Youssef narrowed his eyes as he looked at me and gave just a hint of a frown. Obviously he was not exactly pleased with my answer and I could almost hear the sounds of daggers being unsheathed. I bowed my head to look at the ground as my earlier enthusiasm was wiped cleaned. With everything that happened, it would be just my luck that I couldn’t even join an NPC guild. Who was I to think that I was something greater than anyone else, just because I was trapped in this hellhole of a world? I closed my eyes and awaited for Youssef to determine how painful it was going to be for me to die here. He started tapping on the desk again as he spoke.
“Yes, we can offer those things, that is common knowledge, but you can get quests and missions anywhere. I know you Veil-walkers don’t especially need any training due to being blessed by the Divinity System. If your next answer isn’t truthful, I will have Nulliira torture you until I can get the answer, though I’m not sure how well that will work for you Veil-walkers.”
Frightened at the aspect of being tortured, I looked up at him again and stared at him. Was this the man that helped me at the inn? Not sure how this was going to play out, I was resigned to my fate as I gave him my reply.
“Due to, something, I’m not able to travel across the Veil anymore. I am also not like the others since I am now tied to this world, although the I am still able to resurrect. I, well, I just want to learn how to live here now, and since I’m an assassin, I thought I might be able to learn here, since I cannot tell any of the other Veil-walkers about my situation. Please don’t torture me,” I ended, tears starting to form. Even I knew that this was a sad sight, being reduced to begging.
Youssef’s eyes widened and he smiled. “Raven, please, step forward to the desk.”
I did as he said and saw that the guards behind him moved their hands to their daggers, obviously wary of me being so close to their master. As I got closer to the desk, Youssef’s form blurred for a moment, and before I could realize it, he had reached over the desk and grabbed my wrist, making my hand lay flat upon it.
> You have taken 342 damage from Youssef Tarrokh!
I screamed as I felt a sharp pain in my hand and looked down to see a sharp, curved dagger now penetrating through my hand. Youssef angled the dagger again, which caused the blade to further deepen it’s cut and again, I screamed.
> You have taken 35 damage from Youssef Tarrokh!
My knees buckled since the pain was just too much and I stayed there, kneeling with my hand anchored on the table. Sobbing, I could barely hear Youssef speak.
“Interesting. Nulliira, please come forward.”
I looked up at him, now knowing that I was going to be tortured. What had the Veil-walkers done to him, his guild, that I should be the subject of his vengeance? I shook my head no, trying to plead with him. Nulliira, my escort, walked up beside me, and Youssef gave his order to the assassin.
“Place your hand on the table and stab yourself, as I have done to Raven here.”
Nulliira did as she was told. I looked over at her as she placed her left hand on the table and took out her dagger. In a swift motion, she stabbed herself through her hand. However, unlike me, she stood there and didn’t make a noise. Not even the dagger made a noise as it went into the wooden desk. Removing her hand from the dagger’s hilt, she again stood at ease, her legs about shoulder width apart and her right hand placed on the small of her back. It was as if she was a machine, which I knew that technically, she was. But from everything I’ve seen and heard, the citizen NPCs felt pain just as I did. I could do nothing but look at her, both frightened and in awe, since I was still sobbing from the pain from the dagger. How could she just stand there?
Youssef looked down at me, his face hardened like stone. His eyes looked like they started to shine, almost glow, even more.
“Is this what you want Raven? To become a brother or sister in the Order, you must be able to endure. Pain is but an illusion. This is just one of the lessons that you will learn here. We kill our targets, in public or in private. We do not kill children. We do the job that must be done, what we are paid to do. We are the shadows that people only whisper about. Do you think you have what it takes to become a true assassin, not just a pretender that the others are? Answer me!”
I swallowed my fear, my pain, and gave him my answer. “Yes.”
Youssef pulled his dagger from my hand, wiping my blood off on his pants before re-sheathing it. “Very well. We begin your training tomorrow. Nulliira, please show our initiate to her quarters. You will have a set of Initiate armor and daggers in your room. I suggest you prepare.”
Youssef sat down as my escort pulled her dagger out of her hand, and in the same motion that the master assassin performed, wiped the blood clean before putting it away. She replied to her order, “At once sir. Raven, follow me to your new quarters.”
I got up off the floor and received a system notification:
“Congratulations, you have completed the Assassin’s Initiation quest. You are now a member of the Order of the Velg’larn. Your rank is initiate.”
I swiped away the notification and followed Nulliira outside of the guild-master’s office. After closing the door, she stopped and turned around to face me. I could see now that she had red hair underneath her hooded cloak and fiery eyes. Her face was, well, it was beautiful. “That went well! Here is something for the pain,” she said as she materialized a small health potion. I accepted the potion and drank it, the pain vanished as the hole in my hand closed. “Let’s get you settled in, tomorrow begins you training.”
Nulliira led me downstairs and outside of the mansion to the atrium. She walked towards one of the doors and slid it open to reveal a room with a bunk-bed on the right side, and two closets on the left side. On the top bunk, I could see a folded set of armor and two curved daggers. This was obviously where I would be staying for now.
“I’m on the bottom, top is yours of course. Your closet is the one on the left,” Nulliira informed me as she walked over to her bunk and laid down, immediately falling asleep.
I walked over to the bed and as I inspected the armor, I was shocked! It wasn’t as good as player crafted stuff, but for NPC armor, it was off the charts. As a whole, the armor would give me +100 strength, +250 dexterity, +150 agility, +135 vitality, +70 wisdom, and 199 armor. The weapons were just as good with giving me a combined amount of +100 strength, +70 dexterity, +70 agility, and 70-80 weapon damage.
I exchanged my equipment and put my previous thick leather armor and bronze daggers in the closet. After I climbed up to my bed I lied down, still not ready for sleep. In my mind, I went over the days events, grimacing at the combat I was involved in, but was overall pleased with how it ended. Before I forgot though, I had 15 stat points and 9 skill points to spend. I spent the stat points that went with my current build, and then brought up the skills I used frequently to level 6. Knowing that tomorrow was going to bring a new day, however long, I reviewed my current character stats before going to sleep:
Character
Character Name: Raven
Occupation: Assassin
Guild: Order of the Velg’larn
Guild Rank: Initiate
Level: 14 (1,148/1,311)
Currency: 5c
Health: 9,025
Stamina: 19,525
Mana: 6,100
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Stats
Strength: 315
Dexterity: 388
Agility: 353
Vitality: 179
Wisdom: 120
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Weapon Damage: 6,143-6,930
Critical Hit Damage: 6,320-7,107
Critical Hit Chance: 177%
Attack Speed: 137%
Evade Chance: 39%
Armor: 199
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Resists<
br />
Slashing Damage: 22%
Blunt Damage: 17%
Piercing Damage: 17%
Fire Damage: 17%
Cold Damage: 17%
Lightning Damage: 17%
Disease Damage: 17%
Poison Damage: 22%
Soul Damage: 12%
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Skills
Stealth (Level 6)
Backstab (Level 1)
Eviscerate (Level 6)
Throw Magical Dagger (Level 1)
Riposte (Level 6)
Garrote (Level 1)
Advanced Assassinate (Level 6)
Assassin’s Mark (Level 6)
Apply Poison (Level 6)
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Equipment
Chest: Velg’larn Initiate Vest
Pants: Velg’larn Initiate Pants
Gloves: Velg’larn Initiate Gloves
Wrist(Right): Velg’larn Initiate Bracer
Wrist(Left): Velg’larn Initiate Bracer
Feet: Velg’larn Initiate Boots
Cloak: Velg’larn Initiate Hooded Cloak
Necklace: Amulet of Noctis
Ring(Right): Ring of the Hobgoblin
Bracelet(Right): Bracelet of Demonic Power
Weapon(Main-hand): Velg’larn Initiate Dagger
Weapon(Off-hand): Velg’larn Initiate Dagger
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End of Book 1
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About D.M. Wadsworth
IT Field technician by trade, network engineer by night, I am a huge fan of both the fantasy MMORPG genre as well as reading fantasy novels. My first MMORPG, Dark Age of Camelot, was when I fell in love with the entire assassin class, and mastered it as the character named Hazred on the Bors server.
While not playing as assassin-style classes in various MMO’s, I love reading fantasy novels. I was extremely pleased that there was an entire genre that involved both of my past times. I’ve read almost everything there is on Amazon Kindle, but was very surprised that there wasn’t anything based on fantasy and featuring a female assassin as the main character. So, as the saying goes, if you want something done, do it yourself!
I hope you enjoyed this first book in the World of the Veil, and things are going to get very, interesting, for our main character, Raven. In the next book, she will get more involved in the Order as she learns that pain is quite literally, all in her mind.
Isn’t it weird that the story writes itself? My general plan for this series is to eventually establish a very small guild of players that have extremely tragic back-stories that are now trapped in this virtual world. As such, the entire series is turning out to be fairly dark in that regards. Hopefully our players will find some measure of peace though!
Depending on how books 1 and 2 go, I might have a huge surprise waiting for people as far as artwork goes ;) We’ll see though.
Lastly, I just want to thank all of my beta readers for their input, and you, the readers and fans for purchasing this book. If you could leave me a review on Kindle, I’d be extremely thankful for your time.
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D.M. Wadsworth
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Raven- The Beginning Page 17