by D Wolfin
I have started taking the habit of taking my hood off when I’m in my locker. Mainly because lately Fen gets grumpy about me wearing it for some strange reason. She hasn’t prevented me from logging off again, but the fear of that moment still remains buried inside of me.
“Fen, what are you doing?” I casually ask her.
The girl sitting on the couch doesn’t show any sign that she heard me, as she stays seated in the exact same position.
I stroll around the side of the sofa and notice why. Her eyes are glued to the tv like some child watching their favourite cartoon. She is completely unable to look away.
Raising my hand, I place it between her and the tv, blocking her line of sight.
Finally registering that I am right next to her, her whole body visibly jumps in shock and she nearly falls sideways.
“Why… did you… do that?” She asked in somewhat of a lifeless voice.
“Hmm, I suppose I wanted to get your attention.”
Fen gives me a quizzical look, still unsure of my intentions.
“It is time for us to log back on. We are all meeting up in an hour and I have a few things I want to do beforehand.”
“You’re… asking me… to come?” Her eyes widen slightly, showing faint hints of surprise.
“Of course. I mean, aren’t you always there next to me?”
If I were to tell the truth, I’m a little afraid of making her mad. And asking her to leave not too long ago was what started the last incident.
I don’t dislike or hate Fen for what she did. Nor do I have an impenetrable fear of her. It is more that I feel cautious around her, fully aware of what she is capable of.
With a quick shake of my head, I clear my mind of thoughts about being permanently trapped in virtual reality and log on to End Online.
***************************************************
Once the fog in my vision clears and reveals the interior of the Gold Run Inn, Fen shortly grabs on to my arm and pulls herself tightly against it.
My body tenses up slightly and I frown a little under my hood.
She also stares intently at the hood on my head, but she hasn’t pressed for me to take it off again since we went on that ‘date’. I don’t even know if she understands what a date is to be honest.
“Let’s go. We need to collect some herbs.” I speak to the girl next to me who nods in return.
According to the time, I should have a little over an hour before everyone planned to meet up.
Heading out into the streets of Grenton, I travel to a few parks I had knowledge of containing some green medicinal herbs.
Arriving at the first one, however, I feel my earlier hopes sinking. I had thought that if I logged on early I would be able to get a some of the herbs from some parks before everyone swarmed in.
I was wrong. Currently, the park in front of me was as full of players as it had been the very first time I walked into Grenton. Thanks to the information about being able to get herbs in Grenton’s parks, everyone, whose knowledge does not extend past that information, coalesces here.
Opening up my inventory, I notice that not only do I have 732 gold coins, but I also still have fifty green medicinal herbs and twenty five yellow medicinal herbs. I can always leave town to collect more if I ever need. I would definitely rather not buy more of them though.
Deciding to use what herbs I have, I pull out the ‘Tunix of Toxication’ from my inventory and quietly sit on the side of the main street.
As soon as the item is equipped, my head starts to spin and I receive an incredibly sick feeling throughout my body. The tunic will take off twenty points of health every ten seconds. Considering I have to wear it for ten minutes straight to receive its benefits, I will lose 1200 of my health. I only have 1254 health points to begin with, naturally increasing the danger to me.
Fens sits down next to me and rests her head on my shoulder, seemingly unaffected by the tunic’s toxicity.
Five minutes of wearing the tunic and my health is nearly at halfway, the feeling of the poison causing my mind to not only feel dizzy, but also somewhat feverish. I pull out my first green medicinal herb and force myself to chew on it.
A ‘Green Medicinal Herb’ currently heals three health points every second for ten seconds. It has a much stronger effect than ever due to the existing ‘Herbalism’ being a part of my class skill.
This means that every ten seconds, after the poison affects me, I gain ten health points. I also consume an ‘Antidote Herb’ to help relieve the effects of the poison.
I also have a thirty percent chance of removing minor poisons with this. But this isn’t a minor poison and I am lucky enough that it still has a small effect when I try it. My mind clears a little, but the poison comes back when the ten second cycle of poisoning recurs.
Fen starts dozing off on my shoulder after another five minutes. Around the same time, a message appeared in front of me.
You have resisted a potent poison repeatedly for ten minutes. As a result, your body has developed a small resistance to toxic impurities.
- Poison resistance has permanently improved by 1%
- Acid resistance has permanently improved by .5%
I feel a small delight at the message. While it is only a minute increase to my resistance, it is permanent. If only I could make more of these shirts.
‘I know where to get more of rotten tattered leather! Why can’t I make more of these shirts and get a 100% immunity to poison and acid?!’
The thought occurs to me while I stuff more medicinal herbs into my mouth to keep up my health regeneration.
I am only a little saddened that while I have slightly over nine hundred health I have already used an entire third of my ‘Green Medicinal Herbs’.
Standing up, Fen also wakes from her half asleep daze. I beckon her to follow despite her still trying to find her bearings.
Players and NPCs alike move out of my way down the street, holding their noses as if smelling something vile. This poisonous clothing must give off some pungent odour. Alas, I cannot smell anything.
A full half hour passes in which I use all of my herbs and have still not found a herb shop like the one in Iceridge. Due to not constantly eating herbs, however, my health usually remains between seven and nine hundred.
I decide to try one of the ‘Yellow Medicinal Herbs’ for their healing effects. I had previously avoided it over how difficult they seemed to come by, but I need to find out how good or bad the effect is. I will just avoid mixing it with another ‘Solar Stem’, which according to my findings with Fen, turned out to taste exceptionally bad.
The herb itself tastes quite nice and seems to fill me with new life. I notice my health climbing much faster than before. I open up the information window and look at the herb stats.
Yellow Medicinal Herb
A medicinal herb that has absorbed the natural energy of the earth and become more refined than the standard 'Green Medicinal Herb'.
Requirements:
- Adequate herb proficiency.
Item type: Herb
Health Recovery: 20HP
Time: 8sec
Weight: 0.1 lbs
It says the health recovery is twenty health points over eight seconds, but that is for someone with the ‘Herbalism’ skill at level 1. Thanks to the effects of my ‘White Warrior’ class skill, this herb recovers approximately seventy health points. I must make it into a potion at the next opportunity to test the potions effects as well.
Through the crowd parting in front of me, a few shops come into view. One of those shops is exactly what I have been looking for – The apothecary.
I enter the shop and head straight to a very discreet pile of green medicinal herbs. There is a price in front of the pile saying they are ninety silver each.
“Ninety silver each!” I practically shout. “What a ridiculous price for a herb that you can get just about everywhere!”
“F-forgive me, herbs are in h-high demand currentl
y.” A shop keeper standing next to me turns pale when speaking to me. “B-but I could s-sell them to you for eighty silver each i-if you prefer.”
‘Not good,’ I panic inwardly, ‘Why did I come into this shop myself? Was I not thinking properly because of the feverish feeling I am having? What should I do now?’
I could only think up one possible solution to avoid gaining more infamy. Grabbing Fen by the arm, I drag her along with me as I walk straight out of the shop. That’s right. Considering that all my infamy gains are after transactions or when related to quests, if I cut off my contact with the NPC immediately, I’m sure there will be nothing bad to say about me.
Once I’m outside the shop and around the corner, I turn to Fen.
“Fen, please go buy me some of those ‘Green Medicinal Herbs’.”
“Okay…”
“Thanks, Fen. Here is fifty gold. Buy as much as you can with it. I will wait here.”
I am relieved when she agreed to purchase the stuff for me, but it is still painful to part with the gold.
The wolf girl turns and strolls off towards the apothecary in order to purchase my herbs for me. I guess I truly am lucky to have such a companion that can take care of all my NPC relations for me. I know I could possibly have another player do it, but that would also cost me more than what is fair.
Even with the use of the sparse ‘Yellow Medicinal Herb’, I still lose another two hundred health points.
“… I’m back.”
Fen stops in front of me, clutching a large pile of medicinal herbs to her chest in her hands.
‘Hmm, does she not have a personal inventory? Is it because she is a companion? Or because she technically isn’t human?’
As I start to wonder a little more about her, I notice a few players tracking her through the crowd. Through the enhanced vision of my hunter’s eyes, my sight scopes in on them.
There are three players in total. They all appear relatively average in height and build, and they are wearing a dark green tunics and brown leather pants. Even without seeing the lack of Grenton’s symbol on the back of their hands, I can tell they’re newbies from the full suit of beginner equipment.
I bring my right hand out from under my cloak, showing that I am from the kingdom of Glace. But that isn’t the main purpose of my actions. I plan to let them know I am a lot stronger than them, hopefully deter them from causing any trouble.
The three seem to be intent on Fen for some reason. They don’t even notice I am there until I take the herbs from her.
I notice mixed feelings stirring in their eyes. I would like to be able to tell what they are thinking of doing, but there are too many emotions there to tell: curiosity, outrage, wariness, envy, sadness, disgust. What I feet from all three is extremely confusing.
They finally reach us and stop before Fen. One glances at my right hand but doesn’t say anything about it. They all, however, turn their noses away from me.
“Excuse me,” the apparent leader speaks first. “Would you be interested in joining a party with us. We plan to go out and level up to level fifty. We will guarantee your safety and even help you level with us.”
I feel slightly sick listening to this player. It was the typical sexism within a game, where the males offer to give the females everything they need for next to no effort at all. They even use the opportunity to try and flirt with them more often than not, too.
Unfortunately for these players, they don’t know Fen very well. She usually doesn’t show any interest in others, especially this type of guy. If they knew her better, they probably would know the best way to get her interest is with meat. With this kind of approach, she doesn’t even acknowledge their existence.
“You should definitely come party with us, not this guy. I mean, we are all under level fifty and haven’t even got our kingdom’s insignia yet. This guy clearly already has, and he’s not even from around here!”
The player that speaks up this time is the one who had looked my way and noticed I was from Glace when they arrived.
She looks their way when this guy speaks up, saying she shouldn’t party with me. An angry expression comes over her face momentarily, but it shortly passes and she turns her attention back to me.
“Let’s… go.” She has already forgotten about those three next to us.
With her grabbing my arm once again, I start to walk off from the three players.
They start to try to catch up and continue their persuasions, but one icy glance from Fen over her shoulder stops them in their tracks.
I find a quiet spot away from the majority of players to continue battling the poison of the tunic without their disgust at the smell of the clothing.
Another forty minutes pass and with the sun at high noon and the durability of my shirt is down to two. At this point in time, everyone else logs on as well.
“Lost, it’s Mason, we are all here at the inn. Are you coming over to form the party so we can search for this mysterious boy?”
“Sorry, can we do it in twenty minutes? I am a little busy with something at the moment.”
“That should be fine, I will let everyone know. But don’t be any later than that!”
“Haha, of course.”
It is something that I noticed with the ‘Tunic of Toxication’. You need to wear it for ten minutes straight to have your poison and acid resistance permanently increase. But you do not need to wear it for ten minutes straight for it to lose one durability, just ten minutes accumulatively.
This means if I do not wear it for the entirety of the one hundred minutes of lifetime that it has without taking it off, I will not gain the maximum benefits.
In no time at all, my medicinal herb supply starts to run low, but the final two points of durability on the tunic disappear and it literally falls to pieces. Bits of rotten, tattered leather fall off my body and land on the ground, nothing more than scrap.
As I get my final bonus from wearing it, I also get another nice surprise.
- Poison resistance has permanently improved by 1%
- Acid resistance has permanently improved by .5%
You have gained the maximum possible resistance increase from this item. For wearing the item for so long, you have gained further bonuses.
- Poison resistance has permanently improved by 2%
- Acid resistance has permanently improved by 1%
- 5% chance to completely resist all minor to intermediate poisons.
I most certainly can’t complain about those benefits! I get a little curious about exactly what stats I currently do have, and while rummaging through my game option, I find a way to make it visible at the bottom of my player stats along with my skills.
‘This should hopefully help me keep track of them!’ I thought to myself, not being able to remember too many skills and such was the reason why I never made a good mage in the older role playing games.
Name: Lost(Man in the Hood)
Health: 1252/1252
Stamina: 441/441
Mana: 467/913
Lvl: 97
Lvl UP: 54%
Str: 59 +20
Agi: 191 +55
Dex: 61 +33
Int: 11 + 20
Mnd: 40
Lck: 23
Infamy: 195
Alignment: -5
God: Grael
Belief: 10
Equipped Skills:
Class Skill: White Warrior (SLvl 13, 18%)
[Unavailable]
Potion Production (SLvl 16, 39%)
Mining (SLvl 1, 0%)
Smithing (SLvl 1, 0%)
Grael's Essence (SLvl 1, 0%)
Origin of Dire Flame (SLvl 1, 0%)
[Empty]
[Empty]
Reserve Skills:
[Empty]
***************************************************
Non-skill resistances and bonuses:
Impact resistance: 5%
Poison resistance: 12%
Acid resistance: 6%<
br />
- 5% chance to completely resist all minor to intermediate poisons
***************************************************
Skills:
Sacred Art Cost
Triple Thrust 13 Stamina
CrossX 22 Stamina
Backstab 84 Stamina
Pincer 112 Stamina
Multi Mirage 197 Stamina
Magic Cost
Minor Dire Flame 800 Mana
My player stats window does feel a little packed all of a sudden, but I try not to be too bothered by it.
Setting my thoughts aside, I head off to the Gold Run Inn.
***************************************************
I arrive at the inn and greet everyone inside. Within moments, I also form a party with all of us in it.
“Now that we have all seen what this boy looks like, we need to go find him,” I state to everyone in front of me.
“We don’t know where we should be looking though.” Strange as it is, it is Prince Charming who speaks up while furrowing his brow.
Everyone else also looks as shocked as I am right now. For this man to actually input something into the group as a whole is completely out of his character.
“W-well,” I continue on, “that is why we will split up, just like when following Rix’s daughter. Although this time it will be in teams of two, I will go with Fen and explore the smaller second floor and even the third floor. Verde and the prince can search the east side of Grenton, where the meeting actually took place. Lastly, Mason and Matrix will look around the west side of town.”
“Surely, there are plenty of places that this boy would definitely not be. Why not localize the search to the most likely places?” Mason lifts one finger up while raising the idea.
“It’s not a bad thought,” I sigh before pointing out the flaw, “except we know nothing about who this boy is. For all we know, he could be a rich kid dressed up poorly to sneak around and see the girl he likes without his parents knowing he is friends with someone from the lower class.”
“How very cliché,” Verde giggles while commenting, with Mason speaking up again next.