The deeper we went into the cavern, the darker and, to Lancelot’s horror, the louder the buzzing sounds became. Her giant hands’ grip on mine tightened. I could feel sweat starting to drip from the sides of my ears as we continued walking. It was getting hotter and hotter.

“I can’t see a damn thing and all I can hear is bugs all around us. It’s… it’s really…” Lancelot stuttered.

“… bugging you?” I chuckled and finished for her, earning a smack on my head. “Relax, it’ll get brighter soon.”

“And the bugs will be gone too?” she asked hopefully.

“One for two isn’t all that bad,” I grinned.

Soon, we could see a faint luminous glow appear in front of us. Lancelot quickened her pace, dragging me along with her.

“Light! There’s light ahead! I can finally see again,” she said excited.

“Can’t believe you’re actually excited about seeing… bugs,” I teased and a stream of expletives directed at my supposedly ambiguous parentage followed shortly.

Small translucent shards of crystals protruding from the ground began to appear. What was earlier a dry breeze, became a gushing heatwave with a sweet but mildly sickening scent of sulphur.

The path slowly expanded, with more and more crystals appearing and led us into a huge chamber littered with giant, razor sharp crystal obelisks. The chattering echoed, resounding through the entire chamber.

“Must have been a volcano close by. The magma must have cooled the ground water, saturating calcium sulphate to form these giant crystals,” I mused offhandedly.

“Newbie Guide?” Lancelot raised an eyebrow at the unexpected bit of world lore.

“Discovery Channel,” I replied.

Lancelot made a rather unladylike snort that quite suited her avatar.

The chamber itself diverged into another two exits and smack in the middle was the source of the foul smell - two giant clusters of eggs.

“This place, it’s gorgeous! Look at how the lights dance on the crystals. It’s almost like the crystals are alive,” Lancelot whispered and reached out to touch the shiny bit of an obelisk. Then, it moved, making her scream in fright and jump backwards like a startled giant metallic cat.

“It fucking moved! It IS alive!” Lancelot squealed.

“The crystal’s not alive but that is. [IDENTIFY]!” I commanded, looking directly at the moving “light”.

CRYSTALROACH

LVL 12 INSECT

An ancient breed of roaches. Unlike their uglier cousins, millions of years feeding on The Nest crystals caused Crystal Cockroaches to evolve, resulting in a luminous and crystal-like appearance and exo-skeleton.

WEAKNESS: ????

DROPS: ???? ???? [COMMON]

???? [UNCOMMON]

???? [RARE]

A look of pure horror appeared on Lancelot’s face, “Ancient. Freaking. Roaches.”

“Oh God, if millions of years of feeding on crystals made these bugs crystalroaches - those slutty cockroaches,” I said in mock disgust.

Lancelot burst into a mini fit of giggles. “Dolt! You’re so ridiculous! Here I am, terrified to death and you’re making penis jokes,” she smiled.

“You don’t look so scared now. Come, it’s time to deal with the eggs.”

“I can’t believe I mentioned breakfast and roach eggs in the same sentence,” Lancelot grimaced.

CRYSTALROACH EGG

LVL 5 INSECT

Where it all begins for Crystalroaches. After a week of incubation, the eggs hatch into larvae. Unlike normal eggs, these have a tough, protective crystal exo-skeleton.

WEAKNESS: ????

DROPS: ???? ???? [COMMON]

???? [UNCOMMON]

???? [RARE]

I explained the game plan to her, “Stand in the middle of the eggs, cast [GLORY] to trigger the Critical Strike and Attack Speed Bonus. Then, use [AGAINST ALL ODDS] to deal Area damage.”

“So that’s why you asked me to get the [TWO-HANDED SWORD]. Purely for the STR bonus.”

“Exactly.”

“Won’t the Crystalroaches attack us? We’re killing their eggs,” Lancelot asked.

“Their instincts don’t work that way. All they do is feed and fuc- … lay eggs. When we’re done with this cluster, we’ll move to the other eggs and repeat the process. This way, a new batch of eggs will respawn for us to farm again shortly after we’re done with the second cluster,” I explained.

“So, it’s completely safe then! No wonder you told me to sell all my armour and ignore VIT.” Lancelot looked thoughtful.

“Just be careful not to hit any of the Crystalroaches with your AOE and we’ll be fine. If you aggro them by mistake, we’re pretty much screwed.”

Lancelot nodded. “With 10 INT, I have 170 mana and my regen rate is at 0.5 mana per second. So, for every 20 seconds I’ll cast [GLORY] four times [AGAINST THE ODDS] once, which means I’ll consume 17 mana. So, I can go for about 2 minutes and 40 seconds before I run dry.”

I smiled, my Master always did have a way with numbers. “You’re forgetting something important, Lancelot. We’re killing LVL 5 monsters with a 25% EXP boost, plus the full mana recharge every time we level up.”

Lancelot grinned and motioned to start the grind, “Breakfast is served!”

She moved to the epi-center of the eggs cluster, “[GLORY]!” As I soon as I felt the boosts kick in, I started hacking at a Crystalroach Egg.

1, 1, 3 [CRIT], 1, 4 [CRIT]

Yes my damage was pretty pathetic, but that was because these eggs were bloody hardy. Thankfully the combination of my high Critical Strike rate, attack speed and [GLORIA]’s boosts sped up the process tremendously.

“[AGAINST ALL ODDS]!” …1, 1,1, 2, 1, 2, 1, 2, 4 [CRIT]

With her two metre range AOE damage, Lancelot could hit around 15 eggs simultaneously.

I tried to keep all the HP levels of the eggs around the same. When one dropped a little too far below the other eggs, I’d move on to a different one. Gaming is all about efficiency, after all.

Just as Lancelot was about to run out of mana, the eggs exploded.

[YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL!]

[YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL!]

[YOU HAVE GAINED A LEVEL!]

“Three levels under 3 minutes! This is ridiculous, Mordred. You’re a genius!”

“We’re lowbies, of course it’ll be fast. And, yes, I am a genius,” I smiled.

Truth is, it wasn’t me who devised this newbie grinding strategy. It was a famous hunting ground to help friends who just joined the game to power level. The eggs were weak to FIRE, so Avalon veterans would arm their lowbie friends with FIRE element weapons, mana pots and party buffs to grind here.

It was completely safe and dropped pretty beginner good equipment and resources. Of course, you’d still have the occasional moron who’d died trying to take a pot shot at a Crystalroach.

Problem was that it became so popular, that it was overcrowded. It was a far cry from now, where we had monopoly of the entire chamber, plus 25% exp and 50% drop rate boosts as well.

“Time to grab the loot,” I told Lancelot and began to collect the drops.

11 x [CRYSTAL SPLINTER]

2 x [CRYSTAL SHARD]

75 COPPER

Not bad, not bad at all! We even picked up something that would speed up our farming.

CRYSTAL DAGGER

LVL 5 UNCOMMON III SILVER TIER WEAPON

DAMAGE: 45

ATTACK SPEED: FAST

+2 DEX +2 STR

Weapons and armour in Avalon were categorised by three descriptions:

[LEVEL] of the weapon indicated, you guessed it, the weapon’s level. Good job figuring that one out.

[RARITY] ranged from [COMMON] all the way to [UNIQUE], with a sub-level of I to IV, denoting how difficult it was to find the weapon.

[TIER], for now, covered COPPER, BRONZE, SILVER and GOLD.

So, yes, at this stage, this was a pretty awesome weapon!

“Splinter? Shard? What’s up with all these crystals?” Lancelot asked, interruption my explanatory stream of conscience.

“They’re crafting resources. We’ll need them for bacon, later. One step at a time though. First, we need to hit level 10. Pump your stats into equally into STR and INT, Lancelot. I’ll be going DEX – CHR in a 1:3 ratio.”

We moved on to the next cluster of eggs and continued grinding. Midway through killing of the second batch of eggs, the first clustered respawned. Level up. Allocate stats. Continue grinding.

It was straight forward rinse and repeat process.

A few levels later, we were killing the eggs too quickly, finishing off one batch before the previous batch could fully respawn. So far, between us we had collected quite a little harvest:

213 x [CRYSTAL SPLINTER]

43 x [CRYSTAL SHARD]

1 x [CRYSTAL DAGGER]

1 SILVER 67 COPPER

“Come, let’s not sit and wait for the eggs to respawn. Bring out your pickaxe and follow me.”

Right at the edge of the chamber were little ore deposits embedded in the walls.

“Well, it’s not going to dig itself out. Put some back into it, Lancelot. [MINE]!”

[YOU RECEIVED x2 SILVER ORE]

[MINING REACHED LVL 1]

[MINE]

LEVEL 1/5 [5% EXP]

You hit your foot more than the ores but usually manage to salvage something out of it. The mining. Not your foot.

50% chance to extract low grade minerals and metals.

Duration: 10 Seconds

With that little addition to our grinding routine, we continued farming in The Nest until we hit level 10. Finally, the item I needed to bring home the bacon dropped.

CRYSTALHEART GEM

RARE WEAPON ACCESSORY

A beautiful heart-shaped crystal that emits a gentle buzzing sound. The one accessory that may more useful when dropped than worn.

SLOT FOR +10% CRITICAL HIT BONUS

Just in time too. Our weight hit 90%, cutting our movement, attack speed and mana regeneration by 75%.

It was finally time to return to Newbie Town. Just as we were about to use our [RETURN SCROLL], that damned voice appeared in my head again, “Hey Big Boy!”