So the whole siege situation didn't go so well, but it admittedly could have gone much worse. Garta was lucky enough to get out with his skin in tact, so there was really no use complaining there. He wasn't sure if he'd accidentally wandered into a higher level zone, or if that siege event was something he really could have participated in already. It was hard to tell. He supposed with enough luck, you could do anything, really. Though, barely escaping with his life didn't really seem all that lucky. Whatever the hell that was, he knew that he needed to be more careful in the future. Something like that could have easily given him his first death. Even in games he played when he was a kid, he never died this early. He was usually so much more careful than that. However he hadn't ever really been actually put into the world like this. He assumed if an NPC was giving him a task without any explanation, the risk was negligible. That turned out to not be the case. The NPC handed him a barrel, and that barrel almost cost him a death. So for sure, he needed to do more work to get stronger. Maybe he should stop trying to get into the weaponcrafting business, and start focusing on how to use a weapon to begin with. Sure, having a decent understanding of weapons in this game might not have saved him from the embarrassment, but he really couldn't do any harm by trying, right? Hell, maybe he could increase his HP, or maybe make himself stronger and more agile so that he wouldn't have slipped and fallen with the barrel to begin with. Coordination might have been Alan's strong suit in the real world, but here he was Garta. Garta was pretty much a fresh new person, and it was up to Alan to use this Garta body and make it stronger. That's how MMOs worked. You start off kind of weak, but maybe not as weak as the NPC people around you, because they offer you quests and such, things they themselves can't handle. Then you do the quests, you get a reward and some experience. Rinse, repeat until you're level capped. Terrasphere was a little different though. There were not 'levels' per say, like in classic games. Alan had to focus on increasing Garta's mastery abilities, which would subsequently make Garta stronger. It was weird when thinking about it in game terms, but when Garta, errr... Alan thought about it in terms of real life, it made much more sense. You don't really get better with things, unless you try to do them. Sure there is some level of natural talent, which can be reflected by the three mastery choices that Alan selected for his character during the creation process. Weaponsmithing might have been the most out there one, but he thought it'd come in handy. If he could work at Weaponsmithing, and be a good fighter, he'd probably be better off than someone who had to rely on a Weaponsmith to make their weapons. Garta could make his own weapons to suit his own needs and desires. Of course, a strong sword didn't matter much if you didn't know how to swing it. Which should be Garta's next mission. He needed to get stronger, he was a swordsman, so he should practice using his sword. Really the only thing he'd killed so far was that first wolf, granted he intended to kill more of them, he just never found any after the first. Which meant he should probably try to work on his Hunting skill as well. Which would allow him to find more reasonable enemies to fight. And perhaps it would also allow him to avoid things like that Siege event until he is ready. When that might be, it was hard to tell. He was sure he'd know when it came to that, though. For now though, it was time for him to get his head back in the game. He had a new self-made quest. He was going to find creatures to kill until he was more confident in his sword skills. Of course, if he got to use his Hunting skills in the process, that would be nice too. His priority however was the swordplay. He'd did fine against that first wolf, but that could have been luck, or the game assisting him because it was his first fight. Besides that, the wolf died in two hits. He couldn't expect all creatures to be that easy. That was for sure. He'd played enough video games to know that's not how things worked. That siege event proved this was no different. Now that Alan knew this wasn't just a casual experience, Garta was going to be doing a lot more work. WC: 810
Garta pulled himself from the base of the tree. He was only about a fifteen minute walk from the castle where the siege event was taking place. He could thank his lucky stars for getting him out of that mess all he wanted, but it wasn't going to make him any stronger. He needed to get to work on improving, that way next time something like that came up, he could actually do something instead of nearly getting himself killed. It was kind of annoying, knowing he'd been so stupid to walk into that thing blind, but he wasn't going to beat himself up. He was was going to go kill some monsters to make up for it. The young adventurer started walking, looking all around for signs of activity, and listening for creatures. He pressed his fingers to his temple, hoping that scanning the area in investigation mode might let him find something a little bit easier. He didn't walk along the path again, instead he walked through the open forest, scanning the forest floor and bases of trees as he looked for something to fight. His hunting skills were picking up berries and herbs, but no animal traces just yet. He ventured deeper and deeper into the woods until he came to stop on the crest of a hill. He pressed his fingers to his temple again to exit investigation mode as he saw the scene before him. A small work camp, about five or six creatures by the looks of it. They were small humanoid looking creatures. They had scales and tufts of fur here and there, but the most outlandish thing about them was that two or three of them had hardhats on, but on top of their hardhats they had a candle burning. They were lighting the way with a candle propped up on their helmet. It was funny to him. He snickered a little bit, ducking under the brush. He didn't want to alert the creatures just by laughing, he didn't know how strong they were, but their health bars were only moderately sized. Taking on five at once probably wasn't a good idea. He looked around a bit and saw that there was a stream nearby. On the bank of the stream, there was one of these scaly-furred creatures, and he was fishing. Garta walked around the hill, past the camp and toward the riverbed. He knew that there wasn't a very great chance of him getting the attention of the other monsters if he pulled the creature a little bit down the river. Garta smirked as he got an idea. He searched the ground for a medium-sized rock, reared back, and fired it at the creature. The rock missed however and landed unceremoniously in the water, causing the thing to jump up and shift his position on the shore, recasting his line near where the rock splashed. Maybe he thought it was a fish? That could work even better! The adventurer found another rock on the ground and took aim again. He reared back his arm and fired off the rock. Sploosh! The rock crashed through the waters surface. Sure enough, the creature stepped down the river again, reeling in his line, then cast again close to where the rock crashed. Garta snickered a bit again as he found another rock and threw it again. Sploosh! The rock crashed even closer to him, and again the monster waddled down the beach a bit and cast his line. Garta smiled from ear to ear as he found himself pretty satisfied with the situation. It seemed that his plan was going to work, now all he had to do was kill this thing. WC: 619 TWC: 1,429
Garta unsheathed his sword. It seemed this was as good of a spot as any to make his move against the beast. After all, they were far enough away, and out of direct line of sight from the larger group of creatures. The chances of him catching any unwanted attention was low. Of course, that was assuming this thing wasn't going to cry out and run away the moment Garta hit it. Though, he supposed he could probably keep up with the thing. It was only about waist high on him, he had a much longer gait. Tightening his grip on his sword, Garta rushed forward, swinging the sword almost like a bat at the beast's back. With a whine, the beast turned to him and dropped it's fishing pole on the ground. It reared back it's fist and punched at Garta's midsection, burying it's fist in his abdomen. Garta winced a bit instinctively, but even with the mild pain he felt from the headset, he wasn't too hurt. He instead readied his blade at the smaller creature and circled it, putting his back to the group camping up stream, wedging himself between this beast and his allies. With a single blow, it looked like he'd taken about a fifth of it's health down. That was good. He was waiting for the beast to make another move, and sure enough when it did, Garta raised stepped to the side as he raised his sword. He dropped the blade down hard on the creatures frail elbow. With a sickening crunch of steel severing bone, Garta was surprised. It was weird, but he felt like he'd just received a message telling him what he just did. Dismember rang out in his head. Did he just learn a skill? Well that's cool, and even better the creature's arm was now off and it's health was at about half, and slowly draining from a bleed effect. Garta was ready when the creature tried to run. He swept his blade at the creatures knees, causing it to fall prone in the sand. Instead of trying to crawl back to it's feet with one arm, however, it instead rolled toward Garta, and bit at his ankles. Pain surged through his left leg as the beast sunk it's teeth into his calf. Instinctively he pulled back his leg away from the creature, but the damage was already done. He took some minor damage, but he'd been inflicted with a minor bleed and a poison from the bite. He'd probably be fine, the damage wasn't all that bad. He watched as the creature bled to near death, slowly trying to crawl toward it's comrades. Garta stood over it and thrust his sword down for the killing blow, piercing through the beasts back and finishing him off. The creature's health reached zero, and he could see that this creature was called a 'Kobold'. Specifically, the game listed him as a 'Kobold Fisherman'. It was good to know that perhaps he could identify particular occupations of these creatures. Perhaps the fisherman wasn't the greatest test of how strong they were, however. Of course, curiosity got the best of him, and Garta carefully walked on over to investigate the rest of the Kobold. There were five of them at the camp. There was a small cave in the side of the hill, which probably explained the candles. That, and it explained why the two with candles on their heads had the title of 'Kobold Excavator'. Garta nodded, noting to himself that they might be a little more challenging than the fisherman. The 'Kobold Scout' that was wandering on the outside edges of the camp might just be his best bet at really testing one of them. Not only was he the most easily accessible, but he likely had some combat experience. Though, he might be a step down from the other two 'Kobold Warrior's. He supposed the warriors would probably be the hardest. If he could get the scout easily though, he might have decent luck with the two warriors. Then the two excavators would probable be a piece of cake. The only real concern he had was their proximity to one another. He knew that in some games, you could be stupidly close to other creatures and they wouldn't interfere. However there were other games where just getting within line of sight meant the creature would come at you. He hoped that wasn't the case for Terrasphere, but with the games dedication to a moderately realistic world, Garta would not be surprised if that was the case. Then again, maybe in these beginner locations, things were more forgiving and he'd be fine. Then again, he did just wander into a damned siege event and nearly get himself killed. Perhaps that was a rare occasion, and this game truly was on the more forgiving side. There was really only one way to find out, and what better time than when he is first starting out? WC: 834 TWC: 2,263
Garta was plotting his approach carefully, looking at the camp of Kobolds with several different approaches in mind. He was sure that even at his mediocre swordsmanship level, he could handle himself against two of them at once. So long as he got the scout alone, and the excavators were inside the cave when he fought the warriors, this should be fine. Then Garta realized what he'd just thought, 'mediocre sword skills'. He realized that the progression in this game wasn't direct. You progressed by using your mastery skills, sure. The only thing he had forgotten was that he had to actually put the points in himself. He could gain mastery points by using his sword, then dump the mastery points in crafting as to skip the low levels of crafting where he had to make junk, or at least that's what he assumed. There wasn't a lot of information for the game out there, and it was recommended he not talk publicly online about playing it. Either way, he was invested in becoming good at it to say the least. Whether he leveled through fighting, hunting, or crafting. He didn't have a huge number of points, but enough that he felt would give him a boost. He cranked one-hundred points into his One-handed Slash mastery, then twenty into hunting. He could pump some into weaponcrafting later, when he actually knew how to do it. That should give him a decent chance against these guys, right? Immediately, he already felt more natural holding the sword, and he felt more ready to go at them head on. Though, admittedly, he might just have been giving himself a reason not to be nervous anymore. His skills with a sword were his own, the stats should come secondary, right? Or maybe, this was going to allow him to use more skills, like dismember. Was that even a skill, or was he just overreacting? Maybe he just thought of a name for what he did. Either way, it didn't matter. What did matter was that he needed to put his skills to the test. He climbed cautiously up the hill surrounding the camp, and waited for the Kobold Scout to make his way around to him. When it did, Garta jumped down from over the crest of the hill and slid on his butt towards the creature. His heels caught on the level ground at the bottom of the hill and he readied his sword. He expected the scout to pull out his dagger and fight him, but Garta had overlooked that the creature was carrying a slingshot as well. It fished a pebble out of its pouch and readied it. Garta stepped forward, but stopped immediately as the Kobold shot him right in the face with the slingshot. The pebble smacked righto into his cheekbone, just below his eye. A few inches higher, and a bit to the right, and he might have been blinded. Still, he wasn't about to give the Kobold a chance to fire again before he got a strike in. He rushed at the Kobold, closing the gap as the beast drew back another shot. This time he was close enough that the slingshot missed, giving him an opening to slash hard at the Kobold's midsection. His sword cut through the Kobold, slicing through his cloth clothing like a hot knife through liquid butter. He almost cut the thing in half as it slumped to the floor in a bloody heap. He turned his eyes toward the two warriors, which he knew were going to be the tough ones out of this group, and he smirked. He was ready for them, that much he was sure of. In that one swing of his sword, he realized just how natural this game was starting to feel to him. He held himself back because of nerves, but he let himself just play the game now, and it was working for him. WC: 660 TWC: 2,923
