Mark
The light returned, and I was back in the cavern. Giant diamond shards and character corpses littered the arena, and the occasional ghost blinked into existence, wailing unintelligibly —I’d spawned exactly where I did before. I pulled my backpack tight.
The cavern creaked like a glacier. My heart rate quickened, and my eyes darted in all directions. Slowly, I dragged in a deep breath, and let it calm me as I accessed my character sheet.
Mark Thornwell, Male Human (Earthling) Commoner
Level: 1
Health Points
Endurance Points
Mana Points
10/10
4/4
30/30
STR
DEX
VIT
AGL
PER
CHA
(+0)
(+0)
(+2)
(+0)
(+0)
(+0)
MAGIC
SPIRIT
CONTROL
(+6)
(+6)
(+6)
Skills Cooking +22.3, [Empty Slot]Languages Common, English
Class Traits:
● In the absence of a hero job class, Commoners are unable to gain ability scores from skill improvements.
● Commoners are simple job-classes and only gain a minor perk every 5 levels.
● Commoners also lack the grace of the gods, and thus lack access to personal spatial vaults.
● Blood is Thicker Than Water; is a special Commoner ability that allows them to use experience points in the absence of Mana.
Race Traits: Humanoids*, lack the biological integrity to acquire and sustain high levels: Maximum level = 20.
Total Experience: 0
Current Experience: 0/200
I tried to access the inventory like before, a green outlined ethereal inventory with gridded slots appeared in the air. So, I was no better than an ordinary NPC commoner class in a video game world come to life, and the once digital monsters which couldn’t hurt me behind the screen were now something to be taken seriously.
Shit, did I make a mistake coming here, no, no I didn’t have a choice, if that smog dragon thing had the chance it would have cleaned me up, oh god, mum, Austin, dad, I hope you’re all ok...
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
“Mark?!” a far-off distant voice called out from the corpse of the Elemental God, “You made it! Come over here, everyone is waiting!”
Jonas?
He was a lot… bigger than I imagined in real life, well, gamer life.
Wisps of smoke billowed out of nowhere, then something… “Wraaaaagh!” a strange robed creature wailed at me.
The blood drained from my face, and I fell on my arse. I looked up at the wispy ghost standing over me.
“Holy crap you scared me…” I said steading my breath, “…listen, I have no idea what you’re saying, it just comes out in wails. Just log out and read the information of the Game World Migration website.”
The ghost ceased its wailing and then dissipated out of existence.
Further up ahead seven kind of nerdy looking people stood around a giant obsidian corpse and a massive stash of glittery gold coins and blue crystals.
“Hey Jonas! I’m glad you and everyone’s ok!” I went to shake his hand, but he caught me in his arms and held me tight.
“Woah, woah, easy tiger, love you too bro.”
He released me, and I smiled, earnestly glad that we were all alive and together.
“Dude, the world, it’s falling apart, and there’s monsters, huge ones, that’s really why I came I had no choice…” I said, my eyes heavy.
“Sorry man, I’m sure our families will be fine, and make it out…” he replied, voice quivering.
We both knew the truth to that, just like if there was a real zombie apocalypse, not with those walking ones, the running ones! The only thing you’d know is that the people you’re staring at are alive, as for the rest…
“Hey sorry, you haven’t met them in person? I should introduce you to the rest of the guild,” Jonas waved them over, “this is Julz or Mwaxy as you know him.”
He was a big Asian kid with a bit of a bowl cut.
“In the flesh, finally.” He extended his hand, his grip was large and strong, his accent Aussie, must have been second generation.
“And this is Luke,” he was a lanky kid, pale skin, and wore a goofy actor like smile, endearing really.
“It’s Ruku, nice to meet you?” he shook my hand softly.
“And this is Cathy/SirenZ, Steph/Domin8tor, Jordan/Pookiepie, and Lyndon.”
I looked over the God of Element’s corpse and the huge pile of coins, “So, any good loot?”
He smiled at me. “We tried to take the coins, but it just appeared out of thin air and dumped itself there, and we can only carry so much, we think they’re part of quest in the new expansion, but we weren’t the testers for that release. There were also some scrolls which I took.”
Three scrolls poked out of his satchel bag, “What do the scrolls do?”
He scratched his chin, “I think two are teleport scrolls, and the other I’m not sure.”
He pulled one out and unravelled it. There were two runes in the centre surrounded by glyphs circling it.
“What, none of this is in English, how do you know it teleports?”
“See these characters here,” he pointed.
They were the only characters on the scroll separated by full stops, the pattern remarkedly close to—
“An IP address?” why would there be an IP address, and subnet?
“Yes, it’s exactly how I got everyone here in the first place,” he said, smiling behind his hand.
I didn’t really get it, but I could ask him about it when we got out of here.
“The rest of the stuff…” he said, “…is just a bunch of class or level restricted items, to access it, you have to touch the corpse and think or say ‘loot’, and it’ll pop up in your mind’s eye.”
Looking over Jonas and the others, their pockets and satchels were bulging with coins and precious gems.
“So, you guys
clicks and clacks off in the distance.
My eyes shot in that direction, but I couldn’t see anything. “Did you guys hear that?” I asked.
“Yeah, it’s so quiet in here now, you could hear a bat fart,” Phil said.
“I wouldn’t worry about it, it was probably just some loose debris,” Jonas assured. With my attention distracted, the loot menu had closed, and I reopened it.
Corpse of Vulcan.
[God ore x14]
[Obelisk of the Thousand Faced Hero]
[Cursed Helm of the Gods]
[Divine log x7]
[Charcoal]
[Cursed Greaves of the Gods]
[Cursed Leggings of the Gods]
[Cursed Breastplate of the Gods
[Cursed Ring of the Gods]
[Cursed Gauntlets of the Gods]
[Flesh of the Gods]
Ok… So, looks like anything of real value has already been taken. I’ve got six free slots, I’m assuming small items stack, the cursed stuff sounds cool, but is probably going to be a pain in the arse to lift and I probably still won’t meet the minimum requirements…
“Mark come on, fill your bag and pockets with as much coin as you can and lets go loot the Ice God,” Jonas said, walking off with the others.
“Ahh yeah, be right there,” The sellable and stackable stuff was a good starting point, though it would be interesting to see what this Obelisk is about? Unfortunately, no further descriptive information was available for anything, only the titles. The obvious went into my inventory and I packed my bag and pockets with coins.
We weaved in and out of huge crystal shards, I stooped down next to a fallen player character, its hands were adorned with rings, but there was one in particular that caught my eye,
Divinity Ring
There was limited information, but I knew by the design it was a level 1 item. None of the others stopped to loot, and I wondered why, it’s not like these characters have families, or that they gather heirlooms, or that anyone else will even be able to retrieve these items, we’re probably in the most inaccessible place in IFO.
Oh shit, I’ve fallen behind again, I jogged after them, briefly noting below a shard was a mess of blood, armour and severed limbs, my guts twisted, and I swallowed the vomit was scaling my throat.
Looking around, it appeared that every ice shard hit its mark, did anyone survive? Another ice crag blocked the way, when I rounded it, the group were paused before a towering dark character, the dim unnatural cavern light reflected off his sharp black armour and died in his cloak. I tried to examine it.
Death Emporer
Demon Skeleton. If you were to fight, it’ll be ∑s¥B† ∆W∂Pvh Zœg to defeat.
It lifted the visor of its helm, and the group gasped and reeled. The head of a skeleton sat in its wake, small bone horns lined its head like a crown.
“Brenden? Is that you?” Jonas whispered, shaking.