Chapter 4: Orm Forest

The pair made their way out of the village following the western road. Winter could see in the distance where the farm fields stopped that a treeline began. Briefly glancing at the map he saw it indicate a forest surrounding the village that stood between them and the Kalop hills, where it was said to contain loads of copper. Just as they stepped through the threshold leading out of the village, they heard a voice call out from behind them.

“Yo! Winters, is that you?” A deep male voice shouted, causing both Winter and Davoth to stop in their tracks. They turned to see a tall handsome elf with golden blonde hair rushing towards them, wearing amazingly intricate armor and weapons.

“Who’s that?” Winter whispered to Davoth confused. Davoth squinted his eyes for a moment to see the name above his head as he approached.

“That's.. I think that’s Jeremy from our Trig class. Dang he’s level 36.” Davoth whispered as Jeremy caught up to them. Winter saw the name above his head reading [Swiftstar - 36].

“No way, it really is you Winters. You didn’t even change your character appearance.” He smiled while eyeing Winter’s avatar up and down.

“Yeah.” Winter shrugged.

“I thought you were completely against playing this game? You always avoided us when we started talking about it.”

“He’s here because I dragged him along.” Davoth jumped in. “Got him to promise he’d try it out just once.”

“Hah, figures. So is your Dad coming to show you around, give you some insane items? I hear he’s now one of the top 10 in levels now.”

“Nah, that guy ain't coming.” Davoth spoke for Winter, seeing he was already irritated by the conversation. “We’re just heading out now to start playing, we’ll catch you around Swiftstar.”

“I gotcha, cool. Great to see you playing, take it easy!” Swiftstar spoke with enthusiasm, waving and watching as they walked off.

“Sorry about that.” Davoth sighed once they were far enough from the village.

“Not your fault, should’ve changed how I looked.” Winter replied. “Is there a way to do that once you’ve started?”

“I think so, costs a lot of gold though. It’s no big deal, barely anyone will be on this island.” Davoth reassured him. It didn’t take long before they arrived at the tree line and entered the Forest.

The trees around them were large and old, with thick roots protruding out of the ground. Because of their size they left a good distance between each other, but the canopy was thick and not much sunlight pierced through the leaves above. The sound of birds and wildlife was occasionally muffled by the winds blowing through the forest.

For a moment, Winter completely forgot they were in a game world. The smells, sounds and sights were all so realistic, it felt like they were in a real place. Suddenly, ahead of them they saw a bush shaking abnormally. Davoth stopped and held up his hand, drawing his bow and pulling an arrow back in the string.

“Our first monster!” He was shaking with excitement, his eyes glowing with passion. Winter unenthusiastically drew out his sword and held up his shield, the two waiting patiently for the creature to emerge. Sure enough a plump brown boar with tiny white tusks poked hits head out of the bush, running its nose along the dirt as it sniffed out prey.

Once it poked its head out and saw them it let out a loud squeal and charged forward like a bull towards them.

“It saw us!” Davoth yelled. He fired off an arrow at the charging beast, but the arrow flew wide. Unless someone had told you beforehand, you wouldn’t have known he was aiming for the boar given how far off the shot was. He drew another arrow from his quiver and fired another shot quickly as the boar closed in. Another complete miss.

Winter saw his friend would be unable to take another shot in time, and instead moved in front of the boar with his shield up to protect him. The boar slammed its forehead into the shield, pushing Winter back off his feet, causing him to stumble. He was caught off guard from the shock of the blow. For a moment it felt as if his arm would break. He looked to see his Hitpoints had dropped by 5, but he managed to stop the boars charge. He got a notification pop up in front of his eyes.

Skill Learned: Shield Mastery

Shield Mastery - Level 1 (Beginner)

Improves your capabilities with a shield. Increases the damage blocked while reducing the amount of push back felt through a shield, as well as reduces the durability lost when blocking.

Shield Block Bonus: 5%

Pushback Reduction: 5%

Durability Lost: -5%

“Holy shit that hurt…” Winter said as he pulled back his arm and shook off the pain, to his relief the sensation faded after a few seconds, but that was enough time for the boar to begin a second charge.

“It’s coming again!” Davoth shouted, he fired an arrow at almost point blank range now and finally managed to land a hit. Winter saw a small red 6 appear above the boar, and a health bar was revealed below its name. It was about 1/5th down from that single strike. This caused the boar to lunge at his friend again. Winter saw it coming and jumped in the way a second time, holding his left arm out with the shield on it to take the hit. The boar slammed into the shield and cause Winter’s arm to swing forward out of the boars path, he was only able to redirect the boars lunge away from his friend rather than stop it completely.

This time for sure, he was certain he’d dislocated his shoulder, popped out his elbow, and felt his bones shatter. The pain was excruciating for about three seconds, until it was gone completely. He looked to see his health was now at 89 out of 100, and his stamina had dropped by 2.

“Hit it with your sword!” Davoth panicked, attempting to draw another arrow back to shoot before the boar made another strike. Winter did his best to shake off the pain and pulled his right arm back, thrusting it forward at the boar with an angry shout. He pierced the blade into the creatures side forcing it to squeal in pain as Winter saw a red 14 appear above its health, its bar dropping down to half simultaneously.

“Nice!” Davoth cheered as he fired another arrow dealing 7 damage. The boar turned around and lifted its hind legs up, kicking back in Winter’s direction with the full force of its hind legs. He held his shield up to block the blow and his tiny wooden shield took the hit. Unfortunately the force behind the blow was too much for Winter to bear, he was sent flying backward off of his feet until he landed on his back in the dirt a few feet away.

You take 11 Crushing Damage.

Wooden Shield’s durability has dropped by 1.

This time for sure he thought it was over. His spine broke, his arm broke, he’d never walk again. He felt like one of the patients he had tried to help in the Surgery Simulation he’d been practicing in. The sound of the boar stomping across the dirt towards him rang through his ears, but he hadn’t the strength to fight through the pain and stand back up, he felt crippled… until a few seconds later, and the pain completely faded.

Winter stood up just as an arrow hit the boar from the side, stopping it mid charge. The boar angrily turned from Winter back towards Davoth, the source of the arrow, and rushed at him. With its back turned, Winter lunged up off his feet at the boar with his sword in front, stabbing the beast in its rear. It let out one final squeal of pain as the creature keeled over onto the ground, dead.

Small Forest Boar Slain!

You gain 4 Experience!

The notifications popped up quickly and he waved them away while regaining his composure.

“Whew, first monster down, that was easy!” Davoth grinned as he walked over to the boar.

“Easy? Are you kidding me? That thing hit like a truck. I thought I was going to die.” Winter rubbed his left arm.

“Nah you’re fine, you only took 22 damage ‘cause of your shield… wait a sec, what level pain level did you set the game to?” Davoth asked.

“To 10.” Winter shrugged.

“Are you insane? Not even the most hardcore players go above 50! You know that if the game detects your mind is in danger, it’ll force a logout right?”

“I’m fine. I always wanted to know what it was like to break my arm 3 times in 15 seconds.” Winter shook his head. “Who designs this stuff?”

“You can change it once for free after making your character in the settings, you should bump it down a bit.” Davoth suggested.

“Nah, it’s fine, I get more experience like this right? I just gotta be more careful.” Winter shrugged.

“Man, I’m sitting here trying to get you to like this game and you’re over there torturing yourself.”

“Relax, it’s not that bad, seriously. So far the game’s pretty good. A lot more detailed than I was expecting.” Winter moved to stand over the dead boar. Despite all the stabbing and arrows, there was no blood present. “So what do we do with this thing?”

“Uh, if we had the right tools we could harvest it for meat and leather. Using the harvesting skill. You can grab them next time we’re in town.” Davoth shrugged. “Doesn’t look like it dropped anything, as expected of a level 1 monster.

“What about my health, how do I get it to go back up?”

“It should regen at a rate of 1 a minute with our starting spirit, as long as you don’t take damage for a bit.”

“Okay, great. Let’s keep going for the copper.” Winter walked around the boar corpse in the direction they had been going.

“Hey, you’re starting to have fun, aren’t you?” Davoth grinned as he moved to keep up with his friend.

“Huh?”

“You’re starting to get it, why this game is so awesome, right? I saw that little twinkle of determination in your eyes, the same one you get when the teacher hands out a test.” Davoth smirked.

“I don’t know what you’re talking about. Let’s just go get some copper and make some money.” Winter played it cool, though deep down, he wasn’t hating the game as much as he expected. Perhaps he had been letting his anger towards his Dad cause him to miss out on something really fun, he thought to himself.

The two traversed through the forests over the next 2 hours, which in real time was only 30 minutes. During that time they encountered 12 more small boars. They weren’t actively seeking them out so the number was small, but after each fight Winter got more comfortable with using his shield and sword, and he adjusted to the bursts of 3 second pain he got from blocking.

During that time, he managed to use his sword enough and Davoth the bow to get the related weapon mastery skills.

Sword Mastery - Level 1 (Beginner)

Improves the damage you deal with swords and sword related techniques. Increase your chance to critically strike and reduces durability lost when dealing damage with a sword.

Sword Damage Bonus: 5%

“We’re still not even level 2 after killing 13 boars, huh?” Winter commented as they closed in on the Kalop hills. The density of the trees around them dropped significantly.

“Nope, we’re in a party after all so experience is being split. Also boars are just level one beasts so they don’t give much. We’re halfway to 2 though!” Davoth encouraged him. “Look, over there, that’s the place we’re looking for.” He pointed through the treeline at some elevated rocky terrain that rose up out of the forest.

Seeing it, he broke into a sprint and Winter was forced to walk quickly to keep up. Once they broke the treeline they saw the rocky hills before them. The dirt of the forest transitioned to grey stony hills with patches of grass mixed in and a few odd trees still poking up. The hills varied in height making it difficult to see far in the distance, but towering over them further west was a large mountain range.

They could hear the sound of stone clinks echoing throughout the hills. As they reached the top of the first hill they saw several other players with their pickaxes out, digging around in the stone and pulling out ore into their inventories. Most were between levels 1 and 5, just like they were.

“Welcome to copper paradise! I’ve heard this is one of the best places to gather it, because this region has the lowest population. Way less competition. Low chance of finding high quality ore, but tons of it, so it's great for leveling mining.” Davoth cheered as he presented the hills to his friend.

Winter sheathed his sword and took his pickaxe out of his inventory, looking around on where to start. Watching the other players mine for a few moments, he got a good idea of what stones to go after in order to find copper, then scanned the area to find an area without any competition.

“Since you’re the one wanting to mine, how about you gather the ore for us and I’ll keep a look out for Rockjaws, okay?” Davoth suggested.

“Got it. I think there’s some this way.” Winter motioned to the spot he picked out. Once he got in front of the stone, he lifted the pickaxe and struck it down into the rock, causing the loud clanking sound to echo through the hills around him.