Mmorpg: Shattered Land - Volume 2

2:00:00

The first thing Marius did was upgrade Silent Night. After changing his focus to mass slaughter, Marius had managed to farm enough Stone Forks to upgrade the Customized Weapon from White to Iron Rank.

But the strain of playing so ferociously had taken its toll, forcing Marius to log out before he had completed his objective.

In his inventory, he selected the 100 Stone Forks and selected to use then as refining material for Silent Night.

(Congratulations. Player Midnight Solitude has upgraded Customized Weapon – Silent Night to Iron Rank)

Level 10 – Iron Grade (100%)

(refine with 100 Bronze Grade items to upgrade to Bronze Grade)

Attack: 22.5

Defense: 18

Intelligence: 22.5

Spirit: 18

Dexterity: 27

Skills: Unlock at Gold Grade.

Lightning Stone Level 4 (x3) Buff – 105% Pierce Damage, 5% chance of Critical Hit

Wind Stone Level 4 Buff – 30% Attack Speed

Smiling, Marius checked his stats.

Name: Midnight Solitude

Class: Night Stalker

Level: 10 (23%)

Occupation: None

Health: 460

Mana: 445

Luck: 40

Attack: 49

Defense: 27

Intelligence: 45

Spirit:22

Dexterity: 94

Skills: Basic Slash Level 4 (12% Proficiency) (Deals 140% of base damage. Cooldown none)

Binding Shadow Level 2 (78% proficiency) (Binds target for 4 seconds. Cost 10 Mana. Cooldown 5 seconds.)

Moon Dance Level 2 (7% Proficiency) (Increases Dexterity for 25 seconds, leaving behind shadow stream.Costs 5 Mana. Cooldown 1 minute)

Burning Haze Level 1 (81% Proficiency) (Binds a target in a haze that deals fire damage. Reduces targets defense by 5% for 10 seconds. Costs 20 Mana. Cooldown 10 seconds)

Aura Blade Level 2 (5% Proficiency) (Creates an aura around your weapon, increasing the range of attack by 15%. Cost 40 Mana. Cooldown 5 seconds)

Satisfied, Marius entered the Stone Cave and began his hunt for Stone Gollums. His goal for the day was two-fold.

First, he would find the most efficient way to kill the Gollums.

Second, he would attempt to cull his way through at least 40 before logging out.

The Cave was essentially an abandoned mine. According to the storyline, the Dwarves had mined a rare mineral here before the Gollums and Golems had started fighting for the Mines ownership. Marius did not know why the dwarves didn’t exterminate their “Enemy” other than for sake of the story. But that was mostly unimportant.

What was important was the drops.

On Marius’ first day in Iron Mountain City, he had spoken to the Master Smith Durorin. The quest he had received was to gain a special item drop from the Gollums called ‘Power Rings’. They were a quest item so they wouldn’t offer any real benefits, but Durorin wanted 20 of them.

For Marius, this was killing two birds with one stone. He just hoped that his two quests didn’t cancel each other out.

Either way, it did not take long before Marius came across his first Gollum.

Stone Gollum Level 20 – Obsidian Rank

Health: 500

Mana: 1000

Skills: (So Precious),(Covert), (Rock Throw), (Pummel)

Marius knew that the skill ‘So Precious’ would reduce his damage by a half and could only assume that ‘Covert’ was a stealth move. ‘Pummel’ was obviously a close range skill, and ‘Rock Throw’ was clearly a ranged attack which worried Marius greatly.

But what he was most worried about was the Obsidian Rank. The Boss system was set so that the Feild boss would be 2 Ranks higher than the Grade 3 monster, with the Grade 3 monster being a Rank higher than the first 2 Grades.

This made the monsters more dangerous to players but in exchange, the likelihood for getting higher Grade loot increased.

It was fairly simple.

Black Rank Monsters = Iron Grade Loot.

Obsidian Rank Monsters = Bronze Grade Loot.

It stood to reason that a Field Boss with an Obsidian Rank Grade 3 monster would be a High Lord Rank Monster.

For Marius, that meant an increased chance of claiming Gold Grade Equipment.

This early in the game, most people would be ecstatic to have Iron or Bronze Grade Equipment. Gold would be the equivalent of actually striking Gold.

Marius approached the Stone Gollum. It was a short, stout little creature. Much smaller and scrawnier than a dwarf. It had dull grey skin with a foul rag covering its waist.

“What is this? Lord of the Rings?” Marius whispered.

The Gollum had its back to Marius as he slowly approached it. Marius kept a close eye on his surroundings, painfully aware that a skill called ‘Covert’ would likely lead to an ambush.

“Gollum?” the name of a character came to Marius’ mind. “Rings of Power?” He made the connection and broke out in a cold sweat. He’d only joked about Lord of the Rings earlier, now he regretted not taking it seriously.

Just as he was about to put some distance between him and the lone monster, five Stone Gollums appeared out of thin air, rocks drawn in their hands ready to launch.

“F.u.c.k.” Marius wanted to roar in frustration as he ducked and rolled to his left.

The Stone Gollums had appeared in a circle around him, each was roughly 4 units away from him. As he rolled, he got close to one and activated Moon Dance.

A moment later he had reached one of the Stone Gollums. At that range, it had tried to slam its ragged fist into Marius’ face. Quickly grabbing its wrist and spinning it around, Marius turned his would-be assailant around, making it a meat shield between him and the other four Gollums.

“Five,” Marius corrected himself. Out of the corner of his eye, he saw the lone Gollum turn and run towards him. “Cheeky buggers,” he growled.

The Stone Gollum did its job as a meatshield as a volley of rocks crashed into it. Upon impact a symbol appeared above its head, indicating it was in a stunned state.

“These guys really are annoying,” Marius growled as he backed away, keeping his captured Gollum between him and his five assailants.

In 3 second intervals, the Gollums threw their rocks. Volley after volley, they crashed into their brother Gollum, constantly refreshing its stunned state. If Marius was right, their battle style would be to launch that volley and kill their targets while they were permanently stunned. It was a sure kill method if the Stone Gollums got the jump on a player.

“They aren’t coming any closer than 4 units,” Marius muttered as he observed the Gollums. “so what if I advanced instead of retreated?”

Taking the initiative, Marius moved forwards, breaking the 4 unit deadlock. Instantly, the five Gollums sprung forward, their fists descending like tiny stones.

Cautiously, Marius charged, keeping his captive between him and 3 of the Stone Gollums while parrying and slashing at the other two.

-56, -56, -128.

Cursing, Marius activated Aura Blade while retreating, somehow managing to remain out of the Stone Gollums attack range.

The scene became a comedy, with three Stones Gollums beating their struggling brother, while Marius dodged and struck the other two who were flailing their arms in front of themselves.

Marius was actually impressed with how well his captive Stone Gollum was surviving. Under the barrage of its three of brethren, it had barely taken 30% damage.

They really were sturdy. But somehow, in terms of Strength, Marius could manhandle the little beast with some ease.

After a few rounds, Marius had killed two of the Stone Gollums and had started wiping out the other two. It was unfortunate that he could cast any spells while he held the Stone Gollum as a shield. If he could, then Marius would have destroyed them much faster.

But, as it was, from the moment of ambush to the money the last Stone Gollum Fell, almost 10 minutes had passed.

Breathing a sigh, Marius looked at his loot. The Gollums had gifted him far more experience than he expected, a bountiful 1 Silver each plus 6 Power Rings. They had even dropped an item called Precious Chest.

Curious, Marius opened it and received an item.

Moriah’s Virtue – Level 15 Silver Rank

Passive Effect: Allows the wearer to see through concealment skills.

Marius could help but smile. If he were a few levels higher, this item would be perfect for this Map. Unfortunately, he was a long way from achieving that milestone.

Putting the item in his inventory, he began searching for another Stone Gollum. This time he wouldn’t wait to get surrounded.

Somehow, he hadn’t taken any damage, but Marius respected that if one of those Rocks had landed, he would be waking up in Iron Mountain City with one lost level.

“Being passive and clever won’t be too useful here,” Marius realised. it was a good thing he had a plan for his ‘clever’ targets.

Not too long after, Marius found another Stone Gollum. Quickly check to make sure all his skills were off cooldown, Marius activated Moon Dance, running straight at the lone Gollum. When he was at 4 units, the Gollum spun around, a rock in its hand ready to launch.

Smiling, Marius cast Binding Shadow, binding the monster for 4 seconds. In those 4 seconds, Marius had closed the distance and started slashing at the poor defenseless monster.

-56, -56, -128,-56, -56, -128,-56, -56

In an instant, the Stone Gollum became a stream of light.

Turning around, Marius saw that the five concealed Gollums had shown themselves and were preparing to launch their rocks. Unfortunately for them, Marius still had more than 15 seconds until Moon Dance ended. In an instant, he appeared before the five Gollum’s, activating Aura Blade and Burning Haze.

He was careful yet confident that as long as he stayed within the 4 unit range, the Gollums would try to pummel him to death. This removed his concern for the ‘Rock Throw’ skill.

The only problem for the Gollums was that their attacks had a range of around 1. Far too short to reach Marius, but plenty for him to reach them. Even without Aura Blade, he had a range of 1.5.

This time, Marius dispatched the Stone Gollum’s in less than 4 minutes.

Fuelled by his success, Marius went looking for another group of Stone Gollums. Once again, he employed the same strategy and succeeded. He’d even been a little faster this time.

Without bothering to examine his rewards, he started stalking the Stone Gollums, exterminating them one by one.

With an hour to spare, Marius had tracked down and slaughtered 11 groups of the Stones Gollums. If it were not for the cooldown of his skills he may have even wiped more.

11 groups meant he had killed 66 of the monsters within a 60 minute period. Marius felt a chill down his spine. He glanced at his Silent Night in awe. In his eagerness to test his capabilities, he hadn’t realized how incredible his results were.

If it was not for this weapon, if it were not for the Lightning Stones embedded in its silver body, Marius would not have been able to reach this level of efficiency. Even the Wind Stone had played a part, making his attack speed soar.

“Those Pure Elemental Stones really are game breaking. No wonder they are restricted for only the Beginner Village,” Marius hadn’t understood why such powerful items could be gained so early in the game. The Customized Weapon and the pure Element Stones. No matter how he looked at them, they were a cheat code waiting to happen.

And the longer they were a mystery, the better the future game would be.

Logically, when players started the game early, they would be the forerunners. The first to experience the new frontier of the game and as such, would likely miss certain aspects. Due to them having a head start, it could be assumed that they would become the tyrants of the game with all players to come after being unable to quite match them.

But with the hidden quest being attached to the third storyline quest, the newer players would be able to access a powerful weapon and give that weapon an extraordinary set of attributes in the form of Pure Elemental Stones.

Such a powerful combination would let new players rival the old and then surpass them. This meant that if the old tyrants wanted to become competitive again they would have to reset their accounts to regain their competitive edge, thus revealing the true essence of the game.

This wasn’t simply a story based MMORPG. It was a true, Player verse Player battle game. The game was designed so that once a Player attained a customized weapon, strengthened it with stones, upgraded it by sacrificing in-game equipment and leveled it up even a 10 level suppression meant nothing.

Marius had luckily gotten his hands on a secret game breaking item. And now that he knew it, we were going to abuse it.

Afterall, if you have an advantage, it would simply be a waste not to reap its benefits.

At this moment, Marius truly did respect Rajan and his game. With this clever little twist, he would be toying with the player base until the late game. And force them to either start again, or become irrelevant.

Such a plan was reckless. It risked inducing Players to quit the game out of rage. It would definitely cripple the player base when the secret got out. But it would also draw people in as they explored the possibilities. The game would become even more addictive than it already was.

It was a true gamble. A roll of the dice which cold either earn him a great profit or destroy his creation.

But that was business. To remain relevant, you had to take risks. To break the mold and create a market segment where your competitors couldn’t oppose you required courage. rajan had just proven to this old man that he had that courage. And the resolve to roll that dice.