"Hello! Young adventurers!" Village Chief of Astoria shouted to all the players near his home. "Something strange has plagued the creatures inside Astoria Forest! Please find out the cause and help solve it; otherwise, the strange, mutated monsters might wipe out our village!" He pleaded.
[Sudden Raid Quest!]
[Most monsters inside Astoria Forest have been affected by an unknown affliction! Find out what is causing these changes and calm those who are negatively affected by this! Brave forth, Adventurers!]
[Rewards: Varies based on contribution to Raid Quest.]
All of the players inside Astoria Village received the sudden raid quest and jumped for joy. Most players immediately headed into the forest without any preparations whatsoever. This was the first known raid of the new hit game, World of Eternia! Some players even checked the forums to see if the other areas received this quest and found out that this raid quest was only available to those that spawned around Astoria Forest.
The city of Aipolis, Astoria Village, Heung, and Turda were the only places that bordered Astoria Forest. This meant that only those who were in those cities received the raid quest. Once people spread the news of the raid quest, hundreds of thousands of players rushed to those four areas as soon as possible. After all, this was the first-ever raid quest. No one wanted to miss out on the mysterious rewards as they charged into Astoria's Forest.
"Hello, young adventurer. I'm surprised you aren't rushing into the forest like the others." Blacksmith Ed chucked.
"I can't go deal with mutated monsters without proper gear." Christian smiled.
"That's right! You'd only be running to your death without your equipment in proper shape!" Ed smashed his fist on the counter. "Tell ya what, lad, I heard of a very strange little monster in the forest. Its body was made of nothing but solid metal. If you can bring back some of the metal on that creature for me, I'll make a weapon custom-made just for you." Ed offered a quest!
"I'll see what I can do, but first, can you repair my equipment?"
"No problem, lad! Good luck on the hunting!" Ed repaired his equipment in a second.
"Thanks, Ed!"
Christian didn't immediately head out to the forest just yet either. He went inside the potion shop and chatted up the store owner. "Hello, miss! I'd like some potions, please." He asked. The woman dressed in tightly fitted purple magician robes looked down on him. Christian kept his composure even if he had to look up at the very tall woman.
"What kind?" She asked.
"Health, mana, and stamina." He answered
"Here you go." She handed him some bottles.
"Thank you! Ed wanted me to tell you hi before I came over. Bye!" Christian waved goodbye.
"Wait." She suddenly called out. "Before you head into the forest, I'd been hearing of the hunters talk about strange mushrooms. If you can, I'd like you to retrieve some of these unusual mushrooms for me."
"For free?" Christian asked.
"I suppose a reward will be waiting for you if you perform a satisfactory job." She added.
"I'll be back as soon as I can!" Christian rushed out of the store.
He then continued to visit the known quest givers of Astoria Village to stack up on quests before heading out into Astoria Forest. Christian held his two-handed sword in one hand as he ventured out into Astoria Forest, completely maxed out on quests. Alongside him were surprisingly few other players. He figured that the entrance to the forest would be completely congested with players because of the raid quest. Christian shrugged as he guessed he got lucky.
As the newbie adventurer started blindly wandering through the forest, it took a few minutes until he encountered his first mutated monster. It had a red nametag along with a question mark in front of its name. Red meant hostile monster, as everyone knew, but Christian looked at the white bunny rabbit with a gold streak across its back and thought, how dangerous could it really be? Rabbits were fodder monsters that even a complete noob could take down!
Christian prepared to use his warrior skill, Pommel Bash, to stun the creature and then wail on it with his sword until it died. He ran forward to get a closer distance to land his skill. Shouting the skill's name to activate it, the pommel of his sword glowed with a silver light as he brought it down toward the surprisingly stationary monster. Christian's eyes lit up in excitement when his pommel neared the rabbit's skull.
The rabbit dashed out of the way when the sword was mere inches away from its eyes. The words dodged came up from the spot where Christian missed his skill. He looked at the rabbit. His eyes glazed back to where the rabbit was previously. Then he looked back at the rabbit. It smirked at him before rushing straight at him. Christian couldn't even react as the rabbit landed a critical strike on his throat and forced him into a bleeding state.
He dropped to his knee as he saw fluids shooting out of his throat. Christian dropped his sword and clutched his throat. He was dying? His body wasn't moving the way he wanted it to. What was going on? Wasn't this just a video game? How was he suddenly...? Then the rabbit dashed at him once more, and everything went dark.
YOU ARE DEAD.