by Scott Seier
"But, you want to go to the mine still and grind until the sun goes down?" I said light heartedly. "I'm good to go."
Will and Gleer both looked around at the patch of devastation around us, but neither seemed very shaken from it. The first fight was an exercise in stealth and avoiding direct enemy conflict. This one had been an all out brawl. Gleer eyed the trench that Vigil and I made with a glint in her eye. Slowly slipping out her sketch book. It was like she thought if she moved slow enough no one would see her doing it, and began drawing the results of our experiment.
Hael was just about to round us up and move towards the mine when he stopped suddenly. His eyes glazing over as he read over something only he could see. "That's funny, we haven't gotten credit towards the quest for any of our kills so far..." Hael's eyes came back to reality looking worried for a second. "Hey guys, pvp quest progress is withheld until everyone that you're in combat is either dead or has fled. And we haven't gained any from the last two fights..." Gleer sighed and stowed her sketchbook. "That's just our luck." She said eying the forest with a hint of impatience. Her health was still yellow, while mine was now making its way into the green thanks to my constant regeneration. "So there is one or two of them still skulking around? Is what you're saying?" Gleer asked Hael as she snapped her fingers a few times, creating small sparks. In answer an arrow flew through the air and missed Will's head by a fraction of an inch. The arrow slammed into a tree and began hissing. Hael stared at the projectile for a second before reacting. "GET DOWN"
I dove for the dirt and didn't have time to see what happened with my team, but the arrow exploded violently a second later, splintering the tree and sending wood shards in every direction. My ears were ringing, but that didn't stop Hael from conveying his message to me. "Get the heck to the mine." The rogue was speeding around to his fallen team, trying to drag us to our feet. "Run now, we run now!" he was yelling at us.
I was up and moving, Will was running pretty well, but I noticed that he had several hissing wounds, and Hael was essentially carrying Gleer who had been at the lowest health before the attack. I noticed after a second that Will's hissing wounds were closing up rapidly, and the hissing sound was the result of his super heated blood evaporating during the healing process. Lycandruids are weird...
I didn't even think to ask what was going on until we burst out of the woods. I cheered to myself at the prospect of not having to weave through the growth, but was distracted as I saw the mines entrance sitting nearby. Wow, Hael really had a good sense of direction... at the entrance there were six grave markers and a bow wielding girl with eyes that could make storm clouds jealous of their ominousness. She was leaning on one of the wooden support pillars. First I wondered if ominousness was a word, but secondly I wondered if she was about to kill us all and look like a broody super model while doing it. My second question was answered when Hael waved at her and pointed into the depths of the mine behind her. The...hunter, now that I got close enough to inspect her, or would it be huntress? Smoothly pushed off the post and moved into the darkness a moment before we made it to her. I glanced back at the woods as we, once again, left the momentarily beautiful mid-day sun behind. Just as I lost sight of the forest I saw a girl appear out of thin air, another rogue or assassin. She looked intently at the mine and then melted back into the woods.
Hunters
We rushed through the section that had the baby spiders (never thought I would see the day where I refereed to twenty pound spiders as baby spiders) and down into the area with the big ones. I did take this moment to remember that good ol' Broxly had said the venom I gave him was from 'small Arachkidar' whatever the heck an arachkidar is, if these were the small ones I didn't want to see a large one, but I couldn't shake off the feeling like I was going to sooner rather than later. We followed a path of dead spiders. Experience slowly trickling in as the huntress moved ahead of us and cleared the way. I caught a glimpse of her as she rounded a bend and got another inspection off on her. Level 11! No wonder she was cleaning house with ease. She cleared the entire area of 'small', but honestly massive, all the way up until the steep ramp that led down to the next area we had never been to before.
"Do you think you can carry us enough down there Billy? Until we catch up?" Hael asked her. The only response was an easy nod and the drawing of her bow. She had killed the entire floor singlehandedly without even using her main weapon! Bad-ass. Billy led the way down the ramp, the rest of us following. Hael still supported a groaning Gleer who was muttering about missing out on drawing 'that flippin boom arrow'. The ramp sloped smoothly downward and then swept back on itself before coming to the second floor on flat ground. Well, the ground was still slightly sloped, but compared to the ramp it was blessedly flat.
"You were able to get your specialty?" Hael asked with a serious tone, un-stoppering a healing potion and dribbling it into Gleer's mouth. Billy looked over all of us and nodded. Her deep black hair rippling with the motion. "I did, went with survivalist for now." She answered in a deeper, voice than I expected. "I didn't expect your call until the whole group was 10. What happened?" Hael sighed heavily and set Gleer against a wall as the potion worked to fix her up. "Took a shady quest. Walked into a trap we should have seen coming, then walked into an ambush, Then thought we won, then found out we really didn't." Succinct Vigil said appreciatively. Billy seemed to agree. She just nodded and kept watching the passage that led deeper into the mine. "Those six at the entrance tried to kill me when I went to get in here." She was apparently referencing the six grave markers that had been littering the ground at her feet as we arrived. "Their mistake, but something didn't feel right about their confidence. They were only level 4 or 5, to think they could take someone above 10. I'm guessing we're looking at a land grab here?" Billy said, addressing the last question to Hael, who nodded and let his eyes glaze over, once again looking off into space.
"It looks like the marked players have banded together and carved out the forest, this mine, and maybe up into the mountains a few miles as their leveling grounds. Of course the moment the Four Flags guard hear about it they will just march in and wipe them out." Hael paused for a second and then smacked himself in the forehead. "Which is why they bribed the guards to set a quest. Jeez I'm thick headed lately, either that or these newbies have someone worth looking into leading them." Hael said with an annoyed edge to his voice. Billy nodded. "If there is a quest to deal with the issue the guard won't act until the players have either failed or abandoned it. Gives the marked players time to level up to 10 and have a chance against the guards." She summarized, for the slower members of the group. Not me. I understood everything off the bat, but Gleer looked like she was still dazed, I'm sure she appreciated the explanation.
"So why did we come in here? What's the plan, dig in and level up, get strong enough to force our way out?" Billy asked after a few minutes had passed and Gleer was back up on her feet, sketching Billy's fancy bow enthusiastically of course, the girl never gave it a rest did she.. Hael responded after checking over our team to mark sure our overall status was battle ready. "That was about the gist of the original plan, along with a clever manipulation of the spider spawn locations to create a heavier defense against invaders that Lyst came up with." I smiled "but that won't work at all anymore, we are just going to have to choose how we die, and make sure it's a mob that kills us instead of a player." I frowned.
Gleer paused with her sketching. "Sorry, but quick question. With Will as a secret weapon" this got Billy to look at Will appraisingly which for some reason I wasn't very happy about "why couldn't we just keep fighting in the woods? Why come in here at all? We took out like twenty of those jerks, just the four of us!" the mage exclaimed, obviously proud of our achievements so far.
Hael pinched the bridge of his nose like he had a headache. As far as I knew you couldn't get headaches in Acrion unless you had a negative status effect on you. I was just about to get closer and stare at him so I could check if he was secretly afflic
ted by some unknown curse when his response came, distracting me. Or un-distracting me depending on your perspective. "There were sixteen of them, not twenty, but otherwise I agree, Will's Lycan form is way stronger than I thought it would be, and that was all well and good until that last group walked onto the field. That arrow? The exploding one? Thats a level 10 ability, from a hunter training in the survival or ordinance specialty." Hael looked around to see if his words had any effect. They really didn't, except with Billy, who let out a low whistle. Hael continued, undeterred. "Up to this point we haven't seen any of their people alone, only in groups. And those groups were always the same level. One group could be level 2, another 4, but all of the players in the group were always the same level. Which means, most likely, they have a group of five level 10 or higher players, Maybe the ringleaders of the whole plan, out there hunting us. That explosive arrow was just the warning shot." Hael said frustratingly. "So," Billy cut him off when he was going to start talking again. "Go as deep as possible, get our levels as high as possible, die in a controlled way, respawn back at the town and get all of your specialties, then come back up here and waste the entire gang, top to bottom. About right?" Billy summarized the new plan. Hael nodded, and Gleer and Will seemed to be on board, so I wasn't about to become the squeaky wheel.
With our plan set we moved out into the second level of the mine.We came to a fork in the road after only two sweeping bends of the tunnel, Hael and Billy walked down the left path without any hesitation at all. Myself and the other not-so-familiar players exchanged worried looks with each other. Those two powerhouses weren't going to lead us to the land of unicorns and candy. The left path was surely the way to the biggest fight, I had no doubt. That's just how our hunter and rogue rolled.
Twenty seconds. Yup, it only took twenty seconds for my prediction to come true. hissing and clacking sounds overpowered the rest of the ambient noise in the mine suddenly. A heavy thud sent a tremor through the floor and into my boots. I shivered at the knowledge that this thing, however big, had been hanging out on the ceiling, it just made me think that there was one right above me all the time. When it finally came into sight I just gave up on being surprised. This thing was big. Like real big. This spider, if it lifted it's body up slightly, would be staring me dead in the eyes. With every step, it's hooked legs scratched the rocky floor as if it was made of loosely packed snow or clay.
We flew through the giant spiders in what had to be record time. Billy was able to kill them on her own if it really came down to it, and had to exercise that option a few times when things got hairy. Heh, hairy. because they're spiders... It took no time flat for us to figure out that the experience was goooood down here. It was so abundant that it felt like it suffused the very air, I felt stronger by just breathing. We were level 9 before I knew it and the team's morale had increased steadily as their xp bars filled up. I suppose they were forgetting that we were going to have to sacrifice ourselves to one of these spiders at some point or else we would lose all our money in a pvp fight with the jerks that were following us. Money, that I hear gets real important if you want to do anything worth while in the twenties, although I didn't understand how that would work completely.
As we pushed deeper into the mine I started to visibly see the team growing stronger. Hael moved and stabbed quicker, Billy shot faster and more accurately, Gleer's spells hit harder and froze targets longer, and Will...Will was just becoming more of a beast. I felt like the odd man out. My mace was held loosely in one hand and the other I kept free for spells that I never seemed to cast. Vigil stood contentedly at my side, seemingly unbothered by the lack of action. I even stopped adding in more points as I leveled, the feeling that I had made the wrong choice with spirit nagging at me constantly.
Lyst
Human
Level 9
Summoner (Veil)
Attributes available: 5
97
Strength-str
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of strength.
Increases the amount of weight that you can carry before becoming encumbered.
10
Agility-agi
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of agility
Increases your maximum movement speed and attack speed
10
Intelligence-int
Increases damage done with weapons and abilities that scale off of intellect
Increases your mana pool
Allows the learning of spells (magical Abilities)
10
Spirit
Increases the rate at which you regenerate health and mana
Certain skills and abilities scale off of Spirit
24+(2)
Constitution-con
Increases your health pool and resistance to status effects.
10
Stamina-stam
Increases your stamina pool
Increases the regeneration of STAM
Increases how much physical activity you can do before exhaustion
11
Focus
Increases your chance for a critical effect to occur
Increases the precision of attacks and actions
10
Charisma
Increases your persuasiveness and the rate in which NPCs (non player Characters) gain reputation and attitude.
10
Looking over my stat sheet as my team beat down another 'terrifying' monster I worried over the large amount of '10's that I was seeing. The only one other than spirit that got any bonus was stamina. I had used up stamina, and then boom, when I leveled up next I was rewarded with a nice free point. Training points... I was leveling with my group right now, but I wasn't applying myself enough, so even though we were all level 9, with he exception of Billy who was now 12, I was most likely the weakest by far out of all of them in sheer stat value because they were all most likely pulling in at least one extra training point every level. The latest spider hit the ground and curled up. The loot, which consisted of more fangs and venom, was distributed evenly by Gleer who also took time to sketch new items and inspect the venom vials as she went. I got my equal share, but couldn't help feeling guilty taking it. In more than a dozen fights I hadn't cast more than ten spells and Vigil hadn't done much of anything.
The path had continued steadily down for an hour. It had a few forks in it but all the paths eventually met back up to this main one. The large spiders would occasionally come charging at us from around the bend, but never more than three at a time, which was doable. Very doable after some practice. The last group of three that squeezed their way to us had been demolished in heroic fashion. Billy killing one before it got close enough to bite anyone, Will tackling and killing one himself, bare handed, not even bothering to draw his dagger, relying on clawed hands, and Hael and Gl
eer making quick work of the last one. "We should hit 10 within about ten minutes at this rate." Hael said, not even panting after the last fight. "I think it would serve us best to assume that the outlaw group didn't follow us into the mine, or else they would have caught us already. Which means we can start heading back up and hit 10 on the way, or go down." Hael posed the question to the group, but before he was even done speaking the decision was made. Further down. If we were going to die we might as well do it in style and see what was down there at the same time.
DING
Congratulations, you have reached level 10!
Attribute points awarded: 2
Training points awarded
+1 Stamina
Another point of stam for walking on these slanted floors for hours on end, well done me!
DING
Congratulations, you have reached level 11!
Attribute points awarded: 2
DING
Congratulations, you have reached level 12!
Attribute points awarded: 2
We kept pushing until we were all exhausted. If not physically, then mentally. Billy seemed to be the only one immune to the stress of constant combat. The huntress would pause, kill, and then move on like an unstoppable robot. Hael had to actually order her to a stop to bring our rampage to an end. We had descended past the point that Hael's reports from the guild detailed. Apparently the high level guildy who scouted the place got bored after a couple hours of exploring. I didn't blame him.
The group sat, leaning against the walls on either side of the large tunnel. Strange how relaxed I felt in such a hostile environment, knowing that my group could handle anything that was going to come at us. Each of us were resting in our own ways. Billy sat with a far away look on her face, probably planning out her stat point allocation for the next thousand levels. Hael was similarly glazed over, but I actually didn't have a guess as to what he was up to in his own head. Will was so close to being fully asleep I could practically hear the snores already. Those transformations took a monstrous amount of stamina, pun intended, but I suppose they took a mental toll too. It was like the poor kid completely lost all self control when he got into a fight. It was an envious power with a very unenviable cost.