Rebirth: Rise of the Slave Master

Chapter Four: A Speedy Start?

“System Command: Skip Intro!” Rick shouted almost immediately.

There was a 15 minute video that showed before a player created their character, but a quick system command would allow you to skip it. Of course, this information hadn’t been discovered yet, and would only become public after resetting players complained to the developers.

Not that they would want to skip the intro right now. It would tell the basic story of the world the game took place in, Orpheum, and introduce the different starting cities and races. It was vital information to the flock of incoming newbies, but Rick had seen it all before.

“Welcome to Character Creation! Dream World Online only allows one character per player, please-”

“Race: Human!” Rick ordered, interrupting the system.

It quickly locked in his race as human. A standard pick, and what he chose last time he made his character. This time around, he had a very clear reason why he chose it. After fiddling with the controls for a moment, Rick settled for a character with an average height and slim build. A smaller body would make it easier to avoid attacks in combat, but too small and he would be vulnerable to certain size and weight-related effects.

After fiddling with the options for less than a minute, his character’s facial appearance ended up pretty close to his own, if a little more mature. It looked a lot like his old 25 year-old self, though it was entirely by coincidence that it ended up that way. Perhaps Rick subconsciously missed this face a bit… It wasn’t that bad looking, if he had to say so himself.

“If I’m gonna play a bad guy, the hair color should be black, right?”

Rick quickly changed the shade of the short, messy locks to a very dark black. It was quite the change compared to his own sandy brown color, but it felt a bit off. After a moment of contemplation, he then made the eyes a bit sharper. This was actually kind of… a handsome evil prince? Was a quick eye change all he needed to produce such an aura? Maybe he should consider plastic surgery in the future...

Rick tossed the idea from his head and confirmed his character selection.

Character creation in Dream World Online was usually an in-depth procedure which went all the way down to the embroidery on the avatar’s shoes. It could take some players hours upon hours to design. Afterall, there was no way to change it once you had decided. What’s more, Dream World Online didn’t use a traditional equipment system.

Most items were purely cosmetic in nature, and all of the early shops only sold drab linen garments for poor villagers. It wasn’t exactly heroic feeling to be dressed like a commoner, so unless they were a roleplayer, most people gave their character some impressive starting garments. Later on, when tailors uncovered rare recipes and the finery shops opened, a whole new world of virtual fashion would spring up!

For now, Rick chose a simple adventurer’s outfit with a tunic and breeches, some soft leather boots, and a few various belts for weapons and potions. A waist-length poncho with light stitching around the hem served as his cloak, and even had an option for a hood. It was basically no different from what the avatar had started out wearing, though he hastily color shifted it all to match his evil prince theme.

“Alright, character creation done!” he alerted the system.

The whole process had taken him less than five minutes.

After muscling his way through a few confirmation alerts, Rick’s point of view suddenly shifted to the perspective of the avatar he just created. Rick had heard rumors about people becoming motion sick if their in-game body was too different from their original, but he was basically walking into a copy of himself.

“Please select your starting city… The city of -”

“Oasis!” Rick snapped hastily, “Confirm!”

He was glad the system AI was just a simple baby-sitter program and wouldn’t get angry with his curt behavior. The same couldn’t be said for other NPCs.

“Please enter a character name.”

Oh damn, he’d actually forgotten.

“Theo is and will forever be my character’s name!” he quickly entered the four letters and hit the confirm button.

Players all had a unique sequence of code associated with their account, so there wasn’t any limitation on having the same name. Not that anybody would be finishing before him.

His avatar broke into dozens of particles not unlike player death and slowly fluttered away in a breeze that could be neither seen nor felt.

“I wish you a grand journey, new adventurer. Please enjoy your time in Dream World Online!”

It was the last thing Theo heard before he opened his eyes for the first time.

He was standing in a plaza built around an unadorned yet massive fountain which paraded its water high into sky, seemingly ad infinitum. All around him, sandstone buildings with domed roofs towered overhead. Ostentatious golden ornaments, symbols of the city’s teeming wealth, glittered atop the various spires and obelisks that painted the skyline. Far from monochrome, colorful banners and baubles were hung with ubiquity, rocking gently in the sun-scorched breeze.

The place where Theo appeared was drowning with activity, as merchants and citizens hustled by on the dusty streets. Barkers and hawkers called out to any potential customer at the top of their lungs, with tents and hastily constructed stalls sprouting up in place of grass. It was so busy that Theo’s arrival went totally unnoticed by the passersby.

The city of Oasis was, as the name suggested, a huge desert city in Orpheum’s central most continent of Theseus. The population was mostly humans and reptilian beastmen called Scalekin, though the diversity was significant compared to other cities. This was the place to start if you wanted to focus on mercantile skills, as it had the most robust trade in the whole continent and was home to dozens of unique trading goods.

The Merchant Prince of Oasis, Milis Al-Brown, was once something of a friend to Theo… though his hard-earned reputation had been completely reset now.

Aside from traders, Oasis had another distinctive feature. Big, bloodthirsty mercenaries. The arid and windy desert surrounding Oasis was full of nasty monsters, and so the place was crawling with all varieties of thugs and sellswords. Protect the trader caravans and get paid, use the money on booze and women, rinse and repeat. That was the life of these rough desert warriors.

Of course, Theo didn’t come here to take part in mercenary work like that. It paid well, but it certainly wasn’t a good way to gain experience points. The real reason Theo chose this place was for his class quest. Not all of the merchants in Oasis were the above-board type, and that was the key to unlocking the hidden class, Slave Master.

That was, after he reached level 9. A player couldn’t pick a class until then, and couldn’t advance to level 10 until they completed the associated quest. The class quests were the first major hurdle for the new players, and it would take them quite a bit of time before they discovered how to complete them. Theo had to use every opportunity to his advantage at this point.

Luckily, Oasis was a pretty unpopular starting city if Theo remembered correctly. Only about 6% of players chose to start in this place. It wasn’t surprising. Oasis was hot and unforgiving, with desert in all directions, and the citizens were all a bit brusque compared to the more picturesque cities. The monsters were also comparatively more difficult to defeat, and 1 out of 5 players would end up resetting after they experienced all of Oasis’s unique ‘charms.’ The remaining 4 out of 5 were usually just as rough as the NPCs who lived here.

“It takes all kinds, I guess…” Theo mused.

First things first, he would need to acquire the basic skills from the tutorial quest. This was an unfortunate baby step that all of the players would have to complete if they wanted to do things like trade, use the respawn system, and equip runes.

Rather than traditional gear, Dream World Online used runes to assign attributes to your character. After the tutorial, every player would have three slots for runes. A head, heart, and core rune. These were the three major Rune Points on the bodies of all players and NPCs. After completing their class quest, the player would unlock two additional rune points for the arms and legs.

Class Promotion quests occurred at levels 60, 120, and 180, each of which unlocked additional secondary and tertiary rune points throughout the body.

Runes could be dropped as loot from monsters, gained by completing quests, and crafted from various ingredients and essences by players who knew the proper skills.

Theo didn’t waste any time meeting with the NPC who stood just nearby. She was a tall and beautiful woman with enviable proportions, tanned skin, and pointy ears. An Elf, it seemed, and she was wearing an outfit that belonged to a Greeter of the Adventuring Guild. It was quite frilly, like a cross between a minstrel and a maid, with shiny black shoes and long white stockings. She had a soft aura around her that only players like Theo would be able to see, and she was next to impossible to miss.

“Hello, young adventurer…” she began.

The spiel was pretty much the same in every city, with the narrative being standard fantasy fare.

Players in this world were called Adventurers, and all of them were associated with the Adventuring Guild… at least at the start. Later on, there were dozens of factions you could choose to align yourself with. The Adventuring Guild in every city naturally wouldn’t let you leave town until you were properly versed in the basics, so they set up a little gauntlet of ‘go here, meet this person’ style quests.

Essentially, it was a tutorial.

The NPCs didn’t differentiate between the players and other AI’s, and treated everyone as if they were born and bred residents of Orpheum. They blatantly ignored any oddities that players had, such as logging out and disappearing, checking their inventories, and chatting in private messages with one another. After a bit of questioning, they would say something vague like, “Oh, you seemed busy.”

If a player tried to force an NPC into a conversation about the game system, they would usually act confused and eventually turn hostile if the person continued pressing the matter. As such, most players chatted ‘in-character’ with the NPCs, and acted the part of a world-traveling, fortune-seeking citizen of Orpheum.

Some players, called roleplayers, would get totally into their character, trying to distance themselves from the players and act more like the NPCs. Those sorts were always tough to deal with… though Theo himself had gotten rather into his War God role in the past.

After completing a dozen or more fetch quests and running all over Oasis to meet some key NPCs, Theo finally finished the tutorial quest. Along the way he picked up his first weapon, a [Fine Iron Spear], and a core rune called [Novice Core Rune].

Only weapons could be equipped in the traditional manner of most MMORPGS, and were considered far more precious than runes. Weapons were very rare drops, almost only from specific boss monsters. The quality and type of the weapon would determine its damage output, and some weapons later on even had rune points of their own. A good weapon could make or break you in this game.

Of course, everyone who just started would have to make do with a fine iron whatever. They had pretty similar attributes across the board, and some players would still be using the same weapon even after their class change.

Theo had already equipped the starting gear and checked their stat values.

[Fine Iron Spear] Quality: Beginner; Durability 100/100

Damage: 9~21

[Novice Core Rune] Rune Point: Core; Rank: Beginner Lv.1

HP +50

HP Regen +1 per second

Weapons in Dream World Online didn’t have anything like an attack rate, but they did have hidden values that determined the speed with which they struck. It was a complex algorithm based on any number of stats and circumstances. Most players would just learn to ‘feel’ it out. Durability would drop as the weapon was used, and the weapon couldn’t be used anymore after it reached 0. A blacksmith would be needed in order to repair it.

Core runes were all similar in that they focused primarily on giving bonus HP and HP Regeneration. Later on, when the rank rose above Beginner, they would add various attributes like resistance to status effects or special abilities. Chest runes usually increased Defense, like classic armor, and head runes were like core runes but for MP and MP regen.

Class limits on runes and weapons were usually rare, and based on the story included for each item. Most classes could use any type of rune or weapon, though the players would eventually settle on different roles to be taken in combat and the ideal equipment for it. After that, when paired with the classes that granted special skills, terms like Healer, Damage Dealer, and Tank would begin to take shape.

After Archetypes were added in the first content update, these roles would be shaken up quite a bit, but no matter how much the game company behind Dream World Online tried to topple the holy trinity, players would always find a way to drag it back from Hell.

Theo had chosen a spear because he had the most experience with polearm type weapons. They provided a range advantage that was quite beneficial against large monsters, and their damage was firmly set between light one-handed weapons and heavy two-handed weapons. Though the damage was supposed to drop off in close range to balance it out, that was only the case for a beginner. Whatever the range, Theo was confident that he could maintain consistent damage.

Laughingly, despite introducing the item and weapon shops, as well as the cores and how to equip them, the game neglected to tell the new players to visit a very important location. Theo figured this was to slow down progress in the early game and instill a sense of wonderment the first time a [Wicked Squirrel] tore your HP bar to shreds and left you dead in the beginner field.

The Weapon Master!

The Weapon Master of Oasis was a woman named Titania, who wore a battle-scarred suit of bronze-tinted plate mail that hugged her curves and revealed the cleavage of her truly bombastic chest. Scarlet hair cascaded down her shoulders and accentuated the mature charm of her face, with a scar on her brow giving her a fairly distinguished feeling.

“Really, these game devs could have toned it back a bit with the fan service,” Theo muttered to himself.

“Oh-ho!” the woman let out a loud sound of acknowledgement when Theo approached, “What’s this, a novice adventurer! How could I tell you were a novice, you ask? Why, the way you hold that spear tells me all I need to know!”

The valiant-looking woman slapped her armor proudly, as if 100% assured of her own judgement. Of course, if Theo went all out to show off his skills with the spear, it would be anything but amateur, but in the eyes of the system he really was a novice.

He didn’t even have the [Beginner Polearm Mastery] skill yet.

Yes, it required training to receive the basic weapon skills. Without them, you wouldn’t be able to hit a brick wall in front of your face!

This was still a game after all.

The Weapon Master in each city would treat the player to one free weapon skill of their choice at the start of the game. This would also determine their basic attack skill. After that, it would cost progressively more and more to acquire the new weapon skills, to the point where learning them all would have cost enough gold to buy a brand new foreign car.

Not only that, but the various Weapon Masters throughout the different cities were the only ones who taught the weapon proficiencies for the exotic local weapons. What’s more, even if you had all the gold in the world, you needed a certain amount of reputation in that given city to get the Weapon Master’s training. This was why most players only focused on a single or a couple of weapons. Any more than that would be a waste.

Talk about money gouging… every coin that the players spent with NPCs was essentially a coin in the pocket of the developers.

How Theo had cried when he discovered that one of the requirements to qualify for the War God Archetype was to have max proficiency with every weapon type in the game! It was truly a daunting goal.

“You’re right, Weapon Master Titania, I have just begun my journey,” Theo said boredly.

He would usually be more involved in the conversation, but unfortunately, Titania was under the throes of the system. While the new players were still arriving, a lot of the NPCs had their AI’s altered to make the process smoother. It wasn’t until later that they would be let loose from the system and returned their freedom.

Theo thought it was a sad but necessary outcome.

“Well I can’t well send you off to die, young sprout, let this old war-hag teach you a thing or two!” said Titania, practically exuding valor.

“A hag? Titania, if you’re what’s called a hag, are my mom and sister not even fit to walk the street? Please watch what you say in public!”

Theo had to stifle the words so that he didn’t speak them out loud.

“It would be my honor, Weapon Master!”

Theo didn’t waste any more time and immediately acquired the [Beginner Polearm Mastery] and the [Lunge] skill.

Just as the other players were starting to get their bearings, Theo was ready to truly begin in earnest.