by D Wolfin
All I need to do is focus on the fact that she is an NPC, despite how lifelike she seems. This is the only way that I can ignore the indecent things she does.
Back in the north prison wing, there are a couple of skeletons that have respawned.
“Leave this one to me.” Stepping in front of everyone, Fen releases my arm as I go to test out the new sword.
I exert power in my legs, I close the twenty meter distance in less than a second. The air around me still vibrating from me passing through.
I slash the weapon through the skeleton’s hip, encountering no resistance at all. As it passes through, small flames lick from the red line caused by the attack on the monsters body.
Everyone silently stares at the skeleton in as much shock as I am in. That one attack removed over half of its health, an undead monster over level 150.
The skeleton stumbles a little after my attack, but before it can recover I return and do a critical hit on the back of its neck. The skeleton collapses into a pile of bones, leaving behind bone dust and a sub par steel longsword as loot.
“Lost!” Mason called out in astonishment, “I think I should be the one to ask this time. What the hell was that!?”
“Hah, you tell me your secrets and I’ll tell you mine. I’m more interested in that attack you used to finish the boss.
“Our attack is simple, beef up an attack with as many enchants as possible, then strike. We incorporate the ‘Rabbit Flight’ spell to achieve enough speed to cut through the armour rating and also prevent them from dodging.”
“Yes, but I know a little bit about the ‘Rabbit Flight’ spell. A high class wind spell with an abnormally long chant designed to allow you to escape from any monster. It isn’t supposed to be possible to attack with it, so how did you do that?”
“You still haven’t told me your secret. Along with how you create false images of you while you yourself turn invisible.”
We pass through the door leading into the central wing. The three stories above have slowly repopulated with skeletons and zombies. Fen and Matrix are taking the lead and fighting all the enemies while Mason and I follow behind, casually chatting to each other.
“I am one of those rare people with a speed build. I attack at high speed to negate the opponent’s armour defences.”
“I gathered that much, but the damage you did to the skeleton was far too abnormal. All of a sudden when you equipped that weapon your damage increased explosively. Is it the weapon, is it related to how you create false images. It is far too mysterious.”
“Well, you still haven’t told me how you can attack with a spell that shouldn’t be able to be used for attack.”
Mason emits a sigh as he gives away his secrets.
“Under normal circumstances, it is true you cannot attack while using that spell. There is wind pressure as soon as you start to move that blows your weapon back, ruining any planned attack. At least, that is how my brother described it.
It turns out, if you can execute the attack and move at the critical moment of the attack, you can counter balance that force. However, that requires the perfect balance of speed, power, sword angle, and other minute factors.”
“Interesting, interesting. I see how it is done.”
“Well, now it’s your turn! Cough it up, how can you do the things you do.”
“It’s nothing too spectacular, I have a legendary class skill called the ‘White Warrior’. It has a few benefits such as a high damage multiplier with my weapon proficiency, as well the ability to create afterimages.”
“Legendary!? Incredible, I wonder if I could get it too! Please, tell me what skills you need!”
I can feel the depressing aura that emanates from my body as I think about that one particular skill that was needed for this class skill.
“It’s not possible… You need to have that devil skill…”
“Wait, what do you mean? That devil skill?”
“Forget it. There is no way you can get it. It is a skill that causes everyone to hate you, and nearly every monster to become ‘aggro’ towards you. It still haunts me to this day” I sink even further into my gloominess.
“What!? That’s a horrible skill, I have noticed sometimes monsters would break off from everyone else and attack you. I guess that skill is the reason. Why didn’t you just unequip it if it was causing that much trouble?”
“You… Can’t… You can’t unequip this particular skill”
‘Ah, maybe I should just go grow mushrooms. Yeah, that can be my new job, a mushroom farmer.’
I start to drift off from reality as Mason finally understands a little about the skill. Before I realize it. We are back outside of the prison and within the dome shaped cavern. Just to make me feel even more under the weather, the irritating maze is at the far end, and approximately fifty zombies and skeletons are in between.
Almost like a drone, my thought remains devoid of all thought while I rush at them from behind. My new scramasax fells the first skeleton with a single strike. These guys are definitely weaker than those in the prison below.
Everyone else joins in. With ice bolts raining down and arrows flying around, Matrix joins the close combat. I may be a little strange, but this kind of battle is starting to feel ‘normal’ to me.
With the battle finished, we walk straight into the labyrinth.
With the mist in front of us once again obstructing our vision and confusing our sense of direction, we walked for hours…
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“Thank god! We are finally out!”
Mason flops himself onto the ground and starts sniffing the grass.
“Ahh. The smell of Spring!”
Carrying on with the old mausoleum only a meter behind him, he is completely immersed in the overgrown foliage that protects this place from being easily found. Come to think of it, the foliage we cut through has already grown back. I wonder how long it takes for the vines and bushes in this game to grow back.
Mason is still lying face first on the ground, so rather than wait for him, I decide to cut through the brush myself. I don’t use my weapon with the fire enchant in fear of starting a fire. I sincerely doubt that it will happen, but just in case.
A few moments later we reach the expanse of low hills covered by flowers of every spring colour. The midday sun looks down on us, while the sounds of bees and birds frequently enter the surroundings. To have fresh air again is truly refreshing, each breath filling me with rejuvenated life.
“I guess it’s time for us to finally go to Grenton.” I spoke up to the others behind me.
Fen doesn’t say anything back as usual, but the two brothers smile and silently follow behind us.
Turning north west, head for the capital of Forste.
During the first day, I use the intuition I discovered to locate herb reserves. Harvesting each of these locales, I restock up on my herbs and even discover a few new ones. Meanwhile, Mason seems to be picking up small sticks, stones, and shooting down birds for feathers. It is not hard to discern he plans on restocking his arrows.
Opening my main menu, I do a refined search on my herbs to find out exactly what I have and how much.
◊ 74 Green Medicinal Herb
◊ 31 Yellow Medicinal Herb*
◊ 19 Antidote Roots
◊ 11 Ther Flower*
◊ 9 Black N
◊ 9 Solar Stem*
◊ 5 Fire Flower
◊ 3 Winter Berries
◊ 12 Animal Fat (Rotten)
I’m surprise myself as I notice that the animal fat is technically a herb. Although it appears to have been in my inventory for too long and gone rotten. It may be such a lovely landscape around me, but there is nothing else to do other than to dump it. At least I am nice and place the putrid pile of animal fat behind a tree, out of harm’s way.
During the evening I managed to hunt a few ‘Spring Horned Deer’ which weren’t called ‘Spring’ because of the season
they live in but because each horn was coiled like a spring. They were also slightly soft, causing their charging attack to spring me away and leave everyone else laughing like hyenas.
Later that night, I decided that I would finally cook a proper meal. Up until now, in the dungeon I have just been eating bread and other long life items you can get in game. But nothing compares to a freshly cooked meal.
Mason and Matrix show a considerable interest as I start bringing out all the equipment. Fen, on the other hand, is literally drooling in anticipation.
For dinner I began to cook large slabs of venison on a large pan simmering in fresh animal fat, ‘Solar Stems’ are also rubbed into both sides of the meat. ‘Solar Stems’ are a strange herb, they leave your mouth burning and provide some resistance to the cold, albeit not as strong as the ‘Fire Flowers’. But they also grant a limited night vision.
In this scenario, I am trying to rub the slightly bitter yet burning taste of the stems into the meat as I grill it.
While that slowly cooks through, I chop up some potatoes and carrots I managed to locate near where I harvested some herbs. They aren’t like normal vegetables though, the potatoes are strangely pear shaped with black spots on them, while the carrot’s are yellow and perfectly round. They are called the ‘Bulb Potato’ and ‘Sun Carrot’.
They tasted a little strange, but I assumed they are at least still vegetables. I left the vegetables in a pot of boiling water to cook.
While all the food was cooking, I decided to try experimenting with some potions. After all, I now have a bunch of new ingredients.
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Opening my inventory, I choose two random ingredients to try mixing together. the ‘Yellow Medicinal Herb’ and the ‘Solar Stem’, two new ingredients of mine.
Grinding one of each in the mortar and pestle, I feel that the quantities of each item are off. It is not like I know a recipe or anything, it just doesn’t feel quite right. Placing another ‘Solar Stem’ in the mix however alleviates this feeling.
The mix takes on a gentle orange hue, and maintains the gentle colour even when mixed with the water in a vial.
‘Success! I have created my first normal potion!’
I almost cry in joy, pride welling up in my chest. I open up the item information to see what I have created.
(Unknown Potion)
Requirements:
- Level 41
Item Type: Potion
Weight: 0.1 lbs
Effects: ??
That’s strange, I can’t seem to discern what it is. Is it because it is a higher class potion? Do I need to drink it to find out its effects.
Noticing Fen still fixated on the food, I decide to test the unknown potion on someone else before drinking it myself. No matter how bad it is, it isn’t going to do any serious harm anyway.
“Fen, since I am cooking all this meat for you.” I put on my best smile, despite the fact that she probably can’t see it underneath my hood, “Will you please try this for me and tell me what you think?”
“…Okay…”
She doesn’t have any hesitation in her mind at all. So content on her dinner that she would probably jump through hoops of fire if I asked her to.
Handing her the pleasant looking potion, she drinks it all in one mouthful.
She stares off into space for a few seconds, before contorting her face in a gruesome look. Without any moment she runs off into the trees at top speed.
“Wait… What?” I breathe out the words quiet enough that even I barely hear them.
From the trees come the sounds of someone violently vomiting.
Fen’s strolls back into camp a few moments later, her face as pale as a ghost.
“…Why… Why… That liquid… I couldn’t get it out… Of my mouth…” Tears are in the corner of her eyes, whether from being upset or being sick, I’m not sure.
“I’m sorry! I didn’t know what it tasted like. But it looked all right!”
“…You’re… Horrible!…”
She turns her head away from me, but doesn’t leave the cooking food. Looks like I am going to have to make it up to her with meat.
I inwardly laugh to myself at how predictable she acts around food, meat in particular
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-Mason-
Once we left the ‘Vexl Underground Prison’ I almost kissed the ground at finally being outside that stuffy, mist obscured, infuriating labyrinth. Well, actually, I did kiss the ground for a bit.
Lost cut his way through the regenerated bushes and vines for us to get back out. Following behind him, he declared that it was time to move on to Grenton.
“Hey Matrix,” I call out to my brother over private chat, “this guy is an interesting person. Why don’t we join him for a while and see how things go?”
“You make the calls brother. I will, umm… Follow you.”
“Okay! Let’s do it! I’m sure I will get plenty more good videos if I follow him too. So are you liking your new sword?”
“Oh, Yes!… Umm… It’s amazing, but I can’t equip it until I am level 143 anyway.”
I laugh back to him, he is as shy as ever. He will shamelessly chant ridiculous and unnecessary chants when casting low level spells, yet he turns red in embarrassment when holding a normal conversation.
The sword he got was the better of the two items that the boss dropped. But to make up for it, the ‘half’ of the gold dropped by the boss that was given to Lost was twice as big as the ‘half’ that we kept.
So silently, we decided that we will follow and join him..
During the day he somehow managed to locate reserves of herbs, almost as if he could see them from a mile away. They were also good for me though, as I was able to gather all the materials I require for crafting arrows there.
The issue with archers is arrows are usually limited in number, you have a high percentage of being able to retrieve arrows from fallen monsters, but you are still at a disadvantage when you run out.
This is why I used up three skill slots to get all the skills required to craft arrows. This way no matter where I am, I can always make more with easy to get materials.
Later that night, Lost began to bring out a large range of cooking tools. Even I put down the sticks I was shaving into arrow shafts in order to inspect it. He cut up large slabs of meat and even what appeared to be some strange kind of vegetables.
Going back to my crafting, I was once again interrupted when I had just started carving out arrowheads from stones. The girl came back with tears in her eyes and cried that she couldn’t get ‘that’ liquid out of her mouth.
‘Wait, what liquid? What did you do to her!?’
I felt morbidly disturbed, possibly misunderstanding the situation, but something inside my stomach still turned over. Especially when he told her he was sorry, and that he didn’t think it would taste so bad. By this point I figure, they are consenting adults, what they do is between them.
Lost shortly served up dinner and whatever animosity his girl companion held for him was instantly dismissed.
He even passed plates out to us, thick slabs of venison with seasoned vegetables tickled our noses with their enticing scents.
Matrix, the man who will fall to poison one day, dug into his meal without a moments notice. But given our time spent together, I trust this mysterious man well enough that I doubt he would ever poison his food. Even the thought seems crazy.
Placing a piece of the venison in my mouth and chewing, it not only tasted like the tenderest of meats, but the herbs danced around my mouth like a hot summer day. For the next five minutes, I was blissfully dreaming of the midday sun blazing down during the hottest season of the year.
Before I even realized, my entire plate was empty. Even the vegetables disappeared without me knowing. I was so caught up in the taste of the meat I didn’t
even register anything else. What incredible food!
Looking over at Lost and Fen. He was for some reason prostrating himself on the ground in front of her, who was eating an enormous amount of meat while tears streamed out of her eyes. I could almost hear her in hysterics.
“…I-it all… Taste like… T-that stuff!..”
What the hell happened, what stuff?!
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-Lost-
What an eventful night, who would have known that the new potion I created would destroy Fen’s mentality. This has to be by far the scariest potion I have ever created. I even ended up prostrating in front of her with apologies. I really don’t want to lose my companion.
Thus, ending my night.
The next morning I’m not even surprised to feel a lump inside the sleeping bag. The individual who was supposed to be guarding us for the three hours of night has once again shirked her duties.
I can hear a faint sobbing coming from under the blanket too, a nose sniffling in sync with the sobs.
“The meat… Why… The meat…”
I don’t have the heart to move her. I actually do feel bad for ruining her long awaited dinner by feeding her something maliciously disgusting. I wish I can describe the taste, but I have too much fear of trying it.
Strange enough, despite all the complaints, she still ate every last piece of meat.
I eventually drag her out from inside, waking her up in the process. But, it is time for us to pack up and start heading towards Grenton.
While putting all our stuff away a pair of male players wander directly into the camp. Seeing me with my mark of Glace on my wrist, a cruel grin creeps onto their faces. Out of curiousity, I glance at Fen’s hand, which unsurprisingly does not contain a mark. They surely must think she is a weak, new player.
The first one readies a dark brown longsword and kite shield, while the second player raises his staff and begins to chant.
Mason and Matrix wander over and the glint in the eyes of the two suddenly disappears, almost as if realizing there are more than two people here. The man at the rear stops his chant, the light from the gem at the tip fading. Both of them turn tail and run into the dense trees behind them as fast as they prepared to attack.