End Online: Volume 3 (22 page)

All of a
sudden, I stop in my footsteps. Before me is a massive wall of wood. Not the
kind like a man made wall of timber planks or logs. But almost as if the wood
grew from the ground like a tree. It is even covered with bark like a tree. It
stretched beyond my already near eyesight and disappeared into the fog. I could
see the top clearly though, instead of foliage, it ended abruptly in a flat
line.

"I
believe we could have arrived at Eltreant." I say softly to the others.

"HEY!
WHO'S DOWN THERE?" A thunderous shout comes from the top of the wall as a
shabby looking man in worn leather armour pokes his head over the edge of the
wall.

"THEY
MUST BE THE ONES WHO HAVE BEEN KILLING THE SCOUTS! MEN, KILL THEM."

As his
shout dies down, a gate not too far away in the fog creaks opens and a full
copse of thirty bandits come rushing forth. At least, it sounded like thirty
bandits based off the footsteps I can hear. I can't actually see them yet
though thanks to the fog.

"We
need to retreat, quickly! There are too many of them." 
I call out to the others through the party chat.

We all
hasten our way into the trees behind us, a few arrows falling from the top of
the wall land where we were only moments ago.

Ten
minutes pass before we are confident enough to stop fleeing.

"I
hope they aren't still following us." Mason whispers to the group, clearly
aware of how dangerous that many bandits can be.

"I
think we are safe for a while," I reply to him, "But, I think that
they will probably split up into smaller groups like we fought earlier in order
to search for us."

"Let's
go back to Grenton." he lets out a resounding sigh. "Even I know when
something is impossible. We need to recruit an army of players to siege the
walls. Otherwise, we are pointlessly wasting our time here."

Not just
me, but everyone else is silent as well. He is completely right, there is no
way for us to break through the wall. I ponder the issue while everyone starts
getting ready to leave. Everyone gives off a gloomy atmosphere, but Shai'en is
clearly the most depressed.

'Wait.
Hang on! If we can't go through and we can't go over, we will just have to-'

"Go
under!" I call out verbally, no longer simply thinking in my mind.

"Huh,
what?" Mason arches his eyebrows in curiosity.

"No
need to leave just yet." I laugh slowly under my breath, "We are
going to go under the wall!"

Everyone
stares at me, looks of indifference on their face. One by one they exchange
glances and gently shrug their shoulders.

"I'm...
coming." Fen says in a non-caring voice while leaning her body onto my
back.

'What is
with you guys! Can't you look a little happier at my great idea!? Look at
Shai'en. She is nearly in tears of joy over there. The least you could pretend
to be enthusiastic!'

We all
walk back towards the city wall while I cry out complaints in my mind.

"Speaking
of which? How are we going to travel under the wall. I don't know of any skills
that give the abilities of a mole."

"Oh,
but there is a skill to do just that."

Once I
estimate us to be about a hundred meters away from the wall, I pull out an iron
pick that had been in my inventory so long I thought it was going to collect
rust.

Mason
laughs and nods his head when he sees what is in my hands.

"Of course!
That could work! Lost, what is your skill level in mining?"

"...One"

"...What?"

The
hearty expression Mason had suddenly disappears from his face.

"Don't
worry too much. We are only tunnelling through dirt so it shouldn't take too
long."

Despite
my reassuring words, he still doesn't look like he has much faith in me.

I take
the first swing with the pick, digging the end into the ground. As soon as the
pick lands in the ground, a notification appears in front of me.

Silently
cursing, I ignore the pain in my body as I continue swinging the pick. The head
of the pick was unfortunately not wide enough to effectively scoop out the dirt
as I dig, so Mason and Matrix use their hand to dig out the loose dirt with
buckets and deposit them outside the slowly forming hole.

I ensure
I dig in a diagonal direction down, so that we can all easily get in and out as
need be. I spend an entire day digging, but the progress is extremely slow. I
only manage to extend the tunnel by ten meters. I did however raise my skill in
mining to level 4 which is a benefit.

Looking
through my inventory, I realize I don't have enough medicinal herbs to keep
going at this rate.

The
second day I make it a further twelve meters. My pick had dropped to 50 percent
durability, but that was partially due to me mining out a small amount of iron
ore that I came across.

The third
day I dug through fourteen meters, finally digging a third of the distance
towards the wall. I was running low on herbs so I spent this day not using any
and simply waited for my health to naturally recover whenever it fell below ten
percent.

I found
it incredibly surprising, that by exhausting my body through mining until it
nearly collapsed caused my mining skill to gain proficiency twice as fast as it
had previously. After the third full day of mining, my 'Mining' skill reached
level 9, my tunnelling speed was only reduced by sixty percent, and I only lost
6HP for every swing of the pick.

The
fourth day however, the pick broke.

"Damn
it." I cry out. "We didn't even get halfway!"

Everyone
else also has dejected looks, starting to doubt my plan.

"Don't
worry too much." I try to to reassure everyone. "We can still keep on
going. Everyone, we need to go collect some loose wood from the forest."

While
they all silently stare at me, I bring out the furnace from my inventory and
indicate towards it.

half an
hour later I am at the entrance to the tunnel staring at the furnace with no
firewood. No matter where we looked there was no loose wood on the forest
floor, and none of us had the 'Logging' skill to chop down one of the trees and
turn it into timber.

A spark
of insight flashes across my mind.

"Minor
dire flame!" I call and form that malicious fireball in my hand.

All
around me, apart from Fen, is filled with the scene of everyone's face
darkening.

"What?!"
I call out to the accusing looks, throwing the flame into the furnace.

The
fireball splashes as it hits the base of the furnace cavity, lighting up the
small interior in a deep crimson.

Placing
pieces of iron ore into a small container made of the same type of stone as the
furnace, I grab the cup and place it inside the furnace on a small rack above
the flames. I wonder to myself how long the process will be for melting the
iron as I close the small, tempered glass door.

The
flames slowly lick the stone container, and cause its contents to start glowing
the red of molten metal.

Removing
the stone cup now full of molten metal, I pour it into a readily prepared
pickaxe head mould I bought not too long after I got the furnace. I also have a
standard longsword blade and axe head mould as well.

Once the
mould is full of the molten metal, I swing a mid sized hammer down on it. With
every swing of the hammer, the metal seems to become somewhat cooler and slowly
starts to take the correct shape of a pickaxe head.

'Apparently,
if you get your 'Smithing' skill above level 20, you can use a special tool to
carve out your own moulds.' 
I lose
myself in thought and don't even realize the fully formed pickaxe head in front
of me.

With the
head formed, a handle for it is required. Due to having a personal lack of the
'Wood Crafting' skill, I have Mason go and procure one from a broken branch on
the ground.

"Interesting
how we find wood now when there was nothing in the area not too long ago."
Mason states while watching me finally put the pickaxe together.

"It
is. And it looks like we will need to get more and make a few more
pickaxes." I sigh while looking at the item window for the pick in front
of me.

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

I spent
the next four days going between digging and forging more pickaxes. As a
result, not only did my 'Mining' reach level 14 and 'Smithing' level 9, but the
tunnel finally passed the wall of Eltreant and entered the city perimeter.

"About
time!" Mason cries out, nearly in tears. "We have been in this tunnel
for the past three days... And I'm not talking about three days in the
game!"

The
tunnel took a grand total of eight days time in the game, just eight hours
short of three full days outside the game.

"How
was I supposed to know exactly how long it was going to take?!" I complain
back at him.

"There
was also the difficulty of getting through those tree roots under the wall and
the, umm, multiple collapses in the tunnel were hard too." Matrix adds
bashfully from the side.

Decided
that no further words were needed, I start digging in an upward slope. Large
chunks of dirt come off the wall with every swing. The speed in which I can now
dig is incomparable to when I first started. As my forged pickaxes are now of
an ordinary quality and my mining skill has increased a lot, I can dig at a
much greater speed.

Another
half a day passes of Mason's dark mood when I finally broke out to the surface.
The roof of the tunnel slowly crumbles like sand and the interior of a
reasonably large residence is revealed.

Every
piece of furniture in the place is overturned and all the loose items have been
thrown everywhere. The evening sun shines through a few windows around the
room, the soft golden rays of light reflecting all the dust floating in the
air. Outside the windows we can also see countless bandits all around, they are
gambling in the street, climbing on top of some of the other residences while
making fools of themselves, and others simply patrolling.

"Lucky,
I was worried about coming out in the middle of a group of bandits." I
breathed under my breath, but still loud enough that the others hear.

"Shouldn't
you have told us that before?" Mason says in a cold tone.

"I
didn't want you to worry." I speak in all honestly.

"The
rest of us still could have waited a little further back..."

"But
if we are all together there is a better chance of us all escaping. I don't
want to be a sacrifice."

"Fine."
Mason kneads his eyebrows in displeasure.

We all
look around the room for anything valuable despite Shai'en's complaints. We may
be here to help her, but we still are only doing it for ourselves in the end.

While
avoiding the windows, we finding nothing but chipped and broken clay plates,
bowls and utensils. We regroup in the center of the house, confused as to what
to do next.

"Now
what?" Matrix asks, looking away from me while talking, "We have to
go outside. But, umm, those bandits must be everywhere."

"No,
there are probably tens of thousands of them. While not being comparable to one
of the three capitals, this is a big city. So far we have seen a few hundred
bandits pass by just outside this window." I say while shaking my head.

"Well
how should we do this? Are you going to scare them out? We need an army!"
Mason utters coldly.

'Sheesh.
This guy! Is he still in a foul mood?!' 
I complain
in my head.

I fall
deep in thought while the light in the room begins to fade. I run through every
possible scenario in my mind and no matter what I think, it all ends in
failure.

'Rush
outside and go wild attacking every bandit. Ridiculous and doomed to fail.'

'Sneak
out at night and kill a few at a time. Guerilla tactics are good and all, but
we will be here for the next year if we do that. And that is given that we
don't die during that time.'

'Go back
to Grenton and recruit an army of players. We are full time gamers here, trying
to make a living. We need to try get in front of the other players and can't be
giving out our rewards to everyone else.'