[100 Gold, 30 experience, Bright Beads Lv3 - Unique(+6 Magic damage)]

Sparks held the beads around his hand examining them, they were pretty basic. Another bolt of lightning flashed his character. [Level 3]

Litheal smiled, equipping the beads they hung loosely wrapped around his hand. They were tinted blue - which went well with his look.

"Alright Aven, what's next?"

Getting the quest to kill 20 tunnel snakes made him sick to his stomach. "I had enough trouble with the pheasants!" he exclaimed as he walked forward.
"I'll see if I can get a team together, maybe that will make this a little easier."

Bringing up a menu in his view he slid through all the different menus before he got to the 'party' menu,

New Party
Broadcast to all matched level players

Closing the menu a small star appeared over his head that signified that he was a party leader. The message scattered throughout the city and it's surroundings. looking to his left he saw a guard questioning a trader NPC. Moving closer he overheard the man saying that his cart was stolen and a description of the guy who stole it. Others had overheard the conversation and were now testing their limits with the environment.

"Guards stop him! HE STOLE MY POTIONS!" An NPC chasing a player out of her shop screamed, the closest guard was around 4 yards away swung his blade swiftly summoning a thick yellow bolt of electricity out of the sky hitting the player on impact killing him instantly with over 27 million damage. The player stood as a ghost screaming still not even sure what had happened.

"Let us hope that the guards refresh forget about the cart thief." He knew that there was a time limit on how long a guard could stay in pursuit for a wrong-doer. Leaving the city would probably clear the slate the character had, but if they are still in the city they should probably lay low.

"HI!" A younger player had approached him while his mind was occupied, she waved and then looked very serious. "Could you power-level me?" Oh god, why did I not expect this to happen.. Power leveling is the act of one team member doing all of the work, while others on the team stand back and collect the shared experience from kills.
"No, sorry."
"Can I join your team?" She insisted
"No, I... " He said slowly trying to find the right words. "I no speak English."

Sitting down at the fountain he waited for people to join his team - that were in it to fight.

Braden heard the first arrow whistle by just behind him, then felt the second sink into his back. He tumbled forward, crashing into the edge of the fountain. Again his mind was sending off alarms about the pain, but he knew there was nothing there. Well that wasn't totally true; there was an arrow in his back that was sending shivers down his spine. His armor had done next to nothing, he could feel the unholiness radiating off the arrow, and it had nailed him in his vitals for a crit. All told, he was so close to half health that a butterknife could have put him there.

Receiving the elf's message, he looked at his health once more. "Duel. Concede," he declared aloud. The system handled the rest, declaring Daeris Shadowleaf the winner and allowing his health to begin recovering from being in the town. "Congrats," he replied to Daeris. He could see the guards approaching, so he worked fast. WIth the duel over, the arrow in his back vanished. Relieved of that hindrance, he stopped by the now uncrowded NPC for the quest (all the players had either been watching the fight or moved away to avoid it).

"You've got a quest, right? What do you need? And please make it fast." Not as though an NPC could-
"Five pheasant talons. Good luck."
A small bell announced that he had the quest. He was surprised, but he took off running for the pheasant fields. Convenient system, he thought as he ran. Now where did that elf go? Immediately after thinking that, he wondered why. But she was a good shot; it had only taken her one to get the aim right, and the second had been murder.

Daeris was surprised that her opponent conceded the duel. She made sure to stay out of guard sights, even though she had only done a duel she didn’t want to risk it and thus followed into the crowded area. She then began to scroll through all the messages she got. Some got some hate message from other players she had trick to distract her opponent during the duel. She didn’t even brother reading it and deleted them. She quickly read through the messages that her opponent sent her and memorized his name, Braden. He was smart and thus she decided to add him to her friend list.

Perhaps now was a good time to do a quest and besides she was close to the quest giver. She approached the quest giver and was not sure what to say. She wondered how she would activate it but before she could finish her train of thought the Quest Giver spoke up, asking for five pheasant talons. Her first though was when do peasants have talons? She had fought a peasant and he didn’t drop any talons? Perhaps she was missing something. Thus she decided to send a party request to Braden. Maybe he could help her out.

Braden had paused on the edge of town to wait for his health to finish refilling. Sitting with his back against a small hut, Braden sat bolt upright when a party invite appeared in front of him. From Daeris Shadowleaf. He only considered it for a moment before accepting the invite. A display appeared at the edge of his vision. Daeris Shadowleaf was crowned as leader, and Braden Blade was listed right below her. "I'm at the east fields," he messaged. He didn't bother telling her to grab the quest; she was smart enough to know that on her own. Thank stars, too; Braden wasn't here to be a baby-sitter.

He waited a few more moments before standing and stepping out of the village and into a more visible position.

Noticing a small notification on his HUD, Joseph took a book from his belt, and looked at the page that was glowing. Quest {Unstarted} {Level: 1} "Peasants' Pheasants": Talk with Aven near the fountain. Turning back towards the center of the village, running at full speed. That wind blowing through his hair was still great. Hearing a commotion ahead, he slowed to a walk. Scratching at an itch on the back of his hea- "Woah!" Joseph said, "I was not expecting that much detail. VC: Game menu." The menu appeared, and he checked over the tabs. UI, Audio, Graphics, Language. There. User Mental Reality. He selected the appropriate settings, and the itch disappeared. Continuing forward, he came upon a full scale battle. The quest could wait. This fight was pretty awesome to watch.

Mercury stood up tall and stared down at his dead attacker, then at the player that was talking to him. "Why of course I'm okay. I had it right where I wanted it, until you so rudely interfered." He grinned at the person who had come to his rescue and broke down into laughter. "Tell you what, I don't like the idea of owing you for saving me. If you're looking to level up, I'll help you for a few. " He checked his skill list to see if Time's Arena was off cooldown yet, and sure enough, it was ready for use. "Sit right here for a sec. Time's Arena!" A red circle spread out from where Mercury's sword touched the ground. "Ciou," he said as he activated his spell. Nothing happened, until he stepped backwards out of the bubble. He felt the same feeling of passing through water, and then he was out. Everything inside the circle was crystal clear, time inside the bubble moving much slower than that outside. From the inside, the only sign that anything was amiss was the blur as light hit the bubble's edge. And his own vanishing act. That would be pretty noticeable.

He clicked his tongue. "Not completely useless after all." Mercury had a great idea. When the bubble of slowed time dropped, Mercury was rushing towards the stranger. In a parody of his first entrance, a group of four more pheasants was hot on his heels. "Notimetoexplainfollowme!"

Mercury watched the cooldown timer for Time's Arena tick down. Now! He spun to face the charging pheasants. "Time's Arena!" The time magician ran out of one side of the bubble just as the last of the four pheasants ran in. The pheasants were still charging, but their progress looked unbearably slow from the outside. Mercury fell backwards and lay on the ground. "So what's the RoF of that cannon?" He twisted his head around to look for the stranger with the pheasant-killing toy.

"Not very fast" Cid answered "but it does splash damage" he added. Noticing the pheasants getting closer to the edge of the bubble, he ordered "Scouts, keep them in the bubble" his steel servants hobbled over to the edge of the bubble, near the mad birds. They then proceeded to jab at the from the other side. With their movement slowed down so much, they had a hard time counter attacking. "Cannon, fire at them" The Dark Cannon slowly rotated to face the four new targets. Once it had them in it's sights, it fired at the nearest bird, killing it and heavily damaging the others, which were quickly finished off by the Scouts before it could fire again. "Well. That worked out pretty well"

Daeris was waiting for a confirmation message when she suddenly was greeted by one. It stated that Braden had accepted and she could now see her own portrait as well as his at the bottom of the screen. He also appeared on the map as well which would make it easy for them to meet up. “Which quest are you doing?” ask Daeris as she began to make her way towards him. To be honest she didn’t like the quest system. It seemed far too simply, old school. She didn’t want an NPC just to be handling out quest, she wanted to arrive to a situation and have something happen that caused the quest, like in real life but perhaps that was too much to ask for. After a few moments she met up with him. “Shall we get this party started and begin to outlevel everyone else?” ask Daeris in an overconfident voice.

Litheal sat a bit longer, nobody requested to join his party. Sighing silently to himself he hopped down off the fountain, hanging his head low he moved along the village toward the east gate. "Stupid people, I don't want to play with you anyway."

Outside the village he walked slowly through the path his head still hung low before reaching the forest line. Looking up he realized that he had walked to far, the forest line was beyond his level. Turning back he had agro on numerous Tunnel snakes, creeping toward him they seemed to speed up once they saw that their identity was exposed. This was far to many for him to take alone, Running along the forest line he was able to stay one step ahead of them.

Looking back they were on his heel, blood covered the lining of one of their mouths. Blood? Where did the blood come from, his health appeared in the right side of his screen. His foot - His foot had been bit! The pain was there, as soon as he knew that he was injured he felt it. Falling to the ground zapping upwards quickly it was already to late.

It started raining, As if his day wasn't bad enough - the game decided to rain on him too.
"Revive" he said quietly as the village appeared around him. It was starting to rain in the village as well, it must be around this area of the map. Holding his arms up he could feel every drop land on his body as he smiled. He was a recluse who had not felt the rain in nearly 15 years. Although this was just a game, it felt as real as he remembered it to.

Walking back to the east side squeezing the beads around his hand, he had an idea that would probably kill him in the process. The rain that touched him every so often would let out a static shock from his skin. It was a nice counter attack if it could be used properly.

Back in the field he stared at the herds of snakes, this was his chance to redeem himself, using the rain as a conductor he went for a few that were in the puddles already starting to form. The ribbons of lightning emitting from his fingers cracked the air, snapping his hand back he caught the glimpse of what he would be capable of in the future. The lightning struck the puddle electrocuting the three tunnel snakes in it. It was murderous and overpowered, the snakes could not move, only suffer inside their electrocution bath. Their health bars dropped rapidly before they burnt to a crisp. By this time he had agro'd the rest, He backed up slowly trying to count the numbers that were racing at him, but the higher he got Litheal realize.. - They were going underground and coming back up. He couldn't tell how many were after him.

"Come on!" he screamed in anger, "Is that all you got!"

Zapping the ground furiously his mana began to go lower than usual, taking a mana potion he smiled before arcing a bolt off of 2 snakes and killing them. The unique beads were stronger than he would expect them to be - the puddle was weak due to the indirect damage. [6 Killed 24 exp, 20 gold, Snake skin(Craftable)]

The notice caught him off guard, quickly brushing it aside he looked around, all the snakes had disappeared.

"Yeah! You better run!" He shouted toward the forest.

The ground suddenly shook, the rain had stopped - not everywhere, just above him. As the sky went out of view, everything was dark. The snakes had come out of the ground and were now above him coming down on him from the sky. "Shi--....." Litheal started before getting mauled by a dozen Tunnel Snakes.

"Revive"

Inside the village Litheal just stood there. Looking around he said quietly but loud enough for anybody listening to hear.
"Somebody want to party?"

"That was... EPIC!" Mercury was hopping with excitement as the time bubble disappeared. And then he stopped short and a mischevous smile streched over his face. He pointed at the stranger whose name he still hadn't thought to ask and said, "Village gates, five minutes. Tell people." before running off to stir up some new trouble.

"therebetterbepeoplethereorimsoscrewed!" A humanoid blur streaked towards the village gates, pursued by a small army of what looked like more than a few dozen pheasants. As he ran he yelled for anyone he passed to "followmeforfreeexp!" Mercury split his attention away from the ground beneath his feet to bring up the message menu. He hurriedly filled in "freeexp @vilgate" and hit SEND TO ALL. In a moment of distraction, his foot caught on a root and sent him skidding acorss the ground on his face. "Time's Backhand!" Mercury was puched off of the ground and into the air. He landed already running again, the pheasants now only feet away. Mercury kicked up a rock, caught it, and threw it behind him into the mass of pheasants. It would all be for nothing if he lost their agro now.

Eventually, finally, the village gate appeared in the distance. If he'd been in a desert, mercury would have assumed it a mirage, but it was really real. he snapped a stick from a tree as he passed and threw it behind him. And then he was at the gates.

Mercury skidded to a stop and spun around. "Time's Arena!" A bubbkle of slowed space enveloped him, the pheasant army, and a few unlucky players that had been standing too close. Mercury, and those unluckies, went down under a barrage of feathers and blows. "Time's Backhand!" A black cape, and the small magicion that wore it, blasted out of the top of the bubble. Mercury watched as the players figured out what they were supposed to do. It was a slaughter.

Even a small portion of the exp from so many kills added up, and a deep blue aurora poured from the Temporal Mage's eyes as he leveled up once... twice... thrice...

Mercury slammed into the ground just inside the village gates, dying on impact. Damn, no more free exp for him. "Hey cool, I'm a ghost!"

Cid scratched his head in confusion as he watched the over excitable time mage run off "oookay." He left the pheasants to turn in his quest, with his Machine Scouts right behind him. The Dark Cannon on the other hand remained behind, as it was unable to move

[100 Gold, 50 experience, Iron Beads Lv2 - Unique(+3 Physical damage)]

Now he had to go and kill 20 snakes. If he could single them out and take them on one by one, then it wouldn't be a problem....it would take some time, but it would be doable. It might be smarter to go with a party. He wandered around in thought, when he found himself nearby a fountain "Is anyone doing the snake quest?" he asked

The duel in the square seemingly over, Joseph walked towards the appropriate NPC. "Greetings traveler, welcome to Haven. Please walk around, get used to your new body and come back and talk to me when you are ready," she said. Well, he'd already done that. Next step, then. "Ah I see you've figured things out, clearly you know how to handle a weapon? Birth Village needs your help, there is a infestation of Pheasants bordering the city. They may look cute and cuddly, but they are dangerous in pacts. Could you please clear some of them out? Please bring me back 5 pheasant talons. After killing groups of pheasants you will be notified of the loot and rewards, Try not to break the talons in the fight or you will not receive them in the loot!" Hm. He'd already killed one, and he realized that he had a notification. [4 XP, Broken Talon, 2 Gold, Stained Royal Cloak] Intrigued, Joseph selected the cloak. [Equip|Check] Selecting check, a screen opened. [Stained Royal Cloak- A cloak which appears to be taken from a noble. There's a spot or two of blood as well. {+10% Gold per kill} {-5% Agility}] That could be useful. He selected equip, and he felt a sudden weight. Dang that cloak was heavy, no wonder it reduces agility. Joseph walked back out to the edge of the city, drawing his dagger. Spotting a pheasant, he went up to it. He'd seen these straight out attack other people. That was weird. Checking his HUD, he saw a red mark [-10% Agility]. That wasn't right, since the cloak only reduced it by five percent. Selecting it, it showed him another small pop up. [Stained Royal Cloak {-5%}, Sneak {-5%}] Sneak? He told it to show him what that was, and another menu popped up. Those were getting annoying. [ Sneak {Passive}: Not noticeable by mobs whose level is equal to or lower than user's level, -5% walking speed. {Effect becomes invalid while within 10 meters of another player, or within 5 seconds after killing something.}] Well, he should've known there would be abilities. Standing there, he slit the pheasant's throat. [-5% Agility] the first bit of text said. So the ability only reduced speed at certain times? [Sneak {Passive}: ... {Effect becomes invalid... Within 5 seconds after killing...}] Oh. That would explain the pheasants that had just started running at him. HP[||||---------] another part of his HUD showed. Reacted too slow... he thought, respawning milliseconds later. Well, that was what he got for not paying attention. Let's try this again, Joseph thought, running towards the city boundaries.

Braden drew his sword with a confident smirk on his face. "We'd better be. We're a good half hour behind now." Looking out over the field, a goodly number of pheasants weren't there. Some little tyke had aggro'd everything he could and run off. That made their job here that much easier; they couldn't attract more than three at the same time. "Five talons apiece, right? You get first shot, I'll keep them off of you." A basic plan, but proven to be the most effective. Considering the odds of a drop, they'd have to kill 20-30 of these feather-brains before they'd both be finished. Even splitting the experience, that'd be level 3. Level 4 if they were really unlucky with drops, but Braden didn't want to waste time on low-gain kills for that long. This shouldn't take more than, what, five minutes?

Daeris nodded in agreement with what Braden said before taking a look if she could spot the person who had aggro all the pheasants. She also felt stupid that she had mistaken peasants for pheasants. Daeris then began to focus on the pheasant and place a mark on one of them and opened up with a shadow arrow. Since the target was standing still it was easy to hit but it didn’t critical. She quickly followed with another arrow killing the pheasant but it had attracted the attention of the other two pheasants. Now it was up to Braden to get their attention, if he couldn’t then she would draw her sword, otherwise she would simple keep firing arrows.

Braden brought his sword down on the first one, then kicked the second because he couldn't re-position his sword quickly enough. "Just one arrow per pheasant!" he called back. "My sword can finish them after that!" He took a peck and returned a sword stroke to finish his first pheasant. The second one pecked at his legs, so he kicked it again. It didn't do much damage, but it was a convenient way to give himself some space. He crouched as he brought his sword around low. "Fury!" It felt like his arms were being pulled by the blade as it cut three times through the pheasant's body. He tipped forward, his balance totally lost, and landed on his hands and knees. He settled back to sit on his heels, letting his arms hang limp. He was tired, that much was for sure. Swinging a sword around was a lot more weight than he had planned on.

But he didn't have time to rest. Daeris was pulling the next pheasants and he needed to be there to finish them. Braden pulled himself to his feet and lifted his sword once again.
~~~~~
[100 gold, 30 exp, Fowl sword Lv3 - Unique]
A golden glow wrapped around Braden's sword and then burst like a firecracker, announcing he had reached level 4. The pheasants had taken longer than he would've liked.

"This game has a weird sense of humor," Braden commented sitting on the edge of the fountain. He dipped his hands into the cool water and splashed it over his face, basking in the wonderfully refreshing feeling it gave. "Tunnel snakes are past where we were before. Let's split before the Watch notices me." Even though he said that, Braden didn't stand up. His arms were fatigued, so he was happy to leave his sword sheathed and his sore limbs dangling.

Daeris once again nodded her head in agreement and fired an arrow at a charging pheasant but on the move they were hard to hit due to their small size and thus her arrow miss the pheasant. It’s interesting what players can do when they are not limited to just their skills. She watched as Braden throw a few kicks to get the pheasants away. As the pheasant was sent away she shot an arrow, lower its health and making it easy to finish off.

As Braden fell to the ground Daeris was worried but upon seeing that he was fine she almost let out a laugh. She managed to contain it so he wouldn’t be able to hear it but she let out a smile. She then got ready for the next set of pheasants and place a mark before taking a shot.
~~~~~
[100 gold, 30 exp, Sun Bow Lv3 – Unique]
Like Braden a golden glow wrapped around her weapon and then burst like fireworks, stating she had gained a new level. Daeris didn’t like the look of her bow and thus open up her character screen and change the appearance back to the old one while still keeping the stats of the new one.

“What do you mean by that?” ask Daeris in response to Braden question a she looked around while Braden sat on the edge of the fountain. “Perhaps we should go to the bank first. If we can deposit our money then the death penalty won’t be that bad.” replied Daeris to his statement. If they could get to the bank and deposit their gold they wouldn’t have to deal with the gold lose.

As she waited for a response she looked at Braden and realize he was tired… wait how was that even possible? This was a video game, he shouldn’t be tired, it’s not like he had been moving in real life. “Don’t tell me you’re tired. This is a video game. You can’t possibly be tired from the fight with those pheasants.” stated Daeris in a slightly frustrated voice.

"You would think, right? We haven't run far enough for it to ever be noticeable, but swinging a sword around is heavy work. Maybe you made the right decision with your class; a bow would be so much lighter." Even using both arms, he had fatigued quickly. His plans for using the sword one-handed weren't looking so good right now. However, now was not the time to stop. Mages were off collecting levels easily (what kind of drain does magic put on a body? He'd have to ask one sometime) while he was feeling sorry for himself. That could never do.

Braden pushed himself to his feet and gave a nod to his teammate. "Alright. Bank, then snakes. Maybe we can grab a third on the way out."

This time Joseph was prepared for the onslaught of Pheasants. Throwing a knife to slow one of the front ones coming at him down, the group of birds tripped over their own kind, slowing the ones behind them in turn. Remembering his preformed strategy, he yelled, "Poison Edge!" Diving into the wave of feathered fiends. By the time he got out of the flock, his HP was worn down to half, and the pheasants, if they were lucky, about ten percent of their original health. If they weren't lucky, they were dead. Ignoring the notification about his recently picked up drops and XP, he threw another knife or two at some of the pheasants, finishing them off with his dagger as needed. [20 XP, 6 Talon, {21 Gold+10%}=23 Gold] He headed back towards the city. "You have collected all of them? Let me see. Ah, thank you very much here is your reward," Aven said, a notification appearing. [100 gold, 30 XP, Resonant Blade {Unique}] He looked at the dagger he just received, a stat screen up instantly. [Resonant Blade- A faint hum comes from it, reverberating the last noise that came in contact with it. {+10% Crit. Chance}] Sweet. "Now that you have a weapon that can pack a punch, I need to ask one more favor from you, There has been word that tunnel snakes east of the village have been eating hikers and journey men, please would you kill about 20 of them, just to send a warning to the other tunnel snakes? Be careful, they are fairly large - may even be the size of you, and they come out of the ground!" Their description unsettled him a little, but hey: A quest is a quest, right?
Walking over to a nearby shopkeeper, he interrupted the man's bored gaze with a knock on his table. "Hm? Oh, one of you guys. You're ev'rywhere around here. Whaddaya want?" The shopkeeper said, looking annoyed. "I'd like to sell a dagger. Nothing special, I just got a new one." Joseph said, tentatively. "I'll give ya three gold, no more," the man said, examining it.
"Fine by me," Joseph replied.
"Here. Now get outta here. I don't like strangers."
Joseph did so, heading where the woman said. "Snakes..." He muttered, "Underground. Great. Just great." Or, he would've if one hadn't just latched onto his leg. Instead it was more like: "Snakes... Unde-WOOAAH! P-POISON EDGE!" He slashed at the snake with a throwing knife, the first thing available. It let go, recoiling. On his guard, Joseph sipped from a health potion as quickly as he could while still with his eyes locked on the squirming mass in front of him. He drew his new dagger, hand tightening on the grip appreciatively. Suddenly, the snake lunged, but not so fast that he couldn't bring his dagger to block its strike, taking the damage to the creature instead of himself. Now he took his turn, planting the seeds of death in the snakes face, in the form of a well sharpened blade. The snake died, and now that his adrenaline was no longer in charge, he could hear some other players having their own fun with the creatures. He still needed to kill more, though, and was that a level up notification? Yes it was. He was level three now, somehow unknowingly he'd leveled twice without knowing. Shrugging, he started to walk around, hoping that more would come soon. The ground beneath him rumbled, and his dagger, as its name suggested, rang along with it, making a beautiful harmony, which was warning enough, he sidestepped just as one of them would've chomped his leg, that one followed by a small horde more. This would be fun.

It seemed Braden wanted another player to join in. Then again a full group of four would be pretty awesome especially if they were all different classes. A healer and a mage would be perfect. Thus Daeris agreed and kept her eyes open for a mage or some kind of healer. She spotted a blue hair mage named Sparks. “What do you think of that one?” ask Daeris as she pointed towards the mage named Sparks but before Braden could even reply she sent him an invite. “Hi, want to join our party?” ask Daeris waiting for the mage to reply.

Mercury was off pestering the local pheasant population... again. This time he found an even more efficient way of attracting their aggro than just throwing rocks. The mage scooped up an armful of pheasant eggs from a large nest. Every pheasant around instantly honed in on him. "Catch me if you can!" he taunted and sprinted away. Mercury wondered if there were enough pheasants in the game for him to hit the level cap this way. He doubted their respawn rate accounted for pheasant genocide.

A pheasant ruched out of the underbrush just ahead of him, and Mercury held his sheathed sword out in front of him. He jumped, moving the sword underneath him, and shot over the enraged bird from hell by the force of Time's Backhand. The lone pheasant was almost trampled by the hoard as it turned to join them in their pursuit of the caped magician.

Mercury looked behind him at all of the stupid birds and laughed. This was fun! He turned back around to the sight of a massive snake inched from his face, using its head like a battering ram. He was dead before he knew what was happening. The hoard of pheasants, blinded by rage, didn't even register that their tormentor was no longer ahead of them; they just continued their mad dash towards the village.

"Snakes are bad." Those were the first three words out of Mercury's mouth as he revived inside the village. Pheasants he could understand, but what had he done to piss of the snake? "Maybe it wanted the eggs." Mercury marched right back towards the village gate to go find his feathered friends again.