Rohan.
Class: Multi-tasker
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level: 2
Strength: 200
Health: 543/550
Mana: 198
Intelligence: 70
Karma: 0
Chapter 4
I had been gazing from the window of my room at the NPCs and players moving about in the street below, when I saw the theft. A hooded man had been standing behind one of the soldiers. The soldier’s back was turned to the man, and there was a ring of keys hanging out dangerously from the pocket of the soldier.
Suddenly, a skinny NPC with a hump who was dressed in rags came into the scene. He approached the duo. The hooded man had been looking away and didn’t pay any heed to the skinny guy, who went by the name of Pravalesh.
Pravalesh approached the soldier from the back with extreme caution such that my curiosity was piqued. Suddenly he went even nearer to the soldier and snatched the ring of keys from the soldier’s pocket and ran as fast as possible in the opposite direction. The soldier whirled around, and grabbed the hooded man after seeing that his keys were gone. He didn’t seem to have noticed Pravalesh.
I decided to help the hooded man, who seemed to be a timid fellow as he begged the soldier to let him go since he wasn’t the culprit. I jumped down from my window. It wasn’t a wise move, but I had seen where the thief had gone and hidden. The jump cost me twenty health, but I moved quickly to the alley where the thief had gone. I found him standing there, his hands in his pockets and his face so innocent he could have been an angel from heaven.
It was easy to grab him. His strength was much lower than mine. He kicked and protested, but I didn’t let go and pulled out the keys from his pocket. I took him to the soldier who was getting really furious with the hooded man. I dragged the actual thief to them and showed the ring of keys to the soldier. He looked from me to the thief and to the hooded man with confusion, and took the keys from me.
“This guy is the real thief,” I told the soldier. He snarled and slapped the thief. He grabbed him by the throat.
“Thank you,” the soldier told me. He turned to the hooded man. “And I am sorry that I thought you were the thief.”
A message popped up in my vision.
Congratulations!
Your relationship with the Soldiers’ Guild has improved!
The soldier dragged the thief away.
“Thanks,” the hooded man said, “I was lost in my thoughts when that man stole the keys. I am Grimguy, by the way.” He held out his hand.
“I am Rohan,” I said and shook his hand. The soldier had only gone a short distance when the thief gave him a push and broke free of his hold and fled. The soldier gave pursuit and the duo disappeared around a corner. The people in the street all turned their heads towards them.
I suddenly realised that Grimguy was looking too intently at me. Suddenly a change overcame him and he abruptly spluttered,
“I-I had come across this quest. Would you like to play it with me? If you have other things to do then that’s absolutely fine, but the quest is really an unique one.”
He said this all very fast. Much like Amira, but while Amira had an elegance in the way she spoke, Grimguy’s manner was more nervous.
“Sure,” I said. “What kind of quest? I was getting bored really.” The past couple of hours I had spent just staring at the street. A quest would be a good change.
“I booked a room in an inn… which is supposed to be haunted. I am the only one who lives there besides the innkeeper. Yesterday night I was looking at the painting of a Rak king that was present in the room from before, when suddenly a quest message popped up. I was a bit afraid to accept the quest alone, so I thought I could get some help. Normally I play alone.”
“Sure, let’s go,” I said. It sounded fun, though in my real life I had tried my best to keep away from anything that had to do with horror. A haunted inn made goose bumps appear on my skin, but I had told myself to be brave in this game world. Besides, it couldn’t be haunted in real right? This was after all just a game world. The fantasy series I had last read had elements of horror too, but I had somehow gone through all that because I had loved the characters and the horror had added to the intrigue, instead of scaring the shit out of me.
Grimguy lead me through the streets of Kapilpura. There were inns and other places for players to stay everywhere in the town. So many people moved about. The NPCs were slow and relaxed, while the players mostly preferred to run instead of walk. There were already hundreds if not thousands of players in Kapilpura, just looking at the streets. I wondered how large this world really was. And how was it possible to go to the more distant parts of this world? I was curious. I really wanted to travel. In my real life, I had travelled little. Never being more than five hundred kilometres away from my home at any given time.
Then suddenly I realised something about Grimguy that made me stop in my tracks. Grimguy stopped too, when he saw that I was not following him.
“What?” he said. I had been looking at him with my mouth open. I was really trying to concentrate on his face, so that I could see his stats and other details. I hadn’t even known his name until he had actually told it to me. “Anything happened?” he asked me.
“Why can’t I see your details?” I asked him. Inside my mind, I was wondering if Grimguy was the hooded person that everyone had received the warning about. The thought suddenly made me frightened of Grimguy. But the latter smiled.
“Wait a moment.”
Grimguy sent me a friend request. I hesitated for a moment as my mind made up all sorts of theories about him being a bad guy and it wouldn’t be a great idea to have him as a friend. But then I gave up all caution and accepted the friend request anyway.
“Now concentrate on me,” Grimguy said. I did so. Now I could see all his details.
Grimguy
Class: Wizard
Race: Human
Sex: Male
Level 30
Strength: 110
Health: 700/700
Mana: 500
Karma: 560
Observing my confused expression, he said,
“I am a perma player. You can only see the details of a perma player if you are in his friend list. It is an additional security for us. You know, I—like the NPCs and this world in general—am little more than digit code. I became perma when the game first launched. I was ill and the doctors told me I would die in a few days. It feels much better in this world you know. All of my earlier pains are gone. When I am low on health, I can just drink a potion. And in the worst case if I die, I can respawn. I will just drop down to level one.” He smiled at me.
“I am sorry,” I said, “I didn’t know you were perma. I am new here, and there was a notification to be careful around hooded people.”
Grimguy let out a laugh. I wondered why he had chosen such as name. He wasn’t a grim person in any way at all.
“Not all people in hoods are bad, you know.”
“I’ll keep that in mind,” I said.
Not a long time later we reached the inn. The name of the inn was… intriguing.
Ravana’s Inn
I mean, seriously? Ravana was like the villain in the ancient epic of Ramayana. Why would anyone give his name to an inn? But then, the inn was said to be haunted. So “Ravana’s Inn” was an appropriate name after all.
“The inn isn't really haunted,” Grimguy said as I gazed at the name plate. “But it is super cheap which is why I decided to stay here when I first came to this world. Even after I acquired a considerable amount of gold, I was too attached to this inn and couldn’t move out.”
We entered the inn. There was a bartender sitting there. He looked aged and was polishing glasses. I wondered who he meant to serve wine in those glasses, since nobody came to the inn in the first place. He suddenly looked up at me.
“Oh, god!” he said with a clap of his hands, “The second man to come to this inn i
n ages!” And he kept clapping.
“Hey Nanda, polishing glasses, eh?” Grimguy said to the man, then he turned to me and spoke in a whisper, “Never mind him, he’s a bit eccentric, perhaps because nobody comes here.”
Grimguy had a room upstairs. He told me that basically all the rooms were his. Nanda hadn’t locked any of the rooms, and Grimguy apparently stayed in a different room every day. He pushed open the door of one, and we entered.
“That’s the painting I told you about,” Grimguy said. There were three paintings on the wall and Grimguy pointed at the middle one. All the three paintings had images of Raks. The middle one had many Raks sitting around a king who had ten heads.
The king was Ravana without a doubt.
“Just go near it, and you will get the quest message.”
I did so, observing that the painting actually was made in a very artistic way, and in such good detail that the canines of each and every Rak could be counted. Sure enough I got the quest message.
New Quest Available!
Enter the painting and defeat a Rakshasha monster residing in it.
Rewards: Unknown
“This is interesting,” I said. I drew out my sword from my bag. I had kept my birthstone safely in my room back at the Big Moustache Inn, and I was fearless now. Even if I died I would respawn back in my room. I looked at Grimguy and grinned.
“So you ready for some adventure?” I said.
“Let’s kick some Rak ass,” Grimguy said.
After accepting the quest, the world around us dissolved. And we found ourselves in a dark place. We were in some sort of an underground tunnel. There were torches lined along the walls. We began to move forward with caution.
“When a Rak comes use one of those slow motion or paralysis spells, all right?” I told Grimguy.
Grimguy laughed.
“I have something much better.”
“Well, then that's great.”
When we took a turn, and my heart skipped a beat. For there, right in front of us, was a Rak. And this one even had horns. Grimguy muttered something under his breath as the Rak let out a roar. Immediately the Rak froze and his body was covered in flames. His health began to drop. I was impressed with the spell, but decided I should also contribute to the kill. I landed some hits on the Rak with my sword and it died, dropping 500 gold.
“That was easy,” I said. We picked up the gold and divided it between the two of us.
“But why aren’t we getting the quest completed message?” Grimguy asked.
“I think that’s because the quest isn’t complete yet,” I said. “Let’s go deeper into the tunnel.”
And vigilantly we went deeper. There was another turn, and with the light from the torches we could make out the shadow of another Rak waiting for us.
The Rak turned out to be stronger than the previous one we had killed. Grimguy’s spell that combined the flames and paralysis lasted only five seconds on him, a considerable amount of health still remaining in him. We had underestimated the Rak and had come too close to him. The mob grabbed Grimguy by the throat, pinning him against the wall. Thankfully I had my sword and I attacked the Rak repeatedly. It was only after ten hits that the mob finally died. Grimguy’s life had dropped by 250 and he gasped for breath.
“We… we will be careful next time,” Grimguy said. “I nearly died.”
“And there is not loot,” I said, pointing at the place where the mob had died. No gold, no stones, nothing. My heart sank. After all the effort there should have been some kind of reward.
“That sucks even more,” Grimguy lamented.
We decided to go further into the tunnel. Another turn came. Here too there was a Rak waiting for us. This one had three horns.
“I think it’s going to be even harder to kill this one,” I said. “Try not to let him grab you. Without your spells it becomes really difficult to kill them.”
Grimguy nodded grimly.
We approached the turn in the tunnel.
“Come on, ugly head. Come and get us!” I called aloud to the Rak.
And it did come.
This one was a female.
She had really giant ugly lips, her canines protruding from the sides.
Grimguy muttered a spell, and the next moment the mob had disappeared. No loot dropped, but I was happy that we could do away with this one so quickly.
“Wow,” I told Grimguy, “How did you do that? One spell and she’s gone!”
“Rohan,” Grimguy whispered, and there was fear oozing from his voice. “I didn’t even complete saying my spell.”
It took me a moment to understand his words. By the time I finally did, invisible hands grabbed hold of my neck and lifted me from the ground.
I didn’t know there were Raks that could become invisible!
I kicked, and at the same tried to hit the space in front of me with my sword. But my health was dropping fast, and I was finding it increasingly difficult to breathe.
Grimguy muttered a spell. It didn’t hit the Rak for sure. But it did hit me. The sword dropped from my hands and I froze, unable to move or do anything. I was thankful Grimguy didn’t also use the flames. Perhaps the Rak thought that I had died. She dropped me to the ground.
I heard Grimguy run, followed by the sound of more heavy footsteps that belonged to the mob. I heard him yell spell after spell but it wasn’t working. Thankfully after some moments the paralysis effect ended and I could move again. I got up, picked up my sword and then snatched a torch from the wall.
I threw it as hard as I could along the tunnel, Grimguy being quite far ahead. The torch moved through the air and then suddenly hit something and fell.
“There she is!” I cried. “Throw your spell there.”
I picked more torches and kept throwing them. Every time a torch hit the invisible body of the Rak, it fell down and this allowed Grimguy to know her position. He threw his flame and paralysis spell multiple times until he finally hit the Rak. The outline of her body began to blaze. I ran to her and used my sword to destroy her.
She dropped 1500 gold. We scooped it up in seconds.
“It was totally worth it,” I told Grimguy, who looked like he was just glad to be alive. Picking up the loot after killing a mob gave you the best feeling ever. “This is a lucrative quest for sure.”
“I wonder how many more Raks are there,” Grimguy wondered.
“The more there are the better,” I said. My health had dropped significantly so I took out a health vial from my bag and drank it which helped to regain my health back. We decided to rest for some time to regain mana. Who knew what tricks the next Rak had up their sleeves? It was best that we went fully prepared.
After the brief period of rest we started to move again. To our surprise however there was no Rak waiting for us at the next turn. Still, Grimguy threw one of his spells to see if there was an invisible mob. I too threw a torch but it hit nothing.
We decided to keep moving. The next few times the tunnel took a turn, there were no Raks waiting for us. And then we saw the tunnel ending, leading on to a well lit chamber.
We went into the chamber, which had the walls, the floor, and the ceiling all made of pure gold. While at the very centre of the chamber on a throne of gold sat a Rak.
A Rak with ten heads.
It was Ravana.
The peculiar thing about him was that only his neck and his many heads were made of real flesh. The rest of his body was made of what looked like metal fibres. He even had bolts and screw at the joints. When he saw us he didn’t panic or get angry.
He just yawned.
“So, you have come to kill me?” he said in a relaxed voice.
None of us replied. We were afraid of him. I concentrated on him and saw that he was a level 50 Rak. But I couldn’t see what class he belonged to.
“How are we going to defeat him?” I whispered to Grimguy.
“No idea. I guess we’ll just try to do what we did with the rest of them.”
&nbs
p; I nodded.
“I am impressed with you, really,” Ravana said. “You killed my servants with ease. I had been watching you all along. The last one was a little hard, wasn’t she?”
“He talks too much,” I whispered to Grimguy. “Maybe we should attack him?”
“Wait,” Grimguy squeaked, he was obviously frightened. “He’s powerful. Let him attack us first.”
Ravana got up from his great throne. He pulled out a great sword from the side of his throne. It was coursing with electricity.
“You see this?” he said, holding up the sword. “It’s one of its kind. With this in my hand, I can kill you with a tiny movement of my wrist.”
I made a mental note that I would make that sword mine. I would be super powerful with that in my hands.
Ravana made a tiny movement with his wrist. A bolt of electricity leapt from the sword towards us. We both jumped opposite ways. The bolt hit the stones over the entrance to the chamber so that they fell down. The entrance was blocked and it became impossible to go back to the tunnel.
I picked myself up, praying that Grimguy would throw one of his paralysis spells on the demon king sooner. Ravana now came towards me, his gait slow as if he was taking an evening stroll.
He looked me up and down. He was going to say something, perhaps comment about my appearance but I didn’t care. I threw myself at him, sure that he was going to kill me anyway, deciding it was best to go down like a warrior.
At that very moment, Grimguy, to whom Ravana had his back, casted a paralysis and flame spell. Ravana froze and I was able to land two hits on him with my sword. His life dropped by fifty. But he had 1000 life and it barely did anything. But the next moment itself the effect of the spell ended and Ravana picked me up like I was a doll and hurled me away. I hit a wall and slumped down, my body blazing in pain. My health dropped sharply such that I had only 100 health left.
Ravana turned towards Grimguy. As I pulled myself up, I recalled the story of Ravana. In the epic Ramayana, he had been killed by an arrow to his stomach. I reckoned the game developers had made a similar way to kill this Ravana as well. It was a wild bet. But I had to play it.
Perma-Death Online: A LitRPG adventure: Book 1 Page 5