. And Lore was all about the lost. I suddenly felt an overwhelming need to drop everything I was doing, and rush to learn these two professions, but I knew better than to forgo anything, I still had plenty I needed to get done before the day ended.
“Any other profession you think might help me?” I asked, interested to hear his opinion, but I knew my mind was made up. I’m pretty sure he knew my mind was made up too, but it was worth asking anyway.
“It depends on you I guess. Crafting professions are always helpful, it is nice to be able to make your own armor and weapons, but the choice is up to you,” he answered, finally getting the door open, a smile of achievement and jubilation on his face.
Once inside I followed him to his office. “Now, what can the Mayor do for you?” asked Homer, his tone of voice slightly different from the friendly older gentlemen. It was now more akin to that of an authority figure.
“I’ve collected 15 pack wolf paws and 1 alpha wolf paw,” I answered.
Homer went to his closet and pull out two buckets and placed them on the desk. “Deposit the paws in the buckets.”
As I made my deposit, Homer watched me and counted each paw entered the bucket, mumbling as he did.
“Good work,” he said, going to a cabinet and fiddling with his keys again. It took a minute for him to open the cabinet. When he came back to the desk he was carrying a black metal lockbox. More fiddling with his keys. “Here you are, 40-copper and it looks like you could use a pair of gloves, please choose one.
Please choose one pair of gloves as part of your bounty:
Light Burlap Gloves +2-Armor, +1-Intellect
Light Leather Gloves +5-Armor, +1-Stamina
Light Mail Gloves +10-Armor, +1-Endurance
Sadly, I didn’t have the strength for anything but the Burlap gloves. My stamina was in a good spot anyway, but my intellect was a little behind, so the light gloves made more sense.
You’ve selected ‘Light Burlap Gloves’
Are you sure?
Yes
No
Yes, I am. The mayor held them out to me and I slipped them on right away. The gloves were fingerless, and a perfect fit as expected.
Pack Wolf Bounty – 15 paws collected
Reward: 30-Copper, 60 Experience
That was one.
Alpha Wolf Bounty – 1 paws collected
Reward: 10-Copper, 30 Experience
That was two. So, not great experience or money, but it was a steady income. Thankfully, nothing in town was prohibitively expensive yet, so copper was more than sufficient for the time being.
“Also, please feel free to keep collecting the bounty on the wolves, any help we can get with this scourge the better,” the mayor added.
“I’ll bring you more when I can, for now, I’ll be heading toward Farmer Johnson’s. He needs help with his harvest and his wife needs some help with a clothes’ thief. Then I’ll be going for some blackberries for Rita Dogson,” I told him. I’ve found, sometimes, if you let an NPC know your plans, you’ll trigger an extra quest.
“Excellent, do not suppose you would mind picking up a case of mason jars from the sundry and delivering them to Duke for me? I will give you the money for the jars now, and Duke will pay you when you deliver.
Quest Alert: Shiny Delivery Service 1 (Recommended Level 2-4)
Mayor Homer Simper has asked you to deliver a case of mason jars to Farmer Johnson’s
Reward: Experience, 50-Copper
Do you accept this Quest?
Yes
No
For 50-copper? You bet I accept. “Can do.”
“Excellent,” said the mayor. “Just uh, let us keep this between you, me and Duke. No need to let the missus know, if you catch my meaning.”
“Sure,” I answered, not at all sure why he would make such a request. I looked again at the quest name ‘Shiny Delivery Service 1’ which indicated this was part of a quest chain which usually leads to a good amount of experience. But why ‘Shiny’? I was missing something here.
“Great, here’s 2-silver to pay for the jars. Please be careful not to break them,” the man held out the coins, he took them not from the lockbox, but from his own pocket.
I took the coins, still not completely sure about the quest, but the experience and copper would hopefully be worth it.
Chapter 5
I actually had a chance to enjoy the scenery outside the village, during the short jaunt from town to the Johnson farm. The ground was uneven and covered in loose rocks, but the tall pine trees were beautiful and smelled fantastic. I wasn’t sure what kind of farm could succeed in this terrain, but I would find out soon enough.
As I emerged from the forest I could finally see the farm. It was stepped and looked similar to Japanese rice patties but with corn stalks growing tall instead of rice. At the top of the corn patties, was a small farmhouse parked right next to a large barn.
I found an easy to follow trail, leading around the patties up to the house. As I approached, I saw a smokestack on the roof and a thin line of grey smoke steadily rising. The roof was thatched, and the walls were made of cobblestone. It was the first building I had seen in this style, where all the houses back in the village were made of wood. The barn next to the house had a cobblestone base about four-feet high, which then turned to wood the rest of the way up. It all looked rather quaint.
It did lead to a stray thought though. I was simply referring to the village, as the village. I hadn’t even bothered to find out if the village had a name. Hurlig Village? I’ll have to ask when I get back.
“Ho there, young fella,” called a man, exiting the house. My guess would have been Farmer Johnson.
“Hello there,” I greeted him. I couldn’t help but notice he seemed rather guarded. “Mayor Simper sent me. I also picked up the request to help you with your harvest and to help your wife with her lost laundry.”
The farmer seemed to study me for a minute. “What does Homer want with me?”
I took out the box of mason jars from my bag and presented it to him. “I was asked to deliver some mason jars.”
Quest Alert: Shiny Delivery Service 1 - Completed
Mayor Homer Simper has asked you to deliver a case of mason jars to Farmer Johnson’s
Reward: +300 Experience, 50-Copper
“I will have these ready for pick up tomorrow around midday bell. Would you mind coming back and picking them up then?”
Quest Alert: Shiny Delivery Service 2 (Recommended Level 2-4)
Return to Farmer Johnson in one day.
Reward: Experience
Do you accept this Quest?
Yes
No
“I can do that,” I answered as it suddenly dawned on me what ‘Shiny’ meant. Farmer Johnson was a moonshiner.
“Good lad,” said Duke. “Now, you mention helping with the harvest and looking for the missing bedsheets?”
“Yes sir,” I answered. “Where should I start?”
“See the empty bushels,” he pointed to a stack of empty bushel baskets. “Fill a few of them up to help me out, you can leave the filled bushels at the end of the row.”
“Can do,” I said. I tried to sound cheerful about it, but I hated gather quests. They were always annoying, tediously so and so time-consuming, despite being rather simple.
But, there was no sense putting it off. I would have to head toward the waterfall soon, hopefully, find Pwn Star 69, get my justice, and hopefully live long enough to do it.
Thankfully the quest was easy, and I was done inside of 30-minutes. I just had to pull down on the ear of corn and it broke from the stalk and dropped into the waiting bushel.
Quest Alert: Harvest Help - Completed
Farmer Johnson needs help with is his corn harvest.
Reward: +150 Experience, Fresh Corn, 20-Copper
I was rewarded a moment later with a new level.
Congratulations! You’ve reached Level 3!
+1 to bonus Holy Spells, +1 Intellect, +1 Charisma
The corn was a cooking ingredient or could be eaten raw for a few HP.
“Thank you for the help, sonny,” said Duke, sneaking up on me and causing me to nearly spear the man.
“Happy to help,” I replied, my heart still hammering in my chest. I hate when NPC’s just appear when you’ve completed a quest. It was just unnatural, and as in this case, heart-stopping.
“My wife’s clothesline is behind the house, feel free to check around for any clues,” suggested the farmer. He then bent down and picked up the filled bushel and headed toward his barn, obviously planning to make a little moonshine.
The back of the house did indeed have a clothesline, but it was currently bare. As luck would have it, my ‘Beast Tracking’ skill popped up right away, with prints going back and forth under the clothesline. I knelt down next to the prints to see if I could identify the animal. It appeared to be some kind of wild boar, its hoofprints eventually went northeast toward the river and based on the spacing of the steps it was running fast.
I supposed I was to follow the prints. It surprised me when I didn’t lose the hoofprints even once, but even if I did lose the tracks, I think I could have just followed the trail of destruction. Everywhere I looked there were broken branches, strips of torn cloth, trampled bushes and grass. If I didn’t know I was tracking a boar, I would have thought a small tornado touched down here and kept going.
Eventually, I heard squealing, I assumed had to be from the boar.
I was not prepared for what I found. The poor boar had managed to tear a hole in the sheet and put his head through it. If that wasn’t enough, the stupid animal had run into a bramble adding tears and more holes in the sheet, and worse still, he’d managed to get himself all wrapped up and suspended in the bramble with his little piggy hooves desperately trying to find traction with the ground, despite the inch gap between the two.
On top of that mess, and what I was dreading dealing with most, was the 5 wolves biting at each other, trying to be the first to get to the easy meal. Did I mention it was 5 Alpha Wolves? Cause it was.
Quest Alert: Piggy in Peril 1 (Recommended Level 5+)
You’ve found the thief, a portly piggy that is about to become wolf chow.
Reward: Experience
What will you choose to do?
Protect the Boar
Leave the Boar to the wolves
I wanted to sigh, this would be trouble, I could already tell. I’ll try to save the little porker.
“Troublesome,” I grumbled softly anyway. Now, the good news was the wolves weren’t exactly being gentle with each other, all of them only had about half of their hp left. Even though their hp pools were not dropping any lower. Hopefully, it wouldn’t take as much to kill them. It was still going to be tough. So, I thought it was time to break out the ‘Lesser Combat Blessing’ and ‘Lesser Holy Imbuement’, even if it did only leave me with 10 mana it was worth the extra damage, stamina, and HP.
“Please let my first shot be a crit,” I sent up a small prayer to Issara and charged in, slamming my shield into the closest wolf and driving it into the next two closest wolves, and then driving my legs harder, trying to push all three of them into the bramble in hopes of at least slowing them down. I’m sure the sergeant would have been on my tail for the bad form and sloppy footwork, but right then, I didn’t care too much. I started attacking with my spear even as I drove on, using ‘Jab’ every time my arm came back, attacking in quick succession.
A painful bite to the back of my back leg had me shifting away and pivoting quickly, trying to put the wolves in front of me. I risked a glanced back and was pleased to see my attack had been successful, two of the alphas were dead and pinning a third. Just two left, both in front of me, at least until the third struggled free.
I thought back to my training with Sergeant Butters as I faced the two wolves. The one on the left barred his fangs and lowered slightly, I shifted forward and slammed my shield into the wolf just as it was about to attack. It interrupted the attack and I stuck immediately with two rapid ‘Jab’ attacks. I shifted back again to ready myself for the next attack. I expected the wolf on the right to attack while the one on the left recovered but it just growled at me, actually taking a few steps back.
Meanwhile, Lefty was back on his feet and rushing headlong at me. I used ‘Shield Slam’ again and two more quick ‘Jab’ attacks to finish it off.
I should probably have paid more attention to Righty. He suddenly howled loudly which was echoed through the woods around me with three matching howls. “Oh, you stupid . . . evil . . . wolf,” I complained even if the wolf couldn’t understand me I hope my ‘Shield Slam’, ‘Jab’, ‘Jab’, ‘Shield Slam’, ‘Jab’, and ‘Jab’ made my displeasure clear upon his death.
I could now hear the bushes around me rustling more loudly, back up was getting close. I decided to quickly finish the still pinned alpha as he was about to break free.
The reinforcements were thankfully just Pack Wolves, but there were still three of them and they were all at full hp. It took three attacks each to kill the pack wolves, unfortunately, I wasn’t as flawless as fighting the Alpha wolves. I was able to ‘Shield Slam’ the attack and ‘Jab’ the target but one of the other two wolves would always attack at the same time. I had yet to get an ability to deal with multiple targets at once. When the last wolf died, I was nearly out of stamina and my health was hanging on by a thread.
Thankfully, during the course of the fight, I had regenerated a good chunk of my mana, enough to cast ‘Lesser Heal’ three times, bringing me back almost 30 hp. At least I was no longer in the red, near-death state, I had been, but still not very good either. I at least felt comfortable enough to drinking my Mana Rich Water from my canteen, restoring most of my mana and then spending most of it to heal up the rest of the way. I finished off the water in my canteen then started on the stamina water to bring my SP back up to full.
&n
bsp; I took a minute to collect the paws from all 8 wolves, glad I would make a little money on this deal. I really needed to learn some kind of scavenging skill, until I did I was literally leaving meat on the bone of the monsters I kill.
Finally, I looked back to my terrified and squealing objective. “Now, what am I supposed to do with you?”
Quest Alert: Piggy in Peril 1 - Completed
You’ve found the thief, a portly piggy that is about to become wolf chow.
Reward: +200 Experience
I do love me some experience points.
Quest Alert: Piggy in Peril 2 (Recommended Level 2-4)
You’ve found the thief, a portly piggy that has gotten himself into quite the predicament.
Reward: Experience, Variable Piece of Gear
What will you choose to do?
Save the Boar
Kill the Boar
After I just fought off the wolves what did the game think I was going to do. Of course, I’ll save him.
It took a while to work my way through the bramble to the trapped boar, who seemed to thrash more, as I got closer to him.
“Oh, calm down you brat, I’m here to help you,” I shouted at the boar after he nearly gored me with his tusks. If anything, the boar squirmed and squealed more.
I tried to get a better look at the situation. There was no way I was going to save the bedsheet. I could get it free of the brambles but then the boar would just run off again and probably get itself stuck again, or worse. I had to free the pig from his blanket.