26 Tanking is torture

Screaming in panic, I ran from a horde of rabbits. Who could have imagined that they would attack in a horde, after I attacked one of them with my club? Seemingly I hit a baby bunny and its parents and siblings were now hunting me. 

And another painful truth was, that although the width of the club and shield did not hinder me from running through the undergrowth anymore as I placed them in my inventory, the rabbits still were getting closer. 

Bronning was only a few hundred meters away, if I was able to make it until then. Shit, shit, shit! I shouldn't have skimmed through the settings! I cursed myself again. Longingly I thought about other classes, especially of the beautiful mixture of skills I once had in my former body. How easily I could have burned them crisp or pierce them on icicles or…

My thoughts were stopped as I tripped over a root hidden under fallen leaves and fell face forward. "Fuck." I groaned in pain, before the rabbits reached me and violently killed me seconds later. 

After I spawned in Bronning, I tried to find the good points in having been killed again that day by rabbits. At least I didn't need to run anymore. On the downside, one of my few silver coins was missing. But luckily, my platinum coin was unharmed. Being a tanker isn't easy. 

I should prepare to do what was needed: Watch some tutorials on how to upgrade tankers without dying every single second!

Half an hour later I was back online but still felt unable to act out the battle styles the streamers showed in their tutorials. It was simply bonkers! The class had decent defense and HP at the beginning but couldn't resist group attacks. To level up, I had to attack solitary creatures, trigger them with the sole skill I had at level 1, [baiting], which basically made any monster in the skill range attack me madly. It required a bit of experience and technique to know when to use the skill and avoid having more than one monster inside the reach of the skill. 

I had to fiddle a bit with it and killed a few rabbits by bashing their head with my club after they blindly fell into the shallow but wide pitfall I made to stop their aggressive charge at me and kill them off in a few strikes. In the tutorials, the location of the hitting was very important, as blunt weapons would only be truly effective if they messed up the organs or brain tissue. A broken limb could slow any enemy down but I needed fast kills and avoiding anything that led to drawn out battles. 

After the sun started setting in the game, I decided to return to Bronning. I didn't dare hunting in an environment consistent with roots and undergrowth with almost full darkness, in fear of losing more silver. 

Back in Bronning, I went to the market to sell my measly gains. Only a few rabbit corpses which rested in my inventory without spoiling and a few brass coins were dropped by them. The corpses sold for three copper each. It wasn't bountiful and certainly didn't replace the lost silver coin. I would need to be especially careful to not make another financial loss. 

After finding the cheapest room possible for me to rest and be safe from theft while I was outside the game, I roamed through the mercenary and mission board. There were also people who made commercials to attract new customers. Often in cahoots those who offered a higher paycheck to the mercenary guilt, the most featured missions were those which were of larger scope or from regular customers. 

I read through them but found nothing which my below decent skills in handling my new class could aid me. The missions which would be worth my time were either very dangerous or missions in need of middle sized or larger parties. Which I both didn't have. 

So I turned to the more common and less demanding missions. They paid painfully low, but beggars couldn't be choosers. I needed the experience points if I wanted to level up faster. 

In Falan, one could level up by either study, as in reading books which could grant skills, experience points in general or other means of improving. The general experience points were linked with the main level. With a higher level one could measure one's basic strength. But if someone (like me) lacked a certain foundation, one would still be pitifully weaker than monsters of the same level. 

Because killing monsters, animals and NPCs could also reward experience points, hunting any of the three mentioned groups was common. But killing domesticated animals or NPCs often caused players trouble with the local law. So, most of them refrained from senseless killing and focused on monsters and wild animals to level up. 

Sometimes, experience points could also be earned in missions either issued through the mercenary guild or NPCs themselves. 

Listless, I chose one of the missions with a larger mission reward of experience points and a lower monetary reward and set a signpost on my map to guide me towards the mission location. 

Since I didn't need to head out right now, I browsed through the remains I could save from my old character. 

There was much stuff which had only low durability left and was in need of greater repairs. I would need a few coins to use the service of a decent blacksmith or other craftsman to refurbish the clothes and other stuff. Most of them weren't worth repairing, especially since I was no mage anymore and the unrepaired item wouldn't be sold for much. Even after a repair (which could last a few minutes up to a few days depending on the waiting lists) it mostly wouldn't be worth my time. 

After going through most of the items, my eyes fell on my lesser anti-thieving device and I couldn't resist looking inside and reading the description of the core piece, which consisted of the last remains of Coven in this world. Sadness overcame me as memories of our shared moments overwhelmed me. I remembered him smiling at me while I screeched after he ruffled my hair. Him feeding me until I was happily sated. Us just listening to our most crazy, dumb and funny stories, trying to outdo each other. Him just hugging me quietly when anything in the real world overwhelmed me and healing every wound I couldn't deal with by myself. 

I closed the window and blinked my sadness away. Trying to distract myself, my eyes fell on the other item left in the lesser anti-thieving device. It was the lesser mystery box I always forgot to use. As I still attempted to distract myself from my surging emotions, I opened the book in a simple impulse. 

Animations erupted around me, a strange surge of light was emitted by the lesser mystery box and I was immediately distracted from all I just thought. I never saw a lightshow like this! But it still was going on, as strange forms escaped the opened book as if it had hidden an entire new dimension between the brittle pages. They slowly took shape, becoming animals, monsters, NPCs, rocks, trees and other plants. After a few seconds, the images turned more see-through, but still hovered a bit longer around me, until the window describing the content of the lesser mystery box popped up, erasing the illusions around me. The former descriptions were either overwritten or parts were added to the former description:

[Name: Trickery for beginners [class manual] [[appraised]]

Description: An old book that looks like the pages will brittle under your fingers. The author is long forgotten but if you research a bit you might find out that this is the first volume of a series. The series was thought to be lost in time. You found the first of 77 volumes. [[Quest]: Are you ready to embark on an adventure to find the remaining 76 volumes? [Yes] [No] [Maybe later]]

The book is a grimoire. But an old one. The magic sealed inside is mostly lost already.

The worth of this grimoire is 5 platinum coins. This estimation is relying on the assumption that there are no other similar items on the current local market. 

Effect: Soulbound class manual that can't be sold, traded, gifted or erased.

By reading the book you will be granted a new random class consisting of the contents of the class manual. If you read the book, your class will change. A restoration of the former class and score will be impossible. If you choose the new class, you will be reset to level 1. All your collected status points will be free to distribute again. Your experience points will be lost. 

Remark: This may be a trick. You may lose everything. Are you prepared to gamble your existence?]