…

Capra hadn’t expected Baba to run off as quickly as he did, but it didn’t matter, the goblins in the barricades no longer paid him any attention.

Baba laughed maniacally as he swung both axes, and every 5 seconds or so the stone axe Capra had given him would release a startling wave of blue energy – hacking and rending countless razor terrors to pieces.

“Come to. Baba! Ahaha!”

Watching Baba shred razor terror after razor terror with the [Stone Axe (Rare)] he’d made was therapeutic for Capra. His wounds wouldn’t heal for around for a few minutes or so, so he really didn’t have much to do, and he was out of potions...

In the end Capra decided to snipe razor terrors with Chaos Bolt while Baba finished them off. The razor terrors made for easy targets as they fled from Baba and some of them would run in a straight line — which was great for Capra because although Chaos bolt had a very long range, past 30 meters it got easier to dodge.

“Chaos bolt!”

“Chaos bolt!”

“Chaos bol…”

…

Because he’d turned off notifications Capra couldn’t be sure how much experience he was getting, but after a few hours of attacking Capra decided to give himself the opportunity to rest.

By his count he’d probably killed – or at least assisted in the killing of – at least a hundred razor terrors. He wasn’t able to examine one while it was alive so he didn’t know their level, but he figured they must be pretty weak.

“Turn on system notifications.”

Immediately Capra was spammed with countless system windows.

System Notifications:

System Notification: You’ve dealt…

System Notification: You’ve dealt…

System Notification: You’ve dealt…

System Notification: Razor terror inflicts...

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points and +5 Karma…

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points and +5 Karma…

System Notification: You’ve defeated a [Razor Terror], awarding experience points and +5 Karma…

System Notification: You’ve leveled up...

System Notification: You’ve leveled up...

System Notification: You’ve leveled up...

System Notification: You’ve leveled up...

System Notification: The goblins in the lowlands will now see you in a more favorable light…

…

“What?” Capra had expected the experience points, but not the karma, or levels.

It wasn’t unheard of to gain Karma from killing evil creatures, but it was completely unheard of for it to happen so often. To date the highest record for accumulated Karma was 5,315… but one battle had netted Capra a tenth of that, and a few levels.

At level zero each razor terror gave Capra a whopping 5% experience — but only 2-3% if it was injured by Baba. He was already at 70% from killing blue moon rabbits, so the first level was easily covered by his first six kills, but then he gained three more levels mid combat. Falling into The Lowlands so far from other players had put Capra in a very bad mood, but at this point he was overcome with joy— this place was apparently a very good hunting ground.

"Status!"

Name:

Capra

Class:

Enchanter

Level:

4(65%)

Health:

200/225

Mana:

010/480

Mana Regen:

0.8 MP/s

Health Regen:

0.38 HP/s

Physical Defense:

2.25 PDef

Magical Defense:

3 MDef

Satiety:

15 / 100

Carry Capacity:

6.5 / 45 KG

Available Stat Points:

40

Debuffs:

Essence Siphoned:

Strength:

10 (-1 )

9

-2

Dexterity

10 ( +4 )

14

-2

Constitution

10 ( -1 )

9

-2

Intelligence

10 ( 14 )

24

-2

Wisdom:

10 ( 8 )

18

-2

Karma:

0 ( +698 )

698

-2

Bonuses from Achievements, titles, and levels:

Strength:

Dexterity:

Constitution:

Intelligence:

Wisdom:

Karma:

1

6

1

16

10

698

Titles:

Essence Thief (+10 int, +10 wis)

Skills (Scaleable):

Skill Level:

Skill Damage:

Skill Cost:

Skill Cooldown:

Cast Time:

Chaos Bolt:

1

15 - 20 (+18.3)

25 Mana

None.

1.5 s

Enchant:

2

None.

60 Mana

None.

Variable.

Essence Siphon:

1

None.

Variable.

None.

Variable.

Unscaleable Skills:

Skilll Level:

Skill Damage:

Skill Cost:

Skill Cooldown:

Cast Time:

Conjure Stale Bread:

NA

NA

35

12 hours

10 seconds

Conjure Water:

NA

NA

20

NA

None.

Masteries:

Level

Beginner Tailoring Mastery

1

Beginner Skinning Mastery

1

Beginner WoodWorking Mastery

1

Stored Resources from [Essence Siphon]:

Vital Essence: 20 units

Uknown Fruit Essence: 200 units.

Stone Essence: 106 units.

Dirt Essence: 134 units.

Leaf Essence: 34 units.

Water Essence: 314 units

Blue Moon Rabbit Essence: 100

Cursed Blue Moon Rabbit Essence: 200

Every level up gave Capra 10 stat points he could use, which would go a long way to making him stronger; however, Capra wasn’t planning on letting any razor terrors get close anymore so he decided to put his points into intelligence, wisdom, and dexterity. In the end his status window looked like this.

Spoiler: Status window.

Name:

Capra

Class:

Echanter

Level:

4(65%)

Health:

200/245

Mana:

0200/875

Mana Regen:

1.43 MP/s

Health Regen:

0.19 HP/s

Physical Defense:

2.25 PDef

Magical Defense:

4.41 MDef

Base damage with physical weapon:

19

Base damage with magic weapon:

54.25

Satiety:

15 / 100

Carry Capacity:

6.5 / 45 KG

Available Stat Points:

40

Debuffs:

Essence Siphoned:

Strength:

10 (-1 )

9

-2

Dexterity

10 ( +14 )

24

-2

Constitution

10 ( -1 )

9

-2

Intelligence

10 ( 29 )

39

-2

Wisdom:

10 ( 23 )

33

-2

Karma:

0 ( +698 )

698

-2

Bonuses from Achievements, titles, and levels:

Strength:

Dexterity:

Constitution:

Intelligence:

Wisdom:

Karma:

1

16

1

31

25

698

Titles:

Essence Thief (+10 int, +10 wis)

Skills (Scaleable):

Skill Level:

Skill Damage:

Skill Cost:

Skill Cooldown:

Cast Time:

Chaos Bolt:

1

15 - 20 (+30.3)

25 Mana

None.

1.5 s

Enchant:

2

None.

60 Mana

None.

Variable.

Essence Siphon:

1

None.

Variable.

None.

Variable.

Unscaleable Skills:

Skilll Level:

Skill Damage:

Skill Cost:

Skill Cooldown:

Cast Time:

Conjure Stale Bread:

NA

NA

35

12 hours

10 seconds

Conjure Water:

NA

NA

20

NA

None.

Masteries:

Level

Beginner Tailoring Mastery

1

Beginner Skinning Mastery

1

Beginner WoodWorking Mastery

1

Stored Resources from [Essence Siphon]:

Vital Essence: 20 units

Uknown Fruit Essence: 200 units.

Stone Essence: 106 units.

Dirt Essence: 134 units.

Leaf Essence: 34 units.

Water Essence: 314 units

Blue Moon Rabbit Essence: 100

Cursed Blue Moon Rabbit Essence: 200

Intelligence increased his mana capacity, but mainly raised his magic damage. Wisdom increased his mana regeneration rate, and his mana capacity but only a little bit of his magic damage, and dexterity increased his accuracy, flexibility, and speed, with a tiny increase in physical damage. He was now essentially a glass cannon.

Capra wasn’t sure he should go that route because of the limited spell selection available to an enchanter, but glass cannon stats would allow him to craft more proficiently as well as utilize his essence siphon and enchant more often, so he decided to take that route for now. He’d work on his weaknesses when he had more time.

Capra picked himself up from the ground where he’d been resting and headed towards the goblin village. The last notification he’d received mentioned that the goblins in the Lowlands “now saw him in a more favorable light,” which was the system’s way of saying that they were no longer hostile to him.

It was possible to gain favor with hostile npcs, even undead if a player knew what to do, but it seemed becoming favorable to goblins was relatively easy in comparison.

Ever since Baba started swinging his new axe around this area of the goblin village had become exceptionally safe. Roars could be heard off in the distance, and Capra assumed they were from some larger creatures due to their guttural nature, but those roars were quickly silenced and replaced by Baba’s maddening laughter, time and time again. So Capra ignored it and moved forward.

As Capra made his way past the goblin barricades he was able to see that the inside of the village was just as busy as its outside. Goblins were running about gathering materials, or preparing bombs. Some houses were being torn down in order to gather materials for barricades, and goblin shaman were casting ritual buffs or heals on any injured batrider that flew down. Despite the chaos of it all, it was all done pretty efficiently, it was obvious that fighting these creatures was a common occurrence for the goblins.

Capra wasn’t sure he was on friendly enough terms with the goblins yet to ask a shaman to heal him, so for now he rested. No matter the player level it always took approximately 10 minutes to fully regenerate mana, and twenty minutes to fully regenerate health — of course, there were a plethora of debuffs to counter that, but still. That was the general rule.

After a quick twenty minutes Capra moved towards the western side of the village. He’d come in from the northern entrance of the village, which was safe thanks to Baba, but the western and eastern entrances were still in a state of disarray.

...

The first thing Capra saw when he arrived to the western end was that many of the barricades that had been erected had been smashed into pieces. It seemed that this side of the battlefield didn’t have any strong warriors like Baba. Occasionally chunks of wooden logs would fly out from the forest smashing a few goblins and their barricades but new goblins would quickly fill in the gaps and erect a new barricade where the old one had fallen.

Despite the goblins tenacity Capra knew there needed to be a change for them to win. The goblins were the only npcs he knew of that he might have the possibility of trading with in The Lowlands, so Capra wanted to make sure they stayed alive.

Originally Capra had planned to sit behind the barricades killing razor terrors for easy experience points, but he now had a better idea. He ran to the nearest barricade.

At first the goblins were wary of the approaching human and were ready to attack, but a few of the goblins running supplies between the battlegrounds quickly helped put them at ease. Capra had become favorable to the goblins in the lowlands, true, but the effect wasn’t immediate on goblins that had been far from Capra when he was fighting razor terrors. Unlike older games, in Chaos and Fame achievements were spread and talked about by the NPCS, and NPC that hadn’t heard anything wouldn’t be affected.

Luckily the goblin village seemed to spread news rather quickly, and soon all the goblins on the western battlefield paid him no mind.

Capra could see countless razor terrors flushing forward from behind the barricade, but they were quickly fragmented by goblin bombs.

He noticed that the bombs were being supplied by runners instead of being kept beside the barricades, and as a goblin died to a flying log with a lit bomb in hand, the following explosion explained why that was.

As interesting as the bombs and the goblins were, that wasn’t what Capra had come to do. He eyed the goblin barricade next to him and hoped he had enough essence. Magic flared above Capra’s hand as he cast enchant on the barricade— and before the system prompt could fully display itself he chose stone essence.

...

He already had experience essence forging wood, so although the process was a little time consuming he was quickly able to give the wooden barricade the hardiness of stone. At first the goblins around him became incensed as he was messing with their barricade, but as it slowly hardened their eyes bulged and they let him finish. He also hardened the ground around him somewhat to give the barricade a firm base.

Right as he finished a shadow quickly approached his location only to crash into the barricade and fall to the ground. Capra hadn’t seen what it was, but he had a good idea and cold sweat flowed down his temple.

“Too close.”

It was an exceptionally large log that would’ve squashed him and the goblins next to him into paste if not for his enchantment. Surprisingly enchanting the barricade and the ground required very little stone essence, only about twenty in total, which left Capra with enough stone essence to enchant at least four more barricades.

Before Capra could choose his next target, a rather regal looking goblin shaman came up to him, and pointed out a barricade.

“Youz! Go make rock there.”

Quest Notification: Goblin Shaman Workdidi requests that you essence forge a barricade.

Accept? Y/N

The quest was unexpected, but it was only asking Capra to do what he planned to do anyways so he had no reason to refuse. He accepted the system prompt and went to work.

…

Goblin Shaman Workdidi had been watching Capra. If not for the news that had spread across the battlefield of a human helping kill the razor terrors— Workdidi would’ve blasted him with his strongest curse spell the moment he saw him, but Workdidi knew that his people needed all the help they could get, even if it was from a weak human.

The first thing the human did was run and hide behind a barricade. It was a good position to fire spells from— Workdidi approved, although he would never get so close to a barricade. He didn’t want to end up as a piece of goblin flatbread.

The human cast a spell Workdidi was unfamiliar with but it was very bright and pretty— although it soon turned gray. The stupid human seemed to have very bad aim, as it erroneously cast the spell on the barricade.

A big vein popped up on Workdidi’s forehead, granted it couldn’t be seen behind his big wooden shaman mask, but his bulging eyeballs could. Workdidi was prepared to shoot his strongest curse spell at the human, but the bright spell the human cast didn’t destroy the barricade. Instead it was… doing something to it.

In a matter of minutes the wooden barricade became stone, and so did the ground underneath the barricade. Unfortunately before Workdidi could admire it a huge log came flying out of the forest and fell right on the barricade.

Workdidi sighed, stone normally beat wood, he knew that, but a heavy piece of wood would easily snap a thin piece of stone if it struck with enough momentum.

“Iz over…”

He closed his eyes and waited to hear the screams of his goblin breathren and the weak human, but instead he heard a weird sound, it was like wood being struck, followed by something heavy falling.

Workdidi opened his eyes only to see that the human and the goblins were fine.

The huge log rolled away from the stone barricade. The barricades were never meant to withstand a lot of damage, they were only meant to skewer any razor terrors that got too close, but somehow this new stone barricade could withstand a log? What was happening?

As Workdidi looked on he noticed that the stone barricade was wobbling. He leaned forward to get a closer look, after all stone didn’t wobble… and he noticed that although the material of the barricade seemed to be stone it was still somehow as flexible as wood, and it seemed to stay that way.

Maybe the human had cast a very powerful buff spell. Workdidi could only hope it would last a long time. There were a few places on the battlefield that were prone to casualties so Workdidi decided he’d put the human to work.

“Youz!...”

...