Chapter 8 – Pug

“Well, I guess I found the secret quest Anna was looking for…” I mutter, still dazed from the unexpected encounter. “What the fuck.”

I’m inclined to head back inside and try to haul a few answers out of the old man until I realize that I have very little to actually threaten him with. Not to mention this ‘Silver Saints’ thing he is part of might not be the best kind of people to piss off.

It’s weird though. I haven’t read anything about any underground NPC networks on any forums yet. Is this a unique event? Probably not. If the game has secret NPC factions, then I doubt they only added a single faction in a single town in the middle of nowhere. For all I know, this might be nothing, or it could be something. If this is something though, then I can only assume there is a certain set of conditions you have to meet to be able to get a foot in the door. Hell, I might not be the first person to even discover these organizations, and the others may keep it a secret for as long as possible to try to get an edge over everyone else. Just like the Dark Pegasus guild did with these sewers. I know I would do that exact thing if the opportunity arose.

Speaking of which, I should probably start doing something.

I look around and quickly locate a rusty metal lid hidden neatly between some crates in the shadows of the tavern. Opening the hatch, I stare into a dark hole in the ground. A small breeze of moist air washes over my face as my nose wrinkles due to the abhorrent stench. “Of course it has to smell…” I mutter as I start descending down a dirty ladder.

Reaching the bottom, I find myself in a small sewer tunnel stretching beneath the streets above. My three underlings wait idly nearby, throwing me eager looks as they fiddle with their weapons. I don’t know where it comes from, but there seems to be a subtle light radiating from some unknown place, illuminating the tunnel at strategic intervals. Not enough to see clearly, but enough for us to be able to navigate without using spells or torches. You gotta love gaming logic, am I right?

“Well, don’t look at me guys. Let’s get a move on.” I shrug as my mute henchmen turn around and start walking slowly down the tunnel. My underlings are all seeded with a special kind of artificial intelligence where they don’t really have free will, or any sort of personality at all, to be honest. It makes them more efficient tools to use, but it also feels a little odd to order them around like a cat following a laser pen. There are some theories on the internet that the underlings all act as if they are lobotomized so that the Thief Lords who grow attached to their personalities won’t suffer unnecessary traumas after sending them into certain death; which they will. A lot. It feels a bit unnecessary to me, but I can’t argue with the results. They feel and act incredibly loyal.

The tunnel we are moving down is wide enough for three people to walk side by side while still having room to spare. There’s a small stream of raw sewage running in the middle of the corridor though, so I don’t envy the guy who has to walk in the middle. My underlings take up a formation where the Hoodlum walks directly in front of me on the left side of the tunnel, while the Cutpurse is trailed by the Spotter on the other side.

We walk at a slow pace as I am uncertain as to how dangerous these rats are. They’re probably incredibly weak, but I’d rather not have all my underlings afflicted by some nasty diseases that I will have to cure with expensive potions later. I may have some money now, but I’ve never been a fan of frivolous spending.

We only walk for about twenty seconds until some high-pitched chittering noises echo down the tunnel. Slowing our pace, I have my minions prepare a defensive stance. It only takes us a few more steps to come upon the creatures we have been looking for.

[Sewer Rat(1). HP: ??/??.]

[Sewer Rat(2). HP: ??/??.]

The name tags are flashing bright red, signalling that the rats will attack us on sight. The name tags aren’t as detailed as my underlings’, but that’s most likely because my Perception attribute sucks. The rats are much larger than ordinary rats, where the smaller one’s body is roughly thirty centimeters long, excluding the tail. Their furs are matted gray with several dirty stains covering their bodies. Their beady red eyes lock onto us, showing the unbound hatred contained within.

“Kill the weaker rat first!” I order my underlings as they charge the two rats. My Hoodlum is the first to reach them, swinging his club wide and… misses. The club goes right over the level one rat’s head and smashes into the wall, causing a few splinters to fly off the club. The rat responds in kind, jumping at my Hoodlum and sink its jagged teeth into his thigh.

My Spotter is throwing his knives with reckless abandon as he struggles to keep the larger of the rats at bay. He doesn’t hit it, but his randomly flying knives keep the rat away as it struggles to dodge the flying projectiles. Meanwhile, my Cutpurse slides up behind the weaker rat and start slicing at its exposed backside. The weaker rat squeals in pain as the rusty dagger connects, taking several points off its health pool. While it’s distracted, the Hoodlum grabs it violently and yanks it off his leg. Pinning the rat to the ground, my two melee underlings work together to quickly finish it off.

In the meanwhile, the Spotter is quickly running out of knives. The larger rat took a glancing blow from one of the knives and is missing the tip of its tail. It doesn’t matter though as my other two underlings quickly surround and start battering the large rat to a pulp. It only takes half a minute, but my first fight ends quickly and efficiently, albeit a bit messy. Much like the first night with my ex-girlfriend.

[You have slain Sewer Rat(1). Gain 5 experience.]

[You have slain Sewer Rat(2). Gain 8 experience.]

The double notification signals the end of the fight. I’m a little surprised at how efficiently my underlings worked together. It wasn’t at all how my skeletons worked, as none of those brainless piles of bones would ever strategically position themselves to surround an enemy, or even physically restrain their movements while mercilessly murdering them. What my underlings just did felt much smarter, but also much more gruesome than I expected. Now I know why my underlings are so much more expensive to recruit than mindless undead though. I certainly get a good bang for my buck.

More importantly, though, I gained thirteen experience points. That’s more than one-tenth of what I need to level up! Anna was right; leveling down here is way more efficient than doing social quests outside. It would probably take me fifteen minutes of lifting crates to even gain ten experience points. That is if I could even pick up and social quests to begin with. These sewers hold great value for someone trying to speed up their leveling. I wonder if there are more of these secret areas in different parts of town? Maybe even higher-level ones? It certainly makes locating these places a much higher priority. Who knows what kind of treasures I might find?

That’s a problem for later though. I still have a sewer to explore.

Our little group of lightly armed homeless people makes good headway exploring the vast sewer network located beneath the noob district. There are a bunch of twists and turns, but I’m starting to get an understanding of the general layout of the area. The sewer system has a central room that functions as a hub for all the connecting tunnels. The tunnels expand like a web away from the central chamber, and it’s fairly easy to navigate as the tunnels always tilt slightly downwards towards the central hub. Finding my way around is no longer an issue, but I find it increasingly difficult to find another exit. That’s a problem for later though.

During my explorations, we managed to slay a dozen more rats, earning me another seventy-two experience points. I’m getting closer to level two by the minute, and I haven’t even cleared out a fraction of the tunnels I’ve found so far.

Grinding rats will have to take a backseat for now though as I need to try and figure out if there’s a way out of this place. Preferably outside of the noob zone. Sewers usually end up in the ocean, don’t they? My best bet is to try and find a tunnel that slopes further downwards from the central chamber, and I think I know a location where such an exit may exist.

My ragtag band of misfits has seen better days. The Hoodlum and Cutpurse are both littered by tiny bite marks, and the Spotter is drenched by sewage water after he tripped into the deep cesspool in the center chamber. They are all still kicking though, and their health points are steadily regenerating every minute. I even started practicing my ‘Chameleon’ and ‘Calm’ spells as I figured I had a lot of mana and nothing better to do with it. It’s a bit disappointing that it will take a long time to gain skill levels with spells, and especially spells of a higher tier since I can’t unlock them early.

The magic system is rather unique in that regard since it’s the only type of skill that requires unlocks. It’s kind of obvious why though. Spells are flashy skills where the power is very objectively quantifiable. Normal skills are more subtle in their use and more naturally evolve from a low skill level into something more powerful later on. I’m not sure why the game developers wanted it to be this way, but I can understand how they wouldn’t want level one players to throw around a meteor shower right off the bat. I don’t see it as too much of a problem that it takes more effort for mages to level their skills though.

It’s sort of fair in some sense. In the grand scheme of things, since Mages rely completely on using spells in every single scenario, while physically oriented players often have to improvise, Mages have a natural advantage when it comes to steadily grind skill levels since they are more dependent on using their magic for every little thing they do. It may take some time, but luckily I don’t have anything else to do but start my spell grind.

After a few moments of looking into a few oddly placed tunnels and killing another level one rat, we finally find what we are looking for. There’s a tunnel entrance that looks slightly out of place compared to the rest of the network, and there’s a pair of particularly nasty level three rats loitering around the entrance.

The level three rats are slightly different from their smaller cousins as they are the only ones of the critters that have skills. The little buggers have some sort of leaping ability, making them able to easily jump two meters from a still position. My Spotter had a bad time the first time I encountered them.

The little bastards aren’t the only ones with abilities though. I didn’t really check my underlings’ skills earlier, but they all have a couple of class-related skills. I noticed it in my first battle when my Hoodlum grabbed a rat and pinned it to the ground and had it stabbed to death. That was actually a skill called ‘Grapple’, which pretty much does what it says it does. It allows him to tackle and grab a weaker or smaller enemy, immobilizing it for a short moment. It’s not the most graceful of skills, but it certainly is effective at killing rats.

Another useful skill which both my Hoodlum and Cutpurse share, is the Evasion skill. It’s the same one as players have, and it works brilliantly. Since the game has no feasible way to increase someone’s physique or reaction time to make them better at evading swords and arrows, the game adds a cool little feature. Instead of doing fancy acrobatics, the game sort of tugs the enemy’s weapon to veer off course. Sort of like the effect when two repelling magnets are being forcefully connected. They just don’t want to connect without an appropriate amount of force being applied, and even then, they just don’t want to stay together.

My underlings also have a few other fancy abilities which are pretty standard, like the Cutpurse’s ‘Stealth’ and ‘Backstab’ skill, the Hoodlum’s ‘Power Strike’ or the Spotter’s ‘Crippling Shot’ skill. There’s one final intriguing skill though. The Spotter has a ‘Mark Target’ skill, which basically allows him to feed information to the rest of us. When he activates it, it allows the rest of us to see the enemies he sees, even if they are outside of our field of view. It’s pretty neat. It highlights the enemies with a bright red outlining which only disappears if my Spotter loses sight of the target.

My underlings have fallen into a common routine. My Hoodlum charges in and immediately grapples the first rat, pinning it to the ground. He then proceeds to mercilessly beat it to a pulp. Gloating over how efficient the ‘Grapple’ skill is, I almost miss how my Cutpurse fluently evades the other rat’s leaping skill, causing it to smash headfirst into the wall. Momentarily stunned, the Spotter quickly places two throwing daggers into its body while the Cutpurse rushes in for the kill.

When the last of the rats stop twitching, I’m greeted by the long-awaited system’s window.

[Congratulations! You have reached level 2!]

[You have gained 3 free Attribute Points and 1 Skill Point!]

Finally! I grin as I quickly dump my three attribute points into Luck, watching my Dexterity attribute rise with it. I don’t really have an immediate need for either Luck or Dexterity at this point, but I figure I might prepare for the future. Those points are going to come in handy rather soon. The same thing applies to my Skill Point. I already have a skill in mind, but I still open up the list of class-specific skills.

Available Thief Lord Class Skills:

Fight Dirty – Gain attack damage equal to Luck + 0,5 * Skill level for 1 minute + 1 second per Skill level.

Cooldown: 20 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Fight Smart - Increases Evasion by 0,2 Luck + 0,2 * Skill level for 1 minute + 1 second per Skill level. Cooldown: 20 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Cheap Shot - Gives Underlings a damage bonus to their first attack in a fight equal to Luck + Skill level for 5 minutes + 5 seconds per Skill level or until the first attack has been made.

Cooldown: 20 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Gang up - Gain increased damage when fighting 3 to 1 by 0,5 Luck + 0,5 * Skill level.

Bail – All troops escape and evade. Evasion increases by Skill level%, Movement speed moving away from enemies increases by 2 * Skill level %. Duration 30 seconds + 0,5 seconds per Skill level.

Cooldown 60 min - 15 seconds per Skill level.

Mentor – Increases Underling experience gains by 5 * Skill level %.

Doppelganger – Instantaneously switch position with an Underling. Range: 1 meter + 0,2 * Skill level.

Cooldown: 20 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Rush – Increases movement speed by 0,2 Luck + 0,2 * Skill level % for 30 seconds + 0,5 seconds per Skill level.

Cooldown: 20 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Disarm – Makes Underlings disarm an opponent. Chance of success: 0,5 Luck + 0,2 * Skill level per Underling. Stackable per underling.

Cooldown: 5 minutes - 5 seconds per Skill level.

Bountiful – Increases yield of successful jobs by 0,5 Luck + 0,5 * Skill level %.

Incite Crowd – Causes nearby NPCs to actively distract and obstruct enemies for 0,1 Charisma seconds + 0,1 seconds per Skill level.

Cooldown: 60 minutes - 15 seconds per Skill level.

Cheat Death - Upon taking fatal damage, clear all status effects and turn invulnerable for 0,1 seconds per 0,5 luck and instantly heal for luck + 5n * Skill level.

Cooldown: 24 hours - 5 minutes per Skill level.

There are so many options. So many sweet, sweet options. This is what I love about the game. Every skill is available for purchase at the start, and I get to choose which skills to focus on, thus being able to tailor my skill set to my preferred play style. Granted, I eventually want to have every single one of these skills. I really need to prioritize a select few to focus on for a while.

The skill I decide to go for this time around though is probably the least flashy, but also the one that gives me the most amount of long-term value. Therefore, I select and purchase the ‘Mentor’ skill. It almost feels like a sin, but I already know how reliant I am on my underlings. Having them level up as fast as possible is vital for my late-game success. The skill allows my underlings to gain five percent extra experience per skill level I have in it. At skill level one hundred, my underlings will gain experience five hundred percent faster. While the underlings can never have a higher level than me, it’s still perfect for leveling up minions at the later stages of the game when they might die or I need to recruit fresh ones. It’s a skill I can’t ignore if I am to ever have a realistic goal of becoming the best at the game and make it stay that way.

Closing my status, I look upon the tunnel entrance the rats were guarding. It’s a slightly wider tunnel than the others, and it’s sloping downwards while still connected to the central chamber. I’m fairly certain four grown men could walk beside each other, but there’s also a much wider stream of sewage water running down the middle which makes it more difficult for the people walking on either side of the stream to assist one another.

My anticipation level rises as I can figuratively smell an exit at the end of this path. We keep heading down the path for a while. The path takes a few twists and turns, but it still heads deeper into the ground with no branching tunnels connected to it. There are no rats down here though, which makes me feel extremely suspicious that something weird is going on. No monster-infested tunnels have ever, in the history of video games become easier the deeper you go. It just doesn’t happen, which makes me suspect I will eventually fight a giant mutated level ten rat or something that shoots bolts of acid from its tail.

Which would suck.

The tunnel keeps stretching on, and I guess I must be getting closer to the ocean. I can actually hear the sounds of waves crashing against rocks from where I am, but the exit still eludes me. After walking through another turn in the tunnel, we suddenly find ourselves outside a large room, nearly half the size of the huge center chamber upstairs.

The room is filled with rotten barrels and other pieces of wooden equipment but I pay them no mind. At the opposite side of the room, I can spot a streak of light hitting the side of the tunnels. An exit!

I hurry across the room, my eyes locked onto the small glint of light across the room. I can’t believe it. It was this easy? I chuckle. The room is filled by broken crates, trash, and filthy pieces of fabric strewn about. In my hurry, I jump over a half-broken crate on the floor, elegantly landing on top of a moth-ridden sack of fabrics on the other side.

“Grumpff!” A coarse grunt echoes around the room, as a combat notification flashes in the corner of my eyes.

[You have dealt 1 Blunt Damage to Unknown Enemy(?).]

“What the fuck?” I yelp in surprise while turning around, scanning the room for where that noise came for. My eyes find nothing, staring into the dimly lit room. It is only too late I sense movement from below.

“PUG!” Something screams as a force slams into my belly, causing me to stumble backwards, falling over and crushing a rotten barrel beneath my weight. Panicking slightly, I roll over and look towards the area I was occupying just seconds before. The moth-ridden sack I landed on earlier is somehow much larger, and it sprouted two arms and two legs, and what appears to be a head covered in nothing but dirty hair. I squint as a name tag appears.

[Human Elite Brawler - Pug the Pugilist(3). HP ???/???.]

Oh crap...