Life-Drinker
Type: Knife (Growth Weapon)
Grade: Epic
Damage: 9
Perk: Life steal
Description -
A blade drenched in the blood of countless individuals. The blade has taken on a name of its own and strives to ensure its wielder can survive, if for no other reason than so it can continue to feast on the lives of others.
Oooou, very nice! I got an Epic item! Life steal was even an ability granted by this blade. I didn’t even need to know what that did, any Gamer worth his salt knew what the shit did. The growth thing was fascinating. Apparently, the weapon could ‘evolve’ or ‘grow’ in strength. No doubt it would take a lot of NPC’s. More so if the granted experience of one point per life was anything to go by. Talk about the weight of a life, right? Utterly worthless.
The description was interesting as well. I bet the sick little bastard I killed did a lot of heinous things with this knife. I took the blade from my belt and regarded it with mild fascination, twirling it lightly. Of course, nothing like this was ever in the game itself, unless you counted the Fantasy versions of Total War. Probably one of those ‘changes’ the System was talking about before the Tutorial. Putting my knife up, I looked at the other boxes. These seemed more along the ‘show’ portion. Nothing like this ever got shown by the episodes we watched. Of course, everyone knew about the Follower System.
Joining as a Follower put you in the running to replace the previous person in the game when they died. My case seemed a little unusual since I never did become a follower, but that was the basic idea behind it. I had apparently garnered fifty Followers right off the bat from my ‘live streamed’ Tutorial. That part was new. It gave me access to the Follower Store. Looking at exactly what that store gave me explained a few things about where some of the Players obtained items. It also made me question why a few of them, the one in Starcraft among them, never took advantage of this fantastic feature!
Follower Store - Expand Selection - Cost (Currency/Follower Count)
Units +
Weapons +
Armor +
Perks +
Unique Characters +
Buildings +
Companions +
Slaves +
Mods +
It gave several different tabs that I could expand by focusing on them, and the cost seemed more a description that applied once you chose a tab to peruse. I selected Unique Characters out of curiosity and a list of historical people, both fictional and real, appeared in the expanded list. Along with their cost.
Unique Characters - Cost (Gold/Followers)
Spartacus - 100,000/500
Caesar - 100,000/500
Crixus - 90,000/450
Romulus - 500,000/1000
Remus - 500,000/1000
Juno - 85,000/450
Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation.
Livia - 100,000/500
Julia - 10,000/100
Octavia - 15,000/150
Augustus - 1,000,000/50,000
There were countless individuals depicted in History, the Roman seemed to be at the top of the list for some reason, but further down you had people from the Gaelic Tribes, Africa, Egypt, so on and so forth. Each seemed to cost an astronomical amount of either gold or followers but considering they were ‘Unique’ that probably meant they were damn near game breaking and meant for the ‘late game’ stage. I knew Augustus, the first Emperor of Rome was there, a few female characters and everyone knew who Spartacus and Crixus were. At least everyone who enjoyed the T.V show at least. I couldn’t afford anything there right now, but it was still amazing to see what I could obtain if I earned enough rewards. I checked out the Mods tab, and nothing there looked even remotely familiar. It seemed that the System created its own ‘Mods’ for this version of the game.
The ‘Amazons’ interested me, if only because warrior women were fucking hot. That would cost everything I had though, so it was a big-fat-no. Weapons, Units, Armor were all about the same. Though, I had the option for personal armaments or obtaining upgrades for my units. I had two in the Weapons and Armor section that I wanted and could afford.
Weapons - Cost (Gold/Follower)
Bronze Weapons (Units) - 300/25
Armor - Cost (Gold/Follower)
Light Steel (Units) - 300/25
I wasn’t sure why the Steel version of weapons was over triple the cost of the Bronze weapons while light steel armor was way cheaper. I could only assume it was based on some numerical factor in the System to prevent me from steamrolling everything. I debated on them both. I could afford them if I used my Follower count, I wanted to save the gold for actually entering the full version of the game. At the same time, I wanted to save, purchase something better when I got more shit. I checked ‘Slaves’ next and found almost nothing of use. It was just like the Unit tab where it gave you more Units based on your Faction. Slaves were just that, slaves, unarmed and unarmored people meant to be fodder.
It might be something to use in the future if I ran out of money. Companions were animals that were listed as either social or battle types. Kinda reminded me of Pokemon and I had my eye on one, in particular, I might get in the future, for now, I moved on to Perks. They were the same as my initial choices, but I could gain more positive without the issue of obtaining negative Perks. It gave me the option to remove all of my Negative Perks as well. Each removal cost over ten thousand Followers or two million gold though so that was out.
I frowned, going over the lists a few more times before thinking about my situation. I’d chosen Hard as my difficulty, and I knew the original game loved to cheat to make shit harder. No reason to believe that it still wouldn’t be that way in this rendition so giving my units more of an advantage would be the smartest option. I hovered over the choices and selected the Bronze Weapons and the Light Steel Armor. A notification from the System came through a moment later.
Congratulations! You have made your first purchases through the Follower Shop. You have gained ‘Light Steel Armor,’ and ‘Bronze Weapons’ for your starting Unit. These upgrades will automatically apply to any future Units purchased through the Follower Store or obtained as System based rewards. Units obtained through the natural course of the game will not benefit from these increases. Upgrades will take place upon waking the day after purchase.
Well, that kind of sucked. I wouldn’t have those upgrades until a day after I purchased them. I could still work with it though. Finally, I looked toward the System Prompts that had slowly been growing darker in color, almost a blood red. I was beginning to believe that the System was both impatient and a bit of a dick.
You may now select the region you wish to spawn into. Be advised your choice cannot be changed and that several factions might attempt to purge you as Mercenaries to deny a potential resource to enemies.
A list of all the available regions came up then, as well as the factions they belonged to. I figured it’d be like those level one starting zones, depending on where I went. That made the massive Factions such as the Romans, Greek States, so on and so forth were a bit out. I’d need to choose a small Faction, one I could help expand and earn Rep with, then direct the course of history! Alright, a place that Mercenaries would be more or less welcome, I couldn’t think of a fucking thing. I finally ended up making my choice based on the Faction I always enjoyed playing as thanks to the impracticality of invading them early on, the Britons.
You have selected the Britons Faction as your starting Regions. Your difficulty setting has ensured you will begin as disliked with this faction, complete contracts as a mercenary to increase your reputation with this faction. That will, in turn, lower your reputation with other factions at war with them. Your options are unlimited, however, and you may turn your Mercenary Band into something more than what it is. The choice is ultimately yours. You are being spawned with your men outside of the City of Londinium.
Your difficulty setting has ensured all Factions begin in their Capital Cities and must expand and claim land from ‘Barbarian’ clans that belong to no Faction. Your game is open-world.
Play for your life, play for the enjoyment of the Lumarians, and play for power!