Today I planned to restock my health and mana potions as I wanted to hunt as much as possible. My proficiency with weapon wielding was enough to hunt both rabbits and salamanders with a relatively high speed. I also planned to try out my skills as a [Lesser Trickster] to find out if they could offer any assistance for my further gameplay.
Although I doubted it, I still wanted to try it at least. Without skills I was nothing but a sitting duck, especially as a mage. And since it would be a few days to weeks in the game until I reached level ten, I wanted to find out if this class was as useless as I assumed.
The four hands and arms turned out to be more useful than expected and they were growing on me. I caught myself wanting to grab my cup of beverage with my third hand only to notice that I didn't have it in real life.
As I walked the streets of Bronning, passing busy NPCs and new player try out all kinds of movements (including taking of their pants, which warranted one of the townguards to take the player into custody), I reached the shop of [Mage Willis] and got every tenth potion for free.
After this errant, I walked towards the market place to buy some food. Since hunting required my SaP and StP to be high enough, I bought a few snacks. Only the ones who had the best price-usage-ratio.
At the end of my shopping, I only had 1 platinum 55 silver and 5 copper left. And one more goal before heading to the forests around Bronning: Looking at the glaive!
Since I scammed...got the glaive in an equal exchange, I couldn't look at its status at all.
So I sat down at a bench close to the market and took the glaive out. The craftsmanship was impeccable. At least this was discernible, although I had no knowledge regarding weapons.
The shaft was made of a dark kind of metal and smooth to the touch. While its bottom ended in a sharp, dagger-like blade, the upper end was a huge wide blade about half the length of my sword with a vicious barb on the other side.
Fascinated, I read the description.
[Name: [Tiger's fang] [[appraised]]
Type: weapon
Rank: rare
Description: This weapon was forged by a renowned smith after he escaped the cruel fate of being eaten by a tiger. The anger and fear infused by the crafter made this weapon into a monster which knows fear and thus is even more cunning.
Damage: Stage 1: 100 damage
Stage 2: 125 damage
Stage 3: 169 damage
Effect: Based on your relationship, the stage and multiplayer of this weapon will evolve.
It begins with the relationship [-10/100, [Frosty]]. The multiplayer is 0,5 with stage 1.
Your damage is stage 1 damage x level x 0,5.
+ 30 x 0,5 Endurance
Durability: 250/200
Remarks: A weapon fitting an elven vanguard. Mages can't even dream of using this weapon to its full capabilities.]
Was this weapon even real? I started rubbing my eyes but the numbers remained the same. I held many weapons in my hands but this glaive must be the most precious I ever had!
Although it was 'only' rare, the damage and the multiplayers were an overkill already. Imagining a high level player wielding this, a whole city could burn with one swing of the blade. I wondered how the little elven brat came in possession of it. It must have been expensive. Especially since there was no level restriction. If I didn't know better, I would have assumed it as a broken weapon, far too strong to exist in this world. The smith must be a renowned NPC and far more important than mentioned in the description. My eyes twinkled as I imagined using this baby to hunt a bit! Wouldn't I be able to one-hit all enemies?
But handling a glaive needed training and I had none even wielding a spear properly and a glaive seemed far more challenging. Compared to a magic staff, it was heavier and I needed to wield its blade both carefully and fiercely enough to kill enemies, but not myself. To train the weapon, I used the training field, failing to hit the dummy twice or even scratching it only barely. And it was only the middle stage evasion dummy. I didn't even try the hard or hellish stage in fear of failing even more miserably.
At least, I could hit the evading dummy in the easy stage relatively often.
I would try to learn it bit by bit, by using it in battle.
Since I wanted to raise my level faster, I directly headed for the woods, the glaive in one of my hands, accompanied by my shield and sword in the other hands. The last hand carried my staff. Since I was practicing, I finally decided to try my skills. I couldn't avoid them all the time and had to face the reality that I would be stuck with them for a long time.
Especially the last four levels until level 10 would be harder to reach and I needed to grind like crazy or do a few dangerous missions. And wielding sharp weapons alone wouldn't be enough at all.
Maybe I could still find some use in those damned skills.
The woods were quiet and it seemed like no rabbit monster wanted to grace me at all. Since my level had reached 4, they could be rarer to encounter because I was too strong. The extent of this happening wasn't pleasant at all, because the possibility of encountering elites was rising. It would help me gain more experience points but also endanger me more than just fighting salamanders. Especially the white elites with red eyes were vicious because they were faster than regular elites. Although the black elites were more sturdy than normal rabbit monsters, and harder than the fleshy brown elites, the white ones were the most dangerous monster one could encounter in those woods. Maybe with the exception of the rabbit beast who was housed in a huge rabbit hole in the south of Bronning. It was a mission players at level 5 could take. But I wouldn't try it without a team of at least ten players or being above level 10 myself.
The sheer numbers could overwhelm any challenger and being ripped apart by rabbits was no fate I enjoyed. Although one would crumble into disintegrating sparks, those vicious bastards took their sweet time in killing their prey, causing one to lose a few limbs the rabbits could chew on before oneself could revive. And yes, this was my experience as a former mage in a small team of seven players who wanted to head for the rabbit hole to earn a huge amount of XP.
Never again!
After wandering the woods, I finally found a group of four rabbits. This was also a vile thing: The probability of larger rabbit groups also increased. But I was confident in killing them with the sword and shield even if the glaive would miss.
So I struck a tree with my shield, activated [Charming smile] and pumped 50 MP in the skill.
[Charming smile lvl.1] was activated. You are lucky! Two effects are triggered:
[Furious rage] The rabbits recognized you as a killer of their brethren. Their damage and speed increase by 20%.
[Relentless pursuer] The rabbits will try to pursue you wherever you try to flee towards, may it be by climbing trees, entering a house or even a safe zone.
[Remark: Your luck is truly terrific!]
Spitting curses, I jumped forward, lunging the glaive at the rabbit closest to me, only slicing off one of its ears, while the rabbit mostly evaded my attack aimed at its head, faster than I could've reacted. The usual attack pattern was off and my attack was too slow. At the same time, two of the rabbits lunged at me and bit me, decreasing my health to 128 HP. For fuck's sake!
Rabbits were normally easy to counter and kill, I by myself slayed over a dozen and more easily the days before. But with the added speed and damage as well as the unknown attack pattern, they turned into fierce creatures who would most likely kill me if I didn't slay them faster.
[The deep wound caused by [small rabbit lvl.2] and [small rabbit lvl.3] starts bleeding further.
You will continuously lose 2 HP every 10 seconds until you stop the bleeding.
The damage to your legs slows you down.
- 0,25 movement speed.]
While the rabbits were still trying to bite a chunk of both of my legs, I nailed one of them with the glaive through its back to the ground, while I stabbed the other one with my sword.
Three more remaining foes, but I was down to 126 and needed to stop the bleeding before the wounds would finish me off before the rabbits could.
My decreased movement speed posed another danger for me.
But I still had something left to defend. I readied myself for the second wave of attacks and counted down right to the perfect moment: While the rabbits bared their teeth while running at me, I activated one of the combat skills I got, [Triple slash lvl.1]. But instead of a slash with my sword, I swung the glaive, hitting two of the rabbits in their flight, instantly slinging them away. While one of them was thrown a few meters, the other one was flown against a tree and made an ugly crunching sound. But I still had one rabbit which reached me and bit down on my foot this time. Only that I lost 12 HP with one bite and another two HP to my bleeding, leaving me with 112 HP left. About two and a half enemies to go and only a bit more of two thirds of my HP was gone. The rabbit was more clever than the other two I killed before and evaded my sword. Luckily it didn't notice that it evaded the periphery of my tail which held a dagger and stabbed the rabbit. Although I didn't kill it, its movements turned more sluggish and backed off. This left me enough time to place my staff back in the inventory and change the shield from one hand to another.
The rabbit was still keeping a bit of distance but the one I flew away seemed to have recovered. Although the rabbit which landed further seemed rather wobbly on its feet. I couldn't see any major injuries and cursed at the grass for being too soft. At least the monster I slammed against the tree wasn't getting up anymore.
Two more to go, while another two HP worth's blood streamed down my ankles. Both of the rabbits chose this moment to increase their speed and attack me from different directions. Since I wouldn't be able to evade both of them, I focused my attention on the rabbit who took 12 HP with one bite. It posed more danger at this moment.
My sword whistled through the air, missing the rabbit by a few inches. How could I even hit a target which was faster than me? Normally I would've used traps or spells to slow them down, but I didn't dare to use another of my skills. At least magical ones could be suicide.
But I only had one thing to trap the rabbits left: My own flesh. But since the remaining ones had learned from the mistakes of their dead comrades, they stayed out of my reach, sometimes fainting an attack only to retreat.
It was as if they knew I was bleeding out and just waiting for the right moment to lunge at me. With 96 health left and no sign of attack from the rabbits, I pondered how I could kill them. The trait [Relentless pursuer] was vile enough, but the duration of the attack and speed boost seemed to be permanent. Or had a longer duration than one hour.
So, what could I do to escape this hazard? How would I be able to rid myself of those creatures?
Experimenting with my skill today wasn't my best choice. I thought that my trials wouldn't result in experimenting with my life. Well, I would never use those shitty lottery based skills again!