Chapter XV: First Death
After my friends decided it would be a good idea to try the BURNT breed, we were off. I did take some pleasure in watching them chew it, only for Euphie to spit it out. At least Amos and Kanade swallowed it.
"You better hurry and finish that bread before it loses all of its durability."
"What happens then?"
"The same thing that happens to anything in the game that loses its durability; it shatters."
As if to prove my point, the bread she was holding shattered. She had kept hers out the longest, so it was the first to go. Watching Kanade and Amos squirm to finish their loaves before they shattered was very funny.
I guided them out of the city and deeper into the Infernal Forest than we had ventured before. There were still Boars, but Wolves and Frenzied Bucks also started appearing.
The first one to kill a wolf was me and I got one Wolf Pelt. I could sell it to an NPC, but the markets around the city would be flooded with pelts soon enough, so I decided to keep it. The only thing to carry over from the beta was a character's friends list and sure enough, there was Attea's name. I might need her again.
By the time we ran into our first Frenzied Buck, I had four wolf pets and two Boar tusks. Luck was certainly favoring me today because none of my friends had good item drops. They seemed to be getting Wolf and Boar meat, which was good, considering I was thinking about adding Cooking when I got my next skill slot.
I had Sword, Acrobatics, Searching, and Slash equipped.
Amos seemed the most annoyed about not getting any good ideas, so when the Frenzied Buck appeared, he charged ahead.
"Sage! Stop!" I yelled, but Amos didn't listen to me. In a way, I couldn't blame him. Common sense might dictate that the Boars and Wolfs would be stronger monsters, but this wasn't a normal situation.
The Frenzied Buck was larger than any deer had any right to be, with a thick black coat and yelled runes crisscrossing through it. It should have been obvious this wasn't a normal animal.
Amos pointed his wand at the monster and yelled: "Fire Bolt!" A small bolt of fire exploded from the tip of his wand, but the yellow runes flared to life, distorting the spell before it made contact.
The Frenzied Buck's antlers started to glow and before Amos could get off more than a "What?" the monster struck. Its antlers pierced straight through his body. Red shards exploded out of his back.
Amos looked over at his health bar. Since we were all in the same party, their HP bar was below mine. Amos's HP hit zero as the buck pulled out of him and his avatar shattered.
It wasn't that the Frenzied Buck was that strong, but the Frenzied Buck had a 10 percent chance of an instant kill. Amos just got unlucky.
All his items littered the ground, but we had more important things to think about. The Frenzied Buck turned its attention to us.
"I thought that it was just a deer!" Euphie said, stumbling back. I grabbed her before she could fall.
"According to the game lore, the darkness infects animals and turns them into monsters. The lowest leveled are the frenzied, but that buck must be a level five."
That thing was too strong to be defeated if we attacked it stupidly. We were so low-leveled that we needed to be careful. I could kill it myself, I had plenty of experience doing that in the beta, but that would take a while. This time I had friends.
"Namikaze, up the tree! Get to the first branch!" I ordered. "Light the deer up with your arrows!"
The deer's antlers started to glow and I ran to intercept it. "Ghost Lantern, I'm going to create an opening! When I do, hit it with Slash!"
"Ah!... Right!"
The buck charged. This was going to kill my sword's durability, but I didn't have a shield on me. Maybe I needed to invest in one after all. I blocked its antlers with my sword, though it pushed me back.
From the tree, an arrow of light struck.
"Now Euphie!"
"[Slash!]"
We carried on like that for a good few minutes. When it charged, I blocked, Euphie slashed, and Kanade fired.
Euphie got the last attack and the rewards screen appeared in front of her. A screen appeared in front of me and Kanade, but since we didn't kill it, the only thing we got was EXP.
"What did you get?" I asked as I went to retrieve Amos' equipment.
"I'm level three!" Euphie shouted.
Sure enough, next to her name was LV: 3.
Kanade jumped down and started collecting her arrows.
"I got antlers," Euphie continued.
"Antlers? They can be used in crafting and forging. If you want, we can make you some equipment with them, or we can sell them to a crafter or blacksmith."
"What about Amos?" Kanade asked.
"He's been respawned at the Cathedral in Lutetia."
"Where's the Cathedral?"
"At the center of Jeanne d'Arc Plaza. It's right in front of where the NPC spoke to you."
The walk back was a lot calmer. We didn't run into any monsters.
As we approached the gate, more players were coming in and out. There was a party full of girls and judging by the sound of their voices, they were really girls. Primal Vale let you make any kind of character, but it used your real voice, which makes it hard to catfish anyone. A pretty feminine avatar with a rough, deep masculine voice?
There was a larger party behind them, with a huge muscle man throwing his arms around a girl half his size. Other players not in that party were giving them strange looks.
The City Watch let us in. Despite the servers being online for two hours, Jeanne d'Arc Plaza was filled with shops and stalls. The bazaar had grown large enough that it poured over into the plaza.
I looked at the shields as we passed. This was still the opening stage, so even the biggest ones were just wood. Should I get one? A shield would help me and I can get better ones as the game progresses. The system in Primal Vale allowed you continuously upgrade weapons and items, though the longer you did, the rare the material to do so became. And the amounts of that material increased.
But did I want a shield? You might have to blame Sword Art Online for this, but I kind of want to duel wield. Right now that was impossible. If I wanted to duel wield swords, I would need the Duel Sabre Branch Skill, which wouldn't become available until later in the game.
Even then, it was a Rare Skill, meaning that it would only appear in certain quests. Quests that were finished after they were completed. By the time the beta ended, Duel Sabre had only appeared three times.
You could always buy skills from other players, but that would become expensive, especially for Rare Skills.
"What are you thinking so hard about?" Euphie asked. When I told her, she nodded. "Skills have different values?"
"Yeah. Extremely Common Skills are given to every player. All the branch and general skills you got were extremely common. Common skills are easy enough to find and learn. Uncommon skills are harder to find. Rare skills are very rare. They can only be granted through one-time quests.
"Then there are Limited Skills. These skills can only be acquired through completing a quest line, which could be very long, or through events. Like the rare skill quest, once they're done, they aren't available again."
"So... Limited skills are very valuable?"
"Yep."
"At least Duel Sabre is only a rare skill."
My one silver lining.
We found Amos in front of a food stand next to the cathedral. H was eating meat on a stick. "It can use more species."
"Food will get better as the game progresses, though NPC made food has a ceiling taste wise. The best food is players with a high Cooking skill."
I slashed my hand through the air in front of me, opening my window. I found the screen with my party and clicked on Sage's name. I opened a trading window with him, putting all his items.
"Wow! Thanks, man. So how does this work?"
"Just push accept. Since I won't want anything from you, I'll agree to the trade."
When he pushed accept, another screen appeared, asking if I wanted to complete the trade. I did and all of his items were back with him.
"Thanks for getting me my things back. It sucks that I lose everything when I die."
"In the future, we'll get a chest or two to put our unused items in. Once we can start a guild and have enough lyre to buy a guild hall, then we can start collecting. Until then, the only way to use the chest is to rent a room at an inn. Or another player's house."
***
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