Onyx led me to a small alcove of the gorge that seemed much darker than the other areas. He did a quick spin holding out his arms.
“Welcome to the Dark Enclave.” he exclaimed seeming rather proud of himself, I was still unsure with these Elemental expressions, but that seemed to be the case.
I had a quick peek around, it didn’t really seem like much. Not a tiny cave, but neither was it particularly big, considering the size of Onyx. There wasn’t much around, a workbench of some form and a pool of shadows, apart from that there was some large dreamcatcher-esque accessories hanging about.
Noticing the lack of excitement in me Onyx gave out a quick sigh.
“Yes, I know it’s nothing grand anymore, we’ve been relegated to this little cave since our numbers have diminished over the eons past. All the good places have been inhabited by the larger Elemental groups.” He explained seeming rather dejected yet also reminiscent.
“Anyway on to the exciting stuff!” Onyx continued, perking up a fair bit “Let’s find you a shadow pet and teach you how to look after it and upgrade it!” He gave a broad stoney grin, noticeable even on the rather rigid Elemental face, it wasn’t pretty.
Onyx nudged me toward the shadowy pit with his massive obsidian claw and began to explain how getting a shadow summon works, a quest popped up as it started.
Quest: Enter the void and bond with a shadow summons.
You’ll have to prove your worth to get a shadow summon on your side.
Current Progres 0/1 bonded shadow summon.
Reward: 120xp.
Would you like to accept the quest? Yes / No
I accepted the quest, again little choice if I wanted to get the most out of my passive.
“Well, basically.. We throw you into the void and if you come back that’s great, hopefully you’ll form a bond with one of the monsters there.” He paused, thinking to himself, “That’ll become your shadow summon, simple!” He finished.
I felt like there was a big issue with this explanation. I mean seriously, throw me into the void? Whats the void? Also IF I comeback, this seemed dodgy as hell!
“Urm, I don’t want to sound rude.. But what the fuck kind of explanation in that..?” Feeling a bit pissed off and a bit of dread at the same time.
“For starters what is this void? How do I get back? And how would I make a bond?” I spluttered rather quickly trying to suppress my short-fuse.
Onyx floated over slowly and placed his giant claw on my shoulder and gave a deep sigh, before hurling me with ease into the void portal, before bellowing after me.
“Don’t think so much about it, it’ll be fine!”
“Mother fu---” I tried to scream as I hit the pit of shadows or void portal, but was abruptly cut off as the freezing cold shadows ripped the voice out of me. I instinctively closed my eyes and tensed my already rigid body as much as possible.
When I opened my eyes barely a moment later everything was a shade of purple, a purple so deep it was almost black. But I wasn’t in the Dark Elemental cave any longer I was now stood in a vast forest with insanely large trees, like seriously how old would they have to be to seem like articulate lorries stacked end to end and out of sight.
These giant Elm like trees had an almost obsidian bark and must of shot up a hundred feet or so before splitting into a set of branches that could have easily been trees of their own. Covered in thick purple leaves, and I mean purple not just tinted, but like someone had painted them that way.
After finally pulling my eyes away from the colossal trees around me I finally thought about where I was and that this is full of monsters. I doubted they’d be high level as I’m only level one, but it was best to be wary. Then it hit me, I’d not had any combat training yet, how am I supposed to fight anything?
“Onyx - You. Are. A. Dick.” I enunciated probably a little louder than I should.
The previously silent forest started to stir into life, the unnoticed purple and black bushes ruffled and scampering feet could be heard from several directions, crunching sticks and other things under heel.
I’d obviously startled something..
Or told them lunch is here..
After several seconds it all went back to silence, but now it felt eerie and unnatural, I floated there looking around me almost jumping at shadows, which was pretty ironic considering the place was basically a realm of shadow.
Suddenly from behind me without making a sound I was rushed, razor sharp claws tore through my rocky exterior, which friggin’ hurt, seriously friggin’ hurt!
I screamed out in both shock and pain, I thought this was meant to be a game. Nothing should hurt that much. A health bar popped up in the top left of my vision, I’d lost a good 10% of my health, not good.
I stumbled forwards, if I’d had legs I would of probably tripped over my own feet. I span around trying to find the attacker, but they seemed to of disappeared back into the brush. Quickly I tried to formulate a plan, the gamer brain taking control, first I hovered as high as I could and moved over to the closest tree and pushing my back against the dark bark. -It used surprise attacks so covering my back would limit where it could attack from.
To my surprise a small growl echoed around me, as a small cat, fox.. Thing, sauntered out from behind another tree twenty feet ahead of me, obviously after losing the element of surprise it now thought it could take me in a straight up fight, which it probably could.
As I looked closer a name appeared above it and a level.
Shadow Fennec - Level 6.
“What the fuck!” I exclaimed, five levels above me as my first fight, seems fair.
The Shadow Fennec was the size of a medium dog, about half a meter to the shoulders, and about a meter long, though this was extended by the long furry tail. It generally looked like a normal Fennec Fox, a small cat like face though with a small protruding snout with a slightly out of proportion mouth full of razor sharp teeth and massive ears on top of its head each about the size of the rest of the head sticking up like half diamonds.
But it had some quite obvious differences, it was dark black, like black hole black, with small dark purple markings. The tips of the ears seemed serrated with the way the hair stood on end ready to stab or cut it’s enemies. A similar set of the serrated hair protruded from it’s shoulders like a pauldron of stalagmite similar to my own. Last but not least was the tail, the same spiked blades of hair adorned this turning the fluffiness into a spiked mace, yet still keeping its ability to bend. To top it all off a small flicker of shadowy flame sprung forth from the spiked areas, which I noticed were all marked dark purple.
Pretty intimidating for a first fight, even if it was small and sort of cute. It still looked like a death machine.
“Maybe it’ll leave if I stay up here out of reach,'' I thought to myself out loud, still a little confused by my own voice.
“Huh!? You’re gonna hide up there you little bitch?” I heard in an almost stereotypical japanese delinquent style, like you see in anime, though it didn’t seem as gruff, it was actually almost noble sounding.
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I looked down at the Shadow Fennec in amazement, it could speak. That’s cool, monsters can speak, though that would make killing them a little harder. I imagined slimes in my mind, the typical weak RPG monster new players would level on, but they’d be begging for their lives.. It sent shivers up my spine.. Do I have a spine? I shook my head, I needed to get back on the problem at hand.
I thought for a quick second before remembering the ranged skill I had. With a quick thought I focused on summoning my Dark Shard. A surge of power shot from my chest down my arm and into my palm where a sharp chunk of black stone floated, it was about the size of a large spear head and similar in shape.It was coated in a fog of dark purple emanating as an eerie glow. At the same time my mana bar popped up drained by almost a quarter, expensive spell.
I threw it as hard as I could at the Shadow Fennec, it was caught slightly off guard but managed to dodge most of the attack, just a slight graze across it’s cheek. Which did a small amount of damage as a health bar popped up above it, with barely anything shaved off of it.
The Shadow Fennec snarled at me as it wiped it’s cheek with paw full of claws that were still dripping with my purpley blood, essence lava? I’m not sure what It was really, I’ll just go for blood, even though I’m a rock.
A ping in my brain told me that my cooldown on Dark Shard had finished, it was only five seconds between each use of the spell.
I readied another Dark Shard with the same surge of power flowing to my hand at breakneck speed, another quarter of my mana bar disappeared, though it had already regenerated a small amount from my first shot.
Again I hurled the shard as hard as I could at the Shadow Fennec, and to both our surprise it actually hit it square in the forehead, doing a massive amount of damage, critical hit I guess.The Shadow Fennec’s health bar raced down to just below half health.
With a whelp and a growl the Shadow Fennec shook its head to clear what I guessed would be stars in its eyes.
“Not bad for a whimpy rock I guess. Hmm, maybe you’ll do I’m fed up of this forest.” it pondered for a second before continuing. “I take it you’re here to get a shadow summon, it’s been far too long since one of your kind has come through here, I thought you’d gone extinct. If you let me kill things and feed me well, while showing me the far reaches of this world I’ll join you.” the Shadow Fennec finished with a snarl and shooting daggers at me with it’s eyes. “But don’t bore me, or I’ll eat you.”
A pop-up appeared
“Do you want bond with Violet as your first Dark minion?”
Yes / No
Followed by a statsheet.
Name
Violet
Shadow Fennec
XP
332/860
The Shadow Claw
Level
6
180/180 HP
Sex
Female
120/120 MP
Strength
12
22-26 Physical Damage
Dexterity
20
12 - 15 Magic Damage
Intelligence
11
7 Armour
Wisdom
10
2 HP/5s Regen
Constitution
9
3 MP/5s Regen
Skills
Shadow Fox Fire (fires 3 shadow flames at an enemy)
Stealth (sink into the shadows becoming invisible)
Lacerate (tear at the enemy, chance to inflict bleeding)
0 Stat points left
I quickly nodded and clicked accept.
Violet was strong, I was really lucky she was bored of life in the void, I wonder how long she’d been there she made it seem like eons, but she was only level six, I didn’t want to piss her off so left it for now.
Another notification popped up.
Quest complete, you’ll now be removed from the void. Talk to Onyx for your reward.
Seeing Onyx reminded me of how pissed off I was at that damnable hunk of rock, though it turned out okay, it was still a dick move to throw me in like that.
--
Then just like that we were back in the Dark Enclave, the teleport was a little disorientating, more of the quick change in scenery than anything else as I wouldn’t notice I’d even been teleported if my eyes had been shut.
“Oh, that was quick, you’re already ba--” Onyx burst into a graveled splutter at the site of Violet.
“The.. Shadow Claw.. I’d never.. of guessed to see you.. Of all shadow summons here...” Onyx carried on still stuttering the words.
He looked at me, in a very obvious disbelief, either I was getting really good at reading the elemental expressions, or that was a lot of disbelief.
“You, bonded with... The Shadow Claw?” Pausing for a second to look me over.
“I can hardly believe it. Never in all the eons has she agreed to bond with anyone and many have tried and died, so why you?” The look of disbelief slowly giving way as the words spilled out.
“She was bored.” I answered shortly with a smug grin on my face, still unsure what was so great about a level 6 minion.
Onyx looked to each of us and back to the other several times. Before letting out a rumbling rock laden belly laugh.
“Well grind me to gravel, you pair are two shadows cast from the same boulder.” They chuckled this as the last of the belly laugh trickled off.
“Anyway.” Onyx let out a little cough to bury the last of its laughing.
“Since the quest is done, here’s your reward.”
A box appeared in front of me.
Congratulations quest complete. You’ve received 120xp.
Another box appeared.
Congratulations you’ve reached level 2!
“Now to move onto the next task.. Upgrading The Shadow Claw and making sure she’s in tip top condition!” They stated this with a tone of a school teacher, it was actually a little belittling, but at least I was going to be told what to do this time, I think…
“Oh, it seems you leveled up, I’ll let you sort that out quickly. Then we can proceed with the Shadowcraft.” They prompted, before floating off to check on the Shadowcraft bench.
I brought up my stats screen with a mere thought and began to plan out how I was going to level and what sort of build I’m going in for. Noticing I had 5 stat points to spend this gave me quite a lot to work with and considering Violet was a stealthy Rogue style character I had a few choices.
I could also go down a stealthy path this would allow us to sneak around and dispatch enemies before they even knew what was happening. The downside being if we got caught out we didn’t have any survivability and would soon be dead.
Another option would be a front line tank, this would allow me to take all the ‘aggro’ all the ire of the enemies onto myself leaving Violet to freely sneak up behind them and dish out lots of damage without needing to worry about being hit back. Though this means I would take a lot of damage myself and so far I didn’t have a way to heal my injuries
There was also the option of going down a magic or trap route so that I could seal the enemies movement and we could pick them off before they could do any damage to us. This also left us vulnerable to being swarmed and quickly dying if things didn’t go to plan.
Or a little bit of everything, not something I’d recommend usually as your stats are stretched so thin you’re not really great at anything in particular. Though I could sway more towards one build than the others if need be.
Oh wait, shit, I don’t even know how to get skills. I guess I would have to look for someone to teach me, the games classless system left you open to be able to play however you wish, but it did leave you in the predicament of potentially making a terrible build due to the sheer overwhelming amount of paths you could take which could be ever so confusing.
“Isn’t there a wiki or game guide somewhere..” I sighed to myself thinking of what to do next, depending on how to get skills could change how I pick my class.
“Onyx?” I questioned.
I received a grunt in acknowledgment, so I proceeded to ask him about the skills system.
“So, where do I get new skills?” I mumbled, feeling rather stupid about the question, but hey I didn’t have a clue.
“Hmm, well that’s a tough question. See depending on the skill type you want.” They stated.
“So physical skills like attacks and the like are found through sheer practice, though you could ask someone to help teach you to get better quicker, the more you practice the stronger they become.” They continued on - surprisingly helpful considering.
“Then you have Magic, which for the most part you’ll have to learn the basics, then you’ll be able to learn or create new magic as you get more proficient.”
“Lastly there are Passive skills and Title related skills, like the ‘Elementals Boon’ that we inherently have this is a passive skill that doubles our base stats. You can earn both types of these by reaching certain conditions, such as reaching certain stats or completing feats etc. but that’s up to you to figure out.” They finished with a triumphant pose.
“So are you ready to proceed?”
“Not quite yet sorry, thanks for the info though!” I replied before looking back to my stats screen.
Weighing the options of how best to proceed with this newfound information made life plenty easier. It’s an all-rounder build, but based mainly on the stealth aspect.
With that settled, I proceeded to dump two points into dexterity, two into constitution and one into wisdom. I decided I’ll go work on some physical skills first and try to find some magic later on.
Name
Jon Dark
Dark Elemental
XP
55/220
No Title
Level
2
240/240 HP
Sex
None
100/100 MP
Strength
8 (+8)
15-20 Physical Damage
Dexterity
8 (+8) +2
8 - 12 Magic Damage
Intelligence
7 (+7)
22 Armour
Wisdom
7 (+7) +1
7 HP/5s Regen
Constitution
9 (+9) +2
5 MP/5s Regen
Skills
Dark Minion (summon your shadow minion -locked)
Dark Shard (conjure and throw a stone imbued with darkness)
Elementals Boon (doubles all base stats)
0 Stat points left