Chapter 1:The Group of Four
The atmosphere today has been restless.
With the launching of Amaron Online's servers today, I've seen several students checking for the time and waiting for the bell to ring.
Well, I'm also one of them.
Having already bought a copy with my friends, I can't wait to play it.
I look at each of my friends and they in turn look at me.
After giving them a nod, I turned to look at the clock.
Just a few minutes more...
…
…
…
RiIIiIiiIIIiIiIIiiIIIiIiiIiiIIiiiIiIIiiIiIiiiIIIiiIiIIiIiiIiiIiiIiIiNGG!!
Hearing the signal for dismissal I stood up and quickly grouped up with my friends.
“Hey!...? Where's Lucas?” I asked while looking around.
“That guy ran straight for the door without even waiting for us.” The girl to my right informed me.
Her name is Rin. With brown-ish blonde hair that reaches her back and a few centimetres shorter than me, she made a name for herself for being at the top of the class and for her achievements.
What I call the typical “perfect beauty”.
Even though she's very diligent in class, she's also very fond of videogames.
“Geez... that guy is too excited. Servers don't open until ten o'clock...” The girl to my left said.
She's the best-friend of Rin. Ruth. With brown hair tied into her signature pony-tail and around the same height as Rin, she's second to Rin in class.
If Rin is the “perfect beauty”, then Ruth is the “cool beauty”.
“Yeah well, I think we should get going too.” I suggested.
The two look at each other and nod.
“See you in the game then.” Ruth said.
“How should we meet up?” I asked.
“Easy. Just don't change your appearance.”
“Yeah. Don't change your name too.” Rin said excitedly.
“What if our names are taken?”
“Impossible. Servers are only starting later.” Ruth said confidently.
After saying that I try to think of anything else we might need in the game but just shrugged it off.
“Well whatever. Gonna hurry home myself then.” I said while jogging away.
“Okay. Ruth and I are still gonna do some shopping though.”
“Shopping? For what?”
“Groceries. Duh. Unlike a certain somebody, we need to prepare our own meals you know?”
“Ahaha....” I tried to laugh it off. “Well anyways, see ya later.”
“Bye.”
“Later.”
And with that I rush off to my house.
Exiting the school building, I jog for a few minutes and got to my destination.
I open the door and rushed to my room. I threw down my bag and had a quick shower.
Putting on a new set of clothes, I turn to check myself in the mirror.
What I see is a person a little over 5 ft. tall with dark brown hair.
…
I'm still in highschool... I can still grow.
After checking myself one more time, I went downstairs and into the dining room.
On the table are a few dishes and a total of three plates.
Taking a seat I hear a girl's voice from the direction of the kitchen.
“(sigh) didn't even stop to say hello?”
“Ah- Oh, um... hello?”
Greeting the girl behind me, she puffed her cheeks and crossed her arms.
Maggie, my little sister. Younger by two years and in her last year of middle school.
Black hair that's cut just above the shoulder and a head shorter than me.
The one person I know that helps me feel tall.
“So uh... how was school?”
“Fine.” Still puffing her cheeks as she sat herself down.
“I'm meeting up with my friends in the game later on. Wanna join?”
“No thanks. I only want to play with bro when your friends aren't around.” She said so cheering up a little.
“Hm? Why?”
“They pamper me too much...” She said whilst shivering once she remembered her last encounter with them.
Giving her a little smile, I ate and quickly finished up. Thanking my sis for the meal then hurrying to my room once again, I checked the time.
8:40... Still quite early...
Thinking this, I checked the forums for some info on the game.
Going to my laptop, I looked at what's available.
Information about the game is gathered by the beta testers and looking at what's here, I can see some guides for beginners. I click on the one that seems to be the most visited and scrolled down.
After skimming through what I already know, I read the first thing I thought was important.
The stats.
Seeing that there are quite a bunch of stats, I tried to make sense out of it.
But after looking carefully, it's actually quite simple...
The status window contains all the information about your character which includes your name, which is above your health, then beside that is your level. Beside your health is your mana.
After that is your class, titles, alignment, and your stats.
It looks like this... (Dunno how to make tables :P)
Name:
Level:1
HP:100
MP:100
Class:
Title(s):
Alignment:
Stats: (StatPoints:50)
Strength:
-Attack:10
-ArmorPenetration:10
-CriticalStrike:10
Vitality:
-Health:10
-Armor:10
-HealthRegeneration:10
Intelligence:
-MagicPower:10
-MagicPenetration:10
-Burst:10
Wisdom:
-Mana:10
-MagicResist:10
-ManaRegeneration:10
Dexterity:
-AttackSpeed:10
-MovementSpeed:10
-CriticalStrikeChance:10
Abilties:
Active:
Passive:
Skills:
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
-
Okaaay~
Getting my thoughts into order, I analyzed the information
Let's start from the beginning.
After your name, is your Level.
Upon player level up, you gain 10 stat points.
Leveling up DOES NOT affect your stats.
So if I choose not to allocate any stat points and get to level 10, my stats would remain the same while also leaving me with 150 stat points.
Below your name is your health, or HP.
For each level up, you get 50 HP.
Leveling up skills can also affect your HP and other stats.
Same goes for your Mana, or MP.
Only this time, for each level up, you get 20 MP.
Next up is Class.
Having a class can give you special skills not available in the beginning.
These skills can be equipped without the need of skill points.
Having a class can also give you Abilities. More about this later.
Below Class is Title(s).
These give you benefits such as stat increase and reputation.
And miscellaneous ones like affecting the price you sell monster drops for.
Another one is Alignment.
There are 5 alignments, which are Heroic, Good, Neutral, Evil, Chaotic.
Everybody starts off as neutral.
You can become Good by doing quests that make the NPCs favour you and you become Evil when declining to help or doing things NPCS might think is unreasonable.
To become Heroic, you do the same thing when aiming to become Good.
However. When one kills another player with no good reason, no matter what alignment you are, you become Chaotic.
Benefits from Heroic and Good alignments include good relationships with NPCs and protection from bounties.
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Players and NPCs can place bounties on another player as long as they have a valid reason and the money for the reward.
I mean, having bounties on people who have Heroic and Good alignments make no sense right?
Also when people place bounties, that person must have neutral, evil or chaotic aligments. Once placed, even when that person manages to get good, or heroic alignments, the bounty stays.
After that we have the stats.
Looking at it again, the stats seem self-explanatory. Also, even though there are 15 stats, there are a bunch of hidden stats and factors that affect you but won't be aware of.
Moving on we have the Abilities.
These can be classified into either active or passive and you can have as many of each as possible.
Abilities also have a level system from level 1 to level 10.
Leveling an ability will improve it's effects.
To get Abilities, you can learn some once you get a class and earn more when leveling it.
But to use these Abilities one must have equipped the appropriate Skill.
Upon equipping a Skill you can unlock and equip some Abilities.
More on Skills.
Every player starts off with 5 Skill Points.
To learn a skill, one must use a skill point.
One skill point = one skill.
Easy enough.
The only problem, is that there are a TON of skills.
Each categorizing into weapons, magic, crafts, stat boosters and miscellaneous skills.
Looking at the weapons, there seems to be one for each every known weapon out there, but not all are available at the beginning.
As for magic, there are four basic element types which are fire, water, earth, and air.
Other magics include, light, dark, buff, and debuff which are also available in the beginning.
The list of magic is as long as the weapons list, with spells like lightning or summoning magic.
Crafting includes synthesis, alchemy, chemistry, blacksmith, tailor, carpentry and many more.
Stat boosters are simple as they only increase your stats...
Miscellaneous ones include fishing, swimming, taming, mining... the list goes on and on.
Back on topic.
When equipping a skill, one can learn abilities that pertains to that skill.
For example, equipping the [spear] skill will allow you to learn abilities that uses a spear.
Just like Abilities, Skills have a level system from level 1 to level 10 AND a ranking system.
Simple enough...
There are four ranks, Beginner, Intermediate, Advance, Mastered.
Some skills give you stat bonuses once leveled.
And upon leveling a skill to 10, the skill moves on to the next rank.
Reaching the next rank will give you 1 skill point.
It may also give you improve stat bonuses and added benefits.
And the last and most important point in Skills is that you may have up to a maximum of 10 Skills equipped.
Therefore limiting your Abilities.
For example unequipping a skill will make you lose it's benefits.
So when I have fire spells and unequip [Fire Magic] I lose the ability to use those spells? Huh.
Finishing up and deciding what skills to get, I looked at my clock.
9:50...
Did I just spend more than an entire hour reading this? Guh... Looking at the time after reading this got me tired all of a sudden...
Thinking that, I head to my bed and put on a visor. Turning it on and connecting to the internet, I use a controller to select Amaron Online which I have just installed.
After that, I put the controller down and relax.
Waiting for the time to strike 10:00, I hold on to my excitement.
…
10:00
“Play.”
A single word brought my consciousness to darkness. Looking around I find a person.
A woman in her early twenties. Wearing a white dress and hair tied into multiple braids, the image she gives off has a fantasy-like feel to it.
“Hello and welcome to Amaron Online.”
“Oh, um. Thank you?”
“Hahaha, well what name would you like to use?”
“Adrian.”
“Would you like to make changes to your appearance?”
“No thanks.”
“You won't?” The woman asks a bit surprised.
“I'm meeting up with my friends so I'd want them to recognize me.”
“I see... well, you may now use this time to get used to your body and allocate stat points. You may also spend skill points to get skills.” She said to me seemingly amused.
“'Kay. Thanks.”
Saying this I move my body around and found myself covered in leather armor... the so-called “beginner armor”.
After that I allocated my stat points.
Hmm... I have 50 points and there are 15 choices...meh. Let's keep it simple.
I put 30 points into attack speed and 20 into movement speed.
Now taking a look at the skills, I chose what I had in mind.
[Dagger lvl.1] [Bow lvl.1] [AttackSpeedBoost lvl.1] [MovementSpeedBoost lvl.1] [Tracking lvl.1]
Satisfied with what I chose, I informed the lady.
“Good.” She smiled. “Now you are ready to walk the lands of Amaron. You will be given 1000 copper coins and a backpack for your inventory.”
Appearing in front of me is a backpack and a notification saying I obtained 1000 copper coins.
Copper coins seems to be the lowest form of currency so I asked what the cost of currency is.
“Ah. I have given you 1000 copper coins yes? This is for players to learn about currency in game when they buy, sell, or convert they're money. The 1000 copper coins you have right now is equivalent to 10 silver coins. Meaning 100 copper coins equal 1 silver coin. And 100 silver coins is equal to 1 gold coin.
Understand?”
“Ah, yes. Thank you.”
“Well, good luck with finding your friends.”
“Yeah, I will.”
After that exchange, my vision turned to white and before I knew it, I found myself in the center of a town crowded by thousands of other players.
Looking around I try searching for my friends.
After a few minutes, I hear someone calling my name.
“Adriaaan!”
Turning my head to look for the voice, I finally spot them jogging towards me.
Happy to see them I called back.
“Hey.”
The moment I said that the three people were already in front of me.
In the middle, I recognized Rin in cleric clothing. The one to her right is Ruth in the same leather clothing as me, only a version for girls.
And finally, the boy to Rin's left. Lucas. He has black hair, just as tall as I am, and in what seems to be mage clothing.
Smiling at my friends I noticed...
“Where'd you get those clothes?”
“...? Oh we bought them. Come, we'll show you the way.” Lucas says excitedly and walks ahead of us.
Smiling once again at my impulsive and docile friend, I looked at the other two and they smiled as well.
Almost losing track of Lucas, the three of us rush to catch up to him.
And this is where our story begins...
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Author's Note - Hello again :P
I'm saying this now... I'm not a writer.
Sooo if you see any mistakes, please inform me.
And also, comment your opinion please :D