Tom stifled a yawn as he poured himself a cup of coffee in the cafeteria. His eyelids still felt heavy from the early wake-up. Worse, the sun felt like it was trying to gouge his eyes out with its brightness, and the fact that everything was covered in white snow wasn't helping.
Tom took his time to savor his first cup of coffee. Unlike some people who drank it like vodka for that quick shot of caffeine, Tom actually liked to enjoy the initial rush of his caffeinated drink.
"Are you done making love to your cup?" Alex asked from beside him.
"I haven't had any since Monday. Let me have this." Tom said
They sat down just as he took a sip. Alex slid into the seat next to him, her expression more alert than his. “Abaddon’s got Chloe for the morning,” she said, offering a quick grin. “So, ready for whatever they throw at us today?”
Tom shrugged a slight smile in return. “Not really, but I’ve got caffeine today, so it’s a start.”
That's when Skippy showed up with the Major, the Sergeant, Penny, and a woman Tom hadn’t met before, though [Augur’s Eye] told him her name was Eve. His brows raised as he noticed the Sergeant with an assault rifle slung over her shoulder. He felt oddly conflicted about the gun. On the one hand, it was a deadly weapon, and he wasn't comfortable with her carrying it around, and yet he was ok with Skippy walking around with swords. Hell, Abaddon and Alex were deadly and even in their birthday suits. So … he guessed the assault rifle was ok. Maybe?
Penny, on the other hand, looked odd. He had been expecting her to be the same stuck-up popular girl he'd met on Monday, the one who thought she could become a world-famous musician. That wasn't who he was looking at now. Now he saw someone that looked ready for a fight, maybe even a little haunted. She kept palming the hilt of the knife at her side and glancing around the cafeteria.
“Morning, everyone,” Tom greeted, taking a seat. “I'm sure you're wondering why I've gathered you all here today.”
"Not really. I assumed this was in regards to clearing out the lairs today." Major Adams said.
"Oh, right. We're doing that today, too. But no. We have a different problem. I think you're going to want to hear this," Tom said as he turned to Penny.
"Penny, I understand this must have been difficult for you. But I need you to tell us again what happened to you."
Penny took a deep breath as if steadying herself before she got down to telling her story. She told them about the goblin encampment, what the goblins had done, and how she killed the shamen and stole the knife and the diamond. And their escape. Eve sat down next to her, adding in details as needed and seemed to be trying to reassure Penny just as often.
The Major cut in at a few points to ask some more pointed questions about the goblins' logistics, military might, etc. Tom was more curious about their magic, but he held his questions for later.
"So not only do we have an enemy encampment nearby, but they are actively hunting down and killing people." Sgt.Thorn muttered to herself.
"No," Tom said.
"No?" the Sergeant asked, confused.
"It's worse than that," Tom said.
"How could a bunch of goblins running around killing people be worse?" Major Adams asked.
"Because they aren't just running around killing people," Tom explained. "They are gathering them up and bringing them back to their fortress to be sacrificed."
"Why does that matter?" Penny asked, confused.
While she had been there, she didn't have the context to understand what she had seen.
"I'm getting there." Tom placated with a smile. "Based on your description, the goblins have what is called a bloodstone. For you see, long ago, when the first god of blood fell to the dread executioner, his blood rained down on Noralon, crystalizing into the first bloodstones. And within those stones remains that god's eternal hunger for blood, magic, and power.
These relics of blood magic could turn even the weakest of [Blood Mages] into country-spanning calamities, but without a [Blood mage], it's basically a just really fucked up battery. When the goblin shaman sacrifices a person, all of their HP and MP in the form of their blood is drained into the bloodstone, waiting to be used for later use. Of course, if you're not a [Blood Mage], you need a ritual just to get it to work. But you need to understand a bloodstone has the capacity in the millions."
Everyone looked at him in horror.
"It's not as bad as you think," Tom said.
"How isn't this catastrophic?" Major Adams asked in horror. "I've seen what you people have done, and you don't have more than a couple thousand points of mana. What can these goblins do with a million?"
"Alright, let me get back to you first about why this isn't as bad as you think it is. Since most of their victims aren't more than level 1, the bloodstone isn't likely to have much of a charge. Otherwise, we would have been truly screwed." Tom began.
"I'm not sure if that's good news." Major Adams pointed out.
"I'm getting to the second part. First, Penny, could I see the knife you took from the shamen?" Tom asked, holding out his hand.
Penny gripped her knife, her knuckles turning white.
"I only need it for a moment; it's important," Tom promised. He was throwing in his [Contract] skill into the mix as a sign of good faith.
Penny hesitated but handed her dagger over. Tom gazed at the blade as he activated [Thirst for Knowledge].
DING!!!
Sacrificial Dagger of Asmodeus
Damage: 46
Durability: 1069
Rarity: Ancient
Quality: Masterwork
Enchantment: Ritual Sacrifice, Blood Repair
Descriptions: An infernal dagger made of celestial bronze and used in the ritual sacrifice of hundreds of sentience. If used on a helpless victim, the dagger will inflict [insta-death].
This dagger may bypass skill requirements or conditions when used in conjunction with sacrificial-focused items and skills.
Warning: Using this dagger may attract the attention of the Sin of Lust
More Details▼
Quality of Leatherwork: Masterwork
Quality of Metalwork: Masterwork
Quality of Enchantments: Masterwork
Overall Quality: Masterwork
More Details▼
Materials Used: White Tin, Blood Copper, Infernal Ichor
Enchantments Used: Ritual Sacrifice, Blood Repair
"You're sure that the shamen used this knife to kill his victims?" Tom asked, wanting to make sure.
"Absolutely," Penny said.
Tom gave her the knife back.
"In that case, they won't be able to sacrifice more than four people a day, assuming they really know what they're doing," Tom said as he handed back the Dagger to Penny.
"Why is the knife important?" Penny asked.
"If the [Shamen] were a [Blood mage], he would have just exsanguinated all of his prisoners at once in order to charge the bloodstone. But if he wasn't a [Blood mage], then he would have needed a ritual or an item to charge the bloodstone. As we just established, the [Shamen] used this dagger. A Dagger that is designed to be used to sacrifice people. That tells me he isn't, or wasn't, a [Blood Mage]. And without that knife, they'll be highly limited in their ability to sacrifice any additional victims. In fact, unless they have another shaman who understands how to set up the rituals, they might not be able to sacrifice anyone at all." Tom explained.
"What will they do with the prisoners if they can't sacrifice them?" The Major asked.
"Eat them, probably," Tom said without blinking. The better question is why and how they had a bloodstone in the first place. Without a blood mage, they can't use the stone as an effective weapon, only a power source for rituals or items. So what could they need that much power for?" Tom wondered as he scratched his chin.
"We'll need to prepare a team to go in and rescue them." Major Adams said.
Tom winced.
"You sure about that. From what I've seen, the RCMP does great against standard monsters, like goblins or regular animals, but once you have to deal with the more esoteric opponents like trolls or magic users, you could have problems. Of course, that assumes that they don't have any other surprises. But if they do, you're going to get slaughtered," Tom said.
"We'll talk to whoever's currently in charge of the RCMP. We haven't been hit that hard by this crisis, so I think we can pull together at least 500 RCMP," Major Adams said.
"Huh, I was expecting less?" Tom asked.
"Unlike an actual disaster, the system hasn't damaged all of the infrastructure. If not for the dungeons, I don't think this would even qualify as a disaster."
Tom winced. Major Adams was a good civil servant. He had helped when the other beta-testers attacked and had been helping people since the start of the system. But he didn't know just how destructive a player could become. [Plague Doctors], Natural Disasters and Undead Hordes were some of the easier problems to deal with. He doubted they would have been able to keep the school if the RCMP didn't have a million better things to do.
Of course, that was only true in the short-term solution. The fight with the other beta-testers proved that PVP was a viable option. It could only become more common as people got a couple of levels under their belts, and the threat of the monsters fell off. So, he needed to solidify their claim on Hopkins before that happened.
This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
Then Tom shook his head and returned to the conversation about the goblin encampment.
"Regardless, We all need more levels. We aren't going to attack an army of goblins until we're at least level 20. Even without surprises, we risk being overwhelmed without proper levels," Tom explained.
"And how do you suggest we do that?" Sgt. Thorn asked.
"Simple," Tom began. "After breakfast, I want to start hitting as many additional lairs as possible to get our levels up."
"What about us?" Penny asked coldly, gesturing to her and Eve. "What's going to happen to us?"
"What do you want to do?" Tom asked.
Penny and Eve looked at each other. In the end, it was Eve who made the first move.
"I was training to be a doctor before all of this. I don't know how useful that is in a magic world, but I would like to work with whatever medical department you have here, and I know that some of the other girls might be willing to do the same."
"We don't actually have anything right now. It's on the list of things we need to do," Tom offered.
"You have nothing?" Eve asked in … Tom wasn't sure if it was shock or outrage.
"What happens when someone gets injured or sick?"
"Well, we have the paramedics and my resurrection skills to deal with the injured."
Eve's face palmed.
"Alright, I'll need to make something from scratch then. I'll need medical supplies, tools, maybe magic or skills could work as a stop-gap. I'll need additional personnel. I guess I could ask some of the other girls. And, of course, we'll need a sterilized room to work as a clinic."
Eve was very clearly in her own world as she began to ignore everyone else as she started to organize Hopkin's future medical needs in her head.
"I'll talk to her later," Alex said. "Hopefully, we can just put her in charge of our medical needs."
Penny spoke up before Tom could say anything.
"I want to help clear these lairs," Penny said.
That stunned Tom a little. He wasn't expecting that answer. However, after he took a peek at her classes, he understood a little better. She had a very mage/rogue build.
"No," the Major cut in. "We are doing this because it needs to be done. We aren't bringing random civilians into a combat setting."
Tom looked at him.
"Please tell me you see the irony of that statement?" He asked.
The Major rolled his eyes. "Yes, I do. But you and your friends destroyed a city block within five minutes. Not to mention that, as you have claimed before, you all have experience with this situation. So, while I don't trust your abilities as soldiers, I'm not worried about you dying in one of these lairs."
"Fair enough. She definitely needs to have her build redone. But the settlement is hardly a perfect defense. I'd rather have people learn how to defend themselves before we get attacked by some monster."
That caused the Major to pause.
"I thought this place was a safe zone?" The Major asked cautiously.
Tom considered that question.
"The Safe Zone won't work on goblins, event monsters, or even monster hordes. So the settlements will need actual defenses and defenders on top of the safe zone field effect," Tom said.
"Wait a minute, I thought this place was safe?" Major Adams cut in.
Tom let out a sign. But before he could launch into an explanation, Skippy cut in.
"The Safe Zone repels monsters. At level 10, monsters can be repelled at level 100 and below. But that's only individual monsters. Monster hordes have this weird equation that includes the average level, number of monsters, etc., and then it calculates the hordes' collective level, which can go over 100. On top of that, there are monsters above level 100 all on their own, so they won't even notice the zone. That's why Hopkin's zone level is only 5. But the durability enhancement is at 10," Skippy explained.
"So I should be gaining levels then?" Penny asked.
"Yeah, but first, we need to fix your stats. They're all over the place." Tom said.
"How do I --"
"I can help you out." Skippy offered.
"Great, so Skippy and I can do some quick training before we hit the lairs," Tom said. "You don't need to clear the Lair, just hang out by the entrance and kill the low-level mobs."
Major Adams didn't look like he fully agreed with them, but he was also unwilling to push the subject. Further conversation was interrupted when Will opened the cafeteria for breakfast.
"Now, if you excuse me, I think I can smell French toast," Tom said as he wandered over to the school's cafeteria.
As he was getting his breakfast, he said hi to Will and the other chefs, all of whom he had resurrected. Saved? He really needed to come up with a term—maybe recovered? Yeah, that sounds right. Anyway, it turned out most of his kitchen staff were people with whom he had recovered and had joined the guild for the time being.
He was sure that their population was going to take a hit once alternatives started popping up. He didn't have a problem with that. In fact, once reality kicked a few of these people in the balls, he expected them to come crawling back to his guild.
When he returned, he found Chloe and Betty had shown up while he was getting breakfast, and Chloe happily chatted to her about how fun it was playing video games all day yesterday, mostly Animal Crossing. Tom found it a little amusing that his once sinful school teacher was now a sinful babysitter. It was like a bad porn flick.
"Can I have some?" Chloe asked, breaking away from her conversation. She stared at the french toast and syrup piled up on his tray.
Tom rolled his eyes, but he placed the tray in front of his little sister, who immediately started to dig in. Alex's old dog, Lucy, whined until Tom tossed the dog a handful of bacon. Then she settled down as she munched on her food. Tom was really glad he had gotten more than he needed.
"Can we get back to the matter at hand?" Major Adams asked.
"Fine. Right now, we have a problem with a burgeoning goblin fortress. Worse, it will only grow bigger as the goblins breed like rabbits. We need to kill them all down to the last goblin; otherwise, we'll be dealing with them forever," Tom bemoaned.
"Are they really that bad? I don't mind killing enemy combatants, but Genocide is a bit much for a sentient species." the Major pointed out.
"You haven't seen them." Eve spoke up, "They rounded us all up like cattle. They raped people before they sacrificed them. And they crackled with glee while they did it."
"Yeah, Goblins are the worst. They're like cockroaches. If you're seeing one, there are at least a hundred more you can't see. Only instead of just being the disgusting plague of insects, they are a band of murdering, raping bandits. There was no making peace with them, ignoring straight-up mind control or slavery. You couldn't even enter a goblin town in Noralon without getting attacked." Alex explained, with Penny and Eve nodding along with her description. Betty turned white and looked like she was ready to pass out.
"So we kill them?" Major Adams asked.
"We grind up our levels, then we kill them all," Skippy said as he nibbled on some French toast.
"Hey, where did you get my French toast? Did you steal my French toast?" Tom asked aghast.
"Sticky fingers," Skippy said as he stuffed Tom's food into his cheeks like a giant squirrel. Which he was. That kind of took some of the fun out of the joke.
"Skippy, I'm throwing you in the ocean," Tom said.
Chloe giggled. Tom suddenly realized she was still there for this very explicit topic. His soul cringed at what he had exposed his sister to. He needed to get her away from this stuff.
"Hey Chloe, can you do something for me?" Tom asked in a loud whisper.
"Ok," Chloe whispered back to him.
"I have a super secret quest for you to complete," Tom said as he assembled a baby quest for his little sister and sent it to her.
Chloe's eyes went wide as she read the notification.
"Can you do this for me?" Tom asked.
"Yes, I'll do it!!" Chloe cheered as she ran off with Lucy.
Tom smiled as his sister ran off before turning to Betty.
"Ms.Lewis, as a school teacher, I was wondering if you could round up the kids and see about keeping them busy for the day in the large gym. If you need any help, you can find some teachers. But I want you to try and set up something to keep the kids too young to help away from the people who need to do stuff. They can just watch movies all day; it doesn't really matter."
"Um, ok," Betty said meekly.
Turning back to the Major, Tom nodded
"Ready to get started?" he asked.
The Major nodded and got up to leave.
Unsaid was the other reason he wanted to hit the settlements. Due to their deal with the Major, they would be taking all of the loot from each settlement, not including the settlement core. That included the special loot that was there for each settlement. They had already used five of the items from the tutorial to make two of these three rooms, and Tom was hoping to augment the rest of their settlement with the trinkets they would claim from the other locations.
Internally, Tom felt a little guilty about the fact that they were effectively robbing the other settlements of their best assists. But then again, these were the people that left Tom and his little sister with their abusive parents. So he would take care of his first. Everyone else could fend for themselves.
You may skip to the next chapter.
Name: Tom Bruner
Race: Half-Elf ()
Type: Humanoid
LVL: 15
SubRace: High Elf / Caucasian
Age 18
Health: 525
Stamina: 675
Mana: 2700
Health Regen: 7.5 per hour
Stamina Regen: 9.0 per min
Mana Regen: 15.0 per min
Titles: Beta-Tester, First, Awoken Myths, Guild Master
Immune
None
Resistances
Mental 50% Soul 34%
Weakness
None
Bane
Manslayer
Classes: Augur 10, Tactiction 1, Scribe 3, Pro-gamer 1
Total
STR: 15
AGIL: 15
DEX: 15
CON: 45
END: 15
PER: 150
INT: 135
WILL: 120
SPIRIT: 30
EGO: 15
CHA: 90
LCK: 15
Base
STR: 15
AGIL: 15
DEX: 15
CON: 45
END: 15
PER: 150
INT: 135
WILL: 120
SPIRIT: 30
EGO: 15
CHA: 90
LCK: 15
Personal: +4 PER +4 WILL +3 INT +3 CHA
Racial: +3 WILL +2 CON +2 CHA +1 SPIRIT
Bloodline: +5 PER +5 INT
Level Bonus: +1 to all Stats
Bloodline:
[Bloodline of the Keeper of Akashic Records]—Forgotten: Through your vein runs the blood of the forgotten Keepers of the Akashic Records. These monks, scribes, and scholars helped create the system, and within their blood are the keys to its secrets.
- [The Pen is Mightier than the Sword] - Level 28
- [Words Will Always Retain their Power] - Level 20
- [Library of Akashic Records] - Level 21
- [Universal] - Level 18
- [Wordsmith] - Level 24
- [My Mind is My Temple, My Soul the Altar] - Level 34
- [Thirst for Knowledge] - Level 16
- [Visions of Akashic Records] - Level 11
- [Soul Forge] - Level 25
- +5 PER per level
- +5 INT per level
Skill Slots: 18/60: Skill Points: 2
Personal Skills
- [Analyze Person] - Level 22
- [Best of Both Worlds] - Level 12
- [Art of Water] - Level 7
- [Art of Earth] - Level 4
- [Teacher] - Level 9
Augur 07/16
- [Augurs Eye] - Level 7
- [Bright Arts] - Level 25
- [Art of Life] - Level 20
- [Prophetic Meditation] - Level 27 >> Level 36
- [Far Seeing] - Level 17
- Capstone: [Hand of Mercy] - Level 14
- [Quest Giver] - Level 1
Tactician 05/6
- [Nascent Guild Leader] - Level 11
- [Leadership Ⅱ] - Level 16
- [Raider Ⅰ] - Level 15
- [Coordinate Ⅱ] - Level 10
- [Logistics Ⅱ] - Level 12
Pro-Gamer 01/11
- [Spell Trap] - Level 1[Empty]
Scribe 01/6
- [Contract] - Level 9