End Online: Volume 1 (17 page)

I was an impressive
level 72 and even managed to unlock a blue bordered, unique class skill.

The class skill of the
thief was incredibly useful, being able to slip out of sight without anybody noticing
was the best skill a thief can have. It also cost nothing and could be used as
much as I like. The knight class skill was only of ordinary rarity and
didn’t even have any bonuses.

A while into the game I
met an incredibly strange man. He called himself Sir Laurence, quite a
tall man. He had this wavy golden hair and equipped a full set of highly
polished steel heavy armour, long sword, and a large steel kite shield.

I can’t remember when
he started following me around, but he seemed to treat me like some kind of
princess, fending off any people that got too close. He was a massive pain, but
at the same time being a thief I was on the low end for defence and not only
was he was well equipped but also prepared to take every blow that came my
way, so I didn’t say anything.

I kept stealing his
pouches of gold at first, but after his embarrassing, “Heroes don’t need gold,”
I couldn’t bring myself to keep doing it.

Another interesting
person I met was a stranger in the player’s market, or the bazaar as some
people call it. Just standing there looking around like he was completely lost,
but what caught my eye was his curious cloak covered in pure white fur,
naturally it should be made out of some luxurious animal pelt. But most
noticeable was the shadow that seemed to drop from the hood and completely
hid his face.

Naturally I wanted to
steal such an amazing item, as soon as I walked behind him I imagined in my
mind nobody being capable of seeing me and silently caused the gazes of
everyone to gaze anywhere but where I was. Standing behind the player I
attempted to remove the cloak, unfortunately for me it was not something
permitted to be stolen.

After that failure I
wanted to kill him until he dropped it. Players will always drop their pouch,
or pouches depending if the person had more, of gold upon death, but there was
only a ten percent chance to drop one random equipped item.

I used a considerably
powerful analyse scroll on him costing fifty gold but for some reason
everything from his name to his reserve skills only showed question marks,
like the magic could not detect who he was or his skills. A little afraid of
how powerful he or this cloak was I decided not to risk it.

After that I lost him,
I had no clue where he went.

Sir Laurence accompanied
me south of the city every time I left and we fought various monsters such
as goblins, kobolds, even frost trolls. It was about a month after that I
started seeing the man in the cloak again.

I remember Sir Laurence
was scratching his head at one point after hearing him speak in the people’s
market one time. He reckoned he’d heard the voice before but he couldn’t
remember exactly where it was, a pity considering the more I know about him the
better.

It got to the point
where I started following him when he went outside of town. I had told Laurence
to stay behind considering my skill could only hide me.

However this guy seemed
to be able to sense me watching him, either that or he was extremely paranoid
as he kept checking behind his back as if he was looking for someone.

Every time he left it
was always to the east of the Iceridge, a place not many people travelled as it
was considered to be colder out in that direction, where spending a long period
of time in that kind of weather could cause you to contract a cold and have
your abilities reduced.

Still I started
following him out the east gate. But then I had another problem, this person
only walked in the city but once he was outside he broke into a run. Normally
this would not be a worry, I have a rather high agility stat and even a bonus
of fifteen extra points from my class skill, not many people could out run
me.
At least, not to any great extent.

But this guy! Ducking
his head a little, leaning forward, he took off like a cannonball. Apart from
kicking up small piles of snow with each bound, he almost seemed to fly
over the snow. I was forced to spend a full week camping out at certain spots
to watch him each time and locate where he was going.

From my hiding spots I
witnessed a few of his battles. He would run around and taunt a large number of
wolves with some unknown skill, then double back to attack. Running through the
pack he wielded two single edged short swords to rapidly slash left and right,
much like my sacred art ‘Flurry’.

His attacks however are
amazing, one slash killing one wolf. Strength is used to wield larger weapons
and deal more damage, if you have double the strength required to wield a
weapon, you will be capable of dealing maximum damage with it, or in the case
of a two handed weapon you can also wield it in one hand.

But the faster you are and the faster you
attack you can ignore portions of an opponent’s armour, naturally you need a
high dexterity to be able to control this but against heavy armoured opponents
it was the best possible choice. With his incredible speed must be completely
ignoring the wolves defences. ‘
Are you above level 100 or
something?! If so why are you in an area as weak as this?’

I can imagine they will
be quite good weapons in that case, they look plain but looks can be deceiving.
I finally tracked him to a hidden cave at the base of the
far
east mountains
, I was quite possibly the second person to ever be here.
This brings me up to the present.

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

I creep in through the
entrance to the cave and I instantly start to feel warmer, this place must be
completely isolated from the outside weather. I can hear some wolves dying in
the distant corners of the cave where the player with the white cloak must be,
although despite the nice temperature in here I can’t imagine why he would come
here just to hunt wolves.

I hurry down the
tunnels towards where I can hear him. Occasionally I take a wrong turn, but
this cave is quite linear and the wrong turns end up abruptly in dead
ends. Five minutes of quickly dashing down another tunnel I approach the
player I have been trying to follow all this time.

He enters a
well lit
cavern at the end of the tunnel, a little
concerned about losing sight of him again, I hastily follow behind.

Entering the cavern my
breath is taken away from me. I even lose focus and stop my skill to
‘Hide’ seeing the sight. A luscious green grass covers the entire floor,
dirt showing through in some spots. Considering the trees that begin only ten
meters away and the fresh air, the inside of this cavern is in
spring. A place like this should not exist in this area, it is uncanny.

Restarting my ‘Hide’
skill I travel under the trees towards the centre of the cavern. I start
sweating and feel a chilling terror at the sight in front of me. The cloaked
player is standing off against a wolf with fur extremely similar
to his cloak. Only this wolf stands nearly three full meters tall, and is
at least five meters long, as majestic and beautiful as it was, what a monster!

The man in the hooded cloak wasn’t too
bothered. He put down a few items on the ground next to a tree and…

‘
What has he just done?!?’ 
He
placed down his money pouch and his weapons on the ground. Why would he
approach that monster without any weapons?!

I watch and start to believe even less, the two
of them start having a brawl. The wolf is extremely fast, a few of its strikes
are simply a blur, but the cloaked man dodges each and every one of them. I see
his fist connect with the wolf a couple of times but unlike the wolf, it looks
like speed and probably dexterity is the only thing he has.

A few ice bolts come
from the wolf but still the man manages to dodge them, retreating back into the
forest with the wolf hot on his tail. This guy cannot possibly win such a
fight, especially without his weapons. He is doomed to die.

Regaining my senses I
realize his money and weapons are still on the ground near me, and he is
nowhere to be seen, I can hear them in the distance but I can’t see anything.
I sneak over to the stash he left and quickly inspect it.

‘Trash,’ 
that’s my first
impression of the weapons.
they
are extremely low
level and worthless even brand now. The pouch also only had
thirteen
gold
, he was poor too!

Well he won’t be
needing them in the afterlife so I may as well help myself, stuffing
the weapons in my inventory and attaching the pouch onto my
belt I don’t even feel a shred of remorse, people should be more aware of
their belongings after all.

With the deed done I
slip out of the cavern and start walking back to Iceridge.

I spend my
nights in a tavern usually. I have a thing for sleeping in the game for
some reason or another. Tonight is no different, and deciding to break in my
new wallet I use a little of the money I had just acquired. The top floor of
this particular inn was a massive two gold per night, compared to a standard
room being thirty silver a night.