The Greystone Chronicles: Book One: Io Online

by Dave Willmarth

  They each loaded up with a couple buff potions for their main stats, and several low level health potions that would each heal them completely in one shot until they reached level 10 or so. Everyone but Max also took a few minor mana potions.

  Geared up and ready to rumble, they left the house. The three men split up to track down bounty quests which they could share with the group, while Sasha and Lainey went next door to see Lydia. They agreed to meet at the fountain at the city’s center in an hour to share the various quests and determine which direction to head. This first immersion was scheduled to last 24 hours so they had a lot of time to kill.

  An hour later, Sasha and Lainey had each learned a bit of support magic from Lydia, as well as some herb knowledge. Lainey had gained the herbalism skill. And Lydia had given them several pounds of traveling rations with various buffs for the group. As soon as they were all together, Lainey held up her hands, and scrunched her face in concentration. After a moment, they all felt a tingling sensation that rose from their feet up through their spines.

  “What was that?” Brick asked.

  “She just buffed us!” Sasha said proudly. “We get +5% haste for the next hour! Lydia taught us.”

  “Huh. Never felt a buff that way before,” Alexander mused. “Must be another immersion thing. And well done, Lainey!”

  They shared around the quests that the guys had received, and one Lydia had given the girls for herb gathering. Determining that the majority of the quests were to the east in the forest they’d passed through that morning, they headed out the east gate. As they walked, Sasha cast a buff of her own, with a wisdom boost that would help them regenerate mana faster. They set out, Brick in the lead followed by Alexander and Lainey, with Max and Sasha bringing up the rear.

  As they crossed the open field between the city walls and the tree line, Lainey took out her bow. She’d had some real life experience with shooting a bow. She’d dated a guy who was an enthusiast, and he’d given her lessons. She wasn’t confident that those skills would transfer to the game, so she needed to test her skill before they got into a real fight. Motioning to Max, she pointed to a bunny that was out in the open about 30 yards ahead of the group. Max smiled and nodded. Lainey nocked an arrow. Stopping, she took a deep breath, held it, aimed her arrow, and released. Just as the arrow leapt from the bow, she shouted “Killer bunny!” causing Brick to throw up his shield and swivel his head in search of the menace. Her arrow flew true, and the bunny squealed briefly before falling dead. “Don’t worry, Brick, I got your back!” She giggled. Behind her, Max was bent over laughing. Brick was not amused.

  They continued into the tree line. They had bounties on wolf pelts (5), wolf meat (10), boar hides (5), dire wolf hides (which were too difficult for them at this level), goblin knives (10), and the head of the goblin overlord. So they got down to business. The goblin camp was about 2 miles into the forest, just outside the noob “safe zone”, a sort of ring around the city where mobs were low enough level to give noobs a decent chance in a fight, and where PVP was prohibited.

  On their way through the forest, Max ranged out ahead and to either side, locating wolves or boars wherever he could. He’d then hit it with a single arrow, and run toward the group, alerting them through group chat that he was incoming. They tried different formations for different situations. Brick always taunted the mob as Max ran past. Some fights they would simply let it pound on Brick’s shield while Max and Lainey fired arrows into it. Other times, Sasha would hold it down with vines while Alexander and Lainey would stab it to death with swords. Once, Max got careless while running from a level 7 boar and tripped over a root. The boar caught up to him, and he had to swing himself up onto a tree branch to avoid being shredded. When the others arrived to rescue him, Brick couldn’t taunt the boar because he was laughing so hard. Sasha trapped it, and Alexander and Lainey stabbed it to death. After that fight, Brick was in a much better mood. They continued on, killing mobs, and Sasha and Lainey picking herbs wherever they spotted them.

  The team finally reached the clearing where the goblin village was located. It was a simple village of less than two dozen thatch-roofed buildings surrounded by a haphazard wooden palisade. The gate was wide open, and two goblin guards with leather armor and spears napped on either side. This was not goblin construction, the buildings were too well built. The goblins had clearly raided and taken over a human village. Their quest said that the mayor of the village had fled to Stormforge with a few survivors, and that he’d pay them to clear out the village and bring him the head of the overlord as proof that it was safe for them to return.

  After a quick discussion, Max stealthed and began to move around to the left of the gate.

  “I can see maybe 60 goblins walking around outside. Mostly in groups of 2-5. Don’t know how many are in the huts. No sign of the boss. Mobs are mostly level 6 to 8. Taking the left guard in 10 secs,” he reported in guild chat. That was good. The group were all approaching level 5 after killing wolves and boars, so the mobs were high enough above them to give decent xp, but not high enough to be dangerous. At least not in small numbers. Goblins were small, usually between 3 and 4 feet tall with mottled green skin, large floppy ears, and sharp teeth. They were not very strong, or particularly intelligent. Individually they were easy to kill. Their strength was in numbers. They would try to overwhelm you, attacking together 4 or 5 at a time, and work to disable your legs and get you on the ground where they could reach vital areas.

  Alexander nodded to Lainey, who focused on the snoozing guard to the right of the gate. Just as Max appeared behind the other guard to stab it in the back, then slice its throat, Lainey hit hers with a shock spell. The lightning bolt barely made a sound as it struck the sleeping guard, stunning it long enough for Alexander to rush forward and stab it through the chest. Both guards went down without a sound.

  The group huddled up against the wall just to the right of the gate. “OK this is how we do it,” Sasha began, taking on the role of strategist as usual. “The closest hut has two mobs outside the door. Max will stealth his way to the side of the hut. We’ll make a noise out here to try and draw them this way. As soon as they both clear the corner, Max you grab the one in the back and drag him out of sight. We’ll get the other one if he comes all the way out here. If not, Max and Lainey take him down with arrows. They should be far enough away not to aggro any of the ones we can see. The question is whether we’ll alert anyone inside the hut. Be as quiet as you can.”

  Max moved into the village and took up position at the side of the hut. Lainey held her bow with arrow nocked in one hand, ready to shock the lead mob and then shoot it. She was looking thoughtfully at the arrow as they waited. Sasha motioned to Brick, who coughed loudly to catch the attention of the two goblins. Neither of them reacted. He tried again, this time with a loud “MEOW!”, which earned him a look from the others. He shrugged as if to say “what?”. Still no reaction. This was getting ridiculous. Finally Brick took the helm from the dead goblin guard and tossed it into the open space just inside the gate. THAT got the goblins’ attention. They both leapt up and began to move toward the gate. As soon as they passed the corner of the hut, Max stepped up behind the rear goblin, covered its mouth with one gloved hand, and stabbed it through the heart with his other. He quickly dragged it over behind the hut, then grabbed his bow and aimed for the second goblin. As it turned out, he didn’t need to shoot. The goblin walked right up to the gate, his eyes widening at the sight of the adventurers, and opened his mouth to scream. Just as it opened, Lainey’s arrow shot thru its mouth and out the back of its head. The goblin, already dead on its feet, danced with electric blue lightning arcing off its body. Brick quickly scooped up the body as he and the others dashed to Max’s position by the hut.

  “That was awesome, Lainey!” Sasha said as Max looted the dead mobs. “How did you cast shock and then shoot an arrow so quickly?” Lainey looked at her and shrugged. “I didn’t. I just sorta cast shock into the arrow before
I fired it. I was thinking the same way you just were, about how there was a delay between casting shock and shooting, and what if the shock didn’t stun the goblin and it cried out. So I thought, what if the arrow could shock the goblin when it hit? That way if I didn’t kill it, it still might be stunned. I focused on the arrow, and just kinda cast shock through my hand into it. It started to glow with that blue lightning like you saw on the goblin just now. Then I shot it, and you saw what happened.”

  The group all looked at her, mouths wide open. “Lainey, pull up your stats. Look under ‘skills’ and tell me what you see,” Alexander said.

  Lainey took a moment, then said, “it says I have a skill called “Infuse Arrow: Shock”. It took a second, but the realization hit her. “I have a new skill!” she nearly shouted. Everyone immediately shushed at her, reminding her where they were.

  “Well, shit,” Max said. “She just taught herself a skill. A skill I’ve never heard of in this game.” The others nodded.

  “Could it be another immersion thing?” Sasha asked, looking at Alexander.

  “Shit, I don’t know any more than you guys. I found out about all this the same day as you. Sasha, you’ve been next to me the whole time,” he said. “But I think it must be. Maybe combined with the fact that Lainey’s a noob, and she didn’t know you can’t just invent new spells?”

  Lainey looked confused. “Wait, what?”

  “I want to try something,” Sasha immediately embraced the possibilities. Let’s get inside this hut. Brick, if there are mobs inside, you taunt them. Everybody else hold off on attacking. I’m going to try to modify my trap spell.”

  So the group waited for nearby goblins to move away or turn their backs, and rushed into the hut with Brick in the lead. It turned out there were three sleeping goblins on the floor. They didn’t even wake. Changing plans on the fly, Sasha motioned to Alexander and Lainey. As she cast her trap on one, they each stabbed one of the others in the throat. Those two died instantly, while Lainey’s goblin cried out in surprise and pain as first it was wrapped in vines, then the vines sprouted thorns. The goblin died quickly from a hundred different puncture wounds. Max looted the corpses again, and they all sat down to think about what just happened.

  “So it seems pretty clear we can modify our skills a bit. Or at least, our magic skills. I didn’t get a pop-up when I cast that vine spell, but my stat page says I have a new skill called Thorn Trap,” Sasha began. “Can we also create new ones? How would we test that?”

  Brick looked at Alexander, “Ye be a mage now, yeah? Do ye know any fire spells?” Alexander shook his head. Brick pointed to the fire pit in the floor of the hut, “Well, see if ye can light that, then.”

  Alexander focused on the wood in the fire pit. Light! He thought. Nothing happened. Fire! Burn! Ignite!

  “I see ye makin’ faces like yer constipated,” Brick observed, “but are ye actually doin’ anything?”

  Alexander smiled, then explained to them all what he’d tried.

  “Let’s try another modification. Alexander, this is gonna hurt you more than it hurts me…” Max said as he drew an arrow, focused for a moment, and shot his friend in the leg.

  Alexander opened his mouth and yelled “what the fuck!” but though his lips moved, no sound emerged. Not noticing, he continued to rant at his friend, making no noise for 10 seconds, before words finally became audible “…stupid fucking idea, anyway!” Alexander ripped the arrow from his leg, then paused, seeing the others all smiling at him. Sasha healed him.

  Before Alexander could resume his tirade, Max explained. “I have a silence spell in the stealth skills. I can cast it on myself and be completely silent for 10 secs. I followed Lainey’s lead and imbued an arrow with it. When I shot you, we couldn’t hear you yelling for 10 secs.”

  “This is huge!” Sasha said while Alexander quietly contemplated revenge. “So we can modify our skills without going to see a trainer. And we’re way over powered with these mods. Already Max can silence a mob from range, and Lainey can shock one, getting the stun effect, and the DPS from both the arrow and the shock spell at once. And my trap can actually kill if I want it to. This is going to make pulls SO much easier!”

  Max interrupted, “There are some limits. My silence spell has a 5 min cooldown.”

  Lainey nodded, “I can only cast shock every 10 seconds. And it takes nearly a quarter of my mana”.

  “Yeah, I can only cast my trap on one mob at a time. Though I can recast it as soon as it wears off. So every 30 seconds,” Sasha agreed. “So we’re not completely OP. But damn, this is nice. Do you think it’s a glitch, Alexander?”

  He shook his head, “No. I’ve been thinking about it. If it were a glitch, it’s unlikely it would work for all of us. It should be limited to one instance, like Lainey’s shock arrow. Or one type of ability, like infusion of an inanimate object. The fact that you can also modify your vine spell suggests it’s a valid game mechanic.”

  “Well, whatever it is, we can report it tomorrow when we log out. In the meantime, we’ve got goblins to kill!” Max reminded them.

  The team spent about another 2 hours working their way through the village; using their new skills to quietly take down patrols without aggro from the others, then rushing into the huts to kill the mobs inside. They picked up goblin knives for their quest, and quite a bit of low quality arms and armor. Each goblin dropped a few copper coins. They rested in huts as needed to replenish mana and allow cooldowns to expire.

  Finally, they reached what was probably the mayor’s house. It was larger than the rest of the homes in the village. There were two goblin guards on the porch outside the front door, both awake and alert. It was obvious that any noise from them would bring the boss out, as well as any mobs that were inside with him. Without even having to say anything, Max and Lainey chose their targets. Lainey shot the left guard with her shock arrow, stunning it. Max used a silence shot on the other guard. Then both shot a second, then a third arrow until the guards lay dead on either side of the door. The only sound had come when the bodies hit the floor.

  Giving Max and Lainey just enough time to loot the bodies and retrieve their arrows, Brick charged in the front door shouting, “Yer mother was a warthog and yer father was a horny toad!” Goblins are sensitive about their ancestry, so this worked quite well as the Goblin Overlord jumped up from his dinner and charged toward Brick, roaring. Two level 10 goblin shamans also stood and began casting spells.

  “Ranged on the shamans!” Sasha shouted. Max and Lainey each hit a shaman, stunning one, and interrupting their casts. Alexander triggered his ability and was instantly behind the stunned shaman, stabbing him in the back repeatedly. Lainey switched to Max’s shaman, and they both filled it with arrows until it was dead. Meanwhile Brick had been trading blows with the boss. It was roughly twice the size of your average goblin, nearing 6ft tall, and was wildly swinging a large double-bladed battle axe at Brick.

  Goblin Overlord

  Level 12

  Health 380/400

  With the shamans dead, the boss fight was just a standard tank and spank. Brick held aggro and used his shield to block all the blows from the oversized axe while he recited some of his love poetry. Lainey switched to sword and shield for the practice, and she and Alexander stabbed at the boss from behind while Max shot it in the face and Sasha ripped its legs to shreds with thorn-covered vines. It was all over in half a minute.

  Level up! You are now level 6!

  Your wisdom has increased by +1. Your intelligence has increased by +1

  Max looted the boss, which didn’t drop much of anything noteworthy. The battle axe was good quality, and could be sold for a couple gold in the auction house. Brick cut off the overlord’s head and stuck it in his bag. Max checked around for any chests or secret hidey holes, but found nothing.

  Chapter Eight

  Baddest Noobs in the Whole Damn Town

  Goblin quests complete, the friends decided to take a longer route back to the
city. They needed to kill more wolves and boars for their bounty quests, and find more herbs for Lydia as well. They made their way through the forest, killing mobs in ones and two’s as they went. The only difficulty they had was when Lainey wandered off about ten yards from the group to pick some bluebottle plants she’d noticed at the base of the tree. She didn’t see the wolf behind the bushes until it growled and pounced on her.

  She cried out as she used her bow to hold back the wolf’s slavering jaws. Brick was immediately there, having activated his shield rush ability to rush across the distance and knock the wolf away. The beast shook its head, then let out a howl. Within seconds the group was surrounded by 4 other wolves.

  “Brick!” Sasha yelled. Brick dragged his war hammer across the face of his shield, activating its special Serpent Screech ability and causing all the wolves to focus on him. Sasha cast her thorn trap on one wolf, then focused on healing Brick. Lainey shot one with her shock arrow, and Max followed her lead, peppering it with normal arrows as there was no use in silencing it. Alexander activated his Swift Strike ability and got a critical hit on a third wolf, taking about half its health and drawing aggro. The remaining two wolves remained focused on Brick. Lainey and Max finished off their wolf, then Lainey switched to Alexander’s wolf, stunning it. Max turned and finished the nearly dead wolf that was just being released by Sasha’s vines, then helped Alexander and Lainey finish the one they were fighting. Alexander backstabbed the wolf to Brick’s left, and Max and Lainey peppered it until it was down. They all hit the remaining wolf, the one that had originally attacked Lainey, and it died nearly instantly. Sasha threw a heal on Lainey, while Brick took the opportunity to test his self-heal. Neither had taken any serious damage. Max looted the corpses, and informed them that they now had enough pelts and meat for each of them to turn in the bounty quests. Sasha still needed a few more herbs to have enough for everyone, so they continued on in the rough direction of the city.