NAME
Jeremiah, L.
CLASS
Ranger
LEVEL
18 (15%)
GOLD
4,015
STRENGTH
10
DEXTERITY
35 (18+17)
WISDOM
9 (6+3)
AGILITY
33 (20+13)
CRAFTING SKILLS
Cooking (1)
SPECIAL SKILLS
N/A
ACTIVE SKILLS
Multi-Shot (11),
Quickdraw (9),
Ranger's Mark (4)
PASSIVE SKILLS
Tracker (8),
Resolve (6),
Bone Piercing (5),
Analyze (1)
MAIN-HAND
Viper Pistols (7U)
[+5 DEX]
OFF-HAND
N/A
HEAD
Bullhide Hat (10U)
[+5 DEX, +3 WIS]
CHEST
Shackleford Vest (12C)
[+7 AGI]
LEGS
Gnoll Hunter's Leggings (12C)
[+4 DEX, +3 AGI]
BOOTS
Steel Toe Boots (10C)
[+3 DEX, +3 AGI]
Doing the little fetch quests and killing the trash mobs around Harehill had started to add up. Every quest was an additional bit of XP that moved us farther and farther up. In just a few short weeks, I had leveled up twice. Level 18 had brought some advantages with it. I had failed to account for the energy drain that my lack of Wisdom was causing. With the level, and therefore power, of my Multi-Shot increasing over time, the energy cost did as well. There was a point in late-February where I was no longer able to shoot Multi-Shot more than twice an hour. After increasing my Wisdom, I was back to being able to fire it 4 or 5 times an hour without feeling like I was dead.
Additionally, Level 18 brought along with it another passive skill. I chose [Analyze]. The skill would, theoretically, let me automatically see the critical points on the monsters I was trying to kill. I wasn’t sure how it would work as it was leveled up, but it definitely seemed like a solid upgrade.
Now, in early-March, we were doing better. Nick was up to Level 16. Theresa and Cain were Level 17 and Graham was Level 18 along with myself. For the first time since the Abilene Crusade assaulted Harehill and quite literally exploded one of my team, we had a solid lead on progress. We had been able to hook up two more Rabbitfolk villages to our trade network. As it turns out, we only needed the first two to have town-sized populations. Now, we had caravans running to four different locations daily. The Chiefs now knew each other and we could see the populations growing. The gear in the shops around town began to improve very slowly, but it was improving nonetheless.
Our intown alchemist at Harehill was now selling Level 10 health potions for 100 gold. This was remarkably better than the current market rate of 185 gold plus shipping fees. Graham thought of the genius idea to buy the health potions and resell them on the market. We sold them for 160 gold and pocketed the profit to put into the guild bank. Things were running smoothly. We were ready to expand and if Nick and Theresa were right, we had a lead on that as well.
Nick and Theresa were on a hunting expedition when they saw a campfire. Upon approaching, they were surprised to see it wasn’t a monster camp, but players. There were at least ten humans holed up in a camping lodge by Hubbard Creek Lake. Profile scans showed that the players were in the Level 12-15 range. This seemed to be where the state average was. Despite what felt like rapid leveling to me, I was falling behind. I was now only Rank 9,126 out of 298,910 players in Texas. The number one player was now Level 35.
“Jeremiah, they’re all holed up in that lodge. Me and Theresa saw a few sentries outside, but not sure on the total number.”
I nodded back to Nick.
Graham went ahead with me as I approached the guards at the door. One was a large black male carrying a pike, the other was a bald white male with a blonde mustache like Graham’s who carried a war axe. The black male spoke first. “Holy shit!”
Me and Graham put our hands up. The gesture was meaningless as my Quickdraw skill was now so high I could pretty much teleport my pistols to my hands at will. Still, the signal was clear. We came in peace.
This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it.
The two men stepped forward. “Y’all human?”
We looked at each other and Graham smiled. “Well, I sure hope so.”
The two guards stepped forward, each reaching out a hand that me and Graham took. “I’m Jackson, this is Bill. Nice to meet you.”
I smiled to Jackson. “Nice pike.”
“Thanks. Just got it. Welcome to Camp Hubbard.”
“There are a few more of us outside, would it be alright if I called them in? Didn’t want them getting hurt.”
They were suspicious, but so were we. No one had survived 5 months in this world without at least a few bad encounters with other people. “Sure. Slowly though.”
Graham nodded and waved them out. The three others stepped out.
Bill scratched his bald head. “Harehill Commonwealth? Kinda an odd name.”
I shrugged. “Hubbard Survivors?”
Jackson laughed. “It sounded cooler at the time. Come on in.”
They led the five of us inside. Both of the guards were Level 14, but I knew they could deal some damage if they needed too. Anything within 5 Levels was dangerous. As we walked inside the lodge, I was impressed. It was neat, clean, and well lit by candles and lanterns.
Jackson smiled. “One of the women here has 8 levels in Illumination Crafting. She makes these candles like they’re nothing.”
I nodded. “It’s impressive.”
Bill nodded. “I’ll take ya to Jerry.”
We walked up the stairs of the lodge to an office at the top of the stairs. We went down a corridor, hearing the sound of kids in one of the rooms. Young kids were rare. The 99% death rate during the start wasn’t fairly distributed across the age ranges. The very old and the very young were death traps and caused the deaths of many others. Only two kids below 12 had survived in Eastland.
We entered an office to see an overweight man with a long white beard who gave off the impression of Santa Claus in armor. “Welcome to Camp Hubbard, folks. I’m Jerry. How long ya stayin’?”
I gave a nod. “I’m Jeremiah, this Graham. Behind me are Nick, Theresa, and Cain. We weren’t planning on staying long, just wanted to talk to you.”
“Well, can I help ya?”
“We’re actually here to help you.”
“Uh oh.” The man gave a half smile and sat back in his chair.
“Why’s that?”
“Most dangerous words to Americans are ‘we’re from the government and we’re here to help’.” He grinned.
“Not like that. Certainly no government…well…not like the one we had.”
“Are the guild numbers true?”
“Huh?” I was confused.
“Are there really guilds with twenty thousand people?”
I gave a nod. “Yeah. They’re on a quest to divide up Texas amongst themselves.”
“I suppose y’all as well?”
“The five of us can’t really hold our own.”
Jerry tilted his head to the side. “So…why ya here?”
Graham stepped forward with his map. He had gotten a Cartography Crafting Skill of 4 and was able to make some pretty stellar works. He laid it out on the table with a smile.
Jerry raised an eyebrow and took a look. “Softpaw…62…Harehill…64….Junktail…30….Whispercreek…22. What’s this?”
“That’s the map of the Rabbitfolk villages we’ve adopted.”
“Rabbitfolk?”
“The friendly NPCs. Have you encountered any?” I wasn’t sure how much this guy knew.
“Yeah, we’ve met a few. Most of them have been rabbits, but we haven’t seen any in villages.”
“Most?” That was interesting.
“Mhm. When we got here, we ran into some Finfolk. They live on the other side of the lake, aren’t big fans of humans.”
I looked at Graham. We had been searching for more friendly factions, and it looks like we found our second. “That’s good information, thank you.”
Jerry gestured to the map. “What’s all this?”
“This is our trade network. We have trade caravans automatically running between these places daily. It’s a safe set of towns for us to grow and train and thrive in.”
He raised a bushy eyebrow. “What about the monsters?”
Graham shrugged. “From what we can tell, they don’t attack the caravans. We aren’t sure why, but the roads the caravans travel on are safe zones. We are assuming other players can though.”
Jerry nodded. “Could you send one of those things up here?”
“Why’s that?” I tried not to let my face show.
“We uh…we’re getting hungry. The goblins have been tearing up our fields and we can’t grow food. We’ve been fishing for food, but more and more people keep joining us and we are running out of ways to support ourselves. I’d like to buy any food your villages have off of y’all. The market prices are too high for us to afford.”
I nodded, looking at Graham before back at Jerry. “We aren’t here to sell anything. We are here on a recruiting mission.”
He leaned back in his chair. “Recruiting?”
Graham nodded. “Recruiting.”
Jerry squinted. “Why recruit us?”
“We have food, a safe area, and a trade network. We need people to work and contribute. We need workers and more combatants.”
Jerry sighed. “I uhm…we built this place, ya know? Me and a few others were on a fishing trip up here when it all went to hell. It took us months to get this zone safe. Since then, we’re up to 26 people who are just trying to make it through. They put my in charge because no one else wanted to be. Hell, I didn’t even want to be. Still, I can’t make them leave all their hard work behind. On top of all that, I'm not sure we want to get involved in whatever you need combatants for.”
I frowned. Of course they weren’t going to just up and leave. It was just like Eastland. “Alliance then?”
Jerry seemed intrigued. “Alliance?”
“We’ll send a trade van up here, and we’ll establish a defense pact. If you get attacked, we’ll come help. If we get attacked, y’all come help.”
Jerry gave a shrug. “That works for me.”
Graham sighed. This wasn’t what we were hoping for, but it was unrealistic to expect them to just come running for us. “Listen, sir. There are big groups coming by and swooping places up left and right. We are going to be absorbed at some point if we don’t stay together. You’re free to remain here and you’ll either get killed by creatures or sworn in to a major guild.”
Jerry frowned. “So why don’t y’all join us?”
“Because we aren’t starving.” Cain chipped in with his usual tone of voice.
Jerry didn't flinch at the comment. “We don’t know you. You can’t walk in here and say, ‘we have a safe zone so pack up and join us’.”
I shrugged. “That’s what we are doing.”
Jerry sighed. “Ya know, last night one of the kids went outside. We have a rule against leaving the lodge at night, but you know how kids are. His parents were asleep and the guards didn’t see him. He must have gone out a window. He went out, hoping to kill some monsters and level up like his dad. Since the zone shift, we’re in a Level 15 area. We found a this absolutely massive snake after tracking his footprints this morning. We noticed a lump in the middle of it and killed it. We ended up cutting out the kid from the body, but he was long dead. That was about…oh…3 hours ago? It’s been a long day already. The promise of a safe zone is…tempting. I’ll send Jackson and Bill with y’all to check the place out. If it turns out good, we’ll take a vote. That’s the best I can do.”
“That’s all we ask.” I shook his hand and walked out of the lodge. The group was happy.
We led Jackson and Bill to our horses stationed a half mile away from the lodge. Jackson whistled. “Horses? Where’d ya get these?”
Graham smiled wide. “We found a few. Then we gave them to a Rabbitfolk to take care of. Next day, that rabbit was called a Stable Master and she started breeding them. With how the game works, it only takes a month or two for a foal to turn into a full grown horse. We are expecting to have quite a few more horses soon. The idea is to trade them with one of the bigger guilds for things we can use later on. Downside is that they are eating a lot of food up.” Graham was proud of his horses.
------------------------
We led them down south to Harehill, a ride that took about four hours on horseback. As we arrived, Jackson and Bill were blown away. Several dozen structures stood strong and were surrounded by an the still under-construction stone wall. The builder-rabbit had been retitled as a Construction Master after he had given us a list several item recovery quests and we did them all. It was nice to see the game mechanics being fully utilized.
Jackson and Bill smiled as they walked into the tavern and were greeted by everything it had to offer. “5 gold for a beer? It’s like 26 on the market place!”
“All day, every day. You’ll see this lovely rabbit here is titled as the Evening Bar-Rabbit. There’s one for 6am-6pm as well. We also have music every day from 8pm-12am, courtesy of the Lute-Rabbit.”
Bill laughed as he swallowed his newly purchased beer. “You ever get sick of using the word rabbits?”
Cain snorted. “We would if we didn’t work so damn hard to get them.”
Jackson reclined back, propping his pike in his lap and his legs on the table as he drank his own tankard. “Ya know…I’m not sure about anyone else…but you have my vote.”