2MinHae logged in.
That's the name of Min-jae's new Chimera Assassin that just loaded into the visually stunning game of Eclipse Online.
Admittedly, he's not great at naming conventions but he did spend a long time just trying to figure out what he should name his new character.
He loaded into the Chimera starter village which was a run-down refugee village, where his story starts as his village is under attack by the Demon army. Buildings were on fire, glass shattering from both the fire and NPCs scrambling to escape. Min-jae's Chimera character darted across the flame-ridden floor, dodging falling debris and raced towards a limp body on the floor.
Skipping through the dialogue and trying to get to the 'real content', there are some cutscenes he can't skip. He claimed the dagger from the corpse along with some basic leather armour and wielded the spirit of revenge.
After a lengthy and emotional scene, Min-jae was finally ready to play the game. "I never enjoyed the intro quests," he spoke to himself. "Guess I need to start leveling, now."
He picked up a couple of quests and easily rolled through the simple solo quests.
Escort a traveler to find his lost friend: complete.
Help the farmers rebuild their farms after the attack: complete.
Kill 20 wolves: complete.
And many more. Hours passed and Min-jae had hit level 11. It didn't feel like a big accomplishment, but the maximum level is 50 and the minimum level to start participating in guild wars and PvP is 40. The level cap isn't very high, it's just painfully time-consuming.
"This is too slow," the Chimera said as he sheathed his blades after delivering one final blow to an orc.
He bought EXP boosts and food items to further increase EXP gain, but it barely made a difference. What he needed was the boost from joining a guild, there's a permanent boost for all players under the maximum level cap.
Ding.
Fireworks sprouted from his character as he hit level 12. Min-jae opened his stats windows and applied the points to his abilities, he's following a guide that one of his old guildmates published. It was a PvP build that specialised in stealth and speed. He intended on going straight back to PvP. PvE content wasn't really his flavour, but he only had to suffer through another week or two of power-leveling.
After handing in his finished quest, he went to pick up the next one and skip, skip, skip… he cut through all of the dialogue. No interest in going through the story, he knew the lore already for the Chimeras so he really couldn't care less.
He checked the chat window, in between the scripted dialogue from nearby NPCs, there was discussion of a new wilderness zone that was added. He hasn't checked the patch notes in a while, since he hasn't been able to go onto the forums without getting irrationally angry or depressed. He lingered around the area, looking for these players discussing the new zone.
Min-jae found the chattering players casually recruiting for the new zone and watched for a moment. 'Looks like they need more DPS, if it's as good for EXP as they say, maybe I'll try to join?'
2MinHae: Are you guys looking for one more?
Eunsun99: Correct, are you a newbie tho? You look fresh.
Ritabebe: /slap Eunsun99
Ritabebe: Eunsun don't be rude! We can get the new player bonus with him. Come join us 2Min.
Ritabebe's character slapped Eunsun99 which made Min-jae chuckle slightly. It looks like he's joining a premade group of friends, they're usually a lot less toxic and more welcoming. Especially for 'new' players. He started to type back.
2MinHae: Ah sorry, is it a problem? I just started playing today.
He wasn't lying about starting this character today, but it was a bit risky to announce that he's playing on an alt. Especially after what happened recently. He was aware of the bonus other party members get for playing with new players. +10% additional gold drops and +10% additional EXP.
Eunsun99: No, it's fine. I'll send an invite.
<< Eunsun99 has invited you to a party >>
<< Accept or Decline >>
Hesitantly, he clicked accept. He had a bad feeling about this group, but his anxieties were quickly washed away when he also received some friend requests from the group members. All party members were in the same guild GOLDEN.
Ritabebe: Have you ever been to the new zone before?
2MinHae: No, but I think it's north of Azeel, right?
Oops, that's not something a newbie would know.
Eunsun99: Do you have Plains of Denock unlocked?
Min-jae looked at his map. The current town he's in is Liberatio, they needed to go further north back to the Chimera starting zone called Azeel and head further north to the Plains of Denock. He doesn't remember unlocking this zone, but with it being so close to his starter zone, he likely unlocked it by questing.
If only he'd paid attention to the story.
The group headed over to the mentioned location and they were about to cross over to the new wilderness zone. There was a magical barrier that surrounded the zone and upon inspecting it, a message was displayed.
Please note this is a PvP and PvE mix zone. You can be attacked by any players outside of your party. You will not be able to return if you are in combat. All items will be lost if slain.
He wasn't aware that it was a PvP zone. He could easily handle that, but Min-jae couldn't help but wonder if this was all a trick to lure him into the zone. The party were slightly higher levels than him and would all be in on the assassination. Thankfully, he didn't have a lot of items since he's only done low-level quests.
Eunsun99: So we'll head over to Lair of Darkness I first and if all goes great we'll do Lair of Darkness II and III afterwards.
They crossed over the barrier and entered the zone. It was barren. You couldn't see what the zone was like through the dark blue hue of the barrier. It saturated the view and only basic things such as the outlines of certain structures could be seen. However, since passing through, he felt chills down his spine.
Min-jae could use some water, actually. His throat still hurt and it was about time to take some cold medicine. Oh well, it was too risky to do it. He can suffer for just a bit longer. The bandage that dressed his hand was still the same as yesterday. Only a few specks of blood could be seen through the white dressing, but that dried up and turned into a metallic brown shade. It wasn't as tight as yesterday, but all the writhing through the night would've made it come a bit looser.
The team carefully moved together, 2MinHae had his daggers unsheathed and ready in the event of an ambush. The whole area was a desert littered with remains of buildings, dead trees, bushes and animal corpses.
He ambled behind the rest of the party, he didn't know how to get to this dungeon so trusted them to lead the way. After 10 minutes of walking, they reached the dungeon entrance. Min-jae was skeptical. Nobody had even tried to attack them yet.
Eunsun99: Hey, newbie. Just a warning. This is an open world dungeon. Do you know what that means?
Min-jae's face twisted into a scowl. This bastard is so condescending. His hands automatically started typing something inflammatory, but he caught himself before he pressed send. Back, back, back.
2MinHae: Ha ha.. I think it means there's no instance? Anyone can join it and see other players.
He chose to continue pretending to be a newbie.
Eunsun99: That's right, so you can still get killed inside. Once we're in we're just gonna skip all the trash and run to the boss room. Keep up because we're not gonna come back for you if you die.
He looked around the dungeon, lots of dead bodies from other players. They ran through the dungeon, surprisingly enough all the monsters were dead. It was a little bit unsettling, but at least they could get to the treasure easily enough.
And surely, they arrived just outside of the boss room but there was a lock on the door.
2MinHae: How do we get in?
Eunsun99: You're an assassin right? Can you use your lockpick skill on this door?
He used the /okay emote and his character nodded his head. Min-jae's assassin character walked up to the door and put his daggers into the lock which immediately disintegrated to ash.
The boss room was surprisingly empty, except that the boss was missing. No corpses, no ditched loot, even the chest was intact.
2MinHae: Are we the first ones here?
Ritabebe: Nope. But thanks for giving us entry to this place.
2MinHae: ?
Ritabebe: This room resets every hour. We've been luring fresh meat like you into this room to give us a boost in rewards.
Eunsun99: and kill you so we don't have to split it with you.
Min-jae was immediately ejected from the party and hit with a stun, then a poison that sapped his health. The ex party that turned traitorous started performing long cast spells to take advantage
W0nderjunjun: lol
A new assassin appeared from the shadows. 'Was he stealthed?' Min-jae asked himself. At this point, Min-jae was pissed off as another person appeared.
2MinHae: rly? you guys needed another person to ambush me?
W0nderjunjun interrupted their long casts and started throwing daggers at Eunsun99. Their long casts had been interrupted and stun skills are still on cooldown.
Ritabebe applied a shield to Eunsun, deflecting some of the incoming damage. W0nderjunjun took a step then appeared directly in front of Eunsun, who morphed his staff into duel wielding swords.
The stun broke.
Ritabebe fell to the floor with a dagger sticking out of her back and behind her appeared 2MinHae.
Not even a moment later, Eunsun99 dropped to the ground with W0nderjunjun pulling his swords out of the corpse. Both enemy players on the ground, stuck spending the next 5 minutes bleeding out.
2MinHae: after all that and you just fall to the floor?
2MinHae: you guys suck.
W0nderjunjun turned to face 2MinHae and eyes locked onto his character.
Min-jae steeled his daggers and held himself in a defensive position.
W0nderjunjun: you friendly?
<< W0nderjunjun invited you to a party >>
<< Accept or Decline >>
A party invitation popped up on Min-jae's screen from W0nderjunjun and both players sheathed their weapons.
W0nderjunjun: I already killed this boss. You can have the loot. I don't need it.
Min-jae hesitantly clicked accept on the party invite. 'This new guy can't kill me while we're in a party right?' W0nderjunjun /wave emoted at him and pointed over at the treasure chest.
Confused, he took the treasure anyway. He got a decent chest piece out of it, but the rest of it was trash.
2MinHae: Why are you here?
W0nderjunjun: Quest. You can't teleport out here, let me help you leave.
He couldn't help but be suspicious about this new guy. Min-jae inspected his gear, standard low level equipment. The guy was level 21 and part of a guild named kkkkkkk. Odd.
W0nderjunjun: this your first character?
Min-jae wasn't sure to be honest with this guy. He wasn't going to, but after the way he fought, he probably didn't look like a newbie.
2MinHae: Ye.
W0nderjunjun: I could tell.
"What the hell?!" Min-jae yelled at his monitor. There was a visible vein in his head, and he almost couldn't stop himself from typing up a raging storm to this guy.
There was a point where W0nderjunjun stopped moving. They were nearly at the end of the zone and only had another minute of travel before they could escape. Min-jae scouted the area quickly and couldn't find any signs of other players.
2MinHae: Dude
2MinHae: did you die?
2MinHae: you know you stopped autorunning right?
He was tempted to keep moving, but it felt wrong. Except, after that comment earlier, maybe it didn't feel so wrong.
W0nderjunjun: 1 sec
W0nderjunjun: sorry keep going
They continued moving and finally escaped to the exit without seeing any other players and ended up back in the previous town. It wasn't a surprise when they saw two familiar players arguing with each other in the server chat. These players were part of the same guild, in the same party, and supposedly friends. The ones that tried to ambush and rob Min-jae. Min-jae kept following W0nderjunjun who stopped in his tracks.
W0nderjunjun: What are you doing?
He realised that he'd been following the other assassin around for no real reason.
2MinHae: Sorry, I zoned out. Thanks for the group. I'll leave now.
W0nderjunjun: Wait.
A notification popped up in the corner, and Min-jae clicked it.
<< W0nderjunjun has sent you a friend request >>
He quickly accepted, confused as it seemed like this guy didn't want to be around him now that the dungeon is over and they've made it back to the town.
W0nderjunjun: I need to go back to work. My lunch is over now and my subordinates are useless.
That was a bit rude. It reminded him of a certain boss he knew. Oh well, he wasn't going to stick his nose in this guy's business.
2MinHae: Bye.
The party disbanded and it left Min-jae in the middle of the town. Despite the ambush, that was a lot more fun than he expected. The chills ran down his spine when he could finally join the fight and kick the shit out the enemy players. This is the content he yearned for.
Feeling inspired once more, he continued questing to level up further. He needed to get back into PvP. While he could sit in Plains of Denock and farm EXP from people and dungeons, it was probably a bit too early. Gear and levels first.