The Bathrobe Knight (16 page)

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Race: Unknown

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EXP until next Level: 92110

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Rank: Captain of Valcrest

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Total EXP: 1184665

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Soul Charges: 13

    Passive Skills:

• Soul Sever
  (Level 1)--Killing enemies grants one charge. Killing enemy players grants ten charges. If an enemy player is killed the enemy player will lose one level.
  
• Soul Collector
  (Level 1)--Allows the user to hold up to 50 soul charges.
  

    Active Skills:

• Soul Eater
  (Level 1)--Temporarily consume all soul charges (a minimum of 30 soul charges is required) to fully restore hit points. Grants user +25% all stats for 180 seconds.
  May only be used once per hour.
  
• Soul Forge
  (Level 1)--May use soul charges to level NPCs (requires new level in soul charges, example: To level an NPC from 29 to 30 it will require 30 soul charges). Requires physical contact or alter contact to use.
  

    Racial Skill:

• Demonic Command
  - May recruit fatally wounded monster NPCs (may only recruit monsters of or below the user’s level. The number that can be recruited is dependent on the Rank of the user).
  

If Darwin hadn’t been so absorbed in his own thoughts, he would have noticed that something was wrong sooner. He would have caught the obvious signs; the pillars of smoke rising from the village, the empty fields devoid of farmers, the barren roads with no NPC traders and, worst of all, the silence. There were no Guards to interrupt his meandering into town. There were no people to break his train of thought as his feet carried him to the place he was, after just a day or two, already starting to call home. There was nothing to prepare or warn him for the sight of Captain Elmont lying bloodied where the door to the tavern used to be.

“Darwin, it’s you,” Elmont coughed, one of the other NPCs attending him where he had been cut down. “You made it back.”

Darwin shook himself out of one shock only to fall victim to another. “What happened? Old man, what happened to you?” he asked, staring blankly at the Captain lying before him, covered up almost all the way with a bedsheet like he was already dead.

“It was that black-Armored group. They came through the town. Darwin . . . don’t . . . don’t go in there. The bartender and his son are dead inside. I did my best to defend them, but they were after the Coin set aside for the King’s taxes.”

They don’t belong here. They are a pestilence on creation.
His sister’s thoughts echoed in his head.
They, who have no understanding of death in our world, will rip apart the fabric of our society.

Darwin cleared his thoughts. She didn’t know what she was talking about. This type of thing wasn’t a common occurrence for gamers. It was only a PK Guild that would do this. On Emerald Gardens, there were a few prominent PK Guilds, but they didn’t make up everyone. Two of the PK Guilds, Grumpy Cat Wants You Dead and DontCCmyDrink, had done a lot of stuff like this or things like joining a raid group without their Guild’s tag and yelling the infamous ‘LEEERROOOYYY JENKINS!’ right before a group would attempt the final Boss of a three hour dungeon. Other than Guilds like that though, most Guilds were full of people who honestly liked to make their NPC world better.

Darwin pulled himself out of his thoughts again and back to the Captain. “Elmont, before you die, I have something that I really need to say . . . I finished the quest.”

Elmont looked at Darwin and gave a chuckle, coughing up blood as he did it. “Is that really what you have to say boy? Out with it. I know that look. I don’t have much longer no matter what that healer says.”

“I’ll do what needs to be done, Elmont. I’ll save those that are left,” Darwin said, knowing he didn’t have to say it at all.

“No promises of revenge then? You’re better than I thought you were, boy. Here, the bastards who did this didn’t manage to find this on me. Take it, and it’s kind of short notice, but I need a favor of you. I need you to take my Rank. Between the 8th Legion’s death and this, there aren’t any Captains left in Valcrest. Take my Rank and rebuild.” Darwin saw him struggle with each breath to finish his thought. For some reason, even though they had only known each other for a day or two at most, Darwin felt like he had known Elmont his whole life. Like Elmont was a big brother.

“Elmont, it’s okay. You can rest. I got it from here,” Darwin said, kneeling beside him and taking the last gifts he had left behind. It looked like he wasn’t going to get his quest completion.

• You have received the Captain’s Emblem
  
• You have been offered the position Captain of Valcrest. Do you wish to
  Accept
  or
  Reject
  ?
  

Accept. You bastard, I just got a promotion and now I don’t have a drinking buddy to celebrate it with.
“Thanks, Darwin, I think I’ll take you up on that offer,” Elmont said, passing away as quietly as a man closing his eyes for a nap.

Darwin brought up the Captain’s Emblem from his inventory to inspect it.
Captain’s Emblem: when carried, raises the level of all NPCs commanded by +5. All nearby allied players will receive +5% to all stats.
Darwin blinked as he read out the properties.
First the Class, then the Rank, then this item. The game really is putting the pressure on me to be a commander.

   
Tiqpa Character Screen.

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Name: Darwin

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Job Class: Soul Knight

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Level: 31

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Race: Unknown

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EXP until next Level: 92110

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Rank: Captain of Valcrest

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Total EXP: 1184665

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Soul Charges: 13

Rank: Captain of Valcrest.
Darwin had heard in the tavern enough to know what the Rank Captain meant. It was a tier three Rank, meaning he could now recruit up to a hundred NPCs for whatever objective he had in mind, and promote two of them to the Rank First Lieutenant and ten of them to the Rank Second Lieutenant under him. The point of the promotions within the Ranks was to make sure he didn’t have to micromanage all one hundred NPCs, as each second and first lieutenant could command nine or forty-nine NPCs respectively. Not that any of this would do him any good considering the entire town had just been wiped out and there probably weren’t any good NPCs to recruit from.

As he walked through the town of charred and dead NPCs, he couldn’t help but remember the bonds he had made with each of them. They hadn’t been long or in-depth connections, and Darwin felt as if he was forcing himself to feel sad. However, whether or not it was forced, the feeling was there. These NPCs, these people, had somehow managed to live richer and fuller lives with more emotion than he had ever enjoyed playing games every free hour of the day with guildmates that didn’t even know his name nor he theirs.

The bartender had a son, a wife, a family and patrons that relied on him. Now he was charred meat for the crows. Elmont had spent his entire life without a family, but he guarded the city and probably knew every soldier’s name and family. Now he was dead on the streets.
They don’t care about the people of this land, only the things they can take from them.
Her voice rang through his head again.
Was she right? How can they see lines of code as anything real or significant? I didn’t until I got stuck here. They were just quest givers and item droppers.

As he walked further towards the fountain, the binding spot for Valcrest, he saw more and more burned and destroyed homes and NPCs.
God, this is terrible. What was the difference between them, me and Kass? Are the people’s emotions real or just a series of reactions programmed to simulate the appearance of emotions?

“Sir, what would you like us to do?” a voice interrupted his contemplations.

“Umm, excuse me? Can I help you?” Darwin responded, looking at the soldier who was questioning him. He was a young recruit, even younger than Kass. He had a clean buzz cut, a Spear, and the standard issued Chainmail Armor every Guard in the town was wearing.

“Yes, sir. I’m reporting for duty. You are the current Captain of Valcrest, no?” he asked.

“I guess I am.”
What? How many jobs did I get with one promotion? At this rate, I’ll go from the Bathrobe Knight to the Bathrobe King.
“What do you usually do when you report in?”

“Me, sir? I’m the Scout. It’s one of the few reasons I’m still alive at the moment. I was scouting the direction they didn’t attack from.” he said, eyes cast to the ground.

“So then you know the situation for the whole town right now?”

“Yes, sir. We’ve had heavy casualties: all but seven of the military are dead. Civilian deaths don’t go past the merchants and families living on the wall in the square. The problem is that we’ve taken severely heavy Damage to the buildings because of the fires. All in all, around 80% of the village won’t have fully functional roofs for two to three weeks until the thatching is finished. That means we’re going to have people freezing in their own burnt and nonfunctional homes.”

“What about our defenses?”

“Like I said, we only have seven military personnel including myself.”

“I see . . .” Darwin began to think. As a raid leader he had often organized the players for defensive and offensive struggles against tough odds, but never for defending a town. While he didn’t know how tough the group that had done this was, he knew that another group would do the same once the coffers were fat. He also was aware of his limitations. If he tried to stay in town and defend it 24/7, then he wouldn’t level and would likely be overwhelmed just as quickly as Elmont had been.

“Anything else, sir?”

“Yeah . . . actually, what authority does the Captain of Valcrest have? On the domestic front? And which direction are the farms?”

“Well, normally the Captain has no authority over civilians, but the Mayor died in the raid too, so I suppose that makes you the highest Ranking person in town. As long as the command isn’t ridiculous, the civilians will most likely obey until they get a new Mayor elected. As far as where the farms are, well they are on the east side. It’s why the town traditionally had an army to protect it against the White-Horns.”

Darwin tried his best to think of a ridiculous command to give the town after being posed the challenge, but came up empty-handed. He was about to resign himself to doing nothing about the situation when an idea finally struck him. “Scout, what’s your name?”

“My name? I’m Yoo, sir.”

“Huh? Don’t be ridiculous. I’m m . . . your name is Yoo, isn’t it?” Darwin said, catching himself before he fell prey to the cliche joke.

“Yes, sir. My full name is Justin Yoo,” the Guard answered with a straight face.

Don’t facepalm, Darwin. Don’t facepalm.
You know his name was probably picked out by a programmer with a sense of humor.
“Justin, I want you to mobilize the civilians. Tell them to pack their bags and head out of the east gate. Tell them to bring everything they can hold in one trip. And this last part is crucial, so you need to pay attention to it very closely, do not let any of those that aren’t residents of the town see them leaving. Let me see your map, and I’ll mark the rendezvous spot.”

“Are you sure Elmont knew what he was doing when he promoted you, sir?” Justin asked, watching as Darwin marked a spot on his map.

“No. No, I don’t think he did, but given how few of us there are left, I don’t think he had much of a choice now, did he?” Darwin laughed.

“No. No, sir. I don’t think he did.”

“Good. Then get moving, Justin. I don’t know how long the respawn timer is, but we have a lot to do and I don’t want to spend all night working.”

“Yes, sir,” Justin said, rolling the map up and stashing it somewhere behind his back.

As soon as Justin left, Darwin opened his own inventory and pulled out the Boss loot from the dungeon, Burriza’s Blade. It was a sinister looking one-handed sword that carried a curving four-foot-long blade styled and shaped like a bear’s tooth. He had first drooled when he saw the stats: 215 Damage with + 10 to Power.
Why couldn’t Burriza drop two of them!
he cursed. His Double-Bladed Axes barely had 135 weapon Damage and didn’t come with any stat power ups. He checked his stats with the blade equipped.
Tiqpa Character Screen.

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Name: Darwin

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Job Class: Soul Knight

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Power: 123 + 40

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Speed: 123 + 25