The Lord of Ragnarok

Mini Chapter - 4 - Pest Control

L0rd0f7hunder solo Chapter

Basement of Burned out Player home - Wainwright’s P.O.V.

As Miia and I gathered the possessions stored in our mutual basement, my mind went back to when I first started playing Ragnorak. I had spent two years slaving away for the cash to afford a second Bacchanal Console and while it wasn’t the latest unit, it exceeded the minimum requirements for playing the game. I did encounter a minor problem: the unit I had precured still required a neural interface implant and that was nearly as expensive as the console itself. It was six months of scrimping, saving, and starving until I was able to afford the implantation procedure. I was sore as shit for weeks on end but finally, I could play the most popular (and first ever,) Massively Multiplayer Immersive Online Role Playing Game.

During the time I was nigh killing myself to afford the whole kit to play, a new event was announced to the remaining players in the Ragnorak player base. Eighteen months prior to the servers shutting down, Odinson Software announced The Raid on Odin’s Reach. The player’s were promised a raid of epic proportions. The event took place on Odin’s Reach, a massive mountain set on the main continent of Orelck. Unlike other locations in the game, Odin’s Reach moved from day to day. Players were tasked with finding its location via clues in the vicinity of the Reach, wherever the RNG gods decided it was to land. The event was scheduled to last for six months. (I was still working on getting the funds for the implant at that time.)

By the time the Raid ended, none of the player base had managed to complete the raid and the event ended. I began my playthrough six weeks after the Raid was completed unsuccessfully by any players. And, praise be to the RNG Gods, my spawn point was actually on Odin’s Reach! I started my player home on a plateau ringed by various caverns loaded with creatures still several levels above my character, mostly as a place to respawn at in case of player death. It was also a nice refuge and storage site for all my gear.

Since I was a solo player, with no team or guild affiliation, I rooted through the caverns carefully, gathering materials, looting items, and building levels. By the time I was ready to make an NPC companion, I had plenty of loot from which to craft all kinds of potions, tinctures, and tonics to stave off death. And while my character had some formidable spells to work with to deal with hostile mobs, I was having trouble with dealing with hostiles at range. Thus, Miia.

I had originally intended her as a long range archer, so she could deal with foes at range while I dealt with close and mid range mobs. Eventually, I had built up the levels and skill points to assign Miia with things like Bore and Armor Piercing. Bore allowed Miia to send an arrow or bolt through multiple enemies, as long as they were grouped together. Armor Piercing should be self explanatory, seeing as the ogres in those caverns were rudimentary iron armor that was able to repel my spells. Once I had the points for it, I also added Dual Wielding, which would allow Miia to use any two melee weapons as long as they were the same type, i.e.: two broadswords, two rapiers, two daggers, et al. I also added in Two Handed, so she could use greatswords, claymores and zweihanders.

Then, one day, we encountered a cavern on the upper tier of the mountain. My detection charms showed no hostile mobs patrolling but did reveal a more menacing threat: wyvern eggs and they were ready to hatch. Miia and I had engaged the odd wyvern or two and we barely escaped with our lives. An entire cavern filled with those monstrosities in infant form? We wouldn’t last a minute with our current load outs. So, in order to survive, I respec’d all of Miia skill points and traded Dual Wielding and Two Handed for Multi-shot, which was further down her Archer skill tree than either of those sword skills.

Then I crafted a cooking station to mix up some potions and vitality restoring items. Grilled ogre is better tasting than it sounds, actually. Once we were fully healed, fully stocked, and well armed, we ran the cavern. It. Was. Hell. The wyverns hatched if we got too close, and Miia and I spent an inordinate amount of time dealing with those instead of running through the cavern. There were sixteen floors of monsters, traps, and pitfalls we had to navigate or circumvent. We used up all of our potions and were running low on our healing items when we finally found the end of the cavern. And what should we find there? A spit, with a roasting chicken set on it above a cooking station.

I was going to look a gift horse in the mouth, so I took what meager resources we had and brewed up some more potions and cooked the last of our ogre meat. Miia, on the other hand was salivating over the roasted chicken. I told Miia if she wanted it, she could have it. Grabbing the chicken, Miia tore into it with a will and soon her fangs pierced the flesh, I got a message from the game.

“CONGRATULATIONS!” The Message stated, “You have completed the first half of The Raid on Odin’s Reach! Your clue to Raid Boss and all the fantastic treasure that it guards is found in the roasted chicken that you just acquired. Look inside and be ready for The Fight Of Your Life! Good luck!”

Miia then bit into something hard. After dealing with the pain, she retrieved a steel compass. The compass was enchanted to show a topographical map of the Reach. Our current location was three tiers below the Raid location and it promised plenty of good loot for the taking. We may have been the only players to actually get this far on the canceled event, so all that treasure was ours and ours alone! Now, the good news about all of this was that I had acquired in an earlier dungeon crawl a scrying mirror.

From what I was able to see on the Ragnorak Wiki, a scrying mirror served two purposes. The first, and most often used purpose, was to determine the locations of hostile guild players when you were defending your guild keep. I had gotten on so late in the games life span that I didn’t have the opportunity to join a guild. But the second and even more vital function of a scrying mirror was as a portal back to sanctuary. I had mine installed back at my player's home. So, after activating the enchantment to open the mirror’s teleport feature, Miaa and I were back home.

We took a few days to replenish our supplies, repair our gear and armor, and store any loot that would leave us encumbered. I then had to log off (real life intruding on game time,) so Miia and I went to bed so I could log off. The next week was busy as fuck, with work and life running me roughshod. I finally found some time to get back online and when I did, I found that I had scored some serious XP after getting through the Wyvern Cavern. I had been on the verge of reaching Lvl. 34 but after the cavern and it's horde of eggs, I was now sitting on Lvl. 40! So now I could regain Miia’s Dual Wielding and Two Hands, and I could max out my potion making skill.

Then, with all of our preparations and skills assigned, we assailed The Raid Boss… Which was ultimately disappointing. We never found the boss, most of the hostile mobs were doormats compared to the wyvern hatchlings we had previously dealt with, but boy, did we ever fill up on loot! Plenty of legendary gear, including some well appointed wizard robes that improved my damage resistance to ranged weapons and a new brand new longbow for Miia that vastly improved her Armor Piercing and Bore skills. We also found a few custom swords in the loot pool that Miia still favors to this day.

The real prize, though, was in a treasure we almost didn’t have the bags of holding to accommodate. In a hidden antechamber of this treasure room was a rare chest. I had only ever seen three of these in my time playing, including this one. Upon opening it, I found the best possible weapon for my character at my level: a masterwork grand warhammer, called Strumrydder. A dwarven weapon, it was meant to deal with wyrms, wyverns, and minor drakes. While not a dragon killer, per say, with the proper enchantments and reinforcements, it could wreck Hell on anything. I did indeed need to wield this thing, because most of the gear I had at the time did not gel well with my current build. Strumrydder went into my backpack, and everything else Miia and I pilfered went into what room remaining in our bags of holding.

After returning home, we stored all our gear, even Miia’s new longbow and my lovely new robes. This is why those Santus assholes caught so unawares. Negating the fact that we were no longer on Odin’s Reach, we had all of our best gear stored away, so we had little capable defense against those bastards. Now, I was looking at the chest with my warhammer stowed away, as well as my robes and the elixirs I had stashed away for a rainy day.

“Aw, Legolas, how I missed you,” Miia said, as she pulled her longbow from a chest, “I will definitely need to gather some materials for some custom arrows.”

“I think we still have some in the chest adjoining the potions table,” I told her, “grab some stuff out of that. We may need some corrosive arrows and explosive arrowheads.”

“Ah, yes, those would be helpful,” Miia said then raided our materials chest.

Equipping our best gear and stocking up on potions, tinctures, tonics, and splitting up our elixirs, we headed back to Oppidium. Before we did, so though, I broke down all the crafting station I had built, set up explosive gems around the basement, then rigged them to go off when we clear of our old home. Ten minutes after leaving the one place either of us felt at peace in the world of Ragnorak, the whole of it became a dusty, barren depression in the ground…

Village of Oppidum

Later That Day

Upon returning to the village, Miia and I sought out any possible ingress into the wyrms catacombs. We did eventually find it, but it was further away from Aelo’s farm that we would have liked. We spelunked our way down into those catacombs and carefully picked our way through them. We found the wyrms alright and it was a good thing I brought Strumrydder with me. In spite of the close quarters we found ourselves in, I was more than capable of swinging the hammer against our reptilian foes. The lightning jewel affixed to the haft did wonders on those monsters, who had no defense or resistance to it; Miia struck true with corrosive arrowheads fired from her Legolas longbow.

In total, the brood we exterminated totaled 32 strong, and that’s not counting the clutches of eggs we discovered in a well dug hatchery. Those that were close to cracking we smashed but the more recently laid eggs I pilfered for some tonics I had the skill now to craft. I bet Lord Mannalus would pay top coin for those when he saw what they could do. There was also some uneaten produce that most likely originated from Aelo’s farm, so we gathered as much as we could from the stores the wyrms had gathered. Some loot from other races was also down in those catacombs; at one time, I think this place might have been a proper burial site.

Returning to the surface was an ordeal because we hadn’t kept track of where we were heading as descended into the wyrms lair. We did find our way back out the way we came in. Aelo was pleased that we were able to return some of her looted foodstuffs. She told Miia she was willing to pay, but ever with the hassle of dealing with all those wyrms, the loot we found more than covered our trials down below; I think Aelo was more than a little relieved, and also dumbfounded, when I refused her coin. I told her we would return eventually to seal off those catacombs and if possible, bring back that which we couldn’t initially haul with us. She thanked us profusely and treated us to a very rich beetroot broth that was quite delicious. All in all, not a bad day for a recalcitrant wizard.

Author's Note

L0rd0f7hunder wanted to a solo chapter, and personally I think that it turned out great. The chapter itself is dealing with Wainwright the Weary, and I feel that he's doing a good job of establishing Wainwright's character.