《The Trickster Priest》
[Chapter 1] A new VRMMO.
We need a healer. Want to come join us in World of Damakar tonight?
Led looked up at Dan with an incredulous look, as if he must have been speaking to someone else and just happened to stare right into his eyes at the same time.
¡°I-i beg your pardon?¡± Led managed to fumble out, clearly flustered by the question.
¡°World of Damakar? You know? The most anticipated VRMMO game of all time that just happens to launch tonight? We need a healer and we know you have some experience with MMORPG''s so why not join us and be our healer?¡±
Dan, short for Daniel, had an expression of business painted on his face. An expression Led could understand he would have, considering the fact that he had barely spoken to Led the three years in high school they had been in the same class together. This, however, was also the reason Led was so caught off guard. How did they know he was experienced with MMORPG''s, and why did they want him to join their group?
¡°Weren¡¯t you a beta tester? Don¡¯t you already have a healer from the beta testing days?¡± Led had a million questions tumbling through his head, like pebbles in a tumbler on high speed. But, this question managed to get to his mouth first. He figured all his questions about ¡°why him¡± could come later.
¡°Yeaaaah, we did, but there¡¯s a healer class that no one can understand how works and we figured you might be the guy to crack it.¡±
A healer class that no one could figure out how works? How hard could a healer class be? It¡¯s basically just -stand out of combat, heal tanks continuously, use burst heal on squishy DPS-dealers that get the occasional aggro, and that¡¯s it. Led had no idea how a healer class could be tricky. His train of thought had finally stopped derailing, so he focused on this thing that bothered him and put all the other confusing element of the conversation on hold. Let¡¯s think this through one thing at the time, Led thought to himself.
¡°Tricky how?¡± He questioned, right to the point.
¡°It¡¯s hard to explain, I think you just need to try it out yourself, it would be easier to explain when you see the skills and techniques yourself.¡±
¡°Ok?¡± This wasn¡¯t an answer Led wanted, he didn¡¯t really matter how inaccurate the descriptions were of how the class behaved. As long as he had something to analyse, he could work with it.
However, he didn¡¯t want to bother Dan about this. He was still so perplexed that the most popular kid in high school would ask, perhaps one of the most unpopular kid in high school if he wanted to be their healer.
So, many, questions! What about the other healer classes? There should be a lot of all types since World of Damakar was a huge game that had almost a 100 starting classes, that could branch off into about a 1000 specialised classes.
Oh yes, Led knew a lot about the game he could not yet play. Only the people with connections could get into the beta, Dan was influential, Led was not. So he stuck to the old ones where he was still one of the most feared players, with his various aliases. The thing about World of Damakar also was the cost of the extra gaming equipment you had to get. It wasn¡¯t cheap, and you needed the new equipment considering that is what also had the game installed. You couldn¡¯t just install the game on your computer, or your homemade VR rig, you could only buy it pre-installed on the game company Beyond Illusions¡¯ VR helmets. And, the helmets costs more than what Led would get in allowance in a whole year. Maybe more. He came from a poor family of two, he and his mum, all their money went to Led¡¯s education and the rest for simply living. The little that was left was saved up for Christmas presents.The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there.
¡°I think you know that I can¡¯t afford it though Dan, I¡¯m not exactly hiding the fact that I''m not well off.¡±
Led saw the flash of a smirk on Dan¡¯s face when he said this, he was unsure if it was on his behalf or the fact that he had insinuated that the VR equipment was expensive. He knew that it was pocket money for Dan, and when you have the whole beach at your disposal. If you called a simple sand grain ¡°a lot of sand¡±, you too would probably smirk.
Led didn¡¯t mind, he knew that he wasn¡¯t an easy person to get along with and that Dan was his exact opposite. Dan was generous, social, quick with a line and otherwise a good sport. Led on the other hand was none of that and even worse.
He knew this, Led had a bad habit of analysing everything down to the very last detail. He had always been like this, and it had become more than just a bad habit. It had become his whole persona.
Whenever Led met a new person he would dissect them down to their very core, and he could never let go on details that didn¡¯t fit into the whole scheme. Whenever someone said that they weren¡¯t afraid of spiders, Led would point out that he had seen them squirm when confronted with one year ago. If someone said that they didn¡¯t think their very well painted art piece was crap, Led would point out that they should admit that it was their best piece yet, because he had not seen any better from the said person. If someone would have tired eyes, he would ask if they slept badly last night, or if they forgot to put on makeup.
All in all, it was the epitome of bad habits, and Led knew it. He had tried to better himself many times, but since he always analysed his surrounding first it often ended badly. He would analyse, then speak, then self-analyse when realising that what he had said was perhaps rude.
All in all, Led never made friends. They always thought of him as judging and annoying, who never would let anything go. Led knew this, he wasn¡¯t so naive to not analyse himself down to the very programming his own brain had done the years he had grown up. He knew a lot about how others ticked, but most of all he knew how he himself ticked. After all, he had the most data when it came to himself.
¡°Helloooo? Earth to Led?¡±
Led snapped back to reality, he had gone on one of his analysing trains of thoughts as he had named them. Also one of the reasons he was hard to get along with, hard to keep up a conversation with someone who wasn¡¯t really there for half of the conversation.
¡°Ah yeah! Sorry!¡± Led¡¯s brain had started overdrive mode ever since Dan had stepped over to his desk. ¡°What did you say?¡±
¡°I said that you could have my Beta Helmet, I bought a new one of course since the beta version didn¡¯t have all of the features that the release version has.¡±
Led blinked again but managed to stop himself from analysing every detail of this statement and instead asked.
¡°You are willing to just give it to me? Why?¡±
The shadow of a smirk showed on Dan¡¯s face again. Led¡¯s tipping scale was now leaning over to the fact that Dan was just simply rich, and that being poor wasn¡¯t really in his understanding. Ergo, it was a bit laughable why Led would get so hung up upon it.
¡°Well, my beta-mates all have their helmets, they also bought the release version of course, but they have no need for my spare helmet. It said in the contract that the helmet was mine to do what I wanted to do with it when the beta ended, so I see no harm in using it for recruitment.¡±
That. That made sense to Led. Why keep one for yourself when you could use it for your own gain? Not giving it away was actually a worse idea than using it for something like this. Since all VR Helmets had a lifetime repair agreement with the gaming company, you really never needed a spare. You could just get it fixed, or get a new one immediately. Of course, Led would never buy himself a new helmet, he would¡¯ve just used the beta helmet instead, but he also knew that when a better product was out on the market, a rich person always had to get it. Led could not see any backsides for neither him nor Dan with this agreement.
¡°So in exchange for your Beta Helmet, all I have to do is become a healer in the game and help you guys out?¡±
¡°Yeah, that¡¯s all of it. We really need that healer dude, and as I said, my team is all about damage and tanking. No one is even interested in healing.¡±
Led frowned when hearing this because that was not Dan¡¯s original explanation of why they wanted him to join. They wanted him to play a particular healer, a particular class that no one of his friends could play because they couldn¡¯t understand it.
Led was about to point this out (of course), but he stopped himself. Instead, he asked.
¡°What healer class did you want me to play again?¡±
¡°The Trickster Priest.¡±
[Chapter 2] Preparing for the worse
Led was still in a state of shock while walking home from school that day. His head was making and debunking theories at the speed of a supercomputer. So many variables to deal with until he could make a conclusion.
In his hand he held a cardboard box that could fit a motorcycle helmet, with the label ¡°Beyond Illusions INC, World of Damakar BETA HELMET¡± written in bold captioned letters. Led had not expected to walk home with this, he thought he would get it from Dan at a later time, but Dan had brought it to school with him. This meant something, Led thought. This meant that Dan had the intention of giving it to someone immediately. He did not have enough data, though, to figure out if Dan always had Led in mind for recruitment, or if he just happened to find out that Led was a gamer himself and then asked him.
Led tried to think it all through while walking home, but when he was standing outside his door to his house, he just didn¡¯t have enough information of the situation to analyse it properly. Led hated that thought of something being just dumb luck, everything was almost always connected somehow.
In Leds¡¯ belief, winning the lottery was just a simple statistical normality. People always said that statistically it was nearly impossible to win the lottery, and Led agreed on that and hence never bought a lottery ticket. However, when someone did win and called themselves lucky, Led would not agree. There is always a winner, so in a sense, there a 100% chance that someone is a winner. Since the winner had bought a ticket, they entered a competition that had a 100% winner rate. That didn¡¯t mean that everyone would win, just that there would 100% be a winner. Not 99% or 50%, 100%. If the winner had never bought a ticket, yet somehow still won, that would be lucky yes. Even Led would admit that but when entering something that could lead you to end up with the winning lottery ticket, that wasn¡¯t blind luck, that was just simply a statistical fact that someone had to be the winner. It was targeted luck, you put yourself in a situation where you could win. Led, however, had not put himself in that situation. Which is why he didn¡¯t think he was randomly selected, his history with gaming had a lot to do with this. It had to.
¡°I¡¯m home!¡± Led yelled when entering the door. He knew his mother wasn¡¯t home yet, but since it would be more logical to announce his arrival then not to, he always did it. If his mother was home for some reason she would want to know immediately. So Led always announced his arrival. After taking off his clothes he did his homework right away, a task that he always did with vigour yet strictly out of habit. Led always read all of his books the first week of school, and he had a stockpile of finished homework he had gotten from the pamphlet that had most of the homework tasks. Yet, Led knew that repetition was the key to mastering something, so he did it all again.
When he was done with his homework he made dinner for himself, but also enough so that his mother would have something to eat when she came home later. He knew she would probably be too tired to make anything, and she had always appreciated Led¡¯s cooking, so he did it gladly. It also made sense that he had learned cooking by now since he would one day probably live on his own, and bad a bad diet was never good on neither the head nor the body.
Finally, after all this he could go to his room and open the VR helmet box that he had placed on his bed first thing when coming home. Led had of course used a lot of brainpower on the helmet and the game ever since he had come home, but the main server hadn¡¯t started yet as it would later that night. This gave Led some hours of research before he had to take the role of this trickster priest.
Before actually opening the box, he sat down on his computer desk and booted up. Led had always marveled at the tool that was the internet, something that could help him analyse things when he needed more data. Countless hours had been spent on search engines, forums, blogs, tips and tricks sites and even online magazines just to soak up everything he needed in order to make sense of something. This time it was World of Damakar that was now being entered into the white and empty search box.
First ofall, I should grasp the game. Led thought. Any other person would probably jump right on the class they were going for and figure it out as they went, but Led liked to know how the building blocks worked before looking at the building.
World of Damakar was a VRMMORPG with a fantasy setting, in it you controlled one avatar that would mimic your own body using brainwaves. Thanks to the new lucid dreaming technology that had been developed by the company DML (Dream More Lucid - who Beyond Illusions Inc had later bought), World of Damakar could actually be played in your sleep. DML had discovered a way to let the part of your brain that could activate when you usually entered at a Lucid dream to take control of a computer. The potential for this was endless, but Beyond Illusions Inc had of course seen the value of implementing this into gaming immediately.
The Helmet was not just there to present the game for you to play, It would work together with your brain so that you actually saw everything crisp and clearly. It would also convince your brain into believing that it was either stronger, faster, agiler, or even just something as trivial as being taller. This was how you could play as an orc if you wanted, or a short but muscular dwarf. Led also read an article of how they had succeeded with convincing brains into thinking they were an animal or something that didn¡¯t even have eyes like a plant or a tree. This had been quickly stopped when the test subjects had said that it was too boring because of the limited movement and senses they had available. Still, though, hybrid human-animals were also a part of the game.
All in all, the leaps in technology within this helmet was nearly endless, but since most of the actual game was stored on a server somewhere in America, you couldn¡¯t really fiddle with the helmet to get a grip on how it all worked.
It was also comforting to know that they had researched how it would affect the rest of the day when you forced the brain to work while the body was sleeping. All the test results just showed that it was perfectly safe and did not at all affect the rest of your waking hours. It was even considered that you could use the game to study for a test during the sleep instead of the day before since the memory leak of dreams had been solved by the technology in the helmet.This narrative has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. If you see it on Amazon, please report it.
Everything you learned or did in the game, you would remember when you woke up. Beyond Illusions had released all of their extensive testings on this for everyone to retest or just read through in case they still had concerns. Of course, the helmet couldn¡¯t help you get smarter or in better shape. Like with all memory it would either fade or be stored deep, but that was what your brain did everyday anyway. No one could remember what they did on a random Thursday 7 years ago, the memory of that day was just discarded by the brain. In 7 years everyone would probably have already discarded what they had done inside the game, simply because the helmet didn¡¯t help with your memory, It just had figured out how not to waste a whole night of being in a coma-like state and replaced it with their fantasy world.
Led was astonished by this, he glanced over to the white box with the print on it with marvelled eyes. So much technology in one helmet he thought to himself, and it¡¯s used for gaming! He suspected that this was a breakthrough of giant proportions, that people could, in theory, live double lives with this thing. Students could get the extra reading hours if they wanted, or people could meet each other if they lived continents from each other. He had known that it was quite a huge game, but he was not prepared for how advanced it was going to be. Of course, you couldn¡¯t bring anything with you into the game. Everything in the game was controlled by Beyond Illusions Inc. So if you were planning to study using a book, then you were in tough luck since you couldn¡¯t bring your book. Unless you had access to the game server, your book would be unreachable in your dreams.
Snapping out of his extensive research he forced himself over to the actual game. He felt he had enough of a grip on how the game and helmet itself worked. The Game, however, was another thing. It was set in the world, or continent as Led could see only one landmass, of Damakar. Damakar had a long and extensive history, but Beyond Illusions had refused to provide any documentation. If the players wanted to document it, they could just play it and discover it for themselves. This was understandable for Led, why bother with providing the story in written form when you could just get it from the world itself.
What Led did not appreciate, however, was that this was how Beyond Illusions treated most of the game. Nothing was documented by them. It was the same on all their pages. First, it said something super general like. ¡°In World of Damakar, you can play as one of our hundred of classes, to discover what you want to enter the game and start your adventure!¡±. And this was mostly how it all was described, if you wanted to know how something worked, you would need to discover it yourself, by playing it of course.
The scarce documentation Led could find was written by the Beta testers, however, they weren¡¯t allowed to reveal anything either. Only in general how they felt each class was, and since there were literally thousands of branching classes, they couldn¡¯t test them all and write how powerful each class felt. Led could only find a few pages about his class, the trickster priest.
Mostly it just said that it was a healer class with weird mechanics, which they were not allowed to explain. It was one of the strongest early game healers in the game apparently, but when hitting level 20 everyone who had tried it just said that they had swapped away from the class. The class had been weird from the start, but it seemed that the level 20 was the breaking point.
The difficulty was set to S++, or EXTREME, or 10/10 from level 20 and out for some reason. ¡°Do not pick this class!¡± Was stated by everyone. This class will probably be patched out of the game or reworked before release another had written. And so forth and so forth.
Led scratched his head. So vague information, why such high difficulty levels? And, since Dan knew about the class, why did he want Led to play this one in particular? Led only had more questions now than before he had started his research. Led checked the official World of Damakar site to double check if he had misread the class description, he had checked there first, but all it had said was:
The Trickster Priest. These priests are a holy class devoted to the trickster god of Sha¡¯Cotar. These powerful healers have more than one trick up their sleeves and you never know if you will die slowly or in an instance when facing the followers of Sha¡¯Cotar.
It said nothing about being reworked or changed in the release patch, Led also confirmed there was nothing mentioned in the change-log, so this class was still the class that the beta testers warned about not playing. And also, why did the text focus on killing? Healers rarely had the power to kill anyone.
Led thought about this. Dan wanted him to play this particular class. Not a healer, although he did say that they needed a healer, but it was this particular class that they needed. That could only mean that the class had something that could not be done by any other class, or by any other item or weapons in the game. This meant that it had to be either an item that could only be controlled or used by the trickster priest, or it was related to a skill the priest had that no one else could replace with other class skills.
Led concluded that he was a victim of necessity. Dan and his friends needed this class for something they had discovered in the Beta, but since they weren¡¯t upfront about it, it was probably because the burden of playing the class was too annoying or unforgiving.
Led then suddenly realised, why not just change the class when the task is done? Led returned to his searching and quickly found what he suspected. Aha, it was a locked class. It would literally lock you to a lot of things in the game, and that would mean a one month lock on the game and class. If you wanted to change the class after locking it in, you would need to delete your character and then wait a month. You would be literally a month behind everyone else and could not even play the game in the grace period. Led understood it now, he was being used by Dan and his friends because no one wanted to lock themselves out of the game for a month.
Well, no biggie. Led thought. Dan said I could have the helmet, and if I really can¡¯t figure out the class I can just wait the month. I hardly think Dan will need me after I had done my part, he will probably ditch me for another healer as soon as possible. All that in change for a Beyond Illusions game and helmet on the other hand? Land could only feel that he was on the winning side of the bargain.
Finally the time for Led to get into the game had come. The servers would start at 22:00, it was now 21:30, but he was going to use this time to set up his character since you could do this before entering the server.
Led took out the helmet out of the package box. It did not look like a motorcycle helmet at all, but it had roughly the same size. The dimensions, however, was way off. It looked bullet shaped, but with a more rounded tip. And the whole helmet was tilting to one side, logically as it had to fit a head, and still have room for the mouth and nose to breathe freely. Led didn¡¯t ponder too much on the helmet, other than the fact that it was clearly a beta-version with no paint or finishing. It was good enough for him. He put it on.
¡°Welcome, to the World of Damakar!¡± A female voice said with an exhilarating voice.
[Chapter 3] I got the class, but what race?
¡°Welcome to the World of Damakar!¡±
¡°In this world you will encounter a new life and a new¡¡±
¡°Skip¡±. Led said in a calm voice, he had been warned that the pre-game intro video would be about 15 minutes long, and he had already seen it. It had nothing to add to the research he had already done. Fortunately, he had read somewhere that he could skip it with a voice command.
The inside of his helmet had a display that with some lenses would enhance and enlarge the screen to completely surround your field of vision. Led had read that this screen was used to enhance his image in his dream, as well as being used to pre-game info for when you just wanted to check something without entering the REM state.
¡°Before starting, would you like to create a character in the REMGAR state, or would you like to do it now? Beware, some visuals will change from pre-game state to REMGAR state.¡± The voice didn¡¯t seem to mind the abrupt interruption and instead continued on to her next pre-recorded message.
REMGAR was simply REM-Game Able Ready. It was the name for the dream-like state you entered when entering the game. It basically asked you if it was ok to put you to sleep, just that sleep really meant sleep in this context. Since Led was ready to go to bed anyway, he accepted the REMGAR initiation. Just as he said the confirmation, he blacked out.
And then he woke up. But, not really? Led was not alarmed as he knew he now was dreaming, but still, it had happened so fast that hadn¡¯t even felt it. And now, he was standing in a huge room that looked like something out of a sci-fi movie. It was a giant room filled with giant screens, all showing different scenes from the trailer, or just casual scenes from a town. It was a great mix of sci fi with the high tech screens, and then fantasy that was showing on the screens.
And he really couldn¡¯t tell that he was in a dream. Everything felt so real. As clich¨¦ as it was, Led had to pinch his arm just to check. He could actually feel a little bit of pain when pinching hard, but not enough to be alarming. He didn¡¯t wake up from it either, so Led started to test his limbs and how it felt moving around. Nothing! It really felt as if he was awake, and his movements wasn¡¯t hindered at all. Led bent down to the floor and marvelled at the fact that he couldn¡¯t see any pixels or bad texturing. This technology truly was amazing. Led then walked to the middle of the room where a comfortable looking chair was placed. As he sat down the chipper lady spoke once again.
¡°Welcome, please state your alias name. Be aware that you should not use your real name, or at least not your whole name as Beyond Illusions take no responsibility for identity theft or equal crimes committed against you. It is also encouraged that you live a second life in the World of Damakar, so feel free to come up with a name that suits your new life.¡± The lady was both stern and pleasant when explaining. Too bad he probably wouldn¡¯t get to hear from her again after this. Oh well, Led thought.
¡°Please state your name¡±.
¡°Led¡±. Led said, his unusual first name was already unusual enough to think that people wouldn¡¯t believe it was his real name. Besides, the people he would play with already knew him, and Led knew that they wouldn¡¯t care about stealing his identity.
¡°In this world you can play as a huge range of different races and classes, but beware. Not all classes can play certain races, and of course vise versa. Would you like to start with picking a class or a race?¡±
Led was starting to like this more and more. He was pretty sure that the human race was suitable for the Trickster Priest, but since he didn¡¯t know of all the races yet he could compare them.
¡°Class, please¡±
As if Led had said a trigger word, all the screens started to show a huge list of classes each represented by their avatar. Each avatar stood animated with some pre set movements that Led guessed was their signature move or skill. The damage dealers were slashing, dodging or charging. The tanks were either using their shield to block an imaginary incoming hit, or to push away an imaginary enemy. The mages were showing of their spells, and all the other more miscellaneous classes were doing their things. Led was almost overwhelmed by all the choices, this would¡¯ve taken a lot more time for him if he hadn¡¯t already a class ready.
¡°Please take your time and pick a class. If you want to narrow it down, please state if you want to do damage, take damage, heal damage or avoid damage. If you need more help throughout the picking process just say ¡°Help me please¡± at any time and I will guide you¡±.
This intrigued Led. He wondered if those four choices really could narrow it down to every class there was. What would happened if Led would try to get to the Trickster Priest by narrowing it down with the help of the computer. ¡°I¡¯d better not¡±, he thought. The server should start up soon. Led didn¡¯t take any more time to look at the other classes, he doubted that he would learn anything of value by studying the avatars. Instead he stated in a clear tone.
¡°Trickster Priest, please¡±.
For some reason Led had thought that the computer would hesitate for a second. He didn¡¯t know why he thought that, but he was almost expecting a jerk reaction. As if even the computer couldn¡¯t believe that he would dare to take that class.
Instead, the computer reacted immediately and all the screens went blank except the one at Led¡¯s eye level. On this screen a new avatar was standing looking at Led. It had a floating book in front of him and the avatar itself was reading it with great concentration. Once in awhile it would make a movement with it¡¯s hands as if casting a spell, but it never once looked away from it¡¯s book. Led wondered why the book was so important to the avatar that it didn¡¯t even feel the need to look up from it. ¡°Would the book be a starting object?¡± Led wondered.
The avatar was dressed in a dark robe, and Led only realized now how tattered it was. He could clearly remember that all the other avatar was dressed in high-end armour or robes as to show off the end-game items it could get. But this avatar did not go with this rule it seemed. Even the book looked old and nearly destroyed when Led looked at it more closely.
¡°Hologram please¡±. Led said, he had been too consumed by the avatar''s first impression to remember that he could get the avatar in hologram. As he said the word, the avatar appeared as if another human being had been conjured out of thin air to the right of where he sat. Led stood up and inspected the avatar, but couldn¡¯t really find anything else to point out. It kind of looked like a priest had become homeless and was now roaming the street begging for scraps. Nothing screamed end-game about this outfit.
¡°Oh well¡±, Led thought. Nothing to do about that. Let¡¯s see the races.
¡°Possible races for the trickster priest, please¡±. He wondered if he could talk more normal to the computer, but since his first commands were just statements he continued with this. Again, as he pronounced the last letter the computer sprang to action and used the screens around the one with the trickster priest avatar on it. The pleasant voice started up again.
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¡°As of now, there are only three of all the available races for the trickster priest. These are the human, the dark elf, and the dark serpents. Please be advised that humans are not specialized races and would not be recommended for all classes, even when it is a possible race for a class.¡±
¡°Ok?¡± This had definitely taken Led¡¯s attention. Even an idiot would understand that the computer had basically warned Led not to take the human race. Or had it? Led didn¡¯t know if it was just a warning, or a message that was automatically played when the human race was possible for a class.
¡°Please show me blademaster¡±. Led quickly said, and in an instance the trickster priest was gone and the avatar representing the blademaster was displayed.
¡°Possible races, please¡±. At once all the possible races appeared, followed by the computer.
¡°The possible races for the blademaster is¡¡± and then the voice started to list all of the races. It was about 20 or so, as Led knew. The beta testers had given the award for most dps dealing class to the blademaster of the sword-wielder classes, and it was available to a lot of races, except for the ones who was not suitable for muscle- and weapon arts. When the computer was finally near the end of her list, she ended it with a:
¡°... and human. Which class would you like to play with?¡±
That was the clue Led needed, humans weren¡¯t a bad race, it was just the most rounded. It had almost no downsides, but it didn¡¯t have any particular strengths either. It was suitable for the people who didn¡¯t want to deal with downsides in exchange for certain race advantages
such as night vision or water breathing. In fact, some of these advantages were nullified by class skills, such as the night vision and the water breathing. It wasn¡¯t stupid in general to take the human class, but the blademaster hadn¡¯t gotten a warning for taking the human. The trickster priest had.
¡°Trickster priest races, please¡±. Led went back to his class and started to ask the computer more questions, but then remembered a vital information.
¡°What races can start in Eldegaard?¡± Led asked.
¡°As of now,¡± the computer started again, ¡°the only races that can start in Eldegaard is human and serpents.¡±
¡°Oh!¡± Led thought. That made it a lot less to think about. He was basically forced to pick the serpents as he couldn¡¯t start as a dark elf in Eldegaard. Eldegaard was of course the city he had agreed to start in, as Dan would meet him there.
Led didn¡¯t know if he was relieved or frustrated that he had so little of a choice as to what to pick. And, why so few races for a class?
¡°Computer, what are the race treats for dark elf?¡±
¡°The dark elf race has the known race treats to be extra magic resistance,
night vision, forest knowledge and hatred. The race is also known for being sensitive to the sun, to damage in water, and to holy damage.¡±
Led had read that not all race treats were revealed by the game and had to be discovered, but this was enough to make a judgement.
¡°Computer, what are the race treats for serpents?¡±
¡°The serpent''s known race treats are extra magic resistance, ectothermic, hard skinned, infra-red sensitivity, vibration sensitivity and venomous. It¡¯s disadvantages are weak, weak spot, fire sensitive and light magic sensitive.¡±
Led stood in thought. Serpents were quite the tricky race. They had such amazing treats, but then had these glaring weaknesses. Since they were weak, which really meant just that they couldn¡¯t put a lot points in their strength stat, they weren''t suited for weapon using classes. Since they were fire sensitive and light sensitive they would practically be useless in the basic magic using classes. At least if you wanted a chance in a pvp fight. It even had the weak spot treat that meant that it had a known weak spot that would do 250% damage if struck.
But then again, magic resistance from all the other magic classes, ectothermic which meant cold blooded would help him from freezing and other things. He would need to read up on what treats ectothermic gave him. Infra-red sensitive wasn¡¯t just night vision either, it could see anything that produced heat, that was an amazing treat to have from the start. Vibration sensitivity should also be useful, Led thought. He had no idea how venomous could be useful yet, but he figured that it wasn¡¯t a bad thing to have.
¡°Computer I would like to pick now, please.¡±
¡°Yes Led, (It had already started to say his name now, Led was going to miss this voice). What race would you like to be.¡±
¡°Serpent race, please¡±. Led said in a clear voice.
¡°Yes Led, what class would you like to start with?¡±
¡°Trickster Priest, please¡±. Again, in a clear voice. And again, Led was expecting a jerk or a hesitation from the computer. It didn¡¯t of course.
¡°Yes Led, we would like to warn you that since this class is considered a locked class you can not change your class without the one month penalty. If this is understood, please say yes. If you wish to change your class and or race, please say no to my next question.¡±
¡°Do you want to be the race serpent as the class trickster priest?¡±
¡°Yes!¡± Led said, now almost impatient. ¡°The hoops I have to jump through just to play this class¡±, he thought to himself.
¡°Confirmed, as the owner of a beta tester helmet, would you like the beta-comp to help you through your journey through the World of Damakar?¡±
¡°Eh, what?¡± Led said out loud. He hadn''t read anything about this. A beta-comp? To help him? Led was intrigued again, he could need all the help he could get so why not.
¡°Yes, please.¡±
¡°Confirmed, please wait as there is 5 minutes left before the server is opened. Would you like to set gender and name to your beta-comp while you wait?¡±
Again, Led was taken by surprise. This really wasn''t in anything he had read about.
¡°Eh, sure!¡± Led managed to fumble out, clearly not expecting the question.
¡°Ok, please state gender; male, female or genderless.¡±
¡°Genderless?¡± Led thought to himself. ¡°Must be a computer voice.¡±
¡°Female please?¡± Led was really hoping to get the voice of the intro-lady. He had been thankful for her guidance through the class select. It would be even better if she would guide him through the whole game!
¡°Confirmed. Please state your beta-comp¡¯s name, only one name can be used.¡±
Led couldn''t think of anything, but for some reason a name popped up in his head. The name of his old neighbour who he had played with when young.
¡°Eva¡±.
¡°Confirmed. Eva will help you with your journey through the world of Damakar, if you have any questions you can ask her. Codeword for question prompt is set to Eva, this can be changed at a later time, as the same with name and gender.¡±
¡°Server is available for entering in 2 minutes, do you want to change your avatar''s appearance or just chose a base scale colour for your race? Base colours available are dark red, dark green, dark ash or black.¡±
¡°I¡¯ll take dark ash, please. No need for further adjustments¡± Led was tired of all these last minute questions, dark ash had a nice ring to it so he took that.
¡°Confirmed. Please hold as we will now transfer you to the World of Damakar¡±.
[Chapter 4] How鈥檚 it healing?
¡°Entering World of Damakar. At what spawn point would you like to start? Beware that your choice of spawn point will be a one time choice, and your retrat-summon will be locked to your starting region. Would you like to review you spawn point possibilities?¡±
Led was now suddenly hovering over the planet of Damakar, as if he was an astronaut chilling in space and looking down on the world. Except for the fact that the world was visible colour coded showing the different regions that was available for choosing. The major cities were also named in big bold letters, something Led doubted astronauts could see when looking down on earth.
Since Led knew where he was going he could skip the whole process of figuring out the best place to start his new life in Damakar. He couldn¡¯t remember the last time he did something so guided with no prior research. He hadn¡¯t picked the game for himself, although he would¡¯ve if he could¡¯ve. It was Dan however that had made sure he got to play the game from release. What was weirder for Led was that he hadn¡¯t had a choice in neither the class nor race he was going to play. He had even locked himself to the class even if he decided to abandon the class on his first day of playing it. Now, Led couldn¡¯t even pick his starting city. This might¡¯ve been the least of Led¡¯s worries, but somehow the fact that his glass was getting fuller and fuller strained his analysing nature. If this went on, he might actually go on tilt.
¡°Oh well, at least I should have free reign on how to play this class.¡± Led had to remind himself, the lack of control he had of the situation was apparently gnawing on his mind more than he first had expected. He also noted to himself that it would¡¯ve probably taken him a longer time to save up the money for his own VR-Helmet, than the one month class-change ban. Led let it all go and stated to the computer.
¡°I¡¯d like to start in Eldegaard, city of Stenland, please¡±.
¡°Please say confirm if you would like to start in Eldegaard, city of Stenland.¡± As the computer repeated what Led just had said, the world had zoomed into a bird eye view of the land of Stenland. It looked as normal as a fantasy-world would look, it even looked normal for regular earth.
¡°Confirm.¡±
As the last syllable left Led¡¯s lips he was engulfed in millions of small light particles. It looked as it was devouring him from the tip of his toes and quickly climbing up his legs. In a matter of seconds he was completely surrounded and his vision was only that of the light from the particles. And then, just as if someone had flipped on a light, he was standing outside in a meadow looking at a bustling city some stone throws away.
Led had expected to be flown down to the city from his astronaut view, as if an alien who was crash landing. Instead they had done the old blindfold trick on him and instantly summoned him instead.
As he looked around he had to remind himself that he was in a game, it all felt so real he couldn¡¯t believe it. He had to argue for the fact that it wasn¡¯t a game and that he had simply been transported by the game, but when he realized he had a health bar hovering in the corner of his vision he conceded that it really was a game. Still, the feel of the air on his skin, the crunch under his boots as he made his way towards the city were as if he truly was outside somewhere on earth.
¡°Eva, can you show me my stats please¡±. Led was glad he got to test both the Eva command and check his stats at the same time. As he asked a picture appeared in front of him hovering just an arm''s length from his face.
| World Of Damakar |
|
Class: Trickster Priest |
|
Name: Led |
|
|
|
|
|
| Health |
|
1000 |
|
Race: Serpent |
| Mana |
|
500 |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Known Race treats |
| Strength |
|
10 |
|
|
| Intelligence |
|
10 |
|
Magic Resistance |
| Wisdom |
|
10 |
|
Ectothermic |
| Dexterity |
|
10 |
|
Hard Skinned |
| Endurance |
|
10 |
|
Infrared Sensitivity |
| Luck: |
|
5 |
|
Vibration Sensitivity |
|
|
|
|
Venomous |
| Skills |
|
Skill lvl |
|
|
|
|
|
|
Known Weaknesses |
| Trickster Priest Heal |
|
1/100 |
|
|
| Instant Heal |
|
1/100 |
|
Weak |
| HoT |
|
1/100 |
|
Weak spot |
|
|
|
|
Fire sensitive |
|
|
|
|
Light magic sensitive |
¡°Hmmm, this looks standard enough¡±. Led thought to himself. ¡°Everything seems so orderly, I wonder if every character starts with the same base stats."
Led double checked his race treats and pondered on the skills he had. This was a powerful early game healer, the [ Trickster Priest Heal ] was pretty decent for a starting healing skill. On top of that he got an
[ Instant heal ] and a [ HoT ], meaning healing over time! He understood the greatness of the early game trickster priest. He guessed that no other healing class was able to start with more than one, or at most two, healing spells. And he guessed that no one was as powerful as these spells this early.
¡°This class should be played by everyone!¡± Led thought. Why weren¡¯t every healer just picking this class? It had all you needed for a healer, and more. He could see himself lead a 10 man group with these spells. Well, not quite. Since it seems that he had no offensive skills, he would need to rely on physical attacks or his teammates.
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¡°Eva, explain the weakness [ Weak ] please.¡± As commanded the pleasant lady from the intro part spoke to him, but this time she came from his mind and not from an outside source. Led guessed that this meant only he could hear her.
¡°The weakness means that there is a limit to how many point you can put into strength each level up. There are however no upper limit as with all other stats. [ Weak ] also means that your physical attacks with a weapon, ranged or melee, will automatically do half the damage of what someone without the weakness would do.¡± The lady said.
Led thought about that for a second. This class might be more tricky after all. He could basically do no damage, even with a bow or a slingshot. He could get a wand, he guessed, but those were expensive or hard to get by. I need to ask Dan when I can expect to get some damage spells, considering I might not get to group with them after he was done helping his group.
Speaking of which, I should group up with Dan as soon as possible. Led wanted to test out Eva again, so this time he only thought of the command to see if he could do it in his mind instead of voice activating it.
¡°Eva, please contact Shadow Leaf¡±. Led thought, if this worked he could use Eva to ask more basic question without outing himself to people his intentions. Led also knew Dans character name as Dan had said he had transferred his beta account to the live version. When asked, the voice again sprung to life and answered in his head.
¡°Contacting Shadow Leaf. Contact established.¡± Led was pleased that he could activate Eva with only his thoughts.
¡°Hey Led! Groundbreaking name you got there!¡± Dan showed himself in a little window, also floating in eye level in front of Dan. ¡°Wow! What the hell? What race are you? Did you pick Serpent?!¡± Dans disgust clearly showed on his face.
Dan wondered if that really was an issue for Dan. It was a game after all, who cared how anyone looked like. Not all races were as beautiful as the Elf race. Led took a look at his character screen, he looked like a normal human being actually. Besides that fact that he had scales instead of skin and was a colour of smeared dark ash. He really looked as if he had done just that, smeared ash all over its skin. He also had snake eyes that were in a dark tone of red, which Led guessed made him seem pretty off putting. Snake pupils would take a bit of time to get used to as they were just black slits instead of irises, but it didn¡¯t really freak him out as much. In fact he thought it was cool that he was looking at himself as another creature, that was half the fun of virtual reality wasn¡¯t it?
¡°Yeah, it seemed like the best option for this class, is that a problem?¡±
¡°Ah, I guess not. I¡¯ll have to warn the females in the group though! They might faint if they see you looking like that without a warning first.¡±
It seemed as though Dan was both serious and joking at the same time, Led really couldn¡¯t read Dan, but again he brushed it off as just a personality quirk.
¡°Hah yeah, you do that. Say Dan, did you ever play shadow priest during beta?¡±
¡°No. I played around mostly with the damage dealing classes, I did play with a lot of people playing the class though. It was quite popular for a period when a beta-tester discovered the powerful early game heals¡±.
¡°Ok, do you know how they survived the early game with no damage dealing spells?¡±
¡°What? You don¡¯t have the [ Trick shot ]? It wasn¡¯t the best of spells but it was ok enough for a healer.¡±
¡°No, I don¡¯t. What spells do you remember the trickster priest started with?¡±
¡°Hmmm, I remember it being a heal and the [ HoT ] spell, you got those?¡±
¡°Yeah, those I got. I also got [ Instant heal ], but no [Trick shot ]¡±.
¡°Really? You got another healing spell?!¡± Dan sounded excited now. ¡°That¡¯s awesome! We can do the dungeon even earlier now! I¡¯ll invite you to the group, we should level up as soon as possible, the faster you get to level 5 the better.¡±
¡°What happens at level 5?¡± Led was intrigued that Dan was suddenly so upbeat. He always seemed like the person who had everything in control and never showed unnecessary emotions, perhaps his gamer personality was starting to show?
¡°Ah, you¡¯ll see. It¡¯s a spell we need to conquer a tricky dungeon, well, more a section of a dungeon that we struggled with in beta. I¡¯ll explain it later. I¡¯ll invite you to our group, come meet us in the field northwest for the city. You should start with some basic gear, so no need to browse the city for goods, let¡¯s just start grinding levels¡±.
¡°Sure! I¡¯ll be there soon¡±.
As Led shut down his communication with Dan he got an group invite, Led accepted and started to walk in the direction where Dan had wanted them to meet. Led could see the other 5 group members as dots on the minimap each in different places around the city also started to move towards the field.
As Led walked he asked Eva about all the skills and race treats, as well as the weaknesses. Unfortunately, he didn¡¯t seem to get any other info from Eva that he had already researched. This was a bit of a disappointment as he really didn¡¯t need Eva to just read him the skills. He could do that easily by himself, and he could activate all of his skills by just thinking it, no need for Eva the middleman, or lady. Led wondered if he should just disable Eva as he didn¡¯t see any use for her.
¡°I¡¯ll just keep you around Eva since you were so helpful in the intro stages¡±.
¡°Error, did not understand command from << since you were so helpful in the intro stages >>, please rephrase or say another command¡±.
¡°Don¡¯t push it¡±. Led thought, he still wanted to keep her around for a bit to see if he could use her.
As Led got closer he could see a group of people standing in a circle listening to a tall human raced blade master. Hovering over his head was the name Shadow Leaf, as Dan had called himself.
¡°Ah, here is the slowpoke himself. Group, meet the man who will be our healer for the next days, this is Led as some of you know from school.¡±
[Chapter 5] Rushed introductions and level up-ing.
¡°Hey, I¡¯m Led. I¡¯ll try my hardest not to kill you guys¡±. Led tried to chuckle, but he had forgotten to smile while saying the line so it felt more like a threat in retrospect.
The group did not laugh at Led¡¯s remark and instead looked at Dan who was seemingly confused by the threat-joke.
¡°Riiight, Led this is my teammates. I¡¯ve been with them since beta and we have a sturdy group already that is nicely balanced. As mentioned we never did get a proper healer up and running so that is why we invited you.¡± Dan was obviously the leader in this team as no one tried to introduce themselves and just let Dan do all the talking.
At least they weren¡¯t looking at Led with great disgust. More of a relief actually, and maybe a hint of worry? Led wasn¡¯t all that great at reading facial expressions. He could analyse them of course, but he had no data to analyse them with, so all he could do was to keep this note in his head as he did with all his gathered data.
¡°Led?¡± Dan had said something that Led had managed to overhear while on his train of thought. Led cursed to himself and made an expression of admittance that he had been deep in thought.
¡°Yeah, sorry. I¡¯m used to solo gaming so i apologize if i sometimes don¡¯t hear what you say, no stress, i¡¯ll get used to it soon enough.¡±
Dan looked at Led with a confused look again, it seemed he had yet to place Led¡¯s behaviour patterns.
¡°This is our last healer, Macy. Macy will be a hybrid between off healing, off tanking and off damage dealing. Her game name is also Macy, like you she liked her own name and went with it. But the funniest part is that she is playing a Macleric which is just basically a Cleric who uses maces. Clever programmers these people who made this game¡±. Dan had the same tone when saying this as when he had pointed out Led¡¯s name, maybe he just came off as a bit mocking when trying to be friendly Led thought.
¡°Dude! I said that was a coincident! I had to go Cleric for the healing in beta and I liked this build a lot better. I¡¯ve saved your ass so many times now you should be glad i picked cleric at all. I know how ridiculous it sounds that I am a Mace user named Macy, I just don¡¯t care about roleplaying that much. I just want to mace people in the face!¡±
Macy was a powerful and stout looking dwarf-human, Led also remembered her from school. She wasn¡¯t as bulky as her avatar in real life, but she was one of the most muscular looking women Led had ever seen in real life. Not as in fat or ugly, but she definately had been born in a family of people who worked out. Led liked it, he felt that too many girls worried about their looks and their figure. Why couldn¡¯t a girl sport muscles and strength? Led decided he liked Macy¡¯s first impression. She was obviously direct, a bit tomboyish, and spoke her mind without the need to tiptoe around subjects.
¡°Yes yes Macy. I guess we are all just jealous of the fact that you had a class named after you for you to pick. I don¡¯t see any Danmasters classes roaming around.¡± Dan and the group chuckled at that, even Macy as it was a jest made in good humour. Led was relieved to see that the group got along well,. Since he was an outsider, the fact that the rest of the group had good synergy was important.
¡°Anyway, this is Darien, or Barri as he called himself. He¡¯s a Shieldguard, a class with OP tanking abilities.¡± Dan had pointed at Darien with an open palm, as if showing Led the way to his table at a restaurant.
Darien gave Led a nod, no expression to note. Dan noticed this and added.
¡°Darien doesn¡¯t speak much, he¡¯s more of a doer than a sayer.¡±
Led nodded back, he had also seen Darien at school and knew of his silent manners. He felt more like a whiskey drinking man who never laughed, but who instead would crack a smile if a joke was said.
¡°This is Kate, our elementalist. She¡¯s basically our magic damage output as we have me and Lexi here as main meele dps. Lexi also rocks the bows and crossbows for ranged damage. But, for magical damage we have the amazing Kate!¡± Dan made a sweeping gesture this time, as if presenting the opening of a theatre piece.
Kate smiled and said hello. She didn¡¯t seem like the quiet type, but she was smiling so hard Led believed she was a loss for words. Led could see her blush at Dan''s gesture, and Led noted that these two were probably more than friends. Perhaps not full blown girlfriend and boyfriend, but Kate didn¡¯t seem to be the one to say no if Dan asked. Led could see them as a nice couple considering Kate was quite the looker, but she wasn¡¯t the type to plaster on a lot of makeup either. It was a natural kind of beauty that was enhanced by an innocent and big smile. She hadn¡¯t changed her appearance from real life either, so Led did recognize her. He did not, however, recognize the next girl introduced.
¡°And as I said we have Lexi¡±. Dan continued while making over the top gestures, Led was reminded of how some vocalists would introduce each member of their band at live concerts.
¡°Lexi is the only one who doesn¡¯t go to our school, and she is as good of a player as she is a mystery for us. We found her in beta and invited her to our group and she has been our dungeon cleaner ever since.
Led knew that a dungeon cleaner was a name given to the rogue classes, they would spot traps and open locked doors. Often considered as the most important tool for dungeon clearing if you wanted to get into all of the rooms in a dungeon without the need to set off traps or leave locked doors and chests behind.
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¡°Lexi is a Wanted, so we should be set for the rest of the game with dungeon clearing without the need for help¡±. As Dan made the introductions Lexi had already been staring at Led for quite a while, as he had noticed but ignored. He knew that he himself had a bad habit of staring at people without realizing that it might be off putting.
As far as Led could remember from his research the Wanted class was a very versatile class, that only really fell behind in dps from the other roguelike classes. What the class lacked in dps though, it made up with a ton of resourceful skills and abilities aimed to be useful for dungeoning. Led guessed that she had joined the group because it was quite difficult to level the class up without doing dungeons in a group. She was quite beautiful though, Led had started to suspect that Dan only agreed to group or be friends with the most beautiful girls in both school and in this game too. Since they had kept her from beta though, and they didn¡¯t know her from high school, she probably knew her stuff.
Lexi had black hair that was bundled in knot behind her head, the rest of her was dressed in what looked like ninja apparel. It would be interesting to see all the end game classes with their end game items when he could get to the late game.
¡°So there you have it, this is the group that will be tackling the Depths of Karadar¡±.
Dan ended his introduction without really introducing Led. Led didn¡¯t know if that was because they didn¡¯t see him as a long term member, or because he had already told the group about Led before he got there.
¡°Let¡¯s get cracken!¡± Dan said as he jumped from the rock he was standing on and suddenly ran towards a forest not more than an arrow shot away. The group followed without missing a beat, as this was as normal to them as the sun rising.
What followed was an amazing display of teamwork from Led¡¯s new group, Darien who was the main tank understood immediately what Dan wanted and charged at the nearest level 1 wolf. In a flash he had not only stunned two wolves, but also aggroed two more. Led had never seen anyone even dare to try this maneuver at level 1, but since Led had his three heals Darien wasn¡¯t really in any danger. The rest of the team focused on just killing the wolves as fast as possible in pairs. Macy and Edlen (Kate) and Dan and Lexi were doing some impressive teamwork and trusted each others doing their part of the job. All Led had to do was to give out a heal or two, which he did. He never once got aggro either, since Led was careful only to heal when necessary, and don¡¯t overheal the aggro Darien had created.
Not more than half an hour into the game they had already leveled up two levels. Led had not gotten any new spells though, which confused him considering he could see the others had.
¡°Do the classes gain skills at different levels or what?¡± Led had to ask considering it was inconsistent with what he was used to from other games.
¡°Ah yeah, I guess no one wrote about it that much, but some classes only gains skills every 5 levels, that¡¯s what I meant about we needing to get you to level 5 as fast as possible. I was worried you would be dragging us down actually, but I do think we got our new healer set for a while. You are on point with that healing.¡± Dan talked while still fighting, not even diverting his eyes away from his next target.
That made both sense and not sense to Led. Why would some classes have the advantage of picking and choosing their skills one at a time, but Led got them in bulk? He would need to sit down and carefully when reaching level 5, and he would need to check what Dan wanted him to build so he didn¡¯t miss a skill or spell that the group needed.
So far all Led had done in this game was fighting wolves, as they were gathered around the forest, since they were only level 1 and 2 the group entered the forest to hunt the forest wolves that were level 3 and up to 5. Except for hides they had yet to get any good items and Led was starting to wonder if they were ever going to stop and take a rest. They were getting along fine with careful mana consumption and not overkilling the wolves, instead just opting for slow and steady.
Led guessed that since they were not sightseeing and not even stopping to shop for better items they were way ahead of everyone else, perhaps they were racing for something in this dungeon? Led hadn¡¯t checked if the rewards for first dungeon clearing was any big or not, but that was the only explanation he could come up with for this furious leveling.
¡°DING! You have reached level 5¡±, Eva said in an excited voice.
Then Dan finally signaled for the group to stop. Except for Dan and Darien who were level 6, the rest of the group were now all level 5. Dan and Darien had continued to hunt wolves while the rest of the group had waited for mana to restore sometimes and had more XP for it.
¡°Ok, now it¡¯s time to make some decisions. Led, did you get the skill [The Trick]?¡±. Dan had an almost desperate look while asking the question.
Led who was just now opening his character screen was looking at his skill options.
¡°Yeah. I did.¡± Led said with a puzzled look on his face.
[Chapter 6] The four skills to change it all, and the plan to end it all.
"Oh wow!" Led exclaimed. He hadn''t intentionally said it out loud, but his bewilderment had screwed up his sense of internalising. This was different from what he was used to in a game.
Leds eyes flickered over the skills he had gotten, four of them! He was still not convinced that getting skills in bulks at every five levels was better or worse than getting them one at the time, but right now he couldn''t complain.
But, then again. These spells were, different. Not the type of spells he was used to, not only in healers but in any class in any game he had ever played. Led decided to go through them one at the time and read them each carefully.
[Sha¡¯Cotars laugh] - Your target''s health is swapped with a chosen stat your target has for a short time {9 seconds}. If a stat is not stated in your spell-chant, health will be swapped with the mana of your target. If your target does not have the mana stat, it will instead be swapped with it''s highest stat. If your target has two or more stats that are all its highest stat, a stat will be chosen at random among them. Warning! The Intelligence stat and Wisdom stat can only be chosen as a swapped stat if you have knowledge of the exact stat of your target when chanting the spell.
[Sha¡¯Cotars sacrifice] - Swap your health with a target''s health for a short amount of time {7 seconds}, when this timer is over your target will get its original health back and that health will be doubled for 10 minutes. Your health will then also be halved, and all damage taken by your target while under the influence of [Sha¡¯Cotars sacrifice] will carry over to you when swapped.
[Corrupted numbers] - Swap portion of your health with a stat at a 2:1 ratio for a 5:1 ratio of time. Lasts {10 seconds}.
[The Trick] - It was all a trick, reverse your last three spells immediately. Warning! [The Trick] might please or anger Sha¡¯Cotar.
"Led?"
Led had been reading his new skills over and over again, trying to fathom the magnitude of what he could do with these spells. Had it not been for his habit of always maintaining a stone face, a huge grin would have slipped over his face. Now this looked like a challenge he was willing to take on.
"Led!" Daniel finally interrupted Led''s train of thought. Led realised he had been as patient as he could, probably because he knew the complicated spells of the trickster priest all too well.
"Ah, sorry Daniel. I was a bit caught off guard by the sheer complicity of these spells. I''ve never seen such mechanic anywhere in a game like this, it''s..." Led trailed off.
"Intimidating?" Daniel tried.
"Fascinating!" Led had to correct Daniel. Intimidating? This looked like so much fun! Even if he crashed and burned while trying to use them, he was still in sheer awe of what these spells could do.
Daniel let out a sigh, Led caught it and noted it mentally. It seemed Daniel had thought it would scare Led off to continue with such a class. It was, after all, a locked class. Another person might be offended by the fact that he had been forced into such a class. But for Led, this was a challenge worth taking on. Even if he was just the sacrificial lamb for Daniels plans, he might''ve never tried this class at all and instead went for a class that was heavily documented. Then Led suddenly realised what Daniel had asked him.
"Why do you need [The Trick] anyway Daniel? It seems like the other spells are more useful for your team." Led was still not in the clear why Daniel wanted him to take this class.
The group had finished up their leveling and preparing a long time ago, Led wasn''t even sure how long he had been in a mesmerised state. They were all now surrounding Daniel and Led as if they were in a fight or something, they all looked at Daniel as they all now expected him to start explaining something they all knew.
Daniel instantly took the part of an assertive and lying man, trying to mask his plan with a shaky smile.
"Ehm, actually, we need the sacrifice skill to kill a boss."
It wasn''t a lie, Led knew when people caught off guard were lying, and Daniel hadn''t thought his answer up on the spot. He even knew about [Sha¡¯Cotars sacrifice], Led hadn''t mentioned his other skills yet.
Led stared at him with a dead-panned look. He was fine with Daniel holding back information and lying, but Led had a better plan. He was ready for a sacrifice, both the spell and the act.
"Daniel, I''ll be honest with you. I know we are not friends, neither in this game or outside it. I also know that the whole needing a healer thing is somewhat a lie, and that''s ok. I don''t mind being a sacrificial lamb if it helps you out. I really don''t mind playing this class for a month, and I don''t mind if you want to keep me in the dark until you either push me into death or leave me stranded somewhere and swap me out with a more reliable healing class. However, I do suggest that you just give me the plan and we agree upon what I will do for you and your team. I think that if you just give me the choice, I will gladly give my life to your plan. If you don''t have any plans of taking the VR Helmet back from me, then I still feel that I win in this trade. So what do you say? Will you include me in your plans, or do you just want me to follow orders? I don''t mind either, but I do prefer being a part of a plan rather than possibly being a risk in it."
Daniel stared at Led with his mouth open, he looked both baffled and slightly offended at the same time. Led wondered if he actually had misunderstood Daniels plans for a second and that he actually had offended Daniel. But then the baffled look slid over to a smile. Not the smile of a man who was just outed as the main villain hidden in plain sight, Led noted. It was actually more the smile of a man gaining admiration for someone, Led thought he had accurately placed Daniels intentions spot on, and yet he must have misunderstood Daniels disregard for him. He wasn''t as self-absorbed as Led had first analysed him to be. Suddenly Daniel burst out a hearty laugh.
"Damn Led! I knew you were an intuitive one, but you are apparently more ahead of the game than I first thought. I might''ve gotten the perfect sacrificial lamb that I needed!"
Daniel looked at him as if trying to figure out something. Perhaps he was deciding to trust Led to sacrifice himself or not. He seemed to come to the conclusion that even if Led was included or not, since he knew he was being sacrificed, he might as well know why.
A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation.
"The thing is Led, I know we might seem a bit shifty, but we didn''t really try to bully you or anything. The reason I picked you was as I said, it was because you are experienced in gaming. I needed someone who could follow commands and at the same time think on his feet. I might not be able to give you the command at the correct time, but an experienced gamer would handle himself in a fight. And yes, there will come a time when you might need to be killed off, and we were thinking of using you just this one time as the class you are playing is the weirdest thing I have ever seen. Just wait till you get to level 20, the one guy I knew who played it that far said he was so frustrated by the class that he had just been powdergrinded by other classes so he could see how it was at level 20. Then, when he reached it, he just gave up on it all cursing the complexity of the class. I really wanted to ask him more about it, but he logged off before I could ask him about it.
Anyway, while playing the beta someone did mention the spell to me. And with that info, I figured out something no one else has. We can actually clear the level 15 dungeon with this spell, and we can do it now."
Led blinked in surprise. But before he could utter it, Daniel had already started answering Leds questions.
"Yeah I know, we are just level 5 and six right now, and we''ll probably be around level 9 and 10 when we take on the boss. But I haven''t even given you the kicker yet. The boss we are killing is a legendary class."
Led double blinked in surprise. The Legendary class was really just for advanced players and it came in two phases. First, you defeated the regular boss, then if you activated the legendary you could defeat it again. This time, however, you needed to be at least double the level of the boss you were up against. It was added into the game so gamers could double clear dungeons. Once when you were the appropriate level, then again to defeat the legendary boss. It also dropped some really good items, and since drops always reflected the defeaters level, it would give Daniels group a huge advantage in this game over the others. He could easily start a guild and attract hundreds of other gamers just by flashing the drop in front of others. To be the leader of a huge guild this early in a game where people weren''t even at level 20 yet could mean that Daniel had the kick starter he needed to dominate this part of the world.
Again Daniel answered Led even though he hadn''t uttered a word yet.
"And yeah, I know what you are thinking. And I''m guessing you haven''t even thought of the first clear reward."
Led thought he wasn''t capable of being more surprised than he already was, but then Daniel had given him the final push over the edge.
The first dungeon clear was a reward that was given to all the groups players if they were the first to clear a dungeon. It was a huge boost in terms of XP as all the XP you had gained during your dungeon run would be multiplied by 1.5 when you got the achievement. A normal dungeon run could give you a massive instant XP boost when clearing it, as you only got the extra XP when done with the dungeon. It also meant something else, and it was something even more insane to Led. The boss would drop a boss-level item for all the players in the group! Usually, the boss only dropped one random item and it wasn''t even always something anyone in the group could use. The first dungeon clear achievement, however, made sure that everyone in their group got a boss-level item and an item that fitted their class. And the thing was also that to get this bonus, the dungeon had to be truly cleared for the first time. If you came back one day for the legendary boss, you wouldn''t get the first time bonus because you had already cleared it. Defeating the regular boss counted as clearing the dungeon, and the one-time achievement would be spent for that dungeon forever. It was unheard of finding a new dungeon that no one had cleared yet when you were at a level where you could also defeat the legendary boss right after the regular boss.
This meant that not only would they with this plan get the massive XP boost, they would also each get a boss item drop that they could use immediately. And not only that! THEY WOULD ALL GET A LEGENDARY BOSS ITEM THEY COULD USE RIGHT AWAY!
Led was in awe of Daniels plan. Not only did this truly ensure that they would be Gods among men in the early game. If Daniel really did have plans to start a guild people would flock to him in hordes. Hell, they all could start their own guild and still get enough people to join to each be their own king. Led had never heard of such an exploit in a game before, it was beyond broken. Led knew that the programmers and designers of the game had let this loophole there for people to attempt it, but to defeat a level 15 boss and then the same boss as legendary at level 10 was something they could never have imagined. Not in a million years would you even consider that as a game developer.
Daniel knew what Led was thinking, and he was smiling a wicked grin considering this would be the coup of the century. They would be talked about in this game for as long as the game would exist.
"So yeah! We have an intense journey in front of us, and we need to be fast about it since we will lose that bonus achievement if someone else cleared the dungeon before us. I doubt someone else will clear the legendary boss before us, of course, but if they do get the regular boss it''s over for my plan. And this is the only opportunity we have at this exploit!"
Led sobered up and realised that this probably wouldn''t be as easy as he first had thought. Daniel probably had a plan, but he hadn''t said that it was a sure thing. There would be risks, and there would be a sacrifice. But since he still got the legendary item even as he was dead, this was the beast deal he could ever be offered. Sacrifice or not.
"I''m in Daniel. What''s your plan?"
Writers Note: Hey guys, for those of you who read my story I need to apologise to you that I disappointingly disappeared for 6 months. It wasn''t my intention, but because I changed jobs and had to move I fell off the earth for a couple of months considering writing and stuff. I really only did it because I wanted to try this for myself. Now that I am back into a steady pace at work and home I wasn''t really planning on continuing this, but a reader sent me a message and suggested I do it. So I thought, why not? I got a calm and job that allows me to write a bit here and there, especially during the summer, so I''ll try and get back into this. I hope you like it, and again, sorry if you read this 6 months ago and hoped for a new chapter withing a week or two.
I also started to write the chapter number in the title, I like that better so I''ll go back and fix the others.