EFate: An MMO Story Chapter 20: First Blood

Emerging from the village, Eric was greeted by a rough dirt road leading off into the forest surrounding the town. Along the roadside a number of fields could be seen, with a handful of small farmsteads dotting the plains. A few farmers could be seen working the fields, pausing their work to warily watch him go by. They were most likely preparing for the upcoming harvest, Eric supposed, giving them each a small nod as he pa.s.sed by.

From what he had seen, the villagers all seemed nervous. With the exception of the local leaders.h.i.+p, Flen, Tom, Alistair, and the girl he'd embarra.s.sed with his wave, most of the villagers had looked at him with a mixture of wariness and mistrust. It seemed he would have to grind out reputation if he wanted to be accepted by the villagers.

Along the way, Eric checked out the UI elements, curious to find out more about the game. Discovering a status window, he opened up his character page.

[Status]

Erick Kystfyr - Level 1

t.i.tle: None

Weapon: Rough Maple Short Bow (20 Rough Goose-feathered Stone Arrows)

Rough Bronze Dagger

Armour: Reinforced Wool Doublet

Skills: Basic Magic (Arcane, Fire)

Militia Spearmans.h.i.+p

Militia Swordsmans.h.i.+p

Basic Archery

Basic Herbalism

Basic Speechcraft

Active Skills:

Sword Technique - Guard

Seeing his skill list Eric raised his brow a little. He'd gained more skills than he'd thought in the tutorial. He even had an active skill. Interestingly enough though, his various magic spells did not count as skills. Or at least they weren't displayed on the status page.

Closing the status page, he noticed a small book icon next to the status icon. Bringing it up, the icon transformed into a beautiful book with 'Kystfyr's Spellbook' emblazoned on the cover. As he looked at it, the flipped open to reveal a page with all three of his spells written upon it. Detailed engravings of the runes took up much of the page. The beautiful ring representing Arcane Strike featuring in all three of his spells. Refres.h.i.+ng his memory of the runes quickly, Eric closed the book and looked up. He'd walked further than he'd though while engrossed in his character information, the forest was nearly upon him now.

Stillwood Forest itself was a riot of various trees and foliage, the local plant life in full bloom in what felt like early autumn weather. From afar, it all seemed to all blend into a singular shade of green. However, as Eric approached the treeline, the colours became more distinct, revealing a rich mixture of various greens and browns. The occasional squirrel could be seen jumping from bough to bough, while birdsong intermittently pierced the silence of the forest.

As he walked along the path, he could see the ruts in the mud left by wagons, delivering s.h.i.+pments or travellers to the village. Some of them were fresh, filled with a small layer of water from what looked to be a recent rainfall, judging from the dewdrops hanging off the wildgra.s.s at the side of the road. As he approached the forest edge, a shape detached itself from the treeline. What he had first taken to be a small tree was actually a wooden sign, hanging off a post that had been hammered into the hard dirt where the road entered the forest. Getting closer, Eric took a look at the words on the sign, scrawled roughly in what he hoped was red paint.

Caution!

Monsters roaming the area!

Avoid travelling alone!

Eric smiled, while the sign definitely was meant to warn travellers, it was not the monsters he needed to be scared of. Rather, it was the monsters that should soon be afraid of him.

Entering the forest, Eric soon found himself once again caught up in the incredible majesty of the forest. If he didn't know better thanks to the minimalistic HUD elements, he would have a.s.sumed that this was reality. So caught up was he in enjoying nature's beauty, that he failed to notice the creature approximately the size of a small dog eyeing him from beside the path.

Still gazing up at the trees, Eric was caught unawares as the creature slammed into his side, embedding its sharp horn in his thigh.

"Yeaaargh!" Eric roared, stumbling backwards as he did so.

"Motherf***er that hurts!" He shouted, only to realize that there wasn't actually too much pain, merely a dull stinging sensation where the creature had torn open his leg.

Makes sense, he thought to himself. If the game caused players to actually feel the pain of being stabbed, shocked, or set on fire, it was unlikely that players would continue to play, especially if some unlucky soul suffered all three at the same time injuries at the same time, he thought ruefully.

Refocusing himself, he quickly turned to look at the beast that had inflicted his first wound in Fate. Standing on all fours and uttering a low growl was a ferocious beast with a horn emerging from its' forehead, below the horn glowed two red eyes which were enclosed on either side by an enormous pair of rabbit ears.

"Wait really? My first injury in Fate is getting shanked by a rabbit?" Eric quickly swore to himself that Jun would never hear of this incident as desperately threw himself to the side to avoid the rabbit's second charge.

Rolling to his feet, Eric unslung the bow from his back and drew an arrow which he fumbled with, finally nocking it to the string as the rabbit turned. Aiming at the rabbit, he was forced to once again hurl himself gracelessly to the side as the rabbit repeated its charge.

This time he didn't spring to his feet, but instead rolled into a clumsy kneeling position, sighting quickly he loosed the arrow at the rabbit as it turned to observe its target.

*Schwiiiii* The arrow screamed through the air, soaring far over the rabbits head and disappearing into the forest. For a moment Eric watched dumbfounded as his arrow vanished into the undergrowth, only to be jolted back to reality by a charging ma.s.s of fur rapidly approaching him.

"Tch," he clicked his tongue as he dodged the rabbits charge again. This time he rolled back to his feet, grabbing another arrow from the quiver as he did so.

"I refuse to let a mere rabbit humiliate me in my first real fight," he told the rabbit sternly as he nocked the arrow. Sighting carefully at the rabbit, Eric watched it prepare to charge for the fourth time, as the rabbit approached Eric slowly exhaled, the rabbit drawing closer and closer as he stood his ground. Finally with the beast only 3 meters from him, Eric loosed the arrow.

*Thwock!* With a horrible squelching noise the arrow embedded itself into the rabbits eye. As it did so, the rabbit let out a small screech before skidding to a halt only inches away from his feet. As he watched, a health bar suddenly appeared above the rabbit: it quickly drained from full to nothing before disappearing into soft motes of light which spiraled slowly towards the black gemstone adorning his storage pouch where they disappeared.

Collapsing backwards, Eric suddenly let out the breath he didn't know he had been holding. That fight had been a lot more intense than he had expected, but it had also been way more exciting than any fight he'd ever had in any other game. Even including bosses and other players, this fight ranked in the top ten.

Looking down at the wound on his leg, Eric threw back his head and laughed. What would the others think if they knew that he'd come this close to being disemboweled by a rabbit? He definitely could not ever let Jun know about this. Ever.

Noticing the notification icon was glowing he brought up the notifications.

[Congratulations for defeating your first monster: Demonic Rabbit!]

[Your Basic Archery has advanced to Beginner 3!]

'Two Basic Archery levels just for killing a single rabbit? d.a.m.n leveling in this game is easy!' Eric thought with a grin.

Dismissing the system notifications, Eric knelt down beside the corpse to see if there were any drops.

[Would you like to loot this corpse? If you do not, the body will remain and could attract other predators or scavengers. Bodies will remain for up to half an hour after looting so be careful staying in an area where have you recently slain monsters.]

Affirming his choice, Eric watched as the Demonic Rabbit's corpse stopped glowing, the motes of light that had been gently drifting up vanis.h.i.+ng into the void.

[You have received Rabbit meat]

[You have received Demonic Rabbit's Horn]

[You have received Rough Goose-feathered Stone Arrow]

Reflecting on the fight, Eric realized that it seemed that Fate was not an entirely realistic game. The pain receptors seemed to have been toned down just far enough that players could only really tell if and where they had been hit. Looting was also done automatically by the game system, preventing him from having to dig through the corpses of monsters he'd killed. Which was a good thing, as even with the pain receptors dulled, the blood on his pants did not look pretty.

'I wonder if that goes away when I get healed?' Eric thought idly to himself as he brought up the status window for his pants.

[Roughspun Commoner's Pants] - Common

Durability: 87/100

Description: A pair of pants woven from some unknown fabric. They seem to have a large hole in them at the moment.

With an annoyed scowl, Eric closed the status window. "Cheeky game," he muttered, shaking his head slowly. Seeing that the rabbit corpse seemingly had no more secrets to offer, he hauled himself to his feet, dusting the dirt and twigs off his pants.

Resolving himself, he recommenced his journey into the forest. This time taking care to display a much more appropriate degree of caution. He definitely would not appear so weak again!