Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 (14 page)

I wanted to go back to Sir Kenyon and try to get our next quest but none of the others wanted to stay on for an extended period of time in case the quest was timed. At least this is what they all said, but really it was only Jason who was using this bit of logic. The reality for Dan and Wayne became clear just several minutes later.

“Good news is guys, now that we have 43.5 Silver, when we log back in we are going to really be able to fully gear up our characters!” I said excitedly.

“40 Silver bro,” Dan replied.

“3.5 Silver is a lot in this game so far TC, I don’t think we will need that much,” Wayne said after.

I was at a total loss as to what was going on between them, and it appeared Jason was as well. Thankfully, and not surprisingly at all, Dan clarified everything with his next sentence.

“TheClaw is getting wenches and wasted bro! We gonna need that money!” Dan said triumphantly.

“Wenches and wasted?” Wayne asked.

“I was going for alliteration. I thought it more PC than bitches and booze. I’m sensitive to these things,” Dan said with a dead pan expression.

“I’m actually totally in agreement with Dan here Wayne,” Jason said. Dan beamed to see Jason on his side. “I mean, he will probably need lots of money to get even virtual reality girls to pay him any attention.” And Dan stopped smiling.

“That was a totally low blow dude,” Dan said. “But a good one. I got no come back. Allister wins this round.”

We all laughed at that and even Jason gave a high five to Wayne. I was hesitant to separate with the money, but I had promised the guys they could go and carouse at the tavern. And it was their money. So with more than a little trepidation, I handed the Silver over to Wayne.

“Where’s mine bro?” Dan asked.

“Wayne will be with you. And I trust him to not make it rain copper pieces on the people in the tavern.” Dan’s hurt look couldn’t hide the fact that he was thinking of doing exactly that sort of thing.

“I only have one request guys,” I informed them. “I would appreciate it if you went in like the other level 4 and 5 players. I think we can farm that goblin camp for a while and I don’t want other people asking where we got the money for all the gear.”

They saw the wisdom in this and agreed. I whispered to Wayne to please watch out for Dan, and he just nodded his head once, but seriously. Wayne took his role as the protector of our group seriously, and at all times. Dan was just bouncing from foot to foot anxious to go.

Jason and I saw them off, with Dan pinpointing the location of the tavern on our maps, just in case we needed to find them quickly before logging out. Since none of us had Dan’s mapping skill, we couldn’t see the tavern on our maps yet.

As Wayne and Dan were leaving, Jason informed me that he was going to follow them as he wanted to explore some more of the city.

I waved at all three of them as they headed out and decided I would do some exploring of my own. There was an entire town to discover, and I figured the better I knew the layout of the land, the readier I would be to continue exploiting the player market. I factored in a few hours for exploration before I planned to log out, not to return till the next day when we all agreed to meet.

* * *

The gate to enter Port Town was situated in the west of the city, with the sea to the east. Most of the market and the areas we had explored were in the northern section of the town. So I decided I would check out the south, and try to map out the rest of the town, while the guys did more exploration of the north. Well, Jason would do more exploration. Wayne and Dan were just likely to get shit faced at the tavern.

After 15 minutes of walking in the southern area of the town, I saw why no one came down into this area. It was a seedy and dodgy area, and if Resurgence allowed NPCs inside the town to attack players, I would put money on it that I would have already been stabbed in the back a number of times over. The NPCs on the street gave me a wary eye as I made my way through along the main thorough fare. There were also numerous alley ways, dark and dingy. Hoping that none of the NPCs could attack me, I decided to go down an alley way or two, just to see what was down them.

It was while I was walking down the third of these alleys that a new NPC seemed to materialize out of the shadows. I hadn’t seen him before, but I was still quite a low level and he could have been hiding in the shadows. He was wearing an all-black cloak that came down to just below his knees. The hood on the cloak was up, and I could not make out the features of the man, save to say that he was likely human, given the beard I could see, or a really tall dwarf with a horribly short beard. I was going with human. The cloak was also slightly open around the waist and I could make out the glint of two beautiful daggers. I admired them longingly.

“Well look at what we have here. If it ain’t a baby rogue out for a stroll in The Wastes. Admiring my daggers are ya?” The man asked me.

“I am sir, but you can’t fault a man for admiring such quality. Even sheathed, I can see those are fine blades.” I replied, trying to earn some favor with the man. This could be a quest giver, and I didn’t want to miss out on an opportunity by lying to him or being rude.

“Aye lad, they are fine quality indeed,” he answered. “Got these off a beast in the Mason Mountains. Were originally its teeth. Yanked ‘em right out the beasty’s maw,” he further explained. “What brings a young lad like you into The Wastes?”

“I’ve seen what is up in the northern portion of town, and while I am happy to barter with a merchant, the area isn’t much to my liking,” I said, playing up the rogue character.

“Fancy yerself a bit of an adventurer then do ya? Don’t know that you would like the adventures you would find down here though lad, at least not without some back up.”

“For certain, allies are good to have,” I agreed, “but I am a rogue, although young as you noted. And if I am not being too forward, I would say you too are a rogue. We are meant for a more solitary life.”

The NPC laughed heartily, “Lad, you may be a “rogue” but your speech makes ya sound like a dandy. Ain’t a cutthroat in The Wastes that would be saying, ‘If I am not being too forward.’ That there would be the quickest way to get you gutted out here lad,” he said.

I was worried. I was afraid I may be losing the chance to win favor with this NPC and possibly getting a quest. I tried to think of how to approach this when thankfully he gave me the answer.

“But I’m kind of liking this gentleman rogue angle. No one would expect one of ours to be so uppity. Could get you into places others could not. But no matter what lad, you gonna need some training. You wouldn’t last a day in the real rogue world with what ya got now. But we don’t do that kind of thing here. That only happens in the Underground,” he explained very seriously.

“I would like to go to the Underground,” I say, hoping this will trigger the quest I think is coming.

He laughed again, “I’m sure you would lad! But not just anyone goes through them halls. You got to earn that right. And to earn it, you gots to find it!”

A golden light surrounded me, informing me that I had been given a quest.

I opened up my quest icon through the now routine focus and blink, and saw the quest:

Quest: Secrets of the Rogue

Rogue Only

So you want to be a rogue with the big boys, do ya? Not an easy task, and not for those without the skill to achieve it. In order to learn the secrets of the rogue, you must first make yer way to the Underground. Those with the knowledge of the Underground won
’
t give it up lightly. But I
’
m one a dem gracious men, and I will start you off on your journey with a bit of aid. Simon Temple knows of a door. He doesn
’
t know what the door is for or where it goes. Get the information and travel to that door. This is a solo and secret quest. Informing any other individuals will immediately make the quest null and void.

I didn’t know what to say. A rogue only secret quest that I couldn’t tell the guys. This was going to be rough. But I believed the reward was worth a little subterfuge on my part.

“What do I call you?” I asked

“You get me name the day you walk through that door lad. And ain’t no reason for ya to have anything else to call me, as you won’t be seeing me again until you do,” he replied.

“Well then I guess I will see you on the other side,” I replied.

He laughed again. And as he started walking away, disappearing into the shadows, he said, “Mighty lucky that you ran into me while I was out on this stroll lad, mighty lucky indeed.”

CHAPTER 13

August 11th, 2043

I noted three things as soon as I logged back in to Resurgence:

1. That singular ERROR message continued to pop up in my RAC just before I entered the game.

2. I was still logging in away from my log out point, although the distance between log out and log in point had shrunk again.

3. I still had the Chance error on my character and I guessed this was linked to that error message I kept getting before logging in.

I had already told the company about the problem, and they seemed to think everything was running to spec, so I had no plans of saying different. Yes, it was greedy of me. And I was ok with this.

Once I joined up with my team, I also saw that Dan looked wrecked. If I didn’t know any better, I would say he had a hangover.

“It’s so not cool man. Why would they do this? Why would they intentionally give players a hangover. The best part about VR is that you don’t get stuff like hangovers and STDs!”

“Stop Dan. Please, just stop. I realize your head hurts, but if you give me more ammunition than you already have, I will have no choice but to respond,” Jason said to Dan.

“Whatever, dude. Wasn’t my fault. My mom introduced us. Gotta trust your mom bro.”

“Trying…so hard…not to make a mom joke,” Jason said while looking like he was holding in a storm.

“Hell, I like this Allister. Dan you should get a hangover more often,” Wayne said while slapping Jason on the back. Which made him stumble a bit. Damn, if the game mechanics weren’t awesome.

“Let’s just go see Sir Kenyon and try to get our next quest guys,” I said.

We approached Sir Kenyon, excited to get the next part of our quest. So you can imagine how disappointed we were when he gave us the same line about needing to come back when we were more prepared. We sat down at the side of the fountain and tried to come up with our next steps. I had a number of ideas, but I had been hogging the “leadership” role for too long now. I knew the guys wanted me to just tell them what we were going to do, but I was content to wait them out.

“He’s doing it again,” Dan said while looking at me. “Jerk. Fine, I say I hit the forest and go as deep as I can.”

“That’s what your mom told me to do!” Jason suddenly blurted out. All heads turned to Jason. He had a look of total panic. Wayne and I were trying to hold in our laughter till we saw how Dan reacted.

It was Dan who laughed first though, as Jason looked like he was going to start blubbering out apologies. Dan’s laughter was so genuine, and so loud, that even Jason started to giggle.

“Dude! Seriously, without a doubt, that was the funniest thing you have ever said,” Dan said to Jason. “Would have been a little funnier if my mom wasn’t dead, but still funny.”

“Oh my god! Dan, I’m so sorry, I mean, I didn’t know, and your mom, and…oh my god man, please understand I…” Jason tried to apologize to Dan.

“Just fuckin with ya, she’s still kickin’,” Dan said. “And now we’re even. So what do you guys think of my idea?”

Jason looked at me. And his face said it all. “Please, please just let me kill him. Just once.”

* * *

We talked over our options for a bit, none of us agreeing to Dan’s idea. In the end even Dan didn’t agree to his own idea. Which, as we had come to learn, was pure Dan.

After all was said and done, Wayne came up with the best strategy. We would use the goblin camp as our base of operations. We would continue to farm the camp until all of us had collected one of the “Simple Rings of Might.” There was no class restriction on the ring, and we could all use a Strength, Constitution, and Armor freebie. After that we would venture out looking for other suitable places to set up our camp. After achieving level 6, I would return to the town and engage with Sir Kenyon, trying to get the quest. None of us knew what level we needed to be, but we were excited to do some more exploring of the surrounding area. And I was keeping an eye out for Simon Temple.

We also decided to hold off on buying any more gear until we reached level 6. Before venturing out into the woods we stopped by the same merchant who had sold us Jason’s spells originally, and who had given us the quest that led us to the goblin camp. We wanted to see just how much Jason’s and Dan’s new spells were going to cost us.

Dan was going to get three spells at level 6, and Jason was going to get

five. Dan would get his snare, a self only agility boost, and a self only armor boost. All very good for our puller. Jason was going to get a better heal, a better group armor buff, sense undead, resist poison buff, and resist disease buff. The merchant was hesitant at first to show us these new spells, but after a few moments he said, “Now normally, I don’t show these spells to folks until they can actually use them. But since you boys helped me out, I will show you what you have in store. Again, these prices are non-negotiable,” he said while looking right at me and winking. And the spells were not cheap. Jason’s improved heal and armor buff would cost us 10 Silver for each, as would Dan’s snare. The other five spells would be 5 Silver each. In total we were looking at spending 55 Silver for all of the spells. We were currently 15 silver short.

We decided after the conversation with the merchant that our best option would be to continue farming the boss at the goblin camp even after we all had rings. I figured I could easily sell them for 10 silver each, and after a couple of successful sells we would have enough to pay for all the spells with what we already had. The guys weren’t looking forward to farming for items again, but I assured them this time we would only attack the camp when the boss spawned. This was twice a day.