The Omen, page 14
part #5 of Eden's Gate Series
Keysia and I kept the small rats at bay while Jeremy and Sung got in position, just out of the way of the larger rat.
“Ready!” Sung yelled.
I swung my sword in an upward sweep, connecting with one of the rats in front of me. It screamed in pain as I hopped back, thrust my hand out towards the giant rat across the room, and released a Fireblast at its face. “Now!”
When the Fireblast connected with the rat, it jerked back, slamming itself hard against the wall, causing the room to shake. Sung and Jeremy both ran towards the rat, and thankfully, as I hoped, the rat was too dazed to defend itself. Jeremy and Sung both jabbed their daggers deep into the rat’s abdomen and leapt back at the last moment, barely missing the rat’s swinging claw.
Two more newborn rats slipped swiftly out of the giant rat’s body. As Keysia and I were closest to the hole, the smaller rats immediately focused their attention on us.
I had the inclination to cast Fire Curtain across the hole to try to stop more baby rats from spawning, but with the hole partially submerged in water, I didn’t think the fire would stick.
Arcane Missile, I thought as I sent another burst of magic in the giant rat’s direction.
As soon as the magic hit its chest, Sung and Jeremy ran for the rat again, jabbing and slashing the beast when it slammed its head back and lost its composure.
I swung my sword at one of the smaller attacking rats, missed, then thrust my hand toward another that was coming at me from the side. Arcane Missile.
The spell connected, tossing the smaller rat back. I grabbed my sword with both hands, dodged a bite of the first rat, then swung at it hard, slicing a huge chunk of its face off in the process.
The rat fell and started twisting in agony. Not letting the opportunity pass me by, I took a big step forward and drove the tip of my sword hard into its center mass.
I focused my attention back on the giant rat as the smaller one I impaled began to die. Sung and Jeremy had moved back to their position, and the boss was squirming. Blood was pouring out of multiple wounds.
“Again!” I yelled as I raised my hand and fired another Fireblast.
“Gunnar!” Keysia yelled.
I turned my head to see Keysia swinging her staff at a snapping rat, while another one of the rats had jumped onto her back and had its fangs deep in her shoulder.
I took a fast, hard step towards Keysia, kicking up a splash of water. Her jaw was wide, and her eyes were fearful. She was reaching for the biting rat with one hand but couldn’t seem to pull it off.
“Wait! Stay still!” I shouted as Keysia twisted and turned, trying to remove the rat. I held my sword out and tried to measure an attack that wouldn’t risk hurting her in the process. I pulled my sword back a couple times when I saw an opening but hesitated each time, not sure I’d only hit my intended target.
I shook my head and groaned as I took another step forward and grabbed the wiry tail of the rat when Keysia swung around. I yanked hard on the tail, which only seemed to yank Keysia back as well; the rat wasn’t budging.
“Still!” I repeated, trying to get Keysia to maintain control of herself. Her eyes caught sight of the other rat attacking her near her feet, and whatever warrior instinct she had caused her to let go of the one clenched to her shoulder and swing her staff down to prevent herself from taking another bite.
I yanked the rat’s tail again, this time careful not to pull Keysia in the process, and swung my sword up near its base, severing it from the rat.
The rat pulled its teeth out of Keysia and let out a hair-raising scream. Keysia grabbed a large chunk of its fur and flipped it over her shoulder and into the water below. With both hands, she slammed her staff down on the squirming rat—one, two, three times—then switched her attention back to the other rat that had been weakly attacking her as well.
I lifted my sword up high and jumped forward, trying to land a finishing blow, but as I was swinging my sword down, everything around me seemed to freeze in its tracks. My sword bounced off an invisible energy before I could hit the rat, and the sounds of splashing, rat squeaks, and everything else in the chamber stopped. Keysia looked like a mannequin, and I turned to see that Sung and Jeremy were both frozen in time as well. Even the rat looked like a statue.
What the hell? I wondered. If it weren’t for the fact that the giant rat wasn’t moving or making a sound, I would have assumed that someone had placed us all under a spell.
Suddenly a translucent game window appeared in front of me, and in the center of the window was none other than the image of Dr. Winston. He was wearing his usual brown robe and looked relatively unchanged since the last time I saw him.
“Hello, residents of Eden’s Gate. Today is a special day!”
Chapter Fifteen
2/4/0001
A special day?
“It’s been a little more than a month since the launch of Eden’s Gate,” Dr. Winston continued. “I hope you’re all enjoying your new lives. I’ve spent some time poking my head around the world, and it seems that most of you are having fun questing, adventuring, or just getting away from your old lives and mundane obligations back on Earth.”
Dr. Winston moved his fist in front of his mouth and cleared his throat. “When I created Eden’s Gate, I hoped to create a perfect world that would not only surpass Earth in a gaming sense but also for living our lives. But ‘perfect’ is impossible, especially on a first try. So, I’d like to welcome you all to the first patch in Eden’s Gate! By the time this transmission is completed, you will all be living in the first update: Eden’s Gate 1.01!”
I looked up to Jeremy and Sung who still appeared frozen to me, which I found odd since they were Reborns too. I shook my arm up and down to make sure I wasn’t imagining things.
“Most of the changes today are minor,” he continued. “You’ll find a few enhancements to your menus, some skill changes, and other adjustments. Overall, they should slightly improve your quality of life here in Eden’s Gate.” Dr. Winston waved his hands out to the side and smiled. “Hopefully, further patches will be few and far between, if ever, but rest assured the game will be updated as necessary.”
Dr. Winston took a deep breath and cupped his hands together in front of him, resting them gently in front of his lap. “Take a moment to read the patch notes. In approximately 5 minutes, the world will resume.” He clenched his teeth and nodded slightly. “Happy adventuring, living, or whatever you like to do!”
The image of Dr. Winston disappeared and was replaced by a window filled with text.
Eden’s Gate 1.01 Patch Notes:
Interface Changes
*As there are no limits to the number of skills you can learn, those who choose to learn many skills can quickly become inundated with an excessively long skill list. Your character sheet will now only show your most active and recently used skills. Skills that are rarely used or have not been used for a long time will show on a ‘secondary’ skills tab. You may move skills between the two lists at your discretion at any time and lock your secondary skill window. Secondary skills will still increase with usage.
*Guild manifests will now show the titles for each of your guild members.
*Non-guilded military such as mercenaries, bodyguards, town guards, and other hired soldiers will now show additional details.
Magic & Skills
*Ice and Water magic felt somewhat redundant, and alone each branch felt slightly underwhelming compared to other magic types. All magic under these two trees will now fall solely under Water Magic.
*Damage from the Ice Rocket spell has been reduced slightly.
*Damage from the Combustion spell has been reduced slightly.
*Reduced the damage that low-level fire magic skills cause to foliage and trees. Several Reborns were getting carried away and causing unintended forest fires while learning this branch.
*Increased the leveling speed of Enchanting.
Other Changes
*An unintended portal in Gramora has been removed
.
I smirked as I read over the patch notes—particularly the part about the portal—and I again wondered if I should summon Dr. Winston to explain how I had been tricked into binding at the runestone in Highcastle. It seemed like forcing a Reborn to do something like that against their will needed to be addressed.
I attempted to pull up my character window, but when nothing happened, I looked back up to see everyone still frozen. I waited for the indicated five minutes to pass, and in what seemed like just a minute or so more, there were three faint beeping noises right before the patch window in front of me shrunk into itself and disappeared.
The sound of squealing rats and fighting picked back up as if it had never stopped. I lifted my sword high with both hands and slammed it down on the rat I had previously been working on, splitting it almost in two.
“Hey, did you guys see that?!” Jeremy yelled.
“Yeah!” Sung yelled back.
“See what?!” Keysia asked breathlessly.
I looked up to the giant boss rat, and it was becoming saturated in blood from the various wounds that had been poked into it. “Yeah I saw the patch, but let’s finish this thing off and worry about that later!” I yelled, right before I raised my hand up and cast an Arcane Missile at the boss.
The missile struck the beast in its shoulder, but it bucked back just the same as every other time. Sung and Jeremy pounced.
I was beginning to run low on mana and I had taken 25% more damage from the slow, noxious spores in the room. I knew that we needed to finish the beast off fast or things were going to turn disastrous. I looked back to see Keysia fighting one other rat, and confident that she would fare okay, I turned and started running toward the boss.
As Sung and Jeremy were yanking their daggers out of the rat’s body, I held my hand up and shot another Fireblast at the beast, then leapt into the air when it jerked its head back. I leaned my momentum forward, and the tip of my sword drove deep into the chest of the rat. I leapt back, pulling my sword back out, and both Sung and Jeremy each jumped forward again, slicing their daggers across the rat’s skin, and ending with hard, deep, slams.
The rat let out a weak screech, then turned its malformed face towards us. It opened its mouth as if it were going to shoot another round of projectile vomit, but as soon as liquid started spraying from its throat, the rat’s head dipped, and the acid simply drooled out and on to its wounds below. Its head bobbed a couple times, and it made one final weak moan before its muscles went limp.
You have gained 7100 XP!
Thankfully, nothing else exited the beast’s hole.
Keysia slammed her staff down again on the last remaining newborn rat, finishing it off with the blow. The four of us breathed heavily and looked around for any more danger before holstering our weapons.
“Damn, we figured you two left already,” Jeremy said.
“No,” I said as I shook my head. “We’ve been looking for you the whole time. Are you guys okay?”
“As good as we can be,” Jeremy said. “We’re lucky to be alive.”
“Did you come from that way?” I asked, tilting my chin up to another path that was leading out of the chamber.
“Yeah,” Jeremy answered. “The floor dropped us into a small pool of water next to a door with a gold chest etched on the front.”
“Oh shit! What’d you find there?” I asked, expecting the room to be filled with goodies.
“Nada,” Jeremy said, shaking his head.
“Locked,” Sung added.
“We’ll have to pick the lock, then,” I said.
“Tried,” Jeremy confirmed, pulling a lockpick out of his pocket. “There’s no pins in the keyhole. It’s some sort of magic lock.”
I blew air through loosely closed lips, causing a flatulence noise. “Oh, well. Another day then.”
“And this way?” I asked, pointing towards the only other path in the chamber, running in the opposite direction.”
Jeremy shook his head. “It’s rough.”
“We tried running past the giant rat, but the monsters that way were too strong,” Sung explained. “A lot of them release some sort of venom in the air that causes you to choke.” He shook his head. “The floor suddenly got flooded too. This place is all sorts of bad news.”
I smiled and nodded. “Yeah, there’s some light toxins in here too, but nothing like we experienced upstairs.” I considered telling them that Keysia and I may have been responsible for flooding the lower floor, but figured it wasn’t important.
“We must have killed at least fifty rats to make it this far,” Jeremy said.
“Well, unless there’s any other reason to stay here, we should go ahead and get the hell out before we choke or something else shows up,” I said. I pointed towards the ladder that Keysia and I had climbed from.”
“No way,” Sung said and shook his head lightly.
I turned to him and raised an eyebrow. “No way what? You want to stay here?”
“No,” he replied. He shook his head again, and started walking towards the dead giant rat. “I mean there’s no way this boss couldn’t have dropped any loot.”
Jeremy shrugged. “It wasn’t that hard to kill. How do we know it was a boss?”
“Wasn’t hard?” I wrinkled my nose and glared at Jeremy. “Escapable, maybe, but not at all easy to kill.”
“Yeah,” Jeremy shrugged and grinned. “I mean, it got easy after you guys showed up.”
I pursed my lips and smirked. “It would’ve been a challenge for you two alone, that’s for sure.”
“Hell yes!” Sung laughed loudly. He had climbed atop the dead giant rat and was looking behind its back.
“What is it?” I asked.
Sung kneeled and yanked a few times before pulling up a flat, leather bag. “Yo, I told ya!”
I was impressed with Sung’s intuition. Nothing we had killed in the Peace Temple thus far had any loot, so I hadn’t thought to check the giant rat, but Sung was on top of his game.
“What is it?” I asked.
Sung jumped down off the rat, and his feet splashed on impact. “Let’s find out.” He flipped open the pack, peeked in, then slowly rose his head up. There was a brief pause before he cleared his throat and held the bag out to me. “I did agree that all the loot goes to your guild, so here.”
I smiled and grabbed the bag. I had every intention of giving Sung his fair share, but the fact that he remembered and wasn’t being greedy gave him bonus points. My first impression of him was a hell of a lot better than Jeremy, Aaron, or even Ozzy’s had been.
Sung grinned. “I’m just glad I can contribute.”
“Yeah, thanks,” I said. “We’ll check out the items on the surface. Let’s get the the hell out of here first.”
Sung pointed down the hall. “You don’t want to dive deeper? What about the item you were looking for?”
“Found it.”
Jeremy’s eyebrows shot up. “Yeah! You found Trynzen’s trinket?”
I nodded. “It’s in a locked box. Too hard for me to pick.”
“Well, damn. Pass it over here. Let me try,” Jeremy said anxiously. “I’ve got two picks left.”
I glanced down to my vomit soaked armor and then back to him. “Surface first.”
“Agreed,” Keysia added.
“And if you guys aren’t tapped out, we can find more things around the valley to grind,” I said. “All I know is I need some fresh air, and Sora is probably getting annoyed after waiting for so long.”
“Giraffes?” Jeremy asked with a raised eyebrow.
“If they’re in our level range,” I said with a grin. “Big game hunting sounds pretty damn fun… and I don’t think they’ll be shooting babies at us either.”
Chapter Sixteen
2/4/0001
I took a huge whiff of the crisp air as we emerged from the Peace Temple. The sun was still shining bright in the sky. “Ahhhh!”
“So good to be out of that place,” Keysia said.
“It was good XP, though,” Jeremy said. “We’ll have to go back sometime to find out what was behind that door.”
“Yeah, for sure.” I nodded, and started pulling the items out of the looted bag.
You’ve Received: Leather Waterproof Leggings. +6 Armor. Durability: 8/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 1.6 kg. +5 Water Magic Resistance
You’ve Received: Leather Waterproof Boots. +6 Armor. Durability: 10/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 0.9 kg. +5 Water Magic Resistance
You’ve Received: Leather Waterproof Vest. +21 Armor. Durability: 8/10. Quality: Exceptional. Rarity: Uncommon. Weight: 3.2 kg +5 Water Magic Resistance
“Nice!” Jeremy said as I read the stats out. “It’s almost a full set.”
I looked down to a hole that had been burned into my chestpiece from giant rat’s acid, and when I checked my equipment, all of my armor had been brought down to their last one or two durability points.
“I think I’m going to have to use the guildmaster priority card,” I said. “They’re not great items, but my gear is getting shabby.” I immediately started pulling off my legs, boots, and tossed the trashed items to the ground.
As I put on my new gear, which was a very plain, boring leather, I also pulled up my stats and threw the two LP that I had been saving into Mentalism, bringing me to a solid level 5.
“Hey!” Jeremy said. “Our stuff is messed up too!”
“Yeah,” I agreed. “But you’re both lower levels. It’s easier to replace your gear.”
Jeremy smirked.
There was 1,110 gold in the bag and a couple gems, but that finished up the haul.
“What about that lockbox?” Jeremy said, rolling his index fingers in a circle.
