Chương 9: Making a Friend

It was the sound of an arrow hitting a tree, or maybe another wooden object. I opened my eyes and realized three things at once. The first was that I had finished the health potion, gaining back about 20% of my HP. The second thing was that the arrow hit the shield of the man standing right in front of me. And as of the last piece of information, the debuff wore off and I could once again move, so I quickly jumped behind cover before the goblin could shoot once again. Stone invited you to a party. Accept?

YES | NO Yes! The moment I accepted the party invitation, the other player's status bar appeared in the corner of my field of view, under mine. Stone | Level 5 | Guardian HP MP He was a level higher than me, and his shield looked exactly like the one I had looted from the other camp leader before. He's probably doing the same quest regarding the goblin camps, I thought. You could block and parry attacks in this game, but some items were way more effective at doing so than others.

Parrying an arrow with a sword or a dagger was incredibly hard, and it also still dealt some damage. Blocking one with a shield was a much better option.

"Hey, you're on the Goblin Threat quest?" Stone asked.

"Yeah, last camp," I answered. There was no reason for me not to be honest with him; after all, he had saved my life just now.

"Thanks for that block! It saved me."

"No probs! I've just returned." He scratched his head while blocking another arrow.

"This is the second camp for me, but the little rat is very elusive. When I tried killing it, it wore me down and I almost died. I went out to level up because I wanted to have more of a fighting chance."

"Yeah, now that I think about it, this one should be pretty tricky for melee classes." The goblin was almost as fast as the berserker-type goblin, and it kept trying to increase the distance between itself and the players. Also, using the smoke bomb as a last resort didn't help either.

"There was a level 4 mage here about 15 minutes ago, but she had died almost instantly. I was late to save her, but I was hoping she or someone else would come back and we could take out the goblin in a party."

"Well, shall we?" I asked. He laughed.

"Yeah. I'll tank and you just wear it down, okay?"

"Alright, let's finish it," I said. Throughout our short conversation, I kept close attention to the smoke screen and any movements, but there was no movement.

"How long do you think this smoke will last?"

"No clue, haven't seen it before, although I wasn't even close to killing it earlier. Is this some sort of a berserk skill?"

"It activated it upon dropping to 10%, but it looked more like an item than an actual skill." Finally, the smoke dwindled. I nocked an arrow and waited for the goblin to show itself. Five seconds later, the monster was revealed. Once again, it was at full health, but that meant no problem anymore, as there were two of us. During the fight, I got convinced that Stone was a veteran player. His movements, his skill usage, and his understanding of the surroundings were all top-notch.

I'd even say he was near a Valhalla professional in terms of skill and tactics, although his reaction speed wasn't up to par compared to prodigies. Regardless, he was a reliable tank to party up with. The goblin fell quickly after getting attacked by two people. It looked like it had no more smoke bombs to use, and it couldn't keep running from Stone and dodging my arrows at the same time. I looked at my newfound warrior friend.

He was close to 2 meters tall, with short brown hair and a lean body, still wearing the starting clothes, but his shield, bracers and boots were looted items.

"Thanks for the save earlier," I said once again, slinging my bow onto my back.

"Don't worry about it, I couldn't kill the leader alone after all," he laughed. His calm demeanor reminded me of Ace. His playstyle was similar as well, although Ace was still a level or two above him in terms of skill and talent. This was probably why working with him felt seamless.

"Go ahead and loot the mobs, and then maybe we can roll for the leader's drops if it's okay with you?" Unauthorized reproduction: this story has been taken without approval. Report sightings. -"Absolutely," I agreed, but first I opened my inventory and took out the goblin helmet I'd looted earlier.

"Take this."

"You don't need to give it to me."

"But I want to."

"Well, if you insist. Thanks, dude!" he said with a grin and equipped the helmet. It had a dent and was rusty, but it was still level 5 heavy head armor, perfect for a Guardian like Stone.

"So you killed one of the other leaders already?" he asked.

"This was my last one. I killed the shielded one just before this. The last one's a berserker type, further from here."

"Oh, nice. I killed the shield one, too; it was much easier than this one though."

"I think you have a good chance against the last one as well. It does serious damage if it hits you, so be careful though. It has a Leap ability, or at least it did when I fought it."

"Got it!" After this brief exchange, I looted all the other goblins. 2 small health potions and 9 silver coins were all the spoils, but I had already glanced at the leader's drops and I knew there was stuff there I wanted dearly.

"So, do we roll or do we just divide the stuff between us?" I asked. Rolling in MMOs meant you threw a die, and the highest number got the item. It was usually used in dungeons or raids, but people could use the feature whenever they wanted to.

"Well, I'm guessing you want the bow, so how about I keep the 6 silver coins, the health potion and the map with the camp location, you keep the weapon and we roll for the last item?"

"Sounds good!" Campleader's Longbow Uncommon Level 5 Attack Power: 30 10% chance to root enemies for 2. 5 seconds. Restriction: Ranger The bow was much stronger than my current one. It didn't give any attack speed bonus, but the chance to root was pretty good, even though the duration was nowhere near 10 seconds. Most importantly, though, it had an attack power of 30, double that of my scout bow. I couldn't equip it just yet, but I was very close to level 5.

I kind of wished this was the first goblin leader I had encountered. That way the secret quest would have probably evolved this bow into the Rare variant, and maybe I could have gotten the Smoke skill that the goblin used. On second thought, there was no way I could have beaten this one at level 3, so there was no point in sulking about it. Runestone (1) You can use the Runestone to teleport to the closest Chapel. The stone is destroyed upon use. You cannot use the Runestone while in combat. It was a teleport item!

It could only be used once, and only while not engaged in a fight, but this item could save you hours of travel time. Right now I was only about 30 minutes away from Carpa, since this camp was closer to the village than the one I found first, but teleport items like these would definitely come in handy in the future.

"So let's roll for it, yeah?" Stone asked. After I nodded, he summoned the Magic Dice from the party menu, touched the item we were about to roll for, and threw them. Both of the dice were 50 sided, so 100 was the maximum result you could get with them. 91! The number appeared over the dice before them vanishing into thin air. There was a very slim chance I could 'overthrow' Stone in this scenario, but I tried anyway. 2! To say I was dumbfounded was an understatement.

I didn't expect to win the roll, but to get the lowest possible result was still quite astonishing.

"Well..." Stone smiled awkwardly.

"Take it, fair and square," I said. I was more than happy with the bow.

"What will you do now? Do you want me to help with the last goblin leader?"

"No need, as you said, I'll probably be able to handle it solo. Besides, I have to log off for now. I'm waiting for an important package."

"Take care, then!" I waved, and after a moment, I sent him a friend request. Stone accepted it before disappearing in a flash of light. I checked my Friend list. Stone was the only name on it, and right now he was greyed out; a sign that the owner of the name was currently offline. I was very close to level 5, so I headed back to Carpa after checking my Journal. Both my quests from the Association had been completed, as well as the hidden quest regarding the goblins.

Quest Log Goblin Threat Hidden Quest Goblins are no danger to the militia guarding the villages of Tidemark, but they can still be quite the nuisance to farmers and civilans, destroying property and stealing cattle. These reports regard the three camps in Fang Forest. Any adventurer that got hold of one of these reports is kindly asked to exterminate the goblins, and kill the Goblin Campleaders in every camp. Objectives: Kill Goblin Campleaders 3/3 Report to any Association official to collect your rewards!

I had three quests to turn in. I would definitely hit level 5 before I got back to the village, and turning these three quests in, I should get to level 6 as well. It was about an hour-long journey back to Carpa. I could have made it there faster, but I killed most enemies I'd encountered, and I had also skinned the ones I could. Soon enough, I hit level 5. I spent my attribute points on strength without much thought, and equipped both the bracers and my newfound bow.

I didn't encounter any goblins in the woods, and none of the mobs had dropped anything interesting, but my Skinning and Processing had risen to level 3, and I now had two exquisite hides. When I reached Carpa, the sun was at the highest point, which meant it was around noon in-game. Ravenloft's time-zone was the exact same as the UK's — probably the reason Avalon had chosen it in the first place —, so it was the same in the outside world. I went straight to the village hall to turn my quests in.

Cyndral, the association's official, was still standing there, talking to players and explaining the game lore to everyone who was interested in it. I queued up to talk to him.