I looked on in Wonder at the almost archaic architecture, with literal long houses side by side with huts and roman townhouses, it's just as if old history had a big mash up, people in togas to cat humanoids in fur robes, a bustling, old fashioned city with a castle in the midst. someone ripped a scene straight from a fantasy movie, the scenery just as vibrant and colourful as the inhabitants, orks, elves and humans all walking side by side, along with some hybrids between human and some other animal. Humans really are dirty fuckers, no doubt about that. The eltee had tasked us with finding a place called the adventurers guild, in which we should seek to join, if not to take advantage of the level system, it’s to easily kill everything with modern firepower. Heavily armoured dragon? Apache. Too many little units, I love the smell of napalm in the morning, and technically, human rights apply only to humans, at least until the pussy politicians find a way to nerf the fuck out of the armed forces, we don’t need to follow the steps of escalation here, no warning shot, no warning, just a bullet through the head, at least for now.
Needless to say, when we walked in we turned a shitload of heads. The atmosphere in the pub area died down a bit.
”hello peoples! We’re just here to see if we want to join this mighty fine establishment here, just wondering if that would be possible?” I said, trying to break the ice. Luckily, it worked, and everyone got back to bantering, as we followed the signs leading to the ‘guild office’, we reached it in no time.
”Hello miss, uhhh smith, can you explain to us what this ‘adventurers guild’ is? It’d be much appreciated, thank you.” Henry said, rather gentlemanly, if that’s a word.
”hmm surprised you boys don’t know what the guild is, sits quite famous around the entire world, but since you asked so nicely, I’ll give y’all a quick rundown. There are eleven tiers, dirt, wood, copper, iron, bronze, steel, silver, gold, platinum, diamond, and finally emerald. The last tier is extremely hard to reach, and I can count on my 20 digits how many there currently are, and most adventurers plateau around steel or silver. The history is just that the adventurers guild was made by a group of people who believed mercenaries were not worthwhile, stabbing you in the back at the smallest inconvenience. Luckily, they made the adventurers guild, an organisation of adventurers who take up quests as a contract, and if they break said contracts, they’ll be treated as bandits, deserving of death. Quests can be set up by absolutely anyone, provided they have a prize and someone wants to take it. Some quests are very charity esque quests, like helping a few unfortunate farmers who keep getting raided, to slaying a dragon, which yields an insane amount of rewards. Killing things for the sake of it quests are mostly set by the guild, when an invasive species gets too populous, we reward people a certain amount of coin per kill they do. If the goblin population gets too high, we might offer 5 bronze to 5 sliver dependent on level and boon. A level one basic goblin getting the least and a fire breathing level 30 goblin getting the most, still being weak, but boon not so much. If you choose to join the guild, there’s a training area with dummies to level up skills, and if you’re feeling especially adventurous, we’ve got an ideal location for monsters to spawn downstairs, however they are all vulnerable to light to stop them escaping. You’ll also get the [identify] skill, which tells you the name, the level, and on higher levels, the skills, traits and class one may have. Understand?” The receptionist told us, truthfully I didn’t listen to half the waffle, but got free skill, quests and banditry.
So being my usual dim witted self, “So what are the penalties for banditry?” even though I probably knew the answer.
”death if you’re lucky. Torture and public execution if you’re not. You really must be new if you don’t know this.” Miss smith stated, rather matter of factly, and it was for her.
”Hq, this is dispatch, do we sign up to this adventurers guild thingy, it’s not binding and it’ll help us learn more about the world, over.” Ramirez spoke into her radio.
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It crackled, and out came the voice, “if it helps you find oil dispatch, feel free to, over.”
I cleared my throat to ask the burning question, yes I know I’m hilarious, “Do you happen to know where the burning black liquid is miss? The one from deep underground?”
”Oh that, I heard people are starting to call it something like ‘the black flame setter’, and the kther being used to bathe in, you can find it at any merchants, though it’s quite cheap, coming in at 1 silver a litre, as no one can really find a practical use for it. Anyway, any of you joining up? Even level ones are welcome here!” She happily remarked.
”Sure, sign us all up madam.” Came the reply.
After stating our names, miss smith gave us all dog tag things, which she insisted we wear, saying it had a mini ‘inventory’, as well as kept track of our location and the quest we were on. The more I stayed here the more it felt like some retarted vr game. As we wore them we were slapped by a bunch of quest options, and an option called ‘party up’ in which a group of up to ten can party up andd split exp and loot evenly, so naturally the two squads partied up and we could see each other's levels.
"Would you mind if we went downstairs and got some exp miss?" I asked, eager to see what the fuck happened when one leveled up.
"No, but I reccomend you stay in first area, as thats for beginners, any further, you could be in danger, as some genies require magic to kill. After all, ghosts aren't exactly corpreal beings are they? Enjoy kids, and please call me May." may replied, waving a hand, a door instantly opening. "bye for now, and don't die!"
I'm not trying to die, I thought to myself, as my legs carried me to the door. I entered, and a torch magically appeared in my hand, not that I needed one of course, but the fire might be useful,so I stashed it into my inventory, surprised it worked.
I turned on my trusty shoulder mounted flashlight, surprised when it shone on some mutated rat thingy. Why is it in every. Single. Moth-ee- fucking. Game. That theres always the rat quest, always the goddamed rats. I quickdrawed my sidearm, like I was some gunslinger in a western, but before I could do anything the fucker scratched my arm, piercing the cloth, I howled in pain then blew the things head off, in a shower of bone, brain and weirdly purple blood, getting on my trowsers. [level threshold reached, level two achieved, trait level two reached, one skill point and one trait level available. Only one class skill available, auto purchase. 'Quick draw' instantly get your weapon into your hands when in combat, or within sight range of an enemy, most damage auto selected, custom weapon 'm21 ar' will be selected. Traits available for purchase: mana reserves, r and r, enhanced abilities, damage resistance, enhanced damage, night vision, die xenos,....]
What the fuck was that. At least quick draw is useful. I read up on mana reserves. [essential for casting magic, auto give for the caster class, gives a reserve of 100 mana, increases proportionately for every level, max level 30, evolves into mana lake and unlocks many magic types and skills]
Yup. I'm definitely getting that bulshittery. Time for some 'I cast fully automatic gunfire' shit.
[mana reserves purchased, all points expended.]
I imagined a little flame on the tip of my finger, and was surprised to see it there, not burning me at all, however, one mana went down. [fire magic unlocked!] I stopped casting, then imagined a little fire in the far corner of the room. It hit a rat, but when I told it to stop, it quickly burnt and killed the bitch ass rat, turning it from moist to a crisp in seconds, reminding me of that new recruit on the day they came, I had to ask may about that raiding party. [Rat level two killed, 23 exp earnt.] Nice. And when I looked at my arm, it was healed, but my hp was down to 97 out of 110, then ticked up to 98. Auto regen? Even better.
"Jack, are you alright?" Henry shouted as I kept torching rats.
"Never been better! I've unlocked some magic bullshit, and now I'm roasting giant rats, it's almost fun!" I replied in an ecstasy. [Level two fire magic unlocked. Fireproof. For 10 mana a minute, you, or a friend, are completely immune to flames and heat. Has a 20 feet casting radius.]
The rest of my party came down, thinking I was crazy till they saw it. A bbq without a real fire source, but they shut down my fun with gunfire, and looking back I saw some level twos.
"I reccomend getting mana well, it let's you do magic stuff. Quite cool."I suggested, and they seemed to be done in an instant. Maybe the menu slowed down or paused time? Eh. Not the most science boggling thing today, as we walked past the corpses, a prompt came right in front of my eyes.
[loot rat?] I obviously picked yes, so it just disappeared and some fur and meat appeared in my inventory.
The rest of the rat bodies phased out of existence quite quickly, and as we descended down the stairs, completely disregarding Mays warning, a ghostly howl pulled straight from super red mushroom man was heard, and I used identify. [Ghost, level 7] Fuck. I'm underleveled, and it's immune to bullets. What the fuck do I do?