End Online: Volume 1 (13 page)

What a horrible quest.

“It would be my
pleasure,” I put on the best business smile I can imagine, “I will be back with
the herbs as soon as possible.”

Excusing myself I left
the apothecary, I didn’t even get the potions I was supposed to for the
first quest. It was still early afternoon in the game so I may as well do this
quest now and finish it before it gets dark.

Picking herbs with
‘Herbalism’ was incredibly easy, to the point where I was abusing my high
dexterity by kicking the ground around the herbs with my feet, and
flicking them out with the toe of my boots, even though that ruined two in
three herbs. Carefully picking herbs will raise dexterity, but that was
useless while I was busy digging up chunks of earth with my feet.

I spent a full hour on
the task and ended up with about a hundred of each, only due to losing count of
how many I had collected and ended up with double the amount required

The old lady is giving
me a stern face as I hand over the herbs.

“Hmm, I assumed you
woul
’ do a better job than this. Well, tis still a pass
nonetheless. You ‘
ill
get better the more you do it.”

“Thank you, I really
did my best!” Not even faint remorse that I hardly put any effort in at all,
“Although I don’t really have much use for these herbs right now, I can’t do
anything productive with them.”

If I was to directly
consume one of the green medicinal herbs I would only recover a single health
point a second for ten seconds, and the antidote roots have a ten percent
chance of curing minor poisons.

“He
he
he
. ‘
Herbalism’ has many
great benefits t’ it that you
jus
’ need t’ explore.
You ca’ use them in cooking t’ give your food productive bonuses, or negative
depending on what you use.”

“Also, in regards
t
’ these herbs you’ve brought me. If you don’t know what
you ca’ do with them, instead of providing you wit’ some potions allow me
t
’ teach you how t’ create them instead.”

I would have preferred
the potions!

I can’t exactly
complain about the turnabout, I did get another skill for free, however I still
have somewhat of a sour taste in my mouth.

“So where can I buy these
empty vials?” If I have the skill I may as well use it.

“He
he
, why you can buy them here o’ course!
Five silver each.”

“Come again? That’s a
bit too expensive don’t you think!”

“
Cheapes
’
you will get ‘
em
,” The old lady’s grin deepened, the
aura of a predator exuding from her frail body, “
You
could always go find someone who knows how t’ blow glass otherwise, but you
can’t buy ‘
em
anywhere else.”

I give some serious
consideration to scavenging through the
bazaar,
there
should be without a doubt some player selling empty vials.

“Fine, I will buy
twenty.”

“That ‘
ill
be one gold coin, than’ you for your business!
he
he
”

“Considering I’m buying
in bulk, can I get some kind of discount or extra
vials.
”

“Twenty isn’t considered
as bulk, maybe two
hundr’d
if you’re interested.”

This old lady probably
couldn’t fight a troll, yet she knew how to truly murder a person’s finances.
Handing over one of my precious gold pieces, my inner self is conflicting over
whether or not to just simply grab the vials and run.

“Now
tha
’ you have the vials, you still can’t make anything, you
‘
ill
need
a
‘
ood
mortar and pestle!”

“Oh
no!
I had completely forgotten! Please one of those two!”

The aura of her killer
instinct got stronger in the room, thickening the atmosphere and making me
feel incredibly pressured.

“That ‘
ill
be
six gold” She even
managed to speak that as if she was daunted by the price.
Me
on the other hand could feel her hand around my heart draining me of my life.

“
Haah
..
There is no helping it.”
Handing over
more gold pieces, a bid farewell to the face of some noble or king that
was pressed onto them.

At least I received all
the equipment that I need to make use of the
skill,
it
was useless equipped if I didn’t use it. I need to make as much progress as
possible and start earning some proper money, apples generated a little bit of
income however it was hardly a considerable amount and I don’t know for how
long it would sustain me.

I also need to get more
skills so the church is my next stop. Secretly I hope I run into the guide
with a new player.

About a hundred
thousand people from my city played End Online, and the number just kept on
growing. Right now an astonishing one in ten people from the city of
Taile
play this game.

I climb the steps up to
the church and approach its front doors. It occurs to me that I don’t even
know how to purchase new skills. I simply know that it is done here.

The doors to the church
refuse to budge as I attempt to heave them open and even crash myself into
them, these doors must be a one way exit for the new and revived players.

Off to me left I spot
what appears to be an outdoor confessional box, a small wooden box with an
entrance on either side but only one of those was open. I enter inside and sit
down in the cramped space, as the voice of an elderly gentleman addresses me.

“Welcome adventurer, to
the place where you can define your destiny by yourself as you strive to become
stronger. Under the light of the sun goddess Verde, speak your name.”

“My name is...
Lost.”

There is a brief
pause on the other end, but the old man replies before I get a chance to ponder
it.

“I see... It appears to
be a name full of much wisdom.”

Wisdom?
What a perplexing word
he has attached to my name.

“As a
follower of the sun, a devotee of the Radiant Church.
Allow me to hear what
it is you wish for.”

He is really throwing
out some pretty words, and minced them together quite well. Being lost in
thought I take a moment before noticing the window that appeared in my view, a
full list of all basic skill I can purchase with my levels.

The amount of skills to
choose from was immense, scrolling down all the way to the bottom the must be
at least a few hundred.
Some more useful than others, like
various weapon type proficiencies, passive stat boosters, and crafting skills.
However there are apparently useless ones such as “‘Ghost Telemetry’ – The
ability to converse with ghosts” which while being incredibly tempting to have
for some fun, it is completely against my goals of making money.

I have learned even
more that it is very possible to learn skills from NPC’s, they react in
accordance to your words and have their own personalities compared to speaking
predetermined lines. How I would obtain something like ‘Ghost Telemetry’ from
them however was completely beyond me though.

My first goal is to be
able to attack from a
distance,
the best way to do
this would be either a bow or magic. If I choose a bow it would be quite
difficult and expensive to buy arrows or even make them, you need both
‘Smithing’ and ‘
Craftmanship
’ to make arrows and
using three skill slots just to effectively use a bow would be pointless.

Arrows also cannot be
retrieved, which threw a blanket over my temptation.

Magic also is not my
forte,
in all the previous games I played I could not bring
myself to be dependent on it. Not that I disliked it, I simply have difficulty
battling with it.

My eyes spot a
particular skill that I may be able to use for distance fighting.
Pressing on it, a pop up appeared in front of the skills list.

It should be a good skill
for me, and a thrown weapon is supposed to do more damage than a bow. Browsing
through the list what I need is skills related to speed and combat, which I
currently specialize in.

Choosing from the list,
I did go with two skills that should help my throw skill, ‘Smithing’, and
‘Mining’, but the rest were skills to make my speed build even stronger.