Destiny Online: Halo Paladin - Chapter 19

Chapter 19: Murloc

Translator: EndlessFantasy Translation Editor: EndlessFantasy Translation

After coming out from the class change dungeon, Nocturne found himself in the class change hall.

“Well done, rookie. You did a good job clearing the monsters. Here’s your reward.” Fionna waved at Nocturne and a layer of holy light enveloped him.

“Completed quest: Paladin Class Change Trials (Protection). Acquired Skill: Divine Bulwark. Provoke.

[Divine Bulwark (Unable to level)]

[Passive]

[Requires a shield]

[Decrease damage received during successful blocking by 10%. Able to block single target spells. Your attack can now generate extra aggro]

[Provoke (Unable to level)]

[Instant Cast]

[Provoke your opponent, force them to concentrate their attacks on you]

“Your attributes are reset.”

A quick thought later, Nocturne redistributed his attribute points using the formula of 2 Strength per 3 Stamina.

After changing class into a Protection Paladin, Nocturne parted with the instructor and took a stroll around town. 

The town was not overly crowded, most of the players were either still in the starting village or working in real life. 

On top of that, judging from the map that the village chief showed Nocturne earlier, he noticed there were quite a number of options to choose from, which further separated the players.

Nocturne strolled around the town and accepted a number of quests. Most of them were simple errands, some of them required him to go out of town to collect specific items or kill specific monsters.

There was also a bounty notice set up in town square. The notice was about an increase of murlocs in Lake Town recently and requested players to try their best to reduce the numbers.

After taking all the quests, Nocturne started with the simple errands to get some EXP and reputation. 

Doing quests after Level 10 would reward a player with reputation. but only a little. 

He then followed the only river in town and headed south.

He actually planned to put the other quests aside and go fishing. He still did not get the chance to use his newly acquired fishing rod, his hands were getting itchy.

He found a spot among the reed bushes and sat down. With his fishing rod out and prepared, he cast the line into the water.

A while later, something took the bait.

“Acquired: Silverhead Salmon”

“Hoho, a new type of fish! Let’s keep going!”

Some time later, something else took the bait but compared to a normal fish, this one felt strong.

Nocturne had to fight it for a while before successfully pulling it out of the water. 

The fish, however, looked strange, it looked like a little man wearing green amphibian skin, it was short and tiny.

Right after it was pulled on shore, it performed a forward flip and got on its feet. A strange growl later, it lunged toward Nocturne with its broken dagger.

Nocturne pulled out his shield and entered a cautious stance. When the murloc came close enough to swing its dagger, he successfully blocked the attack.

-6 (Blocked)

“It’s so weak…”

Nocturne took a closer look at the murloc.

[Murloc Bandit]

[Level: 8]

[HP: 500]

Nocturne thought it was something powerful since it jumped on him fiercely but it was just a Level 8 monster.

Bang! Holy Smite!

-58

It seemed like its Defense was nothing stellar as well.

A few rounds later, Nocturne managed to drop the murloc bandit’s HP to 20%.

It jumped backwards and growled, “Ora, Ora.”

Nocturne thought it was going to release some powerful skill, so he put his shield up and got ready to block the incoming attack.

To his surprise, the murloc bandit ran away. It jumped into the water and quickly fled the fight.

“What the f***, I thought it’s going to unleash some powerful skills! It ran away?! Fine…”

Since it was already in the water, Nocturne did not give chase, he continued fishing on the spot instead.

However, a while later, Nocturne heard the strange growl again. “Ora, Ora!”

He turned around and saw a group of angry murlocs charging towards him. The one that led the school looked familiar. It was the one that fled the fight earlier!

Terrified, Nocturne almost tossed his fishing rod away and ran. 

“You bastard! You f*cking! Bastard! You went and called for help?!”

“Okay fine! You outnumber me! But I can hide!”

Nocturne quickly kept his fishing rod away and wanted to flee but the moment he lifted his foot, he realized something was wrong. 

He felt slow and heavy.

“You have been Slowed. Movement speed decrease by 30%”

…

Nocturne, who was slowed by the bunch of murlocs, had failed to escape. The group of murlocs surrounded him and beat him up as easily as tossing a basketball around. 

There was a blue-skinned murloc that stood further away from the rest and it was the one that fired an ice arrow at Nocturne, casting Slow on him from time to time.

Nocturne barely put up a fight. Before he could type “GG”, he was killed on the spot.

“You died…”

Nocturne respawned at town with a grumpy face, he did not expect to run into such a ridiculous encounter while fishing.

He could not let it go just like that.

Some thoughts later, he decided to go back to that particular spot to fish. 

The same thing happened after a while, he fished up another murloc bandit and the murloc bandit jumped on him with the strange growl. “Ora, Ora!”

A few rounds later, the murloc bandit realized it was unable to take Nocturne down, so it prepared to flee again. “Ora, Ora!”

“Oh you are not running away this time! Over my dead body! Now! Provoke! Come back here!”

The murloc bandit froze and then turned around, it jumped on Nocturne angrily and continued the fight.

7 seconds later, the murloc bandit finally died.

“Hahaha! You are still too weak, you bastard! You and your friends killed me just now because I didn’t know what’s going on!”

He then picked up the spoils from the dead murloc bandit.

“Acquired: Murloc Scale, Sagefish”

[Murloc Scale]

[Crafting Material]

[Note: A piece of scale from the murloc, can be used to cook soup. It is a favorite piece among murloc-haters]

Judging from the description, a lot of people hated the murlocs.

Nocturne felt great after taking revenge, he continued his peaceful fishing but a while later, he fished up another murloc.

He was able to kill it easily this time but it did not end there. With that, Nocturne killed almost a dozen more murlocs before he stopped getting murlocs from fishing.

He recalled seeing a murloc casting spells on him when he was being surrounded and it seemed like the spellcaster murloc had a higher status than the others, it did not show up in the wild for hunting.

“Okay the, if you are not coming out, I’m coming to you.”

Nocturne got up. He headed to the direction where the murlocs appeared and searched for their tracks along the way.

A long while later, he found a small murloc village along the river. The murloc spellcaster seemed to have kept two murloc bandits around to protect itself but they did not look as fierce as before, instead they looked bored.

“Hehehe, three murlocs? You guys are dead!”

Nocturne jumped in and unleashed hell on the murlocs. Murlocs were not powerful by nature, so he was able to clear them out easily.

As for the murloc spellcaster, without protection, taking it down was a piece of cake.

After he killed the murloc spellcaster, he got an accessory from the dead body.

[Murloc Ring (Great)]

[Ring]

[2 Magic Resistance]

[+2 HP regeneration]

[+2 Mana regeneration]

[Requirement: Level 10]

“Gosh! This is good!”

In Destiny Online, accessories were the rarest drops one could find, Nocturne did not even have a single accessory until now.

Other than that, the ring had decent stats, it could prolong survivability and was a great addition to any healer and tank’s arsenal.

Nocturne then searched the murloc village after that.

Surprisingly, he found an unlocked treasure box in one of the houses.

There were two types of treasure boxes in the wild: locked and unlocked.

Locked treasure boxes could only be opened by a Rogue’s Lockpicking skill or a master key forged by other players.

“Opened the treasure box. Acquired: Bristle Whisker Catfish x 5, Murloc’s Package”