Chapter 4: Grinding
It had been three days since he had entered the game; and he still hadn’t completed the fetch quest he’d received from Agitha.
Of course he had spent quite a bit of time looking for Sophia and Alister; but he hoped that they were also looking for him. He was almost sure that if he stayed in the town for long enough, players would move on, and the crowd would thin. He’d be bound to run into them sooner or later. So for now, he was happy to get on with things, levelling up and completing minor quests.
The main thing that had been stopping him from completing Agitha’s quest, though, was the fact that the forest was in a PvP zone. The safe zone ended just past the lake – so he’d have to leave it if he wanted to get to the forest and obtain the wood. Aquila didn’t know if he wanted to risk going into no-man’s-land just yet, especially as he was alone.
Killing rabbits and shooting birds really only got him so far when it came to levelling up his combat skills. He had spent what had been his first real day in the game out in the fields of Novus Town slashing at wild rabbits and shooting at birds. The area seemed to be a training ground for many other players, especially because it was a safe zone. On more than one occasion multiple people were racing to attack a single rabbit and compete for exp, himself included.
There were also some who had spent the day at the lake, Aquila’s eyes were keen enough to see them in the distance, spending their time fishing upon the shores. It seemed like such a tranquil way to play the game, and although Aquila had no doubt that the skill would probably be useful for bartering and making money later down the line, it wasn’t something that he wanted to focus on just yet.
Aquila had run out of arrows that day pretty quickly; although he was usually able to find them and pick them up in the grass, sometimes other players got to them first. It turned out that dropped items were available to anyone in the game, and a missed shot meant that the arrow was counted as dropped.
The rabbits that he killed occasionally dropped loot too. Usually rabbit skin, sometimes a raw rabbit leg, and very rarely, a small amount of gold. One player claimed to have picked up a rabbit foot – but seemed to be an ultra rare drop. Rabbits weren’t the only thing that appeared in the fields. Deer could sometimes be seen bounded through the grass, as well as the occasional boar. Though he had never actually been able to take out a deer or a boar. They were much bigger; usually the targets for ranged attacks – and he was running low on arrows. Whenever he saw one, it was almost always taken out quite quickly by a wind blast or a fireball from one of the mages.
He had also discovered that mob loot dropped exclusively to the player who had done the most damage to the mob, for about thirty seconds. After that the loot appeared visible to every player and became free game. If nobody claimed it, it would disappear after a small amount of time. Aquila knew this because rabbit hides were appearing all over the fields, and disappearing soon after.
Whilst out grinding, Aquila had tried to strike up conversation with some of the other players who were out there too. This was mostly because he had run out of ideas about how else he could come across any kind of information about Alister and Sophia, and talking to players seemed to be the best way of hitting two birds with one stone – especially because the rabbits could often take time to spawn. He managed to make some small-talk, but nobody could give him any information about his friends.
‘Everybody in here is looking for someone they came with,’ a female half-elf had told him, ‘you might get lucky, but probably not. I, myself, joined the game with my twin sister. Should be easy to find – right – she looks exactly the same as me. But it turns out it’s much harder than you’d think.’
Halfway through the day Aquila decided to head to the town square to sell all the rabbit skins that had begun to accumulate in his inventory. The town square was much less crowded the second day, many people had decided to move on – starting on quests to gain exp, grinding or venturing out from the city to explore the land. Although less crowded, it was still a very popular gathering place and there were quite a few people running around chaotically. Aquila had spotted a guard loitering in the middle of the town square, though many other players seemed to be trying to talk to him too. Aquila approached the guard.
‘Okay, okay, easy there. I can’t answer all of your questions at once,’ said the guard.
‘Clans. Tell me about clans,’ a player called.
‘Can’t tell you about clans. Ask the Guide. Next question,’ the guard replied.
‘Where’s the blacksmith?’ another player screamed out almost before the guard had finished his sentence.
Aquila decided he wasn’t going to get anywhere with the guard; and thought it better if he move on. The shops and stalls around the town square were also populated with players, but Aquila managed to find a smaller, quieter stall in the very far corner. It was tended to by a young girl with silver hair and pointy teeth. One of the fae.
‘Hello,’ Aquila said to the girl.
‘Hi. How can I help?’
‘Well, I’m looking to sell items. I’m not exactly sure how to do that?’
The girl smiled, a bubbly heartfelt smile.
‘Just click on the trading button under my name tag,’ the girl remarked.
Aquila hadn’t noticed the trade button; not all NPCs had them.
‘Oh, I didn’t see that. Sorry. Anyway, I have quite a bit to sell – but I think most of it is junk anyway. Are you traders all the same, or do specific traders only buy certain items?’
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‘Generally most traders will buy any item,’ the girl replied, ‘but certain traders will pay more for specific items, and certain traders will pay less. Hopefully that makes sense. But if you can’t find the trader you’re looking for, you can always head over to the general store. They’ll buy all items at a pretty average price.’
The girl pointed to a large cobblestone building on the opposite side of the square, with grand windows and a set of double doors. Players were walking in and out – the place seemed to be popular.
‘What exactly do you sell?’ Aquila asked.
‘Mostly crafts. Dyes and what not, for decorating gear, and homes. Cosmetic stuff really.’
She might be exactly the trader he had been looking for. What else was there to do with rabbit skin after all. Aquila tapped the trade button under the NPC’s tag, with his finger. Two windows popped up. One showed the items that the NPC was selling and another showed Aquila’s inventory. As he looked at each item in the NPCs inventory, the buying price appeared above it. He saw the selling price hovering above his own items. Unfortunately his rabbit skins only sold for one gold each, so afterwards he ended up with an extra 40 gold – which wasn’t too bad, but for a day’s work he had expected more.
Aquila browsed through the rest of the stalls, hoping to find a few more supplies. He managed to buy three minor healing potions, some berries that were supposed to restore stamina upon consumption, and a coffee from one odd trader who tended one of the smaller stalls. Not only did Aquila think that the speed buff that the coffee provided might come in handy, especially because it stacked on his own racial speed buff, but he also like the taste of coffee in the game. He added most of the healing items to his quick select belt pretty soon after buying them.
He returned to continue grinding out on the fields around Novus Town, and spent the rest of the afternoon there. His light weapon skill had increased by two levels; and his overall combat level was two thirds of the way to the next level. His intuition had been right on the first day; the game did follow a natural day-night cycle, and before too long, the sun had set, and the night was upon the fields of Novus Town. As an elf, he had night vision – the dark didn’t bother him. However, the moon was out in full glory, casting pale light over the fields and the lake in the distance; so many other players could see pretty easily anyway. On top of that, red, blue and golden fairies buzzed around through the grassy fields, they were pretty to look at, and they also brightened everything up.
Because of this, he wasn’t the only player who had decided to stay out in the night levelling up, although there were significantly less players than there had been during the day. Aquila would have guessed that it had been pretty close to midnight when he first heard something out of the ordinary. A sharp cry in the distance. There were a few players who had been down at the lake, but suddenly they were running back up towards the hill, towards Novus Town.
Players were now moving to get a better look, to see what was going on. The lake was quite a walk away, so it took the players who had been fishing down there quite a while to properly be perceived as more than just shadows (even with his night sight people in the distance were still quite obscured). When the players who had been running from the lake got close enough, their player tags appeared above them, along with their health bars. One of them was at full health, but most of them were at half health or below.
‘Goblins! Goblins!’ they called, ‘HELP!’
Sure enough, the tags of the mobs chasing them appeared a few moments later.
Goblin
Level 5.
The creatures were short and green skinned, hunched over with spikes protruding from their backs, yellow eyes, and snarling claws and fangs. Most players had barely gotten to level 3, but the players who’d spent their time fishing at the lake were still level 1.
All of the players rallied together immediately as the goblins became more apparent and closed further in on the fields. Several fireballs were cast toward them, arrows flew through the air, and some people even ran forward and began slashing with their swords at the creatures. Aquila himself took out his bow and began firing shot after shot. It didn’t take long to kill the goblins.
No player died in the fields that night, or at the lake, but a few of them had cut it pretty close, scraping through with 3 HP. It served as a warning to players that even in safe zones, they weren’t completely safe.
Aquila retreated to the city not long afterwards. The city was mostly still active at night, though he wanted to try to figure out if there was a way to cook the rabbit legs he’d massed up throughout the day. He made his way to the town square and eventually plucked up the courage to approach a female player with pointed ears and tinted skin; a dark elf.
‘Umm, hi, excuse me, I kind of need help and was just wondering if maybe…’ Aquila tapped the girl on the shoulder.
‘Hello?’ the girl turned around and beamed, ‘of course I can help you. What do you need?’
‘I’m trying to figure out how to cook some meat I got while I was out killing rabbits today,’ Aquila replied.
‘Easy done. I know how to do it. But I’m going to need something in return.’
‘Something in return?’ Aquila rose an eyebrow, ‘can’t you just do it, you know, because you want to be a good person.’
‘Sorry. No. We’re all a little panicked and shaken – especially considering how events have unfolded over the past twenty-four hours or so. I, like every other player here, need to do what I can to survive. So if you want my help you’re going to have to pay me.’
‘How do I know you won’t just run away with my gold once I give it to you?’
‘You really don’t know for sure. The only thing you can do is trust me. I’m true to my word.’
Aquila huffed.
‘Fine, how much do you want?’
‘10 gold,’ the girl said.
‘For directions. Not a chance? Try again.’
‘9 gold.’
‘I’m thinking more like 5. Otherwise I just go ask another player.’
The girl waved to calm him down.
‘Fine. Fine. 5 will do.’
Aquila pulled up the trade window, put up 5 gold and accepted.
- 5 gold.
‘Thanks for that. Well, you’ll be happy to know that cooking your food is actually quite easy. But finding a place to cook your food; you’ll need to complete a quest for that. It won’t take long though – I did it in half an hour. Common, follow me. I’ll show you where it is.’
The girl began bounding off down the street. Aquila hurried to follow her.
***
The girl led him to a tavern that actually served some really good food; not that many actual players were eating there (though there were a few), they were mostly just NPCs. But Aquila could smell the cooked meals as he passed the outdoor seating area. The dark elf, however, didn’t take him to the main part of the tavern itself, but rather, to a back door that led to the kitchens, and told him to speak to the chef.
The quest wasn’t hard, just as the girl had said. All Aquila had to do was go and get a few things from someone on the other side of the city. Cooking was simple; he just needed to hold his food out over the flame in ovens. The flames were harmless. Sometimes the food burnt, but the chef told him that was part of having a low cooking level.
After he had completed the quest, he was rewarded with cooking exp and a few food items; as well as permission to use the kitchens whenever he needed. Aquila managed to find a small shabby inn to stay in that night, and it only cost him 5 gold. He was surprised to find that sleeping in the game was almost identical to sleeping in real life. The room wasn’t much, with crooked wooden floorboards, a hard mattress and a thick quilt to keep him warm. But before too long Aquila drifted into a deep and dreamless slumber.