11: Demon Dealings

Heading out beyond the city, I made the decision to go and help out with the current community quest in the zone. One of the areas where the game liked to veer back into realism was how the monsters were doled out. Specifically, it would be super strange if the capital city of a kingdom allowed a goblin camp to exist for years nearby. So, they had little local narrative events and quests that allowed them to rotate the nearby enemies and keep things fresh.

Currently, there was a demonic cult causing problems within the city, which had spread to the surrounding countryside. The quest I’d picked up was pointing me to clear out a farm off over a nearby hill, and while I did so, I decided to do some sleuthing.

During my time in Ardgour these past few days, I had kept an eye out for other fae players, but so far I hadn’t seen a single one. I swear they existed, though, so where the hell were they?

Starting off, I ran a search in the forums, but all I ran into was a post from near launch about how some fae mobs up in the mountains north of Porin were overpowered. Nothing at all about playable fae, and especially not my type of fae.

Widening my search to the whole of the net, I still didn’t find anything. So, on a whim, I took a selfie and posted on the forum myself, asking if anyone else had found a secret base class, or if there were any others like me. Specifically, my race wasn’t just fae, but rather an Ascendant Sprite.

With my question posted, I swapped to the wiki and began to dive into just what an Ascendant Sprite was. So far, a few of my kind had been seen up in the mountains that ran the length of Porin’s border, but all were obscenely high level and none had been killed by a player. They did have wings though, which confirmed the passing knowledge I’d already had.

Ah well. I guess I’d just have to figure out my race the hard way, by leveling up.

I reached the farm an hour or so later, and climbed a tall conifer tree to get a good look at the situation before I just barrelled in there. A cursory glance revealed what I’d been expecting, a whole bunch of corrupted farm animals along with a handful of corrupted farmhands. Easy pickings, assuming there wasn’t a lesser demon around somewhere who was directing the show.

With the situation sussed out, I climbed down from the tree and checked my gear, such as it was. All set. Time to kill some demonic creatures!

The farmstead was situated at the top of a low hill, and consisted of several single storey buildings, while the main house boasted two floors and what appeared to be a low attic. The farmland itself extended quite a ways back from the road and down into a gully that I couldn’t see, either from the tree or from my approach. I’d just have to hope there wasn’t anything nasty hiding down there.

The first animal to see me as I trudged up the muddy pathway was a sheep with a massive, misshapen horn protruding out of its forehead. It looked like the inbred child of a goat and a unicorn.

I rushed it. My blade sang as it exited its sheath, cleanly slicing off the front legs of the beast as I knelt into a sweeping horizontal slash. Yellow critical hit numbers danced a semi-transparent jig in my vision as the game told me exactly how much damage I had done. Completing the cut, I flipped the feather-light katana over my knuckles to realign it for a quick and vicious thrust up into the creature’s brain.

The second move wasn’t exactly standard practice, but doing crazy shit could sometimes unlock hidden skills that had been lurking. Mixing things up every now and then could yield some good results.

I didn’t have time to check any notifications, though, because a trio of demonic sheep were charging me, intent on avenging their fallen comrade. Using abilities with stance or weapon-grip cues, like Scatter Dash, had always come naturally to me. Something about the way they were just an extension of your base physical movements just gelled with my brain. This one was no different.

Iridescent afterimages of me flickered out in all directions, one of which was imitating a reckless charge towards my enemies. I followed it in at a slighy angle, and spinning low on my toes, sword outstretched, I ducked into a spin. My momentum to carried me straight through their formation like a discus of death.

Dark, contaminated blood trailed my sword for a brief moment before it faded from view, and I received a notification that all three level-four demonic sheep had taken sixteen damage each. Not enough to kill them, but they were within one quick strike of death, now, and so I dispatched them with quick, efficient moves.

God, this body, class, and race combination felt good. I was so fast, so deadly, and the best part was that my mind just meshed with this character so damned well. It was like I had been wearing weighted clothing previously, and now I was in light and airy silks.

A grin slowly blossomed, and I moved on to the next batch of corrupted animals with a vengeance. Feeling fancy, I leapt into the air and imbued my sword with fae magic, then activated my dash. It was flashy, over the top, and absolutely addictive.

My foot came down on the back of a ram, whose horns were dripping with a black, tar-like substance. My sword raked its face, then came down to sever the spine just above its hips. The back legs gave out, and I rode the creature to the ground, skipping almost delicately across the gravel-strewn path.

I left that one there for later, and instead danced to the side as a bull crashed towards me, bellowing with pained rage. Not one to let an opportunity pass me by, I ducked low and laid a slice across its front legs, sending it crashing to the ground and lowing in pain.

Another sheep caught me with its horn as I watched the bull crash land, and I gasped as the pain lanced up from my side. It wasn’t much, Rellithesh made sure that pain was calibrated to your individual tolerance, but still. My settings were such that only a small amount of blood came out, but that wasn’t cause to wait around and get some new holes.

I threw myself away from the melee with a Scatter Dash and summoned a regeneration potion out of my inventory and into my hand. It went down tasting like strawberries and alcohol, and I instantly felt the effects. Damn, though. That singular hit had taken like a third of my hit points. I really needed to avoid getting hit, like, ever again. I was not a tanky gal, even with above base Con stat. I think this race had like, an HP penalty or something.

My first order of business was for the fucker who stabbed me to be introduced to the pointy end of my sword. This time, there was no finesse, I just activated my dash and ran it through. I had to use my foot to pry my sword out, and only just in time too, as the bull had turned its butt to me and lashed out with a hoof. Tenacious bastard. The move must've hurt its front legs, sliced up as they were.

Dodging the offending hoof, I cut it off at the ankle with a sidestep and a swipe of my blade, then hopped forward and shoved its point down through the skull of the bull. With the demon squad’s biggest hitter downed, I turned my attention to slaughtering the remaining sheep.

It didn’t take long, and when I did, I received a whole bunch of notifications.

Combat Report:

Enemies Killed: Corrupted Sheep (8 xp), x10 Corrupted Ram (12 xp), x2 Corrupted Bull (20 xp), x1

Exp total: 124

Nice! I was almost at level five already! A few more kills and I’d be there.

A few more kills… like three corrupted sheep dogs and their two handlers, who were coming to investigate all the commotion I'd just caused. The men actually made my stomach turn a little. Their skin was a pallid off-white with red and green tendrils lacing it like some sort of rogue creeper vine.

The dogs were the same, but faster and easier to kill. I dodged the snapping jaws of one mutt, then twisted and slashed with my katana, opening a ragged wound along its flank. Damage numbers spiraled off it, replacing the gore that you’d have seen in reality.

A second dog’s attack forced me to hop out of the way before I could finish the first one, but it was also not nearly so lucky as its friend. My magically imbued blade caught it in the mouth, and the force of my strike combined with the dog’s momentum to slice the top of its head clean off. This, of course, killed the dog.

A growl from behind me signaled that the first was coming around for another go, but this time I activated my imbue parry ability, and angled my blade to deflect snapping teeth. I didn’t have enough momentum to finish it in a similar manner to the other, so I withdrew and readied for another strike.

That was when the corrupted farmhands arrived, and it was all I could do to leap out of the way and slice some fingers off before I was on the defensive. Oh, and the gross human-shaped pukebags had claws!

Forced into a retreat, I made them pay for the ground in the only currency they had available. Limbs. A hand went flying, then the lower jaw of a dog, then the front leg, and finally a head. The last dog died from the raw damage it’d sustained, rather than any sort of singular fatal wound.

That left me with just the demon zombie boys, but strangely enough, they were easier to handle than the fast and aggressive canines.

When they finally fell, I was running low on mana and exhausted. God, what a battle. It wasn’t often in the lower levels that you had to give much of a shit about mana as a fighting class, but here I was.

Eyeing the farmstead warily, I downed another health potion, followed by one to deal with my mana problem—My abilities were fairly mana-light, but using so many in suck a frantic time frame had brought me low. Then, as I caught my breath, I allowed the notifications to expand out from their place in the corner of my vision.

Combat Report:

Enemies Killed: Corrupted Dog (15 xp), x3 Corrupted Human (15 xp), x2

Exp total: 75

Congratulations! You have reached level 5!

Yes! This would hopefully give me something good!