You have received Experience

Congratulations, for successfully escaping from the trapped crypt of Lanbard the Unwise you have received a hidden reward. You have gained experience

These words floated in front of Gordo’s eyes as he lay there, his head aching from the blow to the back of his skull, the billowing dust filling his throat and nose, making his breathing labored. He closed his eyes and groaned, the notification being replaced aby another one.

Congratulations, you have gained a level, You are now Level Three

You have one Attribute Point to allocate

The decision on where to place this point was pretty obvious, he needed to raise his strength up to be able to wear armor, so he opened his character page and allocated the point to his strength, raising it to three. One more point and he could equip the leather armor he had found. He took a quick look at the current state of his attributes, which to be honest, were still pretty dismal, but better than they had been yesterday.

Strength : 3 Constitution : 0 Dexterity : 1

Intelligence : 0 Wisdom : 0 Perception : 0

A couple more levels and he would almost be comfortable with his character, even though he still regretted not being able to use the previous points in increasing his intelligence, for he knew that a magical skill would be of prime importance for the future. He then sighed, thinking on the experience he was missing out on from not having any skills yet, but now he had money in his pocket, he would make that one of the first things he would do when he went back to town.

He knew the first class he would seek out would be Weapons Master, mainly due to the fact that this type of fighter had access to just about all weapons, and while it didn’t have many of the special bonuses other fighting classes have, it also avoided many of the negative effects as well. He knew many in his position would choose Paladin, because it catered for a fighter and a cleric setup, but firstly, the growth in the Paladin class was already slow, and with his multiple class options, it would become unbearably slow, and secondly, the religious aspect of this class would add too many negatives to any magic class he chose. Magic and religion didn’t mix, no matter what game you played in, and combined they would lower the potency of both to a mere shadow of what each were capable of separately.

He had considered Swashbuckler, for he always had fancied the nautical side of a character like that, but the weapon restrictions were too severe, and would just be a hindrance when playing on land, and only idiots, or new players ever chose the Beserker and Barbarian classes. Those two were just grunt characters, all brawn and no brain, and both had nasty class penalties attached. He also knew there were at least another ten fighter classes, but all of them didn’t figure into his plan, so he just ignored them.

The pain in his head had eased by this point, leaving him only with a small sore spot located at the base of his skull, down near where the spine joined it. He managed to ease one hand around in the confined space , enough to massage it, while he rotated his head in small circles. After a while of doing this, even that sore spot finally disappeared. It was only then, when he had time to think on things other than his head, that he noticed the bones of the corpse beneath him poking upwards into his back and lower limbs, bringing him some discomfort. He kicked upwards with one foot, thrusting the lid above him to fly off to one side, allowing a rush of fresh air to rush in and cool him, while sunlight bathed him as he lay there.

Slowly extricating himself from the broken remains of Prince Lanbard, he stood up and stepped out of the coffin, finding himself back on the top of the barrow that had been raised above the crypt. Looking around, he could see the hole where he had fallen into it, about thirty foot away, and scratched his head. While he had thought the coffin would protect him from the acidic goo, he hadn’t expected the thing to bring him back to the surface in such a dramatic method. Examining the coffin, he could see it was positioned in a slight depression in the ground, standing on exposed stonework, the grass around its edge burnt from the touch of the acid that had lifted the coffin upward. There must have be another tunnel beneath those stones, and suspected a trapdoor that must have closed when the liquids pressure pushed the coffin past it.

While looking at the coffin, a sudden realization came across him that he was back where he started, where the rabbits were, and he hadn’t even bothered making sure his position was safe. Quickly arming himself with his new dagger, Gordo crouched slightly and scanned the area about himself, all thoughts about his return to the surface forgotten. Still in his crouch he carefully made his way back past the hole where he had fallen into the barrows, and to the stones where he had last battled the rabbits.

Reaching the piled stones, he found the body of the rabbit he had killed previously still laying there, and no sign of the other three from the same pack. Reaching down, he looted the body, receiving a pair of rabbit ears, and a rabbits tail, the body disappearing once all the goodies were taken. For some reason he wondered what would have happened to the body if he hadn’t looted it. Would it stay here, until someone else came across it and looted it ? Did it have a set amount of time before it evaporated, along with the untaken loot, after a set amount of time ? he had no way of knowing at this point, and his mind returned to the task in front of him, getting back to the city without getting killed.

The forest clearing that surrounded the barrow seemed clear of any dangers, but he still decided to prepare himself just in case, so searched among the stones, looking for any fist size rocks that he could use as a thrown weapon. After a few minutes, he had gathered twenty of the most promising looking ones and stored them in his bag. He knew they wouldn’t cause much damage, but any damage he could make before an opponent was within arms length of him was a definite bonus .

Gordo spent the next half an hour practicing throwing rocks, using a small bush at the bottom of the slope in front of him as a target. His aim definitely improved, but at the end he was still only successful half the time. He felt a little more confidant as no rabbit had made an appearance during the time he spent throwing rocks.

Considering himself as prepared as he would ever be, Gordo made his way down the slope and started travelling across the clearing, heading for the point he had entered it earlier that day. Half way to the tree line he heard the high pitched squeal of a rabbit, and his gut tightened in panic as he spun to face the direction the noise had come from.

A single rabbit emerged from the trees and rushed towards him, the red of its eyes clearly visible above its foaming and teeth filled snarl. Like all the others, this one was about the size of a dog, its ears laid flat against its back as it ran. Gordo hesitated a moment, allowing the creature to close on him, before he remembered the stones he had gathered just for this kind of situation. He whipped a stone out and, not taking the time to aim properly, let it fly at the maddened animal. In a stroke of luck, it flew true, striking the rabbit in the head, interrupting its headlong charge.

‘You have struck a Wild Rabbit. Wild Rabbit suffers one damage.’

Taking the opportunity given by the rabbits hesitation, he threw another rock, but this time it sailed past the rabbit, missing it by a good two foot and landing in the long grass behind it. Cursing to himself, he gripped harder on the dagger and prepared himself as the rabbit regained its momentum towards him.

The rabbit used its hind legs to propel itself into a powerful leap at him, heading directly for his throat, but from his last encounter, Gordo had been expecting something like this, and leaned out of the path of the leap, thrusting upwards with his dagger. The shock in his hand and arm let him know that his thrust had been true, and the blade of the dagger pierced the rabbit beneath its jaw and travelled up to lodge in its brain. The following system message only confirmed what he knew had happened.

‘You have struck Wild Rabbit. Wild Rabbit suffers three damage, you have killed a Wild Rabbit. Experience gained 10 points’

From behind him, he heard the sound of the tree branches leaves being disturbed, and he knew that this heralded the arrival of the final two members of this rabbit pack. Dipping into his bag he grabbed a couple more of the stones and started throwing them as the rabbits emerged from the trees. He managed to get off three stones at them, successfully striking one of the rabbits twice for a total of three damage before he needed to defend himself.

As the uninjured rabbit charged him, he rolled out of its path, its speed not allowing the rabbit to alter its direction of attack, and it went past him, its back legs churning up the dirt as it attempted to stop. The other rabbit, though, managed to strike Gordo, biting him painfully on one of his legs and causing three damage. Like before, the pain was excruciating, but he gritted his teeth and tried to ignore it, slicing at the rabbit where it concentrated on tearing at his leg. The blade made a shallow cut across its face, a painful blow but not one that would cause much damage normally, but enough to remove its last health point.

The last remaining rabbit had managed to cease its charge at this point, and had turned and was charging Gordo again. This time Gordo didn’t have time to avoid it, and it crashed into him forelegs ripping at his chest and its maw biting furiously at his arms and shoulders. His health points started to drop alarmingly as each of its multiple strikes stripped him of his health. In panic his began to stab downwards, showering the creature with blow after wild blow. He was still stabbing mindlessly away at the rabbits corpse long after he had killed it, not noticing the message informing him he had defeated the creature. Finally, he slumped over the corpse, exhaustion overcoming him as his fatigue bar filled.

It took a couple of minutes for his fatigue bar to drop to a point where he felt capable he could move about without exhausting himself again, and saw a flashing icon in his vision. He selected it and it opened, informing him he had gained another level. His brows knit in confusion, for hadn’t he just received a new level only minutes previous to this one ? The puzzlement this brought him occupied his thoughts for the next few minutes as he tried to work out how this was possible, but in the end he just gave up, shrugging his shoulders, deciding he must have got enough experience last time to leave him just short of reaching level four.

Spending the next five minutes recovering, he wandered between the rabbits, looting their corpses, and keeping an eye on the surrounding foliage in case another pack showed up. Feeling secure in his current position, he sat down on a rock that poked up above the grass and opened his profile page. He had another attribute point to allocate now, and placed it into his strength, bringing it up to four, allowing him to meet the requirements for his leather armor. He drew it out of his bag and held it up in front of him, examining it once again.

Leather Armor, Enhanced

This finely crafted armor is of exceptional quality, and has been enhanced with the inclusion of magical benefits. The protection that this armor provides will be improved with a characters leather armor skill. Due to the quality of this armor, all merchants will look upon you with more respect and you will gain 5% to the value of any service sold and a 5% discount on all services bought. Service covers items, training and fees.

Armor Class : 4.00

Quality : Exceptional

Requirements : Minimum Strength 4

Class Restrictions : None

Durability : 65 / 65

Benefits :

+1 Constitution and Dexterity while worn

+1 level to Sneak and Hide Skills if of Thief class

He slipped it on, the leather feeling remarkably supple considering where it had come from. Like most armor found within the game, the leather fitted him perfectly. He took another quick look at his attributes to see the changes that the armor had made.

Strength : 4 Constitution : 1 Dexterity : 2

Intelligence : 0 Wisdom : 0 Perception : 0

Better, he thought, nodding to himself in pleasure. And then decided he would take a peek to see where he was on the players listing. He had gained a few things and levels since the last time, so hopefully he might have improved a little

Gordo. Level 4. Current standing : 9,589,157

“What the hell.” He fumed, for he had dropped about two million positions in the rankings before he saw the total number of players now signed up. Twenty four million players, his mind reeled, imagining that many people all online at once. He had not seen many players since he had started here, so where the hell were they all ? This world must be gigantic, for this was more than all the population of Australia, and that was one damned big country.

He needed to speed up his game, needed it badly if he was to have a chance to meet the target set out for him by the developers. He knew that the year he had was only three days used up, but he also knew he must reverse this backwards trend. He needed a better plan, but first he needed to return to town and start getting some skills.