AlterWorld

I dragged my feet toward the rogue sitting on the ground next to the bu

"Thanks, man."

"Thanks don't fill a purse," he answered with a smile as he unwrapped another bandage.

"You can't be Russian, surely?" Naturally, the game translated the entire content into the player's mother tongue, but that was a bit too good.

"Ukrainian," he offered a blood-stained hand. "Cyril a.k.a. Cryl, Elf rogue level two."

"I'm Max. You can call me Laith. A new Nec," I shook his strong fingers looking over the gradually disappearing blood stains.

Having said that, it really had hurt when the bu

In the meantime, Cryl was done with his bandages which brought his life up to fifty percent. "A Nec, you said? In all frankness, you're either a masochist or an idiot. Then you may be someone with lots of patience and an ambition to match."

I smirked. "You forgot lots of spare time. But I could use some patience, sure."

"Good to know that," Cryl was already stomping his feet impatiently, looking for a new challenge. "Any plans? I still have two hours left until forced logout. Fancy grouping up?"

A message alert popped up.

Cryl the rogue has invited you to join his group.

Mechanically I adjusted the interface to semi-transparent as I gave it some thought. On one hand, I had to go to town and get myself settled down. I wasn't an on-and-off player—I was about to stay here. No i

You've joined a group! Group leader: Cryl. The loot rule: Master Loot.

Cryl rubbed his hands. "Excellent. If we could just get ourselves a warrior tank and a healer, that would be awesome."

He yelled at the top of his lungs, "We need a tank and a healer, levels one to four. For the Gnoll Hill."

He turned to me and winked, lowering his voice, "Preferably young females. Preferably those who haven't yet armored themselves up to their eyebrows. AlterWorld must be the place. You wouldn't meet so many scantily clad cuties at a Miss Universe final."

He laughed so infectiously that I smiled, too. Fu

In actual fact, the overstrung spring inside me was relaxing, I could feel it. Since I'd learned about my diagnosis, it had been a race against time. I kept pushing myself, too scared of dying on my apartment floor just two feet away from the phone. Having said that, what would I have done with it? Now the peaceful beauty of my new world poured inside me filling my drained soul and washing out all the stress and weariness. I closed my eyes, took a deep breath and smiled as I exhaled.

"You're not stoned, are you?" Cryl sat up.

"No. Not at all. It's just so… beautiful. What about those gnolls?"

"They're some awesome mobs. The caves are their main dungeon, three floors, levels 10 to about 25. Too early for us. But around the caves, there're tons of petty gnolls there, like workers, gatherers and messengers. Those guys are begging to be killed. They might drop a bracelet which you can sell to other players or to the Caravan Guards' Master. Each bracelet gives you the same experience as you get if you kill a gnoll. Donators—I mean those who invest real cash into the game—buy them like hot cakes. They'd rather spend an hour screaming their heads off to buy bracelets by the dozen, and then bingo! they're already level 10 or even 20, no need to waste rabbits. Talking about rabbits. You'd better check yours before it stinks."

All the rabbit dropped was two strips of rabbit meat. I could sell it to a shopkeeper or start to level the cooking skill. I was curious how much I could make by the end of the first day.

The location chat was busy:

I'll pay 1 gold for Red Bear ID. PM me.

WTS Blue Gladiolus or trade for top Druid gear.

Lvl 8 Mage LFG

WTB gnoll bracelets. Gray 20 copper, black 50 copper, red 2 silver. Preferably in bulk.

WTS +350 HP buff, duration 3 hr. Price: 1 gold. I'll be sitting by the East Gate.

Janis is PK! He's by the creek, go kill him!

You PK! You killed me first!

Cryl guffawed. "Kidz!"

"Yeah. Useless truants. It doesn't look as if we can find anyone. Let's just go and then decide."

"Okay. Let's go."

Seven minutes of brisk walking along the forest edge brought us to a low hill range. The foothills were teeming with players—groups and solos—busy pulling monsters and attempting to take them apart.

As we watched, a low-level warrior pulled a train of three gnolls and a level 8 gnoll overseer. In less than a minute, the whole party was lying dead having only nailed two of the lower gnolls. Greedy-eyed, we watched the monsters leave. The overseer, badly crippled as he was, was too tough for us.

"Cryl? You don't happen to have any distance weapon, do you? To pull a mob or two?

"I don't," he tut-tutted. "In theory, I can use slings and crossbows. Only I haven't saved enough yet to get myself any. I bought a dozen bandages and that was the end of my dough."

"I see. In that case, I'll be pulling them with DoT and then hand them over to you. Wait here."

I ran up the hill and looked around. About a thousand feet away I noticed a cave opening, surrounded by a low stockade with some dirty flags flapping over it. The ground around me was streaked with trails which were swarming with gnolls. The closest to me was a hurried level 3 messenger. I selected him as target and activated the Thorn Grass. The gnoll swung round, hissing, and trotted toward me. I cast Life Absorption and scrambled down the hill, taking cover behind Cryl's back.

He descended on the mob, stabbing him wherever he could reach. But he couldn't pull him off me fast enough as I'd aggroed the mob too much. Ignoring his opponent, the monster went for me.

You've been hit by Messenger Gnoll! Damage sustained: 16 points. Life 44/60

You've been hit by Messenger Gnoll! Damage sustained: 12 points. Life 32/60

It did hurt. I drew my dagger and we started slicing the mob up between the two of us. At the same time I was trying to cast Life Absorption. Twice the mob's hits made me lose concentration until finally the spell went through. I only had 20 Life left when the gnoll yelled something and passed away.

You've received Experience!