Dialog in this story has the speaker's initial in front of it unless it is bleeding obvious who is talking. NPCs will have some name or descriptor, leaving initials to be used by the player characters.

A: Ashcroft - mage with biased to fire

J: Jorlund - as close to a dwarf as a human can get

M: Maledictive - the party healer

W: Werlkhan - title character, first person naration is from this perspective

After a fitful night of nominal sleep, I am not happy about whatever death penalty awaits me. I suit up and turn the game back on.

.... Loading .... Welcome to ¦Founding of Humanity ¦

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Sage Albert says "biting off more than you can chew is unhealthy."

He takes a quarter of your coin as payment for the advice.

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I am in the chapel, in town.

Chapel all regeneration rates are doubled

I still have all my equipment, skills and levels, and random inventory bits. That means I dont have to make a corpse run into the woods. Other than the curse on the rat boots, I see no debuffs. Huh. Not very harsh on death for a normal class, but I have lost my whole pack in the process. And I cannot unequip these cursed boots, which are killing my regeneration. I get up from the stone bench and look around the large room. There are many more benchs like the one I find myself on, though they are set in a way that implies practitioners use them to listen to sermons, not for players coming back from mass slaughter. I take the one door out of the room and am met by the NPC in charge of the area.

Priest: "May the gods bless your way, Elect. I notice you are using a cursed item."

W: "Yes, I had an unfortunate encounter, and these boots are reminding me of an errant knife strike."

Priest: "We do not yet have an altar here to cleanse it, but I have heard of a way."

New Quest!

Curses can be removed by the purifying light of the Lily Wisp. Find a blooming water lily by the island in the lake to the south to encounter a Lily Wisp.

Accept? Y/N

Yes.

W: "Thanks for the tip. "

Exiting the chapel, a spend a moment listening to the chatter around me. I overhear nothing interesting. Well, since my friends are going to arrive inside the forrest it is going to take a little time before we meet up. Time I can use to rebuilt a bit of my pack. Talking to a guard NPC I get the event quest.

New Quest!

Molekin are attempting to uproot humanity's foothold. We need our farmland and cropse to survive the coming winter. Dig them out before our foundation is damaged. Quest ends in 4 days.

Accept? Y/N

Special Event: 20% boost in experience and coin from molekin

Yes.

Experience and money droprate boost? Yay for opening day. A quick run to the east fields again gets me two snakes and a turtle for a start on pack bonuses. Then, a full run through town carrying my turtle to get to the event fields on the west end of town. Stepping out of the west gate I am greeted with a notification.

To Arms!

The Molekin are attacking! During event

* experience gained is boosted by 20%

* drop rewards are boosted by 20%

* only molekins will appear in the west farms and hills

* killing 20 molekin will attract a moleking

The fields and visible small hills (mole hills?) are covered with players, all swinging at the ground or launching their various attacks. A few parties are wandering around; occassionally they run together to a spot and beat the ground. This does clear up the question of why there were not more players hunting wolves yesterday. However, it also looks like the best spawn points are already being camped by a few teams. I head west by north west to get into the hills on the border of the woods, and finally find an empty spot to whack moles. No, that is not a euphemism.

Molekin - Level 2

They are weak. It is good that I am scouting this area, it might not be worth it for the party to come back here even with the exp boost. A single attack with my kris and one bite from a snake is enough to finish it.

| molekin -23 -9 |

54exp

I am happy for a moment, until I realize that the experience is only that high since I am not sharing it 4 ways. Fortunately, the next molekin to appear is lv 4. It yields and joins my pack after two rounds.

| molekin -23 -9 -9 -4 -23 -9 -9 -4 |

a Molekin (lv 4) joins you +1 strength

The lv 4 molekin are stout little beasties, and do more damage than my snakes when attacking from the front. The next lv 4 to come around also joins my pack before we kill it, and then a lv 3 manages to duck in at the moment before death. The level 3 gives me +0.7 vitality instead of strength. However, it is still a molekin and counts for Wild Intuition to give me a new skill.

New Skill Learned! Tremorsense

Sense movement through the ground within a certain radius.

Radius determined by level.

5 mana/s 10 second cooldown

This is exactly the thing that will make this hunting ground worth the time. With my cursed rat boots I cannot keep it active the whole time, but I start to roam back through the hills and between the other players. Around this time I also reach level 8, with the usual fanfare and refilling of my health and mana. Instead of working like the hunting parties I saw earlier where they rush to a point when they see a mole pop out, I can now find the moles underground and "coincidentally" be in the right spot when they pop up. Taming does not count as killing, and another lv 3 and lv 4 molekin join my pack before I reach the 20 kill mark and a Moleking comes for me. I can feel him burrowing straight for me, aimed precisely like I already have aggro. When his little velvety head breaks through the ground, I see that he is bigger and has a ring of grey fur in a crown shape instead of the all black that the other molekin are. Also, instead of just attacking with the large digging claws like the other molekin, this Moleking had a little shiny sceptor. It was rediculous.

Moleking - Level 8

With the event boosts, this is a monster worth hunting. The strength boost from two snakes and three molekin brings my damage from the kris up to 29. Even still, the Moleking gives as good as he gets and has a few points of armor. I have not linked any of my monsters, so the damage I take is only when I cant jump back fast enough. With the ratboots ruining my regen, I can't be too free in the battle.

| Moleking -26 -6 -6 -10 -10 -10 -4 -4 -1 |

| molekin -40 |

| Moleking -26 -6 -6 -10 -10 -10 -4 -4 -1 |

| molekin -23 |

A Molekin (lv 3) from your pack has died.

0.8 vitality removed

Why didn't I collect a few Dreameaters before coming out here? I quickly use Stun Gaze and the Moleking slumps to the side.

| Moleking -26 -6 -6 -10 -10 -10 -4 -1 -26 -6 -6 -10 -10 -10 -4 -1 -26 -6 |

420 exp

Level up! It also drops 18 copper and a Moleking Claw. Looking at the claw, the description says it is an event item, and a town guard will give me a bonus for it. Just then

{Whisper Jorlund: Where are you? I want to join the whack-a-mole }

{Whisper Werlkhan: Head south to the grass, west to town, and talk to a guard to get the quest}

{Whisper Jorlund: Of course you are already there. You better save a good spawn point for me}

By the time they reach me at the west gate, I had killed another 10 molekin of assorted level.

W: "I assume you all can read the quest windows just fine. The mole-King is level 8 while the regular molekin are levels 2-4. I've already picked up a skill for finding them before they pop out, so we might farm faster together weaving between the spawn campers."

A: "That looks awfully crowded out there."

W: "It is. I dont know how early they signed in, but the good spots were already gone when I got here. And more players keep coming."

J: "Then lead us to the moles. I will happily teach the molekings who is king of the hill."

M: "He has been practicing that delivery the whole way here."

J: "Liar. Only half the way."

You are invited to join Jorlund's party

Accept / Ignore

Accept.

W: "We can do pretty good going after the random spawns, so that is the plan. Mal, what aura do you have on?"

M: "Oppression. It reduces enemy speed in the area of effect. It works great on the wolves."

W: "Good to know. If you have something that helps mana recovery, that would be better here. The moles are rather slow, but the skill I am using to find them is outpacing my mana regen. Let's go murder some velvety rodents."

I lead them through the crowded fields and to the hills, my pack following after and the molekins therein attracting attention. Everyone is so itchy to kill them in this area that they get a lot of second glances. If they did not have the bonded/familiar icon above them then I would not be able to keep them alive in this crowd. A pulse of tremorsense brings me awareness of an approaching molekin.

W: "Right there in 3, 2, 1 .."

A: "Burn bright burn true." Fire Bolt

| molekin -30 |

13 exp

W: "Ouch that exp is pitiful when shared. That was a lv 2 mole."

J: "Any chance you can share that detection skill, so we can speed this up?"

W: "Not with you, though, that is not a bad idea."

I immediately use Spirit Connection on the molekins in my pack, and feel it when they use Tremorsense. That is a good work around.

W: "And it works. I dont have to use as much mana now."

J: "I want compensation for the idea."

W: "Go get the mole that is coming up 3 yards that way."

And the molekin event occupies the party all day. We go through enough molekins to summon a moleking 4 more times. This rate of farming was only sustainable through the shared tremorsense and the special spawn rates for the event. Each of us collected 1980 exp and 89 copper from the rest of the day. They were sore at me for missing this great exp opportunity yesterday, as they each reached level 9 and I reach level 10 from these exploits. Jorlund could one-shot the littlest molekin by the end, and dual cast fire spells could one-shot all but the kings. It was about then that the return on grind investment noticably shrunk and the tedium set in. When they were looking to call it quits I spoke up.

W: "I have another quest to do, that I can only finish in moonlight. After dinner I am heading south to the lake. There is supposed to be a glowing water lily that lifts curses and I have some cursed footwear I am eager to cleanse."

J: "You have a magic item already? What did you do, try to rob a grave for an easy cheat?"

W: "I got in a tight fight last night, and in the dark killed my own rat. I got some Betrayal notification and these cursed boots that are crushing my regen. I cant remove them until the curse is lifted."

W: "So that is why you hung back like a pansy and had us do all the hard work."

A: "Do you get an item for every betrayal?"

W: "Maybe I will test that out when I am at the goal of the quest. I am not interested in finding an unremovable speed debuff."

A: "If you do, get me a couple pieces please. I cant go with you tonight so I am sure that I will be falling behind in levels. Magic items would help."

J: "I want freebies too. But dont give any to Mal, because it might break his priestly vow of poverty or something."

M: "There is no such thing. But I was not going to beg like some vertically challenged party member starting childish comparisons."

J: "That sure sounds like some black pot and kettle stuff."

A: "Pot calling the kettle black; but he has a point about your height."