“You know, there has to be someone in Port Town who can take these guys. Like a shelter or something. I mean look at them, they are just Level 1 or 2 like Wayne said. They can’t survive out here on their own.”
“Dan, we slaughtered a whole field of Level 2 rabbits when we came into this game. You didn’t see anyone trying to establish a shelter for those guys,” I said.
“Fuck those rabbits,” Jason added.
“Right. Never mind the rabbits. Sorry Allister,” I responded. Jason really didn’t like rabbits. “I don’t think anyone is going to be taking Dire Wolf Pups in and raising them to be Dire Wolves. You know, the ones that attack people.”
“We have to do something bros! I mean, they can’t do anything for themselves and we just killed their mom! Look, it’s bad Karma if we don’t do anything.”
“Dan, they are mobs. What does Karma have to do with anything?” Wayne interrupted, getting even more flustered.
“Really? How about Simon Temple from the sewers under Port Town? It was you Wayne that talked about how we should help the guy out and how important Karma is! Would you like me to repeat the words for you?” Dan said while staring down Wayne. Well, staring up at Wayne, you know, because of the over 1-foot height difference.
It was at that point that I shut up. I never wanted to bring up Simon Temple again. I didn’t want to change my stance on this mid-discussion, and start agreeing with Dan, but I really didn’t want to go down the Simon Temple road. Thankfully, I didn’t need to once Wayne’s own words were used against him. Wayne could be hard headed sometimes, like when he let himself die instead of offering up the Dwarves in sacrifice, but he could also admit when he had been in error. He just never did it all that eloquently.
“Fine! Do whatever you want. Don’t let it be said that I stood in the way of Karma!” exclaimed Wayne. Yeah, not graceful at all.
“Awesome! Thanks Wayne, you’re the best! If you guys could just hang out here, I am going to run to Port Town to see if there is anything or anyone who can shelter these little guys. Heart you! Mean it!” Dan yelled out as he jumped on his summoned horse and took off for Port Town.
* * *
The look on Dan’s face when he returned said it all. We were all quite certain that Dan wouldn’t find anyone in Port Town that would take in a couple of baby mobs, but after sitting out in the woods for a bit we lost our anger at Dan’s determination. Dan was flippant at the best of times, so seeing him trying to do the right thing was something we could overlook.
“No luck. There isn’t a shelter or anything like it at Port Town. I got blank stares everywhere I asked.”
“Sorry Dan, it was a valiant effort on your part,” I said.
“Yeah. I guess. Look, I got some food for the little guys, so I’m just going to feed them, if they’ll take it, and then collect the wood. We are going to have to come back here often enough and maybe we can watch them grow up!” Dan said with a bit of a smile on his face. No one wanted to tell him that if they grew up we would probably just have to kill them later.
Dan walked over to the first Dire Wolf Pup and held out a small piece of meat. The Pup was hesitant at first, but its need for nourishment likely overcame its fear and it approached Dan, sniffing at his hand. After a few seconds, the Pup slowly began eating the food from Dan’s hand. “Oh man, that tickles. And it’s got a wet nose!”
I looked over at Jason and Wayne and they were wearing the same smile that I was. I mean really, who doesn’t love puppies? Even if they do someday grow up to be man eaters.
“What the hell?” Dan said.
“What’s wrong Dan?” Jason asked.
“Oh man. Nothing. Nothing at all!” Dan exclaimed and then going silent.
“Dan. A little update please,” I said.
“Sorry Alex, I was just double checking something from the manual. Damn this thing is huge. And I remembered reading something, but I wanted to verify first. And there it was.”
“There what was?”
Dan began reciting from the manual, “Whether Light Race or Dark Race, some Classes will be more in tune with their forest surroundings and the needs of the land. These Classes will have opportunities to acquire animal companions during the course of their lives and raise them alongside their player counterpart. Even the most fearsome of beasts will recognize those Classes that live as one with their natural environment, but only those Classes will be able to create such a bond. The Druid and Ranger Classes from the Light Races and the Dark Hunter and Shaman from the Dark Races are the only Classes that could potentially discover a companion.”
“Wait? Are you telling us you just got a pet?” Jason asked.
“It seems like it Alligate. I got this notification: You have provided succor for an animal of the forest who is unable to care for its own needs. The animal has taken sustenance from your hand. Do you wish to take responsibility for this animal?”
“Dude! That is awesome? Are you going to accept?” Wayne asked.
“Already did man. That was a no brainer. Now it is prompting me for a name for my companion. I was thinking….”
“Oh this is going to be horrible isn’t it?” Jason asked.
“Come on Allister, be optimistic,” I replied.
“What better name for a companion of TheClaw than…ThePaw?!”
“My bad Allister, you were right.”
“Dan, you realize if you name your pet ThePaw, I will just call him TP, and then everyone will think you named your pet Toilet Paper. Mostly because, that is what I will tell them. Why not call him Pink Tutu?” Wayne asked. Yup, that wasn’t going to die anytime soon.
“Ok. Ok. Not ThePaw. How about…” Dan said while thinking, “Tank.”
“Only one Tank here TC and that is me,” Wayne replied.
“Broham, you aren’t the only Tank out there you know.”
“That’s it!” Jason exclaimed. “It’s the perfect name for your little companion. Broham!”
“Alligate, that is perfect! Broham! Totally going to be his name.” We then saw the identifier over the Dire Wolf Pup change to Broham and the little wolf jumped up into Dan’s arms. It was all kind of adorable.
I sent a private message to Jason. I was shocked that of all the names he would think was perfect, he went with “Broham.” The response was magical.
“I’ve successfully stopped Dan from using one of his absurd monikers on the rest of us. A win for everyone.”
* * *
Wayne verified that indeed, only Dan was able to take one of the Dire Wolf Pups as a pet. He twice fed the other pup, who dashed out and snatched the food from Wayne’s hand, but did not eat it directly from his hand as Dan’s prompt had said. Wayne also didn’t receive any notifications the two times he tried to feed the Pup.
Of course, we knew of another who could likely take the other Pup as a pet, Kaitlin, but we couldn’t bring her here. I had to remind the guys of the oath I had given to the King Under the Mountain about maintaining the secret of the tree. Dan had Broham nestled in his arms, and suggested we just carry the other Pup to somewhere that Kaitlin and her group could meet us. We all agreed this seemed like a good idea.
Wayne volunteered to transport the second Pup, reaching down and picking him up in his arms. He immediately yelled out once the Pup was in his hands. “Son of a bitch! This little guy just bit me!”
We looked over and saw the wolf was indeed clamped on to Wayne’s finger and was gnawing away. Wayne lost 1 hit point every five seconds as the Pup continued to gnash at his finger. Dan suggested the Pup might still be hungry and Wayne could offer up a nipple. Wayne suggested Wood Elf ear. That shut Dan up.
Wayne regenerated more than one hit point every five seconds, but I thought the constant machinations of the Pup would aggravate Wayne quickly. Apparently I was wrong.
For the next hour, every time I looked over at Wayne, Pup still firmly clamped to his finger, Wayne was smiling and playing with the Pup. He was playing a game of tug of war between the Pu
p and his finger. And every time his hand came free, Wayne let the Pup latch back on. I even heard him saying “Oh, tough guy huh? Grrr. Who’s the tough guy here?”
Once we rendezvoused with our teammates, they asked what was going on. We hadn’t told them why we wanted to meet with them, just that it was urgent and that whatever they were doing was second to this. As Wayne got down from his horse, he reluctantly put the Pup on the ground and started walking away. Our teammates immediately came over and started oohing and ahhhing over the puppy. It really was adorable. But as Wayne walked away, toward Jenny, the Pup kept following him. Wayne looked to be going through an emotional roller coaster, and mumbled something about still having aggro.
Dan approached Kaitlin and explained what she needed to do. As soon as Kaitlin put the food in her hand, the Pup raced over to her and started eating the food straight from her hand. The look on her face told her she had just been given the same notification that Dan had. She looked around at all of us and said, “Oh my god! Really? This is real?”
We all smiled and nodded our heads and immediately we saw the Dire Wolf Pup change to “Rocky.”
“Growing up, when I was a young girl I mean, I had a dog named Rocky. He was my best friend. We did everything together. Was one of the saddest days of my life when Rocky passed. You have no idea how much I love you guys right now!” Kaitlin said while holding Rocky in her arms. Rocky nuzzled up to Kaitlin for a few moments and then jumped to the ground. He immediately found Wayne and ran at him, going back to their game of tug of war. I think Wayne was happier than Kaitlin at that moment.
“Rocky is a cool name and all, but you can’t really beat Broham. I mean there are good names and then there is epicness.”
Kaitlin walked up to Dan and got really far into his personal space, “Say another word about Rocky, just one word Dan, and I swear by everything I hold dear that you will never, ever, see me in my leather again!”
Dan immediately started to stammer, “Ummm…no…I mean Rocky is an awesome name…the best…like the bestest ever…Alex you think I can change mine to Rocky also?”
Kaitlin lost her anger after a few heart beats and then smiled at Dan, patting him on the cheek. “You are kind of cute when you’re all flustered Dan,” she said and walked back toward her group and her new pet. I swear she put a little extra sway in her hips just to tease our poor Ranger.
* * *
While traveling back to the Elven tree so Dan could begin harvesting wood for his arrows, we came across a Brown Bear that was Blue to the group. Never one to pass up experience, the group began attacking. As soon as Dan got involved in the fight, he was prompted by another notification that told him that he would be able to provide experience to his companion and would he like to accept this change. The prompt further explained that Dan was responsible for the caring of his companion, but it would only increase in size and power if it benefitted from the experience Dan received. Dan immediately clicked yes and maxed out the amount of experience Broham would receive. At the maximum amount, Broham would get 10 percent of the experience that Dan acquired from each kill.
Dan looked further at Broham’s character and saw that the Pup was Level 1 with 2 Strength, 2 Constitution, 2 Dexterity, 2 Agility, 1 Wisdom, 1 Intelligence, and 1 Chance. He also had the Skill Bite: Level 1 and had 0 experience toward Level 2. Given that Broham was such a low level, immediately after the end of the fight with the Brown Bear, Broham received two levels. For each level, Broham received three points to put into his skills, and not the usual 5 that we received. Dan talked it over with us and we agreed that he should focus on Strength, Constitution, and Dexterity. As a pet he would be following around the mob that Dan was kiting and wouldn’t need to worry about dodging any attacks. Obviously Wisdom, Intelligence, and Chance were not needed for a Dire Wolf. Dan allocated the points and put two in each. Broham moved to Level 3 and had 4 Strength, 4 Constitution, 4 Dexterity, 2 Agility, 1 Wisdom, 1 Intelligence, and 1 Chance.
As we continued along back toward the Elven tree, Dan asked if we could attack a Green Mob that was higher level than Broham but lower level than us, meaning we wouldn’t get any experience for killing it. Dan wanted to see if it was necessary for Dan to get the experience, or if Broham would get 10 percent of what Dan “would” have gotten. We agreed and killed the first Green mob we came across. However, Broham didn’t receive any experience.
“Oh well, thanks for letting me try that experiment guys,” Dan said.
“See. Now that is how an experiment should be done. Simple, effective, and no one gets killed,” Wayne said.
“Bah! No one has ever been killed because of my experiments!” I replied.
“Not for lack of trying on your part!” Wayne returned.
I shook my head and said under my breath, “I can’t believe he is still pissed about getting an ass whooping by rabbits.”
Once we arrived at the Elven tree, Dan went to work on harvesting wood for his arrows. Dan explained that before he started making arrow shafts out of the Elven wood he wanted to increase his Fletching skill. As it was now, Dan would fail way more often than he would succeed while trying to use a high quality wood such as Elven. Therefore, he planned to work his way up through other woods which were cheaper and easier to obtain, until he felt he could have greater success with the Elven material.
We all agreed this was in everyone’s best interest, since at the higher levels the arrows would cost more to make and we didn’t want failure after failure going through our already meager supply of Gold. It was agreed that from that point on we would level for half the day and would do our own thing for the other half. Wayne planned to continue working with the Dwarves to increase their abilities. Dan would work his Fletching skill, while Jason and I would scout for more places we could fight and get level. On occasion, Jason and I would join up with Wayne to check on our kinsmen.
Our last task of the day, before logging off, was to make sure there wasn’t a quest waiting for us at Level 18 from Sir Kenyon. So that’s where we decided to log off for the day after receiving nothing from the quest giver.
CHAPTER 24
September 23rd, 2043
The next day started much like we planned. We made our way out past the bandit camp and started looking for more mobs to get experience from. It took quite a bit of time to travel out to that point, but the passage of time was shorter thanks to our increased riding ability. As our skill grew, so did the speed of our summoned horses. I didn’t know if it would max out once our Beast Riding reached Level 100, but we would know once we hit Level 21. But at the moment, Level 21 seemed like a long way away.
We kept to the plan that we made the evening before, discussing it again after logging in. We would level for half the day, and for the other half we would do our own things. Dan working on his Fletching, Wayne with the Dwarves, and Jason and I finding more places to level. And our leveling would be more sporadic now. Wayne and I were still lagging behind Jason and Dan because of our previous deaths. But now Dan would be losing 10 percent of his experience to level Broham. Neither Jason nor Dan had died since we reached Level 10, but Jason was the only one who was now continuing without any penalty or burden. It just meant it was going to take us longer to reach our goal of more Levels.
The first goal was to find suitable mobs, and that was turning out to be more of a challenge than I would have preferred. There just weren’t that many mobs in our area, since this was still technically the starting area, that could give us experience. The travel time was going to put a damper on our other tasks and was going to make leveling and completing our other tasks take longer as well.
After traveling for a couple of hours, at least an hour travel from both the Dwarves and the Elven tree, we found a suitable area to begin our task of leveling. The mobs were forest creatures, much as they had previously been, so our loot consisted only of the skins we were getting from the beasts. Jason had learned from one of his trips to Port Town that the skins sold for almost 1 Gold
and that the merchants sold them for just over 2 Gold. Not worth the effort to sell them to players, of which there was a limited market, for just a 50 Silver profit. Instead, we sold the Fine skins at the merchants and stockpiled our Gold. What little of it we had.
We settled in to the grind of leveling and slowly ate away at our experience bar. The mobs we had found were Blue to us, but weren’t giving much in the way of experience. Jason and I planned to look some more after the day’s worth of leveling, but after our time was up, we had barely put a dent into our experience bar. It looked like we were in for a bit of a long haul unless we could find mobs that were more giving with their experience.
* * *
September 30th, 2043
A week had passed and we were still grinding away at mobs in the forest. Jason and I had found some pockets of mobs that offered better experience, but nothing dramatic. After the week of leveling, Jason was the only one of us that had hit level 19. Dan was still below Jason, as ten percent of his experience was going to Broham, however the Wolf had leveled up to 8 in that time. The leveling would become a lot slower for Broham as well, as his own Level steadily increased.
Broham (Level 8) – 9 Strength, 8 Constitution, 8 Dexterity, 3 Agility, 1 Wisdom, 1 Intelligence, 1 Chance – Skill: Bite – Level 40
Despite the slow movement of our experience bars, our other endeavors were starting to pay out. Dan’s Fletching skill was steadily increasing, and he believed that in another couple of days he would be of sufficient level to start making Elder Elven wood arrow shafts to use in his Archery Skill. Dan had found a copse of various trees that he could harvest, a sub-skill of Fletching, for various types of wood to master his craft. He had gone through Pine, Cedar, and Birch as he improved his abilities. Birch was a high quality wood and made excellent arrow shafts. This was a great benefit to all of us, since there were plenty of Rangers who were playing pure Archers and who were buying up the arrow shafts Dan was selling to the merchants. I told him he could likely get more if he auctioned them off, but Dan wasn’t one to sit idly by and wait for people to come to him. The good news was that Dan was no longer losing any money on Crafting, and was even making a small profit. We didn’t plan to sell any of the Elven wood arrows that Dan made, so all of our extra Gold from skins was going to be used to finance Dan’s ability to lay down damage.
Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 Page 35