“Well, that was a weird experience…”

“Yes, I hope it will be more… calm next times…”

“If only he knew…”

“What do you plan on doing, right now?”

“Oh, us…”

If only Georges knew…

“We are gonna make Mal Tharek work. He will get level 1 monster cores with dark slimes souls, and we will put on idol on every each village and mushroom fields that don’t have village next to them.”

“And you need a chapel every time?”

“No… but it would be better, though, so if you are interested, there is going to be some buildings to make.”

“It’s interesting, I play without the possibility of killing monsters nor doing individual quests. It’s… for personal reasons. But by doing collective quests, I earn experience points! And I meet quite the many players, I make this world evolve… count me in!”

And on this, we separated.

“Jules…”

“Mmh? What is it?”

“We have enough time to either go out to the outside world, so you finish your class quest, or either we can go deeper in the caves to the cave trolls. What do you prefer?”

“It seems better to me to make war against underground creatures. Let’s go to the trolls?”

“Works.”

And this way, we sank in the underground maze...”

***

Ugg and Sark are two cave trolls.

They are NPC, characters progressing next to a troll village where no player appear thus far.

At least… on the troll side…

Because many attacks were led by dwarves and undead.

Players like those distant villages because there are few enemies, and when the village is destroyed, it’s soon settled again by new troll families with low levels.

Those two trolls are low level...

Scan.

Ugg

Cave troll level 4

Health Point : 121/121

Mana Point : 106/106

Scan

Sark

Cave troll level 4

Health Point : 125/125

Mana Point : 105/105

If trolls have the reputation to be tough opponents, it’s because of their aggressive technique.

“Hey, Sark, look there! Two undead!”

“Let’s break their face!”

A zombie and a reaper approach from the end of the tunnel, followed by dark slimes.

Quite unexpected…

The first troll jumps on the zombie, and begins to hit punches.

The second troll follows him closely, but when he is about to seize the reaper, the zombie blocks the way.

“Storming!”

Two trolls against a zombie, the fight should have finished soon!

Guard.

Dark skin.

Guard.

Guard.

The fight lasts, and the zombie acts weirdly.

His skin darkens regularly.

It’s impossible to avoid him and attack the reaper.

Spells rain from behind.

Infusion.

Infusion.

Vortex.

Ice shard.

The two trolls are quickly below 40 HP.

“Let’s flee!”

And they run like rabbits, without asking for their rest...

***

After a two minutes break, the two trolls are already at their max HP.

Trolls are terrifying because their regeneration speed for HP is one of the best in Alter Life.

That’s the reason why lightning assaults like the one they just did is the ideal tactic for any troll: empty the HP and MP of the enemy dealing as much damage as possible, and returning to the charge like new.

The second assault looks like the first one.

The zombie blocks the way.

The slimes stay behind, with the reaper casting spells.

Infusion.

Vortex.

Infusion.

From time to time, he uses his scythe keeping a good distance.

Mowing.

An attack reaching the enemy deeply.

What does that mean?

Between 25% and 100% HP, each HP lost reduces a little bit the regeneration rate for HP: at most 5% after having lost three forth of the life.

It’s also called green HP.

Between 5% and 25%, it gets serious: 1% by percentage of life.

It’s called yellow HP.

The mowing deals damages in the yellow HP zone.

Between 0% and 5%, it’s critic, 1% HP lost corresponds to 10% regeneration lost.

Red HP, their loss comes with other handicaps.

Trolls dislike more than anything to see their regeneration decrease, so they try not to go below 25% HP.

When the trolls expect it the least, the reaper goes to Ugg with and unpredictable attack…

Dark execution.

Ugg’s head rolls on the ground, mowed like ripe wheat.

***

Sark lost his life the same way, without understanding what just happened.

“It’s quite good, this attack to finish the enemies.”

“Yes, but it costs much!”

“Oh yes? How much?”

“Well…”

Jean does a quick mental arithmetic in his head.

“It’s not the mana, the problem. This, I have more than enough. No, it’s the dark energy the biggest problem. First, it costs me an unit to infuse dark energy in the body of my enemy. Next, I have to infuse another one in my scythe blade. And finally, I have to succeed on reaching my enemy at once, else, the energy dissipates.”

“Oh, yeah… hopefully we have the slimes to refill our stocks!”

Jules doesn’t realize what a considerable advantage he has being followed by his loyal slimes.

The mote dark energy he gets, the more his competences increase.

For a battle against trolls, defence and regeneration rate are the most useful.

In the same time, using dark energy allows him to either absorb many damage, either recover many HP.

And as he can get back his energy just by feeding his slimes and extracting the dark energy they produce…

“Now, second step of the plan! Get prepared to fight against zombies!”

“Whenever you want, I’m ready!”

Jean learnt all the spells a beginner necromancer can learn.

The simplest way to get back to life is zombification.

As the name suggests, it transforms a dead creature in a zombie.

Here, a zombie troll.

Zombification !

Scan.

Ugg

Zombie troll level 1

Health point : 100/100

Mana point : 100/100

***

On the ground, Sark, Ugg’s friend.

In front of him, the zombie and the reaper, with their slimes.

I thought I was dead…

Ugg remembers having lost his head, and it rolled on the ground, until it stopped.

Before the thread of his thought also stopped.

After having lost his consciousness, his soul floated in the cave, not seeing anything of the fight, but grey and black walls of the tunnel only.

Sark’s soul soon appeared, but impossible to discuss with it: a dark hand caught him and brought him back in his body.

Now, ugg became a zombie.

To obey a necromancer?

The one that just killed him?

Certainly not!

A murderous rage seized Ugg who attacked the other zombie.

The fight didn’t last much.

Ice shards.

Dark punch.

Ice shards.

Niom.

After a few attacks, the zombie-Ugg got eaten by the other zombie.

Inside the stomach of his opponent, he continued on giving a few punches, but quickly, he lost consciousness again.

His soul began to float again, and the same dark hand as before caught him, but this time to hook him on a monster core.

The story of Ugg was quite short.

The story of Sark was similar.

Jules and Jean just defeated their two first trolls.

They kept on facing solitary trolls, or groups of two or three.

When Jules ate zombies, he got stomach aches.

But the pain got insufferable on his tenth.

“Jean, I think I’m getting an indigestion...”

“That’s weird, however… it’s what you were asked to do to become a psukhôphage, isn’t it?”

Sweating abundantly, our zombie friend lied down, as feverish.

Indigestion !