As the villagers got ready to leave, Merrin came to me.
"Thank you, adventurer, for saving the village," she said with a lifeless expression. "It should have been my duty, but I failed. I failed Riverhead, I failed my husband and I failed Olivier, too."
"Don't be too hard on yourself," I replied. "Nobody would have known it would come to this."
"You're too kind, Orion," she smiled, though there was no happiness in it. "Still, as mayor of Riverhead, I have not made the right choices. I will announce my retirement in the evening. As for Theodor.."
She looked back to her husband.
"Our issues are still not settled, but I will do everything I can to start anew."
"I wish you the best of luck, m'lady," I said.
She nodded then joined the other villagers to head back to the village. At this point, the system notified me of completing the quest.
You have completed the “Lost Amulet” growth quest!
As the quest turned into a personal quest, no adventurer's XP will be rewarded.
Rewards:
Experience points: 20,000
1 gold, 20 silver coins
Title: Hero of Riverhear
The rewards for the quest were way better than what I expected.
I leveled up to 12 instantly. Not getting adventurer's XP for it was a small price to pay for that. I even got a new title, that would help me out a lot. Basic supplies were small health and mana potions, basic food and drinks and other consumables. They weren't too expensive to begin with, but the title meant I had a 50% on them forever, whenever I visited this village.
Not to mention, there was still the loot. I spent five points on strength and five points on dexterity, then joined up with the other players.
As Raid leader it was my job to start the distribution process. Dealing with the spoils of war in a raid group was a bit different compared to a simple party.
While you rolled a dice or just divided the loot between yourselves in the latter, raid parties had a more complex mechanic in place.
Drops from bosses killed by raid parties were unidentified; each member could see how many items were dropped, but no one knew what they were.
Instead when the raid leader starts the process, the system will periodically reveal each item dropped, in a random order.
Players can then bid for the items with gold and silver coins. The one who bids the most will get the item, while the amount bid for it will then be distributed equally among the other raid members.
The boss dropped eight items in addition to the 9 gold and 20 silver coins.
I divided the money with each raid member getting 40 silver coins. After accepting it, even the players who were no longer physically present got the money right in their inventories as long as they stayed in the raid group.
Two of our once dead teammates had rejoined the scene after hurrying back to Riverhead, so right now there were twelve of us. I notified the remaining 11 members that we were about to begin dealing with the loot.
Even if they weren't present, they could still bid for the items. After revealing each drop the system showed the item description to everyone, and the player who won the bid immediately gained access to the equipment by paying for it.
After everyone got ready and came closer to the remnants of the battlefield, I started the distribution process, and soon after, the system revealed us the first item from the spoils.
"Ready? Here we go!" I announced.
Everyone was eager to see what our first boss battle of Godsrealm had in store for us.
It was a rare level 15 amulet that boosted one's magical capabilities and resistance to poisonous effects. 2 level's worth of status points were nothing to scoff at, and the resistance was neat as well, although I still haven't met monsters who dealt poison.
I skipped bidding, as intelligence was not of the utmost importance to me. It would have been nice to increase my mana a bit since I had multiple skills at my disposal now, but I felt like this necklace would be much better in someone else's hand.
After a bit of bidding back and forth, the level 10 – now level 11, actually – mage Arias had won the auction and paid one gold and seventy six silver coins, netting the rest of us 8 silver coins each.
After Arias stored the amulet, the system revealed the second item.
This was a piece of armor best suited for rogues, brawlers or swashbucklers, but it could be used well by swordsmen and lancers as well. It really was a versatile piece of equipment.
I once again decided not to bid on it. Attack speed was nice for me, but at this point in the game I didn't have much use for agility and although I had enough money, I didn't want to recklessly spend it.
In the end of the bid, it was taken by Mano Roja, member of Los Asesinos, for one gold and fifty four silver coins, netting us 7 silver coins each.
The next item has caused quite an uproar.
It was a level 15 rare weapon, just like the Battleaxe of Ur'ka. It didn't have a weapon skill, but the stats on it were quite impressive regardless.
Rogues and Brawlers were the only classes so far in the game who could dual wield two weapons.
The former could equip two daggers, while the latter could equip a claw or a fist in each hand.
If they decided to dual wield, only 65% of the attack power stat would apply from each weapon, but the other stats were left untouched, so it was important to use weapons with good secondary effects and bonuses.
A similar case were Guardians and Paladins, who could equip a shield in their off hand.
Equipping the shield decreased their overall attack speed by 15% and decreased the equipped weapon's attack power stat by 20%, but the stats on the shield usually made the deal more than fair.
Mano Roja was a bit upset seeing that Rebecca, the rogue outbid him for the dagger. He probably wished he'd skipped the bracers.
Rebecca paid 3 gold and 30 silver coins, which meant 15 silver coins were distributed to all other party members.
After a brief pause, the fourth item was revealed.
This was the first item that got my attention. It had a good defense value and bonuses that would be still useful even long after reaching level 15.
In the end I bid 3 gold for it, and just as it was looking like I could have the cloak to myself, Sylph outbid me by 8 silver coins. I was debating on going further, but I felt like, although the cloak was really nice, over 3 gold coins was just about as comfortable for me as it gets, so in the end I let the other Ranger have the item.
Fourteen silver coins later, the fifth item had emerged, and the graveyard fell thematically silent.
The sword naturally left everyone in awe, me included.
It almost had as much attack power as the level 15 rare Battleaxe of Ur'ka despite that being a two handed berserker weapon, but it was much faster. It also gave 15 vitality, meaning it had increased survivability as well.
It's poison effect and boost to attack speed were nothing to scoff at either, but the real deal was the weapon skill: an AoE slash that could deal a lot of damage to everyone in it's radius was invaluable at this point in the game.
In our group there were three guardians, two paladins and three swordsmen. As a group we decided to let them bid for it as the others would have no way to use the sword other than selling it.
The bidding was furious this time. Four gold, five gold, six gold coins, it was increasing faster than one could notice.
The lower level players fell out of the race rather quickly, and in the end only Stone and El Rafael from Los Asesinos had enough capital to keep going.
After a fierce auction battle, the sword was sold for seven gold and seventy silver coins, for the brave guardian of Los Asesinos. Stone managed an awkward smile and patted Sylph in the back; from the looks of it, Sylph offered to lend him some money, but even then they couldn't match the capital of the spanish group.
However when I glanced over at El Verdugo, it looked like he was sweating a bit, too.
Clearly this sword was a massive improvement for their group, but after spending 7 gold for the battleaxe and the bracers for Mano Roja, they were probably out of most of their coins as well.
After buyout, the system divided the money and everyone else in the party got 35 silver coins from the bid.
Everyone was cautiously counting the rest of their coins, hoping that they still had enough for whatever else the boss had in store.
I still haven’t bought anything so I was fairly confident I had the biggest capital out of all of the players around here.
Los Asesinos have probably emptied the treasury already, and that gave me a fairly big chance of scoring something good.
Stone must have still had quite a lot of money, but the items he would bid for were mostly of no concern to me, unless an epic bow emerged, in which case I was sure he would help Sylph to try and get it.
Regardless, I stayed hopeful and eagerly waited. In all honesty, the huge exp amount was already a reward in and of itself, but getting some solid level 15 items at this stage of the game was nothing to scoff at.
The latest equipment that dropped from the boss was a shield. Looking at it I already knew that this was probably the best piece of equipment that we got, and was hoping that Stone had enough gold for it.
The ultimate shield for a tank. It gave a huge amount of defense, damage reduction, reflective damage and the skill it came attached to it practically made the user unkillable.
El Rafael sighed; while the sword was quite likely the best weapon in not just Carpa's vicinity but the whole of Tidemark county as well, a shield like this was the most important equipment for a tank.
Stone easily outbid Djon and the now level 10 Paladin, Taskmaster, and took the shield for five gold and fifty silver coins, paying us 25 coins in the process.
There were two items remaining in the pool and I started to doubt myself a bit. What if neither of the two will be of use to me? Maybe I should have gotten the cloak or the bracers, I thought.
I was still hopeful, though.
The big spenders like Los Asesinos, Stone and a few level 10 players were likely already out of the equation, meaning if anything juicy comes up, I had a fairly high chance of getting it.
The next item on the list was not an equipment, or really anything that I have seen before. In fact, it confused every single member of the raid.
None of us had a clue what it was. It was a Rare growth item, meaning it had the potential to grow into something even more special, but what it function was stayed a mistery.
The players were careful with their bids. Of course, a rare growth item was insanely rare at this point, as this was only the second day of Godsrealm, however more straightforward items were typically more useful at this stage of the game.
The bid was staying at three gold flat, offered by Ziestra, the level 11 Acolyte who had survived until the end.
Just as it was about to finalize, my gambling nature had won over my more rational side and I won the auction with 3 gold and 30 silver coins. Ziestra shot me a glance but didn't say anything.
Congratulations! You have won the auction on: Woe's Echo.
I checked my inventory, but there was no other information on the tooltip other than what we had already known. I decided to deal with it later, as the last item was about to be revealed.
YES!
The final drop from the Woe of Riverhead was something I had huge hopes for: a skill rune.