Gii clutched his throat with both hands as an intense burning sensation began to assault his esophagus. His mind began to race as he searched the recesses of his memory for the information about the symbol he saw engraved on the bottom of the cup.
“It has to be....Jester's Guild!”
To someone who had never played HCO's predecessor, Listonia online, the picture of a skull wearing a jester's hat engraved on the bottom of the goblet might not mean that much. But to a veteran of Listonia like Gii, it was the last thing he wanted to see.
There were generally 10 top guilds in Listonia online. They were incredibly powerful both in numbers and individual strength such that players would avoid getting on their bad side. However outside the top guilds there was one Guild that even those at the top would try to avoid. The Jester's Guild.
They initially were a small group of “Black” magicians who liked to pull pranks on people. However they started to gain a cult following and began specializing in curse magic. Their pranks became more and more sinister until eventually players began receiving seriously detrimental curses. Eventually things culminated in a scenario that became a legend amongst the Listonia community.
By exploiting a glitch in a large quest, the magicians were able to transform every user in a particular region into a rabbit. The users were rendered defenseless for a certain period of time and pretty much everyone affected ended up dying because of it. Eventually things were sorted out by the mods and the developers but it caused such a huge stir that people ended up talking about it for weeks afterward.
This was the series of events that flashed in Gii's mind after he saw the system message pop up in front of his face saying he had been cursed. Normally Gii would want to sit back and marvel at the easter egg left by the developers, but the burning sensation that was rising in his throat told him he had other things to think about right now.
“Noooooooo-!”
Gii let out a scream, partly from the pain and partly from the frustration of once again having his fortune turn for the worst. However, his voice was cut off as the burning sensation reached the back of his mouth and he had the uncontrollable urge to vomit. A pitch black liquid splurged forth and onto the ground in front of him. Hunched over and trying to catch his breadth, Gii watched as a humanoid figure rose out of the liquid.
Two ooze arms reached out and grabbed Gii's wrists. He tried to struggle and avoid it but he couldn't muster any strength. Resigned to his fate, he could do nothing as the figure lifted his arms out to his sides and his feet rose off of the ground. A face appeared in the ooze creature and moved Gii close enough that the two could talk face to face.
“HAHAHAA....foolish mortal, did you really not think to act with caution?”
“heheh...what's this supposed to be, my reward?”
Filled to the max with frustration at both his scenario and his own stupidity, Gii couldn't help but reply with such a snide remark.
“What's this? It seems there's still some life left in you!?”
The face in the ooze turned into a smiling one before asking a further question to Gii.
“Tell me, who do you think you're talking to mortal?”
what kind of stupid death cinematic is this? Could it get any more cliche'
Gii was sure he would not be able to live through this. On top of that he had already received a curse that did who knows what. In order to try and speed things along he simply answered with the first thing he could think of, his frustration bleeding through in the form of sarcasm.
“Oooobviously you're the leader of the Jester's guild.”
The face turned to a shocked expression and then returned to the form of a smile.
“Oho~ what's this? You know of me!?”
eh? It was really like that?
Since Gii was surprised that he answered correctly he decided to just run with it and try to have some fun before his final moments.
“Of course I do....I'm just Suuuuch a huge fan~!”
This time his words were dripping with sarcasm. The face made a frown and then looked as if it was thinking.
“Hmm~ somehow I don't believe you. Nevertheless, since you answered correctly, a reward is in order!”
eh!? Did I somehow make it?
“Normally I might just leave you with some horrible disfiguring curse but i'm tired of waiting in this gloomy place...”
“Aha! I've got just the thing! Since you're suuch~ a suuuuperr~ fan, how about I give you my greatest masterpiece AHAHAHAAH!”
The laughter filled the room as the humanoid ooze began to scrunch and stretch. After the last words, intense pain shot through both of Gii's forearms where the ooze had him pinned. Gii could only watch in horror as the ooze punched through his skin and began flowing violently into his arms. As the ooze disappeared into his arms and his feet hit the ground, Gii collapsed with his arms in front of him. From his hands all the way up to his elbow were small cut wounds that were dripping with the black ooze. Even though they were freshly made they already looked infected.
As the pain in his arms subsided and he was examining the wounds on his arms, a bombshell of a system message appeared in front of his face, followed by a torrent of other messages.
Your Curse has Progressed into Soul Corruption additional effects will be applied:
Class has been changed to >>Cursed Warrior<<
Abnormal state: Soul Deharmonization
New Skill learned: Blood Magic
Blood Magic Sub-skills learned
Cursed Blood of Strength
Cursed Blood of Agility
Cursed Blood of Intelligence
Cursed Blood of Wisdom
Blood Whip
Gii could hardly believe his eyes. He really felt like he was about to cry. Normally a curse would just give a simple debuff to stats. At the worst it might impede experience gain or skill progress. However Gii had never heard of a curse forcibly changing a person's class. It might have only been because he didn't have a class when he obtained the curse, but nevertheless, for something like this to happen it was truly a tragedy.
As Gii stared dumbfounded at the system messages floating in front of his face, a part of the wall behind the altar opened up, revealing a secret passageway. As the musty air flew out of the passage and assaulted Gii's senses, he finally regained a bit of composure and stood up. Before he drank the liquid in the goblet, Gii's biggest focus was just to get out of this dungeon. However now his priority was to assess the damage done by his new curse. The first thing he did was check the abnormal condition he gained.
Soul Deharmonization Your soul is at odds with nature and your surroundings. It is unable to attune to anything. Attunement is needed In order to master many things. It is said that whenever someone with a deharmonized soul is killed, their soul will suffer irreparable damage and be unable to enter the cycle of reincarnation.
Effects:
All weapon skill mastery unable to progress past 4th stage
Heavy and Medium armor use is restricted
Upon death user incurs 3 times more damage to Soul Bar
Use of Elemental magic is restricted
“This...”
Gii wasn't really sure how to react at this point. By now he had already given up on salvaging this character. It seemed he was destined to forever be low tier. Truthfully, Gii wasn't too upset about the armor restrictions. He was already leaning towards using light armor because he liked the mobility. The restriction on magic might be problematic but Gii had already planned on being a combat class so nothing changed much. However the other two effects were devastating.
Firstly was the increase in soul bar depletion whenever he died. With the current situation he would only be able to die 3 more times before his soul would be sent to the Spirit Realm. Normally it would take a person 10 deaths before they would be sent to the Spirit Realm. This meant that Gii was 3 times more likely to incur stat decreases and he would be met with more chances to drop equipment. This was a huge disadvantage compared to other players.
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However the biggest problem to Gii was the last effect. All skills in HCO progressed in stages ranging from 1 and advancing all the way to stage 5. For weapon skills it is incredibly important to raise a skill mastery to the 5th stage in order to use a weapon to its maximum. However Gii would never be able to do that. That means if he were to face someone using the same weapon, he would never be able to match up with them in terms of skill! He would forever do less damage than the player around him!
This wasn't even the biggest problem though, in HCO skills underwent promotions! Just like how a knight or a mage might undergo a promotion into a paladin or an archmage, skills underwent similar promotions. For example, the basic >>>Sword Mastery<<< skill might advance to >>>Rapier Mastery<<< or >>>Greatsword Mastery<<< depending on a person's class and what prerequisite’s they met. However, the prerequisite to any skill promotion is to first raise the skill to the 5th stage! Without being able to raise his weapon mastery to the 5th stage, Gii would never be able to truly master any weapon!
No matter how he looked at it this situation was a complete tragedy!
Sigh~ what can I do? What's done is done...
Gii was depressed but there was nothing he could do about the situation right now. He continued to analyze his character to figure out what he could do. The biggest change wasn't even the curse itself, He had gained a class!
“Character Status”
Status Window Name: Gii Alignment: Evil Level: 20 Class: Cursed Warrior Race: Human(corrupt soul) Reputation -50 - Health: 3050 Health Regen: 0 / Sec Mana: 900 Mana Regen: 0 / Sec - Strength: 50 Agility: 49 Vitality: 51 Intelligence: 18 Wisdom: 20 Fortitude: 50 Luck: 25 Charisma: 0 Resistances: None
After analyzing his character window for a few moments, Gii nodded his head as if he had decided on
Gii was somewhat surprised to see his stats because there were no debuffs! Generally speaking, cursed would apply debuffs to stats however all the main stats he used were the same as they had been. The only difference was that his charisma dropped down to zero.
I guess it's because of these wounds?
Gii stared at the festering wounds on his arms. Although it looked terrible he wasn't repulsed or disgusted for some reason. Gii returned his focus to analyze his new class. However he was once again discouraged when looking at the stat he specialized in. classes like a knight or swordsman generally specialized in 2 sometimes even 3 stats. They would be able to gain 2 stat points for every point they put in their specialization. For every level up you only gained 5 points to distribute to stats which would effectively double when you put those points into a specialization.
It was the reason why choosing a class very early on was important. Most people chose their class before level 5 in order to get the most effectiveness of the stat bonuses. Someone like Gii who waited until level 20 to get a class was very rare. It was possible to change a class or stat distribution after the fact but it was generally very costly and difficult to do. It wasn't possible for a low level like Gii to do on his own.
Gii was disappointed because when he saw the class had the word 'Warrior' in it he expected the specialization to be in something like strength or agility. However he only specialized in 1 stat which was vitality. Vitality directly corresponded to the amount of health a character had. For every point in vitality the character would gain 50hp. In addition to that, every other level up gave a person 50hp.
According to what he was seeing, he would be able to gain 3 points in vitality for every point he spent. This means if he spent all his points on vitality each level he would be able to spend 15 points! That's almost 1000 points in health every level! However Gii still couldn't be happy...
Damage! I can't do any damage!!
Yes in order to calculate damage the game depended on either strength or agility. For magical abilities it would rely on intelligence and wisdom. However Gii couldn't raise any of them. His class restricted the other stats in the exact opposite was, spend 3 points to gain 1! He would never be able to catch up with the other classes who specialized in those stats.
Gii was ready to log out right there but he stopped himself. With what little drive he could he opened the skill windows to check the skills that he had gained. The first one he looked at was the subskill >Cursed Blood of Strength<
Cursed Blood of Strength
The user Sacrifices their own life force to imbue their body with unfathomable strength.
Cost: 1000 mana
Effects: Increase STR stat proportional to amount of damage taken.
Current maximum increase: 3% of damage taken converted to STR
Duration: 30 minutes
Restriction: Need blood present to activate
Skill Stage: 1
“This....isn't this...Karlock's skill?”
Gii was exactly right, this was the same skill that the dungeon boss Karlock had used when fighting him. Gii suddenly had something click in his brain and hurriedly checked the other Blood Magic skill he had gotten. Sure enough all the other skill provided the same boost but to other stats. In addition, the blood whip skill he had gained was the same skill that launched the tentacles from Karlock's arm.
“huhuhuhu...isn't this really powerful!?”
Indeed Gii had finally realized the merits of this class! Everything revolved around HP! Normally these skills might be considered worthless because you needed to take incredible amounts of damage in order to gain any significant stats. However what did the cursed warrior class specialize in? Vitality! Gii could gain astronomical amounts of health!
“Since i'll have to deal with this class for who knows how long, I might as well try to make the most of it....Lets see just how strong I can get!”
Gii decided to spend the 100 skill points he had saved until this point! He would dump everything into vitality and see just how strong this class could be!
Status Window Name: Gii Alignment: Evil Level: 20 Class: Cursed Warrior Race: Human(corrupt soul) Reputation -50 - Health: 18050 Health Regen: 0 / Sec Mana: 900 Mana Regen: 0 / Sec - Strength: 50 Agility: 49 Vitality: 351 Intelligence: 18 Wisdom: 20 Fortitude: 50 Luck: 25 Charisma: 0 Resistances: None
“This...seems so ridiculous...”
Gii had now had so much hp he was like a mid tier boss. However he would take incredible amounts of damage because he couldn't wear any armor. But this is exactly what the class demanded. There was only one problem, currently he didn't have enough mana to use his skills. Truthfull he only needed enough mana to use one skill. If he could use his intelligence buff skill then he would temporarily gain incredible amounts of mana. As long as he remembered to use the skill again before the timer ran out, he could use his skills as much as he liked!
well for now....lets just get out of here
Gii had spent a long time getting through this dungeon and then analyzing his character. He had used up all of his rations and his equipment was now in tatters. He turned and headed to the secret passageway. After a few moments of walking down the passageway Gii's eyes lit up. In front of him sitting in an alcove in the wall, was a chest!
Gii hurriedly opened the chest and checked it's contents. Inside were many items including gold. However some stuck out more than others. In particular 3 glowing stones that looked like crystals. Gii recognized these as enchantment stones! A smith could use these stones in their forging process in imbue equipment with an enchantment.
Perfect! I'll have Gustav make me something nice!
the second item the caught his eye was a gold necklace with a faint blue glow. When he examined it he couldn't control his excitement.
Necklace of Mana (lvl 20)
Increases maximum mana by 500
This was exactly the piece of equipment he was looking for! With this he would now be able to use his skills! Gii rummaged around through the chest and pulled out a helmet and a breastplate but since they were heavy armor he wouldn't be able to use them.
well at least I could sell them
Gii stashed everything away into his inventory and threw the necklace on. With that, he turned and jubilantly began walking towards the exit.