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Midgard
Chapter 8 - On the Tracks of Ian Mac Fluff

Chapter 8 - On the Tracks of Ian Mac Fluff

Day 6 - June 16:47

As he stored the tools in his inventory he noticed a second quest. Quickly he spoke to the farmer again. “Can i help you with anything else, beside the wheat?” One asked curiously. “Yes, of course. We always have something to do around here.” The farmer frowned and sat down, seeming very tired. “We have more and more rabbits around these parts. Their population increased a lot and they damage quite a lot of our wheat plants every year… I would like you to kill them for me. They will try to attack you when you are trying to harvest the wheat though. So be careful when you are out there!”

[Received: Quest: Crush the resistance on the fields.]

Sigurd needs help with supplying the temple, yet those pesky fluffy bunnies are attacking anyone in sight and keep him from harvesting the [Wheat]. Make sure those evil creatures are getting what they deserve!

Objective: Bring Snorri 50x [White Rabbit Pelt] or [Brown Rabbit Pelt].

Reward: 1.000 Experience; [Buff: Enlightened - 1 Week]; [???]

One was happy that he saw it, and did not just go ahead and throw himself in hours of senseless grinding again. A bit of fighting would come in handy and decrease his boredom. He was not a person that backed away from the dirty work easily, but even for him nearly a week of nothing but this decreased his morale.

Outside he found himself in quickly changing weather though. He never had seen any rain before. At least it looked like it could start to rain very soon. The dark, black clouds had crept up slowly and steadily as harmless grey clouds. Now they looked quite a lot like they were about to unleash their might.

One was unsure what rain would mean. Decreased stats? Boosts to certain fighting and debuffs to others? He would take care to evade the thought. He hurried to gather as much [Wheat] as he could, before the rain started to fall. You never know what would happen after all. Quickly he cut down on the now high yellow brown plants. After a couple of swings he triggered the job mastery like usually.

[Farmer: Beginner I learned.]

[The ancient art of growing useful plants for food, fibers for producing cloth or herbs for medicine and cooking. The work is often quickly done, only to test your patience while you wait for the harvest. Defending your fields and property may often be more difficult than performing the simple act of planting something.]

One was quite sure that it would not be as easy as the description made it sound. So far every single profession was only learned by being extremely dedicated. But maybe the profession would generally give a lot for a small investment in higher mastery levels? And if other players were able to just come and overtake fields while someone was offline that would obviously be fought over. He decided to keep that in mind. If it was profitable he could exploit it later.

[Harvesting I] - Allows you to harvest plants of [Farmer: Beginner III] and below. Depending on your harvesting mastery you can perform the act faster and gain more yield.

[Seeding I] - Allows you to work the ground, prepare it for seeding and depending on your mastery your seedlings grow faster and you can gain more yield.

Now One understood why they warned from fighting over fields. It was far easier to harvest something rather than planting. Someone could come and harvest plants from a [Farmer: Beginner III] even if they never worked to increase their mastery even once! Quite the unfair ordeal. One would keep track of this. Maybe he was able to steal crops from other players whenever they went offline? After all he had this awesome 24/7 advantage that has to be exploited!

Luckily for him he did not have to plant any wheat. The temple grew it automatically so he saved a lot of time. If he would have had to work the ground, seed and wait for it to grow it might have been winter when he finished the quest! A normal player would most likely need longer than 10 days for the quests, since they are not online as long as One was.

So they would most likely run into the problem of winter if they did not find the quest before that. Sneaky game! If One was a normal player he would have gotten trolled again. It seemed like his streak of bad luck finally had ended. After he had harvested 7x [Wheat], the rain finally fell.

And nothing happened. No effects, even the temperature barely changed at all. One decided to continue his work. He was not attacked by any bunnies either. Hours later he reached the 100 [Wheat]-Mark. Another quest finished. Only one token left. His harvesting skill had improved to 82% and his [Farmer: Beginner I] was sitting at 49%. Quite ok for a couple of hours of grinding. This could very well be easier than most jobs.

As the gametime approached midnight it stopped raining. One decided to wait a bit before heading back to complete the quest series. Maybe the bunnies would reappear? He searched out a nearby tree and hit it continuously. He would not increase his mastery this way, but maybe a strength point here and there could be gathered? It was still funny to him that his child body worked the whole day nonstop without a problem. It also looked weird, since the axe, scythe and other tools were full size and would normally be far too big for him.

[You gained 1 Strength.]

Day 7 - 0:01 July

All the clouds had slowly vanished. One was glad to find the rabbits out in the open again. They changed though. Their beautiful white pelt was now dark brown. It was now summer after all. One hurried down to the fields again. Quickly he equipped his scythe. He was ready. Once the rabbits came after him, he would change to his dagger again. He also used his best help:

[Title: Bunny-Hater]

[Your everlasting hate for rabbits, bunnies and hares made you especially cruel while fighting them. + 20% damage while in combat with Rabbits.]

Right after swinging the harvesting tool 6 rabbits instantly dashed towards him. They really did not like him harvesting. One had been really lucky with the rain. Instantly he equipped his dagger and ran. First he had to find out how much alike they were to Tangun, the boss bunny he killed earlier. He ran through the cornfield. As it was nearly as high as his body he had a hard time grasping the position of his followers, so he decided to run upwards towards the woods. However, the cute, fluffy, little things had other plans. One of them caught up to his slow movement speed and jumped into his back.

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[You are stunned for 0.2 seconds.]

[You took 2 damage.]

Well, their fighting style was similar to Tangun. Their stun was obviously of a lower grade and they also did not bite when falling off of him. However One found himself in quite the pinch. 0.2 seconds were enough to slow him down for the other rabbits to hit him! What was worse, the stun duration seemed to stack up! As the other five rabbits hit him he found himself stunned for longer. And the first one happily went over to attack him with cute little headbutts.

[You are stunned for 1.0 seconds.]

[You took 10 damage.]

[You took 3 damage from [Brutal Headbutt].]

Those little beasts did quite a bit of damage. His HP dropped to 100/115. Immediately he went over from just running to a hit and run strategy. However easy that sounded he only managed to hit one rabbit charging his stunt-jump, the decreased reach on the dagger made it a lot more difficult to hit the bunnies while running.

[You took 17 damage.]

83/115. One needed to fight them directly. If he defeated one or two their DPS potential would decrease a lot! At first he hit two bunnies three times very quickly. One of them dropped after having received two strikes and his lucky hit earlier. Soon after he delivered the third blow to the second bunny and he struck critically! The bunny was dead instantly. Three to go.

[You took 9 damage.]

72/115. This would be easy. Shortly afterwards he finished off the bunnies and survived with a proud 51/115 HP. Contrary to what he feared, the evil, fluffy beasts only stunned him at the beginning in their charge. Afterwards their battle mentality decreased to auto attack only.

As his battle had lead him away from his original position he had to search for the bunnies in his proximity. He did not even notice how he walked over ten meters after killing the first one. It all happened rather quickly while he tried to avoid dying. They all dropped a [Brown Rabbit Pelt] and some [Fresh Meat] Sadly nothing else. With those six pelts and the four white pelts he had ten already. Another forty to go! One equipped his pickaxe and farmed some [Dirt]. He did not want to waste his time idling around while his HP recovered. And that would take another 32 minutes.

Soon he recovered and continued his quest. He repeated the cycle of regenerating and hunting the rabbits again and again. First he challenged another six, then five rabbits for four rounds. One large rabbit was classified as [Big Bunny]. It dropped two pelts. 27 Pelts added to his ten made 37. Always regenerating health was not very efficient, so One had set up some traps as well before he started. His [Hunter: Beginner I] increased to 72%. The traps sadly were not the most effective source, at least not as much as he had hoped. Eleven pelts, for a total of 48. It was already 4:14 in the morning.

One wanted to finish the quest as soon as he could. Summer was here, now that it was Day 7 and July. As he had no heat resistance he was very careful. The winter could have killed him if he had underestimated it, so he wanted to make sure he would not die of a heatstroke under the summer sun. This game took realism quite far as well. It was a large possibility.

As One grew impatient he tried to chase down a rabbit, without trying to harvest to attract it. Maybe he was able to hit it with a critical strike? But it was running away. And quite a bit faster than he was able to run. Luckily for him it ran right into a trap he had set earlier after he had chased it a couple of minutes. 

He did not gain any experience for killing it though. With one pelt remaining he decided to challenge Tangun the Cruel again. The vicious, evil and kind of cute bunny with the battle scars was very easy now. His decreased reach made One miss on the first two dashes, but he was able to intercept every single thereafter. Without the stunlock the boss monster could not inflict any damage on him. A couple of crits and quite a few minutes of fighting later, he was finally finished with him.

[Level-Up! You reached level 6.]

[Your Strength rose by 1]

[Your Vitality rose by 1]

[Your Toughness rose by 1]

[Your Speed rose by 1]

[Gained 5 Skillpoints]

Neat. All the fighting had payed off. One was curious what he would use his skill points for? So far he had not been able to invest it into anything. Happily he looted Tangun. Sadly it did not drop anything this time around. With the [White Rabbit Pelt] One had enough to close up the quests. He hurried back through the cornfields, over some spots that had been harvested by him, and through a small forest to save time.

Quickly he arrived at the farmhouse again. Happily he approached Snorri again. The 10 [Token of Growth] he received ment that the sacrifice quest was just one more project away! He was really curious what he would receive from this long and very hard quest. If it was nothing good he would find a way to burn this god forsaken place down!

The second quest gave him 1.000 Experience, which did not lead to another level up and the [Buff: Enlightened - 1 Week]: Following god's will, you fulfilled one of his tasks. A tremendous amount of power flows through you. [Movement Speed +22%. After taking damage your movement speed buff increases to 45% for five seconds. 10 seconds cooldown.]

One really liked this buff. The movement speed buff was really awesome. Using his gaming experience he read the description again. After taking damage. Hmm. Definitely perfect for him. One hit himself with the dagger.

[You took 2 damage.]

[Enlightened was activated. Movement Speed increased.]

Awesome! With this he was able to sprint around all the time after hitting himself. But the best part of the quest was not the temporary buff! It was this:

[Rabbit Leather Harnish]

[Common Set: Bunny Slayer Set]

[Setbonus: 2 Pieces: +20 HP. | 3 Pieces: 30 HP. + 20% Cold Resistance. |4 Pieces: 40 HP. +10 Armor.| 5 Pieces: Gain [Buff: Fluffy Knight].]

[Evil energy flows through this Harnish. The killed creatures hated the wearer with all their heart.]

[Lucky Rabbit Shoes]

[Common Set: Bunny Slayer Set]

[Setbonus: 2 Pieces: +20 HP. | 3 Pieces: 30 HP. + 20% Cold Resistance. |4 Pieces: 40 HP. +10 Armor.| 5 Pieces: Gain [Buff: Fluffy Knight].]

[Created from countless rabbit paws. The killed creatures hated the wearer with all their heart. When you walk sometimes you may see a rabbit leading you to his next of kin.]

[Trousers of High Lord Mac Fluff.]

[Common Set: Bunny Slayer Set]

[Setbonus: 2 Pieces: +20 HP. | 3 Pieces: 30 HP. + 20% Cold Resistance. |4 Pieces: 40 HP. +10 Armor.| 5 Pieces: Gain [Buff: Fluffy Knight].]

[Made out of fluffy rabbit pelts. Designed after Lord Ian Mac Fluff, that is said to have killed over a thousand bunnies in his lifetime. What a war hero! The killed creatures hated the wearer with all their heart, sometimes these trousers feel awkward to wear. Very Fluffy.]

You could say what you wanted, but One really did appreciate the humor of the game creators. Those rabbits were treated as if they were the evil itself, that suppressed mankind since thousands of years. The devious enemy.

Finally he had something to wear. He now looked like a young kid, that had mercilessly killed helpless bunnies for years. The white, fluffy shoes did not quite fit the brown pants and harnish, yet it looked a lot better than the default T-Shirt and pants. Now it was time to search for the last and final quest!