“When leaving the starting zone behind the game play began to change. Longer grinding and larger group work came into play. More players found themselves seeking out guilds and joining groups that would help them advance. The guilds were often a mixed bag. The largest guilds, while providing benefits, sought to exploit the players in the grand tradition of large enterprises.”

  From “Guilds, What are They Good For?”

  Year 1, Month 1, Day 26, 14:00

  Torgon walked with his team to a small stand where players were queuing up to buy the amulets. After a short wait he dropped a gold coin to buy 100 of the amulets. They were priced at a silver each and lasted 24 hours. Between the 5 of them, they now had amulets to hunt in the area for a full 20 days. The amulets only protected players from the environmental miasma so the resistance potions would be helpful depending on what exact flavor of undead they were facing.

  The outpost itself was named Camp Alpha. Torgon assumed that the other camps would have similar names once the different starting zones managed to construct them. There was a teleport array in the center of the camp that connected to Miller’s Crossing only. Players filtered into the area from there and spread out. The scout teams were still covering the road construction crews as they worked to reach out to the future camps.

  Dusty led the group out of the camp and towards the center of the zone. The plant life showed signs of sickness and none of them looked like they would last much longer. Moving away from the camp and deeper into the Broken Hills, the plants were already dead, wasting away into the blackened husks. The air thickened with the miasma emanating from the ruined city lurking at the heart of the zone. Torgon kept his eyes moving, scanning their surroundings for anything that might pose a danger. They had been traveling for less than fifteen minutes when trouble found them.

  Dark skeletal figures bearing weapons moved from behind a hill and advanced on the party. The figures ranged between five and eight feet tall with bleached bones outlined in inky darkness. Torgon immediately fired his bow into the creatures. His arrows slowed as they hit the skeletons, a magical field taking the hit and making the undead stagger. His eyes narrowed and he called out, “They aren’t just bones. There’s a magical field keeping them animated. My strike did full damage, and it wouldn’t if they were simple skeletons. Be careful Dusty.”

  Dusty nodded as she moved to interpose herself between the undead and the rest of the party. Hyperia fired off bolts into the damaged skeletons and two of the five fell before they reached the party. Allestor took one and Dusty managed the other two while Ovarrix and Torgon moved into melee range. Dusty groaned and called out, “They have a life draining effect when they get too close. It’s not big but if we get swarmed, we are not making it out alive.”

  A few seconds later, the undead were dead once more. Ovarrix spoke, “They were level 8 and they had no special abilities other than the life draining. It’s just one health a second for 15 seconds but it’s stacking. If you went under a swarm, you’d be a lifeless husk in seconds. These were all melee attackers and that might be a trend with the drain ability. We’ll find out when we pull more. I’m slowly compiling a report to share with the rest of the guild so that we can have multiple teams farming out here.”

  Allestor stood up from looting the piles of bones. “They have around 40 coppers each, decent money for grinding. No other loot so far, but it’s just the first 5.”

  They trekked deeper, engaging more wandering groups of undead. The occasional zombie mixed in with the skeletons and the average level rose to 9. After an hour of grinding towards the center of the zone they stood atop a hill and gazed into a depression filled with groups of undead. Undead with ranged weapons and others that appeared to be casters were mixed in. Hundreds of the creatures milled about, apparently gathering in the spot. Analysis revealed that these undead were all level 10 to 12.

  Ovarrix furrowed his brow and spoke slowly, “I don’t like this. It’s like they’re gathering for a purpose.”

  Dusty spoke next, “Beast waves, well, undead waves. Now that the zone is open, I bet they accumulate here and when they hit a numbers threshold they spill out and attack the nearest outpost. This is probably what our ongoing quest line refers to when it’s talking about thinning the undead numbers.”

  Ovarrix sighed and smiled thinly, “That makes this easier. Torg, see if you can find us a group to pull. If they come in a single force or with too many, we’ll leg it back to the outpost and warn everyone we can.”

  Torgon eyed the undead and narrowed his focus onto a group slightly farther away from the others but close to their position. He fired an arrow into the nearest undead and they began moving towards the group with purpose. Thankfully, none of the other undead groups took notice. He kept firing his bow and the others added their own ranged attacks to the mix. The undead returned fire with bone arrows and a necrotic bolt that sizzled and stank when it impacted Dusty.

  Dusty complained, “There’s a 10 second debuff to healing from the bolt. Only half healing until it expires. If that stacks, groups of casters would be murder.”

  The monsters were higher level than the party and tough opponents. The melee skeletons used double strikes and sweeping slashes that inflicted wounds across the party. Concentrated fire took the caster down first and Torgon won the duel with the archer skeleton. Soon they finished them all off and healed everyone to full.

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  Allestor beamed, “These skeletons drop more coins, about 50 copper each on average. I also picked up a bone shard. It says you can combine 500 bone shards to receive a random skill or blueprint up to the advanced rarity. If the drop rate isn’t too terrible this could be a great farm.”

  The mood in the group brightened with his words and they set to work. They methodically peeled undead away from the cluster for close to two hours until they completed their quest. Everyone had dinged level 10 and Torgon took the time to examine his system message.

  “Congratulations! You have reached level 10. For reaching level 10, you are awarded two free attribute points to be allocated to any attribute you possess. Your health, energy and mana are increased by 40. You gain one additional universal skill slot. When you die, you now drop two items from your equipped gear or inventory.”

  The group swapped their weapons out for the level 10 gear they had stored and hurried back to the camp to turn in the quest. They killed a few more undead along the way, quickly looting them before finishing the quest. Torgon spent both of his free attribute points in willpower, increasing it to a base of 20 and improving his mana regeneration.

  They returned to the undead staging area and resumed their killing spree. They farmed the creatures for another three hours, completing their quests again before returning to the camp and calling it for the evening. Torgon spoke, “No sense in fighting the undead at night, they’ll be stronger and it’s too easy to get ambushed. There are likely surprises roaming at night to catch unwary adventurers. Dusty, how was our tally for the evening with loot?”

  Dusty glanced down at her notes and spoke, “We killed a total of 1,086 undead, mostly level 10 and higher. We looted 6 gold, 6 silver and 47 copper coins in value. The average worked out to nearly 56 copper coins per kill. They dropped 61 bone shards. That drop rate is close to 1 in 20 so I’d figure 10,000 undead roughly per random skill or blueprint roll. We had 9 basic items at level 10 drop, nothing enchanted but a 1 in 100 rate seems likely. Every spell caster dropped a mote of death essence, and we also grabbed 23 tiny basic mana shards. The death essence is used in some crafts and potions, and the mana shards are needed for higher level crafting, particularly in permanent defenses or automatons.”

  Ovarrix added, “The experience for hunting the undead is excellent. If you are careful not to fight too many at least. I’ll encourage teams from the guild to start farming heavily out here. I’ll post a GCP reward for the bone shards and maybe we’ll get a few lucky rolls out of them.”

  “I have a concern,” Hyperia interjected. “Tomorrow, in the light, we should have our better scouts try to find more gathering spots for the undead. Hopefully the gather points near the other potential camps won’t trigger until they’re built, but I don’t want to take the chance that they’ve already started.”

  The party collectively winced at that possibility that Hyperia voiced. Torgon considered and said, “I’ll get Kate and Steve on it. The risk is too high to ignore. Anything else before we head back to the base and split up for the evening?” Everyone shook their heads in a negative response and soon they passed through the teleporter into Miller’s Crossing and from there to their base.

  Moving to the park to take a rest, Torgon noticed a group of around a dozen children having an animated discussion by the fountain. When they saw him, one of the kids approached him awkwardly and asked, “Guild Master, we’re trying to figure out what skills to take first, would you offer us some advice?”

  Torgon noted the boy’s name, Angus McNine, and silently promised himself to pay more attention to the names instead of just reading them off when someone was in front of him. “I’d be happy to help Angus. Are you all debating what’s better or just general strategies?”

  The children looked at each other before one of the girls spoke, “There are so many options and it’s a little overwhelming. General advice?” She looked questioningly at Torgon and her peers.

  Torgon nodded casually, “Got it. Yes, there are thousands and thousands of skills that can be acquired so where to start. Let’s all get comfortable because this isn’t a short answer.” Torgon found a nice spot by the fountain and continued, “I’ll start with combat. There are three basic groupings of combat skills. The first grouping is melee combat which primarily relies on strength. The second group is ranged fighting which relies on agility mostly. The last grouping is magic which is intelligence focused. There are exceptions, but for our purposes those are the big three.”

  Torgon looked at the group and grinned at their rapt attention. “Our generic starting skill suggestion is picking up the long bow skill to give you a combat ranged option, force bolt for a magical damage and range option and then a healing touch spell for self-healing or group support. Everybody needs to dabble in different styles of combat because there will be times where one or the other won’t work. It’s the same with different weapons. What happens if you face a monster, like a skeleton, where a normal bow is useless. What if you face a slime where your sword isn’t great, but a spear would be amazing. Rock monsters too, using a mace or hammer helps more than a sword.”

  Torgon continued, “Playing around with the different types of combat styles lets you see if you like it or if you are better at one than another. Doing something you enjoy makes everything easier than trying to force yourself into a role you hate.”

  One of the children spoke up, “What if we don’t want to do fight or are scared?”

  Torgon smiled warmly, “That’s fine too. Everyone should pick up the fighting skills for when there isn’t another option, but you can and should focus on other things if that’s what you prefer. There are so many crafting options to take advantage of and there are groupings that don’t fit into the standard molds. You could be a courier, just training mobility skills to run packages between towns. You could learn how to handle animals or manage construction projects. I do suggest starting with combat first though.”

  He continued, “Whether it’s combat or crafting, if you find something you really love doing, focus your secondary skills around boosting the attributes for it. Gathering skills are agility and endurance based, regular crafting skills are agility and willpower focused, and alchemy and other magical crafting deals with intelligence and willpower. Cooking is agility as well. I’m mostly an archer just because I’m focused on crafting. Always remember these are just suggestions. No attributes and skills are wasted so take your time, experiment and see what you like. There’s no penalty for changing later. All you need to do is get your skill to level 10 and it frees the slot back up for another one. Does that help?”

  The children nodded vigorously and Angus spoke again, “Thank you sir. It’s really ok to play around and just see what we like?”

  Torgon stood and spoke again, “Yes, it is. It’s preferred. We’re all here for a very long time and the only way you’ll have the drive and energy to push forward is if you’re doing something that makes you happy. Now, I’m off to pursue my own happiness, To the Crafting Hall!” Torgon raised his arm dramatically and left a group of giggling children behind.