Monster exceeds player level by five levels. Experience bonus of 500%. You have earned 12'000 Experience points.
"So, it actually happened huh."
"I managed to steal it. Well, shit already hit the fan. Might aswell get the loot and run as fast as I can."
James ran up to the corpse of the Moon-Wolf King and noticed there were about eleven drops, and he had actually managed to get seven out of those. One had to know that normally, Field Bosses would drop a larger quantity of items, but that usually didn't go over seven or eight pieces.
Except for the First Kill. First Kills not only rewarded the player with copious amounts of Experience, but they also gave players bonus drops.
In Terranova, both Monsters and Equipment ranged from Trash to Legendary , each consequent tier being more and more powerfull and also harder to get. Some even speculated there were some hidden tiers above Legendary, seeing as the game had no level cap as of yet.
Every player started with a weapon of their Class, a Trash (White) tier one. So, James opened up his UI and noticed that he had leveled up. His current Stats looked like this :
Adventurer - "Blind Dreamcatcher" - level 3 Male Warrior
Experience: <0/8000>
Attributes: You have 18 unused Attribute points.
Hp: <150/150>
Mana: <65/65>
Vitality: 2
Intelligence: 1
Dexterity: 1
Constituiton:1
Strenght: 2
Wisdom: 1
Reputation: 0 (free citizen)
Titles: "King Slayer" --> Grants the using player and it's allies a 10% boost to every Attribute. Effective range : 50 Meters.
Experience worked in a somewhat linear fashion in Terranova. Basically, every level required you to get 2*((n)*((1+1 every 5 levels)*1000)) Experience points, where "n" was the next level the player was going to get.
So to level up to level 10, you'd need 2*(10+2*1000) Experience points and so on.
You earned 6 Attribute points every time you leveled up in Terranova. James decided to distribute his skill points evenly through his Strenght and Dexterity, the reason being that if one was mobile and strong enough, Health was a thing that could be sacrificed. Furthermore, he had to leave as soon as possible, to avoid getting roadblocked by "Psycothic Faith".
Therefore, once he finished allocating his Attribute points, he closed off his UI and made haste to leave this gorge before he was found.
--Meanwhile, inside "Psychotic Faith"'s group.--
"Huh? Is there a player named "Blind Dreamcatcher" in our Guild? Who was the lucky bastard?" - The one who spoke aloud was "Shattering Faith" , one of the members of the Faith Council.
"I don't recall there being such a thing, sire. Even if there was, our Guild's name should have shown up in the annoucement right? I reckon someone has made the horrible mistake of KS'ing our Guild's Boss."
Once "Brutal Faith" spoke such words, no one dared doubt him. "Brutal Faith" was conceded such name when he moved to Terranova. Although he was a member of the Faith Council, he was a new member, and someone who came from a low social standpoint. He had worked his way up the Guild's systems to his top position today, which meant that he had to be servile to the other members of the Council.
"So, there's is actually someone who had the guts to steal from our "Psycothic Face"'s Guild? Even though we are not the greatest Guild that there is in Fallen Oak Town, we could be considered to be in the top 3. If someone is to find out that he stole from us, where could we even start to recruit new players? We have to hunt him down and kill him, so as to let our Guild's popularity flourish. Even more, he has gotten Field Boss drops, because it's higly unlikely this Boss only droped 4 items."
"I will reward the player who finds "Blind Dreamcatcher" for me with 10 thousand dollars."
Although this move made by "Brutal Faith" seemed like it was something that would just burn a hole in his pocket, if he was able to catch such a famous player and present him to the "Faith Council", his standpoint in the Guild would rise.
The few players that had chased after and killed Marcus had already reunited with the Guild after they noticed the Boss dying. As such, "Blinding Faith" almost got goosebumps when he read the name that came with the system announcement.
That's because he remembered the Warrior that had tried to get past him about an hour ago had that exact same name.
It was at this point that he realized that chasing after Marcus and him bumping into "Psycothic Faith" was not just a "happy coincidence", but more so a ploy to get the road block out of the way to let James through.
As soon as he realized this, greed filled his mind. He had almost the same ideia as "Brutal Faith", to apprehend and present James to the "Faith Council" that was reuniting this afternoon. But to do so, he had to work quickly.
The area they were in was a forest and as such, sneaking past small groups of players wouldn't be too hard, seeing as your vision was obstructed by the foliage and the tall trees. Even so, James had to be present to kill the Wolf King, and really close by due to being a Warrior.
As such, he immediately commanded his lackeys to start searching for "Blind Dreamcatcher" in the surrondings. They were going to box him in and kill James.
James obviously knew this, and unfortunately for him, he was all alone now. If you panicked , and one can't really be blamed to panic when there's an entire Guild on your tail and you are by your lonely self, getting lost in a Forest was an easy thing to do.
And that's precisely what happened to James. Unlike many other VRMMO's, there was no map system in Terranova, only a coordinate one. That came as a blessing and a curse, because getting lost was easier, but it was also harder for one to get caught if you didn't want to.
So James wondered and braved through the Forest for about 15 minutes until he came to a clearing that was pretty well hidden away from the normal trails. In it, there was was looked to be a cavern, and James decided to hide in it until things cooled off for a bit. Either way, he was already level 3, so losing some hours of Grinding time in exchange of not losing any of the new Equipment he had was a pretty good trade-off.
He took the opportunity to rummage through his bag now that he had some time and other than 4 pieces of normal equipment, 3 items called out for his attention in particular. They were a pair of daggers, a small and slim sword and a skill book. They read:
Wolf's Canine - Level 5 Rare (Green) Dagger
Requirements: 5 Strenght, 10 Dexterity
Attack Damage: 25-35
Attack interval: 0.8 seconds
Grants its user Strenght +5, Dexterity +10
Passive Skill
Description: Forged by an Intermediate Forger, with the Canine teeth of the Wolf-King, which was afterwards killed by the Wolf-King.
Lupine Slayer - Level 5 Rare (Green) One-Handed Sword
Requirements: 10 Strenght, 5 Dexterity
Attack Damage: 47- 66
Attack interval : 1.5 seconds
Grants it's user +10 Strenght, +5 Dexterity
Passive Skill
Description: Forged by an Intermediate Forger, with the Claw of a Wolf-King, which was afterwards killed by the Wolf-King.
Skill book:
Requires a player to reach level 5 to be learnt.
Requires a Warrior or Rogue Class to be learnt.
Description: Grants the learner the ability to Pounce behind a target's back and Silence them for 2 seconds. Effective Range : 25 Meters.
When James saw this, he was ecstatic. I have already gotten both Marcus and me an upgrade as soon as we hit level 5, was what he thought.
One had to know that most players at this stage of the game would only have their basic Class Skills and Trash (White) tier equipment. "Wolf-King Pounce" was even better, seeing as most expert players usually only had a few skills by now, so every new skill was a major asset.
So, being able to secure good equipment early on was a good way to get both James and Marcus ahead, just as he had wished to.