With nothing left to do in Torell’s Cave, and the crogs dead for another fourteen hours, it was time for Raine to leave. His steps were quick, fueled by a desire to move beyond the newbie, Mirror Lake Zone. As he stepped outside, he was greeted by a deep gloom that had settled over the lakeside. A full moon refracted brilliantly off the gently lapping waves of the great lake, illuminating the world in dancing shadows and shades of violet from the glowing moss and mushrooms that dominated the marshy region. He took a moment to enjoy the scenery, hopefully for the last time, before cautiously slinking along the cliff face heading west.
The zone that Raine started in was home to over twenty starting towns, each one representing a city in the real world. Additionally, each of the five hundred starting zones in ZL was connected to two others, forming chains of zones ten long in the shape of massive circles, each nearly the size of the Earth’s equator. The newbie zones themselves represented the outermost edges of one of the fifty kingdoms and empires in the world of ZL.
Where each zone connected with its immediate neighbor, there was an access point to a higher level area deeper inside their respective circles. These locations housed much stronger enemies, more challenging encounters, and greater rewards for those brave enough to press forward.
His ultimate destination was Silverlight City, but he wouldn’t even be allowed in the gate until level fifteen, so before then he was going to travel to Vile Peak Town, where he would find stronger monsters. To get there, he needed to head north for several dozen kilometers to the border between Mirror Lake and the Crystal Tributaries. There, he could access the first intermediate zone: The Recluse Mountains, which was home to Vile Peak Town.
These three connected zones were commonly referred to as The Tri-glades—where Raine spent a considerable amount of time in his previous life.
After reaching the road and dipping into his Discipline to speed up, Raine pulled out the Mysterious Cogwheel. Flipping the heavy metal gear around in his hand, he examined its perfectly machined teeth and smooth edges. On the back, he found the all-too-familiar symbol of its creator and his heart skipped a beat.
No way! Melacor Inc. I completely forgot about these guys. If I'm the first to meet them, could I change their fate? Them leaving the Silverlight region was likely a huge factor in why we never managed to upgrade the city. I guess it all depends on DyingNight. This time, it’s going to be them not looking forward to dealing with me.
In the past, there wasn’t a player in the Tri-glades who didn’t know about Melacor Inc. They were a small group of Gromglenns who specialized in the engineering profession. During the early months, many players came to them for training in engineering but due to a scandal with a major guild—DyingNight—Melacor vanished from the Tri-glades, leaving every player who had started down the path of engineering stuck in their advancement until the cross-server teleporters became available. Since every crafting profession was vital to the overall economy of a region, having no engineers beyond novice had been a huge blow.
Well, I was heading to Vile Peak Town anyway. When I started last time, Melacor was already there. Hopefully, that's true this time as well.
About five hours into his journey, when the sun's light was peeking over the low hills to his east, Raine received a call from his brother. He quickly glanced at his privacy settings, making sure his character name wouldn't show up, and accepted the call. The first thing Raine noticed was Richtor's sunken eyes and bored tone.
“Raine, what did you do?” Richtor managed to sound both accusatory and exasperated.
No way he knows I'm Alaric. We've never met in-game. He definitely used my personal Ncode.
Raine skewed his face in confusion, “Huh? What are you talking about?”
“Are you selling drugs?! Just tell me the truth!”
Flabbergasted, Raine snapped more sternly than he would have with anyone other than his flesh and blood brother, “No! Why would you think that? Explain yourself so we don't talk in circles all morning!”
“Mom called me bawling her eyes out saying some nonsense about you sending her a million creds! She didn't accept the transfer ‘cause she assumed it was either a scam or drug money.”
“Ugh,” Raine grunted, “I knew I should have at least sent her a message. I took on a big contract and all I sent her was part of my down payment. Sorry to disappoint you, no drugs and no crimes. I even have a copy of the contract if it'll get you two off my back. Tell her to take the money and pay off the house and then pre-pay the bills for the rest of the year before taking a nice vacation somewhere.”
“What? It was real?! And no way I’m telling her all that. Call her and do it yourself!”
“I'm busy,” Raine shrugged. There were a plethora of reasons why he wasn't ready to speak with their mother yet, though most of them boiled down to him simply not being emotionally prepared to hear her voice again.
“Then send her a message,” Richtor sighed.
“You know she hates those. She'll call and I'll probably be too busy to answer and then we'll be right back where we started.”
Richtor rolled his eyes, “You're freaking hopeless.”
Getting a response that wasn't a denial, Raine quickly switched the subject before Richtor changed his mind, “Speaking of hopeless, why are you level zero and why isn't your profile set to private?”
“Oof, you're really coming out swinging with a low blow, aren't you? I don't want to talk about it,” Richtor rubbed his temples as his expression drooped to what could only be described as a kicked puppy. He then immediately proceeded to talk about it, “Some asshole saw us working together to bring down a few wolves at the same time and told us we had to join his guild. Obviously, we refused. Then, they went totally psycho and started dragging wolves to us every time we left town. We're all back to zero now and we even lost our tutorial gear!”
Raine wasn’t the least bit surprised by the story. What Richtor and his friends were experiencing was so normal that in the past, being a ‘recruiter’ was a stable job with a decent income. Still, knowing it was happening to his brother who just hours ago was full of hope and excitement brought a tight-lipped scowl to his face.
The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation.
“You're in Dawson Creek Town, right? Who are the guys trying to recruit you and how many people do you have with you?”
“Yeah, Dawson Creek and there are eight of us. We uhh… don't know who they are. But we sure as hell won't be joining them now! Even if they were famous like Frostmane, or Children of the Night, we wouldn't join!”
A collective, “Hu-rah,” sounded in the background from Richtor’s friends. Though Raine could tell their spirits were nearly broken by the overall lack of enthusiasm.
Raine checked his map before responding, “Hang tight, little brother, I'll be there in four hours.”
“What?! You don’t have to do that! You'll only end up trapped here with us. We can deal with them on our own. As soon as we've had a rest, we're going to take the road to the next town. There's no point in you coming. Keep doing your own thing, we'll catch up to you soon.”
“Four hours,” Raine repeated.
Embarrassed and not knowing what to say, Richtor stuttered, “A-anyways, I gotta go. Talk to you later.” He vanished as the call ended. Raine wasn’t bothered by the abrupt conclusion, not only were they brothers and occasional rudeness more than normal, his mind was already a storm of ideas.
Every settlement in the area, including Dawson Creek, was taken over by CronGate shortly after I joined ZL in the past, which is how I ended up working for them. I think they took the town from Righteous but it looks like someone was recruiting from there even earlier than that. Regardless of which guild it is, they're all going to be my enemies eventually. I should take some precautions though. If they learn Alaric helped a level zero, they could end up tracing Richtor back to me in real life. There's no way I can trust all of his friends to keep my identity a secret.
Raine scoured his map, quickly finding a section of the road that was near a small forest. In the starting zones, it was almost a guarantee that such places contained bandits. With how close he was to the border with the Recluse Mountains, there was a high chance of those bandits being leveled enough to yield some experience. The most important thing though, was the item their leader would always drop. An item that every PVPer earned early in their careers and one that would be perfect for his current needs.
Raine arrived at his destination within an hour. He scanned the thick foliage of the small, green forest for movement before heading inside. The smells of evergreen and pine assaulted his nostrils while the pleasant crunching of underbrush tickled his ears. He headed directly for the center of the woods, not wasting time on stealth.
Unsurprisingly, they found him before he found them, “Giv’ us ya’ shineys, Mate. And nobody needs get ‘uuurt.”
From one step to the next, Raine went from being alone, to surrounded by four ragged-looking bandits. They had disheveled, dirty appearances and their patchwork armor was full of holes. The varied weapons they carried were covered in rust and orange sap, which Raine knew to be a poison with paralyzing properties.
[Forest Bandit: Level 10 - HP ???/???]
Raine aimed and leaped up with a Discipline-powered jump, dodging their initial slow and clumsy swings. Midair, he turned parallel to the ground and jumped again off the trunk of the nearest tree. He flipped in a slow circle as his backflip took him above their encirclement. At the height of his maneuver, his momentum brought him around to face the group beneath. He lashed out with a lightning-fast jab and a flash of light covered his fists, summoning gloves with thick metal plates.
[Hard Iron Gloves: Common Gray] (Attack Power +6) (Attack Speed +1.5) (PTC +2) (ACU +2) (PHY +2) (Durability 40/40)]
Simultaneously, he readied his new skill, Rupture. There was a world of difference between activating utility and combat skills. The former only required thinking the name while performing an associated action. In the case of Identify, one focused look at another person or monster would do the trick.
Raine's other hand pulled back. A guiding nudge deep in his subconscious gently urged him to rotate his fist and loosen his grip. As his hand began moving forward, the same feeling—that took years of practice to sense mid-fight—whispered how to position his elbow and to drop his shoulder slightly.
At the full extension of his arm, the air turned hard like rock, and his fist smashed into it with a resounding crack. Two distinct ripples of force washed outward from the point of impact, easily hitting all four bandits who were spreading out to surround where he would drop. The first ripple lowered their defenses by forty percent, and when the second wave of force crashed into them, they were blasted from their feet and tossed up against trees and bushes. [-658]
Raine landed lightly and dashed to his downed foes. His punches flew like lightning and the first bandit was finished off before having a chance to recover. He weaved around the others, his complex footwork not allowing them to surround him as he pummeled them one at a time.
He easily avoided their unsophisticated attacks. They were only level ten, and therefore designed to fight normal people—meaning their individual martial skills weren't even at a regional level. Their raw stats would make them a deadly challenge for many, but Raine was more familiar with fighting his fellow humans than any beast. There wasn't a move they could possibly use that he hadn't seen at least a thousand times. Within seconds, the bandits died without ever having a real chance to strike back.
Between the four of them, they only dropped a few copper and a rusty, dull trash sword. Compared to the crogs, the bandits were hardly worth fighting. But there were only a few crogs and they had long respawn times, not to mention being more challenging foes for new players. The bandits on the other hand were more than plentiful and gave players a taste of fighting humans.
Raine scooped up his loot and continued his trek toward the center of the woods. At first, he only encountered three to four bandits every fifty meters but as he neared his goal, they ambushed him every fifteen to twenty meters. With each bandit yielding seven hundred and fifty Superiority, he was nearing level ten himself by the time he finally entered their camp.
The glade at the center of the woods held twelve dilapidated and patched tents, each with a group of bandits nearby. Their level twelve leader stood in the very center of the camp with a level eleven subordinate standing on either side of him.
Having no desire to waste time, Raine streaked through the center of the camp, attracting the attention of every bandit. The one attack he threw out randomly summoned his shield which was a perfect choice for the strategy he intended to utilize.
[Hard Iron Shield: Common Gray - LVL 5 (DEF +26) (PTC +3) (PHY +3) (Durability 60/60)]
They charged after him with bloodshot eyes, waving rusty weapons above their heads like a mob of deranged lunatics, “Git’ da’ shineys!”
Raine stayed just out of their reach, running in a wide circle with Discipline-fueled hops and short sprints. Once the formation of bandits was suitably tightly packed, he rounded on them and released a devastating Rupture that knocked down all save the boss and his two lackeys.
Raine continued to run while ignoring their poorly written monologues. He didn't bother to exchange blows with the boss as the rest of the bandits slowly pulled themselves off the ground to resume chasing him. Once they gathered again, he used Rupture once more, finishing off all save three. Finally, Raine turned and reduced the leader to a bloody pulp by bashing his face in with his shield, each hit releasing a satisfying thunk.
Trumpets blared and showers of golden light surrounded him, congratulating his homicidal rampage.
[Level up! +5 free attribute points]
[Skill point acquired]