Azimuth: The Elden Throne

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As he finished his talk with Qrubin, being sent back to the church with a flash of light, Dale met with Erile and eventually Sarferato in the Catacombs to discuss the future and even a little of the past.

With a lot on his mind and everyone else's, Dale continued with his talking spree, visiting everyone as the day ended with the sun dusking over the horizon.

And when one became two, and two a few, Babylon's opening…

Finally arrived.

…

During noon, as the sun shined high across Resko and its inhabitants…

/Chatter…/

"Looking for a fill-up, preferably a Tank with High Constitution to Raid the First Floor of the Yellow Desert Fissure, farming rough emeralds!"

"Looking for party members to complete the 'Extermination' Chain-Quests in the Lower farm fields, preferably around Level 15 and 20!"

"Does anyone want to trade materials? Buying Deer Skin of any quality for..."

/Chatter.../

"This place is finally starting to look like a Starter Village..." A player sitting on one of the tables said as he talked with someone else

"It always looked like one, it was just a bit lacking." His friend replied as he tapped on the table

"Mnn... Maybe you're right... But hey, did you hear about the PVP event that happened recently?" He asked with a small smirk

He had curly hair and tanned skin, being slightly stronger than most men.

"Not really? I couldn't log in for a few days due to work, I can see a lot has changed, what happened?" The other men sitting at the table replied as he looked around

He was a bit on the fatter side, but not the unhealthy fat.

"Man! Haven't you followed any Streams or Content creators? Egg's Streams are pretty lively these days."

"You know how it is… I can't really play while I'm working on a refinery 20 Km off the coast, nor do I have the time to see an unedited livestream… I've seen a few cut edited videos but I didn't follow things thoroughly."

"At least until I get my Vacation in a few weeks that's how things will have to roll, but for the next few days I should be free until my shift is up."

"Then let me give you a rundown on what happened…"

"A few days ago, there was a massive change to this area as bells rang in the sky, It was a beautiful scene."

"As you must know, that was when the one-month commemoration Event was announced, it's everywhere now and there are many trailers about it and people are posting and commenting about it all the time."

"Yeah, one of my coworkers accesses Rebbit every day so he told me about it."

Nodding, the man continued:

"Following that, we had another announcement, and this time, it was localized to only Resko's player base, something about the Village Rating, maybe that friend of yours told you something about it since there have been quite a few discussions on the subject."

"I heard about that too but only that."

"I see, so, it's pretty simple, the change was that Resko's recommended player Level increased from 65 to 90, and this in itself caused considerable changes all around."

"90?! For real? I'm barely 15... Sigh, at this rate just when... You sure you heard that right?"

"I'm not joking now, darned 90, this Village is now a bonafide late game area despite still being considered a Beginner Village."

"To reflect this change, there have been several changes, and amidst the ones revealed, there were things like the size of all Fields has been increased to cope with the influx of players, Field Events and Encounters have increased significantly in their frequency, there are new hidden areas to explore, and the terrain around the Village has been slightly modified now containing secrets to be explored and found."

"And amidst those changes, there was the new Field: Yellow, Hard-Stone Dessert containing the sole, Public Mega Size Dungeon known so far, the Dessert Fissure Dungeon."

"That's the Yellow desert you see popping up in everyone's mouths... It isn't that hard to figure out."

"Within these same changes, the Horizon Woods to the South became almost impossible to Raid due to the Special Field effect of 'Uprise'… I won't be explaining what it did, but it was quite interesting, so it's worth a shot."

"What it did? Has it been resolved already?"

The man nodded with a small smile.

"They said that it was likely due to an off-screen Event led by the NPCs, as one day after the Event started everyone received a localized notification saying the Event had come to an end and that the forest now grows calmer or something, I wasn't logged in at the time so I didn't see it."

"Not long after that some people saw a massive bird descend from the skies and from atop the bird a few NPCs carried Dale inside one of the houses, and not long after that the Village was packed to the brim with new NPCs that seemingly came from the forest."

"Everyone is still trying to piece together what happened by talking with them but you know how it is."

"There should be a post somewhere talking about this where people are trying to figure that one out by posting their findings there."

"How interesting."

"Yeah, unfortunately, since the Horizon Woods wasn't a favored Field, people just ended up gravitating to the Yellow Desert which is more forgiving."

"I can see that, I almost don't see people Raiding the forest… The price of these forest item drops speaks for itself though…"

"It's just what ended up happening, Raiding the Forest is harder due to its environmental factor, leading to the party having to spend extra on necessities such as antidotes, and due to how dense the forest usually is if you end up encountering a monster while being in an unfavorable spot, it could lead to a wipe."

"While in comparison, the desert's sole environmental difficulty is the sun and the sand getting in your boots, together with the buried monster here and there, but those are somewhat easy to solve."

"The loot and Quest diversity for both Fields isn't quite the same unfortunately, which is why you still see a few well-coordinated groups raiding the forest as there is a lot of profit to be made from there, not to say how most NPCs seem to favor materials that come from there."

"You can get mostly metals and ores from the desert, but that is because people can only raid the first floor of the Desert Fissure Dungeon, no one can go any deeper."

"The surface of the Fissure usually contains monsters between levels 5 to 20, and the first floor contains monsters ranging from 5 to 40, but both areas have exceptions, monsters with exceptionally high levels..."

"Just imagine what you'll encounter going down another floor..."

"In any case, going back to what I said before, after those announcements, there was quite the commotion as the entire Village trembled, which everyone soon found out was due to an Earthquake of massive proportions that opened the ravine in the Desert."

"Following this, there was a large-scale Event in the Farm Fields where a strange creature invaded and challenged all players to a duel to the death… Though some accounts say the players attacked it first."

"Invaded? Creature?"

"Yes, a Karkavan, they say it's the Tribal species that live in the Horizon Woods."

"There has been much discussion regarding it, some believe there will be another Event soon... But let's not jump too far."

"It was… Glorious, thousands of players rushing into their deaths at the hands of that green Barbarian."

"... Did it go down?"

"Not in the slightest, I mean, they chipped its HP bar a little but that was as much as a tickle."

"The fight and the Event itself ended prior as soon after, Dale fell from the skies and a terrific battle ensued."

"He won but it seemed it was a close fight, the players still believe that they were the ones that tipped the combat to their favor though Dale's fans say they didn't make a difference."

"I see… Wait, what about the player's items? The ones that died on the field?"

"Ha! Their items appeared in the market a few days after as per usual, all items from dead players with low Reputation scores always end up there, though a few players had high enough Reputation to buy them directly from him, but that was the overwhelming minority."

"There was quite the discussion about this with many angry players complaining with each other about who bought whose item and so on."

"They only got what they deserved." The friend said as he shook his head

"A drink to that... If I could have one."

"What happened after?"

"Well… Nothing much, I told you most of it…"

"Well, there were the merchants that set a trading post… The Church reactivating… Oh yeah! The reason for our talks!"

"The PVP event that happened yesterday night!"

"... I don't those things you just said are "Nothing" but you can tell me about them later, what was this 'PVP Event'?"

"Well, it was quite simple."

"With the merchants, there was a Black Market that recently opened to the North, allowing low Rep players to buy and sell items by interacting with the 'Shaddy Merchant' as if they were interacting with the other NPCs."

"And although there is a loss to it all, most are happy with opening up their inventory slots, some are even happier to be able to get access to some Higher Class goods even if they have to spend 10 times the prices in it."

"And yesterday, there was a massive fight due to a Quest released by two NPCs, one from Dale, and the other from the Merchants."

"If you followed Dale's Quest, you would enter the 'Attack party', and if you followed the Merchants' Quest, you would enter the 'Defense party'."

"And the goal of each party was simple, the Attack party had to capture the Shaddy merchant while the Defense party had to defend the NPC until the time came to an end."

"The rewards for both sides were relatively good, and considering how many players are suffering with the unreasonable distribution of resources due to the Reputation bar, they ended up getting resentment with Dale, so in the end, there were players evenly distributed across both sides."

"And yesterday night, the Quest join time came to an end and both parties clashed in the Black Market! It was incredible."

"And who won?"

"Us of course! The Attack Party."

"They didn't even have a chance as later down in the fight, Dale himself appeared with other Merchant NPCs to apprehend the Shaddy Merchant, leaving many of the Defense Party confused and embarrassed."

"The game was rigged from the start huh…"

"Due to that, they all received a huge penalty for their Reputation Scores, everyone's making fun of them now."

"How cruel… But they dug their own graves, everyone knows you don't go against Dale in the Village, there were warning signs all over from the start, I still can't believe there were that many players angry with the current state of things."

"Humph, they're just a bunch of PKs and incompetent individuals that can't stand a bit of grinding…"

"Things are looking better now though, the Church is reactivated and now Resko has healers, and with the influx of new NPCs there have been talks about new Classes possibly arriving."

"There was a streamer doing a Questline that led him to the secluded Magic Tower in the Desert, maybe he'll be the first one to become a Mage?"

"A lot has been happening, it's been a rush to be the first at anything really."

"In any case, should we..."

[DING]

[Server-Wide Announcement]

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Notes

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