Everlast Online

Liz quickly made it to Gahsten, but not before looking over the new aspects of her character, especially the sizable increase to her bank account.

"I suppose I should leave some of it for the game..." Liz mumbled, slightly annoyed she couldn't spend all of it as that would hamper her future growth. So that's what she did, converting 9000 gold into 9000 credits for her to use.

This was not a lot, but it would help them get by until Liz could make more money from this game, or by other means. (A/N: Part of the visor's registration was linking up bank accounts)

That was that, at the moment Liz was wondering about the manufacturing-type skills she could get right now. Potions were always a hit, constantly in need and extremely important; of course if you want bigbucks immediately you make weapons or armour, but Liz lacked the strength for that.

For Liz it came down to 2 professions: Alchemy or Tailor. As a doll she gained a bonus in sewing related abilities, but that was one of the least valuable products to sell. 

"Potions it is." Liz decided, seeing that her AGI would assist in the production, "Well, let's get a better look at the skeletons."

Liz already had one summoned already as a guard, it had killed a few little monsters who came in, pushing her up to level 8. But this only opened up more questions, how did the skill gain experience if she took it all.

The skill was active, therefore it could level, but if she took all the experience from a kill what caused the skill to level up.

Is it the process of summoning? She wondered, deciding to use the skill more and see what happens, but nothing besides extra skeletons appearing did happen.

Must be something else then. She said, looking at the undead before her.

One by one, skeleton warriors appeared. They were not the same, similar sure, but not the same.

Some were slightly larger or smaller. A couple had greasy black hair falling from their skulls, different levels of dirt on the bones and some of the swords were better taken care of than others.

She also recalled her race skill: [Voodist], thinking if it allowed her summons to create more summons. The possibility of endless summons made Liz's mouth water, but as she tried she received a system message that poured water all over her idea.

A little disappointed she carried on walking, becoming even more annoyed when she realised, despite not working properly, she lost MP from activating [Voodooist]'s second ability.

It was really a sight, a barely 1 metre tall girl, floating gently down a dirt path on her broom, surrounded by a fearsome brigade of the restless dead.

Liz chuckled, continuing down the path until she saw the gates of a large town in the distance.

Though calling it a town was a pretty big understatement, with its size it could definitely be considered a city. So, with excitement to see her first town, Liz made her way to the gate; making sure to get rid of her undead as she approached, since she doubted they would appreciate their ugly appearances.

As she approached she saw 2 men in armour, holding halberds, guarding the gate. This was the moment of truth, she, a monster race, would attempt to enter what looked like a human city.

She kept her head down and walked passed, hoping to go unnoticed. One of the guards looked closer, leaning down slightly. Liz's heartbeat intensified, worried she would be attacked.

But she was just let pass by. Liz let out a sigh of relief and continued on into Gahsten; she had a few things she wanted to do, mostly just by potions but she also wanted to look at the skills she could unlock with the 1000 gold she had remaining.

She didn't need any equipment thanks to her [Spooky Witch] set, so the first stop was the apothecary.

Liz quickly found the correct shop, or at least what she thought the bottle on the sign indicated. She was of course right and as she entered she could see potions and herbs of all kinds lining the walls and shelves.

A bell rang as she pushed the door open and the old woman sitting at the counter looked up, a little shocked by her patron's appearance.

"Are you a witch?" She asked, slightly excited at the prospect of a class, known for their brewing proficiency, doing business in her shop. This would be a big selling point, she could put it up on a sign:

[Witch quality guarantee]

"Uh... N-" As the syllables began to form in her mouth Liz thought she noticed the woman's smile falling, so she decided to change her answer, "Ahem! Yes, I am."

Liz had not expected that, but she welcomed it openly. Not that she understood why she had gotten it, something about being a witch.

"May I ask why the lady witch is here?" The woman said gleefully.

"Ah yes." Liz responded, slightly taken aback, "I'm here for 2 things, firstly I need to buy some potions; but I also wish to learn alchemy."

The woman became confused, a witch wanted to learn alchemy from her? It made little sense, so she pressed on for answers.

"Apologies lady witch, but why would you want to learn alchemy from me? Surely with you class you should be able to learn it alone." Witches were known to be very prideful about their brewing and potion making ability, so it had never been heard of one of them coming for assistance from another, let alone a normal human.

Liz realised her mistake, and worried her relationship would fall about this, if Mary thought she had lied. Thankfully, an idea came to mind.

"My mother was a witch but my class is different." Liz finally said, hoping this could make up for it, she even threw in some witchy sounding words, "So while I consider myself a witch my class does not grant the passive benefits the rest of my coven get."

Mary gave Liz a inspective look, trying to decide what the situation was. While it was true [Witch] was a class, some witches could specialise in certain parts of the skills a normal witch practises, but by then they should at least know the basics of alchemy; and Liz looked mighty young to be a specialist. Mary decided to ask another question, having become slightly suspicious.

"I see... Then, may I ask, what is your class?" Liz looked at her, taking note that there was no one else in the room, before leaning in.

"Can you keep a secret?" She asked in a whisper, Mary had become quite intrigued now so nodded her head, "I'm a necromancer."

The look of shock on Mary's face was unbelievable.

A NECROMANCER! She thought, her mind in shambles, Such a high ranked class, asking me for help?

Necromancers were very hard to come by, simply because of the requirements to become one. Necrotic type skills were some of the rarest anmd more powerful skills there were, even the Necrotic-type classes, which were as close to a [Necromancer] as one could get, gained very few necrotic skills and instead focused on specialised dark magic. Not even [Necromancers] had many of them; they typically only had a handful of necrotic-type skills. Some of them never exceeded the 10 necessary to get the class. (A/N: Liz has none right now btw, her summoning spell falls into summoning-type not necrotic-type)

As such necromancers were quite highly regarded in places where they were not seen as heretics. This being one of them, though some people still found them to be creepy or even just hated them.

Now knowing the woman in front of her was both a [Witch] and a [Necromancer], she became much more respectful.

"AH! My apologies ma'am." She said, offering a small bow, "Of course I will teach you alchemy, and for free of course."

A wide smile spread across Mary's face, but then she remembered a problem and her smile dropped.

"Oh. No, sorry I can't." She said, clearly distressed, offering a deep bow in apology.

"Huh, may I ask why?" Liz asked, being so close to getting what she wanted she would hate to give up now.

"It's just... My equipment has become damaged, and although I had ordered more they never arrived." She said, feeling down, "Rumour is that it has been apprehended by a bandit group along the road to Barview, so I have no way to teach  you."

"What if I go get it back for you?" Liz said, smelling another quest. Mary lit up with excitement.

"Oh, would you!? I would be sure to reward you most handsomely for it!"

Liz quickly accepted yes and left while Mary thanked her, Liz was also given 10 MP and HP potions to take with her free of charge. With this she had sorted her 2 problems now, she just needed to defeat the bandits and she would have a skill to make potions. However, before she took off on the quest, Liz realised the time and decided to log out of the game. (A/N: It is safe to log out freely in towns, outside safe areas PC will be attacked)

As soon as she did, she smelt the distinct scent of cooking wafting through the air. Piper was making them lunch.

"Ah, you're up. I was getting worried." Piper called from the kitchen, "Lunch is almost ready, you should wash up."

Liz did so, feeling a bit gross after playing all night, when she was clean it was time for her to eat.

As they did Liz told Piper all about ELO and how great it was. Piper just say there listening to her sister enjoying something for once, even if she pretended it was only for the money.

"Oh that reminds me..." Liz said, pulling out her phone and sending it all to Piper, "I made some money, so here it is."

Piper picked up her phone, she usually used it to buy food and medicine so most of her sister's paycheque went to her. But as Piper looked at the amount she almost spit out her food.

"9000 CREDITS!?" She yelled, "How did you even get this much?!"

While not an excessively large amount, it was certainly more than Liz made in even a few months. And more than enough to buy them food and medicine for Piper.

"Don't worry Pip, I just got lucky." Liz said nonchalantly, finishing her lunch and heading back to her visor she had left in their shared bed. 

"Who knows... If I can make more money, maybe I can get you a visor as well and we can play together." Liz said, placing the machine back on her head, but not before saying, "Though only after you've done your homework."

Piper giggled, Liz had always been serious about school, she was forced to drop out in order to provide for her and it had always been a point of guilt for Piper. As such she did everything she could to focus on school, she was at the top of her grade and consistently scored within the top percentile of the country, all so she could look after her older sister when she graduated. Though she did enjoy the sound of playing games together, like when they were young.

Back in Galdrash Liz made her way out of the city, paying close attention to the road signs in order to find the path she needed. The only thing she knew was that the bandits attacked others passing from Gahsten to Barview.

Truthfully, Liz hadn't given the quest much thought as she had never had to deal with enemies above level 5 (besides the Ancient Guard) and had no idea the difficulty of not only a D-rank quest, but a D+-rank quest. 

Most of the player base had spent their game-time completing F-rank fetch quests to build up reputation to enter the next city. Liz didn't know this was necessary to leave the starter city as she had started in a hunting field and quickly gained 1000 reputation points, so she couldn't have known that most of the player base was locked within their respective starter zones right now.

Truthfully, the only reason she was permitted into Gahsten was due to her reputation. The guard had noticed she was an undead but with her reputation he allowed her to pass; had it not been so high the guards would have attacked her on sight.

At the moment, only the top players in the game had the necessary rep points to leave their beginner towns, even then most stayed to increase their levels slightly.

Anyway, Liz went on her way and as she made distance from Gahsten, brought out her 10 undead. She had to take a break before summoning the last 2 as she ran out of mana but since she was not in a fight it regenerated quickly, especially thanks to her [Undead Affinity]. 

Liz was looking over the quest while riding along her broom, feeling that, while it was clearly meant as a joke bonus, it was quite comfortable to not have to walk with her confusing puppet body.

Liz understood most of what she needed to do, find Mary's stuff and kill the bandits, but one bit of terminology confused her: (Extra). She was not familiar with the term, thankfully the system helped her once again.

"Oh, well that takes a load off my shoulders" Liz laughed, realising that she only had to do one thing. Eventually, the road begin to head into a forest, "Ah, I understand."

Liz continued walking the path realising the problem, the bandits hid in the forest where others could not see them. Up until this point every path Liz had walked was out in the open in a large field, but not here. Liz felt little fear with her undead, she felt safe, not caring if the thought was arrogant.

Liz had no direction of where the bandits were except that they were along the path to Barview, she figured the most logical place would be this forest path. But as she progressed nothing happened, no one came to confront her.

Liz began to think that she would leave the forest before they even showed up, but just as she thought she saw a light at the end of the path, she heard a dinging noise as 15 men jumped out into the path.

Shit! Liz thought, I didn't know quests could change like that!

As the men surrounded her on the narrow path, the largest of the men stepped forward.

He had a large scar running down his left eye and a dirty beard covering his face.

"Hahaha. Did you think this meagre force could beat us!" The bandit laughed, the rest of his crew joined in, "Listen little lady, if you come quietly I can arrange a comfortable new life, I'm sure the boss wouldn't mind someone like you around, hahaha."

Liz felt a shiver down her back as she heard how the bandit said 'comfortable', she was still mostly shielded by her hat because of how short she was, so the bandits believed she was a human girl, out of her depth.

"Big words from someone so scared of the undead." Liz mocked, the bandit's laughter stopped immediately and they all glared at her hatefully.

"You dare mock the great Barview Bandits!" The would-be leader said through gritted teeth, "Our group is gonna rule this land soon! Our boss has a massive backer behind him, a noble one! He’ll make our boss a proper noble soon!"

"HA! I bet you do." Liz mocked, slightly shocked at the new information, as was the system as yet another message appeared.

How interactive are these quests? Liz wondered, she hadn't expected to run into such a big conspiracy, but felt the rewards from doing so would be pretty impressive.

"Looks like this bitch needs to be taught a lesson." The bandit leader yelled, spittle flying everywhere. Liz got off of her broom and took it in her hands, her [Mana Bolt] spell had levelled up so she felt she could do some damage, and with her undead she felt safe.

"Kill all the bandits!" Liz let out her order, and the undead began to charge forward, stunning the bandits who had been slowly approaching. 

They had underestimated Liz. The bandits had thought the undead were summoned by someone else to protect her, hence why they hadn't attacked because summons like undead were very stupid, only doing exactly what they were told. So long as the bandits didn't attack, the undead wouldn't.

Or so they had thought. They had been shocked by Liz commanding the summons, even if they were just skeletons, how was a little girl like her commanding 10 of them?

This had put them at a pretty bad advantage straight away, they had not been prepared for the undead to attack them so they were quickly pushed back.

The next shock came from how strong the undead were, skeletons were one of the weakest undead, only better than zombies, yet they were pushing the bandits back. It wasn't until the bandits began putting in there all that they managed to regain their footing, realising these were skeleton warriors, not just skeletons Liz had given weapons to.

The final shock the bandit group faced came later.

After a little bit of fighting, Liz occasionally launching a [Mana Bolt] to assist her gradually deteriorating undead, one of the bandits managed to slip by; the leader of the group. With his broadsword he swung down at the little girl, cutting straight through her. While before he wanted to take her as a slave, he could not risk bringing a powerful summoner to their base so he chose to kill her.

"When dealing with summons!" The bandit yelled, pretty heavily gloating, "Just aim for the summoner! Haha!"

Then came the surprise. The bandit had placed all his eggs into one basket and it was about to cost him, big-time.

While the sword did successfully cut through the girl, nothing happened after that. The girl merely turned and shot the bandit with a [Mana Bolt], off balance from the attack, the bandit was pushed greatly back and quickly ganked by a skeleton that had recently killed one of his men, ending his life.

In his final moments he wondered what had happened, not understanding how the girl survived with not even a cut. But he would never know, never see the collapsed pile of bones and the surprised faces of the bandits who had nothing to do with it.

That was freaky. Liz thought.

She had felt the sword cut through her, but it didn't feel like getting cut. It was more like when a blunt instrument is forcefully run across your skin, uncomfortable, but nothing more. Liz quickly replaced the skeleton that was killed, drinking one of her MP potions as she was running low on mana, deciding not to use [Mana Bolt] unnecessarily anymore.

Liz had noticed a weakness of her skill and didn't want it to be exploited. The skeleton who had been scapegoated for her damage, had greater health than Liz was dealt damage, but he still died. Had the same attack landed on the skeleton it would have survived, but since it landed on her, it didn't.

This was the only weakness of the [Voodooist] skill. While amazing at mitigating damage and saving its user, it completely ignored the scapegoat's max health. If the player took fatal damage, the scapegoat would die instantly; without exception.

It didn't matter if the scapegoat was a mighty dragon or even a God, it would die instantly should the [Voodooist] user take fatal damage.

Right now, the skill can still be defeated. Liz thought, with her small summoning pool she was still in danger, But soon I will be invincible!

There were 2 ways around the skills weakness: Increase your HP, or increase your scapegoats.

Liz’s confidence came as the final bandit was killed, not only had she risen to level 12, but [Summon: Skeleton Warrior] had become level 2, increasing the summoning capacity to 20!  (A/N: Going forward summoning skills will be written as [Summon: Summoning Target], just felt like it)

If the summoning went up by 10 every time, by the point she reached level 10 with it, she would have 100 scapegoats to suffer in her place. And she didn't even feel bad as they were already all dead anyway.

More than that she gained another skill from her class for reaching level 10: [Bone Spear (1) (F)]

[Bone Spear (1) (F): Create and launch a spear made from bone. Damage scales with level and INT. 20% chance to inflict <Bleed> status effect. By sacrificing HP player can 'supercharge' the attack]

Liz found the [Bone Spear] spell quite cool, it was also quite powerful. She found the 'supercharge' part that drained her health with her mana could also be forced onto her undead with [Voodooist], though the HP cost increased exponentially as she supercharged the skill and resulted in her losing 3 of her skeleton warriors before she launched it and destroyed 3 trees before the spell stopped. She was forced to wait to recover her mana before summoning them back, not wanting to waste her potions on something so trivial.

The spell's appearance itself was also quite interesting. Liz had been expecting a single white, pointed line, but the bone was covered in barbs that would deal more damage and inflict more bleeding. Furthermore, these barbs only got bigger and more numerous as Liz supercharged the attack.

The voodooist skill is quite literally made for necromancy, I really must have spent an entire life's worth of luck today. She could massively increase her [Bone Spear] attack without any major repercussions, it was perfect.

Liz had the skeletons pick up the drops from the bandits. The skeletons could follow simple commands like 'Kill' or 'Defend' but more complicated orders almost never worked; even the 'bring me the loot' order had to be more concisely given as 'Gather items', as the skeletons kept bringing the bandit's bloody bodies to Liz.

Even with the new order, they still brought her flowers, herbs and bits of wood. 

I hope these things get smarter. Liz lamented.

From the bandits Liz was left with mostly junk: A small amount of money (which she appreciated), bits of animal furs, weapons she couldn't use (these were given to the warriors as they were in slightly better condition than their swords). There was only one item of interest for Liz, and it came from the leader:

[Barview Bandit's Map (D)]

[Map of the Barview Bandit's territory. It also shows where their main base is. Quest item, cannot be traded or lost]

"HAHA! Let's go." So, with 10 skeletons in tow, Liz followed the map to their base. Deciding to use her stat points later, and summon the 10 extra skeletons when needed.

"It's time to hunt some bandits!"