Damon sat, once again, with Benjy next to the still burning fire. The mouth-watering smell of cooking meat permeated the air. The world had darkened with the arrival of nightfall and Damon realised that the day cycle was quite short. Perhaps only eight or so hours.

The rest of the day had been quite fun for Damon. He’d kept up the archery practice for a long time, trying to hit different objects all over the place. Diana would wander around tapping various things and Damon would listen carefully to the resulting noise before drawing and shooting. The first time he tried it, the arrow completely missed and almost hit Diana, who’d retreated, to what she thought to be, a safe distance away. The shriek of surprise made Damon wince and apologise profusely. After much cajoling and promising, Diana tapped the object once more, allowing Damon to try and shoot again. This time he remembered the skill he’d received and thought Instinctive aim as he pulled back the bow string.

The arrow flew true, almost. It clipped the object – a spare wooden bowl – and the sound of the bowl falling to the floor, made a clattering noise. Damon continued to fire arrow after arrow until he ran out. At which point, Diana had to retrieve them for him. Damon then began repeating the entire process again, with Diana helping and the occasional correction to his technique from Benjy.

Damon missed just as many as he hit. His skill was definitely improving though and the notifications he received confirmed that fact.

Skill Level Up!

Archery Mastery (Beginner 2 - 9%)

New bonus:

16% Increase in physical damage while using any type of bow

6% Increased attack speed while using any type of bow

Skill Level Up!

Instinctive Aim (Beginner 2 - 24%)

New bonus:

16% Higher chance of hitting your target when this skill is used

6% Chance of a critical hit, despite target area

Skill Level Up!

Focus Listening (Beginner 2 - 5%)

New bonus:

6% Bonus to mental resistance

26% Increase in efficiency of targeting on singular sounds

Skill Level Up!

Focus Mind (Beginner 2 - 8%)

New bonus:

6% Bonus to mental resistance

26% Increase in efficiency of mental tasks

Damon couldn’t help but feel a little pearl of pride at his progression. It felt like he was rushing through skills at a rapid rate. He still wondered why there was a naming theme occurring with his skills, but he again dismissed it for another time. Although, it niggled at Damon that previously his skills had increased quite quickly over a short space of time, whereas in a day, he’d only increased by one skill level in any of his skills. He guessed it was due to the harder difficulty of gaining a new level, but even then, his archery skill should have increased by at least two levels. He’d been shooting for the entire day, only pausing for lunch and to allow for his stamina to refill.

“Your archery practice seems to be going well.” The smith said to Damon, whilst he relaxed into his chair.

“It is, I’m still not hitting everything first time though, which is a little frustrating.” Damon replied, his eyes closed, listening to the sounds of the crackling fire before him.

“It’ll take time. Practice is your best source of improvement. If you practice under high stress, you might find you improve much faster. At least more than if you just continued shooting inanimate objects in the village.”

“What do you mean?” Damon asked, puzzled.

“Practice is all well and good but if you’re exposed to many more different scenarios and circumstances, you’ll find you're able to increase your learning speed.” Benjy answered. “Stress allows you to adapt and, if you can overcome it, builds information necessary to improve. It’s like trial and error to discover a better way of making a new blade. If I don’t attempt to work something like that out, how am I really improving myself?”

“So, what your saying is that I need to make my target practice harder?” Damon asked, opening his eyes and accepting a warm bowl of a delicious smelling stew, passed to him by Diana.

“Exactly.” Replied Benjy, accepting his own bowl. “Now, you can do that in a number of ways, but I think hunting might be the best way to do that. Diana can help you with that, she needs to collect herbs and such in the forest anyway and we always need more food for the village. Now that all our main hunters are dead, we could actually use some help getting more meat. There are usually some rabbits and foxes in the woods near here.”

New Quest!

Food for Farcross

The village Farcross has very few hunters now and needs someone to supplement their numbers until they can train new ones. Bring 10 rabbit or fox meat to Benjy.

Rewards:

Base 50 Exp

Relationship points with Benjy

“Sure, I can help you with that.” Damon said closing the blue window. “I must say though, I don’t really know how to hunt.”

“Diana will be there to help you, don’t worry. We’ve got enough meat to last us all for a few days, I’m sure you’ll have got something by then.” Benjy confidently replied.

The three ate in silence for a while, enjoying the heat from the crackling fire and enjoying each other’s company, before Damon excused himself and retreated to his new home and wooden bed. He closed his eyes and instead of falling asleep, simply thought log out.

…

Damon awoke back in the real world; the helmet already being taken off his head by some helpers. He never quite got used to going back to complete darkness whenever he logged out. The sudden lack of any colour disorientated him for a couple of moments before he could sit up.

“Congratulations Damon, how was your first couple of days inside King’s Wrath?” A voice that Damon recognised as Samuel’s cheerily asked.

“It was amazing, I actually really enjoyed it.” Damon replied, turning to face Samuel. “But I can’t believe how real everything feels. I can feel actual pain and the sights and smells are truly amazing.”

“Ah yes, well I must make a small confession there Damon. We have decided, that there will be three different packages available for the public when we release King’s Wrath to the world. The first is for our casual player base. They won’t be able to feel more than 4% of any simulated pain. To them, the most pain they’ll feel is akin to a flu jab. This also means extra game mechanics such as auto assist for combat; a severe dampener on blood and gore, and censorship of certain other visual and sensory cues.” Samuel paused to make sure Damon was still listening before continuing.

“The second will be for our semi-hardcore player base. The pain threshold is increased, slightly, to 10%. The combat assistance will be optional as will be the blood and gore. The censorship of the senses will remain the same as with the casual package. This package however will allow the players to increase skills 15% faster than casual players.” Samuel saw the expression on Damon’s face and a smile could be heard in his next words.

“As you might have guessed, you’re under the category of our hardcore package. The is no pain filter involved and no combat assistance. The blood and gore is enabled and there is no censorship of the senses meaning you can smell and taste everything during a fight. There is a bonus for picking this package as you can increase skills 35% faster than casual players. Because of the nature of the hardcore package, you also don’t get access to the tutorial available for King’s wrath, nor are you spawned inside an inhabited village with a helpful NPC who will give you free quests and strong starter gear. As you have experienced, those who choose this pack will be spawned in a rather inconvenient and dangerous area, with no help and no guide to start them off. They must create their own path, or die trying. Which also brings me onto the last point of the hardcore package – death will bring greater costs than to the lower packages, the other two will only lose you 60% level progression. The hardcore package; however, will mean you lose an entire level and one skill level from all your current skills.” Samuel stopped there to let Damon take that all in.

“So why am I in the hardcore package?” Asked Damon, thinking the casual package sounded like a sweet deal.

“Three reasons really: The first, is that we needed someone to test the hardcore package. The other testers are all using the other two, so you are actually the first to try this package out. The second reason is that we thought it would be useful for you to have peak use of the senses that weren’t your sight. Imagine trying to fight a monster if you couldn’t really hear or see it. The last reason was that you accepted to do the hardcore package when you allowed Billy to improve your senses while your vision improved. So, we went with it.” Samuel answered and Damon couldn’t really find fault with the logic, so accepted that he’d just have to deal with it. “You can, of course, ask Billy anything you wish in your Hub space and he will answer as much as he can except for giving you direct information on content inside the game. Anything to do with game mechanics, he can answer though.”

After Samuel finished, Damon nodded before thanking him for the information and asking if he could eat and rest. “Of course.” Replied Samuel. “Get some sleep, you have more to do tomorrow!”

With that, Damon was led back to his room, where a warm meal was waiting for him. He guzzled the delicious food down, before heading to his bed. He fell asleep as soon as his head hit the pillow, dreams of firing a bow again, danced in his head.