Quest “Baptism of Fire” Completed
Because of your desire to gain knowledge and learn from your mistakes you received title “scholar”
+2% to the speed of gaining skill proficiency, time goes little bit slower when progressing knowledge
Tutorial passed
You have satisfied tutorial requirements.
You will be transferred to the Windport starting city of the human race.
From your inventory will be removed all items you poses. Also check your inventory after transferring to Windport as you will be given small reward for completing tutorial and beginner equipment.
Satiety bar is turned on.
Dead penalty is turned on
3…2…1…0
As soon as countdown reached 0 Hetman disappeared from the plains and appeared on the main plaza of Windport. City looked like typical medieval town from Europe, except some details which made living within it bearable. First thing and one of the most important were sewers, thanks to them it didn’t reek in the city and the streets were clean. Second infidelity was size, biggest medieval towns had 20-30 thousand citizens but Windport had 3 million and could accommodate 2 times more.
Hetman disappeared from plains during night and also at night appeared in Windport. At the streets he could only see guards and everything else from shops to stalls have been closed. To sunrise was still more than 4 VR hours so he decided to log out and eat something.
Bart went out of the capsule in the same moment his father came into his room.
“We have to talk” his father seemed serious.
“What happened I hadn’t done anything wrong.”
“I bought you this capsule and 3 year subscription but you promised me to start part time job. It is almost 2 weeks since the beginning of vacation and you didn’t even started looking. It worries me. If you won’t get part time job in one week I will turn off this machine. You will be banned from playing this game for entire summer break.”
“Ok dad”
Bart’s father came to what he have right now with the work of his own hands, but this year he understood that because of his upbringing methods his kids didn’t know value of money. His kids always had newest clothes and received a lot of pocket money. As long as they had good grades their father bought them everything they wanted. This year his son ended middle school and he planned to give him some special present. As he said to his son about this he heard about game which cost only 6000$. This made him quiet angry, his son thought that 6000$ was small sum. This was monthly salary of the buildres in his company. That was the reason behind his promise with his son. He thought that after working for some time Bart would understand money don’t grow on trees.
“If you want I can help you write CV or cover letter.”
“You don’t have to. I will use internet if I would have any problems.”
Bart wet to the kitchen made himself some sandwiches and got to work on his CV. It took him 1 hour to write it. At first writing CV went smoothly but when he got to working experience he had nothing to write. It left half of A4 sized paper empty which didn’t looked good. To mask that his working experience is lacking Bart wrote everything what came to his mind in the skills paragraph, from that he passed health and safety training to knowing how to use MS Office.
After He wrote his CV, Bart looked through work offers on the internet. Soon he chose three companies who looked for low skilled workers and send them his CV together with his job application.
Bart log out from his email account and prepared himself for few hours gaming sesion inside capsule. Soon he was ready and connected to “Age of Champions”.
Hetman appeared in the exact same spot from which he logged out. During the day main Plaza was bathed in sunlight. In the middle of the square was fountain and at the outskirts were merchants stalls and shops. Right now they were closed because working hours started from at 8 am and it was still at least half hour before 8 am.
The first thought which crossed Hetman mind was to go hunt monster but he learned from his mistakes at the plains. He knew that preparation and collection of information was crucial.
Firstly he checked his inventory. It had quiet basic things which one would expect to get at the beginning of the game. Beginner clothes with 0 defense, 50 copper coins, some hardtacks, and water canteen. But he had one quiet good item.
Army Knife
Well made long iron knife. It was ordered by army and is designed to be used in offhand.
Durability: 45/45
Damage: 3-7
When used in offhand neutralize Right Handed or Left Handed traits
Requirement
none
This knife had worse damage then his previously used iron sword but its durability was higher by 20 points and thanks to its ability fit perfectly to his fighting method.
Hetman was going to fountain to file canteen when forty players came to plaza. They carried some kind of mobile platform and briskly made their way near fountain and there stopped. Soon platform was surrounded from every side by curious players.
On platform stood four people talking about something. Three of them carried weapons so one could easily judge their class by it. One was probably archer or ranger as he carried bow, the next two had some kind of melee class as they were caring huge two handed hammers. Fourth wore leather amour and next to the other three looked like shrimp. While they were almost 2 meters tall he probably had less than 165 cm. Nonetheless his green eyes had something from tiger look in them and from body language Hetman could easily say he was the person in charge . From his look it was hard to guess if he was archer, thief or if he had different class.
After the while when crowd surrounding platform settled down and the noise died away, three players talking with green eyed guy stepped down and he started talking.
“Hello everybody. My name is Remir, I’m the leader of Silent Owl guild. Currently we were given with the quest to clear the catacombs of Ferion family. We are looking for more players to complete this task. We still need forty people to help us. We can pay each one of them 1 gold coin but only if the quest is completed. There is no minimal level restriction so everybody can take part even level one beginner.”
To beginners sum of one gold coin was fortune. It allowed to buy some basic amour and weapon and there would be still some left so it wasn’t strange that everyone wanted to join raid. Soon queue was formed and group of players going to catacombs rose. There didn’t passed fifteen minutes before Silent Owl guild with hired players started their journey.
Hetman had also joined. This hunt seemed perfect opportunity to earn some gold and gain level also with such number of players it looked more like there was any danger. After three hours they finally got out of the city. When they walked through gate they seen huge filed filled with some wild chickens, rabbits and foxes. Players in similar clothes to them hunted these creatures. For Hetman it looked just like fights on plains. Group of four of five killing one thanks to number advantage but without any real skill.
“Ok, I know that we had long march but we still made only one third of the rode. Now it will be little faster as we are outside the city but it will still take at least 4 hours before we get to catacombs. I plan one break in 1 hour from now to eat something and get a little bit of rest. So everybody let’s go the faster we will get there the faster you can get your reward.” Ramir looked to be in high spirets.
The group resumed their march but soon appeared some problems as some beginners didn’t have any weapons. They either didn’t complete tutorial or got some armor parts from it and only became aware of that now. However crisis was quickly defused. Players who hadn’t any weapons were instructed to pick stick and for now use it as the weapon.
This made Hetman little surprised as the players with the sticks couldn’t present any support in battle their damage were simply too small. Someone with 1-2 attack couldn’t be used at anything except meat shield. on the Place of Ramir he would either made the unarmed players from the group and hired some beginners fighting animals, or made unarmed buy weapons for themselves.
Around 3 pm they finally reached their goal. Catacombs of Ferion family were huge mound. It was seventeen meter high and had thirty meter in radius. As entrance was used huge stone arch closed by bronze door on which were sculpted battles.
The author's tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
“Everybody we will now went inside. Every beginner has to pair up with one person from my guild to have the biggest chance to survive. If you have some buffs spells or other things like that use it now before we enter. Also check if your satiety bar is full because inside we won’t have to much time. Is everybody ready?”
“Yes!!”
“Ok let's go inside”
Inside of the catacombs started with small steps leading down. They weren’t too wide and no more than four people could use them at once. Hetman with his companion from guild were in leading four. It was strange but guild leader and players with the best equipment were going at the end. To Hetman mind came only two reasons for such action. First they wanted to use the rest like meat shield but in that situation why would they mix beginners with guild member. Second they were expecting ambush from behind and decided that the best player would deal with danger the most efficiently but then why hadn’t they said about this before going inside.
Stairs soon ended and Hetman went inside to big underground catacombs. They had shape of 15 meter high dome. From floor level to almost the top in walls were made holes in which were lying coffins made out of stone. Each coffin had carved on top of it lying person with hands on chest. Walls were also full of some kind magic stones which produced light so previously used torches were unnecessary.
Hetman didn’t seen any monsters inside dome so he decided to get the better look at the coffins. From the sculptures of people hetman concluded that most of them were mages as they were dressed in robes and in hands squeezed stone wands. One of the casket caught Hetman attention. It was made from darker kind of stone and sculpted person didn’t resemble mage. It more looked like some kind barbarian, it chest was exposed showing impressive muscles. It face had little bit oriental features. While being bald, had impressive beard which was neatly bound but the strangest thing was it didn’t have legs. From it wrist came stone representation of smoke. This smoke was connecting upper half of the body of man with oil lamp. Simply speaking sculpture showed Djinn.
While Hetman was admired the casket everybody in the group group made it to dome. Leader of Silent Owl guild came to canter of the dome.
“Okay everybody You can start”
Beginners seemed confused by the speech of Remir but his own guild mates quickly drawn theirs weapons and the battel started. Guild attacked unprepared greenhorns not leaving them any chance to prepare. Because every beginner was paired with member of Silent Owl fights ended almost instantly. Few players who had enough luck too not die from first attack started to run away in the direction of stairs. This wasn’t good choice as stairs were guarded by strongest players from Silent Owl.
In the middle of chaos that was created no one seen how Hetman by hair evaded slash which was supposed to kill him. The situation for Hetman was hopeless. His opponent wasn’t high level player maximally 14-15 but it still gave him advantage of 70 stat points plus class bonuses. Even if Hetman was little better than his enemy in pure swordsmanship, he didn’t have in game skills. How to cope in such situation?
Retrospection
****
“Just a little more and I will be undefeated.” Hetman said in joy while repeating combination of attacks. ”I can already defeat three players from four people group in half of the fights. When I will leave this cursed plains I will easily overpower even 10 or 15 higher lever people and monsters.”
“HAHAHA You once again something hilarious lad, You have great future as a clown ahead of you. I tell you with your chicken dance and your jokes you could get fortune.” Bear man as always made fun of Hetman when he was training
“Laugh as long as you want but soon I will leave this place and enemies with so small level advantage won’t stood chance against me”
“HAHAHA If you are so sure of your abilities young one let’s make a bet. I am level 24 so its little more than you said but I will only use my weaker hand and won’t have any weapon or armour piece. If you will defeat me I will never again make fun of you but if you lose you will give me foot massage. HAHAHA”
“Of course I accept. You are too full of yourself if you think that you can win against me with such conditions. You keep calling my moves chicken dance but they are deadly and soon you will know it on your own skin”
Bear man took his chest and armguards off and next to them he put his axe.
“HAHAHA You can start anytime you want.” Bear man said putting right hand behind back
Hetman started with quick horizontal slash, but his opponent simple stepped back evading attack. Hetman already anticipated this and with swift motion changed slash into stab. This also didn’t work as bear man with speed unexpected in such huge body sidestepped. In this position NPC caught Hetman outstretched arm and simply brought him down. From there fight ended quickly and sorely for player.
After two hours Hetman regained consciousness.
“HAHAHA It seems someone owe me foot massage HAHAHA”
“How you were so fast your level isn’t much higher than mine and you also were disarmed”
“HAHAHA Difference of ten levels isn’t big it’s true but higher levels, at the beginning it‘s like heaven and earth."
“So I will stood no chance against 11 level opponent even if I would train here all eternity?”
“HAHAHA Well said but it’s not exactly true. If your swordsmanship was truly well and not trained only for 2 weeks, if your enemy was paralyzed or was
immobile and could not attack you or if you prepared some traps beforehand than you would had some chances”
****
This didn’t looked good he had no skills or poison to paralyze his enemy and obviously he didn’t put any traps beforehand. There was only one way he could win this fight. By immobilizing his enemy. There was only one move he came up with which could work. It wasn’t well trained but he didn’t have time waste battle chaos was already ending as running away greenhorns were massacred by stairs guards.
Hetman seen how his opponent started his trust and knew this was now or never. He made small sidestep to evade upcoming sword but was slightly too slow and blade grazed his right forearm. The next move was straight like from judo. He caught enemy hand and in the same time pulled enemy hand and tripped him. While his opponent was lying face to the ground Hetman sat on his back and started stabbing him without mercy till his enemy didn’t turned grey and disappeared.
Tring
Level up
Level up
Skill learned
[quart=Skill Name,Skill Level]Skill Rank,Skill Expirience[/quart]
[quart=Trip-Pasive skill,1]Beginer,2%[/quart]
Increase chance for trips to leave enemy without balance +1%
Skill learned
[quart=Skill Name,Skill Level]Skill Rank,Skill Expirience[/quart]
[quart=Stab-Active,1]Beginer,4%[/quart]
Increase pierce type damage +30%
stamina cost 80
You have been marked as PK
He took advantage of him being steal unspotted and quickly hide behind casket with Djinn sculpture as it was the nearest one.
Soon battle ended. Beginners were mercilessly massacred.
“Great job boys we just defended catacombs of Ferion family against 40 dangerous bandits. I’m sure that grateful Ferion family will pay us a lot for such feat. Ok get the loot you want and let’s get out of here”
Silent Owl guild used them. Hetman couldn’t believe it. He now seen how naïve they were going out of city and completely trusting Remir and his guild.
When the sound of steeps faded away, light from stones also started to dim soon Hetman was alone in the dark dome. He was lucky as in his pair it was him who carried the torch. Now thanks to that he had at least a little bit of light.
When he was getting up from behind of casket He spotted there small switch. Hetman pushed by curiosity decided to see what will happened when he will flip it.
From the coffin came horrible noise as stone lid started to open. From the casket came cloud of dust and for second Hetman couldn’t see anything. When the dust finally steeled inside where only small book.