More Than A Game (Epic LitRPG adventure)

Chapter 6: Gringvort part 2

"Cool," I said, having digested everything I read. "Tolkien doesn't have anything on this..."

And after setting the alarm in my music center for 8 a.m. I went to sleep. I slept like a baby, calmly and free of nightmares. It was just before I woke in the morning that, for some reason, I dreamed about Spartacus, who sat at a monitor and said, "If I'd only known I could get better armor at the auction... I'd have bought some..."

That was when my alarm went off, thank God. Sometimes fun little twists in life can come back to haunt you—after all, we'd just been talking about Spartacus. But whatever, it was time for battle. I had a cup of tea and got ready to crush some skeleton ribs under the watchful eye of our elder clanmates.

I got to the square about twenty minutes early, and the first person I saw there was an old Noobland friend: Oygolinn. He'd found a way to get all the way up to Level 27 and pick up some nice equipment. His bow certainly represented an upgrade over my simple club.

"It's an elf up in here!" I waved to him. "Well, look at you. Have you even eaten or slept? We started at the same time!"

"Hey!" Oygolinn greeted me. "Well, not everyone is as lazy as you are. Looks like you couldn't jump more than two levels. How are you here, actually? Don't you have to be Level 25?"

"I can't tell you. It's a big secret. But seriously, how did you level-up so fast?"

"Not that fast," the elf said with a wave of his arms. "Since we were together, I only left the game when my brain started to shut down. Slept four hours and jumped back in. City, location; city, location."

"Why go to the city?"

"I sold everything I got to traders and left the gold in my room. PKers are brutal. It seems like there are a lot of them lately. They got me at least 20 times. The last time they killed me, I decided to hell with it, logged onto a forum, looked through the list of clans, and picked the Thunderbirds. Their terms and conditions aren't too bad, and they're strong on protection: PKers aren't tolerated in the least. So how did you get stuck on Level 6?"

"You know, somehow it just happened...I'm not sure. First one thing, then another... Today, I'll do some leveling-up."

People had been trickling in while we were talking. Honestly, I'd thought there would only be five or six of us, but there were already nine people there... Well, not exactly people. There were four humans: two tanks, an archer, and a mage. Then there were two elves, a lone dwarf, and a halfling named Liutix. I had never seen a halfling before then, and they were definitely unusual. I almost asked Liutix to take off his boots so I could see how hairy his feet were. I was intrigued! But just then, my new acquaintance Eilinn walked out of the fortress, counted heads, and said, "All right, we're missing one. Sergeant, who isn't here?"

Sergeant walked out from behind him just as sullen as he'd been the day before (or maybe that's just how he always was) dressed in chainmail. He had a battle axe in his belt, and on his head was a helmet that looked like a teapot with a second spout and lid soldered onto it. After a quick recount, he answered, "We're missing an elf. Gless. Level 26 hunter."

But as soon as the word "hunter" had left his lips, Gless appeared in front of Sergeant in all his elfish glory. Sergeant jumped back.

"You elves," he said angrily, "only care about your entrances!"

"Sorry," stammered Gless, looking sideways at him and sidling off toward the main group.

"Wow," I said. "Sergeant, you're a magician. So, if you say 'cask of beer,' does a cask of beer appear?"

"I'll tell you this much, if I say 'big bruise on your head' and wave my magic wand," he said while tenderly caressing the battle axe at his side, "you'll get your fairytale! And it won't have a happy ending!"

"Okay, quiet," said Eilinn. "Everyone's here, no one's late, and that's a good thing. Okay, listen up. We'll start by going over some information and then port out. We're going to Gringvort, where the monsters average out to around Levels 29 to 34. It's populated by skeletons and zombies mostly, though you'll also come across death dogs and specters. The average respawn is four minutes. Sometimes, there'll be bosses, but you don't have to worry about them; that's what these fine folks are here for." He waved his hand toward the fortress, in front of which stood three high-level warriors (you could tell just by looking at their equipment and weapons). There were two archers—a man and a girl—and a swordsman.

"That's Rango." The male archer waved.

"That's Krolina or just Kro." The girl curtsied.

"And finally, Reineke Lis, or Lis." The swordsman pressed a fist to his chest and did a half bow.

"Lisikins," laughed Krolina.

"They have a ton of experience, and they're guild veterans. So, they'll make sure you don't have to deal with any bosses or unexpected bot respawns. Those don't happen often, though they do happen. We also sometimes get PKers wandering around over there, if very rarely. Generally speaking, they're either really low-level and have no idea what they're doing, or they're part of very experienced gangs. The noobs you can deal with yourselves, seeing has there are ten of you, though you won't be able to handle any veteran PKers. Just don't expect us to take care of bots for you. None of those three will join your group, and none of them will help you in battles you should be able to handle yourself."

"All right, kiddies," clapped Sergeant. "Form up!"

"Who's the leader?" asked a burly barbarian named Ronin.

"How should we know?" Eilinn answered with a question of his own. "It's your group, so you decide."

"But we don't even know each other!" an elf girl said with some surprise.

"So what?" Sergeant asked. "There are lots of ways to choose a leader quickly, even if you don't know anyone."

Just then, I received a group invitation sent by Oygolinn. Of course, I accepted. I couldn't care less about being the leader, so if someone else out there wanted to do the honors—more power to them.

"Why does it have to be you?" Ronin responded sharply, obviously having just received the invitation. "Maybe I want to be leader?"

"Then you should have sent your invitation first," Eilinn agreeably observed.

"The early bird gets the worm," noted Reineke Lis as he walked over.

"Oh, you're kidding me!" Ronin was beside himself, and barely containing his anger.

Everyone else had no problem accepting their invitations to the group, and soon it was official.

"What trophy distribution did you set?" Sergeant asked Oygolinn.

"Who Needs What," the latter answered.

Trophies were a big deal. When you played in a group, there were four ways to distribute loot: to the group leader, to whoever got the last strike in, democratically (get what you can), and who needs what (the best option). While in the first three modes, loot always went to a specific person, in the last mode, players received a message asking them if they needed each item. If they didn't, they selected "no" and didn't participate in the lottery. If they selected "yes," a virtual die was rolled for each person, and the one with the highest number got the item or resource. It was fair and worked well. Nice job, Oygolinn. Additionally, the money you got for killing enemies was distributed between everyone in the group equally and automatically.

"Why?" asked a frustrated Ronin. "Let's go with Last Strike. If we do it your way, I might do all the killing and be left with nothing!"

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