While originally we’d all planned to meet at six in the morning, I’d realized while I was laying in bed at the inn the night before that I’d need to buy some things for the road, so I’d wound up waking up at four.
Fortunately the game had an alarm clock built in to the menu system so I was able to drag myself out of bed and back onto the streets.
In the two hours from when I woke up to when we set off I spent most of my time tracking down one particular set of items… camping supplies.
Normally in a game there would be no reason for something like camping. If you’d found yourself in an odd spot right before you wanted to sleep you’d just log your avatar out and that would be that.
Worst case scenario in some games you’d have to push on a little further or teleport back to a safe area, but Eld was proving to be less and less game-like with each passing day.
Take the first trip I made to the golden fields for example. In a normal game, you would never run down a road for an hour and not find the next town. Having a game world that spread out would be a nightmare in a genre where the draw was playing with your friends.
“Hey, where are you? Want to do a dungeon?”
“Oh! Yeah, I’d love to, I’ve just gotta walk over, I’ll see you in three hours!”
Yeah, no. That was a surefire way to make sure your game died young.
But in a game like this, where it was supposed to simulate real life, who knows how large the play area really was. There was a small chance that we’d not even make it to the next town after a full day of travel, and so my quest for camping supplies seemed more and more justified with every passing minute.
I’d finally found what I was looking for just after 5 am, and after spending more than I was willing to admit on four camping bags, I swung by the plaza to stock up on a few days worth of food and meet up with the others.
It was there that we made another demoralizing discovery. After the second day had passed, the number of names on the wall had grown from 12 to just under 150.
There were a lot of reasons why that could have happened, but the most honest explanation was that people were starting to venture further and further away from the starting city, which meant stronger monsters, and a higher risk of something going wrong.
The fact that we were now gearing up to make what was probably a very similar trip to those who had died the day before weighed on all of our minds. But I was pretty confident that we’d be okay.
After grinding for three hours on monsters out in the fields yesterday all three of my new companions had managed to get enough SP to get to level 2.
The biggest benefit from this by far was that Mari now had some rudimentary healing magic, though according to her, she still needed a lot of practice casting it, and thanks to her very limited mana pool could only cast healing magic a total of three times before she would need to recharge.
Willow also got a large boost to her defensive capabilities, but unfortunately she didn’t get any skills that would help her attract the attention of monsters, so fights would still feel like a free for all for a little while longer.
All of that was to say, that as we crested another identical hill about two hours of walking outside of Origin, I was so tired I felt like I could die. Mari let herself fall behind the others just a tad to walk next to me and looked over with a concerned expression.
“You’re suuuure you don’t want us to take a break?” She asked. I gave her a wry smile and held back a yawn.
“I’m good. Just had an early morning. Once we get a little farther on I’ll perk up. Right now it’s just a bit…”
Boring. To be honest, more than the walking, more than the 5 hours of sleep after getting 4 hours of sleep the night before, it was the fact that the only thing we had been doing for the last couple of hours was plod along the road, looking for where the sea of players finally stopped.
It seemed like the majority of the game’s players had finally decided that they’d had enough of the starting city and rapidly expanded to take over the surrounding area, and while the Golden Fields zone was really big (we still hadn’t even spotted the tree line, though we did see green way off in the distance), overpopulation in the mob farming zones was starting to become a serious problem.
Everywhere we looked players were standing out in the fields. With their metal and leather armors they almost looked like little ants crawling across a golden hill. Even all the way out where we were it wasn’t uncommon to see five or six groups just off the road fighting wolves or the occasional roaming band of goblins.
“I’m glad we came out and did some grinding yesterday…” Mari said, hanging her head.
“That’s true. I can’t imagine finding enough mobs to level up out there right now.” I said, watching as two groups of five both collapsed on the same poor level one Timber Wolf I had been hunting the day before. Split that many ways the experience of that one monster wouldn’t even make a dent…
Honestly I was a bit worried. If people started feeling desperate then there was a good chance for a bunch of level one players to find their way into higher level zones and get wiped out.
To be brutally honest, even with my skill points at level two I still felt like my class was nowhere near complete, and even in a party felt like we had plenty of holes. If a real strong monster got onto a party and they weren’t smart enough or fast enough to run away then it could be a total party kill, or a TPK.
Though the players I really was the most worried about were tanks. Bulky armor meant less mobility. That was always the trade off. But if you ran into something really nasty and had to run away, the person who was the most likely to be left for dead and killed while their party escaped would undoubtedly have to be the tank…
I looked forward at Willow who was talking to Dante a few feet ahead of us. If we were to be ambushed by a super strong monster, would we leave Willow behind too… I was sickened by the thought. But more so by my own realization. Yeah, if I had to chose between living and dying I’d chose life ever time. Even if it meant…
“Corian?”
Mari’s voice snapped me out of my trance and I turned to look at her.
“Ahaha. Sorry, I think I nodded off there for a second.” I said, trying my best to sound cheery. She gave me a thin smile.
“You’re positive you don’t want to take lunch at least?” She asked.
“At 8 a.m.?” My reply made Mari frantically look at her menu then hang her head in defeat. Looks like I wasn’t the only one bored of the road.
“At least give us some mobs to grind!” She said, leaning her head back to look at the sky. Dante turned around on his heels and started walking backwards while facing us.
“You’re tellin’ me! I’d settle for slimes at this point.”
“Give me giant rats…” Willow said, resting her hand on her sword.
“Anything but giant wasps!” Mari exclaimed, drawing a chuckle out of the rest of the party.
I wanted to chide them for all being a bunch of murder hobos but to be honest I could really go for a nice helping of field boss right now… I hadn’t gotten any chances to practice my new skills in a real fight, and while I wasn’t planning on using Step Slash until I could stop biffing it into the ground I really wanted to experiment with my other two abilities…
“Why don’t we pick up the pace?” I said, the others immediately caught my drift and nodded their assent. And so we replaced the tedious form of travel known as walking with the tedious form of travel known as jogging…
It took three whole hours of jogging, two brief stops to drink some water, and a very odd conversation about athletes foot that Dante brought up once he realized that despite the ninety degree (33 C) weather none of us had broken a sweat, to finally reach a stretch of the golden field that didn’t have players tripping all over themselves.
The green line that was once in the distance looked much closer, and I’d guess that another hour or two of light jogging would bring us into the forest.
If the scale on the map I’d bought from that shady corner store was accurate, then we’d reach the town of Oaktree about five hours after that, or just about when the sun went down. Looks like we didn’t actually need the camping supplies after all…
My melancholy over my wasted Gold was halted almost immediately as we crested the next large rolling hill and got a good view into the golden valley beyond. These kinds of hills and valleys seemed to be a form of separation in the Golden Fields, with each one marking a different set of monsters and things to do.
Since we’d been sticking to the road, and since there had been so many players keeping the area along the path clear from mobs, we didn’t really see many exciting new foes as we’d moved from one sub area to the next.
Now that the area was less crowded, however…
“Look at that!” Mari said, pointing off the road to the right. About twenty meters off the path was a freakishly tall creature that had a just as freakishly long neck… as a matter of fact, it looked almost identical to…
“A giraffe?” Willow said, stopping and turning towards the lumbering creature.
“I… think so… but…” Dante said, cocking his head at the strange creature.
True, it did have the build of a giraffe, but instead of a thin coat of orange and yellow fuzz, this one was covered head to toe in what looked like wool. Like some sort of crazy sheep-raffe hybrid. Still, if I had to describe it in one word, it’d have to be…
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“Cuuuute!” Mari said, taking a few steps off the road. This was the first “new” monster we’d seen all day, and even I had to admit…
“It does look really soft…” Willow said, was she… blushing a little?
“I wanna give it a hug…” Dante said, reaching his hands out and petting the air in front of him.
The creature bent its neck over and took a mouthful of golden grass into its mouth to chew, prompting an involuntary “Awww” from everyone involved.
As we inched closer, a tag appeared above its head. “Alpacaraffe. Lv. 4”. Huh, so it wasn’t a sheep hybrid, but an alpaca.
The fact that something that fluffy and lovable could be stronger than a whole horde of goblins was a truth that could only exist in the world of video games. I wanted to spend more time watching it, but unfortunately…
“It’s a shame.” I said with a shrug.
“Yup, it sure is!” Dante said with a devilish grin.
“Real tragic.” Mari said, shaking her head and pulling a large book out of her inventory.
“Mmmmhm.” Willow tacked on. Her face having returned to normal.
“Alright everyone, it’s a damn shame but we’ve got no choice! charge!” Dante freed the axe from his belt loop and held it aloft over his head as he roared.
Willow didn’t wait for his command and took off running into the field, bringing her shield into her off-hand and drawing her sword with her right.
Not to be outdone, Dante charged in after her. His light armor and light weapon meant that he’d caught up to her in a flash.
You’d think his self preservation instinct would at least lead him to stay behind Willow, but nope. As he passed her he let out a battle cry that sounded odd coming from his youthful voice and charged straight towards the monster.
I followed close behind Willow and pulled my new Wolf’s Fang +3 out of its sheath. Part of me wanted to pull ahead and see what my new sword could really do, but I figured it would be better to sit back and see what the monster wanted to do first.
At least Mari had some sense. She jogged a ways behind us, making sure to keep good distance between herself and the front line. At some point her book was now mysteriously floating about an inch and a half off of her right hand. It was a pretty cool effect and definitely sold the whole “magic caster” aesthetic.
As expected, Dante reached the monster first. Taking his single handed axe in his hand he made a clumsy swing that cut across the tall monster’s leg. It connected, but the health bar above its head didn’t move an inch. Well, okay, maybe it moved a literal inch.
He skidded to a stop behind the Alpacaraffe and it immediately picked up one of its back legs and kicked backwards violently out towards its assailant.
“Whoa!” He said, rolling out of the way to dodge the attack. The Alpacaraffe turned its head to face the one who rudely cut into its leg but just as it did, Willow lowered her body weight and threw herself, shield first, into the same leg that Dante had cut a second ago.
Since it wasn’t a traditional weapon attack or skill it didn’t do much damage, but the force of having someone that big in such heavy armor slam into a twig like appendage was never going to end well. The Alpacaraffe stumbled, knocked off balance by the blow, but before I could reach it, it steadied it’s balance and managed to stay upright.
It lifted its neck high in the air and let out a high pitched roar before swinging its long neck down like a wrecking ball towards the one who had caused it to lose its balance.
Willow, fortunately, was able to get her shield up in time, and so the sickening sound of bone colliding with metal filled the valley. Honestly it sounded like a gunshot.
I wasn’t sure if it was because of her stats as a tank or because she had blocked the attack, but Willow somehow wasn’t knocked off of her feet by the relentlessly heavy blow. Instead she was pushed back and her shield was thrown out of the way by the impact. The Alpacaraffe’s head also recoiled and it let out another scream. I spared a quick glance over to our health bars and noted that Willow had lost about a fifth of her HP.
Even through a block… for an attack to do that much damage… it would be really bad if something like that hit anyone other than Willow.
“Stay away from it’s head! Focus on attacking its legs and find a way to bring it down!” I called. I ran past Willow and dragged my Wolf’s Fang across the leg that she and Dante had already damaged. The line was fairly straight, but because the cut was so short it didn’t do much damage. The only way that we’d be able to take this thing down was by really messing up its legs and getting it to topple over.
Fine. If that’s what it would take! I dug my heels in and ran back towards the monster’s front legs. Willow had recovered and jumped out of the way of a stomping attack, but that left the monster’s front legs firmly planted in the ground.
I lowered my blade to the left side of my body and pulled it as fast as I could up towards the right. As I extended my arm, my sword took on a faint white glow and had far more power and acceleration than a normal sword attack. Spinning the sword around my head I carved down in a second diagonal cross making an X pattern finishing the one handed sword skill Cross Slash.
As I did, the Alpacaraffe’s first leg crumpled, unable to sustain the damage caused to it. Using the momentum from the end of my sword skill I spun my body around and landed three clean slashes on the monster’s other leg. It wobbled, but lifted the leg again for a stomp which forced me to roll out of the way.
As I recovered from my roll I watched as a golden streak of light flew over Willow’s head and slammed into the boss’s weakened knee, causing the damaged joint to finally collapse. Mari then extended her hands out in front of her and began moving her pointer and middle finger in a circular pattern as if she was drawing in the air.
As she did, some sort of circle appeared in the air in front of her, and once she was done it flashed and Willow gained a faint golden outline. On my party list I could see that her health was creeping back up, something had recovered some of the damage she’d taken from that headbutt attack.. So that was how magic worked in the game, huh?
Not that I had time to think about that. The shot to the knee and my previous efforts, as well as a flurry of blows from behind courtesy of Dante finally brought the Alpacaraffe’s legs past the point of collapse and it landed with a groan on its stomach.
“Now!” I called, as the four of us went for a full on attack.
Dante seemingly hadn’t unlocked any skills yet. Or if he had, he chose not to use them. Instead, he hacked mercilessly at the flank of the monster. Now that he was able to hit something thicker than a spindly leg, the monster’s hp finally began to to drop.
Willow stayed at the front, attacking the monster’s chest, and an occasional streak of gold shattered off of the Alpacaraffe’s head and neck. No doubt that was Mari’s magic.
I lined up on its flank as well and delivered a second Cross Slash, this time I was able to dig in with the full length of my blade. Because I’d taken the time to strengthen it, just my one attack shot its health down by at least twenty percent.
Since there was a cooldown between uses, I hacked at the monster’s side with basic cuts a few more times, trying my best to get the lines as straight and smooth as possible. Even on a stationary target it was a lot harder than it looked.
As it’s HP bar passed below 50% the Alpacaraffe shuddered and sprung to its feet. I jumped back just in case it started to thrash around but instead it ran about five meters away from us before pointing its head straight up towards the sky.
Initially I was expecting it to roar again, but it was at that exact moment that a little piece of trivia I’d stuck into my head got knocked loose and leaked out into my memory. Alpacas shared one particularly annoying trait with llamas when they got really stressed out… My eyes went wide.
“Everybody get ready to dodge! It has a ranged attack!” I screamed, hoping desperately that they’d react in time.
The Alpacaraffe shuddered, then thrust its neck forwards and as it did, it spat right at Dante.
Normally I’d find this rather funny. In fact, this was definitely one of those monster that you’d bring your brand new friends to hunt just to get them covered in alpaca spit, but it became a lot less funny when the consequences of a direct hit could mean game over for real.
“Dante, move!” I yelled.
He reacted quickly and leapt backwards, avoiding a direct impact. But the projectile still impacted the ground in front of him and burst into a torrent of sludge that coated his armor. On my party list, his character icon had a red marker next to it. It looked like a ball and chain… my best guess was a slow debuff.
“I can’t move!” He called immediately. I clicked my tongue. It wasn’t a slow, it was a root. That was far more dangerous. What was worse, the monster let out a roar and lowered its head towards its stuck prey. It kicked dirt up behind it and a red line flashed on the ground just for a moment before disappearing. It was from the monster right to Dante.
“Willow! It’s going to charge, you have to block it! Mari! Be ready to heal!” I called, taking off in a sprint towards Dante desperately trying to reach him before the boss launched its attack.
Willow reacted to my order without question. Before I could even get close to either of them, she had positioned herself with her shield towards the monster and her sword planted in the ground behind her. She leaned forward and braced herself as the boss began to charge, its head down like some sort of awkward battering ram.
Just before impact, I dove behind Willow and tackled Dante to the ground and out of the way. It was a good thing, too, the impact from the charging monster sent Willow flying off her feet and rag dolling across the ground. Her HP immediately dropped by a whole third.
Fortunately, before she was even able to get back to her feet, Mari pumped her full of healing magic, bringing her total to about half.
The Alpacaraffe recoiled from the harsh impact and toppled over backwards, writhing on the ground. I shot to my feet and sprinted over to where it’s head had slammed into the ground.
I skidded to a stop and roared as I unleashed one last Cross Slash with as much power as I could muster. The system pulled my strike through the target at such blinding speed that when I finally brought my sword down to complete the attack, dust and dirt whipped up around me.
Up until now, I wasn’t certain that where you hit a monster mattered, but this cinched it. After finishing my flourish with a downward slice, the boss’s HP bar plummeted until it hit zero and it exploded in a cloud of golden dust.
A breath I didn’t know I was holding escaped my lungs, before cheers of victory rang out from the girls behind me. Dante, for his part, was too busy picking goop off of his armor.
After we’d divvied up the loot and taken a breath I looked out in the field, sure enough, there were a few more of these things in the direction we needed to go.
“Let’s keep hunting these while we make our way to the forest. Now that we know about that root debuff, it should be pretty easy to avoid it.” I said. At least this way we’d hopefully be able to gain a level or two while making our way to the forest. Getting covered in alpaca spit aside, the monsters themselves weren’t too dangerous and didn’t take too long to kill.
“Do we have to?!” Dante protested, wiping the last of the grime off with a sickening schlorp sound that they definitely did not need to program into the game…
“It’s a good idea. These things aren’t too bad.” Willow said. Mari nodded as well, and so, outvoted Dante finally relented and we headed off towards our next prey.
“I still can’t believe that every single one of them tried to spit on you.” Willow said, looking over to Dante who was sitting in his boxers hugging his knees to his chest and staring out into space. His clothes were set out in the sun and the last bits of Alpacaraffe sludge were slowly fading off into golden dust.
Mari couldn’t help but giggle at the sight of him. I didn’t really blame her. It was seriously a streak of bad luck. Over two hours we’d killed enough monsters to each have enough SP to reach level three. It was a worthwhile detour, but only if you’d asked three of us.
Dante had somehow been targeted every single time with the spit attack… and even if it didn’t hit him, the area of effect would still cause him to get trapped and covered in gunk. It was after the… what? Tenth time it happened? That he finally said “I’ve had it with this shit!” And stripped his slimy clothes off to sit in the sun.
It was for that reason that we finally decided it was time for lunch.
Mari had thought ahead and packed some sandwiches from one of the shops selling breakfast, and so we had all we needed to make a little picnic on the top of the hill overlooking the edge of the forest.
It was only after we ate that I stood and really took a look down over into the next valley. There were a few groups of player-shaped things moving through the field, which I assumed were players who had made it farther along than we had. We were passed on the road a few times while taking on the Alpacaraffes so it wasn’t totally unreasonable that there were people around in the areas ahead of us.
What I was really interested in, though, was the forest. Half way through the last valley in the Golden Fields was the transition into dense woodlands. We’d only seen one group enter the forest about twenty minutes ago, but hadn’t seen anyone coming out. That wasn’t too unusual, why would you turn back just when you’d hit a new area. But eventually something odd caught my eye.
“What’s going on down there?” I asked, looking over towards a section of the tree line that was pretty far from the road. It looked like…
“People. Three of ‘em” Willow said, She had come to stand next to me and look at the forest as well. Tracing my eyes to the dots leaving the forest, she pointed towards the figures.
“What’s goin’ on?” Dante said, pulling himself back to his feet. At some point he had re-equipped his clothes and armor. He squinted and shielded his eyes with his hand. “Woah, they look like they’re in a hurry, wonder what-“
Cursed by Dante’s own curiosity, a tree exploded and a huge black… something… came crashing through the trunk of a tree and burst out into the clearing.
Even from a hundred meters away any MMO player knew what that was. A minotaur.