Welcome to Global conflict, the latest in VR fantasy adventures.

Please select your allegiance. The side of light or the side of dark.

Please note that some races will be locked depending on which side you choose.

(Dark)

You have selected dark; the available races are as follows

Shadow elves

Orcs

Undead (choose an origin race if starting undead)

Goblin (choose one of three variants if choosing goblin)

Demon

Human

"Um, Shadow elf please."

A 3d shadow elf with the features of the player appeared. Standing 5 foot 6 and bearing curves in all the right places the Avatar winked at the player as the AI spoke.

"Do you wish to make any changes to your avatar before continuing?" asked the AI.

"No, this is good."

Please name your Avatar, as a shadow elf you may only choose the first name.

"Elora please," the player asked.

The Dark skinned night elf merged with the player and Elora felt a wave of energy rush threw her.

"Welcome Elora to the world of Global conflict. The shadow elves warred centuries ago with their light elf brethren and many lives were lost.

Currently there is only one known dark elf coven and it is sworn to the Dark lord's service. The Malon coven is led by Duchess Aurae.

The space that Elora was standing in grew thick with fog, blocking her vision of everything around it, when it cleared she was in a small cave, brightly lit by glowing lichen lining the walls.

The character creation AI spoke up once more, "Would you like to take the tutorial?"

"Yes, thank you." Elora replied politely.

"This tutorial will cover Combat, Mage craft, Crafting, and quests. You may log out at any time and return to complete it."

To begin, choose a starting weapon.

At these words 3 weapons and a book appeared before Elora.

A small set of daggers (silver daggers 1-3 damage requires 5 strength)

A slim short sword (Crescent sword 3-5 damage requires 7 strength)

A large 2 handed staff (druid's oak staff 2-4 damage requires 10 strength)

A skill book named Shadow bolt rank 1.

Elora pondered for a moment before calling up her stat screen to help her decide what to start as.

Name: Elora

Race: Shadow elf

Level 1

Alignment: Chaotic Evil (your parents murdered the last pope)

Class: none

Stats

HP: 40

Mana: 48

Strength 10

Speed 10

Stamina 10

Wisdom 12

Intelligence 12

Luck 5

Racial Traits

Shadow pact 5

Dark vision (passive)

Skills

2

"Examine all stats" she spoke.

HP= 4 times your stamina

Mana = 4 times your intelligence

Strength, strength increases the items you may carry and allows heavier weapons to be wielded. Strength increases melee damage by 1 per 3 points in it. Due to your shadow elf heritage your strength grows normally.

Speed, Differing from agility, speed decreases cast time and increases attack speed, but does not increase dodge chance or crit chance.

Stamina, Stamina affects the duration that you can perform physical actions in combat before incurring a penalty. Continual actions during combat at 0 stamina incur a growing DPS decrease from the player and higher chance for enemies to perform crits upon the player.

Wisdom, Increases mana regen by 1 point a minute per 2 wisdom. High wisdom is required to be able to cast spells beyond level 2. Due to your shadow elf heritage your ancestors have traded the elven growth strengths for more physical abilities.

Intelligence, increases your base mana and ability to learn skills. High intelligence is required to be able to learn spells beyond level 2. Due to your shadow elf heritage your ancestors have traded the elven growth strengths for more physical abilities.

Luck Affects your ability to crit in combat, as an Elf you have the chance to crit on all spells, healing and damage.

Racial traits

Shadowpact, Your race has made a pact with the shadows, During combat in caves or at night increases all stats by the level of the pact for the duration of the combat. Be wary as loss of hp at the end of combat may be fatal.

Dark vision (you can see in the dark as if it were day, still can't see invisible things) Any light source turns this passive off.

"Show my skills" Elora thought.

Skills

Strike level 1: a quick melee strike at the target, applies weapon damage plus 2 per level of strike to the attack. costs 10 mana or 2 stamina points if mana is insufficient.

Examine level 1: dual skill, In combat highlights one point per level to perform a guaranteed crit if struck. Activation cost in combat = 5 mana per level.

Out of combat enables identification of an item so long as examinee's level is above the item's highest usage requirements.

"Examine shadow bolt skill book." Elora said.

Examination failed,

Examination failed,

Examination failed,

Examine has leveled up

Examination successful, Displaying skill book.

Shadow bolt level 1, Requires 2 intelligence to learn. Casting cost = 5 mana +1 per skill level, 0 cool down, does 1 damage plus 1 per 2 points of intelligence. Requires 5 wisdom to cast.

Shadow bolt has 30 feet range but requires vision of the target.

'This spell looks like it will hit for 7 damage right now, at 5 mana cost. Otherwise i am stuck with strike doing either 3-5 damage with those daggers or 5-7 with that sword. I never was a staff girl.' Elora thought.

"I will take the skill book."She said and grabbed it.

"Do you wish to learn Shadow Bolt level 1?" A voice rank out.

"Yes" she said.

With a flash of light the book vanished and Elora knew that all she needed to do was hold out her hand and chant Shadow bolt to cast the spell.

The character creation AI spoke up next. "Please kill the target to complete the combat portion of this tutorial."

The shadows in the cave seemed to coalesce together and a small slime appeared on the floor. It started slowly hopping towards Elora.

"Examine" Elora said

-5 MP

[Shadow slime level 1 HP???] Appeared above the slimes head.

"Shadow bolt" Shadow bolt"

-6

-6

Congratulations you have slain shadow slime.

+3 experience 7 more needed to level 2

Elora watched in fascination as the slime appeared to expand like a balloon before popping and leaving behind a small circular core on the floor.

The AI spoke up again, "Please collect the Monster's drops to move on."

Elora touched the ball and a popup appeared in front of her eyes.

[1 shadow core small gained]

"The next part of the tutorial is Magic, due to the elven heritage shadow elves are gifted in magic, unfortunately the demonic pack of their forebears limits shadow elves to the 3 disciplines of

Shadow magic, necromancy, and sorcery. You may join a particular branch of magic after determining your class. Please choose and use a beginner’s spell book from the list before you.

3 Books appeared before Elora.

Shadow's grasp level 1 (shadow-mancy)

Summon Minor minion level 1(necromancy)

Souls sight level 1 (sorcery)

Elora immediately attempted to examine each book but only received several failures. Her Examinee's level stayed at 2.

After several minutes trying to decide if Shadow's grasp was a cc spell vs gaining a combat summon Elora chose shadow's grasp level 1.

Shadow's grasp level 1: non combat spell that allows the caster to grab an object from 5 feet away plus 1 foot per level. Costs 10 mana to perform.

Before Elora a table with a boiling pot of water and 3 flasks appeared.

"Continuing the tutorial we have come to the crafting portion. Elven crafting includes distilling and refining magical ingredients down to their base forms.

Elven craft disciplines include, woodcrafts, alchemy, transmutation, tailoring, and enchanting. While players may learn any disciplines they desire, disciplines outside their racial strengths suffer higher experience curves.

Presently, please place the slime core into the boiling water before you to learn your first Alchemical potion."

Elora dropped the slime core into the pot and a status bar appeared in front of her, it quickly dropped and after it ended she poured the water into the 3 flasks.

[You have gained 3 weak elixirs]

Looking at the elixirs descriptions they recovered 15 hp and 5 mana upon consumption. Moreover only one elixir could be consumed every hour on pain of gaining a negative condition from overdosing.

"The final part of this tutorial is questing. As a shadow elf you have a permanent racial quest to regain your homeland. On a more achievable level, having just come of age your family desires you to do some great actions to impress the Duchess.

Good luck Elora." With this the Tutorial ended and Elora received 2 last popups.

[Racial quest rank SSS. Recover your homeland. Quest rewards: Nobility, power, name it and if it is within her power Duchess Aurae shall grant it.]

[Familial quest rank A+: Having just come of age it is time now for you to earn your name. Impress the Duchess with some feat and rewards shall be yours. Quest rewards:????]

Elora looked at the two monster quests the tutorial had given her and promptly decided to put them off for later. Maybe after she hit level 10. Finally leaving the starter cave Ellora came upon what looked like a large mushroom farm in a more spread out area.

The farm was being worked by a bunch of goblins but she saw a Shadow elf farmer with the name [Bryn, mushroom caretaker] floating above his head. Elora approached him and said, "Excuse me sir, would you happen to have any tasks you needed done?"

Bryn looked at her tiredly before replying, "Sure kid, take over for me making sure the goblins are properly watering our mushrooms here and not eating them for the next few hours while i catch up on some repairs i need to make to the equipment.

[Bryn has offered you a quest: Keep the goblins from slacking off, quest rank f+, and required actions: make sure that the goblins finish their work before Bryn returns, Rewards???]

"I would love to babysit them for you." Elora said with a smile.

1 Hour later Elora was slumped gasping, out of breath with 2 stamina left due to how demanding the job was. Herding goblins was worse than herding cats as they immediately started lazing off when Bryn vanished.

Yelling at them didn't work; slapping them in the head injured Elora's hands more than the goblins, and shadowbolt one shot the poor goblin brute she targeted

[+2 exp 5 more needed for level 2]

Even after murdering the brute the rest of the goblins still didn't care about getting back to work. Elora was about at her wits end when she heard screaming coming from one end of the farm and watched as 4 of the 5 goblins stationed on that end came running to hide behind the giant mushroom she was leaning against.

She staggered to her feet and walked over to see what was going on. Hilariously one 3 foot tall goblin had managed to get itself totally covered by a slime.

Elora used Examine and saw displayed

[Shadow slime level 2]

Using shadow grasp she grabbed the goblin and then pulled it out of the slime with an audible pop. The slime shrank down some then started hopping towards her.

"Shadow bolt" "shadow bolt"

-6

-6

[Your shadow bolt is now level 2, new casting cost: 6, shadow bolt now does 2 damage plus 1 per 2 points of intelligence]

Elora quickly cast Shadow bolt twice expecting the slime to collapse like the last one. Unfortunately it hung on with a sliver of health and continued hopping towards her.

Killing the Goblin plus the various mushrooms she had examined during the quest had left her with not enough mana to fully cast another shadow bolt.

Desperate, and out of mana Elora used the only combat skill she had left at the cost of her 2 remaining stamina.

"Strike" she gasped out as she kicked at the slime.

[-2 damage 3 damage absorbed]

Shadow slime level 2 had died.

The shadow slime quickly inflated like a balloon and then exploded with a pop, covering Elora in glitter and leaving behind a small glowing circle.

Touching it she was rewarded with.

[1 partially dissolved mushroom gained]

[+4 experience, 1 more needed for level 2]

Having exhausted her stamina Elora slumped to the ground unable to move. The goblin she had saved came up to her and said, "Hey boss, you ok?"

"I am fine," she replied," just get everyone back to watering the mushrooms." "OK boss," the goblin answered before running over to where the surviving goblins were.

Elora distantly heard him yelling, "Breaks over, lets work!" And like magic all the goblins got back to watering the mushrooms.

An hour later Elora was feeling better having drank some water. A system message rang out.

"Now that all beta testers have logged in and started the global conflict creators are announcing the Racial Survivability quests. In 7 days all the players from each race will be given a quest to determine if that race will stay a playable race at the launch of the game.

Current players in each race

Human 300

Dwarf 178

Light elf 361

Beast 266

Dark human 122

Dark elf 290

Goblin 1

Undead 175

Demon 340

Looking at it Elora couldn't help but laugh at the fact that anyone had wanted to be a goblin in this game. Goblins were low level mobs, not Character avatars.

She pulled herself up and noticed that Bryn was walking over to her location, examining the field as he went. "You did good keeping these idiots in line." Bryn said. "I think they may have multiplied again since when i left there were only 10 of them and now there's 13. No matter, here is your reward. If you need any recommendations with the other elven farmers you come see me."

[Quest complete: you have protected the farm from the threat of its own workers satisfactorily for Bryn. Rewards.

10 copper coins, 1 water flask, 1 small 4 slot bag, + 20 experience.]

[Level up, level up, experience needed to level 4 16]

Elora quickly equipped the bag into one of her bag slots and placed the flask and coins inside of it. She asked Bryn for directions to the Coven and headed out.

Apparently the experience needed to gain a level went up by 5 per level so she needed 20 total to get to level 4. Calling up her stats Elora noticed that everything had gone up by 1 except for her luck and racial stats.

She had also gained 2 ability points and her mana and stamina had both refreshed. Elora decided to split her points between wisdom and intelligence, bringing them both up to 15. With 60 mana she could now cast shadow bolt 10 times and still have the bonus mana provided by shadow pact in reserve.

Entering the main Coven Elora noticed several elven, and orc vendors working stalls, trying to sell various foods and wares to passersby. Walking beyond the entrance she came to the center Coven square. South of her location lay the market she passed through, to the north was a large manor hollowed out from a gigantic stalagmite that was growing from the cave floor?

West of her were a series of smaller stalagmite dwellings and to the east stood 4 decorated towers, the 4 towers were connected to the roof of the cave and each had elaborate mantles displaying their purpose.

These were the combat guild towers.

War, guild of elvish swordsmen and archers.

Shadows, guild of assassins and and saboteurs.

Blight, guild of necromancers and Dark priests.

Essence, the guild of Sorcerers and craftsmen.

Elora spent some time marveling at the unique beauty of her cavern home before hearing the alarm telling her it was time to log off.

She quickly found an inn that had rooms available for 2 copper a night and bought a room. Lying down on the bed she pulled up her menu and spoke.

"Log off”

16 hours later

“ Log in”

“Welcome back to Global conflict Elora” the AI said. “Did you wish to continue where you left off?”

“Yes”

Elora stretched and sighed as she got up out of the Inn’s bed. Her co-worker had also gotten into the beta and apparently had put in his vacation request before her allowing him to spend the full week playing while she had to log off and get to work the next few days.

Heading down stairs Elora grabbed some breakfast from the innkeeper at the cost of 1 more copper.

Breakfast consisted Mushrooms, mystery meat, and a plant that looked alot like bell-peppers all wrapped in some type of wheat tortilla. She found it both delicious and worrisome that her Examine failed on the meat several times. Eating breakfast Elora heard other patrons, a mix of orcs and elves, talking about what was happening throughout the dark Lord's domain.

Apparently the Orc’s were gearing up to wipe out the Goblins, and the demons were demanding tributes from the Coven for some reason. The most interesting thing Elora heard was that minor bats had infested several of the residences and locals were looking for someone capable of dealing with those same infestations.

Finishing her meal she headed out and quickly found an old Elven couple standing outside their house listening to the breaking of glass and other furniture. Elora offered to fight off the infestation and recieved the quest from the couple.

[Quest: Fight off the bat infestation: completion requirements: don't die. Find where the Bats came from and end the infestation, quest level -E]

Noting the quest was a slight notch above the farming quest Elora readied herself mentally and entered the abode. The house was small, comprising of a front living room, a small kitchen, and connecting to the kitchen a small bedroom with attached bath.

[Small bat level 2 HP 10] was revealed through her Examination.

Elora quickly cast Shadow bolt and struck the bat, almost killing it.

-9

The bat, injured but enraged immediately dropped down from the ceiling of the living room and swooped at her. Elora tried twice to cast Shadow bolt but was unable to cast it quickly enough before the bat would pass beyond her vision.

-1

-2

-1

She suffered several sharp bites from the bats fangs before giving up on the spell and grabbing a pillow off the near by living room sofa and swatted at the bat

-0

-4

The bat took no damage off the pillow striking it, the wall however was in no mood to move.

[You have slain small bat]

[+2 experience 14 left to level 4]

[1 small fang gained]

Pocketing her loot Elora moved into the kitchen.

[small bat level 2 hp 10][small bat level 2 hp 10][ knapping bat level 4 hp 20]

Her examine ranked up to 4 upon using it on the second small bat allowing her to see the sleeping bat’s stats. Elora spent a few moments trying to think about how to handle the situation. The sleeping bat was on the kitchen table with both small bats sitting on the chair near it. Stepping back into the living room Elora picked up a thick blanket from the back of the sofa. She had noticed that the first small bat had not reacted to her until she injured it. Slowly walking up to the 2 small bats she quickly threw the blanket over them. Gathering all the ends together she swung the bundle hard twice against the floor.

-5, -5

-6, -5

[You have slain small bat*2]

[+4 experience 10 left to level 4] Floated in front of Elora’s face followed by

-7

The knapping bat had woken up during the commotion and bit her in the shoulder. Swiping at it Elora managed to get the bat to back off some and quickly cast shadow bolt

-9

Upon finishing the casting she had to dive out of the kitchen back into the living room as the bat swooped in for another attack. She pulled herself back to her feet and grabbed the discarded pillow off the floor. Holding it in front of her like a shield Elora started attempting to cast shadowbolt again. The bat glowed briefly for a second then dove straight at her.

[Bat has performed bite, Bat has inflicted bleed]

-14 hp

[-2 hp per second for 10 seconds]

Desperately Elora dropped the pillow and cast shadows grasp at the bat. The bat froze in the air, bound by shadows that seemed to stretch from the walls. Two quick shadowbolts later the bat died. From it’s corpse Elora recovered 2 fangs. Both the small bats gave her one. She spent some time resting as her health slowly recovered from the beating she had received. It was obvious to her that she needed to get some weapon to defend herself with as the shadow spells did not increase her defence in any way. Searching the house she discovered that there was a small hole in the wall behind the old couple’s stove. Having defeated the infestation and discovered how the entered the house Elora left to turn the quest in.

[You have cured the house of it’s infestation, quest complete]

[+ 20 experience, +10 intimacy with Coven NPC’s, + 12 copper]

[You have hit level 4 15 experience left til level 5]

Having experienced what this quest was about, and with some idea’s on how to more efficiently slay the bats, Elora quickly moved throughout the rest of the housing area of the Coven, exterminating the bat infestations.

As her second day ended she looked upon her stats with satisfaction.

“log out”

Elora’s stats.

Level 6

Hp 64

Mp 80

Strength 16

Speed 16

Stamina 16

Wisdom 20

Intelligence 20

luck 5

Racial Traits

Shadow pact 5

Dark vision (passive)

Skills

Shadow bolt rank 3, 7 mana 3 damage plus 1 per 2 intelligence

Shadow's Grasp rank 2, 6 mana to cast, grabs target 5 feet away plus 1 foot per rank

Items

12 small fangs

72 copper

2 weak elixirs

1 pair of thin leather boots +1 to speed while equipped.

Days 3-5 Elora logged in and and continued doing quests for within the coven. On the sixth day she connected and continued her morning routine of getting breakfast at the inn and listening for rumors from the locals about where to quest. As she was enjoying her mushroom wrap one of the Duchess’s guards stepped into the tavern and strode up to her.

“are you the one who dealt with the infestations plaguing the citizens of the coven?” he asked.

“Yes” she replied.

The guard then directed her to go visit the Captain of the watch at the War guild. Entering the spire Elora saw quite a few names elves and several of the other beta testers sparring in an open arena surrounded by a few small rows of benches. Using Examine she located the Watch Captain and walked over to him to inquire as to what he wanted.

[Watch Captain Grim]

“It’s about time you got here,” Grim said, not turning his head to look at her, “ The spire has recently suffered the same annoying infestation that our covenants residents are suffering from, I won’t have any of my soldiers dirtying their hands with bats when there are wargs and other true threats around for them to fight. I heard your some classless shadow caster. Rid my spire of this nuisance and i will see you properly rewarded.” With that the captain stood up and strode out of the building not leaving Elora any time to even think about the quest.

[Chain quest, The War guild has been infested worse than the homes of the Covens residents, clear the infestation or determine its cause to be rewarded by Captain Grim, Quest difficulty B, Rewards ????]

[This quest can not be turned down, abandoning this quest will turn you into the enemy of the War guild]

[you have accepted the quest]

Sighing in exasperation Elora started searching the area for bats. She found none on the first floor and moved up to the second floor of the guild.

The second floor was composed of rooms for the officers and a storage area for the guild’s weapons. Elora handled a few bats but found nothing of note beyond more small fangs. Having cleared the floor she moved up to the third floor. The door to enter the third floor was marked {experts test}. Thinking that surely the test would involve them sparring vs each other Elora quickly entered. A soft click marked the test door locking in front of her and a room with 4 wooden golems being lit up.

[Wooden golem level 8 HP ???]*4 appeared in red.

The golems all started advancing for her. Quickly Elora cast shadowbolt multiple times, striking the lead golem and on the 4th cast killing it. Her bolt hit it for 10 damage each time, showing that it was armored some as it should have struck for 13 on an unarmored target. Having determined that the golems had around 40 HP each Elora used all the rest of her mana to finish off a second golem. The remaining golems moved so slowly that she was able to kite them to a certain extent and lead them away from the 2 dead golems corpses. Elora circled around and looted both corpses while keeping her eyes on on the slow golems.

[wooden sword 5-7 damage][small wooden buckler +1 armor blocks 2 damage]

She equipped both items and stepped forward. Her mana regen was far too low to make waiting for enough to finish of the other 2 golems to be an option. Checking her stamina quickly she noted she still had 15 left. Elora carefully moved into range of one of the golems, keeping it between herself and it’s partner. She dodged the strike it attempted at her and used the opening left behind to quickly slash at it’s head.

-4

-5

This was going to be a long fight she realized. Elora danced around the forward golem's attacks for the next 15 minutes chipping it down to 0 hp. Upon defeating it though, she realized she had a problem. Her stamina, even with the shadowpact bonus, was down to 4 points. She hastily drank one of her 2 weak elixirs and used it’s mana to cast shadowbolt twice, bringing the final golem down to 20 HP. having injured it she again stepped forward to try to finish it off.

-4

In her exhaustion from having low stamina Elora failed to recover in time and the golem got of a solid hit on her, flinging her into the far wall where she dropped to the ground exhausted.

-35

-9

More than half her health in only one strike and the level difference between her and this golem was only 2. Having no choice but to gamble Elora downed her last elixir to gain the mana needed to slay the golem.

[you have been poisoned, -2 hp per second for 30 seconds, -2 mana per second for 30 seconds, stamina regeneration stopped for the next hour]

Looking at the popup, Elora knew she was dead. She felt sick to her stomach, her vision was getting blurry, and her eyesight was starting to fade. Using the last bit of her mental abilities she cast shadow bolt twice more, killing the golem seconds before it reached her. As Elora slumped to the ground a screen appeared in front of her eyes.

[ Congratulations on passing level 1 of the war guilds placement test]

[You have lost conscience, should you survive you may re-login in 1 hour.]

[You have been logged out]

One hour later Elora logged back into the game. She woke up in a bed in a small furnished room. A guard standing watch quickly stepped out and passed on a message before returning. He advised her to wait as the Watch captain was being summoned. Captain grim stepped into the room and silently looked at her for a while. Finally he said, “ I am sorry for the way i spoke before. The experts test room was supposed to be turned off as we had no tests scheduled for the next few days. If not for the luck of a messenger from the Dark lord having passed through the spire on the way to the Duchess you would have died, and I take full responsibility for that mistake. You have dealt with a large portion of the infestation, and more importantly you managed to pass a test that none of your current generation have been able to get through. Your reward is on the desk. Take it with my blessings and know, should you ever decide to take up the blade over the shadow magic you seem to favor, I will be happy to welcome you into the guild.”

Grim left after saying his speech, again giving Elora no chance to get a word in. Checking that she had recovered Elora got up and picked up the rewards the Watch Captain had left her.

[apprentices leather jerkin +2 defence]

[Apprentices leather pants +2 defence]

[apprentices leather gloves +1 defence]

[Watch Captains recommendation to the Shadow guild]

Awed at suddenly going from 0 equipment to a full set of defencive equipment Elora equipped the entire set. She noticed that the buckler and wooden sword were still in her inventory and happily stepped out of the room she was in. It appeared to be the Watch Captains room as she recognized the area for the 2nd floor of the War guild. Elora went down stairs and left the guild, having seen the other beta testers practicing there she decided to see if she could get more abilities or items in the last day before the Racial survivability quest started.

She quickly walked next door to the Shadows guild and spoke with a male secretary there. According to him the guild focused on using shadow magic to both augment melee attacks along with teaching ranged spell combat. If she wanted to become a mage specializing in shadow magic the class he recommended was the Saboteur. Saboteurs fought at medium range and were able to quickly deal large amounts of single target damage. The differences between them and assassins were that assassins gained movement skills and melee augments while saboteurs gained bonuses to fast casting and magical crit chance.

Undecided yet if shadows was the path she truly wanted to take Elora left and went to the Guild of Essence. Here she spoke with a Sorceror’s apprentice who explained that Sorcerers were like most game’s classical elemental mages. They specialized in doing large amounts of AOE damage, but had slower and more mana intensive spells because of this. If she decided to change her race to Craftsmen then she would be able to master all of the non-combat subclasses instead of just being able to master one and having the rest unable to get past intermediate level 1. Elora thanked the Apprentice and walked into the Guild of Blight.

This was definitely the creepiest of the guilds, it’s door was made of the bones of dead goblins. Stepping inside she noticed that the stairs to the next level were decorated with the skulls of humans. As she looked around a dark priestess came up to her and introduced herself as Priestess Gix.

Priestess Gix Informed her that while the guild was a meeting and training place for necromancers, Dark priests made up the majority of it’s members. The side of dark worshiped the 3 gods Mania of death, Amalek of Atrocities, and Drel of Deceit. The priestess then went on to ask Elora what she wished for in life. “To make my family proud and take back our homelands from the Elves of light who have claimed it.” Elora replied. “Almost as bad, i need to be stronger soon for I fear our current home may be threatened by I know not what.”

“In that case, i recommend praying to the Goddess Mania of death. There is calm acceptance in death's embrace, and you will need the strength of one of the deities if you wish to someday break past the holy barriers that bar us from our lost homeland.” Gix replied. “If you wish to become an acolyte to one of the god or goddesses simply kneel before their statue and pray fully. They may grant you what you wish.”

Elora thanked the Priestess and informed her she needed some time to think. Eating a quick lunch she returned to the Guild of Blight and knelt down before Mania’s statue. She spent the rest of the day praying at the Goddesses statue and as she went to logged out received the notice.

[You have been heard. Mania is not what she once was, her major followers having abandoned her for Amalek. Your class has been changed to Acolyte and have been granted the Faith stat. Faith works as a separate mana bar for faith based skills. It may be recharged once a day by praying at a temple or making a small sacrifice to your god. +40 faith]

“Log out”

Day 7

Elora logged in on the 7th day of the beta test minutes before the announcement on what the racial survival quest would be. With a ding the quest started.

[The demon lord Kast has decided that he desires the shadow elves enslaved. He has sent his minion Baal and an army of imps to crush the dark elves defences and capture the Coven for himself. Report to one of the Guilds to help defend the Coven.

[remaining demons 300

Remaining defenders 500]

Elora quickly headed over to the Guild of blight and searched for Priestess Gix. She found the priestess rallying 40 priests and acolytes to lead above ground where the battle would be fought. Catching Gix eye Elora quickly asked if there were any spells Gix could quickly teach her. She had 40 faith but 0 spells to use it on. Gix turned to an acolyte and instructed them to teach her the spells enfeeble and cursed healing.

[enfeeble, costs 10 faith, if successfully cast - 10 all stats to the target and all others within a 5 foot radius(death picks no sides so be careful of friendly fire)]

[cursed healing, costs 5 faith, deal 5 damage instantly to the target then heal them 4 points for every damage dealt. The damage dealt has an increased chance to crit.]

Elora and the acolytes hurried up the spire going up 50 floors of stairs before exiting from the spires top into a small surface village. If the underground coven was the Heart of the shadow elves new home, the surface village was their face, providing a place the other races of darkness could come to to trade. Captain Grim of the watch called all the soldiers together and explained the plan. The elves would start by defending the walls. should they be breached then they would retreat to the spires and fight a defencive battle down the stairs in order to stop the demons from breaching. Should any demons make it through any of the spires they would fail as the demons would instantly create a portal to their home realm there.

Elora ended up assigned to a group of 4 other beta players at one of the walls. They quickly introduced themselves and created a party with a level 8 Cursed swordsman named TotalRush as their leader.

Elora was slightly worried as TotalRush seemed to think this would be a walk in the park with them outnumbering the demons almost two to one. The demons army came and led its attack off with several brown wargs being sent ahead. Using Examine Elora identified a warg bearing down on her group as [Brown Warg level 11 HP ???] TotalRush Immediately rushed forward and attacked it with his sword. The Warg retaliated by biting his arm and started swinging him madly back and forth like a terrier with a chew toy. TR’s health points dropped by half immediately and quickly started dropping as the warg continued chewing on him. The other players in their party sprang forward, attacking the warg and attempting to get it off him. Elora cast moved up and cast shadows grasp on the warg to slow it down since weakness would hit to many of their party. Restrained and annoyed the warg dropped TR and headed for a different party member. Elora quickly cast her new cursed healing and watched as TR’s hp dropped one last time before rising up to hover around 2/3rds his max. TR simply jumped at the warg again casting his slash skill. They were doing barely any damage to the monster, seeing red -1’s and -2’s float above it’s head whenever they struck it. Noticing that her other party members were defending themselves adequately Elora cast several shadow bolts off getting a crit on the first one and managed to finish the warg off with a second crit for a whopping 30 damage on her fourth cast. The parties loot was set to random and one of her party members got lucky with the wargs drop.

Checking the quest log showed the following

[remaining demons 160

remaining defenders 322]

In that one round of fighting they had managed to kill off almost half the demons at a two to one trade. Elora smiled finally realizing they stood a chance. As if to dash those thoughts the notice appeared.

[Baal has become enraged and entered the fray]

A large 4 armed demon strode forward with all the demon imps following behind him. Using examine showed his level to be 36 and each of the imps to have levels between 11 and 13. Watch Captain Grim strode forward with Priestess Gix at his side and a short shadow elf with the name [Agent B]. “We will handle Baal, just keep those imps off our backs until we are done!” Grim commanded. TR took one look and logged out saying, “to hell with this I ain’t suicidal.” Two more of Elora’s teammates backed up as well not wanting any part in the coming onslaught. Elora quickly moved forward with her remaining party member, a cursed swordsman named Jack. Standing at his side Elora Cast her enfeeble on as many imps as she could, hoping the stat drops would be enough to carry them through the fight. Drawing her wooden sword she stood her ground as the imps came onward and Baal met Captain Grim’s party in a brutal fight behind her.

Elora dodged an imps claw strike and retaliate with an attack of her own injuring the demon for 7 damage. Shadow elves were fighting imps in 1v1 and 1v2 fights in a small semicircle, that was continually being forced smaller as the imps pushed them back. Jack was struggling beside her with his own imp. They were losing and she needed something to turn the tide. A cry of despair came up from behind her, and throwing a glimpse back Ellora saw that Captain Grim was down and Agent B was struggling to Keep Baal back long enough for Gix to finish healing him. Making a split second decision Elora called on Jack to take over fighting her imp as well and turned, running towards Baal’s back. As she ran she offered a quick prayer to her new goddess for the strength to see this fight threw then Elora focused all her strength and struck Baal in the back of one of his knees with her wooden sword. The blade shattered on impact, it’s durability worn out but she was rewarded with a message.

[cripple, %30 slow 40 seconds applied]

Feeling elated at Slowing him Elora failed to dodge the fist Baal thew in retaliation. Her last vision before the game faded out was of Captain Grim standing back up and again attacking Baal.

[You have lost consciousness, should you survive you may log back in in 1 hours time]

1 hour later Elora logged back in and was greeted with a familiar soft bed and spartan room. The Guardsman watching over her was even the same one. As she sat up Grim stepped in and congratulated her. With his injury Baal was no longer able to handle them and Grim’s party had slain the demon. The imp’s had been driven back and the attack had been stopped. Grim then explained that the Duchess wanted to congratulate Elora herself.

[Congratulations for completing the Shadow elf racial survivability quest. As the shadow elf who contributed the most to defending the coven the Duchess has asked for you to visit her at your earliest convenience. Get there in under 15 minutes for additional rewards.]

Elora left the War guild’s spire and walked quickly to the Duchess’s manor. The guards recognized her and one of them escorted her in. The large building was dark and for the first time in in the cave there was so little light her dark vision triggered allowing her to see a vast empty ballroom with doors leading to many rooms off of both the left and the right. The guard led her up a set of grand stairs at the back of the ballroom into a smaller office space where Elora finally met Duchess Aurae, leader of their race and third rank in power of the dark lords empire. Elora looked upon the Duchess beauty stunned, she had never before seen someone so beautiful, so perfect before. Aurae smiled at her and spoke, “So you are the child who has caught the eye of our Watch’s captain. You have done us a great service in aiding in Baal's defeat. We heard that you lost your blade in the battle. We know you are an acolyte for Mania so let us see if we have something that can aid you in your journey.” With that the duchess pulled an exquisite jeweled blade out from behind her desk. She placed it on the desk saying. “Take this, know that it has been an heirloom to your family for generations. You have done us proud.” With a loud noise Elora read.

[you have impressed the duchess with your feet of bravery in the face of impossible odds. For completing the familial quest at such a low level you have been bestowed the secondary name Leafolder. You do not presently have enough knowledge of your heritage for all the benefits.]

[new familial quest rank AA: learn the heritage behind your name, be careful as the name Leafolder has many ancient enemies]

[You have gained Shard, blade of death]

[Shard, Blade of death’s stats.

Item rarity: Unique (only the Duchess has the power to create such a deadly blade)

Durability 5

damage 6-9 +2 per level, bonus damage temporarily increases for each enemy slain within the last hour

passive, Life is fragile, as is the blade. After breaking, sheath to instantly recover blades durability.]

Elora held the blade in awe at it’s strength and abilities. Having a growing weapon would be great for leveling up and it was even better that it could repair itself. Elora was so giddy about the sword that she almost missed the next thing Aurae said. We took some damage from the attack and lost several aspiring elves. We have called one of our contacts, Matron Rue to lend us a small raid force for the moment. We wish to strike at the side of light to show the dark lord that the Shadow elves are not a broken race but are strong enough to stand proud at the forefront of his army vs the accursed light. Will you lead this raid?

[quest rank A: The Duchess has asked you to lead a combined race raid against the side of light, quest requirements: kill off 20 NPC’s from one of the border villages on the side of light/ Other, Quest will fail if you are unable to inflict enough casualties.][this quest can not be turned down]

“I accept.” Elora said still happy about her new blade. Leaving the Duchess Elora used the Blight guide’s spire to reach the surface and traveled to the edge of the village where she would meet the allies she had been given for the quest. On her way she invited the Swordsman Jack to share it and he met her at the meeting spot. Before her stood a motley group of over 50 goblins lead by a level 7 hobgoblin.

Elora used examine upon the leader as he walked up to them then said, “ Matron sais weak elfses needs goblins help. Goblin Kif lead warband and help weak elvses.”

[Hobgoblin Kif level 7 Goblin Elite]