I grinned in glee as I crept closer and closer to the unsuspecting goblin that was trotting down the road. There weren’t any others in sight, this one being a straggler that got left behind by the rest of his group. Not that I was one to complain about my own good fortune.

Hefting my spear, I launched myself ahead faster and thrust the spear point into the base of the creature’s skull, dealing a major crit of 80% of its HP. A single extra thrust finished it off before it could utter a cry of warning to any other nearby mobs. Another 125 exp and 15 copper in the bank, and no surprises bearing down on me!

Aly flew around above me, and a look up showed her pointing off down a side road between the buildings. We had discussed the plan ahead of time. She would fly up high and keep an eye out for easy groups of goblins that I could take out easily and without problem, and we would both grow fat on money and experience! Metaphorically speaking, at least.

I took off down the indicated road at a run, marveling at how easy I could move my body in this world. I didn’t get winded so long as I had energy to spare, and my strength stat gave me a much higher carrying capacity compared to real life. A person could get addicted to this shit!

Just around the corner of the building, I saw a single Outrider trotting his mount down the street at a slow but steady pace. Nothing else around… I looked up and silently raised an eyebrow at Aly to ensure that this was the only mob around. She nodded down at me, then went back to looking out over the buildings.

The debate of whether nor not I should try to take this one on warred in my head. Yeah, my SL was much higher… Actually, fuck it. I was going in. There really wasn’t much of a downside besides death, and the easy exp I was getting here from the sentries would get me over the exp setback easy enough.

I charged out of my hiding spot, rushing towards the lizard mount that was to be my first target. My feet hit the road in time with the lizard’s own pace, muffling the sound of my steps enough to allow me to change my weapon into the two handed axe and slash down at an angle as hard as I could against its rear right leg. The blade bit deep into the flesh of the lizard with a spurt of green blood spraying out right along with a shriek of pain from the beast. I had managed to do 30% damage to the thing with the ambush crit as well as the disable icon that popped up next to the health bar above its head.

The Outrider on the mounts back spun around, but the angle was bad and it couldn’t get his spear around to strike at me, and left me with enough time to swing the axe once more for another 10% damage on the mount.

I felt a sharp pain in my side as the tail came around and clubbed me hard enough that I stumbled back a pace, taking 10% damage from the blow. I was actually happy with how the initial contact went, and as I stepped back a pace, I pulled a vial of Basic Poison out and used it on my weapon. The extra damage would help out against these foes with much higher HP.

The goblin was still struggling to get out of its saddle as I charged back in swinging my axe at the wounded lizard. 20% more damage added, and the poison stuck on the second hit adding a green drop icon next to the broken bone icon.

Finally the Outrider got down off the less than mobile mount and turned to face me. Pfft… As if I was going to stand for that! I triggered Temporal Step and used the 5 seconds to run around the lizard to get at its other side, swinging my axe with fervor as soon as the skill ended. Three more hits, with my poison extending once, and I left the lizard alone to die from the poison.

The goblin had circled around as well by then, and was charging at me with his own spear leveled at me, his intent to skewer me plain on his face. No thanks, not in the mood to become a shish kabob. I used a short 2 second burst of True Haste in order to narrowly avoid the thrusting spear and swung my axe horizontally into the Outriders stomach, dealing a pitiful 5% damage. Crap… That didn’t bode well.

I wasn’t looking forward to fleeing the single Outrider, my pride out ranking my sensibilities when confronting a single opponent, and settled in for a painful fight with the mob who out-leveled me by a decent margin at this point in the game. Using my speed, I got two more meager hits in before things started to go sideways.

Unlike the previous mobs I had encountered, this one seemed more proficient at combat and changed tactics when it saw I was getting free shots on it while within the reach of the spear. Shifting its grip on the spear, it began to wield it like a staff with a wide grip holding the weapon before it. The damn thing then began to use my own tactic against me, blocking my attack with the haft of his spear and countering with a slash of the spear point.

The fight had just become a personal challenge to me, with no chance of me backing down until I looted the damn goblin’s corpse. The AI were good at making sure I had a sufficient challenge against a mob over double my PL as our duel went on. I had a few advantages over the Outrider, my shifting weapon and the skills I could use from Aly, so the exchanges become roughly even in terms of the number of hits each of us received. Although, I took the damage a lot worse than he did…

After a short number of blows dealt and received, I had to pull one of my health potions off my belt and drink it, my HP having fallen to half and making me edgy. Didn’t want a random crit or lucky blow to take me out of this fight early. With the boost to my HP bar, and my energy bar looking at about half, I dove back into the fight.

My axe swung around in a strong arc, and I used a quick burst of True Haste to alter the angle of the strike and get around the Outrider’s block attempt to shave off some more HP. An idea hit me then, and I kicked out my leading foot against the front knee of my opponent. Apparently the system had accepted the strike as worthy, for I was rewarded with a cry of pain from the mob as the thing stumbled, its leg buckling from my hit.

With 110 mana in my pool still, I smiled and took advantage of the moment. 2 seconds of True Haste let me inflict a pair of critical strikes against the exposed neck of the Outrider, stripping it of a good 30% of its HP. That left it at 40% while my HP was climbing slowly from the potion at 70%. That looked much better in my opinion.

The moment of triumph passed quickly as I felt a strong blow knock me back, the goblin having regained its senses and striking me with a solid hit. I was caught off guard by the attack and lost a further 15% HP, stumbling backwards but at least retaining my standing position.

Depending on how a person looked at it, my potion regen was still ticking away to give me more HP back, but that meant I couldn’t take another without wasting the remaining effect of the liquid. Oh well, I needed to finish this quickly anyway or I wasn’t going to last much longer. More enemies could potentially show up at any second.

Something rather unfortunate almost happened then. As I regained my balance, I noticed the Outrider reaching for a horn on its belt. The same kind of horn that was blowing to call reinforcements in the distance. That would be bad, to say the least.

I cursed and used the last of my mana to activate Temporal Step again, then ran to the side of the goblin at what I deemed the perfect angle. In position, I timed my actions and raised the double bladed axe high over my head. A short pause at the top of the arc was needed to make sure the skill would end in time, and then I swung down as hard as I could just as the last second elapsed and the world started up once more.

My axe struck true, digging deeply into the arm that had grasped the horn and sheering through the wrist where the chainmail didn’t cover. 10% more HP taken off, a crippled debuff, and poisoned now as well! I had wondered why it didn’t take before now, but I figured this was the games way of making sure I didn’t poison a much higher level creature to death in the main game world. The lizard had been poisoned easily enough, but it was also only 4 levels higher than me and the Outrider was 5… The theory needed testing, but seemed plausible at least.

The goblin screamed in pain at having its hand taken clean off, and now that it didn’t have any real way to defend itself, I ended the fight in a few more swings of my axe with the help of the poison. My breathing was coming in hard gasps by the end of the fight, my adrenaline pumping fiercely and my nerves on high alert as I looked around for more opponents in order to convince myself that this fight was over.

Congratulations!

You have learned the skill: Two Handed Axe Mastery

Skill level: 1 (10%)

Continuous use of large axes had deepened your skill at wielding such normally awkward weapons.

+1% damage

+1% ignore armor

Increase the skill level for additional bonuses.

Well, that was nice, but the exp gain seemed quite low… Doing the math quick, it showed that I had only gained 525 exp total from those two mobs. A good chunk of change, but hardly worth the effort I had to put into the fight. Actually, I was getting 125 exp for killing level 5 mobs, so the scaling gain of experience seemed on par for what I had seen so far. The AI were much better at figuring the math out than I was, and the game had to be fair still.

Aly floated down from her position high up and poked my cheek. “Hey, quite standing around! There are more goblins a few streets over and you have a lot of work to do!”

I frowned and rubbed my face where it was poked. “Hey, give me a break. That was a tougher fight than the other goblins I dealt with. Plus, I still need to loot them…” I turned away from Aly and did just that, gaining a full silver from the Outrider and a Strange Key item that only showed question marks on the description. The lizard gave me a Lizard Hide and a Vial of Lizard Blood, which looked exactly as it sounded. Yuck… Into the inventory with that to hand over to my alchemist friend when I got back to Tyrith City.

“Stop being a baby, Calamity. Get your act together and get back to killing these things already!” Man, Aly had really gotten blood thirsty over the course of these last few fights… “These creatures stink and I want to go back to the tavern for another drink. That stuff was yummy!” Nope, not blood thirsty, just being a pain in the ass.

“Yes, yes. As my slave driver commands. Which way to the next group? And please avoid more of these guys for now. They are too much trouble for me at the moment.” My bars were all on their way to filling back up, and should be ready before I ran into my next enemy.

“Over this way. Hurry up! I don’t know how you can stand the smell of these things… How many more do you have to kill to be satisfied?” She pointed her arm then flew off slowly in that direction, facing me as she moved backwards.

I couldn’t really complain about the smell over much. Yeah it wasn’t pleasant, but I wasn’t getting any overwhelming odors that made me disgusted. “Ya know, you should probably get used to stuff like this. I plan on doing a lot of it in the future, and don’t want to hear you complaining the entire time.” My feet carried me after her, the weapon in my hands shifting back into a spear again to continue my tried and true techniques of killing mobs.

Aly gave me a glare at my words and turned her nose up at me. “Well it just goes to prove that my nose is more sensitive than yours. Fairies are more delicate than you brute Humans.” As if she couldn’t contain herself, Aly broke into a fit of giggles as she turned around and darted ahead to scout out my next targets.

With a chuckle and shake of my head, I hurried after my Fairy. I could have made a comment or two about her jab, but let the woman have her victory and focused myself on taking out more goblins. I really did have a lot of work ahead of me if I wanted to close out this quest before the week ended. Each battle took time, and the distance between each fight took more time to traverse.

So far, the game wasn’t making it easy to find a string of enemies to kill one after another in an endless gain of exp. In a lot of older games, a player could stand in the same spot and kill mobs as they spawn, earning exp in a steady stream that would add up quickly. In Realm of Infinity, mobs didn’t respawn in the same spots which cut that strategy out completely. The process actually made it more interesting, in my opinion, as it made a player actually work for every scrap of experience they gained. No shortcuts on the road to prove your worth.

Over the course of the next two hours, I had encountered and defeated a total of twelve more goblins and both myself and Aly had gained another level. I went about putting my points into Agi, Int, and Fort as well as leveling a couple of my skills some more. The most encouraging thing that happened was when my Polearm Mastery hit level 5 and it gained another bonus.

Congratulations!

Your skill Polearm Mastery has grown in level!

Skill level: 5 (3%)

Continuous use of polearms has deepened your understanding of their function and versatility.

+5% damage with polearms

+5% attack speed with polearms

+10% extra damage when charging

Increase the skill level for additional bonuses

The extra damage dealt when I charged at an opponent now dispatched the common goblin sentries without any effort at all if I caught them off guard and in a critical area. The bonuses from hitting them from ambush, charging, and targeting a vital area all stacked together for some serious damage!

Hitting level 5 also gave me a free 50 HP to my total on top of my Fort score. The devs must have decided to give players who wanted to focus on magic a chance to skip out on dumping points into Fort instead of their Int and Will. At least to a point. I doubted even a pure casting build would want to pass up putting a few points into their HP and energy levels.

I had noticed that all of the goblins were still rushing to the continued horn blasts that occasionally came from in the distance. I had tried to avoid that area, not wanting to end up in a situation where I would be overwhelmed by a crush of mobs. Now, after ten minutes of wandering around without finding any enemies, I decided that I needed to start heading closer to the source of the commotion.

I sighed at the repetitive nature of the combat I was in. Sure, it was entertaining when I ran into a new or tough situation, but the gritty nature of grinding out mobs for exp was never my favorite thing in the world. After a half dozen encounters of the same thing, with a good amount of time between fights, I was getting bored. There was no chance of me stopping in my progress, but this always happened to me in every game I had played which required a player to kill the same creatures over and over with no variation.

Granted, the immersive nature of the game made it so much more enjoyable than other VR games. My main problem at the time had to be that it was taking so long to do everything thanks to me playing alone and all of the mobs congregating around whatever activity was going on in the distance. If I had others with me, I would be more inclined to take on more mobs at once and even try for the harder Outriders so long as I had the backup.

Right then. First thing I needed to do when I got back to Tyrith was to try and see if any of the other players who made it to my faction were of a suitable level to group up with. There should be a good deal more in the city and surrounding areas by the time I finish this quest up and having more players with me would make farming mobs and quests so much faster.

During my internal conflict and thoughts, Aly and I had been traveling through the long-abandoned town and were almost to a large building that marked the center of the ruins. The two-story building was mostly intact still even after the years of neglect and encroaching flora, which surprised me greatly. Almost every building I had come across had some kind of damage from collapsed roof or wall to being reduced down to a simple pile of rubble.

We were still about a quarter of a mile away from the disturbance, but I wanted to take a peek into this place. If the Chieftain was to be found anywhere, I thought it would be here and I wanted a look at the creature. The thought of fighting the thing now didn’t cross my mind, as I was having issues with a level 9 Outrider and the chief was sure to be a higher level than that.

“Aly, come on down and stick close by me. I want to check out this building real fast before we move on and I am not sure about having you scouting too far ahead in confined spaces…” It was all true enough. Without my Fairy within my line of sight, I didn’t feel comfortable. Part of the Fairy Contract said I had to keep her safe, and I really didn’t want to test the exact parameters of that stipulation and run the risk of losing my Unique partner.

She did as I asked and floated down to follow along behind me while looking over my shoulder. “Sure, sure. I don’t think that would be a good idea either. Let’s leave you to be the punching bag of whatever we run into.”

I glanced behind me at her and raised a brow. “Cheeky devil… I will remember that when we get to town and you want a drink at the tavern.”

“What? No! Forgive me Calamity, I am sorry!” She had a panicked look on her face which made me laugh softly. The little Fairy must really enjoy the alcoholic beverages she had tried the night before.

Heading towards the doorway, which had no door after all the years, I grinned. “We will have to see. Quiet now, I don’t want to announce our presence.”

Once inside, I looked around and noticed signs of goblins frequently traveling through this way. The dust had been disturbed a great deal along the floor, and a path was easily made out leading deeper into the structure. The rooms were mostly empty, piles of old and broken furniture and other various decorations all piled off to the side of each room I passed through.

There were no enemies at all within the entire first floor, although I saw signs that a few goblins had made their homes here if the blankets laid out in one large room meant anything. That room had two staircases along the walls, one heading up and the other leading to a basement.

I was about to head towards the stairs going up when Aly grabbed the collar of my armor to stop me and whispered, “Wait. I think we should head down first…” Her lips twisted into a frown. “I feel something down there. I can’t explain it, but we should go there first.”

Well, who was I to argue if the AI controlling my Fairy said to go somewhere? “Alright. Stay behind me and keep an eye behind us in case any of the residents decide it is time for a nap.” The Fairy nodded to me, then took up the requested position while I moved towards the stairs leading down.

Moving as quietly as I could, my spear point lead the way. At the base of the steps I froze in place, looking around carefully at all of the lizards curled up and sleeping. A tunnel through the back wall lead out of the building, allowing the creatures easy access to the outdoors with this being their nest apparently.

Ten of the beasts were curled up and snoozing, my inspect skill showing them to be between level 6 and 9. Off in the far corner I saw what might have drawn Aly’s attention as I saw a heavy chest next to a crude wooden throne with a tall pole stood up behind it. From that pole hung a long piece of cloth that I couldn’t see well as it hung limply with no wind or bracing arm to keep the design on it visible.

I frowned slightly as I looked over the placement of the sleeping creatures. I supposed I should be able to take them all out easily enough, them being asleep and all, but that would only work for the first couple until the rest woke up. Hmmm… Conundrums. Time for a new application of poison.

This time I used a second vial of the spider venom, the paralytic aspect looking to be much more useful in this situation than a little extra damage. A glance at my bars assured me they were all full and ready to be expended on this fight.

With a deep breath, I charged forward and stabbed my spear into the closed eye of the first lizard to earn myself the first kill with a fatal crit. No noise to wake the rest yet, and when I checked the corpse I saw it was a weaker lizard which explained why I had no trouble with it.

The second and third died just as easily as the first, then I was left with only level 7 plus lizards. I paused a moment, allowing my energy bar to fill back up just to be safe, and then targeted the next weakest mob to continue my spree.

Whatever god ruled over luck was a fickle bitch as I charged in and stabbed the next lizard, I missed my targeted mark and only dealt 75% damage to the creature. Thankfully, the lucky part was that it was paralyzed for 5 seconds which allowed me to finish it off before it could make noise. Four down, six left.

Two more died quickly from well placed charging strikes that depleted their HP bars in one shot until I slipped on a bit of lizard blood that had pooled on the floor and I unconsciously cursed aloud. It wasn’t a large noise, but apparently between that and the scent of blood quickly filling up the room the remaining four beasts all woke up and one. Eight yellow eyes focused on me instantly as I regained my balance, yet another curse flying from my lips while I readied my spear.

A level 9 lizard rushed at me first, charging with a hiss of air from between its jaws. I rejoiced at the mechanics of the game that counted a mob charging at me towards the bonus damage from my Mastery skill as I caught the beast in the chest with my spear point and dealing a good bit of damage to the creature.

It was time to abandon stealth and quick one hit kills, so I triggered Temporal Step and moved between the lizards in order to strike at all of them as fast as I could. When the skill ended, I had a halberd in my hands and spun around rapidly. The long reach of my weapon allowed me to slash at all four of the mobs in turn while I spun, and I was able to get two hits on each before the lizards recovered and turned to attack me again.

The first lizard got frozen from the spider venom, so I focused myself on that one. Shifting my weapon back to a spear, I dived in and finished the creature off as it only had 15% HP left at that point. My jumping around worked well, the lizards swiping at empty air while I constantly moved. Using the bodies of the fallen mobs as much as my speed, it was only a short amount of time before I managed to finish the remaining three lizards off, their combat potential much less without a goblin riding them.

Congratulations!

You have gained a level!

Current level: 6

Faction Bonus:

+1 Will

+1 Two Handed Axe Mastery

+1 Combat Tactics

You have 5 stat points available to distribute.

Warning! If you die before assigning your points, they will be lost!

I grinned at the level message, and also saw another one saying Aly was level 5 now! I pulled up her info page and switched to the talent tab in order to look at the third tier skills she could learn. “Aly, keep an eye out for me while I set this all up quick!”

Rapid Revival

A Unique Skill known only to Alysandaria the Chronomancer. Time flows differently around the Contractor, allowing them to revive faster after death.

Respawn timer: 75 minutes

This is a passive skill

Exp: 0/2500

Demi Speed

A Unique Skill known only to Alysandaria the Chronomancer. The target of this ability is constricted by the will of the Fairy, slowing them by changing the rate of time flow around the target.

Speed reduction: 50%

Duration: 3 seconds

MP cost: 50

Cooldown: 60 seconds

Exp: 0/3000

Unfortunately, that was it for the third tier skills and the fourth tier wasn’t available until level 20 according to the grayed out icon. I had to wait 15 levels to get new skills? What BS… Then again, I was able to get access to a good number of decent skills in the early levels, so I guessed my power spike was coming to a slow end and I would level off once more.

Both abilities would be useful, but only removing 15 minutes from my respawn timer wouldn’t help me a lot at the moment. Oh well, I couldn’t be too greedy. I selected the Demi Speed skill for Aly to learn next and pulled up my own character window to assign my points. Two into both Agi and Int, with the final point dropping into Fort to round me out.

I nodded to myself as I looked at the final results. My primary stats were starting to grow now, and by level 10 they would be ahead of the rest and giving me the benefits I wanted from them. Task of leveling up completed, I went around and looted all of the lizards to add six Lizard Hides and four Vial of Lizard Blood to my inventory, some of the bastards not even dropping me any loot! Ugh… damn RNG mechanics.

With that finished and the bodies all clearing themselves away, I turned towards the chest and throne against the side wall, my hands rubbing themselves together as I walked over. The first thing I noticed was a heavy lock on the chest, but then I caught sight of something lying on the floor behind both the chest and throne which drew my attention.

Excitement filled me as I moved over and lifted the item in my hands, a wide smile on my face. I held a marvelous weapon that had to have been of excellent workmanship with a long pole handle and a three foot curving blade sharpened on both edges. A scythe made specifically for combat, and not one of those farmer implements. I quickly pulled up the inspect window on the item, eager for some good news.

Runed War Scythe

Rare

Damage: 32-45

Required Level: 5

Required Skill: Polearm Mastery lvl 5

An enchanted weapon once owned by an experienced adventurer, this scythe has tasted the blood of countless foes. While most would find it awkward to wield, those who specialize in exotic weapons should find it quite useful.

Now that is what I was talking about! Just what I needed to find in order to finish this quest up quickly and get the hell out of these ruins! The damage on this weapon was almost triple of what I figured the base damage of my spear was, and my mastery and other skills should boost it up even more. I quickly equipped the weapon and slung it over my back to replace the shifting weapon I had started the game with. I would keep the unique item as a backup, but now I had myself a real tool of destruction!

Hyped up by the prospect of trying out my new toy, I turned back to the chest. Then froze and spun in a circle once again to check out the pole behind the throne. No… It wouldn’t be that easy. No way in hell it -could- be that easy. I took the two steps required to reach out and touch the item and confirmed my suspicions with the item window. Banner of the Goblin Chieftain. Son of a bitch. This was supposed to be the boss room, but whatever commotion was going on outside drew the beastie out of his hiding hole.

Putting the Banner into my inventory, no need to lose that freebie, I tried a third time to focus on the chest. Remembering the key I had claimed from the Outrider, I tried it out on the heavy lock. Well, not everything could work out perfectly I guessed. The key didn’t fit the lock, so I returned it to my inventory and resorted to the good old fashioned barbaric method of smashing the damn thing.

There were a few piled of rubble around, and one chunk of stone made for a perfect lock pick set. The process was a bit on the loud side, but after a few bashes with my impromptu key, the metal gave way and fell off, allowing me to open the chest in anticipation.

Roughly three by two by two, the chest wasn’t particularly big. Inside of the sturdy iron bound wood were a few vials, some I recognized while others came up as all question marks to my inspect skill. The ones I knew were energy and health potions, and they went right into my quick access slots to replenish what I had used so far.

In addition to the potions was a heavy pouch of coins equaling 1 gold, 13 silver, 48 copper. Damn, I was rich! Rummaging around, I was curious to see what else this crate of goodies would yield for me. A pair of gloves were at the bottom of the chest, stats on them not quite as good as the ones I had equipped, as well as a stone that gave me all question marks when inspected. With all of the good fortune I had been having, I wasn’t about to question the AI anytime soon and just stuffed it all in my inventory.

Another inspection of the room turned up nothing and it was time for me to move on before the chieftain himself decided to come back and found me lounging in his throne. That wouldn’t end well most likely, and I wasn’t in the mood to wait to respawn after getting all of those good things. Add to that the fact that the flashing icon by the clock on my UI was back, and it spelled time for me to exit stage right.

The horns had slowed down at the other edge of town from where I started, although I still heard them blaring intermittently. After I took a break, I decided it was time to check that out finally and see just what was going on. If there were other players here and were having trouble after surviving all this time, I would see about helping them. After my break… No reason to get caught up in things when I had a real body to take care of.

The streets were fairly empty of mobs as I traversed to a building far enough away from the town center as to feel safe, then initiated the log off. I didn’t want to come back in right on top of a horde of pissed off goblins, even with as much as I wanted to try out my newest toy. Time and place, and that would be neither.