Everlast Online

Liz quickly made her way through the city, heading towards what she believed was the lord's mansion.

As she did so, a series of world announcements rang one after the other with only a few minutes between each.

 

 

 

 

"AN NPC!" Liz blurted out, causing the NPCs around her to look at her strangely. The players around her didn't seem to care, likely just as shocked as she was. Similar reactions happened around the world of Galdrash as players read the last of the world announcements that appeared in the short timeframe.

Liz allowed the shock to wear off, realising that NPCs in ELO were much more intelligent than she had originally thought.

Liz looked over the other announcements, seeing only 2 names she recognised. Obviously she knew those golden assholes as they had already confronted her twice now.

"Hopefully getting this win will calm them down a bit." Liz sighed, then began laughing as she started walking again, "Though if this monarch guy is as egotistical as I expect, he's probably fuming right now at being second."

The other names she recognised was [Annie], as in the player from the beta test who gained significant power with the [Spirit Summoner] class. If Liz remembered correctly Annie (like Godwyn) played as a random race and became a [High-Elf], so it made sense she went to a place called 'Yggdralia'.

Sounds very... Elfish. Liz chuckled to herself. 

As opposed to other powerful players a lot of information was available about Annie, this was because she was a streamer. At the start of the beta test she had quite a small platform, but soon people began gravitating toward her as she gained more power. Her racial starting skill was [Spirit's Love (A)], a passive skill that granted her affinity with spirits. 

In the early stages this did nothing, but soon Annie was able to upgrade to the class [Spirit Mage] and eventually [Spirit Summoner] thanks, primarily, to this skill.

Other than her general ability, Annie was just a good person. She was kind and sweet and nothing like the typically snobbish high-level players around her causing even more people to gravitate towards her. Liz was happy to see her up there in the list of people who achieved something.

Liz soon arrived at the gate of the lord's mansion.

"Halt!" One of the guards approached her, wearing shiny plate armour with a powerful looking sword at his waist, "What business has brought you here witch!?"

The word witch sounded slightly venomous as it came from the knight's mouth, Liz soon found out why.

"I am terribly sorry for my intrusion, Sir Knight." Liz said, curtsying unsteadily, "But I have a letter that must be delivered to the Marquess personally, I have a letter of introduction to show I mean no harm."

Rowan felt slightly less hostile as he took the letter from Liz and read it over, he wasn't happy, but he couldn't obscure the orders of a noble, even if they are only a baronet. While Rowan hated witches his loyalty was far greater.

"Very well, but should you try anything I will not hesitate to cut you down." Rowan said, turning to lead Liz into the mansion.

"Of course Sir Knight." Liz responded, before raising her head and following behind him.

As Rowan led Liz he tried to make small talk, though Liz could not understand why.

"I am Rowan, what is your name?" He was incredibly stiff, Liz found it to be quite endearing.

"Others call me Smokey, on account of my hair." Liz said, and then they continued in silence until Liz found herself in another reception room. She thought walking in silence would be less weird than walking in silence after one stiff question.

The room was much nicer than the baronet's, the furniture was better and of higher value and it was clear that it was in better shape; much cleaner. 

Liz relaxed for a while, until the door opened and she stood to her feet. Rowan had stayed with her the entire time, observing her, but 2 more knights and 2 maids entered the room, following a large man. Larger than Nolan with a shiny bald head, besides his eyebrows there was no hair above his neck. He had a long scar running from the bottom of his ear to his chin; and with the way his muscles bulged beneath his suit, Liz felt he would be better suited wearing nothing but a loincloth.

"It is an honour to meet you Lord Barview." Liz offered a bow, deciding to tack something onto the end to prevent misunderstanding, "I would remove my hat but I'm afraid it does not come off."

[Marquess Everett Barview (122) (NPC)]

Holy shit he has a high level. Liz thought, Wasn't this still a starter area?

The others in the room looked confused, but the Marquess only chuckled, betraying his stoic and stern appearance as he giggled at Liz's words.

"I see, young lady." He said gently, sitting down and gesturing for Liz to do the same, "And what is it you have come to tell me today."

Liz felt he was treating her this way since she looked young.

Perhaps he has a soft spot for children. Liz thought, thanking the maid who had poured her a drink.

"Yes, it is in relation to these." Liz said, handing over first the letter of introduction and the important letter, "I was attacked on the way delivering the letter. I hope you may be able to enlighten me as to why, once you've read it."

The Marquess first read the letter of introduction, he asked Liz for no further proof she is a necromancer, assuming it said she was on. He finished reading the letter, looked over Liz slightly then went for the next letter; all in silence.

Liz saw some reaction as he saw the black wax, making her think this was some kind of urgency warning.

As the Marquess read through the letter his face remained more flat than the baronet did, though Liz could see him show subtle things like a twitching eyebrow or lip.

Soon he places the letter on the desk. Silence reigns, no one dares say a word before the Marquess; although lost on the specifics, Liz somewhat understands how dire the situation is right now. From what she knows, some noble, likely with a lot of power, has worked with bandits for some unknown reason: SImply put it doesn't look good.

"Thank you for coming, Smokey." The Marquess finally speaks, "You have delivered vital information, without it I don't know what happened. You will be properly rewarded."

Liz saw her system flash as her reputation went up slightly and a sack of gold was slid over to her, quickly increasing her already sizable bank account; then the Marquess began to leave, Liz panicked. She only did this quest because of the implications of a conspiracy and she was about to lose out on this.

"Wait!" She yelled out, getting looks from the guards, "Please, this situation is clearly incredibly important. Is there nothing I can do to help?"

"You cannot." The Marquess said, "As you are now, you are too weak."

"I can get stronger!" Liz rebutted as quickly as she could, not wanting the Marquess to leave the room before she was let in on the secret.

"You are becoming increasingly disrespectful, witch." Rowan was clearly annoyed at how Liz was acting towards the Marquess. He was about to speak again, but a sigh from the Marquess stopped him.

"You wish to assist?" He asked Liz, she nodded fervently, another sigh, "Fine, prove you are worthy to me. If you can reach level 50 within the month, not only will I allow you to assist in dealing with the coming troubles, I will give you a high rank class skill scroll."

Liz's eyes widened in shock, the Marquess' words forming yet another quest for her to accomplish:

"Of course!" Liz said excitedly, she accepted with a bow and made her way out of the building and back into the city, ready to get to work.

The chance to take part in what seemed to be an important quest was an already great reward, but getting a class skill scroll, an A-rank one at that, was incredibly amazing. Class skill scrolls give a random skill for the user's class, it could be a skill that normally could only be achieved at impossible to acquire levels, of course she could get a bottom tier skill, or even one she already has which would then just improve the skill instead of offer new abilities. This quest was worth all the effort she would have to put in.

Not to mention Liz was growing at a remarkable pace thanks to her skeletons, they didn't take up her experience and allowed her to fight enemies at higher levels, like Nolan who had been more than 10 levels above her. Liz left quickly, leaving the mansion in order to find a place to hunt.

---

"Do you really believe she can make it to level 50 in that time frame Lord Barview?" One of the knights asked. The lord was silent for a moment, thinking.

"It is unlikely, but not impossible. If she can reach such a level the coming troubles will be much easier to handle." He finally said. The knight only nodded, Rowan was confused about this.

"What do you mean Lord Barview? You have not explained the issue yet, but surely one witch, even at level 50, cannot so easily turn the tides." He asked, even if he hated witches he was able to recognise they were quite powerful, but not so influential it would sway the Marquess.

The Marquess chuckled.

"Yes, a witch would do little, you are correct." The Marquess said, moving for the door, "But there is no sane army that would not fear a necromancer."

---

Liz made her way through the city, heading in the direction the skills are being sold. She was going to spend some of her money in order to gain some skills the ELO forums consider essential then transfer what is left of her money into her real bank account for Piper and her.

Liz had found the shop she was looking for, inside were many scrolls and even a few books. The scrolls were obviously skill scrolls, but Liz was surprised to see grimoires for sale, seeing as Barview was still technically a starting area, even if it was outside of the tutorial's sphere of influence. Of course Liz didn't know about the tutorial, but was still surprised to see them.

Anyway, she first headed to the counter in order to ask the man working there if he had what she was looking for.

"Hello sir." She said, stunning the man awake, it looked as though his shop was not often frequented. He looked around a moment before his eyes settled on Liz.

"What can I do for you young witch?" He asked, bags under his dark eyes, and a forced smile Liz recognised from having to use it so often in customer service jobs.

"Yes I'm looking for a few skills to assist me in my adventures, I would like to know if you have them in stock." Liz said, the man urged her to continue so she listed off the skills she needed.

The main one was the D-rank skill [Mapping], that would allow her to properly chart the areas she had been to; then in its evolved form it would gain a minimap feature many other games naturally have, no one in the beta got the skill higher than [Auto-Mapping (C)] so it was unclear where it went, but everyone knew it was an indispensable skill for players to get. 

The best part was that most NPCs consider it not that useful, as such from NPCs the [Mapping] skill is cheap. Its higher versions and variants are greatly valued but not the original itself oddly enough.

The next skill Liz wanted was [Dismantle (F+)], it was essentially a looting skill. It would turn the corpse of an enemy into items for the player to use, the items gained were based on the LCK hidden stat, this skill being the only reason players knew about luck in the first place. Liz was grateful that [Defy The Odds] gave her increased LCK.

The final skill she wanted was [Travelling (E)], a passive skill that made it easier for players to traverse difficult areas. Liz had been spawned in a fairly easy area (besides the spooky forest at the beginning) and had not needed much extra help in travelling, but for others it would have been much more difficult.

Take those in the announcements as examples, travelling a mountain, desert or icy region would be very difficult without these. As such Liz wanted it now, just in case.

"Yeah we have all those, wait a minute and I'll get them." The drowsy man headed into the back and Liz took the opportunity to look around. In the store there were 3 grimoires so she inspected those first:

[D-rank Grimoire <Water Mage>: Legacy of a master water mage] [25,000 Gold]

[E-rank Grimoire <Blue Scholar>: Legacy of one who studied the intricacies of water magic] [10,000 Gold]

[E-rank Grimoire <Bone Mage>: Legacy of a master bone mage] [10,000 Gold]

Liz was enticed by the 3rd grimoire, but decided against it due to its price. This was how grimoires worked, they granted a passive skill and allowed the user to gain proficiency, as they did they would unlock new active features within the skill. Most beta-testers who got their hands on a grimoire ended up with a class the same name as the grimoire, only they were considerably more powerful than others who got the same class normally.

Liz looked around, finding mostly regular skills she did not need. Basic swordsmanship skills, other weapons too and some magic spells to use; nothing she needed.

She did come across a separate pile though. Most skills were properly ordered, all sword-types were together, all fire-types were together except for this one pile. It was just a bunch of random skills.

[Calendar (F): Allows user to better track the passing of days and seasons] [1 Gold]

[Metabolic Increase (E-): Increase the rate of metabolism] [2 Gold]

"Ah." Liz realised, "These are the reject skills with no real uses."

She looked through the skills, most were pointless or downright negative but she did find something she liked:

[Sharp Claw (E): Greatly empower one attack using claws. Power scales with STR and skill level. 25 Second cooldown.<Cannot be used without claws!>] [10 Gold]

Liz for a moment didn't understand why it was in the reject pile until she remembered most people didn't have claws. Even a lot of beastfolk didn't have claws so the skill wasn't really all that useful, except for her. Liz picked up the skill and went to the counter, until the man came back with all the skills she wanted.

"That'll be 3210 gold." Liz was shocked at the price, it was only 4 skills and all were of low ranked or not highly valued. Still, the skills were necessary and so she paid and learnt the skills so she could progress.

[Mapping (1) (D): Release a scan of the area around you, then use this to form a map. Range of scan and quality of map scales with level. 20 Second cooldown]

[Dismantle (1) (F+): Turn dead bodies into lootable items. Loot gained scales with LCK and skill level. 10 Second cooldown]

[Traveller (0%) (E): Increase resistance and energy when in unfavourable regions]

"Thank you." Liz said, leaving the shop as the man fell back to sleep at his desk. Liz could use her apothecary skills to form MP and HP potions while her skeletons hunted. The recovery potion would need a higher proficiency to accomplish. Everything was ready!

Now then. Liz thought, Where to next? 

I have my goals. All I need is to accomplish them!