Day 8 - August 12:28

Faith 1 / 2

Hunger 77 / 100%

One made a mental note of his carelessness. He allowed another player to get within thirty meters unnoticed. That was easily enough to be killed with long range attacks and hunted down after a surprise attack. Not to mention this one approached him directly on a wide open road. How stupid of him. Weary of the approaching person he stopped. A player tag showed a little above his head. [Stratovik]. Weird name but that was not uncommon. His face showed concern as well, but that might just as well be a emote he put on. One was ready to launch a dagger attack at any time and he did not want him to approach too far. There was no bow on the man, but since he could just take that out of his inventory nothing was impossible. His gear seemed to be cloth, simple linen. They did not stand out, and their defenses should be very low as well. When Stratovik approached to about ten meters One called out to him.

“That’s far enough. Please don’t advance further, or I have to attack you. And we don’t want that do we?”

The other guy stopped, his confusion was all too apparent. He lifted both his hands in a very passive “Stick’em up” approach.

“Sorry, I just wanted to talk to you, I meant no offense.”

One nodded. It was time to ask him a few things. First the obvious basic things.

“I want to ask you some questions. First of all, do you have anything to trade? Namely maps, food, can you teach me how to cook or light a bonfire or do you sell anything else in particular? Or do you want to buy something? Where did you come from? Where are you going? I am new to this area and would really need some information.”

Normally One wouldn’t tell someone he needed something, that was all the more reason for them to raise the price. However he had nothing in his possession, so it would not really be a trade, rather him begging for help. Stratovik smiled.

“Sure. Well, I just came from Vhalt a small village down the road, you are bound to arrive there in about 65 kilometers if you follow the street. I am Stratovik, you can call me Strato though. Do you have any food? Like meat or something? I can show you how to cook and we can talk then?”

One was not entirely convinced. What if the guy tried to kill him on a whim? He was sure, that his battle strength was next to null right now. Luckily he had his movement speed buff [Enlightened]. That would help with running away. Maybe it would be best to just hear him out? If he was able to show him how to cook and set up a bonfire it would be worth it. After all these were necessary survival skills when winter came. And winter is coming, Game of Thrones taught him that much.

“We can also share maps for free?”

That gave One the go. Not needing to buy map-parts would help a lot.

“Okey. Where do you want to set camp? A little down the woods? Off the road should be safer, just in case right?”

Strato frowned. “You know, most players are still trying to figure everything out, you don't really need to worry about them killing you at all times. But sure, go ahead find us a spot.”

One used a smiling emote. That guy was a real idiot. No way you should just blindly trust your luck like that. “Thanks for helping me. If there really are so little dangerous players still that’s great.” Maybe the guy was really a totally helpless PvE-Player [Player versus Environment], that was killable? One needed a kill for his lycanthropy curse still as well. “How long are you playing already?”, he asked him with a curious face. Under the emoticon mask he was grinning to himself.

Strato made a thoughtful face. “Huh. About four days i think? Mostly did questing and stuff. That's where I learned how to cook. There is a really good NPC cook in Vhalt for that, his meals are really delicious. Just awesome how realistic this all is right?”

One could not believe his luck. A casual. He would definitely go to hunt him down after he got as much as he could out of him. Better pretend to be friendly and a recent beginner. “Ah okey, then you know a lot more than me. I started in a weird place and got teleported here after one quest. I started two days ago. What level are you?”

Strato answered with a laugh: “Haha, I see... I just started in that village and got right into questing. But I’ve heard that those things, where you start somewhere else happen a lot. I’m level 9 now, but i really want to get some gear, all I got from questing are useless clothes.”

What. A. Giant. Idiot. He basically just confessed to being totally useless and weak. Since they already walked a couple meters into the woods, the street was not visible anymore at all. While Stratovik talked about his questing so far, they advanced to a small clearing in the woods. One was not really listening to him, since he already told him the quests gave rather useless rewards. He also figured they would not grant a lot of experience, after all the guy was just level 9. If One was interested in only leveling up, he would have reached that ages ago.

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“Here should be a good fireplace right?”, One asked hopefully.

“Yea. I will remove the moss here a bit, then we can sit.” Quickly Strato harvested the moss, revealing his farming skill. So he had gained that one as well. Not that One was surprised, he most likely had told him about that just now, when he wasn’t really listening. But it revealed that he spent more time farming passive skills rather than fighting too.

“Alright. Here I’m going to trade you some stuff so you can start setting up the bonfire.” Stratovik tapped with his finger in front of his face. The inventory was invisible to One, but he was able to see the frame at least. It would have looked terrible waving your finger in the air and no one was able to tell what you did.

WAIT. That was huge too! One did not even think of that before, but when he first met Strato he could have seen his intentions of attacking him if he had a window opened. After all, who played with their menu open all the time? He took another mental note to keep that in mind.

[The player [Stratovik] wants to conduct trade with you.]

[Accept Trade] - [Decline]

One tabbed the accept button and observed the empty inventory-shaped trading popup in front of him. There were 16 free spaces on his side and 16 free spaces on Stratos side. Further spots were still locked and you most likely needed to be a merchant or something else to unlock them. There were a couple of trading options in the middle, between the inventory-like spaces.

[Nidrethg]: -none-

[Trade conditions]: -none-

[Trade guild pledge]: -N/A-

It seemed there were trade condition you could choose from and a Nidrethg, whatever that was. Strato paid it no mind and placed 4x [Common Wood] 20x [Firestone] in the trading window.

“Thanks”, One quickly added after confirming the trade in his favour. “What is a Nidrethg? And these trade conditions?” Stratovik looked rather confused though.

“Hm, I don’t know. Sorry, I never paid that any attention until now. I guess it’s something for merchants maybe?” The idiot had a puzzled look on his face. How someone was able to play a game and show no interest whatsoever to most things was beyond One's comprehension.

“How do I light the fire? And how do you trigger the cooking mastery?” One asked with a friendly questioned look on his face. As soon as this guy told him everything he would kill him. Better to do that quickly. The guy was so innocent it was beyond annoying.

“Uhm, just use a firestone from your inventory. They are rather cheap, you can get them in villages. They can break though. For cooking just stick something on a wooden stick or use a pan or pot. May I ask you something?” The questioning face of Stratovik was looking suspiciously.

One shrugged. “Sure, go ahead.” - “ Where did you get that robe from? It looks really awesome. Did you get it because you started with a child body?” One made it brief to cut down the time he needed to get answers to his questions. “Yea. Already had that when i started. I can’t trade it though.” One shrugged, then he proceeded to ask Strato something else. “When I got teleported it said that NPCs are really dangerous if you provoke them, or you encounter evil ones? Is that true?”

Stratovik nodded. “Very dangerous. A saw a small group was imprisoned for stealing weapons in a smithery. When they resisted the guards killed them. You should be very careful and keep to the rules.”

Or not get caught for it, One added mentally. “Ok. Thank you. That’s all I wanted to know. Let’s share maps so I can find the village later, I don’t wanna hold you back or anything.” Strato quickly shared his map with One’s. It did not add a whole lot, but the 65 km towards the village and a bit of forestry around it showed a much better picture.

One turned around immediately and walked towards the forest again. When he turned around after five meters Stratovik looked at him confused. “I thought you wanted to start the fire he-”

Then the dagger that suddenly stuck out of his shoulder interrupted him. One had thrown it. Not a critical strike, but that was okey. Patiently he waited for the cooldown of his skill. As he stood there emotionlessly, using an emote that showed disgust and contempt, he ignored the questions and harsh insults the man spewed at him. Then he threw his dagger again, resulting in the man drawing a worn down axe.

As he charged towards him, One casually ran backwards. Kiting him would be pretty easy as his movement speed buff made it near impossible for Strato to catch him. After three more daggers he turned to panic and searched for the street, yelling for help. One did not care for it, he just followed him through the woods. One time he missed with his skill, as Stratovik stumbled.

He circled around out of sight, giving him a brief moment to run in peace before ending his life when he ran right into his arms. A throwing dagger autoattack combination finished it swiftly.

The panicked swing of his axe missed One. It was quite easy to dodge it, when someone attacked with such a wide amateurish swing. Happily One noticed that there was loot leftover when the corpse disappeared alongside the weapon and gear.

[You have gained 72 [Copper].]

[You have gained 4x [Common Bread].]

[You have gained 7x [Firestone].]

[You have gained 2x [Common Wood].]

[Curse: [Lycanthropy] was triggered.]

One felt a source of power emitting from within his body. Most likely this was the curse activating. He was really curious what he was able to do as a werewolf later on.

[Title: [Fenrir’s Killer I] was activated.]

As one of Loki’s advocates you have killed in his name. Fenrir, his son approves of your deeds. The souls of those you kill in battle will be sent to the giant wolf and his strength will grow.

+2% PvP-Attack

+2% PvP-Defense

5% Chance to spawn 1 [Wolf] that is allied to you.

Neat! That title was awesome. One immediately equipped it. He would kill a lot of people later to level this title. The PvP-Boni aside the chance to spawn a wolf every time he killed someone was pretty cool. Especially since he had a passive buff to strengthen them as well.

Happily One continued his journey down the road to the village Vhalt. Seemingly naive people lived there.

And he would exploit that.