End Online: Volume 1 (10 page)

“Do you have the heavy
armour skill?”

“No, I don’t have any
skills that give me proficiency in heavy armour, should I look at getting one?”

“Possibly, it is one of
the required skills you need in order to obtain the knight class skill.”

There is no need to hide
myself from another player as they are not affected by my skill, but I still
have the hood up over my head, covering my face. Good thing as it hides the
surprise on my face about hearing of a class skill, I have seen it mentioned in
the forums but didn’t explore it too much.

“Class skill?” I cannot
hold my curiosity back and have to ask.

“Yes, they are special
skills you can obtain, similar to a higher tier skill that two skills can
combine to form, such as ‘Physical Resistance’ and ‘Magic Resistance’ can
‘Skill Up’ into the skill ‘Tough Body’.”

The only difference is a
class skill takes and combines usually seven or eight skill to obtain them.
They consume two skill slots to equip and you can only have one equipped at a
time but they have all the abilities and bonuses of the skills compiled into
them, even if the effects are slightly weaker they can give altogether new
bonuses and proficiencies.”

“The only current public
known class skill, the knight requires ‘One-Handed Sword Proficiency’,
‘Two-Handed Sword Proficiency’, ‘Shield Proficiency’, ‘Physical Resistance’,
‘Heavy Armour Proficiency’, ‘HP Boost’, and ‘Charismatic’ skills to be mostly
above level 35.”

“There are plenty of other
class skills and many more undiscovered but the knight class skill is the only
one that has been shared by the players.”

“Incredible, I can already
see the benefits of having a class skill! It would also allow you to equip
seven more skills to create an even stronger character!”

Maybe I should try to get
this class skill. It would be a fantastic boost to my character. But wait, how
am I supposed to train the ‘Charismatic’ skill when I already have the ‘Aggravation’
skill which would completely negate and overpower it.

There are plenty of other
class skills out there waiting to be discovered I will just have to find one
that doesn’t require the ‘Charismatic’ skill.

“Back onto the topic of
armour,” The player brought us back to the main topic, “I do have one piece of
armour I created that may suit you, it is simple leather armour I made while
training my ‘Tailoring’ Skill. It is classified as light armour so even if you
don’t have proficiency in equipping armour you will have next to no
restrictions.”

It was a simple piece he
placed in front of me. It did not even cover
all my
torso, just my chest and a small part of the stomach. The back is the exact
same and only covers the main areas for protection.

“I will take it, how much
do you want for it?”

“One gold,
fifty silver, just for you
.”

“You’re not trying to
swindle me by selling poor quality materials are you?”

“Never!
See that big building over there,” He points to the large four
story building I saw at the rear of the bazaar when I first entered it, “that
over there is the merchants guild, they overlook this entire bazaar and make
sure everything is fair. Nobody here would even consider selling subpar
merchandise for fear of losing the right to run a store.”

He does have a fair
point,
the wrath of a guild is not to be taken lightly. I
hand him nearly the entirety of what money I had remaining as he operates some
panels I can’t see and a confirm trade window pops up in front of me.

Accepting it the leather
armour in front of me disappears into smoke, I find it in my inventory and use
the equip command to automatically equip myself with it.

Impact in this game is the
equivalent of blunt attacks. It wasn’t very good however it was better than
nothing if it also had a bonus like ‘Impact Resistance’.

“So I’ve been wondering,
is there a reason you’re hiding your face with a concealment spell?” He finally
gets to the point I was hoping to avoid, he mustn’t have spoken about it before
due to wanting to sell his goods. But now that is over with.

“Oh, hah,
no reason particularly.
But it isn’t a
spell, just an ability of this cloak.” Maybe I spoke too much, his jaw dropped
and complete shock came over his face.

“Sell it to me! That must
be a legendary item! I will give you a fantastic price for it, how does 400
gold
sound
??
or
$900??”

“Denied!
Sorry but I don’t plan to sell it for any- $900!?? You will pay
that much cash for it? Is that even allowed?”

He was getting even more
excited about buying it, unable to keep his eyes off me and my cloak.

“Of course, you have a
virtual wallet in End Online that you can connect to your personal bank account
to utilize the real money trading system. Naturally you can only do it
with items and not any in game currency, although there are some people who
have found a way to do so. There is also a fee of two percent on the trade that
is paid by the purchaser.”

“That offer is just too
good to believe! But would I not get more if I sold it directly to another
player?”

“You can only buy and sell
to traders like me, normally leaving your items with us and we sell it at your
desired price plus ten percent. This way we pay the two percent fee for the transaction
to the game company and the difference between what’s left and your price we
get to keep. We pay a higher game subscription fee to be allowed to do so, but
sometimes to make money you have to spend it first.”

“If you want to try and
sell for a higher price you can choose to put the item in the auction
house located in every starting city, there is potential to get a price
exponentially higher if you do so. But you also run the chance of getting a lot
less, it is a big gamble.”

“I still need the cloak
for now. It has lots of good points to it that are useful to me. Maybe another
time”

“Hmm, so there is more to
it. What an incredible item, that would make the price go up. If you ever do
decide to sell it, come see Mouse over here.”

Surprisingly the name
Mouse seemed to suit him quite well. His speciality was in crafting
weapons and armour but he had more knowledge than I originally expected.
Apparently all the shops around the outside of the bazaar were also run by
players.

It must be inconvenient
for someone with a stall who crafts his own goods considering all the equipment
he needed for it had to be installed in a personal residence, meaning he could
not do any work while he was watching his stall.

“Also,” continuing my
conversation with Mouse, “Would you happen to know where I could sell these,”
pulling out one of the apples in my inventory I show it to him.

“Well, well. Aren’t you a
mystery full of
surprises.
Most fruits are
extremely rare, especially apples, in this frozen area. If you want to sell
them,
Peachstar
over there will be more than happy to
buy them”

My eyes follow his finger
to a small girl barely over four feet tall with silky pink hair tied up in twin
tails.

I give my farewell to
Mouse and go speak with
Peachstar
.

“Hello, you must be
Peachstar
,
it is a pleasure to meet you.” I give her a little nod. My hood is still up so
I don’t want to completely scare this girl.

“
Ohaiii
there!!
What
caaan
I help you with
todaay
?”
First impression, her voice is high pitched and for some reason, it irritates
me quite a bit.

“Well, I would like to
sell some apples to you, I was recommended by Mouse to come to you.”

“Mousey recommended
meeee
?
hooow
sweet of him,” sticking her hand out over the stall she demands him to hand one
over.

Peachstar
turns the apple around a few times and took a good sized bite
from it, instantly blushing.

“Ooh my! These are
sooo
delish! You can’t get stuff like these
anywheeere
. I will give you
twenty
silver,
or a dollar each!” She is in complete bliss over the taste of
the apple. But a dollar each is incredible!

I remove 75 apples from my
inventory,
the situation is the same with only holding
one apple that has a number of 75 appearing just next to it.

“I will sell these for a
dollar each please.” Just like Mouse she operated panels I could not see and a
trade window opens confirming the sale. I accept the proposal of $75 for 75
apples and the money is transferred into my virtual wallet, checkable from
the terminal in my locker.

I need to sneak back
to that cave of the great white wolf and collect more
apples,
I have found a way to make money with my disability, selling in game items!

I walk towards the exit of
the bazaar where I originally entered through. In an instant, all
time slowed down. The noises in the area failed to reach my ears. The
only sound was that of my own heartbeat. In front of me a figure wearing a
cloak like me, hood over their head was walking in my direction.

The hood is the slightly
larger size as mine, although it didn’t cast a shadow over their
face. Curly brown hair flowed out
the from
the hood
down past the chest of a steel breastplate, just visible underneath the
cloak.

Framed by the hair and the
hood, a soft jaw line consisting of the perfect angles shows through. The
hood reached down to just above the cheeks but I still take in every
detail. From the pristine white skin, to the small rosy coloured lips curving
into the slightest smile.

This is the most beautiful
woman I have ever seen. Like an enchantress she is drawing me in to her,
every step closer making my chest thump harder.

She walks right past me
and time returns, along with all the noises of players bartering around me.
With my heart still beating in my ears, I turn my head to catch another glimpse
of her behind
me,
however she is nowhere to be seen.

The time in the real world
should be around midnight now so I log off for the night, planning to continue
tomorrow.

***************************************************

Outside of virtual reality
I use my computer to search the End Online wiki, I see a lot of notices
for updated material that more had been either learnt about or had some
corrections done to previous information to improve accuracy.

Information on
the knight class skill was also here, in the game the skill is seen as
‘Class: Knight’ and all the information Mouse had told me remains correct short
of being required to also have a strength stat above fifty and dexterity
above thirty five.

Stats in this game
determine a lot as to what you can do, not just requirements to equip weapons
and armour. Your level determines your maximum health, mana, and stamina. For
every point of strength you can carry ten pounds of weight, the personal
inventory has infinite space for as many items as you can carry.

Agility determines how fast
you can move and dexterity is for skill with weapons, the higher this is the
more the system will assist you in helping basic attacks hit the enemy.
Intelligence affect not only spell damage but also adjusts intelligence related
skills such as ‘Literature’. Mind is your mental strength and assists with both
being the base resistance against mental magic but also preventing spells being
interrupted by an attack from an enemy breaking your concentration.

Luck is possibly the most
peculiar skill in the game, which mainly affects the chances of rare loot
drops. If you manage to improve it high enough, you may even occasionally find
enemies stumbling and the incoming attack only grazing you if not missing
entirely. However improving this skill is incredibly difficult, gaining rare
loot and winning at gambling have been the only proven ways, but even then it
is extremely slow progress.