“Look at that,” the Fighter whispers. “Gold.”
“Indeed,” the Wizard says. “Mark it on the map and then we’ll hire some NPCs to mine it.”
“Hey!” shouts the Ranger. He stoops down and pulls an arrow from the back of a dead lesser tribesman. “There’s my Arrow of Great Fortune… I remember now! I shot one after something that was running away. Looks like this is the guy.”
“And it led you to what’s gotta be at least two thousand gold,” says the Fighter.
The Ranger stows the arrow in his quiver. “Lucky arrow works again.”
And with that they turn and leave, making plans for what to do later that night, and how to best mine the cave without drawing attention from any other clans or roving adventurers.
I wait a long time before making a move. And even then, I find myself creeping down the cave to make my escape, moving in stealth mode for fear of this all being some trick. The potion will wear off in another five minutes, so I need to get going.
But something tugs at me.
I turn around and go back to the end of the cave, feeling my way to find the dead lesser tribesman. I search the corpse.
3 Rotten Teeth (human)
1 Stone Spear (broken)
And one battle helm called Graydon’s Sight.
Chapter Two
I spent enough time in the back of that cave to start worrying that the NPC miners were going to show up before I could leave. But in that time, I had a chance to inspect Graydon’s Sight. Other than looking cool, the battle helm doesn’t seem to do much. It provides no modifiers to your defense score, and when I hold it in my hands, it doesn’t shimmer or glow the way some enchanted or magical items do. If I was a Mage or had a Mage in my clan—which consists solely of Brian and me—maybe I could detect something more, but it looks like it’s just a unique fashion item with no added benefits. Of possible interest to hardcore collectors, maybe, and because of that, probably worth something.
The weird thing is, I can’t find an entry for Graydon’s Sight on the official wiki. Graydon is the creator-god of the game’s mythology. Sort of a cross between Ares and Loki. So if you take the time to read the in-game books, you find him constantly fighting against or tricking the other gods and mortals. Practical jokes are his bread and butter, but they can range from pranking a farmer to starting a war between realms.
That’s what has kept me from trying the helm on. Because knowing Graydon, I’m likely to go permanently blind from some enchanted curse. And that would mean having to roll a completely new character, which I don’t want to do.
King’s League is a unique game. Most let you level up fairly quickly at first, hitting you with dopamine through early success and then making the next hit get harder and harder, which in turn makes you play longer or spend money to get what you want. What the developers of King’s League did was make leveling up a monstrous feat. It takes 100,000 XP to go from level one to level two. And then an additional 200,000 XP to reach level three. Basically you take whatever the total XP requirement was for the previous level, add a hundred thousand and you get the idea. So it takes a grind of 400,000 XP to reach level five, but by that time in the game you’ve had to earn one million XP, making it progressively harder to get going.
And to give you a flavor of how difficult that system is, I’ve earned zero XP tonight, because looting doesn’t reward you with experience. That only happens by winning fights or completing quests. The fights are notorious for giving next to nothing. Most monsters provide 100XP or less. At least until you can fight the real nasties out there at higher levels. A lesser tribesman gives a whopping five XP per kill. Yes. Five. And the monsters that can give you over that are just as likely to kill you as you are to kill them. That’s what makes players so likely to kill one another as long as they don’t think they have the chance of being killed themselves. You get 1,000 XP per player you kill. That probably doesn’t make trying to take down a player at the level 99 cap worth it—you’d net the same XP payout as anyone else. But killing a level one player is still worth your time if you’re the destructive type who enjoys hearing the lamentation of your foes’ women because of how easy it is. Part of the reason why it’s best to stay in the Wood, a safe zone where PvP is prohibited, but you can still slay lower level monsters.
So why do people play? Because while you can’t level up easily, you can hone the game’s other skills in the traditional fashion. Someone can remain level five or six for years but be a renowned merchant in the game’s starting cities. There are ton of adventurers who make a living slaying monsters and looting dungeons, but for every rogue or warrior, there’s a glassmaker or a weaponsmith working a shop over in the River Market.
When you loot, sneak, adventure, use swords, bows, bolos, spears, daggers, throwing stars, maces, or any other weapons; when you craft, sell, repair, jump, disarm or set traps, steal, pickpocket, bluff, intimidate, run, swim, balance, paint, write, sing, perform, worship, minister, heal, study, research—and yes, those are considered different things in-game—you build up skill points. The higher your points, the more likely you are to succeed or excel at those tasks in the future. Systems like this have been in countless games, but in King’s League they are the driving force behind much of the appeal. No matter what your interests, you can become somebody in this universe.
Those skill stats are given a success multiplier by whatever level you are, which makes leveling up still important, and can either be boosted or nerfed depending on your race, sex, age, and physical attribute scores. Elves get a bonus to Sneak, Agility, and Ranged Weapons. Dwarves get a bonus to Constitution, Mining, and Two-handed Weapons. Humans are good at everything and great at nothing. At least not by nature. That doesn’t mean that you necessarily have to go with a specific configuration in order to max out your stats and become a master at something. I’ve seen elven miners and orcish innkeepers who outperform most others in their fields. But if you choose the right setup, you’ll have an easier start of it. The process rewards people who do their research and care about the details.
And when you die, you may lose all your leveling progress, but your total skill points are only reduced by twenty percent. Which sucks, but means that you still have something left over after taking a dirt nap. That, and whatever possessions you kept safely stowed at a private house or rented room, along with the money you have in your personal bank. The same can’t be said for what you were carrying. Those items stay in the spot you died until someone loots the corpse. You can return to your own corpse to recover them, of course, or thirty minutes can pass by and your loot returns to the Ether, and whatever unique items you were carrying are re-dropped at random locations somewhere in the world.
At this point, despite some repeated setbacks, my skill scores have continued to slowly increase, although they’re hardly what I’d call amazing. Player skills are broken down by category, with various subskills below them that each perform a different task. For example, Sneak has six subskills. My stats for those are as follows:
Backstab – 05/100
Steal – 23/100
Hide – 52/100
Disarm – 12/100
Pick Lock – 47/100