I saw players already leaving the village, going on a hunt but I wanted to look around and speak with the people of the village first. I headed to the marketplace, and when I got there I saw that most of the stalls and shops were already set up and merchants were sorting through their merchandise. Judging by the horse-pulled carts behind some of them I was certain that many of them weren't locals, and were probably pulled to Carpa by the fact that it was an "adventurer's welcoming ground", as they said. Various foods and beverages were already being sold, but a lot of interesting curiosities and ancilleries were being put on show as well. A bunch of tents were being set up for events like dueling, practicing with various weapons, shooting at targets and there was even a riding field being prepared for horse races.
There were also workshops where both NPCs and players were able to try various crafts like pottery, woodworking, smithing and so on. It felt like a real medieval fair sprinkled with just enough fantasy elements to keep fans of the genre occupied for hours on end.
The lady that was setting up the Arc was in the midst of preparing her stall; she must have been some sort of a cook, because her wares were mostly baked goods, some of which I've never seen in my life. I decided to pay her a visit, even though I had no money on my character at this point.
-Everything smells delicious. - I tried to fire up a conversation.
- Thank you, young adventurer! - she smiled. - here, have a taste of this, I've just finished baking them. These cakes are made from walnuts and erdberries, but the rest is an old family recipe so I can't share them to anyone just yet. - she laughed.
- I'm honored, but sadly I do not have anything I can pay you with. - I really was quite bummed since the cake smelled and looked delicious and even though this was just a game, my avatar did indeed feel quite hungry.
- No need to pay, adventurer. You were so kind when you offered me help with the Arc, take this as a show of gratitude. - she put the cake before me. This interaction alone gave me some much needed information about the world. The first thing was that NPCs remembered previous meetings with specific players, although I didn't know how long their "memory" was just yet, since it's only been like half an hour since I met her. The second, more important piece of info was that the way you treated NPCs affected the way they were going to treat you in the future. It was just basic courtesy to offer help for her, and yet it scored me a delicious surprise. These two things might seem small at first, but if we scale these incidents up to 2 million players and countless NPCs, and the fact that the number of interactions with one specific player between all the NPCs they will meet during gameplay is pretty much infinite, I couldn't help but be amazed about the system once again.
- In that case, I'm grateful. - I said, taking the cake. The moment the sweet dough touched my lips, my heart melted. I honestly didn't remember the last time I ate something so.. good. I felt all the different ingredients coming together to form a taste so unique yet so familiar I had to close my eyes to savour it.
- This... this is the best cake I have ever eaten. - I said without a hint of doubt in my voice.
- I'm glad, young adventurer! - the woman was visibly pleased with her creation.
- Please, call me Orion. - I wanted to see if NPCs remembered specific names as well, but most of all I really wanted to befriend the person behind the best dessert of all time.
- In that case, nice to meet you, Orion. My name is Sheila, and I work at the inn as a bartender. If you ever need a place to stay or you get hungry after a long day of adventuring, you're welcome to visit us!
I thanked her for her kind words and decided to take a look at the other stalls. However when I looked towards my health bar, I noticed a small icon.
Luck +5
Time remaining: 58m, 36s
You've unlocked the hidden property of 'Sheila's Erdberry Cake' by eating it without paying for it. Once the buff runs out, Luck will permanently be increased by 1.
My Luck stat was 1 at the beginning, so essentially with this little encounter I've doubled it. From the prompt it sounded like even if I stole it or got it through other means, I could have recieved the same benefits, but I guessed my approach was the intended one.
And for an hour now I had +5 Luck. I didn't know the specifics about how the stat worked, but common sense dictated that I should not waste this short period of time. The festival will still be here after it runs out.
On my way out of the village I talked to a couple of villagers and asked the carpenter, the blacksmith and the tanner if they needed any help, but if any of these NPCs had a secret quest, someone probably got to it faster than me. Or maybe there weren't any in the first place. Either way, I will look into getting to know the residents of Carpa better once I get back. I saw that the Association worker was free so I quickly stopped by to chat a bit with him. He was very formal throughout the conversation, and didn't seem to have any hidden info either. I did get some valuable knowledge from him, though.
To his knowledge there were about twelve to fifteen thousand adventurers in the Silverwing region, and it should have been similar in the other five regions as well, so 72-90k players in the Kingdom overall. With 12 kingdoms on the continent, the number does get to around 1 million players. There were 96 villages and 7 towns in the Silverwing region, plus the city of Silverwing itself. Every town is ruled by a lord and each of the towns have 10-15 villages in their jurisdiction. 30 of the biggest villages were selected as welcoming grounds for the adventurers, so there should be around 400 to 500 players in every village. Each town has 3-4 villages where adventurers spawned, except Silverwing itself, which has 6. Silverwing is ruled by Duke Dayne, and the other 7 towns are governed by Viscounts, Counts and Marquis'. The village of Carpa is under the protection of Count Vizgrad, who is the Lord of Tidemark, the easternmost town of the kingdom. I also got a regional map for free that showed all of the Silverwing region and important landmarks and towns, although the official said that I should get hold of a local map if I want to keep track of where I'm going. He wasn't wrong; the regional map did give me some pointers regarding the kingdom itself, but in no way did it help me navigating the forests, hills and valleys of my immediate surroundings. I thanked the man for the help and set off once again.
I crossed the village bounds and set forth into the forest near me. I figured I might as well start progressing the two quests I've taken from the Association. On my way I've already gathered some mushrooms and blue wildflowers, which meant that their respawn timer was quite short, as a dozen players have already been here before me.
Finally I took a look into my Skill Book. Right now I only had one active skill to use.
Piercing Shot (Level 1): Fires an arrow with enough force to pierce through enemies in a straight line, dealing moderate damage to all targets hit.
Cooldown: 18 seconds
Mana cost: 12
Sounds like a basic ranger skill, I thought. The fact that it didn't stop at first enemy hit was pretty good, but I wasn't sure how many monsters I could lure in at once without the risk of dying to them.
It felt like the system knew what I was thinking about, because the moment I started thinking about this, a group of wild dogs appeared before me. There were 3 of them; smaller than wolves, but still looked dangerous. I would definitely try to not get involved with the likes of them in the real life, but at this point I was itching to try the combat in this game.
Wild Dog
Level 1
They noticed me a little after I noticed them, and stared at me menacingly. I equipped my bow and shot an arrow right through the skull of the one closest to me before they even got time to aggro on me. It's HP bar fell by one third. They started charging me while I shot a second time. This time I hit the wild beast's side, and it's health dropped by less than before, which meant that there was locational damage in the system. I should aim for weak spots, I thought. The shooting felt exactly like in real time, but I did feel my attack speed stat limiting my ability to shoot arrows in quick succession. I had 21 attack speed right now, and I wasn't sure about the numbers, but it felt like I can shoot an arrow every 3 seconds or so. In real life I could manage shooting one every second. Regardless, if I had to aim at critical points, this way I could at least take my time adjusting my aim without feeling like I'm wasting time.
The next thing I wanted to try was shooting while moving. I started retreating to increase the time needed for them to reach me, and knocked another arrow on the string. It was a bit awkward, but I managed to draw and shoot while moving, although I missed the head, so the HP bar only dropped about 20% once again. In real life, a skillshot like this wouldn't have been an issue. If I had to say, my real body probably had 4 to 6 times higher dexterity than my character at this point. However my running speed were already higher than IRL, so I managed to create a bit of distance between me and the beasts.
The three wild dogs were still running at me visciously, but they had lined up in a straight fashion, which gave me the perfect opportunity to try my skill. I readied another arrow and raised my bow to fire, while thinking about the skill. The system did a great job because it all felt effortless; Piercing Shot activated and I let go of the arrow. The grass beneath the projectile bowed to the side as the powerful shot roared through the air, hitting all three of my enemies. The first one fell to the ground, while the other 2 lost half of their health and got disoriented by the sudden danger.
Both the visuals and the sound effects are incredible, I thought. I shot a couple arrows in quick succession, finishing off my other two targets, then walked to their bodies in order to loot them. However, when I got there and inspected the corpses, the system notification popped up:
Missing item: skinning knife
This meant that I couldn't loot wildlife for their body parts without having the apropriate equipment for it. I got ready to leave when I noticed a small, shining object next to one of the bodies. I picked it up and checked it out.
[Collar]
Can be used to tame low level animals. WARNING: If the taming fails, the item is destroyed.
I wondered if getting an item like this was because of the Luck buff I had. Either way, I was quite happy. I wasn't sure how rare something like this was, but getting any item after the very first encounter sounded like a success to me.
I quickly checked both my status and my quest hub.
Experience: 60/1000
Pest control
Kill dangerous wildlife (small): 3/100
Herbs of the Spring Festival
Butterfly mushrooms 3/50
Blue wildflowers 4/50
Flamewing tulips 0/50
Walnuts 0/100
I was making slow but steady progress. It seemed like wild dogs were worth 20 experience points, so killing 47 more of them would net me a level. They weren't very dangerous so I could probably lure in 6-7 of them at once and be fine. With this thought in my mind I continued deeper into the forest.