Ch.3 Ambusher
After three hours and losing every silver to my name, I had no new ability to show for it. I was hoping for some legendary ‘Always win when gambling’ ability, but I suppose I'd have to actually win for the A.I to even consider giving me something broken like that. Maybe I was better off trying to ride the ‘momentum’ of [Gourmet] and turning it into some ability I can refine precious gems in my stomach. ‘Would I just need to eat raw minerals?’ The train of thought was stupid, and I put it to rest. I knew intention was a big factor in gaining abilities, as was playstyle and the ‘momentum’ thing Yuri and a few of the guides I read mentioned. But just wanting something to happen wouldn’t work. I also needed to focus on my job of taking out ten members of Terra Group. I was supposed to break their ‘momentum’ by putting them on twenty-four hour timers. I willed the immersive mode to enable it while I walked along the city wall. Eventually, I found two displayed names above the heads of a man and a woman. They stood arguing with an NPC guard at the northwestern gatehouse. I walked up to them, nonchalantly trying to listen in, but was noticed by the blonde-haired woman in her late forties almost immediately. She had the face of someone who had been a smoker all her life.
Jim Bellsmith (LvL.1 Knight)
Sydney Fairview (LvL.1 Druid)
“Hey! Noah, right? Are you busy right now? We need a party of three to leave the city at night, and we can’t find any other Terra trainees.” A party invitation appeared in my upper right-hand vision, and I accepted. ‘Maybe I’ll get that luck skill after all.’
“Yeah, I can help you two out, I’ve already finished my stuff for awhile.” The Jim guy didn’t seem convinced, but didn’t object to Sydney inviting me to the party either. His hairline receded deeply into his forehead, but what he lacked in the hair on his head he made up for with a large reddish-brown beard. We all still looked like our real life selves. Apparently, that will change when we get out of this place too. Until then, we’re all humans with the same faces and bodies as our real-life selves.
“I’ll be looking for herbs, my packet told me to search for them in the dark with no torchlight to get a chance at the ability they want. Jim needs to map the stars and the area, also while completely in the dark. Do you have any abilities you are trying to pull?” The makers of this game tried to make every character class unique to the player, and here Terra Group was throwing mass amounts of indentured players at this game trying to create specific abilities.
“Nothing particular out there, but I can defend you both from mobs while you work.” Both of them seemed grateful, but then Jim pointed at me.
“Where’s your weapon?” ‘My…weapon..I don’t have a weapon.’ I forgot to ever actually buy equipment. ‘Shit.’ I had wasted most of my money on food and then gambled the last bit away without even thinking of purchasing a bow. ‘I’m so stupid.’ Both Sydney and Jim carried daggers at their waist, likely an affordable option.
“I…uh.” I stammered. “Gambled away all my silver trying to get a legendary luck ability.” I wasn’t a good liar, so I just told a half-truth. Instead of reacting negatively, they both nodded, as if that’s something Terra Group would realistically assign me to do.
“You can use my dagger while we are out there, but you have to give it back to me after we return.” I apologized and agreed. After another, more productive talk with the guard blocking the large wooden door, we made our way out of the city and into the shadowed forest; beyond the safety of the walls. Once we started walking, Jim took the lead, and I was in the rear. The weaponless Sydney in between us both. We took frequent stops, and the pair would begin using their tools in the pitch-black. Jim scryed the land with his eyes before pulling out a telescope to look at the stars. He did this several times, making me a bit antsy to kill him before he got any abilities from his efforts. After walking a few miles, we eventually found a mushroom patch that Sydney wanted to harvest. Feeling a bit more guilty about my plans to kill Sydney with her own knife; my anxiousness to kill was replaced with regret. “I need to do this sooner than later.’ I kept reminding myself. ‘If I don’t do this, I’ll lose my opportunity to play this game. It’s either this or an empty stomach.’ Jim stood bent over his telescope, playing with the dial in his hand. I approached him slowly. `This game feels so real.’ Tightening my grip on the women’s dagger, I resolved to do what I must to survive in this world and my real life on CX12.
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“I just got an ability, but it's not one of the ones on my list…What a weird ability-” Sydney started to say as I grabbed Jim around the chest from behind and stabbed him several times in the neck and back.The man collapsed gurgling his last words, health points zeroed out after several dagger plunges. I turned on the shrieking Sydney, who fell onto her back and tried to push her legs away from me.
Temporary Ability Added!
Backstab (Passive) (Common)
Increased Critical Chance when attacking unaware opponents from behind
Increased Critical Damage when attacking unaware opponents from behind
Infamy Stat Added!
+1 Infamy
“What did you do? Why did you just-” Before she could say another word or continue piercing my soul with her accusatory stare, I fell on her with her own dagger leading; she tried to grapple with me, but I was able to overpower her quickly after the first few stabs. Killing her took quite a few more strikes since many were glancing blows. I continued driving the dagger into her until I started getting hilt deep with my thrusts. Eventually, her thrashing subsided, and I rose from her corpse and cleaned the blood off my face.
Temporary Ability Added!
Murderer (Passive) (Unique)
Increased Damage to Players
Increased Damage to NPCs
Decreased Damage to Monsters
+1 Infamy
Class has been changed from Druid (Common) to Potbelly Ambusher (Unique)
Dagger Stat Added!
Deception Stat Added!
Sneak Stat Added!
Bow Stat Lost!
My stomach felt queasy. The amount of blood and realism was far too detailed for my liking. Killing an unarmed person with a dagger was far more intimate than using a sniper rifle in a PvP focused game that never felt fully real. I tried to shake off the feeling but couldn’t until my stomach was completely empty and the dry heaving subsided. Wanting to focus on something different, I opened up my character sheet to view the changes. It took a few more minutes of sitting down to catch my bearings and actually read through them. ‘Woah, that was a lot of changes to my character.’ I thought as I reviewed my character sheet. “I guess Yuri did say that everything would change here.”
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| Player: Noah Arkmoar
| Race: Human
| Class: Pot-Belly Ambusher
|(Unique)lvl.1
|
| Abilities: Murderer
| Backstab
| Gourmet
|
| Stats: Daggers: 1
| Animal-Handling: 1
| Deception: 1
| Sneak: 1
| Nature: 1
| Infamy: 2
|
| Attributes:
| Con: 1 Str: 1 Cha: 1
| Dex: 1 Wis: 1 Int: 1
|
| Unused Stat Points: 0
| Unused Attribute Points: 0
|
| Skills: (None)
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If I didn’t figure a way to remove potbelly from my class name, I was all but certain to have a character with an actual potbelly. Although I didn’t want to keep rocking this same skeletal frame I had in real life, being fat didn’t sound great, either. None of the abilities or stats could raise in level, but my infamy stat had gone up to two. ‘I wonder what abilities and skills that would dictate’ until my ten days were finished, I would just continue gaining and losing stats and abilities based on my playstyle. It would be fine as long as I switched to something more profit focused soon. I only needed eight more targets eliminated, and then I’d be able to focus on that. After several more bouts of dry-heaving, I finally finished looting the corpses that lay cold and still on the ground and examined the items.
Rusty Dagger
Shabby Telescope
Shabby Herbalism Kit
Incomplete Map (Yagoo Forest)
I equipped the second dagger to my belt loop and began walking back towards town, stopping every so often to retrieve herbs on the ground with the shabby herbalism kit. With the incomplete map of the forest, I was able to backtrack to the City of Beginnings. I nervously entered the city but was not stopped by the guards, who made no comment about my returning alone. ‘Well, I guess infamy doesn’t immediately alert the guards to my crimes, so that’s good.’