Chapter 5. Swinelings
I ran through the forest, concentrating on the [Serial Killer] ability. Luckily there were still no other players. Although all players played on a single server and world post tutorial, it is said that thousands of these ‘City of Beginning' instances could exist simultaneously. The game likely didn’t need to run as many post launch, especially if other stations were like CX12 with declining birth rates. Breaking through a line of trees I halted to a stop after seeing several little pig-like creatures all around me. Being so focused on my [Serial Killer] sense had made me forget to use my eyes and ears to look out for monsters. For such a short and pathetic looking monster race their little legs pumped with determination and speed. Before I could backpedal and catch my bearings I was surrounded on all sides by two dozen or so of the little three foot creatures. I cast the activated part of [Arsonist’s Flame] and spun in a circle trying to coat all of the creatures and stop their inevitable rush in its tracks. A tiny sliver was taken from about three-fourths of the creatures, Their health gauge appearing being the only evidence of damage being done.
Swineling Skirmisher (Level: 1)
“Level one? And my best attack did nothing to them?” A few confident little pig creatures dove towards me. Summoning my daggers I met them head on and began swinging. Neither mine nor the Swinelings health went down more than a few percent after a thirty second melee. They backed up and I slowly spun, looking at all the monsters around me. I was still in [Serial Killer] and had the constitution of a player much higher level than myself, at least for now. I spared a second and looked at my active buffs, and saw I had only ten minutes left. The pig creatures attempted another barrage of attacks, this time many more of them charging me. We swung wildly at each other for a few minutes before they backed up and regrouped, still encircling me.
“Alright piggies, we can’t really hurt each other. What do you want to do?” Speaking out loud more to myself than actually trying to communicate with them. A few snorted back and forth to each other, but for some reason I feel like I could understand what they were saying.
“He is not strong!” A scarred one snarled. I focused on him and was able to mentally cause his status bar to appear without being in the complete immersive move. He was a different type of pig man, a Swineling Brute. I wasn’t sure if he could interpret what I was saying like I felt I could with him, but I replied anyway.
“Oh yes I am strong, I just killed dozens if not a hundred people back in that city.”
“What do? What do?” Another said.‘My animal-handling skill is through the roof right now, it must be working partly on these creatures because they are pigs.’
“He not hit hard, but hard to hit” A small elderly one said with a snort. I couldn’t let them waste anymore time. If [Serial Killer]'s stacks deactivated I’d no longer have the constitution that afforded me the huge health and stamina buff I currently held.
“We don’t have to fight, we can be friends! Yes friends, look I have some extra swords you guys can have.”I dumped the two rusty iron swords out of my inventory. I couldn’t bring money or items from this tutorial into the world of Yonder anyway. No point in keeping items I didn’t plan to use.
“Gifts? Is it true?”
“Yeah little dude, take them, we can be friends. We don’t need to fight each other.”
Animal-Handling Stat has been lost!
Monster Handling Stat Gained!
Monster Friendship Stat Gained!
The names floating above the Swinelings changed from red to green, and no longer just said Swineling but displayed their individual names like that of NPCs in town. The few I had exchanged words with had their names already displayed. The large one’s name was Poncho, the first one who’s status bar switched to friendly. He picked up both swords, one at a time, to test their weight. He gave the one in his hand to a female Swineling behind himself, who swung the sword a few times, making it swoosh.
“Thanking, Thanks,” Poncho snorted, putting his tiny thumbless hand into mine and shaking. I felt my strength leave my body and thought he had done something to me with the handshake. I mentally summoned my skill bar and saw that my [Serial Killer] was on cooldown.
“Not a problem. If I find anything else while I’m here I’ll leave it with you. You guys wouldn’t happen to have any food would you? Maybe a safe place to log-out for a second?” I wanted to update Yuri on how things were going with the job. I needed to get confirmation that my tavern fire would count for the last four kills.
“Adventurers ruined the village, attacked the clan hall. No home, No Food.” It made sense, their race of Swineling seemed familiar. There were probably postings on the quest board I skimmed about them.
“Damn I was really hoping to get some more smoked meats, I kinda burned my bridges in the city of beginnings.” The Swineling looked around the ground with a pitiful furrowed brow as if maybe they would see one of those delicious kebabs on the ground. The kebabs. That was where I saw the word Swineling before. They were the main ingredient in the kebabs. My eyes darted back and forth wildly at the adorable little monsters. Part of me wanted to resume our fight and collect some of their high-quality meat. The other part felt sick at how sentient these wrinkly pink creatures were. Without the added constitution from the [Serial Killer] stacks I wouldn’t stand a chance. I scratched my head and sighed.
“Well I’m going to try and find somewhere to log-out, do you guys wanna follow until I find a relatively safe spot?” I wanted to message Yuri but I also didn’t want to die out in the wild and respawn at the city-center and have to deal with the guards. I especially didn’t want to get arrested and have to roleplay being a prisoner for the rest of my time here.
“You, Lead us?” Ponch’s eyes looked watery, as he clenched a fist and rested it on his chest.
“Yeah I mean I got this partial map that goes a bit farther out, I can lead us that way.”
Temporary ability [Serial Killer] has morphed into [Monster Sympathizer]
[Monster Sympathizer] (Passive) (Unique) (Legendary)
You and your party deal x4 damage to Players and NPCs
You and your party deal 0% damage to Non-Undead Monsters
Can make parties, raid groups, and guilds with monsters.
Can enter monster nest, dungeons, and cities without being marked hostile
Every time a player is killed by a member of your party there is a low chance to increase a random attribute by 1
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This ability didn’t hold the ‘temporary’ prefix like my other two. Instead it had a little lock in front of it. I added all of the Swinelings to my party, and it became a raid group once I added all twenty-three. We made our way to a small abandoned mining camp against a mountain that Poncho’s mate remembered the location of. Her eyes held a sharpness to them, she was far more intelligent than the other Swinelings. Demonstrated by the fact that only she remembered how to get to this abandoned mining camp. The more we talked to each other the more I felt I could understand them, and they could understand me. Towards the end of our few mile walk I felt like I could interpret snorts and squeals like it was a second language I knew.
I don’t know what I was expecting the mining camp to look like but it wasn’t a dump like this. There were only three still standing buildings in the area, and it was a stretch to call them still standing. The least collapsed one was a some sort of tavern if I were to guess based on the main room having a large bar. No furnishings remained besides some broken apart chairs. I told my piggy friends to watch my back while my character slept and logged out to talk to Yuri. I remained in full dive mode. Returning to my blank sterile room and contacting the Swapper.
[Connected]
“How’s it hanging Mr. ’I’m the best pvper in the system’ You get sent to respawn that quick?” Yuri chuckled. I laughed back then waited for him to open the files I sent over just before calling him. We both sat in silence for a few minutes as he sped through the clips my pod AI had cut for me. “Geeze dude, that first one is really fucking dark…Oh wow you just burned everyone?” As he jumped around the video on his screen. “Damn you really got more than ten of them, well the pod is yours, I’m super surprised you didn’t get tossed into jail. I spent three days in the dungeon for stealing, Cozied up to an NPC priest and was able to get released into his ‘care’, had to help him read some last rights for murderers.”
“Any of the overachiever rewards for the burning tavern?” I asked hopefully
“Yeah...I could probably swing for an additional ten. We will count the fire as fourteen kills and that’s being pretty generous. But it's still open ended all the way if you wanna score more, this is for another client and I trust his credits more than I trust this bag I have to shit in. What kinda build are you running man? You are going to have some fucked up Role Quests.”
“What’s a Role Quest?”
“Okay, so you know how your class is generated by your starting abilities right? I bet you have something like Evil Fire-Mage right?” My class last I checked was called [Despicable Arsonist].
“Yeah something like that…”
“So you get abilities by how you play, your abilities morph by how you play, and you get new stat bars by how you play. All of these things are calculated into the name of your Class, once you have three abilities fully locked in- no longer saying temporary you have your Class, and some additional stats or abilities are generated by that. Sometimes it ‘synergizes’ your abilities and slightly changes them to fit better, that's usually a good thing. After that it’s much harder to change what your Class is or functions like. You’ll have options when you go up tiers but they will all stem from your locked in class. ”
“After you get your class squared away you’ll get a special animated video introducing you to the class, race, and starting skills. Then you get another video telling you your Role. Your role affects your starting location, equipment, and NPC relationships. You’ll also get Role Quests, these are quests that the AI has generated for you based on your Role.”
“This sounds a bit confusing..” The ability [Monster Sympathizer] no longer said temporary and had a grayed out lock next to it in my character sheet, this was going to be a permanent core aspect of my character in Yonder. I had drove the momentum of [Murderer] into [Serial Killer], and now into [Monster Sympathizer]. I had a legendary aspect to my class, a unique one too. Meaning I was the first person to ever have this ability. It was usually something to celebrate. But this was so much more different than [Serial Killer]. I didn’t even really want [Serial Killer] after not being able to damage these low level mobs. I guess this was just the cost of doing business. I still had [Arsonist’s Flame] giving me an aspect of ‘evil fire mage’ as Yuri put it. I also had my [Gourmet] ability from eating so many kebabs. I hadn’t really pushed the momentum on that ability at all. I really needed to start hammering away at some production stuff. Maybe I could flip that into a chef of some sort? Evil-Fire-Mage-Monster-Loving-Chef? I’m sure eating delicious food is a big thing in Yonder. I couldn’t be the only person taking advantage of the opportunity to eat something besides nutrient paste for once. The grizzled man continued talking.
“Here take me for example, my class is Snow Knight Stasher. When I got into the game I instantly bought full plate armor for all 100 silver I had, but I also stole a hardened leather vest from the shelf of the armor shop. When I realized you couldn’t put stolen items in your inventory the same place you stole them I put the vest on then donned on the plate armor I had purchased. My class became [ Protected Thief ] and I got a stealing ability and a stat for heavy armor. I left the hardened vest on even though it wasn’t getting stat bonuses from it, and eventually I got a rare ability that let me layer Light, Medium, and Heavy Armor. After stealing and using my full plate as a place to loosely hide things it transformed my ability again leaning into the heavy armor aspect as well as the stealing aspects. I then picked up some smuggling quests and a grimoire, I used ice magic until I eventually got a third ability. By the time I got out I was a Snow Knight Stasher.”
“What does this have to do with Roles and Role Quests?”
“I’m getting to it man, you could look this stuff up yourself you know?”
“Sorry, sorry. Go on.”
“So when I got into the game I already had a job as a bodyguard for a High-Magus, but this NPC uses her position to get me into places full of relics and magic items, she has this other player with her as well that can craft nearly functional fakes, I had a couple quests with her where I would smuggle out artifacts to her carriage, where Big Huey used his ability to copy them. I smuggle them back in and boom, role quest complete. After a while another player who had some quest to figure out what was going on killed her. Haven’t gotten a new one since but Big Huey has so I'm sure I’ll get another one eventually. Got some pretty cool rewards from it, and after everything happened me and Big Huey hit her vault and snagged all the items she had us steal. Sold off some of my rewards and all of that loot and swapped for credits, been living pretty cushy since.”
“So the game will place you somewhere in Yonder based on your class, and give you quests?”
“Yeah but you can always carve your own path if you don’t want to work for some lunatic NPC, standard adventurers guild type groups out there, you can find plenty run by NPCs or Players. Also you can always just grab a fishing pole and start fishing. You’ll eventually get a stat block for it and maybe some skills, but it's much much slower and doesn’t even always happen. This tutorial really defines your character in the game.” I had a super ominous class name. I didn’t want to be placed in some evil fire mage circle.
“Alright thanks Yuri, I’m going to get back to it.”
“Give em hell kid.”