《Green Raven, a Running with Devils LitRPG》 Prologue - Green Raven, a Running with Devils LitRPG ¡°Ronald! You better be ready in five minutes!¡± my mother yelled from down in the kitchen. I was up in my room, sitting in front of my computer with a cup of lukewarm coffee and playing the latest and most hyped up MMO game of the year, Running with Devils, It was bringing a whole new meaning to P2W, and the ads were plentiful all over the game world. Not that they were first with ads in-game, but they had taken it to a whole different level. All in all quite a terrible game but with a really good PR department. Normally, I¡¯d never play something like this. But since my mother and I moved across the country, she had landed a new and better paying job and all my old friends had started to play RwD, you could say that they had fallen for the hype. ¡°Ronald, are you hearing me?¡± I sighed and took the last swig of the now almost cold coffee, logged off, and, beginning to rise, I shouted down to my mother! ¡°Yes, I¡¯m coming!¡± The new apartment was nothing like our old decrepit house we had to move to after my father''s death, this was brand new and belonged to my mother''s new employer. Today was the first day of my mother''s new work, and she wanted to make a good impression and be on time. She was going to drop me off at my new school. Oh the joy, I thought, starting to move my body down the stairs. The apartment was on two floors with the bedrooms on the second floor while the kitchen and living room were on the first. When I almost reached the kitchen, I was, not for the first time, thinking that maybe this was going to be the year I started working out again. A couple of years back, me and my mates went to the gym every day after school. That all stopped when my father died in a car accident and my mother''s depression and sorrow made her lose her job and me the sole breadwinner. I turned all the gym time into more and more shifts at the local factory looking at a computer screen for 8-16 hours a day. That and an unhealthy diet did not help my weight, I gained the nickname Fatso along with 50 kilos of fat. I¡¯d do it all over again. My mother had been nothing but supportive during my upbringing, and this was my chance to help her. I got her the best therapist I could afford with my money. Thanks to Miss Lisa, her therapist and me, my mother got better and now all my hard work was bearing fruit. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m ready¡± I called out from the stairs. I gave my mother a hug when I reached her in the kitchen. ¡°Sorry for yelling, sweetie, but you know I can¡¯t be late for the first day of work, and you have your first day at your new school.¡± ¡°I know mother. Don¡¯t worry, your new boss and workmates will love you. Don¡¯t think about me. I just know I¡¯ll fit right in at the new school.¡± That was a lie, of course, but I was so happy that she finally was back on track after everything that had happened. And I¡¯d do anything to keep it that way. We¡¯d visited the new school once a couple of months back and I got really bad vibes straight away since everyone there looked at me with disgust and pity. During the drive to my school, we were both silent, both of us were probably thinking about our new start and new life in the city. We turned into the parking lot just when the bell for classes rang out. I kissed my mother on the cheek and closed the door to the car and started running for the entrance. I reached the door just as the bell stopped ringing. Classroom E2468 was where I was supposed to be in 30 seconds. After going down a long corridor, I found it. The door was still open, so I stepped in. Inside the classroom there was pandemonium, paper planes were zipping about, kids were sitting on the tables, talking, two guys were having a small fight or if they were training. It was hard to tell. A couple of other kids cheered them on. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Welcome to my new school, I thought as I looked around the room. There were a few empty spots in the front row, but that¡¯s not where I wanted to sit. Instead, I found one free seat next to one of the most beautiful girls I¡¯ve ever seen. ¡°Hey, my name is Ronald, is this seat taken? It¡¯s my first day here at Ohno High.¡± Just as the girl was about to reply the teacher came walking in. ¡°Settle down kids, settle down. Everyone takes their places and opens up page 110 of ``A new way of looking at chemistry A¡±. The fighting kids were still at it, but the onlookers had started to sit down. ¡°Robert, Andrew! Sit the fuck down I said.¡± The two fighting students stood and one of them sat down on a free chair. ¡°That¡¯s my seat. Move or I smack you down. Are you deaf? I said move!¡± The second kid said, and I realized that he was talking to me. I was about to move when the teacher said, ¡°Andrew, you snooze you lose, up here in the front is a free seat.¡± Glaring daggers at me the kid turned and moved up to the free seat. ¡°Everyone please welcome Ronald to the class, he has just moved to the city.¡± I heard a couple of murmurs ¡°Hi, hey and welcome¡± from some of my new classmates. ¡°As I was saying, open up page 110,¡± the teacher said and started the class. While the teacher droned on about chemistry, I started thinking about how I ended up here. Dad''s freak car accident. He was driving home from the store where he had been grocery shopping one day when a tire came off a pick-up truck, went airborne and smashed into his windshield. They had to cut off the roof to get him free. He died on the way to the hospital. Mother''s depression after, since she told him to swing by the store because she needed some stuff. He had suggested that they could do it the day after. But she was firm in her decision to have him do it. She blamed herself. Me having to get extra work, and everything else, but I was glad that during all that hard time I had the support from my friends Malcolm and Peter. It was also because of them that I started to play Running with Devils even if it wasn¡¯t my regular type of game, it was a fun way of staying connected to them. The bell for the end of class rang out. Everyone shuffled out, and I got out of the classroom and into the corridor while checking the school schedule app for my next class. I wasn¡¯t paying attention to things happening around me. That was something I¡¯d come to regret big time, although the thing that happened was probably inevitable. I felt more than heard someone grabbing me and pushing me into the lockers. ¡°Hey! What are you doing?!¡± I more or less shouted. ¡°Who do you think you are, new kid? You took my seat next to my girl!¡± The guy Andrew told me. ¡°You will pay for that! Boys, let¡¯s put him in old man Jake''s cleaning closet, and he can think over his sins until Jake is back in the morning.¡± ¡°Uh, wait what are you doing? Let''s talk about it, guys,¡± I said. No matter my protests, I was strong-armed, duck walked to the cleaning closet, and thrown inside. And I heard how they barricaded the door from the outside. I tried to break it open by slamming my right shoulder against the door, a couple of times, to no avail. After looking around and seeing nothing, it was darker in here than a devil''s heart. I started to shuffle with my arms and hands outstretched to get a feeling of how big the closet was. It was roughly rectangular with some buckets and a table of some sort maybe 1-meter times 2.5 meters. There was lots of other stuff I couldn¡¯t figure out what it was, so I turned one of the buckets upside down and sat down on it. I needed to think. A short while later, I figured that if everything in the middle of the room was moved to the side, I¡¯d get enough room to run into the door. So after moving everything, I said to myself ¡°fuck it¡±. Stood up and moved to the wall opposite the door. I ran with all my might into it. Things didn''t go as expected. The door didn¡¯t fly open. It didn¡¯t even budge. To be fair, I don¡¯t know what happened with the door because everything went black once again, and this time it was as if someone turned off my brain. *Control of the body is temporarily taken over to avoid accidental injury.* *Stasis induced* *Teleportation to PAERD, location USERUS commencing¡­* *Loading..* *Loading.* *Loading..* *Teleportation to USERUS concluded¡­* *Removal stasis of the body* *Waking up indenture 6012349873* Chapter one, Choices, Death or Indentured servitude. ## Chapter one, Choices, Death or Indentured servitude. ¡°Welcome, you will feel a bit disoriented but that will pass in a few minutes.¡± An unknown voice said. ¡°Uhm, where am I? And who are you?¡± I was in a pitch-black room and the only source of light was a white blinking cursor, which you could find in almost any word editor app. ¡°How silly of me,¡± the voice said, ¡°Let me introduce myself, I¡¯m Userus and this is my domain, it has a long and complicated name but you can call it the preparation area to enter Running with the Devil¡¯s or PAERD for short.¡± While the voice spoke the cursor changed into a face like some old ASCII art, and you could see when ¡®It¡¯ spoke. ¡°That is the short name?¡± I said out loud. ¡°Nonetheless what am I doing here and what are you?¡± ¡°Telling you what I am will not help you at the moment, so I will not tell you. What are you doing here? You are making choices. Well, you have two choices, one, you go back to earth to the cleaning closet at Ohno High school and slowly bleed out and die. When Jake finds you tomorrow, it¡¯s way too late to save you. Or you play the game for us and after five years of servitude, you have paid off your debt. ¡°So let me see if I got this right, one I go back and die, or the other I play your game for five years. Don¡¯t think my mother would appreciate any of those alternatives.¡± ¡°No Ronald you didn¡¯t let me finish. If you decide to play the game then after the five years are up, you¡¯ll be transferred back into your body. Where you were at the start of today, I think you were sitting in front of your computer drinking lukewarm coffee? Since we need a connection to the game to be able to transfer the body back. Or you are already there, so it¡¯s more your consciousness we transfer into your body. ¡°So you seem to know a lot about me. Why am I slowly bleeding out in Jake''s closet?¡± I asked with my thoughts swirling around like a hurricane in my mind all though much slower. ¡°What happened to you, Ronald, was a very unfortunate series of events, you could say. It started with you being in that closet and when you decided to run in the dark, you accidentally tripped over the bucket you were sitting on before. When moving everything to the side, you didn¡¯t remember to move it. So when you ran, it tripped you and crashed your whole body into the shelves. On the top shelf, there was an iron cauldron that somehow had ended up there, and it fell onto your head. That¡¯s how you got hurt so badly and fell unconscious. It was at that time that we decided to grab you and transfer you here.¡± ¡°Okay, say that I become your slave for five years, how would it work?¡± I more or less grumbled to Userus. ¡°No, you will not become our slave merely working of a life debt. We saved your life and as thanks, you live and work in our world for five years,¡± he said. ¡°Well in my world, working for free is slavery. But tell me more about my choices. You said something about Running with Devils. Isn¡¯t it the game me and my mate play?¡± I asked. ¡±It''s really easy in one way and a bit harder in another way. Let me explain. The game, Running with Devils is not a game, it''s a window or door into our world, called PAERD, we use the game on different planets that have reached Earth level of technology or are more advanced.¡± Userus told me. ¡°Wait the fuck up! Are you saying that I¡¯m not on Earth anymore?? But on a planet called PAERD? You said it meant something like a Preparation Area for the game?¡± I almost shouted. ¡°Well, here is where it gets more complicated. PAERD doesn¡¯t mean what I said it means. I think it works, at least in the beginning. Sooner or later you will find out what it means.¡° Userus said with a wink. My brain felt like it had gone through a blender, nothing made sense anymore. It also seemed like I had no choice other than to become a slave for whoever they were. If my mother and I could survive my father¡¯s death, her losing her work, and everything that followed, I¡¯d make it five years! Now, I just needed to see what was going to happen. ¡°So if I take you up on your generous offer? What happens after I accept?¡± I asked sarcastically. ¡°You will sign a contract stating that you will stay and live and work in our world for five years or until death. Whatever happens first.¡± Userus said ignoring my sarcasm. ¡°And then you will be teleported to a random location on PAERD. For you it will feel like you fall asleep and then wake up in a new world¡± he said. ¡°Hmm, okay, so if Running with Devils is only a door used to get people to play in your world, why do you need me to be transferred from earth to your planet?¡± I asked now, more curious than confused. ¡°Well, it¡¯s the people playing the game that we can transfer into our world. When you start living on it, you will see what I mean, but the gamers aren¡¯t there. You can communicate with them, but they can¡¯t help with our problems. That is why we need people to move to PAERD.¡± Userus said. ¡°What problems? I asked. ¡°Enough of questions now!¡± Userus suddenly roared. I felt it in my bones. My whole body resonated with his voice and the feeling didn¡¯t stop when he continued. ¡°Ronald, it¡¯s time for you to decide. Will you sign the contract or go back to earth?¡± He said. ¡°Yes, I¡¯ll sign the damn contract,¡± I answered angrily. All of a sudden the trembling stopped and almost faint, I heard him murmur. ¡°Good, good, another one.¡± Then he started talking in a more normal voice. ¡°Here is the contract. You sign it by stating loudly, I Ronald McGreen hereby sign the contract initiated and written by the founders of PAERD. I will stay and live on our planet for five years and after that, I can return to earth on the 3rd day of the year 22500.¡± I repeated the contract loudly and thought of the year it mentioned, and it seemed that this planet was a bit older than mine. The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°One last thing Ronald, on PAERD you can¡¯t be known as Ronald. You can decide a new name for yourself or I can give you one,¡± Userus stated. ¡°Why is that? Why do I need a new name?¡± I asked. ¡°Simple, you can meet someone that knows you from the earth, and it can¡¯t become common knowledge that Running with Devils is just a front for PAERD,¡± Userus said matter of factly. ¡°And if you do meet someone you know, you can¡¯t divulge this. We will know of it, and you will get reprimanded.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll come up with a name,¡± I said, ¡°just give me a few minutes.¡± So that was the reason why I needed a new name. I could see why they had thought of this. Even if I didn¡¯t want to get reprimanded, I wanted to be able to be recognized by my friends if I met them. They would be able to see who I was. Then, wait, would I not look the same? Better not ask that I thought. So a name that Malcolm and Peter would easily recognize was me? Hmm, let me think. And then it was clear to me. I got it. I¡¯d chosen something that only anyone who knew me from before would know. ¡°Okay I¡¯ve decided¡±, I said to the voice, ¡°my new name will be Green Raven.¡± I held my breath. Would they accept it? *Processing name change* *Cataloging* *Accepting* *Indenture 6012349873, the name changed to Green Raven* ¡°Welcome, Green Raven '''' I heard Userus say. I ignored him while shouting in my mind, it had worked! My mates and I used to go to a gym called Raven''s lair back in the day. And it was located in Greensburg. We always joked that when we grew up I¡¯d buy the gym and name it Green Raven. I don¡¯t remember now why, but the thought of it made me sad. I longed for my mother and all my friends. ¡°Now my work is done, good luck, Green Raven,¡± Userus said almost reverently. I felt how the air around me grew denser and denser, and I once more fell unconscious. *Control of the body is temporarily taken over to avoid accidental injury.* *Stasis induced* *Teleportation to a random location on PAERD commencing¡­* *Loading..* *Loading.* *Loading..* *Teleportation to PAERD concluded¡­* *Removal stasis of the body* *Waking up Green Raven formerly known as indenture 6012349873* I came to while laying in a green lush forest when I opened my eyes. Although I was on my back, I didn¡¯t feel cold. It was a sunny and warm day even if the sun couldn¡¯t reach me. The tree''s canopy was shading the spot where I was. I slowly got on my feet and checked my body all over. I noticed that I had new clothes on, but other than that I felt fine. The clothes were similar to the ones my character had on when I played this morning. Was it only this morning I was at home drinking coffee? Time flies when you''re having a blast or however the saying goes. Well, I don''t know if I agree with that. At least, not just yet anyway. I started to look around me to see where I was. I saw something looking like a small letter blinking in the corner of my eye. I tried saying ¡°Open¡±, and ¡°the open letter¡± out loud a couple of times but that didn¡¯t work. But when I focused on it, it opened. *Greetings Green Raven and welcome to PAERD.* *You will get these notifications while you truly progress the world. To make them go away you focus on it and think swipe away. Try it now.* I focused on the notification. Yes, when I tried to mentally swipe it away, it vanished. It was replaced by a new one. When I opened it, it told me to try to focus on my Status. I tried it. *Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: Zero* *Attributes:* *Strength 3* *Dexterity 4* *Endurance 4* *vitality 3* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 0* *Available points: 0* *Health: 30/30* *Stamina: 40/40* *Mana: 0* *Skills:* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.* Seeing the status page reminded him of his character from the game. All through here his stats were so much worse. But all things considering his life back on earth the last couple of years he wasn¡¯t surprised. But when playing, you always start with one skill. But here it seemed blank, he focused on his skill page. *Skills* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.* Hmm, no skills at all, low stats, and no point. This was not an easy start. What other commands could he try? He tried, Help, me, and exit and none of them worked. Instead, he tried one last thing. Inventory. *Inventory Slots 5/5* *1 Pants, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Sweater, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Shoes, fair quality* *1 knife* *1 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* I looked once more over my body and realized that I was barefoot. Focused on my pants. *Pants level 1, low quality but gets the job done* After that, I focused on all my equipment and clothes. *Congratulations, you learned the skill. Inspect the item, it will tell you basic information about an item, the higher the level of your character and the skill the more you will find out.* Happy to find a skill I tried some new commands. *Time* *It''s 19.48 in the evening* *Alarm* *No alarm set, for setting an alarm, focus on Alarm then Time.* Hmm, I learned something new. And my new skill didn¡¯t require mana. I was about to check when I heard a sound somewhere nearby, which sounded like something I never heard before. I turned toward the noise and what I saw made me equip my knife. Command was a focus knife and it appeared in my hand. Small humanoid shapes were running toward me, they were knee-high creatures, with green skin... Looked like Goblins. I used to inspect the item. *Skill not yet unlocked* Damn, damn, the five probably Goblins ran for me and all I had was a rusty old knife that made 1-3 damage. The first one had almost reached me when I sidestepped and slammed my knife into the goblin''s brain. It died but it took a few more steps before it dropped dead so it passed me by. Had barely time to pick up a rusty short sword the now dead goblin had charged me with. I inspected it. *Level 1 Goblin sword* *Very low quality* *Damage 4-6* Didn¡¯t have time for more than a glance at the information until the next Goblin was all over me. I fended off the first attack that went low but the next hit me on my leg. *Damage is taken :* *3 HP* Wow, that hurt, not the worst pain I¡¯ve experienced but enough to notice it and I just knew this was not going to be easy because now the other three Goblins were upon me. *Damage is taken :* *4 HP* Not the time to let my thoughts wander off. I went on the attack and at the same time somehow managed to minimize the notifications. I slashed out at the closest enemy and hit him square in the chest. The good thing was that he seemed to die. The bad thing was that the sword I used broke when I pulled it out. I kinda panicked and did the only thing I could think of. I turned and ran. What to do? What to do? I¡¯m in a new world, with no weapons hunted by Goblins or at least creatures using Goblin swords. I checked my inventory in a desperate attempt to find anything. *Inventory Slots 5/10* *1 Pants, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Sweater, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Shoes, fair quality* *1 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* Damit, nothing, I both heard and smelled the remaining Goblins coming closer now. Oh man I realized, they didn¡¯t smell good, no daily showers for them, that was apparent. The nearest one tried to stab me with a long knife, but I managed to dodge at the last second. But his next try connected on my lower calf. Damn that hurt. I wondered how much HP I had left, that gave me an idea. So I focused on the HP bar, and lo and behold in the left-hand corner near the top of my vision the HP bar appeared. *HP:* *20/30* One more hit from another of my enemies. *HP:* *15/30* I felt that all this running and fighting was starting to tire me out. Tried to add a stamina bar as well. *Stamina:* *10/40* Okay, I need to figure something out otherwise I¡¯m done for. I ran on and almost tripped on a branch or stick laying in front of me. In the last effort I suddenly stopped, turned, picked up the stick, and wielding it like a club I smacked it in the stomach of the closest pursuer. He doubled over and I took the chance to hit him in the back of his head two times, rendering him unconscious or worse. I then jumped over him and with a hand smack, I hit his mate square on his nose, shattering it. I followed through with a knee at the same spot and he crumbled to the ground. In my excitement of taking down two enemies I lowered my guard before the last Goblin and he hit me in my stomach. A quick check on my HP bar and Stamina bar later made me wince. *HP:* *8/30* *Stamina:* *3/40* I did the only thing I could think of and took hold of the sword still in my stomach, and while punching him in the face it forced him to let go. It was a terrible experience but I managed to pull it out and using up all my last strength I hacked the head off the Goblin. Then blackness. Chapter two, Pain and misery. ## Chapter two, Pain and misery. I woke up sometime later. So much time couldn¡¯t have passed since it was still light. I hurt everywhere. I felt like a bulldozer had used me as a training object, and when I saw all the carnage around me I couldn¡¯t keep my stomach under control and some stomach content came up although I have no idea what it was. Didn¡¯t even remember when I ate last time and what I did eat. My HP bar was blinking in sync with my unread notifications.
*HP:* *1/30*
But before reading them I needed to get my knife back and see if the Goblins had any loot. I tried to inspect every one of the fallen enemies in a way to get an inspection skill for living creatures, not just items. Nothing happened but it was worth a try. I got my knife back or sort of when I tugged it out of the dead goblin¡¯s head it broke, only had the shaft left in my hand. Nonetheless, I put it in my inventory. All in all, it was quite a terrible loot but I got three Goblin Swords at level 1, low quality. And one level 2, with fair quality. I equipped that and put the rest in inventory. And at the same time, I equipped my shoes. Didn¡¯t have the time to do that during the battle. They were a perfect fit although it felt strange to wear them without socks. I inspected the level 2 sword.
*Level 2 Goblin sword* *Fair quality* *Damage 8-14*
All done with that I opened my notifications.
*Damage is taken :* *5 HP* *Damage is taken :* *7 HP* *Damage is taken :* *7 HP* *Damage given:* *2 HP* *Damage given:* *2 HP* *Damage given:* *2 HP* *Damage given:* *3 HP* *Damage given:* *2 HP* *You have killed:* *Level one Goblin* *2 experience points received* *Level one Goblin* *2 experience points received* *Level one Goblin* *2 experience points received* *Level one Goblin* *2 experience points received* *Level one Goblin* *2 experience points received* *Toggle switch to have enemies of the same kind and level be presented together Y/N after the battle.*
I thought yes in an instant, this was only one fight with five goblins, and man it was a lot of text to read.
*Congratulation you have reached level 1* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.* *Congratulation you have reached level 2* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
When I read the notification for leveling up, a glow surrounded me and all my wounds and fatigue disappeared. All of a sudden I felt great. I stood up and stretched, feeling better than I¡¯ve been for a long time, but then I realized I was hungry and thirsty. I needed to find food and water. First I wanted to see what I could do about my stats.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 2* *Attributes:* *Strength 3* *Dexterity 4* *Endurance 4* *vitality 3* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 0* *Available points: 10* *Health: 30/30* *Stamina: 40/40* *Mana: 0* *Skills:* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
I thought about it for a short while then I put 2 points in Strength since I thought it couldn¡¯t hurt to become a bit stronger, 2 points in vitality to bring up my HP, 1 point in Endurance, making Stamina go up to 50. 5 points were used and 5 left. Just for fun, I put 1 point in Wisdom to see if I¡¯d get mana then. The remaining 4 points I saved, for now, when I was playing MMO back on earth I was always a bit cautious with points and it had served me well for the most part. So I¡¯d try the same thing here. I closed the Status page. And wow! The pain I felt was almost as bad as when the Goblins hit me, but on another level, I heard and saw how my muscles changed and became bigger. Almost as fast as the pain started it was gone. Leaving me with only a lingering feeling in my muscles. And it felt good, reminding me of my time back in the gym with my friends. Checking my stats again.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 2* *Attributes:* *Strength 5* *Dexterity 4* *Endurance 5* *Vitality 5* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 1* *Available points: 4* *Health: 30/50* *Stamina: 40/50* *Mana: 1/1* *Skills:* *Inspect item level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
Hmm, so HP and Stamina go up by 10 points for every point I put in Vitality and Endurance respectively. But 1 point in Wisdom only gives me 1 mana? Strange but hey! I¡¯ve got Mana! Just need to find some use for it! After going through all those notifications I saw that there was still one unread or more notification(s).
*Congratulations you learned the skill, Inspect being, it tells you basic information about the person the higher the level of your character and skill the more you will find out.* Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road.
Hmm, so it paid off to inspect the goblins, so it seems that if I can think about skill and do it a few times I¡¯ll learn it? Looking at my Skills page.
*Skills:* *Inspect item level 1/10* *Inspect being level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
So I just needed to try my new skill. Inspect being, I tried it on one of the Goblins.
*Goblin level 1, dead, 1 rusty copper coin.*
So when I¡¯d checked all of the fallen enemies earlier I could only see and pick up what lay on them or were stuck inside them or was on the ground next to them. Hmm, how to loot them? Yes, that¡¯s it, let¡¯s try it. I concentrated on Loot while looking at the Goblin.
*Loot one or loot all, nearby Y/N* *Auto loot off.*
I thought yes.
*You have looted:* *8 Rusty copper coins.* *1 Water-skin, half full.* *3 Smoked meat skewers.*
I looked at my inventory.
*Inventory Slots 9/10* *1 Pants, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Sweater, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Shoes, fair quality (Equipped)* *1 Knife shaft* *3 Swords, level 1, low quality* *1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped no)* *1 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* *1 Water-skin, half full, fair quality* *3 Smoked meat skewers*
So my inventory slots had changed from 5 to 15, wonder if it would keep going up by 5 at every level? I shouldn¡¯t but I was starving and my mouth felt like a desert. I almost annihilated the meat when eating it and drank most of the water. Felt much better after, and I know eating and drinking from an unknown source is not wise. But I felt like I didn¡¯t have any other choices here. I tried the time spell or whatever it was, but since it didn¡¯t show up as a skill I thought it must be a spell.
*Time* *It''s 28.78 in the evening*
Uh, WTF? Time is not the same as back on earth that¡¯s for sure. Well, it seemed like it was a bit later because when I looked up and around it felt like dusk. Well, the time spell seemed quite useless at the moment. But that got me thinking of other spells or commands I could try.
*Settings* *Not unlocked, you need to reach level 15 first.*
Huh, so it was there but was not for me yet. Interesting. Level 15 felt like a long way off for me. I looked around one last time and then started walking in a random direction. Strangely enough, I didn¡¯t feel tired or anything, more content than I had in a long time. I had been walking in the woods for what felt like almost an hour when I heard something that made me stop. In front of me to the left, I saw something that looked like wolves but they were large as elephants. I used [Inspect being]
*Wood wolf, level 2*
All of them were level 2, but I used the skill to level it up, since the information I got was pity full, at least I wanted to see how much HP they had. But even if I used it more than three times on each of the three Wood wolves, nothing changed. Probably needed to be a unique inspection each time to get experience from it or at least that made sense. They hadn¡¯t noticed me yet, and since I only had a sword and no weapon for long-range I was thinking of skirting around and avoiding them. But the decision was made for me when one of the Wood wolves looked up and probably smelled my scent. He wasn¡¯t aggressive at first but was moving right at me. When he came closer he upped the speed and started running, and I saw his bright yellow sharp teeth when he opened his jaws. I nearly panicked but fast put my remaining 4 points in dexterity and by that brought it up to 8 points. Now he towered over me, I may be reached just over his knees. Dancing away from him by side stepping to the right while wincing through gritted teeth while my muscles and blood vessels got accustomed to the new dexterity I barely missed his attack. I had a perfect chance of hitting him in the flank. But my pain overwhelmed me so much that I was just happy that I dodged his attack. Confused, the Wood wolf turned at me again and jumped straight and bore down on me. I dodged once again, and this time my body had adjusted and I could attack him. I saw that I¡¯ve hit him but got no notification, damn I probably toggled the damage too, too bunched up after the fight. Well, I can''t change it now. Just need to keep hitting him. I felt rather than see something coming up behind me. And jumped away. And it was at the last second, that I heard how two powerful jaws connected, it was the second of the three Wood Wolfs that had joined the fight.
*Damage is taken :* *12 HP*
The first one took the opportunity to attack me, and his attack was true. Biting me on one of my shoulders. After that everything became a blur of me stabbing and they bite.
*Damage is taken :* *8 HP* *Damage is taken :* *5 HP* *Damage is taken :* *4 HP* The HP bar started to flash in red just as I killed one of the enemies. *HP:* *1/40*
Ok, I was in really bad shape, and knowing what happened last time I had only 1 HP I needed to do something fast. I remembered that leveling up healed me. Turned around and started running or rather limping while concentrating on the level-up notification.
*Congratulation you have reached level 3* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
Once again, a glow surrounded me and all my wounds and fatigue disappeared. I stopped and turned back and continued the fight with the now two remaining Wood wolves, both of them hurt. Now with both my health and stamina at max. I only took 3 more hits, bringing me down a total of 30 points, until they both were dead. After that, I fell to my knees with a smile on my face, tired but happy that I survived. I sat like that for a short while until I started to go through my notifications.
*Damage given:* *30 HP* *You have killed:* *Three level 2 Wood wolf* *12 experience points received* *Congratulation you have reached level 4* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
Instead of reading my next notification, I brought up my status page.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 4* *Coins: 8 rusty copper* *Attributes:* *Strength 5* *Dexterity 8* *Endurance 5* *Vitality 5* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 1* *Available points: 10* *Health: 50/50* *Stamina: 50/50* *Mana: 1/1* *Skills:* *Inspect item level 1/10* *Inspect being level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
So I got 2 points for killing a goblin and I killed 5 and gained 2 levels for it. And for killing the Wood wolves I got 12 points, I¡¯ve since leveled 2 times up to level 4, math isn¡¯t my strong suit but even I could figure out that I probably wouldn¡¯t gain any more levels from them. I put 2 points in strength since I was still a melee fighter. Another 2 in vitality and endurance, to bring my HP and Stamina to 70, if I¡¯d be a melee fighter I had to get both those stats up. The Wood wolves nearly killed me. I got lucky there. And I put 1 point in Mana. And saved 3 points for a rainy day. Opened the next notification.
*Congratulation you have reached level 5* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
Huh, my math must have been off. Checking my status page once more.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 5* *Coins: 8 rusty copper* *Attributes:* *Strength 7* *Dexterity 8* *Endurance 7* *Vitality 7* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 2* *Available points: 8* *Health: 70/70* *Stamina: 70/70* *Mana: 2/2* *Skills:* *Inspect item level 1/10* *Inspect being level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
I put 3 points in Vitality, bringing my HP up to 100, and saved the rest of the points. Had no more waiting notifications so now it was time to loot! But first I endured the pain of growing stronger, not saying I got used to it but since I now knew the pain only came for a short while I relaxed and waited for it to be over. Huh, that worked, the pain wasn¡¯t at all as bad as the last times I had added to my stats.
*Loot all* *You have received:* *3 Wood wolf pelts* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat* *1 Silver*
I immediately inspected what I had received.
*3 Wood wolf pelts, crafting material* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat, cook for food* *1 Silver, used for buying stuff* *Skill level up* *Inspect item level 2/10* *Skill range increased*
On one hand, I was happy that my skill had increased but on the other, I wanted more information about it, not a larger range. During my time going through everything, it had gone dark and I was quite tired. The Wood wolves were gone as in all games. So I was alone. I did not yet have any easy way to make up the fire. So I took my pelts and put them around me and promptly fell asleep. When I woke up it was light and quite warm, I felt refreshed but hungry and thirsty, so I drank the last of my water. My immediate needs now are to find more water and make a fire to cook my meat before it turns bad. I was still in a green lush forest as when I woke up the first time on PAERD, but other than that I had no idea where I was. So I packed up my pelts or rather I put them in my inventory and wielded my sword, and started walking in the same direction I had before I fought the Wood wolves. After I had walked for what felt like three or four hours I reached a small road. Not knowing what way to go I thought of flipping a coin, the problem was that I didn¡¯t know how to get them. I knew I could see them on my status page, but not more than that. So I tried focusing on one silver coin. And it worked, it materialized in my hand, and the coin looked like many other coins. One side ahead of a person I didn¡¯t recognize and on the other was a dog? So I decided to go left if it came up with the dog. After flipping the silver coin and it came up heads I turned right and started down the road. I focused on the silver and my status page and it vanished. Felt the need to see that it was there.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 5* *Coins: 1 silver, 8 rusty copper* *Attributes:* *Strength 7* *Dexterity 8* *Endurance 7* *Vitality 10* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 2* *Available points: 5* *Health: 70/100* *Stamina: 70/70* *Mana: 2/2* *Skills:* *Inspect item level 2/10* *Inspect being level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
So that worked, good to know. Harder to get robbed I thought too. When I reached a bend in the road up ahead, there were a couple of trees that were laying over the road and a wagon with horses. I saw a man. It looked like he tried to get the trees out of the way. When I came closer the man turned around and shouted ¡°Friend or foe?¡± I shouted back ¡°Friend for now¡± and moved in closer. Chapter three, Crossbows and a Legendary skill Chapter three, Crossbows and a Legendary skill. ¡°Hi I¡¯m Green Raven,¡± I said when I got closer, ¡°want help with moving the trees?¡± ¡°Yes, that would be helpful,¡± said a gangly older man. He looked like he had his best years behind him, he stood with a bent back, and you could see that his hand that was grasping a wooden staff was shaking just so little. ¡°Hi, I¡¯m Rondellen.¡± ¡°Nice to meet you Rondellen.¡± I said and moved closer, ¡°Is it only you here?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m on my way to my daughter and her husband. They have a small plot of land just outside Ostvik¡± Rondellen answered. ¡°Well let''s see if we can move the trees, do you have an ax of some sort?¡± Rondellen gave me an ax and I dug in, soon the splinters were flying. After chopping through both tree trunks on each side of the road. I could roll them to the side. ¡°There you go Rondellen,¡± I said while drying off my forehead. This was a good workout.
*Congratulations, hard work pays off.* *+1 to strength*
The notification had been blinking for a while, but I had ignored it. Well, that was a nice surprise. Rondellen had while I worked, been rooting through his wagon and turned when I was done. ¡°Thank you so much, what do you want for helping me?¡± He asked. ¡°Well if you have water and or food that would be much appreciated,¡± I said. Rondellen looked at me with a strange expression ¡°you don''t have any food or water and you are out here in the middle of nowhere?¡± ¡°Thing is, and it might sound strange to you, but I''m not from his world,¡± I said while looking down at my feet. Rondellen perked up and with a smile, he said ¡°an offworlder you are?¡± ¡±Yes that¡¯s right,¡± I said looking up at him. ¡°Well, tell ya what lad, how about you travel with me to Ostvik. And I¡¯ll feed you along the way. And if trouble finds us we fight it off together?¡± The old man said. ¡°Yes, Rondellen, that would be a mighty kind of you,¡± I said with a smile. ¡°Then let us get on our way.¡± The man said as he jumped up on the wagon, all of a sudden he didn¡¯t look so old and decrepit anymore.¡± At the time I didn¡¯t put any weight on it but just followed up after him. Sitting on the bench beside Rondellen just rolling and bumping along on the road was quite nice after all the walking in the woods. After a while without speaking Rondellen opened up and said ¡°So I can¡¯t help notice your sword, Green Raven.¡± ¡°Yes I know, it¡¯s not much, I got attacked by Goblins and well they didn¡¯t need it anymore so I relieved them from it, so to speak,¡± I said with a smile. ¡°Haha, yes I thought it was a goblin sword, no serious sword man would be caught dead with something like that. It¡¯s not quality in any sense.¡± Rondellen chuckled. I smiled and said. ¡°Beggars can¡¯t be choosers. So talking about swords, do you think that I could find a good one in Ostvik?¡± ¡°Well even if it¡¯s a small village they have quite a good blacksmith there, I should know, it¡¯s my daughter¡¯s husband, he is known for his good craftsmanship. Since you helped me, I''ll tell him to give you a fair price.¡± He was about to say something more. But he never got the chance, an arrow hit the bench just between us. And more arrows started falling towards us. We both jumped off the wagon and took cover. I was shouting to Rondellen, ¡°do you have any ranged weapon?! I only have this crappy sword as you know.¡± There were 6 enemies, and they looked quite fierce with light armor and bows and proper swords, they were all shooting arrows at us now. He didn¡¯t answer but started to retrieve a couple of crossbows, and asked me, ¡°know how to use one of these?¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid not¡±, I shook my head, ¡°but I could probably figure out how to load it.¡± Thinking back to all the movies I saw back on earth, about medieval times when those kinds of weapons were used. Rondellen didn¡¯t say anything, just shot and gave me a crossbow to reload, pointing to the quiver where the arrows lay. I managed to reload the crossbow just as Rondellen had shot two of them. He had three crossbows, and we soon got in a rhythm where he shot and I loaded. And as soon as it started it was over.
*Congratulations, you have received:* *101 experience points* *You have defeated 5 Shadow warriors being 20 levels or more above you. Additional experience received. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group.*
More notifications blinked up in the right-hand corner of my eye, but I ignored them as Rondellen said. ¡°Bah, it was just low-leveled shadow warriors, the last one just disappeared as they can do. Cheeky bastards.¡± He said when the last of the attackers fled or just vanished. ¡°Shadow warriors?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, right you are not from here.¡± He told me, ¡°you see the ones we call shadow warriors are people that are not here, they can fight us. And we them, or talk and trade with them and so on. But you always can see if it¡¯s a shadow warrior. They have a kind of shimmer around their bodies. They can disappear all of a sudden or reappear in an instant. They are immortal or we can kill them as we did now. But if we don¡¯t hurry they¡¯ll be back soon. Thank the gods that we soon are in Ostvik. I inspected you earlier and saw your level. I know you want to go through your notifications and so, but do that when we are on our way again. We were lucky that they all were under level 30 and that they didn¡¯t kill my horses. Inspect each of the bodies and loot all, then we can be on our way.¡± He said. ¡°Thank you, but don¡¯t you want anything of the loot?¡± I asked. ¡°Well I just voided my share, I do not need that stuff. But you will probably find it useful. Just bring back all my arrows.¡± Rondellen said with a smile. I instantly nodded and ran towards the fallen. Happy that I met him.
*Inspect being* *Shadow Warrior, level 25, 2 silver, 1 small health potion.* *Shadow Warrior, level 25, 20 silver.* *Shadow Warrior, level 28, 1 gold, 2 medium health potions.* *Shadow Warrior, level 25, 2 silver, 1 small health potion.* *Shadow Warrior, level 26, 100 gold.*
I was amazed but remembered that we were on a tight schedule. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon.
*Loot /All* *You have looted:* *120 gold, 24 silver, 5 light armor full-body, 5 light armor helmets, 5 pants, 5 Sweaters, and 5 shoes. All of the good quality. 1 bow, excellent quality, 4 bows, good quality, 2 medium health potions, and 1 small health potion.
I raced back to the wagon, at the same time as the bodies dissolved into thin air and Rondellen started moving, I jumped up and exclaimed, ¡°are sure you don¡¯t want any of the loot?¡± He just said, ¡°Inspect me, and then you will know why I¡¯m not interested. And tip, don¡¯t inspect other people without asking, or getting your level so high that they will not notice you doing it. So I did what he told me.
*Inspect being* *Rondellen, LVL 54, human.*
¡°Damn, yes I see now, but the money then? There was even gold in there.¡± I said with wonder in my voice. He just laughed, shrugged, and said, ¡°you will need it much better than me.¡± I thanked him and started to look through my notifications.
*Congratulation you have reached level 6* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
Checking status.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 6* *Coins: 120 gold, 25 silver, 8 rusty copper* *Attributes:* *Strength 8* *Dexterity 8* *Endurance 7* *Vitality 10* *Intelligence 7* *Wisdom 2* *Available points: 10* *Health: 100/100* *Stamina: 70/70* *Mana: 2/2* *Skills:* *Inspect item level 2/10* *Inspect being level 1/10* *Skill that unlocks at level ten* *Randomized skill from uncommon to epic.*
With 101 experience points, I guessed that I¡¯d level up quite a few levels, at least five, so I read four more notifications to speed things along. *Congratulation you have reached level 10* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.* *At level 10, you get a random skill from uncommon to epic.* *Congratulations you have received a legendary skill. [Telekinesis] level 1 costs 10 mana to activate and 5 mana per second the skill is used. The range is 5 meters at LVL 1.* Wow, that sounds awesome, now I need to put some more points into wisdom to get my mana up to speed, I thought. But first I¡¯d get my basic stats up to even 10.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 10* *Coins: 120 gold, 25 silver, 8 rusty copper* *Attributes:* *Strength 10* *Dexterity 10* *Endurance 7* *Vitality 10* *Intelligence 10* *Wisdom 30* *Available points: 0* *Health: 100/100* *Stamina: 70/70* *Mana: 2/30* *Skills:* *[Inspect item] level 2/10* *[Inspect being] level 1/10* *[Telekinesis] level 1*
I did all that without asking Rondellen, I¡¯ve been a sucker for spells and mages since I was little. But now I thought I¡¯d ask. ¡°Rondellen?¡± ¡°Yeah, hmm?¡± He looked up, seemed like he¡¯d been in deep thoughts. ¡°I just reached level 10 and got my random skill, I got [Telekinesis] level 1. Is that any good?¡± ¡°You got what??¡± He exclaimed! And looked at me with astonishment. ¡°Tele¡± I started. But Rondellen interrupted me, ¡°yes I heard you I just don¡¯t believe it! It¡¯s a legend, wait for it, -dary skill. It¡¯s practically unheard of that a level 10 gets something like that! But yes it can be a good skill if you use it right. Like if you¡¯d have had it in the fight earlier, you could have changed the trajectory of the arrows or even taken their weapons. But you need to practice a lot to get good with it as with everything.¡± I thought about what he said, and then asked, ¡°Okay, so I have this fantastic skill now, but how do I use it or activate it?¡± ¡°That is something you need to figure out for yourself, it¡¯s different for everyone. But what I can say is that you need to look within. You can¡¯t just think about it.¡± Rondellen said. I needed to check the new skill out obviously but first I needed to go through the rest of my notifications and then maybe see if the armor I looted fit me.
*Congratulation you have reached level 11* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.* *Congratulation you have reached level 12* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.* *Congratulation you have reached level 13* *You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.*
I got another 15 experience points but decided to save them. To be honest, now I just wanted to get everything sorted out, so I could try out my new skill. So time to check my inventory.
*Inventory Slots 18/15* *1 Pant, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Sweater, low quality (Equipped)* *1 Shoe, fair quality (Equipped)* *1 Knife shaft* *3 Swords, level 1, low quality* *1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped no)* *2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* *3 Wood wolf pelts* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat* *5 Light armor full body, excellent quality* *5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality* *5 Pants, good quality* *5 Sweater, good quality* *5 shoes, good quality* *1 bow, excellent quality* *4 bows, good quality* *2 medium health potions* *1 small health potion* *BEFORE CLOSING THIS WINDOW YOU MUST DROP THE ITEMS IN 3 SLOTS! If you don¡¯t, 3 random slots with items in them will be deleted.
Hmm, okay, so I can have more than one of the same items and it fits in the same slot. There is probably an upper limit. And it seems that I get an extra slot per level, wonder if that can be expanded somehow. So completely remove items from 3 slots. I went through my inventory and decided to drop the following items.
*Equip Pants, good quality*
Automatically the pants I was wearing changed to the new ones. And the old ones lost the [Equipped] tag. I did the same thing with the rest of the things I was wearing and then dropped them. They landed on the floor of the wagon. Checking inventory just in case before closing it.
*Inventory Slots 18/15* *1 Pant, good quality (Equipped)* *1 Sweater, good quality (Equipped)* *1 Shoe, good quality (Equipped)* *1 Knife shaft* *3 Swords, level 1, low quality* *1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped)* *2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* *3 Wood wolf pelts* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat* *5 Light armor full body, excellent quality* *5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality* *4 Pants, good quality* *4 Sweater, good quality* *4 shoes, good quality* *1 bow, excellent quality* *4 bows, good quality* *2 medium health potions* *1 small health potion*
Crap, crap, good that I checked, so equipped items take up their slot. Hmm, what to drop. The knife shaft, the 3 low-quality swords, but that¡¯s only 2 slots. So I asked Rondellen. ¡°I have a bit of an inventory issue. I''ve dropped everything with low quality but I need to drop one more thing. Is there a way of expanding my inventory or some other way to fix it?¡± Rondellen looked at me, ¡°ah, yes the hardship of low-level inventory, when you get over 25 it mostly stops being an issue. And you haven¡¯t tried on the armor yet together with the helmet, that is two more slots you need. What you will find out at level 15 but what I can tell you right now is to bond the items you are wearing to a separate clothes/armor slot. It¡¯s called. [Bonded items]. So drop items in one more slot, doesn¡¯t matter what, since it will just end up at your feet. Then you think, bond with worn items. So I did what he told me, I dropped the small health potion.
*Bond with worn items* *Want to bond with worn items, you can not change bonded items without releasing items Y/N*
I thought YES.
*Following items have been bonded to Green Raven:* *1 Pant, good quality* *1 Sweater, good quality* *1 Shoe, good quality*
It felt a bit strange but all of a sudden my clothes that a moment earlier had been a bit too big in some places and too small in others, fitted me perfectly. Rondellen smiled and said, ¡°feels much better now, right?¡± And I was speechless, so I just nodded.
[Inventory] *Inventory Slots 12/15* *Bonded items:* *1 Pant, good quality* *1 Sweater, good quality* *1 Shoe, good quality* *Inventory* *1 Sword, level 2, fair quality (equipped)* *2 Water-skin, empty, fair quality* *3 Wood wolf pelts* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat* *5 Light armor full body, excellent quality* *5 Light armor helmets, excellent quality* *4 Pants, good quality* *4 Sweater, good quality* *4 shoes, good quality* *1 bow, excellent quality* *4 bows, good quality* *2 medium health potions*
I equipped the armor and helmet, it didn¡¯t suit me that well, but after bonding with them too, they felt as perfect as the clothes and shoes. I put the small health potion back in inventory. Okay, so at last I was done with all that ¡°admin-work¡±, so I closed everything down. The pain I experienced was as bad as last time, I forgot that I had put some points in strength and dexterity, but like last time it was over before I knew it. Rondellen openly laughed at me when he saw me squirm. ¡°Not gotten used to becoming stronger and faster?¡± ¡°No not yet, or wait, do you get used to it?¡± I asked. ¡°Haha, not really,¡± Rondellen said with a big smile. After that, we sat silent for a while, Rondellen in his world. And I was trying out my [Telekinesis] skill. He had said that I needed to look within, look within. I didn''t even know what he meant by that. So I tried my best to activate it. Most of the ways I thought would work failed and soon I was about to give up when I saw a flower next to the road and just thought, I¡¯d like that flower in my hand. And slowly it came towards me and ended up in my hand. That got Rondellen going. ¡°Wow, you did it!¡± He almost screamed! I turned to him and with a big smile, I said, ¡°yes!! It wasn¡¯t easy but I did it!¡± Up ahead we were beginning to see smoke from chimneys and hear the usual sound from a village. So I had to save the training of my new skill for later. I looked towards Rondellen and he nodded, ¡°yes, we are soon in Ostvik.¡± Chapter four, Ostvik ## Chapter four, Ostvik We rolled into Ostvik in the afternoon. Before we had come close to it, the scenery had changed drastically from lush greenery to a more hot and dry climate where the few trees and shrubbery looked sad and dried out. It felt and looked like there used to be a forest here but time and maybe some kind of climate change had turned it into more of a desert. It was called a village, but in my mind, it was more of a small town. There was a high street with long rows of single and double-story houses with large windows facing the street. There were different stores, pubs, and restaurants. And you saw small sideways going off at intersections where there was more of a domestic feeling of the houses, with small green gardens with white fences in the front. That surprised me since just outside the village- or town limit there was desert. I was just about to ask Rondellen about it when he said, ¡°Hey kid, if you look over there,¡± he pointed towards a house or it looked more like a carport in front of a house but the carport was part of the house, like where the wall should be there was more like a broad corridor into the rest of the house. And instead of a car, there was an anvil and other things you associate with a blacksmith. ¡°That¡¯s your daughter''s husband''s place?¡± ¡°Yes, I thought we should go there first. You can sell off anything you don¡¯t need or want to keep. And after that, we have dinner at the inn, my treat.¡± ¡°That sounds like a plan, Rondellen!¡± I said with a smile. When the wagon stopped outside the smithy, a tall burly man that was as wide as he was long, came out to meet us, everything with him just oozes strength. He had a long red beard and long braided red hair. ¡°Rondellen, you old geezer. You made it here in one piece. I¡¯m glad to see!¡± His voice was like the rest of him loud and filled with strength, but he had a large smile and lifted Rondellen from the wagon as he hugged him. You could see that the two men shared a close bond. Rondellen just laughed and said, ¡°Well, it was a close call with five Shadow Warriors armed with bows attacking us half a day from here.¡± The man''s jovial face turned serious and he looked at Rondellen, ¡°You are not hurt, I hope? I told Ragnhild that I should¡¯ve come out and met you at the halfway mark.¡± ¡°If it wasn¡¯t for young Green Raven here, it could have been a close call. We handled them. They were low-level too, thank the gods!¡± Rondellen said while pointing to me, ¡°Green Raven, meet Alfred, my daughter Ragnhild¡¯s husband, the blacksmith. Alfred, meet Green Raven.¡± I was unsure how I¡¯d approach the mountain of a man, but he just took three fast strides and lifted me in a bear hug, and said, ¡°so this is the lad I should thank for saving my father-in-law?¡± I laughed nervously and said while having the air pressed out of my lungs, ¡°I think Rondellen would have done just fine. I just helped with reloading the crossbows.¡± ¡°Nonsense lad, having you on my side was why we won so easily and without getting hurt. So Alfred, Green Raven here has some armor, helmets, and weapons he wants to unload.¡± Alfred sat me down on the ground and took a step back to see me. ¡°You don¡¯t look like that old lad. Is it okay if I inspect you?¡± ¡°Yes, go for it, and nice to meet you,¡± I said while straining to get my breath back. ¡°So level 13¡­ What were you doing out in the wilderness with such a low level? How old are you, son?¡± Alfred asked, scrutinizing me. All of a sudden it hit me, I was a boy all alone without a mother or my friends, so far I had only reacted to everything happening and hadn¡¯t had any time to sit down and reflect on what had happened ever since Andrew and his boys tossed me in the cleaning closet. And this was not the time for it. But soon. ¡°I¡¯m 16 going on 17 years, and to be honest I was only level 5 before the fight together with Rondellen.¡± Here Rondellen interrupted me and said, ¡°he is an offworlder, and you how they always appear in the wilderness, but what¡¯s unique with him is the level 10 skill he got. Is it okay if I tell Alfred what it is?¡± He said while turning to me. ¡°Yes of course why shouldn¡¯t it be?¡± ¡°It¡¯s [Telekinesis], and usually people don¡¯t reveal their skills to just anyone. But I guarantee that Alfred is good people, he must be, my daughter chose him.¡± Rondellen said with a wink. I smiled and nodded. And thought about the differences between living in a game and just playing it on a computer, because in the latter you always spoke openly about what skills your character had and other things that your character could or couldn¡¯t do. But I could see that here it could be really dangerous if the wrong people knew what skills you had. Meanwhile, Alfred just stood there and looked at me speechless. ¡°You got¡­¡± he trailed off, ¡°he got what?¡± He asked while looking at Rondellen. ¡°Yes, I reacted in pretty much the same way. A legendary skill at level 10! That offworlders get more points and sometimes uncommon or epic skills is widely known. But this?¡± Rondellen just shook his head and smiled. ¡°Can you show me?¡± Alfred asked. ¡°I could give it a go,¡± I said and focused on a nearby hammer that lay on a table a few meters away. I wanted to lift it and bring it over to me. Didn¡¯t quite manage that, but I got to fall on the floor. ¡°That¡¯s the second time I¡¯ve used [Telekinesis], not sure what to use the skill for, but I¡¯ll probably find out.¡± Alfred and Rondellen both shared a glance at each other but didn¡¯t say anything. I was a bit surprised since they acted like this skill was a big deal that they didn¡¯t say anything more about what I could do with it. So I just asked Alfred if I could show him my loot and what he thought it was worth. He told me to go ahead. I dropped:
*4 Light armor full body, excellent quality* *4 Light armor helmets, excellent quality* *2 Pants, good quality* *2 Sweater, good quality* *2 shoes, good quality* *1 bow, excellent quality* Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. *4 bows, good quality*
And said that I think I want to keep one of the bows but haven¡¯t decided yet. It depends on what they are worth. Alfred went through all the gear and after humming and looking he said, ¡°tell you what, lad, since you helped out my father-in-law and such, I¡¯ll give you a good price. But to be honest you probably will get a better price for the clothes and shoes if you go over to Anders that sells clothes.¡± ¡°For the light body armor, I¡¯ll give you 100 gold each and the helmets 50 gold each. The bow with excellent quality 500 gold and the good quality bows 250 each. And for the clothes and shoes, I¡¯ll give you 25 gold in total.¡± I looked at both him and Rondellen and said, ¡°you both know that I¡¯m new to this world, I have no idea if this is a lot of money or not. Let us say if I wanted to buy rations for a week in the wilderness, a good ax, a knife, utensils, a good pan for cooking, something to start a fire with, and a sleeping bag or such, what would that set me back?¡± Rondellen looked at Alfred and said, ¡°I¡¯d say around 40-50 silver for the cooking utensils, up to 1 Gold for the rations, 10-12 Gold for the ax and knife, and maybe 80 Gold for the sleeping bag of okay quality. So in total say 100 Gold to be on the safe side.¡± And Alfred nodded and said. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s around what it would cost.¡± ¡°So the weapons and armor are quite good?¡± I asked with a smile. They both nodded. And then I remembered the pelts from the Wood wolves and meat. ¡°How about this?¡± I asked while dropping them to the ground.
*3 Wood wolf pelts* *12 Wood wolf portions of meat*
Alfred answered, ¡°The meat I¡¯d only eat if I was starving, but I¡¯ll give you 10 silver for it and give it to the neighbor''s dogs. The pelts are another story altogether. At the right place, they¡¯d fetch you maybe 400-500 gold each. They are not that hard to kill. It¡¯s just that they are incredibly rare in these parts of PAERD so you were very lucky that they stumbled upon you, and they are sought after for their good abilities to keep cold and dampness out.¡± ¡°But if I were you, I¡¯d let someone sew up a sleeping bag with one of them and sell the rest, or make all three into sleeping bags and keep them and sell them in another place. An excellent bag with a cloth will set you back 200-250 gold but if it¡¯s with Wood Wolf pelts they will cost around 1000-1200 gold.¡± ¡°Wow! Okay, I¡¯ll go the route of making all pelts into sleeping bags. Regarding the weapons, I¡¯ve never used a bow, I was thinking of saving the best one. What do you guys think?¡± Alfred answered this one, ¡°I¡¯d say that if you want to keep a bow for yourself keep the best one and one of the others that you use to train with. But since you are using a sword now and with your legendary skill. I think that when you have the time for the practice you will need to put that time into training your skill, not archery. Better to sell it now since your inventory is quite small and later on you can buy a new one.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I said, ¡°That sounds good. Okay, can you give me a total of everything except the pelts, and I also need a better sword. And a belt for it.¡± ¡°You are using a low-quality Goblins sword now right?¡± Alfred asked. I nodded. ¡°Well, we need to do something about that. Do you have any wishes or wants regarding your new sword or should I make one I believe would be best for you and your level? One that you can use up till level 20 at least? ¡°That would be awesome! How much for a sword like this? ¡°Tell you what, with everything you¡¯re selling me and that you helped Rondellen, a sword like that would usually set you back 750 gold, but you get it for 450. So in total 2125 gold and 10 Silver is what you get for everything you sold me. And counting off the sword makes it 1675 gold, 10¡¯silvers.¡± Alfred said. ¡°The sword will take almost a week to finish, but you can sleep at me and my wife¡¯s house, and in the meantime, you can get to know our village.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a deal¡±, I said and we shook on it. ¡°And thank you for letting me stay in your house. But a question, how do I receive the money or how do you pay? I only know that I can see my money on the status page.¡± ¡°That¡¯s easy,¡± Rondellen said, ¡°If you were level 15 you¡¯d know these things. But I¡¯ll tell you now. You think about [money transfer] and you will get a prompt for it, you can also use [Money Balance] to see how much money you currently have.¡± ¡°Ah, neat, I¡¯ll try it,¡± I said.
*Money transfer* *Who do you want to transfer money to?*
Rondellen.
*What amount to send?*
1 silver
*Is the amount and person correct? Y/N?*
Yes.
*Transferred 1 silver to Rondellen*
¡°Did it work? I asked Rondellen. He didn¡¯t answer instead I got a prompt:
*You have a money transfer for 1 silver from Rondellen, accept Y/N?*
Yes.
*1 silver was transferred to you from Rondellen*
¡°That is so cool!¡±
*You have a money transfer for 1675 gold, and 10 silver from Alfred, accept Y/N*
Yes.
*1675 gold and 10 silver were transferred to you from Alfred.*
*Money Balance* *1795 gold, 35 silver, 8 rusty copper.*
¡°With that taken care of, do you wanna take a trip around town or go to Ragnhild and Alfred¡¯s house?¡± Rondellen asked. ¡°If you don¡¯t mind, I¡¯d like to go straight to the house since I¡¯m quite tired.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s do that. Just jump up on the wagon and we¡¯ll go there. I¡¯ll guess we see you later tonight, Alfred?¡± Rondellen said as we both sat down on the bench. ¡°Yes see you all tonight, I better get started on Green Raven''s new sword,¡± Alfred said and gave us a wave before he turned and walked back inside. The trip to the house was uneventful. We just passed row after row of houses until Rondellen stopped almost outside the town limit. There on the right-hand side, a nice red house with white corners lay. It was a two-story house like many others here, also with a garden. I was thinking I had to ask why the town was so green and when we just came from a desert. ¡°Dad!¡± A petite woman with long blonde hair and a big smile, dressed in a blue dress exclaimed. ¡°You took longer than I expected. But just when I was about to get worried Alfred sent a message saying you had arrived.¡± ¡°Ragnhild!¡± Rondellens smile was even bigger than when we met Alfred. ¡°Yes, I got into some troubles along the way but luckily found me Green Raven, or if luck found me for him. Nonetheless, he helped me. If it wasn¡¯t for him, I¡¯d probably not be here yet.¡± The smile disappeared from Ragnhild¡¯s face and she turned almost white as a sheet. Rondellen was quick to tell her that everything went fine and that we would tell all about it at dinner, and that we were starving. He told her Alfred had invited me to stay here while he made me my sword. She didn¡¯t look surprised at all, so that was probably a common occurrence here. She soon turned into hostess mode and showed me around the house. It was a two-story building with four bedrooms on the second floor, and what looked like a bathroom and a flushing toilet! I found things more and more peculiar, especially since the whole world I¡¯ve ended up in seemed to be in a technological phase compared to Earth''s medieval times, the same as the game Running With Devils was. I thought I would ask about it at dinner. On the first floor, there was a kitchen and living room and in the backyard, there was a guesthouse. It was also there she placed me, and it made sense since Alfred¡¯s customers came to stay here when it was needed. Rondellen had one of the rooms in the house which made sense as he was family. After settling in and even sleeping for a short while, it felt good to sleep in a bed even if I only slept one night outdoors. Soon there was time for dinner. Rondellen came and got me. He had changed into an elegantly sewn dark red robe and handed me a dark blue one while telling me that this was customary dinner wear in PAERD. And since I was new here, I could borrow one. I immediately decided I needed to procure one or two robes. Outside the house, in the backyard, there was a square of hedges with a door in the middle. Inside was the dining room. I realized that it was a small house with one room and a fireplace inside the hedges. There was a round table with a hole in it and that¡¯s where the fireplace was placed. And around the walls there was a sofa, It all looked very warm and cozy. We sat down around the table and all of a sudden there were lots of plates with food and vegetables and fruit, filling the table, I didn¡¯t recognize any of the fruits or vegetables but the aroma coming from the table smelled amazing, and the goblet also appeared filled with a red liquid that I guessed was similar to wine on earth. I was speechless, it was so unexpected with food and drinks just materializing from thin air. And I noticed that all three were looking at me expectantly, with big smiles on their faces. And I was like ¡°aha, this was unexpected, I was just wondering why we were sitting down at an empty table.¡± They all burst out laughing. And then Alfred answered, ¡°we¡¯d be surprised if you didn¡¯t have questions now. You wonder how the food just appeared, how the toilet flushes, and how it can be so green and lush here. When just outside the village there is mostly sand and old dried-out trees and shrubbery.¡± ¡°Yes you are right, I have questions about all those things and more. You said when I first met you, Rondellen, that Ragnhild and Alfred had a plot of land. I haven¡¯t seen that and you didn¡¯t say he was,¡± I pointed at Alfred, ¡°a blacksmith.¡± And the last thing, when I first met you, you were leaning on a staff and looked like you would keel over at any moment. But later on, you looked like a middle-aged man jumping up on the wagon and when fighting the Shadow warriors.¡± Rondellen¡¯s face was just a big smile and he looked over at Alfred and said, ¡° I told you he would ask about that too!¡± And Alfred just let out a hearty laugh. ¡°Yes you did, Rondellen, yes you did.¡± Chapter five, Canfee? ## Chapter five, Canfee? ¡°I¡¯m glad to get answers to all my questions but first, can we eat? I¡¯m famished,¡± I said while looking at all the amazing-smelling food I felt my mouth salivate on its own. ¡°And tell me what all this is?¡± I pointed to all the meats, vegetables, and fruits that were overflowing the table now. ¡°And is there any specific way you recommend that you eat the food?¡± And yes all that looked fantastic, but now I noticed the basket on a side table filled to the brim with what looked like a really small loaf of bread. It looked more like a baguette in size but it was formed as a loaf, a brown bread with a rich flavor of flour and something that smelled like raisins. Newly taken from the oven, warm and the smell was even better than all the rest. This looked like a real feast! Ragnhild, still smiling, said, ¡°I say we start with the bread¡± and took a loaf from the basket, broke it into two halves, and loaded it with meat that was wonderfully grilled to a perfect medium. The juices from the meat made that no butter was needed. ¡°You take bread, some meat. It''s from the Bronicurs, a herbivorous animal that is common throughout all of PAERD, and it¡¯s famous for its succulent meat. Add some Sanfin.¡± She took something that looked just like salad. ¡°The Sanfin¡¯s best trait is that it adds a bit of spice and that pairs well with the meat and bread. That¡¯s the most common way to eat Bronicur meat.¡± She finalized and handed me the bread and meat sandwich. At that moment, I was so hungry that I took a big bite as soon as I got it in my hands. And wow with capital letters! The sandwich was all the things Ragnhild said, and then more. The taste, the texture, the aroma, everything, was just awesome, and yes some of my experience could be that I hadn¡¯t eaten proper food since the evening before all this started. I never ate breakfast, only drank a couple of cups of coffee. I started drinking coffee on the long shifts I had when I was working extra to grind together money for me and mom. I just devoured the sandwich in a few big bites and then looked up at the stunned look from Rondellen, Alfred, and Ragnhild. They had barely started to make their sandwiches and I had already eaten mine. So I just asked, ¡°is it okay if I make one myself too? And this was just amazingly good!¡± They all started laughing and Alfred said, ¡°it was like you just inhaled the sandwich. I have never seen anything like it. I mean, yes, you told us you were famished but just wow.¡± Ragnhild answered my question by giving me another loaf of bread and to me and pointed to the meat still laughing and smiling. ¡°I¡¯m glad you liked it! And while you are making yourself a sandwich I¡¯ll tell you how the food ended up on the table. I used the skill [Teleport Item] Alfred and Rondellen told me that you just have gotten [Telekinesis], so I wanted to show you another legendary skill. As they told you, normally we don¡¯t talk about skills just to anybody since it can be dangerous if the wrong person comes over the information. So if you had been a regular customer to Alfred that came for dinner we would have carried the food over here. I looked her in her eyes and thanked her and then asked her, ¡°What can you do with it? Is it only items in. dead things or can you teleport living things too?¡± ¡°Only items, no living beings. For that, you need the skill [Teleport Being] with which you can teleport yourself and other living beings, but same as with my skill, you need to have seen the location beforehand.¡± She answered. ¡°What is the range limit for those skills?¡± I was interested. ¡°There is no upper limit on the range, but of course, it depends on the level of the skill.¡± ¡°Do you know anything about my skill? What can I do with it, range, and so on? I saw you share a glance when I tried to lift the hammer back at the Smitty¡± I said and looked at Rondellen and Alfred. Rondellen turned towards Alfred and with another laugh said ¡°I told you he was an observant young man.¡± ¡°Yes, you did. Well, truth to be told, there is little known about [Telekinesis] but why we shared a look was that you with the skill at level one almost lifted an iron hammer. Let¡¯s just say that you probably haven¡¯t surprised us the last time. As far as we know, at level one, you can move smaller objects like a coin, not larger items.¡± While we were talking we continued eating and I soon was starting to get satisfied or rather it felt like my stomach was bursting at the seams. After the first sandwich, I had eaten three more. But it was hard not to when it was so delicious. And that¡¯s what I told my hosts. Ragnhild handed me something she told me was a fruit that was good for digestion. It didn¡¯t look like any fruit I had ever seen before. The fruit had a black skin on the outside, and it was formed like a square. She showed me how to cut the fruit in half and then just dug out the kernels from inside. It kind of looked like a pomegranate on the inside but shared nothing of its taste. Instead, the taste faintly reminded me of coffee. I was quick to ask if the fruit was always eaten fresh and if you got more alert when eating them. They told me that yes of course they were eaten fresh and yes how did I know you became more alert? I saw before me how I would roast and ground the kernels and make something that hopefully tasted close to coffee. That would have to come later though. Because with all the excitement of the day that felt like it started two days ago. Now with my belly full of food, it felt harder and harder to keep my eyes open. I excused myself and thanked my hosts for everything. I made my way to the guesthouse and to the long-awaited bed where I promptly fell asleep with the robe on. The next morning I woke up refreshed and felt good. But instead of jumping out of bed, I thought through the events of the last couple of days and remembered the spell for [Time]. *Time: 12.24* So back on earth that would make it lunchtime, but somehow I didn¡¯t think it was time for lunch just yet. I checked my stats.
*Status:* *Name: Green Raven* *Level: 10* *Coins: 1795 gold, 35 silver,* This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. *8 rusty copper.* *Attributes:* *Strength 10* *Dexterity 10* *Endurance 7* *Vitality 10* *Intelligence 10* *Wisdom 30* *Available points: 15* *Health: 100/100* *Stamina: 70/70* *Mana: 30/30* *Skills:* *[Inspect item] level 2/10* *[Inspect being] level 1/10* *[Telekinesis] level 1*
I needed to get some help to decide on what I¡¯d spend my remaining points on and what I should put them in. Only a noob puts points in every attribute after a certain level. You needed a base yes but after that, you put the points into the attributes that helped you to do the most of your skills. I thought I would ask my kind hosts at breakfast or when I saw them. There was so much I didn¡¯t know about this world. How did you regenerate mana for example, did you regenerate health over time? There were of course more questions than that but I had to figure them out over time. I tried [Telekinesis] on my pants that lay folded on a chair across the room. I remembered that the range at level 1 was 5 meters and it wasn¡¯t more than 2 to the chair. I successfully got the pants over to the bed, but when I tried to move my shirt nothing happened. Probably out of mana I thought, but I had a big grin on my face, I did it! I moved something bigger than a flower! And then I got an idea.
*Toggle mana bar on*
A mana bar appeared in front of my eyes, with some tries I got it to stay exactly where I wanted it to.
*Toggle health bar on*
And did the same thing with it. Now I had the mana- and health bar at the top left corner of my eye.
*Health bar:* *100/100* *Mana bar:* *0/30*
After that I got up, dressed and folded the dinner robe, and went out of the guesthouse. The door into the kitchen was open, and Alfred stood at the stove cooking something that both smelled and looked like bacon in one pan and eggs in another pan. The kitchen was a round quite large room with a table sitting in front of large glass windows. Behind the table almost in the center of the room was the stove. It didn¡¯t look like something I had ever seen before. It wasn¡¯t gas or fire. I didn¡¯t think they had electricity yet. Nonetheless, somehow the food got cooked. ¡°Good morning,¡± I said with a smile, walking inside. ¡°Good morning lad, you can sit down at the table. Breakfast is almost ready.¡± As I sat down, Rondellen came in from another door and occupied the chair next to me. ¡°Morning,¡± he said and stifled a yawn. ¡°Tired?¡± I asked. Alfred responded, with a wink and a smile and said, ¡°yeah, he is always so tired in the mornings. Ragnhild is even worse. If only there was something that would make them more alert in the mornings.¡± I just jumped up from the chair and it almost toppled over, ¡°What¡¯s the name of that fruit I ate yesterday? And do you have more of it? I have an idea.¡± The jump woke Rondellen up from his near slumber with a startled jerk, ¡°uh what?¡± Alfred just looked on with bemusement and answered, ¡°yes, how many do need? And they are called Canfads.¡± ¡°Well, let¡¯s take two for now. I want to try something, and if I succeed, Rondellen and Ragnhild will be more awake in the mornings.¡± I took a knife and split the two fruits into halves and got the kernels out, washed them, and dried them off on a cloth or what looked like a kitchen towel. Then, I asked Alfred for a pan to roast them in. I roasted them lightly, and almost instantly the aroma started to wisp up from the pan. I looked at Alfred, and asked ¡°do you feel the smell?¡± and with a motion of one of my hands, I let the aroma whiff up towards him. He had until now looked on with interest but without saying anything, but when the aroma reached his nostrils he said almost dreamingly ¡°oh why have we never done anything like this?¡± And looked up into the ceiling. ¡°This smell amazing Green Raven, how long should they roast, because that''s what you call this process?¡± ¡°Yes, this is called roasting, you could put them on a steel plate and roast them in an enclosed hot space, that we back on Earth call Owen, but such a small amount of ¡®beans¡¯ as this, a pan works fine.¡± ¡°Beans?¡± He asked. ¡°Yes, back on Earth we have this thing called Coffee and it''s made from Coffee-beans. I drank loads of it, it makes you feel more alert along with its great taste.¡± After I roasted them I poured them out on another cloth and then I let them cool down. ¡°Alfred, do you have something to grind the kernels with?¡± ¡°Grind? What is that?¡± Alfred answered with a puzzled look. ¡°It¡¯s something you use to mash or pulverize the kernels.¡± I said, ¡°but maybe I can use a knife and just hack them into small pieces? Yes, let¡¯s try that.¡± I got a knife from Alfred and started the process. Soon, I had something that almost looked like grounded coffee beans but was different since the kernels from the Confad turned green when roasted. Meanwhile, I had asked Alfred to boil some water. ¡°Normally I¡¯d have a filter now but let¡¯s try it like this,¡± and looked around, yesterday you served something in goblets, do you have something that you pour hot beverages in?¡± I asked. ¡°Hot beverages? Why would you want to drink something hot?¡± He almost frowned. ¡°And what is a filter?¡± I explained what a filter was, and what a cup could look like, and after a bit of rummaging, Alfred gave me something that Stone Bucks back home would be proud of. I then put some of the roasted and pulverized kernels in the ¡®cup¡¯ and then poured the hot water into it. After a little while, I said, ¡°okay it¡¯s time for the answer to the question, did I succeed in making what we on earth call coffee?¡± First, I smelled it. It had a nice aroma, not like coffee but more like a fruity tea, and then I took a sip. Alfred looked on, ¡°well don¡¯t let me hang here, did it work? Is it any good?¡± I answered with an almost heavenly expression on my face. ¡°Try for yourself,¡° I said and gave him the cup. First, he took a careful sip, same as I had done. But after that, he started drinking with a mesmerized look on his face. ¡°Green Raven, what have you done, lad? This is amazing! How did you come up with something like this?!¡± His words were spilling out of him. ¡°I feel so refreshed and alert! Rondellen!¡± His powerful voice reverberated through the room and Rondellen nearly fell off his chair. He had more or less been sleeping while I had prepared the ¡®coffee¡¯. ¡°Uh, yes Alfred what is it? He asked with an unsteady voice. ¡°Here,¡± Alfred said and gave Rondellen the cup, ¡°take a sip of this.¡± A bit unsure he did as Alfred told him, but after the first sip, his face transformed from a sleepyhead to an alert man. Then, just for a second ago, the dozing man now sat up straight and was awake. ¡°I¡¯m almost speechless, what is this, Alfred? Never mind give me more, this is fantastic.¡± ¡°It¡¯s Green Raven, he made it from the kernels of the Canfads.¡± He then turned to me and asked, ¡°that is a good question, what do you call it?¡± ¡°Back on earth we have coffee beans and we just call it coffee. But how about we call it canfee?¡± ¡°Yes, Canfee is a good name,¡± Alfred said as Ragnhild¡¯s sleepy form materialized sitting on a chair at the kitchen table. ¡°Canfee? What are you talking about?¡± She asked Alfred sleepily. ¡°Here darling, taste this!¡± He said and gave her a new cup filled with more Canfee. She looked a bit suspicious at the content of the mug but took a sip and then another. ¡°What is this? It¡¯s fantastic. Why haven¡¯t you made this before? I feel so refreshed and alert.¡± We all started laughing, and I explained what I had made and the process for it. And then I got a thought. ¡°What is bread made of? Is it flour? How do you make the flour?¡± What they told me reminded me of how they made flour back on earth back in the old days. ¡°So,¡± I said and looked at Alfred, ¡°can you make something like what you use for making flour but smaller? So we can use it to ground-up Canfad kernels.¡± He looked thoughtfully at me and responded, ¡°yes I can probably make something like that.¡± ¡°Well you must!¡± both Rondellen and Ragnhild exclaimed at the same time. And we all started laughing again. After we settled down, Alfred brought out breakfast. We sat down and had what looked just like bacon and eggs. I was just about to ask what they were called when Rondellen looked at me and then turned into the same old man that I first met back on the road. He looked like he would keel over any second. Then he gave me a wink and was back to normal. ¡°I used a skill called [Cloaking]. It''s useful when you want to deceive people. Or not show them your real self.¡± ¡°Not bad,¡± I said, with a smile, ¡°now I¡¯ve got all my questions answered.¡± I had been keeping track of my mana bar and now it was back to full, so I had regeneration of mana. But it was slow, and I still wondered if you would regenerate your health. Chapter six, Not a fairy-tale. ## Chapter six, Not a fairytale After breakfast, Alfred hurried off to his Smitty to start on a Canfee grinder and continue working on the sword he was making for me. Rondellen and I left the house just after Alfred, heading into the village center. Walking over there I remembered an earlier question I had been wanting to ask. ¡°Rondellen? Will my mana restore faster when I level up? And if I tell you my attributes, can you give me tips on how I should proceed along when leveling?¡± Rondellen had a reflective look when he answered me. ¡°I will do my best to help you with this great honor you bestow on me. I have only helped Ragnhild with this, the same as my father helped me. So what you do, is something again you would know if you were past level 15, but it¡¯s better to do it as early as possible. You use the command share status.
Share status State person to share with:
Rondellen
Share status page with Rondellen Y/N?
Yes
Status shared
### Rondellen ###
See Green Raven¡¯s status page Y/N?
Yes
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 10 Coins: 1795 gold, 35 silver, 8 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 30 Available points: 15 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 30/30 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 1/10 [Telekinesis] level 1
¡°Well tell you what lad, it could have been a lot worse. You could have been at level 16. You see, at level 15 you get the possibility to reset your attributes and start over. Thing is that I¡¯d probably put all remaining points in Wisdom and thus bring your mana up to 45. It would help you when practicing [Telekinesis]. And then when Alfred is done with your sword you can practice with it together. When you reach level 15 and get your second skill you will hopefully know what way you want to go with your points. Don¡¯t use your points now. Do it before going to sleep, putting 15 points in Wisdom at the same time will make you pass out. Your second question about mana regeneration is also something that will become clearer when reaching level 15. I can tell you that yes you restore mana over time. But there are mana potions so it¡¯s good to always carry a few in your inventory. That is of course if mana is something you use in an amount that will make you deplete it in a fight or when training.¡° ### Green Raven ### What Rondellen said made a lot of sense. And what was this I heard, I¡¯d get a second skill at level 15 too? ¡°Thank you Rondellen!¡± We¡¯d been walking slowly while talking and I shared my status page after leaving the house and now we were in the center of Ostvik. ¡°Green Raven, over there is ¡®The Happy Clothes Man¡¯, run by Anders.¡± Rondellen pointed towards a one-story building that was painted in a green color that made me think of the apples I used to bring to school growing up. The color of the house was a great contrast to the rest of the stores and restaurants that lay on the Main Street of Ostvik because they were mainly gray or white. When we entered the store, it was much the same. Green but with a shade darker in color. It was more like the green any army would be envious of was on all of the walls and ceilings while the floor was wooden and was probably just oiled. There were clothes everywhere hanging and laying folded on tables, more or less looking like any department store back on earth. A booming high voice all of a sudden was heard from within the store somewhere, ¡°Rondellen! Have you come to fleece me again out of hard-earned gold?¡± Followed by a burst of raucous laughter. ¡°Hey, Anders,¡± Rondellen said with a smile. ¡°No, not this time, I have a young lad with me that wants help with choosing out a few dinner robes and probably some other clothes as well. Just know that he saved my life out on the road, so your regular prices do not apply today.¡± Anders''s laughing face turned somber and he said, ¡°I told Alfred that he should have gone out and met you at the halfway mark. Did you run into Shadow warriors?¡± ¡°Yes, but thank the gods they were all low level, under 30.¡± He turned towards me and said, ¡°meet Anders, he is Alfred¡¯s little brother all though, as you can see he is almost as big and loud as his brother.¡± If you come across this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°Hi, Anders, nice store you¡¯ve got,¡± I said, turning to the man that looked like a copy of Alfred, only a couple of years younger. ¡°And before it comes up, yes I¡¯m an offworlder that met Rondellen out on the road to Ostvik. I found out before dinner yesterday I need dinner robes. I was thinking of getting maybe two or three, but I¡¯m open to suggestions. Also, I would like to get a couple of new sets of clothes and shoes if possible,¡± I said while pointing to the ones I was wearing. Anders looked from me to Rondellen and then said, ¡°Lad, you probably know by now that telling everyone that you¡¯re an offworlder is not the best way to get friends. Many are resentful of you since you level faster and get more points and have a higher chance of getting better skills.¡± ¡°I have just figured that out, but also figured that since you being Alfred¡¯s brother it was safe, to be honest. It saves time, and less chance of both of us becoming confused.¡± ¡°Yes that is true,¡± Anders said with a wink and then just vanished for a few seconds. He appeared loaded with robes. ¡°I think these robes could work for you. If you turn down that aisle, you will find a room for changing,¡± Anders said and pointed down to the right. I nodded my thanks, took the robes, and went and tried them on. There were a total of five robes, the first was a pink color that reminded me of Razzmatazz. It was wonderfully woven and the fit was perfect for me. I thought I could wear it at a more informal dinner like the one I was at yesterday. The next one was finely made but in a different color. This was probably Caput Mortuum. Thinking of these crazy names of colors made me smile, a sad smile. The only reason I knew of them was that one of my mates, Robert¡¯s mother, worked as a clothes designer and she always made crazy colorful outfits for him. Damn, I missed them, and my mother. I heard Anders shouting ¡°How¡¯s it going? Need any help?¡± I shouted back, ¡°almost done!¡± Cutting my trip down memory lane short, I tried on one last robe in the color of Lusty Gallant. The other two were in black, and that was not a color I thought of when thinking of dinner wear. Bringing back all the robes, I came back to the front of the store where both men stood talking. ¡°Nice colors you picked out. I¡¯ll take these three,¡± pointing to the three robes I¡¯d chosen as I said to Anders. ¡°With a name like yours, I thought you¡¯d like colors. I just had these made up a couple of weeks ago.¡± He said with a smile. Rondellen just shook his head and muttered something about Anders and crazy colors, just look at the outside of the store. Anders laughed and said, ¡°Well he didn¡¯t choose the black ones. So maybe he is also crazy according to you?¡± Rondellen stopped muttering and looked up with a huge smile, ¡°you know I¡¯m only busting your chops, Anders. I like that you are not just black and white as many here are. And the robes Green Raven took are perfect for a young lad that is on the up and up.¡± We all laughed and Anders took all the robes, put them aside, and said, ¡±Now everyday clothes, is it anything special or specific you are looking for?¡± ¡°Not really, but I have found that you can never go wrong with pockets. I want pants with lots of pockets and maybe a jacket with pockets both on the outside and inside. Come to think about it, can I have some pockets on the inside of my robes or the outside, but they must be hidden. I know I have an inventory but sometimes a pocket is what you need.¡± Anders just looked at Rondellen and gaping said, ¡°where did you find this lad?¡± Rondellen just smiled and said, ¡°that¡¯s what Alfred asked too. Come to dinner tonight, and you will become even more amazed. Green Raven is staying in the guesthouse.¡± Anders nodded thoughtfully and just said, ¡°yes it has been a while since I was over for dinner.¡± He turned to me and said, ¡°I will bring the robes you chose and three sets of outfits with the pockets you asked for when coming to dinner.¡± I thanked him and looked at Rondellen, ¡°Is there any place where I can turn my pelts into sleeping bags?¡± He told me that it was just down the street and told Anders that we would see him tonight and we left. On the way over, Rondellen told me that the best way here was to keep everything close to the west. As offworlders like me weren¡¯t popular in Ostvik. ¡°Why is that, Rondellen?¡± I asked. ¡°Like you probably noted when leveling up, you get two extra points as an offworlder. There is thought that the reason is that most of the offworlders come over as adults. You also have a greater chance to get uncommon or epic skills. I¡¯ll talk to a friend of mine and see if he can¡¯t come over to dinner tonight. He can give you the history of how this animosity started. How does that sound? For now, just don¡¯t say anything about your origin or anything that you think might be contrived as unusual or ¡®Offwordly¡¯.¡± ¡°Sure, thanks Rondellen. It seems that I¡¯m the lucky one to have met you. Helping you on the road you have already paid back and then some!¡± I said with sincerity. ¡°Yes maybe, but there is a reason for it too. All will be revealed tonight,¡± he said with a mysterious smile. We reached the place called Pelts Are Us, and when we went into the store, it did the name justice. There were pelts, furs, and skins everywhere. On the floor, on the walls, on tables and even hanging from the ceiling. Inside was a nice-looking old lady with gray hair that reached down to her waist. She was clothed all in furs, fur-skirt, fur-sweater. but what made her clothes stand out, at least for me, was the colors of the furs. The hat was in a blue skin that looked like a hat the cowboys wore back on earth. The skirt was orange, and the sweater was a more normal brown color and not Caput Mortuum. ¡°Welcome to Pelts Are Us, how can I be of service?¡± She asked us. ¡°Yes, hello,¡± I answered, ¡°I have three pelts of Wood Wolf that I¡¯d like to be made into sleeping bags. Is that something you could help out with?¡± I asked her. ¡°Wood Wolf? It was a long time ago since I saw pelts from them. But yes of course we can do that. Although, it will take a couple of days for us to make them.¡± ¡°Yes, that is no issue. How much will it cost?¡± ¡°Since you bring your pelts, we will only charge for the work cost. Let me see the pelts and I¡¯ll give you an estimate.¡± I dropped.
3 Wood wolf pelts
And she dropped her jaw. ¡°This is,¡± her voice faltered, and she tried again ¡°these are quite the pelts! Where did you say you got them?¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t, so what will it cost?¡± ¡°Normally when making sleeping bags where the customer brings their pelts we charge 50 % of what the cost of the material is. If the cost of material is 100 gold we charge 50 gold. But your pelts are something else! I will be able to make six sleeping bags out of these. I¡¯d say that if you only sold the pelts to us, you¡¯d be able to get 800 each. That would make the cost 2400 gold for 6 sleeping bags. The retail price of one sleeping bag would normally fetch around 1650 gold, but because the high quality of the pelts and our good reputation for making sleeping bags along with that we can add runes for [Cloaking], [Deep Sleep Alarm], and [Temperature], making the fetching price to land at 2200 gold each. So I have an offer. If you sell one of the pelts to me along with 300 gold, I¡¯ll make five sleeping bags with the aforementioned runes. What do you say?¡± Both me and Rondellen had been listening with increasing interest. When she finished talking, I saw Rondellen give me an almost unnoticeable shake of his head. I put the pelts back into my [Inventory] and thanked her and said, ¡°That sounds like a tempting offer. I¡¯ll ask my master and get back to you.¡± And before she had the chance to say anything more, I and Rondellen did a 360¡ã and left the store. As soon as we were outside the store, I turned to Rondellen and was just about to ask him what this was all about he said, ¡°Not here. I understand that you have questions. It was good that your perception was spot on back there. We need to go to Alfred and talk more there.¡± The rest of the walk back to the blacksmith was done in silence. When we reached Alfred, he met us with a gigantic smile on his face and was just about to tell us, ¡°Guys, you are coming at exactly the right time, loo¡­¡±, Rondellen interrupted him quite abruptly and said, ¡°Later Alfred, our suspicions about Glenda over at Pelts Are Us were correct.¡± He looked down at his shoes and after shaking his head, he looked up at me and started speaking. ¡°Green Raven, the pelts you showed us yesterday were nothing like we have ever seen before and both me and Alfred have seen a lot. I wasn¡¯t always an old man, and he wasn¡¯t always a blacksmith.¡± I was taken aback by his words and quite confused as well. Alfred looked almost embarrassed, ¡°It¡¯s been such a long time since we have had any problems with Marurade and his followers that I¡¯ve grown complacent. But of course, Userus will not bring a new offworlder to PAERD and bestow a legendary skill at level 10 on him without reason.¡± What Alfred told me didn¡¯t ease my confusion, rather it deepened. ¡°Guys, what are you talking about? What does this Marurade have to do with my pelts? And you know about Userus? I think it¡¯s time for you to tell me what¡¯s going on.¡± Rondellen and Alfred both looked at me, but it was Rondellen that spoke first. ¡°Yes, you are right, but this is not the place for a discussion like this. Let¡¯s go back to the house, and when we arrive you will add your remaining points into Wisdom while you sleep. I will call on the people that once more are needed to save PAERD. And then at dinner, we will tell you everything that we know about this.¡± Alfred had been nodding at Rondellen¡¯s words and then said, ¡°yes, that is the way to go about this. It¡¯s in stress that mistakes happen. I¡¯ll finish up here and after closing the shop, I¡¯ll join you at the house.¡± Rondellen put his hands on my shoulders and more or less steered me towards the exit. We walked at a brisk pace to the house. Rondellen told me to go directly to the guesthouse and that he would come to get me when it was time for dinner. There was a rush and stress in his previously very relaxed body language, so I didn¡¯t argue and just did as he told me. Chapter seven, Information ## Chapter seven, Information Back in the guesthouse, I immediately started putting my free points to good use. I did as Rondellen suggested and put all 15 in Wisdom. Boy was I happy that I had listened to the man and was laying on the bed. There was no warning or anything I just passed out. I woke up, probably a few hours later, I felt different, not better or worse but different. I checked my status.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 13 Coins: 1795 gold, 35 silver, 8 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 45 Available points: 0 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 45/45 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 1/10 [Telekinesis] level 1
Since Rondellen said he would come and get me when it was time for dinner, I thought that I would try out [Telekinesis] once more. My mana bar was toggled on. This time I¡¯d see more clearly how it got depleted. There was a chair across from the bed, and I thought that lifting it would probably not work that well, but if I could drag it? The chair stood on the right-hand side of the door. So I got an idea of sorts. I focused on the chair and activated [Telekinesis] and got it in front of the door. And then instantly released the skill while looking at my mana bar.
Mana bar: 15/45
The door opened into the room, so my thought was that I maybe would be able to use the chair as a way to barricade the door or make it harder to open at least. Next attempt, I activated [Telekinesis] once more and focused on moving the chair so it ended up just under the handle of the door. It worked! *Congratulations, your skill [Telekinesis] has reached level two. Want to expand the range from 5 meters to 10 meters or raise the strength of the skill? Expanding range is self-explanatory. Raising the strength will help you to lift heavier items.* It felt like a no-brainer, I raised the strength.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 13 Coins: 1795 gold, 35 silver, 8 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 10 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 45 Available points: 0 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 45/45 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 1/10 [Telekinesis] level 2
Huh, apparently you got your mana to reset automagically when you leveled up your skill. Same as when you leveled up, but only the attribute that was connected to the skill reset. Well, that made sense. I just had to try the new strength so I stood up and lay the old Goblin sword on the floor. Then I sat down on the bed. Activated [Telekinesis] and focused on bringing the sword up from the floor and into my outreached hand. And it worked. My new amount of mana and the second level of the skill helped, of course. The sword flew right into my hand.
Mana bar: 0/45
So if I should have any actual use of my skill instead of it just being a neat parlor trick, I needed to seriously up my points in Wisdom. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. At that time I heard a knock on my door and Rondellens voice through the door, ¡°Green Raven, I¡¯ve put a parcel containing your new clothes and dinner robes. Change into one of them and then come meet us in the dinner house.¡± ¡°I will,¡± I shouted back as I moved towards the door, moved the chair out of the way, and opened the door. The corridor was empty except for the parcel Rondellen had dropped off. I checked everything in the parcel real quick and then changed into the dinner robe that had the color Caput Mortuum. It felt appropriate considering the events of the day. The robe was all I had thought and more. On the inside there was one discrete pocket on each side. On the back of the robe at waist height, there was a pocket that could probably hold a knife or something slim at least. The dressing was done, I took one last look at the room and then walked quickly to the dinner house. I reached the door and was just about to open it when I thought better of it and knocked. ### Rondellen ### After Green Raven had scampered into his room in the guesthouse, I went straight to Ragnhild, who was sitting in the living room and meditating. I sat down on a sofa and took a couple of deep breaths. I thought the time of fighting Marurade was over. Last time we barely survived, or many of us didn¡¯t. I sighed, looked up at the ceiling, and let my thoughts and feelings wander freely. By the time I emerged from my deep contemplation and opened myself to the world around me again, I felt Ragnhild¡¯s eyes on me with questions in her gaze. ¡°I¡¯m afraid that the time of calm and ease is over for now. Marurade and his followers are making a comeback.¡± I said with a calm I didn¡¯t feel at all. Ragnhild, serene and totally at peace, tensed at my word and said, ¡°How do you know?¡± ¡°It was just plain old luck, or if it was that I accompanied Green Raven today. Anyway, after we went to Ander¡¯s store, he is, by the way, coming to dinner tonight. Or rather he was coming before this happened, now he would have to come either way. Anyhow we went to Pelts Are Us and Glenda seemed to have fallen for the lures of Marurade as we thought but now it¡¯s more or less confirmed. She openly mentioned runes that can be used for evil.¡± ¡°So we need to call Rufus, Max, Mona, and Evers over for dinner tonight.¡± Ragnhild sighed. ¡°Yes, I was going to get Evers to come over either way to explain to Green Raven about the animosity towards offworlders. With his history, he is best suited for it. And now it will become even more important that the Green Raven will know everything.¡± I said. Ragnhild was saying that she would call on Mona and Max and get dinner ready when Alfred came storming into the room. ¡°I have closed down the Smitty and brought over everything we might need for this new fight against the devils.¡± He said seriously, ¡°but I also had time for making a portable grinder and roasting machine for making Canfee because that shit will help us I¡¯m certain.¡± Even if the situation had the potential to become severe, we all needed the laughter that followed. ¡°Alfred, you crazy man! Things like this are why I married you even if you are an offworlder.¡± Ragnhild said and kissed Alfred. ¡°Okay, time to get everything set for dinner. I¡¯ll get Rufus and Evers. Ragnhild is calling on Mona and Max. You get dinner sorted with Anders,¡± I said when Anders came in carrying a couple of parcels. ¡°Alfred, you get your brother up to speed,¡± I said while turning and starting to mentally call Rufus and Evers and explain the situation to them. A couple of hours later after calling all of our people together and I left the clothes at Green Raven''s door, we were all seated at the round table in the dining house. We heard a knock on the door. ### Green Raven ### ¡°It¡¯s open, come in,¡± I heard a voice say through the door. I opened the door and walked in. Eight people were sitting at the round table, four of whom I knew since earlier, and four were new. ¡°Hello, Green Raven,¡± I heard Rondellen say, ¡°sit down and we will tell you everything we know about offworlders and why they come to PAERD, shadow warriors, and Marurade.¡± I sat down and surprisingly was offered a cup of Canfee. It came from a strange contraption that was not even near a coffee-maker from back home. Alfred had a big smile, and I now noticed that all eight people had each a cup of the steaming liquid. ¡°Before we start with all serious talk and discussions, I want you to drink from your cups. It''s Canfee. The first of its kind, and something that under other circumstances would be a big hit here. It¡¯s all Green Raven¡¯s creation. I only made the Canfee-maker after I saw how he made it.¡± the, for me, new people around the table and Anders sipped carefully from the cup with Canfee, but soon I heard ah and ohs from them. After explaining everything about Canfee, we all started to settle down. Ragnhild used [Teleport Item] and the food arrived. It was almost the same as yesterday, but the meat was different. When the food came, the mood also changed from cheerful to somber. Even if I was curious, I felt it wasn¡¯t time to ask what the meat was. Not that it mattered, it was as delicious as the one we had the day before. We ate in silence and soon the food was taken away. ¡°Now then,¡± Rondellen spoke up with a serious voice, ¡°it¡¯s time to tell why offworlders are not well-liked and why we all are gathered together here tonight. But first, the people you haven¡¯t met before will introduce themselves, Rufus you can go first.¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯m level 65¡­¡± ¡°Before you say anything more,¡± I interrupted, ¡°can I inspect you all? My skill [Inspect Being] is only level 1.¡± They all agreed that it was a good idea. And what did you know? My skill is now level 3 and the range has extended to 50 meters. What I got to hear that evening was a lot. The condensed version was that the friends, Ragnhild, Rufus, Ever, Mona, and Max along with Ragnhild¡¯s father Rondellen had fought against the Devil Marurade and his followers. In addition to my new friend''s levels, I also got to know their skills. As I had guessed, Ragnhild had both [Teleport Item] and [Teleport Being]. They told me that Shadow Warriors almost always fought on the Devil''s side. PAERD had long had a declining population and one of the ways Userus combated it was to bring in people from other worlds. At the time when this all happened, two young brothers from a different planet got the offer to come to PAERD. They became known as Alfred and Anders. They fought alongside Ragnhild, her friends, and Rondellen. Along the way, Alfred and Ragnhild got married, but they were among the only few who chose to fight on the side of the people of PAERD. Most of the offworlders got lured over to fight for Marurade. He offered great riches and unimaginable power. He could grant 10 extra points on each level up. During the war, it became known that he had something called Running With Devils that granted the extra points. The way it got explained to me I figured out that it somehow had to do with the in-game ads that the game had. Not that it made any sense. Now full of food and new knowledge, I got into bed that night with a lot more questions. We decided I would start training the next day, and Evers would bring his daughter, Eonde, for me as a sparring partner. Anders would train us. Rufus, it became clear, was quite the crafter, and he would make sleeping bags out of my three Wood Wolf pelts. The next morning, I awoke with a great deal on my mind and was quite tired as well. It had become a late-night and early morning. I was awoken by someone knocking hard on my door yelling ¡°Time!¡± Over and over and then stomping off. When I came into the kitchen and was handed a hot steaming cup of Canfee, I was grateful. After a hot breakfast with something close to egg and bacon and more Canfee, I was ushered by Alfred to a location of the house I had yet to see. ¡°From now on you will call me Master Anders or Master when we train.¡± ¡°Yes Master,¡± the gravity of the situation had become more than clear last night, so calling him Master was not an issue for me. Back on earth, I¡¯d balked at calling anyone that, but then again back on earth, I was a nobody. Here, I felt I had been allowed to become someone. Calling Anders the master while he trained me, free of charge, mind you, was something I¡¯d gladly do. The room we entered was a square room without windows. There were wooden training swords and shields on racks on one side and there were training dummies in one corner. The floor was covered with that kind of gravel that you normally see on a clay court at a tennis tournament back on earth. I started to imagine that I¡¯d probably try that health potion I had in my [Inventory], sooner rather than later. While I was looking around the room and familiarizing myself with it, I smelled more than heard how a third person had entered. ### Eonde ### My father called me over last night and told me that the thing we had trained for the larger part of my life was about to start soon. But first, we should help his old friends to train an offworlder who had just arrived here. Offworlders were not popular among regular folks for obvious reasons. The Bondlaeppers that my father and his friends had called themselves back in the day were not regular in any sense, and two of them were offworlders themselves, or that was at least what my father had told me. When I was younger I couldn¡¯t believe it. All the stories people told were about what monsters offworlders were. Now that I am almost an adult, (I turned 17 last month), I knew better. They were just like us. There were good people and bad ones among them, the same as us, the natives of PAERD. I reached the house of Alfred and Ragnhild. On what looked like a normal two-story house there also was a basement with rooms for different types of training and a vault for valuables that few knew about. And that¡¯s where I went. The first time my dad showed me the door down to the basement I was amazed at how ingenious it was. So easy yet no one that didn¡¯t know if it would ever think of it even if they looked for it. On a table in the living room, there was a bowl filled with stones, both round and square. Before my father told me why the bowl was there, I thought that it was just another art installation that was plentiful around the whole house. On the square stones, each side had a different color. You used [Inspect Item] on them while holding a soul stone that only the Bondlaeppers and the ones they trusted had. When you used the skill, on one of the square stones an ASCII art kind of picture of a keyhole would appear and you could release the soul stone. Then you used [Inspect Item] again on the stones until you found another square stone showing the picture of a key. Holding them together on a section in the wall in the corridor towards the kitchen, the wall would get pellucid. Through it, you would find stairs going down to the basement. I heard Alfred¡¯s voice coming from the sword training room and went in there. Chapter eight, Not more than a few golds ## Chapter eight, Not more than a few golds ### Green Raven ### ¡°There you are, Eonde,¡± I heard Alfred say. I turned around and saw a girl. She looked to be the same age as me although she was almost a head taller, with long black hair, green eyes and a kind smile. So this was Ever¡¯s daughter. ¡°During training, we are going through the basics of sword fighting, how to stand in a battle stance, defend and so on. Eonde has been doing this since she was a child, so she will be your trainer slash sparring partner. And I will oversee your training from the sideline.¡± Alfred mentioned to me while grabbing swords from the rack and giving them to both me and Eonde. ¡°Yes, Master,¡± I said. Eonde looked at me and said, ¡°You can call me Miss Evers.¡± ¡°Yes, miss Evers,¡± I said, ¡°but I thought that Evers was your father''s first name?¡± ¡°Yes it is,¡± she said with a puzzled look on her face. ¡°Uhm, never mind, miss Evers¡± I said. ¡°Let¡¯s get started, but first, how much do you know of fighting with a sword and battle in general?¡± she asked me. ¡°Well to be honest, you could say that I know almost nothing. I¡¯ve been in two fights alone. The first one was with 5 stinking level 1 Goblins and then 3 huge Wood Wolfs at level 2. In both, I got away with sheer horror. Later, I helped Rondellen reload his crossbows in a fight against 5 Shadow Warriors he called low leveled, but they were all between 20 and 30. I was level 5 then, but I got boosted up to level 13 after that fight.¡± ¡°And before you came to PAERD?¡± ¡°Back on earth you mean? Well, there was not that much fighting going on there for me to be honest.¡± ¡°Okay, so when you say you know nothing, that¡¯s exactly what you meant! I like your honesty. Keep it up. First exercise, drop and do 20 push ups.¡± The rest of the training passed in a blur. I hadn¡¯t been this tired in a long, long time. I think we trained for 4 hours, but it¡¯s very possible it only lasted for 1 hour. I did all kinds of exercises. Funny enough, we didn¡¯t touch the weapons once. At one time, Alfred came with a chilled cup of Canfee, and it was surprisingly good. It tasted like a non-carbonated energy drink, and it refreshed me and gave me some more strength to go on training. After the training, Eonde showed me to the showers and also told me how to work them. It felt like a real shower but that''s when the similarities stopped. I have no idea how it was powered, but it worked. That was enough for me. After that, it was time to change into dinner robes and head to the dining house. This evening it was Eonde, Alfred, Ragnhild, Rondellen and me having dinner together. ¡°How did your first training experience on PAERD go?¡± Ragnhild asked me. Eonde beat me to the answer, ¡°he has no skills whatsoever, but he has spunk! Depending on how much time we have before the real battles start, I think he will do fine.¡± Rondellen nodded and said ¡° I thought as much. My suggestion is that you train for 3 more days, 2 hours in the mornings, and 2 more after lunch. Then after that, I¡¯ll take you and Eonde to a dungeon. Eonde has been there plenty of times, but it¡¯s good training for you, Green Raven.¡± ¡°What is a dungeon?¡± I asked. mean I knew what dungeons were in the games I had played and how they were described in the books I¡¯d read, but I thought it was better to ask a dumb question now instead of doing something dumb later in a dungeon. Safety first and all that jazz. Rondellen started to answer, ¡°well, you see, it is both an easy and a complicated question to answer. You see back in the old d¡­¡± Here is where he got interrupted by everyone else and Ragnhild told him, ¡°Dad! He will have plenty of time to learn the history of dungeons later on. For now,¡± she turned to me and said, ¡°it¡¯s enough to know that a dungeon is a place with enemies on one or more floors. Usually, it''s a monster of some kind that re-spawns at set intervals. Mostly it¡¯s a set time each day. It starts with easy prey, and at the end of the floor, there¡¯s a floor boss that¡¯s harder to kill. And if there¡¯s more than one floor, there will be a dungeon boss too. If it¡¯s only one floor, there will only be the dungeon boss at the end. There are different types of dungeons but the most common ones are in some sort of cave. The one you will visit is just outside Ostvik and is regarded as a beginners dungeon. It¡¯s called Rules Revenge. Any questions?¡± ¡°Yes plenty, but maybe I can think them over and we talk about it tomorrow?¡± I said while trying to cover a yawn. After that, everyone admitted that they were quite tired too, and we called it a night. When I was about to fall asleep that night, I got a notification. *Congratulations! Hard work pays off, strength +1.* I fell asleep with a tired smile on my face. The next three days were, as Rondellen had said, filled with training and then some more training. Still, there was time for contemplation and discussions too. Among them was Canfee, should we share the knowledge for free or keep it hidden? Should we start selling it? Or just give it away? After talking about it all together, it was decided that me and Ragnhild would go and meet with her friend Syster, who had helped the Bondlaeppers in the past. She now owned one of the local diners. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. One day before dinner time, we went to her diner called Smutsiga Duken. It was smack in the center of Ostvik. The time was chosen because there was a lull in the traffic of customers coming there. ¡°Hi Syster,¡± Ragnhild said as we walked inside the diner. Before us stood Syster. She looked exactly like an old grandma, white hair, a kind face and with a curved back. But you could see that there was steel left in her blue eyes. This was not a pushover but a strong old woman. ¡°Hi Ragnhild, how is your father? Long time since he was over here for dinner, and who is this young lad?¡± She had a bubbly personality and a wide welcoming smile. ¡°My father is good. He came back from the desert last week.¡± ¡°Oh, did it go okay? I¡¯ve been having some trouble getting deliveries through because of bandits and Shadow warriors.¡± ¡°Yes, thanks to Green Raven here, it went fine even if they got jumped by five Shadow Warriors.¡± Ragnhild said, looking at me. ¡°Oh no, well lucky that everything went well then. So this is the lad that has invented something you call Canfee? You won¡¯t tell me anything more about it?¡± ¡°Exactly, not until you try it,¡± Ragnhild said deadpanned. ¡°Well, you sure are your father¡¯s daughter.¡± Syster said with a wink, ¡°follow me then.¡± We came into a kind of back room, and Syster turned around and looked at us with a look that said, ¡°come on, show me what the big fuss is about.¡± We did not let her down! I took out one of my water-skins now labeled Canfee-skin. After asking for something to pour in, I was handed some kind of mug in what I guessed was clay. I poured a generous amount and said to Syster, ¡°This is Canfee. It works both hot and cold. What you are tasting now is obviously cold.¡± Syster didn¡¯t say anything, just took the mug back, smelled it carefully, and then took a small sip. Still not talking, she took a larger sip. After that, you could see her eyes widening. She had a glint in her eyes that Eonde later told me she hadn¡¯t seen in a long time. Still silent, she drained the mug in one last big gulp, handed back the mug to me, and gestured for a refill. This time, she took the time to savor it, to the very last drop. ¡°You guys weren''t kidding! This stuff is amazing! Canfee you called it? Tell you what I¡¯ll buy 100 liters up front and we¡¯ll see how it sells. If it goes like I predict., we will write up a contract with all the details. How does that sound? And say I buy it for 50 Gold?¡± She said and was all businesslike. We had talked beforehand what we would sell it for and had decided to sell for at least 20 silver per liter. The cost to produce 1 liter was 10 Silver so to get 50 Silver per liter was more than fair. She probably thought she skinned us. According to both Ragnhild and Rondellen, she was a very shrewd business woman. We shook hands on it and after some more pleasantries, we headed back to the house. That evening when eating dinner, it was decided that Ragnhild would take in some local trustworthy help and start with producing Canfee for Smutsiga Duken. I did tell them something I¡¯d learned back on earth. Ragnhild won¡¯t sign any contracts that states she can only sell to Syster. The money we receive will go to buying more Canfads and to making it easier to produce it. All the earnings after that would be split 70/30 between me and the Bondlaeppers. Since I ¡®invented¡¯ it, they felt I should have 100% of the proceedings. I argued that it was easier for me if they could handle everything with producing Canfee, selling it and so on, the whole Enchilada and in return get 30% of the proceedings and they gratefully accepted. At the end of the three days, I knew how to use my sword, both to attack and defend. I had, of course, a long way to become an experienced fighter. That would come later, but now I had the basics to build on. Both my strength and dexterity had leveled up two times. We hadn¡¯t been using any skills yet. Although I had been tempted too, I was told that since I had such a low amount of mana, I shouldn¡¯t lean on my skills. At least not until I got a bigger mana pool. The fourth morning after breakfast, after I had refilled my water skins (one with water and one with Canfee), me, Rondellen and Eonde set out for The dungeon Rules Revenge. Before we could embark on that, we followed Alfred to his Smitty to get my new sword he had crafted for me. ¡°You can wait outside, guys,¡± Alfred said and a few minutes later, he came back with a wrapped bundle containing my sword. ¡°Here you go, Green Raven. Hope you like it.¡± I unwrapped the bundle, and it was the most beautiful thing I had ever seen. The handle was of material I had never seen. It was cool to the touch with perforated small holes that reminded me of the Japanese chef knives that were very popular among chefs years back. Probably so even if it became wet it wouldn¡¯t be slippery to handle. The handle was all black and ended with a green knob of sorts. It had a twin-edged blade with engravings that said Green Raven in nice letters. ¡°I¡¯m speechless¡­ Thank you Alfred! Never have I seen anything like it. Can you tell me about it?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a one handed short sword, like the ones in wood you have trained with. The Handle is made of Perforatium, a material that feels cool to the touch when it¡¯s warm outside and warm when it¡¯s not. You will always have a good grip even if it¡¯s drenched in blood. I added runes engraved with your name that makes it always sharp and very resilient. You can hack a stone to pieces without it going dull. It would probably take a long time, but it¡¯s possible. Go ahead and inspect it.¡±
[Inspect Item] The sword Green Ravens Disciple Level 20 short sword Minimum Requirement level 18 or Green Raven, bind on pick-up. Sharp as Sharp should be Rune Don¡¯t wanna be dull Rune Never gonna break apart Rune Damage: 40-80 HP 10/10 uses per year: 1 strike is all it takes. Legendary quality
¡°Wow!! This is awesome! Thank you again!¡± I had a smile from ear to ear, ¡°What is the 1 strike is all it takes?¡± I asked. ¡°That,¡± Alfred had a smile almost as wide as mine, ¡°is a one strike kill that you can use up to ten times per year. You think [1 strike is all it takes] before you want to use it. It¡¯s one shot kill on every enemy up to level 80. I leveled up my sword-making skill when creating your sword, so thank you for that. There is one other thing. When you reach level 20, for the cost of two [1 strike is all it takes], you can level up your sword. ¡± I took the sword in my hand and straight away got the notification.
Sword Green Ravens Disciple bounded with you, sword is equipped
The sword felt good in my hand. The balance was perfect like I expected a sword of this caliber to be. I thought the sword into my [Inventory] and checked it.
Inventory Slots 05/13 Bonded items: 1 Pants, good quality 1 Sweater, good quality 1 Shoes, good quality 1 Light armor full body, excellent quality 1 Light armor helmets, excellent quality Sword Green Ravens Disciple Inventory 1 Sword, level 2, fair quality 1 Water-skin, full, fair quality 1 Canfee-skin, full, fair quality 2 medium health potions 1 small health potion
I focused on my new sword, and it was once more in my hand. I called on it and put it away a couple of times until a mere thought was required to get it in my hand or back into [Inventory]. Before long it was time to get going. We said our goodbyes to Alfred and started walking out of Ostvik and into the desert. The walk to the dungeon was short and eventless. It was as we and everything around us just wanted us to reach the dungeon and get started. Even Eonde, who usually was calm as a clam, was a bit antsy. ¡°Rondellen,¡± she almost growled. ¡°Come on. Don¡¯t drag your feet, let¡¯s just get there already.¡± ¡°Easy lass, we¡¯ll be there at the next bend in the road. You know that as well as me.¡± At last we stood at the entrance to the dungeon. It was just along the road we had walked on for the better part of an hour. It was an old shriveled shrubbery that you walked through. On the other side, we saw a dark tunnel open up. ¡°Green Raven, since this is your first time in a dungeon let me and Eonde go with you between us like we talked about last night. Eonde, you take the lead and I watch our six.¡± I had no issue with that, honest truth, I was a bit nervous even if I knew exactly what monster there would be. We had discussed it last night and they had told me everything I needed to know. What the first creatures were going to be, how to defeat them and so on. I knew the tactics for all three floors. And they had told me what skills they had. Rondellen rocked one epic skill, [Teleport Item] and also had fighting skills, the most noteworthy was [Focused Hit]. A lesser kind of [Teleport being] were he could teleport an enemy from a distance of up til 50 meters to a spot within those 50 meters. But the amount of mana it cost made it more or less a once a day skill to use at most. And then he of course had his crossbows and a couple of skills helping him using them. Eonde had fighting skills that were in alignment with her sword fighting, but she had not revealed any of her skills more than that. I asked her about it but she said I¡¯d see soon enough, and I let it go. It was probably not that cool compared to what Rondellen had, and that¡¯s why she hadn¡¯t told me. Inside the dark tunnel opened up a wide entrance with sufficient lights. ¡°Okay, let¡¯s get to it,¡± Rondellen said, ¡°your very first dungeon.¡± Chapter nine, Rules Revenge, part one ## Chapter nine, Rules Revenge, part one Dungeon time, I thought, for the first time ever. Of course, I¡¯d been in dungeons before, but that was different since it was in games in front of a computer back on earth. And Running with Devils was never one of those games. I had only just started playing the game before I ended up in it. After coming through the tunnel entrance from outside, it felt dark here, but my eyes quickly became accustomed. It was like a waiting room but formed like a cave. In the end of it, there was a quite large wood door with two black handles in some sort of metal to open it. ¡°Okay, now we do it as planned,¡± Rondellen said and pointed at Eonde who took the lead, me in the middle and Rondellen taking up the rear. Eonde went forward to the door and took hold of the two handles and brought the door open. She went through it, and Rondellen and I followed after her. The first room of the dungeon was a long, wide corridor that spawned an army of something that looked like armored rabid guinea pigs; they were as small as a guinea pig with armor on their tiny feet, legs and head, but they had no armor on the rest of the body. This affected the kind of skills or weapons best to use, which we had none. I used [Inspect Being] on one of them.
Gronners, level 8, 22 HP
I had [Telekinesis] that could have worked, but it was decided last night that I would not use it. Playing a game whack-a-mole of sorts, we stomped them out. It was gruesome in the beginning with blood and body-parts filling the floor, but quite soon I got used to it. Especially when it became clear that they weren''t in a position to hurt us, and we almost had fun with how macabre it sounded when you stomped on them. They came in waves first 10, then 20 and so on until the last wave spawned. In total, there were 50 of these small rabid creatures. We moved further and further into the corridor. Otherwise we would have had a mountain of dead Gronners at our feet to climb over. I was glad that I had my notifications set to display after the fight and truncate it for me. It took us the better part of a half hour to kill them all.
Congratulations, you have received: 147 experience points You have defeated 50 level 8 Gronners. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group. (Total xp of monsters killed/participants in group) x 1,10= your experience points.
Okay so that made sense that you shared the xp, but kinda nice you also got 10% extra. This was probably to get people to group up. I had leveled up. At least that¡¯s what the notifications that started blinking as soon as I read about receiving the experience points seemed to imply. I immediately decided that I''d hold off any leveling until after the dungeon, so I could use it as a battle-heal if I was badly hurt. ¡°That went well. No one even got hurt,¡± I said and looked around, time to check out if we got anything good. According to Rondellen and Ragnhild, when we talked yesterday evening, you seldom got anything more than Gronner pelts in this first room. Those were worth 10 Silver on a good day. I used [Inspect Being].
Dead Gronner, level 8, pelt. Loot all You have received 18 Gronners pelts
¡°So crap loot as expected,¡± Eonde said and huffed. ¡°Yes, no surprise there. Okay, onwards we go. Eonde, take the lead.¡± Rondellen said with a little smile. The second room contained Brawlers. They smelled as bad as Goblins and almost looked like them except they were red. Like small devils, And they were as dumb as the Gronners. As their name said, they just attacked with their fists. When the first reached within 50 meters, I used [Inspect Being]. *Brawler, level 12, 30 HP* They were usually around 40 of them, I''d been told. They all ran full tilt at us. The eerie part was that they were totally silent. Their mouths were open like they yelled their war cry but no sound came out. It was at this point I thought I¡¯d try [Telekinesis] regardless of what we talked about earlier. In the room, there were flat stones laying on the ground. They were roundly shaped stones almost formed as discs. They were as large as a family pizza and as thin as one too. I focused on one of them and used the skill to lift it up into the air over their heads as high as I could. I dropped it by canceling the skill. And it was high time too. My mana bar read.
Mana bar: 10/45
The result? Quite good if I say myself. It dropped right on the heads of three Brawlers and dropped them instantly. It didn¡¯t matter if they didn¡¯t die because they got trampled by the ones coming up behind them. A new notification started to blink. Rondellen looked at me with astonishment, but before he could say anything, the rest of the Brawlers were upon us. I drew my sword and fell back in the defensive position that I¡¯d been taught. As the first one reached me, I attacked, slashing into the barrage of Brawlers that ran into us with their fists extended. Eonde stood on my right, slashing and hacking. Rondellen was further up on my left shooting with his crossbows with deadly accuracy. For every arrow shot, at least two and sometimes three Brawlers fell. There was never any time where we felt pressed. It was rather fast we fell into the motion of hacking and slashing, stepping back and rinse and repeat. As soon as the attack had started, it was over.
Congratulations, you have received: 205 experience points You have defeated 50 level 8 Gronners. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group. (Total xp of monsters killed/participants in group) x 1,10= your experience points
I helped Rondellen retrieving his arrows. Most of them were still in such good shape, and they could be used again. [Inspect Being]
Dead Brawler, level 12, 3 rusty copper Loot all You have received 43 rusty copper
¡°No surprises yet, but once in a blue moon they will come,¡± Eonde said. I thought, what?? They have that expression in PAERD as well, but I didn''t say anything. What I did say was, ¡°next room was the KingaFants right?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Rondellen answered and reminded me that the next room was where me and Eonde had to be as mobile as possible and Rondellen stood for the kill. I really felt I needed to get my mana up to snuff pronto, so I was not only a melee fighter. The test in the last dungeon room with [Telekinesis] was successful I felt. In this room, we met KingaFants. As Rondellen just said, they looked like cute stuffed animals in a shade of purple that could fly. Although at their maximum height they reached waist high on a grown adult, so maybe 1 meter or so in the air. They attacked by shooting hot black steam clouds through their trunks. They were weak on their own, but if you let them come in threes or fours, then the damage the clouds did were three double damage. They usually spawned in four at a time, and in total, there were 16 of them. The plan for handling them was that me and Eonde took agro and Rondellen stood in the back shooting them one by one with his crossbows. When I saw the first one, I used [Inspect Being]. Another notification started to blink, I ignored it for now.
KingaFant, level 16, 38 HP, 30-90 DMG
It worked fine at first, but quite fast I ran out of [Stamina]. I had forgotten to turn on the bar for it. I just noticed it when my latest dodge turned into a feeble attempt of avoiding the steam, and instead I met the steam head first. It hurt like a mother.
Damage taken: 30 HP Damage taken: 30 HP Damage taken: 30 HP
I turned on all the bars I could. I had been lulled into a false sense of security because in the previous rooms I hadn''t taken any damage.
Health bar: 10/100 Mana bar: 20/45 Stamina bar: 1/100 If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it.
So I had no choice. ¡°Guys, I¡¯ve depleted my stamina, and I¡¯m low on health. I need to level up.¡± I gasped. Rondellen and Eonde on the other hand looked like they were just out walking in the park. Must be the difference between levels, I thought. Eonde just smiled at me and showed with her hand that it was okay for me to fall back. I focused on the level up notification I knew I had.
Congratulations! You have reached level 14 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
It felt like a whirlwind had gone through me. All of a sudden I felt fine. I took a glance at my bars.
Health bar: 100/100 Mana bar: 45/45 Stamina bar: 100/100
Meanwhile, with Rondellen with Eonde¡¯s help, we decimated the KingaFants quite severely so there were only the last four left. I started to run around and pick up arrows for Rondellen¡¯s crossbow. Then we were done.
Congratulations, you have received: 129 experience points You have defeated 16 level 16 KingaFants. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group. Dead KingaFant, level 16, Dark Cloud Spores
¡°Huh, uhm, Eonde, Rondellen I just used [Inspect Being] and it told me that KingaFant¡± I pointed to one laying in front of us, ¡°has Dark Cloud Spores to loot. What is that?¡± Both Ragnhild and Rondellen looked at the KingaFant in question and probably inspected it as well, because¡­ ¡°Rondellen, have you gotten that any of the times you''ve been here?¡± Eonde asked with worry in her voice. He just shook his head. I looted everything.
Loot All You have received 12 Silver, 2 Dark Steam Cloud Spores
I immediately used [Inspect Item] on it.
Dark Steam Cloud Spores are spores that have the essence of dark steam that can be used in potions by Alchemists.
¡°I got 2 of the spores¡±, I told the others, and they let me know that strangely they only got Silver. ¡°That is so strange¡±, I said, and they just laughed and shook their heads and said at the same time. ¡°Offworlders¡±. In the fourth room there was a mini boss called Raidon, usually level 20. I¡¯ve been told it was a mixed race. Its head from a dragon and a body that I realized must be from something like a horse, with wings. It had 20 sandwiches in its saddlebags that it ate but spit out before it swallowed them. It spat them with deadly accuracy and wherever they hit, the sandwich exploded and burned for 2 seconds, taking 34-40 dmg after the initial hit that took the same amount of damage. The quirky thing it did when it ran out of sandwiches was that it flew up in the air and settled close to the ceiling. Then it stayed there for 4 minutes until it had generated the sandwiches. During that time, its HP increased from 88 to the triple, 282 HP, but at the same time it was also defenseless. The tactic was once again that me and Eonde would take agro and Rondellen would shoot it with his crossbows. Here is where I got a bit fed up with not being able to try out my new fancy sword for real. I dodged the first sandwiches that the creature spat at me.Before I ran out of [Stamina], I made my way closer and closer to Raidon. Took a swing at one of his front legs.
Damage given 60 HP
Then I took one more swing and chopped his head off.
Damage given 34 HP Congratulations, you have received: 22 experience points You have defeated 1 level 20 Raidon. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group.
¡°Not bad,¡± Rondellen said, looking appreciative at me. ¡°Yeah, my new sword is Awesome! Anders'' sword making skills are outstanding!¡± I exclaimed. ¡°Haha, yeah we all know that¡±, Rondellen laughed, ¡°but just don¡¯t tell it to him. It will go to his head,¡± he said with a proud smile. [Inspect Being]
Dead Raidon, level 20, 10 sandwiches Loot All You have received 3 Raidon sandwiches
I was about to go on into the boss room when Rondellen stopped me and said, ¡°I think we should pause here and eat some rations. It¡¯s a good time for you to go through all your notifications and level ups. If I counted correctly, you should have level 15 coming up as a notification.¡± He said as he handed out rations in the form of dried meat. We all drank cool Canfee. Time to go through my notifications.
Congratulations, your skill [Telekinesis] has reached level three. Want to expand the range from 5 meters to 10 meters or raise the strength of the skill? Expanding range is self explanatory. Raising the strength will help you to lift heavier items.
Range.
Range level 2
Next notification.
Congratulations, your skill [Inspect Being] has reached level four.
I was just about to pull up my status and get that mana up when I heard Rondellen say, ¡°Green Raven, don¡¯t put any points in stats just yet. You will understand why, when you reach level 15.¡± ¡°Thanks for the tips, Rondellen¡± I said and read the next notification instead.
*Congratulations you have reached level 15. You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.* *Congratulations you have received a phantom skill. [Copy] level 1 costs 50 mana to activate each time and 10 mana to use each skill you have copied. At level 1 you can copy 1 skill.* *Congratulations you have unlocked [Settings].* *Congratulations you have the opportunity to swap [Dexterity] for [Wisdom] so when adding points into wisdom it works the same way as for dexterity, i.e. 1 point to wisdom will now give you 10 points of mana. NOTE: You need to reset all your points for that to work. And you will sleep for 8 hours afterwards.*
¡°Wow guys, I got my new skill now. It¡¯s a phantom skill called [Copy], what is a phantom skill?¡± I said with a question in my voice. Rondellen and Eonde both looked at each other and then at me and then back to each other. Eonde spoke first, ¡°I haven¡¯t the faintest idea what a phantom skill is. Do you know, Rondellen?¡± ¡°If my memory serves me right, there was an offworlder a very long time ago, like when I was still not wet behind my ears, that got a phantom skill. The only thing I can say about it is that it¡¯s what comes after legendary skills. Does it say what it does, Green Raven?¡± I read what the description of the skill had said to them and said, ¡°I think I can copy others skills like if I see you guys use a skill, then I can copy it, but I don¡¯t know how. Another question, it says I can swap my dexterity for my wisdom. Is that why you told me to hold off adding anything to mana? I also need to reset all my points and that I¡¯ll sleep for 8 hours?¡± ¡°Well first thing is first, yes swap your dexterity for your wisdom and reset your skill points. Finding out how your new skill works and how you best use it can come later. I have saved a surprise for you for this occasion,¡± Rondellen said and dropped. *Three Wood Wolf sleeping bags* ¡°These are for you. Rufus made them for you and it is his gift to you. I think now is a good time to try it out. We will stay here until you are ready to move on.¡± I was speechless. I took the offered sleeping bags and put two in my [Inventory] and spread out the third one and sat down on it with a thud. ¡°I don¡¯t know what to say! This is wonderful. You must thank him for me if I don¡¯t meet him again.¡± They both smiled and Eonde said ¡°yes, of course we will thank him from you.¡± I lay down and brought up my status page.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 15 Coins: 1795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 12 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 45 Available points: 10 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 45/45 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
And focused on [Reset stats].
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 15 Coins: 1795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 0 Dexterity 0 Endurance Vitality 0 Intelligence 0 Wisdom 0 Available points: 106 Health: 0 Stamina: 0 Mana: 0 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
Okay, so let''s put all points the way they were for Strength, Endurance, Vitality and Intelligence I thought. and then 10 points in Dexterity.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 15 Coins: 1795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 00 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 0 Available points: 67 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 0 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
And last but not least let''s put 50 points in [Wisdom]. I need to save a few points and see how it works with dexterity being changed, because looking at my status pages I couldn¡¯t figure out what had changed there.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 15 Coins: 1795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 50 Available points: 7 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 500/500 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1 Are you satisfied with your changes to your stats, Y/N?
Yes I didn¡¯t black out soon enough because the pain that hit me was out of this world. Ironic since I was in a new world, but yes, I fell into a blissful sleep. Chapter ten, Rules Revenge, part two ## Chapter ten, Rules Revenge, part two I woke up approximately 8 hours later and felt better than ever. I checked my status pages first.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 15 Coins: 1795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 10 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 50 Available points: 7 Health: 100/100 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 500/500 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
Mana 500/500 now we¡¯re talking I thought! For sure I¡¯d use [Telekinesis] on the boss that was in the next room. Apparently, the boss was called Greenby. A hulk-like creature that looks like the hulk on the upper body but has spinky human legs. It has three small arrows on each hand. You need to avoid getting hit by all three, because the first hit hurts, 2nd you get nauseous and dizzy, third, you barf for three seconds. The good thing about it from our point of view was that it was rather slow to move. ¡°Green Raven, you¡¯re awake,¡± I heard Rondellen say, ¡°rise up gently and see how it feels.¡± I did as he said, but to be honest, I felt great! I told them that and at the same time asked if we should hit the boss now? ¡°Yes, let''s hit the boss now. When we enter the room, I want to try my skill [Focused Hit], and then we can see if you can copy it.¡± ¡°That sounds like a good idea. Let me first try the skill out here and see if I get any prompt that will help me understand how I copy a skill.¡± Both Rondellen and Eonde thought that was worth trying. I focused on [Copy] Nothing happened, at all. I activated all my bars.
Health bar: 100/100 Mana bar: 500/500 Stamina bar: 100/100
At least it didn¡¯t take any mana when I tried it. ¡°That didn¡¯t do squat, but it didn¡¯t use any mana either. Let¡¯s go with your suggestion, Rondellen.¡± I said to him, while we moved from the corridor we were in and into the boss room. The room was quite large, larger than the other four we¡¯ve been in by at least half. It had a circular shape with a high ceiling. I soon located stones I probably could throw on the boss. I hadn¡¯t really tried throwing things per se, but now when I had the mana for it, why not try it, I thought. Greneby was sitting on a log next to a large stone in the other end of the room. It looked right at us and slowly rose when two things happened. Greneby was one second from rising up. He was tall, over 220 cm. Suddenly, he was up in the ceiling upside down, with a confused expression on his monster face. Until he fell face first in the hard ground, Rondellens skill was quite fun to see in a action. The second thing that happened was that a light started to blink in my vision and at the same time the word Lock in skill [Focused Hit] started to blink rapidly. So I focused on the words.
Want to lock in [Focused Hit] level 20, cost 100 mana to use, as [Copy] Y/N?
Yes
[Copy] slot 1/1 Slot 1: [Focused Hit]
¡°Yes!¡± I yelled, ¡°it worked Rondellen, I copied your skill [Focused Hit]¡±. ¡°Great lad!¡± he yelled back,¡± Now let¡¯s get this monster.¡± Greneby meanwhile had got his bearings, stood up and looked right at me. He shot one of his arrows, and I was able to narrowly dodge it. Now, it''s my turn, I thought and used [Telekinesis]. I picked up one of the round stones I had seen earlier. I tried to throw it with my mind. The first attempt was nothing to write home about. The second attempt worked better. It hit Greneby right in his chest just as he was about to launch another of his arrows. That got me thinking, maybe if I could ¡®catch¡¯ the arrow as he shot it, and with [Telekinesis], I could shoot it back at him. When he launched the next arrow, I did just that. It was harder than I thought it would be, much harder. I barely managed to catch it, and was even less successful flinging it back. You could say that I stopped it in the air and then it dropped on the ground. Well, it was a first at least. It also confused the hell out of Greneby, I could see how he didn¡¯t get how the arrow, that was one second, going straight for me, just dropped to the ground. The next arrow he shot I managed to catch, stop the momentum of it going forward, turn it around and then I dropped it. I looked at my bars, and thought I just had to try my copied skill too before I ran out of mana.
Health bar: 100/100 Mana bar: 320/500 Stamina bar: 100/100
I tried [Copy, slot 1] and focused on Greneby and where I wanted him to reappear which was upside down with his spinky legs sticking out of the large stone next to the log where we found him. That worked out better than I could¡¯ve thought. The stone did not like that half a monster ¡®tried¡¯ to come inside it, so it got chopped off at the legs.
Congratulations, you have received: 29 experience points You have defeated Greneby, a level 25 boss. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings.
Rondellen just laughed and looked with amusement at me, ¡°I have never thought of using my skill that way. It was really effective. How much did it cost to use for you?¡± I glanced at my bars again, before answering him.
Health bar: 100/100 Mana bar: 170/500 Stamina bar: 100/100
¡°It cost me 150 mana to use. Kinda expensive, but since I now rock a whopping 500 mana, I can use it a few times in a fight depending on what else I do.¡± I almost, almost, forgot to inspect the boss, [Inspect Being]
Dead, boss, Rules Revenge, level 25, 50 Gold, 3 Arrows of Judgment Loot all You have received 30 Gold, 3 Arrows of Judgment
[Inspect Item]
Arrows of Judgment, Greneby¡¯s fabled arrow that when it hits all three arrows, the first hit hurts, 2nd you get nauseous and dizzy, third, you barf for three seconds.
¡°Uhm guys, I got three of Greneby¡¯s arrows.¡± Eonde answered this time, ¡°yes, you always loot some of his arrows. Some alchemists will happily buy them from you, but other than that, well with a skill like yours, you could probably shoot them at enemies. I usually just drop them.¡± ¡°We normally stop and rest at this time, but since we did that already, my suggestion is that we go on for floor two and the first room there. What do you guys think?¡± Rondellen asked. ¡°I¡¯m all for going forward,¡± I said. Eonde just gave a thumbs up and started walking to a door that held stairs inside. The stairs were long, narrow and twisty but with relatively good steps. Soon, we found ourselves up on a platform leading into, once more, a corridor. In the end of the corridor, you guessed it, was a door leading into the first room of the second floor of the dungeon called Rules Revenge. Thinking of the name got me thinking, I need to ask the guys if they knew why it was called that. The monster in this room was called Steeko. It was a creature all made of frying pans that it throws at its enemies. He is vulnerable when he takes a pan from his body until a new one slides in place.The plan from the beginning was the same as the way we handled the KingaFants, but things had changed since then. Before Eonde had the opportunity to open the door, I stopped her. ¡°Eonde, Rondellen, can we try something different than we planned? I was thinking that I could try to do the same thing I did to the boss on the first floor and teleport him into a wall or something?¡± I asked. ¡°I have no objections,¡± answered Eonde and Rondellen just shrugged and then nodded and gave me a thumbs up. ¡°Good,¡± I said with a smile and moved past Eonde and opened the door. I stepped through. The room was quite small compared to the others, and there was barely any light. When we all three were inside, at first we didn¡¯t see Steeko anywhere. Eonde camly took out a couple of torches and lit them. She started throwing them to different spots around the room. One of them landed on top of a dark pile of something that all of a sudden started to move. ¡°Found it,¡± she said with a laugh. I stepped in front of her and activated [Copy slot 1]. My thoughts were to teleport Steeko, like I did with the floor boss of the first floor. I saw no big rocks but maybe a wall would do the same trick. At first, it looked like it would work, but when I teleported him half inside the wall, he just disappeared. Like *poof* and nothing else happened. No notifications or anything. ¡°What the fuck!¡± I swore and looked around the room, ¡°Where did he go? Okay, so my Imba move maybe wasn¡¯t that all great?¡± Rondellen responded first, ¡°We need to check the whole room. Could you have teleported all of him into a wall?¡± ¡°Well, I don¡¯t think so. We didn¡¯t get any notification,¡± Eonde answered. We all searched high and low, but there were no monsters anywhere. Shit, I thought, this is not good. We searched some more but soon realized that he was gone, at least from this room. It felt strange to just move on to the next room, but that¡¯s what we did. In the second room of the second floor, there were two kinds of monsters. First, Wingnuts. It was a miniature head on four legs with a gigantic mouth that eats all in its path. They attack in a pack of 20-25 at the same time and descend from the ceiling. Nothing graceful in any way. They just drop down and land on the floor when they feel enemies in the vicinity. The other monster this room contains was a Feathercrax, and if I understood Rondellen correctly, it seems to be like a Leopard with an eagle''s head that can fly and attacks by throwing feathers. The feathers fly like arrows and damage its target on impact. We entered the room carefully because the Wingnuts could drop from the ceiling at any moment. When we all had come into the room, we heard the doors from where we came close and lock. ¡°Huh, that was new,¡± was all I managed to hear until a frying pan hit me square in the head.
Damage taken: 45 HP
A quick glance at my bars:
Health bar: 55/100 Mana bar: 350/500 Stamina bar: 60/100
Time to put some more points into vitality, I thought, before I got hit again. This time it was Wingut that had decided to start nibbling on my foot.
Damage taken: 30 HP
I drew my sword and, with a swift move, it was one less Wingnut to worry about. ¡°Okay, guys, I need to fall back and level up for healing¡± I said with a hoarse voice, ¡°only have 25 HP left.¡± ¡°Eonde, cover Green Raven while he levels up. I¡¯ll take care of the mobs for now.¡± Rondellen said and pulled out another crossbow. As the situation looked now, it had not been so bad in any of the other rooms, now we felt that all of a sudden it was serious. ### Rondellen ### While Green Raven fell back, I cursed my stupidity. When the other rooms had gone so well to solve, I had forgotten that he was a beginner and that this was his first dungeon. It was a cardinal rule to never allow a noob to take point or put them in danger. Now, I have done that twice. Thank the gods that he had saved a level up each time.
Damage taken: 45 HP
Okay, no time to focus on what I should have done better. I need to take care of this. Afterwords, we need to figure out what the fuck happened with his [Copy slot 1] skill. Now, all of a sudden, we have three different mobs to fight, I thought while I activated [Broom''s helper] a skill that worked really well with sweeping away mobs like the Wingnuts. While I concentrated on killing off the ¡®nuts, I saw that also Eonde had mentally beaten herself and was in the process of dodging a frying pan that came right for her. She then slid in and hit Steeko before he got the chance to get invulnerable again. I saw that Green Raven was full in the process to level up. When Steeko had thrown his last frying pan, at least for today, it was time to focus on the last enemy still standing, or in his case flying, the Feathercrax. It wasn¡¯t really a hard monster to kill, it just needed to get a few crossbow bolts in it.
Congratulations, you have received: 172 experience points You have defeated 20 level 15 Wingnuts, 1 level 24 Steeko and 1 level 20 Feathercrax. Experience earned is reduced due to being in a group.
At the same time as I started in on the Feathercrax, I saw a shimmering light around Green Raven, and soon thereafter he seemed to be adding some points in his stats. By the time the notification came, all the monsters were dead, he was done. ### Green Raven ###
Congratulations you have reached level 16. You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
I felt once more how the world all of a sudden came back in color and it didn¡¯t hurt anymore. I activated my status bars once again, apparently they disappeared when leveling up, maybe something I could fix by going through settings, but now was nor the time or the place for it.
Health bar: 100/100 Mana bar: 500/500 Stamina bar: 100/100
But I thought I¡¯d try something new.
Points available: 12 points
I had been running with 10 in vitality for so long now. I didn''t remember if it hurt to add to it, but thought that 2 points might be worth a bit of pain.
Add 2 points in vitality
Normally, this interface always came with a Y/N-question before doing anything, but this seemed to be some kind of shortcut. Straight away, I was in a world of pain, and as always as soon as it began, it was over. It kinda worked. I had forgotten when I only increased my health in this case to 120 health points, it was not replenished until I leveled up or took a health potion. Since I haven''t tried any potions yet, I thought I¡¯d wait for when I really needed one or until I got the opportunity to speak to Rondellen or Eonde about it. When I looked up, I realized that the fight was over. I saw the notification that we got as well. It seemed that some notifications you couldn¡¯t choose when you checked them, they just appeared. I was grateful that my level-up notifications were not among them. If the blinking in the right hand corner of my view, then I had at least one more level to go. ¡°Okay, that did not go as planned,¡± Rondellen said and sighed, ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, Green Raven. Everything went so well, I forgot that this is your first dungeon. I wonder what the fuck happened with your skill [Copy slot 1] because I have never seen a Steeko in this room before.¡± Eonde chipped in too and said, ¡°I¡¯m also sorry, Green Raven, same as Rondellen is saying, everything went so smoothly. I forgot that dungeons can be dangerous for noobs even if this one is considered a beginners dungeon. I¡¯ve been thinking about what went wrong with the skill. Can it be that when you use a copied skill that the magic that controls it changes in some ways? Or what do you say, Rondellen, since it¡¯s your skill, have you noticed any problems when using it?¡± ¡°Yes, you might be onto something here, Eonde,¡± Rondellen said. ¡°I have never used the skill that much since it¡¯s such an expensive skill to use for me. I usually don¡¯t bother with it.¡± ¡°No need to apologize,¡± I said with a tired smile, ¡°I should have known better. It seems that you are right, or I don¡¯t know for sure, because I only used [Copy slot 1] twice, but it wouldn¡¯t be strange if magic misbehaves when the skill is copied, or if the power of the skill somehow changes when it¡¯s copied. Now I must admit that I¡¯m quite beaten. Is it possible to camp here and continue tomorrow?¡± They both agreed that it was a good idea to camp now and start fresh in the morning. It was with mixed feelings that I went to bed. I mean I was tired as a galley slave after crossing the Atlantic, but at the same time, I was really looking forward to the third room. Apparently, it was nothing like the others. Chapter eleven, Rules Revenge part three, the end of a dungeon and the start of what? Chapter eleven, Rules Revenge part three, the end of a dungeon and the start of what? I awoke early next morning, or rather I awoke and I think it was morning. It was kind of hard to tell in a dark dungeon, but soon enough Rondellen and Eonde were up as well. We had a quick cold breakfast consisting of some more rations. We swallowed it down with some Canfee. The Canfee was really this trip''s saving grace. We had been in this dungeon for a couple of days now, and we all had the skins containing the Canfee in our [Inventory]. It still tasted like it did when it was fresh, and it energized us. After breakfast, at last, it was time for the third room. When we had started talking about the dungeon, it was this room, the third on the second floor that made me the most excited to experience. The reason was because here the room was nothing like the others. Instead of yet another cave-like room, this one felt like it was more or less out in the open even if it still was in a dungeon. The ceiling was high above and made it feel like the sky. You could almost feel the rays of the sun touching your skin. There were trees and grass. The most stunning difference from the other rooms was the house they told me about. And boy were they right. There was a house at the end of the dungeon room, or maybe more like a cottage made of wood, with a small porch out front. In front of the porch stood 2 Brawlers dressed like, well the closest I could think of was how Napoleon''s soldiers dressed back on earth, with white trousers and blue jackets and pompoms on their heads. They looked so cute that I almost started laughing if it wasn¡¯t for the fact that they were here to kill us. The way it worked was that you walked towards the house, and when you reached it, a third Brawler came out. Opening the door from the inside and stepping out, behind the Brawler was a KingaFant that had the air of royalty about itself. You then followed the KingaFant into the cottage and mayhem ensued. Both Rondellen and Eonde had tried different tactics when doing this room in the past. When I asked them if they had tried talking with the KingaFant, they just looked at me as if I was deranged. Talking to monsters? No, that was not something you did. You killed them, the faster the better. However, when I laid my plan out for them, they agreed to let me try it my way. They said that if it didn¡¯t work, I should move on back and let them take care of the room their way. We walked closer to the cottage and you could see the two red, small creatures dressed up. Even if they cleaned up well, the clothes couldn¡¯t hide the smell. Same as when we fought them on the first floor, it wasn¡¯t the sight of them that made you gag, it was the smell coming from them. Even if they were only two, you could feel it ways away. When we were maybe 25 meters from them, one of them turned and knocked on the door to the cottage. As expected, a few seconds later, the door opened and a third Brawler, similarly dressed, walked out followed by a KingaFant. The KingaFant flowed in the air more than flew but still at waist height and also this one with an air of royalty. This was the moment for me. I took a step forward, and with a mental leap of faith, went down on one knee and said ¡°These three humble servants of the gods want to have safe passage and an audience with the king.¡± There was silence of the utmost kind. Still on my knee. After two minutes of time had passed without any response from the KingaFant, there were louder and louder whispers from Eonde and Rondellen that I should get up and get back so they could finish this. All of a sudden, the KingaFant bowed deeply and then said with a voice or accent that reminded me of the old movies my mother used to see together with my father before the accident. ¡°We accept these three humble servants of the gods and grant safe passage and an audience with our King, King Lars the Almighty. Follow me into my little vacation home. I have a portal there that will take us to Fantsiland.¡± Both Eonde and Rondellen started to protest against going anywhere with a KingaFant, at least not through a portal! Here is where we disagreed. I turned around and faced them and said, ¡°I will follow the KingaFant and see what they have to say. I know we are gearing up for a war with Maurade, so I think that it couldn''t hurt to have more allies.¡± All that was said with a low whisper. I turned to the KingaFant and said, ¡°Lead the way. It will only be me that accompanies you to your kingdom, my fellow companions have fallen ill.¡± I don¡¯t know what got into me, but it worked. The KingaFant just nodded, turned and with a motion with her/his hand told me to follow. The two Brawlers got back to their posts, and the third one followed after me. Inside the little cottage there was a small kitchen, a fireplace and a door that was open and led to a bedroom. I wondered where the portal could be, not that I¡¯d seen one or gone through one before. As a gamer, I had done it plenty of times, and knew how they worked but not as Green Raven. That got me thinking, I had been in this game or rather I¡¯d been on PAERD now for what felt like a week or maybe a few more days. Everything had gone so fast, spawning in the woods, fighting with the Goblins, the Wood Wolfs, meeting Rondellen, going to Ostvik and so on. Not once had I stopped and just thought about everything that had happened, how my mother was, if I¡¯d meet up with my mates from earth in what, for them, was a game. Now was not the time for it either. During the short time I had stopped and started to think about everything, the KingaFant had gone through the kitchen, past the fireplace and the door to the bedroom and down a corridor that led to another door that was closed. I sped up my pace and was soon just behind the KingaFant. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, but what should I call you? I am Green Raven myself.¡± It half turned and said, ¡°You can call me Olof. I¡¯m one of the counselors to the King.¡± ¡°Okay Olof, where is this portal you told me about?¡± ¡°It¡¯s just outside, behind my cottage, just through this door,¡± he said as he opened the door and yes there was the portal. It was a blue shimmering monstrosity. I¡¯d never seen anything like it, this was nothing how the portals looked in all the games I¡¯d played. This more looked like it was held together with duct tape. ¡°It¡¯s magnificent, don¡¯t you think? I just had it installed the other week. Before, I had to travel for months just to get here.¡± ¡°Uhm, yes, it¡¯s something. That is very true.¡± I said with a badly hidden smile. I was more worried that it would be safe to use. Just as I had thought. Olof stepped through it. I hesitated for a moment but got a slight push in the back from the Brawler. This propelled me to take a step right through the portal. There were none of the fancy lights or shimmering of air that I had gotten used to in the games I¡¯d played back on earth. One second I was in the dungeon Rules Revenge, second floor, room three. Next, I was in Fantsiland. I had no idea where I actually was at first, but later on, it turned out that I was in fact there. Just as Olof had told me. When we stepped through the portal and reached the other side, we came into a room made of stone, like the ones that make you think of old medieval castles. It was a large rectangular room with a high ceiling. The portal was the only thing in the door and on one of the side of the room was another door. Olof went straight for it. When he had opened the door halfway, he turned and looked at me. ¡°Follow me, I¡¯ll take you straight to King Lars.¡± Stolen from its original source, this story is not meant to be on Amazon; report any sightings. We walked silently through a long winded corridor all made of stone and without any windows. It soon opened up in a courtyard filled with green grass, bushes and a small pond where you could see some kind of fish swimming. And the sun shone quite brightly, so brightly that I had to cover my eyes until they had adjusted. When we reached the courtyard, that was also the end of the silence. You could hear laughter and¡­
Control of the body is temporarily taken over to avoid accidental injury. Stasis induced Teleportation to PAERD, location USERUS commencing¡­ Loading.. Loading. Loading.. Teleportation to USERUS concluded¡­ Removal stasis of the body Waking up Green Raven formerly known as indenture 6012349873
¡°Greetings, Green Raven,¡± a voice I vaguely remember I have heard previously. I open my eyes and was met by the white cursor and an otherwise completely black room. Yes, I¡¯ve been here before. This is where my journey to PAERD began. ¡°Is this something you will keep doing? Teleporting me whenever you feel like it?¡± I asked kind of gruffly. ¡°I can do that, but if everything goes as planned, next time we see each other is when I send you back to your own world, Earth!¡± Userus answered. ¡°The reason I called you over now is simply because now you have settled in. You¡¯ve got your bearings and got to know some people. You¡¯ve killed some monsters and used your skills somewhat successfully. Now is the time for you to start paying off your debt to me. You will once again have two choices; One, you go back to Rondellen and Eonde and fight the fight against Maurade with them and potentially put them in danger. Or two, you keep them safe and take on the fight yourself. If you chose number one, I¡¯ll teleport you back to the end of the dungeon where Rondellen and Eonde are currently located. If you chose number two, I¡¯ll give you a quest that goes toward defeating Maurade. First, we will go through your status page. I have some questions regarding your choice of getting 500 mana when you have a great Sword that I helped Anders craft for you.¡± ¡°In all my games I have played, I have always gone for magic skills, so I did the same here. But wait, you helped Anders?¡± I asked with disbelief in my voice. ¡°Yes, I¡¯m quite hands on when it comes to helping my people in the fight against evil. But in this case, it was more that I guided his hand when crafting your sword. Then your choice to go for mana makes sense. Let me help you get the most out of your skills and gear and get them aimed for mana use.¡± At that point, my bonded sword disappeared from me, I felt it quite drastically, like a part of my body suddenly just vanished. Just as I got acclimated with that loss, my armor and clothes left my body too. They were replaced by a robe similar to the kind you see magic users wear. I couldn¡¯t see it, but I guessed that it was a robe. It felt similar to the dinner robe I¡¯d worn at the dinners with Rondellen and his people. ¡°Now you look better dressed for magic use. Let¡¯s just give you a suitable weapon. Here is once again where you get to choose. Do you want a staff or a wand?¡± Userus asked me. ¡°No, this is all wrong. You help Anders craft a great sword for me to just take it away later on. What says I can¡¯t do magic and use a sword? Can you maybe change the sword to channel it for use with magic?¡± I asked, while keeping my fingers crossed. I really didn¡¯t know Userus, so it was a bit of a gamble. He had said that when it came to fighting evil, he helped his people. This was to see if he considered me one of them. Also, since I was already in debt to him, why not sink a little bit further down. ¡°You are quite brazen in your assumptions that I should help you like that. At the same time, I like it when my indentures take charge of their own destiny. A sword to use as a wand or staff is not something we ever heard about on PAERD, but I don¡¯t see anything wrong with it. Let me try something out,¡± he said and the cursor stopped blinking for a long while. I don¡¯t know for how long. Measuring time in a totally black room is not that easy. At least not for me. After some time had passed, I had gotten long past the stages; bored, irritated, angry, stressed and finally resigned. When the cursor started blinking again and I heard Userus say; ¡°Yes, it took some doing and tinkering, but I think you will be pleased with the result.¡± When he said that, I felt the reverse of what I felt when he removed the sword from me. The following notification appeared in my sight;
Sword Green Ravens Disciple bounded with you and the sword is equipped
I immediately used [Inspect Item] to see what, if anything, had changed.
The sword Green Ravens Disciple Level 60 short sword Minimum Requirement level 58 or Green Raven, bind on pick-up. Sharp as Sharp should be Rune Don¡¯t wanna be dull Rune Never gonna break apart Rune While holding this sword, all magic skills take 50% less mana. Damage: 40-80 HP 5/5 uses per year: 1 strike is all it takes. Legendary quality
Holy cow, the sword went from level 20 to 60 and the mana discount was out of this world. I couldn¡¯t really understand why ¡®1 strike is all it takes¡¯ went from 10 to five uses. Still, it was worth it. The next thing I checked was the robe, [Inventory]
Inventory Slots 05/16 Bonded items: Sword Green Ravens Disciple Robe of grandness Inventory 1 Sword, level 2, fair quality 1 Water-skin, full, fair quality 1 Canfee-skin, half-full, fair quality 2 medium health potions 1 small health potion 3 Wood Wolf sleeping bags
Let¡¯s see what the robe could do, [Inspect Item]
Robe of grandness No level required Color blue Don¡¯t wanna be seen Rune I wanna be clean Rune Never need mending Rune Armor at the same level as Light armor full body at your level
Not bad at all. The only thing missing was some cover for my head, and I needed to know what the runes ment. That was my question to Userus, and he responded with; ¡°The robe has runes embroidered on to make it self-cleaning, self-mending and if you need to be, invisible. Just stand in shadow and only someone over level 100 can sense you but not pinpoint your location. Under level 100, you will not be sensed either. Yes, you need a hat that matches your robe. I will figure something out. Please hold on.¡± The cursor once more went still. And the waiting game started again. The robe was really something, and those runes must be really rare. Wonder if I could learn to make runes myself? Some time later, I don¡¯t know how long, the cursor started blinking again. ¡°I have tinkered some moreI I think you will be pleased with the hat I came up with.¡± Userus said. I felt something change on the top side and my head felt different, not heavier, just different. I was just about to check my new hat out when; ¡°With your gear sorted, time for the quest. I will send someone to help you. You will feel a bit of pressure on your brain, but probably no pain.¡± Userus almost mumbled the last couple of words. Before I had the chance to ask what was going on, I felt a terrible pressure on my head and pain. The pain was like what you felt when adding strength or dexterity stats. Unlike the short burst of pain you felt then, this held on for at least a minute. When it started to fade away, something had changed inside of me. Hello, I¡¯m Yoerus your companion/helper/assistant. ¡°WTF! What is happening?¡± I screamed out loud. This was some scary shit. ¡°Green Raven, meet Yoerus. He lives in your brain now and will help you with whatever you need. He is like the smart digital assistant should be on earth. He is me but part of you now. He knows what I know, so now you can ask any type of questions without me having to teleport you here to answer your questions. You don¡¯t have to speak out loud to him. Just think what you want to ask or tell him and he will ¡®hear¡¯ it. And before you ask, no he can¡¯t read your thoughts. He only ¡®hears¡¯ what you ¡®say¡¯ to him. Other Offworlders have had Yoerus in their brains as well, but it has been a while now. Like a few hundred years. I understand that it will take a while to get used to, so now in the beginning, Yoerus will not speak to you unless spoken to.¡± Userus told me in a serious voice. Now onto your first quest. Chapter twelve, Question time about a quest. Chapter twelve, Question time about a quest. ¡°This first quest is mandatory. You have no choice or say in the matter. This one you will do. After you finish this quest, we will know what level you¡¯re on and what capabilities you have. There will come more and more quests, but it will be up to you to choose which ones you take on. The quest is called ¡®Madness at every turn¡¯. You will be teleported to the starting point after this conversation. If you succeed with the quest, you will get experience points and a new skill or a choice of a level up of an existing skill. If you don¡¯t have any questions, I¡¯ll transfer you now.¡± ¡°Yes I have a question,¡± I said ¡°what should I be expecting on this quest? The name only makes me both curious and a bit scared.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a win or lose quest. If you succeed, you will have the ability to do great things. If not, you will get teleported back to Rondellen and Eonde.¡± Userus said with austerity in his voice. ¡°Hey about that. You said in the beginning of my coming here that I had a choice of going back. Feels like there never was a choice, was there?¡± I asked a bit confused. ¡°Green Raven, you have the possibility to achieve greatness, but not if you always choose the safe way. So no, there were not really any choices here. So go for it and don¡¯t disappoint me.¡±
Control of the body is temporarily taken over to avoid accidental injury. Stasis induced Teleportation to PAERD, location HIDDEN commencing¡­ Loading.. Loading. Loading.. Teleportation to HIDDEN concluded¡­ Removal stasis of the body Waking up Green Raven formerly known as indenture 6012349873
I woke up with a jolt, sat straight up, and looked around. I was once again in a forest. It was a lush green place that seemed similar to the one I woke up in the first time I got to PAERD. The sun was up, and I couldn¡¯t spot any clouds at all. Apparently, I was now about to do a quest. Wait, there was something more that happened when I was with or at Userus. I got an assistant. Time to figure out how he, she, it could help me. So I focused on ¡®Yoerus¡¯, ¡°Hey, you there?¡± ¡°I am here young, Green Raven, how can I be of assistance?¡± ¡°For starters, where are we? What is this quest all about? How shall we do it? And are you a he, she or it?¡± ¡°I am an It, but if it¡¯s easier for you, you can call me he or she. It doesn¡¯t bother me. The answers of your other questions are easy. We are on PAERD close to the Gargantious Mountains, where we will find the starting point of the quest ¡®Madness at every turn¡¯. The purpose of the quest is to find out if you have what it takes. How shall we do it? You shall do it with my help.¡± ¡°Okay, thank you for that. Point me in the right direction and let us be off.¡± All of a sudden a small map appeared in my field of vision and it was just like a GPS. It was a blinking cursor that was me, and it showed where to go. I started to follow the directions and walked for maybe ten minutes in a quite dense forest that opened up and became more of a grassland. It started to feel more ominous. All of a sudden, ¡°Green Raven, look out! 3 level 15 Binos are coming right for you. You have 2 minutes until they reach you. Have you fought them before?¡± ¡°No, never even heard of them.¡± ¡°Okay, Binos are really great to kill. They drop something we call binoculars that you can use to see farther than your eyes. It¡¯s their heads that drop after you kill them. They only attack during days when the sun is shining because their attack is based on sunlight that amplifies through their eyes. The attack looks like lasers, I think one offworlder from earth said. At level 15, one beam takes 26-30 damage a second the laser hits you. 30 seconds out, get ready!¡± In the high grass, I now started to see something that really looked like binoculars on legs. They were almost in the same shade as the grass they were moving through making them hard to spot. ¡°Uhm, Yoerus, what is the best way of attacking them? You know my skills and what I can and can¡¯t do, right?¡± ¡°Yes, I know your stats page like the back of my hand. I know that you have saved a level-up. I know that even if your skills are legendary or better. They aren¡¯t that good for fighting, at least not at the low level you have them at. So I say that you meet them head on for now. Dodge the lasers and use that sword of yours to take them out.¡± The first of the Binos had now almost reached me when it stopped and turned its head towards the sun. I saw how the head went from green to red. Oh oh, time to move. I dodged to the right and pulled the sword into my hand at the same time from [Inventory] and rushed the monster in two fast leaps and slashed right at the legs. The creature fired off a laser beam at the same time that narrowly missed me. Instead, it went straight up in the air. Before it had time to change the direction of the beam, I forced my sword right between his binocular eyes, ending his life. In the time it had taken me to kill the first one, two other Binos were in striking distance to me. Both of them fired lasers toward me. I didn¡¯t see it. I only heard Yoerus; ¡°Duck!¡± So I dropped flat on my belly, and the lasers zipped past me just where my body had been mere hundreds of a second before. ¡°Thanks!¡± I thought to Yoerus. I turned to my back and the Binos were just about to fire off another salvo when I got an idea. On the grass in front of me lay some broken sticks. If I only could get them to hit the Binos and distract them long enough for me to get up again and attack them. I used [Telekinesis] and got one stick then another one to hit each of the Binos. At the same time, I got up on two feet again. I bum rushed straight at them hitting the first one with the handle of my sword, getting him to tumble to the ground. Then I turned and sliced off the other Binos head. Just in time, I turned back to the first one whose head started to become red and finished him off. After they were both still, I got the notification.
Congratulations you have received 60 points for killing 3 level 15 Binos.
¡°A question, Yoerus. Do I always have to use [Inspect Being] to be able to loot them? There must be a better way of doing it?¡± The tale has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°No need to inspect them, just loot them. Be warned, if they carry lots of junk and you use ¡®Loot All¡¯, your [Inventory] might be overflowing. You will need to drop items before you close down the page.¡± ¡°Aha well, I know what to do if that happens.¡± I answered. [Loot All]
You have received 30 gold, 3 binoculars and 2 Bino cores
¡°Huh, what are Bino cores?¡± I asked Yoerus. ¡°I don¡¯t know.¡± ¡°You don¡¯t know? I thought you knew everything that Userus knew? You''re saying that he doesn¡¯t know either what it is? let see if [Inspect Item] gives us a clue.¡±
Bino Core A core from the monster Bino
¡°Okay that did not help one bit. Let me rephrase the question, what is a core?¡± ¡°A core is a core.¡± ¡°Thanks for nothing. Just show me the way forward on your fancy map.¡± So he doesn¡¯t know or doesn''t want to tell me. I think I¡¯ll hold on to them for now. They might prove useful. The journey continued through a steppe filled with knee-high green grass and the occasional sound from what probably was birds, even if I hadn''t seen any yet. The ¡®GPS¡¯ or interactive map I followed, pointed right through the steppe and beyond into a more barren land that reminded me of the desert outside Ostvik. That made me think, ¡°Yoerus?¡± ¡°Yes, Green Raven?¡± ¡°Is there any way to zoom out the map and show me where Ostvik is compared to where we are now?¡± I pondered. ¡°Yes, and no. Usually there is a way, but it¡¯s blocked until you finish the quest.¡± ¡°I see.¡± I said and was quiet while I pondered some more, ¡°so you are saying that when I¡¯m doing a quest, I¡¯m locked in that location until I¡¯ve done the quest?¡± ¡°That is correct, and although I¡¯d wanted to speak more of this fascinating subject,¡± he said with a great deal of irony in his voice. ¡°I must alert you that there is a hoard of 40 TeraLizzard¡¯s coming our way. I presume that you haven¡¯t fought them either before. Hang on while I download the information on them in your brain.¡± I was like, what?! Download information? And then it just came to me. Pictures and information just sped past my vision. After that, I knew everything there was to know about TerraLizzard¡¯s and how to best defeat them with the ¡®tools¡¯ I had available. In short, it was a Snake shaped lizard that spat a blueish chemical slime that slows you down for 20 seconds if it hits you or if you step in it. It also burns you for the time you¡¯re in the slime. The ones that were going to attack me were level 23. I just knew that too. The damage they took was 40 dmg/second. With my low HP, I better avoid the slime at all costs. Note to self, gotta get that HP up. A note was not enough. I needed a big ass sign in capital letters that was blinking in time with Darudes hit song ¡®Sandstorm¡¯. That sign should be right where I couldn¡¯t miss seeing it. I¡¯m jesting of course, but things have been very hectic. Time has gone past so fast the last couple of days since I leveled up to 15. Now I was level 16, but I knew that I had level-up notifications for at least two more levels. With 5 points per level, I had the ability to boost my vitality quite a bit. But with 40 level 23 TerraLizzard¡¯s coming any second, now was not the time for it. I needed to survive this and then do some stats admin. ¡°Hello, Green Raven, hello!?! Not to scare you, but the hoard is just a minute away now. I hope you have a plan, or you will be a smorgasbord for the TerraLizzards very soon.¡± ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°Yes, what?¡± ¡°Yes Yoerus, I have a plan. Now let me be and let me concentrate. Tell you what, just be quiet until I call for you again.¡± I said exasperated. I was getting annoyed with another voice in my head speaking to me. Sure, I¡¯d probably get used to him, uh it, but right now I was a long way from getting there. I know I sound like a spoiled brat. Most people would sacrifice his left arm to get a ¡®Smart AI¡¯ that helped with things. Even if I played games online, had a cellphone, and did most of my business online, I liked it old school. An old phone connected to a landline, a paper-note with the grocery-list. Getting a second voice in my brain was shocking to say the least. But yes I¡¯d do my damnedest to acclimate as soon as possible. I just wasn¡¯t there yet. This is what I was thinking when I should have made up a plan for the coming attack. When the first chemically blueish slime hit me, It really jolted me back to reality, or at least back to life on PAERD.
Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40 Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40 Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40 Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40
Okay, damn, fuuuuck! What to do?! At least my new robe is ass kicking! Even if I didn¡¯t take damage, it felt weird to see the robe bubble from the acid like slime. When it hit me on my left arm, it slowed down my movements. I frantically looked around the area nearby to see if I missed something. There was only dead grass and bushes and sand and small stones. Hang on, could I do something with [Telekinesis] and the small stones?
Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40 Damage taken: 40 Damage negated from armor: 40 Damage taken: 40
Now my right arm was moving more slowly. I needed to do something right this instant! I focused on [Telekinesis] and the gravel-like small stones. I flung them and a bit of sand right into the charging TerraLizzards. They did not like that one bit, but that was it. It annoyed them, nothing else from what I could see. Wait a minute, I¡¯m so stupid. I got my sword in my hand and tried [Telekinesis] again with the gravel and the sand. Now, it was more than a mere annoyance. With the cheaper skill thanks to the sword, I was able to channel the skill through the sword and blasted them with gravel and sand. A quick look at my mana bar showed that just as the last Lizzard fell, my mana bottomed out.
Congratulations you have received 1440 points for killing 40 level 23 TerraLizzard¡¯s.
¡°Okay, you can speak now, Yoerus. Can you scan the area? After I have looted these monsters, I¡¯m going to do some serious admin work on my stats. That felt way too close. It was just thanks to my asskicking robe that I didn¡¯t kick the bucket there. I don¡¯t want to get attacked when I¡¯m doing this.¡± ¡°Normally on a quest this is something I will not agree is a good idea. In your case, I say it¡¯s a must to get your vitality up and as you say do some stats admin work. Checking the area¡­¡± He was quiet for approximately 30 seconds. ¡°Area is safe for 9 hours at least. Go for admin work.¡± ¡°Thank you!¡± [Loot All]
18 TerraLizzard cores
Wtf! I didn¡¯t ask Yoerus or even inspect them. I just left the cores in my [Inventory]. I mean not even a gold coin. It was just these damn cores that I couldn¡¯t find out anything about. Not yet at least, but there will come a time when I would find out how to use them or what they were for. I focused on a level up notification.
Congratulation you have reached level 17 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
My first priority now is get my HP up, and then maybe mana? The way my sword channeled the skill, I wonder if strength makes it stronger. Or was intelligence? Logically thinking, it should be the latter. Stamina hasn''t been an issue since I got it to 70. Maybe even it out to a hundred later down the road? But first HP.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 17 Coins: 1855 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 12 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 50 Available points: 17 Health: 120/120 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 500/500 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
17 points to play with. 8 in vitality gets my HP up to 200. Is that enough? 9 points left. Those 1400 points I got for killing off the last monster probably will give me a few more levels. I killed 40 level 23 monsters off with 500 mana. Let''s put all 17 points in vitality. I focused on vitality and put all 17 points in. Just like last time, there was no warning, there was intense pain and black out. Chapter thirteen, Levels, levels for day鈥檚 ## Chapter thirteen, Levels, levels for day¡¯s I woke up with a jolt, as usual. The first thing I asked Yoerus was how long I had left on the safety timer and if there were any monsters nearby. ¡°You have 2 hours left on the timer. I don¡¯t see any monsters in the vicinity. Do you want me to check again? If I¡¯m right, you have some more level ups to go.¡± ¡°Yes, please do that.¡± I answered as a sound like small coins dropping to the floor was heard.
You have a money transfer for 10000 gold from Ragnhild, with message ¡®Money for Canfee proceedings, accept Y/N
What?! That came as a total surprise. To be honest I¡¯d forgotten that the production of Canfee had been ongoing while I was doing the dungeon and everything else. I focused on yes.
10000 gold were transferred to you from Ragnhild.
Not bad, not bad at all. Looks like money will not be an issue for the foreseeable future. While doing that, I heard Yoerus in the background saying. ¡°If you follow the signs to the marker on the map, it¡¯s an hour walk. It will be in tough terrain. There will be a place for you where you will be safe for the next 24 hours.¡± ¡°Lead the way,¡± I said, and as the signs showed up on the map, I started the trek for safety. 24 hours was probably enough for me to level up and do all the admin work. Maybe I will even be able to ask some questions of Yoerus to shed some enlightenment on the cores I somehow have started to gather. Damn, he wasn¡¯t kidding. It was tough terrain. We soon left the grasslands behind us and started the climb up a small mountain. In the beginning, there was a game trail we followed, but after half an hour, that turned into rocks and dead shrubbery. It was quite hard to pass. It was at this point I remembered that I was going to buy survival gear back in Ostvik. When I asked Rondellen about it as we were going for the dungeon, he merely laughed and said that he had everything we would need. Problem was that right now, I was alone. At least I had sleeping bags. And Canfee, but no food. Well, if I must have a supersmart AI in my brain, let''s take advantage of it. ¡°Hey Yoerus! Can you help here? I just realized that I¡¯m out in nowhere and other than half a skin of Canfee and a waterskin, I have no provisions. Haven¡¯t had time to get much more.¡± ¡°This is not a problem.¡± ¡°Uh, yes. Maybe not yet, but soon it will be a problem for me.¡± ¡°This is not a problem.¡± I tried asking in a couple of different ways, but the responses were almost the same each time. I stopped and concentrated to get where I needed to go instead because now the trek was really gnarly. Then when I thought I¡¯d regret going along with Yoerus. The path opened up and in the distance I saw buildings and smoke coming from chimneys. ¡°Where are we or rather what is this place called? ¡°This small village is named Raeen. Here you will find the inn Inny-McInnface. There you will have both food, a bath, and a safe place to level up.¡± ¡°So when you said that food was not a problem, you were not kidding. I will trust you on these things in the future.¡± I said humbly. ¡°Green Raven, as USERUS I will set my people first in every case. But as Yoerus, I will always put you first. Tell Hilda at the inn, Inny-McInnface, that Sven sent you, and you will get the best room at a decent price.¡± ¡°Thank you!¡± I picked up the pace. Now that there was more of a path to walk on, and I felt that the hunger I had tried to suppress came back in full force. A few minutes later I walked into Raeen. It was a smaller village than Ostvik, probably only one or two inns, small stores, and houses for the residents. And unlike the lush greenery and clean streets of Ostvik, this was a couple of levels down, it was not rundown but felt more rugged and worn. The first inn I spotted was not the one I was looking for, so I continued down the street. Then on the right hand side of the street was a big ass sign that said ¡®Inny-McInnface¡¯. The sign had a white background and all the letters were in green except ¡®Mc¡¯. Those letters were in yellow. Even if I was half blind, which I¡¯m not, I¡¯d find this place in a whiteout. If you found the sign to be outlandish, it had nothing on the color of the inn. It was bright purple with lots of round blackcolored spots. I did enjoy seeing the sign and the inn. It was the only house in the village that had any color other than gray and worn. With a small smile on my face, I opened the door and entered McInnface. I was met by a cacophony of sounds. There was someone playing on something, probably an instrument of sorts. There were people singing, drinking. Drinking what? I¡¯d assume alcohol of some sort. At least back home, no one sang that false without a couple of beers inside the west. This is when I remembered Yoerus.¡°Hey, could you tell me what people are drinking?¡± ¡°Boork, of course. Why?¡± ¡°What is boork?¡± I asked and got a long, really long explanation. Halfway in, my ears nearly bled. It was not that interesting. In essence, it was beer as I could have guessed. Asking him about it was all my way of trying to connect to Yoerus and become more used to the second voice in my head. I know now that we will not bond over boork that¡¯s for sure. During his tirade or I¡¯m sorry, explanation of what boork was, I made my way through all singing drunk people to the bar. There a middle-aged lady was pouring beer after beer, I mean boork after boork. ¡°Hey, I¡¯m Green Raven. Sven said I should come here since you have the best food and the softest beds. You are Hilda, I presume?¡± ¡°Green Raven, yes, you are expected. Let me just finish pouring the boork, and I¡¯ll be right with you.¡± Hilda said with a smile. She poured a couple of more mugs and then came back to where I was standing. ¡°So you need a room, a bath, a warm stew and a pitcher of boork?¡± She asked with a tired smile. ¡°Yes, except do you have anything other than boork? Something not with alcohol in it?¡± I had been to a few parties back on earth and on my fathers wake too, I tasted beer. I knew that being in the middle of a quest, beer, or boork in this case, was not the way for me to go. ¡°Yes, we have a brand new thing coming out from Ostvik. It¡¯s called Canfee. Apparently it¡¯s served hot but someone figured out that you could drink it cold. So one Ice Canfee coming right up! You will love this stuff. It¡¯s a bit more expensive than boork, but you will love it, I¡¯m sure.¡± The expression on my face was probably quite fun to watch because Hilda just smiled nervously and said she would be back with my order and keys for the room. She was back just a few minutes later with a steaming bowl of ¡®something, some meat¡¯ stew and a large pitcher of ice cold Canfee. The stew smelled amazing. I¡¯m not sure iit was that good or if it was my hunger. I hadn¡¯t eaten anything since those rations for breakfast before we tackled the third room of the second floor in the dungeon. I was famished, and if the smell was nice the taste was even better. Hilda didn¡¯t say anything as she swooped by and exchanged my empty bowl for a new one, as full as the first one with the same awesome stew. Washing it down with Ice cold Canfee was perfect. Full and energized from food and Canfee, I started to look around and take in my surroundings. The music was still going, but there was no singing anymore. The whole room was much more quiet like they were waiting for something to happen. Hilda came out from the back room or kitchen and walked up right to me and said, If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. ¡°So you liked the food. What did you think about the Ice cold Canfee?¡± ¡°Yes, both the food and the drinks were good,¡± I said. I had already decided that I wouldn¡¯t mention that I was the Canfee creator. Nothing good could come from that. ¡°I have the feeling people here are waiting for something to happen? It¡¯s not at all that noisey now as it was when I arrived.¡± ¡°They are waiting to see if the evening alarm will go off or not.¡± Hilda said offhandedly while she was picking up my empty bowl and pitcher. ¡°What evening alarm?¡± I asked. ¡°Ah, yes you¡¯re new here. This town is plagued with monsters that attack some nights. In the last couple of weeks, there have been several attacks from TerraLizzards. Around this time at night is when they strike, so we are waiting for that. If the alarm hasn''t sounded when the song is over, you will see that this place will pick up its pace again. That means that there will not be an attack tonight.¡± Hilda answered and turned. When she was about to leave, I hurried and asked. ¡°I heard that there might be a bathhouse here? Do you know if it¡¯s still open?¡± ¡°Yes, of course, Green Raven. If you just wait at the bar, I will show you the way.¡± I followed her to the bar, and she went into the kitchen or back room with the empty dishes. A few minutes later, she was back and gestured to a door at the end of the room that I almost had missed seeing before. It wasn¡¯t disguised. It was made to look part of the wall, and was probably more out of design than anything else. I went after her through the door. Right away, we were in an open room, and you could feel the heat. It smelled fresh of herbs and the like. ¡°That¡¯s nice. The bathhouse is next door.¡± I said. ¡°Yes, it''s in the same house. There is, of course, another entrance as well, but for the guests of the inn we have that door too. Take towels and what you like and go through that corridor,¡± she pointed to a desk with towels and what looked like soap. ¡°When you are done, seek me up in the inn and I¡¯ll get you a key and get you settled in one of the rooms up the stairs.¡± ¡°Thank you,¡± I said to her departing back and she waved with her hand and was gone. I took a couple of towels which were quite small and went in through the corridor past an open door. Inside the room it was a low ceiling. Aroma scented candles were burning and pots with green plants were littered along the walls. One of the pools must have been warm because steam came up from it. There was another pool that probably held cold water. I went past the cold pool and came to a stop in front of a door that stood open, the dressing room. I soon found myself undressed with a towel around me. I looked around and found something that passed as a shower here. After showering and soaking for a long time in the hot pool, I took a very fast dip in the cold pool. I toweled off and dressed. Then I went to find Hilda. She was standing as usual at the bar. When I got closer to her, she looked up and smiled. She turned around and by the time I reached her, she gave me a key for my room and said, ¡°You look refreshed. Hope you enjoyed our bathhouse. Here is your key. Your room is on the top floor, room 13.¡± ¡°Yes I did, thank you,¡± I said with a smile and went up the stairs.The top floor was on the third level. There was only one door there marked with 13. The room was as outlandish as the outside of the room. Three of the walls were black. The fourth wall that the king size bed stood against was, of course, purple. The three black walls were filled with paintings that looked like it described monsters of different kinds. There was also a window facing the backyard of the inn. It was the kind of window that you couldn¡¯t open. Not that it mattered. I was here to level up and pass out. Nothing else. So let¡¯s see what I have. I focused on my status page.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 17 Coins: 11795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 10 Endurance 7 Vitality 29 Intelligence 10 Wisdom 50 Available points: 0 Health: 290/290 Stamina: 70/70 Mana: 500/500 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 1
I had been roughly calculating even though math isn''t my strongest subject in school. I thought I had experience points to go to at least level 22 or maybe even up to 23, so I thought I would go through a few notifications before I started to add into my stats. I focused on a level up notification.
Congratulations you have reached level 18 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations you have reached level 19 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations you have reached level 20 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations since you have reached level 20 you can choose to get a new random skill or level up one of your existing skills.
Okay, time to stop and put some points into stats and think about what¡¯s on offer. I put 3 points into endurance to get my stamina up to an even 100. That leaves me with 12 points. You can never have too much mana, I thought, so 10 points in wisdom. I put the last two into intelligence since I wanted to see if that could boost the damage output I did with my sword using skills. Then, it was the choice of a new skill or leveling up existing skills. Always fun with new skills but not bad to get [Copy] up another level either. It seems like you get a new skill every other 5 levels. I got a skill at level 10 and another at 15 and now again at 20, so I¡¯d be surprised if I didn¡¯t get the same offer at level 25. Fuck it, I¡¯ll go for the level up of [Copy]. I focused on the message again.
Congratulations your skill [Copy] has reached level 2, you can now copy 2 skills, skill slot one is currently occupied.
With that I closed down my status page and the by now familiar pain ensued and then black out. I woke up some hours later, feeling quite well and refreshed. After drinking some Canfee, I brought up my stats.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 20 Coins: 11795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 12 Dexterity 10 Endurance 10 Vitality 29 Intelligence 12 Wisdom 60 Available points: 0 Health: 290/290 Stamina: 100/100 Mana: 500/500 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 2, Slot one: Focused Hit, level 20. Slot two:
Time to get the last level up notifications read as well.
Congratulations you have reached level 21 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations you have reached level 22 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
At least one more notification blinking.
Congratulations you have reached level 23 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations you have reached level 24 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
I still had one blinking, but because I have found out that it¡¯s good to be able to heal in combat by leveling up, I stopped myself here. So that''s 20 more points. Even up health to a good 300, strength to 15, intelligence to 13 and the rest of the points, I put in wisdom. I made the changes, and yes, you know it, pain and then black out. I checked my stats when I woke up.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 24 Coins: 11795 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 15 Dexterity 10 Endurance 10 Vitality 30 Intelligence 13 Wisdom 75 Available points: 0 Health: 290/300 Stamina: 100/100 Mana: 500/750 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 3 [Copy] level 2, Slot one: Focused Hit, level 20. Slot two:
I looked out of the window. The sun was starting to rise, and I saw people moving around on the streets outside the courtyard. Time for breakfast, I thought, checking out the local store and then back to the quest. Chapter fourteen, The wilderness ## Chapter fourteen, The wilderness I left my room the way I found it more or less. I headed down to the bar area which now was transformed into a breakfast room. I had a quick breakfast and told Hilda I¡¯d be back to settle my account. Then I went out looking for supplies. One of the stores along the street were called ¡®Adventures best friend¡¯. They probably had what I would need to sleep comfortably out in the wilderness. Even if it was still early in the morning, they were open or at least the door was open in a welcoming way. I entered the store and was met by a burly man on the other side of the room, where he was unpacking goods. ¡°Hi there, lad. What can I do for you?¡± He asked with an accent that reminded me of Scotland and came towards me brushing off his hands from what he was doing. The store didn¡¯t feel cramped even though it was filled with goods on shelves all over the store. I thought about it for a second and decided it was because of the high ceiling. ¡°Yes hello, I¡¯m looking for some camping gear and all the things you might need while being in the wilderness.¡± I answered. ¡°Then you have come to the right place. Let me put together some gear for you. You can browse the store in the meantime,¡± he said and turned around. With that, I started to look around. The shelves were packed with everything from shovels to axes to water-skins. I definitely wanted an ax, a sharp knife, maybe a tent and provisions, but I also wanted the shopkeeper to come with his suggestions first. I only had to wait for a couple of minutes before I heard him. Turning around, I saw he had put together a lot of stuff on a bench. ¡°This is what I would bring into the wilderness,¡± he said, ¡°here is a good axe, a knife, two canteens and a cooking pot. Is it anything else you¡¯re looking for?¡± ¡°Yes, the axe and knife I want. Can I have a belt and something to carry the knife in? And I¡¯m looking for a tent for 1-2 persons. Something to make a fire. Rations for 2 weeks and maybe a warmer jacket? Cost wise, don¡¯t go for the cheap stuff. I want good grade gear that can take a beating.¡± ¡°Let me see. Okay, I¡¯ll change some of this stuff out. Just hang on,¡± he said and went back deeper into the store. This time he was away longer. When he came back, his arms were over full with gear. ¡°Here you go. A great quality axe. Same with the knife. A tent that is both weather and windproof. 2 canteens that on the outside measure like a 1 liter container, but on the inside, it holds five liters. Rations for 2 weeks. Here is something I just got in that''s called a firemaker. With it, you can easily make a fire. I¡¯ll even throw in some flammable dried wood that makes it easier to get that fire going. I¡¯m afraid it¡¯s not the season for warmer jackets, so I don¡¯t have them now. All in all, it will set you back 630 gold.¡± I thought he tried to skin me so I said, ¡°that looks nice. Tell you what, I''ll give you 450 gold and then I will take it right now.¡± Some haggle ensued and we settled on 500 gold. I transferred the money to Leif as the shopkeeper was called, collected all my new gear and put them into my [Inventory]. I thanked the man and went back to the inn to settle my tab. I reached the Inn just after the breakfast crowd had left and before the lunch crowd arrived, so there were only a few customers there drinking boork. Hilda looked up when I came in through the door, ¡°Hi there Green Raven, did you find what you needed?¡± ¡°Yes, or almost. I have two nice new canteens that are empty. If you could fill them up with Canfee, I''d be grateful. After that, I only need to pay you for the food, bath and room and then I¡¯m off.¡± I said with a smile. 18 gold poorer and a good luck talk later, I was making my way out of Raeen. ¡°Yoerus, you have been very quiet. Are you still there?¡± ¡°Yes, Green Raven, I¡¯m always here. Is it something I can help you with?¡± ¡°Yes, can you set the route for the next monster in the quest? I¡¯m all set to continue it now.¡± With that said, my map was updated, and I started the trek down the mountain. This time it was an easier trip down to the steppe. Probably because I was stronger, well rested and knew I had a nice [Inventory] now. ¡°Yoerus, do you know what we are looking for?¡± ¡°Not yet. I¡¯ll let you know as soon as I pick something up.¡± ¡°Good,¡± I mused and kept following the directions on the map. It looked like we were getting near a new forest. It loomed omnius in the near distance, looking both old and dark. The trees stood close to each other and looked like they had been there a long time. It was the kind of forest that you rather went around than into it if you had the chance. I didn¡¯t, so I trekked forward into the forest. The air felt colder and more moist even with the sun shining. Most likely because there was no direct sunlight reaching the ground, just a kind of dusk-like light. If this had been a movie, here is where the music would have turned dark. ¡°Green Raven, now is a good time to get ready. There is something out there. Something new and dangerous. I have not encountered this creature before.¡± ¡°Thanks. That doesn¡¯t sound promising. Well, keep me updated.¡± ¡°I will.¡± I got my sword out and even loosened the strap on my knife. Not that it probably would do any good, but it felt better. That¡¯s all that mattered right now. I moved deeper into the forest. I started hearing a growling sound around the time as Yoerus said warningly, ¡°Green Raven, the creatures is moving closer. Still haven¡¯t pinpointed what kind of creature it is.¡± I said nothing, just gripped harder on my sword and tried to look all over at the same time. ¡°I have a name of the creatures now. The Taloned Goronde of doom.¡± Yoerus said and gave me some info on the creatures too. If he was correct in his assessment, they were similar to monkeys back on earth, just stoned out of their heads. Now I knew what they looked like, and I was about to find out how they fought because they were heading straight for me. The feeling I got when I saw them brought chills down my spine. They felt just like rabid dogs. ¡°Yoerus, do you have any suggestions or ideas for tackling these creatures?¡± I asked with tension in my voice. ¡°Sorry, Green Raven, I have nothing.¡± This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Okay, so think Ronald, think. What do I have around me that can attack them? I''m in a forest, for crying out loud. I am stronger now. Let''s take advantage of that. The creatures were only 30-40 meters away now. I focused on one of the smaller trees with [Telekinesis]. I got it uprooted and brought it down on the heads of the first 10 of them. That worked better than I thought it would. I was wielding a tree as a big ass club, so 10 down and a lot more to go. That was when they started to throw bananas at me. I wasn¡¯t worried until the fucking things started to explode around and on me.
Damage taken 58 HP Damage negated 40 HP Damage taken 58 HP Damage negated 40 HP
Over 100 HP would be gone in a flash if it wasn¡¯t for my kickass robe. Although, if I continued to meet tougher and tougher monsters, which I most likely will, I really need to focus on getting my vitality up, I thought for a second. They were clever bastards. They had all but surrounded me in the time I registered the hits on me. Though, they forgot that I could be holding a very big stick. Focusing on [Telekinesis] brought the tree up again, and I did like I¡¯d seen on television in the Olympics but without the figure skates, and on the ground. I did a pirouette of sorts. It was probably not that great to watch, but I can promise you that the Gorondes or bloody monkeys didn¡¯t like it one bit. I took out all the ones standing close to me with that 360 degrees sweep of the tree. They all fell like bowling pins to the ground. Then I bonked them on the head for good measure. A quick glance on my mana bar told me that 750 mana was exactly what the doctor had ordered. I had a cool 400 left. Now the herd had thinned out quite a bit. Still, I was not relaxing but more thinking I had this in the bag. I just needed to sweep up the last ones. That was when I heard a sound that made the remaining standing Gorondes to toss all the exploding bananas at me and then flee. Out of the woods came the mother or father of all Gorondes. If this wasn¡¯t a boss creature, I¡¯d eat my hat. If the regular Gorondes were as large as a 10 year old child, this creature was tall like a small house, or as large as the trolls I¡¯d been reading about back on earth. It was humongous. ¡°Yoeurs, a bit of a heads up next time?¡± ¡°Yes, but not this time, you are alone in this.¡± The fucker answered. I swore under my breath, took a quick sip of Canfee, and then mentally grabbed the tree once again and screamed loudly, ¡°Come get some!¡± The mother of all monsters rushed right at me. It didn¡¯t throw any exploding bananas at me. Instead, it uprooted a bigger tree than the one I had. Oh, shit, shit, shit, this was not good, at all.
Damage taken 250 HP Damage negated 40 HP
Ouch, that hurt real bad. He had hit me right in the left hand side of my body. Only 74 HP left before I was dead. I couldn''t take another hit like that. I needed to get my vitality up but also see if I could get a better robe or level it up somehow. For now, I focused on the level up notification I knew I had saved for an occasion just like this.
Congratulations, you have reached level 25 ¡­.
It said more things, but I minimized it. While everything in the world felt totally alright, I dodged another blow from the Goronde and thought like a trucker missing his last exit before the highway to hell started. What could I do, and Yoerus was apparently not any help, I hadn¡¯t signed up for this.
Damage taken 300 HP Damage negated 40 HP
God dammit, that hurt like a MF. Okay think! I still had 750 mana, why not try [Copy, slot 1]? Even if it didn¡¯t really work last time, it got the creature out of the room that time. Yes, that''s what I¡¯ll do. I focused on [Copy, slot 1] and used focus hit on the large Goronde and teleported him upside down 50 meters up in the air, and then canceled the skill. The uprooted trees and the exploding bananas had made the ground around us open up a bit, so there were no trees in the nearby area. Good for me, bad for the Goronde, who landed hard on its head.
Congratulations, You have defeated Gogge the Goronde, a level 30 boss, and received: 100 experience points Congratulations, you have defeated 23 level 30 Gorondes, and received: 1150 experience points Congratulations, you have finished the quest ¡®Madness at every turn¡¯, and received: 1000 experience points An item of your choosing from USERUS A level up of a existing skill
¡°Congratulations Green Raven, the item and the skill you chose to level up is something you tell me, and I¡¯ll tell USERUS.¡± ¡°Thanks, can I think about it?* ¡°Yes¡± I was near death, but those experience points would level me up quite a few times. I needed to check with Youerus if it was safe here now. Iif it was safe, I could get my tent set up, eat some cold rations and then do some Admin work on my stats and pass out. ¡°Yoerus, are you able to help me again?¡± I asked tiredly. ¡°Yes, what can I do for you, Green Raven?¡± ¡°Can you check and see if this area is safe? I need to rest and read notifications and level up.¡± ¡°Checking,¡± he was quiet for some time, ¡°Yes, it¡¯s safe for 20 hours. If you¡¯re not up and moving in 18 hours, I¡¯ll wake you.¡± ¡°Thanks!¡± I opened up my minimized level up notification.
Congratulations you have reached level 25 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations since you have reached level 25 you can choose to get a new random skill or level up one of your existing skills.
I read one more of the level up notifications. I was badly hurt, almost unable to move, so first was to get my health back up.
Congratulations you have reached level 26 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
Ah, that felt better. My health went back to 300 HP. It was kind of crazy how fast you got used to healing this way. Nothing like back on earth when I¡¯d be in a hospital for at least a couple of weeks. Now, I was well in just a few seconds. So I had some small choices to make, the gifts from Userus, and the level 25 new or level up of a skill. I¡¯d save the item from him for now and concentrate on my notifications. Since I got a level for an existing skill too from Userus, I was going for a new skill from me reaching level 25.
Congratulations you have received a common skill. [Roots] level 1 costs 10 mana to activate and 5 mana per second the skill is used. The range is 15 meters at level 1.
Roots, bloody roots, could be useful. I already thought about ways to use it in combat. Should I get it to level 2 directly or level up [Telekinesis]? That was the question? Better to go with what is known first. ¡°Yoerus, I¡¯ll level up [Telekinesis], but for the item, could it be a better robe or something that negates more damage? 40 dmg is not enough if the monsters I¡¯ve been facing lately are anything to go by. ¡°Telekinesis will be leveled up one level. Regarding the Item, we can upgrade the defense of the robe to negate 70 dmg, but if you are willing to pay, we can change both the hat and the robe to negate more. The cost is 1000 gold for 50 negated dmg per item.¡± ¡°That is acceptable, but could you take both the robe and the hat to 70 dmg negated? Then I¡¯ll spend 4000 gold to bring them up to a total of 120 dmg negated.¡± ¡°Checking,¡± ¡°Checking,¡± That went on for a short while. Then, the answer came in the form of a ping. I was 4000 gold poorer, and both my robe and hat were upgraded to handle more damages. That was more than okay. I still had over 7000 gold. So far, I hadn¡¯t seen any store where I could spend much more money than a couple of hundred gold. I did some math and some guessing. I was level 26 now, so I had at least two more levels. I read those notifications real quick.
Congratulations you have reached level 28 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
After that, I removed my tent from my [Inventory] and put it up. After getting my sleeping bag in the tent, I ate some cold rations and drank some of my water. Canfee and sleep didn¡¯t mix. Although I would pass out, I thought that water was better. That made 4 levels and 20 new points. The priority this time was vitality. If I put 10 points in it, it would bring my HP up to 400. Let''s put 15 in vitality instead and the last five in wisdom. I focused on vitality first, bringing it up to 45 and therefore my HP to 450. Then bring wisdom up to 80 and my mana would be 800. I closed down the windows. As I lay down in my sleeping bag, this time I welcomed the pain and black out. I was so tired after all the fighting today. Chapter fifteen, QueenaFants ## Chapter fifteen, QueenaFants I dreamt about something green and a bird, and it felt important. There was like a tugging in my brain. There was a voice that said Green Raven over and over. It almost shouted. ¡°GREEN RAVEN, GREEN Raven, Green Raven¡± I was very far away, but somehow I awoke. I heard Yoerus shout my name over and over. ¡°Yeah,¡± I croaked, cleared my voice and said, ¡°yes, what is it?¡± ¡°The time is not up. You are not in danger.¡± ¡°Uhm, what? Why are you shouting and shouting my name over and over to wake me then?¡± I said more confused than angry. ¡°You leveled up [Telekinesis] yesterday.¡± ¡°Yes?¡± ¡°What we didn¡¯t do was choose strength or distance. That has to be done within 12 hours, or the skill will disappear.¡± ¡°Oh, okay, that¡¯s not good at all. How long do we have left?¡± ¡°Not enough. You were hard to wake up. Just say strength or distance, and I¡¯ll sort it for you.¡± I thought real quick and responded with ¡°Strength. Can¡¯t go wrong with that.¡±
You have leveled up [Telekinesis] to level 5, Area 1, Strength 4.
I was just about to ask Yoerus something when I got a feeling, or more of a premonition. I wasn¡¯t surprised in the least when Yoerus suddenly told me. ¡°Heads up. There are some Shadow Warriors closing in fast. You have two choices, stand and fight or run. Either way, get your ass out of the tent. Put everything back in your [Inventory]. They are here within 3 minutes.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I said simply. Getting out of my sleeping bag, I jumped out of my tent and put everything back in my [Inventory]. At the same time, as I took a swig of Canfee, I grabbed my sword. Just as I straightened my back and stretched a bit, I saw a dust cloud getting closer. The Shadow Warriors were riding on some creature. I need to get a mounted pet of some sort, I thought quietly to myself. The plan I had had for that to happen had kinda fallen through, or so it looked right now. I started to think of why I suddenly started to get premonitions. I never had them before. The riders were slowing down. There were three of them, and the guy in the front raised his hand and said, ¡°Hey there, traveler. What brings you to this part of the woods? Don¡¯t you know it¡¯s dangerous to be out here alone?¡± ¡°Hey you too. I¡¯m just out and about. Haven¡¯t seen anything I couldn¡¯t handle so far. Is that why you are in a rush?¡± I answered. ¡°Haha! No, not at all. We just heard about a quest in this part of the woods where the reward was really good. A quest that you needed to be at least a 3 man party at the lowest of level 30 to be able to clear.¡± He kind of smirked. He didn¡¯t just sit on a high ¡®horse¡¯ figuratively but also literally. ¡°It wouldn¡¯t have any chance to be to defeat Gorondes?¡± I asked innocently. ¡°Yes. Do you know anything about it? Have you seen them?¡± ¡°Well, let''s just say that you rode in vain. Or maybe the monsters respawn just like in a dungeon?¡± I said while trying to hide a small smile on my lips. The three guys started to whisper among themselves, but they weren¡¯t that discreet. I heard bits and pieces of what they talked about. It was along the way of, ¡®no way that dude could have taken them out by himself. There must be more guys around here¡¯, and more like that. Then they stopped and realized that I probably could hear them. The first guy again opened his mouth and said, ¡°You cleared the quest all by yourself?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I said simply, and that brought on more whispering among them. Once more, I could hear and understand most of what they said. It was just the same thing, just reguruated with different wording. Once more the first guy spoke, ¡°Uhm, what level are you if I can ask?¡± This was when Yoerus intervened and said to me, ¡°don¡¯t let them use [Inspect Being]. That will raise more flags than it¡¯s worth. Just say that you¡¯re level 48. Being Shadow Warriors, they don¡¯t have any real knowledge about levels. So they will most likely believe you.¡± ¡°I¡¯m level 48. If that¡¯s all, I need to get going.¡± I said and at the same time, let my sword go back into my [Inventory]. Turning around, I started to walk away from them. If they believed me or not, I don¡¯t know, but they let me go. I heard how they moved around on their mounts for a short while. Then, they turned around and rode off. ¡°So that was fun,¡± I said to Yoerus while walking along a trodden path that looked like it would lead me out of the woods. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Not fun. Could have been dangerous.¡± Irony was not a strong suit for him. Good to know, I thought drily. ¡°So Yoerus, what¡¯s next? Any more quests, or can I get back to Fantsiland? You kind of kidnapped me just as I was on my way to an audience with the KingaFants king, King Lars.¡± I got no response, not in words. Just one step I was in a forest, the next I was in a courtyard where you could hear laughter from small KingaFants kids playing near a water fountain. I was just a step behind Olof, like nothing had happened. I was ¡®Wow far out¡¯ and directly asked Youerus, ¡°Huh, you¡¯re a man of few words and more action it seems?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± was the laconic answer from him. ¡°So no need to pass out and get teleported to Userus anymore. Can you teleport me anywhere I need to go in an instance?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± was once more the short answer. I decided that I had had enough of one word responses and asked Olof. ¡°Hey Olof, what¡¯s the king like?¡± ¡°King Lars is the best. He cares for his people. He is harsh and hard in all his actions against enemies of our great, great nation!¡± He then started humming something that was probably the national hymn. It was either in another language or some old accent, because I didn¡¯t understand a word. That was fine of course. Just fun to hear. The melody was kind of catchy and reminded me of Queen''s old hit, ¡®We Will Rock You¡¯. We walked the rest of the distance to the castle in silence. This was totally okay. It made me take the time to think of everything that had happened the last few days. This flash teleport thing that Yoerus could do, that I could be in two places at the same time. That was freaky as hell. Might I still be in a game and not in a different world? To say that I was confused was the understatement of the day. I was about to dive deeper in these thoughts when Olof stopped. With his hand, he directed me to walk through a lavishly decorated double door that had 2 KingaFants guarding it. They were dressed in the same way as Olof, like the old Napoleon soldiers back on earth, and were armed with pikes. I stopped at the entrance and asked Yoerus a question, ¡°You need to explain to me how this works. One second I was here. The next second, I¡¯m away on a quest for three days. After that, I¡¯m back in the same step that I was before you grabbed me. How can that be?¡± ¡°Userus is almighty. He can freeze the time on PAERD if he feels that it¡¯s needed. In this case, it was. We had to see what you were made of, and it was the right stuff.¡± That last part was corny as hell, but now I understood, so I just said, ¡°Okay.¡± And then went through the entrance. Olof was now two steps behind me. Well, not steps. He was floating behind me. We, once more, walked through a corridor. This one was full of paintings of KingaFants in different battles and fights. It was a well lit hallway even if I didn¡¯t see any direct lamps or such. I was going to ask Olof about it when he started speaking. ¡°We are soon in the audience hall. When we reach it, you will walk halfway into the room, bow while your eyes are averted to the floor until King Lars addresses you. Is that understood?¡± ¡°Yes,¡± I answered. Iit was really simple, and I¡¯ve seen it happen in most of the old movies with royalty in them. The crown room or audience hall was an enormous room with a high ceiling and even more paintings. They were also large. I¡¯ve never seen such large paintings before. The same kind of strange lights were luminating the room. I did as I was told and walked into the middle of the room, facing the throne. I bowed and kept my eyes on the floor. The king was sitting or rather laying on a throne like I¡¯ve never seen before. It looked more like the beds the old Romans used to have where they lay and ate fruits dressed in togas. I stayed like that for at least 2 minutes, I had no issue with it. I knew it was a display of power, and if he was so insecure he had to use such childish tactics, so be it. ¡°Green Raven, rise,¡± King Lars said at last, and I rose, looking him straight into his eyes. ¡°You wanted an audience with me. What can Fantsiland do for you?¡± I said nothing. Both could play childish power games. After 30 or so seconds, the king smiled and let out a small laugh, and said. ¡°Come over here and sit next to me. Let''s talk.¡± I did as he said, and when I came closer to the king, a servant brought over a chair more appropriate to a human to sit on. I sat down on the chair and said, ¡°Hi, King Lars. Thank you for seeing me. I don¡¯t know if you are aware, but Marurade is starting to stir again, making noises. Or rather his followers are.¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯m aware. What is that to us? He will never be able to take Fantsiland. We are much too strong for him.¡± This is where I was kind of salting the truth quite a bit. Rondellen had said that the KingaFants had never lost any land to Marurade before, but if he got the right followers, it was possible that this time they might. We didn¡¯t know if those powers were in place yet. I was working on the presumptions that he had managed to get what he needed to be a threat to a nation like Fantsiland. So that¡¯s what I told the king. I straight away got to the question I was there to ask him. We humans never did anything for free, and of course he was right in that. When I was training with Eonde and Anders, I had asked them about mounted pets. They told me that the best ones were the ones you only could find in Fantsiland. They were winged mounted pets that you could fly fast and high up in the air with. The whole reason why I asked for an audience with the king when we met Olof in the dungeon was to get a mounted pet. But, and that¡¯s a big but, I never thought I¡¯d get here or get an audience. I mean I wanted to, otherwise I¡¯d never try. Still, I hadn¡¯t really thought things through all the way. It was time to bullshit some more and get what I got here to do. ¡°King Lars, I have a suggestion to make for you or rather a question if you want to start an alliance with the Bondlaeppers. You know I was in the dungeon with Rondellen and Rufus'' daughter, Eonde right? They were supposed to come with me, but both fell ill this morning.¡± The king just looked at me with his big eyes, saying nothing. He left his ¡®chair¡¯ and floated over to the largest painting there was in the crown room. He looked at it and then said, ¡°Have you heard of the battle of Fantsibridge? It¡¯s the bridge that connects Fantsiland with the rest of PAERD. It''s pictured here.¡± ¡°Yes, I¡¯ve heard about it. It¡¯s when you crushed Marurade¡¯s offensive into Fantsiland the last time he was making noise. The biggest reason was because you had your army riding QueenaFants, your mounted flying pets.¡± ¡°So then I know why you are here, Green Raven. You want me to give you QueenaFants in exchange for an alliance with the Bondlaeppers, right?¡± the king said, still looking at the painting of the famous battle. I was so happy that Rondellen had told me about some of the history regarding Marurade, otherwise I''d have been toast by now. ¡°Yes, you are correct,¡± there was no denying it. That was the whole reason I was here. ¡°I do not want an alliance.¡± Here I tried to interrupt the king, but he continued, ¡°No, do not interrupt. You know why, but I¡¯ll tell you anyway. It¡¯s because in all its history, KingaFants have never entered any alliances, and we have never given out any of our pets to outsiders. I¡¯ll give you this. You are a very brave young lad, to come here, all alone, talking and asking about something like this. It is way over your head in any normal circumstances. Therefore I will do something I have never done before and never will do again. Even if I¡¯m declining your offer of an alliance, you will get a QueenaFant of your choosing to take as your pet, but after that you will need to leave. We do not want any outsiders in Fantsiland.¡± I was stumped. The whole talk about alliance was something I just threw out. It was a spur of the moment kind of thing, but that didn¡¯t matter at all anymore. I had gotten what I came for! I just bowed and said, ¡°you¡¯re too kind, your majesty.¡± ¡°Olof,¡± the king called. Instantly, Olof appeared at his king''s side. ¡°Yes, your majesty?¡± ¡°Bring Green Raven to the stables. He is to choose a QueenaFant of his liking. Then you will escort him to the bridge.¡± ¡°Yes, your majesty!¡± ¡°I thank you once more for your bravery, Green Raven. If all your people are like you, the fight is not over yet.¡± the king said as parting words as he was turning and leaving the throne room. ¡°Follow me,¡± I heard Olof say in my ear. I turned and followed him back the way we came. The trip to the stables didn¡¯t take long. We went through something that were probably service tunnels for the servants. We entered the tunnel via a door that was disguised as yet another painting and exited right in the stables. I had walked just behind Olof all the way, but when we reached the stable, he turned and said to me. ¡°In this stable there are 650 QueenaFants. They are all unique in that they have their own will and temper. Yes, the king told you that you would get a QueenaFant of your choosing. That was not correct per se. You see, they choose who they will be a pet to. What you do is when you go through the stable, only stop if one calls out to you.¡± He showed me where I should go. I followed his directions and started walking and waiting for something to happen. I walked further and further into the stable. Suddenly, it happened. I almost started laughing. I now had two competing voices in my head. Chapter sixteen, a pet, a flying mounted pet! ## Chapter sixteen, a pet, a flying mounted pet! ¡°So a QueenaFant chose you?¡± Olof asked. ¡°Yes it seems so, I have one talking in my head now,¡± I said as I heard, ¡°hello? Who are you? Why don¡¯t you have wings? Can I have a snack?¡± ¡°It wants a snack, what do I feed her? And most importantly can I put her in my [Inventory]?¡± I asked Olof. ¡°You can put her in your [Inventory] but only after you win her trust, my suggestion is to take a long trip, and get to know her. It takes time before she trusts you enough to let you ride and fly you, so that¡¯s the first step. She will eat anything you eat and most likely drink anything you drink. When she trusts you enough that you can put her in [Inventory] It¡¯s good to know that she needs food but not in the same amount as when she¡¯s out and about. Another good thing to know is that if she¡¯s hurt, the [Inventory] will heal her up.¡± ¡°Thank you, those are good tips,¡± I said, and Olof helped me to get her out. I was already thinking I needed to name her, I couldn''t just call her QueenaFant. When all three of us were out of the stable, Olof showed us the way to the bridge to get off the Island that was Fantsiland. The QueenaFant moved along me and seemed at the moment quite satisfied, Olof had given her a snack that they had at hand in the stable. After a quick discussion, I now was the owner of 100 QueenaFant snacks,called Barbers, apparently it was some kind of high energy bar that filled all its dietary needs. So good to have on hand. Only cost me 500 gold, I have no idea if that was a good deal or if I got skinned. But it would probably be hard to get more so I thought it was worth it. Thinking about it I asked Olof, ¡°Hey Olof, when I run out of snacks, is there any chance I can get more of those?¡± ¡°No,¡± Olof said with finality. ¡°I can¡¯t send a mental message to you and you guys deliver to some place. I¡¯ve never sent or received a mental message, I¡¯d thought about sending Rondellen one but never seemed to have the time for it. ¡°You don¡¯t understand the meaning of NO?¡± I left it, didn¡¯t answer him, and just continued walking towards the bridge. And it was kind of strange, we walked on a road made of stones. I didn¡¯t really know why the KingaFants put energy and resources into roads as they didn¡¯t walk, just floated in the air. But it was probably because of a good reason, maybe as easy as they needed a way to follow. And they were a rich nation. The walk to the bridge was along a crowded part of the island, there were KingaFants in richly embroidered clothes everywhere, there were stalls selling all kinds of goods. If I hadn¡¯t seen all the disapproving looks from everyone and felt how no one wanted me here I¡¯d stop and browse the wares they were peddling. But I did look, there were things I had never seen before mixed with everyday things like clothes, KingaFants, and food stalls. The smell coming from them reminded me that I hadn¡¯t eaten in a while. So I asked Yoerus, ¡°the food they sell here is it suitable for humans?¡± ¡°Yes, it¡¯s quite nice, but if you hadn¡¯t noticed they just want you off the island by now.¡± ¡°Haha, yes it¡¯s hard not to notice. But it would be nice to get something different than cold rations in my belly for a change. Maybe if I asked Olof?¡± ¡°You could try, but the answer to everything you ask will probably be no, if it¡¯s not a question about how to reach the bridge.¡± ¡°They want me of the Fantsiland that much you mean?¡± ¡°Yes, you are the first human here in over a hundred years. And they really don¡¯t like outsiders.¡± During our chat, we had passed most of the stalls and the crowd had started to thin out as well. You could see the bridge quite clearly by now also. My stomach was rumbling by now, and I felt the food stalls were an opportunity that I¡¯d never be able to eat from again. Ah fuck it, what could they do? Throw me off the island? I turned and started to walk rather quickly and with a clear purpose back to the food stalls while issuing a command to the QueenaFant to wait for me. The response was instantaneous, ¡°I¡¯ll stay here, but then you need to get me some food too.¡± Which I promised I¡¯d do. By the time I reached the first food stall, Olof had just noticed that I had turned around and was shouting and running towards me. ¡°Hey, can I have 2 portions of that,¡± I pointed to something that looked like some kind of meat on sticks. ¡°I¡¯m in a hurry, so instead of arguing about money, say your name and I¡¯ll give you 100 gold.¡± I know I¡¯m probably rude, but felt that the time I had was until Olof had reached me. After that he would force me off the island in no pleasant way. The KingaFant on the other side of the stall looked at me with both fear and contempt in his eyes, how that was even possible. But he obliged me anyway. So 2 portions of food richer and 100 gold poorer, I turned just as Olof reached me. ¡°I just had to try your food, but I know there is a rush to get me out of Fantsiland, so I¡¯ll eat it when I¡¯m over the bridge okay?¡± Olof didn¡¯t say anything just pointed towards the bridge and this time he floated behind me. The point was clear, no mere deviations from the road. His patience was reaching its end. So I turned up the speed and walked at a brisk pace all the way to the bridge. We reached the bridge, just as the weather had been nice, with sun and no clouds turned for the worse, on the other side of the bridge there were dark clouds and it looked like it would start to rain any second. Which in itself was both interesting and bad, since I arrived on PAERD, there hadn¡¯t been any other weather than sun and warm winds. Unauthorized usage: this narrative is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. ¡°Did you get food for me? FOOD?!¡± ¡°Yes I did, but you will have to wait until we have passed the bridge, then we will camp and eat and rest.¡± I didn¡¯t get any response from the QueenaFant, which probably meant that her silence was acceptance. ¡°I will turn back here, good luck young Green Raven, and take good care of your QeenaFant and she will do likewise. A tip is not to linger on the bridge but go straight over it. Stopping or going over slowly, might alert the creatures living under the bridge.¡± Olof said and gave me a pat on my shoulder, turned and started back to the city. ¡°Now it¡¯s only us left, you heard the man, let''s go with a brisk pace over the bridge.¡± The bridge was really two bridges, both were old drawbridges one from each side, made of wood and stone, that was lowered when we came closer to it, and was now open for travel. The KingaFants meat business when it came to security. Although I didn''t really see the reason for them to have a bridge at all, since they could just fly over the water. Or maybe they couldn¡¯t? Maybe they were only able to float or fly over ground, not water? Either way I was happy for the bridges, which made it easier for me to leave their country on an island. The trip over the bridges was thankfully eventles, even if the bridges were easily 500 meter, it didn¡¯t take that long to pass them. ¡°Yoerus, can you find a good place to camp?¡± ¡°Yes, just follow the signs on your map.¡± I realized that once again he was a step ahead of me, I had just ignored the map when we were in Fantsiland, I would not do that anymore. The way to the campsite that Yoerus had picked was not that far, we made it there in half an hour, but that didn¡¯t stop Petra from harassing me about food. Yeah, I decided to name the QueenaFant Petra. And one thing I learned is that it¡¯s kind of hard to ignore someone that¡¯s in your brain shouting FOOD, FOOD, food! But I did it. I found out that if I sang a song in my head it canceled out her voice. Yes, I know, not that mature but I was tired and hungry too. Just wanted to reach the campsite and settle down. The place Yoerus had chosen was easy to defend up on a small hill. As soon as we reached it, I pulled out my tent, sleeping bag, made a small fire and took out the food I bought in Fantsiland. Got a small tree uprooted thanks to [Telekinesis] and with my ax I made it into a rough log to sit on. Brought out a second sleeping bag for Petra to lay on and gave her her portion of the food. ¡°Thank you Green Raven, I¡¯m starving¡± ¡°Your welcome Petra¡± ¡°Petra? Who is Petra? My name is Jojo,¡± the QueenaFant said. Oops, I thought I was the one that should name it. ¡°Sorry Jojo, I wasn¡¯t aware that Jojo was your name. I will call you Jojo from now on.¡± ¡°Haha¡± Was all I heard from Yoerus, while I chose to not comment on it. During dinner I tried to speak some more to Jojo, to no avail, she was not that easy to speak with. She just focused on her food and then lay down on the sleeping bag and went to sleep. I asked Yoerus to keep a lookout and went to sleep as well. Sleep didn¡¯t come easy, this was the first night in a long time that I didn¡¯t pass out from leveling up, but getting to sleep the regular way. And boy did my thoughts hinder me there, started thinking about my mother, my friends and everyone else I knew back on earth. Even if time had stopped somehow according to Userus, so they wouldn¡¯t miss me, time passed for me, and I missed them. I started to think if I would meet up with my mates in-game, they as Shadow Warriors and I as a, yeah, what was I? A human? Or something else? Somewhere in that mix of thoughts I must have fallen asleep because when I woke up all the clouds that covered the sky last night had moved off and the sun shone straight into the tent and my eyes. Not a bad way to wake up, better than getting screamed awakened by Yoerus the previous night I was camping. When I got out of the tent, got it and my sleeping bag back into my [Inventory] Jojo were nowhere to be seen. I was just about to ask Yoerus if he knew where she were when she landed right in front of me. ¡°Ah, you are awake Green Raven, I was out looking around, also found some food for myself. So I¡¯m ready to move on when you are.¡± ¡°Great, let me just have a quick breakfast and something to drink, and we can start our day.¡± I had, once again, some cold rations, the food from yesterday was but a memory now. Also drank a lot of Canfee. Since sleep had been short and not that good, I needed a little pick me up, and Canfee hit the spot perfectly. When we started walking along the way Yoerus had mapped out on my map, or I walked, Jojo floated beside me just like the KingaFants did when they moved about. I started to think how I would get Jojo to allow me to ride on here, It was both with trepidation and excitement that I looked forward to being able to ride on her. I didn¡¯t want to force anything, so I didn¡¯t mention it, while the day passed. We reached a small river that I swam over and Jojo just flew over, after the river we came into yet another forest. I just followed the signs on the map Yoerus set out, I was somewhere else in my mind, thinking about earth and my loved ones again. And Jojo was not saying anything either, we were just traveling and it could probably have continued that way until it was time for camping for the night, if it wasn¡¯t for five Wood Wolfs that suddenly crossed our path. This time I wasn¡¯t a level 4 newbie anymore, but sadly they were not level two either. ¡°Green Raven, they are level 25¡± Yoerus said before I had the time to [Inspect] them. ¡°Jojo, get out of their way, so you don¡¯t get hurt¡± I said tersely and brandished my sword, this is when she surprised me. ¡°Green Raven jump on, let''s take to the sky¡± I of course did as she said, and jumped on her back. We left the five Wood Wolfs, confused, their prey had just vanished from sight for them. Flying with Jojo was simply put, amazing, fucking amazing! I have no other word for it. After I jumped on, we soared towards the clouds and flew aimlessly for awhile until I asked Yoerus, ¡°Can you communicate with Jojo?¡± ¡°Yes, I can communicate with all your pets.¡± ¡°Great, can you share the map with her too?¡± The answer came in the direction we suddenly were heading, allong the course Yoerus had set this morning. ¡°Thank you, and by the way, where are we going?¡± ¡°Now you wanna know? ¡°Yes, I know, I¡¯ve been a bit off today, been in my own mind for a spell. But I¡¯m back now, and I¡¯m flying!¡± ¡°Jojo, this is awesome, can I fly with you anytime I like now, or is this a one off since we met hostilities? ¡°This is the new common, when you want to ride just let me know.¡± ¡°That is great! Thank you Jojo.¡± I said as I was thinking that the first hurdle was over, now I only needed to get her to trust me so I could put her away in my [Inventory] when the need arises. ¡°So Yoerus, where are we going?¡± ¡°Towards a village that has been invaded by dark forces. Your mission is to quell evil and save the people living there.¡± ¡°Oh, okay, so now there is no more playing around, is this the real thing? What kind of defense are we looking at?¡± ¡°That is not clear at this moment, but we will set down outside the village and then more will be clear.¡± ¡°Yes sir.¡± I said with no irony in my voice, now was the time for play over, I needed to sharpen up and do this! I was starting to think of ways to use my skills in the best way possible to take out evil. Or who was I kidding, I would probably have to kill people, that was terrifying, up til now I had only had to kill off monsters and more monsters. No people or fellow humans at all. Would I be able to do this? I thought that everything would lead towards something like this when I chose to be indentured instead of going back to the cleaning closet and sure death, but after meeting Rondellen and then Ragnhild, Eonde and the others that thought had kind of been forgotten. But now it was back in full force. According to the map we would set down any second, I could see the village over the next hill, Ersboda. Jojo started to fly slower and slower and we landed on a small hill just outside of the village. ¡°Yoerus, are we safe out here? Can we camp for the night and go into the village tomorrow? ¡°You decide, but if you ask me I¡¯d say we settle down here and wait for the night, and then we move in.¡± Chapter 17, Ersboda a village in distress Chapter 17, Ersboda a village in distress We did as Yoerus suggested, we took it easy for a while, had some food and talked about the easiest way of getting into Ersboda. Here is where the question of how Jojo would be close enough to help but at the same time not be in the way. A QueenaFant is not a conspicuous being so we decided that she would be flying in the air and come when I called for her. We tried it out too, to see if long distance communication worked. And it did! Then when it was closer to the middle of the night I started the trek into Ersboda. The village was closer to Ostvik, both in size and in how it looked, not at all the same rugged feel Raeen had. But the biggest difference was that the village felt dead and empty and there was a smell of fear permeated in the whole place. All the windows were covered or blocked off. According to Yoerus, Marurade and his followers had descended on Ersboda just two weeks earlier but for the villagers it probably felt longer. Information was not clear if Marurade still was there or if he had left. But my mission was to take care of all his followers and make the village safe again. With a little bit of help from my robe and the shadows, I was going to be invisible at least to everyone under level 100, or that was what I had been told about my robe, now I realized that I hadn¡¯t tried it out. So I threaded really lightly from shadow to shadow, even if it was night, it was not as dark as I was used to back on earth, so I was happy with my robe. And happy that there were no streetlights here or at least if there were any, they were not on at the moment. The village was quiet, as it had been since we came close to it a couple of hours before. It almost felt like there was no one left alive in there. But I had seen movements behind draped windows from time to time. ¡°Arrrgh, what are you doing to her! No, no! Not my daughter! Take me instead!¡± I heard a voice cry out, and after that I heard more distressed voices scream in despair. ¡°Yoerus, can you locate where those voices came from?¡± ¡°They are close, go half a block and then turn right, should be a door into a large warehouse. I wielded my sword and took a deep breath and then walked quietly the distance and took a sneak peak around the corner, there was an alley with a door just as Yoerus had said. I stood in front of the door and was thinking about how I should get it open when I heard a small baby crying out of pain, and I just acted. I did what I failed to do last time I tried this, I ran into the door with my shoulder first, but this time it worked. The door was probably barely holding together as it were, so with my extra strength it was made into splinters and I tumbled into the warehouse. Inside there was a large room filled with wares that was stacked along the walls, and in the middle there was a tall hooded man standing holding a small child upside down by one of its legs. And around him in a circle there were more hooded men or women. He held the child in one hand and in the other he had a dagger that was dripping with blood. I realized it wasn¡¯t wares along the walls, but cages filled with people of all ages, children, women and men. On the floor besides the hooded man there were corpses of all kinds of humans. They were doing some kind of blood rite. ¡°Yoerus? Do you know anything about this? What is it? Is there anything I should know before I kill them all?¡± Because if it was anything that got my blood to boil of anger it was when someone hurt innocent people. ¡°This is an ancient blood rite, with the purpose to bring more people from other worlds to fight for them.¡± All focus in the room was on the man in the middle so no one had noticed me, not so strange because the child was screaming out of fear and the people in the cages were wailing, the cult people were singing or chanting something I couldn¡¯t understand. Something changed inside of me, gone where the afraid boy from earth, and replaced with me, a robe bearing man wielding a great short sword, and ready to use it. I saw in one of the cages a man and a woman screaming for their child, so the first thing I did before the hooded man had the opportunity to kill the child was to focus on [Copy, slot 1] and teleport the child from his hold into the arms of the parents. Then I tried my new skill and used [Roots] on all the followers, then I rushed forward and started to hack and slash all my opponents. In my haste to kill them off before they had the chance to resist, I forgot to use [Roots] on the man in the middle. But just as he was to attack me with his dagger, I used [Telekinesis] and pushed his own dagger towards him. pressing against his body where the heart usually sits on a human. That was mistake number two. This was not a human. If he had a heart it wasn¡¯t located where a human had the heart. I just made him more angry, and mistake number three, the now not so gentle people in the ring had started to hack off the roots. And all their focus had turned to me. I looked around frantically when Yoerus calmly said. ¡±Green Raven, use the knowledge you have been taught, use your sword and your skills¡± That somehow calmed me down as well so I dodged the first attack, sidestepped the second and ran my sword straight into the third. And he was human, because he didn¡¯t get up after I hit his heart. But no time to celebrate that, I felt a searing pain when a dagger hit my left arm, it was one of the followers that attacked me.
Damage taken 130 Damage negated 120
So not so bad, but they hit hard. I got an idea, I used [Roots] once again but now together with [Telekinesis] and brought all my enemies, screaming and shouting together in a heap. And then went back to hacking and slashing them. When they all lay still on the floor I heard and sensed something behind me and I jumped, but not high enough to get clear from the cult leader, he hit his dagger in my calf and dammit that hurt for real. Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Damage taken 130 Damage negated 120
With that much pain I landed back on the floor and stumbled and fell over one of the followers, but that was probably what saved my life. The dagger occupied the air where my neck should have been had I not stumbled. I now lay on my stomach on the floor among the now very much dead followers. The leader was about to let me join them when I remembered and said out loud ¡°one strike is all it takes¡± and then in a last effort I rolled over to my back. And as he was about to stab me with his dagger I forced my sword into his body. All his being went still and stiffened up and then fell backwards dead. Pulling my sword with him. This was at the time when my hearing and other senses came back and I realized that I was screaming and swearing for all my might. I stopped as I tried to sit up. This was when I remembered my healing potions in my [Inventory] and took out the small one and drank.
Health healed 50 HP
Got me feeling marginally better but after a large sip of Canfee the pain was more manageable.
Congratulations, You have defeated 20 followers of Marurade , level 35, and received: 2000 experience points Congratulations, you have defeated 1 leader of Marurade, level 40, and received: 200 experience points Congratulations, you have finished the quest ¡®Madness at every turn 2¡¯, and received: 1000 experience points An item of your choosing from USERUS A level up of an existing skill
Wow, so this is a quest chain? I asked myself quietly. I didn¡¯t have the time to read and decide all this now, but a quick level up to heal myself up I had time for. I also looted all the kills.
Loot all 5000 gold 10 keys 20 daggers low quality 1 dagger unknown quality Congratulations you have reached level 29 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
Same as always I got a nice feeling in my body and everything was okay again. After doing the necessary I called out mentally to my pet, Jojo and let her know I was fine and that she could fly back to our basecamp. That sorted I turned to the cages that were full of people. I used the keys and unlocked all of them. And said, ¡°my name is Green Raven, I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t come here earlier.¡± ¡°Thank you, thank you¡± a man on his knees called out. ¡°I thought this would be it. We have lost many of our friends and family the last couple of days, but hadn¡¯t you appeared when you did, all of us would be dead by now. Can we pay you or help you in any way for doing this?¡± ¡°No need, this is what any decent person would do if they were in my shoes.¡± That got me thinking, I need better shoes when it¡¯s possible to get some. ¡°Can¡¯t we at least give you dinner or in this case an early breakfast?¡± I felt that it wouldn¡¯t be nice to say no to that so I accepted graciously. After helping the elderly and more severely wounded people to, what they called hospital here on PAERD. The man that had first talked to me and later introduced himself as Gunnar, took me to his and his wife¡¯s house. The dinner we had was easily the best thing I had since I was in Ostvik. The meat was succulent and the bread was freshly made. How they even managed that while just being held captive was a mystery even after asking and only receiving a smile and a small laugh. Most of the dinner was held in silence because even if the food was great I could see that they were taken after the incident. After getting thanked once more and thanking them for dinner. I went to see all the villager¡¯s and let them know that should they run into trouble again they only needed to send a mental message to me and I¡¯d come help them. After that I got hugged by almost everyone, and they gave me food in the form of ready made sandwiches. The goodbyes were long and hard to do. But after some time I was on my way back to the basecamp. And along the way I called out to Jojo and she let me know that she had arrived at basecamp. And as soon as I got there, even though it was morning already, I felt totally beaten and needed to get some rest. I asked Yoerus to keep a lookout and then I crashed in my sleeping bag. Didn¡¯t even take the time to bring out my tent. I woke up later that day and after doing my business and drinking some water I started to ask Yoerus some questions. ¡°Yoerus, what the fuck was that? A blood rite? and where was Marurade?¡± ¡°You see, Green Raven, when Userus need people to fight the good fight for PAERD, he gets them through the game, same as you got here. Marurade doesn''t have the possibility to go via the game, instead he needs to get people from other worlds to come here through an old ancient blood rite called ¡®Blood summoning and a half bottle of Bork¡¯, I know the name needs some work but apparently that¡¯s how it¡¯s named. And the people that he gets from this method are people that are evil in its core. Thankfully that is not too common, so most of his army of followers contains Shadow Warriors, since they are easy to convert with all the good stuff he is able to give them. There are Shadow Warriors that for some reason or other don¡¯t fall for him, and they fight in the name of Userus, but sadly that is not common at all. The advantage of Shadow Warriors is that they don¡¯t die, but come back. Anything else you want to know?¡± ¡°Yes, why didn¡¯t you tell me this was a quest chain? How many parts are there?¡± ¡°The main reason was not to scare you, since the attack in the woods was not that easy for you. But the more you grow up the more I will tell you.¡± At this I mumbled something along who the fuck do you think you are, but also realized that he was probably right, I would¡¯nt have felt better knowing it was a quest chain, better to get it as a happy suprise afterwords. So I told Yoerus nothing, just nodded and packed away everything asked Jojo if she was ready to get moving. ¡°Yes Green Raven, I¡¯m ready when you are.¡± ¡°So Yoerus, what¡¯s the next quest or where do we go from here?¡± ¡°I have mapped it out for you and Jojo, just follow the signs. We are going to a small town, where you can level up in safety and at the same time sell your junk and maybe buy some new stuff. If my calculations are correct you should be getting some more Canfee-money in the next day or two. The trip is going to take us at least a couple of days but I¡¯m thinking it¡¯s worth it.¡± I agreed with him, it sounded good to sleep in a proper bed again, maybe get some better boots and if I was lucky some long distance weapon. I was curious if crossbows could be something to add to my arsenal of growing weapons. Something that worked from faraway. ¡°Jojo, let''s go!¡± ¡°Yes Green Raven!¡± I jumped up on her back and we took off. Chapter eighteen, Burgundy and burgers ## Chapter eighteen, Burgundy and burgers When we got closer to the city of Burgundy I let Jojo know that we should look for a place to set down. We soon found a spot on a small hill, where she landed and I jumped off. I told her that she had two choices: either she stayed here. I planned on being away for two to three days but my plans seldom worked. Or she let me put her in my [Inventory]. ¡°Green Raven I¡¯m not comfortable with getting into your [Inventory], but I¡¯m even less comfortable with staying here. Can we try it out?¡° ¡°For sure, I put you in there and then bring you out straight away?¡± ¡°Yes¡± I put Jojo in my [Inventory] and then brought her out almost instantly. And asked her ¡°How did it feel?¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t something I¡¯d do for fun but it works, but let us try again, want to check if we can communicate when I¡¯m in your [Inventory].¡± We tried that and it worked fine, both could initiate communication so that was good. After that I started the trek into the city, this was the first time I encountered a place where the city had walls, and guards at the gates. I chose the busiest gate with the most foot traffic, thinking I¡¯d blend in with the rest of people going to and from the city. I didn¡¯t have anything to hide, it was more that I wanted to be inconspicuous. And I needn¡¯t to worry the bored guards barely looked at me and just waved me through. ¡°Yoerus, can you guide me to the nearest Inn of good reputation. I want to take a bath, eat and level up. And a place that has a room large for me and Jojo.¡± ¡°Looking, might take a short while, just walk around and I¡¯ll shout when I have something for us.¡± ¡°Sounds good.¡± We had just passed the northern gate as it was called, the city of Burgundy was large and here was also the first place with highrises in stone, or highrises maybe was to oversell it but there were four and five storey buildings, higher than I¡¯ve encountered before. In the other villages there were 2 story buildings that were the highest. It wasn¡¯t just the high buildings that made it seem large, there were also people everywhere. And I saw at least two different markets with stalls selling all sorts of things. I didn¡¯t go close enough to see everything but there were food stalls among them and I thought I¡¯d go by them later. I started to cough and it was no wonder, the streets were made of hard packed dirt and it looked like it was a long time since this land saw any rain. Each step pulled up dirt that swirled around one''s feet, and when it passed carts pulled by some kind of draft animal, it did not get better. ¡°Yoerus do you have something for us? I need to get out of these streets now.¡± ¡°I might have something, but might I come with a suggestion first?¡± ¡°What?¡± I said as I landed another cough and felt how I had sand in my face and nose. ¡°Just at the other side of the street, if you look to your right, you see the store called ¡®Adventures are us¡¯, that is one good place to offload your things in your [Inventory] that you don¡¯t want to ¡®carry¡¯ with you anymore.¡± I didn¡¯t say anything, no need, because it was a good idea, I just looked up and saw the store and headed right for it. The store was like the one I¡¯ve seen in Raeen but this one was, of course, like everything in Burgundy, big. Much bigger than any store I¡¯ve seen before. It even had a storefront with display windows that showed all kinds of stuff, among them a tent, a portable fireplace and a sleeping bag. When I walked in through the door, a small bell rang, and the shopkeeper appeared ¡°Hi, there how may I be of assistance?¡± ¡°Hi, I¡¯m looking to sell and buy, I have lots of things I ¡®found¡¯ along the way that might be of interest to you.¡± The shopkeeper went to a bench and showed me with their hand that I could put out what I wanted to sell. I followed after him, and then looked inside my [Inventory], it had been a long time since I opened it so I must admit I wasn¡¯t too sure of all things I had there.
Inventory Inventory Slots 19/28 Bonded items: Sword Green Ravens Disciple Robe of grandness Hat of grandness 1 Pair of shoes, fair quality Inventory Jojo, QueenaFant, pet 1 Knife, good quality, Equipped 1 Axe, good quality 1 Sword, level 2, fair quality 20 Daggers, level 30, low quality 1 Dagger, level unknown, quality unknown 1 Water-skin, ? full, fair quality 1 Canfee-skin, ? full, fair quality 1 Canteen 1 for 5 liters, Canfee, 5 liters left 1 Canteen 1 for 5 liters, Water, 5 liters left 35 Rations, good quality 2 medium health potions 1 Tent for 2 persons 3 Wood Wolf sleeping bags 1 Firemaker 3 Arrows of Judgment 18 Gronners pelts 2 Dark Steam Cloud Spores 3 Raidon sandwiches 3 Binoculars 2 Bino cores 18 TerraLizzard cores 10 Keys for cages
¡°I¡¯m going to drop everything I want to sell, and we¡¯ll see what you want to buy¡± Once more he showed with their hands that it was okay, he seemed to be a man of small words. I dropped:
1 Sword, level 2, fair quality 20 Daggers, level 30, low quality 1 Dagger, level unknown, quality unknown 3 Arrows of Judgment 18 Gronners pelts 2 Dark Steam Cloud Spores If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. 3 Raidon sandwiches 2 Binoculars 2 Bino cores 18 TerraLizzard cores
I thought I¡¯d save one of the binoculars even if I had Yoerus now and he kind of made it obsolete. The shopkeeper sorted through the goods and soon they were in three different categories, the weapons, binoculars and keys in one, the arrows, sandwiches and the pelts ino one and finally the cores and spores in one. ¡°The weapons are mostly low end crap, so are the keys but I¡¯ll take them. I know a blacksmith that will gladly take them and smelt it down. The dagger that seems to be some kind of dagger used at a ritual is more interesting and for the low fee of 10 gold I can tell you about it, but I¡¯m not interested in buying it. These kinds of daggers bring the clientele I don¡¯t want here. The alchemist ingredients I¡¯ll buy. I know an alchemist in town that would be happy to get them. The cores and spores are really something, I have never seen anything like it, where did you find them you say?¡± ¡°Not to be an ass but I have no intentions to say where I found or got this stuff, if that¡¯s not okay for you I¡¯ll take my things and go. So if you are okay with that, let me know what you are willing to pay for the things you want to buy.¡± ¡°Yes, sorry didn¡¯t mean to upset you. Hmm, let¡¯s see the things for the blacksmith I can give you 20 golds, the binoculars 100 gold each, the alchemist things 5 golds. The cores and spores are hard to set a price on but if I buy them all, 20 000 gold?¡± Wow, that much? I had been a bit unsure if I should try to sell them or not, but if a regular shopkeeper were willing to cough up that much dough for something he said he didn¡¯t know anything about, I better keep them. It wasn¡¯t like I needed the money right now and I had the room for them in my [Inventory], I had decided but thought I would change tactics. ¡°Tell you what, I need some new shoes and maybe some other things, so can we put this on paus, until I find what I¡¯m looking for?¡± The shopkeeper agreed and went to get me a new pair of shoes. ¡°Green Raven, if I were you I¡¯d keep the cores and spores for another time, I know that I have answered none of your questions regarding these items, and there is a reason for that. But I can say as much that it would be dumb to sell them for 20 k gold, they are worth much, much more.¡± ¡°Yes, I gathered that, that¡¯s why I¡¯m buying shoes, and selling off the other things but the cores I''ll keep¡± and as I said that I put them back in my [Inventory], just as the shopkeeper returned. He had a glint in his eyes now, or if I thought about it, it had appeared as soon as he got his eyes on the cores. ¡°Here are 3 different shoes in what I believe is your size, the first is just regular shoes in leather in good quality, the other two are more expensive but with Runes of different kinds that make them faster or self mending.¡± ¡°I¡¯m looking for the best ones, for an adventure moves around a lot,¡± I couldn¡¯t let him know that I had Jojo, so for the best that he thought that I traveled on foot. Especially now when I have decided not to sell the cores. ¡°So tell me about the two pairs of shoes with Runes on them.¡± ¡°Certainly,¡± he showed me the first ones, both was made of leather but these ones were in red and the other was in a regular brown color, that had wings embroidered on them, ¡°these ones will not let you fly, but you will notice that walking is not that hard anymore, they are silent regardless of the surface, they self mend, and you take the length of two steps instead of one for every step taken. It takes a little time to get used too, but when you have you will never want to wear anything else. The other pair don¡¯t have the Rune, ¡®Take two for one¡¯ but the other Runes are the same. The first ones,¡± he pointed to the ones in red leather. I can part with it for 1000 gold and the other ones you can get for 250 gold.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll take the red ones, so if I calculate correctly I owe you 775 gold for the shoes minus the stuff you buy from me. I¡¯ve decided to keep the cores for now.¡± ¡°Are you sure? Maybe I was a bit of a cheap skate, let us say 50 000 gold for the cores and the rest and I¡¯ll give you the shoes for free.¡± The name of the shopkeeper was Jones, it said so on the name tag he had on his shirt. So instead of answering I just sent 775 gold to him, changed into the new shoes and put the blood rite dagger back in my [Inventory]. Then I turned and left the store. ¡°Yoerus please tell me that you have an inn for us by now?¡± ¡°Good choice of shoes Green Raven, and thank you for not selling the cores, even when he upped the price on them. One Bino core is worth 35 k gold, the TerraLizzards core are each worth 15 k gold, but to be honest their worth is not in how much you can sell them for, it¡¯s what you can use them for when the time is right¡± At this time I interrupted him and just said, ¡°The inn? Do you have a location? Put on my map and let us go there in silence.¡± At that I got a ¡®Hmph¡¯ from Yoerus, but signs appeared on my map, and I started to walk to the inn called ¡®The Smelly Duck¡¯. One thing that the shopkeeper told me was true, the shoes were amazing, it felt like I just floated past everyone I encountered on my way over to the inn. But since for every step I took, I moved two steps I was hard to keep up with and soon I stood in front of the Smelly Duck. It had a large sign painted of a Duck that was about to be thrown into a lake by other ducks, probably because it smelled. There were clean glass windows so you could see inside, at this time midday it looked like it was quite full inside with the lunch crowd. And here is where I heard Jojo let me know that she was along for the ride too. ¡°Green Raven, I¡¯m hungry and thirsty and tired, please stop admiring that window and just go in and get us a room.¡± I didn¡¯t answer, just pulled the door open and went inside. This inn was much quieter compared to the last one I had visited. And smelled better despite the name of the place. As soon as I entered, the barkeep looked up and with a friendly smile beckoned me over to the bar. ¡°Hi there traveler, how can I help you? ¡°Hi, I need a bath, a large room, and food sent up to the room.¡± We haggled a bit over the price and then I had a room on the third floor, overlooking the main street. But first a bath, the bathhouse was located two buildings over, and I went straight there before checking out my room. Felt that when I went to the room, I¡¯d not exit until morning, better get clean first. The bathhouses were called ¡®Better baths¡¯ and I must admit they were a bit better than the one in Raeen but the one there won on the close location to the inn. That done, I went back to the inn and nodded to the barkeep who asked if I wanted food sent up now. It was a spacious room with enough space for both me and Jojo. I didn¡¯t need to wait long before I heard a knock on the door, it was the food they had brought up. It was some kind of stew and freshly baked bread, it must have come straight from the oven, since it was still warm. They had also sent with a goblet of Bork. As soon as I closed the door I got Jojo out of my [Inventory], to her big relief. ¡°Feels great to be outside again, oh, is that the food?¡± She said while pointing to the stew. ¡°Yes it is,¡± and she just lunged for the food, ¡°just leave something for me. But if you like Bork you can have all of it. I don¡¯t drink that.¡± ¡°Yes please,¡± she said and started to eat in a manner that showed that she was starving. I soon told her that she could have all of the food, and I just ate from the bread. I also explained that I would space out and do some admin work in the form of leveling up and I most likely would pass out after. And she was not to worry. Jojo barley nodded just showled food into her mouth, the poor thing. I thought that we needed to try if she could access other things in my [Inventory] then she could eat and drink while in there. Maybe if I put her in the same section as the food? Things to think about, but now time to level up. I knew that I had quite a few levels to go since I got over 3000 XP after I killed the cult followers and leader, and now when I thought about it. Those people were barely human and I had no issue at all killing them. Funny how those things end up solving itself, I was worried just for nothing. I brought up my status windows first.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 29 Coins: 12 177 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 15 Dexterity 10 Endurance 10 Vitality 45 Intelligence 13 Wisdom 80 Available points: 5 Health: 450/450 Stamina: 100/100 Mana: 800/800 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 5, Area 1, Strength 4 [Copy] level 2, Slot one: Focused Hit, level 20. Slot two: [Roots] level 1
I also got an item from Userus and a level up from a skill, but since I¡¯d probably get that now when I reached level 30 I¡¯d wait and see what I got. This is where I got an idea, ¡°Yoerus, since you know everything about me, do you also know how many levels I have XP for?¡± ¡°Yes, you have XP enough to make it to level 33¡± ¡°Thank you Yoerus,¡± I said, so that was very useful information. I was level 29 now, so if I went up to level 32, and then I¡¯d have one as usual for combat healing. I read through the level up notifications.
Congratulations you have reached level 30 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations since you have reached level 30 you can choose to get a new random skill or level up one of your existing skills. Congratulations you have reached level 31 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world. Congratulations you have reached level 32 You have 3 unspent points to spend on your stats. An additional 2 points for being from another world.
So 20 unspent points, first I put 5 in Vitality, 2 in Intelligence, 3 in Strength and the remaining 10 I put in wisdom. From the quest reward, I chose to level up [Telekinesis] to level 6, and this time I chose Area, and got it up to 2, and the distance the skill had expanded to 10 meters. The [Roots] had worked okay but they broke easily so I chose to level it up to level 2 instead of getting a new skill, from leveling to 30.
Status: Name: Green Raven Level: 32 Coins: 12 177 gold, 47 silver, 51 rusty copper. Attributes: Strength 18 Dexterity 10 Endurance 10 Vitality 50 Intelligence 15 Wisdom 90 Available points: 0 Health: 500/500 Stamina: 100/100 Mana: 900/900 Skills: [Inspect item] level 2/10 [Inspect being] level 4/10 [Telekinesis] level 6, Area 2, Strength 4 [Copy] level 2, Slot one: Focused Hit, level 20. Slot two: [Roots] level 2
Meanwhile Jojo had finished the food and bork and I had pulled out one of my sleeping bags that she had crashed on. So I closed down the status window as I lay down on the bed and then pain and blackness.