Return to Jorgaldur Volume III: blood warrior

Beginner's area (II)

At level 1, she had the blood skill Bite, with which she could absorb the blood of her victims, or from the containers in which the red liquid was kept, thus replenishing her blood reserves.

She also had the Darkness spell. Thanks to it, she could wrap herself in a thin layer that doesn't let the light through, which is useful for hiding at night. It can also protect from the sun, but for a very short time, as it consumes a large amount of mana when it is attacked by the rays of the star.

The passive skill Night Vision allowed her to see in the dark. It was the only one she had used so far.

Finally, Backstab, which causes enormous damage, and can even cause instant death. However, it is necessary to execute it without being discovered by the enemy. It isn't always easy, since any area skill prevents from approaching without being detected. Interestingly, she was still unable to use it, as she didn't have enough energy. It was a skill that she had learned at a higher level, but occupied a level 1 slot.

The vampire smiled as she remembered Eldi's complaints about some skills names, Goldmi's laughs, and her own. She sighed. Then, she wielded the two matching daggers, the one she had obtained in the past, and the one she had just obtained.

One of Gjaki's favorite combination of weapons was wielding two daggers. Unlike others, her profession didn't have predetermined weapons, and any could be used if trained enough. In addition, she had many unassigned slots for skills and spells, so, in principle, the vampire could learn the ones she wanted.

All this gave her profession a great deal of customization. It might seem like a great advantage and very attractive, but in most cases it had become a curse, a new joke from the developers.

The problem was that, to learn skills or spells outside of one's race and profession, it was necessary to find the right trainers and meet the requirements. It often required learning other previous skills, having a certain mana pool, strength, agility, perhaps a certain race or profession.

It wasn't unusual that, to learn a spell, several previous spells were needed, for these previous ones, and, among all of them, there was one that required a certain race, which of course wasn't that of vampires.

For this reason, on many occasions, after learning several spells, some players had discovered that they had wasted their time, since one of the necessary ones couldn't be learned. What was even worse, they could no longer erase the previous ones. For this reason, not a few players, in a fit of anger, had erased their vampire characters.

It took a meticulous research to find which ones could be learned, how, and the cost, both in resources that had to be found to pay for trainers, and skill slots.

Besides, some trainers didn't want to talk to vampires, and it wasn't always easy to fool them with disguises. Also, not all spell combinations are equally powerful or adapt to the way one play. Not a few had achieved their goal, and discovered that it wasn't what they wanted.

As such, only players who were willing to invest a great deal of time and be very meticulous could manage to squeeze the potential of the blood warriors. Gjaki had been one of those few players.

It should also be noted that she had all her skills and spells at 10. She had taken care to do it, to train them one by one, no matter how tedious it might seem.

So, she approached the training dummy and stabbed it with both daggers.

"Oh! It doesn't regenerate," she was surprised. "Not everything is the same as in the game."

She just kept using the two daggers against it, while discovering that she felt very comfortable with them. It was as if it weren't the first time she had used them.

She also wielded a whip, a very unusual and difficult weapon to use. Nonetheless, Gjaki easily hit the dummy from a couple of feet away, and could feel that she easily mastered her main source of bludgeoning damage.

She wasn't worried about smashing the training dummy, although the vampire stopped doing it after reaching level 2. She knew she could level up to 3 with them, but it was tedious, and much quicker to do it outside.

For now, Gjaki focused on running, jumping, somersaulting in the air, running up the columns. She had great agility, in part because she had invested many points in that stat. She also felt confident with her new body, as if it had always been hers. In fact, she was much more skilled than she was with her original body.

In the past, the young girl had taken some ballet classes, and practiced artistic gymnastics for a couple of months. Now, she had a flexibility and could perform many of those exercises with a skill that had nothing to envy of the professionals. Even her meager martial arts skills seemed to be terrifyingly effective.

With full confidence in herself, and even with anticipation, she looked towards the exit, ready to cross it as soon as possible. Though, first, she reviewed her newly acquired abilities.

At level 2, there was the passive blood spell Self-Regeneration, which allowed her to heal automatically, as long as she had enough blood reserves. Unfortunately, blood wasn't sold in the beginner's area, especially now that there were no NPCs. At that time, it wasn't possible to use it at first. It was like another of the developers' jokes against vampires. They all started with 0 as a reserve, which not only prevented them from using certain abilities, but also weakened them.

The Grab skill uses the whip to wrap itself around something. It is usually used to keep an enemy from escaping or pull them in, though it can have other uses.

She tried to Grab a few times, thus expending almost all her energy, since she had quite a small energy pool right now. After that, she sat down to rest, while she took out a vial of level 2 blood, and verified that, as expected, she couldn't use any of the spells in gray. That the level 2 abilities had lost that color had been a very obvious clue.

It was one of the few vials of that level that she had, but it was enough to fill her reserve, as its capacity was currently very low. She had drunk it with some reluctance, despite her instinct telling her that it was okay. It didn't turn out to be as bad as she had thought. So, she pricked herself with a dagger, and smiled enthusiastically when Self-Regeneration began working perfectly.

Once she had regained her energy and checked her inventory, which included a dark and sinister castle-shaped tent, she stood up, ready to leave the beginner's area. Gjaki supposed she would never come back.

She put on a hooded cloak, to make sure not to fall for one of the traps, or pranks, that the developers had supposedly set against vampires. Then, she walked towards the exit, expectantly.