Day 5 - May 15:51

The effect [Ratatosk´s presence] was applied to you.

[Ratatosk´s presence: You are very lucky to witness a messenger of the god Ratatosk. Even more fortunate that he left you alive. You are paralyzed, in stasis and stunned for 2 minutes.]

One was still stuck on the tree. The force emitting from the squirrel kept him pinned up on it. It was impressive what kind of force a mere messenger of a god can muster. Even in higher levels beating something like this should be hard. The squirrel set up a circle on the ground with magic. The orange light it summoned carved a huge pentagram on the forest ground. Shortly after a black portal with orange light on the edges started to appear in the air above.

One got really curious. What was going to happen? Would the squirrel go through it? Or was it summoning something? Or someone? The effect that bound him was still lasting over a minute. A few seconds later a huge claw moved slowly through the portal. The black scales that covered the flesh above the claws shinned brightly red on the edges. A dragon? A wyvern? He should get out of here as soon as possible. This was no joke. If he did not run he would be dead within seconds.

Suddenly a huge wolf appeared. No, not a wolf. The shadow of one. It came out of nowhere and ripped the portal into pieces. A quick drop with his paw destroyed the summoning cycle as well and the squirrel ran off. Jumping from tree to tree it was very agile. But the wolf kept up. Some trees took heavy damage, they were caved in on some parts, others split in the upper half. None were knocked over but it was clearly visible that something extreme had visited these woods.

One dropped. He fell a couple of meters towards the ground.

[You took 3 damage.]

Luckily his rabbit necklace regenerated him up to 5 HP in the time he was pinned down. Scared that those godly creatures appeared again he just sat down silently while he was waiting for his HP to recover. That was really scary. Playing for 5 days and already he nearly got himself killed in a fight between gods. Better said their messengers. One had no time to identify the shadow, but it was something even more powerful than the squirrel at the very least.

After his necklace regenerated him fully he stood up and inspected the tree he was working on before. Carefully he looked up into the higher branches, wary of another squirrel.

[48.79%/100%]

One screamed out happily. Finally something went well! This incident, which lasted a mere couple of minutes, just saved him over fifteen hours of grinding! Happily he went ahead and continued his work. This time he was more careful and watched his surroundings at all times. Every squirrel that was climbin in a tree gave him a near heart attack. Luckily he was not visited again. The entire time he worked on the tree was completely incident free.

[You gained: Title: Scaredy Cat]

[Your constant fear of dying made you scared and careful. +100% Movement speed if you are running away below 10% HP.]

Well that was nice. Thank you game. The game designers need to seriously stop trolling him.

Day 6 - April 08:17

[You gained 1 Strength.]

[You successfully cut down: Small Pine Tree. 98 Days.]

[0%/100%]

[A cut down [Small Pine Tree]. To receive its resources you need to be [Woodcutter: Beginner I] or higher and use the skill [Chopping Wood I] or higher.]

One gained 19 Strength points in total over the seventeen hours he had chopped away at the tree. His woodcutter job mastery had increased to 49% and his [Chopping Wood I] was already at 67%. One was pretty sure that the damage the gods had done towards the trees would decrease the gain of resources now and also decreased the experience that he gained with cutting it down. But this also allowed him to get the quest done much more quickly than normally. This could have easily meant that he had to continue the whole day just to get to this very same point.

One was really curious why this MMO did not have a combat system like so many others, where you find yourself on an empty field and hit level 1 monsters until you are level two, and so on. Here he basically was doing chores, running around and grinding some skills only to farm resources he needed to complete the quest. He probably would have been able to level up quite a bit more if he continued his epic fights with bunnies and rabbits. But what is the point if that's the strongest around? He really was curious on what he would receive at the end of the quest.

Since it is so extremely hard to raise your job masteries it could only mean that there is something very awesome at the very end. A sacrifice to raise yourself above normal, average players maybe? One would love it to be an overpowered character. He would take what he wanted to have and slaughter everyone that stands in his way. Dreaming like this he continued to chop away at the rather huge log, which the tree left behind.

After a couple of minutes his work bore fruit for the first time.

[You received [Legendary Wood].]

One laughed out loud. He lol´ed so to speak. Literally. The first thing he got from this tree was a legendary grade piece of wood! 0.74% was the chance. And he got it on the first try! Maybe his streak of misfortune did finally run out? Was this the blessing of that ratatosk messenger squirrel by any chance? No it could not be, after all there was no buff visible. He also checked his stats. Nothing. Maybe just a huge coincidence?

Well, maybe the woodcutter Olaf would give him something for the higher grade wood? Something should be able to be done with it anyway. One continued his work. It was 13:27 when he was finished with the whole tree.

[You received 54x [Common Wood].]

[You received 17x [Normal Wood].]

[You received 4x [Rare Wood].]

[You received 3x [Seed: Pine-Cone].]

It was kind of weird that such a huge tree did not have more than 3 pine cones. But maybe there was another way to find those? Ones [Chopping Wood I] hit 100% while his job mastery reached 69%. It appeared that the skill could not advance to the second level unless he reached full mastery of [Woodcutter I] first. All this work for these few materials. At least it was easily enough to fulfill the quest. With this he was able to move on towards the next.

One hurried back to Olaf's hut. On his way he carefully observed the trees for mighty, creepy squirrels that might be able to one shot him. Luckily that seemed to have been a one time thing. When he reached to woodcutters cabin, he realised that he had cleaned up the door and repaired it. Maybe he sobered up?

“Heeeeeeeeeyy, it's the little guy again! How is you kid?” The big muscular guy was definitely not sober. He was batshit drunk. Swinging an axe around and greeting him while barely not falling over. One found this kinda funny. NPC´s rarely ever had a lot of personality. Hopefully he did not accidentally kill him with that axe though. One put up a very happy face and started lying again. “Hi Olaf. I cut down a tree! It was awesome! I came to ask you about legendary grade woods. What do you know about them?”

The woodcutter needed quite some time. It really looked like he was thinking heavily. “Yeaaaaa. I do.”

And he also did not say anything else. Awesome. “Sooo? What can i do with this kind of wood?”

Olaf was thinking again. “Yes.” Silence. Still silence.

“If you have one, i can craft you a beginner's weapon. I am not all too good with crafting, but i am the onn… on… only one here in the temple.” He pulled out his “flask” and was drinking again. “Anything… Any… Anything else?” One handed him the [Legendary Wood]. “Alright. Wait a bit, i am gonna craft it.” He drunkenly walked towards a workbench behind the cabin. He clearly worked on a piece of wood, so One took the opportunity to complete the quest for the tokens ten times.

Aside from [Token of Hard Work] he received 7x [Scroll: Building]. Curious he opened every single one.

[House Plan: Roof]

[House Plan: Floor]

[House Plan: Wall]

[House Plan: Door]

[House Plan: Window]

[House Plan: Second Story]

[House Plan: Stairs]

[Teaches the user how to correctly build parts of a [House]. Durability, Defenses and Building Points are greatly impacted by the materials used and the Builder's Mastery. Requires Builder II.]

Wow. With this he could really build an entire house. The building plans took a lot of place in his inventory but he would definitely keep those. Maybe he would build himself his own house sooner or later. Or someone could desperately want a house for themselves? This most likely could earn him a lot of money.

“Hey! Little one. I finished your weapon.” Fuck. One did not tell him which kind of weapon he should make him! How could he be so stupid? “Alright, thank you! How is my sword?” He tried a helpless attempt to change the outcome of this. But he had a bad feeling. “Sword? You said dagger, i am quite sure, didn't ya?” Yep. One fucked up again. He facepalmed himself hard.

[You took 1 Damage.]

Olaf handed him the dagger.

[You received [Legendary Wooden Dagger].]

A very shiny result of a training dagger. Dagger weapons mastery can increase the damage output drastically. Very durable.

Durability: 300/300

On-Hit Damage: 7-31.

Critical damage +20%.

Chance to critically strike: 7%

Creator: Olaf the Woodcutter.

Well, at least this cleared up the durability problem he had. He was a little sad that it was no sword. One had a brilliant idea and tried to use his [Wooden Stick] and his dagger at the same time. Sadly for him another popup appeared.

[You are unable to use two weapons at once. Required: [Dual Wield I] or higher.]

Well, it was worth the try. One really wanted to get his hands on some gear. After all he was just running around with the long underpants and a shirt. For him it was not uncomfortable at all, but every other player would see him as a total noob. At least he was alone in the temple so far. Seemingly not a lot of people were given the name tag “Uffe” after all. Why no NPC used this name, which the game gave him was beyond him.

After he tried to get more quests out of Olaf he continued his journey. Sadly Olaf only had the weapon quest he already had finished before. Another type of token for his sacrifice quest. He already finished the repairing, praying, hunting, mining and woodcutting quests. With this he only had two more to go. Hopefully those would not be as hard as the quests he had received so far. Otherwise One would clearly need more than one week to finish this torment. In all his years of gaming he never had a quest quite so long.

Going by logic he headed to the temple. Eric the High Priest should know which NPCs he was still missing. On the way he decided to drop by the farmhouse. Here the farmer Sigurd was already out front. He had a quest. One immediately approached him with friendly emotes.

“Hello. Eric said i should ask if someone needs help here?”, he lied to the farmer. “Hi. Yes of course. You are the young man, that defeated the evil [Tangun the Cruel], right? Thank you so much. Now that the seeds from early spring have grown quite high we can look to harvest! The temple is in urgent need for wheat. Please plant and harvest some for me.”

[Received: Quest: Growing for the temple.]

Sigurd needs help with supplying the temple. Gather wheat or grow it yourself. Be careful of bunnies though! Some are aggressive.

Objective: Bring Snorri 10x [Wheat].

Reward: [Token of Growth]

[Scythe Level 1]

[Even though this Scythe looks sturdy and is pretty heavy it does not posses any battle strength. Using it will unlock the [Builder: Farmer I] Jobmastery. Used for harvesting.]

[Hoe Level 1]

[Even though the hoe looks sturdy and is pretty heavy it does not posses any battle strength. Using it will unlock the [Builder: Farmer I] Jobmastery. Used for working ground needed to seed. Also: Not that kind of Hoe!]

Well that was familiar. One sighted. He was tired of grinding all the time. What was he? A toolbox?