CHAPTER THIRTEEN: THE WALKING DRAUGR 

Gabriel made his way down the main road of the cemetery after parting ways with [Lil Tiger]. The Draugr cemetery was spaced out much like the novice village. It consisted of one main road with two streets branching off to either side. Spaced every dozen feet was a single floored crypt, with a plaque on top of every crypt naming the occupant.

All crypts had a locked gate, that required [1x Rusty bronze key] to open. This was a random drop that had about a 25% chance of dropping on the corpse of any of the random walking Draugr that shambled around the streets. The [Walking Draugr] were an average LVL 4-5. Except for the random elites or bosses.

Because of the nature of the Draugr each time you fought one, the moment their health was 10% they would enter a berserk phase and roar out to their friends. Often leading to someone who was soloing, to quickly becoming besieged from all sides.

There was a trick however to this area, Gabriel remembered a player by the name of RICK-GRIMES found it about two years into the original release of D.O. Once the trick for the starter iron swords was known. [Rick-Grimes] also found out that some of the monsters had special traits, that would either make them go into a frenzy or become docile if certain conditions were met.

The Draugr as classic undead from Nordic Mythology, had terrible eyesight but could smell blood from up to a hundred feet away. Just like a shark, once they got the scent of blood, they came flocking like flies to shit. The player [RICK-GRIMES] found out that you could funnel all the roaming Draugr into the entrance of one of the crypts and use the elevated platform to bash their heads in. After killing the first couple of Draugr, if you didn't loot their bodies they would stay there and make an improvised barricade. He used this to get a special Title and farm the living crap out of the Draugr.

Gabriel chose the crypt about 50 feet into the cemetery on the left. The plaque above read 'Here lies [Tyrion the talker], may he forever shut the hell up'. Gabriel chuckled at the sign. He used [1x Rusty bronze key] to open the gate and walk down into the crypt.

Gabriel chose to kill Tyrion first, as he didn't want to take the chance to get stabbed in the back due to his next plan. There was only one floor to these Crypts and they held one elite Draugr each. Gabriel noticed a tiny Draugr the size of a child, standing in the middle of the floor. It's back was to the entrance.

Gabriel used INSPECT one the Tiny Draugr.

[Tyrion the Talker LVL 5 - (Elite) (Hostile)]

HP – 500/500

Your level is to low for further information!

As Gabriel used INSPECT it caused the Draugr to notice him. Unless a player was a higher level or were in stealth, inspecting an opponent usually made them aware of the player's presence. The tiny Draugr turned around and looked at Gabriel . [Tyrion the Talker] looked like all the other Draugr, besides being half the normal height. He was wearing an old beaten leather jerkin and was wielding two serrated knives. The eerie thing about this Draugr was that his mouth was sewn shut. The Tiny Draugr made what appear to be a muffled tirade while pointing his daggers at Gabriel.

The first half of the battle with this little fella was quite easy however when he was down to half HP, [Tyrion the Talker] would use one of his daggers to cut the stitching around his mouth. Doing this allowed him to use spells and spout copious amount of bullcrap at the player. Gabriel readied his trusty [Iron 'head bashing' short sword] and charged at Tyrion the Talker.

Tyrion wielded his two blades with master like grace. Moving from slices to stabs seamlessly. It kept Gabriel on his toes the whole time.

Gabriel used the flat of his blade to parry some of the attacks but majority of the time he chose to duck and weave. He used his higher reach to continually smacked Tyrion the Talker in the sides of his jaw. Whenever Gabriel made a successful swing a [-25] damage notification would pop up at the top of the Draugr's head, accompanied with the sounds of the Draugr's facial bones breaking.

Once [Tyrion the Talker]'s HP reached 250/500, he used a spell [Force Push] to make some distance between himself and Gabriel. Gabriel had no way to dodge or deflect spells for the time being so he just allowed his body to be pushed back 10 feet. The thing about the spell [Force push] was if you didn't resist it, it would do no damage like. The player affected would just be pushed back slowly.

Once distance was created between the two, [Tyrion the Talker] used one of his daggers to cut the thread on his mouth. The moment he did though, the lower bottom of his jaw fell to the ground, which made the Draugr just stare at it in shock. Because of Tyrion being Undead, he didn't feel any pain, so when Gabriel was smashing the sides of his face, he didn't realize that his jaw was partially ripped off. If it wasn't for the thread holding the bottom to the top it would have fallen off a couple strikes ago.

Gabriel took this opportunity to quickly shorten the distance and used a flying front kick to [Tyrion the Talker]'s chest, knocking the Draugr right on his back. Gabriel then jumped over and pinned both the Draugr's arms to the side with his feet. Gabriel then lifted lifted his [Iron sword/bat] and swung down continuously on Tyrion's head.

D.O didn't have a stamina bar, it worked like real life fitness, the (AP) you had in Strength and Endurance enabled you to do more strenuous physical actions for longer. Using proper martial art moves and fighting techniques, like using minimal movement to dodge incoming attacks not just jumping around, helped to conserve your stamina in longer fights.

These techniques were a make-or-break moment during the some of the harder boss battles, dungeons or even open map wars, that could have you fighting for 24hours (GT) straight. Being the "One man Army" Gabriel was, he learnt to use the min amount of effort to achieve the maximum result a long time ago.

Each swing of Gabriel's [Iron sword/bat] was just the right amount of force, to achieve consecutive [-25] DMG notifications.

WHAM! BAM! SMACK!

If someone was to stumble upon this seen by chance, it would look like Gabriel was plain bullying a small child. After 10 more successful swings [Tyrion the Talker], could talk no more. The strategy Gabriel used was one, many players used later on in D.O to quickly get rid of Undead mages ability to perform spells.

As D.O. had such realistic mechanics, it led the player base to come up with some very creative ways to defeat enemies.

[Slayed – Tyrion the Talker – LVL 5 (Elite) - 500 exp rewarded]

[Congratulations Osiris! You have Leveled up! Current Level 2 – EXP required before next Level – EXP 0/1000]

[You have gained 1x (AP) to distribute when you please]

Gabriel had two (AP) saved up now and put them both into strength to increase his DMG as much as possible before the next battle. Gabriel looted the corpse of Tyrion the Talker and received.

[Loot Obtained!]

x20 silver coins

2x Minor Fury potion {effects: increased damage of melee strike by 5% for 30 seconds. Cooldown - 2 minutes.

Ring of Rapid Chanting (Rare) (requirements LVL 10 – mana-based class) Effects: Allows increase in spell activation speed by 10%.

Twin Daggers of Fast Talking (Rare) (Requirements LVL 5)

Damage: 15-25 (Slashing).

Special Effects: Has 20% chance to cause bleed effect. Bleed DMG 5HP every second for 10 seconds. Can be stacked up to 5 times.

"YES!!" Gabriel shouted. Besides the guaranteed drop of the [Twin Daggers Of Fast Talking]. The [Ring Of Rapid Chanting] has only a 5% chance to drop. This ring was an OP accessories for mage classes in the early stages of the game. Gabriel planned to sell this the moment he entered one of the main cities at the auction house. Earning himself his first paycheck for playing D.O.

Gabriel was over the moon, he did a little Michael Tackson dance on the spot.

Gabriel couldn't equip the daggers just yet because of his LVL but he planned to change that real soon. All players could equip two weapons before the start of a battle but if you wanted to change them out for another set you had to stand still and wait for 5 seconds without taking any damage. In a battle by yourself it is rare to ever get the chance to stand still for 5 seconds without taking any damage.

Gabriel walked back up to the entrance of the crypt and saw two Draugr walking past outside. After a quick Inspect he saw they were both LVL 4. Gabriel picked up a rock near the entrance and threw it at one of the Walking Draugr, hitting him in the head.

[-1]

The Draugr and his pal looked towards Gabriel and started to shamble over towards him. Before the Draugr's entered their berserk state, their movement speed was laughable. Gabriel met them half way out of the entrance. One of the Draugr was holding a half broken long sword and the other one had a weathered wooden club with the head wrapped in rusted iron.

Gabriel ducked under the swing of the one with the club, coming up behind the Draugr and kicked it in the back of the legs to bring the Draugr to his knees. With one swing of Gab's Iron sword/bat to the side of its head the Draugr was knocked to the side.

[-100 Critical Hit! Sunned for 2 seconds]

[Congratulations! You have learnt Short Blade mastery – LVL 1 – 1% increased damage with small bladed weapons, Short swords, Daggers etc.]

Gabriel glanced at the notification but didn't get to take a breath before the Draugr with the broken sword came stabbing towards his chest. Gabriel took a step forward to get into the Draugr's personal space before letting the broken blade slip to his side missing his chest by a hair and using his right arm to clamp down on the Draugr's arm.

With the arm holding the broken blade in Gab's grasp, he used his other free hand to grab a hold of the front of the Draugr's face. Gabriel used a solid kick to the back of the Draugr's legs to bring it down, Gabriel using his hand on its face to add more force slammed the Draugr to the ground, Disarming the Draugr in the process.

[Draugr – Disarmed! Stunned for 2 seconds]

[Congratulations! You have learn the passive skill Disarm –LVL 1 – 1% chance to automatically disarm an opponent of his main hand weapon]

Gabriel took the chance while the Draugr was on the ground, to deliver two quick smacks to the disarmed Draugr's head.

[-35]

[-35]

With Gabriel's added AP in strength, his normal attack did much more damage now. Gabriel spun around to quickly parry the club-wielding Draugr who just got up from it's stun. Gabriel used the momentum from the Parry to do a full spin again and brought his Iron Sword/bat around to the other side of the Draugr's head.

[-100 - Critical Hit! Overkill!]

The Draugr head literally exploded like a watermelon and fell to the ground. Gabriel turned back to the disarmed Draugr that just stood back up and now without its weapon, Gabriel made short work of it.

[Slayed – 2x Draugr LVL 4 – 500 EXP awarded]

Gabriel didn't loot these two Draugr as he grabbed their bodies and bought them to the front of the open crypt before Stacking the bodies on top of each other on the top step. Gabriel pulled his Iron sword/bat out of its sheath again, then stood at the entrance of the crypt with the two corpses stacked in front of him.

Gabriel dragged his blade across the back of his left hand, he had to push hard as the swords edge was blunt as all buggery.

{-2}

The back of his hand started bleeding slowly so Gabriel squeezed the wound to hasten the flow of blood and poured them on the two stacked corpses. He then took up a battle stance and waited.

After 20 seconds he finally heard a Shriek from outside the crypt and saw a couple of Draugr walking over at the smell of blood in the air.

When the Draugr made it to the entrance and stepped on the first step, Gabriel took his chance to send a flurry of strikes on their heads with his Iron sword/bat. Quickly bottoming out their health and adding to the corpse barricade.

[Slayed 2x Draugr LVL 4 – 500 EXP]

[Congratulations Osiris! You have Leveled up! Current Level 3 – EXP required before next Level – EXP 0/2000]

Gabriel added his AP to Dexterity, adding to his chance of getting Critical hits. Gabriel started hearing shrieks coming every second now and could see that the Draugr were shambling out of all the streets. They were headed Gabriel's way.

Gabriel started feeling a bit apprehensive with the amount that was coming. He only read a forum post about how the Player [RICK-GRIMES] did it in the past, he never realized how many roaming Draugr were in this cemetery. There was a reason the cemetery was referred as the "Noob killer area".

Gabriel prayed that his sword could handle this many enemies. Besides that one worrying thought in Gabriel's head, there was a smile slowly forming on his face. The moment another set of Draugr made it to the steps of Gab's crypt, all the negative in his head cleared and he entered his battle state, with purple eyes a glowing. Gabriel started swinging away.

Before Gabriel knew it, he had a line of Draugr 50 deep. All lining up to get a wallop. Soon the Draugr massacre began and the fable of Osiris 'God of Death" began.