Tier’s adventure commenced in a rainforest located on an island named Jam’ruud Island. Though through the minimap everything seems normal, Tier realised something was rather odd when he opened the full map. The island was not shown in the grand map at all. Since there were other low-level rakhs players roaming this place, Tier concluded that Jam’ruud was actually an instance for new rakhs players.
Typical to MMORPGs, they were given quests by the NPCs in the island to gain more experience points. Amusingly, the quests were not monotonous. Though, most of the quests still revolved around fighting creatures on the island - which makes perfect sense in order to get the player slowly more adapted to how the battle system works. Other kinds of quests involved gathering materials, tracking creatures, preparing rations, learning about item systems, and - the most annoying - escorting an NPC.
“This be good to prepare you for da real adventure, my friend.”
The words of Bur’ru, the hunter trainer that tested Tier earlier, rang in Tier's ears as he begrudgingly walked through a small path in dense jungle to escort an old rakhs priest named Ril’dil.
The old rakhs wore a simple garb and necklace of beads which somehow reminded Tier of some mad old monk from old martial arts movies. Not to mention that Ril’dil did have one of those long white beards.
“Be careful, young friend, this jungle be treacherous,” said Ril’dil among all of his random babbling about rakhs’ history.
It was not that Tier didn’t care about those stories, but he was too sleepy to focus on the words of a seemingly half drunk rakhs. He took this mission because he was just a few hundred EXP away from getting to level 5 where he would be able to start specialisation for his character. Not to mention that he thought this would be a quick and peaceful mission.
It was at this moment of regretting this decision that Tier realised there was a weird blinking on his minimap. Usually, friendly NPCs are marked as green dots, neutral or passive ones as yellow, and hostile ones as red.
As Bur’ru had told him, hunters and mystics - a class reserved for elves - are the only ones who can see hostile creatures in their minimap. However, what Tier saw this time was several half transparent red dots blinking slowly along the path that Ril’dil was going to take. Yet, Tier didn't see anyone when he looked directly at the location.
“Stealth units, I guess?” Tier mumbled to himself. He remembered that he learned something related to revealing stealth characters, but he forgot the name of the ability. Thus, Tier whispered, “Command on: ability list.”
A small semi-transparent window appeared on the left part of his sight. He only had six abilities so far, yet he only bothered with [Quick Shot] for extra damage and [Ankle Break] to trip or slow down his target.
He did care a bit about [Mimic: Eagle] which gave him more accuracy and ranged attack power, but he just set the mimic and forgot about it since it will always be active unless Tier changed it or turned it off manually. This time, he might need to bother adding [Flare] to the list of abilities to use frequently.
Though, the ability [Mark of Prey] - which increased damage done on target, also marked it on the map - and racial active [Mimic: Rhino] does seem interesting.
“Remember young one, not many races be accepting of us, they be thinking we be wild savages….”
Tier was too focused on reading and pondering on how his abilities would be useful that he didn’t realise Ril’dil had kept walking forward without him. He shouted, “Command on: stop.”
“... we be not sophisticated, yet we be no savages….”
Ril’dil didn’t follow the command since, Tier just remembered, there was no such command. NPCs during escort missions would just walk at their own pace sometimes. And this old one was rather eager to approach his own demise.
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“Tch, [Flare]!” Tier roared as his hands were guided to draw a special arrow equipped with a sack of chemicals and aimed it in a high arc. A greenish faint line appeared to give him more clue of where the ability would land. The arrow then flew and released a bright light in the sky, revealing hooded figures among the trees.
“Da hooman be here to kill us!” Ril’dil freaked out. He leaped backwards and cursed, “Then who be da savages now? Who be sending assassins to kill a priest?”
The humans panicked for a moment due to their cover being blown, giving Tier ample time to reassess the situation. There are four of them, each with 1200 HP. They wore a light cloth mixed with leather.
“[Ankle Break]!” Tier shot an arrow at the ankle of the second closest human dealing a mere 100 points of damage. He then casted [Mark of Prey] to the closest human, released a shot which deals 323 damage, and followed up with a [Quick Shot] for 161 damage. He finished the first human with two more shots. The final shot landed on the neck, dealing a critical strike for double damage.
When Tier was busy focusing on one target, one of the assassins managed to close the gap and attacked him from the side.
“Akh!”
Tier groaned as a sword slashed his side, dealing 87 damage. Switching his bow for a short axe, he turned at the attacker while swinging his axe to deal 250 damage. However, the remaining assassins had also closed the gap on him and attacked ferociously.
“Da light spirit be with ya!”
Ril’dil shouted. He raised his staff upwards, sending a golden light towards Tier.
The wounds on Tier’s body closed as the light restored 500 of his hitpoints. Yet it was not really enough as Tier kept being cornered without being able to strike back effectively. Also, a mere maximum 1400 HP he had wouldn't last long in this situation, even with Ril’dil’s constant healing.
Desperate, Tier slashes right and left wildly. His vision blurred as the small box below his HP steadily turned from crystal clear to blood red. His breath grew shorter, his muscles heatened, and his movements were more powerful yet frantic as the letter ‘instinct’ in the box blinked rapidly and changed to ‘bloodlust’.
“Buddy! Invite me, share the quest!”
From the jungle, Tier heard someone shout. Moments later, an inexplicably handsome blue rakhs appeared from the bushes. Armed with a short axe and a shield, he also wore light mail armour on his chest and legs. His level and name was written in green above his head.
Tier slashed once more before pointing at the rakhs and shouted, “Command on: invite to party, Zackhs!”
“Accept!”
“Command on: share mision ‘Guarding Wisdom of Ages’.”
“Accept! [Taunting Shout]!”
Zackhs, the level 5 warrior, bellowed at the three assassins and startled them. Tier took the opportunity to finish the one with lowest remaining HP.
As the remaining human assassins changed their target, Tier stepped back to draw distance then finished one of the assassins. His shots were hitting harder but also less accurate. Thus Tier slowed down his attacks to regain his instinct back from bloodlust.
Before he started attacking the last assassin, Tier regained control of his instincts. It was at that moment he felt a murderous intent coming from behind. He quickly realised that in his map there’s another blinking red dot rapidly approaching Ril’dil from behind.
“[Flare]!” Tier roared. His bright arrow revealed a hooded human with a mace and more than double HP compared to the others.
Knowing Zakchs was too far to taunt the human, Tier drew his bow to its fullest extent and casted a skill he had never used before, “[Mimic switch: Rhino]!”
A faint deep blue line was drawn above Tier, creating a silhouette of a Rhino. It roared menacingly as Tier felt his legs anchored stronger to the ground.
With the disappearance of the rhino silhouette, an arrow was released. Though it dealt less damage, it staggered the assassins as it hit him square on the chest. Infused with the furious threat of a rhino, the attack drew the assassin’s attention to Tier.
The hunter unleashed a barrage of arrows with normal attacks, [Quick Shot], and [Ankle Break] with each strike knocking back the assassin slightly. However, Tier had no intention of finishing the assassin alone.
“Good job, buddy. [Shield Slam]!”
Zackhs dashed past Ril’dil, he blocked the first attack from the human, and slammed his shield with all his might. Then he shifted aside to give Tier a clear shot before drawing the attention of the assassin with his shout. The human’s struggle shortly ended as Tier just entered bloodlust.
Tier panted heavily as he fell to his knees. He didn’t like that feeling of heavy bloodlust, a mechanic which applied only to hunters. They don’t spend mana or energy to cast spells or attack, but they have to handle the growing urge to enter murderous rampage during a fight. It was sickening and reminded him of his past self.
Being clear of his surroundings and aware of surroundings felt more natural to him.
Zackhs offered a hand. With a wide grin he complimented, “That was awesome, buddy.”