Sorry about the sloppiness and pacing of previous chapters. I especially regret how poorly handled character development and explanations are. No more 3:00 Am chapter releases for me. Makes me want to go back and redo everything. Sigh. It’s not really what I wanted and it’s not as good as I can be. I’m going to take this more seriously from here on out because I want to be a better writer.

I’ll do my best to make sure my story stays interesting, isn’t too cliché (Too late?), and most importantly is enjoyable to read. I promise nothing when it comes to proofreading though. I'm lazy, sorry.

Thank you for continuing to read my story up to this point. I probably should have explained how stats work earlier but it wasn’t really that necessary until now. I hope this chapter isn’t boring with all the explanations.

Please continue to tell me what I’ve done wrong and what my story is missing.

Thanks for reading. Please enjoy this long chapter.

Chapter 5: Kharz Forest

Reid shoveled breakfast into his mouth excitedly. He had woken up not long ago and was eager to get back into the game. He still wasn’t sure how to balance having fun with being the best. He hadn’t given up on trying to be number one, but he knew that he should have fun if he was going to do it. The first way was to stop limiting himself. He would play with both sword and staff, go whatever path he wanted, and do whatever he felt like doing.

“What’s gotten into you, sweetheart?” his mother asked curiously.

Reid swallowed a large mouthful of food with some difficult then shouted. “Today’s the day I get out of Doel, my hometown. You know, three weeks is way too long, and the growing up thing doesn’t really make sense because no one else gets older with me. It’s weird. Being born into DWO is overpowered though. I start off stronger than anyone else and my parents in the game even gave me some equipment. I also have a home I can come back to and rest in.”

“Well, hurry up then and do your best. Good luck.”

The corners of Reid’s lips twitched, curving into a smile, “Yeah, it’s gonna be fun.” He rushed out of the room and back to the VR system. Lisa Therwell watched him go, worried for her son. She felt like a terrible mother after how she had raised her son. She wanted to help him, wanted to figure out what was wrong but she knew he wouldn’t usually let anyone in so all he could do was support him. The only people he ever became close to were his martial arts masters. She sighed as she cleaned up breakfast, hoping that someone would be able to help him where she could not.

Dead World Online was set in a fantasy land where the land and the societies were torn apart by a great war spanning hundreds of years. There was one main continent and a large island to the West of the Southern part of the continent as well as some smaller islands spread about near different coasts. The name of the continent and surrounding islands was known as Alfrest long ago. Now the name was forgotten. Many societies were small and didn’t participate in the matters of the world. They had names for their towns and cities, sometimes the regions they lived in, but there were few kingdoms left.

Now, the different areas of the continent barely interacted with each other for a little bit of trading if they even interacted at all. To the North, the land of cold and ice had only the sturdiest of peoples living in it. They hunted, foraged, and farmed the strange, edible plants of the snowfields. The Northernmost part of the world had a constant hail of deadly icicles falling from the sky, a side effect of the war where powerful magic could change the world. It was said to be quite beautiful. The peoples of the central continent had strong monsters and deep dungeons. A large part of the central continent was overrun by monsters so there were only a few relatively safe strongholds and roads for beastfolk, elves, and other races.

The Eastern Continent was probably the safest and most comfortable of the areas on the continent. It was mostly plains until approaching the coast, where the land began to split and break apart. Small crevices eventually turned into larger ones until the land was completely shattered. The land itself was hundreds of feet above the level of the ocean, ending in cliffs. The Western side of the continent was quite the opposite, ending in beautiful coasts that stretched for miles, eventually turning into short cliffs up towards the North.

The Western continent had connections with the large island, known as Frael Island. Frael Island was perhaps the least affected by the Great War so long ago. A king governed the thick, roughly crescent shaped island and the island had a fairly stable society. It had far more intact castles, forts, and cities than any other part of the continent while also being highly populated compared to the rest of the world. It was relatively safe considering the entire world was overrun by monsters and nowhere was completely safe.

The Southern continent was a different beast entirely. It was an area covered with deep jungles so thick, being inside was living in eternal night. There was also a single large desert in the center of the land, with frightening legends and rumors surrounding it. The South was considered the most dangerous part of the continent and there were no starting zones there. It was mysterious and no one seemed to know if there were any of the civilized or intelligent races living there. Now that everyone has been released into the world, they have the chance to discover what was left behind after the war. It was up to them to discover what was left behind in a dead world. Perhaps one of them would find the Lake of God Tears and have their dreams come true.

Star and Nala

Cara Shenne wanted to be the best at everything and often felt it was her duty to be better than everyone, especially men. She thought it wasn’t right that women were considered inferior to men who were mostly disgusting pigs and liars. Cara refused to tell lies and always considered herself to be a better person than most. She was better than them, in her eyes, and her family didn’t dissuade her from such thoughts, always showering her with praise and encouragement.

In reality, she was a sheltered girl who didn’t understand the harshness and reality of the world. Her very wealthy family gave her everything she wanted, but kept her safe from the influence of society. She was not a bad person, but her ignorance often caused confrontation with people she met due to her misunderstandings. Cara only had one real friend who understood her and spent time with her. Minala Cayde, or Min, was her best friend and partner in everything.

The two were currently playing a new game called Dead World Online. Min, classless, and Cara, a paladin, were in battle with dire wolves. They had both chosen to play as beastfolk and started in the same city. When playing as a beastfolk, you were allowed to set the level of beast as compared to humans. Min had chosen the minimum for her character so she appeared human with fox ears and tail. Star did the same except with a wolf so that they both had bushy tails and adorable pointy ears. “Come on Min, we’ll be the best at the end of the beta and show the world that women are not inferior to men! Haa!” She charged into battle, yelling and swinging her sword.

Min sighed and joined in the combat, shooting arrows at wolves. ‘Who the hell thinks like that these days Cara? Why are you so weird and waaay out of the times? I love you like a sister, but you need you need to come visit me in the real world some time.’ Unlike Cara, Min was fairly normal other than also having wealthy parents. She wasn’t sent to a prestigious all girls school and wasn’t kept in a cage, constantly watched over like Cara was.

Min actually trained in a few different martial arts and sports such as jui jitsu and kendo. Mostly, she did it to stay fit and because it was fun. This new virtual reality game was somewhere she could have fun and fight to her heart’s content. Cara’s in game name was Star and Min used the name Nala. Star and Nala were quickly becoming famous in the game as they slowly made their way to the top of the leaderboards in level. At the rate they were going, they would soon be in the top thirty when the differences in levels became more apparent.

Cara didn’t really think carefully about where she put her stats, but Min was a lot more careful and even did some studying on which stats did what. First, each character received a base of ten in each each stat, 100 health, 100 mana, 100 stamina, 0.2 health regeneration per second and 0.2 health per second. Characters could gain stats from training but since everyone gained 5 stat points per level, no one considered it worth it. Besides, stats went up simply by fighting as well. Second were the stat gains and their effects on a character. The system appeared to be complicated and strange to her.

For every stat point in vitality, health would go up by five. For every point in stamina, stamina would go up by five. For every point in intelligence, mana would go up by 5. The difference was that vitality also increased health regeneration rate while wisdom increased mana regeneration rate. Each point in those stats increased their corresponding regeneration rate by .01/second. A minute after combat, regeneration would triple for both health and mana so people didn’t have to sit around waiting to recover. That much made sense, but the rest of the stats were a bit strange.

Strength, dexterity, agility, and luck were all stats that had a sort of hidden effect. They didn’t appear to do anything when just looking at stats, but it was confirmed that they definitely had an effect on the game. Strength affected how much damage a person did and how heavy an object they could lift. Dexterity affected how easily someone could draw weapons, move their hands, and hit their intended targets. It also had a very small effect on the damage of ranged and thrown weapons. Agility was speed and quickness, plain and simple. However, it seemed that each individual stat point didn’t do much and mounts wouldn’t be that expensive in the near future so most people avoided it like the plague. Luck, however was an odd stat. There was no description in it and everyone thought that it would probably only be useful if you dumped a lot of stats into it so almost everyone avoided that as well.

Nala split her points between strength, dexterity, and vitality as she was trying to build a Ranger type character. She had a sword at her hip for anything that came close, and knew how to use it too. She was better than Cara but held herself back, letting her friend be the hero. She preferred to stand in the back quietly rather than stand out. She wasn’t really the hero type and always supported Cara from the shadows. Cara was more beautiful and outgoing, like a true heroine straight out of a storybook, with all the naivety and straightforwardness to boot.

Nala sighed again as she looted the wolves and thought about Star. Nala wanted to use the game as a chance to show Cara a little bit more of the real world and how people truly were. Unfortunately, Cara was a hard person to change, as she was stubborn and committed to her strange ideals. It had only been a week in real time, but the game had progressed to the end of the third week and anyone who was foolish enough to wait the in-game three weeks would only now be able to leave their starter city.

Frost stood at the gates of Doel, checking his equipment one last time while he waited for the notification that told him he could leave the city. He checked his gear for the tenth time that morning, His parents had given him a dagger, a set of clothes, and a traveller’s bag. Ger had given him a repair hammer he could use while travelling which would last for quite a while so Frost could spend more time out searching for the God’s Ore. The bag could hold twenty-five different items and up to ninety-nine of the same item could be stacked in a single slot. The dagger and bag were what everyone started with but the clothes were on another level. They had more cold resistance than the starter clothes, looked better, and even had a little bit of defense built in. He also had a cloak that he left open to trail behind him, thinking that it would make him look cool.

He had said goodbye to Ger and his parents earlier, and now he was too excited to stand still, pacing back and forth. “Status window” Frost smiled. For just leaving the village as a level one character, he was ridiculously strong.

Frost Winterstorm Lvl 1Health 325/325Mana 142/142Stamina 210/210Strength29Vitality35Dexterity24Stamina32Wisdom20Intelligence28Agility26Luck28Health Regeneration0.35/sMana Regeneration0.30/s

He closed the window by swiping it away and then pulled out his main weapons. “Weapons window.” Ger had made Frost two different weapons. One was a simple iron staff a little taller than Frost’s six-foot height while the other was a fairly large sword. It had a single edge that curved into a stabbing tip at the top as well as a broad blade for better blocking and additional weight for more forceful strikes. Two windows appeared, showing the stats of his weapons. The game didn’t add his strength to the damage visibly so he couldn’t really tell how much damage a swing would actually do.

Steel BladeDamage: 9-15Durability 40/40This two-handed, single edged blade blade can be wielded one handed with enough strength

Restrictions:

20 Strength

Two-handed sword

Iron StaffDamage: 6-8Durability 35/35A simple iron staff

Restrictions:

None

Frost was getting bored waiting so he kept looking at all of the menus that would be important in the near future. ‘I didn’t miss it did I? No, that’s impossible.’ He sighed as he swiped away the weapon menus and grumbled, “Open skill menu.”

SkillsClimbing: Beginner Lvl 6

Cooking: Beginner Lvl 5

Falling: Beginner Lvl 2

Forging: Beginner Lvl 4

Jumping: Beginner Lvl 5

Repair: Beginner Lvl 5

Running: Beginner Lvl 8

Stalking: Beginner Lvl 7

Tailoring Beginner Lvl 4

From Frost's perspective, and as far as he knew from all the information he had gathered, a player could create an infinite number of skills with some being easier to create than others. There were twenty-five levels in each rank of every skill and four ranks. It progressed from beginner to trained, then to expert, and finally to master. There was a skill involved with most things and the only way to level them up was to constantly repeat your actions.

Many skills were very easy to create and he even had a falling skill that let him take less damage from falling. The more complicated a skill was, the more complex your actions had to be to increase the skill. For example, the jumping skill was simple and all you had to do was jump repeatedly to level it up. Cooking however was far more complex and required someone to make new dishes and have new cooking experiences in order for it to level up.

Suddenly a system window popped up, causing Frost to swipe away all messages and sprint off. He left his sword in its sheath and ran off with the staff in hand.

You may now leave your starting city.

A grin split his face as Frost ran into the snowy fields full of little animals that new players often hunted for experience. Frost laughed at the thought of people slowly leveling up by trying to punch or stab fuzzy little rabbits that were worth very little experience and could run away if they weren’t quickly killed. It would be a colossal waste of time for someone who needed 60% more experience than everyone else would need, assuming that they had not chosen the Hero’s Blood trait. Frost was basing his entire game strategy on the idea that no one else would pick that trait or be able to play as much as he would be able to.

Suddenly he stopped and slowly spun around in place. The snow-covered landscape began to change as it snowed, large flakes drifting gently down from above. He could see the distant trees that made up the forest not too far away, and his grin widened to its maximum. ‘Yeah, I think this really will be fun.”

“Hey.” Two players had followed him from the direction of town. He had ignored them at first, hoping they would take the hint and leave him alone, but they still followed him. They probably just wanted to trick him into being their meat shield so that they could fight stronger monsters more easily. It was very obvious that their gear was complete junk with most of it being starter gear. He could tell they were players only by the level marker next to their names that were floating above their heads in green once they were close enough. The names were actually question marks until you were told the person’s name while they were there, or it was mixed with an adequate description. NPCs didn’t have levels, they only had stats so you couldn’t tell how strong one was unless they fought. Reid saw that these two were both level seven and relaxed. These guys were probably nothing special since the high level players were approaching level 15 by now.

Frost put his staff away into his extra dimensional storage bag and decided to reply by frowning at the players that wanted to bother him. They were two male players, one a quiet short guy who didn’t bother to hide what appeared to be general disapproval of just about everything. Frost would have guessed that the scowl on his face was permanent. The other was a bit taller than Frost and had a smile on his face that screamed scam artist.

“We haven’t seen you yet, newbie.” The tall one said to him. “Did you just start playing or did you actually become a native. Well, seeing as you have a late start, we’ll help you out with leveling up.”

“No thanks. I’m a solo player.”

“Even so, I think you’ll be better off with help.”

“You’re trying so hard, it’s depressingly obvious, not to mention how cliché this is. The fuck do you want? Stop wasting my time.”

Neither of the two men were surprised to be found out, and the tall one’s smile melted away. “I figured even if you knew, you’d be smart enough to do this the easy way rather than piss us off. We’re two level sevens and you’re fresh out of the city. Hand over all of your gear and we’ll let you go without killing you. You don’t deserve free equipment just because you cowered in the city while everyone else went outside the walls.”

“I have one question.”

The man’s eyes narrowed. “What’s that?”

Frost smiled and said sarcastically, “Did you say something? I wasn’t listening.”

“Bastard,” the two drew their weapons and Frost did the same, pulling out his two-handed blade from its sheath at his waist. The tall man drew a pair of short swords while the short one pulled out two daggers. They charged at him while Frost took a ready stance. As they drew closer, Frost stepped forward and swung his sword at the tall one. The man didn’t expect that Frost would go on the attack, moving closer and striking at him. He blocked with one sword and went to strike with the other but was knocked off balance when a sword slashed him across the chest. A small window appeared for a brief moment in the corner of his view.

Critical Hit!

The two men hadn’t really fought before but they expected that the same was true of Frost. They thought that it would be fine since they were higher level and it was two on one. However, they lacked the experience to fight well, and Frost took advantage of that. The tall man hadn’t blocked properly or put enough strength into bracing his arm so the strong blow from Frost went right through his guard, slashing him across the chest. The short man had circled around to the side and was too far away to attack or help his companion as Reid brought the sword around and slashed through the man’s gut. The man grunted from the pain that was only ten percent of the actual pain as he was knocked back, onto the ground.

The short man arrived next to him and he hopped back, out of dagger range. Frost stepped forward and swung at the man’s head. The man ducked under the sword and started to move forward as Frost spun with the momentum of the sword, sending a kick at the man’s lowered face. He was knocked off balance long enough for Frost to swing the sword with full strength straight through his neck, followed by a thrust into the man’s gut. Another critical hit window appeared, each strike of the sword leaving behind red streaks as he did damage.

The tall man was back on his feet and running at him from his right side so he gripped the sword, ripped it out of the man’s left side, and turned his body as he brought the sword down in an overhead swing on the tall man. He tried to dodge, but only received more damage when Frost adjusted the trajectory of his sword. At this time, the two began to feel fear as their health was severely reduced. They started to back away but Frost only smiled as he looked at them. How could he let precious experience points walk away after they had come right up to him? They were his prey now and they wouldn’t get out alive.

Frost started to attack the tall man wildly, chipping away at his health until the man’s death was announced by a white soul leaving his body. The short man scrambled to get away after watching in horror as his friend died. However, Frost was faster and was able to trip him with a slash at his legs. He then killed that man with a few more swings of the sword as he cowered, screaming for mercy and forgiveness. Frost didn’t care about anything the man had to say and killed him without remorse. That was the biggest difference between him and them. When he attacked, he did so with the intent to kill his opponent while they hesitated slightly.

You have gained 174 experience.

Level up!

Frost froze and began to worry a little. Right now was perhaps the most important moment he would ever have in this game. It all depended on how many stats he would get from hero’s burden. If it were only one or two then it would be a completely worthless trait. However, Frost had checked every single possible trait and he didn’t think that there were any bad trait choices other than the ones that increased stats by a base amount and even those weren’t terrible. He decided to stop worrying and just find out so he opened his stat menu and sighed in relief, collapsing to his knees as he began to laugh. He had nine distributable points, meaning he got four of those from hero’s burden. Now he had the confidence to conquer the game and become far stronger than anyone else. He distributed the points evenly between strength, agility, and dexterity. He decided to make his character fast and strong.

After calming his racing heart and assuring his future plans, Frost thought about the battle. It seemed that critical hits were partly based on where someone struck and partly based off of how prepared to take a hit the recipient of the attack was, along with whatever base chance and stat increases added to the mix. He was once again amazed at how complicated this game was as he sheathed his sword and stood up. He headed in the direction of forest, looking around for other players. It seemed that for whatever reason, he had not been branded a Dark player. Maybe it was because they drew their weapons first.

Dark players were those that performed evil acts such as murdering innocent people and stealing from others. It’s opposite was Pure players who performed acts of charity and showed selfless behavior. Apparently people had found out that going further into each alignment, one could gain the darkness or purity stat, which would give a small boost to stats when fighting someone of the opposite alignment.

Frost found himself standing next to a signpost just outside the forest, which now loomed above him. It read Kharz Forest. He bared his teeth and drew his sword. “Let’s get to work,” he said to himself as he bolted into the forest.