John Opened his menu and started assigning his statpoints.

Name: Specter

Level: 23

Class: Rogue

Subclass: Mist blade

Special ability: Incorporeal

Gear:

Head, none,

Chest, basic leather chest piece, common,

hands, none,

Legs, none,

undergarments, Commoner's cloth shirt and pants, common,

necklace, none,

rings, none,

cloak, Mist cloak, uncommon,

main weapon, Glamthring, rare,

offhand weapon, Iron dagger, common,

reserve weapon, crude shortbow, common,

skills:

backstab, upon striking an enemy from behind, you deal critical damage, stacks when striking a critical area such as head or neck.

sneak, when you can enter a stealth mode making you harder to detect, must be out of line of sight to use.

climb, you can climb up surfaces that many would deem nearly impossible, climbing becomes easier.

sheer, move at a swift speed and slash your opponent dealing critical damage

Abilities:

incorporeal, attacks and objects go through you and you can walk through solid surfaces, unable to breath while in this state, rapidly drains stamina.

Mist Cloak, While in a foggy obscurity such as mist, snow, fog, steam, or smoke, you become relatively translucent.

Glamthring's flash, Glamthring was the knife of an infamous elven assassin who was infamous for blinding his opponents before killing them, you create a bright flash that disorientates and blinds their opponents.

Ability points available, 11

Stats:

strength, 5

Dexterity, 17

Intelligence, 12

Stat points available, 0

Spells:

Fog. MP cost: 50. creates a thick fog that is hard to see through.

Basic illusion. MP cost, 30. creates an illusion fools the senses, it cannot be interacted with and just acts as a projection or instead just making it a loud sound, taste, touch, or a smell.

Mirror double. MP cost: 70/30sec. Creates a mirror clone of yourself that is half your strength and mirrors your actions and skills used.

disguise. MP cost: 100. you disguise yourself as any humanoid being you can imagine or have seen before, this includes clothes, and weapons but armor and weapons have no actual effect and are just cosmetic.

Frenzy. MP cost: 90. you drive your foes into a furious rage causing them to fight anything in sight, be it their friends, family, or comrades.

Confuse. MP cost: 60. you stagger your enemies with confusion causing them to forget where they are or what they were doing for a few seconds.

MP: 400/400

John put his stats into his intelligence and dexterity. though he noticed he had, a lot of ability points, he couldn't see what it was, but they didn't know what they were used for. "Leo what are ability points used for?"

Leo waved his hand. "It upgrades your abilities you have."

John nodded his thanks and started adding points to two points to Glamthring's flash and and five to incorporeal, before adding the last four to mist cloak. He looked at the descriptions and saw Incorporeal consumed Five less stamina points than they'd have usually did. and Mist cloak's description said that it was adding more of a fuzz to his outline making his humanoid outline less pronounced and more stealthy, and Glamthring's flash showed that it's blindness would last two seconds longer and the radius would increase by five percent, which wasn't much.

John walked out of the cathedral, the others walking out with him, They found people were arguing about the fight with the rats earlier, John still wanted to try exterminating pests but that fight tempered his expectations on free xp, it seemed the game wasn't about to let them abuse it's system.

John saw a few people pointing at them, even though the fight had been in the outskirts of the city apparently word spread quick about what they'd done, someone threw a rock at them. "Cheating fucks!" one of them yelled. John casually snatched the rock out of the air, his increased dexterity allowing his reflexes to become almost cat like. "I know kung fu." he joked.

Leo snorted, then a rock smacked him in the forehead. "Hey, stop that!" He shouted.

John sighed, smacking another rock out of the air. "Leo, how much xp does the average player give?"

Leo groaned. "That's a bad idea Johnny, you'll end up getting the guards on your ass."

John groaned. "We ready to fight that kobold army? we can use the gold." John asked.

Tyrese grimaced. "Thanks I was trying to forget about that."

"So long as we don't fight them in the city we won't have to deal with emperor Glasco." Leo said. Leo sighed. "They're probably on their way now, but with so many of them they'll be slower, so... maybe a few hours before they reach the city, we can meet them half way."

Tyrese looked at Leo his eyes raised. "You sure we're strong enough for that chief?"

Leo nodded. "the four of us should be high enough level to kill them if we fight smart."

John smiled, and started forward pushing through the crowd who were less than happy to let them pass, but a stern look from Tyrese made them back off. "Let's go fight an army!" John said.

They left through the main gate and walked out into the fields, some wolves and coyotes running around trying to kill players who were flailing around like toddlers with sticks, though he did see some blond girl with her hair tied back into a ponytail wielding a long thin epée sword and a dagger in the other, cutting wolves apart like butter.

They eventually after about three hours came to a large hill, there was what looked like a hundred kobolds lead by a one armed fat kangaroo like kobold. they could see the dragon on the massive tower in the distance sitting on top of the tower, John had the feeling it was watching the fight, John took the xp boosting torpor and took a drink seeing a 60 minute xp boost x5, He considered chugging the whole thing and boosting himself a full twenty five percent, but He handed the bottle to Leo, who inspected it and raised the bottle to his lips before passing it to Rin who hesitantly drank it and handed the rest to Tyrese who took the last of the torpor's bottle.

Leo grinned and shouted. "Rin, send a salvo of bolts their way."

Rin did, sending a shit ton of magic bolts down on the red creatures, the range was actually impressive for a mage, in most games mages had a lot of power and aoe but their range was in the mid tier. John took his crappy little shortbow and started shooting arrows at the ranks below it actually hit better because even a blind man could shoot their clustered army, The one armed kobold knight pointed a massive cleaver at them and let out a shriek and the kobolds started charging at them before being forced to climb up the massive hill. Tyrese prepped his shield, Leo his sword and Rin her tome, John tossed his bow over his back and readied his knife.

Rin started blasting them with mana bullets, shooting down about ten of the little kobolds.

Leo shouted. "Don't use fire, it won't do much." As he sent a crimson slash toward the creatures, it cut through them before it finally exploded in the midst of their ranks.

John cast mirror double and the two of them slashed a pair of kobolds moving in perfect sync, they both cast fog as the moved into their ranks, they were essentially invisible, being able to clone himself was a bit over powered, granted the clones over all stats were half of his own, they were both nearly invisible because of the mist cloaks attacked any creature that came near with the mount of them they could hardly miss, at one point the kobold knight swept it's massive cleaver like a fan and blew the fog away, John paled as the kobolds attacked, incorporeal caused confusion to spread through their ranks, they couldn't tell which one of them were real.

Leo propelled a crimson slash at the kobold knight which exploded on contact, blasting them with destructive force, he spun and sent another one at the commanding knight as John retreated from the large creature, it raised it's cleaver and brought it down at Leo but was blocked by Tyrese's shield.

John decided to take care of the small ones while the Tyrese and Leo fought the monstrous kobold knight. he and his mirror double started slashing the kobolds with his knife, and at one point even used Glamthring's flash, both flashes blinding at least 30 kobolds and started slashing throats and heads. while they were blinded and stunned, John realized it was a lot like a flash bang.

He beat a retreat in incorporeal being unable to breathe while running is hard and don't let anyone tell you otherwise, he nearly fainted, he dismissed his clone and unsheathed his iron dagger as he dismissed incorporeal just as a kobold leapt at him, he parried a strike from the kobold which was wielding a cast iron frying pan, and stabbed Glamthring into it's throat critting it and killing it, it fell back and dark blood pooled mixed with the blood of other bodies as it landed on a pile of corpses. Before he fell into a defensive stance near Rin.

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Rin started chanting as her gilded tome opened flipping to a page that depicted the sun and several glowing magic circles formed around her, the kobolds started running toward her a couple managed to get near her but a flash from Glamthring and a stab to the head caused them to die instantly, after thirty second a massive golden beam blasted from the circles, destroying a row or nearly fourty kobolds, there were about ten left and they started attacking Leo and Tyrese while the kobold knight was hopping away as fast as it's kangaroo legs could take them.

Leo cut the smaller kobolds apart and started running after the kobold knight, it looked back and growled, John started running after them, his rogue speed allowing him to catch up as well.

The Kobold slammed it's cleaver into the ground missing Leo as he dashed to the side before he moved forward with blinding speed and stabbed the massive creature in it's big gut. John managed to catch up to Leo but had to dodge a hack with it's massive cleaver, frankly it was more like a weirdly blocky machete than a cleaver, it swung the sword again and John rolled out of the way, before it leapt into the air and kicked Leo in the chest, Leo was sent tumbling backwards, though this left it on the ground for a second so John went in for the kill, only to find his legs swept out from under him, he looked down and saw it's cleaver, and a pair of familiar leather shoes tumbling down the hill away from his body, he looked down at his legs, and found that from the shin down they were gone, he saw the kobold trying to get up, though it was apparently difficult a single arm that just so happened to be holding the worlds largest Urukai sword in lotr history. He couldn't do much without his legs, this creature just took away one of his best strengths aside from his ability to crit stack like a boss, it took away his mobility.

He saw it finally manage to get up and lumber over towards Leo who was already on his feat and sending a crimson strike at it, though dodged it and swept it's cleaver at him, though Tyrese managed to block the shield as he finally managed to get to the rest of them, it reeled from the rebounded force and Tyrese grunted at the force of the impact as well, it snarled and started slamming it's massive cleaver down onto his shield several more times.

John took the opportunity to throw Glamthring at it's back, he wanted to hit it's head but it was moving too much so he'd just aim for center mass, of which there was a lot. his dagger struck home and it's back arched, and it's head stopped moving around, so he threw the iron dagger, it hit with a resounding crack as the second knife planted itself into it's skull, but it turned around a blade sticking out between it's eyes like a unicorn. It bounded toward him and all he could do was laugh at it as it raised it's cleaver, John had a few skills, luckily he and Leo as kids had done what they called tire races, where they'd go into a tire and start rolling down the hill in their backyards, they were forced to stop by their parents when John had nearly cracked his skull open on a rock, still he started rolling down that hill as if he were in a tire, the cleaver missed, and a crimson strike blasted it in the back of it's head, not doing a double crit like John's as Leo wasn't a rogue, but the blast had sent the creature into an uncontrolled rage and it started back up the hill after leo, only Johns knives had returned and he started throwing them at it's back again, they hit the large creature and it roared, clearly it's enraged brain was confused as to kill first, before it could decide a flurry of mana bolts caused the kobold knight to explode into red pixels. Rin was standing a little ways away from the group, smiling but clearly exhausted. "Next time... we kill the kobold the first time..." She gasped through heavy breathing.

Rin ran down the hill toward John and started healing him. "Come on, let's get you back to town." She said after his legs had healed back, shoes and pantlegs included thank god.

John checked his stats his hp was still shit but recovering slowly, he'd have to put something into strength to avoid being one shot in the future, though frankly as a rogue and a mist blade no less he was supposed to not get hit in the first place, and incorporeal was clearly a great way to avoid being game ended immediately and losing all his levels, but if taken by surprise like he was with the kobold knight he'd die immediately. He also found he managed to level up six times, so he put it all in intelligence, from how Tyrese explained it, levelling gave him a 10% boost in hp, and strength gave a +1% for each point in it, so John gained 15% per level as it is currently, Tyrese had a flat 22 in his strength, he put his stats nowhere else so far, so he gained 32% hp per level and that percentage was probably going to keep growing. he essentially has a higher health pool than everyone in the party and after the level up.

Leo came down the hill with Tyrese, who had his massive tower shield. "Yo, We leveled."

Rin nodded. "I managed to level nine times."

Leo's eyes nodded. "That's six more times for me."

John looked at Leo. "How much gold did we get? do we have enough for a proper guild hall yet?"

Leo sighed, looking at his inventory. "Let's see, I got over four thousand for the kobolds I killed... Tyrese, you?"

Tyrese looked in his own. "Bout nine hundred here."

Leo looked at Rin and John.

Rin's eyes scanned her menu. "Uh, five thousand."

John looked at his own menu seeing the amount. "Two thousand."

Rin looked at where the boss died. "I got an interesting item... a scroll."

Leo looked at it. "Does it have a name?" He asked.

"It just says, Sealed letter." She said. though she took it from her inventory and looked at the seal hoping for some kind of clue. "It's a dragon seal in red wax."

Leo stroked his blond beard. "Well, open it and let's see what it says."

Rin cracked the seal and opened the letter seeing a fine print. "It's from... the dungeon boss, it's... inviting us?" Rin asked.

Leo held out a hand and she handed it over, he took out a pair of spectacles from his inventory and started reading, apparently he still needed those to read even in the game. "It's from the dungeon boss, apparently he wants to recruit us to his dungeon. It explains everything here, that it gave the kobold knight the letter and ordered it not to open it but carry it on him during the battle, if we managed to get the letter it'd know that we succeeded to kill them."

John was floored. "Dungeon bosses can invite players to join it's dungeon? I heard npc ai was great in this game but this seems way too advanced." He said.

Tyrese nodded in agreement. "That's true, it's like each npc has a super computer powering it's ai."

Leo nodded. "The higher ranked the npc the higher quality it's ai, a dungeon boss like iligsir is a very high ranked npc so it's ai is competent, only one player actually got invited to join a dungeon in the beta, it apparently had many benefits such as elemental resistances and access to npc troops of the monster type the dungeon is themed around, in that players case they joined the dungeon of the mage dragon Valisax and was given access to golems and high level magic, ended up becoming the most powerful player in the beta because of that. Dungeons aren't just grind places and boss fights, there seems to be a dragon for each one and each of them has a particular theme and politics is rampant between the different dungeons from what I heard." Leo might as well have been given a chalkboard and lab coat with how he explained it, he was always trying to learn everything he could about the game he aimed to bring the guild to, be it lore, locations, or software, it was what made him an effective player and why letting him beta test any game was probably a good way to destroy player ecosystem once the game dropped officially.

Rin looked at leo. "How much for the guild hall then?"

Leo snapped his fingers. "Right, sorry, got distracted, the lowest price for a guild hall is six thousand, so we might have some leftover money for new armor." Leo said.

John realized that in terms of level they were probably ahead of most of the gaming populace, but in terms of gear they were probably still behind everyone else magic items not included as it seemed the game was relatively generous with such items assuming you hit certain milestones, he'd seen players walking around in full leather armor and with slightly better weapons, and the occasional magic item. "Hey Leo, would joining the dungeon effect the guild at all?"

Leo tilted his hand side to side. "it's more like a sponsorship frankly, we'll get occasional quests from Iligsir and if players attack the dungeon we'll be expected to help defend."

John nodded. "We gonna accept this... sponsorship?"

Leo gave him the 'what do you think look.' "It's benefits outweigh the drawbacks, on the one hand we occasionally take orders from a giant dragon, on the other we have a giant dragon at our back, you bet your ass we're accepting it Johnny." He said, visible excitement in his face.