Chapter 4

Iron Will

We managed to loot a further 80 silver from the various goblins, Kate’s cleaning service made it much easier to find them. This put us at 1 gold and 40 silver each, and we had a bunch of things to sell. I kept some ears as proof, but the completion of the quest meant we got all of them. I was tempted to check on the mine but the list of things that could be down there was mostly stuff Kate wasn’t ready for. She also needed a new spell if she was going to be in a mine, explosions in a mine are not a good time, been there, done that, really don’t want to do it again. I spent 3 days digging myself out after that crazy fucker Doomzar blew me into the depths of the Cabralish Mines and it collapsed on my head. The only interesting thing I found down there was that ancient dwarvish book of dirty jokes.

On the walk back to the city Kate and I talked magic, and I tasked her to create a shield spell, a non-explosive attack, and to make a spell that would hamper movement in some way. I also finally learned the reason behind her use of a mop. It turns out at the start of the game she took out her sword and was playing with it, she accidentally dropped it and it was snagged by some asshole that called themselves TrouserSnak. Snak proceeded to mock and insult her before taking the sword, what kind of dick steals a free item, a shitty free item at that. I might have to have a talk with this guy if I see him. I won’t make him give back the sword, frankly he deserves that thing, I might hang him by his shoes from the top of the cathedral though. After losing her weapon Kate went to the adventurers guild like everyone else and then to the mage guild, the guy at the desk felt sorry for her and let her have his old mop. After that, it was the class quests and stalking me and we haven’t really had the chance to correct her weapon choice yet. At this point, if we could just get it modified into a staff that would be fine.

We saw several other players just starting to venture out into the plains and woods, many of them were learning important lessons in combat from wild boars, horned rabbits, or other local wildlife. I thought about intervening, but it was better to let them learn this way than to baby them.

I led us back to the Adventurers Guild to turn in our quests and report the goblins. Turning in our herbs netted us a nice 60 silver each and the fungal killing got us another gold apiece. I reported the goblins and they made a note in our files, the reward for the patrol was just 20 silver but that was fairly standard.

I knew of a decent shop over in the Steel District that should be cheap enough, but first we needed to take care of Kate's mop problem. The best place to do that was the mage guild so off we went.

As we entered Kate ran up to the receptionist, a middle-aged guy with blue adept’s robes.

“Freddy! Thank you so much for the mop. I would have been in so much trouble without it. It even helped me unlock a cool class!” Kate started excitedly recounting all her adventures, I was glad to see her being more open. I guess she had made a friend of the man kind enough to give her an old mop to defend herself with. I was happy to see Freddy seemed very interested in the stories Kate was telling, I wouldn’t be surprised if he had a daughter her age that she reminded him of. Figuring I could leave her alone for a bit I started checking out the shop now that I had some cash. I picked out a few materials that could be used to turn the mop into a proper staff, including a decent water crystal as a focus. For myself, I ended up with a pair of gloves with foci on the back and a book on affinities, might be good to refresh my memory. I passed on the materials for the enhancement to Kate and went back to browsing the titles, ‘Basics of Warding’, ‘An Intro to Fire’, it was mostly stuff I didn’t need but a couple were interesting like the ‘Runic Compendium’. I was leafing through ‘Principles of Arcane Force Volume 3’ when Kate came over with her new mop. The thing had been enchanted to be durable, a focus for magic, and had the water crystal embedded in the head. It looked much better too, the handle was now a warm cherrywood color, the mop head a gleaming white with a touch of blue in the center.

“All set?” I asked. She nodded and I went up and bought my things, only cost 60 silver for the lot which was actually pretty good. I still had 2g 40s left over. Kate got her mop and a necklace that boosted mana recovery by 5% all for 40 silver and her weapon voucher. Yeah, Freddy definitely has a soft spot for her.

The shop I took us to in the Steel District was called “Song of Steel”, the owner and smith was just starting out but in time he became one of the best in the area.

“Hello, my name is Song. How can I help you today?” was the first thing we heard as we entered the shop. Even this early it was an impressive shop, weapons and armor decorated the walls, racks of polearms and swords of various types made up the aisles, and the really fine stuff was behind the counter. Behind said counter was the proprietor Song. Song was one of the few dwarves the noobs would see in the city, Cloudburn was a primarily human city but a few of the other races were still represented here, you just had to know where to look. Dwarves in AoA fit the fantasy stereotype perfectly, short, bearded, tougher than nails, and nuts for metal and stone. They also had a talent for stone and metal magic that was damned impressive.

“Hi there Song. I need some basic armor, just a chest plate, greaves, and some vambraces. Standard steel, and under 150 silver. You able to accommodate that?” I asked the small smith.

“Eh, not much of a budget there but it should be doable. Won’t be pretty but it’ll be solid.”

“That’s all I ask, when I have a bit more coin I’ll be back for an upgrade.”

“Well take a look around while I get that collected for ya.” The dwarf said as he ran into the back. I know I couldn’t have got all that from the pieces out on the floor, but smiths always had stuff that wasn’t quite up to their standards in the back, it was cheaper and if the smith was good then it would protect you almost as well as the nicer stuff.

I sent Kate to look at daggers, always good to have a backup weapon, while I browsed the swords. It was there I bumped into a familiar face. EpicDave was checking out the massive swords, looks like he liked what he picked during the warrior quest.

“Hey Dave, how's it going?”

“Oh, Lazarus, nice to see ya again. I’ve been training with Instructor Warren, I trained on ma own til he had some free time, then he beat me black and blue in training until he said I could ‘defend myself against a baby armed with a stick’. I really don’t want to meet any baby he approves of.”

Yeah, I think I know what the instructor was calling ‘babies’ those things are fast, mean, and much stronger than their size would suggest. If I’m right that was actually high praise.

“Well that’s pretty cool, unlock any interesting classes from all that? I assume you want to be a tank right?” I asked.

“Yeah, I got some cool ones, haven't decided yet. Hey, you seemed to know what your doing during training, got any advice?”

I talked him through how to share windows and he sent over his class list. It wasn’t bad at all actually, for a guy that only did one class quest.

Novice Warrior

Novice Shielder

Greatsword Novice

Towering Wall

Huh, for a tank the Wall classes were a good choice with great foundation skills. You needed to get a shield proficiency to level 15 for any of them so he must have really improved. Hmm, let’s see, to optimize this guy and make him a monster wouldn’t be that hard actually. “You’re still going to use a massive shield and sword right?”

“Yeah man, just got to get my strength up so I can use them. I already went up 2 points from all that training.”

….well this guy is a monster in the making alright, it is very hard to push yourself hard enough that you earn stat points in training that quickly. It also must have hurt like a bitch. I pull up Towering Wall.

Towering Wall

An aspiring bastion of steel and flesh. The Towering Wall pairs great defense with a large blade to punish those that would try to tear it down.

+6 Str, +8 Con, +4 Dex per Level

Yeah, this is a no-brainer. I bet he didn’t pick it because it only has a 6 in Str though. Greatsword Novice gives +10 Str and +2 Dex, I can see why he would be hesitant since he needs the strength to use his equipment but there really is no contest.

“Take Towering Wall, while it lacks the strength boost of the greatsword one it is by far the better path for you. It will lead you where you want to go. Also, you should get a bunch of iron dust and mix it into your water, after you consume enough iron it should unlock something nice for a second class.” I told him. I knew the iron trick from an old buddy of mine that became known as the Steel Monk. His actual main class was Steelflesh Master at the time, I know he didn’t die but I lost track of him years ago or years from now. Fucking time travel.

With that bit of advice, I finally got a bonus point to Charisma.

+1 Charisma from teaching

“Thanks, man I’ll do that.” Said Dave as he finally picked a sword, it looked more like a massive metal bar someone carved a handle into and sharpened the whole thing, hell the guard was part of the blade. There was a certain brutish jagged elegance to the blade. “I think this is the one.” He said as he went to the counter to buy it.

I looked through the swords, I didn’t exactly need one but a weapon for if I run out of mana would be good. I could also finally unlock some warrior techniques with a decent weapon. I found a blade that I liked, a bit longer than a standard short sword but light and sturdy. Without a guard it sort of reminded me of one of those straight Chinese swords, it would do for now. The most important things about it were its quality and its price. At 80 silver I would be left without the means to buy any other equipment, weapons and armor were expensive after all.

Bringing my choice up to the counter I saw that Song had finished collecting my armor. It looked rough and somewhat heavy, but it would do. I paid the man and started equipping everything, thankfully the sword came with a belt and sheath included. Kate was already waiting for me and wearing a newly fitted leather jerkin along with a curved dagger at her waist. “Lookin good Nipster.” I say as I finished securing the last buckle on my chest plate. We exited the store after thanking Song and found EpicDave sitting on a bench right outside. His presence wasn’t that noteworthy, what he was doing on the other hand was somewhat concerning. Dave had a bucket of iron nails and was eating them. The pain was written all over his face as he struggled to chew and swallow the sharp metal. The starting stats were enough to make this possible, but far from pleasant, in fact, the metal was probably cutting him up inside as he swallowed.

“I said drink iron powder not eat fucking nails Dave…”

After swallowing a mouthful and coughing out a bit of blood he replied, “Well ya said it was based on how much iron I ate, figured this would be faster.” He shrugged and popped another couple of nails in his mouth.

“Well you aren’t wrong, but this way sure as hell hurts more than drinking iron-heavy water for a few days.”

“Ah, didn want ta wait that long. I don’t mind a bit of pain. Not the worst I’ve had either.”

I noticed that Dave’s accent seemed to come and go. I wasn’t sure if he was putting on the accent or trying to suppress it. Hell, with the auto-translate feature of the game I had no way of knowing what language he was speaking.

Kate was just staring at Dave with wide eyes as he ate his nails and spat out blood. “Um, mister EpicDave, I can’t heal you or anything like that, but I can clean off the blood if you want.” She offered shyly.

“Thanks miss, I’d appreciate that once I’m done, no use doing it before that.” By this point, Dave was about halfway through the bucket. We sat with him and told him of our adventures while he struggled through his self-appointed task. He may be a little nuts but you had to admire the sheer grit of this guy. I repeated some of my lessons on classes and professions as he ate, and told both of them about different class paths that I knew about. It took Dave a full 30 minutes to get through his bucket of nails. It’s a good thing he’s doing this now, after the merge full biological functions became a part of the game instead of just hunger and thirst. As much as it hurts going in I bet it would be worse coming out.

At the end of his impromptu meal, Dave pulled up his class list and smiled. “Here check this out.”

Ironblood Defender

With iron running through your veins you have a will to match. The first step on a road of metal and blood. The Ironblood Defender stands where others fall, though drenched in blood they will not yield.

+8 Str, +10 Con, +2 Dex, +5 Will Per Level

Fuck that’s an amazing tier 3 class. It unlocks Will and boosts it, shit. That is a powerful stat too, those warriors that use things like flying slashes need Will, so do telekinetics. As a warrior, he will unlock Endurance soon as well, something necessary for using stamina skills. This kid could go far, he needs to stop being so impulsive but he has some solid potential.

“You should take that as your second class immediately. I hate to say it but it wouldn’t hurt to eat more metal occasionally, and you should do the mage or cultist quests to unlock your affinity tab just so you can track your progress. The fact you got Will so early is amazing.”

Kate looks at me, “What’s this Will stat Laz, I don’t have it on my sheet?”

I nod to her, “Some stats have to be unlocked, that’s one of the reasons Free Points are so valuable actually, when you unlock a new stat it starts at 5. There are many hidden stats, one that gets unlocked for warriors and rogues fairly quickly just through level-ups is Endurance. You may have noticed you still get tired from doing things even though this is a game, well Endurance unlocks the Stamina part of your sheet, it sits right next to HP. Once you can increase your Endurance you can increase your stamina a lot more than with your Con alone. Con only gives 5 stamina per point, Endurance gives 15. Another Stat you can get as a warrior is Defense, I bet in the future Dave will get that one too. Defense adds an extra 20 HP per point and strengthens your body giving it increased hardness. Will, the stat Dave just got, unlocks Ki, the potential of the soul. Stamina is used for a lot of warrior and rogue skills, it functions as their MP. Ki on the other hand has a bunch of uses, cutting at a distance, throwing objects with your mind, and much more. Ki could be viewed as letting the body effect more than it normally does, that isn’t quite right but it’s a good enough definition for now.”

Dave is staring at me open-mouthed, “You mean I will be able to do shit like an anime character? Dude that’s really cool.”

“Yes it is, it will take training though.”

Kate had an anticipatory look on her face, “So what are some stats mages can unlock?”

“Well one of the more standard ones is also Will, some extra stats even do similar things, for example, one of the ones Monk types often get is called Chakra and it does most of the same stuff as Will. Mages generally rely on mana for most things so they don’t have any real common extra stats,” At this Kate sort of wilted. “but they do sometimes unlock stats such as Clarity, that’s an odd one that helps with mana regen a bit but mostly improves learning speed, it's good for learning really complicated magics. The other caster classes have a couple fairly common ones as well, priests often get the Soul stat, druids tend to get Harmony, and Cultists often get Control. There are a ton of stats, I only know some of them, but that is another reason to try to find a general direction you want to go and stick to it with your class. If you unlocked a ton of stats and tried to manage all of them it would be a mess.”

After my little speech, I could see both Dave and Kate were off in their own worlds trying to imagine possibilities.

“I wasn’t going to get into extra stats yet since they weren’t that important for you yet Kate, but this tough guy here had to go and unlock Will. So yeah…” I finished lamely.

“Don’t worry about the stats for now, if you really want I can train you to unlock a few of them but it will take a while.” Kate was back to her eager puppy look again.

“Yay! I want to get Will of course, and Control sounds interesting, but so does Soul. Hmm, what should I pick?” Damn… kid’s gonna need some fucking Clarity if she wants to learn all those in less than a month of real-time. Might help her mind in general actually, sadly for her I don’t know the training for Clarity.

“How about we start with Will and go from there? We can add it onto your meditation training, by the way, if you want to stick with me after today we will be doing training every day.”

At this Dave piped up, “Wow ya guys are going to be a long-term party, can I join? I’d never have gotten this class without you Lazarus.”

Oh hell, they are multiplying. I didn’t even feed them, well I guess I fed Kate…damnit. I sighed and sent him a party invite, “Why not? Welcome aboard. How long can you two play anyway?”

“Well I’m taking a year before grad school, need a break from that academic life ya know. So I can be on most of the time for at least the first week, got some job interviews next week though. Today at least I can be on for at least another few hours.” Answered Dave.

“Um.. with the time speed thing I can be on for another 3 hours before dinner, then I need to go for a bit. I can be back after my homework is done though. I just need to finish a bit of chemistry.” Kate said apologetically.

“No problem, I have a bit of work I need to get done around then too. I’ll be on most of the time anyway, I’ll figure out a way around the communication problem while you two run an errand.”

“What errand?” Kate asked.

“Well you need to work on those spells, and Dave here needs to unlock the affinity tab, so you can take him to the mage class quest and help him through it, his gear would melt without you. I will be waiting in an hour at the plaza. By the way, Dave what’s your degree in?”

“Biochem, so Miss Katenip if ya got questions about chem let me know. Your plan sounds good ta me Laz, as long as the lady is on board.”

Kate was fine with it so they went off to kill some slimes, should be a cinch, the only thing Kate has to worry about is destroying the cores. With that taken care of I popped back into Song’s and begged some scrap wood off of him, bits too small for him to use. I made my way to the plaza and carved three disks of wood about an inch across with a depression in the center. I pulled out three of the spare slime cores I had and set them in the coins, fusing them with a bit of mana. It took me another hour and 3 more slime cores but I managed to enchant the disks to act as pagers of sorts, they would all buzz when mana was fed to them. I nabbed the Novice Enchanter profession from that as well and leveled it to 3. I was just opening my book to read when my two companions arrived.

Kate said she wanted to try to get the chem homework done since Dave had explained some stuff to her, she apologized profusely of course even though I said it was okay. With a burst of light, she faded out of existence after giving me a hug. I was still standing there stunned when Dave clapped me on the shoulder.

“Nice kid eh? Sort of reminds me of my little cousin, think she’s a bit lonely though.”

“Yeah.”

“Doesn’t matter now though, she’s got us. Right bro?”

I let out a small smile, “That she does my nail-eating friend, that she does.”

In the time before Dave had to grab some grub I went over the basics of using Will with him, we went out to the woods and he practiced trying to cut a tree from a distance. I also killed a few Fungals while he practiced, getting him the first level in both of his classes and a much-needed stat boost. By the time he had to leave he had finally managed a small weak flying slash. After that, he disappeared with a flash and a “Be back in an hour bro.”

Ah, that’s a bit better. I know I need the help, and I want to help them get better, but I was feeling constrained. Now due to the time difference, I have 2 hours to grind and no one to babysit. I headed back into the city and to the graveyard, only stopping briefly to help a little girl find a seamstress to fix her doll.

The massive graveyard of Cloudburn has many secrets, way more than I would know. One of the few I did know was about a hidden dungeon under a false statue of an angel. The place was full of zombies, and not weak, slow ones either. My class took a lot of exp to level so I was going to have to kill tougher shit. Finally, I could let loose.