Carter looked at himself in the mirror. The gnomish features naturally forming around his face. “I’ve been playing too much TSD,” He thought out loud to himself. It has been three weeks since his birthday and he’s been playing the maximum his parents would allow him everyday. Tonight however, Alora promised to take him on his first dungeon run. They have been helping him a lot with his strategies and teaching him about the ins and outs of the game.

He has gained 11 melee levels in this time and reached level 11.36 which puts him over the required 11 for your first dungeon. And he was excited to finally try his Staff of the Fire Magi on some real enemies. He received it after doing a job which required them to kill a Goblin Magician outside of Shater. It has a 1.9% drop rate and he felt pretty lucky to have received it.

Loot

Staff of the Fire Magi

+3 damage to all fire spells and applies burning effect of +3 damage every 4 seconds.

When he logged in, the familiar music track that played already started to feel like home. As has become the norm, he checked his friendslist first to see whether Alora or Hrenian is online. They weren’t. If they weren’t on he spent his time gathering herbs and working on his non-combat skills. Fishing and hunting was what he focused on the most and had gained the following:

Skills

Level

Fishing

Your ability to catch different kinds of fish.

11/150

Hunting

Your ability to hunt different kinds of animals and monstrosities.

8/150

Available APs

20

After learning you need a high hunting level to kill the penultimate boss monster Hydra, he was eager to train his hunting and make sure he will be able to kill it once his combat level is ready.

He used his available APs as follows.

Attributes

Attribute

Current level

Strength-Your ability to deal higher melee damage and interact with the surrounding world such as pulling/pushing things, your ability to equip heavier armors and carry more items in your backpack.

10

Agility-Your ability to deal higher damage with ranged attacks. Increases your dodge chance % and interact with the surrounding world, climbing, movement speed and how good you are with staying on top of a mount.

10

Intelligence-Your ability to deal higher damage with Magic. Increases your passive magic defense and hit chance of magic spells.

20

Perception-Determines your ability to perceive information from surroundings and discover plants/animals to hunt or gather.

15

Charisma-Determines your ability to persuade or befriend other NPCs and increases RP gained from jobs and town tasks.

15

Constitution-Determines your hitpoints. The damage that can be dealt to you.

19

Available APs

0(-20)

Perception was key in increasing your hunting level as it allowed you to spot enemies and read tracks for much more details. He also kept putting points in on Constitution because he likes being more in the face of the enemy taking hits rather than standing back and throwing spells at them. But he knew soon he would have to invest APs into agility because his armors available to his class would not protect him from the harder blows and he would need to be able to dodge.

Sitting on a bench in front of the town hall after doing a trip gathering herbs and flowers, he was throwing his sword into the air trying to make it land on its point. Thinking back he remembered the eyes of the elf as he begged Carter not to kill him, and wondered how it really looked when you were about to drive a sword through an opponent's chest. Shatar was much less busy than Breau as it was out of the way in a low level zone and not many players walked in the streets.

An orc, who had a long grey beard came up to him and handed him an envelope. He looked at Carter for a few seconds then walked off without saying a word.

Hello Rin. We have a great opportunity for you to level quickly and make lots of gold. Traders, Townies, PvPers, Dungeons and Raids, and Job hunters. We’ve got them all. We take in newbros and teach them the ropes, but it doesn’t end there as we cater to all end-game content as well. Join The Empire today! PM ThaErno for your invite.

He read and reread the invite and flipped it around in his fingers. Examining it from all angles. “Huh, I guess I’ll ask Alora about it when she comes on.” Just as he was about to get up and go for another herb run, a ping sounded and text appeared:

Alora has come online.

Great. Speak of the devil. A message came through and he focused on the flashing inbox icon, opening the interface.

Hey! Voice?

They used a phone application called TalkToMe, which he was familiar with on his computer. He plugged in his headphones and joined her call. “Hey, you there?” Her smooth voice flowed like music through the headset. “Yes, guess what, I just got invited to a clan!” excitement to share the news making him blurt it out. “Oh cool. Who is it?” He opened the envelope again and read it to her. “The Empire? Cool! They’re a big townie focused clan.” There was silence for a moment. “Townie? What’s that?” He could hear her sigh jokingly on the otherside of the call. “Noobs.” And he imagined her roll her eyes. “Remember I told you all cities and villages are owned by players? Well, most of the time they are voted in.” “Most of the time?” He interjected. “Yes, there is a mechanic where, if you attack a village with negative standings towards you and you have the majority of players in the village for 24 hours it becomes the leader of the clan’s.” She explained.

“Interesting. Can you make your own villages?” No, but there is a portal to your own private island where you can set workers to gather raw materials for you and you can build all kinds of beneficial things in it.” Carter made a mental note to research private islands. “Well anyways,” Alora continued, “The Empire focuses on that aspect of the game and tries to own as many of the cities/towns/kingdoms as possible. This means they own all trade routes and get huge amounts of taxes.” She emphasized huge. “I'm talking about millions of gold every day. But yes, you are welcome to join them, just remember there is a week's cooldown period when you leave a clan before you can join another.” He listened intently to all the info she was streaming towards him.

“Ready for today’s dungeon? I see you are in Shater. I can teleport to you and then we can go from there. It will be easier than having to walk all the way to me in Breau.” Catar has come to know how large the map actually is and how long traveling takes and thanked her for her effort. “Oh it's fine.” She sang. A beam of light appeared next to him and she lowered out of the sky. “Whoa that’s so cool! Is it a custom animation?” “Yes, since they allowed outside input lots of people have been selling custom animations for spells and teleports. It’s pretty rad! Come, let’s move!”

He felt her hand wrapping around his arm and pulling him along and he allowed it with great affection. “So what is in this dungeon called the black snake?” She jogged ahead towards the market. “Don’t worry, it is an easy one. I’ve run it thousands of times. Its called The Black Snake, or TBS by groups, because the final boss is…. You guessed it, a giant black snake. Lots of poison resistance and dodging skills required, as well as mechanical knowledge as you need to know when to strike and when to try and attack from a different angle. He has 150 health so he’s pretty easy. But I will show you. The trouble isn’t with him. It is trying not to get overrun by the snakelings he keeps on spawning all firing stackable poison splashes. Also they are weak to ranged and melee attacks so you’ve got a problem there because you have no melee skills just yet. But use your Elven Blade regardless as it will still do more damage than magic would against snakeskin.” Carter quickly opened his equipment tab and saw his poison resistance was at 0%.

Equipment

Gear

Attack modifiers

Equipped weapons: Staff of the FIre magi, Elven Apprentice Blade.

+3 damage to all fire spells and applies burning effect of +3 damage every 4 seconds.

+4 melee, +1 agi.

Armour: Nothing.

Jewellery: Nothing

Enchantment: Nothing

Resistances

Elemental: 0%

Cold: 0%

Ranged: 0%

Melee: 0%

Lightning: 0%

Undead: 0%

Acid: 0%

Heat: 0%

Dodge chance: 0%

“Uhm, I’ve got no resistance to poison or anything for that matter.” He quickly told Alora. “That’s okay, we are going past the market and I will grab some gear for you.” They entered the old barn-like building and he saw two statues on either side overlooking the auction hub in the middle. They held a torch with both hands in the middle which lit their faces and Carter appreciated the detail that went into sculpting it.

“Next! The orc behind the counter yelled. Alora walked up to her and opened her market interface. Carter walked around the room looking at the paintings and statues which decorated the walls. Eventually he came up to a giant golden board which ranked names and they constantly changed positions. At the top of the board there was a plaque reading.

Hall of fame.

Alora looked over her shoulder at what he was pointing at. “That is the Hall of fame or high scores. You gain adventure points as you kill monsters and explore new areas, or do tasks in different cities. Every week you are in the top 10 you get paid $2000. This is why there is a black market for assassins and bounty hunters.”

She finished at the market and handed him a package. “Here, this should help.”

Loot

Item

Modifiers

Snakeskin armor set. (Bracers, Body, Chaps, Boots, Cowl.)

Set effect bonus: +10% Poison damage reduction.

Grimermian Short Sword.

+6 melee bonus.

Ring of healing

+5 hit points per minute.

Amulet of Strength

+2 strength.

“Thanks so much!” He said gleefully, “I could have bought it myself.” She grabbed her package off the counter, “Well you didn’t. Oops, I almost forgot. Here, take these health and beserker potions. They will increase your damage output. Drink one berserker potion when we enter the caves and one when we enter the final cavern. He nodded and they left the building.

Loot

Heath potions x 5

A potion which heals 20% of your health immediately, only one potion can be consumed every 2 minutes.

Beserker potion x 2

A potion which increases your melee bonus by +10 for 10 minutes and lowers by -1 every minute thereafter.

They traveled out of Shatars using its northern road and started their journey to the border shared between Eagmeareb and Eaglehal, where they will find a cavern entrance in the hills which run along the border. “Ready for this?” Alora shouted over her shoulder. “Remember, eyes and ears open, we could be ganked(When a group of players gang together and ambush lower or less players) at any moment and need to be prepared.

“Yes sir and yes sir!” Carter answered.