4 The outside world. A den of stinking good.
If a man could be measured by his patience, then Kano Hoffstedder was severely tiny. After numerous attempts at finding hidden doors and various punches and kicks at "offending" parts of the wall. His knuckles were sore and cracked from the many punches he had landed.
He slumped to the ground in exhaustion. Once more tears, pushed at the corners of his eyes. Kano snorted back some thickening mucous and took another look around the room in the dim glow of the Orb.
"How did my characters leave?"
He rested his head back against the wall and began to breathe, slowly and purposefully. He needed to calm his frayed nerves and think.
"Appear in the starter dungeon. A plain robe and nothing else. Lucky ones find a hidden chest with a dagger, otherwise you had to use your fists. A few small encounters, deadly if you went without care. Smart and cautious would make most battles easy. A few rodents of unusual size, not to be confused with Giant rats. Rewards from combat would yield various bits of equipment. Usually depending on the enemy. One caster dummy. One Cleric dummy. A couple prisoners from town. Background is each player is member of local adventurer academy, mostly orphans. Defeat dungeon boss, a large undead... Bonesy. Bonesy is the boss..."
He opened his eyes wide at the sudden revelation and jerked upright. The location of the final boss chamber was right on the other side of this room, and when defeated it fell away.
"The Orb of Finality. That's the key!"
A grin appeared on his dirt smeared face as he stood up and strode purposefully to the pedestal where the Orb lay. He placed both hands on the Orb and declared, "Chelandria, take heed! For I have chosen the path of the Necromancer!"
The Orb glowed even brighter until the light filled the room.
As the light faded away, Bonesy stepped back out of the wall. He faced the once more empty room and peered deep into the aether.
"And so dear ones, we find that the world of Chelandria has a new hero, or perhaps villain. Only time will tell if this young man will find his way. We will follow his trials and tribulations, his sorrows and triumphs. What joys will he discover? What troubles will he start? Throughout it all, you will have me, the most famed Bard of them all, Bonce de' Poiard, to guide you, and he, until this tale too, comes to an end. Another scar upon this realm, but each one a tale like no other, yet so similar as to be heard again and again. And so began, The Odyssey of the Nameless Necromancer."
***
NAME: Nameless (No name chosen.)
RACE: Unknown (humanoid? Human?)
CLASS: Necromancer
***
PHYSICAL: 1
Skills
Brawling 1 - Unarmed damage 1
Toughness 1 - Able to withstand one point of damage each combat. (Secondary effect- Bonus to Stamina.)
MENTAL: 1
Skills
Casting 1 - Able to cast Tier 1 spells with no drawback. Current safe zone of knowledge, 3 spells.
SPIRITUAL: 1
Skills
(none)
Stamina 11/11
***
XP - 1000
INVENTORY-
robe
***
SPELLS -
<Raise Dead > 1
***
Kano smiled as he looked over his sheet, then immediately frowned as he made the connection in that he never told the Orb his name, and now he could not change it. Thus, he was nameless. "Crap."
But, he never realised that he could gain toughness simply by punching things, but as he thought about it, it was not because he was punching, but because he was injuring himself. He glanced at his knuckles and they were still pretty battered looking. They were extremely sore and stiff, like when he was a kid. He had not let loose like that in a long time. As a child he had thrown his temper around whenever anything raised his ire. But after being beaten up too many times at school, he had begun to hold it in. His mother had made him take numerous different disciplinary classes, but that usually ended when he got into an altercation with another student. No class in town would take him in after a few of those happened. He had made a name as the Bad kid, the Nobody, Worthless.
"Well look how worthless he is now!" He screamed at the world he once knew and waved his fist at the sky. "Watch! This man will have an army at his disposal! He'll be a king! He will be a GOD!"
A rabbit glanced up at him from nearby, then proceeded to nibble at the grass in front of it as if no one had spoken.
"Wow, tough crowd."
Kano arched his eyebrow at the small rodent and looked around at his surroundings. A small village lay nearby, surrounded by a temperate forest.
"Academy Village, and at its center, the Adventurers Academy. A small offshoot slash subsidiary of the Epica Guild. A large band of mercenaries that effectively equal out to a Corporation in this world. You don't have to join them, but there is no reason not to either. Unless you really don't like being told what to do. And this man has never liked that idea."
As he looked out over the land, his thoughts returned to his sheet. "Nameless... Yeah, that could work... but isn't there already a Nameless in this world?" He wondered if that particular creature would care if his own name was used, or if he was simply called that because no one knew his name. After all, the Hidden Boss known as the Nameless Necromancer was simply called that because he had no name, only 3 question marks above his head in [Scarred World xv]. Did that mean he too had not chosen a name? Or did that mean... 'Did I take his place? Or was he a placeholder for me? If either are true, then what about other players? Each character was called a Chosen of the Gods... which was true in many games, but if I was actually summoned here by one... then would my characters have actually been me controlling them?'
The though of losing control of himself at any time was rather horrifying, but he had no way of answering his own question. 'No matter now, I need to level first. The orb grants you 900 xp as a gift once you exit the dungeon. Looks like it gave it to me too. I should have close to 2000, but I didn't go all the way through. Still, its enough.'
He began to think about his sheet and the path to power that he would need. 'Physical I don't have to worry about. Though toughness is nice. It will allow me to cast more as both stats affect Stamina, and Spiritual also affects that in a passive way in that it allows me to ignore adverse affects for longer. Mental is pretty easy, as the game would automatically increase it depending on what choices you made and how smart you played. Spiritual depended on a few hidden factors, faith only being a part of that.'
"Plus, this one can not spend XP on primary stats, only skills as the game always controlled the Primes. So that makes it easy. This one only has a few skills. 500 to toughness. And 200 to casting. 200 to brawling."
***
NAME: Nameless (No name chosen.)
RACE: Unknown (humanoid? Human?)
CLASS: Necromancer 2
***
PHYSICAL: 2
Skills
Brawling 2 - Unarmed damage 1-2
Toughness 3 - Able to withstand one point of damage each combat. (Secondary effect- Bonus to Stamina. Tertiary affect - Bonus to Health.)
MENTAL: 2
Skills
Casting 2 - Able to cast Tier 1 spells with no drawback. Current safe zone of knowledge, 3 spells. Casting Tier 2 spells has 10% less drawback.
SPIRITUAL: 1
Skills
(none)
Stamina 13/13
Health 5/6
***
XP - 100
INVENTORY-
robe
***
SPELLS -
<Raise Dead > 1
***
He smiled as he glanced at his changes, even the buzzing at the back of his mind eased a bit as he improved his casting ability. He also felt a little less out of breath. "Time for this man to work out a bit. Ha! Bet the fools never would imagine a caster at a gym! Do you even lift, Bro?!"
