Day 9 - September 20:59

Faith 1 / 10

Hunger 17 / 100%

One looked at his design in awe. A tall two story house, forming a large “L” from bird perspective. Thirty two windows on each floor allowed for a lot of light over all that space. The only downside to his sweet project was the 1.640 [Common Wood] he needed to start. At least he was able to use normal and rare grade wood as well and the exchange rate was 3 [Common Wood] for normal and 9 for rare wood. Which meant the job would by no means be impossible to do. One just would have to grind the woodcutting more.

While he spent the whole night hitting trees and harvesting the fallen wood his wolf Lupin was hunting for rabbits. Just a wonderful pet. He basically fed himself and partly One too. Since his two new friends, Lightning and Thunder, were still questing and did not come back as of yet, he was pretty much uninterrupted in his work.

In the early morning he had reached 31% for [Woodcutter: Beginner II], while his [Chopping Wood II] skill grew to 58%.

Aside from that One used up all his Faith points, ate 17 [Bonfire Meat] while he gained two [Brown Rabbit Pelt] from Lupins hunting trip. The woodcutting brought him 67x [Common Wood], 17x [Normal Wood] and 1x [Rare Wood] as well as 1x [Legendary Wood].

In the morning the leaves of all trees had grown orange, brown and yellow. Autumn had come. Only pines and other needle trees resisted the immediate urge to change color. This night One was only able to cut down two smaller trees, now he really wanted to target a bigger one. After he calculated the time he had to spend to cut down and harvest a [Pine Tree] he started. He would finish his little project just before Day 11 - November, considering that the speed of work got a lot better after reaching the second beginner level. One inspected it out of curiosity while working.

[99%/100%]

[Pine Tree]

Age: 168 Days.

A skilled woodcutter may find [Pinewood] aside from:

[Common Wood] 78.32%

[Normal Wood] 13.47 %

[Rare Wood] 4.47 %

[Legendary Wood] 0.74 %

[Seed: Pine-Cone] 3.00%

Grown by: -nature-.

How high would his skill need to be to finally harvest some [Pine Wood]? Most likely his job mastery needed to reach higher than just beginner level. Another thing that concerned One, was his level. He was only level six, after almost ten days of nonstop playing. It was very clear to him, that this was the most effective way to make some money early on and advance something useful instead of questing just to level up, when you were able to do that later on too. The concern lied in survival. What if someone actually got greedy and tried to to kill One for his bounty? He would really have to risk it all on that not happening.

After hours of work he finally was able to knock down the tree. His job mastery had increased to 81% while [Chopping Wood] reached a solid 100%. The increased mastery level would greatly increase the speed of harvesting the fallen pine tree. It took less time than anticipated and he reached a full beginner II mastery after finishing the workload. In total he gained:

[Common Wood] 147 x

[Normal Wood] 34 x

[Rare Wood] 11 x

[Legendary Wood] 2x

His [Seed: Pine Cone] count reached 46 as well. He would use them to level up further once his mastery reached [Woodcutter: Beginner III]. All the grinding was really growing boring as of late. One wished for a fight with some evil, vicious bunnies. He missed that stuff. Sadly it was just much more efficient to grind up his masteries for now. You had to do chores once in awhile. In his case all the time.

Maybe there was something to hunt in the mountainside? Deer were just too fast and the males were dangerous enough to make a fight stupid. But maybe something smaller, less strong would present itself higher up? Something like mountain goats? One called for Lupin. The wolf listened and came running. He had been hunting. Waiting in front of a bunny hole would be more accurate. His little friend was lazy this way.

The wolf had really grown on One. It was nice to have a follower running with him, everything became more interesting and the wolf often checked out the stuff he missed.

It was still day 10 - October 23:04, so it was still some time towards midnight. About an hour after that One would finally reach 50/50 Faith to unlock his new skill bar. Hopefully he would finally get something interesting.

Lupin took the lead, understanding where his master wanted to go. He lead him away from the plateau, where One planned to build his mansion, up a broad mountain path. About five people could have walked next to each other here and the forest soon stopped and gave way to rocks, smaller bushes and stone. At night it looked quite calming. One really liked nightly walks below the stars. And the night sky was really beautiful in Midgard.

After about twenty minutes of casually walking they reached another plateau merely 100 meters above the former, though at least a kilometer further to the west. Here the Mountain gave place to a huge stone wall, shimmering dark grey and black. The stone looked really valuable and even inspecting gave him no clear information:

[Mysterious Wall: ???]

[???: ??. ???? ? ?? ????? ?? ? ???? ??? ??!]

Even Lupin turned his head in a confused manner. He had brought him here, but his motivation was now clear. There was a dead animal carcass lying a little further away. One tried to loot it, but he was not successful. Clearly the unidentifiable animal had been killed by another player or animal and was not just simple decoration. There was just too much eaten already, only bones and very, very little of the flesh remained. Still it must have been enough to attract his pet.

One pulled out his pickaxe, equipped it and started to hit away at the black wall. Most likely he would be unable to get materials, since his mining skill was low, although just trying never hurt. Quickly he noticed that he must have been right.

[You are unable to mine this.]

Then Lupin ran up to the wall and wildly scratched and bit the wall. Stupid wolf. Why would he do that? Then the whole mountain started to rumble. Lupin immediately stopped and returned to One. Hiding behind him he cowered to the floor. His head between One's feet on the ground he whined desperately. What was going on?

The stone wall was suddenly moving. It rumbled, the stone cracked at the sides, then all over the place. Black stone plates fell, no. They merely shifted. Formed something entirely different. Maybe it was the entry towards a hidden dungeon? Or a secret chamber?

Barely fifteen seconds later a huge stone golem stood before them. With about forty five meters height he was a giant among giants. When he stepped out of his former sleeping spot he immediately attracted One’s attention. Quickly he shoved Lupin aside and started to run away from this monstrosity. He called out for his pet wolf to run as well, while inspecting the former stone wall again.

[World Boss: Raid: [Thrakthar, The Jotunheim Spy]

[???: ??. ???? ? ?? ????? ?? ? ???? ??? ??!]

“Oh, shit. Shit, shit, shit! Fuck that. Run! Lupin ruuun!” His little friend followed, although being much faster than One he quickly started to overtake him. The coward was running away, much further than his master. Leaving him behind was not an issue for the wolf apparently. Sadly Thrakthar had other plans. A huge bolder flew past One, crushing Lupin. Immediately the group window disappeared and a popup appeared.

[[Lupin] has died.]

Noooooo! Damn it. One really had liked his pet. Changing plans One decided to jump down the cliff. Below there was a small river. The waterbed would most likely be steep enough to kill him nonetheless from falling, but it was better to try rather than trying to escape the world boss with the awesome pitching. That much was certain. One jumped just barely in time to avoid the second boulder. Sadly a laser beam coming from Thrakthar’s eye hit him mid air just a second after. Maybe an attack for flying targets?

[You took 248 damage from [Jotunheim Justice].]

[You died.]

Well that was a downer.

[Time left for revival by skill or [Revival Stone]: 00:29:58.]

[Accept for Revival] [Decline for Death]

Since he had no hope of revival within thirty minutes, he just declined. Immediately he floated at the same spot he died in. Transparent this time, he had become something like a ghost. The world boss returned slowly to his hiding spot, where it slowly changed to be a giant black wall again. Only a black wall, covered in moonlight remained. Really peaceful.

Behind him a lot of smoke appeared. A woman stepped out of a grey smokescreen. She was beautiful, although her appearance was more than unusual. The left half of her body was blue skinned, with dark ashen hair. While her right side was covered with smooth white skin and beautiful blonde hair the eyes reflected her appearance. One eye brightly red while the other reflected the green of the forest. Her blue skinned hand touched his face lightly. Immediately dark black lines streamed all over his body causing a sharp, harsh feeling. It was not pain, rather an uncomfortable emotion. This time he really had the feeling of dying. At least it was how One imagined it.

[You have left [Midgard].]

[You have entered the divine realm [Helheim].]

[Hunger-Stat was removed.]

Moments later he woke up in the same room the goddess that touched him resided in. He was lying on a huge comfortable cushion which was placed in front of a table. Behind this table she sat. Very beautiful and completely naked. Though it was impossible to look at her private parts and even her exposed breasts were unable to comprehend for One. Impressive what the game was able to do. And a little sad for him.

“You are dead.” The goddess stated the obvious. “I’m Hel. Daughter of Loki and ruler of Helheim. You serve my father?”

One got up. Or at least he tried to. He felt dizzy. “Yes. Not all too long, but yes.”

“In this case I have a gift for you.” She handed him a small black box, almost like the casing for an engagement ring. One finally managed to get up and he opened it quickly to loot the contents.

[Hel’s Hellfire Ring]

[Godly Item]

A present of Hel herself. The undying blue flame of the eternal dragon Nidhogg was forged into the scale of the sea serpent Jormungand. It’s raw power is unstable and dangerous.

Weight: 0

Durability: 1.000/1.000

[???] - Unknown Power

A godly item! One really was in luck. He missed Lupin though. He really would trade the item against a stronger version. Lupin II. second of his name. Maybe someday. A beeping noise made One alert to his faith stat. Finally he had enough to unlock his new skill bar. 50/50.

[You have unlocked [Priest: Apprentice of Loki] skill level two.]

Immediately One inspected his new skills.

[Summon: Fenrir]

[Summon: Jormungand]

[Stealth I]

His Faith-Stat increased to 0/50 and his Faith regeneration was now 4 per hour. Sadly it only increased every full hour and not with every fifteen minutes.

[Summon: Fenrir] took 50 Faith to use, and it had 0% mastery, which meant that it had to be leveled. The same had to be said for [Summon: Jormungand], but it took 100 Faith to use it. For which he had to unlock the next skill bar. 0/400. That would take some time again. The stealth skill was without a doubt the most useful. It had also a mastery level, but it was far easier accessible with 1 Faith required.

[Stealth I]: Fully hides your presence for 0.5 seconds. 1 minute cooldown.

Then One equipped his new ring. The power was flowing through his body instantly. A real awesome feeling. Energy flowed into the ring and back towards him again. It was a calming and soothing feeling. Until he read the new power. Then he felt like shit.

[Hel’s Hellfire Ring]

[Godly Item]

A present of Hel herself. The undying blue flame of the eternal dragon Nidhogg was forged into the scale of the sea serpent Jormungand. It’s raw power is unstable and dangerous.

Weight: 0

Durability: 1.000/1.000

[Hel’s Touch] - Passive: Decreases Speed and Power of the wearer by 10% constantly.

Discarding the ring from the wearer will kill him after 30 seconds.

Nice. Just what One needed. A new godess trolling him with "presents".