“Morning stranger” Husky hailed me from afar as I stand by the north exit.
“Yo” Jöt’s here as well it seems
“M-morning guys”
“So what you get up to last night” Husky wiggled his eyebrows knowingly
“NOTHING” I ROAR at him “ABSOLUTELY NOTHING”
“Woah, calm down there, what happened to you?” Husky says with a smile, he suspects!\
“GANNOR”
“Oh him? What, did he come at you again?”
“ALL NIGHT”
“Ouch that’s not good, how many levels you dropped?”
“NOTHING”
“Really? What kind of crazy night grinding did you do”
“LOTS, LOTS OF GRINDING BUT STILL NOTHING!!!”
They seem to have gotten the idea, the wrong idea (in a good way) but I am still a bit out of it.
And yes I am still pure!!!
But I fear for tonight.
ANYWAYS, perishing the thought!
“Husky. Jöt. Let me finish quest. Warrior quest”
“Hang in there buddy, don’t turn into Varg. Get well soon”
Jöt has been really quiet through the whole conversation, mostly because he had no idea the inner conflict me and Husky had begun with.
So we head back into Varg and Cindy’s house and luckily Varg is still relaxing at the table.
*BAM*
I slam my 6 large canines on the table and everyone gives me a wide-eyed look, even Varg.
“Boy. Night wolves?”
I nod once
“Kal, honey you’ve barely been at it for 3 days, what did you do to defeat those night wolves” Cindy rushes up to me while holding my hands
“I sold my body and soul” Never have my word been so heavy. The words affect all who hear as the cringe at the thought of what suffering I went through. THEY KNOW NOTHING AND THEY WILL NEVER KNOW.
Still, Varg takes my teeth and gives me a pleased grin
“Next. Forest. Snow Lynx. 4 teeth”
QUEST:Path Of The Warrior IIYou have successfully gathered the wolf teeth and thus Varg has now asked you to collect 4 teeth from Snow LynxesRewards:
Path Of The Warrior III
Good. I am sick of wolves. Hunting something new sounds like fun.
With a new quest in my hand I’m considerably happier.
“To the forest!” Husky declares
“Have you forgotten about Gannor? Jöt counters
“Well about that I do have a plan” I tell the others. I mean I did have a whole night to think of things. To keep me awake.
I quickly tell them my plan and it looks like they think it’s pretty good. Even better when I lose at rock paper scissors. Dammit.
We split up, me heading for the north exit and them to the south.
I move through the snowy meadow until I reach the forest edge.
We’re in position-Jöt
The message appears in a little window in-front of me, how cool.
“YAAAAAAH”
Sprinting through the forest I run as fast as I can through the trees and before I know it…I’m dead. Well I gave you guys 3 seconds head start.
Reviving I sprint out the door and through the north exit again.
Sprinting through the fields I burst into the forest and continue running like a mad man.
1, 2, 3…I’m still alive. Ok the plan is working so far.
Running straight out for a good 3 minutes I then abruptly turn to the left and head that way.
I haven’t heard any failures from them so it looks like the plan succeeded.
Running for another minute I feel a tingle and hit the ground rolling.
Yaah
A White spotty blur passes over my curled body and springs towards me as I’m standing up once more.
Quickly slinging myself around a tree the sound of ripping wood come from behind.
I continue running keeping an eye out for my pursuer…oh great; it’s a snow lynx
NAME:Snow Lynx [lvl 16]600/600
7 levels above me (well technically 15 since I haven’t spent any points yet)!
SNOW LYNX I scream a message (voice transcript, me likey) to Jöt
Grabbing a tree I hug it tight feeling a large wind behind me as the lnyx had pounced at where I was.
Pushing off the tree I get a small burst as I run to the right of the lynx but in no time it catches up to me making me push on a tree to change my direction but I still get grazed
-68 (42/110)
Strange, they do about the same as wolves.
-113 (0/110)
However much faster. Much much faster.
I die as the lynx quick turns after it lands and re-pounces on me, catching me this time.
Miffed, I wake up (respawn) at the house but surprisingly I’m not alone; Both Husky and Jöt are sitting on their mattresses with grimaces
“Snow lynxes, who’d believe they’re nasty little back-stabbers”
Seems like a lynx caught Jöt by surprise and then finished Husky off soon after.
Well that put an end to our plan of escaping to the forest, but at least we know how difficult the lynxes are now.
Heading outside we give Gerard a wave and find a wolf.
-60 (260/320)
Agroing it with an icebolt, Husky and I move up to take care of the rest.
-27 (123/150)
We do the usual with Husky taking the initial block before he slams his axe into the wolf and I attack it’s flank
-42 -10 -10 (198/320)
The wolf regaining its sense after getting axed to the floor (though the crit missed) slides to the right dodging Husky’s second attack
-40 (83/150)
The wolf clawed him on the side leaving a gash on his armor. I sprint towards the wolf running my axe across its flank
-10 11 (177/320)
-60-60-60 (0/320)
Immediately 3 icebolts fly out destroying the wolf completely.
Hmm so we can take on one fine.
Quickly we find another wolf.
-50 (100/150)
-50 (60/110)
-120 (10/130)
Stabbing/hacking/punching ourselves we lose enough health to activate our attack skills.
Running into the wolf’s agro this time, it turns towards us and pounces at Husky
-60 (260/320)
An icebolt interrupts it mid-pounce as it flies into its flank. The wolf lands and skids to the right of Husky.
Critx2 -42 -43 (175/320)
Stepping out from behind Husky I land two quickly blows on the wolfs face earning two crits and a momentary stun which his long enough for Husky to swivel round axe it now
-85 (90/320)
-60 -60 (0/320)
The wolf died in about 3 seconds flat.
Much better.
Healing up we go find two wolves that are close to each other this time.
-50 (100/150)
-50 (60/110)
-120 (10/130)
Husky runs towards one while I sprint towards the other. My wolf pounces at me and I duck feeling a chill run across my back and into a yelping wolf.
Crit -120 (200/320)
Slicing my axe at its legs I twirl round and use the momentum to strike from above embedding my axe above its nose
-21 crit -41 (138/320)
Pushing off the wolf I jump to the side before 2 *thud* sounds appear in the wolf.
Crit -120 -60 (0/320)
Turning round I look at Husky who is sitting on the wolfs neck, his axe embedded in its face, punching it continuously behind the ears, causing mini-stuns
-10 -10 -10 -10 -10…(0/320)
A stunned wolf is a dead wolf.
With a satisfied grin Husky steps off the beaten down wolf.
We just beat two wolves with ease.
The crux of our attacks is the beginning crits. If Husky gets a crit with his axe then he blows the wind out of the wolf giving him a second to pile onto the wolf.
My axe doesn’t do as much but Jöt’s crit icebolts are enough for a momentary stun.
So with this strategy we’re able to take out two wolves.
Question is; can we take on three?
No, not yet anyways.
The three of us continue this double wolf hunting (which increased our hunting speed considerably) for 5 hours racking up 56 kills and as much xp. I’m at 39% while the others at late 40’s.
The wolves just don’t give any experience any more (1% per wolf). However we’ve gotten a couple of things out of this past 5 hours…We’ve learnt how to fight against a pack:
-24 (77/320)
“Awoo”
-23 -11 -5 -5 -11 -24 (0/320)
“AwoooAwoAwooo”
A trio of wolves appear close-by and bound towards us
Running up to my wolf I spin to the left dodging its initial pounce and slice it on the side
-10 (310/320)
I finish my spin as it turns round and using my momentum I send a kick directly to its face
Crit -2 (308/320)
Yelping the wolf retreats a step and I do a lunging hack with my ‘critical strike’
Crit -72 (236/320)
Its head crashes to the floor for a momentary stun and I pull it towards me with my axe. Sending an arm around its neck I swing myself round to its back and grab my arm sending it into a chokehold.
My legs lock on its front paws and I send us to the floor
-5 (55/110)
Keeping the wolf in a chokehold I stop it escaping as it furiously tries to writhe out of my grasp but its arms are held by my legs and its breathe is running out.
30 seconds later the wolf stops moving, haven fallen into the unconscious state.
Rolling the wolf under me I grab my axe and hack away at it leisurely.
Wiping my forehead I see that the other two are busy skinning their wolves.
Yes that’s right; we can take on one each.
How?
It’s simple really. Jöt uses his new chains of ice sub-skill to lock his wolf in place and then radically stabs away at it. The chains of ice costs 1 rage per second and he’s got 120. The cost goes up to 2 when he builds a muzzle. Soloing a wolf is easy for him now. Especially since his dagger mastery reached rank 10 giving him a 10% bonus damage and 5% attack speed as well as the new skill triple stab, but it uses rage so he doesn’t use it.
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I asked him where he got the dagger from and apparently he was given it for being a rage mage (wow even the system was making him stab himself for spell power, scary).
So that was Jöt sorted.
Husky did his usual straddle on the neck of the wolf and then just leisurely beat the wolf into submission. His unarmed has reached rank 9 and the proficiency increase seems to be really slow at that point.
I don’t have as much strength or weight but I still am able to beat the wolf. How? Well since I get a grip from behind it and have it go legs up in the sky it doesn’t have a hold to try get free. Much more so when I lock its front paws at the elbows. This way I don’t have to have more strength, I just stop it exerting its full strength and thus I beat it in those terms. Though I did die 2 times learning how to do it, and a further 5 times Jöt had to send me an icebolt to help me out.
However…we have finally all beaten wolves 1 on 1. Well it was originally a pack of 4 (we ganged up on the first wolf, and when it called the others we solo’d them).
The only damage any of us have taken for a while is from damaging ourselves for rage. It’s quite scary how efficient we’re getting with our attacks, dodging the wolves pounces and claws (if it ever gets one in) without taking any damage. Well we have fought almost 200 if not so.
Anyway, we skin our wolves and with delight we head back to the village eating an apple in commemoration of killing our first pack of wolves.
I gained unarmed mastery during the past 5 hours but its only level 2 so far. Just so you know.
So we head back into town to well…repair our weapons. Our armor is doing oddly fine, and Husky has once again taken off his plate mail, for sakes of moving faster. Their sprint hasn’t reached level 10 yet but it’s still at level 8, so it’s getting there. We have it activated constantly so that’s 2 loafs an hour for us.
Making our way to the blacksmith we actually have a look around the store. Why? Because we finally have 7 silver and 16 copper. Enough to buy a better weapon, hopefully.
Peering round we all have a look at our respective weapons. Luckily the only one we can afford is a one-handed axe that looks like a smaller version of a wood-chopping axe (so decently similar to my current one).
NAME:Hunter's Axe11-14 damage
40/40 durability
+1 AGI, +1 VITCost: 5 Silver 32 Coppers
…
..
.
BUY BUY BUY
We all look wide eyed at the entire level of bonus stats the weapons give and without hesitation we buy it!
Holding my new axe we all look proud at our first buy. Although the damage is only 5 points better the stat bonus has a mountain of value for us. They don’t mind in the slightest that I’m getting the weapon because it’ll soon be their turn.
So it seems like equipment will give us stat points. That explains quite a lot, like how freaking difficult the wolves are, even though we’re a higher level.
Well to be fair we all are still wearing our beginner armor with beginner weapons. Only Jöt has been able to increase his damage because of his ice-manipulation Skill (level 7 right now).
With our new weapon and a lighter purse we head back out into the plains, our goal is to reach level 10!
...
..
.
Thankfully we do reach that level, but it still takes another 4 hours to take out 61 wolves.
*Ding*
“Congratulations. HI FIVE EVERYONE!” Husky goes round giving a high-five to us both.
I finally level up and with that our whole party reaches level 10. Only after 42 hours of grinding (counting hours in town. Also for me it’s 69 hours jeesus) have we finally reached level 10. The efficiency and speed, well lack thereof makes us all get a bit of water in our eyes. It hurts…
But anyways, we all are finally level 10 but that doesn’t make much of a difference to us. Why? Well because to get a class we need to visit a city and a trainer respective to our wanted class. Problem is, we have to get passed The Ice Needles, which is quite a way off, hell I can’t even see it. Well we aren’t worrying about that. We’re worrying about getting through this forest first.
Ah let me have a look at my character sheet shall i?
[table]
[table][table]
[table]
NAME:Kal (Iskadi)TITLE:The ConquerorClass Tree:WandererClass:NoneRace:NymphGender:Trap (female)Level:10Experience:0%STATUS:Remaining Points (18)Health Points:120/120Hp Regen (out of combat):1secRage:0/100Rage decrease (out of combat)1/secSTR:10TGH:10AGI:10(+1)VIT:10(+1)INT:10MND:10ATTK:Phys 11-14Extra:noneDEF:2M.RES:17Satiety:100/100 (well fed)SKILLS:
One-handed Axe Mastery [lvl7]
-Critical Strike (Active)
Unarmed Mastery [lvl2]
Leather Mastery [lvl3]
Speedy [lvl3]
Cold Resistance [lvl5]
Herbalism [lvl3]
Alchemy [lvl4]
Skinning [lvl3]
Leatherworking [lvl1]
Clothtography [lvl1]
Racials [Max]
-Radiating Charm (Active)
-Nature's Safe-keeper
-Nature Attuned
-Man's Desire
->Woman's Desire
Slowly but surely the skills are racking up. We share skill knowledge with eachother because we know that one can never have too many skills (and the stronger your allies the less likely you are to die).
Jöt doesn’t have any different skills and neither does Husky so we’re all fully decked out and I like that.
Since we only have another 2 hours to go before we have to log off, we decide to stop off at Bezia’s and do a bit of tanning.
We have around 360 hides so our bags are getting pretty filled. Taking them out and putting them in a long line we fit about 120 in the room. Rubbing salt into the hide and scraping away the fur, we brush some tanning oil on.
Bezia being a profit goblin had us pay 1 silver for a pot of tanning oil (100 uses) and 10 copper for the salt (100 uses). Buying 4 of each we get down to it. After prepping 120 pieces we all stand in a line maintaining our leather.
4 silver 76 coppers left in our party purse so we’re doing fine. However about half-way through the tanning process we have Jöt go buy us all another stack of 60 bread each. Only 16 pieces remain from our original 80. We eat 22 a day but since I’m on longer I end up eating almost 40 a day! I’ve spent all my personal allowance (all the money I made alone at night) just to feed myself. But we still have 6 apples as we only eat those as celebratory gifts. Since we eat such an absurd amount of bread we have to earn at least 44 copper a day (almost 80 for me, which is relatively easy, but still that’s a lot of money for 1 day of just bread).
Jöt heads out and after way too long a time he gets back and chucks our respective bread into our inventory.
He tells us that there’s a visible dent in her bread box (Ok so you get the image, the box is about 10 metres long, 1 metre wide and a few metres deep. I reckon there’s close to a couple of thousand pieces of bread there. I fear we’re going to eat it all and then we’re going to starve.
Anyways, we finish tanning our leather and make a couple of strips before making a small mountain of bracers, boots and helmets. I’m currently wearing my self-made helmet and apparently the system allows you to make the helmet non-existent which means you get to see everyone’s faces.
The result? A lot of poor quality bracers, boots and helmets (with some mid-quality in the mix, mostly Husky’s). In the end we made 10 of each using up 4 pieces of leather (1 for strips) for each. On the bright side our leatherworking increased by a whole 30% which was quite good.
That took us the most of an hour and with thanks to Bezia we rush out the house and to our home.
Saying sorry to Cindy who was looking a bit moody until we came in we quickly sit at the table and sip on the slightly cool soup with joy. We may be eating a ton of bread all day but we still crave some proper food (If this wasn’t a game we’d get so fat, I’m sure of that).
Cindy gives us a little scolding as we eat our meal telling us that we shouldn’t be late for dinner
“Yes Mum” A chorus of our voices sound in synchrony
…
..
.
We’re all on the same page it seems.
Cindy looks a bit shocked at our shocked at the words and before we know it she flies with a delighted squeal, hugging both Jöt and I with one arm and Husky with the other.
Our heads getting squeezed, we all tell her half-heartedly to stop (Well Jöt said don’t stop for some reaso-ah I see).
After a little while she does finally let up and we all rub our heads from the pain (well me anyways, seems like Husky and Jöt are refraining from touch their heads. Those pervs, but…I really cannot speak…not even a little).
Just as we think we’ve escaped she attacks once again giving us all a peck on the cheek as she cleans up our dishes???
We all look at eachother mildly shocked at how much more intimate Cindy just got with us. Hell, who knew the key-word to a wannabe mother’s heart is mother (well now that I say that…).
After quickly cleaning the dishes she heads off to her room, stopping at the doorway to look back at us
“Goodnight…sons” She seemed to almost whisper the last word to herself as if to hear how it sounded to herself.
We glance at eachother
“Good night…mother” Oh it felt slightly awkward, maybe a little more. But I can tell we’re all a bit rusty with using the word.
She grabs her face and with a small squeal of delight, jumps out of sight.
Sort of awkwardly coughing round the table we watch Varg follow Cindy to the room before he looks back with a glint in his eye as he nods us goodnight.
NOPE, I’m sorry Varg but that’s not happening yet.
Once he left we just sit in the quite awkward atmosphere silently rubbing the back of our heads.
“Mother…been a while since I’ve said those words” Husky mutters those words, speaking to himself more than to us. But I can’t deny the same words are floating in my head.
“I guess we should begin practicing in front of the mirror”…Oh Jöt, spot on.
“Heheheh” We chuckle at the thought. But yes, I think I’ll have to practice somewhat.
Odd how I never called Martha mother but it just didn’t feel right (well it doesn’t feel super right here either but the words just…fit??).
The others head off to their mattresses and with cheeky grins say “Goodnight brothers”
Hah, sneaky buggers. But after spending a couple of days with them dying and seeing them die many times over and being victorious together (sometimes) I feel like I’ve known them for quite some time. I guess they’ll count as my brothers in battle.
Talking about battle…as the others log off I head outside and walk two doors down.
“Gannor” With that word filling up my mind I walk through the door.