Chapter 1
“Damn it all, why the hell did you have to aggro the patrolling mob?” I asked Doubleshot the Elvin hunter. The guy had repeatedly pulled aggro by attacking before the tank.
The whole group was standing at the graveyard of Keisachal the Capital city of the Humans. It was built on a large hill overlooking a natural harbor; this had enabled the Human Kingdom to prosper through trade and shipping. It was a beautiful city and the graveyard was lovely with white marble statues and flowers aplenty. Plus us newbs standing in the tight whites that the game allowed us to wear after we had died. We would have to run through town to the front of the dungeon to retrieve our gear which was automatically put outside of the dungeon when someone died. The city had guards stationed there to stop theft. It was just the shame of running through town. We would be mocked.
I waited for Doubleshot to answer but all he did was flip me the bird and then run off, I turned to the tank who had started this PUG but he just shrugged and said, “This happens in the starter dungeon, you will be lucky if you manage to finish the dungeon before you are capped out at level 6. Sorry man that is how she blows.” With that, he dissolved the group and we all began to make our way back to the dungeon to get our gear. My name is Ryan and I was just starting to play RealWorld the number one virtual reality game that all citizens had access to once they turned 16.
It was an escape from the “peaceful” world we lived in although that would not accurately describe Earth. There were no more wars, and no more countries as Armageddon had changed all that. The history is there, anyone can look it up so I won’t bother repeating history 101. The fact was that most of the world now lived in huge towers and each tower had pods in the living space in which citizens could plug into RealWorld.
And almost everyone did, there was not much choice, boredom, and nothing or gaming. The state now supplied everything housing, food, free education which was great but with the automation of everything, there was no work, so people had to do something. They did RealWorld, the most advanced artificial reality that had ever been made. In it people could become rich, they could farm or mine or become a lord or a lady. It beat the heck out of living in a 200-foot box with nothing to do but watched computer-generated bad movies.
I was a level 1 player with not much achieved in the game. I had just attempted my first dungeon and it was a huge failure, the hunter had been a butthead, the 2 DPS had been useless and the tank had tried but failed. As the priest my job was to keep the tank healed and throw an occasional heal out to the other DPS, Instead, I had spent my entire mana pool trying to keep the huntard and the two DPS guys alive after the huntard would pull aggro. I then had to listen to the rogue and the warrior getting all butthurt about my not healing them.
I had read the forums and planned out how to do the dungeon, I had chosen the healer class knowing that they were in demand and the demand would grow as the levels increased. What I had not read was how some of the other players were dips. Looking back I now sensed the hand of careful moderators culling the forums, making sure that the game sounded perfect and enjoyable.
If this is how it would be to level then I had screwed the pooch. Priests had lower DPS than any other class, and that meant they leveled slower if they quested alone. Most did not quest alone, sure they were almost indestructible one on one but in a dungeon high burst DPS was needed and a priest could not put that out. But they could heal and that was what was needed to finish the dungeon.
If I could level from running dungeons I would hit the maximum level of 100 far faster than any other class. But to do that I had to run the dungeons and my first attempt had left me with a bad feeling. By now I had reached the dungeon and scooped up my gear with a simple wave of my hand and now equipped all the items. Now wearing my off-white leggings with a leather belt and the matching tunic, along with my cloth vambraces and shin guards I slowly made my way to the starter Inn. Players up to level 6 could stay there for free as long as they did one quest a day for the Innkeeper. This morning I had run out to a local farm and brought back a basket of eggs.
The XP was minimal but it allowed free room and board till level 6. During this time players were expected to start leveling and getting gear and items from dungeon drops. The grey and white items could sell for a little silver and the occasional blue might fetch a gold coin or two. The alternative was to run the starting quests scattered across the city. Players were guaranteed a minimum amount of XP and usually awarded some kind of item. It was common to receive white items but once in a while, a green item would be given.
As I approached the Inn I realized I had been in the game for about a week game time which was about 12 hours. I would have to log out or the game would log me out and send me to the nearest Inn. I could log back into RealWorld in 8 hours. Going to my room at the Inn I laid down and logged out. I opened my eyes and waited for the light to slowly brighten. “Good evening Master Ryan how was your gaming experience?” The bubbly British female voice sounded as if she really cared. It was my game pods AI which basically ran my apartment. She ordered my meals and set the pod to exercise my body while I played.
All game pods came with one but most were impersonal I had been given a game pod with a personality matrix because of being orphaned at 12. My parents had left the building during the flight to another tower and the antigravity car had suffered a catastrophic failure. The official explanation was the power unit had overloaded and blew the battery out at which point the car had plummeted 10 000 feet. The emergency battery did not activate and the emergency parachute did not deploy.
In the end, none of it mattered, mom and dad were gone and I was a ward of the state. The state in its collective wisdom decided a British nanny AI would do the job of raising me and that was that. Not sure why they choose a British Matrix but that was what I got. Not that it made much difference.
“I am fine Beth, the first week was amazing but frustrating, and a lot of the other new players seem to not take the game as serious as I do, at least not at the newbie levels. But the game itself is so unbelievable, to walk outside and feel the sun and the rain and wind. To see people gathered in squares and courtyards and to just mingle with a crowd. It was great.”
“Very good Master Ryan, yes it is human nature for people to joke and not take things to serious but that will change as they level. Would you like a nice cuppa Earl Grey, to go with Supper?”
I nodded; the cameras built into the apartment would pick up my movement and translate the action into an affirmative. The software being used in the modern AI was a direct descendant of Google home, Alexa Cortana, and Siri and more than capable of the interpretation all physical responses.
“All right Master Ryan; shall I start the shower and lay out some clean clothing items to wear?”
“Yes thank you, then look up all the priest leveling strategy threads for going single player mode. I think I want to try my hand at some single play while still in the starter zone.”
“Taking the time to try to level like that is probably a good idea, experiment and see what you like and how it works for you, remember there is no hurry or pressure to level, RealWorld was made to be a fun environment that people can enjoy.”
“Yes Nanny Macpherson, now if you don’t mind eyes off. I am going to shower.” The red glow from the cameras faded and I took off the wraparound I wear in the pod and headed to the shower. One year ago Beth my AI had changed her holographic image to that of a nubile teenage girl. An extremely well built teenage girl who was not all that shy.
It had been fun at first to watch her as she projected her holograph all around the apartment doing things. I have found myself staring at the way her hips moved or how her chest would bounce and then one day Beth suggested that if I wanted to explore our relationship further she could log into RealWorld and create an NPC. Apparently many people use their home AI to make a partner in RealWorld and that they greatly enjoyed the company of each other.
I was tempted but this was the AI that had raised me from when I was 12 years old. It just felt weird. Like dating a family member. Once I realized that my interest took a nose dive. By the time I had finished my shower and dressed supper was ready, cloned beef steakettes covered in gravy laying on a big pile of rehydrated mashed potatoes. There was creamed corn on the side with a large cup of tea to finish off the meal. It all came out of the small cupboard on the wall, robots and AI units would prepare it in the basement of the tower and then it would make its way up to the suite.
After supper, I sat on my sofa and watched the news while Beth parsed and collated all the information she had pulled from the RealWorld forums. The news was interesting only in the sense that nothing really changed. The North American hegemony was hard at work cleaning up some Mountains near Denver; apparently, the nuclear fallout had blown away from the valleys and they could sustain life. It was always a small place here or a small place there, yet people never heard of anyone going to live outside the towers.
The zero gravity football leagues were entering the playoffs, and tower New York 23 was supposed to the one that had the edge. I turned off the news hardly anyone watched it nothing it displayed had any meaning in the lives of the towers citizens. Beth soon began to display the info she had found and I soon found myself engrossed in reading.
There were a lot of quests in the starting zone, far more than I had thought were available. The end result was that people could either dungeon run or do quests but either way by the time they left at level 6 they would have gathered enough gear to start in the world. Questing would give the players more time to hear the game's storyline and role play if they chose to. Apparently, no one did role play and the game had gotten away from that kind of content, but from level 1 to 60 there was an actual storyline that could be followed.
I continued to read and finally found something interesting, apparently, there was a chain quest that started easy but became progressively harder, in fact, the few players that had started it only made it 2 quests along the quest chain before giving up. Tomorrow I would head to the post office and talk to the head postman, by engaging him in conversation it would open the door to have him ask you to do him a small favor, one of his letter carriers had gone missing and the guards had given up.
Getting up I went to the small bathroom and did my nightly routine and then climbed into bed. Beth would wake me up in time to eat and exercise then back into the game.
My dreams were troubled, I had dreamt that Beth had followed me into the game and been captured by some enemies, and was being held for ransom. I awoke to feel a little troubled but a good hour of exercise brought me back to an even keel. I soon entered the game and as my consciousness transitioned over I thought I heard the sounds of fighting, Angels and Demons locked in mortal combat. It was gone in an instant and I was not really sure what I had heard or if my imagination was going crazy.
Opening my eyes I noted I was in my room at the Inn, judging by the early morning light coming through the shutters the day had not started yet for the many commoners working in the city. They were all NPC but a player could not tell them from a real person. In fact, in some ways they were better than real people. NPC had a perfect memory, they were never sick unless it was some kind of magical illness or poison. Strong and resourceful they were capable of being counted on. Unlike some people, I thought as I remembered Doubleshot. It was too bad that you could not party up with an NPC in a dungeon; it would make running it so much easier.
Time to get this day going, I had reached the door and was heading downstairs when I heard a commotion. It was that hunter Doubleshot and he was with a couple of other people in the common room. I hugged the wall and was soon almost directly behind them as I listened to Doubleshot.
“Listen, Innkeeper, I don’t care what you say, I want to know what room that level one Priest is in, he caused my dungeon run to fail yesterday cause he can’t heal worth spit and I want to let him know that. I stared at Doubleshot, and could not believe what I was hearing, he had constantly pulled agro all the way to the fifth and final level of the dungeon, the fact that we had made it there was if anything a testimony to my healing.
I had two main healing spells, Holy Health, which was a heal over time (HOT) a two-second spell and Flash Heal, a one-second burst heal. I also had Protective Armor, a one-second cast that would provide a ten-second shield that would absorb all damage and then slow my next two healing spells by 25 percent. My one DPS spell was a one-second cast spell called Wrath of God which basically, would send holy flames out of my hands at a target. The flames would then jump onto 4 additional enemy targets but would do ten percent less to each target.
As I stood there listening to Doubleshot I realized he was now patched, on his back was the flaming skull of the Disgruntled guild. By all reports, they were a player versus player (PVP) guild who took the worst players in the game and taught them all the dirty tricks. Not to win in sanctioned Battle Grounds (BG) but to wait for players to emerge and then camp them over and over. Players could only reroll up to three times in RealWorld and there were rumors that Disgruntled would cause so much grief to a player that he would be forced to reroll.
Just what I need I thought as I listened to Doubleshot curse out the Innkeeper. I did not know what he was intending, attacking an NPC or a newb was severely frowned upon, with huge fines and actual in-game jail time. I soon came to the opinion that I did not like what I was seeing so I called out, “Hey Double Dip, what the hell do you want?”
I could tell I had taken all three of the players by surprise and that did not bode well for their time in RealWorld; if you wanted to do well here you had to keep your eyes open.
Doubleshot glared at me and I realized he was drunk, yes you could get drunk in the game and it would cause a debuff, but lots of players availed themselves of the cheap and tasty booze. “Look who is here guys, it is the pansy Priest that I told you about, the one that caused my dungeon run to fail just before we were gonna hit the Boss. Well, dude, you cost me and now you can pay me, I want 5 gold or an IOU (I owe you) or I will take it out of your hide.”
Owing any IOUs in the game is a serious matter, they are a written promise to pay someone that the game would make players honor. I had no intention of agreeing to anything like that with this guy, in fact, he could go stick his head where it smells bad.
“Not going to happen, wannabe bad boy, I owe you nothing in addition to the fact that your stupidity ruined the run, by pulling aggro from the tank over and over. This then caused me to heal you and the other two DPS dudes while the tank tried to regain aggro. Let’s face the facts, you suck as a player and your choice of a hunter was probably a huge mistake too. You could not even kite a single mob in there.”
As soon as I finished speaking Doubleshot ran towards me and grabbed me by the front of my shirt. The Innkeeper grabbed at the talisman he wore around his neck and squeezed. This was a magic artifact that immediately alerted the closest guards. They would be here in seconds as a pair was stationed near the front of each Inn.
I activated Protective Armor and watched as Doubleshot was thrown backward crashing into his two guildmates as they rushed in behind him. They all went down in a tumble and by the time the made it back to their feet the two guards were in the Inn. Doubleshot did not see the guards or perhaps he did not care, he tried to rush at me again only to have a level 60 guard grab him. The other two members of Disgruntled quickly raised their hands as the second guard approached them.
He ordered them to sit on the floor and then went to the Innkeeper and spoke with him for a few minutes. Doubleshot meanwhile was now threatening the guard holding him, with spittle flying and speech slurring. An angry drunk, he was going to pay for this stupidity. I watched as the guard finally reached the end of his patience and reached out and pinched a nerve on Doubleshot which dropped him to the ground unconscious.
The guard then conferred with his partner and then approached me and said, “Priest Pious I apologize for what these visitors have attempted to do here. Your help in this matter probably saved my brother-in-law the Innkeeper. These miscreants will be spending some time in the King's lodging at the Crooked Tower. If you need help at some time let me know, I owe you. Just go to the barracks and ask for me, the name is Michal.”
I nodded and thanked him and watched as they slapped manacles on the three. As they left the last one looked at me and said, “This is not over Pious, no one messes with Disgruntled like this and gets away with it. We are going to hunt you boy, once you leave the starter zone you are meat, dead meat.” I marked his name down along with his friends and the Disgruntled guild in my avoid list and smiled.
Turning to the Innkeeper I asked, “Sir I was hoping that you might have some chore that needs doing for another night of lodging and a meal?”
The Innkeeper looked at me and smiled and then said, “Pious I grant you one week of free room and board for your assistance in dealing with those idiots. I don’t appreciate hoodlums coming into my Inn and threatening the welfare of myself or my guests.”
I was surprised, but pleased and quickly responded, “You are very welcome sir, people like that are something no one should have to put up with.” We talked for several more minutes and then as I was about to leave the Innkeeper said, “Wait one more moment Pious, I have been thinking and there is one thing that you can do for me. I have been holding off asking someone to help me with this problem, but I can wait no more. I think you can do it and so I would ask you to go to Earl Tamack at his summer house. There my daughter has been employed but I have not seen or heard of her for several weeks. This is not normal; she always comes home on the weekends and helps out at the Inn. Something is wrong and my messages to the Earl have not been answered.”
A quest window opened,
Do you choose to help the Innkeeper locate his missing daughter at the Earls Summerhouse? Rewards, Unknown. XP unknown. Accept or Decline.
I accepted and tried to get more information from the Innkeeper, unfortunately, he knew nothing more that could be of help to me. Thanking him for the quest I turned and left the Inn. Walking past the guards, I noted that they looked at me and then waved. Opening my interface I saw that my reputation with the guards had gone from neutral to friendly. I waved back at them and then looked out over the city.
The story has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
It was built on a hill and I could see the sea of Caspia out passed the harbor. The morning air had a slight smell of seawater and seaweed, and the blue sky met the deep blue of the sea far from land to merge into a continuous blue line. The city was now alive with players and NPC, all scurrying about in an effort to do what needed doing. I also had things to do, it was time to make a tough choice, what to do for my second class, all players can pick two classes, a primary and a secondary.
My choice as a priest would normally call for an associative class, perhaps a Mage or a Magician. The benefits of the second class are immediate, an increase in the mana pool or strength or agility. The problems with the secondary’s, are that they take about 5 times as long to level up as the primary class. Also, your class spells are much more limited.
None of that mattered to me, as I had decided to try a different strategy, as a priest I was PVP squishy, no matter how you cut it I would break and not bend if I was attacked by more than one player. My DPS was to low and my mana pool not large enough to heal myself and fight more than one other. Now that Disgruntled was going to be coming after me I needed to deal with that. They knew all about my weakness as a Priest, I needed to change my gameplay, do something that they would not suspect, something that would give me an edge in survivability.
I had reached the Training halls; every city has several of them, they were for players to choose the class they wanted and then the secondary. There the players would be offered all the spells they could use as they leveled up. I was interested in only one class; I could not choose Warrior or Paladin, as I could not wear plate because of my primary class as a Priest I only could wear cloth. That also left out Druids and Rogues, and while Warlocks and Mages could be a compatible class as they all are cloth wearing magic users they were all just as squishy as I was.
I had decided the only DPS class that would work for me was the Unarmed Combat class. Think of becoming a master of several different martial arts, that was the plus. The negative was no armor, only cloth, and no weapons longer than a dagger. This class is fast and deadly at the upper levels of the game, but at the lower levels, sure they could put out the DPS but the players were one-shot kills if they drew agro and their defense failed. With all this in mind, I stopped at the Unarmed Combat trainer and politely bowed.
“How may I help you?” The old master said with a smile. I noticed that while he appeared old his muscles were in perfect tone and he moved with an easy grace.
“Master, I am here to take up Unarmed Combat as a secondary Class, I seek to be granted the starting skills needed.” I noticed that he looked at me and grinned and then said, “I have never had a student who was a priest before, tell me why you wish to learn what I have to teach?”
Thinking for a minute I replied, “I have made some enemies, and while I feel confident that one on one combat would be fair and give me a chance at victory, the people who are coming after me will send groups of people. They will not expect me to be able to defend myself physically and that will give me an edge.”
The old Master nodded and then said, “As a secondary class you will learn two basic abilities, one is a block, the other is an attack. If you truly want to become a follower of the weaponless way than I will teach you but it will be a long slow process.”
Nodding I said, “Yes sir, I am confident in my plan and in what you have to teach me.” We then walked through a door at the back of his area and entered what looked like a dojo. Once there he had me sit on the floor and placed his hand on me, suddenly I was asked,
Do you wish to take up Unarmed Combat as your secondary class? Accept or Decline.
Accepting the class I was now shown a few options on the screen,
Blocks, you may choose a high block or a low block both will block 90 percent of all attacks, or you may choose to auto block which will block both high and low attacks but will only work 75 percent of the time, which do you choose?
I accepted the autoblock option and then was offered a similar choice for attacking.
You may choose to attacks, a high attack using your fists or a low attack using your feet, both attacks have a 90 percent of striking the target. Or you may choose an auto attack which can use both high and low attacks with both hands and feet. This has a 75 percent chance at striking the target. Which do you choose?
Again I choose the auto attack option and was rewarded with a new permanent buff icon. The description read,
Your senses are now active and you will react to any physical attack with a combination of defensives blocks and offensive attacks. Your skills are limited to basic moves until you return for further training available at level 5.
Fair enough, simple blocks and kicks and punches had won many a fight, and the surprise of a Priest physically fighting was something that would help. Deciding it was time to look at my Stats and Spells I called up the window and observed what I had at level 1.
Stats and Spells
Level one
Intelligence 7 out of 10
Wisdom 6 out of 10
Strength 6 out of 10
Agility 6 out of 10
Intelligence 7 out of 10
Luck 5 out of 10
Skills 0
Trades 0
Reputation
City guards friendly
Disgruntled guild enemy
All others neutral
Spells
Priest spells
Holy Health, a two-second cast heal over time (HOT) spell
Flash Heal, a one-second cast burst heal
Protective Armor, a one-second cast of a ten-second shield
Wrath of God, a one-second cast that sends Holy flames out of your hands
Unarmed Combat
Auto attack, an attack using kicks and punches
Auto defensive, blocks that use hands and feet
By picking up the Unarmed Combat as my secondary my stats were different from any other cloth wearer. My strength and agility at level 1 were just below what most combat classes would be at and my intelligence and wisdom were still at the appropriate level for a level 1 Priest. I was starting to feel confident; I think I had done what I could to help myself. Standing up I turned and bowed to the Master and then turned to leave.
“Wait, young sir, if I may take this moment to impart a thought to you? Most Priests will select the weapon of choice for themselves to be a staff which will give them the appropriate bonus to both wisdom and intelligence. Might I suggest you look at dual wielding combat wands? While the stat bonus is smaller you will receive a bonus from each wand and they will stack. Also, combat wands count as wooden Tanto daggers so you will be able to also equip and use them in both your Priestly endeavors and as an Unarmed Combat participant.”
I stopped and stared and then bowed low and thanked the Master. It was not often that NPC took the time to offer players advice and when they did a player would be a fool not to listen. Leaving the training hall, I thought about what the Master had said, I had not heard of combat wands before, they must not be a popular item, probably the stat bonus would be a lot smaller than that of a staff. Still, if they stacked it would not be that much smaller.
as I left the training hall I came to a courtyard and I noted a fountain in the center with many players and NPC all milling about doing their thing, the food carts were busy and the air was festive. I found a bench on a side alcove and sat down to watch the people, I was looking for any member’s of Disgruntled while I opened my minimap and set it up to show if any members of the guild were nearby. My green icon in the middle would also start to flash if I was being targeted or marked. I loved the fact that the PVP settings could be used at all times.
Once that was all set up I opened my quest log and noted that I had 2 active quests,
QUEST LOG
* Find the Innkeepers Daughter
* Kill the final boss in the local low-level dungeon
I wanted to add one more quest to the list and that was the missing postal worker quest that Beth had found. Standing up I began to make my way across the courtyard past the fountain towards Central way, one of the main roads that snaked around and through the city, it would lead me to the Central Post where I could get the quest. Suddenly my icon began to flash and I heard someone yell, “There he is, quick whack him before the guards arrive.” I turned around to find myself confronting two Mages and a Warrior. That was the bad news, the good news was they were all level two and appeared to not have a flipping grasp of the game mechanics yet.
I knew that if I attacked first I would be held accountable so I waited as the Warrior activated his Charge spell and crossed the distance between us in a flash. There was no way to avoid him and I did not bother to try, but when he swung his fist at me the results were spectacular. My unarmed combat kicked in and I was able to twist to the side and as the Warrior overextended my body continued to spin around and I delivered a solid kick to the small of the back right between the Warriors arse and the bottom of his Cuirass, the upper body armor he was wearing.
A notice appeared that I had scored a critical hit, most attacks from behind had a much higher chance of being a crit. As the Warrior tumbled down, he banged his head hard against the edge of the fountain and suddenly I was informed that I had scored another crit and that the warrior was now unconscious. I had no time to look at the numbers flashing by my vision; instead, I continued my spin 360 degrees and was now running at the two mages. They were both standing there looking surprised at the downed Warrior and no doubt wondering how the heck a Priest could have so easily manhandled their buddy.
The closest Mage began to raise his hands in preparation to cast a spell; I knew that all spells take a minimum of one second to cast. I also knew that I would not make it in time and as the waves of ice and frost began to appear in front of me I took advantage of the slippery situation and slid forward on the now icy ground, aiming right between the Mages legs. He did what anyone would do and tried to jump over me, but as he did that my fist punched up and struck him with all my power plus the added energy of my sliding towards him right in the stones. Double Crit.
As I slipped past him I could hear a cut off scream and then the sound of retching. The ice had ended and the dry cobblestones of the courtyard gave me the traction to lunge towards the final mage. He had been looking at the warrior and now with his buddy grabbing his crotch and throwing up all over he turned to look at me.
“Hey man I do not want to fight you,” he said as he raised his hands and began to cast Fireball at me. The Fireball was a 2 second cast and that gave me enough time to fire off Wrath of God, it was the first time I had actually used the spell on someone and it was amazing as golden colored flames shot out of both my hands and encompassed the Mage. The fireworks lasted 2seconds and I watched in amazement as the flames jumped from my target to the one rolling on the ground and then to the Warrior. Suddenly I heard a ping and then saw,
Congratulations on your first PVP victory, you have earned an achievement by defeating three players at once with each player being a higher level than you. You have earned the title, Respect.
Wow, that was unexpected, I was not aware that titles could be given out. The game was so huge and had so many different aspects that no one could know it all. About this time the guards showed up, and two of them marched up to me and asked, “What the heck is happening here Priest. There are three injured players lying on the ground and you are standing without a scratch. What occurred here?”
I told the story of what had occurred and then mentioned the situation at the Inn earlier; the guard then sent a runner out to confirm my story as we waited. A few minutes later he returned and after conversing with the head guard I was beckoned over and then told I was free to leave. Once again I watched as the guards bound and then escorted the three players off to jail.
I was starting to run out of time, these players would be letting the guild know what had happened and while I had been lucky so far, that could change, I think these guys had heard about me, spotted me and then tried to earn some bonus points with the guild. Next time it might involve higher level players who were purposely looking for me. I had to become anonymous.
It took me ten minutes to make it to the central post office, and during that time I was keeping my eyes wide open looking for anyone who seemed too interested in me. Fortunately, the way was clear and I soon arrived, walking in I waited in line until I made it to the counter. “Hi, I want to send a letter out, just to someone in the city, how long does it take?” I asked. The older fellow manning the counter squinted at me and then replied, “It takes about 24 hours before you get mail in the city. It used to be faster but one of my workers has gone missing, the damn guards are useless, they looked once and gave up, said he probably ran away from his wife and on top of that the mail is now piling up, we now have a backlog. How can we do the damn job in this city without enough workers?”
I nodded and commiserated with him and then had a thought that might help me to do the quest and be unnoticed in the city. “Postmaster, why don’t you let me help you with the missing mailman. Also at the same time I could with the delivery of some of the backlogged mail.” We stared at each other and then the Postmaster froze for a few seconds, I had probably changed the boundaries of the quest enough that one of the 10 major game AI units had to look at the quest and determine if my request could proceed and still fit in within the acceptable boundaries of gameplay.
The Postmaster blinked rapidly and then said, “If you think you can do that then I could sure use your help. My only concern is that your level is a little low, however you go ahead and have a look, here is the route my man would take and here is today’s mail for that run. See if anything is a little suspicious as you deliver the mail and then report back to me.” He then said wait here, and went into a back room and came back with a postal tabard and a hat.
I grabbed everything and put it on then shouldering the bag I opened the map he had given me and watched as the route was placed on my minimap. It was a series of way points with directional arrows that showed me every stop on the route. I glanced at my reflection in the mirror and was happy to see that when I focused on my image the reflection showed City Postal Worker. For all to see I was now a city NPC and could travel with a fair degree of anonymity.
Beginning the delivery run I headed down towards the docks, stopping at several Inns and dropping off the letters and parcels that players were expecting. I continued on until I hit the warehouse district just up from the docks, I had three deliveries here. Some players had gone the business route in RealWorld and were now wealthy individuals within the game. At my last delivery, I was asked to go to the back office to drop off the parcel at the Overseers office.
As I walked back through the building I noted that there were many crates which were filled with arms, everything from swords and daggers to battle staffs. I selected several of the weapons and noted that they were all blue or better, there was a large fortune in weapons being assembled in this warehouse.
Walking up to the door at the far side of the building I knocked twice and then waited, soon I heard an irate voice shout, “Get your butt in here man, I don’t have the time to open the door and wait on you.”
Sounds like a real winner, I thought as I put a smile on my face if this guy is an NPC he is the first one with a crappy attitude that I have met. Opening the door I walked in while calling out, “City Postal Service, I have a package to deliver to this address.” I noted the long narrow room with a desk at the end and shelves and filing cabinet arranged along the walls. The room was dark with the exception of the lights hanging above the desk. Everything on the desk was clearly visible in the bright light but the man behind the desk was sitting in shadow, taking a closer look I could tell that he was a Drow, a dark elf. Glancing down at the desk I noticed it was covered in what looked like blueprints of the King's castle, and the defensive wall that surrounded it on top of the city hill.
I immediately began to record everything and started to grab screenshots of everything I could see on the desk as I reached in my mailbag and removed the parcel. “Here you are sir,” I said with a smile as I placed the parcel right in the middle of the desk. The Drow merely glared at me and then growled, “Alright you did your job now get out.” I felt a flash of anger but merely smiled and said, “Have a great day.” Then I walked out, feeling his eyes on my back until I left his office.
I made it out of the warehouse and continued my mail run but could not shake the feeling that someone was still looking at me. Sure enough, my icon on my minimap began to flash, someone had me targeted. I think I now knew what had happened to the postman. The difference is I had an interface set up for PVP and the NPC didn’t. I continued on, finally emptying my mailbag near the docks. It was time to go home and I scanned the street to see if I could spot whoever was following me.
They were good, probably an NPC rogue who was in Stealth, their ability to fade away and hide in the open. I would not even feel the attack from behind if he chooses to strike. My only good luck in the matter was that he thought I was an NPC myself. He did not know that I could tell he had me targeted nor that if I died as a player I would come back, however, the problem was I did not want to die. I scanned the street but the only building I saw that I could take refuge in was the Temple to the God of Luck, חַמְסָה Hamsa. His symbol decorated the front of the temple with a mosaic that showed the Hamsa hand.
I walked into the temple and immediately my minimap showed that I was no longer being targeted. As I walked in a monk came up to me and bowed low and said, “It is not often that a Priest will come to a temple of Hamsa, be welcome here and know that the Ayin Ha'ra the evil eye that was on you has been removed. What has brought you here, Priest?”
I was surprised by two things, first, he knew I was not an NPC postal worker and second once I was in the temple the rogue who had me targeted for the attack had lost me. I did not know much about the Gods within the game, there were a few, and most demanded worship for the exchange of special buffs and spells. The worship seemed to mainly mean the giving of gold to the various temples and monks.
I was not all that interested in following any God but decided to make use of this time to see what it was all about. Having the God of luck on your side can’t hurt. Speaking softly, I said, “I am interested in learning more about Hamsa after all having the God of Luck on your side is a good thing. What can you tell me about being a follower of Hamsa and what are the benefits?”
The monk guided me to a small room and then clapped twice, a young man appeared and the monk held out two fingers, the acolyte bowed and then left to soon return with two cups of what tasted like Chai tea sweetened with thick cream. The monk gazed at me his face still and calm then he said, “We who follow Hamsa do not need gold or gifts if we need money we go the betting halls and we win, luck is always with us. What you as a follower would gain, is a 3 point increase in your luck stat and the blessing of the God.
If the God favors you he will put his mark on you, the Hand of Hamsa. Occasionally we call upon the followers of Hamsa to help with special needs that Temples might have, but that is rare. To be honest with you we have never had a priest choose to follow Hamsa and I have no idea how the God will look upon you, but I can assure that at the least nothing bad will happen to you and at the best Hamsa himself will place his mark on you.”
I thought for a moment in silence and then said, “I am willing to have Hamsa as a patron God it seems like an all win situation.”
The monk nodded and then putting his tea down said, “Come with me to the altar and there you can make your prayer.”
I followed him to a room that had an altar in the shape of two hexadecimal dice and there I kneeled as directed and followed the monk as he led me in a prayer. “Repeat after me,” The monk whispered. Hamsa, God of Luck, we ask that you accept this one who would follow you and that you would bestow your blessing on him.” As I said these words, I suddenly felt a strong sense of someone looking at me, glancing up I saw the eye of Hamsa floating in mid-air above the altar, it was made of fire and looked just like the Eye in the old Lord of The Ring movies.
I could hear a voice as the eye stared at me and I swear it said, “Hot Damn, a Priest, yes you will do.” Suddenly the Eye was gone and I felt a burning in my right chest. Ripping off my clothes I was surprised to see something that looked like a cross between a tattoo and a brand marking my body with the Hand of Hamsa. The monk looked at me and suddenly smiled and pulling aside his robe showed me the same mark.
“Welcome Brother, Hamsa has blessed you with his hand. That is usually something only leaders of the Temples receive.”
I nodded, the pain had fled as quickly as it came and I felt strangely good. On an impulse, I opened my stats and observed my Luck stat had increased.
Stats and Spells
Level one
Intelligence 7 out of 10
Wisdom 6 out of 10
Strength 6 out of 10
Agility 6 out of 10
Intelligence 7 out of 10
Luck 9 out of 10
Skills 0
Trades 0
Reputation
City guards friendly
Disgruntled guild enemy
All others neutral
Spells
Priest spells
Holy Health, a two-second cast heal over time (HOT) spell
Flash Heal, a one-second burst heal
Protective Armor, a one-second cast of a ten-second shield
Wrath of God, a one-second cast sending Holy flames out of my hands
Unarmed Combat
Auto attack, an attack using kicks and punches
Auto defensive, blocks that use hands and feet
Man, I was almost topped out, for each level you could earn up to 10 points to use in any stat. On character creation, I had rolled a cookie cutter build, but for everyone, the luck stat was determined by a roll of dice. I had lucked out by rolling a 5 right off. Some people could roll higher but luck was a funny stat, it was based on algorithms that few understood, the bottom line was most people started with a 2 or 3 to luck.
As the monk and I left the room I asked him, “Would it be possible to spend the night here, someone is looking for me and I would rather not be found.”
He nodded and then said, why don’t you spend the night here and then leave in the morning, we will give you an acolytes robe which will disguise you from prying eyes. You will have the freedom of the city then, no one challenges the acolytes of Hamsa, it is ten years of bad luck to do so.”
I nodded and thanked the monk, then was shown to a small room; on the bed was an acolytes robe. I lay down and then opened my screenshot folder and began to peruse the pictures I had captured. There was no doubt that it was of the defensive fortifications around the Castle. There were areas marked and lines drawn with numbers beside them. It was an attack plan; it would seem that someone was intent on attacking the King.