New Game

Chapter 4: Grinding

It had been three days since he had entered the game; and he still hadn't completed the fetch quest he'd received from Agitha.

Of course he had spent quite a bit of time looking for Sophia and Alister; but he hoped that they were also looking for him. He was almost sure that if he stayed in the town for long enough, players would move on, and the crowd would thin. He'd be bound to run into them sooner or later. So for now, he was happy to get on with things, levelling up and completing minor quests.

The main thing that had been stopping him from completing Agitha's quest, though, was the fact that the forest was in a PvP zone. The safe zone ended just past the lake – so he'd have to leave it if he wanted to get to the forest and obtain the wood. Aquila didn't know if he wanted to risk going into no-man's-land just yet, especially as he was alone.

Killing rabbits and shooting birds really only got him so far when it came to levelling up his combat skills. He had spent what had been his first real day in the game out in the fields of Novus Town slashing at wild rabbits and shooting at birds. The area seemed to be a training ground for many other players, especially because it was a safe zone. On more than one occasion multiple people were racing to attack a single rabbit and compete for exp, himself included.

There were also some who had spent the day at the lake, Aquila's eyes were keen enough to see them in the distance, spending their time fishing upon the shores. It seemed like such a tranquil way to play the game, and although Aquila had no doubt that the skill would probably be useful for bartering and making money later down the line, it wasn't something that he wanted to focus on just yet.

Aquila had run out of arrows that day pretty quickly; although he was usually able to find them and pick them up in the grass, sometimes other players got to them first. It turned out that dropped items were available to anyone in the game, and a missed shot meant that the arrow was counted as dropped.

The rabbits that he killed occasionally dropped loot too. Usually rabbit skin, sometimes a raw rabbit leg, and very rarely, a small amount of gold. One player claimed to have picked up a rabbit foot – but seemed to be an ultra rare drop. Rabbits weren't the only thing that appeared in the fields. Deer could sometimes be seen bounded through the grass, as well as the occasional boar. Though he had never actually been able to take out a deer or a boar. They were much bigger; usually the targets for ranged attacks – and he was running low on arrows. Whenever he saw one, it was almost always taken out quite quickly by a wind blast or a fireball from one of the mages.

He had also discovered that mob loot dropped exclusively to the player who had done the most damage to the mob, for about thirty seconds. After that the loot appeared visible to every player and became free game. If nobody claimed it, it would disappear after a small amount of time. Aquila knew this because rabbit hides were appearing all over the fields, and disappearing soon after.

Whilst out grinding, Aquila had tried to strike up conversation with some of the other players who were out there too. This was mostly because he had run out of ideas about how else he could come across any kind of information about Alister and Sophia, and talking to players seemed to be the best way of hitting two birds with one stone – especially because the rabbits could often take time to spawn. He managed to make some small-talk, but nobody could give him any information about his friends.

'Everybody in here is looking for someone they came with,' a female half-elf had told him, 'you might get lucky, but probably not. I, myself, joined the game with my twin sister. Should be easy to find – right – she looks exactly the same as me. But it turns out it's much harder than you'd think.'

Halfway through the day Aquila decided to head to the town square to sell all the rabbit skins that had begun to accumulate in his inventory. The town square was much less crowded the second day, many people had decided to move on – starting on quests to gain exp, grinding or venturing out from the city to explore the land. Although less crowded, it was still a very popular gathering place and there were quite a few people running around chaotically. Aquila had spotted a guard loitering in the middle of the town square, though many other players seemed to be trying to talk to him too. Aquila approached the guard.