I used up most of my crystals and hired 100 more mercenaries.
Out of the 100 I summoned, the useful ones were a:
[Daggerer],
another three [Macer]s,
a [Greatsworder],
an [Axer],
an [Archer],
two [Polearmer]s
and a [Sworder] generated in the [Copper] tier.
In the [Bronze] tier was a:
[Greataxer]/[Heavy Armourer],
and a [Fencer]/(Polearmer].
And I only got one more in the [Iron] tier, an NPC with the [Monk] class.
It was funny because I didn’t end up with any [Silver] or [Gold] tiered mercenaries, it kind of reminded me of something from health-ed, Mr Moss talked about how drug addiction shared similarities with game addiction. First there is the “hook” the freebie or cheap sell early on, maybe that’s a demo or a preview, in this case it appears that the “hook” was a couple of [Gold] tiers, and that was exciting at the time, but now I didn’t get anymore. Normally, if I was playing the game I’d just keep grinding for more crystals and keep trying to get more [Gold] tier NPCs.
Either way…
“A Monk, I mean… that’s not bad. They could probably get away with minimal gear until they reach level 20, unlike the Warrior class where I’d probably have to gear them up every 3-5 levels.”
I had paid the steep [Iron] tier upkeep price for Brutus yesterday, so I had him until around 5pm today, but the Monk would serve my purpose way better than him, and let’s face it I don’t want to be paying for both of them, I just don’t have the money for that.
If only there was some way to direct the mercenaries… Urgh, it’d be so much easier with players.
One of the new [Commoner] NPCs had the [Leadership] skill, his name was Phillip.
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"I'm Phillip, a member of the local militia. I don't think I'll ever be a major officer, but I've got the leadership skill, and I think that I could help you manage your people better," he said.
That didn’t really work for me, if I was actually to pull this off with minimal risk then I’d need that [Leadership] skill.
“So, Phillip…”
“Yes, Sir?”
He nodded when I said "Phillip."
"So, you're saying that you have the Leadership skill..."
He nodded again.
"Okay, I want you to transfer the skill to me… for free. Then we'll see if that skill works for me..." I explained.
"My hometown is called Ferrum or the Iron City and it's a small city in the mountain region of the country. It's a mining town and the only thing that we mine is iron. We use the ore to make tools, weapons, and other metal objects. We've been mining the ore for hundreds of years."
“Yeah, yeah, yeah…” No need for the whole backstory.
The barracks was practically winking at me, edging me to come over… but there was something I wanted to try first.
The giant menacing tuna launched itself teeth first at my dagger wielding mercenary. And I prayed and closed my eyes as the stone I threw sailed through the air. There was an audible crunch and my heart fell into my stomach… but when I opened my eyes again.
“Oh, thank god!”
Gilbert, the dagger wielder, was thankfully unharmed, and the fish was aggroed on me again.
For some reason… even though I couldn’t deal any damage, I could somehow draw aggro, which let me play this weird perverse game of piggy in the middle.
After about 5-10 minutes, we eventually managed to kill the fish, or rather get him to suffocate to pixelated death.
The current process was pretty inefficient really, as I couldn’t do this with more than one NPC or I was likely to scone one of them in the head rather than the fish.
I looked out at the throng of fish.
“There has to be a better way…”
There were a few random buildings spotted along the dock, which ordinarily you couldn’t climb in game…
The fish flopped after me as I lured it to one of the buildings, Gilbert slashing at it’s rear-end.
The boxes on the side of the building made it easy to jump up and grab the gutter… the tuna hot on my heels.
It has been a long time since I last tried to do a chin-up, but there was nothing quite like the jaws of Nemo’s angry big brother to motivate you. With all the grace of a new born giraffe I managed to pull myself up…
Down below, Gilbert must have already scored a critical because the tuna was on him.
The thing was I didn’t know if Gilbert had any hit points or not, so what was really important was he not get hit… too much.
I fumbled for a stone in my pocket and launched it at the monstrous fish. Just like all the other times, there was a flash of black from out of nowhere, the tuna gave me a dumbass look, which let me know I had its aggro, and now if I timed it well I could re-grab aggro off of Gilb—
“Oh shit…”
Just as quickly as the tuna had turned to stink-eye me, it had relatched its eyes on Gilbert.
“Shit-shit-shit!”
That was not supposed to happen.
The fish monster barrelled towards Gilbert, and now, any sane player, would hightail it out of there, Gilbert, an NPC, on the other hand tried to hug the incoming tail whip and was rewarded with an almighty whack up the side of the face and was sent spinning several times in the air before unceremonious thudding to the ground.
The choice lay before me, either stay up here and continue trying to peel aggro off of Gilbert… or…
The fish spun around like something out of a bad Japanese horror movie just as my feet touched down.
Huh?! I didn’t even throw anything yet…
The fish flopped after me, the sound reminded me of, err nevermind… and you don’t have to tell me twice, because I’m hightailing it to the next mercenary I lined up previously. I chanced a glance back, Gilbert was face down and not moving…
Shit, got to hurry.