Resurgence: The Rise of Resurgence Book 1 (15 page)

We worried at first that other groups might stumble onto the camp and we would lose our potential cash cow. But it seemed the only people who could access the area were those that had been given the quest. This became clear when we were sitting near the camp and another group ran right past us and the camp. The mobs didn’t aggro them, and they didn’t seem to notice the camp at all. This was an interesting and potentially beneficial aspect of the game. It also would make it impossible to find some places unless we were given the quest to do so.

During all of the time we were out there killing mobs, we only had one catastrophe. While Dan was trying to bring two mobs to our camp site he ended up pulling four. Normally, Dan would just run them around, trying to lose the aggro, or at the worst, die far enough away from the party so only he had to collect his body. However, during this particular event Dan ran all of them right at us and, while blabbering incoherently, logged off.

None of us had any idea what had happened, but we quickly were slaughtered by the mobs. Each of us was ready to kill Dan when he logged back in. But before we could say anything to him when he finally came back on twenty minutes later, Dan was apologizing profusely.

“I am so so sorry guys. I had to log out super quick. I just…had to,” Dan said.

“There is literally no excuse you can give me right now Dan that is going to make me forgive you for what you just did,” Jason said, looking very angry at Dan. There was so much disappointment in his face and his words that I had no idea what Dan thought he could say to make things right with Jason.

“I just spent the last twenty minutes going number 1 out my number 2-hole bro. Never trust a taco truck that isn’t being run by Latinos man!” Dan exclaimed.

Ok, that might have been the one thing we could all understand. Who hadn’t been on the receiving end of some bad carne asada?

It took us three days to level up to 6. We all got our
Simple Rings of Might
as well as an additional four to sell. With the loot we had collected we had accumulated another 8 Silver, and with the four rings we would be able to get all of our level 6 spells and Wayne and I could buy our first special abilities. Unlike with Dan and Jason who had to pay money to a merchant, Wayne and I would just see our money disappear into the ether. We learned this when Wayne tried to activate his new Bash skill and found that he had to pay 5 silver to activate it. It was 5 silver for each of my skills as well.

The Bash skill would allow Wayne to smack the mob upside the head, really pissing it off. If the Bash was extremely successful, it would also Stun the enemy for one second. Between the natural aggression created by the bitch slap and the stun, Wayne would easily be able to grab aggro off of Dan. As the level of the Bash went up, the chance for Stuns became more likely.

I was looking at getting the bread and butter of all rogues. Conceal and Stealth. With a successful attempt in Conceal, my character would be effectively invisible against almost all players, NPCs, and mobs. This was negated if another had the ability to see through invisibility. But very few mobs had this trait inherently, and certainly none at our low levels. No players had this ability unless they owned a magic item with this trait, or had consumed a special potion that gave them this ability. As our group had progressed faster than any other group I had seen, and we had yet to find any magic items other than the
Simple Ring of Might,
I was not concerned that any players would be able to see me. But if I moved, I would lose my Conceal.

With a successful Stealth try, I was able to move past mobs, players, and NPCs silently. Of course if they were looking right at me, the whole being Stealthy went right out the window. And this is where the true value of the skills came into play. If a character first hid themselves successfully, and then also became stealthy, they could effectively move without anyone hearing them and totally invisible. The only problem was that at low levels, a player with Conceal and Stealth moved very very slow. In other games where skills like this were present, characters moved at only 25% of their normal speed to start. Given that Resurgence was following the game play of many other games, I figured this would be the case as well. As the skills went up, so would the movement speed.

After applying their skill points for level 6, everyone but myself logged off. I decided to stay on and sell the four rings I had so we could start the next day ready to use all of our skills and spells. I held off on talking to Sir Kenyon until after the guys logged back on.

I made the announcement in the square, “
Simple Ring of Might (linked)
for sell, 10 Silver. First to message me in a Private Message (PM) with the 10 Silver linked will get priority.”

Immediately my interface was full with incoming messages. Many of them were asking where I got the item. I closed these without responding. Five serious players linked me the 10 silver from their account and said they were interested. All of them were warriors, not surprisingly.

I took all of them in order. The first to offer was the first to get a ring. It continued this way until I got to the fourth. I informed the fifth warrior that he would not get a ring on this occasion, but would get one first, and at the same price, when I had another. He abandoned the private messages and said in front of everyone, “I will give you 15 Silver for that ring.”

The warrior who was fourth in line said, “Well, I’m out then. I only have 13 silver.”

“I am sorry, but I didn’t announce the price was negotiable, and that the first to message would have priority. I will keep to my word, both to the people in this square and the message I sent you previously,” I said.

The fifth Warrior looked angry at first, but then seemed to calm down, “Well I’ll be damn, the first honest merchant I’ve ever met. I like your style Alex. You get another ring and I’ll have your money.” Everyone else around us were nodding their heads. A trustworthy and fair player merchant was rare. Most would jump at the chance to fleece a few more copper out of their customers. But I had spent years building my reputation on other games as a seller, and I was going to use the same model here.

I now had the money for us to buy all of our spells and skills. Starting the next day, we had every intention to start wrecking shit in Resurgence.

* * *

August 12th, 2043

And yet again we were turned down by Sir Kenyon. We were really starting to hate that bloody NPC. With no other plans, we decided to go back to our previous plan of hunting in the forest and killing the boss at the goblin camp when we could. We ended up facing Rabid Wolves, Dire Rats, Angry Boars, and one Black Bear that almost ate all our lunches. Thankfully, Dan only pulled that one bear, because we definitely were out classed.

Dan was a natural with his snare and bow. I definitely had a new found respect for Dan’s ability as a puller. And with Wayne’s Bash, he never lost aggro on a mob. We were moving along quite nicely, going from one mob to the next.

As noted previously, our new skills were progressing as we used them. Wayne’s went up faster than mine since he was constantly using Bash in his fights. I could only practice my Conceal and Stealth between fights. And like I thought, when I did finally get a successful Conceal and Stealth I moved so slow you would have thought I was going backwards. But I was happy to see the mechanics were in place to now allow me to move freely throughout the game, if at only a snail’s pace.

During down time between fights we also learned more about each other. You would think with all the time we spent prior to the Beta’s release we would have learned more about one another, but we spent most of the time answering questions or taking tests for AltCon. The one time I really got insight into each person was when we were building our characters.

It turned out that Wayne was the head of security for a night club that we all knew, but none of us could ever get into. His boss was not happy when he heard that Wayne would be taking a year off work so he could play a video game. The boss threatened to black list Wayne from ever working in a night club again after that. Apparently, AltCon came through and made a call to Wayne’s manager. Wayne never knew what was said, but his boss told him his job would be waiting for him when he returned.

Dan told us that he was independently wealthy. When Jason asked how he got that way, Dan replied, “It’s called independent bro. So you don’t talk about it, duh!”

“Dan, you are aware, aren’t you, that independent does mean that at all?” Jason asked.

Dan just looked over at Wayne and shook his head sadly. “It’s so heartbreaking when the youth these days just don’t get a proper education.” Even Wayne slapped his forehead at this one.

Turned out that Jason was an interior decorator, and quite successful at it. He had to insist on a larger stipend from AltCon if he was going to play the game full time, and it appeared they capitulated. All of us, except for Dan, who was wealthy, were earning on par exactly what we made the previous year through our work.

“So how difficult is it to work with that RAC in your house Allister?” I asked.

“It’s bloody horrible! It goes with nothing Alex. Nothing! Although I know these things are going to take off because AltCon is a wonderful company, and I’m going to tell everyone to buy one. So I am going to start looking at how to put them into a motif that doesn’t just scream obtrusive like they do now.”

I was a little shocked to hear Jason praising AltCon. None of us have any attachment to the company, but Jason spoke with such adoration, you would think he had been with the company for decades and they had paid for his mother’s hip replacement. Not that I know if Jason’s mother had a hip replacement.

The guys all knew that I was a professional seller online. We broached the topic when I was convincing them to farm the venomous sacks all that time ago. Some people looked down on this type of business, as minors playing the game would steal their parent’s credit cards to purchase items in game. But I always checked to make sure the company that owned the game had done all their verifications before I completed the sell.

Did this stop minors from using their parent’s credit cards? Nope. It just kept me legally clear so I didn’t have to give the money back. Maybe if those parents spent more time with their kids they wouldn’t go and steal their credit cards. Or if the parents spanked them more. The jury is still out in my mind as to which is a better solution. But whenever I see a kid throwing a tantrum, destroying property, and throwing things around, and the parent saying how that makes them feel sad when the kid acts that way, then yeah, I definitely question the lack of ass whoopings kids are getting today.

For the next week, we continued to hunt and level. We were having a complete and total blast. We explored new areas, got new skills, new armor, and at level 10 there were new spells. We died a few times, but with no experience penalty for dying we weren’t worried about it at all. We played the game, and we really enjoyed it.

We also collected 10 more of the rings. The first I sold for 10 Silver like agreed. The remainder I opened for negotiations. The prices ranged from 10-15 Silver as I expected they would. Between the rings, the money we collected off of mobs, and the junk items that we found on mobs, we were able to raise 150 silver, or 1 Gold 50 silver. This was the first time any of us had seen a Gold piece, but I believed we would be seeing many more in the future and vetoed Dan’s idea to keep it and try to frame it as our First Gold.

With the money we were able to buy Dan’s and Jason’s new spells, of which each got three. Wayne and I also got new skills as well.

Jason’s new spells included Resistance to Fire/Earth, Air/Water, and a Gate spell. Gate would allow Jason to teleport back to his bind point. In this case, the town square in Port Town. The casting time was 10 seconds long, so this wasn’t the type of thing that Jason could use if he were being attacked by a mob. But it would allow Jason to travel back to town quickly if he needed to get components for spells. This wasn’t an issue right now, as all of Jason’s spells only required mana, but I believed in the future there would be other items that would be necessary for casting spells. Only time would tell.

At level 10, Dan got a minor healing spell that was basically effective enough just to heal himself if he took damage during a pull. He also got a self-buff that added +10 to his archery skill, which would go up as he leveled. Finally, the greatest spell Dan got was his ability to summon a light source. On more occasions than any of us wanted to count, Wayne had fallen flat on his face due to his inability to see in the dark. We all learned a number of interesting curse words because of this.

The spells in total were 50 Silver. Which left us with 1 Gold to outfit our characters with new gear. And we used almost every copper.

At the end of our shopping spree, everyone was armored, head to toe. Each character had the following armor: