Chapter 39
If audio player doesn't work, press Stop then Play button again
Slashing apart the wolf that leapt at him, Eric was suddenly awoken by the loud blaring of his watch. Checking the time groggily, he allowed himself to fall back into his pillow, groaning at the injustice that existed in a world where someone was forcing a teenager to wake up before noon, conveniently ignoring that he was the someone in this case.
Throwing the blankets over his head, Eric attempted to get back to sleep until another alarm began to blare, this one from across the room. Glaring at the new alarm, Eric sighed, why did he have to know his own weaknesses he wondered, hauling himself out of bed still wrapped in the quilt.
Silencing the alarm, Eric looked longingly at his bed, the pillow and remaining blankets inviting him to return to their loving embrace. With a sigh, he threw his comforter back on the pile of blankets, committing himself to waking up for the day.
Padding downstairs, Eric was greeted by the shocked face of his mother, a bowl of oatmeal held in one hand and a spoon that was frozen halfway between the bowl and her mouth.
"Am I still dreaming? Eric?" With an exaggerated movement, she swung her head towards the clock then back towards Eric, "It can't be. There's no way Eric's up before 9am," she told the cat conversationally. The cat ignored her, choosing instead to jump on top of the table and curl up in a patch of sunlight.
Ignoring the animal, his mother turned back to Eric, "So what are you doing up so early? Especially on a Saturday?"
"Gotta level up quickly. We need to make sure we're prepared for the championship," said Eric, grabbing a bagel and popping it in the toaster oven as he talked.
"Is that the last Montreal bagel?" she asked.
"Looks like it."
"Go check the freezer and see if there's any more. Angus won't be happy if you ate his last bagel."
Rolling his eyes, Eric padded over silently to the garage, checking the enormous deep freezer for bagels. Seeing a new bag, he grabbed it, rubbing his arms to ward off the chill as he re-entered the kitchen.
"So will this be a regular thing then? Seeing you in the morning?"
"I wouldn't bet on it, but it's possible," Eric responded. Placing the new bag of bagels on the counter next to the toaster, watching as the elements heated up his bagel within. "Are you guys going anywhere today? I know Leif said he was going to hang out with his friends."
"Your father has a meeting downtown later. I might go out for a bite in the afternoon. Want to come?"
"Where would you be headed?"
His mother pondered for a moment, "Most likely Lunasole or Occo."
"I'll pass for today. It's only the second day so it's pretty important that I level with the guys," said Eric guiltily. His mother sighed disappointedly, "Alright. Well don't say I didn't ask."
With a dinging sound, the toaster announced that Eric's bagel was ready. Grabbing the cream cheese from the fridge, he applied it liberally, caking the bagel in delicious white goodness. Snagging the jar of jam from the counter, he applied a small layer over the cream cheese, creating a sweet three layered treat that he bit into hungrily, a small blob of jam falling off and hitting the ground below.
"You'd better clean that up when you're done," said his mother, with a threatening tone of voice that warned him what would happen should he choose to ignore this advice.
"Yeah yeah I will. No worries," said Eric. Grabbing the cloth from the sink and wiping the jam off the floor.
"Oh yeah, there was some news about that game you're playing. It was on the morning news and your friend Mark called."
"And you didn't wake me up?" protested Eric, his mouth still full of bagel.
"I tried. You mumbled something about morning or stars and rolled over. I assumed you'd gotten the message."
"I don't remember this."
"You can ask Angus, he was waking up when we got the call."
"How long ago did this happen?"
"Maybe 7:30? Just over an hour-ish ago," his mother responded. Gulping down the rest of his bagel, Eric tore upstairs to check his messages with no interruptions. Sure enough there was a missed call on his watch from Mark at 7:43. Another at 7:44. And a text message that told him they'd be meeting on Strife at 9:30.
Checking the time, Eric saw that it was only 9:14. That left him with just fifteen minutes to get as many of his chores done as possible before jumping on. If he could get all of them done then he wouldn't need to log off afterwards, he could just enter the game directly.
As a result, the next few minutes saw the Kingsley household hit by what his mother would later describe as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon as Eric dashed around the house doing chores. Throwing the laundry in the laundry hamper. Clearing up the dishes. Wiping down the counter. Refilling the vicious cat's water bowl - her food bowl was already full of chicken so he ignored that. As Eric finished the last chore, his watch read 9:29. Taking the stairs two at a time, he dashed back to his room, laying down and shoving the FateGear on his head. Flicking it on, he ignored the materialization sequence, directly shouting, "Strife start!" as he appeared on the couch.
<Kyp has joined the room>
<Fogs> lol. I was wondering if you were gonna make it Eric.
<Boreik> yeah we tried calling. Where were you?
<Kyp> Asleep. Sorry -.-
<Fogs> All good. Did you see the news?
<Kyp> News?
<Nelo> wait wat. You didn't see the news yet? It's all over every major gaming site. Top page of riddit too.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Kyp> I told you I was asleep. I just woke up like twenty minutes ago. I barely had time to have food.
<Shinvincible> I didn't get to read much. All I saw was there's a vid on the championship?
<Fogs> Yeah they've announced the format for the championship. Watch the vid later.
<Kyp> Can I get a quick summary?
<OMGio> Me too. I didn't really read all of it.
<Nelo> So they explained why we were all separated into different kingdoms and why they based it on real world location.
<Kyp> ?
<Nelo> Basically there are going to be a number of tournaments leading up to the world championship.
<Fogs> Yeah. Preliminaries. Kingdom Representative Tournament. Nationals. Regionals. And then worlds.
<Kyp> That's a lot of tournaments.
<OMGio> ^
<Nelo> There are prizes at all levels though. Preliminaries don't give cash prizes but every other level does.
<Shinvincible> sick. I could use some cash.
<Kyp> We've gotta win first lol. Do we have dates? Rules? Any other info?
<Fogs> It's gonna be 5v5. Teams are allowed 3 subs. Looks like double elim.
<Boreik> Players can only participate in the representative tournament for one kingdom. It's essentially the national qualifiers tournament. So if you get through the preliminaries, you have to choose which kingdom you want to represent. If you lose there then you're out.
<OMGio> I thought there was something about a wildcard spot?
<Fogs> They haven't really explained it. Just mentioned it. For now our focus is winning a preliminary tournament and getting a spot in the Representative tourney.
<Shinvincible> When's the first tournament?
<Fogs> Prelims are going to be held everywhere and there's going to be a lot. Something like 256 spots for each Kingdom rep tourney. They explained it in the vid. We have a few chances to win a prelim though. They start at the end of August.
<Kyp> So we've got a month and a half to level up as high as we can. What levels are you guys? I'm level 7.
<Shinvincible> Level 7.
<OMGio> Level 5
<Nelo> Level 6
<Boreik> Level 6
<Fogs> Level 7
<Sweet_Temptation> Level 7. The guy I found is level 5.
<Fogs> Looks like we're leveling decently.
<Kyp> Yeah I met a guy right before I logged off who said the average level seemed to be about level 3. So if he's right then we're doing good.
<Shinvincible> Makes sense. We've fought a few other parties now and they all seem pretty weak. They don't have as much health as even Gio.
<OMGio> ^
<OMGio> I'm still looking for a way to assign stat points to specific stats. Not sure I need magic power or agility. I'd prefer more endurance.
<Boreik> Forums haven't figured it out either.
<Nelo> Riddit's the same. Everyone just has their stat points automatically assigned.
<Kyp> What's this about you guys fighting other parties? I thought we were trying not to be dicks.
<Shinvincible> lol. We found a really good spot to hunt wolves. Lots of dens with a good respawn rate. A few other parties have tried to make us leave. They ended up making generous donations to us.
<Nelo> lmao yeah they all sucked.
<Fogs> …
<Fogs> Just make sure it doesn't come back to bite us. Same goes to you Eric.
<Kyp> What? But I didn't kill anyone yet.
<Shinvincible> Yeah because you're weak lol
<Kyp> -.- At least I only fought the same party as last time.
<Boreik> …
<Kyp> Anyways getting back to the conversation. Are we meeting up soon? I got a look at a map and Tonbura village seems to be the midpoint between our locations.
<Nelo> Yeah we saw that. It's pretty far away from us though. We might level up a bit more before we head over.
<Kyp> You mean before Jun lets me steal his xp
<Shinvincible> ^
<Sweet_Temptation> I'll come today. Tonbura is pretty close. I'll bring Jaime too.
<Fogs> Griffin and I will see if we can come over today. We've got a quest to head over to Seacove City though. Should be a decent powerup if our info is right.
<Kyp> ??
<Fogs> There should be NPC guilds in the cities and in some towns that can teach players new skills. Not sure what the requirements are. But the poster on the forums said he was level 15 when he got a quest for one of the guilds.
<OMGio> Level 15???
<Boreik> Yeah… Apparently he played all night.
<Fogs> So we'll meet up with Eric. Then see if we can all level up to 15. Jun, Ryan, Gio, you guys going to be able to hit 10 on your own today?
<Shinvincible> We should be close. Beginner 10 definitely seems to be how you level up. So if Gio can just get a few more skills to Beginner 10 all 3 of us should hit 10 today. 15 might be a little tough though.
<Nelo> ^ We're gonna go deeper in the caves too. According to the villagers there might be something strong down there.
<Kyp> Careful against goblins.
<Nelo> You've fought them?
<Kyp> Yeah. They fight kind of like humans. Only shorter. They're a lot more dangerous in groups or riding wolves as they use basic group tactics. Don't expect to fight 4 goblins like you'd fight 4 wolves or 4 rabbits. They're pretty smart.
<Nelo> Good to know thanks.
<Fogs> One last thing. There are elites in Fate. Me and Boreik fought a huge wolf last night. Almost killed both of us.
<Boreik> Yeah that thing was freakin terrifying. I'm reconsidering being a tank lol.
<Sweet_Temptation> How strong was it? I still haven't seen an elite, but I don't think my tank is up to it rofl
<Kyp> Elites are pretty damn strong. I only killed one because I had the help of two militia NPCs. And one of them still died. It dropped a skill book though.
<Shinvincible> Shit really? If Eric can kill one we definitely can. I know what we're doing today.
<Nelo> lol
<OMGio> Sounds good. Any tips for tanking it?
<Boreik> It's fast. Way faster than you think. Don't get greedy for damage, hide behind the shield and let the dps damage it.
<Kyp> ^ It also has a huge jump. Watch out for it jumping over you and then kicking backwards. That's how it almost killed me.
<OMGio> kk thanks.
<Nelo> Have any of you guys figured out more ways to get skills? Jun, Gio, and I all got one for doing a quest. But we haven't been able to make any more yet.
<Boreik> I created the charge skill after charging enough wolves. It definitely requires doing the same action over and over again.
<Fogs> I haven't been able to create any new spells yet. Just focusing on leveling up my proficiencies for now.
<Kyp> I got a new spell from the skillbook the elite dropped. And an NPC taught me a new skill during a quest. But I didn't learn it right away, I had to practice till I got it right.
<OMGio> I think that's got something to do with the system assistance. I learned how to use Sweeping Slash right away. But Ryan and Jun had to practice it for a bit before they got the skill.
<Kyp> You kept system assistance on?
<OMGio> Yup. Ryan and Jun turned it off though.
<Boreik> Same here.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Fogs> Yup me too.
<Kyp> Interesting. Oh yeah. I'll send you guys the runes for Wind Blade. Not sure it'll be perfect, but you should be able to learn the spell if you get them right.
<Fogs> Sick. Arcane spells just aren't doing it for me anymore.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Fogs> Alright let's wrap up. Eric, Jun, Gio, watch the vid and then get to leveling. Griffin, Rob, and I will try to get to Tonbura village today. Everyone's goal is level 15 as soon as possible so we can go to the city and maybe get some new skills.
<Kyp> kk
<Boreik> k
<OMGio> kk
<Nelo> KKK
<Sweet_Temptation> kek
<Shinvincible> lol Ryan you f*****
You have disconnected
Please report us if you find any errors so we can fix it asap!
Slashing apart the wolf that leapt at him, Eric was suddenly awoken by the loud blaring of his watch. Checking the time groggily, he allowed himself to fall back into his pillow, groaning at the injustice that existed in a world where someone was forcing a teenager to wake up before noon, conveniently ignoring that he was the someone in this case.
Throwing the blankets over his head, Eric attempted to get back to sleep until another alarm began to blare, this one from across the room. Glaring at the new alarm, Eric sighed, why did he have to know his own weaknesses he wondered, hauling himself out of bed still wrapped in the quilt.
Silencing the alarm, Eric looked longingly at his bed, the pillow and remaining blankets inviting him to return to their loving embrace. With a sigh, he threw his comforter back on the pile of blankets, committing himself to waking up for the day.
Padding downstairs, Eric was greeted by the shocked face of his mother, a bowl of oatmeal held in one hand and a spoon that was frozen halfway between the bowl and her mouth.
"Am I still dreaming? Eric?" With an exaggerated movement, she swung her head towards the clock then back towards Eric, "It can't be. There's no way Eric's up before 9am," she told the cat conversationally. The cat ignored her, choosing instead to jump on top of the table and curl up in a patch of sunlight.
Ignoring the animal, his mother turned back to Eric, "So what are you doing up so early? Especially on a Saturday?"
"Gotta level up quickly. We need to make sure we're prepared for the championship," said Eric, grabbing a bagel and popping it in the toaster oven as he talked.
"Is that the last Montreal bagel?" she asked.
"Looks like it."
"Go check the freezer and see if there's any more. Angus won't be happy if you ate his last bagel."
Rolling his eyes, Eric padded over silently to the garage, checking the enormous deep freezer for bagels. Seeing a new bag, he grabbed it, rubbing his arms to ward off the chill as he re-entered the kitchen.
"So will this be a regular thing then? Seeing you in the morning?"
"I wouldn't bet on it, but it's possible," Eric responded. Placing the new bag of bagels on the counter next to the toaster, watching as the elements heated up his bagel within. "Are you guys going anywhere today? I know Leif said he was going to hang out with his friends."
"Your father has a meeting downtown later. I might go out for a bite in the afternoon. Want to come?"
"Where would you be headed?"
His mother pondered for a moment, "Most likely Lunasole or Occo."
"I'll pass for today. It's only the second day so it's pretty important that I level with the guys," said Eric guiltily. His mother sighed disappointedly, "Alright. Well don't say I didn't ask."
With a dinging sound, the toaster announced that Eric's bagel was ready. Grabbing the cream cheese from the fridge, he applied it liberally, caking the bagel in delicious white goodness. Snagging the jar of jam from the counter, he applied a small layer over the cream cheese, creating a sweet three layered treat that he bit into hungrily, a small blob of jam falling off and hitting the ground below.
"You'd better clean that up when you're done," said his mother, with a threatening tone of voice that warned him what would happen should he choose to ignore this advice.
"Yeah yeah I will. No worries," said Eric. Grabbing the cloth from the sink and wiping the jam off the floor.
"Oh yeah, there was some news about that game you're playing. It was on the morning news and your friend Mark called."
"And you didn't wake me up?" protested Eric, his mouth still full of bagel.
"I tried. You mumbled something about morning or stars and rolled over. I assumed you'd gotten the message."
"I don't remember this."
"You can ask Angus, he was waking up when we got the call."
"How long ago did this happen?"
"Maybe 7:30? Just over an hour-ish ago," his mother responded. Gulping down the rest of his bagel, Eric tore upstairs to check his messages with no interruptions. Sure enough there was a missed call on his watch from Mark at 7:43. Another at 7:44. And a text message that told him they'd be meeting on Strife at 9:30.
Checking the time, Eric saw that it was only 9:14. That left him with just fifteen minutes to get as many of his chores done as possible before jumping on. If he could get all of them done then he wouldn't need to log off afterwards, he could just enter the game directly.
As a result, the next few minutes saw the Kingsley household hit by what his mother would later describe as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon as Eric dashed around the house doing chores. Throwing the laundry in the laundry hamper. Clearing up the dishes. Wiping down the counter. Refilling the vicious cat's water bowl - her food bowl was already full of chicken so he ignored that. As Eric finished the last chore, his watch read 9:29. Taking the stairs two at a time, he dashed back to his room, laying down and shoving the FateGear on his head. Flicking it on, he ignored the materialization sequence, directly shouting, "Strife start!" as he appeared on the couch.
<Kyp has joined the room>
<Fogs> lol. I was wondering if you were gonna make it Eric.
<Boreik> yeah we tried calling. Where were you?
<Kyp> Asleep. Sorry -.-
<Fogs> All good. Did you see the news?
<Kyp> News?
<Nelo> wait wat. You didn't see the news yet? It's all over every major gaming site. Top page of riddit too.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Kyp> I told you I was asleep. I just woke up like twenty minutes ago. I barely had time to have food.
<Shinvincible> I didn't get to read much. All I saw was there's a vid on the championship?
<Fogs> Yeah they've announced the format for the championship. Watch the vid later.
<Kyp> Can I get a quick summary?
<OMGio> Me too. I didn't really read all of it.
<Nelo> So they explained why we were all separated into different kingdoms and why they based it on real world location.
<Kyp> ?
<Nelo> Basically there are going to be a number of tournaments leading up to the world championship.
<Fogs> Yeah. Preliminaries. Kingdom Representative Tournament. Nationals. Regionals. And then worlds.
<Kyp> That's a lot of tournaments.
<OMGio> ^
<Nelo> There are prizes at all levels though. Preliminaries don't give cash prizes but every other level does.
<Shinvincible> sick. I could use some cash.
<Kyp> We've gotta win first lol. Do we have dates? Rules? Any other info?
<Fogs> It's gonna be 5v5. Teams are allowed 3 subs. Looks like double elim.
<Boreik> Players can only participate in the representative tournament for one kingdom. It's essentially the national qualifiers tournament. So if you get through the preliminaries, you have to choose which kingdom you want to represent. If you lose there then you're out.
<OMGio> I thought there was something about a wildcard spot?
<Fogs> They haven't really explained it. Just mentioned it. For now our focus is winning a preliminary tournament and getting a spot in the Representative tourney.
<Shinvincible> When's the first tournament?
<Fogs> Prelims are going to be held everywhere and there's going to be a lot. Something like 256 spots for each Kingdom rep tourney. They explained it in the vid. We have a few chances to win a prelim though. They start at the end of August.
<Kyp> So we've got a month and a half to level up as high as we can. What levels are you guys? I'm level 7.
<Shinvincible> Level 7.
<OMGio> Level 5
<Nelo> Level 6
<Boreik> Level 6
<Fogs> Level 7
<Sweet_Temptation> Level 7. The guy I found is level 5.
<Fogs> Looks like we're leveling decently.
<Kyp> Yeah I met a guy right before I logged off who said the average level seemed to be about level 3. So if he's right then we're doing good.
<Shinvincible> Makes sense. We've fought a few other parties now and they all seem pretty weak. They don't have as much health as even Gio.
<OMGio> ^
<OMGio> I'm still looking for a way to assign stat points to specific stats. Not sure I need magic power or agility. I'd prefer more endurance.
<Boreik> Forums haven't figured it out either.
<Nelo> Riddit's the same. Everyone just has their stat points automatically assigned.
<Kyp> What's this about you guys fighting other parties? I thought we were trying not to be dicks.
<Shinvincible> lol. We found a really good spot to hunt wolves. Lots of dens with a good respawn rate. A few other parties have tried to make us leave. They ended up making generous donations to us.
<Nelo> lmao yeah they all sucked.
<Fogs> …
<Fogs> Just make sure it doesn't come back to bite us. Same goes to you Eric.
<Kyp> What? But I didn't kill anyone yet.
<Shinvincible> Yeah because you're weak lol
<Kyp> -.- At least I only fought the same party as last time.
<Boreik> …
<Kyp> Anyways getting back to the conversation. Are we meeting up soon? I got a look at a map and Tonbura village seems to be the midpoint between our locations.
<Nelo> Yeah we saw that. It's pretty far away from us though. We might level up a bit more before we head over.
<Kyp> You mean before Jun lets me steal his xp
<Shinvincible> ^
<Sweet_Temptation> I'll come today. Tonbura is pretty close. I'll bring Jaime too.
<Fogs> Griffin and I will see if we can come over today. We've got a quest to head over to Seacove City though. Should be a decent powerup if our info is right.
<Kyp> ??
<Fogs> There should be NPC guilds in the cities and in some towns that can teach players new skills. Not sure what the requirements are. But the poster on the forums said he was level 15 when he got a quest for one of the guilds.
<OMGio> Level 15???
<Boreik> Yeah… Apparently he played all night.
<Fogs> So we'll meet up with Eric. Then see if we can all level up to 15. Jun, Ryan, Gio, you guys going to be able to hit 10 on your own today?
<Shinvincible> We should be close. Beginner 10 definitely seems to be how you level up. So if Gio can just get a few more skills to Beginner 10 all 3 of us should hit 10 today. 15 might be a little tough though.
<Nelo> ^ We're gonna go deeper in the caves too. According to the villagers there might be something strong down there.
<Kyp> Careful against goblins.
<Nelo> You've fought them?
<Kyp> Yeah. They fight kind of like humans. Only shorter. They're a lot more dangerous in groups or riding wolves as they use basic group tactics. Don't expect to fight 4 goblins like you'd fight 4 wolves or 4 rabbits. They're pretty smart.
<Nelo> Good to know thanks.
<Fogs> One last thing. There are elites in Fate. Me and Boreik fought a huge wolf last night. Almost killed both of us.
<Boreik> Yeah that thing was freakin terrifying. I'm reconsidering being a tank lol.
<Sweet_Temptation> How strong was it? I still haven't seen an elite, but I don't think my tank is up to it rofl
<Kyp> Elites are pretty damn strong. I only killed one because I had the help of two militia NPCs. And one of them still died. It dropped a skill book though.
<Shinvincible> Shit really? If Eric can kill one we definitely can. I know what we're doing today.
<Nelo> lol
<OMGio> Sounds good. Any tips for tanking it?
<Boreik> It's fast. Way faster than you think. Don't get greedy for damage, hide behind the shield and let the dps damage it.
<Kyp> ^ It also has a huge jump. Watch out for it jumping over you and then kicking backwards. That's how it almost killed me.
<OMGio> kk thanks.
<Nelo> Have any of you guys figured out more ways to get skills? Jun, Gio, and I all got one for doing a quest. But we haven't been able to make any more yet.
<Boreik> I created the charge skill after charging enough wolves. It definitely requires doing the same action over and over again.
<Fogs> I haven't been able to create any new spells yet. Just focusing on leveling up my proficiencies for now.
<Kyp> I got a new spell from the skillbook the elite dropped. And an NPC taught me a new skill during a quest. But I didn't learn it right away, I had to practice till I got it right.
<OMGio> I think that's got something to do with the system assistance. I learned how to use Sweeping Slash right away. But Ryan and Jun had to practice it for a bit before they got the skill.
<Kyp> You kept system assistance on?
<OMGio> Yup. Ryan and Jun turned it off though.
<Boreik> Same here.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Fogs> Yup me too.
<Kyp> Interesting. Oh yeah. I'll send you guys the runes for Wind Blade. Not sure it'll be perfect, but you should be able to learn the spell if you get them right.
<Fogs> Sick. Arcane spells just aren't doing it for me anymore.
<Sweet_Temptation> ^
<Fogs> Alright let's wrap up. Eric, Jun, Gio, watch the vid and then get to leveling. Griffin, Rob, and I will try to get to Tonbura village today. Everyone's goal is level 15 as soon as possible so we can go to the city and maybe get some new skills.
<Kyp> kk
<Boreik> k
<OMGio> kk
<Nelo> KKK
<Sweet_Temptation> kek
<Shinvincible> lol Ryan you f*****
You have disconnected
Slashing apart the wolf that leapt at him, Eric was suddenly awoken by the loud blaring of his watch. Checking the time groggily, he allowed himself to fall back into his pillow, groaning at the injustice that existed in a world where someone was forcing a teenager to wake up before noon, conveniently ignoring that he was the someone in this case.Throwing the blankets over his head, Eric attempted to get back to sleep until another alarm began to blare, this one from across the room. Glaring at the new alarm, Eric sighed, why did he have to know his own weaknesses he wondered, hauling himself out of bed still wrapped in the quilt.Silencing the alarm, Eric looked longingly at his bed, the pillow and remaining blankets inviting him to return to their loving embrace. With a sigh, he threw his comforter back on the pile of blankets, committing himself to waking up for the day.Padding downstairs, Eric was greeted by the shocked face of his mother, a bowl of oatmeal held in one hand and a spoon that was frozen halfway between the bowl and her mouth."Am I still dreaming? Eric?" With an exaggerated movement, she swung her head towards the clock then back towards Eric, "It can't be. There's no way Eric's up before 9am," she told the cat conversationally. The cat ignored her, choosing instead to jump on top of the table and curl up in a patch of sunlight.Ignoring the animal, his mother turned back to Eric, "So what are you doing up so early? Especially on a Saturday?""Gotta level up quickly. We need to make sure we're prepared for the championship," said Eric, grabbing a bagel and popping it in the toaster oven as he talked."Is that the last Montreal bagel?" she asked."Looks like it.""Go check the freezer and see if there's any more. Angus won't be happy if you ate his last bagel."Rolling his eyes, Eric padded over silently to the garage, checking the enormous deep freezer for bagels. Seeing a new bag, he grabbed it, rubbing his arms to ward off the chill as he re-entered the kitchen."So will this be a regular thing then? Seeing you in the morning?""I wouldn't bet on it, but it's possible," Eric responded. Placing the new bag of bagels on the counter next to the toaster, watching as the elements heated up his bagel within. "Are you guys going anywhere today? I know Leif said he was going to hang out with his friends.""Your father has a meeting downtown later. I might go out for a bite in the afternoon. Want to come?""Where would you be headed?"His mother pondered for a moment, "Most likely Lunasole or Occo.""I'll pass for today. It's only the second day so it's pretty important that I level with the guys," said Eric guiltily. His mother sighed disappointedly, "Alright. Well don't say I didn't ask."With a dinging sound, the toaster announced that Eric's bagel was ready. Grabbing the cream cheese from the fridge, he applied it liberally, caking the bagel in delicious white goodness. Snagging the jar of jam from the counter, he applied a small layer over the cream cheese, creating a sweet three layered treat that he bit into hungrily, a small blob of jam falling off and hitting the ground below."You'd better clean that up when you're done," said his mother, with a threatening tone of voice that warned him what would happen should he choose to ignore this advice."Yeah yeah I will. No worries," said Eric. Grabbing the cloth from the sink and wiping the jam off the floor."Oh yeah, there was some news about that game you're playing. It was on the morning news and your friend Mark called.""And you didn't wake me up?" protested Eric, his mouth still full of bagel."I tried. You mumbled something about morning or stars and rolled over. I assumed you'd gotten the message.""I don't remember this.""You can ask Angus, he was waking up when we got the call.""How long ago did this happen?""Maybe 7:30? Just over an hour-ish ago," his mother responded. Gulping down the rest of his bagel, Eric tore upstairs to check his messages with no interruptions. Sure enough there was a missed call on his watch from Mark at 7:43. Another at 7:44. And a text message that told him they'd be meeting on Strife at 9:30.Checking the time, Eric saw that it was only 9:14. That left him with just fifteen minutes to get as many of his chores done as possible before jumping on. If he could get all of them done then he wouldn't need to log off afterwards, he could just enter the game directly.As a result, the next few minutes saw the Kingsley household hit by what his mother would later describe as a once-in-a-lifetime phenomenon as Eric dashed around the house doing chores. Throwing the laundry in the laundry hamper. Clearing up the dishes. Wiping down the counter. Refilling the vicious cat's water bowl - her food bowl was already full of chicken so he ignored that. As Eric finished the last chore, his watch read 9:29. Taking the stairs two at a time, he dashed back to his room, laying down and shoving the FateGear on his head. Flicking it on, he ignored the materialization sequence, directly shouting, "Strife start!" as he appeared on the couch.Kyp has joined the roomFogs lol. I was wondering if you were gonna make it Eric.Boreik yeah we tried calling. Where were you?Kyp Asleep. Sorry -.-Fogs All good. Did you see the news?Kyp News?Nelo wait wat. You didn't see the news yet? It's all over every major gaming site. Top page of riddit too.Sweet_Temptation ^Kyp I told you I was asleep. I just woke up like twenty minutes ago. I barely had time to have food.Shinvincible I didn't get to read much. All I saw was there's a vid on the championship?Fogs Yeah they've announced the format for the championship. Watch the vid later.Kyp Can I get a quick summary?OMGio Me too. I didn't really read all of it.Nelo So they explained why we were all separated into different kingdoms and why they based it on real world location.Kyp ?Nelo Basically there are going to be a number of tournaments leading up to the world championship.Fogs Yeah. Preliminaries. Kingdom Representative Tournament. Nationals. Regionals. And then worlds.Kyp That's a lot of tournaments.OMGio ^Nelo There are prizes at all levels though. Preliminaries don't give cash prizes but every other level does.Shinvincible sick. I could use some cash.Kyp We've gotta win first lol. Do we have dates? Rules? Any other info?Fogs It's gonna be 5v5. Teams are allowed 3 subs. Looks like double elim.Boreik Players can only participate in the representative tournament for one kingdom. It's essentially the national qualifiers tournament. So if you get through the preliminaries, you have to choose which kingdom you want to represent. If you lose there then you're out.OMGio I thought there was something about a wildcard spot?Fogs They haven't really explained it. Just mentioned it. For now our focus is winning a preliminary tournament and getting a spot in the Representative tourney.Shinvincible When's the first tournament?Fogs Prelims are going to be held everywhere and there's going to be a lot. Something like 256 spots for each Kingdom rep tourney. They explained it in the vid. We have a few chances to win a prelim though. They start at the end of August.Kyp So we've got a month and a half to level up as high as we can. What levels are you guys? I'm level 7.Shinvincible Level 7.OMGio Level 5Nelo Level 6Boreik Level 6Fogs Level 7Sweet_Temptation Level 7. The guy I found is level 5.Fogs Looks like we're leveling decently.Kyp Yeah I met a guy right before I logged off who said the average level seemed to be about level 3. So if he's right then we're doing good.Shinvincible Makes sense. We've fought a few other parties now and they all seem pretty weak. They don't have as much health as even Gio.OMGio ^OMGio I'm still looking for a way to assign stat points to specific stats. Not sure I need magic power or agility. I'd prefer more endurance.Boreik Forums haven't figured it out either.Nelo Riddit's the same. Everyone just has their stat points automatically assigned.Kyp What's this about you guys fighting other parties? I thought we were trying not to be dicks.Shinvincible lol. We found a really good spot to hunt wolves. Lots of dens with a good respawn rate. A few other parties have tried to make us leave. They ended up making generous donations to us.Nelo lmao yeah they all sucked.Fogs Fogs Just make sure it doesn't come back to bite us. Same goes to you Eric.Kyp What? But I didn't kill anyone yet.Shinvincible Yeah because you're weak lolKyp -.- At least I only fought the same party as last time.Boreik Kyp Anyways getting back to the conversation. Are we meeting up soon? I got a look at a map and Tonbura village seems to be the midpoint between our locations.Nelo Yeah we saw that. It's pretty far away from us though. We might level up a bit more before we head over.Kyp You mean before Jun lets me steal his xpShinvincible ^Sweet_Temptation I'll come today. Tonbura is pretty close. I'll bring Jaime too.Fogs Griffin and I will see if we can come over today. We've got a quest to head over to Seacove City though. Should be a decent powerup if our info is right.Kyp ??Fogs There should be NPC guilds in the cities and in some towns that can teach players new skills. Not sure what the requirements are. But the poster on the forums said he was level 15 when he got a quest for one of the guilds.OMGio Level 15???Boreik Yeah Apparently he played all night.Fogs So we'll meet up with Eric. Then see if we can all level up to 15. Jun, Ryan, Gio, you guys going to be able to hit 10 on your own today?Shinvincible We should be close. Beginner 10 definitely seems to be how you level up. So if Gio can just get a few more skills to Beginner 10 all 3 of us should hit 10 today. 15 might be a little tough though.Nelo ^ We're gonna go deeper in the caves too. According to the villagers there might be something strong down there.Kyp Careful against goblins.Nelo You've fought them?Kyp Yeah. They fight kind of like humans. Only shorter. They're a lot more dangerous in groups or riding wolves as they use basic group tactics. Don't expect to fight 4 goblins like you'd fight 4 wolves or 4 rabbits. They're pretty smart.Nelo Good to know thanks.Fogs One last thing. There are elites in Fate. Me and Boreik fought a huge wolf last night. Almost killed both of us.Boreik Yeah that thing was freakin terrifying. I'm reconsidering being a tank lol.Sweet_Temptation How strong was it? I still haven't seen an elite, but I don't think my tank is up to it roflKyp Elites are pretty damn strong. I only killed one because I had the help of two militia NPCs. And one of them still died. It dropped a skill book though.Shinvincible Shit really? If Eric can kill one we definitely can. I know what we're doing today.Nelo lolOMGio Sounds good. Any tips for tanking it?Boreik It's fast. Way faster than you think. Don't get greedy for damage, hide behind the shield and let the dps damage it.Kyp ^ It also has a huge jump. Watch out for it jumping over you and then kicking backwards. That's how it almost killed me.OMGio kk thanks.Nelo Have any of you guys figured out more ways to get skills? Jun, Gio, and I all got one for doing a quest. But we haven't been able to make any more yet.Boreik I created the charge skill after charging enough wolves. It definitely requires doing the same action over and over again.Fogs I haven't been able to create any new spells yet. Just focusing on leveling up my proficiencies for now.Kyp I got a new spell from the skillbook the elite dropped. And an NPC taught me a new skill during a quest. But I didn't learn it right away, I had to practice till I got it right.OMGio I think that's got something to do with the system assistance. I learned how to use Sweeping Slash right away. But Ryan and Jun had to practice it for a bit before they got the skill.Kyp You kept system assistance on?OMGio Yup. Ryan and Jun turned it off though.Boreik Same here.Sweet_Temptation ^Fogs Yup me too.Kyp Interesting. Oh yeah. I'll send you guys the runes for Wind Blade. Not sure it'll be perfect, but you should be able to learn the spell if you get them right.Fogs Sick. Arcane spells just aren't doing it for me anymore.Sweet_Temptation ^Fogs Alright let's wrap up. Eric, Jun, Gio, watch the vid and then get to leveling. Griffin, Rob, and I will try to get to Tonbura village today. Everyone's goal is level 15 as soon as possible so we can go to the city and maybe get some new skills.Kyp kkBoreik kOMGio kkNelo KKKSweet_Temptation kekShinvincible lol Ryan you f*****You have disconnected
