The Ultimate Guild Chapter 2

We started to head to the exit of the courtyard. Right as we passed through the arch a person moved in front of us. A dude covered in plate with a broadsword strapped on his back. He looked like he had been in a few wars.

“Stop. it’s too dangerous for you to head into the wastes as you are.” he said raising his hand.

“Honorable sir. We would like to explore this land. Please tell us what we need to do to be able to proceed.” I said taking a respectful tone. NPCs had become quite advanced in recent years. If you pissed one off, you could end up ruining an entire questline or questing zone.

“You need to choose a means to your survival.” he waved his hand a screen appeared before our eyes. It listed all the currently available classes in Arval. I scanned through the list some interesting ones drew my eyes, like necromancer or summoner. I thought for a while and choose the gunner class. A card appeared in front of me, i reached out and took it without thinking. 

“Use that to better yourselves so you can survive this harsh world. For now how about you go get me some rabbit meat.”

---Accept Quest?----

Hunt 10 Rabbits.

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I hit yes. Yui and I finished making our way out of the courtyard, apparently it acted like a mini instance as we looked back people would pause for half a second then finish their step. We moved out of the way and took a look at our cards. These were what allowed us access to everything “gamey”, our inventory, status, and a few other functions. Only a few things like the menu, communications, and logout were “built into our character. 

I opened my inventory to see what I got from the man.

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Simple Leather Armor

Chest piece

Armor: 5

Class: slave

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Simple Rifle

Gunner main Weapon

Damage: 5-10

Class: slave

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“Slave?” I said unconsciously.

“I guess that’s the quality rating in this game.” Yui said beside me. 

I checked to see if there was anything else in my inventory and was surprised that there actually was something there. It was something called “Guild Armament” it looked like a cube. I clicked it to see what happens. There was a flash of light and another weapon appeared in my inventory.

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Living Fortress Rifle

Gunner Main Weapon

Damage: 50-70

Class: Lord

Attribute: Piercing

Upgrades available: material required 100 goblin claws

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“Now this is awesome!” i said out loud. I equipped the weapon and took it out. A meter long rifle that was black and had some runes on it came out. I took a stance and did some practice aiming with it. I don’t know why but it gave me a sense of strength. I looked over to Yui, she had equipped her arms as well. She had a shield and sword, I guess she took Guardian. I looked at my card and selected the guild option and invited Yui in. she quickly accepted the invite. 

“Did you get anything?” I asked after a moment. She looked in her inventory and clicked something, after a moment she clicked another option and her shield flashed a moment later it became a black square with red runes on it. It was a half tower shield quite big.

“Yeah, I got a “guild armament” cube and it asked me to choose between my shield or sword.” she said and sent me the information on it.

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Living Fortress Shield

Guardian shield

Defense: 30

Block: 15

Class:Knight

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We set our gear and headed further out a field. After a certain point it felt like we passed a barrier, and we saw our first “rabbit”. The developers did a good job in making sure no one would feel upset about killing these guys, they barely looked like rabbit anymore. Red colored with a horn and sharp looking claws, the “Devil Rabbit” looked plenty capable of defending itself. Thankfully because they were technically beginner monsters they were set to passive. 

People were already testing out their new strength and powers, mages were shooting arcane missiles, warriors were slashing with their swords, gunners firing their rifles, and many more types of action taking place. 

Yui and I made our way to a less populated spot and targeted a Rabbit. Yui started running at the rabbit and I took aim with my rifle, I could fire 5 shots before I had to use the skill Reload which took some of my mana to reload the cartridge. The tool tip said ammo was also purchasable, I’ll have to look into that later. I pulled the trigger and was surprised by the kick I received from it. The other gunners nearby didn’t seem to be nearly as affected by their shots. 

I looked at the rabbit I had just shot. I had the settings for the game set to as realistic as possible, so the rabbit i just shot had a hole going through it. Yui who was still about a meter away had blood splattered on her. 

“Well that was surprising.” she said wiping the droplets off her face. Luckily she is not very squeamish when it comes to gore. 

“I guess this thing is OP after all.” I muttered. I looked over to Yui, “did your quest counter go up one or do we have to hunt separately?”

She opened her menu, “It went up but I might go ahead and hunt by myself anyways, seeing as you fricking one hit the poor things.”

“Alright.” I agreed with her, we could get the quest done faster if we split up even if only a few less seconds. 

I moved over to a small group of 4 rabbits, my ammo clip held 5 shots so I should be able to hammer them pretty quickly. I got into a crouch so that i had a lower center of gravity to make it easier to aim. That’s when I learned what the Piercing attribute meant, I fired my rifle and the bullet hit the first rabbit and the rabbit behind it also had a hole in it. I mouth flew open in a gape. I quickly recovered and aimed at the other two rabbits that were heading towards me. A moving target was harder than a sitting duck so i waited till it jumped and right before it hit the ground I fired and took it out. The whole time I was thinking how OP this thing was, I mean come on devs this thing is going to get me lynched by the other players. Note to self move to higher level monster zones to avoid crowds. 

I made quick work of the last one it took two shots for him because he jumped to the right instead of straight and I missed my shoot, so I waited until he was right in front of me and I blasted him to NPC heaven. I used my reload skill it took about 5 seconds and a click appeared in my hand, I ejected the empty, which scattered into light and put the new one in. I looked over to Yui there were no less than 5 rabbits pounding on her shield put she just stood there, it seems she was testing her shield and defense. I waited a couple of seconds then made my way perpendicular to her. I aimed at the rabbits trying to get all of them in the line of the shoot. I fired the bullet went through three of them and only damaged the fourth.

Yui jumped surprised and glared at me, she finished the other two off and made her way over to me. 

“Next time you do that, I’ll shield bash you till you forget your own name.” she said grinding her teeth.

“Sorry, sorry. It looked like you finished your test and I want to turn in the quest since we have enough now.” 

We made our way over to the old man who gave us the quest. He was currently swarmed with players, luckily everyone realized it would be faster if everyone formed a line on each of his sides that way 4 players could turn in the quest at a time. We got in the line that was closest to us and watched as countless people did the half a second pause before walking away. Finally it was our turn.

“Well done you not half bad.” he said as everything around us seemed to pause.

“Here you go, is there anything else you would like us to do?” I asked as I handed over the loot, when I pulled it out of my inventory it was a simple card with the information written on it. 

He paused for a second, “judging by how easily you took out these little pests I think we can have doing something alittle harder. Head east of the Portal and hunt the Golems there, based on the quantity and quality that you bring back might increase your reward.” he said and pointed in the distance. 

----- Accept Quest? --------

Hunt Golems (0/10 up to 100)

Quality raises the reward.

Reward : Undetermined, City Contribution Points

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I looked over to Yui and gave her a thumbs up. We accepted the quest and moved out of the way for the next batch of players. We checked the time, only about 10 minutes had gone by so we still had quite a bit of time before the rest of the gang is able to access. We set off in the direction the old man pointed. 

Arval is unique in that the entire world is a wasteland according to the developers, I personally wouldn’t be surprised if there were hidden areas and such but I doubted I would find one on the first day. Anyways all players started out with was a Portal and they had to develop it. NPCs were able to be hired if you started a business but everything is player runned. The more points you contribute to the city, the more benefits you can gain. 

“I wonder what he meant by quality, Level? Type?” I asked Yui as we walked.

“I would bet level but who knows how the developers want to make this game unique.” 

“I heard they started Arval from the seed of a planet and let a million years go by. Appearntly the people of this world were doing good till about 5 thousand years ago when they wiped themselves out and turned the planet into a wasteland, the developers didn’t do a thing they just… let it run its course.” I said as I thought of the article that I read. It was responsible for keeping track of how development was going and about a month ago they reported the  world was at a highly developed magic level when two of the nations in this world went to war and razed the world.

We finally made it to the area with the Golems, they were easily 3 meters tall and were lumbering around the area. They looked like unformed humanoid bodies. Some were the same color as the ground and their names were yellow meaning they were between 2 and 4 levels higher than us. Then some were made out of crystal and their names appeared red to us meaning the were between 5 and 9 levels higher. 

“Let’s grab the crystal ones” Yui and I said at the same time causing us to laugh.

“Want to test your defense against those?” I asked pointing to the nearest Golem. 

She popped her neck and pulled her shield off her back and started to make her way over to the nearest Golem. I pulled my Rifle out as well and followed her at a distance. It seemed the Golems were passive so she was able to get right next to it, the golem had turned toward her and the two glowing llights that were its eyes stared at her as she made her way over. She pulled her sword out and stabbed the golem in the chest, she did a pitiful 1 damage. The golem slammed its arm into her shield without any warning or telecasting. Yui slid back a meter but it looks like she didn’t recieve any damage. 

I crouched and aimed at the Golem’s head. I fired and the round put a decent crack to the head. The golem’s HP bar appeared and showed that it had nearly 200 HP and I only did 20 damage to it. 

“This is going to take a minute.” I yelled.

“I got its attention just knock its block off” She yelled back at me.

I tried to aim at the same spot I hit but I missed and hit it in the arm. Thankfully it still received 20 damage. After that it was pretty simple Yui didn’t even try to hit it with her sword anymore, she nearly lost her life when going for a hit, the golem missed her head by half an inch. The golems were passive so I didn’t have to worry about other monsters walking around. Finally after about a nearly a minute we took it down. 

“That was fun, Yeah?” I said putting my rifle on my shoulder and made my way to her. 

“Easy for you to say you didn’t have to be a punching bag for the last minute.” she complained with a pout. 

“I bet your shield skill got a lot of exp from that though.”

She took a moment to check, “ holy crap went up nearly 25%” she said surprised. Well of course it did she was still level 1 getting hit by a heavy hitter golem and wasn’t getting any damage.

“My marksmanship skill went up 10%, it’d be nice if it stayed like this all the way to higher levels.”

----Marksmanship------

Skill Level: 1

Increases Damage by Gun type weapons by 5% per level. 

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We made our way over to the nearest crystal golem while slowly killing the regulars along the way. The quest gave us a card that only the ones that we touch with the card get counted. After our fifth one we both hit level 2 and one of the golem’s dropped a mace that Yui equipped that let her do some damage. Finally we got to one of the crystal Golems.

I took aim and waited for Yui to get in range to smack it a few times. When she grabbed its attention I aimed for its chest, if I’m going to do the same damage no matter where I hit it might as well aim for a place that’s easy to hit. When the HP bar appeared it didn’t say how much HP it had so I assumed we weren’t high enough. Luckily I was still able to damage it but only 10 dmg. Thankfully Yui’s defense was still high enough to block all the damage but she had to keep her wits as the Golem was nearly twice as fast as the regular ones. Half way through the fight I had probably hit the Golem 10 times when after my last shot a glowing object appeared in the golem’s chest. I quickly reload my ammo and aimed at the glowing sphere, the first shot seemed to cause the golem immense pain as it jerked back violently and seemed to glare at me. 

It started to run at me but Yui was faithful to her job as tank.

“Don’t forget about me!” she shouted as she jumped in front of the Golem and swung her mace into the Golem’s core. It jerked again and the core had quite a few cracks on it. I aimed and fired hitting the core again, it seemed too much for it and it shattered. The Golem collapsed to its knees and fell face first to the ground it seemed destroying the core completely emptied the rest of the HP.

“That took about 2 minutes you want to keep doing Crystal Golems or switch back to regulars?” I asked Yui as she had the most dangerous job right now.

“I’m fine, my shield skill just leveled up it now level 3, besides we just learned their weakness.” she answered.

We nodded to each other and got to work, after the next crystal golem we actually leveled up to 3, apparently they give really good exp, though they are much higher level than us. Our goal is to hit 100 Golems before the rest of our guildies log in. Yui got up and charged the next Golem. I cracked my neck and followed after her.