Over the next 15 minutes, Lien and I got into a good rhythm. We set up “camp” halfway up the hill. Taking turns one of us would rest and recover mana, while the other went out to pull the monster back to the group. Using this method we could defeat kobolds nonstop. Finally, a kobold fell to the ground and Lien was covered in lights. “Ding!” She yelled. I glowered at her, “We have been together since I logged in. How do you have more EXP than I do?” Lien shrugged, “While you went to get your quests I did a couple go get me quests. What did you expect me to do, wait there doing nothing?” My shoulders sagged, that is exactly what I did waiting for her. “Well I still need two more kills before I level.” She shrugged and ran off to pull.

Congratulations! You have reached level 2!

Rewards:

HP +80 Mana +100 Stamina + 10 Strength +1 Intelligence +1 CP+1 New Spell– Flame Wave (Rank 1) New Spell: Sleep (Rank 1)

I decided to save the CP again. I figured that unless the Dev’s had changed it, most players were still getting 1 stat point in a primary stat and 1 CP per level. That made it where I was staying equal and building up a bunch of CP to be used later. After looting the body, I looked at my Backpack. We had not gotten anything but Grey trash drops since that first kobold and my bag was full of trash now. Lien saw me shuffling through my backpack, “I think it’s time to trash things. I do not want to head back yet, but I have only two open slots left in my sack.” I nodded and started to pull rubbish out. Most of it I threw into a pile on the ground, it would disappear or despawn shortly. Then I pulled out the Aether. Thinking to myself, “How did I forget about you?” It was a dark red cylinder about the length of my finger. I could see a slight glow on the inside and it was warm to the touch. Lien looked curiously at the crystal then asked, “Are you going to quip it? I shrugged, “I’m not sure how. I don’t even know what it does, or if I put it on something if I can get it back. If it’s like an Enchanted Jewel then I need a weapon or armor with a slot for it. If it’s like an enchantment, then I can place it on anything, but I can’t get it removed.” Lien nodded understanding. Our gear was low level stuff, the rate that we would be replacing it would make any kind of improvement costly and redundant. With a sigh I place the crystal back in my bag and continued to clear out the garbage. As we stepped into the valley floor to test our new levels on Kobold workers and Miners, we left a small treasure trove of trash in the forest.

The kobolds on the valley floor were more densely packed than on the valley walls. Luckily, as veteran players Lien and I were quickly able to create a new plan. For nearly an hour we killed them swiftly with only two exceptions. The first came minutes after we moved from the tree line. Lien and I were working on killing a level 4 kobold miner, who was proving to be a challenge. So far Ace had stayed behind us and away from the fighting. He currently stood back in the edge of the trees. A scream alerted me to the issue. With a quick glance that got me struck with a kobold pick, I saw a Kobold Woodcutter laying into the boy like fell wood. Already Ace’s life bar was less than half. Cursing I spun, targeted the Wood Cutter and began to cast sleep. While turning exposed my back to the Miner who had no issue fitting his pick in the small of my back. The hit staggered me and I lost the spell.

Kobold Miner hit you for 43 damage! Spell lost!

New Skill: Concentration 1 / 75

It is always easiest to cast spells standing still and with full focus. This is for those times when things just seem to be beating the crap out of you and won’t let you return the favor.

Groaning both in pain and because Ace’s life was now red, I tried again.

Kobold Miner hit you for 41 damage! Concentration Passed!

Skill Improved: Concentration 2 / 75

Kobold Woodcutter Failed its Will Power save. Spell Succeeds.

The woodcutter slumped to the ground snoring loudly. I felt a very nice warm sensation go over me as Lien cast heal on me. Spinning back to the Miner before I took another hit in the back I parried a swing and resumed the attack. Moments later we had killed both miner and the slumbering woodcutter. Ace barely had 8 HP left and was looking rather rough. This wasn’t the first time the boy had attracted agro. It was just the first time we hadn’t been able to get to him quickly. Looking at Ace in concern I said, “I’m not sure you following us in there would be a good idea.” The boy got a stubborn look on his face, but I continued. “It would be better if I could focus on the enemies and not have to worry about watching out for you. I would hate to see you get hurt.” Ace thumped the staff on the ground, “I can fight too!” I raised my hands in a placating manner. “I know you can. But I think having eyes watching my back on the outside would be a huge help.” He stopped to study my face, looking for deceptions. I moved forward with my thoughts, “What if you were to climb that tree.” I pointed to a huge oak near the edge of the tree line. “You could watch the entire clearing and let me know if anything sneaks up on us.” Ace thought about it, then nodded. “You need someone watching your back.” I smiled my agreement and watched as the boy started to climb.

The second time we came into trouble, was a bad pull on my part. I had cast Magic Missile on a Kobold Worker and didn’t see the miner walking toward us from the other side. With-in seconds Lien had a Miner to deal with and I had the Worker. Thankfully the worker was only level 3. Even so by the time I killed him I was at less than half HP and lien was in a bad situation. She was forced to stop attacking and continually cast heal on herself. Most of the time she would lose her concentration and thus the spell. The few times she did get the spell off was just enough to keep her alive. ”Hey Magi boy. A little help over here,” she screamed after one particularly bad hit. I finished the worker, looted his body before it hit the ground (Got to love quick loot options). And turned to help. Thinking fast I cast sleep on the miner trying to buy a few moments, but the bastard resisted. Lien got hit again, blood flying as the miner yanked his pick out of her stomach. Lien slumped to the ground and the Miner raised his pick once more to finish her off. Before it fell I finished my second attempt at sleep and was relieved to see it work. The pick slipped from loose hands as the Miner slumped to the ground next to Lien. I looked at Ace in the tree. He was supposed to be warning us of this kind of thing. He was fast asleep, straddling a huge limb twenty feet off the ground. Some help he was. I took the entire duration of the sleep spell to move behind the Miner. Lien got to her feet swaying and cast a heal on herself. When the Miner started to move, we both tore into him, sword and mace flashing crimson. It still wasn’t enough though, Lien gasped and vanished replace by a flat tombstone that fell to the ground. The miner grinning turned to me, “Now your turn.” After I killed him, it finally struck me. I understood the kobold!

Lien had respawned at the closest graveyard and would be forced to run back to her headstone for her gear. That meant she would be naked trying to get through the kobold infested, forested hills. Sadly I don’t know where the closest graveyard is, so I can’t guard her return. So I have to wait. But While I do I can checked my character’s Languages. All players started with two known tongues and bonus languages based on INT at the end of the character generation quest chain. All races except Hume started with Common and their native language. Humes got a random language. I had receive Kobold. Why anyone would want to talk to these creatures was beyond me, but I guess the Dev’s thought I should be good at talking to lizards because my two bonus languages from INT were Lizardfolk and Draconic. Now the Draconic was awesome, no doubt about that but the other two were useless.

A few minutes later, Lien proved to be a smart cookie once again. She shouted in General Chat to let me know where she was coming from.

Lien: north West

Azriel: On it.

Cuttlebuns: Northwest of what?

Cuttlebuns: What are you talking about?

Lien: your mom.

Cuttlebuns: … rude much?

Now this was normally dangerous. Telling everyone in the province where a naked mostly defenseless player was. But she did not give any reference to her meaning or her destination. True there were always scum who hunted freshly spawned players at graveyards, but there was no rewards in it. All the players gear and gold was at the original tombstone.

By the time I worked my way around to the North-west hill, Lien was already there looking impatient. I took a moment to appreciate the view. True I liked girls with a bit more meat on them than a High Elf, who tended to be skinny and flat in both chest and butt. But heck, when you have a young looking, blonde wearing what amounted to skimpy bra and panties you took a moment to look. She growled, I pulled my eyes back to her face. “Are you done? Can we go get my things now, or would you like me to take the rest of it off?” Feeling a little cheeky I responded, “Well if your offer… OUCH” Lien slapped me across the face, “That is for being a pig!” SLAP! “That is for letting me die in the first place!” I caught her hand as it flew back at my face a third time. She glared then pulled her hand out of my grip, then stomped off.

“Well shit,” Lien growled after picking up her gear. “That was the end of my Mace. I forgot to repair when we were at town and the durability loss of death broke it.” I grimaced, “Do you have another weapon?” She nodded and pulled a bent hammer out of her bag. “It’s not good, but I got it a few kills ago.” In all the event cost us 15 minutes, a mace, 300 EXP, and some durability damage. On the flip side the move to the north end of the valley was a boon. It was a more direct route to the mine entrance and there was fewer people around. In no time we cleared the local area enough to progress half way to the mine. Our new method of fighting involved staying close together and doing a couple pulls moving forward with each one. Then we would rest building up HP, Mana, and Stamina. Our rest periods were our risky point. We were sitting in the open hoping nothing would spawn or walk into agro range. In fact we seldom got to rest to full before one or the other happened. We were standing up from one of those few rare full rests, when Ace yelled across the valley. “Look out!”

The little jerk had woken up long enough to actually warn us of something coming. Yet he didn’t do it soon enough. The leather clad thief ran past me less than a second after Ace yelled. “Train!” the Thief screamed rushing past. Hot on his tail was three kobolds. Two miners and one worker. On instinct I started casting. The first two Kobolds had passed by me and the third a miner was directly in front of me when I completed the spell. A blast of Red, blue flame burst from me in every direction. The flame overtook all three kobolds, the thief, lien and to my dismay a fourth kobold. With Lien in my party the flame passed over her having no effect. The others had bold red damage numbers flash above them. Since the thief and the 4th kobold were further away my flame wave didn’t do much, but the kobold directly in front of me lost nearly half his life! I had performed a critical casting! All 4 kobolds turned directly to me, with murder in their red rimmed lizard eyes. Before I had even started taking damage Lien was casting heal on me in preparation for the flood of pain to come.

Weaving to the side as I stabbed with my sword. I tried to keep the most wounded miner between myself and the other two. The fourth was coming from a different angle, so I couldn’t avoid him. I didn’t try to block, parry, or dodge this time. I knew I had to drop this first kobold as quickly as I could so I put everything into that. The Kobold and I traded two solid hits. The first dropped the Miner’s life to a quarter thanks to burning damage left over from the Flame Wave. It’s hit on me didn’t move my life bar at all. Lien finished the heal moments after the pick left my arm instantly restoring my HP. I lost 27 HP to the 2nd swing, but my attack and the last of the burn damage killed the Miner. As the miner fell to the ground. I was struck in the back. And the worker and other miner closed in. My life bar started dropping rapidly, with three kobolds working on me. Lien was chain healing and I was attacking as fast as I could, but I could tell there was no point. They were just too much. As my life went red, was healed to orange and went to red again, I scored a critical on the worker killing him. I was swallowed with lights for a moment. I swiped the annoying level up pop up out of the way! With the level I got a full HP, Mana, and Stamina refill. Getting hit in the back again I turned to the second miner. My life bar was still going down but with Lien’s loving attentions and only two kobolds left it was moving down slower. I finally killed the second miner and turned to the back stabbing kobold. I groaned, it was a level 5 Kobold warrior. It’s distance from the original blast had done very little damage. Leaving it still at over 85% HP to my 50%. Making things worse Lien cast her last heal and yelled, “Out of Mana!” She stepped forward engaging the kobold in melee with her weak hammer. To my mixed relief and dismay Lien’s first hit brought her combined damage and healing threat higher than my threat, the kobold turned to attack her. Taking advantage of not being attacked I cast sleep. The beast resisted and laid into Lien every couple seconds. Giving up I continued the physical assault. When the kobold’s life was at 50% Lien’s hit orange. At 40% Lien went into red. With a last swing and a curse, Lien died. With a cry, I sunk my blade into the kobolds side as it turned toward me. Bright red numbers flew and my combat log confirmed a critical hit! Not paying attention to life bars anymore I redoubled my assault Stab, parry, hit, pain. Repeat. Blood and torn flesh flew as we both tried to kill the other one. Then the kobold scored a critical on me! My life bar fell dramatically and a debuff blinked.

Bleeding: 2 HP lost every Second – 15 seconds left.

With a final jab the Kobold collapsed to the ground. My life bar blinked critically. To my horror I watched as the bleed ticked the last of my life away. The world went black.

You have died!

10% Durability lost on all equipped items and all items in your bags.

10% EXP Lost! – 600 EXP

Your killer may loot your tombstone!

You are currently under level 10 and will not delevel from death. EXP set to lowest point for this level.

Loot Lost: You died at the hands’ of a Kobold Warrior, no items, or coins were lost!

I was suddenly laying in a fresh shallow grave. Sitting up I saw tombstones and memorial plots around me. “Shit!” Lien’s voice called out from somewhere, “Azriel is that you?” “Yeah it’s me,’ I responded while I stood up. Taking a few moments to brush loose dirt off my naked flesh I looked for Lien. She stood 50 feet away at the gate of the graveyard. She had her arms crossed over her chest and was visibly shivering. “Come on hero, let’s go get our gear. It’s too cold to play dead.” Grunting my agreement I climbed out of the grave and trotted over to the gate. As I approached it was my turn to be sized up. Lien’s hard stare took in my mostly naked form. Glancing down self-consciously I almost died. The games current lack of character customization evidently included my physique. The normal muscular and toned body of a game character was absent. Instead I looked like I had that morning in the mirror. Well almost, I did appear to have slightly more muscles, but that could have been a trick of shadow, or wishful thinking. I felt my face turn bright red as I met Lien’s eyes. She smiled and I could have sworn I heard her say, “Not bad” as she turned away. Following her out I couldn’t help but glance at her butt. I wonder…

Lien set a fast pace running most of the way back to the forested hills. She never pushed it where our Stamina ran out but she was close. As she approached the hills she slowed. “Now for the interesting part. How are we going to get to our graves without being killed again?” Lien asked glaring at me. “What did I do?” I protested. “You wanted to play the hero! Then you got me killed, and died yourself! I’ve lost 400 EXP this level!!” I flinched at her angry response. Instead of responding I looked at the tree line like it would have answers. To my surprise it did! Ace came running out of the trees dragging my backpack and Lien’s sack. The boy was breathing heavily and straining with the weights, but here he was! Lien saw him and glared at me, “How does he have our things? No one should be able to loot our tombstones.” I shrugged. I didn’t care as long as… He had inside my backpack was all my gear. Sword, armor, coin pouch, aether. It was all here. “Good job Ace! How did you do this?” I asked the tired youth. He stood up straight, “You told me to look out for you. I couldn’t stop them from killing you, but I was able to get to your headstones before they reappeared. I simply grabbed everything and put them in your bags and ran.”

Putting on my armor I looked in my backpack again, “I had more stuff than this.” Ace fidgeted, “Well… you had more things than I could fit in your backpack I kind of had to leave some of the things there. I hope I did okay. I heard you two talking about the poor quality things not being worth much so that is what I left.” I looked at Lien in surprise. She shrugged, “The boy did well enough on my things. At this rate I’ll never get rich off of loot, but everything important is here.” I smiled, “Good Job Ace!” The boy smiled.

Our progress back to the valley was quick, more players were around now and they were thinning out the kobolds for us. Getting to the valley floor we saw no fewer than 3 small groups farming the kobolds outside the mine. Even with this increase in players the kobolds were still spawning faster than most could kill them.

With a sigh I targeted a miner and began to cast magic missile. “Hey!” I jumped at the strange voice and lost concentration on my spell. I twisted my left hand up instead of down and the spell just fizzled. Glaring I turned around. Lien had her hammer out glaring daggers at the thief who we rescued.

His status bar read

Luxus Pilfer

Hit Points: 300 / 300

Mana: 0 / 0

Stamina: 65.5 / 65.5

Luxus raised his hands showing he held no weapons. “Hey I’m here in peace, but man I got to ask. What are you?” He asked the question at me. I didn’t respond so he continued, “I mean I’ve never seen a starting class that could use a sword, wear chain, use arcane magic, and had pets.” Confused for a moment I realized what he meant, “Ace isn’t a pet. He is an orphan. Well I guess my adopted son really.” Luxus gasped, “Dude! You mean that little bastard n the cage! I dropped mine off at the orphanage. At the time I thought good riddance, but I didn’t know they could do things like get your gear for you. Did you?” Luxus was looking at Lien expectantly. Lien sniffed, “I didn’t know either. If I had known half the things this child was capable of I’d of kept mine.” Ace was following the conversation and was looking none too pleased with the outcome. He opened his mouth to say something, but I caught his eye and shook my head, then winked and pointed at another tree. He smiled and started to climb. I turned back to the kobolds and began to cast again.

“Hey! You never answered me! What are you?” I sighed and kept casting. Lien sensing the thief was determined answered, “He is a Magi. Don’t ask me how he got the class. He could be blowing Dev’s on the side for all I know. But How ever he got it he is a bad ass.” My chest swelled as the magic bolt flew from my fingers and struck the kobold. The spell knocked out half its HP! Drawing my sword I prepared for the kobolds charge. Having a second I glanced at my combat log, to see another critical hit! I would have looked closer but the kobold approached into melee range. Lien’s Bless Buff enveloped me as I swung. After only two hits the kobold was down. Looking at the body I saw two arrows protruding from it. Turning to the thief I cocked my head questioningly. “Care if I join you guys. You kind of saved my bacon and I kind of owe you. Plus I know you guys can fight unlike most of these noobs.” He pointed to a group of 4 who were proceeding to get slaughtered. Somehow they had 4 miners and 2 workers killing them. Shaking my head I glanced at Lien, “What do you think?” She glared at the thief, “We need the help to get in there, but I’m not sure this guy isn’t a noob himself. He did draw that train.” Luxus smiled, “That wasn’t my fault. I had snuck into the mine and two thieves passed me with those guys on their tails. When they killed the idiots they came after me. I at least had enough sense to know it was going to happen and start to head out.” I shrugged, “Well its either we get more help and receive less exp and loot, or it’s more time spent to level and get in the cave by ourselves. Lien you have already said we needed to hurry, so let’s go with the help option.” I sent him an invite.

Luxus has joined your group.

Character Sheet for: Azriel Starblade.

Name: Azriel Starblade

Race: Human Class: Apprentice Magi

Level: 3 Exp: 3,037 / 6,000

Strength (STR): 16

Muscle: 8 / Endurance: 8

Dexterity (DEX): 10

Agility: 5 / Instinct: 5

Constitution (CON): 10

Health: 5 / Resilience: 5

Intelligence (INT): 16

Logic: 8 / Mind: 8

Wisdom (WIS): 10

Perception: 5 / Conviction: 5

Charisma (CHA) 10

Appearance: 5 / Personality: 5

Luck (LUC): 2

Hit Points (HP): 340 / 340

Mana; 380 / 380

Stamina: 32.5 / 32.5

Character Points (CP): 6 / 8 Talent Points (TP): 0 / 0

Renown (REN): 250 / 1,000

Fame Level: 0 Unknown Deity: None

Faith (FAI): 0 / 1000

Titles: None

Achievements; Famous Family: Starblade.

Deeds and Properties: None

Spell Book

Skills:

Perception (Apprentice): 3 / 75

Running (Apprentice): 2 / 75

Abilities:

Armor: You can proficiently wear Cloth, Leather and Chain armor types.

Shield: You can proficiently use Light shield types.

Weapons: You can proficiently use Dagger, Short Blade, Axe, Mace, and Crossbow weapon types.

Professions:

Alchemy (Apprentice): 1 / 75 ©

Herbalism (Apprentice): 11 / 75 (G)

Spells:

Detect Magic (Rank 1)

Fire Arrow (Rank 1)

Light (Rank 1)

Magic Missile (Rank 1)

Read Magic (Rank 1)

Flame Wave (Rank 1)

Sleep (Rank 1)

Social

Friends: Lien Xi.

Enemies: None.

Family: Ace Starblade.

Clan: None.

Guilds: None.

Nation: None.