Galie's Pov
Their return to Allastar was rather uneventful, two girls and a cat appeared at the port city of Offshore, there was little to say that everyone else had long ago left the city for quests and other business of theirs.
There was a strange message that however made little sense to them.
Red's message
{Achievement unlocked 1/100}
{Learned the secrets of telepathy}
[Reward: Catathropy skill]
Lidie's message
{Achievement unlocked 1/100}
{Learned the secret of telepathy}
[Reward: mage profession added]
Galie's message
{Achievement unlocked 1/100}
{Teaching is hard}
[Reward: clearance level 1]
The truth was that W12 lacked an achievement system so the only way to explain it was that her father had done something to their capsules, after all achieving telepathy wasn't done in the virtual world.
Red gained the ability to turn into a human, while Lidie gained the mage profession, only Galie was a little disatisfied with her gift, after all she didn't understand what a clearance meant but by Lidie's understanding probably all 100 achievements of hers were clearance levels.
'Can we see the rest of the achievements somewhere?'
Red asked somewhat interested, through telepathy, after all she had the basics for telepathy and Galie was already listening to her. She didn't use her special ability yet to turn into human but she wasn't sure if she wanted to either, after all being a cat was somewhat interesting in its own way and after learning telepathy she would have no reason to turn into human.
"Let me search"
Galie said, somewhat irritated, after all she was much faster at looking through status and other windows.
"Nothing, there's no indication about what the other achievements are"
"It doesn't really matter, we just have to gain 100levels of clearance and we will be as good as gods in the virtual world"
Lidie said making Red somewhat sad, after all she had an 100level clearance but lost it, but still she had hope that she could gain it back little by little with Galie and Lidie, afte all their clearance level is only level 1 and her own level was also 1, she had seen it when she opened her guardian window, only problem was she had no items for so low level of clearance and she didn't want to destroy any of her masterpieces in her inventory.
"What do we do now?"
Galie asked, she had already plans of her own but she wanted to know if Lidie had something better to do.
"I think that we will have to go our own ways for today, I'm sure that each of us has something else to do"
Lidie said, in truth she just wanted to trade the loot so having Galie and kitty around would be wasting their time.
"Let's regroup at the Inn near the south exit of the town"
They had stayed there for a day or two before and Lidie liked the weakwilled owner there, she could easily ask him for a better price.
Lidie and Kitty left, after all Kitty had to buy some clothes, in truth she had no items in her inventory, her original clothes needed a rather high clearance level to use so they disappeared instantly when she entered as a kitten and turning into a naked human was rather embarassing, of course she had some armor that Galie gave her but it was rather hard for her to walk in it, after all she wasn't even level 100.
Even before turning into a kitten she was still low level, after all she had broken equipment and a level 100 clearance, why bother leveling up when you can do whatever you like.
Galie's first thought was to go see Golgo, after all he had said that he would wait in town for her to return.
She send him a message and waited for a reply but it never came, she didn't know if he was asleep or not but it was daytime inside the game so it was rather strange.
She begun wandering from Inn to Inn to find where he was staying at, after all she did know his avatar's name.
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Lidie's POV
Lidie was searching for the best spot to set her goods, selling goods directly to the players earned more, since players didn't have to add tax fees and didn't care about your merchant skills, anyone could sell goods, there was also a list of how much each item cost, although some items weren't priced yet by the merchant community.
Prices for goods by players were the same in all countries, which was rather good, because if you sold them to a store you would earn less, while buying the same items from a store was even more expensive, the only problem was that there was limited stock when bying from players, today was the day that players returned from the dead lord's Island so everyone was waiting outside the mage guild, after all necromancers were still considered mages and the ingredient store was nearby.
She could see Meteorball also sitting there, trying to sell his loot. Since it didn't matter if you had the merchant profession or not merchants normaly weren't included in parties, so it wasn't strange that he had to sell his own items, of course pro merchants only did business with shop keepers and Npcs since they could gain a greater benefit from doing so, after all they had multiple skills that raised the selling price or decrease buying price.
Their only problem was that they couldn't sell imediately the goods they had just bought to the same merchant, they had to wait until the price changes to do so, which happens every Allastar month, for that reason it's better to travel to another town or city, it's less time consuming to travel for a day or two to sell your stuff.
The only problem there is to find the right shop to sell your stuff, if there is no blacksmith in town you can't sell metals in the town, if there's no mage guild you can't sell spellbooks etc, making merchants travel rather far distances to sell goods in bulk.
If Lidie was a little more high skill merchant, she would have sold her goods at the ingredients store but now she begun taking out a small carpet putting all her weres on it, they were only hearts and cores but she also had a whole skeleton knight corpse and his weapon sold seperately.
If course people would swarm her but their two main targets were the Bone hulk's core and the cursed snowman they got from the Ice lich, but there was also a rather strange tendency of looking at the skeleton knight, at least until they saw the price, everyone went to look at the rather elite monster corpse, only its level was too low to their liking.
Selling monster corpses was a rather good business when you knew that there were necromancers shoping, others sold corpses of skeleton warriors and ice mages, some even sold low level monsters from the areas around the city but not many were interested in buying form him, necromancers could animate skeletons, zombies and various other undead beings, on higher level they can even animate ice,poison,fire and other element based undeads, the easiest to animate were skeletons, so if you bought a corpse that had skin and all you had to skin it and process the corpse which was rather disgusting, thus they could only animate them as the more magic consuming zombies or the even more consuming ghosts or upper tier undeads.
Someone was even selling a rather undamaged skeletal lich corpse, it was somewhat intriguing how he won it without damaging the body. Lidie was in a strange situation at the moment, there were many buyers for the two items and they were even raising the price just to buy the two items. The bone hulk core was an ingredient essential for creating the upper tier undead called bone hulk, which was worth at least a hundred skeletons, upper tier undead were like familiars, you could level them up like you would do with a companion or slave, it wasn't that they couldn't level up a skeleton but the skeleton wouldn't change, it would remain a skeleton with no real skecial abilities while the bone hulk was a tank, it could absorb lots of damage which would save them the magic from summoning skeletons and it was rather economical in magic usage, the perfect meat shield to level up.
On the other side the cursed snowman was a boss drop which was probably useless to Lidie or Galie but to a necromancer it was a rare collectable item the could be used as a pet equipment, they could equip it to an ice element undead to make his magic/attack stronger and it even reduced its magic absorbsion requirements. A rather good item for any necromancer who has ice undead specialization.
The price rose to a rather strange height and Lidie was about to sell the core and snowman until a red named person appeared, normally it was impossible to enter a town while having the PKer status unless you were really stong and didn't care about them or had some influence in town.
Lidie didn't know why he was approaching her stall, but many of her clients left as soon as they saw him.
His name was KING and he just frowned as he saw her items and went away, having however scared all of her clients away.
"Fuck!"
Lidie said somewhat irritated but in a low voice, she had just caught such a good price, of course the clients would return at some point.
"Did you say anything?"
The man asked seemingly looking for trouble, no one spoke back to him or did anything to help her as the seemingly young and handsom man came closer.
Lidie had already gathered half of her wares and by the times he turned to look there was only the skeleton knight corpse on her small carpet.
It was strange how she packed the corpse in a present box with her packing skill, it consumed a little magic to do so but it wasn't too consuming.
"Do you close shop already, how about you accompany me tonight?"
The man said, in a rather dirty manner.
Lidie stood up and pointed her hand towards him, raising but a single finger towards him before opening a portal that took her away.
The man looked angry, this was probably somewhat outside his predictions but the most irritating thing was her final gesture.
"Guards, I want to put a 1000gold reward on Lidie's head, 100 kills, 10gold per kill"
He said as he gave a pouch to the guard with the whole amount.
After all King was a guardian, he was well respected by all and didn't give much mind to what others thought about him, he was probably the only guardian in the whole Offshore city, making him akin to its king after as a guardian he could program any npc to do whatever he wanted him to do.
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The only problem was if he accidentaly encountered another guardian or centurion, but Lidie wasn't a centurion and didn't have a guardian ID so he could act as he liked against her.
Two minutes later Lidie was running away from a rather large crowd of players, even if they became PKers, they could gain 10gold just by killing her they didn't care about a death or two for the gold.
===================================================== Max POV
Max and Dublin were walking around the city, Max's father had arrived in town and already took good care of the other matter with the Strikeball guild, the only problem was that Jak was nowhere to be found.
"Dublin, do you think that I will ever find the girl of my dreams?"
Max asked somewhat dishearted.
"Girls don't fall from the sky you must look for her most of your life"
Dublin said in an attemp to encourage him.
"Look out!"
A shout came from above making them both freeze in place, suddenly a blue hair girl fell right into his arms, as if he was waiting for it.
"Thanks"
She said after getting off, fixing her hair and begun running away at full speed.
They could see her entering a portal and disappearing once more with it.
"Who could have thought that it will be raining girls today?"
Dublin said while laughing and looking towards the sky, making his face somewhat pale, there was a rain surely but it wasn't only girls, at least twenty people begun jumping from the roof of the nearby building falling towards them, making a rather small hill of players, since non was waiting for Dublin and Max standing there.
With time the mountain no contained more than 100 players, it was like a comedy as only those on the top could crawl out of this mess but they were too hasty after all their target was getting away, making them not think so well, but the most significant reason was the those at the bottom didn't want to let others to take their prey after all they weren't a group.
King could only laugh when he teleported nearby to see how his own henchmen were doing.
"Dublin, I think that I'm in love"
Max said while panting in pain.
"Which one of them is it?"
He asked, but when he tried to laugh he found out that it was really painful.
"It's that girl, the one called...Lidie"
Max said as he smiled just once, before his Hp reached Zero, someone's weapon must have hit him as they fell on him and as he didn't pull out the weapon it did continous damage to Max.
=====================================================
Galie's POV
Galie had at last found Golgo's Inn, it was the same Inn she and Lidie had decided as their gathering spot, of course she had seen the Innkeeper a few times but he was rather afraid of her, in truth he was afraid of Lidie but he knew that if Galie was there Lidie would be somewhere near.
Galie was rather interested as she heard the noises from Golgos room, they were rather intimate inside, so she had to wait for at least half an hour but at that time, another woman came as the other left the door, the woman frowned as she saw her outside and entered before the other one had even exited.
Galie had sent him numerous messages but now she sent him a message through telepathy, she was rather angry waiting for him after all.
'Golgo I'm right outside the door, why don't you answer to my messages?'
She said and immedietely she heard an answer in her mind.
'Sorry about that I put to ignore all messages when I'm working'
He answered in her mind.
'Nice work'
She said as another noise of a satisfied client of his sounded outside the door.
Galie was about to leave when the door popped open and a handsome man came out of the room, he wore nothing but his underwear but had a noble air about him.
"Galaxia please come in as well, I really want to thank you"
He said as he dragged her inside, she didn't show any resistance and was completely off guard but what followed made her feel great.
Ten minutes later a message made her rather startled.
Galie's message
{Achievement unlocked 2/100}
{Virginity lost}
[Reward: clearance level 2]
Golgo's message
{Achievement unlocked 1/100}
{You dare fuck my daughter Golgo?}
[Reward: Dragon Curse]
Galie and Golgo were both angry at the moment they saw the message but their anger only grew bigger when Golgo's curse begun acting up, it was dark outside and people wouldn't normaly see it but the great Bam! that came from the crushing Inn made them all get aware that something big was going on.
A Dragon emerged from the ruins of the Inn, Galie was on it's back and it begun flying away at a rapid speed, after all Golgo knew that humans weren't too friendly towards dragons.
Lidie who was still being hunted didn't know what was going on but it was a great distraction that helped her escape her pursuers.
=====================================================
Red's POV
Red was happily shoping in town when all hell broke loose, normaly she would have disregarded it but now that she was only a normal player she had to look what was going on, she was only happy that her skills and profession was in place 10xArchon Synthesizer, the problem was that she had no equipment or tools that were essential to her profession, since all clearance needing items had been filtered from her normal inventory.
Normaly she wouldn't even need to buy anything since she could easily syntesize anything she liked but her current state was rather bad, her level was low, her ki and psychic abilities were rather high but her stats were those of a noob, only her health points were rather high for some reason, although they too were only at an ordinary player's standard.
In a way her potential was good, since her stats at low level could rival a standard 200level player, but the problem was that she was a total noob when it came to fighing without being invincible.
All she had left of the past was a large pool of copper,silver,gold,gemstones and bank notes, in one word money. With it she went on buying whatever she needed or at least until she couldn't carry anymore.
Her strength was quite high but it wasn't enough to lift a shitload of things, even horses would be troubled to carry the things she had bought.
It was morning when Red went towards the meeting point, only to see a ruined tavern and bounty hunters everywhere, there were three wanted posters they held in hand, one of Lidie, one of Galie and one of Golgo, the last one being the most well paying as it said that he trashed the tavern, injured countless people on his way out of the city and even killed two people inside the tavern, it said nothing of him turning into a dragon, probably didn't find it important enough to state in the wanted poster.
Lidie's poster was rather vague, it only said that there was a reward for killing her and nothing else.
Last Galie's wanted poster was the most laughsome, the reason was that it said that she was wanted for abducting Golgoliath something, who was now a wanted man himself, but Galie's poster stated that she was the reason behind him doing all what he did.
In a way they were right but he would have left anyway even if he hadn't become a dragon.
-Lidie what the heck did you do to earn a bounty?-
Red send the message but no answer came, Red was a little angry but a moment afterward she checked her messages and found that they had sent her four messages befor in which they designated a different gathering spot, it was a monster lair south of the city, a simple cave that used to house quests like monster exterminations and such.
It didn't take a lot of trouble to reach her destination, after all there monsters around the city are plainly weak, making it rather easy to travel, in truth monsters outside dungeons and lairs are a piece of cake, even merchants only need mercheneries against pkers and other lawless players, there were even rumors that the merchenery guild and bandit guilds were in cahoots with one another.
Red was now right outside the cave when suddenly she heard a Roar that made her soul come out of her body.
She instantly turned into a kitten and silently entered the cave.
=====================================================
King's POV
King was somewhat angry at the moment, mostly because non had found Lidie after the dragon crisis but the main reason was that someone was seriously fucking up his city. It was impossible for a dragon to appear out of the blue, even a tavern and lots of people got hurt, although most of them got hurt because of the chaos that the dragon caused.
King was heading towards the city governor's hall, it was a rather large building build at a rather strategic location protected by walls and even a cliff towards the sea, it was more of a fort in reality but that was because the pirates around Offshore had gone mad these years, Offshore was like a hotspot for pirates, after all it was close to the mainland and any ship that wanted to go east were likely to pass through either Offshore's islands or Sealair islands for supplies or simply for the sailors to rest, after all traveling by see was tiresome.
The Governor's hall was like his own house, but today it was different, first the soldiers blocked his way, next the Governor was set to default once more and lastly the whole treasury was emply. King could only curse whoever reset the Governor's office, after all he had done lots of modifications over the many years to the guards and people of the Governor's hall and now they didn't even know his name.
He had payed a healthy sum for Lidie's death warrant and now it bit on his purse like grazy. He would have to edit the people all over and wait at least for a month till the taxes arrive, but all that after he comes out of jail for burging into the treasury like an idiot.
At that moment Domina, Jak, Verina and Zephir were outside the Hero Academy. Zephir was already regarded as a legendary hero so only the three of them had enter the Academy.
"By the way how come you used the mage guild to come?"
Zephir asked, they could have easily teleported after all.
"Jak doesn't know how to teleport and after visiting the governor's hall we had plenty of gold left"
Domina said while showing off her new equipment.