《Long Island》 Prologue In the era after Royal Road, when the gamers started looking for other games, companies started releasing newer Virtual Reality games (VRMMORPGs). Game companies searched for inspiration from a lot of places like manga, anime, books and even real life events in order to make the next legend. During this boom of new VRMMORPG games, there were released some good games which showed promise. Another game in this list was Long Island. Archesoft Pvt. Enterprises, established 2025, by a bunch of students who were avid manga readers. They found inspiration from the manga and decided to make a game which they called ¡°Long Island¡±. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Mankateshver Umeshwar Swamy, or Swamy, as everyone called him was about to catch a bus to the university. Standing on the bus stop, fiddling with his hair and nervously checking the time, he often glanced towards the direction the bus was supposed to come. ¡°Today¡¯s just not my day.¡± He had gotten up early in order to get in time to reach college on his first day. ¡°If its late today, what am I going to do¡±, thinking that he glanced at his watch again. Finally the bus arrived and he breathed a sigh of relief. He had just 1 hr 40 minutes left to reach the college but he figured that he should be able to make it in just under an hour and 10 mins if no bigger problems arose. He sat down next to an elderly man with a walking stick on his side. He noticed that there was a pretty girl with dark black long hair sitting just in front of him with a guy next to her. The girl seemed to be smiling at what the guy was saying. ¡°And so this guy logged on and then waited for 15 minutes till he figured out that you had to say ¡®yes¡¯ or ¡®no¡¯ to the choices the game gives you. I mean isn¡¯t that hilarious. In this day and age you get a newb to VRMMORPGs!!¡± ¡°You are right. That is quite funny. And did you hear about Rekha? Seems she finally met the guy she was dating in the game in real life. Good looking guy he was too but long distance relationships are not everyone¡¯s cup of tea. After all the guy lived in Switzerland. And you know the first thing they did? They went shopping!! Seems he was loaded and as soon as she realised that, off she went to the mall dragging him along. Hahahaha!¡± ¡°Yeah well she was always that way. Anyways good for them. Oh hey, did you hear about this new game coming out next month. Its called Long Island. Seems like they based it on an old manga.¡± ¡°Oh, well there seems to be a few coming out during this time. How is it?¡± ¡°Well all the game developers say that they are coming out with some new stuff, but this one seems a bit different. For one the developers of this game, Archesoft, have said that this game will feature a lot of sea travel and a lot of islands. They haven¡¯t confirmed how big the world will be saying that it will be ¡®big enough¡¯. But what would be unique is the concept that classes would not exist. Any person can learn any skill they choose or find in the course of their adventures. However all skills will have conditional requirements and without achieving those conditions you won¡¯t be able to learn. They are also introducing the concept of ¡®age of the character¡¯. Not sure how it works though.¡± ¡°Hmmm, sounds interesting. I would definitely like to play that. The ones we are playing now seems kinda boring.¡± ¡°Yeah, I would like to play that too. Hopefully it isn¡¯t very expensive. And then we can play together again!!¡± ¡°Silly! Whats up with that! Haven''t we been together since we met on Royal Road?!! Aren¡¯t we together now¡± *giggle Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ¡°When I am not with you I feel so incomplete!!¡± ¡°Aw¡± and she slid more towards him and held his hand while placing her head on his shoulders. Swamy was flabbergasted. He could never get used to these situations. ¡®Bunch of loverfools¡¯ ¡®F*** Idiots¡¯ ¡®They should be drowned in holy water¡¯ and similar thoughts kept coming to his head. Swamy was a studious intellectual guy. Ever since he was little, his parents had focused on a strict curriculum and kept him on a tight leash. Ofcourse he was no newb to the VRMMORPG world. His parents had once taken him on a vacation in Royal Road when he was 12. But even in the game he was constantly monitored. Virtual gaming and related subjects were becoming the hottest new curriculum in colleges and competition to enter in these courses was becoming fierce. His parents had him write reports on his observations in royal road and VR game mechanics just so he would have a head start when he reaches this competition. And finally he had reached it. He joined the University of Bangalore in the virtual reality program. He would say that it was obvious doing the things he did but he would also say that he did not have much fun till now. Ofcourse his parents always said, work now so that you can play later, but it always seemed like that later never came. Not that he was not allowed to go outside and play with the other kids, but always because keeping fit is important or participating in sports will allow better prospective for the future. He had started cricket but was never good at it. He sucked at football, volleyball, basketball, seemingly every game invented by man, till he started chess. He liked chess and slowly got better at it. But he continued playing a bit of football just cause his parents insisted that he needs physical exercise. But all that was over today. He might not become any better but atleast he would be moving away from his parents so he could hope. His relatives at Bangalore said he could stay with them. They had just bought the apartment next to where they were living and were about to put it on rent but changed their minds and offered it to Swamy to stay. In return his parents would pay them a highly subsidized rent. So he had got a place all to himself for which he was really happy. He stepped down from the bus following the pretty girl, still cursing them in his mind. He got an Ekishaw (Electric autorikshaw) to his college. Today was just a formality and he had to fill out some more forms. They said orientation was tomorrow and attendance was mandatory. Another Ekishaw to his relatives. Meeting them all took a bit of time and he hoped his enthusiasm would carry him over till the end. Soon he got his key and saying he wanted to unpack and rest a bit left and entered his apartment. His apartment had a living room overlooking the kitchen, a bedroom and a bathroom. Not small and not quite big, just the right size for him. His relatives had taken care of putting some furniture in like a bed, a sofa, some utensils, a wardrobe, tv, fridge and basic things like that. He was looking forward to his new life. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] ********************************************************************************** *You can also read it at http://japtem.com/fanfic.php?view=426 ********************************************************************************** Chapter 1: Beginning - I Swamy woke up the next morning with a feeling of apprehension. It was the first day and he hoped he would get to make a few friends and hopefully even a girl friend in the days to come. ¡°TV, Wake, Channel 8¡± He said as the television flickered to life and switched to the channel. A lot of things had become voice operated making life easier for everyone. Though it still caused a huge argument if two people wanted to watch different things. After all the technology may have improved and become smarter but the people remain the same. Knock knock! He opened the door and found his Aunt with some dishes. ¡°Breakfast!¡± he smiled. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Orientation was always not interesting. It helped that people talked about stuff you wanted to know about campus and its facilities but it also was a day where people made speeches. And that was boring. Swamy tried to stay awake to listen to the important bits and also to make a positive impression for himself, but he was fighting a losing battle. The person sitting next to him was already teetering on his chair, eyes closed. A couple of rows down someone had tilted his head back and seemed to have completely dozed off. He thought he heard a light snore from somewhere as well. Well seeing this did nothing to improve his dedication to hearing the rest of the speech as he was already gone by that point. Swamy tried to look at his surroundings in order to stay awake. Being the guy that he is, he immediately started looking at the good looking girls around. Somehow the speeches ended. And people starting shaking themselves to wake up. The guy next to him also woke up, looked around for a bit and then smiled at him and said, ¡°Hi, I am Rajan. Nice to meet you dude.¡± ¡°Oh hi, My name¡¯s Swamy. Nice to meet you too.¡± ¡°So are you in the virtual reality program as well?¡± ¡°Yeah, you are as well then. You from around here?¡± ¡°Nah! I am from Mumbai. I just figured that it would be interesting coming here and ofcourse there is heavy competition for this course in Mumbai. Wasn¡¯t sure of my chances there. Well it isn¡¯t like the University of Bangalore is a cake walk though.¡± ¡°Yeah¡± replied Swamy. ¡°Well do you stay around here?¡± ¡°Well I do stay around here. Although I am not from Bangalore either.¡± ¡°Oh, where are you from then?¡± ¡°Mysore.¡± ¡°Yeah well we should hang out sometime. See you in class dude.¡± ¡°See you later¡±. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next day classes started. He searched for his classroom (well it isn¡¯t a small campus). As he walked into the auditorium style classroom, he remarked that the room seemed quite big with many seats. It seemed like it could seat almost a 100 people at a time. ¡®I wonder how many people actually joined!¡¯ he thought to himself. He found a seat in the middle where he thought he wouldn''t have trouble listening and also stay out of sight. It is a known fact that people always watched the front and back seats the most so he always preferred the middle seats. Slowly the class started filling up. Soon, Rajan also arrived, greeted him and then sat down in the empty seat next to him. And soon started chatting up the people near him. When the professor arrived, the chatting suddenly stopped and everyone started looking at him. Swamy also focused his attention towards the professor. ¡°Hello class, My name is Prof. Samuel D¡¯souza and I am the head of the virtual reality department. I am also one of the teachers who will be taking your classes in the 1st year. Nice to meet you. So to start, would you introduce yourselves? Let¡¯s start on the right there with you.¡± ¡°Hi, I am¡­¡­¡­ ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­. ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.. After the introductions and after almost everyone said that they are a fan of virtual reality games and how excited they were to be joining this course the prof started explaining about the course. ¡°Well here it is", as he put up a slide showing the courses and the credits information. "Now as you may know that the program requires you to play one of the VR games and write reports, etc based on your experiences in the game. Ofcourse you would also be learning about virtual reality itself. Now you may already be playing a game already, which is fine by us. You just have to submit a form saying you play this particular game. Please note that if you change the game that you are playing, you will have to submit a form again and that can only happen once a term. So please stick to playing a game atleast for a term. If you are simply trying a new game, please don¡¯t write it in the form.¡± Swamy was in a bind. He was not playing any games. Even though a lot of people play VR games today, he only had a character in royal road for that one time he went on vacation. It was not that he was not interested in playing but his parents had always nitpicked on the quality of the VR games coming in the market arguing about the negative effect to human minds, which always seemed to take the fun out of them. Furthermore his one nightmare, writing reports for Royal Road, had made him kinda resistant to playing VR games while in presence of his parents. ¡®Never thought it would become this important.¡¯ He decided to look at the various VR games and make a good choice. It might be better to choose one and play it a lot rather than trying different ones to see which one is better. ¡®Also I better keep it a secret from my parents. Writing reports aside, if I have to listen one more time about how the VR games are affecting human brains, I might as well never have come to Bangalore.¡¯ Well that decides it. He had to buy the game by earning his own money. He couldn¡¯t even use his savings account; his parents had set up that all transactions are reported to them. ¡®I will have to find a cheap game but it also has to be interesting. Wonder how much I would have to earn. And there would be monthly fees as well.¡¯ While he was agonizing over this and that the professor added. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. ¡°Oh I forgot to tell you, but you have a 1 month deadline for the form this term.¡± Just 1 month!! Most VR games in the market he knew cost around 8000 ¨C 10000 rupees (Indian currency almost 130 to 170 us dollars) just to buy and then monthly fees which are almost 3000 ¨C 5000 rupees (about 50 to 85 dollars) depending on the game. Over the years the hourly pay in India had improved to almost 170 rupees per hour minimum but that would still require him to work 30 hours per month. Still he could manage that if he could find a suitable job, but what would he do about buying the game. Simple calculation he will have to work 60 hours. Considering the labor laws today which basically limit the hours a student (you still have to be 18 or older) can work to 20 hours a week and no working after 6 pm, he would have to basically work in the day time. Also he would have to attend his classes which would be from 8 am in the morning till evening 6 pm (practicals and homework included) meaning he would have to work all day long on the weekends. Swamy groaned. So much for enjoying a parent free life. The professor kept giving information and answering questions till lunch time. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After devouring his lunch, he always thought brain work takes up a lot of energy so you need to eat appropriately; he quickly headed to one of the labs where he could get free internet. He had to start searching for the game he wanted to play and also for a job. He opened up various games websites and looked at game reviews sorting through them carefully. Finding a bunch of them which seemed interesting, he quickly made a note of them thinking to look more closely later. He then started looking for part-time jobs. After careful searching, he finally settled on a movers job. The job seemed simple, requiring a bit of physical work. Well most of the heavy lifting is done by machines anyway with humans giving them commands. But still the lighter loads are left for people to carry as using machines for them would not be economical. He also figured that most people would do their moving over the weekend and he would be able to work full time. He quickly filled in his details and applied online. After lunch, in the classroom¡­. Rajan came back to his seat next to Swamy. He nodded. ¡°Hey Swamy, where did you disappear to?¡± ¡°Oh I just went to the lab to access the internet¡±. ¡°What! Why? And don¡¯t you have internet on the phone?¡± ¡°Well I do, but I wanted to apply to some part-time jobs and some other stuff.¡± ¡°Jobs? On the first day itself! Man! You are dedicated!¡± ¡°Oh well that¡¯s that. So what did I miss?¡± ¡°Ah, we were just discussing which games we are playing and what we will register with.¡± ¡°Oh really so which game do you play?¡± ¡°Right now I am playing Wild Terrain. It¡¯s got some cool features. Its got like this time travel thing where you are a time traveler and you can go back in time to the dinosaur age. And instead of goblins you get tyrannosaurs. It¡¯s a Royal Road clone on the gameplay however.¡± ¡°Wow seems like you know a lot about them.¡± ¡°HAHA that¡¯s saying a few. Well I ain¡¯t putting that in my form though. Planning to start a new game coming out next month. Its called Long Island.¡± Hearing it again, Swamy remembered the time in the bus and that couple talking. It seems that this could be a worthwhile game, if people seem to be eagerly expecting it. He added it to his list of games. For the next month, it was a regular routine of going to classes and studying up on various games. On the weekends he would go to his part-time job and work hard moving stuff. He soon found out that he could handle the heavy-lifting machines as well, earning him a bit more than the minimum. His list of games was slowly becoming smaller as he cut out each one based on the metrics he had drawn up. He was good at this sort of thing as he had been writing reports all his life. He critiqued each factor of a game and came up with what he called the interest rating. The higher the interest rating, the more interesting he would find the game. And so far he was making lists. First he made the top ten list, then the top five, the top three, till he reached the conclusion. Long Island. This game was creating quite a buzz on the scene as the first VR game without classes, common or othervise. Some people were scoffing at the concept while a lot of them were eagerly anticipating, but all of them were eager to play. It also boasted the ¡®character age¡¯ system. The information on this was still limited, but people were saying that it might be equivalent to levels. The game makers, ArcheSoft, still kept the lid on this feature and simply stated that your age would be an important factor in learning and vice versa, your learning in the game would affect your age. Players were eagerly waiting to find out what exactly it entails. The next day, he placed an order for Long Island. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Long Island was released today. Hopefully his capsule would arrive today too. Swamy had been patiently waiting for it since he ordered it, but due to the high demand, the company was having trouble delivering it to everyone. Soon however he received the call. It was after 6 pm so he was at home anyway. The technicians installed the capsule and explained some basic security features. He listened attentively to all that was said. Soon after he closed the door behind the technicians who left. He entered the capsule. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] ********************************************************************************** *You can also read it at http://japtem.com/fanfic.php?view=428 ********************************************************************************** Chapter 2: Beginning - II Swamy opened his eyes to find himself in white cube room with square like tiles. A female voice spoke,
Welcome to Long Island! Your scan shows you are an unregistered user. Would you like to create a character now?
"Yes" replied Swamy.
Please choose your character name
Swamy thought for a bit, and then said. "Raka", he chose a character name from an old comic he once read, secretly ofcourse.
"Please choose your starting race"
"Human"
"Please choose your starting location"
"Random", which was no doozy as no one knew about the advantages of the starting locations as yet.
"Your character Raka has been created. You may modify the appearance as you wish although your base facial features will remain the same."
Saying which a 3D model of Raka came up, allowing him to make changes here and there. Raka didn''t make a lot of changes, simply removed his glasses, and made his body just a little buff. He didn''t like his skinny self a lot. He also thought of adding a tattoo of a dragon on his arm, but finally settled for an anchor tattoo on his shoulder. "Changes done"
"Your changes have been incorporated. Your starting location has been randomly selected to be Ilmentia Island, Gurrow Village."
"Game starting now...." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka opened his eyes to see a town bustling with players and NPCs. "What exactly are they wearing?!!" Somehow the first question that came to his mind was what the players were wearing. The NPC''s seemed to be in various attires but all the players seemed to be wearing togas. Yeah the roman kind of toga. He quickly looked at himself and found himself wearing the same plain drab white toga as everyone else. Not that he cared about what he wore. Eventually he would be able to buy proper clothes like the NPC''s but a lot of the NPCs as well seemed to be wearing a similar kind of toga, just more fashionable and colorful, adorned in jewellery and what else. ''It must be inspired by ancient Roman civilizations.'' Raka moved around a little bit and started taking a walk looking at the sights and sounds. Some people were bashing rocks using some kind of pointed rock. Some were carrying things. He found a few who seemed to be exercising, doing sit-ups and like. Some were walking like him but some others were actually running. And some seemed to be jogging; yeah there was no other way to describe it. He also found a lot of players standing in front of NPCs trying to wave their arms and using signs. Some of the NPCs responded by giving them food or water or asking questions if they did not understand (in signs ofcourse). He passed by a couple of female NPCs, one of whom was wearing some kind of a sexy sleeveless dress which came loosely down to their ankles and was tied using some kind of cloth belt. She carried a book in her hands. The other one seemed to be wearing an ancient warrior kind of clothing, kind of a leather skirt and vest topped off with metal of some kind. Also she was carrying a type of sword on her belt. These two women were talking with each other in a language he couldn''t understand. In fact now that he noticed he saw several NPC groups talking to each other and he couldn''t understand any of it. "Holy cow! What is going on?" he could hear his own voice asking. He was flummoxed, bewildered beyond words. Where the hell had he landed up. He decided he needed to get some information. He thought for a while and walked up to one of the players on the street side who seemed to be trying to lift a wood plank up and down. No matter how one looked that seemed like weight lifting. "Hi, could you explain to me whats going on?" The guy seemed puzzled.He started waving his arms around. Has everyone gone crazy?!!! He remembered the effects to the human brain speech his parents had often given and was seriously worried now! But the guy smiled looking at his scared expression. Then he made a sign like clicking a button and a square window. ''Oh, is he talking about clicking and opening a window. Maybe...?'' "Character Window"
NameRaka
Age1
Satiety100
[p=left]"You have been born. You have learned no stats or skills yet. Just like a baby, you have no ability to speak or understand any language yet." "When satiety falls, you will feel hungry."[/p]
"Amazing!!!" was the word which he thought justified all. So the game had this kind of start. When the developers said you can learn any and all skills, they actually meant all of them. So if you did not gain the skill to generate strength stat, you will never have the strength stat. Swamy started thinking. He wasn''t sure what to do. He did a thumbs up to the guy who was looking like he might have to do some more waving and communicated he understood. The guy smiled again and went back to his lifting. Raka figured the guy was trying to generate the strength stat. Was there a way to generate the stats using exercise? Well, he understood that in theory it made sense. After all didn''t Royal Road allow developing skills if you do them repeatedly! And most of the people had played it or similar games so they were trying that. He did not know if anyone had been able to generate the stat already and were increasing it with exercise or they were still trying. He had two options. Either he start imitating them and hope for the best, which he definitely thought some people would be doing already, or should he log out and check the forums if someone had posted something about it. Acting without information was against his nature in the first place so he chose to check the forums first. ''If that doesn''t work, I can always try the other way'' He logged out and started looking at the forums on his laptop. His parents had gifted him one on the occasion of him getting selected for university. Although nowadays laptops are as cheap as PCs were once. As he expected, there was not much information about the game so far. He did find posts complaining about the difficulty and the nature of the game however, which was also within expectations. He figured some players would find it kind of annoying that they couldn''t understand language and they did not have any stats. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. Well you did have Satiety and Age but so far absolutely everyone had figured out that Satiety meant keeping your stomach full and absolutely no one had a clue to Age. A post explained Satiety in full including a couple of ways on how to get food from NPCs. Apparently you also had some food in your Bag, but being shocked as he was Swamy had not checked it. "Um...that was pretty obvious." Swamy spent almost an hour reading every post which was posted in forums. Players were posting as soon as they found something new, or just something new they thought they would try. One of the posts was saying that if exercise could generate the STR stat maybe reading in a library could also get you the Intelligence stat. "I would be reading in the library to find out and will let you know", it said. After sorting through everything, he concluded that not much information was there. Not that he expected people to have solved all the problems so soon; the game had released just a couple of hours ago. But he also suspected that those who had found the ways might be keeping quiet too. "It''s a competition after all. Everyone wants to find the one thing that makes them better than the rest." He doubted having the knowledge to generate stats would be kept secret for long though. Eventually just having a stat did not guarantee you would be strong. Swamy did not know what to do now. He had no choice but to go back to the game and try doing things like everyone else. Should he try waiting for a bit longer? No, that would be counter-productive. He did not know how long it would take for someone to figure out and post it online. He had to do things himself. Swamy logged back in and decided he would try the library. It seemed better than running aimlessly. He walked around searching for the library when he saw a big building, like 5 stories tall in the distance. He had found out different shops by looking at their displays but this tall building didn''t have any such display. Furthermore it seemed important as it looked like it was made out of marble. Raka entered the building and found rows and rows of book shelves. There was this counter as he entered, which he supposed was like the checking out desk of a real library. There were a few players browsing and reading books. Correction, they were trying to read them based on the dull confused expression on their faces. Some of them opened a book, looked hurriedly and then put it down, seemingly not understanding a word of it. Raka too, picked a shelf and took out a book at random. He looked at the cover, which was quite plain, but having strange characters written on it, which he presumed might be the title. He opened it and looked at a few pages before putting it down. ''Nope! Can''t understand a thing.'' He tried the same thing with a few other books hoping for some realization but all was in vain. He looked at the other people to see if they found something different but all of them were the same. One of them had dozed off on the chair probably tired of looking at this nonsense. ''This won''t do, there has to another way'', thought Raka. He has to look for a different way. He first decided to check his bag which he had forgotten earlier. He had 20 breads, 20 canteens of water and a plant which was unidentified. Next he checked his character window once again. "Character Window"
NameRaka
Age1
Satiety100
[p=left]"You have been born. You have learned no stats or skills yet. Just like a baby, you have no ability to speak or understand any language yet." "When satiety falls, you will feel hungry."[/p]
He tried to read it again and again looking at it from different angles but he could deduce nothing from it. In frustration, he sighed and closed his eyes. ''This is going nowhere.'' He tried remembering everything about virtual reality he knew. He hadn''t played any VR games other than Royal Road, so he even tried remembering the reports he had written then, even though it had been a nightmare. He remembered he had written about the functions of stats and skills, how he played the game, about the sceneries he saw, about Unicorn corporation, about the number 1 player Weed and a lot of other things. He had to research a lot of information about some of these things from the internet. He remembered an interview with Hyun Woo (Weed) which was published worldwide. It had contained excerpts and quotes from people who knew and interacted with him. One of the quotes he particularly liked was said by the professor of the virtual department of University of Korea. He said, that when I asked Hyun Woo about virtual reality and how it is different from reality, he answered, "To try dividing reality and virtual reality in itself is meaningless." Suddenly, Raka sat up. He was repeating the line again and again in his head. ''Could it be possible?!!'' He was now thinking of a way. If virtual reality is the same as reality then that means what works in reality should work in the game. And in order to raise a baby, you need..... He stood up and started looking around. Not finding what he was looking for, he climbed up to the next floor and the next looking for it. He climbed up to the 5th floor but he couldn''t find the thing he was looking for. He climbed down again to the main floor not understanding where it could be, when he saw a trap door right behind the stairs leading up to the first floor. Lifting it, he found stairs leading down. He found some more rows of shelves but this place was colorful. Infact the walls had been painted in various colors and you could see doll figures and fruit paintings on the walls. ''Ah! This is it. The kids section! Must be somewhere here...'' This floor was hidden by the trap door but he figured the trap door was mostly to get the kids excited and not for actual hiding. He walked down the rows of books and finally found some books which showed promise. "Finally found it. Picture books!!" He opened one and started to look at the pictures of various fruits in them. The first one was an apple with some characters next to it. Raka looked at the characters carefully and then said it aloud, "Apple".
[p=left]Ability to learn languages: 0.1% "Learned the ability to learn languages." Language of Ilmentia Island: 1% "You have learned the language of Ilmentia Island." "When the learning of the language of Ilmentia Island reaches 100%, you will be able to communicate with the residents of the island."[/p]
"Eureka!!!" [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] ********************************************************************************** *You can also read it at http://japtem.com/fanfic.php?view=429 *Need an easy way to convert html to bbcodes. ********************************************************************************** Chapter 3: First Step! Swamy woke up in the morning. ¡®Time to get ready I guess¡¯ he thought as he yawned. He had a late night yesterday. It was only the first day of the game, called Long Island, but it was quite eventful. He took a shower and dressed in a shirt and jeans. And he was off. His apartment was just 20 mins away from his university which gave him some time to sleep a little but last night he had kinda stretched himself. He knew he had to go to college in the morning but the excitement of finding something new kept him in the game. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After getting the system message which said he was on the right track, Raka continued reading more picture books. When he first started, every fruit picture would increase Language of Ilmentia Island by 1%. However after 6% it slowed down so that every 4-5 pictures would now increase 1%. Raka kept reading more and more picture books till the increase in experience crawled down to about 50 pictures for 1%. He still persisted. Knowing he was on the right track made him stubborn and he felt that if he had to read every picture book in the library, he would. But the experience he was gaining was trickling down. By 19%, he had to read almost 150 picture names to get 1%. He was slowly getting worried that he might run out of picture books before he even got anywhere close to a 100%. ¡°Show skill, Language of Ilmentia Island¡±
Language of Ilmentia Island: 19.93% "When the learning of the language of Ilmentia Island reaches 100%, you will be able to communicate with the residents of the island.
¡®Seems like it slowed down again. Better find some more books.¡¯ Thinking that, he started collecting more picture books. He had found almost all of the simple ones which had fruits, vegetables, animals, birds, vehicles and a lot of miscellaneous ones which had a bit of everything in them. He was now beginning to find a lot of the same pictures in the other books which did not increase his experience at all. Ofcourse he judiciously avoided all the books which dealt with the island. He knew he would never get them right. Not yet atleast. Finding no more books, he went back to the desk where he had this stockpile of the books he had already read. He had started worrying of what would happen when he runs out of picture books. ¡®Well I will worry about it when I get there¡¯. He started reading those books hoping that it will have some new pictures. The first two did not. He moved to his third one and fortunately, it had a few.
You have grown. You Age is now 2. Language of Ilmentia Island: 20% ¡°You can now speak certain words which may be understood by the people.¡± "When the learning of the language of Ilmentia Island reaches 100%, you will be able to communicate with the residents of the island."
He read the message again and again. ¡®Certain words??? ¡¯ What words could he use now! So far all he had read had been names of stuff from the real world. Though now that he thought it, what were real world books doing here in the first place. ¡®I guess it¡¯s for the adventurers like us. It¡¯s to help us start learning the language.¡¯ ¡®But the bigger question is what words can I use now? How do I find that out? Should I start talking to the npcs trying words in random?¡¯ Raka was confused. He looked at the message again. ¡®Hmm, age is 2. What could it mean¡­.¡¯ On a hunch, he took out a book that looked like a story book. He looked at the cover. The title was still in the island¡¯s language. He recognised some characters having seen them before but he still couldn¡¯t understand it. Still he opened the book and looked at one of the pages. Raka smiled. ¡®So that¡¯s how it works.¡¯ On the page he found some words in English. The rest were still in the island¡¯s language though. So the more I learn the language, the more the system translates the local language into my language. It was similar to Royal Road in that sense as the system translated all languages into your language. But in this case the system had a condition of you needing to learn the native language first. He opened one of the picture books he had read before and saw that all the words had been translated to English now. ¡®That confirms it.¡¯ Raka was feeling quite pleased with himself when,
¡°Satiety has reduced to 10. You are hungry. If Satiety falls more, you will be affected by negative conditions.¡±
He opened his bag and took out a piece of bread. Took a bite and, ¡°Ugh!¡± The bread was tough and pretty hard to eat. It tasted bland and tasteless. He somehow bit into it, piece by piece, chewed and swallowed.
¡°Satiety increases by 30¡±
For now he was good. He took a water canteen and took a drink.
¡°Satiety increases by 5¡±
¡®Well if I have to eat it again, I might pass out from the strain of chewing¡¯. Deciding that, he stood up and made for the streets. He would try one of those methods of getting food he had read about. * Raka walked the streets looking for a food shop. Though he didn¡¯t have any money yet he figured he had a better chance of begging food from a food shop than anywhere else. He walked around looking at the various shop displays. There were a lot of stores on the island. He passed by looking at their window displays for a bit. A shop was displaying some designer clothes; the one next to it had a leather armor display on a mannequin while the one across the street had a heavy armor display. Walking a little more, he could see a shop displaying all sorts of knick knacks. It seemed interesting so Raka looked a little more closely. There were all sorts of things made from metal, stone, strings, sea-shells and things he couldn¡¯t recognize. The more he saw it the more it looked like one of those tourist stores which sell souvenirs. A little further some shops were actually selling fish. He saw some tuna like fish, some long nosed fish, a fish which had really sharp and long teeth (shark evolution maybe) and some other which he could not even say whether they were fish. Everything seemed new and interesting. He saw a couple of people talking in the native language. He could now understand some simple words here and there though most of the conversation was still gibberish. And then,
¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 20.1%.¡±
He could raise his language skills by listening to people talk. Realizing that, he tried listening in more but being aware of not making it look like that he was actually eavesdropping. After all, people don¡¯t take to eavesdroppers kindly. He went close to a group, heard for a bit and then walked off to the next. Soon he came up on a food shop; it had various kinds of good food, cakes, etc on display. He stood outside for a bit thinking of the best way to approach. He knocked on the shop door and waited. No response. He knocked again and waited. No response again. He simply knocked again. A lady came outside looking angry and started shouting a bit of angry gibberish. Raka listened for bit, slowly making as sad and miserable a crying face, he could manage. He thought to actually cry for a bit, but being a guy that didn¡¯t seem like a manly thing to do. So he simply pretended, as much as he could. He wouldn¡¯t win an award for his acting, however¡­ The food shop lady looking at him calmed down. Raka had got his chance. He started rubbing his tummy and bowing. The shop lady realizing it, smiled a little. She went inside the shop and came out with an apple and gave it to him. ¡°Apple¡±
¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 25%.¡±
Raka froze. He had said it from force of habit as he had been practicing all this time. He suspected that the lady understood it as well. She smiled some more and shook her head and replied with some gibberish which had the word apple in it. Raka quickly looked around. A couple of drab toga clad players, who probably had the same idea to beg for food, were staring at him open mouthed. ¡®Shit!¡¯ Raka had intended to hide his information as much as possible to gain an advantage. He didn¡¯t think that he would never tell it. But he figured that once he gained enough of an advantage, and if no one else had figured out his method, he would post it on the forums himself. But now, these two seemed to have realized it. Even though they wouldn¡¯t have understood it, but here they saw a player say something and the shop lady happily responding. Raka started waving his arms, hoping it would fool them. The shop lady looked a bit confused and then shrugged and walked back in the shop. He started moving ahead, away from the library and the couple followed. ¡®Just as I thought, they weren¡¯t fooled.¡¯ Raka kept walking for a while here and there aimlessly, sometimes stopping to look at a display, all the while hoping that these two would get bored and leave. But that didn¡¯t happen. He didn¡¯t have a choice now. He thought of a plan and then started walking towards the library. Once he reached there, he simply moved towards one of the shelves on the main floor and opened up a book and started looking up and down, as if he was reading it. He did this for a few minutes turning a few pages, then put down the book and started reading another. After going through a couple of books, Raka put them back and logged out. * Swamy looked at the clock which said 2 am. He had been playing for almost 6 hours. But he was still a bit excited and couldn¡¯t fall asleep. He wanted to go back in but he had class in the morning. And he didn¡¯t want to go back when he knew those two would be there. He hoped that the plan would work and successfully fool them but he wasn¡¯t sure. One of the people following him was a girl who seemed to observe, not just look at, him. Intelligent women are not easily fooled, he thought remembering his mother. He sighed hoping that the damage done would be reduced a bit. Maybe they won¡¯t find the kids room. Maybe they won¡¯t know to look in the picture books, after all there was an entire floor, maybe they will be fooled and keep looking at all the books¡­ If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Thinking this and that, Swamy dozed off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy headed to college. ¡°Hey Swamy¡± ¡°Hey Rajan, whats up?¡± Swamy met Rajan at the gate and they headed together towards their classroom. ¡°NOT good at all. Spent my whole night trying to figure out this game Long Island¡± ¡°Yeah its tough, ain¡¯t it¡±. ¡°Right. Wait! You started playing Long Island as well.¡± ¡°Yeah¡± ¡°Ah, brothers in pain!¡± Rajan patted his back with a sad face. Swamy simply smiled. They took their seats and a while later the classes began. Though a lot of stuff had been in his mind this morning, Swamy put everything aside to focus on his lectures. This class was one of his favorite teachers, Prof. D¡¯souza. He didn¡¯t have a problem with the other professors, but it was just that they didn¡¯t have a perspective that Prof. D¡¯souza had. He truly saw things in a different way which showed in his classes. His classes were always filled to maximum. Even students of other branches came to sit in his classes. Some times they took it as their free elective subject. Other times just cause they had free time. Students, having free time, and wishing to sit in a class in university, hmmm guess that says it all!! Today, he started an interesting topic as well. ¡°How do we relate to ourselves in Virtual Reality? Do we look at ourselves like having got a second chance to make ourselves as we would have liked without all the mistakes we actually made in real life? Making a better history, that is. Or do we look at virtual reality as an extension of real life, so that we can enjoy our real lives more fully?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s divide ourselves into groups and come up with arguments for both these cases. So I want equal number of teams for each side.¡± Students started rearranging themselves. Some people stuck with their friends while seating so they simply sat there. Others quickly moved and soon formed groups. Rajan, called over a couple of girls from the front row and his other neighbor and we made a group as well. Swamy looked at the girls approaching. ¡®Damn bastard! Both of them are quite pretty. How the hell did he get to be so popular!!¡¯ was what Swamy actually thought but¡­. ¡°Hi I am Sneha!¡± ¡°Hi I am Himali!¡± ¡°Oh hi, I am Swamy, nice to meet you!¡± Sneha had lovely black long hair, with black eyes with a hint of grey and pink lips and a suitably placed nose. She was slim, about average height and had a bracelet on with some kind of green stone. He later found out that it was called Turquoise to signify a December birth. Himali on the other hand, had black curly hair which fell down gently on to her shoulders. She had pretty deep black eyes and smooth lips with a cutely pointed nose. She had on a very small nose ring as well as a couple of small earrings. The other guy on the other hand was plain looking, thin, wearing stylish glasses, and branded clothes and had an air of nonchalance about him, as though the world¡¯s problems will solve itself on its own one day. ¡°Hi, I am Manish, you can call me Mani¡± he said. They soon had a good discussion going on about the topic. ..¡­Swamy however was worried about a much more fundamental problem. Manish had stood up and moved to sit in front of them and Himali had sat next to him. Sneha on the other hand took Manish¡¯s vacant place next to Rajan. ¡®Ah the irony!¡¯, Swamy sighed¡­. During lunch, all five of them sat together, much to Swamy¡¯s chagrin which he hoped did not show, and started discussing about the game. ¡°So all of you started playing Long Island?¡± asked Swamy. ¡°Yeah! Rajan recommended me to try, and I did.¡± ¡°Yup, as Manish was joining, I thought I would try it as well.¡± ¡°In my case I think Rajan had to beg me to join didn¡¯t he?¡± said Sneha while looking at Rajan. Rajan sheepishly said, ¡°That¡¯s probably true, but I thought you would enjoy the game, honest!¡± Sneha replied, ¡°But it¡¯s so damn hard. I can¡¯t talk to anyone, so I don¡¯t know what to do or how to get any quests. I can¡¯t even talk to other players either.¡± ¡°Hahahaha true that¡± said Himali. ¡°I hate the bread too. God if someone doesn¡¯t figure out a way to earn some money, I would die of hunger soon. Though I think we got around a way to talk to each other didn¡¯t we Manish.¡± ¡°Please say you are not talking about hand signs or whatever.¡± ¡°Actually no¡±, Manish replied. ¡°You can friend someone. You just have to create a party with them for a while first. Not long though and then you will be able to PM each other. Himali and I usually party ourselves in other games as well so fortunately we discovered this.¡± ¡°Yeah and as for food, you can beg the local people. They usually give you an apple or stuff like that. But it doesn''t always work so you may have to try a couple of times.¡± ¡°Wow so you guys discovered that too?¡± ¡°Ah no, someone had posted a couple of methods on the forums and we tried that.¡± ¡°Hmmm¡± ¡°So you guys must have started on the same place then¡±, asked Sneha. ¡°Yeah we started in Gurrow village, in Ilmentia island. We are humans.¡± ¡°Really I started in Dalmund island, Manaka village. I actually wanted to be an elf, but when I tried, the system said that this race is not available as yet.¡± ¡°Yeah me too. I tried orcs, goblins, giants, werewolves and whatever I could think of and the system always said, that this race is not available as yet. Whats up with that? Could it be that only humans could be selected at the start? By the way I started at Dalmund as well.¡± ¡°Could be. Maybe as we discover them we would be allowed to change to them. Or after we discover them they would be available to newer players.¡± ¡°Its possible, and what do you think about the no stat situation. Did you figure out a way to generate stats?¡± ¡°Not yet, we are still trying. I was running and weight-lifting all night yesterday. But there was news on the forums today. I did not get a chance to read it fully, but I think it said that someone had found a clue that the way to talk could be in the library.¡± ¡°Oh really¡­wow!! About time that! So now we can actually start enjoying the game. Though it makes you wonder if you get this at the start what does the game have in store for you later on¡­I am excited. Been a while since I felt this excited. I just hope it doesn¡¯t turn out to be a dampener.¡± ¡°Yeah us too, we are hoping to really start our adventures. And figuring out how to generate stats are fun on their own, I have been trying loads of different things, hahahah I even tried leaving the city. But I couldn¡¯t. Got a system message saying that I have not grown enough. Could be related to age you think?¡± ¡°yeah could be¡­¡­¡­.. ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.. ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­. ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.. Swamy quietly listened to every conversation noting points of interest in his mind. He nodded here and there but most of the conversation was being carried on by the other four and he did not feel like talking so he resigned himself to listening and sipping on his juice with an occasional ¡®Oh¡¯ or ¡®Ah¡¯ or ¡®hahaha¡¯ here and there. He pricked his ears when the clue to the library post was mentioned, and nodded like everyone else, not showing his extreme agitation. Lunch ended and all of them went back to their classes. Swamy walked a little slow behind them thinking all the time. When he arrived home in the evening, the first thing he did was open his laptop and look at the forums. Sure enough there was a post with a heading ¡®Clue found to communicating with locals¡¯ which had quickly become quite popular over the day. He opened it and read the first post, ¡°Hey, I and my friend just logged out from the game and we have incredible news to report. Seems like someone has found out how to get the skill to talk to people. It happened like this. We had just gone to the food shop at Ilmentia island to beg for some food when we saw this guy ahead of us taking an apple from the shop lady. And then he said something. We couldn¡¯t understand it but the incredible thing was the shop lady responded back to him. We were staring at him when this guy suddenly turned around, saw us, and then started waving his arms. It was extremely suspicious and I think he did that to hide that he could talk to the shop lady. We followed him and his suspicious behaviour continued as he started walking like he had nothing to do looking at the shops and what else. Then he went to the library, and started looking at some books. And then he logged out. I think he thought he lost us in between so went back to the library. But then he saw us again, so he started looking at random books and after a while logged out. Like it is gonna give us a slip. But its definite that the library holds something which will help people talk. I and my friend are gonna look for it. Asking other people to join to make the search easier.¡± ¡°Is it true?¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t just pulling your legs was it¡± ¡°Oh finally a clue. Lets go to the library.¡± ¡°Now we know where to look, we can simply comb the library from top to bottom¡± ¡°I am not in Ilmentia island. Can I go to the library at my island?¡± ¡°Please tell us if you find something, pretty please!¡± ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­.. ¡­¡­¡­¡­¡­. ¡­¡­¡­¡­. There were several replies, some questioning and some joining in to help. Swamy went to his capsule. * Raka opened his eyes to see a crowd of people surrounding him. He glanced left and right, People were opening books, looking at them and putting them in a stack on the table. There seemed to be five people working on every shelf. People sat down on the ground while looking at those books. Some were crawling while taking out books from the bottom shelf. Some stood on a chair and were trying to reach the higher ones. Altogether the floor had almost a hundred people. He assumed that there would be as many people in the above floors as well. About 500 people were at the library already and more seemed to be coming in. Suddenly the guy next to me looked up from a book and made some signs, "Please go help on the 3rd floor" was how Raka translated it. ¡°Alright¡± waved with a thumbs up and Raka started moving towards the stairs. The guy went back to looking at the shelves for more books. Raka quietly changed his direction and left the library. He looked outside; it was late afternoon in the game. He started walking here and there and found the streets to be completely void of players. There were still one or two who did not seem affected, but most of the players had gone to the library. Even the ones logging in seemed to hurry to the library. The clue to talking had that much of an impact. Raka smiled. His plan had worked magnificently. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 4: Starting School Raka was learning the language of Ilmentia Island for the past 3 hours. The game time had been adjusted as 3hrs = 1hr of the real time so for 1 hour in real life, he had been extremely busy. He walked the empty streets eavesdropping on the islanders to increase his experience. He also greeted the ones he found alone, with a simple ¡®hello¡¯ and bowing his head. The islanders sometimes replied back saying ¡°hello¡­¡±followed by gibberish at which Raka only smiled and kept walking. Raka did not have to worry about anyone hearing him anymore as everyone seemed to be in the library, but he still looked around every time he spoke anyway. According to his plan he had made sure that people concentrated themselves in the library, while he could roam the streets learning language by talking and listening without worry. After all, it was giving him more experience than the books and he could raise intimacy at the same time. The biggest surprise was speaking though; every word he spoke gave the highest experience. He tried saying ¡®hello¡¯ to the first person he met, and it had worked. So he actively greeted people he met on the streets though leaving them alone if they were talking to each other. He did not feel it worth to disturb their conversation when he couldn¡¯t even understand it. The people being interrupted might get angry. He started in one direction reaching the end of the village. He saw a gate at the end. There were guard towers next to the gates with armored guards manning them. He remembered yesterdays¡¯ conversation about players not being allowed outside, but he still walked towards the gates anyway. He looked towards the guards to see if anyone would try to stop him, but the guards didn¡¯t show any sign of concern and were intent on keeping a lookout outside the gate. Raka approached and suddenly felt like he hit an invisible wall.
¡°You are not allowed to leave the village. You are not old enough!¡±
¡®Hmmm seems it was true.¡¯ Forgetting all about the gate he resumed his walk towards the other end of the town. Raka figured he had atleast 6 hours of real time in the worst case that is 18 hours of game time, before he expected people back out on the streets. He calculated that even if the other players found the way to learn the language, it would still take a very long time for them to actually go through all the picture books. He hoped the people would stick to it and not give up halfway and come out early. All in all he expected that the only time he would see people outside in some number is when they get hungry. ¡®Till then, the only problems are the players who stay outside.¡¯ Being careful of that Raka kept lingering the streets. The village unexpectedly turned out to be larger than he imagined. He had spawned quite close to the library on the first day so this was the first time he had actually walked it end to end. ¡®I would say it stretches about 3 kms.¡¯ And that was only the main road. There were countless side streets which headed off to a wall which surrounded the whole village. On top of the walls were more guard towers, having one or two guards keeping watch. The design of the village seemed to be the shops and the main buildings including the library on the main road with residences and houses built along the side streets towards the walls. Overall it looked like it made a large oval tapering towards the gates on either end of the village. Raka thought that it would be classified as a town rather than a village at this size. He gobbled up an apple when he felt hungry while keeping up the walk. Every couple of hours he would come find the food shop and beg for an apple. He found the shop lady quite friendly and she would smile every time he came. After a while he tried other food words he learnt as well. She had laughed at his attempts and then invited him in the shop, pointing at things and trying to make him say their names. When he felt tired, Raka sat down besides the road for bit and then continued again. After another 8 hours¡­
¡°You have grown up. Your age is now 3¡± ¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 60%¡± ¡°The residents of Ilmentia Island will now help in your learning and teach you simple words.¡±
¡®The residents will help?! Something like that shop lady was doing before. But I just had this message now, so before she was helping based on our friendship, I guess.¡¯ Raka walked towards the shop on the side, which looked like a blacksmith, run by a middle aged thickset man with bulging muscles. He did not know what to say, so he simply greeted him. The man said ¡®Hello¡¯ and then followed it by some gibberish. He thought he heard ¡®you¡¯ and ¡®want¡¯ in what he spoke. ¡®Now how do I answer him?¡¯ He thought for a bit and then said ¡®help¡¯ pointing at his mouth and then pointing at different things in the shop. ¡®Would he understand?¡¯ Just in case he took out an apple and pointing to it said ¡®apple¡¯ and then pointed at a hammer looking like he was asking a question. The man seemed annoyed and then said loudly ¡°Hammer¡±.
¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 60.1%¡±
¡°Hammer¡±, repeated Raka.
¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 60.15%¡±
Raka decided that before he gets angry he better ask a couple more and leave so he simply pointed at an armored vest. The man was making quite a face now, but he still replied, ¡°Iron Armor¡±.
¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 60.2%¡±
Raka bowed and left. He was soon stopping by every shop trying to ask the residents as much as he can about the stuff inside. Armor, leather, wood, food, weapons, clothes, knick knacks, and other things. He asked for as many item names he could manage without making them angry. His food shop lady though, helped him a lot. He simply repeated as many names as he learned earning a bit of extra experience. And he continued listening to others as he walked. * Soon he noticed people leaving the library, so he logged out for a bit and checked the forums. He expected if anyone found something, it would be end up in the forums for sure. After all, so many people were in the library. It was hard to hide anything. Sure enough, there was this post explaining the trap door and the hidden room within. Within a few minutes another person posted that picture books were the key. And then the landslide of posts began. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy looked at the time, it was 2 am. He knew he was supposed to be sleeping so that he could attend class tomorrow. But he was so close now. A couple of hours more and he could probably reach 80%. After all he had to have as much of a lead as he can manage. He couldn¡¯t skip college; his parents would eat him alive, if they found out. So he hoped that any lead he could manage tonight still remained till next evening. He waited for about half an hour and then logged back in. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka found the streets empty as it was the middle of the night in the game. The shops were closed and he didn¡¯t want to go to the library. ¡®Now where do I find people at this hour¡¯ he wondered. Then he remembered the guard towers. Feeling like there was no other choice left, he started walking towards one of the gates. Gurrow village had two gates. The west gate, where he had tried to get outside had a thick forest a little ahead of it. On the east side, however, there was wide thick road, where he saw caravans coming in during the day. Next to the gate was a large building, which Raka assumed was a warehouse. He decided that he could find people there if it did not work out on the gates. Raka headed towards the east gate. He could see the light of lanterns and torches carried by roving guards near the gates and in the towers. He walked close to one of the guards and from a bit far away so as not to alarm them, he said, ¡°Hello!¡± The guard turned around and saw him. He said something which had the words ¡®kid¡¯ ¡®late¡¯ and ¡®night¡¯. Raka assumed he was asking what he was doing late at night. ¡°Walk, no sleep¡±, answered Raka. The guard nodded and pointed towards a door on the wall. ¡®Does he want me to go in there?¡¯ Being apprehensive a bit, Raka went in to find a small fireplace with some guards in there playing cards. They all lifted their heads from their game and looked at Raka. ¡°Hello!¡± Raka wished he knew more than this. But the guards smiled and waved him to come sit next to them. ¡®Were they drunk?¡¯ They served him some soup in a bowl which incidentally had been cooking up in the kitchen next door. And started teaching him how to play cards!! Ye wonderful guards! He hadn¡¯t seen cards like these in real life; every card seemed to have some kind of a picture on them. They pointed to each card and said a single word. ¡°Theona¡±, ¡°Mercedes¡±, ¡°Juno¡±, ¡°Minerva¡±, ¡°Verona¡±, etc etc. Raka simply repeated along words he had never heard before. But nevertheless it was still increasing his experience. They started explaining the game. Between the gibberish he understood that these were names of Gods and Goddesses. And then they started playing their game. The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation.One of the guards was kind enough to show him his cards and every time he threw a card, asked him to name it. Raka watched. He soon realized that this was a simple game. Whoever put the highest card won that hand. More hands decide the winner. Watching for a while he started to understand the cards hierarchy. He could soon tell the winner just by looking at one hand. Raka thought of joining them, but realized that they were almost asleep and were only playing by reflex. A little later everyone dropped off and started snoring. Raka took the cards and kept repeating their names for next 6 hours.
¡°You have grown up. Your age is now 4¡± ¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 85%¡± ¡°You may now understand simple conversations.¡±
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the university Swamy had trouble staying awake. Rajan kept shaking him to wake him up from time to time. Lunch hour and Swamy had put his head on the table and dozed off. He woke, when Rajan shook him later for afternoon class. The longest day Swamy had yet! As soon as he got home he dozed off for an hour. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka started on the streets near the east gate where he had logged off last night. His aim was to learn the language 100% today. He started his routine of walking, talking, naming and listening once again. 4 hours later he reached 99%. He had reached the food shop he frequented. He entered and the shop lady smiled. It was like the 4th time he was entering here store today. The first time he had come in he asked her name. She was called Neona. She had homely face, lovely laugh and could carry any conversation. It was a delight talking to her but as people started coming in the shop, he left. Over the day he would stop by her shop for a while just to talk to her about stuff. She was a treasure trove of information. He found out that the players were treated as children born by the gift of the Goddess Verona. They had undeveloped minds and no strength, but developed bodies so they did not grow taller. The Goddess had decried a long time ago, that these children would help them bring peace to their world. He also found out that this Ilmentia Island is actually a nation on an island. It has 7 villages like Gurrow and a capital city, called Thelmova located north of Gurrow, beside the sea. Neona was a 3rd generation owner of this food shop. Her father was a soldier in the army and had died during the war. Her mother who used to own the shop before her had died of sickness 2 years before. She now runs the food shop with her old aunt and they lived above the shop. * This time when he entered, she offered him a piece of pie which tasted delicious. ¡°Tasty pie¡± Raka said.
¡°You have grown up. Your age is now 5¡± ¡°You can now join a school to train.¡± ¡°Language of Ilmentia Island: 100%¡± ¡°You can now talk to the residents freely.¡± ¡°Intelligence stat has been created. Intelligence is the basis of learning. It allows and assists in new learning but it requires proof that you can learn. You have learned a skill fulfilling the requirements. ¡°Based on your efforts you receive 35 points to intelligence. The stat increases based on your actions.¡±
¡°Finally!!!¡± Raka had spent above 18 real life hours over 3 days just to learn how to speak!! It had been a long tough road which finally came to an end. And it gave a bonus of 35 points. ¡®Who says hard work does not pay.¡¯ * ¡®I can join a training school now¡¯ thinking that, Raka asked Neona where he could learn to fight with weapons. * Near the east gate there stands a nondescript building with a large training area covered by a tall wall, unseen by eyes from the street. Above the front door there stands a sign written in native letters which till now meant nothing to the players. Raka stood in front of that building and read the sign which said ¡®Battle School¡¯. He entered a hall where he saw a table, some chairs, and lots of armors hung neatly on wooden walls at the side. There was no one present. Raka shouted out ¡°Is anyone here!¡±. There was no response. Wondering whether he should enter, he heard noises coming out from the beyond the back door. He walked in and opened the back door. What met his eyes were two lovely women. Both of them were wearing tight fitting vests with short leather pants tied around by leather belts and were swinging a wooden staff trying to hit each other. Every strike which was launched was so swift his eyes could not follow, but it was being parried or blocked. Every counter was being dodged. In front of his eyes were two women sparring with an intensity that shook the air and a beauty of movement only found in dance. They moved like the wind and struck like lightning. Raka could feel the wind blow everytime one of those staffs was swung. He could hear the loud snap as wood hit wood. The force being exerted in every move made it look like it could gouge the earth, let alone splinter wood. But somehow the wooden staff had not broken. The staff moved in various directions trying to find an opening in one another but without fail met the other as if they were destined to meet. Raka stood there stupefied, unable to move, watching with bated breath the fight happening in front of his eyes. Soon the spar came to an end. Both women saluted and bowed to each other and then shook hands. And the clapping started. Only then did the spell cast on Raka shatter and he realized that there were other people in the training field as well. Raka took a deep breath to calm himself and stepped forward. The people who were in the yard, then noticed him. A man who was standing on the side asked, ¡°Who are you and what¡¯s your business?¡± Raka gulped. He simply said, ¡°Hi, I am Raka. I came to join the school to learn to fight.¡± ¡°Hmm you seem eligible and of age¡± the man said. ¡°Well, wait in the hall over there which you should have done earlier, instead of barging in¡±. Raka apologized and went back to the hall. Soon all of them including the women who were fighting came back in. There must have been a dressing room somewhere because all of them had changed into formal clothes. One of the women was golden haired, with a lovely face and blue eyes and was wearing a sexy sleeveless dress which came loosely down to her ankles and was tied using some kind of cloth belt. She carried a book in her hands. The other one who was also quite lovely, had raven colored hair, tied in a braid at the back with dark black eyes. She seemed to be wearing a kind of a leather skirt and vest topped off with metal of some kind. Also she was carrying a type of sword on her belt. Raka remembered the two women he saw when he started the game. They were the ones. The man from before then came forward and said, ¡°Please stand.¡± Raka stood up. ¡°I am Nathan. Welcome to the Gurrow village battle training school. We accept you as a student of this school. You will train under a teacher and will be evaluated for further studies based on your performance and reviews from your instructor. Do you have any questions or requests?¡± Raka looked at the women. Then bowed and said, ¡°If possible, I would like to train under them¡± waving his hand towards the two women. ¡°Ho ho ho so the young boy seems to like challenges, eh!¡± said the golden haired woman. ¡°He he he good choice as always lil¡¯ eggplant!¡± added the raven haired woman. Raka glanced at Nathan who seemed to be staring scared at the two women. Infact now that he noticed everyone looked scared at my request and was staring at them. Nathan quickly said, ¡°Unfortunately the new students are supposed to learn from the junior teachers before you can learn from the head of the school, Lady Altia.¡± As he said he waved to the raven haired woman to show who he was talking about. ¡°And also Lady Verina here¡±, he waved towards the other, ¡°is the head of the magic institute, so cannot be your teacher.¡± ¡°Umm¡­ I would like to learn both weapons and magic.¡± ¡°Ho ho ho! Yes, definitely the blood of youth. And a cute one to boot!¡± said Lady Verina. ¡°He he he! You are right! The lil eggplant is definitely interesting!¡± said Lady Altia. Lady Verina continued, ¡°Well I can teach you magic alright. But you are very weak right now. Even though learning magic does not require battle skills, I believe strength and magic complement each other and for that reason you are not yet ready to learn magic.¡± She then added after a thought, ¡°Altia, if you like him, why don¡¯t you take him under your wing. After all he would be your first student and what¡¯s more, from the Goddess''s children. And then I can teach him magic.¡± Altia thought for a while. Raka looked expectantly at her. She smiled. Nathan and others shivered at that. ¡°I accept you as my student lil eggplant. My training is tough so you better be prepared for it.¡± ¡°Thank you Lady Altia. I will do my best to not let you down.¡± Raka bowed. Altia smiled even more. Nathan and the others were definitely shivering now. ¡°Well then, that¡¯s decided. Raka, if you survive her training, find me at the magic institute. I will be your teacher. See you later then Altia¡± and Lady Verina left. ¡®Survive.....eh!!!¡¯ [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 5: Training Begins! The road out of Gurrow village leads to the capital of Ilmentia Island nation, Thelmova. The road passes through several hills on the way. These hills are quite high, just not high enough to have snow on them all the time. The peaks have withered away due to long years of facing the wind and here and there you could find almost flat patches of ground on top of them. Sometimes a lake formed near the top, filled with the water from the rain, with streams running down the mountain quenching the thirst of weary travelers. Merchants and travelers used the road frequently bringing necessities, luxuries and the latest news for the people of the village. They did not fear the ferocious animals which habit the forests on both sides of the road and on the hills. They had grown up on this island and hunted the animals to become strong. They knew there was nothing that could hurt them in these forests, not unless they were incredibly stupid. In recent days, however, they were scared. Every merchant, every traveller coming in was speaking of a strange beast with the most wild and painful cry residing within those hills. They confessed that they didn''t actually see the beast itself, but its scream was so scary, that they ran away as fast as they could. They wondered where such a beast had come from, and thought maybe it was one of those legendary birds, the size of a house, which could carry away people and animals alike. Rumors started and spread high and low about this vicious beast and where it had come from. Today as well the wild beast''s scream could be heard down on the road.... "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" "SSSSSSSSAAAAAAAAAAAAAAVVVVVVVVVEEEEEEEE MEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEEE!!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka was still standing after Lady Verina left, unsure of what to do. He was happy to have been accepted as Lady Altia''s student, except he did not know how the training will begin or proceed for that matter. He looked at Lady Altia who seemed to be discussing some things with Nathan and the rest of instructors with quiet voices. Raka tried to hear, but Nathan realizing this, instructed him to wait here for a bit as they had somethings to discuss with Lady Altia. Raka sat down, while the instructors moved out to the field to continue their discussion. Having nothing to do, Raka started noticing things within the hall. He initially thought that the walls were made of wood but he realized that the wood panels covered only the interior while the exterior was stone. ''Probably for hammering nails in, I guess.'' Also the armors were made of metal with flaps of leather inside for extra padding and protection. All the armors had numbers painted on them surrounded by a ring of small leaves. It seemed different than the ones Nathan and the other instructors were wearing. Now that he looked at it there were several pieces of armor. There was chest armor, then there was a armor skirt, thigh armor, greaves for lower leg and boots made of metal and leather for covering the lower legs. There were also gauntlets and some kind of armor for shoulders and upper arm. And finally helmets with their faces open. Added with the chairs and desk, the hall seemed quite plain. After a while, the instructors came back and Lady Altia spoke. "Alright lil eggplant, seems the rest of the instructors think that learning from me could be quite taxing for a new student. So in order to test your resolve, I should give you a test. I believe you will be able to overcome my test, what do you say?" "I will try my best, Lady Altia, um....master!" "Ah! That does have a nice ring to it, doesn''t it! Anyways, report back here tomorrow morning at 8. We will set off for the test. That is all!" "Yes master!" Raka bowed and left. Raka stood on the street thinking. Lady Altia had said they would be setting off for the test but he he did not know where. It couldn''t be outside the village as there was an age restriction but he hadn''t checked whether it was still there. Maybe 5 years old was old enough here. Raka walked to the east gate and encountered that same invisible wall as before.
"You are not allowed to leave the village. You are not old enough!"
''It will be somewhere in the village then.'' Not sure of how to prepare for the test or what it would involve, Raka simply thought of stocking up on some food for tomorrow. Raka entered Neona''s store. Neona saw him and flashed a smile and then resumed attending to her customers. There were quite a few people in there so Raka simply stood outside. Thinking what he should do now, he sat down in front of the shop and started eating his last apple. After some time, while he watched the comings and goings of several customers, Neona came outside and invited him in. She gave a warm smile and offered Raka some juice, made of a fruit local to the island. And they started talking. Neona asked Raka about the school, and Raka started telling her everything, from the spar he witnessed to his request for being taught by Lady Altia and Verina, to the test to be conducted tomorrow morning. Neona listened patiently while Raka rambled about what he saw and felt. "Hmm, lots happened and lots are waiting to happen as well. But you should always keep hope. I will pray that you succeed." Neona said with a warm smile after he finished his ramblings. Thinking she was the gentlest person he ever met, he thanked her for her prayers. He asked her for some food to help him in his training. She gave him several apples and other fruits and some of her delicious pie. "Thank you for being so kind and always taking care of me. It seems like I always trouble you! Is there something I can repay you with, though I do not have any money." "That''s no good. What''s up with being poor?!" Neona said. "Um......." Raka fidgeted, not sure how to answer that. But then Neona laughed, "Hahahaha, sorry I was just kidding. You don''t have to pay me any money. I do it because you seem like a good person. Well if you want to repay me anyway, I would like you to listen to my story for a bit." Raka nodded happily. "Ofcourse. Anything for you." Hearing that, Neona blushed a little. But nodded her head and then cleared her throat. "Um...this is a story of before my father died. I used to dream of becoming one of those adventurers who travelled far and wide and came home to tell stories of far away lands. My father, who was in the army, used to travel far and wide on the nation''s business. When he came home, he always used to tell me the wildest stories. He told of islands which could move from one place to another and fish bigger than 2 ships. He spoke of legendary creatures the unicorns, the fairies and the dragons and strange food which was eaten on some far away islands. Hearing these stories I always wanted to sail out to the sea and see them for myself. But my father died in the war defending his nation as my mother told me. After that my mother became sick, so I had to stay to take care of her. Then she died and left me this shop." Neona''s eyes filled with tears as she remembered her painful past. Raka wanted to say something but couldn''t think of the right words so he remained quiet. Neona wiped her tears on her apron and continued. "Well, I like this shop so I do not mind. My aunt came over to help me run this shop but she is old herself. I love her and I would take care of her. But I still want to hear more of those stories. Would you tell me stories of your adventures?"
Neona''s request [p=left]Neona misses her father and his stories of adventure. Due to circumstances she could not leave the village. Now she cannot leave the village as she has to take care of her aunt but wants to, once again, hear the stories. Big or small, she likes to hear of everything. She requests that you tell her of your adventures. Difficulty level: F Reward: Intimacy increases with Neona This is a continuing quest. The more stories you tell, the more intimacy increases. You need to come back to Gurrow village to tell the stories.[/p]
''Ah a quest!'' Well even if it hadn''t been a quest, Raka would have accepted her request but he got his first quest. "Yes, I will tell you of all my adventures."
You have accepted the quest.
Saying goodbye to her, Raka left the shop. He still had quite some time before tomorrow morning. He decided to log out. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy came out of the capsule and looked at the clock. It was almost 3 am now. Fortunately for him, tomorrow or to say today was Saturday. He did not have to go to college. He still had his part-time job but he thought of getting a leave for today. After all he had worked hard all of last month and he could use a break. Also he did not want to be late for Altia''s test. Swamy tried choosing between sending an email or calling his part-time employers in the morning. He thought calling them would be better but he did not know how long he would have to stay in the game to complete the test. So he decided to simply email them instead. Swamy opened his laptop and wrote a quick email. He sent it. He opened Long Island''s forums to see the latest developments. Sure enough, word on how to start learning the language had spread fast. In every starting city, people were rushing to the library. Some people had quickly realized and posted that the learning experience was slowing down. Some others had also realized that they would run out of picture books before they fully learned the language. ''Hmmm, still no information on whether anyone has found other means of learning the language. But there will be soon.'' In order to prepare for the test, Swamy decided that he would sleep for a bit. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka reported on time at the Battle school. Lady Altia was already there, however, and seemed to be waiting for him. "Good morning, Lady Altia! Sorry if I made you wait." "No problem! I arrived early. I was too excited to begin" and she smiled. Raka thought that her smile looked bewitching. Raka also thought that her smile looked like he was going to be in hell. "Follow me" said Lady Altia, and Raka followed her. Lady Altia seemed to be heading towards the east gate. Raka was trying to remember what buildings were near the east gate trying to figure out the location of the test. He had asked her, but she replied that he would find out eventually. After which Raka quietly followed her looking around at the still closed and the still opening shops and the few people who were on the streets. A cool wind was blowing and the sun was not quite hot yet. The weather seemed nice with no clouds which could bring rain. Looking up, he could see a few birds floating high up. A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. They reached the east gate. However Lady Altia still kept walking towards it. ''Was their destination the gate itself?'' The only place he had been was in the guard room built in the walls close to the gate. Lady Altia reached the gate and kept walking straight through. "Excuse me Lady Altia, but I cannot go outside." "Hmmm yeah. Usually you won''t be able to. But you should be able to get out now." ''Eh!'' What was she talking about. Raka tried moving forward fully expecting to encounter the invisible wall any moment, but he kept walking through. Raka had just walked out of the city. He was dumbfounded. ''What in the world was going on?'' "Well don''t just stand there all gaping, a fly will enter your mouth, so shut it and move along." said Lady Altia. Raka closed his mouth, he hadn''t even realized he was so shocked, and followed Lady Altia. They walked for a little while when she stopped. Raka stopped besides her. She pointed, "Do you see those hills on the distance? Yes? Actually, this road travels all the way to the base of those hills. Now you see the third hill from the left? No, not that one, the third, yeah that one. With the green on its side." Raka pointed to the correct hill. After being satisfied that they both are looking at the same hill, Lady Altia said, "Well that is the destination. You have to reach the base of that hill in two hours. Do not worry, nothing will harm you on the road."
Lady Altia''s test [p=left]Reach the base of the hill selected by Lady Altia in 2 hours. Difficulty level: E Reward: Lady Altia will train you. The timer starts when Lady Altia says to begin. No harm will come to you if you stick to the road.[/p]
"Alright then. Begin!" A timer counting down from 2 hours appeared before Raka''s eyes and then moved to a corner so as not to obstruct his view. Raka started running on the road. ''Shit that looks far away.'' By his estimate the specific hill was atleast 10 kms away as the bird flies. He knew he would have to go further than that as he was following the road which would twist and turn near the hills. Infact he could not even see the road close to the hills from this far away. ''If they are this tall when i am looking at them from this far away, how tall would they be!!'' Raka wondered while running. He had started at a brisk pace knowing that it would allow him to cover more distance than running flat out. But he was still worried. In real life, he had never run 10 kms. He wasn''t required to run so far, neither as part of school nor to stay fit. The most he had run was 5 kms and that too when he was at the peak of his physical ability. Since entering high school, he only jogged as part of daily exercise and that too around 3kms. In short, his real life physical abilities to do this particular task, were limited at best. Even then Raka kept running. He did not even think of attempting to make a shortcut through the forest. Not knowing what dangers lay there, it would be suicide to attempt it right now. After about 45 mins of constant running, he started getting tired. He soldiered on huffing the air in and out. After another 10 mins he was having trouble breathing. After a few mins more he was taking in short breaths just to keep his control. After an hour of constant running, his lungs felt like they had caved in, his throat felt dry like they haven''t had a sip of water since whenever and his legs were wobbling. Raka decided to stop for a bit. He took a quick sip from the water canteen to sooth his throat and took deep breaths to calm his breathing. He could feel his legs shivering time and again underneath but he dared not look down. He felt that if he looked down now he would probably want to give up. Even then he couldn''t sit down to rest. He had no confidence he would be able to stand back up. He looked again at the hill. It seemed closer than before, but still far away. Raka started running again thinking of everything he liked, to move forward. "Apples, oranges, potatoes, tomatoes, paneer, chicken, legs, breasts........" so on and so forth. In order to forget the pain his legs were in, he had begun fantasizing. ''Ah Neona, what a lovely smile. Altia, your smile is nice too. Your body is definitely better. Verina, you are the best, oooooh....I am definitely gonna survive. Ah feed me those apples....'' went Raka but his pain was getting worse and worse. Soon he wasn''t in any condition to fantasize, every step felt like he was stepping on pine needles. His breathing was becoming haggard. He didn''t know whether he was breathing in or out. His arms were hung by his side, he couldn''t lift them anymore. He was swaying and his legs kept going left and right on their own accord. But Raka still kept running. He didn''t know where his stubbornness originated from. He wasn''t in any situation to think clearly. He just knew that he did not want to fail. He kept slowing down automatically, as his body refused to listen but he still moved forward. Raka did not know how much distance had passed. He had run around the base of a hill, was it the first or second, he couldn''t remember. He tried looking at the corner where the timer was still going. Just 5 mins left. He focused his last bit of energy in his legs. He did not have the energy to think anymore. The legs hurt so badly that he did not even realize whether he was hungry or thirsty. Raka thought he saw a faint outline up ahead. He wasn''t sure if he was hallucinating or there really was a person up ahead. Making that person his goal somehow seemed natural. He pressed on willing his tired painful legs for one last spurt. Taking short breaths, he endured. The timer was on its last minute. He looked as the seconds seemed to flow faster. He put every bit of energy he could find and reached that person. And then he collapsed. He did not have any energy left to spend anymore. "You passed", said Lady Altia and smiled. Raka lay down on the ground face forward and tried to catch his breath when,
You have passed Lady Altia''s test. Now she will train you. [p=left]Stamina stat has been created. Only when you reach your limit can it be said that you truly realize the extent of your stamina. Based on your efforts you receive 5 points to Stamina. The stat increases based on your actions.[/p]
---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka lay flat on the ground for about 5 mins. Then he sat up once again and looked at Lady Altia. She was standing by his side, waiting for him to get up. Raka rubbed his legs to get some feeling back into them. ''Aaah! The pain!'' Raka winced as the forgotten pain now came back to haunt him full time. He was wide awake now.
Satiety has fallen to 5. You are extremely hungry. If you do not eat something immediately you are in danger of passing out. Till satiety is recovered -5 to all stats, movement speed drops by 20%. You are tired. Movement speed drops by 50%.
Raka took out a pie and started eating it.
Satiety increases by 35. Negative status is removed.
He took out and had 2 more.
Satiety is 100. You are full.
When he had eaten and the pain had lessened enough, he got up and moved to stand in front of Lady Altia. "Master, how did you get here before me? I did not see you pass through." "He He He! How else, I came through the forest. Honestly its much shorter you know. You could have tried that" she said while smiling. ''Does she have a S type personality!!'' "How could I master! As you said, I am weak so I am sure I will not be able to survive in there!" "He He He, well I said you could have tried. Never said you would have succeeded." ''Isn''t that the same thing!!!!'' Raka screamed in his head. "Well now that you are up, and I promised to train you, lets begin with phase 1." "Master! What do I have to do in phase 1?" "Well its simple really, you just have to climb this hill!" Raka looked at the hill in question. The base of the hill was a gentle slope with a lot of trees growing out of its sides. There seemed to be enough grasses to hold on to and climb. However the further up you went the slope started getting steeper. Less grasses were growing there and he would have to rely on the branches of the few trees which had still managed to grow there. The climb would be difficult but he presumed not impossible. "Alright Lady Altia, I will begin climbing." Saying which he started moving towards the base. And Lady Altia followed. "Um.. Master, would you be climbing as well?" "Ofcourse it wouldn''t be fun if only you get to enjoy it. Well how about we make it a little game. You go first and I will try to catch you!" Having a bad premonition, Raka asked, "What happens when you catch me, Master?" "Well what do you think happens." She walked toward the hill and found a suitable stick. Waving it around she said, "This will do just fine!" And WHACK! Virtual reality games had become a bone of contention with law makers and public activists, on the realism of its sensations. People were worried that the pain induced within the game could cause irreparable mental damage to the players, so it was always a challenge to provide realism of sensations but still limiting the pain produced. Ofcourse research had found that humans have a pretty big pain limit, and everyday pain like slipping over a puddle of water or accidentally hitting your toe on the door frame, would not cause mental damage. So the programmers had left that level of pain as is and simply diluted the extreme ones, such as losing a limb or getting killed, etc. Unfortunately getting hit by a stick, waved by a monster woman, on his butt still counted as everyday pain! And since that day the screams of the wild, savage beast resounded on those hills. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 6: On top of the hill Swamy was walking funny. Though he did not realize that. He walked usually to class, but everyone who saw him was secretly laughing. He entered the class and made his way to his seat, or to say where he regularly used to sit. He groaned! Rajan and Manish were animatedly chatting with Sneha and Himali. As Swamy approached, all their eyes moved towards him. Swamy greeted them and moved to his seat. Everyone kept looking at him however. Swamy sat down. But quickly stood up. And then slowly relaxed on the bench. He sighed. He looked up at the four who seemed to be still looking at him, surprised, for some reason. "Hey whats going on?" he asked. They looked at each other and then Rajan decided to speak, "Swamy, are you suffering from constipation or something?" "Eh!! No I am not, what do you mean?" "Well, just that you were walking sorta weird. And then you jumped before sitting. So we wondered whether you had an incident with your um... *back*, you know", Rajan smiled. Saying which the girls started giggling. Even Manish couldn''t keep a straight face and started laughing. Was Swamy walking funny! He hadn''t realized it. And now that he thought about it, he had jumped up while sitting down, but that was because....no, there had been no pain. Though if he was, he had a strange suspicion as to what had caused it. He shivered remembering it. Though he felt no pain in the real world, he was still affected. A couple of hours later his walk returned to normal, though he still slowly relaxed onto his seat while sitting down. Back home Swamy tried to search for his condition. He was worried that maybe he was affected mentally which would not be good. Soon he found what he was looking for. It said this condition was "realized mental awareness". When the mind is affected by something in virtual reality, it treats the body as if it had gone through the same experience, even though the body is not actually affected. Normally the brain forgets the sensations of virtual reality as soon as you log off, working off the input received by the real body. But sometimes, extreme sensations may cause the brain to unconsciously remember the sensations of the game. In these situations, it takes a little while for the mind to readjust to listening to the real body''s input. Ofcourse, because the brain believes in the sensations, it affects the body unconsciously. The article said; "Your real body would act the same as your virtual body for a while. It happens because your brain which has been receiving information from virtual reality takes a while to realize that it is now not in the game. To simplify it consider your brain sharing two bodies. When you are playing the game, your brain acts on your virtual body. receiving information from it. But when you wake up, the brain is now getting information from your real body. Sometimes it happens that your brain takes time adjusting, so a subconscious part of the brain still believes it is within the game. For example, when you had a long car or train ride or even a cruise ride, you still feel like you are shaking or bouncing even when you are lying on your bed. In that case your brain realizes that you are still, but your body has trouble adapting. Reverse it, and your body is alright, but your brain takes time adapting. That is what is called in common terms virtual sickness or realized mental awareness. Depending on the extent of sensations, this effect may be temporary or permanent. It is the reason why researchers insist on dulling extreme sensations like pain in the virtual reality environment. It may still affect us temporarily which can be easily solved by resting and not moving immediately." ''Oh, so this was happening because I didn''t sleep. What a pain!'' Swamy sighed. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was trying to climb as fast as he can. He looked behind at the monster chasing him and scrambled to find the next foothold. This was the third time he was climbing this hill, but he still had trouble remembering all the footholds he used in the previous climbs. Whack! And a painful feeling came up from his behind numbing his mind. He willed his legs and hands to move from sheer fear of the monster behind her. Raka had a hard time believing people when they say that they had run away from monsters in other games. He always guessed that was because the monsters were strong and they did not want to lose their experience. Now he knew that he was wrong. It was because they were terrified. ''Terrifying'' had a whole new meaning and it was what chased him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The first climb up the hill, resulted in the most painful 5 hours he had ever experienced. After the first whack, Raka ran up the gentle slope as if his life depended on it, however ten minutes later, he got hit again. He tried increasing his speed but the slopes simply started getting steeper and steeper till he was climbing using his hands and feet, finding toeholds and holding up branches or grasses to lift himself up. But still ten minutes later, another whack! As he reached the rough part of the slope, he started slowing down, most of it due to the difficulty of the climb, but also because he was getting tired. He realized that his stamina stat came to play as normally he would already be exhausted by now. Raka got hit every ten minutes till he finished that first climb. He fell face down exhausted not even looking at where he had landed up. Instinctively, however, he felt Lady Altia''s presence behind her and scrambled away protecting his behind with his hands. Taking heavy breaths he said, "Hah...hah...please don''t hit me with that. Its painful!!" almost shouting by the end. Lady Altia simply smiled. "He he he well wasn''t that a fun game. And ofcourse its training" Looking at her happy face, Raka thought this seriously ''I am gonna die here''. "Alright then, now that we know how fast you really are, we will aim to beat your time in the next climb. For now, you need to run on down as fast as you can. Oh and its all training~" saying which she tried to make a cute pose whirling her little stick. Raka did not wait for her to say anything more. He quickly got up and started scrambling his way down. Going downhill did not prove to be any less painful. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- By his third climb he had reached his limit in both pain and tiredness. The only thing moving him was utter fear. Or adrenaline, he wasn''t sure anymore. Then he saw,
Stamina increases by 1
He started feeling less tired than he was before the message. Seemed like the more he pushed himself, the more his stamina would increase. In fact after coming this far, every few minutes he was getting this message saying his stamina is increasing. His third climb over, he had increased his stamina by an incredible 25 points. Raka swung his hand and leg over to the top of the hill and pulled himself sideways and rolled on the ground as he reached the top of the hill once again. He quickly rounded on his side, as his behinds started hurting the moment they touched the ground. And then,
Endurance stat has been created. Endurance reduces suffering and pain of the body, but only through undergoing such pain and suffering can you truly develop it. Based on your efforts, you get 15 points to Endurance. This stat increases based on your actions.
Lady Altia soon came up behind him and said, "We will rest here for tonight and begin tomorrow morning. If you are trying to escape during the night, let me tell you that the fierce animals around here hide during the day and get active during the night!" Which kindof made sure that he couldn''t run. He thought that dying would be better for a bit but he did not want to lose all the stats he gained after undergoing so much pain. Raka felt so tired he wanted to drop down here and sleep. But he was quite near the edge and could fall off during the night. He tiredly moved away from the edge closer to the center of.... now that he noticed there was this large flat area very close to the peak where he was in. A little ahead he saw a lake. Being close to the peak meant that there were not many trees or plants, and it was mostly hard ground with patches of green grass here and there. It did not look like animals came here. The lake formed a stream which fell down the other side of the hill and he thought that animals could drink their water off the stream, not needing to come up to the lake. Raka also hoped that he wasn''t wrong about this. Without Lady Altia, he would be mincemeat in a matter of seconds. Now that he looked around, she wasn''t there! ''Did she leave me here? No I don''t believe that such good luck is possible. Knowing her she is still around here somewhere.'' thinking which he decided to log out for a bit. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy came out of his capsule, rubbing his eyes. He looked up at the time and decided to get something to eat before he logged back in. He had quite a bit of yesterday''s dinner in his fridge so he went next door and told his aunt that he won''t eat dinner tonight as he just had something to eat. ''Maybe I should learn cooking myself.'' This way he would not need to bother his aunt so much. Although he decided he would still have to show his face everyday. His mom would definitely be talking to his aunt about him. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka looked up to find Lady Altia had returned. She had started a fire going. It looked like some kind of dead animal was beside her. A little while later, she started to skin the animal. As she lifted the animal, Raka got a good look at it. It looked like a one horned rabbit but this one was almost as big as a dog. And what big teeth. Looking at it, he could easily imagine it being able to bite off someone''s hand. Lady Altia soon skinned that rabbit, cut its meat into pieces, rubbed the meat with stuff she got out from small bottles which Raka assumed were spices, skewered them on a stick and then hung them over the fire to cook. Looking at her, it did not seem like she was putting any effort into it at all. Everything went seamlessly from the skinning to putting it on the fire. She rotated the skewer every once in a while. Soon... "Here this one''s for you. A reward for all the hard work you did today." Raka put the meat in his mouth, and felt juicy mouthwatering deliciousness. Lady Altia can cook, was the only thing he had time to think before he quickly gobbled it up.
Stamina and Endurance increase by 10 for 1 hour Satiety increases by 50.
After eating their fill, Lady Altia then wrapped the rest of the meat in some kind of large leaf. She made a hole in the ground and put the wrapped meat in there. She then closed the hole. Then she waved her hand, which disappeared in thin air and reappeared with a few blankets. She put down two on the ground side by side, folded up one for a pillow and said, "Here this one is for you. The animals do not come up to this place during the night and also the fire keeps them away. So you can rest here or disappear wherever you go to~ yes I know that Goddess''s children have a habit of appearing and disappearing and they hardly sleep when they are in this world. However, if you are not here by tomorrow morning then you will wish that you had disappeared." Saying which she wrapped another blanket up as her pillow and put one on herself and went to sleep. Seems like there is a lot more to Lady Altia than meets the eye. Raka laid down on the blanket next to Lady Altia, closed his eyes and soon dozed off. This was his first experience of sleeping in the game and according to him, not bad at all. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka woke up next morning finding the sun up in the sky. Considering that he had only slept for a couple of hours in real life he felt really good and full of energy. He didn''t know why. He looked around for Lady Altia, and saw that her blankets had disappeared. But she was nowhere to be found. Soon he heard sounds coming from the side of the hill. Lady Altia soon came up. She said she had been climbing the hill for her warm up. "So now that you are up, shall we begin by a light warm up. So lets climb the hill once again. Ofcourse you will have to beat yesterday''s time~" Lady Altia smiled. And the devil is back. It took less time to climb the hill today. Raka remembered the footholds on the difficult parts and his increased stamina helped a lot. He only got hit twice this time, his endurance helping him dull the pain a little bit, before he made the top. He took a deep breath of the clean morning air on top of the hill. Lady Altia came up behind him and smiled, If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. "He he he, seems like you have become just a bit stronger. I will have to try harder now!" "Seriously, please don''t try hard. Taking it easy is the way of life. So please relax and have a cup of tea or something........" "Alright, now that you seem to have gotten used to climbing up and down the hill, lets begin phase two of your training" and she did not listen. She walked down to the line of trees on the side and cut out two thick branches. She brought it back to the campsite. She cut one down into about 6 feet length. Then she trimmed it from all the sides making it thinner. It soon became thin enough to be held by one hand comfortably. She looked at it lengthwise trimming off little bits trying to make it straight. She twirled it around checking from different angles and then satisfied put it down. She repeated it with the second branch. "Alright now that you have gotten a little bit better, time to teach you how to fight. These here are staffs, I used common wood but you could find other kinds of staff as well. Both metal and wood but for our purposes these will do well. The main advantage of a staff is its range." Saying which she handed Raka a staff. The staff was a little bigger than Raka just about clearing his head. He could hold it in one of his hands and grip it tightly. He lifted and moved it around. It was a little heavy but still Raka could wave it around. "What do you think?" asked Lady Altia. What should he think. Thinking for bit, "Its not too heavy. I think I can wave it around. Its kinda like a big stick. Um I always thought that most warriors used swords. Even you have one, don''t you. So why are we learning with a stick" Ofcourse Raka did not want another stick in Lady Altia''s hands. Now that he thought about it, he didn''t want to face her with a sword either. But with a sword you could kill things so it should be more useful, Raka figured. "Good question. You seem intelligent enough. Why don''t you try to figure out the answer yourself. So what is the difference between a staff and a sword?" "Um...range,i think. A staff is longer than the sword so has more range. Also the kind of strikes you do is different I think. With a sword you are usually cutting or piercing but with a staff you are usually smashing or pushing." Raka replied after some thought. "Correct. Now why do you think you are learning the staff instead of the sword?" ''No idea'' was what he wanted to say but he still thought about it a bit. "I guess to keep my enemy away?!! Though I could do that with a sword as well I think." "Half correct. Yes you do want to keep your enemy away. But you also want to keep him as far away as possible so that he doesn''t strike you. In your case where even a scratch can kill you, would you still prefer the sword?" Raka quickly nodded in the negative. He had forgotten that without the strength stat he couldn''t have any offence or defence. So right now, keeping any enemy as far away as possible was the best choice. After all if Lady Altia didn''t hold back, she could kill him with one strike accidentally. "Alright then, pick up your staff and get ready. This is the stance. You hold your staff one hand in the middle and the other almost three fourths towards the end. Yes, just like this. Keep your strong hand in the middle. So now you swing it down and smash", saying which she swung down her staff in a swift fluid motion. Raka tried to copy her and swung his own staff down. She then showed him how to swing his staff to the side and how to block incoming blows. She moved on to show him how to move your body while keeping your staff steady. "Keep your body steady. Your power comes from your balance. If your form is not correct, you will not be balanced and the force when you swing your staff will be reduced. In worst cases you will find yourself in a situation you do not want, so get your form correct!" Raka repeated the motions. She corrected him time and again fixing his form. He then had to repeat the motions 200 times, till he could move with his form correct. It took another 400 tries to get Lady Altia satisfied that he could move with his form correct. "Alright, time for breakfast." She said as she dug out the meat from last night. Wrapped in the leaf, Raka half expected it to go bad over the night but it hadn''t. They finished the meat and started training again. "Now try to hit me!" said Lady Altia. Raka swung the staff with as much force as he could toward her. Lady Altia simply took the blow with her staff. Raka could feel the vibrations from the strike right up his arm. His fingers felt the vibration the most and almost became numb. "Again" and again and again Raka went trying to hit Lady Altia. He swung up and down, sideways and at different angles, all in the way she had taught him. Everytime she blocked the blow with her staff. And "Not bad....Again", and so Raka went swinging his staff till late afternoon. Afterwards Lady Altia went hunting again, and this time came up with some sort of two headed wolf. Seeing her take out her knife, "Lady Altia, would be kind enough to teach me how to cook? I would like to help prepare the food as well. After all isn''t it the student''s job?" "Ah so you want to learn cooking is it? Well alright, watch, this is how you skin this two-headed wolf....."
Skill Cooking: You can now learn the skill Cooking. The world is a treasure trove of ingredients. Knowing how to use those ingredients is a cook''s greatest joy and responsibility. Lady Altia has agreed to teach you the skill. Requirements: You must cook atleast a decent dish for Lady Altia without her help.
And so Raka tried to learn how to skin and cook a two headed wolf. Lady Altia let him use the knife, instructing him on how to cut the meat, prepare it using salt, how to cook it in a stew using water from the lake and adding spices for flavor. Raka tried to learn diligently. Even though he made mistakes, with the precise directions of Lady Altia, he soon prepared a nice stew. He tasted it, and it was delicious. He memorized the recipe. He would write it down when he logged out so he wouldn''t forget. After preparing dinner, they resumed their training again. Raka would keep trying to hit and Lady Altia kept blocking, yelling at him if he made mistakes or simply if he was too slow. They continued for quite some time even after the sun went down. "Alright enough for today" Lady Altia said, after Raka collapsed to his knees while swinging his staff. "This is a good time to teach you meditation. Focusing your mind will help not only in fighting but also in recovery. Sit while folding your legs and stretch your hands out onto your knees. Now close your eyes and take deep breaths. Think only of your breathing and nothing else." Raka followed her instructions and sat in a yoga pose of meditation. He had done meditation in this pose before so he could easily do it. He started taking deep breaths and tried to focus on his breathing. Raka had been meditating like this for almost 15 mins now when he suddenly heard Swish...slip....soon after Splash....splash... ''Um is it an animal? No but master is here.'' He tried to go back to his meditation but soon curiosity won out and he looked around. It was dark so he could not see well, but he stared at the lake. For a while he couldn''t see anything. Then a shadow rose up from the water. Raka gaped at the scene with his mouth open. True he could not see anything more than a shadow in the light of the fire but his imagination filled in the rest. Lady Altia was swimming in the lake. Even her shadow seemed beautiful. He could almost see her curves and proportions on the shadow. He forgot to breath. Raka quickly shut his eyes as he felt the shadow leaving the lake. He tried hard to get that image out of his head and get his breathing to normal. He took deep breaths and tried to calm himself down as best as he could. Soon it was time to sleep. Lady Altia again started laying out blankets. Raka laid down beside her but this time he couldn''t sleep. He was too nervous, too excited and too self aware to be able to sleep. He kept fidgeting. He was trying too hard to forget, which made it even easier to remember. "Are you not able to sleep? Or do you need to disappear for while?" asked Lady Altia. "Um master, I am just too restless from all the things we did today, yes its because of that." "I see. Well in that case it cannot be helped." Saying which she waved her hand and it appeared holding a flute. She started playing. It was the most beautiful music he had ever heard. She played a piece with a lot of soft notes. He felt that in the moonless night her music made the stars twinkle even more. The soothing music calmed him and sent his spirits soaring at the same time. Slowly his restlessness was gone and he was listening to the music wholeheartedly. "That was beautiful! You are amazing! This was incredible!" Lady Altia was simply glad Raka couldn''t see her blushing. "Master, I have a request. Would you teach me how to play the flute? I want to learn to play such beautiful music which soothes the mind and the soul!!" Lady Altia smiled and nodded. "But that will have to wait for tomorrow. For now sleep lil eggplant. You need your rest." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy logged out. He quickly got ready to go to his part time job. He had taken an off day yesterday so he wanted to go today. After all if he missed a lot, they would hire someone else. They were moving stuff again today. This one was for some guy who had moved overseas and had left a lot of stuff around he couldn''t sell. He was planning to rent it out so he had called the movers to get his stuff out. He had asked that if they could, they should take whatever they could as he didn''t need it, and throw away the rest. Yeah, some people did that. We did have a small business selling things which were whole or could be repaired. Mostly the guys who saw something they liked picked it up, a game of cards deciding if more than one wanted it, and the rest got sold or given to garbage companies, for recycling and what else. Swamy was operating the machines today, lifting up the bed frames and the steel almirahs. Before lifting up those he had to make sure they were empty. He found one which was not empty. There were a few musical instruments in them. A guitar with broken strings, a kids piano and a wooden flute which seemed to be made of some expensive wood. He asked around to see if anyone wanted these, but everyone who saw them gave up. Swamy took all of them. Swamy was overjoyed with the flute. Now he could practice what he learned in the game, in real life as well. He looked at the broken guitar and the kids piano. He had tried playing the piano and it had worked. He thought he could sell it if he couldn''t find any use for it. And the guitar with the broken strings, well he would try to get it fixed and see what happens. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged back in and found it almost noon in the game. It seemed Lady Altia was practicing her sword. She moved it in graceful poses with fierce strikes. It looked like she was performing a routine which included swift turns and quick jumps. Soon she noticed him and stopped. "Ah! You are finally back. Well then shall we begin" "Yes!" After which he continued running up and down the hill a few more times, practiced his forms for a few more hours, learnt cooking a flat headed boar with really big tusks and tried to hit Lady Altia till evening. After completely exhausting himself, he started meditating. Hoping he would be lucky again tonight, he remained on the edge but nothing happened. A little disappointed, he could finally get his focus together. Tonight Lady Altia started teaching him how to play the flute. She had simply waved her hand and out came another flute which Raka used to practice by looking at the movements of her fingers as she played a very short piece. He needs to ask how she gets these things by simply waving her hand. But for now, he was content practicing the flute as he was taught by her.
Skill Flute music: You can now learn how to play the flute. Music is in many instruments and is also a part of nature. Requirements: You must be able to play a decent piece of music on your flute for Lady Altia.
And they slept side by side. And the days went on.... ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Swamy came out of the capsule and looked at the time. It was almost time for college. He had been playing, the whole night. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 7: Rabbit and..... Swamy was in a fix. And a fix in which he seemingly had no options to choose. He had just opened the Long Island forums hoping to find news and updates on the other players progress. He had expected that some people would have learnt the language by now and would be moving on to do different things. He had also expected to find people getting quests. What he absolutely didn''t expect to find was that almost everyone had already learnt the language and were posting about the different quests they received. What he also didn''t expect to find was that some people learned it in 1 day flat and did not bother to post about it, till today. ''In 1 day? How? Seriously how many hours do they play? Do they play all day???!!!'' were just some of the questions bothering him. Swamy had heard about people, gamers by profession, who make their living off games, selling game items and converting game currency. They spent most of their time in the game. What he couldn''t understand was how they could make money when the game had not even reached a level where anyone would be buying stuff. And what things could you sell, certainly not food. ''Have they started hunting already?!'' was a suspicion which took a deep root in him. Swamy knew that the age restriction on the gates could be changed as it had been for him. Playing for so many hours, they very well could have discovered ways to get the stats and were being silent like before. In short, Swamy was slowly being caught up to and possibly overtaken. He simply did not have more time to spend on the game. After a hellish time yesterday, having gone through virtual sickness literally, and before when he spent most of the time asleep in class, he made a decision. He could not play all night. He needed the time to sleep or he simply couldn''t function in class. If he failed, his parents would bury him alive. If he didn''t get an ''A'' his parents would still chew him out, discovering his playing, and in all likelihood confiscating it. He had thought of skipping classes and covering it later on. And had discarded the idea on the premise that his Aunt would notice leading to his parents finding out. Pretending to be sick was an even worse idea, his parents would hop on the next bus here! Living just one hour and ten minutes away had its disadvantages. In order to look at this problem with an objective perspective, Swamy made timetables. He jotted down every hour of his day, in his college and home. He had about 14 hours after college ended. The 15 min commute to and fro from college could not be avoided. After all he wasn''t driving the Ekishaw. He doubted even a Ferrari could cut short that time in morning or evening traffic. Taking 20 mins to get ready for college, another 20 mins for dinner (and hearing his aunt speak), it left him with almost 12 hours 50 minutes. He also had to make sure he slept atleast 5-6 hours leaving him with 6 hrs and 50 minutes. Even on a good day the most time he could spend was only seven hours. If he slept a bit less, he could probably make it eight. That''s like only one day in the game for every two days he would miss. He could spend more time on weekends but he couldn''t skip his job. He still had to earn enough to pay for monthly fees of the game. Of the people who could devote their whole time to the game, he was definitely jealous. ''Life is difficult'' Swamy sighed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka had a discussion with Lady Altia about his problem. He could only appear for one day and would have to disappear after, for two days. He also couldn''t be sure of the exact time of day he would appear, it could be day or night. He apologized profusely but he explained he had no choice. Lady Altia simply accepted the situation. "The Goddess does what the Goddess wants!" she simply nodded. Lady Altia thought for a bit. "Well if that is your situation, it cannot be helped. However the training will now take much longer than I anticipated. I cannot be away from the school that long. The days you do not show, I will go back to the village. I will try to come every third day, but I cannot be sure. So lets do things like this. I will make you a training plan to follow. The days we do meet, we can continue our lessons. On the other days, you will train according to this plan. Agreed?" "Yes, Master." Lady Altia, waved her hand and soon got a piece of paper and a pen with a long feather. Later, he would find out the pen was called a quill. She started writing a list of things to do and gave it to Raka to read. "Can you understand what is written? If yes, could you please read it aloud so that I know." "Um...okay. Uh..One, climb up and down the mountain 5 times. Two, uh...practice forms for 5 hours. Three, try striking the dummy with full force following the forms." "Master, what dummy?" "He he he the training dummy we will make and put here. There is a lot of wood around and with a bit of rope, I think we can make you a very nice training partner!" Lady Altia smiled. "Alright so do you understand the instructions? do you have any questions or doubts?" "Um...master, this isn''t related to this list but I have a question. May I ask?" "Go ahead, but better make it snappy." "Yes master! I would like to know how do you make things appear just by waving your hand?" "So that''s your question? I thought it was a bit more important. Anyways the answer is magic. I use magic to connect to my house. All things I bring out are things which are already at my place." ''Magic sure is convenient.'' If he could learn this, travelling would become a lot simpler. He asked, "Master, could you teach me this magic also?" "Ah! I am sorry. But I think that you rather learn this from Verina. She''s the expert. But even if you learn, I don''t think it would be of much use to you. After all, this magic is very limited in range. You would need a place to store things, like a house, which is expensive in the village. And then you could only connect to it from close by. This hill is still within range. Once you go far away or leave the island this would not work for you. Well you better ask Verina. I only learned a few magics, but mostly because I could instinctively use it. I wouldn''t be able to explain properly anyway." ''So that''s how it is.'' Raka could still think of a few uses for it but as Lady Altia said, Lady Verina would be the one to answer his questions. "Well thats that. So shall we begin your training now! He he he, I wonder how fast you have become." After which he was politely asked to climb the hill 5 times. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next day, Swamy could stay attentive in his classes. Well, he had decided that he didn''t have a choice in his playing time. He could only try his hardest within the time he could play. The only things which suffered were his cooking and flute playing skills. Without Lady Altia teaching him, and he unable to hunt, he did not know how to proceed. After all you do not find a one horned rabbit the size of a dog, in the convenience store. Swamy still felt that he should at least try learning the flute in real life. And for that he would need a quiet place, away from people who could listen and complain and where he wouldn''t draw notice, if he sucked. Also, he had to find such a place in the university. ''Is there even such a place in college filled with thousands of students!'' Swamy sighed. Still he went around looking for such spaces like large closets, unused classrooms and whatever else he could find. Soon he ended the search. Closets were full with tools and equipment. The unused classrooms were haunts of romantic couples. And the ''whatever else'', he did not find. Ofcourse it was still a large university with many buildings with many departments accessible to their students only. Swamy thought if he could have gained access to all of these buildings he might have been able to find one such place. That wasn''t going to happen however, his getting access to all buildings required him to be either a faculty or a part of campus security. There were some people with access to other departments but they had asked for access only for that department, permitted by a professor of said department and approved by the dean. The ones getting that were generally research assistants. During lunch with the loverfools times 4 that is Rajan, Sneha, Manish and Himali, they again started discussing Long Island. All of them had completed learning the language last night. ''Yep that''s the time a normal person, with normal working hours should take'' thought Swamy. They were excitedly discussing the posts of the quests people had been posting. Most of them were of a basic nature, transport this thing to there, help with cleaning the shop, etc etc. Ofcourse people were also learning skills related to cooking, tailoring, blacksmithing, etc or to say they were trying to learn everything they could staying in the village. It seemed that the quests required them to impress someone with their work to actually learn. In this case, the person who gave you the quest. ''And I have to impress Lady Altia at that, eh!'' thought Swamy. The talks went on with them wondering what kindof quests they will find tonight. All fans of virtual reality games like Royal Road, they could almost smell some kind of secret quest hidden there. Swamy simply shrugged. Still no information on or by the silent ones. Lunch was almost over, when Swamy simply blurted. "Hey do you guys know where someone could play or simply practice a musical instrument?" "Ofcourse, the sound rooms!" replied Sneha. Swamy had not expected that he would get an answer so easily. He asked, "Where are these sound rooms?" "Oh they are in the music department. They have a bunch of sound rooms where you can shut the door and no one will be able to hear from the outside. I think students of the department use them, but they usually have a few which they rent out by the hour. My friend uses them all the time." After college, Swamy headed out to the music department. He had a pretty good idea of all the departments and their locations after a month but he had never been inside. He walked inside, hoping that he would not encounter those gates, which allow a student in by scanning their id. He asked the students there, for the sound rooms and was directed to them. Reaching there he soon found a reception type area with a board on it ''Sound rooms: Music students free, please register. All others, Rs. 200 (about 3.5 dollars) per hour''. ''Wow, so the rent is greater than my hourly pay!'' Swamy sighed. He had been earning a bit extra and he was hoping to save it for pocket money. But it seemed like that will be blown away soon. He asked for a sound room, showed his id and paid. Swamy entered. The room was fitted with wood paneling on the walls. Also some sort of foam covered the doors probably for sealing. The room also had a mike, and a sound recorder. Swamy thought it was a good idea to record his playing. It could be possible to learn from his mistakes per se. Then he got out the flute, he had tucked under his shirt and started playing. An hour later he left. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next time he logged in, Lady Altia was not present. It was day time in the game. Raka started training according to the list given. He climbed the hill 5 times. He then practiced forms for 5 hours. And then, he hit the dummy for the time that remained. It went on for days. Sometimes Lady Altia would show up. And train him herself. She had now moved on to teach him blocking. She would try to strike, stopping her staff just close to his body, and Raka had to react and block it. Ofcourse she slowed down a lot, otherwise he wouldn''t even be able to see it coming. Raka realized once again, how incredible Lady Altia is. One problem which crept up, after so many days, was of food. Raka had run out of all his pies and apples. "Master, I have run out of food. Is it alright if I went into town to get some more?" "Um...no. That will be difficult. After all getting you out was a special case." Not explaining further, she thought for a bit and said, "Lets do this. If I am not able to come, I will hunt the day before and hide the meat wrapped in the ground. Its cool underground, so the meat won''t go bad. I will put a sign on where I buried it. When you come, you can dig it out and cook it. Ah! also if you come during the night, don''t go down the hill. The animals are active at night though they don''t come here usually. Just warm up over here, and triple your training for the forms and the dummy. Even though I would not be able to watch you personally, I still expect you to keep at it. He he he, you wouldn''t disappoint me now, would you?" Lady Altia smiled. The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings. "No Master! I will do my best Master!" like any other answer would be allowed. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Almost a week had passed in real life. It was again Friday. Swamy had now settled into a routine of going to college, practicing his flute after quickly eating his lunch, hurrying home in the evening and dropping his dinner down his throat as fast as possible. Then logging in. And there, he trained. He soon found out another way to train. Ofcourse he couldn''t start swinging a staff, but he found that he could practice his forms at home to move around while he got ready. Sometimes even at college if he found an empty toilet room where he could practice for a few minutes between classes. And when he got upset with his bad playing or simply tired of blowing on the flute, he used the empty room to practice his forms and calm down. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- He climbed up the hill, which was now becoming a little easier, reducing his time. Not having Lady Altia behind him all the time, he actually wanted to relax. But remembering all those people who were soon catching up and those who had overtaken him, he couldn''t afford to relax for a minute. He hurried to the top as fast as possible than ran on down as fast as possible. He practiced his forms diligently and struck the training dummy with as much force he could. Slowly, very slowly, he was improving. He had reduced his climbing time to almost 3 and half hours now, giving him more time to spend on his other trainings. When he got hungry, he cooked the meat Lady Altia had left buried. He cut a part of it with the small knife she had lent him and buried the rest, putting a stick on top to mark the spot. Then he put it onto a skewer or a stew, in the pot, again on loan, and practiced cooking. He very soon found out, that cooking something just right was very difficult. He kept checking his uncooked meat every once in a while, but a moment of distraction and it would be overcooked. A moment earlier and it would remain undercooked. Trying to cook the undercooked meat, ended up burning them. In short, he had to eat his cooking while imagining the perfectly cooked, juicy and delicious food of Lady Altia. ''Atleast it still fills the stomach'' as he got the message of Satiety increase, though the increase was small. Raka was still practicing on the dummy, one late night. Lady Altia hadn''t shown up today. He was fully absorbed in getting his forms correct and steps right while swinging his staff from above his head, swiftly smashing the dummy''s head. The training dummy, even though being made by Lady Altia, was still a basic effort with two fat sticks placed like an upright cross and tied together with rope. A bit of more rope made the head on top of the cross. Being so engrossed in his training, he could be forgiven when he did not notice some other sounds coming close. Grunt, grunt....grunt...thup thup...grunt. Raka only noticed now that these strange sounds had come close. He quickly whipped around trying to see in the darkness. Near the fire, he found a one horned rabbit. In the light of the fire he could see that the rabbit was injured with scrapes all over his body, with a few places having blood oozing out. Seen in the light of the fire it seemed a lot larger than a dog. If Raka had not seen an actual specimen before he wouldn''t have believed that this was still the size of a dog. ''The shadows must be playing tricks.'' The wounded animal soon started sniffing around and looked up and found Raka. It opened its mouth, baring its razor sharp teeth and bounded straight at him. Raka moved on reflex, bringing the staff down on its head. And it simply dodged and closed in the distance. Raka jumped out of the way, rolling on the ground and back up again getting his stick lined up in front of him like a spear. ''Damn! Its fast!'' The rabbit landed badly, perhaps because of being injured, but it took a moment to right itself. Then he looked again at Raka, opened its mouth wide and jumped at him. ''Wow this thing can jump'' was the only thought he could think before he decided to aim for its open mouth. In this situation, the only thing that would save him was probably hitting the animal in a soft part of its body. Raka imagined that the rabbit would attack straight through and in the darkness might miss the stick in front of him. He moved the stick and aimed for the inside of the mouth. ''Yes!!'' He got the stick right up in its mouth. ''Now to push it and kill him'', Raka moved to shove the rest of the staff down its throat. Chomp!! chomp!! The one horned dog sized rabbit, bit a bite of his staff with its large sharp teeth and started eating it. Raka simply turned around and and ran away screaming!! After finishing up the part of the staff it had bit off, the rabbit again sniffed around and then chased its prey. Raka was in trouble. He knew he couldn''t go down the hill, so he did the opposite. He went up the peak. In this case a bunch of big rocks piled on top of one another ending in a jagged peak. Raka jumped at the lowest rock scrambling to reach a crack to pull himself up. The rabbit reached him just then, and Raka only avoided it by swinging in the air and pulling his leg up at the last moment. The rabbit hit the rock face on, and fell dazed below. Raka kept scrambling up, sticking close to the rock, trying to find footholds in the dark, relying only on the little bit of moonlight shining through and his luck. Thankfully, the rocks on top were not severe but had quite a bit of joints and cracks all the way through. He pulled himself using his hands and feet, going on because of the adrenaline rush the fearful encounter had bubbled up in his tired body. He soon reached the top which was just ten metres away from the ground. He hung on that jagged peak using his hands and feet hoping the rabbit couldn''t climb or jump that high. The rabbit, recovered fast. It soon started sniffing for him and felt him above. It jumped and started clawing at the rocks to climb and reach for him. But it slipped and fell down again. ''Hmm. About 5 metres'' thought Raka estimating how high the rabbit could jump. Fortunately he was 10 metres up safe from its scramblings. Now all he had to do was wait it out till it left. But as they say about hope, the rabbit after failing to reach him, made its bed right below and started resting. ''Is it planning to stay there?!!!'' Raka was in a panic. He was hoping that the rabbit would leave in the morning. Unfortunately, dawn had come but the rabbit showed no sign of moving. It simply lay there resting and recovering from its injuries. Raka had been hanging from a jagged piece of rock all night. His hands felt sore and his feet were almost sleeping. He hadn''t noticed it last night but now that he saw, his hands and feet were covered in scratches and bruises, probably from climbing the rocks in the darkness. He knew Lady Altia would only show up two days after so he couldn''t hope for her to come. The rabbit still lay down there, always alert, moving its head at the slightest sound he made. Perhaps it thought of him as free dinner to help with his recovering or maybe it was just hungry after getting injured! ''Do these rabbits eat meat anyway?'' The only thing he had seen it eat was wood so he couldn''t be sure but he sure as hell didn''t want to find out. ''What do I do'' Raka could almost feel tears coming in his eyes at his helpless situation. He thought of logging out, but the thing was, he would still log in hanging on to the peak. If he fell then, he would probably die even if there was no rabbit. He didn''t have a choice. He had to risk his all against the rabbit. What could he do. Well there wasn''t much he could. He saw the rest of his staff lying just next to the rock. Maybe the animal had saved it to eat it later, he didn''t know. What he did know that the only thing he could do now, was this. Raka positioned himself. The rabbit heard the noise and lifted his head. But it soon grew quiet and he laid his head down again. He took a deep breath and jumped. He fell fast but kept his mouth shut. The rabbit having heard something lifted its head, when it felt Raka''s entire weight on top of him crushing it flat. Raka had somehow survived. But he had the wind knocked off him. His vision was wobbling, and for a few moments he was unable to think. But he realized his position fast, and moved. He picked up the staff remains, atleast it was still a stick, and smashed it on top of the rabbit''s head. The rabbit still moved, so Raka just kept smashing and hitting the head yelling.... "Die die die die die...." The rabbit had stopped moving. Just for safe measure Raka kept hitting it for another 5 mins till he could feel its head burst open. Raka sat down panting. He had almost died. Although he knew that dying wouldn''t hurt, it was still his first experience dying in any game. All he could think was, ''I am glad I am alive.'' At the end what had worked was pure brute force. And then,
Strength stat has been created. Strength provides attack and defense but requires the simple realization that power is a combination of weight and movement and its accumulation is strength. Based on your efforts, you get 20 points to Strength. This stat increases based on your actions. Attack and Defense attributes have been created. Attack: 10 Defense: 10 It increases based on your stats and/or your equips.
Vitality stat has been created. Vitality provides a measure to life but requires that you extend yourself to near limits of living. Based on your efforts, you get 10 points to Vitality. This stat increases based on your actions. Life and Life recovery rate attributes have been created. Life: 1/100 Life recovery rate: 1 per 10 seconds. It increases based on your stats and/or your equips.
''So I had really been on the verge of dying.'' After calming down, he got out his knife, and skinned that rabbit. He cut the meat into small chunks and wrapped them in a large leaf. He dug a hole and buried both the meat and the skin, putting up a stick on top to mark the place. He logged out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy looked up at the clock. He had played all night again! ''Damn it!'' He went to sleep for the couple of hours till he had to go to his part-time job. He was happy and smiled in his sleep. Swamy had to get a couple of hours more sleep after getting back from his job, he was so tired. But now that he was awake he was getting interested. Not only had he faced his first hunt, he had come out surviving. In addition he had gotten the strength and vitality stats. He was feeling not so behind the others anymore. He logged in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ He looked around and saw Lady Altia practicing her sword. "Hello Master, how do you do?" Raka greeted. "Finally you are here. I was wondering that you might not appear today or maybe I had gotten the day wrong." Lady Altia replied happily. "Sorry I am late. But please hear me out master, I..." and Raka started to tell her all about that night. ..... ..... "Wow! Did that really happen?" asked Lady Altia. Raka nodded. And then moved towards the other marker to show her the meat and skin of the rabbit he killed. "Well I admit that I could only kill it because it was already quite injured. And I had to almost die myself." Raka looked and Lady Altia looked strange. But then she sighed and nodded her head. She moved and hugged him. "I am glad you survived. I will be very sad, if you were to die!" she said softly. Raka could feel her warmth spread all over his body. ''Wow, I can actually feel her body heat like a real person.'' She looked at him from top to bottom, "You have become just a little bit strong haven''t you!! Ideally I should be happy and end your training now." And then, "He he he well atleast I can''t have my student die by someone else''s hands, can I now! So to make sure you do not die, lets double your training." And the devil was back. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 8: Return Swamy lifted his head from the test he was writing. They had found that today was a surprise test day. He thought about how to answer the questions, which asked for an opinion or an argument, rather than a correct answer. Virtual reality was a complex and deep subject involving as much of the psychological as the physical aspects. After all it was not only a discussion of how to apply physical laws on to the virtual reality, but it was also a question of how much to limit it by those laws. For example, games allowed people to fly. If you followed physical laws you would need to have hollow bones to make you lighter and a streamlined body structure like a bird. Unless ofcourse you had the ability to turn into a jet plane or a bird using metamorphosis. Which became another argument of limiting the laws. It was this flexibility that allowed people to separate reality and virtual reality adding imagination in their concept of world creation. Though if you have open ended questions like, ''describe your feelings'' or ''how do you think'', it became more of a matter of psychology than science. Swamy finished writing. He checked his answers for any mistakes and read it again to make sure his point was coming through in the answers. After making a couple of changes, he read it again. Satisfied, he stood up and walked towards the teachers desk with his answer sheet in his hand. He put it on the desk and walked out of the classroom. He breathed a sigh of relief coming out and headed to the cafeteria. They had free period next, as the prof had come down sick, so classes would resume after lunch. In the loud and noisy cafeteria, he soon found a group talking loudly having four of the loudest people he had met. Even the girls seemed to shout out their opinion across the table at times. Swamy simply took a seat next to them and opened his lunch. "Ah homemade as always Swamy. Your Aunt must dote on you." "Yeah, she is really nice too." And with the short comment they began their loud discussion on the test. That too, soon changed as all of them finally realized that they would have to agree to disagree. And the talk switched to Long Island. "I finally learned cooking!" said Himali. "It was really hard to impress the old man Goffam, the cook I got the quest from, but I finally succeeded with an apple pie." "Congrats. Ah I wish I have your luck. I have been trying to learn tailoring but so far no success. Rajan got his quest from a different tailor and he''s succeeded already. Maybe it is easier to learn from some people than the others." Sneha complained. "Could be. I also haven''t impressed the blacksmith so far, maybe I will give up and get the quest from some other blacksmith." Manish agreed. "You can''t do that. Didn''t you read the posts? I guess you didn''t. Once you get a skill quest from one, you cannot get the same skill quest from any other, even if you drop it. They simply don''t agree. Ofcourse I don''t know if this rule applies to npcs of other locations but in the village, once you start to learn from one, no other blacksmith will allow you to learn from them. You have to go back to the one you started with. Don''t know why, but they would like exclusive student teacher relationships, I guess." the information house of our group Rajan spoke. "Are you serious!! Man that sucks big time!" "Yeah, this guy learned first hand and posted. It looks like a lot of people were on the verge of dropping and some actually did and were trying at other places, but this post changed everything. Its the most popular post in the forums right now." "So you are stuck with the npc you choose till you learn or drop! And like if you can''t get out of the village, you can''t know if you can learn from somewhere else. So you can''t drop it either!" "Ah! That''s harsh Manish. We will now have to choose who we learn from carefully. So what other information you got Rajan?" asked Himali. "Hmm, lets see.." saying which he got out his cellphone and started to look at his information notes as he called it. "There seems to be a lot of people joining the battle schools and magic schools, and they say that learning is pretty hard as well. Battle school is pretty difficult in itself and requires you to hit the dummies with instructors coming in and helping with their forms occasionally. But most of it is hitting the training dummies. No information of anyone having got the strength stat." He looked at a bit more ... "Ah this is the one I wanted to talk about. Magic is different in this game. Seems like it is not based on Intelligence like other games as we all got that stat. Also there seems to be an age limit of 9 to enter the magic school. But those who join do not immediately learn magic. They are given books to read. A lot of stuff about channeling and perceiving, etc which I didn''t understand. And they have to train their body as well for some reason." "So did anyone learn magic already?" "Hmmm well the post only says so much. The girl who posted it is still doing the reading. Though a few people should have reached age 9 by now. In any case, it will be interesting what people do find when they actually learn magic. Oh! and there seem to be people putting up price lists of all items in all the starting villages. It seems like the economy might rise as people have started earning money." "As expected of the information house. Good job Rajan!" Sneha said teasingly. Swamy listened to everything as usual, not saying much. Swamy excused himself, saying he had to go somewhere for a while and left the table. "Alright see you later in class, Swamy!" and everyone went back to their talks. Swamy started walking towards the sound rooms in the music department. He had gotten some extra time today and he thought of practicing a bit more. He was still age 5 in the game. Infact his age hadn''t increased since he left the village. And he still hadn''t learned cooking or flute till now. He did feel that impressing Lady Altia was tough. She never complained about the food, so Swamy could never say what was wrong with it. Another of those things he will realize as he experiments. And ofcourse playing the flute seemed to get harder as he kept remembering Lady Altia''s notes of that night. But so far Swamy had never thought of changing teachers. Even if he hadn''t found out about this restriction he would still have tried to impress Lady Altia. Which is why he was practicing in that empty sound room, in the extra time he got. And what''s more his training in the game had got doubled. Swamy shuddered a little as he remembered the last two weeks. Ever since Lady Altia decided to double his training, two weeks in real life had passed. And on every day of those two weeks, he discovered a new kind of hell. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was trying to block for his life. The first time sparring after he got the strength stat, Lady Altia was surprised at his sudden increase in power. Every strike he made went ''THWACK'' instead of the light ''thump'' it was making earlier. "Oh how wonderful!! Seems like I can start really training you!" saying which she now started to counterattack. Raka had to constantly move to strike and block. If he didn''t block, he would get hit. If he stopped striking, she would start increasing her speed and he would get hit. In a side effect, his Endurance increased. ''Its quite painful'', Raka thought looking at his increasing Endurance stat. Ofcourse to keep increasing it, he had to always experience pain which Lady Altia delivered in increasing effectiveness. Everytime he thought that the pain had lessened, like she knew, she struck a little harder than before and the pain continued. By now they had moved on to complex movements with both sides blocking and striking and side steps to avoid. Atleast he was doing that. Lady Altia seemed to not care and simply blocked. He moved to strike another time, when she pointed her stick towards him and moved back a step as he was about to connect. And as soon as his staff passed downwards, she moved forward hitting him on the chest like piercing with a sword. Raka grunted in pain and took a few steps back and immediately raised his staff to block her second attack. "How did you like that? This move requires precision but if you do it correctly, your opponents attack becomes your attack." "Y..yes Master!" "Alright then your turn." THWACK and Raka got hit on the head. "Judge your distance well, your opponent is moving towards you after all!" And so on so forth the training continued. He really regretted not learning martial arts before; he could have saved himself a lot of pain. Ofcourse he still had to climb the hill, like 10 times now and practice his forms for double the time apart from all the sparring. It went on for almost two weeks in real life, almost a month and a half in the game. And this time, Lady Altia never missed the day he would log in. Even when he came in early, he would find her sitting there or practicing her sword waiting for him. Not that it made it any better. Sometimes he even thought fighting that one horned rabbit a couple of times might be better than this. So two weeks after, Raka was still sparring with Lady Altia. He moved his staff fluidly blocking, dodging and striking, being blocked and then moving again to block or dodge. He was getting into a rhythm now and his staff rotated, revolved, struck and pushed onto his opponent when he suddenly side stepped, and charged holding his staff like a knight lance, at the very end. This sudden movement caught Lady Altia by surprise and he thought that it might finally hit her, when she took a step to the side and completely dodged it. A return THWACK and he was pushed to his knees by the pure force he felt on his staff as he blocked, and then Lady Altia disappeared. The next moment he felt intense pain from his back where she struck and he fell down face up. "Wonderful!! That strike back there was quite nice. Seems you have absorbed the training well. Now get up!" Raka struggled on to his feet and raised his staff at the ready. He knees wobbled from the strain but his eyes said, he won''t give up. Lady Altia looked at him with smiling eyes. "Trainee Raka. Please stand at attention!" she said in a formal tone. Raka stood in attention holding his stick to the side. "Trainee Raka. I hereby declare that you have successfully completed the level 1 warrior training course of the Ilmentia nation, Gurrow village Battle training school! Congratulations!" "Thank you Master....um Lady Altia" Raka added trying to keep to the formal routine. "Tell me, what is a warrior''s objective?" Raka thought for a bit. "To do good in the world!" "And how do you define what is good and bad?" "Um by the people you protect!" "But what if the people you want to protect, engage in war and you have to kill people " "Um....I don''t know!" "So what is the warrior''s weapon?" Raka thought of answering staff, sword, etc but he didn''t feel that was the right response in this situation. "I don''t know!" "Exactly. For a warrior, right and wrong are just two sides of the same coin. After all, right for one will mean wrong for the other. A warrior''s primary weapon is strength not power. If you look at it, even someone weak as you can kill a one horned rabbit when it is injured. Do you feel guilty that you have killed someone or something that tried to end your life. You don''t. Do you feel scared! Ofcourse you do. But you retain the ability to move. That is strength. Power will come as you grow older and wiser. Your strength comes from within. A warrior''s true value lies in the strength he has, the courage to use that strength and the will to improve. We call this a warrior''s honor! When you receive anything from a warrior you respect, you always accept it with honor." "So I offer, again, my congratulations trainee Raka!" Raka knew he was supposed to say something. He felt the clue to be in the words he had just heard. Deciding, he replied. "I accept your congratulations with honor!" Lady Altia smiled once again. "By the way this is also the school motto and its tradition. When you receive anything from the school, you always say that you accept it with honor" said Lady Altia returning to her usual tone of voice. "Now that its over, lets return back to the village. He he he, and now that I think about it, we still don''t know how fast you can run back to the village now, do we!" and Raka could swear her eyes were twinkling!! He shivered. He could almost pity the next poor soul who gets trained by her. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The guards at the gate of Gurrow village looked at the distance at a dirty torn toga clad young man who seemed to run like someone had set fire behind him. He was running like if he didn''t get to the safety of the village, something dangerous might gobble him up. The guards at the tower who noticed him first, raised the alarm and about ten guards came ready carrying long spears and clad in armor. They got in formation in front of the gate hoping to stop whatever was chasing that young man. The guard captain climbed on to the guard tower to have a better look. He looked for quite a while, and then called everyone inside and ordered them back to their jobs. This was not a danger to the village. ''Well if it was, its not like these greenhorns can handle her'' chuckling the guard captain returned back to the guard office. Raka saw the village gates in front of him as he smiled. His ordeal was over or atleast that''s what he thought. ''Now in reflection it wasn''t so bad. It had a lot of painful moments, but I raised a lot of my stats and there were some pleasurable moments as well'' thought Raka thinking about the cooking, the flute playing and ofcourse the bath. It seemed that Lady Altia liked to take a bath once in a while, and at the hill, the lake enjoyed her company and Raka, who waited for such moments. ''Well it wasn''t so bad after all. But I should look forward to a new day!'' Raka entered the village.
You have grown. Your Age is now 9. Age restriction applied.
''My age has increased by 4? And what''s up with the age restriction?!'' "Master, is there a restriction of age for leaving the village?" "Hmm, yes there is." "What is the restriction?" "Oh anyone below 14 cannot leave the village. The monsters around here are strong so they would not be able to handle them." ''Eh! But he got out at age 5.'' "Um master, how did I get out?" "He he he now that''s a secret. But I guess you will find out sooner rather than later. I will let Verina handle that." "Does it have something to do with Lady Verina?" "Hush now, you always ask so many questions. Be patient, lil eggplant." Raka was pleasantly surprised to hear her call him ''lil eggplant''. A while ago she had stopped calling him that. It was not like he missed it, but hearing it again felt nice. ''So all roads lead to Lady Verina.'' Seems like she had most of the answers he wanted. When Raka had left Gurrow village, the village street was empty. Everyone was holed in the library trying to learn the language of the island. When he came back, he saw so many people, bustling about here and there. Raka had been following the forums so he knew that people were looking for quests and learning skills. However to see so many people all of sudden after spending so much time alone or with Lady Altia, left him shocked. And a little disoriented. He did not know where to go like he had forgotten where everything was. Lady Altia gently patted him waking him up from his shock. They walked together to their destination, the Battle school. They reached the school and entered. As he expected he saw several players hitting the training dummies with their staff. Nathan and the other instructors made rounds to check once in while and correct their forms and so. Some people were pretty good, moving naturally, while others seem to be learning from the beginning as Raka had. ''These must be the ones who know martial arts in real life. Knew I should have learned as well!'' thinking this and that, they proceeded inside. Raka also headed to the training ground with Lady Altia as if it was natural. "Ah Lady Altia, you are back!" greeted the instructors as they noticed them. Even some of the students bowed and greeted her, "Welcome back Lady Altia!" "Hello everyone, how is it going?" She replied at their greetings. "Everything is fine! We were expecting you to come today. There are a couple of messages but none of them important", said Nathan when he finally realized that Raka was standing behind her. "Ah, and who is he? Is he a new trainee? Boy, you forget your manners!" Raka inwardly laughed at the irony and simply bowed and greeted him. Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. "Hello, Nathan". "Eh, you know my name. Has it become famous already! And what is up with your clothes. You look like you came up from the hills....." saying which Nathan closely looked at him. And then he was shocked enough to let his mouth hang open. The other instructors and students all looked at his strange behaviour! "My Goddess, you are alive! I thought you had disappeared forever!" finally realizing who he was. Ofcourse Raka didn''t expect Nathan to remember him, for he had only seen him for a few minutes. But he was glad that he did. "I survived with honor!" said Raka and Nathan and the other teachers understood. "And with lots of luck!" he added as an afterthought at which the Nathan and others laughed. Even Lady Altia smiled proudly. Or that''s what he hoped. He was never sure when the devil might make a visit. "Congratulations Raka!" and the other instructors finally remembered that day when one toga clad of Goddess''s children had come asking for training from Lady Altia and she had accepted. ''I think they did not expect me to return!'' he thought looking at the instructors faces. "He he he well anyway, my student is still alive and as you see well enough. Though he looks a little forlorn in those ragged clothes. Nathan, do you think we can manage to give him some slightly better ones?" Lady Altia asked while smiling. Nathan nodded as if he understood, but replied, "I am sorry. As we did not expect him, we did not prepare. It will take a little while Lady Altia." "Hmmm. It cannot be helped. Even I wasn''t sure till today." Then she turned towards Raka and said, "Well Raka, I am sorry but it looks like you will have to visit the battle school again for your graduation formalities. I will send out word later when we are ready." "Alright!" Raka nodded. He wasn''t going anywhere anyway. He thought to visit the magic school after this. "See you later then. I want to go home and freshen up. Please continue with you training everyone!" and Lady Altia left. After bowing to the other instructors Raka followed after her intending to head to the magic institute. Ofcourse the other students who did not know him, wondered who he was to be talking so friendly to the instructors and more importantly to Lady Altia, the head of the battle school. They all had been introduced to her as the head when they joined or soon after. Sometimes she even made rounds like other instructors, but mostly it was the other instructors who oversaw their training. Lady Altia always seemed to go away every few days, which gave an impression that she was a really important person, who was assigned important missions or went to the capital regularly to meet important people, maybe even the king or queen, etc. Ofcourse her beauty counted as a plus as well. Realizing that, a lot of them had asked for her instruction hoping to increase intimacy and become friendly with the head of the school, and probably also getting important quests in the future. She had not refused anyone''s request and trained them the same way as the other instructors. However, when they asked her to become their teacher, she had refused till now. "Did she say ''my student''? It wasn''t just my ears right?" "Yeah she did. And I think his name was Raka." "So she had a student, but wait a minute, didn''t they say that they had to do graduation formalities?" "Yes! So that means..." "Oh my God!! This is huge" "I better tell my friends..." "Wait lets follow him, we could ask him how he did that?" They quickly came outside but lost him in the crowd of people moving about. "Does anyone remember how he looked like?" "All I can remember is that he was wearing ragged clothes..." "So no one actually remembers his face....oh no we lost him" ....................... ...................... Soon people started logging out, posting on the forums. "Hey, there''s this guy who graduated from Battle school in Ilmentia Island. His name is Raka. And guess what, he was the student of the Lady Altia, who''s the head of the school. We could not get a good look at him, but he had returned with Lady Altia, maybe from her trips." "What?!! really!! So someone has been outside the village already? Did he perhaps get the stats? If he trained under the head of Battle school, maybe he got the strength stat too??" "Please Mr. Raka, tell us how you did that?" "Is that really true? sounds like someone''s playing a prank on other''s trouble" "Its really true. I was there training in the battle school as well, when Lady Altia suddenly showed up with this raggedly clothed guy. He was carrying a stick too. Looking at them it looked like they had been in a battle or a long journey!" "Long journey?? And a stick you say? Did they have to climb somewhere, or maybe he used it as a walking stick to walk a long distance, perhaps the capital!!" ................................ ............................... And the forums exploded, each person coming up with their own reasonings and explanations. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Unknown to what was happening in the real world, Raka walked quickly to the Magic Institute to meet with Lady Verina. She had promised to train him once he finished Lady Altia''s training. Raka just hoped she would remember. Like Nathan, if she didn''t he might be in trouble. The Magic Institute was located, not on the main street, but a little inside a side street. It was a magnificent building quite unlike the battle school. Made of what seemed to be marble and stone, with painted tiles on the floors, the building was donned mostly in white. Being in the quiet side street, it stood out even more compared to the resident dwellings close to it. ''Must be rich!'' was the only thing coming to mind. Raka went up some stairs which were built on its taller base connecting to the ground and walked in through some tall doors. "These doors seem like they will stop a cannon and whats up with these pillars, they are like a work of art!" Raka exclaimed when he saw thick doors through which he will be entering and the pillars surrounding it. He entered into a very large hall. If the battle school''s hall consisted of just the basic items, this hall was empty, consisting of just a bell rope which went up...towards a bell. ''Should I ring the bell? or should I wait for someone to come?'' Raka did not want to give a bad impression on the very first day but after waiting for 5 minutes, and not seeing anyone, he pulled on the bell rope. CLANG CLANG TING, the bell sounded like church bells. Raka waited while the bell sounds slowly died down becoming softer and softer. A woman wearing an exquisite white dress, reaching down to her ankles and tied with a cloth belt came out to greet him. "Hello my name is Cynthia! Pleased to meet you! Are you here to join the magic institute?" "Yes, I am. But I was hoping to meet Lady Verina first, if possible." "I am sorry, but Lady Verina does not teach new students. She teaches students from the intermediate level. However please do not worry, we have some excellent teachers. I am sure one of them would be happy to take you as their student." Raka was confused. "Um I understand but I would still like to meet Lady Verina first." "As I said before she does not teach new students. Is there something wrong with your ears?" Cynthia seemed to be getting angry. "I apologize if I said something rude but Lady Verina did say to me that she would teach me. If you could ask her, I am sure she could clarify the situation!" "Please!" he insisted. "I am sorry if I find that hard to believe. Lady Verina is a respected and noble person who is the head of one of the best magic schools on the island. She would not promise a beggar like you anything. Please leave." saying which she waved him towards the door. "Please, could I talk to her. Just for 2 minutes would be fine. Please!" Raka begged. "Even if she wanted to talk to a filthy beggar like you, she has gone out of the village and will return next week." Cynthia was definitely angry by then. His hopes dashed, for the moment Raka decided to leave the place and avoid getting into the worst case scenario. He simply thanked her, turned around and left. ''Now what should I do!'' Raka still had a few hours left till the shops close and the people of the island retire to their homes. Deciding to think while he ate something, he headed to Neona''s store. As he expected, lots of people, players and npcs were coming and going. Her store became quite popular because of Neona''s friendly nature. People of the island used to visit her before as well, but the players finding it easy to talk to her seemed to come even more. ''I can understand'' Raka thought. Neona was a treasure trove of information after all. A lot of players would be deeply interested in learning about this world, and increasing intimacy with her at the same time. Waiting for it to be less crowded, Raka waited outside her shop for a while. Soon a group of players left the shop, leaving it empty for a little while. Seemingly they were playing together and now that they could earn some money through the quests, they could buy Neona''s delicious food. Raka pushed the door clinking the bell she hung on the door. Neona seemed to be doing her books and she looked up from it greeting her new customer. "Welcome to.....ah! its you Raka! You have been gone so long, I thought you forgot all about me. How are you?" "I am fine. And no I did not forget you. I was just training with Lady Altia." "Oh really! That''s wonderful. If you could wait for a bit, I will close shop. I already sold all the things I made." saying which she got up and closed the door, setting up a closed sign on her display window. She put her books in order and put them in a drawer with her earnings, which she locked. "Please come inside. I haven''t invited you to my home yet have I!" Raka walked in with her to the stairs. He ascended to find the most lovely home, decorated with hand made things and pretty curtains. The walls were colored plain but beautiful, quite unlike the floor of the magic institute with its bold colors. There was a comfortable looking couch next to a small table covered with a white table cloth. A comfortable armchair stood beside the window, probably for her aunt, or for her if she wanted to sleep by the window. The living room, where he was standing lead down a small hallway to two other rooms. He could not see her aunt anywhere. "Please sit down. Its a small home. Not very many guests come here." "Its a lovely home." Raka replied. Neona blushed a little and then headed towards what seemed to be a kitchen. Raka sat down. While he was looking around some more, he heard the gentle humming of Neona from the kitchen. He smiled. Soon Neona came carrying a tray. "Here is some tea and a few cookies I made. Careful, they are still in a testing phase and not ready to sell!" she teased. Raka took the cup she offered and sipped the tea. It was delicious.
Vitality increases by 10 for 1 hour Satiety increases by 10.
"Wow, this tea is good. You must be a very good cook! Check that, I know you are. Your shop sells delicious food after all!" Neona happily said, "Thank you, you are very kind. But I can''t claim all the credit. My aunt helps in making them. And my mother seemed to be a better cook than I am. My aunt could tell I am getting there but I am not there yet!" "What are you talking about? This tea is delicious. Infact I would like to learn how to make this tea, just to drink it whenever I want. Ofcourse you have given me one more reason to visit you I suppose." Then Raka tried one of her cookies. It definitely tasted strange. He could not decide whether it was delicious or not. "Um seems nice" Raka said making a bit of a face. Neona started laughing. ''Was this her version of a joke''. "Anyway Raka, you promised to tell me your stories. So how did your training with Lady Altia go?" Thinking for a bit, Raka started telling her about his training, leaving out some bits he considered private. Neona proved to be a good listener commenting at just the right places."Wow, I am actually surprised you survived that!", "Did you say you jumped from that height?!", "It would have been painful"...... After hearing his story, Neona sighed. "Compared to you my troubles seem simple." "Yeah that was tough...but wait what troubles you?" Neona made a painful face for a bit but said, "Please don''t mind. I was just thinking about things." Raka insisted, "Please, if there is anything I can do, I will help." Hearing that, tears started pouring from Neona''s eyes. She stood up and walked a little away towards the window. Raka was flummoxed!! He simply did not know what to do in these situations. Thinking that remaining sitting would be a disrespect, he stood up as well. He repeated, "Neona, if there is something I can do to help, please don''t hesitate to ask me!" Neona turned around still crying and hugged him. She cried on to her chest, while Raka stood frozen, unable to even think let alone do. Finding himself in situations like these was not something he was accustomed to. Soon, Neona calmed down. "Thank you. I am sorry I cried." She said blushing. Raka was still frozen. He simply nodded. "It is actually about my aunt. She is getting old, and gets sick often. I feel sad, thinking of the day my mother died. If my aunt died as well, I will be all alone. Thinking that I often cry. Today also my aunt is feeling sick. She says she will be ok but I still fear." Raka finally moved his stuck tongue, "Is there nothing that can help?" "Afraid not. It is old age after all." she said as she calmed down a bit. "But she said she was going to be okay, so I am gonna believe her. My problem however is more immediate! My aunt and I work together to cook and bake all the things for the shop. Unfortunately, she is sick at the moment and all my stuff sold out so I have to make a whole lot. So how about it. I will give you 5 coppers for the work. Will you help me Raka?
[p=center]Help Neona Cook and Bake[/p] Neona''s cooking is getting popular around the village. Lots of people come to her shop for her homemade delicacies. However she prepares all this with the help of her aunt. Her aunt has fallen sick and she cannot help Neona with the cooking. After hearing the stories you told her, she decided to ask you for help. She will pay you so that you do a good job. Difficulty level: Requires medium intimacy with Neona Reward: Intimacy increases with Neona, 5 coppers, Unknown
Raka looked at the message window. ''An unknown reward?'' Well not that Raka could have refused in such a situation anyway. "Yes, I will help."
You have accepted the quest.
Neona cheered up and smiled. Raka and Neona sat down to prepare all of those delicious foods she was famous for. In the night, after the work was finished, she told Raka to wait for a bit and then brought out some old washed out clothes, correction, togas. "Here take this. It belonged to my father, but I think it will fit you nicely. And here''s your pay", and she handed him the toga and 5 copper coins, which seemed to have someone''s face engraved on them. ''So the unknown reward was clothes!! Can''t be helped with a 5 copper quest I suppose.'' "Well if you wanna help out some more, come again. I could always use more help in the shop, if not for the cooking."
You have been offered a job. Neona will pay you for every hour of work you put into helping her. The pay will vary depending on work quality.
''Well that''s something. Till Lady Verina comes back I can earn some money.'' Thinking that he walked out into the dark streets and logged out. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy came out of his capsule, and stretched for a bit. He looked out the window at the full moon shining. He then went to his bed and fell asleep looking forward to a new day. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 9: Wating... Swamy was astounded. He did not get a chance to read the forums recently and that''s why he hadn''t known. The first time he heard about it was when he was having lunch with his four sorta friends. Like usual they were talking about Long Island. "Hey hey did you check the forums?" "Yeah I did!!" "Me too, ooh I am really excited now!" "Hahaha yeah....that''s something alright!" Usually by now Swamy could make sense of what they were saying, but today he was getting lost. "Um...what are guys talking about?" "What!! Swamy didn''t you say you played Long Island? Didn''t you see the forums then?" asked Rajan. "Oh I am sorry, I have been a bit busy lately. So what did I miss?" "HAHAHA what did he miss he asks!" "Only the most amazing thing that happened." Sneha added. "Oh come on, don''t tease the poor guy already! You see there is this player who finally got out of the city." "Really!! who?" said Swamy suddenly interested. "An amazing guy. It is said that he became the student of one of the most important person in the village. And then he got to go on some mission outside the village." "Really that happened?" Swamy was worried. Did the silent ones finally forego their silence and come out with another post. "Yeah!" "Oh oh do you know who he chose as his teacher? The head of battle school itself. Quite a guy!" "Oh totally! And its said she refused every person as her student. Maybe because she already had him! And he''s graduated from battle school as well. Wonder if she will take a new student now? Maybe she only takes one student at a time!" Swamy suddenly felt uncomfortable for some reason. Did another person graduate from battle school on some island. ''Shit'' he was being overtaken again. "Yeah we are in Gurrow village. What do you think are the chances for us to become her student?" asked Himali. "Slim to none I guess. We haven''t yet joined the battle school even, trying to learn magic weren''t we?!!" Manish said smiling. "Hahaha true that! I wonder if we can go back to join the battle school, we can get Lady Altia teaching us too. Oh, Swamy she is the head of the battle school in Ilmentia island" she said looking at Swamy''s strange look. Swamy simply nodded. "Hey what was the guy''s name again?" "Wait a second.....yep it''s Raka! Hey maybe the guy''s Indian. You know I think we had a really old comic series by that name." "Did we! Must have been quite old then. This guy, wouldn''t he be quite old if he read that stuff?" "Could be...I only know of that because its in one of dad''s drawers where he keeps old books. He said he used to be a fan of those in his childhood!" "Oh my! So this guy is like your father''s age..." "Yeah....and...to" Swamy zoned out. How did this happen. When did this happen. How much was known already! ''What a pain!'' Its not like Swamy didn''t want to get famous, but for completing a great adventure or achieving a high reward. He wanted to be famous after he got strong. After all everyone targets the famous guys in order to beat them. Whats more, he also didn''t want to be mugged by crowds of people asking questions. He didn''t want more people overtaking him. Back home, he quickly checked the forums. Yeah, there was a big talk about him going on. He found the original post and started reading every reply. Soon he relaxed. First time he was glad of people''s overarching imagination. Ofcourse some of them had been right about some stuff, but with so many things people had assumed, he thought it didn''t matter. No one recognized him for sure which was more than enough for him. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka lifted his head at the sound of bells. "Welcome, how may I help you?", said Neona who was standing beside him at the counter of the food shop. The old lady who came in had a cloth or leather made, he wasn''t sure, shopping bag with her. "Hi, please give me 2 stones of blackfruit, half a stone of bluebird eggs and a half stone of baylise leafs. Oh this pie looks nice, is it blueberry, then I will have one as well!" "Yes, Raka could you wrap up the pie for her. I will get the other things" saying which she started measuring the stuff on a balancing scale. Raka wrapped the pie in paper and waited for her to finish. Soon after, she got the lady''s bag and placed all the items in it. "Thank you for coming. Have a nice day!" which Raka repeated after her as the old lady customer left the shop with another tinkling of the bells. Raka was enjoying his time working at Neona''s store. The atmosphere was excellent and most of the customers friendly enough. The best part was he got to learn about so many new things about the island and the world in general. Stones were a unit of measure of weight and almost half a kilo, according to his estimate. Blackfruits are actually black and are found growing on trees in the forest, on the south side of the village. Only strong hunters went there to hunt, and brought this fruit. Seems it was quite a delicacy and so a bit expensive. Bluebirds were blue sea birds which traveled from island to island and often nested on this island. The birds themselves were fierce and strong slightly larger than the two headed wolf. But their eggs were delicious. They could not be hunted as they were always found nesting in groups of hundreds. Neona reckons she once saw a group of almost 500 flying together. But they had this tendency to leave unhatched eggs behind when it was time for the group to leave. People waited for them to leave, and quickly collected the eggs, before other animals could find them. It happened more than once, that even animals were waiting for the birds to leave and the hunters had a fight on their hands. She said while laughing. A gold coin equals 100 silver and a silver equaled 100 copper coins and seemed to be the adopted currency in this world. However there were some countries far away which dealt in a different currency as well. The people in the north of the island tilled the land and grew apples, oranges, blueberries, wheat, rice, cacao, baylise leaves and other things. By the way baylise leaf tasted like bay leaf. The closest island to Ilmentia is Brittanica to the north, Khardoum to the east and Dalmund to the south. The west sea was too dangerous and people who traveled there didn''t return alive so no one knew what lies there. ''Dalmund, so that''s the other starter island.'' Wondering if the other starter islands were close by as well, he asked about Fedora and Singoor, the other starter islands. "Oh Fedora is the next island after Khardoum about 50 leagues east and Singoor is east of Dalmund not far from it." she replied. In real life one league is a little over 5 kms. Hoping the developers had made the same use, 50 leagues would be around 250 kms. Raka was surprised at the amount of information he gained by talking with Neona, but he supposed it was natural for a resident of the island to know about its geography, history and other stuff. Especially when you were a merchant like Neona who dealt with a wide variety of people, hunters and merchants who traveled the seas. As she said, having the right information is paramount in her job, as setting prices requires one to know how much it costs in the first place. Thankfully the island had a bustling trade and lots of merchants came from different lands. Being friendly as she was, she could soon get the merchants talking with a few sweet words and probably some alcohol about all the lands they traveled and things they saw. Her curiosity about all things related to stories of adventure was unquenchable. Ofcourse she found facts, prices and other things about how things are found or grown, just as interesting. She explained that she didn''t have enough money when her mother left her this shop. But she was trying to earn enough, so that she could join a merchant guild and travel the seas. It was a tough life being a merchant of the sea, she said. There was always a chance that you could lose your life. The sea monsters were trouble enough but there were pirates as well. But the most dangerous were the storms. Some storms were ok enough, but there were some which were known as devil storms. They hit suddenly, and caused waves to rise hundreds of feet. There have only been a handful of people who ever survived these and they say that the devil himself set them off. Once surviving that, they left the sea altogether, not having courage to sail again. It gobbled entire ships within its waves. Over the ages, some of the smaller islands have been swallowed whole by the storm, existing under the sea now. It is what makes the west sea so dangerous, the devil storms are more frequent. The likelihood of devil storms happening near the islands is low though and as you move east it becomes much safer. Infact the last time a devil storm occurred near this island was like 200 years ago. This was the other thing which surprised Raka. The residents did not talk about history, like the system had made it up. They talked about it as if their ancestors had lived it. For example, Neona talked about three generations of her family like its not only a memory. She remembered her mother and grandmother. Her grandmother had died when she was still small, but she could still tell stories of her and her grandmother. Her mother told her, that her grand grand parents had come to this island from the east in the times of war. These were not only facts, but memories with feelings as well. It was almost as if, the people of this world had been ''living'' before the players came. Raka calculated that the npcs had been living in this world atleast 300 years. ''But that''s impossible. Even considering that 1 to 3 time difference, 300 years would mean 100 years in real life. That couldn''t be possible, unless this game was made a 100 years ago. Was there a way to speed up time then?" He could come to no conclusion on this, but decided that this would make a good topic for a paper for one his classes. Today, she decided to visit the warehouse after working hours to meet with some merchants. Raka asked and got to tag along. It was still evening and Neona explained that the merchants would be more willing to negotiate as they would have to stop for the night anyway. They soon reached the warehouse, which was a large building next to the east gate. Raka entered and found a place filled with immense smells and sounds. There were loud auctioneers shouting out bids, people who were quietly making deals here and there, a few stalls which seemed to be filled with paper, perhaps with orders written on them. And the smell of a thousand kinds of food, fish and spices. Some other stalls in the far corner were stalls having bags with all kinds of metal, and metal products, armor and weapons, something which looked like coal, etc. And then a few more carrying all sorts of things which boggled Raka''s mind. Looking at it from the outside, you would never have believed that this place existed inside. Neona was in her element. She soon started going to specific merchants, haggling prices of stuff, placing orders or turning up her nose at the prices. She checked the food before buying them, sometimes even cutting of a piece to taste. Ofcourse Raka followed her eagerly as she gave him a bite to taste as well asking for his opinion on some of them. Raka could not say he had a good palate but he still gave his honest opinion about its taste. Neona nodded sometimes, smiled sometimes when he made a strange face on some of the weird ones and in general talked to him about what everything was or complained that this merchant was pricing it too high. Raka quietly listened, making a mental note of everything she said, about prices, about specific merchants, about the different kinds of food, and other stuff she was interested in or recognized. She even looked at the metal stalls for some reason, looking at the prices before nodding her head with some thought. He asked, "Neona, what are doing at the metal stalls?" Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! "Oh, as a merchant I am try to keep track of the prices and the quality of all items coming to this town. It helps as practice, you know. Also being able to estimate a things true value is the sign of a good merchant!" "You can do that with even metal?!! Don''t you run a food shop?!" "That''s just for now, you know. Who knows, maybe in the future I will deal with metal. Know about everything! Thats my motto!" she said excitedly as she moved, observed, noticed, tasted and smelled her way across the warehouse. ''Hmm, this could be a useful thing to know for the future''. "Neona, could you also teach me your skills? I would also like to learn the things you do to know the value of things." "Why?! so you could become my competition in the future?!" "Um...no that is not my intention...but if that''s what you want, I can try to do that!" Neona looked cute as she puffed up her cheeks. And then they both laughed. "The cheek of this guy. Well you better learn well, if you wish to compete with me" She teased.
Skill Estimation: You can now learn the skill Estimation. There are millions of different things in the world, both natural and created. Merchants trade with a lot of them but also learn about more all the time. Estimation of its true value, thus becomes important and is decided based on information about it and/or rarity and/or usefulness. It is different from the market value of the item which may include transport, taxes, risk or any discounts/overcharging. Neona has agreed to teach you the skill. Requirements: You must impress Neona by estimating without her help.
"Well take notice here, see the metal bended like that..." they started where they stood, in one of the metal dealer stalls. "This bending is often caused because of not properly tempering the heat. So this makes it a manufacturing defect. It causes this area to become brittle. Hmmm, lets see it seems to be made of a mix of steel with a little bit of silver for the linings. This is just to increase its price, I suppose. And the price says about 1 gold and 20 silvers. Expensive! Hmmm..reducing 10% for the defect, and 30% for the silver which has absolutely no use here. Also taxes on the island are like 8%, and it comes from Dalmund which isn''t far away anyway. I would say its true value would be around 40 silver." "Hey, how much are you going to offer this armor for?" she asked the stall owner. "Price is written down there!" "Yeah I know. But how much are you going to sell it for?" "Miss, the price is 1 gold 20 silvers. Please look at the exquisite quality of the armor. Its made with high quality steel and silver has been added for more protection." "Don''t give me that. Silver is only on the linings. It gives no protection whatsoever. Whats more, you see this. Its a bend showing manufacturing defect. I am not going to pay more than 30 silvers for this!" "Miss, please don''t try to cheat me. Even the taxes on the island will make it more than that." "Really! Now don''t you blame the taxes, alright I will give 31 silver." "No no, its too less. I cannot sell for that!" "alright 32....no...hmmm 33...still no eh!" "Tell you what! I will give you 45 silvers but just because its made of steel. The linings are useless and this thing here..will just break. Sorry its my final offer. I believe its a fair price for your trouble! Do you sell or not?!" Neona started walking away, but then.. "Hold on Miss! I will sell for 50 silvers. I need to make some money too!" "Hmm...46 no more or I walk!" "Ok deal! You are a tough lady aren''t you!" Neona smiled a beautiful smile, which buried all the negative emotions from the other party. Raka picked up the armor, as he was being the luggage porter for this trip. "Wow! You sure know how to haggle don''t you!" "Hmph! Trying to cheat me! Well if you know the true price you can always haggle successfully." ''Oh could it be a skill as well!'' "Neona could you teach me how to haggle as well?" "No can do. You learn that from experience. It cannot be taught. However I can give you tips for any trades you make." And so it went on, with Neona talking about different things she used to determine true value, pointing at defects, how much to reduce prices by when evaluating, base prices of different places,etc. In short what will make him a great merchant like her. Hearing all that, Raka''s head started swirling with information overload. It was not the information she provided, but rather the things he had to find out by himself to actually be able to estimate. What was awesome was her observation skill. She could find defects with a glance. Ofcourse her palate was awesome as well, she could tell the degree of food spoilage just by taste. Raka sighed. It would take years to get to her level. Not that he didn''t try. He looked at the same things she did, trying to spot differences, but not having known armor, or weapons or some of the foods in the real world he could not actually make a good comparison. He simply followed Neona''s explanations noting it down in his mind. Spending almost 3 hours in the warehouse, they headed back to Neona''s place with Raka carrying all the bags of stuff she bought. Most of them was food but what would she do with the armor, he wondered. "Neona, what are you intending to do with the armor?" "Sell it ofcourse. Blacksmiths can repair it and sell to other people." Back at the shop, Raka was relieved of putting down all the stuff. And then began the job of sorting through them and putting things in shelves and noting it down on the books, etc. Raka was the one who did all the lifting and running around though. Neona simply kept noting things down in her book and ordering him around to weigh this and put that there. "Thank you very much. You can rest for a bit, while I check the accounts!" "If its just about calculating stuff, I can help. I am pretty good at math." Raka offered. "Oh really! That will help, thanks! By the way would you like to learn accounting?" ''Well it should be easy atleast'' Raka hoped and agreed.
Skill Accounting: You can now learn the skill Accounting. It allows you to keep accurate records of your income, expenditure and totals. A necessary skill for merchants, it also allows you to write down records to make books. Neona has agreed to teach you the skill. Requirements: You must impress Neona by applying accounting without her help.
Neona started telling him how she does her accounts, the columns and rows, etc. It was a basic accounts book. ''Its easy. I can do this in my sleep.'' He asked Neona to let him do the checking and soon found and corrected a couple of errors he spotted. He also suggested a couple of ways to make it better, which Neona liked. Soon,
You have learned the skill Accounting. Skill Format has been learned. Skill Formula has been learned.
"Skill description, Accounting, Format and Formula"
Accounting (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Ability to keep records of your income, expenditures and totals. Essential if you wish to be a merchant. You can also record your accounts on writing surfaces. Writing it also allows you to show or share your records with others. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips. Format (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Accounting. Formats are designs which enable you classify your incomes, expenditures and totals. Ability to make formats on writing surfaces. If you share or give your created formats to others, they can use it to record and manage their own accounts without having accounting skill. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips. Formula (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Accounting. Formulas are mathematical relationships and rules expressed in symbols and help in making complex calculations. Ability to make formulas on writing surfaces. You can also attach formulas to formats to enable automatic calculations. If you share or give your created formulas to others, they can use it for automatic calculations without having accounting skill. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.
''A bit complicated. Perhaps it would make more sense when I try'' thinking that he asked for a bit of paper, made three columns, putting an x and y on top of the first two, and then adding x+y at the end. He added a line to make a row and wrote 1 and 1 under x and y. The number 2 appeared in the third column.
Accounting increases by 1%.
Format increases by 1%. You can save the format. Do you wish to save the format?
"No"
Formula increases by 1%. You can save the formula. Do you wish to save the formula?
"No" ''That''s convenient, but where would I use it!'' Raka thought for a bit and then gave up. He then went and helped Neona with her cooking. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was in front of Neona''s shop where he had worked the last two days he had logged in. Ofcourse considering he only logged in every third day in the game, already 8 days had passed in the game till today. Today, he would get to meet Lady Verina, if she had kept to her schedule and returned already. He started to walk towards the magic institute hoping for some luck. He had changed into the washed up toga, which Neona gave. It wasn''t much better but atleast it didn''t look as ragged as his old one. Raka entered the Magic Institute and rung the bell. Hopefully he will be lucky and meet Lady Verina, but who came out was Cynthia again. ''So much for luck!'' as she looked at him and remembered him. "You again! What nerve to show up here! And where did you steal these clothes? I should report you to the guards!" Was the greeting Raka got. "Hello again, Miss Cynthia. I am here to meet with Lady Verina! Is she here?!" Raka spoke adding as much eloquence as possible to not anger her again. "Hah! what are you a stalker? or did you fall in love at first sight? for you to be so obsessed with Lady Verina!" "Um..no. I just want to meet with her, if its possible, please!" Sill keeping his indignation at check. Cynthia made a look of pure disdain. Raka sighed. Was his luck going to run out today too! Just then, "Ah hello Raka, how are you?" came a voice from behind him. He turned to look behind and saw Lady Verina approaching from the front door carrying a small bag. Cynthia immediately bowed, "Welcome Lady Verina. I hope you had a good trip!" "Thank you Cynthia. Yes, the trip this time was fruitful." Raka also bowed and greeted. "Hello Lady Verina." "So Raka, you are back which means that you completed Altia''s training did you?" "Yes Lady Verina! I came here to receive your training." "Well, come inside will you." and Raka followed her inside while Cynthia watched absolutely flabbergasted. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 10: Magic Institute Raka walked into a well lit hallway painted white as outside. He was in the Gurrow village Magic Institute following Lady Verina as she led him inside. The long hallway had doors along the side which led to rooms, some empty, some occupied. The ones who were in the rooms wore the same kind of clothes Lady Verina and Cynthia were wearing and were quietly studying. A little further he found one of the biggest rooms, filled with a rows and rows of books of all kinds. He could not get a look at it from the hallway, but he assumed that it was all related to magic. "That is our library. And yes, it is mostly filled with books on magic. After all our institute does magic research as well. A lot of our graduates come back to use the library. But we have some who devote their time on research of magic only. It is because of them, that we are known as one of the best magic institutes around." said Lady Verina noticing Raka''s eager expressions as he looked around. Not that he could help it. After all magic by its very name is exciting. It is one of the best charms of virtual reality that it made possible things, which were impossible in real life. Raka was excited as he thought of learning magic, and whats more from the head of the magic institute herself. ''More than anything, atleast it won''t be painful! Books, I can read them all..hahaha!'' thought Raka remembering his painful but occasionally sweet ordeal with Lady Altia. He could definitely do without the pain. A little ahead, he found more rooms, but these looked like classrooms. Yep, they even had rows of seats lined up to face a large desk which would be the teacher''s desk, or that''s what he thought. In another one of those, he saw the players studying, easily recognizable because of their togas, without a teacher. Raka had thought that they would be able to buy decent clothing, now that they could earn some money from quests. However, the next best thing after the plain togas they wore, were expensive equipment. Normal colorful clothes were a few silvers, armor started at almost a gold coin. He guessed that by the time they reached the age of 14 they would probably be able to afford such armor but they should be able to afford normal clothes by now. ''Maybe they want to hurry and learn magic before moving on to the quests'' was Raka''s first thought. He could see himself doing the same thing, if he were in their shoes. Ofcourse life had turned out differently for him so far. They soon reached some rooms which could easily be said to be offices. In the office at the end of the hallway, they entered. He presumed this was Lady Verina''s office, though it seemed to be in various states of upheaval, like the wind could not decide which things to knock over. Over at the end stood a small window covered with some pale shades. Now that he noticed, even with the shades being drawn up, the room still had light but no fire. The lamps he saw hung on the wall, had a kind of white fire burning inside, giving off the kind of white light as you get from a tube light in the real world. There was a messy desk, full of bunches and stacks of paper and what else. "Put down some of those papers on that chair and sit" she said as she took the chair behind the desk. She looked at a couple of papers right in front of her, made a face, then moved them aside. "Now then, perhaps I should start by congratulating you on passing Altia''s training. How was it?" Thinking of all the moments, "Um, she is a strict instructor but I receive your congratulations with honor!" "Hahaahhaa ..yeah that she is isn''t she. Do you know that you were her first student? She just joined as head of the Battle school this year." "Really, how come she is the head then? Not that she isn''t a strong warrior." "I understand what you mean, but you see she was made the head based on her achievements on the battlefield." "I did not know!" "You wouldn''t know would you! She was part of the army till this last year. It was a shock when she joined the army at a young age of 10. And even more of a shock when she fought in the war. She has become a legend in the army." Raka tried to imagine a ten year old Lady Altia fighting against scores of enemies. Hmm...he could imagine Lady Altia fighting off scores of enemies covered in their blood but....he couldn''t imagine a ten year old version of her. Now that he thought about how old was she now! "During the war she rose quickly in rank. But after it, she did not know what to do. She was too good in fighting but a lot of the older commanders did not like her and considered her much too young. The queen decided that it would be best if she could leave the active army and join the reserves. She offered her the job of her choice and she chose to be a Battle school instructor. Ofcourse she was inexperienced in teaching, so she was offered the position of the head who don''t have to do much direct teaching!" "So that''s how it was! Did my request inconvenience Lady Altia and you by any chance?" "Hahahah nothing of the sort. I always knew she could be a teacher. She just needed to become confident by actually teaching one. And then you offered yourself. Thank you brave warrior Raka!" Lady Verina smiled teasingly. ''So I was just an experiment!! No I can''t think like that, I will become depressed. Lets say that I learned some good skills!'' Seemingly aware of what was going on Raka''s head, Lady Verina simply smiled and added, "Well on a serious note, I am really glad at seeing your progress along with Altia''s. The magic school requires students to train their bodies anyway so I guess you can say that you have already finished the basics!" "Um...that''s nice...I guess!" "Now before I begin, I must test your level of body training. We will begin from there." Saying that, she took out a couple of papers from her desk. "These are rules and regulations of the institute. Memorize them. I do not tolerate mishaps born of carelessness and I certainly do not tolerate mishaps born of someone''s willingness either. Magic is not something to play with and neither are the rules of this institute" she switched to a formal tone. She drew another couple of papers and wrote something on them. She then asked Raka to prick his finger and put some blood on the bottom of those. Raka did as she asked. "Well now that the formalities are over with, shall we start with your test. Lets find an empty training room..." saying which she started going back up the hallway towards the door. Raka followed. Some distance away she stopped and pulled on a lamp. A hidden door suddenly opened, which was painted as the surrounding wall. It revealed stairs going down. Lady Verina entered and went down those stairs and Raka followed marveling at the deception. They came down to a well lit hallway, which seemed much larger than the floor above. It also had some rooms but the rest of the space was empty. "This is our training hall. It is reinforced with stone and magic so we can use magic freely without destroying the village. Ho ho ho~ it also has magic which limits sound from leaving the room so its perfect for doing something naughty in as well!" she added in a sweet voice. Raka trembled. No one would be able to hear his screams. He wondered what the test would involve. Lady Verina went into one of the rooms, which seemed to be full of all kinds of weapons and brought out two strong looking wooden staffs. Raka had been using the staff Lady Altia had made using the wood around the hills. It wasn''t a bad effort but looking at a real staff, he could see a lot of differences. He was literally using a thick stick compared to the staff he was getting now. Both wooden, but the difference in making showed. Lady Verina gave him a staff and they moved a bit towards the center of the large hall. "Now I want to see what level you abilities are at. So come at me with everything you got." ''Damn'' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was lying down on the floor, sweat streaking down his face, his breath coming in short bursts. He just had the most intense session with Lady Verina, in which she managed to hit every single one of his body parts. Even the ones he protected with his life. "Not bad! Ofcourse I had expected this much with Altia teaching you. Good stamina, your endurance is good, skill so so. Defence ok, attack so so but it still exceeded my expectations. Most of all your footwork is good" went Lady Verina analyzing him while he laid on the floor. "Your movements are good for the basic level. Your attacks well thought out! You are slow though but that is something which can improve with more training. Overall I guess you pass! Rejoice, you would be the first of the Goddess''s children to learn magic from me!" Ofcourse Raka did not feel like rejoicing. He had thought that he had improved a little bit but Lady Verina had toyed with him from start to finish. Her moves were different from Lady Altia''s. Lady Altia''s moves were structured and emphasized powerful straight movements with side steps. Lady Verina''s felt more like dancing. She moved, rotated, revolved, made circles around him, moved her hips and even jumped. While Lady Altia had power behind every strike, Lady Verina had incredible accuracy. Even if he didn''t feel as much pain from her strike, he couldn''t block even a single one of them. Getting hit so many times did take its toll leaving him heaving on the floor. Needless to say, she dodged everyone of his attacks. That was another difference between the two. "So are you done? I thought you were trained better. Didn''t you learn to attack?" Lady Verina goaded him. Hearing the challenge, Raka just couldn''t stay on the ground even when his body screamed to stop. And he was sent sprawling again and again, till the time he just couldn''t move let alone stand.
You are dead tired. Movement speed drops by 100%. All fighting abilities are reduced. You cannot learn any skill in this state.
Lady Verina moved her hands and then opened her palm pointed at him. Raka felt something reaching inside him. He started to feel better all of a sudden though he still couldn''t move.
All recovery rates are increased.
A little while later he could move and sit up. "Keep sitting. We only need to talk for now!" saying which Lady Verina sat down in front of him. "That''s much better. Now you won''t have to look up all the time. So till you recover, lets understand some basic things about magic." "First of all, what is magic? Before we even begin that, what is energy?" Raka pondered for a bit, but it seemed like she wasn''t really expecting an answer. She continued, "we may describe energy in various ways. It is the living force of any living being. It is the natural force which makes weather and affects changes in our environment. It is the spiritual force which cannot be seen by the naked eye but its effects can be observed all around us. From the growing off a plant from the seed, to the rain which falls from the cloud to the animal who eats and drinks. Energy is all around us. It is in everything. Infact it can be said, that everything, living or dead, natural or unnatural is just a form of energy. That said, are there different kinds of energy? You can say, fire is hot and ice is cold so they have different energies but research has revealed that there is only one energy. But it has different forms which make a rock or a living creature or the birds or the seas. Researchers of magic spend years trying to understand the relationships of those forms and how energy transforms. But they all agree that energy can not be destroyed. It is simply transformed into something else. Like burning wood transforms into ash. The energy which had the form of wood now exists as form of ash. Ofcourse there are rules which apply to the transformation and how much gets transformed." She stopped for a while looking to see whether Raka understood. This sounded the same as physics laws in the real world which talk about conservation of energy. Raka nodded to say he understood. "Now we move on to the basic question that is, what is magic? Magic is simply the understanding that these forms have certain rules which apply to the world. Knowing of such rules, we can create situations where these rules allow us to manipulate it. Look at my hand" A fire appeared on Lady Verina''s hand. "Lets say I set fire to something. If you wanted to extinguish that fire, what will you do?" "Um pour water over it?" replied Raka. "Exactly. So why can''t you pour water on my hand to stop my fire?" "It sounds possible when you say that!" "That''s because it is possible. If it were a normal fire you would be able to pour water over it and it will be gone. But lets say I am performing a process which constantly creates fire on top of my hand? What then?" "Well, in that case I will have to keep pouring water over it, I think" "Exactly. We can say that ultimately water will always extinguish fire. How much gets extinguished depends. This is a rule. There are several rules, counting all of them would take years. And we are discovering even more of them every day. Now say that somehow you can feel that energy. Furthermore the energy allows you to apply these rules on their forms. Like say I can feel the energy of the staff. So now I apply the rule of creating fire and the energy of the staff transforms into fire...." a fire started on the staff, "just like that!" "Now remember the rules say that the amount of transformation depends. What does it depend on? It depends on how much energy you can transform. Transforming energy is difficult. Not because it requires effort but because it requires focus. If you stop manipulating it even for a moment, it reverts back to its original form and you will not get the intended effect." ''Hmm so you have to concentrate on what you are doing or you won''t be able to achieve the desired effect.'' "Energy manipulation also depends on the form it takes. If the form is stable, manipulating it will be difficult. I can try to turn you into a mouse, but it will require long hours of preparation because you are a stable form of energy. The more stable the form, the more it resists manipulation, the larger the focus required. Normally it would take years and years of preparation to transform a small mouse, almost an entire lifetime, so its generally impossible to transform a human. That said, the forms of energy that are easiest to manipulate are air, water, fire, earth, light and dark. We call them elements. You can use them directly like..." she made a fireball on her hand and threw the ball a little distance. "That was a basic fireball. You can also combine the elements like..." and a large fire erupted from her hand which she shaped into a ball and threw it. It exploded with a BANG as it hit the ground! "This was a simple combination of fire and air, called a fire bomb! Ofcourse because these are forms of energy and not energy itself, it will follow the rules of fire and air. Therefore combining fire and water would be a lot difficult and unstable than combining fire and air." Raka was getting confused by now. He tried to listen carefully but understanding of some parts escaped him. He didn''t know magic was such complicated business. Lady Verina smiled at his thoughtful expression. "You don''t have to understand everything right this moment. It will become clearer as you learn more. And the only way to learn is by practice. The first step in learning magic is being able to perceive energy. It exists everywhere, but everyone perceives it in varying amounts. If you are talented you will be able to perceive it faster, but everyone at some point in time becomes able to do that." You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. "Now, you have been taught meditation. Meditate for now and try to feel the energy around you. Everyone understands the energy differently, so how I look at it may not be the same as you do. Find your own way on that. The magic on these walls makes perceiving it easier. So for now you have only one task. Meditate and understand energy. Only once you have done that, can you learn magic."
Skill Magic: Magic is the understanding of rules on how to manipulate energy and its forms. Lady Verina agrees to teach you the skill. Requirements: Lady Verina wants you to be able to perceive the energy around you.
"Now you can always come to this place at any time of the day. Some of our older students use it for combat practice, but mostly it remains empty. You may use your time as you like otherwise. I will come in once a while to check on your progress. A word of warning, do not try to manipulate the energy you feel. A lot of accidents happen because people start manipulating without having an experienced guide around." And Lady Verina left Raka sitting in the middle of that large hall. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka had been sitting down for the past couple of hours trying to meditate. But he soon got bored of not moving. He knew that sitting still and resting helped with recovery but when you have already recovered it didn''t make sense to sit still. But even so, he tried to sit down in a yoga position and meditate as he was taught. And it was hard. The more he tried not to think and empty his mind, the more thoughts kept popping up. The large hall where he was in, was completely empty. Completely covered with no windows, it was illuminated by lamps hung on the walls painting the stone walls in white light. Looking around at the completely empty dismal space, Raka could imagine anyone falling into depression. He did not know how long he would need to ''perceive energy'' as Lady Verina had called it. In fact, considering he couldn''t concentrate at all in the two hours that already passed, his prospects seemed bleak indeed. "Oh I give up!" and Raka stopped trying. This was not a mathematical problem that he could solve. He wished he had thought of asking Lady Verina for some hints, or even how to start this sensing of energy but she was gone. He did not want to bother her before even trying. ''But I cannot concentrate now. Maybe later I will have more luck.'' He started thinking of things he could do. He picked up his staff and started practicing his forms, atleast it gave him something to do while moving. A few hours later, he started to feel tired again. ''Hmm...now I feel like taking a nap'' saying which Raka laid down on the floor and closed his eyes. It happened when he was nearly on the edge of his sleep. In a state where he could have been dreaming, he started seeing colors around him. There were so many colors in so many shades. Gone was the plain white of the hall replaced by the innumerable colors floating around him. He raised his hands and found that it was also replaced by those colors but this time, they had taken the shape of his hands. He tried feeling his body, but he could feel nothing. He tried to listen but he heard nothing. It was like he had stepped on to this silent world filled with a zillion colors and he was like a spirit floating through them, without feeling, just being aware of everything. There was no time in this place, just a sense of being. There was no life in this place, just a sense of existing. Just then, he felt the colors vibrate and he looked towards the source of those vibrations. A human like figure was formed of those colors and it seemed to be walking towards him. Raka tried to concentrate on that colorful figure, but the more he focused, the more the colors faded. Soon they completely disappeared leaving him looking at the same ceiling, he was looking at when he went to sleep. Raka sat up. For a moment he tried to think but he was having trouble putting together any thoughts. He moved his head around, like it wasn''t a part of his body and looked towards Lady Verina who had just arrived. She put her hand on his cheek. Her warmth finally awoke Raka from his stupor and he slowly realized that it had all been a dream. "Seems you have progressed a little bit! How was it?" "Um....there were so many colors, like the world was made of it!" Raka replied a little bit surprised and wondered how she knew about his dream. "So that''s how you see it! I did say everyone perceives energy differently. And you perceive it through colors. It can be said that you have found the starting point. But that is not enough. You have to understand more about what you see and more importantly be able to perceive it at will." Finally Raka realized. What he had mistaken for his dream was actually his way of sensing the energy around him. This time Raka had done it accidentally and he wasn''t sure whether this method would work again. Ofcourse he could not sleep everytime he wanted to feel that again. But it was a start. Now that he knew the result, he simply had to find a way to achieve it willingly. Raka nodded to Lady Verina. She smiled and he realized that her hand was still on his cheek. Raka blushed a little and Lady Verina smiled even more. She removed her hand and quietly walked away again, leaving him in the center of the large hall. For the rest of the day, Raka kept trying to find that feeling again, but it never happened. He tried all sorts of things, meditating, getting tired by moving around and then meditating, focusing on a single point, etc etc and whatever he could think of about getting his concentration to the max. But so far it hadn''t worked out. Raka sighed. He had spent all day and night on this endeavor and it was time to log out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy was sitting in the cafeteria at lunch. His friends were there talking about Long Island as usual. He did not realize it yet, but it had somehow become his habit of hanging around with them. Even though he mostly didn''t talk much. "So what happened with that Raka guy? Any news on that?" "No not really! No one''s seen him around lately. People are saying that he may have gone outside again on some quest!" "Ah that''s wonderful. I hope I can soon find such a quest!" Rajan who was browsing internet on the phone suddenly shouted. Everyone looked at him. "Hey someone''s posted about the age limit of going outside the villages. It seems it is 14 in Gurrow Village. In Dalmund it is 12. Some people in Dalmund, who just reached 12 started getting hunting quests. They tried walking out and it worked. In case of Gurrow, it seems someone asked Neona about it, that''s one of the food store npcs." "Awesome! So people already reached age 12 in Dalmund. That''s beyond awesome. I am still age 8. There are no experience bars like levels so can''t say when I will get there either....this sucks bigtime!!" "Yeah its shocking. They must be those people who play full time." "AHahahah! Can''t be helped. We got classes to go to. Anyways now that we know the age limit, we can actually work towards it. Oh...what about the other starting places Rajan?" "Don''t know yet. The post only mentioned the two. But you guys are missing the interesting bit. The age limit of Gurrow is higher than Dalmund! Why do you think that is?" "Um maybe the monsters around there are of a higher level than Dalmund?" answered Himali. "Hmm, my thoughts exactly! But if you start hunting won''t you rise in levels fast, I mean age?" asked Manish. "Not sure. So far my age does not rise according to what I have learned. I learned cooking already but my age did not rise then. But it seems to rise arbitrarily for some reason. Has anyone figured out how that works yet?" Himali said. "No, its still a mystery. Lots of people were thinking that they are same as levels but so far they are in doubt as well!" Rajan answered. "Hey hey, don''t all of you start going serious now. We all have got Swamy for that!" Sneha said. Swamy always thought she was a bit of an airhead, so he simply ignored her attempt at humor. "What I am interested in, did they pass battle school or magic school, now that they have gone out?" Swamy spoke, which was kindof a once in while thing. "Ah! He speaks!" which was another sad attempt at humor. Rajan laughed a bit, but both Manish and Himali only just about managed to smile. "Ye~ah! that''s what I am interested to know as well!" Himali added finally. "Yeah, are there more posts telling what they did? Or are they keeping it a secret?" Manish added. "A secret. No other posts from those people. Guess they want to keep ahead of the other players! Can''t blame them...but will hiding basic things like that really work in the long run? Eventually people will figure it out!" said Rajan. "Hmm. I guess you can find all sorts of people playing now! There''s this guild we used to be part of before, they used to share information within the guild only. So everyones looking to be the best at something...hahaha, guess that would apply to us too wouldn''t it!" "Yeah! I don''t get to play a lot, what with classes and all. If I found something special like a hidden land or a dungeon, I will be sure to hide it. But whats the point of hiding how to pass battle school or magic school!" "Yeah! there''s all kinds of people!" ............. ..... Swamy realized once again, how far the silent ones were. They had already surpassed him and were increasing their lead day by day. While he was stuck trying to figure out how to sense energy! Swamy sighed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was still in the basement hall, trying to figure out how to get that feeling back. He had tried all sorts of ways he found online to improve his concentration but to no avail. Tired of this, he thought of visiting Neona''s store to earn some more money. He still hadn''t learned the estimation skill or the cooking skill yet so it would be good training. He took the stairs and came out from the hidden door. He walked to Lady Verina''s office hoping to let her know that he would be leaving for a bit. He reached her office and knocked. No answer. He knocked again....still no answer. ''Is she out?'' But then he heard light sounds coming from the room. He thought he shouldn''t open the door, but curiosity won over and he lightly pushed the door. The door was open. He slowly pushed the door and found one of the most amazing sights he would see. Lady Verina was sleeping soundly with her head on the desk. The light sounds he heard, was her breathing. Raka simply stood mesmerized. Lady Verina was lovely with curves at all the right places, no second thoughts on that. But looking at her sleeping innocently like that, with an occasional light snore, her golden hair which fell down her side, gently hiding her face and the loose dress which seemed it would slide away with a feather''s touch! He could almost imagine her as an angel. Raka stood there for a while. Then he quietly closed the door. He turned around and found himself being stared at by Cynthia. She looked annoyed as usual. "What were you doing in Lady Verina''s room?" Seems she had only seen him closing the door assuming he was walking out from Lady Verina''s office. "I came to meet her ofcourse." "Hmph! Another unlikely story!" "Um..another story which is true!" Cynthia sulked. And then knocked on the door. "Um.. you shouldn''t do that, Lady Verina is asleep!" "OH! wait you were in there while she was SLEEPING?!! You PERVERT! SCOUNDREL!..." "N...no I mean she was sleeping before I even came here!" "So finding her asleep you decided to enter the room! That makes you even more of a pervert! Did you steal something from there, you did didn''t you!! Bind!" saying which she waved her hand and he found himself unable to move. She quickly knocked and opened the door. As Raka was facing the other side he couldn''t see inside the room but he heard, "ooo..waaah ~yawn!! Why is it so noisy?...wait Cynthia, didn''t I tell you to knock when you enter?" "I did knock and you were sleeping in your office again. Anyways I have caught the culprit so rest assured!" "Culprit, what culprit? Did something happen?" "Yes...this man!" and Raka felt himself turning around to face Lady Verina now, still standing frozen outside in the hallway, "I caught him coming out of your office. It looks like while you were sleeping, he took advantage and could have stolen something. I always thought he looked a bit of a thief and now I caught him red-handed!" Cynthia said all that with a grin. Fully awake now Lady Verina looked closely at Raka. Then winked at him! Raka just looked with his eyes wide open unable to move a muscle. "So did you like what you saw?" Lady Verina said teasingly. "Lady Verina, how could you speak like that to a THIEF!!" Cynthia was now speaking a little louder. "Cynthia! Haven''t I told you that he is my student. He is not a thief. I think he came here to talk to me about something, and finding my lovely self sleeping, was trying to quietly leave!" "Hmph! Like that could happen! I am sure he just stole something important from your office, maybe one of the papers and was trying to sell it. Maybe even get some secrets of our nation out, maybe he''s a spy from another country!" Lady Verina sighed. "You and your imaginations! First of all, how can he leave the village, he isn''t old enough. Second, do you really think I am careless enough that just anyone can walk out from here carrying my papers? I have applied magic in the room. And most importantly, how are you calling him a thief or a spy without even checking it?" "Hmph! if nothing else, he is certainly a pervert!!" "Ho ho ho, yeah that he can be. But that is not exactly a crime he should be punished for, is it?" Cynthia looked like that was enough to hang him. Wonder why she hated him though. So far, he knew he had only been courteous to her. Not like he had a say in anything, he was frozen solid. "Well now that we cleared that up, let Raka go. I am sure he is embarrassed enough to be standing here listening to all this!" Cynthia looked like saying that Lady Verina was making a mistake, but looking at her not so smiling face, she quietly said, "Unbind!" Raka felt himself free to move. "So Raka why did you come here?" "Thank you Lady Verina. I just came here to say that I would be going outside for a bit when I found you sleeping. Er...I ...didn''t want to disturb you so I left quietly. I think that''s what caused Cynthia''s misunderstanding. I did not steal anything." "Yeah I guessed as much! Sorry that you had to face this, but atleast you got a taste of what magic can do. Lets consider it part of training as well. Ho ho ho~ maybe I should try that on you sometime!" Lady Verina''s eyes twinkled. Raka simply stood not knowing the words to speak. His only thought, ''She is Lady Altia''s friend after all!'' "Alright then, seems like this business is over. Raka, you may leave. Cynthia, you stay! I want to talk to you!" Raka bowed and left the room. He headed towards Neona''s shop as he originally planned. He had just got a taste of magic, and while he walked, he wondered how that was done. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 11: Burning! It started with a BANG...literally! Raka was lying on the floor, for the umpteenth time since starting this game. He looked at the white ceiling above him high up. A sweet laughter sprung nearby. ''She has a lovely laugh'' was all the thought he could manage before the world lost focus. He had just been defeated by his own magic as the fire he was trying to conjure exploded at him. "And that''s what happens when you lose focus" he heard her voice say almost in his dreams. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka had been continuing his practice. He went to the magic institute to try to concentrate and find the sense for energy, all day. In the evening he used to go to Neona''s to make some money. So far he was making money much more easily than he was perceiving energy. He did not expect it to be easy, on the contrary he expected it to be quite hard considering there was no help forthcoming and he had to rely on luck as luck would have it. And even luck seemed to be unlucky. It had been over a week in real life, with Raka trying to get a feel of energy, forget learning magic. He was getting frustrated by his complete lack of progress. Day by day, he kept trying and trying without success. Not that Lady Verina ever got upset. Everytime she came to check on him, she quietly observed him trying. "Hmmm, keep trying" was all she said, and walked away with nary a hint of what he was supposed to do. ''Hah! This is impossible. The more I try to concentrate, the more I lose that feeling. What do I do?!'' Raka reflected on his problem. He had gotten close to the feeling of that day, when he saw those colors, a couple of times. Just when he thought that he might achieve it and started to will himself, he would always lose the feeling. ''Lady Verina said that focus is required for magic, but everytime I try to focus I lose the feel for energy. But that is the requirement for magic! Should I abandon magic for now and just concentrate on getting the feel for energy? But those couple of times only happened when I am close to falling asleep. No no! I have to be able to do it willingly in order to learn magic!'' Raka thought. He was sitting on the floor of the large training hall in the magic institute, and looking up at the completely white ceiling. He sighed. He was tired of trying. He moved around again practicing his battle forms as taught by Lady Altia to take his mind off things. Considering he was an intellectual sort, he would have never guessed that exercise would become his favorite time pass. After a while he got tired enough. He laid down to sleep, hoping for a miracle. Raka had decided to focus on getting that feeling back once again. Maybe this time he could find some hints. He closed his eyes and let him fall asleep. The colors were everywhere. He was again in a state where he could not think, just feel. (*Bruce Lee) But he remembered the facts. Who he was, where he was and what he was doing! This time Raka did not focus on the colors. He simply let them flow as they were flowing. He did not look at a particular color, just peeked out of the corner of his eyes. This time Raka wanted to let the feeling continue as long as it can. He looked at himself again, a being made of lots of colors. He looked side from side, not focusing, but simply passing over things beside him. He saw his staff with which he was practicing, colors in the stick form. He tried to look at walls and ceiling, but he could not find their shapes. ''Maybe I can only see whats near me''. He tried to move his hands and feet around to get a feel of moving, he saw that the color shapes for his arms and legs moved. But somehow he did not get the feeling that he was moving. ''Why is that'' he wondered. He walked where he thought was the nearest wall...and soon he found its shape. He changed direction, and reached the rooms near the door of the hall. He recognized them from their shapes. He tried opening the door to the weapons room, but he could not feel the door. On instinct, he walked on and found himself being able to go through the door. ''Amazing! Hehehe*evil grin I can go through walls!'' Raka saw the weapons, and turned around repeating the experience of simply going through the door. He was smiling. Or atleast that''s what he thought. He could not actually feel anything and he could not look at his face so he wasn''t sure. ''Should I, hehehe?'' having a thought, he tried going outside. He could simply walk through the doors now but he found a problem on the stairs. His feet just passed through the steps instead of climbing. ''What do I do now....WAIT a sec'' Raka thought of hitting himself. How could he have been so dumb. Wasn''t this the chance to learn how to control it, to willfully recall it! The other thing could wait. Without focusing on just one thing, which would cause him to lose it, he tried to look and remember everything around him. There were so many colors around but colors could form shapes of the objects. ''What if'' and he walked straight back towards where he remembered he started from. He soon found his staff. He sat down next to it. Looking at the staff from the corner of his eyes, he tried to touch it. He could not. He tried moving his hands along the shape of the staff. He remembered how it was made, and imagined it as he moved his colorful hands. An interesting thing occurred then. The colors of the staff and his hands, started to mix together. The more he remembered the staff and moved his hand, the more the colors mixed. Soon the colors were completely mixed and he could not tell where his hand ended and the staff began. ''Now what do I do'' as he was thinking, he remembered Lady Verina setting fire to it. But he also remembered her warning of not trying to manipulate energy. ''Is it worth the risk! If I try to set it on fire.................................."AAAAAAHHHHHHH HOOOOOOOOOT!!!" With a scream he woke up in his real body. The colorful world gone, the white walls back and for some reason an intense amount of heat coming from his hands. He looked. His right hand had been close to the staff when he had slept, but now there was a roaring fire. He had woken up from the intense heat from the fire. His right hand looked like it had burned causing him intense pain! Raka quickly slid away from the fire, blowing on his hand. He quickly got out some canteens of water and poured them over his burnt hand to soothe the pain. After he calmed down, he looked closely at his hand. It was almost red but fortunately it did not seem like he had been burnt a lot. Maybe Lady Verina might be able to heal him and he stood up to go look for her. But as he turned around he saw her walking straight in with a very scary look. He knew that look. His mother made that when she was going to get really volcanic. Raka thought of running away, but there was only one exit to the hall. "WHAT in the names of all the DEVILS were you DOING? DIDN''T I WARN YOU NOT TO PLAY WITH MAGIC?! Did I not clearly say you DO NOT DO any transformation without ME PRESENT!" Raka felt storm winds blow, literally. Lady Verina''s anger was transforming wind into gale speeds as it passed him. She looked at the him from top to bottom. Looking at his hand, she sighed and quickly waved her hands. Raka felt something reach inside him again and also something covering his hands.
You have been healed! Pain lessens.
All recovery rates are increased.
With the pain gone, Raka breathed a sigh of relief. Then looking up, he gulped again. The angry lady was still looking down on him. "Speak!" one word with the force of storms. "Um...you see it was actually an accident. I hadn''t intended to transform. I was just trying to understand energy, um...I mean my world of colors and I suddenly thought that I would not want to set fire. And I woke up with a fire on the staff with my hand burnt anyway. I am sorry but I seriously had no idea that this would cause magic." "Hmmm. Is that the truth?" "Yes Lady Verina, I swear!" Lady Verina looked at Raka very closely. She gazed in his eyes almost reading his innermost thoughts or that''s what it felt like to Raka. And then she sighed. "Well seems like this was really an accident. So can you recall your perception of energy now?" Raka thought for bit. He closed his eyes and remembered everything about the colorful world he felt. And there he was, seeing the colors again. He tried focusing on one color and it disappeared. He opened his eyes to look at Lady Verina. "It seems I can." "Good! Keep practicing till it becomes second nature. We can now begin your instruction of magic." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hmm, I have already explained that Magic is simply applying the rules of transformation on energy. What you just did was magic. Do you remember how you went about it?" Raka nodded remembering the mixing of colors. "Right, now that you remember, also TRY to remember that you can only transform the energy, not change the properties of the elements. If you create fire, it will burn, you and anyone else around, if you do not protect yourself from it before hand. OR you create it some distance away. This time you set fire to the staff lying next to you which is why your hand got burnt." Raka nodded again. "This time you caused magic accidentally. Remembering that feeling, why don''t you willingly try to ..hmm.. lets see" she went into one of the other rooms, not the weapons room, and brought out a lot of splintered wood. Seems they had a store room down here. She put the wood a little away from where they were standing. "Alright! Now try to set fire to this. I will be standing next to you and watching so go ahead without being afraid!" Raka nodded. He took a deep breath and closed his eyes trying to remember the feeling again. He soon felt the colors again. He looked around in his colorful world and found the stack of wood Lady Verina had put down. Remembering not to focus, he walked to that place. The last time stuff had happened spontaneously. This time also he sat down next to it, and simply waited for the colors to mix. Pretty soon it started mixing, and then he thought ''Fire''. He could see the colors moving like the flames of a fire slowly moving the colorful wood stack form. Out of the colorful world, he saw the actual wood stack with a roaring fire blazing. "Good work! Seems you can use magic now!" Just then,
You have learned the skill Magic.
Focus stat has been created. Focus allows transforming energy to create magic and control over the magic but requires you to understand the process of transformation of energy. The The story has been illicitly taken; should you find it on Amazon, report the infringement.transformed energy available for any magic varies. The control is provided with mana. Based on your efforts you get 10 points to Focus. This stat increases based on your actions. Energy, Mana and Mana recovery rate attributes have been created. Energy: 0 (increases as the energy transforms) Mana: 30 Mana recovery rate: 1 per 10 seconds.
Perception stat has been created. Perception allows perceiving of energy around you but requires you to realize the existence of energy and the ability to sense it. Based on your efforts you get 5 points to Perception. This stat increases based on your actions.
"Skill description, Magic."
Magic (Beginner lvl 1: 1%): Ability to perceive energy and apply magic. Requisite to learn elemental magic, magic language, magic theory and spell writing. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Right, so now we have to move on to the next step! Control!" "What do you mean by that master?" "Well you can create fire and you set fire to the stack of woods. Did you burn them one at a time or whole?" "I think I burned them whole." "So what if I wanted to burn only a piece of wood in the stack?" "But wouldn''t the others catch fire anyway?" "Maybe. But burning a small piece would require a smaller amount of energy, achieving the same effect." Raka thought that might be better. After all he had taken almost 15 mins before he started a roaring flame which consumed the entire stack in one go. But if he could only burn one small stick he could probably take less time to do it. ''So that''s what the energy attribute is. It will tell me how much energy I have transformed.'' All magic requires transforming energy, but transforming a smaller amount would be faster. And he could do it more easily and frequently. A larger amount of energy would be more powerful however. "Also in a lot of situations, you do not want to apply magic on the whole area or you want to use it fast, like for attacking or defending. Precision in applying magic is essential for a good magician. For the basics, applying magic is divided into two parts. Preparation is when you are perceiving the energy. Application is when you set the rules and create magic. Transforming less energy lets you speed up preparation. Precise control helps you make the magic efficient so a small magic will be very effective. All in all mastering both parts makes you a master magician able to apply magic in an instant. For example like this..." a tiny piece of wood which had fallen off from the stack and not burnt completely rose and shot towards him like a bullet. Raka dodged and it flew past his head and fell down. "Why don''t you try again?!" Lady Verina said smiling. That same piece came towards him again but a bit slower. Raka dodged and followed it with his eyes. The piece of wood simply stopped in the air, and headed back towards him. And it continued homing on to him like a missile. Raka kept dodging like nineteen times but Lady Verina did not seem like she had any intention of stopping. When he looked towards her, he found her laughing her ass off, enjoying his tiny bit of misery. Raka sighed. "Alright, enough fooling around. Lets see you try this" said Lady Verina. "It will be difficult so for now try to work on limiting your energy usage. For practice you can take out some more wood from the storeroom. Make a stack like this and focus on setting fire to a small piece. Once that is done, try to do it faster. Any questions?" "Master, before we begin, is there magic which requires speaking and some not? I saw you perform magic without a word but that day Cynthia spoke out the magic incantation?" "Ah you noticed that did you. Well tell me, when you set fire, did you say it out loud?" "Um I think I thought of it in my mind." "Exactly! Magic does not require incantations. If you are able to focus your thoughts, it is enough. However for complex magic having many processes, it is far easier to give them a name. The name helps you focus on that magic. The magic Cynthia used, is small but complex. Preparation does not require any time, but the application is combining and controlling various magics. A name in that case would help her focus on the processes and provide control." Raka thought a while hearing this difficult explanation. "So if I use the same name, can I use the same magic?" "Hah! If only it were that simple. First of all names are only ways to help you focus, not the magic itself. Simply learning the name won''t help. If you learn the magic itself, you can set some other name for it and it will still work for you. If you write down the magic and make a spell scroll, then you will be able to use that magic also. Oh that reminds me, would you like to learn magic language?" "What is magic language, master?" Raka remembered the magic skill description. "Ah it is the language of power. Long long ago, in ancient times when magic was discovered, there was only one language spoken everywhere. The first magicians used that language to define the energy and magic itself. They used the language to embed energy and write rules to make magic itself. It enabled the magicians to use complex magic by storing the steps on a writing surface and naming it. The same language is used even today by magicians to record their magic processes. For complex magic, it is an essential tool. It also helps others as you can make a spell scroll, magic embedded in paper. A lot of magic students learn this. So would you like to learn magic language?"
Magic Language: An ancient language which can define energy and magic. Can be used to write magic processes down on a writing surface. Writing requires you to learn the magic language alphabets and grammar. Ability to translate texts written in magic language. You can learn magic language. It is part of the Ability to learn languages skill. Requirements: Needs the Ability to learn languages skill. Needs Magic skill.
"Yes! I would like to learn magic language. Also you mentioned something about spell scrolls. Could you teach me that as well?"
Magic language: 0% You have learned magic language. When the learning of the language reaches 100% you will be able to use magic language.
Skill Spell Writing: Ability to use writing surfaces like paper to make scrolls of energy. Using magic language, magic can be embedded on these scrolls. The magic written has to be named. Invoking of the magic can then be performed by calling the name. It transforms the scroll''s energy and hence the scroll itself can be used only one time. Magic embedded scrolls can be shared/given to magicians or non magicians for use. Lady Verina agrees to teach you the skill. Requirements: Need to learn magic language. Make a spell scroll without help from Lady Verina.
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was busy, what with learning magic, which was tough in itself and then he had to head to one of the classrooms to get lectures. Yeah he attended classes on magic language. Usually, he was taught by other instructors along with the other students, the other players. The first time he entered the classroom, which was certainly getting noisy due to being full of people, everyone looked at him. Some even greeted him and tried talking to him. But finding him a silent type, they simply let him sit while carrying their own conversation. Well it was kinda like real life so he was glad that he didn''t have to speak much. He heard people discussing the forum posts made by players who hunted and travelled. Some even reached the capital of their island. Ofcourse as the ''age limit'' was higher in Ilmentia, no one had yet gone outside. He also heard of the actual hunting. The room was full of excited people who discussed the doings of other people. And then the class started. As classes usually go, it was quite monotonous. They had to memorize strange looking symbols reciting their sounds, learning words and what else. A few people in the class had moved on to practical lessons which started after their languages class. Most people did exercise building up the body. Raka had to do that as well. Ofcourse his stamina being higher, he hardly gained any stats during these exercises. He did them just as part of warm up for eventual training with Lady Altia down in the training hall. There he was alone with her. During one of these sessions, while he was exhausted from magic training, Lady Verina asked him to dance. Yes, that''s what he heard. "So Raka, seems like you like moving your body while your mind is tired. So instead of battle skills, wouldn''t you like to dance?" "Um Master, I don''t know how to dance. I am sure I would suck at it!" "Nonsense, dancing is a way to express joy. It makes you happy and everyone who is happy can learn dancing! So lets dance. Here is some music" and she waved her hand and brought out a large shell. She pressed it on top and it started playing music. It was a beautiful tune which Raka had never heard before. "Here take my hand, and the other goes on my waist like this, ho ho ho~ now you look at my face and that is not my face......... ..............
Skill Dancing: A rhythmic movement to music. Can be used to express feelings and emotions. Can be used to impress ladies. Highly regarded by the nobility of the land. Lady Verina offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Impress Lady Verina with your dancing.
In addition to all the training he was already doing, he was now learning how to dance. Not that he could refuse in such a situation. He was clumsy even with the most basic movements. But somehow there was a smile on his lips! [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 12: Learning some more! Swamy looked at himself in the mirror. He had short black hair, black eyes and Indian brown skin. He always thought that his nose looked a little big for his face. He wore glasses, rectangular shaped, with a slightly thicker frame to hold it up. He had tried changing his look for the college and moved on, as he liked to call it, from the round glasses he wore before. He did not consider himself handsome, there were far more good looking guys around. But he could not call himself ugly either. Normal looking, that''s how he described himself. He was thin, though the exercise he got from his training in the past couple of months, practicing his forms, did make him feel a little bit better. Not that he had gained any muscles but he could feel that he had improved stamina. Not that it mattered much if he stayed up late playing the game. He looked at the blue shirt he was wearing and thought that it should pass. It was freshly cleaned and ironed. He wore normal jeans he usually wore, though he still washed and ironed them. He fidgeted for a bit with his looks and then sighed. ''Doesn''t matter. How clean I am or keep my room, it will still be a little dirty.'' Swamy had a habit of keeping things clean and tidy, absorbed from years of training from his parents. He cleaned the floor regularly, kept things in proper condition in the fridge, and kept his bedroom all arranged. He checked his wardrobes to make sure everything was fine, looked at his study table where all his books and papers were neatly arranged, his open windows which let the air in and finally returned back to the living room. ''I hope it goes alright'' Swamy sighed again looking at his game capsule. It was too big to hide and too expensive to throw away. He had a small shrine set up in his living room cupboard. He prayed for some good luck and hoped his day would go alright. He rung the small bell as was the religious tradition. Swamy then sat down on the couch, looking at the watch now and again, getting a little agitated. He was a little nervous but he had sufficient cause to be. His parents were visiting today! About noon, he finally got a knock on the door. He opened up to meet his parents, who were glad to see him. His Uncle from next door, had gone on to receive them in his brand new electric car. "Its Mercedes" he said remarking on its quality and stuff! His parents entered followed by his Uncle and his Aunt who had come in from next door. Swamy offered them the sofa to sit and went to get some water for them to drink. "Ah! Lakshmi, how long has it been since I saw you?" His dad spoke to his Aunt, his cousin sister. "A long time. You guys don''t come here nowadays any more. Its only Swamy who''s come here and gave us a chance to meet now!" "That''s true. Ah...water. Finally I can breathe. It is so hot outside. Summers are definitely getting worse but other seasons are no better. Global warming is effecting our weather a lot. The met department is saying it will stay hot like this for the next few days!" "Aiyo Rama!(Hindu God) That is true. It is the same everywhere. Anyways how was your trip. The bus had air conditioning right?" "Yeah it did. Thanks to this green revolution in technology, it does not take much to keep a bus cool and it does not even smell like those old a/c buses we used to ride before!" "Hahaha yeah!" "Hey Swamy, here are some sweets I made, keep them in the fridge would you dear! They would spoil outside!" his mother said. Swamy moved and took the large packet from his mother''s hands and went to put it in the fridge. And finally everyone noticed the large machine like thing. "Oh hey, isn''t that a VR game capsule? Swamy, you did not say you were playing a VR game?" "Yes Mom! It is kind of a requirement in the course to play one of the VR games, so its kinda necessary!" "Oh is that so. Well if it is required for your studies its ok, I guess. But I should still talk to your teacher. You don''t play all night now do you? You know how dangerous it can be if you play it for long! Infact I was discussing it with your father just the day before about its adverse affects, specially on people who play for too long. And have you been keeping up with your studies?" "Yes Mom! We had tests this past couple of weeks. I scored A+ in all subjects. You can check it if you like." "No that''s ok." "But hey, how did you pay for it? I did not see any transactions done in your account? Did you ask your Aunt and Uncle to pay? You know you should have asked us for it!" his father asked looking at his Aunt and Uncle. "No! we did not pay for it" was their reply. His father and mother and aunt and uncle, all of them turned around to look at him. "Um...actually I have got a part - time job! The job is not bad and the pay is good." "Part-time job!! Without asking us!!" his mother looked scandalized. "Well, you see I wanted to get some work experience you know. What with the competitive world and all. It is said that any work experience in your resume is especially considered in job interviews. They look at it positively when you have some varied life experiences, you know like volunteering, clubs, part-time jobs and stuff. Ofcourse most people start it during the end of first year but I thought of getting a head start. And the people I meet in this job become useful contacts for the future. It gives me some pocket money also which I put in a savings account. Who knows when I may need some more money, correct! It will also help in the future after I graduate." Swamy came out with the explanation he had thought and refined for the last three days, ever since he found out about their visit. "Oh dear! You are thinking that far ahead! I am proud of you!" his mother said. "Yes, yes, this is the right way to go. Investing in your future, saving money and gaining skills will help you have a bright future." his father said to which everyone nodded. "Oh that''s not all." his aunt continued. "I think he is learning to play the flute like Lord Krishna (Hindu God, plays flutes). I heard him practicing!" "Really? Swamy. I never knew you wanted to learn to play the flute! Are you getting lessons from somewhere?" his father asked. "Eh...um...no. Just practicing by picking things up from the internet you know. They have all kinds of tutorials there!" "Hahaha and he is getting to sound good too. I am sure he will become good at it very soon by the grace of Lord Krishna!" his Uncle commented. ''So they know. I should have known practicing here was a bad idea.'' "Well why don''t you play us a tune...show us how far you have come?" his mother asked. "Eh.....um...I am not sure its good yet. Maybe some time later when I have become a bit better!" "Ah he''s getting shy now. Well its ok, we wanna see how good you are now. I am sure you will get better if you are not, in the future. Go on then. just a small tune for your visiting parents, eh" "Ah...alright! Just don''t laugh if its not good. I have not been learning for long." Swamy went to his bedroom and brought out his flute. "Aiyo! That is a beautiful looking thing. Did you buy an expensive one?" "Um..no. I joined this movers company for the job and they have this policy where you can keep the stuff other people want to throw away, when they move. I found it in one of my jobs." "Ah! Lord Krishna is already blessing him with luck!" his aunt cheered. "Is it sterilized? You know you should not use the stuff of other people, they still have germs on them! Have you been touching this?! I forbid it! Dear Lord!" his mom was horrified! "Um I wiped it clean thoroughly with a chemical sterilizing solution. I got it from the pharmacy so its ok!" Swamy said calming her down. "So should I play it?" he asked looking at his mother who still looked doubtful. His father then said, "Go ahead. You sterilized it right! And we want to hear as well!" Swamy took a deep breath. He started with the simplest tune, Happy birthday to you! He liked this piece. It was simple and he had no trouble remembering the notes as he had heard it all his life. After playing this short tune he looked to find his parents smiling. "Ah, that was good! You seem to be learning well." "Yeah that was beautiful. Maybe you would like to play it on my birthday, eh!" his father teased. "He has talent, doesn''t he?!" "Well I don''t mind you learning things or playing games, as long as you keep a very high standard in your studies. Father, I am still worried about his playing though!" "Hmm, well as long as he keeps the playing to a limited time, and its required by the college, isn''t it?!" his father said. "In any case we can meet his teachers on Monday! After all we came to see the college didn''t we? So much would have changed since we graduated. Oh, didn''t tell you Swamy, but we have been invited to a function in the college tomorrow. We came early to visit you." "Ah! So will you be staying here in the apartment?" "Oh no, your parents will be staying in our apartment. Yours is much too small with only one bedroom. They can have the guest room at our place." his uncle replied. "But we will have all the weekend together, won''t we! Except for the time for the function tomorrow! We should go visit some places. And Swamy can also tell us all about the game he is playing." "Yeah...Thats wonderful!" Swamy said. "So what news from ................................ ......................................... And the talk dissolved into news about long lost and some not lost relatives. As the talk drifted away, Swamy sighed in his mind. He had written a lot of reports of his game play in the last three days just for this. And he knew, he would have to write even more when they critiqued his reports. He hoped that he won''t have to write anything about the places he visits this weekend. ''Well my play time is going to get even shorter this weekend..........'' Swamy sighed. In the night, after dinner, they went over his reports on the game Long Island. "So you haven''t been to the sea yet? Only learning skills?" his mother commented seeing as the game was supposedly named Island, and he hadn''t even seen the sea yet! "Yes! I can only go out when my age will be 14. I am 9 right now." "Hmm yeah the age system you mentioned. You know if it is based on the human age...hmm in that case....a humans learning capacity increases till the age 25. After that he is only utilizing his wisdom to learn and then after 50, the learning capacity will start declining. I am presuming here, but if that is related to the ''age'' system of this game, then you will have to learn a whole lot of skills while your age is low. After a certain age your learning capacity will decline." "Eh...I didn''t think of it that way! Can this be possible? That means it should be better to learn everything early?" "Hmmm not sure. I just presented a thought. It may or may not be related. And even if it is, only the learning capacity will decrease. It will become harder to learn new skills, etc but you will still be able to learn so it should not be an issue. Ofcourse it is in comparison to how easy it is to learn skills now." ''Holy ***t! I need to find out more about this. I wonder where I will get the required information from!'' Looking back at his game play records so far, he knew that he had only learned a few skills. It was that difficult after all. Considering it may be easier to learn from some people than others, the skill learning system could become a lot more complex. "So whats up with your skillset? It says here you are learning battle, magic, music, dancing and accounting! What kind of profession uses all that? Are you sure you are not just learning skills at random without a basic goal! Would a random character be strong or profitable? Why did you start this game anyway?" ''Um...because its fun!'' Swamy thought but... "Um it has the most research potential among all the games in the market. No classes, this unique age system, learning speed dependent on compatibility with npc....I mean if you look at it there can be a million things to write about!" Swamy replied. "Yes that''s true. Well how did you go about choosing it?" ''I made a list of things that will interest me'' but again.... "Um I compared cost vs innovation vs research potential." "Hmm. Well I can see that you are learning a lot. But you need to make a matrix of the time spent in the game. You haven''t made it, have you? Well not that you can help it...I am sure it must be hard making time for the game what with your studies and all." ''Lets go with that!'' and Swamy simply nodded. So on they went through all of Swamy''s reports which he had painfully written in the last three days. His real game record however stayed hidden in a corner of his mind, where he could access it anytime. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka picked up magic language fast. Learning any new language is difficult even in real life, but because they had to start from scratch, it had become a little easier. Magic language consisted of 21 alphabets but mostly its grammar was simple. The only effort spent was learning all the new words. The only difference from the Ilmentia island language he learned before, was that now the system was not translating it. He had to take it as is. One of things the system did do was make a dictionary of all the words in the magic language he learned. He could access it and look at the spellings or the meaning if he ever got confused. But only of the words he had already learned. For new words he had to discover the meaning first and write it down using magic alphabets. Teachers helped in this regard while he was in the classroom but considering the number of words possible in the magic language, he was sure he would find new words all the time while he was adventuring. In that case, discovering the meaning of those words would be a difficult task.
Magic Language: 75%
But in any case he was learning fast. His magic language had already gotten to 75%. Considering the time it took to learn the language of the island, it was a bit slower but he was sure that he could finish learning it in another day or two max. He could now go to the magic library and pick up simple books to read. A lot of books dealt with the history of the world, which was named in a magical language word he could not understand. When he asked one of his teachers about it, he learned that no one had deciphered that word yet. And so this world had a different name in every language spoken. In Ilmentia Island it was called Gynopeia, which meant ''The Mother'' or something close enough. What he was really interested in however were books about magic. Books which dealt with magic not only described certain magics, but the types and properties as well. More importantly it talked about its various applications from communication to teleport....even becoming invisible was possible if you could control it. Not having a complete grasp of magic language he did have trouble understanding the exact details of it, so learning was not possible yet. ''Maybe I can ask Lady Verina'' thinking that he headed down to the the training hall for his regular meetings with her. He had gotten better in sensing the energy, so he could get to the ''colorful world of energy'' as he called it, in no time now. After that it was just the time needed to transform the energy. Since getting the Focus stat, in the colorful world he could see this bar which filled up the more energy he transformed. Looking at it, he could now measure the energy he was going to use. As soon as the bar filled up a little he thought ''Fire'' and a small fire started in the wood stack. Raka opened his eyes and looked at the small flame. In a while, the small flame rose into a raging fire and consumed all the wood. "Well done! You are improving. You are still slow, but within acceptable limits" remarked Lady Verina. "So tell me how do you see the wood stack now?" "Um I see it as a bunch of colors..." replied Raka a little confused with the question. "No I mean do you see it as a single thing or do you perceive it made of different things?" "I look at it as a single thing. I can''t differentiate between the different things in the stack." "Hmmm...so precision is still a problem. I guess you simply started a small fire rather than target a specific thing to set fire to?!" Raka nodded. "Can you sense me when you are perceiving?" "Yes I can Master!" and Lady Verina nodded. "How far can you perceive? I mean in that world, how far can you see things happening?" "Um I am not sure. The things need to be happening fairly close for me to sense them. But its like I can walk around the entire floor in my world and as I get close to other things, I can see their energy forms." Lady Verina nodded. "In time, as you gain more experience, your perception should improve in two ways. One is detail and another is range. You will be able perceive things in more detail, eventually be able to separate them. Also you will be able to sense farther, as you call it. You will be able to see or sense things happening at a range." Raka nodded understanding. "Every person develops these two abilities in varying degrees. Some can sense things down to their tiniest detail. And some can sense energies hundreds of leagues away. In your case, it seems that you have started improving range rather than detail first." "Um is that bad?" "No. It is just mental aptitude. It depends on how you perceive energy. In your case, as you find it easy to move and look at things as you call it, you are improving perception range." "Ah...ok. So I will be able to sense things from a greater distance as I improve?! So I won''t learn how to look at things in detail?" "Yes and No! You will improve your range but the extent will depend. As for your ability to look at things in detail, it depends. Usually most magicians will eventually develop their perception of detail to a certain extent, atleast till they can recognize different objects even when they are stacked together like this. You must understand that people will develop these two abilities differently and at different speeds. It also means that you would apply magic a little differently. There will always be people who favor one over the other. People who favor range perception become archers, rangers, scouts or even hunters on this island. Those who favor detail perception choose to become identifiers, explorers or inquisitors. According to what they favor, their combat ability evolves accordingly but most have these two abilities to some extent." Raka thought for a bit, absorbing the necessary information. He nodded. "You have just started magic and it is yet unknown to what extent you will develop both these abilities. Try to develop both when you are doing your perceiving training." "Yes Master!" "Now that you are able to use magic at will, we will now learn how to apply it in combat!" "Yes" replied Raka thoroughly interested to learn to throw fireballs and wind storms. "In that case, do you really think you can throw fireballs or windstorms on opponents looking at how slow you are?" Lady Verina hit the nail on the head figuring out Raka''s thoughts. "Um....eh...I can''t?!" "Think about it yourself. Even a horned rabbit will kill you by the time it takes you to make a fireball!" Raka was dejected. Looking at his depressed face, Lady Verina added "No need to be sad. In time you will be able to use magic on its own. But you can still fight with magic!" Raka looked up, a little light returning to his eyes. "Watch this" saying which Lady Verina got a staff out. She waved her hands and then slashed with her staff. A sharp wind came blowing past Raka, throwing him on his back a couple of feet away. Raka stood up looking warily at Lady Verina. "Did you understand?" "Um I have no idea what you did!" "Oh! Well then, look again.." Lady Verina said pointing at the staff with her eyes. Raka understood and closed his eyes. In the colorful world he found Lady Verina''s form and what looked like a stick form beside it, though all he could recognize were the stick ends. The rest mixed up with Lady Verina''s form. He found energy whirling around the ends just like wind circulating around the staff. He opened his eyes and looked closely at the staff now. He could not see the wind, but there was a definitely a very fine layer of something formed over it. He looked up at her. "So what did you see?" she asked. "Um like energy flowing around with the staff as the center." "Correct! I have put air around my staff. This is called embedding. You can embed magic onto your weapons and enhance it. Because I embedded air on my staff, whenever I swing it around it causes a blast of wind. If you embed it with earth, it will become very strong, increasing damage. Think of it as making the weapon wear a coat of magic. It also follows the rules of elements so if you embed a wood staff with fire, it will burn the staff itself." Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. "Can you embed magic only on weapons?" "No, actually you can embed it on anything. Actually any stable form of energy as you will call it. I can embed magic on myself...like this..." and she waved her hand around her head for a bit and her head disappeared. "I have embedded light magic on to myself. This will allow light to simply pass through me with the effect being, you can''t see me!" "That is so cool Master! Can I learn that too!" "Working with light and dark elements require much learning. I doubt that you will be able to do this right now, but maybe in time. Embedding requires the same focus you need when you do magic. Lose it, and it will explode right in your face. The process itself is simple however, most people can do this much. What you do is imagine!" "Imagine?" "Yes, when you sense the energy of the staff, imagine that you are coating the staff with energy. Then create magic on the surrounding energy. Sounds simple...eh?" "Um..so all I have to do is imagine and it will work?" "Hahaha yeah! Sounds incredible, but energy is always flowing. What you will simply be doing is directing the flow around it. Well it is simpler than the words. Try it! Now!" said Lady Verina insisting. Raka closed his eyes and looked at the colorful world. He looked at the staff form in his hands. Some of it had gotten mixed up with the colors of the hand holding it. He moved his other hand all around the staff imagining the colors around it moving around its form. It took a while, but eventually he saw those colors moving, slowly...very slowly. He thought ''Air''. He opened his eyes and felt something in his hands, just not the feel of wood that was before. He looked and his hands were held wider than the thickness of the staff. He moved it around but there was no discomfort, although small puffs of wind started flowing at his actions. He swung his staff down hard, and a large gust of wind escaped from his staff raising the dust on the hall''s floor as it traveled forward before disappearing along the walls. Raka smiled. Just then he got the message,
30 Mana used.
When Life and Mana attributes were created he found a status bar created on the side of his view, showing how much of each he had. Now the Mana status bar was showing completely empty. "Hmm not bad. One of the various applications of magic is embedding. Embedding magic on an object is easy but the effects are temporary as usual. Given a length of time, which depends based on various things, the magic will disappear. It is classified as easy magic. However controlling it is rather difficult. Beginners can only use it a few times after which they have to embed again. We say that this control is provided by a mysterious thing called Mana. When your Mana is full, you keep control of your magic. When you lose Mana you also lose control. When you have recovered it, you can use it again. Embedding is also an application of magic so control requires Mana." ''Eh is this Mana the same as mine?!!'' Looking at his dumbfounded expression Lady Verina smiled. "Yes it is the same Mana as you use. After all I discovered it by studying you. Or to say Goddess''s children." "Eh....!" "Yes! And I also know that you guys cannot die though I think others may not agree with that!" "How come?" "You see, you are not the first of Goddess''s children to arrive in our world. A long time ago when Altia and I were mere children, some Goddess''s children arrived then. They stayed in the village, talked with us and played with us." ''Long ago? The only ones I can think of are developers and testers! Is she talking about them?'' "These people learned all kinds of stuff around the village and soon left to go hunting. They killed the animals around here and even brought them to the village. We had a feast during those times. Soon they started leaving the island for some time always coming back with tales of their adventures. I think Altia had a crush on one of them." Raka listened quietly. "About three years after, they suddenly said that they had accomplished what they had come to do and must return to the Goddess''s side. But someday more children like them may come so we must prepare. They said their goodbyes at the gate of the village and walked off. Altia was sad and followed them hidden from their view. I could not leave her alone so I went along as well. Soon those people reached a secluded area of the forest. For some reason, no animals had attacked them or us for that matter on the way. And then, they disappeared. Altia and I honestly thought they were dead. Maybe that''s how Goddess''s children died, different from us. Altia was so sad, she ran away crying all the way back to the village. She was always the strong one though. Even when we were small, the animals gave her no trouble. But I was the weaker one. So scared I stayed there. I soon saw something which had dropped from one of those people on the ground. As I was about to go and get a closer look, one of the Goddess''s children appeared again. He took the thing on the ground and disappeared again. That day I knew that you guys could not die." ''Eh so that''s what happened!'' "Yeah I came back and told Altia what had happened but I don''t think she heard a word I said, being so sad as she was. I think till this day she believes that you guys can be killed. I tried telling the other people too, but only a few ever believed me, the rest thinking that I was making silly stories as I had been left in the dark and dangerous forest alone. One of the few who did believe, was the head of the Magic Institute. Later, when I learned magic a lot of things which I had overheard those people say made sense. One of the things was Mana. I also realized that the Goddess''s children know almost nothing about this world and the way it works, which is why they need to learn so many things, even language. I also chose Goddess''s children to do my magic research to learn more. I also found out that the same phenomena had occurred in three other villages in other islands." Raka quietly listened. "Ah I think that you come from another world. When you disappear you go back to that world. When you die, you go back to that world. The body here disappears with you, or is recreated by some magic every time you appear. Unfortunately, you Goddess''s children have this unhealthy habit of not answering my questions. Even then, even now!" Raka smiled to which Lady Verina simply made a face. It was not that Raka did not want to tell her, but he did not know how he could explain such things so he elected to remain silent. "Hah! Well its not like I will give up!" Lady Verina had a devilish but determined smile. "May I ask something instead. If you knew we couldn''t die, why is there an age limit to leave the village? Lady Altia said you would be able to answer that!" "Ah! You mean the age barrier! Nice piece of magic isn''t it!" "Wait..you mean its actually magic? set up by someone?" "Hmm. Yes its magic. But its not set up by one person, in fact a lot of magicians got together to set it up. It is quite a complicated magic and highly classified by the Magic Institute. I cannot give you the details for it, but I can answer your other question...why! You see when the previous Goddess''s children left the village, they told us more would come and to prepare. Well the people of the nation decided to learn from the experiences of those children, atleast what they had seen. They saw that those people had grown up bodies but under developed minds. They did not know language at first, but eventually learned. The first time they went out they could not fight and only after a while they could deal with the animals around us. These and a lot of other things were considered and it was decided that like us the Goddess''s children also age, just that they grow faster than us. Ofcourse a lot of people did not believe me and the tiny few who did decided to play it safe by keeping quiet about it. So it was decided to protect the children by setting up this age barrier. Children of the village grow strong enough to hunt the animals around here by the age of 14. So this was arbitrarily decided as the age limit for the barrier. Ofcourse we discussed these with the other islands where Goddess''s children had appeared and we all agreed on setting up the age barrier in those respective villages. The age limit was decided accordingly." ''Oh! so that''s why! It explains a lot'' Both Raka and Lady Verina stayed silent for a while after this. Just as Raka started fidgeting becoming uncomfortable from the continued silence, Lady Verina said, "Well now that you can embed magic on to your weapons, the next step would be learn to use it in combat. Embed your staff with magic and spar with me. I will try to go easy on you...Hohoho~ not that you will die anyway!" A devilish smile appeared on Lady Verina''s face almost as if she was going to enjoy the next few moments thoroughly! Raka trembled. ''Does she know that she can cause pain, even to us?'' And the spar began. Raka embedded his staff with air and then with earth as he sparred with Lady Verina. He tried doing the same with water, but nothing happened. When he asked, Lady Verina simply said to discover it on his own. In between, they switched their wooden staffs with metal ones. Raka tried embedding it with fire and the magic exploded in his face. Even with Lady Verina''s healing it took a while for him to wake up after that. A few more of such painful times before he could embed with fire. The sparring lasted six hours. If this was Lady Verina taking it easy, Raka did not want to find out how painful it would be when she was serious. Even his endurance rose by a few points. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After finishing his magic training, Raka made his way towards Neona''s shop in the evening. He arrived there with plenty of time before closing and so he was asked to help out with the selling. One of the skills he was eagerly trying to learn was Estimation. Unfortunately, not having Neona''s vast knowledge he was always at a distinct disadvantage. Even then he persisted. He was working in a food shop, so he tried to practice with the stuff around him. ''Hmm this blueberry tastes nice. The look on it says that its almost fresh, I think around a day old. Neona said it is grown in the north of the island so that''s about the time it would take to get here. Usually she charges around 2 silvers for 4 stones. As it is fresh it would have been a bit expensive so maybe she will charge a little extra around 2 silvers 10 coppers, I think. Also she likes to make around 4.2% profit so the actual price would have been....." And then he would simply wait till Neona decided on the prices for that stuff. And compared it to his estimation. Usually he would guess close enough but sometimes the guess was quite off. When it was off, he remembered to ask Neona of its actual value so that he may improve his calculations. Economy decided prices. To derive the true value depended on when, where, how, what and in some cases how much. Which changed according to the changing economy. The economy of the island in turn was affected by the worlds economy. So in order to determine the true value of everything in Neona''s shop, required complete knowledge of forces affecting the economy of this world. So if you thought Estimation is an easy skill, think again! Raka had reduced his targets beforehand. He only concentrated on the stuff grown on the island. He found out the taxes which applied on the merchants, travelling costs they may endure. Speed comes from a more expensive transport so fresh stuff get priced accordingly. The true value would change according to how it was handled during transport to how it was harvested to how it was grown even where it was planted. Calculating the true value based on the prices was one way but most of it also depended on his own observation skills. After all as Neona explained, you have to consider greed as well. Maybe some stuff did not require speedier transport and have a long shelf life. All in all learning Estimation was a nightmare. He did not even have internet for his research. The thing he could do here was make all sorts of formulas to calculate true value. He recorded the prices and true values and also his estimated true values of each food stuff every day. He also recorded observation points and their supposed outcomes so his accounting, format and formula skill increased greatly. It seems that not only designing formats and formulas but using them increased his skill level as well. Not to mention all the accounting he did for Neona. He made records and then records of records increasing his skills greatly trying to learn one skill Estimation. And it was slowly beginning to pay dividends. His estimated values were inching closer to the actual true values day by day. Today, there was this stock of oranges she had bought also. ''Hmm the color of the skin feels nice. It should be just a little bit sour in this time of year. She bought it from Jagga, a merchant who tries to overcharge but I think he is right up Neona''s alley so that''s out of consideration. He might have paid a little less than its value to the farmer though so I need to consider that. Hmm...putting this here and.... so the true value should be about 1 silver 40 coppers for 4 stones.'' "Neona, according to me the true value of this stock of oranges should be about 1 silver 40 coppers for 4 stones. How much is it according to you?" "Hmmm seems like we will have to agree on that. I think its 1 silver 40 coppers as well." Just then,
You have learned the skill Estimation. Skill Identification has been learned.
"Skill description, Estimation and Identification"
Estimation (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Allows determining the true value of any item based on information about it and/or rarity and/or usefulness. The true value may determine more than its cost in money. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips. Identification (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Estimation. Allows and helps in the identification of properties of any item. If an item is successfully identified, other similar items may be partially or completely identified beforehand. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips.
''Yes!!! Finally!!'' Raka was happy that he could finally achieve it but he knew it came with a lot of restrictions. If he truly had to learn Estimation he would have learn a lot more. He decided to try his skills on whatever was around, namely food. He looked at the bluebird eggs and, "Identify"
[p=center]Bluebird eggs[/p] Class: Food, Egg Eggs of the bluebird. If it hatches a bluebird will be born. Hatched bluebird can not be tamed. Classified as a delicacy and sold for high prices. Its delicious taste is highly regarded in many places. Cooking it helps increase stamina and vitality.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy had taken leave from his part-time work on account of his parents arriving. Today his parents were attending their function in college. After they left, Swamy logged back in the game. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was again sparring with Lady Verina. And as usual, he was getting hit a lot. When she said she would take it easy, it was only limited to magical attacks. The staff itself, she used without regard, or atleast that''s what Raka felt. No matter what Raka did, or how fast he did it, Lady Verina danced circles around him. Toying with him like always, she dodged every strike...somehow even the magical ones. He was being trained to control the magical power and release it only when he wanted it, instead of simply producing it everytime he swung. That''s the case for the ''air'' element anyway. In regards to embedding the ''earth'' element he had to maintain it for as long as possible while Lady Verina attacked his staff. It seemed easy at first but everytime the staff got struck, his Mana was reduced and so it was more of an endurance contest with his Mana on the line. She told him to recognize which attacks would result in magical attacks and which wouldn''t and guard accordingly. This would save on his use of Mana making it more efficient. And it goes without a word that it was exceedingly hard. Well for two reasons, one he couldn''t see air. Even if he could see like the earth element, a single strike to the ground would cause earthquakes, atleast that''s what Lady Verina was doing. Secondly he could not sense it, for he could not close his eyes to sense the energy. Till now he had only succeeded in sensing energy by closing his eyes. Adding the two, made it almost impossible for Raka to distinguish between normal strikes and magical strikes. Well that''s to say if he could guard in the first place. He felt like he was holding a piece of useless wood feeling the pain of Lady Verina''s strike which seemed to have slipped past his guard.....he had no idea how! A couple of hours of such practice and Raka was again lying on the ground completely exhausted. Lady Verina again applied her healing and his recovery rates improved so with a little rest, he was again full of energy. For once Raka hated her healing magic. But she put her staff away. And asked him to dance. "Shall we enjoy ourselves with some dancing?" Raka could only nod. He had found out that he did not hate dancing. Ofcourse, to become as graceful as Lady Verina might take a lot of time but as far as remembering the steps and responding to the music, he had got that part down. He took Lady Verina''s hand as the music started playing and placed his other hand on her waist. He moved closer and could almost smell the aroma coming off her. And then he started dancing, keeping his eyes fixed on her face. ''She is beautiful'' was all Raka could think of at the moment as he let his body move enjoying a rare moment of pleasure. They kept on dancing and the music kept on playing. He did not realize how long they had been dancing for, he did not feel tired at all. After a while he had caught on a rhythm he enjoyed and his feet moved naturally. Usually Lady Verina led and Raka followed trying to keep up with her movements. But now he led and Lady Verina followed gracefully. He twisted and turned. He lifted her and sometimes bowed. They fell together and together they rose. When the music stopped, Lady Verina blushed a little. "Hmmm I enjoyed that...I will like dancing with you again!" she said with a lovely smile.
You have learned the skill Dancing. Skill Pair Dancing has been learned.
Agility stat has been created. Agility is the combination of flexibility and efficiency of movement but it requires you to understand that movement is defined by its action and its efficiency by its rhythm which actually result in a beautiful movement. Based on your efforts you get 10 points to Agility. This stat increases based on your actions.
"Skill description, Dancing, Pair Dancing"
Skill Dancing (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Allows rhythmic movement to music. Can be used to express feelings and emotions. Can be used to impress ladies. Highly regarded by the nobility of the land. Can be used to improve intimacy. Has a chance of providing positive status. Has a chance to remove negative status not relating to tiredness. As the skill rises, different dances can be learned giving different effects. The skill increases according to your actions and/or equips. Skill Pair Dancing (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Required skill Dancing. Pair dancing requires you to dance with a partner. Has a chance of providing positive status to you and your partner. Has a chance to remove negative status not relating to tiredness from you and your partner. If successful dancing results in increased intimacy, intimacy related actions may be allowed.
Reading the skill descriptions Raka could only go...''Eh!!!'' [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 13: A step forward! As usual during lunch, Swamy went to practice his flute. He didn''t know if he had gotten good enough but atleast his parents praise had helped. But just in case they were partial with his playing, more practice couldn''t hurt. And so he was in the sound room practicing his flute. After playing, he listened to the recorded sound and try to judge his mistakes and probably how to make his sound better. Music, he had learned was the toughest thing there was. For even if he made no mistakes, the sound did not sound beautiful. There was just something about art, which only another human could analyze and say that it is good...or not. Practicing alone, however, he hoped that it would sound good to others as well. ''Atleast it didn''t sound horrible or my parents would have told me!'' he consoled himself. The next time Swamy logged in, was after his parents left. Monday was an embarrassing day, more embarrassing than the parent-teacher meets in school. Atleast in school everyone''s parents visited. In college, they stood out even more. What''s more his professor turned out to be someone they knew from before, they had met during one of the conferences. And as such, much of Monday morning was discussing the advantages and disadvantages of virtual gaming on humans, correction one particular human, Swamy. Showing his parents around campus was not bad, but when the head of department is walking around with them, you stick out like the sun in the night sky. His parents left happy and for that he was pretty happy. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
You have grown. Your Age is now 10.
This was the first message Raka got after logging in. Still wondering how the ''Age'' system worked! Computing had become almost light speed compared to the slow computers of earlier years, like 2014. Which made it possible for VR games to employ many many attributes to define a component. For example ''Art''. Thousands of points were used to define what looked beautiful in the VR world, which would closely relate to the real world. It also made possible to create art in the game. In fact for everything existing and player-created thousands of points were applied to come up with its properties and quality. Even the experience each monster gave, was mathematically calculated based on a number of factors So to simply say that the ''age'' system acted this way was nigh impossible. It may be simple but it also could be a factor of a lot of points. In any case, somethings can''t be figured out just in a couple of months of gameplay. Accepting it as is, he moved to resume his classes on magic language. Raka was close now. The entire morning, he spent listening to instructors and in the afternoon he moved on to the magic library to peruse books. Just as it was getting dark and the sun was getting down, he finally got the message,
You have grown up. Your age is now 11. Magic Language: 100% You have learned Magic Language. You can now read and write Magic Language.
''Hmm well its good that I learned magic language but whats with my age! Hah anyway, time to learn the spell writing skill. I better meet with Lady Verina now.'' And he headed towards the training hall. ''She''s late!'' Raka was waiting for her to come for a while now. Usually she arrived quite early and Raka would come either early or late. But today Raka was already late, and she was still not here. After waiting for some time he decided to check her office. ''Maybe she fell asleep again!'' He reached the office and knocked the door. ''No answer eh''. Raka leaned closer trying to hear and heard deep breathing sounds. He wanted to open the door but this time he restrained. Last time was bad enough. He knocked loudly and heard something fall off and shattering inside. "Who...what!!!" came sounds as Lady Verina woke up with a grumble. Raka knocked again, lightly this time. After a while, "Enter!" Raka opened the door and stepped inside. Her hair was still tousled lightly and a stack on her table seemed to have fallen down. Something had broken and its pieces were scattered across the floor. She had a little trouble focusing. "Ah its you!" she said as she took a yawn! "Yes, you were late! So I came to see. Seems like you are already very tired! Should we skip today''s training?" "Hmm...yes I would like that very much!" ''I would like that as well'' thought Raka. "But well, we can skip the physical part, I am too tired to move right now. Just came back from the capital and it was a rather tiring journey." Raka stayed quiet, listening to her complain. "Hmm so what do we do then? Should we call it a night?" "Um...I just learned magic language. Could you teach me how to make spell scrolls?" "Ah that''s right! I did say I would teach you that! Ah well this will require you to use magic as well, so lets head down to the training hall! Just let me get a few things....." saying which she opened a drawer and grabbed a couple of papers and some quills or pens with feathers behind them. They walked down to the training hall. "So the basics of making a spell scroll is to embed magic on paper. It is different from the kind of embedding you have done so far. Instead of making a coat, this time imagine energy flowing through the paper." "Okay, I will give it a try!" Raka entered his colorful world. This time he saw the form of the paper he was holding with his fingers, though again, he could only clearly see the parts away from his hands. He moved his hands like he was making a coat but he moved in a way like he was pushing air into it. A little while later, he saw the colors move again. The colors seemed to be moving through the paper out the other side. Slowly the paper form seemed to be getting brighter than before but he couldn''t be sure. He looked at his energy meter and it was slowly rising. He did not know how much energy he would need, so he simply assumed enough energy to make a small fire ,should be enough. Raka opened his eyes. "That is good. Energy has been embedded on this paper. The more energy you put in, the more powerful magic becomes. The next step is to write the magic using magic language. Lets try with a simple one. Try writing ''wind'' on it. Not ''air'' but wind!" Raka took one of the pens she had come with and wrote the word for ''wind'' on the paper. The paper did not feel any different and in reality looked the same as it was before. After writing the word, he looked up towards Lady Verina for the next step. "Now fold it, like this. Seal it, here''s a little wax. Now write on the front the ''name''. For now, just write ''wind'' on it as well." Raka did as she directed. "Try calling it now!" "Wind!" The scroll vanished and a small wind was created. It blew from his hands, just like a hair dryer, wind blew wherever his hands pointed. A little later it stopped. "Wow!" he said. "Yes! good one! Remember that you cannot think of the name, you have to speak it out. Otherwise you would simply be doing magic, holding a piece of paper and not using the spell scroll." Raka nodded. "Also remember that the energy every magic requires to take effect, will be different. That is something you will have to realize on your own. Too little and the magic would not create the proper effect, too much and it will spiral out of control. Remember, it is designed so that anyone may use it. Everyone can use magic potentially, however not everyone actually trains in it. They may lack the perception of mana but rest assured they have it. Spell scrolls are designed with a factor of control, only the embedded energy in the paper will be used. So it does not affect their mana though there may be a limit of how many they can use at a time, depending on how powerful you make the spell scroll." "So does it consume mana, seeing as there is a limit?" "No! Mana is about controlling the transformed magic. When you embed it on paper, energy is transformed. When you write magic language, you already put in control. It will only create the magic you write and only use the power you put. So mana is not required. Mana is required when creating a spell scroll though as it is still transforming magic. Any questions?" "Um..no! I think I have it pretty clear." "Good, in that case you have learned how to make a spell scroll...."
You have learned the skill Spell Writing.
"Skill description, Spell Writing"
Skill Spell Writing (Beginner lvl 1: 1%) : Ability to use writing surfaces like paper to make scrolls of energy. Using magic language, magic can be embedded on these scrolls. The magic written has to be named. Invoking of the magic can then be performed by calling the name. It transforms the scroll''s energy and hence the scroll itself can be used only one time. Magic embedded scrolls can be shared/given to magicians or non magicians for use.
As usual after his magic training, Raka headed to Neona''s. "No no, I said 1 stone of flour and a quarter stone of sugar" came Neona''s voice as she corrected Raka. Raka had learned loads about cooking while working. He had even noted it down. Now he was confident he could make fruit pies and was eager to try it. "Neona, is it ok, if I make a blueberry pie by myself. You can just watch me. I want to see if I can make one by myself." "Hmm ok. If you become better, it will help me a lot. Lets see you make one then!" "Thank you...here goes" and Raka started measuring things out to make a blueberry pie. When he got confused, he looked at his notes. "And this goes like this....and now to mix everything..." he muttered as Neona watched. Soon he prepared everything and put it in the oven to bake. "The trick here is to watch carefully the heat and the rising" as he stoked the fire. Some time later he took it out. Raka checked that the dough rose as he expected. He turned to Neona, "Here Neona, please taste it!" Neona took a small slice and waited a bit for it to cool down. "Hmm the taste is good. The pie is cooked well. Seems like I can let you make some of my things from now!" She said happily. Raka was happy. All the time practising with Neona, making so many notes, making mistakes and making more notes, he had finally improved his cooking to satisfactory levels. Oh hell, if Neona agrees to sell it in her shop, then it was beyond satisfactory to say the least. He and Neona spent the rest of the time cooking everything. He cooked it delicious, but he was still slow was her only complaint. Now if he could only show it to Lady Altia. Next day, he skipped the library in the morning. He went to Neona''s to ask and use her kitchen. He went upstairs while she minded her shop and slowly and carefully made an apple pie. ''Turned out quite good, even I am surprised by that!'' He showed Neona his pie and asked how it looked. She gave her approval. Raka was happy. He wrapped the apple pie in some paper and walked of towards the Battle school. The sun was high in the sky by now, and it would noon soon. He hoped he would reach on time. Reaching the Battle school hall, he soon saw lots of people swinging all kinds of weapons at the training dummies. The instructors were guiding them along. Fortunately for him, Lady Altia was in the hall, perusing some papers and frowning slightly. Hearing footsteps she looked up, "Ah Raka! How come you are here today?" "Um...I thought that maybe we could have lunch together, seeing as its been so long since we met. I hope I am not coming at a bad time." "No! ofcourse not. In fact I was about to have something to eat myself. Wait a second and I will get something to eat...." "Please wait. I have brought some food with me." "Oh! And you cooked it, did you?" "Yes, I hope you like it!" "Well I can''t wait to try it..." she added smiling. Raka opened the paper to reveal the apple pie and put it on the plates Lady Altia magically conjured up. He carefully cut it and served her a slice. "Hmmm looks lovely." "Please taste!" Lady Altia took a bite and made a face! Raka''s heart sank. ''Was the taste wrong! Did I add mix up salt and sugar! Maybe the apples were not good, or was it the flour...'' All sorts of thoughts surfaced in the moment. But Lady Altia started laughing. "Hahahaha the look on you face! Its delicious. Do not worry so much!" Just then,
You have learned the skill Cooking.
Raka ate a bite as well, which raised his vitality by 5 points. He quickly noted it down. "Ah, that was delicious. You know what we need now. Some delicious tea to wash it all off!" and she magically brought out two cups and a tea pot. She waved her hands again and ingredients to make tea appeared. She carefully made tea and offered a cup to Raka. "Thank you!" as Raka took his cup. They both sat down slowly sipping tea whiling their time looking at each other and the weather and the smacking of all the wood. Hoping it goes well, Raka took out his flute, and started playing a tune. It was the same tune Lady Altia had played that wondrous night. Even though it was not night and there were no stars, he felt like he could play. Lady Altia closed her eyes as she heard the tune played by Raka. ''That was a mistake, that note needs to be a bit higher'' went on in Raka''s mind in the beginning as he slowly let his training take over and his fingers moved naturally. A bit later, his tune ended but Lady Altia still kept her eyes shut. Raka didn''t know whether she had fallen asleep but in any case he didn''t want to disturb her lovely figure, not right now! Soon she opened her eyes. "That was beautiful! I almost felt like we were in that place at that time again! Just us!" she smiled.
You have learned the skill Flute music.
After spending some more time, Raka left. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few days had passed since he learned spell writing and magic language. His training now included learning magic from the books and making spell scrolls of different kinds to learn how much energy it would require. Apart from all the magic combat training he was doing with Lady Verina. In the mean time he was also trying to improve his perception. Both range and detail. He had no idea on how to improve detail so he hoped that in time he would get a clue. After all the most obvious thing, focusing at the colored forms more was not possible. If he tried to look, he would get away from his colorful world. His range perception, however was improving. Once he realized that he could, he tried experimenting opening his senses, or that''s what he imagined he was doing, while he stood still in one place. He could see farther now, he was able to look at colored forms quite a distance from him. And he was able to walk around the entire floor as usual. Which he did regularly trying different things to see what was possible. His range perception added with his capability to walk like this, in his colorful world, made it seem like he would be able to spy on enemies or monsters from some distance away. He would only be able to sense the colored forms though, so identifying someone might become a problem. He had gotten used to Lady Verina''s colored form but he wasn''t sure that he would be able to identify it either, if she was standing in a group. And ofcourse he couldn''t see anything they might be holding or wearing. Add to the trouble, every magician will be able to do this to some extent! ''It looks useful, though I will only know when I get to use it!'' Another day had almost passed. He now no longer spent his time in the classroom, rather the library. In order to train his spell writing skill he had to write the magic words of all kinds of magic, on paper. Nope he was not allowed to make spell scrolls and show off. He had to write it on normal paper like everyone else seemed to be doing. Or atleast the people who were still learning magic language. The rest who had already done so, were eagerly moving on with their magic training with the other instructors, though a lot of them were still doing body training or something of that sort. It seems that it was required to atleast get the endurance stat before they could begin magic training. ''A wise choice indeed'' remembering what he had to endure when his attacks failed. Without his endurance stat dulling it, he was sure it would have been quite painful. That didn''t matter for his training though. Atleast Lady Altia cared to increase her power as and when he got used to it, but according to Lady Verina, if you do not like pain, don''t get hit! And so he was still learning magic combat techniques from her today. Embed with air, earth...then move on to fire and fight like your life is on the line. "Alright, use fire now!" said Lady Verina. "Yes master!" Raka replied as he embedded fire on his metal staff. He could not use fire, coating it over the entire staff like he did with air. He had to coat only on the ends, so it looked like he was holding a staff with fireballs attached on the ends. The reason, Lady Verina kindly explained after he burnt his hand already, was that fire burns. These metal staffs were specially made with an insulator in the middle which kept the center cool otherwise the entire staff would become too hot to handle. He moved to attack and Lady Verina avoided it. He quickly swung his staff to the side, but she had already moved. He rotated himself to hit her but she jumped clear above his staff. He quickly stopped himself and thrust his staff at her, but she landed and simply moved her hips to avoid. And the process of him trying to attack and her dodging continued. Everytime she saw an opening, maybe Raka was tired or he was being lazy, she smashed her staff on him with enough force to throw him back a couple of feet. And as soon as she struck, she was back in her stance all ready to receive his attacks. "Stop! That''s enough" she called out after so many hours. Raka had just stood up for the umpteenth time and was facing her. "It seems that you have gained control over your magic and can use it at will. There is no limit to learning magic and I can teach you a lot but you are not ready yet. You still lack one thing, experience. It is time that you go forth in the world and continue your learning." "Yes master!" "Trainee Raka. I hereby declare that you have successfully graduated the level 1 magic training course of Ilmentia nation, Gurrow village Magic Institute. Congratulations!" "I accept your congratulations with honor!" replied Raka remembering his time with Lady Altia. "Honor is for warriors. Magicians abide by pride. Our skill requires us to forsake honor. We can be warriors but we can also be assassins or spies. We can be the underbelly of any king or queen who has nefarious designs, or who seek to conquer. Or we can be the guiding light for the next generation. We can be anything a warrior cannot be. Magicians live by pride, we take pride in the magic we have done and will do." Lady Verina explained. "I am sorry! I accept your congratulations with pride!" Lady Verina smiled. "That is the motto of the magic institute as well. Its getting late today. The next time you come, we shall conduct your graduation formalities. Oh and Altia has sent word. They would be expecting you as well, whenever you can manage it, just during the day." "Yes, thank you again Master!" "Before you eagerly head out into the world, know this however. There is magic in this world which can affect you. It is called curse magic. I already said that it is very hard to manipulate stable energy forms. But it is not impossible. Curse magic is the magic which tries to transform these stable energy forms. It is very difficult and often requires focus of the highest degree. And even if you succeed the effects are temporary. But it is possible to curse someone for a really long time, even their entire life maybe. We call the magicians who practice curse magic Black magicians." Raka nodded seriously. "Now you may think that it could be the ultimate form of a magician, but it is not. Because they deal with stable energies they often have to provide even greater energy to offset its natural balance. Kind of like going against nature itself. And that needs powerful magical objects and big sacrifices. Sometimes even their own bodies are consumed depending on the scale of magic. But do not be scared. They are very rare and hardly come out of hiding. Also the amount of sacrifice needed to curse a rabbit would be like a whole town, so you are relatively safe. The only thing which can be used effectively are magical objects however. They have a tendency to absorb energy, much like paper here. However they are really old and have absorbed energy for hundreds of years." "So a black magician can use magical objects to cause great harm?" "Yes and No! Yes, he can cause great harm with all the energy at his command. But remember transforming energy into magic still requires the magician''s abilities. Even the greatest magician cannot simply transform all that energy into magic in an instant. And ofcourse there is always the risk that he will be absorbed by the magical object itself." Raka nodded understanding. "Well that''s about it. To encounter them accidentally is almost impossible. You need to know that they exist though!" Raka nodded again. "Allright off you go then!" and she left. Raka happily made his way to Neona''s to tell her the good news. He arrived just at closing time, and helped her close the shop and do the books. He eagerly told her that he had finally graduated. "Congratulations Raka! You have done so well! So what are your plans now?" "Thank you! About the plans I haven''t thought so far. But I would like to go out of the village when I can." "Yes, that''s what everyone does. Well have you given thought of where you want to go after you get out?" "Not really. I just thought I would follow the road and wherever it leads! Maybe the capital!" Neona sighed. "Brilliant plan as ever, if there was a brilliant plan contest, I am sure you would win!" she said sarcastically. "It doesn''t help to go blind. If you intend to go to the capital, I can introduce you to some merchants who will be heading there. You can go as a guard with their caravans..."
[p=center]Guarding the Caravan[/p] When you decide to leave the village, Neona offers to introduce you to merchants travelling to the capital. You will be assigned the role of guarding them and their goods. Difficulty level: E Stolen story; please report. Reward: Monetary compensation based on your job quality.
"Um, thank you for the offer. But I was thinking of going alone for a bit. I would like to take my own time getting there."
Quest has been refused.
"Hmm. Are you sure. It will be dangerous. The animals around here can be fierce!" "Yes! I would like to train myself on the way. And I am not completely weak. So I would like to travel alone for a while!" "Well if you are sure, maybe you can do me a favor instead!" "Anything for you!" Raka replied smiling. Neona blushed a little but said, "My father''s friend, Cassian, lives in the capital. He was the one who brought us the news of his death too. He said that they fought side by side in many a battle! After my father died, he was the one who looked after me and my mother till we could recover from his loss. After my mother died, he came to look after me again, till my Aunt could come from the capital. All in all I consider him to be a second father!" Raka listened quietly. "Usually he writes us a letter once every month. But last month he did not write any! Worried, I tried asking the merchants who go to the capital to ask of him. I found out that he was very sick but is recovering slowly. Yesterday I got his letter again, saying that he is getting well and not to worry!" "Ah that''s good!" "Yes, but somehow I still worry. He may have said that just to keep me from worrying. I won''t calm down. But I also cannot leave my Aunt who is sick. I don''t know what to do!" Neona eyes filled with tears. "I hope to find a trustworthy person who will go and check on him. I trust you. Will you do me this favor?"
[p=center]Check up on Cassian[/p] A friend of Neona''s father. He took upon himself to take care of the family of his fallen comrade. Neona treats him like her father and hearing news that he is sick himself, is worried for him. Even though he says that he is recovering and is well, she would still like someone trustworthy to visit him and confirm. Check on Cassian and send word to Neona. Difficulty level: E+ Reward: Intimacy increases with Cassian and Neona, ? Note: If Cassian dies or you are unable to send word within a month, the quest will fail.
"I will be sure to check up on Cassian! But I cannot leave the village yet!" Raka replied.
Quest has been accepted.
"Thank you so much!" and a teary eyed Neona hugged him. Raka simply patted her awkwardly while he waited for her to calm down.
You have grown. Your age is now 12.
''Eh!'' For some reason he had grown while Neona was hugging her. He was absolutely stupefied by the age system now. It felt like the system was helping him leave the village sooner, just so he could fulfill her request! Or that''s what Raka thought anyway. She soon separated. Blushing deep red, she smiled. Raka smiled back. "So shall we start on the preparations for tomorrow" she asked while still blushing. Raka simply nodded and followed her upstairs as they started to cook. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy was pretty excited as he reached college. Tonight he would be attending graduation in the game. He hoped that he could soon set off from the village too. He came to his classroom and found his four friends sitting together near his seat and laughing loudly. He walked up to them and asked, "What up? What happened?" "Oh Swamy, you are here! Listen to this, Rajan was just served a stay-away order. In the game!!!" "What!! What do you mean?" "Hahahah...it was the funniest thing that could happen. You see Rajan was learning blacksmithing from this lady blacksmith. He got annoyed of not being able to get the skill for so long that he absolutely yelled at her at the top of his voice. She got angry and said like ''you are banished from here'' and he was like thrown outside the shop. When he tried entering, he could not as some kind of invisible barrier stopped him from entering. He started shouting from the outside then, making a scene! And then the guards came. They gave him a paper, which literally read stay away order. After that he couldn''t approach like even close to her. Some sort of invisible barrier kept pushing him away as that lady blacksmith walked around town. We thought he would be thrown out of the village if she ever went near the gate.....It was hilarious." "So now whenever she comes near him or he tries to go near her, he will be thrown back like hitting a wall?" Swamy asked. "Yep! So he has to walk all the while being careful of not being anywhere near her." "Oh so that''s possible! eh!" "Yeah seems this is the game system design to protect the local populace from the players." Manish added. "Ah be careful Rajan! Why did you choose her in the first place?" Swamy said. "Hah! But she looked like my type you know! Thought it would be easy to learn from her!" Rajan replied dejected. Hearing that everyone started laughing again. Even Sneha, who ideally should have been upset, seemed to be laughing. Maybe she thought it was punishment enough or so Swamy thought. And talking about this and that, classes began. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka opened his eyes in the training hall of the Magic Institute. He walked out towards Lady Verina''s office. Lots or people were around in the classrooms or in the hallways, just like a real school. Some people glanced at him, and a couple actually waved, the ones who recognized him from their classes. He waved and moved away. He reached Lady Verina''s office and knocked. "Enter" Raka opened the door and entered. "Ah its you, Raka! I was expecting you to show up today!" Raka simply smiled. "Hold on a second!" And she started pulling out papers from all sorts of places. "Raka, would you wait for me down in the training hall. I will be with you in about ten minutes." "Alright!" and Raka left the office for the training hall. He waited there quietly sometimes fidgeting a little. Soon Lady Verina arrived with, who else, but Cynthia! "Alright Raka! This is your formal ceremony for level 1 graduation. Saying that, nothing complicated takes place, and we just hand you your certificate." She smiled. "Trainee Raka, stand at attention!" she said in a serious voice. Raka stood in attention. "I, Lady Verina, head of the Gurrow Village Magic Institute, hereby grant you this certificate in honor of your completing the level 1 magic course. Please accept!" she took a certificate from Cynthia''s hands and offered it. "I accept with pride!" Raka bowed and accepted the certificate. Just then,
You have been granted a title. "Graduate of Magic level 1" Effects: Focus +5 Perception +5 Agility +3
"Hmm now for your graduation gift! Cynthia..." Lady Verina said as Cynthia waved her hand and a staff appeared in her hands. She handed it to Lady Verina, who carefully checked it. Satisfied she said, "This is a standard magic staff, given to all graduates of the school. Please receive it!" "Thank you! I accept with pride!" as Raka took the staff in his hands. He could tell it was some sort of metal and it looked better than the metal ones he had seen so far. Later he would have to check it out. "Alright that ends your graduation formalities. Cynthia, your job is done, you may go now!" Cynthia simply nodded, made a face at Raka at left quietly this time. Maybe because she was acting in the official capacity of the school, she could not act rashly. "So what do you intend to do after this?" Lady Verina asked. "Um, once I get to age 14, I will probably head to the capital, I think!" "Hmm...well if you are heading there, then it makes sense to know some people there! Try meeting with the Adviser for Magic over there. He is the previous head of the Magic Institute and the one who taught me as well. He is the one I talked about before, believing in the truth of the Goddess''s children immortality. His name is Sambal! If you give my reference I think you would be able to meet.
[p=center]Meet with Sambal[/p] Lady Verina''s instructor in magic and the previous head of the Magic Institute is now working in the capacity of Adviser for Magic at the capital. Lady Verina suggests you should meet with him. If you give her reference, you should be able to meet with him. Difficulty level: E+ Reward: Intimacy with Sambal increases.
"A word of warning! If you cannot meet with him at first, do not despair. Unlike its name, the Adviser for Magic is highly reputed and highly regarded post and most of all very busy. So be patient!" "Yes Master!" "Oh and another thing. You may address me as Verina or Lady Verina in the future!" "Yes, Lady Verina!" Raka replied. "And one more thing...." Raka expected to hear some more but this time she became quiet. And she blushed. Then she came really close and kissed him .................on the lips! ''Eh..........................................'' Raka''s mind went blank. Just then,
You have been blessed! You have received Lady Verina''s blessing!
"May you carry my blessing and my heart!" Lady Verina said. Raka could not open his mouth for a while, but slowly he regained control of his tongue just enough. "I will carry your blessing and your heart with pride!" Lady Verina blushed but smiled! Looking lovely like always she quietly left leaving Raka standing in the training hall. Feeling incredibly nonplussed, Raka walked out of the Magic Institute into the blue sky with the burning sun. Then,
You have grown. Your age is now 14.
He stared at the message for almost 5 minutes before he came to his senses. "Was that the way to deliver a blessing....but wait was that my first kiss!! Does that even count as a kiss if it is in the game....but it felt way too real!!" Raka shuddered excitedly thinking about it. "Show description, Blessing"
Survivor of the High Seas (Unique) : A blessing signifies absolute trust between two people, be it friends or family. Lady Verina has blessed you. While the blessing is in effect, you will have a good chance of survival even in the roughest of seas. As long as you follow the path shown by Lady Verina, she will not bless anyone else. If you fail to follow the path, her blessing and her loyalty would be forsaken.
''Holy shit! What is this!'' No one had mentioned anything about getting blessed before. Did they kiss all people to bless them! Thinking this and that, he finally noticed he was 14 now. He could leave the village. He walked towards Neona''s to say goodbye. He planned to attend his graduation in the Battle school and then leave. He reached her shop. She was busy on the counter but lifted her head as he entered. "Neona, I am finally able to leave the village. I came to say goodbye for now. I will send word as soon as I meet your father''s friend." "Ah...I had this feeling you wouldn''t stay here for long. Return the clothes...." Raka was flummoxed! "Just kidding, seriously the look on your face is priceless. Well when would you be heading out?" "Um after this I will go to the Battle school. And then I will set off!" "Hmmmm...man the counter for a while! I will be right back!" and she quickly left for upstairs. Raka went behind the counter. Soon, she arrived. "Here, this is for you!" It was a ring, all shiny, like it was brand new. "Thank you Neona! But whats it do?" "I will leave that mystery to you though I believe it will be helpful in your journey! This will also identify you as my friend when you meet Cassian" she smiled cheekily. "And one more thing..." she came and hugged him tightly.
You have been blessed! You have received Neona''s blessing!
''Another one! But this time only with a hug, whats up with that!'' "I bless you that you will have a fruitful journey" she said. Raka thanked her and said goodbye once more. He walked out and looked up at the sky. "Show description, Neona''s blessing"
Fruits of Labor (Rare) : A blessing signifies absolute trust between two people, be it friends or family. Neona has blessed you. While in effect, your hard work would be highly considered and you would be more likely to succeed in your creations.
''Hmmm...'' Raka headed towards the Battle school, his head full of various thoughts. He entered Battle school and looked at all the students learning at the back. The hall was empty, assumingly everyone was out at the back. Raka walked out in the training grounds trying to locate Lady Altia. He soon found her teaching some of the other students. She noticed him after a while and nodded waving him to wait in the hall. A few others also noticed him including Nathan. Raka turned around and took a seat in the hall. He waited. After some time, Lady Altia arrived with Nathan and some other instructors. "Hey there, long time no see! How have you been? I heard from Verina that you finished her training?" "I am fine than you! I graduated with pride!" Raka replied. "Wonderful. Alright then, lets start with the formalities of graduation shall we! Nathan!" Nathan nodded and headed out back for a bit more. He came back with a wrapped package, opening which came out some armor and a certificate. He handed those to Lady Altia. quot;Alright I am new at this so let me know if there is something left...ok!" "Now Raka, I certify that you have graduated from Battle school having completed the level 1 warrior training course. Please receive your certificate." "I accept with honor!"
You have been granted a title. "Spirit of a Warrior level 1" Effects: Strength +5 Vitality +5 Stamina +3
"Now then, as per rules, every graduate is rewarded the basic armor of the school. Please receive yours!" "I receive with honor!" Raka took the armor from Lady Altia''s hands. He will have to check the armor later. Now that he thought, he had completely forgotten to check his staff as well! ''Later then!'' "Alright then, the graduation formalities are over. You guys may leave." Nathan and the others left. "So what are you plans after this?" Lady Altia asked after a while ignoring the giggling and embarrassed looks. "Um I would head to the capital, I think!" "Hmm and what about after that?" "Not sure!" "Well most people would want to try sailing the oceans. Are you interested?" "Yes I am!" "In that case, go and meet the dock master at pier 4. His name is John. He is an old friend and can help you!"
[p=center]Meet with Dock Master John at Pier 4[/p] Lady Altia suggests you meet with dock master John at Pier 4 in the capital. He is an old friend of Lady Altia''s. He might be able to help you. Difficulty level: E Reward: Intimacy with dock master increases.
Some time later, she gingerly asked, "Did Verina do something to you? I mean like right after this...." "Eh.....Um....eh!!" Raka could not speak the words out. She muttered something under her breath...in which Raka thought he heard "Damn Woman! Always stealing a march on me" or something like that. He decided he couldn''t trust his ears now! "Well it can''t be helped...." and she approached while blushing a little. And kissed him on the lips!! Raka just stood there frozen. He felt his brain might just explode!
You have been blessed! You have received Lady Altia''s blessing!
"May you accept my blessing and my heart!" she said blushing making her all the more lovely. Raka forced himself to move his tongue... "I will accept your blessing and your heart with honor!" Dazed as he stood, he suddenly heard giggling sounds and he looked around! Seemingly the battle school hall, is not as private as the magic institute training hall. This one had large windows and door to the back, from where peeked all the other instructors including Nathan. Some students who saw the instructors peculiar behaviour had just come to join them and were eagerly looking at both Lady Altia and Raka. Seems like the students had just missed the kiss. But the instructors had enjoyed the whole show from the front row! KABOOOOOOOOM!!! Raka felt his head explode and smoke come out from his ears! Well atleast thats what it felt like going red with embarrassment. ''And those ***** are giggling!'' Lady Altia was handling this a bit better though and she pouted looking at Raka. After a while, Raka thanked her and said goodbye. He bowed and came outside. "Show description, Lady Altia''s blessing"
Faith of a Fighter (Unique) : A blessing signifies absolute trust between two people, be it friends or family. Lady Altia has blessed you. While in effect, you will receive a temporary stat boost when you are about to lose or are close to dying. The exact boost will vary. The stronger the enemy, the greater the increase shall be. As long as you follow the path shown by Lady Altia, she will not bless anyone else. If you fail to follow the path, her blessing and her loyalty would be forsaken.
------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A few students who were piqued by the instructors peculiar behavior decided to approach them. They had hesitated for a while as they did not know if they would be angry at being disturbed at whatever they were doing. But soon, curiosity won over. After all they seemed to be giggling and definitely peeking at something happening in the hall. They came over and asked, "What''s going on?" "Oh nothing much. A student just graduated. Lady Altia is just handling the formalities!" One of the instructors replied smiling. "Eh...someone''s graduating. So it should be like the second person to graduate from this school correct? After Lady Altia''s disciple!" "No no...he is the first. After all he is Lady Altia''s disciple." "WHHAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAT!!!" went the shout! "So you mean that he was still a student here." "And he went outside while still being a student?" "Its possible though...Maybe he reached the age limit first but graduated now!" "But wait how far ahead of us was he, when he last came he was already at or above the age limit remember!!" "Oh hell! What nonsense are you guys talking about....when they guy''s getting away! After him everyone!" "To the gates! I saw him heading that way!" And so a lot of people ran off looking for Raka out the door. Raka stood in front of the gate and sighed. A step forward and he would finally be out of the village. And a new adventure would await him. Was he ready, he asked himself. He took out his staff and armor. "Identify"
[p=center]Magician''s staff (Common)[/p] Class: Weapon Damage: 15~20 (Added damage when embedded) Weight: 5 Durability: 100/100 Made of a combination of metals, it is made in a way that the center consists of insulating material and the ends are made of a conducting material. Due to its special design it allows good use of magic hence making it a magician''s staff.
[p=center]Iron Chestguard (Common)[/p] Class: Armor Defense: 15 (Added defense when embedded) Weight: 15 Durability: 150/150 Made of good quality iron and handled by an expert blacksmith. There are no flaws in its making. Gives good defense.
[p=center]Leather Gloves (Common)[/p] Class: Armor Defense: 10 (Added defense when embedded) Options: +3 Agility Weight: 5 Durability: 50/50 Made of good quality leather. Designed for speed and agility. There are no flaws in its making. Options added.
[p=center]Iron Boots (Common)[/p] Class: Armor Defense: 10 (Added defense when embedded) Options: +10% movement speed Weight: 7 Durability: 100/100 Made of metal and leather. The outside is made of a layer of iron while the inside is coated with strong leather. There are no flaws in its making. Options added.
He finally took that step and moved forward, not looking behind. And because of that he missed the crowd of people who were running and shouting at him as he walked farther away. While they soon got stopped by the age barrier! ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ***This is the end of the first story arc! [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 14: The Hunt! "Character Window"
Character NameRakaRaceHuman
Fame0Age14
TitleGraduate of Magic level 1, Spirit of Warrior level 1
Life150Mana45
Attack27.5~32.5Defense45
Strength20 (+5)Agility10 (+6)
Vitality10 (+5)Intelligence35
Focus10 (+5)Perception5 (+5)
Endurance72Stamina55 (+3)
Satiety100Energy0
Life recovery1.5 / 10 secsMana recovery1.5 / 10 secs
Title Effects Graduate of Magic Lvl 1 : Focus +5, Perception +5, Agility +3 Spirit of Warrior Lvl 1 : Strength +5, Vitality +5, Stamina +3
Equipment Effects Iron Boots: +10% movement speed Leather Gloves: +3 Agility
Skills Accounting - Beginner Lvl 4 - 75% Cooking - Beginner Lvl 2 - 90% Dancing - Beginner Lvl 1 - 1% Estimation - Beginner Lvl 3 - 5% Flute Music - Beginner Lvl 1 - 1% Format - Beginner Lvl 4 - 45% Formula - Beginner Lvl 3 - 27% Magic - Beginner Lvl 3 - 92% Spell Writing - Beginner Lvl 2 - 94%
Raka looked at all the stats he had gained in the two months of real time, he had already spent on the game. If it had been other games, people would have quit already, if they had to spend two months like this. In fact he had a suspicion that they may have already. But as more information about the game become public, he anticipated that the they may come back. He hoped though, that there were still a lot of people interested! After all all the forum posts was written by someone. Complaints on the forum had gotten fewer as people started immersing themselves in a different kind of challenge. ''Not that any new game wouldn''t have this difficulty in the beginning. It is only later as you move forward and start knowing how things work, does gameplay become faster.'' So the people who came later already knew what to do, atleast at the start! Unlike the first people who had to discover and figure out everything. ''Its just a different way to play that''s all!'' Raka mused as he walked on this road which will eventually lead to the capital of Ilmentia island nation, Thelmova! Raka had set off from Gurrow village, finally. He had debated whether he wanted to learn more skills, the more would be better. But in the end, he decided to head out. Learning can wait, he wanted to have an adventure. And so he looked at his earned stats. ''The endurance was especially earned!'' He quipped looking at his higher than normal endurance, atleast compared to his other stats! He had equipped his armor and was using his staff as a walking stick for now. He had stopped practicing his flute in the game after he got the skill, concentrating on his other skills. But now he will practice everything. Before all of that however, Raka wanted to get his first taste of hunting in the game. He wanted to measure his real strength. He started transforming energy. ''Earth'', he thought as he embedded earth magic onto his staff.
Earth magic has been embedded. Damage increases by 5. Durability increases by 20.
The road to the capital was covered on both sides by dense forests. Raka decided to head into the forest on his left. Walking for a little while, he encountered a horned rabbit. He took a stance and waited for it to notice him. Soon, it did. And moved to attack him with a grunt! Horned rabbits are fast. He knew that from his previous encounter, but knowing that they will attack straight at him, made his job a little easier. Raka swung his staff to meet the rabbit as it jumped to gore him with its horn. Smack! and the rabbit was pushed to the side and fell over. It righted itself again, and attacked. Raka moved his feet to face it and another hit! It opened its mouth and showed its sharp teeth. Raka smiled. ''It won''t go like last time!'' The rabbit attacked again, a little faster this time, but Raka stayed calm and waited. As soon as it opened its mouth, he shoved the staff in his throat. "Clang, clang" made the sound of rabbit''s teeth as it tried to chew through the metal staff but was unable to do so. Raka simply swung down, hard! With all of his strength and the gravity supporting him, the horned rabbit was thrown on the ground. As it fell loose of the staff, a little blood came out of his mouth. But it looked even more fiercely and went on the attack once again. Raka had gotten used to its timing by now, so he simply waited for the right moment and swung down his staff aiming for his head. Smash!! And the staff landed on its head with enough force to open a cut, which started bleeding.
Critical hit! Damage increased by 40%.
''Wow!'' Raka was having fun. This rabbit was no match for him. The only thing that did go for the rabbit was that it did not lose any of its speed. Raka decided to take a hit and learn how much damage it would cause.
You have taken damage! 25 Life lost.
His armor had taken most of the sting out its head on horned attack. But still, he lost 25 Life. ''Hmm so I can get hit about 6 times. Considering that damage might vary between attacks, I can probably take 4 hits safely. But my recovery is slow, and I don''t know any healing spells, so not getting hit is still ideal.'' After that he simply waited for the rabbit to attack again, and swung his staff, aiming for its bloody head once again. Another Smash! and the rabbit fell down motion less. ''Hmm. This is a problem.'' He could not see the Life bar of the rabbit. Usually, it was standard that you could see those HP or MP bars of any monster and when you hit, it got reduced. Which kindof helped you. But in this fight he could not see any bars. In fact, he hadn''t been able to see them the first time either, now that he thought about it. Another thing which he wondered about was...''where is the loot!'' The rabbit he had killed the first time, and even now had dropped nothing! ''Was there another skill which he had to learn!!'' He pondered. Wondering if it was required urgently or if he could proceed like this, ''Well in any case, now I can easily defeat horned rabbits in about 5 to 6 hits so they shouldn''t be a problem.'' Another thing he had noticed. Animals do not disappear like monsters in other games. Even the last time when Lady Altia brought animals with her and also when he killed that horned rabbit on the hill, they hadn''t disappeared like you expect monsters to do after they die. ''Well I should atleast get the meat out!'' But just then....
Bloodlust! Animals in the area are being attracted by the scent of blood. Bloodlust increases 15%. Animals will attack in a frenzy.
''Eh.......................! What the hell'' and he quickly looked around as he found a bunch of horned rabbits coming out from the surrounding trees. ''5.....6...7....'' he was surrounded by seven horned rabbits in an instant. Raka just had one thought, ''Shit!!''. ''First rule in fighting many enemies, do not let them surround you,'' he remembered Lady Verina''s words. Raka ran in one direction, soon found a broad enough tree and took it at his back. He made a stance. He could not stick very close to the tree though, he would not be able to move his staff very much, but atleast it will limit the attacks from behind. "If I am going to die, I am going to kill as many of you as I can"...he yelled. ''Well it is kind of a cliche'' he thought in his mind. The most he is going to lose were some stats but right now, with the fear pumping his adrenaline and his excitement...he didn''t care about cliches. The rabbits soon attacked. Teeth shining, mouth wide open drooling, eyes looking dangerous, horns and all their fierceness on display. Raka moved. He held his staff at one end and swung it. And smashed it on the rabbits. It hit a few of them and they fell to the ground. He quickly drew his staff back and with the other end, hit another one who was coming in the other direction. Without looking to see what happened to it, he rotated and the staff took down two more rabbits. But two reached him and he saw his Life bar reducing from their attacks. "Ignore all messages!" Raka couldn''t care about it right now. He moved and hit their heads, just behind their horns with one end of his staff, and their heads cut open. Blood started oozing out from those cuts. Raka didn''t have time to admire his handiwork, the ones who had fallen were rising up again. But atleast they weren''t attacking together now, but in groups of twos and threes. ''Staffs had two basic advantages. Range and the ability to handle multiple enemies'' he remembered Lady Altia''s teachings. He moved his hands again, elongating the other end and moved to hit one of the rabbits attacking him, the one in the middle. The rabbit tried avoiding to the side but being in the middle, it simply hit the others and fell back, taking his attack. Raka quickly swung his staff to one side, hitting the one on the left. Rotating, as if in a single movement, he hit the one on the right. He quickly corrected his stance. Two more were attacking and he moved the staff in their direction. He aimed and one of them jumped and hit his staff dead on. The trembling caused by the horn hitting the metal stick, almost made him lose his grip but he held on somehow. He swung at the other one and knocked it aside. He side stepped and shortened his reach on his staff and swung at the first one who had arrived quite close and it was thrown aside. And he side stepped while swinging again, as the last two finally reached him. He tried to hit them but one of them blocked it with its horn, sliding his staff aside and continued to move towards him. Raka quickly shortened his grip and with the end, smashed it into the rabbits mouth. He quickly pulled it out before it could bite and tried to block the other one''s attack but the horn still hit him. He stepped back and while rotating his staff, moved sideways and dodged. He lengthened his reach and hit the rabbit''s back with as much power he could manage. The rabbit dropped down and did not move. ''One down!'' he thought and he focused on the other rabbits. His life was declining rapidly and his mana was already at critical levels. But he had managed to defeat two more. ''Another hit and I might be able to kill a couple more....'' he thought while the rabbits attacked constantly, not caring for their injuries or the other rabbits. It was getting harder. The more they were, the easier it was to hit them, as they were buffeted by the other rabbits when they attacked. But now, they had more room to maneuver. Every time Raka moved to attack them, they could dodge it easily. His only option, was to wait for them to begin their attacks and then counter them with some good timing and some luck. He moved his staff as another rabbit began its attack. Smash and the staff met the rabbit''s body flinging it away. Raka moved the staff a full 360 degrees as he hit another rabbit and flung it aside with his momentum. The force killed the two, but another attack landed at him from the other side. His Life finally moved to the red zone. He could take one more attack and that will be the last. He moved again, trying to kill just one more, if he could, and landed his attack on the one coming straight at him. The other had moved on behind him in the meantime and Raka did not even have the time to look around at it. Praying to all the Gods he knew, he simply extended his staff backwards with all his strength, without looking. The staff hit the rabbit head on, missing the horn and making a bloody hit on to its face. He had finally killed all the rabbits....and survived. Raka laughed loudly. "HAhaahah!! That was amazing...!" Now all he had to do was get to the road. Just then he saw something blinking in the side of his view and remembered that he had put all system messages to ''ignore''. "Remove ignore on all messages" and he could finally look at all the messages, he got.
You have been hit. Life reduced by 25.
This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience.
Critical hit. Damage increases 40%.
Your actions increase your strength. Strength increases by 1.
You have been hit. Life reduced by 19.
You have been hit. Life reduced by 30.
....... ......
Your actions increase your agility. Agility increases by 1.
You have killed a horned rabbit.
..... and so on so forth. He read all the messages till the end where...
Critical hit. Damage increases 40%.
You have been hit. Life reduced by 15. Life goes into critical.
Your life has entered the critical zone. Blessing effect active. All stats increased by 1.
And the last one...which read,
Bloodlust increases 70%. Animals from farther away are attracted here. Frenzy increases.
"Shit!!" was the second time he said today. Why the hell had he stopped to read bullshit messages and not gotten to the road. And as he turned around to get out of here, he heard growling. Lots of growling all around him. And two joined wolf heads peeked from the bushes and around trees. He was surrounded by two-headed wolves. Just then,
Your life is still in the critical zone. You have encountered a stronger enemy. Blessing effect changes. All stats increased by 3.
Raka laughed at the irony! He still wasn''t tired thanks to his increased stamina. And the huge endurance dulled his pain that he could still move without any after effects. "Come" he said, as he readied himself for another round. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka took a stance. The blessing had increased his Life by just a little bit though it was still in the red zone, comparatively. His mana had increased just a little bit as well but he did not know how much it would last. He did not know how much damage the wolves could do but he had no intention of taking a hit. Ofcourse that was what he hoped, rather than planned but he had already decided. ''Strength and Agility were raised while fighting. So the more I fight, the more I will be able to raise my stats. Atleast these two.'' So he simply wanted to raise them. If he was going to die anyway, offset his loss by gaining just a little bit, that was his plan. The two headed wolves attacked. Unlike the rabbits, wolves were more intelligent and used to hunting in packs. Raka expected a hard fight. But the increased frenzy actually came to his help. If these wolves were hunting as usual, they would have attacked more cleverly, but because of the frenzy, they attacked fiercely but haphazardly. Also they were just a bit slower than the rabbits. It was a chance to kill some more. Raka dodged the first incoming wolf as one of its heads snapped at him. He turned his staff around and butted its stomach with one end. He swung sideways and got the staff to connect with another one on his side. It created a gap. He ran. Soon the wolves caught up to him again. He moved and hit the one closest to him. He got close to a tree and as soon as a wolf jumped to attack, he jumped sideways falling down but avoiding. The wolf went smack, head first hitting the tree. It was a chance while it was still dazed. Raka swung his staff down hard on one of its head. The head split open, but it was not dead. In the meantime other wolves had caught up and attacked him. He swung his staff around like a helicopter. A couple got hit and were thrown backwards and sideways and hit the trees. They stayed still.
Your actions increase agility. Agility increases by 1.
You have depleted your Mana. Magic related effects are removed.
"Hehehe" Raka laughed while dodging another attack. But he had just backed up to a tree. ''Damn'' he had just made a mistake while being distracted by the message. Three wolves attacked him simultaneously, from the front and the sides. He could only hold the staff from its end now. It increased the range but it made moving it slower. Raka predicted the incoming attack and moved the stick in the wolf''s way. It hit the wolf just as it was trying to slow down and it fell down dazed. He swung one way and got one of the wolves. But one of them made it to him. In pure desperation and not thinking, he tried one of the moves he had seen Lady Verina do, to dodge. He quickly shuffled his feet and rotated. The wolf flew past him and now was standing between him and the tree. Raka quickly corrected his grip and smashed that wolf straight in the tree. It stopped moving. Just then,
Stat Wisdom has been generated. Wisdom acts to support your learning with experience but it requires that you realize your learning can be experienced in more ways than one. Based on your efforts you get 10 points to Wisdom. This stat increases based on your actions.
Dancing skill has increased by 10%. You have now learned Dance of the Fighter.
Raka was happy seeing he had gained something new. But in killing the last wolf, he had shown his back to the enemy, literally. He simply extended his staff backwards hoping to kill one more. And then a wolf bit him and he started bleeding.
You have been hit. 12 Life lost. You are bleeding. Life will reduce by 1 every second till the bleeding is stopped.
Raka was still alive, fortunately. He ran forward again to the next tree and positioned himself. Somehow following Lady Verina''s movements had helped him. He intended to follow them some more. A wolf reached him and attacked, Raka shuffled his feet and rotated in the other direction this time, but his staff remained meeting the wolf head on. Applying all his strength, Raka buried his staff in its head.
Dance of the Fighter effects applied. Damage increased by 1%. 1% Mana has been recovered. 1% Life has been recovered.
"Holy Shit!! That''s awesome!" Somehow Raka had managed to get an awesome skill which increased Life and Mana while in combat. Ofcourse he would read the details later but it seemed linked to the steps he was doing. ''This could work!'' Raka thought happily. Another attack while he was distracted and he lost the little life he had gained. Plus he got a bleed effect which combined with his previous bleed and increased the bleed effect to 2 life per second. He did not care. He simply dodged the next attack while hitting one of the wolf''s head and then dodged another attack repeating the process. The number of wolves were decreasing. But,
Bloodlust increased to 100%. More animals are attracted. Frenzy increases.
Was this thing designed to kill you. Raka dodged another attack while a fresh wave made of wolves and rabbits appeared. Maybe he was lucky, but some of the wolves and rabbits had started fighting among themselves. Maybe it was the effect of the increased frenzy. But a lot of them still attacked Raka. "Shit!" he said aloud. Wonder how many times had he said that already. ''Should I log out?!'' Raka had given up by now. He tried to logout but,
Combat status is active. You can only log out when you come out of combat or you die.
He had no choice. It was either death or....death! Raka kept dodging and counter attacking and dodging and hitting and getting hit, almost losing his life so many times but he always seemed to survive. His Life had not moved away from the red zone this entire time. It had not disappeared either. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka had continued fighting for how long, even he didn''t know. But he had gotten tired.
Satiety reduces to 10%. You are very hungry. Till Satiety is recovered movement speed reduces by 20%. If Satiety reduces further, more negative effects will be applied. You are tired. Movement speed reduces 50%.
He had kept on dodging and killing and it seemed more rabbits and more wolves had kept on coming, for hours on end and now he was in such a state. Just then,
Bloodlust increased to 150%. Now the animals are scared of coming to this area.
Raka was still fighting the the animals but it seemed that no new ones would come now. Encouraged by the fact, just a little, he focused on quickly killing the few animals in front of him. He had gotten used to their movements, just dodging them was not a problem, as long as he didn''t get distracted. But the movement speed penalty and moreover his own tiredness was making even this job difficult. He saw the attack coming and shuffled his feet and rotated combining the motion with the staff which connected to the back of the attacking rabbit''s head. Leaving it for dead, he moved to quickly dodge the wolf''s attack. One head still bit him though and he was back to where he was before. He swung his staff down on its head and moved to his next target. So on and so forth till he would kill everything. After a long and hard battle, he did just that. But as it finished, he collapsed on the ground panting.
You are extremely hungry. If you do not eat something immediately you are in danger of passing out. Till satiety is recovered -5 to all stats, movement speed drops by 20%. You are extremely tired. Movement speed reduces by 70%. You are bleeding. 6 Life lost per second. If you do not stop the bleeding you will die.
And as Raka stayed down on the ground, he saw his Life bar slowly trickling down to zero.
You have died. As penalty, you will not be able to log in for 24 hours.
-------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy came out of his capsule and moved his body a little bit. Even though he had been fighting in the game and not real life, his body still felt restless. He went to get himself some warm milk as he reflected upon what had happened. He had died the first day he had gotten into combat, so that was bad. But on the other hand he had learned a skill. And got the wisdom stat so that wasn''t bad. He had also found out that fighting would increase strength and agility. Overall he did good, he thought. ''Ofcourse I did not know about the bloodlust effect. So this could not be helped. But next time I will be ready for it.'' Soon, he went to sleep. He had some extra time to sleep tonight. But one thing still haunted his nightmares, ''They don''t drop any loot!!'' [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 15: The Clan! Swamy stared at himself in the mirror. He yawned. He was still sleepy. The last night he had trouble sleeping. Side effects of being restless from a great fight or atleast that''s what he assumed. His body felt excited, eager to move, like the fight had not been enough. He did not know how to classify it, whether it was excitement....or just a bad feeling in his stomach which might trouble him later on. In either case he did not sleep well. He moved and stretched and felt his body was fine now. He did not feel uneasy or excited....just normal. ''I guess that''s good!'' Swamy started his preparations to attend class. Lunch time again, and he was sitting with Manish, Himali, Sneha and Rajan in the cafeteria. It was sort of strange that he brought his own lunch. Usually the food in the cafeteria wasn''t bad, and people preferred eating there or eating out at places close by. Atleast that was true for the first years. By the second year and above, students realized the value of economy. Not that they did not spend, they had full blown parties but they worked and earned some of that money from doing odd jobs around campus or outside. Like Swamy was doing. In fact he knew a senior, a 3rd year named Christopher, who worked with him in the movers company. He had been working there for quite some time now, and had become one of the managers. Well in simplest terms, he got to assign people tasks and manage all the lifting. So much for a manager. It was he who now approached his table. "Hi Swamy!" "Oh hey Christopher, what''s up!" "Yeah...sorry to trouble you while eating. But there''s been a lot of bookings this weekend. We might have to work extra time. You okay with that? I need to find out how many people can manage so I can plan accordingly." "Yeah I am good. I can work!" "That''s good. We were running short on the guys who can operate the heavy lifters. Two of them just took leave on account of the long holidays coming up. And its just our busiest time too. With the *Dusshera/Diwali break coming up people are leaving for their homes or the beaches (*Indian festivals, usually give long holidays when it occurs close together. It follows the Lunar calendar so it can happen once in a few years. Kinda like long holidays over Christmas and New Years!). "Hmm...no I haven''t got plans. My parents just visited and they plan to go attend a conference in the holidays so I am available." "Fine see you later then..." he said as a ping came from his phone. Even Rajan suddenly looked unsettled as he stared at his phone. "Holy ***" "Wow!" Both of them started speaking together. Realizing that, both of them looked up at each other. "Do you by any chance play Long Island?" asked Rajan. "Yes! You do too eh. Do all of you play?" Everyone nodded. "Hehehehe then you will want to hear this!" and Christopher and Rajan both looked at each other and smiled excitedly. "Why don''t you sit down though..." offered Himali and Christopher pulled up a chair. "So why are you guys looking so excited?" asked Sneha. "Well someone posted it just now. Its titled Blessings! Seems like npcs bless you in the game. According to the post it happens when you have a lot of familiarity with the npc. A lot of people are getting it once they reach the age to leave the village." Rajan added. "Wow that''s amazing! So we will be able to get those blessing as well. What kind of blessing do you get anyway? What do they do...?" Sneha asked. "Hmm its kinda vague on that point..." Rajan looked at his cellphone moving his fingers. "Actually, I can tell you about it. Blessings are different based on who you get blessed by. And it may or may not be related to actual fighting. So far there are blessings which help you in fighting like giving you buffs but then there are also ones which improve your luck in finding a certain fruit. The same npc can give different blessings to different people. So far we don''t know what exactly triggers each blessing. Its kinda random as far as we can tell." Christopher said a lot about it. Everyone stared at him. "Yeah...the guy who wrote this post is part of my guild. It seems its kinda become the most popular post in the forum." he added. "So are you saying, you guys have already been out of the village already. Where did you start?" Rajan asked suddenly very interested. "Well we started randomly. I started up in Dalmund village and a few of my guildmates started there as well." "So why haven''t you told the others about it? You know you could have helped a lot of us with the information you know!" Sneha quipped. "Hey hey calm down. Everyone would want to have an advantage in the game right.." Manish added. "Yes. And its not like we hide all the information. We just let it out after figuring out how it works...and after it has been vetted by the guild that it should be shared. We try to help each other in the guild which also means sharing information within the guild first. My friends are a good lot, so a lot of it gets out eventually." "Yeah...and I am far more interested in what you can tell us anyway!!" Himali added. "Well I can tell you about some of it...but please forgive me if I do not give some details!" "Hmm...first of all, how do you create a guild in the game? I wanted to make one, but so far I couldn''t find any information about it in the village. The system menu also doesn''t have anything of that sort. The only thing we have been able to is register friends." Himali asked. "Ah! You cannot do that in the starting villages. In the capital, there is a guild office where you need to apply to make your guild. The information about it is a little vague as of yet. But I can tell you this, the guild system is a little different. Usually when you make a guild, you just need a group of people together. But there is talk about a guild base. You would need a base, I am not sure... whether we have to purchase it or build it. As I said information about it is quite vague. It seems you need more familiarity with the npcs to get more information." "Hmmm...so we need to get to the capital city first! But wait if you don''t know, how did you guys make it then?" "We didn''t! Actually we are a group who always play together in other games so we made a guild in real life. You know keep in touch, regular meetings and discussions, etc. We do plan on making one in the game too though." "Ah that''s nice. So could you tell us more about the blessings and the age system and how to earn more money...and..." "Woah...hold on! One question at a time!" Christopher interrupted Rajan. "First of all, the information about individual blessings we got is kind of classified." Rajan made a face hearing that. "But I can say that there are different levels of blessings. So far, we have come across common and rare. I think it depends on your relationship with the npc. It is also not guaranteed, you will be blessed once you get to the age of leaving the village. Also, you do not get blessed by all the npcs you know. There might be some other mechanics involved here." Everyone listened attentively. Christopher laughed at seeing their serious faces and as they relaxed a little bit, he continued. "The age system is still a mystery. Earning money is difficult. It seems beginner monsters don''t drop anything. I don''t know if it changes later...! The easiest way to earn money is to get a job. It is also the most earnings you get atleast at the start. You can also use your skills, you know cooking tailoring etc, to get meat or leather from the monsters and sell them. Ah....it seems the monsters don''t disappear like in other games, so you can carry it with you. You can then sell them in the village." "Oh that''s strange! It will change the way economy is run in the game if it continues. Maybe that''s to make players focus on some skills rather than simply gaining a whole lot of them" Himali said. "Not sure! People can learn and build up on a lot of skills as well. As far as we have seen, a lot of skills are not simple. You start learning one skill, but when you finally learn it, you gain more skills automatically. Its like there are hidden attributes in all skills you learn. So you can never say that simply focusing on some of them would be better." Everyone nodded understanding. "Oh I just remembered we haven''t been introduced yet." Sneha suddenly added. Everyone looked at each other and then laughed. "Yeah...well I am Christopher. I am a 3rd year in the virtual reality department. I know Swamy already!" "Oh then you are our senior then..." as the rest introduced themselves. "Alright then, I need to go. Oh hey, when we do make a guild, why don''t you guys join us." "Hmm....sorry but we already have friends we want to make a guild with. We usually make a guild with them!" Manish replied. "Yeah. We already kinda wanted to join their guild, so sorry but we will have to pass as well!" replied Sneha. "Hmm its ok. Swamy, see you later then. Will text you the details! Later guys!" As Christopher left, the talk suddenly erupted about all the new things they had found. People were eagerly waiting to see what kind of blessings they would get. Just then Sneha exclaimed, "AH! But what about Rajan! He already crossed one npc. You don''t think like there are blessings, there are curses as well? Maybe he will be cursed!" Hearing that, all of them started laughing. Even Swamy. Rajan grimaced. It was much later that Swamy thought Sneha might have a point. If there are blessings when you have positive familiarity, what happens when you have negative familiarity. Also, he was too embarrassed to ask how the blessings were given to Christopher and the others. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka opened his eyes to a strange sight. What he hoped to see was a lot of dead bodies of rabbits and wolves. What he saw, however, were lots of snails. These are called Acid-piss Snails if he remembered correctly. Size, think of something between a large dog and a bear. These were called acid-piss snails because they pissed acid, literally. And then,
Dying penalties are applied.
The message reminded him that he had died. Checking his stats quickly, he found that he had lost 1 point in each stat. And almost 10% in every skill. Dying was expensive. It was a strange view, looking at lots of large snails moving really slowly across the battlefield of the days before. He observed a couple of them still finishing off the bodies of the animals around. Yep, they were eating the dead bodies. ''Maybe they eat dead things. But I have got bigger problems.'' His problem was that he had logged in smack dab in the middle of them. Surrounded by the many snails, he did not want to start fighting the moment he logged in. Fortunately for him, they did not seem interested in living things, like Raka. Slowly moving, they completely ignored Raka and only went for the few dead bodies which remained. Considering it would have been 3 days in the game, the snails had eaten every dead body around. ''Well if they are not interested in me, I am not interested in them.'' Raka headed back towards the road. But as he was in the middle of them, he had to walk avoiding these snails. Once, he approached just a little closer then he would have liked. The snail released a colored gas from somewhere. Raka quickly stepped back on reflex. However,
You have been affected by Paralysis posion. Movement speed reduced by 20%. Effect lasts 30 minutes.
The little bit he had inhaled had caused him to lose 20% speed. ''If I inhaled more...'' he stopped thinking about it. He walked more carefully now, even waiting for them to make a gap in their number which kinda took a long time considering how slow they were. But Raka persisted. He remembered Neona explaining about all the animals found in this region. ''Acid-piss snails are one of the most passive animals around. They did not attack unless they feel any danger. As long as you stay away from them, they don''t bother you.'' And so quite a while later, Raka reached the road. Just then,
Satiety reduced to 10%. You are very hungry. Till Satiety is recovered movement speed reduces by 20%. If Satiety reduces further, more negative effects will be applied.
It looked like spawning afresh did not fill his satiety to full either. Raka quickly pulled out some of the pies, he had packed before hand for the journey and ate them. He did not have a lot, so sooner or later he will have to start hunting. Now if only he could figure out a way to hunt without invoking the bloodlust. ''The way I figure, its the blood which causes bloodlust. So if I can just knock them or somehow bring them on the road and then kill them....'' and Raka started thinking about his next move. A little while later, he stood and started preparing. First he decided that he needed some food to augment his supply. It wouldn''t do, to be caught unprepared and hungry. Pies can be sliced and stored separately so it can be used as emergency rations, the slices quickly consumed. He should avoid eating those, which meant he needed to secure another food supply. Making a plan in his head, he embedded his staff with wind magic. "Skill description, Dance of the Fighter"
Skill Dance of the Fighter (Beginner lvl 2: 4%) : A type of dance which also hides a martial discipline. Allows increased damage, Life and Mana recovery when it is performed, to a limit. Can apply only in combat. Level increases effect to 2% increased damage, 2% Life recovery, 2% Mana recovery. Effects can be stacked to a total of 50%. The steps of this dance have not been learned completely.
''Hmm..so this thing is still incomplete. I guess Lady Verina would know the rest...its her moves I am copying after all! But atleast the effects are useful.'' He stepped back into the forest. Soon he found a horned rabbit. He quickly aimed before it could notice him and attacked. A wave of wind blew as he swung his staff down, headed straight for the rabbit. Raka turned around and ran towards the road, without looking behind. Raka expected that the wind was not strong or sharp enough to cause blood to come out. But it would be perfect to unbalance it for a while and eventually attract its attention. Soon he heard the rustling of grasses and leaves as the rabbit used its incredible speed to chase after him. Raka speeded up. If you simply compared speed, he knew he would never reach the road in time. But, he had a plan. Over time he had improved his control just enough to allow him two uses of his wind slash. Raka turned around and quickly swung his staff one more time. The rabbit was taken by the wind and thrown back. It landed on its feet, however, and began its chase again. On the other hand, Raka had started running the moment the wind blew. Soon, he made the road. Raka smiled looking at the bounding rabbit chasing after him. ''Lunch!'' After quickly finishing off the rabbit, he waited to see if the bloodlust effect would take place. It didn''t as he expected. He had figured that the animals try to avoid the road and stick to the forest. Taking the rabbit apart, he quickly separated the skin and the meat from the bones. He washed the meat, skin and bones with water from his canteen. He stored the skin and bones, while he started a small fire with a little help from magic and started cooking the meat. ''Could make some money selling these.'' As he got used to magic, it was becoming simpler to control it. It was just like knowing how much strength to apply to move a bike . Too much and it will bang ahead, too little and it won''t move. Once you figure out the right amount, it became far simpler to handle it. His low mana was still a problem. Embedding could not be done in between a fight as he was still slow so running out of mana, though not much significant right now, could pose to be a far larger problem in the future. And ofcourse, he had another problem of not being able to see the Life of the animals. In a one on one fight, he could handle them just fine. But he had realized that in a group fight, when he was fighting many to one, not knowing how much life they had left could be very troublesome. Managing his mana to fight becomes an issue. Ideally, he would start with a magically enhanced attack greatly reducing their life, and then switch to normal attacks to finish them off. If his life was in danger he would switch back to magical attacks to hit them harder. But being surrounded by many creatures, many of them injured and his life always in the red zone, he could not judge when he should use mana and when he could finish them off with just normal attacks. This was one of the reasons he had run out of mana the last time. Even after he got the dance of the fighter skill, he could not use his recovered mana. Raka sighed. He had much to improve before he becomes any good at fighting. The meat roasted, he sat down to have his lunch.
Stamina and Endurance increase by 12 for 1 hour. Satiety increases 50%. Satiety is now full.
Raka gulped down some water from his canteen. After he had his fill...he got up and stretched. It was time for the real fight to begin and he walked, again to the forest. This time the fight went a little easier. Knowing what will happen, he preserved his life from the get go. His body remembered the movements of the animals and the dance of the fighter skill allowed him to restore his life and mana by dodging. In fact his life reached red only after the bloodlust reached 100% this time. The increased stats came to his help and increased his effectiveness even more. "Hahaha...I have been taught by two monsters...You guys are just undisciplined brats in comparison!" he quipped as he smashed them all around. The fight finished with him still retaining a bit of his life. He had gotten a couple of bleed effects, but as soon as he got out of combat status, his life and mana started getting restored. Bleed effects were temporary as he found out, but lasted a long time just like the paralysis poison. If the bleed had been more than his recovery skill however, it wouldn''t have been cured like last time. His life and mana recovered, he started demolishing the animals around him. Skin, meat and even bones were neatly stacked in his bag. He could feel his bag becoming just a little heavier. ''About a kilo heavier than before'', he estimated. Though it was not a cause for alarm as it was still quite light. ''I gained only 1 strength and agility point this time. Hmmm...also the blessing effect only gave me +2 to all stats. Maybe, because I have got used to them it has been reduced.'' And so thinking about the complexity of the blessings system, Raka walked back to the road. This became his routine, everytime he logged in. He walked for part of the day, and fought for the other part. He avoided the forest after dark though, for one thing, it was quite dark and he did not want to fight blind. The game did not improve night vision automatically. ''Maybe its another skill!'' he thought as he walked towards the capital. One time, after getting tired of the rabbits and wolves, he decided to venture further in. It was not easy. Like a real world forest, the deeper you went, the denser the forest became. Soon he was surrounded by tall grass and huge trees which almost blocked the light. Giving up, he turned around to head back when he met the armadillos, as he recalled Neona''s words. Yep, they were simply named Armadillos and even looked like the ones in the real world but consider it being the size of an alligator. Covered with armor on its back, it was even larger than the komodo dragon. And they had this unique method of attacking. They would coil themselves up in a ball, in order to protect their soft parts and then roll like a wheel. Their armor allowed them to roll and bounce for some reason. They rolled and bounced, hitting the trees, gradually increasing their speed till they became very fast, just like pinball. That speed added with that thick armor caused immense damage. There was no point hitting them when they were in this state, their armor would absorb all the damage. Even if you push them away by force, they would simply hit another tree and bounce back faster. The forest was a very bad place to face them...they had an enormous advantage here. The only thing which worked on these things was fire. Like any animal, they cannot take a lot of heat. Burn them and they will stop and uncoil, making it easier to kill them. Raka avoided the attacks of the couple of armadillos he just encountered. The attacks itself were not too much. Once he saw them coming, he simply side stepped. It was only their speed which was slowly getting faster. ''If it continues longer, I am the one who''s gonna get killed.'' Making his resolution, he waited for an opening and quickly brought out a scroll from his bag. "Fire ball" he yelled as they moved in to attack. He directed the fire to their incoming forms. They squealed loudly after being bathed in the hot flames and stopped and uncoiled. Raka did not miss this chance, he swiftly attacked with more fire spell scrolls till they stopped moving. He put their bodies in his bag and walked back to the road, as fast as he could. This was part of his preparations. To make spell scrolls. He had bought a bunch of papers before he had set off from the village. He continued his daily training of practicing combat forms, making spell scrolls, playing the flute, cooking etc as he headed towards the capital. Now he was learning how to use it. Around five days in real life had passed while following this routine. Raka tried various things to see the extent of his skills during the journey. What works, how it works, limits, etc. ''Hmm so the blessing effect has gone now!'' Raka observed. The blessing did not increase his stats now. Not that he needed it anymore. He could handle the rabbits and wolves without his Life getting to the red zone now. He had simply taken this attack to test what kind of buff the blessings would give. And as expected he received none. Looking around he was satisfied with the results. He started the process of deboning and storing them. All the while thinking of some way to make his fights easier. He was still in the beginner''s area after all. He would meet stronger foes soon enough and without a Life meter, it was going to be pretty hard to face them the first time. Just to try out some things, he had started a habit of trying to calculate how much Life they might have had. Based on how much damage he could do, and also if he could remember, how many hits it took to kill them, if there had been any critical hits, so on and so forth. His accounting skill was being used to keep record of animals killed and the kind of damage done or received, which was certainly a different way to use it. Nevertheless it gave him skill experience. He had started experimenting with the rabbits and sometimes the few wolves he attracted back to the road. If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. ''Okay this one died in 4 hits, but one was critical and I didn''t use magical attacks. Based on my average damage plus the critical...I would have done this much damage.....'' he muttered as he wrote down the details of his fight. ''Hmm the other one took 6 hits but there was no critical and I didn''t use magic either.....'' he tried to guess how much Life they would have had. Raka figured that, even if he couldn''t see the Life bars, if he could estimate how much they would have had, it might make it easier to do the same for the other animals he may encounter. ''But first fights will always be hard I guess.'' Based on his figures, Raka had found that not all animals have the same amount of Life. Even rabbits did not have the same Life among them. It differed slightly, sometimes more sometimes less. The same thing he observed with the wolves. ''Could it be that there is some other attribute which defines how strong an animal is?'' he wondered. Other virtual reality games had taken this process where monsters fight among themselves to level up. Maybe something similar was in play. But if that was the case, he should have met some mini bosses by now. They could be identified by the extra Life or the extra defense they might have, but looking at his records he could not see such variation. After he finished his calculations, he tried identifying the dead bodies. This had become another practice but it had yet to reveal any results. Still he kept trying in the hopes that somethings would work eventually. The most he got now was...
[p=center]Horned Rabbit[/p] Class: Animal Horned Rabbit lives in the forests surrounding Gurrow Village. One of the most aggressive animals, it attacks on sight. It is extremely fast and agile and can jump very high. Its razor sharp teeth can chew the trunk from the trees. However not very intelligent. The horned rabbit mainly eats the vegetation but can also eat nuts, fruits, berries and small bugs.
[p=center]Two headed Wolf[/p] Class: Animal Having two heads gives these creatures a modicum of intelligence over the other creatures of the forest. It also gives it more hunger. One of the most aggressive animals, it is defined by its ability to hunt in packs and by its destructive nature. Eats meat generally and some bugs as well. Generally found hidden in the deep of the forest attacking unsuspecting intruders.
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ''Tomorrow I might reach the capital'' Raka calculated. He had been spending half his day doing various trainings to level up his skills. So it had taken him double the time to reach it. Thinking which, he prepared to go hunt again. He did not need food, seeing as his bag was full of meat, skin and bones but it helped in testing various things so he continued hunting just for its sake. He went in and found a rabbit. He did a wind slash and ran away to draw it to the road. But this time, he saw that the horned rabbit was being followed by a small one. ''Maybe that is its young'' he figured. The older rabbit attacked and quickly got killed. Raka moved to kill the young one. But he couldn''t. Seeing it trembling as he approached, kind of took his fighting spirit away. He expected rabbits with large saw like teeth and amazing speed, but this one was small and trembling. Raka decided to let it go. "Shoo shoo....off you go" Raka tried waving his staff to scare it away. The small rabbit quickly took off. Raka watched it go, slowly disappearing in the forest, when suddenly a two headed wolf jumped out and killed the rabbit. It lifted its lifeless body and bounded to the deep of the forest. ''Hmmm...jungle rules, the fittest survive'' Raka had just learned this lesson. He was still standing lost in thought about the nature and frailty of life when he had a brain flash. ''What if these variations in Life occur because of the animal''s age. Well if you think about it, all living things have age in real life don''t they. Ofcourse the longer you survive the stronger you would be.'' "So if the age is denoted by y, and we define more Life as older, the formula becomes like this. I don''t know how many years they live but the ones I have seen don''t have much variation. It could be that their ages are very close." Raka had just figured out another hidden aspect in calculating the Life of an animal. He moved on to calculate the estimated Life of the rabbit in front of him. "So based on this...the Life would be around 250 with some variation based on age" Just then,
Estimation skill has increased by 1%. Additional information is now available.
Wisdom has increased by 1.
''Hmm something worked. Additional information...eh!'' On a hunch he tried, "Identify"
[p=center]Horned Rabbit[/p] Class: Animal Horned Rabbit lives in the forests surrounding Gurrow Village. One of the most aggressive animals, it attacks on sight. It is extremely fast and agile and can jump very high. Its razor sharp teeth can chew the trunk from the trees. However not very intelligent. The horned rabbit mainly eats the vegetation but can also eat nuts, fruits, berries and small bugs. Additional information has been added: Age: 8 Life: 0 Cooking it may increase stamina and endurance. Tailor skills may change its skin to various things.
"Interesting!" Raka said involuntarily. Who knew that estimation could be used this way. It proved his suspicion that the skills had far more depth than simply doing things they were meant for. ''Hmm...maybe the automatic partial identification thing might work now...'' He headed back to the forest to find some rabbits. And he was able to see the name and the Life meter on top of their heads. ''So all I have to do is estimate the Life of every animal I find! But it still means that I will have to gather data from fighting it first. Still I discovered a way. Maybe I will find another in the future.'' Raka was delighted by this discovery. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Hah...where is it...!!" Today should have been the day he reached the capital. But so far he was only finding more road. He was excited...it was a different place but also it would be first time he would see the sea in the game. Maybe his sea adventures would begin now. Thinking this and that, Raka had started his day with much anticipation. Now he was losing patience. It was almost afternoon. He had skipped all his training today to make it to the capital but he still couldn''t see it. Soon in the distance he saw some people with a horse cart. Knowing merchants used these, maybe they would tell him how far he had to go. ''Now that I think about it, its supposed to be a busy road, how come I am only finding this merchant now?'' Putting his thoughts aside for now, he quickly ran towards the merchant cart. As he approached he saw a few people standing by the cart with a lot of pointy things shooting out from the side. He came closer and saw that the pointy things were actually spear ends. Soon he was shocked. There were way too many weapons lying around, shattered. Even the cart seemed to have been broken with holes here and there. The horse was dead on the ground. And people. Yes, dead bodies loitered here and there, some still bleeding with their owners eyes closed. Some having spear ends sticking out from them like they had been skewered. And then a few others who seemed have been clawed at by some beast, they had huge tears on their skin. ''What the hell was going on?'' Raka was aghast at the scene. This was not done by any animals, nothing in the area should be strong enough for the people of the island. He quickly embedded his staff with earth magic. Not that he could do anything to the things which could do this. The players were still far far weaker than any of the islanders who had grown hunting the things around here. He quickly checked around. Nothing anywhere. He didn''t even hear the sound of animals that he had gotten used to over the past few days. The forest was silent. He moved to check up on the dead people. ''Maybe someone''s still alive'' he thought. He couldn''t do anything for them but atleast he could find out some information of what happened around here. After all having come here, even his life was on the line now. He kept looking around him apprehensively while he slowly checked the dead. He soon heard soft cries coming out...from inside the cart. He found the door and opened it. A very heavily bleeding man was inside ...and still alive. ''Shit I don''t know healing'' Looking at the door open, the man was scared but finding Raka his eyes showed some life. "Who.....are......you?" He spoke losing his breath. "I am Raka. I came from Gurrow village and was heading towards the capital. What happened here?" "You.....goddess chil..ren?" he asked with a wave of his head. "Yes I am!" The man smiled. Raka could only stand helplessly as he watched that. "I am sorry I cannot heal you!" "Its...fine.....I..do..not ...have..long to live....." The man wheezed and coughed out some blood from his mouth. "Take.....message....to...guard....captain......at...capital....its...beast....beastmen!"
[p=center](Event Quest) Take message about intruders[/p] Intruders have been spotted on Ilmentia Island. The intruders have been identified as Beastmen. Hurry and take the message to the guard captain of Thelmova. Be careful, the Beastmen are strong and vicious. Difficulty level: C, quest fails if you die. Reward: Acknowledged for meritorious service.
"I will!"
Quest has been accepted.
"Thank...you....hurry...run....they....are...coming..." The man said as he took his last breath. His head fell down lifeless. Raka quickly looked around. He decided to start running when he heard some sounds in the forest clearing. He wasn''t sure what he heard...soon he saw five animals walking out of the forest. No, not animals. These were walking on two feet. They approached a little closer too swiftly for a human though. And Raka saw them. The head was of a wolf and its very broad body covered in black wolf fur till the waist including the hands. The legs were crooked as though they were animal hind legs, though it could still walk with them. The hands had thick nails coming out of its fingers, like claws. One of them had the head of a cheetah though and straighter legs. All of them broad and tall...and full of deadly muscles. And then they saw him. Raka turned to run. But the cheetah looking guy, disappeared from his sight. And appeared right beside him. He felt a great pain from his back as it was suddenly slashed with a force which threw him far far forward.
Your Life has entered critical zone. Blessing effect active. You have encountered an immensely strong enemy. +40 Vitality, +20 Stamina, Movement speed 500%.
One hit and he found only 10 Life remaining. Even his blessing effect warranted it. Raka quickly got off the ground and ran full speed ahead, his improved stats telling him to run away. The cheetah man chased after him. Soon the wolf men joined too. His improved stats made his running speed fast. Too fast. But still his improved vitality told him, that he could expect to get hit too. And so without looking back, he ran forward at the fastest speed he could manage. He even put his staff in his bag. It was no help here and he ran helter-skelter. A couple of times he felt, not saw but felt that the cheetah guy came close enough but somehow could not attack him. Other times he felt that he had swung and missed by the slightest margin. He definitely got hit one more time as Raka felt himself fly forward some more. He grimaced as he tried to land and scurried on to his feet to run again. His endurance helped dull the pain a lot that he did not even feel the second hit, only felt himself flying. Only his suddenly reduced Life explained what had happened. Raka heard voices or growling...but he could not understand. Maybe they were communicating in some language. He did not have time to care about it right now. Raka ran full speed for a couple of hours. The increased speed was sapping his stamina fast. Even with his improved stamina and the increase from the blessing, he could feel that he wouldn''t be able to run much more. If he didn''t reach the capital soon, he was going to be caught and probably killed by them. He wished he could fight them, but they were fast. Atleast he couldn''t even see the cheetah guy move the first time. The last time it had happened he was practicing with Lady Altia on top of the hill. He felt wind blowing from the strong claws barely missing his back. And he knew that if he slowed down even for a second...his life would be over. After a while, as he rounded a hill, he saw a huge gate in the distance. He could see tiny figures move around it but he was still too far away to shout for help! He felt the beastmen behind him increasing speed. Soon he felt claws slashing and missing him from the side. He could see the claws coming towards him from the corner of his eyes. He felt fear. So much for realism of the game. And probably that gave him the extra burst he needed to move just a little bit faster to keep dodging those vicious looking claws. He thought he reached close enough...."HEYYYY!! HEEELPPP!! HELP HELP MEEEEE!!!!" Raka screamed with all his might hoping that the guards will hear him. Somehow he suddenly felt movement stop behind him. He still ran forward but he couldn''t hear or feel the beastmen behind him. ''Could I look around now'' he wondered but kept running all the way till he reached the gate. The guards suddenly surrounded him with their weapons on the ready. Looking at Raka screaming and running full speed, they had gone on alert. But the spears were pointed at him. Raka whipped around and saw no sign of those beastmen. ''Did they hide?'' A guard who carried a sword approached, "Halt stranger. You are one of the Goddess''s children aren''t you? State your name and then tell me why do you look so harried?" "Huf.....huff.....I am Raka.....from...Gurrow village. Need to speak with guard captain.....its beastmen!!" panted Raka. "Beastmen! What nonsense are you talking about? We saw no one! Are you sure you did not eat some kind of hallucinating herb by accident?" Raka was pissed! Here he was running for his life, only to end up with someone who did not even believe him. "Please let me speak to the guard captain. I assure you I am not lying. I think he will believe me, if you let me speak to him!" Raka controlled his anger and his breath. The guard looked over at him like he was some sort of habitual liar. "Hmm...I don''t know. But atleast you are wearing the armor of Battle school, even though its filthy, so you are allowed to meet the guard captain. Alright come with me!" ''MY Battle school armor allowed me to meet the guard captain!!'' was the only thought he could manage. Raka was led inside the gate and around a curved road, and then he saw his first look of the city, Thelmova. The city was built on the side of a hill, all along its slopes and ended down with a large dockyard and the vast sea. Raka had imagined the sea to be blue and maybe sandy beaches. But this sea was almost white, what with the churning of the numerous tides. He could still see a bit of blue in the distance though. The shores were full of rocks, just the small patch of sand near the dockyard from which many piers extended out over the water. It was full of ships of all sizes and kinds. They all seemed to be ships with sails. The larger ones had a lot of them, the smaller ones just one or two. They moved ahead while he saw more of the city. It was a lot bigger than Gurrow. Although being on a side of a really large hill, he could not see how big it stretched. There were houses everywhere. Lots of large buildings. Even some grand ones made of marble and what else. The docks seemed the most exciting though with a lot of large warehouses scattered close to it. The buildings seemed to grow richer as you went up the hill. Now that he noticed there were walls surrounding one side, including the gate where he entered. Maybe there was a wall surrounding the other side as well, though he could not see it. They moved to a small house just a little behind the gate. The guard knocked and mentioned Raka to go in first. It was a small two room house, with the front used as some sort of office. Raka assumed the back would be some kind of a resting area, as was in Gurrow village. There was a strongly built, though wiser looking middle aged man sitting behind a large desk. He was closely studying some papers, reports maybe. He looked up as Raka entered, with the guard behind him. The guard entered and saluted. "What is it Ronald?" the wise guy asked. "Sir, this boy just arrived at the gate. He was running full speed and his clothes are looking messy as you can see. He is one of those Goddess'' children and he should have come from Gurrow village. He claims he saw beastmen and wanted to see the guard captain. I did not believe him. But he is wearing the Battle school armor so I brought him to you to judge!" "Hmm...thank you Ronald! What is your name boy?" the guard captain asked. "Its Raka, sir" Raka responded politely. "And what is it that you saw, in detail please. I will assume you are not hallucinating, your eyes do not show its effects!" Raka breathed a sigh of relief. "Sir, I came across a merchant cart which had been destroyed. The people had been killed. Some had been killed by spears and some had been slashed to death, their skin had marks like claws. I found one, sitting inside the cart, just alive and he told me to warn the guard captain that there were beastmen. Soon around five or six beastmen came out from the forest. They saw me and attacked me, but somehow I survived. I ran all the way here after that. I think they were chasing me till not long ago. But I think as I reached closer to the gate and started shouting for help they stopped chasing me. When I reached the gate and turned around they were not there." Raka explained in as much detail as he could. "Hmm, and how did you realize they were beastmen? Have you seen them before?" "Um...no. This was the first time. They looked like wolves, with wolf heads and crooked legs. Although one of them looked like a cheetah, all yellow and spotty with a different head but similar legs. And walking on two legs. They looked like beasts, and I found them near the cart, so I thought they were beastmen!" "Hah...!" the guard captain sighed. He looked at Raka as though scrutinizing whether he was telling the truth. "Ronald..." "Yes sir!" "Take a group of your best men and horses and find this merchant cart. If he is right you can expect beastmen so arm yourselves accordingly. If you find the cart or any evidence report to me immediately." "Yes sir!" and Ronald headed out. After handing out the instructions the guard captain turned towards Raka. "I am Emilius, one of the guard captains at Thelmova." He introduced himself. "You will have to stay here till we confirm your news, is that ok?" Raka nodded. "How far away was it, when you found the cart by the way?" "Um...I think I ran for like 2 or 3 hours." "Hmm... so it might take some time. You seem tired. Why don''t you rest in the back! Do you require any healing?" "No sir." Raka had lost a lot of Life from the hits he received. Even the ones that barely missed had shaved off his Life bit by bit. Thanks to the blessings effect he still had Life remaining at the end. There had been no everlasting injury though he could feel that his clothes on the back had gotten destroyed. Raka went inside to find a small room with a few bunk beds and a small table and some chairs. He sat down on the chair to wait. Even with horses it should take them atleast an hour to get there. He closed his eyes and rested. After a while, he heard someone coming. The guard captain came inside and offered him something to drink. Raka thanked him and he left. Raka sipped his drink slowly giving himself something to do while the time passed. A little less than an hour later, he heard loud boots. He had dozed off a little on the chair but sat straight up immediately. A different guard came inside and beckoned him. Raka came out to the office to find a few more guards wielding swords. "Ah there you are. We have just confirmed the truth of your statements. The cart was not found but evidence remained of a fight being there. Our scouts even detected the presence of beastmen." Emilius said. Raka simply nodded. "You did us a great service and showed great courage and resilience in being able to survive against the beastmen. They are not to be taken lightly. Even our best warriors do not do that. But you, just out of the village, survived. I guess, as expected of the Goddess''s children. You must have the Goddess''s own luck supporting you." Raka simply stayed silent not sure of what to say. "Raka, for your service and courage, I am recommending you for a Queen''s medal." pa pap pah
Quest "Take message about intruders" complete. You will be rewarded for your meritorious service.
"Um sir, may I ask who or what are the beastmen?" "Hmm, well you saw them so you should understand a bit. They are a race of beings who live in a land far away. They possess the strength of animals and the intelligence of humans, which makes them both vicious and dangerous. Beyond that even I don''t know." "So why are they here?" "Now that is a very good question! But you need not concern yourself with that. You just arrived here in our city. I assume you will have your own stuff to do. So welcome to Thelmova. Go on then." And Raka stepped out of the office into the starry night! [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 16: Thelmova The city of Thelmova. Big, loud and exciting beyond words. That''s what Raka felt. It was not like he did not live in large cities in the real world. Bangalore or Bangluru as it was called now and where he was staying was one of largest and busiest cities in India. Certainly much bigger than his hometown. But then, it did not have the fantasy like setting in the game. Raka was walking down one of its streets. The first thing Raka decided to do was explore the city. The various shops, the various buildings, the various streets and ofcourse the dockyard. He saw shops of all kinds. Food, clothing, armor, weapons, expensive gems, jewellery, exotic items and what else. There was the library housed in a beautifully designed building and a humongous palace where the queen would live surrounded by more walls. There was the large training grounds, where troops and horses trained. A huge and broad tower which he soon found out was the Magic Academy. And several large and small beautifully designed buildings of which he had no idea. Some were even restricted, and some he was denied entry to. Then there were the homes, a lot of them simple looking like in Gurrow village, close to the dockyard. But as you go up the hill, the homes improved in design and the quality of its materials. With a variety of gardens, and statutes and fountains and....what else. Some even seemed to have birds in them. Painted in pale or deep colors they looked exotic. And then there were the people. Raka did not think he had much of a fashion sense, but even he would stare if you were covered in a dress made of colorful feathers. The feathers ruffled as the wind blew...almost as if the fat lady wearing the dress would fly the next moment. She was walking, what looked like a pet alligator or something similar, kept on a leash. Or atleast the small sized version of it. A real alligator would be quite big, but this one was like half its size.....and tame! It waddled on its small feet, waving its tail as it walked making impressions on the ground. It was eagerly eating the bits the fat lady was throwing to it. ''Chipper'' he heard it being called. So that thing had a name as well. She wasn''t the only one though. As he walked around the rich neighborhood, he found several people wearing fancy dresses, though the one with feathers was still the most weird. And they had pets. All kinds of animals, some he could recognize as being similar to something in real life. Others he hadn''t seen. There were all kinds of two-footed or four-footed.....wait a sec..was that a three footed creature as well! Or did it injure and lose one of its leg. ''Any era, any age...you still have the filthy rich!'' Raka sighed. Raka kept moving his eyes at everything as he walked around the city observing, sometimes gawking with his mouth open, excited like a kid visiting a new place, where everything is brand new and unique and fun! He had looked a little of the city at night, but the view in the sun was something else. The normal part of the city, as Raka liked to call it, was much more similar to Gurrow village. No feathered ladies or pet alligators here. Normal people wearing normal clothes, not that it wasn''t fashionable or beautiful. And no pets. ''Maybe the pets are expensive. That''s why only the rich can afford having one! But there are pets, so there must be a pet shop as well....I should check it out later.'' A few times he saw important people passing. Riding on chariots they were followed by guards running behind them. Oblivious to the happenings around them, they had a look of concern or thoughtfulness or something similar. The chariot drivers yelled loudly to have the people on the street make way and skillfully guided their horses to lead these important people to places. A few of these important people were dressed in armor while a few others seemed to be wearing the same kind of dress, the people of Magic Institute wore. After spending enough time going around the city, he finally decided to head out to the dockyard to meet with Dock Master John at pier 4 for one of his quests. The dockyard was even more loud and exciting. People were yelling in top of their voices, shouting loudly and yelling some more. Stuff was moving around everywhere every second. The streets were full of horse carts carrying the stuff unloaded, big boxes stacked on top of each other at the side of the dockyard towards the street. Cranes moving loaded boxes, materials even animals and livestock. And so many people moving around doing stuff. Raka had to be careful as he walked, not to get in the way of all the things happening around. Also he did not want to be crushed by all the stuff happening around. He looked around for some signs but there seemed to be none. He asked for pier 4 from one of the men shouting instructions loudly to one of the crane operators. He was pointed to a small building. Raka headed there and knocked. Maybe it was too noisy around but his knock did not seem to have an effect. He simply pushed the door and it opened. It was a small office with a chair and desk with lots of papers on it. Some chairs were also placed on the side by the window. No one was in the office right now. ''Should I wait?'' thinking he went inside and sat on a chair on the side. The chair was on the side of the window with a good view of the dockside. He watched the happenings as he waited for whoever worked in the office to come back. A couple of hours later, the door was flung open and a big, bald, burly man came in all smelly and drenched from the waist down. He wiped his hands and face with the cloth hanging on the side of the door and wiped his boots on the mat. Then he started opening his pants. Raka coughed to let him know he was there. The man looked at him, "Wait a minute!" and resumed what he was doing. Thankfully it did not turn out that he took down his pants. It was more of a cover worn on top of it which was probably to keep the water out. He spread the pant cover thingy on a hook at the wall and went to sit behind the desk. "So what''s your business?" "Um...I am Raka and I was asked to meet with dock master John by Lady Altia." "Oh I''m John. So you know Altia do you...Lady Altia she is now but always a brat to me." Raka thought John did not look that old to call Lady Altia a brat. But then Lady Altia was quite young as well. "So how do you know Altia?" "Um...she''s my teacher. From Battle school." "Really! So she got herself a student did she?! Hmmm how soon kids grow up! One day you are training with your first wooden sword, then next you have your own student." Raka listened quietly to his reminiscing. "So what weapon did you learn from her? Not the sword, I think." "No sir, I was taught the staff." "No sirs here lad. Only get to be called a Sir or Lady when you get knighted. Call me by my name!" "Yes, John!" "So nice to have met you Raka."
Quest "Meet with Dock Master John at Pier 4" complete.
"So when did you arrive in the city?" asked John. "A few days ago. I was just going around the city looking at stuff." "Oh! so you got any plans?" "Not really...I will just see what I can do around here, you know maybe learn something or get a job to make some extra money" Raka replied hoping that the increased intimacy with John might lead to one of these. "Hmm...A job you say! Well I can probably give you a job working on the docks but I don''t usually hire people who I meet for the first time. Working here, you require a lot of strength but more importantly you need a good brain. Dock work is dangerous, you always need to keep your wits and your eyes open. One snap of rope and your done." Raka nodded. "Even more important than that is being precise. Everything we do here works off a plan and it should work like clockwork. A delay at any step and ships have to stay longer in the dockyard costing money. No ship captain worth his salt is going to tolerate delay. They are working off slim margins anyway. And it affects the reputation of the dock as well." Raka listened attentively. "Well I can''t give you a job unless I know what you''re capable of now! Say what...lets test you. Come out." Raka followed John outside. "There is pier 4. Right now a ship just finished unloading and people are preparing to load stuff. You see all those cargo around and those people moving here and there right?" "Yes I do!" "Good, simple test. How many people are working there?" ''Eh.....'' Raka was a bit confused but...
[p=center]John''s test[/p] John the Dock Master at Pier 4 intends to test you to find out if you are capable of working on the docks. Identify the number of people working on pier 4. Difficulty: E Reward: A job offer.
Raka looked carefully at all the people working. He counted them on his head....trying to keep sure he did not miss anyone or count anyone twice. The only problem, people kept moving. They kept appearing and disappearing behind the cargo or on top of the ship and Raka had to really concentrate to remember some of their details just so that he would know he was counting correctly. A little while later... "I count around 25 people!" "Around?....be sure boy!" "Um...I count 25 people" Raka quickly repeated. "You sure this time?" "Ye...yeah. Pretty sure that''s it." John looked at Raka for a bit. "You are wrong. There are 31 people working there."
You have failed John''s test.
Raka was dumbfounded. He had counted carefully all the people he could see. "You seem confused. Want me to tell you who you missed?" "Yes please." "You see the crane. The crane has an operator which you could see. The crane is lifting a box but do you notice those ropes heading down over the ship?! That is used to control the waving so that the wind does not move the ropes holding the box too much. You can see there are 4 ropes there held taught, by 4 men who you cannot see. Now do you see that satchel lying over there...just in front of the cargo there. Why do you think its lying there? If its someone''s they would have claimed it already. If it was unattended, they would have moved it to the side to keep it away from their feet! Its there because someone is using it, hidden behind there doing something." Raka nodded understanding. He counted there was still one missing. "And where is the last one?" he asked. "The last one is down in the ship''s hold. Any cargo being loaded goes into the ship''s hold or luggage area. One man shouts out instructions on exactly where to place each piece of cargo based on the balance of the ship. After all if it is heavy on one side it will start listing or tilting, which is not a good thing. That guy is called the load master by the way. But I would have forgiven if you couldn''t have identified him. Only the people who work with ships know about the load master." Raka nodded understanding. "I am sorry Raka. I cannot offer you a job on the docks. Its noticing these little details which keeps us and the others safe." Raka nodded again. Well it was a bust here but atleast he got increased intimacy. Maybe that will lead to something else in the future. "Can you handle horses?" John asked out of the blue. "I don''t know. I have never handled them before." "Hmmm...well it would be rude to Altia if I do not help you. But its also certain I cannot put you on the docks. I thought if you could handle horses maybe you could work one of those carts. Hmm...what should I do.......Oh right! I can give you to old man Salmon! He has always been asking for more men. So what do you say? Salmon handles repairs on ships. He is a crude but honest worker. If he likes you, you can work for him. Would that do?" "Yes, please. Thank you." "Alright! Head down over there to that large warehouse. Its number 5. Tell him I sent you." And John turned around and headed back to his office. Raka headed down over to the warehouse number 5, a large building situated on the street just behind the docks. There was a large door, which was open now. Lots of things were lying around here and there, loads of wood planks, blocks of metal, bundles of rope and what else. All sorts of hammering, clanking, thumping and other sounds came from the inside as everyone was engaged in manufacturing or repairing or doing other stuff. Raka walked in. Loud noises grinded his ears, coming from all around him. He doubted that if he screamed, anyone could hear it. Now how to find old man Salmon among all this ruckus. He looked around but everyone was busy in whatever they were doing. No one had noticed that a man not belonging here had come up from the street, unannounced. So much for security! He decided that waiting will serve no purpose. He approached a guy who was greasing the ropes. Dunno what the grease was made of, but it smelled revolting. Holding his nose Raka approached. The guy seemed like he was done and was preparing to move. "Excuse me, Can you tell me where I can find Salmon.....SALMON!!" Raka tried to shout his voice over the din. The guy simply pointed to the back of the warehouse to an old person. This old guy was shaving wood and making planks it seemed. Even though he was old, his taut muscles remained firm as he ran the shaver all across the wood. "HELLO!!" Raka shouted. The old man did not notice. "HELLLLOOO!!" Raka shouted a little louder. The old man did not notice. ''Was he deaf...can''t blame him though.'' Raka walked in front of him and started waving his arms around. The old man finally noticed. He looked at Raka questioningly. "JOHN SENT ME!" he waved and shouted at the same time. The old man simply made a sign to follow him. The walked to the back of the warehouse, where a small door lead out. They went outside to a small patch of grass covered by walls and then the old man shut the door to the warehouse. The sound died down. He removed something from his ears....ear plugs by the look of it... "Yes, what do you want?" "HELLO I Am raka...." Raka started shouting but slowly realized and toned down. "No need to shout. I am not deaf." Salmon replied. "Sorry. I am Raka. John, the dock master sent me to you. He said that maybe I could help you." "Oh he said that did he. So what do you work with...rope, wood, iron, copper or some other metal?" Raka was confused. Was there a requirement to be a blacksmith or something for this! "I am sorry. I don''t work with any of these." Salmon sighed. "An amateur. All that I need and I get an amateur." Raka simply added, "Um I am not sure what it is that you would want me to do. But I am a quick learner and hard worker so you won''t be disappointed." "So you say. Well alright, I guess you are better than nothing. I am very strict so listen well and work diligently. I don''t pay for laziness." "Yes. Thank you." "Lets start you off with working on wood."
You have been offered a job. Salmon will pay you for every hour of work you put into helping him. Salmon insists that you learn woodworking to help him. Refusing to learn will reduce intimacy with Salmon and may rescind the job offer. Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. Pay will vary depending on work quality.
Skill Woodworking: You can now learn how to work with wood. Wood is a versatile material used in many ways and as part of various things. Knowing how to handle it, treat it and make it usable is important. Salmon insists that you learn this skill. Requirements: Impress Salmon with your woodworking.
"Alright...move your bum! We ain''t got all day!" Saying which he turned to head inside. Raka followed but... "No, you stay here. In the noise inside you won''t hear a thing I say. I will come back with the tools." And he left Raka standing there while he went inside, grabbed some wood and tools. He made a second round to bring a work table outside. "Alright listen closely and watch even more closely." And then he went on to show how to cut wood to size, shave it to make planks and then shape them according to requirement. No it doesn''t end there. Then he showed how to treat it, how to repair broken planks, how to waterproof it, how to oil it...and a lot of other things. He explained what each tool does and how it does it. And then how to maintain them. Blades were usually made of iron or steel with a wood handle making the tool. "When the blade becomes too dull to use, take it to one of the guys working with metal. They will sharpen it for you." And then he explained how to fix broken handles....its made of wood right! The most Raka had ever done with wood was work with it in high school, as part of class in real life. Carpentry, an optional subject, was one of the least popular as it required hard physical work. But then again, the teacher was generous with grades. Raka had taken it in high school so he understood some of the stuff Salmon said. Ofcourse in class, he handled electric tools. Using your own brute strength to do this.....well lets just say its in another dimension. .......... .......... .......... "No not like that you ass! Be gentler...you are murdering the wood! Do you see the thickness of these shavings? Its like your fat fingers!! Make it thinner....jackass! Why me.....God!" Salmon was definitely crude! ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- After many hours of working with wood, which ended kinda like.... "That''s enough for today!! I don''t have any more patience to teach you. Learn faster, you fool of a gun! I got loads of work to be done! Come back tomorrow!!" as Salmon stormed back inside. Extricating himself from that loud and noisy warehouse Raka took a deep breath. There were so many times he wanted to scream at that guy, Salmon, but he had kept himself in check. Now he headed down to the sea and screamed without restraint. Even the birds sitting on the rocks took off hearing his scream. But it felt better. NOW he understood. Npcs having their own personalities means that they will have all kinds of it. And Raka had ended up with one of the least compatible ones ever. He was a quiet kind of guy and he had met up with the loudest, noisiest person in the game, atleast that''s what he felt. Anyways now he was stuck with him. ''Well I hope I can learn this woodworking skill fast. I don''t want to hear his screaming anymore....its torture!'' But who knows when he would actually learn it. Raka sighed. ''Well now that I am out, better see if I can meet Sambal. Should I ask for him at the magic academy....or the palace, I wonder!" He decided to check out the magic academy first. He walked to the tallest tower, which was the Magic Academy. Raka had tried asking the difference between an institute and an academy. He expected that there might be more advanced magic taught here. However the only difference he had found by asking around, was simply more number of teachers and students. Lady Verina, who''s the head of the Magic Institute at Gurrow village, was actually a magic researcher and a teacher for intermediate or advanced magic. So learning more advanced magic was more a question of finding a suitable teacher rather than an institute or an academy. The other odd thing he observed were lots of foreign looking people. He did not know much about demographics, but looking at them he could tell that they did not look like they were from the island. They wore the uniform of the Magic Academy though....which was the same as the one at the Magic Institute. ''Maybe the academy attracts students from other places...which seems possible. Or it may be a foreign exchange program..is that even possible. Anyways, lets go inside.'' The inside of the tower betrayed the look from the outside. It was huge from the outside. Only inside he realized it was more than huge. The tower had almost 10 floors, each smaller than the one below. And the lowest was the largest. He walked in to a spacious reception area...which again had a bell rope. Raka swung the rope and the bell sound was deeper ...somehow more grander this time. A man and a woman stepped out. "Welcome to the Magic Academy. Please state your purpose" the shorter woman said, who had short black hair and looked almost tomboyish. The guy who had broad shoulders and light black hair stood silent and strong almost like he was a body guard. "Um...I came from Gurrow village magic institute. I would like to meet with the Advisor for Magic Sambal please." "Oh...do you have an appointment with him?" they lady continued. "No. Is it required to make one?" "It is advisable. The Advisor is a busy man, please understand, and cannot meet everyone. If you can make an appointment you may have a better chance to meet him." "Oh! so can I make an appointment to meet him then." "Unfortunately at this moment you cannot. The Advisor''s assistants are not here today, and they take care of his affairs. Only they can schedule a meeting with him. I am sorry but you will have to come another day." "Oh so do you know when they will be available?" "I am sorry again. They move along with the Advisor and its only when the Advisor visits the magic academy that they are available. Due to his busy schedule, I am not sure when he will visit next." ''Hmmm so I may have to try everyday.'' Raka knew that it was not easy to meet the Advisor for magic. Even Lady Verina had said so. "Alright, thank you. I will visit again to check." and Raka left. Thinking what he should do next, he decided to sell the things in his bag first. He had skin and bones of the rabbits and wolves he had killed. Also the meat which he wanted to sell. Also the couple of armadillos, he did not know how to skin them so he had brought the dead bodies with him. He had very early found out that all food have an expiry time after which it goes bad. Even during training with Lady Altia, she had buried the animals in the ground not only to keep it safe from other animals but to preserve the meat as well. Players bags served the same purpose. So after some time, the stored food will go bad. ''Lets find a place to sell them.'' Roaming around he had identified several stores, food shops, tailors and other shops which could be places where this could sell. Now he had to go around determining where to sell them. Neona''s lessons about business..."Always know the prices of what you are trying to sell." Raka went around visiting each store, asking for prices of different things. Including meats, skins and other stuff. He did not know where to go sell dead bodies though. He simply tried asking subtly, what do novice hunters do if they don''t know how to skin an animal! And the answer was simply....find a hunter who can! Raka sighed. Raka''s accounting skill was improving as he kept records of all the prices of items. It was the single most important skill to have if you are involved in trades. Even if you do not plan to be a full time merchant. It could also be one of the few under rated skills in the game with not a lot of people interested in the boring account work. On the other hand, he knew people had a new appreciation of the so called boring fields and classes. Gone were the days where people would look down on artists and sculptors and architects and merchants and what else. They still thought these classes were weak in fighting but they did not underestimate their ability to greatly influence the game. In this game, with no classes, you could find a fully qualified fighting merchant! Or an artist launching AOE attacks....or whatever combinations you could think of. It remained another issue, however, if they willingly want to learn those boring skills. ''Hmm, so this store has a 1.3% profit margin. That last one had only 1.2. I could negotiate but there is no demand of rabbit or wolf skins. It seems the local hunters supply them regularly. It will be a fixed price sell.'' Deciding to sell here he asked the lady at the tailor store, whose name was Jenny. "I have 120 rabbit skins and 100 wolf skins I would like to sell." "Oh...hmm I will give 66 silvers 85 coppers for the rabbit skins. 60 silvers 78 coppers for the wolf skins total." Raka brought out all the skins and sold them. "Thank you. I also have the animal bones. Do you know if someone wants those?" "Oh if you want to sell the bones, the bow makers or medicine makers use those. You can sell to them. Though if you have bones of wolf and rabbit, only the bow makers use those." "Oh thank you. You wouldn''t happen to know a bow maker would you?" "Two streets down on the right. The guy there makes bows. Though I will warn you, rabbit and wolf bones don''t count for a lot." "Also do you know someone named Cassian?" "No never heard of him!" "Alright thank you very much...I will be sure to visit you again!" "Please. Thank you for visiting Johanna''s tailor shop. Come again." Raka found the bow makers store easily. For one the directions were pretty accurate. For another, there was this drawing of a bow and arrow on the sign. With a clinking of bells he entered. "Please wait, I will be right there..." the voice of a man came from inside. Soon a young man stepped out saying.. "What can I do for you?" "Hi, I have some rabbit and wolf bones to sell. Are you interested in buying?" "Hmm...an unknown person coming to sell bones eh! I am sorry if I don''t trust you, but selling bones is tricky business." "What do you mean?" asked Raka. "It takes a keen eye to actually determine which animal the bones come from after all. A lot of cheap imports of bones have come which actually claim to be high end bones of rare animals. But usually these are bones of similar sized low-end creatures. Infact even human bones have sometimes been used. Its terrible but true. To counter that, there has been a policy in effect that we should not buy any bones from people we don''t know and don''t trust! Sorry no one will buy your bones until you prove yourselves trustworthy." "Oh I am sorry I didn''t know that. I didn''t know bones are that important!" "Ofcourse they are. I am a bow maker and bows are made of different types of wood and bones. Bones not only provide strength but add magical properties as well. Bones of rare magical creatures sell for hundreds of thousands of gold. Some bones even have healing properties as well so medicine makers are always looking for them. Ofcourse the bones can also be used to put magic in other items too." "Oh so rabbit and wolf bones can be used too...." "Nah...they got no magic in them. Only used to for basic bows. Haven''t made those in a while now." "Well thank you for telling me. How do I get to be trustworthy?" "Get known man. People trust people they know after all. Or become famous like a celebrity...your choice." the young man laughed. "Oh by the way do you know a Cassian?" "Never heard of him." Raka stepped out pondering about everything he had heard. The lack of basic bows made sense. After all the users of the basic bows were still stuck in Gurrow village. But the information about bones was interesting. Ofcourse he still hadn''t found anyone who knew Cassian. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next day he logged in, Raka was lucky. He had just visited the Magic Academy on his way to Salmon trying to see if Sambal had visited. And he found that he was...Infact he was in there right now. "Excuse me, could I ask if Advisor Sambal is visiting?" he asked it to the young tomboyish woman who stepped out again. This time accompanied by another tough looking man. "Ah..its you again. Well you are in luck, he is visiting. Please wait while I ask for his assistant to come." A little while later, a middle aged woman wearing thick glasses and her hair in a tight bun came out. Raka thought she looked like a strict person. "I am Gayle. I am Advisor Sambal''s assistant. I heard you have business with him?" "Yes. I am Raka. I came from Gurrow Village. Lady Verina recommended me to meet with him." "Oh Lady Verina did eh. Well I am sorry he is busy today with some other things. Would you like to make an appointment for a future time?" "Yes please." "Alright. Please wait here while I confirm with him." She went back into the academy. This time it took a bit longer. "I am sorry but he is extremely busy on some other matter for next few weeks. The earliest I can set up an appointment is next month. Would you be interested?" "Yes please!" It was not like Raka had any other plans. After setting up his appointment, ofcourse on a day he would log in, he started heading back. As soon as he reached the door, he bumped into someone. "Please pardon...." the other guy started when "Its you!" Raka looked up to see the guard captain Emilius and some other people in armor. "Please pardon me too. I did not look!" Raka said as he stood up. "What are you doing here young man?" Emilius asked. "Um...I came to meet with the Advisor Samball, sir." "You were, were you?" Then he turned around to the others and said, "He is the one who brought us the news!" The other people suddenly looked very interested in Raka now. One of them an old guy wearing a kind of robe and having a white beard asked, "Young man, why did you want to meet the Advisor?" Raka wasn''t sure whether he should answer his questions but he noticed the way the guard captain was treating him with respect. ''Maybe he''s an important official or something'' thinking that Raka simply told the truth. "Um...Lady Verina recommended me to meet him!" "Oh so you know Verina as well. How do you know her?" "She taught me at the magic institute!" They looked at each other and then, "Well may I know your name young man!" the old guy asked. "His name is Raka, Lord Holtimius" the guard captain replied. Raka nodded as well. "Well Raka, we are on our way to meet with the Advisor right now. And I would like you to accompany us?" the old guy asked. Raka had no problems with it and somehow he felt that it wasn''t wise to refuse this. "Yes sir. If it lets me meet the Advisor!" "Alright that''s that then, lets go!" And all of them headed into the depths of the magic academy. [p=center]Next Chapter[/p] Chapter 17: Old and New! The 8th floor of the magic academy. Raka followed the four men in armor including Emilius and Lord Holtimius inside a big room full of mirrors hanging on many sided walls. There was an ornate basin in the center of the room. There was also a bookshelf containing various books and a large map of the island on one of the walls. The room was designed in the shape of a decagon, with nine walls having a mirror each. Raka observed the peculiar design as he entered. An older man with lots of grey in his hair but still having the feel of energy was filling water in the basin. He turned around as he heard the company enter and started greeting them. "Welcome Lord Holtimius. I hope you are well. How''s the Lady doing?" "Yes, she is fine. Still gets tired easily but the medicine this time is helping a lot. She almost has the color in her face back." "Ah that''s wonderful to hear. And how are you General? Having good food as usual?" "Don''t joke with me Sambal. I have been hungry since my wife put me on that healthy diet!! Ah never thought I could miss meat so much! I lost around 10 stones atleast." "Hahaha....!" and the group laughed at that. ''So this guy was a general.'' There still remained one guy in armor who remained silent. ''He is dressed similar to Emilius, so he might also be a guard captain'', Raka deduced. "Hmmm...what do I see here? Is he one of the Goddess''s children? Why is he here?" Sambal asked in a concerned tone. "Oh...pardon me. I thought it would be a good idea to have him here." Lord Holtimius replied. "His name is Raka and apparently he is Verina''s student." he continued. "Ah you''re the lad who asked for an appointment just now aren''t you?" "Yes I am" Raka replied.
Meet with Sambal complete.
"Well it still doesn''t answer my question...why is he here?" "Ah...seeing as he was the one who alerted us to the situation in the first place, I thought it would be a good idea to have him around. So he can answer any questions we might have." Lord Holtimius said. The general nodded. Sambal sighed. "Alright! But he will still have to sign the official secrets agreement if he is to stay here. If not, he will have to leave." Sambal said. "Um...what is the official secrets agreement?" Raka asked interested. "It is basically something which ensures that you do not tell what happens here to someone. And if you wish to stay here, you need to sign!" Raka pondered for a bit. But looking at Lord Holtimius and the general''s encouraging nods, he decided to take the plunge. "I agree!" Sambal went to the book shelf and took out a page. He then waved his hands and then wrote something on it. "Please put in your name where I have left it blank, local language is fine, and put your thumbprint at the bottom with a prick of your finger." Sambal directed and Raka followed. As soon as Raka touched the paper he realized that energy had been embedded into it. This was a spell scroll though different from the ones he was used to making. Written in both magic language and local language, the document said,
I, Raka, do hereby solemnly swear to honor the Official Secrets Agreement, henceforth called Agreement, as defined by the law of Nation of Ilmentia. ,I Raka, do hereby solemnly swear to honor and keep hidden, the informations, items or otherwise classified as Secrets, as defined by the ruler of Nation of Ilmentia or by another signatory to the Agreement. I, Raka, further swear not to disclose the existence of the Agreement, its nature and details to anyone, not a signatory to the Agreement. The agreement also prohibits mention of the Secrets between signatories unless steps to protect unauthorized or accidental disclosure have been taken and enforced. The agreement is binding and exceptions can only be made by order of the ruler of Nation of Ilmentia or their authorized representative. Signed by: Witnessed by: Accepted on behalf of the Queen of Nation of Ilmentia by Sambal, Advisor for Magic to the Queen:
Raka pricked his thumb to draw just a little blood and put it on the paper. Lord Holtimius did the same as the witness. And finally Sambal himself repeated the process imprinting his thumb print. Just then,
Official Secrets Agreement is in effect.
Raka could understand that what he had just witnessed was a very complex bit of magic. He first thought that this might be the curse magic Lady Verina had talked about before. But he threw that thought out. Curse magic as Lady Verina had said, required great amounts of energy and focus, even with the help of a magical object. The agreement, even though a complex bit of magic, was performed instantly. And as far as he could understand, the other five people in the room were signatories so this couldn''t be curse magic. Maybe some other explanation is there which he will have to discover. Raka moved his thoughts to the back however, as he saw Sambal making the paper disappear with another wave of his hand, and then resuming to fill water in the basin. Having done that, Sambal waved his hands on the water. The water stuck to his hands like a glove. He then moved on to one of the mirrors on the wall and touched it. The water flowed from his hand on to the mirror. He whispered something softly and the water shimmered. And then, slowly something started appearing in the mirror. It was Lady Verina who looked back from the mirror. She looked around at everyone present. "Greetings Sambal, Lord Holtimius, General. Do I see Emilius and Maltus as well...! Nice to meet you too....eh!" "Raka! WHAT are you doing here?" She started a loud exclamation but controlled herself midway apparently. Raka simply smiled sheepishly. He hadn''t spoken to her since the graduation ceremony. Remembering that, he blushed. Lady Verina, who was staring at him....suddenly blushed as well. Raka felt the others were confused at this exchange, but no way in hell was Raka about to offer an explanation. "Hello Verina!" Sambal spoke scattering the discomforting atmosphere which had developed. "How are the preparations?" "Ye...yes, the preparations...it is completed. Altia reports that she and her company are ready to move at a moments notice. How are preparations at your end?" "General, if you may" Sambal spoke. "3 companies are armed and ready" the General replied. "Um...is it ok to speak freely with Raka present?" Lady Verina finally asked with a concerned look. "If it wasn''t we wouldn''t be speaking to you now, would we?" Sambal retorted. "He is here at my invitation as the witness to the intrusion!" Lord Holtimius spoke. "WHA....He ....YOU encountered the beastmen?!!" Lady Verina spoke flustered. Raka looked around to see if he was allowed to speak. When Sambal nodded, "Yes" Raka replied as he repeated the incident. "Oh you were lucky to survive young man." Lord Holtimius spoke. "Yes, it is beyond words at this point!" the general agreed. "Well in any case, it is good that he did bring us the news!" Sambal added while Lady Verina simply glared. "Now lets move on to the other thing. We have found out that the beastmen belong to a group of pirates who have recently started operating near our shores. You remember the two ships that were lost four months ago and we assumed they were lost in the storm. Now we suspect that it may be the activities of those pirates. Which makes it doubly important to capture the beastmen alive for interrogation. Cassian is also trying to find another way but till then we have to rely on this." Raka pricked his ears. ''Cassian? Could there be two people with the same name?''. Raka knew it was possible. With so many npcs in the game it was impossible to give unique names to everyone. So like players they allowed the npcs to have the same names as well. But in any case, this was worth checking into. "Alright. We will keep in mind. Any news on their location?" Lady Verina asked. "Not yet!" the General replied. "Our scouts have been following their tracks but we cannot afford to close the distance, lest they find out! After all they have improved sight, smell and hearing. Any mistake and our scouts would be dead and we will lose any chance of tracking them again" Emilius spoke expanding on the general''s answer. "Hmm and they are still somewhere between Gurrow and Thelmova?" "By last reports, the tracks were seen there heading in a south westerly direction towards the forest on the other side of Gurrow!" "Hmm...so would they be heading to the sea again?" "Probably. There is not much they can do if we are on alert. Though it just might be that they were scouting us in the first place." "Verina, that''s the case. Keep an eye out from your side. I will try to send some additional people to help you." Sambal said. "Alright! Any plans to counter them at sea then?" Lady Verina asked. "Not yet but I have apprised the Queen. She may make a decision soon enough. So for now we focus on getting more information" Sambal replied. "I need to remind you not to let your insatiable curiosity take over...I know fully well you haven''t met the interesting beastmen before!" Lady Verina pouted after hearing that. "Lord Holtimius, General do you wish to add something?" "I am good" replied Lord Holtimius. "Yeah me too. Be careful though and say that to Altia as well. No one questions your courage or your intelligence but always remember that these are beastmen. Practice caution. If you and Altia lose, not only your company but the entire Gurrow village might be put under risk. I will be sending the 3 companies with Emilius and Maltus there. They will leave sometime today, so expect them tomorrow" the General added. "We will. Thank you for your concern General." "We will make haste to reach there as soon as possible as well" Emilius and Maltus added. "Alright that''s all for today Verina. Same time tomorrow." "Alright Sambal. Oh, a small request from me. Give Raka your special course. I am sure he can handle it." She smiled an evil smile. ''What exactly have I got myself into!!'' Raka worried. The conversation done, Sambal moved his hand on to the mirror. The water stopped shimmering and Lady Verina disappeared as the reflection of the people standing in front of it returned. The water made a glove on Sambal''s hand again and he carried it back to the basin. Then he simply let the water drop in it. Having done that, he turned to face Lord Holtimius and the General. "We need someone to update Cassian of this as well. Will you send someone to him?" Lord Holtimius asked. "Yes, I will send one of my assistants to him with a letter!" Sambal replied. Raka suddenly had a brainflash. ''This is a chance!'' "Um, sorry to interrupt but I could deliver the letter to Cassian, if it is alright!" Sambal stared at him for a while. "Well, we did have him sign the agreement after all, so it should be alright!" the General added. He finally conceded. "Alright I will let you deliver the letter. Make sure you deliver it to him and only him!"
[p=center]Deliver letter to Cassian[/p] Sambal requests that you deliver a letter to Cassian containing details about this meeting and other things. The letter has been classified as a Secret and Official Secrets Agreement applies. Difficulty: E Reward: Intimacy increases with Sambal. Obtain the letter and Cassian''s location from Sambal.
"I will" Raka replied.
Quest has been accepted.
"That''s it for today gentlemen!" After the others left, Raka was led outside as well while the room was locked. "Please come to my office" Sambal said. Raka nodded and followed Sambal to the 5th floor which was bigger and had more rooms. Sambal unlocked one of the rooms and invited Raka inside. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The room was full of shelves and shelves of books and papers of all kinds. And a large desk also full of papers but also some quills and some other things Raka did not recognize. But unlike Lady Verina''s office, it was kept organized and tidy. Raka was impressed. The good thing about organization is not only to keep things clean and tidy, but to make sure you always find the thing you are looking for. Some people find organization in chaos, Raka was not one of them however. Sambal took the chair behind the desk, motioning Raka to take one of the other chairs in the room. "Ok...first of all I am sorry. I cannot accept Verina''s request and train you in magic. Contrary to her understanding I just don''t have any time. I hope you understand!" Raka nodded looking disappointed. "On the other hand, I will give you the next 2 hours. You may ask me any questions or learn any specific magic you may be interested in. I will try to teach you within my ability but most of it depends on how fast you learn." "Thank you for that!" Raka''s mind quickly started whirling around with all the things he wanted to learn. "Um..could you teach me how the agreement thing works?" Raka was really intrigued by it. He never thought writing local language and magic language together, works. "Ah..the first thing you ask me is something I cannot disclose. The agreement is one of the most highly classified magics on the island." Raka nodded. ''That makes sense''. After all it was called Secrets agreement. It wouldn''t be any good if people simply knew how it worked. Raka thought a bit more about the magics he had seen. Reading in the magic library in Gurrow village, he had figured out a lot of magics and its workings. Actually doing them, involved practice which could be done anywhere. He should invest in something which could be useful in the future. Finally deciding, he asked. "Could you teach me how you used the mirrors to communicate?" Sambal looked at him for a while after this question. Raka thought maybe he had asked something classified again and Sambal was thinking on how to refuse politely. "Alright I will teach you!" He finally said smiling. Raka breathed a sigh of relief...''What was all that suspense for then!!!'' "It is just that most people would have picked up some different magic. Maybe something which helped you to fight or maybe which gave you advance warnings on approaching enemies. But this is strange, especially because you are one of Goddess''s children." "Why is it strange?" Raka asked perturbed. "Well don''t you guys already have a way to talk to others far away? I think its called a PM or something, whatever that is." Raka was shocked. But then he remembered. Sambal was one of the few who believed in Lady Verina''s words. ''Could it be...'' "Um do you also know about us?" "Ofcourse! You don''t live among us without us picking off a few things too. We are not stupid, you know!" Sambal retorted. "I was interested in the Goddess''s children ever since they showed up. And I, who was the head of the magic institute could learn a lot more than kids who accidentally saw something, don''t you think?" ''That actually makes a lot of sense!'' "Don''t worry, its not like people believe in your secrets anyway. Although I expect people will soon realize that you guys are immortal. After all, so many Goddess''s children from the village will soon be able to leave. They will fight and they will die. And then the people of the island will know!" Sambal mirrored Raka''s thoughts perfectly. He knew that this was not a secret that could be kept indefinitely. Wonder how the game system will act then. The entire point of having artificial intelligence is to give it the freedom to act based on what it thinks. "So do you still want to learn communication magic?" Raka thought for a bit about how much he could tell. "Yes. You see, we can communicate only with the other Goddess''s children using the PM method. Distance does not matter when using that. But if we want to communicate with the islanders or other people, we cannot use this method and have to actually talk to them face to face. Communication magic as I understand allows you to talk to anyone, us or the people of the world I believe." "That is true. If you can learn our magic I assume it is possible that you can communicate like us as well." After pondering for a bit more, Sambal said, "Alright! I will try to teach you this magic. Whether you learn is something up to you, is that ok?" "Yes please." "In turn, can I request you to answer a few of my questions? Ofcourse only the ones you can answer! I am sure you people have your reasons for keeping your secrets. May be the Goddess forbade it or something." ''Uh oh...this could get weird!!'' "Um I will try to answer but please understand if I do not answer a few!" "Hmm...ok I don''t know what I should ask...there are so many things I want to know...." Sambal said excitedly. "Do explain to me why do you guys die though? It doesn''t make sense to die if you are immortal anyway, right? I first thought you were like a pheonix which is born from its own ashes but the phoenix is born a baby. But nothing of that sort happens with you guys...does it?" "Um...its kinda like that. Its just that instead of being born new every time we die, we get weaker instead" Raka answered. "Oh..but you can always regain your strength back can''t you?" "Yes, we can. But it is very difficult for us to gain strength in the first place. If we die a lot, regaining all of the lost strength would become almost impossible." "Ah! so if a person dies a lot, he could be as weak as he was like when he was born, not knowing the language and what else?" ''Eh!! I didn''t think of that!'' Raka was now seriously worried. His character window did not show the Ability to learn languages skill, so maybe it was a kind of a special skill. Maybe it won''t be affected by death. Raka decided to check afterwards. "I cannot be sure. You see we are discovering as much about ourselves as we are learning about the world." "Hmm...well alright. I guess I have spent too much time satiating my own curiosity. I am sorry it has taken your time as well. Lets move on to the training area. And we will need two mirrors!" The training area was again in the basement and much larger. Though there was no secret door this time, just normal stairs which led down. Unlike the magic institute however, this training area was inhabited by other students, both young and older. They went around practicing magic and fighting. It was the first time Raka saw other people fight and he was highly interested in their methods. It seems a lot of the students were already quite learned. They could use both embedding and also free form magic attacks. A couple were even more advanced it seems. They were practicing jumping and landing on the walls and ceiling and sticking there. They looked like bats hanging upside down from the ceiling. Raka could not wait till he reached that level of magic. Sambal and Raka headed to the side to avoid the others. "Alright, first thing, what do you think of distance when doing magic?" asked Sambal. Raka thought for a while. "It becomes harder to do magic at a distance." "And why is that?" "Um...because you cannot perceive energy clearly at a distance." "Ok, so is the energy at the distance different from the energy close to you?" "No, all energy is the same after all!" "So, why can''t you perceive energy clearly at a distance?" "I don''t know. I thought it was natural that you can''t!" "It is natural, though in a different way than you understand!" Sambal added cryptically. "You see if energy is the same then perceiving it shouldn''t matter ideally. If you cannot perceive you can simply imagine it and perform magic and it should work because it is the same energy. For example like this mirror here. Lets say I want to set fire to the mirror, only the wooden frame would burn, but I can do it. Why does it matter if the mirror is in front of me or the next continent? Shouldn''t I be able to set fire regardless?" "Um...if you say it that way it sounds feasible. Maybe its because it is difficult to transform stable energies like that of the mirror over distance? Maybe it would require more focus or something." "In that case what is focus? Isn''t it simply concentrating enough to transform energy! Does it have to do with the distance the energy is being transformed at? "No. I think not!" Raka thought a little bit more, but he could not understand where Sambal was leading the conversation to. "Isn''t it the nature of magic which is stopping us from doing that?" Raka added. "Yes. The nature is the problem...but not the nature of magic." Sambal smiled before he continued. "You see nature limits us by our senses. The concept of distance is something which is defined by our senses. The things you see are near or far, the things you can feel like heat or cold are affected by distance. Same with hearing. Closer you hear things clearly, far away its difficult....etc! In all cases our senses and nature is defining distance." Sambal stopped for a moment to let it sink in. "Magic, however, does not have these rules. The transforming of energy a continent away has got nothing to do with and is the same as transforming energy a few metres away. But we still can''t do it. Can you guess why?" "Um...is that because of our perception of distance?" "Exactly. The concept of distance is deeply ingrained in us by nature since we were born. We apply this sense of distance even when we do magic. We can try so that it may not affect us, but it is so deeply ingrained that it becomes impossible to not think about it subconsciously. Even in our imagination, it becomes difficult to not think of it! We are the limits to magic!" Raka could understand but he knew he will never fully understand it without giving it a lot of thought. It made sense though when he thought about it a little. Sambal waited for a while this time, watching Raka process all this complicated talk. "So if by some means we are able to imagine that there is no distance, long range magic become possible. Which brings me to the concept of Bonding. Bonding allows us to connect two objects in such a way that hese objects could be considered as one. So even when we take these objects far away, we can still imagine them to be the same object and apply magic as usual. Communication magic as we call it, is just a simple application of Bonding applied on two mirrors. So lets begin with that."
Skill Bonding: You can now learn how to bond two objects. Bonding allows magic to link two objects in such a way that affecting one affects the other. Sambal offers to teach you the skill. Love this story? Find the genuine version on the author''s preferred platform and support their work! Requirements: Apply magic to create bonded objects.
"Have you learned how to embed energy into objects?" Raka nodded. "It is the same principle. Imagine that you are embedding energy in two objects at once. In this case the two mirrors." Raka did as he was told. It turned out easier than he expected. Not being able to perceive different objects became his advantage as he held the two mirrors together and could easily imagine them as one. He embedded energy into the mirrors. "Very good. These two mirrors are now bonded. To make things simpler, here give me a mirror!" Then Sambal took out a pen and started writing on the mirror. Lo and behold the same text appeared in the mirror Raka was holding.
You have learned the skill Bonding.
"Wow!" Sambal smiled, "Wow indeed! Now you can pass on messages. The second step that is actually being able to look at the other person, is a little difficult. For one thing, you need an element like water which is malleable. When you imagine the face of the other person or the location, the water will change to reflect that. To make it work as connected however, someone will have to apply the same magic on the other end, except they will imagine your face or location." Raka thought it was like making a video call except water acted as the client, like skype. Practically it was more like the bonding created a connection through which you can chat, and then water made the video possible. Or atleast that''s how he understood it. Raka opened one of his canteens and poured some water over the mirror, while trying to imagine Sambal''s face. Nothing happened! "Transform the energy into the water element! What are you doing pouring water over the mirror, you idiot!!" Well that would make sense but Raka had still not been able to use the water element yet. "I am sorry, I still have not been able to use water magic yet!" Sambal stared for a full minute.....then shook his head! "So lets start with transforming energy to water first, shall we!!" Sambal retorted! A couple of hours later, Raka was still not able to use water magic. "Well that''s all the time I can give today. You know the basics already, so now you just have to practice on your own. Once you pick up water magic, try communication as well. You can come and use the training area. Well anyways, deliver the letter first" saying which Sambal headed to the office and wrote the letter, while Raka waited outside. The letter done and sealed, Raka obtained the location of Cassian''s residence and then he was off. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Cassian''s residence was located in a quiet part of town. It was near the wall amongst a cluster of nondescript houses towards the gate on the other side of the city. There was no sign on the gate as if the person living here did not want to be found out. Having precise instructions helped, otherwise Raka was sure he would never have found it. He entered the gate which lead to a small yard, which had been surrendered to the weeds. He knocked on the door. Silence. Was the guy even in? Maybe he was out! Raka knocked again. Then a voice came out. "Who is it?" "I am Raka, sir!" "What''s your business here? If you are selling, I am not interested. If you are buying, I am not selling. If you are lost, I don''t know the way so get lost!" "Sambal sent me for Cassian, sir!" ......No reply! Then he heard the locks open. ''Wow this guy has too many locks on the door'' as Raka heard lots of clicking and whirring sounds. The door opened and a young man faced him. Raka was a little taken aback. ''This couldn''t be Cassian, the friend of Neona''s father. He is too young.'' The young man invited him inside and asked to follow him upstairs. Some creaking steps later they arrived into a hallway with a few rooms. The young man headed into one of them and Raka followed to find an old person lying on the bed. Light from the windows illuminated his face and he could see the several wrinkles formed on it. Looking closely, the guy did not seem as old as he looked. Maybe because of the sickness, he seemed older than he was. The young man approached the older man and in quiet voices said something. The old guy, woke up from his sleep and blinked his eyes to gather his bearings. Then the young man helped the older one to sit up. "Hi, I am sorry but Cassian is not in a situation to move a lot. Could you come closer so that you can hear what he speaks" the young man said. ''So the older guy is Cassian'' Raka thought as he moved closer and took a chair next to the bed. "Hello, I am Raka. Sambal, the Advisor for magic, sent me with a letter addressed to you" saying which Raka handed out the letter to Cassian. Cassian''s hands shook a little as he held the letter.
Deliver letter to Cassian complete.
Cassian slowly moved his hands to break the seal and then he read the letter. Finishing it he nodded and then started whispering to the young guy. "Thank you" Cassian said after a bit. At that the young man stood up as if to guide Raka out of the house. "Um...could I ask you something? Do you know Neona of Gurrow village?" The old guy raised his hand to stop the young man. "Yes. Why do you ask and how do you know her? ''Bingo'' "Actually I am one of her friends from Gurrow village. She was worried about you so she asked me to check up on you!" Raka replied. "Is that so? I am sorry she never mentioned you in any of her letters." "That is because we became friends recently. As you see I am one of the Goddess''s children and we appeared just a few months ago." Cassian nodded. "Also she gave me this ring, to prove I know her..'' saying which Raka brought out Neona''s ring. He had still not been able to identify it. Cassian gingerly took the ring in his fingers. He turned it around and around with a look which said he was remembering things of long ago. "Yes this is Neona''s ring. It brings back memories. It was her father''s originally. He had proposed to her mother with this ring. I remember it like it was yesterday...." and Cassian went quiet again as he delved into his memories. "Ah but that can wait. You are a guest and I haven''t even offered you water! Please excuse my rudeness" the young man said breaking the quiet. "Its ok. I wouldn''t refuse a drink but please call me Raka. I am no sir!" Raka replied. "Ah! If that pleases you. Raka, nice to meet you. My name is Taum. I am Cassian''s assistant." "Nice to meet you too. Um if I may ask, what exactly do you guys do?" Taum seemed shocked by Raka''s words. "You mean you don''t know? Why did Sambal send you then? Didn''t you sign the secrets agreement?" "Um maybe because I asked for it, because of Neona. Also I just signed it today so I wouldn''t know a lot of things now would I! Ofcourse you don''t have to tell me if it is secret." Taum seemed even more shocked hearing that. But, "No, its not much of a secret though not many people know about it. You see Sir Cassian is the spymaster or head of the Frumentarii(*google it) better known as the intelligence corps of Nation of Ilmentia. And I am his assistant." It was Raka''s turn to be shocked now. There was a spy agency in this world....that was kinda cool. "Can I join?" Raka said in an excited voice before he could think things through. Taum simply smiled while he heard laughter coming from Cassian. It seemed he had come out of his reminiscing at just the appropriate time. "It is not as exciting as you think!" Taum replied. "So you want to be a spy eh! Well I daresay you have the required courage what with being able survive the beastmen" Cassian spoke as he returned the ring. "But you are still too young and too inexperienced in the ways of this world. Travel the world, experience life, make some friends, earn some trust. And then maybe if you are still interested, you can apply for the corps!" Cassian said, still chuckling. Raka made a face. "I see how you became friends with Neona" Cassian laughed a little more. "Say, wouldn''t you drop down here and chat with me more. Have some tea at my house. I would like to hear more about Neona as well. Being a spy has its disadvantages, you never find open hearted people around! I will make it worth your while to spend time with an old man." Cassian said winking. Raka liked this old man. He did not know why but he felt a sense of familiarity like he had met his grandfather. "Yes I will come. I cannot come daily though. Also could you tell me how I can send word to Neona. I promised to tell her about you after all." "Do you know communication magic?" Taum asked. "No I actually haven''t learned it yet." "Then you need to head down to the pigeonhole. You can buy a pigeon to carry your message. It is just inside the palace gates. Just ask there and they will point it out." "Ah...but I was thinking of heading down to Gurrow and speak to her myself." "You can''t do that. Haven''t you heard? They have closed the road between Thelmova and Gurrow. "Ah I didn''t know. Is it because of the beastmen incident?" "Yes. And it is having quite an effect on Gurrow as well. It is a hunting village with no farming, and most of the things are carried over from Thelmova. But now with the road closed and the threat of beastmen, there is a distinct danger of running out of food and other necessary things, if this issue is not resolved before long." "Oh! Is there some way I can help?" "Oh don''t worry about it. We have enough forces to deal with an incursion of this level. Your help is not required this time" Taum answered. "Alright, now I should go." "Yeah come back another time. Its been a while since I have seen Cassian laugh." And Taum led him out the door. Raka headed down to the docks for another few hours of Salmonization or Salmonification or whatever you could call spending time with Salmon. And then he logged out. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy woke up in the morning to get ready for class. As was his routine he opened his laptop to do a quick check of the Long Island forums for anything interesting. This topic immediately caught his attention. It had become the most popular for a reason. "Event Quest: Help the village We, in the Gurrow village, have just received our first event quest called Help the village. It has two parts, one for people who have reached the age of 14 and can leave the village and the other for everyone else. The ones who can get out have got the quest to help capture the beastmen and they are going to join the guard led by Lady Altia and will be heading out. The ones left behind have got another quest to help protect the village while the guards are away. The difficulty is D+ for the event quest and the rewards are contribution towards the village. We are all very excited. So long have we felt regret of not starting in Dalmund but this makes up for it!!" "Holy shit...that''s awesome!" "Yeah wish I was there!" "Details, post some details!" ............... ............... Swamy just made a face. ''What was the phrase that went....you win some...you lose some...eh!'' Lunch and he got to listen to all the details of the supposed event quest from Manish and Himali who had turned Age 14 and had got the quest to capture the beastmen! "We got armor and weapons from the guards. By the way Manish graduated battle school so he got armor with options. The guard given ones don''t have the options but the defense is higher. I still haven''t learned magic though" Himali said. "But you got the strength stat even in the magic institute right!" Manish added. "Yeah that was really strange. Hitting dummies even in the magic institute gives you some stats, I never thought it would give me the strength stat or even the agility stat! Though it did take me a really really long time...I am happy!" Himali said. "Yeah I got that too...apparently hitting dummies for a really really long time is enough for the strength stat. But how do you get agility. I still haven''t got it yet though I got the magic skill just yesterday. Its really fun learning to do magic...but girl..it hurts like hell if you fail!" Sneha said excitedly. "Yep, I got the strength stat too and I think my instructor is impressed enough that I can now graduate soon. I have been of age for a while now and I am so eager to go out. Was just waiting for the strength stat and lo and behold I got it" Rajan said. "Um Himali, your agility stat, you simply got it from hitting dummies?" asked Swamy with a rare question. "Ah Swamy you started in Gurrow too right. I almost forgot about it. You know you can come find us if you need help" Himali replied, and it was assumed that Swamy needed help. "Ah yeah..I will ...thanks for the offer! But the agility stat?" "Yes I am not sure how I got the agility stat really. I was just busy in my head with the thing at my dance school and I was pretty much thinking about it when I was hitting the dummies. I think I might have danced a bit or something I was so involved....." Himali answered giggling. "Anyways somehow I got the agility stat." "I should try dancing like you did. Maybe I will get the stat as well. My club moves ain''t that bad you know!" Rajan said. "Haha....yeah I have seen that! I agree..it is just not bad!" Sneha added. "Anyways I can''t wait to see what happens in the event quest you guys have. Its like D+ so you guys must get a lot of contribution if you succeed. Not to mention you get to step outside." "Yeah also I wanna look at the beastmen! They could be the second race in the game. Maybe the quest will unlock it!" "Wonder what kind of abilities they have.... ............... ................ And the talk went on about how excited they were and what else they will do, etc. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The next time Raka logged in, he headed towards the pigeonhole. The palace was huge and grand. It shone in the sun as if it were made of gems. ''It just might be!'' He reached the gates and found it guarded. "Halt! State your business?" "I have come to use the pigeonhole." "Use the small gate over there, turn right immediately." Raka entered and found a building full of pigeons. All kinds of pigeons. All colors of pigeons?! ''Wait, could you have so many colors of pigeon!'' Raka moved in to the huge reception area having several counters and manned by as many people. The pigeonhole was packed with people sending mail. There was a huge board with prices written on it. Grey pigeon - 15 coppers, Pink pigeon - 30 coppers, Blue pigeon - 45 coppers....! The grey pigeon which looked like the one in the real world was the cheapest. He approached a counter and asked about the details. "Grey pigeon, max distance 10 leagues, max weight 1 stone, chance of getting lost 50% speed 3 leagues a day, Pink pigeon, max distance 15 leagues, max weight 1 stone, chance of getting lost 40%, speed 4 leagues a day, Blue pigeon max distance 10 leagues, max weight 2 stones, chance of getting lost 30%, speed 4 leagues a day".......so on and so forth! The costliest bird was the gold pigeon aptly named as it cost 10 gold, max distance 15 leagues, chance of getting lost 0%, max weight 4 stones, speed 5 leagues a day. Raka paid 5 silvers for a silver pigeon, max distance 10 leagues, max weight 1 stone, chance of getting lost 10%, speed 4 leagues a day. He hoped the odds were good enough. He rolled his letter and put it in a container tied to its leg. Looking at the container it seemed too big for the bird. But it lifted off efficiently and went heading towards Gurrow.
Check up on Cassian complete.
And then he went to the docks. He still did not learn the woodworking skill today. But thankfully Salmon was too busy to shout much. After he was done he headed to the training area in the Magic Academy to try and get the water magic working. He also practiced Bonding. He very soon found out that Bonding is also based on imagination. If you cannot imagine the things you are bonding to be one and the same, it won''t work. And then he headed to Cassian''s home for tea. Taum opened the door and led him to Cassian and then excused himself by saying that he had to run an errand. With Cassian in the house, Raka offered to make the tea. He soon found the kitchen and the ingredients in one of the cupboards. Making the tea he brought them upstairs to Cassian. They sat there sipping tea for a while in soothing silence. "So tell me, how did you meet Neona?" asked Cassian. "I found Neona when I went to beg food from her. She was kind and gave me food many times after that. And then when I started talking to her...I found her to be a really friendly person. Well that''s how we became friends anyway." "Oh..... ..... ..... And the talk went on about this and that. There is just something about a spy. He is very good at getting information out of people. Raka realized it later, but he talked about a lot....and the old guy about very little. Mostly Cassian listened and smiled and laughed and seemed interested, while Raka spoke about his experiences. About Altia, Verina, Neona, Salmon...about his attempts to learn communication magic and other miscellaneous stuff. He did appreciate Raka''s conundrums about women though, giving gory and rosy details about the women in his life while Raka listened with both ears and eyes wide open. It happened when he was about to go. "Alright so I should go for today. I will come again." And Raka stood up to leave. "Why don''t you spend a few more minutes. You have brought joy to an old man''s dying moments." "I have been meaning to ask you but Neona said you were recovering. You don''t seem to be recovering?" "Ah...there is not much I can tell you, but I was poisoned. Its a poison with no antidote so eventually I will die. The healers in the palace can atleast delay the effects. That is why you see me sitting here and talking to you. It was far worse before but one of the healers got lucky in his treatment. Giving me some more time." Raka was sad. "Neona is like my own daughter now. But I have not been very good at taking care of her. Its just a letter or two every month between jobs which connects me to her. I always eagerly wait for her letter, if you can believe me. It is the shine of innocence and honesty in the darkness of lies and treachery of our world. Which is also why I do not wish to dampen her light with my sad news. I was really ill before, but I got a bit better. I knew she would try to find out through other sources so I had Taum keep an eye on her for a while. I found the merchant she asked and let Taum give some information about me. I was planning to do the same with you!" Raka did not know what to say. "I changed my mind however, after I met you. Friends are what you need in life. They carry you over tragedy and accompany you in happiness. Neona, despite being friendly does not have true friends in her life. I hope you will help her get over me, when I pass away!" Raka felt sad but nodded. "Do not be sad. It is the nature of life to begin and end. But it does allow us to have fun in between. Which reminds me, I did say I will make it worth it, didn''t I?" Cassian said smiling. "Bring the mirror, its in the room on the right...." he said. Raka did as he was told and brought the mirror. "Place it on the wall, you see that unused nail there..." Raka did as he was told. "Bring me some water will you..." When Raka brought him a glass of water, Cassian took the water and threw it on the mirror. "You said you have been learning communication magic. Well then you know you don''t need physical contact to do magic. And you will probably appreciate this" he said winking again. He waved his hand. The water shimmered like before and slowly a scene came up. Blurry, though Raka could tell it was indoors somewhere. Raka watched as the blurry scene cleared up just a little. Oh there was a tub so it was somebody''s bath. Then there was movement and a blurry shadow appeared slowly heading down to the tub. The curves and the figure....that definitely was a woman...entering the tub. Splish splash the water made sounds at the touch. Raka quickly turned to look at Cassian, mouth open in shock, unable to speak. He made a sound which sounded very much like a whimper and Cassian simply smiled putting a finger on his lips asking to not make a sound. Raka turned back to the mirror and his eyes were round like goggles. Thinking can be done later....what his head was being used for was imagining the sight happening before his eyes, filling in the blanks. Cassian waved his hands again and the picture disappeared. Raka still stared at the mirror with his eyes wide open, before he shook himself awake. "Wha.....How....EH!" summed up everything he had to say...or could say for that matter! "You liked that eh. I thought you would like it. This is an original magic I made after years of experimenting. It is a variation of communication magic, where you do not require the other side" Cassian explained. "Well it made perfect use for spying on someone. Ofcourse for a man like you, it could have more purposes than just one. Oh, by the way I sent a mirror to Neona, you know to check up on her once in a while. I did write to put up the mirror in the living room but she put it up in the bath for some reason!" ................... "Eh....eeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhhhhhh!!" "Well do you want to learn this...? Ofcourse if it conflicts with your morality and you refuse, I will understand. And its a official secret as well. Just a handful know about it and so far I know, only I can perform it successfully. Ofcourse I am just talking about Ilmentia. You may find similar magics abroad. So are you interested?"
Skill Peek (secret skill): You can now learn to use Bonding in a different way to allow variation on the connection between objects. It is an original magic developed by Cassian so only he can teach it. Cassian names the magic Peek. Cassian offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Perform Peek without help from Cassian. The skill is classified as a Secret and the Official Secrets Agreement applies. Teaching the skill to others is not allowed.
''This ****ing perverted old man ..............is a genius!'' "Yes I am!" Raka said with a broad toothy grin. "Just one thing though....do not tell Taum! He does not know about this." Raka nodded in agreement. He intended to keep it a secret from everyone! Next Chapter Chapter 18: The Good, the Annoying and the Irritating The Night Life. A term Swamy heard long ago and understood much later. Swamy was thinking hard on all the experiences he had so far as he wrote another paper due in class. And he was astounded by the behaviour of the npcs in the game. Not that he did not like it or enjoy it, but he came to realize that there was something else at play here. After all, when Cassian showed his Peek skill he did not need to show Neona''s bath. For Swamy, the experience was amazing but the thing was, it was not required. He could have easily shown the next room to display its workings. Why then the particular experience. And what about the kisses he got from Lady Verina and Lady Altia. He could understand how intimacy worked and maybe he had gotten close enough to them. It could also be possible that their personalities came into effect. But if you think about it rationally, the experience, while enjoyable to some, could be treated as harassment by others. It could cause innumerable legal complications and should not generally be allowed. What if a female child is playing the game, such behaviour could be considered rape. However nothing of that sort had come up so far. Even after players started getting blessings. A male npc just swooping to kiss a female player, kid or adult, would probably put a million dollar or rupee harassment case in any court in the world. Not to mention the male players could feel the same way as well. So what was it? While thinking hard, Swamy remembered a term he had heard long ago. The night life. Ofcourse he was too small to understand what it meant at that time. After growing older, he finally figured out what it was. The night life was becoming a part and parcel of many virtual reality games. Exclusive content or facilities to be enjoyed by adults or 18+ people. A room which allowed two players to sleep together or a hot water spring which allowed bathing together or even simply taking off your clothes in private, was possible due to this. However, those were the extremes. It could simply be consumption of alcohol or smoking. All of which would form the experience for adult players. ''It could be this night life which is affecting some of the behaviour of npcs towards players. The Peek skill too, I am sure, will have limitations if one were to peek on underage npcs. It might not even work on the player houses or there might be some system setting for that. That doesn''t explain everything though.'' It was the concept of choice and permission. The system may have a lot of different attributes to determine the compatibility between two people, be they npcs or players. But at the end, what really matters is choice. That is an incalculable factor. You could try guessing it based on as many factors as you want, but there will always be the slight probability of being wrong. Wherein comes the permission. When initiating such activities, people could always ask permission which would permit the system to allow such behaviour. Some of the things which happened to Swamy in the game, could be attributed to him being 18 years old. The other thing about choice and permission was still worrying him though. In the end he decided that probably the reaction from the other party, in this case himself, when such an action was initiated could be an indication of whether it was permitted. It could also be a result of many factors but in case the system is confused on the reaction, it could either stop the action or simply ask permission. It should work both ways in that case. ''Well its just how I would do this, but there could be something different at play here achieving the same results.'' However, there were too many probabilities in these thoughts to put in a paper due in class. In the end Swamy wrote on the properties of magic in the game. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Caterpy and Diggeron were two players who were eagerly waiting to get out of the gate at Gurrow village. They had been excited to finally reach Age 14 and start their own adventures. And just as they thought of leaving, the event quest had started. To capture the beastmen. Caterpy was wearing the gear loaned to her by the guards while Diggeron, being a battle school graduate, got his own gear. A chest guard, gloves and boots. Each plain and sturdy though Diggeron''s gear had some options. Both of them received the weapon of their choice from the guards though. Diggeron chose a sword. Caterpy a bow. The two of them were experienced virtual reality gamers having played other games. They knew how to handle and use the weapons in their hands. "So when do you think we will start Manish?" "I don''t know but it should be soon enough. I guess they are just waiting for Lady Altia to arrive. And do call me Diggeron in the game. Its no fun choosing a name if I am going to be called by my real name regardless." "Yeah yeah...but why did you choose Diggeron again. Its not easy to say is it?" "What''s difficult about it...its digger~digger~diggeron! See it even sounds musical!" Caterpy sighed. Diggeron or Manish had this weird habit of getting into character in any virtual game he played. A warrior, sage, knight...or what else. Caterpy or Himali liked that side of him. In reality he was a cool guy, a bit dreamy or aloof from the world. But nevertheless a good guy. On the other hand in the games, he lived his dreams of being the characters, he dreamed of in the real world. This time his character was a bit weird though. Not having a class in the game he had decided his own class and acted accordingly, which was slowly causing an ache in Caterpy''s head. Diggeron was a digger of unknown treasures yet to be found. Or atleast that''s how he explained it to Caterpy. All she wished though, was to have a digger-off switch sometimes. "Ah there is Lady Altia now. And Lady Verina is with her too. Will she be coming with us as well?" "Dunno. But she isn''t wearing armor or anything to fight." "But its surprising that there are so many people here, isn''t it! Never thought so many players reached the Age of 14. I recognize some who I have seen going out the gate as well." "Yeah it seems they stuck around instead of going to the capital." They were standing near the gate towards the road to Thelmova along with a lot of other players. "Alright all those who chose to join, if you have not got your equipment proceed to the guard office on the side and meet us outside the gate. Everyone else step out and follow Lady Altia outside." The group of people followed Lady Altia outside the gate. There were scores and scores of tents pitched outside. And then they saw the hundreds of fully equipped soldiers standing in military parade formation as if waiting for an inspection. Two soldiers who looked like they were in command approached Lady Altia and Lady Verina. "Well are we ready to move out?" one of them asked. "In a moment Emilius. Any new reports?" answered Lady Verina. "None Lady Verina. I expect the beastmen to be heading in the same direction or the scouts would have notified us." "Alright. Thank you Emilius." "Well we better get the Goddess children sorted into rank and file. Come on Emilius, Maltus........" "Alright you lot! Fighters follow me, Archers with Captain Emilius here. Staff users, you will have to exchange your staff for spears so follow Captain Maltus here!" Lady Altia spoke loudly in a commanding tone. Caterpy and Diggeron separated as one followed Emilius and the other followed Lady Altia. There were only a few staff users, probably magic school graduates. They followed Maltus. Quickly they were sorted into various companies under different sergeants and they joined the parade formation as it steadily grew larger. "Alright hear me and hear me well!" Lady Altia''s strong clear voice quieted down all the commotion going on. Every soldier, npc or player was listening to her speak. "A lot of you have heard of why we are here. Beastmen have infiltrated our island for some unknown reason. But that is not why we are after them today. They attacked people who were travelling the road killing all without cause. This is why we are after them today." There was silence as Lady Altia looked around. "Some of you are experienced in fighting, while some of you are not. But trust me on this. No one should underestimate the beastmen. They number 6 and we are about 300. But do not think we will win easily. They hide in the forest. The forest is their playground and our disadvantage. For those who do not know, beastmen are strong. They are fast. They have an animal''s sense of sight, smell and hearing. And only the most skilled or the most foolish ever confront them in the forest irrespective of the number." More silence but this time some people were definitely fidgeting. Caterpy, on the other hand, was excited. She knew Diggeron would be excited as well. Ofcourse if you died, the quest would end for you. But otherwise it would be their first fight in the game. Success or failure didn''t matter at this point, all they wanted was to go wild. Release all the frustrations built up in more than 2 months of playing but not being able to leave the village. She simply wished that it would begin. A lot of other players might be wishing the same. "Fighting in the forest is difficult, specially because the trees, bushes, shrubs make good hiding places. Also they restrict your view ahead so it makes it difficult to avoid traps. Most of all, you cannot march side by side as you have been taught." Atleast the npc soldiers were definitely fidgeting by now. "But I will still ask you to face them with me. They are the enemy. They are the threat to anyone who plies this road. They are the threat to every being living in the village, your family, your friends, your countrymen! A soldier signs up to protect and we will protect the peace and the innocent lives of this island till our last breath, till the last man or woman capable of still holding a sword. But I do not ask you to die. I ask you to kill these filthy beastmen so they cannot threaten us anymore!" Lady Altia''s voice was not loud this time. But still everyone heard it clearly. The captains took out their swords and raised it above their heads. Slowly other soldiers started doing the same. When almost every weapon was in the air, "Lets kill those bastards! HUA!" The captains shouted together. "HUA! HUA! HUA! HUA! HUA!........" and the soldiers repeated raising their voices sky high. The players joined in the excitement. "HUA HUA HUA...." went Caterpy with her bow raised. Out of the corner of her eyes she saw Diggeron raising his sword and shouting loudly as well. The commotion died down abruptly as Lady Altia raised her hand. "Now we will divide into 3 groups of 100 people each. Group 1 will follow the commands of Lady Verina and will guard the village. Group 2 will be the main force consisting of me, Emilius and Maltus. Group 3 is our back up and will start 1 hour after us." "For fighting in the forest, we will split into teams of 10 each. You will make into the forest in waves, each team following the other closely behind. There will be no formation other than that. Every 2 hours you will take a break. The enemy is moving so expect to wade through the forest for some hours. Prepare accordingly. The rest will be explained by the captains." Emilius moved front and shouted. "We cannot use horses so travelling will be slow. Also the deeper you go the thicker the forest will be. The first team will be led by me. Maltus''s team will be covering the rear. In case fighting breaks out, find the nearest team and band together. Sergeants in charge will act according to situation so the new recruits, listen carefully." And Emilius looked at all the Goddess''s children. "We do not know how the enemy will move once they realize that we are after them. So always be ready for an ambush. And be careful of any traps. Once a team makes contact with the enemy, the teams leading and following behind will attack from the sides. The rest will then fill in covering the rear as well. Our best bet is to trap them in a box formation. Each side will have multiple teams in support so that they can be used in rotation. If one falls, immediately take his place." Emilius explained the strategy they will be using. But mostly it will be the sergeants who would be applying the strategy, the rest would simply follow orders. "That''s it then. Pack up the tents and leave them here. You won''t need them in the forest. We leave in 20 minutes. Get moving!" Some time later, they were divided into teams and headed to the forest. Caterpy was in the 5th team while Diggeron was in the 3rd, both in group 2. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka was still trying to create water magic. It sounded exciting knowing he could learn to communicate using mirrors and also the Peek skill. But the basis of both pieces of magic...was water. Without it, he couldn''t do a thing about them. Raka wondered why it was so difficult. Magic was complicated in the sense that following certain rules, it depended on the imagination of the magician to take effect. So the problem was Raka''s imagination. After all he was transforming energy as he was used to. He could easily imagine air and earth. Even fire, though a bit whimsical, worked. It was not that the elements were easy but he could imagine them as separate, being able to move or act on their own. Just like you can imagine a rock or wind. Even fire, because he could imagine his staff or paper catching fire. It didn''t matter one of them being made of metal, even metals could burn. Being able to burn would depend on how hot it is and availability of air. But how does water act independently. You can have it in a bowl or in some shape in a container. You can shoot it out from a pipe, the pressure increasing its speed. You could even think that water can become ice which would be kindof independent of the other elements. Water can become steam, which is lighter than air so you can imagine it flying in the air or other stuff. But what do you do with plain water. He couldn''t simply imagine energy stored in a bowl. He tried perceiving that but the bowl and the inside looked the same. It was more like water being stored in something made of water. Raka sighed. In short, Raka was affected by the real world logic. Magic may be a completely imaginary thing, but you still have to imagine the way it takes shape. And that imagination is based on your experiences. For example a Fireball. Ofcourse no one imagines it as round like a ball. But rather like a piece of round wood or cloth which caught fire and you throw it. People who frequently play virtual reality games might not have this problem. In other games, the skills would automatically create a fireball and they could look at it. So imagining a fireball would be no trouble. This acted like a two edged weapon though. Once you see something acting in a particular way, it shapes your mind. When you mention Fireball next, everyone will think of the thing they saw. In this game however, the name was irrelevant. Just a tool to aid your focus or imagination. Raka could name his magic Dragonball and it would still shoot out a fireball if he imagined it right. And so he stared at the bowl full of water, trying to imagine....water! The only water magic he had seen so far; Sambal wearing it like a glove and then putting it on the mirror. Cassian didn''t even need to do that, he simply threw the water on the mirror. Raka was desperately trying to imagine water sticking to his hand like a glove. But his brain subconsciously raised shackles which would make it fail. Raka was getting tired of his attempts. It was like learning how to perceive energy all over again. Learning something abstract is very difficult and tiring. Giving up he decided to head down to Salmon''s place to do some work and hopefully get the woodworking skill. "PUT YOUR BACK INTO IT, YOU NINCOMPOOP! DO YOU SEE the thickness of the wood? It would take all DAY with the speed your going!" Raka made a painful face at hearing the unusually loud voice. It could even permeate inside the ear plugs he was wearing to cut down on the noise of the workshop. He did his best to learn the basics and he was now working inside the warehouse instead of the garden. Woodworking was another skill which was not as simple as it sounded. ''Why is everything so difficult!'' he often wondered. He thought that learning it, would allow him to make wooden weapons and it probably could. But what he was learning now, was how many types of wood there are and how to treat each wood. How to measure and cut it to specification using a tape measure. And then how many many many places wood is used on the ship. His role was to treat and shape the wood for the parts of whatever was being made or repaired. Different types and shapes of wood were required for everything from chairs, tables, drawers, casks, cupboards and other household items to wooden rails, ship hulls, masts and rudders. Atleast it was adding to his knowledge. Ships in the game, or atleast ships which he saw so far, were made of wood but had iron planks bolted on the bottom to protect the hull from damage from rocks or reefs or other things. Complicated in design, they were made of many parts. What he also found out that the ships were operated by guilds. He assumed they were merchant guilds but they were simply called guilds. These guilds did a lot of stuff. From trading to providing protection and travel. The interesting thing though, was this. Large guilds operated out of a fixed office on some island. They usually had two or more ships of different types and capacities. However there were smaller guilds which operated out of a single ship. They did not have an office on an island. Their ship was treated as their base and office combined. Just their ship and guild were registered as belonging to some country. ''Could the same be true for player guilds?'' He remembered Christopher talking about a guild base and this fact fit perfectly into his information. ''So smaller player guilds can simply buy one ship and treat them as their base. But larger player guilds will have to buy or rent an office on an island. Hmm, but maybe smaller guilds can do that as well, I suppose. Depends on which method would be cheaper. Though having your entire guild on one ship and travelling the world together, without worry of maintaining an office, does not sound bad either.'' Ofcourse, Raka had no way to verify this. He knew ships couldn''t be cheap. But for once, he did want to be part of a guild...not the big ones, just a small guild made of good people...adventurous people. Sailing the world of Long Island, getting into trouble, having adventures, seeing things. ''Maybe I should go check out the guild office later. I am sure anyone around here will know where it is. Docks people always do.'' "DONT STAND THERE DREAMING LIKE AN IDIOT! MOVE YOUR ASS!" which kinda ended the thoughts bringing in the real world, or the virtual world as ugly reality. A few hours later he left, heading to Cassian''s place for tea. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Some hours earlier... "Hi, I am Caterpy" she said introducing herself to the team. The team consisted of 4 players, 3 girls and 1 guy. And 6 npc soldiers who were all male. One of them was a middle aged man, a bit smaller than her but full of bulging muscles like a body builder. He was the sergeant. "Hi I am Malya" "Hey I am Deidre" "I am called Sammax" The other players introduced themselves too. By the way Sammax was the guy. All of them seemed to be archers. "Alright assemble and stand in a line. This is inspection!" they sergeant shouted. All the team members fell in line. The sergeant went around looking at armor and testing weapons. Finally satisfied, he said, "I am Sergeant Manuel. I am going to lead team 5 into battle. Do you have any knowledge of formation fighting?" he asked around but his main aim was to ask the players. "I have a little bit" answered Sammax but the others nodded otherwise. The npc soldiers simply nodded in affirmative. "Alright for those who do not know, I do not have the time to train you in the details. So listen closely to my orders. We have four archers, five shields. I will be using a bow or a shield depending on the requirement. When you face the enemy, shields move in front. Remember, these are not your usual full body shields. These shields are smaller, lighter and round as you can see, atleast they are easy to carry with one hand. Easier to carry in the dense forest. On the other hand, you will have to actually move it to block the blows." He looked around to see if everyone understood. "Archers, you will not always get a clear line of sight to the target, and it will not be good to hit our own on the other side. So we will be using a strategy called one direction heavy fire. You will concentrate only on firing in one direction, and only fire on my orders. Otherwise you will shoot at the target when its coming at you and not going the other away." The archers nodded in affirmative. "Alright, check your bags and your equipment once more. Take only the basics. Now we wait our turn to move out." Soon the first team led by Emilius entered the forest. Before he went he shook Lady Verina''s hand. Lady Verina was staying to guard the village and was simply here to wish everyone well. And soon one by one every team followed them. Caterpy waved a thumbs up as Diggeron left. And soon it was their turn to move into the forest. The four players were pretty excited, looking around what kind of forest it was. The trees, plants...somehow the animals did not approach. Maybe they were scared of the large party of humans coming in the forest but they hid themselves from their sight. "Oh could those be herbs..." some wondered. While the others thought on how to make potions or if there were any potions in the game. They hadn''t been given any, if there were. Slowly the forest grew denser. Trees grew closely together, the undergrowth was thick and sometimes muddy. Long grasses or shrubs started appearing with increasing frequency almost blocking the sights of the people. It was getting so bad that they could only see the one team ahead or behind them at any time. Which was probably the intention behind going like this....so that they did not get lost. While making way, Caterpy was also looking at the soldiers. They were wearing full armor unlike the players. On one hand they carried a short spear. While on the other they had this medium sized round shield. Some of the other soldiers carried swords as well. Sergeant Manuel also carried a sword. Maybe the ranking soldiers were issued swords while the rest were issued whatever weapon was necessary. The forest could be full of ingredients. Caterpy had learnt the cooking skill as well, so she was interested in what could be cooked. She had gone to the library to find out more about the island''s ingredients and hopefully get pictures of the plants and animals you could cook with and some recipes. She did not recognize anything so far. A couple of hours later, they stopped to rest. A few soldiers took out some bread to eat or water from their canteens. The players were doing the same, just that in their case there were more of other things than bread. About 15 minutes later they resumed. Caterpy did not know how far the beastmen were. Lady Altia had said they would have to wade through for some hours. Their progress was slow. Atleast the teams behind did not have to cut through the thick undergrowth themselves. The teams ahead were doing it for them. They just needed to follow the path they laid down. Still their progress was slow. The ones behind, not having any work to do, had slowly started chatting. Occasionally a louder voice could be heard. Considering that the beastmen had animal like hearing, Caterpy assumed that they would have noticed them already, if they were nearby. Suddenly, the sergeant''s hand was raised. Everyone abruptly stopped. The reason was the team ahead had abruptly stopped. The sergeant was on alert, and looking at him everyone tensed looking around. The same thing was happening to the other teams behind. After a few minutes, two almost quiet hoots sounded out from the team in front. Then one more hoot. It was so quiet that only the ones behind them, that is Caterpy and her team could hear clearly. Sergeant Manuel turned his head to the team behind and repeated the same hoots, again, as quietly as possible. Then he looked to his team and called them close. "Traps. The first team came across traps. From now on, be on guard and keep a close watch on where you step. If you have any suspicion, raise alarm by raising your hand....like this." And the procession continued again. Some time later and they had stopped a few more times on account of traps. Caterpy did not know what kind of traps they were encountering but she was getting suspicious. ''How come we are encountering traps so regularly?'' The beastmen could be aware that a procession of people was following them. But how could they be so sure of the exact path they were taking. Its not like they had the time to rig up multiple traps in the same location covering all paths. The forest was too wide for that. There was no way to guess whether the soldiers up front will walk only this way. The probability of coming across so many traps while moving.....pointed to one thing. That they could somehow, actually see them. And then an even more scary fact. They could somehow overtake them after seeing them, to lay down their traps. "Sergeant, I have a thought" Caterpy approached the sergeant quietly and spoke of her suspicions. The sergeant listened quietly and nodded. "Yes, I have had the same thought. But I think Lady Altia and the captains expected this. Which is why we are still continuing. Also the captains and Lady Altia divided their teams to the front, back and middle so maybe they are hoping for this as well. I think if the beastmen attack, they will attack the teams in the middle. So be alert" he replied. Caterpy moved to the other players and told them the words of the sergeant. They looked excited. On the other hand the npc soldiers were almost sweating with worry. ''That''s what not being able to really die does to you'' Caterpy thought. ''It turns a deadly situation into an exciting one.'' The teams were still walking slowly. Only the people who realized the situation, were looking all around carefully. The other players were still talking and chatting about this and that, unconcerned. The same situation continued for another 3 hours. Caterpy''s tension was almost at the max. She was feeling tired by now. Her mental state affecting her physical being. Even when it was just an hour ago that they had a little bit of rest, she was still looking around into the forest for anything suspicious. But they had entered the denser part of the woods. Visibility was very limited with the trees, brush, shrubs growing so thick all around. In fact it wouldn''t be a surprise if a beastmen was hiding behind that next tree while they sat just a few feet away. ''Maybe they are trying to tire us before attacking.'' Well if they were, they were succeeding. The npc soldiers were well trained but being alert cost them. The players who were also alert were slowly losing concentration. The others who were talking without a care in the world, were also tired....because of the heat. The denser the forest got, the hotter it became. And it was that sticky humid heat, you would get after the rain. Sweat stuck to their skin and their clothes without evaporating away, making it very uncomfortable. And then there were the bugs. Who knew that they would encounter so many bugs when they entered so deep in the forest. Tiny in size but great in number, almost like mosquitos, they buzzed around bothering and annoying people.
You have been bitten. Life reduced by 1, affected by slight itching effect for 10 mins.
"S**t! Not again!" Caterpy itched a little. She had stopped counting the number of times she was bit after it crossed 20. She did wonder about Life though. She correctly figured it was related to Health points in other games. She also figured out that it might be a stat or something related to a stat. ''Maybe something like vitality stat!'' Anyway, they still continued..... -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today Taum was present. So Raka and Cassian stuck to talking about other things. Cassian was a treasure trove of information. So long as he did not ask anything sensitive or classified. One of the things Raka was really interested in asking....how many races live in this world. "Well I don''t know how many. The ones I know of are the elves, orcs, forsyth, beastmen, dracones, cairns ...hmmm...what else....oh and then there are the goblins, dwarves, mer-people and the qsiti. Oh humans ofcourse. That''s all the ones I know about. Humans have traveled far but the world is larger still. I am sure there are tons of places we haven''t visited. And they could have their own unique inhabitants." Raka had heard of some of these races. Some he had not. "So could you tell me about them...like how they look and anything else?" "How they look eh. Not sure how to tell that. How would you describe a human? Well, if you are really interested in how they look, why don''t you check out the library. I am sure they have books on them." Raka wanted to bang his head on the wall. ''Ofcourse!....why didn''t I think of checking the library about this!!!'' Now that he got thinking, the library could answer a lot of questions. Its just that the last time he had been to the library he was learning the language and couldn''t understand the other texts. But now............ "So any more questions you got?" asked Cassian jovially almost as if it was fun to teach someone about the world. Raka thought for a bit. "Um...I am not sure if you will know this...but how come some people have pets...and other don''t? Like where is the pet shop anyway?" "Ah! well that''s easy. Its because pets are very expensive. Also they are not very useful. I tried keeping a bird once. But it turned out it was more of a bird brain than a bird...you get what I mean. The rich keep them just to show off their exotic pets. All they do is eat and sleep. They don''t even bite!" Cassian did not have a high regard for pets. Maybe that were so and pets were actually just status symbols. Or maybe this was just the case of Ilmentia island only. "You know in a far eastern island, they actually sell humans as pets?" Raka shivered at the thought. That was slavery. "Yes, that is another reason why we don''t like to keep pets....or most people don''t. A lot of races we do not understand or know about, are treated as exotic animals in various parts of the world. Pets as you call it" Cassian said icily. "On the other hand, people do have animals as friends though. A lot of dock workers have seagulls as friends. They let them know if a ship is coming and even about bad weather. I know a dock master over there who has a Craysian Eagle as a friend. Those are one of the really rare species of birds near the island. They can cross hundreds of leagues while they migrate. Everytime they migrate here though, it likes to come over and visit him. I think during those seasons he keeps his bird feeder out just incase. There are sea creatures who have befriended humans as well. Sometimes it helps a lot when you get into trouble at sea. I think the Queen herself has a whale as her friend. There is an interesting story. Once she was on a diplomatic mission and her ship''s rudder broke off in the storm. She called out to the whale for help...and the whale lifted the entire ship and carried it back to the island. Islanders were pretty scared to see a mountain approaching the island. They only calmed down when the Queen stepped out on the top." "So do any of the creatures stick around with you after you befriend them?" asked Raka still hoping. "Well, that''s something you will have to ask them, isn''t it" Cassian said gently. "I don''t know about the Goddess''s children though. Maybe you will find some who will follow you around. You do seem to be lucky in a lot of ways" Cassian chuckled. ''But wouldn''t that mean that they are the same as in the real world. Dogs and cats are different species, but to keep them as pets you have to love them and take care of them as friends. Isn''t that why you have dog lovers and cat lovers...I wouldn''t want them as slaves, but as friends. So the only thing was...not to call them pets!'' Raka understood what Cassian meant. Pets are not pets in the game....they are your friends and allies or enemies, just like other npcs. "Well if you really want one though, the pet shop is located near the docks....just two blocks before and towards the right. Its a fancy looking place, you can''t miss it." After his tea, Raka decided to visit the pet shop. His curiosity won out in the end even against the guilt of buying a creature...but he promised that he won''t be like those other people. He will love them and take care of them....and make them his friends. ''I will set them free and let them choose!'' The pet shop was a grand place. Perhaps it needed to be, to cater to the rich or its owner was really rich to afford such a place, he did not know. But as he walked into this white house made of marble and white pillars, it felt like he was entering somewhere important. The inside however was something out of a fantasy novel. A large hall full of cages....stacked on top of each other of all sizes. Some were even covered by dark cloth. Some were completely crated. The hall was growling, snarling, chirping, twirping, groaning, crying, eeking, slithering.....well almost any sound possible. Raka stared at every cage. When they said exotic, they meant exotic. Raka could not recognize any creature. He tried using his Identify skill, with no result. He had absolutely no information on them...for Identify to succeed. There were snake like animals but with wings, bird like but with opposable thumbs, dog like but tiny in size, tiger like but meowing with three tails...well you get the picture. ''Truly exotic!'' Soon a guy approached him rubbing his hands and smiling. "Hello honored sir. Welcome to Signer''s Exotic Animal Enterprise, I am Signer. I see you are one of the famous and legendary Goddess''s children. How may this humble servant help you today?" he said smiling with his perfect teeth. ''Hail Neona!'' Raka did not have much real life experience dealing with merchants like these. But thanks to accompanying Neona he had met a lot of different merchants in the game. He knew this was one of the flattery type of merchants. Which also meant that he had to be careful of not being duped. "Hello, I was looking at the fine animals you have. Are they all pets?" "Yes ofcourse. All of them are tame and guaranteed to not harm any human. Ofcourse you will have to keep them well fed or they could get a bit rowdy. Most have their canines and testicles removed and are well treated for disease so you do not have to worry" the man replied smiling some more. "Hmm...and what about prices?" "Well...a good pet costs money, you know. The more exotic and harder to find, the more pricier it becomes you know. Some of them have come from places so far off, that the transport cost is quite expensive. We also have to pay the hunters to capture them as well." The man explained all the ways it will cost more money. But Raka was not too worried. From all his time in the game, he had somehow managed to earn about 20 gold 35 silvers 15 coppers. He was hopeful that he would be able to buy atleast one pet. "So what is your most popular pet?" "Ah...you see. People do not like to buy a pet others have. We try to keep every pet unique because of that." "Hmmm...ah well in that case why don''t you guide me to the pets you have?" "Very well...please follow me, and what size of pets do you prefer? If you have any other preferences please let me know" "Hmm I don''t have any preferences just that their size should not be too big." "Ah perfect. This here is the Unicorse. Found mostly in the wild in an island far to the south, it is an intelligent and beautiful creature. See the soft white fur ..Also its a bit rare with three horns, usually you find with two horns only. You can ride it as well" as he pointed to a white pony but with three horns. ''Kinda like a three horned unicorn!'' "Hmm looks nice. How much is it?" "Ah it was painstaking effort by the hunters who were able to capture this beast. You see it is quite fast in speed. Also coming from so far away raises the price a bit, you understand. And then there''s tax. But especially for you I will offer it at a discount of only 2.5 million gold." .......................... "Sir..sir, are you ok? Do you want to sit? Do you want a drink...maybe its just the sun?" "Huff huff....ah no... I am alright...maybe its just the stuffy air in here." "Ah would you like to step in my office for a bit. It has windows so you may feel better there." Raka nodded and followed him to the office. The fresh air from the windows made him feel a little better. ........All this time there was this voice inside him which sounded strangely like the pet shop guy repeating in ever increasing tones.....''2.5 million......milllON...millION....milLION....MILLION~'' ''IS THAT EVEN FAIR!!!'' Raka was stumped. He knew the pets were expensive but this! Lets just say he did not have the words to describe his feelings at the moment. This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. "Ah thank you..I feel much better. I am curious about your range though, how much is the cheapest pet?" "Oh...our prices usually start from 15000 gold. But the cheapest we have right now is only for 49,999." ''Fifty thousand gold for the cheapest pet! How much money do the rich people have?!! Is there a thief skill to steal their money!!'' Ofcourse, if it were that convenient no one would be rich in the first place. "Hmm...well thank you. But the prices here are a little too expensive for my taste..." "Ah please don''t be discouraged. Please tell me how much you are willing to spend. I will try to see if I can adjust my prices." "20...." "20,000, is it? Hmm it might be a little difficult at that price. But I may have something for you in the warehouse...please wait a bit and I will ask it to be brought...." "Um...." "Yes sir?" "Um....see..." The man tilted his head worried but still smiling. "I only have 20 gold." The smile was still there but somehow his eyes were dead. The man stood there like a statue for a few moments. And then.... "Ah ah ah...I am deeply sorry that I do not have anything in that range sir...." and then he coughed loudly, but Raka seemed to hear ''cheapskate''. "Why don''t you participate in the High Rise Pet Lucky Draw, sponsored by our shop? The first prize is a random pet." "Ah..do you have that. Well I would like to participate if I can." "Yes, here is the form. Please enter your details and drop it in the box outside." Raka did not like lotteries. They had extraordinary odds. Ofcourse with a merchant like this, he did not believe for one second that anyone would win. He guessed that it was just a polite way of saying...get lost! But Raka was trained by the legendary Neona. There is this saying....when things do not work with a straight finger....crooked make thy finger. "Hmmm well you know, as you said I am one of the famous and legendary Goddess''s children. Well not to say much about myself, but people say we have the Goddess''s own luck when it comes to things. We have been known to have some extraordinary abilities which I am sure an intelligent man, like yourself, must have heard. Well I am sure that in time we will grow quite rich and powerful.....owing to our abilities...." He paused for a bit looking at the man. "You see, once we do get rich, I am assuming a lot of us will come to you to buy their pets. Think about it. There are so many Goddess''s children on this island...." He paused a bit more...and the man was hooked. Raka could imagine his brain cogs whirling rapidly as he started calculating all the money he will make. "But ofcourse....people do say stuff about the treatment they get at places you know, good things if they are treated well, bad things also....well I guess we can still buy from the pet shops on other islands." Raka made a sad looking face. He quickly said, "Well, I guess I will try my luck in the lottery. See ya!" and Raka turned around to go away. He had walked maybe a couple of steps when, "Please hold on, dear sir! Now that I remember there are a couple of pets I haven''t been able to sell for long...why don''t you take a look at them. Maybe one would be to your liking?" his eyes were shining again and the smile was still there. "Ah...is that so. Thank you for taking pity on a poor soul. Please I would like to see them." The man hurriedly went out the office Some time later, he returned followed by two men carrying two small cages which they put on the table. The cages were covered with some cloth. The owner nodded to the men and they left. "Ah here they are sir. This..." and he pulled out the cloth from one cage, "is a Parrot. Quite an intelligent bird sir. Look at the colors, green, red and a little bit of blue and purple here. Very beautiful. It can also talk...say something to our customer...Parrot!" The parrot looked like a really exquisite bird, but still looked like a parrot. Raka had seen them in real life but those ones were small normally yellowish green in color. This was a much more bigger and colorful bird with long feathers. Raka expected a parroty cackling voice, but a deep manly voice came out. "Oh dear, you do not have nice clothes do you. Look its filthy and torn, why don''t you replace it!" Raka was astounded. It was an insult. But a bird that can talk. It should be a novelty. ''Why didn''t it sell then?'' "And this here is..." and he lifted the cloth from another cage, "is a flat faced monkey. It looks a bit ugly compared to the parrot doesn''t it. Well it is good at copying what others do...you know imitate them." The monkey did not look too well. But still copied Signer''s movements. Signer lifted his hand and the monkey lifted his hand, he lifted another....the monkey did the same. But then seemingly getting tired, he laid down on the floor of the cage, licking at the water bowl. The monkey was about 2 feet in length, and almost looked like a chimpanzee. But it had a longer tail like other monkeys. Oh and his face was flatter than a real life monkey as well. "Hmm so which will you choose, honorable sir?" Raka thought for a bit. The parrot looked magnificent and healthy. And it could talk. Maybe if he befriended it or him, he could become a partner for Raka. He could imagine himself getting a friend in that parrot. He then looked at the sickly monkey. Maybe he should save it instead. It couldn''t talk but it would be a noble thing to do. Maybe it will become his friend if he nursed him back to health. And it could imitate. Maybe it could learn skills by imitating. Maybe it could learn his battle forms by imitating. A fighting monkey....well he had heard of monkey style kung fu which seemed to have originated from observing monkeys. Raka was still undecided on what he would choose. Suddenly the parrot spoke, "Kind sir, would you like to hear of a tragedy, a ballad of epic proportions" Was the parrot a singer? "Ah the melancholy draws my soul to speak out..... AAAAAAAAAAAHHHHH~~~~~~~~" and with its manly voice he started singing opera. 5 seconds later he had ascended to a very very high note. Raka was stunned....no literally stunned.
You have been stunned. Effect lasts 5 seconds.
Raka had read about opera singers who could shatter glass. This was his first time hearing them though....and it was bad. It literally did break the glass of the mirror and the glass of water on the table. "STOP! STOP THIS AT ONCE!" Signer shouted quickly putting the dark cloth back on the cage. The sound stopped. Raka couldn''t move for 5 seconds. When he could, "Identify"
[p=center]Annoying Parrot[/p] Class: ? Parrots are native of Araya island and several species of the bird may be found there. They are known for their intelligence and quirky personalities. They are fast learners and often travel to other places in search of their aspirations. This parrot has learned 15 languages. This parrot aspires to be a singer but due to its bad music sense it has been deemed annoying by the others. Languages learned: Language of Ilmentia Island, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?
[p=center]Imitating Monkey[/p] Class: ? Monkeys have an unknown origin. They can be found inhabiting several islands. Intelligent and quick learners. There are several species of the Monkey. This particular species learns by imitating actions. They are also known for having a strange sense of humor. This monkey is sick right now.
Raka quickly stood up and said, "I will take the monkey, thank you very much" taking out his money. "Ah, thank you very much. Would you like a collar as well?" "No. That won''t be needed. Say, it looks quite sick?" "Yes, it is just the weather of the island which does not suit it. We have given the required medication so it will recover in a few days." "Ah in that case, can I ask that you keep it here for 2 days? I will collect him on the 3rd day." "Yes sir, as you wish. Um, the food costs...." Raka took out 20 silvers and said, "Feed it well. I did not enquire but what is its gender?" "Ah this one''s a male, sir." "Ah, well then feed him well" and Raka turned around to leave. Just as he reached the door, he had a brainflash. "Say, when will I get the lottery results?" Raka simply said smiling. The man still smiled but Raka thought there could be some grinding going on. "In 3 days sir" the man finally said. Raka simply smiled some more. "Ah I will eagerly wait for the day. Oh and I won''t forget to say good things about you either." And then he took his leave still smiling. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ An hour later, Caterpy and her team decided to rest as scheduled. She was a bit tired of walking by now and she wanted to sit down but there was no clearing. They were still surrounded by dense woods. Rough grass and shrubs below. Some of the players decided to lean on the thick trunks of the trees to rest a bit. The rest did not care. They sat down anyway. Caterpy was one of them. It started suddenly. One moment they were resting. The next, people were screaming. And as everyone turned around to look, they heard the shout "Formations!" Sergeant Manuel was an experienced soldier who had put his life on the line. His reaction speed to these kind of situations easily surpassed even the veteran players. It was he who shouted the order. The soldiers accustomed to following orders reacted as soon as they heard. The players were slower. Caterpy quickly stood up and unhooked her bow from the sling she had made to hang it on her back. All soldiers carried a quiver in addition to their usual weapons. The archers carried two or more, as many they could manage. She quickly set up to fire an arrow. And she was one of the fast ones. A lot of the other players were still confused. Maybe that was because they still did not know, whether it was an attack or just someone falling in a trap. It couldn''t be helped as they had found so many on the way. ''Someone at sometime was just going to fall in...or that''s what the thinking would have become'' thought Caterpy. Thankfully there were still more soldiers than players. And they did not play around with their lives. Looking at them combat ready and serious, the rest of players hurried up. And a good thing it was as well. Because it turned out they were really under attack. More screaming but the sergeant of team 4 suddenly shouted. "Team 3, attack confirmed. Team 4 going center support." Sergeant Manuel then shouted, "Team 3, attack confirmed. Team 5 going right." The sergeant of the team behind shouted. "Team 3, attack confirmed. Team 6 going cover." "Team 3, attack confirmed. Team 7 going rogue" Lady Altia''s voice sounded. "Team 3, attack confirmed. Team 8 going cover support... She could not hear the other teams. Maybe they were too far away or maybe the forest was too thick to drown out their sounds. ''Diggeron is in team 3'' was the only thought in Caterpy''s head. But it was mostly an envious thought than an anxious one. Thankfully they did not make stupid men as sergeants. Each knew what to say and how to move. The first two teams she assumed had already moved into position. Now her team moved swiftly heading into the trees to make the right side of the box. And then she saw. In the time it took them to move.....team 3 was annihilated....by two wolf looking animals. But they were standing upright. ''So these are the beastmen.'' She saw Diggeron''s corpse on the ground. It still had not disappeared. Caterpy thought she had gotten used to seeing Diggeron''s dead body. After all he had died in other games as well. But no matter what she thought, she still felt irritated...and angry! That was the drawback of realism. Even dead people looked like dead people, atleast before they disappeared. But that could wait for now. She reminded herself that he is actually not dead and took a breath to calm down as they moved into formation. The wolf looking beastmen were strong. And fast. And they were killing as if the soldiers and the players were mere dummies for them to practice. One of them moved swiping at the nearest guard. He tried to raise his shield to block the blow but then got hit by the other clawed hand, in his stomach. Blood started oozing out of his stomach as the guard quickly pressed on his wound. And then the other wolfman reached him. The guard was as good as dead, but thankfully the other guards moved in just then with the shields and spears on the ready. Sergeant Manuel quickly let lose an arrow with a bow which magically appeared when he waved his hands. Caterpy knew about this magic used by residents of the village. Caterpy waited for the sergeant''s orders in order to shoot. She saw team 1 and team 2 appear straight ahead, on the left side of the box. "Archers, aim low at the beastmen. Fire!" Captain Emilius was shouting orders. A mass of arrows were shot and quickly covered the distance between them and the beastmen. The two beastmen quickly moved to dodge. One of them even caught an arrow with his hands and smashed it to pieces. The arrows were aimed low so they did not reach the wounded soldier and his companions but stuck the ground just around their feet. And the beastmen resumed their attacks again, so fast that the next two guards could not even raise their shields to block their throats which was cleanly ripped with one claw only. They then moved to the 3 players next to them who had brought out their swords. They did not stand a chance. Before one of them could finish their swing, one of the beastmen had moved to the side and punched the other player straight in the chest. The armor took some damage but the player was sent flying into a tree. He hit the tree so hard, that he did not get up again. The other beastman, almost acting in unison, did another punch...this time to the remaining players face. The player smashed down on the ground head first and did not get up again. The player who just completed his sword swing, stared with open eyes. They were not hunting beastmen....it was they who were being hunted. One hit to his abdomen to lower his head, and another to deliver the death blow and this player was also not moving. And then another round of arrows came from Emilius''s side. The soldiers were not lazy in setting up and firing. It was just that the beastmen were too fast at killing. They were like machines designed for killing humans. Team 4 had lost 5 people in the time it took for people to load an arrow. And then captain Maltus''s team arrived as support. Then the magic started. "Fire storm" Maltus yelled, as moving fire surrounded the two beastmen making a wall trapping them inside. Unfortunately it also hid them from view. And then his team members joined him. They did not say their words instead moving their hands and somehow their swords were shining. Soon it felt like their shine extended by a few feet. They quickly went in slashing at the wall of fire. For a moment it looked like craziness, people swinging shining swords at fire. But soon she heard painful cries coming from inside. Somehow those swung swords were making contact with the beastmen past the wall of fire. While Maltus and his team handled the two beastmen, Emilius was shouting orders to the other teams as well, getting them organized. He took the rest of team 4 into his team. But something seemed off. Team 5 had not fired a single shot so far. In fact, Emilius did not head out to help Maltus. As he was a captain himself, he should know magic atleast at a higher level. But he did not use it. And where the heck was Lady Altia. Caterpy looked around. There was one more team missing. Probably team 9. And teams 6 and 8 had still not formed the wall of the box. They were all still standing on one side, like a lid waiting to be closed. ''There is some sort of plan afoot here'' Caterpy guessed. It did not make sense for two captains and maybe someone who was even better to not go out full strength from the start. From what she saw, either these beastmen were really bad at magic. Or beastmen, as a race, could not use magic in general. Which made it their weakness. If the captains and Lady Altia, who could all use magic, had gone full out against them, casualties could have been reduced. And so they let Maltus''s team handle the two beastmen...who were still not dead but if Maltus''s magic held out, would be soon enough. The beastmen could avoid hits even inside the fire wall, but having 6 people poking their swords in, it would hit at some point. The rest waited...for something. Caterpy did as well. It did not take too long for her to discover the reason. Team 9 came running back from the direction where the box was open. "Archers" sergeant Manuel finally shouted, "aim in the cover direction. That is just behind the soldiers who came." "Yes sir!" and the four archers of Caterpy''s team turned around in that direction, string taught, arrows to be released any second. And then they appeared. More beastmen. There were three more wolfmen and one who looked like a cheetah or a leopard, with all spots. Four beastmen. They took a look at us and quickly separated, each heading to one side of the box. "Here they come, steady now, Fire!" yelled Manuel as he took aim as well. Five arrows shot towards the cheetahman approaching them. Similar orders were issued by other teams. The cheetahman dodged towards the middle, and the arrows all stuck the trees. He simply kept on running at full speed. At this rate Caterpy and team 5 would meet the same fate. Unable to do anything. But then like lighting, Lady Altia appeared in front. The players and even some soldiers could not believe their eyes finding Lady Altia in their midst. A lot of them probably had one thought in their head. ''How did she get there?'' Caterpy thought. One moment there was nothing and then next Lady Altia. Fortunately, the cheetahman seemed shocked as well. He growled and then probably considering Lady Altia to be a bigger threat, attacked her. She on the other hand, waited for it to approach and then turned to head out of the box. The cheetahman followed. Somehow, this became a trigger for everything. Soon every soldier started using magic or embedding magic on their weapons like all the waiting and sacrifice had been for this very moment. The wolfmen who approached the other teams were surprised. It seemed like almost everyone gained a level instantly and could now block the beastmen''s blows without being blown away. But they were still stronger. It seemed the first two were just scouting and the rest were observing. Once they learned of the tactics employed by the humans they attacked full force. They separated so as not to be caught in a similar area of effect magic. It was then, captain Emilius moved and engaged the incoming wolfman. They clashed violently, the sound of claw hitting metal resounded. None broke. The wolfman was stronger but Emilius embedded fire onto his sword with a flick of his fingers. The fire roared forcing the wolfman to back off. Emilius quickly changed his magic and a wind surged from the tip of sword, cutting plants, trees and wolfman alike. It seems beastmen skins are tougher. The wolfman only got a light cut from that. It growled. In the meantime other teams were handling the other two wolfmen. And it was tough. The soldiers had all gotten a bit stronger but only that much. They were still unable to defend against beastmen strikes, which killed without exception, if it got through. "Archers...fire!" Manuel shouted the moment one of the beastmen seemed to be going out of the box. Caterpy''s arrows were accurate enough and did hit the beastmen without causing much damage. But the arrow still attracted his attention. He changed targets and swiftly approached them but then the other team fired arrows at him. The wolfman growled a shout of great rage, like flies were annoying him. But his rage was also reducing his reason. He was dancing back and forth between the two teams who constantly fired arrows on him. But that only lasted for a minute. Finally deciding, he attacked the other team. "Fire!" Manuel shouted again and Caterpy''s arrow again found its mark. But this time it was ignored. Another kind of emotion bubbled up in Caterpy''s mind. She was not even considered an enemy. Pissed off, she shot another arrow, but by the time it reached, the wolfman had decapitated the head of a soldier with one smash of the hand, his head went off flying...helmet and all. Blood spurted out from the neck shooting upwards like a fountain. Caterpy felt like vomiting. The excitement she felt before was gone. There was just too much blood around. It seemed getting angry made a beastman stronger. He was ignoring pain, ignoring attacks laced with magic and simply went on a rampage killing whoever it could reach. If his hands reached armor, the soldier was sent flying. If it reached skin, it drew blood. Even the other wolfman did not approach the enraged one. It looked like even he was afraid of that. Maybe in that state they could not tell friend from foe. And then the sergeants acted. Manuel shouted, "Keep formation, attack in the same direction when they look like escaping. Saunders you''re in charge!" and a soldier shouted, "Yes Sir." The command given, Manuel rushed to intercept the enraged wolfman. Each team had a sergeant rank soldier. 4 of them headed to stop the insane wolfman before he destroyed them all. The other 2 banded together to take the last, still sane one. While the other soldiers tried to get in close enough....to pull back the injured soldiers and the dead bodies out of the way. Caterpy felt useless. Her arrows did not damage them. Even if they did, she could not shoot in the middle of the fighting. She might hit another soldier. At various places where players had been killed, white lights started shining as they disappeared. Even Diggeron disappeared. She still stood though, in the middle of the carnage. Three teams had been wiped out completely. Another two almost lost half their number. And it was still going on. The two wolfmen were still alive inside the fire wall. Emilius was still fighting one wolfman alone. Lady Altia and the cheetahman and had gone somewhere along with her team. The sergeants were strong. But not so strong as to completely defeat a beastmen, which even a captain had trouble facing. The sergeants were putting their life on the line to save their fellow soldiers, but at the same time were fully aware that all they were doing, was buying time. ''Probably for Group 3 to arrive.'' But it would take a long time. It felt longer as so much had happened. But it probably had not been 20 minutes yet. And in the middle of that stood Caterpy, unable to do anything. She believed she had gotten stronger in the past 3 months. But now it felt like, she had wasted it. Caterpy would realise it much later, that she was not weak. According to the animals who surround the village, she would be quite strong. Just the beastmen she encountered, were so much more stronger. The fight continued in all its bloody glory. The sergeants had somehow managed to control the enraged beastman, giving the other soldiers and players time to focus on the one remaining. They attacked from the front. While Caterpy and the others shot arrows aiming at his feet, from the back. It was like fighting bosses in other games, with a level of 100 when you are just level 10. The main damage was being done by the soldiers who were at a higher level. Some players also seemed to get some damage in....perhaps reduce his health by a few points. Even Caterpy''s arrow was causing pin prick like cuts on the beastman''s skin. But it was like they had amazing HP. For a race which probably could not use magic, they also had amazing magic defense. Even magic enhanced weapons were not doing much damage...or atleast not that Caterpy could see. The situation was slowly turning against them. Maltus had kept up the wall of fire for almost half an hour now. He had started breathing heavily. In any other game, you might have asked, how much mana does he have. You would also know that his mana would end sooner or later. In this instance, it looked like he was getting visibly tired, probably his mana would be coming to an end. The raging wolfman had killed one of the sergeants which warranted that soldiers go and fill his place. They were less skillful, so more likely to get killed, but they still had to go. They could not afford to lose any more good fighters. The fierce and desperate fight went on for another half an hour. No sergeants were killed but all of them ended up bloody. The soldiers came in the way of the beastman finishing them and others carried them away. But those who came in between were killed. It was a massacre. Even Emilius had started bleeding from numerous places. But he was still moving. And he was still making magic. And then he decided to go all in. "Wind blade" Emilius shouted as he dropped his shield. He increased his speed like a whirling typhoon and swung as if both his hands held swords. And it seemed like it did. His now empty shield hand swung and the wolfman stepped back. But he was still cut, a line traced across his skin, spilling out blood. The wolfman was surprised but soon adapted. And moved in closer. This was a fight which was going to end with one of them dead. The whirling typhoon against the solid rock! Emilius ignored defense while following a two sword style. The wolfman, getting used to the invisible blade, learned to avoid it. A very high level fight was going on. But thankfully, Emilius seemed to be winning. He was dodging every strike while his sword connected with the wolfman regularly. It was only the toughness of the beastman which still kept him standing even after receiving so many of those deadly strikes. And then group 3 arrived. Right on time. Quickly the soldiers and the sergeants moved in support. The sane wolfman, who was only being covered by the two sergeants, saw this first. And growled really loudly. He then did something he hadn''t done before. He went and attacked Maltus. The soldiers around him who weren''t attacking the fire wall, quickly put up shields to defend him but the wolfman jumped straight over them, landing behind Maltus and hit him on the back. And then he turned to attack Team 5 who were nearby. Caterpy and the other archers shot him point blank....but somehow he wasn''t interested in attacking. He simply smashed, body first, into the team throwing away the soldiers and the archers aside while he sprinted out of the box and quickly into the forest. After Maltus got hit, he lost consciousness. The wall of fire disappeared and the two bloody wolfman inside followed the first, jumping above the still on the ground team 5, as they made their own escape into the forest. The one fighting Emilius turned around as well, but Emilius quickly moved in front of him and his team behind trapping him. "Forget them! Focus on the ones here!" shouted some sergeant in group 3, when soldiers tried to go after them. A hundred men rushed to overwhelm the two wolfmen who still remained. The insane one and the one fighting Emilius. In the end of an epic battle, Emilius stabbed the wolfman in both the legs behind the knees. Maybe it was one of his weak points but he quickly went to the ground growling painfully. Emilius''s team and the newly arrived soldiers then went to work on him with their spears. In a final strike, Emilius buried his wind blade in the wolfman while the others kept on thrusting with their spears. They kept on till they were absolutely sure that the beastman was dead. The insane wolfman was then brought down not by anyone attacking him with swords. But with the hundreds of arrows which hit him. It kept on moving till the end and then suddenly dropped dead on the ground. Even then, the soldiers stabbed him with spears. Just to make sure he was truly dead. "Enough!" As Emilius''s shout thundered around. "Take care of the wounded. Group 3, on guard, they can come back. Send two teams to Lady Altia''s location. Group 2, teams which can still move will head to Lady Altia''s location. She went south west." About 4 teams or about 40 people headed southwest. The fight was still not over. A few minutes later they came out of the forest. The sun was shining down, and the dense forest had ended. They came to this really large clearing. Some people were surprised. But then they understood. It was not that there were no trees in this part of the forest, the trees had been destroyed. All of them in an area about 100 metres in each direction. Some had been broken through like some sort of rock had gone through them. And some had been cleanly cut like with a sword. Every single tree.... There was no sign of Lady Altia or the cheetah like beastman. As they started stepping into this clearing like area, a shout came out, "No, stay back. Do not approach!" A single guard from Lady Altia''s team came out of his hiding place and waved, to stop us from coming in. The sergeants understanding the seriousness of the guy, ordered the halt. We moved to the nearest trees. Looking to see why he had called the stop. There was nothing here, as far as the eye could see. But as people stood wondering, there came a really loud sound...a sound they had become familiar with...of claw hitting metal. And there was this loud spark born mid-air. Everyone turned their heads to look. But apart from that spark, which disappeared as soon as it appeared, they heard and saw nothing. Just then another spark followed by the loud sound a few moments later.....And then another. Then silence for a couple of minutes, and then another. People were stumped. "What the heck is going on?" Caterpy was one of first to ask. "Lady Altia is fighting the beastmen" Sergeant Manuel quietly replied. The players and even the soldiers turned their heads sharply at Manuel. ''So these sparks were getting caused by Lady Altia and the cheetah man! But then how fast are they moving around that we cannot see them!'' "Ah...I have only heard of this, first time seeing it!" Manuel continued. "Um exactly what is going on here?" Sammax was the one who asked this time. "Long time ago, during the war, there was this talk of a child who could hold her own against an enemy twice as strong. It was said she could do this because she could move faster than wind. Even the enemy was impressed and had dubbed her the ''Wind child''. Then the child grew up and eventually became the head of the Battle school in Gurrow village. This is the first time I am being witness to it though. But this particular beastman must the most dangerous of the lot, if he can keep his own at this speed. Thank God for Lady Altia. If we had to face him, we would all have been dead within minutes." So said the man who fought with the wolfman and survived, heavily bandaged but still able to move, so his words had to be believed. It was then Caterpy noticed. Lady Altia had said that we will kill the beastmen. But the quest said capture not kill. It was just that if they did not approach with an intention to kill, forget capture, they wouldn''t have been able to survive. She did not know how many people they lost. She did not dare count after 45. The players may be back but several were npcs....who were truly dead. It was only Lady Altia....who was trying to capture the beastman and she chose to capture the most dangerous one, actually helping them by keeping him occupied all this time. Caterpy could imagine that her fight would have atleast gone for about an hour. Since she drew him out of the box till the time they got here. And it still hadn''t ended. It was then that it registered. The whole area had been destroyed by the two of them. The cheetahman caused the broken trees while Lady Altia who was most probably fighting with a sword, cause the sliced ones. How major the battle would have been to destroy this entire area, was something which could not be imagined. But the battle was still going on. It was so fast that they could only follow it through the random sparks and the loud sounds. Sometimes on the ground, sometimes in mid-air. If the fight of Captain Emilius and the wolfman was high level, this fight was truly epic. Which they could not see! It went on like this for another half an hour. The sparks were coming with more frequency now. The thunder sounds as well. Someone was winning, but they could not see who. And then suddenly, there was a loud flash, followed by a loud cry. And then they saw Lady Altia and the cheetahman right in the center of the clearing. Lady Altia had stabbed her entire sword into the left side of the chest of that cheetahman. As he went down on his knees, she quickly conjured a rope and tied his hands and feet as securely as she could. Meanwhile the guards in her team quickly broke their cover and headed straight to where they were, carrying a large thing. We moved out as well, running to get there and provide whatever support we could. Her team reached first. And the large thing turned out to be a net. They quickly threw the net on the beastman and then bound him with the net with another super thick rope. Not until this was done, that Lady Altia finally pulled out her sword. And then she collapsed on the ground, panting loudly. The sergeant of her team came up to her but she said, "Not yet, see if he will live. We need him alive." She said controlling her breath. The sergeant nodded and started checking up on the wounds of the beastman. Curious, Caterpy approached a little closer to see. The wounds on the beastman had started to heal already. The bleeding had completely stopped. The skin on some of the lighter wounds started to join up. ''So this is why they are so tough. They have regenerative powers.'' And it was strong enough to even start healing the major wound Lady Altia had given him. ''Maybe anything short of actually getting killed, can be healed.'' The sergeant finished his inspection of the beastman and the bindings and then turned to Lady Altia. He waved his hands...but nothing happened. Or to say nothing visible happened. Lady Altia still said, "Thank you Nathan. Now all we need to do is carry him back. Any ideas?" Nathan smiled. "Leave it to me." And then Caterpy remembered him. He was the instructor at the battle school. She had often seen him when she went to visit Diggeron. But in full battle armor and with a helmet on, she had failed to recognize him. All of them helped in making a strong big stretcher kind of thingy which could be used to carry the beastman on their shoulders. Ofcourse they tied him to the stretcher as well. Caterpy had a strange worry that maybe these bindings won''t be enough and that the only reason the beastman had not cut through was simply because he was unconscious. Maybe he could not tolerate the damage....or the pain. "Is it strong enough?" she asked aloud. "Should be. These ropes have been embedded with magic too. If this is not enough to hold him...nothing will" Nathan replied. "Alright someone help me lift him up. The others will provide guard. We need to rendezvous with the other teams immediately. There is no telling if the runaways will show up. Keep alert!" a sergeant from Group 3 who had come along with them shouted. 6 men along with that sergeant lifted the stretcher and then they headed back to the other teams. They were nervous all the way. Scared of being attacked. Scared of the beastman breaking his bonds. So it was with relief when they saw the other teams. They had set up stretchers as well, for all the bodies. And for the men who couldn''t walk. They even set up to move the dead bodies of the beastmen. With so many men involved in lifting the stretchers, it became a real hazard for the guards. But thankfully, Maltus had recovered consciousness. And someone seemed to have provided some sort of healing. He was bandaged but able to move. Emilius had also recovered enough. And Lady Altia was up and moving though, she was staggering and Nathan had to provide his shoulder. With them adding to the guard, it felt a little bit safer. But the entire return journey, Caterpy and the others in the guard, kept looking around incessantly. When they arrived back at the village, the group which had remained behind group 1, quickly relieved them of their burdens. And then everyone collapsed on the ground tired. Caterpy got this message to signify the end.
Event Quest: Capture the Beastmen ends successfully. Based on your efforts, you have been awarded 12 contribution points towards Gurrow village. Contribution points can be used in various endeavors or to ask for favors from the village.
Fame increases by 10.
Chapter 19: Calm before the storm Swamy woke up to find a video of the event quest. Someone named Caterpy had uploaded the video recordings from their game capsules on to the Long Island forums. ''Holy cow, its got four hundred thousand hits already!'' Swamy had often wondered how many players still stuck around after 3 months. ''Atleast these many are still there... and the view count was still increasing''. Swamy clicked on the video and started watching it...but ''Oh! its like 2 and half hours long. Can''t be helped...will watch it later.'' And he started to get ready for class. The class today was of his favorite professor again, Prof Samuel D''souza. And this time he was discussing about the mechanics of movement in a virtual reality environment. "Especially when the virtual environment allows non humanoid type of characters. Non humanoid as in not simply having two hands and two feet. For example flying creatures. In the real world, the limbs of birds turn into wings. The skeletal composition changes and the bones become hollow, etc. But if we closely see the skeletal structure, we will see the similarities between the whale fins and the bird wings to the human hands. So a similar argument can be made in the games that flying creatures will follow these rules and mathematically, it will be deemed possible. But you often see races which go contrary to the real world rules. A good example would be a dragon, which has all four limbs and wings. If you go by real world rules, we will have to assume that it actually has 6 limbs, with one pair being transformed into wings. Oh and lets forget the tail for bit. Do we have a real world creature like that to compare? Not really. Then how do we generate the mathematical rules of movement for that kind of creature? This question can also be extended like this. A human brain only gives inputs to four limbs. How in the virtual world can you choose or transform into such a creature...and be able to move? Well think about it, the human brain should be ideally trained for four limb movement only, as nature intended. If we simply go by real world mathematics, you should not be able to move in a dragon''s body." A food for thought indeed. "Separate into teams and come up with facts and arguments into what makes this possible. You will write a research paper on this due Friday next week." And the class went on... During lunch everyone was excited. Swamy was stumped for quite some time trying to understand what had happened. "Wow...that was amazing Himali!" Sneha said. "Yeah...bad for you Manish" Rajan added. "True...it was an amazing experience! I felt real fear..." Himali was speaking. "Yes yes...it was like lightning. One moment I saw them and the other moment I was dead" Manish was saying. And Swamy simply sat silent pondering. "Yeah yeah I had goosebumps even when watching. No doubt you must have felt quite afraid. It must be quite a thrill though" Sneha said. "Yeah tell us about it" Rajan added. "I am most sad.....I missed out on such an awesome thing." Manish sighed depressingly. "Oh I don''t know how to start describing it...." And Swamy simply sat silent wondering. "Um... what are you guys talking about?" Swamy asked. "Uh....video! what else? Didn''t you see the video?" Sneha asked bewildered. "You mean the one about the event quest?" Swamy finally figured it out. "Duh! Himali sent us a copy before posting it." Sneha replied. "Oh...wait the video was posted by someone called Caterpy...is that you Himali?" "Yes. I thought everyone knew that already" Himali replied. "Apparently I didn''t" Swamy smiled sheepishly. Everyone became quiet at hearing this. Before the mood could get too awkward, Swamy added, "Well now I know. Thanks. So you participated in the event quest? I think it had two parts....which one did you get?" "I got the capturing the beastmen one. I and Manish both reached 14 already" Himali replied smiling, maybe thankful that the atmosphere did not get weird. "Yes yes....and you were telling us the details again. The video was awesome....But I am sure hearing it from the horse''s mouth would be even more exciting" Sneha said excitedly, dispelling what little of the awkward atmosphere that still remained. "Ah...well it started like this........" And for the next half an hour everyone listened to her, as she relived her encounter with the beastmen. How it started, strategies and the people. How epic the fights of the captains and Lady Altia were. How they thought they would lose everyone but somehow they survived. Manish added a few bits in the beginning she had missed out on. It turned out he died early but it was his team who was initially attacked by the beastmen. They came up from the trees, totally surprising his team, and before they had any time to react the beastmen had killed everyone. Swamy had not seen the video yet and he was deeply interested. Maybe far more than the others. Ofcourse in his case, when he was listening with all ears, he had this tendency to go super quiet. The others asked questions in between but Swamy concentrated on listening. This was valuable information. He made up his mind to watch the video...even though it will cut into his already meagre game time. "And at the end, I asked my sergeant how many had been killed. And he said almost 70 people." "Oh...that''s sad. And how many of them were npcs?" Rajan asked. "Not sure. I didn''t have the heart to ask." And then there was brooding silence while everyone thought about what they heard. "So there were no healers? And no healing potions either?" "There were. The soldiers did have a few people who could heal. And most of them could do first aid, like applying bandages and cleaning wounds. Just that there were no separate healers. Makes sense right, as there are no classes in the game, you could have soldiers who also have healing skill" Himali added. "But no healing potions were given. I also didn''t ask about it, so I am not sure about it." "No one had gotten any healing potions. I asked about it to the other players on my team." "So there are no potions in the game?" Rajan asked. "Not sure. There could be....the game world is large place" Manish said. ............ ......... .... Back home, Swamy quickly opened his laptop and clicked on the video of the event quest. It started slow, what with people talking and walking into the forest. In the beginning people had excited faces...but it soon changed to boredom as time passed. And then to seriousness. ''Traps? the beastmen deployed traps?'' It was a little different from the behaviour he had come to expect out of them. And the video rolled on. Soon the fight started and Swamy was riveted. It was exciting, of that there was no doubt. And then the fight ended with the beastmen having run away or killed. But the video was still not over. It changed locations..and like other people, at first Swamy couldn''t see anything. Just the boom sound or the clank sound. His first thought, ''Did the recording break here?'' He minimized the video to check whether anyone else had faced the same problem. He hoped that they would have posted if they had. Sure enough....a couple of people did ask whether the recording had caused an error or something at the end. But no, Caterpy had replied the video was ok. "Just watch it till the end. The video is not broken. Once you watch it, I suggest you to watch it again in 4x reduced speed, just the part at the end where you do not see. You can just make out what happened at that speed." Swamy watched the video again. More thunderous sounds but nothing could be seen. And then almost for a moment a flash of color. And then it was gone. It repeated...and again. Swamy could not understand but then a voice came up followed by the person. ''He was the sergeant I think!'' And it explained what it was. Swamy could not believe his ears as he heard that. All that time he spent with Lady Altia and not once had he realized how powerful of a teacher he had. Oh he knew that she was quite strong and compared to him it was like the earth and the moon. Now he realized it was a bad comparison to her strength. Watching the fight between her and the cheetahman, she was more like the stars than the moon. The cheetahman was captured. Lady Altia won. But she couldn''t move afterwards. And then the video ended. Swamy restarted the video at Lady Altia''s fight scene and reduced the playing speed. And then he could see, the cheetahman and Lady Altia clashing against each other, claw against steel. Even at 4x reduced, the two were moving quite fast. What Swamy wondered at the end though, ''what happens now? People are gonna realize as players will come back.'' And for the moment he had no answer to that. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ''Damn!'' Raka could not believe how much Lady Altia had to hold back against him. ''And Lady Verina was sparring with her.'' For the past 15 minutes, since he logged in, he was staring at the heavens and thinking how the hell had he managed to get two incredible people to teach him. By all counts, they were masters of the most advanced level in their fields. Raka sighed. It will be incredibly hard to stand up to their standards. Once he recovered from his reverie, he decided to head down to the pet shop. He still had questions about the monkey he had bought. His identification had revealed some questions marks. Specially on the class thingy. ''Aren''t they animals?'' Well answers could wait. He was eager to get his own pet, hopefully. It would be his first, virtual or real. His mom hated animals, "the amount they shed and poop...disgusting," she said. Raka remembered trying to find a pet which didn''t shed and poop so much...all through 5th grade. And somehow he had failed. The only ones which didn''t, had been slippery slimy creatures. He was pretty sure they wouldn''t be allowed as pets. ''Well snails were no fun anyway'' Soon he reached the pet shop. Today there was a sign outside which said, The results of the High Rise Pet Lucky Draw are as follows: Congratulations to the lucky winner Mr. Raka. Your prize will be delivered to you by pigeon. Raka entered. The same smells and sounds like before embraced his senses. "You are here. Please wait a moment." Signer greeted with a smile as usual. He went back in and returned a few minutes later, followed by a man carrying a cage holding a monkey. The cage had been cleaned. The monkey was looking much better than the last time, though it still looked a bit under the weather. "Here you go" as Signer handed him the cage. The cage was heavy but not so much that he had trouble carrying. "Thank you" Raka said holding on to the cage sides. "Thank you for your business sir" and Signer started heading back. "Hold on a minute! What about the prize of the lucky draw, can''t I take it now?" The smile turned down a little bit as Signer turned around. "Ah I am sorry. But we also have to keep up appearances. We will wait till the evening and dispatch your prize by pigeon" and before Raka could ask anything else, he hurried back. ''Definitely suspicious!'' Well in any case that had been a gamble. Raka looked down in the cage to see the monkey looking at him. He turned his head wondering what he should do now. The monkey imitated him by turning his own head. Raka smiled. Raka headed out towards the docks. It was only two blocks to it. On the way, people stared at him as he carried the cage. As he reached the docks, he turned towards the beach instead. ''Phew, people do stare too much!'' Raka put down the cage on the sparse rocky sand and opened it. "Alright big guy, I don''t know if you understand me but here''s the deal. I wanna set you free. Ofcourse I would like to be friends and hopefully you will accompany me on my travels, but if you want to go somewhere else ...you are free to do so." Ofcourse, the monkey did not reply back. But Raka thought it looked happy. It tried to move outside the cage...but soon got tired and laid down. After a while it tried again but could not. It seemed it was still not recovered from the sickness. It laid down again. "Hmm say what. I will take care of you till you get better. And then you can go wherever you want to. Till then what say, we get rid of the cage?" and Raka lifted the monkey out of the cage. "Alright now climb on to my back" and the monkey held his armor with his fingers and moved to his back. Its legs and tail circled his waist as it made a better grip to hold on. "Now...see here...the cage goes away." Raka picked up the cage and threw it in the sea. "Hope you are happy with that. Now lets see, first lets get you some food...and then we will head down to the library and find out stuff, shall we" He spoke to the monkey but by the reaction on its face, he could as well be talking to himself. Raka bought some fruits from a shop he knew. He gave one to the monkey and ate one himself. And then they headed to the library. The library was quiet, hardly a person inside. As he started walking in, the lady sitting in the reception complained, "No pets allowed!" "This sucks. Well can''t help it bud. If we want to find something to make you better, you will have to wait here. He put it down next to the reception desk. The lady turned up her nose at that but didn''t say anything. The monkey simply curled up on the floor, closed his eyes...and fell asleep. Talk about one cool monkey! Raka headed to the books. ''Well finding them is another quest....Why can''t they put up signs on the shelves saying what subjects they are. Its not even a piece of technology for goodness sakes.'' And the search continued. It took almost an hour of browsing till he finally found some books which looked promising, way up on the 5th floor. Till then he had to browse every shelf to make sure what kind of books there were. He had found a book on history of the world, which he now carried, intending to read. Usually similar books, atleast books on similar subjects went on the shelves together. He wasn''t sure of what he was looking for, he just had a vague idea that it would be somewhat related to healing. And he hadn''t found anything. He went through all shelves looking at the book titles all the way up to the 7th floor. But nothing had come close to healing. Giving up he turned to look at similar things. Which is how he arrived back on the 5th floor, looking at books on Biology. He opened one and sure enough there was a figure of the human body drawn with lines marked with their names and descriptions. He started looking at the other book titles, A description of the human body, How does the human body work, 5 ways to bandage, Making the heart tick, Common diseases, and much more. ''This book looks ok'' and he took out the 5 ways to bandage book. He looked around some more and then took out books with titles like Understanding Medicines, Knowledge of nutrition, Are you down on the weather?, Tips to Improve Health, Keep your Teeth Shining and a few more similar ones. He avoided the encyclopaedias though. ''Who knows what could help'', thinking that he sat down on a chair and started reading them. A lot of it was useful but somehow he couldn''t see himself being able to use it. He eagerly opened the Understanding Medicines book, he hoped it would be more helpful. Considering the discussion he had this very morning with his real life friends and watching the video, learning potions or any form of healing had become very important. The book talked about various herbs which could be found in nature and then have to be processed, ground, crushed...and whatever else and mixed with various stuff and then applied on the wound. Different types of wounds required different kinds of herbs. Also some herbs could be consumed and helped against disease but there was just too much information in it to remember. As he kept turning the pages,
Skill Herbal Medicine: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn how to treat and cure using various herbs. Only through proper application will such a skill be effective. Requirements: Apply Herbal Medicine successfully.
''Alright! A new skill!'' Raka was happy but the information on herbs was extensive. He would have to steal the book or hopefully copy down all its pages....lets just say it was a lot. In any case it was helpful. He would have to come down often to learn all the things in this book. He opened another and started reading and then another and then the next. The books were both broad and complex and covered a lot of information, for someone who would want to become a doctor possibly. For Raka it became difficult reading, he trudged on simply in the hopes that there might be some other skill. Finally he opened the 5 ways to bandage book. It was a simple book with lots of helpful drawings. But most of all it was thin or to say a lot thinner than the others. As Raka swept though the pages looking at the drawings,
Skill Bandage: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn how to make, wrap and use bandages for various purposes. Requirements: Apply Bandage successfully.
''Another new skill. Today must be my lucky day!'' Bandaging was easy. The steps were drawn on the book and looked simple. The only tricky part was making the bandages themselves. Simple bandages made of sterilized cloth looked easy enough. But as he read on, the book mentioned other kinds of bandages as well. It did not elaborate on these other kinds simply stating that it could be made of different materials. ''Maybe there is another book for that''. Raka stood up and started looking for books on bandages. Unfortunately, not many were there. The couple he found, also had the same things showing how to apply. ''Hmm that''s sad.'' Raka looked through the 5 ways to bandage book again. ''Maybe the author wrote some other book.'' The author''s name was Afsana Cladwell. He searched again, this time looking for books by the author. ''Nothing!'' There was no other book by the author. Just to be sure he searched again, and it was good that he did. A very thin book nestled between two very thick encyclopaedias that he almost missed it. In fact, had he not been looking closely he would never have noticed that there was something between the books in the first place. It almost looked like part of the encyclopaedias themselves. He carefully brought out the surrounding books in a hail of dust. Raka coughed. Seems like no one liked to touch these thick books either. And then carefully lifted the thin dusty book off the shelf. He wiped the dusty cover with his hands and saw the title, 10 Massage techniques written by Afsana Cladwell. The book was there like it had been forgotten. Raka dusted the book and started reading it. As per its name it contained various techniques on how to massage, shown with helpful drawings. It looked useful, what with massages being able to improve circulation of blood, relax muscles and what else.
Skill Massage: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn to use massage for treatment, recovery and stabilization. Successful massage could result in other positive effects. Requirements: Apply Massage successfully.
''Wow! another skill!'' Why hadn''t he come here before, he wondered. ''But whats with the other effects.'' That''s another thing he found out about the skills in the game. You never know the exact effects of the skills until you learn them. Well massage looked useful enough to apply on the monkey. Raka thoroughly read all the massage techniques. He even imagined a body and practiced with his hands, in the air. He wanted to memorize every little thing in this book. He read page after page and soon it ended. As he was memorizing the last page, his eyes fell on a short sentence written at the end, at the very bottom of the page. For best results, skin contact is required! After reading the so called biology books, Raka returned them back to their shelves. Even the book on massage went between those two thick volumes. Then he started on the book he had found first, the book on the history of the world. He started reading. In the beginning, there was only one race. We do not know what it was called, nor do we know how it looked like, but we know that they existed. Ruins discovered all over the world stand proof for this fact. What we also know is that sometime in history, that race of beings discovered magic. Whether they were part of magic and realized naturally or it was discovered by some other event or happenstance is yet unknown. However we do understand that the different races in the world today, emerged from them with the use of magic, specially what we call curse magic. So in effect, it was curse magic which shaped the world as we know today. I doubt whether curse magic was known by that name in the past. Maybe it was simply magic. The ancient beings learned to apply the magic on their surroundings, and eventually on themselves and others. We can believe that the ancient beings, were curious and experimented with magic. Some experiments were successful increasing strength, intelligence and even their capacity for magic itself. At some point in history the ancient race divided among groups who wanted to apply the benefits of magic on themselves. Some wanted to be stronger, some more intelligent, some wanted a longer life, etc. And they freely applied the curse magic on themselves and others in the group, excluding all else. Proof can be gathered by the study of the races. Elves have a higher capacity for magic and longer lives. Orcs gained large strength and high fertility. Mer-people learned the ability to breathe under water and swim like fishes. And many more examples. What the ancient beings probably realized later was that curse magic is irreversible and always comes with a cost. Elves lost their fertility, Orcs lost their ability for doing magic, Mer-people lost their ability to live on land. Humans on the other hand are one of the most balanced races in comparison to the rest. Probably, there would have been a group which actually advocated the non use of curse magic, which might have resulted in the Humans. ..................... And the book went on. It was an interesting read. Raka spent a few more minutes reading it but he had to move on. He still had to get started on his training on magic. Just then he found this, There are other races in the world which did not originate from the ancient beings. Namely what we refer to as animals sometimes. There are normal animals but there are also animals which can talk, which are intelligent and can learn, which have a long life, etc. At one time it was believed that these were also originated from the ancient beings. But we now believe that they were separate races altogether. How they came to be affected by magic could be theorized. They were results of the ancient beings experiments. Used as test subjects to study the effects of curse magic. Though heartless it may sound, it makes sense that the ancient beings, in all their wisdom, would not have taken the risk to apply magic on themselves without testing it on some other living being. ''Could this be the reason I can''t identify their classes? They are not simply normal animals.'' Thinking further research may be needed on this but lacking the time to pursue this further, Raka left for his job. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- At the warehouse, Salmon was absent for some reason. Raka entered with the monkey who seemed to have put his hands in his ears to drown out the loud noise and started shivering. Raka quickly moved to the back garden and left it there to relax. He went back inside, got his ear pieces in place and waited. He did not have to wait long. Salmon soon returned but with a very annoyed face. He started his loud tirade as soon as he entered which could be heard even way back to where Raka was standing. If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. "The DAMNED navy and their DAMNED ORDERS!! Who do they think they are talking to...! Shitholes, bastards of the seven seas, godless cretins....Haven''t I served for my part. ALL I want is my fair wage and to be left alone so that I can retire in peace. BUT NO! I am the goddamn best they say. Whats the best gotta do there anyway!!" Raka heard every word. Understanding nothing. He simply kept quiet, letting him approach. His foul tirade continued with every step he took. ''The guy must have had a bad day.'' Raka sighed. Salmon in a bad mood could only mean on thing. He was going to be shouted on much more today. As Salmon reached Raka, he shouted, "Alright cretin. What are you doing standing here like a worthless idiot. You know what, just for that you are coming with me." "Coming where?" Raka asked in horror. "On the damn navy ship. They ordered me....me ...to serve! And you are coming as well. Goddamn rats, why do they want me to do a job any worker worth their salt can do! I already retired from the goddamn service. Oh no, if they expect me to work for them, they got another thing coming. You boy, will come with me. And God help me if you screw up. I will throw you to the fishes!"
[p=center]Assist Salmon[/p] Salmon has been ordered to serve on a navy ship as a shipwright. He wants you to come along and assist him in his duties. Difficulty level: E Reward: Increased intimacy with Salmon, Shipwright commission - Basic Note: if the quest is refused intimacy will reduce, chance to be kicked out of job.
Not that he could refuse. "Alright!"
Quest has been accepted.
"When do we leave?" he asked. "In one week. Now get back to work or you will be bug food before you be fish food! Get started on those boards over there..." And Raka''s usual day began. One good thing about the quest was that the reward was a shipwright commission. As he had found out, shipwright commissions were important as they allowed you to work on the ships. There were different levels of the commission. Basic allowed him to work on the ship. Intermediate allowed him to hire other people and shipwrights. Advanced permitted him to design and build ships. All the people in the warehouse, excluding him, had atleast a basic shipwright commission if not an intermediate. It was unusual to find people having intermediate commissions working on land. They were usually hired by ship captains and owners to work on their ships. Only a handful of shipwrights got hired to work on the ship. One of the reasons was because owners had to pay extra for people out at sea. Another reason was that it was difficult to do repairs at sea. Only minor repairs could be done at sea, which could be done by 1 or 2 people at best. For major repairs, the ship had to reach shore. The ship could not carry all the materials which would be required for the complex repairs. It would upset the cargo weight and was highly impractical. Which meant it needed to reach a shore. Once it did, any number of people could be hired anyway, hence the reason for hiring just one shipwright with an intermediate commission to work on the ship. He had also found out that the lack of the basic shipwright commission, was one of the big reasons he had to work inside the warehouse and not on the ships or the docks. It affected the work he could do as well. He was limited to the work which could be done in the warehouse, namely preparing materials. So that others could repair the ships. Even if he had the woodworking skill the situation wouldn''t have changed. In essence, having a shipwright commission was essential. And the way to obtain it, well it was a long and windy process involving tests but the main thing, was the recommendation of a shipwright having an advanced commission. In fact, those people had the authority to give out basic commissions in the first place, so they could make the rest of the process irrelevant. In this warehouse, Salmon had been the one to give everyone their basic commissions. And according to them, he usually gave them away when he wanted someone else to do his work. Atleast he also ensured they could do his work so the people did learn. Raka dreamed of sailing the oceans and finding adventure. His dream would have to wait a bit though. Raka sighed as he turned around to work on those boards. Only after he finished today''s work that Raka realized his problem. 1 week in the game meant 2 days and 8 hours in real life. Considering he was playing after college and during the night, that would make the quest during the day time. And it was still Tuesday. ''Shit! Am I going to miss class for this E level quest! Mom will bury me alive!'' Raka sighed again. There were no easy answers to his problems. Thinking to avoid it for now, he collected the monkey on his back again and walked out of the warehouse, ignoring the weird stares from all the people. They had some more fruits to eat. There was still time left before going to tea at Cassian''s so he turned around to the Magic Academy. Thankfully, it was not banned for animals, though people did stare at him a lot. He walked down to the training hall and settling the monkey on the ground, started practicing his water magic, ignoring the stares he was still getting. A bit later the other people went back to their own stuff and Raka breathed a sigh of relief. It was awkward and annoying being stared at. He was not having any luck in practice today either. Its just that his magic skill rose up a tiny bit, like 0.01% every half an hour even when he could not perform magic successfully. Amazingly,
Perception increases by 1.
Hours and hours of futile attempts and his Perception stat rose by 1. ''Does it work like this?'' First time the Perception stat had risen so far. ''Hmm...'' Thinking this and that he came to a conclusion. It was not the amount of time he spent in the colorful world or the number of times he transformed energy. Rather it was because of doing different things in the colorful world. ''So because I have been trying different things in the colorful world to learn water magic.'' That seemed to have affected the Perception stat. ''So what''s different now!'' Raka dove back in his world of colors eagerly anticipating the changes. ''Maybe things would become clearer now....or hopefully the range would increase.'' Atleast that''s what he hoped and expected. He closed his eyes and entered his colorful world. The things seemed pretty much the same. If the detail had improved, it had improved in such a miniscule amount that he could not perceive it. He decided to walk around thinking maybe his range improved. He could perceive various stable form energies moving around leaving a storm of excited colors. ''That would be the other people in the room I think.'' He decided to walk towards the door of the training hall, where the world was still silent, owing to the lack of people in that direction. He walked the entire floor, perceiving more stable energy forms sitting in the one of the small rooms they had on this floor. ''Hmm...maybe 2 or 3 people, can''t tell them apart.'' Those energy forms then started moving, exciting the colors around them. It was almost like water. Some movement and ripples formed travelling a wide area. Ofcourse that did screw up his perceiving. He vaguely noticed that the stable forms were moving towards the training hall. Curious and with nothing else to do, Raka decided to follow them inside. He kept a bit away from their forms, so that the excited colors had a chance to calm down and he could vaguely guess where they were headed. ''Odd, they seem to be headed towards my direction.'' Ideally he would have opened his eyes at that point. But he was having fun following them like this. It was a new experience. Slowly the colors around them seemed to be calming down. Maybe they had stopped. Sure enough the colors calmed down around them and Raka could see their stable forms better now. He walked in closer and his view did get just a little better. Like a feet away from them, he could sense that there were 2 stable form energies. ''Odd, this one seems a bit familiar. Maybe its the shape or size, can''t say...but hmmm....'' Raka came out of his colored world and blinked his eyes open and turned around. Standing behind him were Sambal and... "Lady Verina!" Raka said it out just a little louder than expected. She was standing there smiling, while Sambal seemed to be frowning for some reason. "Surprise! Guess you didn''t expect that did you" she teased. "Totally! I mean yes, it is quite a surprise. What are you doing here..." he quickly looked at Sambal and added, "if you don''t mind me asking." Now that he noticed, everyone in the hall seemed to have stopped what they were doing and gathered around. What was more shocking was that all of them seemed to be in a respectful pose or a formal pose, well as close as it got. It was not the attention pose of the battle school however. Raka thought maybe he should do the same. Lady Verina and Sambal were both people of high stature after all. It was just that the last time Sambal was here with him, no one had seemed to care to do this. So it was Lady Verina who was the recipient of these respectful and adoring gazes. "Ah! You see...." she started but got interrupted by Sambal. "Why doesn''t Lady Verina continue the rest of the conversation in my office. It hardly seems fair to the other people to not have your attention." Lady Verina pouted a little bit but soon smiled at everyone. "Ah Lady Verina, allow me to introduce myself. I am Von Gult Despira, eldest son of the noble house of Despira. I am honored and pleased to make your acquaintance." a handsome looking guy wearing the magic school robes walked forward and bowed. "Ah yes. Nice to meet you Von Gult. How is your father, Count Despira? It has been a long time since I have seen him. Please give him my regards." "He is doing well, Lady Verina. I will certainly convey your regards to him." And he bowed again. "Can I also offer you an invitation to visit our humble home in place of my esteemed father, the Count. I am sure my father would be quite pleased." "Ah thank you for your offer Von Gult. But I must respectfully decline at this time. My presence is required elsewhere." "I understand Lady Verina. Please forgive me for speaking out of turn." and the guy bowed again. ''What is with this pompous prick'' was all Raka could think at that moment. And then the others started. "Pleased to make your acquaintance Lady Verina. My name is Theodore Compucii." This guy had an intellectual thoughtful look, came forward and introduced himself with a short bow. "Nice to meet you" Lady Verina replied. "Ah...I am...ah...Veronica Taylor. I came from Brittanica Island to learn magic. Um...I am your biggest fan. Could you give me your autograph!" an excited girl spoke out, almost standing on tip toes like if she got the chance she would rush in at the moments notice. "Ah...nice to meet you too. Um...lets put the autographs for later." Lady Verina replied without missing a beat. ''Seems she is used to all this'' Raka thought. "I am Iqbal Hasan from the Khardoum kingdom. It is an honor to meet the Lady Verina. I hope you can spare your time to guide a novice such as myself" a black guy, broad shouldered thick muscled with a thick accent came forward and gave a bow. Raka recognized him as the guy who was practicing hanging upside down from the ceiling. "Nice to you meet you Iqbal Hasan. But my duties occupy my time completely. I would hate to disappoint you by not committing to your training. We have several wonderful teachers here who can, no doubt, teach you better than I. I wish you good luck in your studies." Raka was kinda glad that she refused. He did not want to lose his unique blessing so soon or that''s how he justified it. "I am Lucy Pinkerton, from Britannica as well" a cute looking girl with light blond hair introduced herself next. She was tall, taller than Raka atleast. ''Maybe I should have increased my height too'' Raka could not help thinking. "Nice to meet you too Lucy Pinkerton." "Ramone Masteriff at your service Milady. I am from Dalmund nation. It is my honor." A stiff looking guy with a small mustache. "Nice to meet you Ramone Masteriff" and the introductions finally came to a close. And then came the quiet while everyone thought of what they should do or say next. Thankfully Sambal interrupted with a slight cough. "Ahem...now lets get back to why we came here. Raka, please step forward." Raka did as he asked. "In recognition for your services, I, Sambal, as representative of the Queen present you with this Queen''s Brass medal." Sambal pulled out a small ornate wooden box, highly polished and having a design carved on it. He opened it, showing the shiny medal inside, almost like a coin but with a ribbon attached. He offered it in this way to Raka. Raka moved forward and accepted it.
You have been granted a title. "Recipient of the Queen''s Brass medal" Effects: Fame +30
"Thank you." And then Lady Verina clapped followed by the rest. For all purposes, Raka blushed a little. After a while, where Lady Verina talked more with the other people, they turned to leave. Sambal motioned Raka to follow. He could feel several pairs of envious, or was it disgruntled, gazes as he followed behind them. They went to Sambal''s office. He closed the door behind them and whispered something waving his hand. "Alright now on to business." He nodded to Lady Verina who nodded back. "Raka, first of all, my heartfelt congratulations. I have never felt more proud." Lady Verina smiled a lovely smile. "Thank you." Raka smiled as well. And then the tone turned serious. "Have you heard of the capture of one of the beastmen?" Lady Verina asked. "Yes." "I thought so. Sambal mentioned you guys have some way to pass on news. How much of it do you know?" "Um I know that there was a great battle and lots of people lost their lives. 2 beastmen were killed and one was captured. The rest ran away." "Yes, that is accurate. I did advise putting more Goddess''s children in the teams to reduce the loss of men. After all, you get revived but the people of this world do not. But the others were against it. Still I convinced them to atleast put in the people who could safely cross the age barrier." Lady Verina sighed. "It is creating quite a scandal I hear, now that you guys are coming back to the village. Even reports from Dalmund have started arriving now." Raka stayed quiet. "I am sure we will be having the 4 island conference soon to discuss this" Sambal added. Raka simply nodded. "Well that is past the point. Right now we have to take down those pirates, the beastmen were part of. The Queen has ordered all hands in taking down the pirates. The scouts are tracking the beastmen who ran away to try and determine the location of the pirates ship or ships. The navy is preparing ships for assault on these pirates. Altia and I are also going to be part of it." Raka nodded again understanding. "Um can I be part of this mission as well?" Lady Verina smiled again, "Yes that''s what we came to ask you. You see Altia had a rough fight with the beastmen and her recovery will take a bit of time. Not to worry its just sore muscles but high speed movement like that does cause some serious stress on the muscles. I am hoping she would get all right to move within a week. Though it will be difficult for her to fight at that speed." "Um so why is she part of the assault then?" "Hmmm, Altia is not only a warrior but a commander as well. Her presence will help with the morale of the soldiers and I value her acute analysis of situations. Also, to let them know that their best warrior had such a tough fight, would not be to our benefit right now." "I understand." "This is where you come in. I want you to accompany us and keep Altia in check." "Um...what?!" "Ah...you will be her errand boy, her gopher, her assistant, taking care of all her needs which require her to move around. I want her to get as much rest as possible without letting everyone else know. Now if you serve only her, it would be suspicious. So you will be assigned as a page on the ship." Sambal added the rest. Raka had a thought. "Could this be happening next week?" Sambal and Lady Verina both seemed shocked by this. "How did you know?" Raka explained that he was already accompanying Salmon, the shipwright working in warehouse #5 at the docks, on the navy ship. "Salmon?" Lady Verina asked. "Um...yes. I think he is assigned to one of the other ships. No problem he can be assigned to yours," Sambal replied. "I had no idea you were a shipwright Raka" Lady Verina said. "I am not. I am still learning. It is just that Salmon wants to take me along for some reason. Probably to make me do all the work." Raka sighed. Lady Verina seemed like she was having second thoughts about all this but Sambal quickly intervened. "You are learning from him correct?" When Raka nodded, "in that case this can be used. Raka will be learning the skill of shipwright from Salmon while working as a page for you and Altia only. You can say you gave him this job out of pity as he is from Gurrow village and he could use some extra coin. But because his primary responsibility is to work with Salmon, he could only work for you and Altia. I am sure he will suffer enough in his other work to have others pity him as well. I have heard about this Salmon and he is a very repulsive guy. Also because he received the Queen''s medal in front of the very people who would be joining the mission, not many would doubt his words," Sambal said as if it was decided. "He looks poor anyway, I don''t think the other nobles would doubt him." Raka grimaced at the harsh but true words. Even though he had money, he had never thought to buy clothes just for looks. He was pretty happy with what he was wearing. He had got it repaired from the tailor but it was Neona''s father''s originally. It could never look new. Ofcourse with his armor on, it wouldn''t matter, but without it...he did look poor. Lady Verina nodded her head in agreement. "Raka, I trust you and Altia trusts you. This is why I can only ask you for this. Is that ok with you?"
[p=center]Taking care of Lady Altia[/p] Lady Altia has been severely fatigued by her fight with the beastmen but is still required to fight the remaining pirates. In order to not let her condition affect the morale of the troops and also to allow her to get as much rest as possible, Lady Verina wishes that you take care of Lady Altia while she is on the ship and also hide her condition as much as possible. Difficulty level: D+ Reward: ? Note: High level intimacy with Lady Verina and Lady Altia is required at all times for the duration of this quest. If intimacy falls the quest will fail.
Not that he could refuse. "Yes."
Quest has been accepted.
"Ah one other thing...." Sambal said as he hurried to his desk and pulled out a paper. "Sign here" he said. Raka did as asked.
You have been offered a job. Sambal hires you to work as a page in service of Lady Altia and Lady Verina during the voyage. The pay will vary depending on work quality.
"And that takes care of all the formalities," Sambal replied happily. "Raka, take care now. I have to get busy as well. Got lots to do before we see each other again." she blushed a little as she smiled this time. And then she left. Raka, on the other hand stayed. "Um..Sambal, can I ask you a question?" "What about?" Sambal asked directly. "I got the Queen''s Brass medal right. So are there other kinds of medals as well?" "Ofcourse there are. In order of their increasing rank, there is the the Copper medal, Brass medal, the Steel, the Bronze, the Silver and then the Gold medal which is the highest award anyone can be given. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was evening in the game already now. He had missed Cassian''s tea. It was a little bit regrettable but it can''t be helped in this situation, he presumed. Hoping that the others would have left already, Raka came down to the training hall. And it was empty, save one very lazy monkey sprawled on the ground. Well he couldn''t very well go back to practicing magic now. He had so much to think about. Instead, "Well big guy, time to see whether you resemble human structure or not." He placed his hands on the monkey''s back and started massaging him. The monkey winced. "Oh...sorry guess I should start a little higher, well first time for me as well...can''t be helped." Late night in the game and it was time to log out. He had spent the past few hours trying to learn massage techniques. The techniques themselves were simple but applying them on monkey...well lets just say he had to figure out where a lot of its bones and muscles were. It seemed if he did not do the technique correctly or if he grabbed or pressed at the wrong spot, it had the tendency to cause slight pain. The monkey faired well, considering it could not move or get away for that matter. But atleast at the end, it did seem happy. Whether it was due to the massage or whether due to the ending of the massage, Raka was not sure. He walked back to the beach. There were a few small trees nearby, where monkey could feel at home while he was gone, or atleast he hoped it would. True to his promise he did not intend to tie it up or anything like that. He soon reached those trees. Placing the monkey on one of its branches, "Well I won''t come back till the third day. So I am putting some fruits here which you can eat when you get hungry" and he cut out a small depression on the trunk and made it in the shape of a bowl. He placed some fruits there. All the while the monkey stared, trying to move a hand or even a finger to imitate his actions. "Alright see you then," but as soon as Raka turned around, he heard ruffling of the feathers as if a group of birds were coming closer. It was dark although he could see a little bit in the moonlight. The silhouettes suggested that the birds landed close to him along with something big. Raka made a small fire using magic burning the fallen twigs and saw a group of pigeons. They were holding the ropes tied to a large wooden box. As soon as Raka took hold of the ropes, the pigeons flew away. ''Is this my other pet?'' Raka could not believe that Signer had kept his word. ''I am getting lucky a lot today, aren''t I!'' Raka thought happily. He quickly removed the cover of the wooden box and found a cage covered with a cloth and a ribbon on top of it; like it was a wrapped present. Eager to see what was inside, Raka whipped open the cloth and... "Ah filthy sir, we meet again. Oh do I see my old friend over there too...Ah his pain breaks my heart into a million sounds.....AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHH~!" Raka quickly threw the cloth back on the cage. Chapter 20: Bon Voyage! A beautiful day. The sea birds call their mates. The frolicking of the waves make music. The serene wind takes a yawn. The lukewarm sun shines its brilliant rays on to the deck of a ship. On to a young man who stares at the heavens looking upon this wonderous world. He would have been blessed to receive nature''s prize and his thoughts would have been full of amazement. He makes the shadows move hither and tither as he slowly lifts the mop on to the ship''s deck. ''I have been tricked!'' So much for important missions, exciting adventures and amorous women. If anyone tells you that being a shipwright learner and a page are important jobs, hit them. By any equation, all calculations, shipwright learner + page = slave. Consider it. The addition of two lowest rungs in the job ladder results in being like the lower side of the lowest rung of the ladder. Kinda like negative number + negative number = a more negative number. Raka sighed again, running the mop across the wooden floor of the ship''s deck, remembering everything that had brought him to this. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka stood wondering what to do. He had just been delivered the Annoying Parrot. It was getting late and he had to log out soon but he couldn''t just leave it in the cage. He would be gone 2 days after all. In his shock, he had failed to see what was in the cage. ''Was there food and water?'' Well even though the parrot was annoying, should he just let it die?! After thinking a bit he decided on a course of action. He got out the ear plugs he used when he worked at the warehouse and put them in his ears. He hoped it would be enough although all his instincts warned him that if they couldn''t protect him from Salmon''s voice, they wouldn''t help with the parrot. But still, something was better than nothing. If only it would give him a few more seconds to react before he was stunned, he hoped. Slowly he lifted the cloth from the cage again. ".......," the parrot moved its beak. "Um....wait. Before you start singing, wouldn''t you like to get out of the cage." Thankfully, he couldn''t hear its voice. The ear plugs were working. On the other hand, not being able to hear, he was sure it had not started singing yet. He could see its beak move though so....Well strike before it could get in its groove, as they say. He put his hands on one side of the cage wall, finding a small latch and opened it. He tried lifting it and the cage wall lifted. All the while the parrot was watching his actions, incredibly with its beak closed. "You are free now. Go on fly away. You see freedom, fresh air...go on!" ''Please do'', he thought as well. The parrot walked out of the cage, hopped would be a better word, with its wings flapping. It flew on to the tree monkey was on and landed. And then it stared with its beak open. ''Is it saying something?'' The parrot simply nodded its head and shut its beak. Raka wasn''t sure what to do now. "Go on...you are free, do you understand. FREE! FLY! AWAY!" He even shooed with his hands. But still the parrot just sat there. It started moving its beak after a while. Not sure if Raka was out of danger yet. But there was no way to find out other than to risk it. Slowly he moved the plugs out of his ears, being cautious. ".........beneficiary. Therefore I shall in good honor of generations past." Thankfully, no singing, yet. "Um, what?" "Ah you are a bad listener in addition to being filthy sir. Why don''t you get an extra pair of ears while you are at it." "What?" Well it was still annoying. "You gave me freedom. I owe you a debt. The clan Cackle does not take debts. We repay them in full. So I will serve you till I have repaid it." "Ah no no. There is no debt. Please fly away. Go back to your home or whatever. I am sure your folks miss you." "Definitely not! I am a proud member of the clan Cackle. Pure blood of 5 generations. We don''t keep debts as I said." "But I don''t need you for anything. Besides don''t you have an aspiration to be a singer? Don''t you want to go somewhere else for that?" "That is true. But dreams can wait. This Cackle shall honor his debts first." "Why! As I said there is no debt. Even if there was, there is no reason to stay...you can resolve your debts some other day...like maybe next year." "Oh no. The Cackle fatherlord said. We resolve our debts then and there. And we do not leave till we do." ''Now how do I get rid of this thing!!'' "So what do you have to do to resolve your debt? Like one favor and your done?" Maybe he could get rid of it another way. "Laws of the Cackle clan state, I shall have to serve you for 10 new moons." "Wait, that''s almost like 10 months. You have to serve me for 10 months?!" "Ah that proves it. You have an addled brain sir. In what world does the new moon happen ten times in ten months?" "Eh...Oh!" Raka, like most people had assumed the game world was the same as the real world atleast with respect to the moon and stuff. Well more than assume, he hadn''t cared about it. "So when does the new moon happen?" "Once a year. Everyone knows that. Ah life...its misery and the beauty of the moon...." "Stop! Don''t sing!" Raka shouted. The parrot did stop. Guess the key was to do a preemptive strike before the bomb dropped.''That was close. I will have to keep listening to its words carefully. But still once a year..!!!'' "Um that would be like 10 years! Are you sure you did not get your law wrong? Maybe you heard it wrong?" "Ofcourse not. The Cackle clan prides itself on its perfect memories." "Really? Then how were you captured?" "Ah...I got lost while going home and landed on a ship to spend the night. The next thing, I was in a cage!" "So you forgot your way home. What''s with perfect memories!" "Do not belittle the Cackle clan, filthy addlebrained sir! Even the best Cackle makes mistakes." "Seriously! Anyways what is this Cackle clan you are talking about?" "Ah forgetful too aren''t you sir! Allow me to introduce myself again. I am Sir Squaky Nobbington Poppington Cackle the sixth." "Squaky? Seriously?!" "Ah if the name is too much for your forgetful self, you may address me as Sir Pop Cackle the sixth!" ''Ridiculous!'' On so many levels. But anyways he didn''t have time for it today. "Alright...Pop Cackle....whatever. I will be gone for the next two days. If you wish to leave you can do so. Or please do anyway. I have left some food for monkey, if you want to eat." "The proud Cackle clan hunts its own food. We do not take someone else''s." ''And didn''t you eat the food served to you in the cage?'' It was annoying in more ways than one. "Ok then. Well good night monkey." The monkey moved his head and made a small sound, almost like a whine and a light screech. "Ah he says good night to you, sir! He also says please glue his mouth together before you go. Ah why does he want to glue your mouth? Rude little ape, isn''t he." "Oh...ok. Wait! He says that? You understand him?" "Yes. It reminds me of the time when I first visited the island of the apes...ah the beauty of the trees..." "Don''t sing." So the parrot understands monkey language. Raka sighed and logged out. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy sighed again. He was having trouble paying attention to anything the prof said. In fact for the first time in his life, he suspected he had found himself in that proverbial fire and fire pan situation. Or was it the well and valley situation. Anyways he was having the perennial problem most film makers have. How to get their characters be at two places at once. If he did not go to college tomorrow, his Aunt who lived next door and through her, his parents, would know. If he did go to college tomorrow, he would miss his quest. The ship would sail.....literally. And if he was not on it, well..! He did wonder though, how virtual reality games get a character log on and off from a moving platform. I mean you get back online the place you died or logged out. But if that place was a ship, do you log on to the ship or to the exact place above water you logged out at. This and other nonsense thoughts pervaded the domain of his mind in his search for the solution to a very complex problem. Swamy sighed again. He tried to focus his attention back on his lessons but every few minutes some other nonsense thought would come invading. During lunch... "Hey Swamy, what''s up pal?" Rohit asked. "Hmm...what?" "You are looking so lost today. In fact you weren''t even listening in the lessons. Dude, if you doze off what will I do?" "Well it would help if you showed as much interest in class as you do in Long Island forums," Sneha quipped. "Oh come on. I can''t help where my interests lie, can I now?" Rohit replied with a smile. "Ha Ha...you will have to try harder than that!" ''Ri~ght....and ignore me will ya,'' Swamy thought. "Any~ways back to Swamy. So what''s caught up in your sleeve? I mean I haven''t seen you staring out of the window...like I have never seen you stare out of the window in class," Manish added. "Um...I am in a bit of a fix. I got this quest in game, but it will happen tomorrow in the day time." "Ok. So skip class tomorrow. I have done it once already," Rohit said. "Well he is not you obviously!" Sneha replied back. "Well its not like we are graded for attendance. You could skip, if you wanted to. Is this quest really that important? What kind of quest is it?" ''Do I tell them?'' Swamy thought. He had never got a chance to really talk about his game character. Well he did, but no one was particularly interested at those times, so he had politely stayed quiet. Was this the moment of reckoning. What would happen if they found out he was Raka? More specifically the Raka. Would they be upset? Or like Christopher, they would think it was clever that he hid it. Maybe the middle path would be best for now. "Umm...the quest has a difficulty of E. But if I get it done I might get to learn the woodworking skill, I think. It does not have many rewards, but it gives me the basic shipwright commission." "Wait...whats a basic shipwright commission?" Rohit pricked his ears at the new knowledge but it seemed everyone else was also interested in that. "Ah, the shipwright commission allows you to work on ships. The basic one allows you to work on the ship. The intermediate one allows you hire other shipwrights to work for you. And the advanced allows you to design and build ships. But you have to have the previous one to get the next level. So getting the basic one could be important. I think you will be able to get it through some other means as well but..." "Ah that is an absolutely excellent information you have uncovered Swamy." And Rohit was already moving his fingers on the cellphone. Maybe he will check up on this new information. Or maybe he will post it. "So you need this shipwright commission to actually travel on the ship as well? I mean can someone not travel if they don''t have that? Can''t they do other jobs which are not related to the shipwright thing?" As usual Himali came up with the most interesting questions. "Actually I think you can. Not sure what other jobs there are. But I doubt the captain would be a shipwright as well. It is one of the positions on the ship. Knowing the ship is made of wood, the woodworking skill could become very important, I think." Swamy replied honestly. "Hmm...we never thought of that did we Himali?" Manish said. "Yeah. After all, this game has a lot of islands. I think we forgot it due to being stuck in one place for so much time. Now we can go to the capital and see the sea right." Himali answered. "So should we spend some time learning the woodworking skill you think?" "Well we can if we want. But there should be other jobs to do on the ship as well. Lets find out more about it by asking around, before we decide." "But you use the bow as a weapon. It would be good to have someone know this skill in our guild." "Yeah. Oh lets not forget we need to find out how to make our guilds when we get to the capital. I think the road''s open now. I asked the guards and they said that the guards from the capital would be going back today. Once they get there the road will open for normal traffic." "Oh I heard that too. It seems Lady Altia will also go with the guards. The battle school instructors were talking about it. Come to think of it, I haven''t seen her around lately." "Could it be a continuation of the event quest you think?" Himali asked. "Not sure. Do you think we should hurry to the capital in that case? Maybe the next event quest will take place there." Manish added. "Well even if we hurry after the road opens, it would take us a few days to get there. Not sure we would be able to take part." Himali explained. "Oh yeah. That''s true." "Oh did you know I got a blessing yesterday." Finally Sneha spoke. It seemed she had been dying to get this out but looking that the talk never turned her way she had waited. The water had finally broken through the dam and she eagerly blurted it out. "Really what was it?" Rohit quickly looked up from his phone. "Oh just some silly thing actually." Sneha gave a knowing smile to Himali. Rohit looked at the exchange between the two ladies perplexed. Thankfully Manish explained. "Well Himali''s cooking instructor, who''s a female npc by the way, kissed her cheek when she was blessed. Her blessing is kind of embarrassing so I don''t think I will disclose that. I think something similar happened to Sneha." "Wait you were learning tailoring if I remember right? That instructor was a guy. Did he kiss you on the cheek as well?" Rohit asked. "No. In my case he went down on one knee and kissed my hand like a knight. It was so romantic." Sneha replied. "What! He did that! The nerve of him!" Rohit said aloud. "Calm down. I will let you do that as well, if you like it so much." Sneha teased and Rohit had the good grace to blush a little bit. "Well anyways, you should just skip class Swamy." A lame attempt by Rohit to change the discussion and everyone smiled, but they let it drop. "Yeah. But I think you may not need to do that. I was talking to one of the seniors I know. She said that during the start of long weekends like this, usually they end class early. And in some cases the profs themselves take the day off. Last year they had the whole morning off and in the afternoon the profs let them leave early." Sneha said. "Ah that would be nice. But I guess I still have to come down tomorrow to check it out. Well lets see what happens." Swamy could finally see a faint light at the end of the tunnel. Ofcourse that would be very lucky and he had a feeling his luck ran out in the game. But if it had happened before, there was a good chance it could happen again. If not...''Well I will think about it when I get there.'' Swamy sighed again. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged in by the beach. He took a deep breath of the salty sea air of the night. He had logged in a little early today, it was still like dark in the game. Monkey was still hanging by the tree and it looked asleep. Parrot...or Sir whatsitname seemed to be missing. ''Did it go away?'' Raka smiled for a moment. But then sighed his hopes away. He was not that lucky. It must be somewhere around, probably hunting for food. ''Anyways I will let them do what they want. The people don''t seem to bother them so I think it should be alright if I just let them be here.'' Thinking that he headed to the library. His addition to his usual routine would be reading about his new found skills in the library. Well the only skill he had practiced so far was Massage. And he hadn''t learnt it yet. But then he had been practicing on Monkey so it might not count anyway. Pushing his thoughts aside, he found the book on herbal medicine again and started learning it slowly. He even took out a few empty sheets and started making notes. ''I will have to buy more paper soon.'' A few hours and a bunch of notes later he stood up from his seat and stretched a bit. ''Ah the sun''s up already.'' He had been so engrossed in studying that he had not realized that the sun had come up a couple of hours before. ''Well lets head down to the docks.'' Salmon wasn''t there today. ''Hmmm whats up?'' Raka asked one of his colleagues and found out that Salmon won''t be coming today. Raka sighed. ''Couldn''t he have just told me. He knows I come up every 3 days.'' But not telling him seemed exactly like Salmon''s nature. Well he had no work today. So instead he made his way down to the one thing he could now do, because he had found a little bit of fame. The bow maker''s shop. In his regular routine, he visited all the shops he knew. Ofcourse going to all the shops in Thelmova everyday was not possible. There were so many. But Raka had quickly found out that intimacy counts for more with merchants than fame. Yes, fame helps. Especially if you are selling stuff like bones. But for profit margins, its better to have high intimacy. So he had identified the few shops which liked to buy at higher margins. He had also found stores which liked to sell just a little cheaper. And then he visited them regularly. Oh and he noted down the prices of the items every time. With intimacy came another distinct advantage. He could now ask them about things in their shop. Once he got more information, his Identification skill could work and improve. Unlike other skills though, improving Identification skill did not remove or reduce the requirement for information. He still had to find out about things or figure out things before his identification skill took effect. It was more for converting general information into specific data. Like how he figured out age and the skill gave him a number. "Ah aren''t you the young man who came here before? What was your name again? Heard a few people talking about you getting a Queen''s medal now, is it true?" asked the young bow maker. "Ah yeah, last time we were not introduced. My name is Raka and yes it is true that I was rewarded with a Queen''s medal." "Hahahaha now I remember. You were trying to sell bones to me, right. At that time I couldn''t help thinking what kind of loon had arrived...sorry about that. Name''s Boyle. So how can I help you today?" "Well I came today for the same reason as last time. I wanted to sell all the rabbit and wolf bones I have." "Ah yeah. I agree you can sell them now but I got no need for those bones right now. No demand for basic bows see." Raka thought for a bit. "Um...I think there is a requirement of basic bows in Gurrow village. Lots of Goddess''s children will be reaching the age to go out of the village and they will be needing weapons. The first things they hunt would be rabbits and wolves and soon there would be lots of bones in the market. But if you can supply the bones first, I think you can sell for a higher price. Also if you make basic bows and sell some in Gurrow, it should sell for a higher price as well. You can add the transportation cost to Gurrow too. Well it will be a limited time offer. After all the road just opened, last I heard. And people would soon be flooding the market with bones. But if you act fast..." Boyle pinched his lips thinking about this. The profit margins in basic weapons would not amount to much. And as these bones don''t have magical properties they would lose their demand soon enough. But right now the Goddess''s children might not care about such things. Raka could faintly imagine the things going on in Boyle''s head. "Well alright. Show me the bones...." A little while later, Raka concluded the business earning 74 silvers 35 coppers. And he still had bones left. It seems that not all bones can be used in making bows. ''Now what do I do with the rest? Should I just dump them?'' The bones did not seem to go bad like food so he could store it for now. After all his bag was mostly empty nowadays. And then he remembered the medicine makers. ''Could this be another lack of foresight?'' Raka sighed. He had just read a book on herbal medicine. Ideally it should have reminded him of those medicine makers. ''I am an idiot, hence proved. Well not like they would buy these bones but lets find them first and then I can decide.'' "Say Boyle, do you know any medicine makers around here? I know most of the shops but none seem like they would sell medicines." "Ah that''s because medicine makers don''t have shops like these. They usually sell directly to the physickers." "Physickers? Are they like healers?" "No no. Healers are different. See healers use magic to help your recovery. They can also deal with some wounds and curses. But they cannot do anything about diseases. Physickers are the ones who take care of any disease. They use various herbs and medicine and only they can prescribe medicine. That''s why medicine makers sell it directly to them. A lot of medicine makers are physickers themselves and they travel around here and there." ''Ah so healers use magic, while physickers use the herbs and medicine. And what''s this about curses and disease?'' Raka had thought healing would take care of everything. But it seems in the game there were things which could be dealt with magic and things for which you would need proper medicine. So what happens if you get afflicted by a disease and do not get it treated? Npcs would die ofcourse. But what would happen to the players? ''Just some negative effects which last a long time...or would there be more severe consequences. Hmmm.'' "Well so how do I find these medicine makers or physickers?" "I can''t say. Usually when they come, word goes around that they have come. And there''s one in the Queen''s palace. But he doesn''t come out much. Otherwise they just go around the island helping people. But one or two visit every month. I haven''t heard of one coming so can''t say. The medicine makers also don''t come to the city much. They usually scour the forests in search of herbs." "Hmm in that case, how do they get in touch with the physickers?" "Never thought about that. I think maybe they have pigeons or something." ''That makes sense. Well no point waiting for them.'' Raka left the shop and headed to the blacksmith. He needed to get his armor repaired though how much help would it be, he wasn''t sure. Especially when he was on a ship. In the event quest video, the beastmen had simply tore through armor like it was paper. Repairing his armor cost him 20 silvers. Guess the time spent so far had really done a number on them. Leaving his armor to be repaired, he decided to head down to the magic academy as was his routine. Hours later, he still had no luck. But....''They are still staring aren''t they.'' The other students in the training hall seemed to be staring at him. Or at his back to say. They were being careful not to do it overtly. But Raka could feel their stares on his back. Guess being invited by Lady Verina and/or Sambal did not go down well with them. Atleast they did not intend to do anything about it. Raka wasn''t sure whether he was being underestimated or not. In any case, it was not the most comfortable situation. He walked down to the beach in the afternoon and parrot was still missing. Now Raka had a reason to hope. Just a little. He and the monkey had their lunch together watching the waves roll onto the beach. After spending some more time relaxing, he moved on to Cassian''s house for tea. Thankfully Cassian was alone today. His Peek lessons could now begin in earnest. "You know bonding affects two similar objects. Or atleast objects who you can imagine to be similar. You understand those rules?" Cassian said. "Yes." After all the bonding practice, he was sure of it. "Well lets think of bonding as making lines. One line starts from one object and leads to the other object. The second line does the same thing with the other." Raka nodded. "Well lets say for now, that I erased one of those lines. Would the objects still be considered bonded?" "I am not sure. There would still be a link between the two." "Exactly. You see I wondered that if we can see this in theory, why can''t we see it in practice. After all, bonding cannot happen unless you link the objects. Which will always form two lines between them. Do you see the problem?" Raka thought for a while this time. What Cassian said made sense. But the way he applied bonding on objects did not leave any way to be connected just one way. Once you pass magic through two objects, they were always connected two-way. Raka nodded again. "Yeah. I spent years trying to understand this phenomena. At first, I thought it was simply a case of believing. After all, the limitations to magic is ourselves. But no matter how hard I believed I never achieved anything." Cassian slowed down for a bit. "Then I tried changing my thoughts. Maybe its just a different way of doing magic rather than simply believing. When you bond two objects, you imagine them to be one and the same and then pass magic through both of them at the same time. But I thought what if I did not pass magic through them at the same time. I failed. I got two separate magic embedded objects rather than bonded ones. I tried with various levels of power. Then I tried it with different time intervals. I even tried it with different objects just to be sure. But nothing worked." Raka listened quietly. "And then I discovered a way. I have given you several clues. Lets see if you have figured it out by now Raka." ''What clues!'' For a moment Raka was dumbfounded. Then he started thinking back to the entire conversation. What was left in the bonding process? He thought for a lot of time even giving up, but each time Cassian encouraged him to think some more. It was like he was guiding him to a solution, almost like if he couldn''t solve it himself, he might not be able to learn..... And then it hit him. "When we talk of bonding, we always think of bonding two objects but we still have to think them as one. So what happens if we do the bonding process on one object only. And then maybe split it?" "Ahahaha...yes very good. You see people usually have trouble giving up preconceived notions. And truthfully, it is hard. It took me years to get to this idea. I tried it and the result was a one way connection between the split objects. The answer is still incomplete but if you cannot give up the notion of bonding with two objects, you can not learn Peek. This is the main reason why no one has been able to perform it successfully, even when they know about it." Raka smiled excited. "You see, there is a further refinement. When you pass magic through a single object, the side which receives the magic first becomes the start of the first link. And then the other sides form the second link and connects to the first side. I have found that doing this way, the second link is always weaker than the first. You have to take care when splitting the object now, because destroying the object destroys the links as well. So for example, you take a thick piece of glass. When you embed magic, it enters one side of the glass and out the other. The side where it enters first becomes the first link. Now I can simply split the thick piece of glass down the middle which will destroy the second link, and only the first link will remain. Then I make mirrors using the two separate pieces and the result is before you." "But then isn''t it possible to have many connected pieces of glass like that?" Raka asked. "Ah...so you figured that out too. Well theoretically it should be. But I tried doing it and it doesn''t work. That is why I said that it is an incomplete answer. I have this suspicion that when you split the objects into lots of pieces, the bond also divides in strength. So when you have 3 pieces, there will be two one-way links from the first piece to the other two. If thinking that a link has its own power, then when making two links from one, it divides and each link''s power reduces. Maybe this makes it unstable and the link breaks down. Well it is just my thoughts." It took Raka a few more minutes to understand. And he smiled as he understood. "Alright you will find some suitable pieces of glass down at the back. I asked Taum to buy some." Raka went below and out to the back. There seemed to be a room which was filled with all sorts of stuff, almost like a store room. He entered and found several thick pieces of glass of varying sizes in a stack. He carried the stack back. "If you truly understand then try applying this bonding technique on these." Raka lifted up a piece of thick glass, almost the size of his palm and with thickness around 2 fingers. He closed his eyes and did the magic. ''Now how do I split them?'' But Cassian asked for the piece and waved his hands and then whispered ''Break''. A seam appeared right down the width of it and the glass split into two. "Here try writing on the first one. And then the second one." Raka did as told. Writing on the first reflected the same words on the second. But writing on the second did not reflect back on the first. Raka looked up with shining eyes. It had worked perfectly. "Well done. Now all that''s left is to learn how to manipulate water...." And Raka''s mood vanished as soon as it had arrived. That night he practiced some more Massage on monkey before leaving him with some more fruits. Parrot had still not appeared. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Next day, Swamy''s luck returned. Morning class got cancelled. His profs had taken an early holiday. Ofcourse he had to find this out by actually coming to class. He hurried back. Well, if his luck hadn''t returned, it would have been very difficult to continue this story. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka quickly walked down to the docks. He wasn''t sure which pier to go to but there seemed to be only a handful of ships today. Five to be exact. He walked over to them and sure enough, Salmon was standing beside one with his hands folded, fuming for some unknown reason. "Hurry up! Move those waggletails and get on the ship you moron!" Raka did just that. He looked around. Quite a few people were working, still loading some stuff up, running numbers, checking cargo, inspecting sails, etc. Lady Altia and Verina were no where. Maybe they were still preparing and they would board at a later time. Thinking that, Raka spent his time watching the flurry of activities all along the ship as it readied itself to make sail. "Don''t just stand there and get in the way! If you are not helping then get down below!" Someone shouted at him. Well, it was Raka''s first time on a ship. Real or virtual. The author''s as well. Not that he hadn''t prepared a bit. He had read about old sail ships on the internet, hoping that these would resemble them to some extent. But looking at a ship in a drawing and actually being on one full of busy people, is a lot different. ''Now how do I get below?'' Obviously this ship was not designed the way he had seen on the internet. The upper deck he thought it was called, had some rooms on top of it. With a bunch of doors towards the aft of the ship. And then there was this gaping hole on the deck itself towards the middle of the ship, which connected down to the cargo area. He headed to the rooms and tried opening one of the doors. Lots of charts, something, charts...no way down. Another door revealed more instruments, even a wheel...guess this was the captain''s. A couple more were locked. The last one was open and revealed a small hole with stairs going down. Now stairs on a ship are built straight down and not slanting down like in a house. You have to...climb down them. Below revealed a small galley or kitchen kind of, having tables with attached benches. And then connected to it was a hallway, with more rooms and doors at one side. This hallway ran a lot shorter than the upper deck, only about the size of like a third of the ship. Maybe the other half is more storage area. And this was like the resting area. ''So a total of 3 decks by the looks of it. Where are the cannons by the way?'' Not wanting to try the rooms, he sat down on one of the benches. Now that he noticed, the tables were bolted to the flooring. And then he waited hearing the clunking, shouting, etc coming up from around him. A couple of times some people came down and went to check up the cupboards/larders lining the walls of the galley. One of them was kind enough to offer him some kind of jerky. It tasted nice and it gave him something to do besides getting bored. He laid his head down on the table and slowly dozed off. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Raka awoke a couple of hours later feeling something was wrong. And then realized it had become quiet. No shouting, clunking or any of the other sounds. He quickly made his way to the upper deck and found that barring a few people, everyone had formed ranks on pier....like a parade next to the ship. He hurried down below, almost falling off the gangplank, and made his way to Salmon who was standing a little to the side and not in formation. He quietly growled. "And where the hell have you been? Don''t tell you were napping somewhere now!" But he wasn''t interested in the answer instead he looked towards the streets. Raka did too. A little while later, he heard the clopping of horses and a couple of closed wagons arrived surrounded by a lot of soldiers all clad in the finest armor. "The Queen....." A whisper went out around him as the first wagon opened and out stepped a middle aged woman, a quite lovely lady having blonde hair, wearing rich noble robes and a crown. Even then he could see the grace as she stepped down. Raka felt that she was really good at fighting for some reason. Warriors or people trained to be one, had this grace. A way to walk, always balanced, always sure. But Raka realized it because the Queen walked more like Lady Altia and Verina rather than Neona. And then the rest followed. Lady Verina, Lady Altia, Sambal and a few other noble looking people. The second carriage was filled with.... "Eh...!" Raka could not stop the sound from escaping as the magic academy transfer students dropped down from the second wagon. Also dressed in some form of noble attire. Probably from their homelands or kingdoms. He had known that they would be joining but he did not expect like this. ''And why is that Despira guy with them? Isn''t he a local noble''s son?'' But there he was. A little later a 3rd wagon arrived with a few more nobles. And then lots of soldiers which were following. These soldiers however came down and joined the parade formation near each ship. Raka was too far away on the pier to actually hear what was being said. But the Queen seemed to shake hands with quite a few people along the way. When she reached Raka''s ship, she shook hands with a man. "Alright Captain, wish you a good voyage. May your men be victorious and strong," she said. Finally she clasped hands with Lady Verina and Altia and then the students and nodded. Orders bellowed from each ship''s captain in order starting from the one nearest to the Queen. "All Aboard! May the Goddess Salacia bless us!" ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Which brings us back to the beginning. Its been 2 days in real life, 6 days in game. The voyage had started slow, with the ship moved to the open sea under oars. And then the large square sail came on down to catch the wind. As the wind filled up the sail, the ship tilted to the side, before sailors manning them did some trimming of the sails and the ship righted itself up. Raka almost fell down before grabbing on to a door handle. ''This was unexpected.'' Not that he had been on a ship before. The stories you read about people travelling on ships, they don''t really convey how much a ship swings side to side. Or rises up and falls down upon the waves for that matter. Another 20 minutes and Raka knew what sea sickness felt like. "Ugh..." as he felt his stomach rise up again and then abruptly fall down. He looked around to see if anyone had noticed and people sure did. All of them were laughing. Even the transfer students. ''Well they had traveled over the sea already to get here.'' But thankfully it was the first time for Despira as well. Though how he had never been on a ship or a boat as he lived on an island, was something quite confusing. ''Must be due to protected upbringing or something.'' Atleast Raka was not alone in his misery. Even a few of the young soldiers seemed as green as he. And then the ship made another lurch. Raka slid down on the floor hoping his stomach settled soon. But there was no resting allowed. "Alright get to your stations. Now if you will please follow me, I will show you to your rooms..." the Captain said to the nobles and the Ladies. Raka stood up gingerly and followed behind. As a page, he had to take care of Lady Altia and his work had already begun. Thankfully Lady Altia was not so fatigued that she couldn''t walk. It turned out Lady Altia and Lady Verina insisted on sharing the same room. The room had four bunks, two on each side. In fact all the rooms had this design. Perhaps it was common to group the travelling nobles together. "Now I will have Raka here and only him, have free access to the room, when we are not present. Any cleaning or maintenance, he will be responsible for." "I understand Lady Verina. If you need anything else..." said the captain. "Not right now. Thank you." "It is my pleasure." "Now let me show you your rooms. I am sorry but there is not much space on the ship, so the males will be assigned one room and the females will have to share another." The captain said it in his politest but firmest voice to the the students. "O~K! Its the same as in the dorms." It seemed that they were already in such a situation as part of the magic academy. It was an armada which had left those docks. 5 ships. The other nobles, knights, commanders had their own places in other ships. Ofcourse, you had to share the room if you were a lower rank of nobility like all else. And ofcourse the rest of the crew, slept on the floor or where ever they could find a bit of space. Hammocks were hung after dinner in the galley. Eventually the crew were split into day and night crews with each resting while the other worked. "But not when we have to get on oars. Or when the fighting starts. We will be all hands on deck then." The Captain said. The Captain was old, but still strong and quite the conversationalist. He knew how to keep the people''s attention on his already exciting stories. Just the right tone of surprise and suspense. Every evening he and the Ladies, who took Raka with them, had this official meeting between the ships. There was a proper mirror room just like at the academy, next to the captain''s room who happened to be the only one to have a room on the upper deck. This mirror room was much smaller though with only 3 mirrors on the walls. There was also a round table at the center on which a map was kept. Maybe the Captain brought out the map for the meeting or it was a permanent fixture of the room; Raka could not tell. Raka was the recipient of a lot of envious stares as he walked into the room and closed the door behind him. This was secret. But after that they would all have dinner together, courtesy Raka helping out in the cooking and serving their food, where they would all get to hear the Captain''s stories. Raka was helping in the cooking other times too, to serve Lady Altia and Lady Verina, who usually ate in the room or the galley, depending on how Lady Altia was feeling. But dinner was always with the magic students in the galley. It seemed it was a courtesy for the Captain to dine together with the nobility, if and when the chance arises. And the Captain being used to nobles as he was, did this courtesy at dinner. Atleast if you did not want to offend them. The only nobility aside from Ladies on the ship though were the magic students. And they did request having dinner together with Lady Altia and Lady Verina. And as he was already involved, Raka was catering to them as part of the cook staff as well. That was the good part. On the other hand was Salmon''s work, which wasn''t really work related to a shipwright. Instead he fancied giving Raka orders such as bringing him water, mopping the deck, polishing the guard rails...you get the point. Why would you want to polish the guard rails when you are at sea and water was constantly splashing over them?! Which brought up another problem. Raka did not know nautical terminology. And Salmon was cruel enough to give him his orders like.... "Clean the aft deck, then the prow. You will find mops in the storage room at the stern. After that polish the gunwales and then find me for more work....the day is long." He said smiling. "Eh...what?" In typical Salmon fashion, he was shouted at for not knowing where the bow and stern were, but this time he seemed happy yelling. Which was not that different from his normal yelling except the evil smile never left his face. "Fancy kids who do not even think to learn the basics before boarding the ship..." or something like that. And in typical Raka fashion he had tried to learn it. Yes, he went on to the internet and searched for nautical terminology. Remembering them or understanding them....well lets put it this way. Atleast he learned aft was back and bow was front. Which could very well have turned out to be the limit of his sailing knowledge. ''What the hell does wearing mean?!! And why do they call the ropes, sheets and shrouds?!'' ''It is a test....that''s right...this is a test. It has to be...'' Raka grumbled as he looked towards the sky. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Today started no different. And Raka swung his mop across the deck, standing in the rising sun. Apparently his schedule on the ship was difficult. As he disappeared for 2 days. See, people of Thelmova had not gotten used to the disappearing act of the Goddess''s children, unlike the ones in Gurrow village. It was a unique experience to them. Apparently this is why he had free access to Lady Altia and Lady Verina''s room when he wanted to log out. Though the first time he did it people did wonder what he did for 2 whole days stuck in the room. It became clear pretty soon and amazingly people simply believed that was how the Goddess''s children were. Weird. And questions were avoided. On the other hand, while he was online, he could work for almost 24 hours game time not requiring sleep in the game. It was troublesome when Salmon discovered this ability. He just doubled his workload. Now he had to mop all the decks. Infact he had to also use a cloth to dry off the excess water on the floor in the lower decks. After all, they did not get the ample sunshine the upper deck enjoyed. ''Well it could have been worse. On the positive side, I don''t feel sick anymore.'' The Captain woke up and came out on the deck, yawning and stretching. He was always one of the few who slept very little on the ship. "That''s why I sleep all the time when I am ashore." He said to Raka one morning. Early morning was always a quiet time. The nobles slept. The night crew were tired. And the morning crew were just stirring up and hated loud noise. Raka always enjoyed his talk with the Captain during this time. It turned out the old sea dog was far more curious than anyone he had ever met. He liked to talk about what Raka had done, will do and how he knew the two Ladies. They met again during dinner time but those times were for all the nobles. "Oh hey Raka, good morning. Lovely sun isn''t it?" "Hey Captain. The morning is good alright. It seems that its getting warmer though." "Yeah, we are entering an area where the wind slows down. So it does get a bit hotter. We should come out of it in about a day. We have a sailed almost to the northern tip of the island by now." "Oh is that so. I wish I could read maps. I wish to venture out to the sea on my own ship eventually, you know." "Ha ha, yeah. Well you would need a whole lot before that will happen. You just got over your sea sickness the last time." "Yeah. It seems moving your body on the ship helps with that." "Hahaha true. You are looking almost normal now. Wish you could have seen how green you were the first day. Ah hey, you did see yourself in the mirror didn''t you?" "Ugh! Don''t remind me. I thought I might faint from looking at the sight of me. Or was it because how I was feeling." "Hahaha. Well on with your work boy. Say what, when you get a break why don''t you come to the bridge. You might learn a thing or two." "I am definitely taking you up on that Captain. Well you have a good day as well. I got half the ship to mop..." Raka sighed. "Think of it this way. Atleast you get to see two lovely faces every morning." The Captain teased. "And a ton of murdering stares as well." "Hahahaha....yeah what''s up with that? The students seem to have become your enemies." "I don''t know. But it could be because I am spending so much time with their idols. Ofcourse they can''t look at all the work I do, the cleaning and the cooking." "Don''t worry about it. They are good kids at heart. See they don''t even bother you. Mean kids would try to bully you. Not that the Goddess''s children could be bullied. You trained under Lady Altia and Lady Verina right. How strong are you?" "Ah...truthfully not much. Atleast I haven''t had anyone to compare against. But I have seen the other students in action and I know I can''t do anything they do, yet." "Hmm. But remember fights are not only about action. Its also about planning. Come to think of it do the Goddess''s children know how to fight at sea?" "I don''t. Don''t think the others do too. Which reminds me, where are the cannons?" "Cannons! They are so slow. Boy, you will soon learn a far more exciting way to fight. Just you wait. Ah now that I think about it I need to schedule a lesson on naval fighting for you and the other students. I am sure you guys haven''t done any of that and I need every hand available in case we encounter the pirates." The sun rose a little higher and finally it was time to prepare breakfast. Raka came to the galley and washed his hands in the kitchen sink. The cook staff had almost arrived and had started to get busy. "Ah Raka you are here. Why don''t you peel those potatoes first. And then did you want to learn how to cook this sea bream?" "Yes. I would like that." And Raka got busy with the cooking. About an hour later, they had enough food made and the crew started arriving in hoards. The Cook had thoughtfully said this on their first day. "Never keep a sailor hungry, son. They get as cranky as your old granduncle with a bad tooth." Leaving the others to serve them, Raka quickly left to check on Lady Altia and Lady Verina. He knocked and entered. "Ah good morning Raka" said Lady Verina who had already woken up and dressed. She was combing her lustrous blonde hair. "Ya~wn...good morning. Wake me up in 10 minutes." Lady Altia who was still under the blankets. "Oh come on Altia. Would you grow up already. What will Raka think if you go on about like this?" "He will think I am sleeping beauty. Just 10 more minutes....alright just 5." "No.. get up now. Get some food in your belly girl. Lately you have been lazing around a lot. Is it that bad or are you just feeling lazy?" "Hah...believe whatever you want." She finally sat up. "Is it time for breakfast already?" "In a bit. The crew is just changing so they are filling the galley. I can bring it here if you want?" Raka said. "No, I think my legs are feeling better. It will do me good to move around." And she yawned again. ''Best part of the day.'' Raka could not help smiling. And he did not understand why. After breakfast, "So what''s your plans today?" Lady Altia asked Lady Verina. "I got to see the Captain and then get the new reports. I guess we are at the northern tip of Ilmentia or somewhere close. The last report had put the place where the pirates docked about 15 leagues from here. But its the low wind zone, so not sure when we will make it. And if they have moved..." "Hmm...I understand. I think I will go enjoy the sun today. Its a bit warmer today, the kind I like." ''Lady Altia sun bathing.....'' Raka just could not help thinking. "And Raka what will you do?" "Clean the decks. I just finished the upper deck so I will be doing the lower ones. Though I might take a bit of a break and go to the wheelhouse around lunch. Also the Captain seems to be trying to arrange some sort of training on naval fighting I think. Not sure when that is though." "Ah that. Hehehe well I will come join you guys then. That will be fun!" Lady Altia said. "Hohoho yeah I want to see that too." Lady Verina perked up. "Is it that much of a fun thing?" ""You will see"" both of them said together and laughed. Somehow Raka had a bad feeling about it. But it couldn''t be worse than mopping the floor. Lunch time. Raka went on about his own thing again, cooking. And then finding Lady Verina and Lady Altia. Lady Verina was almost always in the mirror room, if not the bridge with the Captain. Lady Altia was enjoying the sun lying down on a wooden bench, someone had propped up by the side of the sails. There being very little wind, the waves were nice. Even Raka was starting to enjoy this part of the voyage. Unfortunately, this was before the time bikinis had been invented but togas were not bad either. After lunch, he went to the wheelhouse. Oh if I forgot to tell you, the wheelhouse is the part of the bridge where the steering wheel of the ship is. Guessing you are not so versed in nautical terminology as well. The Captain had his hands on the wheel, with a couple of guys with him, to shout out his orders to the men manning the sails. One of them was the First Mate, second in command. When the captain was not on the wheels, it was the First Mate who was responsible for steering the ship. The other guy was the Second Mate, third in command. He was mostly responsible for taking care of the other stuff on this ship, but he did help with steering as well. Together they divided into 3 shifts, always 2 of them there for each shift. "Ah Raka you are here. Here Sammy, take over will ya." "Aye Captain." and the First Mate took the wheel. "Later then John." "Later Captain." Doesn''t the Captain have a name? Anyways, they headed to the next room with all the charts and maps and stuff. "Alright lets teach you how to read maps. Shall we..." and he started pulling out a map from all the stuff.
Skill Map Reading: You can now learn how to read a Map. Captain offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Read a map without the Captain''s help.
''Even the quest window says Captain.'' "Yes please." And they stared at a drawn map while the Captain went talking about north and scales and map legends. Now for people who think that reading a map is easy, try reading it without all those lines denoting longitudes and latitudes. Furthermore scale was not an absolute thing. Hands and Leagues are always about ''about''. You see they are not accurate measures. About 3 hands, depends on whose hands you are considering. Leagues are worse. A league on the sea is almost always greater than the league distance on land, though that thought might differ at other places. Kinda like mile and nautical mile. Even more, depending on who measures it, the league distance varies. For example one would measure a league to be the distance a ship travelled in one hour. How would a slower or faster ship measure that? So it was always ''about''. Don''t get started on days and hours. The discussion will take an entire chapter. In such a scale, maps were more about identifying points. Characteristic land and sea features which could be identified by many people as the same thing. Which made reading maps very simple. Following them to get someplace became difficult. About an hour later of studying maps, Captain started asking questions. "So what''s this legend used for?" "Cove." "And if I am looking for Blue Ridge cove, where would I find it?" "I think that was south of the island...ah yeah there it is." "How many days of travel would it be if I want to travel to Brittanica?" "About 2 weeks. Though in good wind you could probably make it in a week and half." "How do you find north in the map?" "Its this cross here. Its always on the top right side of the map. Once placed the right way, north is always to the above." "Good. It seems you have absorbed the teaching well. Here, why don''t you try and read this map and tell me about all the things you can find out." And he brought out a map of another island, smaller this time. And Raka went on to describe all the salient points he could see. "Alright I am satisfied. You know how to read maps now."
You have learned the skill Map Reading.
"You seem to have a talent for this. Why don''t you learn how to make maps too?"
Skill Mapping: You can now learn how to draw and create a Map. Captain offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Create a map without the Captain''s help.
"Ah ok." Well lets suffice to say creating a map was much much more easier than reading a map. The trick was getting others to understand your map. That was not easy. "Alright why don''t you try mapping the island features you see. I got to go now. Show it to me later." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Evening. Back at the kitchen. Raka helped prepare the dinner. The meeting would take place soon and everyone would talk about new reports or problems in their ships. It was a pretty regular meeting. No new reports yet. Well it didn''t mean there were no updates. Just that the scouts hadn''t reported back yet. "Ah...well that was long...and boring." Captain sighed. "Please don''t say that. You take all motivation out of me too." Lady Altia replied. "You two....are you on a vacation?" "No. But there is no point being dead till you are dead, you know." Captain joked. "Anyways, shall we have dinner then?" Raka suggested. Dinner was a usual affair. The students talked about a million things with Lady Altia and Lady Verina. Captain made his occasional jokes and stories. At the end however, as soon as they were getting up, Captain faltered. "Oh...." "Whats up Captain?" "Are you feeling alright?" "Yeah I am. Its just that my shoulder is feeling stiff a little bit. Must have banged it somewhere. It just pained a little when I placed it on the table to rise." "Is it still painful?" "Hmm...not really. But it does feel a bit stiff." Captain said holding his shoulder with the other hand, trying to move it. "Ah there is a bit of pain when I move it to the back. Shouldn''t be problem. A bit of rest and I should be fine." "Alright then. Its not a wound so I am not sure if healing will work. In any case rest. Raka why don''t you see the Captain to his quarters. Just to check if he isn''t hiding any more pains." Lady Verina instructed. "That hurts more than you know." Captain replied back and everyone laughed. Raka accompanied the Captain to his cabin. "Ah thanks. But you can leave now." "Ah...I just wanted to say, I have this massage technique which seems to help with shoulder pains. Would you like to try it out? No guarantees but it could help." "Really...ok." "Ok then, please take a seat..." And Raka started massaging the man''s shoulder. He started slow, taking in the differences in muscles between the captain and monkey. He was the first human he was practicing on after all. A few slightly painful moments later... "Hmm I think it does feel better. The stiffness is gone a little bit. But my pain is still there." "Ah that didn''t work. I am still learning. Will try to do better next time." "Ok. Can I trouble you for your help again next time then." "Yes. Ok see you then Captain..." And Raka turned around to head out the door but stopped. People were staring inside the open door of cabin. Well technically, it was never locked when the captain was in. But seemingly Sammy, the first mate had dropped in and looking at what was going on stood by the door. Finding him like this, became the invitation for the other crew to look. Which resulted in this. "Can we get a massage as well Captain? Raka?" Sammy spoke smiling. "It should be ok. I am sure a lot of people have sore muscles." Captain said smiling. Raka had a very bad feeling about this. "Um...what?" And then Raka gave massages. Shoulders, neck, backs, thighs, legs, toes...by the way they smell bad. Well not having learned the actual skill, he was not making a lot of progress. But it was still helping a little bit. And seemingly everyone liked a massage, even if slightly painful sometimes. In fact it turned out he gave massages to almost all the night crew. ''Still didn''t get the skill.'' Raka sighed. It was late in the night now. He still had time before he logged out so he decided to practice some more magic. He was surrounded by water anyway, so getting a bucket of it to practice wasn''t very difficult. ''Hmm...isn''t that....'' "Lady Altia, master, you are awake. Are you all right?" He asked the woman sitting on a bench looking out towards the moonlit night sea. It was still the low winds area. The crew were still lazing about here and there but Lady Altia had found a quiet corner with a bench. Some of the crew had put up some covered torches for light around the deck but most of it was still dark, illuminated only by the moonlight. Lady Altia was leaning on the guard rails, probably the gunwales, and she turned her head around to look at him. "Oh Raka. I thought you had disappeared already." "Not yet. I still have some time before that." "Hmm...so what have been up to?" Raka hesitated. "Hmm...is it something like giving massages to the crew?" Raka stared at her. "How did you hear about that?" "Idiot. Almost the entire crew turned up didn''t they. Is it a surprise I heard about it then?" "Ah....well." Raka said sheepishly. "They said you were clumsy but your massage helped a little bit. Are you trying to learn to be a masseur? Thought you wanted to travel the world and have adventures. But I am sure you can have that, this way as well...hehehe." "Nothing of that sort. I am just trying to learn cause I figured it would be useful in my travels." "Hehehe the lil eggplant is growing up isn''t he." Raka looked away. "Anyways what are you doing here? I thought you went to sleep already?" "Couldn''t sleep. I have been doing nothing but resting cause of my legs." "Is it that bad?" "Yeah. This fight took a lot out of me. Usually I would need almost a month to be ready. But a commander cannot very well show her uncool face in front of the soldiers can they. Especially when so many good men died." Her voice turned serious. "Are the beastmen really that strong?" Lady Altia looked Raka in his eyes. "Yes. People said that they couldn''t use magic. And I think they can''t, atleast not like we do. But they have their own kind of magic. Verina said it seems their magic is all about supporting their bodies. Not only does it give them great strength and speed but it gives them an amazing magical defense as well. The skin was almost as tough as stone for that one. I had to fight beyond my limits just to have a chance at winning. Pure luck I was able to knock him down." Silence as they contemplated. "Um...would you massage my legs too? Even a little help is good." "If its okay with you. Though I am still learning." Raka answered a bit embarrassed. "But aren''t you receiving healing from Lady Verina?" "Healing don''t work for these kind of things." "Well then, please lie down. Ah and please remove your shoes." Lady Altia laid down on the floor, her head tilted and resting on her hands, almost like she was sleeping. Raka moved his hands slowly all over her back, her hips, thighs, legs and then the toes. He was feeling for stiffened muscles. The sign that they are stretched or under duress. Raka had researched a bit about Massage through the internet. It actually worked on a pretty scientific principle. Balance of weight. The human body is designed in such a way that the entire weight is borne by the bones. It is the bones which actually carry the weight and the muscles are designed as support structures to the bones. Almost like how a suspension bridge works. When a muscle gets torn or damaged, the other muscles take on the extra weight. Which adds extra stress on them. Now depending on the extent of fatigue or damage, a lot of other muscles could be affected all over the body. It was always a good idea to check the whole body like this. Ofcourse feeling a moving breathing body, with the warmth oozing through the thin toga was another experience all together. Raka started by massaging her neck, applying pressure at the joints and trying to heat up the various muscles. Then slowly moving towards the back, moving his hands in a circular motion and pressing hard at key points. He reduced the pressure at the hips allowing his hands to just slide on top of it and finally pressing at the small of the back. Then came the thighs. His hands came in contact with her soft warm skin. And as he pressed tightly, "Oooooooooohh!" ''Eh...what?'' "Was it painful..I am sorry." "Ah no its just felt good. Please continue." "Ah ok." And Raka continued, with the occasional Ooohs and Aaahs. The sounds played havoc in Raka''s mind, taking his focus off the things he was doing and towards another direction. ''Concentrate ....and doing this will improve blood flow in this region..and then blood will flow down...focus damnit.'' "Aaaaahh...that''s good. Right there." ''Fizzzzzz no concentrate.....focus......hmm the skin feels a little hotter, is the blood flow improving...'' "Ooooh.....yes...ah" ''............focus damn it...the skin cannot get hotter..body temperature is fixed....feeling hot must be in my head..'' "Hmmmm....Oh...wow" ''...follow the process for the other leg.....blood flow important so pull harder here and press harder here...breathe...keep cool...focus....wait this does feel a little cooler than the other leg....'' And then the toes. "Haaah." About 10 excruciating minutes, atleast that was how Raka felt, in which he ended up totally covered in sweat,
You have learned the skill Massage. Successful Massage effects applied: Pain recovery, muscle relaxing, blood flow improvement. Blood flow improvement results in Life recovery +1 for 30 seconds. Intimacy increases.
Sensitivity stat has been created. Sensitivity allows observation and recognition of the smallest changes in your environment but requires that you be able to use your own senses to the limit to differentiate the smallest of changes. Based on your efforts you get 1 point to Sensitivity. This stat increases based on your actions.
You have grown. Your age is now 15.
''What the hell!!!'' "Aaaaaaaaaaahhhhhhh. That felt good." Lady Altia said softly and then sat up and felt her legs. She stood up and moved around, a smile on her face. "Yes, definitely much better than before. A couple of massages like this and they will be right as rain. So lets do it again." "Eh....um....you see......um....its not a good idea to do massages one after the other." Raka hoped that was right. The book did not say anything about it but Raka did not want to go through the last 10 minutes again. Not so soon atleast. His heart which was beating so loud that he could hear the thumping, needed time to calm down. Chapter 21: Dance of the Kraken **************************Authors note************************************* Hi fellow humans and other races, Thank you for your interest in the fanfic Long Island. I hope this journey continues further, as long as it can. Trust me, I really got ideas to fill a lot of volumes... Is there anyone who can draw Raka based on the description I gave? I am not very good at it and I would like to have a picture. If you want further details, send me a message. If many people decide to draw Raka, I can choose the picture which fits better. Anyways this is about the other thing. It is getting really hard to track Raka''s progress. I mean the math. So I am going to lay down the ground rules on how the stats affect the attributes. This way I can ask you people to help me verify my calculations in the future chapters. Also some attributes have not been mentioned in the chapters but I have been using it in my calculations. e.g. bag weight. I am going to mention that as well. 1) Attack = strength / 2 + weapon attack + any options. (Keeping it simple) 2) Defense = strength / 2 + armor defense + any options. 3) Bag weight limit = strength * 100. 4) Life = vitality * 10 5) Life recovery rate = vitality / 10 per 10 seconds. 6) Mana = Focus * 3 7) Mana recovery rate = Focus / 10 per 10 seconds. 8) Movement speed: it is a hybrid attribute which is affected by a lot of things including stats and the environment. There is no separate attack speed and dodge, movement speed covers all. If you have greater movement speed, it is likely that you will have better attack speed and running speed and dodging speed and mopping speed and what else; just because you can move faster. Game rule - everyone gets the same base/starting movement speed. The rest depends on your stat points and any equipments/buffs etc. These are just rules I am following and I don''t know if the math works yet. So let me know if it is too weird. I might also update or change some of these later. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "Character Window"
Character NameRakaRaceHuman
Fame30Age15
TitleGraduate of Magic level 1, Spirit of Warrior level 1, Recipient of the Queen''s Brass medal
Life150Mana45
Attack32.0~37.0Defense52
Strength29 (+5)Agility19 (+6)
Vitality10 (+5)Intelligence35
Focus10 (+5)Perception6 (+5)
Endurance72Stamina55 (+3)
Satiety100Wisdom11
Life recovery1.5 / 10 secsMana recovery1.5 / 10 secs
Title Effects Graduate of Magic Lvl 1 : Focus +5, Perception +5, Agility +3 Spirit of Warrior Lvl 1 : Strength +5, Vitality +5, Stamina +3 Recipient of the Queen''s Brass medal : Fame +30
Equipment Effects Iron Boots: +10% movement speed Leather Gloves: +3 Agility
Skills Accounting - Beginner Lvl 8 - 5% Bonding - Beginner Lvl 4 - 34% Cooking - Beginner Lvl 6 - 9% Dance of the Fighter - Beginner Lvl 3 - 90% Estimation - Beginner Lvl 6 - 57% Flute Music - Beginner Lvl 5 - 15% Format - Beginner Lvl 6 - 12% Formula - Beginner Lvl 4 - 81% Magic - Beginner Lvl 10 - 5% Massage - Beginner Lvl 1 - 1% Spell Writing - Beginner Lvl 5 - 64%
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy sat down on his table looking at his notes on the game. He was preparing another report to be submitted next week. He had always been told that if you finish your work early, you get to play early. Atleast that''s what his parents had hoped he would learn. Swamy did follow this rule though he could never prove that it worked. Eventually when people learned that you completed one task early, they always had this inclination of giving you more. If this corollary is true then that work early play early thing has to be false. Anyways it had become his habit now, which is why he was diligently studying for this report, which will be submitted next week. And Swamy gazed on his notes on the game. Long Island was still classified as interesting but not a very popular game by the internet sites. Average in ratings though people did think it was unique in a lot of aspects. The stats were commonly used in most of the virtual reality games out there. What was different were the attributes. ''Well attack, defense, speed, etc are in most of the games out there. However it is interesting to think that there is no classification of physical and magical attack and defense. It makes sense though as magic in the game makes affecting a creature''s or human''s body directly very difficult. The whole transformation of stable form energy thingy was basically this. Though it will allow the effects caused by the environment. Like one can get burnt or frozen. It was mostly changing the environment temperature by creating fire or ice and attacking accordingly. But because it affects you physically, maybe it is not considered as magical damage. ''In that case if magic does affect you, would it be considered a curse?'' Since finding out about curses and curse magic, which kinda seemed similar, though people on the island were treating it differently, Swamy had tried to come up with theories on what it could be. He was planning to check up on those theories when he gets back to the island in the game. Speaking of theories, Swamy was also trying to analyze the relation between the stats and movement speed. He had tried analyzing the math on how it was being affected and truthfully it was difficult. He knew that all kinds of speed, attack, dodge, etc had been combined with it. Which actually made sense once you thought about it. It allowed the player''s own abilities to shine rather than simply a system assisted calculation like Dodge. Made it more realistic. And then it went on to improve your speed in totality. How the players use that speed was left to their discretion. To explain a few things he had come up with some guidelines: a) Increasing Agility stat increases movement speed. b) Increasing movement speed increases consumption of Satiety. You get hungry quicker. Also it consumes a hidden attribute called stamina which is different from the Stamina stat, although affected by its points. c)Increasing stamina or the Stamina stat reduces consumption of Satiety, when doing actions. If you have more stamina, you can do a lot before getting hungry. So it counters the effect of increased movement speed. d) Satiety always reduces over time even if you do not do anything, just like in real life. e) Increasing Agility stat has to be balanced by increasing Stamina stat otherwise the increase in movement speed will directly affect your Satiety. So even though the virtual body is not cells and tissues, it is being treated as such and consuming energy. Which actually raises an interesting question. Why do people add such a stat in the games. Its not like its real hunger and there were a lot of things which were not real in the games anyway. For example, immortality...not real! ''So why give hunger or satiety in the first place? This also seems like a good topic for the report. Should I go with it? '' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged in the room. The room had no windows, illuminated by those same magical lights which illuminated the Magic Institute back at Gurrow village. In fact these magical lights were the standard norm for most buildings on the island. Now it was dim though casting deep shadows in the room. Two slightly breathing voices. A soft snore here and there. Lady Altia and Lady Verina were still sleeping which probably meant it was still night outside. Raka knew the room well, having used it so often in this trip, enough to remember where things were. He tiptoed to the door and quietly slipped out in the darkness. The deck hallway had only a small light, a magic light hanging in the galley, near the stairs, giving just enough light to see the way. Raka moved slowly and carefully. Suddenly appearing on a rocking ship does not help with your balance. He moved, avoiding the sleeping men in the galley and climbed up. Noises were heard shattering the quiet of the night, instructions and bellows guiding the ship through the waves . He walked to the captain''s cabin. "Oh hey there Raka." "Hello Captain, whats going on?" "Ah! We spotted the pirate ship yesterday. Just saw it on the horizon as we reached there'' docking spot. They seem to have seen us too. They took off in a hurry towards open sea." "So did we miss their trail?" "Not completely. Though we cannot see the ship in the dark, we did follow it throughout the day. It is a fast ship that one, we kept playing a nice little cat and mouse all day. But they forgot ol'' Captain. I know these seas like the back of my hand. If they think they can get away from me, they have another thing coming. Anyways Lady Altia made a nice little guess on their destination and so far the pirates have followed that route. If we keep that heading we will run into them sooner or later." Raka was flummoxed. He had missed a very important moment which actually brought into stark contrast his inability to play all the time. What if he had missed the entire battle completely! He did understand the importance of the real world though. Games come and games go. You still have to live in the real world. But there should be some way to take some time off for these kind of things. ''I mean shouldn''t the university which supports playing virtual reality games have a policy of some kind which allows you to play such quests?!'' Other than bunking that is. He could not imagine a university which would allow skipping classes to be the norm. "So where are they headed?" he asked the Captain. "If they keep the same course they will end up in Brittanica. But Lady Altia believes they could be heading to this small island, just off the coast of Brittanica. It is home to a Brittan noble family which mostly does farming. But its snow season now so there might not be many people. Perfect for pirates to capture and defend. They won''t like to fight us over water owing to the numbers." the Captain replied. "...so the best situation would be for us to find them before they get there. Can''t we warn them?" "Yep. Jus'' hoping that those stinking pirates don''t know the seas around here too well. There is this area of low wind in the course they have taken. If they fall into it, we may be able to catch up. But if they know and avoid it, then they will have the advantage. Dunno about warning them...better ask Lady Verina bout'' that." "Hmmm." Raka said pondering. Well the chase just got pretty exciting.......not! After all we are still chasing a ship we cannot even see. ''Time to get mopping.'' Raka sighed. Fighting and mopping have nothing in common. So when you get a message like this, you tend to wonder what went wrong.
Skill Mopping: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn to use the mop for cleaning, wiping, waving, fighting and other purposes. Requirements: Use the mop for 10 days.
''What the hell!!'' The sailors were astounded. To find a man in their midst frozen. Hands halfway through lifting a mop, eyes staring wildly unblinkingly into empty space, his body stuck in a gentle bow, almost like the man who saw a ghost and passed away while eating his meal. What is the saying that goes like there are turnings in life which define you. This was definitely not one of those. Raka sighed. He slowly started moving. People who were gaping at him broke out of their reverie and moved on with whatever they were doing. "Hey kid, you ok?" a sailor asked. "Yeah....I am fine. Nice day isn''t it?" The sailor gave a hopeless look and turned back and gave a shrug to the others. All the others nodded for some reason and then went back to work. Seems this level of crazy was pretty normal on the sea. A little while later, when his brains got back in gear and his body moved in auto mode doing the mopping, he started thinking about what it meant. Ok, so the mop can be used to fight in addition to cleaning. After all it is just a staff. In fact even the spear is a staff. ''It is just the ends which are different, ones a .....and the others a ....'' ''But I didn''t even get the staff skill, if there is a skill, but I get the mopping skill?'' Raka was confused. If he assumed that there would be a staff related skill then that means that repeated use of the staff should have resulted in the skill just like it had with the mop. But it hadn''t. ''Did I just not use it enough times? Or is it something else?'' Raka kept thinking while also doing his mopping. As he thought, he came across a couple of possibilities which might explain this. ''Either I haven''t used the staff enough times or my Wisdom stat is coming into play.'' As he thought more he realized that the Wisdom stat alone could not explain this. ''There should be other conditions involved as well, like spending so and so time doing this after getting my Wisdom stat or something like that. But Wisdom definitely came into play. Does that mean that the stat helps me in finding new skills also? Does this mean that if I did not have the Wisdom stat I wouldn''t have been able to get this skill even if I spent all the time mopping? I still haven''t heard anyone getting any sword or bow or even a staff related skill yet.'' The more he thought, the more it made sense about the role of the Wisdom stat. ''So the higher it gets, the more skills would be discovered. But to increase it I have to keep finding different uses for my existing skills. Does that mean the same thing applied in the library skills too?'' After all a lot of books should be in the library at Gurrow village too. Some people should have stuck around in the library knowing they can gain skills there. Again nothing had come up in the forums so far. ''Before I got the Wisdom stat, all the skills I learned were from someone teaching me. Does that mean that Wisdom, probably, only applied when learning on your own and not when someone was teaching you? Or was it that it applied differently there?'' There were a million and one things going in his head right now. But one thing was sure, he was very excited at the discovery. ''But there is no way to test it without involving someone else. Damn why didn''t I notice this sooner!'' Well at the least he decided to see what kind of weapon the mop would be. "Identify"
[p=center]Simple Dirty Mop[/p] Class: Weapon, Tool Damage: 0~1 (Added damage when embedded) Weight: 10 Durability: 5/5 Made with a stick found at the side of a road combined with pieces of ragged cloth for the sole purpose of cleaning. Insignificant damage as a weapon. Has a very low chance of embedding magic. Even if successful, will not result in significant improvement.
''Useless.'' The sun had risen while he was having his internal monologue. ''Oh no! I still haven''t completed half the deck yet.'' But he had no choice, he had to go help prepare breakfast. Raka knocked and entered. Lady Verina was combing her hair and Lady Altia was still under her blankets. "Good morning!" "Ah Raka good morning. How are you this morning?" Lady Verina replied cheerfully while Lady Altia simply grunted from under her blankets. "I am good, though I find it a bit odd that the person who is a part of the military likes to sleep so much. I could hear her snore when I came." "I do not snore..." came a cute voice from under the blankets. "Yes you do. Just a little though." Lady Verina added. "You do too~" Lady Altia added but she finally revealed her face. Her eyes opened like squinting as she looked at Raka. "Here help me up. I think I will have trouble moving." ''That was obvious. Can''t expect miracles with just a beginner level massage.'' "Oh...ah certainly." And Raka moved forward to hold her outstretched hand as she lifted herself up. She yawned. "Oh please do not yawn. You know I always get a yawn when I see somebody yawn." And then Lady Verina could not resist a yawn too. She blushed. Raka simply smiled a genuine smile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ A normal day started. Though Lady Verina did update Raka on the situation once again. It was the same as what the Captain had said. With one major difference. "The scouts reported they saw humans and dwarves on the pirate ship. There were a few other beastmen but mostly it was crewed by humans and dwarves." "Really? I thought it was completely crewed by beastmen. And why would they attack us?" "Well I suspected this before when Altia explained her suspicions about the beastmen. If the beastmen can only use body linked magic, they shouldn''t have any long range magic. Which would make them very weak on battles at sea. You know one side can attack long range and the beastmen can''t. At first I was thinking that maybe they have some slaves, human or other races, for this kind of stuff. But knowing humans and dwarves are part of the crew and in such great number, kinda does not seem like they are slaves. It looks like they are working together. As for why they attacked us is still unknown. The Queen is personally overseeing the interrogation of the beastman to determine this." "Hmm. Makes sense. By the way are dwarves capable of magic as well?" "Yes they are. Although their magic is highly skewed towards earth related magic. It seems that they can hardly use the other elements at all. Do you know about the history of the world?" "Are you referring to the curse magic theory?" "Yes. It seems when dwarves came into being, they applied curse magic to strengthen earth related skills. Which increased their aptitude and power for this branch of magic. Their short height is also attributed to this. On the other hand other magics got out of reach. Even if they are able to learn they simply cannot gain any power in the other magics. There were other changes as well but this was the most important." "Hmm... so is earth magic not used in sea battles?" Raka was learning. "They can be, but it gets limited to embedding into other objects. Not that it doesn''t help. Consider a strengthened ship hull. It would be very hard to make a hole in that. But long range aspects do get limited. After all they cannot use the sea floor to attack us. Nor would they want to. Although they can still use it if they somehow landed on our ship." "So air and water are the preferred types of magic for sea battles?" "Preferred yes. Required no. I did explain before that a person without magic can also fight a person using magic if he has the required tools, didn''t I? And there is no beating the dwarves in their manufacturing and repair skills. I guess they would make a good addition to a pirate ship which cannot hire shipwrights from the land. But their fighting cannot be underestimated too. They are good fighters and when their earth magic comes into play, well they become very dangerous." "Hmm...so it would be preferable for us to catch the pirate ship before they reached that island, is it? The one part of Brittanica? I heard the Captain talking about it. By the way, can''t we warn them and ask for their help?" "Yes. I suppose the humans would be strong too but atleast we won''t have to deal directly with the dwarves or the beastmen if we can fight them at sea. And we did send a word to Brittanica. They will have their ships out, but there is still a chance that the pirates are able to land. After all their land forces would be mostly on the main island rather than the small one. That might already have been evacuated. In that case, we will join forces but we will still have a tough fight on our hands. Its just that I don''t fancy fighting the dwarves or the beastmen if I can avoid it." Lady Verina shuddered remembering. And that was just 6 beastmen out of which 3 escaped. Adding the dwarves would result in a massacre even if they won. "Oh that reminds me, we started training the other students and soldiers on naval warfare. Sorry we couldn''t wait for you. But we were going to reach the place where the pirate ship was reported to be docked and it was deemed necessary to get the training started." Raka looked a bit disappointed. It was another important thing he had missed. But, "I understand." "Well cheer up, you will also join them from today." Before that though, Raka had some cleaning to do. A flurry of activity started just after lunch. As soon as Raka arrived at the upper deck, ropes had been lowered down into the cargo hold lifting out stuff, equipment and boats. Yes you heard right. Boats. Little small boats having no sail and no rudder but a long thick stick stuck at its back. "What kind of boat is that?" Raka asked John the second mate/load master who was in charge of getting all this stuff out. Raka had read over the internet that this kind of stuff did not really happen in the old real worldian ships. The reason was that it cluttered an already busy deck with stuff. Also opening up a huge hole on the ship while at sea, was generally not preferred. Waves have really rogue characteristics. So when you see that same big hole opening up and cluttering the deck with stuff, your heart starts beating harder. Just a bit. "We call that a dinghy. This is a 2 person dinghy but you can have larger boats being called dinghy as well. This one is a battle dinghy." Each dinghy or battle dinghy was slowly lifted out of that cargo hold and placed on sides of the boat, the outer side, and then were tied with more ropes as it hung out over the sea. 8 boats, 4 boats on each side, were taken out and roped to the side of the ship. It was time consuming work and the sails had to be drawn half mast so that sudden winds did not unbalance the ship. And then came strange looking weapons. Something which looked like a crossbow but then had a slingshot like thingy attached. It was almost like an old style trebuchet (old style siege weapon) except that instead of a tall tower, the slingshot was stuck on the crossbow platform. It was not very big, just the size of large crossbows you see in the old style movies, the ones which are set up on the ground to fire those huge ass arrows. ''Those look like Ballistas.'' Raka provided the specific information. Its not like Ballistas were common knowledge but seeing a lot of virtual reality games had focused on the fantastical world of swords and magic, which is kinda old age, people had started learning about all kinds of siege weapons. After all every virtual reality game has a siege battle at some time. Raka remembered some of these siege battles as people who played the games often posted videos and companies liked to highlight such kinds of battles as an attractive feature. These slingshot-ballistas however, were not a siege weapon of old real worldian times, even though it looked similar. (**The author thinks it is a great idea to have a futuristic world in virtual reality games and will try to write something based on that, if he gets more time.) "So what do you call them?" Raka asked John pointing to these weapons. "These are called shotbows, not to be confused with short bows." replied John. Right! And these 4 shotbows were lined, 2 on each side on the ship deck. And then came the stones. Lots of stones. Now if you were of a sane mind, you would have guessed that these shotbows would be used to fire the stones at the enemy ships. And you would not have been wrong at all. ''And how is it faster than cannons?'' was Raka''s perfectly logical question. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Once the entire thing was done and over with the big hole was closed. And Lady Verina and Lady Altia along with the students and the soldiers, not all just the ones who needed to be trained, came up to the upper deck. "Alright you know the drill. Pair up and board." Lady Verina instructed. Soldiers and students soon started pairing up and boarding the boats. Oh by the way if anyone of you is wondering, the Despira guy paired up with Iqbal Hassan, Ramone paired up with Theodore and Veronica paired up with Lucy, which made a girls only boat. The other boats were filled up with the soldiers, leaving one. "You are with me Raka," said Lady Verina as she climbed up in the last one. Raka hurried to clamber in beside her. He took the seat to the back or where the thick long stick was placed. Assuming that was the back and not the front. "Haul away." John''s burly voice commanded. The sailors took hold of the ropes and untied the knots holding the boats. Slowly they lowered these dinghies and their passengers onto the water. Once the boats hit the water, the people on the boat untied the knots tied on the front and back and broke free. "Untie the knots." At Lady Verina''s instruction Raka untied the knots at the back while she did the same with the front ones. And the boat floated free. Raka watched the other boats now, as the people on the stick side of it took hold of the sticks and lowered them in the water. Amazingly the boats started to move away from the ship like a propeller had just started. Okay now these sticks were sticks, you could call them long staffs if you want, not paddles or propellers. They did not have the thick part of the paddle. And there was absolutely no rowing action involved. In fact the lot of them were moving those long staffs in circles. "Um what?" Raka wondered what had happened. "Ah here let me have this for a while" and Lady Verina took the stick, which was long enough to reach the front of the small boat and still touch the water at the back. The boat started to glide away from the ship towards the sea. Thankfully the waves were calm and the day was nice or it would have made for a very uncomfortable ride. A little further away from the boat, Lady Verina stopped the boat. "Alright now your turn." "What?" Raka looked as confused as his voice made him out to be. "Hohoho feels funny giving you lessons again doesn''t it. And we are alone here too." Lady Verina teased. Raka simply made a face. "Alright now listen closely. This is a battle dinghy. A bit different from a normal dinghy if you have seen one." When Raka nodded his head in the negative, she sighed. "Ok. See normal boats have paddles or oars, you know for rowing the boat. Do you know what rowing means?" "Yes I do know what rowing means, though I have never done any rowing. And I do understand what oars are." Raka replied. "Good. Well the normal dinghies are the ones mostly used on the ships. They work as landing boats, if the ship cannot make it to land and as lifeboats. This battle dinghy is a bit different as I said. First of all there are no paddles. Not that you cannot use the paddles to row this but mostly because it does not require them. You see the unique feature of this boat is this staff like thing right here. It is made the same way as your staff was made. Which means it allows magic to be embedded and used. You see how this staff is fixed at the back of the boat. This allows you to apply magic to drive the boat." "Oh...ok." "Right! now have you learned water magic?" Lady Verina asked. "Um I haven''t." Raka answered a bit dejected. "Ah that is a problem. This works best with water magic. But we can use air magic also. Its less effective but it will work. I believe you were able to learn how to embed air magic to your staff. Any improvement on that?" "Ah yes. I have become able to use two air slashes now." "Good. It means that you are focusing on control. As I have said before controlling your magic is very important. And well it will help you drive the boat as well. But it will require much more control." Lady Verina said smiling. "Um..can I even do that now?" Raka asked still dejected. "Lets find out shall we. There is no point getting dejected before even trying, is there?" "Um..ok. So what do I do?" "You blow air out of the staff. Oh by the way this staff is called a drive paddle. It is made to enhance water related magic. Though it works with air magic also, though not so effectively. Now embed this drive paddle with air magic." Lady Verina instructed. Raka closed his eyes. This was the first time he had dived into his colorful world when at sea and it was too astounding. He could see the colors of the boat and the drive paddle and Lady Verina but then there was the sea. Or he hoped that was the sea. It was just too many many colors and all of them moved all around him. What''s the term, sea of colors. This was literally a sea made of colors. Raka thought how would it feel to walk around here like this. Could he walk around was his question. But that can wait. Raka embedded the air magic on the drive paddle. "Done." "Hmm. That was step one. Now you have learned to release that air in a slashing like manner. That move does look powerful but it needs much mana right. That is because to control more power you need more mana. But what if you can achieve the same thing with less power, wouldn''t that be better? That is the basis of control, to use less power. To drive this boat, you simply need to blow out the air but slowly like pouring water out of a tap. You have to limit your power as much as you can. The air will push the water and move the boat forward. Do you understand?" Raka thought for a while. It was similar as pushing compressed air out of a pipe. If water magic is applied similarly it would resemble how water jets work. But replaced with air. So instead of releasing air with full power, he had to control it so that it came out with just enough power to push the boat forward. Raka nodded understanding. "Now if you simply blow your air out, you will still need a lot of power to move the boat. Instead try turning the air in a small circle. You see like this. This will provide more power with less magic." And Lady Verina moved her fingers in a small circular motion. "To make it easier to imagine you can try turning the drive paddle in the same manner as you release the air. Now remember, the actions you do are only for your focus and does not affect the magic itself. So the imagination in your head must be strong." Raka knew that the actions used to perform air slash or any magic were completely unnecessary. For magic if you imagine it right it will work, so names and actions like waving the staff, are only for providing focus. Though Raka had never tried the air slash any other way. Raka held the drive paddle tightly and started turning it around in small circle. After a few turns he started imagining air coming out at the other end of the stick as if it was coming off a narrow pipe. It took a few moments but then... The boat suddenly lurched forward, the bow rising high and for a moment it felt like it will simply turn over like a speed boat accident. But then the bow came down and the boat accelerated forward immediately parting the water in a white turbulent wake. Raka was exhilarated. "Yipeee" He could not help his voice breaking out. This was fun. But moments later...
30 Mana used.
And he was out of mana. The magic stopped and the boat slowly slid down to a stop. "Not bad. But you released a whole lot at the beginning. You need to control right from the start to the end." Lady Verina said while she waved her hands.
All recovery rates are increased.
His mana filled up pretty quickly with the buff. "Allright try again. Remember control. You can move the boat with less power." Some time later... "No! More control. The bow should not suddenly rise. I think you are doing it on purpose to make me fall on you, aren''t you." Lady Verina teased. "Um...no. I will go slower." "Not slow. Just control the initial acceleration. You are releasing most of the embedded magic right at the start." And some more time later.... "More control. You can see still see the bow rise." The exercise continued for almost a couple of hours. They changed directions every once in a while so that they don''t drift too far from the ship. That was done by simply making an angle with drive paddle while releasing air. Only at the end did Raka understand how to control his release to Lady Verina''s satisfaction (*dirty minds beware). Raka imagined an even narrower pipe which seemingly worked and slowly eased the boat forward. "Very good. Now try to keep this feeling of control. Nice..." A little later, "Good now try turning the boat starboard. That is to your right...." This time he managed to drive the boat for almost five minutes before running out of mana.
30 Mana used.
Focus increases by 1.
"Hmm... about 5 minutes. Not bad but to use in any sea battle more improvement is needed. Once your control improves you should be able to use more power and move the boat faster. But lets head back to the boat now. This is not the only thing you need to learn." Lady Verina said while again casting recovery magic. The trip back to the boat took almost half an hour but Lady Verina let Raka keep practicing. Back on the boat they had to catch the hanging ropes and tie them to the front and back of the boat like in the beginning. Then the rest of the sailors pulled them onto the deck. They had to wait for the other students and soldiers to come in. Being much more proficient in magic they could stay at sea longer and their boats moved swiftly over water as they came in. While waiting Raka remembered that his Focus had risen. ''So controlling mana use increases Focus. So its like the less energy I use the more my mana will increase. And the more mana I have the more power I can apply.'' It was almost like a contrast. Using less energy meant less powerful magic. But it also meant that he will use less mana. And that actually increased mana which can then be used to do more powerful magic. ''Its almost like the more effectively I can control magic, the more magic I will be able to control.'' Which actually makes sense. Then again, there was something else as well. If all he needed to do was use less energy, then he had done it lots of times. He had set up fires to cook food on the way to the capital, which needed very little energy. So like everything else in the game, there was just something more, something extra. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- When everyone returned, they had a period of rest and the Cook passed some jerky around. And then they saw this demonstration. "Control," Lady Verina began, "can be very powerful. In naval battles, control is a more important weapon than you realize. All right fire now." Some of the sailors who were standing next to a shotbow loaded a big stone, okay not boulder size but almost as big as half a hand. They loaded the stone in a pouch attached with broad strings to the crossbow like platform. One man pulled at this string contraption, drawing the pouch like a slingshot, and launched the stone in the air. As soon as the stone launched in the air, Lady Verina raised and then waved her hands. The stone flew forward but then changed direction and started heading back to the ship. Raka had seen this magic before. It was the same homing magic Lady Verina had shown back at the magic institute. Lady Verina kept her focus on the flying stone. As soon as it reached the ship, she waved again and it flew upwards towards the sky. After rising for a bit, it came down again heading for the ship. She waved her hands again and the stone went away again but with far greater speed and then turned back again. This time however she raised her hands as the stone neared and the stone slowed down eventually coming to a stop, still floating in the air, near the guys who had launched it. And when the guys took hold of the stone, she dropped her hands. The magic ended, the guy holding the stone adjusted just a bit as the weight of stone was transferred to him. Everyone started clapping after witnessing this display. ''That''s why the Captain said the cannons are so slow. If you could do this much, it would be like comparing cannons to guided missiles.'' For those who do not know, guided missiles start slow but by mid flight can fly faster than bullets and then do an accurate hit on to a moving target without slowing down. Even a stone can puncture and sink a moving ship if it can be guided accurately. And Lady Verina had increased speed as well. ''How fast could it become if she wanted? She could sink an entire fleet with just pebbles.'' Raka had a sea change and was now fully appreciative of magic control. "Alright. Now this does look spectacular but can anyone explain what magic or magics were involved?" Lady Verina was in lecture mode still. Well the soldiers were not really students of magic, although they should have also passed the level 1 magic course like Raka. They probably could not be expected to answer such a question. The ones who could understand or even answer such a question would be the students of the Magic Academy. Being proficient in a lot of magic they would be able to figure this out. They might even know this. Atleast that''s what Raka thought. "All I can say is that it is some kind of air magic. You were pushing the stone with air when you wanted to change its direction." Theodore said. He looked like a pretty intelligent guy. "Hmm...Does everyone agree with his explanation?" Lady Verina asked smiling. The Captain and Lady Altia, even some of the sailors who were near also started smiling. "That is close but not everything. I think there is something else...like a lodestone in the stones." The Despira guy seems to have noticed the strange smiles as well. ''Well he was pompous but observant.'' (*For those who don''t know, lodestones are naturally found magnets.) "But there are so many stones, you cannot put lodestones in all of them. Its rare. And even if you did you need to put lodestones really close together for them to show effect. The stone flew so far away, the lodestones will have no effect." Lucy countered. "Lodestones cannot be responsible for this. I have to agree with Theodore on this one. It has to be air magic which you applied when you wanted to change direction." Ramone added. "You must have made a powerful gust or something." ''Sounds like an intelligent idiot.'' The rest stay silent but also nod their heads. "So does everyone agree that this is the method used?" Lady Verina asked again to confirm. Now she was just sounding like a teacher who knew the answer is wrong but was still encouraging the students to figure out the answer. Everyone simply nods. Even the soldiers nod. After all the logic made sense. "Raka, you are not nodding. Can you explain what just happened?" Lady Verina gave her brightest smile yet. Even Lady Altia turned her head. Well everyone did, he was singled out after all. And Raka knew. What do you think he did spending all that time in the library at the Gurrow Village Magic Institute. He was studying about the magics he had seen. Which included this homing magic. But even if he hadn''t it wouldn''t have been too difficult to figure out. (*Challenge to the readers, how many of you have figured it out at this point?) "It was the same magic as driving a boat" Raka started, "No its not. This and that are different. It should be obvious." And the Despira guy interrupted. ''Definitely a pompous ass.'' (*Did the readers figure it out?) "Please let him continue." Lady Verina simply said which shut the guy up. "As I was saying it was the same magic as driving a boat. You embedded the stone with air magic. And then you released it in the required direction during flight, in order to keep control on the direction. I think you kept the stone in control from the time it was launched. We do the same when driving a boat only that magic is released in one direction. While controlling the stone you made the magic release from all over, wherever you wanted." Raka said. (*So how many of you figured it out? Hope everyone did. I gave the biggest hint - guided missiles.) "Ofcourse you changed the power applied as well. When the stone was supposed to turn to the opposite direction, you applied a stronger force. Other times when the direction was going to be changed just by a little, you applied only lesser power. The time you could control it would be dependent on the amount of air magic you would have embedded but by strict control you made it possible to control it for even longer. You did say control can be powerful at the beginning didn''t you. Its just that maybe launching a stone that heavy may require too much power or mana which is why it is being launched from the shotbows. Controlling an already moving object should be easier than getting a still object to move." Raka added. "A rather complete answer." Lady Verina smiled proudly at him. Not to sound too pompous but Raka couldn''t help smiling as he saw her. Lady Altia nodded her head too. "As Raka explained, this is the same magic as driving the boat. In fact driving the boat and this, is simply controlling the release of embedded magic and nothing else. No special techniques or complicated magic in there. Just embedding and a controlled release. Which makes so many things possible that I will leave to your imagination. Now our purpose is to learn how to use it in naval battles. You see it is still easy to control when you are the only one controlling it. But what happens when you and your opponent are trying to control the same thing, which will often be the case during any magic battle whether on sea or on land?" Lady Verina asked again. More silence... "Maybe the one more powerful will win." As usual Despira jumped in. "No. I think its the one who can keep it in control for the longer period of time." Theodore replied with a thoughtful look. ''This guy is intelligent alright.'' "Both of you are correct." Lady Verina agreed. "In the short term power will win. But in the long term control wins. But there will always be a way to attack or defend if you are short of power. You may lose in a power battle but remember if you establish control immediately after, it would still be your victory. Naval battles are both short range and long range. These shotbows provide long range support, but they are still limited to a particular range. After all the magicians on the ship would lose their magic power and control if they go past a certain range. But if the ships get too close, the enemy gets a similar chance to damage us. There comes the battle dinghies. They are crewed by 2 people each, a boat driver and an attacker. It is their job to attack the ship if it is out of range. This tale has been pilfered from Royal Road. If found on Amazon, kindly file a report. "The thing is the enemy would do something like this too. That will draw the battle dinghies in a fight with other battle dinghies, which will allow ships to come closer and then the fight can become quite close range. In that case try to not let people board your ship and to group together to defend each other." Lady Verina added. "So one can control the stone like till all the mana runs out?" asked Theodore. "Ideally that is the case. But even if you can control it, you have to judge when your control will become so weak that it is not really useful. Like I can control a stone from so far away but I can only move it a hand''s length at a time and your power would reduce over distance anyway. Would that be a good use of your mana? Wouldn''t it serve you better to launch another stone?" Lady Verina answered. "And what if it falls in the sea? Can we not use it by hiding it underwater and then attack them like this?" Lucy asked. "Ah that is difficult. There are two basic problems with it. One, when the stone falls in the sea, can you still perceive it as a separate object? Two, we use stones for their weight. If such a weighted object can be granted speed it can act as an effective weapon. In water, speed becomes a problem because water acts against it. Now you could use an arrow like shape to make it a little easier but it is far easier to do it in air. In a battle where you cannot afford to run out of magic power, you have to save your mana wherever possible." "But then why don''t we use the arrow shaped stones in the shotbows? Wouldn''t they be far easier to control and have greater speed?" Raka asked. "We could. And it would work well as you said. But making arrow shapes with stones is difficult. It is far easier to use iron or metal and make those into arrows. But then again, its not like we can recover the arrows or the stones after battle at sea. So it becomes really expensive to use metal at sea. On the other hand it is far cheaper and easier to make an arrow''s shape with air magic and use normal stones. Which is what you should do as well." Lady Verina explained. After the exciting lecture and then trying to emulate or simulate, whichever fits better, the thing Lady Verina did, the day turned into night. The training was disbanded and everyone returned to their original work or whatever else they did. And Raka returned to mopping. Salmon was still there and the work hadn''t changed. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- During dinner, "So Captain how is your shoulder today?" asked Lady Verina. "Hmm, still bothering me but its better than before. Guess I ain''t as young as I used to be," the Captain replied. Then he turned towards Raka, who was just pouring some more water in the glasses, and added, "Wont'' say no to the massage from before, if you can spare the time Raka." "Well ofcourse. I think I can do it better than last time Captain." "Oh have you been giving massages Raka?" asked Lady Verina with a smile. "I wouldn''t mind that either." "Neither would I" Lady Altia said as well, with a smile. "Um could I ask for a massage as well" and a strange request came from one of the students, Veronica Taylor. Now she could be asking just because she was a fan of Lady Verina but Raka was still puzzled. "Um..ok. But I couldn''t really enter your rooms now. So would you like to come to the upper deck or would you prefer somewhere else?" Raka asked politely. "I think upper deck should be ok. But I would not like there to be too many people. Can I ask to come wherever Lady Verina plans to have the massage?" She turned to Lady Verina to ask. "Hmm, I was planning to have it in my room, but I don''t mind." "Well could you include us too. Oh I think the Cook wants it too." and a couple of blokes who were serving as well, joined in. "Its turning up to be quite a crowd. There must be something magical in your fingers Raka," the Captain said jovially. "Please do not joke about this kind of thing." "Well if we are going to have the entire crew wanting to get massages, I think we can separate men and women into separate decks. All the men can have their massages on the upper deck. The women can have the galley. Thank you for your consideration Raka." "Hohoho" "Hehehe" and two lovely teasing voices entered his ears as he stared at the Captain. This was going to be a long night. Oh and he still hadn''t finished mopping. Raka sighed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ The class just ended and Swamy decided to meet the head of the department Prof. D''souza. He needed to find a solution and that too a permanent solution for a simple problem. He wanted time off to attend the quests. The thing was that this would not be the only time such a situation will occur, that a quest is going on the same time as class. On the other hand, he could not suffer because of not attending. With this in mind he headed towards Prof. D''souza''s office. He knocked. "Come in." "Hello Professor. I am Swamy." "Hello Mr. Swamy. What can I do for you?" "Professor, I actually have a strange problem. I am playing the virtual reality game Long Island. Have you heard of it?" "Yes. Oh and I am playing that too. Isn''t it an interesting and fun game." He smiled. "It is professor. In fact I actually came to talk to you about it. You see I have this quest, D+ difficulty, but the thing is I will have to take time off if I want to finish it. You see a battle is supposed to occur and it can happen anytime, during the day or night. I thought of skipping school, but I realize that such situations can occur in the future as well. This is why I came to talk to you." Raka said. "Hmmm.. Yes I understand. You see lots of people had similar kinds of problems even in the past years. A major quest would require their non-stop attention and they would be unable to attend class. And as we encourage playing of such games, we very well cannot ask them to choose. A lot of things people understand as they get stronger." "Ah so is there a solution to this?" The prof stayed silent for a bit thinking. "Mr. Swamy, do you know why there is a hunger meter or a satiety level in virtual reality games?" "Um...I don''t sir. I thought they put it in to make it look and feel real." "Yes that is there too. But a lot of real things don''t apply in virtual reality games. So why shouldn''t they remove hunger as well? "I don''t know sir." "You see Mr. Swamy, it is to remind you of the real world." "Sir?" said Swamy confused. "When you are playing, your brain-body connection is interrupted. Temporarily, your brain cannot receive signals from your body such as hunger, thirst, pain, etc. Body functions which are involuntary like excretion and urination can still happen. But voluntary functions like eating cannot." "Ok." "Early studies conducted to learn about human behaviour in a virtual reality environment found that, without these bodily inputs, people started getting too engrossed in the virtual world and started neglecting the real world body. All sorts of problems surfaced both psychological and physical because people would play for almost 3 days and then faint from hunger as soon as they stepped out into the real world. Or they would find that they have excreted or urinated in the capsules involuntarily. A famous case, which was never discussed in the public domain, was the story of a man whose house caught fire and he burned alive. His mind, which was still connected to the virtual world realized the signals of burning and pain , too late. You see companies had to take care of a lot of problems in order to deal with these issues before a virtual reality world for the masses was possible. They instituted measures, like installing fire alarms in capsules. Or detecting capsule movement or proximity sensors which will warn if the capsule is moved or if someone approaches, etc." "Ah...ok. I understand." "Yes, hunger or satiety was also one of these measures. It was thought that if people got hungry in the virtual world, they would be reminded of the real world as well." "But why would people be reminded of the real world when they get hungry in the virtual world? They can eat in the virtual world anyway right?" Swamy asked. "Ah now that is one of the mysteries isn''t it. But it does. Studies show that after introducing this hunger or satiety, the number of people who started caring about their real world needs actually increased. Looking at this, virtual reality developers also put in ''tiredness''. The fact that virtual worlds have a day and night system is also to remind you of the real world. So when the local population in the game sleeps, you can log out. Remind you, it did not eliminate all problems but it did reduce them immensely. Did you know that the Long Island capsule will automatically log you out after 24 hours of continuous play? Or if you fall asleep for more than 4 hours in the game? It does allow you to immediately log back in though." Swamy nodded. He did not know that. "You see Mr. Swamy, the reason I tell this is to remind you that it is in your best interest to pay attention to the real world also. You may think you want to stay all the time in the game in the anticipation of something. But it will be more harmful than useful." "I understand sir. I will take care." "Alright. Now I have no need to tell you that even though there is no attendance requirement for the courses, if you miss your coursework it will affect you adversely." "Yes professor." "Good. However the department is responsible if you indulge in continued absences. So here is the deal. You will submit in a short video of your activities of each day in the game, only for the days you do not attend college. You may edit it if it contains information you do not wish to divulge. Please understand that the department reserves the right to notify close relatives or try to check up on you if you continue missing classes or if you fail to submit the video." "Thank you professor. I understand. Thank you for your consideration." "Its ok. Remember to take care of yourself. Do you live with someone?" "No sir, but my Aunt lives next door and she usually checks up on me." "That''s good. Oh you will need to fill up this form here, just your current address, etc. Oh by the way, what is your in game name?" "Is that necessary?" "No. Its just that if we ever meet in the game, I will know its you. My game name is Souzan." "Oh...ah my name would be Raka." Not that there was any point hiding it. The videos would reveal his name anyway. "Hm...wait. That Raka? The disciple of Lady Altia Raka? the first one to leave the village on Ilmentia Island?" "Um, I don''t know about being the first to leave the village but yes I am that Raka. Did you start in Ilmentia too?" "Ah no. I started in Khardoum. But you know the forums were ablaze with your name at one time. Nice to meet a celebrity." Swamy simply made a face. Swamy now had a free pass. He did understand the point Prof. D''souza was trying to make though. So he set up a schedule for all his activities. A break for 10~15 minutes every 4 hours. And then sleep for atleast 5 hours. Any less and he would start suffering those symptoms again. He would synchronize it with the game time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka appeared on the ship. The room was empty. Raka walked outside to the galley. It turned out it was evening in the game. "Hey Raka, you are early? How come?" Cook asked. "Ah yes. I got permission to come early. In fact for the next few days I might spend more time here." "Permission? From the Goddess?" ''Oops. Well lets go with that.'' "Yes. Oh she is quite well by the way." And Raka walked off leaving the Cook confused. ''I better have a reason.'' He found Lady Verina and Lady Altia in the mirror room with the Captain. He knocked and entered. "Raka, how come you are here?" Lady Altia exclaimed. "Ah sorry Commander, please give us a few minutes here." Lady Verina spoke to the person in the mirror and waved her hand. The connection was broken. "Ah it seems that by the grace of the Goddess, I can stay longer now, though I will disappear from time to time in between. Not for long though." "That''s wonderful to hear. The Goddess is kind." Lady Altia said. "She is indeed." Lady Verina stared and then rolled her eyes. "Well it is nice that you will be around more though." she added smiling. "So anything new?" Raka asked. "Nothing. We are still sailing under the assumption that the pirates are heading to that small island. Well anyways lets resume the meeting." Lady Verina said. And just like that, it was fine. Long live the Goddess. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was pretty routine going after that. More work. More training. More practice. More mopping. Raka may be first class in understanding magic, but not so well in actual practice. The soldiers and magic students were much more proficient in their use. That''s the difference with having grown with it. What''s the word, they had a better feel for magic than Raka. He was improving in his own way though. Raka understood that their were two types of magic users by observation. One was the power type, who had huge power. The other was the technique type having more control. Lady Altia and Lady Verina were prime examples of the two types, respectively. This was not the difference in actual ability but rather the difference in aptitude. Or simply how one thought about it. For example, Lady Altia would want to produce a large fireball to attack and Lady Verina would like a smaller fireball but control the attack trajectory. Goddess''s children like Raka on the other hand could choose to excel in both. But only if they could figure out how to get those stat points. Raka kept practicing driving the boat, trying to reduce the energy required further. The speed reduced but the boat was still moving. And then,
30 Mana used.
He still did not understand why Focus increased, just that it did. Maybe it had to do something with trying to reduce the energy required for a task. ''So it does not mean simply using less energy but trying to use the least energy possible for a given task. Even if I did not use the least energy, as long as I tried to use the least and succeed, the Focus would increase. Probably!'' Not sure about his thoughts, Raka assumed that there had to be a limit like this. Once you reach that you won''t be able to increase your Focus by doing that task anymore. After all each task should have a minimum energy requirement. ''Unless there is this thing that after my mana increases, I will be able to generate more power from the same amount of energy'' but that sounds a little far-fetched. He couldn''t be sure though. 2 days passed in game time and Raka logged off to sleep. He logged back in, 15 hours game time later. And it was lucky that he did. Because as he stepped up to the upper deck, the shout was heard. "Ship spotted on the stern." the guy manning the crow''s nest called out. Dawn had just broken and the first light of the sun appeared on the horizon. People hurried to check. The Captain brought out a telescope and looked closely at the ship which appeared. "Its the pirates! Sound the alert! Pass on the word to the other ships! Ready for battle!" The Captain snapped commands as the highly trained crew jumped into action. It seemed that they had overtaken the pirates by going around the low winds area, the Captain had talked about before, whereas the pirates had got stuck in it. In the dark of the night, they could not see them but as dawn broke, the pirates appeared behind them. Still a little far but with their speed they should catch up in some time. Though there was always a possibility that they could try and run. "Turn to port! Get the boats out!" More commands. Raka could not believe the speed of the sailors now. He had always thought that opening the hole and lifting out the boats would be a slow operation, like always. But the speed now! They had all the boats lined up on the sides in 10 minutes. "Alright man the boats!" Ofcourse Raka was not assigned to the boats. He and the other students were just learning, after all. It was the more experienced soldiers and some of the sailors who boarded the boats. Lady Altia and Lady Verina stayed on the ship too and the ship entered in an interception course with the pirate ship. The other ships in the fleet followed. The best situation according to the plan would be if the pirates attacked. Being on a faster ship, if they tried to run, none of the weighed down ships in the fleet will be able to give chase. On the other hand, the pirates would have to change course for somewhere else and not the small island they were aiming for initially. Apparently in this region of the sea, the other closest land mass belonged to Brittanica main island and Ilmentia island. With them on guard against pirates, they would have to sail the sea for a long time, while the fleet could resupply easily by sending one ship. All in all the choices were limited for the pirates. Their best case scenario would be to attack, disable a ship or two breaking through the defense line of ships and head to that same small island. Atleast the attack was imminent. Raka watched as the flurry of chaotic activity slowed down to ready watchfulness. The preparations were done and the pirate ship was still a little distance away. Raka could see the pirate ship landing dinghies of their own. About 4 or 5, compared to the 30 something dinghies the fleet launched in total. After all, the pirate ship was designed for speed not cargo. There is advantage in numbers and right now it was with the fleet. They say the start of a battle is silent. And then like striking lightning it starts abruptly. "Fire away!" came loud commands from all ships. Lots of stone projectiles were hurled towards the pirate ship. Lady Verina immediately took control of one of the stones while Lady Altia did the same. And they zoomed towards hull, just below the water line. A hole there would reduce the ship''s speed, if not completely disabling it. The other stones were targeted at important locations, sails and masts, some were even targeting people. Try imagining being shot by a shotgun. And then imagine the bullet to be the size of your face. It would have been gruesome. If it had hit. The stones reached the hull but bounced off and could not damage it. The ones targeting the masts suffered the same fate. Only the ones targeting the sails and the faces of people were intercepted by magic. Some changed the angle of the approaching stones so that it would strike the hull instead. And some started a fight with other magicians who were still in control of those stones. Distance matters in magic because it matters to us. And being closer to the approaching stones, the pirates had an upper hand in power. It took someone with magic control like Lady Verina to still keep control of the stone and again attack the pirates, even after being deflected many times. And then the boats collided. The battle dinghies had reached attack range and started by launching attacks against the other dinghies first. Much closer in range, free magic was being used. Fire balls, air slashes, water whips, even the hulls of the boat hardened with earth magic collided. And as they closed in weapons were drawn. Consider a cavalry charge, but with battle dinghies. The pirates were also experienced in combat. In fact their specialty was naval combat. Armor, weapons....hulls strengthened with magic reduced or diminished the various attacks. Wood did not burn. The armor protected the men. And then from the ship came arrows. They wanted us to come close to them, where they would have the advantage. A blow of wind is enough to cause an arrow to lose direction or to make it lose power, if it is not supported by magic. But if simply used as a distraction, it worked great. The dinghy attackers had to focus on the arrows targeting them or others, which left them vulnerable to attack for a moment. And some other pirate would strike at that very moment as if anticipating it, which someone else had to handle. The pirates may be fewer in number, but they had the advantage in team work and experience. Knowing they had no way to run, they had committed whole heartedly to this. Just then,
[p=center](Event Quest) Defeat the Pirates[/p] Pirates have attacked the fleet. Help the fleet defeat the pirates. You will be awarded as per your efforts. Difficulty level: D+ Reward: Contribution points with the nation of Ilmentia, Fame Note: The quest cannot be refused and has been accepted. The quest may change depending on the situation.
''So I have to make sure Lady Altia does not overexert herself and I have to help in defeating the pirates!'' Well doing either meant keeping track of the situation anyway. The pirate ship was getting closer even with all the attacks launched against it. It seemed the strengthening done by dwarves did not only increase durability, it also protected against effects of things like fire. Or maybe they had some other way to make fireproof wood because the hull wasn''t burning one bit, even with constant fire attacks. And then came their attacks. The dwarves were good at manufacturing. Unlike the shotbows, they built proper trebuchets, though a smaller version as it was on a ship, which launched proper fire projectiles. Some stuff which burned good but held shape while it was launched and then scattered as it hit something else. In this case the hull or deck of the ship. Raka''s ship was burning.
(Event Subquest) Dousing Fires - The ship has caught fire from the pirate''s attacks. Act swiftly to douse it and you will have saved your ship from a worse fate. You have 1 minute to douse the fire or it will spread. Time remaining: 59 seconds.
Raka had to hurry and grab a bucket, actually his mopping bucket, fill it with sea water and then douse the several small and big fires which had started as that fire projectile broke. It smelled funny. And for some reason, the standard method of dealing with projectiles, a puff of air hadn''t worked. It was under some strong magic control. "Its made of pitch! " Someone shouted. ''Note to self, check out this pitch thing later.''
The fire has been doused successfully.
"There is someone really strong with magic on that ship." Lady Altia shouted. "Verina, find him. Raka help her."
(Event Subquest) Extra Eyes - Someone really skillful with magic is on the pirate''s ship. Help Lady Verina find him. The more time he is unchallenged, the more damage he can cause the ship and the fleet.
It was Lady Altia''s puff of air which had gotten overwhelmed. If it was simply a matter of control, it would have made sense. But the puff of air did not even budge that fire pitch thingy. It meant there was someone there who had power and the control to keep up that power for the time it took that fire projectile to hit their ship. If he was not brought down soon, defense would become meaningless. After all, unlike the dwarves, humans don''t have the power or mana to strengthen a whole ship hull and maintain it for any considerable length of time, even if they could do something about the fire. And then there was the pitch. It spread and it burned. Even when Raka doused it, the unburnt pitch remained stuck to the wood. That became a fire hazard just waiting for a bit of flame. Raka quickly scanned the pirate ship looking for signs of anyone focusing on the trebuchets. Apart from the dwarves, there were a few other humans standing near it. But the problem was finding one human among a bunch of other humans. Also if the said human was the skillful magician, he wouldn''t need to stand around a trebuchet. So one human among all the humans. ''Kill all the humans I say!'' Maybe Lady Verina heard his mind. But she was doing just that. She was now targeting the humans one by one using the stones being launched. In fact, seeing as they made no damage to the hull, all the other people had started targetting the people onboard the pirate ship, Humans, dwarves and beastmen. It became a game of distance vs control. If you had to describe it, it was the magicians battle for attrition. The one who lost focus or the one who lost mana died. The fleet had the numerical advantage, and soon stones started hitting the people onboard. Raka watched carefully, noticing if any of them showed signs of being extraordinary skillful. Few did. One guy was skillful enough to dodge two stones coming at him at the same time. The other batted the stones down with a bat. Oh wait that was a dwarf. The beastmen were the most useless on the ship, but they could use the strengthened bats the dwarves provided them and their hands/claws to do the same. Another guy, who was standing next to and looking at the trebuchet launching a pitch ball aimed at the nearby fleet ship. But someone had stopped it with some good water magic. The pitch ball went down the sea. Next moment a stone went crashing through his head. ''Ugh! Gruesome indeed!'' Raka turned his eyes away. ''Definitely not that guy.'' More time passed. The pirate ship was closing distance as fast as possible. It was so close that distance wouldn''t matter too much for magic anymore. And it was showing effect. The magics started killing people on both sides. "What are they planning?" Lady Altia shouted while attacking with her own magic. "I don''t know. But if I wasn''t sure that it would be a stupid idea, I would think they are looking to ram this ship." Captain shouted out from the wheelhouse. The first mate and the second mate were both defending the bridge and anything directed at the Captain or themselves. ''Seriously!'' Well that would have been a good course of action if they had more of their number. But the pirates still attacked even when dying. And the ship kept coming closer. Somehow the sails and mast were being protected, even when people, dwarves and human kept biting the dust. The beastmen were injured but its like a simple stone couldn''t hurt them much even when struck with the speed of an arrow. ''Their body linked magic is surely something.'' "Raka watch out!" And Raka quickly turned his head to see a stone like five feet away from him frozen in air. ''Gulp!'' Lady Verina, who had shouted, quickly moved that stone back to attack the magician targetting him. But then Raka quickly moved and defended with his staff, against the stone which was headed towards her. It pushed him a couple of meters before he stopped. "Thanks." she said smiling but her eyes were focused elsewhere. "Thank you too. But that one''s coming again" and Raka batted the stone again. Good thing his staff was metal. Even when he had embedded air magic. The air acted like some kind of balloon, cushioning the damage to the staff itself. Not that he had planned to use it like this. His transformation of energy thingy was still slow. He couldn''t just dive into his colorful world mid battle or mid swatting the stone but as they say whatever works. But this stone was persistent. Not that you could hurt the stone itself. All Raka could do was play cricket or baseball with the stone till Lady Verina killed whoever was targeting him previously. Another time and he swatted it again. It was in its own way quite fun. "Alright thanks for keeping him occupied. I will take over now." Lady Verina called out. Raka sighed as the stone stopped homing on him. In the meantime the pirate ship came even close. A few more minutes and they would smash into his ship. ''What are they after?'' He had more important stuff to do for now, like finding out the most skillful magician. The pirate ship deck was now covered in bodies. Few people had died on the other fleet ships too. The pirate ship dinghies were broken or burned and a couple of the fleet dinghies seemed to be floating empty as well. Raka''s ship had no one killed so far, thanks to Lady Verina and Lady Altia standing on the vanguard of defense. People had died but the pirates had suffered much more. But their ship still kept coming closer. People kept trying to smash stones against the hull but dunno what the hull was made of, it just didn''t break. "Are they really planning to ram us?" Lady Altia shouted finally. After all once a ship comes this close what else was it supposed to do? "I am afraid so. But looks like there are only a few people still left. If we all attack together, we should be able to finish them off." The Captain shouted in reply as another pitch ball started making its way to our ship. "I will handle this" shouted Lady Altia but unlike last time she got her sword out. She focused and then started slashing attacks on the approaching pitch ball. Considering it was still far away, Raka thought she was using something like an air slash. But no, every slash she was doing was cutting and dousing that pitch ball at the same time. ''That looks like some kind of water magic.'' Raka was impressed. Well if you break an object into pieces, it does not remain the same object and hence the magic embedded in it does not remain effective which meant the out of control pieces harmlessly fell into the sea. Another reason why stone projectiles were preferred. Not easy to break those. And the pirate ship moved even closer. "Captain should we move the ship?!" Lady Altia shouted out. "On Oars!" The Captain ordered immediately. Most of the pirates had been killed or injured heavily. Even the beastmen were injured although still standing. But they were harmless. ''Unless they could jump. Damn!'' "Watch out, the beastmen are preparing to jump on our ship. Move away fast." Raka shouted immediately. But he found out immediately how wrong he was. A couple of beastmen did try to jump but some clever air magic and they fell straight into the sea. And then some cool water magic was used to drown them. They were no fish after all. Now everyone was wondering what was happening. ''What the hell! I thought the beastmen would be the threat but they can be handled so easily. Like this, this battle can be won by just waiting....I should go take a nap or something...'' Raka thought wryly. Being the weakest of the bunch its not like he had a lot to do. The stone batting contest was the most fun he had. Then he had a brainflash. In fact napping had turned his gear for some reason. ''Who is protecting the ship?'' Most of the people on the pirate ship''s deck had been involved in fighting so whoever was strengthening the hull?! In fact could only one dwarf be responsible for that? And where was that incredibly skilled magician?'' And the answer was.....the lower deck. "Watch out! They got more people hiding in the lower decks!" Raka shouted at the top of his voice almost at the same time as oars came out from small doors at the side of the pirate ship and it picked up speed. ''Portholes, they are called.'' "Damn..." "Move those oars!! Get moving or I will set the dogs of hell after you!" the Captain shouted in an even louder voice. Sailors do have loud voices. ''Damn how could I forget...pirate ships are made for speed so they don''t have much cargo space.'' Which meant they have a bigger lower deck than the fleet ships and that lower deck can be used for a good number of people. To sleep and to stay protected. And ofcourse they had oars. So the pirates were basically hiding their forces to spring a very nasty surprise. And that surprise was about to smash into the ship''s side momentarily. But in Raka''s defense he could not have realized it any sooner. For one, the pirates were always coming out from the lower deck. And going down below as well. It had seemed that they were busy taking out the cargo to supply others or something. And what had happened was a bit worse than that. People, humans, dwarves and beastmen had actually left the upper deck after fighting for some time. In the heat of battle, no one noticed people suddenly missing from the upper deck. Who was counting anyway....the missing ones would have just been killed. Or that''s what the people would have thought. No one counts the dead bodies if you have enough of them. And so the skillful, powerful people who maybe the higher ranked ones quietly descended to the lower deck. Maybe they had split their forces into weak and strong ones beforehand and they sacrificed the weak ones as pawns on the upper deck. Ofcourse this became clear much later. But right now the ship was about to break into pieces and everyone watched the pirate ship ominously with wide eyes and bated breaths. The, now 20 something, dinghies fired magic non stop. Some even came in next to the ship in order to buffer the impact of the pirate ship. This way the boats would be hit first. The sailors quickly tied the boats with the ropes so that they don''t drift away and then jumped off and swam to get out of the way. "Abandon SHIP!!" The simple command rang out as people were moved into action. Lady Verina suddenly fell on her hands and knees as if supremely tired. Raka hurried over to her. "Are you ok?" he asked but Lady Verina had her eyes closed. "I will stop that ship. But I need to get close." She simply replied softly. Raka understood. She was probably going to transform a large amount of energy for something. Just then,
(Event Subquest) Powerful barrier - Lady Verina aims to do a powerful magic which will stop the approaching pirate ship. For that she needs to get closer to the oncoming ship and the water. Help her reach one of the dinghies by the side.
"Ok, hold on." Which brings us to the bag limit weight. See rabbit and wolf skins and bones weigh like 1~2 stones. But he had carried about a hundred each of those so almost 200 stones atleast. Atleast about 100 kgs and he hadn''t felt a thing. A woman such as Lady Verina should weigh far less. Raka easily lifted Lady Verina and carried her in his arms. Whats the word, bridal carry...princess carry...whatever it is called. And then he quickly ran over towards the approaching pirate ship. He jumped aiming for one of the boats. He slipped as his feet reached the boat and he landed on his butt instead. Thankfully he kept holding Lady Verina who still had her eyes closed.
You have successfully landed on the boat.
Soon she opened her eyes and reached for the water. A soft word spoken in her clear voice... "Kraken." Eight small ribbons of rapidly turning water rose high into the air. But then came down and settled on a height of about 8 feet. And slowly started getting thicker. Almost like the water was being sucked into it and increasing its volume. From a ribbon to a thick rope to a tree trunk....to almost 2 feet thick. Raka felt the boat being pulled towards it. Infact even the ship was being pulled towards it. It had so much power. And then 4 of them disappeared. And the 4 remaining got even thicker. Lady Verina stood slowly and Raka supported her by standing behind her. She opened her hands and moved them away to either side. The 4 joined to become 2, even thicker. And then stood in front of us just as the pirate ship hit it. The front of the bow was higher than that and it still approached, passing over Raka''s head as it smashed into the ship just behind him. And then the hull met the water barrier and the pirate ship stopped. Noises bellowed out of the pirate ship, probably calling for greater strength at the oars. But the ship did not move forward. In fact the turning water was pushing it back little by little. Like two large gears working together, they were generating more reverse pushing power than the ship''s forward power. And so it moved back, and the thick masses of water moved back with it, pushing it all the way. Soon the pirate ship was pushed back just far enough. With that said, it was still close enough that one could jump on their ship. And then the oars were cut. Like all the oars on one side were cut off at the same time. Probably Lady Altia was the culprit. The ''so called strong'' pirates had made a simple mistake in their plan. In their complete victory simulation they had probably not expected to be stopped like this and hence had forgotten to strengthen their oars. By the time they realized their mistake, the other side oars were cut as well. "Quick! Cut their sails!" She shouted from above. On hindsight this was not too incredible. They were childhood friends. Their teamwork was the best. But the fight was not over yet. If they stayed this close, the people who were now coming out of hiding, would probably jump on to our ship and reign havoc. Lady Verina had considered that possibility. She had not cancelled her magic because of this. As soon as the oars and sails were cut, she started pushing again. It went easier this time without all that forward force and soon the ship was about 20 meters away. Not too far but it was enough. She waved her hands and the two swirling masses of water quickly dropped down. "Pull us up!" Raka shouted. "No! Wait! Hold me!" Lady Verina said in her clear voice and closed her eyes again. She was transforming more energy. And probably that needed water as well. Once more, "Kraken." And 8 ribbons of swirling water rose again. But this time it surrounded the pirate ship. It looked exactly like an octopus now. The pirates sensing danger quickly started firing all sorts of magic. But none of it reached us as they got blocked by so many people, soldiers and sailors of the fleet. Some of the pirates even managed to shoot a pitch ball towards us. And the highly skillful magic user probably got involved in it as well because somehow it kept heading towards us. "There...him, the guy wearing black clothes." Raka finally spotted him. It was easy this time, he was the only human who was intently looking at them, the rest had gotten engaged with fighting other people.
You have found the skillful magic user.
Lady Verina simply moved her hands like she wanted to catch it and a ribbon or tentacle caught the pitch ball, blocking it. And then two other tentacles moved. One of them towards the skilled magician. As soon as he moved to block himself from this attack, the other tentacle hit the pitch ball back towards the pirate ship. Without that guy''s control and the others being engaged by the people of the fleet, the pirates had no chance. The pitch ball fell on to the deck and scattered. Then all the tentacles came into action. Lady Verina quickly moved her hands while Raka held her from behind. All the tentacles hunted that one guy. In a magic battle if you lose focus, you die and keeping track of 8 swirling ribbons of water was not easy. Not that he didn''t try. But the tentacles caught the skillful magic guy from the back and then quickly threw him overboard over quite a distance. That guy was effectively out of the battle. And then Lady Verina fainted. "Alright lift us up now!" The fight went on for some time after that. And a lot of pirates were killed. Raka laid down Lady Verina near him and Lady Altia and watched the fight, always ready to defend. But this fight was about numbers...and the fleet had them. And finally the pirates surrendered and the battle ended.
Event Quest: Defeat the Pirates ends successfully. Based on your efforts, you have been awarded 30 contribution points towards the Nation of Ilmentia. Contribution points can be used in various endeavours or to ask for favors from the nation.
Fame increases by 20.
Raka carried Lady Verina back to the room and laid her on the bed. There were still lots of things to do but Lady Altia and the Commander of the fleet would handle the rest. The captured pirates were divided into each ship with the beastmen being tied far more securely than required. They were also kept on separate ships. It turned out they had enough chains and ropes which had been brought expecting an encounter with the beastmen. The same was used now for the dwarves and humans, as well. Not that they resisted. They were kept on the upper deck and under strict watch always. It turned out that the number who surrendered were only 10, 3 humans, 5 dwarves and 2 beastmen. The pirate ship was stripped bare, the sailors picking up any and all supplies and weapons they had, which was not much and all the treasure they were carrying was divided and loaded on two ships so as not to add too much weight on one. And then it was scuttled and sunk. When Raka asked the reason, he was explained that they didn''t have any extra crew to handle that ship and hence it was decided to sink it. It turned out that the skillful magician guy was actually the pirate captain, but no one cared to look for him. "Let the Goddess judge his fate" the Captain said."We have our dead to worry." The dead were given a simple ceremony and laid to rest among the waves. And then the ships turned home. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy logged off to take a break. He decided to submit the video of the battle to the university. He didn''t have time to edit it anyway. After thinking for a bit, he also uploaded the video on the Long Island forums. Who knew what kind of effect this video would have.
Formal complaint against the editor in use. I can not preset my font size and type. Every time I copy some text it will always ends up getting smaller. eg. Every time I copy some text it will always ends up getting smaller. Hope someone fixes this problem. Or go back to the older editor, I liked it better. Comments welcome on the chapter :). This might have more mistakes than last one. Oh and I have not added the character window thingy yet...will add that soon. TwoFeet Chapter 22: The Interview "Hi and welcome to tonight''s show. Tonight we feature Mr. Samuel Collins and Mr. Varun Mehta, cofounders of the company Archesoft and makers of the increasingly popular game Long Island. I am Noah Finney. First of all, welcome to our show." *clapping sounds, the view expands and two middle aged men wearing suits appear next to the interviewer. "Thank you." both of them replied. "I am sure you and the audience must have seen this amazing Long Island game video, now making its rounds over the internet. It originated in the game forums and was uploaded by someone having the handle Raka. The video has quickly gone viral. Copies have been uploaded to youtube and other popular video hosting sites. The main thing of the video, I would say, is this amazing naval battle between npcs but where players did not play a significant part. We have seen loads of player battles where npc soldiers are being used or where players are playing important parts as soldiers or generals. We have even seen large scale battles fought over the sea between players or between players fighting npcs. But this would be first time where strong npcs of three races fought a battle on their own displaying their own charm, strength and power. This video also shows for the first time, three races available in the game....humans, dwarves and beastmen." "Alright so lets get started. First question what motivated you to start this company and make this awesome game Long Island?" "Ah well I think the game came first and then the company," Mr. Collins said to which Mr. Mehta nodded. "Could you elaborate on that?" asked Noah. "Well we, that is me, Varun, Nancy and Jiang, were all students at the Stanford University. We started this game, in fact it was not a game then, just a virtual world. We started this virtual world as a project. At that time we had started it for fun, no idea how far we could go with this but then Varun and Jiang did some amazing things with it and somehow we decided to make it into a game." "Oh so there were only four of you who worked to make this game then?" "I wouldn''t say only. We had more passionate people join after we started the company, without whom this game would not have become a reality. But yes, the four of us did come up with the main idea for this game. Like Varun came up with the idea of how it should look like and behave, Jiang programmed the basic AI, Nancy introduced the rules of magic." Mr. Collins said. "And Samuel''s contribution would be the concept of memories." Mr. Mehta added. "Too many things I hear. Could you explain them for our interested viewers?" "Hahaha" both of them chuckled. "Long Island was started as a simple virtual world creation. You know an earth like environment which could be explored, studied, etc. We had this, then a crazy idea, that it is possible to create species and let them develop themselves. You know how earth developed over millions of years? So we were trying to simulate earth conditions and then looking at the origin of life itself as they say." Mr. Collins started. "But then, after a night of drunken revelry (*more laughing) Varun here had this even crazier idea to develop an altogether new world and see what kind of species developed there. You know kinda like an alien planet but where the environment is similar to earth." "Yeah....well the idea was to see if there could be alien planets out there and what would the aliens look like." Mr. Mehta said. "This was how our project started. After we presented it in class, Jiang and Nancy approached us with some ideas of their own. Nancy was deeply interested in adding magic to this world. See what kind of evolution will happen if you introduced magic. She already had all the rules of magic in her head even then. And then Jiang wanted to make a game out of it. He also made a basic AI which included all of these rules and then we created a new virtual world based on the same concept." "Ah so your imagination became the starting point for everything? Especially Nancy''s? Did something inspire you all or were you always this creative?" Noah asked. "You could say that we were creative, like I play the guitar and Varun likes the drums. Nancy likes to paint, Jiang is basically the gamer. We were also inspired by creative media, you know manga, anime and stuff like that. Most of them feature unique worlds and it did inspire us in our new world design." "So that is how the game started. You said something about memories? What is that?" Noah asked. "Well this is an idea I had after playing a couple of the virtual reality games. The AI in those games used to make history. New history was constantly being uncovered as the players kept developing and moving ahead. If I have to say it simply, its like new stories were made so as to keep the gameplay going. I am sure a lot of you might have found yourself in a situation where you uncovered a quest containing previously unknown history. Before that no npc would know about it but suddenly they would all start talking about it. Now I am not saying that is a bad thing and it is designed in such a way that the information which was basically lost over time was discovered." Mr. Collins said and Mr. Mehta nodded. "Now that you mention it, something like this did happen." Noah said. "In our case that was not really needed. We had designed it to study evolution in the first place, so all we had to do was let things develop naturally over the years. The actual passage of time became history in this world. I had this idea where intelligent beings could store information about their life experiences and interactions in the form of memories. The more intelligent the life form, the more memory it could store, like humans." "Hmm, the game AI does not make history because the characters in it have already lived through it right?" Noah asked. "Yes, exactly. Every npc lives their own life and have their own memories of it." "But didn''t you have to build the various races? We can see atleast 3 races in the video including humans?" Noah asked. "Actually we did nothing except make the world, put in the basics of life and add magic. Natural evolution did the rest. I think the main difference between the evolution in Long Island and the planet Earth is the introduction of magic. It remarkably influenced evolution of creatures and races, but that is what we wanted. If Earth would have had magic this might be happening in our world too, probably!" Mr. Mehta replied. "In that case I would like to be an elf. (*more laughing) Ah but then evolution happens over millions of years. How did you achieve it in the game?" "Its not that difficult really." Mr Collins started speaking. "Its like watching a video. You watch the video at a particular speed but the actual decoding of the video data by the computer takes place much much faster. The world and its inhabitants in the game are basically computer programs. If we are not interested in actually watching evolution take place or being part of it, the process can be sped up a lot. Millions of years of evolution can happen within human time. It still took us around 10 years of keeping the world running, including the time we were in college, to achieve this state of evolution where we can introduce players." Mr. Collins replied. "And that is how folks this amazing game was made by the passionate people of Archesoft. Next I would like to ask about the features. People can only select the human race? Why is that?" "That is something we decided to do to explain the world to the players. It is a bit different than the other games, having no classes. Being human would make it easier to adjust till more information about the game comes out, atleast that''s what we thought. Funny thing is we might not have ended up with humans in the evolution in the first place. In that case, we would have needed to pick out some other race which could have looked like an alien." Mr. Collins replied. "Hahahaha! And when are you releasing that information?" "Ahhaha....never actually. You see all the information of the game system is locked and stored within the game itself. The players will have to unlock it. Once someone does, it becomes known to everyone through a system announcement otherwise.... It was Jiang''s idea to implement it this way. I am guessing it was more fun like this." Mr Mehta said. "Non game system related information can be released though. For example, we are going to be launching the item auction system and the hall of fame portal soon. We believe that the players have reached a point where they will want such things." "Do you mean to say that these were not there before? Or was it one of the locked systems?" "No. We had planned to launch it with the game itself, but some issues had come up which needed to be resolved. Also game money to real world money conversion is not easy to decide. We were not sure how the game would be received and how many players would be interested in playing even after like 4 months. As I said previously, the game is different from other standard games in a lot of things. Whether that helped the game to keep interest of the players or adversely affected it, was a major question. After all the amount of money flowing in would be related to the worth of the game currency. But now we can safely roll it out." "That''s nice. So is the ''age'' system in the game also one of the locked systems?" Noah asked. "No, we can talk about that. You see, in older games people had this concept of gaining experience through doing something, like fighting monsters, doing quests, etc. But that left an element where interactions with npcs are not considered. Also learning about the game itself, you know its history, geography, its system, etc was not part of it. We decided to include this and created ''Age''. So unlike levels, having a higher age may not mean that the person is simply stronger than the other but it will mean that he/she knows more about the game, its world and its inhabitants. There are other things involved as well but that''s the main thing." "Hmm...food for thought indeed. So how do you see the first naval battle of the game? Considering your game advertises itself as being primarily sea based? Some of our experts have commented that this is magic intensive, like if you are not good at magic you probably do not want to get involved in such battles?" Noah asked. "I am not sure how to explain this without revealing a lot of information. Lets just say that over the years people have developed as many ways of fighting as there are instruments of war. Even in Earth''s history, there are samurais on one end and the viking longships on the other. But we don''t claim to know everything either. Like the players, we are also not sure of the extent of everything in the world we have created. It will be a process of discovery for both them and us." Mr Collins replied. "Oh..so we can expect other such awesome videos soon?" Both gentlemen smile but say nothing. "Well that''s all the time we have today. Thank you Mr. Collins and Mr. Mehta for coming to our show tonight." "TV, switch off." Swamy laid back on his couch and stretched. He had been intently waiting for this show, ever since it was scheduled. ''That explains a lot.'' Especially important was the thing about ''age'' and game system information. Real world skills, with subtle differences, could be used in the virtual reality games was common knowledge. The development of the world in this manner also opened up a lot of other possibilities. ''Though the thing about no significant part was unnecessary, even if true.'' Swamy sighed. His inner musings were interrupted by a phone call. "Hello.." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It had been a few days since the battle with the pirates. The fleet was making its way back to Thelmova. Considering it took more than a couple of weeks to catch up to the pirates, Raka expected around the same time to get back. He was back with his duties, namely mopping, cooking...massaging. In addition, he was trying to learn the mapping skill. While at open sea, where you could not see any land, Raka could not make any maps. But now that the island was back in sight he could start working on his mapping skill again. His drawing sucked though, especially free style. He would try making a cove but it would look like a mountain which would confuse the Captain and he would fail to learn. ''No choice but to keep trying though.'' Raka did want to learn more skills. But once he started learning from someone, he could only learn from them. The game would not allow him to change his teacher later. Starting to learn more skills on the remaining voyage may not be a good idea. Especially when any potential skill might take a long time to learn. Sailors and ships had this habit of going away for long periods of time. Waiting for them to return would not be too practical. It was much better to discover skills than learn them, atleast when you couldn''t guarantee that your teacher would stick around. So even though he eagerly wanted to learn how to sail and navigate a ship, he persevered and did not ask. He was sure sailing and navigation couldn''t be an easy to learn skill owing to the fact that he even lacked the skill in real life. ''Maybe I will get a chance to go on another voyage someday. Learning the skill at that time would be more convenient.'' Raka focused on his other duties. Finally his shipwright skills were being put to use. There was some damage caused to the ship by the ramming pirate ship. Not much, just the railings and a bit on the hull by the side which got hit. Salmon had been tasked to repair it which obviously meant Raka had to bear the burden. He worked the planks into the right shape and then hung from the upper deck using ropes. Hanging above the sea besides a lurching ship, he hammered the pieces at the right places to repair the hull. And then he went on to build new railings. All according to precise instructions being given by Salmon, who still criticized him. "Hmph. Looks like amateur work. Look at that shape!" Raka sighed. He knocked on the door and entered the room. "Ah you are awake. How are you feeling now?" Raka asked. "I am fine now thank you." Lady Verina replied. Lady Verina had fainted during the battle with the pirates. Raka had suspected that it had something to do with overuse of magic or mana but he couldn''t be sure. ''Why would consuming mana make you faint?'' He had often asked himself. He was pretty sure running out of mana was a pretty common occurrence. He himself had run out of it so many times without any physical effects like fainting. "So any side-effects of fainting still?" Raka asked. Well you couldn''t be right as rain after fainting. Lady Verina had gained consciousness after a few hours but she had felt slight weakness after that. A few days of rest was prescribed by the Captain and Lady Altia which she had gracefully accepted. "Um...maybe a little." She said moving her head side to side. Her luscious blond tresses swayed along. Raka took a seat on the opposite bunk. "Maybe you could give me a neck massage..." she looked at him and smiled expectantly. Raka smiled involuntarily. He knew of Lady Verina''s playful nature but he still couldn''t help blushing everytime. "Um ok. But only if you answer my questions first." Raka added. "You doze off everytime during the massage." "I can''t help it. It always relaxes me so much that I fall asleep. Ok ask away." She replied giving a bright smile. "First of all why did you faint? I don''t think it had anything to do with running out of mana." "Ah! No it doesn''t. Its got more to do with how much energy you transform. I did say when you transform more energy you need more focus, right. To keep transforming large amounts of energy, you constantly need high focus which causes stress. Not stress on the body but stress on your mind. If you keep using large amounts of energy for long periods of time, the stress may cause effects like fainting." Lady Verina replied. "So the Kraken magic requires a lot of energy. No wonder only you can use it. So I will have to make sure not to use a lot of energy." Raka commented. "The magic does require a lot of energy but that does not mean only I can use it. If you talk only about the amount, a lot of people including Altia often use that much energy. Its just that the level of fine control required is sometimes beyond them. Didn''t I tell you about aptitude for magic? It is just that the amount of energy a person can control without causing stress is directly related to their aptitude, that is, how they think about it. You can take Altia as an example. She can use a lot of energy quite effortlessly in magics which she likes. She sliced through the oars in an instant using air magic. Even if they were not protected, the air magic required to slice through several thick pieces of wood will need a lot of energy but she did it effortlessly. Similarly she sliced the pitch with water magic." Lady Verina explained. Raka nodded listening. "So Lady Altia has an aptitude in air and water magic?" Raka asked. "No. She finds it difficult, relatively, to control the launching stones even though its air magic and uses less energy." "Um...then I don''t get it. What is aptitude then?" "I just told you. Aptitude is how you think of magic. Altia likes using weapons, specially a sword. So any magic which is similar to the effects of using a sword or imitates a sword, she can do quite easily even if it will need a lot of energy. This is what doing magic intuitively means. Magics which do not act similar to a weapon becomes a little difficult for her, like controlling flying stones. I, on the other hand am not quite so fond of weapons and try to approach magic as a series of controlled steps. It allows more control but also adds more stress. In summary, any magic which you can do intuitively will be less stressful." Raka nodded understanding. "Well I also wanted to ask if you could teach me the recovery magic, or healing magic, or whatever it is called. After the fight all I did was serve food and a little bandaging. If I could learn that magic I could be of more use, atleast that''s what I thought." Raka finally asked his million dollar question. It was not like he had been hesitant in asking about this magic but he had found out early that not everyone knew this magic. Initially he had assumed that only people knowing advanced magic could know this and hence did not ask about it, planning to learn when he reached a higher level. But then after the fight with the pirates, he had found a few sailors who could also do recovery magic. ''If you had a high level in magic, would you be a low rung sailor?'' Raka didn''t think so. On the other hand, actually he had just noticed it, Lady Altia never used recovery magic. "Healing magic or recovery magic as you aptly called it is only taught to students who either have very low magic power or have a very high level of control. Since your magic is still growing and your control is weak I can''t teach you yet. Now just so you do not stupidly go and learn somewhere else, I will warn you. The reason we insist that you have low magic power or a very high level of control is because if applied wrong, recovery magic will result in curses. Do you know about curses?" "Yes I heard about it. Though isn''t it the same as curse magic?" "It seems you have heard far more than is suitable. Curses are different than curse magic though in a sense quite similar. See, to fully explain healing we have to go into history a bit. Lets say you suddenly learn magic and are experimenting with magic on your own or others bodies. What would you first do?" "Probably learn how to manipulate my body....or heal." Raka replied. "Exactly. But transforming stable energies is not easy. The reason it is so difficult is because stable energies have this property of returning back to their stable state. So even if you manage to disturb the form it will try to get to a state that is stable. This is why changes made using curse magic are not reversible. Because the changed body has reached a new stable state. Recovery magic very lightly disturbs the stable energy form, that is your body, and then the form tries to get back to its stable state immediately. Which is basically what causes recovery to take place in your body." "Hmmm." "The light disturbance should be caused by very low magic power. If the magic power is just a bit higher, it takes much longer to return back to the stable state. This adversely affects your body causing all kinds of effects like vomiting, dizziness, fainting, etc. It can even cause old wounds to open up. This is what is called a curse." "Oh so when this magic power becomes too strong, will it result in curse magic?" "Yes. You could say that recovery magic is the first step to curse magic. Which is why we insist that only those who either have very low magic power or very high control learn it. Do you understand?" "Yes, I do. But that probably means that most Goddess''s children won''t be able to learn this magic, won''t they? Atleast not until they learn high control?" "Maybe. From what I know of Goddess''s children, they usually don''t have low magic power." ''Hmm. Thinking of it, only those with a very high mana, probably also a high magic skill, will be able to learn.'' Which will take months if not years of game time. Raka will have to find a way to fight without such a convenient skill once he heads out on his own. "Any more questions?" Lady Verina smiled. "Um...lots actually." "Well keep them for later...." as she dropped back on the bed with her face down, clearly indicating. Raka smiled and moved his hands on to the warm skin of her soft neck. "Aaah!" "......" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka could have gone back to his old routine, that is going to college, but he decided to stay on leave. The main reason was his other D+ quest. Namely taking care of Lady Altia. Lady Altia was not completely well. In her case, that simply meant she could not fight in her super speed mode. Normally she displayed no signs of stress or discomfort. There was no pain like earlier either. Perhaps his massages had helped with that a little or it was her natural recovery, Raka wasn''t sure. Atleast her normal mode seemed well enough. That meant, ideally, there would have been no point in continuing to take care of Lady Altia and the quest should have ended. But it hadn''t. In anticipation that something will happen, Raka had stayed on. But so far there were no signs of that. One beastman, two dwarves and one human pirate were imprisoned on board Raka''s ship. As they were always kept on the upper deck, Raka got loads of time to observe them. And he made most of it. Dwarves were well, short in height about 3 or 4 feet but were built like a tank with thick muscles. They had surrendered their armor and even without it, they looked burly. No other word came to Raka''s mind to describe them. They kept their hair long and tied in a warriors braid. Even their beards were long and tied up in one or more braids. Quite unlike character their moustache was neatly trimmed and short and not bushy and long. The wolfman....well was a wolfman. Looking closely, what attracted the most were the eyes. He hadn''t noticed before but beastmen may have cat like eyes. Atleast the wolfman did. Animal like eyes, perhaps to see better in the dark. Although Raka surmised there could be different types of beastmen, just like there are different animals. The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The human did not catch his interest much. His accessories did. The guy was wearing many bracelets, a nose ring, earrings, rings on all his ten fingers and many thin arm bands which looked more like bangles. Even his feet were covered in all sorts of bracelets and rings. Considering the sailors had not removed it when he surrendered meant that it had no combat value, probably. Even if it had, it was not like he could break through the chains designed for beastmen originally. And any magic would be easily detected by the many people on guard. But still it was well, different. Raka hadn''t seen anyone, not even the supposedly ''rich'' people of the capital, who adorned so many accessories. All in all the pirates made for an interesting sight. Raka tried to find out or deduce as many things about the dwarves and beastmen in particular. If someday someone discovered a way to change races or if these races opened up to players, it would be beneficial to know their characteristics. And it had lead to the realization of a new problem. The problem of language! Raka simply did not understand dwarvish or beastman language. The pirates probably understood the language of Ilmentia. Atleast a little bit or it would have made surrendering impossible. But so far they had kept quiet as they sat tied up in chains. The few times they did talk to each other was in a different language. As they were prisoners, Raka did not think it would be prudent to simply approach and talk to them considering even the other sailors were avoiding talking to them. The Captain and the Ladies also had not initiated any dialogue. And the few times the pirates had said anything was during meal times and even then only the human spoke a word of thanks. The dwarves and the wolfman simply bowed and ate. The extent to which the pirates understood Ilmentia language was suspect. Just because only the human was speaking did not mean that the others did not know. It could all be a plot to feign ignorance. Though to what end, Raka was not sure. But he was sure of one fact. They could converse in a different language and he could not understand it. Since the beginning, when he had to spend so much time learning the language of Ilmentia, Raka had suspected that the game had many languages. Even magic language was considered a language after all. The parrot information had confirmed it. In the interview also, when the game creators had mentioned that they had let natural evolution take place, Raka thought it was further proof that there would be as many languages as there were races. If it were like real life, every country could have its own language, let alone different races. ''So I will have to spend a better part of my time learning these languages as well.'' His main worry though was whether he would find information about these languages in the library. If not, he would have to visit the library of any new race he visited, only if they had it. ''That''s a real problem for the future.'' All in all it was an uneventful day. Any further naval training had been suspended owing to the presence of the prisoners and what remained was too boring to mention. The Captain had even stopped all crew massages. There was a time for work and a time for play and this was the time to stay alert. Only the few who had been injured were exempt. Lady Altia and Lady Verina had insisted though. Well, considering they were not at their peak health, it had made sense. Though it did seem that Raka would die of a heart attack one of these days. On the other hand, Raka wanted to continue training. Well ok, you cannot drive a boat without a boat or learn how to move a stone without a stone, but you can pretend. Raka placed his magical staff on the railings he had newly built and imagined himself like on a boat. Lady Verina had said that the drive paddle on those battle dinghies was the same as his magic staff, so it should work the same even if it is less effective. In fact a less effective version was better right now so that his magic practice did not cause accidents. ''So now lets face the other way and hold it like this. Hmm..ok now to release the air magic...slowly and carefully.'' Raka kept track of his actions in his thoughts. And it worked better than he hoped. He could feel the air magic being released from the other end of the staff. He tried keeping the output low, far lower than he had to keep the boat moving. Almost like a gentle puff from a fan. ''The trick is to keep it as long as I can and to try swirling the air.'' Raka focused on keeping on the fan effect for as long as he could, draining all his mana. The feel was a little different than the drive paddle as nothing happened. Atleast on a boat he could feel it moving but like this he could only feel his magic being drained, nothing else. ''Hmm. Do I have to keep the end out to sea?'' Raka decided that was not required. He moved his staff to face him and tried releasing air magic this way. Just in case he kept the staff end pointing up so that after hitting him, the air blows up. Immediately a strong gush shot out giving him a wind blown look. Raka focused on reducing the output and slowly the strength trickled down to a light breeze. It almost felt like a fan in summer. Raka smiled and then grimaced as laughter started around him as others saw his wind-blown look. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy hurried to get dressed. He had just logged out from the game and it was afternoon in the real world. And he had an appointment to keep, for which he was going to run late. "Oh...just 5 mins left!" He quickly glanced at the clock. He was pleasantly surprised when he had received that call yesterday. It was someone from Archesoft and they had invited him to their local office in the city. He was deemed as one of the front runners of the game and henceforth invited to join their soon to be launched Hall of Fame portal. Further details would be given at their office and he was supposed to get there in half an hour. Considering the 20 minutes by Ekishaw, he had to leave house in the next 5 minutes to even have a chance of getting there on time. Ofcourse his calculations had conveniently discarded the time spent on getting to an Ekishaw and the time spent on traffic. It was afternoon after all, not like late night where the streets would be empty. Conveniently he reached the local office of Archesoft 20 minutes late. He hurried in. "Hi I have an appointment with Mr. Patil. My name is Swamy." He said to the receptionist who promptly said, "You are late Mr. Swamy. They have already started. Please follow me." Swamy followed the pretty receptionist lady who did not seem much older than him, to a conference like room where a couple more people were sitting. One of them seemed to be in a suit wearing a tie while the other happened to be a much more casually dressed and far more good looking. ''What is he, like a model or something?'' Swamy could help thinking. Both of them looked towards him as he entered. "Yes?" the suited person asked. "Ah I have another for you." the receptionist said. "Ah yes ofcourse. I am Jay Patil. Nice to meet you." As he offered his hand. "Nice to meet you too." And Swamy reciprocated. "Well I am sorry but could you wait for a bit. Thank you. Please take a chair outside." Swamy sat down on the few chairs outside the conference room and waited. About half an hour later, both gentlemen walked out and shook hands and then the handsome one took off. "Please come in. Sorry for making you wait, but as you were late we had to start the interview. I did not catch your name?" "I am Swamy. What is this about an interview?" "Ah yes Mr. Swamy. Actually we are considering you and other people who have been deemed front runners in the game to be part of the Hall of Fame portal. Before inviting though, we want to know whether or not you have any interest in it and such. For that we are conducting a small interview." "Oh ok." "So the first obvious question, are you interested in being part of the Hall of Fame portal? Please understand that if you are, we will expect you to upload videos of your adventures. Not all of them but the ones you want to. To keep the Hall of Fame active we would also want you to post videos atleast once every two months. The videos need not be of current adventures and you can post older adventures. Also please understand that being a part of Hall of Fame is not without benefit. According to the popularity of the videos or number of views, we will be providing nominal compensation, which is yet to be decided. If you have any questions please let me know." "Um what kind of compensation?" "Monetary compensation. We will pay you according to the interest and number of views your videos generate. The money will automatically be deposited to your account." ''Sounds nice so far. Is there a catch?'' "Is the membership to the Hall of Fame permanent?" "Ah no. We will review the members every six months. If the situation in game changes we would like to remove members and introduce new members, so that we always have the leading people in there. After all it can happen that you do not play for a long time. You can also opt out of this portal or fail to submit new videos during the timespan. In that case we can remove you and add new members." ''Hmm makes sense.'' "I had a question unrelated to the Hall of Fame. In the interview they said that game money - real money conversion can take place now?" "Yes. We are implementing this system now along with the item auction system. We had to wait a few months so that we could have a steady inflow of money as they said in the interview." "When would the system be implemented and what would be the conversion rate?" "I don''t know but I expect the details will be announced soon." "So you are only starting the Hall of Portal now?" "No. I am only here to complete the formalities for joining and such. The Hall of Fame portal will be launched, I think, along with the rest. Which should be soon." "Ah..ok. Well I have no other questions. Please let me join." "Very well. Here are the forms. Please fill in your game account id, email and other details. Also your bank information. Your password will be sent to you by email. This here is a how-to guide to use the portal....." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It was early morning in the game when Thelmova came into sight. The crew had been sailing for almost a month in game time. The night crew was getting almost drowsy and Raka was sure the morning crew would be just as cranky. For the past many days Raka had been living a routine life. Except going to college. His parents had called him once to ask what had happened and Raka had explained his quest requirement. Ofcourse he had to spend the next hour reassuring them that he was not going to turn out like those neets who do nothing but play games. That this was a temporary, emphasis on temporary, measure to complete the quest. That his course credits won''t be affected and he had talked with his professors. And that he will go back to attending college regularly after this. Well that was more of an understated fact. Other than that it was pretty routine. He would log in after eating and finishing other requirements of the real world. Then he would go on about his jobs on the ship. Mopping deck after deck, helping with the meals, practicing his map drawings and his magic control and having slightly embarrassing moments here and there. Raka had found another way of learning magic control. Potatoes were no stones but no point not using a little embedding to send them from the aft to the fore of the kitchen. If he failed and hit someone, well a good apology usually sufficed. In return the kitchen crew did get to laugh at his expense when he failed. And after a few splattered ones, he had gotten the hang of it. Oh it was far from using potatoes to actually aim at someone, but he could move it in a straight line for a fixed distance, with some amount of control. The Cook at the other end did have to catch it once a while. But he was improving. Raka realized that his magic power was a bit on the high side. What he considered using less energy could still blow him off his feet if he failed. See, this energy bar which had formed in his colorful world, the one that showed how much energy he was transforming, moved only a trickle but the effect showed itself full force. It was like a balloon explosion even using the least energy he could transform. Well, Lady Verina did explain that Goddess''s children did not have low magic power. So what happened when you could not control that magic power properly. Well most of it got wasted, reverted back as they say. The energy Raka used to move that one potato in the kitchen, that too feebly, in better hands could move four. Or atleast that''s how he estimated his energy use. There was a lot of scope of reducing his energy use in all aspects of his magic which will then help in increasing his Focus stat. But that was something he just had to work hard at. For now, "Well done. You can make a decent map now." The Captain said.
You have learned the skill Mapping.
''Finally!'' Raka could not help sighing in relief. "Ah well it is only decent. You should keep trying to make it better. I think I only understood it because I have started recognizing your idiosyncracies. Someone else might still have trouble understanding so keep practicing." "Yes, I will keep trying." Raka said. ''So things like this can happen as well,'' he thought. Well atleast he had got the skill. And just in time as well. Everyone was looking towards the city as the ship approached at a slow pace. It would still take an hour and then some to reach there and to dock but the sailors were probably glad to come out of this alive and well. After all, it was a fight with pirates. Who knew how many would have made it back. ''Their families might have been waiting in as much anxiety.'' And then it went south. As the only one on the ship with possibly no attachment to the island, Raka was more interested in other things which will eventually help him become stronger. His head was swimming with plans of the things he will do and learn. He had even made a list of things to do on a sheet of paper. Possibly because of this, he was more curious when he heard a strange sound. Or it just may have been that he was still scared of all the things that could go wrong on the ship. A very soft ''clink''. Raka looked around but everything seemed normal. He walked towards where Lady Altia and Verina were standing near the middle of the ship still looking around. ''Did something fall off somewhere?'' But everyone else seemed oblivious to it so it might not have been anything affecting the ship. Seasoned sailors will notice things like that in a jiffy. And he expected the Captain would be able to tell if the behaviour of the ship changed. And then he looked at the pirates. Correction to the now ''free of chains'' pirates. Correction only the wolfman was completely free of it but the others seemed to be heading in that general direction at various speeds, trying to themselves free from the overlapping chains binding them. The wolfman, kindly, was not interested in helping them and promptly moved to attack. "Watch Out!" Raka yelled. ''What to do what to do....'' and his body moved before his brain. He moved his staff in a boat driving form. Thanking whatever foresight or luck was responsible that he had his staff out and embedded with air magic. In hindsight, it was because he was about to go practice his boat driving magic as per his schedule. He had embedded his staff in the Captain''s cabin, well because there were less people there to disturb his colorful world, so it was easier there. At the time it was just lucky, or maybe not. The wolfman moved straight at him. ''Shit Lady Altia and Verina are behind me.'' So he did the logical thing. Raka decided to shoot out a powerful puff of air from one end of the staff towards the beastman. It will likely cause no damage but it should push the wolfman enough to buy time. As he finished his thinking, which happened in a brainflash, his body had already moved into a low stance and he held onto his staff firmly so that it doesn''t fly out the other way. But, "Raka! Noooo...." "Eh...Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaahhhhhh!!" and Raka was shot towards the wolfman instead. Beastman body slam sounds like Baff! Raka''s flying body smashed into the wolfman head on and pushed him back a couple of feet before they fell down, Raka still buried in the wolfman. ''Shit! it smells bad!'' was almost all he could manage before one beastly arm lifted him up like a bag of potatoes as the wolfman quickly got to his feet and then the other arm came smashing, claw and all. Blood gushed out of his wounds like a water spray out of a broken tap.
You have taken damage! 120 Life lost.
You are bleeding. Life will reduce by 5 every second.
Blood loss! You have taken extreme damage and are losing blood. If not stopped, you will experience fainting.
''Ugh! Gruesome!'' thought Raka looking at his own blood and the messages. In the background he could hear shouting but before he could think much about it, he fainted. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka awoke. He opened his eyes and looked around to find himself in the room. He tried to move but prickling pain shot up in his body. ''Must not have been long.'' Raka quickly checked his status. Bleeding was gone, and though Life was recovering, it had not recovered completely. The bleed effect of the wolfman must have lasted quite some time. He guessed Lady Verina may have done some recovery magic to keep him from dying. It was just the prickling pain which was a bit uncomfortable. But that should subside soon. First time he had this kind of effect. ''Noted.'' He looked down at his body. ''Wow I am covered in bandages.'' A little while later, he felt comfortable enough to sit up and found his staff nearby on the floor. He heard a sounds and soon enough the door opened to reveal Lady Verina and Lady Altia. "So how are you feeling now?" Lady Verina asked with a smile. Oddly Lady Altia looked pissed. "I am fine. A bit of pain but I will live." "For all the Piss Ants Asses On FIRE! What the hell were you thinking! You could have died!" Lady Altia stormed. "Um...he is immortal remember," Lady Verina lightly said. "I know! But that still doesn''t mean he should get injured like that for us. We are his teachers for God''s sake!" Lady Altia replied back. "And that means letting him get stronger! You know he did the right thing!" "Um may I get a word in?" ""What!"" both of them shouted. "Thank you for your care. And my body moved before my mind could register. After all you are both precious to me. And unlike me neither one of you will simply revive when you die, would you? I only meant to buy time. By the way how long was I out for? And what happened to the pirates?" "Ah you were out about half an hour. And we captured the pirates again, thanks to you." Lady Altia replied. "Really how? Wasn''t the wolfman strong?" "Hah! and what do you think of us?" This time both of them looked at him. "Truthfully though if he had managed to get in close it would have been difficult, both Altia and I were unprepared. But thanks to you we got time to prepare. After that we just blew him off the ship. I assume you were trying to do the same thing?" "Yes. But somehow I blew out of the back end instead of the front." Raka grimaced. ""Hahaha"" both of them laughed. "Remember this. In times like these, what you have trained works better than what you want to do. This is why we train in the first place. So that in times like these the subconscious, which will always react faster than the conscious, knows exactly what to do." Lady Altia explained. "But anyways good job noticing the pirates. We captured the others before they got the chains off. I am assuming they wanted to create a diversion and then escape." "So did the wolfman die?" "Actually no. He surrendered again. Well this time we lent him a rope tied to the ship and told him that if he tries to escape or come on board, we will kill him. This particular one is quite the intelligent one. Knows when to take a chance. And knows when he has been defeated," Lady Verina replied. "As long as he is in the water, killing him will not be difficult." "And how did they break the chain?" "They used a rust stone. It is a dwarvish speciality so not many people recognize it. One of the accessories on the human was actually a shaped rust stone. Because they only react magically when activated by a dwarf, we could not have guessed it. Also they are extremely rare even among the dwarves. Wonder how these pirates got their hands on one." Lady Verina said. "Hmmm." ''I better note down the new information.'' "Alright I think I will disappear for a while. I should be back in about half an hour. Will we be docked by then?" Raka asked. "Probably not but soon enough after that." Lady Verina replied. "Ok." And Raka stood up and went to a corner to log out. "Raka..." Lady Altia remarked. "Um what?" "You are still bleeding!" "Eh..." and Raka quickly looked down to find the bandages red. Pretty sure they were not that before. ''What''s going on here? Did Lady Verina screw up in her healing?'' But the answer soon appeared like this.
You have contracted a disease. Stage 1: 33%
Raka has unlocked the Permanent Death System.
[p=center]System Announcement[/p] Permanent Death System has been unlocked. Your character can die a permanent death (deletion of the character) in these conditions: 1) Death by old age - When Age reaches 150. 2) Death by disease - When your character contracts a disease and it advances to Stage 4: 100%. Please understand that if your character dies in the permanent death system, a new character cannot be created with the same race or any locked race. If no other races are available or they are locked for you, you cannot create a character till another race is discovered.
*********************************************************************************** Authors Note: This is the kinda like the end of Volume 2.
This one is a bit late. Also I haven¡¯t proofread it. Will do soon. Hope you enjoy the chapter. Chapter 23: Back Again... It was an uproar like nothing else. The revealing of the permanent death system caused a large scale argument to break out between its supporters and its detractors. As many people welcomed it as wanted to leave the game. For two real time days the forums had exceeded capacity limits. Intense discussions were taking place in both virtual and real meeting places. What did it mean? How was it applied? How long will it take? etc etc. People did not completely understand Age yet so how could they understand how long it will take to reach 150. Disease was a completely new phenomenon as well. So far only Swamy had contracted one or that''s what he guessed. And that lead to another problem. Swamy did not know how to describe this phenomenon. He clearly remembered Mr Collins from the interview who said that ''Unlike levels, having a higher age may not mean that the person is simply stronger than the other but it will mean that he/she knows more about the game, its world and its inhabitants.'' Word by word this was exactly what was said. Swamy had even seen the interview again, courtesy of someone who had uploaded it to youtube, to confirm this. Now, if one looked at it logically, he/she could easily understand that game information was one of the factors determining Age, but not the only one. If Swamy thought about it some more, Mr. Collins also didn''t say that having an higher Age made you ''definitely'' stronger/weaker than the other so level experience, like in other games, also played some part in determining it. Most of all he never said that simply knowing more about the game increases your Age. ''So how did this happen?'' Group psychology is a strange thing. When in confusion people tend to follow the one with the most confidence, even when he could be completely wrong. And just like that misunderstanding becomes truth. Someone had clearly misunderstood Mr. Collins''s words and confidently equated more game knowledge equals more Age. Ok, one can logically argue that more Age equals more game knowledge so the opposite must be true. Language, unfortunately, is not convenient like maths. Game knowledge was only a factor which determined Age. So having higher Age will always mean that the person has a greater game knowledge. The opposite however, may not be true. But someone had confidently stated that it is. And so post after post were filled with questions. Why would you kill the expert? Shouldn''t you value them? Wouldn''t the experts help the company itself?, etc etc. ''Even thinking simplistically I reached Age 15 in 4 months. That means it will take more than 3 years to get to 150 at the least. It''s a pretty long time.'' That was neither here nor there though and it looked like today also, the forum would be filled with hundreds of thousands of posts. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The forest outside Thelmova. A monkey and a parrot were fighting a rabbit. The monkey swiftly jumped on a branch and looped over the rabbit''s head. It quickly attacked with its hands and before the rabbit could react, the monkey jumped back up on the branch. While the rabbit was distracted, the parrot attacked swiftly with its claws, digging it into the soft flesh, lifting it up. The parrot then threw the rabbit, smashing it onto the nearest tree. Finally the monkey jumped down and twisted the head of the now stunned rabbit, killing it. "Ooh delicious. We have to get human to cook it." (monkey) "Hmm..but isn''t he vegetarian? I have only seen him eating fruits." (parrot) "Ah...that''s true. Dang! But I am no good at cooking and I don''t like the taste of blood. Maybe human can cook it and not eat it anyway." (monkey) "You mean to pretend to be sick again? Like someone would fall for it now. Ah the tragedies of human! I will sing a song of penance." (parrot) "Don''t sing! Noooo..." (monkey) But it was too late. Monkey was stunned already. Looked like parrot''s singing could even petrify a monkey, let alone a human. In the meantime, Raka was headed towards the palace to meet the Queen. Almost a week had passed in game. His disease had also advanced. "Disease window"
Unknown disease - Stage 2: 40%. The disease has not been diagnosed yet. Old wounds will open and cause bleeding effects often. 20% movement penalty is applied. Endurance decreases 20%.
Stage 1 did not have any penalties. But as soon as it reached Stage 2 all these penalties started showing up. With the speed with which it was advancing he would be dead in another 3 weeks in game or like a week in real time. Which made this visit to the Queen doubly important. He approached the palace gates where the guard stopped him. "State your business." "Hi I am Raka. I would be meeting the Queen." "Ah yes. We have been informed. Please follow this guard inside." Ilmentia is a competitive monarchy. Look it up on the internet and if you find the term then the author will replace it. It was a term Raka had made up. Why? Because the ruler of Ilmentia was chosen through a competition. The competition was aptly named as well; ''The Right to Rule''. Spending hours in the library looking at books and trying to learn his new found skill of herbal medicine, he had stumbled on a book on Ilmentian history. Seventeen generations ago there was great turmoil as noble after noble fought each other to take the throne when the ruling monarch died without an heir. This was the last time Ilmentia had a proper ruling family. Peace came when someone called the ''Oracle'' intervened and set up this competition where all those who wish to rule would participate. The winner would then be crowned King or Queen. He could not find any details of the competition anywhere though some books did mention that it was a test of more than strength or skill. Initially this competition was reserved only for the various noble houses. But over the years it had changed. Anyone who had been knighted could now participate. Hence it was named the ''The Right to Rule''. Seven generations ago, the first commoner became King. The present Queen also did not belong to a noble family. The books did not talk much of her origin but they did say she was born in a fisherman family. ''Thinking of it, Lady Altia and Verina would also be able to participate in the future. Guess I really made friends with the right people eh!'' In a huge palace, the Queen resided. Raka followed the guard inside a huge archway entrance of a building which seemed to be made completely of marble. Like the Taj Mahal, it looked much grander up close. Inside was a small room, filled with guards standing at attention at regular intervals leading to a ornately carved metal door. Raka was asked to wait a while. And then a big gong was heard. The huge doors opened to let him in. Inside was full court, a term Raka picked up from the internet. It meant all the officials of the court and noteworthy nobles were present or that''s how it looked. He stepped in and slowly walked towards a group of people standing, all of whom looked at the new arrival and smiled. Ok not all. Only those who had received Raka''s massage did. They had come here for one reason. This was a ceremony for the soldiers who had participated in the pirate subjugation and also for the soldiers who had died. An official looking person came forward, "Please state your name and position?" he asked. "I am Raka. Not sure of the position but I was hired as a shipwright with Salmon." The official pulled out a scroll and ticked off a name in it with his quill. He nodded and motioned to join the rest. Everyone from the fleet was there. Well all the notable ones at least. Raka did not know a lot of people on the other ships but looking at the numbers everyone was present. Incredibly the throne room...let''s call it a throne hall owing to its amazing size and its ability to fit everyone in, like 200 people atleast. The incredible throne hall had the throne at one end where sat the lovely Queen overlooking the rest of the hall. Then came rows of seats where important people sat. The Ladies were also seated as was the Captain. He also recognized Lord Holtimius and the General too. Interestingly the magic students were seated as well. Von Gult Despira was sitting besides someone who could be his father. The rest on their own but in prominence. ''Maybe they are part of nobility as well,'' Raka realized. A few arrivals later... "Silence! The Queen shall speak!" the attendant shouted and all chatter died down. All eyes faced the Queen. "Today we honor our brave warriors who fought against the aggressors. Against those who wished to overthrow the peace of the land. The foreigners were strong indeed but through our warriors courage and dedication, we have defeated them." The hall roared its approval. The Queen raised her hand and it died down. "Today we also honor the dead, who made the ultimate sacrifice in the service of this nation and protected us and our families. May the Goddess bless their spirits and accept them into her home. But they will not be forgotten! They will be remembered by the loved ones they leave behind and by those who they protected. And by us who stand guard to protect the peace in their stead." A deep silence almost like everyone was in prayer. "I, as the Queen, promise to take care of all of the families who have lost their loved ones in this battle against the intruders." "Long live the Queen!" and the hall burst into chants. A little while later it calmed down and the Queen continued. "We shall now honor the persons who have shown extraordinary courage and exemplary service in the face of the enemy. Please proceed." Another official looking person stepped and stood next to the Queen. "Please step forward and be recognized when I call your name." ........ ....... A lot of names were called. Each stepped forward and received a medal from the Queen. After it ended the Queen spoke again. "As per Ilmentian law, you will be allowed to partake one piece of item from the pirates belongings as per your merit." ''This is what I was waiting for.'' Raka smiled. This was the law he was told about when he landed. The Crown got a percentage of all spoils of war and also anything which was deemed dangerous or too valuable. Things which could be used for political motivations or dealings with other races like the rust stone were also taken. But the rest was divided among the soldiers as rewards. The higher ranks would get first pick and then the rest. Everyone who participated would be allowed a chance with the merit holders getting preference. One by one their names were called and they followed the official inside one of the doors, adjacent the Queen''s throne. But they did not come back with treasure. They soon explained that they had marked a piece which will be delivered to them separately. Carrying valuable treasure in the street would not be a good idea after all. But there was a problem Raka had not foreseen. He was the lowest of the lowest rung of the ladder after all. So he will get last pick. ''Hope there is still something left for me.'' Eventually every merit holder''s name was called and it was now the turn of the ranking members. The fleet commander went first and then a few other nobles who had accompanied them. And then it was Lady Verina''s turn. She rose but then she walked to the Queen instead. A few quiet words later the Queen nodded. And then Lady Verina went back to sit. ''Did she refuse her reward?'' Her noble act was highly appreciated as it increased the chance that Raka would get something. Next were the Captains of all the ships. And then it was Lady Altia''s turn. But like Lady Verina she also said something to the Queen and sat back down. ''More luck!'' Raka was beaming. One by one everyone''s turn came. Salmon, the Cook, and the rest of his shipmates and finally it was Raka''s turn. Or it was supposed to be but his name was never called. ''What the hell! Did they forget about me?'' Raka wanted to shout out when the official put down his scroll and the Queen stood up to say, "Let the celebrations begin." But he held his tongue. ''Maybe there is no more treasure left,'' was one of his guesses. It was sad but better than being forgotten. Raka chose to think so. Well, he had never laid eyes on any of the treasure except the rust stone which probably won''t be handed out anyway. So as they say, he wasn''t burning with a desire to obtain something particular. He had still hoped to get something but the pirates wouldn''t have carried that much treasure with them anyway. ''Oh well I should probably ask for an appointment with the Queen after this. Hopefully she will allow me to visit the royal physicker in the palace.'' And Raka drowned himself in the celebration. Food was served and entertainment was brought out. Drinks were brought out also. Raka was highly tempted to get one. After see-sawing for a bit, he took a sip as well. "Ugh!" That summarized it. Damn thing was bitter like hell. And people around him were drinking buckets of this stuff! Alcohol was a premium item on the island. Especially because making it took such a long time. And then it became the property of whichever noble owned the land. Which meant there were no bars as such on the island for common people. The caskets were broken only on special or festive occasions so this was the first time Raka had a drink. In real or virtual life. And it was revolting. By the way, the alcoholic drink was made by fermenting potatoes and some other stuff. So it would be considered closer to whiskey or vodka rather than beer but on the island it was called ''barka''. Raka spent the next hour digging in the good food, his drink lay forgotten. He even slipped some of it into his bag. The herb roast of rabbit could easily beat most of the food Raka had eaten in the game, except ofcourse Neona''s pies which still had no parallel. He sorely wished he had a skill which could identify ingredients of things he ate so that he could make them himself. But life wasn''t so convenient. After the festivities ended which was basically when the Queen decided to leave, Raka approached the official in order to schedule an appointment but, "Please follow me," the official said instead. "Eh.." But as the official headed towards the door leading inside, Raka followed. The door lead to a hallway which then lead to a large courtyard. And then to more hallways leading to unknown places. They took one of these hallways which then ended in another hall similar to the throne hall, though smaller. ''Maybe this is the Queen''s inner room where she meets private guests?'' Raka guessed. Sure enough, the Queen stepped in through a side door a little later and surprisingly Lady Verina and Lady Altia came with her. More surprising was that they were chatting ten to the dozen like old time pals. Raka was seriously confused as to what was happening now. The Queen took the throne and Lady Altia and Lady Verina took the seats near it. Raka bowed but, "No need for formalities. That''s only for the nobles and boy'' is that tiring." The Queen sighed. Raka smiled at the change. "I guess you are wondering why you are here and perhaps why your name was not called out there, right?" "Yes, your majesty. I thought that all the treasure was taken. Though I did want to meet up with you on a separate thing," Raka replied. "Is it concerning your sickness?" The Queen asked straightaway. "Yes. I was hoping that your majesty would allow me to meet with the royal physicker if possible." "Hmm. That is possible. But..." and the Queen paused. Raka waited for the prolonged ''but''. "You are not a part of this palace. The royal physicker is only obliged to treat people who are part of the palace. Even palace maids come under his purview. But outside of it, even nobles do not get that privilege." She continued. ''What the hell is up with that!'' But he was still here so he could still hope. After some pause she smiled again. "Its a drag, I know. Fortunately, we can ask him under special circumstances and he has to relent. Circumstances like when the crown owes you a favor. Altia and Verina have decided to give up the right to their share of the reward. In my books, that is counted as a favor to the crown. Therefore I can ask that egotistical narcissistic fly of a human to treat you." Her smile changed to an evil one at some point in time. "Call the royal physicker please." The Queen ordered her attendant. A little while later a short but stout old man wearing round glasses and some kind of conical cap came in yawning and smelling of drink. He definitely looked like those villains in books who were always plotting something and rubbing their hands in amusement. "Ah your majesty. If you had to wake me up from my slumber, couldn''t you have chosen a better time? This is most inappropriate and shows utter disregard to my position. I thought that you learnt it in your courtesy classes." Now if he had been king and this guy came about, Raka would likely hang him. "Yes. But you see this matter couldn''t have waited till you woke up. Why this young man could have died by the morning if we had waited." The Queen replied. "Ho...him! Might I remind you, if you have forgotten already, that I am the Royal Physicker. I have no obligation to cater to those peasants outside of the palace gates. You have me treating the lowly maids is insulting enough." "But you said that you have the responsibility for everyone inside the palace gates didn''t you? And they live inside the palace gates. So I am sorry but you have to follow the law like everyone else Napier." The Queen replied lively. Raka could not help but notice that the physicker visibly twitched when he heard his name like that. But before he could reply the Queen continued. "Verina and Altia have given up their share of the pirate''s treasure in return for a favor from the crown. Now a learned person like you who knows the law so well, knows that the crown is obligated to grant their favor." "Only when that favor does not constitute or require the crown''s position to be untenable." Napier interrupted. "Exactly. In this case however there is no question of that. Their request is that you treat this gentleman over there. Also, him being one of Goddess''s children, would make it our duty towards the Goddess herself to treat him. Hence the crown raises no objection to his treatment. Well do your thing then." The Queen ordered jovially. Old man Napier grimaced and shot daggers with his eyes. But he started checking Raka. He measured his pulse and checked his tongue and eyes. He even made him do the ''Aaah'' thing doctors often make you do while peering inside your mouth. Then he examined his wounds, taking off the bandages. Raka kept bleeding out of the wound the wolfman had given him. He wrapped it up in bandages whenever it happened and the loss of blood itself did not constitute any negative effects. Well, unless you don''t count killing him. It was a good thing that he got to practice his bandaging though, which he still needed to learn. If the progression were any slower he would have waited till one of the other physickers came to town and would have practiced his bandaging thoroughly. He was pretty sure that he would learn this skill soon but the disease had progressed quite fast upending his plans. After examining his wounds, Napier had some tools brought in and some chemical looking things which were in glass jars. He collected a bit of blood from the now starting-to-bleed-again wound and mixed it in cups like thingies with the chemicals. A couple of them changed color though what it meant was a mystery. After all this he simply said, "This fellow has got Scurvy."
Disease information updated. This disease has been correctly diagnosed as Scurvy.
"Usually this disease does not affect sailors unless they go on very long voyages, like above 3 months. But sometimes sailors who have not been to sea before or children who have weaker bodies can catch it earlier. Tell me was that your first time at sea?" Napier asked. "Yes it was." Raka replied. "Yes. Also this wound seems fairly recent. Did you get it recently? Ah then the disease might have been aggravated by the blood loss and the injury leading to an early onset." Napier said. Silence. "Um so how do I go about treating it?" Raka finally asked. Napier grimaced again but the Queen looked at him forcefully. "Ah alright. Just eat lots of sour fruits likes oranges and limes and you should be fine in a few days." ''That''s it?!'' Well if he had known earlier then the Ladies favor would not have been necessary in the first place. "Is it alright if I go back to sleep now or do you have some more peasants who have gained the favor of the crown?" Napier asked cheekily though by this time he had already started making his way back. "That will be all." The Queen simply said to his retreating back. She sighed. "If only he weren''t so good I would have...." but realizing there was an audience she stopped herself in time. "It''s good that it was nothing serious. I hope you will get better soon," the Queen changed tack. "Thank you your majesty. Also thank you very much Lady Altia and Lady Verina." Raka said it simply and sincerely without oration. In return they simply smiled. "Ho..." the Queen said simply looking at the scene. "Um.. what?" Raka asked. Even the Ladies looked inquisitively towards the Queen. "Never mind. Maybe it is a bit early right now. Anyways I believe you still have to receive your share of the reward. Though I must mention, if you had to get treatment from that old coot I would have taken your share as payment." The Queen smiled a bright smile while saying that. "Yes I understand. If that''s what it would have taken then I would have rather kept my life. I will find treasure some other day." Raka replied. "Confident young man aren''t you? You said will not can. Well in any case that is talk of some other day. You can hereby take your reward as per your merit." Unauthorized usage: this tale is on Amazon without the author''s consent. Report any sightings. And as the Queen finished, tiny windows popped up over everyone''s head with numbers on them. ''What the hell!'' But before he had time to figure it out, the official arrived and asked him to follow. Raka looked and the official had a tiny window on top. They went outside to the courtyard and then took one of the other hallways. They stopped before the very first room and the official opened the door. The room was full of treasure....like that was going to happen! It was mostly empty with a few pieces of pirate''s stuff left. Some swords and things and a couple of armors. Also some statues made of gold and silver. Tiny windows with numbers popped up over all of them as he looked. ''That''s contribution points!'' He finally realized. That meant he had to use his contribution points to choose a reward. But as he looked most numbers were above 50. Raka had only 30 contribution points. The statues were for the most points. The least of them was like a 150. Not that Raka had any interest in them anyway. The armors and swords were within his range but they looked worn and used. He could sell them to make a pretty buck if they were not useable. He looked closely if he had missed anything, but the room looked pretty bare otherwise. ''Hey what''s this..'' Raka spotted a very small object lying on the floor. He came closer and saw that it was a ring. ''Holy shit! This ring is worth 2500 points.'' Looks-wise it was a very plain looking ring. Atleast Neona''s ring had a some kind of gem embedded in it. Raka could only dream of what it was when a sudden thought hit him. Brainflash! He walked out of the room and told the official he didn''t want anything in there. But instead would he guide him to the Queen once more. The official was surprised but he obliged. ''130 points only for him.'' Back in the inner chamber the Queen was still conversing with the Ladies. Raka was amused to find that the Ladies were worth 50,000 points each. And was shocked to find that the Queen was worth a million and half. Maybe the contribution points worked in other ways as well. He couldn''t imagine that you could simply take someone. ''Maybe they can be hired or a favor might be asked when you have appropriate points. Hey, could I hire sailors out for my ship then?'' It was a plausible thought and probably a sensible one but he had too few contribution points to test this theory. Anyways he had other things in mind right now. "Yes what happened? Did you not find something to take? I will tell you right now that if you refuse to take something I will not count it as a favor. That is not how it works." "Yes I understand and I am sorry. I did not mean it that way. But instead of a favor would you care to listen to my request instead?" "Instead of the reward you would like to request...with the understanding that I can refuse it if I want?" "Yes please." Raka waited for the Queen''s permission before continuing. "I have a dream to one day sail the wide ocean in my own boat. No, I am not asking the crown for a ship. I also cannot afford to buy a large ship anytime in the near future. Instead I would like to learn fishing." Raka smiled. "Ah...very clever indeed." The Queen understood Raka''s intention. In his voyage Raka had been perplexed by a small problem. Ships needed too many personnel to handle. His ship was crewed by 15 people working in one shift. Double that and add passengers like him, a ship like that had about 40 people, if not more. Most of all were the prices. Ship prices in Thelmova started from 55,000 gold for a small trade ship and even that required a crew of atleast 10. Even making them was expensive. "Do you know much about fishing and being a fisherman?" the Queen asked. "Not much. I have never done any fishing. I only heard that you need permission for it and you get help to build your own boat. I wanted to ask permission from you." Raka answered. "Ah! Then you do not know. It is not I who really gives permission. You have to ask permission from the Sea Gods." "Um.....come again?" ''Say what!'' "Hahahaha! Maybe you did not realize how dangerous it is to become a fisherman before you made your request. Every person who chooses to become a fisherman needs to get permission from the Sea Gods. If they like you, well enough. Otherwise they kill you. There are only about 30 fishermen in the whole of Ilmentia because of that." The Queen explained. Raka was speechless. ''Kill me?! Well I am immortal anyway but what is up with that!'' "Do you still wish to become one?" "Yes please, your majesty." "Alright then. Head off to the fishing village of Fellon. You can ask a man by the name of Guran. If he likes you, you can take the test."
[p=center]Talk to Guran[/p] You have been advised to talk with Guran at the fishing village of Fellon to take your test with the Sea Gods. It is required that Guran likes you. Difficulty: E Reward: Guran takes you for the test. If you pass he may also become your instructor.
"Thank you, your majesty." -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Thelmova had changed. No, it hadn''t changed in size or style. Rather the feeling had changed. And it was mainly because so many players had arrived and were arriving each day. Raka had been pretty shocked to see so many players after he landed. The first thing Raka had done after landing was slip out and head down to the beach. If he had instead chosen to become part of the large crowd of people who were being welcomed back by the locals and the eagerly watching players.... Every player knew that there was only one player who would have come down those ships. Raka was the only player on them. And who doesn''t want to see a celebrity! So they were eagerly watching the incoming crowd, soldiers and nobles, to get a glimpse of this famous or infamous player. Inside most minds, however, was greed. Here was one of those rare pioneers. The first to get out of the village, the first to become a student of Lady Altia, the first to graduate Battle School, the first to reach Thelmova, the first to go to sea, the first to participate in a naval battle....and a lot of other firsts. A person like that would be a well of information. Correction, a well of rare information. And would he fall behind? Not likely in the near future! Anyone who was anyone would consider him to be a good investment. They could follow him. They could invite him to their guilds. Befriending him would be beneficial as well. Long Island was a game and like most games, there would be players who would want to be the best, greatest, richest, strongest and some other ''ests'' you could think of. And they wanted him. It also did not help that no one had an idea of how he looked like, so they could imagine him to be as dashing as they wanted. Mystery of a thing adds to its charm as they say. Well that''s what most women say anyway. But as luck would have it, this mystery had made his way to the beach, completely unaware of this strange interest and very worried of the health of his two supposed pets. Well, actually one. ''Please let him fly away, please let him fly away...'' Nothing had changed since then. Raka was still unaware of this increased interest. After he made sure his monkey and the parrot ''sigh'' were still alive, he had logged out for a long sleep and missed the home coming parade completely. But that was the past. As Raka stepped out from the palace he was worried once again. What should have been a triumph of his intellect and his brilliant plan had now become a tryst with danger and destiny. ''What the heck are the Sea Gods?! I knew I should have taken that armor.'' Maybe it was the disease or maybe it was the voyage, but a lot of things had suddenly become clear to Raka. For example, even though Thelmova was next to the sea, there were no fishing boats. At first he had thought that they might have used some other beach outside of the city. But then he didn''t see anyone fishing during the whole of the voyage. Even when they were reduced to eating dried meat and potatoes. At that time Raka had thought that maybe they did not do it in order to maintain discipline on a warship. After all, fishing is considered a leisure activity. And then they had travelled almost a quarter of the island, twice. Considering the west sea was too dangerous, most fishing boats should have stayed on the eastern side. Raka still did not see even one fishing boat the entire time. After his long sleep, his mind automatically made these connections which he had ignored before. ''Why?'' was the obvious question. As he got curious he started noticing some other weird stuff. He made sure of noting down prices of most of the stuff sold around. It was a practice he had developed in order to improve his Estimation skill. It was also a way to improve intimacy with store owners. And as he started his rounds once again after landing, he noticed the weirdness. Fish was expensive. Ilmentia was an island so why would fish be expensive? Ok some fish, maybe. But most of them? ''What is up with that?'' Raka was not an expert in fishing and he thought maybe it had to do with seasons or something. But the weather had been nice and warm. Shouldn''t that be a good time for the fish? Well what did he know. ''For now lets just note this oddity down.'' Raka was now in front of Johanna''s tailor shop, his new job. Thanking the Gods, Raka had almost wept when he had finally learned the Woodworking skill, which was just the previous day. And it came with a bonus, the Basic Shipwright Commission.
You have been granted a title. "Shipwright Commission - Basic". Effects: Allows you to work in the capacity of the basic shipwright commission.
Immediately, Raka had resigned. The other part of the compensation of the quest was increased intimacy with Salmon. But Raka had figured out what it would mean. Same treatment, more work! This was Salmon, after all. ''It would be wiser to not increase intimacy with every npc I meet.'' He had found that the intermediate commission could only be earned by mastering more than one related skill. He had woodworking so he would have had to learn some kind of metalworking or rope making, etc. He had no wish to learn from Salmon again though, which kinda made his plans to go to sea...um...in deep water. He could hope some ship would hire him like this, but that was more of a chance than a plan. He had earned about 30 gold from the voyage so he wasn''t short on money. He had two jobs after all and they paid you more for being out at sea. Atleast the honest people do. But having an income source was always useful. And who knew what kind of things one could learn. And so he applied to Johanna''s tailor shop. His accounting skill was greatly appreciated and as his intimacy was high enough he was immediately accepted. Now he worked with a lovely girl called Jenny, who turned out to be Johanna''s sister. Johanna was a little like Neona, wearing a plain colored dress but cut in style. She handled herself with grace and charm. Her younger sister Jenny was like a smaller version of her. Or atleast trying to be. Same style dress, same hair style, same type sandals. In fact if Jenny was not a head shorter, Raka would confuse her for Johanna if he saw her from afar. And they both liked to gossip. In just two days, Raka had heard so much about the people and their supposed scandals that he seriously doubted how anyone could keep a secret. It was also through them that he learned of the fishermen. It started with a simple complaint about fish prices but it ended up being one of the most important information. You needed permission to fish. And they give you support to build or buy your own fishing boat. It is dangerous work. Before meeting the Queen, Raka had assumed that it was because the sea was dangerous. On the other hand were the fishing boats. Fishing boats were smaller than trade ships, could have a crew of 2 to 7 depending on its size and more importantly were sea going vessels. Atleast that was how it was in real life. How could he have known about the Sea Gods! The door opened with a tingling of bells. "Ah Raka, you are back. How did it go with the Queen?" Jenny asked. "It was good. I met the royal physicker and he says that I just have scurvy. Eat some oranges and limes and I should be fine." "That''s wonderful. I am glad it wasn''t serious." "Say Jenny, have you heard of the Sea Gods?" "Um...now that you mention it, I have heard some tales of them. Mostly children''s stories." "What kind?" "Um..see there is one which says that they look like fish but are as big as a mountain and can gobble up entire ships. Some others say that they are kind and look like sprites. Oh and I have heard some stories where if you pray to them, they have the power to make your wish come true. I tried it once when I was little but it didn''t work, then I stopped believing in them." "Hmm. Thanks anyway. Shall we work then?" For the next couple of hours they did all the numbers. Then Raka logged out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy made the last mark on the sheet of paper. He checked it again and rechecked it. Satisfied, he stood up and approached the teacher''s desk. He dropped his paper on a pile at the table, nodded at the teacher and left the classroom. Today was exam day. ''I think I did well.'' He walked down to the mess hall. His friends were sitting with their heads down on a table near the windows. As he approached they stirred and after feebly acknowledging him, went back to sleep. "What''s up? You guys didn''t sleep last night?" "Uh...no! I was studying till early morning. I tried to sleep after that....I had a nightmare. Woke up after an hour," Rajan said after lifting his head a bit. "mmshnmmm," Sneha muttered something incomprehensible. *snore....went Manish. "Hey where''s Himali? Is she still writing?" Swamy asked. His question was answered as Himali walked in the mess hall that moment. Manish immediately woke up. "What is she, like your mother?" Swamy almost laughed. "Hmm...eh...what? You said something?" Manish, ofcourse, was still half asleep. "Hey Swamy, how did it go?" Himali finally reached their table. "I think I did ok. How about you?" "I should be fine. Did you answer question 10? I think it was there only to confuse us or something? Oh and how did you answer 12? I couldn''t even touch that one." "Himali, please don''t talk about the paper in front of me. You know it makes me depressed." Rajan said. "Oh sorry about that. But I can''t calm doing without knowing how I have done. Manish, did you answer 12?" Himali asked. "................" "Manish?" "................" "Manish!" "Oh yes my love. Wait what were you asking?" Manish replied in a daze. "................" Suffice to say it was a very enjoyable lunch. A little while later Christopher came. "Hey Swamy, a word please?" "Sure." "Are you free this Friday?" "You mean after college? I have classes till 3:30." "Hmm. Good then. Actually there is this expo of industry lifting systems. Companies the world over showing latest technology, etc. I need a couple of people to join me in visiting. There is this one system our company is thinking of buying and they are showing it in the expo. They want us, the people who use them, to actually go and check it out and give feedback. So you in?" "Sure why not. Count me in." "Alright I will message you the details on where to meet up later." "Ok. Later then." --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged in at the beach. The monkey and parrot were there possibly talking about things. Not that Raka could understand. "Ah Sir Raka. Glad to have you in our midst again. Would you be kind enough to cook this rabbit for us?" the parrot said. "So Nobby, you guys went hunting again. As expected I would say." After all these were animals who had been to sea already. They couldn''t be weak. And when they brought their first rabbit, he had known they weren''t. Raka had still not seen them fight, so he wasn''t sure how strong they were. They could very well be stronger than him right now. "It is Sir Pop Cackle. But I will forgive your impudence. The Cackle clan does not take offense from the lesser minded." "Right right Nobby. Now don''t sing or I won''t cook. Agreed?" "You are incongruous Sir. Very well. It will be hard but I shall restrain my talent from bursting out. Instead I expect you to cook something worthy of my talent." "That would actually taste bad you know. I would rather cook a good dish." "Khi khi...khikhikhi.." the monkey said. "Ah there are still people who do not realize greatness. Their taste is at fault, not them. The Cackle clan does not take offense from the small minded." The parrot intervened. "So I am lesser minded and monkey is small minded? Birds of a feather flock together, wouldn''t you say?" "Oh that is so true. Ah that reminds me of my home. My heart cries out in loneliness..." "Stop! Don''t sing. Or I am not cooking this." "........." "Alright monkey, don''t just sit there. If you want to eat, help." The first time he had come after the voyage, he had been happy to find monkey still alive. The monkey was still lying on the branch as if it was too tired to move. And parrot was there too. They had some kind of conversation going on. That''s what he assumed when he heard monkey sounds coming from the parrot. It was also that day he found out why it was called the imitating monkey. As soon as they saw him, the monkey went back to his lazy ass gesturing. ''That was odd.'' At first Raka thought maybe he had made a mistake. Or maybe the monkey didn''t like him. But then as he came close to the monkey to touch him and check,
You have lost 5 coppers.
Raka was flummoxed but he had no doubt that his money was just stolen. ''What...how...who?'' But it had happened when he approached the monkey. So wouldn''t the main suspect be monkey? For a long time Raka had wished there would thief like skills in the game. And today he found it. Done by a monkey no less. ''So this guy has some sort of steal like ability or skill. Could I...'' "Identify"
[p=center]Imitating Monkey[/p] Class: ? Monkeys have an unknown origin. They can be found inhabiting several islands. Intelligent and quick learners. There are several species of the Monkey. This particular species learns by imitating actions. They are also known for having a strange sense of humor. Skill: Nimble Fingers - A racial skill which allows for nimbleness of the fingers. Nimble fingers can be used in a variety of activities.
The line saying the monkey was sick had disappeared. This monkey was healthy. But it was still acting like it was sick. ''So it is imitating being sick. And the nimble fingers skill sounds useful.'' As usual, his Identification skill relied on information. If Raka had not realized that monkey had a skill, the identification would not have shown him any information regarding that. The stealing was a problem though. "You just stole 5 coppers from me didn''t you?" Raka asked monkey through the parrot. If you could put a surprised face on a monkey, it would have looked like the one it was making now. "I know you did. Don''t even try to deny it. Nobby, tell him to return that. If not, we will have a problem." Saying which Raka equipped his staff. "khi khikihikhi!" "Ah he asks how did you know?" the parrot translated. "I am one of the Goddess''s children." What other explanation could he give. The monkey quietly returned the money. Raka sighed. This skill was dangerous in a way though. If anyone, not a player, had been robbed, they probably wouldn''t have realized it. They won''t get windows popping up after all. In a way it was good that the monkey could earn it''s own keepsake but this was Ilmentia. Anything it did could reflect back on it''s owner, Raka. He thought hard on this problem. A long time ago his parents had taught that most thieves were also gamblers. And that the house always wins. Raka had never questioned how they came onto this knowledge. ''Everyone deserves some secrets of their own!'' But if that were true then, "Why don''t we make a gamble monkey? Wouldn''t it be fun to gamble a little bit and earn some more than what you steal?" Raka enticed and asked the parrot to translate. "khi khihi khih," the monkey immediately perked up. ''Wasn''t it supposed to be acting sick?'' "Ok here is the deal. You can steal from me as many times as you want. If I can guess the amount you steal, you have to return it. If I cannot guess you get double of what you stole." "khi khikhikhi khi khi khikhikhikhi," the monkey was definitely excited on hearing that. Who doesn''t want more money. "But there are conditions. So that we do not cheat, you cannot steal from anyone else. In turn, I will never stop you from stealing from me. You can do it anytime anywhere. Deal?" Raka raised his hand in a gesture of a handshake. After the parrot translated the latest, the monkey looked at him with burning eyes. And it also raised its hands and shook. The handshake was a universal language. Dogs, monkeys, cats, humans...it worked with everyone. So Raka dodged a problem which could have had serious complications. And as a reward he would cook the meat they sometimes brought.
Sorry for being late. I was close to making a super long chapter again. But finally good sense prevailed and I stopped right here and posted. Hope to keep the interest alive. Comments welcome. This is still unedited. Chapter 24: Experiments and Results The four starting islands of Long Island were Ilmentia, Dalmund, Brittanica and Khardoum. Just like Ilmentia looked like ancient roman civilization so did the other islands resemble ancient earth civilizations. Dalmund was similar to the Germanic tribes, Brittanica the English and Khardoum was similar to the Egyptians. How closely did they resemble these ancient civilizations was a matter of debate. Although it would be safe to say that the clothing was similar. And like Gurrow village, all the villages where players started were guarded by an Age barrier. Dalmund had the earliest Age limit at 12. Ilmentia and Brittanica opened up at Age 14. Khardoum had an even higher Age limit. It opened up at 15. And it seemed that very recently it had finally opened up to a single player who had reached Age 15 in the Hebenu village, the starter village of Khardoum kingdom. Swamy was looking at a forum post titled "Difficulty C quest" posted by someone named Thadian. The contents of the post were... "I reached Age 15 yesterday and headed out of the village to go to the capital city of Fayyum. Not going into much detail but I just found a quest with difficulty C. Unfortunately I died, failing the quest. I have tried asking around but it seems that no one has yet encountered a quest with a higher difficulty than D+. So I was wondering whether I wasn''t the first one to discover it. Thinking back on the quest though, I think this was a quest specially for the first person to leave the village. Did the other villages also have something like this?" Lots of people had seen this post and a few had asked questions also. But mostly there were no replies as there would only be like 4 people who could have answered that question. One of them was Swamy. ''Ah a kindred spirit.'' Not very long ago Swamy had encountered a difficulty C quest. It was more luck than anything that he survived it. Lady Altia''s blessing had played a major part in this. Though the difficulty was C and he had luckily survived, Swamy didn''t think that it was harder than a D+ quest. Perhaps because he had survived, he could afford to think so. ''Maybe you need to have the right set of blessings or equipment or training to survive this C difficulty quest. But that would depend more on luck than anything else I suppose.'' Swamy posted his own reply. He generally avoided this but he had felt a strange camaraderie with this Thadian, whoever he/she was. "I also encountered a difficulty C quest when I left Gurrow village. Fortunately I survived. It eventually led to the Capture the Beastmen and pirate subjugation quests, both of which were D+ difficulty. I suppose this kind of thing would have happened in the other islands as well seeing that it already happened in Ilmentia and Khardoum." He then put his laptop to sleep and started getting ready for college. He still hadn''t found any information about Sea Gods. Lunch time... Another exam over. Though Indian universities followed the semester system (6 months) and not the term system (4 months), examinations usually happened during the 5th month. The time afterwards was dedicated to project work or similar things with about a week to 10 day holiday between two semesters. Well education was still being experimented on by the authorities that be, in order to determine the average amount of time needed to study something. While that may be going on, it was the end of semester examinations at the University of Bangalore. After the exam, Swamy arrived at the mess hall to a table containing three dejected bodies. Or maybe they were simply sleepy. Late night study was taking its toll on most students and half of the heads in the mess hall had started lolling as soon as they reached a seat. Swamy was no exception. He had kept his routine of playing during the night even during this period. That meant he had to do his revisions before he started playing. Fortunately during this exam period students did not have classes. They only had to appear for 3 hours for the exams and then they could go home afterwards. Which meant that Swamy had ample time to study. Not that it helped. Late night playing was not recommended during these stressful times. Not when you wake up to a doubt filled morning and you start trying to remember if you had missed something or if that thing you read was the right thing. But then he enjoyed the game so much and if possible, he didn''t want to stop playing it. "Hey guys...how did it go?" Swamy asked the dropped heads in front of him. Slowly they moved and lifted their heads. "Hey Swamy" replied back Himali. "mmmhsnhmm" said Sneha. *snore....went Manish. Swamy almost laughed remembering yesterday. "By the way where is Rajan? Doesn''t he not like staying in the classroom long?" Swamy asked referring to the missing person. "He was here earlier. But then went somewhere saying he''ll be back soon." replied Himali. "Must be the toilet!ghghgh *snore" went Manish. Both Himali and Swamy stared at him but he was really truly asleep. Then they broke out laughing. Their laughter broke the solemn sleepy silence around the mess hall, breaking off more than a few dozen fantastical or erotic dreams. A little while later Rajan returned. Contrary to his usual exam-depressed-sleepy-mood, he was quite excited. He walked quickly up to them and in a voice which seemed louder in the relative silence of the mess hall, "Hey hey hey....why are you guys asleep! Wake up and hear the most exciting news. Raka has posted again!" Swamy almost fell off his seat. The voice carried over to quite a few ears, not all familiar. Quite a few perked up after hearing this and started looking towards Rajan. Then they dived into their cellphones probably to access the forums. Who knew so many people around Swamy played Long Island. "What? Did you say Raka? Did he post another video?" Himali quickly asked. The exclamation and the resulting noise woke up Sneha. Manish however chose to be oblivious to real world or virtual world problems and snored some more. "Yes. It looks like the quests you guys did, the one to capture the beastmen and then the one Raka did, the one with the naval battle, both of them started from a difficulty C quest. Seems like the first person to leave the village gets some kind of difficulty C quest." Rajan continued. "What?!" Sneha exclaimed. "Hey hey but we didn''t get something like that. Does that mean it did not happen in Dalmund?" "On the contrary. It means that the first person actually failed the quest. That''s why the other quests did not happen." Rajan answered. "But that is not the only news. It seems that the first people, the 4 who were the first to leave the starting villages and got this quest, all of them replied to this post. See we have Firelord from Dalmund, Raka from Ilmentia, Raven from Brittanica and now Thadian from Khardoum. All of them have confirmed that they got this C difficulty quest. But they all died, failing it, except Raka ofcourse. Man, they all posted this morning like a few minutes from each other almost like they were waiting for this." "Wow! I so wanna meet Raka." Sneha said. "Oh we rushed over to Thelmova to catch him. But we didn''t find any player coming from the ships. Maybe he hid himself. It would be so awesome if somehow we could convince him to join our guild, right Manish!" *snore....what my love?" Manish woke up with a start. "..........." This time Swamy couldn''t help laughing. And he was joined by the others. Back home, Swamy quickly checked that post. "Holy.....what the!" he couldn''t stop from exclaiming. The forum was now full of this new thing. Where in the morning there were various posts on various things shown in prominence, it had all been replaced by new posts discussing the four players. Oh and each had a topic named after them now. Yup, there was an entire discussion going on with the subject ''Raka''. ''For something that happened due to luck, aren''t they making a big fuss about it!'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- ''This may be troublesome.'' A thought invaded Raka. He did not mind the interest. Then again, he was no where near strong enough as they were making him out to be in the forums. Sure, he had a high Endurance and Stamina stats, but that wasn''t special. Anyone with training will eventually get that number. His Strength and Agility stats were quite low. His Vitality stat was low too. He hadn''t yet discovered a way to increase his Vitality so that was also a problem. His Focus and Perception stats were also low. In fact looking at his stats, he was turning out to be kind of a jack of all trades character. Whether that made him good or bad was sort of up in the air at the moment. Most of the things he had done so far had relied overly on luck. Meeting Lady Altia and Lady Verina and asking them to train was luck. Getting blessings from them was also luck. Then those blessings helping him to survive the difficulty C quest was also luck. His meeting with Sambal and eventually getting to participate in the pirate subjugation was luck. In fact his surviving the ordeal, even when he was weak like an insect could be considered mostly luck. Everything so far that had happened could be considered a part of his luck. His luck of meeting the right people. After all, was it really his skill that had made the Ladies train him? Was it really his merit which allowed him to meet the Queen? Was it really his survival instincts which saved his life against the wolfman? So did he really deserve to be happy now that he was becoming famous? Raka was depressed. In his defense though he was comparing himself with the sun or the moon. Being depressed though, would not solve his problem. He had to become stronger. And for that he needed items, skills and ideas. It is an old game saying, a skill is worth ten items, an idea is worth ten skills. Raka had steadfastly noted down each and every idea he had while on the voyage related to his various skills but mostly about magic. And now he was going to experiment to see whether it would work like he imagined it. For that, he needed a safe place, away from prying eyes. Also for this experiment he needed somewhere with soft ground. Or water. Therefore Raka made his way to his old training grounds. The hill where he trained with Lady Altia. It was quite far from the capital but it had a lake. After his job ended yesterday, he started making his way to the hill. And now he was almost there. ''Now that I think about it, it has been quite a while since I fought.'' His battles with the rabbits and wolves enraged with bloodlust seemed so long ago. "Hmm...should I run up again for old times sake?" He asked monkey and parrot who had gladly decided to come along with him when he mentioned he was going to the forest. They loved the forest more than the city. "khi khi khih khi" "Ah so you want to race Sir Raka to the top eh," the parrot translated. "He will give 5 to 1 odds that he will win!" "No bet!" said Raka. "I am here for training." ''I can bet that he will win though...hahaha.'' "Osh....here we go!" and Raka started climbing the hill as fast as possible. He reached the top some time later, panting! His speed had increased which meant that his stamina was sapped more as well. Well not that much. He quickly took some deep breaths to calm down. From now on was business. "Ok, monkey, Nobby, stay away from me. It might get dangerous. And if you do I might cook something good for you later." That got their attention. On they went in search of their lunch. Raka equipped his staff. He closed his eyes and started embedding his staff with air magic. He had improved his magic skill but it still took some time to embed. Atleast he couldn''t use it in combat yet. Not that he had found a way to get to his colorful world without closing his eyes. Imagine doing that while fighting! ''Ok. Now to hold on to it tightly and... upright. Here we go!'' Raka measured about 10 breaths and then released the air magic. He quickly shot up about 10 feet in the air with Raka holding on as hard as possible. Just as he felt the staff beginning to slow down, he shifted his weight so that the top tip of the staff made an angle. Slowly the staff started making a parabola as it further lost speed and then lost all power and simply plummeted to the ground. Splash! And Raka crashed into the lake. The lake was not very deep but thankfully the water cushioned him enough. For a moment Raka felt that he had lost his breath. But then he resurfaced. "HAHAHAhahahahahahahahah! YES! YES! YES! Whoopiee!" And Raka started splashing in the water. The Wright brothers first flight lasted 12 seconds. Raka''s lasted 4 seconds. The level of excitement was the same. Though technically his was not a flight per se. More like being shot off on a rocket and then crashing because the rocket lost power. But it proved that flight was possible to some degree. Some time later, Raka finished his shenanigans and came out. He unequipped his clothes and hung it on a nearby rock to dry. Do you get naked after you unequip your clothes? Yep! Well, atleast his audience did not include any bipeds. Raka took out a paper and wrote on it. Flight - possible. The mana required is high. Mana lost after ascending. But power was controlled till mana was consumed. Flight distance is an issue. Control is an issue. More experiments required after mana increases. Accidentally being flown off towards the wolfman had put this idea in Raka''s head. It was the same magic but applied appropriately it could launch Raka in the air. After that it was just controlling his flight by shifting his weight. Oh there were problems. Many many problems with this. But atleast he had proved that it was possible to do so. He did not know how much mana would be needed for a completely controlled flight, maybe a value in thousands. It was not an idea for the near future. ''As they say then, on with the next.'' Raka roamed around looking for pebbles. He was looking for 8 pebbles actually. It was another idea he was itching to try out. This one would be more practical though and if it worked, he could even use it in battle. After finding 8 pebbles of a size and shape he liked, Raka embedded them with air magic. During naval training he had learned how to control the flight of a stone and use it to attack. Well, his control was still too weak for him to be of any use. That''s what he was trying to get around though. His control was weak but his magic power was strong. ''Ok that''s done. Let''s try it with one pebble first.'' Raka focused on moving the pebble forward slowly. About ten seconds later he was out of mana. He then waited to recover, thinking about things. ''Moving things slowly should need more mana because it needs more control. I should try it faster and let momentum do most of the work.'' After recovering he tried it with the other pebble. But this time he made it move faster. Maybe because the speed helped, but his mana consumption reduced. ''Hmm. Let''s see how fast I can make it go.'' In his third attempt he focused on releasing as much power as possible, without having it blow back on his face. The pebble zoomed ahead. In fact it was so fast and so small that Raka lost sight of it completely. ''How should I control it if I can''t see it!'' It was so bad that he did not even know if the stone went straight or veered of to somewhere else. ''Less speed.'' This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. His fourth attempt proved better. The stone went straight with great speed and then dropped down after expending its magic. ''About 10 metres. Ok, this will do.'' His mana was a quarter gone. This experiment was to determine at what speed to launch the pebbles. He wasn''t done yet. Raka focused hard and took deep breaths. This was the moment of truth. And then, he launched all the remaining 4 stones straight ahead. The stones flew straight and true and then at the end splashed down on the water making clean arcs. "Yes! It works!" He was ecstatic. Oh but this experiment was still not over. ''Next test!'' Raka went out to find 8 more suitable pebbles. Then he embedded them with air. He rubbed his hands in excitement and took deep breaths to calm down. He really had to focus on this. Then he released all 8 pebbles at the same time. Raka had a look of concentration as he focused on all the 10 flying pebbles, now flying straight and true. To help him concentrate he had eight fingers pointing straight with his thumbs tucked inside. Then, he folded three of them pointing them down. Correspondingly, three stones changed trajectories and headed straight down maintaining their speed but he lost control of the other stones. "Hah!" Raka sighed loudly. He had almost succeeded. He had got this idea from the pawn in chess. A pawn always goes straight but then moves diagonally when taking a piece. Similarly the stone would move straight but could change direction once. Not much control required in that. And at a good speed it could be used to do damage. ''It could be used to distract if nothing else.'' As his control and mana increased, more changes in direction would be possible. And possibly greater speed and weight. Right now he could only move pebbles, even then only light smooth ones. Raka could imagine it''s prospects though. ''Alright lets practice it some more.'' After a few tries he became confident in being able to move them straight, no matter their number. And then change direction of any number of stones. Well he only changed them from straight to down but the principle worked. "Alright I am going to name this magic, Switch!" Raka had not named a magic before. Well, it was not like naming it actually did something. That was supposed to be common sense however it made teaching easier. Which meant the magic system allowed naming them. It was difficult though. Raka pulled out a piece of paper and started writing the steps of this magic in magic language. He had thought of it for days on the appropriate steps. See, when you write the steps of some magic in the magic language, you are basically constricting your magic, applying a rule on yourself. Your energy self, if that makes more sense. So that the next time you say Switch or Dragonball, it would process the steps as you had written, like a macro. ''Complex stuff.'' So you had to make the rule precise but also flexible. It was not automatic magic however. It simply created a rule. And like most rules, it only worked if you followed them. Lets leave that explanation for some other time. After writing in the steps, he closed the paper like a magic scroll and sealed it. Then he wrote ''Switch'' in Ilmentian letters outside. The final step in using the magic was committing it. "Switch!" Raka clearly said. The scroll burst and then disappeared into thin air. A magic rule had been established for Raka. A magic had been named for Raka.
You have named a magic Switch. According to the steps written, a rule has been established. If you invoke the magic Switch, it will inform you of any deviations to the rule.
Well it was time for lunch. Raka started a fire going and when monkey and parrot returned with the rabbit, he skinned it and then put the meat in a skewer. He put in the herbs and spices he liked and then hung it over the fire to roast. While it roasted, he took out an orange from his bag and started eating it.
Satiety increases by 5.
Disease is being treated. Disease information updated. Scurvy Stage 1: 74%
And then it was time to head back. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ Swamy was delighted. His experiments had worked. And his exams were finally over. Today was the last exam, well not exactly the last. But it was the last written exam. Tomorrow, that is Friday, they would have a different kind of exam. Well ''Virtual Reality'' was not exactly a subject you could take a written exam on. So they made a new type of exam. But for today, his exam was over. This exam was the lengthiest. Too many argumentative and essay type questions and Raka was the one to write a lot. So the time he finished was only when the exam ended. As he stood up to submit his paper and leave the class, he heard talks about him. Well not him, but Raka. "That is one bad ass dude! That Raka." "But I heard he is alone. I am part of the hunt. Heard nothing." And then they walked off leaving Swamy as confused as ever. In the mess hall, no one was asleep! ''What is going on?'' "Hey guys, what''s going on?" Swamy asked his friends. "It''s a Raka hunt." replied Rajan instantly. "Say what?!" Swamy was perplexed. For a moment he just stood there frozen. "Ah..what do you mean by Raka hunt?" Swamy asked. "Hahaha. Its this thing which started when someone said that he will spend his time hunting for Raka. But then everyone started going that they will hunt him too. So everyone is going ''Hunt Raka'' now. No idea what they will do once they find him though. Hahahaha" and they all laughed. "Hahaha...." Swamy started but most of his happiness had flown out the window. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka walked on the road. And then he sat down and sighed. ''Don''t the players have something else to do?'' He wanted to reach the capital today. He had lots of things to do. Moreover, he had a meeting with Lady Verina regarding his completion of the quest, ''Taking care of Lady Altia.'' Raka had assumed that she would return back to Gurrow, but she had stuck around the capital, probably for discussions regarding the aftermath of the pirate incident. And she was being kept really busy. Thankfully, Sambal''s assistant had helped him in this regard and set up a meeting with her when she came to the Magic Academy next. And that was today. But then, there was this ridiculous Raka hunt! ''Thinking about it, how will they recognize Raka? Its not like they have seen me.'' Cheered up, Raka started walking again. An hour later, he sat down again with his head in his hands. When you worry, you worry of the worst that could happen. All the things, which couldn''t happen, and all the ways, which couldn''t be there, started invading the realm of possibilities. ''I hope no one calls me out by name.'' He had little intimacy with the gate guards so they always asked his name whenever he entered or exited the city. Raka sighed again. Few hours later, Raka arrived at the gates of the capital, where the guards stopped him. Amazingly enough, there were no players there. ''Maybe they thought I wouldn''t come from this side?'' Inside the city, things were almost normal. Players roamed around doing different things. He had met a few players who were coming out to hunt and somehow he had avoided suspicion. No one had asked about him, no one cared and he had been able to pass by in relative anonymity. It changed inside the city though. Every eye looked at him, analyzing him, considering him. And then disregarding him. Raka looked down. He was still wearing his old shabby clothes. He smiled. He didn''t wear his armor as it had been torn to shreds. Without it, he looked just like a beginner with shabby clothes who had never attended battle school in his life. In fact, he may have looked like a character who had only been learning all sorts of crafting till he became of Age. ''Without the staff, that''s how I look, probably.'' He wasn''t going to complain about a good thing though. People''s expectations of the grandeur of Raka played against them as he simply passed by other players. In the training hall of the Magic Academy, Raka was trying to learn water magic. He had found the clue to imagine water. A lot of it had to do with the various water magic he saw being performed during the weeks at sea. In short, he just had to imagine turning water. When water rotates, it can rise, fall, and do all sorts of things which makes a magic like Kraken possible. So all he had to do was imagine it turning round and round. And it had worked. He placed his hand in the bowl and then entered his colorful world. Then he imagined the colors around his hand turning in a circle. And then he thought, ''Water'' and wallah! He had made magic water. Raka looked at the shimmering shining water magic which was still turning but sticking to his hand instead of the bowl. Now came the next step. He brought out the two bonded mirrors from his bag and placed it on the ground with a little distance between them. He touched his magic water on one of the mirrors and imagined it sticking to the glass. The water slipped off his hands and spread, shimmering and shining over the glass. Raka had to transform another bit of water magic for the other mirror and repeated his steps. Once water magic was applied on both the mirrors, the shimmering stopped and pictures started forming. He lifted one of the mirrors and pointed them towards the wall, while he looked in the other one. He saw the wall. He turned the mirror in his hand towards the practicing students and he could see them through the other. "Hey Veronica, could you help me a little?" He asked the self professed Lady Verina fan. Most students still avoided him, but thanks to his massage, one of them had opened up a bit. Veronica came and asked. "What do you need?" "Ah just hold this mirror. I am trying to see if my communication magic worked." "Really? You can do communication magic? Wow, you must be good." Veronica looked impressed. ''Is it that hard for you guys?!'' Raka did not believe that. Here they are jumping and sticking to ceilings and a little water magic is hard?! "Um...well I got lucky. Here hold this one. I will walk over there." Raka walked about 20 steps from her. And then he looked in the mirror, which was now showing her ample cleavage. Small thing to note about mirrors when communicating. They did not reflect you back. So you could never be sure where it''s actually pointing at. Especially if they are small, hand held ones. "Hey Veronica, have you met with Lady Verina recently?" He whispered. "Oh I haven''t. She''s so busy nowadays. I would really like to have tea with her or something." Her cleavage replied back from the mirror. ''Ok that worked.'' "Well you know what...I am sure you will soon..." and Raka continued on with nonsense for a few minutes. After that he ended the magic, which involved removing the water magic from the mirrors. Somehow, Veronica had become quite happy after their talks, though Raka did not remember half the things that had been said. ''Wonder if that classified me officially as a man!'' Well, now that he had learned and enjoyed his cool piece of water magic, he headed down to Cassian to finally learn the highly anticipated magic, Peek. A smile crept up on his face as he made his way to Cassian''s house. Anybody seeing him right now, would have been pretty sure he was up to something evil. Or stupid. Maybe both. He knocked on the door. Taum opened the door. "Ah..it is you. Come in, come in. It''s been a long time since you last came and Cassian was getting absolutely bored. Hmm...yes he knew you were part of the ship but you did not come even after landing." "Yeah. Well I would have liked to visit but events had been keeping me very busy for the past few weeks." "Ah true. But you are here now so I hope his mood gets better," saying that Taum led him to Cassian''s room. "Here you are sir, Raka has come to visit." Taum started. "Ah young man. Nice to see you after such a long time. Let me tell you, you were sorely missed. Why don''t you sit down and tell me all about your adventures...Taum could you make some tea?" Taum went back out while Raka sat down on the chair and started telling him about all the things he learnt, felt and experienced. "......and then she talked to me while it showed her cleavage all the time." Raka finished recounting his happenings till today. "Hahahahaha....*cough cough! Sorry that was too funny. So you made a magic called Switch, is it. But from your talks it seems like it could end up being similar to the Kraken magic of Verina." Cassian took a sip of tea to soothe his throat. "Yeah that was the original inspiration." ''He seems much older than before.'' "I knew you were a man after my own heart. I can almost remember my youth in your stories." Just then Taum knocked and entered. "Excuse me sir, but I have to step out for a bit. I will be back in a couple of hours." After receiving the ok, he left. Raka was anticipating such a moment eagerly and it was being reflected on his face. "So I guess now that you have learnt water magic, you want to try Peek again. Alright bring the mirror pieces we made last time. Lets see you try." Cassian said. Raka stood up and from the next room, he brought out pieces of the one-way bonded mirror. He got himself a cup of water from the kitchen as well. And then he focused to transform energy into water. A little while later, he got himself some shining shimmering water. He touched one mirror, the one starting the connection, and watched as the water spread all over the glass surface. And then it started showing a room. The very same room they were in. Raka showed the result to Cassian and he nodded satisfied. "Wonderful. You can now do Peek."
You have learned the skill Peek. This is classified as a secret bound by the Official Secrets Agreement. You are not the original developer hence you cannot teach the skill to others.
Finally! So long had he laboured on learning water magic because he knew the results would be worth it. Oh now he had another problem. Communication magic mirrors and Peek skill mirrors were different, you could not use the same mirror for both. But he would find a solution eventually. "I was not able to pass it on, no matter how much I tried. Now it feels like I have passed on a legacy. Hahaha...not too melodramatic, is it. Ah it sucks getting old. But then I should be proud that life was fun. Even though I can''t teach you anything anymore, would you still have tea with me when you can?" "Yes. I wouldn''t miss it." "He he he he he ....." a furtive evil laugh escaped Raka''s lips as he walked back to the Magic Academy to meet with Lady Verina. Raka may have trouble sleeping tonight. "He he he he...."
A shorter but hopefully sweeter chapter. Enjoy! Chapter 25: The Fight! Raka walked down deep in thought. His destination was the Magic Academy and his purpose, to meet with Lady Verina. And as he walked he kept thinking about his plans. He had learned as much as he could from Thelmova for now and perhaps, he should now plan to move to the fishing village of Fellon. He had thought about it before, but not realizing when he would be able to learn the water magic, his plans did not have a timeline. Now he had to seriously consider when he should move out. So he started thinking about the things left to do in Thelmova. The top of that list would be learning the Herbal Medicine skill. Even though it was a discovered skill which meant he did not need to stay in the capital, he still needed the books. He had noticed other oddities. There was a huge library but no book shops. ''Maybe printing was a problem?'' Raka could imagine that printing presses would not have been invented yet. So buying or selling books would have been quite difficult. Though couldn''t there be magical means to copy books? Looking at the missing book shops however, he thought perhaps that may not be possible or maybe very difficult. Which meant that most of the copies would have been created by hand, limiting the amount. It made sense to have libraries then. This way a lot of people could get access to such books without the need to own them. On the other hand, it made books exclusive to libraries. Which meant if there was no library at the fishing village, he would not be able to continue studying for his Herbal Medicine skill. Ofcourse, lending out books should have been an alien concept at this point in time. There still remained another option, albeit a non ethical one. And right now, Raka was highly enticed to choose that one. Though his moral compass was creating doubt as usual. Which is why he was deep in thought. ''Speaking of oddities, there is religion but no priests or religious institutions.'' On earth, every civilization, ancient or modern, had some kind of person who acted as priest. You know, the link between man and God. They may not have a particular building like a temple or cathedral and they may worship one or many Gods and Goddesses, but they always had a priest. Based on that, the religion on Ilmentia was weird, or maybe it was another oddity with mysterious explanations. Thinking this and that, Raka reached Cassian''s office. He knocked. "Please come in." Lady Verina''s clear voice sounded out. Raka entered. "Ah hello Raka. You are a bit early aren''t you." "Only a bit. They said you were in so I came up. I was half expecting you to be with someone else." "Hah...yeah it''s been busy lately. I am sooo tired. My head hurts. My body hurts. I am so sleepy. In fact I would have dozed off already, if you hadn''t come. When will all this be over?!" Lady Verina complained with feeling. "Good work then, holding out for so long. If I can help out, let me know." Raka said. "Hmm...ah no, it''s mostly talking to nobles and diplomats and stuff like that so you won''t be any help. Thanks for offering though. Wait a minute...you can help!" Lady Verina suddenly brightened up. "Please give me a massage! I really really need it." She batted her eyes. Raka sighed. "All right please lie down......" A few minutes later, wherein Raka ended up all sweaty, most of which was not from the labour involved and Lady Verina ended up content and serene though blushing for some reason, they resumed talking. "Ahh that felt good...I sorely needed that. Thank you Raka." As Lady Verina stood up and stretched her arms with a yawn. "And now it''s time for a good nap!" "......" Raka simply stared. "Alright alright, jokes aside. Actually I couldn''t think of a deserving reward for your help. So I decided to do this." Saying that Lady Verina took off a ring from her left hand and approached Raka. ''Eh! Ehhhhhhhhhhhh!'' "This is not an engagement, is it?!" Raka''s throat had suddenly dried up like he was in a parched desert. He gulped loudly. Lady Verina froze. She blushed and closed her eyes. And then started trembling. She waved her hands and Raka could not move anymore. No, he literally could not move. She had just done the same ''Bind'' magic once done by Cynthia, but she had managed it without a word. And then, (slap)(slap)(slap) "You" (slap)(slap)(slap) "are" (slap)(slap)(slap) "a" (slap)(slap)(slap) "Million" (slap)(slap)(slap) "YEARS" (slap)(slap)(slap) "TOO" (slap)(slap)(slap) "EARLY!! IDIOT!!" (slap)(slap)(slap)" Not that Raka could say anything.
Swollen face! Your face has become swollen. Slight speech impediment for the next 3 minutes.
You have just suffered the effects of a violent action initiated by a person having high intimacy with you. Due to high intimacy and lack of ill intent, no loss of Life or other attributes will occur.
''Thanks for letting me know!'' Raka thought wrily. A bit later Lady Verina calmed down and undid her magic. "Bi bem borry!" Raka started to speak. "What?" and Lady Verina lifted her head and looked at Raka''s face. Then she burst out laughing. "Sorry sorry, did I do that? Well you deserved it, you know." Lady Verina said unabashedly. "Hah" Raka said. Thankfully the duration was not long and soon his face started resembling his face again. "I said I am sorry. But did you have to hit that hard?" Raka winced feeling his face returning to normal. "Yes. Any less would not get through your thick skin. Anyways I am giving you this ring though I am in half a mind to not give it now." Lady Verina pouted. "Thank you very much." Raka decided to take it before she could change her mind. He looked at the ring. It shone in a shiny silvery light reflecting the white light of the lamps. It was plain looking but it had some kind of design etched on to the metal. "Um...is it valuable?" Raka asked. "Yes it is. But more than that, I think you will find it useful." Lady Verina replied. "Eh. What''s it do?" Raka was curious now. "It is a low level magic ring. It can store energy temporarily." "What?" Raka sounded as confused as he looked. "Ah you wouldn''t know. Just like I said, it is used to store energy. When you transform energy, don''t you collect it first? And then you have to apply the magic. In your case it takes quite some time, doesn''t it?" Raka nodded. "Well you can use this to store energy that you collect. Due to the nature of it''s material, it can store that energy for quite a long time. And then when you want to do magic, you already have the collected energy to just transform." "Wow. This is awesome!" Raka was clearly surprised. Most of the time in the colorful world was trying to gather the energy required to transform. But with this ring he could skip that step completely. It would significantly speed up his magic process. "What is it made of? How much does it cost?" Raka had to know the source. "Hmm. How to explain this? You know that everything is made of energy, right? But some places have a higher concentration of energy and some places less. It is easier to do magic in the places where energy is concentrated. In the magic training hall, we try to artificially increase this energy concentration using certain magics and materials. But then, there are natural areas around the world where there is much more concentration of energy than usual. Things in those places sometimes develop a high capacity to absorb energy. This ring is made of metal found in such a place." "Is that so! So where would those places be?" Raka asked. "Wouldn''t we like to know! These areas move around. Energy like weather is not a fixed thing. The concentration of energy keeps changing all the time due to external influences. Just entering such an area will disturb it''s concentration, its so volatile. Only in rare cases and when the energy has not been disturbed for a long time, we find stones or ores which have developed this ability. In addition, these areas are extremely small. Like one or two hand''s length, if not smaller. It is very difficult finding these places and even more rare are these materials. Which makes them very very expensive. In fact, a material from a high level magical site could go for thousands of gold." "Oh so there are high level and low level sites?" "Yes. I think there are seventeen levels of such sites depending on the concentration of energy and the quality of the materials found in them. I don''t know much about the levels but this ring is supposedly from a level 1 site which are more common. It''s made of silver though which raised it''s price a bit. I bought it for 3 gold during one of my travels long back. ''Hmm this sounds like something I have heard before. But first let''s check it.'' "Identify"
[p=center]Low level Magic Ring (Rare)[/p] Class: Accessory/Ring Energy: 0/35 Options: Energy stored for 1 day Weight: 2 Durability: 200/200 Made of silver and found in a Lvl 1 magical site, this magic ring can act as a temporary store of energy. After 1 day the stored energy will dissipate.
"Do the magical bones have something to do with this?" Raka asked. "Ah you know about them. They have the same principle. The concentration of energy within a magical creature is higher than usual. But, because the bones have been part of the magical creature, they become limited to certain types of magic only, unlike the ring. There are other differences but it would be better to ask the ones who deal with them about it." "Hmm...thank you again for this ring." Raka said. And then he remembered. "Ah I would also like to give you a gift to show my appreciation. As I will be heading to Fellon soon, we may not be able to meet for a long time so perhaps my gift will help you in remembering me. But I haven''t made it yet. I intend to send it by pigeon once I have made it." "Really! I will wait eagerly for it then." And Lady Verina flashed a wonderful smile. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "I will need 200 bricks of size 92X57X203 mm. Cement to bind. Wall height needs to be 8 feet, with a gap for windows 2 feet from the edge....." Swamy instructed. He was giving the exam for ''Virtual Reality'' subject. It was deemed very difficult to take a written exam on a subject which is like a combination of imagination and reality. Not that people hadn''t tried but then had realized their futility. It was like combining something like civil engineering with interior design in the same subject! So a different kind of test was devised. Most virtual reality worlds are developed from something called the virtual reality construct programs. Swamy did not understand it fully. He wouldn''t have been able to explain it considering he was still a first year student. But basically these construct programs were like blank canvasses. Here, developers develop rules and train the AI on those rules. Rules such as construction rules, physics rules, weather rules, terrain rules, magic rules, etc which would be used to create and eventually govern the new virtual reality world. As these rules depend a lot on the kind of world being developed and cover so many varied areas, the governing of any virtual reality world by human hands is nigh impossible. Hence the need for training artificial intelligence. For example some worlds may consider north to be extremely cold and south to be extremely hot. Other worlds may go the earth route, that is north and south are both extremely cold and the equator is hot. As the world varies, so will the rules governing weather, terrain, wind, etc. There would also be changes in the flora and fauna, the type of animals, etc. Some may have magic, some may not. Some could have two moons. Even developers would put in different building structures or characters or races making it different. Each virtual reality world would be governed by unique rules and therefore have a unique AI. And because of that the construct programs are complicated and too expensive. In fact the University of Bangalore could only manage to buy 10 copies of it. Thankfully these construct programs could be matched with any gaming capsule. The way a construct program worked is by observation. You make a building, the AI understood how to make a building. You make a boat, the AI understood how to make a boat. Ofcourse there are a lot of things which have become common in most virtual reality games. Things such as gravity, physics, maths, etc. Already configured rules are available on the internet which can be downloaded and can be used to train the AI, like patches in software programs. It makes life much easier for virtual world developers. Swamy''s construct program AI had already been trained in the rules of construction. The exam was to build a room using that. Some additional rules were that the room will not be a standalone room but as part of a house. Which meant you could not put windows on all sides and had to consider someplace where the room would join with the rest of the house. Also you had to make the things which would decorate inside the room as well. Tables, chairs, etc, whatever caught your fancy. Other than that it was up to your imagination. Points were being given for the accuracy of the construction that is how close to reality they were. Then there were points on your creativity. It was a super fun exam with people doing all sorts of crazy stuff. Electric fan stuck to the floor, check. Archway doors, check. It may not be a habitat for a human but weirdness was welcome as long as the things were as real as possible. An hour passed and Swamy''s turn was over. He stepped out of the capsule and let the next batch get in. Thankfully the construct programs had a reset function. So that any weird rules learnt during the previous attempt would not affect the subsequent people taking the exam. Swamy sighed and went back to his seat to look at what the other people were doing. The ten construct programs were connected to ten screens hung in the room and people could watch the genius or the weirdness of their fellow classmates. The atmosphere was almost festival like, with loud talks and laughing going on all corners. ''Definitely the best exam ever!'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sophie Aldcott looked into the mirror in the rest room. She had come in to take a break from the hectic crowd at the exhibition. She had been smiling all day and was kinda tired. "A couple more hours. Come on.. you can do it." Her reflection responded to her. She quickly adjusted her shoulder length blond hair and the light makeup and looked around her business suit once more to see if everything was in place and stepped out. ''Shit! Its still so crowdy.'' Sophie did not like crowds. She lived in a small house in Switzerland with her parents and she liked it there. She loved the weather and the sounds of nature. No one could say that the country had lots of people. In fact Swiss authorities were still stingy with any form of immigration. But her parents had managed to move there. As a result she was born, a mix of her German father and her French mother, maybe their best parts. She was not very tall. About 5''8''''. She had maintained her fine figure through rigorous excercise. In fact she loved swimming and had one time even aimed to join a swimming team. Unlike India which was turning out to be too hot, too uncomfortable and filled with too many loud people for her taste. But she had a job to do. Even though she was young, almost 19, she had chosen to actively participate in her father''s small company which made small and light weight lifting machines. Not having completed her studies, her father did not give her a management position. His specific words were, "to run any business you first need to meet with the customers." And so Sophie was included in the team coming to India for this exhibition. Her job was to attract people to their stall and explain things about their new product. Well, the other people could also do that so it was mostly to attract people. And her good looks had attracted a lot of them. Too many for her comfort. And yet she smiled as she saw a group of three heading towards the already crowded stall. "Welcome! Are you interested in our new product, the lifting machine T2X11?" The taller guy came forward and said, "Hello I am Christopher. Our company is intending to buy the T2X11. Here is my card. Would you kindly give us a demonstration?" "Certainly. Please wait a bit. We only have one sample so it is taking some time. In the mean time you can see about the machine in the brochures." And Sophie handed one to each of them. As she tried to hand one to the person standing next to Christopher, the guy refused to take it. Rather, he did not even move and simply kept staring at her. Sophie felt a little creeped out but she had met many who were like this and did not let it show on her face. "Sir, would you like to have a brochure?" She asked insistently. Finally the guy comically raised his hands like a robot and took the brochure, still standing stuck in that position. Sophie almost giggled but stopped herself. "Ah I have a question regarding this....." Her attention was then taken by Christopher who started talking about some stuff. Meanwhile the guy with the robot arms, Swamy just kept staring at the beauty in front of his eyes. ''She is beautiful'', his thoughts were kinda stuck on that like a broken record. It was only when someone nudged him hard that he awoke from his trance. ''What the hell am I doing!!'' as memories of the past few moments crashed back in his mind. "She is cute, isn''t she? Look at Christopher laying his charms out. I bet he already knows all about their machine. I should try talking to her too." Amit, his colleague, whispered to him. Swamy nodded. But after the fiasco of the past few moments, he doubted he had a chance. Not that he could compete against the sheer handsomeness of the guy he was with, Christopher. He was tall, pretty athletic and had his own business card. Most of all he could talk to her while Swamy had been frozen stiff. Truthfully though, Swamy did not think that even Christopher had any chance. He sighed. A bit later, "Ah the machine is free now." The pretty blond girl spoke in a nice accent. ''Wonder where she is from.'' thought Swamy but then smacked his head to clear it. She was probably from the same country as the company which makes the machine. He could easily look it up later. Right now he had to focus on the machine and give his feedback, after all that''s what he had come out to do in the first place. The guy handling the machine moved it around, displaying the various systems and explaining them in brief. Well, as Swamy was already used to their previous model, it was mostly stuff he knew about. He focused on what was new. ''Seems like they reduced the weight a little bit and added some more safety features.'' It wouldn''t actually increase their effectiveness by much so he quickly lost interest in what was being said. He turned his head a little to peek at the beautiful girl who was now welcoming other guests. Swamy sighed again. "As you have experience with them, would you like to test them yourself?" The guy, who was explaining, asked. "Hey Swamy, why don''t you try it?" asked Christopher. "Ok...." Swamy stepped forward and took the controller. He moved it around a little bit. ''Seems the same.'' He looked around for something he could use to test the thing but the only decent size object was the pedestal the blond girl was using. "Could I try lifting that pedestal?" Swamy asked the guy. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. "Sure, but please be careful. There are people around." The guy cautioned. He simply signalled the other members and they cleared some space. Swamy quickly manipulated the controls and lifted the pedestal moving it towards him and then back to where it was. He slowly let down the thing, being careful to not let it tip over. And then he brought the machine back. "Nicely done." The blond girl complimented. "Well...um....I kinda use it...so its not much, I guess." Swamy spoke carefully haltingly. He could not trust his tongue right now. "Did you like it? What did you think?" the girl asked. "Um...handling...its the same as the last one, I guess. The less weight would probably save some electricity, I guess." Swamy replied. "Haha that''s true." And just like that it ended. The girl went back to dealing with other people and Swamy stood there feeling like he had lived in another age. He sighed. Finally it was the end of the exhibition and Sophie welcomed the sight of the leaving crowd. It had been hectic, too hectic. "Hopefully he comes here soon." She thought aloud and one of the men packing up, lifted his head and smilingly said, "You can go if you want. Nice work there but I can see you are really tired now," the man smiled. He was one of the senior employees and had known Sophie since she was little. "Ah...merci beaucoup!" and Sophie quickly pulled out her cellphone and called. "Ah Frank...merci!" She said to the other person in the car as she took the passenger seat. "Pas de quoi Sophie." The young man called Frank replied. Sophie got back to her hotel room and quickly showered and changed. Feeling better, she accessed the internet. "Still no news about Raka....hmmm." ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- It is said that things have this weird habit of coming to a head just as soon as you start getting comfortable. "Fight me!" Raka looked back at the person who spoke those words. Von Gult Despira. A magic student. A noble. A son of a Count. So far he hadn''t bothered with him, hadn''t talked with him, hadn''t even cared to acknowledge his presence. Yet here he was. And the first words were something like...this. "Um...what?!" Was how Raka felt too. Von Gult Despira was a very ambitious man. Von Gult Despira was also a very desperate man. Not only did he dream to head the noble house of Despira, which even though being the oldest and bearer of rulers had declined over the years to a state where it was considered a noble house in name only, he also wished to become the highest power on this island, the King, and bring his house to the forefront once more. For that he had studied and trained diligently, in all matters of the state and battlecraft. Politics, magic, weapons. He even strategically thought out who to make friendships with. Skipping the local magic institute, he had joined the Magic Academy in Thelmova for this purpose. It has been a long tradition of noble houses of other lands to send their sons and daughters to each other''s lands for education. Originally a measure to instill cooperation and peace, it also became a chance for him to make some worthy connections. Even powerful ones. And he had been successful so far. His friends treated his abilities with respect and followed him naturally. His magical talent and hard work was being appreciated in the royal court and his father proudly discussed his achievements at dinners with other nobles. It would not be strange to say important people were keeping an eye on him. But it is said that higher expectations lead to greater disappointments. For the first time Von Gult had encountered fear, real fear. And he had been helpless in the face of it. Before he met the pirates, he had been confident in his own abilities. After he met them, he had fallen into a deep depression. He had been useless. Gone were his ambitions to gain recognition. His prided abilities and strength had been of no use during the battle. He was overwhelmed by people who he had considered inferior, namely the soldiers and sailors. Though he had received elite training ever since he was a child, he could not even hold his own against the pirates. In fact, during the battle he had to be protected by those soldiers many times. Ever since he had landed, he had been writhing in agony over his own weakness. Thus he had decided that he wanted to learn from the best. Lady Verina was considered the best on the island, just after the Queen in magic. But when he approached her she had declined owing to her busy schedule. Von Gult just had to accept her decision, he didn''t have a choice. She was higher ranked than him, even if she was not a noble. And he didn''t want to make a bad impression on her by being forceful. But then he heard rumors that she did have a student. About Raka. At first he wouldn''t believe it. That lowly guy who was responsible for mopping the floors and serving the food was her student! Wasn''t he responsible for cleaning her rooms? As far as he saw, he was very weak in magic and that Lady Verina was simply taking pity on the weakest. Could he be her student? But then other things started to come to his mind. Like how she was present when he was awarded a medal. Would she be present for any random awarding? And didn''t she talk to him like she knew him. Suddenly all the events which he had previously ignored lit up like the light in deep darkness. Wasn''t she personally training him?! And wasn''t it a student''s responsibility to take care of their master''s belongings! Then he heard even more. He had been seen joining the Ladies in the regular meetings which no one else had been allowed to join. And that he was Lady Altia''s first student also. That had been the breaking point. Who knew, maybe he had nefarious plans to become King himself! And what about their relationships. Couldn''t he have seduced Lady Verina and Altia to join his camp and maybe more! Even if he didn''t become the ruler, didn''t he now have the top two ruling candidates dancing in his hands! Raka was officially an obstacle in his path, an snake which needed to be crushed before it could bite him. This was perhaps the first instance in virtual gaming in which a npc became jealous of a player. But that doesn''t matter. The results were the same. "Fight me Raka! If I win, I will have Lady Altia and Lady Verina be my instructors!" He shouted to a still confused Raka. Meanwhile, Raka was blissfully unaware of the situation. He kept staring, confused at this Von Gult guy and thought, ''He is really annoying!'' "Um...first of all why should I fight you? Second, if you want to be their student, don''t you need their approval?" Raka replied. ''That stopped him.'' Raka was about to get all pleased with himself. However, "I approve it." Everyone''s eyes turned to look at who had spoken and found Lady Verina and Lady Altia making their way towards them. ''What the hell! What''s going on?'' "I approve it. If Von Gult Despira wins this fight against Raka, I will officially accept him as my student." repeated Lady Verina. "I approve it too," added Lady Altia. Everyone was shocked by these words. Let alone the other magic students, even Raka and Von Gult seemed to have their mouths open. Probably one was being very happy and the other really flummoxed. ''Seriously what is going on!'' "Um...you are not joking are you?" He tenderly asked. "No. Why would we joke about this? If he wins against you, why should I have a problem training him?" Lady Altia smiled. "True. Why would we object? If he won against you even after our training, then perhaps we should train him." Lady Verina smiled as well. ''Something is seriously wrong here!'' But before he could collect his thoughts together, "Alright everyone, stay next to us, so that you don''t get involved accidentally. Von Gult, Raka take places over there, about 20 steps apart and prepare. We start in 2 minutes!" Lady Verina commanded. Raka did not have the time to think as he started embedding his staff with air. His armor was still useless but then that Von Gult guy was also not wearing any. He chose air rather than earth to give him more options while fighting. However good he may be in fighting with a staff, in magic Von Gult was better. In fact he could hang upside down on ceilings, so what chance did Raka have! He was already prepared to lose. ''Hold on! Then what would happen to my blessings?!....Shit! I cannot lose!'' He suddenly realized. Whatever the reason this situation had become like this, he could not afford to think anything else here. It had become very real very suddenly. "Begin!" A single sound spread across the hall as each rushed to the other. Staffs clashed as they met. Neither was holding anything back. Smash, smash, whoosh, dodge, block, smash...went their staffs, neither being able to achieve that first hit. Each trying to send the other''s body parts to bloody oblivion. It seemed that they were equal but the situation changed suddenly. Realizing that both were almost equal in staff technique, Von Gult quickly took some distance and shot fire from his hands. "Ah....!" ''It hurts.'' And Raka saw his Life falling by 35. ''I can''t take many of these.'' Thankfully even with the damage his head was clear. His endurance had taken the edge off of the resulting pain. He quickly darted to counter but Von Gult simply moved to keep his distance and shot fire again. ''Not again...'' and Raka dodged to the side and continued but Von Gult simply controlled the fire by moving his hands. "Damn..." The fire took another 25 Life off. Raka clenched his teeth and charged again at full speed. He had to close distance somehow. This time he reached him and swung his staff almost immediately but rather than block, Von Gult simply struck his staff to the ground. The earth vibrated in all directions and Raka lost his balance. As he fell forward, Von Gult simply waved his hands. A puff of air hit the pit of Raka''s stomach and he was thrown back. Another 15 Life lost. But it was not over, before Raka''s feet could even touch the ground, Von Gult launched fire again. This time it took 45 Life. It was a critical hit. Raka had lost 80% of his health in less than 5 minutes. He was soon going to reach the red zone. ''Damn! This guy is strong!'' Raka was at his wit''s end. This guy was not even going for a punch but magic, even when he had been so close. Simply winning was not Von Gult''s goal. He had to win in a manner which showed his complete superiority, Raka realized. He swung his staff to launch an air wave but with such an exaggerated motion, it was easy to predict and Von Gult dodged to the side even before he finished swinging. Raka realized once again...that he was weak. His mind raced to search for options, anything he could use in this situation. ''The blessing!'' Raka still had a chance but only if he could get to the red zone safely. If they stopped the fight before then, he would be considered the loser. ''I need to get close to him!'' Raka ran full speed towards Von Gult. But he leisurely smiled and raised his hands. And released some more fire. ''Now!'' Raka simply moved his staff to point to a place just next to Von Gult and launched himself. He cleared the fire just before it reached and landed next to him. He smashed his stick straight into his side. "Take this!" "Aaahhhh....." Von Gult grunted in pain but he still managed to blow Raka back before falling down on one knee. He grunted some more but quickly stood back up, holding his side. No matter how conceited he might have become, he had still been trained well. Raka lost 15 more health and reached the red zone. ''Now I can turn things around...hehehe'' but nothing happened. ''No blessing?!!!!!!'' This could only happen if the opponent was the same level or weaker. There is a revelation in the realization that the opponent you are fighting is not out of this world, rather within reach. ''What is the guy waiting for?'' Raka could not understand. There he was, far away, and one strike could end this battle. No it could actually kill him. In fact any moment now, the Ladies should come and stop the fight or at least Raka expected them to. But the guy just glared at him. ''Well in any case it''s a chance.'' Raka closed his eyes and entered his colorful world. He simply moved his hands around his staff and thought ''Air''. In 2 seconds, he had embedded his staff once again with air. ''This ring is awesome!'' He had just filled it before all this nonsense began. ''My turn!'' Raka rushed towards Von Gult again and in reaction a fireball arrived. ''Tch..the same thing. I have long range magic too you know.'' He got out his spell scroll and.. "Fireball!" Raka shot fire also. The two fireballs met and cancelled each other out. But Raka was not waiting. Another two spell scrolls and, "Fireball!" "Airwave!" The two scrolls activated from his hands. Air and fire combined to make a larger flame. He could not make a firebomb yet, but there was no reason not to combine the effects of two elements separately. The larger and powerful looking fireball headed towards Von Gult who quickly moved to dodge. This guy''s dodging speed was insane. He jumped high up and stuck to the ceiling and launched firebolts. A standard fire magic, which created small fireballs but launched them at high speed. However it was very difficult to control the direction of a single firebolt and Raka was fast enough to dodge it. But the magic''s advantage was in numbers. Von Gult kept launching firebolts continuously. 10....20...''How much mana does this guy have!'' Raka had to focus on dodging while the guy safely fired things while stuck to the ceiling like a bat! He even mixed in some fireballs in between firebolts. It was like facing a cluster bomb, each individual element was weak but the area covered was large. Raka had to do something. ''First'', Raka dodged till he reached just below Von Gult. ''Now!'' He released his embedded air magic and launched himself. Flying in closed rooms or halls is not advised. You run the risk of running into the ceiling. But Raka was aiming for this. Von Gult quickly dodged the incoming Raka missile and jumped back on to the ground. The situation had not changed at all. Now Raka was stuck in the air while Von Gult could keep firing. Atleast, Raka hoped that was what the guy was thinking. His next step depended on that. Raka cancelled his magic and heaved all his weight away from the ceiling and thankfully managed to land on it with his feet. Then he aimed his staff towards Von Gult and launched again. This time gravity helped him. "Ahhhhhhh" With a yell he reached the guy. ''You must be shocked by this aren''t you...I am too!'' Von Gult barely dodged this strange attack as Raka crashed at the place where he was just standing at. "Earth-shock!" Raka took out a scroll and yelled as he hit the ground. The ground shook in all directions throwing Von Gult to the ground. Raka lost 10 more Life. ''Hah....I survived! Lucky!'' But he had no time to celebrate. He quickly stood up and charged. Even while on the ground, Von Gult was capable of magic. An airwave blew from his hands to blow Raka away. But this time Raka was ready for it. And he was also close enough. He sidestepped and rotated. The staff making a clean circle as Raka ended up on his side and the staff ended up on the back of his head. Smash! A clean hit to the back of Von Gult''s head. Dance of the Fighter applied and Raka''s Life and Mana grew. "Aaaaaahhh!" Blood trickled out from Von Gult''s wound but he simply looked back fiercely. And launched a fireball straight at Raka''s face. ''Idiot...'' thought Raka as he sidestepped and rotated again. And the staff completed another circle to Von Gult''s head. But then he savagely jumped towards Raka, staff forgotten, and a punch aimed at his head. ''Shit!'' Raka''s staff would not make it in time. The punch would have found his home. But then his boots were alright. There are some things a man shouldn''t do until he is determined. Kicking another man in his balls is one of those things. Raka decided to kick anyway. Viewers would have watched in slow motion the death of the two fighting in front of them, the first one to reach would have had a slim chance for survival. But just then something fluttered and both Raka and Von Gult were thrown back forcefully. Raka looked vaguely at the form... "Ah Lady Altia..." before passing out. He regained consciousness some minutes later to find an empty training hall. He checked and his Life and Mana were recovering fast, another handiwork of Lady Verina. "Awake are you?" asked Lady Altia who was standing right behind him. "Um yes. How is the other guy?" Raka asked concerned. "He is ok. Verina patched him up in a jiffy. He is just laying in her office while she treats his wounds. Unlike the Goddess''s children, it takes some time to heal from wounds for the people of this world." Lady Altia replied. "Ah!" And then he remembered. "Why didn''t you guys stop the fight? I was about to die out there?" "But you couldn''t really die, could you now. We thought it would be disrespectful seeing that the lad had the determination to face off against one of the Goddess''s children, to not let him kill one, if he could!" Lady Verina''s smile had a hint of sarcasm. What is the saying that goes...if you have friends like these, who needs enemies! Raka sighed. Women...he could never figure them out. Meanwhile Lady Verina also came down. "Ah so you are awake now. That was quite a fight wasn''t it! Too bad it ended in a draw." "Yes it was. Um a draw?" "Well, considering that if that guy had been serious from the start, you would have been dead before doing anything...would not be an understatement. So technically this is your loss." Lady Verina simply said. "But...but but but.." "True that. Even if he had more training, our disciple is one of the Goddess''s children. He shouldn''t have been defeated so easily." Lady Altia agreed. "Eh! But...but.." "You know what...I guess the blame for this is on the teachers. We just didn''t train him hard enough." Lady Verina continued. "But...but.." "True that. And it''s a pity that he will leave soon." Lady Altia added. "But we still cannot have him lose this miserably again...after all he represents us now.." Lady Verina sighed. "We are young, we make mistakes..." Lady Altia sighed. "In that case, we just do what we do...he won''t die after all..." Lady Verina suddenly brightened up. "True that. Even if he dies, he can still revive...and you could always heal him..." Lady Altia also brightened up. Lady Verina waved her hands and two staffs appeared. She offered Altia one but... "Nah...I think it should be good that he also faces my sword sometime.." Lady Altia simply commented and took out her sword and got in stance. "One by one or at the same time? Should be good to give him experience fighting groups..." Lady Verina commented and took her stance. "......" went Raka.
Combat status is active. You can only log out when you come out of combat or you die.
''I hate this game!!'' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHH!!!" A new rumor was born that day. Of the ghost which haunted the magic training hall. That was a joke, see, magic training halls are made soundproof. No one would have heard his screams. Chapter 26: Preparations Swamy took off his glasses and rubbed his eyes. For the past few hours he was concentrating on his notes. His notes which covered all the information of the game he had collected so far through his experience and the internet. Now that exams were over, he had time to, as he would call it, play a lot. And he intended to make the most of it. Unfortunately for him, he had been stuck dealing with two monsters in the game who did not know the meaning of going easy. Fortunately for him, it did not last long. Blessed by the Sea Gods or whatever Gods ruled the game world, both the monsters had other duties to tend to and could only afford to spend one night with Raka. One whole night of pure hell which left him feeling exhausted mentally and physically. And this was after the 18 game hours he had already spent doing various things. Ordinarily being stuck with two beauties an entire night, which ended only when the sun rose up, should have been a source of celebration. Even a source of envy. Instead it had turned out to be something which could not be described by words alone. Swamy sighed. It felt like just a moment ago that he was infatuated with a lovely blonde girl who seemed like she could have changed his world. And then in the next moment, all thoughts about her were replaced by the virtual horror he had withstood. It was only by a certain force of will, a recognition that his teachers were his allies, that he could even think of playing the game again. ''I guess I should be grateful I did not end up walking funny or something. But I will have my revenge one way or the other.'' He just needed an idea which would make his sweet revenge possible. Just then his eyes fell on his glasses and he had a brainflash. Swamy had a strange gleam in his eyes as he searched the internet for the right thing. ''Found it!'' "Hyahyahyahyahyahyahya..." Swamy almost lost his head. The same day three other things were announced. One was the item auction system. The other the currency exchange service. And the last, the hall of fame portal. ''Hmm...the auction system and the hall of fame portal are pretty much the same as in other games. But the currency exchange is limited. Let''s see...Ok so the starting exchange rate is 1 US dollar equals 1 gold. So about Rs 55. And the exchange limit per person is 10 gold every month. The exchange rate is variable and will change based on various things including the amount of money which enters and exits the game.'' Swamy carefully read the details. The reasons for the exchange limit were also mentioned. As the players have yet to travel to other lands and are basically concentrated on the four starter islands, a high infusion of gold can badly influence the economy of the islands. The limit will be removed as and when players migrate to more markets. ''Makes sense.'' Around half a million players buying 10 gold will result in 5 million new gold. Assuming even distribution, each island would have 1.25 million new gold. Even considering the equivalent game time of 3 months, this much was enough to really upset all sorts of prices and other things. ''The most affected would be the npcs I guess. Though the variable exchange rate should keep things balanced.'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged back in at the Magic Academy training hall. He shuddered. He made his way out in a hurry. The sun had not risen yet. Shadows covered the city, illuminated only by the faint lights of the moon and the stars. The residents would still be in the arms of the lady of the night. But all was not quiet. Here and there a figure moved about, probably a player. Raka made his way to the beach. Monkey and parrot were having a serious discussion. He did not understand what they were talking about, but unlike normal days there was a distinct lack of laughter or singing. "What''s up?" He asked. "Ah Sir Raka. You appeared. We have a problem." "Really? What kind of problem?" ''Did they finally get indigestion.'' Raka smiled. "Um..." and the parrot hesitated. And suddenly Raka had a really bad feeling. ''This longwinded annoying parrot being at a loss for words!'' "What did you guys do?" He asked hoping for a miracle. "We killed one of your kin. But you see it was not our fault. They attacked us. We had to defend ourselves. We are thinking if it is good to run away before we are arrested." And the miracle didn''t happen. "How long ago and where?" Raka simply asked. He had an idea of what would have happened. Some player had seen them in the forest and thinking they were just normal animals, had attacked them. They had been killed instead. ''Atleast they didn''t kill an npc, I hope. They wouldn''t have bothered to attack these animals.'' "In the forest. It was just as the sun reached the horizon yesterday. We were just discussing what to do. This guy here wants to run away. But the honor of the Cackle clan does not allow me to leave your side." The parrot replied puffing his chest. ''So yesterday evening. Though I would prefer it if he ran away.'' Raka sighed. "It''s ok. You would not be made a criminal. And they attacked you first anyway. But try to avoid this in the future. Or atleast avoid it if I am not around. Run away if possible. I am sure if you really wanted to run away, no one could catch you." Raka replied. Both the monkey and parrot were shocked by this. "Why are you so shocked? Do you usually arrest criminals who have done nothing wrong?" Monkey and parrot looked at each other. And then both nodded. "You speak strange words Sir Raka. Kind but strange. In the places I have travelled, such custom has not been seen. Other lands arrest beings such as us even when we have only defended ourselves." The parrot answered with wonder in it''s voice. Raka understood their circumstances. Being different had it''s problems. Even in Ilmentia they were treated as pets or rather belongings. So far, Raka had not made his association with the two animals known but anyone who saw them together would probably consider them as Raka''s pets. Not as two beings of an intelligent race. Yes, they belonged to another race and were not simply animals. That was the conclusion Raka had reached. In fact he had a theory. If energy existed everywhere, what enabled some races to use it and others to not? Like there were magical creatures who could use magic and the horned rabbits who could not. And the hint came from Lady Verina. Bones had the power to store magical energy. But magic could exist in many forms. Being able to talk could be due to magic. Being able to think could be due to magic. Maybe magic made you intelligent. Or maybe being intelligent allowed one to use magic. Maybe both were true. There were creatures like rabbits and wolves who were unable to store energy and not very intelligent. Then there were creatures like the parrot and the monkey who had the ability to think but did not or could not use magic. And then there were the magical creatures who could use magic. What Raka had learned about magic so far required one to have an intelligent mind. It needed imagination to work. It can be deduced that the magical creatures would be quite intelligent. If plotted on a chart it would probably show an evolution of creatures with the addition of magic. Near the top would be the various races which evolved from the ancient beings, like the humans, who could be classified as magical creatures also but with even higher intelligence. Which made it a very good possibility that the monkey and parrot were part of an intelligent race and were not simply animals as most people believed them to be. ''It makes sense.'' Raka thought. And the best way to prove that would be... "Identify"
[p=center]Annoying Parrot[/p] Class: Intelligent Animal/Parrot Parrots are native of Araya island and several species of the bird may be found there. They are known for their intelligence and quirky personalities. They are fast learners and often travel to other places in search of their aspirations. This parrot has learned 15 languages. This parrot aspires to be a singer but due to its bad music sense it has been deemed annoying by the others. Languages learned: Language of Ilmentia Island, Language of the Apes, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?, ?
[p=center]Imitating Monkey[/p] Class: Intelligent Animal/Monkey Monkeys have an unknown origin. They can be found inhabiting several islands. Intelligent and quick learners. There are several species of the Monkey. This particular species learns by imitating actions. They are also known for having a strange sense of humor. Skill: Nimble Fingers - A racial skill which allows for nimbleness of the fingers. Nimble fingers can be used in a variety of activities.
''It worked!'' Raka was surprised. ''And what a strange way of putting it.'' Raka read the description again. The classification system was a bit different. ''Also no where does it mention that they cannot use magic. On another thought, are the monkey and parrot really unable to do magic or simply have not learned it yet?'' In other games it was not uncommon for pets to have intelligence and so most players would have assumed that in any pet they got. ''But if they are intelligent races, could they be selected by the players as a race?'' Raka was brought out from his reverie by the rising sun. For a moment every eye watched the vibrant light reaching across the sea. Time passed and when the sun reached higher, Raka stood up and walked back into the city. Repairing his armor was expensive this time. Not only did it reduce 5 points in durability permanently, it also cost around 40 silvers to fix. A whole 20 silvers more than last time. "What did you expect? Your armor was torn into ribbons. What kind of fight did you get into to get it like this?" The blacksmith had pointed out. Not that Raka could argue at this point. He considered it lucky that it could be repaired at all. Armor with options were expensive. ''I will have to get one at some point. But for now I can still use it.'' Giving it to the blacksmith, he turned towards his next destination, the mirror shop. "Mirrors are speciality items owing to the difficulty in handling glass. Making it is an art and glass made by masters is highly coveted. In fact, it is so expensive that you could only find it in places like the palace and rich noble houses. Mirrors do not need such amazing glass. Applying a thick film of metal in the back of the glass is enough to create a mirror. However, samples exist that combine glass from the masters with the skill of master mirror-makers. Having an exquisite frame, these mirrors could be worth hundreds of gold. Legends exist of such mirrors being used as gifts in marriages between royalties in the olden times." The man who owned the mirror shop explained. Raka was being shown around to various mirrors hanging on the wall all around the shop. Mirrors of all sizes in all kinds of wooden frames. Most were exquisite with artistic designs carved into the wood. Some even had some shiny colorful stone or metal embedded into their frames. "So how much do they cost?" Raka asked pragmatically. "Ah what kind of mirror would you be looking for? Would it be for general use or would you be looking for twins?" "Twins?" Raka asked confused. "Ah yes. The twin mirrors are especially made so that they look alike. They are highly desired for use as communication mirrors. But those are really expensive." The man looked at Raka''s clothes as he said so. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. "Could you give me an idea of the range you have in your shop? Of the general mirrors please." "Certainly. This here is of a good size often used in households. The frame is not artistic but sturdy. The wood used is cheap and repairing the frame, when damaged, would not be so costly. It costs 40 silvers. Then here is another of the same size but the wood used is better. This is 55 silvers....." And so on so forth. ''This is difficult. If general mirrors cost this much, twin mirrors would be beyond my means.'' And he needed many of them. Raka wanted to gift a communication mirror to everyone he knew. With a few exceptions, he also wanted mirrors for using Peek. ''Let''s see, there is Lady Altia, Lady Verina, Neona, Cassian, Johanna, Jenny and...um oh ok one for Veronica too. Am I forgetting someone?'' Because it was a gift, Raka intended to give them nice looking ones. "Is there any way I can buy the glass mirror only and not the frames?" Raka asked. "Um...oh yes. We have good quality glass separately. You can choose the size and we will make it into a mirror. Would you be getting the frame separately?" the man asked. "Ah no. I intend to make the frames myself. Let''s see this household size seems ok. I would like about 20 of these. Also can I request a smaller size. Let''s see, same size as the lens used in eyeglasses. I would like about 32 of those." Raka said as the man noted down. "As this is such a big order could I also get a discount, if possible?" He added. "Let''s see sir. The total would come to around 12 gold. I can give it to you for 10 gold, no less." the man replied. "Alright, when can I expect them?" "Two days from now. I would like half the payment in advance please." The man simply smiled. Making a wry smile, Raka handed over 5 gold and the man handed over a receipt. ''Alright that''s done. Now on to my most difficult task.'' He heads to the library. Raka had almost decided to steal the books. To make it easier to run away he wanted to wait till the last day to actually steal them. In the meantime he was trying to look for more books he could steal. If he was going to steal, there was no point in trying to steal just one. His guilty feeling on the other hand was still creating doubt. He constantly kept making a mental note of the books he wanted and their locations. Haste would be required. But that severely distracted him from studying now. He kept reading the same page over and over again, while his thoughts kept horrifying him with images of prison and what else. In his desperation he decided to finally ask that old lady sitting at the reception. "Hello. Is there a way I can borrow the books?" Raka asked. "No." A crisp reply. ''Guess only one way left then.'' Raka sighed. "But you can buy the books as per your merit." "Um...what?" Raka was confused when suddenly small windows popped up over everything. ''I can use contribution points?'' This was in a word, odd. Books had all sorts of contribution points. His herbal medicine book was 25 points. Some books were in the range of thousands. Only a rare few had like 5 or 10 points. Raka got the herbal medicine book and approached the lady. "That will 2 gold please. If you decide to return the book, we would appreciate it being in the same or better condition. The money will not be refunded regardless." Raka simply handed over the money dumbfounded. His contribution points reduced to just 5. Suffice to say that Raka spent the rest of his time as far away from the magic academy as possible. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy had a drink and then relieved himself. He read the forums for a while. Most of it was still full of useless things about Raka and other players but a few posts caught his attention. People had started talking about how to stay healthy in the game. No one had been afflicted by any disease yet, except him. But people had started taking notice. Some posts were offering how to stay healthy advice. "Eat healthy balanced food, exercise regularly. Avoid bad uncooked food. Take a bath and stay clean.." ''Looks like someone simply copy pasted a health article over here.'' Someone had also suggested learning from the physickers. ''Good luck with finding them.'' No one had yet mentioned the herbal medicine skill. After a while he was bored. And then an image popped up in his head. Of a beautiful blonde girl in a dark business suit. Oops! Swamy had forgotten to ask her name. He smacked his head on the wall. Ring, ring! "Hello Christopher, this is Swamy. Are you free to talk right now?" "Oh hey. What''s up? Yeah I can talk for a few minutes. But if it will take long, I can''t. My movie is about to start." "Ah...you know I was thinking about the exhibition and you remember the girl we met." "Oh yeah! I couldn''t forget her if I wanted. She was a fine woman, wasn''t she? Wait, sorry, on the phone....Oh sorry I guess I shouldn''t talk about her right now." ''Is he with another girl right now? Die Christopher!'' "Um yeah...did you by any chance catch her name? It''s just that Amit was asking me about that and I forgot." Swamy made as much of a nonchalant voice as possible. "I think her name was Sophie. Didn''t catch her last name though. Sorry bud...gotta go, I am getting some really angry looks here.." "Yeah ok. Thanks. Laters." "Sophie... and the Aldcott company..." Swamy began a new search. Immediately a result with a photo of the owner along with his family popped up. It was titled Michael Aldcott, owner of the Aldcott Lifting Systems Company, with his wife Tanya and their children John and Sophie. It was quite an old picture featured in a magazine article and the children were quite small. Swamy stared at it for a few minutes before confirming. ''Yep. So she is Sophie Aldcott.'' And then he spent the next half an hour searching through the internet for information about her. People do not realize how much of an online presence they have. Soon he had found her birthday party pictures, swimming championship photos, her profile on a networking site and even a video or two of rock shows she had attended. ''I look like a stalker don''t I!'' Swamy sighed. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged in and made his way to the mirror shop. "Welcome sir. Your order is ready. Please wait a minute." The man in the shop said. Soon he returned with a small stack and following him came two burly looking people carrying two more larger stacks. All stacks were covered by cloth and Raka assumed paper would have been placed between the mirrors as well. ''Hope it fits in my bag.'' Raka paid the rest. "Thank you sir. Please come again." Raka walked off to another shop. This time he wanted some good wood for the frames. Thankfully Salmon''s training, even though unpleasant, was pretty extensive. Raka bought some good soft wood. They were less durable but they were easy to work with and didn''t crack as easily. "Thank you sir. That will be 5 gold." "......Please add the tools for sharpening, shaping and cutting as well. Oh and some super glue. Can I borrow your work bench please." What was the saying, revenge is expensive. Raka set to work. First, he measured the size of each household size mirror. Thankfully the sizes of all were same. He proceeded to bind two mirrors and made pairs. ''Ok this one is for me....let''s get the other one dressed up.'' He shaped the wood into planks and cut them to size. Then he made them into strips and glued them together to make one side of the frame. He checked the size again. ''Ok will do.'' He made more sides and super glued them all together. ''I should have bought square mirrors.'' Raka sighed. He put those sides with the mirror and measured again. Then he went on to smooth the insides till it was the perfect shape and size of the mirror. He took another plank and cut it into the size of the frame. ''This will form the back.'' And then glued the mirror onto the frame. ''Now for the hard part.'' He started making art. ''Like hell I can.'' Raka sucked in drawing stuff. So making intricate patterns was like science fiction. He did what he could do the best. He made a ruler and a protractor. Well the protractor was mostly a thin wood strip tied with string. He started making triangles, squares and circles. A combination of these resulted in weird designs all around the frame. ''It could qualify for modern art I guess.'' Raka cut through the lines he had just drawn, slowly and deliberately, trying to cut as close to the lines as possible. It was slow and hard work. Couple of hours later he finished cutting the last line and a kinda artistic mirror was made. But he was not done yet. He had made small circles in four specific places on the frame. He fit one of the smaller mirrors in one hole. ''Wonderful! A little adjustment and this would be lovely.'' Then he went on to fit 3 small mirrors into the holes. For the final one... ''Ah but first...'' He carefully split the small mirror into two. ''Nice, now I can peek!'' And then he fitted it to the last hole. A bit of plank and glue on the back side and he had a nice large mirror surrounded by four smaller mirrors. Just then,
You have combined an artistic frame to a good mirror making an artistic mirror. Enhanced artistic value. Your painstaking effort has been rewarded. Options added.
Blessing effect active. Options added.
[p=center]Artistic Mirror (Uncommon)[/p] Class: Mirror Artistic Value: 35 Options: Charm increase, Charisma increase, Beauty increase Weight: 2 Durability: 50/50 Made by: Raka An artistic mirror made by painstaking effort using good materials. As an added effect, after looking at the mirror the person shall have a temporary increase in their charm, charisma and beauty attributes. Exact increase varies. Long term use may raise attributes permanently. Magic has been applied. Bonding has been applied. Peek has been applied.
''Wha! What is this! Mirrors had such abilities?!'' For a few minutes Raka simply stared at the message. Then he shook his head. To say he was surprised would be an understatement. And then a glimmer of understanding dawned. But thinking could wait. Right now he had some work to do. For the rest of the day he carefully created more artistic mirrors. Combining different geometric shapes, he made different frames for each mirror but with the same basic design. He also made simpler frames for their twins without the additional small mirrors, which he will have to lug around. Raka just wanted to reduce his work even a little. At the end, he simply left his half of the peek mirrors as it is. He had another plan for those. The next day he set off from Thelmova. Chapter 27: Fellon Swamy looked at the rising sun and stretched. He had a lot of time in the holidays so he decided to get some exercise. He did little jumps and then started jogging slowly. Bangluru was a nice city. If you could manage to avoid the traffic which was mindbogglingly annoying and loud, you would find that the weather never goes too cold or too hot. Early in the morning, when there are few people on the streets and the gentle breeze is flowing, was considered the best time to enjoy this city. Swamy enjoyed the cool air as he jogged past constructs of man and nature. Buildings, houses, bus stops, parks. There were gentle stirrings as a few people did their surya-namaskar (rising sun prayer). Some brushing sounds as people used their brooms to clean in front of their shops. It was considered auspicious to do this before opening. Something to do with brushing away the filth and bringing in good fortune. Swamy wasn''t much of a religious person even though he had been taught how to pray. He liked to keep his house clean but that had nothing to do with good fortune. Not like he would refuse good fortune if it did come. Back home, he cleaned his place and showered. He switched on the tv and watched the news. "Yesterday night, a person was found murdered in the London suburbs. The police think that it may be a grudge related crime. The police has also said that it could be related to the vr game he or she was playing. No details have been issued as to what game the person played and all details regarding his/her identity is being kept classified. Though there are unconfirmed reports that the dead person is supposedly male. This is yet another report of players taking their aggression outside of the games..." Virtual reality games were supposed to bring about an era of peace. Giving a chance for directing aggression to useful things. Kill as many goblins as you like, lawmakers would be very happy. Even PK or player killing was ok as long as you kill in the game only. Supposedly. Some people, however, couldn''t become happy even with that. It was rare but there were still instances of people killed due to grudges or as part of revenge because of their actions in some game. It was a shuddering thought. Swamy checked the game forums. Things had heated up since the currency exchange system. Oh and he was at the top of the Hall of Fame. Also, someone had found the procedure for establishing a guild. The basic procedure was the same in the four islands with some differences. Mainly, it required buying/renting an office or registering a ship to make a guild. Furthermore there was a registering charge. And then an annual fee. For Ilmentia the registering charge was 300 gold. And the yearly fee was 50 gold. The cheapest was Dalmund with a charge of 250 gold and yearly fee of 45 gold. ''Making and maintaining a guild will be expensive in the beginning. But players will be able to exchange money. It would still be a little difficult for smaller size guilds.'' Not by that much though. Once you started sailing, even measly jobs paid a lot. Ofcourse, buying a ship was still expensive requiring thousands of gold. Renting an office was cheaper but it required you to have a steady income. Buying an office space was the most feasible choice, but space was limited. There would be too much competition for a few measly spaces. ''Enough to guarantee PK.'' As he had recently realized, there were no safe areas in Long Island. NPCs had the right to designate safe areas, so their homes, work places and even ships could be considered safe. But the rest was not a safe area. There might be penalties and guards might punish you if you turn a player killer inside a village or city, but the killing itself was not prohibited. Also npc''s could change their safe zones to unsafe zones. In the duel against Von Gult, it was only the interference of Lady Altia which had prevented death. ''Will the penalties apply if you die like this? Could players also dictate safe zones in their owned buildings or ships or areas?'' Theoretically, it seemed like it could allow a lot of abuse. ''Wonder how the game system would act against such kind of abuse or rather would it?'' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not that Raka had a right to complain. He was also testing the system limits. If he ever got caught he could not imagine what would happen to him. ''Let''s just assume it''s part of the 18+ gaming experience..'' Atleast he would not be around when that happened, if that happened. And as long as he kept a tight lip, it would never happen. Ever felt guilty about eating that extra cookie? "Character Window"
Character NameRakaRaceHuman
AlignmentIlmentia Island: Good
Fame50Age15
Life150Mana75
Strength29(+5)Agility19(+6)
Vitality10(+5)Intelligence35
Focus20(+5)Perception6(+5)
Endurance75Stamina55(+3)
Sensitivity1
[p=center]Titles[/p] Graduate of Magic Lvl 1 : Focus +5, Perception +5, Agility +3 Spirit of Warrior Lvl 1 : Strength +5, Vitality +5, Stamina +3 Shipwright Commission - Basic
[p=center]Equipment effects[/p] +10% movement speed, +3 Agility
[p=center]Skills[/p] Accounting - Beginner Lvl 9 - 75% Bonding - Beginner Lvl 7 - 62% Cooking - Beginner Lvl 8 - 2% Dance of the Fighter - Beginner Lvl 5 - 35% Estimation - Beginner Lvl 4 - 92% Flute Music - Beginner Lvl 5 - 15% Format - Beginner Lvl 6 - 34% Formula - Beginner Lvl 5 - 2% Identification - Beginner Lvl 5 - 6% Magic - Beginner Lvl 11 - 9% Mapping - Beginner Lvl 1 - 1% Map Reading - Beginner Lvl 1 - 1% Massage - Beginner Lvl 9 - 45% Peek - Beginner Lvl 2 - 23% Spell Writing - Beginner Lvl 8 - 12% Woodworking - Beginner Lvl 3 - 42%
*Tables are tentative and subject to change in the future. Fellon village was only about a day''s walk from Thelmova. But Raka was in no hurry. The weather was pretty good in the game too. And for a change he was travelling with companions. He stared at the monkey and parrot who were screeching and yelling. "Quiet down you two. You wanted to come along with me, so don''t make a fuss now." "Sir Raka, this addlebrained creature does not realize how difficult a journey I have undergone. He complains that his journey was much worse but I don''t see how. All he did was mutiny against the captain and get marooned. The island was even lush green and full of food. But I got lost over the sea. I flapped my wings with all my might, full of hunger and thirst. And nowhere to take a break. Finally, I found a ship but the people captured me. Ah I still remember the pain...my soul shudders..." The parrot said. "Don''t sing. Guess it''s time for lunch. Let''s go catch some food." The parrot and the monkey immediately ran off towards the woods. ''Guess I should catch my own food. It''s been a while..'' Raka entered deep into the forest. Here and there were a couple of rabbits but Raka was not interested in them. He stealthily made his way deeper. Much deeper. Among the animals and bugs found in the forest were Stags. Highly elusive creatures, they were really fast and very deadly. Some one had said that the probability of coming across a Stag was 1%. To actually kill it was like 0.01%. But the meat......ooh was a dish from the dreams. It became big news when a player sold off the Stag''s meat for a few gold per stone in Gurrow. In fact, a visiting noble had bought the rest of the meat at an exorbitant price and then invited the player to dinner. ''Would there be a better way to impress Guran!'' It was said that a person from the island was considered lucky if he ever got a chance to eat such meat even once in his life. Alas you did not encounter it just by wishing for it. You had to endure, be patient and most of all be silent. Qualities which Raka lacked at the moment. After searching for a long time and really deep in the forest, he finally found a Toughnut Boar. The next best thing after a Stag. Boars had really thick skin. Armor like skin which could even stop an axe. Raka looked, peering between the leaves, as he watched the boar move. He had to be careful. The slightest mistake now would result in his death. Or worse, the boar running away. He silently pulled out a stone from his bag and launched it. "Switch," he whispered, and the stone turned sharply and hit the boar from the behind. ''Ooh it sure looks pissed now.'' He pulled out another stone and hit the boar again from behind. The boar started fidgeting now. It must have felt like a fly sting but atleast it was annoyed enough and turned around. ''One more...'' And another stone hit, this time on it''s head. The boar charged towards the unseen enemy. Smash! It hit a tree head on, shaking everything and blowing leaves all around. Raka hit it again but from a different direction. The boar charged again and smashed into another tree. It felt like an earthquake. The boar shook it''s head. ''Yes...it is stunned.'' Raka ran full speed and attacked. He put his staff underneath it and released his air magic. The boar was lifted upwards and thrown sideways. It landed on it''s back with it''s feet still in the air. Taken from Royal Road, this narrative should be reported if found on Amazon. "Fireball! Fireball!" Two spell scrolls immediately targetted the boar''s now exposed underside. Two windows surged up with damage numbers but Raka was too busy running away to look at them. He ran straight towards a tree. The boar stood up and angrily followed. Just before the boar reached, Raka launched himself up and the boar went smashing straight into the tree. ''Again...'' Raka landed and went into action. Upturn the boar and fire as many fireball scrolls he could manage at the exposed underside. ''Shit! How much Life does it have?'' Raka ran again as the boar charged. "Earth shock" he yelled jumping aside. The sudden shaking interfered with the boar''s charge and it smashed into the tree again. Raka slipped his hands under it and "Fireball! Fireball! Fireball!...." He kept pulling out scrolls but the boar still didn''t show signs of dying. Raka ran again. ''I could have barbecued it in so much fire!'' The cat and mouse game continued for the next 5 minutes but finally the boar collapsed. Raka feared looking at it''s underside. It was charred as charcoal. Raka quickly closed his eyes and started embedding his staff again.
Earth magic has been embedded. Damage increases by 18. Durability increases by 100.
This was still a forest. And although he had managed to not draw blood, it did not mean other animals won''t be attracted to the smell of smoked meat. Soon enough a pack of wolves appeared. ''Come on!'' Raka smiled. Raka stood huffing and puffing as he held on to his staff for support. This was way worse than before. Maybe he was deeper into the forest but he had managed to attract far more animals. Rabbits, wolves even armadillos. But the worst were the bugs. Bee like bugs with stings as large as a man''s finger. He had never encountered these bugs before and each sting cost him 5 to 10 Life. ''Is it due to the area?'' Thankfully, it was not like an entire hive attack and he had lots of air and fire scrolls but it was still difficult. The moment he got distracted, one of the animals would take a piece of him. What probably helped him was his increased damage. His magic skill had reached Beginner level 11. In other games, that would have reached an Intermediate level. After catching his breath, Raka started dismantling the animals. The armadillos and bugs he kept as it is in his bag. But the problem was the boar. With a size larger than Raka himself, it weighed a ton. When Raka tried to put it in,
Item will exceed Bag weight limit. It cannot be put in.
Raka sighed. Another thing which had never happened before. Atleast this was expected. He did not even try to dismantle the boar. With it''s tough hide, he doubted his weak hunting knife would cut it. ''Why did I want to kill this boar again?'' Raka cut down some thin branches and found some vines to tie them together. Then he dragged the boar on them. ''Dragging it through the forest will be a pain!'' And in more ways than one. Now he couldn''t avoid other animals. He pulled but it didn''t move. "Come on....aaaahhh! Move!"
Your actions increase your strength. Strength increases by 1.
It took almost a couple of hours to get back on the road. Dragging a one ton animal through the rough forest floor is no joke. Especially if you get stopped by animals intending to kill you. Raka did not even care pulling out his staff. Burn them to death had become his new motto. "Huff huff huff...hah haah..." Raka slammed the road as soon as he reached it. "Ooh As expected from Sir Raka. You brought such a magnificent animal for food. Let''s cook it!" squaked the parrot. "Nobby, shut your mouth or I will never cook for you again." So a journey which should have taken one day...well, it ended sometime. Let''s just leave it at that. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Fellon was a really small village. Raka counted like 10 houses in total. There were no guard posts either. Raka dragged his wild beast into the middle of the village. People came out of their houses looking at this strange sight. "Hello, my name is Raka!" Raka shouted. "I brought this fine beast as a gift to Guran and the people of the village. Could someone direct me to Guran please?" Immediately a flurry of activity broke as people approached looking at the massive boar. It would be a feast tonight. But first, "Hello stranger. My name is Guran. What''s your business with this old man?" A man stepped forward. He had long white hair on his head and many wrinkles on his skin indicative of his long years. His tanned skin stood as proof to his long years in the sun. Even then his muscles were taut and his build was strong. His eyes still carried the sharpness and his hands the steadiness of youth. "Greetings. My name is Raka. I was referred to you by the Queen. She asked me to contact you to take the test for fisherman. Um I think she gave me a letter....here." "Hmmm...I see." The man read the letter and nodded.
Talk to Guran complete.
"And that is supposed to be an offering is it?" He pointed to the beast. "Um...she said I can only take the test if you like me. So...yeah." Raka smiled sheepishly. "Hey Guran, is it really for the village?" Someone asked. He was younger but had the same taut muscles and tan. "Seems so. I guess you better get someone to clean it and cook it." Guran replied. "Um...I can cook a little bit. I can help." Raka offered. "Hahahaha...that''s nice. Atleast you got spunk boy. No one ever bought a boar to become a fisherman before." the someone answered. "Alright I am Farun. This is my wife Fawna. Hey you people, help us out, will ya!" That night was a revelry. Even Raka played some music on his flute. It was not very good but atleast no one complained. Some people brought out some kind of drink. It tasted like coconut milk but a little sweeter. The party lasted all night. By the end people had fallen asleep where they sat. Some time in the night Guran had disappeared. Raka logged out. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The next time he logged in, it was around midday in the village. He looked around but couldn''t see anyone. He knocked on a door. A woman opened. "Hi, could you point me to Guran''s place?" He asked. The woman remembered him from last night and pointed him to a house. Raka knocked. "Ah you are here. Come in..sit down. So tell me why do you want to become a fisherman?" "Sir, it is a necessary skill for a man to survive in the sea. Also, I heard that fishermen get support to build or buy their own ship. I want to eventually go travelling in my own ship." Raka replied. "Seems like you have thought it through. Did someone tell you that becoming a fisherman is not that easy?" "Yes sir. The Queen warned me that I can only become one if the Sea Gods like me." "And I suppose you know about them?" Guran asked. "No sir." "Thought so. Well there is no point in my explaining about them. Let''s just get you to meet one." And Guran stood up. He picked up some stuff and headed to the door. "Come with me." A few minutes from the Fellon village was a wide beach. Boats were parked in a place before the sand began, far from the water line. Raka saw small ships being tied to a smallish jetty which extended out to sea. The beach itself was part of a cove. With a rock outcropping allowing only a small access to open sea, it acted as a natural barrier to storms and high waves. They headed to a small ship, probably designed to take 5 people at the utmost, Raka guessed. "Can you sail?" Guran asked. "Um..no." Raka replied sheepishly. "Alright then, follow my commands to a ''t'' when you are aboard. Understood." "Yes sir!" "Good then. Take the paddle and row." Raka and Guran rowed their ship out of the cove. Once they were clear, Guran opened the sails and it caught the wind and lurched ahead. He manipulated the sails a little and the ship relaxed back onto the water. Now it sailed true. "Do you know how our ancestors came upon magic?" Guran suddenly asked. "Um...I guess they just discovered it one day?" "No. They discovered it because they saw magic being used. Long before our ancestors discovered magic, creatures of this world used it. Even before our ancestors, magic was there." Guran paused. Raka waited for him to continue but he stayed silent. It wasn''t something Raka didn''t know though. They sailed for quite a while. The land had started shrinking. Raka could not distinguish the cove anymore. Some more and he would not see the land on the horizon anymore. Just then they stopped. Guran pulled down the sails. He got some equipment out from the hold. "Here, this is a dive helmet. I will pump in air from the ship through this connected pipe so you will be able to breathe underwater." Guran said. "Ok. So we will be going underwater then?" "No, only you are. And there you will meet the Sea God. After that you are on you own." "Ookayy. So much for instructions. What do I do when I meet this God?" Raka asked. "You can do whatever you want. If you live, come back up. If you die well, I guess Goddess''s children don''t really die. In that case make your own way to wherever you want. If the Sea God doesn''t like you, there is no chance for you to become a fisherman." Saying which Guran put the helmet on Raka''s head. Dive helmets are kinda constricting. ''Guess they have to be.'' Guran started pumping air and then signalled for him to go. ''Alright, here goes nothing!'' Chapter 28: Sea God The sea is a lonely place. The chances that you just jump in anywhere in the middle of it and expect to find a fish or any living thing for that matter is like one in billions, if not more. Most of it is just deep water. Hanging a few feet below, wearing a constricting dive helmet which had a smallish roundish glass to look out of and a pipe with his supply of air, waiting for something to happen, was Raka. Beneath the waves, it was quiet. Silent except for the feeling of water which permeated through his skin. His hands and feet kept pushing him down as his natural buoyancy pushed him up. It is a myth that people don''t float. Rather it is more difficult to stay submerged. Without his heavy dive helmet, Raka wouldn''t have managed to stay underwater for long before he got completely tired of moving his hands and feet. As such the weight helped him stay submerged, floating just a few feet below the surface. And it was very lonely. Raka tried to move the helmet around so as to peer outside of the small window and look around. But everywhere was the same. Water. The sea floor was too deep to be visible. His surroundings had nothing, significant or otherwise. No creatures of the sea intervened. It was just him and the time which were moving. Sunlight filtered in illuminating his surroundings. Sometimes, it would dampen as a cloud would pass overhead. Looking up, a wavy picture of the sky and the bottom of a boat were visible. Floating there, Raka had a lot of time to think. ''Hmm..this dive helmet is interesting.'' He examined it feeling all around with his hands. ''From what I can feel, this is the type which keeps the water from flooding in by having a constant pressure of air on top. So if Guran ever stopped pumping in air, I would drown.'' He was surprised by how he could simply analyse his deathly situation. Something thick, which felt like rubber, was pressing down on his neck, providing that constricting feeling. It was tight but not so much as to suffocate him. ''So this is what is stopping the water from simply rushing in but I don''t think this is designed to operate in much depth. What do the fishermen use it for?'' Even that got boring after a while. ''How long do I have to wait?'' Raka seriously considered heading up and talking to Guran. But he decided to wait a little more. Underwater, he could not really tell how much time had passed. He thought it was an hour but it may have been only minutes. There is this saying, time passes slow when you are bored. Atleast, there was still daylight. "Oh...come on...Mr. God...Miss Goddess, could you hurry up a little..." Raka waited and waited. And then he felt it. It was a strange sensation. But he definitely felt water getting thicker. ''Am I losing my mind?'' But if he could think then he can''t be going crazy just yet. He tried moving his hands and feet. ''Yep...it feels different. This feels like...jelly!'' Water had thickened and it made moving difficult. Ideally, he should have sunk into whatever it was. But the solid feeling water was actually stopping him in place. And gradually the water kept getting thicker. ''Oh shit...'' Realizing the danger, Raka struggled to get back up, but the thick water simply wrapped around him and he froze in place. No, not like chilled frozen. Rather like a statue, stuck in place. It kinda reminded him of that certain ill-natured magic, Bind. Except done with water. He was stuck making a weird pose. Thankfully, his view had not been affected. ''This better not be a joke!'' And then he waited again. Hung there in a weird pose. Whoever was doing this, was certainly in no hurry. "Maybe the God has a sense of humour..." Atleast inside the helmet, he could move his head. And then things started happening. It started getting darker. Like the sun was setting. Slowly darkness spread all around till he was in pitch black darkness. And then, it became so dark, Raka did not know if his eyes were open or closed. ''What the hell!'' Even the feel of water had faded, as his mind had got used to it. Raka felt like he was unconscious. And then out popped a huge green eye in his view. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" Every bit of hair on his body rose, every goose he had bumped, every organ inside jumped out of his mouth. But the huge green eye still stared back at him. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!" Have you ever jumped into a pool and found a great white shark saying hello. Or maybe that creepy tree outside suddenly having a corpse hung from it. Taking a train and finding a ghost on the next seat. Whatever you may have gone through, it was nothing compared to getting stared at by a huge green eye in a pitch black sea. Raka took deep breaths trying to calm himself down but it was no use. He was having the scare of his life right now and he couldn''t move a finger. He did the next best thing...he screamed his lungs out. "AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!" Some minutes of screaming later, he calmed down. All the while this huge ass green eye never stopped staring. Not even blinked. When his brain finally caught up with this situation, he started noticing other details. The green eye was not really green. A green hue was coming out, all around the eye, making the eye seem green. Raka couldn''t see what it was part of though. All he could see outside the glass was the eye. ''I am not dead...yet!'' He stared back at the eye. And it stared right back. What an impasse. And then he felt it. His hands could move. But his feet were still stuck. ''Exactly what am I supposed to do?'' Raka had never felt this out of sorts. Raka moved his hands and tried to touch, whatever was around. He felt something hard and smooth. It was like nothing he had ever felt before. And as he did, the thingy moved back. As it did, some more body parts came into view, all giving out a strange green hue. He still couldn''t make out what that part of body, was part of. Whatever this thing was, it was humongous. And yet, it simply turned it''s eye and stared. ''Really now...'' At the end of his wits, Raka remembered something. ''Maybe this thing is magical, so it must be intelligent....can I communicate...'' "Hello, how do you do?" Raka started. He waited to see if the creature would respond. But it did nothing. ''Now what?'' In absolute confusion, Raka tried waving his arms. ''Still no reaction. Do tell me what you want..'' Raka racked his brains trying to remember everything he could do. ''Sing?'' "Ring a ring a roses...a pocket full of poses..husha and husha and all fall down..." Nothing happened. ''Should I do some magic?'' Raka decided it couldn''t hurt to try. Well it could, but the risks were worth it. Not that he had any other option left. Raka closed his eyes and entered his colorful world. And then there was light. From being stuck in the pitch black darkness, he was suddenly bathed in colorful light. This time the colors moved like continuous waves not staying still for a second. ''Holy...how am I supposed to focus like this..'' The sea was an ever moving place. Thankfully, the colors close to his body were slow enough. He focused on the colors near his hand and transformed water. Afraid of casting any attack magic, he simply waved his hand. The water magic cut through the surrounding jelly like water, in various lines illuminated by the green hue. But the creature just kept staring. ''Now what?'' This was like getting stuck between a rock and a hard place. They simply stared at each other for a few more minutes. Raka hoped that it would get bored and leave but it never shifted it''s attention and kept staring right back. "That is creepy, you know." Raka said out loud not expecting any reply back. Then suddenly he had a brainflash! ''Could it understand magic language?'' From what Raka knew, magic language was an ancient language spoken by the ancestors of the various races. Over the many years, the sounds of magic language had vanished. Now, it existed not as a spoken but a written language only. Even then, it was a language of magic, whose words made magic possible. But hadn''t Guran said something like magic existed before our ancestors. ''Is it possible?'' All he could do was try. Raka transformed some water magic and using his hands, he wrote the symbols for water. The creature finally started moving. And suddenly the darkness lifted. Where it was dark, sunlight came pouring down from above. And it revealed a sight far more terrifying. Fear is not something which could be measured and hence there were no limitations in place. There is fear enough to kill. The thing which flashed in front of Raka''s eyes was green. A mountain had come down in the form of a sea creature. Forget the end, he could not even see the whole of it''s beginning. He had to move his neck, left and right, just to see it''s front. There were claws. Big as a couple of warships. And there were two. ''Alright I am going to die now...'' This was a Sea God. You do not fight a God. You pray to it. Pray that it lets you live. For not in a million years could a mouse ever hope to defeat a mountain. If it surfaced, it could become an island by itself. It was like the Great Barrier Reef upped and moved. This thing could eat a hundred ships and not even burp. And it was swift. It''s tremendous times humongous times huge (tremendous X humongous X huge) body turned around and swam away. Within minutes, Raka could not see it anymore. He did not even realize that his hands and feet could move now. He simply kept staring in that direction. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The journey back was a silent affair. Too many thoughts whirled around in Raka''s head. Guran also left him alone. He knew it was a life changing experience. So it was for Raka too. Almost suddenly, this world had taken a whole new meaning. Sea Gods were terrifying. And huge. And most of all, masters of magic. All the things which he had not noticed when he was pissing in his pants, came into focus now. ''How far can that thing do magic? It should be like a few kilometres atleast, judging by it''s speed...'' Even then, Raka was sure that he had not seen it''s maximum capability. ''And that size...'' Raka still shivered when he remembered that big green eye. It was the stuff of nightmares. He doubted he would ever forget that. And then he shivered again. Traumatic was one word for it. In the end, he wasn''t even able to see what kind of creature it was. ''It seemed like a big green lobster...'' He guessed. Back on the island, Guran invited him to his home. As Raka sat on the chair, Guran placed a goblet in front. "Drink this," he said. Raka took a big gulp of this dark golden colored liquid. "Ugh...." It was barka. Amazingly good for shaken nerves. Extremely bad on the tongue. A wave of warmth washed over him and he gradually stopped shaking. "So that was the Sea God, eh..haha.." Raka finally said. "Yes. Ruler of the seas. All beings of the sea are within his domain. And if he doesn''t like you, well..." Guran shrugged. "What is he though?" Raka asked. "I don''t know. He is ancient. This God was around before my grandfather''s grandfather. Rumours say that they are the masters of water magic. Rumours also say that we learned magic from them. Too many stories, too many legends. No one knows the truth. Not even us, fishermen. But all those who travel the seas know, never to disrespect the Sea Gods." Guran replied. "Sea Gods? There are more than one?" Raka was shocked. "There are many. Each of them rules over a portion of the seas. Sea Gods are extremely territorial. All the seas in the world are divided into their territories. The more powerful they are, the larger their domain. They don''t care much about lower beings but will not allow any other Gods to enter their domain." Guran said. "Then why do they kill humans who want to become fishermen? We are not Sea Gods?" Raka asked. "Why do you think? They claim all beings in their territory as their own. When we fish, we take from them. Moreover, humans are not sea creatures. We live on land. They cannot rule over us. So, they consider us as invaders." Guran replied sarcastically. "Hahaha...what a reason. But then why do let some of us live?" Raka was really curious now. Guran simply shrugged in reply. "Say Guran, what was it like with you? I wrote on the water using magic language? Do you think they understand magic language?" "Maybe. I don''t know. In my case, I simply prayed." Guran sighed. Raka was disappointed. He really thought that thing could understand magic language. Maybe that''s why it let the fishermen live. But the Sea Gods were far more mysterious, it seemed. "Um..you said they are territorial? How big is this God''s territory?" Raka asked. "All the sea between the four human islands." Guran replied. Raka was shocked. "Do you still want to be a fisherman?" Guran asked softly. "Let me remind you, that fishing itself is dangerous, even without the Sea God." Raka was about to reply but he stopped. He suddenly remembered that huge green eye again. His breath grew heavy as that nightmare played in his mind. "Is it ok if I take some time to think about it?" Raka asked. "Take as much time as you need." Guran nodded. Raka walked out on the streets and logged out. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy sighed as he came out of the game capsule. He walked to the loo and pissed. Afterwards he washed his hands and face in the cool water. Then he walked to the window and watched the hustle and bustle of a busy city. "Haah....this is what I needed. A dose of reality. What am I scared of...it''s just a game." Swamy made up his mind and walked back to the capsule. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Not much time had passed in the game, when Raka knocked on Guran''s door again. "Have you decided?" Guran simply asked. "Yes. I have." Raka replied. Guran looked in Raka''s eyes. It was not flinching like it was before. He smiled. "Follow me then." And Guran started leading Raka towards one of the houses. At the end of the row of houses, Guran stopped in front of one. It was a similar cabin made simplistically with wood. Next to it was a huge yard. The yard looked like some kind of storage for all kinds of wood pieces, splinters and other kind of stuff. But it didn''t look newly made. Most of it was broken off. ''Maybe they keep the waste construction material here, probably for reuse...'' Raka guessed. He seriously hoped this was not what his future ship would be made of. "This is one of the houses which were destroyed by a storm years ago. A dear friend of mine lost his life that day coming back from the sea. Perhaps it was symbolic that his house was torn down by a storm the same day." Guran said as he pointed to the yard. "Many years have passed since then and not one became a fisherman before you. Some did try though." Guran added. "It is a fisherman''s only legacy. To leave behind his memories, his house, to the next fisherman. Wishing them well, he prays for them in death. For not even his families have that right." Saying that Guran closed his eyes in front of the wreckage. Only then Raka realized the value of the few houses in this village. Their own families cannot live in them after they die as the right to live in this village belongs only to the fisherman. If their children became fishermen then they could continue living in the house. But if they don''t, they will have to vacate it for another. Each house becomes a fragile living symbol of the past. And this wreckage represented a symbol which was lost. "I know Goddess''s children don''t really need houses. But as a fisherman I would like you to honor our legacy. Build a house here, your own, which will then pass on to others." Guran said.
[p=center] Fisherman''s Legacy [/p] A fisherman lives a fragile existence. Each day could result in his death. Still, he has chosen to be one who lives off the mercy of the sea. Living a simple life, fishermen do not own many riches and their dwellings are also not their own. But they do their best and this feeling is passed on through their houses, to the next fisherman. Guran wants you to build your own house which will be passed on to others, as fishermen. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. Difficulty: E Reward: Temporary ownership of the house will be given. Intimacy increases with the villagers.
''Build a house?'' Raka did not know how to build a house. But it couldn''t be too hard, could it? After all he did give that virtual reality exam before. "I will try my best to build a wonderful house." Raka accepted. "If you could give me some materials..." Raka asked Guran. Guran nodded to the woods behind the wreckage. "The Queen allows us the entire woods behind. You can find the wood you want or pay others to bring the wood for you. We fishermen help each other in that way. A lot of us are good with woodworking, metalworking and other stuff." Guran said. "Ah that reminds me. Raka, fishermen build their own boats. Ofcourse, everyone will help. But not for free. If you cannot pay them, the Crown will pay them for you but then you will be indebted. You will have to pay it back either in coins or in terms of service." Guran added. "I didn''t understand?" Raka was confused. "If you cannot pay the money, you will have to work here for a certain number of years before your debt is considered settled. But most of us are here to stay so it doesn''t matter much. You want to leave though, so it would be better if you did most of the work yourself and earned enough gold to pay back whatever debt you incur. Fortunately for you, the materials you bring from the woods is your own." "Ah. But I have never built a boat before. I think I will need a lot of help." Raka became sad. Years of service? That sounded very bad. "Hmm...do not lose hope just yet. First, let''s determine how much help you need. Let''s take the building of this house as a test of your abilities. Also you can come everyday to help me fish. You can learn and I can pay you depending on how you fare. But all the fish you catch on my boat, remains mine." Guran offered.
You have been offered a job. Guran hires you to work on his ship as his helper. The pay will vary depending on work quality.
"I accept." Raka agreed. ''Maybe the fish would cost more than what he pays, but my goal is not to simply become a fisherman anyway.'' Raka also wanted to learn sailing and other related skills, which could not simply be bought with money. ''First is this house...'' Raka sifted through the wreckage not touching any stuff, just looking around to get a feel for what kind of materials were usable. Folded nails, broken timber, lots of wooden strips like things and some other stuff he didn''t recognize. ''Let''s just go with building a one room wooden cabin.'' Raka decided on a hut like structure. ''Let''s just draw a basic design first.'' Raka was not good at drawing but the ruler and other geometric tools he had made, helped a lot. Ofcourse, even before that he had to know what to design. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy looked at various simple house designs and read articles on how to build them. What kind of materials were used all around the world? How did they built their bases and all sorts of stuff? What kind of wood would be good? He was learning how to build a house. ''Beams...pillars.. hmm..'' He studied eagerly. And then when he would log back in, he would draw on the paper the kind of house he wanted. It was simple and yet, the mathematics of it were not. Swamy wanted to make it simple which would not take too much effort. But he also wanted it to be strong enough to resist high winds or even storms. Doing a shoddy job was just not his style. This was his routine in real life and game for several days. Swamy started with a simple one room hut design, but it slowly evolved into a large cabin, with enough area for a bed, kitchen and bathroom. Because he was trying to make it strong, it had become a bit larger than he intended. His design consisted of multiple criss-crossing beams to support the weight. Infact, if his calculations were correct, the roof might blow over, but the rest of the house won''t fall. ''With this I should be done.'' Swamy looked at the paper in his hand. He liked the house which he had drawn. ''Now the only thing which remains is finding the appropriate materials and then building it.'' There was one more reason why Swamy spent so much time doing this. Quests in Long Island never had fixed rewards. Even when their description said they did. All the quests he had done so far, supported this fact. Oh, you would get the normal reward but then if you did particularly well, it might open up a quest chain or some extra reward. Intimacy quests, especially, had no fixed rewards which meant depending on how well he did, it might actually help him more afterwards. Swamy stretched his arms. He had been sitting for too long. He went to the bed to lie down for a bit. As soon as he closed his eyes, a large green eye popped in his thoughts. It still scared him, but with time it had become less scary. He thought about that ''big green lobster'' as he called it. As he thought about it, a past memory of Lady Verina popped up. She said energy perception had both range and detail. Most people developed them at various rates. ''Raka'' was developing his range first. ''Could I also do magic from several kilometres away?'' Swamy was doubtful. ''I can still perceive a long distance. Atleast an entire floor, which should be several metres atleast.'' Swamy thought back on his experiences. Theoretically, it should have been possible to do magic if you could perceive energy at a distance. But when he had tried it before, it took a really really long time to gather energy for magic. Almost like the farther he was doing magic from himself, the more slowly the energy gathered. The perception of distance truly affected magic. ''But I can still perceive it, even if I can''t do magic. Would it become better if my Perception stat improved?'' From what Swamy could understand, Perception stat reduced the speed with which energy gathered and it should improve his ability to perceive energy. Doing various things in his colorful world improved the Perception stat. But he had only been able to increase his stat point by 1 so far. So there wasn''t any noticeable difference. Maybe if he increased it more, he might be able to reduce the distance limitation. ''Hmm....distance limit....'' Something itched at the back of Swamy''s mind. ''Distance limit...limit...removing the limit..'' He felt like he was close to understanding something important. But even after spending some time, the clouds didn''t clear in his head. It was almost like he got it, but yet didn''t get it. ''Oh well, it will become clear eventually. Maybe I am just tired right now.'' And he dozed off. Before he dozed off, Swamy looked at the date. The new term would start next week. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka logged in really early in the morning, game time. The sun had not risen yet. Now, it was time for the fishermen to head out. He made his way to the beach and found several ships being readied. He headed to one of them. "About time you got here. Pass me that rope and then push..." Guran said. Fishing was a really dangerous activity as Raka had found out. There was no fishing line and bait to catch fish. Not even nets. Fortunately for him, he was with an experienced fisherman or he would have died so many times. As the sun was about to rise, they came close to a fishing spot. These spots were where one had a good chance of finding fish. It seemed similar to how it was in the real world, as Raka found out from the internet. Maybe it was the food or the water but fish liked to gather here. Ideally, if it were the real world, lines would be cast out and nets would be lowered. Not in the game though. "Ready....careful now." A simple voice, no louder than a whisper came out of Guran. Raka had already equipped his staff and his hunting knife was lying next to his feet as he stood up gingerly on the boat. "Here they come!" A sharp sound filled the air as hundreds of fish jumped off the water aiming towards the people on the boat. Right, the people were bait themselves. Raka quickly swung his staff, hitting and knocking the fish as it approached. Guran was much faster, as he stood steady as a rock on this rocking boat. Yep, this was the Ilmentian method to catch fish. Knock them out! After knocking out quite a lot, the rest of the attacking fish simply ran away. The fishermen scooped out the knocked out fish, and pierced them with their knives before loading them on the ships. This particular fish looked like the piranha, with sharp teeth which could bite the flesh off the bones. And they could jump out of the water to attack. Raka got bit a lot, seeing as he was new to all this. Thankfully, his Life was enough and the other fishermen quite good at their jobs. ''Hah....still got bit about 15 times. Each of these suckers take 5-6 Life out with each bite...'' Raka sighed. Not that he could complain. These fish were near the bottom of the food chain. They were like easy monsters in a game. Almost the size of a rabbit, their meat tasted absolutely delicious. They were called ''pikemen''. No kidding! These fishes relied on their numbers and their teeth. A pack of pikemen, like piranhas, were dangerous. Guran had pointed out their tell-tale signs when they jumped out of the water. Keeping that in mind, they were easy to deal with. As soon as Raka saw them jumping out, he would aim his staff on them. Like rabbits, they attacked straight. Their bodies were generally slippery, well, being fish and all. But, seemingly they were quite sensitive near and on their heads. Hitting near there, caused them to spasm and pass out, without causing much damage. Anywhere else on their body though, weapons like staffs were useless. Have you ever tried to hit fish with a stick? But fishermen didn''t go for sword or spear like weapons when hunting the pikemen. Whole fish sold for more money. And these were relatively easy to deal with. "Galpagos!" This was a bit of danger, according to Guran. Galpagos was a boat sized fish, like sharks. They fed on the pikemen. And were a danger for the fishermen boats. Their teeth could snap the wood off boats. Their skin was tough as well, so fishermen couldn''t risk these galpagos hitting their boats either. Solution? First method is to run. If pikemen were still around, the second method wouldn''t work. Some people immediately donned the dive helmets and jumped in with spears in their hand. Fortunately, galpagoses and pikemen cannot use magic. Even then, fishermen cannot afford to take them lightly. And if you couldn''t kill a galpagos fast enough, its friends would gather. "Another one!" A shout rang out as another fin broke the water surface and other people signalled the ones in the water. "Snakeheads! Quick get the people out! Raise the sails!" These were the real danger. Or it was the start of where the danger curve began. Fish which looked like an eel but had heads like snakes. Or rather it was better to classify them as snakes in the first place, but they had gills and fins and stuff. Their size was three times the galpagos''s size. And most depressingly, they could do magic. They shot out water from their mouths. Usually the water would damage their opponents, but it could also be used to blow a hole in the boats or to snipe at people on those boats. In the water, their jaws would make mincemeat of anything. They ate the galpagos after all. Most terrifying perhaps was the fact that they had amazing aim. The fishermen who care about their lives, run! And these were experienced fishermen. The submerged people shot out of water and landed on the boats as the other people raised the sails and tried to run away. Maybe the snakeheads don''t consider the humans as a threat but they don''t follow us. Or maybe they are just lazy as they can easily get other prey instead. Or maybe they don''t like the taste of humans. None of the fishermen had any idea but it was fortunate that the snakeheads didn''t really chase us when we ran away. We ran away to another fishing spot. This time we caught eels. Eels like in real life, looked like eels. Just a bit bigger. ''What is up with magic making everything bigger? Can''t something become smaller!'' Raka had a thought. Normal eels were simple eels with a bit of electric discharge. But their discharges had a long cooldown time. Raka poked an eel with a wooden rod. After the discharge, he simply scooped it out with a catching net. "Lightning eels!" The one keeping watch shouted. These were a problem. Unlike the normal eels, which were black, these were bluish green. Like normal eels, they could also use lightning magic. Maybe it should be correctly called electrical magic. But this was a time before electricity. Anyways, lightning eels were like an upgrade over normal eels. Depending on the level of their lightning attack, you could end up stunned, or dead. Not to mention, the lightning eels were far more powerful than normal eels. Even their size was bigger. Thankfully they suffered the same disadvantage. Once their powerful attacks shot out, they needed time to charge up again. Just in the case of lightning eels, the cooldown time was shorter. Lightning was not classified as an element in magic, because it was not easy to control. Even common eels, could only strike all around them but could not aim at a particular thing. ''Maybe it would be called an AOE or Area of Effect attack.'' Which made lightning eels much more dangerous for they could aim within a range. Atleast the range was small. By the time the fishermen came back, merchants had gathered. And a fish market opened up right on the beach. These merchants would then supply the fish to various places. This was kinda the daily event. Raka helped out as well. Around noon... "Guran, do you need me for anything else?" Raka asked. "No." Guran replied. "Farun, I will be borrowing the tools like always." Raka added. "It''s ok. Just take care of them like always." Farun replied back. Raka had a quick lunch with monkey and parrot at their meeting place in the woods. And then went about collecting the wood to build the house. Everyday Raka did hard work from the time he logged in to the time he logged out. But it was worth it. He had started learning two new skills.
Skill Fishing: You can now learn how to fish. Fishing can provide food and other materials and helps in sustaining in the sea for long periods. Guran offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Impress Guran with your fishing.
Skill Sailing: You can now learn how to sail a boat. Sailing allows you to travel from island to island over the vast sea and to find adventure. A good sailor treats his ship and crew with care. Guran offers to teach you the skill. Requirements: Impress Guran with your sailing.
And just as he finished lunch, which included an orange, he finally got this message.
You have been cured of the disease Scurvy.
Disease Resistance stat has been created. Disease Resistance allows the body to fight known or unknown diseases and protects the body but requires that you are successfully able to fight and win against the disease. If you get infected and are successfully cured, you obtain additional resistance against that disease. Based on your efforts you get 1 point to Disease Resistance. The stat increases based on your actions. Scurvy Resistance attribute has been created. Scurvy Resistance: 70%
Raka liked the sound of this disease resistance. ''But to gain disease resistance, would I have to get infected by it?'' Raka sighed. Chapter 29: A Storm and a Boat Just like that, a week in real life passed. Raka spent all the time fishing and working on the house. And it was almost done. Thanks to some unexpected help. The twelve year old... "I am thirteen!" Right, so the thirteen year old son of Farun and Fawna, Fadan became unexpectedly interested in the construction. Maybe it was his frequent visits to their home to borrow tools or maybe it was his hard working attitude, but Fadan offered to work with Raka. As he was strongly built and willing to work for mere 5 coppers a day, Raka immediately hired him. Think it was exploitation? Well, most of the work was still done by Raka, as he could work for a lot longer than a thirteen year old. No doubt his high stamina came into play. But the help was highly appreciated. Fadan was strong, could lift the heavy wood, hold on to beams as Raka hammered them into place and did all the stuff he couldn''t have done without some help. So it was no wonder that he regularly had lunch with Raka and his two animal companions. "Why do you always call him monkey? Didn''t you give him a name?" Fadan asked. "Well...he has a name.." Raka replied. "Monkey, what''s your name?" Fadan asked. "Screech...keech kich keech!" Monkey replied. "Um..I don''t understand." Fadan was confused. "Nobby, translate" Raka said. "His name is Screech keech kich keech!" Parrot said. "....." It was not surprising that monkey had started picking up Ilmentian language. It was an intelligent being. It had picked up the meanings of simple words like ''food'', ''water'', ''enemy'', ''name'', ''food'', etc. Ofcourse, speaking was impossible. Special mention must also be made of Guran. Without his accurate, practical and most importantly timely advice this house would have ended up like the difference between math and engineering. "The foundations need to be dug the same depth. It''s not ok to only make the pillars level.." "You make the studs first. And then you join the other beams to it.." "Consider wind. It can come from any direction.." This was an island. A land-lubbering idiot like Raka could be pardoned for making mistakes. Not to mention it was his first time building a house of any sort. In most places, wind is not usually an issue if you are only building 1 or 2 floor houses. Islands are different though. Wind becomes a major issue. Especially, if you are likely to face sea storms and such. That said, wooden houses cannot be expected to handle tornadoes. Even brick and cement houses don''t manage to do that. Raka had made a design emphasizing strength anyway, yet he still modified it to make it even stronger. The changed design had started looking a lot like a bomb shelter, except made of wood. He made single piece wooden windows with no glass. To open you had to manually push the window out. A hinge type mechanism installed on the top of it would hold the piece of wood as it swung upwards. Then a latch would hold the wooden piece in place. To close it, all you had to do was move the latch and it would close automatically. If the winds ever got really fierce it would move the latch and the gaps would close automatically protecting the house. Raka made really thick doors and timber walls making sure that each piece of timber fit perfectly. And then he applied a mud paste on the inside and outside to fill in whatever tiny gaps remained. All he would have to do is apply this mud paste regularly and it should work fine. ''A plastic sheet would have been better.'' And then there were the crisscrossing beams which held the walls and roof together. Even then Raka was not satisfied. ''Should I build a safe room?'' Raka considered. And then he dug a hole about 8 feet deep and 8 feet wide in the inside of the house. He built wooden support around the side and covered the whole thing with a solid wooden gate. Looking like the surrounding wooden floorboards, it could act like a secret room also. ''Hmm...seems solid.'' Raka jumped on the gate. In regular use, the gate would remain closed allowing him to walk over it. A small yard in the back automatically formed where Raka kept his sorted building materials. After having used most of materials, he made a small picket fence all around it to make it a back yard. ''Hmm...the remaining materials can be used to build exercise equipment or something.'' Raka also thought about what to put inside the house. As a player, he did not need much. Most of the cooking he had done didn''t require utensils or many pots or pans. He wouldn''t sleep in the game, so he didn''t need a bed. Still he had made a chimney so it made sense having a small fireplace or kitchenette where he could hang a pot and make stew or something. ''Hmm...what else should I put in?'' Raka kept thinking while working diligently to finish the house. "Raka bro, a storm is coming!" Fadan shouted. Raka turned around to look at him and found Fadan staring at the sky. Raka looked up and sure enough many coiling black clouds appeared on the horizon moving swiftly towards the island. "You can tell its not simply rain?" Raka asked. "Yes. My father taught me when the black clouds coil like that and approach without any thunder and lightning, it means a big storm is coming." Soon enough, Raka heard shouting. "Fadan come back home quickly." Fawna shouted as she came. "Raka, you should come as well. This storm is going to be very big." "Um..Fawna, how can you tell how big the storm is going to be?" Raka was curious. "Just look at the size of those clouds. They cover the entire horizon. And the wind had died down since a while ago. It means a big storm is coming. It looks like it will reach soon. Now hurry up and come." "Um..I think I will stay in my own house. I just need to put in a a few planks on the roof and it will be done." Raka replied. "Alright then, hurry up. Don''t take too long or the wind would start blowing really hard. Fadan, let''s go already." Fawna dragged Fadan back home. Raka looked around and some people had started moving towards the beach. He saw Guran among them and shouted. "Guran, why are you headed to the beach?" "Gotta secure the boats before the storm hits," Guran shouted back. "Should I come too?" Raka asked. "No need. We will just hurry up there and get back soon." Raka hurried to finish his house as well. He put the last two planks in place and started hammering them down. ''I am about to finish my house and a storm comes. Is it simply coincidence?'' A little while later, he hammered the last nail in.
You have created a building. Your painstaking effort has been rewarded. Options added.
Blessing effect active. Options added.
[p=center]Wooden Cabin (Common)[/p] Class: Building/Residential Options: Increased wind resistance, Increased durability, Increased stamina recovery Weight: 20000/Immovable Durability: 10500/10500 Made by: Raka A residential building made by painstaking effort using cheap materials. Due to its robust construction it has increased durability. As an added effect, it also has increased wind resistance. Resting in the building will increase stamina recovery. Exact increases vary. This building is currently owned by Raka. Ownership may be transferred or revoked.
Raka looked at the messages in delight. It was classified as common but it was treated as a creation therefore it had a lot of options. Especially delightful was that his blessing effect had applied. Raka had found out that the blessing effect does not always apply. In fact out of all the mirrors he had made, the blessing effect had applied for only two. Raka felt that simply great efforts did not trigger it. There was also some factor of chance or something else involved. But as he was being happy, thunderous sounds rippled across the air and wind started picking up. Raka went to the back and shouted into the woods, "Monkey, Nobby! Come into the house!" As soon as he finished shouting, two animals quickly scampered into the house. Raka was surprised by their speed. It is said that animals are naturally more sensitive to changes in weather. Although, for simple rain and wind they would hide under a thick tree or large leaves or underground usually. When do they start running? ''Is the storm really that bad?'' --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The storm turned out to be as bad as could be imagined. Being a landlubber Raka had never seen a sea storm before, though he had heard about cyclones and tsunamis and stuff like that from the news. This time he was smack dab in the middle of it. And it was fierce. Winds howled loudly. Thundering sounds kept rippling amidst the pattering of rain. The noise was so loud even inside the fully covered house that Raka could only imagine how worse it was outside. A couple of water leaks had sprouted up from the roof. Raka looked at the dripping water sorely. But it was still at the dripping level so he left it alone. Repairs could be done after the storm and anyways most of his construction materials were outside. But that was just the beginning. While the storm raged on, Raka could not go outside. There was a distinct limit of activities he could do during this time. He decided to spend his time practicing. Perception was the key to reducing the time he needed to do magic. Raka sat down in a meditative pose and entered his colorful world trying to increase his Perception stat. He did various kinds of things, walking, running, checking and sometimes just enjoying the flow of colors. Time flew. Raka opened his eyes and realized that a couple of hours had passed. And,
Perception increases by 1.
''Phew. Was it really that long?'' Raka realized it was a matter of reference. In his colorful world, he just didn''t have a reference of time. See, in those old martial arts novels and books where the protagonists meditate for like months at a time, was really due to the lack of this reference of time. Our body clock adjusts itself with the time our senses experience. Blowing wind, moving sun, even looking at the clock adjusts our body clock. An interesting experiment could be made by most people. See, most people who have sight rely on their sense of sight to adjust time. So when you close your eyes, you lose your reference of time. Most people would probably be able to estimate like 30 seconds or even a minute with their eyes closed. But as the duration becomes longer, like 5 minutes, the ability to estimate goes hay wire. This is because we rely on our sense of sight so much. A blind man would fare better in this experiment as he relies on his sense of hearing to adjust time. When he loses his hearing, the same thing will happen. Well, this would only be temporary though as humans have this innate ability to rely on other senses when one of them is cut off. It requires a bit of training but nature is a great teacher. However, the same result can be experienced when your senses are shut off. Your body is unable to adjust to the sense of time. It could be said that without our senses, we could never be able to tell time. Ah we could still feel hungry, horny, pain, etc which could be used as a different kind of time reference. The martial artists, saints, swamis, etc who meditate for months, atleast in the stories, usually don''t feel these sensations, so for them the reference of time is extremely skewed. They would think it was just 5 minutes but 5 months may have passed. Raka just felt this very same feeling right now in the colorful world. Ofcourse, there was still the matter of one being unreal and the other being virtual. ''Guess neither is real!'' Raka could still hear the howling and the thunder outside and there was still time before dinner so he went back to practice again. Before closing his eyes, he looked at the dim light provided by only lamp in the house. Both of the animals had curled down to sleep, occasionally twitching a feather or tail. Who knew the storm would last so long! Shit went down the third real day of the storm. Third day in real life meant the storm had been blowing for above a week in game already. Luckily for Raka, it was the day he logged in. SMAAAAAAAAAAAAAASH! CRAAAAAAAAASH! Loud sounds came like several trees had crashed at the same time. "What happened?! Should I go look?" He asked to no one in particular. But it was still howling outside. Rather the howling seemed to have become louder. As he was thinking it over, loud knocks came on his door. Raka carefully opened the door and peeking outside, found several people huddled close together bent to resist the strong wind. The howling became loud screaming and severe winds rattled the insides of the house. "Let us in, please!" Someone shouted and Raka quickly opened his door as much as he dared and let them in. Several completely soaked people entered. It was tough closing the door and several men had to help him before the door shut. Only then the screaming went back to the tolerable level of howling. Thankfully, Raka did not have anything in the house or it would have been blown off and smashed to pieces already. "Farun, Fawna, Fadan! What happened?" Raka recognized these people as the fishermen. "Where are the rest?" "Ah Raka! Thanks for letting us in. Damn! Damn this storm! Our houses broke apart. We got holes the size of boulders on the roofs. And one house completely crashed down. We had been sheltering ourselves in the neighbors house but it''s roof blew away just now. Fearing that the house would fall down all of us made to your house. Thank the Goddess you were home. If we had to make our way to Guran''s it would have been scary." Farun spoke nonstop probably trying to cover his fear with incessant words. Guran''s house was the first one towards the road while Raka''s was the last one. Royal Road is the home of this novel. Visit there to read the original and support the author. "Oh! Guran''s house is still standing? What about the other houses?" "Guran''s house is new. It is stronger. All the houses in this row have already fallen. Some of the houses are swaying on that side too. Some of them might have evacuated to Guran''s already. But I think some are still trying to save their houses somehow. I expect they would be sending the women and children either here or to Guran''s shortly." Farun said. "Oh! But where are my manners. You guys are shivering....Everyone! Get close to the fire. Get out of those clothes before you get sick. Give me your clothes and we can make a screen for the women." Saying which Raka made the fire a little larger. He hung a rope from the fireplace to the opposite wall where all the clothes would be put and the men and women separated to undress. ''If this was not a serious situation, it would have been too funny!'' Raka thought as the only one dressed. "You should also take your clothes off to get embarrassed like the rest of us!" Fadan said to which the women on the other side giggled. "Ah no...I am not wet!" More giggling. They listened to howling winds in relative embarrassing silence. Having nothing else to do Raka started practicing again. Some time later his stomach rumbled and he lost focus. By this time, some of the people had got partly dressed. "Um...I got meat so we can make a stew if you are hungry. Ah but the problem is..." Raka started but some more giggling sounded out. "It''s ok, I am almost dressed and I am sure Farun will knock the teeth off anyone who tries to peek. So give me the meat.."Fawna said. For some reason the women giggled again and Farun ''humphed''. The men smiled. Fadan stared at the others with a blank face. "Um...here you go. And here is the pot.." Raka gingerly handed the ingredients and the pot over the screen. ''Uh...don''t look...don''t you dare look.'' While the food was underway, Raka thought about this situation. If this was all related then this quest did not deserve to be an E rank quest. But maybe it was not. In any case, if his house blew over, it wouldn''t really matter. ''Ah I can check!'' "Identify"
[p=center]Wooden Cabin (Common)[/p] Class: Building/Residential Options: Increased wind resistance, Increased durability, Increased stamina recovery Weight: 20000/Immovable Durability: 7500/10500 Made by: Raka A residential building made by painstaking effort using cheap materials. Due to its robust construction it has increased durability. As an added effect, it also has increased wind resistance. Resting in the building will increase stamina recovery. Exact increases vary. This building is currently owned by Raka. Ownership may be transferred or revoked.
''3000! It lost 3000 durability!'' Raka was shocked. The storm had lasted more than a week game time already and it showed no signs of passing. ''How long does a storm last in this game?'' "Farun, how long is this storm going to last?" "I don''t know. It is already stage 4. The worst of these storms could last a month." Farun replied. "Stage 4? Storms are ranked? Could you tell me more about it?" "Ah storms are ranked based on their intensity. Stage 1 to 3 storms only last a few days. But stage 4 to 6 could last weeks." "So you have six stages of storms. I guess stage 6 storms would be called devil storms?" Raka asked. "Hahahaha...no. These stages are the ones which we can survive and measure. Devil storms are something of a trip to the underworld with no chance of coming back. Anything worse than the stage 6 is already hell on earth. Very small chance of survival." Farun said. The others nodded in agreement. "The stew is ready!" ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy finished jotting down his notes as the class ended. Boys and girls filed out the classroom in search of food and forage. The new term had started the day before yesterday but some of the faces looked as bored as they were in the middle of the term. The reason was not hard to guess. The storm which was supposedly affecting Ilmentia was also affecting the weather of the other three islands. Talk about massive weather! "Hey Swamy, you coming?" Rajan asked. "Yeah..." Swamy stood up as well. The mess hall was louder than usual. The sky was overcast so sitting outside was not preferred. Hence the mess hall was packed. "No seats here. Should we take our lunch and go back to the classroom to eat?" Rajan asked. "Yeah~" we agreed. Well we were not the only ones to have this idea. A lot of people were in the room already. "Let''s sit down there." Sneha pointed. "Dude...what is up with this weather!" Rajan complained. Somehow everyone looked outside to the black clouds but no one thought Rajan was complaining about the real world weather. "It''s almost a week already, that I haven''t been able to log in without getting soaked to the skin. All the shops are closed and there are no people on the streets. Even the animals have gone into hiding. Sometimes, the wind is so strong, I feel it will blow me into the sea..." "Well what do you expect in this kind of weather. I tried logging in yesterday but it was raining so heavily that I couldn''t see more than a few feet in front of me. I left immediately." Manish added. "I am bored." Sneha complained. "Without the game, I have nothing to do. Rajan are there any good movies? Rather do you know when the storm will end?" "No clue. The forums have been asking the same question. Some of them have even emailed the company to vent." Rajan said. "Swamy, what have you been doing?" Himali asked. "Oh ...I got a house. So I have been practicing and stuff." Swamy leisurely replied. "House? You mean someone''s giving you shelter! Lucky guy!" Rajan exclaimed. "Ah....yeah..." Swamy left it at that. "So does anyone have anything new?" Sneha asked in her bored voice. "Oh...I got some information. Had been holding it till it was confirmed but I don''t care anymore." Himali started. "It seems like there is going to be a mission to Khardoum. The Queen is going. And then there is a rumor that the Queen will visit the dwarvish lands afterwards." "Really!" Sneha exclaimed. "Hmm...wait I have heard of this...." Rajan started looking at his cellphone. "Ah...yes the Four Island Conference. " "What''s that?" Sneha asked. "The rulers of the four human islands regularly meet to discuss things. This is called the Four Island Conference. They conduct it in each of their islands in turn. This time it is being held in Khardoum. The players in Khardoum have heard this rumor. There is nothing about the visit to dwarvish lands though." Rajan added. "Hey, the pirates quest Raka was in had dwarves in them. It''s not related to that incident, is it?" Himali quickly figured it out. "Ah yeah I remember. Could be." Rajan added. "Hey, is it possible that we can somehow get this quest?" Manish asked. "I hope so. I have trying to get some more information about it but this stupid storm has come!" Himali replied. "Hahaah..yeah! So we are back to square one. When is the storm going to end?!" ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka sat down in between many people as they laughed and talked while complaining about the storm. But that was only on the outside. Heaven knew that half the time they spent praying. Raka''s house lacked any sort of amenities. But still, surviving the storm for 3 weeks game time, it had the dubious distinction of being a survivor. Not that it did not suffer damage. With every blow of the wind, everything creaked and groaned. With every shower of rain, a new place would start dripping. But it had held. Unlike the other houses. The house population had increased accordingly. It was fortunate indeed, that Raka still had food enough for everyone. Without being able to go out, the people would have starved. Or worse, killed parrot and monkey for food. But the meat Raka had collected on his way to Fellon, had survived. The bugs, Raka found out, had a larger shelf life than the animals. He had preserved the animal meat by applying salt and spices. However the bugs he had left whole. One of the villagers was a better hunter and knew dishes made with cooked bugs. The trick was to get rid of their outer skin which was tough and their poison, if they had any. And they tasted weird. The rest of the time he practiced his Perception. He had already raised his Perception stat by 20 points. However in the same time, the durability of the house reduced by another 7000 points. With only 500 durability points remaining it wouldn''t last more than 3 or 4 days, maximum. Just as it felt like this storm will be the end of everyone, it ended. A bright sun shone down from clear skies. People moved out of their shelters and basked their tired eyes in the sunlight. And offered a prayer to the divine Goddess for allowing them to live another day. And people also saw the carnage. Rows of trees uprooted. Houses smashed to pieces. Boats tossed like balls. Ships hammered by menacing waves. Unlike the capital and the other villages, there was no wall surrounding Fellon village. Well, it was deemed unnecessary ''cause like it had just ten houses. Eight of those houses had fallen down. The one''s that remained, Guran''s and Raka''s, felt like they would fall down if someone blew on them. Walking down to the beach the devastation was even worse. The cove was a major part of protection for the fishermen boats and ships. Today, it had turned out to be the killer. The ropes had broke apart and the winds and waves smashed these ships onto the rocks. Wood vs Rock was not even a contest. The result was in smithereens. Every single boat or ship had been destroyed into pieces. Tears flowed as eyes looked upon their misery. Fishermen were not rich. Even real world fishermen are not rich. Their livelihood depended on these ships. Without them, what would they do? Farm, cut wood, move? Fellon''s fishermen were not that bad though. They had some real skills. Metalworking, woodworking, cooking, hunting, etc. And it''s not like the royal support would just disappear, right! ''They will be fine, eventually.'' Raka looked and found Guran. "Guran" Raka greeted. "Raka...seems like your house is still standing." He smiled. "Yeah....well..it wouldn''t have lasted another day, if the storm hadn''t stopped." "True...very true. But it survived. You built a good house. You should be proud."
Fisherman''s Legacy complete.
"Ah I remember, I promised you that we will build your ship. But the storm arrived. I am sorry but it will have to be postponed. We have to help the others build their houses." Guran said. "It''s no big deal. I can wait. I will help as well." Raka said that but he felt a tinge of sadness also. Right when he had managed to find a way, out comes a storm. After working hard through the day, the people all gathered in the center of the village across a huge fire. There were several animals being roasted on it, courtesy of the people who went hunting. The tragedy of the day had become a revelry by the night. The celebration of still being alive. The celebration of being with their loved ones. When it ended, most people retired to one of the two houses still standing. And there were a few who collapsed right where they sat after getting drunk. Raka also returned to the house. But he spent the night practicing. Increasing the Perception stat was now getting difficult. Doing the same things was not helping him and he was running out of things to do. Raka had lost sense of time and when he opened his eyes again, the sun had risen. ''Holy...I better log out!'' He had managed to play all night again. But just then, he heard clopping of hoofs. ''Horses?'' Raka stepped out and found men riding horses and many horse carts coming from the road. The movement was slow but steady and the horse carts were full and heavy. Hearing the foreign sounds, people had all awoken and come out to watch. Everyone headed towards the arriving people. "Guran, what is going on?" Raka asked. "I don''t know but we are about to find out." The lead horseman approached the people. "Who among you is the leader of this village?" the horseman said. "We have no leader. It''s just ten houses in here. Er.. just two now I guess. But if you have something to say I will be willing to listen on behalf of everyone," Guran replied. "Ah...well we will talk in a bit." And then the horseman brought a paper from his bosom. "The Queen of Ilmentia thus decrees. All fishermen shall be compensated for their loss. Their homes will be repaired and rebuilt. Their boats will be repaired or built anew. For this purpose, the Queen sends fifty men including ten shipwrights and various materials. May the Goddess bless the benevolent Queen!" Everyone cheered when they heard that. Even Raka cheered. "Katrina sent us hope" Guran said. "Oh...yeah. Um who''s Katrina?" Raka asked. "Oh she''s my daughter. Didn''t you tell me you met her in the palace?" Guran frowned. "I did?! I don''t remember meeting anyone named Katrina. I am sure I would have remembered." "Oh I get it. Hahahahaha..." Guran laughed. "Um..what?" Raka was totally confused now. "It looks like you really came without knowing. Katrina is my daughter and also the Queen of Ilmentia" Guran smirked. "Ah...eeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeehhhhhhhhh!!!" When Raka came out of his shock, he smacked his head. ''Idiot! Idiot! Idiot! Stupid Idiot! Why didn''t I realize it sooner?!!'' Need a ship name What should be the name of Raka''s ship? Please suggest some good ones. Relate to Raka''s character or his journey so far, or maybe hopes for his future. Thanks. The one''s I have thought of so far (really ridiculous but...forgive my lack of imagination) This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.1) Altina (Altia + Verina) 2) Green Eye 3) Dancing Squid 4) Lost Adventure 5) Flying Fish ..... Chapter 30: Captain With the arrival of people from the capital, the villagers of Fellon celebrated. Not only had the Queen ordered compensation but also free rebuilding of their boats and houses. For the fishermen that meant a great deal. However, whether the Queen was so generous or rather was just helping her father indirectly, was still in doubt. In any case, it was certain that not many people knew about the relationship between Guran and Queen Katrina. Otherwise wouldn''t he be considered a noble or a person of importance? Rather it would not be unusual for people to call him ''Lord'' or something like that. But as far as Raka had seen, there was nothing like that. Ofcourse, he was considering things like it happened in real life history. This was the Ilmentia in the game of Long Island. Who knew how it worked in here! "Guran, you are the father of the Queen?" Raka still had a few doubts. "Yes, don''t I look like I can have a daughter?" Guran sounded amused. "Ah no...not that! It''s just that...shouldn''t you have become a noble or someone of importance? You are the Queen''s father you know!" Raka said. "Hahahahah.....A noble...me! Well, even if I could, I wouldn''t want to. I like my free life." Guran smirked. "What do you mean by if you could?" Raka asked. "Ah..that was funny. You may not know this but even if you are a relative of the Queen, you cannot become a noble. Oh, she could give me an important post but a noble! Would the noble houses really allow that?! Even now, they don''t like commoners as rulers! Those snobby farts only follow because this was a law made by the Oracle and they dare not offend her!" Guran grumbled. "Oracle? Guran, do you know who or what the Oracle is?" Raka asked immediately. "Ah I don''t. I only ever heard Katrina talk about it when she became Queen. From what I heard, she is a very ancient person...very old...very powerful. Considering that she was the one who made the law, you can guess how old she is. Apart from that, I don''t know. Rather, I am not interested. Learn this by heart lad. You do not want to know about people way powerful than you. Otherwise you will never get a good night''s sleep." Guran advised. While Guran went ahead to talk to the leader of the men who came, Raka thought to himself. ''Very old? How can she be this old? Is she even human then?'' But then how could she be so old? ''Ah well, some things will become clear in time. No point thinking about it!'' "Raka, come here for a bit." Guran''s voice reached his ears. Raka lifted his head and approached Guran, who was discussing things with the leader, who turned out to be a guard captain. "Raka, could you show me the designs to your house? If we are going to build everyone''s houses, it''s better to make them a bit stronger. I am thinkin'' we could make it like your house, with some changes." Guran said. "Sure. Though would the other''s agree?" "I doubt anyone would be foolish enough to not agree. Hahaha..." Guran smirked. And just like that, with no quests and no money paid, Raka became the chief designer for the village. With some changes. It was going to be long and hard work, as many houses had been trashed completely and needed to built anew. Even Raka''s and Guran''s houses, the only two survivors, had been stripped down to their foundations to be checked for damages. They were also being rebuilt. Raka had taken around 2 weeks in game time to build his own house. But with lots of people present, this speed went way up. They were building a house every 2-3 days. In fact, Raka could only work 1 of those 3 days, owing to his real life. But as he was the chief designer, his work was quite limited. Not to mention, most people wanted to customize their houses their own way, so Raka''s role got a little more diminished. But Raka didn''t care about that. Honestly, he would have been just as glad, if they didn''t give him a house at all. Cause what he was truly interested in were the ships. The shipwrights built the fishing ships according to a standard model it seemed. They did change it according to people''s requests but the major part of the ship/boat, that is the hull, was the same. Raka couldn''t have that. He wanted a larger one for himself. And most importantly he wanted a ship to sail the seas. Fishing boats are ocean going vessels. But by its nature, they are not designed for long journeys. For example, their cargo area is smaller so they cannot store much supplies for these journeys. Also it is not covered to protect from rain. Most of their work is catching fish and bringing them home after all. Their operating range does not need to be too big. Raka decided to request his ship to be built different from the others. But how could life be so simple as that. ''Oh no! It''s Salmon! Have all the shipwrights in the capital died and made Salmon their chief or something!'' Raka sighed. "Salmon, long time no see. How have you been?" Raka cheerfully approached. "Hmmm...who are you?" Salmon asked. "Ah you kidder...aren''t I the one who worked for you before?" Raka said. "Oh..so you''re the pipsqueak who left my employ for bountiful pastures, or what did you call it, better work conditions?" Salmon quipped. "Well, that was the past and this is the future you know. Anyways you are building ships right? I am willing to help for free, so please build my ship a little different. Please." Raka said. "Oh...and why do I want a useless person like you working for me, even for free! Hmph! Why don''t ya build your own ship, will ya...Now don''t bother me. I am overworked as it is." ''Typical Salmon! Oh well, I have other measures too.'' But these measures would have to wait for a bit. Everyone was just too busy. The shipwrights were even more busy. A house could be built in 2-3 days but building ships required people with skill. Just 10 shipwrights could only manage to build a small boat in that time and a fishing ship required almost a week. The villagers were skillful, but they were also few. Most of the guards who came were like unskilled labourers. The could work well under direction and they were strong but building ships was out of their league. Raka observed the buildings being put up and gave some opinions here and there but most of villagers were too capable. With just the design, they could understand a lot. So he mostly watched the shipwrights work. Even looking is learning as they say. The work went on for a long time. Almost a week passed in real life, three weeks in game. For Raka, it felt that everything was done too fast. All the houses were ready and people started to move in them. Like it was ordained that it would finish this day, merchants arrived selling all sorts of stuff. In short, the people settled in their new homes quite comfortably. The storm had almost become a memory. But the ships were still being built. In the time, only 3 ships had been built alongwith some 4 boats. Oh you may ask, why people kept boats if they had ships? It is because not all fishing ships were moored near the shore. There were two reasons for it. One, it would occupy too much space on the beach. And two, the bottom of the boat would be constantly scratched by the sand and gravel in the low draft. It is made of wood after all. It was a common practice to actually anchor a ship in slightly deep water and then tie it up with ropes. This was also a reason why docks had piers and jetties which extended out to sea. But there was no dock in Fellon village, so this method was in use. The same was also used in real life as Raka had found out. In fact, except for repairs and loading/unloading, most ships, big or small, were not brought upon the shore if it could be helped. So the boats were needed. And looking at this slow progress, Raka could only sigh in impatience. ''Oh come on...hurry up!'' Time passed, crawling like a snail. Raka resumed his practice again, in his newly refurbished home. This time he had added a few conveniences like a bath and toilet. Do not ask what happened before! Hopefully it never happens again. Oh, and if he already did that much, there was no point not having a bed either. Or some wardrobes. So he bought those too. Did it add anything? Wardrobes are storage spaces but they don''t add onto the player''s ''Bag''. They are independent. Actually, there was no ownership of them either, not that ownership meant security. Raka''s house could be infiltrated by just about anyone without his permission. ''How did that banning someone magic work again?'' Perhaps he needed to work on making a lock. ''Maybe the banning thing can only be done by npc''s?'' Though Raka doubted that. ''What kind of magic did Lady Altia use then?'' Raka wondered about how she used her house as a storage space. And it seemed to be some sort of magic. An advanced magic even, as normal Fellon villagers did not seem to be able to use it. The bed which Raka had bought did not have any options. ''Maybe, if I had made it myself...'' But he was not really inclined in making such things. He wasn''t even going to use them. Rather he spent his time trying to increase his Perception stat. When he got bored with sitting, he would go to the backyard and work on his basic forms. Raka had also made a dummy, like he saw in the battle school to practice hitting. And some heavy stones became weights for him to exercise. When he got bored with that, he went hunting. Increasing the Perception stat was slowly becoming difficult. The reason was that he had run out of things to do. How many things can you do in a world full of colors with nothing in it? ''Oh...there is also up and down...'' Raka suddenly realized. Perception had range and detail. Raka knew his range would improve before his detail, initially. He could sense everything from the start of the village to almost the beach, with him as the center. But there was also up and down. After all, perception should be a 3 dimensional thing, right? But how do you go up or down? It was like standing on a road wondering what was above in the sky and below the ground! ''Is it simply based on my imagination? But I use my legs to get from one point to another in this world? Should I imagine stairs? Or should I imagine flying or burrowing?'' Various ideas popped into his head. He started trying each of them one by one. At first, he failed. But soon things started working. In fact, all his ideas eventually worked. ''So my movement is also based on my imagination...'' Raka delved deep into the ground. Correction, he delved deep into the thick mass of colors below him. As soon as he dived, the mass of colors thickened like blanketing him over. It was so thick that if he lost focus for a second, he wouldn''t be able to tell which direction was up. Like the entire world had shifted instead of him. Like that classic movie ''Inception''. Soon he started feeling fuzzy. ''Not good...'' Raka immediately started making his way back up. Soon, the colors thinned down again and he found the now familiar energy forms of the roof and the room. ''That was scary..'' Again it was the lack of reference. Without gravity or seeing things standing upright, how do you say which way was up! Like that carton box which does not have the ''this way up'' sign. This lack of reference actually plays tricks with the mind. Even if he managed to delve deeper, he wouldn''t know if he was going down or just going in circles. ''Next, let''s try flying up.'' Raka immediately imagined himself flying up like a plane. Soon, he passed above the roof of his house and soared up. Maybe because the air was a rarer energy medium but the colors did not thicken. The perception of nearby objects, probably trees, faded as as he continued to rise higher and higher. Suddenly, Raka felt ripples. Ripples usually meant that something is disturbing the colors, usually some sort of movement. A vague, colorful figure passed causing ripples to flow in all directions. It was quite some time after that the ripples settled down. ''Birds?'' Raka surmised. Raka opened his eyes and laughed.
Perception increases by 5.
''5 whole points!'' Raka was excited. It seems his reasoning about the Perception stat was a bit wrong. It was not only due to the things he did. It was also due to the things that he discovered he could do. ''Understanding...that''s it! It increases with one''s understanding about their energy perception.'' Ah, but even with so many increased stat points, he still could not do free magic. ''Am I doing something wrong? According to my research, this stat should allow me to do free magic.'' But so far he had nothing. In fact, he had less than nothing. Right now, he did not even have a clue on how to do free magic! Even if he increased his Perception stat, how will he enter the colorful world without closing his eyes? ''Is it a problem with my imagination again?'' Raka suspected. But right now, he did not understand exactly what was the problem, let alone find a solution. He closed his eyes and continued with his practice. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lunch break in college. For many days, Swamy has had this blank look as he stared at the skies. "Hey Swamy, what''s up pal? You seem to be lost in thought for some days now...." Manish asked. "Yeah...even I have to make my own notes now...come on, if you have a problem talk to this brother. I will solve all your problems...then go back and start taking notes or Sneha''s going to fail." Rajan quipped. "Hey! That''s you not me!" Sneha yelled. "Hmm...I know. He must have got his heart broken!" Himali said delightedly. That got Swamy''s attention. "Haha...nothing like that. It''s just like I don''t feel like studying much these days." Swamy replied. "Oh...definite symptoms of being in loo~ve!" Himali said. "No no...s..seriously..it''s nothing like that! Oh yes...I am thinking of building my boat. That''s what I was thinking!" Swamy said. "Boat? Swamy! You wanna build a boat? Thinking of a major change are you?" Sneha asked. "Not that...he must be talking about Long Island?" Himali replied. "Yes. I was talking about Long Island." Swamy simply said. "Oh, and how are you going to do that? It costs so much money to buy a ship. I doubt the materials would be too cheap? Also do you know how to build one?" Himali pointed out. "Well....somehow I can get the materials. But it''s true that I don''t know how to make one. This is why I was thinking. Hiring people costs too much money...wondering if I cannot blackmail them.." Swamy said with a sigh. The people froze. "Blackmail, Swamy! Awesome!" Sneha chirped. "Hahahahah.....too good! Swamy, I bless you! You will definitely succeed!" Rajan laughed. "Hahahahahah....." Manish roared. "Dark....too dark! I need to be careful of you Swamy!" Himali quipped. "....." "Hey, Himali. Did you finally find a way to join the Queen''s trip?" Sneha asked. "Not yet. I have got feelers out though." Himali replied. "Hmm...actually, even we have started to ask around to see if we can also join in. Our King should also be attending, right!" Sneha added. Sneha turned around to look at Rajan who was still staring at the cellphone. "Rajan, what''s up?" Sneha asked. Rajan let the suspense build for a little more and then.. "Raka has posted a video. It''s shocked the forums..." Rajan said. "Oh, is it another quest?" Everyone was interested. "I don''t know. It is too short, like only 15 seconds, and only shows the appearance of single sea monster. There are no descriptions included so people do not know where it is or what." Rajan mysteriously added. Everyone quickly pulled up their cellphones to look. "AH! What is this!" Sneha said. "Is this real? This is not doctored right?" Himali said. "Well, this is why I like playing the game! Haha...Oh we definitely need to get to the sea asap!" Manish grinned. Swamy also looked. ''Hmm...half a million views again.'' That was like the whole player base and he had just posted it this morning! "Oh there is one other thing..." Rajan said. "What is it?" Swamy asked. "There is this post, but it got buried under Raka''s post. This one is about the death penalty. It says that everytime you die, you lose 1 stat point in all stats. If you have more stats, then you lose more as well." Rajan said. ""Oh..."" Himali and Swamy immediately understood. ""What?"" Manish and Sneha asked in confusion. "Sneha, what stats do you have right now?" Himali asked. "I have Strength, Agility, Vitality, Focus and Perception...And Endurance and Stamina." Sneha thought. "You have 7 stats, so when you die you will lose 7 stat points, one in each stat. How much do you have in Endurance?" Himali explained. "Oh...I understand. I only have 9 points in it cause I died once already." Understanding dawned on everyone''s faces as they turned dark. Dying did not only penalize the stat points, rather the more stats you had the more got deducted. Also losing points in stats having low points in the first place, was extremely painful. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. "This game does not like death." Rajan''s voice loomed for a long time. *****Authors Note:- I may have made some mistakes in my stat tables. I will correct them eventually, but this is the rule I am going to follow for dying penalties. ************************************************* -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka''s video of the Sea God gathered a lot of attention, but eventually it contained no information except that it was shot in the sea. Lots of players aimed to head out to the sea by any means possible. It had started a new race. The second to sail the seas. The first had already been taken by Raka. But even he had not travelled to another island or discovered a new race. Many future guilds were now contending for this spot. If they achieved such a feat, many players would join them and in the future they would be one of the major guilds in the game. What was the saying...a small step for man, a giant leap for mankind...or something like that. But the interest in the video itself passed over. And then the information about the death penalty was highlighted like coming out from a dark cave. Everyone had died once or twice atleast. Most of them had thought little of the stat points they lost. They were sad, but they didn''t think much about it. Let alone discuss it with other people. But now, they understood. The more stats they had, the more they had to lose. At this point in time, not many people had extra stats. Most had them had the same general stats as Sneha. There were still who had. Like Raka. He even had stats with just 1 point in them. Not to mention, no one had found out ways to increase Vitality. If it kept decreasing...people could only shudder. ''Well what happens, happens. If you could not risk it all in a game, where could you!'' Raka put the thought out of his mind. By now, most of the ships had been built. Except for Raka''s. ''Time to put my play into action.'' Raka approached Guran''s house and knocked on his door. With a grunt, the door was opened. "Oh..it''s you.." Guran gruffly said. Guran had become almost useless nowadays. With no work to do, it was like he was taking a vacation. So it was no surprise to find him drinking this time of day. "Drinking again?" Raka asked. "Ah leave me be. I have been sitting on my arse for more than a month. Nothing to do at all. Why can''t I drink!" Guran replied. "Hmm...well I just saw those ships. They are almost done. I am sure you will be back on a boat soon.." Raka said. "Hmmm..." "Well Guran, I actually came to ask you something.." Raka started. "What is it?" Guran said. "You remember that you promised to help me build my boat? I was hoping that we could start soon." Raka said. "Oh..hmm? What are you talking about? Aren''t the shipwrights building everybody''s ship?" Guran asked. "Yeah..but you know, I wanted to build a larger one. The chief there said that I would have to build mine on my own. Maybe it''s not covered in the Queen''s help, I am not sure. So I wanted to build one." Raka smiled. "Like hell! Let me go talk to the guard leader! What is this nonsense about!" And Guran stomped off. Raka simply smiled and waited. Soon enough, the guard captain and Guran walked purposefully inside. "Tell him what happened, lad.." Guran said. Raka told the truth. How Salmon claimed that he was overworked and hence could not build Raka''s larger ship. So Raka thought maybe only standard ships could be built, etc etc. Raka kept the accusation out of his words and his tone level, like it was not a big matter. After all, he had thought for long on the exact words to say. "So I didn''t want to cause trouble, you know. I am but a fisherman. I am sure the other villagers would help me and I can pay the Crown with my service." Raka simply said. "I understand. Let me go talk to this shipwright." The guard captain nodded. "I would like to hear his words as well.." Guran also said. After they left, Raka smiled again. In his good mood, he accidentally took a sip from the tumbler in front of him. "Urgh!" A little while later, Guran returned, along with the guard captain and Salmon! Raka looked as they entered. "Ah, it seems that he has agreed that building your ship is under the orders of the Queen. You are lucky, young lad. Now you don''t have to pay for it." The guard captain said smilingly. "Ah thank you!" He bowed to the captain. "Thank you too!" And Raka also bowed to Salmon. "Humph..." replied Salmon and got stared at by the other two. He sighed. "So what kind of ship did you want?" Salmon asked. Raka''s smile grew even brighter. A couple of hours later, Raka had explained the major points of the ship to Salmon. He wanted a deck and a deck house (a room on a deck). He wanted the lower area to become a storage compartment, just high enough that he can crawl around. The deck would be about 4 feet high from the base of the ship. Raka thought that it would be enough. The deck house will have a trapdoor which allows access to the compartment below. He wanted the bow to rise a bit higher than usual to ease in parting the sea waves. Ofcourse, because he was planning a 6-7 person boat, the boat would become larger. Single mast with a square sail. Raka had very early decided on a square sail. It was not that lanteen (triangular) sails were unheard of, though still rare. It was because square sails required much less skill to operate. They could only be furled/unfurled. Lanteen sails required someone with skill to manage the direction it faced. With his crew consisting of a monkey and a parrot, he decided the square sail was better. And also, because he was learning on a square sailed ship. Raka opted for a tiller based system, rather than having a ship''s wheel. The wheel was easier, but also cumbersome. Space was limited on his small ship and he wanted to use the deck house for storage as well. ''Where will I store my treasures!'' "Here, these are the main things I want. I guess it will look something like this." Raka showed them a drawing. "If your ship really looked like that, it would be a ghost ship!" Salmon complained. "But I understand what you want. It will take about a month...maybe half more to build." "Ah I would like to help as well..." Raka immediately asked. "Oh sure!" Salmon smiled. For some reason, Raka felt a cold breeze pass through his soul. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A month and half in game time is about 15 days in real world time. 15 days of eager anticipation. Swamy wanted to leave the college and work full time in the game. But he did not want to take days off just yet. Once he started his journey, he would have to take a lot of days off then. "Swamy, what''s wrong? Are you alright?" Himali asked. "Yeah...before you were looking gloomy for many days. Now you are looking creepy." Rajan said. "He He He He He He" Swamy simply laughed creepily. "Guy''s gone crazy. Someone find him a girlfriend!" Manish said. "Must be the heat!" Himali said. "Ah don''t worry brother, I got a ton of porn. I will lend you some." Rajan said. "Asshole!" Sneha said. "......." ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- In the game, a ship slowly came into existence. Raka stuck with the construction all the way, despite Salmon. Nothing he could do would wipe away Raka''s smile. He still made time to go fishing with the others. Thankfully, fishing took place really early in the morning, so the two did not clash. By the time he returned, the shipwrights would have just started. But during this time, Raka paid all his attention on learning his skills fast. How was sailing being done? How do you navigate? What things to consider when turning into the wind? His notes were filling up with every single word he heard being said. In his spare time, he learned about sailing from the internet. The difference between square sailed ships and lanteen sailed ones, is in its maneuverability. Especially while turning into the wind. The basics of sailing says, if wind is blowing in the direction you want to go, it''s all well and good. If not, then you have to make a zig-zag type of path so that you head straight. This motion is more like a sine wave in case of a square sail ship. In case of lanteen sails, it would look more like a triangle wave because they are much more capable when turning. Average speed of the lanteen sail is higher, when taking an entire voyage into consideration. But a square sail will achieve a higher speed with wind on it''s back. Right now, all kinds of nonsense was sounding really interesting. It was just like buying your first car. Or your first bike. Or boat. "Hey Raka, when you have time, come to my house for a bit." Guran said one day. "Hmm...alright. In the evening then." Later that day, Raka knocked on Guran''s door. "Come in, it''s open." Guran said. "Ah hello." Raka stepped in. "Today, I wanted to show you something." Guran said mysteriously and went to another room for a bit. He then came out with a rolled paper in his hands. He lightly placed the paper on the table and said, "this is my treasure." And then he unrolled it. Raka stared. In a glance he understood what it was. "It''s a map. Of all four islands...and holy!" Raka exclaimed. "Yep, these are the dwarvish lands and the land of the elves." Guran smiled. Raka was dumbfounded. A map such as this would fetch a high price. If the players found this, they would absolutely drool. Raka studied the map thoroughly. The four human islands were smaller and made a shape of a diamond, almost. The eastern edge of this diamond was Khardoum. Even further east and a bit to the north was the island of the dwarves. The island of the dwarves was huge. Like comparing Sumatra and Australia. The entire island was divided almost in half by a long mountain range and then a river. To the north of the diamond was Brittanica. Further north and east was the island of the elves. Compared to the human islands, it was just slightly bigger. Far smaller than the dwarvish island. Raka looked up with great anticipation in his eyes. "No, I am not giving it to you. This is my treasure. I made this at one time." Guran said. Raka''s balloon of happiness immediately burst. "But I will allow you to copy it." Guran said smirking. Raka''s bright smile returned again. "So where do you think you will head towards?" Guran asked. Raka thought carefully for a bit. "The island of the elves. It seems closer." Raka immediately replied. "Ah that''s not possible. You cannot enter the elvish island without their permission. In fact, the entire island is guarded by a barrier which stops ships and people from entering. You cannot even enter accidentally." Guran said. "So how did you get there?" Raka asked. "I didn''t. See, their barrier is transparent. You can look inside. So I simply sailed all around their island away from the barrier and mapped what I saw." Guran explained. "Oh...I will head to the island of the dwarves then." Raka said. "Hmm...the island of the dwarves, in their language is called Earth Ring. But it has two kingdoms divided by the natural barrier of the mountains and the river. To the north is Far''men''dur ruled by the Fare dwarves. To the south is Mar''han''bi ruled by the Mare dwarves." Guran said. "Fare...Mare? There are two dwarf races?" Raka was interested. "Yes. They look different. Well, you will know when you see them. Most of the humans trade with the south kingdom. However, the north kingdom is the one which trades with the elves." Guran explained. "Oh!" Raka exclaimed. "Well that''s all I know about it so find your answers yourself. Go ahead then, copy it before I change my mind." Guran smirked looking at Raka''s excited face. The construction of the basic hull of the ship took almost a week in real time. It was after all, the most extensive part of building a ship. Raka''s main job was still what he did when he was in employ of Salmon previously. But he often kept notice on what other people were doing. Salmon was a pain in the ass. But the other shipwrights were friendly enough. What''s it say, uniting in the face of a common enemy kinda feeling. If someone was truly fond of Salmon, he should have had his head checked. A few days later, they started putting the deck together. 4 feet sounds nice when you think of it mathematically. But entering into the hold especially without light, was terrifying. ''Kudos to those who like spelunking.'' Then came the fitting of the mast. Putting up the mast is kinda the most difficult part of building the ship. Because it needs to be put very near to a ship''s center of gravity. When the wind hits the sails, the ship actually tilts forward. If the mast was not put near the center of gravity, it would keep tilting forward, making it a contest between water and wind. This is true for all single masted ships. You would think that the problem would become larger in bigger ships. On the contrary, this problem is reduced. The larger the ship, the larger area would become it''s centre of gravity and the easier it would be to find a place to put the mast. Ofcourse, the best solution is to have more masts and larger ships would actually have two or three masts. Shipwrights of Ilmentia were a skilled bunch though. They had already planned where the mast would be placed before the construction even began, leaving spaces in the construction of the deck which would be filled by the mast. Raka marvelled at their skill. It is often said, ship building is not a skill, it is a profession. With the fitting of the mast, Raka''s ship now looked like a ship. ''Ah...I might have tears in my eyes..'' But it was still some ways off. What was the saying...waiting for a good thing is the most painful. Days passed and it was now past a month in game time. In just a few days, the shipwrights had put up the deck house and the sails. ''Just a few more days now...'' Raka was impatient. He even took a leave from college to see it''s completion. And the day finally arrived. "Haiya...haiya...haiya..." With slow rythmic shouts, the ship was pushed into the calm waters of the cove. Raka had hold of one of the ropes, which was being used to keep it upright. After all, it would do no good if the ship tilted and fell over sideways. "Careful now!" Raka shouted as the tip of the hull floated up. And soon enough the ship was floating on it''s own. Now it was only a matter of taking it to it''s mooring spot. Right now it was high tide, but eventually it will be low tide. If the ship does not get into deep waters, it would once again get stuck. As it took it''s position alongside the other fishing boats, it immediately stood out. As the largest ship here, it had an aura of prominence. "Single masted, single deck, no guns..." Okay it didn''t sound so impressive and all, but Raka had fallen in love. "Don''t cry, lad...this is supposed to be a happy moment," said Guran. "I know. These are tears of happiness." Raka replied. "So what will you name her?" asked Guran. "Hmm I thought of several names before, but all of them do not seem to fit now." Raka said. "What did you name your ship Guran?" "Hmm...my last ship was named after my wife, Selena. I have named this one after my daughter Katrina." Guran replied. "Hmm....then could you suggest a good name for my ship too?" Raka requested. Guran thought for a bit. "This ship is your dream, right? Among many dreams, it is often said that the ones you see at dawn, just before you wake up, is the one most likely to come true. How ''bout calling her, the Dawn Dream." Guran said. "The Dawn Dream....hmm..." Raka felt like it just fit. "It is a good name. Thank you Guran." Raka smiled as he looked upon his Dawn Dream. Raka pushed a boat to the water and shouted. "Monkey! Nobby! Come here!" Lots of people were shocked at his shout. And then they saw two animals bounding from God knows where, hurrying to the boat. Once they came in, Raka rowed and made his way to his ship. "Alright, monkey, let''s take the ship out to sea. We need to work on our teamwork if we intend to go forth. Nobby, you just keep a lookout." Raka said. Handing monkey an oar, he took the other as he and monkey rowed the ship past the cove entrance. ''So he does know how to row. I thought he might." The monkey had been to sea already, so technically it should be more experienced than Raka. "Alright....Unfurl the sails. The wind beckons and adventure calls." Raka shouted. "Um...Sir Raka..." "Nobby, from today, you will address me as Captain!" "Ah...then Captain Raka!" "Yes, Nobby, what do you want to say?" "Captain! There is no wind!" "......" Chapter 31: Fate Deep in the forest, an animal carefully looks around and cautiously comes out from the trees. It looks greedily towards the clearing in front, at the clumps of green grass, the kind it liked. But then it perked its ears again and widened its eyes, observing once more the surrounding. The most danger it had in the forest came from the wolves. Ordinarily, it could outrun those wolves easily. They were so slow and it could run like the wind. But the wolves were cunning. Sometimes they would approach only after surrounding it completely. And so the animal stared around once again. Finding no sign of those wretched wolves it stepped forward, pleasure and hunger obvious in its eyes. How could it have known that today there was another kind of predator waiting for it! Suzaku watched with bated breath as the stag slowly moved towards the trap he had laid. He was hiding quite far away and if the stag avoided his trap, he knew he wouldn''t be able to match its speed. ''This time...I will succeed!'' Suzaku had been trying to catch this stag for the last three days. He had forgone sleep in his attempt to catch the ''most difficult animal to catch'' in this forest. He had tracked it, learned its habits and prepared many plans. ''I was lucky to find a stag in the first place, there is no way I am letting this one go!'' It was true that stags were exceedingly rare. So rare that even the people of the island, who were far more capable, were also not able to find it, let alone catch it. If he could do that, then he would no doubt become famous. Who knows how much money and prestige he might gain. He may even get some contribution points. As the stag approached closer and closer to the trap, Suzaku almost forgot to breathe. And then, SNAP! The ground gave way underneath the stag and it fell down in a large deep hole bleating furiously. "Yes!" Suzaku shouted and ran towards the hole. He could not make it so deep in his limited time, but he had made the walls steep. Animals with toes should not be able to climb up like that. Or that''s what he hoped. But his hopes were dashed. An amazing jump and the stag clearly came out of the hole. "What!" Suzaku stared wide eyed at this sight. Three days of following this beast, several stupid bug bites, losing sleep and the animal just jumped! ''Shit! It''s a waste now!'' Suzaku stopped running and stared at the animal which at any moment now, would dash away. But it didn''t. ''What''s going on?'' Suzaku narrowed his eyes as he inspected the stag, which was now looking at him with it''s horns lowered, like waiting for an attack. ''It injured it''s leg!'' His lips curved upwards. ''Heaven has given me another chance!'' Suzaku took out his sword and moved forward deliberately. The stag won''t go down easy but atleast it was not going to run away. ''I just need to be careful of its horns...'' A stag''s horns were big and pointed. It was also joined like a shovel. And one thing was sure. His whole Life would be insufficient if he gets hit by them. These horns were far more dangerous than bug bites. Somehow in this situation, Suzaku''s smile became even wider. He carefully stepped forward and reached closer. The stag followed his smallest movements, cautiously assessing the new danger. It had never encountered two-legged before, but others in it''s herd had. They always made fun of the two-legged calling them slow and blundering idiots. A stag''s speed was its pride and the two-legged were far too slow. But they had also warned that perhaps the two-legged were also the most dangerous things in this forest. Anyways, injured as it was, it had no choice but to face this most dangerous predator. Suzaku tried going around the stag but it moved accordingly not giving him a chance to avoid the horns. Suzaku feinted an attack and took a step forward but then immediately took another step back. Seeing him move closer, the stag moved it''s horns slashing at him but found that it slashed at empty air. ''Hmm...the attack is quite fast. Avoiding it will be difficult.'' Actually if the stag had been able to use it''s legs, there was no way Suzaku could have avoided that attack. Right now, the animal had only moved its head but it was still fast. After deciding something, Suzaku moved forward again, his sword by his side. And as he moved, his chi gathered near his feet. The stag attacked again but instead of stepping back, Suzaku jumped forwards at an angle. The chi exploded under his feet, granting him sudden speed and he reached the side of the animal. He thrust his sword at the neck of the beast, his chi suddenly appearing around his sword and turning into fire. "Fire sword." He said. The stag was shocked and tried to turn but it''s injured leg got in the way. It could not match the speed of the sword thrust. The burning sword sliced into its neck cutting arteries and nerves. It felt a fiery feeling and then it dropped to the ground, not even feeling the pain of death. "Haha...." Suzaku laughed at his conquest. He had defeated a stag in just two moves. But even if it were just two moves, he did not get arrogant. These two moves were the result of constant practice and understanding how magic worked in this game. ''Wonderful! You can actually do magic. Unlike other games where you shout a chant or do some ridiculous movement and the system would do some magic for you. In here, I can actually do the magic I want to. Why isn''t this the game''s usp? The company''s marketing dept. sucks!'' But he didn''t have time for reflection. He quickly readied his stance and waited. The bloodlust had just begun. Suzaku was one of the few players who could deal with the bloodlust effect on their own. The rest of them often had to make parties or head out together in teams. But even then, it was said that players always died facing their first bloodlust effect. Without exception! Maybe the first was special. Suzaku was no different. Even he died when he first faced it. But then, the next time he was ready for it. And since then he could always face the bloodlust with a calm mind. Not that it wasn''t dangerous anymore but it was like if you survived once, you would survive again and again. If you did not get careless, that is. After all, this was still a forest with fearsome animals. Even Suzaku had died once because of his carelessness. But that was the only times he died, once because of the first bloodlust effect and the other, due to his carelessness. Dying twice was his shame. Though others had died far more times. But he considered himself one of the better players, after all how many of them could face a bloodlust alone! So his standards were naturally higher. He had come to know and meet some of the better players on Ilmentia island. Some of them due to his martial arts skills. And none of them had died a second time. Soon he heard the far off rustling of dried leaves as hoofs pounded over it.
Sensitivity increases by 1.
"Come on!" Suzaku shouted as his sword made swift movements like tides, laying bodies in it''s wake. His feet moved forward, back and sideways at just the exquisite time to dodge and counterattack. Here and there his chi would build up on his feet as he closed distance. A flash of red appeared here and there as fire enveloped his sword during his attacks. Someone looking would only think that it was devil fighting in there. ''Shit! My mana''s gone!'' Even with conserving his mana by only using fire in the instant he attacked, his mana pool was not sufficient to hold out till the end of the bloodlust effect. But it wasn''t a very big problem. ''I will just have to hit more.'' Suzaku''s trained movements could not be compared to these rabbits and wolves. He constantly kept flitting his eyes to keep track of the various animals. Getting surrounded is the kind of stupid mistake he didn''t want to make. He strategically moved, always keeping his back covered by trees or some such obstacle. When any animal reached his range, his sword flashed like lightning striking their weak points. ''Oops!'' He stepped on a hidden root and stumbled. Quickly, he regained his balance but the damage had been done. The animals had surrounded him. A two headed wolf behind and two wolves covered from the front. There were more wolves on the side but they were still some distance away. The wolf at his back attacked. Suzaku was watching carefully and as soon as it reached he took a big step sideways. But amazingly his upper body remained in place for an instant more, enticing the wolf into attacking this space. And the upper body also moved. The wolf was astounded for just a moment before it started turning towards Suzaku. But he was ready. In a flash, his sword went forward, piercing into the wolf''s neck.
Critical hit. Damage increases 70%.
Your actions increase your agility. Agility increases by 1.
A sword was a really good weapon to aim for critical strikes. But he didn''t have time to be happy yet. The other two wolves had reached him and his feet moved again. Anyone watching Suzaku move would have been impressed. Atleast a common person might be. Martial artists would be impressed too but in a different sense. Suzaku''s movements were very basic. Although trained to a high level, it consisted of one step only. Forward, backward and sideways to some angle. As martial artists they recognized that moving only one step, though effective in this situation, had many disadvantages. But for now, his movements looked amazing. ''Shit! It''s the armadillos!'' Suzaku cursed as he saw the new batch of animals. Armadillos were annoying. Covered with their hard shells, his sword couldn''t make a scratch on them. The only thing that worked was fire. But his mana tank was empty and the recovery took a long time. But would he give up? "Catch me if you can then!" yelled Suzaku as he ran between the trees. Not to mention it was quite a long time after that he finally finished the last animal and then dropped onto the ground exhausted. "Huff...huff....haa..hahaah..." This was difficult. But challenges were something he enjoyed. If it wasn''t challenging, it wasn''t fun as he liked to say. Some time later he stood up and started dismembering the animals, starting with the stag. He also took the stag head whole. ''Who would believe me otherwise!'' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Suzaku or Yasuda Mikihiko, as he was known in real life, wasn''t actually a swordsman. He was a senior high school student who practiced kendo. Not that kendo is not recognized as swordsmanship but because of the competition rules, it follows a highly limited routine. Like learning a fourth of a sword as one might say. Atleast, among the kendo practitioners he was quite good. His personal best was the nationals best 4, losing only in the semifinal. He was quite renowned as the captain of the Kendo club. His distinguishing features were his awesome physique and deep eyes which made him look so cool and mysterious, according to the girls in the school. Add to that fact, he was also friendly and without a girlfriend. "Mikihiko-kun is so incredible..." "Yasuda senpai is our hero...." "Awesome...super cool..." Were some of the comments he used to hear regularly. At these moments Mikihiko simply smiled. Most thought of this as a sign of humility and praised him more. ''So annoying. I am still weak..'' were his actual thoughts. Yasuda Mikihiko wanted to become an actual swordsman. He wanted to train with a real blade. But it was not like you would find a swordsmanship school near the next crossing. In modern Japan, swordsmen were already few. Over the years, people lost interest in learning it, most swordsmanship schools had shut down. The only ones remaining were highly exclusive, with only a few students. Even these students had to undergo all kinds of background checks and character checks before they were allowed to join. After all, carrying swords were banned. How could they allow just about anyone to learn! But this was also an era of virtual reality games. What he couldn''t do in real life, he wanted to do in virtual life. No wonder he chose sword equipped characters, like knights, swordsman or warrior in the games. There he could do anything and train anyway. In the way, he met many strong people and had many adventures. But there was a limit to what he could learn on his own and from the internet. "Hey Mikihiko, did you hear about Long Island?" his friend mentioned one day. "No I haven''t. Did another new game come out?" He asked nonchalantly. After all there were many virtual reality games in the market and the launch of a game was not too big of a news. "Yeah...I think I will go shift to this game. I heard it''s amazing. It''s just been out a month and not many people play it right now. But the ones who do are raving mad about it. Seems it has a magic system which is out of this world." "Magic eh..." Mikihiko was not too thrilled. Games which focused on magic often didn''t have strong weapon based characters. But even with magic, he wasn''t too thrilled. Compared to fighting face to face, what fun is there in waving stupid wands and shouting absurd incantations. The system did most of the ''magic''. "Well anyways, I am not going to create a magic character so not interested." Mikihiko replied. "Hahaha I thought you would say that, you sword idiot." Mikihiko thought this was the last he would hear of it. So then, imagine his surprise when a few days later, his friend called and literally yelled on the phone... "Mikihiko, join this game asap! If you don''t you are going to regret it big time!" This was the first time someone had got so excited about a new virtual reality game, since the first virtual reality game was announced. ''It''s not like I don''t have the money...so let''s just try it out. Only because he is insisting so much...'' Who knew he would get addicted in even less time. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Back in Gurrow village, Suzaku put up a stall and put the stag head on fore front. Stalls in Long Island, unlike other games, were not set up automatically. In fact there was nothing called a stall in this game. Which meant that you would have to set up a table to showcase your stuff and call it your ''stall''. It also meant that nothing in your stall, was safe from theft. Just like in the real world! The only difference was that player to player transactions of money, followed the trade system. The trade system allowed players to safely transact both money and items but it couldn''t be used to display the items safely. If you put out anything, well...it''s out there! To trade with npcs, you would still need to do it the normal, real life way. Still, it was within the village and thievery was a crime. Or rather no one wanted to become a criminal because if you did, where could you run away to? Well, most people chose to sell to the merchants anyway so player run stalls were a minority. Suzaku bought a cheap table and put it up on an empty corner of the street. Then he put down the stag head on it, proudly displaying his most magnificent prize. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. "Selling stag meat!" He yelled loudly. "Selling stag meat!" He repeated. Many people, especially the people of the island, turned to look. And after seeing that stag head, they went into shock. Silence reigned for a few moments. Even players turned to look at the scene after noticing the reaction of the npcs. Many of them knew, stags were like the top-tier rare creatures but how could they know why it was so valuable! ''Hmm...what''s wrong? No one seems to be coming..'' Suzaku was depressed. He had decided to set up his own stall, especially to sell this. If no one bought it, what was the point of hunting this most elusive creature! "Selling stag meat!" He yelled again. And then it was mayhem. "10 gold for all your meat..." "Are you joking...20 gold..." "Humph you guys are cheaters...50 gold.." "No..sell it to me... 100 gold..." "I will take all you have for 200 gold..." ......... Suzaku was scared out of his wits. Players didn''t make much money. Doing jobs was the main source of income. Rabbit and wolf meat actually didn''t sell much and was generally used by players themselves to save on food costs. Their pelts sold a bit better as everyone needed clothes but even then it was a saturated market. Also players in Gurrow village were beginners so how much money could they possibly earn! A couple of gold coins at the most. In such a situation, meat was being sold for 200 gold! What kind of golden meat was that?! Even the players in the capital hadn''t been able to earn this much gold! Suzaku was no different. It was not long ago that he reached Age 14. And since then, instead of going to the capital, he had spent his time hunting. Money vise, he had just 1 gold and a few coppers. "220 gold..." "250..." "I will offer 280..." "Misers...I will offer 400.." "Who''s a miser....500..." "550..." "580..." "You had better give up..old man... 650 gold coins! Match that!" A young man shouted loudly. Wearing a green dress with silver linings, he looked like he could pay even more. Others cursed their luck but quickly gave up. They still had to make a living. "Hahahaa....nice! So young man, let''s make it with 650 gold.." The guy in the green dress laughed. "1000 gold!" Suddenly everyone became quiet. There was absolute silence as everyone stared at the person who called. "1000 gold, is anyone offering a higher price?" This new guy was a middle aged man with quite a few specks of silver in his hair. His wore clothes of red and gold with a tinge of green. He was surrounded by other people, soldiers, like he was an important person. The guy in green stared for a bit but then nodded. "No Lord Despira. All yours." And then everyone went off on their way. "So show me all the meat you brought." Lord Despira walked forward. "Yes, sir." Suzaku brought out all the meat and set it on the table side by side. Looking at each piece, the Lord grinned and smacked his lips. "Ah...so much! I really got a bargain today." He quickly brought forth a thousand gold coins wrapped up in a huge pouch and handed it over like it was chump change. His attendants moved at the same time, carefully wrapping and lifting the meat. "Say, do you wish to sell the head as well?" Lord Despira asked. "Um..no sir. I would like to keep it as a trophy." "Hahahaha....yes that you would. I would also do the same. Well, you are one of the Goddess''s children, aren''t you? How about this, come to my manor with me. I would very much like to know a person as skilled as you." Lord Despira said. "Yes sir. I would be delighted." Suzaku replied. Good luck should not be refused. After all, this was a game! Suzaku spent a lot of time in Lord Despira''s manor. And then at the end, Lord Despira gave him a quest as well. It was nothing major, just some small things but it was a quest with a good reward. A few months, game time, passed and Suzaku did several such quests. He also moved his base to the capital. In the interim, he often went hunting deep in the forest. He didn''t find another Stag but he did find other animals like Toughnut boars. And instead of the market, he sold the meat and the pelts to Lord Despira instead, who offered a very generous price for them. Once or twice, he would even get items made from the stuff he brought. Like the coat made from the pelt of the boar. Other times, he may get another item instead of payment. The Despira clan, was an ancient noble clan and it had existed for many centuries. Naturally, they had lots of good items, which could even be considered treasures. Armors, weapons and various other kinds of things. Suzaku had replaced his boots and had got a new chest armor. He had also got some leather leg armor whose quality seemed to be even better than the metal items. Definitely the most expensive item Suzaku owned! In short it was a very profitable relationship. Suzaku was quite glad to have met this Lord Despira so early in the game. Then one day, "Suzaku, is it true that Goddess''s children don''t die?" Lord Despira asked. "Um...I am not sure what you mean by that?" Suzaku was confused. "Well I have heard that Goddess''s children, when they die, they actually fade away. But then they come back to life like it was nothing! So they don''t really die. Is that true?" "Um...yes sir. That is true." Suzaku replied. "Ah...I wonder why the Goddess chose to do it? If you couldn''t die then wouldn''t it be better if you didn''t die in the first place?" Lord Despira was curious. "Ah see when we die we actually become weaker. So if we die many times, we get weaker so many times." Suzaku explained. Suzaku was quite surprised by this question. It almost felt like the people were aware that the players were not human. "Hmm...the Goddess is mysterious." Lord Despira simply replied. Suzaku didn''t know what he should say so he remained quiet. After brooding for a bit, Lord Despira spoke again. "Suzaku, how do you feel about the Queen and her government?" "Um...I don''t know. I haven''t met the Queen or any of the government officials. But the island seems nice enough." Suzaku replied. "True true...but couldn''t it become better? After all, it is the birth place of the Goddess''s children. It should have the noble aura and blessing of the Goddess herself. Shouldn''t it become more prosperous, more grand, more beautiful...." Lord Despira said. "Um..okay." What did he care! "Ah...I have a very wonderful vision for this country. A vision where it will be the grandest, most powerful of nations. You share my vision, yes?" "Ah yes. Lord Despira." Suzaku still didn''t know what the Lord wanted with him. "It is wonderful to know that. So how do you feel if I say I want to overthrow the Queen?" Lord Despira suddenly hit him with that. Now Suzaku realized. ''So it is a typical scenario. Some npc wants to overthrow some other and the players are getting quests on both sides. Whoever wins will gain a lot, etc etc.'' "Ah my lord, I will support you." Suzaku replied. Win or lose, he had to pick a side anyway. It''s a game anyway. "Wonderful! In that case, I have a mission for you. Have you heard about Raka?" Lord Despira asked. "Yes, I have." Suzaku replied. "I have information that Raka may be leaving the island. My best guess is he is a secret scout for the Queen and will be visiting the Khardoum island for the four nation conference. I also guess that he will eventually move towards the Dwarvish island. I want you to take a ship and go after him. There are various plans in action and I am sure he will try to stop them. Do not let him! Can I count on you to do that?"
[p=center] Stop Raka [/p] Raka may become a thorn in Lord Despira''s various schemes. His schemes need to succeed, if he is to realize his vision and take over the throne. He has asked you to prevent Raka ruining his plans. Difficulty: Variable Reward: ? (Only if Lord Despira''s plan succeeds)
"Yes." Suzaku replied.
Quest has been accepted.
"Good. I have a ship waiting for you in Dock 2. You will leave tomorrow. The men on the ship will be under your command." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- And just like that Suzaku was headed in pursuit of Raka. He smirked remembering the time when he first heard Raka''s name. He had joined late. Almost a month later. Thankfully, within a month there was a lot of information about the game so he didn''t have to struggle like those early players. He had learned language and then enrolled to the Battle school. He was a quick learner though he didn''t like using the staff so much. So he cut it off to the size of a bokuto, to practice. Surprisingly the instructors didn''t mind. In fact, Lady Altia gave him some pointers here and there as well. Suzaku respected Lady Altia and her knowledge. She knew about the sword and the few times she showed him a form or two, she was so elegant and refined. Just like a master of the sword. In fact, like everyone else Suzaku also wanted to learn from her and eventually asked her. But she refused. One regular day, while he was busy hitting a dummy at Battle school, Raka came. Lady Altia''s student. From what he knew, her only student. And he was a player. Ofcourse he was curious. But he found out after he had already left. He tried asking other instructors about Raka but even they didn''t know much about him. And he didn''t dare to ask Lady Altia directly. And then he heard that Raka was also the first person to step out of the village. Suzaku admired him and Raka became someone who he had to eventually overcome in his journey to become the best. Like a lot of other players, he was also one of the players who ran to the village gate to get a glimpse of him when Raka left. Unfortunately he couldn''t. He immersed himself in practice to achieve his first goal. The Age of 14. The Age to leave the village. Wish that were so easy. Then he discovered magic. ''Awesome!'' He was excited like a kid. This was something beyond his dreams. When he first perceived magic, it was like his birthday. Chi, a spiritual force, which he had only read about. A kind of thing every martial artist talks about, but none know if it is true. A common person like him could only dream about such stuff. But he had felt it. The powerful force all around him, flowing, reacting to him. He tried to focus chi and he found it was rather simple. All he had to imagine was how the chi would work and it did exactly like he thought. He could make it come out of his feet and jump. He could embed it into his weapon. And then he could transform this chi into magic. Like those wuxia novels he had often read. He could make fire sword and wind sword. His chi moved according to what he wanted, not what the system wanted. For the first time he was so glad to learn magic. So glad that he listened to his friend when he said, you absolutely have to learn magic, sword idiot! He laughed that day like he never laughed before. Time passed and videos started being uploaded of other people''s quests. Then the big thing happened. The fight with the beastmen. Unfortunately, he hadn''t reached the required Age and had to stay behind in the village. He was quite sore on seeing the fight video later. He was one of the very few people who actually realized the kind of magic Lady Altia was doing. And seeing her in action gave Suzaku a hint on how to use his chi in battle. Then came Raka''s video, where he saw more action. But he was disappointed a bit as well. Wasn''t Raka supposed to be strong? Then came the day of reckoning. He had reached the Age. All his practice and all his hard work was put to the test in the wild. The first time, he died. Since then he couldn''t be killed. Until the day, he had an unfortunate encounter. His defeat became his fuel and he rapidly improved after that. In the meantime, he also learned blacksmithing. There was a distinct lack of swords in the market. The reason was because swords were considered a sign of authority. Given to officers to show their status. It was not like people couldn''t wield it, rather they didn''t have the right to carry it around. How could one expect that they will be handed after graduation. After he graduated magic institute he also got the standard staff. In short, he had to make enough money to buy a sword from the blacksmith. The same rules applied to him, however, and he couldn''t equip his sword in the village. He could only take it out of the bag once he left the village. Then one day he killed the Stag. And his game life changed completely. Leading to the day when he was summoned to pursue Raka. Suzaku was happy to go after this chase. He couldn''t wait to test his mettle. He was confident and not without reason. There was just one regret he still had. ''All this time and I still couldn''t find that damn monkey and that green bird!'' Suzaku had only died twice. Once due to the first bloodlust effect. The second time because he was killed by that monkey and the green bird. ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lord Despira was currently sitting in the position of the head at a dining table. "Father, have you decided to recruit Suzaku?" Von Gult asked. "Yes." His father nodded. "Are you sure he is loyal? I mean he is one of the Goddess'' children," asked Von Gult. "Son, remember this. You do not completely trust anyone but family. But to fight immortals, it is better to send immortals. I would have an army of just the Goddess'' children but that would be too conspicuous." Lord Despira said. "Hmm...is that why you have been so nice to those other Goddess''s children as well?" Von Gult asked. "Yes. Eventually I want to win them over to my side. It is important to have strong supporters." Lord Despira explained. "So do you think, Suzaku can stop Raka?" Von Gult finally asked. "I don''t know. There are various plans I have put in motion so even if Raka stops one or two, it shouldn''t affect the final outcome. Suzaku is just to keep him busy. Hopefully, he can keep him from discovering our real goal. At this stage, we cannot let the Queen''s supporters find out." Lord Despira said. And then he sighed. "Von Gult, you shouldn''t have lost your temper like that. Maybe we wouldn''t have had to deal with Raka then. Remember, make enemies wisely." "I understand." Von Gult replied grudgingly. He didn''t think he was weaker than Raka. It was just that he had been careless. If he had won...well, that was never going to happen. The two Ladies were too close to the Queen. Von Gult finished his dinner, leaving his father absorbed in deep thought. ''Silly boy. He just doesn''t understand. Even we are pawns in this great game.'' Lord Despira knew. He knew that he couldn''t be greedy. There were far more sinister and powerful forces at play here. Chapter 32: Understanding The sea is a lonely place. Especially if your companions include one, who cannot speak the human tongue and the other, who you do not want speaking the human tongue. Raka sighed. "Screech....keech keech...." "Kreech....kreech keech..." "Stop fighting you two. And stop with the constant screeching...it''s driving me mad!" Raka sighed once more as he closed his eyes. "It''s here again...Monkey! Full sail!. Nobby, keep a lookout!" Raka yelled as he took control of the tiller. As the wind caught on the sail, Raka took out a spell scroll. "Air wave!" An intense blast of air hit the sail, instantly accelerating the ship from the slow drift to a fast pace. While holding the tiller, Raka closed his eyes once more. And then he changed course a few degrees. ''Hope we lose it this time!'' This had been their routine for a few days now. All because Raka and his crew were being chased by a sea dragon! ''Persistant bastard!'' Raka''s journey actually started two real life weeks after the first voyage of the Dawn Dream. Suffice to say he wouldn''t be the first to reach Khardoum. He needed a whole real life week to finally learn the ''Sailing'' and ''Fishing'' skills. And then another week to finetune his teamwork with monkey and gain the confidence to sail on his own. The last week, he also spent planning his journey and acquiring supplies and things he might need. At the end of the two weeks, when he was finally ready, the villagers threw a celebration in his honor. Even though he had been with them only a few months, game time, they already considered him to be an integral part of the village. Not to mention, the villagers really liked to party! And they gave him farewell gifts. Spears mostly, as a fisherman always needed a few. But then he also got a good hunting knife from Farun and family, which was much better that the one he had. And Guran gave him a toughnut boar jacket. Made from the fur of the very same boar, Raka had killed. Toughnut boars had the hardest, roughest fur of any animal on this island. To make a jacket out of it, the skill of the craftsman could only be considered to admirable. "Here, try it on..." Guran urged. Raka took the jacket from Guran''s hands and then grunted in pain as his arms fell down. ""Hahahahaha"" Many people started laughing seeing his shock. "What is this....it weighs a ton!" Raka grunted. "Hahaha...yeah that it does. It will take some getting used to. But it''s advantages are many, so you better build your body up a bit." Guran said. "A bit! This is a bit!" Raka was forlorn. "Well, it is considered a treasure and I am sure many people would die to get their hands on this." Guran had a twinkle in the eye as he said that. "Yeah...right!" Raka said. He knew toughnut boar fur was not really an expensive material because of obvious reasons. "Jokes apart, this jacket skin is very tough and gives good defense. Even better than some metal armors and a lot cheaper than them. It should be a lot better than the armor you have. Also, it is waterproof and warm. A must have for any sea traveller. Most of all it''s durable and will not get damaged easily by the elements. The weight is a bit on the higher side but I am confident you can manage that much." Guran said. "And if you still don''t believe me, why don''t you try stabbing it with the brand new hunting knife you got." Guran''s voice was full of confidence as he put on the jacket himself and gestured. "I will do just that." Raka gladly obliged. Peng! A soft dull sound resounded as the blade struck the jacket. Raka looked in amazement as the blade failed to leave even a scratch on it. "Damn! How tough is it! It might be even tougher than the original fur." Raka exclaimed. "A very good friend of mine made it. He could have become a very rich man with his skills. Alas, he is such a recluse. Anyways, now it''s yours." Guran said. "Ah thank you Guran. Could you also thank the person who made it. I am sure he must be quite skilled." Raka replied. "Identify"
[p=center]Leather Jacket (Common)[/p] Class: Armor Defense: 55 (Added defense when embedded) Weight: 150 Durability: 280/280 Made of good quality toughnut boar leather. Has good defense and durability. Increased weight due to leather properties.
Raka was delighted with the properties of this thing. His defense would increase manifold and the durability was also a lot higher. It was just the weight which was a problem. Compared to his Iron chestguard which weighed just 15 points, this jacket weighed a 150 points. Raka didn''t know how much a point translated into grams or kilos or stones but just by looking, it was ten times heavier. Not that he needed to know how much it weighed. He had held it in his hands and was astounded already. ''Thank God, I increased my Strength. If I had gotten this when I left the battle school...ah now I know what a tortoise feels like.'' Still, it was not like he could equip something this heavy and fight. Atleast not until he increased his Strength some more. Raka put the jacket in his bag along with the rest. The next day he left the island. Waving to the people who had gathered on the beach, he made his way to the distant horizon. The route Raka had chosen was to sail directly from Ilmentia to Khardoum. It needs to be mentioned that most merchants did not take this route. It was because the sea currents usually flowed in the clockwise direction between the four islands. Merchants would generally follow the sea current, as the wind would naturally flow in that direction and travel from Ilmentia to Brittanica and then make their way to Khardoum. It eased journey by a lot. There was another reason why sailors never made their way straight from Ilmentia to Khardoum. Because of this particular sea current, unfortunately, there were a lot of no-wind and low-wind zones formed in between. Any idiot of a sailor would have enough sense to avoid them, for once you get in them, it will be a lot of hard rowing to get out. It was a godsend for the players though. Sailing is a labour intensive business. The moment you lose concentration, drift even a few degrees from your route, you end up somewhere completely different. The journey from Ilmentia to any of it''s neighbouring islands would take around 2 weeks game time. That''s like 4-5 days in real life. How would a human being stay awake to play that long?! Wherein come the no-wind zones! Just park your boat in a no wind zone and atleast you are reasonably sure that it won''t drift too much, allowing players much needed rest. Or that''s how Raka figured it. With ships having npc sailors, even Raka would take the well traversed route instead of going this way. But he had not and he did not. Monkey may be able to sail but on his own it would be quite difficult. Not to mention it had no idea on how to read a compass and other stuff. And parrot, being a bird, actually had no idea how to sail. I mean why would birds learn how to sail anyway...it''s kinda pointless. After he set out to sea, he took out the mirrors to chat with the girls. Who knew how long it would be till he next saw them in person. Talking with mirrors is a lot like video chat, except for the requirement of setting up appointments. There is no telephone kinda ringing to notify the other side. Usually people sent a pigeon or set up a scheduled time to talk when they met. But Raka figured that if he wrote the date and time on the mirror itself, it should be reflected on the other side. Given advance notice of a few days, it should more than guarantee that his message will be noticed. He chatted for a few hours. At the end of it, Raka was tired. He smiled. ''Women do like to talk, don''t they!'' For the next few days, game time, everything went according to plan. He reached the first no wind zone on schedule and took his well deserved rest. And then they met the sea dragon! Why it met them was something they could only attribute to bad luck. Really bad luck! The Sea Dragon was the granddaddy of all eels. Or rather why it was called a dragon and not something grand eel, was a good question! In appearance it looked like an eel, just that its size was like 20 metres long. If that wasn''t enough, this granddaddy of eels had a far better command of lightning magic. Raka had never met this monster before but he knew what it was from the things other fishermen had said. It looked like an eel, how obvious was that! "Run!" was the evident choice. Thankfully, they had an advantage. Sea dragons, though called dragons, were still fish. And fish cannot lift its head above water to look. All it could do was try to detect the wooden boat. But wood is a natural thing. So ideally, the sea dragon should not be able to equate wood equals prey. ''Ideally'' does not work in life though. Not only was the sea dragon able to detect them but was also able to track them. What it would do once it caught them was a question, they did not want know the answer to. ''It must be due to the lightning magic...or magic perception,'' was Raka''s guess. He was helpless. He could not afford to lose the boat and he could not fight it at range. The most he could do was detect it''s movement using his own magic perception. The no/low wind zones he had counted on at the start had just become dangerous death traps. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka and the monkey and even the parrot were extremely tired. Raka had been logged in for around 24 hours straight. In game time, that would be considered as 3 whole days. In just a few minutes, Raka expected that the game capsule would log him out, as its safety measure kicked in. If that happened at a critical moment... Raka sighed. Thankfully, this safety measure did not actually stop a player from logging back in immediately. ''This cannot go on! I need to fight it eventually. But how do I fight against lightning?'' On land, there could have been a few options but on sea... Raka sighed again. ''Well what will happen will happen. If my luck is that bad so be it. But I am not going to give up until the end.'' Raka decided. He closed his eyes to enter his colorful world again. The colors of the sea were constantly moving but like air it did not cause any disruptions. Raka observed that any movement which affected the natural environment would cause ripples in the colorful world. But things like air or water, even if they moved, did not cause such ripples. ''Maybe because it is the natural environment.'' Raka guessed. He focused again and started to gather some energy. ''This time I will try to do some magic in the direction where the ripples come from. Hopefully it will be enough to confuse it.'' He seriously doubted that such a basic thing would actually work but he was clutching at straws now. He was just about to reach another no wind zone. Just then,
Play time has exceeded 24hrs. As a safety measure you are being forcefully logged out.
------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy staggered out of his capsule and made his way to the bathroom. His first order of duty was to relieve himself. ''Oh....did I doze off on the toilet seat? How much time has passed?'' He quickly looked around and saw the clock. ''20 minutes...oh no!'' He was horrified. He quickly washed up and logged in. ------------------------------------------------------------------------ As soon as he opened his eyes and saw his boat, tears started forming in his eyes. It was still intact. Stars were in the sky twinkling down on the two animals as they snored. ''Lucky.... Maybe my luck has turned.'' Raka sighed in relief. There was still a problem. He had been gone an hour so who knew how far the boat had drifted. Right now they were in the no wind zone. But when he had logged out, they hadn''t entered yet. ''Oh well...let''s hope for the best.'' A good navigator can travel in night as he could in daytime. But in the middle of the sea, without a point of reference, if you lost track you really lose track of where you were. You simply head towards the general direction and hope, simply hope, that you reach land. Just in case, he closed his eyes to detect any ripples. They may have lost the sea dragon but it could still be looking for them. Being a sea creature, it would be a lot faster than them. He remained in the colorful world for a few minutes. And just as he about to open his eyes, he saw the energy bar. ''Hmm...that''s odd. Why do I still have energy?'' Raka had gathered the energy before logging out. ''Is it because of increased perception?'' He started thinking at a million miles an hour. And then he smacked his head! ''Is this the difference between instinctive types and intellectual types!'' And then he started laughing like crazy. "Hahahahahahhahahah.....this is it! this is it! Eureka!" Raka was delighted. He quickly stood up and pointed his hand at a random location above water. "Fireball!" He yelled. A round ball of fire suddenly appeared in that location, floating just above the water, showering the ship with a dazzling light. "Hahahaha...yes!" Raka cancelled his magic. What was magic? Transformation of energy into physical phenomena. And it was done by gathering the energy and then transforming it into magic. The problem was gathering energy required Raka to close his eyes. But just now, he had found the solution. Perception does not only help in increasing the rate of gathering energy but also how long the energy stays available for use, before dissipating. ''Thinking about it now, it was so obvious!'' To gather energy, Raka would still need to close his eyes and enter the colorful world. But once it had been gathered, he could simply use it like he had just done. Infact, it was not like he needed to use all the energy at the same time. He could keep using some of it as required. ''Oh...that''s why Lady Verina closed her eyes to gather energy when she cast the Kraken magic. But she didn''t need to, while casting other magics..'' Raka finally connected the dots. ''Intellectual types of magic users would probably all have this kind of situation. Probably the instinctive type can gather energy really swiftly.'' Raka was still trying to understand magic. ''There could be one more thing...maybe because gathering energy is so easy, increasing perception might be difficult for them. On the other hand, I had to raise perception first so maybe for all intellectual types, raising perception would be easier.'' The more Raka thought about it, the more sense it made. He was convinced that he had finally hit the hammer on the head. ''Which type is stronger? Maybe the instinctive types were stronger earlier but intellectual types would get stronger later. Perhaps even later, the two types would balance out.'' Raka theorized. Raka kept thinking about other things. After this epiphany, a lot of dots had started connecting and a lot of things started becoming clear. But Raka was wrong about one thing. Nature does not deal in absolutes. There is no white and black in nature, just many shades of grey. The game emulated nature also. ''Wait..if I have already gathered energy, then doesn''t it mean that I can do magic anywhere. Or atleast anywhere I can perceive?'' Energy is energy. It is the same everywhere. ''So why can''t I gather energy at one place and do magic at another. ''Or rather, even if a few feet away, haven''t I done it already. So it is true.'' Raka aimed at the water and imagined it turning round and round. Nothing happened at first but as his energy kept being used, slowly a small column of water turned a little in a circle. You could be reading stolen content. Head to Royal Road for the genuine story. ''Hmm..this is difficult. I can''t actually see under water. So if I want to cast magic underwater, I will have to enter the magical world and perceive it...Ah...that''s why!'' Magic was a physical phenomena. It made sense that it would be limited by physical senses. For example, if you cannot see something, it would probably be difficult to cast magic on it. ''Should be the same with other senses.'' Raka understood that it was not a limitation of magic itself, rather it was a limitation due to himself. And then he had a brainflash! ''If I can do magic...then doesn''t it mean...! this..this...'' Raka was too excited. If this was possible..he had to test it out immediately. Raka took out a mirror. He saw that he had taken out Lady Verina''s pair. He closed his eyes and entered the colorful world. Many colors whirled around as he looked but there were no ripples. He looked towards the energy form of the mirror. It seemed quite solid. Raka walked towards the mirror energy form and then stepped in it. The feeling of the mirror was something like the earth. Feeling solid but permeable. He walked down into it, the feeling intensifying. But then suddenly it cleared out. Raka''s felt his heartbeat increase a thousand times. Calming his heart, he looked around this place. This was not the boat, of that he was sure. He slowly walked around and found several energy forms which looked like tables and chairs. He walked further and he found a larger energy form, the shape of which he could not determine. ''Odd shape. It looks like a cuboid with a cuboid on top.'' Raka walked even closer to try to get more detail. When he neared and he saw more detail, he was still confused. ''Is it a coffin? That can''t be right. Why would someone keep a coffin in their house. Vampires, maybe...'' He tried to look at this thing from different angles. ''Oh I know. It''s a bed. The kind which has overhanging curtains.'' Raka suddenly realized. ''Haa...just a bed. Um...wait, it''s night time right... hehe.'' He walked extremely close to the curtains and then through them. A vague energy form was lying on top. ''Hehehe...I can see you.'' Raka opened his eyes and found himself on the boat.
Perception increases by 10.
"Hahahahahhahhah....ahahahhahha..haahhah..." Monkey and Nobby suddenly woke up to find Raka laughing his ass off while rolling on the deck. They looked at each other in consternation. ''Has he finally lost his rockers'' was what they were probably thinking. Raka''s hysteria lasted a while. He eventually stopped laughing and sobered up. And then he was horrified. Just a moment ago, he had felt like there was an inflated balloon in his heart. Now he felt like that balloon had exploded into pieces. The reason was simple. ''If I can perceive that place, can''t I do magic there. If I can, then so can someone else!'' Bonding was after all, a way to remove nature''s limitations. Mirrors were good communication tools. Bonding was not a difficult magic and definitely not a secret. So why didn''t everyone have mirrors. Even if they were expensive, they could still buy a pair of small ones. So why didn''t they? ''Isn''t it because of this? Holy....'' Raka would have to be really careful where his mirrors end up. Not only were they a danger to him, it would also become a danger to others. ''If any of them fell into wrong hands...'' Raka could only imagine the consequences. ''Peek should be relatively safe though.'' Raka sighed. Raka struggled through a couple of hours but there was still no sign of the sea dragon. Satisfied, he logged out and went to sleep. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Swamy woke up after a long sleep. As he yawned, he thought to check up on the forums before logging in. The forums were abuzz. Apparently, the main news was the first player who reached Khardoum from Ilmentia. ''Hmm....so I am already late..'' Swamy started reading the details. ''Player Suzaku..reached today morning... Much fanfare, etc. Hmm apparently the guy had advertised that he was coming or how could he generate such a welcome.'' There was even a video of the entire event. Dozens of players came to visit the docks and cheer for this guy. Amazingly, not many npcs were there. ''Yeah, after all it''s a big thing for players only!'' Swamy sighed. ------------------------------------------------------------------ Raka had logged in again after almost 10 hours of real time. It was day break in game. As the morning sun shone, he felt a lot better. Even monkey and parrot seemed a lot better. They had rested and now felt like themselves. Even Raka felt that he could face off against one or two sea dragons. While the sun rose a bit higher, Raka practiced. He needed to understand his limits to really be able to use magic freely in battle. For that he chose a very simple magic. Compression and Expansion. Compression was simple. When you apply control on magic, it indirectly causes the compression to take place. Like how the formless fire became the shape of a fireball. Expansion was just the opposite but also very simple. In fact, every time the control on magic failed, when you ran out of mana, the magic had a tendency to backfire. Or to say it exploded on you. Explosion is just an extreme form of rapid expansion. Rather compression and expansion are not treated as magic but as a process of magic. They are like the basics of the basics. But Raka understood that these basics of basics could be used to fight. Being very simple, their mana requirement was low and one of the biggest problems Raka had, was insufficient mana. He had spent far too long in his quest to do free magic and neglected Focus as a result. On the other hand, even while being simple, if he could manage it, they could end up having enormous power. Perfect for his situation. That''s what Raka was trying to do. Right now, Raka was trying to make an airball. Similar to a fireball but made of air magic. ''Exploding this should cause the Air Wave magic I used before.'' Air Wave was like a directional explosion of an airball, the force escaping in one direction only. He imagined how it would look like in his head and waved his hand. A nearly transparent round ball of air was formed instantly. ''If I focus more, I won''t need to wave my hand. But for now this is ok.'' Then he imagined the airball expanding. Slowly, it became larger and larger while becoming even more transparent. A little while later it completely disappeared from view. But Raka could still feel his mana being drained so he knew the magic was still in effect. Another few moments and finally the airball could not hold its shape and dispersed as puffs of air. ''Alright now that I have seen it, I just need to imagine it happening instantly.'' Raka quickly made a fist and an airball formed. He waited a moment and then suddenly opened his hand. Piff! An almost audible sound came and in the next instant a wave of air blew over him. ''Hmm...success! So all I have to do now is increase power.'' And then, maybe because his mind was clear due to the long rest, he realized something more. He hadn''t tried to do free magic since forever. Everytime he had gathered energy was only when he wanted to use it. Thus he had missed noticing that his energy remained available for longer periods of time. And because he hadn''t, he had been so absorbed in simply increasing Perception. His Perception had reached the 60s. But if he had noticed, he probably might have been able to do free magic while in his 20s or 30s. ''Alright! I am officially an idiot!'' Raka sighed. Actually, other players had realized this fact much earlier. But as it was a very basic fact, like swinging a sword, no one had really thought to put it in the forums. In Raka''s defense, he had never interacted with other players so far in the game, hence he could be pardoned for not knowing such a little thing. Raka could not remain depressed for long though. He still had a journey to complete. "Monkey, take out the oars. Let''s row." The sea dragon had followed it''s prey for a long time but everytime it thought that it came close, the prey would suddenly run away. It was confused. But it was patient. Humans were delicious creatures. And finding one alone was like hitting the lottery. It kept on chasing. Soon it reached the edge of the region which the humans called the no wind zone when it lost it''s prey again. It immediately started going in one direction at great speed. But after travelling a long time, it did not find the prey. Immediately it changed direction and increased its speed even more. But again, after a long time, it still did not find it''s prey. It was confused again. Where did the human disappear to? There was this large area of sea in front where the currents do not flow. The sea dragon knew that humans did not go into the area where the currents do not flow. Could this human have entered the area, it wondered. It dare not enter this area. Sea creatures of all kinds rely on sea currents more than people realize. Ofcourse one was a bit afraid entering an area without them. And then there was the danger of it''s own predators. So it went around the area on to the other side and waited for the human to arrive. Ah~ delicious meat. Unaware of all this and completely convinced that he was out of danger, for now, Raka rowed. Every hour they took a 15 min break. In this period, Raka took out his piece de resistance. A drive paddle! A very expensive piece of equipment. In fact, if his boat had not been free, Raka wouldn''t have even dreamed of acquiring it. He put the drive paddle in its designated place on the back of the boat and started embedding water magic. ''Time to increase my Focus!'' Using this thing, one was required to use the least possible energy to increase Focus. It did not speak much for speed though and rowing was still faster. ''Just for now...wait till I increase my mana...I will drive it like a motor boat...'' Ah, distant dreams! Almost four hours game time later, they finally made it out of the no wind zone. ''Ugh!'' Raka stood up and stretched. It was hard work, rowing that is. One had to wonder why it didn''t increase his Strength but the fact was it didn''t. And just as the wind hit the sails and the boat lurched forward, a flash appeared in the corner of his eye. He couldn''t react. None of them could. The lightning just hit the wood and burst into flame. Lightning + Wood = Fire. Fortunately, this was the sea and water was all around. But if more of that lightning hit.... "Monkey, Nobby take care of the fire." After shouting Raka turned towards the sea dragon. He clenched his fist and released. Piff! Piff! Two sudden air explosions took place very close to the sea dragon. The air blasted itself on the beast. It screamed and dove deep. ''Damn! This thing is very intelligent.'' Raka closed his eyes and tried to find the sea creature. ''There!'' Raka simply reacted and imagined a powerful waterball exploding inside at some depth. Luckily it had enough power to cause a explosive wave. Creating a water explosion was difficult, owing to the nature of the medium. The denser the medium, the more energy it required. The water wave hit the sea dragon, smacking it bloody. A bit of red rose to the surface. Raka tried another waterball in the same general direction but this time it was a miss. Doing magic was difficult if you could not see where you were doing it. It was like a sensible irony! Another lightning hit the boat. Monkey and parrot rushed to that other place. The sea dragon hid while it charged for another strike again. Raka closed his eyes and tried another waterball explosion. This time the creature was ready for it and as it sensed the change in the water, it immediately ran away in the other direction. "Grrr....this thing is annoying!'' Raka equipped his toughnut boar leather jacket. If nothing else, it will provide some protection from the lightning. Just then another bolt hit the boat. ''It is toying with us!'' And then it dove again, out of sight. Raka needed a plan and fast. He closed his eyes and waited for the next lightning attack. He had to time it perfectly. The sea dragon soon moved upwards for it''s next attack. Near the surface, lightning blazed out of it''s body headed towards the boat. In that same instant, Raka opened his eyes and focused his mana under a spot just below the sea dragon. The lightning bolt missed Raka by a centimetre. All his hair stood up on ends due to the electric charge. Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! Splash! Suddenly five simultaneous water explosions occurred launching the water up high. The water hit the creature and it was thrown into the air. Biggest enemy of fish...air! It breathes air and yet it dies in it. Another irony! ''Here''s my chance!'' Raka launched all his remaining mana into fire explosions. The sea dragon hit the water badly burnt but still alive. It wanted to dive under but at that moment, Nobby swooped in and struck with its beak on the head of the creature. Its head was pierced and it died instantly. Raka brought the boat around to look at his dead prize. With the help of monkey and Nobby, they slowly dragged the sea dragon out of the water and onto the boat. With a width of almost 2 metres and the length of 20 metres, this sea dragon was bigger than the boat. Raka, with monkey and Nobby, quickly tied ropes around it and lifted its ends above the water. If someone looked from afar, they would probably see an upturned sea creature with a sail flying on top! ----------------------------------------------------------------------- The island of Khardoum slowly came into view. Khardoum was basically a desert. But they were one of the richest human islands. The reason was gold. The only human island which had gold deposits. Just like Dubai or Jordan finding oil and becoming rich, Khardoum had become a desert people wished to live in. It was another irony that the largest city on the island was not the capital, which was located near the gold mines in the middle of the desert, but rather the port city of Maccaba, located in the east of the island. West of the island was a long snaky forest which stretched out all across the western edge. The forest ended up in a large desert as one went towards the center of the island. Currently on it''s western seaboard, a weird looking ship was slowly approaching it. "Nobby! There should be a cove near by, find it." And a green parrot took off in search for a landing place. ''The best place would be to find the fishing village. I think it should be close by.'' "There is one, a bit that way." Nobby reported. "Alright!" Raka adjusted his tiller accordingly. The cove was like a U-shaped piece of land with little protection against the waves. Still it was better than nothing. ''Hmmm....oh this should be...ah there it is.'' Raka carefully studied his map, trying to find out his location. ''The fishing village is further south but we should take a bit of rest here.'' Thinking that, he made his way into the cove. As he reached the beach, he dropped anchor in shallow water and looked up into the forest. "What the!" He could not help exclaiming. There was this woman, definitely a woman, straight from the stories of Aladdin and that Princess of Arabia. Wearing a loose fitting two piece pink dress. The lower one was tied up on the ankles. The top was a pink blouse only covering the chest and tied up on the shoulders. Between the two, the waist was bare. Her long golden hair was tied up in a ponytail. There was a thin veil hiding the lower part of her face. She was sexy! It took almost a minute for Raka''s brain to react. ''Umm...arabian...not egyptian? Oh that''s a player!'' Raka realized. This sexy lady approached Raka, while he simply kept staring, and then said, "ababffhhnnagjfeoujsl!" Ah! The bane of this game; Language! Chapter 33: Coincidence Sophie woke up and yawned. She looked out the windows at the pristine morning and the glowing sun. She opened the windows to breathe in some of the fresh mountain air. The breeze moved her tussled golden hair gently. The morning dew dripped from the glass panes on to her soft skin making her shiver as the coldness tickled her. As the sun grew higher, trees, birds and people awoke to begin their new day. "Sophie...eat your breakfast properly." Her father, Michael, complained. "Dad! I am not a kid!" Sophie started too. "But you sure eat like one. What''s the hurry?" Her mother, Tanya, said. "Hmm...I need the time to get dressed properly." Sophie said gracefully. "Yeah...yeah it would sound so amazing if your toast did not look like it was being tortured to death in your mouth." Her brother John joined in as he took a chair and sat down on the dining table. Sophie pouted. "Ah but I can surely guess why she needs the extra time to get dressed." John added. "John..don''t you dare!" Sophie exclaimed "O really...everyone knows it already dear!" Tanya giggled. "Mom!" Sophie yelped. "What are you guys talking about? How come I am the last to know always?" Michael looked confused. "Cause dear, you are blind as a bat. Why does a girl need so much time to make herself look good?" Tanya asked. "Hmm....oh..so it''s a boy. You were going out with that boy called Enrique right?" Michael asked. Sophie, John and Tanya stared blankly at him. Then they all shook their heads in unison. "Dad, Enrique was the boy I went out with when I was 14!" Sophie said. "I still wonder how your company can make profit, dear..." Tanya said. "Hahaha...dad, good one!" John said. "Oh..was it that long ago. He was good kid though." Michael shrugged. "Dad...seriously..." Sophie shook her head. Some time later, "Sophie, hurry up!" Tanya shouted. "Yes, I am just coming down." She appeared downstairs wearing short bluish tights and green jersey. She had put on white jacket on top. Her hair was tied behind. She took her helmet out from the coat rack and walked outside to get her cycle. She placed her cycle on the car''s cycle rack and then moved on to the passenger''s seat. "Alright Dad..let''s go." And the car zoomed forward. Due to her involvement in her father''s business and due to the fact that the office and factory were closer to home, Sophie decided to commute to college from her parent''s home instead of finding a closer rented place. Her house was not that far off though, just about 15 kms to the college. Enough for a bus ride, though her Dad did drop her off if he had to go into the city like today. But Sophie did not take the bus back home. She cycled. Switzerland was a beautiful place and cycling up and down the slopes was her favorite thing to do. A young woman''s life for a day could make it''s own book. Giggling, laughing, gossiping, sharing secrets, blushing, twirling your hair, love, lies, etc. "See ya later Sophie!" "Au revoir" "Ciao" "Bye", her friends waved. "Au revoir. Bye." She waved back. Back home, she took a quick shower and changed into comfortable clothes. "Mom! No dinner for me. I ate too much with my friends." She yelled. She made her way to the gaming pod installed in her bedroom, on the 1st floor of their two storey house, and logged in to Long Island. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Sphinx appeared in the middle of the forest when suddenly an intense feeling bombarded her senses. A horrifying fishy, rotting smell! "What the..." She grimaced. "Did something die around here?" Sphinx looked around but couldn''t see anything. She even sniffed herself just to be sure. "The smell seems to be coming from the sea?" She was shocked at her discovering this. She loved the sea air with it''s salty fresh feeling. This was one of the reasons she hunted here in the forest, rather than try to head to the capital. She turned and walked towards the sea. In a few minutes, she reached the shore but what waited for her was an even more shocking feeling. "A fish with a sail?!" She could not help exclaiming aloud. This scene was so weird. Not only was the fish on top of the water, it had what looked like a sail sticking above it. Sphinx rubbed her eyes and looked again at this strange sight. It was only then that she noticed a smallish ship underneath it. Or rather the ship wasn''t really that small, the humongous fish made it look smaller than it was, she realized. But anyone would get mistaken when they first saw this sight. It was that bizarre. "And the smell is coming from that." She wrinkled her nose. "How are the people able to even breathe?!" This strange ship slowly slid in closer and made it''s way to the island. Sphinx had never seen such a fish before. Beyond the disgusting smell, she was deeply interested and so she followed the ship. ''It seems to be getting even closer? Where is it heading?'' As she followed, the ship reached shore and dropped anchor in a small cove. But this relatively normal scene shocked her to her roots. ''That''s a human, a monkey and a large green bird which looks so much like a parrot? That''s it? No others?!'' She did not know much about sailing but still to sail a ship and kill this absurd beast singlehandedly... ''Either this guy is a powerful npc or there is something fishy going on.'' She surmised. But this particular npc was wearing something that didn''t look like anything the people of this island wore. ''Definitely not from this island.'' Her curiosity aroused, she could only approach this particular man, all the while hoping she didn''t have to breathe the air for much longer. As Sphinx approached, the guy stood up and stared at her. Like she was the last thing he expected. Like he was guilty. She almost thought that she had just witnessed some illegal smuggling or something. ''I better be careful.'' But as she walked in, the guy simply stared back. Rather it was the monkey and that parroty bird who were causing a ruckus for some reason. "Hi there!" She said. But the guy simply stared. And then hit his head with his palm for some reason. "Hello, um, who might you be?" Sphinx asked again. This time the guy nodded and opened his mouth. But then he immediately closed it up again and started waving his hands. ''What is wrong with him?'' She wondered but observed the guy make a bottle like shape with his hands. "What! Who do you think you are? You pervert!" She yelled. The guy seemed surprised and and then hurriedly started miming other shapes. He made the bottle shape again, and then started to read and turn pages! "Oh! Do you mean a book? You want a book or do you want to go to a library?" She finally realized this guy was a complete klutz when it came to making shapes with his hands. What she thought was a bottle was actually his attempt at making a book. The guy simply stared blankly at what she said. Sphinx repeated his hand signs and made a questioning look on her face. The guy did a thumbs up. ''Odd, it is almost like he is a player.'' Sphinx thought so and not without reason. In the beginning everyone had to go through that difficult phase, even her, so sign language became popular among players. It also became a differentiative characteristic of a player as compared to an npc, especially in the initial stages. Then someone had found how to learn language and no one had to suffer through this again. Yet, here it was. She could only wonder about it. ''Maybe this guy is dumb.'' Maybe he was really dumb but she was referring to the lack of ability to speak. There were systems which could be equipped on to a gaming console and allowed a person to send out digitized voice. But the people themselves learned sign language in real life and were far more comfortable using it. Fortunately, it was not new for her, as one of her real life friends had this same disability and often resorted to sign language even in the game. She waved her hands asking him to follow. And then this guy turned around and spoke to the animals. "ababifhinnanfahh" ''What the ....he can speak!'' But she also realized that what she was hearing was a load of gibberish. ''What''s happening?'' The guy and the monkey jumped off the boat leaving the bird behind. He made a sign for her to lead. Sphinx was confused by this situation but decided to let it play a bit more. On the way back, they entered the forest and found themselves face to face with a bison. Khardoum''s forest area was home to bisons. Looking the same as they did in real life, only larger by a couple of meters (O magic!). These bisons however had a system which decided strength and rank. Through the size of their horns. The larger the horns, usually the larger the bison and stronger. Bisons ruled this forest. Their only predators were panthers but even they only hunted on the baby bisons. An adult had no natural predator. Being such a tyrannical being, it was naturally aggressive. And while ''the guy'' watched this beast with interest, Sphinx had already made her move. She quickly equipped a uniquely curved bow and shot an arrow aiming for its legs. The arrow travelled swiftly and struck true embedding deep in its calves. As the bison grunted in pain, she had already run off to another location and shot at another of its legs. The beast tried to dodge but the arrow was faster. It grunted loudly and sank to its knees. She took a breath and focused. She whispered a tune and instantly wind started swirling around the arrow''s tip. She released the arrow and it smashed into the bison penetrating it till only its feathered end was visible. The arrow must have hit something vital for the bison took one last breath and then fell down. Sphinx sighed. Hunting in this forest, such encounters were nothing new to her. But the guy was gaping with his mouth open. And when she looked back, he clapped. "absbabfasa!" He said some words but it came out as gibberish again, but this time she knew that he was complimenting her. She just waved nonchalantly and started collecting her arrows. Moving the bison was beyond her and other than the horns, she really didn''t care about the beast. However an older bison, like the one she had killed just now, had really thick horns and dehorning them required specialized tools or superhuman strength. It was a task very much beyond her at this point. She looked up and found the guy still staring at her. She waved again to follow. But then the guy pointed to the bison with a questioning gesture. She simply shrugged. The guy nodded. Sphinx turned around to go on their way but the guy didn''t follow. Rather, he started cutting branches. ''What is he doing?'' She looked. Although this forest did not have anything like the Bloodlust of Ilmentia, it was still dangerous. Meeting a bison without its herd nearby was already a miracle. Soon it would attract a panther or two. Though she could handle any threat, but she still preferred not meeting them. She had died two times already in their hands. It was a strange thing that humans had more success killing bisons than panthers while they could be killed more easily by panthers. While an angry bison could very easily kill a panther. The guy soon cut off a few branches and tied them all together with something. And then lifted the bison on to the branches and tied it off. He walked off the the end of this thing and starting dragging the corpse along the forest floor. ''Wow!'' Sphinx was both impressed and bewildered. ''Why would he waste his time on this?'' Their pace slowed down considerably. The guy heaved and hoed and pulled with all his might, while Sphinx lead the way. Luckily they met nothing. After about an hour they made their way out of the forest and onto the sand. Sphinx took a moment to absorb the change in scenery. It always surprised her when the forest floor suddenly became a desert floor. She could never get used to the abrupt change even now. Not to mention the guy doing the hard work was much too surprised by this. Like her, who had never seen a real desert, except on TV or other virtual reality games, the guy also stared at everything with round eyes. His eyes portraying feelings of amazement and shock to varying degrees. Sphinx giggled looking at this expressions. The guy looked up and saw her staring. Perhaps for the first time, their eyes met as they looked at each other. And then he shivered. ''What! Am I that scary?!'' Sphinx pouted in anger. She swept around, her golden hair swinging along and started walking again. This time she did not look to see whether he was following, but she soon heard his grunting sounds as he pulled. They soon came across a rough path and started following it. Just then,
Flytrap! You have been surrounded by animals who will attack. Flytrap cooperation 100%.
Sphinx groaned but also murmured another tune while signaling the guy to run. A small wind magic blasted off her feet as she was launched several metres ahead, just as she detected lots of snakes and scorpions and all sorts of things attacking.
Sensitivity increases by 1.
This was the reason why Hebenu village, the starter village on this island, had an Age requirement of 15. The Flytrap as the system called it, happened when sand dwellers like snakes, scorpions and all kinds of lizards congregated and then jumped out of the sand to attack at the same time. Like the literal flytrap, you would be surrounded by dozens of these creatures who attacked you. What was worse was that these attacks could go on continuously for a long time, so even if you managed to kill a few, you would still not be any safer. Adding to that was the fact that these Flytraps could move. As the animals and insects moved so did their Flytrap, so you could never know when or where this may be triggered. No one had ever survived a Flytrap. Not even the best players who came out the village. Even now, no one had the fighting ability to survive the Flytrap. Thankfully, players soon learned that it could be escaped. There is a time lag between the notification and the actual attack during which, if you were fast enough, you could escape the Flytrap zone. The creatures did not attack if you were not in the zone so even if you triggered it, you could still run away safely. It was still dangerous as the creatures who attacked were all poisonous. The poisons caused all sorts of negative effects from stunning to bleeding to temporary blindness effectively stopping you from escaping once you were caught. In a word, it was the hell of the desert. Sphinx turned around as she landed and watched the guy getting attacked by hordes of poisonous things. She despaired but she could not do anything. She had seen too many getting buried under by these things. ''So he wasn''t fast enough.'' Was all she could think off. But then something amazing but also shocking started happening in front of her eyes. The guy equipped a metal staff whose ends suddenly lit up with fire. He then started swinging it around so fast burning the creatures which attacked. Everywhere his staff passed, the creatures would not only get burned, they would also die right then and there. As he twirled it around in exquisite motions, he established a kinda boundary. Nothing entered within! His staff swung all around punishing the things as they attacked. A smile appeared on his lips but his eyes always remained focused. As the ferocity of the attacks increased, his movements became even more faster, even more refined. The two balls of fire moved around him like two guardian spirits allowing nothing to touch him. His appearance looked cool and frightening at the same time. ''Wow...so cool!'' Sphinx was deeply impressed. But there was an even more frightening thing right next to him. The monkey which had been following them moved as fast as a blast of wind, appearing here and there and smashing as many things it could find. Sphinx saw it move for a while and was surprised to see that it mainly targeted the snakes. If the guy was burning these things, the monkey was clawing these creatures with its nails and teeth and yet it killed almost the same number, if not more. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. The attacks kept going on and on.. ''Amazing...could they last the whole thing though?'' Sphinx had never seen someone last this long, even in a group of five - six people. But no one had ever survived to make sure how long this Flytrap really lasted. It could last a really really long time for all she knew. And yet, like knowing what she was thinking, the guy started laughing loudly. Laughter in any language sounds the same. Then he did the most shocking thing she had seen so far. He lifted his leg and tapped strongly on the ground. Instantly, the sand exploded and every single creature hiding within was blasted out into the air. The monkey was surprised for a moment but then immediately moved to attack, while the guy who had made it happen started exploding fire all around. The creatures were burned to death in hordes. So much fire made it seem like the creatures had entered a blazing volcano. ''What magic is this?!'' Sphinx was horrified now. Whatever this guy did was far exceeding anything she had seen or heard. And she could be considered one of the experts owing to the fact that she was among the first few who reached the Age of 15 on this island. ''Could he really be a powerful npc and not a player like I thought?'' What could explain such power! With the killing spree these two demons went on, the number of attacks greatly reduced. For a moment it seemed like the Flytrap would end. But then the guy laughed and tapped his foot again. For some reason, he was having the time of his life. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- The fight lasted almost half an hour. However for Sphinx it seemed much sooner, so absorbed was she in observing those two. And then, the attacks abruptly ended. There was only the mountain of corpses surrounding them, extending for a few metres in all directions. In fact, they were currently treading on the burnt dead remains of those creatures. ''Did he ever get bit? Did he even get poisoned once?'' Sphinx couldn''t be sure. ''Crazy!'' She summarized these two in one word. But then he looked at her and shivered again. ''Seriously this guy can kill like this and still be afraid of me! Could there be something more insulting!'' They soon reached Hebenu village. The guards who saw them could only see a pretty lady, who wore a veil, and a guy with a monkey, dragging a bison behind. Some of them were impressed, others laughed out in ridicule. But nevertheless, they recognized them as Goddess''s children and allowed entry. Sphinx led them to a store she knew and negotiated a price for the bison. A crowd had gathered near them all speaking ten to the dozen. "Look at that...that''s a bison! Did they drag the thing all the way from the forest?" "Who are they?" "That girl couldn''t be a beginner, she is not wearing beginner clothes! Is she a player or a npc?" "Definitely a player dude! I know her. She is one of the top players, Sphinx." "Wow she looks sexy. I wonder how her face looks...if only she would remove her veil." "Bro...someone with that sexy a figure has to have some flaws. Maybe that''s why she hides her face." "Idiot...how can that be..this is a game, not real life! I bet she is even more beautiful than she looks." "Oh that she is. She has gotten this dress recently. I remember her when she was still wearing beginner clothes. She is absolutely beautiful!" "Oh dear. And who is this boarhound with her. It looks like he was the one who dragged the bison here." "Yeah..he should be strong." "Oh how cool! Aw!" "But he smells awful!" "Wonder how much would they get for this?" The guy just stood there blankly while the monkey played with its tail. The deal made her a lot. She handed the guy half the coins giving a thumbs up. He nodded and accepted. And then they finally headed to the library completely ignoring the various glances and gazes on them. ''Tch. So troublesome.'' Sphinx sighed. It was good that everyone recognized her as a top player and did not approach so easily. Before, it was far worse. The female to male ratio was always less in any game. Long Island was no different. Once in the library, the guy started looking all around, going up and down and eventually found the kid''s section. He quickly took out some books and started reading them. ''He is really trying to learn the language? So he is a player then.'' Sphinx started thinking about all the things that had happened. ''Whoever he is, he must be a top player. And not from this island. Could he be?'' The first player to travel the seas, who many had hoped would be Raka, actually turned out to be someone else. But would Raka be far behind? But then why was he trying to learn the language? ''He arrived on his own ship!'' Sphinx got really excited as she thought about it. ''Is he really...'' She was hoping but she could only wait till he learned the language. She took another chair and whiled down the time flipping an almost silly book which she didn''t even care to read. Half an hour later, he moved to another floor to read. He spent another hour on this floor while Sphinx waited patiently. Then he turned to her. "Hello" He spoke. "Hi" Sphinx smiled. "Um.. I am Raka." He said and smiled. "I am Sphinx." She also smiled. "So have you learned the language?" "Um...about 80% of it. I am learning the rest as we speak." Raka said. There were so many questions whirling around in Sphinx''s mind right now and she was just thinking how she should proceed when he started. "Can we go outside and talk? I really need to get something to eat." He said. "Ah..sure." Sphinx smiled sheepishly as she realized she was hungry as well. Outside they went to another store where they bought a few fruits and things. "Ah could I request that you show me around? I am not familiar with the place." Raka requested. "Sure." Sphinx agreed. It gave her an excuse to talk about various things as well. She showed him around the various places, the battle school and the magic school and Raka compared them to how they were in Ilmentia. Housing in Khardoum, especially desert housing was a whole lot of flat roofs and mud walls, though some still used stone and perhaps because of a forest nearby, wood. The battle school was different and they offered training in the spear. And they also offered training in the bow. The graduates actually had a choice between the spear and the bow. The magic school however was the same. Human islands made great efforts to keep the standards of magic the same among them. It was achieved by allowing student exchanges and teacher exchanges and similar things. "Um..so why did you need to learn language again?" Sphinx asked. "Ah...because the languages are different. I first thought that the languages only differed between different races but I found that even among the human islands, the languages spoken are different. Unless you learn the corresponding language, the system will not let you communicate, atleast not with words. Keep it in mind, if you plan to visit other islands in the future." Raka replied. "Hmm..I never realized that. How come they made such a complex system..." Sphinx wondered aloud. "I guess it''s keeping with reality. When you visit another country don''t you have to learn their language? On the other hand, I am sure that there must be people who know other languages, you know like translators. Atleast in the bigger cities, I guess." Raka said. "Hmm..makes sense. So was that really your ship? And whats up with that monkey?" She asked as she saw the monkey scratching his fur. "Hahaha...yeah that''s really my ship. She''s called the Dawn Dream. Monkey is just monkey. That''s what I call him too." Raka laughed. "Um, may I ask why do you have the veil on? I mean you look all mysterious and stuff but isn''t it an inconvenience?" "Not right now. You smell horrible!" Sphinx laughed. "Other than that I guess I don''t really have a reason. Here I will take it off." She moved her hands and removed her veil. She looked back at him only to find him frozen like a statue, eyes wide, staring at her. "Hey, don''t stare like that. That''s rude.." She blushed a little. "Ah...m...mm....sorry." Raka simply shook his head but she could see that he had turned red like a tomato. Ofcourse, she didn''t know what was going on in his head right now but the moment had suddenly turned awkward. Obviously no one wondered about the situation of the people around them who suddenly witnessed the unveiling of this beauty. Sphinx simply ignored them and Raka was too much in shock to care. No one spoke for a bit when Sphinx decided to say something. "Um so are you always that happy while fighting?" she started. "Ah no..though the fight was fun. But I was happy because my Sensitivity stat increased almost 20 points." Raka smiled. "Oh wow. I haven''t seen anyone survive the Flytrap before you. So surviving it gives a boost to Sensitivity, eh." Sphinx said. "Eh, by any chance do you know what this stat is or does?" Raka asked. "Wait, don''t you know already?" On the other hand Sphinx was shocked. "Not really..." Raka sheepishly smiled. "Where have you been living. Someone posted it on the forums already. It is the stat which increases sensitivity of your senses. All your senses, sight, hearing, smell, touch, etc. Ah just be careful that it also increases sensitivity to pain." "Really?!" Raka was shocked. "So Endurance reduces it while Sensitivity increases it. What is up with that?!" "Yeah I know." Sphinx nodded. They talked for a long time as they walked all around. "So wait, you are really heading to the island of the dwarves?" Sphinx stood still on the street. "Yeah. That''s my plan." Raka nodded. "Um...um...would it be too much to ask, if you could take me as well? Though I may not be as helpful.." Sphinx asked. She was in doubt. Would he agree to that? They had just met and all things considered, they were strangers. Add to that, Raka was definitely more skillful and powerful of the two. She didn''t know how much use she could be. But this was definitely a golden chance as they say. After all, how many players had yet sailed the seas. Just 2. "Sure." But Raka agreed immediately. "Um..don''t you need to think a bit. Look at the skills I know or something?" She asked with a mixture of shock and worry. "You are good. I saw your archery already. Other things can be slowly learned." Raka smiled. However inside him, there was currently a giant balloon being filled with air. "Oh...ok then." Sphinx smiled as well. Her friends had moved on to the capital or other cities and hence she was planning to leave the village one time or another. And here she got a godsend chance to actually leave the island altogether. She glanced at Raka and quietly evaluated him. From all she had seen till now, he seemed like a nice guy albeit a bit of a klutz. ''I am sure it will be a fun trip...'' She thought smiling. After some time, they decided to go back to the ship. "Ah...I need to buy some supplies first." Raka said. Sphinx nodded and suddenly wondered. "Um...how would we split the income and expenses?" She asked. Although she was a top player, she had not moved to any of the big cities so she was not rich. She was definitely worried on the kind of expenses a voyage would need. "For now, I only need some food supplies. And I will earn some money on the way too. So I don''t need any money now. For the future, we shall split it half and half. To tell you the truth, I also don''t know very much on the kind of expenditures or income we will have." Raka sighed. "Hmm...alright." Sphinx nodded and agreed. Part of the adventure is it''s uncertainty. Some time later, they finally left the village. -------------------------------------------------------------------------- Dusk! Colors of the sunset. Hues of red and orange covering the skies. A day had passed in the game. However it was just hours in real life. Sphinx was surprised by how much had changed within those few hours. As they stepped out of the forest, the ship came into view. ''It still looks silly. And it smells awful.'' "Raka, you are not planning on taking this smelly monster all the way to the island of the dwarves, are you? If you are then count me out. I think I will faint if I smell this much longer." Sphinx said. "Hahaha...no. Actually I will sell it off at the fisherman''s village a bit south of here." Raka replied. "Hmm...that''s good." Sphinx replied. "Say Sphinx, would no one miss you if you went along with me? I mean you would have friends here, right?" Raka asked. "Yeah. But all my friends have moved to the cities. Only I chose to stay. They have been asking me to join them." Sphinx looked at the horizon with a bit of sadness. And then she looked at Raka who immediately turned his head and pretended not to notice. "Well, I guess they will be jealous once they find out where I am." Sphinx laughed. "Ah...um. Maybe I shouldn''t be asking this but do you have a boyfriend. Or perhaps someone you like...I mean in real life. Cause you know, I am not asking for me....just that they might become jealous knowing you are alone with a guy. Not that there is anything wrong with me or being with me. But you know..." Raka rambled on. "Hmm...I don''t have a boyfriend. But I do have someone I like in the real world. But he doesn''t play this game. Don''t think he will care much about what I do here." Sphinx laughed. "Oh..." Raka smiled. As they reached the ship, Nobby came flying by. "Welcome back Captain! There is good wind today." Nobby said. "It talks!" Sphinx jumped in surprise. "A talking parrot! Wow!" "Ah fair maiden! I be Sir Squaky Nobbington Poppington Cackle the sixth. But from your lovely lips do address me as Sir Pop Cackle the sixth." Nobby said. "Ah, Sphinx, this is Nobby. Nobby, this is Sphinx." Raka said. "You do not believe, sir, of my greatness. But do not heed his words lovely maiden. The Cackle clan is highly honorable." Nobby said as he spread his wings. Raka jumped on the ship. He leaned and offered his hand to Sphinx. "Come on aboard." He smiled. Sphinx held his hand. And then the parrot said, "Ah...the welcoming of the lovely maiden to our humble abode in the setting sun sings of a lovely sunflower bowing down.....Aaaaaahh~!" Just then,
You have been stunned. Effect lasts 5 seconds.
''What!!!'' Sphinx was shocked. And then she saw Raka moving. He jumped on her pushing her to the ground and kissed her lips. TIK TOK TIK TOK TIK TOK SLAP! "You you you...I thought you were a nice guy. But all the while this is what you were planning! Did you think I am easy just cause I agreed to go with you. You scoundrel!" Sphinx said. "But but...Nobby" Raka said. "Screw you...ASSHOLE!" Sphinx added. "But but..." Sphinx turned around angrily and stomped away. -------------------------------------------------------------------- Even later, Raka remembered that pink silhouette as it disappeared like the setting sun ushering in the darkness. He moved his hands over the tiller here and there completely devoid of any thought of going forward or staying in place. "I walk a lonely road~ on the boulevard of broken dreams~" Raka sung to the night wind. "Wonderful melancholy, Sir Raka. It even drives me to tears...ah the aching heart~" "Nobby. Just stay still for a sec..." Raka said as he equipped his staff. Chapter 34: A long journeys end Raka stopped his ship just outside the cove near the fishermen village. It was still night and he decided that entering that cove with it''s parked boats would be too risky. The night also impeded his vision. As he waited for dawn he went back to feeling depressed. Yesterday, game time, had been such a perfect day. Right till the end where he bungled it all up. He hadn''t meant to fall down on Sophie. Yes, he did recognize her. The game made sure to keep your base facial features the same. Although with a bit of makeup anyone could change their appearance drastically. But still, not much had changed on Sophie''s face. Except perhaps her eyes. "Ugh! Green eyes!" Raka shivered. Still his actions were unforgivable, even if they were unintended. The more he thought about it, the more he realized that his brain had become sloppy in her company. Otherwise how wouldn''t he have noticed and stopped Nobby from singing! Normally, he would have been able to do this easily but he was, in a word, starstruck. Must be because all the blood seemed to flow away from his head. Or maybe he was just trying to act cool and dignified which led to this situation. ''Now she will never talk to me again.'' Raka sighed. He felt like crying but at the same time realized that it was useless. He still remembered those last moments clearly. As soon as he held her hand, a kind of electricity passed through his body. A kind of excitement. He wanted to revel in this feeling for just a moment longer that he completely forgot about everything else. He only woke up when a ''Stunned'' status message appeared before his eyes. But by that time it was too late. Gravity took his leaning body guiding it straight on to Sphinx. He did not know by what math or miracle, his face touched hers. But he definitely remembered the sensation of her extremely soft lips. Raka touched his own lips as he remembered that sensation again. It was like several sea dragons had sent lightning coursing through his body. Electrifying and yet gentle at the same time. ''Maybe increasing Sensitivity ain''t a bad thing.'' He realized while smiling. And then his dream turned into a nightmare as he realized what had happened. Her expression had said it all. He was worthless. He was trash. He was garbage. ''Oh how can a girl make me feel this way!'' His cheeks also remembered that burning painful sensation. ''Nope...increasing Sensitivity is definitely a bad thing.'' But most of all was the feeling of remorse. ''Why couldn''t have things turned out differently?'' And then he felt angry again at Nobby. ''Ah...no point getting angry at a dumb bird. In the end it was my fault!'' And he got even more depressed. People often say, not to leave a depressed person alone. Because if they are alone, they feel even more miserable like how Raka was feeling now. There was only a stupid monkey and an annoying parrot around. Raka sighed once more. There was a person before yesterday. And there was a person after. Maybe that''s what''s called growing up. Just then Raka sat straight up. "Nobby! You can speak the island''s language!" Raka shouted scaring the bird out of it''s slumber. He just remembered the scene of this parrot introducing itself to Sphinx. "You you you.....why....Oh forget it! I am too sad to be angry!" And Raka laid back down. Staring at the moving stars, Raka didn''t know when he fell asleep. When he woke up, he realized someone was shouting at him. "Hey kid...move your damn boat! You are obstructing our way! Where did you come from anyway?!" He heard. Raka lifted his groggy head and saw that there were a couple of boats coming near. He quickly rubbed the sleep off his eyes and replied. "Ah hello. Sorry for blocking. Actually I wanted to sell this beast." Raka said as he pointed to the ridiculously large sea dragon. "I came from Ilmentia by the way." The fishermen had already guessed the reason but still wanted to confirm. Also, he was blocking their way. "Hmm.. alright then, follow us." The fishermen shouted as they turned their boats around and guided him to a place nearby. "Thanks." Raka said as he dropped anchor in this new place. "Jump on our boat. We will take you ashore." The fishermen nodded. As one of the boats closed in next to his ship, Raka jumped over the side on to the boat. Well, maybe jumped would not be the correct term as the deck of his ship was not very high, so the most he did was clear the railings and step gently on the boat. "Hi I am Asim. The other one is Dakarai." The fishermen on the boat said. "Hi, I am Raka." "So how come you are here from Ilmentia? I don''t suppose you took a wrong turn and ended up here.." Asim laughed. "Hahaha...no. Actually I was on my way here. This sea dragon attacked me on the way." Raka said. "By the smell I can tell that you met it atleast 3 days ago." Asim said. "Almost 5 days ago. Well it is not the meat I was concerned for but the bones." Raka said. After all, a sea dragon was a fully certified magical creature with magical bones. Its carcass would be far more valuable than its meat. "I hear ya. You are lucky. Or powerful. Can''t decide yet." Asim said. "Incredibly lucky by my counts. Many a unfortunate ship has been lit ablaze by this creature''s lightning. Men could kill it, but without the ship they would still end up dead in the sea." Dakarai said. "Yeah. I have heard of those tales as well." Raka nodded. Maneuvering between the various ships, they finally reached the shore. "Come to the chief''s house. Only he can decide if you can sell it here." Asim said. Raka nodded. He also knew selling bones was not easy. If it were the same as Ilmentia, he would need to build some trust. The fishermen village was quite similar to the one in Ilmentia. There were just far more houses. Being a desert island, much of the food was obtained through the sea rather than agriculture. The chief''s house was a bigger house and the chief a wrinkly old man with white hair and beard. He had a walking stick in his hand and he walked with his back bent. "Welcome young man. I am Nubar. The men tell me you come to sell a sea dragon." "I am Raka sir. I would like to sell the bones of the sea dragon. I believe as it is a magical beast, its bones would have value." "It is true that a sea dragon''s bones are considered magical and have value. But we do not trade in magical bones with strangers. You must understand that it is a business of trust. Do you have a reference who can vouch for you?" Nubar asked. "I do not know anyone in Khardoum. But I know the fishermen in Ilmentia. Would their testimony stand?" Raka asked. Nubar looked at the other people and then nodded. "If you know the fishermen of Ilmentia, would you tell me some of their names?" Nubar asked. "Um, there is Farun and Guran." Raka said. "I know Guran. Could you tell me something about him?" Nubar asked. "Um...middle aged guy, muscular, broad, about my height, clean shaven, strict, often drinks.." Raka started. "Had a wife named Selena and has a daughter named Katrina who is also..." Raka continued. "That is enough." Nubar immediately interrupted. "I am convinced." Nubar smiled. "How do you know him?" "Ah, I learned fishing and sailing from him so I guess he is my teacher." Raka said. "Very well. I will allow you to trade here. Do you know how to cut up a sea dragon?" Nubar asked. "Actually I don''t. I brought the whole thing with me. I was hoping someone among you may know." Raka smiled sheepishly. Nubar gave a look of surprise. "You brought the whole sea dragon?!" "Ah yes. But its meat has already rot so don''t expect that." Raka added. Nubar shook his head. "Ah...you are one of the Goddess''s children.." Raka simply stayed silent. "Asim, help him out. You will have to wait for a bit, the merchants should arrive in a few hours. You can sell the bones then. If you haven''t sold magical bones before and by the looks of you, you haven''t, then I would suggest not selling any cheaper than 1500 gold coins. Oh by the way, as you will be using our market, we will be charging 10 gold coins." Nubar said. "That''s alright. Here are the 10 gold coins." Raka handed out the coins. Back at the boat, he and Asim worked together to separate the rotten flesh from the bones. Rotten fish smells bad. Cut up rotten fish smells worse. Fortunately for Raka, Asim was well prepared. He had brought nose clips and more than one! The carcass of a 20 metre long 2-3 metre wide fish is as big. They had to make several trips just to bring those bones ashore. Raka decided to keep the bones in place on the beach, so as to give off a grand appearance. ''Sales depends on looks'' someone very wise had once said. "Hey Asim, here''s a silver for helping out." Raka laughed as he popped him a coin. Asim simply gave a wide grin. As the sun rose up high, the merchants arrived. Lots of them. If the beach in Ilmentia was a busy fish market, this was like the opening of a superstore. The merchants were not only buying. They were selling as well. In fact the main street of the village became an impromptu festival in just a few minutes. The fish merchants made their way to the beach. Along with many fishermen selling loads of fish, Raka stood in one corner of the beach, right next to an almost complete carcass of a sea dragon. ''It looks impressive.'' Though he was more impressed with himself cause he was the one who killed it. "Hey, what bones are these?" Someone asked. "Look at that! A complete carcass. What animal is it from?" "It''s a sea dragon! Yes, I am right! Who is selling it? Sell it to me for 500 gold." "Sea dragon? Really? Hey ask the chief if he is sure of that. If it is real, I will pay 600." The price kept on increasing as the merchants pit against each other. Just as it was about to die down, Raka said. "I am not selling any less than 2000 gold." Raka said. "2000 is too much friend. 1000 is more than enough." "I can go as far as 1100. No more." "1200..." "1250" "1260" But Raka stood stock still. "Ok I will pay 1500, but no more." Finally someone said. Yet Raka did not move. "Come brother. This will not do. You know we need to make profit as well. How bout you let it go for 1700. I will meet you half way." That same person added. Raka made a pose of thinking deeply. But then nodded in the negative. "Sorry, no deal." Raka said. The man frowned hard. But then he walked closer to look at the bones. He made a careful inspection of each and every one. He even looked closely at the small ones which Raka had laid out over a cloth on the sand. Finally he said. "Alright. I will pay 2000. But just because the bones are too good. I wouldn''t want your efforts to go to waste." He reluctantly agreed. "Deal!" Raka smiled. They exchanged money and the man brought his own men to collect the bones. ''Hah...miser.'' Raka complained. It was the supply chain law. The old chief had said a minimum of 1500 gold. It meant that at a minimum, it would be sold at 2500 gold anywhere in the cities. At the maximum, the price could go to 5000 or more. And that was just the price of the raw materials. Once it is processed and magical things are made from them, each piece, from the smallest to the largest would have its own price in the hundreds or thousands. ''Yet this miser was making it look like he was helping me out.'' Raka sighed as he thanked Neona once again in his heart. ''Seriously, I should give her a gift to show my appreciation for being the only honest merchant I met. Thanks to her, I made quite a bit of money.'' Raka was happy. Yet he also understood that the sea dragon was supposedly a low level magical creature. The danger in collecting these bones was far higher than its supposed price. ''A fisherman''s life is difficult.'' Raka sighed. ''Time to go.'' Raka decided to log off. For the first time in many real time days, he would sleep for a long time. ---------------------------------------------------------------- Raka logged back in after a long rest. It was sundown again in the game. Raka looked at the dying sun and sighed. ''Time to move on.'' He went to the chief and bid a short farewell and asked for some information about how to get to the island of the dwarves. "Ah you best get to Maccaba. The crossing between the island and the dwarvish lands is filled with danger. Ships often make convoys and move together. The port master should help you find a convoy." Nubar said. "Thanks. I will do just that." And Raka left. The city of Maccaba was three game days from the fishermen village. They made good time following the wind. When they could see they found that the land had turned from green to grey and yellow. There was just sand as far as the eye could see and beyond. "Wow it''s hot!" Raka complained. He was sweating bucketloads. Even the sea felt hot like the desert. He gulped in some more water. "Nobby, monkey, you guys better not empty the barrel again." Raka stuck to the coastline so that he could stop whenever he wanted. Though the view certainly left a lot to be desired. Not a bird or a creature. There was only sand. Atleast there wasn''t a sea dragon chasing them this time. On the sunrise of the third day, a large city came into view. There was a huge magnificent palace with minarets and towers which could be seen from miles away. As they reached near, the entire scale of the large city emerged. Thousands of buildings of all sorts. From the poorest shacks to the richest manors. There were also dozens of ships who were making their way into or out of the city. The port city of Maccaba was a major stop for all trade between the island of the dwarves and the four human islands. Kinda like Singapore, it was the one place where anything could be found, bought or sold. It was also the trade routes, which made it rich beyond anything. Many people of all sorts came here looking for a better life. Raka approached the busy port and saw a man waving at him. "Monkey! Take the sails down!" He himself took out the drive paddle and started to slowly maneuver the ship towards that man. As he reached the jetty, he threw out the mooring ropes and the man tied it off to a jetty arm. Raka manipulated the power of the drive paddle to stop the boat. ''My control is improving.'' Raka observed. There was one aspect of improving control by increasing Mana. But there was also another aspect of improving control of the magic itself. Like the difference between a barbarian wielding a club and a warrior with a sword, good control of magic allowed far more variation. "Hello, I am Roman. I work for the port master of Maccaba. May I know for what purpose have you come?" The man said. "Hello. I am Raka. Are you Ilmentian by any chance?" Raka said. "Yes, sir. I am originally from Ilmentia." Roman smiled. "Ah! I am interested in joining a convoy headed to the island of the dwarves. I was led to believe the port master would help with that?" Raka asked. "If it is just a convoy you wish to join, then I can point you to the guild office. They are the ones who deal with it." Roman said. "That would be wonderful. But I would like to meet the port master for a different purpose. If you could arrange that. Oh and for your good service.." Raka gave a silver coin. "Thank you sir. I will go ask the port master if he has time. How long would you be staying in the city?" Roman smiled some more. "That depends. I wish to join the earliest convoy." Raka said. "Yes sir. I will inform the port master." Roman nodded. "That would be good. Oh I haven''t asked about the charges for this jetty." Raka suddenly remembered. "Yes sir. That would be 15 silvers a day. We allow docking for three days. After that you will have to find a nearby beach. But if you need to load or unload, I believe it will cost you a lot more. You would have to ask the dockmaster for that." Roman explained. "That''s all right. Well then, could you point me to the guild office?" The docks were busy as hell. There were noises, shouting and shrieking of all kinds emanating from all places. Large amounts of cargo were being loaded onto or unloaded from large merchant ships. To the side there were some jetties having large ships which seemed like they were always moored there. ''Either they are owned by really important people or they are warships.'' Raka guessed. Raka found the guild office quite easily. Apparently, it was also the busiest office on the port. There was a crowd lining up to enter. All sorts of merchant talk was being exchanged along the line. Raka lined up also. "Tonight I am going to enjoy Lily. She is the hottest thing in the Blue Lantern. Oh what wouldn''t I do for her smile. Her voice is like a nightingale and her songs make my heart flutter so..." "Hahaha...I warn you. She is not so easily taken. You have many contenders." "*Sigh. Oh well, she will always remain in my dreams." "Hahahah....yes that she will." This story is posted elsewhere by the author. Help them out by reading the authentic version. "Sugar is getting expensive." "The trouble between the two kingdoms is already causing prices to rise." "What is it this time?" "Dunno. But the word along the grapevine is that it has to do something with the Ilmentia Queen''s visit. Apparently she is only visiting the south kingdom." "Why does the north care anyway. They have ignored it before." "Yeah. Only this time it seems to be something special. Why would the north care otherwise." "Seems the Pink Mistress is losing money." "Yes all because of Lily. People call her the Diva. She is so beautiful...the girl of my dreams." ".............." Raka stood quietly listening to all the chatter. Some of them did bring a smile. The crowd of people kept moving and after a while Raka entered the office. There were many staff handling people. "Please come this way." A clerk asked him to his counter. "Please state your business." "I would like to join a convoy to the dwarvish lands." Raka said. The man stared at him. "Sir, usually people tell me which port they need a convoy to." He said. "Ah..well, actually any convoy heading for any port of Mar''han''bi will do. The earliest would be good." Raka smiled sheepishly. The clerk stared at him for a moment more and then asked. "Could you tell me the place of your origin and your ship registration? Are you part of any guild?" "Ah! I am from Ilmentia. My ship is the Dawn Dream. Here is the registration. And no I am not part of any guild." Raka said as he passed the registration documents to the clerk. Registration of ships was necessary so that they could belong to a country. Kinda like how they do it in real world. Fishing boats however did not need to be registered as they don''t really travel from port to port. Unregistered ships can get into all sorts of trouble. They could also be charged for piracy. Raka actually didn''t know about this until Guran handed him the ship''s registration papers the night before he left. The clerk returned the papers and said, "there is a convoy of 15 ships which will leave tomorrow for the port of Hya''cinth. Would you like to be part of this?" "Yes. That will be good., thank you." Raka said. "Alright then, the ships will leave 8 am tomorrow morning. Please report to the guild office atleast an hour before." The clerk said handing a paper with the details. "Um..could you also give me a list of all the ships which will be part of the convoy?" Raka asked. "Just a moment please." The clerk sorted through some papers and then wrote down the names of the ships on a slip. "Thank you." Raka left. Next, Raka visited the port master''s office. The port master is like the harbourmaster in the real world. His main job is to enforce regulations of the port. He is also responsible for overseeing matters of the law as the representative of the kingdom. Naturally, the visitors to his office would only be people who are in trouble or had found one. Raka entered the office to find a couple of burly guys with red eyes and minor injuries shackled in cuffs, sitting on the side. A muscular man dressed in a blue military uniform was sitting on the desk writing something. "I hate writing reports! Can''t you people find somewhere else to cause trouble!" He shouted at the two. And as he did he also saw the visitor. "Who might you be?" He asked brusquely. "I am Raka." "Ah yes. Roman said you wanted to meet me. I am Captain Mosegi. How can I help you?" His tone instantly turned polite. Raka did not answer but first sat down on a chair. He took a moment to evaluate this man. And then slowly said, "I have a matter of utmost importance. However, I need to find a good trustworthy person among the owners of these ships." Raka handed over the list. Captain Mosegi looked at the list, his eyes widened as he recognized what it represented. "This is the convoy which leaves tomorrow morning?" He simply looked up and asked. Raka stayed silent. "Hmm...the captain of Santa Monica is a good person. Name of Kilthan. I know him personally." Mosegi said. "And where would I find this good person?" Raka asked. "Ah..I would wager a guess he would be in the Blue Lantern bar. Or he will be in a couple of hours anyway." Mosegi replied. "Very well. I appreciate your cooperation." And Raka moved to shake hands with Mosegi. As he did, he quietly slipped him a few silver coins. Mosegi simply smiled in response. "Could you describe him?" Raka finally said. "Do not worry sir, he is hard to miss. He is a dwarf." As Raka started to leave, he remembered something. "Tell me, do the men working for you know the dwarvish language?" "Yes, they do. We often have to deal with the dwarves ships." Mosegi answerd. Raka nodded satisfied and left. For the next couple of hours, Raka spent his time thusly. First he went looking for books on learning dwarvish language in the library which turned out to be failure. Secondly, he went around purchasing supplies for the journey. After two hours, evening arrived on the island. The entertainment street opened for business. For a first timer, it was both paradise and hell! Raka walked in this gaudy street which in daytime carried the aura of desolation and beggary, yet now, it was shining with many bright lights and weird loud music. Scantily dressed women with too much makeup stood on the balconies catcalling out to men and women below. There were the prince and the pauper, the fashionably rich and insanely addicted. Raka couldn''t see but from what he had found out during the day, the seedy alleys on the side led to gambling dens and fight cages. Among this hullabaloo stood the Blue Lantern bar. Raka opened the door to some delicious smells and attractive fragrances. Waitresses who were sexily dressed showed off their fine figures as they walked around serving large tankards. Occasionally a slap would be heard. Either in action or in response, followed by laughter. Often, a coin or two passed under the skirt, perhaps as an apology. "*cough" Raka could not help himself. Keeping his calm took all the willpower he had. Or rather he was stumped. He did not need willpower..to not move. There is a reason why people don''t go these places alone. "Hey good looking, what are you standing around for? Want a drink or some company?" A stocky woman with glaring makeup who made her dress seem impossible woke him up from his daze. "Drink. And I am looking for a dwarf." Raka managed to get his voice out. "Certainly love. The dwarf''s buried somewhere around there. If you don''t find him, look me up. I will help ya." She came dangerously close as she said that. "Haha...I will go look." Raka shivered. The dwarf in question was actually occupying a lone table which had three empty tankards while a filled one was in front of him. He lifted the tankard and brought it to his mouth. But before the splashing liquid entered his mouth, his hands stopped. He put the tankard back down on the table and sighed loudly. Raka quietly joined in at his table. "Who are you?" With his soulful time interrupted the dwarf sounded surly. "A friend. How about letting this friend buy you a drink and you listen?" Raka said. ''That''s how they do it in the movies.'' The dwarf looked at him for a moment and then nodded. Soon another waitress came and dropped two tankards. "Here''s to your health." Raka toasted and sipped. The dwarf simply gulped half the tankard. "Speak." He said brusquely. "Are you the one called Kilthan, the captain of the Santa Monica?" "Yes. And I say, who are you?" "I am Raka. I am the captain of a small ship called the Dawn Dream." "Ne''er heard of it." Kilthan said. Raka smiled wryly. "I have a proposal which might make you some extra money. With no risk." "Sounds like a load of bull. But I will humor ya." "Towing." Raka said. "What?" the dwarf was confused. "Actually, I would like your services in towing my ship to Hya''cinth." Raka smiled. The dwarf stared at him for a moment. "Brother, seems you need this drink more than me." He cracked up laughing. Raka sighed. "I will pay 1 gold for each day till we get to Hya''cinth." This got the dwarf''s attention. He rubbed his chin as he pondered. Raka could almost guess what he was thinking. 1 gold every day for 2 weeks. If he was towing, his ship would be even slower and would take a little more time. Was the delay worth the gold? "Make it 2 gold and we have a deal." The dwarf said. This time Raka made a pose of thinking deeply, while he watched a waitress get pulled onto a lap instead. And then slap the man back. ''Hmm should be enough time to make an impression.'' "Alright. 2 gold it is. But you better take care of the ship. And there are two animals who live on the ship." Raka said. "Hmm, can''t you put them in a cage and put them on my ship?" Kilthan said. "No. Oh and I might keep dropping in to check on the progress." Raka added. "As you may have guessed, I am one of the Goddess'' children. We keep appearing and disappearing due to her business. But if you keep the ship alright, you would get your pay." Kilthan nodded. "Alright! It''s Lily!" A lovely young woman came out from the back and took the stage. She was wearing a tight fitting red dress which showed her natural curves. Her brown hair was tied and it glittered in the light. She smiled. The lights dimmed. Only the light shone where she stood. Silence fell. A soft voice began. "I see a ship, sailing the sea, Carries my heart, to be with me~..." ----------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy stared at the powerpoint presentation. The subject was one of the least liked in college called ''The Ethics of Virtual Life.'' As per its brief, it researched the behavioral changes of a player between the real and virtual life. Only, it was nothing like it sounded. After all, the only way to observe changes were to do surveys with all sorts of stupid questions in them. ''Why do you roleplay?'' Seriously! Why would anyone want to tell you why they were acting stupid? Swamy sighed. The first day after his week long leave, he woke up late, had to miss breakfast, run partway because of a traffic jam and all so that he could come to this! He sighed once again. In the mess hall the friends gathered. Or they were supposed to but somehow none of them were in class today. ''Bunking, I guess.'' But during lunch they should miraculously appear from their hidey-holes. Soon they came. "Hi Swamy. Long time." Rajan said. "Hey Rajan." Swamy said. "Hey Swamy, what have been upto?" Manish said. "Nothing much." Swamy said. "Hi Swamy." Sneha said. "Hi." Swamy replied. "Hi Raka." Himali said. "Hi." Swamy smiled. And then he froze. He looked up and saw four evil smiles closing all his routes of escape. "Hahaha...oh hello Raka. I did not recognize you there." Rajan smiled as he put his hand on his shoulder. "True that. You are a celebrity, you know." Manish grabbed his other shoulder. "Ha...ha..." Swamy tried to laugh as well. And then the pressure of their arms increased. "So you will explain to us everything now, won''t you my brother." Rajan said as he increased the pressure. "If you don''t, we will still make you." Manish said as he also increased the pressure. Somehow their smiles reminded him a lot like a vicious dog who found a rabbit. "ha..ha...well..alright I will explain." Swamy sighed. Some time later... "You own a ship?!" Rajan said. "You met the Queen?!" Himali said. "You fought a sea dragon?!" Manish said. "Wow..." Sneha said. Somehow these four had been listening to everything Swamy said with rapt attention. True, Swamy did skip over some parts and didn''t reveal some things, but what he told them still made their eyes go round. From vicious dogs they seemed to have become cute puppies. "Hahaha...yeah. So how did you guys find out?" Swamy asked. In response, Rajan simply handed over his cellphone which had the Long Island forums open. The top post naturally caught Swamy''s eye. ''I met Raka''. It was posted by Sphinx. There was just a video posted with no descriptions given. When Swamy opened the video, he saw a boat arriving on a beach and himself landing. Apparently Sphinx had uploaded her video of the day. But as the video moved further, it simply jumped to the Flytrap fight. ''She has edited a lot of things.'' Then the video abruptly ended just when he introduced himself. Swamy nodded as he returned the cellphone back. "So how did you come by the ship?" "Yeah, where do you buy pets?" "What is a sea dragon like..." "What Age are you?" Swamy sighed. ''Guess I won''t get to spend the next few days in peace.'' ---------------------------------------------------------------------------- With Kilthan towing his ship, Raka was finally free to return to his normal schedule. Appearing once every three days, Raka was initially worried. But his worries eventually faded away. The journey of almost four and a half long weeks, game time, was finally coming to an end. Raka looked up and saw land on the horizon. They had reached the island of the dwarves. "Finally! Yes!" Raka could not help shouting. Slowly the land came closer and closer and filled the entire horizon. Yet, he still had to wait patiently. It would be another half hour or so before they would come in sight of the port. And even more till he stepped on land. As the ship entered port, loud sounds started ringing forth. Kilthan waved and then untied the leading rope. Raka waved back and pulled out his drive paddle. He still followed behind looking wide eyed all around. ''There are so many dwarves.'' Raka had only seen those dwarf pirates so he assumed most dwarves would be as strong or evil looking but now that he saw, there were all kinds. There were skinny dwarfs and stocky dwarfs. Short dwarfs and tall dwarfs. Female dwarfs and male dwarfs. ''Or rather, they allowed the females to work on the port..'' ''Or should I say ladies. They are part of the human race too.'' Raka corrected himself. Soon they were guided to their respective jetties. Though Raka did not understand a word they were shouting, he still managed to safely park his boat. He stepped onto the wooden platform. Just then, pa pa pah!
For becoming the first player to reach a new shore and being a representative of Ilmentia, you have been awarded 100 contribution points towards the Nation of Ilmentia.
Fame increases by 100.
System Announcement Raka has unlocked the Fare Dwarf race. This race can now be selected during character creation. Raka has unlocked the Mare Dwarf race. This race can now be selected during character creation.
System Announcement Raka has unlocked the Race Transformation System.
[p=center]System Announcement[/p] Race Transformation System has been unlocked. Your character can change races under these conditions: 1) Discover the race - Meet a NPC of the race. (Communication or recognition is not required) 2) Reach the native lands - Defined by the populace of the race. It may be where most of the population lives or some other land based on their beliefs. Please understand that the memory system may be affected (memories of NPCs) depending on the race chosen or by frequently changing races. To prevent abuse, the following limitations are applied: 1) Changing races using this system locks all your previous races. You may not revert back to any of your previous races. 2) Stat points are reduced by 10%. The rest of the stat points may be reallocated to adhere to requirements of the new race. 3) Skills may change to adhere to requirements of the new race. 4) Age is reduced by 10%. Please choose wisely.
You may change your race. Would you like to change your race now?
-------------------------------------------------------------- Authors Note: This is the end of another story arc. So I will call it the end of Volume 3. Chapter 35: Hyacinth Author''s note: Still unedited and perhaps a little short. Also apologies for delay. Have been having lots of trouble with my laptop, my primary writing medium. ----------------------------------------------------------
You may change your race. Would you like to change your race now?
Raka stared at the message for a long time. Although he felt it was a long time, he also felt like he had stepped into a world where the time seemed to have slowed down. Perhaps it was the system''s way of helping him not be interrupted during this fateful decision. At first, he was quite surprised. ''Quite a few penalties for race change? And what is this about memory affected?'' Like a lot of other players, Raka was also wondering about this. He was not yet aware but within moments of uncovering the race transformation system and unlocking of the dwarf race, the forums had exploded into chaos. If players were not discussing it, it was only because they had already decided to delete their old avatars and entered the character creation menu to choose the dwarf race. Raka noticed the keyword ''now'' and decided. "No."
Change refused. You may access the race transformation menu to change your race at any time while on the island. Please take note of the conditions for race change according to the system.
''Well, that''s what I thought.'' With this new message, time had returned to the normal pace. He looked up and was surprised once more. ''He''s black!'' Raka mentally noted as a tallish dwarf wearing a rustic looking garb, like the kind plumbers often wear and a hat approached him. Unlike the dwarfs Raka had seen, this one was not heavily built like a tank rather he looked like a healthy person with a slight belly. Maybe because of this, he seemed a little taller than he expected. And he had black skin. The dwarf reached him and said. "abababababa" Raka simply nodded his head in the negative. He did not understand. Then he looked at Nobby and asked. "Nobby, do you understand?" "He said, hello and for what purpose have you come.." Nobby translated. "Ah..well say hello back and ask if he speaks Ilmentian or Khardoumian," Raka said. He guessed that they should owing to the fact that the dock workers in Khardoum understood the language of the dwarves. But then the dwarf spoke. "Welcome to Hya''cinth. Do you understand the language of Khardoum?" Raka gladly sighed. "Yes I do." ''Thank god, I guessed right.'' "For business or pleasure sir?" The dwarf asked. "Mostly pleasure. Do you know a place where I can park my boat for some time?" He asked. "Yes sir, there are coves to the south, just a little way from here. After you complete the formalities, you may move your vessel over there." The dwarf replied. "Very well. Please lead me to the office." Raka asked. The office meant the guild office. As he was travelling as part of a convoy, they would be the ones to check his papers. And like always it was busy. Especially since 15 ships had arrived at the same time. And then he was led to the port master''s office. Here another set of papers were given to him and then stamped. ''Guess it is like an immigration office.'' He got his papers and decided to go visit the town first. As he stepped out the port he got shocked out of his skin. "What the hell!" He could not stop himself saying out loud. The thing that caused him to have such a reaction was blowing out steam from the top while pulling two carriages behind which seemed to be filling up with people, humans and dwarves. And there was a bell ringing. "Is that a TRAIN?!" Raka rubbed his eyes and looked again. But even when he looked again, he could still see the steam engine. And then other stuff started coming into his head. The steam engine was pulling two carriages while standing on rails! ''So that is a train, right?!'' And that was not all. As he looked around with his fat eyes, he found a pole with a wire running on top of it. ''Is that an electrical wire?! Or a telephone wire?! Have I entered a wormhole and skipped from the medieval age to the industrial age?!'' Raka put a hand on his head and tottered down to sit. ''Alright think calmly. There is a rational explanation for all of this. There needs to be!'' Raka looked again at these amazing sights. The steam engine was designed like an open car which had no hood. A long pipe came out of the round bonnet from which emerged the smoke. There was just the sitting space for maybe two people in the driver''s position at the extreme rear end. The carriages were better as they were fully covered and had windows and doors. Raka noticed that all of it seemed to made mainly of wood. Except the tracks which were of metal. ''Hmm...that steam engine is of an older design. I think it''s resembles the engines I saw in the railway museum. The ones made in the 19th century. Some bits atleast. The train carriages also look like a really old design from dunno which era.'' Then he moved his attention to the wooden poles which had wires running on top of them. Seemingly made of metal, these wires were heading towards the port master''s office on one end and disappearing into the the town on the other. ''That looks like an electrical wire... a lot. But I didn''t see a telephone in the port master''s office? Nor a light bulb. Yes, I remember clearly, he had some sort of lamp. So what do they need electricity for?!'' Raka was utterly confused as to its purpose. ''Hmmm...yes. So all of this suggests that the dwarves have indeed reached the industrial age.'' Raka nodded his head. Raka sighed. This was too much even for him. He simply chose to accept it at face value. He looked around and found that there were not only the black dwarves. There were few who had paler skin, like the ones he had seen before. The contrast between them was immediately noticeable as there were no other shades, as they say. ''So one of them is the Mare and the other should be the Fare dwarves.'' Raka concluded. ''I better head into town.'' The town of Hya''cinth looked like a regular town from afar. Buildings, big and small, rich and poor, just the designs were a bit different. But as he passed the town walls, he found the town to be as glamorous as they come. Many statues and works of art decorated the various streets and squares. The building walls were painted with various colors. And there were many many dwarves chattering ten to the dozen as they walked down these streets. ''Alright first stop, the library. Um...where would that be?'' Just as Raka was wondering, there came a familiar sounding voice. "Hey there.." Kilthan called out. "Oh hey." Raka acknowledged. "You seem a bit lost. Where you headed?" Kilthan said. "Um..I was looking for the library. You wouldn''t know where that is do you?" Raka said. "I do know. But what would you do there? They don''t allow non-dwarves to enter the library." Kilthan said. "Eh...that would be troublesome," Raka sighed. He started thinking of what else he could do. Relying on Nobby was always an option. But it was always better to be able to understand things yourself. ''Could I buy a book?'' "Hmm...well I think I can help you there. You can accompany me inside. They will allow that. Just consider it included in the generous payment you made." Kilthan smiled. "Oh..thank you." Raka smiled too. As they walked, Raka spent his time looking at the various shops and the art pieces. Some were truly beautiful. Some were abstract as modern art. "Hey, there''s a shop selling spell scrolls!" Raka said. "Yeah. It also sells for a pretty penny. Guess a human won''t understand but we use the scrolls a lot." Kilthan said. "Really? Why?" Raka was curious. "We can''t do much in other styles of magic other than earth style. Need spell scrolls for the rest." Kilthan simply explained. Raka suddenly remembered. Dwarves originated from their ancestors using curse magic. It made them heavily inclined towards the earth element. As a result, their affinity for other kinds of magic was severely reduced. ''So much that they need to rely on spell scrolls.'' Rather finding a spell scroll shop in the dwarvish lands spoke highly of the universality of the spell scrolls. Anyone who was capable of magic could use a spell scroll. More than that, they were not limited by its power. Even a beginner could use Lady Verina''s Kraken magic through a spell scroll. But there were also limitations. As one who made these spell scrolls, Raka understood the limitations very well. The limitation was in control. Not the control required by mana but the mental acuity and flexibility to use said magic. For example, anyone could use the Kraken magic. But would they be able to move nine watery tentacles like their own limbs? Spell scrolls guaranteed power but to be able to use them effectively is not that easy. ''Practice...it requires a lot of practice.'' There was no other way. That said, this limitation was only for spells which required a certain degree of mental control. For simple spells like ''Fireball'', spell scrolls were extremely effective. Just imagine the kind of power a person like Lady Altia or Lady Verina would be able to bring to such a spell. Or if the dwarves made a spell scroll for any of the earth magics, what kind of power could it achieve! Yet there was another limitation in using spell scrolls. Atleast for the dwarves. They would need to ask for assistance from humans or import them from human lands, if not the elvish lands. Which would make them dependent on other races for a lot of things. ''Perhaps this is why they needed to develop technology,'' Raka guessed. And technology was all around. There were pipes rising off the ground and entering the houses. ''Plumbing?'' There were also lamps built on metal posts on the sides of the street. ''Street lighting but it can''t be using electricity... don''t see any wires.'' If that were not enough, some of the art and statues were made of metal. Especially a really weird statue which seemed to be made of metal pipes. "What is that?" He asked as he stared. "No clue." Kilthan shook his head. But the biggest surprise or shock was waiting in front of the library. Just in front of a huge multi-storey stone building was a huge statue made of metal. ''Is that a mecha?'' Raka stared. This amazing statue could easily have been one of the mecha from some franchise! Shiny metal armor interconnected throughout and covering the whole body. The helmet covered the entire face and had two spikes like horns coming out of it and the eyes were made of some sort of red gem. The face plate seemed like the mask of the ninjas he saw in the movie. The metal gloves were also red, with five fingers making a fist. Overall the metal sculpture was making a martial art kinda pose. "This is our God Metalman!" Kilthan spoke from the side as he put his hands together and offered a prayer. Raka turned to look at Kilthan with his mouth open. He couldn''t get a word out. He went back to staring at the God Metalman. Wise men say there is a time to speak up. And there is a time to hold your tongue. Raka sighed. Raka waited while Kilthan talked to the librarians. Somehow for what Kilthan had made sound simple, actually took a while to sort out. "Alright. I was able to get you in. But it looks like I will have to accompany you everywhere. How long do you think you will take?" Kilthan gave a wry smile. "I don''t know. But perhaps a couple of hours should be good. Oh could you ask them if I can come back by myself again or will I have to trouble you again?" Raka smiled. Kilthan nodded and asked. "You will have to accompanied by me as you are my responsibility..." Kilthan sighed. "Ah...then I will have to trouble you further. Don''t worry, a suitable compensation could be given..." Raka said. "Haha...no. Unless you are handing out a gold coin everyday..." Kilthan said. "Absolutely not!" Raka shook his head vigorously. "Hahaha....just a joke. You have already paid me enough. Consider this as my way of showing around a guest." Kilthan said. The method to learning the dwarvish language was no different. Starting from the kids section and moving up. ''Hmm what would happen in places where they don''t have a library?'' Raka wondered. A couple of hours later, he had learned enough language to leave. "Done for today. But I may need to come back again...how would I find you?" Raka asked. "Ah, I got a house...just two squares further up, seventh house to the left." Kilthan said. "Thank you." Raka and Kilthan went their own way. Just as they left a thought came in Raka''s mind. ''In which language were we talking in?'' The system translated all languages to English for Raka. Usually, he and the other person shared just one language so he could easily tell. But he and Kilthan shared two languages now. Were they communicating in Khardoumian or Dwarvinian? ''Interesting and weird...'' Raka could imagine the language system in the game causing some trouble in the future. ''Like if I wanted to talk something with Kilthan, I could use Khardoumian if I didn''t want anyone around to hear it. But how do I choose that?'' Kinda like speaking Hindi in Canada or Polish in the Caribbean. ''Oh well, let''s just finish learning the language for now.'' Raka spent just enough time to learn the language. And then he decided to call it a day. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------- "Knock! Knock!" "Come in," said Sophie who was lying on the bed reading a book. "Hey.." John said. "What''s up bro?" Sophie asked. "Hmm...well.." John took a seat next to her. "Mom asked me to talk to you. You have been too irritated recently. Wanna talk about it?" "It''s nothing to worry about. Mom just worries a lot." Sophie said. "Hmm...I guess you had a fight with Adam?" John asked. "No...we are fine. It''s just something that happened in the game." Sophie shook her head. "Oh...and why didn''t you come to me before. I believe I am the game expert in the house." John lifted his chin up high. "Haha...yeah no contest there. So why is it that you do not play Long Island?" she asked. "Hey...I can''t keep playing games now that I am grown up. I got a job and shit you know." John countered. Unlike Sophie, John wasn''t interested in the family business. He worked as a helicopter pilot mostly ferrying tourists around. He would actually say that any job which required him to stay on the ground will never become his job. Not that it stopped him working part time at a restaurant during off season. Yet, the poverty was only for now as he would say laughingly. Tourist business cannot always remain in a depression. But behind his casual exterior, he was also the biggest nerd Sophie knew. It was enough proof when his school and college friends would gather in the house to discuss a game feature or two. The intensity of those discussions could rival parliamentary budget debates. Often Sophie would be trapped in the middle of such gatherings, which was quite often. Not to mention he was also the one who first introduced Sophie to virtual reality games. Perhaps the biggest proof would be his near breakup with his girlfriend over the owning rights to a bracelet. Not a real one, ofcourse. "That was my rebellious phase. Hahaha.." He would say. "So what is it? If it''s something I can help with lemme know." He said. "Um...well there''s this thing that happened....like..." And Sophie explained all that had happened with Raka. John listened intently nodding now and again. After Sophie finished, he made a thoughtful expression. "Hmm...from what you say, it''s not like you are angry that this guy was a jerk, rather you are angry that he was able to fool you.." John smiled. "That''s not...." But Sophie thought for a bit. "Yeah, I guess that''s it." She finally realized the source of her irritation. "Sophie, let me just say this. Usually virtual reality games would not allow behavior which could be explicitly considered as sexual harassment. Ofcourse, there is not a steadfast rule regarding what is considered normal and harassing behaviour. It''s just that any forcible actions like the one you described are common enough and should not be allowed by the game system. But if you say that''s whats happened then I will guess that either this a bug in the game and should be reported. Or that it may be due to other reasons." John explained. Sophie looked up. "What other reasons could be there?" "Sophie you know there are physics of actions. Like, if you push a person and if there is someone behind them, they would be hit too. It''s the same in the games as well." John said. "Ah..." Sophie started thinking back to that scene. "Hmm... how did the guy act after doing this thing?" John asked. "He started stammering...." Sophie said. "As if he had not done it on purpose..." She kept thinking back to what happened before. "Not like the rude guy who wanted to harass you?" John smiled. "Eh...I don''t know. I was just too pissed off then. But but, now I think about it..." Sophie said. "Hmm...well if it is a bug, I guess it could be easily tested. Hmm..now even I want to play..." John said. "Haha...why don''t you?" Sophie said. "Hm..will think about it. What races does it have? I don''t like playing human." John asked. "Ah then you are in luck. The game only has two races at present. The second race, the dwarf race, unlocked just yesterday." Sophie said laughing. "What! Just two races! How is it even a good game? Or why would you even play it?!" John was shocked. "Hahaha...well you will just have to see the charm of the game yourself." Sophie said. A little while later, she entered her game capsule and logged on. Sphinx appeared in the village square of the Hebenu village. She had finally made up her mind to head across the desert. Today would be the start of her journey. Just then, she got a ping from Thadian. ''Hmm..shouldn''t he be in the capital Fayyum? Wonder what he wants...'' She thought as she responded. --------------------------------------------------------------- Suzaku was quietly bidding his time in Maccaba. Acting according to Lord Despira''s instructions, he was supposed to head to the capital Fayyum soon. However, new instructions had asked him to hold in Maccaba. Suzaku didn''t complain though. There was much to learn on this island. Especially since the ''flytraps'' were so good in raising his Sensitivity stat. Not to mention, it was good hunting. There were three kinds of poisonous snakes in the desert. And he never could count the numerous types of lizards. The most deadly of all though, were the scorpions. These looked like the ones in the real world. But then there was the Giant Scorpion. Kinda like the mini boss, it roamed the desert alone. And it was fabulous at hiding. A Giant Scorpion was several metres big, big enough that one could ride upon it. It was just that the deadly stinger it had, was even more deadlier. And over sand, it was amazingly fast. The first time Suzaku saw this thing, he almost lost his life before being able to run away. ''I think it let me run away. With its speed if it really wanted, how could I escape.'' Since then Suzaku also realized his shortcomings. He was good at close combat. The problem was that the animals/beasts he hunted were far better at it. He had lucked out with the Stag hunt. He didn''t have such luck with the Giant Scorpions though. ''I need better weapons, better equipment, better techniques....'' He complained often. Ofcourse, there was still a limit to how much he could improve in strength. The more he increased the Strength Stat, the slower it improved. About now, he had 42 points in strength. And still he was unable to deal with a Giant Scorpion. There was another thing he did in Maccaba. Meet players. He had met nearly all the top players of the island, including Thadian, the first to leave the starter village. The ones who had moved to the capital had come down to Maccaba especially to meet him. He was kinda feeling honored by all that. Also he realized that connections helped in the long run. And then he saw Raka''s video. Especially the one scene where he faced the flytrap and won! ''How did he?!'' As other players had taught him, he also avoided these flytraps by running when they activated. And like a lot of others he had also tried facing atleast one flytrap with a team. Not that it helped. They all died. Suzaku really cursed that time. And then came this video. Considering he was the one who was supposed to stop him, he needed all the information about him as he could find. ''He is strong.'' He had to grudgingly accept that. ''Hmm...I need to become strong enough to face a flytrap on my own. Also he has that damn monkey and that green bird as well.'' This was a problem. If it were only Raka, he could somehow manage. But he had those two accursed beasts with him as well. The last time he had faced them, he was severely outclassed. ''Can''t let it happen again. Should I ask if I could share this quest with others too?'' Well, he couldn''t just share it with someone without being able to trust them. ''After all, this does not involve killing monsters but a player. Who knows if Raka has friends.'' Which is also why he was working on improving his relations as much as possible. Then the day came when the dwarf race was unlocked by Raka. Today, he finally received Lord Despira''s instructions. ''Raka reported as having reached Hya''cinth. Head towards Hya''cinth.'' A simple message. The captain of the ship explained where Hya''cinth was. Though he had guessed already. And then Suzaku had an idea. He contacted Thadian. "Hey Thadian." "Hey Suzaku, what''s up?" "Listen, I will be heading towards the dwarvish lands. I think I have space for about 10 more people. Do you or your friends want to join in? I will charge 5 gold though." Suzaku said. "5 gold...really? Count me in. I will ask my friends. When do you want to leave?" Thadian said. "ASAP! Ask anyone who''s coming to get to Maccaba." Suzaku said. "Gotta hurry then...will contact you later." Thadian said. Thadian couldn''t believe his luck. The dwarf race had just opened. And just now, he found himself a ship going there. ''5 gold is cheap. The other ships were charging 20 gold and even after that I was required to work.'' Much to his chagrin, Thadian found that simply taking a cruise to another island was neither cheap nor easy. And living on the island, he hadn''t been able to make much money. In fact, none of the players did. The jobs paid humane wages, which would still only be a couple of silvers a day at most. But then you could not keep working a job and find time to hunt, without which you could not raise your stats. Finding jobs was also difficult, after all, there were like a hundred thousand players on the island. Not to mention, you needed all sorts of connections everywhere. In fact, players had difficulty finding jobs out of the village. Without some sort of connection, it was nigh impossible to get the jobs. In fact this situation was common in all islands, except Ilmentia which was a lot better. Thadian realized the lack of contribution points and fame was perhaps responsible. Because Raka had succeeded in that ''C'' level quest, the other players had got the chance to earn contribution points and fame. The other islands didn''t and were the worse for it. Hunting did not help much atleast not in monetary terms. Most things, the islanders could hunt themselves. The ones they didn''t hunt, namely, the Giant Scorpions, were not much in demand. Unlike the Stag, the Giant Scorpion did not have much meat, and what it had was tasteless and hard. The poison could easily be obtained by killing several smaller scorpions. And the stinger was not really something you could make a weapon with. ''So when you got a chance to leave for cheap, you jump at it.'' Thadian opened his friends menu and found the people he wanted to invite. Being the top player, he had maintained good relations with most of the top players. He started messaging them. Just then another light blinked in the menu as someone came online. ''Ah! Sphinx is online now.'' Sphinx was also one of the top players. Not to mention her strength and skills, but she was also very lovely. Though for some reason she insisted on staying in the village and not coming to the capital like the others. Thadian couldn''t help having a soft spot for her, like many others. ''Should I invite her? But I suppose she is in Hebenu still...would she come?'' Thadian pinged her. ------------------------------------------------------------------------- Lord Despira hurried back to his mansion. He had just been to the capital to flag the Queen''s departure. And now he needed to send a message. He got off his horse as soon as he reached the gate and headed inside. Waving off all his attendants, he made his way to the one forbidden room of the mansion. No one was even allowed to stray near the room, not even accidentally. If done so, would result in immediate execution. Lord Despira had given the strictest instructions to all his attendants regarding this. It did arouse some idle curiosity. But one death had got rid of all such idleness. He walked down the corridor and stood in front of the door to this room. Lord Despira carefully looked around and then moved to tap a panel. It swung open and revealed a golden key. He opened the door and walked in. He then shut the door from the inside. Inside there was another door. This one was far more complex. There were various knobs and odd shapes all over it. Lord Despira moved some knobs and pressed some of those shapes which strangely emitted a ''click'' sound. Only after many moves did that door finally open. One would expect such a room to contain rare treasures or impossible novelties. What it did contain though sat perched on a table. It was a bird made of metal. Lord Despira did not know which bird it resembled though he was pretty sure it wouldn''t be metallic like this. Colored bronze, it had red eyes which shined eerily. It just stood there like a statue. If one did not know they would think it was an artwork of some kind. In fact, the first time he had seen this metal bird move, Lord Despira had been shocked out of his wits. Even now he felt scared approaching it. Nevertheless, he approached the metal bird and touched its side. A panel slid outwards gently, revealing a cavity. Lord Despira put in a piece of paper and then closed it. As he did, the metal bird shivered and awoke. It immediately moved its metal wings and took flight, flying out the open skylight, which had only opened when the complex door did. Lord Despira sighed loudly and then sat down on the lone chair in the room. This scene was always frightening. It was unnatural and eerie. But what terrified him the most was that the bird flew west. Chapter 36: A new beginning Authors Note: Apologies for the delay. It hasn''t been a good month for me. Hope you still enjoy the chapter. -------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy woke up in the morning and after his daily ablutions, he opened his laptop to check the Long Island forums. He followed this habit to keep himself updated on the latest happenings in the game. Well, some of it atleast. As he had invariably found out, the incredible number of discussions and posts in the forums would probably require a data mining engine to completely sort through. Or someone like Rajan. Now that was a singular being who lived for his interests. Or maybe he was like many human beings who put effort into what interests them and ignore the rest, like studies. In any case, it was hardly possible that Rajan would miss something unless someone was deliberately trying to hide it, using code and what not. Today''s news though was pretty obvious. The location of the starter villages in the dwarvish lands had come out. What was interesting though was that it was not the game company who came out with them but rather the players who found it out after logging in as the corresponding dwarf race. ''So Hya''cinth became one of them, for the Mare dwarves. The other is Fudi''thi for the Fare dwarves. Quite a mouthful. Though uncovering starting locations like this...I wonder how they are chosen.'' The locations in Ilmentia and the other human islands were chosen because game testers had determined them to be starting locations. But the ones in the dwarvish lands should have been determined by the game system. ''Ah no point thinking about this stuff. Better get ready.'' "Hi Swamy!" "Hey Swamy!" ""Hey Raka! *giggle"" Swamy sighed. If you are wondering whether these voices were of his friends then you would be wrong. These were complete strangers. Ok not all of them. Some were familiar faces of random classmates who he seldom spoke to. ''But the rest are, well...'' Swamy sighed again. As it turned out, his friends were not the only one who recognized him from the video. At first there were only suspicions. But after looking at the video again and again and comparing his face, well, they did see his face daily, so they figured it out. And then the word spread. Swamy couldn''t understand why it was that people were interested in him personally. I mean Raka''s videos had something in them. Suspense, action, etc. On the other hand, he was just a normal guy. Even if people were interested in the top most player in a virtual reality game, there were several of them. As many as the games out in the market. So he wasn''t anything special. But then he guessed maybe it was just his two minutes of fame. Like those actresses who get caught without makeup. ''I hope it passes away soon.'' "Hey Swamy, would you like to join us for a bit. We were talking about Long Island...." Some random guy said while pointing to a group having a couple of guys and girls. "Ah..I am sorry. Bit busy right now." And Swamy walked away. This was the other problem. People found pretences to ask him ''stuff'' about the game. ''I mean it''s not like I know much more than you in the first place. Also if I had to tell someone I would rather tell my friends than you people.'' Swamy finally entered his classroom. "Hey Swamy, how''s it going?" Manish said. Swamy grimaced. "As usual eh..." Rajan laughed. Amazingly, Swamy had realized, that his friends were the ones who became his hiding closet. More than that, they didn''t even try to weasel out game stuff from him. ''Guess I lucked out when we became friends.'' Rajan and Sneha were not from the same island so many of the things Raka knew was not really useful for them anyway. What surprised him more was that Manish and Himali refused to find out things through him. "We like to play our own way. Though we won''t say no to some help from time to time," they said smiling. ''Kinda ashamed that I did not tell them about me for so long.'' "So would you be interested in joining our guild?" Himali asked while smiling. "Well, I would like to have my own guild. Sorry again," Swamy simply smiled. And that was that. Life went on as they started their own discussion about the game. ---------------------------------------------------------- Raka stood outside the library staring at that God Metalman statue again. He had this feeling like he had once again started this game. Whether he liked it or not, in this place, he did not know anyone or had anything to do. Except Kilthan. ''He is running late.'' For now atleast, his primary source of information was the library. And for that he needed Kilthan''s help. ''Once I am done here, I will go look for a job,'' Raka thought as he planned his game day. ''From there I will need information about the things around here.'' Anyone looking at him right now would have thought that he was fervently worshiping the God Metalman. Though, if one could look at his eyes they would find that they were completely unfocused like if his mind were anywhere but here. "Sorry, I am late." A voice interrupted Raka''s train of thought. He looked back and saw Kilthan running up to him. A running dwarf should have made a comical sight. But Kilthan''s running had the kind of balance and grace only a seaman could produce. ''Or perhaps that is due to earth magic..hmm..maybe both.'' "It''s alright. Thanks for coming like always." Raka smiled. Because entering the library required the dwarf''s help, Raka always prioritized this thing over all else. After all, Kilthan couldn''t always be around. Also he didn''t know when Kilthan might need to head out on another voyage. Today, he was gathering information about the geography of this island. ''Let''s spend a little time in history as well.'' Thinking all that he headed up to the second floor and looked up some books. He brought them to a reading desk and sat down to peruse. The dwarf island is called the Earth Ring in common tongue. This is because when the first dwarves settled here, the island was in the shape of a circle or ring. The dwarf history is said to be one of the oldest in the world as we were one of the first ones to choose Inflection. The reasons we had to move to this island have not been found yet but the oldest records and ruins found do indicate that the first dwarves arrived on this island about 70,000 years ago. Over the years due to natural erosion around the coastal region and varying sea levels, the island''s shape changed and is no longer considered a circle. Observers in high flying balloons have often remarked that they cannot distinguish the circular shape or ring and that the island now has an indeterminate shape. ''Hmm...what is Inflection? Are they talking about curse magic?'' Raka was confused. Although he understood that the reason for the creation of dwarves would probably not be called something like a curse. Atleast the dwarves wouldn''t call it that. A little while later he found some other interesting things. Around the time the humans arrived, that is 20000 years ago, the dwarves split into two groups one of which headed north across the Du Var mountains. Records do not indicate what entailed them to split. But eventually these dwarfs would form the Fare who had pale and whitish skin. Around the same time the group remaining in the south claimed the name of the Mare and found their skin getting darker. For a long time it was believed that this may have been due to some sort of magic disturbance on the island. However new evidence has recently been uncovered due to studies in weather patterns which indicate that the changes in our physiology may have actually been caused due to change in weather patterns and not magic like it was believed previously. Due to some cataclysmic event around that time period, which some researchers have attributed to an extinct volcano in the Du Var mountains, the weather south of the mountain range became hotter while the weather in the north became colder. We may have adapted to suit these changes. ''Hmm so it is like the south became Africa and the north became Europe?'' Raka continued. In a history book he found this. The first humans arrived on this island about 20000 years ago from the east. Records indicate that through them we learned much of what had happened in the rest of the world. At that point in time dwarves were still not willing to sail and make long voyages of discovery. This is what we refer to as the Dark Ages where the common belief was that if the dwarf went to sea he would not come back and be devoured by sea beasts as he lost his strength. Unfortunately, it was a time of great superstition and free thought was condoned. All of it changed with the arrival of the humans who came sailing on their ships. All the previous beliefs were put to test as young dwarfs realized that a lot of what they had been taught about the world for so long, might have been simply wrong. However, the powers that be at that time feared rather than welcomed change. The humans were only allowed to stay on the island for a short period of time after which they were forced to move further west. They will eventually settle on four different islands. But the damage had already been done. Even after the departure of humans, the thinking of individual dwarves kept changing which eventually brought us out of the Dark Ages and started the Age of Innovation. However, it is only several thousand years later, that we finally sailed again and re-established relations with the humans which brought about a great prosperity eventually allowing the dwarves to once again become the leading race in the world. ''Interesting! Truly interesting!'' Raka nodded his head. The renewal of the relationship with humans also became the trigger to the end of good relations between the north and the south kingdom. Around 3000 years ago, both the north and south kingdoms jointly decided to approach the humans and seek their help in discovering the world. Through them, we learned the art of ship building and many of our oldest ship designs show signs of their influences. This began what we call the Age of Innovation. An era of invention and discovery was brought forth. But around that same time, conflict arose between two schools of thought. One school still advocated the supremacy of the Dwarf race as passed down in ancient teachings and chose to dominate. The other school chose the modern view that all races have their own advantages and disadvantages and chose to accommodate. Eventually, the Fare were influenced by the school of Domination and the Mare went the other way and chose Accomodation. In hindsight, these schools of thought may have also been due to the influence of the humans. Many wars were fought between the north and the south kingdoms during this period, eventually leading to the slave wars which occurred around 1200 years ago. This war was particularly fierce and threatened the survival of both kingdoms. It was only when God Metalman arrived that the war ended.... ''Wait! God Metalman arrived? The God came?!'' Raka was stumped. He read further and the book did mention the God Metalman again. But no factual information was provided. ''Gods! Seriously! Wasn''t he just a powerful being?'' Raka doubted. But then there was this statue of God Metalman. ''Did he truly arrive here on a mecha? Or did he just look like it?'' Raka sighed. ''Guess this is enough for today.'' He looked up and found Kilthan reading some books. "Hey Kilthan, what are you reading?" He asked. "Oh these....they are God Metalman comics." Kilthan smiled sheepishly. "Ah...wait! WHAT?!" Raka was shocked. "Hey quiet down. Where do you think you are?" Kilthan reminded. "Uhm...yeah sorry. Um could you show me?" "Here you go. This one''s about the God Metalman and his fight with the Green Dragon." Kilthan handed him one. Raka flipped a few pages and saw that this was the story of a dwarf who suddenly found himself facing a green dragon for some reason. Raka flipped the page and the dwarf transformed. ''Um...'' Yep, the dwarf transformed. From nowhere came pieces of metallic armor which automatically snapped onto his entire body. Looking extremely cool, he then declared, ''I am God Metalman. And you are going down!'' Raka could not believe his eyes. He stared at this thing so long that tears started forming in his eyes. ''Is this for real!'' "Hey Kilthan, is this God Metalman for real?" He just had to ask. "Ofcourse he is real. He once came to our island to end a very fierce war which threatened the existence of the dwarves themselves. He is our saviour." Kilthan replied. "And where is he now?" Raka asked. "Dunno. He is a God so he might be doing godly things you know. However many believe that he will always come back when we are in a great crisis." Kilthan said. "Ah. And by any chance, is this thing real?" Raka could not explain this. He simply showed the picture of the armor attaching to the dwarf. "Ah yes. That is the metalman technique given to us by the God Metalman." "Metalman technique? You mean to say this thing is for real?! Can you do it too? Can all dwarves do it?" Raka asked. "Hahaha how could it be that simple! It is a very advanced technique only the best can learn. One can only learn it in the Metalman Academy which the God Metalman established himself. Only the most talented dwarves can enroll in the academy and only the best among them can get the right to learn the metalman technique." Kilthan said proudly. "In fact, in the entire thousand year history of the academy there have been only ten who have been successful in learning the metalman technique. None of them are living now, unfortunately." Kilthan sighed. "Really? So difficult, eh? I guess the requirements to learn this technique must be very high?" Raka remarked. "As high as the moon from where I stand," Kilthan laughed. "Ah now that you mention it, the Academy ranking exam will soon begin. Lots of people would go there to watch. Why don''t you come watch as well?" Kilthan said. "Don''t worry, many humans attend." Kilthan added as an afterthought. "I would like that. Maybe someone will perform the metalman technique," Raka said. "I wouldn''t count on it. No one has been able to do it for a long time. But if someone has, by the moon, it will be very exciting." Kilthan''s smile grew even wider. ''This I got to see to believe.'' Raka simply thought. As they walked outside, Raka saw the statue again. He again thought about the God Metalman. Knowing this thing was real had completely changed his perspective. As he looked at the statue, something bugged his mind connecting a link from the deep past. ''The Oracle was an existence which came 17 generations ago to stop the fierce war in Ilmentia. This God Metalman came around 1200 years ago to stop the fierce war on this island. Considering an average human lifespan, wouldn''t they have come around the same time?'' Raka did not know if that meant something or rather he did not even know why he had this thought. ''Could be just an interesting coincidence. But both the Oracle and this God Metalman seem to be powerful existences if they could stop the wars single-handedly. Wonder where did they come from and where did they go?'' Raka pondered for some time but could come to no conclusion. He sighed. The next thing on Raka''s list was to find a job. He decided to try the most obvious place he could think of. "Hello and welcome to Minnie''s Spell Scrolls," came a soft voice as he opened the door. This shop was in a simply painted building, which somehow highly contrasted with the surrounding houses that had been painted with all the colors of the rainbow. And then he was shocked again. Raka simply stared at the one who called out not believing his eyes. "How may I help you?" that soft voice asked again shaking Raka up from his shock. He simply shook his head and sighed. ''Guess today is going to be one weird day.'' What shocked him was this woman who greeted him. She was a beastman. ''Or in her case beastwoman?'' In fact, looking at her, she seemed like some kind of large brown cat who had suddenly decided to stand up like a human. He half expected her to swish her tail around but then remembered the beastmen he saw before didn''t have tails. Unlike the past beastmen who had only covered the basic lower parts and looked like those guys who have 8 abs and could punch through walls, she was slender and wearing a dress. And it clearly bulged out near the breast region. If he couldn''t have told by the voice, this kinda proved that she was a female beastmen. ''On a dwarvish island no less. Or rather now my previous plans are no good.'' Raka was counting on the owner being a human. ''But could the beastmen use all types of magic and make spell scrolls?'' Raka''s experience dictated that wasn''t the case. "Um...do you make the spell scrolls?" He couldn''t help asking. "Ah no. It is master who makes them." She smiled. "Master? May I meet this master...please." Raka said. "Ah please wait a moment. I will go inform her." The catwoman smiled and left. Soon, she returned with a human woman. "Hello, you wanted to meet me?" She asked brusquely. The owner of the shop was actually a young woman or maybe she was older but had a way to hide it. From what Raka could tell, she would definitely be younger than the Queen but seemed older than Lady Altia and Verina. She dressed in plain practical clothes. She had tied her auburn hair loosely and her face at this moment seemed like she would punch him if he was just wasting her time. Still, Raka could tell she was quite pretty. "Ah, I am Raka. I can also make spell scrolls. I wonder if I could ask for a job in some capacity." Raka said. The owner looked up and down a few times and then said, "Did ya just arrive on the island recently?" "Yes. Just a few days ago." Raka nodded while smiling. She sighed and shook her head. "Cause yur new I will explain it to ya. Making spell scrolls is a business of trust. Ya make them so ya know that once sealed no one can know what is inside. It could be something else, even something which might harm ya. So no one will simply buy yur spell scrolls. Also, I have this shop because I have earned the trust. I cannot hire anyone likely to affect my trust no matter who they are." This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road. If you spot it on Amazon, please report it. Raka nodded in understanding. This was an obvious disadvantage of spell scrolls. "So if I earn your trust, could I ask for a job then?" Raka asked. "No. To be able to sell spell scrolls you have to earn the trust of the king. Also, in every town and city there is only one person allowed to sell spell scrolls. So unless someone dies, you will not be allowed." She simply said. "Ah...is that so. But why is only one person allowed?" She sighed this time. "To keep a close watch on us. As I said, it is a business of trust. And they never trust you completely with such an important thing. Now if that''s all I will appreciate if you leave." And she turned to leave. Just then Raka decided something. "Um...just a moment please." He said. The owner lady turned around and this time she frowned even harder. "I could not help noticing but in the city there are not many of the...um not many beastmen. Or rather she is the first one I have seen in the city. Would it be ok if I can ask a little about the beastmen from her?" Raka asked. "Hmm...yur an odd one aren''t ya." The owner lady actually tilted her head as if wondering something. "Say, ya wouldn''t happen to be one of the Goddess''s children now?" Raka nodded his head in the affirmative. "That explains it. Most others would not ask this question." She actually smiled this time. A smiling lady is a lovely lady. Raka had always believed that. ''She does looks better smiling.'' "Tell me why do you want to ask about beastmen?" She asked instead. "Ah, as I am a Goddess''s children, I lack knowledge about the world. So I thought why not learn things wherever possible. I have met beastmen before but at that time they were trying to kill me. I didn''t feel that was a right time to ask them questions." Raka smiled. "Ha ha ha....trying to be funny are ya!" And the frown was back on her face. "No no...it is the only reason I asked. If she is uncomfortable I take my words back." Raka apologized. Instead of replying the owner lady simply stared at him. Feeling uncomfortable Raka decided to leave. ''Better try my luck elsewhere.'' But just as he turned around to walk away, the owner lady said. "Hold on!" Raka turned back confused. "You don''t know she is a slave, do you?" She asked. Raka was startled. ''Slave?'' Then he remembered the history book. ''The slave wars!'' There were slaves on this island. "Like I thought." She nodded after looking at Raka''s reaction. "Well in any case, we are busy so if you only came here for that, you should leave." Raka sighed. He didn''t have enough intimacy yet. "Ah in that case, can I look at the various spell scrolls you have for sale?" Raka smiled. "Hmm...ok. Look around all you want. Nemu here, will help you with the prices." Saying that the young owner lady nodded off to the catwoman and walked off or that was what Raka was expecting to happen. Rather she stood in the corner and watched him with eagle eyes and a frown on her face. Like she was the wall to overcome if he was going to bother the catwoman. Raka sighed. Raka looked around the shop. Samples of spell scrolls were kept in display glasses with their magic names colored and embossed on the paper. Small descriptions were added telling what the spell scroll was supposed to do. He asked and found that testing is possible, but he would still have to pay for that. ''Guess I can only take my chances.'' Looking at the various spell scrolls, Raka noticed that none of them were the fighting magics he used. No fireballs or air waves. Rather there were magics like Firelight, Heating, Cooling, Lightlamp, Swirling, etc. Reading the descriptions, most of them were tooling magics. Magics which would help to make things. Although the Lightlamp magic was magic to light a lamp. ''Guess the same magic which was used on the lamps of the Magic Institute.'' "How much is the Lightlamp spell scroll?" Raka asked. "2 silvers." Nemu replied. ''2 silvers?!'' Raka was shocked. Who would spend 2 silvers to just light a lamp every night? If the dwarves actually paid so much the humans must be cheating them out of their wits. "Does it sell a lot?" He couldn''t help asking. "Ah yes. It is necessary for the miners to use and some people in the city buy them too." Nemu replied. "Mines? Do you know where they are?" Raka asked. He realized the importance of this magic now. Bringing a fire into the mines could have disastrous consequences. Not unlike the accidents which happen in the real world. Lightlamp was a light based magic so was much safer without the burning and the heating side effects. Or that''s what he surmised based on what he had read about this element. "Ah nearest one is about half a day from here. You can take the train. It goes straight there." She said. ''Even in the game it''s called a train..eh!'' Raka could not help smiling. ''Wonder who first called the train a train.'' Most people would relate train to training. So calling a vehicle a train, at some point should have certainly seemed silly. Raka kept on looking till he found some really interesting spell scrolls, ''Ability Enchants''. He read the description. Used to add ability to equipment, weapons, armors, etc. Requires a compatible magic source. Made to order only. For details please ask. Raka had a brainflash. ''Is it talking about options on the weapons?!'' Just then,
[p=center] You have discovered a different way to use Spell Writing.[/p] Skill Enchant: You have discovered a skill. You can now learn how to add various abilities to objects. Requirements: Apply Enchant successfully.
Wisdom has increased by 1.
Raka''s suspicions were confirmed. He was more surprised by his Wisdom increase though. Discovering skills was not all that it was made out to be. One could read 10 books and discover 10 skills. How many were worthy of learning and how many you were able to learn were different issues. Even more, how many you found useful. For example, Raka found the Massage skill was beyond the world. Whereas the Herbal Medicine skill was beyond the underworld in another sense. After all, if one could find a herb by reading a book, wouldn''t life become so much simple. Similar to if someone could learn to grow things from a book, everyone could become farmers. Then there was the bandaging skill. Which hadn''t turned out to be too useful though it still felt like it was an extremely important skill. Deeply curious, he turned to the still frowning owner lady and asked. "Um...could you tell me a bit about the enchant scrolls? I mean what are they used for?" "They are used for enchanting." She replied brusquely. Raka sighed and shook his head. Then he repeated the question to Nemu. Thankfully, she replied. "We attach a magical core to weapons, etc to make them magical weapons. We can apply the enchants on the magical core to enhance it''s properties." Nemu simply said. Raka nodded but sighed again. She may be working at a spell scroll shop but her knowledge was highly lacking. He could not help turning around to the owner lady again. "I am sorry but could you explain a bit more clearly. I think I will have use of one or two scrolls such as these." Raka enticed. Perhaps money would work. "Hmm...do you even have such money. An basic enchant costs more than 10 gold." The owner lady looked him up and down and frowned a bit more. Raka could not help sighing again. He knew he looked like a beggar. His clothes and gear were all too old and too worn out. Though Raka kept repairing and reusing them just because of the options. And because until very recently he was poor. Now he had the money and among his to-do list was also upgrading his equipment. But he did not want to hurry things as they say. Deciding, Raka took out a bunch of gold coins and put it on the counter. "I do have money." He said. And then immediately took back the gold coins. Though not before he saw the sparkling in the eyes of the owner lady. Perhaps, because he was standing near Nemu who was also next to the counter, when he did this, he could feel that Nemu''s hands shivered a little. But when he looked, she was still standing politely with a serene smile. Anyways, he had achieved the desired result. "You know spell scrolls are called such because you write the magic rules on paper. But that is just one medium. You can write it on any medium, wood, stone, etc though the effects might differ a bit. Similarly you can write those rules on a magical core. Like adding fire enchant to a fire based magic core will greatly improve the fire magic abilities on a weapon in which the core is used." The owner lady explained. "Ah and how would you write something on a magical core? Wouldn''t those be extremely small?" Raka asked. Ofcourse, he was considering magical bones and such. "Yes, that is why enchants cannot be very complicated. Most just simply improve on the existing element attribute, you know increasing it''s power, reducing the side effects, etc." The owner lady said. ''Hmm.. so far it seems that I guessed right. Though there is still something I can''t put my finger on..'' "Hmm...ah I just remembered something. I will visit again." Raka made an excuse and left with his gold intact. Outside, he walked as he pondered the things which were said. ''This Enchant skill sounds interesting. Though I don''t have any equipment making skill. Should I still learn it?'' Raka was looking at the pros and cons. As he walked the streets he also kept looking at the various shops around. This was the next thing on his agenda. Getting used to the city and knowing its various locations. Food shops, repair shops, equipment sales, warehouses, places of importance, etc. Just then he saw a dwarf player. "Is that...is that...a langoti?!" Raka gave one look and crashed down laughing his ass off. "HAHAHAhahahahhaha.....this is hilarious...hahahahaha!" Everyone nearby jumped after hearing his loud laughter. The Langoti/Langot is a traditional Indian clothing. A piece of cloth worn below the waist and folded up above the knees. Well, it looks kinda like a big ass diaper. Not the new ones but rather the old age cloth ones. Perhaps they got the idea of diapers from langots, or vice versa, no one can be sure. Though looking at a 4 feet dwarf wearing a langoti was just too hilarious. "Hahahahaha...." Raka''s laughter continued. The dwarf player grimaced and then moved on. ''If the men are like this, I wonder what kind of attire the females would have...'' Raka could simply imagine. --------------------------------------------------------------- The dwarf race had been out for two days, yet this was Swamy''s first time seeing a dwarf player. Even though opening up the dwarf race created a lot of hype and lots of players said that they were going to change to this race, the ground realities were different. Firstly, when the dwarf race opened, it was inaccessible for 24 hours owing to a system message saying that the new race was being assimilated, whatever that meant. Swamy guessed that was probably to choose the new starting locations. Secondly, there were far too few new players. It was not like the company had 10,000 game systems in storage just waiting for the dwarf race to be unlocked. Who knew when that would be so why would any company do that! And even if they had, how could it reach the players all around the globe in just 2 days. Thirdly, the old players who wanted to switch, had to wait atleast 24 hours for their old characters to delete. The 24 hour buffer was so that you could change your mind, if you wanted. So only the ones who were decisive had a chance to log in today. More importantly there were still a lot of other players who were actually waiting for some more information on the dwarf race to come out before switching. And then there were two new starting locations. How many would start in Hya''cinth? As such it was really the first time Swamy saw a dwarf player. ''Hmm...so the starter dress is a sleeveless shirt and a langot type undergarment for the males.'' He noted in his notes. He closed his notebook and got ready for bed. --------------------------------------------------------- The next time Raka logged in, it was another day in the game. Raka began the same old routine. Library, then hunting for information and walking the streets to find out things. But today he also decided to step out and look around the hunting grounds. After all, there was no Age barrier here. Hya''cinth was surrounded by forests on one side, and the sea on the other. A lot of the forest was cleared to build the road and rail tracks. The rail tracks led to a mine about half a day away and carried the miners to and fro regularly. The road went on to connect the various villages and eventually led to another city Ga''cinth which was almost two weeks away. The dwarf island was too big, therefore most dwelling places were also quite far. Rather only the villages were designed so that they would be near a city. ''Maybe in ancient times, these cities were actually forts where soldiers were concentrated.'' Raka guessed. ''Then over time, people came and settled around them to be safer.'' The distance between two cities was too big. Like Ga''cinth, they were mostly 2-3 weeks away. Even if they could put in rail tracks, it would still take around a week or more to get there. The train technology was still in the initial phases after all. Reducing the time it took to reach a mine was already a huge effort worthy of praise, or atleast that''s what Raka thought. According to Kilthan, the forests around the city did not have any dangerous animals. No magical beasts or such. The top of the food chain as he called it was just a fox called Siren Fox. Mainly because it sings to attract its prey. Or rather it did have a sweet voice but it was just too weak. Even young dwarfs could kill them easily. ''Probably only new dwarf players would practice on them. Atleast I will see something different.'' Raka decided to go anyway. Therefore he made his way to the other end of the city. As he walked, Raka once again thought about whether he wanted to learn the Enchant skill. Rather he was thinking about what the owner lady had said about this skill. Even previously, when he had heard, he had a niggling feeling that something was odd. Though he wasn''t able to put a finger on what was odd. He had just reached the gate when he had a brainflash. ''Oh so that was it! She didn''t tell me everything.'' A good liar lies very less. A great liar never does. Now that everything became clear, Raka could find several holes in the owner lady''s explanations. For example, she said that only simple enchants can be done. What kind of simple enchants would allow Strength or Agility or Focus to increase? If it were really simple, wouldn''t everyone have them tattooed on themselves? After all, humans or dwarfs were still considered magical creatures containing magical energy! She also said that enchants mostly enhanced the property of the magic core. Again, what kind of magic core would have these kinds of abilities? Weren''t they just energy storage? Even if they had affinity towards some elements! Or rather if enchants were possible and acted the way he thought they did, then what about the options he gained when he created things?! Like those mirrors he gifted. Did he enchant them unknowingly because he had put in magical energy and that''s why they had options? ''But I didn''t put in any energy when I built the house....so is it just the game system or a part of magic?'' He knew he was thinking the right things. Just that he didn''t have enough information to arrive at a conclusion. As he reached the gate, he was stopped by the guards who asked for his papers. "Where would you be heading?" A armor wearing dwarf asked. "Just a bit around the forest, then I will come back." Raka answered. The guard nodded and let him go. Raka followed the road for a while and then snuck into the forest. Even though Kilthan had said that there was nothing dangerous, being prudent couldn''t hurt. He carefully walked in always ready with his staff. His Sensitivity had improved by over 20 points recently and it gave a completely new feeling when he walked. His vision was clearer and his hearing sharper. As he walked he could hear the crunch beneath his feet and the bird calls of several birds around. Sometimes he would hear a rustling but as he would turn to look, the animal would just hiddenly run away. Sometimes he could see various black birds caw-cawing like crows. ''Crows can''t be this big can they?!'' But still he found nothing which attacked him. Most were scared of him and as he approached, took the option of flight. A few didn''t run but also didn''t move to bother him. Like the orange frogs he saw hiding in leaves which had a streak of orange running in between. As Raka walked further in, the woods started to get denser and he had to often move some shrubbery or branches to move ahead. Just then,
Confusion! Your mental state has changed to confused. The effect will last 30 seconds.
Raka stared at this message. ''What does it mean I am confused? I feel alright....'' And then the sky fell. Raka thought he had turned on his head just now. The ground was now up and the sky below his feet. And then he saw the trees and they were also hanging upside down. ''What''s going on?'' Raka wondered. But then,
You have died. As penalty, you will not be able to log in for 24 hours.
''Eh! What the hell is going on?!!'' Chapter 37: Confusion "Aaaaaaah!" A blood curdling scream rang out in a small room of a nondescript apartment at a fairly populous neighborhood. Yet, the scream did not escape the walls. The populace remained blissfully unaware and went on with their puny lives. "I still can''t see anything..." A guy said out loud as he banged his hand on his desk. He sighed. "One more time..." And he pulled the video to the last scene, just before his death. "Time to go frame by frame..." as he rewound his death just one more time. This was Swamy and he was watching this game video with hawkish eyes, trying to put together the last moments. Like a crash site investigator, he was looking at the wreckage to determine how the incident happened. The game video was the black box. The problem was that he couldn''t see anything relevant. ''Still nothing. After the confusion status, I don''t even see my Life bar. Is that a clue? But what does it mean?'' This death, like the status message, was utterly confusing. Swamy couldn''t be sure whether he was attacked or poisoned or had faced a gravitational anomaly. Heck, if he were targeted by aliens, he couldn''t know as everything after the confusion status message was totally confusing, out of whack so as to say. There was the sky turning upside down and then there was death. ''Still nothing. No signs of any animals, in fact looking at the trees, there is not even wind. Looks like everything after the confusion status message cannot be trusted.'' Swamy sighed. The game video, or rather the recording of the game play was taken in first person perspective. So it recorded what Raka saw. Whatever he saw! If he was confused, it did not record the actual image which should have been in front of him, instead it recorded the same things he saw. Sky and earth upside down! How could he even look for clues! Swamy sighed. "This is useless!" "TV, Off!" He said. He unhooked his laptop from his TV. The bigger screen hadn''t helped things at all. And then he went to bed. For the next 24 hours, he was on vacation so as to say. The next morning began as usual. He got dressed and got to college. Everyone had kinda got used to the classes by now so there was far more chattering. "Hey, did you see...." "Oh...do you know..." "Oh...that was so ridiculous..." "................" Swamy sighed. It was high school all over again except perhaps in a university setting. Something on the lines of those gaudy American shows which presented a glamorous scandalous college life. "Hey Swamy..." Rajan came up. "Hey...where''s Sneha?" He asked. Rajan simply shook his head. "We got into a fight last night....now she''s avoiding me. I can''t understand women dude!" ''Me neither. On that subject, I don''t understand you either...'' but what came out of his mouth was "Yeah, women sure are a mystery." And Swamy shook his head as well. ""Hey guys"" Both Himali and Manish came up at that time. "Hey," Swamy greeted. "Hey..." came Rajan''s greeting which sounded a bit down. "Now don''t expect sympathy from me. You know you were at fault here, don''t you?" Himali simply replied. As expected Sneha had shared her ''troubles''. "Ah there she is." And she turned around and walked over to greet Sneha, who had just entered. The two girls found some seats away from us guys. "I feel you, dude. These things happen. The thing is let things settle down on their own. Oh and apologies work too. And don''t even wonder whether you are right. You will find out that doesn''t really matter...." Manish added his part. "But did I do something that wrong? It''s just that I lost track of what she was talking about for a bit. I mean we had already been on the phone for an hour...wouldn''t anyone lose track?!" Rajan complained. "I feel you dude. As I said, don''t mind it too much. These things happen. It''s just some girls take it as being funny and others get upset. Can''t blame yourself for that...." Manish said. "Yeah...and then...." "Hmm....guess it will fine....." "blah blah blah..." "blah blah blah..." Swamy looked at the heavens and sighed. ''Take me...just take me...or rather take them!'' Thankfully by lunchtime, the talk had turned to the game. And a sort of temporary truce had been established. Sneha sat between Swamy and Himali, instead of her usual seat next to Rajan. Not that Swamy cared. "Hey, I heard another group of players from Khardoum are making their way to the dwarvish lands. They are joining Suzaku''s ship. Heard Thadian''s part of the group. He''s the top player in Khardoum." Rajan said. "Guess the people from Khardoum got lucky. It is still so far for us. Our guild''s been investing money and converting it into gold. Hopefully, we will have enough soon." Himali said. "Yeah, that''s a good idea." Sneha said. "So what are you aiming for? A ship or going straight to buy a guild office?" Rajan asked. "Hmm...initially we were trying to save enough for a guild office. But after Raka/Swamy''s videos got uploaded, we have changed our mind. Now we want to aim for a ship. Oh don''t worry, we didn''t tell them we knew Raka in real life." Manish smiled. "Yeah...what are you up to bro. Tell us how is the island of the dwarves? People who started there have put in some videos but there are so few of them." Rajan said. "Yeah..I am kinda interested too." Sneha said. "Yes, yes do tell us. How do the dwarves look like? Oh and what''s different?" Himali was interested. "Yeah, atleast you would have a much more interesting experience than those new starters." Manish said. Swamy thought for a while and then started explaining things. For the next few minutes, his was the only voice on the table. Even in some of the surrounding tables. Eavesdropping was a source of great many gossip, after all. How could they not have mastered it! A sudden announcement was made during the afternoon classes. Prof. D''souza interrupted the regular class and said. "After much deliberation, we have decided to make some changes to the course structure. Including your normal lectures, we are also starting a guest lecture series. The practice of inviting academic guests to speak has been prevalent in many departments of the university, however, it is a first for the virtual reality department." He spoke as looked around. Swamy felt excited by it. If it was to be the same as what they did in the other courses, then the guest lecturers would be highly successful individuals from both academics and industry. ''Such as the creators of Long Island...'' Swamy hoped. "We had tried to add this into our curriculum many times in the past but we were unsuccessful. As you know, virtual reality has become mainstream now, yet just ten years previously, the people who worked and researched virtual reality were quite few in number. They were located all around the world and as such asking them to speak to us would become just a one time thing. In India, virtual reality research has only recently gained prominence. But now, we feel that we can finally begin this guest lecture series and have a guest lecture, at least once every week. The details are still being deliberated but the first lecture has been decided and will be held tomorrow in place of the afternoon classes. This guest lecture is open for students of all years and will be conducted in the auditorium. I hope that all of you will take advantage of this unique opportunity." Prof. D''souza smiled. "Well, I would like to keep the name of the one coming tomorrow as a surprise but I will tell you what he or she will be talking about. Skills Transference." He added. Instantly, everyone started talking ten to the dozen. "Hey hey...did I hear it right? It''s skills transference right?" Swamy asked excitedly. Considering he was the quiet one of the group, being this excited was quite a first for him. "Yeah...that''s what he said. This is too exciting! No one can miss this." Rajan said. "Um..what is skills transference?" Swamy instantly turned around as the voice reached his ears. And he was not the only one. Rajan and Manish on the same row also turned around to look at the guy who sat behind them. Even the guy''s two neighbors started staring at him. Maybe all of them were wondering, where had this unique piece of man flesh come from. How could one not have heard of Skills Transference if he played any kind of virtual reality game! "Dude...how did you end up in the virtual reality program?" The guy''s neighbor was shaking his head. "Come on...is it that odd not knowing?" Being stared at by so many eyes, the guy turned pitiful. Finally, Swamy took pity on him and started explaining. "Skills Transference is the general term used to describe the transfer of skills learned from real life to the game and vice versa." Swamy gave a to the point answer. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- 24 hours passed in the blink of an eye. Time passes faster when you have something to do. Like going to school, attending class, completing assignments, hanging out with friends, etc. And yet, when you finally reach that last minute, you start looking at the clock counting seconds. "5...4....3....2...1...Login.." Raka appeared in the same place as when he died. Just this time, the sky and the earth were normal. Raka sighed. ''Normal is good.'' He had screwed his head over and over but he had come up with nothing. Ofcourse, he had his suspicions. He had researched on the type of things which could interfere with a person''s brain. The kinds of external stimuli which would cause similar effects. Most prominently among them were smells. ''Maybe I smelled something by accident before...'' There are many kinds of scents and fragrances designed to manipulate the senses. The natural kingdom used smell to an extraordinary degree to communicate all kinds of things, from attraction to enmity to even dominance. They even used it to hunt. In the natural world, the stronger you are, the smellier you are. There could be effects which would be hallucinatory in nature as well. Raka wetted his sleeve and covered his nose and mouth. But this was only a temporary measure. ''I need to get out of here.'' He stepped forward cautiously, looking all around just in case. Smell was just the top of his list. The next on the list was some kind of magical attack which somehow affects the brain and causes high damage. ''Though if there were such a creature, it definitely couldn''t be classified as harmless.'' He still remembered Kilthan''s words as he explained that there were no dangerous animals in the forest. ''Now either Kilthan was making a fool out of me or there is another explanation.'' Which brought him back to the first item on his list. Smells. Raka carefully covered his mouth and nose with his sleeve, taking notice of any kind of odd scents and fragrances. Only this was the forest. ''Damn..now that I notice it, there are too many smells! I can''t make one out of the other...I am not a dog!'' He grimaced. And then,
Confusion! Your mental state has changed to confused. The effect will last 30 seconds.
"Shit! Not again!" Raka groaned. But this time the sky and earth did not change places. Just another unbelievable sight took their place. "What the hell! Is this really a HUMONGOUS NINE TAILED FOX!!!! AAAAAH..!" Raka screamed as the humongous nine tailed fox opened its humongous mouth and took a humongous bite off him.
You have died. As penalty, you will not be able to log in for 24 hours.
"GODDAMIT!! WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON!!" --------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- A blood curdling scream rang out once again in this small nondescript apartment, which looked exactly like the other several thousand of its kind. And once again, it was completely and utterly ignored. Perhaps a murder would happen yet people would not wake up from their slumber. "Must be some dog or cat wailing....go back to sleep..." would have perhaps summed it up. And yet the person doing the yelling was not actually murdering someone. Except perhaps a few hair which might have tragically lost their roots. Considering the number still remaining, he was in no danger of going bald anytime soon. "Damn! Double damn! I hate this confusion thing. Now I don''t know whether that huge fox was real or imaginary!" Raka muttered as he looked at his last moments, again. He was feeling a mix of emotions at this moment. Primarily among them were anger and sadness. This was not the first time he had died. And yet, it was the first time, he had died in such close succession. ''And to make matters worse, I still don''t know how I died! Ah...my stats!'' Swamy was extremely depressed. It was not like he had many stat points in the first place. But some stats only had 1 point. ''Dying twice, did they become 0? Or went into negative? Did the stat disappear altogether?'' All kinds of increasingly annoying questions wove circles in his head making him feel even more depressed. Who knows when he finally fell asleep or if. The next day began as usual with the beep beeping of the alarm. Swamy yawned loudly. ''I am sooooo sleepy. Should I miss the morning class...someone or the other would take notes..'' And he closed his eyes. Five minutes later, he opened his eyes again. "No no that will never happen...I can''t sleep like this..." And he hurriedly got dressed. And yet, he dozed off much of the morning. In his own world, he did not realize just how many eyes were looking at him strangely. No, it had nothing to do with the game. "Hey Swamy, wake up please. If you fall asleep and I fall asleep....I will probably fail." Rajan whispered from the next seat. Having such a sleepy neighbor, which sane person could stay conscious. Not to mention, staying awake was already a chore for some. Lunch passed in a daze. Most students were eagerly waiting for the guest lecture. Some of the social kind even started to discuss who might actually show up. There were not many people who were involved in Skills Transference research. Every single person who had read about or knew about or played any sort of virtual reality game, had at one time thought about it. If he could learn to do something in the game, why couldn''t he do it in real life. Like become Bruce Lee! Ofcourse, that was in the realm of fantasy. But some things could really be considered, like the skill to swim. If you learnt swimming in the game, couldn''t you swim in real life? The moment soon arrived. Prof. D''souza provided the opening. "Hello people! There seems to be many excited faces today...well in that case let''s not waste any time. Please welcome Dr. Srinivas Ramanujan, a leading researcher in the field of Psychoanalysis, Behaviourism and Skills Transference. He is also one of the few Indians who have pioneered research in this field. He is currently part of the Solocine Institute of Virtual Research in Stockholm. Dr. Ramanujan is also a guest lecturer at the University of California, Moscow State University, The University of Tokyo, University of Delhi and now the University of Bangalore. So without further ado, please welcome Dr. Ramanujan..." As Prof. D''souza finished his words, a middle aged person dressed efficiently in a formal shirt and pants came out from the side of the stage. While everyone clapped, Dr Ramanujan shook hands with Prof. D''souza and got fitted with a microphone. And then he started. "Much of the research, while developing the virtual reality has been to allow people to take their real life skills and be able to use it in the virtual reality environment. For example, athletic people in real life, often make better fighters in the game, if you only considered physical aspects. They have better balance of movement so performed better than normal people. Even then converting your real life basketball or cricket skills to fighting is not at all easy and you can probably guess why. Yet some skills are easily transcribed. Like cooking. If you knew cooking in real life, nine out of ten times you would become a good cook in the game as well. But this was and still is a one way street. Taking skills from the real life and adapting it to game conditions is possible. However taking skills from the game and applying it in real life was and still is not possible." Dr. Ramanujan began with a serious tone. "Hi All, starting with such an ominous statement seems kinda like a wrong thing to do but it is the reality of the situation. What we have to consider is whether this reality can be changed and how should we go about doing it." He smiled as he said. "Is anyone of you keeping track of the latest research on this topic?" More than a few hands went up. "Wow..so many of you, that''s surprising. Usually, I only find like ten people who would know about the latest on this subject. Haha.. Well let me first summarize the problems. We often think that the humans have five basic senses. Sense of sight, smell, touch, taste and hearing. In fact, virtual reality world designers often play with these senses in order to give you a realistic feeling. But the thing is we don''t only have five senses!" Dr. Ramanujan paused. "Think about it carefully. When you lift a hammer, which sense tells you that the object is heavy? Do we also have a sense of weight in additions to these senses? How about when you walk? Which sense tells you to walk straight and not tip over on one side? Do we use these basic senses, or do we have a sense of balance as well? We generally don''t consider such things which is also why we think that we have only five senses. The truth is we are not only limited to five. And that creates a problem. This tale has been unlawfully obtained from Royal Road. If you discover it on Amazon, kindly report it. Virtual reality worlds are computer programs in the end, which emulates this ''senses'' data. It feeds the brain what the senses should have been feeling in any situation. This is what makes it feel ''real'' to you. But to completely feel ''real'' you need to have input data of all your senses, including the basic five. But how can we do it? The sense of weight is not something which is governed by a specific part...like hearing is related to the ears and smells are related to the nose while touch is related to the skin. Is there a part of human body which is related to weight?" Dr. Ramanujan shrugged. "This is the main problem, for everything else derives from this. Why can''t we learn skills in the virtual world and apply it in real life? Simple, because your brain does not store data like a computer in individual 1s and 0s. It stores them in complete patterns. When you remember something, the data from all your senses gets stored at the same time which makes one unit of memory...if you can call it that. When you don''t have the data from all your senses, it obviously fails to form a complete impression. And the brain deletes it. Trust me when I say this, but the brain is as good at forgetting things as it is in remembering them. Or rather, do we really remember every moment of our lives? Yes...no? We only remember the important or memorable moments, while the rest is gradually forgotten. It is because memory is related to your senses. All your senses. When in a virtual reality world, the data being sent to your brain is actually limited and sometimes even derivative. For example, there is no gravity. Yet you get the feel of heaviness. This is because we are basically tricking your brain into believing imaginary things. So what happens when you leave the imaginary and log in into your real body with your real senses. There is a mis-match. Your brain remembers something unrelated to your senses. Like what happened to you was an out of body experience...which it probably was...literally. It also feels like your body has changed...which it has. The brain adapts to your senses and gradually forgets the non fitting, I should say, experiences. If I could compare it with something, it would be like reading a good book. Would all the same feelings remain when you read another book? Or would it be replaced with newer feelings?" Dr. Ramanujan smiled. "That said, it''s not like you learn nothing from the experience. It is more like watching cooking shows on TV. You can learn it but unless you do it practically, remembering it would not be easy. It is like watching a movie and trying to remember every line. Even if you could remember them, could you speak the lines in the same way as the actor? Do all of you understand the crux of the problem now? So what do you think we should do to solve it...instead of just me talking all the time, let''s open the floor for discussion! What do you think can be a solution to this problem....." Many hands instantly went up and a good discussion started on the pros and cons of each method. Even Swamy forgot about last night''s sadness and eagerly participated. Ofcourse, there was no right answer for this. For if there were, it would have been implemented already. Right now, what existed were different schools of thought. --------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka appeared in the middle of the forest. He looked around for about a second and then he quickly took off running. ''There is no point being cautious here....need to get to the road fast.'' Whatever he was attacked by, whether it be a strange scent or magic, it was fast acting and could not be easily detected. Last time he had walked cautiously and ended up dead. So now, he ran full speed ahead. Maybe he would be lucky this way. ''Ah..finally made the road...'' Raka sighed as he stepped on to the wide road cutting through the forest. He waited for a moment to catch his breath. "Character Window" #Authors Note: Will put up the table in the near future. ''Oh no...'' Looking at this his face paled. What he had feared had happened. ''Disease Resistance -1.'' Raka sighed. What did the negative mean? He wasn''t sure. ''But if the positive meant that I had more disease resistance then...'' He sighed again. ''Let''s head back. I need more information...and I need to find a doctor..'' The way back did not take long. And all along the way Raka was deep in thought. He did not even notice the few dwarvian players who had bravely stepped out to hunt and found to their chagrin things to be, not so simple. He did not even notice the guards when he entered the gate. ''What is going on? If there is something this dangerous out there, why didn''t Kilthan warn me? Is it that he had malicious intentions....or maybe he just didn''t know?'' Raka thought. ''Hmm...the second sounds more plausible. He has no reason to lie.'' He strode forward, all the while, wondering. Just then he had a thought. ''Wait..there is one more possibility that I haven''t considered. Could it be that it is something which does not affect dwarves but affect humans?'' Raka stood still in the middle of the street as he considered it a bit more. It was a vague theory but still within the realm of possibility and could be confirmed easily. ''I need more information...'' And he started walking, this time with purpose, towards the spell scroll shop. "Hello and welcome to Minnie''s Spell Scrolls." A feminine voice greeted once again. The cat lady looked up and recognized Raka. "Hello again" She greeted. "Hello. I am sorry but do you think I can bother your master for a minute. It''s kinda important." Raka said. "Um..hold on please. Let me ask her." The cat lady went inside and Raka waited. Soon after a lovely woman followed the cat lady out, still wearing a frown. And she frowned even more when she saw Raka. But she did not say anything. "Hello. Sorry to bother you but I needed some information. See, I have been in the forest twice and everytime I found something which causes confusion and hallucinations. Do you know what causes that? Is there something which probably affects humans and not dwarves?" Raka also preferred not beating around the bush with this lady. Without changing expressions and in a matter of fact tone, the woman replied. "3 silvers." "Um what?" Raka was confused. ''How does this answer my question?!'' "3 silvers...take it or leave it." The young lady said again. ''Maybe she is selling information,'' Raka suddenly realized. He took out 3 silver coins and put them on the counter. He then expectantly waited for the woman to speak. And yet, the woman did not say anything. Instead, she pocketed the money, opened one of the drawers built into the counter, took out a spell scroll and put it on the countertop. And then she left. She just left! "Ho..hold on...you still didn''t answer my question.." Raka shouted at her receding back. She simply ignored him and kept walking. "What the....." Raka muttered under his breath. He took the scroll and walked out in a huff. "I will drown her in the Ganges...bury her in the Thar..spread her ashes in the Arabian sea..." It took a couple of minutes of quiet muttering to finally let his anger out. Only then did he notice the scroll. ''Buzzing'' the scroll was named. Raka wanted to bury this thing 10 feet deep in the ground. ''What the hell kind of magic is named buzzing?'' He sighed. ''Well, I guess this should help otherwise I am really gonna burn her shop to the ground.'' His next destination was the doctor. In Ilmentia, there were only a handful of physickers and were very hard to get to. He hoped that this would not be the case on the island of the dwarves. He walked to a food shop nearby which was apparently run by an old dwarf lady. "Hello mam'', could I have this.. this and this...about a stone each." He asked. "Will that be all young man?" "Yes please. Ah by the way do you know of any healers or physickers around here?" Raka asked. "Physickers..? ah you mean the one humans call to cure their disease. We call them apothecaries around here. There''s one I visit, name of Apothecary Narsh, two streets over, take a right, then the second left. It''s the third house on the left. It''s got an old red sign with the name. You can''t miss it." The old lady replied. "Thank you mam''. Ah, here''s the money." Raka said. "Come again." She said. "Ah...I also wanted to ask, do you need an assistant for your shop? I used to work in a food shop before and I am also good with keeping numbers." Raka asked. "Hmm...well I don''t know you very well. You wouldn''t be trying to take advantage of an old lady now, would you?" The old lady said. "No no...I do not dare. I am sure you could just brush me off with the broom if that happens." Raka smiled. "Hahaha...that be true. Well I guess there is no harm having you..mind I will have to ask around about you first. What''s your name?" "I am Raka." "Hmm..well call upon me again in a few days if your still interested and I will give you a reply then." "Alright then. Take care." And Raka left. This was not the first time this situation had happened. In fact, this was a little improvement. Previously, everyone politely refused to give him a job. Fame it seems is not something which magically appears in a foreign land. ''It seems that it takes time for word to get around of your achievements. If it even did..'' Just like a water ripple, fame seemed to originate and propagate to a certain distance. The larger the ripple, the farther his name would spread or that''s what Raka assumed. Atleast Raka had been involved in some pretty serious events though his participation in said events was not anything mentionable. Who would then, spread the word of his achievements around? Actually there was one source he did not consider. Players! Even the newly started dwarf players knew about Raka and sometimes talked about him. Whether it would have any effect was still unknown. ''Two streets over...right..second left. Third house..there.'' He stopped when he saw an old sign having the name, Apothecary Narsh written in bold red colors. It was a small blue and orange painted, 2 storey house with a small yard. There was a white picket fence surrounding the yard. In between there was a small path made of stones. Altogether it looked like a quaint little house which was quite unexpected. ''A doctor''s house should have some people over right? Unless it''s a quack doctor or charges high fees.'' Raka suspected. He had half a mind to turn around when suddenly the front door opened and a short and stocky dwarf lady holding a baby walked out. She opened the picket gate and started walking towards the other end of the street, opposite of where he was standing. ''I think it is the first time I saw a baby in the game...'' Raka mused. From Gurrow till here, the one thing he never saw was an infant. It was interesting seeing a dwarf baby. Atleast, it proved that the apothecary/doctor was not a quack. Raka knocked and entered. He saw a small room made into a reception area. There were some people sitting on the side, probably waiting their turn while a young female dwarf sat behind the reception desk wearing a white apron and hat. ''Nurses!'' "Do you have an appointment?" She asked. "Um. No. Do I need one?" Raka asked. "Yes, Apo. Narsh is a busy man and an appointment is necessary unless it''s an emergency." The nurse replied. "Ah. In that case, can I schedule an appointment?" "When would you like to visit?" The nurse quickly opened a diary and asked. "3 days from now.." "Hmm...alright. What time?" She asked. "In the afternoon if possible." Raka replied. "Would 2 pm would be fine with you?" "Ah yes. It is fine." "Alright then, please write your name here...Thank you. Please do not forget to bring 50 silvers. That is the consultation fee." Hearing the nurse''s reply, Raka nodded and walked out. ''50 silvers for a consult? Is that expensive or cheap?'' Raka didn''t know. After having taken care of business, Raka was now ready to tackle the problem of confusion once again. He first decided to ask around all the shops, he was trying to build intimacy at. Except the spell scroll shop. A little while later he exited the last shop. ''Hmm...all of them said that there are no dangerous animals in the forest. No one knows about the symptoms I described. So there are only two possibilities which remain. Either it is something new and rare. Or I need to use this spell scroll I bought.'' Raka looked gloomily at this spell scroll. He did not want to die. And yet, without actually going there, he wouldn''t know if it was any good. ''Let''s just ask a few more places...'' He decided to take the safer option. But everyone he asked said the same things. Perhaps it was so rare that only a certain few knew about it. ''I can''t be only one who knows about it right? or is it...'' Raka shivered. ''Do I have to risk death again?'' He found a quiet place and sat down, while munching on some fruits as he watched the people of the island scurrying off on their business. Occasionally, he saw a player or two, who noticed him and gave a slight nod. But did not bother talking. ''Looking at it now, the dwarves always seem to be busy.'' No dwarf on the street looked without purpose. No one was lazing around like him. Some time later, Raka stood up. ''Well, I can''t think of anything else. Have to risk it.'' And he started walking back to the forest. Just before he reached the spot where he entered the woods, he took out the spell scroll and said, "Buzzing". Immediately, an annoying buzzing sound filled his ears like when a mosquito starts going around your head. "Tch..." Raka was irritated. If he did not know about the spell scroll and had not activated it himself, he would definitely have suspected that there was a mosquito flying around. He took a deep breath to calm himself down. Then he stepped into the forest, with this constant buzzing sound keeping him company. He walked for quite some time, entering deeper and deeper. ''Here should be where I was last..'' Raka stopped there and waited. If everything went according to how it went before, very soon should come a confusion status message. ''If I die, I am gonna curse you to oblivion.'' He waited for quite some time but the status message never came. Just then, "woop woop...woop woop" many strange sounds filled the air. And then foxes came out from the surroundings. Loads of them! ''Damn!'' The foxes were small animals, just like the foxes in the real world. About the size of a dog. Atleast, they looked like the foxes one saw in the pictures. And all of them only had a single tail. """Woop woop...woop woop!""" The many foxes completely surrounded him from all sides not leaving him any path of escape, all the while calling even more louder. """Woop woop...woop woop!""" ''Guess I should kiss my butt goodbye.'' Raka sighed. What a way to die! But the death did not arrive. The surrounding foxes kept on wooping and did not approach. ''Why do they not attack?'' Raka was confused. He looked carefully all around and found that all the foxes were keeping a certain distance not too near yet not too far. ''Just enough that they could get away...'' Raka thought. ''Their behaviour makes no sense...'' """Woop woop...woop woop!""" "zzzzzzzzzzzz" Raka suddenly realized the buzzing sound was still there. And then it hit him. Like a hammer striking his head. ''Holy...could it be...sound?!'' What caused confusion or hallucination? Many things. One among them was sound. However it was ranked very low on Raka''s list. Simply because causing confusion or hallucinations with sound was a very difficult thing. Possible but very very difficult. Alternating very high and very low sounds, or using echoes, or using infrasonic sound can interfere with human emotions and perceptions. Raka had not gone into much detail but he understood that doing this only created a possibility. It may or may not actually affect the human brain so as to say. Yet, such sounds did not exist naturally. Some machine or other device had to be built in order to create the sound waves which had the ability to affect the human brain. Which is also why it was near the bottom of Raka''s list. Yet now, it had instantly reached the top. ''This is not the real world, after all.'' Raka realized. What could not be done in the real world, could be possible using magic. And magic affected everything. ''Maybe the foxes have organs which allow them to produce such sound. Or maybe they can use magic at a very small scale..'' Raka guessed. And then he realized what the buzzing scroll did. It interfered with the sound waves, effectively disrupting confusion. "*Smack" Raka facepalmed. ''They are called Siren foxes! Sirens! Idiot! Why didn''t I notice it sooner!'' Sirens, in greek legends were creatures who lured sailors using their enchanting voices making them confused so that they would crash in the rocks. So did the siren foxes. ''No wonder the beastmen race wanted to be beastmen. If they could get access to abilities like lightning and sound...except they would have heads of a fish or a fox.'' Just then the foxes bolted. No, they did not attack. The numerous foxes turned tail and ran away! "What the..." Raka only then understood. ''The foxes are cowards! They run away if their confusion doesn''t work!'' Suddenly a deep anger filled his very being. "Cowards! You think you can run away! I vow that I will only eat fox meat for a month!" He yelled loudly as his magic exploded.
This one took a longer than usual time. First of all was the break and then writing after a break when you kinda forget...your own rhythm. It takes a bit to get back into the groove... Thanks for all you guys'' patience. And enjoy the story. Not to mention but feedback is welcome :) Chapter 38: The conference begins /*Authors Note: My mother passed away in March after fighting for nearly two years with cancer. Come to think of it, I started Long Island around the time she was diagnosed. Not that I had written with any noble intention of getting her to read it. Nor had I written in a language she found easy. English is not her favorite language or her first. The subject of virtual reality completely went over her head as well. But since she was gone, I also thought I should end it and for a long time, that was my intention. Then I woke up one day and realized. Her life was incomplete. The story is incomplete. */ After resolving the mystery of the foxes, Raka found himself even more mystified. The ability of the foxes raised several questions. Primary among them was why did it not affect the dwarves? The dwarves were definitely not deaf! Sound should affect them as well. ''There are few possibilities. One is that it is a racial ability of the dwarves. Maybe confusion like negative status effects do not affect them. Or it could also be related to earth magic.'' Dwarves were after all highly influenced by the Earth element. If it was related to the magic, could there be a way Raka could learn it too? ''Hmm...even if it''s a racial ability, it could still have come from earth magic.'' While thinking of such things, Raka was leisurely watching some dwarf players hunt. Why, well because hunting foxes had become boring. Siren foxes were literally cowards. If their confusion did not work, they would always bolt away. Even if they outnumbered him a hundred to one! ''Kinda takes the fun out of hunting,'' Raka sighed. He persisted only because he had promised himself to eat fox meat for a month. Otherwise he wouldn''t even bother with them. ''Yet all of this is only possible due to this Buzzing spell scroll.'' Raka took one out from the bag and looked at it. From the outside, it simply looked like normal folded paper. Like every other spell scroll he had seen. Yet, this simple piece of paper could change into a variety of complex magics. ''Researching spell scrolls should be a full time occupation!'' The potential of spell scrolls was just that much. Raka stared at the Buzzing spell scroll. "So near yet so far..." He sighed. This spell scroll potentially held the secret to sound magic. He often wondered what would be classified as sound magic. ''Like fire magic produces fire, would any magic which produces sound be called sound magic?'' Raka wondered. But the siren foxes were not classified as magical creatures. They were more like real world bats. Still, one could argue that magic did play a part in their evolution like it did with the dwarves. So at what does point sound becomes sound magic! Or fire becomes fire magic, or air magic, or water or light, etc! ''Magic cannot be separated like that. It''s like when you breathe, you breathe air and magic. When you drink you are drinking water and magic. It is part of this world and cannot be considered separate. Hmm....truly a difficult thing to conceptualize.'' To ponder the mysteries of this world was not really Raka''s intention when he chose to watch the dwarf players hunt. No, he was watching them to confirm something. He wanted to verify that dwarfs really didn''t get confused by the sound. After all, there is suspicion and there is verification. And he did confirm that dwarves are seemingly immune to confusion effects of the foxes. ''Till what extent does their immunity last though? It cannot be that they are immune to every negative status effect. Perhaps it is the sound medium that they are immune to. Would smell work? Can''t say...'' ''Knocking them on their heads should work.'' Raka laughed as he watched a dwarf player take an amazing tumble. Watching dwarf players hunt was a delight. Especially, since he found a couple of newbies. Unlike Gurrow village, Hya''cinth did not have an Age barrier. Which meant that anyone, ANYONE, could come out and hunt. Now what seemed too easy to Raka, did not mean that it was really easy. After all, life is relative, so was the game. Atleast, the veteran players who had chosen to convert from the human race knew what they were doing. These newbies were... "Aah...it hurts! You fu**king dog! Let me get my hands on you!" (male voice) "Aah...no...ouch! It hurts....it hurts! Damn! Let''s run away...!" (female voice) The male dwarf smashed down a thick piece of wood onto a fox, which easily avoided it. Rather it danced all around it. To present a perspective, these two were fighting a single siren fox. ''Why did it not attack in a group or run away cowardly?'' Raka did not know. ''Maybe it is able to understand the level of danger. Like a jackal would attack a baby but would run away from a tiger!'' Raka guessed. "Stay still you mongrel!" roared the guy as he kept smashing the piece of wood down like a roughshod club. Even the woman/girl/female had picked up a stick from somewhere and was trying to hit the fox. ''Um..... trying is an overstatement.'' The siren fox was a small dog like creature, similar in size to real world foxes. They did not have much agility though their running speed was fast. Again, that was relative. ''Idiots! Do they have some stats or not. They definitely don''t have the endurance stat. O heck.. seems like they are about to die. Haha..'' Raka was quite amused. And then the fox bit the leg of the guy and he went down screaming. "Aaaaaah!" The guy cried. "Please help us..." The girl looked directly at Raka as she pleaded. Well, Raka was not exactly hiding. Raka sighed. He simply waved his hand a bit. A small explosion blasted the fox away. It crash landed a few feet away and did not rise again. ''About 40 Life...'' Raka guessed. "Identify"
[p=center]Siren Fox[/p] Class: Animal Siren Fox lives in the forests outside of Hya''cinth. Extremely territorial and will attack if you invade its territory. Relies on sound to confuse its prey to hunt. Low intelligence. Feeds on rats, fruits, berries and some wild grasses. Additional information has been added: Age: 5 Life: 0 Cooking it may increase stamina. A very rare chance to increase endurance. Tailor skills may change its skin to various things.
The siren foxes had almost a quarter of Life points as the rabbits. ''Weak...too weak!'' Raka grumbled. It was like a level 50 character fighting against a level 10 monster. Age was unlike levels in any other game. An Age 5 Siren Fox, even though stronger than other members of its race, was still weaker than an Age 5 rabbit. ''What an irony..'' Atleast for the newbies. ''My magic damage should be greater than my physical damage...'' Raka thought. Ofcourse, what he considered magic damage was simply any damage done due to his magic. The game did not differentiate between magic attacks and physical attacks. In the case of Raka''s magic attacks, he relied on pre-stored energy which he could transform at any time. ''Limited by my mana, though it has also increased a bit.'' Potentially, with the amount of energy he could safely control right now, he could double his attack power using magic. So much that, the siren foxes would die in one hit. ''I don''t even have to take out my staff for them.'' Raka sighed. "Thank you! May I know who you are? Are you one of the Goddess''s children or a resident?" The female dwarf asked while checking up on the male. ''Newbies!'' Raka smirked inside. "I am a player and who might you be?" He said. "Ah hello. I am Sally and this is Jaguar." The female dwarf said. "Ah..hi. I am Raka. Are you two new in the game?" Raka asked. "Yes. We just started today. Kinda just hopped out straight from the library. Didn''t think we would run into high level monsters all of a sudden. There''s really no info about this place on the forums." Sally complained. "Sally...lift me up. I still can''t move my body. Why is it so painful! Is there a setting we need to change!" Jaguar complained as he laid on the ground. Raka simply sighed. "Hmm..have you guys got any stats yet?" Raka could not help asking. "Ah yes. We got the Strength stat. That was pretty easy. But we haven''t been able to get the other stats. We asked a fellow player and he said that the fastest way was to hunt. But it is so painful. How did the others do this! Please tell us!" Sally begged. "And how long does it take to recover?" Jaguar asked in a pitiful voice. "Um...recovering would take some time, if you don''t have the Stamina stat. And without the Endurance stat, it will always be painful. It is true that the fastest way to earn stats is hunting but there are other ways like a training center," Raka replied. "*Groan... what is wrong with the game!" Jaguar said. "I told you, we should have found out more before jumping in. It always happens like this..." Sally said. "It''s called being spontaneous woman! What fun would it be if you had your life all planned out!" Jaguar said. "Hmph! I am sure you are having great fun right now!" Sally said. "I will leave now." Raka said. ''Was I also like this when I started? Did Lady Altia feel as annoyed?'' Raka could not help wondering. He could almost remember when he had started. He had walked in the doors of the battle school and found the most amazing scene. In game, as in life there are a few amazing opportunities which usually turn out to be game changing. Perhaps, this was his amazing opportunity. If he had not met the two women, his destiny in this game would have been, how you would call it, commonplace. Instead, he was one of the pioneers. ''I wonder how they are doing nowadays...haven''t talked to them in ages. I hope the intimacy didn''t decrease..'' Raka sighed. The one thing he was not eager to find out was if the intimacy decreased over time. For the only way to find out was to actually lose it. ''Better let others figure this out!'' One thing that was the hardest to gain was intimacy. No one would want to lose that. Atleast, not in the game. ''With some exceptions!'' Raka thought. ''Another thing I haven''t been able to figure out are blessings. How are they triggered? If it was by intimacy, Guran should have given me one too. Is it that you can get blessed only at the start of the game? That would kinda make the right start monumentally important. Would people even play the game if it was like that.'' Raka could well imagine the scenario. Like how we keep loading the save point after we die in any game, players would keep deleting characters and then creating them again and again. ''That kinda makes no sense.'' Raka thought. Thinking of various things, Raka started walking towards a quiet place. His communication mirrors were still a secret that he didn''t want anyone to find out. Especially, since he had found out how dangerous they really were. ''But I haven''t set up any appointment...'' A problem presented itself. Unlike a telephone, there was no ringing on the other end to let the other person know. ''If I write it now when would they actually see it?'' Both Lady Altia and Lady Verina had set up the communication mirror in their houses. And both of them spent most of their time outside. ''Talk about being diligent.'' So unless it was night time, it was highly unlikely he would catch them. ''Come to think of it, I don''t know where Neona, Johanna and Jenny have kept their mirrors. Hehehe...only one way to find out...'' "Peek," he whispered to the small eye glass sized mirror. He held it close to the eye and looked. A room came into view, with a table and a couple of chairs. Lying around on top of the table were various ingredients Raka recognized. ''Ah so Neona put hers in the dining room. No luck there, I guess.'' Raka was slightly disappointed. He had expected this, but still, had hoped otherwise. ''Well, not everyone would be lucky enough to get their mirror placed in the bath...especially when they know it is for communication.'' Raka mused. ''Anyway, I didn''t have much of a chance even then. After all, how many mirrors would she put in the bath!'' Cassian was one lucky old dude! ''She must be in her shop at this time.'' Raka sighed. It was the middle of the day. He cancelled the magic. ''Let''s try Jenny and Johanna. More hope there...'' Raka had given each of them a mirror. In his mind, he calculated that if he did that, perhaps they would place them in their own rooms instead of a common place in their house. Which they would have if he had given them only one mirror. "Peek," he whispered. ''Hmmm..'' Raka looked carefully at the new room. From his note, this should be Johanna''s mirror. And the most noticeable thing in the room was a comfortable looking bed. "Hehehe..." He looked at the simply adorned room. The bed had greenish bedsheets which matched the green wall behind it. There were a few green pillows on it. There was some sort of a pattern painted on the bedsheet but from his angle, Raka could not see it properly. On each side of the bed was a small table. One of them had a book and a lamp and the other had a flower vase with some yellow flowers. Currently, the bed was empty. Well, it was the middle of the day! "Hehehe..." Raka took out another eye sized mirror and looked into it. Sure enough, Jenny had also put hers in her bedroom. It looked pretty similar to the Johanna''s. Except her wall was painted blue. And her bedsheets and pillows were blue to match. She also had two small tables next to her bed with one of them having a vase of orangish flowers. ''What color is that?'' As to the identity of the flowers, Raka''s knowledge was extremely limited. Correction, it was non existent. ''Well it is still the middle of the day...'' Raka sighed. Raka hardly ever used the Peek skill. Among all his skills, this was the one which had advanced the least. Since he had learned it, he had probably used it only a couple of times. ''I am a good guy...'' The real reason might have been different. Raka then pulled out the communication mirrors and wrote a time on them. ''Well that''s done.'' ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Swamy stretched himself as he hopped out of the game capsule. Doesn''t matter if the brain was working overtime, the body still needed exercise to avoid problems. He turned his hips side to side and creaked his neck around. And then he opened up his laptop to check out the forums. ''After the break, I need to go visit that doctor in the game.'' Swamy thought. ''Hmm...someone''s posted prices of different kinds of wood found in the four islands. Oh, people have found another group quest...wait, it is to help in the upcoming conference.'' Just then a post popped up. ''The ships from the other nations have arrived in Maccaba for the four nation conference.'' The author had also attached a small video showing the various royalties embarking from their ships. ''Why Maccaba though? It is located towards the east of the island.'' Swamy wondered. The other three islands were towards the west of Khardoum. ''I guess the Queen wanted to dock at Maccaba as she will eventually come to the dwarvish island. But why the other two?'' ''Guess there are many things under consideration here.'' Swamy shrugged it off. ''I expect they will move to the capital where the conference will take place. Wonder who has come with the Queen? Lady Verina often does things like this so she might have. Or maybe Sambal...he is the advisor. Guess they wouldn''t have brought the mirrors on this trip so they wouldn''t be available later.'' Swamy then went on to do some random things and then logged back in the game. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Raka opened the door of the food shop with a tingling of bells. "Hello there, ah it''s you again." The old lady manning the food shop said. "Hello again. How goes your day?" Raka asked. "Very well. What brings you today?" The old lady smiled. A smile is kinda the requirement for a sales position. Unfortunately, very few people can genuinely smile everytime a customer walks in. Perhaps it was her nature or years of practice but it felt quite natural and welcoming. "Ah..nothing much today. I was on my way to meet Apo. Narsh and just thought I would say hello on the way." Raka replied. "Oh you are going to visit Apo. Narsh. That reminds me, could you do me a favor, young man. I keep forgetting to refill my prescription and it has started to run low. Usually, I walk down on my own, but my joints seem to be giving a bit of trouble today. Could I ask you to get them?Hope it is not too much trouble."
[p=center]Old Lady''s request[/p] The old lady of the food shop is not feeling well enough to visit the apothecary. Her medicine is also running low. She requests that you bring her the medicine. Difficulty level: F Reward: Intimacy increases with Old Lady.
''Finally!'' Raka sighed. "Sure I will bring it. It will be no trouble." Raka smiled.
You have accepted the quest.
"Ah, then please take this prescription with you. Thank you very much young man. Here have an ostri egg on the house. I just boiled them." The old lady smiled. "Then I will gladly accept it. I do like them." Raka said. On his way to the apothecary, Raka munched on the boiled ostri egg. Ostris, not to be confused with ostriches, were birds who inhabited the hills near the mine. Their eggs however were as large as an ostrich egg. Raka hadn''t seen them before but he always imagined them to be kind of the ostriches that could fly. ''Well, I haven''t actually seen an ostrich either.'' Often, miners would have the eggs for a snack if they could reach them. The difficulty was how and where the ostris built their nests. They built it hanging off cliffs. It was said that looking at several ostri nests, tied to each other and hanging on the side of a cliff resembled how some fruits hang off a tree in a bunch. For safety, the birds usually chose extremely sheer cliffs. In addition, their nests were completely covered and surrounded by various sticky string like things. So much that if another bird or person approached carelessly, they would end up getting tangled within it. For a bird, that was fatal. For a human, well, gravity was fatal anyways. Yet, there were still people who dared to collect them. Just because, it tasted so good. As per an unwritten rule, hunters only collected the eggs for this particular month only. This allowed for a seasonal supply and also continuance of the species. ''A good thought!'' But it did make them a limited period item only. There were various ways to cook them, but most people agreed that the best way was simply boiling them. They were just that good! Raka relished his ostri egg as he walked. "Hello, I am Raka. I have an appointment with Apo. Narsh." Raka said to the nurse at the reception. The nurse looked up his name in a register and said. "Ah yes, please wait a bit. He is still with a patient. I will call you when he becomes free." Raka took a seat next to several other dwarf patients and found to his surprise that he actually could fit in those chairs. It was just that they were quite low so that when he sat, his knees almost reached his chest. ''Kinda like chairs when I was in grade school. Thankfully dwarves come in all weights and sizes, otherwise they wouldn''t make chairs where I could fit.'' To the other eyes who were looking at his strange posture, he could only give an awkward smile. A little while later the nurse called out."Mr. Raka, please go in." Apo. Narsh turned out to be a dwarf. ''Was that even needed...'' He was dark skinned like most dwarves of the southern kingdom. He was also kinda slim for a dwarf, a fact that made him feel a little taller. Wearing that typical white coat doctors usually wear, however, underneath were some sort of clothes which looked like leather. The full legged pants almost looked like black jeans. ''Though I think that jeans haven''t been invented yet..'' "Please sit." Apo. Narsh spoke. "I do not deal with human patients so I might be lacking but do tell me your problem." "Ah...how should I say it. I have been feeling a little under the weather for a couple of days. A little weakness. Almost like I am coming down with something. I am not sure if I am simply imagining it so I came to get a checkup." Raka said. "Hmm...let me see. Could you open your mouth...hmm...say aah..hmm." Then he took out something that looked to be made of small strips of metal joined at the ends like a rhombus or a baseball diamond. At one end was a round rubbery something. At the opposite end was a hollowed out piece of wood, cut off in half, attached. The Apo stuck the rubbery thing to Raka''s chest and covered his ears with the hollowed out wood. ''It''s a stethoscope?! Wonder what era is it from?'' Raka was surprised. Though he couldn''t recognize the design, it''s function kinda explained what it was. ''Dwarves seem to be medically advanced as well.'' "Please take off your shirt and lay down on the bed there." Apo. Narsh said. "Right....eh?" Raka couldn''t help himself. Apo. Narsh had just pulled out some other things which looked more like metal torture devices than medical tools. "You aren''t planning on using those right?" "Ah yes.. do not be scared, they may look scary but are painless." Apo. Narsh smiled. Raka shuddered. Ten minutes later, Raka dressed. Thankfully, his worst imagination did not turn into reality. Although he got poked at lots of different, including somewhat unmentionable and illogical places, it was as Apo. Narsh had said, painless. "Hmm. I am sorry but my knowledge of the human body is limited. But according to me, you don''t seem to have anything wrong. Nor does it look like you have contracted a disease. I cannot be certain though and it would be best to have yourself checked by apothecaries of your race. I can only give out some tonics which may help your situation. What do you think?" Apo. Narsh said. "Um these tonics will not harm me, right? I mean would it work on humans?" Raka said. "Please do not worry. I do get a few human patients from time to time and these tonics have had good results on them. I cannot treat the diseases of your race but your biology is not much different than us dwarves. Rest assured, the tonics cannot harm you, even if it does not help." Apo. Narsh reassured. "In that case, please give me the tonics." Raka said. Apo. Narsh took a wad of paper and started scribbling on it. Raka tried to make out what he was writing, but it was more scribbles than legible words and even those were equal to gibberish. ''Doctors everywhere are the same!'' "Please give this at the reception and they will give you your medicine." Apo. Narsh handed him the paper. "Thank you. Um...the fees?" Raka asked. "At the reception only. Standard consultancy charge and cost of medicine will be there." Apo. Narsh replied. "In that case, I will take my leave. Thank you again." And Raka walked out. "Hi, I would like to get these tonics." Raka gave the paper to the reception lady. The nurse opened a book and started looking up the prices and stocks of various things mentioned in the prescription. She whispered as she moved along the list. "Alamander powder, nieval leaves, dispora wings, orcyia worm, neothiginst, caothiginst, leora bark...." "Wait...worm? Did I hear correctly, is there a worm in there?" Raka could not help asking. "Hmm? Ah yes, orcyia worm. Is there a problem?" She asked. "Do I have to eat worms?" Raka asked. "Not directly. It will be ground and mixed with others to make the tonic. You mix it in water to take." The nurse replied. "...still it''s worms....I mean are they even..you know..." Raka fumbled. "That''s what the prescription says and Apo. Narsh wouldn''t give you something bad now, would he? Anyways, it''s your choice." The nurse glared at Raka. "Um...it''s ok." Raka replied feebly. "How much? Ah there is another prescription of another patient I would like to refill please." The nurse looked at the piece of paper and said. "Hmm...ah ok. This patient is a regular and maintains a tab. You do not need to pay." "That will be 5 gold 10 silvers and 10 coppers total. Thank you. Please wait while I get it." She stood up and left leaving Raka feeling more and more depressed. ''Will I have to eat bugs?!'' A short while later... "Eug! Eug! *gulp haah haah *sigh...."
Disease Resistance increases by 1.
And then... "BAAAARRRRRGGGGGGGGGGGHHHHHHH!!! hah hah... EEURRGHHH!!"
Disease Resistance decreases by 1.
''DAMN IT!!'' ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ After a herculean effort, ''even Hercules would call it a labor'', Raka finally increased his Disease Resistance stat back to +1. The tonics worked like a charm and although he could not increase the stat anymore, Raka was still satisfied. It was just that the side effects were a little nauseating, literally. Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. ''Screw the advanced medical technology! Ugh...I am never eating worms again!!'' And in the process, Raka observed a small problem. ''There is no concept of digestion.'' Digestion as mentioned in Biology, the subject, mentioned that anything you eat takes some time to digest before it''s effects, namely energy, is produced. In the game however, the effect was immediate. Drinking the tonic increased his stat. And vomiting it right after, decreased it. ''One step in and one step out.'' Raka sighed. ''Well I guess it makes you realize that this is still a game. Not everything is going to be like real.'' Like for example in real life, once ingested, not everything will come out of the stomach even if you vomit. The human body just doesn''t work that way. Otherwise, someone who had eaten poison could easily be saved by just making him/her spew it out. ''Now that I think, same could be said about eating food in the game. Weren''t the effects immediately applied after eating it! Guess I just never noticed it before.'' ''Couldn''t be helped.'' Raka shrugged. After all, this kind of ''situation'' never occurred before. ''I wonder how it affects npcs. Do they have instantaneous effects or does the game actually use some kind of digestion principle?'' It was food for thought. But that was for later. Right now, "Hello Lady Altia. How have you been?" Raka smiled. One of the major advantages and perhaps his privilege was to be able to see Lady Altia with her hair down wearing casual clothes and looking like a normal albeit very beautiful person. To others, she would just be the warrior goddess. Today, she was wearing a kind of sleeveless pale yellow shirt with some laces over her breasts and some loose pants which could have been pajamas. Her long black hair, which was usually braided, was now hanging loose over her shoulders. From the remaining dew drops and the slightest blush, it could be said that she had walked out of the bath not too long ago. "Hello Raka. Long time. How have you been? Where are you right now? Got into any trouble yet?" Lady Altia replied. "Trouble...a little bit but I am fine. I managed to reach the dwarvish island. Currently I am in Hya''cinth." Raka said. "Wonderful to hear that. So your adventures have already begun. Make sure to treasure your experiences and keep yourself safe. That is the most important." Lady Altia nodded. "Yes. How about you? Has anything interesting happened? Like maybe you found another disciple?" Raka smiled. "Haha. How could it be that simple. I have been kept on a tight leash by the other instructors since you have left. No taking disciples out of the village, they said. Not that anyone has caught my eye. You seem to have raised my standards a bit. Better take responsibility." Lady Altia smiled. "Eh...." Raka shuddered. Lady Altia should have come with a statutory warning. Tigers are cute. Do not play with them! "He he he...still so cute. Seems you haven''t grown up even a little since I last saw you. Work hard." Lady Altia giggled. "Ah...well. I will try or rather do I have a choice. Anyways I had a couple of things I wanted to ask you..." Raka tried to change the subject. "Oh...is it that time already. Ah..just to tell you I would like to have it in person. He he he..." Lady Altia smiled. "I am sure I have no idea what you are talking about." Raka sighed. "I just wanted to ask you about the fight you had the other time. With the beastman." "Ah guess my expectations were too high. Hehehe...what did you want to know?" Lady Altia said. "Um..yes. I happened to see your fight. So, I had a question regarding the kind of magic you used." Raka started but just then Lady Altia interrupted. "Wait! You saw my fight? How did you do that? I am sure you were not in the area at that time...or were you hiding somewhere?" Lady Altia was shocked. "Eh...ah no nothing like that. Didn''t I tell you before that we, the Goddess''s children have the ability to share information between us? Like messages and videos. Or maybe I didn''t tell you..." Raka said. "What are videos?" Lady Altia asked. "Eh!" Raka sighed. ''Now how did I get myself in this situation?'' He still didn''t know whether it was a good or a bad idea to explain these things to the npcs. "Um...videos are like memories. Anyone of us, Goddess''s children, who has seen or heard something can share his memories to others, if they want." Raka replied after a thought. "You mean you can share your memories of right now to the entire world?! Even what you are seeing right now?!" Lady Altia suddenly curled up and raised her hands to cover her breasts in alarm. "Well, I do have that ability. I just don''t want to." Raka smirked. Lady Altia stayed silent for a bit. And then she smiled and said, "He he he...possessive, aren''t you?" ''What was that warning again?'' Raka shuddered. "ANYWAYS what I was interested in was the kind of magic you used. After thinking about it a lot, I assume that it should be some type of magic shaping technique like Lady Verina''s Kraken. Different element, probably air, and different shapes." What was magic shaping? The principle behind Lady Verina''s Kraken magic. Correction, it was the principle behind all magic spells. You gave magic a shape before you launched it. Kinda like creating a round fireball. The Kraken magic was the advanced application of it using water. Raka had for a long time wondered what kind of magic was involved in Lady Altia''s fight. After all, magic that can give you super speed had like a million practical applications. And so he pondered about it everyday but couldn''t really figure it out. As for asking Lady Altia, it never entered his head. ''She is the instinctive type. And one of the disadvantages is that they didn''t really have to think so much about their magic. Just imagining how it would look like would often enable them to do magic. Which kinda makes getting explanations from them a pain in the ass!'' After all, if you didn''t really think about it, how were you supposed to explain it to others! ''Kinda like Newton with the falling apple. Everyone knew about falling down. No one could explain it. Or maybe it is like walking. Everyone walks. How many can explain how?'' Lady Altia suffered from the same problem. ''Atleast with regards to magic.'' Raka thought about it everyday but it was like the lightbulb never lit up. And then one day in real life, while he was looking at the clouds, he saw an airplane flying up above. Brainflash! ''Narrow minded idiot! What was possible with water was also possible with air. Just that the shapes are different.'' He had smacked his head. If Kraken magic could exist, then it implies any other elements could be shaped as well. And the answer was in the clouds. Literally! Magic shaping the air element. ''What other element could not be seen on the video?'' ''What kind of shapes though...'' He had thought for a bit and ding, a bell rung. ''The airplane!'' What was speed. Increasing thrust and decreasing friction or drag. And how did it achieve that? ''The nose cone!'' An airplane''s nose cone was specially designed to cut air and reduce drag. In fact the faster the aircraft, the narrower the nose would become. ''What if you could create the nose cone using air magic?'' This was like the ''eureka'' moment. Suddenly, he was enlightened to a lot of possibilities. ''And why stop at that. Thrust is definitely possible. After all, didn''t my flying magic work due to that. And then...'' It was like all sorts of ideas were popping up in his head. ''The only thing I can''t explain would be the disappearing act. Either she was really as fast as a bullet which will make her superwoman! Or there is some play with light magic here.'' After all, you only ''see'' something when light reflects off them and reaches your eyes. ''And I still remember Lady Verina''s introduction to light magic. She had become invisible, right?'' Ofcourse, these were only the most likely possibilities. "Hmm your guess is correct. I did use magic shaping of the air element. Though, if you want me to explain that would be a little difficult. Verina is better at this kind of thing." Lady Altia fidgeted a little bit as she answered. "That''s ok. I just wanted to know if I was right. Now that I know, it''s ok. Even if I figure out how it works, it is still too advanced for me to use." Raka said. "Oh seems like the lil'' eggplant has grown a little bit. Ah...it makes me happy and sad. He he he will you turn up to be a rabbit or a wolf I wonder.." Lady Altia smiled again as she moved one finger to her lips suggestively. "Ohhh L..leave that for when I grow up. I had another question. Where do you source the armor from, the one''s you give to graduates?" Raka quickly shifted the topic. "Oh that. We make them. I mean the army makes them up in a village up north. Most of our weapons come from there." Lady Altia replied. "By any chance do you know how they make them? More importantly what kind of materials do they put for various magics? Is it possible to know which magic material gives what kind of effects?" This was an important question. The one thing Raka lacked most was Vitality. Especially since no one had discovered a way to increase it. And losing two points because of dying was, quite literally, a threat to his life. ''It is my Life!'' Armors had options and among them was Vitality. It was a practical way to increase them, for now. "That I don''t know. I have never been much interested in crafting. Why don''t you ask Verina? She might know more about this." Lady Altia replied. "Oh in that case, thanks for your time Lady Altia. I will call upon you again." "I will be eagerly waiting. He he he.." Raka sighed. "Greetings Lady Verina, you look lovely as usual." Raka greeted. "Oh Raka, how have you been? Flattery right from the start. I am suspicious now." Lady Verina couldn''t help smiling. There were two kinds of people. One who changed greatly with small changes. ''Like that glasses girl, who took off her glasses and became an idol.'' But generally, it was more like their various faces gave different feelings. Like Lady Altia. In a battle uniform, she was the fierce stunning goddess. In casual clothes, she was a warm lovely woman. Even though they sound the same, the feelings one had after looking at them, changed completely. On the other hand, were the type of people who looked the same no matter what they wore. ''Ok maybe their cuteness level went up or down depending on situations, but they would still be defined as cute. Even if they changed clothes, or changed their hair, it was more like they were adding to their primary cuteness and did not become fierce or ugly or whatever. ''Really tough to explain!'' It was more a matter of how one felt after looking at them. Based on the two types, Lady Verina definitely belonged to the later. You could see her in a thousand ways, and still recognize her like, ''Oh! that''s the lovely Lady Verina. She would look pretty even in rags, kinda feeling.'' Currently, she was wearing a pale green dress, while half lying, correction, being lazy on the couch. "I am well. I have reached Hya''cinth for now." Raka said. "Eh...Hya''cinth already. Didn''t you stop in Maccaba?" Lady Verina asked. "Hmm..well, not really. I am out to see the world. Can''t really stop at one place for a long time. Wait one sec. How do you know I stopped in Maccaba?" Raka asked. "Ho ho ho. Surprised? I got friends all over the place you know. I just asked them to look out." Lady Verina winked. Raka sighed. ''Kinda explains it. She does travel all the time. And I did register in the port of Maccaba. Considering it is a major city, no doubt she has acquaintances there.'' Raka had always wondered what kind of work Lady Verina did. She was like a diplomat and not part of the secret service, ''rather if she was a spy, Mata Hari would have to take retirement'', of that Raka was almost certain. ''Although it was also possible she was some kind of representative for the magic institute/association/thing!'' "Anyways, nice to know someone was taking care of me." Raka smiled. "Nothing like that. I was simply interested in knowing if you reached Khardoum safely. It wouldn''t be good if you drowned after all the training I gave you." Lady Verina smiled. Raka almost choked. ''What was she giving me...swimming lessons?!'' "Well, as you see I did not drown and am doing well. How about you?" Raka asked. "Hmm...very busy. Since Sambal left, most of his work has fallen on my head. Ah my poor head..." Lady Verina''s blonde head shook as she stretched her neck. "I could sure use a massage right now. Come flying back, will you." "....Right! As if that will happen. Doesn''t anyone else know how to give a massage? Preferably a female." Raka asked. "No one. I tried asking the assistants, but even though they were eager, they were no help. Somehow things happened and it has now become like a competition to learn massaging techniques. Cynthia has almost become crazy trying to find someone to teach her this skill. I wonder why they are so excited?" Lady Verina sighed. ''I can guess. But no way in hell am I going to tell that to her!'' Raka smiled. "Isn''t it a good thing, for you I mean? Maybe someone will become good enough and then you won''t need me." "But what do I do in the mean time?! And what if they are not as good as you? I now understand what they meant by not eating too much stag meat. Too much of a good thing is bad. It''s all your fault! Hmph!" Lady Verina pouted. "I sincerely apologize." Raka laughed. "By the way, you said Sambal left. Is he accompanying the Queen?" "Yes. This conference is turning out to be a bigger deal than expected." Lady Verina said. "Is it because of the pirates? I mean it is a big deal but weren''t they like an isolated incident?" Raka asked. "Sambal doesn''t think so. According to him, the pirates showed a remarkable stupidity by sneaking onto the island. And also amazing cleverness in their plans afterwards. Either they are stupid or they are clever, they can''t be both." Lady Verina shrugged. "I can understand. It means that there was more underfoot which was hidden because of their movements." Raka nodded. "Sambal certainly thinks so. And the Queen agrees. Even more there is the question of the rust stone. Even among the dwarves, it is a rarity. How would a pirate get his hands on it?" Lady Verina said. "But the biggest reason is you, I guess. The arrival of the Goddess''s children have completely changed things you know." Lady Verina laughed. "Ah! Is that so. It is the first conference after we arrived I guess." Raka nodded. It was the single biggest change which had happened to this world in several million years after all. ''Wonder if this is how it would look like when aliens arrive on Earth.'' Raka smirked. "Oh that reminds me, I also wanted to ask you about the magic materials used in armors and weapons? Do you know?" "I do know a few. There are just too many magic materials. And even among them, many variations. Speaking about them will take many days." Lady Verina replied. "Ah in that case, could you just tell me about a material which increases Life?" Raka asked. "Increases life? You mean something which allows you to live longer? You are not talking about mythical immortality elixirs, are you? I will warn you they are just a myth. You should never listen to those who say otherwise. They are just trying to fool you!" Lady Verina said. ''Great! How am I supposed to explain this!'' Life was a stat. And it literally meant life, atleast for a player. On the other hand, what did it mean to an npc? ''Should I say living longer in a fight? That sounds ridiculous even to me!'' "Um...I am not talking about immortality. In any case, do you know what magic materials are used to make the battle institute''s armor for graduates?" "Let''s see. Of the magic components, there is iron, steel, leather, bronze, sometimes silver, a little asbesto, choke...and some other things like bones." Lady Verina answered. Ofcourse, when she mentioned iron and steel, she meant, magic iron and magic steel. "Ah but simply looking at these things won''t help because there are variations based on what kind of magic element they have affinity to." Raka understood that. Magic materials, especially metals, were prone to having magical affinity with magic elements. That is, there can be fire affinity magic iron and also water affinity magic iron. Depending on the environment, the absorbed magical energy changed. Sometimes there could even be affinity with multiple elements or even none. The later was absolutely treated as a treasure. "Hmm. I am not actually looking for simple things. How about things which can protect your life when worn?" Raka asked. "I am not sure what you mean. But if it is not some kind of bone, you are maybe talking about asbesto or choke. Both of them have some kind of protective ability." Lady Verina replied after a thought. ''Worth a try, I guess.'' Raka thought. "Thank you Lady Verina. I wanted to buy some armour and knowing these things certainly helps." "You are welcome. So what are your plans after this?" Lady Verina asked. "Not sure. I am just taking one day at a time." Raka said. "In that case, you can contact me more. Somehow it feels nice talking to you. I wonder why..." Lady Verina smiled. "Definitely. Later then. Good night." Raka cancelled the magic. "Hello Neona! How are you doing?" Raka said. "Hello Raka! I thought you forgot about me." Neona smiled. "How is that possible. Listen...do I have some stories to tell you..." And Raka told her about his adventures. Among everyone he knew, Neona was the only one who would listen to his stories in delightful amazement. Raka could boast all he wanted. "Hello Johanna...." "Good evening Jenny...." His talks with Johanna and Jenny didn''t last long. Rather, there was not much to talk about, except sharing a few pleasantries. ''Even in their bedrooms none of them wore a nightgown. How tragic is that!'' But the person he was looking forward to talk the most was Cassian. "Hello Cassian! Old age treating you well?" Raka smiled. "Ah. Enjoying the simple pleasures of life." Cassian winked. "Yes, what is life without all it''s simple pleasures." Raka winked as well. And they laughed. "Hey old man, I have discovered something interesting and probably dangerous. I thought for a long time about this and decided that I should discuss it with you atleast. Maybe you will have an idea." Raka started. "Oh. What kind of mysterious thing is it?" Cassian asked. "See, I discovered something with mirrors. It looks like I can use magic across mirrors." Raka simply came out with it. "Hmm..do you mean to say that you can do magic on the other end? And why do you need to use mirrors? Are you able to perceive across the bonded objects?" Cassian thoughtfully asked. "It is a matter of being able to see. If I can see it I can do magic on it. I haven''t actually tried with other bonded objects, just mirrors for now. But I should be able to perceive across bonded objects. It''s just doing magic would be much easier if I can see." Raka tried explaining as best as he could. "Wait! I can show you." Raka focused on the cup atop the table on the side and said, "Explode." The cup instantly shattered into pieces. Cassian looked at the broken cup for a while before he started laughing. "Hmm hmm...well. Hahahaha. Can''t help it. It was just a matter of time, I guess." "Wait, what do you mean by it was just a matter of time?" Raka mused. "Hah. It is just a natural progression. Or rather it is the middle step. Do you think one can just move on from communication mirrors to discovering Peek magic? The underlying magic is still bonding you know. I had to research it night and day before I came up with the theory of Peek." Cassian explained. "So you knew that we can use magic across mirrors?" Raka was surprised. "Yes. Or theoretically it is possible across all bonded objects." Cassian surmised. "If the steps are to be put in order, after learning communication mirrors, you would have learned this fact and then moved on to discovering Peek. In your case, you learnt the first and last step, so figuring out the middle one was just a matter of time, wouldn''t you say?" "Hah...and here I was worried about what kind of dangerous and unique ability I have found and it turns out it is not so shocking! Ah, I was uselessly worried." Raka sighed. "Wrong!" Cassian replied. "Eh. What do you mean?" Raka said. "You were wrong to assume it is not dangerous. And even if it is not unique, it is still very rare." Cassian explained. "Why?" was the obvious question. "Remember I told you before, other people are capable of using extreme long range magic. Using magic through mirrors falls under the same category. As long as someone can do magic, it is dangerous. But there are not many people who can actually do it. Even more the theory regarding bonded objects is not generally discussed. Didn''t you find it unusual that even though mirrors were a useful communication tool, not many people used them? Why use pigeons otherwise?" Cassian said. "Eh! I always thought it was because mirrors were expensive." Raka said. "That is true. But that cannot be the only reason, would it now?" Cassian lectured. Raka simply nodded. In fact, he had been puzzled by this for a long time already. "Mirrors are highly regulated. In fact, if we do not trust your magic abilities, we would not let you learn communication magic or even allow you to learn bonding. That is because of the danger you said before. And even when someone gets a bonded object, mirror or not, they need to have it registered. In fact, if it has been sent by someone who is not determined to be trustworthy, the bonded object will be seized and destroyed." Cassian said. "Oh! I actually didn''t know that." Raka said. "I didn''t face any difficulty learning it so I naturally assumed everyone could do so." And then Raka remembered. ''Veronica!'' A long time ago when he was testing his communication magic while talking to breasts. A strange smile came upon his face while he remembered that scene. After that, he had gifted a communication mirror to Veronica as well, though he had never used it to contact her. ''Well I don''t know what to say.'' And he also remembered, how impressed she was knowing that he could use communication magic. ''Now I understand why.'' Even she had not been able to get a chance to learn it and he had. ''She must have known about the requirements for learning this magic.'' "You were judged to be trustworthy. That is why you were allowed to learn. And also one of the reasons, I taught you Peek." Cassian nodded. ''Guess the people you know really do matter,'' Raka thought. He could guess why he had been deemed trustworthy. ''Guess I need to value Lady Verina more.'' Sambal was her teacher, so in a sense, Raka was also his student. ''Isn''t this what you call a trust chain?'' "I understand now. So people are simply not allowed to learn bonding and use the communication mirrors. Which is why I didn''t see many of them. But you said, it is a rare ability anyway, so does it really matter?" Raka asked. "Rare ability? No, using bonding and the communication mirrors are fairly simple. Any person, given enough time, should be able to learn. But like Peek, even people who do learn bonding, could never learn to do magic through it. As I said back then, people''s preconceived notions are not that easy to change." Cassian smiled. "Hmm. I understand now." Raka nodded. "But wait, if this is so, then wouldn''t it make sense to make bonding magic a secret as well? Like Peek?" "We could. But there is no point to it. It is not like bonding is a magic known only by a few people. Other countries, other races all have knowledge of this." Cassian sighed. "Oh, so the only reason that this magic is rare is because people did not discover about doing magic through bonding, due to their preconceived notions? I find that a little hard to believe." Raka said. "Hahahaha....yes you may think so. As I said, you were shown the door and the destination. You simply discovered a way between them. It may not look like it, but would you have discovered it if you had not learnt Peek is doubtful, don''t you think?" Cassian laughed. "Do not underestimate people''s beliefs. Just in Ilmentia island, even though many people have learned bonding and communication magic, only three people understand the concept of long range magic through bonded objects. And only two can successfully use it." Cassian added. "Who are they?" Raka was curious. "The three people who understand, would be you, me and Sambal. But only you and Sambal are capable of actually doing it." Cassian smiled. "Eh..how about you? Aren''t you able to do it?" Raka was shocked. A person who could explain so well about it, not being able to use it?! "Do not be so shocked. It''s not like I don''t know how to do it, it is just that after suffering this accident I have become unable to do it." Cassian sighed. "Oh! I am sorry. I did not realize..." Raka became quiet. "Don''t worry about it. It is a thing of the past. But as I said, it is rare. Sambal has a particularly free mindset regarding things which is why things such as the Goddess''s children and magic through bonding are perfectly acceptable to him." Cassian simply smiled. Raka understood what Cassian was talking about. ''Preconceived notions are a powerful thing. I must make sure I do not end up making my own.'' For example, a particular preconceived notion was that this was a game. So maybe it wasn''t. ''Ha ha ha...very funny!'' Blemishes and Boredom An ordinary ordinary day, the glaring sun pouring down, the serene wind blazing by, a bow rose upon the crest... Splash! "MONKEY! DON''T DILLY DALLY! Hurry up and tighten those slack sails!" "Screech....keeech keech keech!" "DAMN PARROT! If you dare open your mouth, I am going to shove a monkey down your throat!" "cackle...*gulp." And the bow rose upon the serene crest. CRACCCCCKKKLEEE!! THUNDEEERRRRR!!! WHOOOoooooo~! Half the sky revolted. Raka sighed. ''Such a unique situation can only occur in this sea!'' Half the sky was deep black like night, thunderclouds moving like waves while the other half, as if trying to fight back, was as bright and calm as day. ------------------------------------------------------------------------------------ "What separates reality and virtual reality?" A female voice asked as a pair of eyes scanned across the classroom finding many pairs. "Many books and movies and novels have come out with the concept of being trapped in virtual reality. For now, let''s assume that this is possible. Then in those books and movies, the main character would be trying to break out of the virtual reality world in search of reality. A common theme and one which is quite popular among people. Who knows maybe in the near or far future it may even become possible! Sounds scary, right? Or maybe some of you actually hope for this to happen.. to live your life in the virtual world? Be heroes, gladiators or powerful women?" Dr. Rita Talvar, one of the professors at Bangalore University, was taking this week''s guest lecture for Swamy''s class. Her speciality was Human interaction with Virtual Machines and as per normal schedule, Raka would have encountered her lecture during the third year. But now, she was sharing her thoughts as the guest lecturer today. "Actually, the reason for research in human - virtual interaction stems a lot from such ideas. Not to entrap but to empower. For example, psychiatrists often use suggestive mechanisms to treat patients. How is it any different from simulating those situations in virtual reality? Or how about robotic control in surgeries via video/audio? Link it to the virtual world, and you can do the procedure like you are there yourself. And why be limited to just these? How about exploring space? Send a probe out into the depths of space and link it to a virtual world and you can see space like you are actually a space traveller. Wouldn''t it be far better than looking at Mars on TV?" "Um..don''t they have space reality games out in the market? Don''t those let people feel like they are in Mars or the Moon?" Some one interrupted at this point. Everyone looked over to see the girl who had spoken. She currently had her hand raised as she asked. Maybe she realized, embarrassingly, that raising her hand should have preceded the question, but she slowly lowered her hand. "You are right." Dr. Talvar answered. "There are several games out there which have such virtual worlds. Most of them have taken map data from these planetary bodies and used them to make the games. But you forget, that they cannot show the reality very much. After all, you don''t really have bikes on the Moon neither a couple thousand other players! Haha.." Everyone smiled a little. "However, to someone who has seen the actual thing, he won''t find it real. NASA, ISRO and others, nowadays, do use virtual reality to train new astronauts. However, this program has been changed for the people who have actually travelled to the Moon and Mars. They have reduced the virtual reality training of these astronauts. Can someone guess why?" Dr. Talvar asked. Swamy shook his head and looked around him to find eyes as confused as his. Today''s virtual reality should make it possible to train the astronauts in real-like environments in virtual worlds. Finally someone took a leap and said, "Isn''t it because they don''t find it real?" "That''s what I said! But why do you think they don''t find it real? After all, some of you might have played space related games? How real did it feel? Even if you have not been to the Moon or Mars, did it feel like you were not there?" Dr Talvar said smilingly. This time more people shook their heads. "No one? Well, I don''t really expect you to understand why just yet. It is easy to say something is not real, but harder to explain why it is not real. Those returning astronauts found themselves in a similar situation without being able to explain why! Which actually became a very good research topic across universities and still is. The true answer for this question is not known, but many schools of thought have said that this might be because of perfection. Powerful devices perfectly capture detailed data down to the nanometre, which is then used in mapping the surface, which is then used to create the virtual worlds. But an astronaut on the Moon will never in his lifetime look or feel this perfection." "Nature is by its very nature, imperfect. Rules have exceptions, crossovers have mutations, cells have cancers...skins have blemishes! Now we run into some truly ironical situations. If we wish to simulate a human in the virtual world, or create what you guys call an NPC, by taking a million measurements of the human body, and perfectly inputting everything, you would hope that it would look as real as possible. On the other hand, if we make mistakes along the way or only use a thousand measurements, you would think it should NOT look real? Why? Obviously because we have not perfectly captured the human being and as such there are mistakes you can observe...." Dr. Talvar paused. "Unfortunately, in the reality index, which is simply how much a person thinks something is real, we will find that both of the NPCs would have close results. Truly ironical isn''t it? Haha..." Dr. Talvar laughed. "In 2017, a researcher from Kazakhstan, made a significant discovery. Human beings look at the blemishes for perfection and perfection for the blemishes." Swamy and everyone else was dumbfounded, including the author. ''What does that even mean?'' Looking at the even more confused gazes, Dr. Talvar laughed and said, "thankfully you won''t have to deal with this question till the third year, by which time you would have more understanding of virtual reality. But it is still food for thought. Let me put it this way. There are no perfect things in the world. When we find something beautiful or delicious or smelly, we are actually not looking, smelling, or tasting everything. We are doing what we call putting priorities in the incoming data. So a thinner chin might look beautiful to you but to someone else it won''t. There is a reason why we say, beauty lies in the eyes of the beholder, after all. In fact, it applies to everything. An apple would be an apple anywhere, yet some may say its sweet, or slightly sweet, or slightly sour. Do you see the big picture?" Dr. Talvar stalled. "When we look at things, smell it, taste it, we actually prioritize some information, and ignore some. And this perception will vary for everyone. When you walk and your feet pass a small depression on the road, so small that ideally you wouldn''t even notice it usually, but when its filled up you realize that somehow the bit of road feels different. On the other hand that depression was always there so how come you didn''t realize it usually?! It is because you are prioritizing information received in your brain. Giving weight to individual data. Do you realize the hole? If you do, how deep is it? Was the lunch spicy? Even if it was, did it have less or more salt? The problem with making things look real, has actually less to do with how perfectly we gather data or display the world, but rather in how we define reality in the first place. What is real to one will also be real to others BUT the reason it is real would change among everyone of us. Which is why the things in novels, where many players get trapped in virtual reality worlds without recognizing whether the world is real or virtual, is still impossible. Hahaha..."A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. Dr. Talvar ended her lecture on a lighter note. That said, Swamy could imagine some of the things she said. But as he thought more about it, he felt his brain would burst. It was like an equation with a million variables with indefinite ranges and also could change over time. He sighed and gave up. ''No wonder why situations like those in the movies and novels never happened.'' "Lunch!" Rajan exclaimed as the professor took her leave which removed all the blurriness away from people''s minds. Lunch as usual was a very light affair, often and usually involving various discussions about virtual reality games, in Swamy''s case, Long Island. And as usual, people tended to ask him several questions. But unfortunately, "I don''t know. So far I have only been able to trigger two quests, both F rank. I don''t know much about dwarves yet, nor have I seen those weapon forges or legendary weapons." Swamy sighed. "That sucks. It''s getting harder to earn money nowadays...wonder what day will I have enough to sail away..AAAH!," Rajan cried. "Actually that is a bit depressing. We still haven''t joined a guild and we don''t have money to pay for travel. I am sick of the starter islands already..." Sneha sighed. "We have it a bit better. Our guild has almost managed enough money to buy a boat. Hopefully we will sail by the end of this month." Himali said. "AAAhhh!" Rajan cried some more. And Swamy sat down pondering, not about the game, which he could not do anything about, but rather about the lecture. It was not like he understood nothing of it. While thinking about things, he remembered an old cult classic called the Matrix which came out when his dad was a kid. ''Would such a situation be possible?'' A machine manipulating the minds of several humans in order to trap them in the virtual world. ''What did it say? If reality is what you touch or feel, then it is simply the electrical signals interpreted by your brain...'' On initial thoughts, Swamy thought why not. But on further thinking, and based on the previous lecture he got more confused. ''Perception is how the brain interprets these electrical signals right? So it should be possible to fool everyone. But can it be so simple? Is there no difference in the way electrical signals are transmitted to the brain? Are the electrical signals the same for everybody? Then again, isn''t playing a virtual reality game the same as many people being linked to the same world like that movie?'' The world might have advanced to the artificial intelligence domain, yet fully understanding the most advanced A.I., our brain, was still far far away. There was no answer to his ponderings. ''We still don''t know how memories are stored, what can I expect!'' Swamy shook his head as he sighed. "You don''t want the ice-cream Swamy? Oh ok then." And just like that he missed out on an ice-cream. ''Like hell not!'' Swamy stood up and got himself an ice-cream. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------- While the real world was becoming profound and interesting, the virtual world was becoming the opposite, very simple. Raka was simply bored. He sighed. ''How did this ever happen!'' For a real world week, Raka had been following the same routine. Reading in the library, eating, practicing magic, eating, stepping out to kill some foxes, eating, meeting a few NPCs and finally logging out. Apart from the old lady of the food shop, he could only trigger a quest from the old man at the armored shop. And that too was something of an errand.
Fetch water for Old Man Oarsian Oarsian''s shop has a plumbing problem and his shop has ran out of drinking water. Take a bucket to the common tap and supply it. Difficulty level: F Reward: Intimacy increases with Old Man Oarsian.
And that too was five days ago. Since then, nothing! Raka sighed again. ''For all my troubles, isn''t this too hard? What are my fame points even doing!'' Even he realized that at this point, he was simply grumbling. But wonder he may as many times, he could not figure out why this was happening. ''I can only think of two things.'' Raka concluded. ''One, maybe it is hard for a human to gain intimacy in dwarf lands. Second, maybe it is because Hya''cinth is a starter village...city.'' If the former were true, he would probably face this problem everywhere he went for there were only four known human islands. He might as well endure his boredom for a couple of weeks like this....which may give fruit. Or be fruitless. On the other hand, if it was the latter reason, he could only move away from this place. ''In some things, the latter feels more reasonable.'' If a human had this much difficulty getting quests in other regions, there would be no point to move away from human lands. On the other hand, it made perfect sense that an experienced player would have trouble getting quests in a starter village. For a very simple reason. To keep it real. ''After all, Oarsian couldn''t give a hundred quests to fetch water, could he? It''s not like the plumbing will never get repaired, ever!'' This was the thing which separated Long Island from other virtual reality games. In other games, when players did quests, the game changed. Same thing happened on Long Island. However, even without the players, this game was alive. If no one received a quest to repair plumbing, Oarsian would still get his plumbing fixed! ''...or fetch the water...'' ''It could be said that unlike other games, quests were not a game feature as such, but rather any request when generated could become a quest if assigned to a player.'' Raka nodded as if agreeing with himself. ''On the other hand, if it was not assigned to a player but to another npc, it would simply be a request.'' ''Stay...do not stay....stay...do not stay....'' A flower withered as such. ''Where to go...I don''t know...where to go....Ga''cinth...the capital...'' And another flower turned to dust. Who knew so much damage a single person can cause to the environment. Maybe not much, but to certain many petalled friends, it mattered, as none of them would ever be able to receive praises for their beauty again. If such decisions could be made easily, he would already have caught a transport and headed out. Raka stared at the blue sky and sighed. ''Give up...let''s just focus on what I can do right now.'' And he closed his eyes once again entering his colorful world. ''Has the clarity increased a bit...or is it still increasing in range?'' Raka could not say. Perception was such a difficult thing. So, while sitting in one of the alleyways where the traffic was low, he stared at the colorful walls of the houses around him and a few large colorful plants, which he had now managed to detect, he finally came to understand something. ''Ah...so that''s it!'' Perhaps, it was not as profound as an eureka moment but sometimes the simple things amaze us so. ''What you can perceive is supposedly magic, then what you see and detect, everything you see, should be magic.'' An obvious statement but with many repercussions. For example, the walls of the houses around him, were built by non-magical, cheap materials. Bricks, mud, some sort of cement, and stone. All of them were cheap and classified as non magical materials in the game. ''But I can perceive them. Why? Isn''t it obvious...'' Before today, Raka had never ever considered this question. He had thought it was so, without thinking why. And today he just realized that it was because everything in this world was magic. ''Correction, it contained magic.'' It was like the air had magic, the water had magic therefore, everything had magic. So why were they classified as magical and non magical in this virtual world. ''Because of relativity.'' Raka nodded in his head. It was like atmospheric pressure. We, as humans, live under enormous pressure. Ofcourse, we don''t realize it as such and only when we dive deep or fly up high do we feel the change in pressure. But someone coming from space would probably be crushed under such pressure. ''Similarly, everything has magic in this world. The only difference is whether it is at a level where one can perceive it as magic, or not. Guess this is how the NPCs of this world regard magic. What can be detected as magic was magic and everything else was simply stone...'' As such, it was classified as magical and non magical materials. ''Hmm...that explains why I cannot simply see past the walls when I perceive magic. It also means that only magic has the capability to stop magic perception. Though, considering that everything has magic, it probably is meaningless to say this at this point. Still I can add these in my reports to the college,'' Raka thought. ''And now what should I do..?'' Raka sighed. Grinding was an aspect of the game which was necessary and yet many people would find it frustrating. On the other hand, purposeless grinding was even more frustrating. Unfortunately, neither worked in this game. Practicing magic for hours did not really increase his magic ability. Similarly Peeking for hours did not really increase his peeking ability. What remained was something called irony. ''Seriously why can''t they sleep with the lights on?'' Raka sighed. Filled up with so much hot air when Raka had made a grand plan to combine communication and peek mirrors, he eventually found another name for dark sadistic irony. Raka did not really Peek in the day time. There was no point to it. No one would be in their homes. In the night, however, contrary to his many expectations, he found that there was no point to Peeking either. Why? ''Simply because I can''t see in the dark.'' Oh, he could use magic and light up the other side, but wasn''t that just putting the cart before the horse and alarming the other party. ''Kinda defeats the point of Peeking!'' Only two ladies had actually kept their mirrors in the bedroom and both of them liked to sleep with the lights off. Peeking might be many things, but it did not grant the ability to see in the dark. ''Sheesh, atleast light up a lamp, would ya!'' Raka sighed. ''Will praying help in such a situation? O Dear Goddess..'' Just then...