Another five hours went by in a flash, and in that time I had gotten a lot done. By alternating hourly between alchemy, better known as grinding bones, and butchering rabbits I managed to recover most of the coin I bought rabbits for. I had bought a total of 49 rabbits, for the sum of 4 gold and 18 silver. The loot and processed goods from that loot, which I had on hand amounted to 4 gold, 11 silver and 14 coppers. And I still had another 23 rabbits I had yet to butcher.

That was not the best part though. The best part was on the fourth last rabbit I had butchered, I levelled up Butchery, and since that was my first skill level up, I also earned my first character level up. Which meant I got five attribute points to place. I placed a single point in Strength and two in Dexterity and Endurance.

Name

Damian Heosphoros

Race

Human

Class

Locked

Level

1

Skill Points

0/2

Upgrade Points

0

Skill Cap

10

Skills Learned

9

XP Penalty

0%

Health

100/100

Stamina

240/240

Mana

50/50

Unassigned Attribute Points: 0

Strength: 11

Agility: 10

Dexterity: 12

Endurance: 12

Vitality: 10

Spirit: 10

Resonance: 10

While more mana would be nice, it would have to wait until Meditation had levelled up some; otherwise I would spend too much time just sitting around doing nothing. On the other hand the boost to Endurance would let me butcher eight rabbits instead of six, before needing to recover stamina. Strength was chosen because it was getting heavy moving the cart around While Dexterity was chosen in the hope it would help me crafter a bit faster. Bring the time to butcher a rabbit down below 2 minutes.

I was not the only one who had been active, so had my guildmates. They had all hit level 3, finished the Dungeon the five times I asked. They had also handed over thirteen seagulls. Ed was the first to speak up, “You can’t seriously expect us to keep raiding that dungeon?”

Looking at him, I gave a tight smile, “I actually am.”

“But it’s not worth our time.”

“It might not be right now, but it’ll be very rewarding in the end, trust me.”

“Why? Just because you say you got a friend who was in the beta? If he’s such a good friend to break the NDA, why is he or she not playing with you?” he demanded. It was an unexpected behaviour from him. I had maybe thought one of the others might challenge me, but not Ed. It seemed I had miscalculated how different he was ingame.

“No, because I’m your boss and we got a contract. I know I’m asking a lot, but please just go with it for a week in real time. You’ll see that following my instructions will be worth it,” I had a hard time keeping my voice from showing how angry and frustrated I was. I was angry at being questioned like that. And I was frustrated because I could not tell them how I knew what I knew. They would never believe me.

“Come on Ed, we talked about this. Keep it cool,” One-Eye said, while looking at the fighting between the rabbits and players out in the plains. He let out an impressed whistle, “That’s crazy, fireball shooting rabbits. Whoever thought up that had to be a weirdo.”

“Or tripping,” Kira commented, but seemed distracted. Taking note of the direction she was looking, I found that she was keeping an eye out on the Bears, who was headed in our direction. Turning around to face me, she jerked a thumb in their direction, “What’d you do to piss them off. They’ve been eyeballing you since we got here.”

Shrugging, I explained the situation, “Eh, they were idiots, and their leader got himself killed trying to rob me. Then another one got stomped by the GMs, when he falsely reported me multiple times for cheating. Since he hasn’t come back, I think he got a temporary ban.”

“GMs?” One-Eye queried.

“Game Masters, people hired by the developers to help players with issues resulting from bugs and player behaviour,” Ed answered absentmindedly, slipping a brown manastone from his pouch and it looked like he was about to summon it.

Tapping him on the shoulder, I shook my head when I had his attention, “Don’t waste resources on that. We’re in the safezone. No one make a move unless they do.”

Nodding, he relaxed his stance, but did not put the manastone away. Blaze looked at them with excitement, “Damnit, I wish I knew a fireball spell, you know a proper one. The exploding kind. Look how close they’re walking. One spell. Mo-mo-mo-mo-Monster Kill!”

“Why you stutter like that?” Robin arched on of her eyebrows.

“It’s — it’s a gamer thing,” he explained dejectedly, earning a dismissive “oh” from Robin.

Meanwhile, the Bears had arrived at my little stall. Iron Bear strode forward, exuding confidence, only to stop midstep. Staring at the wall behind me, he turned a bit pale. Looking back I saw the friendly guard from earlier had already an arrow nocked and ready.

He gulped audibly a few times, before getting a grip on himself, “Seeing as there are members of your guild here, I thought we should talk reparations from the incident earlier. You see, I lost all my XP, and I was very close to earning level two. And our member Black Bear is still indisposed because of you.”

“Are you seriously blaming me?” I asked incredulous at his audacity.

“There were mistakes on both sides,” he immediately said, “But we suffered a lot, so I think it’s only fair that you pay a bit of compensation.”

“We’re still in the safezone,” I scoffed, clearly believing him to be a moron.

“We could just ambush you and your friends when you leave town. But that would be time consuming. That’s why we suggest a duel with wagers. I think five gold should cover our pain and suffering,” he chuckled at the last part. So did his sycophants.

“You must be dumber than you look,” One-Eye stepped forward with an angry. The four others also moved around slightly, hands inching closer to their weapons.

“Five gold is a little low, how about we say a platinum. Payable immediately,” I offered, immediately gaining everyone’s attention, except Kira. She kept looking over the different Bears; sizing them up.

“Tha— That’s a bit much,” Iron Bear stammered.

“Well, if you’re not man enough to take me on alone, we can always make it a two versus one,” Kira challenged and stepped forward. Iron Bear was about to retort, when he saw that we had drawn a bit of a crowd. A few of independent players was already spectating, and a lot more was trickling over.

“That’s not fair, I mean, you’re just a g—” he started, but then sputtered to a start, “I mean I don’t hit women.”

“Oh, so you’re too chivalrous to hit a woman, but extortion and robbery is okay?” Kira taunted, “You know what you are? You’re pathetic. A little loser. Probably need your momma to tuck you in at night.”

The crowd started laughing, while the Bears had gone silent. Iron Bear first became pale, then colour flushed back, “Fuck you cunt! I’ll show you who’s a loser.”

Followed by a moment of silence, as his eyes darted around, probably looking at his interface. Then he drew his sword, and stood waiting for something. My educated guess would be that he had sent a duel request to Kira. While fighting in the town’s safezone was forbidden that was not the case for duels. I could not see Kira’s face, but I figured she was looking over the prompt outlining the terms.

With a grin she drew her tonfas, “I agree.”

As soon as she agreed, a pulse of light spread around them. Creating a glowing translucent barrier appeared. It was gently pushing everyone away from the combatants, establishing a perimeter. Nothing could enter or exit. At the same time, a red health bar appeared over both their heads. Ed looked worriedly at me, “Are you sure it’s going to be okay? It’s a lot of money.”

“Don’t worry, he might be level four, but that’s not enough of a difference to make up for his lack of skill,” I reassured, as the two combatant started moving. For some reason, Iron Bear wasted stamina on a Taunting Roar. It would have no effect unless it had been a two on one. He followed up with a Charge. Though he suddenly shot forward, almost too fast to follow, Kira had still spun out of the way. With a vicious grin Iron followed up with a Shield Bash. Even I was surprised by how quickly he chained the two skills.

Kira dodged out of the way of that as well, eliciting a gasp from the crowd. Someone shouted, “How can she use Dodge twice in a row?”

“What about the cooldown?” another one shouted. The best reaction though was the stupefied look on Iron’s face when his skill did not impact. It almost screamed “How?”.

Kira was not about to waste any time though. She had spun to get out of the way of the bash, so she used the momentum and continued the spin, ending up behind Iron. Her right tonfa smashing into the back of his skull. She followed that with a kick to the knee, making him drop down to one knee. She was about to kick him in the back, when he spun around with the activation of Slash, the sword going for her calves. Caught off balance, she could only activate Leap, which immediately sent her two meters into the air, soaring over Iron. She managed to turn in the air, and bring both tonfas down on his back, as she landed behind him.

Iron had activated five abilities in the span of three second, which should mean all of his abilities were on cooldown. I did not think Kira was aware of that, but she was capitalizing on his poor position by rapidly striking him.

“Lem, heal me!” Iron cried out, as his health plummeted. To my surprise, one of the Bears was able to enter, which was announced with a flash of light. The duel parameters must have stated that it was a two versus one, otherwise he should not be able to do so.

A bit over ten meters separated him and Kira, with Iron in between them. A distance he would have to cover, before he could heal Iron. There were no ranged healing spells available at character creation. He was carrying a shield and a short spear. Not a spear, but a javelin I realised as he leaned back and threw it. White energy started to generate around it, as soon as he threw it; indicating that he had used Power Throw.

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Kira sidestepped the javelin, causing an opportunity for Iron to act. One he took to get back on his feet and start running towards his guildmate.

“Oh no you don’t,” Kira hissed as black and purple energy started crackling around her right tonfa. Iron had only managed to take a single step, when she lashed out. Not at him, but the ground behind him.

“She missed!” someone loudly commented, as a small pulse of black and purple energy shot out from the impact. It clipped Iron’s left foot, just barely. Another step, and he suddenly stopped. Not because he wanted to, but because something was preventing him from going further. I recognized the skill Kira had used as Tether, which formed a strand of black and purple energy tying the target to the point of impact. At level zero it should last for three seconds.

Roaring with a lot of anger and a hint of desperation, Iron turned around and swung wildly at her. Kira ducked, and at the same time sent a jab into his manly parts. The roar turned into a shriek, as he lost hold of his sword and doubled over. The male crowd made a collective intake of air, some squirming a bit; instinctively covering their nether region. She followed that by an uppercut, catching him under the chin with the short end of her tonfa; snapping his head upwards and robbing him of his last bit of health.

When dying in a duel, your corpse did not dissipate, it was left behind. Because you would wake up afterwards with a single health point. So as Kira got to her feet, Iron’s lifeless body hit the ground with a thump. The crowd silent, and staring. Then me and the others in the guild started cheering, which was quickly followed up by the crowd.

Lem who had covered a couple of meters, slid to a stop. No javelin in hand. He stared at Kira like a deer in the headlights of a car in the old movies. She gave him no chance to retrieve another spear. Sprinting towards him, she arrived before he managed to react. Her first attack, was a jumping kick using all the momentum of her speed.

He snapped enough out of it to activate Block, which immediately moved the shield high to block her kick. Not being deterred by the blocked attack, Kira landed and her left tonfa started glowing red. She had activated Siphon Strike. Lem let out an explosion of air as the hit landed in his solar plexus.

Siphon Strike was a spell like ability, using both stamina and mana to activate. It siphoned a single point of Strength, Dexterity or Agility from the target for a second when it hit, and enhanced the users’ Agility by one for two seconds. It was also an ability without cooldown.

As Kira’s rapid red glowing strikes started to blur together, Lem’s health drained at a fast rate. A powerful stomp kick to the stomach sent him flying; draining the last sliver of his health. The crowd was cheering. Well half of it anyway. The smile on Kira’s face wide, as she panted from the exertion.

Golden letters, spelling “Winner”, appeared above her head. At the same time both Lem and Iron Bear came back to life, with a single health point each. Immediately after standing back up, Iron started with the accusations, “She fucking cheated, no one can use Dodge two times in a row.”

“She didn’t use Dodge, she dodged your attack,” I tried to explain. Doing a poor job it would seem.

“It got at least a ten second cooldown. I’m not paying you anything, and I’m reporting the bitch for cheating,” he screamed the first part, and turned to walk away.

“You’ve already paid, and I wouldn’t bother the GMs if I were you,” I could not help the big grin on my face.

“No I haven’t! And I never will,” he sounded a bit high strung.

“Check your inventory. If you didn’t have a platinum on you, it would take it from your party, and if they didn’t have enough to cover the bet, then from your guild. Oh, and you can’t make a bet you can’t cover,” I explained.

A few seconds later, some of the Bears started shouting, “Hey, where’s my money? Fuck, I was saving that for a cooler staff.”

“Fine, whatever. Still going to report her,” he angrily stated and started walking away in a huff.

One of his subordinates whispered just loud enough for all of us to hear, “Boss, that’s how Black got banned for a day.”

“Shut up,” was Iron’s only reply.

Looking at the Bears departing, Kira turned back to me with a small frown, “Should I be worried, did I somehow cheat?”

“No you didn’t, the only thing that will happen is that the GMs will be irritated at the Bears. If we’re lucky, they’re stupid enough to earn themselves a ban for annoying them,” I grinned, just a bit schadenfreude.

“If you didn’t cheat, how could you use Dodge twice in a row,” someone in the crowd asked loudly as they gathered around us. Some of them congratulating Kira.

“Are you an idiot?” Petals exploded, and pointed to me, “He just explained she didn’t use the skill. She dodged his attacks.”

Looking a bit taken aback by the attack, the guy defended himself, “That was what I just said, and Dodge has a cooldown.”

“Argh,” Petals growled with frustration.

Kira laughed, “I manually dodged those attacks. I moved out of the way. As in, relying on my movement, not a skill.”

“Oh,” the guy looked embarrassed to put it mildly.

“How did you learn to fight like that?” Petals gushed.

“Training, years of hard training.”

“But the game has only been open for eleven hours,” a diminutive girl protested.

“Five and a half,” someone next to her, corrected her.

“Huh?”

“Time dilation. The game has only been open for five and a half hours in the real world. But it feels like eleven in here,” the guy patiently explained.

“Oh, right,” she pouted, with a tinge of red colouring her cheeks.

“In the real world. I trained extensively in the real world,” Kira added to her explanation.

“Cool,” the diminutive girl shouted, “Can you train me?”

“Yes, I want to be trained too!” a few people started to chime in.

Someone else loudly proclaimed, “I’ve already posted the fight on the forums, going to be awesome.”

While the crowd had been chaotic before, after the request for training, it became a regular pandemonium. Shouts of “I want to train under Sensei Kira!”, “Gnomes rules!”, “ and “Can I join your guild.”

That last one threw me for a loop. I had never factored in that our guild would attract outsiders on the first day. Maybe a month or two into the game. I had not even thought of how to handle that. My plan had just been for earning money, and slowly adding more people from the Coffins as surplus allowed it.

The crowd was still bubbling with excitement, when someone’s shout turned into a scream of pain, “Gnom—”

“Shut the fuck up,” a tall bald guy with massive muscles and bare chest growled at a smaller player, who was holding a hand over his right eye.

“It’s a gamer tradition,” the smaller one whined.

“Don’t care, it’s annoying,” the walking barbarian stereotype said. Then he started moving away, since the guards were heading in his direction. The sudden violence, had also subdued the crowd’s exuberance.

Taking the chance to get a word in, I announced, “While we would love to accept new members, we’re currently not recruiting, and we’re not accepting members who’s using Combat Instinct skill or automatic crafting mode.”

After a moment of silence, “Why the fuck not?”

“You’ve just now, clearly seen the outcome of assisted versus manual combat mode. While we don’t expect you to be as good as Kira, we can help train you. However, if you’ve Combat Instinct you’re wasting a valuable skill slot, at least if you want to be in our guild,” I explained.

“Well fuck you and your elitist thinking,” someone spat, and got a round of agreement. It also got some of the players to go back to hunting. There were a few players who remained, like Petals. Neither of her friends from earlier had remained.

Petals seemed to be the one speaking up, “Say I was interested, but I’ve already picked Combat Instincts and Block. How can I unlearn them?”

“You can’t, this is a game where you live with your choices.”

“But you wouldn’t be willing to accept someone with only eight useable skills, would you?”

“You’re right, joining the guild would require you to reset your character,”

“There’s a week, real time, cooldown on that,” one of the other players said. A tall thin male. He and Petals was the only ones who remained to listen, after I said they had to reset their characters.

He was not wrong, but there was a way, “Normally you’re right. However, if what you have on your character is worth the starting money, or more, which you got at creation. And if it’s within twenty four hours of creating your character, you’re only hit with a one hour cooldown.”

“Do you have more members?” the guy asked.

“No, this is all of us,” Robin said. She was the only one of the guild members who paid attention to the conversation. The others were talking excitedly with Kira.

“Even if the two of us joined, you wouldn’t have enough to start a new party. I’m out,” he declared and joined the other players slaughtering rabbits.

“What about you?” I turned my attention fully to Petals, who was still standing there, looking torn.

“I’m not really sure. I need to earn enough money to pay for next month, and I’m not sure I can earn that in a guild. I mean, you’re giving away coins. I know you said you could make the loot more valuable, but—” she started, then stopped as if coming to a decision, “I’m just not seeing it.”

She started to turn, as if to walk away. Her goals seemed similar to ours. And if anything, the amount of rabbits I still had left to butcher, showed that I could not keep up with the supply on my own. Coming to a decision, I stopped her with a light touch on the shoulder, “Well, you’re right. Right now the loot I’ve is worth almost seven silver less than I paid for all those rabbits.”

“That’s actually less than what I had expected you to lose,” she admitted.

“Take a look in the cart’s inventory.”

“I can do that?”

“Sure, the only inventory you can’t check out is the personal inventory. You just need to physical touch the container, or in this case the cart. Also if the owner is touching it, you need a skill or spell to check the inventory.”

“What’s with all the rabbits and seagulls?” she confusedly asked, after opening the cart’s inventory.

Giving a short laugh, “Those twenty three rabbits are included in the calculation I made earlier. I’ve yet to butcher then. But even if I was unlucky, I should still be able to make back the money I’ve paid.”

“Wow, I didn’t believe you earlier.”

“Well, most gamers look for the immediate reward.”

“But if I join you, we’d have to split the party in two, or I’d play alone?”

“That is certainly true, and right now splitting the party run counter to our goal of getting a level one party. I’ve to ask though, if you’re here to make money, would you be willing to treat it like a job, and create a crafter instead? As you can see I cannot keep up with the supply, and right now the Natives are starved for resources, so they’ll buy anything.”

“Ehm, I guess that’s a possibility,” she said. Full of hesitation. We lapsed into silence.

“There’s another possibility,” Robin broke the silence, “Remake your character, and come train with us every morning, since that slavedriver has us training every day. And when we expand or create a new party, we’ll be including you. However, before you do that, you should look over our standard contract. I’ve sent it to you.”

“Thanks, I’ll think it over. I’ll see you later and let you know,” Petals left after giving her goodbyes. Heading into town, instead of back to hunting rabbits.

Looking at Robin, I had to ask, “Since when do we’ve a standard contract?”

“Made it while we were waiting to login. I knew you’d eventually start to take in stray kittens, even though you’ve this cynical exterior.”

“Really?” I asked surprised.

“Of course. Don’t think I don’t know it was you who sent me the address of Miss Elleby. Without her I— I don’t even think about how my life would’ve turned out. You might appear cynical on the outside, but deep down you think you can change the world. You just appear more confident than I remember.”

“Don’t you think that what we do will make a difference?”

There was a contemplative silence, “No, but I hope I’m wrong.”

That attitude was a far cry from the young woman I used to know. As our conversation petered out, the four others came over to join us. Kira still wore an excited smile, “Man, what a rush.”

“It was an impressive display,” I found myself smiling back at the woman.

“Listen, I know you want us to raid dungeons and so on. But to be honest, the dungeon was boring. It felt static. Beating up those two guys was awesome. Is there anyway I can get to do more of that?”

“Eh,” that threw a wrench into the engine of my plans. I had no intention of creating a PvP focused guild. The plan was to just focus on producing and selling items. Have a few dozen parties running dungeons for rare resources. And most importantly, stay the hell out of guild politics and the Challenge. At least with regards to Carn.

However, I owed her to at least think it over. Different party specialties, upcoming events and features flew through my mind. Becoming player killers praying on the other gamers would be a hard no. If she wanted to do that, I would have to sever my ties with her.

Then a possibility came to mind, “It might in the end not be what you want. However, from what I gather is that you crave competing, right?”

“Yes, with or without your blessing. I’m thankful for the opportunity you’ve given me. Now that I can finally fight again, I need to find new challenges.”

“Do you intend to just beat up people willy nilly?”

“No, I’m not going to be an ass about it. If you’re worried I’m going to act like those asshats, then don’t. I’m not going to be like that.”

“Okay, but how about beating up people like that?”

“You mean, what did Ed call them? Trolls?” she muttered the last part, and after getting an affirmative on the correctness of the term, she continued, “If I could make a living of beating up trolls, then that would be awesome.”

“There’s a hidden party specialty that need high reputation with the Temple. The party can unlock a feature to track down those with tainted auras, an—”

Ed interrupted me, “Tainted auras?”

“Every time you take an action, it’s weighed by the gods. You start killing Travellers or Natives unprovoked you’ll definitely earn some tainted aura. When the Bears extorted coin from the others, and when they tried to rob me, they earned tainted aura. Basically any action that the gods deem bad. When carrying tainted aura and you’re killed by an Inquisitor, you leave behind a piece of what they call the soul.

“The Inquisitor, as the specialty is called, then takes that sliver of the soul to the nearest temple, where a Judgement is called. The actions and reasons of the Traveller is weighed, and the Gods pass a Judgement. The Judgement is negative reputation with the Gods, which supersedes any other reputation with most factions.

“The Traveller is then given a quest to go to the nearest temple, to be given a Penance Quest. It can be that he needs to apologize and give X amount of coin to all the people he hurt. Or be the servant of each person for a limited time. It varies a lot.”

It was a long explanation, and I left out a bit of information. Like how later on they would be tasked with hunting down players joining the Invaders. And while allowing her to make a party that focused on hunting the PK guilds would make us enemies, it would be worth it. Not because the rewards were generous and earn a lot of money, which it would not, but because such groups could earn a lot of Guild Points and reputation.

“That sounds fun. Almost like a vigilante or superhero,” Kira grinned.

One-Eye added, “If we’re making such a group, count me in.”

Ed shook his head, while Blaze looked longingly at Kira, before finally saying, “I don’t think I could actively go out and inflict pain to others. If they attack me, they deserve it. And yeah, they might be trolls, but I don’t think I could do that.”

“Wait a minute, before you get too excited. It won’t happen tomorrow, or the day after that. First we’d need more guild members. Secondly, Kira doesn’t have the required reputation yet,” I reminded people, “She needs to grind a lot of low to no reward quests first. If you want to get started, don’t ask about the Inquisitor specialty, unless they ask you why you’re helping them. Just go there and ask if there’s any tasks that need to be done. It’ll probably be deliver and fetch quests.”

“Ugh, I hate those,” Blaze groaned. The conversation turned to small talk, and soon after Kira left for the town, while the others went hunting. I managed to hit each one with another Message, telling them where I would be. After packing everything away, I headed towards the Butcher’s shop. It was time to work on my quest.