I was asking people if I could join them but they all were saying things like I’d slow them down or that I only wanted to leach experience.
Since I didn't want to fight by myself during the day because it took me the same amount of time to take down a monster with my ambush skill whether day or night, so I planned to use my crafting skills with the loot I had gathered during the hunts, rabbit and fox meat for cooking and diverse plants to increase foraging and test out Alchemy.
For alchemy you needed to softly boil specific herbs with water until a syrup formed and then you tried it to see what effects it had. Performing alchemy slowly increased the wisdom stat, the higher the easier it is to learn new skills and less chance for failure in skill execution and crafting.
Night had come and I was out of ingredients so time to 'hunt'. I continued hunting foxes until I was used to the spear. Foxes were no match against the spear and I didn't have to ambush as much I used to.
“If I aggro a couple of foxes and then run with 'wind walking' I could lead them into a trap and ambush them. Ok let's observe the terrain and see where the perfect place would be.”
I started setting up an ambush location, a large boulder I could run around then some branches to block their vision of me on top of the stone, then all that's left is to jump them.
I tried it 3 times and I could kill 3 foxes by ambushing them at a time. Sadly I was out of mana regenerating plants and I only had 1 mana potion that I successfully made with alchemy. I wanted to try killing wolves because they gave much, much more experience than foxes but were at least 5 times deadlier. Wolves did hunt in packs.
When I reached level 14 I had advanced my 'pole weapon mastery to 80% level 1 and had a 5% increase in damage'. I had completed some of my objectives but I still hadn't found friendship or someone to party with.
I had tried my hand at fighting wolves and it was doable, it just took so much time to kill them it wasn't worth it hunting solo. Sure my skills level up and I’m really ecstatic getting stronger. But it was getting kind of lonesome.
It was daytime so I was busy cooking and testing new alchemy recipes. I don't know if i'm special or crazy but I think it's rather fun testing the limits of my body. Alchemy fits me perfectly since I get to try different types of potions on myself.
Alchemy is really hard to advance, mostly because it takes a long time to reduce concoctions to proper potions but even then you don't know if you've succeeded before you've had a sip yourself.
“Is he a masochist?”
“Why is he poisoning himself?”
“I've seen that dude sitting here a couple times already, it really smells bad if you get closer to him.”
Yeah, yeah. Alchemists are a peculiar bunch I give you that. I'm actually the only one in this town who knows alchemy. I've tried selling my potions but because my low level they mostly got more cons than pros.
Like the mana potion I've made: +20 mana but it poisons you and you lose 15 health per minute for 15 minutes.
No sane person would buy these potions I make. A secret only I know is that if you drink 2 the poison increases to 20 per minute for 30 minutes but if you chuck down 3 then the mana increases to +50 and no increase in poison. One antidote is also enough to cure the poison, no matter how many potions you've drunk.
Nobody tries to drink more than 2 anyway. They get so scared. No courage.
I'm trying to figure out how to make antidotes but they all fail, guess I’m too low leveled.
“Hey, that's some crazy con you got going here, fella.”
Who does this rude voice belong to!?
Whoa, what an eccentric looking girl!
“Mister, why are you making potions? Don't you know they sell them in stores.”
“Of course I know that” I had actually sold a few health potions to the stores, sure it was only 50 copper each and the store sold them for 90 copper. A total rip-off but no player wanted to buy potions from me after they had tasted the mana potions.
“Then why aren't you out taking on quests to kill foxes or wolves?”
“Nobody wants an adventurer in their party, wait why am I telling you this? Scram!”
“No need to get agitated.” She stuck her tongue out, guess she was trying to act cute. She looked to be 16 to 18 maybe a whole 6 years younger than me.
“By-bye.”
I continued hunting foxes and an occasional wolf by myself until I had raised to level 16. After a failed ambush I was on the verge of dying and was forced to 'sleep' because I was all out of potions and plants.
When I had restored 70% of my health I started hearing sobbing noises coming form the other side if the large boulder, I tried to ignore it but it was almost impossible.
I had figured out how to use 'camouflage' and it had raised to 98%. So I took some branches with thick foliage and covered my body and climbed the boulder.
“Sob, sob. Huk, huk.”
It was a young girl crying and having caught a hiccup. It was painful watching the scene.
“Grr...”
She hadn't noticed that a wolf was approaching her. Was I supposed to let it kill her or should I help her...
Too late! The wolf jumped and it's fangs were just centimetres away from biting her neck, separating her head from her body. I had no way to save her.
{Boom!}
Vines burst from the ground wrapping around the wolf's mouth and the wolf made a flip and landed with it's back against the boulder. A loud whine came from the wolf and when it got back on it's legs it ran away with it's tail between it's legs.
“Sob, sob”
She was still sobbing and crying. What amazing persistence. I jumped down still using camouflage and sat down in front of her. I decided I would wait until she was finished crying.
I continued to regenerate my health.
The sobbing stopped and it was quit for a while.
“At last” I thought to myself.
“Waaaahh!” she suddenly screamed.
I opened my eyes using 'observation' to scan my surroundings but there was no enemy.
Weird. Why did she scream?
“Who or what are you!?”
“How can you sit so close to me like it's the most natural thing in the world!?”
“Yikes, I'm sorry to scare you like that I just didn't want to interrupt your crying, so I waited for you to finish.”
“That's not what I mean!” What did she mean by that?
“Why didn't my magic activate? Why aren't you covered in vines?”
“And what the hell are you wearing you, you... PERVERT!”
What did she mean by magic didn't activate? And who is she calling a pervert!
“I wasn't looking at you when you were crying, crying women don't turn me on. So I'm no pervert. And I was sleeping!”
She had calmed down a little and she stood up wanting to leave.
“I did wait all this time for you. It's the least you can do.”
I shook off the camouflage and stood up looking her in the face with pleading eyes and a smile.
“None of you buisn... It's you! The one who was making potions the other day.”
“Yes that was me. Do we know each other?”
“I'm the one that spoke to you asking why you were making potions, you conman.”
“Hmm...Aha! You're the eccentric looking girl.”
“So why were you crying?”
“...My team mates betrayed me. More like they killed me! They blocked me from going back to town to heal from a poison I had gotten from drinking a mana potion they had given me. They said they didn't need a useless magician who had no real offensive magic. They laughed at me as I was dying and were saying horrible things to me.”
She almost burst into tears again.
“Oops, that was a potion I made. Sorry. But they are really some despicable people playing this game going so far just because they didn't want to party with you.”
“What kind of magic did you use against the wolf? And what kind of reason could they have had for killing you?”
“Telling you won't make a difference anyway. You'll just reject me like them.”
“It's the opposite actually. I'd be happy having another person hunting together. I've been hunting solo all this time and it's pretty slow.”
“From what I saw earlier your magic is actually pretty useful and having you join me would probably be fun, don't you think?”
… She still won't believe me? Or is she just hesitating?.
“I''ll give you some mana potions, but you'll have to buy the antidotes from me. At lower than shop prices as a service.” I showed my biggest smile.
“Pfft, hahahaha!”
“You'll poison me for free and force me to buy the cure from you. Wow you're a bad person aren't you? Fine I'll join you.”
“I use 'nature' magic.” Nature magic? What did she mean by that, I thought all magic was nature inspired.
“I can see you're confused. It's not a very popular magic for 2 reasons: first is because of how useless it is early levels, has no real offensive or defensive power; and you can't buy the skill books in stores, you have to either make your own magic or find a skill book. I had read somewhere before I begun playing that there had existed magic that was no longer found in the game. I then spent most of my time in the library and the rest of the time I was buying books from players and NPCs that they didn't want.”
“That sounds like you really like to read. Most of the time we don't have any time to read real books any more as most are digitalised. You're a little of a romantic aren't you?”
I could see that her ears got red, cute little thing is blushing. Hehehe.
“Anyway, I never found a skill book but I found a magical 'recipe' of sorts from different books. From them I created some spells and I also learnt some normal spells when I got the magician class. I want to improve the spells I made and that's why you see me here now.”
I can't believe she did all that tedious work, reading through hundreds of books. And the first people she meet denounce her hard work so horribly. It can break someone’s spirit not being acknowledged.
“You've worked hard. I'm happy for you, that you've found something you like and you have the guts to follow through with it.”
She smiled at me and introduced herself as: 'Garnet'. I called her the 'eccentric mage' but I’ll never tell her that. She was level 13. But she told me that her Vine magic was already beginner 6. The benefit of passing the 5th level was that the vine got thicker thus harder to break free from. Her 2nd magic was a secret. The crazy thing was that she had gotten the blunt weapon mastery from killing raccoons and foxes after her team left her.
“I'm of the adventurer class. Since we're going to team up I can tell you that I'm actually a Guerilla. It's a hidden class I became, similar to adventurer but has some differences.”
“Aren't guerillas those soldiers who fight in the jungle and mountains? Did you use some kind of skill to get close to me?”
“Yes, that was a special skill called 'camouflage' where I blend in with nature to go undetected. I've actually just learned how to use it so I don't know everything about it.”
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“I've been hunting solo so far by relying on my 'Ambush' skill and I hope we can use it together to efficiently hunt faster.”
I then explained the plans and we went hunting. We didn't have to hunt as I used to because she could constrain the monster with her vine magic making them trip or cover their eyes. She had amazing control over the vine and it felt more like she was at my level. She might be stronger than me in a fight. I really picked up a useful team mate.
We got closer and we became friends in-game. We didn't talk about things outside the game since it didn't matter.
Now we hunted wolves at night with no problem and we were at the same level as the wolves.
“I think we're finished here. We should probably go somewhere else. A dungeon would be nice or some other unexplored area.” I said.
Garnet stared at me for a while.
“Instead of going where other people are hunting, shouldn't we get a quest first to earn some money?”
“The wolf extermination has been giving us the same amount and I'd like it if we could do something else than just hunt.”
Well I am an adventurer sort of so I guess we're not really suited for hunting all the time. We won't be getting any fame or recognition just hunting.
“It's time to hunt for fame now. I guess you have some sort of idea since you brought it up, Garnet?”
“I actually wanted to check out the library for interesting books and buy books from players and NPCs. When I was reading in the library I mostly focused on magic research but I sometimes stumbled upon books on caves and thought they might contain dungeons.”
“Do all your money go towards books? You're still wearing some of your beginner armor.”
“Magicians have it tough, tehe. ”
“How do you buy books from NPCs?”
“Normally I go to book stores or wait until someone comes to sell or donate a book to the library.”
When she does that I guess I can check up on my old employer or my teacher, Norman. Wait a minute. I think I'm rather friendly with the people I delivered to so maybe I could ask them if they had any books.
“Hey Garnet! Won't you come with me to town? I might be able to help you get some books.”
“Sure, where do we go?”
“The furniture store”
HA! The look on her face, priceless.
{Cling}
“Hello, how may I help you?”
It wasn't the old storekeeper at the counter but a younger man. I guess it's his nephew.
“I'm looking for the owner, I used to work here and just came back to town.”
“Oh. So you are the one who helped my uncle when I was away. Thank you.”
“UNCLE!”
“Stop shouting, you'll embarrass us in front of the customer!”
“What is it?!”
They were both yelling now, forget about embarrassing it was funny.
“Hello owner!”
“Oohh if it isn't my former employee, Malice.”
“I'm happy you're back. Come for more work? Too bad, I wont employ you.”
“I came to say hello since I'm back and have a favour to ask of you.”
“Ask ahead, If I can help then I shall.”
“It's my companion who has a request actually. She wants to know if you have any book you might part with.”
“Or if you could introduce us to any of your regular customers who are book collectors?”
As luck would have it he was collecting books. But when Garnet went through them she realised they were all mostly related to nobles, economy and furniture. When Garnet began her search for unknown magic and clues to it in books she had gained a valuable skill. Valuable for adventurers actually but I really didn't want to learn it, which is why I never went to the library. Book identifying was the skill, with it she didn't need to read the whole book and using the skill gave her a more detailed summary than normal identifying. It could also show if the book contained a skill or information pertaining skills and dungeons.
Garnet spent 4 whole weeks in the library only going out to buy food and items. She told me that after reading books there for a week she sometime helped a player or NPC find a book and then she got a job as a library assistant. She read and got paid for it, sometimes helping rearranging books, working at the counter or helping people find books. She had gotten the skill after 2 weeks and was already at beginner level 8.
The shopkeeper introduced us to some of his friends and regular customers and from a couple of days searching, Garnet had bought 3 books. One was a skill book with a prerequisite of knowing the Book identification skill, it was the 'deciphering' skill which enabled her to interpret signs and complicated texts.
The other two were fiction biography on adventures. Garnet told me they had clues and directions for dungeons and unknown areas but that the monsters described inside were of at least level 40. Right now we were only strong enough to hunt kobolds which occupy the level 20 to 35 range and goblins who can be a bit over level 50.
Three. That is the range of our options right now. We go hunt in a known dungeon, we try to find a dungeon or... Did I say 3? Well there's always another option. Wait, I got it. 3 or we go on a boat and explore the sea. This idea got shot down as soon as I mentioned it. Garnet thought it was a ridiculously stupid idea to go on the sea without any clues on where to go. She also said she wouldn't want to spend such a long time alone and that we should find some more people before we do it.
“Don't you want any attack skills Malice? Are you satisfied relying on your ambush skill all the time?”
“I guess I do want a skill I can use during a fight.”
“Shouldn't you buy a skill book then? Or train at the warrior guild?”
“Look here, most skills you can buy are pretty crappy and the better ones might cost a couple hundred gold. To learn a skill I at least have to have high fame since I'm not a warrior.”
“Garnet you just gave me a good idea, I should see my teacher. He might give me a skill or at least a hint.”
“Who's your teacher? From the dojo you train in?”
“No silly girl. He's the one who gave me my class.”
“Want to bet if you can recognise who it is?”
“No.
So we to look for Norman.
As usual he was standing in a corner sleeping, not moving all day makes it seems as if he's part of the shops décor.
“Teacher! I'm glad i've found you. If you're free why don't you come with us for a bite to eat and some drinks.”
“Malice, have you decided to change classes?”
On the way to the restaurant I introduced Garnet and old what i've been doing so far. He was a little disappointed I had only come so far but he also understood the pains of the adventurer class.
Over drinks and snacks he told us some stories of his so called adventures. I tried to hear if he told of some dungeon, treasure or offensive skill for adventurers but he never got into details as such. I could see Garnet listening closely, she might have fallen for the magician with unusual magic.
“So teacher, I actually wanted to know if you know of any offensive skills I might learn? It's no problem if I can finish a fight with ambush and some attacks but it's hard fighting multiple opponents at the same time.”
“Didn't I tell you before that patience was the most important thing for people similar to us?”
“Well show me your progress and I'll see what I can do for you.”
After having a look at my skills he sighed until he blew out the candle beside him. That can't possibly be good.
“You are a little too arrogant to be talking like that, Lil'ice.”
“I'm sorry teacher but I am sure there is more to being a guerilla than you have casually explained.”
“I'm not asking you to teach me but to at least give me a hint on how to learn one or if there even is one.”
“Well seeing that you have a companion now I guess I can enlighten you. Seeing you two reminds me of myself you know.”
“I'll give you this diary. I and my companion wrote in it separately on our journeys.”
You have received an item 'Diary of two'
This is unusual, pop up windows only come out when it's related to a quest. Might this be a part of a quest? Maybe the requirement was to talk with him when I was in a party with a magician who's registered as a friend. I whispered to Garnet while handing her the book.
“I hope you'll find it interesting. Well it's time to end the day, come back when you have understood what it means to be a guerilla.”
As per Garnets request we went to the library and shops to stock up on supplies and equipment. For equipment we aimed to buy high durability items, this was because we didn't know anyone who knew the repair skill and since we were on our way to a dungeon there were no Blacksmiths nearby.
She bought a couple books, I didn't know if they were for fun or for information. I stocked up on some foodstuff so I could cook meals if our satiety went down. I also bought some things for alchemists that you couldn't find in the wild but there wasn't much to buy since I had such a low mastery of the craft.
All stocked up and we went to the dungeon. We decided to go for the closest dungeon were we could survive in. It had 3 floors with ordinary kobolds and some goblins at the first floor. The other 2 floors were inaccessible to us before level 35ish.
It was a popular dungeon with pretty crappy loot, some monsters had weapons but if you tried to use it in battle the probability to hurt yourself out-scaled the ability to hurt your enemy. Lucky for me was that on the 2nd level there were mushrooms growing and on the last level there was a stream where green things grew. I didn't know what grew there only that there was some vegetation growing.
On our way there we could see people returning from the dungeon, some were half dead; probably went to the last floor, some were sad but unhurt; I bet the durability went to 0 and their items broke and normal people chatting away.
When we got to the entrance there were some people who were buying loot from others, probably those of the merchant class. Others were asking to join parties advertising their level and class. Some were looking for specific classes, well mostly clerics. It didn't look as if us 2 were going to find people to join. We abandoned the idea to party with others on the first floor, we are confident we can beat level 30 monsters by ourselves. With Garnets spells and the ambushes we make we'll manage.
“Garnet. We can sell the cheap loot to the players outside and focus on keeping the more expensive things for later.”
“Yeah sure but what are we gonna do about our weapons durability?”
“Don't worry, I've got barehanded mastery that I'll use on this floor and switch to the spear when we go deeper.”
“I can always use a weapon I find if it's needed.”
“I bought a cheap mace to get some kills, I'm not giving all the kills to you Malice!”
“Then let's go!”