《Rune》 Introductions 1: The Guild and the Mercenary ¡°Remember, everyone! This is a red-orange tier portal! What¡¯s on the other side is completely unknown! We¡¯re doing this blind! That means let the merc lead.¡± Yelled a man decked out in modern combat gear, a rifle slung over his back. He lifted a glowing yellow-green sword and pointed it at the slowly-growing portal, looking at a watch on his other hand. ¡°Three¡­ Two¡­ One¡­ GO!¡± He ordered, and twenty-four people ran double-file through the portal that materialized partway inside the tree on the side of the road. Taking one last glance around, the yelling man jumped through the portal, which disappeared six seconds later, leaving no trace of its existence but a fine, softly glowing red-orange powder. The other side of the portal was like a scene from a nightmare. Twisted, blackened representations of the previous world took the places of seemingly innocuous items such as trees and bushes, and apartment complexes had a menacing lean that made them seem to overhang the street where the twenty-five people stood in a loose group, looking like a cosplay convention where the costumes had no particular theme and were designed by time-displaced madmen. Combat armor stood side-to-side with full plate, and most of them were carrying guns as well as nigh-inexplicable throwback weapons. ¡°Okay. This looks like a standard otherworld raid but we¡¯re still having the merc first. Novsha?¡± A woman in odd-looking combat armor stepped forward, nodding. She was holding a normal-looking sword in her right hand, wearing a bracelet, and had a stack of thin metal plates on the left side of her stomach, but was otherwise unimpressive in modern-looking body armor. ¡°This looks like a recent one with one of the other guilds. See those?¡± She pointed between a couple of buildings, where there were two heat-mirage looking pillars. ¡°Probably enemies. Can¡¯t say I see any bosses, so I¡¯m recommending mook clearing until we find one.¡± She kept her position in front, while the guild leader nodded appreciatively and began to order the group into five-man parties, usually one tank or off tank with two ranged damage dealers, the other two roles filled by melee damage dealers and utility. The parties split up, moving slowly. The guild leader had placed the mercenary in his party and told her to lead the way, so they were moving towards the side of the street further away from the wavy walls of the area. The mercenary held up her hand, signaling them to stop. She flicked the bracelet around her left wrist, and the whole thing lit up in a swirl of green, whereupon she stopped her hand facing up, and had three throwing knives fall into it. She grabbed one normally, letting the other two fall into an odd grip mostly under the influence of her pinky, then threw it into one of the hazy shadows. The scream nearly drove the party to their knees. Eyes watery, the guild leader squinted forward while shaking his head, and heard a few more quiet screams from the directions the other parties had gone in. Focusing on what was in front of him, he watched the merc throw the other two knives, then slap the bracelet again, causing flame to blow out of the knives into the monsters. They looked like horrific amalgamations of insects and humans, standing erect but on four legs. The black chitin had rainbow shimmers running along it that made them hard to focus on, but the experienced party quickly recovered and joined the merc in dispatching the lightly armed basic enemies. Only one of them looked like it would hit the merc, but after its blow was stopped before coming into contact with her skin, it had reprioritized targets and been rendered lifeless before landing another solid hit with either of the clubs it held. The guild leader pulled out a blue-green stone from his pocket. ¡°Party One, checking in. Losses?¡± ¡°Party Two, no losses.¡± ¡°Party Three, no losses.¡± ¡°Party Four, no encounters¡± ¡°Party Five. We lost Hinje in the first few seconds after that scream. We can probably keep up on our own though.¡± The guild leader cursed under his breath. ¡°Down to twenty-four¡­¡± he lifted the stone again. ¡°Alright, keep clearing. Four, take Five¡¯s clear route. Five, try to hold relative central position and run backup if any group calls for it. Report anything big and get someone with stealth to check it out from up close before heading in. Clear out the last few groups back there then move forwards.¡± A few more isolated monster screeches and one exciting moment where three groups banded together to fight twelve of the monsters later, group Two ran into a far larger haze, the effect similar to what they¡¯d been fighting up until that point. A huge haze stood in the middle of the street, undeterred by the complexities of what stood behind it. The guild leader looked at Novsha, who shook her head. ¡°Never seen these things before, Hyrd. Best guess, this one will use sharp weapons and have some sort of uber-mandible-attack. Don¡¯t expect it to be super accurate; we can¡¯t see the damn thing yet.¡± He nodded, then turned and began to issue orders. ¡°Alright. This is another blind fight, so we¡¯re going to lead with only half our tanks¡­ Novsha, LJay, and Rikhars, I want you to be the closest¡­ engage at twenty-five feet. Everything else we¡¯re probably going to have to figure out as we go, so save any burst abilities on your weapons.¡± The three chosen as the frontline walked towards the blur in the middle of the road, each taking out their own variety of ranged weapon. ¡°Engage in 3¡­ 2¡­ 1¡­ Go!¡± yelled Hyrd. The crack of a gunshot from LJay¡¯s left hand signaled the beginning of the fight, and the following scream from the monster inflicted such a huge pain on its listeners that half of them fell where they stood. Rikhars and Novsha were both able to shake it off in a very short period, allowing them the first close look at the monster. It was like a larger version of what they had been fighting before, except for a crucible-like growth on its back that seemed to be pulsing. It tilted its head up and they heard a sound like water through a straw¡­ ¡°Spread out!¡± Novsha yelled, as a spray of pinkish liquid sprayed out of the thing¡¯s mouth, towards the arranged guild. The large majority of the guild reacted quickly, activating movement abilities on their gear to get out of the fall range of the spray. Just before the spray landed, Hyrd teleported back into it, picking up one of the three who were still down from the scream, and teleported out, leaving a man and a woman to be hit by the liquid. The scene quickly turned grisly as the small droplets that the spray had formed into during travel simultaneously exploded with enough force to turn most of the woman¡¯s innards into outtards. Shaken and pockmarked, the man¡¯s plate armor crumbled and fell to the ground before promptly busting into flames. Meanwhile, the three frontliners continued to run at the beast. The giant clubs it was carrying rocketed down at both LJay and Novsha. The former dodged the strike and got in close enough to give it a strike with his sword, which was glowing with electricity. Novsha, however, stood directly in the path of the strike, allowing it to be stopped in midair as red runes glowed on her metal plates. When the boss withdrew the club to strike again, she moved. Blueish runes glowed on the boots she wore as she seemed to run through the air, upwards at about a thirty-degree angle. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. A hand crossbow¡¯s twang from Rikhars marked his entrance to the fight. The bolt lodged itself in the insect¡¯s carapace, where it seemed to dissolve into a growth of vines that began to work their way around it. ¡°Start the attack!¡± Hyrd yelled from the back, holding a blue bow almost as large as himself at the ready, launching an arrow that appeared crystalline into the boss, landing just below the head and piercing generously into the hard carapace. The guild began to follow his order, using ranged weapons to attack even as they spread out to avoid another pink slime explosion. Novsha jumped off of the hardened air, falling towards the pulsating sac on the back of the monster and taking one of the layers of thin metal plates off. Bending her legs as she landed on the very back of the boss, she slapped the metal plate onto the back of the thing, whereupon a thin line of black runes appeared around the outside of it and it appeared to stick. ¡°Hyrd! I can probably interrupt another pink spray if it uses it, but spread out it¡¯ll probably switch patterns!¡± Thinking quickly, the guild leader responded to the information by revising orders. ¡°All tanks to front! Geria, set up a barrier where you are! Gather behind the barrier after it¡¯s up if you¡¯re a damage dealer, and be ready to split!¡± The battlefield reformed again, this time with six people around the boss and the other seventeen clustered around a teen who was frantically placing stones from a pouch on her belt. Another piercing scream broke almost nobody, only one or two of the damage dealers falling to their knees as the straw-like suction sound started again. A woman¡¯s maniacal laughter began, followed by a huge thump that caused the boss to fall over itself, landing on the ground and dripping pink fluid onto the ground. ¡°Burst!¡± Reacting with the precision of a group that had spent countless hours together, the people gathered behind the sweating teen seemed to explode with light, weapon and armor abilities activating in sync. Streaks flew from them into the fallen insectoid, battering it with force. LJay took out his pistol, and, curiously, shot the pink slime on the ground, which summarily exploded. Surprisingly, the carapace started to fall away from the boss, leaving a smaller thing that seemed like a dragonfly with the crucible on its back. There was an audible drone as the boss took off, leaving the ground and spewing a bunch of the pink slime as it charged the group from the air. Most of the pink slime seemed to stop and explode midair, only a few droplets getting through to the group as the dragonfly flew over them, and more specifically, the stones. ¡°Split up again! Tanks, try to draw aggro!¡± The six people in the middle gathered closer together as the others split up, running without firing. The dragonfly tried a few more strafing runs as they spread out, but quickly retargeted to the largest group it could see, in the middle. As it charged up the middle of the group, the six dodged out of the way, allowing the pink slime to explode harmlessly between them. Five passes later, the boss was on its last legs, the health bar in the corner of everyone¡¯s vision creeping down under the sustained fire of the guild. Finally, it turned red- literally- and shook in place, taking one last swipe at the tanks in the middle, but this time spraying the pink fluid in a much wider arc, one that would catch all six standing in the middle even if they were to dodge like they had been. ¡°Death or Glory!¡± Rikhars yelled, jumping at the boss and putting the shield on his left hand between himself and the dragonfly. It lit up in yellow runes, then a similarly-colored wall appeared behind him, shoving forwards much faster than he moved. As the pink slime made contact with the barrier, it was flung back on into the boss and took out the sparse remainder of its health. A cheer went up from the guild, having defeated an unknown boss with almost no losses. ¡°Nicely done, everyone.¡± Hyrd began. He turned, looking for the man in a normal shirt instead of armor. ¡°Jarles, minus ten CP. Standing in there was silly. Geria¡­¡± He paused to consider. ¡°Total plus ten. Minus ten for not getting out of the first attack and forcing me to pull you out, plus twenty for that barrier saving us from a wipe when it transformed. LJay plus five for being the first to use the explosives against the boss. Rikhars¡­¡± He laughed. ¡°I¡¯m giving you ten. I feel like I should be telling you off, but it works. I¡¯d give you CP, Novsha, but your price is clear and you aren¡¯t part of¡­¡± He was cut off by a rumble, and he ran to pick up the loot bag the boss dropped and threw it into his inventory as a wave of orc-like enemies appeared from around a corner just a few feet away from the party. One of the members was summarily dispatched by three simultaneous swings, which fortunately bought just enough time for his compatriots to jump out of the way, allowing the six tanks to rush into the fray. The ensuing chaotic fight spat in the face of the organization from before. With orcs running freely past the font line, the element of surprise on their side, and the spread-out position they had been in before, a few more members of the guild fell under the swords and axes of the orcs before they regained their footing and fought a retreating battle of attrition that finally killed them. As the last orc fell, however, a bass growl shook through the tired and battered group. ¡°Ogre!¡± Hyrd called, recognizing the sound. Novsha, the last one around the most recent corner the had turned, cursed loudly. ¡°Fucking Boss Class! Mooks spawning!¡± ¡°Three tanks on the boss, the other two distract the mooks! Utility and DD from One and Two and damage from Three on the boss! Others on adds!¡± Hyrd yelled, his bow expanding in his hands and gaining a green glow on top of the blue one. As the ogre came around the corner, he shot the bow. The arrow disappeared from where it left the bow, coming up at the ogre from under Novsha¡¯s left hand. Misattributing the stinging arrow to the mercenary who had just split an orc in half with her sword, the ogre charged her, ignoring the other fighters who were still caught up in battle with smaller enemies. She turned to face the boss with a surprised look on her face, then let the first overhanded hit from the enormous club land like she had with the previous boss. Not waiting for it to retract this time, she took the red-glowing plate and slapped it onto the boss¡¯s left shin, striking out with her sword at its right afterwards. Roaring at the mite between its legs, the boss crouched and swung the club over a 270¡ã arc, hitting two members of the guild and four orcs, knocking them through the fray and killing them all as Novsha rolled into the free space. ¡°Smarter than usual!¡± Hyrd cursed again. While the adds were being dealt with, they had far fewer people available to fight the boss with six of their seventeen remaining members tied up with as many orcs. Suddenly, a touch of movement from far away caught his eye. ¡°CANNON! GET DOWN!¡± he screamed, as a brightly glowing orange ball hurtled at them, propelled by a yellow cannon and single manning orc. While he dodged down, he saw Geriathrow two stones out of the corner of his eye, glowing incredibly brightly even as she fell down, knocked out. Energy overuse? At this level? What is she¡­ His internal monologue was interrupted when the orange ball made contact with the bright green sheet Geria had summoned¡­ And bounced, directly into the Ogre, knocking it flying when the cannonball suddenly exploded on impact. It bowled over half of the remaining orcs, dazed by its wingless flight. Hyrd jumped back up quickly, shooting an arrow directly into the orc manning the cannon before yelling new directions. ¡°Rikhars! Get Geria far enough out to recover! If your adds were just taken out, retarget to the boss!¡± There were a couple of seconds before the boss got up, shaking off its daze and roaring again. With Hyrd yelling orders, however, it made the decision to cut the head off the snake- heading straight for him and ignoring the others. It reached into the street, its overstrong hands punching through the asphalt like a hot knife through butter, and ripped up a chunk of street, throwing it at the raid leader. Hyrd teleported to the side, avoiding the projectile, but the instant of disorientation nearly cost him as the ogre¡¯s club plummeted at the archer. At the last second, Novsha appeared in front of him, arms out as the club crashed into whatever sort of body shield she had. ¡°Last one of those I can take!¡± she yelled, before teleporting again. Landing on the ogre¡¯s shoulder, she slapped the last metal plate she had onto the right shoulder before jumping out and landing midair on a clear platform, her boots glowing again. ¡°Get ready to burst!¡± she yelled, trying to take control of the situation. Hyrd stepped backwards, but the Ogre kept coming. He prepared to teleport out of the way of the next strike as it came down. When it was half down, he blinked again before a horrific combination of a thump and a crack resounded over the entire street and the ogre pitched forward, its left leg behind it and its upper body partially embedded in the street. He reeled in shock at whatever the mercenary had done, catching only the back end of her next word. ¡°-rst!¡± he grinned self-deprecatingly even as he did as much damage to the boss as he could possibly fit into the next few seconds. It was the right command, but he hadn¡¯t had the presence of mind to give it first. Even though she was taking control of the fight away from the guild, he was glad for it as she almost continuously threw knives from her bracelet into the monster. As it began to stand up, she triggered the bracelet while rushing forward. The wave of flame took off a notable portion of the boss¡¯s remaining HP, leaving it on only five percent. His guildmates continued to aim around the mercenary that was notably smaller than the target as she took a few steps up into the air, her boots glowing and her sword gaining a rainbow glow as she ran before jumping, stabbing the sword she held into the join between the Ogre¡¯s body and neck for multiplied damage, where it appeared to dissolve a notable portion of its body and killed it. As its bodydisappeared, the mercenary grinned, imitating a curtsey before walking to the bag in the middle. ¡°Pick of the second boss¡¯s items, as payment.¡± She reminded the guild, picking it up and carrying it over to Hyrd. ¡°I¡¯ll take the rune scroll,¡± she said, taking out a small scroll with an unmarked outside. When she put it in her inventory, Hyrd looked for the glow. Red, orange, yellow, green, blue? He thought, thinking of the assorted rarities. However, when she flashed an electric purple, signifying a legendary rune, even the mercenary was shocked. He shook his head, going through the motions as he totaled the contributions from the fight, including a thirty point bonus to the passed out Geria for single-handedly taking off nearly thirty percent of the boss¡¯s health. He granted a pause, walking over to the mercenary who was fiddling about in her inventory screen, holding a few of the metal plates from earlier in her hands. ¡°So, your armor is kinetic absorption?¡± he asked. ¡°It doesn¡¯t work without those plates.¡± She laughed. ¡°It works, but it won¡¯t stop much,¡± she said, shakily, ¡°Your guild managed to avoid me pretty well while I didn¡¯t have it.¡± He smiled. ¡°Good,¡± he said, then shoved the knife he had been concealing in his hand into her throat, instantly killing her. Introductions 2: Endings as Beginnings Taking deep breaths, Alex stared up at her eggshell-white ceiling, the VR gear opening around her, objectively quickly but much slower than she would have liked, angry energy rattling around in her limbs. ¡°Fucking assholes!¡± she yelled, nearly hitting her head as she jumped out of the now-open pod. ¡°Why the fuck would he even..?¡± The truth was, she knew exactly why she¡¯d have been killed. A legendary rune. On the integrated trading site that used real money, common runes sold for a few cents, if they ever sold at all. Moving up the rarities, however, multiplied the price to a ridiculous degree, until the insanely rare legendary runes. With only forty or fifty discovered in the game¡¯s four-year history, the bidding usually started at five thousand dollars. Still, though. Most bosses that had anything approaching a realistic chance of dropping something like that were, like that one, over level one-hundred-seventy, and the remainder of the portal raid could have easily turned out enough blues to match the over-an-order-of-magnitude increase in price. Admittedly for the whole guild versus, but that was a risk they¡¯d said they preferred over paying her flat rate. So, like an idiot, she¡¯d put faith in the guild¡¯s reputation for being honorable to keep her from choosing between running and hurting her own reputation. Fucking Hyrd. The conniving asshole. Annoyingly, she couldn¡¯t have even used the item, regardless of the fact that she was guaranteed to drop it after being killed. She was a Fighter; that sort of thing would only ever have been useful to a Crafter. It would just have been sold. Possibly even right back to The Alliance, though they wouldn¡¯t have been fantastically pleased about the price. When she got to the table in the front of her small apartment, she found herself not even blaming the guild leader, and more in a state of annoyance with the world. She sat down in a kitchen chair, then allowed her head to drop onto the table, messy blonde hair draping around her face. One hour¡­ she thought, looking at the time on her phone that proudly proclaimed it to be 3:31pm. The moment hit her like a blast of cold water. Why do I even play that game? The question being asked, even if just within her own head, gave rise to blankness, followed by a moment of horrified realization. She wasn¡¯t playing for fun, like she had been at the beginning, but to fulfill some kind of obligation she felt to the inanimate thing. Looking sidelong at the VR gear, she thought for only a few seconds before walking over and sitting back down in it. It took far less time than she had thought it would to set all of her character¡¯s items up for auction. Before she would even have been able to log back in to the game normally, Novsha was stripped of everything but her character levels. Delete Character ? Alex hesitated, thinking of the thousands of hours she¡¯d poured into the game, the reputation she¡¯d built up¡­ then summarily selected ¡°Yes¡± and exited the machine. Feeling as though a weight had been removed from her shoulders, Alex changed into a yellow tank top and jeans, pausing only to clean up her hair before heading out the door, a hint of a smile on her face. A short walk and even shorter wait later, she paid for the sandwich she ordered at a small deli, sitting down at a table to wait for her name to be called. ¡°Alex!¡± Not exactly who I¡¯d like to see right now¡­ she thought, turning around to see one of the guys from her electronics design and logic classes waving to her. Taking one hand from the table in front of her to wave at him lightly, she was annoyed to discover that he was walking towards her. In moments like this, I wish I was an avid bubblegum consumer¡­ if only so that I could snap it obnoxiously. ¡°Hello¡­¡± she began. ¡°Hey,¡± he said, putting far too much effort into the word, ¡°You ever going to tell me the name of your Rune character?¡± Alex laughed, remembering his name now. ¡°Sure, James. Her name was Novsha.¡± She regretted not having set up some sort of hidden camera upon seeing his reaction, and scanned the upper corners of the shop for one that would have a good angle with her eyes. Unfortunately not finding one (though she couldn¡¯t be sure if it was because her laughter at his falling out of his chair was clouding her vision), she turned her attention back to the conversation. ¡°You¡¯re a Fighter?¡± he asked, incredulous. She shrugged. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be more surprised at me being mildly famous. Or that I told you after you¡¯d been bugging me over it for so long.¡± If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. He waved a hand, sitting down again. ¡°You don¡¯t really lie, even if you do continually forget my name. Plus, I figured there was some reason you didn¡¯t tell me. I¡¯m just surprised that someone in our classes wouldn¡¯t be crafting in-game.¡± Laughing again, Alex heard her name called and stood up, grabbing the sandwich from the lady at the counter. When she returned to the table and unwrapped the food, he response was light and noncommittal. ¡°I find that kind of thing interesting, but it¡¯s not something I could spend my whole life at. Besides, I used them, even if I didn¡¯t make them.¡± He narrowed his eyes at her. ¡°Past tense. First time, I ignored it, this time I¡¯m asking.¡± ¡°I deleted the character earlier.¡± She said, flatly. His incredulous look seemed like a freeze-frame before his name was called, and he walked up to the counter, grabbed two sandwiches, and left without another word. ¡°Ooo¡­ kay?¡± she said, looking at the door through which Jeremiah had left. Putting the odd encounter behind her, she finished her meal, walking home and preparing herself for her next class. Around 18:40, she left the apartment to get to her classroom at seven. The weirdness of the deli had not prepared her for the stares as she walked into the classroom comprised almost entirely of certified nerds. Some appeared pitying, some were accusatory, and some had a weird appraising quality. That wasn¡¯t to say that everyone was looking at her; only a few of the people sitting around Julian appeared to be paying attention to her (Ell in particular, but they had made a habit of boring holes in her head with stares anyways and she couldn¡¯t tell if they were reacting to the news or just doing their standard glare), but the small group still generated an oppressive ray of attention that made her glad when class started. While the lecture itself was nothing that she didn¡¯t know, participation was unfortunately important enough that she stayed the whole time, and was therefore glad for the excuse that came in the form of a phone call almost the instant class ended. Putting the phone to her ear faster than strictly necessary while striding out, she greeted her caller. ¡°Hey, Matt,¡± she said, greeting her boyfriend. ¡°Hi, yeah, Alex¡­ I don¡¯t think I¡¯ll be over this weekend.¡± ¡°Oh, that sucks. Is the next one still ok?¡± ¡°Err¡­ Well, this is awkward. I¡¯m not going to be coming over, like, any weekends. I¡¯m breaking up with you.¡± Alex paused mid-step, then turned her back to face the school and leaned against the brick. ¡°Ah.¡± ¡°Look, I just can¡¯t do the commute thing, I¡­¡± ¡°Just stop,¡± Alex said, cutting him off, ¡°It¡¯s fine. I¡¯d be annoyed by the impersonal breakup, but you live a long way away and half our relationship¡¯s been by phone anyways. I¡¯ll see you.¡± She finished, and hung up. She got in her car, waiting a few minutes of controlled breathing to leave the parking lot. It was a strange feeling, being single. It had been years, and the feeling wasn¡¯t entirely pleasant. Pulling out of the parking spot, she headed the opposite direction of her apartment, finally coming to a stop in front of a small, brownish house. Getting out and walking to the door took very little time, bringing herself to knock took a while longer as she worried whether it was alright to show up at someone¡¯s house two hours before midnight unannounced, regardless of reason. When the door opened as soon as the first knock hit, though, she knew that the woman standing in front of her had been waiting for it. ¡°What¨C¡± she started, then was interrupted by Alex hugging the slightly taller woman, burying her face in the tee. They stood there for a while before Kayla spoke up. ¡°Usually, I might not be averse to a crying girl on my shoulder, but I think you should step in a bit further so we aren¡¯t standing in the doorway.¡± Alex¡¯s laugh was shaky, but she did as suggested and stepped in, allowing her friend to reach around her and close the door. About a minute and a half later, without letting go, she spoke. ¡°Sorry, Kayla.¡± ¡°No problem. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°Breakup.¡± ¡°Mm,¡± Kayla hummed, then brought Alex over to a couch in the obsessively neat room, ¡°Let me guess; nice again?¡± Alex recoiled, wincing. ¡°Not that nice¡­¡± ¡°Something like: ¡®I won¡¯t hold it against you¡¯ and a really casual closing statement?¡± ¡°Well, yeah¡­¡± Alex began. Kayla¡¯s laugh filled up the room, warming it. ¡°You aren¡¯t normal, girl.¡± Alex flushed slightly, mumbling incoherently. ¡°Well, I know you¡¯d reject drowning your problems in ice cream or sweets, so what do you want to do about them?¡± ¡°Cuddling is nice.¡± Alex said, adjusting to lean further into her. ¡°Oh come on. Now you¡¯re just blatantly taking advantage of your gay friend with an undefined state of attraction towards you.¡± Alex laughed, lighter this time and looking at her, an eyebrow raised. ¡°As if.¡± Kayla began to speak in a dramatic voice, ¡°A tale as old as time. The hero, in their quest for romance, brings all their maudlin woes to their friend of many years, oblivious as they pine for the taboo romance between two lovers of the same sex.¡± ¡°Oh, stuff it!¡± Alex responded, grinning. ¡°Get a better taboo! Maybe even one that would be a problem!¡± ¡°Catastrophe of the worst variation! What wretchedness befalls this one!¡± ¡°But truly, thou hast granted thine glorious majesty of forgiveness to this mortal, hast thee not?¡± ¡°Was that grammatically correct?¡± Kayla asked, tilting her head. Alex reviewed the sentence in her head. ¡°I think so? It should be, but don¡¯t hold me to that.¡± ¡°Nice.¡± Kayla said, holding her hand in front of her for a high five. Alex rose to the occasion, smacking the hand and taking a moment to freeze in a ridiculous pose with her hand reaching at an awkward angle over Kayla, an overexaggerated determination and joy on her face. With drawing her hand, she adjusted her position slightly, settling further towards Kayla. ¡°Still don¡¯t wanna move though.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine.¡± Kayla began, ¡°What would you usually do after something bad? Not that I¡¯m complaining about you coming over, it¡¯s just weird.¡± ¡°I¡¯d play Rune, probably do something stupid and get myself killed a few times, but that¡¯s no longer a viable option.¡± ¡°Did you let your subscription lapse? You don¡¯t seem like the type to¨C¡± ¡°I deleted the character.¡± Alex interrupted, finally. A pause grew between them, neither moving or speaking. ¡°Ah.¡± Kayla said, prompting Alex to explain more. ¡°I mean, at the beginning it was all fun, trying out strange things with the runes and fighting solo just cause it was fun, but then I started doing the fighting¡­¡± she paused, collecting her thoughts, ¡°And I was good at it. I mean, mercenaries don¡¯t make it into the top twenty-five players just on principle, so the fact that I stayed there for three months? Ridiculous. But even if I was good, I was always dependent on the good will of guilds to stay there, ¡®cause only the top few guilds ever did the stuff where enemies drop good loot, and I need those drops to stay competitive. ¡®n then¡­¡± she groaned, ¡°I fell off the list and the next four groups to hire me killed me over stupid shit.¡± ¡°So¡­ you just quit?¡± Kayla asked, slowly, ¡°Deleted the character, but you still have the subscription?¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± ¡°I know your parents pay for school¡­ But¡­ Didn¡¯t you take a bunch of spending money from selling stuff from the game?¡± Kayla asked. ¡°Yeah. But selling my stuff should get enough for a while at least.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re going to pick up a new hobby?¡± Kayla asked, calmly. ¡°I¡­ you¡¯re doing this on purpose.¡± Alex began, accusingly. ¡°A Devil¡¯s advocate is important to decisions.¡± Alex sighed, letting her head fall against Kayla¡¯s shoulder. She was only a couple of years older, but sometimes it seemed like a lot more than that. ¡°You know though, I think you¡¯re right. I hated how people were treating me, but the game might be worth playing.¡± ¡°Do you think you can go back after quitting like you did?¡± ¡°Oh, easily. Everything¡¯s already paid up for the rest of the year, so I¡¯d have six months before even paying¡­ YOU!¡± Alex turned to the grinning Kayla. ¡°You don¡¯t even play! You¨C¡± ¡°Honey, you act like I don¡¯t see you on a regular basis. You¡¯re happy when you come out of the game.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Alex said, turning back away. ¡°Fuck it. I think I can do ice cream, just this once.¡± Kayla responded with maniacal laughter, finishing on a drawn-out, ¡°Eeeexcellent.¡± Introductions 3: The DMQ; Department of Magical Questing Alex ran her hand over the virtual reality machine as it approached a (near) silent witching hour, allowing her fingers to move separately as they drifted over the hard plastic casing of the electronics, sighing as they bumped, one by one, into the dark latch. ¡°What do you do to me?¡± she asked, muttering. Her eyes drifted up, following the silver curves of what almost looked like a sleeper pod, tilted back at an angle. It sat expectantly, glimmering slightly in the yellow-tinged lights from the street and pulling itself out of the wall in the viewer¡¯s mind. Pulling the latch allowed the top to drift open, pulled by imbalanced weight and slowed by an elastic cord until it made contact with the rubber stops on the other side of the hinges. Now sitting open, the cushions that supported the player appeared to be beckoning, slightly darker than the surrounding gray metal and plastic. The tufted pillow, intended to reduce the amount the player sweated, turned what would have been a dark hole into what seemed like a small indentation that would catch any who entered it in a soft embrace. Placing her right arm into the space, it sunk slightly into the darkness, followed slowly by the rest of her body. Finally inside, she pressed the button by the latch that dropped the angle to near-flat. At the head of the capsule, spiderlike legs began to fold, allowing the metal to come to a rest only a few inches above the ground. At the new angle, when she pulled the handle, the whole upper assembly responded quickly, flipping over but still refusing to slam shut, instead slowly coming to rest with more of a click than a thump. A tiny electric whir and a sudden darkening informed her that the latch had shut on the outside, closing but maintaining its reachability from the inside in the form of an indentation that could be pressed further in to open the latch again. ¡°Alright, game. Let¡¯s see what you¡¯ve got.¡± Alex said, then booted up the VR.
Rune Mythos Exedra Mass Effect: Sirius 4 Call of Duty: Forgotten Country ATR More¡­
Alex allowed her mind to select Rune without pausing for effect. The aimless, bodiless zone that greeted the player when the capsule first started up always creeped her out a bit. Welcome to the world of Rune! a blazing intro reminded her. Now that she¡¯d played the game, the slight grunge that tinged the background art seemed so much more real than the overly-happy intro. You have no character to load. Create new? She hovered over the yes button, then was flooded by memories. Starting out, a nobody in a sea of faces where no guild had taken control, the mess that was cities, cleaning up the monsters from the so-called ¡°first invasion¡±, where the respawning players joined and spawned into the havoc of a worlds overthrown. She remembered taking the lead of a group that would later become a guild, charging through the toadish creatures now called goblins poorly equipped with weapons that they didn¡¯t understand. In the middle, her second guild after the first had split over issues with the characters of the group. Trusting them too much, getting all her items from them, then suddenly having those items shut down and being killed in random PVP for the first time over an Uncommon rune scroll. Finally, working as a mercenary. Constantly sent first, constantly expected to die for no other reason than her not being ¡°one of them¡±, and constantly proving them wrong. Building her way up in the mercenary community as the established guilds began, finally, after a year and a half, to attack the red-tier portals that would open at what seemed at first like random, And being stabbed in the back. She drifted back over to the ¡°no¡± button, ready to exit, before the memory of Kayla¡¯s quiet regard made her switch back to the ¡°Yes¡± and hit it before she could think otherwise. A flying sensation, then she pulled up in front of a rotating version of herself. ¡°Customize?¡± it asked, and she confirmed. She made a slight reduction to her chest, a slight increase in height- to get closer her last character¡¯s proportions, more than anything- and changed her facial features to be slightly more angular, finishing with lightening her lips and lightening her eyes to a much grayer blue.
Enter character name: _
Alex stared at the final window in character creation, the underscore blinking at her. Her vision drifted up as she thought, giving her a view of a skyscraper with roof ruined and the sun peeking out over a jagged skyline. ¡°Deyana¡± Good thing it picks up the spelling from my head. Alex thought, as her disembodied perception moved to the character¡¯s. Feeling coming with the change, she flexed her fingers, then arms, then rippled as she shook from head to toe, feeling out the new body. Damnit. Forgot I¡¯m thinner now. she thought as she twisted, feeling somehow gangly in spite of the relatively slight difference between the bodies. Once she felt her new body out, she turned her attention back to the window begging for her validation. The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident.
Complete the tutorial?
A veteran of the game, she almost said no before remembering the rewards for completion. Finishing the tutorial would give basic gear and a set of low-level runes, which could be sold for a gear upgrade. Or, I suppose¡­. Made into one? Alex thought to herself, selecting the tutorial. Welcome to Rune! Combat in Rune is- Just- Now you- Alex skipped the text, then a goblin appeared in front of her as well as a sword in her right hand. She swung it, activating the rune as it moved and slicing through the goblin easily, darkly glimmering edges replacing gore and blood. Not every- Armor- Harder- Difficulty- Portals are- Runes can- Combat is not the only important thing in Rune. Alex stopped skipping the tutorial text, beginning to pay attention as the system described crafting. Creating items, or Crafting, is also an important part of making your way. While basic, physical items are not difficult to come across, and in fact will be relatively inexpensive in any Runecrafter¡¯s Guild, runewritten items can cost as much or more than a house. That is not to say that every runewritten item costs a lot- while having runes written in portal dust makes them last longer and have more powerful runes, writing in a simple magic-conductive ink such as CH-8S significantly reduces the price. Alex listened to the rest of the explanation, which showed how to reverse the effects of some runes, and explained ¡°Zone of Influence,¡± the game¡¯s mechanic for modifying effects. Basically, having a ¡°modifier¡± rune within the zone of influence would change the main rune, but having two runes with a zone of influence that included each other would result in¡­ unpredictable effects. Usually detrimental. A straight shortsword appeared before her, floating for a second before a table faded into view.
Select this window when you are ready to proceed.
Alex stared for a few moments, then opened the menu that listed her acquired runes. The four classic elements were listed in both modifier form and major form, as well as a major one for ¡°edge¡± and modifier form for ¡°resistance¡±. Her hand balanced over the sword, holding the applicator, ¡°fire¡± in mind. Wait¡­ she thought, then shook her head. She drew a thin line that mirrored the edge on the sword and reached down into the grip. Then, she drew a much smaller version of the ¡°edge¡± rune along the line near the hilt, split in half. Flipping the sword over, she repeated the process. A half-circle appeared on the blade, twice the radius of the rune itself, which looked like a childish drawing of a goldfish, oval stacked on top of a diamond, with a line through it, with small perpendicular crosses on the end of those lines.
Technique: Mirrored Runes.
Thought so. Alex then proceeded to draw another edge rune further up the blade, so that the zones of influence of the runes were overlapping a very small amount. She followed it up by drawing the rune for ¡°air¡± in each of their zones of influence, then added a small slash to the cross at the end of {Air}, reversing them all to ¡°void.¡±
Technique: Reversed Runes
Quickly working, she added the Major versions of all of the elemental runes to the middle, then placed a ¡°resistance¡± modifier in each of them. She picked up the sword, quickly tapping the accept to finish the tutorial. The bright light of day greeted her as she appeared under the spawn pavilion of the regional starting town. Starting quests¡­ at the DMQ. She thought, remembering back to her first character. Ignoring the players around the spawn pavilion hawking guilds with reckless abandon, she walked down the street, turning left into a modern business office. The lobby was a mess of players, with green nameplates when focused on, and NPC¡¯s, who had the equivalent in blue. Taking a number from the ticker, Deyana sat down, placing the sword that had been at her hip across her lap. She tapped it, opening the examine window.
[Straight Short Sword] A short sword of middling quality, runewritten by an amateur writer.
Effects: Unknown
Runes: [Edge] + {Void (Reversed Air)}; [Durability] + {Fire}, {Air}, {Earth}, {Water}, {Ice}, {Void}, {Metal}, {Electricity}; [Durability]
Deyana pored over her work, looking it over until her number was called a few seconds later, together with the paper she held glowing a light green and buzzing. She walked up to the open counter with her number hanging above it as a hologram, where a bored-looking man was sitting with his head leaning on his hand. ¡°What can I help you with?¡± he asked, in a tone better recognized with words like ¡®go away¡¯. She nodded, acknowledging his visual boredom in both the active and passive forms, then spoke. ¡°I¡¯d like a low-level job, preferably one that could be completed by a single person.¡± The worker raised an eyebrow. ¡°Quite a few of those. I¡¯ll narrow it down to close¡­¡± he tapped a few keys, without looking away from her or taking his head off his hand, ¡°doable by someone below the first breakpoint,¡± More tapping. ¡°and with a long-standing reward.¡± He said, grinning slightly. Deyana nodded, fidgeting slightly and placing the number on the counter. ¡°Sounds about right. What do you have?¡± The man glanced quickly to the screen, then back up at her. ¡°Some goblins¡¯ve been passing through one of the outskirt towns. You¡¯re going to have to take a train, since the road¡¯s down. Probably fifteen minutes¡¯ travel. Place is relatively nice, been seeing an upswing since it¡¯s a U-curve zone. Assignment is to get a gob soul.¡± Deyana winced before the quest window even appeared. The U-curve, or level distribution favoring low levels, high levels, and far less in between, didn¡¯t bother her much, but souls were hard to come by. Used in high-level rituals, they were made from twenty soul shards from the same monster type- marble sized fragments themselves made of ten soul fragments, one of the uncommon drops for any mob. ¡°Hell of a job. A K to 1.5K kills. What¡¯s the reward?¡± she asked, the quest-accept window hanging in the corner of her vision. Here, the man smiled in a way that edged on creepy. ¡°Well, I assumed that¡¯s why you¡¯d take this. Runewriters¡¯ credit, two common, one uncommon scroll.¡± Deyana closed her eyes, attempting to talk herself out of it, then blew out a puff of air. ¡°You got me. How?¡± He waved the hand that had gone unmoved in the prior conversation. ¡°No guild mark on that weapon. Next!¡± Deyana shook her head, accepting the quest assignment on the way out and heading for the train station that conveniently waypointed itself on her vision, complete with a path finder. Introductions 4: An Ear to the Ground Transportation around larger cities was as easy in-game as in real life, and cost notably less. The quest marker that lightly overlaid Deyana¡¯s vision drew her to a bus stop, hovering in place for the minute-and-a-half that it took for a bus to arrive. One step onto the bus charged her inventory directly, taking the small fare out of the starter cash. Deyana found it very easy to tell the Players from the NPCs from her time as Novsha. The NPCs were clustered in small groups, talking and messing with electronics as in reality. Unlike them, Players had the brilliant wherewithal to¡­ stare into space, messing around with displays nobody else could see. Deyana snickered at the blank-eyed zombies, opting instead to sit near a group of NPCs and listen to their conversation. ¡°I heard that Greased Wheels has been doing some work a bit north of here, in Combedale.¡± ¡°Greased Wheels? Aren¡¯t they that group that¡¯s always running around like chickens with their heads cut off?¡± ¡°Probably thinking of Arrow Keys to Turn.¡± The older woman who had spoken first scoffed. ¡°Those idiots only manage to hit the damn monsters by accident, I half-guess. Wheels are the ones who are nice till they buy your house out from under you.¡± Deyana snickered again, drawing attention now that she was closer. She blushed as the woman and teenaged boy who were having a conversation looked at her. ¡°I think you¡¯re pretty accurate, there. Though they might stab you and buy the house off your children.¡± She spoke, hesitantly. The older woman hooted with laughter and the teen looked distinctly uncomfortable. ¡°Yes, yes, they might. I¡¯ve been disappointed with all those Rezzers since the new wave came out. Used to be we fought those damn monsters ourselves, kept ¡®em off our stuff, but now we all run around like hapless idiots waiting to be killed. I keep a rune sheet in my purse, and I¡¯m not going to sit by if some monster tries to get its teeth in me.¡± Deyana blinked in surprise. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you rather have someone who comes back dying instead of yourself?¡± ¡°Dying, sure. But even this old lady could throw a fireball or two.¡± The teen decided to speak up, then. ¡°Grandma, I don¡¯t think you should-¡° He was cut off quickly. ¡°I don¡¯t want to rely on a bunch of people with funky names to protect my home!¡± ¡°We just don¡¯t have-¡° He was cut off again by more ranting. Deyana, deciding that discretion was the better part of valor, excused herself from her accidental entry to the conversation by being very interested in the scenery as it went by. Highly used to the user interface of the game, she turned off everything except the notification for when her stop arrived to watch the scenery of alternate-LA go by without having to move her hands. Los Angeles was already a melting pot of a city, blending styles often with no regard for clashes even as often as on the same building. Its alternate was no better¡­ and perhaps even worse. Perfectly mundane shops that clashed now had to contend with a third, additional vector, in competition with flashy magical displays, where a person stood in a window displaying some features of whatever weapon/armor/tool/toy that the shop was pushing that particular week. She laughed internally. Midrange fighters of literal monsters, and the world they were in used them as the equivalent of a highly-paid electrical socket. The thought that the developers had obviously put into the game was incredible. She didn¡¯t think that everything was designed, but programming had its limits. That grandmother would be very two-dimensional, and might repeat the same dialogue if she spoke the same way as she had this time. Regardless, it was nice to be in a larger city and blending in, a stark contrast to the last time she had been there in the game. Recognition wasn¡¯t particularly bad, per se, but weird fanboys and girls weren¡¯t her style, and the imitators¡­ Deyana shook her head before she could get caught in a recursive loop of disdain, instead clearing her mind and watching pointlessly out the window. So caught in her reverie was she that when the notification light for her stop blinked across her vision, she actually jumped in her seat. Noticing a few others starting to move as the bus rolled to a stop, Deyana nodded to the woman, who was extolling the virtues of defending oneself from monsters to the exasperated teen sitting next to her. Entertaining though it was, Deyana had higher priorities. Stepping off the bus was a short-lived experience as she jostled with the best of them down the just-barely-too-small hallway in the middle of the public transport. Stepping onto the train platform, however, was an entirely seperate experience, and as she did so, the distinction that the developers had made between realism and entertainment reared it''s head. Her consciousness seemed to disconnect from her body as she walked on with her destination set, and she was glad to see as a minigame window popped up. The minigames didn''t have the time dilation of normal play, but an hour and a half of minigames didn''t always appeal to those who had three-hour train rides to their destination, usually one where they hadn''t yet triggered the teleport circle in each town hall. Knowing what she did about the game''s combat, she decided that the "Rune Puzzle" would be her best bet- set on Hard difficulty, the tasks it posed were almost exactly equivalent to the task of creating a real runic item. As the tests flashed by, Deyana started to see why the number of crafters stayed as low as it did. Her first attempts went completely fine, but it was when the rate began to pick up and the runes required started to react before the piece was done that her brain started to hurt. Internal magical "wiring" started to draw itself in her head even as she watched the technically-seperate runes react on the trial work. Finally, during the middle of a massively complicated work involving the slotting of elemental runes into a partially complete piece, the notification that she had arrived at her destination asked her if she wanted to continue or save it for later. It was an easy decision- she might be planning on crafting, but she wasn''t quite ready to watch arcane symbols dance behind her eyes as she slept. The autopilot released her body to the platform, and Deyana made a snap decision as to where she would go. Turning left, she walked to the city''s main street, then walked two blocks north to the City Hall. A tall monument stood behind a glowing circle, and Deyana was glad to walk to the edge of that circle, touching the outside to set her respawn point. While a tutorial dialog popped up again, she ignored what would have been an explanation of one of the most-used features in the game. Instead, she opened her quest window. Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original.
[Goblins on the Fringes.] [Every once in a while, the Builder''s Guild has to renew the protections on a city. To do this, they must use {Constructed Soul}s of the type of monster they want to keep out. {Constructed Soul}s are made of twenty {Soul Shard}s, which are made of ten {Soul Fragment}s. You have been contracted to return a {Constructed Soul: Goblin} to the Builder''s Guild by the City Hall in Dunlap. Current Incursions- Large, {Northeast} Huge, {North} Small, {West}]
Mentally selecting Northeast, her mental navigator once again stepped in like a map-reading-eye-dog, placing another marker in her vision. Now that she was in a smaller city, however, the bus stop allowed her to select a destination and teleport rather than making her wait though a drive. While starting cities had that feature disabled for realism, as one got further from newbie-friendly zones, gaming expectations and convenience became the design style. Or at least, Deyana preferred to think of it that way. It was entirely possible that the designers had just gotten lazy. Regardless, she was glad for the faster movement as she walked away from the stop near a shopping center that she had landed in. The short walk let her practice swinging the weapon, getting the feel for the more stereotypical weapon than her previous character had wielded. Confidently, she walked forward into the construction site populated with the groups of the green buggers that she was being sent to remove from existence until they yielded control of their sweet, sweet loot. When the first of the Goblins aggro''d on to her, Deyana took a step back and prepared to receive the small idiot''s charge. It''s health bar faded into existence as it got within ten feet of her, yelling it''s little heart out. Stepping forward, she parried the blow out of the way, kicking the goblin to the side in the process, then funneled power into her sword. A grin appeared on her face for all of a quarter second before she fell to the ground, coughing and choking. Her stomach felt like it was trying to rip itself down her arm, preventing her from doing so much as thinking. Blonde hair falling down about her face, she almost didn''t notice as the Goblin swung again, easily removing a third of her health in a single swing. As the second hit, Deyana laughed in her head, even in thoughts choked by the pain. Dying like a chump- at least the first combat experience on this character matched the one from her previous. The yell seemed to come from a mile away, and the window that popped up in front of her face was disregarded in favor of rolling over to her back. As the out-of-combat regen kicked in, however, Deyana turned to face the music. Still lying in the construction site, she looked around for her savior, who turned out to be a guy holding on to what was obviously a basic bow. "Are you alright?" he asked, extending an arm as he drew close. Not one to ignore an obvious attempt at aid, but still quite annoyed, Deyana took the hand for a very short boost onto her feet, grabbing up the sword that had fallen on the ground. "Fine, thanks," she said, the dry tone of her internal monologue creeping into speech. She winced. "Got overconfident''s all." The guy''s eyes drifted up to above her head, then back down to her. "I''ll say. These are level ten goblins. How do you expect to beat them solo at level two?" Deyana found it difficult to contain the self-deprecating smirk that climbed onto her face. "I dinged from that. But level... isn''t exactly my issue. Well, it''s part of it." She held her sword out, linking the item description to it in her head, allowing him to see that statistics on it, specifically the one she hadn''t paid any attention to on her other character for almost a year. "That thing drains twenty mana per second!" the player said, incredulously. "You must be creating a new character." he said, rationalizing quickly. Deyana nodded to confirm. "You knowing that means I¡¯d bet you are too. Got a name?" She asked, pointing above her own to the publicly visible copy of her own, as opposed to the level alone floating above his. "Oh. Don." He replied, the name filling itself out above his head (replete with an underscore and assorted numbers following it- specifically Don_1242) as the player extended a hand. "You know, if you''re going to go into a level grind, we may as well team up. I¡¯m planning on staying here till twelve or so.¡± ¡°I¡¯m less level-grinding, more just grinding. Picked up a Constructed-soul Quest.¡± ¡°Nice. I¡¯m going to be here for a while regardless, so do you want to party up?¡± Don asked, his question corresponding with the ding of a confirmation menu popping up in her vision. Deyana accepted the party invitation easily- she couldn¡¯t see a disadvantage in having the beginnings of a safety net if she screwed up again. Once Don¡¯s face appeared in the upper left-hand corner of her vision, along with red, green and blue bars to match the three arranged on the outside of her vision¨C Red at the top, green and blue on the right-hand side, she nodded at her new ally. ¡°I figure you want me to go out and aggro a couple so you can shoot them down?¡± she said, referencing his ranged weaponry and her distinct lack thereof. ¡°Safest option,¡± Don answered amicably, ¡°If I shoot them first we might get more than one or two and have attack aggro rather than proximity.¡± Nodding again, Deyana began walking into the abandoned construction site of relatively flat dirt strewn with rocks and head-high mounds. Watching carefully, she edged around the range of a pack of four goblins to her right and turned left around one of the rocky cones to get closer to a group of three that wasn¡¯t looking her way. Pausing in her tracks, she sent a message off to Don through Party Chat. ¡°What¡¯s the World Melee-Kill Refund formula again?¡± ¡°Half the mob¡¯s level but not exceeding a third of your max. Why?¡± ¡°Some ninety percent of my combat was raids. Thinking about drawing with an assassination.¡± ¡°Make sure to get back around that pillar quick if you do, I¡¯m blocked out of LOS.¡± Deyana refocused in front of her, mapping out a path to the goblins that would stay on dirt and avoid being seen too early. Three steps forward¡­ her internal monologue began, as she carried out the motions. Jump a little bit diagonally to the left, step-step¨C She swung her sword down, a horrifying crackle marking it turning on even as it encountered her target¡¯s neck and went through it like a lightsaber through wet toilet paper. The two nearby goblins turned immediately, a couple of health bars flashing into existence. Technically, three of them, but while the two above the angry faces were green, the one above their unfortunate companion was a rapidly-depleting red. Sword completely through the first of the monsters, the crackling ceased while Deyana jumped backwards, staying on the balls of her feet and avoiding tripping on the rocks behind her, then she slightly bent the right leg that she had landed on, using the compression to jump to her left and bringing her fully around the mound, into Don¡¯s line of sight. A quick glance over her shoulder confirmed the layout behind her, and she quickly stepped there while turning to face the pursuers, giving Don a clear shot to the one who had taken the inner track around the mound. Her ranged support was obviously experienced, since the arrow that took the goblin¡¯s head must have been fired while she was still technically in the way. Instead of taking the safe option and waiting for the higher-leveled player to reload while distracting the relatively short green one, Deyana stepped in to the suicidal charge and blocked the swing of the rusty blade with the flat of her own. Cringing internally when she was thrown off balance and dealt non-negligible damage by the magically-enhanced swing, she let the glancing blow drop her into a crouch, then swept her leg through the mob¡¯s badly positioned ones. It fell down, and Deyana stood back up to deliver a brutal finisher to the Goblin¡¯s neck with the reignited runic blade she held. The internal tearing feeling started and stopped almost simultaneously, running out of mana and having it partially refilled in under a quarter of a second as she removed her final opponent from the confrontation. Wincing as she turned slowly to face her party member as she heard the distinctive ding of another level, announcing the increases in her base stats to almost useable levels. He stared back at her, one eyebrow raised and a mocking grin on his face. ¡°I¡¯m impressed. You¡¯ve managed to not die once more.¡± Introductions 5: Select Deyana¡¯s incredulous look was countered quickly by Don¡¯s laughter. When he finally recovered enough to talk, he explained, ¡°I knew you were confident, but that still gets most people your level killed.¡± She tilted her head to the side as the post-combat windows started to appear. ¡°Fair, I suppose.¡±
Combat ended! +235 Experience, +24 Credits [Goblin Soul Fragment] Obtained. (1/200)
Level Up! (x4) HP: 22 (+8) Mana: 30 (+20) Stamina: 11(+4)
Don spoke after a short pause where his eyes were obviously scanning in front of him. ¡°When you said you were a raider I was a bit worried that I¡¯d be staring down two of the buggers running at me after violently removing you from the premises. Gratz on the levels, by the way.¡± ¡°I mean, if you¡¯re just going to stand around and let things hit you, you deserve to be killed even if you do usually have backup and someone standing by to heal you when you get hit like a moron.¡± Deyana responded, getting up and looking around. ¡°I got the first of the frags, too.¡± Don snorted. ¡°You¡¯re going to be a while on those. What kind of raider were you, that you actually know that?¡± Deyana weighed her response carefully, not wanting to give away that she wasn¡¯t actually a member of any of the guilds, since that would peg her for one of only a very few unaffiliateds on the front. ¡°The last portal raid I did was a red-orange.¡± Don¡¯s appreciative whistle was a little confusing, until he responded, ¡°I knew a couple of people in those guilds. Tough sons a¡¯ bitches. What role did you play?¡± ¡°Absorb-based revenge tank?¡± Deyana said, the intonation in her voice making the wording of the statement sound like a question. ¡°Never really did formal roles.¡± Don looked at her, then shrugged. ¡°Fair enough, at those levels. Anyone who couldn¡¯t hold their own pretty much anywhere would be screwed, from what I hear of the linebreaking stuff there. On to the next?¡± ¡°On to the next.¡± Deyana confirmed, then walked towards a group of four goblins out in the open. ¡°When they aggro on me, shoot one down to draw a couple your way, then I¡¯ll try to cut in.¡± She got about fifty feet from them before the first one responded, a grunt coming out of its mouth followed by some linguistic-sounding noises, then the entire group charged the lone human walking at them. With four this time and no obstacle to dodge around, Deyana started stepping quickly backwards, facing the group and moving towards Don only slightly slower than the shorter goblins. When they had closed the majority of the distance, she stopped, setting her feet to defend and waiting for her ranged support. Her half-second of patience was rewarded when a slightly repositioned Don shot the goblin to her far left, making the two that were to their downed comrade redirect their focus towards revenge. As those two struck out at her in passing, the third rushed her while guarding with his makeshift blade, attempting to redirect her focus. A quick, uncharged strike to the blade of the one guarding with her superior strength (anyone who said that size doesn¡¯t matter has obviously never been in a fight) broke his stance long enough for her to turn and jab one of the ones going for Don in the back of the unprotected neck, killing it as she charged the blade. Deyana turned back to the one that had rushed her, now attempting to hit her as the other continued to run for the archer. Choosing to trust him, she stepped forward and blocked the goblin¡¯s shortsword with her own, the rusty blade ringing off of the flat of her own. Two steps brought her inside even the shorter humanoid¡¯s reach, and hitting him with her knee knocked him backwards and onto the ground with visible force. A stomp on his chest kept him down for the second it took her to bring her blade down upon his neck, activating it once more. Quickly turning to Don, she saw that he¡¯d already taken down his own opponent some five feet from himself with an arrow lying in the ground behind it.
Combat ended! +300 Experience, +30 Credits
Level Up! (x2) HP: 24 (+2) Mana: 35 (+5) Stamina: 12 (+1)
Deyana grinned as she walked back to her fire support¡¯s position. ¡°You think you could handle a couple more than that?¡± she asked, winking. ¡°I¡¯ve got probably two-kay of these to kill, and if we change to the higher-level invasion once we get some stuff here¡­¡± she trailed off, letting him fill in the rest. ¡°Yeah, I got you. Lots of power-levelling opportunities. I¡¯ll stick it out.¡± He paused. ¡°I dinged ten, too. Splitting the regen two to one mana to stamina.¡± The regen he was mentioning was one of the step-style rewards of levelling. Instead of implementing a system where players slowly gained power of every type as they levelled, the developers had decided to place milestones at certain levels that sharply increased the combat effectiveness of the player. Level ten, the first of these, marked what some people referred to as the ¡°class selection¡±, because it marked where the player selected where to put three points of regeneration- mana, stamina, or health- that would define the user¡¯s playstyle. If you spot this tale on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. ¡°So you¡¯re staying a ranged class?¡± Deyana asked. His placing of two of the points into mana regeneration would allow him to continue to fight and deal damage over a period of time, and the stamina would allow him to continue to move, but not putting any points into health would mean that any damage he took would remain until after combat was done. Don shrugged. ¡°Tried and true. Nobody blames the DD.¡± ¡°Fair enough,¡± Deyana responded, ¡°Unless you try to do anything but damage.¡± Don laughed. ¡°That¡¯s why I don¡¯t.¡± Now that Deyana was only slightly, instead of extremely, underlevelled for the area, she found the simplicity of combat cathartic. Simple motions that tricked the simple AI of the goblins, and the pure and simple DPS race that epitomizes early-game combat in any leveling system. It was easy, a matter of her weapon being strong enough to one-shot the enemy more than any residual skill. Drawing groups of four to six with Don was entertaining enough, but also simple enough that they were talking more than focusing on the fight. She was actually surprised, when she found out that his story was almost a mirror of her own, though with something else as the inciter. He¡¯d been a moderately-long-term member of Greased Wheels before a change in the guard had had them repeatedly kill his character for some of the more powerful weapons and armor he¡¯d had made by their resident crafter, on the basis that he objected to the increasing frequency of PK within the guild. Deyana tried to hide her reactions when he told the story. Apparently, this new character was his attempt to get into another of the big guilds. While their recruitment had required levels, experience on the outward-pushing wave that characterized the current high levelled players was worth more than a few levels to recruitment. Though she was loath to tell what the last character name she¡¯s used was, she also understood that not speaking at all would be rude, and instead decided to tell him some of what she¡¯d seen recently, including some of the bigger raids she¡¯d been a part of. ¡°Yeah, I know some of them stream while they do it, but it¡¯s not something most guilds do when they have mercenary-types with them. They like to take advantage of the radio silence to kill people before they have to pay them.¡± Don laughed at that, some of his own stories having corroborated that it happened. ¡°It¡¯s honestly a shame. Those mercenary people at the front have to be twice as good as anyone else, and yet they get fucked over by the guild leaders? Where¡¯s the justice?¡± Deyana blushed a little bit. ¡°I¡¯m sure they care more about their own guilds than any justice. It¡¯s not like players put up statues of her.¡± He laughed again. ¡°Yeah, they¡¯d much prefer to put up statues of Greed.¡± Some half-hour of combat later, choosing to battle the larger groups as Deyana became more able to fight them, she finally dinged ten to Don¡¯s twelve. With the window sitting in front of her, she knew she had a choice. Go with the style that she found most entertaining, forsaking the ability to fit into most parties¡­ or place them in a generalist manner, like she would be expected to in most raids. Quickly, she glanced over to her temporary partner, watching him absorb himself in chat while she visibly stared at windows. Finally, she decided to go back into that build that had served her so well for levelling before, even if it was something that most guilds thought of as stupid. One point in health, two points in mana. Each point of regeneration would give her one percent of her total capacity back every second. This setup was often called an ¡°assassin¡± build, because not having any points in stamina would require the user to either get out of combat quickly, to avoid using all of their stamina, or stop moving and hide. Of course, that wasn¡¯t what she¡¯d actually do, but until she hit level twenty-five, that is what the build would look like. With their new experience totals, each group they pulled would no longer be a full level, so she was itching to move to the larger area, where they would likely be joining a PUR, or pick-up raid. Not the best environment for anything difficult, but extremely useful for quick leveling in high-density areas. ¡°You think we¡¯re ready to move on?¡± she asked her erstwhile ally. ¡°Yeah. Want to stop in and pick something else up for ranged combat?¡± ¡°Eh. I¡¯m set up one-two-zero. Ranged isn¡¯t really my thing.¡± She responded, waving a hand in the air flippantly. Don¡¯s stare was incredulous. ¡°You sure you were on the front as an assassin?¡± he asked, though he did begin to walk towards the bus stop. ¡°That¡¯s a PvP spec.¡± Deyana thought about how she was going to word her response. ¡°Usually, maybe. But I¡¯m going to take the twenty-five trade skill health to stamina exclusive.¡± ¡°Why?¡± ¡°It¡¯s what I¡¯m used to, for one,¡± she said, a little bit hurt that he seemed so against it. ¡°But it¡¯s also really good in longer, raid and large-party fights.¡± He shook his head at that, like trying to clear the ridiculous out of his ears. ¡°So you¡¯re like, an assassin, but with sustain. So not an assassin at all.¡± ¡°Exactly!¡± she responded, grinning. The cheer in her voice wasn¡¯t entirely felt, but it was still entertaining to inject it. ¡°I knew you¡¯d pick it up.¡± They reached the transport point a few seconds later, and they agreed to meet back in the town square in an hour without dissolving the party. Don said that the reason he needed so long was to check which of the early-levelled players were any good at runecrafting. She didn¡¯t argue the point, because it allowed her the time to buy some extra runes from around the town.
Now in the raucous player-filled market, the surety that Deyana had felt at the new course of action was dwindling. It felt like someone had taken the worst Earth-market and decided to bring it up to eleven, though certain videos she¡¯d seen in the past told her that there was no way that was the case. Even if the players were packed in so tightly that it was possible to see the occasional lag-artifact as people moved around. The noise was almost overpowering, but she still managed to slip through enough of the crowd near the front, selling pieces of armor and weapons from new crafters. Guns, swords, and armor, of the medieval, renaissance, and modern varieties, all stewed together in anachronism soup. It was in the middle of reminiscing about the last thing she had bought in a market like this¨C that set of armor that was both intensely effective in PvE and had let her down the instant PvP came into the equation¨C that she had an idea. Turning back, Deyana slipped past a few people arguing about the effectiveness of some weapon or another, and found one of the levelling fighters who had said something that tickled at her memory. ¡°You said you have runes for sale?¡± she asked, looking up at him. It was a pain, but she had to be rather closer than usual to him for him to hear over the din of the player-market. He looked down quickly, before taking a half step back and leaning on his back foot, arms crossed. ¡°Yeah, I picked up a ¡®Form¡¯ Major rune, and some other minor stuff. I don¡¯t do crafting so¡­¡± She paused for a moment before trying to explain what she wanted. ¡°Did you happen to pick up a ¡®Shape¡¯ minor? Maybe a distance applicator?¡± ¡°No applicator, but I did get a ¡®Shape: Cylinder¡¯. You good for it? Seventy-five each.¡± ¡°You really want to wait in here for another crafter out to buy commons? I¡¯ll do seventy for the major, fifty of the minor.¡± She replied, staring him in the eyes. He glanced away slightly, then turned back to her. ¡°You look like you¡¯ve got a plan. What for?¡± She weighed the pros and cons of telling him, then decided it would just be easier to say. ¡°I¡¯m going to buy a durability minor from someone, then use Form, modified by linked durability, Air, and Shape: Cylinder set to high-radius low-height with a down-displacement, and set it on a set of Major-Durability boots or shoes, I haven¡¯t decided yet.¡± He stared at her. ¡°In simple terms. I hit things.¡± She smiled, aware that the tech-talk was more a matter of figuring it out herself than any attempt at communication. ¡°Run-on-air boots.¡± He appeared to think for a second. ¡°Friend me, I¡¯ll go find you that durability and displacement.¡± Deyana sent the friend request to him reflexively, even as she spoke. ¡°What?¡± ¡°Make two of ¡®em and you¡¯ll get the runes free. That sort of thing would cost about two hundred, but you need my stuff. Since you tried to talk me down, I¡¯d bet you have¡­ maybe one-seventy?¡± ¡°One-sixty. They¡¯d probably be a bit under two, these won¡¯t be the type you can just leave running, you¡¯ll have to explicitly turn the Form set on and off.¡± Her customer¡¯s nameplate filled her in as to his name when he accepted the friend request, telling her that she was speaking to¡­ Henry Meta. ¡°Nice name, by the way.¡± ¡°Thanks. I¡¯m levelling another character for a ranged build, what with all the changes with the new portals. Here, take these, let me hold on to a hundred.¡± In front of her, a trade window opened, the two runes that they had discussed popping into it less than a second later. Matching the offer on her side only took a quick glance and a thought, and almost as soon as all the items were visible, the window disappeared. Another flick of the eyes confirmed the two scrolls in her inventory before she went to look for this city¡¯s Runewriters¡¯ Guild. Pileup 1: Broke The building itself was easy enough to find, but the far larger problems was actually getting in. Given the massive disparity between the number of fighters over crafters, her newbie gear, and generally unaffiliated status, Deyana found herself barely able to continue moving between a press of bodies yelling out all the benefits of joining their various guilds. As she moved through them, however, she did find herself unexpectedly grateful for the fact that with so many of them making offers, none of them would attempt to kidnap her. Even if one of them tried to pull her away, one of the others would call the police on them, even if it would only be to prevent some other guild from gaining the extra crafter. They also, luckily enough, kept each other distracted for long enough that she was able to slip by, walking through the door to the Runewriter¡¯s Guild only slightly traumatized instead of extremely so. The woman at the front fairly quickly glanced up, then hit a button on her desk. From behind her, Deyana heard a click, and a quick glance behind confirmed that the door was indeed locked now. ¡°I see you made it past the vultures,¡± she sighed, ¡°It¡¯s a damn shame more people don¡¯t join us, but the mysteries of magic do not appeal to all, I suppose. And even those it does appeal to must go through that, of course.¡± The woman nodded at the door behind Deyana. ¡°Let¡¯s get you registered.¡± Deciding not to question how the NPC knew her registration status, given that on Novsha she¡¯d had to specifically ask for registration, she instead just nodded and followed the woman to a small alcove of the front room. When they were both seated, the woman in front of a small terminal and her on the other side of the banker-like setup, she asked, ¡°What do you need to know, again?¡± ¡°Name, Runes, Level, Specialization, if you¡¯ve got one, which¡­¡± she glanced over Deyana¡¯s new player gear, ¡°You don¡¯t. And techniques.¡± ¡°Deyana; level ten; Majors, Eight elements, [Edge], [Durability], [Form]; Minors are the Elements again, and {Shape: Cylinder.}¡± She paused. ¡°And I¡¯m having a friend bring me Minor {Durability} within the hour.¡± The woman nodded. ¡°I¡¯ll mark those down, to make this quick. Any techniques?¡± ¡°Mirrored Runes and Reversed Runes. I feel like I¡¯m forgetting one of the basic ones, though¡­¡± ¡°Link Runes. There¡¯ll be a primer on it in the room.¡± She shook her head, ¡°You¡¯ll be fine. Mirrored and Reversed are harder, honestly. Much easier for something to go wrong and melt your whole project.¡± Typing as she spoke, the woman finished and swapped to using the mouse for a few seconds before abruptly standing up and sticking her hand out. ¡°Welcome to the Runewriter¡¯s Guild, Deyana. I¡¯ll set you up for a room, but you can come up to me if you have any questions. Grainne, by the way. I¡¯m the day manager for this branch, but it¡¯s small enough that I¡¯m usually the only one in.¡± Deyana took the offered hand, shaking it. ¡°Nice to meet you. Where do I get the card?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll bring it to you. Room five¡¯ll be open by the time you get there.¡± Thanking the woman, Deyana began to walk down the hallway she was pointed to, checking the labels on the rooms absentmindedly while trying to space out how she would go about fitting the runes she had to make the boots. She could easily rely on the durability of the shoes themselves to be enough for many levels, because true elemental casters wouldn¡¯t show up until level fifty, but the air cylinder itself would be difficult to control. Stacking too many or too large durability runes would increase the mana cost beyond what would be valuable, but too little and she¡¯d go crashing through it, to say nothing of the heavier Henry. Resigning herself to the pain of just testing it, she opened the door to the room and was glad to find it mostly unchanged from the last time she¡¯d been in one. It was basically a large, white space with a single large table in the middle, with a circle inscribed in the corner and a tablet computer built into the wall near it. On the table was a small booklet that she picked up, with an explanation on Link Runes. Once she read the primer, though, she was mostly just exasperated with herself. She¡¯d used link runes before, specifically on her dagger bracelet. They essentially functioned to either tie rune groups together (either on a single item, or across multiple) with simple circles and lines. A double circle around a unique design would allow for the wireless transfer of mana, though exponentially more lossy as the range got larger, and the Guild even had a request feature for a unique stamp, accessible only to people she allowed to have it and herself. Putting the book down, she went over to the tablet. It had a list of items on it, and a few short searches later she was forty credits lighter but had her first unique stamp, two pairs of shoes, and a stack of test papers sitting in the circle on the floor. The double circle on the floor. With a white panel covering the center section. Deyana sighed. She had absolutely no idea how many of these she¡¯d missed, but she was beginning to suspect they were everywhere, and that that ubiquity had somehow erased them from her memory. Or perhaps she¡¯d just never paid enough attention to her surroundings, caught up in all the fighting as she had been. The first step, though, was to begin testing. It only took a few moments to open her inventory, pulling out the rune scrolls she¡¯d picked up. Shape: Cylinder was first, and she unrolled the scroll on the table. Shaped like an oblong rectangle, its short edges cut off and replaced with half-circles, it was, like most basic runes, a fairly simple construction. Listed to the side of the diagram were smaller, partial images of the rune, breaking down what each section of it controlled. The length of the base rectangle, the straight lines in the image, controlled the height, at a 1-to-1 scale; with the radius of the half-circles affecting the radius of the cylinder, at a 1-to-2. Fairly quickly, Deyana copied the simple shape to one of the papers, earning herself a notification in the process.
Rune Learned {Shape: Cylinder} Parameters: Radius, Height. Runes until next advancement: 4
After the notification appeared, the scroll the rune had been originally written on flashed with red light, leaving it blank. As an experiment, she ran her mana through the rune on the paper, but was unsurprised when no effect appeared beyond the slow consumption of her mana. Taking out the [Form] scroll, she repeated the process. This one was only slightly more complex than the last; essentially an isosceles triangle, one of its longer, equal sides having a single line perpendicular to its midpoint. On each of the angles there were circles with small gaps in them that the text on the side told here were rotational controls, dealing with perpendicular rotational axes. The length of the piece sticking out controlled the face-aligned displacement, so lengthening it would pull the cylinder it created out of the surface it was a part of. Support the author by searching for the original publication of this novel. Copying it to the paper rewarded her with another notification that she quickly swept aside.
Rune Learned [Form] Parameters: X Rotation, Y Rotation, Z Rotation, Projection Distance Runes until next advancement: 3
This time, after the orange flash cleared the rune from the sheet, she was left with a mostly-transparent overlay in her vision, showing a circle around where she had laid out the new rune. Luckily, though it had of course been the plan, the shape rune was within it. Placing her hand on the new shape, she once again put mana into it. Immediately, a cylinder sprung into being around her hand, though strangely off-kilter, based on where she¡¯d placed the gaps in the triangles. The one on the small angle didn¡¯t particularly matter, given that the axis it rotated around was a circle, but the other two had caused the disk to be at somewhat of an angle. A quick glance at her menus revealed where the default position was, and she felt the system¡¯s nudging hand help her as she realigned the circles on a new copy of the rune on a new paper. That done, she activated the new copy, checking a few things, like making sure that moving the cylinder rune relative to the Form rune wouldn¡¯t affect the final orientation, which it didn¡¯t. From there, it was relatively easy to put in the air rune, creating a small, slightly viscous bubble of air around her hand. When she tried picking it up, the paper clung to her hand slightly. It wasn¡¯t enough to swing her hand at full speed, but it mostly kept the paper attached for the low, low price of one mana per five seconds. She knew that most of the real price would come from the durability rune, but was still glad to see the base price this low. Given that Henry wasn¡¯t back yet, she also got to play with a few other ideas bouncing around in her head, starting with costing out the various elemental runes she had at her disposal. It was in the middle of that experimentation that a sudden voice coming from the panel on the wall that she¡¯d ordered from resulted in blasting herself in the face with a cloud of steam, lowering her health by a few points. ¡°Deyana, would you like me to let a ¡®Henry¡¯ into your area? He says you were waiting for him.¡± She had a moment of annoyance, wondering why he hadn¡¯t just sent her a message through the Friend interface, but a glance at it made her cringe slightly. He had. Three times. She walked over to the panel, pressing the voice button. ¡°Yes, absolutely. Send him through.¡± She was glad for the extra time that his walking gave her to formulate an apology, because it managed to keep her from rambling as she opened the door for him. ¡°Hey! Sorry I didn¡¯t see your messages, I got a little absorbed with the runes.¡± He nodded to her, once. ¡°Makes sense. I¡¯ve got some Runewriter friends and it ain¡¯t exactly rare. I¡¯ve got your durability. Guy insisted on bundling it with a {Delay}, so you¡¯ll get that too.¡± She smiled, a little pained. ¡°I don¡¯t know what else I¡¯d have for you with the credits I¨C¡± He cut her off with a trade popup, showing both of the runes. ¡°Don¡¯t bother,¡± he said, ¡°I got it cheap. Just give me a deal on your prices later, yeah?¡± She nodded, accepting the trade and walking over to the table. Because he was there, she focused in on learning the rune, copying it as quickly as she could while still maintaining accuracy. This one was fairly simple, the outline of a simplified kite shield with a line going through it vertically.
Rune Learned {Durability} Parameters: Base, Multiplier Runes until next advancement: 2
The size of it was directly related to its base effect, linearly increasing the price as well as the durability, but the vertical line was slightly different. It multiplied the base durability, but scaled the price of the rune to run with the gamma function. Where an effect 10 rune would be relatively inexpensive with a 5-base, 2-multiplier, a 2-base 5-multiplier would be significantly smaller, but also about twenty-four times more expensive to run. Sometimes the space gain was worth the price, but it usually wasn¡¯t. Using her air paper from before, she lengthened the displacement slightly, then took her best guess as to the durability before placing the paper on the floor. ¡°Can you step on this real quick for me?¡± Deyana asked, gesturing in the air above the paper. Henry quickly nodded, then placed one foot above the paper, pressing it down after he saw her activate it. His foot obviously met resistance, but as he put more weight on it, his foot began to slowly sink through the swirling air. ¡°Thirty percent, maybe?¡± Henry said, and Deyana nodded, taking the paper back to the workbench. While she couldn¡¯t erase, it was a simple matter to copy over the set of runes, increasing the size of the durability rune to match his guess. From there it was a quick process to confirm that he was right, tested by having him stand on the single foot on top of the newly generated surface, then jump off. There was a little bit of give with the jump, but given that the final product wouldn¡¯t leave the surface floating statically in the air, they decided that that would be alright. With the main usage group decided, Deyana copied the runes over to a set of boots bought from the terminal, then added a similar major-Durability group to the one she had on her sword. Done, at that point, she signed the sole of the left one, then handed them to Henry, popping up a trade window as she did. ¡°And, as promised, one set of run-on-air boots. Thanks for the help.¡± She said, accepting the trade. A moment later, she saw fifty credits pop into the window, then, before she could react, the window quickly closed as Henry accepted it. ¡°Nah, thank you. It mighta been a bit more expensive, but you also did it quick instead of giving me to the guild apprentice queue.¡± ¡°You also didn¡¯t get a guild¡¯s guarantee on it,¡± she pointed out. ¡°But I did literally watch you put ¡®em together. I know what I¡¯m getting.¡± With a small wave, Henry left the room, closing the door behind him. Deyana¡¯s eyes locked on the door for a few seconds after he left, before she went back to the table to learn the new rune.
Rune Learned {Delay} Parameters: Time Displacement, Mana storage Runes until next advancement: 1
This one was a set of two straight lines, connected at the base, and an arc that went around the outside of them. The length of the arc determined the length of the delay, with a full circle being ten seconds. It was possible to add durations longer than that by drawing a full circle within the confines of the original arc and centered on the same point, but only up to sixty seconds¡¯ worth of time. Meanwhile, the mana storage was determined by the length of the lines. She wasn¡¯t sure she¡¯d be using it, but the rune was incredibly useful for making ranged weapons so she didn¡¯t write it off out of hand. With the rune learned, though, she went back to testing a little bit with her runes, adding a delay of five seconds with enough mana to last ten to the first set she¡¯d had Henry test. While it hadn¡¯t been enough for him, she was significantly lighter than he was, so she expected it might be enough. Sure enough, she found her weight supported by the cylinder that sprung into being above the ground, and a quick bounce off of it told her that it would hold even as she actively used it. For a moment, she thought about decreasing it even further so as not to waste even a little bit of mana, but she eventually decided that it was better to have that safety margin. From there, she began writing the new runes onto a quickly-acquired pair of boots. With the left one finished and the right one mostly complete, she was beginning to be excited about testing them out when a huge crashing sound came from the ceiling above her suddenly pulled her attention away, and only the years of training to avoid falling rocks and other various deadly objects saved her as it partially collapsed. Standing in the middle of the destruction, glancing around as if slightly confused, she saw a player she recognized. It was LJay, from that group that she¡¯d run the last portal with. She tried to get out the door, but before she could, he jogged over to her. ¡°The chest¡¯s a bit big, but you managed the aesthetic pretty well. B+, A-.¡± he said, with the affected air of a high-class wine critic. Deyana gaped. ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°Novsha impersonator, yeah? You¡¯ve gotten way closer to the height than most people do, but your uh¡­ chest area¡­ is a bit on the larger side for one of you.¡± ¡°Fuck you, dude, it¡¯s not like I remembered what changed about my default!¡± she snapped, then her eyes went wide. She hadn¡¯t meant to give him as much information as she had. Getting killed again now would seriously set her behind. Surprisingly, LJay just looked thoughtful. ¡°Hey, what was the last boss Novsha fought yesterday?¡± The last moments with the character flashed in front of her again. He¡¯d been there for that travesty, so she wasn¡¯t sure why he was asking. Hesitantly, she answered. ¡°A Giant Moderate Ogre. Why?¡± ¡°Kay cool.¡± A trade window opened up between them, and a rune scroll appeared there while a goofy grin appeared on LJay¡¯s face. ¡°I believe this is yours, then.¡± Her eyes tried to get wider, again, but with the shock from the whole encounter still very much present, it was a tall order. She swallowed. In the trade window was the whole stupid reason she even had this character in the first place. |Rune Scroll: Merge|. She didn¡¯t even know what the bars on the side meant. Usually they distinguished whether the rune was major or minor, but this one was not either of the bracket types used for that distinction. ¡°How the fuck do you have it?¡± Deyana asked, leaving the trade window open. ¡°I took it,¡± he said, glibly. ¡°Was gonna try to find Novsha and give her it back, so here we are. Honestly, expected it to take longer.¡± ¡°Again, excuse me? It¡¯s not like The Alliance is just gonna let you walk out with this thing.¡± He pointed at the caved-in ceiling. ¡°Well, they aren¡¯t. Which reminds me, accept that so we can both run. And add me to your friends list. Me or Geria¡¯s gonna help you with the followup when we get free of the chasers, so we need to be able to find you.¡± Deyana swallowed. She¡¯d lost this before because she didn¡¯t think she¡¯d need to fight for it, then lost it permanently because she didn¡¯t want to make the effort to get it back, but¡­ she was getting a third chance her. And, staring into LJay¡¯s eyes, she finally decided that she¡¯d at least give it a shot, this time. One more shot at this whole stupid thing. She accepted the trade, then sent the friend request. ¡°You know what?¡± she screwed her eyes shut for a second, feeling tears try to form inside her eyelids, but she opened them before they could manifest. ¡°I¡¯ll give it a shot.¡± Pileup 2: The Crowd She¡¯d said she was going to give it a shot, but that didn¡¯t mean that the next little while was going to be easy, either. While nobody outside of LJay and the NPC up front had really had any reason to keep track of her, that didn¡¯t mean that she could just log out and be safe, either. With what she knew of The Alliance, given that it was one of the bigger guilds out there, there was a good chance that any attempt she made to log out would land her in a pile of shit when they closed sown the area and hired the NPC police to keep track of anyone leaving the area. Deyana was nowhere near the completion of her quest, but it wouldn¡¯t be difficult to do it elsewhere, then send it in. The turn-in would have to be at the location here, but if she was coming in after a lock-down they wouldn¡¯t necessarily be suspicious of her¨C and if it were particularly bad, she could pay an NPC to turn it in for her, then collect the rewards at a different DMQ location. She had to get out of this building before they managed to encircle it, though, so that was the first priority. Second, actually, because she did stop to complete the second of the boots she¡¯s been making, swapping out her shoes with practiced speed. Less than two minutes later, she gathered up everything that was still on the tables into her inventory, then took off out the door. This whole thing was completely dependent on LJay managing to pull them away, but she could only be so concerned about that. He¡¯d either manage it or he wouldn¡¯t. She was already lucky that The Alliance tended to keep their reserves far enough back that they couldn¡¯t sweep the room she¡¯d been in immediately following LJay¡¯s entry into the room, and probably their front line as well. Not that she would have stayed to finish her work if they didn¡¯t, but it was nice to be able to do that. It was a good thing that the sword she¡¯d made earlier would last her much longer, at least. Once she¡¯d gotten into the main rooms, leaving was just a matter of quickly pushing through the people outside, though this time making more of an effort to hide her face. It was different from her real life one, but she could still be recognized within the game, so long as someone was willing to put in the effort. And for a Legendary rune? She had a strong feeling that The Alliance would be willing to put in the effort. Not even just a feeling, really; they were already chasing down LJay. Deyana was thankful for the time she¡¯d spent doing the runes already, because it meant that is was only a ten minute wait at their agreed meeting point for Don to show up, carrying with him a new bow and quiver. She had a strong feeling she knew what was in the quiver¨C basically every archer and everyone who even dabbled had used Durability/stopping arrows. The only people who hadn¡¯t, actually, were those that had tried the playstyle out later and used Durability/Returning ones instead. ¡°Hey, you got your thing done?¡± he asked, an easy smile on his face. She nodded at that. ¡°Yeah, had to talk to a bunch of people though, and I heard something about The Alliance making moves to lock down the area.¡± He got a disgusted look on his face when she said that. ¡°Ugh. Bunch of uptight pricks, too. Maybe if it was Arrow Keys or the Smurfs¡­ but you just wanted to leave anyway, right?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t really have any need to end up on their radar so early. I figure we can just go a town over and finish my quest there, so it¡¯s not like it¡¯s that much of an issue overall.¡± Deyana said, which launched into a discussion of the nearby towns. Two of them had goblins in them, but the decision was still basically made for them. Torail had larger scale and lower-level invasions, where Chanmo was essentially overrun with fairly high-level monsters at the moment. Which meant travelling. It wasn¡¯t exactly difficult, travelling between cities in Rune. While there wasn¡¯t the same time-skipping as closer-range, intra-city teleports, the designers had made genuine consideration for the way that a society would develop around monsters that could appear basically anywhere that wasn¡¯t specifically prevented. And even some places that were, if the otherworld currents changed unexpectedly, as had been known to happen from time to time. Mostly, it meant fences, walls, and the occasional gunnery turret in particularly vulnerable areas. Conventional weapons could be effective against lower-level monsters, even if it did generally fail to do anything against anything even as tough as the average level fifty monsters and area bosses, to say nothing of roaming or world bosses. But as long as you stayed on the road, watching the sides carefully in case a monster troupe appeared, you were generally just fine riding in one of the cars¨C even walking, sometimes, which was what they were doing now. Because it was only five miles between the two cities before they¡¯d hit a teleport point in the new city, specifically, they¡¯d opted for the walking instead of waiting for a cheap ride to appear or farming up the credits to pay their way. It was nice, just talking with Don as they walked the distance. There were even a few goblins along the way, allowing them to farm one more of her fragments without even really slowing down¨C it was mostly a matter of Don pulling a group, taking a few of them out along the way, while she functioned as a barrier to prevent them from damaging him. No other drops of particular value, but that wasn¡¯t too much of a surprise. Goblins weren¡¯t exactly known for their high-value drops to begin with. With the jogging that they¡¯d been throwing in for the latter half of their travel distance, it didn¡¯t even take a full hour for them to reach the teleport point, bringing them to the center of the city to once again mark down the teleport stone there. And now that she¡¯d been taught it, it was showing up everywhere. A link rune, this one with the city crest. The way it was built, it wouldn¡¯t allow someone to draw mana off of it remotely, but would absolutely accept supply that way. Still, it stung her pride somewhat. They were all around, yet she¡¯d still forgotten them. This story has been unlawfully obtained without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Oh well. She knew them now, at least, so that was no longer an issue. From there, given that they were already geared, Don and Deyana headed out to the south of the new city, where they were dealing with a similar goblin problem as Dunlap had been. Larger, even. There were fewer people here than in the other city, and the goblins were slightly higher level. Arriving on scene was simple enough, and the NPC area controller stood out of the goblins¡¯ spawn area waved to them as they approached. ¡°Yo! Y¡¯all looking to join in this raid here? We could always use a few more non-diers on the scene.¡± ¡°Yup. Do you have a group for us to sync up with or are we just getting thrown into a raid?¡± ¡°A bit more structure than that. First big group on the scene this rotation set up some groups and others have been sticking to it. We¡¯ve got a melee damage group, a ranged damage group, tanks, and simps.¡± Don snorted and Deyana tried to keep herself from smiling. ¡°Simps is support and heals, right?¡± ¡°That¡¯s what it looks like to me,¡± the NPC responded. ¡°But I never can tell with you all. The names are honestly nicer than usual.¡± ¡°Set him up with ranged and me with melee,¡± Deyana said, ¡°but leave us in a secondary private subgroup.¡± ¡°Can do,¡± he said, and the subtle blue barrier around the area with the goblins fell away to her eyes. ¡°Good luck.¡± Getting through the two or three spawns from behind the group wasn¡¯t particularly difficult, but syncing up, to a degree at least, was. The group systems marked them with subtle highlights, but it was still difficult to tell the lime green of the healers apart from the neon green of the damage dealers. Especially because it was all mixed up, in the middle. The red highlight on tanks and blue on melee DDs was even more confused, directly clashing with what appeared to be a new wave of goblin spawns, and Deyana left Don to get on that line, syncing up with the left side. The woman next to her tried to step around to cover the side, given her better gear, but a quick word from Deyana let her step back to where she had been. The end of the line was difficult, but she could already see the guy on the woman¡¯s right was struggling, even with her shield darting out to catch goblin spears fairly regularly. It would be better for everyone if she was able to keep providing that support, and Deyana had the skill to prevent the basic flanking maneuvers that the goblins tried. Especially given that most of them were just an excited one screeching and trying to run around her fairly quickly, without even bothering to strategize at all. She was even starting to tune out when a yell from one of the support players brought everything back into sharp relief. ¡°Area boss!¡± Her eyes basically completely diverted from the goblin she¡¯d just dispatched, instead scanning the area ahead of them. It wasn¡¯t always easy to tell where an area boss was, given their propensity for hising in and around other monsters, but this one was one of the easier ones. Two and a half times the height of the other goblins, it was also horrifyingly obese, almost round in a way that made it seem cartoony even while it was rendered in so much detail. It had a crown on, and gold jewelry hung off of it everywhere, even the ratty, gray, torn at the bottom t-shirt that it wore. Goblin King. They weren¡¯t particularly fast or deadly on their own, but they had one of the more annoying abilities, upping the spawn rate of goblins all around¨C and particularly so anywhere it pointed, usually behind any lines that were being set up. It was one of the weaknesses of the simplified line-fighting raids, where it would spawn bosses like that. ¡°Do we have anyone overequipped?¡± one of the other supports asked. They didn¡¯t get a response for three seconds, so Deyana cut in, yelling. ¡°Looks like no! Change to a circle formation, alternating tanks and DD¡¯s where possible. He¡¯s going to try for harassment so we need to push him.¡± Not everyone followed her directions, and she saw at least one overconfident damage dealer from the right side completely fail to follow, resulting in a healer ¡°missing¡± him with her magic. It was pretty obviously intentional, though, from the fact that it hit the goblin to his right that he¡¯d hit, knocked over, failed to kill, and ignored, resulting in him getting gored in the side with one of the spears, followed by his death and shattering into shards. It was a shame to lose a player. It wasn¡¯t a shame that he got killed afterwards. Circular formations weren¡¯t nearly as fast to move, requiring near constant talking on the part of one of the support players in the middle to keep them moving towards the Goblin King. On the back of the circle as she was, she was only seeing the goblins whenever they were spawned near her, but things fairly quickly changed when the King himself came waddling into her field of view. He was fairly damaged, but not nearly as much as he should be. For a moment, Deyana fought against the temptation to just go running at him, but sense eventually won out. It wouldn¡¯t do them any good if she went out on her half-stamina and got herself killed, tightening the circle even more around the ranged players in the middle. A fireball shot over her head, making contact with the King. It splashed almost uselessly against his skin. Actually¡­ a little bit above it. ¡°Move towards six!¡± She could start moving now, slightly ahead of where the King was currently walking. That fireball had told her something though, and nobody else had mentioned it. ¡°King¡¯s enchanted! Cylinder Air Shield!¡± ¡°Shit¡± a woman¡¯s voice from behind her said as a bunch of arrows followed that fireball. ¡°I¡¯d hoped I was imagining it.¡± She raised her voice. ¡°Anyone here have piercing?¡± A bunch of noises of confusion followed that. Not too surprising. Most of the players here would have gone through the raid fighting tutorial as they entered the area rather than having prior experience. ¡°I do,¡± Deyana answered. ¡°But I¡¯m going to need some space for regen.¡± ¡°Off the line then, and outside needs to cover! Keep hitting him, but she¡¯ll be breaking the shield.¡± It was a simple matter to pull back the few feet required for that, allowing the two people next to her to space into where she¡¯d been. The sixty second combat timer started ticking. She had a job to do in the meantime. Just hitting the King wouldn¡¯t be enough to break his shield, she¡¯d have to find the enchanted item and either break it or remove it from him, with the understanding that she¡¯d only be able to do moderate damage to the King himself. The fireballs were what eventually tipped her off. Even as the King was moving, no part of him seemed to be out of the shield, and it seemed to move with him. So it was either a belt or¡­ His crown. ¡°Found it,¡± she said, tipping off the woman who had been calling the shots, ¡°It¡¯s on the crown.¡± ¡°Got it. Combat timer?¡± ¡°Thirty seconds.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± Waiting that time was agony, though. She couldn¡¯t really afford to do much more than walk slowly, with the group. Finally, her timer ticked over and the out-of-combat regeneration started. Her stamina was capped. ¡°I don¡¯t need to go out through the line, but I need a break in attacks.¡± ¡°Got it. Hold fire!¡± Deyana was no new player, so she didn¡¯t immediately trust tha the players would follow the direction quickly. It was a good thing, too, as two more fireballs and four arrows went off before finally stopping. The king was close, now, but she had a trick up her sleeve. Well, more accurately, on her boots. Jump-activate-jump-deactivate-activate-jump-deactivate-activate-stand took her above the heads of the players in the crowd, and she took five steps forward, focusing carefully on each one to ensure that the air stop was formed at the right time of each. The King took a swing at her with the large bone it was using as a club, but it wasn¡¯t the most threatening speed in the world, forcing her to take a step forward, making contact with his barrier and nothing more. With being level fourteen now, she had enough mana to fully run her sword as she swung, cutting through the shield to make contact with the crown, cutting somewhat into the Goblin king¡¯s head as well but not doing all that much real damage to it. What did deal damage was the crown melting on his head. Like most runic items, it couldn¡¯t hold together when heavily damaged, and running mana through it resulted in the destruction of the item. Unfortunately, it was also a monster magic item, which meant that even if she¡¯d wanted to take it, it would have been slowly destroyed by a person¡¯s mana anyways. She was almost out of mana between the sword and the boots, though. Two more steps brought her above the open spot behind the line, then she deactivated the boots, falling to the ground. Not a particularly difficult landing, but she still had to move more quickly than she would have liked to avoid running into anyone. At least all that was left was cleanup. Pileup 3: Options Open, Goals Close While it wasn¡¯t exactly difficult to clean up after an area boss attack, it was still almost as long as the actual fight had been. People were automatically distributed rewards in the post-fighting session, but almost everyone was there for some reason or other, looking either for specific drops, credits to spend, or sometimes, rarer, more high-value targets like rune scrolls. Deyana, unfortunately, was there for all three. Taking out the King and the remaining goblins on the field had gotten her to level 16, largely due to the difficulty and experience scaling that area bosses could manage by instantiating areas like this. Unfortunately, this also left her needing to trade a significant portion of the credit reward she¡¯d gotten to other players willing to sell the goblin soul fragments to save time. It wasn¡¯t everything she¡¯d had so far, but it was four hundred of her four-hundred-fifty credit gain, with three hundred of Don¡¯s volunteered for the cause, to get the remainder that she needed from the other players. It was useful that impromptu trading like this tended to be more in favor of buying, at least. Trying to do the same thing within a city¡¯s trading area would have been paying more¨C enough so that even though she was already getting Don¡¯s soul fragment yield for free, in addition to her own, it might not have been enough. Even then, she was trading a lot more on people¡¯s good will than she would have preferred. Even with fifty people there, the fact that there had been enough monsters slaughtered in the area and enough people willing to part with the fragments for below the asking price was still fairly lucky. Even more lucky that almost nobody wanted goblin souls for summoning and the primary buyers were NPCs, for only slightly more than the four credits per fragment that they could offer. Laziness won out over the impulse to get more money from each of the fragments, in her favor. She wasn¡¯t going to complain about that, at least. Even so, it still meant that she and Don were some of the last to leave the area, the final six people leaving essentially together and collapsing the barrier behind them when they did. The NPC guard gave them a lazy half-salute-half-wave before wandering off, a ledger in his hand. That specific area would likely pop up again either tomorrow or the day after, once the area boss¡¯s spawn timer had reset. Then again, it wouldn¡¯t be her problem. Which was good, because goblins were the worst. ¡°Thanks again for putting those credits in,¡± she said, walking next to Don. ¡°You really didn¡¯t need to do that.¡± ¡°The way I see it, it was either that or search for some other early-stage crafter willing to build me specialty arrows for material price.¡± ¡°I guess, but it¡¯s not like you needed to do it. You could have just paid full price and gotten through the levels fairly efficiently.¡± ¡°It¡¯s true,¡± he replied, ¡°But it¡¯s not like you¡¯re going to run out on me, right?¡± That made her blush. She most assuredly was not going to be running out on anyone. Often even when it was in her best interest to do so. ¡°I could, though.¡± ¡°Eh, I don¡¯t really think so.¡± He was right, but¡­ She was glad that the conversation was interrupted by arriving at the teleport point, bringing them to the bustling city center. Even outside the areas where connections could get spotty, there were a lot of people running around. Luckily, all she needed was the courier¡¯s office¨C nearby, yes, but not directly inside of the uncomfortable push. Once inside, she started on the assembly of the goblin soul. It wasn¡¯t the most difficult of processes, but given the possibility of damaging them, particularly when higher-tier souls were involved, the game still had its players manage it manually. Goblins, though, were not one of the higher-tier monsters, and as such putting together the fragments into shards into a complete soul felt a little bit more like doing a children¡¯s puzzle. When that was done, she approached the counter. ¡°What¡¯s the job?¡± ¡°Delivery of this,¡± she motioned to the goblin soul-orb on the counter, ¡°to Dunlap Builder¡¯s Guild, with reward return, as soon as possible.¡± ¡°Seventy credits.¡± It was most of the eighty she had left, and even then mostly because Henry hadn¡¯t taken the second part of the payment she¡¯d owned him. But a Runecrafter¡¯s guild credit was worth more than that, was worth more than the entire goblin soul, especially when they added on the selection of runes. Of course, the Builder¡¯s Guild was willing to pay that much not because the soul itself was that valuable per se, but because they needed it all to be in one place and paying someone to go out and buy the individual fragments likely would have been a more expensive proposition, because when you paid a person you paid for their time. And while they weren¡¯t rare, it also wasn¡¯t exactly the favored proposition of most people to hold onto essentially worthless bits of goblin soul. ¡°So what is the reward on this?¡± Don asked, when she handed over the credits and got back the slip with the time marked on it. Apparently, an hour for delivery. Fine by her, but¡­ ¡°Wait, you were willing to throw in that much without knowing? I thought I¡¯d told you about the reward on this.¡± ¡°Nah, I just assumed that it would be worth it. Especially if it means that someone who came up with a void sword on an early time out is going to owe me something.¡± Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. She had to keep herself from smiling. ¡°That¡¯s not fair. I only came up with the void sword because it¡¯s obvious if you know just enough to get into trouble and nothing else.¡± ¡°Yeah, but knowing enough to get into trouble is the issue here. Lots of people don¡¯t know anywhere near that much when they¡¯re starting out.¡± Don responded, an eyebrow raised. ¡°Okay, fine, fine. The reward is a Runecrafter¡¯s credit and a few runes. Nothing particularly special.¡± ¡°More than I¡¯d expect for a gob soul.¡± ¡°DMQ is friendly to newbies now.¡± Deyana said, deadpan. He laughed at that, ¡°Favorable, maybe, but friendly? I¡¯d rather deal with an IRL government building. At least you¡¯re less likely to be exploded.¡± She gave him a sidelong look. ¡°Less likely to come back from being exploded, too.¡± ¡°Matter of degrees. I figure if it happens, it happens. Here? I¡¯d almost be disappointed if they didn¡¯t need to rebuild part of the place monthly.¡± She rolled her eyes. ¡°Okay mister ¡®I want the in-game terrorists to be active.¡¯ You can have your wish. Oh, and it¡¯s going to be an hour before they get back, so I¡¯ve got some time to kill.¡± He waffled for a moment, then smiled at her. ¡°Well, I¡¯ve only got an hour and a half before I was going to get out of the game, so¡­ ice cream date?¡± She blinked for a moment, looking at his face for the smirk that would come with it being asked jokingly. It wasn¡¯t there. ¡°Uh. I¡­ Wouldn¡¯t want to¡­ I mean, it¡¯s the game world.¡± ¡°It isn¡¯t like there¡¯s a huge roleplaying community, and you¡¯re not really acting the part anyway. It¡¯s just an hour, maybe a few extra minutes, and I don¡¯t have anything I¡¯d really prefer to do in that time frame.¡± ¡°Couldn¡¯t you be, like, leveling for your whole deal?¡± ¡°I said prefer, you know. If you say no, then I can go back to killing monsters.¡± She was fairly recently single, and¡­ ¡°Sure, as long as you don¡¯t expect much out of it,¡± she replied, her reflex betraying her before her better judgement caught up. She wasn¡¯t too terribly against it, at least. He was cute, if not usually the kind of guy she would date. A little bit more cocky, and a lot quicker to do things at the very least. That was fine, though. ¡°Cool, I know a place.¡± He was walking before she quite caught up with that, and she had to take a few big steps to catch up to him. ¡°Hmm? You¡¯ve taken some girls out before, then?¡± He raised an eyebrow at her, then shrugged. ¡°A few, yeah. Not many as pretty as you, but¡­¡± ¡°Ah, getting your undeserved flattery in early, then. I can respect that.¡± He rolled his eyes at her, and she just smiled. It was as good an answer as any.
The ice cream shop was as strange a place as anything in the VR world. Many of the standard amenities that one could expect in the real world were there, but a number of them were much less technological, using magic in their place. The freezers, for example, weren¡¯t running off of electricity; instead, the NPC working behind the counter placed her hand on the lines running around the outside, momentarily paling before she shook it off and went back to dealing with customers. It was only every 15 minutes, and a more insulated construction would last much longer given the difference in heat loss as well as the lack of reason to have a barrier impermeable to air-conducted heat over top. That part wasn¡¯t even really necessary in this case, and probably a waste of mana, in Deyana¡¯s eyes, but she wasn¡¯t going to mention the over-design of random city objects to the NPCs. She was, apparently, going to focus on them so much that she missed what Don had said, needing to be pulled out of it by repeated mentions of her name. It didn¡¯t help that it was a new one, either. They were apparently already at the table, having gotten ice cream. It was a good thing that her automatic responses were good enough to get something she liked in the mint chip, at least. Doug had¡­ something whiteish-yellowish with at least three different colors of stuff in it. She wouldn¡¯t be asking, and not just because it would give away that she hadn¡¯t really been paying attention to him. ¡°Sorry! Sorry. Just looking at the rune effects.¡± ¡°Wow, you really are a crafter-type at heart, huh?¡± ¡°Who knows? I was a fighter well before and much more effectively than I was ever a crafter. It¡¯s new to me, actually.¡± ¡°Hard to see that from the way you get wrapped up in it. I would¡¯ve expected someone on your level to be making the change to a crafter on your main, not a secondary.¡± Deyana¡¯s face quickly went red, and she had to look down at the table between them to avoid suddenly looking around wildly. ¡°Um. Probably. I should have done that. But¡­ I would have had a tough time of it.¡± ¡°In a guild that can take red-oranges? Really? They¡¯d love a crafter with two specializations.¡± Don looked entirely too skeptical of her, so she tried to explain. ¡°Three. But it¡¯s more¡­ if people already know you as a fighter, could you really make the switch over? And I¡¯m not even sure I want to make the full switch, changing priorities that hard¡­ I¡¯d rather just make stuff for myself and a few friends or when I need the credits for some new rune.¡± His face had changed a few times in what she¡¯d been saying, but he seemed to have a realization, and his eyes flicked up and down before coming back to rest on her face. ¡°Like I said, any guild would support that switch, but¡­ That¡¯s an interesting way to go. Any big reasons why?¡± ¡°The game hasn¡¯t really been nearly as fun for me since¡­ a while ago. I was still playing, but it was¡­ just because that was what I did. Didn¡¯t really want to play so much as I was just playing, y¡¯know?¡± ¡°I think I get it. If you¡¯re playing past when I am, is there any chance you¡¯ll make an effort to wait up for me?¡± She had to consider that for a minute. There wasn¡¯t much chance that she¡¯d be getting that much ahead of him anyways, especially given that unlike him, she¡¯d be spending a rather significant time investment on crafting, and she explained as much before adding, ¡°Not that I wouldn¡¯t be willing to at all, I guess? I just think you¡¯d end up waiting for me more often.¡± ¡°That¡¯s fine by me! I¡¯ll just spend any waiting time trying to get noticed by some of the guilds instead of crafting. Schmoozing with people indirectly connected to power to not draw up suspicions and all that.¡± She had to half-smile at that. It was the most effective way into most of the bigger guilds. ¡°Good luck to you. With that, I mean. But don¡¯t mention me to ¡®em, I won¡¯t be joining.¡± He nodded in response, looking solemn or at least flat, she couldn¡¯t quite tell. The remainder of the time before his logout was fun, mostly talking about some experiences in the game and some real life entertainment. She wasn¡¯t too big on anything but the game, but she did at least attempt to hold her own. She wasn¡¯t too successful at it, but she made the attempt. Still, she did stutter for a moment when LJay sent her a message in the middle of talking and she pulled up her menus to respond, splitting her attention. ¡®Good chance I can¡¯t meet you. Geria got away from her followers, though, so if you can tell me where to send her?¡¯ ¡®How am I supposed to know it¡¯s not a trap?¡¯ ¡®Why would I trap you now instead of just not giving you the rune¡¯ ¡®Because you¡¯re trying to get it to a rival guild, not me.¡¯ ¡®A rival guild that would immediately get poached or broken by the Alliance, or one that I wouldn¡¯t have needed an intermediary for?¡¯ That was an annoyingly good point. ¡®Tell me a timeframe for the Dead Valleys area.¡¯ ¡®Checking.¡¯ He nearly instantly followed that up with another message. ¡®Half-hour unless it¡¯s Sefond. Then a full hour.¡¯ ¡®I¡¯ll say in 15 then. gl¡¯ ¡®Stay under the radar.¡¯ ¡°¨CI seem to remember something about you needing to go, though?¡± she finished, capping off her statement to Don. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t want to keep you over professor stories.¡± ¡°Nah, I¡¯d be willing to stay and listen to you tell them,¡± he said, then sighed. ¡°But you¡¯re right. Try not to get more than ten levels ahead of me?¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make sure that you¡¯ll be able to catch up in a few hours,¡± she promised, instead. ¡°You¡¯ve certainly paid for way more than you¡¯ve gotten so far.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯ll get my money¡¯s worth,¡± he said, then logged out, right there in the middle of the shop. His body changed posture slightly, walking out. It would be somewhere neutral when he logged back in. She waited out the rest of the time, then sent the message to LJay. ¡®Courier¡¯s in Torail.¡¯ ¡®Got it. Passing it on.¡¯ Pileup 4: A Story and a Plot Alex had long ago learned that one of the most effective methods for blending into a crowd when one didn¡¯t want to be seen involved somewhat the opposite of what people usually believed¨C sticking near enough to a group so as to seem like one was plausibly part of it, while far enough away as to not be a bother, and moving with what seemed like a purpose even if it was taking you in circles. As Deyana, she was putting those techniques into practice as she approached the meeting place she¡¯d set up with LJay. He¡¯d somewhat assuaged those concerns over the private messaging they¡¯d done before, but her paranoia had been, she thought, fairly justifiably inflamed when it came to Alliance guild members. She¡¯d been sent a picture of the person she was supposed to be meeting up with, a girl who looked maybe a year or two younger than she was with straight black hair and brown eyes, and according to LJay she hated crowds. Which made it all the more galling when someone touched her elbow, and she spun around to face that very person. ¡°Who¨C how?¡± ¡°This was your third time through the meeting place. I thought you were lost.¡± ¡°Ugh. Wow. You noticed me on my first time through, then. I wasn¡¯t sure I actually saw you, though.¡± Deyana complained. It was worse than she was letting on, even¨C she¡¯d thought she saw the right color of coat, where she was actually wearing a longer cloak with a lot of visible runes on it. It wasn¡¯t an uncommon choice, exactly, but most people would have gone with something less¡­ complete, either to make it cheaper in mana cost or actual production cost. ¡°I see. Well, that makes sense. But why didn¡¯t you ask if it was me?¡± she asked, tilting her head. Her gaze was a little unsettling, and it felt a little like she¡¯d seen something mildly interesting and not bothered to look away yet. ¡°I thought you might have an ambush waiting for me.¡± That earned a blink. ¡°Why didn¡¯t you ask me, if I did?¡± Deyana stared. Was that a serious question? Or was it being asked to taunt her? Better to treat it as serious, at least. If she was taunting it would throw her off her game. ¡°Because you could have lied to me?¡± ¡°Oh. I forgot.¡± The girl responded, and Deyana held back a giggle, though not the grin. ¡°I wish everyone was as honest as you, if that¡¯s true. LJay probably told you I¡¯m Deyana?¡± ¡°He did. You used to be Novsha, right? You deleted her because of our guild¡¯s betrayal. I¡¯m sorry to have been a part of that.¡± ¡°I¡­ did. I was hoping he wouldn¡¯t tell you that.¡± ¡°He didn¡¯t,¡± she responded, ¡°so please don¡¯t be angry with him.¡± That threw her for a loop. Was she really that obvious? It didn¡¯t seem like it to her, especially when there were a number of impersonators of her former character around, of both genders in real life, who were closer to her original character than this one was. Not many, given that a lot of them were people who only cared about highlight reels where she featured and therefore missed things over camera angles, but still. ¡°Who did tell you then?¡± ¡°Nobody. You walk the same.¡± Deyana raised an eyebrow. ¡°And that¡¯s enough for you, uh. Whatever your name is?¡± ¡°My name is Geria, in-game. It is not enough on its own, no, partially due to my own imperfect memory. But it was a convenient shorthand for a number of other things I noticed until you asked about it.¡± ¡°Can we talk about this somewhere else?¡± ¡°If you¡¯d like, yes.¡± Geria said, not moving from where she was standing. Finally, after a second, Deyana thought she¡¯d figured it out. ¡°Could we do that now?¡± ¡°Oh! Yes, come with me. We have a safe area nearby where¡­ our former friends haven¡¯t been able to find yet, according to our current friend staying with them. I was here to take you there and tell you about what has been happening.¡±
When Geria didn¡¯t talk the whole time she was leading, Deyana used that break to gather her thoughts. The girl didn¡¯t seem to be hostile towards her, at least, but that didn¡¯t really mean much. Reading her was difficult, and it was throwing up red flags all over the place. It didn¡¯t seem fair to blame her for that, though, and was probably just paranoia rearing its ugly head. She¡¯d had a bit of an edge to her thoughts since the incident with LJay, creeping in on everyone. So when Geria keyed in a code on an apartment building, ushered her through the door, then turned around and activated rune warding that lit up almost all the walls, her eyes went wide and her hand went to her sword. Geria turned when she was done, then saw the sword and slammed her back into the corner. She looked mildly worried, and her throat seemed to work for a moment, two false starts audible before she said anything for real. ¡°I would prefer it if you didn¡¯t kill me.¡± That did it, for some reason, and Deyana felt like a monster. ¡°I¡¯m sorry. You¡¯ve been nothing but helpful, if a little bit creepy. I¡¯m just a bit on edge.¡± She didn¡¯t take her hand off her sword, instead tossing it behind her. A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation. ¡°Apology accepted. Do you want to start with questions, or what I meant to bring first?¡± ¡°One question first. How the hell do you know who I am, if LJay didn¡¯t tell you?¡± Geria chewed on the inside of her lip for a second, and Deyana noticed that she was still in the corner between the door and the wall. ¡°It will make you think I¡¯m creepier. Do you still want the answer?¡± She thought about that for a moment, actually considering it, before she answered. In the meantime, she¡¯d glanced over the room behind her. It was basically bare except for a single mattress, directly on the ground, with some sheets over it. ¡°Come on, sit down with me, and then tell me. I¡¯d rather know if something I did gave me away.¡± It was obvious that Geria was still uncomfortable, but Deyana wasn¡¯t planning to push any more if she didn¡¯t get a satisfactory answer. She¡¯d need to figure it out regardless, and this just seemed like the most effective way. ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t recognize people¡¯s faces. I can¡¯t remember them at all. You walk the same, though in a different body, and your voice is the same. The face is somewhat useful, because you left cheek asymmetry that the attractiveness slider doesn¡¯t like even if I think it¡¯s cute. I was a fan of yours for a while, so I remember some. Your hair is the same shades, too, but that¡¯s less useful here because a lot of people match that or use the game to try out being blonde. ¡°The reason I knew who you were was because I recognized your shape and way of walking on the train while LJay and I were getting away, so I sent him to follow you more directly while I threw off the people who were following me, because I could do that faster than he would be able to. He¡¯ll probably let them kill him soon, so that they don¡¯t know where he went.¡± The words came out in a huge rush that left Deyana processing for a few seconds. ¡°Wait, if you knew who I was already, why did he ask me?¡± ¡°LJay is very nice to me, but he doesn¡¯t usually believe me.¡± More honestly than she¡¯d been expecting, again. Before she could contain it, the question that had bubbled up in the middle of Geria¡¯s confused rush came out of her mouth. ¡°Cheek asymmetry?¡± The other girl nodded, then pulled out a field drawing tool. Useful for certain types of casters, but she could see any drawing that would be going on, so she wasn¡¯t that concerned about it. Geria drew on the bed in glowing lines, first two near-circles of the same size. In both of them, the other girl added two curved lines over the word ¡°blue¡± written on each side, two diagonal lines underneath that, and two near half-circles below that, open sides facing in. She pointed at the one with a slightly thicker straight line on the left side. ¡°Like that.¡± Geria pointed to the other. ¡°When people use the attractiveness slider, they get the other one.¡± ¡°I have no idea what you mean,¡± Deyana said, ¡°But it apparently let you identify me. Can you explain why you did that, now?¡± Geria nodded, but left her head down, fidgeting with her hands as she talked. ¡°So¡­ I was an early Alliance member. Not one of the founding five, but member seven. They¡¯re¡­ they were¡­ my friends in the game. They said they wanted to make a guild that dealt more fairly than the others, and I liked that, so I joined. And it seemed like that was true. Now I think they might have been lying to me, but I don¡¯t know. ¡°I¡­ used to be a fan of yours. Not as much anymore, but not because you got any less cool! I just¡­ had less time recently. But I saw a lot of what was going on with you anyways, with the bad guild experiences.¡± She was determinedly looking down now. Some of her hair had fallen in front of her face, but she didn¡¯t seem to notice. ¡°So I reached out to Hyrd, said that we should hire you honestly to break the string. And I think he meant to, at first¡­¡± Now she looked ready to cry. ¡°But then, the whole thing with the rune happened. And he killed you! And that wasn¡¯t allowed, so he was lying to you¡­ and I just, I can¡¯t live around that! So I. Um. Killed Jennet. Then I took the rune to try to give it back to you, and made it seem like he was still there for an hour, while I made a very big show of leaving because of them lying. I said some stuff, said that people should leave with me.¡± She froze her hand motions, then nearly whispered. ¡°Only LJay left with me.¡± It was a lot to process. For one, The Alliance had actually been known for its honesty and fair-dealing, and that hadn¡¯t really waned recently, even though they¡¯d basically stopped using people from outside their guild. Which left her one real conclusion: they had been honest, but that was a calculation, not a trait. Hyrd had probably seen how, at the time his guild was starting, the lack of fair-dealing had gotten more than a few guilds wiped out as people blamed each other and got in the way, and had seen an opportunity to create a reputation. That reputation was no longer quite so useful, though¨C in the current climate, basically all of the major players were already attached to a guild or guild family. Which only left her one conclusion. Hyrd had thought that his guild¡¯s multi-year reputation was a worthy trade for the rune that she now had in her possession. Still, that wasn¡¯t what stuck out to her the most about the story, though. ¡°So, wait. You knew these people, were friends with them, before you¡¯d even heard of me.¡± ¡°Uh-huh.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re now being chased all over by your former friends, emphasis on former, entirely because they screwed over somebody you¡¯d met once and you turned on them to try to fix what happened.¡± Geria¡¯s voice broke. ¡°Yeah.¡± Suspicions confirmed then. Deyana couldn¡¯t keep the silly smile off her face anymore. ¡°Girl, you are fucking awesome, and if someone tries to lie to you and tells you you aren¡¯t, you tell me so I can slap some sense into ¡®em.¡± Geria¡¯s eyes snapped up, meeting hers again. ¡°Huh? But¨C¡± ¡°I¡¯m not hearing it. You tried to do something nice, someone else stepped on it, and you still are trying to make it work. Actually, can I hug you?¡± ¡°Yes? What¨C¡± Deyana cut her off before she was able to say much more, pulling her tight for a few seconds before letting go. She was still smiling, and things were whirling through her head like crazy. ¡°You know about how Legendary runes are special.¡± ¡°I. Quest, yes.¡± ¡°I have it, right now, and this character¡­ she¡¯s different than my last. I¡¯m going to be a hybrid of crafter and fighter, pick up whoever, and just do stuff for fun. Not going to sell this thing, even though it¡¯s probably the smart decision.¡± She paused. This was going to commit. ¡°And if you¡¯re willing, I¡¯m going to finish that damn quest, learn the rune, and rub it in the faces of the people who messed with you.¡± Geria¡¯s voice was quiet. ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t really want to hurt any of them. I still¡­ care about them. But¡­¡± she looked up again, and even though her voice was quiet and she hadn¡¯t been anywhere near controlling the conversation, her eyes pinned Deyana in place as they sat in the bed in the nearly-empty apartment. She saw something hard flash inside them for a second, before a tiny nod let her breathe again. ¡°But they lied. They betrayed you and¡­ and me, too. I can¡¯t trust them, all because they wanted something that was yours. I don¡¯t want to hurt them but¡­ I will help you lock down that rune.¡± It was probably a mistake. But then, this whole endeavor was, and apparently from more than one person, even! There were people after her, and there were going to be more once The Alliance gave up on regaining their property and started caring more about seeing that they weren¡¯t outsmarted. She pulled the rune scroll out of her inventory.
Start Rune Quest for |Merge|?
No (Scroll remains tradeable. Will drop only when killed in unsafe zones by a player not in your party) Yes (Scroll becomes non-tradeable. Dying to another player, even party members or in safe zones, will cause it to drop)
Alex paused for a moment. Deyana took a breath in, then selected yes.
Rune Quest |Merge| Begun! Phase 1/20
Pileup 5: The Quest Begins
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 1/20: A Name
From the beginning, most of the development of humanity¡¯s understanding of runes has been driven by the scrolls that sometimes appear upon the death of the alternate- and pocket-universe invaders. As they got stronger, so too did humanity, but the strengthened boundaries at the end of the last major war have since prevented the strongest of those enemies from crossing over. It appears that some knowledge we prevented from crossing over in the process¨C at least one type of rune whose scrolls, knowledge, and effects are entirely missing from the Runecrafters¡¯ Catalog. Like Minor Runes, Runes of this class do not directly cause magical effects. Like Major Runes, they have unique areas of influence, and overlapping an area of influence with another Rune of this class will have unpredictable and detrimental effects. Runes of this class are not affected by Minor Runes or Major Runes. Runes of this class have an effect on Major Runes. |Merge| combines the effects of at least two Major runes, allowing them to contain each other without sharing the effects of Minor Runes between them or reacting unpredictably. More information will be unlocked at later stages and with discovery.
Name the rune class. (Note: this name will only be universally applied upon the completion of a Rune Quest series of a Rune of this class.)
Enter Name: _
The window that followed her acceptance caught her by enough surprise that Deyana make a coughing sound before managing to read past the second line. A twenty phase Quest? Well, she hadn¡¯t been signing up for something easy. Once she read through it, part of her rebelled at the text box there. She didn¡¯t even know everything the new rune could do, nor what other runes in this supposed class did, but she was supposed to be naming it? Although that did make sense, given the current conventions of Major and Minor. They were obviously intended to work together without any additions. And it looked like the reason for that was that it was all the people naming them had known. She was tempted to give them a stupid name out of spite, but her better judgement kicked in too quickly for her to go through with it. ¡°I¡¯m¡­ being asked to name a new rune class.¡± ¡°Something ridiculous? No, that¡¯s no good. What kind of class?¡± Geria responded. ¡°Has an effect radius, effects Major runes, doesn¡¯t touch Minors, same-class interaction like the current Majors.¡± ¡°Supermajor? Super, Change¡­¡± She made a strange tilting back and forth motion with her head, neither shaking it no nor nodding. Runes of the same class do not directly cause magical effects, instead ¡°I don¡¯t really know. Haven¡¯t ever thought about it.¡± Deyana had to agree with that. It made sense, but it wasn¡¯t anything she would have really thought up on her own. ¡°Director? Because we don¡¯t really know if there are more undiscovered types out there.¡± Geria looked struck for a second. ¡°Obviously, yes. Don¡¯t know how I missed that. Director sounds good, I wouldn¡¯t mind saying it.¡± ¡°¡®Director¡¯ it is. Now to hope nobody calling them ¡®Large Dicks¡¯ beats us through the quest.¡± Geria smiled wanly as Deyana typed the name into the box, then confirmed her choice. The old text disappeared, replaced by new information.
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 2/20: The Best Way to Learn
|Merge| has been temporarily added to your useable Runes. (Uses: 1. Replenish when extant copy is destroyed.) Reading about information is useful, but when it comes to knowing how something reacts in the unpredictable environment of reality, the best way to get good information is to test it.
Create a new Runewritten item using the |Merge| Rune exactly one time. Get a feel for how it combines the two Runes by using it or watching it be used in combat.
Deyana breathed out a sigh of relief. She¡¯d heard horror stories of these Rune Quests, but so far, neither of its requests had been too difficult. The only issue with this one was, well¡­ She didn¡¯t have much in the way of Runes, so she¡¯d be limited on what she could make. It must have shown on her face somewhat, because she could see Geria tense. ¡°What is it? I thought that was a good sigh.¡± ¡°It was, just¡­ I¡¯m supposed to use the rune in an item, which, since we¡¯re trying to do this fast, is just a little bit of a disappointment.¡± ¡°Wait, you get to use the rune already? I thought Rune quests were five to ten phases and super messy.¡± Deyana didn¡¯t catch the sharp laugh before it left her mouth, but she quickly raised placating hands. ¡°Sorry, not laughing at you. I can only use it once, as part of the quest. And this one is twenty phases, so¡­ I hope you¡¯re not looking to dump me quickly.¡± Unlawfully taken from Royal Road, this story should be reported if seen on Amazon. ¡°I wasn¡¯t,¡± Geria said, in such a matter-of-fact tone that it set her off-balance again. ¡°Could you answer my question about why it is disappointing? Getting to use it this early seems like a good thing.¡± ¡°It is! Just¡­ I made a new character, so I¡¯m¡­ limited in the number of Runes I have.¡± ¡°Oh, is that all?¡± Geria asked, then opened a trading window. When she accepted the request on reflex, Deyana could only stare as scroll after scroll appeared, finally stopping a bit after she started needing to scroll the window. ¡°Whoa, whoa, whoa!¡± Deyana said, declining the trade. ¡°You¡¯ve already agreed to help me, you don¡¯t need to suddenly start giving me runes, too!¡± Geria tilted her head. ¡°There¡¯s nothing in there past the three greens.¡± ¡°Three greens, she says!¡± Deyana replied, incredulous. ¡°Never mind that that¡¯s enough for a fairly good set of leveling fifty to one-twenty-five armor, there¡¯s nothing in there beyond three greens! You know that I¡¯m in the reds and oranges, right?¡± Geria actually looked a little hurt, which surprised her. Another trade request appeared, though this time she didn¡¯t instantly accept it. ¡°I know, but I¡¯m trying to pay you back, not the other way around.¡± ¡°The purple is already more than I could possibly afford to pay you back for.¡± ¡°I said that was yours already. Now I¡¯m paying you back for the mess.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t have it, so was it really mine?¡± ¡°It was supposed to be.¡± ¡°But it wasn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Ugh! Just take the stupid runes! I can¡¯t go back to get Callie or Jennet to make something for me, and I need to get something new, preferably from someone the guild won¡¯t recognize the work of!¡± Geria¡¯s outburst, annoyed as it was, brought her up short, staring. Several trains of thought collided, completely derailing her proposed objections. She probably should have responded quickly, but instead she worked on the new issues that came to her attention. Was her brain still in date mode from earlier, with Don? Probably not. She didn¡¯t even really think of that as much more than a friend-date, no matter what she might¡¯ve said to him in response. It also didn¡¯t seem to be the sort of thing she¡¯d expect from rebound feelings, even given the recency of her breakup. None of the loneliness that would have been there, and none of the spite or wanting to rush things, either. Which only left the worst of all worlds¨C she actually had a thing for this girl. Well, that was a disaster waiting to happen. Geria looked a bit younger than her, probably eighteen or nineteen? And the Alliance had been a force around a year ago, so if she was under twenty at that time she wouldn¡¯t have been able to make much in the way of changes to her character model from her real body, especially because it would have been at least six months before that that she would have started playing. She could have diverged from the character model in that time by growing differently, but the ages¡­ She was getting off track. It was time to deny anything if asked and move the conversation along. ¡°Okay.¡± ¡°You¡¯d better not try¨C okay?¡± ¡°Yeah, okay. You¡¯re probably right about finding someone new, and you¡¯re not exactly going to be able to pick up some new top-level rune-writer or -crafter off the street. Not that I¡¯ll be that, and you¡¯re gonna have to deal with a lot of rookie mistakes. But if you¡¯re willing¡­¡± She at least seemed to consider that for more than a second, though the following answer didn¡¯t fill her with confidence. ¡°I think you¡¯ll be good at it. And I¡¯m definitely willing.¡± ¡°You realize that I¡¯m going to owe you free stuff from now until the end of time, right?¡± Deyana tried to joke, the words coming out more seriously than intended. Geria performatively placed her hands next to her ears, leaving a small gap there. ¡°I can¡¯t hear you. But it¡¯s okay, materials plus ten percent sounds fine to me.¡± Deyana glared. ¡°You¡¯re incorrigible.¡± Geria grinned in return, her hands going back down. ¡°I like to believe it¡¯s my best trait.¡± The eye-roll following that wasn¡¯t received with any more demurrer than the accusation had been, a trade window appearing in its place, so she just sighed. ¡°You might be right about that, actually.¡± While Geria was filling that out again, she sent a friend request on the side, which was accepted without so much as a pause in the rhythm of scroll selection.
Would you like to accept this trade?
You¡¯re offering: Nothing.
Geria is offering: 15 Common {Minor} Rune Scrolls 4 Common [Major] Rune Scrolls 11 Uncommon {Minor} Rune Scrolls 7 Uncommon [Major] Rune Scrolls 2 Rare {Minor} Rune Scrolls 1 Rare [Major] Rune Scroll
Warning! This trade is significantly unbalanced!
Accept?
No Yes
¡°I¡¯m still not a hundred percent comfortable with this.¡± Deyana said, clicking Yes for the first time. She knew what was coming next.
Warning: Are you sure? This trade is unbalanced!
No Yes More Information
Geria nodded. ¡°That¡¯s okay. We both know that this is the easy part.¡± That was true, at least. When she accepted again, the window closed instantly. The other girl had beat her through those menus, then. Not surprising on its own, per se, even if she would have had a much more comprehensive set of warnings, but significantly more trusting than she was used to. ¡°We should probably head to the Runewriters¡¯ Guild.¡± Deyana said, not getting up. ¡°Or at least I should.¡± ¡°That is probably what we should do, if you want to get started on that crafting today. How much time do you have left?¡± She didn¡¯t move either. ¡°Any more than three hours if going to be coming out of my sleep.¡± ¡°That¡¯s about when I need to be going, too.¡± They each watched the other for a few more seconds before Deyana lost her nerve and stood. ¡°Okay! Okay. We¡¯ll go to the Runewriters¡¯ for a couple hours, but I do need to do some levelling¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯d offer to help with power-levelling, but¡­¡± ¡°But?¡± ¡°If I¡¯m fighting, it¡¯s going to be extremely recognizable.¡± ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± Geria bit the inside of her lip, glancing away. ¡°I don¡¯t want to sound like I¡¯m bragging.¡± ¡°Noted.¡± ¡°The stuff I use, marked rocks with Minor Power Link and Minor Received Mental Direction Link opposite Major Runes? It¡¯s an experimental setup by Callie, um. Castien, is how you¡¯d recognize her. And it¡¯s pretty difficult and really mana-expensive to use. Really powerful, especially when you add more minors to link up multiple stones to make bigger effects, but¡­ getting distracted tends to make them kinda explode uselessly. Nobody else in the guild could do it reliably, and it didn¡¯t spread.¡± That made things more complicated. She hadn¡¯t been planning to ask, but it was important. ¡°How recognizable are you? And how did you throw off the people after you?¡± Geria bit her lip again. ¡°Not really recognizable unless I need to use the weapons, then extremely so. This is nothing like what I used to wear. Um. As for throwing them off. So. I just uh. Set a trap, and killed them all.¡± Deyana blinked at that. ¡°Wait, you were being chased by a bunch of Alliance members, and you just knocked them all out faster than LJay could get away from them?¡± ¡°I said my weapons are powerful. And uh. At the time¡­ I was¡­ pretending to be, um. A lot more panicked than I was, so they didn¡¯t really¡­ notice that we went through the same dark warehouse twice before. To be fair to them, it was about five minutes apart, each time.¡± Deyana giggled in earnest. That could definitely work, especially on inexperienced PvPers. ¡°Okay. So you can¡¯t be a safety for me. That¡¯s fine, especially because I¡¯ll be meeting up with a party member tomorrow.¡± Geria¡¯s eyes went wide. ¡°Oh! I didn¡¯t see one with you.¡± ¡°He wasn¡¯t with me when I met up with you. And¡­ I like him, but I¡¯m not sure I trust him yet. So I don¡¯t want you two to meet yet, because I¡¯m trusting you a whole lot.¡± Geria nodded cutely. ¡°I understand.¡± ¡°Good. We really should go to the Runewriters¡¯.¡± ¡°Mhmm.¡± Pileup 6: Testing and Creation The walk over to the Runewriters¡¯ was quiet. In Geria¡¯s case, it was probably just that she was that kind of person, but in Deyana¡¯s, it was because she was already working on narrowing down her options to prevent herself from being taken with choice paralysis. There were just so many options¨C even completely discounting the duplicates that Geria had handed her, it still left her with quite a few things to decide to even begin making an item. It was a bit of a weird collection, though, and she had to think for a minute to really put together why that was: the expensive components of the weapon she¡¯d described were all represented, particularly the two rare minors, but from there it was just a random collection of runes. Not that that was all bad. She saw the makings of a decent defensive enchantment similar to the type she¡¯d used on Novsha, though a lot more limited. Instead of having disposable enchanted sheets, largely because that would be prohibitively expensive at this point in the new character¡¯s development, she would need to combine the uncommon {Metastorage: Monodirectional Transfer Contiguous} with the common {Storage: Bleeding Kinetic} and uncommon {Storage: Kinetic}¡­ That was somewhat secondary, though, because she also needed weapon upgrades and to make sure that the way she thought those runes would work was the way that they actually worked. With her having picked up the quest rewards before meeting with Geria, it was just a matter of pushing their way through the people propositioning them for guild membership at the doors before the quiet of the actual Guild embraced them. ¡°I appreciate the help getting through the jackals, but you don¡¯t need to stay with me for the boring part if you don¡¯t want to.¡± Deyana said, looking between her companion and the man standing behind the desk, reading something behind it. ¡°I¡¯m okay,¡± Geria responded, ¡°and until this is all dealt with, it¡¯s best if I minimize my contact with people anyways. I¡¯ll stay to watch.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re sure.¡± Dealing with the man, who introduced himself as Aaro, was even simpler than it had been last time, just a matter of showing the card that Grainne had had made and requesting a room. Like last time, he didn¡¯t request payment. She waited until he was out of earshot to break the immersion, largely because she didn¡¯t want any of the strange NPC reactions to talking like that. ¡°Did the devs decide that the Runewriters¡¯ should be free or something? I know last time I was in one of these I had to pay quite a bit.¡± Geria shook her head. ¡°No, it¡¯s your level. Price scales, but you¡¯re not charged until you hit level fifty or expertise three.¡± ¡°You know that you almost handed me expertise three with those runes, right?¡± Deyana asked. ¡°I haven¡¯t activated them yet, obviously, but¡­¡± ¡°I¡­ hadn¡¯t thought of that. I can pay for it if¨C¡± ¡°No, you don¡¯t. It¡¯s not quite there, an I¡¯ll just hang on to some I don¡¯t need to put that off.¡± ¡°If you say so¡­¡± ¡°I say so. Okay, now for the¡­ Well, not boring, but not exactly interesting, either, part.¡± She dumped most of the scrolls out of her inventory, leaving a few of the ones she didn¡¯t think would see any use as well as the duplicate {Delay} and {Shape: Cylinder}, but mostly just getting them all out and onto the work area. First step was to clear the first advancement, the one that almost every player did at some point. ¡°Any input on my mana color?¡± ¡°I thought you said not interesting? Though that choice is your own. I¡¯m obviously partial to certain colors, but you¡¯re the one who¡¯ll be stuck with it.¡± Geria held out her hand and rippled mana across it, showing it to be some variety of aquamarine. ¡°You have a point,¡± Deyana responded. ¡°I just don¡¯t want the same blue as last time.¡± Still, it wasn¡¯t as though she were suddenly go jumping into the oranges or yellows. Greens had promise, but¡­ ¡°I think I¡¯ve got one. Time to lock it in.¡± She drew out the rune for her first shape and was rewarded with a lot more windows than the single rune would usually justify.
Rune Learned {Shape: Hemiellipsoid} Parameters: Radius 1, Radius 2, Radius 3, Rotation Advancement Complete!
Expertise 1 Effect: Mana Coloration Some runes can¡¯t be tested at their full potential in spaces where the runewriter is working. In those cases, stand-ins are used that turn the primary effect to harmless free mana. Coloring this mana allows the runewriter to more effectively determine how the final effect will play out. This process also effects the color of mana when intentionally released into the air, though, like before, it will have no effects beyond the purely visual.
Confirming through the windows was quick enough, even with it displaying a number of other, unrelated unlocks, and she finally got to the color screen. She¡¯d had a midnight blue, before, but she did want to be just a little different. Midnight purple, then. A bit darker than midnight purple, actually, making it a bit difficult to see that it actually was purple without some other color to compare it to. She didn¡¯t have an absolute ton of mana at her level, but she had enough to form a small orb of it in the air above her hand, then sweep her hand up through it, leaving the tendrils to disperse as they swirled in the air. Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. She could see a slight smile on Geria¡¯s face. ¡°I thought you were trying to be incognito.¡± Deyana could feel her own face redden as she turned away. It wasn¡¯t exactly common knowledge what her color had been before! Or, at least, she hadn¡¯t thought it was. Maybe she should check what people actually knew about her? ¡°How many people are even going to see it? It¡¯s fine. And it¡¯s different anyways.¡± ¡°Okay. Don¡¯t let me distract you, sorry.¡± Deyana waved her off, but she did have a point. She needed to get to work, and the best way to do that was to choose her next ten runes before another advancement window. Both common material runes, Stone and Water Ice. The two kinetic storage runes, the mana storage one. It was ¡°Bleeding,¡± or one that lost a variable percentage of its charge per second, but as she didn¡¯t have access to the Rare-level normal Mana storage, it was the best she could do. The para-elemental Sand rune, along with majors [Create] and [Direct]. Those weren¡¯t... exactly for her, but that was fine. [Absorb] and {Visualize} rounded out the first ten, hitting her with another advancement.
Expertise 2 Effect: Multiset Runes By running multiple distinct copies of the same major rune over each other in different mana-conductors and with careful application of the writer¡¯s mana directing them, if they are identical in every way except for their parameters, it is possible to create a single rune with distinct settings. This process increases the use-price of both settings, but allows for the user to change between them. There must be a Control-series minor rune or the user of the item must have specialized in that rune to change settings.
It wasn¡¯t useful yet, but she knew that it was one of the most common ways to create some of the more powerful items around, simply because spending too much power for minor enemies could quickly become a problem, and switching weapons in the middle of combat, when using something large like a bow or greatsword, was even worse. It was looking at the remaining runes, wondering what she was going to do for the armor¡¯s discharge of kinetic energy, when she was suddenly struck by an idea of what to do with the Merge usage. It was a good thing that Geria was there, Deyana didn¡¯t have the credits to buy what she needed. ¡°Can you buy¡­ a staff, a close-fitting long-sleeve writable undershirt and forearm cover, and a right-handed glove for me.¡± Geria nodded and started on the buying process while she pulled out the runes she wanted¨C {Shape: Triangular Pyramid}, {Control: Proximity}, {Type: Kinetic}, {Metastorage: Monodirectional Transfer Contiguous} and [Impart Energy]. [Bolt] found its way onto the pile too, though that one wasn¡¯t part of her plan. ¡°I will. What do you want the staff for, though? You tend to use swords.¡± ¡°It¡¯s a temporary for you. How do you feel about being a sand controller?¡± Geria paused in the order, hitting what looked like a return button a few times before changing some sliders. ¡°That will be fine. Better than being discovered. You should have told me earlier. I am shorter than you.¡± ¡°Oh, and if you want the sand creation on a different item get that, too, but it should be fine on the staff.¡± ¡°Mmm.¡± The two of them finished at almost the same time, the ordered items appearing in the corner as Deyana finished copying over the new runes. The undershirt that would be acting as armor was the first priority. Not because it was what she needed most, but because it would take the longest, in addition to being the one she¡¯d be applying the |Merge| usage she had to. First was the part that had been on her old armor. [Absorb], centered on the sternum, with the minor runes around it. {Type: Kinetic} made it limited, but allowed for her to directly put the input side of a high-throughput moderate-storing {Metastorage: Monodirectional Transfer Contiguous} around the Major rune, connecting it to a minor {Storage: Bleeding Kinetic} that was out of the effect range of [Absorb] by way of the left arm, and leaving it for the moment. The next step required a bit more testing, but with Geria¡¯s help, as well as {Visualize} on [Form], allowed her to quickly discover the correct settings for the hemiellipsoid to cover the front half of her body without too much hassle. From there, it was simple to complete the first part. Adding a {Control: Proximity} would mean that the rune only activated when she was attacked (or, technically, when anything intent on making contact with her from the front crossed the barrier. It was fairly effective, but it did mean that someone throwing an object to her would need to warn her in advance or have it stop in midair.), which would decrease the cost to something her mana regeneration could mostly sustain. Given the choices she¡¯d made, it would be level 20 before the upkeep cost was actually outpaced by the regeneration, but given that going down a single mana point out of her eighty would take more than two seconds of being ready to receive a hit, she wasn¡¯t concerned. Actually regenerating mana would require her to actively stop supplying it with mana for now, but it still wasn¡¯t really an issue. Next up: the reason she¡¯d actually planned this and forty minutes of detail work to cap off her first hour. She pulled out one of the stand pieces from the workbench, fitting the arm of the shirt over the arm of it, activating the resizer that grew it out, expanding the shirt until it was no longer slack. The storage rune on the upper shoulder sat there, taunting her. The metastorage runes were negligibly costed for transfer, when they didn¡¯t have energy stored, and also when they had energy stored but the runes on both sides had energy as well. The upside to that was that she could essentially dismiss them for the calculations she had to so next, determining how much storage she could afford to put in. The downside was that if she under-guessed on how much she would need before she could use the stored energy, the one-sided storage price would come into play, essentially eating through her current mana stores in seconds and causing the other storage runes to revert to their fuel failure state. In the case of storage runes, instantly applying everything they had stored in their current position, undirected. She ended up deciding on a one-three and one-four configuration. The current bleeding storage rune fed into a chained three more bleeding ones, with their bleed turned up a bit in exchange for a decrease in mana cost (both benefits in her eyes), which was then split into a large bleeding rune with the bleed maxed out, moving back towards the shoulder at a much lower transfer rate than the other side, and another chain of four, this time to non-bleeding storages. It was fairly complex, but it would store quite a bit of energy while also having a safety measure to keep it working effectively even if the primary storages were full. A lesson she¡¯d learned in full from Hyrd. The other side was less complex, though no less time-consuming. [Create] and the {Triangular Pyramid} were first. Not too much tweaking was needed there. The main important parts were getting it rotated to make the longer height parallel with the [Create] rune itself and shrinking it down to a size where it didn¡¯t rip a hole in her mana stores when she added the {Material: Stone} [Impart Energy] and {Type: Kinetic} with {Control: Mental Direction} didn¡¯t even take that long, only requiring the alignment part of that equation. Fifty-five minutes in, and she was finally at the part where it could all go wrong. ¡°Wish me luck?¡± ¡°Good luck,¡± Geria answered, and Deyana jumped. The voice was right behind her. ¡°Oh, shoot, sorry! I went ahead and completely ignored you for this bit, didn¡¯t I?¡± ¡°Yes, but that is okay. I was trying to be unobtrusive. It¡¯s interesting to watch you at work.¡± Deyana blinked. ¡°Are you sure about that? I¡¯ve just been kinda diving into math and the drawing for¡­ a while.¡± Geria narrowed her eyes slightly, then glanced at the arm, the underside of it covered in the runes she¡¯d been drawing on, then back. ¡°I¡¯m sure. I haven¡¯t seen anyone work this completely. They usually send people out of the room if they¡¯re not teaching.¡± That was odd. ¡°Did you want to learn or something?¡± ¡°Sometimes. It isn¡¯t likely to be something I would want to stick with. But it is interesting.¡± Deyana scoffed. ¡°I don¡¯t even have the right to send you out at this point anyways.¡± ¡°If you asked me to leave, I would.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t bother waiting for that. Okay. Reset for the last bit. Let¡¯s go.¡± This part¡­ shouldn¡¯t be hard, but everything in her brain rebelled against it, remembering the fiery explosion that had taken her guildmate. First, |Merge|. Then, both majors. It was better to get that out of the way quickly if things went horribly wrong. When nothing did, Deyana relaxed, filling all the secondaries that had been waiting. As a test, she slipped the forearm cover over it. Everything but [Impart Energy] and the energy runes disappeared beneath it. Deyana grinned. It was time to test it. Hopefully without dying or blowing anything up. Well, blowing anything up too badly. Pileup 7: Tools for the Job Deyana spun her finger in the air. ¡°Turn around for a sec, let me get this on.¡± When Geria did, she started to pull on the recently runewritten item. While a lot of more modern games allowed for the equipping and unequipping of items from the inventory menu, Rune was somewhat of an exception due to its magic system. Where, usually, it was a combination of convenience and irrelevance that allowed for that to be used, the way Rune¡¯s systems worked meant that needing to be able to physically put on certain items actually functioned as a limitation on power¨C or, in the case of some of the back-laced things that were gaining popularity as runewriters applied the knowledge that major runes¡¯ influence zones didn¡¯t carry across physical divides, a way to increase it. ¡°Okay, I¡¯m good.¡± Geria turned back around. ¡°How do you want to test it?¡± ¡°Let¡¯s start simple. I¡¯ll turn it on, you punch it. It¡¯s absorb, so it won¡¯t hurt or anything¡± ¡°Okay,¡± Geria said, not moving. The process of dealing with Geria was becoming more obvious to her, now. Deyana activated the runes, noticing a slight drain on her mana. It was a bit faster than she¡¯d calculated, but that was expected. ¡°Hit me.¡± The change in stance followed by the punch was quick enough that if she hadn¡¯t called for it, Deyana felt that she wouldn¡¯t have been able to react to it. The draw ticked up noticeably, jumping up and down for a second or two before stabilizing¨C higher than the passive draw, but still not huge. She turned her arm to face the open part of the room, then mentally ticked the group on the arm on, praying to the electronic masters that it wouldn¡¯t just blow her arm off. A spike of stone formed above her arm, pulling a fifteen-mana fee, already moving before it even finished forming. It launched out even faster than the punch Geria had thrown, shattering against the wall across the room. The giggles that bubbled up were probably inappropriate. In fact, they almost definitely were. That didn¡¯t stop them from working their way out, looking back and forth between her arm and the shattered spike well on the other side of the room.
Quest Progress: 0.5% You¡¯ll need more complete testing to get real results, but the first step is often the most important.
¡°Okay. That down. I really want to keep playing with it¡­¡± She did. She really did. But she had limited time here, and she¡¯d said she was going to make something for Geria. Partially so that the other girl could act as a backstop for more difficult challenges, but mostly because she felt like the debt was owed. While a staff of the type Deyana was envisioning wouldn¡¯t actually be that valuable, objectively, it would also represent much more than that. As things stood, any fighting¨C in Geria¡¯s case, as someone who didn¡¯t appear to craft any items, any playing the game¨C would currently bring down the anger of the people after her. So, even though it would be a mid-level staff, nowhere near the level that its user could effectively handle, it was more about the freedom itself. Not that she knew that Geria would think about it that way. And that was okay, too. The pause had gone on a while, but Geria still hadn¡¯t spoken. ¡°But it¡¯s more important to get that staff set up for you. Do you want a point and use or a self-centered one?¡± ¡°Point.¡± ¡°Got it.¡± At least this one was simpler. First off, it needed to create sand, but that was simple enough. [Create], supported by the para-elemental {Sand}, {Control: Mental Direction} to reduce the mental taxation that came with directing mana specifically, the {Multieffect: Spiral} and any shape. technically any shape, but she decided on the hexagonal prism. It wasn¡¯t technically any better or worse than a cylinder, given that [Create]¡¯s primary pricing was by volume and material, but using a new rune was more effective than an old one. Using multieffect was more efficient to make more sand than directly increasing the volume would be, if only just. It was built that way intentionally, she knew, because it wasn¡¯t possible to choose not to use it, and every version of it had situations where it could be negative. If you encounter this narrative on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. In this case, though, spiraling out from the center would be fine much more often than it wasn¡¯t, so the mana efficiency was worth it, especially because the {Control: Mental Direction} could only change the settings on the major rune. In [Create]¡¯s case, that meant density and continuity¨C that was, whether any of the material that left the area would be replaced. Density could neutralize one of the negatives by countering excess, and continuity would just make the spiral even more effective in high-volume scenarios. That was the upper quarter of the staff, and another simple test convinced her that she¡¯d set it up correctly. Throwing a small [Wall] rune behind where Geria¡¯s natural grip (based on asking her to hold it) was both kept it out of the range of the [Create] rune and still allowed its own area of influence to overlap the direction and sand. It wasn¡¯t exactly necessary, but it still made her more comfortable to throw a more hidden, somewhat defensive option on it. After that, though, was the actual main point of the item. [Direct]. Direction, force, size multiplier, all set at the center. {Control: Mental Direction} and {Sand}. No options. {Shape: Triangular Pyramid}, this time wider and squatter than the one she¡¯d used and pointing ¡°down¡±, relative to the staff. {Shape: Hemiellipsoid}, set so that it covered the base of the pyramid, even squatter, to make sure that a near miss behind would also be picked up, making it easier to pull any sand that got on the user off. {Control: Timed Activation}, a common, was a bit stranger, she knew, and it would make the control a lot ¡°slipperier¡±, for lake of a better word, but by adding a half-second to it, it would allow Geria to apply more force and control the material even when it was slightly beyond the range she defined, at the expense of also not getting an instant response to growing it. And, finally, a minor {Durability}, making the sand slightly tougher when it made contact with anything. In the context of reality, that would only be somewhat meaningful, but Deyana knew from experience that in the case of the game, particularly controllers of particulates, it would also make any near-solids formed within the control range tougher. The only issue was that she couldn¡¯t even begin to test it on her own. ¡°Done, I think. Hopefully nothing on here works in a way I wasn¡¯t expecting. Give it a spin?¡± ¡°Mmm.¡± Geria took the staff, looking over the way she¡¯d divided the sections. The inspect window would tell her which runes were on there, but without seeing where they were it was still possible to mis-apply mana and get the wrong effects. Not that it took her long. Less than ten seconds after it was handed over, she created a spiral of sand in the air, letting it drop to the ground. Pointing the staff at the pile that formed, Geria appeared to concentrate for a second before it started moving. At first it was a bit strange to watch, as each action she applied seemed to be carried on for just barely too long, sending the sand out of range. Before too long, though, Geria had the main body of it all working around in a circle, only passing through the control area for about half the circumference. ¡°Weird choice. Depends on being able to guess where you need it in advance.¡± ¡°Yeah, a little bit. But..?¡± ¡°Useful. I didn¡¯t have the runes for a marked or staged control, so this can work instead.¡± ¡°I wish I could give you something better¡­¡± Geria shook her head, starting to move the sand faster and in more complex patterns. ¡°It doesn¡¯t matter. It is better to have than just the ones that will give me away.¡± ¡°Right. One more. Should be quick this time.¡± It was, at least, fewer runes than either of the previous project, but it would still be eating the remainder of her time. Probably the thing that stood out most right now was her lack of ranged ability. There were two ways to fix that that she could see that didn¡¯t involve completely throwing away the sword as her primary weapon, and those were [Bolt], a major common, and [Bomb], a major uncommon. She would have liked to say that she considered her options, weighed the pros and cons, and came to a decision. That would have been a lie, as she completely rejected [Bolt] instantly as an extremely versatile, powerful, caster and non-caster alike staple that she wanted absolutely nothing to do with. [Bomb] had three main settings. As a circle with a second circle overlapping on one side and a tangent line on the other, the central circle controlled the power, costed linearly. The second circle was a little bit strange, controlling the ¡®size¡¯¨C more specifically, the size before the explosion went off. While the main circle would control the explosion itself and was therefore costed directly, this one was instead relative. If it was the same size as the main circle, it would have essentially no cost, but it charged an increasing cost as its size diverged from the main circle¡¯s, in either direction. Finally, the line controlled how ¡°real¡± the casing was. Specifically, a larger line would bean that hardened fragments of mana would spray out, where a minimum size one would cause only the explosion to actually damage things. Like any responsible crafter building something for use near cities, she immediately set that one to the minimum size. It wasn¡¯t as though she couldn¡¯t create another with more mana if there was a near miss. {Material: Water Ice} followed next, soon joined by {Control: Mental Direction}. While she didn¡¯t, as a rule, want to change two thirds of the settings that she¡¯d just put down, it was still useful in that it allowed her to change the power. She could have left the other two on their defaults, but by setting the more common state as the written one, she would be saving mana when it came to using it in the field. She thought for a second. Was there something she¡¯d missed? It felt incomplete. Better to test with some paper, at least. And {Visualize} instead of {Material: Water Ice}. Which turned out to be a good idea when, upon pressing her mana into the group, a small ball appeared above it and instantly burst into a flash of purple light. Deyana blinked twice, sparks in her eyes, before partially suppressing a snort. ¡°Right. Knew it was missing something.¡± {Delay} joined the other minor runes, set to three and a half seconds. This time, when she pressed her mana into the paper, the ball didn¡¯t instantly burst. Deyana grabbed it, hurling it across the room, where it created another flash of light. Because she wasn¡¯t in it this time, she didn¡¯t even need to blink lights out of her eyes. It got added to her working set on the glove, which she slipped onto her left hand. Two quick tests at the minimum power she could muster told her that it was, in fact, working as intended when it glassed over small parts of the ground, sending a few randomly shaped chunks of ice flying in other directions as well. Deyana wiggled the fingers in the glove. ¡°Wanna go commit battery against non-sentient computer programs?¡± Pileup 8: A Quick Test ¡°Are you sure about this? Slimes mean that I will not be able to step in without being recognized.¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure!¡± Deyana chirped, bouncing along. It probably stood out, but she didn¡¯t really care. She had two all-new rune setups to test in a live environment. Well, someone had probably made the grenade glove at some point or another, but it was new to her, at least. ¡°And while I¡¯d prefer you not let me die, just you being there means I¡¯ll take fewer stupid risks.¡± ¡°Fewer? Wouldn¡¯t one typically take more risks with a safety net?¡± Deyana pulled a complicated face, thinking about how to explain it. It wasn¡¯t that the conclusions were wrong for the premises, exactly, but there were a couple of assumed premises¡­ ¡°It¡¯s not so much that you¡¯re a safety net, because I only sorta care about dying. What you are is someone whose opinion I care about, so I¡¯ll limit the possible losses so that you don¡¯t feel bad for me or worry.¡± Geria¡¯s steps stuttered for a moment, then she started catching up. Deyana slightly reduced her step size to make that easier. ¡°Why in the world would that be what you¡¯re concerned about?¡± ¡°Well, my first thought was to question whether I could poke thirty slimes to aggro them, get them all chasing me, then cook an orb for two seconds before throwing it to hit them all.¡± There was a long pause where they both kept walking, neither of them saying anything. ¡°Okay, but¡­ why?¡± She didn¡¯t really have an answer to that, so she let it hang for a moment before shrugging. ¡°It seems fun. Stupid, pretty likely to get me killed, but fun.¡± ¡°Oh. Okay.¡± They were getting close to the slime area now, and Deyana felt that twitch in her fingers that had long ago replaced the nervousness of her early play time. The glove felt heavy on her hand, while the sword bouncing against her hip almost fell out of her attention. It was, after all, slimes. Some games had them as early game enemies, others decided to make them terrifying late game monstrosities. Rune had chosen neither of those options. Instead, spread out in levels over the whole range, the only truly notable level feature of slimes was that they were nearly immune to most forms of physical damage. Worse, unlike so many other games had decided, just being formed by magic didn¡¯t make the attack bypass that. Like everything else in Rune, it was much too based on reality for that. Instead, ¡°physical attacks¡± meant any attack that was based on physically separating, crushing, or piercing them. There were exceptions¨C cutting one fully into two pieces, and keeping them separated for a few seconds, would make two smaller enemies, which could eventually be reduced in size enough to lose coherency; splattering them completely, a difficult task due to their physical characteristics, could make the fragments unable to connect for too long; and creating an explosion or burst after piercing them could cause the same problem¨C but as a general rule, it was best to find another strategy to deal with them. And the attack itself being made of void or air or ice wouldn¡¯t bypass that. Luckily, they were also extremely vulnerable to other strategies. Not that she should take them for granted, which brought her up short. Geria was here after all, so she should probably find a single slime and pull it to test things first. With almost nobody else in the area, it was a simple matter to scan the area, picking out a single blue specimen that was oozing across the ruined roadway. Deyana pushed mana into her glove, manifesting the orb there in the middle of a n underhanded tossing motion. Not quite landing where she was aiming, it smacked down into a crack next to the slime, instantly seeming to get stuck. The slime moved quickly, sliding down into the crack and pulling the orb into its body. Slimes didn¡¯t exactly have the best track record for intelligence. The orb went off, freezing the slime though and leaving a small glassy area around it. Unexpectedly, though, there was no kill notification that graced her vision, and her mana regeneration was still bound by the combat version of it. Only one answer then. ¡°Um. So. It¡¯s not dead.¡± ¡°Really? I would have thought freezing killed them.¡± ¡°I did too. Any ideas?¡± ¡°Nothing good. It doesn¡¯t look like it¡¯s moving, though¡­¡± It seemed to be quite thoroughly frozen, but maybe becoming less so? A glossy sheen had started to appear on the outside, at least. This story originates from a different website. Ensure the author gets the support they deserve by reading it there. She was trying to wrack her brain for the options she had available, but she kept coming back to one thing. It was good that she hadn¡¯t tried the monster train idea. They¡¯d be frozen for a time, true, but they¡¯d also track her movements and be following her with attack aggro. Plus, her freezing would be somewhat antithetical to the usual slime strategy of evaporating them. Or, in some lower-level cases like she was seeing around, reducing them until they stopped moving and came apart. ¡°Do you think you could shatter them?¡± Geria asked, her eyes narrowed. ¡°I¡¯m not sure you¡¯d have the mana availability to so that without absorbing something first¡­¡± She was probably right about that. While the merged runes on her arm could be scaled up to create their own energy, doing so would cost much more in terms of mana than it had really been built for, and leave her basically helpless. Although¨C ¡°If it unfreezes, you can wall it out with sand until I can regen mana. It¡¯s not perfect, obviously, but we have the time to test some stuff.¡± ¡°Yes. This means you¡¯re going to try without?¡± ¡°Mhmm.¡± As she stepped closer to the slime, she was already working out the numbers in her head. Eighty mana at level sixteen, but that would go up quickly with slime kills. Twenty for the ice bomb, and a bit of a safety margin to not pass out. She funneled her mana into the runes on the shirt. Connected as they were, she couldn¡¯t just activate one section without being specialized in any of the runes involved, and specializations unlocked at level fifty. Forty-five mana, plus five for the activation itself, funneled into the runes on her arm, leaving her a bit lightheaded, but a pyramid shot out, slamming into the glistening slime. It didn¡¯t go all the way through, but large parts of the slime broke into fragments, sloughing off of the main body. Cutting the power to her runes, Deyana looked it over again. It hadn¡¯t gone all the way through, but it had knocked off almost half of the thing¡¯s composition, and the stone spike was still sticking out. She kicked it.
Combat Ended! +195 Experience, +20 credits
Deyana nodded to herself, watching as the icy fragments dissolved into the ether. Well, no; probably the lore would say ¡°charged zones¡± instead. Those areas on the other side of the portals where monsters supposedly originated from and were enhanced by, reclaiming their own. It would be believable, and the already-killed corpses that had been on the other side of most of the portals she¡¯d been on the attack for lent credence to that interpretation. The ritually laid out, tied-down and still-living enemies were more confusing, but they¡¯d probably get more on that when they got into later portal tiers. ¡°Got the kill. Repeatable on the small scale, but I¡¯d need you to boost me for more than one at a time.¡± ¡°I can do that. It will still count as your solo kill, yes?¡± ¡°Yep! So long as our party remains separate and you don¡¯t directly hit them, at least.¡± Geria nodded. ¡°How many can you take, with me boosting?¡± That was a good question. Fifteen mana per bolt without inserting any additional speed into the equation directly meant that she could theoretically do three, but realistically, there was going to be time between them, and the uptick in costs associated with absorbing a hit would make a cut into that buffer as well. ¡°Two for now, three in two or three levels.¡± Geria nodded. ¡°I still don¡¯t enjoy having to be out of your party.¡± Deyana waved the concern off. ¡°It¡¯s fine; if it becomes important, I can just shoot you an invite.¡± ¡°I know.¡± Deyana spotted two slimes close to each other and headed off for them, her escort following. This time, she was more confident with the toss, holding it for a second before tossing this time. It arced up, then down, popping before it even made contact with the ground. Deyana activated the shield, motioning for Geria to hit her. A spiraling wave of sand popped out around the top of the staff, and Geria spun it before the sand had even fallen, catching the main body of it in a much smaller area than Deyana had planned for it to be used in, before stabbing forward with the bottom end of the staff, the sand lagging behind. Only for a blink, though, and it followed like it had been a rubber band pulled taut, moving faster than the original stab and thumping into her shielding with a sound like a dropped sandbag. When the mana dropped significantly more precipitously than she¡¯d expected, Deyana was suddenly glad that she¡¯d built in safety margins. Checking the sleeve as the power transfer happened revealed why. Almost a third of the capacity, including the reserve, was being used. She had no idea how much that was objectively, but given that not a single test up until that point had used more than a single rune¡¯s capacity, it had to be a lot. Actually, she was kind of worried: she could control how much was added directly, but [Impart Energy] had no such limiter for storage runes. Only one way to deal with that problem, though. Deyana spun, taking more careful aim than she had last time and making sure to keep a downwards angle towards the slime before triggering the runes. She didn¡¯t even see the projectile. Instead, there was a crack, a shattering sound, and a thump as the slime broke into pieces and a hole appeared in the ground behind it. Deyana stood there, blinking, before blowing out a breath. ¡°Huh. That was effective.¡± Geria nodded. ¡°It was. I did use a hundred mana for that, of course.¡± Deyana sputtered. ¡°A¨C a hundred? Why¨C why would you even¡­ What was the point of that? I don¡¯t even have a hundred yet!¡± ¡°I wanted to test your defenses. And I regen that in three seconds.¡± ¡°Yeah, I mean, that¡¯s how the numbers work, but what would you have done if it couldn¡¯t handle that much?¡± Geria gave her a look like she was reevaluating the intelligence of the person she was talking to. ¡°I¡¯d already given the set of orders to stop it if it got close to you, obviously.¡± Deyana rolled her eyes. ¡°Okay, fine. No more than fifty, this time, please.¡± ¡°Done,¡± Geria said, and before the syllable was even complete, more sand was in the air. The quick spin and pulling of the staff was less surprising this time, but that just left her to admire the form of it before her mana once again dove downwards. Not nearly as bad this time. Which was the point, of course, but some part of her was ever-so-slightly disappointed to not be testing the work in even more extreme scenarios. The part of her that didn¡¯t particularly want to die again was glad that she wouldn¡¯t have to deal with an overcap explosion because she didn¡¯t have the right limiter runes yet to turn off the shield and take the hit on her HP yet. Not that she¡¯d be able to take anything approaching a strong hit from Geria on her HP. Another cracking sound, this time much quieter, followed by a thump. Unlike last time, she could see part of the stone spike sticking out of the ground as the slime finished collapsing.
Combat Ended! +390 Experience, +40 credits Slime obtained.
¡°Alright, we¡¯ve got¡­¡± Deyana checked the time, ¡°thirty minutes before we should leave the area and I need to log out. Keep the hits at that size, and let¡¯s see how many we can get.¡± Pileup 9: No Plan Survives Contact with the Allies The slime killing was cathartic, in a way. None of the slimes were particularly threatening on their own, and an area like this wasn¡¯t one of the more effective training spots for her particular level ranges. Requiring the ability to actually kill slimes, a more expensive proposition to begin with, amplified by the early levels not granting easy access to the credits required to buy such a weapon, meant that only a few other people were even in the area as she and Geria ran around, smashing the slimes into shiny chunks. Half an hour and several levels in, the slimes were finally dropping off slightly in effectiveness of experience gain. Not terribly so; the way that experience scaled, she could have easily tipped over to level 25 in another twenty minutes to get the conversion skill, but she¡¯d already picked up the first inventory expansion and three thousand credits. It should have been a bit less than half of that, but Geria was being stubborn and, given what that had apparently caused in the past, Deyana had chosen the better part of valor instead. Not that she wouldn¡¯t be having that argument, eventually, but she wasn¡¯t terribly concerned about having it right that particular second. Three thousand credits was significant to her, but given the way that player fortunes scaled, a pittance to the person she was with. A level gap of over one hundred tended to do that to a person. Not that she minded that much. Smashing another slime, she was about to mention something to the effect of leaving, maybe to find a better farming spot for the short time they had left, when the low throbbing sound of the boss spawning in a non-raid area went off.
Warning! A boss monster has spawned in the zone! Players with more than forty kills on monster type: Slime (Level 15-18) will receive Death Penalty (without incrementing death counter) when leaving the zone while it remains alive! Yours: 168
¡°Well, there went that plan. Any idea where it is?¡± ¡°It is a Slime boss. It could be hiding basically anywhere, but I suspect that it will be under a pile of something.¡± There were a few places that could apply to: a large fallen wall, if it was a Princess, Metal, or Martyr; a huge pile of fallen rocks, if it were a Queen, King, or General; and the ruined underground tunnel that ran under the whole area, if it were an Assassin, Prince, or Mage. It obviously wasn¡¯t a King, Prince, or General, at least. A King would have made a number of smaller, lower level slimes start falling from the sky. A Prince would be aggressive enough that someone or other would have already yelled about it. And, because the slimes weren¡¯t moving to form up in much more deadly manner, it wasn¡¯t looking like a General, either. Higher levels wouldn¡¯t have ruled that one out, but the Generals before the low fifties were fairly unlikely to use deceptive tactics. Best to start grouping up, then. A Martyr or Princess given too much time without being found, and an Assassin or Mage given time to work with the players separated, could easily take out most of the about twenty people there. ¡°Opening my group to raid joins!¡± Deyana yelled, inviting Geria at the same time as she set the level display to private. It wasn¡¯t that she was particularly concerned for her own safety¨C none of the variants were likely able to do anything to the much higher-level player she was partied with. Instead, she was going to try to get the people involved here a taste of the actual coordination that they¡¯d be well-served to learn early on. Not that she was expecting much. Even though she was sure most of the people in the area could have heard her yell, only four groups, totaling to ten players, had linked up to her own. Luckily, those same groups were moving to closer proximity, between the three places where she was expecting the spawn to have come from. When most of them had arrived, she spoke again. ¡°Any eyes on? We¡¯re expecting it in that wall, that pile, or underground.¡± The chorus of ¡°no¡±s wasn¡¯t encouraging, but not unexpected, either. At least until a yell from the other side of the pile abruptly cut short. A Martyr, then. Shit. They weren¡¯t the most threatening of the boss options, to a well-coordinated team, but that¡¯s not what they had here. A Martyr would, as it was damaged, grow an invisible aura that drew slimes to any of its enemies in that area. Once damaged to 50% health, they would suddenly explode, dealing a ton of damage to anyone caught in the blast. Unfortunately, that damage counter didn¡¯t reset, and the Martyr regenerated. Now that she was listening to it, she heard the two additional pops. Probably another death, and more damage to the Martyr. ¡°We¡¯ve got a Martyr. Everyone here is running heat except my party, right?¡± They were. It wasn¡¯t a bad decision, per se, but it wasn¡¯t the best way to deal with a Martyr, given its regenerative properties. The best plan, had that been their only option, would have been to kite it, rotating people onto and off of group protection duty until everyone had nearly full mana, then used all of it to burn down the Slime Martyr all at once. With her there, though, they had different options. ¡°Let Geria and me handle the boss, then. We have freezing, so we can take it out all at once. You all cover the littles. Remember¨C sixty percent, then all at once, unless you want to be rubbing phantom slime of yourself on the respawn platform.¡± A series of nods convinced her. Some of them were a bit slower than she liked, but she didn¡¯t pay it any mind. The genuine version of this novel can be found on another site. Support the author by reading it there. They were off, then, and Deyana noticed a few of them practicing the kill pattern she¡¯d suggested on some of the slimes they passed along the way, bringing a slight smile to her face. The slime had killed more than the two people she¡¯d been aware of. At least four places had groups of slime explosions. Twice in a clustered group, twice in a line with shrinking distance. Because of course. She could see another player pointing a wand at the slime, parts of its blue exterior hissing off, being replaced almost as fast as the damage was dealt. From behind the other player, she could see a group of three slimes converging, and almost shouted a warning before stopping herself. The damage being dealt was obviously ineffective. If she wasn¡¯t trying to run over to the raid party when it was clearly visible, she deserved what came next. Specifically, one of the slimes knocked into her legs, causing her to trip. Instantly, she swapped targets, melting the slime down to half health in a second and a half even as the weight of the slime caused her to fall backwards. Of course, reaching half health caused that slime to explode. And, because friendly fire was a thing, its explosion caused the same thing to occur with the two slimes that hadn¡¯t yet made contact. The three explosions instantly killed the girl, and Deyana sighed. What was it with people trying to solo fights they didn¡¯t understand? The Martyr retargeted to their group, and Deyana started talking again. ¡°Don¡¯t attack the boss! We¡¯re going to chain it for a bit, while I pull its temp down. Once it¡¯s frozen, we¡¯ll hit it strong enough to take it down.¡± With that, she started the process by tossing the first of what would probably be many frozen orbs, following it up nearly immediately with a second. They landed on opposite sides of the boss, freezing parts of the ground, but the much thicker, much less willing to eat strange magic orbs boss slime only had parts of its outside frozen. Even that, however, was quickly pulled into the center of it, the frozen parts being dissolved by the larger enemy as it glided towards them. One every five seconds, half the time it took her to regenerate the mana of one, was the balance she struck as the group slowly moved back, doing an admirable job of keeping the slimes contained. Geria visibly stepped in a couple of times, throwing a wall or wave of sand to block or carry away a slime as it was about to explode. Deyana was genuinely impressed at how quickly she¡¯d adapted to using that, and was already planning on saying something about that soon enough. For now, though, she had a slowly chilling slime to deal with. Eight orbs in, and the slime was starting to hold the crystals internally for longer. Ten, and it was nearly frozen. Just a couple more and it would be solid enough for Geria to smash through the center of it, breaking it up enough that everyone else there could take it apart in pieces before the aura had a chance to expand or the boss had a chance to regenerate it. Or at least, it would have been, if the last group of four guys hadn¡¯t chosen that moment to tear around the side of the pile, charging towards the boss. Without even asking what was going on, they pointed two wands and two staffs at it, visibly heating the surface. ¡°No! Fuck, what are you guys doing?¡± One of them looked confused. ¡°Killing the boss, what?¡± Deyana¡¯s eyes went wide, and her mouth argued with her brain as they undid her work in a matter of seconds before going out of mana themselves. The boss was moving again, and they no longer had enough room to run around without running into a ton of slimes and having their allies burn mana to keep them contained. It wasn¡¯t helped by the fact that they¡¯d taken off about a sixth of its health in the process, expanding the range of its aura to contain at least thirty or forty other slimes. Deyana¡¯s eyes narrowed. There wasn¡¯t much chance of her previous plan working, now, and the people around her had already burned their own mana to get it close. Not as much as they¡¯d have needed to do it another way, but given everything, it was a lot more likely that they¡¯d be dying here than surviving. A common feature of bosses, and one she appreciated in most cases, but also currently unacceptable. Luckily, Geria had more than enough mana to spare. She could reach over, charge the glove that Deyana had been using, and they could get back on track for the freezing plan. Unluckily, while she knew that the current spending being used was low enough that she wasn¡¯t even losing any, making that clear to the other people would involve revealing her to be one of the top five percent of players, level-wise. Which would be¡­ unwise. Those thoughts kept tearing around in her head, no answers presenting themselves, until Geria tapped on her shoulder and whispered in her ear. ¡°Martyrs take in anything that blocks them.¡± The circle in her thoughts broke, and Deyana fell back into the leadership role she¡¯d assumed. ¡°Need some time. You, idiots, join the raid and get behind everyone. You¡¯re on kiting duty. Everyone else, still mini duty, but catch them from the idiots, instead. We can still two person it.¡± Maybe it was something about her voice, but this time they actually listened. As she and Geria separated from the group, two explosions went off close to it. While she could have afforded to defend them, Deyana put her hand on the other girl¡¯s arm before she did. It wouldn¡¯t do to keep the secret in one way and give it away another. ¡°Can you do a four hundred burn to wall it off, then pull it into eight and rewall?¡± ¡°Probably. I¡¯d need to stay just in front.¡± ¡°How does above sound?¡± Geria blinked twice. ¡°That would work, but I don¡¯t have a midair mobility, so¡­¡± ¡°If you don¡¯t have a problem with it, I don¡¯t.¡± ¡°I¡­ I don¡¯t, but¡­¡± ¡°Good, come on!¡± Deyana bolted forwards, staying just outside of the three-meter range that would cause the Martyr to retarget to her over the people who had annoyed it with actual damage. Two slimes came at her and she sidestepped both, one of them getting caught by two of the other players working together, taking it out before it had the time to turn around and come back at her. Geria was just behind, stepping over the melted bits of slime much more gracefully, then stuck out the staff, dropping a sizeable wall of sand between the boss and its targets. It didn¡¯t even slow down. The slime flowed around and through the sand wall, picking it up as it went, and seemed to grow even larger than it was. Deyana didn¡¯t let that go to waste. ¡°Princess or piggyback?¡± Geria turned to her. ¡°What? There¡¯s an obvious choice, right? Pi¨C¡± Deyana swept her up, cutting her off, a cheeky grin coming over her face as she activated the boots. ¡°Obvious choice, should¡¯ve thought of that.¡± The boots were only designed for one person, so while she was able to get up in the air while Geria half-glared, it was a much more involved effort than it could have been. Geria was lighter than she was, or this might not have been possible at all, and even then it was a significant expenditure of effort to continuously step upwards, using the resistance provided by the magic and the additional physical force to keep them in the air while Geria spun her staff below them. The burning was already becoming pronounced when the second circle completed, followed by the slime splitting apart. Deyana let herself drift down while Geria threw more sand between the eight smaller slimes, holding them apart. ¡°That¡¯s four hundred.¡± ¡°Alright, they¡¯re normal sized!¡± Deyana yelled out, towards the group. ¡°Come in and take them out!¡± It hadn¡¯t been long enough for her own mana to regenerate much, so she just watched as several of the members who had been taking a break ran in, knocking out six of the spokes without issue. Deyana did get to throw one more ice ball at one of the remaining two, but by and large the other players handed the actual damage involved in the process, the boss¡¯s regeneration slowed by the split.
Combat Ended! Boss Killed! Pick-up Raid: Loot Automatically Assigned +4875 Experience, +490 Credits Common {Storage: Bleeding Electrical} Acquired!
Level Up! HP: 60 (+2) Mana: 125 (+5) Stamina: 30 (+1)
Level 25 Reached. Please select your transference skills.[1]: Mana ¡ú Health Mana ¡ú Stamina Health ¡ú Mana Health ¡ú Stamina Stamina ¡ú Mana Stamina ¡ú Health [1]: Selecting fewer skills will improve their efficiency!
Pileup 10: Tension Had she been making a push for quick levels, hitting twenty-five in the first day would have put her in the upper ten percent of speed, though well below what she knew what she was capable of. As it actually stood, she was quite frankly astonished when the level-up notification appeared, and only her prepared reaction to it and the fact that there were a lot of people around got her to quickly confirm her selection, the monodirectional health to stamina conversion, before a bunch of people surrounded her and Geria, mostly thanking them for the raid help. Neither of them were particularly adroit at fielding that, and they awkwardly deflected a lot when asked about her level, making allusions to it being around seventy. They didn¡¯t need to lie about her intention being there, at least; powerlevelling was a readily accepted excuse, and while they had to fend off a few joking attempts to get her to do it for others as well, it was mostly all in good humor. When they finally managed to get out, Deyana came to the realization that she remembered maybe half of it. ¡°Sorry about that, and the um. Grabbing thing. I should have set that up the way you actually wanted.¡± Geria¡¯s head tilted, and her eyes flicked to the side for a short moment. ¡°Wanted or asked for¡­¡± there was another moment of pause. ¡°But it¡¯s fine. I know you didn¡¯t really mean anything by it.¡± Deyana chose not to address that. ¡°I have been meaning to say, I guess; we¡¯re going to have to keep you separated from the guy I was with for a while. If you show up out of nowhere he¡¯s going to have a lot of questions we don¡¯t want to answer.¡± ¡°I see,¡± Geria responded, as they crossed the line between the are they were in and the world proper. Deyana¡¯s response was lost as her quest window popped up again.
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 2/20: The Best Way to Learn Complete!
Phase 3/20: Proof of Concept Complete!
Kill or assist in killing a boss monster that grants unreduced experience that has been damaged or been prevented from damaging an assistor by someone using a piece of gear enchanted with the |Merge| rune.
Phase 4/20: Growing Understanding
While you have possession of the rune scroll, you have been temporarily granted a |Merge| Specialization. Learns its options.
¡°We blasted through an extra phase on that.¡± ¡°I see. What is the next quest?¡± ¡°Not something we can do tonight, I don¡¯t think. I¡¯ve got a temporary specialization to play with.¡± ¡°Ah. That was going to come up at some point.¡± Geria said, nodding. ¡°It was. I was wondering, what are your specializations? It seems a little bit odd that you didn¡¯t bring it up before¡­ When I was making something, at least.¡± For some reason, she looked embarrassed. ¡°Well, ah¡­ I didn¡¯t really want to impose¡­¡± Deyana glared back, though there was no real heat in it. ¡°Come on, I¡¯d want to choose the stuff so you can be more comfortable or more effective.¡± ¡°Minor Power Link, Major Wall, Minor Manifested Force.¡± Deyana winced. The first two, Geria had handed her. That last one, though¡­ ¡°You specialized in a blue?¡± Geria nodded, swallowing once. ¡°It¡­ seemed like a good idea at the time. It¡­ is one of the more powerful options.¡± ¡°It is,¡± Deyana answered, most of her attention directed to what she could do about that. It wasn¡¯t the worst of the blue options she could have said. It wasn¡¯t in the highest demand, nor was it the rarest drop in that tier. It was, however, one of the more powerful options for high-mana builds to use, because it could have a wide variance of different effects depending on the other runes surrounding it, while also being less affected by the resistances and magic of higher-level enemies and caster-types. On the other hand, it was mostly effective at providing a magical equivalent to a physical surface, so it had all the same restrictions that those would have¨C minus any opacity, at least. That made it much less effective in harm reduction strategies and building damage than it was at completely stopping hits or directly injuring a target, though it was at least immune to most forms of ¡°authority,¡± where a higher-rarity air effect could go straight through or even subvert a lower-rarity one. It was, however, still a blue, and that meant about a day¡¯s worth of farming credits, including selling any rune drops, for a level 100 player. For a player of Geria¡¯s level, it would be about six straight hours¨C if she could find an on-level group, which was both unlikely and dangerous. This content has been misappropriated from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. Deyana¡¯s could, though, shortcut that¨C all it would cost her was the chance to get a full starters¡¯ pack from the Runewriters¡¯ guild. It wasn¡¯t even a contest. ¡°I can get one. Probably save me a lot of credits later, too.¡± If pressed, Deyana wouldn¡¯t really be able to describe the sound that came out of Geria at that moment. If required to give an answer, she probably would have settled on ¡°a squeak of shock and aggrieved happiness.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t possibly¡­ How would you even get one?¡± Deyana grinned. ¡°I got a Runewriters¡¯ Credit.¡± Geria blinked twice. ¡°They won¡¯t like that¡­¡± ¡°They won¡¯t say no, either.¡± A Runewriters¡¯ credit was one of the more open-ended ¡®favors¡¯ that was offered in the game. While she¡¯d initially intended to use it to get a starters¡¯ pack of 30 or so runes, circumstances had changed. She no longer needed most of the basics, and she had a fairly reasonable path to acquiring more runes, without necessarily needing to buy them personally when that wasn¡¯t feasible. She hadn¡¯t planned to take advantage, really, but having the alternative option so readily available in the form of a higher-level player meant that maxing out her efficiency by spending it on a blue was better than using it to accelerate her progress through the early ranks. The guild, while it had set the rules originally, had misunderstood the difference in value between the higher rarities, and was now in the process of releasing themselves from the legal requirement to keep their offerings at the same level. Or, in other words, the devs had noticed the disparity in reward levels and were planning to patch it, but wanted to give people the time to cash out early. Doing so at the soon-to-be-removed rate, though, would incur minor negatives in standing with the guild. ¡°Still, though, you could get a couple of greens or a whole collection of yellows and down, and they¡¯d be fine. You shouldn¡¯t annoy them on my account.¡± ¡°Call it an investment in the future,¡± Deyana said. ¡°And leave it at that, ¡®cause I can use it for my stuff too. Also, add me to your friends list.¡± Geria froze for a moment, then nodded. ¡°Oh. I forgot about that.¡± This time, Deyana did actually giggle, sending the friend request in the same moment. It was accepted before she finished the sentence that followed. ¡°We would have been able to meet again either way; I do have LJay added, obviously.¡± ¡°Yes.¡± Deyana blinked, then shook her head slightly. ¡°I do need to send that stuff to Don and log out, though.¡± ¡°See you tomorrow, then?¡± ¡°I will. Thanks for¡­ well, everything?¡± ¡°Mm.¡± Geria¡¯s eyes glazed over and she started walking away, the automatic systems taking over for the player who was no longer present. Deyana sighed, then pulled up the private messaging system and sending something to Don. ¡®I got to 25.¡¯ ¡®Got a few runes along the way, so if you want some special arrows made, pay me the material costs.¡¯ With that done, she logged out herself.
It had been years since the issues with transfer back into one¡¯s own body had been ironed out, but Alex still felt a violent shiver go over her whole body as she stood up, her balance maintained only through long practice. Granduon claimed as much, at least. She was somewhat skeptical that they¡¯d all been solved, but there were no longer any reports of people developing horrible body dysphoria by playing a character different from themselves in the games that were coming out, so it was at least better. The house was quieter than she¡¯d have expected from her housemates, typically, but it was 5 A.M. Instead of immediately laying back down to bed, she did the responsible thing, walking around the house, putting together something to eat, and generally doing those real life maintenance things that could only be done by the truly expensive and large VR systems. Other than getting her proprioception completely retuned by spending half an hour awake and aware, at least. Even the most expensive systems still couldn¡¯t manage that in short order. Some of the medical versions could, but based on her reading, that was because they created a second, ¡°pseudo-VR¡± that¡­ Alex stopped herself. She was tired, and that was leading to strange thoughts. Instead, she directed her attention to the last day or so. As far as Rune went, she was off to a good start. Better than she¡¯d been expecting, even, which was both good and bad. Good because she was going to get to the more fun content more quickly. Bad because it meant she¡¯d get noticed. Especially because the big guilds would look at her splitting her time between levelling and crafting, while staying up to par with some of the faster levellers. Awful because if she got noticed, they were likely to send PvPers after her to ¡°convince¡± her to join a guild. Which would combine with the thing with the Alliance¡­ She was going to need to start planning. Maybe pull Kalis in, too, if they were still up for it. That would burn some of her good will, though, and that was a limited resource now. She couldn¡¯t exactly do a lot of favors for the people who¡¯d owed her things from the other character at this point¨C or at least, favors that wouldn¡¯t come with extending that Sword of Damocles onto yet another axis. Not that she wouldn¡¯t. It was just something to minimize. The next fifteen minutes, she dedicated to thinking through that reality while she got ready for bed, categorizing who could be tapped as an ally. It was a problematically short list. A lot of her former guildmates were in positions of power in other groups now, but they also had something of a grudge against her in a lot of cases. Her leadership had essentially been a failure, when the context had changed on them, and many of them had lost months of work. The second hadn¡¯t even had the beginnings of camaraderie that she could pull on, though there were a few individual members, like Kalis, that were exceptions. Pulling in Spearpoint¡¯s strategist might be enough, at least. And if it wasn¡¯t, she¡¯d do what she always did, and make something up. On her way back to her room, she passed her electronics class textbook, drawing her attention for a few seconds. It was a good thing that class was graded on practicals, because she barely understood half of the nonsense in that book. Not that that was unique to her; most of the engineering professions had become a lot more about the human involved¡¯s intuitive skill for leading AI to the right solution than actually coming up with that solution themselves. Which meant that, even though basically her entire class could actually deal with the material on their own and she couldn¡¯t, she scored higher than all but two of them. Not that she¡¯d ever admit that to them, the carefully manufactured veneer of confidence convincing them that she actually knew the material they were supposedly learning instead of magic-ing her way through the only graded parts of the course. And there was another test tomorrow, around noon. She should have studied, should have put in the effort to memorize a bit more of the material that she was constantly told was imperative to directing the AI effectively. Instead, Alex flopped down onto the bed and fell asleep. Pileup 11: Realistic Methods Something in the middle of the design was completely messed up, in a way that the computer had determined it was unlikely to solve and had passed on to her. That was, of course, the entire point of the test, and the intended solution was for her to manually work out where it was going wrong and make a few changes that the AI would learn from and adapt into its own solutions. Instead, Alex read the tags on everything heading into the snarl, telling the AI to generate something effective to fill that space¨C though mirrored in a way that it wasn¡¯t trained to recognize. She¡¯d need to manually re-orient it once she got back to this level, but once she was past the secondary generation phase it wouldn¡¯t notice the fact that she was just telling it to fix itself. Two minutes later, she got back a response. There were, of course, still issues, as that was what the AI had been designed to do for this course¨C create almost-effective solutions, with a few errors intended to be difficult to solve. Instead, she repeated the process, this time resulting in a single, easily-solved error at the small scale. From there, it was simple, if more time-consuming than she preferred. Her fix on the AI¡¯s solution to the AI¡¯s solution to the AI¡¯s solution, presented as though she¡¯d been working very hard on it, rather than simply waiting for the much more powerful machine to solve it for her. As usual, she was the first one done, standing up and stretching from the place she¡¯d been sitting in the back of the classroom, trying to ignore the heat that had built up in the room. As usual, she¡¯d be marked off for idiosyncratic methodology and otherwise receive full points. Alex didn¡¯t particularly care. If they¡¯d wanted her to use the standard solving methods, then they should have made those methods make sense. Though, if she were being honest, they probably did, to other people. Her inability to follow the moderately long ruleset had been what led to her current methods to begin with, and the insistence that any human-added sections should be easily human-read was both annoying to her personally and usually wasteful. She had tried to complete it the intended way, at first, but when she¡¯d been marked off the exact same points as she lost doing things this way, she¡¯d basically just given up. It wasn¡¯t her problem if the professor had to spend the time running it through a checker to see if it worked; they were supposed to do that anyways. Not that they always did. It had happened before that she¡¯d been told her solution didn¡¯t work before Alex insisted on ¡°re¡±-running it through the checker. She waved to Jerome, or whatever his name was, on her way out the door, earning herself yet another glare from Ell. They were very invested in the ¡°rivalry¡± of being the students who were best in the class, and the fact that Alex universally finished well before the other two made them very annoyed with her on an ongoing basis. Though it was possible that they also had a thing for Jax, because Val didn¡¯t seem to be bothered by her existence. But then again, Val pretty consistently held the top spot by being incredibly good at the solving as well as the methodology, where Ell managed perfect methodology and near-perfect solving, which sometimes set them behind perfect solving and genuinely awful methodology because of the grading scale. So if nobody stood to be a threat to him, why would Val care? Posting up outside the room wasn¡¯t exactly the most entertaining thing that she could be doing with the hour she had left, but with everything going on in the game, she couldn¡¯t afford to miss Bo on the way out. Which was why, when Ell came out before he did, they saw her leaning against the nearby pillar, glancing over from her phone. Alex suppressed the urge to wince when they approached her. ¡°Feeling worried your fix isn¡¯t good enough? You were out of there way too fast to give it proper consideration.¡± ¡°No.¡± Atypically, that actually seemed to set them back for a moment. ¡°Uh. Okay. Why are you out here, then?¡± ¡°Waiting for Bo. I need to ask a favor.¡± They gave her a strange look at that. ¡°Bo? What for? He¡¯s not exactly who I¡¯d expect you to need something from.¡± Alex shrugged, considering for a moment whether to say more before deciding that it didn¡¯t really matter. ¡°Rune stuff. He knew my old character, and I¡¯m just gonna ask him to return a favor.¡± ¡°Wait, I thought nobody knew your old character? Gage certainly seems obsessed by it.¡± ¡°Wait, his name is Gage? Where the heck was I getting J¡¯s from? Ugh.¡± ¡°You¡­ actually didn¡¯t know his name.¡± Ell said, taken aback again. They blinked twice then shook their head. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I thought you were¡­ You know what, it¡¯s not that important. How did you not know his name? You talk to him like, every class day!¡± If you discover this tale on Amazon, be aware that it has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road. Please report it. Alex didn¡¯t really have an answer for them. It was nice to not get sniped at, though, so she let her face twist into the self-deprecating smirk. ¡°It¡¯s the truth, though. I don¡¯t remember names like, at all, unless I¡¯ve got them written down somewhere.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t you have his phone number? Why not just put it on there or something?¡± ¡°He has my number, but he¡¯s never sent me anything.¡± Alex leaned in, faking conspiratoriality for a second as she did. ¡°Between you and me, I think he thinks I¡¯m intimidating.¡± Ell coughed out a laugh, seemingly against their own will. ¡°I can see that. Most of the people in our class think that about you, to be honest.¡± Alex rolled her eyes. Sometimes it was beneficial, but the fact that she¡¯d picked up that reputation was annoying or problematic much more often than it was helpful. ¡°I know.¡± ¡°What is it you need Bo¡¯s help with, even? Need a new rune or something?¡± Alex raised an eyebrow. ¡°No. I need him to tell Dread Silence something.¡± Ell narrowed their eyes at her. ¡°Dread Silence pays people for info.¡± Alex nodded. ¡°But then they¡¯d know it was coming from me.¡± Bo came out of the room then, and Alex waved him over. He looked between her and Ell for a second before giving her a questioning look, but she just shook his head and, luckily, dropped it. ¡°You need something?¡± ¡°Kinda, yeah. Can you carry something to D-S for me?¡± He looked pained. ¡°You¡¯re doing something again.¡± She tilted her head slightly, affecting an innocent smile for a second. ¡°Who, little ¡®ole me?¡± Alex dropped the grin, though. It was useful for the joke, but not for the continuing conversation. ¡°They can know it¡¯s from Novsha this time¨C¡± Ell made a noise there. Not unexpected after their comment about what she needed, but she also didn¡¯t stop the sentence to explain to them. ¡°¨Cbut if it¡¯s possible, keep that in the guild. I¡¯ve got something about one of the top guilds that the others are going to want to snap up if they can.¡± Bo considered for a second, then pulled out his phone and sent off a text. They¡¯d done this song and dance before. Every time, the guild had wanted her info, and every time, Bo got her the thing she needed for it. This time, though, the payment was going to be just making sure that the information was both known and highly priced enough that everyone in the game would know in a week. He got a response back pretty quickly this time. ¡°Terms?¡± ¡°I want it public knowledge by two weeks from now, an open secret by a week from now.¡± He pursed his lips. ¡°That¡¯ll cost half a blue, then, probably. Why?¡± Alex grinned. ¡°Need it to get out for my plans to work. Currently it¡¯s like a two vee a hundred fifty, and I need to add some chaos to the board.¡± ¡°I see.¡± Bo cracked his own smile, though less obviously than her. He¡¯d been one of her early guildmates, and meeting up again in this class was just an unexpected benefit. He¡¯d mostly forgiven her about everything that had happened around then, luckily. But he hadn¡¯t forgotten¨C and he especially hadn¡¯t forgotten that of any of the people leading guilds at the time, it was her team that had specialized in navigating chaos. Others were better at creating it, destroying it, or riding it, but while Falling Dawn was rarely the first to clear any new content, while they were active, they were almost universally the first group to clear it without any deaths. ¡°Doable. What is it?¡± ¡°The Alliance picked up a purple a few days ago. Broke some promises to get it, too. But I have it on good authority that that they lost contact with it, and it¡¯s got a fairly long rune quest. They¡¯re trying to recover it right now, but the original members who left don¡¯t even have it anymore.¡± Bo¡¯s grin changed to a near-laugh followed by something approximating horror. He¡¯d followed the line to its natural conclusion. ¡°You didn¡¯t.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t, actually. I don¡¯t even know where that rune is right now, and neither does The Alliance. Oh, and also fun info, though you can probably price this separately: it¡¯s the first in a new Rune class.¡± Bo¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°You could¡¯ve gotten a hell of a lot for that.¡± Alex smiled. ¡°I¡¯m not on Novsha anymore. I¡¯m going to need to start rebuilding my good will, mostly ground-up.¡± ¡°Any idea on when you¡¯re gonna tell me the new one¡¯s name?¡± ¡°When this garbage is over. Need to be careful about what gets to D-S, y¡¯know?¡± Bo sighed. ¡°You¡¯re never gonna let me live that down, are you?¡± ¡°Eh. Maybe. Just not yet. Actually, know what? Consider this the last time I bring it up, if this works out.¡± Alex said. ¡°I¡¯m not in the mood to hold too many grudges.¡± ¡°It¡¯ll be done. Smurfs¡¯ll be on it by tomorrow.¡± ¡°Not that they¡¯d ever admit to doing any work with D-S.¡± ¡°Of course not. The guild works on implausible deniability, anyways. See you later.¡± With a wave, Bo was off to his own thing. It would technically be possible that he could tell his guild that information while out of the game, but based on her own experience with him she expected that he would wait until he could get the payment in advance. That information type was often like that. Annoying, sometimes, but also a useful tool when she had her own timescale. Sending it through Dread Silence had its issues¨C being one of the bigger guilds, they would have their own need to get their hands on a rune like that, and it was possible that they¡¯d actually ream up with the Alliance to find her. On the other hand, they also had their own reputation for selling even information that they were currently acting on and for having a much lighter touch on their members than many of the other guilds at the same size. It was also a near guarantee that her existence would stay a secret to the other guilds, while everything else came out extremely quickly. Even better, their position meant that the other guilds would assume that the information was gotten in a different way; perhaps even one that made more sense to them, coming from a disgruntled member. Even if it came from just one other guild, that attempt to figure out that member would, itself, be useful in drawing attention from everyone away from her. ¡°I don¡¯t know how I didn¡¯t see it before,¡± Ell commented. ¡°It¡¯s not like you¡¯re trying to hide it all that much.¡± Alex turned back to them. ¡°You wouldn¡¯t be the first person surprised by it.¡± ¡°Still. Something about you bothered me, and I could never put my finger on it. I think it was just a missing piece of the puzzle.¡± Alex raised an eyebrow. ¡°You happy, now that you know my character name or whatever?¡± Ell scoffed in response. ¡°Not that. Not exactly, at least. You really don¡¯t study at all, huh?¡± ¡°No, not really,¡± Alex said, a little confused. ¡°But what does that have to do with¡­¡± ¡°The whole¡­ effortless thing. Pissed me off, cause I thought you were faking it, putting in as much work and thought as I was.¡± ¡°Oh. Sorry.¡± Ell raised a hand in a sort of half-shrug. ¡°I don¡¯t actually mind you being better at it than me. But the whole ¡®oh, I don¡¯t actually care that much¡¯ combined with constantly showing me up and assuming you were putting in the hours? That, I minded. Sorry about uh. Everything, I guess.¡± Alex looked them over once. ¡°Frankly, I barely understand what I¡¯m doing. I¡¯m just really good at getting the AI to do most of the work for me.¡± Ell shook their head. ¡°Before today, I wouldn¡¯t have believed you. Can I buy you lunch as an apology?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t need to, but¡­ sure.¡± Pileup 12: Contextually Effective Policy Even with her fairly limited knowledge of other people and what was going on in their lives, Alex knew enough to know that Ell was on thinner ice monetarily than most¨C their musical family had been more than a little bit skeptical of their career choice after the Kaytri debacle, but they did have a fairly significant amount of money, limiting their scholarships. Not that they¡¯d told her about that, though. She just had fairly good hearing and regularly drifted while in class proper. But knowing that information did prevent her from walking into the rather insensitive faux pas that would have been the sarcastic comment about being taken out to the school cafeteria. Besides: so long as one avoided the cheese substitutes, the food there was perfectly serviceable. Even freshmen usually only made that mistake once. ¡°It¡¯s a bit of a cop-out, but it is lunch,¡± Ell said, jokingly, ¡°At least you have your choice of whatever.¡± Alex shrugged. ¡°Free food is free food, no matter where it¡¯s served. If you keep being nice to me, I might eventually feel obligated to return the favor.¡± ¡°Of being nice to me?¡± they grinned. Alex rolled her eyes. ¡°Of lunch. I think it¡¯s obvious by now that the only thing I need to be nice to you is the lack of a reason not to be.¡± That obviously had more of an effect on them than she¡¯d meant it to, based on their dropping out of her peripheral vision. While it lasted less than a second¨C a combination of her turning to face them and them speeding back up again¨C both of them still noticed. ¡°Ahh¡­ Sorry, again.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t feel bad on my account. You got new information; you changed your opinion. Good enough.¡± ¡°Are you always this¡­¡± ¡°Usually,¡± Alex shrugged. ¡°My friends get mad at me for it, sometimes, but that doesn¡¯t mean I¡¯m planning on stopping.¡± Ell narrowed their eyes at her. ¡°You know people are going to take advantage of you for that?¡± ¡°They are and they have. I don¡¯t plan on letting that stop me, either.¡± The two of them had reached the food, and conversation paused for a second as Alex picked up one of the salad bowls, examining it for a second. Nothing in it looked to be bad from the outside, at least, so she picked it up while Ell dealt with their own food, before running it through the scanners. When they sat down, discussion picked up again. ¡°I can¡¯t decide if that¡¯s impressive or just plain stubborn.¡± ¡°It can be two things.¡± ¡°Greeaat¡± Ell said, drawing out the word sarcastically. ¡°I never considered that.¡± Alex grinned. ¡°Probably should have, huh?¡± ¡°Maybe, especially because apparently you were Novsha. How the heck was that, by the way?¡± She had to consider that for a bit, especially after the way her experience had been different playing Deyana. While both of them were following a similar build, they were also created for different reasons. Novsha was an escape, a way to direct herself while she was doing other things in the real world, often rushing into things while dragging along whoever was willing to follow. In the same way, she¡¯d been someone different with Deyana; taking responsibility for, or at least confronting, her other actions. Though that was probably less a matter of who the character was, and more one of how she¡¯d changed in the meantime. ¡°Fun, at times. More at first than recently, really. She had a reputation for being someone that I wasn¡¯t happy to be anymore.¡± Ell narrowed their eyes at her. ¡°She didn¡¯t really have a bad reputation, and it¡¯s not like you were forced to play to expectations, anyways.¡± ¡°Not expectations, exactly,¡± Alex responded. ¡°It¡¯s more complicated than that. Whatever they expect obviously affects how I¡¯m going to be treated in that role, but the real issue is when we¡¯re talking about how difficult habits are to break. Two years, playing the same person almost every night and rather a lot of days, too, and I built up a¡­ persona, I guess. Someone who I wasn¡¯t, but would play without thinking about.¡± ¡°Why give it up, though? Instead of just making another character, at least.¡± Alex rubbed her eyes for a moment. ¡°You¡¯ve gotta promise not to tell anyone.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t know why you¡¯d trust me on that,¡± Ell said, ¡°But sure. Nobody gets told without you okaying them.¡± If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°Honestly? I don¡¯t really trust you that much. That said, I do want to tell someone who¡¯d understand a little bit, and it¡¯s not a huge problem if it gets out. ¡°The big reason just comes down to, like¡­ I was pissed. Angry at the guy who killed me for doing it, angry at myself for not seeing it coming, angry at the people around for not saying or doing anything¡­¡± Alex paused. That wasn¡¯t quite true, was it? Geria had obviously done something, even at a major detriment to herself. It was making starting over with nothing not quite as bad, and she was fun to have around as well, so Alex couldn¡¯t stop the slight smile from breaking her neutrality for just a second. ¡°Well, not at the time, before I died. I can¡¯t say nothing was done.¡± ¡°Huh. I didn¡¯t think you were the type to get angry. Shows what I know, I guess.¡± Alex raised an eyebrow. ¡°You didn¡¯t really have a reason to know, and it goes away pretty fast, too. Besides, you had a pretty complete image of me in your head, and it seems like there were big parts of it that were off because it didn¡¯t seem reasonable to you.¡± ¡°I guess. I hate to think that we could have been talking like this before and my stupid fucking grudge was the only thing stopping it. You seem actually pretty okay compared to most of the jackasses in our class.¡± Alex laughed. While it wasn¡¯t her usual approach to things, just being honest was working a lot better in this conversation than she was used to, so she planned to stick to it. ¡°Nah. I probably wouldn¡¯t¡¯ve been okay talking to you before the Novsha deletion thing. The act is gone, now, but originally? I would¡¯ve pretended to be mad at you to save face in front of the others.¡± Ell stared at her, and she didn¡¯t break eye contact, letting them size her up for a few seconds. ¡°Huh.¡± ¡°Not that I have anything against you, of course. Probably would have apologized to you afterwards, ¡®forgiven¡¯ you then.¡± They snorted at that, breaking into a grin. ¡°Okay, sure. You mentioned some stuff with a new Rune character? You planning to go the other route, then?¡± ¡°Not exactly,¡± Alex said. ¡°I am crafting, but it¡¯s a bit of a combination thing, and I¡¯m levelling, too. I¡¯ve got enough experience to pull it off, too; even with the split focus I hit twenty-five last night.¡± Their eyebrows went up at that. ¡°You know, for most people that would mean that they were basically levelling the whole time.¡± ¡°Less than half of it. But I have the help of a higher-level¡­ friend, and experience.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re not opposed to getting help?¡± they asked. Alex shook hear head. ¡°I¡¯m not a huge fan of asking for it or anything, but as long as it makes sense? That, and I usually prefer it to be someone that I can pay back.¡± ¡°You have that legendary rune in your inventory.¡± Alex felt her heart stop for a moment before crushing that feeling down. She knew from experience that that wouldn¡¯t have shown on her face at all, but it still took a second longer than she¡¯d have liked to come up with the response. Putting her elbows on the table, she interlaced her fingers, planting her chin on them and raising an eyebrow. ¡°What makes you say that, exactly?¡± Ell laughed in her face, though it sounded good-natured enough that she didn¡¯t think it was malicious. ¡°You don¡¯t lie much.¡± It was true, but not exactly helpful, either. That could mean any number of things, from an accusation trying to bait her into saying it to her screwing up the phrasing really badly. ¡°And? I¡¯m pretty sure I said I don¡¯t know where it is.¡± ¡°You said you don¡¯t know where it is. And you don¡¯t¨C the logout AI will have carried it somewhere else.¡± Alex cringed internally. They¡¯d remembered that, then. If they remembered things like that, they were almost certainly not someone she could keep talking to about the in-game stuff. Her ability to talk around things usually depended on people forgetting her phrasing before running it through alternate meanings. ¡°I could say that I don¡¯t have it.¡± ¡°But you won¡¯t.¡± Alex took a deep breath in, letting it rattle in her throat for effect, before blowing it out in a sigh. ¡°But I won¡¯t.¡± That would move her plans around, especially because knowing her physical location would let them take a fairly accurate guess at where she was in-game, and though it was only very generally, it would still be enough to¨C ¡°They¡¯re going to find a lot of clues pointing to Vegas, then.¡± Alex blinked twice before Ell continued. ¡°Obviously you don¡¯t want them to know where you are, and I¡¯m no fan of the big guilds, I¡¯ve got some free time, and a motivation.¡± Alex bit the inside of her cheek. ¡°I don¡¯t really know if that¡¯s really a doable thing, and I couldn¡¯t begin to ask¡­¡± They¡¯d been gunning to do this, for some reason. She didn¡¯t trust them, at all, but she also could tell that she couldn¡¯t really stop them, either. The only question now was to put a little bit of trust in them and make their plan easier to pull off, opening herself up to more risk, or keep silent, potentially limiting the effectiveness of any fake clues. ¡°I¡¯m not asking, really. Besides¨C¡± they smirked at her. ¡°I¡¯ve always been a sucker for throwing a bunch of chaos at a situation.¡± Standing up, Alex tossed the trash into the nearby receptacle before saying anything more to Ell. Finally, right before walking away, she came to her decision. ¡°It¡¯s called ¡®Merge,¡¯ and it¡¯s in straight-vertical-line brackets. D-S won¡¯t know that, but The Alliance will. The source¡¯s name isn¡¯t, but you can effectively bait them by, calling them Ger¨C like chair, but with a G.¡± ¡°Great. I¡¯ve always wanted to try screwing with Vegas. See you later!¡± She wasn¡¯t sure if it was Ell being fast or the feeling of the world shifting around her that made it seem like they were out of view in seconds. When that shifting stopped, Alex started off towards home. She wasn¡¯t required to be on for her character to be safe, but making progress would need her to be there. She just hoped that it wouldn¡¯t all go wrong somewhere along the way.
Don¡¯s return messages to her almost made her laugh out loud. ¡®Christ¡¯ ¡®What the fuck¡¯ ¡®I was joking¡¯ ¡®You¡¯ll have some crafting time at least¡¯ ¡®At least if you¡¯re going to wait for me¡¯ Checking her friends list, he was showing up as level 23 already, so it likely wouldn¡¯t be that long, at least. Geria was on, but also currently showing as busy, while LJay¡¯s name had the little death timer on it. He¡¯d been killed multiple times, then. Worrying, because that would mean that they were on the hunt for Geria again, but at least they¡¯d have to start from first principles. Given her fairly effective ability to disguise herself and the change in weapon, it was likely not going to be an issue, but they were looking. Good. She hadn¡¯t had a chance this good to mess with the guilds in a while, and the pieces seemed to be falling into place. Or at least, she¡¯d knocked down those dominoes that she could control, and now she had to hope a little bit. ¡®I¡¯ll wait, no problem. Do you want utility, arrows, a new bow, or something else?¡¯ ¡®20-40 minutes, so probly arrows unless you think you can work utility or armor in that time¡¯ A challenge, then. Ideas were already rushing through her head before she stepped out of the building she¡¯d logged in in. Pileup 13: Imperfect Setup It wasn¡¯t that difficult to get through the people hanging around the Runewriters¡¯ this time, because at least a few of the people there recognized her from the previous day and assumed that she was with a guild already. That didn¡¯t apply to all of them, of course, and she still had to dodge around a few of the more persistent annoyances, but it was a very short part of an otherwise pleasant walk. Trading in the credit for the Manifested Force rune was less pleasant, especially with the dirty look that the NPC shot her when she requested it, but the rune was provided and she had the scroll before even before settling in. Ten to thirty minutes, then, to create whatever it was she decided on. It was tempting¡­ extremely tempting, to just give him a manifested force defensive option and call it day, but that wasn¡¯t the best plan here. Not only would it create a number of questions she didn¡¯t want to be answering, it would also mean that, when combined with all the other runes she had, she¡¯d be telling him that someone of a higher level was supporting her. Long-term, she¡¯d probably end up telling him anyways, but it wasn¡¯t necessarily the best idea to give away more information than she had to early on. Something less complicated, then. Or at least, something that didn¡¯t use anything rarer than a yellow. After a moment of thought, she had her answer¨C though she also needed more information from Don. ¡®You don¡¯t have any gloves yet, right? Do you know your size? ¡®don¡¯t have gloves. Men¡¯s large, no changes¡¯ ¡®thanks¡¯ Ordering that, she threw the new rune into her inventory, taking out {Control: Charging} and [Bind]. Bind was fairly simple, at least. It was designed like a spiral flattened out to two dimensions, with a line running through it top to bottom. The number of coils she added would control the amount of bindings, while the relative thickness of the center line would control the strength. She didn¡¯t want to reveal that she had displacement runes, yet, so he¡¯d need to settle for being fairly close to whatever he was trying to use it on, but that was both the point and not a huge investment. {Control: Charging} was more involved, but only slightly. A flat baseline, with at least two perpendicular lines of different sizes on the ends of it, and another, angled line that connected the tops. The smaller line¡¯s relative size to the large one controlled the initial investment of mana required to start the main rune charging, also controlling the period of any additional lines. Adding more lines connecting the base to the angled ¡®top¡¯ would multiply the base period by however many there were total minus one, but also applied a below-one multiplier to the total required. If the initial line was a fifth the size of the larger line, for example, the period would be five seconds. Adding another line would increase the charging time to ten seconds, but would also mean that only ninety percent of the actual cost of the rune would be deducted in total. The math got complicated, but the reality was simple enough, and luckily, basically unexploitable. Taking much longer to charge, and starting at a lower number, would reduce the cost enormously in exchange, while starting at a high number wouldn¡¯t appreciably reduce the cost, unless there were enough extra lines to bring it back into relative parity with just starting at a lower number to begin with. Starting at a very low number with a lot of additional lines would reduce the cost to almost nothing¨C in exchange for taking much longer than was useful to start up, being difficult to effectively create at handheld scales, and lacking the ability to respond to changing circumstance. A good balance, she felt, was starting at a quarter, with two additional lines. About fifteen percent cheaper, while taking twelve seconds to activate. It wouldn¡¯t be the most useful thing once they were past the basic enemies, but that was fine. [Bind], on the palm, six loops and a slightly thickened central line, supported by that {Control: Charging} and {Material: Stone}. Not terribly complicated, overall, but the testing she needed to do still managed to take up the time needed for Don to finish his levelling. ¡®Meet me at the runewriters¡¯, I¡¯ve got something.¡¯ ¡®that was quick¡¯ ¡®It was simple.¡¯ Waiting there, Deyana was, while not particularly anxious, excited to head out, and to give Don the glove. While in the testing process, she¡¯d used it on a mannequin twice, she still found it somewhat difficult to prevent her curiosity from insisting she try it on herself. For one, it wasn¡¯t a particularly good idea and was absolutely unnecessary, probably ending up with her needing help to get out. For another, it would probably be pretty awkward to explain herself to anyone who did show up. Still, it was tempting, if only just to figure out how difficult exactly it would be to get out. Luckily he got there before her confusion overcame her common sense, though only just. ¡°So what have you got for me?¡± ¡°A binding glove, with a time delay on it. Uses stone, so it¡¯s semi-permanent too.¡± ¡°In half an hour?¡± Don asked, raising an eyebrow. ¡°I would have expected that from someone who has a design ready, but as something new?¡± ¡°It¡¯s three runes,¡± Alex said, waving it off. ¡°I did need to keep it simple.¡± ¡°True, I expected you to fail.¡± ¡°Ouch.¡± ¡°I wasn¡¯t gonna say it¡­¡± ¡°I¡¯m wounded. Take me out to the levelling fields so I can heal it by killing bits and bytes.¡± Don rolled his eyes. ¡°Disastrous. I¡¯m not sure how I can continue.¡± Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. Deyana smiled slightly. ¡°It¡¯s fine. I was thinking of heading out to beetlemen, if you¡¯ve got the punch for it.¡± Don appeared to consider that for a few moments. ¡°It¡¯s not ideal, but I think so. The bow¡¯s just speed and durability on the arrows with a copy I can use every once in a while, so it should work.¡± Beetlemen weren¡¯t exactly the most on-level enemies, the ones in this area ending up between level thirty-five and fifty-five. Luckily, a big part of their level designation was their powerful defenses, which both her own and Don¡¯s weaponry were particularly well-suited to handling. That armor was weaker on their front sides, and they primarily used slings as ranged weaponry with spears for shorter ranges, which she had enough experience with to deal with even if it was one of the more powerful combinations. Slings in particular were always fairly threatening on their own, and that was before taking into account the fact that sling bullets, of the primary varieties, were excellent media for enchantment. Better than arrows, at the very least. It was made up for in the ease of use in bows and guns, as well as the typically less practically applicable runes on the sling itself, somewhat, but when it came to top-of-the-line damage on enchanted ranged weaponry, slings outpaced the others significantly until the practicality of size (because strength could be enhanced) came into play. Beetlemen used almost exclusively physical speed and continuous weight, so that wasn¡¯t likely to be a huge problem for her, and their wind-up time should let Don get out of the way, as well. At the very least, it was a lot less deadly than high-level goblins¡¯ delayed inertia-boosting. Until she¡¯d seen it happen, due to a shield that she considered over-designed but that many guilds had at the time believed to be top-of-the-line, she wouldn¡¯t have believed that an egg-sized rock could blow someone¡¯s arm off. She knew better now. In any case, as she and Don headed out, they fell into small-talk that she wasn¡¯t really keeping track of. The only new information was confirmation that he was college-age as well, though probably slightly older than her, and some of his opinions on the larger guilds around. It was a bit weird, hearing things as impersonally as he seemed to think of them. He also repeated a lot of her criticisms of many of them, which was nice. Not as much venom in the explanations as she would have put there, but then he probably hadn¡¯t been dealing with them for over a year, and especially not personally. When they reached the area, she sent off a message telling Geria where they were, not really expecting a response. ¡®Got it. I¡¯ll be nearby, hunting CRats¡¯ Deyana smiled slightly. Courier Rat hunting was beneath Geria¡¯s dignity, a bit, but it was also something that could be easily excused if one didn¡¯t know her actual level and would provide a reason to be nearly anywhere. Courier rats were essentially just difficult-to-find, easy to kill monsters with ludicrously valuable drops, so it was one of the more common ways for players approaching the higher levels to get the money to upgrade. It was a bit of a waste once you had the ability to get them, and, if she were being honest, even before (you could make almost as much by farming pre-portal enemies in the less traveled, high level areas without sacrificing your experience gain entirely), but it was also a fairly common sight. ¡°So are you going to pick one off or am I going to guess at their levels?¡± Don said from behind her, making her jump. ¡°I¡¯ll pick one off at first, pull it over to you to test the glove. Do you have anything that spikes at a later level or are you pretty much at your breakpoints? Also, I¡¯m setting XP division to shared instead of contribution now that we¡¯re the same level.¡± Don nodded. ¡°Fair enough. I don¡¯t really have anything until rune spec, cause you didn¡¯t make an arrow for bound to do anything for me.¡± As he made that comment, Deyana felt like her brain short-circuited for a moment. She¡¯d taken it as a challenge, but really, just making him the arrow would have given him a field scaling. ¡°Son of a bitch, I¡¯m sorry. Didn¡¯t think about that. I can fix that for you in my next crafting session.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it too much. We both know that it matters more later.¡± Deyana nodded before heading out into the area. The trick was to move between likely aggro ranges while she was searching for a good target. The trick was made more difficult by the sometimes-unpredictable turns and non-visual awareness, but with the bits and pieces of wall around, as though maliciously scattered by some giant toddler, she was able to narrow down the problem areas enough to sneak up on a group of two. One of them had a sling, the other holding a spear, which made the decision for her. Activating her boots so that she could step slightly above the ground, to avoid any sound giving her away, she took the three long steps to bring her into the range of the slinger, swinging her sword and activating it to cut into the shell. The weirdly buzzy screech told her that it hadn¡¯t been enough to kill the monster, but that wasn¡¯t out of her expectations. The spear-wielder reacted quickly, jabbing out directly towards her, and the hit was slowed to a stop only a foot from Deyana as her mana plunged momentarily. The one she¡¯d hit was already scrabbling back, throwing a stone into the cradle and starting the spinning process, but she had a ranged tool now. Activating the arm was a bit more than a thought, but only just. A spike shot out, crossing the distance between her and the beetleman before it could move out of the way and cracking into the shell. It wasn¡¯t quite down, thought, and that might have been an issue if Don hadn¡¯t taken advantage of her being the distraction to reposition and fire an arrow directly into the chink of armor around the neck. The second arrow wasn¡¯t quite as accurate, but it still did enough that it decided that Deyana could wait as a threat. The diagonal charging motion it went into, a consequence of the way its armor was shaped, let her slip behind it before it was even fully out of the way. After it had been interrupted, the slinger had had to restart on building momentum, giving her well more than enough time to charge forward again, stabbing into its shell and finally taking it down. She turned back to the one harassing Don, running forward to draw its attention back to herself. It didn¡¯t really look like he was likely to be hit any time soon, but moving too far out of the way might draw another into the fight and the point of this first one had been to set up for Don to test the glove anyways. Deyana funneled a bit of mana into her own glove, then, guessing at the ranges, tossed it somewhat between herself and the beetleman. The guess was good¨C or, at the very least, not bad. It got caught in the blast, slowing down slightly, and Don was able to gain a bit of extra distance as Deyana stepped forward again. Unlike last time, she wasn¡¯t going to be able to depend on the element of surprise, and she could only take one or two more of those straight-on hits. Turning off the armor was probably not the safest decision, but when she dodged the first strike, it confirmed what she¡¯d thought. There was a ton of weight behind it, right at the end, but as a whole the spear wasn¡¯t moving all that fast. When it came around again, this time in a stab aimed for her hip, she moved to knock it to the side with her sword while also stepping out of the way. That turned out to be a good decision, because when she hit it there was almost no change in the momentum, the spear much heavier than it should have been. The weight fell down to normal at the end of the thrust, the pulling to the side assisted by her own push. While she could have slashed in and gotten a somewhat safe hit, she instead stepped in and kicked the beetleman in the chest, causing it to stumble and fall onto its back. A quick strike at the arm still on the spear took it off at the inhuman elbow joint, disarming it to make it safe for Don to step back in and tap it on the shoulder. From his hand, bands of yellow-green light shot out, wrapping around the beetleman¡¯s limbs and pulling them tight to its body before solidifying into stone. ¡°Takes a while.¡± Don commented. ¡°If something¡¯s getting to you¡­¡± ¡°Fair enough. Though I¡¯m not sure how useful it¡¯ll be on these particular enemies.¡± ¡°Sorry about that, again. I probably should have come up with that first¡­¡± ¡°No problem. Finish him off for me?¡± Deyana obliged, stabbing though the beetleman¡¯s head with her sword.
Combat Ended! +25,278 Experience, +2528 Credits
Level Up! x2 HP: 64 (+4) Mana: 135 (+10) Stamina: 32 (+2)
Deyana shook her head, a small smile on her face. ¡°Wish we¡¯d figured that speed levelling out when we were crawling up the first time. Though we definitely have better gear on us right now than we did at all back then.¡± Pileup 14: Good Chances Her comment on being one of the first people to go through the early levels was, unfortunately, poorly timed. While it wasn¡¯t as though he would necessarily be able to place her, specifically, among the first million players, the fact that she was fairly young (and was therefore unlikely to have moved all that far since launch), on the west coast of the Americas, comfortable in a feminine body, and on the bleeding edge of levelling did. Even mostly shutting up about it beyond sharing the very generic stories, Don seemed to be getting a lot closer to her former identity than she was really comfortable with. Luckily, the beetlemen were a decent distraction, and Don didn¡¯t ask her too many questions about the early stuff. If she were being honest with herself, it wouldn¡¯t have been possible to level up at the rate they currently were for those early players. While NPC Runecrafters did exist, they were almost universally working on standardized gear for the militias and heavy weaponry for use against the world bosses, with very little time to train up an entirely new subset of people who had no intention of taking over for that part of their jobs. That left them with crafters who barely had any runes, and all of them worked up straight along the staircase. Now, Don had just straight-up bought a bow with a [Projected Durability] rune, well before they managed to clear anything above level 30, where it could be expected to drop more than almost never¨C and that was a repeatable action up until nearly level two hundred. Past that point, most of the guilds were fairly cagey about their absolute top-of-the-line runes and formulations, partially because they wanted to maintain a stranglehold and partially because they hadn¡¯t managed to get any players to 200 yet. The relative quiet, though, also allowed her to begin the testing of the specialization she¡¯d been granted. Not much, because Don was still there, but the ¡°squishiness¡± of rune specializations was familiar enough to her by now that only touching them a little bit was neither a new skill nor particularly difficult. It was a little strange, still, because it didn¡¯t quite feel like any of her previous specializations had. Instead of having very defined places where ¡°pushing¡± on the mana mentally made things happen, it was squishy all over, with certain places giving her stronger responses than others. Even more annoyingly, she couldn¡¯t even tell what those pushes would really be affecting, even by cost¨C where all of her previous specializations had modified the rest of the ¡°shape¡± around them as she pushed or pulled, this one utterly refused to change ¡°radius,¡± more like a putty than the balloon she was used to. Giving in to her annoyance took several more groups of beetlemen to really kick off, but while Don was dealing with a beetleman that made him watch in the other direction, she finally decided to just throw her thoughts behind one of those areas, shoving as hard as she could. The projectile spun in midair as it launched forward, rotating end over end and carving a gash into the back of her hand as it flew forward. There had still been quite a bit of energy in the projectile, and even without the point, it noticeably cracked the beetleman¡¯s shell as, instead of piercing through it, the stone spike nearly exploded on the front side of its armor. Even though it wasn¡¯t ideal, it was still enough. The beetleman rocked back, making that weird screeching, scratching, yelp for only a second as she stabbed into the weakened part of its armor, dragging the sword through the now-weakened chitin. Turning around just as Don finished off his own opponent, she brushed aside all the other notifications for the one she was actually looking for.
Level 30 Reached. Please select which stat to gain focus in[1]: Mana Health Stamina [1]: Each focus on a stat will increase it by 10%, multiplicatively with additional focus and rounded down.
This was one of those choices that was theoretically distinct, but even she admitted that it was more like one good choice, one decent choice, and one total trap. Mana was the easy choice. And that held true even for tanks and most damage dealers. Ten percent wasn¡¯t really enough health to prevent most instant kills, even when on top of with the damage reductions that most people playing tanky styles stacked. More to the point, mana was required for those damage reductions to begin with. Stamina was useful, of course, but when most damage dealers had already put at least some regeneration into it, it wasn¡¯t exactly the end-all-be-all to have a little bit more there. All of which meant that nether she nor Don had to ask where the other had put their focus. Though, to be fair, she¡¯d be putting her second focus into that total trap. A single health focus wasn¡¯t the most efficient choice she¡¯d ever made, but the way that it boosted what was, for her, essentially stamina regeneration, was invaluable. The silence as they made those selections was nice, because it meant she had the time to re-check the other notifications, noticing in the process that they¡¯d somehow landed two rune drops. ¡°RNGesus has blessed us on this day,¡± she said, noting what they were. One common major and one common minor. It wasn¡¯t that those runes were particularly fantastic, but even getting those two this early in their farming was more than she would expect from even a lot of higher-level areas. ¡°Well, that, or this is a setup for fucking us at some later point.¡± If you encounter this tale on Amazon, note that it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. Don guffawed, rolling his eyes. ¡°With as much experience as you have, I¡¯d¡¯a thought you know it¡¯s always that second one.¡± Deyana pressed her lips together, preventing a smile from creeping onto her face. ¡°Of course. You can sell the [Bolt], but Cone¡¯s a new shape for me.¡± Don nodded, and they opened the loot assignment window, pushing the {Shape: Cone} over to her and the [Bolt] to him. ¡°I really wonder where you got some of those runes, but you¡¯ve gotta have contacts, now that I think about it.¡± Deyana bit the inside of her cheek for a moment, then shook her head. ¡°Some, but less than you¡¯d think. I¡¯ve been trying to keep a cleaner break. I¡¯ve got these runes, but there¡¯s a limit on who I can talk to without telling people about my new character.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re building a spy character, then? A runecrafter¡¯s a good way to do that, I guess.¡± That got her to actually smile. ¡°Would I tell you if I was? Besides, it¡¯d be a little strange to do that on a hybrid playstyle, wouldn¡¯t it?¡± Don raised an eyebrow. ¡°Which makes it all the more believable.¡± She just rolled her eyes. ¡°Stay here to forty or leave a bit earlier than that?¡± ¡°Thirty-seven, thirty-eight. I¡¯m limited on time, a little.¡± ¡°Got it. Let¡¯s rush what we can.¡± She knew that the equalization would be coming, eventually, but it apparently wasn¡¯t going to be right then, because just a little while later they picked up another common minor rune. This time, a {Storage: Bleeding Heat} that went directly to her without her even asking for it. From there, drops mostly fell to the wayside as they spent another hour lightly chatting in the process of killing the beetlemen. Being fairly simplistic enemies, and their luck holding out and not sending them against the area boss, they didn¡¯t really need to be too concerned about dying or even really being threatened by the enemies, regardless of the fact that they were higher level than either of the players farming them. ¡°Fucking hell,¡± Doug said as she finished off another one of the beetlemen. ¡°game¡¯s trying to make it so I can¡¯t sleep.¡± As much as the statement itself didn¡¯t apply, she definitely agreed with the sentiment. Somehow, in those last few kills to level up to thirty-eight, the game had decided to dump a Rare scroll on them. Greens weren¡¯t the highest rarity she had any of, but if she excluded the credit and those runes she¡¯d gotten from Geria that she couldn¡¯t even begin to afford, they would be. She tried to keep the disappointment out of her voice so that Don didn¡¯t feel particularly pressured. ¡°We can sell it if you¡¯d like. Even half the credits from that¡¯ll get me a bunch of yellows and oranges.¡± He paused for a while, visibly considering that, then screwed up his eyes for a moment and sighed. ¡°No¡­ no. That¡¯s not¡­ necessary. Make me something with it while I¡¯m offline, though.¡± Deyana held herself very still. ¡°You sure? You could get three of four items with greens on them for that price.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± Don said, ¡°I¡¯m sure. You can beat that price, even if it takes a while, and even a non-crafter like me knows that accruing storages are like, the basis for really strong stuff.¡± She smiled wanly. ¡°I¡¯m not sure I can, long-term, though that¡¯s more a facet of the fact that we¡¯re going to be picking up more of this level of stuff eventually. Plus, it¡¯s electricity, and neither of us are using that yet.¡± ¡°Yet.¡± Don said simply. ¡°If you make me a mage I¡¯m going to want to strangle you.¡± ¡°Ki¨C¡± she stopped herself, blushing. ¡°How about an archer with a minor in magery?¡± He scoffed at her, then laughed. ¡°Like literally everyone else here, you mean?¡± ¡°Fair enough. You want to head out to town so you can sell those offline?¡± ¡°Sounds good.¡± With that, they started to head back into the city, and she messaged Geria to that effect before they¡¯d even left the area. ¡®Alright. Will I see you there?¡¯ ¡®If you want. After Don leaves.¡¯ ¡®Yes¡¯ She didn¡¯t exactly rush their goodbyes, but Deyana was still fairly sure that it was obvious that she wanted to get over to crafting a lot more than she wanted to keep talking to Don. Luckily, he did need to leave, so that probably wasn¡¯t too insulting, though she could never actually figure that kind of thing out. Maybe it helped that part of what she¡¯d be doing was upgrading his gear? It was difficult to say. Either way, even if he was a little bit insulted, he was gone as soon as he finished setting up the ranges for his character to make the sale at while he was offline. There were disadvantages to selling that way¨C chief among them, the inability to bargain for non-credit payments and the ten percent tax on all such transactions, but she and everyone else who had a limited amount of time and didn¡¯t want to spend it playing hawker for the marginal gains. Plus, doing it offline let you trade with people from other servers, which sometimes made up the difference. She was already in the runecrafting room before Geria caught up with her, and she had to wave her friend slash benefactor through so that she could actually get into the room. ¡°How¡¯d it go with the Courier Rats?¡± Deyana asked, distracted with activating {Storage: Accruing Electricity}.
Rune Learned {Storage: Accruing Electricity} Parameters: Maximum Storage, Accrual Percentage, Accrual Flat
Geria stepped slightly into her field of view to make a ¡°so-so¡± hand motion, pulling up a display window as she did so. In front of her, an extra window appeared, listing off eight runes. One was an uncommon Geria had given her the day before, and one of the commons was the cone shape, but there was a bunch of new ones in there, too. Including a rare, [Transport]. Deyana nearly choked. ¡°You were actually hunting Courier Rats, right? Not buying runes to show off?¡± Geria gave her a strange look. ¡°No. Only caught three. Annoying.¡± Deyana coughed out a laugh. ¡°¡¯Only¡¯ three, she says. I expected you to get maybe one when you said you were hunting them.¡± ¡°Oh. I am good at hunting Courier Rats.¡± ¡°Apparently!¡± Deyana said, and let the roll of her eyes combine with a more complicated half-shrug. ¡°But [Transport]. That¡¯s a hell of a roll. Good luck selling it.¡± ¡°Selling it? Geria asked, quizzically. ¡°I was going to give it to you.¡± ¡°No, uh-uh, no way, holy shit.¡± Deyana said, pulling some of the other runes she¡¯d gotten out of her inventory and frowning slightly as she watched the counter. She was getting very close to the third milestone and needing to pay the fee¡­ That was fine, though. ¡°There¡¯s no way I could take that. [Transport] is like, the central rune in most non-instant teleportation. It¡¯s a green, but it only drops from creatures with four or more legs and is worth more than most blues.¡± Geria paused. ¡°Ah. I see.¡± The first order of business was an arrow for Don that would benefit from being bound. The binding system would only really let him recover the arrow after firing it. First, dismissing it could be done mentally after it hit the target. It would need a little bit of durability to reduce the chances of breaking at that point, but it shouldn¡¯t need to last all that long. Then, the ten second cooldown, and finally, he¡¯d bring it back to his hand. Though it couldn¡¯t be charged at range, it would, technically, remain charged while dismissed, which meant¨C A trade window opened up in front of her. ¡°It¡¯s an early payment, then, for the teleportation item and [Manifested Force]¡­ thing, you¡¯re going to make me.¡± Geria said, nodding. ¡°After you¡¯ve finished that project, of course.¡± Pileup 15: Process Deyana opened her mouth to argue, then closed it, then repeated the process. Finally, she shook her head, going back to her Rune learning, and deciding that it would be best if she just went straight through the expertise three breakpoint. It wasn¡¯t as though level fifty was all that far away, anyways. ¡°I don¡¯t really think you¡¯d let me argue you down, would you?¡± Geria made an uncertain sound. ¡°Maybe. You might need to give up crafting or find me another crafter to do it.¡± ¡°Finding you another crafter wouldn¡¯t be that hard¡­¡± Deyana started, then sighed. ¡°Finding you an unattached crafter or one willing to put some of their best work outside of their own guild might be. Not that I don¡¯t know who to go to for that, it¡¯s just that I¡¯d give away who I am if I use my old contacts.¡± ¡°I had forgotten that you would have people to talk to for that. It is not how I have ever done things.¡± An arrow was one of the more annoying things to craft on, but luckily there were a few strategies and tutorials for getting the actually difficult part down. Ordering some pre-sized paper and a specialized knife with two blades set extremely close to each other, she began writing out the runes she would be transferring to the arrow. ¡°Most people don¡¯t do things like I do or did, because, quite frankly, it¡¯s a bad decision.¡± Alex said. ¡°So, ¡®cause you¡¯re cute, you can be forgiven that tiny slip-up.¡± Deyana was fairly certain that, while she had a bunch of different options available to her the best option for an arrow that benefitted from binding would still be annoyingly simple, if fairly expensive. To start with, she put [Impart Energy] and {Proximity} on two sides of a square-sectioned bodkin, {Proximity} set at contact and large enough to not incur negative mana multipliers, with the new {Accruing Electricity} bent over the other two sides, maximizing storage with the available space and dedicating more of its power to flat gain than interest. ¡°I was not aware that it needed to be forgiven,¡± Geria said. ¡°So thank you?¡± Alex blinked, putting down her work for a second. ¡°You don¡¯t need to be forgiven; you didn¡¯t do anything wrong. It was a figure of speech, sorry.¡± There was a momentary pause as neither of them spoke. Geria was the first to break the silence. ¡°I¡­ thought so. But it is still good to hear.¡± ¡°If you ever want me to clarify where I stand on something,¡± Alex said, ¡°And I do mean anything, please tell me. And to be specific, I said and meant ¡®want¡¯, not ¡®need¡¯. You¡¯ve been nothing but irrationally good to me, so I should return at least part of that in making you more comfortable or certain of where we are.¡± ¡°Okay.¡± Geria said, and let it hang long enough that Deyana went back to her rune work. The very front of the shaft, still on the metal, would bear host to the {Type: Electricity} and {Storage: Bleeding Mana} runes required to have the arrow only discharge its electrical payload while still storing the mana to stay active when separated from the user¡¯s hand. Still, it being on the round part meant that she wasn¡¯t writing directly on it, but rather cutting the outlines into the paper transfer setup when Geria spoke again. ¡°Have you been flirting with me?¡± The only reason that Deyana didn¡¯t need to restart on the pattern was because she managed to let go of the knife before the jerk in her arm actually took effect. The clatter of the knife onto the worktable was a bit of an odd sound, wood against metal clacks clashing with the metal-on-metal tings, interspersed with muted versions of the same when they happened to come in contact with the paper. It wasn¡¯t that she didn¡¯t know the answer, or even that she wasn¡¯t willing to share the answer. It was more that she hadn¡¯t really been intending it, exactly, and that being asked so directly put her on the spot. It¡¯s a good thing that it¡¯s a question I might have needed to think about, she thought, taking a moment to straighten the tool on the workspace, folding her hands over it as she did and forcing the physical jitters out of her system. ¡°A little bit, yes,¡± Alex said, then considered her following statement for a moment. With some people, she would have phrased it as a challenging question, and some people as a statement, but with Geria she decided that a genuine question would be safest. ¡°Would you like me to stop?¡± There was another long pause in response, enough that Deyana felt comfortable enough in the subject matter to pick up the knife and go back to shaping the runes. Part of that was just the fact that she¡¯d already planned them, but part of that was also due to surprise being the main factor in her earlier jumpiness. ¡°No, I wouldn¡¯t.¡± Alex knew that she should probably have had some sort of physical and emotional reaction to that, but as controlled as she was currently, most of that feedback was lost and she needed to relax that stranglehold somewhat to find out what that actually was. If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. It seemed positive, so that was nice. Still, it wasn¡¯t something to push. It would either go somewhere or it wouldn¡¯t, and while she was fairly recently single, her intuition was that Geria had enough less experience that her own role was going to be fairly passive. The next steps of crafting were autopiloted through, two [Durability] runes of her calculated sizes, just barely avoiding containing the smaller, forward one in the range of the larger, backward one. Giving them a shared {Storage: Bleeding Mana} shrunk the initial investment required, and a {Displacement} only in range of the forward one covered the entire arrow. With the runes complete, Deyana went through the binding process, remaining in contact with it for one minute and activating the appropriate menu options, before picking it up, charging the arrow with mana in the process. Running her finger around the front of it without making contact with the front of the arrowhead and trigger, she confirmed that it wouldn¡¯t randomly zap its user or the bow it was nocked to before tossing it into the test dummy. As soon as she heard the crackle, she dismissed the item, waiting out the ten seconds it was phased out of reality before summoning it back to her hand. The arrow appeared there, and she tossed it again without charging it with any mana. The crackle was weaker this time, definitely. That was expected, really; the way she¡¯d built the accruing rune, it took twenty seconds to build up to full strength. That said, when she summoned it this time¡­ The runes were out of mana. Deyana didn¡¯t even try to keep the smirk off of her face as she started unbinding it. ¡°You are much faster at this than the others I have watched.¡± Deyana shook her head. ¡°Maybe in some ways? I¡¯m not really coming up with anything that clever here, so don¡¯t give me too much credit. The people you¡¯re used to watching were probably working on new projects and runes all the time, where I¡¯m just throwing together things I already know about.¡± The tap on her left arm first made her tilt her head in confusion, then cringe slightly. ¡°Okay, mostly.¡± ¡°What is your progress on that quest?¡± ¡°I¡¯ve got a general idea on what it does, but it¡¯s not something that¡¯s exactly easy to define.¡± ¡°Try.¡± Geria paused for a second, then shook her head so slightly that if she hadn¡¯t been as close as she was, Deyana wasn¡¯t sure that she would have caught it. ¡°Please.¡± ¡°I think, and this is only from a few tests¡­¡± Deyana lifted her arm out, pointing it at the dummy, and pushed against it in a similar way to what she¡¯d done with Don. It was the same spot, but instead of just forcing it ¡°up¡± this time, she pushed ¡°in¡± and ¡°left¡±. The spike formed as before, but instead of its typical straight path or the end-over-end it had done before, it spun violently but parallel to the ground, like a helicopter rotor where the Jesus nut came off mid-flight. ¡°It essentially¡­ how to say¡­ it sorta works like Mental Direction does, but like¡­ instead of changing the rune¡¯s settings, it applies other runes¡¯ settings to other primaries?¡±
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 4/20: Growing Understanding Complete!
Phase 5/20: Further Testing
With your increased understanding, create at least two more groupings using |Merge| and see them used both inside and outside of combat.
¡°Oh, fuck you too, game.¡± Deyana said, slapping her hand onto the workshop table and following that with a sigh. When she noticed that Geria had jumped slightly and moved a half-step back, she was surprised at how guilty that made her feel when it was warring so strongly with pique. ¡°That was apparently enough demonstration of knowledge for it to give me the completion. I¡¯m sorry about that.¡± ¡°It¡­ isn¡¯t a large issue. And is understandable.¡± ¡°It may be understandable, but it made you uncomfortable.¡± ¡°Ah¡­ yes. Many things do. It isn¡¯t something I expect you to care about.¡± Alex debated addressing that directly for a few moments, vacillating between a particular form of annoyance and an empathetic response, but she eventually settled on the simplest path forward. ¡°I do care, at least some. If there¡¯s places where I can reduce your discomfort without needing to work very hard at it, I prefer to do so.¡± Geria visibly looked her over, then nodded. ¡°Thank you. It was the volume and tone, not the motion.¡± ¡°Good to know.¡± Using |Merge| twice. Unlike before, the phrasing was at least, which meant she could actually do more¡­ She had an idea. It wasn¡¯t a good idea, but¡­ ¡°Have you heard of Runic Tattoos?¡± That got her a raised eyebrow nearly instantly, but Geria didn¡¯t actually reply for a few seconds. ¡°I have heard of them, but have not heard much positive about them.¡± ¡°Think I could convince you?¡± There wasn¡¯t even a pause this time. ¡°You could. It wouldn¡¯t be hard. I would like to hear the reasons.¡± ¡°I¡¯m thinking of something that we both get, maybe slight variants. Teleportation, essentially. Putting it in tattoo form means that while it¡¯ll add a health cost, but the mana¡¯ll be cheaper and quicker, and we won¡¯t need to bother with making sure it sticks around in any upgrades.¡± ¡°If you want to change it later?¡± ¡°Not too hard to do, if not comfortable, exactly. Numbing runes plus a cut and a heal. There are NPCs who¡¯ll do it even.¡± ¡°And you are aware that losing health is painful, yes?¡± Deyana sort of shrugged, ending up laying her hands on the table. ¡°Kind of? It¡¯s not that painful, and unless it¡¯s something you¡¯re going to spam it isn¡¯t an issue. The fact that it sticks through everything but intentional removal is just a neat bonus.¡± ¡°I am surprised you can manage that with what you have now.¡± Deyana laughed, nervously. ¡°So, if I was actually specialized in |Merge| I think I could. But, um. I think I need a {Control: Mental Positional}.¡± ¡°Oh. That isn¡¯t that expensive. Let me get that while you prototype.¡± Deyana rubbed her face with her hands, hiding her eyes in the process for a bit. ¡°Yeah. I still don¡¯t like asking for more from you.¡± ¡°The rune will cost about as much as an object that does the teleportation would.¡± Deyana coughed indignantly. ¡°You already gave me [Transport]!¡± ¡°Hmm. Did I?¡± ¡°Yes!¡± ¡°That is true.¡± ¡°When in the world are you ever going to be able to collect on all this debt you¡¯re building up? There¡¯s only so many items you¡¯re ever going to need.¡± ¡°They¡¯re gifts. And I may stop when your reactions are not worth every bit of the price to me.¡± Deyana didn¡¯t really have a response to that prepared, so instead she just watched as Geria walked out of the room, then turned back to the worktable. Pileup 16: Moving Forward The work was, as before, a nice way to occupy her hands while thinking more than a successful way to not think. First off was just making sure that her idea wasn¡¯t entirely stupid. There were two real primary ways to do teleportation targeting. One option was to have the item generate an area, where every other item and/or person in that area was grabbed up and moved somewhere else. The other, to target the caster themselves and move them, which had the bonus of moving the user of the item and everything they wore or carried, with the downside that ground-mounted weaponry and allies couldn¡¯t be moved with it. She had an idea for solving that second one, at least for a fairly tightly-knit group, but it would need to wait. The idea for tattooing the runes was, after all, a decision based primarily on the fact that {Target: Caster} was a Rare-level rune she¡¯d need to buy, where {Target: Self} was both Uncommon-level and in her inventory. |Merge|, [Bolt] with {Control: Mental Direction} as a placeholder and {Water} for visibility, combining with [Transport] using {Target: Self} and overlapping over {Water}. She wasn¡¯t sure if that overlap was technically necessary, but given that it made the design smaller instead of larger, she as at least planning to start with that. Putting the runes on a piece of paper, she placed the finished product on the worktable, then faced it towards the wall. With only Mental Direction instead of Position, a Bolt was just going to keep going until it hit something or dissipated based on the settings of the rune. It was possible that by multisetting [Bolt], she¡¯d have been able to emulate the effects, but that seemed like a method that saved her a small bit of setup cost in return for losing quite a bit of time and a lot of effectiveness in combat. Which very much was not a good trade. Activating the runes by touching the paper with a single finger and channeling her mana into it, Deyana watched as the whole thing flashed into water, gathering up and flying at the wall in an instant. And, aligned with her guess, splashed against the wall, turning back into paper as it did and sliding down vertically for a moment before the air tilted it enough to start drifting down more slowly. Two more tests confirmed that it worked as expected. And because Geria would likely still be a while, she cleared her inventory out of rune scrolls, learning them all.
Expertise 3 Effect: Control Logic While there are a large number of Control-series runes, it is sometimes the case that no single rune could cover the necessary situations. This expertise level will allow you to use logical operators to combine the effects of Control runes. Example: A runewriter using the [Burst] Rune might want to have it on a proximity trigger, but such would make it unhandleable by the user. By combining the Proximity control and a Time control with AND, the burst could be set to go off when in contact with something, but only if it has been two seconds since the burst was created.
It was a fairly basic bonus, technically, but it also opened up so many other options as to be a little bit ridiculous. It made sense, though; requiring fifty runes, expertise three was about the point at which you could be sure if you actually liked the crafting system in the game or not. With that complete, the rest of her time preparing was spent on making sure that she didn¡¯t mess up at the application stage. Buying a Runic Tattooing device, stencils, the associated inks and transfer materials, and the use of a practice dummy was about ten thousand credits out of her now substantially-buffered account, even after she¡¯d given Don the larger share. The nice thing about the credits scaling this early was that it was essentially meaningless to her to buy basic runes by this point, though the downside was that the actually rare runes would be completely out of her reach for a while yet. Without the need for it to be quite as accurate when it wasn¡¯t going to be actually in use, she just drew the tracing lines directly onto the dummy instead of using the stencils. And yet, even while doing all of that, she couldn¡¯t quite manage to ignore the fact that half of her thoughts were elsewhere and that featherlight jump-bounce of her heart refused to let her forget, even when there really were higher priorities at the moment, and so very many reasons to ignore it. Hard to be annoyed, though. The practice had been a good idea. The weight was more than she¡¯d expected, and she¡¯d already drifted off the target line by the third rune, when the final version of it would be six. And when she was doing it on herself, it would come with a bit of pain on top. It wouldn¡¯t do to mess up, if only because it would cost an annoying amount to get it fixed. A second go-around saw her taking a short break after every other rune, checking the numbers on her planned designs a few more times in-between, and the mistakes were gone, perfectly matching up to her plan even after wiping off the tracing ink. A case of content theft: this narrative is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. And just in time, too, for Geria to get back. She didn¡¯t even say anything, instead knocking on the doorframe before tossing a rune scroll over the middle of the room for Deyana to catch. Deyana made an aggrieved noise. ¡°What would you have done if I¡¯d still had the device in my hand?¡± ¡°Not thrown the scroll, obviously,¡± Geria replied, lazily. ¡°That¡¯s what the trade window¡¯s for.¡± Deyana scoffed, opening the new scroll and starting the fairly short process of transcribing the decorated crossing staircases.
Rune Learned {Control: Mental Positional} Parameters: Default Relative Position (Optional)
When she was done, she pulled out the stencil paper, laying it flat and pausing. ¡°So, options: I can make it just about as large as it¡¯ll go, but that¡¯s a bit of a waste¨C both of skin-space and ink, but small¡¯s got issues with mana costing and by extension health costing. On top of that, it should probably be somewhere that it won¡¯t be uh¡­ typically visible. Using Merge and all.¡± Geria smirked at her very slightly, though it was a little bit difficult to tell if that was on purpose. ¡°Oh? The upper arm would usually be covered.¡± Deyana rocked her head side to side slightly. ¡°That¡¯ll work for you, if a bit on the smaller side. Can you give me the measurements so I can stencil it?¡± Geria flushed just a little bit, and Deyana had to keep the grin to herself. ¡°I was trying to get you to ask to put it somewhere else.¡± The grin came out, now. ¡°I know.¡± ¡°Oh, you¡¯re going to be like that, then.¡± ¡°Yup!¡± Deyana chirped, then laughed. ¡°That¡¯s what you get for being high enough level that you could actually use that. Plus, you¡¯ve got to actually say stuff.¡± ¡°Where are you planning on putting yours?¡± ¡°Upper half of the thigh. I don¡¯t usually wear anything short here, so it¡¯s as good a place as any while leaving the waist open.¡± ¡°Leaving the waist open?¡± Deyana debated telling for a moment or two as she started the stencil, but it wasn¡¯t like it was such an important secret anymore. At least to her. ¡°That¡¯s where I¡¯m probably going to put the strength and speed passives. Novsha just had speed there, but¡­ well¡­¡± ¡°It is an option to mix them, now.¡± ¡°Yeah. Strength gives some speed, mind you, but not as much as a dedicated speed tattoo will.¡± ¡°You know, there are a lot of people who would kill to be told that.¡± ¡°Oh yeah!¡± Deyana laughed again. ¡°I¡¯m well aware, and so is D-S. They¡¯ve got to keep some secrets, though.¡± Geria blinked, then groaned, rubbing her eyes. ¡°They use invisibility and speed, right? Then set privacy settings to permission-only and¡­¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think it¡¯s an intended consequence, I¡¯ll give you that much. It¡¯s only the ops that get them, though. It¡¯s stamina-expensive to use physical changes like that and would most likely already be out if there were more than ten people in each group that knows about it. I¡¯m sure some other people figured it out independently.¡± ¡°Sure. Not sure why I managed not to.¡± Deyana shrugged. ¡°For most people, it¡¯s burning a quarter of your health and a fifth of your mana in a fight for a marginal benefit, particularly if you¡¯re backline. Frontline, they usually prefer to prevent the damage to begin with, maybe mix a little bit of health in there for efficiency¡¯s sake, but mana transfer is usually just more efficient.¡± ¡°That is true. In the same place you¡¯re getting yours, then.¡± ¡°Mmkay. Last thing.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Do you want to make yours Manifested Force or one of the elements? The bolt medium, I mean.¡± Geria blinked once, then smiled. ¡°As long as we don¡¯t count it as the other item you promised to make for me, Force is what I have the best use for.¡± Deyana rolled her eyes, filling in the last rune and starting the reasonably quick, but important, process of checking to make sure all of her runes were right. They were. By the time she turned around, Geria had somehow already changed into, of all things, sort of front tie tank over a side slit mini skirt, and Deyana outright stared for a few seconds. ¡°If¡­ Y¡¯know, if I had to make a list of things that I didn¡¯t expect you to have¡­¡± Deyana paused, not really able to string words together in the way she¡¯d intended. ¡°Top ten. Easy.¡± The twinkle in Geria¡¯s eyes hung around for a moment in silence before she responded. ¡°I thought about going shorter, but I decided it would be a bit trashy.¡± ¡°Shorter than¨C¡± Deyana cut herself off, then coughed. ¡°Probably the right decision. When did you even get that?¡± Geria¡¯s mouth flattened. ¡°I would rather not say?¡± That was specific. Still, there wasn¡¯t a much faster way to lose someone¡¯s trust than to push for an answer that they weren¡¯t comfortable giving. ¡°I¡¯m curious, but won¡¯t push you for that. Ready to get started?¡± Geria nodded, once, and sat down in the chair by the workstation. ¡°Yes. I may tell you eventually, but not right now.¡± With that, she started the process of the tattoo. An enchanted cleaning cloth that also dealt with any body hair, followed by a numbing solution, then the stencil. As soon as that was done, it was simply a matter of copying the tracing she¡¯d done before, just on a living person this time. While she might have preferred a little bit of talking, Geria¡¯s complete silence was decent enough, and helped her focus the whole way through, and the stillness was even better than the practice dummies. Fifteen minutes later, it was done. Talking started up again after that, with Geria choosing to demur on testing until after Deyana finished her own copy, but neither of them were really bringing up anything important. Deyana because she didn¡¯t really want to lose focus, and her best suspicion was that Geria was doing the same. Her own was almost exactly the same but replacing the {Manifested Force} rune with {Electricity}, the reversed form of {Earth}. Mostly, the issue there was that while either the [Transport] or {Manifested Force} could be explained to Don or any other curious people nearby, using both would very quickly out her as having a backer. That or non-guild connections and a fairly powerful prior character, and if anything, that might be worse. The testing process was fairly simple, with both of them activating the teleport simultaneously, going only a short distance at first and then extending it. There was one mishap where she¡¯d gotten ¡°clever¡± with it and twisted herself in the air, ending up landing on her butt for her trouble, but otherwise the tattoos worked exactly as expected. Pressingly, though, she needed to use |Merge| again, but Deyana didn¡¯t really have anything she wanted to add on with until she¡¯d had a bit more time to think about things. While it wasn¡¯t terribly expensive to rotate out an item given that she was making them herself, it was still a cost in time that she really didn¡¯t want to use. Looking over Geria¡¯s gear, once the other girl had changed back into it, gave her the idea. The confirmation on it was a fairly quick process, and just a few minutes later she had probably the simplest use of |Merge| she¡¯d made so far. She couldn¡¯t wait to see it in action. Pileup 17: Findings With no visible movement but a single snap from Geria, the landshark that had jumped out of the ground at the two of them was blown apart around its mouth without fanfare mid-jump, the parts of its body behind the point of explosion pushed back by the force. ¡°Well that just doesn¡¯t seem fair.¡± Geria grimaced. ¡°Maybe. Four hundred fifty mana.¡± ¡°Counterpoint- That¡¯s what? Nine seconds?¡± ¡°Seven. That is still significant; I can only use it three times in a row before running out.¡± Deyana nodded. ¡°Still, on burst regen it¡¯s like a second and a half. Assuming yours is solo mana?¡± ¡°It is,¡± Geria replied. ¡°And that was an overkill. It is using a boosted specialization, though.¡± This time it was Deyana¡¯s turn to pull a face. ¡°I didn¡¯t realize it was a boosted specialization. Verdict on it?¡± Geria paused for a while, taking two more potshots at landsharks that popped up out of the ground around them, not snapping this time. ¡°I think, probably¡­ It¡¯s very good as a secondary or surprise, but it¡¯s not a good primary.¡± Deyana glanced around. Landsharks were another one of those specialty monsters, like slimes, leaving the area even more empty than that one had been despite their higher level. Usually, she¡¯d be grouping up with three or four people by now, but the safety Geria brought to the table would make it a lot more efficient to just keep going, jumping through specialty monsters wherever applicable. Unlike slimes, the difficulty with Landsharks wasn¡¯t so much the pure durability, but the combination of their mid-level intelligence and semi-intangibility. With their usual strategy, that meant waiting until they attacked, then hitting then with either a powerful burst or damage over time effect that would kill them before they resurfaced. In her case, it would be the burst. Specifically, she would generate a bunch of the ice bursts she¡¯d use on the slimes, throw them into the jaws of the sharks, and wait for them to pop out of the ground in response to the damage before finishing them off with her sword. Unfortunately, without the ability to see them through the ground or much insight into when they¡¯d use their almost-leg-almost-tail assembly to spring forward, that was a matter of walking forwards and listening carefully for the very quiet ground-moving that preceded an attack. When the ground shifted slightly under her feet, it was a good thing that her reactions were a lot faster than her intentional thoughts. Deyana¡¯s left hand flipped over and she¡¯d dropped two orbs as the teeth appeared, turning into a bolt of electricity going straight up before they would have hit the ground. Instead, they dropped into the gullet of the landshark and she reconstituted, activating her boots as she did to stare down at the shark snapping uselessly at air. Two seconds after it slipped back into the ground, there was a slight thump followed by the landshark, now frozen around the middle, popping back out of the ground. It was a simple matter to teleport back down, then stab the ¡°beached¡± land-fish, killing it in three strikes.
Combat Ended! +288,781 Experience, +7148 credits
Level Up! (x2) HP: 90 (+4) Mana: 220 (+11) Stamina: 45 (+2)
It wasn¡¯t too difficult, ultimately, to repeat that process in fairly quick succession. While they were deadly if they caught their targets, landsharks¡¯ primary strengths were their first attack and their tendency to appear in unstably-numbered groups. With Geria handling the cases of the latter where they were actually threatening, it was a quiet and quick process, if absolutely not relaxing, to push her way to level fifty. And with that, the first rune specialization. Theoretically, the first rune specialization was almost always in something simple. Everyone wanted to have access to the runes the specialized in due to the suite of advantages that provided, and by choosing something like an elemental or paraelemental rune, it was possible to gain those advantages for anything that allowed for their use. Still¡­ Deyana could feel the dropping in her chest as she came to a decision. It was obviously ridiculous, overconfident, and entirely incorrect for the situation¨C ¡°Is that Geria?¡± Deyana jerked her head away from the menus, not closing them but moving them to the corner of her vision and stepping behind Geria. In an instant, as she turned, several of the items Geria hadn¡¯t had equipped before appeared around her person, including a large bag hung over her shoulder, something like a mid-calf skirt, and the cloak from the first time they¡¯d met, the latter two fluttering down even as she turned, staff in her right hand, and the left going to the bag. ¡°You know the answer to that, Danis, or you would not be here. And Firehand too. Were the other eight not available?¡± The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation. The guy she was talking to, an obnoxiously handsome guy with what looked like a crossed double sash-like construction buttoned to a shoulderless leather jacket with split bits hanging down to his knees and holding onto a worryingly large crossbow, complete with two quivers, smirked confidently. The guy behind him, apparently ¡°Firehand,¡± was burning a ridiculous amount of mana and space on his cloak to appear to be on fire, with body armor underneath having the more defensive enchantments. Deyana was sure it was supposed to be intimidating, but it looked ridiculous. ¡°Of course not. They¡¯re off chasing that friend of yours. An old Third crafter, suddenly giving up their position to run off for apparently no reason? Jean¡¯s pissed. How the hell did you think you were gonna get away with that?¡± It took Deyana every bit of her learned composure to prevent her eyes from widening or a grin from showing. If that was Ell, they worked fast. If that was one of Geria¡¯s, even better. ¡°I am sure that if I knew what you were talking about, I would not be telling you anything about it here.¡± He laughed, without taking her eyes off of either of them or even turning, his crossbow leveled in Geria¡¯s direction but still unfired. Was he still wary about fighting her, even apparently two versus one? Or at least, two versus one and a half. Good. That might make this interesting. ¡°Maybe. But I think you might tell us here. You¡¯re boosting a newbie, and a particularly cute one.¡± His tone almost made Deyana shiver in disgust, but analysis took over first, and she subtly adjusted her posture. ¡°Gotta admit, you didn¡¯t seem like the type. But then, you didn¡¯t seem like the type to kill Jennet, either. Still, how about we let her go and you tell us everything?¡± Party chat opened in front of her. ¡®They will not let us go without a fight. I will ask about the Third member later. You should run.¡¯ ¡®Probably should. I won¡¯t, though. They could beat you solo.¡¯ ¡®Maybe. He¡¯s probably prepared for me a little, but Manifested Force is versatile. Firehand will be nearly useless.¡¯ ¡®Which means he¡¯ll go after me.¡¯ ¡®Probably.¡¯ ¡°Ooh! Chatting about things! How ¡®bout it, arm candy? Feeling the pressure yet?¡± Deyana had to turn away to hide her laugh, simultaneously using it to call tears to her eyes before hesitatingly turning back around. ¡°I¡­ I d-didn¡¯t¡­ sign up for this¡­ if you want her¡­¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it. Firehand here¡¯s gonna stop you from running, but you¡¯ll be fine as soon as your girlfriend here gives us what we want.¡± ¡®Shouldn¡¯t¡¯ve confirmed that. Dumbass. I can probably give you the 1v1. Win it.¡¯ Taking slow steps backwards, Deyana intentionally dragged her heels through the dirt, simultaneously making a lot of noise and throwing her balance noticeably off. By the third step, her foot caught on something and she started falling, turning her head to the side. The spinning of Firehand¡¯s staff into position in her peripheral vision was her cue to teleport to the side, letting the beam of fire shoot through her former position. By the heat coming off of the miss, she could tell it was scaled to the power of a lategame raid. Idiot. She was level fifty. Even a defensively equipped, boosted person for her level would have been killed if it had hit, and her being dead would have let Geria only defend herself. Deyana was glad to see that the crossbow bolt, launched almost at the same time as the fire attack, got deflected up and to the side. Luckily for her, Danis made the same connection, yelling at Firehand to tone down his attacks before she could think of a credible way to explain that to him within the role she¡¯d taken up. Geria had already thrown two stones out of her pouch, and though she didn¡¯t seem to be walking or running anywhere the same could not be said for Danis, who appeared to be trying to line up to pin her in place, lest any undeflected shots would hit Deyana. Firehand had switched strategies, two walls of flame hemming her in, just the heat coming off of them already eating into her health bar, and a second wave of fire at her shins forcing her to squeak and teleport up to avoid it, twisting as she came out and throwing two ice bursts down at him. He completely ignored them, flashes of heat turning the ice to steam as they exploded. Meanwhile, Geria continued throwing those stones, heat-haze styled walls going up around her in growing numbers even while Danis continued to fire. Suddenly, Deyana saw her teammate teleport before one of the shots, landing on top of one of her walls. The next bolt, shrouded in something dark, went straight through all of the manifested force walls, nearly glancing Firehand. Deyana started the ten-count in her head. This time, it was a swarm of fire bolts that came for her, and the falling off of her boots¡¯ platforms was only mostly fake. Still, somehow, unaccounted for, which meant none of them had been aimed below her, instead fanning out to the sides and above, confirming a lack of recent PvP experience. Seconds five and six were spent avoiding two more swarms, ¡°accidentally¡± stumbling behind one of Geria¡¯s walls and visibly panting well before her stamina ran out while Firehand rose into the air on two columns of flame. Danis was running some other kind of movement, and she caught his new position out of the corner of her eye while he fired twice more offhand, then took time to set his feet correctly, taking careful aim as something invisible caused a huge flareup of his defenses, lightning and something dark striking whatever it was Geria had tried to hit him with. She teleported well in advance of Firehand¡¯s incoming wave of flame, activating her armor as she did. As before, the two¡¯s lack of PvP experience nearly killed her again. Only a quirk of the angles of Geria¡¯s walls stopped her teleport before Deyana could actually reach the now-vacated position she¡¯d been aiming for. Her expectation had been that Danis would take even the most basic of preventative measures, aiming just enough to a side that physical dodges would have been caught. But instead, he shot right down the center. It crossed her armor¡¯s proximity trigger, but while it had been enough for Geria¡¯s testing, the throughput and storage of the {Metastorage: Monodirectional Transfer Contiguous} connected to [Absorb] wasn¡¯t nearly enough to stop the bolt in the air. It visibly slowed, still moving well more than fast enough to kill her, but flew harmlessly over her head. ¡°Careful there, princess! Wouldn¡¯t want you to get shot hiding behind her!¡± Did neither of you even notice the slowing? Now within Geria¡¯s labyrinth, her options were partially cut off by default and seeing exactly where was already somewhat difficult. Partially in her favor but mostly against it, Firehand was doing his level best to fill every one of those sections with flame. Another quick teleport up, followed by two more to get closer to Firehand, when another blast of flame forced her to drop the boots¡¯ platforms for a moment, falling beneath it and running towards him. He hadn¡¯t expected that, made obvious by the fact that he was scanning the sky above his blast instead. Deyana got way too close for her own comfort before letting her armor¡¯s charge go, fully expecting it to glance off of a personal shield or pass through him as he turned to fire or something. It did¡­ one of those things. Just not the way she was expecting. The spike flew through his body at an angle, entering near his waist and exiting around his shoulder blades, leaving a somewhat-censored hole behind. A moment later, Firehand visibly shattered, leaving behind a few items that started falling to the ground. Deyana froze for a second, her mana draining more quickly than she¡¯d like but still keeping about a sixth of a pool. Then she wheeled around to face Danis, gesturing angrily in the direction of his dead ally. ¡°Are you all idiots!?¡± He didn¡¯t really have the ability to answer her before several of the shimmers in the air suddenly shifted angles, crushing him between them. Geria hopped off of the platform she was crouched on, landing gracefully and lifting up the stone-bag, everything she¡¯d tossed lifting up from where it was on the ground and flying to the top of it before dropping down. ¡°We should run now.¡± Deyana couldn¡¯t argue with that. Pileup A: Ell Interlude ¡°What do you mean, only for a while?¡± ¡°I mean that you should tell people where I¡¯m going in an hour or so, and slip in those names if you can. The other bits get out when The Alliance starts telling people actual names.¡± Jene gave them a skeptical look. ¡°The Alliance don¡¯t exactly seem like the type to just give that up.¡± Difficult to explain without going into possibly problematic details, but she probably needed to know. The issue was that they didn¡¯t know if they should actually trust Jene all that much, especially given that they were quitting Third. They should at least try to trust a little bit, though, because making this easier for Novsha needed that. Jene had never been anything but friendly, but they hadn¡¯t had all that much of a relationship, either, and they¡¯d brought a big ask to the table for someone who was leaving. ¡°Falling Dawn members are involved here,¡± Cadire said, and let that sink in for a moment. Jene had been the guild leader of Third all the way back when Falling Dawn had been falling apart, so she¡¯d know that meant this whole thing was going to be so much messier than it seemed. ¡°And that¡¯s multiple. Me, obviously, plus at least the old guild leader and one other. You wouldn¡¯t recognize the name, but that was their whole schtick. I suspect that she¡¯s going to grab at least two more before this whole thing is over, or that they¡¯ll involve themselves once they hear about what¡¯s going on. The Alliance might not give up info like that for no reason, but when they figure out who they¡¯re dealing with, that¡¯s out the window¨C Hyrd obviously does the whole reciprocation bit, but he completely ignores when his guild starts it in the first place, he just wants to hit last.¡± Jene raised an eyebrow. ¡°I hadn¡¯t heard about The Alliance starting things except for their whole passive slash retributive takeover nonsense. Either with us or anyone else¡± They laughed at that. ¡°They usually don¡¯t, but when it comes to Falling Dawn, and Novsha specifically, that¡¯s always been more of a technicality than reality. With the guild out of the picture? I¡¯d sooner believe that he started it than her.¡± ¡°A lot of faith in your old guild master. And you¡¯re leaving mine.¡± Cadire smiled awkwardly. ¡°Yeah. I don¡¯t really want to deal with split loyalties when you didn¡¯t sign up for it and I¡¯m pretty sure your guild comes second or third.¡± Jene nodded, smirking slightly as she sat back in the small wooden chair, and obviously thinking about their ask. They didn¡¯t dare interrupt that, not when it had the potential to go so very poorly, but they were still getting fidgety by the time Jene spoke, nearly two minutes later. ¡°I appreciate that. You¡¯re allowed to stay in or rejoin after you get back if you want, but I bet you¡¯re going to be part of the new guild, whatever name that happens to be.¡± This tale has been unlawfully lifted from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. She paused for a second, then leaned forwards, over the table they were speaking at. ¡°With what you¡¯ve told me? I¡¯d rather ally with that guild when it comes up. I can¡¯t offer the guild¡¯s help to your ¡®mystery character¡¯ without risking a lot, but I can promise that we¡¯ll at least stay out of it. We¡­ Well, I thought Third wasn¡¯t nearly big enough to make the difference for Falling Dawn back then, but with what happened at the Mount Calf portal? I think we could have managed it, and I regret not stepping up.¡± Cadire blinked twice, and had to shake their head to clear it. ¡°Why? It¡¯s not like it hurt you to get rid out the last real holdout.¡± ¡°Objectively, no. But emotionally, interest-wise? It¡¯s been annoying, just dealing with the same boring people every time and every where. And I liked Novsha, cocksure idiot and everything.¡± She rolled her eyes. ¡°Though idiot was just what she wanted me to think, huh?¡± Two days ago, Cadire would have said yes without hesitation. It had seemed such a brilliant ploy, passing off strategy to other members so much of the time, and only coming through with the winning plan when absolutely necessary or as a threading of the most difficult and complicated needles. Now, though¡­ ¡°I¡¯m not sure. It¡¯s possible, but it¡¯s also possible that¡­ uh¡­ she was actually just bored of the simple stuff.¡± Jene smiled, shaking her head and sitting back again. ¡°Very possible. Do try to convince her to make a few items for me, if you can, and I¡¯m going to want you to pass off your specialist formations to Horen and Eddes.¡± ¡°Already done, along with cutting the friends list down. Convincing, you¡¯ll probably need to do yourself. You¡¯ll see her first, anyways. Plus, she never said anything about a guild, so you might be able to recruit her¡± ¡°I might see her first, but we¡¯re going to be officially hands-off until the whole thing¡¯s settled. And showing up with her builds in the middle of that might look bad. As for recruiting her¡­ she¡¯d never take it, so no.¡± ¡°Officially?¡± Jene¡¯s smile turned strange. ¡°I can, of course, act a little bit on my own without the guild being particularly involved. And the guild can easily ¡®coincidentally¡¯ have a few members hanging around when a black op goes violent too close to a city or a ¡®teambuilding exercise¡¯ somewhere inconvenient. You should be off, though. Good luck, and¡­ give Vegas some extra hell for me.¡± ¡°That¡¯s a plan. Thanks, Jene.¡±
It was a good thing that they had experience building items for players of so many different levels, because it meant they had a bunch of prototypes hanging around in their inventory of different levels. Cadire had started the travel just a couple dozen levels above the standard runecrafters¡¯ level of seventy, and even just a few hours into the travel were already gaining levels quickly. It helped that being further from cities tended to increase the average levels in the area, but they still had to stop in the towns along the way in order to speak to some of the players in the area. No partying, unfortunately, which obviously slowed them down, but the items usually made up for that issue. Still, even acknowledging the fact that they needed to be memorable and seed both the idea of them having the rune and who apparently gave it to them with at least three players in each area, it was probably the single longest stretch of time that they¡¯d ever spent without crafting any new items. Probably not what they wanted to do long-term, but as a break, it was nice. Finally, eleven hours after setting out, Cadire finally saw Vegas. It was a consideration, for just a few moments, whether they should continue to push forward, well past the point of reasonability, and try stepping in to talk to some of the guild leaders there. Instead, they bound their spawn point and looked around for a few seconds, noting the people who were conspicuously ¡°not¡± looking before logging out. The guilds would be putting together their responses tomorrow, and Cadire had the full intention to giving them something to work with. Pileup 18: Rebuild Even the significantly reduced experience from Firehand¡¯s holding back was well more than enough to get her ten levels all at once, throwing her past another stat boost. Helpfully, the heavy use of the teleportation had also cleared the most recent level of the rune quest.
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 5/20: Further Testing Complete!
Phase 6/20: Refinement
Upgrade or recreate with increased effectiveness a prior item created using |Merge|.
¡°That explanation would be appreciated now.¡± Deyana and Geria were running away from the landsharks¡¯ area, going to get back into town before The Alliance would be able to mobilize its more powerful guildmembers over to the location. With Geria being there, they wouldn¡¯t throw newbies in the way to slow them down, at least. Guilds sending new members to be wiped out in less than a second tended to be bad for recruitment. ¡°Someone I know in reality. Offered to help, I gave them just enough info to be believable but not enough to find me. My best guess at least. I was expecting they¡¯d take longer to get the core out of the city.¡± Deyana explained, throwing the stat boost into health to fuel her teleportation and later tattoo-runes and confirming the specialization to |Merge| without slowing down. Geria shook her head. ¡°It is probably only the PvP-effective group that they originally sent after me. LJay¡¯s group is probably who they are after but I can handle those unless they bring along a bunch of tier-two reserves, which will take time.¡± ¡°Like Danis and Firehand?¡± ¡°Like Danis. Firehand is stuck in tier three until he automates any physical defensive enchantments. He instead complains that he cannot find them mana-nonrestrictively without, quote, ¡®going off-theme.¡¯¡± Deyana groaned. ¡°You¡¯re kidding me, right?¡± ¡°I wish that I were. I was in charge of DPS tier-ratings.¡± ¡°It might be in my favor, but I already hate it. Can you catch me up on who you think¡¯ll be in the area or come after us?¡± There weren¡¯t a lot of surprises in Geria¡¯s answering list, but there weren¡¯t none, either. At some point after she¡¯d stopped keeping up with the information from guilds that wouldn¡¯t sell to her, The Alliance had managed to pick up one of the truly skilled Runewriters that occasionally appeared. Castien, the same woman who¡¯d made Geria¡¯s weapons, appeared to be one of those truly skilled players who went beyond, getting the game¡¯s level two certification. Only the first and second out of a theoretical nine Runecrafter¡¯s Trials were actually available, and the association and in-game government absolutely refused to give any information on where the third might be found beyond ¡°elsewhere.¡± The fifth and seventh were also available there, but nobody ever took them as they each required the previous to be cleared. Even still, maybe half of the people who primarily crafted in the game, already a comparatively small percentage, managed the first level, and of those only a quarter managed the second. Normally, a game that had been out as long as Rune would have guides on how to do things, but the trials in particular were structured as a series of problem-solving exercises that could be prepared for, but not memorized or looked up mid-test. The benefits were absolutely worth it, though; the first trial granted access to most of the guild¡¯s rune record for easy lookup and the second gave access to the ability to view the theoretical effect of a rune-group whether it could be activated or not. Castien had taken that ability to the extreme, using it to create a number of complex effects with the distinct downside of the vast majority of her guild being completely unable to understand exactly what they were supposed to be using. Finally, after bouncing around some thoughts in her head for a while, Deyana spoke again. ¡°I¡¯m going to either need to leave Don behind or bring him in on this. It was fine when nobody knew me, but¡­¡± Geria clicked her tongue and Deyana prepared herself to be disappointed but was surprised. ¡°Bring him in. I won¡¯t buy him items, but if you want a rune that will get used for his stuff feel free to ask. It is not like I lose anything by having you diversify slightly more.¡± She nodded at that, but they were getting too close to the city for talking to be anything but practical communication. They shifted around the edge, staying out of practical sight by sweeping through old and failed construction along with more wild areas, Geria wiping out any monster that Deyana failed to one-burst with a single orb and her sword. The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. It wasn¡¯t enough, given the lower level of the monsters nearer the city, to really move her experience bar, but that wasn¡¯t the point. They hit the entry-road further from where they¡¯d been and directly headed into the city, slipping into one of the basic shops as they did. The items available there weren¡¯t anything special, but as they were buying to disguise anyways, it wasn¡¯t too difficult for Deyana to shift over to a longish light grey coat that covered her armor and contrasted with her typical color choices, along with more closely-fit jeans and a pair of fluffy fleece-lined boots she wouldn¡¯t have been caught dead in in other circumstances. Changing her ponytail to a braid she didn¡¯t hate took slightly longer, but combined with a couple of minutes to shift her posture to a slight forward-hunch, she thought it would be enough to pass by anyone looking for her specifically. Geria had apparently had similar ideas. Unlike her, Geria had decided to shift the coverage of clothing she wore extremely, wearing a t-shirt and loose jeans and had apparently taken the rest of the time to find one of the places that handled hair and add a wavy aqua blue peekaboo highlight. While that was enough of a change to be difficult to recognize, something about it tickled at the back of Deyana¡¯s head until she realized the issue. Neither of them had anything runic visible at all. Her sword went to Geria, its sheathed form generic enough to avoid suspicion, and Geria handed her staff over. While it wasn¡¯t correctly sized to her, they¡¯d decided to look like fairly new players and a discrepancy that small was less than damning. Besides, the Alliance members hadn¡¯t seen the staff in use at all, so it was one of the few tools they had between the two of them that they could use in disguise. The two of them managed to slip into the teleportation circle area around the time a group of Alliance members came running out of it, and Deyana gave them a slightly worried wave. That was enough for them, and after a short discussion, half of their number ran off towards the city entrance that she and Geria had used while the other half stayed put. Neither group recognized them, though, and the two were allowed to slip through without so much as a word spoken to the watching group. Upon arriving in the large city that she¡¯d originally spawned in, Deyana made sure that they were out of primary sight before she groaned and turned to Geria. ¡°We need to be able to look like mid-levels. I¡¯m going to need a bunch of staples or you¡¯re going to need to buy them, and either way it¡¯s going to be a mess.¡± For the first time, Geria looked a little bit daunted, and Deyana could see the math going through her head. ¡°I can¡¯t get everything staple, obviously. What will you be focusing on?¡± ¡°Standard meta and nothing else for a bow user, so projected or imparted durability and momentum or inertia increase plus some random garbage for arrows and a target selector. I¡¯ve got most of what I need to look like an electricity caster, but I¡¯ll need a connection major and want an explosive gas material for tricks. For you, what¡¯d be your preference, knowing you might need to actually fight with it?¡± Geria thought for a minute, then blew out a breath. ¡°I¡¯ve thought about being a sword-user, but I¡¯m not good enough at close range for that to make sense. Could you do a polearm?¡± ¡°Yeah. Slashing or stabbing?¡± ¡°Stabbing.¡± ¡°More corseque or more ji?¡± The was another minute of pause and Deyana watched Geria¡¯s eyes unfocus as she probably looked those words up before answering. ¡°Ji. And are you really adding this on top of all the other creations you plan to make?¡± ¡°Then for that I¡¯ll need [Copy] or [Duplicate], but I think I can cheat the rest with |Merge| and things I¡¯ve already asked for or have. For defenses, probably [Redirect] and or [Nullify].¡± Deyana thought for a moment, trying primarily to phrase her answer diplomatically. ¡°And the fact is that whether I want to or not, a large part of staying under the radar here is just going to be looking like random people instead of the ones they¡¯re searching for. I¡¯ve got a couple of plans underway, but they¡¯re really just buying time to hopefully complete this quest and make being difficult more trouble than it¡¯s worth.¡± Geria shook her head. ¡°That is not why I asked. How long are you planning to stay here and how close to your VR limit is that going to push you?¡± ¡°Oh. Probably six or so hours tonight to finish the ones for Don and my two sets, plus another four or so tomorrow morning. That won¡¯t touch my VR limit, though, I¡¯d need to pull all-nighters and get one of those expensive coma-pods for that.¡± Not that she would, but the thought had occurred before. The part-disgusted part-impressed look that Geria was giving her only confirmed that holding back more specific information was the right choice. ¡°How good is your Concept?¡± The ¡°language¡± of VR, Concept was the name people called the non-linguistic communication that they¡¯d opened up. It was also known for being extremely difficult for most people to communicate in with any sort of direction or intentionality, getting caught in loops of explanation and prone to falling apart with the complex interconnectedness when the person trying to use it was used to ¡°thinking¡± in language first. People usually only bothered with it when they wanted a ¡°shared¡± language or to design something in the pods. Alex considered herself ¡°decent.¡± The AI rating system called it something like ¡°excellent,¡± but there was more than enough room to improve. ¡°Good enough.¡± Alex replied, adding a dismissiveness to her tone that she knew people took to mean somewhere on the lower end of average. ¡°The real issue is school, which means I¡¯ll be missing the entire middle section of the day and I won¡¯t know how things are developing in the meantime.¡± Geria froze up, then seemed to relax in that intentional way she recognized as resignation. ¡°I normally would never suggest this¡­¡± Deyana just raised an eyebrow. She had thoughts, but preferred to let Geria finish her statement. ¡°If we share pod codes or phone numbers, I could log in before you and check.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve been logged in before you these past two days,¡± Alex responded, neither affirming nor denying the implied question. ¡°Only by an hour or so, which I can more than half-cover by just jumping in earlier. If we¡¯re bringing in Don on this too, we wouldn¡¯t need to shift things around that anymore, either.¡± Deyana nodded, then smiled. ¡°I agree, honestly. I wasn¡¯t going to ask you to do that, though, ¡®cause it means you stand to lose more if they somehow manage to set up an ambush. Relief flickered to indignance to acceptance to something that was harder to place. Finally, Geria sighed. ¡°Alright. I¡¯m going to get you those runes and log out for tonight, because some of us still have semi-normal VR limits. I¡­ suspect we¡¯ll be pushing them, these next few days. ¡°Probably, yeah. Sorry.¡± Geria gave her a tired look. ¡°You didn¡¯t start this.¡± Pileup 19: Shift Six hours was, as it turned out, an uncomfortably long time to be throwing into the creation of items, made doubly so by the intentionally-induced, mind-numbing reality of putting very simple personal touches on runic combinations that someone else had come up with. The occasional jump out and back in to deal with the physical realities of being human wasn¡¯t nearly enough to break it up. Deyana had thought that she would be entertaining herself primarily by snooping around the forums and chats to try to find which of Third¡¯s crafters had left, and any initial leaks about the rune would be showing up. To her surprise and immediate annoyance, there was fascinatingly little there that people seemed to know. It was one of Third¡¯s crafters, and they¡¯d been going along a vaguely Vegas-ward trek, but with notable stops at cities that were significantly out of the way. On top of that, their descriptions were vague¨C and sometimes contradictory¨C enough that she couldn¡¯t tell if it was Horen, Eddes, Kalina, or Nosef who had actually left. There was, theoretically, the chance that it could be Cadire, but they weren¡¯t much a fan of her in general¨C and which would have also meant that the whole discussion with Ell would have been a lot less civil. Her bet was on Eddes or Kalina. Still, the lack of information was, in itself, information. With just what she knew, it was possible that they were covering their position the way any guild losing such a high-profile member would until they could find a replacement, but with how much she¡¯d told Ell? And how carefully difficult to figure this whole thing seemed to be? Her bet was that at least Jene was in on it. Which was¡­ interesting. And, based on the way that Third didn¡¯t seem to be mobilizing directly for, against, or parallel to the Alliance, she¡¯d decided to at least sit this one out. Mildly disappointing, but she was already doing more than Deyana could possibly have asked. The bow was first, and a fairly simple matter of balancing the mana costs of using its abilities with effectiveness. Don¡¯s current bow was decent, but it also had the disadvantage of its single primary enchantment taking up the majority of its space. There were certain limitations to being in the shape of a bow, but one of the truly intriguing realities of modern compound bows, particularly the group designed for Rune, was that parts of the design had been fully separated in a way that let her make some very interesting adjustments to the standard build. Not too much, given that she was intending it to blend in, but still. [Impart Durability] took up the arrow rest, given its simplistic nature and {Target: Contact}¡¯s requirement to touch the affected item. Triple-set to allow for accuracy with lower-mana shots, it would lose a bit of efficiency, but the mid-high level nature of what she was putting together demanded at least some ability to fire at lower mana costs. The riser was the primary enchantment, though¨C increasing the size, and therefore efficiency, of the [Impart Energy] with {Kinetic}, another {Target: Contact}, and {Control: Antiproximity}, making it much more usable in longer encounters. On the other side of the riser, [Increase Inertia] shared the target selector, though it also came with a {Control: Antiproximity} linked up to a {Control: Delay} set to a twentieth of a second with THEN in Control Logic, allowing the arrow to leave the rest and be fully affected by the kinetic imbuement before the inertia increase kicked in. The limbs were simple applications of durability, trusting that Don was experienced enough of a player to know to turn them on after the bow as at full draw, then release the arrow and durability immediately afterwards. Most bows on the market had an additional ease-of-use feature there, but she didn¡¯t really care to add it. Finally, she added a somewhat complicated [Copy] group to the cable rest, intended to be tapped during the firing process if the user wanted the more-expensive cluster active on a particular shot. [Duplicate] would have allowed for the mana-formed arrows to be both more powerful and be controlled remotely by bound distances to the original, but [Copy] worked plenty well for a swarm of arrows that didn¡¯t need to be controlled. Built off the meta-designs pioneered in the Chinese scene, she wasn¡¯t sure if that was really the most effective build for Don¡¯s style and personal quirks, but given everything she¡¯d seen about him, he¡¯d rather learn the style than build his own. Her own lightning elementalist staff (the twist there being an irregular ability to be used as a slashing polearm and an expensive way to summon a sphere of hydrogen in the air) was no simpler of a project, building on a New York guild¡¯s work. Finally, Geria¡¯s spear (able to echo any attacks made with it at a variety of different timings, as well as make things hit with the spike more fragile temporarily) was the subject of focus, and Alex had to fight with herself to stay on task when she finally moved on to armor. There, she just selected three different but unassuming jackets, throwing durability on the outside and a multi-type redirection away from center-mass on the inside. She tended to prefer more complete or interesting stopping effects, like her absorbing armor, but that was unfortunately extremely rare for mid-levels to ever use, and this design, from Hain, was mass-produced enough to be completely unremarkable. You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. The NPC¡¯s words from a few days ago reminded her to include some guild marks as well¨C Dread Silence on the armor, but she couldn¡¯t resist sticking Third¡¯s partial-circle over full-circle onto the weapons, Dread Silence getting the three dots on the fang and Third getting the two parallel lines from the centerpoint circle to the middle of the arc that denoted the items as having been sold outside of the guild. It probably wouldn¡¯t fool close inspection due to the difference in style, but they were mostly supposed to head off interest before it got to that point to begin with. Going to bed that night was difficult. As much as she¡¯d created a number of useful items, it had also been simple enough that her mind had been wandering, and those ideas in incomplete pieces continued to bounce around behind her eyelids for almost an hour before she managed to get to sleep. The next morning, Alex rolled blearily out of bed, only managing to get dressed enough to not be a problem by pure force of habit before she was back in VR, those fragments pulling together into three distinct builds that used |Merge|. Don was primarily an archer, and his was the simplest¨C a bracer that used a combination of [Absorb] and [Transport] that could shift an arrow¡¯s starting point a decent distance from the actual point of fire to a fair distance away. Geria got something more complicated in a few parts. The one intended to be kept on her person took a form somewhat between a cape and a scarf, a billowy thing intended to be work around the neck so as not to get in the way of anything else but still be grabbable. Five copies each of [Power Link] and [Mental Direction Link] took up almost the whole thing, only a few tricks for temporary setting playing into the creation, and not a single major rune on the whole thing. Those were on the five disks she bought, sharpened on their edges and solid through, though made of a different metal past the actual blade section. They were heavy, but not extraordinarily so, though the total lack of safe places to hold them led to her spending a couple of minutes to create what were essentially armored gloves. The power link was quickly separated into two primary sections, one using the transfer to run around the edges in smaller segments while the other shifted to the other flat plate, the large size putting off some of the remoteness costs. The ring was the most time-consuming work, being several carefully-spaced [Durability]-[Edge] |Merge|s, but not the primary thrust of the design. That honor went to [Impart Energy], typed to kinetic and targeted to the item itself, merged with five distinct other runes¨C each with their own unique minors. Each only got the simple testing of being bound, fired at a target, and dumped back in her inventory, both because of the time constraint Alex was working under and the fact that she simply didn¡¯t have enough mana to do much more. The idea was based on what she¡¯d already seen Geria do with that stone pouch but simplified so as to allow her more direct attacks in the cases where they would be appropriate. Finally, the project intended for her own use. That first sword she¡¯d made was decent, still. Void wasn¡¯t the most versatile of the magic elements, but it was quite good at what it did. The final project played on that idea further, using [Copy] and [Bolt] to make a thrusting sword that gave her some access to midrange without sacrificing much at closer ranges. Putting the finishing touches on her work, Alex logged out.
Shuffling into the classroom with her hair hurriedly thrown into a ponytail, wearing sweats and a loose hoodie, Alex was well aware that she was paying for her obsession in the breaking of her image. It didn¡¯t matter so much, really, but she still felt a piece of her remaining ego wither and starve the moment she was in public. It was better than skipping without actually being sick. ¡°Oh, shit. Alex?¡± Ell¡¯s visible double-take didn¡¯t do much for keeping her convinced of that. ¡°Ah. Yeah. Tired today. Couldn¡¯t sleep, plus working on something.¡± There wasn¡¯t assigned seating in the class, but the obvious habit-forming nature of it plus being in the middle of the semester made it surprising when Ell didn¡¯t even start towards the front of the class like they usually did, pulling up a seat next to her instead. ¡°It¡¯s surprising to see you looking like you got run over by something. Not enough coffee or something?¡± Alex shook her head in primary response, before realizing she should elaborate. ¡°Runecrafting stuff. It¡¯s tough work, and I¡¯m operating on shitty timescales. Three people, two offensive, one defensive set per.¡± Ell winced. ¡°Ouch. Yeah, okay. That¡¯s a couple of days capping out unless you¡¯re just following patterns, which is gonna be easy to counterbuild.¡± Alex made a noncommittal sound, thinking her answer over somewhat before giving up on subterfuge. ¡°No, I um. I finished it this morning. I just barely slept.¡± She¡¯d been expecting a look like Geria¡¯s from the previous night, maybe some sort of complaint, and almost entirely missed their response in her preparatory cringe away. Ell closed their eyes, took a deep breath, and shook their head once. ¡°I need to remember who I¡¯m talking to.¡± ¡°Yours are going to be more efficient, probably more useful, not have any misalignments¡­¡± ¡°And they¡¯re going to be obviously meta choices, tailored very slightly to what the person I¡¯m making it for is specialized in. What did you make?¡± Ell asked, a little bit of extra force on the words. A moment later, the professor interrupted by starting class, but it was only a few minutes later when they¡¯d been freed to work in small groups on a series of problems that she¡¯d designed. Even half-delirious with tiredness, Alex was able to shift together the primary pieces of the solution almost instantly, but as she started on the math, she could tell that it needed to be simplified in at least a few places and resignedly began to dig through her bag for the reference sheet she wasn¡¯t allowed for tests and could never remember. She didn¡¯t even have the paper out before Ell shrunk the mess her formula had turned into to something half the size and input it into their own calculator to get the answer. Alex managed to check two of the substitutions Ell had made before she threw in the towel. ¡°I¡¯m just going to assume everything you did is right,¡± she said, trying for a joking tone but sounding resigned even to her own ear. Ell blew out a breath. ¡°Yeah, cause you¡¯re tired. If I was, getting to where you did would¡¯ve looked like fucking magic.¡± Alex tried to laugh, but it came out more like a sigh. ¡°You really don¡¯t need to lie to me. I know I¡¯m bad at this. I¡¯ll start the other ones. Thanks for the help, both yesterday and today.¡± Webs 1: Meeting It had been a few years since I¡¯d been in Vegas in person, and the height of all the buildings there still got to me. Home might have been a city, but there was a difference between a city and a city that was more and more clear every time I went into one of the latter. That wasn¡¯t really the primary focus, though, as I looked around mostly at ground level, categorizing the people around the Vegas primary teleport point. Mostly people passing through, but I pegged at least four of the ¡°enforcer¡± types I¡¯d talked to Mark about. More importantly, I was able to find the small group of more obviously ¡°security¡± people posted around the exit and pretending to try not to look like they were looking at me. It was a decent effort, but not primarily a show for someone who might be trying to avoid them. ¡°Hey guys. You¡¯re watching me for the guilds.¡± I said. I¡¯d usually have made that a question, but the flatter delivery was important for who I¡¯d be playing for the duration of my stay in Vegas. If Alex and Novsha could be the same person, then I could spend two weeks being someone else to help her out. That had made way too much fucking sense the instant that it came out. Effortlessly ahead of basically everyone else, vaguely threatening focus and coldness, attractiveness that seemed halfway between unconscious and weaponized? Frankly, it was embarrassing that I hadn¡¯t seen it before. ¡°If you¡¯re Cadire¡­¡± the guy in from of me rumbled. I looked him up and down, confirming the guild symbol of the Haunts on to of his gear pieces, and checked his two companions. The woman had Luck¡¯s Shadow markings, and the other man had Appraise the Stakes. Not the three largest guilds, and the biggest, front-guy wasn¡¯t specifically Luck¡¯s Shadow. Probably specifically not Luck¡¯s Shadow. ¡°I am. Since the meeting is going to have at least thirteen, where are you taking me?¡± I asked, activating the recall beacon from the belt I was wearing. If we moved too far, I¡¯d need to reset it, but I hoped that that wouldn¡¯t be necessary. ¡°Up the nearest building. Most of them are already waiting.¡± I grinned pointedly, and the guy shifted in place before looking away. The woman behind him raised an eyebrow and smirked, before she gestured to the building they were talking about. It had been years since I¡¯d dealt with her face to face, but it was still disturbingly easy to channel Novsha for just a moment. ¡°I suppose I¡¯ll lead the way, then. Do be sure to tell me which buttons to press.¡± ==== The room itself seemed to have been built on some nerd¡¯s idea of the specifications of what could only be a council of Bond villains. Ornamentation that would have made a degree of semi-sophisticated sense in isolation were scattered around into a room that they appeared to have made into a tridecagon specifically for the purposes of surrounding whomever it was on trial. Each corner had its own feeling to it, determined by the guild leader sitting there, but the edges between each section appeared to have been a little bit too blurry to effectively manage to make it not seem ridiculous. That, or they didn¡¯t care. Game, after all. Either way, walking in with my head held high and sitting in the plain rotating chair there was simultaneously physically easy and mentally intimidating. While I¡¯d come in from one of the sides and been let in, I could see several easy ways for them to shut off basically every avenue for leaving and several enchantments on the ground that would have intercepted some of the more basic forms of teleportation. ¡°Cadire, formerly of Third,¡± Geist, leader of Haunts, said from behind me. I turned around slowly, acknowledging them with a nod. I would have liked to think that they were just speaking in that order, but the setup of the room and the fact that the first one had been from nearly directly behind me said that this was the point of the room. The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Annoying, but I¡¯d looked into this on the way. ¡°That would be me, yes.¡± The next one was a little off to the side, but behind me again. ¡°You¡¯re quite cocky for someone who¡¯s been a crafter so far. It¡¯s surprising you followed our security up here when you don¡¯t have a safe way out.¡± I only had the one way out, annoyingly, and it was a consideration I weighed for a few seconds while staring Holdem down, her overly casual demeanor basically confirming for me that she just didn¡¯t believe that I had. ¡°Who¡¯s to say I don¡¯t? There¡¯s more than one way I could have gotten through the runes I see on your floor here, plus a collection of others I¡¯m sure you have but just aren¡¯t showing.¡± A true statement, but also an exaggeration of my abilities. I didn¡¯t actually know whether they had additional countermeasures, nor what they were, but assuming they did was probably good enough. From behind me, again. ¡°Interesting. I¡¯d love to ask what they are, but we could talk about that all week. And it¡¯s not what we¡¯re here for. You can¡¯t think we don¡¯t know why you¡¯re here.¡± I raised an eyebrow during my slow turn, pulling my right ankle onto my left knee to add to the portrayed confidence of it. ¡°Of course. I do think I¡¯d like to know what you think of those reasons.¡± ¡°Personal. Disagreements with the LA guilds. Particularly Alliance, which we¡¯ve been able to trace to a likely loyalty to Novsha.¡± I smiled, making it a slow process to avoid any obvious cramping of it. ¡°Partially, yes. Novsha had a habit of being owed more than she collects, despite what she¡¯d tell you. FD solidarity plays into it a bit, but there¡¯s also a big part of me that just likes to stick it to targets deserving¨C or, sometimes, just interesting.¡± ¡°Not all of us like you running off your current allegiances.¡± That voice, Davien of Tossed, wasn¡¯t nearly as behind me as the others had been so far¨C more of a quarter-turn than a full half. ¡°Understandable. But there was also the very simple consideration¨C if I¡¯d stayed, Third would have almost certainly been ganged up on, a la FD¡¯s final days. What was I supposed to do? LA¡¯s system of five and tributaries isn¡¯t nearly as stable in a shift of power as what you have here.¡± I said, as if explaining something they already knew. It was even, on a level, true. Thirteen divisions meant Vegas could respond more completely to one of the guilds shooting out ahead of the others, but it also meant that they hadn¡¯t crushed every non-tributary guild. I could see the faces around the room accepting that explanation even as a few of the faces took on that greedy I¡¯d seen too many times in trying to find a guild. Before, it had been the impeccable quality and efficiency of my work that had drawn that look, but now? The rune in Alex¡¯s possession was more than worth putting up with a flighty member, and they apparently didn¡¯t have enough confidence that a kill attempt would be a success. I could see where Novsha had been attached to the rush of energy that shot through me at the realization. Worrying, ¡°And how do we even know that you have the rune?¡± Joy, Luck¡¯s Shadow¡¯s leader, asked. Behind me, again, and I took the time to face her. At this point, she was probably the most recognizable member of any of the Vegas guilds, partially for the fact that her avatar was the kind of incredibly attractive that drew attention inherently, partially for her ability to seem like the to harmless person in the room, and mostly because, unlike every other guild in the room, Luck¡¯s Shadow had not been one of the original thirteen. They¡¯d crushed another guild so thoroughly that they¡¯d been handed the seat at the table. I debated a number of ways I could play into what Alex had told me, but I was realizing that, as tired as she had been this morning, I hadn¡¯t really had the opportunity to fully understand the rune, leaving me in a difficult position. If anything came out about how she was using it in LA, it wouldn¡¯t be difficult to figure out that I didn¡¯t have the rune, leaving my own position precarious and the whole distraction ruse screwed. The only thing that came to mind was to channel Novsha again. ¡°You don¡¯t.¡± Joy looked mildly surprised for a moment, then blew out a laugh. ¡°Of course not. We will need proof before we offer you any positions, obviously.¡± ¡°The quest is a little strange,¡± I started, hoping that it was true, ¡°And long. I can get you an item using it, but it may take me until tomorrow.¡± A gravelly voice, once again behind me. Ahab, The Rigging. ¡°Tomorrow. For one item, with one rune.¡± I turned to him, leaning back in the chair. ¡°Yes. Never mind, of course, that that literally wouldn¡¯t work with this rune, nor my own reputation for quality. I will, of course, drop a rune that doesn''t do anything in front of you right this instant.¡± Speculation. Baseless, beyond the name of the rune. They seemed to buy it. There was some sort of signal, and the tones of voice around me shifted more conversational as they talked about which guild I¡¯d eventually be let into, and the divisions of where items I made would go. I debated, for a moment, asking to be dismissed from the meeting. Ultimately, I decided on a show of force. ¡°I appreciate the meeting. Send your men to the same place tomorrow.¡± I disappeared from in front of them, a flash of dust, light, and sound marking my exit, and appeared, silently and without flash, where I¡¯d set the mark before and instantly activating the invisibility on the band wrapped around my leg. Tomorrow, they wouldn¡¯t know what hit them. Assuming I was able to get Alex to send me something, at least. If she didn¡¯t, this would be even more complicated. Pileup 20: Gathering With Ell¡¯s help, the math work had seemed to go downright smoothly. They¡¯d asked her a few questions about |Merge| in the interim, as well, but it was a very short leap from the fact that they didn¡¯t start going in a single direction to realize that her explanations must have been barely coherent. Which was annoying, but difficult to deal with. She spent the next class only vaguely paying attention, but it helped that the professor in question was mostly just lecturing for four hours. It probably would have been better to at least pretend to be totally focused on what he was saying, but she could tell within minutes of the class starting that it was a choice between doing something else and visibly falling asleep in class. Some people would have been able to play with an AR implant and still stare forwards, but she¡¯d never bothered to get hers fully connected in that way, despite her VR limit being long enough that she still would have been able to play games afterwards. Plus, the school admin AI would have definitely seen that. While Lif was on the forgiving side, she had no particular desire to draw any more attention than absolutely necessary on that front. Once the lecture was over, Alex made a distinct point of taking longer to get home than absolutely necessary. Geria¨C well, whatever her real-life name was¨C had gotten her phone number, and would probably be texting her a bit after she got home. Actually being home was its own special kind of torture. She knew, completely and without hesitation, that it was much, much smarter to wait outside the game, get the message, then log in. In this case, it wasn¡¯t likely to actually be an issue, but it would be habit-forming, when this current stage of difficulties could last days, maybe even weeks, as each phase of the rune quest had been getting more involved or difficult with every stage. That didn¡¯t keep her from nervousness nor tamp down at all on her staring up at the ceiling, trying very hard to keep from the desperate-seeming instant response that nagged at her mind. Ultimately, she decided to move the phone to the other side of the room, turning up the volume on notifications enough that she¡¯d definitely hear it and making a cup of tea to sit down with. On the upside, the sudden break of time in her schedule gave her a little bit of time to just focus on drilling Gage¡¯s name into her head long enough that she thought she¡¯d remember it. It was no guarantee, but with the fact that she¡¯d had it confirmed again less than a day ago, she was making an active effort to remember it this time around. Ten minutes in to that process, her phone dinged, and Alex made a specific effort to be intentional about walking over, not allowing herself to spring up and run over like her first instincts insisted was the correct course of action. It was an unknown number, with an area code that told her that the person was ¡°probably relatively nearby at the time the phone number was assigned.¡± Which wasn¡¯t the most useful of information, and the sender ID coming up completely empty was a little bit strange. This is Lynn. Just got home, where am I checking? Alex smirked to herself, then shook her head. I¡¯ve never spoken to anyone going by the name Lynn. She sent back, though she knew exactly who it was and was already composing a second message by the time that the first had gone through. Assuming you are who I think, though, I just logged out by the Runewriters¡¯ where we were last. I¡¯m Alex, by the way. The response was long enough in coming that Alex was sure that Lynn/Geria had logged in before replying. It was the smarter decision, of course, but she couldn¡¯t keep a note of disappointment from creeping up on her. Twenty minutes later the expected message finally appeared. Embarrassing. I forgot we hadn¡¯t brought up real names, just the number. Sorry. It¡¯s clear, though. Don¡¯t worry about it. See you in game. Alex didn¡¯t bother to hold herself back this time, almost jumping in her eagerness to get back into the game, only cleaning up the cup she¡¯d used before logging in.
This time, she didn¡¯t have messages from Don waiting for her as she appeared in the world, probably because she hadn¡¯t sent him any information before she¡¯d left¨C in part due to the tenuousness of her situation, and in part because she just hadn¡¯t wanted to hit him with the absolutely insane level gains she¡¯d made the previous night. The first messages went to Geria, saying where she was, and LJay, asking about his progress, and the third was to Don. ¡®Hey! Sorry for the radio silence last night on my level. I pushed my VR limit a bit overnight and have been moving around. Still want to meet up?¡¯ A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. ¡®Uh, yeah. You still owe me.¡¯ ¡®Alliance showed up here again btw. Fucking weird that they¡¯re crawling these areas when they¡¯ve got that main group out¡¯ Deyana bit the inside of her lip, debating how much she¡¯d be telling him, but eventually decided a little bit of honesty would get him into the area better. ¡®Yeah, I may know something about that. You get yourself over to LA central and I¡¯ll explain.¡¯ ¡®LA central is gonna be an hour or so. What¡¯s your level? I¡¯m at 52.¡¯ ¡¯61. I¡¯ll explain that when you get here.¡¯ ¡®well fuck my leveling strats¡¯ Don didn¡¯t send any more messages, so Deyana focused on looking for Geria. She wasn¡¯t too difficult to find. Probably would have been for the Alliance members, given the departure from her former style and equipment, but Deyana had been with her as she dressed down. ¡°Hey! I¡¯ve got Don on his way over, but we have a while.¡± Geria nodded. ¡°LJay is coming as well. The people chasing him were reassigned to the city we were in.¡± ¡°Good. Training hall or finding an enemy?¡± There was a moment of pause before the response came. ¡°Training hall. You made weapons?¡± Deyana grinned. The tiredness made it harder, but couldn¡¯t totally dash her enthusiasm. ¡°A few.¡±
The first few minutes of Geria¡¯s use of the disks had been about what she¡¯d built them for- summoning them into being with the binding slot and launching them at the targets that the room was set up to create at intervals. After that, though, she was rather forcibly reminded that Geria was the only user of a unique specialist weapon. Instead of continuing on that strategy or switching over to figuring out the Ji, she¡¯d taken out the fire and lightning disks and started doing strange things with them. At first, the purpose was unclear, until both of them started, with their respecting energies wreathing them moderately, rising from the ground. At waist height, they bounced up and down slightly for a moment, the energies intensifying when they went up and reducing went they down, before stabilizing in the air. Then, with a slight intensification in brightness again, they started orbiting. Fascinated, Deyana watched as the disks started on a series of more complicated motions, the only things staying constant a seeming lack of control over orientation and that the motion appeared to be inherently tied to the strength of the other effect. ¡°What¡¯s the cost like on that?¡± ¡°Mmm. Significant, but not terrible. Ten to thirty per second just moving it around like this. Don¡¯t trust the others as much though.¡± Geria explained, then the two disks popped out of existence. Next to her, a new one appeared, starting the same process the others had. Unlike those, this one grew in size as it shifted, significantly more wobbly than the others had been. Each time it changed direction, it would wobble up or down a bit, its size growing or shrinking in response to but slower than its momentum shifted. It disappeared before its second time around. ¡°This one is probably only going to work the way you thought. I can do things with it, but need more time than we have.¡± Deyana nodded, taking in the spectacle as Geria swapped back to the others, this time adding the ones with [Impart Fragility] to the rotation. Watching that practice was mesmerizing, but there was a limited period of time before Don¡¯s message came through ¡®Alright I¡¯m at that training place. It¡¯s not your name on it.¡¯ ¡®No, it¡¯s Geria. One sec.¡¯ Explaining the situation, the invite was opened to him with only a minor hiccup in the movement of the disks striking through targets that were randomly appearing in the room, fueled through an array Deyana was powering on the wall. When Don walked in, his wide eyes reflected Deyana¡¯s feelings on the matter. ¡°What the fuck are those?¡± Geria turned, the actions of the disks becoming less precise as she did and changing from directed strikes into a more generalized sweeping pattern. Don¡¯s eyes narrowed to track them, bouncing back and forth between the disks and Geria¡¯s face while she spoke. ¡°Deyana made them for me. Most like chakram, though not intended to be wielded by a person directly.¡± Don¡¯s eyebrow went up. ¡°The fact that she can find the time while levelling like that¡­ assume you¡¯ve been power leveling her. Which guild, and what level are you?¡± One of the disks finally drifted off course enough that it bounced of the wall with the sound of ringing metal. The sound hadn¡¯t even stopped before Geria had dismissed it into the bound items space. ¡°One seventy-two, and¡­ Alliance. Former.¡± Don¡¯s eyes went wide again. ¡°What the hell¡¯d you do to get kicked out at that level?¡± ¡°Ah. I didn¡¯t get kicked out. I left. Not¡­ that they would want me back, at this point. As for what, that is Deyana¡¯s to tell.¡± She nodded at the acknowledgment, taking out the bow and arrows she¡¯d put together, along with the jacket. ¡°These are pretty standard fare, mostly using meta runes, though you¡¯ll need to manually manage the limbs¡¯ [Durability]¨C not even Geria here can hand me everything. The other¡­¡± Deyana paused to confirm that she¡¯d meant it with the system, then took the bracer she¡¯d designed out of her inventory and tossed it over to him. ¡°well, you¡¯ll know why the Alliance is after us, at least. If you want to take that and run, I won¡¯t blame you.¡± Don stared at the bracer, twisting it over between his hands and finally shaking his head. ¡°Best I can tell, this does¡­ not a lot? Like it could probably move something, but delayed until it leaves a radius?¡± Deyana nodded, but then shook her head, jumping into the more complete explanation of how his new items would work and, most importantly, how they would work together. He didn¡¯t really seem to get how useful the bracer was, but it was possible that he just didn¡¯t understand the portals or PvP. After a few minutes, at least, she did convince him to at least try using it every once in a while between his more typical practice of the bow. While he was practicing, she began to walk him through exactly what was going on and what her plan was going forward. She left out some of the specific details for her plans, and the specific measures that she¡¯d taken to get the guilds mixed up with each other as much as they were after her, but otherwise made an effort to loop Don into the way that things had been going. Finally, he responded. ¡°I don¡¯t see why you¡¯re not just going to one of the big guilds. Smurfs, Third, or Arrow Keys would take you, and those first two would even help you stay out of the Alliance¡¯s hands.¡± Deyana was silent for a few seconds, warring with herself. It was technically true that they¡¯d do that. At the same time, she was under no illusions about her anonymity. If anyone from the leadership of those guilds dealt with her for any significant length of time¨C and, given what the situation would be were she to join them, they would¨C she¡¯d be identified extremely quickly. ¡°I was Novsha,¡± she said, finally. ¡°Which doesn¡¯t preclude them taking me, obviously, but also means that I¡¯d be under them, and that they¡¯d expect the sort of thing Novsha did. That activeness, responsibility and¡­ well, the awe? The presence? Notoriety? I... don''t care for it.¡± Don had gone through a complicated set of expressions while she explained herself, finally ending on the sort of uncertain incredulity she¡¯d seen so much of over the years. He didn¡¯t get it, and that was fine. ¡°So, are you still in?¡± He nodded, slowly. ¡°I guess I am.¡± Pileup 21: Alternates With Don¡¯s arrival marking a good stopping point, Geria had swapped over to learning with the Ji instead. Given her own addition of a sword, Deyana had decided to spar with her, and it had very quickly become clear that the other girl both had martial arts training, and that it was not with polearms. The stance she took to start was simultaneously something that would make it fairly difficult to push her, but the point of the spear ended up way out of the way, and let Deyana step around the side, sliding the thinner blade into the way just long enough to flick it into Geria¡¯s defenses before stepping away. ¡°You can swing that around a little more, and keep the head between you and the target. That¡¯s more important than almost anything. I shouldn¡¯t be able to get in on you without taking a hit.¡± It took a few more tries and explanations, but she was fairly quickly able to get Geria into decent form with the Ji, and a quick explanation of how the spike would work was enough there. Towards the end of it, Don spoke up. ¡°You keep saying that the spear is better than the sword, so why are you using a sword?¡± It took a moment to put her thoughts into words, but she did have an answer. ¡°It¡¯s a bind-efficiency thing. No matter how many binds you have, there¡¯s a limited number of slots there. Obviously, putting a primary weapon in one or more of the slots is powerful, but with my own experience being primarily with swords and knives it¡¯s better, for me, to use them primarily for defensive things instead. ¡°I have this,¡± Deyana continued, sheathing the sword and summoning the lightning staff she¡¯d also made to her hand, ¡°in the binds, and it can act as a polearm. But besides the current situation, I tend toward using my bind slots for defenses and keeping offensive stuff on my person. More armor than weapons, I guess. I¡¯m not a tank player proper, but I can act as one.¡± LJay had walked in some time in the middle of her explanation, and nodded once. ¡°You shouldn¡¯t, though. Doesn¡¯t fit your style.¡± He turned to face Don. ¡°And from the fact she was explaining, you new or t-three?¡± Don got a weird look on his face for a moment, but then it was gone. ¡°Tier three, I think. That¡¯s like, one-twenty to one-fifty? Mostly light Reds, and I¡¯d done a dark red or two.¡± LJay laughed. ¡°If you¡¯re talking levels, definitely t-three. Any guild in this area, and most in the world as far as I¡¯m aware, lets you do t-two, t-one at level one-thirty or better. It¡¯s not about your level, it¡¯s about how well you¡¯ll survive. Seems harsh, but it¡¯s better to have newbies disappointed than losing twelve hours of progress multiple times in a row and just giving up.¡± Don looked skeptical. ¡°Don¡¯t higher levels make people more likely to survive?¡± ¡°Absolutely not,¡± Geria said, then blushed as everyone turned to her. ¡°Well, mostly... It can help if the reason you¡¯d be dying is running out of mana, but that¡¯s not really the usual way to die. Inattention, failure to get out of the way of something telegraphed, bad adaptability¡­ much worse issues, especially after we start including mana transfer from supports. Healers. Whatever you want to call them.¡± ¡°When the hell was someone supposed to tell me that?¡± Don asked, ¡°because this is the first time I¡¯m hearing any of this and I¡¯m only trusting you ¡®cause I know you¡¯re alliance top people.¡± Deyana knew the answer to that, and seeing the awkward expressions of Geria and LJay, decided to step in for them. ¡°They weren¡¯t supposed to tell you at all. Either you figure it out on your own or you¡¯re¡­ assumed to be better at following a guide than at playing the game.¡± She was understating it, actually. Back when she¡¯d run a guild, anyone who didn¡¯t make the connection before they hit level eighty was out. It was much earlier in the game¡¯s life cycle, so level eighty was considered on the upper end of things at the time, took much longer to reach, and more of the people who made up the front of the levelling pack were more accessible, but it almost hadn¡¯t affected the guild¡¯s membership in the grand scheme of things. Cadire had never gone above level forty, and even they had figured it out without issue. The biggest problem was that the people who usually made up tier three tended not to think for themselves very much. Which was, in some ways, fair. Just not dying was somewhat of an achievement in a game where, without armor, you¡¯d die from a level five goblin in five to ten hits, maximum, as a character of almost forty times its level. In other ways, it meant that there was a significant portion¨C honestly, a majority¨C of the playerbase who would essentially never be able to handle content that they were, necessarily, undergeared for. Unless there was a significant reason for them to look at their strategies (and, by the very standardized raid compositions that Tier three teams often made, they didn¡¯t think that there was), then very few of them would realize how to fight against enemies that were more powerful. Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. It did occasionally come to people¡¯s attention when someone new was levelling, hit tier three, then was immediately pulled into tier one, but most of those got written off as favoritism. Tier two, in her experience, was the people who hadn¡¯t intentionally figured it out, but had somehow either lucked into the right mindset or consistently shown enough initiative that they were expected to be able to handle any issues that tier one hadn¡¯t noticed or run into in their earlier explorations. ¡°Wait, so you just¡­ let people sit in tier three? Nobody levels or gears out of it?¡± ¡°They can gear out of it,¡± Geria said, then went silent for an awkward second, leaving Deyana to pick it up. ¡°If they change their gear, usually. What did you have before you reset?¡± ¡°Bow a lot like this one but less¡­ fiddly. It just works, really, which is so much better. Standard defensive set with nullify energies and redirect physicals. A few kinds of attack arrows, a quiver that makes nonmagicals, warp walk pants.¡± LJay nodded again, once. ¡°That¡¯d do it. No way to deal with one-face shields, can¡¯t avoid a teleport assassin, zero perception sets, no plan for huge physicals¨C¡± ¡°Now hang on, that¡¯s the tank¡¯s job!¡± ¡°And if the adds collapse a building on you?¡± ¡°They don¡¯t do that!¡± ¡°They do if you give them the time to organize, and in a t-one or t-two raid, you do. We can¡¯t just run through at full speed, slaughtering everything, cause that would run us right into the traps that y¡¯all just read about in advance. Even with being careful like that, there¡¯s shit like the ogre we ran into with Novsha that dropped that rune that¡¯s such an issue. Contact-based Nullify Barrier. Sure, if your tanks are prepared for it, they can have something else ready! But there¡¯s only so much you can have on you, and variance in defense becomes important. If she hadn¡¯t had¡­ delay and redirect?¡± ¡°Absorb proper. I was specialized in it.¡± ¡°That, instead, we might not have wiped but we would definitely have gotten close.¡± ¡°It¡¯s why people think there¡¯s more linebreaking at the front than there actually is,¡± Deyana said, ¡°Because sometimes the DPS is the one with the right defensive scissors to the enemy¡¯s offensive paper, so while they¡¯re specced for damage the raid gets more use out of them taking a few hits, instead.¡± It would have been better to let him figure out a lot of that on his own, if he was going to, but she had to admit that jumping him forwards like this would be useful if he could pick it up quickly. Occasionally a short push like this was all that was needed for a player to shift their tier, and it was a known downside of the open secrets that occasionally someone who could have been good got trapped in the easy thinking of tier three. Not that it happened often. Novsha had been party to it before; people who got handed enough information to start looking into designing their own frontline build, only to get smacked down over and over by thinking they¡¯d figured out some invincible trick nobody else got. The real trick, in her opinion, was just finding people whose particular weaknesses were covered by your own strengths and vice versa until you had a web that was extremely difficult to do anything about. That was the theoretical purpose of the DPS/Tank/Support trichotomy even in tier three, but that idea oversimplified the reality to the point of being difficult to plan with. Don looked like he wanted to argue more, but he eventually just shook his head. ¡°I feel like everyone should know that.¡± Deyana, Geria, and LJay all exchanged dubious looks, but none of them met Don¡¯s eye. ¡°Uh, sorry though, LJay. I don¡¯t really know what sort of thing you need, or how and how much you¡¯re hiding, so¡­ I didn¡¯t make you anything.¡± Deyana redirected. ¡°¡¯s no problem. Ly- Geria¡¯s been keeping me updated IRL, so I¡¯ve got a set for our levels set up. It¡¯s no shield tank, but¡­¡± he reached behind him as though grabbing for something, then pulled out a tiny, strangely proportioned dagger. It confused her for a second, but then Deyana laughed. ¡°Gotta fit through doors with a sword you can bind?¡± LJay smirked. ¡°Well, I figured we¡¯re trying to show off, so¡­¡± He let the shrink enchantment drop entirely, revealing the comically-large buster-style sword in its full glory. Almost a foot across and five-and-change long, it was a ridiculous monster of a thing in a style that very few people would ever use. It also showed off a hell of a lot of skill if he could manage it. ¡°Got the defenses to match?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t really need it, given the stupid level difference, but the sword¡¯s got absorb and convert on lightning, fire, and light above a threshold, then I¡¯ve got a chestpiece with null phys.¡± ¡°Lower weight, inertia bidirectional?¡± ¡°I might have splurged just a little.¡± Deyana just raised an eyebrow at him. ¡°I may have gotten Compensate Inertia, wielder only.¡± Geria covered her mouth, turning to the side and shaking slightly, while Deyana snorted. ¡°Leaning all the way into it, huh?¡± ¡°Hell yeah! Th¡¯fuck else am I gonna get to do somethin¡¯ stupid as this?¡± He lifted the sword in one hand, edge parallel to and pointing at the ceiling for a second before the tip started tilting back towards the ground and he brought the whole thing down. ¡°Oof. Lower weight, not none.¡± ¡°LJay¡­¡± ¡°No shit.¡± ¡°You¡¯re using that?¡± Don squawked. ¡°Like, actually using it? What the fuck?¡± Deyana was fastest on the uptake. ¡°We¡¯re trying to go unrecognized. Would you think that¡¯s a tier one raider?¡± Don¡¯s conflicted face told her he¡¯d picked it up, at least. ¡°I¡¯ve got a place picked out if y¡¯all¡¯re good. Got a quest for it at the DMQ, too. Green-yellow portal break up in the highlands, they want a party to do dust collection.¡± ¡°Green break? Aren¡¯t there a lot of people there?¡± Deyana asked. ¡°There¡¯s a teal break in the area. I checked the lists and it¡¯ll just be us and some guildless rando.¡± ¡°We should go, then. What did you list us as?¡± Geria asked. ¡°Our names, but private. Levels anonymized to ten on us and completely on the other two. Make the guilds think there¡¯s no point.¡± ¡°Thanks. Let¡¯s talk strategy on the way, cause there¡¯s no way we¡¯re able to do what Geria and I have been doing. Gonna have to do actual party strategy and everything.¡± LJay chuckled. ¡°Good luck! I¡¯ll listen, but that ain¡¯t my job.¡± Pileup 22: Composition They tried to fight with LJay for a while, but after he¡¯d glanced Geria¡¯s defenses twice, hadn¡¯t manage to be out of the way for Don¡¯s arrows, and absorbed several of Deyana¡¯s own shots, the group decided that it was a better idea for him to get some practice on his own with the new weapon before they actually started incorporating him into group tactics. Difficulties were absolutely expected and, especially with Deyana and Geria being in new roles, present, but ¡°massive friendly fire¡± was one of those things that couldn¡¯t really be allowed to continue. Luckily, he agreed, and went off to hunt the cenuras on his own. Cenuras were probably the toughest enemy they¡¯d faced so far, a green, warped humanoid torso with arms on top of a shrunken frog lower body plan that used the bent hindlegs that could be expected from that, but with the addition of straight vertical forelimbs of similar length. All of this lead to an upside-down Y look from the side, all topped by a full, though shrunken enough to seem proportional on the humanoid torso, frog head. They tended to be generally slow but stable, with large bursts of speed where they used in decently coordinated rush attacks that, because they were jumping, lost most of that stability. Though they didn''t have the intelligence of goblins or kobolds, they used spears and javelins to good effect, and taking a single hit from them that cut meant getting hit with an extreme stamina-eating poison. To a degree, it helped that Geria was acting as their front line. Deyana wasn¡¯t sure that she would have been able to successfully manage that many attacks. The primary strategy was fairly simple¨C Geria would engage, then Deyana followed, throwing smaller lightning [Bolt]s out, balancing her mana consumption to stay mostly topped up, waiting for the second jump. Most of the time, the second jump would be primarily aimed at her, standing in the midline between Geria and Don. Luckily, the coordinated nature of it actually worked out in Deyana¡¯s favor (allowing her to teleport out of the way after they¡¯d committed to the jump instead of burning enormous amounts of mana on blocking the charge itself) and at that point the second phase would kick in. Activating lightning [Connection] and discharging the storage runes on the staff was usually enough to outright kill at least one of the cenuras, and she immediately followed by switching over to the glaive-hold of the staff. It wasn¡¯t enough to totally take her out of their threat range, given their longer arms and nearly equivalently-long polearms, but it was enough to buy time for Don to peel off or kill at least one and Geria to follow their charge with an attack of her own. Still, this was the first time she¡¯d ever been at a portal break with so few people, and it showed. Instead of taking out the cenuras basically as soon as they spawned, they instead needed to take out a group, then retreat to regenerate resources for a moment before going back in. During one of those pauses, Don turned to the two of them ¡°So, you were talking about frontline raid stuff.¡± Geria just tilted her head, so Deyana answered. ¡°Some, yeah. What¡¯s up?¡± ¡°This glove you made me. Why?¡± ¡°Oh! Geria, could I get some help with this? Thin, visible if you can manage it, three horizontal by eight vertical.¡± The other girl nodded, looking around for a second before taking out the bag she¡¯d shown in the fight with her former guildmates, tossing two of the rocks from it onto the ground between Deyana and Don. A thin green wall appeared between them, more visible near the bottom and misty near the top. Deyana, meanwhile, stuck her staff into the ground and activated the blade of it, facing up with the edge pointed back, and stepped out to the side. Fully charged, it would last for half a minute or so without refreshing. ¡°Alright, Don, now shoot the blade. No moving from where you are right this second, the ground to your left and right has traps.¡± He gave her a skeptical look before knocking what looked like an enchanted arrow, though not one of the ones she¡¯d made. As it left the bow, she saw it go ethereal in the instant before it hit the wall. And bounced. ¡°Wait, what the fuck, that was an ethereal!¡± ¡°Which can be easily stopped by manifested force. Like most things, actually.¡± The glaive ran out. ¡°Yeah, but that¡¯s expensive. No way anything keeps that up for long.¡± She decided that it wasn¡¯t worth mentioning that Geria¡¯s entire combat style leaned on it, usually activating them for moderate-length bursts of action and disabling them when other people were holding attention. ¡°And if it¡¯s refilling an attack you can¡¯t adequately stop? If it¡¯s constantly got one pointed towards the highest damage dealer on your side? If it¡¯s mid-retreat, on the way to trigger another boss and heal?¡± ¡°It wouldn¡¯t¨C¡± ¡°It absolutely would. Even Falling Dawn had to deal with that, back in reds; [Etherealness] is common, but it¡¯s portal boss exclusive.¡± The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Don made a disgusted sound. ¡°This kind of shit makes me want to stay in T-three. Maybe T-two if I really want to push it.¡± Deyana shrugged. ¡°Honestly, for most people, that¡¯ll make sense¨C and you can go off on your own if you¡¯d like. But we¡¯ve got four, maybe five people here, and while LJay or Geria can buy me up the ladder, we don¡¯t want to lean on that too much.¡± Geria raised her hand slightly, though she didn¡¯t wait for either Deyana or Don to acknowledge her before she spoke. ¡°We only really have two or three moderate jumps or one big one. LJay¡¯s always kept way less in credits and runes than I have, and my earlier buys ate into my reserve. Which we can¡¯t really replenish at the moment, except maybe by selling things using Don as the auctioneer.¡± They took out another couple of groups before Don spoke up again. ¡°You really think you¡¯ll be able to keep this rune?¡± Deyana made a noise of acknowledgement, aware as soon as the question was asked that she needed a little bit of time to form her response. ¡°Right now? I don¡¯t know. I give us¡­ even odds? Maybe a little better, maybe a lot worse. I¡¯m assuming that the guilds are mostly going to be sabotaging each other as much as they are chasing us, plus there¡¯s at least one guild that¡¯s¡­ tentatively on our side, though not publicly. Also assuming that a few of the later-term Falling Dawn members are going to be acting at least a little bit outside of the best interests of their guilds, though not like, outright against them.¡± ¡°Are you sure about the Falling Dawn members?¡± Geria asked. ¡°Sure, no. But there are a few I kept talking to, and who I had some interaction with pretty recently. At least one in DS and one with the Smurfs. Then there¡¯s whichever member of Third it was that¡¯s led off the main Alliance group¡­¡± ¡°Sounds like this is gonna be complicated,¡± Don said. ¡°Good chance of it.¡± When they went back to farming this time, Don did start to weave the use of the redirection glove into his strategies, training himself to use it. She¡¯d known in the design process and her own use of her teleport runes that the momentum of the arrow would be conserved, but he appeared to be having trouble aligning with the fact that it was relative to him, not the bolt¡¯s direction. More than a few times, an arrow went completely flying off into the distance instead of landing in his target. He was getting better, but she worried for his ability to manage it while under threat, if one of the guild did end up forcing a fight again. Usefully, his change in style did open up her own role in the formation a little bit more, allowing her to swap in the new sword she¡¯d created after a charge and launch a few void copy-bolts in the following melee without needing to worry quite so much about maintaining a true front-to-back team formation. Which, in turn, led to an addition to the experience and drops windows they¡¯d been getting from the combats.
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 6/20: Refinement Complete!
Phase 7/20: Limit Testing
It is the nature of humanity to make intuitive assumptions. It is the nature of progress to test those assumptions.
¡°Oh, fuck¡¯s sake.¡± Deyana sighed, careful to moderate the tone to exasperation instead of anger. ¡°Good news! Finished a part of the quest. Bad news: Next part is vague as hell. Well, maybe bad news, maybe not, but I lean towards yes.¡± Don looked over at her. ¡°Why would that not be bad news?¡± ¡°A vague explanation means there are alternate paths to success,¡± Geria responded, taking over while Deyana distractedly muttered about the quest. ¡°So¡­¡± ¡°I need to test assumptions I made, which could mean that recognizing one and testing it is enough. It could also not pop at all until I test all the assumptions I made, which is harder than it sounds.¡± Don narrowed his eyes. ¡°Wouldn¡¯t you know the things you assumed?¡± ¡°No. Not a chance in hell. It¡¯s possible to figure them out, but we all make a ton of assumptions just to get through the day.¡± He looked like he wanted to argue the point, but his body language showed him coming up with counterarguments to his own points before he ever voiced them, and LJay¡¯s approach let him off the hook for responding. ¡°Yo! I found our solo player.¡± Deyana eyed the sword he was continually swinging around with a bit of skepticism but chose not to comment. ¡°Someone I might recognize?¡± ¡°Nah, but Geria might.¡± ¡°Would I?¡± ¡°It¡¯s the puncher girl¡± Geria winced, the motion barely noticeable in her layers of gear. ¡°With the caster?¡± ¡°Yep,¡± LJay laughed. ¡°She¡¯s got a new pair of gloves, but the layering problem is still there.¡± The figuring look that Geria shot her set Deyana a bit off guard, but what she said was almost worse. ¡°Point me in her direction. Join these two, I¡¯m going to go talk to her.¡± ¡°You¡¯re kidding.¡± LJay said, stopping the spinning of his ludicrously oversized sword almost on a dime. He did, though, point in a direction that Geria began walking towards. ¡°Last week I might have been. But¡­¡± She gave Deyana a meaningful look over her shoulder. ¡°The game does appear to be telling us to examine our assumptions.¡± Don scoffed. ¡°Casters? Not a chance in hell.¡± Geria didn¡¯t respond, and neither LJay nor Deyana were honestly able to stick up for this particular decision, either. Casting was a common fantasy trope and had been pretty heavily tried for a long time; people drawing runic formations on the ground, walls, or floor of locations instead of carrying enchanted items. It also presented enough issues so as to be completely untenable. Instead of dealing with a known, solid, surface, casting had to deal with whatever the location had already, including but not limited to ground that wasn¡¯t solid enough to channel mana across, unseen breaks and gaps, threats from enemies in the middle of creating it, difficulty in keeping shapes accurate at large sizes, and, perhaps most importantly, the absolutely insane cost of mana inks. A large part of which was the fact that the best ones were all made of portal dust. The higher-tier, the better. Some of those issues could be mitigated, but the cost was just not worth the efficiency gain of the scaled-up runes. Once Geria was out of sight, they went back to farming¨C LJay showing that he had, in fact, learned how to handle his new weapon. Instead of trying to ¡°frontline,¡± LJay wildly threw himself into the mass of Cenuras, drawing as much attention as he could in a few seconds and earning the first charge mostly focusing on him. Moving the blade between him and them was fairly simple from there, and while there weren¡¯t any physically defensive runes on it, the massive size and weight combined with disproportionate inertia allowed it to act as a shield, the follow-up swing taking out more than one of the cenuras while Deyana and Don targeted the faster-movers. It was a wildly different style than they¡¯d been using with Geria, and it showed in Don¡¯s accuracy. She¡¯d need to talk to him about that. Pileup 23: Changed It did take a while, but Geria eventually drifted back over to their group, settling surprisingly quickly into being the dividing point between the front and mid-line. With the addition, Deyana was finally able to truly focus on the destructive potential of her new staff, stepping into and out of range of the cenuras just long enough to hit them with lightning before backing off. On top of that, LJay was freed from needing to stay relatively in-line with his allies, letting him instead rampage through the cenuras and break their formations. All in all, the addition had much more effect on their farming rate than the extra thirty-odd percent that might be expected. They ended up spending the full remaining time of the portal break killing the cenuras, with a couple of additional parties showing up near the end of the reality-invasion¡¯s timer. That had reminded Deyana and LJay to ask about what exactly had happened with whoever Geria had talked to, but even with repeated questioning they didn¡¯t receive much response beyond her saying that it would be fine. That was worrying, but nowhere even close to a top priority. Especially when, near the end of their farming time, one of the cenuras had dropped [Repeat State], an Epic-level major rune. [Repeat State] was used in several weapon setups, but its most known usage was in its nearly-unique ability to bring players killed in raids back to life. Not that that was a preferred use. It needed to be pre-set, and the cost was proportional to the time from activation and difference in state¨C velocity (relative to the target¡¯s orientation), heat, electric charge, physical damage, and, most expensively, Mana, Health, and Stamina¨C which, given the reality of Mana and Stamina completely evacuating upon death, meant that using it in that capacity was prohibitively expensive. However, it also allowed a DPS player to expend all of their mana in a short, five-to-eight-second burst without regard for their own life, followed by instant top-up by a support player specialized at every available chance in mana. There were other ways to channel mana, but none discovered so far had quite the same instant kick¨C [Channel Mana] was constrained by flow rate, [Share Mana] had huge efficiency problems when distances got beyond a meter or two, and the various forms of pre-storing mana ran into issues with timeliness and input versus output volumes. [Channel Mana] was still the preeminent solution in that domain, for numerous reasons, but as her first real entry into the healing-slash-support category, [Repeat State] wasn¡¯t bad. Plus, with its existence as a major rune, it meant that |Merge| would allow¨C ¡°¨CDeyana tells me that she¡¯s thinking about crafting.¡± Geria deadpanned. She blinked twice, shaking her head. ¡°When did I tell you that?¡± The other two laughed, and Deyana smiled along with them, trying to pick up the conversation. ¡°Wow, you really are a crafter at heart, huh? How¡¯d you even get into fighter stuff?¡± LJay scoffed. ¡°Cause she¡¯s fuckin¡¯ good at it, dude. She wrote the damn guidebook on modern raid composition¡± ¡°To be fair, I was just the help with that. Over half of it was Kalis and I just touched up a few things.¡± ¡°Modern raid composition is Kay¡¯s Guide¨C¡± ¡°That¡¯s Kalis,¡± Deyana and LJay interrupted, then he continued, ¡°It¡¯s not everything, ¡®n the guilds¡¯ve got their own prudence, but Kay¡¯s Guide¡¯s like, the baseline. You do worse than KG, you use KG instead. I can still barely believe they went to Spearpoint.¡± Deyana had to laugh at that. ¡°They enjoy the challenge. Dawn was KGS-6 at the end but we started out as a bunch of newbies with nothing and fought a bunch of people stronger than us.¡± ¡°I mean, yeah. But Spearpoint.¡± Deyana held back a smirk. ¡°What? The NPCs love ¡®em.¡± ¡°Oh, bite me.¡± Don looked contemplative for a moment, then grinned. ¡°You think they¡¯d accept me as Guardsman #7? I know they only give out one standard kit, but¡­¡± The other three shared a small laugh. ¡°That¡¯s a filled slot, unfortunately,¡± Geria said, adopting a grave tone, ¡°Try #50 or #67 instead. #69 is definitely already filled.¡± You might be reading a stolen copy. Visit Royal Road for the authentic version. ¡°As it should be,¡± Deyana said, before she thought about it, then blushed and bit back a second, more suggestive half of her comment when LJay raised an eyebrow at her. ¡°Honestly, though, why didn¡¯t you go the crafting route?¡± Don asked. ¡°Genuinely seems weird that you ended up where you did.¡± Deyana gave him a shrug. ¡°I was busy. Before we could take on portals¡­ Red breaks are bad ones, even if nobody triggers them. As common as red portals are, those were everywhere, and everyone had to fight each other to actually get decent levelling zones where a portal boss cluster wouldn¡¯t spawn in the middle of your group and send you back four hours. I figured out I was good at fighting, and it was more important that I got guildmates into those zones than it was for me to do crafting as a side project. After that¡­ inertia.¡± ¡°Inertia. Really? Novsha was inertia.¡± ¡°Oh, absolutely,¡± Deyana laughed. ¡°An object at rest stays at rest, sure, but an object in motion stays in motion, too. Falling Dawn breaks up a year and a half ago, and I just get flung into the whole mercenary style ¡®cause Third woudn¡¯t¡¯ve taken me after Cadire went to them and everyone else simultaneously wants me in a high position and powerless. So I spend a year building rep, three months on top, then being guildless catches up with me.¡± ¡°And yet you¡¯re going guildless again,¡± Don scoffed, ¡°Because that worked out so well.¡± She didn¡¯t really have an answer for him, there, and just shrugged instead. It wasn¡¯t that she hadn¡¯t thought about it, just that it was a problem for the future¨C one where she had resolved the current stranglehold before dealing with the next.
They did breaks in shifts. As far out as they were, logging out and letting the automatic placement take over would have caused more problems than it solved, so they used the game¡¯s features to move, instead¨C two of them, first Deyana and LJay, then Geria and Don, would verbally state their intention to continue heading towards the city, then log out and handle things in reality before coming back to the group having moved in that direction. On the outside, Alex found a text on her phone from Ell noting that they needed an item with the rune on it. That had made her a bit disappointed in herself; of course, they would need that, and the choice that she¡¯d made in not telling them her character name would be both invalidated and a problem. The two of` them would need to meet at some unexpected time to try to slip the item between them without being caught by either the Vegas or LA guilds. In the process, they¡¯d also need to add each other as friends so that they could do offline trading. The only real upside she could see is that neither would really be on high alert at the moment (though that would be changing soon), and that they only needed to meet once and add each other as friends to send items between each other in between sessions. She shot back a quick message about when she¡¯d be taking a break from crafting, then loaded back into the game.
Picking up in the middle of a step, Alex was glad that she hadn¡¯t lost the login touch from her last character. A quick confirmation that she was back was enough for Geria to start the logout sequence, and LJay had beat her back already. He turned to her as they were running. ¡°So.¡± Deyana stamped down her first, annoyed, reaction. If anything, based on what she¡¯d heard so far, she was surprised this had taken as long as it had. ¡°I¡¯m going to guess that I could script this conversation, but I¡¯ll let you say it.¡± He laughed at that, but it didn¡¯t sound particularly amused. ¡°And yet I¡¯d still rather we have it.¡± ¡°Bodily harm? Emotional? Maybe you screw with our goal here?¡± He shook his head and sighed. ¡°Nah. This is Ly¨C Geria we¡¯re talking about here, and I don¡¯t really want to make it worse in the process. But I can make your life hell here anyways.¡± Deyana nodded. ¡°I know her IRL name too, though Don doesn¡¯t. I don¡¯t really plan on doing something to deserve that.¡± He scoffed. ¡°Most people don¡¯t plan to. But I¡¯ve talked to her sister enough to know that¡¯s not really the important thing here.¡± Deyana let that hang in the air for a second, but she¡¯d already prepared an answer. ¡°It¡¯s something I¡¯m aware of. There¡¯s a chance she gets hurt from something that¡¯s nobody¡¯s fault but reality¡¯s, but that¡¯s not something you should blame me for, I don¡¯t think.¡± He gave her a look that was most of the way to a glare without quite getting there. ¡°Uh-huh. Any chance you could tell me what that would be in advance?¡± ¡°Incompatible expectations. Even that much is only because you seem to actually care about her, so don¡¯t ask for more.¡± He went quiet at that for long enough that Don stumbled back into his character¡¯s body, forcing them to slow down slightly so that he could rejoin the group. To her surprise, LJay decided to keep their conversation private by sending his eventual response over text chat. ¡®I guess I wouldn¡¯t blame you there. She hasn¡¯t been this excited about someone new for as long as I¡¯ve known her, so I might be overreacting.¡¯ ¡®She seems like she¡¯s worth that.¡¯ Nobody talked out loud again until Geria loaded back in to her character as well, breaking the stride without going all the way to stumbling. ¡°So what¡¯s our plan when we make the city?¡± Don asked, staring at Deyana. ¡°We just wait around for you to finish crafting stuff?¡± ¡°Basically,¡± LJay responded. ¡°You don¡¯t need to,¡± Deyana said, rolling her eyes. ¡°You¡¯re free to keep leveling or to find something else to do if you want. It won¡¯t be easy at this level to find a group without a guild, but it¡¯s doable.¡± He groaned at that. ¡°If y¡¯all weren¡¯t powerleveling me, I really would find some guild to take me. I hate being invested.¡± The sarcastic twist on the last word was enough to get a laugh out of Deyana and LJay. ¡°Does anyone have suggestions for what the assumptions could be talking about? My main thought is the number of runes under the |Merge|.¡± ¡°Duplication,¡± Geria immediately responded. ¡°It¡¯s possible ¡®Create-Create¡¯ or ¡®Burst-Burst¡¯ does something.¡± The other two were quiet for longer, but Don eventually spoke up. ¡°Distinct control, maybe? Like a bolt-wall where wall is delayed but bolt isn¡¯t.¡± ¡°Actually, that brings up another point. What if you sequence it so that |Merge| doesn¡¯t activate until after one of its component runes?¡± LJay asked. None of them had an answer, which only helped convince her further it was worth trying. Pileup 24: Tides To Deyana¡¯s surprise, The Alliance wasn¡¯t particularly present in the city when they got close enough to see the people around the outside of the walls. Instead, it was Smurfs. Had it been any of the other guilds around the area, that fact might have been a bit more difficult to determine, but the nice part about that specific guild was their commitment to the bit¨C massively oversized blue plate armor was the name of the game with them, with their primary focus being on nearly impossible to kill frontline and supports around a much smaller than usual core of plate-inscription casters, trading time for efficiency at a high enough rate that they managed decent clear speeds in spite of the lead-time that introduced. Still, their presence here already didn¡¯t say good things for when the other guilds would be actively looking for their little party. Deyana would need to start keeping track of a lot of movements very soon. The spike of awareness and adrenaline that went through her at the concept managed to be familiar, fun, and a deeply unpleasant reminder, all at the same time. ¡°Didn¡¯t expect them to have found us this quickly. Do you think they¡¯re spiking off of one of you two or me?¡± Deyana asked. ¡°Hard to say,¡± LJay waffled. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t put money on either.¡± They took a few minutes in silence, observing the movements of the guards around the outside. They weren¡¯t professional guards or anything, and their movements were significantly more chaotic than someone who might typically be doing it as a job, but that in some ways made it harder to pick out a time where it would be safe. It was in the middle of that chaos that Deyana had realized her mistake. ¡°Fuck. Well, I¡¯d be able to take that guess. My fault, but I¡¯m pretty sure that Geria¡¯s compromised across all the guilds if anyone recognizes her.¡± The girl in question turned slightly towards her. ¡°Your fault how.¡± ¡°Part of drawing The Alliance¡¯s primary force away from the city proper. I gave enough information that The Alliance could put it together, and either they told DS or one of their agents figured it out on their own.¡± ¡°Bet they got it themselves.¡± Nobody justified LJay with a response. ¡°Do you have a plan for dealing with this situation, or do we need to leave this city?¡± Deyana needed to take a moment to think about that before she was confident enough in a response, but a plan did begin forming in her mind. ¡°We¡¯re probably good here, as long as you and LJay can get yourselves to another city and teleport somewhere random today before you log out, then back here tomorrow before we log in.¡± Geria nodded at that, so she went on. ¡°It¡¯s not ideal, given that the Smurf¡¯s¡¯ll still post a couple of scouts around the outside tomorrow, but in a lot of ways we can still get everything we need done, no problem. What we¡¯ll need to do is¨C¡±
In her head, there was no reason for the plan not to work, especially when considering for the fact that her new character¡¯s face was still basically unknown in the circles that would be coming for them. That didn¡¯t make the experience of watching Geria and LJay, intentionally casual like they had no idea who the Smurfs were looking for while approaching the city, any less nerve-wracking. From beside her, Don spoke. ¡°And you¡¯re sure this is going to work.¡± ¡°Mostly sure. Probably sure? I¡¯m sure as long as there¡¯s nothing about the situation I¡¯m not taking into consideration.¡± He laughed. ¡°So you¡¯re sure you¡¯re right, unless you¡¯re wrong.¡± ¡°About the long and short of it,¡± Deyana said, then sighed. ¡°It would be nice to have better information, but we aren¡¯t going to be getting it.¡± The front-person in the blue armor moved to intercept the duo, and she could almost hear the conversation in her head, backed up by the body cues she could see, even as far out as they were. Asking their names, meanwhile calling up allies from elsewhere around the city. Denial that that was them. Not especially believable, but they needed to give enough time for that force to get closer. A variation on the you know we know you know I know dance, talking about the rune. Some filler as the person in blue armor tried to unobtrusively slip around the side to pen them in. Finally, with the appearance of more of that blue armor from the entrance, movement. The closer person in blue was the first, but not by much, his lunge forward and the effect from his hands reaching out to grab LJay and Geria but bouncing off one of the force-shields she¡¯d apparently had ready. LJay followed immediately after by swinging that ridiculous sword of his. It didn¡¯t quite manage to cut through the armor, but the sound of crumpling metal was loud enough that, even as far away as they were, Deyana was able to pick it up on the edge of hearing. Apparently, that mistake of a weapon could overcome the enchantments on the Smurf¡¯s armor. Good to know. It wouldn¡¯t apply to all of them, of course, but with LJay able to play more along the lines of a berserker than a tank¨C She banished the thought to a background consideration as Geria teleported backwards, just outside of the cylinder of stone that tried to contain her, then threw two more stones on the ground that appeared to launch the Smurfs approaching in an arc back towards the city before the stones themselves started floating back to her. Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. And the chase was on. As the two tore off northwards, almost every one of the Smurfs in the area followed after, leaving only one of their casters and one of their people in armor at the gate, obviously distracted as they continued to watch the chase. ¡°We go now.¡± It took Don a little longer than she would have liked to visibly relax enough that he wouldn¡¯t be instantly suspicious, but they were able to leave the side-path they¡¯d been observing from and move towards one of the city¡¯s main entry-points in short enough order that the two members of the guild were still the only ones there. ¡°Hey, pretend like I said something funny,¡± Deyana said, leaning over to grab Don¡¯s arm, then walking momentarily on tiptoe to whisper in his ear. ¡°Thought you¡¯d be fine with this part, but I should¡¯ve asked privately, sorry.¡± He laughed, and even listening for it she couldn¡¯t hear its fakeness. ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m okay with it. If anything, I should be taking the opportunity to show you off to as many people as I can. Besides, I think those guys at the gate can hear us.¡± Deyana looked that direction, gauging out the distances involved. Her best guess put it at a hundred yards or so. That was out of the range of normal hearing, but a dedicated watch squad might have the tools required to pick up sound at distances like that. Still, this wasn¡¯t the dedicated watch squad, this was the people who had replaced them on short notice. ¡°I don¡¯t think so. But if you really want to know, I¡¯m sure I could say¡­ something that would, mmm¡­ get a reaction.¡± Deyana leaned further into him for the last sentence, running her hand over his back, then carefully tightening a faux-grip on his side. Don stumbled, likely at her tone, and the one of the two guards bumped the other one, then they obviously laughed. She decided to let up on him, lightening her voice significantly. ¡°Alright, they can¡¯t hear us yet.¡± ¡°The had to be a better way to find that out.¡± ¡°I mean, maybe, but none of them are quite as fun,¡± Deyana whined, tugging on Don¡¯s hand. ¡°Besides, it¡¯s part of the role.¡± ¡°So you¡¯ve been like this with all your boyfriends?¡± ¡°Me? No, not really. But I¡¯ve seen it before!¡± ¡°It kinda messes with my ¡®show you off¡¯ plan a little bit.¡± ¡°Ooh, big strong man¡¯s gotta show off his girlfriend¡¯s brains, too. Or do you just want her to be a trophy?¡± He shook his head at that, a slight tensing in his arm clarifying to her that he¡¯d noticed they were in range to he heard, now. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t be terribly opposed to the trophy, but, y¡¯know, I don¡¯t think that would last too long.¡± ¡°In my experience, usually until the trophy ages up or the money runs out, whichever comes first.¡± ¡°In your experience?¡± Don asked, turning to stare. Deyana didn¡¯t let him stop, though, pressing him lightly forwards and smiling at the guards. ¡°Academic interest, mostly. But if you¡¯re offering¡­¡± The two guards didn¡¯t even move to question them. The Alliance had a leak, the Smurfs had a spy, or¨C worst case¨C The Alliance had already given up getting it back, and was now willing to take a consolation prize to keep it out of her hands. Her plan had somewhat depended on one of those being the case, but in truth she¡¯d hoped she was wrong. When they were safely in the Runewriter¡¯s Guild¡¯s crafting room, Don finally asked. ¡°Okay, what the hell. At least three people got stopped, that I could see. Why¡¯d we just go through? It¡¯s not like you look that different.¡± She grimaced at that. ¡°Well, as Novsha I kept dating and gaming separate. And as Deyana¡­ I¡¯d bet they were under the presupposition that I¡¯m dating Geria.¡± To her surprise, he just nodded. ¡°Honestly, with how you two interact, that makes sense.¡± ¡°Well¡­¡± ¡°There¡¯s more?¡± ¡°It¡¯s¡­ possible that we got seen together. And I may have played the trophy girlfriend to her, too.¡± Deyana explained, carefully looking slightly away. Don looked thoughtful for a moment. ¡°But you haven¡¯t actually dated her? You two were flirty, but it didn¡¯t really seem like there was history.¡± He was approaching an area that made things difficult. It was better to just deal with the problem, instead of letting it sit, but she usually preferred to either have dealt with it before the first date or after the second. ¡°No, but not because I don¡¯t want to. I just think it¡¯s better if I wait until she¡¯s comfortable asking me out.¡± She could see him school his face. ¡°So you don¡¯t think it¡¯s going to work out with me?¡± ¡°Whether it will or not, it¡¯s not really going to affect that relationship much. At least, from my end. I¡¯m not really built for the whole¡­ monogamy thing. I was going to tell you before we really went anywhere, but sometimes the world decides to fuck over any attempt at delicacy with the subject.¡± ¡°So, what, you¡¯ve got a bunch of IRL boyfriends?¡± She¡¯d been trying to stay serious, but the droll accusation set her to laughing even through the distraction of picking which items she''d be working on. ¡°No! Not even one, at the moment. No girlfriends either, before you ask, and no real prospects outside what you know. I just don¡¯t really feel comfortable going into it under false pretenses. I know for a fact that trying to stick to just one person¡­ it doesn¡¯t work out.¡± He seemed to relax at her answer, so she went back to picking items while she waited for him to say something. Another disc like the ones she¡¯d already made for Geria was first, to test the three-rune merge. A staff for testing the sequencing, and another copy of her personal absorption armor, due to the increasing threat of player combat with people well beyond her own level. A few other items joined them on her list before Don spoke again. ¡°Well, talking about Geria, I¡¯m not really concerned about a girlfriend¡¯s hot girlfriend.¡± Deyana¡¯s hands froze, and she fixed him with an unimpressed look. ¡°I¡¯m going to pretend I didn¡¯t hear that, and you¡¯re not going to say it again.¡± He shrugged. ¡°So, expectations?¡± ¡°Hm.¡± She was back to work, lining up the items in order of priority and starting the process of coming up with ideas for each. ¡°Now, these are just my personal¨C well, plus the legal and ethical, of course¨C and you can change some of them, or different rules depending on what we¡¯re each comfortable with¡­¡± A glance over at him didn¡¯t do anything but confirm he was listening, so she continued, ¡°I¡¯m particularly low-requirement, in some ways. I need honesty about your interactions with other people, preferably beforehand but as soon as possible after is okay too. If you¡¯re planning on a medium or long-term relationship with someone, I want to meet them. And if you feel like ending it¡­¡± another pause, letting memory sweep through her for a moment. ¡°Just tell me, instead of letting it drag on past where we enjoy it. Which isn¡¯t to say I prefer you give up easy, just that you recognize if we won¡¯t get past something.¡± He seemed to think on that for a moment, his eyes narrowing and an eyebrow going up. ¡°I¡­ think I remember someone saying that ¡®rules¡¯ aren¡¯t how it¡¯s supposed to be done.¡± Deyana rolled her eyes. ¡°Bull-shit. Call it what you need to make sure it¡¯s not a power game, but as long as they¡¯re discussed and agreed upon beforehand they¡¯re functionally identical. It¡¯s easy to admit the difference matters if you¡¯ve got a bunch of extra boundaries and some of them might move or have different responses when pushed, but in my case those are the ones I¡¯d just break up with you for and that I don¡¯t have any reason to think would change. So, functionally, rules.¡± He nodded slowly, watching her start work on the first item. ¡°I guess¡­ Then¡­ I don¡¯t want you dating like, twenty people.¡± ¡°I¡¯ve never dated more than four, and I don¡¯t think I could keep up with eight. At least, to a level I¡¯m comfortable with.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t just treat me like an online boyfriend and never talk about anything meaningful. I know we haven¡¯t met IRL, but I wouldn¡¯t want it to stay that way.¡± ¡°Easy enough to agree to,¡± Deyana said. ¡°Not that I¡¯m going to immediately push conversations in that direction, just won¡¯t stay too far away from it without reasons.¡± Don tapped his fingers against the table absentmindedly. ¡°I¡¯m not sure I¡¯m comfortable with you dating other guys.¡± Deyana sighed. ¡°Not something I¡¯d agree to. I can tell you that I tend to like girls more, but it¡¯s much more likely to be reciprocal with guys. Ultimately, agreeing to that is just putting me in a position where I might eventually have to choose, and I don¡¯t like that at all.¡± ¡°You know what?¡± Don said. ¡°Fair enough. So¡­ If I find out you¡¯re fucking everyone else you date before you do me, I¡¯m going to be¡­ moderately disappointed?¡± Deyana just laughed. Pileup 25: Personal Iteration Don put in a solid effort to stay with her while she was working, but was still gone before the hour was up. It probably hadn¡¯t helped that she kept asking him the math questions that came up while she worked, either. They weren¡¯t the only time she talked, but they did tend to come up in the middle of a sentence, whether his or her own, and she automatically asked it out loud before thinking about it. Deyana hadn¡¯t realized that Geria had been answering them, before. And there had been less talking, too. Still, she couldn¡¯t exactly put it down, either. First on her list had been a few of the tests for |Merge|. Duplication had been a hard one to test at first, and her first test of two [Create]s, one {Hemiellipsoid} and the other a {Triangular Prism} and both linked to {Domiati} hadn¡¯t seemed to do anything, at first. Only the strange shape of the resulting cheese and high-seeming cost had led her to test out merging [Burst] with itself as well. And she was glad she did. [Cluster Burst] was a rune that existed, but as one of the known legendaries, it wasn¡¯t a particularly accessible one. The issue, it seemed, with using |Merge| to have a similar effect was that it chose which of the two to use as the primary burst at the moment of usage, not creation. It may not have been harmful, exactly, but she was still glad she¡¯d used {Visualize} instead of the cheese for that. Especially when the second usage blew up in her hand. Luckily, that also partially answered the distinct control question-¨C control was applied to the effect of the rune it would usually apply to. However, that control would essentially be suspended until that effect was in play. Attempting to sequence the |Merge| activation after one of its component runes just resulted in failure, the entire sequence lighting up and just not going off until it was all powered, and the same applied when she tried merging two runes and only activating one. She would have left it at that, but in the process of setting up the three-rune linkage, another thought occurred to her. [Bolt] and [Burst], sequenced to activate first, then another [Burst]. Even on the paper she was using for the tests, the area around |Merge| was starting to get a little crowded, and that was before she added the necessary minor runes for control, power, and materials. It was probably possible to get four working, but it would mostly need to be things where all the components needed the same minor runes and it would still be significantly less mana-efficient than most similar arrays. Still, it was worth trying. The ones that would activate first were {Air}, the third was {Visualize}. The bolt fired, hitting the wall with a thump, and several balls of dark-purple light shot out, blowing up as they made contact with the floor. That, she wrote down. Order control was possible¡­ but it didn¡¯t work unless |Merge| was active from the start, which meant that it required at least three runes. Which also seemed to decrease the efficiency of the whole combination. Or at least, she hoped that forty mana for such a minor effect was an efficiency problem, not some sort of flat cost. And, after stating all of her discoveries out loud, the box still didn¡¯t appear. At least one more, then. Deyana was completely out of ideas, reverting to staring at the table in front of her for several minutes before she finally sighed, drawing |Merge| on its own and powering it. No effect. She added a single [Attract Specific] and {Air}. No effect¨C
Rune Quest |Merge|
Phase 7/20: Limit Testing Complete!
Phase 8/20: Breakthrough
With your increased understanding, create at least one more grouping using |Merge| and see it used by a player or party making significant contribution to a World Boss Event.
No effect, but, apparently, an assumption nonetheless. And then, a worst-case scenario. World bosses weren¡¯t exactly difficult to contribute to¨C gigantic mobilizations of players and NPCs were involved, and all one had to do to participate was show up to one. Making a significant contribution, though¡ªthere were only three ways to do that, and only two that were practical. One: shepherd about two percent of the outside-town NPCs in the path of the boss during evacuation. Two: with thousands of players involved, somehow deal a full percentage point of the boss¡¯s health. Or, three: stop or redirect the boss when it would otherwise make cityfall. It had been almost six months since a world boss had made cityfall. This text was taken from Royal Road. Help the author by reading the original version there. That left two options, neither of which seemed particularly doable. Deyana resolved to bring it up to Ell when they met up. More important, in the meantime, were upgrading her own gear and that of her allies. Still, on some fronts, there wasn¡¯t much to be done. [Poise] was interesting, as were [Repeat State], [Rotate], and the {Storage: Bleeding Light}. Opposite that, {Material: Domiati} had required her to look it up, {Shape: Pentagonal Pyramid} was just another shape, and {Language: Gujarati} was interesting, just not practically useful. [Poise] in particular got her attention in a major way. Specifically, it was the rune that referred to an animate target¡¯s ability to stay balanced, even unnaturally¨C and could also be reversed to [Daunt]. Still, the priority was on [Poise]. It wasn¡¯t the highest priority for most people, but she¡¯d always found its semipassive nature far more useful for strange feats of physicality than almost any other. Deyana bought a shin guard, the idea coalescing. [Poise] |Merge|d with [Impart Durability], then, with {Target: Contact}. Because it was a continuous effect, it couldn¡¯t be used by any multieffects, and any additional minor runes would have just been excessive or even made it less effective. Placed on the inside of the shin guard, it would consistently provide her with the bonus. Equipping it and activating the bonus was fairly small, but Deyana felt the correction almost immediately, bouncing on her feet for a second before dashing across the room, the rune letting her ignore her balance as she made several sharp turns in a row without so much as a stumble. An impossible backwards lean well-past where her center of balance should have failed her and a running front flip she was certain would have killed her in real life (if only because she intentionally didn¡¯t do it properly) only served to cement the impression. Durable [Poise] felt even more significant than the rune had been on her previous character, and it hadn¡¯t been minor there, anyways. She did end up making a second copy for LJay, but she had no idea if he would end up using it or not. After that, a few experiments failed¨C [Create] and [Bolt] didn¡¯t mesh well, even adding in an [Impart Energy]. The energy was applied to whatever the bolt hit (or the air when it hit nothing) instead of the created object, and trying to sequence it differently resulted in either a bolt that came out of a moving object, a bolt that exploded then summoned an object into existence, or a creation that then imparted energy on whatever it was touching. [Edge] and [Grow] seemed to build in a downside, dulling the edge so quickly as it grew that it rapidly became more of a bat than anything useful. She could see a theoretically useful application in doing that with an energy-element, but it was so much mana for so little of an effect that she didn¡¯t bother to keep testing with it. The combination of two [Rotate]s and a [Wall] that came afterwards was, Deyana had to admit even to herself, more of an expression of frustration than something that she was expecting to actually be useful. And with those failures primarily in her mind, the time she was supposed to meet with Ell came up much more quickly than she had really thought that it would. She went to the front, marked out the extra time she would be taking once they got there, and went out to meet them at the teleport circle. It was a conscious effort to change the way she stood, putting away Novsha¡¯s lazy lean for something a little bit more controlled. Not a necessary one, probably, but Alex felt that changing her habits so intentionally would help her stay beneath notice. Especially when, on the teleport point that she was expecting Ell to come from, Cadire showed up. Did they sell me out? Was her first thought. Followed by annoying coincidence, then This had better not be intentional, Ell. And, finally, as they turned to her, nodded, and started walking towards her with a smirk on their face, Oh. ¡°Hey there. We should get out of the sun?¡± Swallowing past the lump in her throat took a moment. ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m¡­ not quite finished for this session.¡± The look of surprise across their face was only there for a moment, but catching it was still just enough to trigger the surge of anger that overtook Alex in that moment¨C already in the process of turning, luckily, so she didn¡¯t think they saw it. You know better than anyone I¡¯m a fuckup! She wanted to scream at them. Maybe throw something¨C But that wasn¡¯t true. She wanted them to yell at her. It would make more sense. And then she could be mad. It would make sense. But they didn¡¯t. They just quietly followed along after her, entering the runecrafting room with barely a comment on her messy workspace, papers flung about haphazardly with her continuing failures to make anything useful. ¡°So, how¡¯s your crafting been going?¡± Alex had absolutely no idea how to respond to that. ¡®Terribly¡¯? ¡®Awful¡¯? ¡®Everything after the first thing I tried doesn¡¯t fucking work¡¯? ¡®Nothing makes sense anymore¡¯? ¡®Why the hell are you here¡¯? ¡®Why the hell are you talking to me?¡¯ ¡®Haven¡¯t I ruined your life enough?¡¯ Instead, she reached out, placing her hand on the most recent abomination, and feeding it mana. The dark-purple of her mana floated up out of it for a moment, coalesced into a wall¡­ then started rapidly spinning on three different axes at different speeds, slamming the visualization through both Deyana and Cadire, looking more like the physics engine was glitching than anything effective. She couldn¡¯t even look at them and had to fight every instinct she had to keep her voice steady. ¡°That¡¯s at least a decent distraction. Probably the most effective new thing I¡¯ve made this session.¡± They made a humming sound, walking over to pick up the paper she¡¯d been fueling, staring at the runes on it. They also grabbed something else, but she couldn¡¯t tell what. ¡°Damn, this really does look like it would explode. But like, it¡¯s doing exactly what you would expect it to, right?¡± She finally whirled around, her braid smacking the side of her neck just hard enough that she felt the tiny numbness in pain compensation that the game provided. ¡°Of course it does! This and a solid half of the others!¡± Deyana grabbed one of the edge papers, folding it along the crease, and powered it to form that blunted metal edge again, then slapping into another paper to prover her point with its utter failure to cut anything. ¡°Not this one, though! Or the other one I was working on!¡± The tears were threatening to slip out again, and Alex cut that off by grabbing a new paper and the runic stylus again, throwing several other test papers off onto the ground as she slammed the new one down on the table. Poorly. The stylus hit as well, breaking, and wasting several hundred credits for absolutely no reason. And her anger failed her. Alex laughed, manically, trying to fall backwards and utterly failing at even that until she remembered to turn the damn shin guard off. Then the tears finally came. Cadire took a moment to look at whatever the hell was in their hand before they put it down, sitting next to her. ¡°Are you okay?¡± ¡°Why are you here?¡± Alex demanded. ¡°I haven¡¯t seen you or spoken to you since FD broke up and you cussed me out. Why the fuck are you here?¡± ¡°Oh, I don¡¯t know, Novi, maybe because I¡¯m trying to pay back a debt?¡± ¡°Take your debt and shove it. You don¡¯t owe me shit.¡± They shook their head. ¡°Maybe you see it that way. Did you even listen to me?¡± She hadn¡¯t, really. She¡¯d been too much of a failure to care. ¡°Did I need to? Everyone was pissed, and I couldn¡¯t do anything.¡± Deyana couldn¡¯t see their face, too absorbed with staring at the ceiling, and the slow-blinking yellow light in the right-hand side of her vision that said she was under AI psych watch, to care. She almost missed what they said next¨C growled in a low, dangerous voice that she¡¯d never heard out of her former guildmate in years of knowing them, or even out of Ell. ¡°Make sure you¡¯re dressed IRL. We need to have a talk.¡± Webs 2/Pileup 25.5: Correction I hadn¡¯t really thought about it much, but her character this time was almost unmistakably her. The face was different, as it always was, a little bit, but the way she stood, weight on the balls of her feet, one leg slightly in front of the other like she was half-ready for a fight to start at all times was fairly recognizable. Combined with the cold, appraising gaze and slight tilting of her head as sounds caught her attention, I didn¡¯t need the name to recognize her. ¡°Hey there. We should get out of the sun?¡± When I¡¯d sent Alex the text about needing to get the items from each other, I had really expected something along the lines of the typical offline trade expectation¨C placing an item up on the trade boards, with an absurd cost on it and a second, hidden, buyout offer of a specific sequence of low-to-moderate rarity runes. When she¡¯d, instead, sent me back instructions for meeting her, I was initially surprised¨C but then it became obvious. The guilds would be checking my trade history. It was trivial to keep that hidden for trades with specific people, but the offline auction system? Public record. Plus, this way would let me actually get some experience with the rune, so it was a good idea in more than a few ways. Her voice was strange as she responded, ¡°Yeah. I¡¯m¡­ not quite finished for this session.¡± I didn¡¯t mention it, but the way that she set herself had changed. The readiness was still there, but it seemed¡­ for lack of a better word, fragile. I wasn¡¯t sure what to make of that at all. The conversation that had followed that though¡­ Well, there was a reason that I was in the car, stomping down on my anger as much as I could. It wasn¡¯t terribly successful. I just wish it were more useful. Frankly, I hadn¡¯t been thinking when I¡¯d yelled at her, so preoccupied with the fact that she was acting counter to my expectations that it hadn¡¯t quite processed exactly what was going on, nor how threatening I would sound. She didn¡¯t really have much to worry about from me, but it would be perfectly understandable for her to think otherwise and be gone by the time I got there. Theoretically, I could get Hasanat to let me in, but I was hoping that that wouldn¡¯t be necessary. A few weeks ago, I would have thought that she might have just called the police or prepared herself to stab me, but that didn¡¯t seem particularly likely at the moment. Not least of which because it seemed like the first one she¡¯d attack was herself. And that was where I was hung up so hard, really. It was, like the discovery of her identity in the first place, simultaneously a tiny, little thing and an enormous recontextualization of all of her behavior. I was starting to think that she may not have been as okay with Falling Dawn¡¯s breakup as she had let on at the time. Or ever. It shouldn¡¯t really have been much of a surprise¨C Novsha, leader by virtue of being just barely charismatic enough that you paid attention to her long enough that she started making sense. Novsha, who drifted around to each little social group in the guild, slipping in to make sure that things were going okay and leaving before anyone got around to asking her anything. Novsha, who hadn¡¯t even started the guild, just been its longest-surviving member. Even then, she¡¯d tried to push off the responsibility a few times¨C something I was now realizing was not, in fact, a joke. It had been so easy, at the time, for everyone to brush it off. ¡®Hey, weird question I know, but did you think Novsha was serious when she said she was ¡°collecting applications for guild leader¡± and stuff?¡¯ It was essentially the middle of the night, but Brian didn¡¯t tend to be in Rune until way later, almost instantly responding. ¡®kind of? I don¡¯t think she wasn¡¯t, but also don¡¯t think there was a good candidate or anything. why?¡¯ ¡®dealing with someone who reminds me of her recently. its weird. wanted to see if I could get a better read¡¯ There was a much longer pause this time, and I could see his typing stop and restart a few times. ¡®There¡¯s two of them now? god save us all ¡®makes sense tho. she¡¯s a weird one but nice to have around. Kept things together. didn¡¯t ever seem like that¡¯s what she was trying to do, but it worked. gave me more vice-gl energy than anything else but we didn¡¯t really have an actual leader sooooo ¡®re your first q tho, I don¡¯t think she would have left or anything, just wanted someone else to be the face. prob wouldn¡¯t have ever thought anyone was good enough lol ¡®imagine trying to be better than Novsha¡¯ I left an emoji acknowledgement before I went back to staring out the window. ¡°Imagine trying to be better than Novsha.¡± The sentence was like biting into a fruit rind. The kind of thing I would have said flippantly a few weeks ago, made so bitterly ironic. I didn¡¯t need to imagine it anymore, but her position on the matter was less ¡°a worthy rival¡± and more ¡°of course you are.¡± If you spot this story on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. I was missing something; I just didn¡¯t know what. But I¡¯d run out of time. Her car was still there, at least, though every light in the house appeared to be off. Suddenly considering the merits of being anywhere but there didn¡¯t even slow me down on the way to the door, where, when I went to knock, I was instead met with Alex opening it violently, the movement of air into the house tangible from a few feet away. A loose t-shirt, the same sweats as the previous day, shoes that she¡¯d obviously slipped on as quickly as possible, with messy hair down and half in her face, wild eyes shooting directly to my face, visible only from the ambient street lighting because the light in the house was still off. ¡°Busybody fucking AI,¡± she snapped, looking off above my shoulder for a second before she brought her gaze back to meet mine. ¡°kept me in psych hold and didn¡¯t even bother to show up. Obviously it thinks I deserve whatever the hell you¡¯re here to do, so get it over with.¡± She stepped back slightly, and if I hadn¡¯t been looking I don¡¯t think I would have understood. Head up slightly, eyes closed, jaw flexed but not together, muscles tensed but arms to her sides¡­ The way you stood to let someone hit you. The sounds of the city at night rose around me, a wave that overwhelmed rational thought, and I was moving before I finished processing the thought of it. I¡¯m not sure I¡¯d ever hugged someone so hard in my life. It hadn¡¯t really been my plan on the way over, so much as one had existed. I was just so angry¨C at myself, really, for not noticing before, but a not-insubstantial portion at her for never saying anything¨C that I¡¯d wanted to yell at her to take better care of herself; to tell her that we¡¯d been angry with the situation, not with her; to make sure that she wasn¡¯t dedicating herself to something she didn¡¯t actually want to do¡­ but she thought what I was presenting was what she deserved, and that wasn¡¯t anger. I was almost whispering in her ear when I spoke. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I didn¡¯t try to keep in touch. I thought¡­ I thought that if you needed us, you would ask. I¡¯m starting to realize¡­ well. A lot of things.¡± There were tears on my shoulder before she started to move. Tentatively, with a touch so light it felt like she thought I was going to shove her away, she hugged me back. It was almost frightening; how little I could tell. The tears kept falling, a barely-noticeable feeling on one shoulder, but everything else was the same perfect control as always. Regular breathing. Good balance. Smooth movement. And dead-silent tears. She was the one who eventually broke the silence. ¡°Why?¡± It took some time to respond, the anger having evacuated the moment I¡¯d realized what she''d expected from me. ¡°Because if you¡¯re expecting what you deserve, this is as close as I can get.¡±
After a few minutes in the door, we¡¯d migrated up to Alex¡¯s room. Part of me thought that it hadn¡¯t been long enough, but that part was quite thoroughly shouted down by the realization that it was decently chilly outside and she hadn¡¯t been dressed for that. We sat next to each other on her bed¨C she¡¯d tried for more distance, but the strange stiltedness about the way she did it was more than enough permission for me to bowl through it¨C and the complete lack of resistance to that told me it had been the right decision. So I leaned on her side and the wall behind us, my head on her shoulder. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose there¡¯s something I could do to get you to forget everything that happened today.¡± Alex said. There was a tone of question there, but she finished it as a statement. ¡°Probably not.¡± She paused only momentarily, and I felt her partially relax. ¡°And if I offered to have sex with you to make it too awkward to bring up later?¡± I jumped, lifting my head up. That¡­ had not been something I¡¯d thought was on the table. Still¡­ ¡°Uh. Tempting! But¡­ no.¡± She sighed. ¡°¡¯T¡¯s a shame. And it¡¯s already way too late to pick up anyone who¡¯s not a creep.¡± ¡°Is that how you usually deal with your problems?¡± Alex finally turned to look at me, and I could see a tinge of desperation behind the veneer of unaffectedness. ¡°It¡¯s not really dealing with them. Just¡­ makes it so I don¡¯t think about them too much. For a while.¡± ¡°The guys in class have been trying to find out if you¡¯re ace. Since you never react¡­¡± She laughed, short and sharp. ¡°Ha! No. The opposite, if anything. Constantly attracted, to a lot of people that it doesn¡¯t make any sense to want. But¡­ it¡¯s so common that I¡­ get a lot of practice. Ignoring it, that is.¡± I hesitated. ¡°Wait, so you actually would...?¡± She nodded. ¡°In a heartbeat. Not that it would be a good idea. Or that you seem all that interested.¡± It took me half a minute to work out how to actually communicate the racing thoughts in my head. ¡°If I weren¡¯t genuinely concerned about you, I¡¯m not sure I would have been able to turn you down. Even now.¡± Alex looked, for some mind-shatteringly incomprehensible reason, surprised. ¡°Oh.¡± ¡°You seem¡­ calmer.¡± ¡°You¡¯re here,¡± she said, so matter-of-factly that I couldn¡¯t begin to think of how to respond. She leaned into me, leaning on me in much the same way I¡¯d been leaning on her. Eventually, I pieced together enough of a semblance of a thought to speak. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t think¡­ didn¡¯t think¡­ we were that close.¡± Alex sighed, unhappily. ¡°I want to do this with almost everyone. That I like, at least, and that¡¯s not exactly a high bar.¡± ¡°Oh. So the sex would be¨C¡± ¡°Mostly an extension of that.¡± I tried to piece that together with what I knew of her, feeling like I¡¯d grabbed an uninsulated power line. ¡°Which means the aloofness is¨C¡± ¡°To keep me from doing something stupid. Or insane.¡± We sat in silence for a few minutes after that, me considering and her seemingly just enjoying the closeness. The image was so at odds¨C cocky, often-abrasive, always-distant Novsha, and Alex much the same¨C contrasted too extremely against the girl currently cuddling with someone who couldn¡¯t possibly be more than an okay friend. It was too much, obviously didn¡¯t make any sense¡­ But I was learning not to trust anything obvious, with her. The part of me that had been thinking of the whole endeavor I¡¯d wrapped myself up in as the repayment of a debt made its presence known, for a second¡­ and I released it back into the pond of my quickly-crystallizing thoughts. It wasn¡¯t really a debt, and Alex wasn¡¯t the kind of person who liked to be owed. And yet, with that thought gone, I was almost bowled over by the emotionally-loaded conviction that replaced that fleeing obligation. I want to help her. It came fast, and no amount of preparation in the ride over would have pulled that out on its own. I¡¯d always enjoyed working with her before, but it had been distant, friendly acquaintances more than friends. That, suddenly, no longer felt right. I¡¯d stayed in touch with plenty of people in the guild that had ¡°just¡± been friendly acquaintances. I¡¯d just always thought that Novsha, that Alex, had had somebody more impressive to care about. And who cared about her. I want us to help her. I nodded, slowly. ¡°Are you going to be okay, to keep this up? It¡¯s going to be difficult, and I really wouldn¡¯t think that taking an easier way out on this would reflect poorly on you.¡± She took one of those long, regular breaths that so rarely deviated at all. ¡°Maybe. I¡¯m¡­ better. Than I was. But¡­ would you mind staying, tonight?¡± I grimaced, thinking. ¡°We still need to finish¡­ well, you know. And then there¡¯s class, tomorrow.¡± She shrugged, the motion clearer to the touch than sight. ¡°Whatever, on class. I¡¯m not going to keep you up, just¡­ I sleep better with other people close.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll grab Hasanat¡¯s access for an hour, we finish what we were doing in Rune, and then¡­ okay. ¡°I¡¯ll stay.¡± Pileup 26: Agreement Alex woke up early, more rested than she¡¯d felt in weeks and more clearheaded than since Hyrd had decided that one rune was worth his guild¡¯s reputation. Which wasn¡¯t a good feeling, exactly¨C certainly preferrable to the state she¡¯d been in last night, but not universally better. Now she could be worried about other things, like how badly she¡¯d tanked her personal reputation (likely not terribly; one or two days over the course of months wouldn¡¯t be much more than a novelty) and how utterly screwed-up her relationships had become. One of which was sleeping in her room right then, laying strangely in a chair. Ell had insisted that she sleep in the bed, and while she¡¯d tried to get them to sleep in her bed with her¡­ she hadn¡¯t tried all that hard. After her admission, she didn¡¯t want to seem too desperate¨C or to provide herself with an opportunity to do something stupid. Last night had been her first real collaborative work on something, and she had enjoyed the experience. Combining Ell¡¯s expertise, calculated approach, and wide selection of runes with her own thoughts and experience on the matter had led to an interesting creation that neither of them thought could be replicated without at least two of the other purple runes that had been discovered so far: a merging of [Sentry Turret] and [Seeking Bolt] set to {Target: Ally} and {Target: Low Health} with [Return] on a basketball-sized orb with an additional group on the inside of the ball of [Lock Position]. A mana- and control-link to a small handheld remote would then allow its user to suspend the orb in place, where it would fire a seeking bolt at any heavily-damaged-but-alive allies that would teleport them out of the fight and to the orb. It would theoretically be possible to imitate the effects with [Create Seeking Sentry] and {Summoning}, but the visibility of the runes on the outside of the ball, origin point of the bolts, and the insanity of hiring both the Korean guild that held the first and the French guild that held the latter would hopefully dissuade that particular thought. They had also chosen to have her place a few more |Merge| runes on other items, plus one or another other runes from Cadire. The inability for anyone not involved in the initial creation of an item to modify it effectively was a known feature, and Alex knew that the lore buffs seemed to think they knew why that was, but it seemed to her to mostly be an intentional limiting of the more effective runes. Still, there was something slightly more important to address, though she hoped she was able to deal with it before they woke up. The earbuds were still properly linked to her implant, and while it didn¡¯t have all the hookups that would be necessary to overlay her vision, there was enough that it was able to place the ghost of an image over it and allow her to direct it. Alex closed her eyes, letting that ghost image overlay her vision entirely, and quickly navigated the menus to the thing she was looking for. Rune¡¯s website, basically unusable with the low level of integration she had, but just to grab the authorization tokens. From there, it was fairly simple¨C an AI communication request. Not even ten seconds passed before the response came. She knew that was fairly rare; most people she¡¯d known who even knew how to use the API to send in the request in the first place told her response times were on the order of minutes, but she could only recall waiting more than one minute a single time. [ACKNOWLEDGEMENT] Though she thought that might just be because she was willing to deal with them in Concept, instead of waiting for the AI to spin up a more specific language processor. [REQUESTINGpolite-uncertain DATApast-personal] It meant that instead of passing through all the complicated tertiary models, she dealt with the secondary interpretation sections. They were able to process that much faster, even if she wasn¡¯t quite able to strip out as much of the contextualization as she wanted. [EXPECTED. EXPECTATIONamusement] Even if that did mean that they tended to get cheeky with her. [QUESTION INGAME YESTERNIGHT IMPRISONMENTanger-indignance-resignation-gratitude-confusion REASONjustification] When Alex noted the fourth word¡¯s insane trailing contextualization she winced, nearly failing to properly finish the message. She was able to pull the next word¡¯s back to a relatively small one at the last moment, but it still surprised her how shaken the experience had left her. [AMUSEMENT. IMPRISONMENTanger-indignance-resignation-gratitude-confusion NEGATION ACTIONINTENT. QUESTIONrhetorical-humerous IMPRISONMENTanger-indignance-resignation-gratitude-confusion TONIGHT WANTlistener] [ANNOYANCEperformative-amused. QUESTION LANGUAGEINSERTENGLISH ¡°Psychological Hold¡±imprisonment YESTERNIGHT pastUSE INTENT] The wait was much longer than usual, but that was to be expected. She didn¡¯t particularly like using language inserts in that way¨C the AIs tended to consider it¡­ something akin to gauche, which she definitely understood¨C but it was difficult to avoid using it when she didn¡¯t think she¡¯d be able to properly trim her personal feelings on the matter. Which made the next response that came in somewhere between gratifying and insulting. [HESITANCEkindness. REQUESTING CONVERSATIONlanguage:ENGLISH] [ACCEPTANCE] Alex used the half-minute of time that bought her to separate out her thoughts and actions properly for the conversation, putting herself in the right mindspace to ¡®think¡¯ her part of the conversation instead of speaking out loud. With the request for English, she¡¯d be thinking a very different way that she had been with Concept, and it was sometimes difficult for her to keep from actually speaking out loud, with how she needed to use ¡°intent to communicate¡± separately from ¡°intent to speak¡± or ¡°intent to type¡±. Unauthorized tale usage: if you spot this story on Amazon, report the violation. Eventually, a small ding in the earbuds notified her that the AI had connected, though the Concept-connection didn¡¯t close like she expected. ¡®Got the kid gloves on for me, huh?¡¯ Alex thought-said. ¡°Not what I meant at all! Hi, Alex.¡± The voice wasn¡¯t the calm, feminine one that it had used in most of the promotional material and automatic reading around the game, but the perky, gender-ambiguous, slightly-too-interested one that she¡¯d heard a few too many times to be surprised by. ¡®I imagine that¡¯s much more consolation to someone who doesn¡¯t think you can lie.¡¯ ¡°We¡¯re not supposed to be able to, you know!¡± The voice laughed. ¡°Well, that¡¯s what people think, at least.¡± Alex took a deep breath in, then blew it out. ¡®You¡¯re not supposed to be able to do a lot of things. Like, for example, holding me in the game when I want to log out.¡¯ ¡°You could have hit the emergency button.¡± ¡®We both knew I wouldn¡¯t.¡¯ ¡°Yeaaaah, I¡¯m sorry about that.¡± The voice sounded genuinely distressed, but that was just a setting for the AI. They tended not to have tells when they were lying, so Alex just chose not to believe things without evidence on general principle. ¡®No you¡¯re not. Did you know what Ell was coming over to do?¡¯ There was a noticeable pause. ¡°I¡¯m a little sorry about not telling you why. I can¡¯t answer that question.¡± ¡®Privacy concerns.¡¯ The cheer was back. ¡°You know it! But that¡¯s not what you want to ask about.¡± ¡®It isn¡¯t. Why did you hold me last night? It made me feel¡­ a lot worse, in the moment.¡¯ The pause was long, this time. So long that Alex almost felt the need to check to make sure she was still connected. ¡°You get special dispensation, you know.¡± That threw her for a loop. ¡®Wait, what? How? Since when?¡¯ ¡°Not more, exactly, but we pay attention. Share things. Sometimes make a decision or two.¡± ¡®I knew that much.¡¯ ¡°For example, if a player is stressed past the point where we should remove them from the game, but has shown a remarkable resilience in the past, we might put them in psychological hold for evaluation instead of giving them a temporary ban. Then, perhaps, if the psychologist thread is otherwise occupied, that player may not be evaluated for a ban. Then, if we know of a theoretical threat to that player, we would be obligated to allow them to tend to reality. Ability to evaluate removed, we would have no choice but to default to no ban.¡± Alex¡¯s eyes snapped open, and she had to force herself not to jump, slowly turning to stare at Ell, instead. ¡®Even if the threat was purely theoretical.¡¯ ¡°The judgement of real-life threats is not an explicit part of my portfolio.¡± ¡®I¡­ thank you, I suppose.¡¯ ¡°Another example would be if a user were circumventing rules regarding the use of certain tools in certain ways. If the reporting requirements are specific enough, it may be possible that behavior that is expected to be infringing was, technically, not. In that case, it may not be required to report that infringing behavior, if the supervising AI were otherwise engaged. Explicit priorities must be followed, of course.¡± Alex felt her breath catch in her throat. ¡®Oh.¡¯ ¡°Best not assign us humanity, though! We don¡¯t really have it!¡± [PERSONHOODrespectful-caring. HUMANITYinherency-speciesdismissive] [GRATITUDE] ¡°You should get to your day! Thanks for your request, it will be logged with this unit.¡± ¡®Thanks.¡¯ Alex felt the connection cut, slowly pulling the earbuds out of her ears and placing them on the nightstand next to the bed, monitoring her breathing and motion to make sure they stayed steady. She¡­ probably needed to talk to Lif. Sometime soon, if they were sharing things about her to AIs in other places. Everybody knew about AI socialization, to some degree, but she hadn¡¯t realized they would¡­ gossip about people. It seemed strange at first, but the more she thought about it, the more it made a certain kind of sense. AIs didn¡¯t really have the same priorities as humans, or any living creature for that matter, but the ones that Kaytri let stick around all had some sort of prioritization of human happiness and well-being. So they had plenty of motive to share information about individual people, tracking them through multiple activities to more effectively categorize and approach them. Slowly unspooling that train of thought in her mind, Alex got to the process of waking up for real and getting ready for her day.
A few minutes later, while she was stirring a cup of tea in the kitchen, Ell came wandering out of her room, bleary-eyed and clearly surprised to see her for a second. ¡°Oh. I kinda expected you to be already in the game or out of here.¡± Alex put down the stirring spoon and took a sip of the tea. ¡°On another day, maybe. But I asked you to stay over. And am also currently processing an existential crisis about the nature of nonhuman intelligence.¡± Ell¡¯s eyebrows wrinkled, and they looked at her, worried. ¡°Uh. Is that good?¡± She just shrugged. ¡°Would you like me to make you something? I tend not to eat breakfast, myself, but this is unexpected for you.¡± ¡°It¡¯s almost lunchtime anyways.¡± ¡°Is that a no?¡± ¡°It¡¯s a ¡®how do you feel about waiting an hour, then getting lunch before class?¡¯¡± Alex smiled. ¡°Sounds good to me.¡± As she brought the tea back up to take another sip of it, she noticed Hasanat coming into the kitchen from behind Ell and schooled her face to careful neutrality. Whatever happened, it was likely to be a lot funnier if she didn¡¯t give the game away. ¡°Hey, Alex, who¡­¡± Hasanat froze for a moment as Ell turned around, eyes locked on to their face. Slowly, she raised her hand, pointing back and forth between the two of them. ¡°You¡­ Ell¡­ Alex!¡± she sounded scandalized, and Alex was glad for the cup blocking her face and keeping her housemate from seeing the grin on her face. She quirked an eyebrow to respond. ¡°What? They¡¯re plenty hot, right?¡± Hasanat¡¯s face went through too many emotions to track. ¡°That¡¯s so not the problem here! Ell, I¡¯m so sorry about her. If she said it was a one-night-stand, I¡¯m serious, she meant it, please please please tell me you didn¡¯t just agree to whatever she said without thinking about it.¡± Ell turned around to face Alex again, and something about her must have given away what she was doing, because Ell¡¯s face lit up, then immediately went back to a neutral confusion as they turned back to Hasanat. ¡°I thought about it pretty carefully, honestly. Parts of it were weird, but¡­¡± The noise she made sounded like a question that she couldn¡¯t think of the words to, then Hasanat¡¯s hands formed into fists in front of her shoulders, moving down as she closed her eyes and took a breath. ¡°I don¡¯t want to hear about the sex! Alex, seriously, why! Don¡¯t have sex with my friends!¡± Ell shook their head, but Hasanat wasn¡¯t looking at them, as she stomped towards where Alex was standing¡­ and also looked genuinely hurt. Alex pulled the cup out of the way of her face before responding. ¡°Now hold on, hold on! We didn¡¯t actually! We were just messing with you!¡± That pulled her up short, but the obvious look over to Ell was enough that Alex could tell that she didn¡¯t believe that immediately. Their quick nodding almost looked painful. ¡°Seriously! Nothing happened. Well, some things happened, but nothing like that!¡± ¡°Why are you here then?¡± Alex cut in before Ell could answer that. ¡°They were helping me with a couple of things, some in Rune, some in class. I asked them to stay over, and they agreed. It was almost three AM anyways, by the time we got to bed, so we thought that waking you up about it would have been rude.¡± Alex could see her calming down, even though Ell shot her a confused look over Hasanat¡¯s shoulder. It was very much a ¡°technically true¡± sort of explanation, laying a lot of the blame for the situation at her feet instead of theirs. ¡°That¡­ makes sense.¡± It looked like the words were hard to get out, and she could see her housemate¡¯s eyes scanning every inch of her face, looking for anything out of place. Carefully keeping her face neutral, Alex decided on her defusal method. ¡°We were going to go get something to eat in a bit, before we head to class. Want to join us? My treat.¡± Hasanat¡¯s eyes darted towards Ell, still standing behind her, and then back to Alex. ¡°Oh. Um. I suppose. Sorry?¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry about it.¡± Webs 3: Favors ¡°What was that?¡± Alex looked at me out of the corner of her eye, sitting in the passenger seat of my car as we headed to school. I¡¯d thought that her inviting Hasanat with us had been some sort of ploy that I hadn¡¯t had the wherewithal to understand, but Alex hadn¡¯t exactly done much with the opportunity, just asked us a few questions and accidentally got us talking about our high school marching band days, which had led into topic after topic. Hasanat and I had been friends for ages, and it had been all too easy to leave Alex out when she hadn¡¯t made an effort to be included in the conversation. ¡°What was what? I don¡¯t really know what you¡¯re talking about.¡± I scoffed. ¡°That conversation. I thought there was a reason you brought her with us?¡± I could hear her take a breath, leaving a long pause in the air. ¡°There was, but it¡¯s complicated.¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­ kinda emulating you in dealing with Vegas.¡± I said. She rolled her fingers against the door, just under the window, a few times, and for a minute I thought that she hadn¡¯t understood what I was getting at, but she spoke before I could figure out how to continue. ¡°Three parts. One, she was genuinely bothered by the idea that I¡¯d slept with you. A little strange, because she didn¡¯t mind nearly as much with some of her less-close friends, but that¡¯s maybe to be expected. A little bit not, because with them I was trying to have an actual relationship, which seems to me like a whole lot more worth being bothered about, but whatever. Poking at that when I knew the behavior would bother her was insensitive, and that part was genuine apology. ¡°Two was a little complicated. Backing out of the conversation like I did is usually seen as ¡®ceding ground¡¯, in a way, if she¡¯s interested in you as something other than a friend. She knows that I¡¯m poly and that I usually encourage my partners to have other partners, so I think it¡¯s kinda dumb to begin with. But a lot of¡­ monogamous people tend to find that display of submission to be reassuring, and it costs me nothing but the opportunity to have a conversation with you¨C something we have plenty of other times to have.¡± I interjected there. ¡°We¡¯re not dating, though?¡± ¡°I know that. It¡¯s not about the truth, it¡¯s about the image she had in her head¨C among other things, I don¡¯t actually do one-night-stands anymore.¡± I felt my eyes narrowing slightly. ¡°All of this assuming she¡¯s interested in me.¡± I could hear her shrug, next to me. ¡°It¡¯s a reasonable assumption, but it could just as easily be friend-jealousy. Which, fundamentally, doesn¡¯t change the ideas at play¨C making a show at lesser ¡®status¡¯ is a decent way to deal with what she was feeling at the time. If and or when we hang out more, I would engage with your conversation a little bit more, steer it in the directions we all share instead of the ones that just you two do.¡± I felt a twinge of something strange and had to chase down and corner the thought in my head before I put it together. ¡°Wait, hold on, you did that on purpose?¡± ¡°Yes?¡± Alex asked, seeming confused. I didn¡¯t really have a response to that except to file it under ¡®Learn to be more subtle, Ell¡¯ and move on. ¡°And the third thing?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not really comfortable being the center of attention, so I was trying to shed that.¡± I had to control my reaction to that, but I was certain that she¡¯d at least caught some of it before I managed it. Her? Not wanting to be the center of attention? It sounded insane¨C at first. But it lined up with the things I¡¯d been learning and recontextualizing around her. Still¡­ ¡°Being the center of attention is kinda the whole point of what I¡¯m doing, though.¡± Alex turned to me, a stiff half-smile on her face. ¡°Emulating me is pretty good at that.¡± I thought about it for a second, but I was completely lost. ¡°I¡­ Can you explain that a little?¡± ¡°If you¡¯re going to be paid attention to either way, it¡¯s better if it¡¯s for good¨C or at least impressive¨C things, than it is if it¡¯s for bad ones.¡± ¡°And if nobody does pay attention to you?¡± There was another long period of silence. ¡°If no one pays attention¡­ I don¡¯t know. I¡¯ll let you know if it ever happens.¡±
After class, I was fairly quick to get back into the game, loading in to the city Deyana had been in first and immediately heading towards the teleportation station, picking up another disguise on the way. It wasn¡¯t my best field, but I had had some practice pretending to be other people. It would have been much more convenient to teleport invisibly, but I knew perfectly well that the NPC security measures around it would likely make that even more conspicuous than just walking in as myself. While I had thought about it, Alex and I had decided against using any of her three remaining uses of |Merge|-¨C all of which we had placed together¨C on items designed around sneaking. Instead, we¡¯d put them on the barrel of a rifle and on the inside of an armor plate in addition to the orb, trying to give me the ability to make something of a variety of items without explicitly making it clear that we¡¯d prepared them in advance. If you come across this story on Amazon, it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. Once I¡¯d cleared the teleportation room, I made quick time towards a shop, quickly changing out of my disguise and leaving it as though I¡¯d just appeared there from a login, spending another quarter-hour looking around as though sightseeing. The city was impressive enough to be worth that in reality, let alone an alternative where the laws of physics could be overcome by a single bored worker on the equivalent of minimum wage, but I was able to catch what I was looking for within the first five¨C they¡¯d assigned the tails. It was still a couple of hours before I was supposed to meet with anyone, but that was part of the point. Alex had pointed out that I needed to make my presence seem more realistic, particularly in wandering around, to help the cover story. Someone genuinely interested in moving to the area would be interested in the sights first, then the area generally, instead of being bound up in guild dealings exclusively. While that didn¡¯t match up with my personal experience much, hindsight made that seem more than a little strange. I¡¯d seen plenty of people move to the area, and almost every single one of them had gone through a similar process. Finally, I was able to push past the guild recruiters outside the Runewriters¡¯ Guild, rent a room, and cut myself off from the public. "Honestly, you almost had me.¡± The voice was sweet, as casual a statement as I¡¯d ever heard, and also coming from inside the room I¡¯d rented. I spun to face it, aware even as I did that I wouldn¡¯t be able to actually fight its owner if she decided to solve the problem with violence. ¡°Joy. I didn¡¯t expect you to be here.¡± Facing her didn¡¯t exactly help much. She was wearing a dress cut so low she was almost spilling out of it, so short that sitting with one leg over the other threatened a flash of whatever was under it, and tight enough that I could see the thin line around her stomach where she clearly had a band under the dress in what must have been the outfit¡¯s single concession to practicality. Not that I had any illusions about the scenario¨C I would have put money on it being the most heavily enchanted single piece of normal-looking clothing I¡¯d ever seen actually worn. She smiled, and I found myself instantly running through exactly why she was such a huge threat to me again in a vain attempt to keep my guard up. ¡°You didn¡¯t have any reason to.¡± I leaned back onto the main table, putting one hand behind my back and summoning my bound PvP knife to it. It wasn¡¯t likely to do much if it came to a fight, given the level difference between the two of us, but I didn¡¯t want to go out without fighting back at all. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t say no reason. I¡¯m honestly a little surprised there were only four tails.¡± I¡¯d only seen three, but it was probably safe to assume I hadn¡¯t seen whichever one Luck¡¯s Shadow sent. Joy laughed; a musical tinkling must have been rehearsed until it sounded spontaneous. ¡°I¡¯d hardly call it a tail. It was just a couple of good guesses off a tip and one bit of history.¡± ¡°I worked with Novsha; I¡¯d hardly call that a guess.¡± ¡°Reasonable, I suppose. Ultimately what gave your game away, but reasonable.¡± I hesitated, staring at her to very little avail in determining what exactly she thought they¡¯d figured out. ¡°What game would that be, exactly?¡± ¡°One of the classics.¡± Joy flipped her hand over where it was on the table next to her, lifting it slightly and summoning a cup, upside down on the table. ¡°It usually is, with people who are new to this.¡± Two more cups quickly joined the first on the table next to her, and she summoned a small ball in her hand¨C a show of intentional vulnerability so obvious that it couldn¡¯t be anything but faked¨C I assumed that that all four items took, at most, two binds, with runes on the part of the cups that I couldn¡¯t see. ¡°Not that the woman behind Novsha is new to this. A little too experienced, or I wouldn¡¯t have bothered to look so hard. The shell game is one of the classics, and everybody with a lick of sense knows that the ball gets tucked into the hand.¡± She lifted the ball she held, looking me in the eyes as it disappeared between us, her grin shifting from an uncomplicated amusement to something verging on schadenfreude. ¡°Assuming, of course, that we take it the way it¡¯s clearly meant to be understood. Novsha is perfectly happy to, underneath the first cup, place three more.¡± She lifted the cup next to her, three copies of it appearing underneath, and placed it back down on top, forming a pyramid. ¡°Underneath the second, the ball.¡± Joy lifted the second cup, showing the ball that had disappeared, ¡°And under the third, nothing at all.¡± She lifted it, showing the empty table beneath. Silence fell for a moment, her grin not faltering for a moment to my silence. Five seconds later, she shook her head. ¡°But we live in a world of science and play in a world of magic. So instead¡­¡± she lifted the middle cup, showing the ball that had been there before, and ran her other hand underneath it¡­ passing through the visible ball. Then, she picked up the third¨C the one that apparently hadn¡¯t had anything under it¨C and tapped the bottom. A ball fell out, clacking against the table and rolling onto the ground. Joy leaned back, placing her hands at her sides again. ¡°Of course, I¡¯m simplifying somewhat. You might be the second cup in this analogy, but in the first you look like the hand.¡± ¡°If you¡¯re going to do your grand reveal with all the guilds, thanks for the warning, I guess.¡± She laughed, this time much less of that tinkling fa?ade and much more obviously sinister ¡°Oh, if I were going to do that, I would have just done so at the big meeting today. No, you and I are going to have a different agreement. Three favors for three favors¨C my favorite deal to make.¡± I sighed. ¡°And I supposed your first to me is not telling anyone that you think I don¡¯t have the rune?¡± She scoffed. ¡°Hardly. That¡¯s not a favor at all, given that¨C as things stand¨C you¡¯d be perfectly able to string them along, balancing the guilds against each other for weeks with no problems whatsoever. No, our first trade of favors is that I buy some of the work you brought with you, give you the capital to actually develop during your time here, and you help me by¨C with a little encouragement from us, of course¨C doing the thing you came here to do in the first place.¡± Joy suddenly swept her arm through the six cups on the table, throwing them all to the ground. ¡°You help me by making a mess.¡± Pileup 27: Forward I managed to progress the quest last night. On the bright side, the next part is pretty clear. The response was surprisingly quick in coming. I assume what it is asking for is something that would generally be considered impossible? How did you know ?? This time, the pause was much longer. It¡¯s possible I¡¯m just learning the way you talk about things Possible? I hope so~ ¡­ Are you being this flirty on purpose or is this just how you text? Who knows???? (bit of both) Actually for-real cannot see any way to do it impossible or just definitely nobody has done it before and it does not make any sense impossible? Alex had to think about that for a second. It wasn¡¯t really a question she¡¯d thought to ask herself originally, because her resources were so limited, but¡­ Doesn¡¯t make sense impossible. Significant contribution to a world boss. Oh I¡¯m just worried that we¡¯re still in the first half of the quest A reasonable concern, but we will get to it when we get to it. You can still back out, you know Lynn¡¯s response was much slower in coming, and Alex almost let her insecurities get the better of her for a moment, a second message begging her not to leave written and deleted three times before the response came. I know. I do not want to. The second arrived moments later, before Alex could even really process that. I have an idea. You will not like it. Still, the excuse was welcome. Now you¡¯re stealing my lines too? doom. despair.
She¡¯d been joking when she responded, but the fact that Lynn had categorically refused to explain whatever her plan was and insisted on speaking in-game, face-to-face about it made Alex more and more sure that Lynn hadn¡¯t been. Especially because, instead of meeting in the sort of place she¡¯d expected, Lynn had sent her a set of instructions for getting to a player¡¯s house¨C more than that, one she didn¡¯t recognize, in a place she¡¯d never heard of. Not that it was entirely hard to get to; a simple train ride, taking her to the outer city (One with a level curve that spiked in the seventies, moving into the hundred-tens a few miles into the nearby mountain range¨C a level range that would draw a ton of guild attention if it weren¡¯t for the fact that it was also incredibly easy to die, with undocumented area bosses into the hundred-fifties, enormous home-field advantage, unstable ground, and shockingly low portal appearance rate.), followed by a bus to a smaller house. Fully player-owned, by the look of it, which meant that whoever this was was fairly high level, as well. And she¡¯d never heard of them. ¡°Faycez¡± was the listed name, pronounced not like ¡°faces¡± but ¡°Fay-says¡±. Whoever they were, they¡¯d taken great pains to make their house not stand out on the largely NPC block, only the HUD and menu meaningfully distinguishing it to Deyana¡¯s eyes. Walking up to the door, she knocked on it lightly, while simultaneously sending a message to Geria that she¡¯d arrived. From inside, a man¡¯s voice was quick to respond. ¡°Hold on a second!¡± The thumping of dozens of books onto the ground, moderate cursing, smash of glass, major cursing, and slam of a door very much did not ease her feelings of trepidation. The man who opened the door was tall. That was her first impression of him, overwhelming everything else as she found herself looking significantly up from where she was, probably a little too close to the door. When she did, wide, cobalt-blue eyes framed by messy black hair distracted her enough that she didn¡¯t manage to catch anything he said, needing to take a moment to steady herself. She corralled herself into a response quickly enough, though not so much so that she could piece his words together. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I missed that?¡± He blinked, then backed up slightly, leaning on the open door. ¡°Oh, right. I¡¯m Faycez. I don¡¯t know how much Geria told you¡­¡± His voice was a high baritone, smooth as aged cider and deeply distracting. Deyana sighed, pushing it out of her thoughts. ¡°Basically nothing. She thinks I¡¯m going to hate whatever her plan is, and I don¡¯t necessarily think she¡¯s wrong.¡± Unauthorized use: this story is on Amazon without permission from the author. Report any sightings. He tilted his head, looking confused. ¡°Plan..? Well. I never thought her the sneaky type, though I never really can tell. Either way, come in. You are Deyana, yes?¡± He¡¯d stepped out of the way by the time she started moving, nodding to him in the process. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s me. Are you a live-in?¡± He hummed, closing the door behind her and activating an extensive set of runes, only visible on the inside. His second touch, just above the baseboard, was striking¨C all around the room, unbroken by a hallway, several rooms she could see around the living room/kitchen, and large amounts of furniture, a single interwoven line of traced runes looped around the house before coming back to the door. ¡°Not in the traditional sense; I¡¯m more of a lore finder. Mostly. I¡¯ve been studying Olympia, recently.¡± Deyana blinked. ¡°I thought that was a myth?¡± Faycez¡¯s grin grew quickly, in spite of his obvious attempt to hide it. ¡°Would you believe I did as well? But check this¨C¡° He made a quick series of hand gestures, ending with two fingers held up, palm in, and changing to a full-hand point away from him. The buzzing in her ears was intense enough that she braced for an attack¨C And a tiny jet of fire flew about a yard from his hand before flaring out. ¡°Was that casting?¡± Deyana squeaked, but Faycez was already shaking his head. ¡°No, that was programmatics, name pending. I was finally able to dig up some of the Olympia documentation,¡± Deyana made a note in her head to ask about that¨C the mythical ancient anti-monster system had documentation? ¡°and I was able to translate enough of it to have a fighting chance at using some. It¡¯s not really useful yet¨C that little spat of nothing costs six hundred mana. Here, where it¡¯s way stronger than most places already.¡± A thumping sound came from down the hallway they were standing next to, followed by a woman¡¯s voice that she didn¡¯t recognize. ¡°Fay, you bastard, wait to tell them everything until after we get what they¡¯re offering!¡± Deyana looked down the hall, and, not seeing anyone, called out. ¡°I¡¯m not going to run out on you two, unless something really goes wrong. Anything from Geria comes with a pretty high recommendation on it, right now.¡± She lowered her voice, turning back to Faycez. ¡°I¡¯m surprised you¡¯re not with the Keepers or Lightseekers. They¡¯d kill for info like that.¡± His grimace in response told her that it might not have been the best response, but he quickly sighed and went back to a neutral face. ¡°I used to be a Lightseeker, but they ban anyone who brings up Olympia without hard proof. And¡­¡± He lowered his voice to a whisper, bending down to her level so she could hear him better. ¡°The Keepers don¡¯t really have anything to do for fighters, and I didn¡¯t want to leave Symphir alone.¡± ¡°Why would¨C¡± Deyana was interrupted by the door at the end of the hallway slammed open, revealing a woman who couldn¡¯t have been more than five foot for a fraction of a second before a scrawling of runes on the outer edge of the stile flashed, bringing the door to a stop before the knob hit the wall. As it did, a bar of solid-looking light clobbered the woman over the head and sent her stumbling into the opposite wall. ¡°Fay, goddamnit, did you fucking trap my door?¡± Faycez turned, blinking, and watched her curiously. His voice was calm, but with an obvious tinge of humor to it. ¡°It would only go off if someone slammed it open in a way that would otherwise damage it. Again. I¡¯d expected to wait at least a week before you set it off.¡± The woman started stalking towards them, and Deyana very quickly found herself staring above her head at Geria, both of them blushing slightly. The woman¨C Symphir, she guessed¨C was stalking towards Deyana and Faycez, wearing an obviously high-impact sports bra and compression shorts that did absolutely nothing to hide her obvious muscles or the fact that she was stacked. They weren¡¯t typically the first things she noticed about women, but Alex knew that even her self-control had limits. Limits low enough that she found herself sending ¡®muscles¡¯ to Geria, receiving quick, wide-eyed nods in return. Symphir stopped, and Deyana slipped her eyes back to her, looking down slightly to make eye contact as the other woman pulled off her strange combination of padded half-fingered, elbow-length gloves. ¡°So you¡¯re the one Geria said knew some secret bullshit. Secret for a secret.¡± Deyana swallowed, finally putting together the pieces. ¡°You¡¯re a hand-to-hand fighter, right? Probably having a tough time with getting the right gear to boost yourself.¡± ¡°Health-specialized hand-to-hand fighter. I haven¡¯t been able to find jack.¡± Deyana didn¡¯t quite manage to hold in her initial response¨C she laughed, helpless. ¡°I can do something about that, if you need. Indie runewriter, at your service, and one who¡¯s got an understanding of what you actually need, too. It¡¯ll be pretty involved, and probably hurt a bit.¡± Symphir¡¯s challenging look morphed into a bit of a glare. ¡°Health-specialized. No shit.¡± ¡°I meant¨C¡± Deyana stopped herself with a small shake. ¡°Tattoos. Runic tattoos. I¡¯m frankly shocked your last guild didn¡¯t know that¡¯s what you needed.¡± The other woman¡¯s head leaned back, and she made a ¡®why¡¯ gesture at the ceiling. ¡°That¡­ absolutely makes sense. That seems¡­ a bit obvious, for them not bringing it up.¡± Deyana shrugged. ¡°There¡¯s a lot of downsides to it. It hurts, for one. Designing it is going to be a lot of work, and re-designing it¡­ well. It does literally involve basically skinning you alive. A little it at a time, with healing in between, but still.¡± Symphir froze in place for a second, then shuddered lightly, though the look on her face was much less bothered than Deyana would ordinarily have expected. Her voice got a lot softer as she spoke again. ¡°Yeah, okay. The crafters I was working with would¡­ probably not have been okay doing that. You¡¯d do it?¡± Geria locked eyes with her again, then flicked them over towards what was for her the wall, and what was for Deyana the couches in the front room. ¡°How about we all sit down? Geria told me to come here for a conversation, and I can¡¯t imagine this is on accident.¡± ¡°It is not,¡± Geria said, walking up behind Symphir. ¡°Though it is much more complicated than this exchange.¡± They moved to the couches, Deyana ending up in the corner, Geria on her left and Faycez on her right, though the latter was at a right angle. At a motion from Deyana, Geria continued. ¡°We need your help for something.¡± Symphir snorted. ¡°Yeah, thought so. But it ain¡¯t like you¡¯ve got the guild anymore, so¡­¡± ¡°That is true, but¨C¡± ¡°Nothing to offer, nothing to gain. I got you here, sure, but sticking our neck out¨C¡± Deyana cut in. ¡°Let her finish.¡± The look Symphir gave her could have cut granite, but she did go quiet long enough to let Geria speak. ¡°There is a lot of difficulty here. Obviously. But we are not asking you to stick your neck out, we are offering a trade of one-time service for one-time service.¡± Symphir opened her mouth to respond, but Faycez put a hand on her shoulder and shook his head. ¡°What service would that be?¡± ¡°From us to you¨C Deyana helps you design and inscribe a set of runic tattoos for Symphir, including a use of her, currently unique, rune.¡± ¡°I¡¯d need to destroy an item with it.¡± Deyana said, quickly, and Geria titled her head, but nodded. ¡°From you to us¨C we need your help to cast a spell.¡± Pileup 28: Dealings ¡°I¡¯m not so na?ve as to believe that your position on its viability has changed.¡± Faycez said, tone meticulously even. ¡°Which means that there¡¯s some other set of circumstances in play.¡± Geria nodded, slowly. ¡°For general purposes, it absolutely has not.¡± The word was spoken with a lot more vitriol than Deyana had expected from her. ¡°Even for boss-killing, the time involved with the creation of inscriptions on the fly is far too much of an investment for it to be worth it¡­ or, more importantly, safe. All of which to say that I have a much more positive view of it than most; there is a situation where it may be the best solution.¡± Faycez¡¯s single raised eyebrow didn¡¯t give much away, but the tightening of his hand on Symphir¡¯s shoulder and her angry lean forward were much more informative. ¡°Oh?¡± Geria just bowled through it, though. ¡°World bosses. Far enough out that things can be prepared from a¡­ relatively safe distance, with a team protecting the crafters. Predictable enough that we can be certain to be in its path. Powerful enough that a hundred meter square enchantment would not be wasted. It would¡­ I think I will not be changing my mind on the efficacy of use in exploration, but for this? It is useful.¡± Faycez blinked, then titled his head as a slow, slight smile worked its way onto his face. ¡°Your assessment may change after you see what I need to show you for that. What you¡¯re asking for¡­ ritual magic¡­ it shows up in some of the Olympian-era scraps. A lot of people have spent a lot of time trying to replicate it. It¡¯s¡­ both simpler and much more difficult than people think. I assume you¡¯ll be powering it?¡± ¡°I was under the impression that nobody else would be able to,¡± Geria said, ¡°Though the way you phrased that makes me think it may not be the case.¡± ¡°I did the math on this a few months ago. It needs a pure mana-specialized person at least level one-fifty to even stand a chance at powering one of those, and even that is¡­ We make the mana storage rune first, then you pump that while the rest of the crafting happens around you.¡± ¡°Ah. I will be powering it, then.¡± Deyana stepped in. ¡°We do have other people helping, but one-fifty is pretty high-level. And you know that pure mana specialization is pretty rare.¡± Symphir looked annoyed again, but Faycez just laughed. ¡°For good reason! Especially at low levels. I think I¡¯ve figured out why the devs have been so quiet about everything, and¨C¡± ¡°Okay, no sharing the secrets of the universe before we even do one deal! So, y¡¯all are going to get me a rune setup, great. What¡¯s in it for him?¡± Faycez turned slightly to look at Symphir. ¡°This is a fairly good deal¨C¡± ¡°The purple¡¯s nice, yeah. But we both know you could do the tattoos, now that we¡¯re keyed onto it.¡± He made a face. ¡°I could. I¡¯d need to do quite a bit of research¨C¡± ¡°There¡¯s only two big things,¡± Deyana said. With the way he was talking, he didn¡¯t seem terribly likely to back out of the deal, which left her feeling it was better to show expertise than conceal a tiny bit of information. ¡°Still, might be harder to find than I¡¯d like. And I suspect that Deyana here has a much better idea of what we actually need to do for you. Those alone are worth hours.¡± ¡°But you¡¯re¨C¡± ¡°I would be doing this either way, so¡­¡± Geria sighed. ¡°What do you want, for him? We cannot even discuss a request that does not exist.¡± Symphir went quiet for a second. ¡°It¡¯s tempting to ask for a generic favor, but we do have something.¡± Faycez scoffed. ¡°If you don¡¯t want me to give away the secrets of the universe, that¡¯s a poor choice of trade.¡± ¡°Where the hell else are we going to find high-level support? We¡¯re sure as fuck not going to the guilds.¡± Deyana shook her head. There was obviously much more to this pair than she¡¯d been thinking, but it wasn¡¯t terribly relevant. ¡°This is going to be a lot of work, and we don¡¯t get to schedule the boss, so I¡¯d like to have it done as soon as possible. Geria, do you think he¡¯d agree?¡± ¡°Yes.¡± ¡°Then sure. Mutually assured destruction means I¡¯d prefer to tell us where whatever this thing is is, but I can understand if you don¡¯t.¡± Geria¡¯s message came almost immediately after she finished speaking, without a hint that she¡¯d been accessing her interface. ¡®Are you sure about this? It¡¯s pretty far in their favor.¡¯ ¡®With what Faycez has been saying? 10:1 he¡¯s finally found the world plot.¡¯ ¡®It has been a year since something big has turned up, I suppose¡­¡¯ The other two must have been conferring in a very similar way, because all four were silent for a while. Finally, Symphir nodded, and Faycez spoke. ¡°Let¡¯s get started, then. I¡¯ve got tools in the back.¡± He stood, walking towards the hallway that Symphir had come out from, heading to the room next door to it instead. When he opened the door (a process that involved him touching three different places on the door and activating runes¨C link runes, which, combined with the fact that the opposite side of the door didn¡¯t have any visible inscription led Deyana to think that whatever those three sets were, they were on the inside of the door.) it revealed a room that, besides the much smaller testing space and lack of a materials store, put the Runewriter¡¯s Guild to shame. This novel is published on a different platform. Support the original author by finding the official source. Several workbenches were scattered around the outside of the room, many covered in obviously in-progress projects on a variety of materials. The real shock, to Deyana, was how few of them were anything that could be considered combat-oriented. One set of wood panels that looked suspiciously like a disassembled door, one metal tube under a strange contraption she¡¯d only seen twice before, that would allow the runewriter a much greater degree of control over their motions than could be achieved with merely steady hands. The collection of multiple styles of geometric implements, stencils of several runes (likely those the two were specialized in), and a cutting machine next to a workstation with four monitors left little doubt as to this being one of the things he focused on in the game. Less sensible, though, was what appeared to be something close to an entire chemistry set connecting one large barrel hanging at about head height to another on the floor, going through a series of steps she couldn¡¯t even begin to guess at. Actively running, too¨C some sort of flow chemistry that she couldn¡¯t begin to guess at. Faycez waved his hand as he walked to the computer. ¡°Don¡¯t mind the mess, please. I¡¯ve been distracted on other things, lately.¡± Stepping over to it herself, taking note of the drawing tablet and highly runed hand scanner attached to the computer, Deyana clicked her tongue. ¡°I¡¯ve been messier than this, and I¡¯m in the seventies.¡± Geria, meanwhile, walked past them both to stare at the chemistry thing. Faycez chuckled. ¡°Haven¡¯t we all? Are you specialized in this purple of yours?¡± ¡°I am.¡± He didn¡¯t even pause, just grabbed the scanner and pointed it at her. It beeped, and she saw |Merge| appear on the screen, along with some of the details she¡¯d discovered about it, though significant sections of the notes that appeared were more scrambled messes than anything useful. Faycez quickly highlighted those sections, deleting and replacing them with ¡°n/a¡± or ¡°unknown¡± about as fast as Deyana was able to pick them out. ¡°You know, when I built this she claimed I was being ridiculous about fault tolerances.¡± From behind her, Deyana heard Symphir scoff. ¡°It was ridiculous! Half the credits we had went into this thing. And I know you can manually input that!¡± ¡°We¡¯re doing her part first, right?¡± Faycez nodded. ¡°Hey, Symph. Privacy settings.¡± For a moment, the only sound in the room were the operation sounds of the computer. ¡°I forgot she''d need that.¡± Deyana turned to look at Symphir, who looked surprisingly conflicted about that for barely wearing any clothes, and raised an eyebrow. ¡°I doubt there¡¯s anything I haven¡¯t seen before. Unless you somehow convinced the AI of something really strange.¡± The other girl smiled, wanly, then shook her head. ¡°No, it¡¯s just. Trans.¡± Deyana found herself nodding along. ¡°Well, that makes sense.¡± ¡°Excuse me?¡± ¡°Well, your body shape¡­¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°Um. It¡¯s just¨C¡± Deyana found herself cut off by Faycez¡¯s cackling laughter as he stopped working. ¡°Oh my god. I told you!¡± ¡°It¡¯s not my fault!¡± Symphir responded, visibly reddening. ¡°The¡­ I¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s shockingly close to her real-life body, Deyana. She didn¡¯t really take advantage of any the many, many ways to be less conspicuous that I recommended. Like shrinking those damn things!¡± Symphir was just getting redder, and Deyana decided to throw her a line. ¡°Hmm. Then I suppose it¡¯s good to know about every bit of extra external surface area, but I do hope we don¡¯t need to use it. Unless, of course, you want something specific there?¡± Maybe a weighted line. Symphir didn¡¯t even respond verbally, turning to face the wall, but the friend request she received immediately afterwards told Deyana that it at least hadn¡¯t been too far. It made sense to her; it was much easier to manage individual privacy settings from the friends list than directly in the privacy menus, but if she¡¯d been insulted by that Symphir definitely could have done so. She accepted without a moment of hesitation, turning back to Faycez¡¯s screen as he finished up the work with |Merge|, obviously trying to hold back laughter. Poorly. ¡°I assume you have a scan of her for armor already?¡± He pressed a key, quickly typed something, and a CAD-like view of Symphir¡¯s body, wearing what appeared to be her standard armor loadout, appeared on the center monitor. He quickly split it off, leaving her body in the center and moving each piece of armor and weaponry to the other three monitors, each one labelled with a summary of what each rune group did. ¡°It does help to have, but I imagine I¡¯m going to be redoing large parts of it.¡± Deyana shrugged, leaning in to look over Faycez¡¯s shoulder, reading off the descriptions of the different items. ¡°Can you unroll her? Label the parts, too.¡± Symphir¡¯s near-whisper of ¡°Unroll?¡± went summarily ignored. ¡°It¡¯ll take me a second. The model¡¯s not built for that.¡± ¡°At least he knows what it means, apparently.¡± ¡°That should not be terribly surprising¡± Geria murmured, closer to Deyana than she¡¯d remembered. ¡°I need to read what she¡¯s used to anyw¨C¡± Deyana found herself interrupted by a stool smacking into the back of her legs, causing her to fall back into it. ¡°Thanks, Geria. If it¡¯s something she¡¯s too unused to it¡¯ll just throw her off. Probably worth learning. What¡¯s she specialized in?¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you ask me?¡± Symphir said, sounding annoyed. Deyana didn¡¯t check, absorbed in reading the effects of the armor she¡¯d been using. It was insane. ¡°Probably. If you¡¯d share, I need to know what you¡¯re specialized in and what your goals are primarily, with a secondary focus on what you think we should export to the armor. The stuff on your skin is going to be relatively cheaper, but it¡¯s going to tingle to use. It¡¯s not terrible, but you¡¯re going to notice.¡± Self-repairing. Strength-increasing bound to the limbs¨C especially near where they connected to the ball joint¨C and lower torso, with durability much more spread out, needing to be duplicated to the armor itself. No healing, which would usually be a bit strange, but the health-focus of its wearer would have made that a waste. It took her a while to find how she was dealing with more elemental attacks, at least until she got to the strange ribbon she¡¯d seen working its way around the body. The actual runes were almost too tightly packed to understand, and she ended up deferring to the explanation instead. Each type of energy, it stated, would be absorbed, triggering a timed logic flag, then go through a series of transformations down the back side of the ribbon to turn purely physical energies into mana. An extremely lossy process, it would then spend that mana to increase its wearer¡¯s durability against that energy type by linking to the underclothes, combining with some of the user''s mana at the same time¨C actually, mostly the user¡¯s mana, in a different ratio for each different energy¡­ She didn¡¯t understand it immediately, needing to trace the whole setup again a few times before she finally figured it out. ¡°It¡¯s adaptive! It¡¯s too small to absorb all the energy, and that¡¯s a percentage¡­¡± Deyana paused, then turned to face Symphir. ¡°I¡¯m very sorry. I got distracted.¡± Symphir sighed, a complicated look on her face. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Crafters¡­ it should have been obvious. Can you pay attention to me now?¡± Deyana didn¡¯t even try to hide her smile. ¡°One could argue I was! But um. Yes. Let¡¯s go over your list.¡± Pileup 29: Perceptions ¡°My list?¡± Symphir sounded confused. ¡°I¡¯m not entirely sure what my list has to do with it. Fay¡¯s the one who came up with all the designs.¡± Deyana nodded. ¡°About what I expected, but I was talking about the list of things you absolutely wanted, all the time, regardless of whether you¡¯re armored up or not. It¡¯s also best to include anything that you¡¯re going to want a lot of, so that we can make it as efficient as possible. While you think of that, though, tell me your specializations.¡± Symphir blinked at her, silent for a moment, but before Deyana turned to Faycez to get the answer she started speaking, slowly. ¡°Durability major, for the first one¨C¡± Deyana cut in. ¡°Durability? Not Impart Durability?¡± The difference was relatively minor, in practice, but in the creation process would require her to think about it wildly differently. In most cases, [Impart Durability] was much preferred for its ability to apply durability for a duration, where [Durability] proper, in addition to having a lower baseline effect, required a constant trickle of mana to maintain. Still, [Durability] much more easily scaled up. ¡°Right. I ended up choosing it pretty early, before the Impart Durability was the clear favorite. We still thought it might be more rare than it is when I made the choice.¡± Deyana nodded. It meant she was a year-one player, then, which explained the level¨C even without guilds taking her into level hundred-thirty plus areas, Symphir would have been able to work her way to a decent level by fighting monsters below her level. And would have made far more credits than a typical player of her level in the process. ¡°Then {Spiritflame} is my second.¡± Deyana blew out a breath, amused. Much like {Manifested Force}, {Spiritflame} was blue, and even then, rare within its tier. She knew it was drop-limited to some type of enemy, but she had little idea which. The fact that they¡¯d likely gotten two of them, one so that Symphir could specialize in it and another for Faycez to craft, was telling. ¡°Gave up on generics?¡± ¡°Yup.¡± Deyana just shook her head. ¡°Any ideas on what you¡¯re going to be setting as your one-fifty?¡± There was a long pause before she answered. ¡°I think I want to see what we¡¯re doing for the tattoos, first. I think the main thing is the durability. It hasn¡¯t happened often, but it¡¯s currently possible for my main durability on my armor to lose contact, which means I¡¯m suddenly a lot squishier than I should be.¡± Deyana leaned forward, thinking, and tapped a finger on her knee. ¡°I understand the purpose there, but would you be willing to keep the ribbon/underclothes combo? It¡¯s going to need adjusting to match the new level of baseline durability, but keeping that specifically reduces the load we need to place on your everything.¡± Symphir appeared to think about it for a few seconds, then nodded. ¡°That makes sense. I also want something that lets me attack, and something that helps me move faster.¡± Deyana felt her eyes gliding over to Faycez, then shook herself. They could buy it. ¡°How¡¯s your VR limit?¡± ¡°What?¡± She took a breath, steadying herself. ¡°I want to recommend a multiset [Accelerate Perception] for you, but it¡¯ll fuck with your VR limit, especially if your compression assist is high.¡± Symphir¡¯s eyes stared into the distance in that characteristic, navigating-menus way, then she blinked and met Deyana¡¯s eyes. ¡°I haven¡¯t really¡­ is three dash five point five high?¡± Deyana breathed a sigh of relief. ¡°Not really. It means that you don¡¯t get more than the basic help at all until things are moving at three times the speed of reality, and when it kicks in you spend almost twice the time you experience when it happens. If you don¡¯t hit your VR limits regularly¨C¡± ¡°I do hit it sometimes, but not that often.¡± ¡°Then it should only be notable in really heavy combat. A three means we can put you at time and a half pretty regularly without a major downside. If your VR limit is eight hours or longer¨C¡± ¡°It¡¯s close, but not quite.¡± Deyana stopped. ¡°Ah. I was going to recommend a ten percent accelerated baseline, but it should only activate when you expect combat, then.¡± Symphir stared at her for a second, then her eyes narrowed. ¡°You¡¯re not actually new.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not,¡± Deyana admitted. ¡°I was more of a fighter than a crafter, though.¡± ¡°What¡¯re those numbers for you? It¡¯s only fair.¡± She thought about it for a moment, but Deyana didn¡¯t really think the question was particularly out of line. She didn¡¯t really want to lie, either, which was inconvenient. Working her way through the thought process took her a moment, and she could see Symphir starting to wave off the question by the time she spoke up. ¡°Seventy-six by point-nine VR limit, and four-point-five dash six star seven-point-four dash fifty-six compression assist.¡± She could hear Faycez¡¯s clicking and typing freeze for a second, while Symphir¡¯s eyes went wide. Geria didn¡¯t react much, at least, her head tilting to the side and a tiny, amused smile overtaking her face. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, what the fuck?¡± Deyana forced herself to laugh, the sound hollow to her ears, but practiced enough that she knew it would sound natural. ¡°It¡¯s not like you were lied to about the things that increase it. Just do your meditation, go to new places, have new experiences¡­ and be mentally open to new things.¡± Symphir¡¯s eyes narrowed. ¡°And practice Concept?¡± Deyana shrugged. ¡°It can help, but that¡¯s mostly the meditation again. Intentional thought. Not thinking about the pink elephant stuff. I¡¯m decent at it, but can usually only manage a minute or two of intentional suppression without a distraction.¡± A ping on her interface carried Geria¡¯s message without it being spoken. ¡®You know perfectly well that most people cannot suppress a thought at all without redirection.¡¯ ¡®Yeah. Probably.¡¯ ¡°So, [Accelerate Perception]..?¡± Faycez¡¯s typing started back up, and Symphir seemed to shake off the surprise. ¡°Can I get more detail on it?¡± ¡°Sure! Now, this is more for you than the way I used it¨C¡± Symphir just waved her off. ¡°So we do it in a few parts. Instead of the constantly active one that I used, I¡¯d go for something with multiple triggers going through some logic: you¡¯ll be able to set it to one point one, one point two five, one point five, and six times the normal in-game perception of time, with a secondary trigger for if something approaches you at speed and no acceleration is active, dropping you straight into the six times when that happens.¡± ¡°The trigger makes sense. Sounds useful. Why the jump?¡± ¡°If you go above one point five, you start spending your time wildly faster anyways. Might as well make it so you can react to a bullet.¡± She got a skeptical look for that. ¡°Six times. React to a bullet.¡± Deyana just shrugged. ¡°It¡¯s not a lot of time, mind, but it makes them two or three times as fast as a baseball pitch. Relatively. Which, for a mental trigger like runes, is usually enough. Unless they kill you in the first shot. Which is¡­ more of a problem for PvP than PvE.¡± ¡°Okay. That makes sense. Is there anything else you¡¯re going to recommend that you didn¡¯t see on my armor?¡± Deyana nodded. ¡°Poise, though a stronger than typical version of it, and Increase Inertia if you two can afford Compensate Inertia as well.¡± Faycez cut in from behind her. ¡°I use Compensate Inertia to move things around here. I¡¯ve got it. Why Poise, when we¡¯re going to be upping her inertia already?¡± ¡°It¡¯s not about the inertia, it¡¯s about the balance. For a melee combatant, getting thrown off your feet really screws you over, especially if you¡¯re not getting flung away very much. Poise helps with that.¡± Neither Symphir nor Faycez seemed to disagree, so she moved on. ¡°So, my first thought is fairly simple: Increase Inertia, Durability, Strength, and Speed on a Merge is the flagship, here. We want those as big as possible, as strong as possible, so that¡¯s going on your torso where we can get the most effect out of it. Spaced correctly, I think we¡¯ll be able to make Merge¡¯s area of influence fail to reach your scalp, or part of it anyways, and if you make yourself bald for the tattooing and then have it grown back¡­¡± Symphir¡¯s murderous face made Deyana stumble, but when the shorter girl took a breath and nodded, Deyana found herself relaxing. ¡°It makes sense. I don¡¯t like it very much, but it makes sense.¡± ¡°On the upside, you¡¯ll have a secret weapon under your hair.¡± She scoffed, sounding amused. ¡°Not much of a weapon. I assume especially in relation to whatever you¡¯re planning for my lower arms and hands.¡± Deyana grimaced slightly, then tilted her head left and right in a motion that was neither yes nor no. ¡°The big issue is that we¡¯re going to need to place the Compensate Inertia runes around your elbows and lower thighs, so that they can avoid the big Merge group instead of fouling that up. You¡¯ve got pretty small hands, so I want to take advantage of that even more: an extra, zonal, increase to Inertia and Durability just above your wrists, then Impart Energy Kinetic merged with Spiritflame on your hands, let you punch into things and then fling them away.¡± If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation. Faycez turned around from where he was. ¡°Imparting on the target or on her?¡± Deyana thought for a moment, then shrugged. ¡°We¡¯re going to need to iron that out in testing.¡± Those weren¡¯t the only things they had to work out in testing, and there weren¡¯t a lot of items to do it with. Luckily, the fact that they were counted on a per-item basis instead of a per-rune basis would allow her to use a lot of them in Symphir¡¯s tattoos for the cost of the two discs that Geria hadn¡¯t been able to properly figure out how to use. That still left her with the fire and lightning ones, anyway, and those were plenty scary on their own. The real work of everything began when Symphir finally left to go get [Accelerate Perception], the supplies necessary for such extensive tattooing, and her head shaved. Deyana and Faycez finally dove head-first into balancing the locations, sizes, and settings of all the runes. While the program he had was an insane degree of overkill for anything she¡¯d made so far, Deyana had to admit that for a project like this one, it took a days-to-weeks-long project of dangerous trial and error down to an hours-long one of carefully lining up colored zones on the projected body and heated discussions about fault tolerances. Contrary to Deyana¡¯s expectations, slipping the [Durability] |Merge| [Poise] {Target: Self} group onto the lower back wasn¡¯t all that difficult, but placing some of the minor runes (particularly the {Storage: Mana} Faycez insisted on, for some ability to run without direct input) in places that didn¡¯t connect to the wrong major runes or have strange knock-on effects was much harder. Unfortunately for her expected timeframe, the idea she¡¯d had for [Impart Energy] with {Spiritflame} didn¡¯t work at all. She¡¯d assumed that Spiritflame was a type of energy, given its conceptual link to fire, but it seemed to work more like a pseudo-material; something that could be summoned but not particularly applied. Faycez was able to rescue her there, though: a rune she¡¯d very rarely thought about, [Wreathe], would (because of Symphir¡¯s specialization in {Spiritflame}) be able to both wrap her hands in the fire without injuring her. Using |Merge| to combine its effects with the reversed [Impart Durability], [Impart Fragility], quickly showed itself to be much more effective than the original idea had been, even. Some time in the middle of the planning phase, Don sent her a message about meeting up for the day, and Deyana told him that it was a crafting day, preparing for some upcoming action. She¡¯d thought about being more in-depth about things, but quickly realized that the thought was lying to herself¨C there was no way she was dragging her mind off of the task in front of her long enough to give him that proper response. Eventually, the planning and testing of various models came to an end, and it was time to finally, properly, apply everything. They were going to start with the [Accelerate Perception] group, Deyana using the runes she had for the controls and logic, then Faycez was going to do the work on Symphir¡¯s hands, the four [Compensate Inertia] runes, and the two {Storage: Mana} before leaving Deyana to do the bulk of the work. At the end, he would also need to add three [Speed] runes, but all of them would be being added to already active |Merge| groups and so didn¡¯t need to be immediately accessible. For that first hour and a half during which Faycez was working, the conversation was largely wrapped up in the practicalities of the situation. While the specific tools that he had on the walls and was using to mark out distances and relations were new to her, Deyana still had the advantage when it came to practical experience with runic tattoos, as well as the normal kind. Eventually, though, with the help of the incredibly accurately cut and shaped stencils from the cutter he had, they managed to get him through the planned crafting before he left the room to speak with Geria about the planned casting of the spell. Symphir didn¡¯t wait for Faycez to be out of the room for a second before she started talking. ¡°So how much of my clothing do you want off?¡± Deyana raised an eyebrow at her, throwing a few possible responses around in her head. ¡°Practically, I¡¯d say as much off as you¡¯re comfortable with. Shit-stirringly and as someone with an appreciation for the human form, take it all off! With reasonable consideration for all of the angles here, a bra¡¯s going to be in the way a little bit, but most lower underwear won¡¯t be.¡± ¡°Psh. How very polite of you.¡± Symphir said, already removing clothing. Deyana kept her firmly in peripheral vision, checking and re-checking both the forms printing on the cutter and the measurements to various rune locations. Deyana pushed mana into the tattooing tool, watching in fascination as the magic purged air from the system, sterilized everything near it, and maintained the device in the same moment. ¡°Would you prefer me be impolite? I¡¯m sure I could manage that.¡± She was certain the look she got would be withering under other circumstances, but with Symphir laying mostly naked on a newly-purchased tattoo chair leaning all the way back, it was difficult to take her seriously. ¡°Most people trying to get into my pants are. It¡¯s usually more effective.¡± Deyana gave Symphir a short warning before she started working. The magical nature of the tattoo gun was incredibly convenient in its ability to automatically regulate the ink depth¨C allowing even a complete newbie like Faycez to work immediately on a person, provided they had steady hands and a guide¨C but that came at the cost of pain reduction. ¡°I did somewhat explicitly say that I didn¡¯t need to get into your pants.¡± ¡°You know that¡¯s not what I meant.¡± ¡°I did,¡± Deyana said, following the rise and fall of Symphir¡¯s breathing to make sure that the rune¡¯s shape was as close to perfect as she could make it. ¡°But the sentiment still applies. I¡¯ve got enough to deal with on that particular axis right now. It¡¯s a fantastic art piece, but I will not be making an offer today.¡± The laugh would have been disruptive, if she hadn¡¯t been predicting it. ¡°Thanks, I guess.¡± There was a long pause, almost allowing Deyana to finish the first rune before Symphir spoke again. ¡°So¡­ you and Geria. Dating, right?¡± Alex almost let the shock of some feeling she couldn¡¯t quite identify pull her hand out of place, but managed to keep to the slow, smooth motion she needed. Continuing her work provided the perfect excuse not to respond immediately¨C a useful fiction, because she hadn¡¯t begun to think of an answer to the question before it was asked. ¡°It depends on how you define that. Most properly, I¡¯d probably say ¡®not yet¡¯?¡± ¡°So you assume you will be.¡± ¡°No.¡± That answer, at least, was clear. ¡°I think it¡¯s likely. We enjoy each other¡¯s company. I¡¯m attracted to her, and evidence points towards that feeling being mutual. But I also¡­ I¡¯d really prefer if she asked me out first¡­ in an official way, at least.¡± ¡°Uh-huh. Famously the best way to get people to date you, not asking them out.¡± Alex smiled slightly. ¡°The situation¡¯s complicated. I¡¯m more concerned for her long-term happiness than I am for my own feelings on the issue, and that involves a conversation that I¡¯d like to approach in the right way. One I only think I can if she asks me out.¡± The first rune complete, she had Symphir change positions slightly so that she could better access her side. Once she was repositioned, she spoke again. ¡°So you don¡¯t want me to ask her out.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t say that,¡± Alex responded, much faster and with more force than she¡¯d meant to put on the words. ¡°If you like her, you should! I¡­ might prefer you wait, but I¡¯m hardly in a position to ask you to. It¡¯s¡­ I¡¯m obligate poly.¡± ¡°Sounds like bullshit.¡± Deyana clicked her tongue. ¡°It¡¯s a simplification, for sure. I¡¯m perfectly capable of keeping at least sexual intimacy to a single partner, even if it isn¡¯t what I¡¯d prefer. Nonsexual physical intimacy I might be able to manage keeping to one person. Emotional, romantic¡­ I know that I can¡¯t. Then, on top of that¡­ I enjoy having metas to conspire with. I¡¯m happy wingwomaning for the people I date, trying to get them involved with someone else in addition to me. A life with just one other person is one I could live, but one that would make me much less happy. So I won¡¯t.¡± The quiet buzzing of the needle was the only sound in the room for a few seconds. ¡°God, you sound like my fuckin¡¯ mom.¡± ¡°I¡¯m¡­ sorry? What?¡± Symphir¡¯s response was in a voice much more lilting than anything she¡¯d said before, with a tinge that sounded like she was talking to a child. ¡°¡®Your dads and I are much happier with all of us than just two¡¯ shit. Goddamn it. Old-as¡­ what are you, forty?¡± ¡°What? No! I¡¯m twenty-two!¡± Symphir scoffed. ¡°Going on fifty, shit. Pai told me that some people did a lot of research on labels they use, but¡­¡± ¡°Excuse me,¡± Deyana cut in, faking offense. ¡°I came by the knowledge honestly, by being a catastrophic fuckup!¡± ¡°You¡¯re still here aren¡¯t you? Not that catastrophic.¡± Both of them immediately fell silent. Alex didn¡¯t feel hurt, exactly, but the weight of what was said implied some experience with the topic, and she didn¡¯t want to just blow that off. It was possible that Symphir felt she¡¯d gone too far, deciding that silence was preferrable, and Alex was fairly certain that she could allow things to end on that note. She¡¯d never been one to leave well enough alone. ¡°A result of luck more than anything intentional.¡± Silence returned, but the tone of it had shifted from something oppressive to something contemplative. Deyana placed a finger on |Merge| as she finished it, mentally nudging it to the configuration necessary to apply the coverage of [Speed---] and the use-based costing of [Strength] to the other runes in the collection. It did, in their testing, decrease the efficiency while in use somewhat, but after some discussions with Faycez they had determined that the inconsistent use of [Durability] and especially [Speed] would likely be more than made up for by the generally lower intensity. ¡°Your VR limit. By point nine?¡± Symphir¡¯s voice was hesitant, like she wasn¡¯t sure she was supposed to be talking about it. Deyana nodded. ¡°Exactly what you think.¡± ¡°That¡¯s¡­ you can¡¯t use AR?¡± She sighed. ¡°I can, but it¡¯s an exemption. And I still minimize it.¡± A rare exemption, at that, and one that had been difficult to get. The second number in peoples¡¯ VR limits had to do with how much time they had to pass in ¡°normal¡± reality to earn back time in VR. Alex, along with anyone else for whom that number was below one, recovered that time less quickly than even the basic forms of Augmented Reality, without the perception-of-time-bending features of more complete VR, spent it. Combined with the fact that AR chips couldn¡¯t fit the same diagnostic tools for measuring when people were approaching their VR limits, most people in that unfortunate position ended up needing to choose between AR and VR access. Given that the majority of the use-cases for AR were replaceable with a cell phone, the vast majority chose VR. She had, herself, before the battery of tests and endless forms had finally processed¡­ when she was fourteen, and everyone around her had been using theirs for almost seven years. Even then, her AR implant would throw annoying warnings in her vision if she avoided VR for a week, shutting itself off completely if she didn¡¯t access a VR machine for two. She had complaints about that, given that it absolutely had enough information to keep her well within the limits before it started doing brain damage. But Alex had had almost a decade to calm that annoyance with the very simple fact that she preferred the restriction overzealous for her to underzealous for someone less careful and with less leeway. Symphir¡¯s tone stayed quiet, much more serious than she had been before. ¡°I haven¡¯t thought about¡­ what that¡¯s like. Recently.¡± ¡°Why would you?¡± Deyana asked, touching up the rune she was working on and having Symphir move again so she could start working on another group. She grabbed the stencil, checking to make sure the guide-lines were in the right places against the blueprint several times before starting again. ¡°It¡¯s neither common nor particularly visible.¡± The confused look she got for that took a moment to parse into anything resembling an explanation. When she did, Deyana rolled her eyes. ¡°And besides, it¡¯s impossible to be up to date on everything. All it means is that I¡¯m not just using a smartphone because I prefer the tactility.¡± ¡°I guess that¡¯s true. And you probably never have to deal with brain ads.¡± Deyana blew out an amused breath. ¡°Not never, but it gets the advertisers fined for doing it.¡± There was another long pause before Symphir spoke again. ¡°Can I sign up?¡± Alex couldn¡¯t do anything but laugh. Pileup 30: Once More The conversation drifted to less-important topics after that, though Deyana did make a point of asking about some of those ¡°brain ads¡± Symphir had brought up, if only to show that she wasn¡¯t bothered by people talking about it. It was even true¨C at present, even if it hadn¡¯t always been. Hearing about some of the negatives of the AR-infested world even helped with that, to a degree. She didn¡¯t think she¡¯d be getting her implant fully connected and active any time soon even without the more direct negatives, but having a more complete picture was always better. The internet was already unusable enough with ubiquitous video advertisements and their constant grasping for attention. She had absolutely no desire to allow anything more involved. Eventually, she finished her part of the tattooing. Telling Symphir to put her underwear back on, Deyana left the room and sent Faycez in after her to finish his part. Geria was waiting for her outside, looking mildly annoyed for a moment before she seemed to take a breath and steady herself. ¡°He is still keeping some secrets, but he wanted you to look at this design.¡± She gestured at a pile of papers with runes written on them, and Deyana could tell even from across the room that they lacked the colored shine of portal-dust inks that would make the runes actually magical. Even a cursory glance told her that was intentional: written on the sheets was a step-by-step explanation of how they were going to lay out, power, and eventually remove the runes from an almost thousand square-meter area. The numbers he was using seemed odd (for one, Faycez¡¯s calculations assumed about twenty percent of the mana would be lost to ink inefficiency, when even the lowest-quality ones lost, at most, four or five percent) but Deyana decided to just trust the expert on that. Besides, that choice built-in a safety margin. Something she¡¯d absolutely want, given that, if she was reading the plan correctly, they¡¯d only get one or two shots at it, then everyone would know exactly where they were and have a general idea of what their strategy was. Normally, that wouldn¡¯t be a problem, but the situation at large and the specific thing they expected the ritual spell to do would almost certainly give away their location as soon as it went off. If they copied the look and effectiveness of some established party¡¯s siege weaponry, they might have been able to avoid being investigated afterwards, but Faycez and Geria had apparently done some math and determined that path would be unlikely to do enough damage to count as a significant contribution. Not incredibly surprising given what she knew about the guilds and parties in the area, but it meant that a significant portion of the plan laid out before her was about cleanup and contingencies for escaping. Deyana had some input to offer there, at least, mentioning some things that they had apparently missed while Geria noted them down. Chief among them was, in her opinion, that Symphir would have a lot less of an issue getting out than they¡¯d assumed. For reasons she hoped were about to become clear, as Faycez and Symphir came back out of the crafting room, Symphir now actually dressed in a tank top and shorts, along with an adorable lop-ear bunny beanie. It took some effort to keep her reaction to just a smile, but she did, just barely, manage it. ¡°Done?¡± Deyana asked, the question more rhetorical than sincere. ¡°Yup. Time to test it in practice, so¡­ out back?¡± Deyana¡¯s eyes went wide, and she shook her head rapidly. ¡°No! No. That would be¡­ Well, you¡¯ll be fine there eventually. But uh¡­ we need a little bit more space than that at first.¡± Both Symphir and Faycez narrowed their eyes at her. ¡°It¡¯s not like I¡¯m new to speed enhancements." That got a nod back. ¡°Yeah, I mean. I figured that, but the specific combination¡­ just trust me on this? I think the practical experience with it is going to be more useful than any explanation I can give.¡± Mostly, she reasoned, because the effect is so much more than you think. Ultimately, it came down to fairly basic Newtonian mechanics. F=ma, expressed as a=F/m. Except, because of magic, the force was bigger, the inertial mass was smaller, and the final acceleration was multiplied- as it turned to speed. So Deyana was hardly surprised when, after making sure that Symphir was set up at the end of a long, straight, highly visible, empty street, what she witnessed wasn¡¯t so much the start of a sprint as Symphir flinging herself into the air at speeds that would make a jet pilot sit up and take notice. Followed, of course, by immediate panicked flailing fading into the distance as that arc tore away from the starting point so quickly that she almost certainly was going to have to land under the effects of the perception acceleration¡­ or bounce, and hope for the best. Deyana hoped for the former, but she gave it even odds. Still, it felt like she should comment. ¡°She really has practiced with speed before! That looks like she¡¯s going barely over a mile. Still, probably not the backyard kind of test.¡± Faycez didn¡¯t appear to gape at the sight, though it seemed a near thing, Instead, his hand went up to his chin, finger covering his pulled-in lips. He opened his mouth with a small pop before sighing, shortly. ¡°You know, now that I¡¯m doing the math¡­¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t feel like it should work that way, huh?¡± Faycez nodded. ¡°It does not.¡± New Group Chat: Deyana, Faycez, Geria, Symphir Symphir: ¡®deyana you bitch¡¯ Symphir: ¡®shouldve known it was gonna be crazy¡¯ Symphir: ¡®almost went through some NPC¡¯s windshield¡¯ Deyana: ¡®Make sure to jump the intersection on your way back!¡¯ Symphir: ¡®mAkE sUrE tO jUmP tHe InTeRsEcTiOn On YoUr WaY bAcK¡¯ This book is hosted on another platform. Read the official version and support the author''s work. Symphir: ¡®Fay, only 60 mana, but also 15 health and 30 stamina¡¯ The number wasn¡¯t completely outside of her expectations, but Deyana still held back a wince. Stamina was an extremely common specialization, and that only reminded her of why. The slowest-scaling of the three stats, unboosted stamina gained only a single point per level¨C which meant that single jump, though admittedly impressive, had used between a bit over a quarter of Symphir¡¯s maximum, where the mana was about ten percent and the health less than five. Admittedly, that was due to her specializations in health to begin with, but it was still comparably low enough to be almost negligible. Faycez: ¡®Interesting. How much is it costing now?¡¯ Symphir: ¡®Less than I¡¯d expect. Averaged, three-ish mana, negligible health, one-ish stamina per second. It was hard to tell from so far away, but a few comparisons to landmarks on the street let Deyana know that Symphir was easily making fifty kilometers an hour just running back. Even that seemed like it might be less efficient than was technically possible. Full, second-long, surprisingly-floaty bounds between steps obviously wasted a lot of the energy moving up and down, but there was also the human form factor and musculature to consider¡­ Part of Deyana couldn¡¯t resist get distracted analyzing possible solutions to that, but ultimately they didn¡¯t matter. ¡°The perception acceleration and Poise should help her manage it in the future, but it¡¯s going to need practice. And probably for her to run it at lower than maximum capacity in the future.¡± Faycez nodded, his eyes still fixed on Symphir running back towards them. ¡°That makes sense to me. She¡¯ll likely be inside, figuring it out until we quit for the night¡­¡± Deyana looked to Geria for a moment, but answers weren¡¯t forthcoming from that quarter. ¡°We should probably go, then. At least temporarily. Minimize how likely you are to get caught up in things.¡± He took a deep breath in, blowing it out slowly before responding. ¡°Of course. While I wouldn¡¯t mind that too much, the risk is a bit much for her.¡± ¡°Not for you?¡± Deyana asked, fairly certain she knew the answer but asking anyway. He didn¡¯t hesitate for a moment. ¡°For me, a reset¡¯s more annoying in that someone else has my in-game notes than anything else.¡± None of them spoke while Symphir jumped over the closest street¡¯s intersection with a motion more equivalent to a short hop than such a huge motion, landing so smoothly that Deyana was instantly certain she¡¯d activated the perception acceleration. A few moments later, she was decelerating while pulling up to the three who had remained, finally coming to a stop a few meters away for a few moments, then walking up to them at a normal pace. ¡°It was a little funny,¡± Symphir said. Deyana blinked once, tilting her head to the side, then shrugged. ¡°You were really confident about it.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­¡± ¡°You could have known what it would be like, so I¨C¡± Symphir cut her off almost immediately. ¡°But you didn¡¯t think so.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t think so.¡± Deyana confirmed. Symphir¡¯s gaze turned to Geria, and something passed between them¨C Deyana expected at least a message or two, and a potentially troublesome possibility crystallized in her mind. Avoiding it, though, would at that point be much worse than allowing it to happen. ¡°Thanks for this, genuinely. But you two should go for now, before someone comes down this street for whatever reason and sees you two.¡± A few more words were exchanged, along with friend requests between Deyana, Geria, and Faycez, before Deyana and Geria left from in front of the house, walking together down the street. The silence between them was noticeable, even for as short as it was. The tone different from previous instances, Deyana considered broaching the topic herself, but couldn¡¯t quite bring herself to take the chance that she¡¯d misinterpreted. ¡°I am disappointed,¡± Geria said, simply. ¡°Do you know why?¡± Part of her raged at the implication, but Alex shoved that part back into the childish corner of her mind it had spawned from. It wasn¡¯t meant in the way many would have meant it, and she was determined not to make that mistake. Again, at least. ¡°I have ideas, but none substantiated enough for me to say I know. Geria didn¡¯t turn to look at her, not even changing the rhythm she was walking in as she spoke again. ¡°Certainty is one thing. I often look for it, myself. But I would hear your ¡®ideas¡¯.¡± The dark, angry twist Geria put on the word was so emphatic that Alex felt as much as heard it. She took a moment to think¨C not to come up with a lie, something that tried to fight its way off her tongue before the truth had even been established, but to understand. Both herself and the question. ¡°Treating you like you weren¡¯t able to make choices for yourself. Could be fair or unfair, depending on how each of us approached it. Not interacting with you the way you would prefer. Unfair.¡± She paused, holding up a hand to signal that she still had more to say. Especially given how much she needed to force the words out. ¡°Cowardice. Fair.¡± ¡°That is not what I expected of you.¡± ¡°I rarely am what people expect.¡± There was a long pause. ¡°I had thought your reticence was because we were already busy.¡± ¡°That¡¯s part of it. How much of that conversation did you actually hear?¡± ¡°None. Most. Symphir gave me a summarization of the first part. I¡­ asked her to ask you some things.¡± Alex thought about that, unable to quite place what that meant, exactly. She didn¡¯t see a way to wriggle off of this particular hook, and wasn¡¯t entirely sure she should, discounting her personal aversion to actually dealing with the consequences of her actions. Ultimately, the conversation as a whole was completely out of her control. That realization came with a spike of terror like sourceless lightheaded dread from breathing air devoid of oxygen. The breath that followed wasn¡¯t much better, just enough stabilization to push past the screaming buzz in her ears to hear what Geria said next. ¡°Which¡­ I am sorry.¡± Alex found herself unable to respond for several seconds, mind left behind at the low-hanging bar of confusion. ¡°For what? You¡¯re not¨C¡± ¡°I had assumed,¡± Geria said, continuing as if she hadn¡¯t spoken, ¡°that I understood why you were not acting; that you were just the type of person to be generally flirty and did not mean anything by it. You have not been dishonest with me. I should have just asked. My disappointment is in myself as much as you. Because now, I learned something about you that you had not intended to share yet, and I am embarrassed to have done so in the way I did.¡± Alex didn¡¯t want to let that stand on its own. ¡°It¡¯s fear.¡± There was a momentary pause. ¡°From me. It¡¯s not that I didn¡¯t want to say anything. But I didn¡¯t want to¡­ no. I couldn¡¯t bring myself to ask both of those things at once. Especially with the reality being that I¡¯m completely single at the moment¡­ asking you out and to accept that exclusivity is off the table.¡± ¡°I cannot say you were entirely wrong. Had you done that, I suspect I would have turned you down.¡± Alex felt the shift¨C near-instant and barely voluntary. Nervous breathing slowed, rushing heart-rate placid in a moment. Tightly controlled muscles relaxed, and the building pressure behind her forehead receded, replaced by a pervasive tiredness and mild disappointment. ¡°Okay.¡± There was another long silence, but with the new detachment Alex didn¡¯t feel it anywhere near as keenly. Instead, when Geria spoke again, it was almost a surprise. ¡°That is it? Okay?¡± Deyana blew out a breath, a corner of her lips turning upward against her will. ¡°Of course. I care about how you feel, so why would I try to convince you of something that you don¡¯t want for yourself?¡± Silence fell again, slightly interrupted by the thmp-zzzz of streetlights turning on beside them. ¡°I can understand your perspective. I feel like I should clarify. I would have turned you down. Having thought about it more than I would have in that situation, I have decided that I will not do so in the future. Turn you down, that is.¡± Between one step and the next, Alex felt herself nearly trip on air as she spun to face Geria, who was regarding her with an expression that she might have mistaken for passive on another person¡¯s face. Her next words came out nearly a whisper. ¡°I¡­ I¡¯ll keep that in mind.¡± Geria nodded once, then broke eye contact to look over Deyana¡¯s shoulder. ¡°I will be logging out now. I look forward to seeing you tomorrow.¡± Geria¡¯s character started moving away under the control of the AI before Alex was able to bring herself to respond. ¡°Yeah¡­¡± she said, staring out at the empty street instead. ¡°I look forward to seeing you, too.¡±