End Online: Volume 1 (6 page)

A loot menu appeared
above where the wolf died, conveniently situated at the same height as my eye
level. Inspecting the menu I looted wolf meat and a wolf paw, which strangely
had an attack value, albeit being completely useless. Closing the
loot menu, the corpse to turned into mist and dissipated.

“Did you just see that?
The way he kicked that wolf, someone needs to call animal protection. That was
just too cruel.”

“I know, and he looks like
he’s enjoying it far too much.”

I cried inside at hearing
the whispers of some of the players around me. I’m sorry I don’t have any money
or a weapon! It wasn’t my choice and none of the NPC’s in the city
are
willing to give me a quest to earn some money!

That moment, three
wolves that some of the player parties were currently fighting
suddenly broke off and started running in my direction. There were also a few
players chasing them who were cursing at me and yelling about respect and not
using taunting skills to disrupt other people’s hunting. Oh no, this must be my
aggravation skill.

With my health still
flashing red, there was really no other option than to run. It may have felt a
lot longer than it was but the wolves manoeuvred much better than myself on the
snow, shortly catching up to me and the resulting battle was even shorter.

I died.

For the next two minutes I
sat in limbo where I had died, assuming this was the method that allowed other
players to revive you shortly after death. Once the fog came and respawned me
in the church where I originally started the game I checked my status to see if
I lost all the experience I got from the one wolf or if I lost a percentage.

I didn’t lose any
experience… But I did lose stat points! That’s quite serious. Death is not to
be taken lightly!

All this is that horrid
skills fault, luring three wolves to attack me. However for an eight percent
chance of luring one wolf, the percent of taunting three at once was only a
fraction of a percent, surely it couldn’t happen again.

Putting progress aside for
a moment I decide to log out for the time being.

Back in my locker I
utilize the control panel to adjust my avatar so I am no longer naked. There
were a lot of options for clothing in the menu, and there was also the choice to
have the appearance of Lost, my game character. The choice there after was
quite simple as I went with my appearance from End Online.

I decided not to go into
the options I found for customizing my locker and pressed the “Leave
Virtual Reality” option.

Opening my eyes and
removing my V-Link from my head, the transition between the white
locker and my dark bedroom lit only by a street lamp through the window
made me a little queasy but it passed over quickly.

The inability to once
again move my legs left me feeling cold inside, gripping my bed sheet in my
hands as I prop myself up into a sitting position. I couldn’t hold on
for long however, I have been feeling far too emotionally exhausted
lately, leaving me completely empty.

Getting in to my
wheelchair and moving over to my computer, the time was 1:17am when it had
started up.

A quick search on the
internet revealed a player created wiki for End Online, exactly what I was
looking for. Browsing over the site, there were a lot of speculations on how
certain aspects of the game worked, like dungeon bosses and the skill system.

What I wanted though was
the guide for new players starting out. It described leaving the church and the
guide who blockades your path until he is done with you, although this is where
things differ from what happened to me.

The more I read the more
the anger filled the void inside of me. Apparently once you tell him the name
you have chosen for yourself, as long as nobody has already chosen that name,
he will give you a starting allowance
of two gold
and allow you to choose any six of the basic skills available.

I’ve been completely
ripped off! I’m going to snap that old man’s staff in two like a twig!

There was a lot more
information on skills along with all the description and stat boosts, current
recommended builds and some skills that complement one another. I was also
interested in finding out that once you are level 20 and higher you can
purchase any number of new basic skills from the church at any of the
starter cities for the appropriate cost in your experience levels.

Although,
you could only purchase up to a maximum of ten skills.

I was lucky that
purchasing skills was not the only way to acquire them, they can also be earned
through specific quests or player achievements, saving me from having to spend twenty
five levels just to equip the maximum nine skills.

Your level in the game
only affects you maximum health points, mana, and stamina too which was rather
interesting. Although in order to have stamina for sacred arts and mana for
magic you needed the fighting prowess and magic force effects from
equipped skills.

I also learned about
sacred arts, weapon attack skills that the system assisted you in
executing and did much higher damage than casual attacks. To learn them you
need to perform the attack a high enough skill and it will be discovered as a
sacred art. Most people learnt them off of trainers or other players usually

You also need
the appropriate proficiency skill for you weapon equipped and to use
sacred arts. While you can technically equip any weapon given you meet the
required stats, if you don’t have any form of proficiency in that weapon
type you will only deal half the damage and be incapable of using sacred
arts.

Your stat points naturally
increase the more you play and do actions related to them, this means someone
who is always fighting with sword and shield will naturally have a higher
strength and dexterity stats. Death is also horrifying
in
 the
game as the penalty is a permanent loss of stats.

I noticed two other interesting
things about skills, there are some that will “Skill Up”, as it is
called. When a certain skill reaches a high enough level and sometimes
relying on other criteria too, there will be the option for a skill to “Skill
Up” into a new skill, overwriting the original skill and resetting it back to
skill level one. You don’t have to “Skill Up” and the option to do so will
forever remain available on the skill, sword proficiency has been recorded to
turn into specializations of one-handed swords, two-handed swords, piercing
weapons, and exotic weapons.

Secondly my skill
‘Aggravation’, was not listed on this site, and not a single skill I saw
was soul bound and could not be unequipped. I did consider myself a special and
unique player for a bit but to be honest it was far more trouble than it was
worth.

I decided that tomorrow I
would try out some of the information I found on the site, particularly about a
barracks in Iceridge where you could obtain a skill called “Military Arts”, a
skill which gave you a damage bonus and access to a few unique sacred arts! All
you had to do was endure
a fitness
and
combat course that is supposed to take a week to complete.

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

The next morning I had an
incredibly sore back, mainly a side effect from no longer rolling around in my
sleep and my muscles stiffening in place. I slept until mid-morning, Joelle and
Shari had already left for school, but this is what happens when I go to bed so
late. They seem to have gotten a little more independent since I was in
the hospital, but I still worry that they have never brought any of their
friends around. Were they embarrassed that we live in a lower district than
everyone else, or perhaps they were embarrassed of me? I don’t know the reason
but they have also never gone to their friend’s home either, they are always
home by 4:00pm without fail.

Breakfast was
easy,
I just took some of last night’s pizza out of the
fridge and had that, not even reheating it. A little unhealthy, but nothing
beats the occasional cold pizza in the morning.

Eager to use my
legs again I head back to my room and plug into virtual reality. Before
logging in as Lost I decided to look through the options of customizing my
locker, the amount of detail you could delve into was enormous. Without playing
around with the features of the locker so much I just placed a white sofa and
coffee table in the centre. A few cups and a simple coffee machine on the
table, I planned to come back and try some later.

Logging into End Online my
locker dispersed into mist, reforming into the world around me exactly where I
logged out at the church.

Travelling back into the
main courtyard of Iceridge I couldn’t hear anyone talking about me anymore, but
that was probably because all the players from last night are now logged off. I
head south towards the central keep where the barracks was described to be
located.

I passed through a lot of
areas where there where houses had signs for selling and renting, can’t say
there won’t be people playing as real estate tycoons given the opportunities to
purchase a property and start renting it out. Although there seemed to
be
more residences for sale than for rent.

Eventually I arrived at
was looked similar to but not quite a coliseum. I passed by stone monuments of
soldiers with their names etched under their feet and through the front door. A
regal receptionist wearing a white soldier uniform, blond hair tied up in a
bun, and plain rectangular glasses was filling out paperwork behind a desk at
the end of an otherwise empty room.

She looked up at me as I
got closer and was straight to the point.

“What do you think you’re
doing in this place? This is not some tourist destination.”

“Forgive me. I have come
seeking to become stronger.” I was as polite as I could have possibly been
short of prostrating myself.

“Not my problem. I don’t
like you, something about you seems off, and you are not someone I would even
consider trustworthy.” Curse this aggravation skill! “But, I am required to
follow regulation regardless. Read and fill out this form then pass through the
door to my left, heading down the corridor until you reach the training ground.
Centurion Markus will be your instructor.”