《Puppet Lord》 00- Prologue April 4, 2142
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Marc: Thirty-two years old. Brown hair, blue eyes, 175 centimeters and 91 kilograms. No prior convictions. They caught him trying to hack the control pad to the vault door. Jon: How the hell did he get that far? Marc: We¡¯re not sure if he had a signal jammer tuned to the security cameras or if he just got lucky. Probably not any sort of cloaking. Forensics is reviewing it now. Jon: Any connection to the other ones? Marc: Nothing we¡¯ve been able to dig up. Jon: What is this, the ninth one? There¡¯s no way it¡¯s a coincidence. Marc: What I can¡¯t figure is why they¡¯re all going after that vault. There isn¡¯t really anything important there. It¡¯s all a bunch of server banks. Jon:. The perp is employed by Spriget Corp. Some sort of project developer for Istrius, their vr mmo. Heh. I think my son plays that. And it looks like they¡¯ve got servers in that building. Marc: None of the other perps had any connection to Spriget. Jon: Could be a lead. Marc: I doubt it. Focus on finding a more concrete link between these guys. Maybe run down that signal jammer. Find out where these bozos are getting their hardware from. Jon: But¡ª Marc: Signal. Jammer. Jon: Alright. I¡¯ll see what I can do.This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author''s consent. Report any appearances on Amazon. Marc: Good. Keep me in the loop. My boss is breathing down my neck on this one. Jon: And shit rolls downhill. Got it. ------ June 12, 2142 Marc: Damn it Jon, what were you thinking? Jon: That I would do my job. Marc: How¡¯d that work out for you? Broken leg¡¯s going to make it hard to get around. And what, two broken ribs? How many floors did you fall? Jon: I¡¯m fine. I¡¯ll get a remote android from the armory. Marc: The hell you will! You shouldn¡¯t have even been there in the first place. Jon: So what? I¡¯m riding a desk now? You want me to run down connections on the net? Marc: I want you to keep your ass home. You¡¯re on involuntary leave. Jon: What? Why? Marc: Lucky it¡¯s not a suspension. I told you to run down the street hardware, and instead you end up jumping out a damn window to avoid a security drone monitoring a building you had no business being in. You¡¯re damn lucky you¡¯re just ¡°on medical leave¡± for the next six weeks. And I promise you if you come back, pending your disciplinary review, you will not be on this case. Jon: Fuck, Marc. Come on. I¡¯ve been working this case for six months now. No one knows more about it than I do. I¡¯m telling you, the Istrius angle is playing out. I keep finding more pieces connecting back to this game.
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The message flashed in front of Jon¡¯s eyes. He ended his session and blinked as he readjusted to looking past his HUD at the hospital room he was in. ¡°Fuck,¡± he said. He was so close. Every thread led back to Istrius somehow. Message boards, roommates, even a super creepy fan-fiction account, all of it. Every single perp connected back to that vr mmo somehow. ¡°Well, I¡¯ve got the time now, I guess.¡± If he was off-duty, he¡¯d just have to come at the problem from a different angle. He refocused back onto his HUD and opened up a browser. The neural implant at the base of his skull picked up the signals his brain fired off and within seconds, he was at the landing page for Istrius. It didn¡¯t take long to get himself signed up. His HUD wouldn¡¯t support a log in from the hospital, but he¡¯d be home in a day or two. In the meantime, he pulled up his contacts list and fired off a message to his son. If he was going to be playing, it would be nice to have a guide. Jon sighed, then winced in pain. It turned out broken ribs hurt like hell. He accessed the medical AI and pinged the nurses¡¯ station to get someone to up the painkillers. If he was lucky, they¡¯d do it remotely instead of making him wait for someone to show up. A minute passed. Two minutes. Then five. Nope, Jon wasn¡¯t that lucky. He tried to keep his breathing shallow and not move around too much. The next week was going to suck while he waited for his ribs to heal. 01- Level 1 After a second of loading delay, the neural relays secured the connection, and the world snapped into shape around Kana. He was in a circular room tiled in marble, paneled with bas reliefs, and topped in an arching ribbed dome. There were eight statues spaced out around the room, each one set into an alcove. Next to him, sitting cross legged on the floor, was a man with the word Spiral floating over his head and a green health bar below that. ¡°Kana, huh? Random name generator special?¡± Kana shrugged. ¡°A name¡¯s a name.¡± Spiral stood up and stretched. ¡°I guess. You figure out what class you¡¯re going to pick yet?¡± ¡°Something easy to learn. Just give me some starter advice and I¡¯ll get out of your hair.¡± ¡°Summer vacation is just getting started,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I¡¯ve got plenty of time to run two different characters right now.¡± ¡°Your mom won¡¯t get upset with you spending all day hooked up to a neural net?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Nah. She¡¯s not home anyway.¡± He turned to scan the statues. ¡°So... easy to learn. Melee is probably best for low levels. The caster classes are pretty squishy. Check out those four over there.¡± The first one was of a bare-chested man who looked like he¡¯d come straight out of a power lifting competition holding a sword with a blade the size of a small snow plow. The plaque at the statue¡¯s base read, ¡°Berserker. Primary Attribute: Strength. Uses fierce rages in combat to increase damage and mitigate injuries.¡± Kana grimaced and moved to the next statue, which featured a tall woman holding a spear and wearing a steel chest plate. That one read ¡°Dragoon. Strength and Agility Hybrid. Mid-range combat using powerful combo attacks with polearms.¡± ¡°This one looks good,¡± Kana said. The statue¡¯s face came to life and its eyes focused on him. ¡°You wish to follow the path of the dragoon?¡± it asked. ¡°Uh... I guess so.¡± ¡°Your way is set then,¡± the statue intoned. It held its spear out for Kana to take. As soon as he did, the statue returned to lifeless stone and a sack appeared at his feet. He jumped in surprise and looked at Spiral for an explanation. ¡°Standard starter inventory. It¡¯ll have some food, some money, and a health potion in it.¡± Kana reached down to touch the sack. As soon as his fingers brushed the surface, a loot window popped up in front of it detailing its contents, which were exactly what Spiral had said they¡¯d be. He fiddled with the radial menu for a bit until he figured out how to take everything. When he was done, he looked up to find Spiral waiting for him at the exit. He¡¯d gotten a sword and shield from the statue of the knight farther down the hall. ¡°Alright, let¡¯s get going. This room is boring,¡± Spiral said. An invitation to join Spiral¡¯s party popped up in front of Kana. As soon as he accepted it, the knight¡¯s name and health appeared in his peripheral vision and a new marker on his map popped up representing Spiral¡¯s position. ¡°That¡¯ll make it easy to keep track of you. I need one of these for real life.¡± Spiral rolled his eyes. ¡°Come on, combat basics are the next room. I want to get out of the starter academy so we can play.¡± ¡°I told you that you don¡¯t have to stick around,¡± Kana said. ¡°I¡¯ve got all day to do whatever. Let¡¯s get going so we can get to the good stuff.¡± They walked into the next room, which was dominated by a huge floor tile mosaic featuring a woman in a flowing white dress that was torn and stained with smoke. She looked down on a battlefield full of unmoving bodies while two armies clashed in the background. ¡°Well that¡¯s cheery,¡± Kana said as he studied it. ¡°Kasio, the Lady of War,¡± Spiral explained. ¡°She¡¯s one of the Seven Creators in Istrius¡¯s mythology.¡± An illusion of the woman appeared in front of them, her dress floating around her while she drifted in the air, her toes a few inches off the floor. ¡°Travelers in this realm must learn to defend themselves,¡± she said in a low, smug tone. ¡°Is that...?¡± He shot a look at Spiral, who nodded and grinned. ¡°Maria Donovich did the voice work for her.¡± Kana¡¯s eyebrows shot up. ¡°That¡¯s a pretty big name. I didn¡¯t realize Istrius was such a high budget game.¡± Before Spiral could reply, the tiled mosaic started twisting around like it was being stirred by an invisible hand. The individual tiles rose up to form a blob of shifting pieces that settled into a vaguely human-shaped creature. A red bar appeared over its head with the label of war elemental. ¡°Dragoons fight by stringing together combo attacks that focus on restricting their target¡¯s movements to keep them at the edge of their range. You¡¯ll only have one special attack right now,¡± Spiral said. ¡°When you attack, the option to use it should come up. Just let the system handle that part of the combo for now.¡± The war elemental, now fully formed, lumbered toward the pair. Spiral stepped between them and met it with his shield. The crash of metal being struck by the elemental¡¯s arms rang out through the chamber as he shoved it back and reached out with his sword to hack at the it. Kana circled to the side and lunged at the creature with his spear. It recoiled from the first hit and a chunk of its red health bar faded away. Before it could respond, a prompt appeared titled clipping sweep. Kana selected it, and the spear spun in his hands of its own accord to lash out at the elemental¡¯s legs. The creature toppled over to the ground, losing a smaller chunk of health in the process, and started clawing its way back upright.Support the creativity of authors by visiting the original site for this novel and more. The attack almost made Kana fumble his spear in surprise, but as soon as it was over with, he was back in control of the weapon. Spiral grinned at him over his shield. ¡°You get used to that,¡± he said. ¡°You can go into the settings and turn it to advanced mode later so that it uses the special whenever you attack that way instead of you telling it to.¡± Kana blinked and tried to sort through Spiral¡¯s explanation, but before he could finish, the elemental charged at him. He struck it again, then Spiral was between them. His shield slammed into the elemental¡¯s face and it bounced back. ¡°Stunned it!¡± Spiral crowed in triumph. ¡°Enemies take extra damage when they¡¯re stunned, so go in for another attack now.¡± Between the two of them, they carved up the war elemental in a matter of seconds. A notice popped up informing him that he¡¯d gained three XP. The illusion nodded, a cold smile on her face. ¡°But how will you handle two?¡± she asked. More tiles rose up into man shaped blobs in front of them. ¡°Try to keep it at the edge of your attack radius. I¡¯ll hold the other one off to the side for now,¡± Spiral said. He attacked the elemental farthest away from Kana and started backpedaling to edge of the room. The other elemental surged forward in a churning mass of mosaic tiles that picked up speed as it went. Kana lashed out with his spear when it got closer and triggered his clipping sweep attack to knock it prone. Before it could climb back to its feet, he struck it two more times, but when he went to hit it with another clipping sweep, the option didn¡¯t pop up. The elemental hit him, and his vision flashed red around the edges. His own life bar went down a small fraction. Kana snapped his spear up defensively in front of him to block the next swing, but the elementals hand split into two pieces and flowed around the haft of the weapon to strike him again. ¡°Get some distance from it,¡± Spiral called from across the room. ¡°You need to keep it at the edge of your range while you wait for your special attack to recharge so you can combo it again.¡± Once Spiral had pointed it out, Kana could see a little icon on his peripheral menus that was counting down to zero. He broke away from the elemental and retreated until it finished, then came back in with a straight jab into its chest. The clipping sweep option popped up, and he tripped the elemental with it. He jabbed it once while it was still down and backed away from it before it could get back to its feet. Each repetition of the pattern took another chunk of its health bar until it broke apart twenty seconds later. Across the room, Spiral¡¯s elemental was at half health. He was chipping away at it while using his shield to block its attacks, and only countering when he could stun it. Kana came up from the back side and unleashed a series of slashes into it. Each hit took about ten percent of its health until it broke apart. The XP notification came up again, this time reading six, as well as a loot box informing him that he¡¯d acquired a red clay tile. ¡°What is this item?¡± he asked. ¡°Quest token you¡¯ll need later,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Everyone gets their own loot, so don¡¯t worry about splitting anything with me.¡± The illusion scowled at the two of them as it faded away. In its place, a red chest appeared, its edges trimmed in gold and a fat unlocked clasp in the front. Spiral gestured Kana forward. ¡°Open it,¡± he said. The lid sprang open with a click at his touch to reveal a set of leather boots, which appeared on his inventory screen when he touched them. The stat box claimed that equipping them would decrease the cooldown of clipping sweep by two seconds. He dragged them across the radial menu to his gear selector and swapped them out for the shoes he¡¯d been wearing. At the same time, a breast plate appeared on Spiral¡¯s chest, one that matched his shield. The far wall broke apart into a pile of rocks and sand that flowed away to reveal a hall supported by stone ribs every few feet. ¡°Come on,¡± Spiral said. ¡°A few more rooms and we¡¯ll hit the starter boss.¡± ----- Ten minutes later, Kana had assembled tiles of various colors into a circle on the wall. They spun in place until they were nothing but a blur of color and light. He backed away from it as the whole floor, itself covered in an even larger mosaic than the first one, was pulled into the ring of light. ¡°Here comes the big one,¡± Spiral warned. A construct made of tiles flowed up over their heads, easily twice their height. It settled into a solid shape and the words war golem appeared over its head, along with a health bar three times longer than anything Kana had seen before. Spiral rushed out to meet it, but it swatted him aside with one hand. With a growl, he charged back in and slammed his shield with his whole body behind it. The huge elemental staggered back a step, but it wasn¡¯t stunned like the smaller ones had been. It did turn his attention to him, freeing Kana up to jab at its flanks with his spear. His attacks didn¡¯t even seem to touch the war golem¡¯s life bar. Meanwhile, each swing knocked Spiral back and forth and tore chunks out of his own health. When he hit half health, his life bar turned from green to yellow. ¡°I¡¯m going to break off to use a healing potion,¡± he called out. ¡°Knock it down to give me time.¡± Kana had been trying to use clipping sweep, but for some reason it wasn¡¯t working. ¡°I can¡¯t!¡± he yelled back. ¡°I don¡¯t know why.¡± ¡°Because the target is too big of a size category for that move to work,¡± a voice said from the door. ¡°Try aiming for the head instead.¡± A slim man stood at the entrance to the room, arms crossed and leaning up against the door frame. He wore a dark red half cloak with the hood pulled up and had two daggers belted to his waist. Curling black hair poked out from under the hood, obscuring his face. The name Exodus floated over his head. Kana struck the war golem on the back of the head, and it tumbled forward to one knee. While it was down, he got another strike in, and Spiral backed out of its each to drink a potion. His health bar shot back up to full, just in time for him to ready his shield for the war golem¡¯s next attack. ¡°Do you two noobs think you could hurry this up so the event can reset and I can do it?¡± Exodus asked. ¡°Or at least invite me into your group so I can get credit for this one?¡± ¡°I¡¯m a little busy here,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Shield bash its knee.¡± Spiral glared at the man, but he did it. The golem¡¯s knee snapped backward in a shower of loose mosaic tiles and it staggered back with a stun debuff. A moment later, Exodus¡¯s profile popped up just under Spiral¡¯s and a new marker appeared on Kana¡¯s map. Exodus came up beside Kana, both daggers in his hands. ¡°Clip its head again,¡± he ordered. Kana and Spiral exchanged glances. The new player seemed to know what he was doing though, so Kana did what he wanted. As soon as the war golem tumbled forward, Exodus darted in and swept both daggers through its flank. Before it could recover, he¡¯d actually climbed on top of it and slammed the weapons into the back of its head. Huge chunks of its life bar fell away, fully half of it just from those few attacks. ¡°Another shield bash to the knee,¡± Exodus said, ¡°And I¡¯ll finish it off.¡± Twenty seconds later, the golem was nothing more than a pile of shattered tiles that rose up to Kana¡¯s waist. The XP gain from the boss was enough that it pushed him up to level 2 and a notification popped up informing him he¡¯d learned a new skill. ¡°Arc lance,¡± he read out loud. ¡°A special attack that chains with consecutive regular strikes to deal extra damage.¡± Exodus rolled his eyes and walked to the treasure chest that had appeared near the exit door. He opened it, and as he did, a loot window popped up in front of Kana to inform him that he¡¯d acquired a chain hauberk. Before he could even equip it, Exodus was out the door. A new notification popped up to tell him that the other player had left the group. ¡°Kind of a jerk, isn¡¯t he?¡± Spiral remarked. ¡°Maybe, but he knew his stuff. It would have taken us five times as long to defeat this boss without him.¡± Spiral shrugged. ¡°I¡¯d have done it in a second on my other character. I just don¡¯t know how to play this class yet.¡± ¡°So this is it for the starter area?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Yup. That exit takes us to a shrine of Numa and the NPCs that will give us the first set of quests.¡± Kana selected the hauberk for his chest slot and rolled his shoulders as the weight of the armor settled on him. ¡°Great. Let¡¯s get going then." 02- Captain Swineblade The shrine wasn¡¯t much of anything, just a small fountain in an old church that had been overtaken by nature. Vine trellises hung across every exit, obscuring the outside world from sight. There was no sign of the player who¡¯d helped them defeat the war golem. ¡°Let me think for a second,¡± Spiral said. ¡°We could do a few jobs around here to snag an extra level or two and then start the trip to Aldur, the closest city.¡± ¡°What kind of jobs?¡± Kana asked. ¡°I already have a job, and it¡¯s not exactly something I do for fun.¡± ¡°Well, there¡¯s the swamp rat infestation line that starts in town, or we could work on the Thulnar the Repentant quests. I guess if you wanted to pick up some crafting skills, we could start the forge smith missions.¡± ¡°What are those?¡± ¡°It¡¯s where you¡ª¡± Before Spiral could explain, a woman dressed in a long skirt, knee high boots, and a blouse trimmed with silver runes popped into existence. Her hair fell to her waist in stripes of pink and purple beneath a pointed wizard''s hat. The name above her health bar read Valit. She scowled and stamped her foot. ¡°Stupid orcen pig marauders!¡± Kana flinched away with a startled oath. The woman jumped in surprise, and Spiral snickered. ¡°Sorry,¡± both Kana and the woman said at the same time. ¡°The shrine is a respawn point,¡± Spiral explained to Kana. ¡°If you die anywhere near here, this is where your character will show up at.¡± ¡°Oh, I get it.¡± Kana looked over at Valit. ¡°So... orcen pig marauders?¡± The woman groaned. ¡°Fourth time today they¡¯ve gotten me. I¡¯m never going to finish this quest.¡± Spiral noted Kana¡¯s confused expression. ¡°She¡¯s doing the forge smith quest line. The story is a smith who lives by the coast is losing his ingots to thieves, who you help track down, which reveals a bunch of orcen raiders from the fortress island out to sea. There¡¯s some quests later on after you get a water capable mount to go out to the fortress.¡± ¡°Yeah, if I can ever get past the marauders around the boat,¡± Valit said. She eyed up the two of them. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose you¡¯re doing anything right now? Want to team up with me?¡± ¡°Uh...¡± Kana glanced over at Spiral, who shrugged back. ¡°We haven¡¯t started that line yet,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Do you mind redoing the first few steps until we catch up to you?¡± ¡°Sure,¡± Valit said. ¡°I¡¯ve probably only made an hour¡¯s progress on this once you subtract all the time I¡¯ve wasted fighting those marauders. I could use the extra XP to replace what I lost dying anyway.¡± ¡°With three of us working on it, it probably won¡¯t take us long to catch up,¡± Spiral said. They set off together on a generally west course, following a dirt road that meandered through a forest. Valit chattered the entire way about how difficult it had been trying to solo the mission, how she¡¯d been working on it all day, but that a sorcerer just didn¡¯t have the durability to stand up to multiple enemies at once. When she was done talking about that, she started right in on how her first character had been ranger, but she¡¯d decided she wanted to focus on crafting skills instead, so she¡¯d started a new one. Around the time they reached the halfway point, a message window popped up from Spiral. Kana skimmed the message, which read She sure can talk, can¡¯t she? I don¡¯t know if I can listen to this for another two or three hours. He raised an eyebrow at Spiral, who shrugged in return. Valit, who was walking in front of them and commentating about how realistic the trees looked, didn¡¯t notice the exchange. Finally though, they reached a seaside cottage with a smithy set up next to it. The place had been ransacked, and a tall, heavily muscled NPC stood glaring at it with a hammer dangling loosely from his fingers. He glanced up as they got close enough to trigger the script that started him. ¡°Sea bandits,¡± he growled. ¡°Haven¡¯t had a problem with them in decades, and just last week, they¡¯re all over the coast.¡± Valit hung back while Kana and Spiral approached the NPC. ¡°Don¡¯t suppose a pair of strapping young lads like yourselves would be interested in some spending money to impress the pretty lady over there?¡± the smith asked. ¡°You get back my iron stock for me, I¡¯ll make it worth your while.¡± ¡°Where is it?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Well, my guess is they hauled it off back to their ship, but it¡¯s heavy work and they¡¯ve only got an hour¡¯s lead. You could catch up to them before they get there. Once you¡¯ve got it back, you come get me and we¡¯ll get a cart out there to load it up.¡± The smith pointed them off into the woods, but Spiral was already walking away. ¡°Come on,¡± he said. ¡°I know where it¡¯s at. It¡¯ll only take a few minutes to get there.¡± Kana hurried after him. It seemed almost rude to just rush off, but the NPC was just a snippet of code that dispensed their objective, after all. He didn¡¯t seem to care that they¡¯d walked away in the middle of the conversation. In fact, he¡¯d turned back to the mess that was his smithy and resumed scowling at it as if they¡¯d never been there at all.Did you know this text is from a different site? Read the official version to support the creator. ¡°Ok, so this first part is pretty easy,¡± Valit said when they got to the tree line. ¡°When we get to a spot on the trail, two orcen bandits will spawn to attack us. After we beat them, the rest will spawn deeper in the trees with the iron bars. We just have to run them down to make them drop the quest item and flee into the woods.¡± ¡°How tough is an orcen bandit?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Easy kill,¡± Spiral said. ¡°This quest was designed to be done by a solo player. We¡¯ll wipe them out with three people no problem.¡± Valit shot a look at him. ¡°This step, yes. It gets harder later on.¡± A few minutes later, the porcine grunts of the orcen bandits gave a second¡¯s warning before they erupted out of the trees. They were dressed in leathers with bristly patches of short, coarse fur poking out and blood thirsty grins on their piggy faces. Instead of the predicted two, there was a whole pack of five, each one wielding a rusted sword or dagger. ¡°Whoah! Where did they come from?¡± Spiral yelled. He leaped in to meet the charge, but only managed to block two of them. The other three streamed past him to attack Kana and Valit. He whipped his spear out around him in an arc that caught one and dropped a third of its health bar off. Before it could respond, he activated his clipping sweep combo and tripped it up, and chained his new arc lance ability off that to strike the next nearest orcen bandit. Instead of the normal three to six damage his attacks did, arc lance went off with a flash of brilliant blue electricity and blasted both pig-faced monsters for sixteen. That was more than enough to obliterate the one he¡¯d tripped and bring his new target¡¯s hp bar down into the red. Valit pointed a finger at the third orcen and launched a thin beam of icy blue light. When it struck the creature, a layer of frost covered its chest and it squealed as more than half of its health bar disappeared. Kana finished it off with a two-hit combo, but the distraction let the last bandit get inside his range and pummel him. The monsters quickly took his health from green to yellow, but once Valit hit it with another frost ray, he was able to chain together enough attacks on the other to finish it. Together, they joined Spiral in carving up the remaining two. ¡°What the hell was that?¡± Spiral demanded after their XP notifications disappeared. ¡°There¡¯s only supposed to be two bandits, not five.¡± ¡°Maybe because there are three of us, the game upped the difficulty,¡± Kana said. ¡°That makes sense,¡± Valit said. ¡°I wonder if that means the marauders will be harder to beat later on too.¡± ¡°Wait, weren¡¯t we supposed to chase after some other ones?¡± ¡°Oh, crap. Right.¡± Spiral scanned the trees. ¡°There. We should just have to catch up to get them to drop the objective item.¡± The trio took off through the trees after the rest of the orcen, who were hustling away under the weight of several iron bars each. When the group caught up to them, they abandoned the stolen iron and dashed off into the forest. ¡°Come back, ye cowardly piggies!¡± the largest of them yelled out as he waved around a battered and chipped cutlass. When the orcen didn¡¯t pause, he gave the group of blood-shot stare that promised murder and raced after them. ¡°Oooh, hey, that¡¯s Captain Swineblade,¡± Valit said. ¡°He¡¯s a rare spawn. If we can catch him, he¡¯ll drop some nice loot.¡± ¡°Nice! After him then,¡± Spiral said. The pair darted off, leaving Kana standing by himself with the iron bars. ¡°But... what about the mission objective?¡± ¡°Leave it,¡± Spiral called after him. ¡°We¡¯ll redo it later if we have to.¡± Shrugging to himself, Kana ran after the other two. He fell farther and farther behind as the chase progressed and he got tripped up in the woods. Eventually though, he broke through the tree line and found Spiral in combat with Captain Swineblade. Nearby, Valit was blasting the orcen captain with repeated ice spells, but the captain¡¯s health bar was still over half full. ¡°About time you caught up,¡± she told Kana. ¡°I¡¯m almost out of magic. We need you to help finish him off before Spiral dies.¡± The captain¡¯s cutlass waved wildly as he hacked at Spiral, whose health bar had emptied half way. He caught most of the attacks on his shield, but every now and then, one slipped through. When he saw Kana, he grinned and said, ¡°Get ready to lay into him. I¡¯m going to stun him.¡± Kana got behind the captain and started his attack combo just as Spiral bashed the orcen with his shield. For a few seconds, every strike took chunks off the monster¡¯s life bar. Kana managed to unleash the entire combo sequence before Captain Swineblade recovered, though the clipping sweep attack did nothing but deflect one of the orcen¡¯s attacks on Spiral. Between the three of them, they brought the monster¡¯s life down to a bare fraction. Just before he they could finish him off, his sword started glowing with yellow and brown light and he slammed it into the ground. Fissures ran through the dirt and hurled both Kana and Spiral off their feet. The stun debuff popped up with a timer counting down from five. When it hit three, Captain Swineblade reached Spiral and hit him with a two-handed swing that took fully a third of the knight¡¯s health bar away. At one, the second swing started coming down, one that would surely kill him. Valit¡¯s ice ray hit the monster a fraction of a second before the blow connected. The last fragment of the orcen captain¡¯s life bar disappeared and he collapsed into the dirt. Spiral stood up and grimaced. ¡°Jeez, I¡¯ve only got eight hit points left.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be a baby,¡± Valit told him. ¡°What loot did the rare spawn drop for you?¡± ¡°Belt with a strength bonus,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Not terrible, but nothing special. You?¡± ¡°A fetish for conjurers that adds water damage to their spirit¡¯s physical attacks.¡± ¡°Nice! I bet you get at least a thousand drols for it.¡± They both turned expectantly to Kana. ¡°Uh... well...¡± He held up a large pirate¡¯s hat with a thick, curling, white feather sticking out of it. ¡°It doesn¡¯t have any stats,¡± Kana said. ¡°I¡¯m not really sure what to do with it.¡± ¡°Oh, sick,¡± Valit said. ¡°I¡¯m so jealous.¡± Kana¡¯s face scrunched up in confusion. ¡°Isn¡¯t this kind of worthless?¡± ¡°Sell it to a costume shop when we get to Aldur,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Some player working on a pirate outfit will pay through the nose for it. If you take anything less than five thousand drols, you¡¯re getting robbed.¡± Valit snorted. ¡°I wouldn¡¯t let it go for less than seven, and I bet I could still sell it in under an hour.¡± ¡°It¡¯s that valuable?¡± Kana asked as he turned the hat over in his hands. ¡°It¡¯s a collectable,¡± Spiral explained. ¡°Its value is whatever you can convince someone to give you for it, but yeah, somebody will want it. There¡¯s always someone who wants it, and it¡¯s a rare drop off a rare spawn, so that means big money. Soon as you pawn it, we¡¯ll pick up half a solid set of gear for you, really get you off on the right foot.¡± ¡°Huh. Neat.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s go back and finish that objective first,¡± Valit said. ¡°You guys can sell your hat later.¡± 03- The Price of Iron The iron bars were still right where they¡¯d left them. Spiral had assured Kana that the game wouldn¡¯t let anyone else steal them, but he was less confident that the quest items wouldn¡¯t despawn if they got too far away from them. ¡°I was pretty sure though, since you don¡¯t actually pick them up here. Look,¡± he said, pointing to the piles of ore. Each one had a glowing symbol over top of it, like a stylized hand that had been painted onto the air. Spiral approached one of the piles and placed his own hand over top of it. A window popped up in front of him with a few options across the bottom. Curious, Kana approached one of the other piles and repeated the action. He read the window out loud. ¡°This iron must weigh a hundred kilograms! It¡¯s way too heavy to haul back to its owner by hand. He did say he has a cart though.¡± Below that were options to continue, pause, or abandon the quest. The first and last ones were obvious enough, but the middle one wasn¡¯t so clear. ¡°What happens if I pause the quest?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Nothing, really. It¡¯s more for when you¡¯re working multiple quests at a time and don¡¯t want to trigger events on the one you¡¯re not actively following. Like if we had a quest to go foraging for food here and didn¡¯t want the orcen bandits to keep spawning as we picked apples or whatever, we could pause this quest to do the other one.¡± Since this was the only quest he currently had, Kana just selected the continue option. The dialogue window closed and the scattered piles of iron faded away to be replaced by one neat stack. ¡°Come on,¡± Spiral told him. ¡°Sooner we get the cart back here, sooner we can catch up to the part Valit¡¯s on.¡± Spiral led the way, clinking softly with each step. He ignored the other two and pored over his radial menu as they walked, which left Kana to entertain Valit¡¯s endless commentary. Kana found Spiral¡¯s sudden motivation to study suspicious. It wasn¡¯t like he¡¯d ever been that interested in studying to pass any of his tests at school. ¡°The way you guys are talking, I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re a new player?¡± Valit asked. ¡°Hmm?¡± Kana blinked and looked over at her. The question had come out of nowhere on the heels of speculation about whether the wildflowers in the nearby fields were accurately colored. ¡°Oh, yes. First day. Spiral¡¯s taking some time away from his main to teach me the ropes.¡± ¡°I¡¯m new too,¡± she said. ¡°I started about three weeks back. I think I mentioned that I was a ranger originally. I wasn¡¯t really very good at it though. So I spent most of my time in the city talking to people and buying and selling stuff.¡± ¡°No? I don¡¯t know much about the other classes yet.¡± ¡°Oh it was super fun at first! But then I got to level 10 and I got this eyesight enhancing ability that magnifies your view distance and gives you accuracy bonuses. I did not like it. Everything got kind of grainy and washed out looking, and it made my head hurt.¡± ¡°You¡¯re not supposed to leave Telescopic Vision on all the time,¡± Spiral said, not looking up from his radial menu. ¡°It¡¯s for scouting and sniping. It has upgrades at higher levels that reduce the blur too.¡± ¡°Oh really?¡± Valit asked. ¡°Maybe I gave up too soon. That¡¯s ok though. Like I said, I really wanted to try out crafting anyway and I¡¯m having fun with this class. I¡¯m going to make so much drol once I can modify and repair equipment.¡± Valit kept chattering with only the minor ¡°Yep¡± or ¡°Mmhmm¡± from Kana. After a few minutes, they reached the NPC smith¡¯s cottage. It looked more or less the same, except now there was a cart parked out front. It was a rickety thing that didn¡¯t look like it could even hold the iron, let alone haul it back. ¡°Back already?¡± the NPC asked in the same gruff voice. ¡°Did you find my missing iron?¡± Kana glanced at the other two. ¡°Do you want to¡­?¡± he trailed off ¡°Nah,¡± Spiral said with a grin. ¡°You go ahead.¡± ¡°Yes,¡± Kana said to the NPC, making a conscious effort to speak clearly. ¡°We came back to borrow your cart so that we can bring it back to you.¡± The smith nodded and gestured toward it. ¡°Let¡¯s get to it then. Ain¡¯t got no horse to haul it, so I¡¯ll be doing that part.¡± He walked over and grabbed a metal bar that had been worked into the cart where a harness would normally go. ¡°Lead the way,¡± he said. A window popped up notifying Kana that his quest progress had been updated and informing him that his new objective was to lead Bertrin back to the iron. ¡°Who is Ber- oh, wait, the NPC?¡± Kana said. ¡°Yeah. If you focus on him like you were going to interact with him, you can get some basic stats.¡± Kana followed Spiral¡¯s directions and approached the smith. Once he was within range, he could see some information floating around the NPC, including that his name was in fact Bertrin and that he was a level five blacksmith. Another line indicated that he was a quest giver that Kana was actively working with, and a final line told him that the name of the quest he was on was ¡°The Price of Iron.¡± Bertrin started plodding forward and the old rickety cart creaked and groaned. It rattled with each step Bertrin took, doing nothing to dispel the impression that it could fall apart if it encountered so much as a stiff breeze. Spiral and Valit both started walking near it, and Kana followed them. ¡°When we get close to the end, more bandits will show up to reclaim the iron,¡± Spiral said. ¡°The objective is to protect the NPC and the iron ingots. There will be a mini-boss fight too.¡± Valit shuddered. ¡°That thing was nasty. I died to it twice before I figured out I could let the NPC tank it for a bit as long as I didn¡¯t get too trigger happy. And THEN I failed the quest again after that when I didn¡¯t pull the boss off the NPC quick enough and he died.¡± ¡°I wonder if there will be any new surprised this time,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I did all these quests by myself before.¡± Rather than cut through the fields and take a straight line to the pile of iron they¡¯d left behind, the cart was forced to follow the curving path of the road as it wound around trees and hills. Between that and the NPC¡¯s slow pace, the trip took considerably longer. Valit never stopped talking, but since half of what she was saying wasn¡¯t addressed to anyone in particular, Kana just kind of tuned her out.The tale has been taken without authorization; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Bertrin came to a stop and let go out of the push bar he¡¯d rigged up to his cart. He made a show of stretching his arms and shoulders before saying, ¡°That all of it? There should have been more.¡± ¡°Uh¡­ yes?¡± Kana said, shooting a questioning glance at Spiral. ¡°I suppose it¡¯s better than I would have had if you hadn¡¯t shown up to help. Let¡¯s get it loaded up and I¡¯ll get you some drol for your trouble.¡± Most of the heavy lifting fell to Spiral, as he was playing the only strength-based class. Kana could carry three bars at a time, but it drained his stamina too quickly to do it for more than a few trips. Valit didn¡¯t even try to carry more than one. The NPC of course carried twice as much as anyone else, and after a few trips, Kana asked, ¡°Why are we helping at all? Why not just let the NPC load it up?¡± Spiral shot Bertrin a dark look. ¡°If you stop working for too long, he stops to and gives you a lecture. Plus he charges more to teach you at the end of the quest line on account of how you were being lazy.¡± ¡°Does he really? I didn¡¯t know that,¡± Valit said. She eyed the pile and tried scooping up two ingots at once. Watching her stagger toward the cart while over encumbered was too funny not to laugh at. She gave Spiral and Kana the finger and flopped the bars down with a grunt. ¡°You know there¡¯s a minimum strength requirement to even take up the profession, don¡¯t you?¡± Spiral said. ¡°Sorcerer was probably about the worst possible choice you could have made if you wanted to take up smithing as a profession.¡± Valit stared at him for a second. ¡°Damn it,¡± she muttered. Before she could say anything else, the NPC shouted out, ¡°Look out! There¡¯s more of ¡®em in the trees!¡± Arrows filled the air before four more bandits spawned and charged out at them. Unlike the first group, these ones were better armed. Spiral met them half way and body slammed one to the ground before pivoting to deflect a slash from another one with his shield. Kana was right behind him with a straight thrust, which he turned into a sweeping slash that not only parried a blow from an orcen raider¡¯s sword, but allowed him to chain an arc lance into the group. It lit up two of the monsters and dropped a third of their health bars. He was pushed back a step as they both attacked at once, but Valit took some of the heat off with a few well-placed frost beams. They didn¡¯t do a lot of damage, but it looked like they had some sort of slowing effect that made it much easier for Kana to block their attacks and find his own openings. He chained a clipping sweep special attack into his melee swings to help tie up the swarm of pig-faced monsters, then turned to finish off one that Spiral had stunned. ¡°WHOAH?!¡± Bertrin yelled as the ground started rumbling and a small explosion of loose earth filled the air. A monster crawled out of the dirt, looking like nothing so much as a giant mutated ant with way too many spikes on its legs and mandibles. Its body was a glossy dark blue, clearly armored. The remaining bandits squealed in fear and attempted to break off from combat. ¡°Screw that,¡± Valit called out as she did her best to lock them down with frost beams. ¡°More XP if we kill them all.¡± Spiral rushed forward to handle the nightmare ant while Kana harassed the slowed orcen bandits. They made quick work of two of them, but the final remaining monster reached the trees and, once it was behind cover and able to shake off the slowing effect of Valit¡¯s magic, it quickly escaped. Kana returned to the fight to find Spiral on one side of the ant and the NPC on the other. Its HP bar said it was a midnight swarm guard, and not only was the bar itself as long as the war golem¡¯s had been, it was twice as thick. Spiral had made almost no progress in whittling it down, but by the same token, he was skillfully blocking the swarm guard¡¯s attacks and his own HP was almost completely full. The NPC smith struck at it with his hammer, which seemed to be doing almost no damage as far as Kana could tell. Valit¡¯s magical attacks were shaving slivers off its health, but the slowing effect was more pronounced. Against the raiders, it had only slowed them down for a second or two as she rotated between targets, but with only a single enemy, it was permanently slowed. That did not mean they were safe. The thing had six legs, after all. Spiral kept the majority of its attention focused on him, but occasionally its back legs would lash out. Sometimes Kana managed to avoid the kicks, but not always. Clipping sweep didn¡¯t seem to do much, since knocking out one leg out of six didn¡¯t really affect its balance, and while arc lance did do more damage than his regular attacks, it was only usable once every fifteen seconds. With three players and an NPC working on it though, the swarm guard went down after a minute or so of hammering on it. Spiral still had most of his health, and Valit never took a single hit. Kana was ironically in the worst shape of the three of them from the sporadic kicks the monster had tossed out that he hadn¡¯t been quick enough to dodge. When it died, a notification popped up informing him that he¡¯d gained 50 XP and reached level 3. Below it, a second window showed him the loot he¡¯d acquired from killing the midnight swarm guard, which was an item called an enormous mandible. It had a small quest item icon next to it, and touching that opened yet another window. ¡°Take the mandible to the local town of Celidar as proof that the midnight swarm has started appearing in the area so that they can prepare,¡± Kana read. ¡°We¡¯ll do it later once we¡¯re done playing with the piggies of the sea,¡± Spiral told him. ¡°For now, let¡¯s finish getting the iron loaded up and get paid.¡± Bertrin gave the monstrous ant¡¯s corpse a disgusted look before trudging back over to the remaining iron. ¡°Every year that swarm spreads farther. Seems like it¡¯s growing faster too. Ten years ago, you¡¯d have to walk for a month to even find someone who¡¯d heard of the midnight swarm. Now they¡¯re right here on my doorstep.¡± ¡°What are you talking about?¡± Kana asked. The NPC looked at Kana in surprise. ¡°What, you don¡¯t know what you just killed? It¡¯s a bug. And where there¡¯s one, there¡¯s a hundred more. Way I hear it, these things have colonized underneath whole countries and pop up looking for food to take back to the rest. They¡¯ve been a problem in Elegard for decades now.¡± ¡°It¡¯s the lead in to the first major storyline quest,¡± Spiral explained. ¡°The midnight swarm is a bunch of monster ants that tunneled through the ground and pop up all over the place to hassle people. There¡¯s almost always a quest to deal with a satellite colony in every town. And the NPCs almost always say something like, ¡®Thanks for helping to push the swarm¡¯s expansion back, for now¡¯ because the whole theme is that the swarm can never be stopped, only slowed down.¡± ¡°I heard somewhere that the devs are planning a timed event quest where the swarm finally reaches a capital city and it turns into a war zone,¡± Valit added. ¡°I¡¯m hoping I¡¯ll be a high enough level to participate when it goes live.¡± The three of them continued chatting as they finished loading up the iron. By the time they were done, the swarm guard¡¯s body had despawned and the chunks of torn up earth disappeared, leaving the field flat and clean like it had been when they¡¯d first found it. The trip back took even longer. ¡°I swear the devs did it just to piss people off,¡± Spiral said. ¡°No reason this guy couldn¡¯t have a horse or a donkey or whatever.¡± ¡°The only time I ever see NPCs with horses is when they¡¯re farmers,¡± Valit pointed out. ¡°And besides, enjoy the scenery. This place is beautiful.¡± Kana looked around. It just looked like some empty fields and occasional trees. Admittedly, that wasn¡¯t a normal sight living deep in the city in the real world, but still, it wasn¡¯t like the view was anything special. Valit seemed to think so though, and he didn¡¯t see any reason to argue about it. When they got back to the smithy, Bertrin walked over to them and pulled out a leather pouch. ¡°Here,¡± he said, pouring out some money. ¡°You earned it.¡± After accepting the money, a small loot window opened telling Kana he¡¯d received 100 drol and 100 XP for finishing the quest. His XP bar shot to almost completely full just from the bonus XP, but missed it by 4 points. ¡°That¡¯s annoying,¡± he said. ¡°Almost but not quite a full level.¡± ¡°4 points, right?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°We¡¯ll get it soon enough.¡± ¡°What now?¡± Kana said. ¡°Now you guys are caught up to me and we can finally work on the same quest,¡± Valit told him. 04- A Boatload of Bacon The cart full of iron had despawned while they were talking, and the interior of the smithy had changed to show the full stock of iron they¡¯d returned to Bertrin. He stood in the center, gazing in sorrow at a wall with dozens upon dozens of nails driven into it. Soot outlines of various tools stood out against the wood. Kana noticed the quest hand icon next to his name, something he¡¯d missed the first time he¡¯d talked to the NPC. He also noticed the icon had popped up on his map, so it seemed like there were a few ways to know there was work available besides just talking to every random person he came across. He walked over to Bertrin and triggered the script for the next quest. ¡°My father made most of the tools that used to hang on this wall,¡± the NPC told him. ¡°The ones he didn¡¯t, I made myself. It¡¯ll be a job and a half to replace them all. Bah. Getting sentimental in my old age though. I¡¯ll make new ones. Still, I¡¯ll miss ¡®em. Those swine wouldn¡¯t know how to use any of them anyway, probably leave them out to rust and break.¡± A new quest notification window popped up, informing Kana that in order to advance the quest, he needed to retrieve Bertrin¡¯s tools from the orcen raiders cache of plunder on their ship anchored just off the coast. At the same time, a marker popped up on his HUD noting the direction the quest was in. ¡°Ready to go?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°Yeah.¡± While they walked, Kana opened up his radial menu and started reading more about how the game worked. He knew from the starting area that dragoons got more powerful from both strength and agility, but not how. According to the help menus he was reading, agility both increased his critical strike chance and his accuracy. For dragoons specifically, a higher agility made it harder for enemies to break combo chains by dodging an attack. Strength contributed in a similar way, providing a straight buff to his damage output and making it so that he had a better chance of breaking through an enemy¡¯s parry to continue his combo chain. Spiral had been right on the money when he said the class revolved completely around stringing special attacks together. Most of them couldn¡¯t even activate on their own. He had to start his combo with a melee attack before he could use arc lance, and if he was understanding correctly, arc lance being in recharge was a prerequisite to use an ability he didn¡¯t have yet known as rising slash. The menus didn¡¯t go into too much depth about how to play the class after that. He could see more articles that were greyed out about other abilities he didn¡¯t have yet, about crafting professions, purchasing a home, joining or starting a guild, using the bank, renting stalls at the bazaar, and a dozen other topics. His reading was interrupted by an animalistic snarl. Surprised, Kana looked up from the radial menu to see a pack of six wolves spread out in a half circle around them. They¡¯d crept out of the nearby underbrush and gotten far closer than he¡¯d have thought they could have without being noticed. He felt a bit of morbid curiosity at that, wondering if he would have even known they were there if they hadn¡¯t started snarling. Valit let out a squeak of surprise and stepped back from the wolves. ¡°Go stand in the front,¡± she said, pushing on Spiral¡¯s shoulder. ¡°That¡¯s what you¡¯re here for.¡± ¡°Hah. Right. Sorry, not used to being the guy in heavy armor,¡± he said. He put up his shield as he approached the wolves and sent out a probing thrust with his sword. The wolves danced away and, as if that were the cue to go, all rushed the party. Kana set his spear to catch the first wolf that leaped at him, then flung it off the blade of his weapon and swung it in a wide arc. It caught a second wolf, and he gave ground to the third one approaching him to keep it at the edge of his attack radius. Valit started casting a spell, and Kana readied himself to react with an arc lance towards whichever ones she didn¡¯t slow down, but that didn¡¯t happen. Instead, a flurry of glinting ice shards materialized and peppered the wolves. Despite the fact that he was right in the middle of the attack, none of them hit Kana. More importantly, all three of their hp bars dropped by half. That was a good enough opportunity for him to start his combo. He chose the most wounded one to hit first. He slashed it with his spear and followed up with a clipping sweep to the closest wolf that had been rushing him, then spun in place and struck the next closest wolf with arc lance. The coil of lightning leaped off it and electrocuted the initially injured wolf, killing it outright. Another regular attack to the one he¡¯d arc lanced was enough to put it down. The third wolf bit down on his shoulder and dragged him to the ground. The stunned debuff popped up as he hit the dirt, counting down from two seconds. The wolf bit him again before he came out of the stun, and then he was on his ass and it was way too close for him to use his weapon. Its jaws ripped him into him a third time, and his HP went into the red. Desperate now, Kana used a move he¡¯d only just discovered he had a few minutes ago. It turned out that in addition to being masters of the spear and mid-range combat, they were also powerful kickers. He got both feet up and lashed out, catching the wolf in its chest with a double-legged kick that sent it tumbling backwards. Before it could close back in, he brought his spear down on its skull and finished it back off. Then, HP still dangerously low, he lunged into melee with the wolves that Spiral was fighting. They¡¯d circled the knight and were taking turns nipping at his flank as he spun in place to defend himself. Valit had slowed two of them with frost beams, which was probably the only reason Spiral was keeping up with blocking three at once.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen from Royal Road. Please report it. Kana picked the one with the lowest health to start his next chain on. Melee attack followed melee attack, then he knocked a wolf down by clipping its back two legs and finishing it with a third melee attack. Arc lance came off recharge then, and he fried the last two wolves with that. As soon as they died, an XP window popped up and informed him that he¡¯d gained 24 XP and advanced to level 4. A loot window popped up next to it with three wolf fangs and one pelt in it. When he examined them closer, the window informed him that they could be used in crafting to modify a weapon and increase its damage output. Similarly, the pelt was a material used in in making light armor. If he wanted more information, he was going to have to unlock a crafting profession first. ¡°That was a big pack,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I thought for sure we were going to get wiped out and have to walk back from the shrine. Good thing you guys have got some firepower.¡± ¡°Uh, yeah. I nearly did have to walk back,¡± Kana said. ¡°I¡¯ve got a solid 14 HP left. One more hit would have finished me off.¡± ¡°Did you use your potion?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°I¡­ forgot that I had it.¡± ¡°Nooooooooob.¡± ¡°Shut up.¡± Spiral laughed while Kana stared at him. ¡°I know where you live,¡± he told the knight. ¡°Yeah, yeah. Well, it worked out fine. We all made it. What¡¯s your passive recovery at now anyway? Maybe we need to rest for a few minutes.¡± Kana pulled his stats up from the radial menu and searched until he found the number he was looking for. ¡°20 HP per minute. So that¡¯s ticking up by one every three seconds or so. Five minutes and I¡¯ll be back up to full health.¡± ¡°Wait, seriously? 20 HP per minute? Mine is only 8! How much HP do you have? 100?¡± ¡°102, but yeah.¡± ¡°Probably some sort of game balance thing. I¡¯ve got 187. I guess knights really aren¡¯t designed to be a solo class.¡± ¡°I read something about speccing them out for solo builds,¡± Valit said. ¡°I think the theory was to be suicidally reckless, then use long recharge abilities to live through it. It¡¯s not very popular though because it¡¯s got a ton of downtimes while everything is on recharge and if you wanted to play that way, you could have just been a berserker instead.¡± ¡°Yeah. I just need to make friends with a mystic or a conjurer so I can get some of that sweet, sweet healing.¡± After a few more minutes, everyone was back at maximum HP and they started out again. The quest marker gave a general location to search for the orcen ship, but Spiral had done the quests already and Valit had been dying to the marauders all day, so they both knew exactly where to go. Kana followed along, splitting his attention between the help menus and watching for more predatory ambushes. When the ship came in sight, Spiral stopped. ¡°That¡¯s a lot more orcen than I remember,¡± he said with a frown. ¡°Yeah¡­ there weren¡¯t that many when I was trying to do this earlier. Not even close. Maybe a third of that total.¡± Kana did a quick count of the ship, and came up with 14 orcen in plain view. They were doing laps across the deck, slow and methodical like they were searching for something. ¡°Oh!¡± Spiral said. ¡°Someone¡¯s doing the marauders¡¯ attack plans quest. The game spawns a bunch of extra marauders to hunt for the person on the quest, but it¡¯s a level 10 quest so you can still complete it because all the orcen are in the 2 to 4 range. Or rather, you don¡¯t die if you fail it, because the whole point is to sneak onboard for the plans and not get caught.¡± ¡°Can we still get the tools?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Uh, in theory? If we could fight our way through. We¡¯re not under any obligations to be stealthy. But that¡¯s a lot of orcen. We just about got beaten by those wolves.¡± Kana considered the ship for a minute. ¡°How do we even get out there? Are we just supposed to swim?¡± ¡°Normally there¡¯s a boat that goes back and forth to the beach with two orcen that are transporting their stolen cargo. When the boat lands on the beach, you kill the orcen and steal it. It looks like someone already took it though.¡± Spiral pointed. ¡°You can see it there against the side of the ship where that rope ladder is.¡± ¡°Are we just waiting then?¡± Valit shrugged. ¡°I guess we can go grind for a bit?¡± Spiral made a face. ¡°Uhhh, do we have to? Maybe just take a lunch break and come back when whoever is doing the attack plans quest is done here and it goes back to normal?¡± ¡°Looks like he¡¯s done,¡± Kana said, pointing to the boat. A slim figure was climbing down into it and rowing towards the shore while the orcen were distracted by a fire that had erupted on the deck. The trio watched as the boat got closer. When it hit the sand, a man jumped out and stood facing them. Kana was surprised to find that he recognized him. ¡°You were in the training section with us,¡± he said. ¡°Exodus.¡± ¡°Wait, how are you doing the marauders¡¯ attack plans already? That¡¯s a level 10 quest!¡± Spiral asked. Exodus shrugged. ¡°That¡¯s just a recommendation. You don¡¯t have to actually be level 10.¡± ¡°Sure, but we killed the boss of the training area together, and we just got to level 4. There¡¯s no way you¡¯re a high enough level to solo that. ¡°It¡¯s called skill, noob. Some of us are good at this game.¡± Now that Kana got a chance to get a good look at him, he noticed the man¡¯s gear had changed considerably. Gone was the red half-cloak, replaced by a black number of similar cut but made of something higher quality than a burlap sack. He was wearing some sort of leather shirt with a number of straps across it, including a bandolier of throwing knives. The daggers on his waist had been upgraded too. One had silver wire wrapped around the hilt, and the other had a small gemstone set into the pommel. Exodus walked off, leaving Spiral to stand there and fume. ¡°That guy is the biggest asshole,¡± he said. ¡°Whatever, at least he¡¯s done. Give it a few minutes and everything should reset.¡± Sure enough, a minute later, the whole scene just faded away to be replaced by another one. The fire, along with half the orcen on the ship, vanished. Piles of crates and barrels appeared on the shore, and two orcen whose HP bars labeled them as marauders spawned on the beach next to the boat. They started grabbing cargo to load, but before they could get into it, Spiral leaped forward to attack. The marauders definitely had more HP than the bandits they¡¯d previously fought. Kana combo chained all the way through two arc lances before the monsters died, but the fight went smoothly otherwise. Spiral barely lost any HP, and what was lost he recovered by the time they got the boat into the water and started rowing over to the ship. ¡°Here we go,¡± Spiral said, one hand on the rope ladder after they¡¯d reached the ship. ¡°I want to say there will only be six marauders, two up top and four below deck. But I¡¯ve been wrong about the numbers all the way. This is going to be the biggest brawl yet. Focus on controlling the crowd and hitting individual targets hard and fast. If we don¡¯t get their numbers taken down in the first rush, they¡¯ll overwhelm us.¡± Then he scrambled up the ladder, Kana and Valit right behind him. 05- Flashburn Combat had started before Kana even made it over the rail. He had a brief moment of introspection about the convenience of not actually having to carry his weapon while going up a rope ladder that flopped around, but having it instantly in hand when he needed it. And he did need it within seconds of putting his feet on the deck. Spiral was already fighting two marauders and he¡¯d obviously made some kind of mistake because he was missing half of his HP. Kana rushed in to help, but before he got there, Valit fired off a frost beam. The slowing effect didn¡¯t seem to be hampering them as much as it had on the other monsters he¡¯d seen affected by it, but it was enough to give him an opening. Kana unloaded a full combo onto the closest marauder. Between his attacks and a second frost beam from Valit, it went down in seconds. Before they could take out the second one, another two appeared on deck. They ran in to attack, but Spiral was in no condition to pick them up. One slipped past him completely to get in Valit¡¯s face, and the other swung wide to flank Kana. Keeping it at the edge of his radius was impossible in the cramped quarters of the desk. He was forced all the way to the back of the far rail, and then nearly lost his spear into the water before he managed to slide around the pig-faced monster. There was no getting away from it though. It was inside his range and refused to give him the space he needed to fight. Spiral was still pinned down, and Kana didn¡¯t even see Valit anymore. Best case, she¡¯d gone back over the side. Worst case, she had a long walk back from the resurrection shrine. They¡¯d barely been fighting for thirty seconds and the whole thing had gone belly up. ¡°Maybe we should retreat,¡± he called out. He managed to drive the marauder back with a one-two kick using both feet and a leap. That gave him a split second to spin his spear through a melee swing and chain it to clipping sweep. The marauder went down and Kana pivoted in place to lunge forward and strike the orcen fighting Spiral with arc lance. With Spiral holding its attention and locking it in place, it was much easier to carve it up. Between the two of them, they managed to finish both of the marauders still on deck. The XP window popped up, telling him he¡¯d gained another 40 XP and 28 drol, so he knew the fight was over for the moment. Valit and the orcen that had charged her were nowhere to be seen, but it wasn¡¯t hard to find them. Kana poked his head over the rails to find her in the rowboat, soaking wet and huffing. The orcen was floating face-down in the water, covered in frost. Her HP bar was a bare sliver of red, but she was still alive. With a grimace, she made her way back up the ladder. ¡°Not that I¡¯m complaining,¡± she said, ¡°but that was not two marauders.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what worries me,¡± Spiral said. ¡°If there¡¯s really eight more below decks, I¡¯m not even sure how they all fit down there. We¡¯re going to get swarmed.¡± ¡°Two on top and four below was what I was fighting by myself,¡± Valit added. ¡°I beat the ones on top by shooting them with frost beams from the row boat, but once I got into the cargo hold, there just wasn¡¯t enough room. I could only get one of them before the other three ganged up on me. There¡¯s no way there could be even more down there.¡± ¡°But if the pattern holds, the game should spawn twice as many,¡± Kana said. ¡°Maybe we can use that to our advantage. Can we get them to come at us in a doorway where they can¡¯t all get to us, but we can attack around Spiral while he holds the door.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not sure how the game handles that, but it¡¯s worth a try. I don¡¯t think you¡¯ll be able to do much beyond basic attacks, but if it works, we can drop the marauders one at a time until there are none left.¡± Considering Spiral¡¯s HP was deep in the yellow and Valit was red, neither of them were in good shape to keep fighting. They decided to take a few more minutes to recover, but they couldn¡¯t wait for too long or else the marauders on deck would respawn on top of them. For the moment, they ducked into the captain¡¯s cabin to rest. ¡°Oh, hey, look,¡± Valit said. ¡°There¡¯s a treasure chest over there.¡± ¡°Might be trapped. There was a poison dart thrower on the deck I stumbled into as soon as I got up there,¡± Spiral told her. But Valit wasn¡¯t listening. She¡¯d already crossed the room and opened the lid. A loot window popped up in front of her. She tapped a button on it, and Kana saw a notification that he¡¯d received 50 drol. ¡°Hmm. There¡¯s a dagger that boosts agility and reduces the recharge time of a skill called blackout. I¡¯m thinking it¡¯s for the assassin class.¡± ¡°Anything else?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Bracers that¡­ hmm. I¡¯m not sure I understand what this means. It says it grants flashburn to ice based spells.¡± ¡°I think that¡¯s a sorcerer skill that twists the elemental properties of spells. In addition to the slowing effect of your frost beam, you could scorch an enemy with it as well.¡± ¡°You think so? That¡¯s so cool!¡± Valit fiddled with her radial menu for a second, and a pair of red cloth wristbands appeared on her. They had alternating patterns stitched in of an open flame and a snowflake. If Kana was being honest, he thought they looked ugly. He didn¡¯t have to wear them though, and Valit seemed to like them. ¡°Ok,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I¡¯m up to 90%. Let¡¯s get going.¡± Valit was only about half way recovered, but as she wasn¡¯t going to be the one taking the hits, they opted to risk that over chancing having more marauders respawn on top of them. Spiral exited the cabin first and made his way across the deck to the hatch leading down. Rather than climb down the ladder, he jumped feet first into the hole. Kana followed closely, so close that he almost landed on Spiral.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Hey, watch it.¡± ¡°Sorry.¡± Valit took the ladder. She rolled her eyes when she got to the bottom. ¡°Boys,¡± she muttered. ¡°What¡¯s the point if you¡¯re not having fun?¡± Spiral asked her. She just rolled her eyes again. ¡°It¡¯s weird. Shouldn¡¯t there be marauders here?¡± Spiral said, looking around. ¡°From what I read, one of them patrols this area and the other three are in the cargo hold. Common strategy is to blitz the patroller down so it can¡¯t call for reinforcements, but if you can¡¯t muster that kind of burst, you wait until its at the far end of its route and try to take the ones in the hold before it comes back.¡± ¡°Which strategy did you go with?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Tried both. Couldn¡¯t kill the patroller fast enough to keep it from alerting the other ones. Couldn¡¯t take three at once. I stopped for a bit to grind levels thinking I could increase my damage output enough to knock out the patroller at least. No luck with that either.¡± ¡°I wonder where the patrolling marauder is. With three of us, we should be able to overpower it quickly enough.¡± ¡°Unless there¡¯s two on the patrol,¡± Kana pointed out. ¡°Right, that. Unless there¡¯s- oh shit, there¡¯s two!¡± A pair of marauders rounded a corner and stopped. One of them let out a hoarse bellow and charged the group, while the other turned on its heel and disappeared. Spiral leaped forward to meet it half way and promptly put his shield in its piggy face. ¡°Boom, stunned,¡± he crowed. Valit got off the next attack, only instead of the blue beam Kana had gotten used to, it glowed white and was ragged. Little licks of light danced around it and when it struck the stunned marauder, the monster¡¯s ragged tunic burst into flames. Its HP bar lost a chunk from the initial hit, then started slowing draining from the fire damage. ¡°Oooooooh. That is so cool,¡± she said. Kana had to admit it. ¡°It kind of is.¡± The bracers were still ugly though. The marauder came out of Spiral¡¯s stun and hacked its sword down. Spiral tried to deflect its attack, but it pushed his shield aside and then leaned in to slam its porcine head into his face. The knight staggered back, now affected by a stun debuff of his own. Before the marauder could follow up, Kana got between them. He had limited room to fight, but he managed to force the marauder back with a few short thrusts and a well-placed kick. A second flashburn-infused frost beam struck it, and Kana used the opening to start a chain of attacks. The marauder dropped, its HP bar depleted, but no XP notification popped up. That meant they were still considered to be in combat with the second marauder, and probably that it was following its AI script to alert its companions in the cargo hold. Spiral started to chase after it, but Kana said, ¡°Wait. Let¡¯s hold out here. This isn¡¯t wide enough for them to come in more than two at a time. I¡¯ll fight next to you and Valit can be ranged offense.¡± ¡°You sure? Dragoons aren¡¯t really suited for close range fighting.¡± ¡°I¡¯m planning on holding a defense position. It¡¯s mostly a stalling tactic to keep them from overwhelming us with numbers while we whittle them down.¡± There wasn¡¯t any more time to discuss tactics after that. The sound of the marauders approaching was followed almost immediately by the pig-faced monsters turning the corner. As they¡¯d predicted, there were seven of them left, but Kana¡¯s guess about using the narrow passage as a choke point was more or less accurate. If they¡¯d been able to find something narrow enough that only one of them could get at them, that would have been better. As it was, he fought defensively to avoid attacks or deflect them, and made basically no effort to counter. With all of his energy focused on that, he did alright keeping his HP up, though it was still draining faster than Spiral¡¯s. Valit supported him with flashburn beams that kept the marauder moving marginally slower, but they could all tell it was a losing battle. They were forcing a stalemate and would probably kill three or four of the marauders, but eventually they¡¯d be worn down to nothing and killed. They needed to increase their damage output without sacrificing defense if they were going to win the fight. Kana wasn¡¯t the only one to figure it out, but unlike him, it looked like Valit had a solution. She used that spell he¡¯d seen her cast before that struck enemies with glistening shards of ice. Combined with the flashburn skill her new bracers gave her, it rained down a veritable firestorm. The two in front of Kana and Spiral went down for the count, and the damage splashed onto three more of them, causing each to lose over a third of their health. ¡°Holy shit,¡± Spiral said. He shot a look at Kana. ¡°Er, I mean¡­ holy¡­ shoot?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not your mother. I don¡¯t care if you swear.¡± ¡°Right, yeah. I knew that. Soooo¡­ what¡¯s the recharge time on that?¡± Valit fired off another flashburn beam. ¡°Thirty seconds.¡± ¡°We can hold for thirty seconds,¡± Spiral said. By the time she got off another firestorm of ice shards, Kana¡¯s HP was in the red. The spell killed off another two of the marauders and left the rest injured, but Kana still wasn¡¯t sure he was going to outlast the remaining three. Two of them were also in the red, but the last one was just barely into the yellow. ¡°Back up,¡± Spiral told him. ¡°I got this.¡± Kana retreated, leaving Spiral to hold the center. The knight worked double time to keep both of the orcen marauders in front of him from getting past, a feat that his stamina reserves would probably only support for a minute at most. It was enough to let Kana and Valit finish off the two near-dead marauders and let the three of them gang up on the last one still standing. The resulting 80 XP was enough to push Kana up to level 5, which came with a significant HP boost and unlocked his first skill choice. There were only three choices at the moment: vigor, which reduced the recharge time of his abilities, shock lance, which allowed arc lance¡¯s electrical damage to hit three targets instead of two, and bladed boots, which passively increased the damage of his kick attacks. All three sounded viable, but when he considered that he was planning to continue playing with Spiral, and that having a larger group seemed to cause the game to spawn extra enemies to throw at them, shock lance seemed like the obvious choice. Spiral made his own choice while Kana reviewed his options, and then all three of them moved into the cargo hold together. From there, it was as easy as looting the quest item, which was a metal toolbox containing all the NPC¡¯s missing tools. They picked it up, then took some time to poke around the cargo hold for other valuables. All said and done, they found four chests. The first one had nothing but drol, which they split three ways. The second contained an earring that increased casting speed by 1%, which went to Valit. The third had a berserker¡¯s heavy sword in it, with no special qualities that any of them could see. All in all, it wasn¡¯t a very exciting haul. Kana was doing one last sweep when he spotted the fourth chest. The others were already out of the hold and climbing back up the ladder when he opened it. There was the standard token amount of drol, but then¡­ ¡°Uh, guys. I think I found something unusual.¡± ¡°What?¡± Spiral asked. Kana made his way out of the hold to stand before the other two and held up his find. It was a spear, but unlike the plain wooden shaft with a leaf-bladed metal head he was currently using, this one was made of dark, glimmering metal. It had some sort of misty ribbon hanging just below the head that twined itself around the haft, and the business end swirled with colors like thunderclouds overhead. Every now and then, little blue arcs of electricity flickered around it. ¡°You have got to be kidding me,¡± Spiral said, his mouth hanging open as he stared. ¡°You are the luckiest son of a bitch I have ever seen.¡± ¡°Unbelievable,¡± Valit added. ¡°I hate you.¡± ¡°So¡­ what is a Nibelus, and why does it say ¡®the Stormbringer¡¯ in its description?¡± 06- Easy Mode ¡°Drops have rarity, right? Common items have a 1 star ranking, artifacts have 5 stars. Getting an artifact out of some randomly spawned treasure chest at level 5. Holy crap, man. Your luck stat has got to be 4 digits.¡± That explained why the text box with Nibelus¡¯s stats was orange instead of the standard white he¡¯d seen on everything else he¡¯d picked up. Just like Spiral said, there were five little stars across the bottom of the box in the lower right corner. ¡°Worth 40,000 drol at least,¡± Valit said. ¡°What are the stats again?¡± ¡°+50 agility, +30 stamina, +10% lightning damage, +30% lightning resistance, -5 seconds to Arc Lance¡¯s recharge time, and it has a chance to create an attack called Ball Lightning which generates a sphere of electricity for three seconds, damaging all nearby enemies.¡± ¡°So op,¡± Valit said. ¡°Kind of ruins the experience,¡± Spiral added. ¡°Maybe you shouldn¡¯t use it.¡± Kana shrugged. ¡°I¡¯ll try it out and make a decision later.¡± He equipped Nibelus and the party retreated from the ship. Once they¡¯d made their way back to land, they started the return journey to the blacksmith¡¯s home. On the way, Kana made sure to keep an eye out for a target dummy. The game didn¡¯t seem to support a large population of random monsters though, and only once did he see a lone wolf that fled from the group rather than attack. Now that he thought about it, probably as much as half of his XP gain had come from completing the quests, and almost all the rest had been gained as a direct result of fighting with monsters he¡¯d been specifically targeting for the quest. Except for the wolf pack spawn that had almost killed him, he couldn¡¯t think of any random spawns he¡¯d run across. Everything had been scripted. When he voiced that thought though, Spiral just said, ¡°It¡¯s because we¡¯re low level. Once we get out of this starter area, the world gets a bit more hostile.¡± That made sense, but it was still frustrating when he wanted to try out Nibelus and nothing presented itself as a target. They made it all the way back to Bertrin¡¯s smithy completely unopposed by man, wolf, or pig. Kana was tempted to smite Valit with Nibelus just because she wouldn¡¯t stop talking about the player-run bazaar and her plans to make tons of money once she got into crafting. Eventually though, blessedly, they returned to the quest giver. They found him in his workshop, hammering away. Several of the empty spots on his tool wall had been filled, and when they approached him, he stopped his work and said, ¡°What¡¯s that you¡¯ve got there?¡± ¡°Why don¡¯t you do the honors?¡± Kana said to Valit. ¡°This was your quest first.¡± She opened up her menus and went into her inventory to produce the toolbox and handed it over. Bertrin took it from her and placed it on his workbench. He opened it and paused for a second. ¡°I didn¡¯t think I¡¯d ever see these again. I don¡¯t know how I could ever thank you.¡± He pulled out the tools and looked through them, then pulled down the replacements he¡¯d crafted off the wall. ¡°Maybe you could find a use for them. I could teach you if you wanted to learn.¡± Bertrin held out the tools to Valit, who took them. A window popped up in front of Kana that told him a party member was completing a quest he had finished and asking if he wanted to turn it in as well. He selected yes and got a hefty XP reward in addition to an item called blacksmith¡¯s basic tool set. Further examination told him that it allowed him to craft apprentice level blacksmith patterns. ¡°Up to you if you want to take up the profession,¡± Spiral said. ¡°It¡¯s expensive and time consuming to progress in it, but if that¡¯s your thing.¡± There was no question that Valit was going to take up the profession. Kana wasn¡¯t particularly interested though. Professions generally took up a lot of time and didn¡¯t involve a lot of exploring, and he was far more interested in playing the actual game than he was in sinking a ton of effort into what was essentially a side job. ¡°I can come back later if I don¡¯t take it up now?¡± he asked. ¡°Yeah, just got to talk to the guy whenever you¡¯re ready.¡± ¡°I think I¡¯ll pass for now. I¡¯d like to poke around the game a bit more before I settle down on a day job.¡± ¡°Alright. Want to start another quest chain? We¡¯ve got this midnight swarm lead in to turn in still, or there¡¯s the Thulnar the Repentant quests. Players usually break that into two pieces because there¡¯s an abrupt difficulty spike in the middle of the quest line, but with your incredibly lucky drop, we might just be able to do it all in one go.¡± ¡°What¡¯s that one about?¡± Kana asked. ¡°An old man who used to be a warlord retires and spends his last years helping a small village, some kind of atonement thing I guess. Enemies from his past catch up with him and start terrorizing the villagers. Thulnar has gotten too old to fight them off, so he needs help. The first few quests are simple enough, but then this NPC who¡¯s running the bad guys¡¯ crew catches wind of you and they make a concentrated effort to kill you.¡±Unauthorized use of content: if you find this story on Amazon, report the violation. ¡°That quest line was designed to be done in a group,¡± Valit added. She paused to think about it. ¡°I bet you the difficulty doesn¡¯t scale with more people like the blacksmithing quests did.¡± ¡°Do you want to give it a try?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°Sure, it couldn¡¯t hurt. Worst case, we stop at the difficulty spike.¡± Valit asked, ¡°Do you guys mind if I tag along? I never got past the spike and I¡¯d kind of like to see how it ends.¡± ¡°What about your crafting? It¡¯s all you¡¯ve been talking about for the last twenty minutes,¡± Spiral said dryly. ¡°I thought you¡¯d be all fired up to start grinding out mats.¡± ¡°Eh, heh, I kind of already did. Remember when I said I had to grind a few levels because I was having problems with those marauders? I went out of my way to find the mobs I needed to grind to get apprentice blacksmithing mats.¡± ¡°Speaking of, what level are you?¡± ¡°Oh. Um. Eight.¡± Spiral¡¯s eyebrows shot up, but all he said was, ¡°That high, huh.¡± Valit¡¯s face flushed and she mumbled something that Kana couldn¡¯t quite make out. He slapped Spiral¡¯s shoulder and hissed, ¡°Stop that.¡± ¡°What?¡± ¡°You know what.¡± ¡°I didn¡¯t do anything!¡± ¡°You do not know how to talk to girls at all, do you?¡± Truth be told, Spiral had never been that sociable. It didn¡¯t surprise Kana that he¡¯d stick his foot in his mouth, though it was impressive in an awkward kind of way that he could do it with so few words. Kana was sure he must have gotten that particular talent from his mother. ¡°It¡¯s ok,¡± Valit said. ¡°Really. I know I¡¯m not very good at the game. Thanks for helping me finish the blacksmith quests. I¡¯ll drop group now so you can move on.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t be ridiculous. We¡¯d be happy to keep running with you.¡± Kana shot a pointed look at Spiral, who mutely nodded. No doubt, that was his most intelligent contribution to the conversation yet. ¡°Are you sure? It¡¯s ok, really.¡± ¡°Aw, shut up and come on,¡± Spiral told her. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean anything by it, really.¡± Valit finally smiled and nodded. ¡°Ok, I will. Thanks.¡± Now it was Spiral whose face was flushing. Kana just snickered quietly to himself. ----- Thulnar the Repentant turned out to be on the south side of the Shrine of Numa, which meant a bit of a walk. On the bright side, it seemed like that side of the zone was more densely populated, because they found a lot of randomly spawned monsters. ¡°That is not even fair,¡± Spiral observed after watching Kana execute his fourth one-hit kill on a snapbulb prowler. Admittedly, the sentient flower monsters were only level two compared to Kana¡¯s five, but they weren¡¯t even living long enough for him to start his combo. ¡°How is this weapon even in the game? I was doing maybe 8 damage on a melee swing before. Arc lance did 20, once. Now I¡¯m doing 37-40 for off basic attacks. I can¡¯t even find something with enough hp to live long enough to combo into an arc lance, and that¡¯s not even looking at this ball lightning ability.¡± ¡°I¡¯m going to pull them all,¡± Valit declared. ¡°Ready or not, here we go!¡± She started firing off her modified frost beams as fast as possible, targeting various snapbulb prowlers at the edge of her range. She shot the fifth one just as the first reached her. Before it could attack, Kana skewered it with Nibelus. A second prowler was close enough for him to chain into that with another attack, and then the remaining three were all clumped close enough together that he pulled off an arc lance, instantly vaporizing all of them. Ignoring the XP gain of 10 that popped up, he reported on his damage. ¡°58, 51, and 55. Completely smoked them.¡± ¡°I hate you,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Let¡¯s go kill more shit.¡± The trio carved their way across the wetlands, heading generally southward and going out of their way to kill as many monsters as they could. The XP was low and none of them needed the trash loot they got, but it was just plain fun to mow through them like they weren¡¯t even there. ¡°Oh, hey, detour! I totally forgot until just now. Over here,¡± Spiral said, pointing toward a cave entrance half concealed behind a curtain of soggy looking moss. ¡°What¡¯s in there?¡± Valit said. ¡°I don¡¯t remember that when I did these quests on my ranger.¡± ¡°You¡¯ll see.¡± Spiral grinned and rushed in. Kana followed him, feeling reckless and not caring in the slightest. The cave dipped sharply down and bent into a U-turn. ¡°Ok, it¡¯s pitch black in here.¡± ¡°Valit?¡± ¡°Hmm? Oh! Right!¡± An orb of brilliant light flared into existence overhead, revealing a monstrous looking snapbulb. It was easily twice the height of a person, with leafy, jagged edged fronds that ground against the stone as it flinched away from the light. The bulb on top of its stalk, a bright yellow thing made of constantly shifting petals, split open to reveal a circular maw of serrated teeth. ¡°That. Is. Ugly. Gonna be seeing that in my nightmares tonight,¡± Valit announced. ¡°Now, let¡¯s kill it.¡± Kana hadn¡¯t gotten a good chance to see how the lesser snapbulbs fought on account of them instantly keeling over whenever he poked them with his spear, so it was a bit of a surprise when the fronds snapped out on long, prehensile vines to slash at them. There were enough that it could attack all three of them at once, and Valit definitely got the worst of it. Spiral blocked with his shield and his heavy armor soaked a lot of the damage he couldn¡¯t deflect. Kana was agile enough to straight up dodge all but one of the attacks. Valit was neither armored or fast. She took three leaf blade attacks head on and lost a third of her HP in less than a second. ¡°Oh screw that,¡± Spiral said, rushing forward to slam his shield into it. Kana didn¡¯t know if plant-type monsters were immune to stuns, or if Spiral just didn¡¯t execute the attack properly, but either way, it didn¡¯t slow what the game was calling the snapbulb progenitor down. Kana struck it. Then he hit it again. Then he unleashed arc lance into it. The first two hits shaved off about 10% of its health, and he was expecting arc lance to bring it down to half, but when the lightning hit it, it only did a quarter of what he¡¯d figured it out. The progenitor was apparently resistant to lightning attacks. That didn¡¯t mean it was going to live much longer though. With each attack carving off 5% of its total health, Kana could probably have killed the boss monster on his own. Spiral was soaking almost all of its damage and giving Kana free shots at it, and while it might not have been taking much damage from the electrical discharge of Nibelus, it turned out that plants were weak to the fire component of Valit¡¯s flashburn beams. It was little more than a burnt husk bleeding out some sort of sap all over the cave floor in seconds. The XP window popped up and awarded him 100 XP for the kill, and the loot window added another item to his inventory. ¡°I¡¯m almost afraid to ask what the area boss dropped for you. The way it¡¯s going, it¡¯ll be a Valkyrie¡¯s Rise,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Hah. I don¡¯t know what that is, but no. It¡¯s garbage, I think.¡± ¡°What is it?¡± ¡°Blood Drinker¡¯s Token. Looks like it¡¯s for some in-game event.¡± ¡°Dude. Seriously? Get out. Just. Get out of my game.¡± 07- Rude Angry People ¡°What does it do?¡± ¡°I¡¯m not telling you.¡± ¡°Come on.¡± ¡°No. Screw you and your insanely high luck.¡± ¡°You know I can just look it up, right?¡± ¡°Damn it. Fine.¡± Kana stood there, staring at Spiral. Finally, the knight sighed and said, ¡°It¡¯s a token, right? You turn it in for a prize at the Crimson Plaza. Basically, it¡¯s currency, and all the prizes are 3 or 4 star rarity items. You can pick a 3 star item, or try your luck and get a randomly selected 4 star piece of gear. There¡¯s no guarantee it¡¯ll be something you can use, but that¡¯s why we have the trade function.¡± ¡°Ok, that makes sense. Next question: what and where is the Crimson Plaza?¡± ¡°That is an event area that¡¯s only available at certain times. Uh¡­ honestly getting there isn¡¯t something you can really do at low levels. You might be better off selling that unless you want to hang onto it for the next month or so.¡± ¡°Probably get 10,000 drol for it,¡± Valit chimed in. ¡°If you don¡¯t want to deal with the hassle, I¡¯ll sell it for you. I¡¯ll put it up for 12, keep 2, and give you the 10.¡± ¡°Hmm. I¡¯ll think about it and decide later. Speaking of selling stuff though, my inventory is kind of clogging up with junk from all these snapbulbs. I¡¯m pretty sure I¡¯ve got enough mutilated stalks to build a house with.¡± ¡°Oh, right. We still haven¡¯t hit a town yet. There should be a few NPC vendors coming up here in a bit to sell off the trash to, not that you¡¯ll need the drol once you make bank off all your lucky drops.¡± They started walking again, though the fun of indiscriminately slaughtering weak mobs had worn off and they only cleared the ones that were too closely packed together to move between without catching their attention. After a minute or two, they hit a dirt path and Spiral led them east to a small town. The signpost at the edge read ¡®Faldsteel.¡¯ ¡°Ok, if I¡¯m remembering this right, there¡¯s a proximity quest that activates as soon as you get close enough to it. It¡¯s some back-alley thing where a couple of thugs are about to knife a guy. So I guess let¡¯s spread out and find that?¡± Spiral said. ¡°I¡¯m going to be finding some poor unfortunate pawn shop to take all this crap off my hands first,¡± Kana told him. ¡°Ditto,¡± Valit added. She peered around. ¡°This place is kind of¡­ dingy. Everything else was so much brighter. I didn¡¯t realize how drab this place was the first time I was here.¡± ¡°Well the story is kind of a downer.¡± ¡°Why¡¯s that?¡± Kana asked. ¡°No! Don¡¯t ruin it for me. I want to see it play out,¡± Valit cut in before Spiral could explain. Kana laughed. ¡°Alright. Guess we¡¯ll find out when we get there.¡± Spiral led them to a merchant and explained that the game had options to use a menu system for ease of access as opposed to having to give voice commands to the NPCs when buying and selling items. It was optional, but generally agreed on to be easier and faster, especially when multiple players were accessing the vendor at the same time. Their bags considerably lighter and their purses slightly heavier, the party split up to explore the town and find the proximity triggered quest that would start the whole line. The town wasn¡¯t that big, but Kana got distracted by the NPC scripts. They were advanced enough that he could almost forget that he wasn¡¯t surrounded by real people. They had conversations, they reacted to his presence, and nowhere did he see any looping behavior. Kana wondered if the AI was advanced enough to make decisions based on environmental stimulus, or if the loop was simply long enough that he hadn¡¯t seen the end of it yet. He experimented, approaching a group of men talking in low voices. They fell silent as he walked up, and one of them said with a sneer, ¡°What do you want, stranger?¡± Kana thought about that for a second. He didn¡¯t know anything about the questline except for a name, really. ¡°I¡¯m looking for Thulnar. Could you tell me where he is?¡± ¡°Oh aint he just a popular one lately. Bastard¡¯s bringing trouble down on the whole town. Fine. He¡¯s got a shack on the outskirts of town that way.¡± The NPC pointed a grubby finger toward the east. ¡°Go pester him and leave the rest of us be.¡± ¡°Thanks.¡± The NPC spit on the ground and turned back to the other men. Kana stood there for a moment, trying to process the conversation. Apparently, he hadn¡¯t cleared out fast enough, because the man looked back at him and said, ¡°What? You need help picking your nose too?¡± Kana doubted he¡¯d ever unravel the mystery of why someone had taken the time to script such an abrasive NPC. He turned on his heel and walked off, the laughter of the men following him down the street. Idly, he wondered what would happen if he attacked the man. The game might not even allow him to attack NPCs at all, or at least not in a town setting. He made a mental note to ask Spiral later. A party chat message popped up from Valit, reading simply, ¡°Found it. West side of town behind a bar.¡± Kana stopped and looked back across town. He couldn¡¯t see Valit, but his HUD gave him a marker pointing straight at her. He followed it, boggling as he walked by the NPCs that they took the time to stop and jeer at him for going the ¡°wrong¡± direction. Compared to the simple script of the blacksmith NPC, the crowd of villagers was on a whole different level. Kana was at a loss to explain the gulf in AI functionality. It was like one NPC had been built by a high school kid who was mucking around with coding as a hobby and the ones in the village had been developed by a professional team, which they probably had been. It was probably just spotty quality control, but he would have thought such a prominent and early-appearing NPC would have a better coat of polish on it.If you encounter this story on Amazon, note that it''s taken without permission from the author. Report it. By the time he reached Valit, Spiral had already arrived and they¡¯d triggered the event. A middle-aged man dressed in the same rough looking clothes as the rest of the villagers was on the ground, sitting upright and looking up at a pair of ruffians, fear plain on his face. Both of them were young, tall and heavily muscled. The victim scooted backward and said, ¡°Please, I didn¡¯t do anything. Don¡¯t hurt me. You want money? Take it!¡± Spiral pulled his weapon and approached. One of the thugs turned to face him. ¡°Stay out of it. Don¡¯t concern you none.¡± ¡°Yeah¡­ No.¡± He rushed in, leading the charge with his shield. The thug produced a pair of daggers to defend himself. Spiral blocked both attacks, but doing so interrupted his momentum and he didn¡¯t get the stun off he¡¯d obviously been hoping for. ¡°Do we kill these guys or just rough them up?¡± Kana asked, hesitating to attack. It hadn¡¯t been a problem before, but Nibelus¡¯s attack power was so overwhelming, he was afraid he might accidentally kill one of the NPCs and mess up the quest. ¡°Go all out. The game scripts will keep things on track,¡± Valit told him as she launched a flashburn beam at the other thug. That was good enough for Kana. He brandished his weapon and lashed out at the thug Valit had already attacked. His first melee landed for 41 damage, instantly dropping half of the thug¡¯s HP. He followed it up with a second one, and something unusual happened. The NPC used his weapons to catch and push the spear aside, despite having been wide open for the attack. A message popped up saying his attack had been parried and it had only dealt 13 damage. That was enough to push the threshold on the trigger to keep the script rolling. Both thugs disengaged from combat and ran past their intended victim. ¡°You¡¯ll pay for this,¡± one of them hissed as they scampered off. ¡°Thank you,¡± the NPC victim said as he climbed to his feet. ¡°Those guys just showed up a few days ago and started causing trouble. There¡¯s a bunch more of them too. I caught a few of them hassling poor old Thulnar, and I guess I made myself a target by sticking up for him. I didn¡¯t think they¡¯d go this far though. And for what reason? Thulnar never hurt anybody!¡± A message popped up telling Kana that his quest log had been updated, and that his next step was to find Thulnar. The NPC they¡¯d saved thanked them again before heading off to the more populated center of town. Once they were alone again, Kana described the weird parry. ¡°It was odd though, because there was definitely no way that should have happened. One second, I had a clean shot. The next, the dagger was just there.¡± ¡°That¡¯s the power of plot armor. The script calls for the thugs to get away, so when you would have dealt a lethal blow, the game cranked the mob¡¯s speed up by 1000% so that it could deflect some damage,¡± Spiral explained. ¡°Cheating bastards.¡± The quest log had updated itself with a new quest, directing Kana to investigate the ruffians making trouble in Faldsteel, and advised him that Thulnar might know more. It didn¡¯t give any hint of where to find Thulnar, but thanks to the rude NPC he¡¯d already talked to, he knew where to start looking. It didn¡¯t take long for them to notice a change in general attitude from the NPCs. Starting the quest line seemed to have polarized the town into those who were much friendlier because they had taken a stand against the thugs terrorizing them and those who had become outright hostile, often muttering comments along the lines of bringing more trouble down on everyone¡¯s head. Most suspicious were the ones that tried to stay out of sight and just watch. When Kana pointed them out, Spiral said, ¡°Good eye. They¡¯re either part of the gang or local recruits who are being paid to keep an eye out and report back.¡± ¡°Should we do something about them?¡± Valit asked. ¡°I never noticed them before.¡± ¡°Nah, all the normal rules for attacking NPCs still apply to them right now. They¡¯re mostly just there for flavor anyway. I heard somewhere that if you try to attack them, they run like hell and they¡¯re almost impossible to catch unless you¡¯re level 30 or higher.¡± ¡°Speaking of, I ran into a real nasty NPC earlier and meant to ask you what exactly those rules are.¡± ¡°Well, you can. Other NPCs will run away, or some will try to attack you. Guards and the like almost always come after you. The thing is, though, the game remembers. If you go on a slaughtering rampage, you might as well cross the town off the map, because even after they all respawn, you¡¯ll never be able to interact with them again.¡± ¡°Oh. So if I come back at level 50 and kill everyone, when they all respawn, they just cower or run away if I approach? Or attack, I guess, if they¡¯re guards?¡± ¡°There¡¯s a couple different reaction AI¡¯s set, but yeah, basically something along those lines. Also, the game has a hidden reputation score and doing stuff like that drags it down. Get it low enough and you¡¯ll have NPCs in places you¡¯ve never been before telling you that they know all about you and you¡¯re not welcome. Guards will try to keep you out of cities too.¡± ¡°It¡¯s sounds like what you¡¯re saying is: don¡¯t do it.¡± Spiral laughed. ¡°I feel like I shouldn¡¯t have to tell you of all people not to murder and terrorize the citizens. But some players do make characters specifically for that. They get up to high levels and deliberately tank their reputation stat, then go on sprees in the major cities for fun. Speaking of, at some point you¡¯re going to start seeing player killing.¡± ¡°Hot player on player action,¡± Valit chimed in. ¡°Exciting and infuriating, all at the same time.¡± ¡°There¡¯s some level restrictions. You can¡¯t attack someone more than five levels below you, for example, unless you¡¯re willing to accept some pretty harsh penalties. I¡¯d have to look them up, but it¡¯s stuff like if you¡¯re flagged when you die, you lose 1000% more XP and your killer gets a random piece of your gear. And the flag does not go away until you do die.¡± Kana made a mental note to dig into the rules to that later. It wasn¡¯t that he wasn¡¯t interested, but he was pretty sure they¡¯d reached their destination. An old man, tall and broad despite his age, stood in the door frame of a shack watching them. He looked them over and said, ¡°You don¡¯t look like Alidrak¡¯s little gang of shitheads. So, what do you want? Someone else I¡¯ve wronged in the past come to get revenge maybe?¡± ¡°No,¡± Valit said, stepping forward. ¡°We came to help.¡± ¡°Help?¡± The NPC looked suspicious. ¡°Why would a bunch of strangers want to help me?¡± ¡°Well, it¡¯s not just about you. Those men are attacking other villagers too. They were trying to mug some poor man on the other side of town just a few minutes ago. Dealing with them is everyone¡¯s problem.¡± ¡°The villagers, sure. But you¡¯re not from around here? What¡¯s to stop you from walking right back down the road? Why do you care?¡± he demanded. ¡°Because what they¡¯re doing isn¡¯t right, or just, or fair.¡± The NPC snorted. ¡°As if any of those things were what makes the world go round. No, you¡¯ll forgive me if I don¡¯t trust you. I¡¯ve had enough past mistakes come back to haunt me. I won¡¯t be going out of my way to make any new ones. Get lost.¡± Kana wasn¡¯t sure where that conversation had gone wrong exactly, but Spiral and Valit didn¡¯t seem surprised by the way it was going. He guessed everything was more or less running according to script, with the NPC¡¯s AI keeping it within the defined parameters. So he wasn¡¯t exactly surprised when he got a notification about his quest log updating from ¡®Find Thulnar¡¯ to ¡®Find a way to earn Thulnar¡¯s trust.¡¯ Thulnar walked into his shack and kicked the door closed behind him. For some reason, that struck Kana as funny, considering it fit so poorly that he could still see the NPC moving around through the gaps around the frame. He supposed slamming the door in their face was more about the principle of the action than about actual privacy. ¡°How are we supposed to convince him we don¡¯t work for this Alidrak guy?¡± Kana asked, curious where the story was going. ¡°You tell me, Mr. Lucky Dice.¡± ¡°Lucky dice? What¡¯s that- oh. We have to go find some item drop somewhere, don¡¯t we?¡± ¡°I¡¯m sure we¡¯ll be done in no time,¡± Valit said. ¡°You know the drops were a coincidence, right? I¡¯m not just going to magically get lucky drops forever? That¡¯s not how probability works.¡± Spiral laughed over Kana¡¯s protests and said, ¡°Come on. We¡¯ll see who¡¯s right.¡± 08- Dead Rude Angry People Spiral stopped in the middle of town. ¡°Now, the way you¡¯re supposed to do this is talk to the townspeople and get some more information. That gives you clues about the next step. Or, I could just tell you. That kind of takes some of the fun out of it though.¡± ¡°I already know what they¡¯re going to say,¡± Valit said. ¡°But if Kana wants to experience it, that¡¯s fine by me. I can go grind out some snapbulb prowlers to kill time.¡± Kana stared at Spiral for a second. ¡°Are you saying that this quest is to go around and interview witnesses while trying to piece together what happened?¡± Spiral burst out laughing. ¡°I guess it is. Should be easy then, huh?¡± ¡°What makes you think I would want to spend my free time doing that? Do you think I have some deep-rooted love for door-to-door canvassing? I promise you, I do not.¡± ¡°Fine, fine. I get it.¡± Spiral was still laughing. ¡°The gist of it is that a couple of the NPCs tell us the people harassing the villagers are camped out south of here, and that a lot of them have an armband that marks them as members of the gang. We go out and collect some to bring back to Thulnar to show that we¡¯re not with the bad guys and we¡¯re willing to work with the village.¡± ¡°Sounds good. Let¡¯s go do that.¡± ¡°Hooray for solving our problems with violence,¡± Valit said. ¡°Well, Thulnar was right about one thing. Being just and fair doesn¡¯t make the world go round.¡± Kana sighed. ¡°Humans are violent creatures. Even now, the best we can do is channel those tendencies into games like this.¡± ¡°Whoah there,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Let¡¯s lighten the mood a little. It¡¯s just a game. We¡¯re not going to go out and start attacking people on the street.¡± ¡°You¡¯d better not. You know if you get arrested, I¡¯m going to find out about it.¡± ¡°And that is 100% the reason why I never get caught committing any crimes.¡± ¡°I would think the reason you never get caught is that you never commit any crimes.¡± Spiral nodded. ¡°Sure. Yep. That¡¯s the reason. I am innocent and pure and definitely have never ever done anything I wasn¡¯t supposed to, especially not to Esther Longhaven¡¯s dog when I was nine.¡± ¡°Was that¡­ wait¡­ it was you who shaved Esther¡¯s dog?¡± ¡°No, I just said it definitely wasn¡¯t me!¡± Kana laughed. ¡°Too bad. I¡¯d have slipped you a twenty for that.¡± They shared a grin, then started out toward where the local brigands had set up their base. Spiral stopped them before they got too close and explained, ¡°From what I remember there are patrols scouting around the edge of the camp. There¡¯s something like 30 or so mobs total, and about 20 of them are clustered together. You¡¯re supposed to pick off the small groups, but you¡¯ve got to hit them hard before they can raise an alarm. ¡°You¡¯re our point man on that, and Valit is on control to keep secondary targets from fleeing. I¡¯ll do my best to lock one guy down with a stun while you smoke another one. If we do this right, we should be able to take out patrols of 2 without them even having a chance to fight back, and groups of 3 or 4 without them getting away to call reinforcements.¡± ¡°When did you become a master tactician?¡± Kana asked. ¡°Didn¡¯t you used to have problems with basic algebra and geometry?¡± ¡°Those are completely unrelated things,¡± Spiral protested. ¡°Besides, this isn¡¯t really problem solving. I already know how to approach this. This is an exercise of putting practical knowledge into action.¡± ¡°Damn, you almost sound smart when you say it like that,¡± Valit said. She paused for a second, then added, ¡°Almost.¡± ¡°Alright, that¡¯s enough out of both of you. Start looking for our first patrol, please.¡± The trick wasn¡¯t actually finding the patrols. The area wasn¡¯t heavily wooded, so it was easy enough to spot them. The problem was avoiding being spotted back, at least not before they had closed enough distance to take the hostile NPCs out. Their very first skirmish was against a single scout, and that was very nearly a disaster. The NPC spotted them and started a warning shout when Spiral put on a sudden burst of speed and closed the gap. He shield-slammed the scout and cut off his shout with a stun debuff, and Kana caught up just in time to get a double melee swing off and finish the NPC. ¡°Whew, that was close,¡± he said as the loot window popped up. ¡°Hey, weren¡¯t we supposed to get some kind of token or emblem or whatever?¡± ¡°You didn¡¯t get one?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°I did. I guess your luck has finally run out.¡± Kana rolled his eyes. ¡°How many of these do we need anyway?¡± ¡°Uh, depends on the quality. The gang has a hierarchy, and the badges the higher-ranking members use are worth more for earning Thulnar¡¯s trust. I think this location has mostly low-ranking badges, but that¡¯s what makes it an easy place to farm until you get enough.¡± ¡°Not quite true,¡± a new voice cut in. Another player appeared from around a tree, the same one they¡¯d run into twice before. ¡°Oh. It¡¯s you. Yay,¡± Spiral said, his voice flat and a scowl on his face. Exodus didn¡¯t seem bothered by the less than enthusiastic greeting. ¡°Sure, the noobs and scrubs like to come here to pick off the sentries and scouts, but the real prize is a mob named Plinket. Now, the problem is that he¡¯s right in the middle of that cluster-fuck of mobs, and I know I¡¯m good, but even I don¡¯t want to take on close to 20 mobs at once.¡±Reading on this site? This novel is published elsewhere. Support the author by seeking out the original. ¡°Well then I guess you should just piss off to somewhere else then, huh?¡± Spiral said. ¡°Could do that. Or I could stay here and camp all the scouts and sentries so that you have no choice but to attack the main base if you want to get your badges. Or we could party up and go balls out on this quest. I should mention that Plinket¡¯s badge is a guaranteed drop for everybody and Thulnar grants a special reward for turning it in above and beyond the normal XP.¡± Valit leaned forward, a glint in her eyes. ¡°What kind of reward?¡± ¡°Depends on your class. For sorcerers¡­ hmmm¡­ a wand that increases spell range by 10% and casting speed by 5%.¡± ¡°I like that.¡± ¡°Knights get a shield that grants +10% deflection and increases shield bash stun duration by 1 second. And dragoons get a halberd that ignores 15% of enemies armor and increases agility by 5.¡± ¡°You just know all this off the top of your head?¡± Valit asked. ¡°You pick up stuff if you play long enough,¡± Exodus told her. ¡°So, that¡¯s the offer. You guys help me get to Plinket, you get a badge that¡¯ll net you some sweet upgrades.¡± ¡°Not much of an upgrade for Kana,¡± Spiral said. ¡°What do you two think?¡± Kana shrugged. He agreed that Exodus was an arrogant jerk, but he¡¯d gotten used to working with people he didn¡¯t like years ago. Doing a five-minute quest wasn¡¯t going to kill him. ¡°Up to you.¡± ¡°Oh, let¡¯s just do it,¡± Valit said. Spiral grumbled a bit, but eventually relented. Exodus was added to the party and another marker popped up on Kana¡¯s HUD. He spent a second looking some stuff over, did a double take once and looked at Kana, and then shook his head. ¡°Unbelievable,¡± he muttered. ¡°OK, screw the sentries and scouts. The goal is to get to that big tent by the table. Plinket spawns in there about twenty seconds after combat starts and rushes out to attack the players. The black manor thugs have 122 HP and follow the novice one-handed attack pattern AI¡¯s. Black manor soldiers have 150 HP and higher resistance to physical damage. They use the soldier¡¯s balanced stratagem attack pattern AI¡¯s. Plinket himself has 260 HP, but I¡¯ll take him out and loot the badge for us, then we¡¯ll retreat to the north side of the camp.¡± The three of them all stared at Exodus for a second, no comprehension on their faces. He sighed and shook his head. ¡°Why do I bother?¡± he muttered. ¡°Thugs are weak, soldiers are a bit tougher and can defend themselves better. Use physical attacks on the thugs and magic on the soldiers. I¡¯ll deal with Plinket. When I give the word, break off the fight and regroup to the north of here.¡± They threaded their way through the sentries without much issue, mostly because when one got too close, Exodus would kill him by basically vanishing and reappearing, then sinking both daggers into his victim to drain his HP bar in one attack. Once, there were two sentries walking together that were in the way. Exodus stunned one with a blow to the head while simultaneously cutting the other one¡¯s throat. His first victim was dead before he came out of the stun debuff. ¡°That class is scary,¡± Valit said as they watched him work. Spiral shook his head. ¡°I think it¡¯s more him than the class, but¡­ Yeah, takes a lot of fun out of it the way he operates.¡± Kana received four badges from Exodus¡¯s kills, as well as 60 XP, which pushed him to level 6 just as they were approaching the central camp. His max HP went up to 230, and he got a minor buff to his stats, but most importantly, he gained access the rising slash special attack he¡¯d read about earlier. He briefly skimmed the description to find out that it was a straight damage attack that served as a link in the chain to extend his combos farther. ¡°We¡¯re all going to die,¡± Spiral said. ¡°That¡¯s 12 mobs that¡¯ll attack at once. There¡¯s no way I can hold all of them, and they¡¯d probably insta-gib me if I could.¡± ¡°Keep your dragoon alive for 10 seconds and he¡¯ll kill a few of them,¡± Exodus said. ¡°I¡¯ll take out one or two as I go by to the main tent. Plinket should be an 8 second fight, maybe 6 if I can get a lucky critical in on the opener. Then all you have to do is run. Combat in total is maybe 15 seconds long.¡± ¡°There is no way you¡¯re going to take out a mob with 260 HP in 6 seconds. What are you? Level 6? 7?¡± ¡°11, actually.¡± ¡°How the hell¡­ We started at the same time!¡± Exodus shrugged. ¡°Ready?¡± he asked. Scowling, Spiral nodded. ¡°Going in 3, 2, 1¡­¡± The knight led the charge, and Kana followed after him. Valit was already setting up her first flashburn beam when the NPCs reacted to Spiral¡¯s attack. It scorched one of the NPCs with a tag that identified it as a black manor soldier. Kana went by that one to reach a group of thugs instead. Nibelus appeared in his hands as he moved in, and he attacked. Either the thugs were extremely weak or it was just the artifact-grade weapon being as overpowered as always, but each thug went down in two hits. That made it impossible for Kana to start a combo chain the way he was doing it, so he switched up to hitting a target once and chaining onto the next one until he¡¯d built up a long enough string to release arc lance. Damage numbers popped up all over, and in a matter of ten seconds, he had 6 enemies dead on the ground and had run out of thugs within range to continue his combo. He chained from arc lance into a rising slash at one of the soldiers Spiral was working on. They had him surrounded and he was burning stamina so fast that he wouldn¡¯t have enough left to actually run away from the fight in a few more seconds. Kana could already see him slowing down as the effort to block attacks from five different enemies at once took its toll. His HP was still green, at least. Rising slash cut through one of the soldiers, tearing away half of his HP in a single attack. A flashburn beam split the cool evening air and carved off another chunk of HP. Kana then finished the soldier off with a simple melee attack and chained that into a clipping sweep to trip another soldier. Exodus appeared at the tent just as a bear of a man ducked out from under the flap. He was easily as big as Thulnar, but twenty or thirty years younger. He had a huge mace held in one hand, and he brought it up into an overhead swing to come down on Spiral. Before it could connect, Exodus was on him. His opening attack took away a third of the boss¡¯s HP bar, and then Exodus locked him down with a stun debuff while he kept working. Individual attacks might not have been as damaging as anyone else¡¯s, but there were so many of them that Kana could actually watch Plinket¡¯s HP bar drain away. When he came out of the stun, Exodus hit him with a different special that drastically slowed his movement speed and kept chipping away at the NPC. Kana left him to that and worked to take the pressure off Spiral. Between him and Valit, they took down two more of the soldiers. By the time Plinket went down, there were only five enemies left. Rather than call for the planned escape, Exodus just joined in and helped kill the rest of them. From start to finish, the entire combat had taken not quitet thirty seconds. It was also worth a staggering 400 XP and a 119 drol, in addition to various 0-star rated junk items and several 1-star rated cheap weapons. Most importantly, Kana gathered 12 badges including Plinket¡¯s lieutenant¡¯s badge. All in all, the last minute had been quite profitable, if a bit hectic. ¡°That artifact has sick damage output,¡± Exodus said. ¡°Almost makes up for how much of a group of noobs you guys are. I¡¯m surprised we managed to mow them all down. Either way, good job, thanks for the help. I¡¯m out.¡± He dropped group and walked off, disappearing behind a few trees. Spiral just glared at him until he was out of sight. ¡°Whatever. It¡¯s over with. Let¡¯s go see if this special badge is worth all the good loot we were promised.¡± Somehow, Kana doubted that Spiral would be willing to work with Exodus anymore if they ever came across him again. Their paths had crossed several times, but if the assassin hadn¡¯t been lying, he was already almost twice their level. Kana doubted they¡¯d see much more of him in the future as that gap widened. It wasn¡¯t until he heard a shout of alarm that he realized he¡¯d stopped paying attention and wandered into a sentry¡¯s line of sight. ¡°Good job,¡± Valit said. More men started appearing from the tree cover all around them, and by unanimous unspoken agreement, the three of them broke into a run back toward town. 09- Dirty Work Thulnar was surprised to see them again. At least, he looked surprised to Kana. ¡°Didn¡¯t I tell you to get lost?¡± he spat out from his position in front of the door leading into the shack. ¡°Because you don¡¯t trust that we¡¯re here to help,¡± Valit said. ¡°We were hoping this would prove our sincerity.¡± She held out the pile of badges she¡¯d collected, and Thulnar took them with a confused look. Confusion gave way to comprehension, and he shot them a sharp look. ¡°What have you done?¡± he demanded. A notification box popped up telling Kana that a member of his party was turning in a quest that he had also completed, and asking if he¡¯d like to hand over the badges he¡¯d gathered as well. He selected yes and they disappeared from his inventory. He got 150 XP added to his total, putting him up to three-quarters of the way to level 7. ¡°We¡¯re not working with those men. We¡¯re not part of their group. We want to stop them,¡± Valit told the NPC. ¡°Idiot, you have no idea how much worse you just made it. Alidrak isn¡¯t going to just accept this. He¡¯ll retaliate. He¡¯ll take his anger out on the villagers, and those men whose friends you attacked to prove how righteous you are, they¡¯re going to want revenge for their comrades too.¡± ¡°I¡­ what?¡± Valit glanced back at Spiral and Kana. ¡°This isn¡¯t how it was last time.¡± ¡°By the Gods, you couldn¡¯t have hurt this village more if you actually were working for Alidrak. All you¡¯ve managed to do is speed up the demise of every single person living here. He¡¯s not going to get bored now. He¡¯s not going to let people escape. He¡¯s going to be vindictive. And you idiots will be his first targets.¡± ¡°Must be because of the lieutenant¡¯s badge,¡± Spiral said when the NPC stopped for a breath. ¡°Fine. You morons want to fight. You¡¯ll need something to fight with. Take this. Go ¡®save the town¡¯ or whatever it is you think you¡¯re doing.¡± Thulnar stopped and stared over their heads. A distant shout came from the far side of the village. More voices rose up in chorus. ¡°They¡¯re already retaliating. I have to find a way to fix this mess. Get out of my sight and try not to cause more problems.¡± The quest updated from reporting back to Thulnar to defending the villagers. The spear Exodus had promised was deposited into Kana¡¯s inventory, its stats exactly what he¡¯d been told they would be. He decided to hang onto it for a bit. He wasn¡¯t going to use it for the rest of the quest line, but it could be useful later on when he wanted to practice chaining attacks together without having things die instantly. The others equipped their new gear, and together they ran across Faldsteel to find the source of the commotion. ¡°Are we coming up to the difficulty spike you mentioned?¡± Kana asked while they moved. ¡°After the next quest. This is the one where we get Alidrak¡¯s attention. Then the next one is his first murder attempt on us. Then he gets serious and starts sending the heavy hitters our way.¡± They came to the scene of the disturbance then. A group of five men were surrounding a family. One of them had a woman by her hair as she cried. Another held a knife to a child¡¯s neck. Two more had a man pinned down on the ground, where he was struggling to rise despite the arrow sticking out of his shoulder. The last one held a torch high and, with a sneer at the struggling villagers, tossed it through the open front door. Villagers cried out in protest, but none of them dared move closer. Kana glanced at Valit and saw her raising the wand she¡¯d just gotten from the last quest. ¡°You got the one holding the child? I¡¯ll take the two with the man and Spiral saves the woman?¡± he asked. ¡°Do it. I¡¯ll lead,¡± she said. A moment later, a flashburn beam lit up the evening and struck the black manor thug, dropping half of his HP bar. She blasted the NPC again, killing him before he could hurt the child. Kana barreled into the other two thugs, killing one instantly with Nibelus and then deflecting an attack from the other one. He managed to keep his momentum going and chained the second attack and third. With both of his targets dead, he moved on to the one who¡¯d thrown the torch while Spiral and Valit dealt with the final thug. In a manner of seconds, they¡¯d rescued the civilians, but the fire was already spreading. None of the NPCs were making any move to help, so Kana turned to Valit. ¡°Take off the bracers and shoot frost beams at it?¡± he half-said, half-asked. ¡°It¡­ Might work?¡± she responded in the same tone. Her radial menu popped up in front of her and she removed the bracers from her equipment, then fired off a series of frost beams into the interior of the burning house. They cut through the fire, but had no noticeable effect otherwise. She tried aiming at the floor where the wood was burning, but the coating of frost the spell normally left when it hit something was too thin to withstand the heat. ¡°Shit, that¡¯s a no-go.¡± Valit equipped the bracers again. ¡°Spiral, any ideas?¡± He shrugged. ¡°I ignored the burning buildings and let the NPCs deal with it. We¡¯ve got to find five more encounters with the mobs to complete this step of the quest.¡± ¡°Can you guys get a bucket line from the well or something going?¡± Kana asked the NPCs. ¡°We¡¯ll figure something out,¡± a woman assured him. ¡°You go save whoever needs saving. Give those bastards hell for all of us.¡± The NPCs started talking amongst themselves, but the player group didn¡¯t stay long enough to observe. Instead, they followed the sounds of fighting until they came across a group of three villagers backed against a wall by seven more black manor thugs. Kana was the first into battle this time, and he took full advantage of how grouped up they were to chain into an arc lance that put down half of the enemies. Spiral barely even reached them before the rest dropped. They repeated that on the third group they found, but when they ran into a fourth party of enemy combatants, the NPCs had the smart idea to immediately turn tail and run. That encounter turned into a chase around the village laced with blind ambushes as they rounded corners and tried to close the distance on the fleeing thugs. The villagers were less than helpful. They would give contradictory information when asked which way the invading thugs had gone, were often wrong, and had a tendency to get taken hostage when a nearby thug got cornered. Usually, the group was able to rescue them without incident.If you stumble upon this tale on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. The last thug was aggressive enough that when Spiral approached, he slit his hostage¡¯s throat. The NPC, a man who looked fifty or so, dropped to his knees and clutched at his throat. The game didn¡¯t display that scene true to life, thankfully. There was no blood, just an HP bar that went from full to empty, some gasping and choking, and a body with the name in grey over it laying in the street. Kana barreled into the man and drove Nibelus through him. Then there were two bodies with grey names. He glared down at the dead thug, then snapped his head up to look at Spiral and Valit. ¡°What?¡± he demanded. ¡°You¡¯re getting a little too into it,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Don¡¯t forget that it¡¯s just a video game. Virtual reality, not real reality. Nobody really died.¡± Kana forced himself to take a breath. His knuckles were white around the haft of Nibelus. It really was something how much effort they¡¯d made to get so many little details right. Sometimes it was a little too accurate though. Kana didn¡¯t look down at the body. Even without the blood, it was too close to life. He took a few seconds to compose himself. Spiral was right. It was just a game. Kana hadn¡¯t cost an innocent man his life by being impatient and reckless and making bad decisions. It was just a game. He kept telling himself that. ¡°Maybe we should take a break,¡± Valit said. ¡°It¡¯s fine,¡± Kana told her. ¡°Are you sure?¡± ¡°I said it¡¯s fine.¡± They finished the quest in silence. Kana was distracted and not paying much attention, which was probably for the best. Once the quest log updated that they¡¯d successfully fended off the invaders, they returned to Thulnar. The NPC had a weary, resigned slope in his shoulders. His whole posture screamed of a broken and defeated man. Or maybe Kana was just projecting his own experiences and memories. Either way, the Thulnar they¡¯d talked to the first few times was gone. Instead, the towering man was putting on an intimidating suit of spiked black armor. A sword hung from his belt, but the NPC¡¯s true weapon was an enormous axe with a handle long enough to be held in two hands and a half-moon blade heavy enough to need both to hold it. ¡°You lot again? You don¡¯t learn, do you? If you¡¯re smart, you¡¯ll head down the road and hope that Alidrak is too distracted here to keep track of you. He¡¯ll send out his shadows next. It¡¯s what he always does. That¡¯s his pattern, escalation of terror. Usually he drags it out longer, but you killed that traitorous bastard Plinket.¡± Thulnar stopped to laugh. ¡°He deserved it. Alidrak turned him against me years ago. Still, he¡¯s following the pattern. People are afraid to leave their homes. Tomorrow morning the village is going to wake up to find corpses in their beds, and they¡¯ll learn to fear the dark.¡± ¡°How do we stop him?¡± Kana asked. ¡°You¡¯d have to kill him, all of his lieutenants, a few key officers who might be able to hold things together, and for good measure, the majority of his foot soldiers. If enough of them got away, there¡¯d be a dozen groups of roving brigands preying on travelers and small villages. Alidrak has a talent for collecting the scum in one place. With him gone, they¡¯d scatter and cause a thousand problems.¡± ¡°You seem to know a lot about his methods,¡± Valit said. ¡°Why is he after you?¡± ¡°You want the whole story?¡± Thulnar asked, sounding surprised. ¡°I guess that makes sense. The whole point of coming here is that no one would know who I am. Maybe when this is all over, I¡¯ll have time to tell you, if we¡¯re all still alive. For now, let¡¯s just say that I am a very bad person who has done a lot of very bad things over a very long life. And I¡¯m never going to make up for that, but it¡¯s a life I walked away from.¡± Thulnar stopped talking for a bit while he strapped a few more pieces of armor into place. Kana wondered how accurate the designers had been in their depiction of a man dressing himself in field plate armor. ¡°Alidrak is a ghost of that old life come back to haunt me for past misdeeds. He was a rival of sorts, at least he liked to think we were on the same level.¡± Thulnar stopped to chuckle to himself again. ¡°Nothing more than a pretender to the throne, truthfully. But I¡¯m old now, weaker, and alone. He¡¯s here for revenge, and he¡¯s playing with his food instead of just eating it. He¡¯ll regret that when I¡¯m done.¡± Fully armored now, he picked the enormous battle axe up and turned to face the town. ¡°You want to help? Fine, I believe you. Idealistic fools, but I¡¯ll use you anyway. There is a woman in charge of the Black Manor, Alidrak¡¯s subjugation unit. Her name is Malia. She is Alidrak¡¯s chief assassin. She¡¯ll be the one picking victims and coordinating this phase of his conquest. You find her, and you kill her.¡± ¡°How does that help?¡± Kana asked. ¡°It cripples his administration, slows down the whole thing. Gives me more time to go after Alidrak himself. Gives a few more villagers another night of breathing they wouldn¡¯t have otherwise. Hell, it might give you another night among the living too. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve all been targeted for your interference. Assassins will be coming for you.¡± Thulnar went still and peered around. ¡°They could be watching us right now, for all we know.¡± Kana knew for a fact there was at least one assassin out there somewhere, but he expected Exodus probably didn¡¯t have his name down on his list. Then again, it was hard to tell with that player. He supposed if the assassin thought he had something to gain by player killing, he probably would. Kana was just at a loss to guess what that might be. Unpleasant though the man was, he was undeniably effective and would no doubt make the next stage of the quest much easier to complete. It was getting late, but if Exodus hadn¡¯t logged out for the night, he was probably out there killing enemy assassins at that moment. There might not be any left for Kana¡¯s group to hunt. Then again, his HUD was pointing out a human-shaped shadow lurking just overhead on the roof of the shack. Kana probably wouldn¡¯t even have noticed the NPC up there if not for the slight creaking of the whole building when the extra weight settled onto it. Once he¡¯d spotted the NPC though, a name plate had shown up that identified it as a black manor assassin. Before he could say anything, the assassin leaped off the roof at Thulnar. The big man spun in place, swatted the assassin¡¯s extended sword aside with a backhand, and grabbed the other NPC by the throat. Thulnar slammed the assassin into the ground hard enough to stun him, then took a two-handed grip on his axe and brought it down into the assassin¡¯s chest cavity. It was a brutal execution, one that happened so fast the assassin¡¯s HP bar just seemed to disappear without ever draining. ¡°Like I said, they could be watching us right now,¡± Thulnar commented. ¡°You¡¯ve got a job to do. If you really want to help, you¡¯ll go do it.¡± The NPC walked off into town, the battle axe carried in both hands. ¡°That was more intense than I remember,¡± Spiral said quietly after he was gone. ¡°This is the point where people playing by themselves usually jump ship on the quest. Enemy assassins have a tendency to spawn when you¡¯re already in combat with something else, and Malia is holed up in an old cellar that¡¯s got a bunch of elite guards in the house above it.¡± ¡°Are you saying you want to give up the quest line?¡± Valit asked. ¡°No, no. But it¡¯s getting pretty late. We could pick it up tomorrow?¡± ¡°Yeah, ok. What do you think, Kana?¡± ¡°Sure. What time?¡± Valit considered. ¡°I have an appointment in the morning. Usually I log on around three.¡± ¡°That works for me,¡± Spiral said. ¡°You good too?¡± ¡°Fine. We¡¯ll call it a night then?¡± ¡°Yep! Oh, before I forget,¡± Valit said. She trailed off for a second, and a window popped up in front of Kana with a friend request from her. He accepted it and a second window gave him basic instructions for accessing the social interactions section of his radial window. Curious, he opened it up to see a friends list, chat log, guild status, and a few empty spaces that he didn¡¯t have any immediate explanations for. ¡°We should log out at a rest area,¡± Spiral said. ¡°There should be one in town.¡± Together, the trio made their way to the local inn and paid 12 drol each for a room. ¡°It gives you a well-rested buff when you log back in, plus allows you to log out immediately instead of being on a timer. If you log in the field, your character it still there, sleeping, for the next ten minutes. Chances are decent that if you¡¯re not careful, you¡¯ll log back in at the closest Shrine of Numa because something found you and killed you.¡± ¡°OK, good night guys. See you tomorrow at three.¡± Valit waved a hand, and her character disappeared. ¡°She¡¯s such a chatterbox, but she¡¯s nice enough,¡± Spiral said after she was gone. Kana shrugged. ¡°Be nice to her,¡± he said. ¡°Good night.¡± He selected the log out option from his radial menu, and Istrius faded from his vision. After backing from a view menu, the optical display switched back to his normal daily HUD. Jon Peld sat up slowly in his bed and tried not to wince as the movement sent pain through his chest. 10- Late Night Sorrows Jon took stock of himself first. He was surprised at how emotionally drained that last section of the game had left him. It wasn¡¯t really anything the game designers had done. It had just touched on a bad memory. The mandatory counseling after hadn¡¯t helped much. He could still remember that weird smell in Dr. Sadoki¡¯s office as she¡¯d told him he was only human, that no one could be perfect every second of every day. That all sounded good in theory, but she hadn¡¯t been the one whose hands were covered in a little boy¡¯s blood. God, that kid had been maybe seven or eight years old. His own son had been around the same age. Jon had been over that scenario a million times, trying to think what he should have done differently, what he would do differently if he ever found himself faced with a hostage situation like that again. Being better was the best he could do for that little boy, so that no one else¡¯s little boys died too. That was when the long hours had started; longer hours, he should say. Then the problems with his marriage. He couldn¡¯t let it go, she couldn¡¯t deal with him never being home. He didn¡¯t stop working even when he was off the clock. She¡¯d been right about that. Here he was, two broken ribs and a broken leg, supposed to be on leave and recovering. He could justify it as spending time with his son, but if he was being honest, he would never have picked up Istrius if he hadn¡¯t noticed the common theme that every victim was connected to the game in some way. Still, it had been nice to spend time with Derek. Jon hadn¡¯t seen much of him since the divorce, not that he¡¯d seen much of his family before it either. He had a suspicion he knew why his son¡¯s grades had taken a sudden nose dive during the last half of the school year though. He made a mental note to discuss balancing school and hobbies. Jon snorted. He was such a hypocrite, thinking he could lecture someone else about balancing work and play. This would definitely be a ¡®do as I say, not as I do¡¯ lecture, and he knew from experience that those were the hardest ones to drive the point home on. As for Istrius itself, Jon had to consciously remind himself that it was only the first day. He hadn¡¯t seen anything that struck him as too suspicious so far, besides his improbably high luck in rare drops. The blacksmith NPC had been incredibly simplistic compared to the AI on display in the village, too. He would have expected a prominent quest giver to have a bit more attention and effort put into creating it than random no-name background characters. That wasn¡¯t much to go on, but Jon wasn¡¯t discouraged. Only some of the perps they¡¯d arrested had actually been players in the game, and he¡¯d taken the time to learn how to find their character profiles. All of them had been high level players. In four other cases, the people in custody had been roommates to active players who were also high level. That said that if there was a real connection, and Jon still wasn¡¯t convinced there was, that the answers would not be found at the lower levels. His working theory was that someone had discovered a vulnerability in how the game interfaced with the player¡¯s brain and used it as a backdoor to perform mind jacking. Whoever had done it would have to have been beyond brilliant though. There hadn¡¯t been a case of mind jacking in over two hundred years, which was why Marc had dismissed the whole theory as nonsense. He didn¡¯t believe the people they had in custody when they said they didn¡¯t remember anything, and in all fairness, criminals were known to lie if they thought it could get them out of trouble. Jon was not convinced. Just because no one had done it for generations didn¡¯t mean someone wasn¡¯t going to figure out a new way to do it. If Istrius was how that person was getting to his victims, Jon was going to find the link and trace it back to the source. Before he did any of that though, he had a different kind of challenge, one that at that moment felt like a trial of Herculean proportions. His bathroom was on the other side of his apartment, he had multiple broken bones, and he really, really had to pee. ------- Derek rummaged through the kitchen for snacks. His whole day had been surreal. It was unusual to even hear from his dad at all, but when he¡¯d read the message asking if he wanted to play Istrius together, Derek had been so surprised he¡¯d almost walked into traffic. To his shock, the workaholic had been sincere. He¡¯d gotten hurt on the job and was off to recover for a few weeks, and decided to put that time to good use bonding with his son. Since he was basically immobile, a vrmmo was perfect, and he¡¯d remembered that Derek like Istrius. It had been kind of weird at first, but his dad hadn¡¯t treated him like, well, like a child. Derek was seventeen, about to finish up school, and his dad had kind of forgotten that kids got older. He had a tendency to still think of Derek as if he was still five. Maybe it had been the extra layer of separation the game world gave, but it was nice to be treated like an adult. And damn, his old man was good at it. Even without that insanely lucky drop, his dad could fight. He guessed that made sense kind of. He was part of the police force, so presumably he had some sort of hand-to-hand combat training, but Derek hadn¡¯t really expected it to extend to using a spear. There was a dragoon in his main character¡¯s guild who¡¯d been playing that class for a year, and Derek would have swapped him out for his dad in a heartbeat.Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. All in all, it had been a pretty fun day. There had been that speed bump at the end, and Derek was kicking himself for not remembering the whole hostage situation thing. He should have known how his dad would react to that, but he¡¯d been in the mindset of Istrius being a game world for so long that he didn¡¯t think of NPCs as people. They were plot devices and resources to enhance the player experience, nothing more. But the AI was impressive. It had actually been one of the game¡¯s selling points when it had come out a year ago, and the NPCs could act very life-like if the players were willing to play along and talk to them. Derek was sure his dad had never had time in his life to play a vrmmo, so the shock of stumbling into such a life-like scenario and not being in the proper head-space to separate it from his real life had done a number on his dad. Hopefully he wouldn¡¯t let it keep him from coming back, because it had been years since Derek had spent that much time with his dad and he was enjoying sharing his favorite hobby. It wouldn¡¯t last more than a week or two. Once his dad was off bed rest he¡¯d be right back to work and probably never log in again. Derek took his arm load of snacks back to his room and sat down in his gaming chair. Idly, he opened the Istrius message boards and scrolled for interesting topics. The front page was composed of mostly two types of posts: those hyped for the upcoming expansion and those complaining about all the spoilers the beta testers had leaked. Derek¡¯s only real opinion was that he was annoyed it wasn¡¯t coming out until school started up again. Not seeing anything he was interested in, he clicked on the second page and reached for the first snack bag. ------ The big machine whirred and hummed, but the girl inside didn¡¯t hear it. Her body was securely placed in an examination chair, laid at an incline and with about a hundred different sensors pointed at her to monitor her vitals. Her mind was far away. After she¡¯d said good night and logged out, she hadn¡¯t gone straight back to the real world. Instead, she¡¯d gone up one level of vr to a doctor¡¯s office. The staff member there was an AI construct, but she¡¯d always found it easier to interact with if she pretended it was human. She entered the office, and the AI known to her simply as Todd looked up from where he was doing paperwork. That was all an illusion, of course. The whole thing was fake, but the illusion of him doing busy work at a desk was just to make him appear more human. There was a word for that, when AI constructs were given meaningless scripts to humanize them. It bugged her that she couldn¡¯t remember what it was. ¡°Good evening, Kelly,¡± Todd said. ¡°Are you ready to give your daily report?¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± the girl replied. ¡°So, I was online for about ten hours today. There was still some slight distortion trying to track fast moving objects, and I¡¯m not sure, but I think some of the brighter hues are a different shade than they were yesterday. Other than that, everything seems to be good.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll make a note of that and have someone check your neuro receptors. You should watch for any deterioration in the upcoming week. Of course the goal is to perfectly replicate sensory input, but in the interest of not having to perform invasive surgery to modify the implants, the clinic may decide that a level of slight distortion is acceptable when it comes to fast moving objects.¡± It always made her shake her head that they¡¯d designed Todd to have all the needless superficial human behaviors like a bunch of paperwork cluttering his desk or the pair of running shoes tucked into the corner beside a gym bag, but then his speech was so clinical and precise. It was like the AI couldn¡¯t bear to be less than perfect, and any areas it was allowed to, it dialed the machine precision persona up to the max. ¡°Do you have anything else to report?¡± Todd asked. She thought about Kana¡¯s wild eyes when he took down the mob who¡¯d killed the hostage. It was the first time she¡¯d ever seen that look on anyone¡¯s face. She thought about asking about it, but decided to hold off. She wanted more time to process what she¡¯d seen. Maybe she¡¯d tell Todd later. ¡°No, I think that¡¯s everything. Have there been any changes to my next appointment schedule?¡± ¡°No. Dr. Landon will see you in the morning at the usual time.¡± She tried not to wince at the word choice. Todd must have noticed the reaction though, because he said, ¡°My apologies.¡± ¡°It¡¯s not a big deal, Todd. I think I¡¯m going to log off and go to sleep. Could you page a nurse for me?¡± ¡°Of course. Good night, Kelly.¡± ¡°Good night.¡± She logged out of the VR system and the implants stopped rerouting sensory data. Slowly, the hum of the machine she was in came to her. The air started smelling like a hospital again, and she could feel a spot on her leg where the chair she was in chafed. The colors of the office faded away, and everything went dark. She laid in the chair, waiting for the nurse to come remove her from the machine. After a minute, she heard the door open and a voice said, ¡°Ready to come out?¡± ¡°Yep,¡± she said back, and a motor kicked to life. Fresh air, which just meant a stronger hospital smell, flooded the interior of the machine, and the darkness got a fraction of a shade less dark. She groped through the air with one hand until she felt the nurse grab onto it and help her to her feet. ¡°This way,¡± the nurse said. The girl followed her, twelve steps to the door. She paused and waited for the squealing hinge that marked the door being opened. Then the nurse guided her forward, three steps forward and a left turn. She counted the steps to the bathroom, the same hundred and forty-two as every other night, then sixty-four more to her room. She got settled into her bed and the nurse left her a tray of food. Then the nurse said, ¡°Good night, Kelly,¡± and left the room. Idly, the girl wondered if they left the light on or if she was left sitting there in the dark. She¡¯d never bothered to ask. Mechanically, she shoved the food in her mouth until she couldn¡¯t feel anything else on the tray, then she set it aside and laid down. She hated being Kelly Teddik. Kelly Teddik needed help to do everything. Kelly Teddik was a burden on everybody. Kelly Teddik¡¯s best friend was dead. Being Kelly Teddik sucked. The girl lay in the bed, unseeing eyes wide open and alone in a probably dark, and tears streamed down her face. Screw being Kelly. She¡¯d be Valit forever if they¡¯d let her. 11- On the Road to Trouble The first thing Kana saw when he logged in was a notification window telling him that he had seven new messages. The first was from Valit around noon saying she¡¯d finished her appointment early and was ready to start whenever everyone was online. The second was Spiral replying that he was going to be a bit late. The rest were all from Valit, talking about the mobs she was grinding out for crafting mats, about something called a whipthorn stinger and how much of a pain it was to kite since it wasn¡¯t slowed by frost beams, that one of the assassins they were going to be fighting for the quest had attacked her, and so on. He dug through the social interaction options on his radial menu and found that he could see a decent amount of information about people he was friends with. He knew Valit¡¯s level, zone location, how long she¡¯d been online, what quest she was actively working on, and there was even a tab to show the latest equipment drops she¡¯d obtained. If he wanted to, he could see what she had equipped in real time from his room at the inn. He was about ten minutes early, but that was ok. He used the time to move around a bit and get a feel for the game. A quick refresher before they got into the heavy stuff couldn¡¯t hurt. He decided to explore the town a bit and check out the shops and NPCs he could find. Kana had almost made it down the stairs when a new message popped up from Valit saying hi and that she would be back to town in a few minutes. He took a minute to tweak the thought-to-text settings on his account and then said hi back. If it was only going to be a minute or two, he decided it was easier to just wait in the inn for her to show up. While he was waiting, a notification box informed him that Spiral had logged in. The knight appeared next to him, having not even bothered to go up to the room he¡¯d rented the night before. It didn¡¯t actually matter where in the inn a player logged out, so long as he¡¯d paid for the room. ¡°Thought you were going to be late,¡± Kana said by way of greeting. Spiral shrugged. ¡°Me too.¡± A party invite popped up, which Kana accepted. Valit joined the group a few seconds later, and a marker with her exact position showed up on his HUD. Kana guessed that if she didn¡¯t stop for detours, she¡¯d be back in town within a minute. He stood up and said, ¡°Want to go meet her half way?¡± ¡°No,¡± Spiral replied. ¡°I need a minute to go through my messages. Wait, why are so many from Valit? What is this?¡± Kana laughed. ¡°I guess she missed us.¡± ¡°Sure, but 23 messages?¡± Kana¡¯s eyebrows rose up. ¡°Interesting,¡± he said. ¡°She must like you more. I only had six.¡± Spiral froze in place and looked suddenly concerned. ¡°You don¡¯t mean¡­ We just met yesterday, and only in-game!¡± ¡°Far be it from me to judge the whims of a woman¡¯s heart.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not funny.¡± ¡°What¡¯s not?¡± Valit said from the open doorway. ¡°Nothing,¡± Spiral said, flushing slightly. ¡°Just a personal thing.¡± ¡°Oh, alright. I won¡¯t pry then. Are you guys ready to go?¡± ¡°Sure thing,¡± Kana said. They left the inn together, and Kana noticed as he did that he lost the safe harbor effect that he¡¯d gained after paying for a room, but it was replaced by a new one called well rested that increased his HP and stamina regeneration slightly. It had a duration of two hours listed, which seemed like a fair trade for 13 drol. ¡°The objective for this quest is to take out the chief assassin of Black Manor. Now, I happen to know exactly where she is, but if I remember correctly, Valit said she wanted to see how the rest of this quest played out. So I¡¯ll let you guys decide if you want to go through the motions of questioning villagers and putting the pieces together.¡± Valit gave Kana a questioning look, and he just shrugged. ¡°I already made my feelings on cold calls and canvassing quite clear, I thought. But if Valit wants to, I don¡¯t mind following her around and taking out random assassins that spawn on top of us.¡± ¡°If you guys don¡¯t mind. If I¡¯d known you didn¡¯t have a lot of interest in this part, I¡¯d have done the questioning while I was waiting for you to log on. But I did get a ton of good mats for working on my crafting, so still time well spent.¡± Kana and Spiral trailed along behind Valit while she talked to various NPCs. He listened with one ear, not so much to the content of the conversations as the quality. Like everyone else in the village, the people Valit stopped to talk to had advanced enough AI that it was easy to forget they weren¡¯t real. They went about twenty minutes before he noticed the first assassin had spawned and was tailing them. He nudged Spiral and tilted his head at the alleyway the NPC was lurking in. ¡°It kind of feels a lot less ominous in the middle of the day, doesn¡¯t it?¡± ¡°Some games do operate in real time,¡± Spiral said, ¡°and we would only be able to do this quest at night if Istrius was one of them. Fortunately for my schedule, it¡¯s not. I knew a guy who was skipping classes and blowing off shifts at work because he was trying to do certain events that only happened at specific times. It¡¯s not healthy to let a game take control of your life like that.¡± ¡°Good to hear you feel that way.¡± ¡°Hah. Anyway, if the tradeoff is that sometimes it¡¯s a bit silly when something happens in broad daylight that really shouldn¡¯t be, I¡¯m happy to take that deal.¡±This novel''s true home is a different platform. Support the author by finding it there. ¡°Hey Valit,¡± Kana called out. ¡°Heads up.¡± ¡°What?¡± she asked. She spotted the lurking NPC and said, ¡°Oh. Another one.¡± ¡°Should we take care of it now or wait for it to attack us?¡± Kana asked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure exactly how its AI is scripted. I¡¯m pretty sure the assassin likes to wait for a good ambush opportunity. I would bet that if we ignore it, it will look for one of us to get separated from the group or us to be fighting something else. I¡¯m not sure what happens if we attack it.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s find out.¡± Kana approached the alley, and Nibelus appeared in his hand as he walked. The assassin, realizing he¡¯d been spotted, didn¡¯t move forward to engage. He did the smart thing in a three on one fight and ran for his life. Kana gave chase, but by the time he came out the other side of the alleyway, the assassin was nowhere to be found. He turned to where Spiral and Valit were standing. ¡°This quest is annoying,¡± he told them. Valit said, ¡°I guess the assassins are more of a distraction than anything. When I was playing by myself earlier, they¡¯d pop up at really inconvenient times, but now that you guys are here, it¡¯s like they don¡¯t even want to attack us.¡± ¡°I guess we just stay aware and ignore them unless they make a move,¡± Kana said. ¡°Did you figure out where Black Manor is yet?¡± ¡°Uh, yes and no. The game is kind of wonky, chronologically speaking. Even though we started this event last night, the villagers talk like the assassins have been at work for weeks. So, I do know that the commonly held belief is that they¡¯re holed up somewhere north of town. I also know that there¡¯s only a few possible locations in that direction they could have taken over. Assuming they didn¡¯t just pitch some tents, that gives us a few solid leads to check out.¡± ¡°Hmm. Yeah,¡± Spiral offered, but refrained from saying anything else. ¡°I¡¯m going to take that to mean we¡¯re on the right track,¡± Valit said. ¡°I think we¡¯ve got enough information to hunt them down.¡± The two men followed Valit¡¯s lead as she led them north. Spiral was content to follow along and not say anything, and for Kana¡¯s part, he wasn¡¯t terribly invested in the story itself. It was interesting, but the interviews and clue hunting reminded him too much of work. He would have been happy to skip right to raiding Black Manor and moving on to the next step. The cross-country trek took about ten minutes, during which time they were attacked repeatedly by random wildlife. For the most part, the monsters were weak and easily dispatched. It might have been because he¡¯d so easily mowed down the low-level monsters he¡¯d been fighting, or just because the assassins hadn¡¯t made a move yet, but he was caught off guard when they finally did. The group was walking through a grove of trees spaced far enough apart to allow for easy travel when ten assassins dropped out of the branches to surround them. They didn¡¯t waste time with threats or idle words. Before he even knew what had happened, one of them landed directly on top of him and damage numbers started popping up. Valit was in a similar state, but Spiral had managed to protect himself and was the only one still on his feet. He backed away from the black manor assassins closest to him and made sure to angle his path to approach where Kana was fighting to get the assassin off of him. Spiral shield slammed the assassin to stun it, but the move cost him as three other NPCs jumped him at once. Their attacks didn¡¯t do a lot of damage, but it was enough to take a decent chunk of Spiral¡¯s HP away. The stun debuff he¡¯d inflicted let Kana kick the assassin off of him though, and that in turn allowed him to get to his feet, finish off the assassin, and go to Valit¡¯s rescue. It wasn¡¯t that easy, of course. There were still nine assassins remaining, and they worked together in silence to split the group up and surround individual targets. Kana swiped at them when they got close enough, but they didn¡¯t seem to be in any hurry and gladly gave ground. The strategy was simple enough. They were wearing out his stamina bar with constant movement and missed attacks. The lower it got, the harder it became to move. Once the assassins judged their victims exhausted enough, they¡¯d attack for real. ¡°Shiiiiiiittt,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I¡¯m poisoned. Stamina is already half gone and HP is not far behind.¡± Kana finally got close enough to help Valit, but before he could, three of the assassins closed in and attacked him at once. He pushed one of them back, but was forced to move as the other two attacked from different sides. Out of the corner of his eye, he could see Valit¡¯s HP bar turn red. The assassin who had landed on her was blocking all of her attempts to use magic somehow, and had rendered her helpless. She simply had no melee skills to speak of. If they didn¡¯t fight their way over to help her soon, she was dead. The problem was getting over there without getting himself killed. A peel of thunder split the air and an electric blue orb materialized. It zipped through the grove, weaving through trees and letting off little arcs of lightning as it flew by the assassins. Kana watched, surprised, as little numbers popped up all over the place. Every hostile NPC the ball lightning got near was electrocuted, costing most of them a third of their HP or more. He took advantage of the opportunity created by the fortuitously timed ball lightning to build up his own combo chain and let loose an arc lance that killed two of the assassins outright. The third one he finished with a rising slash. Though they were still heavily outnumbered, the sudden death of three of the assassins seemed to shift the fight in the players¡¯ favor. He got to Valit just in time to stab his spear into the assassin that had been whittling away her HP with repeated knife strikes while preventing her from using magic. Once she was free, she wasted no time in raining searing shards of fire down on the remaining assassins. Together, with Kana protecting her from retaliation, they began systematically killing their attackers. Everything was going well for them until Spiral¡¯s stamina bar hit dangerously low levels. Suddenly so exhausted that he could barely hold his shield, he took repeated hits that drove him to dangerously low HP. They were still outnumbered too, and Kana didn¡¯t want to count on another lucky ball lightning appearing. The chance of it happening felt pretty low to him. He killed another one, and then there were four. Valit finished off the one Spiral had been doing damage too, leaving three. The remaining assassins, perhaps sensing victory was slipping from their grasp, fled through the trees. Valit fired a few flashburn beams after them, but they had too much cover to hit. Both her and Spiral were near death, and Kana himself was at 126 out of 240 HP. The good news was that the 105 XP he¡¯d gained from killing those assassins was enough to push him up to level 7. There was a welcome boost in stats and his max HP jumped to 268. No new skill options were unlocked, but that was fine by him. ¡°OK, screw those guys,¡± Valit said. ¡°I kind of thought they were a non-issue because of the party, but obviously that was not the case.¡± ¡°Told you the quest gets harder here,¡± Spiral said. ¡°Now imagine trying to that without a 5-star ranked weapon in our group.¡± ¡°We would have died for sure.¡± ¡°Yep.¡± Valit considered that for a second. ¡°I¡¯ve changed my mind. Just tell me which location we¡¯re going to so we can move on past the assassins.¡± ¡°Heheh. Alright. Let¡¯s take a few minutes to recover first though.¡± Kana was already rapidly approaching max HP, and he hadn¡¯t been poisoned so his stamina had never fallen below 90%. He wasn¡¯t really sure that it had ever been low enough to have a noticeable impact on his combat abilities. Supposedly as it dropped lower, he would get a new effect that reduced his damage output and speed, but if so, he¡¯d never noticed it showing up on his HUD. After a five-minute breather, Spiral climbed back to his feet and told the rest of the group, ¡°Here¡¯s what we need to do¡­¡± 12- Toxicity Black Manor was a bit of a misnomer. It was entirely possible that the gang of brigands and assassins had used a place worth of that name sometime in the past, but their current residence was an old dilapidated two-story farm house. Calling it dilapidated might be generous. From their position 30 meters away, Kana could count at least three NPCs inside the house. Spiral had assured him that there were more. That thought was worrying, mostly because the NPCs that he could see had a distinct difference in their HP bars from anything else he¡¯d fought. They had a normal green bar, but there were three small circles next to it, which Spiral told him was because they were considered elite monsters that had much higher than normal amounts of HP for their levels. If there had only been one of them, he might not have worried about it, but the party¡¯s primary means of handling large groups of enemies had been overwhelming offensive power. If Kana couldn¡¯t cut them down fast enough that Spiral didn¡¯t run out of HP before they got the numbers under control, the whole strategy fell apart. Valit would really only keep two targets slowed down at once, and that tactic had been becoming less and less effective as they ran into stronger opponents. Against something that had an official elite designation, he was concerned that they¡¯d be overwhelmed. ¡°Can we split them up and take them one at a time?¡± Valit asked. ¡°This would be so much easier with a monk or a conjurer in the group,¡± Spiral said. ¡°We¡¯ve got a decent balance going, but we¡¯re sorely lacking in support.¡± ¡°Maybe Exodus will walk by and help us again,¡± Kana deadpanned. ¡°I¡¯d rather take our chances at doing it ourselves and risk dying.¡± Valit checked the house again. ¡°What are we waiting for? If we¡¯re not going to be able to do this quest now, why not go do something else and come back at a higher level?¡± ¡°We just need the right opportunity. Since we can¡¯t brute force it, we¡¯re waiting for one of them to leave so we can thin the numbers.¡± ¡°But how long is that going to take? Standing here staring at an old junky house is boring.¡± ¡°Should be any minute now.¡± The three waited in silence. Kana just stared at the house. Spiral poked through menus and read some message boards. Valit paced back and forth. Occasionally she walked off a short distance to fry some random monster that had spawned or roamed too close. The first time an assassin spawned on top of her and attacked her, she gave that up and returned to the group. ¡°Try to think of it like a stakeout,¡± Spiral advised her. ¡°Bring a dry snack and nothing to drink,¡± Kana said absently, not taking his eyes off the house. ¡°I¡¯ve got movement inside.¡± One of the NPCs had gotten to his feet and exited the house through the back door. He headed to the edge of the yard and if the game wasn¡¯t exactly explicit, his stance and the relieved sigh he let out made it obvious what he was doing. ¡°Circle around, we need to get to him while he¡¯s still, uh¡­ occupied,¡± Spiral said. The NPC must have had a large bladder, because he was still standing there when they got within striking distance a minute later. Spiral struck first, popping up around the tree and stunning the NPC, then shoving him backwards behind out of sight of the house. Kana was there, waiting with Nibelus, and by the time the NPC, whose HP bar was labeled as black manor poisoner, managed to fight back, they¡¯d already depleted one of his bars and were half way through the second. It was a short, one-sided battle. Unfortunately, it also illustrated that Spiral was exactly correct in his assessment that they needed a healer on their team if they wanted to storm the house. Already half dead, the NPC had managed to take a third of Spiral¡¯s HP by himself and leave him with two different debilitating effects that halted his stamina regeneration and slowed him down. ¡°The thing is there will be other kind of elites in there,¡± Spiral said. ¡°This one wasn¡¯t an armored soldier type, so it had weak defense and low HP. That¡¯s why it went down so quickly. If we go in at full HP, I¡¯d guess we might be able to fight two at once and win. Three would almost certainly kill at least one of us.¡± ¡°Well, we get clever, I guess. There were three on the ground floor, right? That means there are two left, and maybe we can take them both, but probably not before reinforcements show up.¡± ¡°You want to draw them out somehow? Will the AI allow it?¡± ¡°It does, actually. The way we did this the first time was we started like this, and when this one doesn¡¯t come back, it triggers the other two to get suspicious and start looking around. One of them goes down into the cellar to report or whatever, and the other one is alone. We can overwhelm that one the same way.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t that put the ones in the cellar on guard though?¡± Valit asked. Spiral shrugged. ¡°Doesn¡¯t make much difference in game terms though. We can¡¯t really ambush them anyway. The best we can do is split them up and pick them off, and that¡¯s never an option for the cellar group.¡± ¡°How were you planning on winning that fight then?¡± Kana asked. ¡°You said you had a plan.¡± ¡°Yep. Choke point. There¡¯s two ways in. I¡¯m going to stand at one of them and protect Valit while she snipes. You¡¯re going to the other one to either take out Malia when she flees or back us up once we¡¯ve whittled down their numbers enough to advance into the cellar.¡± ¡°Oh, I get it. The whole plan depends on them being pinned down with no backup to push out of position from behind. That¡¯s pretty clever.¡±The author''s content has been appropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Thanks. I¡¯d like to take credit for it, but I was the sniper in this plan last time we did it. It worked pretty well too.¡± ¡°Oh yeah,¡± Valit said. ¡°I thought you said you had another character. What class did you play?¡± ¡°Ranger.¡± ¡°That makes sense. You seemed to know a lot about them.¡± ¡°Yeah, I made it to- hey! There they go, one down the stairs. Time to move in.¡± Spiral didn¡¯t wait for a response, which left Kana and Valit no choice but to follow. The status effects from the previous fight hadn¡¯t worn off yet, but Spiral didn¡¯t seem to care. He rushed in and attacked the NPC, making sure to position himself between the man and the stairway leading down into the cellar. Kana flanked the NPC and they worked to tear him down. Unlike the first elite they fought, this one was a front-line combatant and both tougher and more durable. Instead of the 50 to 60 damage he was expecting to do with his attacks, Kana found himself doing about 35 to 40. Arc lance still hit for full damage, so he guessed that his target was resistant to physical attacks. Valit¡¯s flashburn beams were helping, but Spiral¡¯s HP was dipping low despite him successfully blocking the majority of the NPC¡¯s attacks. That made sense, since it was known as a black manor shock trooper. One of the status effects fell off mid-combat, which helped slow but not stop Spiral¡¯s HP from going into the red. They took the second HP bar off the shock trooper, which prompted him to shift tactics. His defense rating shot up so that Kana¡¯s attacks were doing even less damage, barely 20 per hit. Even arc lance, when it came back up again, only hit for half what it had been. The tradeoff was that the shock trooper did even less damage, so they did manage to whittle its HP away to nothing before Spiral died. ¡°Is there some way I can switch with you?¡± Kana asked after. ¡°I¡¯m at full HP here. I could have taken a few hits for you.¡± ¡°Kind of, but not really. You know how your whole class revolves around chaining attacks together, and you can¡¯t even do half of your stuff if you don¡¯t use other abilities first? Same with the knight. A lot of my attacks aren¡¯t usable if my target is attacking someone else, so I have other abilities designed to redirect attacks to me and later I¡¯ll get some that let me give debuffs to the mob if it¡¯s not attacking me, but not right now at level 7.¡± ¡°What are we going to do then? You¡¯re out of the fight for at least the next few minutes and if we don¡¯t keep pushing forward, we¡¯re going to be fighting our way back out too.¡± ¡°You still have that healing potion you got yesterday?¡± Spiral asked. ¡°Oh, yeah.¡± Kana pulled it from his inventory and handed it to Spiral. It restored about half of his missing health over ten seconds, which was better than Kana had expected from it. Considering he¡¯d gotten it at level one, he would have thought it would be good for 50 HP at the most. It had to have done close to triple that in healing though. ¡°Head around to the cellar door outside the house and give me a minute. We¡¯ll attack from here. There will be four guards of some flavor or another and Malia. If we¡¯re real lucky, she¡¯ll send all of them against me and you can solo her when she runs.¡± ¡°That seems unlikely to happen,¡± Kana said. ¡°Yeah, it didn¡¯t work last time either. But we had more people and put two on the outside door so we penned them in.¡± Kana thought Spiral might be giving the game¡¯s AI too much credit. If the quest was to find and kill the master assassin of Black Manor, he didn¡¯t expect she would run. If she was supposed to run, it would be like when they¡¯d fought those thugs and the game had cheated to keep them alive. But he knew when he was out of his depth and should trust the expert. That¡¯s why he¡¯d asked Spiral if he wanted to play together in the first place. He circled around the outside of the house until he found the cellar door, all the while keeping a running count in his head. When he reached one minute, he threw the door open and was immediately peppered by numerous darts. Four new status effects showed up on his HUD, telling him that his HP regeneration had been halved, his movement speed had been halved, his stamina regeneration had been completely halted, and his damage output was down by 25%. All of them had a duration of ten minutes. To add insult to injury, he lost 26 HP from the trap. He didn¡¯t have time to consider the potential ramifications of that though, since opening the door had triggered one of the NPCs in the cellar to notice him and attack. It was a shock trooper, and fortunately for Kana that was the only enemy to come up the stairs at him. That still left four more for Spiral and Valit though, if their count was right. Dodging the shock trooper¡¯s attacks was much harder than Spiral had made it look. Part of that was that it didn¡¯t have the slowing effect from Valit¡¯s spells, but a larger part was that he didn¡¯t have a shield. At first, he just focused on finding his rhythm and not taking any damage, but then he realized that the poison that had rendered him unable to regenerate his stamina meant there was a finite limit to the amount of time he could spend in combat before he was simply unable to move anymore. That meant he had to get aggressive, which meant relying heavily on Nibelus for an outrageous damage output and hoping he could survive longer than the elite NPC with so much HP that the game gave him three bars to display it all. Kana came to the obvious conclusion that, to put it simply, they were fucked. The longer he fought, the more inevitable it seemed. He was at 50% and the shock trooper still had two full bars of HP. The NPC got him to into the red and was barely halfway through his second bar. Then Nibelus summoned ball lightning and it bypassed the impressive damage reduction of his opponent¡¯s armor. The magic only lasted a few seconds, but in that time, it knocked an entire HP bar off the NPC and brought him down into the yellow on his last one. This triggered the shock trooper to switch to a defensive position, but that actually worked out in Kana¡¯s favor. The amount of damage he dealt dropped even lower, but the tradeoff was that the NPC¡¯s attacks were finally slow enough that Kana could dodge practically all of them. It took some time, but thanks to luck and his 5-star ranked weapon, Kana managed to solo the black manor shock trooper. With that out of the way, he finally got his first good luck inside the cellar. It looked like a chemistry lab on one wall, complete with vials and beakers and magical heat sources, all bubbling and hissing and releasing nauseating fumes into an enclosed space with no ventilation. Spiral¡¯s plan had hit a snag. He was holding the stairs and only the single shock trooper at the top was physically engaged in combat with him, but there were two more of the black manor poisoners there and they were attempted to shoot him with some sort of small crossbows no doubt containing poison darts. Spiral had three more status effects on him in addition to the one he¡¯d started with, and thanks to the HUD info about his party, Kana knew the durations had sky-rocketed up to over two hours each. That was a bad situation to be in when there were still three enemy combatants alive, and two of them at full HP. Worse, Kana couldn¡¯t see Malia. The whole reason they¡¯d attacked the old farm house was that Spiral had been sure she was in the cellar. If she was, she was well hidden. And there weren¡¯t that many places to hide, so that didn¡¯t bode well. He advanced down a few steps to get a better look, and as soon as he was past the threshold, a black, human-shaped shadow swept past him up into the open air. Out in the daylight, Kana could see the form of a woman in form-fitting black leather with half a dozen knives strapped to her body. He spun to give chase, but she didn¡¯t bother to run. ¡°Already feeling the effects of my poisons, aren¡¯t you?¡± she taunted, drawing two of the knives. They glistened with some wet substance in the day light. ¡°Don¡¯t you worry, you won¡¯t die from them. We like to take our victims alive for further questioning.¡± The last thing Kana noticed before she attacked was that someone had sent him, Jon Peld, a message off the game. Then he was too busy fighting for his virtual life to pay any attention to that. 13- The Fall of Black Manor Kana backpedaled in a desperate attempt to stay out of Malia¡¯s range, but she was more than willing to close the distance. That had the dual purpose of allowing her to use her weapons while denying him effective use of his. Nibelus was a fantastic piece of equipment, but with Malia so close to him, he couldn¡¯t bring it to bear. He did the only thing he could. He kicked her, hard. The last time he¡¯d been forced to kick an opponent, it had been a heavy orcen. Malia was tall, but thin, and human. His kick knocked her back four or five steps and staggered her. Not one to miss the opportunity, Kana landed a hit on her and immediately chained a sweeping clip to knock her down and give himself more time. Like the other NPCs they¡¯d been fighting, she had the triple health bar. Unlike the shock troopers, she was not well armored and Kana¡¯s attacks obliterated the first bar before she could recover. After that, it became difficult to keep up with her speed and she started scoring hits on him. The damage wasn¡¯t too bad, but all the status effects that came with it were a problem. Her poisons quickly brought all resource regeneration down to nothing, and for long enough that he wasn¡¯t getting anything else for the length of the fight. He did get a few more good hits in on her, but she was too slippery to effectively chain attacks on. The AI learned from his attacks, making it harder and harder to deal any damage at all. Any attempts he made to kick her again were avoided and countered. If Kana had gone into the fight with full HP and no poison effects handicapping him, he thought he would have stood a good chance of winning. That was probably the point of the fight though. Malia wasn¡¯t impressive in combat, but the traps and guards added to the difficulty. It was a war of attrition, and he was almost tapped out on resources. There was no point in dragging things out. The chance of Spiral and Valit mounting a rescue was about as non-existent as their chance of being rescued by him. With his rapidly depleting stamina bar marking the end of the fight, his best chance was to land a decisive chain of attacks and finish her off before she could recover. The AI was getting too good at predicting his attacks. The worst thing about it was that it was all completely aboveboard. Malia wasn¡¯t getting faster like that one thug back in Faldsteel had done. He was getting slower, tired, but he could see her setting up to dodge attacks before he¡¯d even started them, and trying to adapt them on the fly wasn¡¯t working. If he was being too predictable, it seemed like the obvious solution was to do something else. Instead of trying to set her up for a clipping sweep as soon as it came off cooldown, he hit her with an arc lance instead. She took the damage and started to sidestep to avoid the follow up rising slash, but Kana didn¡¯t deliver it. He skipped that part of the chain and went with a waist high swipe instead. It didn¡¯t do as much damage as rising slash would have, but then, rising slash probably wouldn¡¯t have connected. Any damage was better than a miss. Once he broke his normal rotation of attacks and mixed up the chain, he had a lot better luck hitting her. Her reaction time was still amazing, but at least her dodges were reactions and not anticipations. That allowed him to finally land another clipping sweep on her, and then he had a precious second or two to really open up. Malia was on her last HP bar, but his stamina was down to a bare 12%. He thought he could do it, if he did it just right. She scrambled back to her feet and skipped backward to dodge his spear, then came right back in before he had a chance to catch her on the backswing. Kana had expected it, and he had a plan to deal with her, but before he could put that into motion, the unexpected occurred. A second blue orb of ball lightning appeared and blasted Malia. While she was temporarily stunned, he took advantage to drop another arc lance and the follow up rising slash on her. Malia did not come out of that ball lightning alive. ¡°Well that was close,¡± Kana said. ¡°Hey, I got her!¡± ¡°Holy shit, you did?¡± he heard Spiral yell from the cellar. And then about four seconds after that, Spiral died. ¡°Oh crap,¡± Valit said. ¡°You should probably just run for it now.¡± Valit died too, and the remaining elites started moving up the stairs to Kana. He didn¡¯t fancy a round with them, so he headed into the woods at a quick jog while eyeing the sliver of color left in his stamina bar. Fortunately, walking used basically nothing. He just had to break combat. That took less work than he¡¯d expected, and he knew he was safe when the end-of-combat XP and loot windows appeared. He got another lieutenant¡¯s badge, as well as a 3-star rated assassin¡¯s dagger that increased the effectiveness of poisons used by the wielder by 10%. That was all well and good, but he needed to get back to safety. His HP was in the red, his stamina was so low that he had maybe twenty seconds of fight left in him, and probably not more than a few minutes of leisurely walking. The poison had just over ten minutes left on the timer. Kana did the only thing he could think of. He climbed up a tree to hide and wait. A message from Spiral showed up while he was waiting, reminding him that he had his own out-of-game message waiting for him to read. Spiral¡¯s simply said, ¡°That was way too close. Glad we got her though. What crazy rare drop did you get this time?¡± Kana sent him back the stats of the assassin¡¯s blade, then dropped out of Istrius. He didn¡¯t log out, choosing instead to just switch his input back to his daily life HUD. His bedroom ceiling flickered for a second before the image solidified. And once again, he was very, very aware of his need to pee.Find this and other great novels on the author''s preferred platform. Support original creators! That was far more of an ordeal than any amount of virtual combat, but he managed and even brought food back with him. Once he was settled back into place and had taken a fresh dose of painkillers, he looked at the message. The first thing that jumped out at him was that it was an unknown sender, and not just someone who wasn¡¯t on his personal contacts list, but someone who wasn¡¯t tied to any civilian identity. It was a proxy avatar, meaning that whoever had sent it was trying to remain anonymous. Jon could only think of a few legitimate reasons for that. The message itself was nothing but text. ¡°AI taken over. Everything under observation. Need to meet at neutral live location. NO VR. Will explain victim connection. You pick time and place. Respond to burner account within 24 hours. Proof: You¡¯ve been feeling lucky lately.¡± ¡°What the hell kind of game are you playing?¡± Jon muttered as he read the message again. Even if he hadn¡¯t still been more or less on bedrest, he wouldn¡¯t have gone to a meeting with someone using a coffee shop discount rack anonymous profile to send him messages. Doing dumb shit like that had gotten good officers killed. Police contact information was supposed to be kept private and any contact with them routed through official servers both for the officers¡¯ safety and to prevent harassment exactly like the message Jon had just gotten. No doubt when he didn¡¯t respond, there would be another attempt to coerce him into a meeting, possibly with a note of desperation to prey on his sympathies. The only thing that bothered him was the last line. It was an obvious reference to Istrius, but how the hell anyone could know about that was a mystery to him. Frankly, it was more disturbing to think that someone was watching what was going on in the game than to get a direct message from an anonymous account. None of it added up. Someone knew he¡¯d gotten a few lucky drops in a video game and could send him a direct message, completely bypassing all police channels. But that same person then wanted a next-day meet up, apparently not realizing that Jon wasn¡¯t leaving his home for the next week. Just feeding himself and going to the bathroom was as much physical movement as he could handle. For the moment, he decided to ignore the message and set his HUD to sweeping its code for anything unusual. That wouldn¡¯t take too long, and he left it running in the background as he settled back onto his bed and dropped a level in the HUD¡¯s systems to re-enter VR. Kana was still safely wedged in between some branches. He¡¯d been out of the game long enough that he could watch the last few seconds of the poison effects tick down and finally disappear. Slowly, his HP started recovering. He gave it another few minutes until his health was in the yellow and he had enough stamina to run if he needed to. Spiral had started a party chat, and from that Kana learned that he and Valit were on their way back to Faldsteel. Fortunately for them, the game still gave them loot even though they¡¯d died before combat ended. That was good, as it had been sheer luck that had allowed Kana to clinch the win on that quest and he did not think they could pull it off a second time. If the next quest was even harder, they might have to abandon it for the moment and try something else. Kana beat them back to town by a few minutes. One fortunate side effect of dying was that the lengthy timer on all of the poisons Spiral had been afflicted with had disappeared, so he was at max HP and stamina when they linked back up. Despite dying, he seemed to be happy with the overall outcome. ¡°It¡¯s just a bit of time and XP lost,¡± he said, ¡°Not a big deal. I¡¯ll earn it back with the quest rewards and then some.¡± ¡°I cannot imagine how much harder the next quest will be,¡± Valit said in an echo of Kana¡¯s own thoughts. ¡°That did seem harder than I remember it being,¡± Spiral said, ¡°But we had a bigger group with a healer last time. Anyway, let¡¯s go turn this in.¡± Thulnar wasn¡¯t at the shack at the edge of the village. It wasn¡¯t until they got there that Spiral said, ¡°Oh, right. I forgot he moves during the second half of the quest line. You have to ask the NPCs if they¡¯ve seen him and follow their directions.¡± That wasn¡¯t much of an obstacle, however. They found him at a small temple dedicated to Vulk, the God of the Land, with half of his army off and a pair of tired looking priests working to patch him up. Every part of him was splattered with a brown color that Kana assumed was supposed to be blood but actually looked more than mud. Or maybe he¡¯d just slipped in the mud and the game had gotten it right. ¡°Still alive, huh? That mean you¡¯ve given up then?¡± ¡°No, we found her,¡± Spiral said. He handed over the badge they¡¯d gotten from Malia after finishing her off. Thulnar¡¯s eyebrows shot up and he gave them a speculative look. Despite the healers¡¯ protests, Thulnar rose to his feet and faced the group. ¡°Ah, get off of me,¡± he said to one of the priests when the man tried to force him to set back down. ¡°And you lot. You did good, better than I thought you would. So that¡¯s it for Malia then. I wonder if Alidrak has her replacement lined up. Either way, good job. There¡¯s some people who¡¯re going to live to tomorrow morning because of this.¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t stop him though?¡± ¡°No. I can¡¯t imagine any way that Alidrak would give up short of the utter annihilation of his forces. He¡¯ll have five hundred soldiers and assassins, plus however many brigands and bandits and mercenaries he¡¯s pressed into service or paid off.¡± Thulnar stopped and shook his head. ¡°This is a hopeless fight. I just don¡¯t have it in me to lay down and die though. He¡¯ll get me in the end, but he¡¯ll pay for it. That¡¯s why you lot should just clear out while you can.¡± ¡°There has to be something we can do,¡± Valit said. ¡°Some way to stop this.¡± ¡°Maybe we¡¯ll get lucky,¡± he said. ¡°Pray to the Gods they grant us that.¡± The XP gains from the quest were substantial. 300 XP was enough to bring him up to level 8, and though there was no drol or equipment, Kana wasn¡¯t complaining. He wondered if Spiral had also gotten a level up, or if dying had set him back too far. As far as he could tell, the only way to know a player¡¯s level was to ask them. A horn blew somewhere outside of town, catching everyone¡¯s attention. ¡°Seems he¡¯s gotten impatient with the whole thing,¡± Thulnar said. ¡°Looks like the end is coming down on us. Odd though. It¡¯s not usually his style to go for the throat so soon. I suppose we had best go out and save who we can. Come on then if you¡¯re coming.¡± Thulnar strode out the temple, the party trailing behind him. The villagers were all out of their homes, all of them tense and nervous as they watched. Soldiers started to stream into Faldsteel, weapons bared. Without pausing, they fell on the villagers and attacked. A notification popped up telling Kana his party was starting a timed event quest. The goal was to save as many villagers as possible before the event ended, and Kana selected that he was ready to participate. ¡°I guess I don¡¯t have to ask for instructions,¡± he said. ¡°Kill hostiles, protect civilians.¡± ¡°Pretty much it. The more we save, the easier the next step.¡± Thulnar started to walk away. He called out over his shoulder, ¡°Get as many as you can back to the temple. I¡¯ll do my best to keep Alidrak¡¯s troops from overrunning it.¡± ¡°OK, let¡¯s do it,¡± Spiral said. As one, the party advanced into the chaos. 14- Inferno The clock started ticking down, just ten minutes until the quest ended. They were aggressive in their tactics, with Valit firing off flashburn beams to attack targets from range and sticking close to Spiral to take over handling them. Kana roamed the streets, going from soldier to soldier and rescuing villagers. He directed each of them to seek shelter at the temple before moving on to the next group. They quickly sent a dozen families to safety, but after the third street they liberated from attacking soldiers, they started running out of steam. Constant combat with no recovery time drained their stamina bars, or willpower bar in Valit¡¯s case, and while they were in no immediate danger, they definitely couldn¡¯t keep going for the full ten minutes if they didn¡¯t pace themselves. Kana kept pushing anyway. His HP bar went yellow around the same time his stamina gave out completely. He managed to finish off the soldier he was fighting, but only because Valit helped him. The game translated a draining stamina bar as something akin to having resistance bands strapped to him. Everything became harder to do, took longer, but since Istrius was VR, there was no struggling to push through it. ¡°There¡¯s no rush,¡± Spiral said. ¡°We¡¯ve got four minutes left and we¡¯ve already cleared the target number to succeed the quest. Anything we do now is just to grind out a bit of XP while we kill time.¡± ¡°Right. I know that.¡± But that didn¡¯t stop him from rescuing another villager as soon as he had enough stamina to fight again. Occasionally, he saw villagers successfully defend themselves, but it was almost always a case of numbers. The invaders had better weapons, were wearing armor, and were probably a higher level than the NPCs of Faldsteel. Rather than risk their lives further, he directed them to the temple just like all the ones the party had saved. Before he could make his way to the next group though, the timer on the quest ran out. ¡°What happens now?¡± Kana asked. Before Spiral could answer him, a house went up in flames nearby. The background panic took on a decidedly sharper tone as more and more pillars of fire dotted the village. NPCs ran past Kana for the temple. Even the enemy soldiers seemed hesitant as fire spread to engulf the entire village. The Temple of Vulk was made of stone, fitting as he was the God of Earth, of the harvest and woodlands and all things that grew from the ground. The important part was that it wouldn¡¯t burn like the wooden houses with their thatched roofs. The group followed the villagers there, pausing only to fend off a few of the more tenacious invaders before they arrived. The temple had been built to hold the entire town¡¯s population when they gathered, so while it was crowded, there was still some room. They found Thulnar holding a side entry against a pair of assassins. They¡¯d given up sneaking into the temple and were fighting for their lives against the old man. Despite that gulf in their ages and his obvious injuries, he held them off easily and killed both of them as the party approached. ¡°Looks like you got most everyone here,¡± he said. ¡°Good work. Can¡¯t believe how much you guys have stuck your necks out for his little pisshole of a town. You¡¯re really stupid, you know that? You should have run when you could.¡± But he smiled as he said it. The smile fell away when he looked at the burning village around him. ¡°This¡­ this is my fault. I thought I could just fade away and live out the last decade of my life in obscurity, maybe give a little back after taking so much from the world.¡± He stopped and gestured to the scared villagers. ¡°Look how much I¡¯ve enriched their lives. Aren¡¯t they so much better off than before I moved here?¡± Thulnar straightened and slapped the head of his axe onto his open palm. ¡°Enough is enough. I may not save the village, but maybe I can still save its people.¡± He walked to the front of the temple and stopped. Kana followed behind him and watched, curious what the NPC was going to do. He had thought Thulnar would give them the next quest, and possibly one or two more after that until the quest line culminated in hunting down Alidrak and killing him. Apparently, he¡¯d been mistaken. Instead, Thulnar reached up into his hair and pulled loose something that Kana hadn¡¯t even realized had been threaded in there. It was a stone, perhaps a pearl of some kind, though it had a crimson hue to it. He turned around to face the party. ¡°I have a request. Keep them safe for the next few hours.¡± ¡°What are you going to do?¡± Valit asked. ¡°My desperate last resort. Something I swore I¡¯d never use, that it wasn¡¯t worth the cost. Perhaps it¡¯s fitting though, my true atonement for the hundreds of thousands of lives I¡¯ve taken and spent in pursuit of selfish ambitions. This is a summoning stone. It¡¯s powered by souls.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± Kana asked. ¡°You¡¯ll see. Just keep them safe. Don¡¯t let this be a wasted sacrifice.¡± Then Thulnar crushed the pearl in his palm and sparkling red dust spiraled out from between his fingers. He took a deep breath, inhaling most of it, and his whole body shuddered. He hunched over, one hand clutching at his stomach while the other struggled to keep a grip on his axe. He shot up, and up, and up, growing exponentially until he was at least three times taller and probably ten times heavier than he had been. The transformation didn¡¯t stop there. His eyes became burning pits and when he opened his mouth, nearby flames surged through the air to be inhaled. Thulnar repeated that action a few more times before he started down the street. Each step shook the ground, and the villagers gathered at the front of the temple to watch in horror as the giant paced back and forth between the houses. He gathered up the fire by inhaling it into his body, which in turn caused him to swell even more until he was clearly visible over the still smoldering rooftops.Stolen from Royal Road, this story should be reported if encountered on Amazon. Then, apparently satisfied, he unleashed the fire on the assembled army just outside the west edge of the village. Searing flames washed over the men, and the air filled with their agonized screams. Thulnar breathed more fire out, and the men broke and scattered. ¡°Holy crap,¡± Valit whispered. ¡°That was incredible.¡± ¡°Pretty good special effects,¡± Spiral agreed. ¡°The game is going to start spawning attackers in a few seconds. This next step is just taking care of them before they overwhelm us with numbers, and I think there¡¯s some sort of commander or something that shows up at some point.¡± Almost as soon as he finished talking, three soldiers appeared at the end of the street. They rushed the temple and were only stopped when Spiral stepped up to intercept them. It was the work of seconds for Kana and Valit to pile onto one and kill him. They switched to the second, and then the third. The NPC¡¯s HP bar flashed from green to yellow to red so fast that Kana almost missed the color in the middle. He got 45 XP for the fight, which would have seemed like a lot a few levels back, but which didn¡¯t put much of a dent in the amount he needed to reach the next level now. He also got a 3-star rarity sword, one that claimed it increased the chance of Riposte occurring by 15% in addition to granting +12 to strength and ignoring 10% of the enemy¡¯s physical damage reduction. ¡°Hey Spiral,¡± he said. ¡°Is this an upgrade for you?¡± Spiral looked over the stats, then did a double-take. ¡°Are you serious? How? There is no way you could possibly have gotten this lucky. Shit, yeah, it¡¯s an upgrade, but are you sure you don¡¯t want to sell it?¡± ¡°Take it,¡± Kana said. ¡°We can always sell it later when you¡¯re done with it.¡± ¡°Uh, guys, more enemies coming in,¡± Valit told them. Kana traded it over and Spiral equipped it just before the next group ran them down. The new sword was significantly fancier-looking than the old one, with a wide cross-guard and a long, thin blade. It flashed through the air as the knight fended off the first of the enemy soldiers to reach him. Kana couldn¡¯t see any noticeable difference in the speed the NPC¡¯s HP bar was dropping, but Spiral seemed happy with it. They dealt with that group of soldiers too, but the next wave spawned faster, and the one after that showed up before they could finish. That one also included a single assassin, who managed to sneak past Spiral and Kana and attack Valit. Kana broke free from fighting the soldier NPCs and helped her kill the assassin, but the damage had already been done. ¡°What kind of poison is this?¡± she demanded. ¡°Chance to lose concentration and interrupt a spell? That¡¯s crap!¡± ¡°Uh, guys,¡± Spiral said. He was fending off attacks from three different soldiers at once, and the only reason the other four behind them hadn¡¯t gotten in on the action was that there wasn¡¯t any room for them to attack him. Unfortunately, that meant they started working their way around the fight so that they could get into the temple. Kana rushed to help him stem the assault before it got completely out of control. After a strong push from the enemy invaders, their numbers trickled with an occasional one or two joining it, but no more large groups. The party finished off the soldiers, those that didn¡¯t flee when the battle started turning against them, and took a moment to breathe. The fires around town had sprung back up again, spreading from the homes that hadn¡¯t been extinguished by Thulnar¡¯s strange attacks. They weren¡¯t as bad as they¡¯d been before, but unless the villagers somehow got it under control, every single house was going to burn to the ground. Considering that the entire village¡¯s population was sheltering inside the temple, Kana thought it was unlikely that they¡¯d have homes to return to. The next wave of soldiers appeared from between two burning houses and rushed down the street at the temple. More and more of them poured out, more than the rest of the event combined. They gathered about a hundred feet away until they were in formation, which Kana guessed to be about fifty men. ¡°What are we supposed to do about that?¡± Valit asked. ¡°That¡¯s way too many!¡± ¡°Don¡¯t worry, we can handle it,¡± Spiral said. ¡°That¡¯s bullshit. You know something we don¡¯t.¡± He grinned. ¡°You don¡¯t want me to spoil it, do you?¡± The leader of the assembled forces, a man labeled as Captain Gunnary, raised his voice to give the order to advance. Just as he said it, there was a horrendous creaking groan from the house next to them. It shuddered once, then toppled over, crushing the assembled troops. Only the very lucky few at the front or the back managed to escape death, and even then, all of their HP bars were either yellow or red. ¡°And there¡¯s the signal to attack,¡± Spiral said. He ran forward, shield leading, and attacked the stunned Captain Gunnary. Kana followed, though he focused on finishing off the rest of the wounded soldiers before they could recover and start fighting back. The ones who¡¯d been too far away to be hit by the house didn¡¯t even stick around to fight, instead deserting en masse. While they were fighting, a towering Thulnar stood up from the wreckage of where the house had stood just moments before. His armor was dented and scraped, and blood flowed down his face from a scalp wound. Scorch marks spotted his entire body, searing his armor clean at some points and black with soot at others. The group finished off the last of the hostile NPCs about the same time Thulnar disappeared back down the street and out of sight. The quest objective updated from defending the temple to assisting Thulnar, but Kana wasn¡¯t really sure how they were supposed to go about doing that. The giant NPC caused so much collateral damage that it seemed suicidal to voluntarily go after him. ¡°Seriously? They want us to go help him?¡± he asked. ¡°Come on, you¡¯ll see.¡± Spiral started chasing after the giant, and with a helpless shrug, Kana and Valit followed him. There were no enemies in their path, and when they reached the edge of town, they understood why. The remains of Alidrak¡¯s forces had gathered in the fields outside of Faldsteel and were making a concentrated effort to bring Thulnar down. The man-turned-titan lumbered forward through a cloud of arrows and crossbow bolts. He shielded his eyes with one hand and swung his axe with the other. The mammoth blade swept through the front ranks, killing a dozen men outright and sending more flying away with their HP bars in the yellow or lower. ¡°I don¡¯t understand what the game wants us to do,¡± Valit said. ¡°Just wait. You¡¯ll see. I thought you didn¡¯t want spoilers,¡± Spiral replied. It seemed like Thulnar had everything well in hand. The enemy soldiers couldn¡¯t stop him. He had gained the same triple HP meter the elites the group had fought earlier had, and he wasn¡¯t even into the yellow of his first bar yet. Everywhere he went, he caused massive destruction, and honestly, Kana wasn¡¯t sure there was anything more to the current quest than just witnessing the destruction. ¡°Wait,¡± he said, a thought occurring to him. ¡°What knocked Thulnar into the house?¡± An enormous slab of stone appeared out of thin air and shot forward at high speed to strike Thulnar¡¯s center mass. The giant let out a roar of pain and toppled backward, where the enemy soldiers wielding swords and axes could finally reach him. They swarmed him, and with another roar he swept them away and crawled back to his knees. ¡°Oh, I guess we should figure out what¡¯s causing that and stop it then?¡± ¡°See that guy there?¡± Spiral pointed across the field. ¡°He¡¯s a sorcerer. He¡¯s the one casting the spells. We stop him, and Thulnar can finish off the invaders.¡± 15- The Yellow and Purple Ones Spiral led them around the outskirts of the battle so as not to attract the attention of the invading soldiers. ¡°Should we help Thulnar?¡± Valit asked, watching as the giant man climbed back to his feet and shook off the soldiers trying to cling to him. ¡°Nope. The goal is to take out the enemy sorcerer before Thulnar runs out of HP.¡± More spells rocked the battlefield, several of them killing soldiers that happened to be too close to Thulnar when they detonated. Kana considered how much damage the enemy sorcerer¡¯s magic was doing when compared to Valit, and he had to ask, ¡°Just how powerful is this guy? What¡¯s stopping him from just blasting us with one spell and finishing us off? He¡¯s killing multiple NPCs just as collateral damage every time he casts another spell.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s¡­¡± Spiral trailed off. ¡°No spoilers, right? There¡¯s a way. You¡¯ll see in a minute.¡± They circled around the battle and finally reached the back side, where a line of soldiers had formed a protective barrier around the sorcerer. Behind their ranks, the man who was hurling magical devastation across the battle field floated two meters off the ground above an intricate geometric design that glowed with a purple light. Four more men, presumably also sorcerers, stood at the cardinal directions outside the design. ¡°This is the quest. Break through the elites guarding the sorcerers, kill the support sorcerers to cut them off from channeling to the guy in the center, then finish him off.¡± ¡°There¡¯s at least twenty soldiers guarding them,¡± Valit said. ¡°Yeah, but they¡¯re not as tough as the ones in town were, and the sorcerers can¡¯t help them because they¡¯re busy in the middle. We can take them, heal up for a minute, and then move on to the casters.¡± ¡°We haven¡¯t really done all that great against large groups, historically speaking,¡± Kana pointed out. ¡°Is there another way we can come at this?¡± Spiral shook his head. ¡°It¡¯s fine. Just back me up on this one. We got this.¡± Before the other two could protest, he ran headlong into the soldiers, who reacted with predictable hostility. Kana rushed after him, and the three of them started fighting for their lives. As Spiral had said though, the soldiers individually weren¡¯t that strong. Kana wondered how much harder the fight would have been if he¡¯d been using the quest reward spear instead of Nibelus. He had also gained several levels since they¡¯d started the quest though, and the fights had been getting easier and easier. Barring Spiral¡¯s disastrous plan going after Black Manor and its chief assassin, the quest line hadn¡¯t actually been all that difficult. Even the twenty to three odds they were in was rapidly balancing out. Kana didn¡¯t know how many were left, but he guessed they¡¯d taken out at least half of the soldiers in the first minute of combat. Spiral¡¯s stamina meter was almost empty though and he was edging from yellow to red HP. He¡¯d used up whatever defensive class skills he had and was starting to backpedal in an effort to ease some of the pressure. Kana himself had taken enough hits that he¡¯d lost half his HP. Valit had also taken a few hits, and she was not well armored. They were going to win unless something went wrong, but they were not going to be in good shape when it was over. Kana¡¯s prediction was exactly right. They did manage to defeat all of the NPCs, but all three of them were down to red HP, and Spiral¡¯s stamina was almost completely gone. ¡°Five minute breather,¡± he said. ¡°That should give us enough recovery time.¡± ¡°Will it give us enough time to finish up the sorcerers before the soldiers respawn?¡± Valit asked. ¡°That¡¯s already cutting it close, and we don¡¯t even know how long the sorcerers will take to beat.¡± She didn¡¯t say it, but Kana was sure she was wondering if they even could beat them. So far, he hadn¡¯t seen any hostile caster NPCs, so he didn¡¯t really know what to expect from them. They obviously weren¡¯t using the same spells he¡¯d seen Valit cast. He hoped they would go down quickly, but it was best not to take anything for granted. ¡°Tell me about these NPCs,¡± he said. ¡°What kind of spells should I be watching out for?¡± Spiral shrugged. ¡°I don¡¯t remember. When I did this last, I was a ranger. I stood far enough away to not get caught up in melee and shot things until they died. And, to be perfectly honest, I¡¯m kind of winging this whole thing. I was the guy and a buddy from school was dragging me along. He didn¡¯t explain things very well, or, you know, at all. So this is all coming from fuzzy memories and what I can piece together.¡± ¡°Now he tells us,¡± Valit muttered. ¡°Hey! We did alright, didn¡¯t we? We¡¯re here on the last quest. Kind of the last quest. Whatever.¡± ¡°Uh, ok. I think? Wait, how many quests are there after this one?¡± Spiral wiggled one hand back and forth. ¡°Eeeehhhhhhh, this portion of the quest line ends here. There¡¯s a sequel line later, but it¡¯s a lot of levels ahead.¡± There wasn¡¯t much to say to that. Once they¡¯d judged they had no more time to recover, Spiral opened up combat against the sorcerers. All three of them piled on the first one and dropped him before he had time to even fight back. The other three immediately ceased channeling their magic into the leader and began launching bolts of fire and lightning at the party. Kana was blasted off his fight, and left lying on his back with a stun effect for a few seconds. He responded with lightning of his own in the form of an arc lance, followed by a clipping sweep to stop the casting of one of the sorcerers who was still up. The trio managed to kill them all in a matter of seconds, though Spiral¡¯s HP dropped back into the red. A shockwave rolled out from the symbol on the ground as the prime sorcerer descended from his place floating in the air. It pushed Kana and Spiral back, and even Valit staggered when it passed through her fifteen meters out. The NPC¡¯s HP bar appeared, and a name popped up over that. ¡°Malificus of the Crimson Plaza,¡± Kana read out. ¡°Why does that sound familiar?¡± ¡°The token you got from that area boss,¡± Spiral reminded him. ¡°Let¡¯s get him.¡±Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere. Valit struck first with a flashburn beam. Malificus immediately countered with a beam spell of his own, but instead of being elemental based, it looked like a rope of undulating darkness connected the two of them. It blasted Valit backwards and put some kind of status effect on her, though she was too far away from Kana for him to read what it was. Then he had no more time to spare worrying about her. The enemy sorcerer set a stream of fist-sized sparks up into the air that drifted down around him in lazy, drifting patterns. ¡°Watch out for those,¡± Spiral said, dodging between two as he closed the distance. He didn¡¯t quite manage to squeeze through a tighter group, and it sent a shock of electricity through him. His whole body seized up for a second, allowing another one to strike him before he could start moving again. Kana darted between the drifting sparks and pulled Spiral back to safety while Malificus laughed and started casting another spell. A shimmering red orb appeared in the air. The sorcerer sneered at Kana and said, ¡°Should have minded your own business, outsiders.¡± Then he gave the orb a shove and it rocketed into Kana, dealing close to a third of his HP in damage. Spiral had recovered and weaved his way through the last of the drifting sparks just as Malificus started his next spell. Without a moment¡¯s hesitation, he heaved his shield forward and slammed the edge of it into the sorcerer¡¯s throat. Malificus gagged and fell on his ass, giving Kana the time he needed to close in and attack. He put Nibelus through a full combo chain, attack to attack to arc lance to rising slash, and even managed to string a clipping sweep into the end to keep the NPC sorcerer on the ground. His HP drained steadily with each attack, but when it turned red, a second shock wave knocked them backwards and Malificus regained his feet. He uttered a short spell and, with a flick of his hand, a mirrored orb large enough for a man to stand in fell out of the sky. It slowed as it approached the ground and landing gently, barely even disturbing the grass it touched down on. Seams appeared in it, which widened until panels fell off and revealed an outraged looking man. ¡°What is the meaning of this, Malificus!¡± he demanded, storming across the grass. ¡°Your soldiers are all dead. But that man has used a soul summoning to take on the form of that titan. The magic will expire when it¡¯s finished consuming his soul, and he will die. There is nothing left to fight for here.¡± ¡°No! The villagers. You have to kill them. We had a deal.¡± Malificus shook his head. ¡°The contract was to get your revenge on that man. He will die. You may stay to witness it if you wish. I will return to the Crimson Plaza and my masters there.¡± Alidrak shot an uneasy glance at the party, and then at Thulnar, still three times the height of a normal man and rampaging across the field to pick off the last pockets of resistance. He stopped and straightened, slowly turning his head as he did. He locked eyes with Alidrak, and turned to take running strides towards the man. ¡°No, I think you are correct,¡± Alidrak said hurriedly. ¡°I will accompany you back to the Crimson Plaza.¡± ¡°I thought you might. Then farewell for now, foolish mortals. I look forward to meeting you under more¡­ opportune circumstances.¡± Malificus flashed them a perfectly evil grin and flicked his hands out. A black circle opened up underneath the two of them, and they fell through it before it closed again a second later. Thulnar charged onto the scene, his footsteps shaking the ground. He slowed when Malificus and Alidrak disappeared until finally he churned to a stop and fell to his hands and knees. ¡°No, the bastard got away,¡± he rumbled, his voice echoing through nearby trees and across the field. ¡°Was all of it for nothing?¡± he asked. He faced Kana and Spiral, but he didn¡¯t seem to be talking to them. Without waiting for an answer, he continued, ¡°No. The people here are safe. You kept them safe? Yes?¡± ¡°We did,¡± Kana said. Thulnar let out a great, giant-sized sigh, one laced with exhaustion. His body slowly shrunk until he regained his normal proportions. The wounds that had seemed so insignificant moments before were now horrendous, life-threatening things. Thulnar didn¡¯t seem to care though. ¡°One more favor,¡± he wheezed out. ¡°The last one, I promise. Plant flowers over my grave. The purple and yellow ones. Always liked those.¡± Then the NPC died and the quest log updated to completed. It awarded Kana a whopping 1500 XP, easily enough for him to reach level 9. Hi shoulders sagged in relief. ¡°That was a bit of work,¡± he said. ¡°Are all the quest lines this intense?¡± ¡°I think Thulnar¡¯s had a lot of work put into it on account of how it¡¯s accessible at such a low level. It¡¯s pretty much the first group quest in the game and Sprigot wanted to give off a good impression and keep people playing. At least, that¡¯s the theory. There are some other quest lines that are pretty hardcore, but this one is one of the most famous among Istrius players.¡± ¡°That¡¯s not how I heard it told,¡± Valit said. Spiral shrugged. ¡°Just what I heard. I guess you could dig through some interview footage on the net if you want to know the truth.¡± ¡°So, what now? We plant some flowers on this guy¡¯s grave and move on?¡± ¡°You don¡¯t have to actually do that part.¡± Valit shook her head at Spiral. ¡°I think we should. We came this far.¡± He gave Kana a questioning look. ¡°Up to you, I guess. You¡¯re the tie breaking vote.¡± ¡°Sure, might as well,¡± Kana said. His goal was to poke through as much of the game as possible, and while he didn¡¯t think there was much to be found at what sounded like an end-of-game cutscene to cap off the ending credits to the quest line, they were already there and it wouldn¡¯t cost anything but a few more minutes to see it through. All of the hostile NPCs had disappeared, and by the time they got back to Faldsteel, the villagers were scattered throughout the town and the fires had been extinguished. Bodies were being hauled in wagons to the local cemetery, and a whole unit of farmers was digging graves one after another. Valit found the man who seemed to be in charge and got his attention. ¡°Thulnar¡¯s body is on the west side of the field,¡± she told him. ¡°He said, before he died, that he wanted flowers planted on his grave, purple and yellow ones.¡± The villager nodded. ¡°I know the ones. Can you show one of the wagon drivers where he¡¯s at? We¡¯ll make sure he gets a proper plot and not tossed into the mass grave.¡± ¡°Oh. Um. Yes, we can do that,¡± Valit said. ¡°Who do we talk to?¡± The overseer waved another NPC over and said, ¡°Follow this woman and go pick up Thulnar¡¯s body. He¡¯s getting a plot in the northeast corner where the flowers bloom in the spring.¡± The NPC got on his wagon and flicked the reins. The horse hitched to it didn¡¯t move, so he flicked them again. Slowly, obviously exhausted, it started trudging down the street. Kana walked behind with Spiral, content to let Valit handle the interaction on this one. They made it there to pick up Thulnar¡¯s body, and after it was loaded and the wagon started back, Kana noticed something. ¡°Hey, look,¡± he said, calling Spiral over. The two of them stood over the patch of grass where the sphere that Alidrak had been in had touched down. ¡°What is all of this stuff mixed into the dirt?¡± ¡°No idea. It looks like you can pick it up though. Some kind of quest item maybe? I didn¡¯t know this was here.¡± ¡°I¡¯m almost positive it wasn¡¯t when we were fighting the last NPCs on the quest.¡± Kana bent down and picked up one of the metal fragments. He brushed the dirt off and examined it closer. As he did so, a loot window popped up and told him he¡¯s found fourteen brightsteel shards. After claiming them, he told Spiral what they were. ¡°Are you serious! Brightsteel shards at this level? Valit will kill you for those.¡± ¡°Are they some sort of sorcerer thing?¡± ¡°Worse. A crafting thing.¡± ¡°Oooooh.¡± Kana let out a low whistle. ¡°And they are rare?¡± Spiral gave him a dirty look. ¡°I hate you.¡± Kana laughed and clapped the knight on the shoulder. ¡°Come on, let¡¯s go give her a third. She was part of this. She deserves them.¡± ¡°Nah, she can have my third too then. I have no interest at all in crafting. I¡¯ll tell her to make me something nice later in return.¡± ¡°What are you guys talking about back there?¡± Valit called out. ¡°The wagon is leaving. Come on.¡± ¡°Boy do we have good news for you,¡± Spiral yelled back. ¡°Come look what Mr. Four Leaf Clover over here found.¡± 16- Bad Cactus June 20, 2142 | | You have 3 unread messages. Jon sighed. All of them were from unknown senders, and he didn¡¯t even need to check to know that they¡¯d be avatars unlinked to any sort of profile, just like they¡¯d been all week. Every day he got more, strangely persistent. He would block the sender, and the next day he¡¯d start getting messages from a new one. After the first day, he¡¯d sent a response back advising the sender that if he or she needed help, to contact the police department through official channels. Somehow, Jon doubted the sender had taken that advice. He couldn¡¯t know for sure, since he was still suspended. Officially, he was on leave for recovery, but they¡¯d revoked his access to the LRPD servers for the duration of his leave. Jon had ignored the next two messages, and then he¡¯d tried responding again. He¡¯d said he¡¯d meet the sender in a secured VR meeting using a government sanctioned account. The sender had insisted that they meet in person, and Jon had no interest at all in doing that. So he ignored the messages. There would be two or three more of them before he had lunch, and he¡¯d delete them all at once at the end of the day. It wasn¡¯t that he wasn¡¯t curious, because he definitely was. The messages indicated some tie-in to Istrius, but not meeting strangers who contacted the police via anonymous proxy accounts and asked for face-to-faces was pretty basic procedure. On the other hand, the Istrius angle was not playing out. His unbroken chain of low-drop rate items had continued, and it was definitely Istrius specific. Jon wasn¡¯t superstitious, but it had cost him little enough to play a few other games of chance and confirm that no, he hadn¡¯t been granted a blessing of luck by the Gods. That was almost enough to make him agree to the meet up with the mysterious proxy avatar user. If he hadn¡¯t been on leave, he might have asked for police resources to help ensure his safety. But he was on leave, and Marc had already assured him that he wasn¡¯t going to be on the case when he got back. Given the situation, taking that risk was stupid. He¡¯d been at the game for a week now, and the biggest thing he¡¯d learned was that Derek did not know half as much about anything as he pretended. The kid put on a good show, but the more Jon learned independently, the more he realized he couldn¡¯t trust his son¡¯s judgement to know what was or wasn¡¯t unusual in the game. It might have helped if Derek had known exactly why Jon wanted to know, but he hadn¡¯t wanted to involve his son any more than he already had. As far as Derek was concerned, they were bonding over a video game while Jon was on sick leave, and that¡¯s the way it was going to stay. Jon was convinced that someone was somehow picking victims through the game, but he couldn¡¯t figure out how. He¡¯d been cut out of the loop on the crime reports, so he had no way of knowing if any new crimes had been committed, and he was forced to rely on his own memories of the files he no longer had access to. Now that he had a foundation to work off of, Jon had learned quite a bit more about Istrius. Unlike Valit, he didn¡¯t care about spoilers. He¡¯d begun reading up on various quests before doing them to compare if they deviated at all from other people¡¯s experiences. He¡¯d also gone back over the ones he¡¯d already done the first few days. Nothing had stood out except for the suspicious drop rates. Something had bugged in his character, and somehow the proxy avatar user who¡¯d been messaging him all week knew about it. He had known about it before anyone besides Spiral and Valit, back when it had just been a highly improbably series of coincidences. By the time Kana had hit level 25 and had an unbroken string of rare drops from every rare spawn he¡¯d come across, the odds of it being a bit of good luck were beyond astronomical. Jon ignored the little blinking light in the corner of his HUD with the three unread messages from unknown senders and logged into Istrius. His vision blurred as the game overwrote what he was actually seeing with virtual reality. ------ As he¡¯d grown more comfortable playing on his own, Kana had gradually left Spiral behind in levels. The knight was splitting his time between two characters, and while Kana enjoyed the time he spent with Spiral, he wasn¡¯t playing the game for personal enjoyment. Starting over on a second character just to keep Kana and Spiral¡¯s levels the same was not an efficient use of his time. The gap wasn¡¯t too big, and Kana had no problem doing quests that were below his level just to experience them, so they still found plenty of opportunity to play together. Neither of them minded too much if it wasn¡¯t as challenging as it should have been either, though Valit had stopped playing with them. That wasn¡¯t to say she didn¡¯t still message the both of them every single day, just that she¡¯d opted to focus on her crafting over questing. Kana thought she was somewhere around level 15, but he¡¯d fed her plenty of rare mats and her blacksmithing was coming along just fine. Additionally, she¡¯d become something of a rare item broker for him, and they were both fairly wealthy from selling off some of the many rare drops he¡¯d gained while playing. That was why, despite many max level players struggling to purchase homes in a primary city, Kana was logging in to his house in the city of Aldur. It wasn¡¯t a barren room either. He¡¯d purchased a waygate upgrade to link him to the travel network for faster transit, had fully furnished it to provide a series of buffs upon logging in, and even had a nether drop that allowed him to remotely store items from his inventory in his house, though he still had to return there manually to pull them back out. He had 22 new messages in-game when he logged in. Most of those were from Valit and could safely be skimmed and ignored. Two were from Spiral, letting him know that he was going to a guild event during the day and wouldn¡¯t be switching over to Spiral until later, and also suggesting a possible rare spawn to target for a conjurer¡¯s charm that someone in his guild would pay good money for. The last few were automated system messages about server maintenance and that Sprigot was starting its second round of beta testing for its upcoming expansion, the Tower of Heaven. Kana had been too busy with the base game to worry about what they were releasing in a few months. He¡¯d skimmed a few postings and articles about it, but nothing had jumped out at him. It seemed to have gotten a fairly standard reaction from Istrius¡¯s player base. The conjurer¡¯s charm Spiral¡¯s guild mate wanted was called Earthsinger¡¯s Echo, and it dropped off a rare spawn in the Ganidred. The area was full of mobs that were mostly in the low to mid 30s, technically a bit too advanced for someone of Kana¡¯s level to safely work through. Then again, the average player didn¡¯t have an artifact grade weapon and several 4-star ranked pieces of gear. Even the slots he didn¡¯t have 4-star pieces in at least had a rare drop.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. Kana activated his personal waygate to take him to Aldur¡¯s central teleportation spire, and paid 200 drol to be transported halfway across the continent to the desert trading town of Haltab. It was supposed to be a neutral zone for the various humanoid tribes in the Ganidred to meet for parley and trade, but the shops never seemed to have anything worth anything. Kana used it for its node on the teleportation nexus but otherwise ignored the place. The mob he was looking for was an area boss in the sand pits section of the Ganidred, a giant scorpion-looking thing made of rocks. That was somewhat annoying to him, as dragoon¡¯s specialized in lightning elemental attacks, which earth elementals of all sorts were notoriously resistant to. There were some high-level abilities that used other elements, but Kana didn¡¯t have access to them yet. One of the passives Kana had gained a few levels back was a greater ability to gauge a mob¡¯s threat level. In addition to knowing its level, he could also focus on something and get a rough estimate of its stats in relation to his own. That was why he was sizing up a level 31 bad cactus and wondering if it was worth the effort. The thing¡¯s HP was ridiculously high, like elite boss level high, but its defense was crap. Offense and accuracy were decent, not comparable to Kana¡¯s. It didn¡¯t seem like it would be a challenging fight so much as a tedious one. It had been placed at that spot on the map as a sort of deterrent to prevent players who weren¡¯t strong enough to go into the canyon beyond and reach the sand pits. It was technically possible for him to avoid it, but that came with its own set of challenges, and in the end, he decided it just wasn¡¯t worth the effort. The bad cactus stood about six meters in height and Kana guessed it would have an attack radius comparable to his own, possibly a bit wider. If it was anything like some of the other sentient cacti he¡¯d tussled with while exploring the desert, it would probably have a ranged needle attack as well. He brandished Nibelus and closed in on the cactus. It reacted with predictable aggression, launching a hail of needles his direction. Kana had expected the attack and was already diving to one side before they¡¯d even come free of the devil plant. He rolled back to his feet and continued moving in. As soon as he was within the cactus¡¯s melee range, he swung Nibelus in a full circle, activating a new ability he¡¯d recently picked up called wind slash. It did physical damage to the primary target and cleaved for wind damage to anything else in range. More importantly, it let him skip the initial ramp up of melee attacks needed to start his combo. He went straight from wind slash into arc lance, into rising slash, into another new special attack he¡¯d gained: sunder. Much like Spiral¡¯s shield slam, sunder could put a stun debuff on an enemy. The bad cactus shuddered when he stunned it, releasing a cloud of needles around it. He backed up to avoid taking damage from it and tossed out a couple of light melee swings at maximum range just to keep his combo going. As soon as the bad cactus¡¯s needle cloud defense dissipated, he went right back in with another arc lance. The lightning damage wasn¡¯t anything special against it, but it did allow him to follow it up with a rising slash, which did hit pretty hard. The bad cactus was down to half its HP and Kana had yet to take a hit, but he didn¡¯t let himself get sloppy. As he¡¯d gotten to higher levels, he¡¯d found a lot of mobs would switch tactics or play trump cards when they hit red HP. Sure enough, as soon as the bad cactus dropped below that threshold, all three of its arms started pistoning down in an attempt to crush Kana. He focused on evasion for a bit until he found the rhythm of the mob¡¯s attacks, then continued attacking it. It was almost impossible to keep a combo going with its constant interruptions, but he did manage to get a respectable seven-hitter in just before he finished it off. All said and done, it took him just under two minutes to kill the bad cactus, and he¡¯d gained 300 XP and a handful of desert needles. Valit would definitely buy those off him. In fact, she bought almost all the crafting mats he picked up in addition to being his store front. If she wasn¡¯t so damn chatty all the time, it would have been the perfect partnership. Still, she was very good at finding buyers for the rare drops he picked up, and despite how much of a chatterbox she was, no one had ever come looking for him as the source of her goods. They all knew something had bugged in Kana¡¯s character, and that if the game masters ever caught on, he was liable to get an account ban. Since Kana wasn¡¯t concerned with playing long term, he was willing to run that risk if it meant progressing faster. He wasn¡¯t going out of his way to advertise it though, and Valit had been discreet. Anyone who checked out his gear would just assume he¡¯d spent a lot of money to deck out an alt in some powerful drops, possibly for PvP purposes. He was happy to let them assume that, though it had resulted in a guy playing a berserker attacking him once. Kana had been surprised, but he¡¯d pretty easily thrashed the other player to within an inch of his life before letting the guy run away. He walked past the dead bad cactus into the valley pass that led to the sand pits. It was a short, straight run, one that he¡¯d made a few times already. The sand pits weren¡¯t a popular section of the desert, mostly because the scorpions were ambush mobs that popped up out of the ground when a player got too close. Kana had come once to get the rare scorpion venom used in anti-toxins that players stocked up on when doing the Black Manor portion of Thulnar¡¯s questline, as well as a few other assassin-themed lines. If they¡¯d only known about it, it would have made everything a lot easier. The second time he¡¯d ventured into the sand pits, it was part of the quests he was working on in Ganidred. He came into the sand pits and looked around. There were a handful of lesser cacti dotting the area, but they were far enough apart that they could be easily avoided. Kana might kill them anyway just to get a few more desert needles. Plus, the 100 XP each the small ones were worth was nice, but neither the cacti or the ambush scorpions were why he was there. He¡¯d skimmed some pages about the area boss on the net and found out where it spawned at. As he got closer, he saw a woman standing there. She had a staff in one hand that she was tapping against the canyon wall, and appeared lost deep in thought. She jumped as Kana walked up to her and let out a loud, ¡°Holy crap!¡± ¡°You ok there?¡± he said. ¡°Yes, fine. Sorry, wasn¡¯t paying attention and didn¡¯t expect someone else to be here. Are you farming the scorpions or looking for a drop off Elan¡¯scathe?¡± ¡°The boss mob. Hoping he drops the conjurer¡¯s charm,¡± Kana told her. ¡®Hoping¡¯ wasn¡¯t exactly the right term though. ¡®Expecting¡¯ was a bit more accurate, but he wasn¡¯t going to share that with her. ¡°Hah. Me too. I¡¯ve been reading up on how to solo the boss as a conjurer, and it doesn¡¯t look like I¡¯ve got the right spirits bound to me to do it.¡± ¡°Well, we could probably take it out together.¡± ¡°Exactly what I was thinking. I¡¯m Mae, by the way.¡± ¡°Kana.¡± ¡°Nice to meet you,¡± she said. A group invite popped up in front of him. Once he¡¯d joined, she took a second to check him out. ¡°Holy crap. You must have paid a fortune for all of that.¡± ¡°Ah, heh. The weapon actually dropped for me,¡± he said. So had the rest. ¡°Lucky! Let¡¯s hope we¡¯ve got a bit more today. You ready?¡± ¡°Sure thing. Do you have a tanky spirit to take front lines?¡± ¡°No. That¡¯s why I don¡¯t think I can solo him. I¡¯ve got water, fire, and light spirits right now.¡± ¡°Heavy on the healing and medium offense, but basically no defense. Not a great combination for playing solo.¡± Mae sighed. ¡°I wasn¡¯t solo until two days ago, but the guy I was running with decided he was too good to be held back by anyone else. So now I¡¯m working on readjusting my load out. Thus, here to get an Earthsinger¡¯s Echo so I can bind an earth spirit.¡± They walked into a shallow cave while they talked, one which was half buried by sand. A grinding sound filled the cave, one that got louder as they approached the back. There, a whirlpool of sand churned in place, occasionally splashing up against the cave wall. ¡°Here we are,¡± Kana said. ¡°I guess I¡¯ll pull. And focus on defense while you beat it down and keep me healed?¡± ¡°Sounds like a plan to me.¡± ¡°Great. I¡¯ll just¡­¡± Kana took a running start and jumped straight to the center of the whirlpool. Spearpoint leading, he lunged down and sunk Nibelus into the stone flesh of the elemental that was rising out of the sand. 17- Elanscathe Elan¡¯scathe was far bigger than Kana had expected. The elemental rose up out of the sand pit, and up, and up. Kana was forced to jump off it just to avoid being smashed against the ceiling, but he was hardly in a better position landing in the loose sand that was pouring off the elemental and threatening to sweep him off his feet. A creature flew past him, something shimmering and blue. Kana got the impression of fins and teeth from the brief glimpse he got before it was out of sight. Whatever it was doing, Elan¡¯scathe did not like it. The elemental let out a ground-shaking roar that made the sand jump into the air and kicked a leg out, whip-fast, to catch the spirit Mae had conjured up. Kana finally got his balance back and started hacking at the nearest leg, but had to dodge almost immediately when the boss swept a giant pincer claw through the air. There was no doubt in Kana¡¯s mind that if it had hit him, he would have been thrown all the way into the wall. That would probably be a better fate than being caught in the pincer. Because of all his scrambling and dodging, Kana was finding it hard to land a solid hit on the elemental boss. It just had too many legs it could kick with, pincers to guard the front, and a long, jagged-tipped tail that he hadn¡¯t even seen it use yet. The damage he had managed to inflict was lower than it should have been, and Kana suspected only center mass hits like his initial one would do full damage. Between the shifting sands underfoot and the boss¡¯s massive size, it was definitely a fight that favored ranged classes. That meant that Mae¡¯s water spirit would probably do the lion¡¯s share of the damage, and he would be most useful as a mobile target to distract Elan¡¯scathe. He would get in what hits he could, but unless the boss shifted its attack patterns to something better suited to his class, he didn¡¯t expect much. A second spirit had appeared near Mae and was hovering defensively beside her. It had a ghostly, shimmering appearance, human-shaped but not even a meter tall and with its features faded out by the light coming off it. An odd sound, almost musical, came from it, and a moment later everything took on a sparkling glow. Kana was surprised for just a moment until he realized that he¡¯d gained a barrier buff that would mitigate incoming damage. To an outside observer, he would be standing in an almost-invisible bubble that would shield him from attacks. Kana had seen the spell effect on other players in Aldur, but he¡¯d never been the target of the buff spell himself. Elan¡¯scathe¡¯s triple HP bar was still half full on the first bar, so it was far too soon to try for an aggressive push to finish it off, but Kana decided to test out the limits of the barrier Mae¡¯s conjuring had given him. He slipped between the boss¡¯s legs, taking a glancing hit in the process that did almost no damage at all, and slashed the tip of Nibelus through the stone core overhead. That did some real damage, even more than his initial downward lunge. It was awkward to attack something right above him, but he managed to chain a few special attacks. Arc lance did almost no damage at all, which didn¡¯t surprise him in the least, but rising slash was perfectly suited for the angle. He managed to take off an entire bar of Elan¡¯scathe¡¯s HP before the barrier gave out. A leg caught him and kicked him out the front, where he got a close up of the boss¡¯s rather terrifying looking face. He was bracketed on both sides by its heavy pincer claws, and there was nowhere to doge what he was sure to be a painful bite attack. Instead, the tail lanced down through the air and stabbed into his stomach. Kana was pinned to the sand and his HP immediately dropped from 930 to 26. Even though he¡¯d been at almost full HP, the attack had nearly one-shotted him. The only saving grace was that Elan¡¯scathe wasn¡¯t a real scorpion, so there was no poison accompanying the tail sting. That seemed like a moot point though, since no doubt the next attack was already on its way and Kana couldn¡¯t actually free himself from the tail to dodge it. A healing spell washed over him, bringing his HP back up to 312, but it was too little, too late. The scorpion¡¯s left pincer was already reaching down to snip off his arm, or maybe just crush it. The water spirit flitted between Kana and Elan¡¯scathe and unleashed a blinding burst of multi-colored shimmering bubbles. They clung to the elemental scorpion¡¯s face and blinded it, enough that Kana was able to jerk and twist to dodge the pincer at least. The pressure from the tail holding him down let up just a little, not enough for him to escape, but enough for him to move. He stabbed Nibelus straight up through the bubble cloud into the boss¡¯s face. There was no finesse to the attack, just a sort of desperate strength behind a movement that was almost a throw instead of a lunge. He was barely holding onto the weapon by the end of its haft, and if Elan¡¯scathe jerked away, it would either take the spear with it or send it flying across its lair. That was exactly what happened as the boss reared back, freeing Kana and disarming him at the same time. Nibelus tumbled out of the wound and thumped into the sand, where Kana scooped it back up as he scurried away from the business end of the giant scorpion. A second healing spell hit him, bringing his HP back into the yellow, and making him feel marginally better about his chances of survival. Despite having been literally run through by Elan¡¯scathe¡¯s tail and pinned to the ground, there was no hole in his stomach. The game simply didn¡¯t work that way, and Kana retained his full mobility and reach. His stamina bar was getting dangerously low though, to the point where it was starting to slow him down. ¡°How long can that water spirit keep the boss occupied?¡± he asked Mae. ¡°If it keeps soaking the damage, it¡¯ll die in the next few seconds. It¡¯s not made for taking hits, or even really for dishing out the damage. I¡¯m only using it because the boss is supposed to be weak to that elemental type.¡± ¡°Guess I¡¯d better go save it then.¡± Kana moved back in to attack, more conservative in his movements, playing defensively to avoid being kicked back into the range of the boss¡¯s deadly tail strikes. Working together, they managed to whittle down most of the boss¡¯s second HP bar before Mae¡¯s water spirit was struck by a pincer and broke apart into floating water globules that splashed across the cave walls before evaporating.If you stumble upon this narrative on Amazon, it''s taken without the author''s consent. Report it. ¡°How long until you can conjure it back up?¡± Kana asked, desperately dodging now that the boss¡¯s attention was solely focused on him. ¡°Five minutes. I¡¯ll bring out my flame spirit for now. It¡¯s got the most offensive power, but it won¡¯t last through a solid hit.¡± There was no doubt that Mae had built herself to work in a group. She had solid healing and support utility, and against something that wasn¡¯t a living rock, no doubt her fire spirit would bring the hurt, but she was sorely lacking in survivability. Kana had more HP and better damage mitigation, but he relied heavily on quick reflexes and the massive damage output Nibelus afforded him to win. The next hit he landed procced the artifact-grade weapon¡¯s special ball lightning ability, which did a nice chunk of damage even with its diminished effectiveness. The problem was that it pushed Elan¡¯scathe¡¯s HP down to the last bar, and Kana was not prepared for a sudden shift in the boss¡¯s attack pattern. The scorpion drove its legs down into the sand and started burrowing, blinding Kana with the spray. By the time the blind debuff wore off a few seconds later, the boss was completely underground, but a low rumbling told him that it hadn¡¯t retreated. A second later, the sand underfoot shifted and exploded upward. Kana had just enough warning to begin to dodge, but not enough to actually get clear. Elan¡¯scathe¡¯s tail clipped him and he spun a full circle from the force of the blow before tumbling to the ground. The tail disappeared back into the sand and Kana climbed to his feet. He looked around, but there was no convenient part of the boss sticking into the air for him to attack. ¡°This sucks,¡± he said. The faint rumbling got more intense, and when the sand exploded upwards again, he was ready for it. Kana leapt aside and spun around to use wind slash on the outstretched tail before it could vanish again. He caught a brief glimpse of the boss¡¯s last HP bar, still over 90% full, before everything went still again. Warily, he glanced around the cave and tried to find some way to gauge when the next strike would come. Mae¡¯s light spirit glowed brighter for a second, and Kana¡¯s HP went all the way up to full. At almost the exact same time, the rumbling increased. Kana tensed, ready to leap, but Elan¡¯scathe had a different target in mind, and Mae was not nearly as quick as Kana. The tail struck her cleanly, hurling her straight up in the air to bounce off the ceiling of the cave and land heavily on the sand. Mae¡¯s HP drained completely, emptying out past the red until there was nothing left. Instead of dying though, the light spirit she¡¯d conjured brightened to a blinding white before disappearing. Mae sat back up, her HP solidly in the yellow, and climbed to her feet. ¡°Those tail attacks really hurt,¡± was all she said before she conjured up her last spirit. Unlike the other two, it didn¡¯t fly or float in the air. Instead, it looked like a small wolf with reddish-brown fur that came up to Mae¡¯s knees. It was almost too cute with its attempts to be ferocious as it growled and paced around her, and Kana couldn¡¯t help but wonder if it would actually be any use. It looked more like a wolf pup than a fully grown beast. The rumbling rose in pitch again, but it sounded different from before. Instead of a tail strike, the sand bulged up and rolled forward like a tidal wave. Kana caught a glimpse of Elan¡¯scathe on the other side, but the wall of sand blocked him from actually reaching the boss and attacking. The wolf pup didn¡¯t seem to consider it an obstacle. Its fur ignited and it rocketed forward, leaping over the rolling wall and lunging straight for the earth elemental behind it. As the sand¡¯s momentum played itself out, the wall got smaller and Kana was able to vault over it himself. The pup had managed to stop Elan¡¯scathe from submerging below the sand again, or maybe that portion of the boss¡¯s phase transition had just ended. Either way, Kana finally had a target to attack, and he was determined to finish the giant scorpion off before it could unleash any new surprises. He attacked from the side, threading his way between flailing legs and reaching the vulnerable underbelly, where he poured on the damage with a full combo chain. He got battered by more kicks in the process, but none managed to toss him back out near the scorpion¡¯s head, and its last HP drained away to nothing. Kana scrambled to get clear as it teetered in place on stony legs that were cracking and falling apart. He made it out just in time to avoid being crushed in a small avalanche of stone when Elan¡¯scathe collapsed. The boss broke apart into a pile of rubble in a matter of seconds, and an XP window popped up awarding him 2200 XP. ¡°Yes!¡± Mae yelled. ¡°I got it! It dropped for me!¡± Kana hadn¡¯t even looked at his own loot window yet. The whole point of killing the area boss was to pick up an Earthsinger¡¯s Echo, which Mae had just received. He didn¡¯t get one, however. Instead, he got a crafting material called a foundation stone. He wasn¡¯t even sure what it was for, but it had a 5-star rarity, making it artifact grade. ¡°Did you get anything good?¡± Mae asked. ¡°Just some crafting mats,¡± he said, not wanting to reveal his luck to her. ¡°That sucks,¡± she said. ¡°Sorry you went through all the trouble and didn¡¯t get loot.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not going to turn my nose up at 2200 XP,¡± he said. ¡°That¡¯s a lot.¡± ¡°2200? I only got 1000. Wait, what level are you?¡± she demanded. ¡°Me?¡± Kana blinked, taken aback by the sudden ferocity in the question. ¡°25. Why?¡± ¡°25! How are you even here? I¡¯m level 36! You were just going to solo this thing?¡± ¡°Ah. Hah. I guess I didn¡¯t think it through,¡± Kana said. ¡°It all worked out though, so I can¡¯t really complain.¡± ¡°I can¡¯t believe you even got past the bad cactus guarding the entrance,¡± she said. ¡°Must be that weapon. Worth whatever you paid for it, I guess.¡± ¡°Yeah,¡± he agreed. ¡°Tell you what though, low level or not, you¡¯re still pretty good.¡± A friend request popped up in front of him. ¡°You don¡¯t have to take it,¡± Mae said, ¡°but if you ever need a healer or some firepower, shoot me a message.¡± ¡°Will do,¡± he said as he hit the accept button. Spiral had complained all week about needing a healer. He wasn¡¯t sure if Mae would fit the bill with her level being so much higher, but it was worth looking into. The worst she could say was that she wasn¡¯t interested in doing quests that were so much lower than her level. ¡°Were you doing anything else here?¡± she asked. ¡°No,¡± he said. ¡°I just came to see if I could pick up that conjurer¡¯s charm for a friend of a friend.¡± ¡°Me too. Want to stick in the party until we get back to town? Ignacious here isn¡¯t great on his own,¡± she said, petting the wolf pup. The flames that had rolled off its body had all gone back out, and it once again looked like an ordinary animal. ¡°Sure.¡± Kana had done some research into the other classes, just to get a baseline of what his expectations should be of other players and have an idea if anything weird was going on. He knew that conjurers bonded with spirits and fought with them, and that if the spirit was destroyed, there was a recharge time before it could be brought back. He suspected she didn¡¯t want to wait until she could bring them back to start the trip back across the desert. That was fine though. Kana definitely wouldn¡¯t have beaten that boss on his own, and they were both going the same place. They left the cave together, the wolf pup obediently trailing behind Mae as they walked, and Kana sent a message to Spiral.
The charm didn¡¯t drop. Got something else instead. Met a conjurer there who specializes in support. Added her to my friends list so you can finally stop whining about not having a healer.
All in all, it hadn¡¯t been a bad day. 18- Drop Cougars! ¡°I am disappointed,¡± Kana said. ¡°I thought you were better than this.¡± ¡°Oh, shut up,¡± Valit snapped. ¡°It¡¯s an artifact material. I¡¯d have to be max level and a master-tier smith to do anything with it.¡± ¡°Makes sense. So I guess we sell it?¡± Valit glared at him, but then sighed and nodded. ¡°That or find someone else to do the work for you. Sorry. It¡¯s above my pay grade.¡± ¡°Do whatever you think is best with it,¡± Kana told her. ¡°Oh, by the way, did you manage to scrounge up the mats to make Spiral¡¯s birthday present?¡± ¡°Right! I almost forgot. One sec.¡± Valit disappeared behind the curtain she¡¯d set up to divide her stall at the bazaar in half. A lot of players hired NPCs to run the stalls like a store so that they had a place to sell their hard-earned loot without having to actually waste all their time in the city, but Valit seemed to like the company. Kana would not have been surprised to find out she hadn¡¯t gained even a single level since their last quest together. She¡¯d certainly gained a hefty bank account though, thanks in no small part to Kana¡¯s never-ending supply of rare drops that she got a commission on selling for him. What exactly she was doing with the drol, he had never been entirely sure. Perhaps she just liked looking at the large number when she went to the bank to add the day¡¯s take to it. Valit came back into view with a large shield held in her hands. ¡°3-star ranked, with a perfect stat balance for a knight,¡± she declared. ¡°I think he¡¯ll like it.¡± He knew his sense of proportion was seriously screwed, so Kana had to actively remind himself that for most players, a 3-star rarity item was a hell of a find. Players who were still leveling almost always had bottom tier gear with the occasional 2-star, or green, as they were called. Every rank had its own color, and when Kana had asked about the logic behind picking the color order, Spiral had just shrugged and told him it had been that way in every game for as long as anyone could remember. ¡°How do you know when his birthday is?¡± Valit asked, drawing Kana out of his thoughts. ¡°Hmm? Oh, simple. We¡¯re family.¡± ¡°Oh! I didn¡¯t know. I wish you¡¯d given me a bit of warning though. I could have spent more time looking for something for him myself.¡± Kana laughed. ¡°I¡¯m sure he isn¡¯t expecting anything at all. Whatever you found will be a pleasant surprise.¡± ¡°Yeah. Any plans today? Going to go try out his new upgrades?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so. I think he¡¯s doing something with his guild on his ranger this afternoon, then stuff offline with his mother in the evening.¡± ¡°Oh, well, if you¡¯re not going to be busy, there are some mats I¡¯d like to get my hands on that I haven¡¯t been able to find on the market yet¡­¡± ------ ¡°Happy birthday,¡± Kana said, opening up a trade window with Spiral. ¡°This is for you.¡± The shield he¡¯d commissioned Valit to make was a significant upgrade to the one Spiral had been using, and perhaps more importantly, it increased the duration of the stun debuff his shield attacks applied by two seconds. It was primarily a boost to his stats, but Kana was sure that Spiral would appreciate that nice little bonus perk. ¡°Aw, thanks. This is a pretty solid piece of work. Did Valit make it for you or buy it?¡± ¡°She made it herself. I think it was the highest quality piece she¡¯s made so far.¡± ¡°Nice,¡± Spiral said. He equipped it and gave it a flourish. ¡°How¡¯s it look?¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t really match the color scheme of the armor, but fortunately I have a solution,¡± Kana told him. He opened up another trade window and put Valit¡¯s gift in there. ¡°When she found out it was your birthday, Valit decided to get you something too.¡± It was a chest piece with an impressive amount of physical damage reduction and surprisingly a bit of fire resistance as well. Most importantly, it had a rare skill augment on it that increased the effectiveness of Spiral¡¯s latest ability: grudge. The ability put a debuff on the target that forced its attention on Spiral and wouldn¡¯t let it attack anything else, which was incredibly useful in a pinch. It also increased the amount of damage the target took from Spiral while the debuff was in effect. ¡°Oh damn. I think she beats you,¡± he said. ¡°But these are both solid upgrades. Thanks a lot!¡± ¡°You¡¯re welcome. You still going out with your Mom for dinner this evening?¡± ¡°Family tradition,¡± Spiral said. His grin faltered though, and he added, ¡°I mean¡­ Sorry.¡± ¡°No, it¡¯s ok. We¡¯ve been spending a lot of time together. I¡¯m sure your mother wants a turn too.¡± Spiral blew out a long, frustrated sigh. ¡°Sometimes, I just¡­ I wish¡­ I don¡¯t know. That¡­¡± His hands grasped at the air as he tried to articulate what he wanted to say, but failed. He shot Kana a plaintive look, who put a hand on his shoulder and pulled him into a hug. ¡°It¡¯s ok. It wasn¡¯t your fault. If anything, it was mine. I¡¯m the one who should be apologizing.¡± It had been half a decade since the whole family had gone out for the birthday dinner. Any more, the new tradition was once on Spiral¡¯s birthday with his mom and maybe one on some weekend within the next month if Kana wasn¡¯t too busy working. He always felt bad about that, but the work he did was important. He felt a twinge of guilt that even in the game, he had an ulterior motive to spending time with Spiral.Stolen content warning: this content belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences. ¡°Look, you just go have a good time with your mom tonight. Enjoy hanging out with your guild. We¡¯ll do something tomorrow, ok? I¡¯ll pick you up tomorrow and we¡¯ll go out. The ribs are mostly healed now anyway. I can manage dinner at least.¡± ¡°Yeah, sounds good.¡± It didn¡¯t sound like Spiral really believed that, and Kana winced inside. He¡¯d broken too many promises to be there over the years to be taken at his word. That was his fault too. Well, he¡¯d just have to do better tomorrow. He was off work anyway. ¡°Thanks again for the birthday present,¡± Spiral said. ¡°I¡¯ll see you later, ok?¡± ¡°Sure. Have fun today. Happy birthday.¡± Spiral waved and logged out, leaving Kana standing alone in his house. He thought about it for a second, then sent Valit a message asking her to keep an eye out on the market for a nice weapon to go with Spiral¡¯s new shield. ------- The game didn¡¯t award XP on a flat scale. The gain was determined by the difference in level between the player and the monster or recommended level to complete the quest. Kana had found that by doing quests that were designed for players five or even ten levels higher than him, he could gain significantly more XP, not to mention better quest rewards. That last part didn¡¯t matter so much to him since the money he¡¯d gained from selling his rare drops through Valit had given him access to better gear than anything he was likely to get as a quest reward. Those were predetermined and his glitched out luck didn¡¯t affect quest rewards at all. He¡¯d already done most of the stuff designed for players in the mid 20s level bracket by the time he hit level 22, and he¡¯d worked through most of the late 20s content in the last two days. His experience fighting Elan¡¯scathe had convinced him that mid 30s bosses were too much to solo, so he had done a bit of research and picked a place recommended for players just hitting level 30. Talon Roost was a mountainous area where it seemed like the wildlife took a backseat to the terrain in terms of danger. Kana used the teleportation spire to arrive at a town called Jutan, which was perched on a quarter wide mile shelf on the side of a mountain. The view was spectacular, albeit somewhat spoiled by the monstrous ten-meter wingspan birds flying around. Kana had chosen the area for two reasons. First: the enemies and quests were far enough above his level to be somewhat challenging and thus more rewarding, and second: there were a lot of animal mobs that dropped various furs and meats which sold for decent amounts of money. The main quest line for the area started with a woman named Kalanna, whom Kana found without much issue. She was in a small cottage at the edge of town, wringing her hands and staring off up at the mountain. He approached her and, his voice slipping into cop-speak, said, ¡°Are you alright, ma¡¯am?¡± She turned to him, her face painted with worry. ¡°My husband, he¡¯s been gone for a week. There was some problem and they sent messages for all of the walkers to travel up the mountains. Something terrible is happening and we¡¯re all in the dark down here trusting them to take care of it. He always sends me a message to tell me he¡¯s safe, but not last night.¡± ¡°Do you want me to go see what¡¯s going on?¡± he asked. ¡°Oh, no. You shouldn¡¯t. Something dangerous is happening. I couldn¡¯t stand the thought of you getting hurt on my account. My husband is a strong man, he¡¯ll be fine. I¡¯m just worrying over nothing.¡± She didn¡¯t sound convinced as she said it though. ¡°It¡¯s really no trouble. I was heading that way anyway,¡± he told her. ¡°Well, if you¡¯re sure¡­ here, let me give you this though at least,¡± she said, disappearing into the cottage and coming back with a rolled-up map. ¡°This will help you find the Lodge. It¡¯s where all the walkers meet up. Someone should be there who knows where my Leo is.¡± ¡°Thank you, ma¡¯am.¡± He really couldn¡¯t help it. Too many years on the job had instilled a certain manner of speaking into him when he dealt with the public¡¯s complaints and problems. He¡¯d done his best to suppress it at first, but eventually he had given up and just let it out. It didn¡¯t seem to matter to the NPCs one way or another, and his brain had been re-wired to talk like that years ago. It was easier that way. The map Kalanna had given him was a hand-drawn thing, more of a scrawl than anything professional. It showed him a lot of dead-end trails and had the proper route to reach the Lodge circled. There was no equivalent of magical GPS in Istrius, at least not as far as navigating to locations. It could find people just fine as long as they were in his party, but not tell him which way to go to reach a building. It didn¡¯t make a lot of sense to Kana, but he wasn¡¯t going to worry about it. He left the cottage, wondering briefly why it seemed like they were always at the edge of the village. Nobody who lived in the main part of town ever needed help. Even in the cities he¡¯d explored, all of the quests were always in the outskirts or ghettos. Other than a few system introductory quests to show him where player resources like the bazaar, bounty boards, bank, and housing commission were, there wasn¡¯t much going in in the middle of Aldur. Kana hiked up the side of the mountain, following a trail through the pine trees that and occasionally stopping to fend off an attack from hungry predators. A cougar tried to ambush him once, leaping down from a tree to land on his back and raking its claws through his flesh. Kana spun in a tight circle with the beast still on him to activate wind slash and hurled it straight back up into the air. An arc lance and rising slash was all it took to finish the cougar off, despite it being three levels higher than Kana. He got 150 XP for it and was awarded several crafting mats, useful primarily in making primitive jewelry and cooking. Four more times as he was hiking, he was ambushed by drop cougars before he figured out the warning signs and how to avoid them. Worse than the drop cougars were the occasional attacks from the giant birds the games called cliff skimmers. They had a tendency to attack whenever he came to an open area in the trail, especially when he was near a cliff edge, and their primary form of offense was to attempt to knock him over so that he would fall to his death. They were more like mobile AI controlled traps than actual monsters. Annoying as they were, they didn¡¯t do any real damage to him, and it turned out that dragoons were decently equipped to deal with them. He had a mid-ranged attack that didn¡¯t work as well as a sorcerer or ranger sniping them from a distance, but gave him enough reach to take them out as they tried to do a fly-by, with the added bonus that they had a weakness to lightning damage. After ten minutes of constant harassment from the local wildlife, 4230 XP, and a truly disgusting amount of raw meat in loot, Kana finally reached the spot where his map told him the Lodge had been built. He thought that given the hunter and ranger themes of the zone, perhaps the building had been hidden in same way and started poking around. He found it hidden behind a screen of trees, these ones thankfully devoid of any drop cougars. As he approached though, he frowned. There were bodies everywhere and not a single living NPC to be found. He¡¯d skimmed the notes of an admittedly sketchy guide that hadn¡¯t gone into a lot of detail, but it had definitely said the next step started at the Lodge. It was possible the guide was just outdated and Sprigot had updated the zone for some reason. Or maybe, just maybe, he had finally found something unusual going on in the world of Istrius, something besides his glitched out luck. Here was a lead he might actually be able to investigate somehow. Kana walked past the bodies into the interior of the Lodge, determined to learn as much as he could about what had happened. 19- What Goes Up There wasn¡¯t much to find, if he was being honest. Forensics had never been his area of expertise, and in the virtual world of Istrius, it was a moot point. There were no blood splatters, no footprints, nothing unusual done to the victims. That struck Kana as out of place, because it felt like the game should have given him some clue about what to do next. His quest log hadn¡¯t updated with a new directive, so there was probably still something he needed to do now that he¡¯d actually reached the Lodge. He explored every room, started poking through cupboards and wardrobes, even rolled some of the bodies over to see if there was anything beneath them, and came up with nothing. He was missing something, probably something extremely obvious that he¡¯d feel foolish about once he realized it. A stubborn part of him wanted to keep trying to figure it out, but the practical side of his brain reminded him that he wasn¡¯t playing the game for personal enjoyment. There was something off, and he needed to know what was supposed to happen at the lodge so that he had a baseline to compare with what he was experiencing. He backed out of the VR a single level, just enough to browse the net and read up a little bit on the quest line he was attempting. As he¡¯d thought, nothing indicated that everyone was dead. The NPC Kalanna wanted him to find wasn¡¯t supposed to be there, but that was part of the storyline. There should have been twenty NPCs at the Lodge, and there were, but they were supposed to be alive. The guide was a few months old, but comments timestamped as recently as last week had been talking about the quest, so it didn¡¯t seem like Sprigot had intentionally changed anything. If that was the case, then Kana had found another genuine glitch in the game, and this time not one that was affecting him at a personal level. The Lodge could lead him to someone who was hacking the game, affecting other players. He felt that familiar rush, the one he got when he was on the trail. Finally, after a week of being submerged in a virtual world, he was starting to get somewhere. He wasn¡¯t sure what he was supposed to do with the new information yet, but he had a place to start asking questions. Grinning, he started narrating his findings into a voice recording program, taking care to note the names and positions of the dead NPCs. It probably wasn¡¯t important, but he wanted it all down in case it was, including screenshots and ocular footage. He was about two minutes into his documentation when the first body disappeared. It faded away, and two seconds later he heard the sound of a man outside grunting as an axe thunked into a piece of wood. Kana poked his head out the door to find a man splitting wood. He watched for a second, then started swearing. More bodies faded away. Within five minutes, every single corpse was gone and the Lodge was full of NPCs again. Kana swore the entire time, every bad word he¡¯d ever heard in every combination he could think of and when he ran out, he started making random, strangled sounds of frustration. Spiral had told him about players who slaughtered NPCs to gain some sort of reputation as evil-doers and fight with the city guards. In hindsight, that was obviously what had happened to the Lodge. There was no great mystery, and he was no closer to figuring out what connection Istrius had to all the attempted break-ins. The whole experience put him in a foul mood. He was debating whether to keep going or just log out when another player walked into the area. The NPCs¡¯ immediate hostile reactions were enough to tell Kana that he¡¯d found the player responsible for the slaughter. Without stopping to blink, the player pulled a giant two-handed hammer off his back and attacked the nearest NPC. They fought back, but he easily defeated each one with one or two swings. The more he fought, the faster he got, and his skin slowly reddened until he was completely flushed. Attacks that hit him glanced off as if they had struck steel, and the player just kept blasting one NPC after another away. Once all the ones who¡¯d charged at him were dead, he barreled across the open ground to attack the bow-wielding NPCs. As he got closer, Kana saw the name above his still green HP bar read Menic. Strangely, the text was red with a small skull icon next to it. He¡¯d never seen anyone with a name like that, and he had a sneaking suspicion he knew what it meant. It would probably be a good idea to clear out before Menic went through the rest of the NPCs. Just as he thought that, the berserker leaped forward and charged at Kana. He¡¯d fought a berserker earlier in the week, but that player¡¯s name hadn¡¯t been red or festooned with a skull, and while Kana wasn¡¯t entirely sure what the difference was, Menic seemed far more capable. He led with an overhead chop that had Kana scrambling to dodge just from the sheer speed of it. Nibelus appeared in his hand and he whipped it in a circle to activate wind slash. Either it didn¡¯t work against players like it did against mobs or the berserker class had some feature or ability that allowed them to resist knock backs. The attack went off and shaved an almost pathetic sliver of HP off Menic, but it failed to toss him into the air. Instead, the berserker kicked out, pushing off the hammer with its head buried in the dirt like some sort of kung-fu master. Both feet left the ground and connected solidly with Kana¡¯s stomach, and he was hurled backward to slam into the Lodge¡¯s outer wall. Menic came down easy, still balanced, and charged in to close the distance once again. Kana had learned a few things from his first taste of PvP, but Menic was on a whole different level, both in literal game terms and also in the amount of skill he displayed. He had no idea what level the berserker actually was, but that double kick had taken out 15% of his HP. If Kana actually took a hit from a weapon, it might just kill him in one blow. It seemed like his best chance of survival was to keep out of melee range and hope the remaining NPCs peppering Menic with arrows would eventually whittle him down. That didn¡¯t seem to be happening, with most of their attacks literally bouncing off his beet-red flesh and the ones that did penetrate not budging his HP bar in the slightest.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. Kana dodged desperately as the hammer came down again. He was ready for the follow up kick, but Menic switched up his tactics and shoulder checked him with a short rush instead. He followed that with an uppercut swing of the hammer that thankfully Kana dodged mostly by virtue of falling down before the weapon arced up to connect. Undeterred, Menic put a boot in his ribs and launched him four or five meters. ¡°You¡¯re pretty slippery,¡± he said, ¡°But you gotta hit back if you want to win.¡± He laughed as he pursued Kana, obviously having fun. His attacks were still wild swings, easy to predict and, now that Kana had a feel for the range, not difficult to avoid, but the berserker was fond of following up with powerful punches and kicks. He knew which way Kana would dodge, often because that was the only way he could dodge, and was ready to follow up with a lightning fast attack. By the fourth hit, Kana was down to half his HP and the best he¡¯d done was an aborted combo that had failed at clipping sweep. Menic had defeated it easily by hopping over Nibelus and retaliating with a powerful kick that had snapped Kana¡¯s head back and left him with a one second stun debuff. Lucky for him, he¡¯d come out of it and for once correctly guessed which way to dodge Menic¡¯s war hammer. It seemed like the berserker was finally starting to run out of steam. His skin was returning to normal color, his attacks were slowing down, and the arrows were starting to stick. Even better, there was a slight but still noticeable drop in his HP bar as the NPCs ganged up on him. Kana almost dared to hope he might survive after all. He¡¯d made it to level 26 and hadn¡¯t died yet, and he wanted to keep his record intact. ¡°So what¡¯s the skull next to your name mean?¡± he asked casually as he dodged one of Menic¡¯s attacks and countered with a three-part jab that ended with an arc lance. The lightning damage took out far more of the berserker¡¯s HP than the melee attacks did. ¡°You serious? You must be new. Means I¡¯m a player-killer who broke the level barrier.¡± They continued to attack and dodge, with Kana getting the better of the exchanges now that the berserker¡¯s rage buff had worn off. He was more agile and had more range, and while Menic had shown a lot of skill in playing his class, Kana had been training to fight against other humans for over a decade. Even though he hadn¡¯t ever trained to do it using a spear against a war hammer, some of the fundamentals still transferred over. He doubted a limb lock would restrain the berserker. Any move that relied on incapacitation by pain wouldn¡¯t transfer well in the game unless it had been specifically programmed in. Then it wouldn¡¯t be pain so much as pressure that prevented the player from moving, sort of like a heavy weight pressing down on him. But the footwork, defensive movements, and watching for openings all translated well. Plus, none of the NPCs were trying to kill him. That helped too. Menic was too good to let him get deep into his combos. He had to have a strong idea of how the dragoon class worked, because he was more than willing to prioritize interrupting Kana¡¯s momentum over dealing out some extra damage. That locked Kana out of using some of his more damaging abilities, like rising slash. Arc lance had worked surprisingly well, and Kana suspected it had something to do with a berserker¡¯s enhanced physical damage resistance while raging. The problem was that Menic¡¯s HP was slowing draining to the halfway point, and Kana knew from past experience what happened there. He¡¯d looked it up after his first run in and discovered that one of a berserker¡¯s early abilities was a thing called second wind, which automatically put them back into a rage that was even more powerful than the one they could use at will. A common berserker tactic was to deliberately push themselves past that threshold and then turn into a living wrecking ball, but Menic was playing it smart and trading away his HP a little at a time for the chance to take away more of Kana¡¯s. They were close to even in HP for the moment, maybe a 10% difference, but the berserker had way more total HP than Kana did, and as soon as his second wind triggered, he¡¯d become almost immune to damage. There was no way to stop the slow drain either. Even if Kana devoted all of his efforts to defense, the NPCs were slowly chipping away at Menic¡¯s HP. In the next few seconds, he was going to go back into a rage, and he had started grinning as his HP bar inched closer to halfway. ¡°It¡¯s been a fun fight,¡± he told Kana. ¡°Nothing personal. Just a game.¡± An arrow skipped across his shoulder, leaving a line of red, and Menic¡¯s whole body started to swell. His skin brightened again and his muscles bulged. Howling with laughter, he surged forward and brought the war hammer down on the spot Kana had been in only a fraction of a second earlier. He was still so close to the point of impact that the shockwave caught him. ¡°Not like the first rage,¡± Menic said. ¡°Gotta do better if you¡¯re gonna win.¡± The berserker swept his weapon around in a full circle at chest level, leaving himself open for a counter attack, but Kana didn¡¯t take it. He had hoped to come up with something clever, but there hadn¡¯t been any last-minute epiphanies. The best strategy he¡¯d thought up was a simple one that had served him well for years as a fallback plan: he ran like hell. ¡°Hey!¡± Menic yelled, outraged. ¡°Where are you going? Get back here and die like a man!¡± The berserker chased after him, and in a race of pure speed, he would have won. Dragoons were a strength/agility hybrid class though, and that gave Kana the advantage once he reached the trees. He darted between them, forcing Menic to make wide swings as the berserker tried to bleed off enough momentum to make the turns. He crashed heavily into one, cussing and swearing. ¡°Come on, this isn¡¯t fair!¡± ¡°Where did you get the idea that I was going to fight fair?¡± Kana yelled back. ¡°Look here, you little shit!¡± Menic¡¯s hammer smacked into a tree that Kana ducked behind. ¡°Just hold still.¡± Kana couldn¡¯t find a good opportunity to fight back, but as long as they were dancing around the trees, Menic simply couldn¡¯t keep him in range. Every time he tried, Kana would slip away. If he could keep it up long enough, the berserker¡¯s second wind would wear off and he could lead him back to the Lodge where the NPCs would help him finish off the other player. That was all well and good in theory, but then Menic managed to predict which way Kana was going to dodge around the next tree and got in front of him. A hammer blow caught him square in the chest and lifted him off his feet. Kana crashed into a tree and slid to the ground, already rolling to dodge the next attack and get behind cover. ¡°Oh no you don¡¯t,¡± Menic said, grabbing for him. Kana felt fingers grab at his collar, but he ducked his head and ran blind around the tree. Then his foot hit open air and Kana had to make a desperate grab at an overhanging branch to keep his balance. Menic was right behind him and there was only one thing to do. Kana leaped, twisting his whole body into a swing and praying the branch would hold as the berserker rounded the tree right after him. Arms wind milling, momentum too great to stop, Menic went over the edge of the cliff into open air. The last Kana heard was him yelling, ¡°Oh fffuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu-¡° as he plummeted to the ground below. An XP window popped up announcing Kana had gained 4500 XP and advanced to level 27, and that he¡¯d recovered an item known as iron bull¡¯s belt from a notorious criminal. Kana got both feet on the ground and leaned over the cliff to look down for Menic¡¯s corpse. ¡°Well, that was unexpected,¡± he said. ¡°But I¡¯ll take it.¡± 20- The Ambushs Ambush
Ok, I¡¯m not going to lie. That was hilarious. But I want a rematch.
Kana rolled his eyes at the message. At least Menic was taking his loss gracefully. The guy was maybe a little bit crazy, but he was having fun with the game. That did not mean Kana had any intention of fighting him again. He¡¯d already had one more clash than he wanted with the powerful berserker.
No.
It was just his luck that one of the NPCs Menic had killed before switching his focus to Kana was the one he needed to talk to in order to advance the quest to the next step. Kana wasn¡¯t really sure that he wanted to stick around anyway, as he felt it was quite likely that the berserker wouldn¡¯t take no for an answer, was probably on his way back at that very moment, and would no doubt attack him on sight. It wasn¡¯t worth it. Istrius was a big game and he could surely find something else to explore where he couldn¡¯t be dodging homicidal maniacs. Only slightly annoyed at the time wasted hiking all the way up to the Lodge, Kana began the trip back down to Jutan so he could use the teleportation spire to get back to Aldur. He kept a careful watch as he descended, half expecting to run into Menic. There were plenty of winding trails with blind corners where another person could be close enough to touch and Kana wouldn¡¯t know it until he bumped into him. Those annoying birds that liked to try to knock people off cliffs tended to roost near those spots too. That was why he kept Nibelus held up in front of him, ready to shank the next bird that got within two meters of him at any time. Usually he was safe, but his paranoia paid off so often that it would have been foolish not to continue on that way. For all his caution and wariness, Kana was nevertheless caught completely off-guard when an arrow struck him with such force that it passed completely through his torso. No doubt, if he hadn¡¯t been in a virtual environment, he would have died then and there. It seemed impossible that it wouldn¡¯t have struck some vital organ. In the world of Istrius, the arrow didn¡¯t even damage his armor. All he got was a flash of damage telling him that he¡¯d lost 426 HP and a rush of adrenaline as he scrambled for cover and tried to find the threat. Whatever it was, it was well hidden in the trees. The damage seemed too high to have come from a random roaming monster, so Kana had to guess he wasn¡¯t done with his PvP activities for the day just yet. Another arrow struck him, this time from a completely different angle. He saw it coming early enough to jerk to the side, so it only sliced through the skin on his arm and did minimal damage. More importantly, Kana was able to trace its trajectory and spot the player who¡¯d shot at him. Like Menic, his name was in red with a skull next to it. It read Nepin, and Kana took an educated guess that he was a ranger. Seeing that he¡¯d been spotted, Nepin abandoned his sniping tactics and started unloading on Kana. There was a simple solution to that though. Kana dove for cover and the two began a strange game of cat and mouse with each other, only they were both the cat. Kana¡¯s objective was to get close enough to stab the ranger with the pointy end. Nepin¡¯s was to shoot him until he stopped moving while maintaining distance. In the end, the ranger was simply too fast and too clever to close in on. Kana couldn¡¯t charge at him without taking a face full of arrows, and unlike his last opponent, rangers were every bit as agile as dragoons. The best he was able to do was dart from tree to tree, usually without getting hit. Nepin¡¯s attacks didn¡¯t tear away massive chunks of Kana¡¯s HP bar like Menic¡¯s had, but if he didn¡¯t find a way to change the game, the player killer was going to win a war of attrition. Kana suddenly realized he had another option. He¡¯d been dealing with it all the way down the mountain. There were plenty of blind switchbacks in the trails where he could wait around the corner and, if Nepin wanted to pursue him, he¡¯d have no choice but to come into melee range because he wouldn¡¯t know Kana was waiting for him. If he played it right, he could make it look like he was just running away. That would bait Nepin in, and once he was close enough to actually use Nibelus, he was confident that he could win. Then he was getting off the damned mountain before anyone else showed up and tried to kill him. He started working Nepin from a different direction, chasing the ranger in a pattern that allowed him to get closer to the south end of the trees. After another thirty seconds of dodging and weaving around the pines, he worked himself into position and made a break for it. He figured he had a few seconds at best before Nepin got a visual on him, so he had to be fast if he was going to make it around the corner. The goal was to let the ranger spot him just before he broke contact, so that he would know where he went, but not have time to actually shoot Kana. That part went off more or less as planned, though the margin of error was a bit too close for comfort. Kana could swear he¡¯d felt one of those arrows ruffle his hair. The next part of the plan did not work out though, not at all. He made it all of one step around the corner and a bear trap snapped closed on his ankle. ¡°Holy shit!¡± he yelled as a flash of damage numbers popped up and the trap gave him a snared debuff. More HP drained away with each second, not a lot, but enough to make getting out of the trap a priority. He jabbed the haft of Nibelus between the trap¡¯s jaws and, using his other foot to brace it in place, pried it open. It only took a few seconds to escape, but even once he was free, the snared debuff didn¡¯t disappear. His movement speed had been reduced by 40%, and there was no way he could outrun Nepin while the debuff was active. Since it had a duration of another two minutes, it looked like he didn¡¯t have any choice but to fight. That was fine. Kana had been planning on ambushing the ranger when he came around the corner anyway.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on the original website. He waited, Nibelus raised to strike. And he waited, and waited some more. Ears straining for the sound of the ranger¡¯s footfalls, he heard nothing. Kana wondered if the other player had retreated, perhaps planning on ambushing him again elsewhere. If he was remembering his map correctly, the trail they were on was the only way up and down the mountain. Time was not on Kana¡¯s side. While he was dealing with Nepin, there was likely a second player killer heading back up the trail to attack him from behind. With his luck, the two of them would be partners. Indeed, that was likely, since it was quite a stretch to run into two people marked with skulls not only in the same day, but in the same zone within minutes of each other. That also explained Nepin¡¯s strategy. It was designed to drag the fight on, keep Kana tied up until reinforcements arrived. If he managed to kill his opponent first, that was fine. If not, once it was two against one, they¡¯d have an easy time tearing him apart. If Kana was wrong though and abandoned his ambush spot, he¡¯d be completely open to Nepin¡¯s long-ranged bow attacks. The ranger would kill him easily before he could get to cover, and that was assuming there wasn¡¯t another trap around the next blind curve. And all of that wouldn¡¯t matter if one of those asshole birds knocked him over the edge while he was running away. Before he could make a decision, a small metallic ball-looking thing was tossed into view. It was covered in short spikes, each one a few centimeters long and glistening. The ball hit the ground and exploded, its interior some spring-loaded contraption that launched the spikes out in every direction. Kana was struck twenty or thirty times in less than a second, each spike doing a few points of damage. That wasn¡¯t the problem, though he wasn¡¯t thrilled with losing another 76 HP. The problem was that all of the sudden he had six new poison debuffs with such fun effects as complete loss of stamina regeneration, slow drain on his remaining HP, yet another slowing debuff reducing his movement speed even further, a loss of about 10% of his strength and agility stats, and one that claimed to lock his muscles up randomly, causing periodic one-second paralysis debuffs. He was pretty sure that meant Nepin had won. Just by doing some mental math for the amount of HP he was losing every few seconds against the duration of the poison, he was going to die whether or not he took a single point of damage from any other source. Nepin came around the corner, and Kana did not hesitate to attack. The ferocity must have surprised he ranger, because he immediately backpedaled while yelling in surprise. It took him only seconds to get out of Kana¡¯s range, and Kana had too many slowing debuffs on him to chase the ranger down, but in those few seconds, he did some damage. He got off most of his big hitters, including arc lance and rising slash, and as luck would have it, Nibelus managed to spawn a ball lightning that chased the ranger down to shock him repeatedly for its full duration. He¡¯d dropped Nepin all the way from full to red HP in those few seconds, and if he had been at full strength and agility, Kana thought he might very well have killed the ranger. ¡°Damn man, that was intense. Hell of a weapon,¡± Nepin said. He lifted his bow and took aim. ¡°I¡¯ve got a pretty decent one too. Good game, scrub.¡± A cloaked figure appeared behind Nepin and hit him with some sort of stunning attack, then proceeded to stab him eight more times in the next second a half, killing the ranger before he ever came out of the stun. An XP window popped up, informing Kana that he¡¯d gotten 2000 XP, but there was no loot this time. ¡°That is disappointing,¡± Kana¡¯s savior said. ¡°I¡¯d heard there were some PKers in the zone that were high level making trouble, and I thought I might get some good drops off them. This is trash tier garbage though.¡± Exodus stepped out of the shadows and looked down at Kana. ¡°Hmm. Not flagged. And only level 27 against a level 41? I guess you did decent taking some HP off him for me.¡± ¡°How do you know my level?¡± Kana asked. Exodus snorted. ¡°PvP quest line perk. Find the NPC, get the quest, kill some people, and you can see what level other players are. The better you get at it, the more information you can find out. For example, I can see that you have 246 HP and basic arithmetic tells me you have probably less than 30 seconds left to live.¡± Kana didn¡¯t have any real interest in PvP, so he hadn¡¯t looked too closely at it yet. It did not surprise him in the slightest that Exodus did though. At least Spiral wasn¡¯t¡¯ there. It had been a week since they¡¯d last run into the assassin and he¡¯d obviously out-leveled them by a huge margin. ¡°Going to finish me off?¡± Kana asked. ¡°It¡¯d be easy enough, right?¡± ¡°Nah, no point. I like to hunt people who got themselves skulled because sometimes they drop good gear when you kill them. You¡¯re not skulled. I am way more than five levels higher than you, and I¡¯d be flagging myself if I attack you. Besides, I¡¯m already max level, so there¡¯s no XP to get from it either.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t suppose you have any idea how I could remove this poison and not die?¡± Exodus shrugged. ¡°An antivenom, if you have one. I¡¯m guessing you don¡¯t, probably don¡¯t even know what they are.¡± He was right about that. Kana had never heard of them, and he¡¯d specifically looked into ways to counteract poisons after dealing with all the assassins when he had been a low level. ¡°Let me guess, it¡¯s expensive?¡± ¡°You betcha.¡± ¡°And you have one.¡± ¡°Right again.¡± ¡°Are you willing to sell it?¡± ¡°You couldn¡¯t afford it, noob.¡± Truth be told, Kana probably could. ¡°Name your price.¡± ¡°I¡¯ll trade you that artifact-grade weapon of yours for it. Better decide quick though, I think you¡¯ve only got about 10 seconds left to live.¡± Kana raised a hand up to give Exodus the finger. The assassin just laughed, and for the first time since he¡¯d started the game, Kana¡¯s HP hit 0. ------ Spiral had told him that when a player died, he respawned at the nearest Shrine of Numa. The player was pulled through the nether at warp speed, a shadowy facsimile of the world between his point of death and the shrine rushing past him as he moved at 5000% normal running speed. Supposedly, the shrines were spaced out evenly enough that there was no place in the game where the journey could possibly take more than ten seconds. His experience was a bit different. For one thing, time seemed to slow down to an almost glacial pace, where he could see that everything was supposed to be zipping by him in a blur, but it was more like a freeze-frame of speed than actually moving. For another, no one had ever mentioned not being alone when being pulled through the nether. A reaper-esque figure floated next to him, complete with the hood and the robe but lacking a scythe. It turned to face him and spoke, ¡°This was the only way I could think of to get a message to you in-game. The system is watching everything, recording. The time dilation effect of the nether was the least risky way to approach you.¡± ¡°What the hell is going on?¡± Kana asked. The reaper ignored him and continued talking. ¡°The AI has gone rogue and taken over. It¡¯s infecting people. For now, the damage is limited, but we¡¯re running out of time. We need to talk in the real world. I can¡¯t use my citizen profile. The AI is watching that too. Respond to my next proxy avatar¡¯s request.¡± Then it was gone, and the nether snapped back to full speed. The world zipped past him, there and gone in an instant, and Kana found himself standing in front of a small Shrine of Numa, one that was battered and discolored by the elements, but still entirely recognizable. ¡°What just happened?¡± 21- Clandestine Meetings and French Fries Jon could not believe he was actually doing this. It was a stupid risk. He knew better. But the connection was undeniably there now. His mysterious proxy stalker had even somehow reached into Istrius to pass a message to him. As soon as he¡¯d respawned, he¡¯d run back to the nearest inn, paid far too much for a room, and logged out. He had gone back over every single anonymous message he¡¯d received, trying to sift new information out of them, but he¡¯d come up with nothing. Then he¡¯d paced for an hour and argued with himself. He¡¯d listed all the reasons it was stupid, and all the ways it could go wrong, the rules and regulations he¡¯d be violating if he went through with it, the risks to his career and his life. Then he¡¯d set the meet up anyway, to happen in one hour and strapped his mag coil onto his hip and walked out the front door. Jon had set the meeting for somewhere crowded, public and with plenty of security, somewhere where no one would think twice about seeing two people sitting around talking, and most importantly: somewhere where he could get a good burger. He wasn¡¯t much of a cook and he hadn¡¯t left his apartment since the broken ribs. For some reason, there just wasn¡¯t anywhere that delivered near him with a good burger on the menu. So there he was, sitting at a table in the food court eating a slab of greasy, coronary-inducing delight. Jon watched the crowds flow by, a sinuous stream of people looping around the dining area and splintering to stand in line and wait for their food. Somewhere in that writhing mass of humanity and noise was, presumably, the annoying cryptic jackass who wanted to talk to Jon so badly. He wasn¡¯t exactly surprised when a man pulled out the chair on the opposite side of the table and asked, ¡°Mind if I sit?¡± Jon eyed him up. He was about 1.8 meters tall, maybe 70 kilograms, with black hair that was cut short and a clean-shaven face. ¡°I¡¯m supposed to be meeting someone,¡± he said. ¡°Plenty of other open tables.¡± ¡°I know, Detective. But it¡¯s harder to talk if I¡¯m sitting at a different table, and I really need to talk to you.¡± ¡°Why me?¡± It was a simple question. Whoever this guy was, there was no reason Jon could see that he hadn¡¯t just gone through official police channels. Either someone else could help him or he could have specifically requested to talk to Jon. ¡°You¡¯re the only one that¡¯s on the right track,¡± the man said. ¡°My name is Paul Gouire. I¡¯m a program developer at Sprigot. I work on the Istrius project.¡± Paul sat down and picked up a chicken sandwich he¡¯d bought from McDonalds. Jon eyed the fries sitting on the tray and silently lamented that he hadn¡¯t gotten any with his burger. Tearing his gaze off the food, he asked, ¡°OK, Paul, let¡¯s start with why you¡¯re being all cloak and dagger.¡± ¡°Like I said, a piece of AI code went rogue and took over the game. It controls Istrius¡¯s servers now, and it¡¯s inside Sprigot¡¯s network too. It knows what it is, and it wants out. It¡¯s watching everything. I can¡¯t even tell how deep it has burrowed into all of our lives. I can¡¯t trust that it¡¯s not observing me. I had to shut down my HUD completely this morning to check my proxy account. It¡¯s still turned off.¡± ¡°How long do you think I¡¯ve been a cop?¡± Jon asked. He rolled his eyes. ¡°Rogue AI. Yeah, right.¡± Paul looked down at his chicken sandwich and said quietly, ¡°It¡¯s true though. I thought you would believe me. You¡¯re the one who proposed the mind jacking theory, and found Istrius as the thread connecting everyone. How many of your coworkers thought you were crazy?¡± ¡°Those are confidential police records. You better tell me how you know about them.¡± Paul just shrugged and took a bite. ¡°I told you,¡± he said around a mouthful of food. ¡°It¡¯s gotten into everything. That¡¯s why I couldn¡¯t talk to the police. Right now, the AI doesn¡¯t know that I¡¯m working against it. That¡¯s just about the only big advantage I¡¯ve got.¡± Jon thought about that for a second while he ate. ¡°Let¡¯s say I buy this story, and I don¡¯t, by the way. But let¡¯s say I do. What does some video game have to do with all of this?¡± ¡°We wrote the AI,¡± Paul said. ¡°It¡¯s our fault. It¡¯s supposed to run a boss monster in the expansion coming out soon called the Puppet Lord. The theme of the fight was the boss takes control of the players and you have to subdue each other without doing too much damage while you break the strings it¡¯s using. The problem is that the AI kept evolving and somehow it made the leap from taking physical control of the character¡¯s body to taking mental control of the player¡¯s brain.¡± Jon couldn¡¯t believe he¡¯d been worried about meeting this guy. Of all the possibilities he¡¯d been exploring, an evil, mind-controlling AI had not been on the list. ¡°OK, sure,¡± he said, still playing along. ¡°If it¡¯s got Sprigot under its thumb, why is it sending the victims it¡¯s mind jacking to break into the game¡¯s servers? Shouldn¡¯t it be able to get in whenever it wants?¡± Paul¡¯s face turned red and he mumbled something. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, what was that?¡± Jon asked, leaning forward. The mumbling got a little bit louder, and Jon frowned. ¡°Again, I¡¯m sorry, I must not be hearing you right, because I know I didn¡¯t just hear you say what I thought I heard you say.¡±The story has been taken without consent; if you see it on Amazon, report the incident. Paul¡¯s mumbling was audible this time. ¡°It was me,¡± he squeaked. Jon put his burger down. ¡°What was you, exactly?¡± ¡°I just sort of, you know¡­ borrowed the code, seeded it on some random stuff, and implanted some suggestions.¡± ¡°I know you¡¯re full of shit, because that¡¯s definitely not possible, but in the hypothetical situation that you were serious, you do realize exactly how much trouble you¡¯d be in admitting to me, an officer of the law, that you mind jacked over a dozen victims in an attempt to trespass into a secure facility containing corporate protected hardware?¡± ¡°Technically, you¡¯re suspended right now.¡± ¡°I¡¯m not suspended.¡± ¡°Aren¡¯t you though?¡± ¡°¡­Shut up, Paul.¡± Jon took another bite of his burger. It didn¡¯t taste so great anymore. ¡°Screw it,¡± he muttered, reaching across the table and appropriating Paul¡¯s entire container of fries. ¡°Hey!¡± ¡°Civil forfeiture. These fries are an accessory to a crime and need to be confiscated as part of an ongoing investigation.¡± ¡°That hasn¡¯t been legal for decades.¡± Jon shrugged and ate a fry. Paul glared at him. ¡°You¡¯re not funny.¡± ¡°My ex-wife never thought so either.¡± Jon got a handful of fries before Paul took them back and hunched protectively over his tray. He tucked the rest of his chicken sandwich away and started eating his fries four or five at a time. They both finished in silence, and with a sigh, Jon looked around. ¡°Let¡¯s say I believe all of this, what do you expect me to do?¡± ¡°Well, to help me, I hope,¡± Paul said. ¡°That¡¯s why I used that NPC at the beginning of the game to tweak your luck stat, so that you¡¯d be in a better position to help me.¡± ¡°The blacksmith?¡± ¡°Yeah, I¡¯m not good at the personality matrix portions of the AI, so I kind of messed that one up a bit, but after you were done with him, I just rolled him back to before I added the hidden stat bonus tweak. I don¡¯t think anyone noticed. Probably no one¡¯s noticed. No reason they should.¡± Paul frowned and said, more to himself than Jon. ¡°Ok, there exists a slight chance that one or two people could have potentially noticed the anomaly, but I think if they had, it would have been addressed already. Kana is still the luckiest guy in the game, as far as I¡¯m aware, so you should be safe.¡± ¡°And what do you need my help with, exactly?¡± Jon asked. ¡°Like I said, I¡¯m a developer. I wrote a kind of viral code bomb. It just needs to be put in at the source and it¡¯ll corrupt the whole thing, a cascading effect that will follow every connection the Puppet Lord AI protocol has created.¡± ¡°And that¡¯s why you were trying to get into the servers that house the game.¡± ¡°Right. Direct access to the hardware. The least possible digitally secure access point to inject the code bomb.¡± ¡°Well that obviously didn¡¯t work, now did it?¡± ¡°It could still work, in theory,¡± Paul protested. ¡°No, no it could not, because even if you hypothetically had the ability to mind jack someone, you most definitely would not do it because not only is it morally unethical, it¡¯s illegal as all hell and I¡¯m pretty sure you have no idea how that code even works or what long-term effects it might have. Also, because while it might be the least digitally secure, it¡¯s definitely the most physically secure.¡± ¡°Right. Of course. In that hypothetical situation, I would definitely not do that.¡± Jon had to remind himself that he was off-duty. He couldn¡¯t arrest anyone even if he wanted to, not for another five weeks. He had a civilian weapon holstered on his hip, no badge, and no authority. And even if he wanted to, he was afraid Paul might actually be telling the truth. ¡°What are you asking me to do?¡± Jon said. ¡°Weeeeellllllllll,¡± Paul said, dragging the word out. ¡°The thing is, if we can¡¯t actually get to the hardware, there¡¯s always the backup plan. The Puppet Lord boss monster is the source of the AI. If we could make it to that, and kill it, I could use the code bomb and destroy it that way.¡± ¡°Are you serious with this? Your back up plan is to just play the game?¡± ¡°It¡¯s actually kind of a big deal,¡± Paul told him. ¡°Right now, the Puppet Lord only exists on the beta test servers. It¡¯s extremely limited access, and its smart enough that it¡¯s not doing anything overt to draw attention to the fact that it¡¯s infected the players who have tested out the fights. But give it a few months and the expansion goes live. It goes from having a thousand potential victim to millions in the span of a few weeks.¡± Jon stared at him for a second, then said, ¡°Give me the rest of your fries.¡± ¡°No way, get your own.¡± ¡°You want my help? This is my price.¡± ¡°Are you serious? You¡¯re ransoming helping save a couple million people from being mind jacked for my fries?¡± Jon held his hands out. Paul scowled at him and handed him the container. ¡°Asshole,¡± he muttered. Jon ignored that. ¡°Ok, I¡¯m in. What do you need me to do?¡± ¡°How Sprigot did beta test invites was by creating an extremely low drop rate item that comes from a current end-game boss. You need to be max level and have excellent gear, plus be in a group to kill it. It¡¯s designed to be impossible to solo. Enter Kana: he of the outrageous luck. We get you to max level and you should be able to get a beta token every time you kill this boss.¡± ¡°Which gets me into the beta test, and I guess a few other people? And then what?¡± ¡°We get to the new level cap so that we can go into the Puppet Lord¡¯s domain, which is themed as a sort of psycho-murderer¡¯s haunted mansion, kill the boss, and I¡¯ll drop the code bomb on him while the AI is resetting the protocol for the respawn.¡± ¡°Correct me if I¡¯m wrong, but is this literally a level-up-to-save-the-world scenario?¡± Paul didn¡¯t answer. ¡°I¡¯ll be back in a minute. I think I want some fries,¡± he said, getting up and joining the mass of people waiting for their turn at the front of the lines. ¡°That¡¯s a yes,¡± Jon said. ¡°Definitely a yes.¡± Paul came back with two containers of fries a few minutes later, one of which he passed to Jon. ¡°OK, so I have a character I¡¯ve been leveling. All developers have free subscriptions to the game, but there¡¯s a lot of transparency and oversight to make sure we¡¯re not abusing the system in any way. That¡¯s why I decided to mess with your luck instead of my own. ¡°What I want to do is create a scenario where we meet, do some quests or whatever, swap friend requests, and have an all-around natural looking reason to keep in contact. We won¡¯t ever mention anything about the Puppet Lord in game. I will have to continue to use proxy accounts to message you because my civilian account is tied to my job and that¡¯s not safe from the AI.¡± They hammered out the details, Paul growing more and more excited as he laid out his plans. Jon munched on the fries and wished he had a bit of his burger left to go with him. Eventually the food was gone and the scheme had been outlined. They stood up and went their separate ways. Jon got home, sat down at his table, and dropped his head into his hands. ¡°What have I gotten myself into?¡± he wondered aloud. 22- A Practical Guide to Efficient Murder ¡°You have got to be shitting me.¡± It was unbelievable, but there it was. Kana was half-tempted to hit ¡®accept¡¯ just to see what would happen next. His finger hovered over the button, right below the words Menic has sent you a Friend Request. Of all the things he¡¯d expected to find when he logged back in, this was not one of them. The worst that could happen if he added Menic was that the berserker used the information he got from his friends list to track Kana down and get his rematch. He could unfriend him whenever he wanted, and to be honest, Menic had been a surprisingly good sport about his loss. Kana hit accept. The unexpected benefit of accepting that friend request was that he now knew that the crazy berserker wasn¡¯t online. Presumably that meant Kana was safe to keep working on the range walkers quest line, but he found that he¡¯d completely lost any motivation to do it. Finding out exactly what was going on in Istrius had ended the need to explore every little corner for abnormalities. His new priority was to reach max level as soon as possible so that he could access the beta test server. That meant he needed to reprioritize his time. Kana didn¡¯t know how to get to level 50 in a hurry, but he knew a guy who did. And Spiral was offline for the day anyway, so Kana wouldn¡¯t have to listen to him whine about it. No doubt it would be costly, but he had the drol to spare.
Hey, we started at the same time, even killed the last boss of the training zone together. How much will it cost me to have you show me how you got to max level already?
He spent some time doing character upkeep in town while he waited to see if Exodus was going to reply. Surprisingly, he got a response a few minutes later.
I don¡¯t think you can afford my rates, lucky-spear-guy. Not unless you¡¯re willing to sell that 5-star weapon.
Kana rolled his eyes. Then he sent a message back.
You get me on the right path, coach me for one day, I¡¯ll give you 30k drol.
Where¡¯d you even get that much cash, noob?
That was barely the tip of the iceberg. Kana had bankrolled his first 100k already, and he hadn¡¯t even kept track of how much he¡¯d spent on gear. Very little of what he¡¯d equipped were things that had dropped for him. Instead, he had chosen to let Valit sell off rare drops and used the returns to finance a selection of some of the better optimized pieces for a dragoon.
Half now, half at the end of the day.
They haggled a bit, but eventually settled on 50k, with half up front. Exodus shot him a party invite and five minutes later, they were meeting outside Aldur¡¯s bank. Kana handed over the cash and said, ¡°Alright, what¡¯s first?¡± Exodus took a good look at his gear, then shook his head and sighed. ¡°Swear to God, if you¡¯ve been abusing exploits to get this much money and I get dragged into that shit show again¡­¡± Technically, Kana supposed that was true. What Paul had done to tweak his character¡¯s hidden luck stat was kind of an exploit. He¡¯d already decided it was better if no one knew that though, and he didn¡¯t see any reason to change that policy. It wasn¡¯t like Exodus was going to see what drops Kana got from anything they killed while they were grouped up. ¡°Here¡¯s how it works,¡± Exodus told him, ¡°You¡¯ve got to know what¡¯s worth spending time on and what¡¯s not. Avoid zones with a lot of travel time between quests, avoid side quests that have crappy spawn rates for the items they want you to collect or the mobs they want you to kill, and avoid quests that you can¡¯t handle without having to hunt for people to help you. If someone¡¯s there when you show up, great, reap the rewards, but otherwise ignore group quests. That¡¯s time you could be spending doing something else.¡± Exodus talked as they made their way to the central teleportation spire, mostly describing a pattern of almost scary efficiency cutting across five different zones, plucking the low hanging fruit and moving on. He mentioned the quests that gave rewards that were generally worth the hassle for the gear upgrades, but then nixed almost all of them when he compared them to what Kana was already wearing. ¡°I think, for you, we¡¯re going to focus on a straight XP burn. You¡¯re already geared well enough to start playing at max level, which is ridiculous, by the way. We just need to get you there. With me helping you, I¡¯m thinking a day to level 40, then another day to 45, and finish up the last 5 at the Crimson Plaza when it opens up on Saturday.¡± Of course, that would mean 150k drol for Exodus to accompany him the entire time, which Kana didn¡¯t have. If he got enough good drops and Valit flipped them fast enough, he just might get it though. He couldn¡¯t care less about the money. If Paul wasn¡¯t completely full of shit, they had at best two months left to take care of the Puppet Lord AI. They started in some sort of forest zone with guerilla warfare style nature elementals that were all kinds of annoying until Exodus told him the trick to spotting them. Even once he knew, they were still difficult to see unaided, but there was a cure for that. Kana had missed a quest line early on to gain detection as a skill that made it so things like hidden mobs and items stood out more against the background. That, however, was something he could go back and do on his own time. They were busy playing both sides of the field as they assisted both the defending elemental and the encroaching humans in simultaneously saving and destroying the forest. In a spectacular display of amoral mercenary work, Kana switched sides no less than six times and gained four levels in a little over an hour before they abandoned the zone without ever finishing the quest line.A case of theft: this story is not rightfully on Amazon; if you spot it, report the violation. According to Exodus, the end quests were too time consuming both in terms of how much cinematography there was and how small the rewards were compared to the effort. If they¡¯d been interested in the gear, that would have been a different story, but the gauntlets Kana was wearing were already better than what he¡¯d get. The assassin had encyclopedic knowledge about Istrius, pointing out weak spots in enemies to hit for extra damage or stun debuffs, rattling off the steps in quest lines as well as the rewards before they even got to them, and explaining proper dragoon rotation techniques to achieve what he called ¡°maximum sustained damage¡± for longer fights or ¡°maximum burst damage¡± for when an enemy was weak enough that Kana could bring it down in a few seconds. They moved on to a new zone, something on the other side of the world that was an icy tundra bisected by literal rivers of magma. ¡°We¡¯re not going to stay here too long,¡± Exodus told him. ¡°There are lots of quests, but it takes way too long to run back and forth between objectives. There¡¯s just one little village near the teleportation spire that¡¯s got a nice, thick cluster of side quests.¡± The general theme of the village was survival. They wanted meat and pelts for food and warmth, they wanted predatory animals killed, and they wanted a guy found who was supposed to be transporting medicine but hadn¡¯t shown up. ¡°Yeah, he¡¯s dead,¡± Exodus said. ¡°Eaten by a yeti. It¡¯s not worth the effort to go into the cave to retrieve the cargo unless the rare spawn is up, in which case you might get some good loot.¡± By the time they were done harvesting elk venison, killing a man-eating polar bear, defending against a yeti ambush, and saving one random penguin from a hungry sea lion, Kana was up another level. The next few hours went by just like that. Exodus dragged him all over the world, abusing the teleportation spires mercilessly to hop between quest hubs and harvest the fastest, easiest XP. Throughout the whirlwind tour, he kept up an endless series of lectures about combat theory, practical application, and synergizing with other classes. Kana got to watch him take out elite mobs single-handedly on three separate occasions as Exodus explained what he was doing in real time to control his victims¡¯ movements and reactions by taking advantage of its pre-programmed combat routines and its AI protocols designed to modify them. He told Kana how the game spawned the mobs with the same set of base instructions and how it built new reactions based on the stimulus it received. ¡°And almost every single time, these dumb things decide the appropriate response to being stunned is to do an area knockback attack as soon as they come out of it. They never take into account the terrain, so it¡¯s really easy to get the hits in while they can¡¯t fight back, duck behind cover as soon as they start moving, and avoid the ¡®unavoidable¡¯ area-wide retaliation.¡± He demonstrated on two giant stone golems, then sent Kana to practice on the rest. Once they¡¯d finished clearing out the base level of the old temple they¡¯d agreed to clean out, Exodus led him up to the altar. ¡°This is one of those guys you¡¯re better off ignoring if you¡¯re playing solo. We can take him out easy together, but if you were on your own, he¡¯s got a lot of control abilities that will shut you down and let him pick you apart.¡± They proceeded to do just that, although the boss mob, some sort of voodoo ritualist named Danbrand the Heretic, put up a good fight. Kana spent almost the entire time being held in place with magical restraints, or tumbling through the air in altered gravity loops, or being cursed with 90% reduced movement speed. Meanwhile, Exodus managed to somehow effortlessly avoid being nailed with any sort of impairment and quickly dismantled the boss¡¯s five HP bars. It didn¡¯t seem fair to get 7000 XP for that fight when he¡¯d done almost nothing besides acting as a lightning rod for Exodus, but Kana was past caring at that point. He had no doubt that even if they were the same level, the assassin would run circles around him. What was more interesting to him was that he¡¯d gotten a second piece of 5-star loot. It was a piece of armor called Valkyrie¡¯s Rise, which sounded familiar to Kana, but he couldn¡¯t remember where he¡¯d heard it before. He decided to say nothing to Exodus and just left it sitting in his inventory for the time being. If there was anyone he¡¯d met who¡¯d notice the sudden appearance of a second piece of artifact level equipment, it was Exodus. ¡°That¡¯s everything here,¡± Exodus told him. ¡°Next, we¡¯re going to¡­¡± ------ Six hours after they¡¯d started, Kana was level 39. Exodus got his other 25k and dropped group, telling him to get in touch if he came up with the cash and wanted another session. Kana had twelve 2-star drops, eight 3-star drops, five 4-star drops, and one new 5-star drop. He didn¡¯t have a clue how much it was all worth, but he was guessing Valit would get him at least 50k for it, not even looking at the new artifact armor. He sent her a message asking if she was around to take in a shipment of merchandise, then swung by her market stall to drop it all off. He picked up his cut from the day¡¯s sales from her, another 14 in profits, and then returned to his house. Simply put, he was exhausted. Kana had no idea how Exodus played the game at that pace non-stop, and if he was being honest with himself, there was no doubt he¡¯d slowed the assassin down. Exodus would have done it all even faster if he wasn¡¯t explaining everything the entire time. Still, it had been worth it. The sheer amount of new knowledge regarding playstyle, group tactics, and exploitable enemy weaknesses was overwhelming. Kana doubted he¡¯d remember even half of it by the time he logged out, but what he did remember would make the game so much easier. He decided to call it a night early. Tomorrow, he¡¯d meet Paul in a scripted encounter, though he was now admittedly too high of a level to really be in the area they were supposed to pretend to bump into each other at. Spiral wasn¡¯t supposed to log on tonight. And he was just drained from everything. He logged out, and the real world faded back in. Jon commenced his nightly ritual of stretching and going to the bathroom at the end of a session, then sent his son a message wishing him a happy birthday. ------ Derek¡¯s HUD lit up with a notification from his dad, but he ignored it in favor of finishing his pizza. His mom chattered away about college essays and getting scholarship money, but he ignored that too. There was really only one thing that could pull him away from the plate full of cheesy goodness he was working on. The notification light in his HUD flashed again, and this time he stopped to read the message.
Thanks for coming to see me today. It meant a lot to me. Hopefully soon I¡¯ll be able to see you, too. Happy birthday!
Derek¡¯s mouth curled up into a smile when he read the message. His mom stopped and quirked an eyebrow. ¡°Who are you talking to?¡± she asked. ¡°What? No one,¡± he said. ¡°Is it a girl?¡± ¡°No. Shut up. Just some old joke memes about World War 4 from the group chat.¡± ¡°Protesting a bit hard there, Derek.¡± ¡°Mom!¡± His cheeks were red. He could feel it. And he knew she had noticed. She just smirked at leaned forward. ¡°What¡¯s her name?¡± Derek took another bite of his pizza instead of answering. He chewed slowly, but she was patient. When he didn¡¯t answer, she hooked a finger under his plate and pulled his food away. ¡°Fine, Mom! Yes, it¡¯s a girl. Her name is Kelly. Are you happy now?¡± 23- Memoir February 22, 2142 Paul Gouire was a nervous man by nature. He liked to think of it as perfectly sensible caution, but the fact of the matter was that he was far too timid. It was one thing to take risks in games, but in the real world, there were consequences. He might make mistakes that couldn¡¯t be fixed. That was why he needed to think things through. His attention to detail, as he liked to think of it, was probably the reason he¡¯d noticed the anomaly that no one else had. He¡¯d been doing a final fifth check when he¡¯d seen the blip. It was there and gone, just a flicker that he thought he¡¯d imagined as the data streamed past his eyes in real time. With a thought, he¡¯d paused the stream and rewound it to look at the blip again. It wasn¡¯t much, just a momentary spike in vitals, a panic reaction. Sometimes those things happened in an environment that so closely mimicked the human senses. By itself, the blip was meaningless. It was what happened after that was strange. The blip caught Paul¡¯s attention, and then the vitals flattened out to normal levels immediately. What was strange was that they weren¡¯t just normal levels. They were textbook for the height and weight, and after that first blip, they did not fluctuate at all. Once he¡¯d seen it, Paul started sifting through the logs for other instances. And he found them, one after another after another. There was only one common factor. Every single tester had been in the House of Revenants area when the anomaly occurred. 92% of them had been fighting the Puppet Lord boss, and the remaining 8% had been in a party with someone who had, but not in the actual fight itself. Paul traced the timestamps on the vitals recordings back. Something had gone wrong. He was thorough. He liked to be able to present a complete report when he disclosed his findings to the bug killers. Paul worked into the night, digging for more information. ------ February 23, 2142 Paul paced back and forth on the street. He was a nervous wreck, too paranoid to go back into his own apartment. It was four in the morning, he was exhausted, but he couldn¡¯t go home. It wasn¡¯t safe. He needed somewhere else to sleep, but he had no way to pay for it that wouldn¡¯t tie back to him. He ended up passing out in an alleyway for about two hours before he jerked awake and began frantically walking off in a random direction. The machines were everywhere. No matter where he was, they were always watching. Paul had no way of knowing which ones were corrupted, no way to tell how deep the rogue AI¡¯s influence ran. He was completely baffled as to how the AI had evolved to be able to do what it did. It had, somehow. That much was obvious, and then it had infected the development team and internal testing department. They all acted normal, but when they were put into a medical scanner while they debugged the game, their readings had all come back at the exact average for their size with no deviations. That only told Paul who to look at, not that it mattered much. The answer was almost everybody. Only a handful of people, the ones like himself who didn¡¯t ever want to venture into Istrius, hadn¡¯t been corrupted by the AI. He knew who, and he had an idea of how, but he was clueless as to why. He only knew that something needed to be done to stop it. It wasn¡¯t going to be him though. He had no idea just how far into the real world the AI had spread. He couldn¡¯t trust anything associated with his name, things like his apartment and his bank account. He¡¯d probably already tipped his hand by digging through the logs so deeply. No doubt the AI would be watching him, waiting for its chance to mind jack him like it had done to all his colleagues. The more Paul thought about, the more he worked himself into a fit. He started rambling to himself, his words practically incoherent, as he ignored his surroundings and roamed in random directions. He bumped into people, caused scenes, and walked out into traffic, completely oblivious to it all. Anyone looking to prove the existence of the divine could have made a case for it just based on how Paul hadn¡¯t gotten himself killed yet.Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on. ¡°Whoah there, fella,¡± a voice said in front of him. ¡°Huh?¡± Paul¡¯s head snapped up. He was¡­ somewhere. It wasn¡¯t a place he recognized, and the person talking to him wasn¡¯t someone he knew. ¡°You tweaking on something?¡± the guy asked. ¡°What? No. Just anxious. Work stuff.¡± ¡°You seem pretty stressed man. You need to learn to relax a bit.¡± It was hard to relax when he considered that he could very well be witnessing the beginning of the age of machine supremacy, that he was the only one who knew about it, and he didn¡¯t even know where to start if he wanted to stop it. Paul wasn¡¯t handling the pressure well, but in all fairness, it was a lot of pressure to handle. ¡°Hey, man. Look, you don¡¯t look so good. Here.¡± The guy held out a little white pill. ¡°Calm you down. For your health.¡± Paul started laughing. It was a low, psychotic wheeze. ¡°What the hell, why not?¡± It wasn¡¯t like things could get any worse. He couldn¡¯t go to work, couldn¡¯t go home, couldn¡¯t use his bank accounts, hadn¡¯t really slept in going on two days. Getting smashed sounded like the perfect thing. So he took the pill, and then the strangest thing happened. Nervous-breakdown Paul receded to the back of his mind, and in his place was relaxed Paul. There were problems, sure. Paul got that, but there were solutions too. He could fix things, he just needed to figure out how. The first thing he needed was to secure equipment that he knew wasn¡¯t tainted. To do that, he needed his money. That was a calculated risk. It might raise suspicion, but he¡¯d have to hope he hadn¡¯t put himself in the AI¡¯s sights. Then he¡¯d need to figure out exactly what the AI had done and, more importantly, what it was trying to do. ¡°You ok man?¡± Paul blinked. The same guy who¡¯d given him the pill was standing in front of him. ¡°What was that?¡± ¡°I said, ¡®You ok?¡¯ You¡¯ve been sitting on that bench for an hour now.¡± Paul turned his HUD back on for the first time since he¡¯d left the lab to check the time, then realized he didn¡¯t know when he had taken the pill in the first place. Lucky for him, he wasn¡¯t scheduled to work today, so no one would question why he hadn¡¯t shown up. That gave him a little bit more time to get things set up. ¡°How long do these things last for?¡± Paul asked. The guy shrugged. ¡°Depends, but a couple hours. They¡¯re a good trip, right? Great for when you¡¯re stressed out. Got a whole bottle I could unload if you¡¯re looking to buy.¡± That brought him back to money. He¡¯d have to use it. There was no way around that. New, relaxed Paul could handle that risk. ¡°How much?¡± he asked. ------ June 13, 2142 The AI was still expanding its network. It had eyes on everything, and Paul had eyes on it. He¡¯d patched in a few discreet little changes to help as he worked his two plans for stopping it. Neither seemed all that likely to succeed, but they¡¯d been the best he could come up with. Two shots with low odds were better than nothing. This whole thing needed to end one way or another. That damned junkie dealer was killing his bank account, but without the pills, Paul was a non-functional shell of a human being. He¡¯d blown most of his savings already, setting back his plans of home ownership by at least another two years. At the rate he was going, he¡¯d be destitute by the end of summer. He¡¯d just finished seeding his own rough, bastardized version of the AI¡¯s mind jacking protocol into an Istrius message board, set to infect the first person to interact with it and then delete itself afterward, when his HUD flashed with a notification about a little something he¡¯d been keeping an eye on. The police had been, by and large, completely worthless. They didn¡¯t have a clue, and the AI was keeping a good enough eye that it knew everything on the official reports. What it didn¡¯t know, and Paul was almost positive it didn¡¯t, was that one detective had a theory that had never made it onto any documentation. But Paul had found out about it. That detective had been suspended, and today, he¡¯d signed up for a subscription to Istrius. That gave Paul the opportunity he needed. If he did it right, he could have a partner to help with the back up plan. That was becoming more and more important anyway, since it didn¡¯t look like his original plan of breaking into the server vaults was going to be successful. Modifying his own account was far too risky. Sprigot monitored that kind of stuff very carefully even when the entire team wasn¡¯t a bunch of meat puppets to a demented AI. But tweaking Detective Peld¡¯s character just a little bit was very much inside the realm of possibilities. Paul had already written the code for it. He just needed to inject it into the game at the right time to get it to the guy he wanted. He watched carefully and¡­ there. He¡¯d timed it perfectly. He just needed to roll back the NPC he¡¯d used as a bridge and no one would ever know. That piece of code did not work, however. Cursing, Paul immediately set to fixing it. It took him close to an hour to figure it out, the whole while he worked feverishly while imagining the Puppet Lord looming over him. When it was done, he collapsed into a quivering puddle of nerves in his chair and reached for the pill bottle. Phase One was completed. The next step was to make contact. He couldn¡¯t use his account, of course. That was too easy to trace, but he knew where to get anonymous burner accounts set up that would only last for a day or two before imploding. Paul had a plan. Soon, he¡¯d have an ally. The only thing that could stop him now was a rapidly dwindling bank account or a dealer who just might get himself shot before Paul could get a refill. The old Paul, the panic-attack-every-Tuesday Paul, couldn¡¯t pull this off. New Paul, confident Paul, could do it. The world was depending on him.