by G. Akella
Patch 17
G. Akella
Copyright © 2017 G. Akella
All rights reserved.
Ebook formatting by www.ebooklaunch.com
Table of Contents
Prologue
Chapter 1
Chapter 2
Chapter 3
Chapter 4
Chapter 5
Chapter 6
Chapter 7
Chapter 8
Prologue
Welcome to the Realm of Arkon, Krian!
There was the familiar darkness of the login screen.
ERROR 757@4#!278%$
The race selection menu popped back up.
Demon.
Every representative of this race carries within a drop of blood of the Netherworld’s Overlord…
ERROR 757$%*&^
…clad in heavy armor, they are some of the finest fighters in the Realm of Arkon. You get a 75% (max) bonus to mental magic resistance, the ability to wear heavy armor, and +2% to armor class when wearing it.
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Demon? What demon? I was supposed to play a human! Demons hadn't even been patched in yet!
"Well, are you ready?" the detestable voice sounded in my head. "Think of this as a beta-testing gig. You've got two days. The graveyard is three hundred yards from the main gate—make it and you'll get a breather. Oh, and another thing—after three or four hundred deaths you'll turn into a slobbering retard wearing adult diapers. Don't let me down now—I'm betting on you. Good luck!" he concluded with a malicious laugh.
What a bastard! was all I could think of then.
As the loading screen came on, the noises were nothing like what a starting human location should have been. Instead of the smell of milk and freshly baked bread (players selecting the human races spawned in a little village called Still Creek, next to a bakery, if memory served me right), my nostrils were assaulted with the smell of sawdust, tar and some other stench that defied categorization. To my right came the roar of a beast, the creak of a wagon and a yelp of shock and unbridled rage.
"Rrraaa!!!"
Clearly, I wasn't anywhere near Still Creek. Indeed, Still Creek didn't feature sandstone underfoot, nor wood-and-stone houses of ambiguous construction, nor a shed containing a no less ambiguous animal that sort of resembled a yak… or a sheep the size of a yak. The other thing it most certainly didn't have was the red-faced, shovel-wielding abominable organism that was running right at me. Right before death I glimpsed the NPC's level—one hundred seventy six.
A Peasant hits you for 10 damage. You die.
Before plunging into the black-and-white reality, I felt… PAIN!!! Those douchebags must have turned off the pain blocker. As a rule, games like this set the perception of pain at ten percent for regular players, who could further adjust the value in the capsule's settings. For the outright masochists, the value could be upped to twenty percent.
Attention! Your character's perception of pain is set at 100%. This could be a malfunction of your personal capsule or a game bug! Exit the game immediately and notify to the Administration! Failure to do as instructed may lead to serious injury or death. In such an event, the Realm of Arkon's Administration shall not be held liable!
Attention! You died in combat and will now be resurrected at your last bind point.
Remember, you can change your bind point with the help of a special spell. The site of your demise will display a gravestone that will contain your money, gear and inventory items. Any player who finds your corpse will be able to loot the money and the inventory items, but only you will be able to loot your equipment, including potions and elixirs placed into special belt pockets. If you don't retrieve your things within five days, they will rot beyond recovery. Finally, you can grant another player the right to pick up your stuff for you.
I looked through the options: Logout and Contact Administration were grayed out, just as I'd suspected. The zone chat was as quiet as a morgue; indeed, the zone's name spoke for itself: Demon Grounds, Eastern Wastes, Jarus Province, Ashtar Dominion, zone level 170+. Well, damn!
Resurrecting in 9… 8… 7…
Because I had yet to bind anywhere since spawning in this world, I was going to resurrect in the same spot. Before materializing I tried to get as far as possible from the shoveling cretin, who had since wandered off toward a random heap of sawdust. I didn't even dream of going for my gear, but it wasn't a big loss, what with my rags, a worn staff, few pieces of bread and a flask of water. I had to make it to the graveyard somehow—that would buy me time to consider my next steps.
When the colorful picture returned, I spun around and zipped down a foot-worn, dust-laden road away from the peasant, naked save for my loincloth. Or at least I attempted to. With an ear-piercing shriek, a woman I'd nearly run over threw down her shoulder yoke, sending half a dozen empty buckets crashing to the ground. Her hands free, she executed a proper right hook that sent me straight to my next incarnation.
Perhaps it was time to start believing in omens! I hadn't even noticed her level. Just an ordinary peasant woman—her face quite comely, almost human, with reddish skin and simple clothes.
A Peasant Woman hits you for 10 damage. You die.
Two minutes till resurrection. The gray-and-white tones made it difficult to orient myself, especially since ghost form only allowed me to see the nearest NPCs and vague structural outlines. Leaving the resurrection area wasn't an option. Neither was staying dead. The game would resurrect me every two minutes and, considering the level difference between my character and the hostile NPCs in the area, they would aggro on me from a hundred yards at the least. Theoretically, I shouldn't die from pain shock since I was getting one-shot each time. It was still painful, though! Excruciating, even. But the pain lasted only a moment, fading away with my "death."
The next several hours brought nothing new… I resurrected and died. Died and resurrected.
A Boy hits you for 10 damage. You die.
You've unlocked Toughness, a passive skill. You can now resist pain! Your pain threshold has been lowered by 1% for all incoming damage. From now on, your character's threshold equals 99%.
This skill is capped at 80%.
It was the fourth time that damned sniper sent me to be reborn. Little stone-slinging bastard!
Toughness… I'd never even heard of such a skill. It must have been unlocked by the 100% pain threshold. Ivan had mentioned before that the game did some crazy things at times. At any rate, it was hardly something that could help me here and now.
Resurrecting in 9… 8… 7…
I stopped counting time, my deaths and flashes of pain. There came a point when an inhuman, unbearable thirst took hold of me. My strength reserves were enough for a two-second acceleration, but what could two seconds do in my situation? Once I'd managed to make it to the gate, where two level 200 beefcakes with pole-axes sent me right back to the stables…
Resurrecting in 9… 8… 7…
The nightmare continued…