15. Claire's First Dynamic Event

"Rest is not idleness, and to lie sometimes on the grass under trees on a summer's day, listening to the murmur of the water, or watching the clouds float across the sky, is by no means a waste of time." — John Lubbock

After fighting spiders for another three hours, Claire was mentally exhausted; having to almost constantly run when she ran out of mana and avoid frontal confrontations was draining.

Fortunately, she had risen to level 9 at that time and acquired a few pieces of equipment; the spiders she killed dropped. 

Her appearance changed drastically. She now wore a long leather dress, a pirate hat, slippers, and metal gauntlets. 

Despite the unconventional look, the new equipment significantly boosted Claire's stats. Her health increased by a whopping 400 points, mana by 180, and stamina by 90. Moreover, her defense improved, allowing her to withstand a hit or two when her lightning cowl was activated.

In all of that time, she had killed all of the spiders around the village and killed any straw ones she could isolate in the periphery.

Since she didn't want to spend an energy credit to play all day, she wanted to finish killing the last spiders before 8 hours were up. Judging by the size of the village and the fact that she had gotten faster and faster at killing, it hopefully wouldn't be more than the hour and a half she had left. 

While sneaking around the streets, she made her way towards the largest building in the village. Perhaps the remaining villagers were hiding there, and she could get some NPC helpers. 

When she arrived near the square's edge near the building, she could hear the sound of fierce fighting. While trying to get a look at what was going on, she saw who was fighting and was immediately terrified.

While the spiders she had seen so far were giant, that was for spiders; they were not truly large creatures; that was not true for the massive, shiny black spider the size of a moving truck fighting a middle-aged man who was desperately defending the building behind time. 

Going by how things typically work, it should be now that she ran in and helped the man kill the boss before they turned the tide and saved the village. However, there was a big problem.

Looking at the NPC's health, it had less than 10% HP, and the boss spider, who was not only level 15 but had a different color health bar than anything else she had seen, still had around 90% of their health. If she ran in, they would both die together without much issue.

While watching, she couldn't help but comment that this was a great opportunity that she would miss out on if she was at least level 10 and had an excellent single-target damage ability; if she had better gear, maybe she could do something. 

For the first time, she felt the struggle of going into a higher-level zone while being under-leveled. 

It did not take long for the man to die and the large spider to eat him whole; seeing the graphic scene, Claire wanted to throw up, once again understanding that this game was for adults only.

As soon as the man died, a loud sound rang in her ear, not anything around her but the game itself.

Dynamic Event Starting near you! Help the humble village of Sturg resist a spider invasion by slaying their brood mother and showing them the might of the Emerald Enclave!

Rewards: Determined by contribution

Duration: 1 hour

Seeing the notification and realizing she was already here, she was excited; without thinking about anything else, she ran back to the peripheries to look for more singular spiders to kill to contribute towards the vent, opting to wait for more players to show and to try and fight more openly. 

She was around halfway to level 10, so maybe by the time it was time to fight that massive spider, she could have another ability and more mana.

It took only 15 minutes for the first players to start trickling in, some ones and twos and some in slightly larger groups. 

It did not take long for fights to start breaking out in the outer areas of the town, everyone trying to get kills.

Claire had just shot a spider with a basic attack from her staff when a shield-wielding man ran into the street and ran at full speed into the spider, knocking it on its side and falling on top of it. Instantly, one of the spider's legs that wasn't under the shield flicked and cut down more than a third of the man's HP.

Before anything else could happen, a barrage of spells, some she knew and some she didn't, rained down on the man and the spider, slowly draining its health to 0.

Standing back up after the spider died, the man was still enveloped in a bright glow before his HP was back over 90%. 

Seeing that, she realized that friendly fire on spells seemed not to be enabled in Harbinger's Call, which instantly made her feel more at ease, having been nervous about being sneakily attacked randomly by other players at any time.

One of the sorcerers from the group saw Claire and motioned for her to come over.

"Hi there! Why don't you join us in killing spiders? Maybe we can get to the boss before other big groups come."

Looking at the man, he seemed like a completely average dude.

"I'm sorry, but I am not looking to join a group right now."

"Oh, that's no problem; none of us are partied up and just starting fighting together to move faster before a large guild or pre-made party shows up and kills everything."

"Well, ok, I saw that boss, and it looks like it will be tough."

"Did you see anything that could be helpful?"

"It is level 15 and has a blue health bar, that's about it." 

Hearing that, the entire group went silent; it looked like they had just dropped their ultimate on a boss in their immune phase.

Seeing their reaction, she was puzzled before realizing they must know something she didn't.

Someone else in the group, a tall, elven woman, signed.

"Since you aren't level 10 yet, you might not know, but in the dungeon, we saw a lot of different rank enemies; red is the basic, orange is the elite ads, and green is the mini-bosses, that makes blue the same rank as the final boss of the dungeon, and that was only level 10."

"So that means that this boss is most likely much stronger."

"Yes, not to mention I haven't met a team to clear the dungeon as it is; I've only seen some clips online of teams beating it."

The meaning was clear: average teams couldn't beat a level 10 boss monster, and now they were fighting a level 15 one. 

While everyone was feeling down, the guy who initially talked to her spoke in a laid-back tone. 

"Well, on the bright side, the dungeons are 5-man activities, and this is an open world. It has been 15 minutes, and over a dozen people are already here. In another 15 minutes, I wouldn't be surprised if there were 50 of us. It should not be a problem to kill it when we have to just throw bodies at it."

Hearing the mention of throwing bodies at the boss, everyone looked at the tank, and a few people spoke sympathetically.

"I believe in you, Fire Bent; I will use all my mana to heal you."

"You are level 13; it shouldn't be too bad for you."

"Yeah, I am sure there will be other tanks, too, so you guys can share aggro."

Looking around the small group of people, there were 5 DPS, including Claire, two healers, and just a man named Fire Bent as the only tank. 

Everyone else was at least level 11, but Claire felt that they would all die just as fast as she would; most likely, it would be a slaughter.