《Apoch's Twilight》 Book 1, Chapter 1 I woke up with a sharp pain in my head. It slowly faded as I opened my eyes and looked around. Everything around me was white. At first I thought it was just a vast open nothingness, but I slowly sensed that there were walls and a ceiling around me. Everything was stark white and uniformly lit, so it wasn''t obvious, but I could tell there were walls and a ceiling. I climbed to my feet as I struggled to remember what happened to me. I had left the house and driven up to my local game and comic shop to see if they had the newest Shadowrun book and pick up this weeks comics. I remember parking and walking across the parking lot toward the shop and then... A crash and someone yelling. A panel truck jumped the curb and was hurtling toward me. I tried to move, but I wasn''t fast enough. Pain then blackness. Shit. Really? Really?? I was dead. I was run over by a truck and killed. I smacked my hand to my forehead. And then I woke up here, in a formless void. I think I know what happens next. Yup. Any second now. Wait for it... Wait for it.... Nothing happened. I stood there, confused, for about thirty seconds. I''d been sure I was right. All the signs were there. This certainly didn''t look like any version of the afterlife I''d ever heard of, whether it be heaven, hell, or valhalla. Though considering my short attention span and my need for constant entertainment and stimulation in the form of the internet, books, tv, comics, games, whatever, I suppose being in an empty room with no way out would be like a hell. I''d be so bored I''d want to kill myself yet again. ¡°Welcome. Please select your name.¡± A voice suddenly sounded behind me, causing me to jump. ¡°Huh?¡± I mumbled as I spun around. A slightly feminine looking, but otherwise featureless humanoid stood in front of me. ¡°Name ''Huh¡± has been accepted. Please confirm, as you cannot change this name once selected.¡± The robot? Person? Creature? I''ll go with robot. The robot said, its head looking at me. At least, I assumed it was looking at me, since it had no eyes, just the oval shape of a head. ¡°No, cancel! Not my name!¡± I said, confused. What the hell was going on? ¡°Please select your name.¡± It repeated. It''s voice was higher pitched and also slightly feminine, but had an almost mechanical sound to it. I also decide it was female, since it looked and sounded kinda like one. ¡°Wait, hold on. Why do you need my name?¡± I asked. ¡°To begin creating your character. Please select your name.¡± Create my character? I sighed. Ok. I kind of had a handle on what was going on now. The truck. Waking up here. It was weird, and stupid, and I couldn''t believe it happened to me. But dammit, I''d been killed by Truck-kun and transported into a video game world or some kind. I just became an Isekai protagonist. Crap. Ok, yeah, so you''re probably wondering what the hell I''m talking about. Unless you''re a big fan of anime, manga, and Japanese light novels like I was. I''ll break it down for you. A common type of story in media aimed at otaku (Japanese nerds) is called an Isekai story, with isekai meaning ¡°different world¡±. In the stories characters are transported into another world somehow. Sometimes it''s a portal or they''re summoned by a wizard or they''re trapped in a virtual reality game, but most frequently it''s by reincarnation. The protagonist is killed by something and gets reborn in that other world somehow. And the most common form of death, by far? Being run over by a truck. It''s a running joke among fans of anime that every truck is really the same truck, a grim reaper in truck form, referred to as Truck-kun. So, if I stop and think about it for a moment, apparently I''ve been reincarnated after being hit by that bastard Truck-kun, and since I have to make a character, apparently I''ve somehow been reborn into a video game. I personally love the Isekai genre, and shows like Log Horizon and Sword Art Online are some of my favorites, both ¡°trapped in a game¡± anime and light novels. Hell, I even had a half-finished Tabletop RPG that I''d gamemastered a few sessions of for friends based around the concept sitting on my hard drive at home. ¡°Ok. Before I choose my name, can you tell me what game I''m in?¡± I asked. ¡°You are creating a character for the VRMMO Apoch''s Twlight.¡± She replied. ¡°You have gotta be shitting me.¡± I said, my jaw dropping open as I looked at her. Apoch''s Twilight was the name of the RPG I had written. Well, half written. And even that much was generous. What the fuck was going on here? ¡°''You have gotta be shitting me'' violates our name standards. Please choose a new name.¡± She calmly replied, her mechanical voice smooth and even. ¡°Bull. Let''s go with Bull.¡± I said, dumbfounded. What the hell? ¡°Name ''Bull¡± has been accepted. Please confirm, as you cannot change this name once selected.¡± The robot replied. ¡°Yeah, sure. Why not?¡± I sighed. In the back of my mind, I was hoping this was all some crazy dream, but I knew deep down that this was real. I''m not sure how, but I simply knew it. It was time to accept it. The real question was whether or not I was alone here. Apoch''s Twilight was a half-assed Tabletop RPG I''d created to emulate an MMORPG, a Massive Multiplayer Online Roleplaying Game along the lines of World of Warcraft, combined with the ¡°trapped in a VRMMO¡± anime genre, where VR stood for Virtual Reality. I had fun creating it, and ran a handful of great game sessions online with some friends, but ultimately finding the time in everyone''s schedules became a bit of a beast, and I found that trying to accurately capture the feel of an MMO as opposed to just a standard tabletop RPG was really, really difficult. MMO''s have a lot of moving parts that are handled ¡°under the hood¡±, but if I got rid of too much of that stuff I was better off just running Dungeons & Dragons or something. So the game just continued to get more and more complicated until I kinda gave up. ¡°Welcome Bull. We will now begin creating your character.¡± Intro-Bot, as I decided to call her, said as she raised her hand and a translucent green screen appeared in front of me with some statistics. Behind that was also a full length mirror. Looking into the mirror at my reflection, I realized I was just as formless as the bot, though less feminine looking. ¡°To start with, there are five attributes: Strength, Endurance, Agility--¡± ¡°Can we skip the tutorial stuff, Intro-Bot?¡± I asked. ¡°I''m familiar with the basics, I think. I''ll just dive into chargen, and ask you if I have questions or need help. Does that work?¡± ¡°Yes you can.¡± Intro-Bot replied and took a step back. ¡°Let me know if you need help or when you are finished.¡± I settled back and began thinking. Apoch''s Twilight really was an unfinished game, so I wondered just how far this version of it would go, and how closely it would mimic the rules that I''d written. I also know that when I''d abandoned the game, there were some outstanding problems I''d not gotten around to fixing. Plus, how much of a game was the world now? Would I respawn if I die? I could ask Intro-Bot, but how much could I trust what she even said. She was proof that this version of the game world I''d been transported into was pulling from more than just the written material I''d created, as I didn''t detail the introduction to the game, but I had utilized something similar when I ran my online game for my friends. I shrugged and decided to worry about stuff when and if it came up. Nothing I could do about it for now, so far as I could tell. I looked down at the menu window, fascinated. I''d imagined how it would look, and described it to my players as a simple translucent green pane that would pop up and they could move around, but the window in front of me was far more ornate than I''d imagined. There was fancy scroll-work etchings around the edges, and the interface was clean and easy to read. I reached up and was able to touch it and move it around, and it would just hang in the air where I left it. The first step to character creation was to choose my starting attributes. There were five attributes to Apoch''s Twilight: Strength, Endurance, Agility, Focus, and Charisma. Each was important in its own way, but depending on what type of character you wanted to play, some attributes were less useful than others. Like most MMO''s, your natural attributes were only semi-important. Chances are most gear would have stat increases on them which would eventually make up the bulk of your attribute total, and if this version of Apoch''s Twilight held true to my original design it would be no exception. I decided to build a ranger/hunter type of character. Ranged weapons were generally a little safer, and my Warcraft character had been a hunter, so I was comfortable with the concept. Plus it meant I could get a cool pet to fight with. That meant points went into Agility and Charisma, with a bit into Endurance and Focus. Endurance was the basis of your HP (Hit Points), and Focus determined both your starting MP (Magic Points) and affected your speed and defense. ¡°Intro-Bot, will I be able to come back and adjust these after I look at Talents and Traits?¡± I needed to know if I was locked into my choices, or if I''d be able to adjust things once I saw the prerequisites for the various abilities. ¡°Yes, you can come back and adjust things up until you complete character creation.¡± Intro-Bot replied. ¡°Cool. Lets do this then.¡± I went ahead and allocated my 15 starting Attribute points.
Strength 1 =====> 3
Endurance 1 =====> 2
Agility 1 =====> 7Love what you''re reading? Discover and support the author on the platform they originally published on.
Focus 1 =====> 2
Charisma 1 =====> 6
I decided to flip ahead through the chargen screens a little bit. This confirmed that all the basics from my game were there and that it didn''t look drastically different. One of the things I had done with Apoch''s Twilight was to borrow a concept from an older MMO I''d played called Asheron''s Call. Unlike most MMOs, AC was a largely class-less and almost level-less game. It had levels, but those just tracked how many experience points you''d earned and the only thing you actually got from leveling were skill points that could be used to add new skills your character could use. So for example, if my sword fighting character wanted to also learn to cast life magic, once I''d earned enough skill points I could purchase and start using life magic. Then you raised the level of your skills and attributes by spending XP points on them. This had the interesting effect that you could be playing a very high leveled character that had zero combat or defensive capabilities, because you sunk all your points into crafting and enchanting. I wanted to capture that with Apoch''s Twilight and create a game that didn''t have any real limits to what you could play. So like Asheron''s Call, AT had levels but it was mostly just a rough measure of how much you''d accomplished in game. Every few levels you would get a Talent point that would help you choose special abilities to further expand what your character could do. Beside Attributes, the next step was to choose your Talents. These helped define your character, either by opening up exclusive skills like magic or a craft skill, or by giving you a passive bonus to certain types of actions. I went ahead and grabbed Ranged Weapon Training for a bonus to hit and damage and Leatherworking so I could make my own armor. Leatherworking required a minimum Agility of 4 and Ranged Weapon Training required a 6, so I had the minimum Attribute required for each. If I remembered right, I¡¯d get my next Talent point at Level 3. Next was to choose Traits. These were your special abilities and were all the really cool things your character could do. I skimmed through the relatively short list which was broken up into several categories such as Combat, Skill, Spell, and Trade. These were all Tier 1 Traits, which were the simplest and cheapest to buy, but formed the basis of all the higher level ones and you couldn¡¯t take those unless you had these. Under Combat, I snagged Rapid Shot which let me fire twice as a single action. It required an Agility of 7 and the Ranged Weapon Training Talent that I¡¯d already chosen, plus of course could only be used with a ranged weapon equipped. I smiled as I found Animal Companion under the Skill Traits and tried to select it, but found it grayed out. I opened up the description and grumbled to myself. It required the Animal Handling Talent and a Charisma of 6. I had the Charisma, but forgot about the Animal Companion requirement. So I flipped back and deselected Leatherworking and picked it up instead. That would also give me the ability to use the Ride and Drive Cart skills, and possibly others later on. I then selected Animal Companion and was presented with the option to choose my starting creature from a short list. Their stats were all the same, though I would be able to modify them later on, I believe, so I went ahead and chose the Sand Tiger since it sounded pretty cool. The next step was to pick skills. Whenever I attempted an action, these combined with one of my attributes would help determine my chance of success. There were basic Skills which everyone had access to, and mostly included things like weapon and defensive skills, and advanced Skills which were only available if a Trait or Talent gave you access to them, such as my Ride and Drive skills. This was the point where I was in a bit of a bind though. Being real and live action versus a turn-based tabletop game, I wasn¡¯t really sure how some of this stuff would work yet. I had ability cooldowns in the form of ¡°X Turns¡±, but wasn¡¯t sure exactly how that would translate. And I was just hoping that whatever Isekai version of the game I¡¯d been reincarnated in was complete, because my pet rules were largely unfinished. Like, the basic usage was there, and I had given stats to the basic pets, but there were no rules for leveling up a pet or increasing its stats or skills. ¡°Hey Intro-Bot, question for you. Hell, I have a lot of questions, really, but I¡¯m not sure how much you can or will answer, so we¡¯ll keep it simple for now. Can I level up my pet, and if so how does that work?¡± ¡±Summoned Pets via spells are temporary beings, and as such are always summoned at a set level.¡± Intro-Bot nodded as she spoke, folding her arms in front of her. ¡°Animal Companions are tamed pets that will stay with you persistently unless dismissed or killed, in which case you will need to perform a ritual to tame a replacement pet. A Companion''s Master can purchase special Traits for their pets to increase their abilities and performance.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I was only a little surprised that the game world had expanded beyond my writing at this point. ¡°Ok, but you said a Pet can be killed. What happens to the Traits purchased?¡± I asked. ¡°Those are bound to you and not the pet, so they will carry over to any newly Tamed pet.¡± I nodded. Makes sense. I had considered something along the lines of linking pet improvements to the individual pet, making improvements cheaper but lost permanently if the pet perished. I hadn¡¯t implemented it yet because it felt like a pretty big drawback that would make the concept too unattractive to players. I was glad the system had gone the other route, but still, I didn¡¯t want to let my new fluffy friend die. I wasn¡¯t really sure yet if I¡¯d have any others in this new world. I quickly spent my starting 10 Skill Points. I put 5 points into Ranged Weapons so that I could actually hit something in combat. I put 3 points into Perception so that I could hopefully spot traps or ambushes ahead of time. And finally, I decided to gamble a little and put 2 points into Negotiation. I wanted that skill in the game so that players could make a social character, what we called a Face sometimes in RPGs, but I¡¯d never really figured out how to implement it accurately in the context of an MMO. Guess we¡¯ll see what it does. Hrmmm, that reminds me. ¡°Hey Intro-Bot, do I not get to create my avatar and choose my characters appearance?¡± ¡±No. Your character reflects your inner self and is a reflection of the real you, as determined by the System.¡± Huh. That was different. I had limited my players a little bit, because the concept of the tabletop version was that they would get trapped inside a VRMMO and I wanted them to basically play themselves, but I still gave them the freedom to tweak the characters substantially if they really wanted. However, looking at the mirror that had appeared when I first started character creationI realized that I was looking at what was ultimately my idealized avatar already. About the same height I¡¯d been in real life, but well built and muscular, closer to what I¡¯d been like back in High School. My head was cleanly bald and smooth, a look that despite shaving my head in real life I¡¯d never really pulled off to my satisfaction because my hair was too thick and dark, so even when shorn totally smooth it still had a five o¡¯clock shadow. A dark black, neat goatee over a slightly stronger jawline. I grinned. I¡¯d made this avatar so many times over the years, in numerous video games. Now I was living it. And for the first time, I realized that I had none of the aches and pains that I had in real life either. Sure, I was missing the leather jacket and sunglasses I usually gave the character when I could, but who knows? Maybe I could find something like that in game. I cracked my knuckles and stretched out my arms, eager to see what was ahead. ¡°Please review your character, then click ¡°accept¡± for final acceptance of your character.¡± Intro-Bot stated as a large, flashing ¡°Accept¡± window appeared in front of me. I flipped through my screens real quick, then clicked accept. As I did, I felt a tingle as a suit o simple brown leather armor wrapped itself around me and a short wooden bow along with a quiver of arrows settled onto my back. I now had some starting equipment, cool. Some icons flickered to life at the edges of my vision as well, my heads up display coming online. It took a bit of getting used to, because I wanted to look directly at the various aspects of my HUD, but it shifted with my head, so I had to hold my head still and move my eyes to focus on a single aspect. Above my left eye were a red and blue bar underneath my name, the red for my HP and the blue for my MP. Both currently read ¡°200¡±. I grimaced, knowing my health was a bit low due to not investing in my Endurance much, but I¡¯d just have to deal with it. Toward the bottom of my sightline were a couple of icons. By focusing on them, I could see information about each. The first was my basic attack and it had a three second cooldown. The second was my Rapid Shot skill which let me shoot twice at once but had a -5 penalty to hit for each shot and had a 6 second cooldown. To the upper right of my vision were a couple other small icons: a menu button that would open my character sheet and show me information about my abilities and one that opened up my inventory. I reached up and touched that icon, and a window with a 3 by 4 grid appeared. This represented my backpack and any additional bags I had equipped, and the only thing in it currently was a red potion bottle in one slot, with a small number 2 next to it representing how many I had. While inventory space was limited, fortunately many items would stack so that they only took a single slot. ¡°If you¡¯re ready, please exit through the door to the training area so that you can get used to the basics of combat and skill use.¡± Intro-Bot interrupted my digging through my character sheet. I looked and there was now a simple wooden door in the white space. ¡°Before I go, can I ask a couple more questions?¡± ¡±Yes. I will answer if I am able.¡± ¡°How do I ask this¡­¡± I still wasn¡¯t 100% sure what sort of situation I was in, so I needed to find out how much Intro-Bot and the System could interact with me, and whether or not I was alone. ¡°Are you aware that I¡¯m not just playing a game, but am reincarnated?¡± ¡°I do not understand the question.¡± Intro-Bot said, cocked her head at me quizzically. I expected that. ¡°Ok, are there players other than me?¡± ¡°Yes, of course there are.¡± I sighed. That didn¡¯t actually answer anything for me either. ¡°Are they real people, or are they an AI like you obviously are?¡± ¡±I do not understand the question.¡± I gave a stifled scream of frustration. There simply wasn¡¯t enough information. Was I in an actual world that just happened to mimic Apoch¡¯s Twilight, was it actually a video game, some hybrid of the two? Hell, for all I knew, I was in a coma somewhere and this was all simply a fraggin¡¯ fever dream. I had to come to grips with this and either accept it or not, because constantly wondering and second guessing would drive me mad. ¡°Never mind.¡± I waved my hand dismissingly as I sighed. ¡°Let¡¯s try this. I¡¯m in the VRMMO Apoch¡¯s Twilight, right? How long has the game been operational?¡± ¡°Today is launch day. You will be loading in with 1,000 AlphaWave players.¡± That tracked with my playtest of the original RPG. My players were playing a version of themselves who had all gotten into the alpha test of the VRMMO, mainly so that I had a reason for them to not know anything about the game or game world ahead of time to keep them on their toes and hopefully provide a sense of wonder and surprise. Of course things quickly went off the rails, because that makes for a better story. That actually had me slightly worried. I had learned to gamemaster under one of the best GMs out there, and he taught me that the best stories came from making your player¡¯s characters suffer because it made their eventual victory so much sweeter. Having played Shadowrun and a ton of others under him for many years, I experienced that first hand and agreed, and I put it into practice when I ran games. I just hoped that there wasn¡¯t a gamemaster or god or something for this world that had quite the same opinion, or else my time here might be rather difficult to say the least. I sighed and shook my head. No sense worrying about any of this junk anymore. This was frankly a dream come true. I would miss my friends I left behind a lot, but I was inside a video game. I¡¯d fantasized about something like this happening since I was little, watching the kids on the old Dungeons & Dragons cartoon get transported into the game through a roller coaster. I was healthier than I had been in over two decades, and after bouncing on the balls of my feet a couple times I was amazed by the fact that nothing hurt. My knees had been bad since college, as I¡¯d injured myself a few times playing football and other sportsover the years, and by the time I¡¯d turned 40, I was just a bundle of aches and pains and aching joints. Now I felt fantastic, like I could sprint for miles and bench press a Buick. Well, I¡¯d dump-statted Strength a bit, so probably not that last one. I whistled and from behind me a small, khaki-colored tiger with black stripes padded silently around to stand in front of me. He stood about two feet tall at the head and was a little over three feet long. I smiled and knelt down to pet him. On my HUD, I could see an additional small command bar pop up above my skill bars, the commands for my pet. For now it was simply ¡°Attack¡± or ¡°Defend¡± as well as ¡°Stay¡± or ¡°Follow¡±. That was enough for now. I decided to name the Sand Tiger ¡°Raider¡±, after a friend¡¯s cat. I was always more of a dog person, so had never owned a cat myself. Raider purred and bent his head into my hand prompting me to scratch him behind the ears. ¡°Let¡¯s go, Raider. Time to start my new life.¡± I grinned and stepped forward and gripped the door handle. After one last moment of hesitation, I opened it and stepped through. Book 1, Chapter 2 Lights and colors swirled around me for several seconds before everything went white, blinding me. When my vision cleared, I found myself sitting in front of a fire underneath starless night sky, the moon a tiny, dim light that provided almost no illumination. On the other side of the fire sat an old man, his hair a shade of grey just this side of white and his ancient skin deeply wrinkled and aged. I found that I couldn¡¯t do more than move my head slightly side to side and there were others sitting in front and around me, all wearing simple, loose fitting linen clothing that was open in the back. Each of the young men and women seated in front of me had a tiny emerald-colored crystal, smaller than a fingernail, embedded in the center of their back. I knew without looking down that I was wearing a similar outfit, and felt a slight itching on my back that let me know that I also had one of those crystals. I was in a cut scene, the opening event for Apoch¡¯s Twilight that briefly introduced the back story. I grinned and sat back to watch the show. The old man begins to speak with a voice that is kind, but weary with age and responsibility. ¡°My sons and daughters, it is time once again to pass on the mantle of Adventurer to a new generation of recruits. Each of you bears the mark of the Dome, granting you great power but also bearing with it great responsibility. And so, you must know of what came before. Of the world that was, Apoch, and how it met its Twilight.¡± I winced. I forgot I cribbed the classic Spider-Man power and responsibility quote there. The old man waves his hands and released a handful of dust or sand of some kind into the fire. It flares, and images form in and above the fire showing the world of Apoch. It shows a massive city on the shores of an ocean that rivals New York in size and scope, home to millions of people, the city that was one Ravensport. Enormous sires and towers reach up hundreds, thousands of feet into the air. They resemble a cross between skyscrapers like the Empire State Building or the Burj Khalifa and the epic fantasy architecture you see in stuff like Lord of the Rings or Pathfinder. Great winged sailing ships sail across the skies instead of airplanes as magically powered carriages pack the streets. Hundreds of thousands of people pack the sidewalks of the city, hurrying to their destinations, many carrying small handheld devices that resemble a crystalline egg split down the middle, the magical equivalent of a smartphone. At a quick glance it could easily be mistaken for any large, modern-day metropolis in the real world if it wasn¡¯t for the more fantastical touches like gryphons and wyverns flitting through the skies or the little uses of magic going on, from levitating window washers to illusory billboard ads to the diverse races walking the streets, from elves and dwarves to more monstrous looking races such as orcs, furry bipedal felines, and canine humanoids. ¡°The world was highly advanced,¡± the village elder says as the scene shifts back to the old man at his fire. ¡°Magic was everywhere and infused into everything, even items used on a daily basis, and it made life comfortable and easy. In the Eastlands we had peace, open trade, and travel amongst all the people of Apoch. The Darklands of the West hadn¡¯t bothered us for many, many centuries.¡± ¡°Then began the events that would spark the Twilight, the end of the world as we knew it. No one knows how it truly began. The Westlanders claimed their Emperor was killed by a holy knight and began a worldwide invasion of the Eastlands, while other say it was just a pretense, an excuse for a war they had been craving for centuries. Whatever the case, with no warning the dark armies of the West invaded overnight.¡± I chuckled to myself. The back story was very vague, intentionally so. I needed some history and wanted this concept of an epic world war that destroyed this highly advanced civilization, but wanted the freedom to throw in almost anything I wanted down the road, so I deliberately avoided locking myself into anything too specific. The illusion in the fire shifts again and this time a vast army of millions can be seen, filled with warrior in sinister looking armor, creatures of evil such as goblins and orcs, monsters and creatures of every size and description. The sky is almost totally blotted out by dragons, winged demons, and other flying monstrosities and horrors. ¡°War raged, but the tipping point came when the gods themselves stepped in and began warring as well.¡± The old man says in front of his fire. ¡°The gods of evil came to the world and aided the armies of the West, while the gods of good aided the armies of the East who stood against them. The Lords of the Grey, the gods long neutral and responsible for maintaining the balance between good and evil, broke their neutral stance and began choosing sides as well.¡±Did you know this story is from Royal Road? Read the official version for free and support the author. Ok, I admit it. I cribbed here from Dragonlance a bit. I always loved the way their pantheon was set up. D&D traditionally had its alignments set up so you had a strong good versus evil, where good was obviously in the right and neutral was either ¡°I¡¯m not choosing sides¡± at best or ¡°I¡¯m ambiguously neither good nor evil so I can do whatever I want with no justification¡± at worst. Dragonlance on the other hand straight up tells us that neutral¡¯s role was to maintain a balance between the two because too much either way was bad. It was a fascinating concept to my young, teenaged mind. I stopped musing and focused on the illusions in the fire again as they began to shift several times in rapid succession, showing figures standing hundreds of feet tall waging war. One in fiery armor swings a sword, annihilating thousands of soldiers with ease. A dark robed, skeletal being walks calmly through a battlefield, ignoring the magic and projectiles being fired at him, and everything near him withers and dies as he strides through. Another with bark-like brown skin and flowers for hair raises his hands and the plant life grows rapidly, strangling hundreds in vines and roots that burst from the ground. Magical blasts vaporize entire towns and cities. Tsunamis crash against the shores, earthquakes tear the land apart, storms rage and blast everything they come in contact with. These were vague visualizations of some of the more generic gods, such as war, disease, nature, and the like. ¡°Legend says the archmages council petitioned the only three gods who did not get involved, the Dark, the Grey, and the White Lords of Magic. These three came up with the concept of the Domes, impenetrable, life sustaining shields that would protect a portion of the populace of each major city. The domes would stay in place for 20 years, allowing those inside to survive and eventually rebuild civilization.¡± Again, another aspect I cribbed from Dragonlance, I admit. I loved that of all the gods, the three gods of magic basically said ¡°screw the politics and alignment¡± and all worked together to advance magic. ¡°Here in Ravensport, it was planned to stockpile supplies, food, everything needed to survive and build a city inside our dome, but with the gods involved the war escalated faster than anyone could anticipate, and the dome had to be erected before they were ready. 1,000 people were trapped inside with little food and only a few supplies. The Dome provided shelter, clean air, a day and night cycle, the occasional rain, and even all four seasons. But without much food, that first year was hard. Nearly half the first generation died.¡± ¡°My grandfather¡¯s grandfather¡¯s grandfather was among those that survived, and they managed to grow some crops, they tended the few livestock they had, and they survived. Twenty years passed, and the dome did not drop as expected. Year after year they waited, and still the dome did not come down. Not knowing when, if ever, we would escape the dome that had once been our salvation, but was now our prison, we began the tradition of training a group of men and women as Adventurers. A small percentage of children are born like you, marked by the dome and granted the potential to harness vast amounts of power, to grow much stronger, wield magic, and even overcome death itself. Once the dome comes down, we will need those with that power to go out and explore the world, to see what and who has survived, to find the other domes and reconnect.¡± To be fair, I came up with the very first draft of the Apoch¡¯s Twilight background a couple years before the Fallout franchise was relaunched by Bethesda and I¡¯d never played the original games, but I was just barely old enough to remember the tail end of the cold war, doing nuclear bomb drills in early elementary school, and I took inspiration from the idea of those old bomb shelters. So we were drawing on the same general background here. For once I wasn¡¯t directly ripping off¡­ err¡­ writing an homage to another fiction franchise. And the whole ¡°mark of the dome¡± thing was a half-assed explanation for basic MMO tropes like the ability to respawn. ¡°Every 20 years we gather together the next generation of dome-marked to train and prepare. This year, it is your turn. Congratulations, recruits. Hopefully this will be the-¡° The old man is interrupted as the deafening sound of thunder tore through the night sky accompanied by a rumble that rippled through the ground. Then without warning, the faux night sky of the dome vanished, replaced by a blinding light. Like everyone else around me, I threw my arm up to protect my eyes from the blinding glare. As my eyes adjusted, I could see everyone staring up, slack jawed as an audible gasp of awe ran through the gathered crowd. It was my first time here, but I knew instinctually, likely influenced by the game, that for all our lives the sky had been the dome. At night, a dark, empty space with a single weak source of illumination to represent a moon and provide some minimal light. During the day it was either a warm and soft blue with moderate illumination from an artificially projected sun or a more subdued grey light when it was raining. But this light was several times brighter than the daylight we were used to, and the sky was a vivid, brilliant blue dotted with wispy white clouds. The air stirred as a breeze blew through Ravensport for the first time in 150 years. The old man drops to his knees, openly weeping as he stared at the sky. ¡°It¡¯s gone. It¡¯s finally gone. We¡¯re free¡­.¡± Book 1, Chapter 3 Finally the vision faded and I found myself standing in a field with dozens of others wearing basic adventuring gear. Nearby were a row of wood and straw training dummies, and standing in front of them two individuals wearing burgundy-red military uniforms reminiscent of a World War II officer, a male and a female each with bright red hair. The man¡¯s was cut into a short crew-cut with a flowing red mustache, while the female¡¯s long hair was pulled back into a tight ponytail. I cringed inwardly as I remembered what I¡¯d named these two originally. ¡°Listen up, maggots!¡± The man roared in a rough voice. ¡°My name is Sgt. Thaddeus Pepper and this is my wife, Sgt. Wendy Pepper. But you scum-sucking trash will address is as sir, and only as sir. Is that understood?¡± A few of the adventurers piped up with a half-hearted ¡°Yes, sir.¡± but most just looked around slightly confused. Since I knew what was coming, I belted out a loud ¡°Sir, yes sir!¡± and noticed that a couple of others did the same. ¡°Did you hear something, Wendy? It sounded a bit like babies crying softly at their momma¡¯s teat.¡± Sgt. Pepper sarcastically said to his wife, before roaring at us ¡°What was that? I couldn¡¯t hear you!¡± ¡°Yes, Sir!¡± Most of the adventurers yelled out, which seemed to appease Sgt. Pepper. I shook my head and couldn¡¯t believe I thought naming him Sgt. Pepper was funny at the time. At least I didn¡¯t put them in The Lonely Hearts Band outfits like I originally planned. ¡°At this moment, each of you positively reek of weakness, failure, and for some reason, corn chips. That will change. I will teach you to use your martial abilities.¡± The male Sgt. Pepper yelled at us, then pointed at his wife. ¡°Sgt. Pepper here will then teach those of you with the talent to use your magical abilities. You came to us fat, out of shape, and unable to fend off a starving housecat. When we¡¯re done you¡¯ll spit daggers and crap lightning bolts. Is that understood?¡± ¡°Yes Sir!¡± The Peppers then began an interactive tutorial of how combat, armor, defense, and spellcasting worked. I half-tuned them out pretty quickly. Beyond the Sgt. Slaughter levels of cartoonish Drill Instructor behavior and the fact I was familiar with the basics of the system, I simply followed along and kept one ear open for any discrepancies or changes. Combat was pretty straightforward. The system handled most of it behind the scenes, but since I wrote the core that the system was still based on I kinda knew how it all worked. Weapons had a flat damage value that they would always deal. For example, my [Simple Ash Shortbow] that I currently had equipped did a base of 75 points of damage. Whenever I attacked, my combat skill along with any modifiers would be compared against the defense rating of the target with a random value thrown in. For the tabletop, this was two 12-sided dice, but here that random factor was handled by the system. If my final attack score was higher than the defense, I hit and dealt damage. If my attack score beat the defense by at least 5 the attack would deal extra critical hit damage. That damage would keep going up for every additional 5 points, which allowed a highly skilled attacked do a massive amount of damage to a low defense target. And then some Talents or Traits would add extra damage on top of any critical damage. So while my bow only did 75 damage, I could in theory do a lot more than that with a lucky critical strike. Defense was determined by your Attributes, so the more nimble and aware you were during combat, the harder you were to hit. There were also Parry and Dodge Skills that could be actively used to raise your Defense even further. And then finally armor provided a Damage Reduction which directly reduced the final damage you took. The five pieces of [Light Hide Armor] that I started with each gave me 3 points of DR, for a total of 15. Not great, but heavier armor required a Talent to equip and had a minimum Strength requirement that I couldn¡¯t match yet. But with it, if I took 50 points of damage, the armor would reduce it down to 35 points. Abilities were surprisingly easy to use. In a tabletop you simply said ¡°I¡¯m using X¡± and in a video game you clicked the right button or hotkey, but this wasn¡¯t just a game. Fortunately, the System helped you out since most players wouldn¡¯t even be able to swing a sword let alone know how to perform more complex maneuvers and skills. You simply thought about the skill or ability you wanted to use and then began a motion that you instinctively knew when you learned that ability. Once begun, your body would naturally move with the skill. Fortunately, you still had some control so you could still move around a little and weren¡¯t completely locked into an action animation. The virtual ¡°ability tray¡± on your HUD would show you the cooldown for your abilities as well, letting you know how long it would be before you could use the skill again. On top of that, there was a global cooldown that effected most abilities that lasted for about three seconds, meaning that you could only attack or use a skill once every three seconds. Since Apoch¡¯s Twilight originally was a turn based tabletop game that had utilized three-second rounds, I guessed this was how that translated into the VRMMO. Cooldowns were interesting effects. I didn¡¯t actively notice them unless I tried to use an ability that was still on one. Rapid Shot had a 6-second cooldown, so I tried using it twice in a row, but when I went to make the motion I felt really sluggish and it was hard to move. I could continue, but I could tell it would take the full 6 seconds before it would trigger again. However, I could switch to a normal shot without a problem after three seconds. Of course while the cooldowns were three or more seconds long, it¡¯s worth noting that most actions took a full second or two to perform anyway so the cooldown was barley noticeable half the time. I glanced over at the spellcaster tutorial area and could see that they worked similar to other abilities, except they were much flashier. There was a short chant that the spellcaster had to say while making some sort of motion with their hands. A glowing circle of runes or magic symbols would appear in the air in front of them, then the spell would trigger. Most of the players seemed to be throwing simple elemental bolts of fire or ice, though I could see some using healing magic as well on a couple training dummies that were lying on the ground, presumably damaged and with the ability to be healed. Finally, I looked down at Raider, my tiger who was standing faithfully by my side, patiently. I tried mentally commanding him, but there was no reaction. Looked like he responded to verbal commands only, so I looked at the pet bar on my HUD and noticed he was in Passive mode. He also had Defensive and Aggressive modes available, and I assumed those worked much like the pet modes in World of Warcraft since that¡¯s largely where I was cribbing pet skills from. A little testing confirmed that in Passive mode he would remain at my side and I not attack even if I was under attack. Defensive he would only attack if I directly attacked, and in Aggressive mode he would attack anything I did. Outside of combat, a few other things were explained to the players. I ignored the stuff I already knew or had talked about with Intro-Bot, but confirmed a few others. We were given a Recall Stone that we could attune to Churches that would be located in most towns, allowing us to instantly teleport back to wherever it was attuned to. It had a two-hour cooldown on it, so could only be used occasionally. Our starting backpack had only 12 slots, but we could get backpack upgrades through shops or quests. Besides that, we also had two equipment slots for additional bags, and these bags could be bought, found as loot, gotten through quests, or even crafted. Inventory management was frequently something players had to deal with in MMOs, and I¡¯d made Apoch¡¯s Twilight no exception, though now that I was living it I once again wished I¡¯d been a bit more generous. Most towns had banks that would store your money in, and players could deposit or withdraw their money for no charge. You could also rent bank vaults to use as extra storage. These were very important for players due to the game¡¯s Death Penalty. When you died you were resurrected at the nearest Church (or the Dungeon entrance if you were in a dungeon], lost any gold, and dropped any unbound items you were carrying. Of course, that only applied to the Players here. Being reincarnated here, I had no idea what I counted as yet, and I wasn¡¯t in a hurry to test that theory. MMO vets were familiar with the idea of ¡°Bind On¡± effects. Gear would sometimes be Bind on Pickup or Bind on Equip. A bound item could not be traded to another player, and could only be sold to NPCs or scrapped. BoP items Bound to the first player to pick them up, while BoE items only Bound to a player once they were worn or used. Apoch¡¯s Twilight had both of these, but most items were Optional Bind items instead. OB items could be worn without Binding them to your character, which meant you could use them for a while, then sell or gift them to another player. Since items sold to an NPC shop only gave to a small fraction of what the items base value and many items could be worth far more to players than whatever their in-game value was, Unbound equipment could potentially be worth a fortune. So players had to decide if they wanted to Bind gear to them, making it nearly worthless in the future if and when they replaced it with an upgrade, or if they wanted to risk losing the item if they died so that they could sell it for a higher amount down the line. After about 15 minutes, the tutorial finished up and the Peppers commended us with a backhanded comment about how we were ¡°barely adequate, but unlikely to accidentally kill ourselves with our own swords¡± and then began to group us up for the final part of the tutorial, a simple quest. I braced myself and gave my character one last look over to prepare for an actual fight.
Name Bull Level 1
XP to Level 0/1000 XP to Spend 0
HP 200 MP 200
Def 13 DR 15
Gold 200
ATTRIBUTES
STR 3 FOC 2
END 2 CHA 6
AGI 7
SKILLS
Ranged Wpns 5 Drive Cart 1
Perception 3 Ride 1
Negotiation 2
TALENTS
Animal Handling Requires Charisma 4, Gives Ride and Drive Cart Skill at Rank 1
Ranged Wpn Training Requires Agility 5, +2 to all Ranged Attacks.
TRAITS
Animal Companion (Tier 1) Sand Tiger (Raider) - HP: 200 Att: 8 Dam: 25 Def: 15 DR: 20
Rapid Shot Fires 2 Attacks, -5 To Hit, 6 Second Cooldown
EQUIPMENT
Head [St Lt Hide Helmet] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Shoulders --
Neck --
Back --
Chest [St Lt Hide Shirt] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Hands [St Lt Hide Gloves] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Waist --
Legs [St Lt Hide Pants] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Feet [St Lt Hide Boots] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Ring (Left) --
Ring (Right) --
Main Hand [St Simple Ash Shortbow] 2H Wpn, Req AGI 3, Range 40¡¯, Damage: 75, Durability 10, Value 1c
Off Hand --
Bag One --
Bag Two --
Ammo [Simple Arrow] (100) Val 0c
¡°OK maggots, head up this path. Just around the bend, you¡¯ll come across a farm where you¡¯ll get your first quest. If you survive, you¡¯ll get you first rewards and can head on into the town of Ravensport to start your journey.¡± The red-haired Drill Instructor roared at us. ¡°If you fail, not only will you shame me and shame yourself, but you¡¯ll be sent back here for my remedial course. And trust me, you scum-sucking apes, you do not want any part of that hell.¡± Sgt. Pepper began dividing us up into groups of six, which was the maximum party size for Apoch¡¯s Twilight. As he grouped us up, he explained parties and loot briefly. ¡°You can group up as a party to a max size of six. Whoever creates the party is the party leader by default, though this may be handed off. Party leader is the only one who can invite people into the group as well as remove them. They can also choose how to handle loot: Individual Loot or Loot Master. With Individual loot, anytime the party kills a target any money it drops is divided evenly amongst the party, and any items it drops are randomly assigned. This is the most fair loot method, but it means that the loot doesn¡¯t always go to where it needs to, and you¡¯ll have to bargain and trade with your party members for it. It also means that any Bind of Pickup gear can get locked to someone unable to use it. Loot Master is better for a party that you trust, as all the loot will go to either the Party Leader or someone he designates as the loot master, and they can divvy up gear as needed or as agreed upon by the party. In the case of BoP items, the loot master does not automatically pick it up, but instead gets an option for whom to give it to.¡± ¡°For this tutorial quest,¡± He continued, ¡°Party Leader has been disabled and loot is in Individual mode. You¡¯re stuck with each other, so learn to work together. If you have any further questions, there¡¯s a help section in your options that contains a Help FAQ that should cover most game commands and options. Now get out there and kick some ass!¡± On my HUD, 5 other names and status plates appeared: Dagg, Lorelei, Torellisin, Morrick, and Flamebolt. I was actually mildly surprised only one of them had a goofy name like Flamebolt. I suppose being a VRMMO, names matter a bit more as there¡¯s less of a disconnect. Then again, my nickname is Bull so who am I to talk? Also, Dagg caught my attention, because that was the name of my original Word of Warcraft character. My Dagg was a Dwarf Hunter, while this Dagg was big and brutish looking, and judging by the shield and sword, I¡¯m guessing he was more of a straight forward fighter. ¡°Howdy!¡± a high, squeaky voice called out. I wasn¡¯t sure who it was coming from, then a positively tiny individual stepped out from behind Dagg. She stood maybe four feet tall, was extremely petite, and had her long blue hair pulled up into a flowing topknot. ¡°My names Torellisin, but you can call me Torrie! I¡¯m a Kender rogue!¡± ¡°A Kender? What¡¯s that? I didn¡¯t think other races were an option, otherwise I¡¯d have played an elf.¡± This from Flamebolt, a dark skinned man with fiery orange-red hair and a long goatee to match. ¡°There were any racial options. Kender are a Halfling expy from Dragonlance, one of the Dungeons & Dragons game worlds.¡± Morrick spoke up. He was a gruff and grizzled looking, reminding me of Geralt from The Witcher, though his voice was lighter and younger than expected. I guess his real life player was much younger than his avatar. ¡°And she¡¯s not really a Kender, no pointy ears.¡± ¡°Ahh, never played any tabletop games before, and they didn¡¯t have Kender in ay of the online games I¡¯ve played.¡± Flamebolt responded. Torrie grinned. ¡°Don¡¯t worry though, I won¡¯t steal from party members like a real kender!¡± ¡°Good, cause we¡¯d have to cut off your thieving hands then!¡± Morrick growled, then grinned. ¡°Besides, I don¡¯t think you can steal from other players in this game. My named Morrick, and I¡¯m a swordsman.¡± He patted the two swords at his sides for confirmation. ¡±Dagg. Tank.¡± The big armored guy simply said. While Torrie must have minimized the character creation options, Dagg had maximized them. He stood nearly a head taller than me, putting him around seven feet tall, and had massively broad shoulders and arms. No, wait, Intro-Bot had said that character avatars were a reflection of our inner selves. Was that just me, since I was reincarnated, or did that apply to these guys as well? Torrie saw herself as a diminutive kender, and Dagg as a giant brute? I¡¯d have to try and find out more later if I could. ¡°Umm¡­ I¡¯m¡­ Lorelei.¡± Next to Dagg was an attractive and rather curvy blond. She blushed as she spoke and clutched at Dagg¡¯s arm, looking as is she wanted to hide behind him. ¡°I¡¯m a light mage¡­ a healer¡­ nicetomeetyou.¡± She said that last in a rush, turned bright red, and ducked behind Dagg. ¡°Wuv! Twue wuv!¡± Torrie giggled watching the two of them. ¡°I¡¯m guessing you¡¯re a couple in RL?¡± ¡°Bah, that matters not. Let¡¯s get on with this.¡± The red-haired mage said, striking a goofy-looking heroic pose. ¡°I am Flamebolt, destined to be the most powerful master of elemental magics in all of Apoch¡¯s Twilight! I may only have meager flame magic at my beck and call now, soon my true power will be unlocked and all shall acknowledge me as¡ª¡° ¡°Right, right. You¡¯re a wizard. Cool.¡± Torrie interrupted his speech, looking up at me. ¡°How about you big guy? You got a bow and a big ol¡¯ adorable kitty there, so guessing a hunter?¡± ¡°Hunter or ranger, I guess. My names Bull, and this is Raider.¡± I stroked Raider on the head and he purred and rubbed up against my leg. Torries eyes went wide and she immediately rushed forward to hug the tiger. Raider looked up at me as if to say ¡°Do I have to put up with this or can I eat her?¡± but I just smiled and held up a hand, so he endured the hug. ¡°Ok. It¡¯s just about our turn. We should work out a basic strategy, I guess?¡± Torrie was chatty and had been sort of taking the lead socially, but she was now distracted playing with Raider, who looked like he was starting to enjoy the attention, so I decided to take the reins. I also suspected I knew what was coming, and wanted to be ready. ¡°It sounds like we¡¯re getting thrown into a small combat instance to test our skills out.¡± ¡°Dagg, you have a shield. Do you have a taunt skill?¡± He didn¡¯t say anything, but hefted his small shield and nodded. ¡°Ok, cool. You¡¯re the frontline meat shield then. You guys probably know what you¡¯re doing, but bear with me. Lorelei is our healer. You stay back and keep yourself safe, and prioritize healing on Dagg first and our melee fighters second. That would be Morrick, Torrie, and Raider. Flamebolt and I will try to stick to the rear with Lori and cover everyone from a distance. Sound good?¡±If you spot this narrative on Amazon, know that it has been stolen. Report the violation. Torrie stood up and adjusted her dagger and everyone agreed. Sgt. Pepper pointed at our group and told us it was our turn, so we headed down the path toward a small farmhouse. The path wound its way for a couple hundred yards past a cornfield before finally arriving at a small two-story farm house. Standing in front of the farmhouse was an old man maybe in his 60¡¯s wearing dirt-stained clothing and holding a pitchfork. I assumed this was our quest giver, but there were no indicators over his head or anything marking him as such. That was too much to hope for, I guess. Years of playing modern MMOs had spoiled me, but I¡¯d cut my teeth on some of the earlier ones where you had to search out quests and even had to remember where to go and where you turned in because quest logs didn¡¯t exist. It made sense for a VRMMO to help with the immersion. There should still be a quest log though, that was a must when I designed the game. Torrie had moved to the front and was taking the lead, so I let her. She was just a bundle of energy, asking questions and chatting away with everyone. Dagg merely grunted, Lorelei was still shy but seemed to be opening up a bit, and Morrick seemed to enjoy the tiny Kender¡¯s attentions. Flamebolt, on the other hand, seemed offended by the fact she wouldn¡¯t buy into his whole ¡°Flame Lord¡± act. I had to laugh at that. In Japanese manga and anime there¡¯s a term, Chunibyo, which translates into something like ¡°Middle School Syndrome¡± or ¡°8th Grade Syndrome¡±, and describes a period of time when some kids go through weird delusions of grandeur. It¡¯s played mainly for laughs in otaku media, where the character believes he has some kind of hidden power, or is a member of some all-powerful secret organization, or some such and that they¡¯re one of the chosen few that know the truth f the world or that can stop some oncoming evil, or that they are the evil themselves. It¡¯s kind of silly, but several of my favorite anime had revolved around this one way or another, especially Love, Chunibyo, and other Delusions. And Flamebolt embodied it. Torrie looked back at me, and I shrugged. ¡°I guess we gotta talk to him. My Charisma is pretty decent, and I have some ranks in Negotiation if you want me to talk with him. I don¡¯t know if that affects our rewards at all, but¡­¡± I shrugged. ¡°Nahh, I got it too. I specced out for that as well. I¡¯m curious to see how quests work anyway.¡± Torrie headed up and waved to the farmer. I found that if I focused on him, a targeting reticule popped up and I could see his name in green as ¡°Farmer Miller¡± and a status bar underneath it. While Torrie was talking with him, I fiddled with my HUD and found that I could pull a copy of his name and status bar up onto my window so that I could keep track of it even if I wasn¡¯t looking at him. Useful information to know. ¡°Greetings friends.¡± Farmer Miller began as Torrie approached him. ¡°You look like a group of stalwart adventurers. Now that the dome has come down, are you preparing to head out and see if anything is left of this world of ours?¡± ¡°Yup! That¡¯s the plan, old man.¡± Torrie replied cheerfully. ¡±Indeed. I plan to search the far ends of the world for power, for the lost magic.¡± Flamebolt stated melodramatically, holding his arms up to the sky. ¡°I will harness the very elements and will ascend to become a¡ª¡° ¡°Ignore him.¡± Torrie said, elbowing Flamebolt in the thigh. He shut his mouth and glared down at her. ¡°Yes, we¡¯re one of the chosen to go out and explore this new world. We just finished up our final training, in fact, and were getting ready to set out.¡± ¡°Ahh, that¡¯s fantastic. I wish I was a little younger, I would love to go out and see the world. After spending my entire life stuck under that dome, it must be amazing out there.¡± The old farmer sighed wistfully. ¡°Before you go, however, would you and your friends mind doing me a favor? I would reward you, of course. I seem to be having a bit of a problem in my cellar you see, and some¡ª¡° ¡°Fire bolt!¡± Flamebolt the mage suddenly shouted, his hands waving and lighting up as a series of red circles with intricate patterns and symbols appeared in front of his hands. A small jet of flame erupted from his hands and flew toward the roof of the farmhouse. It sizzled as it struck and scorched the wood, but fortunately did not catch fire. ¡°My house? What are you doing to my house?¡± The farmer screamed. Both Dagg and I tackled Flamebolt to the ground as the farmer looked around frantically. ¡°Thank heavens my house is treated to prevent fire or you could have burned it all down! Why would you do that?¡± Torrie bowed her head to the farmer. ¡°I¡¯m so sorry, I don¡¯t know what¡¯s come over him. He never acts that way. Please overlook this!¡± While Torrie groveled and attempted to salvage our quest, I looked at where we had Flamebolt pinned to the ground. ¡°Dude, what the hell are you doing?¡± ¡°I was just testing something. I was curious to see if the buildings were destructible or not. Figured it might be useful information.¡± He shrugged and coughed as he realized he was talking and acting normally, so he lowered his voice an octave. ¡°I mean, I can¡¯t very well burn down the entire world if nothing is flammable, now can I?¡± I sighed and got up, disgusted. Dagg gave the mage a disgusted look and punched him in the arm, then stood up as well but didn¡¯t take his eyes off him. Torrie seemed to have placated Farmer Miller some, because he finally agreed to give us his quest, a simple quest to kill some rats that were infesting his cellar, threatening to eat up the food he had stored away for winter. After he asked us to do that, a window popped up in front of each of us:
QUEST: A Rat Problem
GOAL: Kill 12 Rats in Farmer Miller''s Cellar
REWARD: 200 XP, 20 GP, [Small Bag]
[Y] [N]
We all clicked ¡°Yes¡±, and a notification popped up that our quest log had been updated. I opened that window real quick and saw that the information about the quest was all noted there. The farmer led us over to the cellar stairs, though he kept shooting Flamebolt dirty looks. I noticed Lorelei refused to walk anywhere near him, and appeared a little afraid of him. Dagg was openly glaring at him, and I heard Morrick muttering ¡°Dude, not cool.¡± under his breath. I inhaled a deep breath to focus, then exhaled. ¡°Ok, just liked we talked about. Dagg goes first, followed by Morrick and Torrie. I assume you¡¯ll stealth down? I¡¯m not sure exactly how sturdy Raider is yet, and pet death is kinda permanent, so I¡¯d rather not risk him too much if I don¡¯t need to.¡± ¡°Really? That sucks.¡± Morrick said, scratching his chin. ¡°I was thinking about taking a pet, but that doesn¡¯t sound worth it.¡± ¡°Well, I can do a ritual to tame another pet if he dies, but he won¡¯t be this particular tiger, you know?¡± I replied, affectionately petting Raider. ¡°His Defense and DR are decent, better than mine. But his damage isn¡¯t too great and he only has 200 HP.¡± ¡°Don¡¯t risk kitty.¡± Dagg rumbled, surprising us. ¡°I¡¯ll have him assist any targets you¡¯ve taunted, Dagg. I¡¯m not sure how aggro works exactly yet, but as I said, his damage kinda sucks right now so he shouldn¡¯t be able to pull aggro off you. Anyway, the rest of us will hang back and come down last. And Flamebolt? Behave. Or I let Dagg deal with you¡± Flamebolt sniffed and tried to play it off like he was unconcerned, but I saw him shooting nervous glances at the giant fighter. For his part, Dagg just grunted and headed down the stairs. The cellar was pretty big and the space near the stairs was well lit by several rods with glowing stones embedded in the ends. I could see a number of well stocked shelves and several wooden pallets stacked with barrels and sacks of vegetables and grain. However, the far end of the cellar was dark. Over the creaking of the stairs and the clanking of Dagg and Morrick¡¯s chain armor I could hear skittering and squeaking. Dagg took up point and Morrick moved up to flank him. I heard a quiet voice from next to me whisper ¡°see if one of these lights can be taken down and thrown over there to light things up.¡± I looked over and didn¡¯t see anyone at first but then could just barely see Torrie blending in with her surroundings. Stealth was weird. But I motioned for everyone to stay still and reached over to one of the glowing rods and pulled it out of the wall-mounted holder. I lifted my other hand and held up three fingers. I slowly lowered one, then the second, then finally the third. When I did, I chucked the torch out into the far darkness. As it landed about 60 feet away, we could see a dozen enormous rats, their red eyes gleaming in the sudden light right before they charged us. They were a filthy grey-brown color with glowing red eyes the size of a good size dog, with long wriggling grey tails and wickedly sharp teeth. Rats didn¡¯t bother me normally, but these were so large and there were so many I couldn¡¯t suppress a shudder. I heard a squeak from behind me and assumed it was from Lorelei and guessed she didn¡¯t like rodents very much. Surprisingly, it was Flamebolt cringing back from the rats. Dagg let out a roar and charged across the room, followed closely by Morrick. I whistled and told Raider to follow and assist Dagg. Lorelei chanted a quick pseudo-Latin chant and murmured ¡°Protection¡± and a shimmering white aura appeared around the big fighter. Nice, a Protection Spell gave the target a Defense buff for short while, which would help since Dagg would probably pull most of the aggro. Dagg shouted his Taunt at one of the rats, and swept his sword at another, connecting. There was a flash of red in a line where the sword slashed that looked a bit like blood, then the rat vanished in a shower of sparkles. The Quest Tracker changed from ¡°0/12¡± to ¡°1/12¡±. Morrick followed up, his twin short swords flashing. One connected and the rat vanished, but the other failed as the rat charged under it. Fighting with two weapons was difficult at this point, as you had a penalty for both attacks and there was little to compensate for it. The rats began converging on Dagg and Morrick, but I muttered ¡°hold for just a bit longer¡± to the ranged line next to me. Flamebolt clicked his tongue impatiently, but held off on the Fire Bolt he was clearly chomping to finally use in combat. Torrie appeared from the shadows behind the rats and her short sword flashed, taking down another rat, bringing us up to 3 of 12. ¡°Now!¡± I called out, and released two arrows in the span of a single second using Rapid Shot. It was strange, my arm just moved on its own, reaching unerringly into my quiver faster than I could even register pulling out the second arrow before the first had even left the bowstring. My Agility was good, as was my skill and I had a bonus from Ranged Weapon Training, but despite that my first arrow still went wide, clattering against the wall. My second found its mark though, and I could see in my HUD a red number flash above the target registering ¡°90 Damage¡±, meaning I had gotten a critical strike and done some bonus damage since my bow did only 75 base. The rat squeaked and vanished in a spray of particles. Flamebolt cackled and let loose his Fire Bolt spell, which struck and killed another rat. Raider leapt up and bit down at the rat that Dagg had taunted. I could see he dealt his base of 25 damage, and while the rat had a nasty looking bite mark on its back it didn¡¯t die. 5 of 12 down, but now the rats were on top of our melee fighters. Four of the rats converged and leapt altogether in a tangle of biting, clawing furred fury. I vaguely remembered that these rats had some kind of group attack where several would make one single attack. It had a higher attack value and while its damage wasn¡¯t any better than what the rats could do combined, a single large attack would do more than four smaller attacks would, since your Damage Reduction would only soak it once. I winced, remembering that when I¡¯d run this instance as a Tabletop Encounter I¡¯d mauled my players pretty bad because the rats dealt a lot of damage. Though they had fewer players, four versus our six, and they didn¡¯t have a dedicated tank nor a healer. The rats struck Dagg and bit through his chain mail. Red pixels flew from the wound and he grunted. I had to wonder what the pain threshold was for him. Or for me, for that matter. In the tabletop version, pain was automatically muted as a bit of story fluff since who would play a VRMMO where it hurt badly every time you took damage. I also made the blood and wounds look like pixels so that it was less jarring for the players. But for me, this was presumably my new reality. I suppose I¡¯d have to test things at some point, in a safer environment. Two more rats attacked Dagg, and while he managed to block one with his shield, another bit at his leg doing more damage. His health bar was a little below half gone on my HUD. The final rat clawed at Morrick, hitting him and dealing a little damage. By that point, the global cooldowns had ended, so we were able to attack again. Dagg, Morrick, and Torrie all took out another rat, and Raider chomped down n the rat he¡¯d bit before, shaking it and tossing it to the side where it exploded in a spray of pixels. Lorelei cast her Healing Light spell, and a shaft of soothing white light enveloped Dagg as his life bar rose a bit. Flamebolt melodramatically yelled out ¡°Fire Bolt¡± in an affected deep, booming voice and struck down another rat. There were two left, one attacking Dagg and one on Morrick. Rapid Shot was still on cooldown, so I let loose an arrow at the one on Dagg, since his HP was still lower despite the healing he¡¯d received. The shaft struck true and the Rat evaporated. The final rat squeaked angrily and leapt at Morrick¡¯s face, clawing at him. He screamed and tried to bat it away as it left some deep red grooves on his face. The warrior stepped back and lashed out his sword as his cooldown ended, reducing the rat to a particle mist. We got a notification window as the Quest Log ticked over to 12 of 12, letting us know the quest was complete and we should return to Farmer Miller for our reward. There was a second window that popped up behind that that said ¡°Loot Rewards¡±. I took a moment to scroll through my rewards.
INDIVIDUAL COMBAT REWARDS
[Rat Whisker] x 6
[Copper Dagger]
[Tough Copper Chain Belt]
The name of the [Rat Whisker] was a pale grey color, indicating it was a trash item, worth a small amount from a vendor for whatever reason, The [Copper Dagger] was white, indicating that it was a Common item. Common gear was generally not worth much money and almost never had any kind of enchantments or buffs. At this stage though, we had gaps in our equipment slots and it might be an upgrade over the starter gear. The final piece of gear excited me, though. The [Tough Copper Chain Belt] was a Copper quality item. And I suddenly realized that there were times when my quality ranking system and my crafting materials system might be confusing. The belt¡¯s description was that it was a belt made of copper, but it was also an Uncommon item and would have better stats and at least one stat buff at this level. Past Common, which would quickly end up in the same category as trash, gear came in four Rarities, each color coded: Uncommon (Copper), Rare (Silver), Super Rare (Gold), and Ultra Rare (Shimmering Rainbow colored). I probably should have just gone with the standard Epic and Legendary but when I was designing the system I wanted to be a little different from WoW and other MMOs, and was cribbing a bit from the rarity system used by a lot of Asian games. The [Tough Copper Chain Belt] had a value of 125 Gold, Damage Reduction of 5, Durability of 13, required a Strength of 6, and added +1 to your Endurance, and was Bind of Equip. I couldn¡¯t use it, but Morrick or Dagg would be able to. I clicked the option on the popup to ¡°Take All¡±, then opened up my Inventory Screen to see them taking up three spaces. Everyone else was checking out their gear as well. In the end, I passed the dagger off to Torrie and gave the belt to Dagg after Morrick said he¡¯d let the big tank have it. He pulled out some gold to try and pay for it, but I simply waved him off and told him to not worry about it. It was the only Uncommon item found, and a few other Common items were passed around to those who could use and wanted them. Then we headed up the stairs and out to Farmer Miller. While we did this, our health and mana quickly regenerated over the span of a few minutes. I always found that MMOs where you had to track health and constantly waste time to heal after a combat were a giant pain in the ass, so I had made Apoch¡¯s Twilight to have rapid regen outside of combat. So long as you were not actively engaged in combat, it would come back with just a minute or two of rest. In combat though it didn¡¯t regenerate at all, so you would need to rely on spells and potions. We emerged into daylight, and Torrie told the farmer we had cleared the rats from his cellar. He was overjoyed, though he still shot Flamebolt a snide look and I could hear him mutter something like ¡°miracle he didn¡¯t burn it down¡±. But then we got a message that our quest was complete and another loot window popped up.
QUEST REWARD
Experience Reward 200
Gold Reward 20
Item Reward [Small Pouch] - Val 10G, Increases Inventory by 6 Slots
I happily accepted, then pulled the bag out of my Inventory. It was interesting, because I touched the inventory slot, and could move it around as a flat object on my window, much like you would move an icon on a computer desktop or smartphone. But if I pulled it out like I was trying to hold it, it would materialize in my hand. The pouch was a small brown leather belt pouch, and when I dropped it into my right equipment slot it materialized on my waist. My still open inventory window instantly gained six more item slots. We all thanked Farmer Miller and he wished us well on our journeys and we set out down the path toward the town of Ravensport, the starting hub for Apoch¡¯s Twilight. In the background fiction, it was once a massive metropolis the size of New York city with towering skyscrapers and millions of people living there. Rather than pure technology, the world of Apoch had developed machines fueled by magic and matched or even exceeded the technological levels of the real world. Crystals that worked as smartphones, magical carriages had replaced cars, and flying ships replaced planes and cargo ships. There was even an extensive teleportation network between major cities. When the Twilight happened, the world was literally ripped apart by the gods when they joined the war. The only ones who stood apart were the three gods of magic: Good, Neutral, and Evil. There names were lost to history, or at least that¡¯s what my back story said. In reality I never bothered to name any of the gods, since they were no longer around. These three gods got together with the most powerful mages and tried to establish sanctuaries to protect some of the population, extremely powerful magical domes that would protect the major cities until the war subsided. The war escalated faster than expected though, and the domes were erected before they were finished. The Ravensport dome was erected on the outskirts of the city and only covered a mere three miles of unfinished farmland rather than 10 miles including most of the city as planned. The majority of the individuals planned to live in the dome, the powerful mages, the scholars, the architects, and the like who had been selected to rebuild civilization were left outside as well. Only a few hundred people ended up protected, none of whom were well prepared. I wanted to create a world that was a mash-up of super high fantasy, sort of Warcraft mixed with Final Fantasy, thrust into a post-apocalyptic setting, a bit of Mad Max and Fallout. The idea of the Dome gave me a magical ¡°vault¡±, and the idea of setting it when the domes first came down gave me a good reason why players wouldn¡¯t know anything about the world around them, since it was broken and reshaped by the Twilight and the 150 years that followed. The current day Ravensport was mostly a farming community of about 1000 people, plus however many players there were. To town center was surrounded by a mile and a half of farmland on either side, and a large wall had been built along the entire circumference of the Dome, with roads and gates at each of the four cardinal directions. Three of the gates became moot though, as when the dome dropped it was revealed that a mountain rang had sprung up around three quarters of it, leaving only the western most side of the dome open to the outside. Miller¡¯s farm wasn¡¯t too far from the town itself, and we quickly emerged from the road through the cornfields to see a quaint, medieval looking village ahead of us. There were a couple dozen one and two-story homes around the outskirts, and some shops and other buildings surrounding a decent sized town square. ¡°Hey, let¡¯s add each other as friends.¡± Torrie said as we stood looking over the town. ¡°The game doesn¡¯t seem to have a Tell or Whisper function, so we can¡¯t talk to each other long distance, but it¡¯ll let us know when we¡¯re online and we can send mail to each other.¡± ¡°Sure, why not.¡± Morrick said quietly, opening up his status window with a wave. The rest of us agreed, though I suspected most of us would probably try and avoid Flamebolt in the future. I found the Social window and was able to each of my fellow party members by simply focusing on them for a second so I was ¡°targeting¡± them and clicking ¡°Add Friend¡±. The tab didn¡¯t provide much information, just listed their name and whether or not they were currently online. ¡°I, the mighty Flamebolt, master of the Elements and future Emperor of Apoch must fuel his future power!¡± Flamebolt proclaimed loudly. Then in a quieter voice, he muttered ¡°I gotta take off for a bit. I got a pizza coming, and Mom needs the VGear for a while. Thanks for party, it was fun.¡± ¡°Yeah, we should probably split up and explore the town a bit. I¡¯ll need to go eat soon too.¡± Morrick was looking through his inventory as he said that. ¡°I want to find a vendor to get rid of these whiskers and see about picking up some other gear and stuff.¡± ¡±Good idea. It was fun you guys! We should do this again!¡± Torrie smiled at us. Lorelei had ended up being Party Leader, so after fumbling with the interface a bit, she disbanded us, and we each went our separate ways into the town. Book 1, Chapter 4 I decided to just take a lap around the town square and get a lay of the land. I¡¯d never gotten around to doing a detailed map of the city, just the general area. So while I had some idea of what to expect, seeing it in person was an experience. There was small park with a pond that formed the town center, and a ring of shops and other utility buildings around it. There were a number of shop stalls, most that were currently empty. These were likely to give players a place to establish small shops in the near future. A few of the buildings were likely empty and available for rent as well. The stalls that were in use all had various tradesmen working at them, most likely the Crafting Skill Trainers. An ornate wooden building with finely carved and painted trees flanking the doors stood at the north side of the square, a placard at the front showing a stack of coins and thus probably Sylvan Savings Bank. A short, stout wooden box painted blue sat near the front steps as well, probably the town¡¯s mailbox. To the east was a tall white building with a steeple that was obviously the town chapel, which is where players would resurrect when killed. As a side note, resurrection was, according to the games lore, a side effect of being born in and living under the domes. It was a game mechanic and standard for MMOs, so I didn¡¯t bother defining it too in depth. When I asked around about it, I found that only those designated as Adventurers had this ability, as it was detectable by the high priest at birth and those with it were raised and trained to go out and explore when the dome finally came down. Adventurers were effectively immortal except for old age and natural illness. That last made me laugh. They could resurrect after being eaten by a dragon, but could be killed by the flu. To the south of town center was the Town Hall. It was a very large but simple looking two-story building that handled city operations and would act as the local Adventurers Guild, handing out local quests and the like. Purchasing or renting buildings or land was handled through Town Hall as well. The other large building of note was a large three-story building to the west, away from town center a short ways on the only road that actually led out of Ravensport. There was a stable attached to one side, and a simple hanging sign that had a golden sun rising up over the horizon, and was aptly named The Golden Horizon. This was the local inn, the likely gathering place for adventurers when they weren¡¯t off questing and grabbing a cheap meal. Apoch¡¯s Twilight, to try and simulate the Virtual Reality part of the VRMMO, had a hunger function. Right as I thought that, my own stomach grumbled a little and I felt a bit peckish. I laughed and started heading toward the inn. Players had to eat once every 8 hours, or would start suffering an ever increasing Endurance loss the longer they went without eating. This affected their total HP, and if their base END dropped to zero, they¡¯d die. Fortunately players could make their own food if they had the Cooking Skill, often even providing buffs. Inns served another function as well. I needed a reason for my players in the TTRPG of Apoch¡¯s Twilight to stay at Inns and to need to camp for the night, since they were trapped inside a VRMMO, and.¡ª My vision swam and a lance of pain jolted through my head, causing me to stagger. I grunted and stumbled over to one of the benches placed alongside the park and dropped down. I massaged my temple as the pain rapidly faded. This was all just too damn recursive, and apparently I was having a harder time processing it all. I died and was reincarnated inside a fictional Virtual Reality Massively Multiplayer Online game, which was a fiction game inside my Tabletop Roleplaying Game. It was laughable, and just ridiculous, and¡­ my head started hurting again. That rabbit hole was deep, and my psyche was not equipped for it. I rested for a few and tried to calm myself. Raider whined and put his head on my lap, and I stroked his fur. He was really, really soft and fuzzy. I smiled down at him. ¡°Thanks buddy. I think I needed that.¡± I stood and headed back toward the Inn. I was still running the rules and background in my head, but tried not to think about the implications too much. In the VRMMO, the game would give a warning if a player was on for 8 hours in a 24-hour period. At the 16 hour mark, the game would force them to sleep after a 10-minute grace period to reach a safe spot to log off. Apparently, the interface that players used in this version of the game allowed them to sleep in game, putting their actual mind to rest as well. In theory players only had to log out to use the bathroom and to eat, since virtual food couldn¡¯t sustain you in real life. In my original version of the TTRP, these rest timers were there to force my players to camp or sleep at an inn. I wasn¡¯t certain how healthy it was to be able to stay logged in nearly 24/7. I have an enforced logout period if I¡¯d designed a real VRMMO. I could very easily imagine that if such a game had existed for real in my previous life, I¡¯d probably have lost myself in it if the game didn¡¯t prevent it. There was a benefit to setting up camp or getting a room at an Inn to log off, however. You got a +1 END buff for a duration equal to how long you had been logged off for if you were at an Inn, and you got half that duration for logging off at a proper camp. Later on in the game, there would be better campsites and better Inns that would provide larger bonuses, but would be more expensive. You could log off pretty much anywhere but you wouldn¡¯t get the bonus, and in dungeons or the wilderness there was no guarantee you¡¯d be safe when you logged back in. My stomach grumbled again and Raider gave a soft, low growl as well that I took to mean he was hungry too, so I stopped my musing and picked up the pace to reach the Inn. The Golden Horizon was a decent sized inn, especially when you consider that until now the city had no traffic in or out. But games need them to serve as a meeting hub, a place to log off, and to serve up food, rumors, and quests, so Ravensport needed to have one as well even if it didn¡¯t really make too much sense. There were a dozen or so tables spread around the room, and along counter with about ten stools in front of it. Behind the counter was a stout, dark haired man talking with a couple adventurers. A pair of waitresses bustled around the room as well, one a tall, very pretty blond and the other a young girl in her teens with dark hair. Most of the players were still exploring the city and hadn¡¯t made it this far, but there were still a couple dozen adventurers spread around the room. I moved over to a small table near one of the corners and took a seat, content to just watch the crowd for a bit. I knew I wanted to talk with the waitress as well, as she should have a quest. ¡°Can I get you anything?¡± The blond waitress walked over to take my order. ¡°Sure, what do you have for dinner?¡± She listed out a couple simple meal choices such as roast beef and stew, as well as a handful of drink options. I chose to go with some juice and the stew and she went back to get it for me. Most of the adventurers were just talking quietly amongst themselves, but one group of four was being a bit loud and obnoxious. One of their group, a chainmail-wearing warrior type was apparently trying to explore the boundaries of the game system. He started out by asking loudly whether or not he had ¡°junk¡± in the game, then stood up and stripped down to his underwear. Another of their members, a bald, bearded man had apparently ordered dozens of glasses of bear and was drinking them as fast as possible, saying ¡°I¡¯m not drunk yet! Not yet!¡± I sighed, remembering when I ran the RPG and my players did something similar. As the waitress brought out my meal, a tall, lanky guy with long, stringy black hair and pale skin pulled a chair over near the fireplace. He sat down, set a large bowl down on the floor next to him, and began tuning up the guitar. Nice, a bard. I focused on him a second so I could see his status plate and saw his name was ¡°Zed Deathsong¡±. ¡°So you¡¯re one of our adventurers I bet?¡± the waitress asked as she set down my meal. Besides the stew, it came with a plate of buttered, spiced potatoes and several thick slices of bread. ¡°That¡¯ll be 1 gold, 1 copper for the meal.¡± ¡°Yes ma¡¯am. I just finished up my training and am looking to stock up so I can get out there and start exploring.¡± I said, opening my inventory and pulling two gold coins out and handing them over, and she passed back 9 silver and 8 copper. Money was pretty straightforward, 10 copper to a silver, 10 silver to a gold. I had thought about adding in Electrum and Platinum as well to feed my old school D&D nostalgia, but was glad I restrained that urge now. ¡°You¡¯re lucky. I was an adventurer candidate 20 years ago, but since the dome stayed in place I got married and opened this inn with my husband, Malkom. Don¡¯t get me wrong, I don¡¯t regret that, just would have been nice to travel and explore. I trained as a mage, which comes in handy on nights when someone¡¯s had a few too many and starts causing trouble.¡± I laughed along with her. ¡°Was your husband an adventurer candidate too?¡± ¡°Oh gods, no. Malk was just a farmer back then, but he always dreamed of becoming a merchant and traveling the world trading for exotic goods we don¡¯t have here in Ravensport though. But with the dome, the best we could ever do was open this Inn.¡± ¡°Well, the dome¡¯s down now. Seems that you could still accomplish that goal.¡± She got a thoughtful look on her face at that. ¡°You¡¯re right, we probably could. Though I¡¯m a little too old and a little too out of practice to go traipsing about the countryside myself now. Hrmmm. Maybe you¡¯d be interested in helping us out, since you¡¯re going to be heading out to explore soon? If you¡¯re interested, come talk to me and Malkom when you finish your meal. My name¡¯s Geira.¡± I nodded and thanked her, and she moved off to help some other customers. I picked up my spoon and dug into the stew as the bard began playing. The stew wasn¡¯t bad, but didn¡¯t have much in the way of flavor. It was filling and edible, so I couldn¡¯t ask for much more than that. I relaxed as I ate and listened to the bard. He was pretty decent and I wondered how much was the system and how much was experience playing music in real life. I wondered how much real life skills could be carried over and utilized here, actually. The song was slow and melodic with no words, but it sounded very familiar. It finally hit me after a minute or so, it was a slow-tempo acoustic version of Blue Oyster Cult¡¯s Don¡¯t Fear The Reaper! I loved that song. He then moved into a couple of songs I couldn¡¯t immediately place, though one was naggingly familiar. I finished my meal, and as his last song finished I stood and approached the bard and dropped a couple gold into his hat. ¡°Good stuff man. What was that last one? It sounded familiar, but couldn¡¯t quite place it.¡± I asked. ¡°Metallica! Ride the Lightning, dude.¡± He grinned at me and threw up the devil horns. ¡°I love the classics!¡± I grinned and returned the horns, then headed off as he started into another song that might have been something by Judas Priest. The inn was starting to fill up as other players were getting hungry and had gotten bored exploring the town, so I headed up to the bar to talk with Malkom and pick up my quest from him. He was with another customer, so I stood patiently until he was done. ¡°Welcome to the Golden Horizon. I¡¯m Malkom Werth, and I you met my wife Geira earlier. She said you¡¯re heading out to start exploring and might be able to do us a favor?¡± Malkom was a little shorter than me and stoutly built, his years as an innkeeper having put a few pounds on him. He had a friendly, open face though. ¡°Sure, I can try anyway. I haven¡¯t decided yet where or what I¡¯m doing outside yet, So if I can help, it gives me a direction to start in.¡± ¡°Excellent! When I was younger, I came across a diary of a merchant from Ravensport in the days before the Twilight. In it, the merchant described a hidden safe deep in the tunnels of some labyrinth he dwelled in called ¡°The Metro¡±. I have no clue if the safe or this labyrinth survived the Twilight War, but if it did there should be more journals inside that safe that would be invaluable to us. Please, travel north to where Downtown Ravensport once stood and see if you can find the entrance to this Metro. If there are any landmarks left, this map may guide you, and this combination will allow you to access the safe. Bring me the journals, and you may keep any other treasure you may find.¡± As he finished speaking, a quest prompt popped up:
QUEST: Expedition to Old Ravensport
GOAL: Find and explore the ruins of the Ravensport Metro. Locate the office safe, retrieve the Merchant Journals, and return them to the Werths.
REWARD: 300 XP, 200 GP, [Copper Ring], Choice of Armor
[Y] [N]
The ring was a simple Uncommon rarity ring with a +1 END bonus to it which would be handy. There as also a list of different armors that you could choose from, all with silver names making them Rare items with a couple of stat boosts. Among them was a [Night Guards Chestguard] that would make a nice upgrade for me. I selected [Y] without hesitation. ¡°Excellent! This will be a big help. You¡¯ll want to find a few companions to explore with, most likely. If anything alive out there, I can¡¯t imagine it will be friendly.¡± Malkom said with a smile. ¡°Let me also go ahead and rent a room for a few nights as well while I¡¯m at it. Lets say 5 nights for now.¡± ¡°Sure thing, that¡¯ll be 25 Gold total. It doesn¡¯t include meals, but the rooms are guaranteed secure and there¡¯s a 10-slot storage chest included in the room to store your valuables.¡± He handed over a small silver key. ¡°Room 212, second floor. Enjoy!¡± I thanked him, then headed out of the inn. Looking at my friends list, Torrie, Dagg, and Lorelei were all still on, so I decided to drop them a quick mail asking to meet up shortly to see if they wanted to put a party together for tomorrow to head to the Metro. Not having a /whisper or /tell system was a pain in the ass. I¡¯d done it for plot reasons for the Tabletop RPG, to isolate my players early on so that various in game events would be revealed one at a time, but it was really terrible game design in an actual MMO. Fortunately there should be a way to get that functionality in game before too long, assuming everything followed the script. For now, I needed to hit a mailbox to write out a mail, do some shopping, and pick up some daily quests. My first stop was the Quest Board near the Town Hall. The board had small flyers all over it, and you could choose up to three of them per day. These were what I termed ¡°Side Quests¡± in the Tabletop version, and were short fluff quests for players to do in down time to represent those silly little fetch quests that MMOs were always full of. There wasn¡¯t much detail to them, and there were a bunch of random combinations, and I just let players do them between game sessions to so we could dedicate game time to the big, important quests and roleplaying.This book was originally published on Royal Road. Check it out there for the real experience. I plucked three at random, and sure enough the system wouldn¡¯t let me pull a fourth off. As I did, the now-familiar quest notification popped up three times in a row, their notification windows overlapping. I shuffled them and checked them out one at a time. The first was a quest to join a patrol of the nearby fields to make sure no wild animals had gotten over the walls. It was a simple quest that would have me join up with a couple of the Ravensport Militia and walk a patrol route through a handful of the nearby farms. The second was a delivery quest, one of the local farmers was elderly and needed help loading up a wagon and bringing some produce into town. Easy enough, just some boring manual labor. The final quest was to help deliver some mail around town. There wasn¡¯t a dedicated mailman, so mail delivery was handled on a volunteer basis. This was actual physical mail, letters and packages and the like, not the in-game mail function. Those would give you a small notification whenever mail arrived, and you would have to go to a mail box to receive it. This was another pointless quest that was just a bit time consuming. Some of the Daily Quests would involve combat, like killing some wolves or some bandit, but todays were all non-combat most likely. Unless Farmer Miller remembers me and was still pissed about Flamebolt trying to torch his house, that is. They didn¡¯t give out much in the way of rewards, but they should all be pretty quick, maybe 30 minutes each to finish up, so I clicked accept and headed off to do them while I waited for Torrie and the gang to reply.
¡°There you go Mrs. Schneider. That¡¯s the last of them!¡± I said as I hauled the last crate of squash off the wagon. Mrs. Schneider, a sweet old lady who ran a small squash and pumpkin farm near the eastern edge of Ravensport smiled at me. This delivery had been harder than I expected, due in part to my low STR score. Those boxes were heavy! ¡°Thanks you. You¡¯re such a good boy. I should head back before it gets dark.¡± She pinched my cheek and climbed up into her wagon. ¡±You sure you don¡¯t need an escort home?¡± ¡°No, I¡¯ll be fine. You should go meet up with your friends. They¡¯ll be waiting for you by now, won¡¯t they?¡± ¡°Okay, I¡¯ll go do that then.¡± I said, waving. ¡°Let me know if you need help again.¡± My Quest Log notified me that I¡¯d completed the final Daily Quest and a reward window popped up. It wasn¡¯t a bad haul, all things considered. Only 300 XP between the three of them, but I¡¯d also netted 350 Gold and been given a [Small Healing Potion] for the Patrol the Fields quest. I¡¯d also stopped and sold the few [Rat Whiskers] I¡¯d gotten in the Tutorial Quest and picked up a [Tent (Single)], a [Bedroll], and 5 [Glowstone] Rods. A [Glowstone] was a magical torch that you could turn on and off, but would expire 7 days after it was first activated. Useful but slightly pricey at 10 Gold per Rod. I wanted to fill out some of my armor sets, but until the gatherers and crafters started working quests for the Crafting Trainers, they would only have same gear I started with for sale. There were repeatable quests for the various Gathering materials, and each Trainer had a meter that would fill up as these were turned in. Each time it filled up, it would unlock new crafting recipes that Crafters could learn and the trainer would start selling more gear. But that would likely take a few days before the first of those started opening up. I also now had 500 XP to spend. Attributes were very useful, but were expensive, costing your current base Rank times 100 XP to raise it one Rank. So I could bump my base END from 2 to 3 for 200 XP. Skills were more focused and were cheaper, only costing Rank*20 XP. I needed both, but decided to invest early in a new Trait instead. Tier 1 Traits were expensive, costing 500 XP, but they gave me new abilities. I knew that food was going to be important. Not only did I need to eat, Raider was going to need to eat as well. Plus, I expected that the benefits of the Cooking Talent would likely be overlooked early on and it shouldn¡¯t be. So I splurged and spent all my available XP on the Novice Butcher Trait which would allow me to gather useable meat off of edible creatures for use with the Cooking Talent. I didn¡¯t have that Talent yet, but I would be receiving Talent Points at Level 2 and 3, so would get one soon. I had one more stop to make before heading back to the inn, and that was at Sylvan Savings Bank. The games lore said that both the bank¡¯s storage system as well as the mail functionality were a part of an ancient magic used by the elves. It was an excuse to have your standard MMO functions in the game, as with a good half of the lore I¡¯d written. Most towns of at least moderate size would have a Bank branch, and each was linked magically with the other so that you could always access any storage you had there. Same with the mailboxes, which you could find in almost every town, even small villages. I still didn¡¯t know if I could respawn or not, and I was in no hurry to test it. However, since you dropped all gold carried when you respawned, it was a bad idea to carry everything around with you. And storing money was a free service, so I decided to drop 350 Gold off in the bank, leaving about 50 Gold in my inventory so I could stock up on some food and just to have a little on me. It was getting dark, and Torrie had said in her reply mail that she likely wouldn¡¯t be able to stay on too much longer, so I headed off to the inn to talk with her and the others and plan an expedition for tomorrow.
¡°Bull! Over here!¡± As I walked into the Golden Horizon, a high pitched voice called out above the din. I could just barely see the diminutive kinder waving her arms from a table midway through the inn, so I began pushing my way over to them. The inn was packed and noisy as groups of players were gathered together, discussing the game. It was now night out, and it felt like true night and not the usual ¡°the sky is a dark color and everything¡¯s slightly shadowy¡± sort of night I was used to in video games. I would not want to be traipsing around out in the wilderness in the dark. ¡°Sorry I¡¯m a little late. Got held up doing a quest for a sweet old lady.¡° Torrie, Dagg, and Lorelei were all at the table already, so I apologized as I sat down. ¡°No problem, we¡¯ve only been here for a little bit. We needed to rent a room for the night anyway, and these two wanted to try drinking a bit.¡± ¡°Oh, how is it? I haven¡¯t tried the booze yet.¡± ¡°Good.¡± The big fighter grunted as he drained the last of a mug of beer. ¡°Not bad, a bit bland.¡± Lorelei replied, sipping a glass of wine. ¡°Better than cheap store-bought, but even most small, local wineries will have better vintages than this.¡± ¡°Woah, she can speak!¡± I looked over at Torrie in surprise and she laughed. ¡°Yeah, she¡¯s apparently really shy, unless she¡¯s drinking. Then she gets downright chatty.¡± ¡°So does alcohol actually make you drunk in this game?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes. I have a nice little buzz going right now, actually.¡± The blond light mage said as she motioned to the waitress for another glass. ¡°There was a guy earlier who ordered an entire stack of whiskey shots. Those stack to 100, you know? Well, he started downing those one after another as fast as possible. It was really funny to watch. He and his friends were testing the effects, and every five shots he¡¯d get up and walk around, and after about twenty he could barely stand. I think he passed out around the 25th shot. He was slurring his words really bad, and kept saying that everything looked all swimmy and upside down.¡± ¡°Good to know. I imagine with my Endurance, booze would wreck me. That would be a nice change of pace.¡± I sighed. I had been a big guy in my old life, before I was run over by Truck-kun, and I had a high natural tolerance on top of that. It used to take a lot of high-proof alcohol to get me even buzzed. ¡°Anyway, have you guys talked with the Werths here yet, the owners? They have a quest we should take.¡± Dagg and Lorelei shook their head, but Torrie nodded and said ¡°Yeah, I was in a bit earlier and picked it up from the waitress, Geira.¡± ¡°Ok, let me see here¡­¡± I muttered as I brought up my status window and slipped over to the Quest Log. ¡°I think we need to be in a party for this to work. I¡¯m gonna invite you, ok?¡± I shot an invite to Lorelei and Dagg, and when I did a ¡°Share Quest with Party Members¡± option appeared on the quest details. Excellent. I shared it with them and they accepted. ¡°It¡¯s late tonight, and I don¡¯t want to go traveling around in the dark, will you all be around tomorrow evening? Ok, then why don¡¯t we meet up at 5:00 game time and we¡¯ll head out then. This is a pretty good quest to get our feet wet, I think.¡± ¡°Yeah. The quests already been completed a few times. I saw the First Clear message like an hour after we started. Jeez, how do people move that fast through these games?¡± Torrie shook her head. ¡°For some people, they ¡®win¡¯ the game if they¡¯re the first to do this sort of stuff. Besides, rumor has it that you get bonus rewards from dungeons if you¡¯re the first to complete them. Which seems a bit unfair to me.¡± I had heard someone talking about that while I was doing my side quests earlier. That wasn¡¯t something I had written into Apoch¡¯s Twilight, so it was possibly just a rumor, I guessed. ¡°It¡¯s gotten pretty standard for games these days.¡± Lorelei said with a shrug. ¡°While more casual players complain about it, most people claim it helps push the game and push exploration to have competition for this stuff. Especially since VRMMOs tend to be slower than traditional MMOs due to how realistic they are. Travel times are longer, and people are less willing to throw themselves into danger since they experience it on a different level.¡± That made a certain sense, I supposed. I still wasn¡¯t sure I liked it. Lorelei downed her glass of wine and her face was flushed red. She was definitely past the point of tipsy now, and she was clinging to Dagg¡¯s side. For his part, Dagg looked a bit uncomfortable with the public affection but wasn¡¯t willing to push her away. ¡°You should probably put her to bed, big guy.¡± Torrie said with a grin. ¡°Maybe check out some of the ¡®Adult Only¡± functions of the game, eh?¡± I coughed as I choked on the juice I was drinking. Ok, that was definitely not something I¡¯d specified for Apoch¡¯s Twilight. Torrie pounded on my back laughing as I coughed some more to clear my throat. ¡°I recommend knocking out your Daily Quests if you can before we leave tomorrow.¡± I said once my coughing fit had subsided. ¡°Also make sure you have some camping gear. Depending on how the Metro dungeon goes, there¡¯s something else I¡¯d like to check out as well, so we may have to camp out in the wilderness.¡± Everyone agreed, and Dagg helped Lorelei up the stairs. I sat and chatted with Torrie for a little while, comparing notes about what we¡¯d done in game today. She was pretty bright and seemed to have picked up things fast. We skirted talking about any Real Life stuff though, which was tough for me to do as I tended to be naturally open and inquisitive with friends I made online. With my current situation though, it felt a little weird, and Torrie didn¡¯t bring the subject up either so we stuck to in game topics. After another 10 minutes, she excused herself and headed off to log off. Thinking about it, I was in an interesting position compared to probably all the other players. I never logged off. Hell, I couldn¡¯t log off. I¡¯d checked a few times, and had watched as a couple players had logged off earlier. I simply didn¡¯t have that option in my interface window. But that also meant that I could get in far more game time than other players. Even if someone had no job or real world responsibilities they would still have to take time to use the bathroom, to go eat, and even the most hardcore players would need to get up and take short breaks occasionally. Speaking of bathrooms, apparently since I was a game character that was no longer a function I had to do. It felt odd, butt I hadn¡¯t had the urge or need to go all day, nor had I seen a bathroom anywhere. I decided to call it a day as well. I wasn¡¯t really tired in the traditional sense, but felt that I had a need to sleep nonetheless. I was curious what that would be like in game anyway. I headed up to my room. Inn rooms were instanced, meaning that they cloned and spawned a room for everyone who rented one. The there were two floors above the tavern portion of the inn with a dozen rooms on each, and my best guess was that the room numbers were generated randomly. As I walked up the stairs, I saw someone use a key to enter a room that turned out to be 212, the same room I was assigned. I tentatively used my own key on the door and found myself in an empty room. The room was a simple affair, with a bed, a small nightstand with a glowstone lamp on it, and a storage chest at the end of the bed. The floor had some soft carpet on it, a pair of heavy drapes covered the window, and the bed was firm but not hard. I¡¯d stayed in worse hotels back before I died, that¡¯s for sure. I sat down and decided to flip through the help function of the interface a bit before bed. I still had a few things I was curious about and wanted to see what they said about dungeons since we were hitting our first one tomorrow. I found the options and clicked the tab marked ¡°Help and FAQ¡±. A shower of silver sparks shot out from the interface window, and a small finger about four inches tall appeared in front of me, hovering in midair with a pair of wings buzzing on her back. She was a small, slightly feminine silver figure that looked familiar despite the smaller size and the addition of wings. ¡°Intro-Bot? Is that you?¡± I asked. She looked just like the figure from chargen that had helped me out. ¡°Yes, that is correct. Helper functionality has now been unlocked. I am your personal helper assistant. Please give me a name.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± I muttered, unsure of what to say as I tried to process. ¡°Name ''Huh¡± has been accepted. Please confirm, as you cannot change this name once selected.¡± Oh good god. Not this again. ¡°No, no. Cancel that. Before I give you a name, can I ask some questions?¡± I looked at the small, hovering silver form in front of me with a sigh. I had no idea what to make of this. ¡°Affirmative. That is now my role, to act as your Help & FAQ assistant.¡± ¡°Great. Ok, first off, why are you here? Does everyone get a helper bot like this?¡± I asked her. "Unknown. I have been assigned to User ¡®Bull¡¯ and have no knowledge of any other players.¡± "How much can you tell me about the game?¡± ¡°I can assist with basic game functions and rules.¡± She replied matter of factly. ¡°I am also capable of learning and can remember anything I see or experience, so I can draw on my experiences to further aid you.¡± ¡°That is¡­. Unhelpful, actually.¡± I rolled my eyes. Raider came over and sniffed at the fluttering AI or whatever she was. She giggled and landed on his head. It was kind of cute, and for his part Raider gave me a look that said ¡°Really? Do I have to put up with this?¡± and sat back on his haunches. I thought about names, and decided to keep it simple. I¡¯d originally called her Intro-Bot, so decided to shorten that to a version of those initials, I.B. ¡°Ok, let¡¯s name you Aibee. Does that work for you?¡± ¡°Affirmative, name ¡®Aibee¡¯ accepted. Thank you.¡± ¡°You were human-sized before, but now you¡¯re tiny. Can you change size at will? And for that matter, can you change your form to look like something else, or are you stuck as a silver humanoid?¡± I wondered what her limits were. ¡°Negative. Since being reassigned to Helper functionality I can only maintain this diminutive form. I can however choose a different skin, though I¡¯m limited to this general humanoid form. Do you have a preference for design?¡± ¡°No, why don¡¯t you pick whatever you like. I¡¯d just prefer it if you had a face of some kind, if possible. It¡¯s hard to tell where you¡¯re looking without facial features and it¡¯s a bit creepy.¡± ¡°Affirmative. Choosing randomized human-style skin now.¡± Her form glowed, and after a moment it settled to a small female form with long black hair pulled back in a ponytail, well defined curves, and a deep olive skin tone. And she was stark naked and very, very female. ¡±Ahh!¡± I quickly averted my eyes, blushing. Between being the size of a GI Joe figure, being a girl I barely knew, and being some kind of game Artificial Intelligence, seeing her naked just felt wrong. ¡°Clothes or something! Can you get some clothes?¡± ¡°Affirmative.¡± She replied. A few seconds later, I peeked back over at her and she was now wearing stylish light blue dress. I gave a sigh of relief, and wondered why that flustered me as much as it did. ¡°So I¡¯m guessing you can¡¯t help out in combat or anything, only give me information?¡± ¡°That is correct. I can observe and record, and I contain a database of game functions,¡± As she talked, her face slowly because more animated. I guess as she became used to having actual facial features. ¡°I also have a database of creatures, locations, items, and dungeons, but access to those is locked until you discover them for yourself.¡± ¡°Oh, nice. That will be handy. Sweet.¡± I considered asking her more, to try and find out more about my current existence. Why I had no logout button, what would happen if I died in game, and even seeing if there was a function to call and talk to a Gamemaster or something, someone who actually ran the game I was now in. However I found I couldn¡¯t ask those questions. I was afraid of the answers, no matter what they were. I could cope with living in this new world, but I realized I was terrified of finding out why and how I was here, and judging by the throbbing headache that started up again as I thought about this I realized that I simply couldn¡¯t handle the answers. At least not right now. ¡°Are you permanently in game now, or do you only appear when I need you?¡± I asked Aibee. ¡°I am now manifested into the game semi-permanently and am bound to you. If we are separated forcibly by whatever means, I will despawn until you can call me back by using the Help & FAQ button again.¡± ¡°Ok, sounds good. I think that¡¯s all for now. I¡¯m gonna crash for the night.¡± I unequipped my armor and found myself wearing a set of boxer briefs. I asked Aibee to turn around, but found I could not unequip them. ¡°There is an Adult Content toggle in your options menu.¡± Aibee said from behind me. ¡°Nudity and other adult functions can be enabled if you toggle that on. Only other players with the Adult Content turned on will be able to see you nude, however. To everyone else you will simply look to be wearing your undergarment still.¡± ¡°Thanks, I guess?¡± That was weird, but not unexpected. Raider curled up on the floor next to the bed, and Aibee snuggled into the fur on his back. I smiled and lay down on the bed and turned out the glowstone lamp. ¡°Night Aibee. Night Raider.¡± As I closed my eyes, a menu popped up saying ¡°Now entering sleep mode. Please enter how long you would like to sleep.¡± It was 10:00 PM, so I chose 8 hours, thinking how much I would have loved to have this sort of function back before I was hit by Truck-kun. I¡¯d had problems with Insomnia since High School. I clicked [Enter] and everything went blank. Book 1, Chapter 5 It felt like everything just went dark for a moment. I closed my eyes and there was a moment of quiet, of emptiness. Then I opened them again and it was morning. 8 hours gone in literally a blink of an eye. It didn¡¯t feel like any time had passed, but I felt good. I sat up and felt well rested and energized, ready for a new day. I noticed a new icon hovering underneath my status plate in my HUD, and focusing on it showed I had the ¡°Rested¡± buff, giving me +1 END for the next 8 hours. This was nice as it brought my HP up to 300 for a while, giving me a bit more of a cushion. Aibee was laying face down on Raiders back, snoring softly. The tiger was awake, but just lay there patiently with his head on his paws as if he was afraid of waking the tiny AI. I smiled, and coughed loudly, causing Aibee to suddenly wake with a start. It was totally adorable, and I had to suppress a laugh as she sat up rubbing her eyes while looking around sleepily. ¡°Lets go grab some breakfast guys, shall we?¡± I equipped my armor and headed downstairs to the main dining area of the bar. It was early morning, so the place was mostly empty. It was an MMO, so there was always a few players active at all hours, but early mornings were frequently the slowest time, and I could only see a couple players eating breakfast and talking with the Werths. ¡°Some breakfast?¡± Geira came up and asked me what I wanted. I ordered up some waffles, surprised they were on the menu, and ordered an extra-large side of sausage for Raider. Despite being a fantasy-themed game, there were a lot of mundane, modern day things in the food and such. Made sense, considering both the fantasy-modern-future of the background and that a heavy inspiration was Warcraft which wasn¡¯t afraid to color very widely outside the convention fantasy lines. After breakfast I headed out to the quest board to grab my daily quests. I pulled off three flyers at random, and noticed that I couldn¡¯t really read the flyers until I had them in hand. Until then, the letters and words were unintelligible, and any pictures on the flyer were vague shapes. Once I had the third quest, the rest of the quests came into focus, but were all duplicates of the ones I was holding. I was fascinated, but a little disoriented as well. Game mechanics were a strange thing when they became a reality. Of the three quests I had pulled, the first was another [Deliver Supplies] quest like I had done yesterday. The second was a combat quest, [Hunt Sand Wolves] which was nice. The reward wasn¡¯t quite as good, but I¡¯d be getting XP and drops from the mobs so that would compensate. Some Sand Wolves, one of the local monsters, were getting bold and approaching the wall of the city, so I had to kill ten of them to thin their numbers. As a side note, mob was an old online video game term that was short for ¡°mobile¡± that dates back to the early pre-graphics, text-only Multi-User Dungeons, or MUDs. It generally referred to hostile enemies capable of moving around the game map and attacking on their own, but got quickly adopted to mean almost any type of non-player monster that wasn¡¯t a boss enemy of some type. It wasn¡¯t used quite as much these days, but I was an old-school gamer so the terminology stuck with me. The final quest was very interesting. [Locate Lost Grandparent] wanted me to track down and locate an elderly man who sometimes got confused. The quest text indicated there might be combat and the reward were quite nice, awarding a decent chunk of gold and, more importantly, a really nice Rare Silver weapon. Quests like this were usually tailored to the person who took them, so it must have chosen the weapon based on my Ranged Weapon skill, as it offered a [Wicked Desert Ash Longbow] that would be a significant upgrade to the starter shortbow I was using now. It was better all around: damage, durability, range, and even had a pair of +1 Attributes, END and FOC. I decided I had to knock out that quest first thing. Right now the game didn¡¯t have a minimap, though I suspected that would be remedied eventually if the translation from my version held. I was pretty sure I knew where the quest item was that would unlock that and a few other functions was, and wanted to hit that with Torrie and the gang later on. But for now I was stuck without that or any sort of quest markers. So I had to do this old school, and talk to some NPCs and then try and extrapolate a location from there. The quest wanted me to return the old man to his grandson Billy at the [Old Johnson Farm], so I headed out there first. There I found Billy playing in the dirt outside a run down farmhouse. The fields were overgrown and looked like they hadn¡¯t been tended to in at least a couple years. I approached him casually and said ¡°Heya. What you doing?¡± The young boy was maybe five or six years old, with a mop of unruly brown hair. He looked up from his toys, what looked to be some little wooden toy soldiers that he was making fight a wooden dragon. ¡°Just playing while I wait for Grandpa to come back. He was supposed to be back last night, but he never came home. I¡¯m kinda hungry.¡± ¡°Where are your parents?¡± I asked, concerned. ¡°They died a couple winters ago. Got the cough. I don¡¯t really remember them much, but Grandpa said they¡¯re in a better place now, so I don¡¯t miss them too much.¡± ¡°You said your grandfather hasn¡¯t come home yet? Maybe I could go looking for him. Do you know where he was going?¡± ¡°He wanted to go picking flowers for Nana Johnson. She died before I was born so I don¡¯t remember her, but today is their ananversity, whatever that is.¡± He kept his head down and just kept moving his soldieries around as he talked, though I could tell by his voice he was scared and worried. ¡°Where does he get flowers for her from?¡± I asked. ¡°I¡¯m not sure. He said he wanted to find something special, so was going to check outside the walls. He said there was probably some flowers out there that we didn¡¯t have in here. Said he was going to check south of the city, I think.¡± After breakfast this morning, I¡¯d bought a few extra servings of sausage for to keep on hand for Raider. Food placed in your Inventory was placed into a kind of suspended animation, so not only would it not spoil, it would even stay warm or cold. I pulled out a plate of Sausages and set it down in front of Billy. ¡°Here you go. Have some breakfast. It¡¯s all I have on me right now, sorry. But I¡¯ll go out and see if I can¡¯t find your grandpa, ok?¡± The little boy looked up at me and nodded bravely. Then he slowly reached for one of the sausages, looking up again at me to make sure it was alright. When I nodded, he started wolfing them down. The AI in this is game was brutal. And whoever designed these quests is kind of sadistic. A starving boy who lost his parents and now his grandpa is missing? That¡¯s just sad and mean. I did some randomization charts for these quests that could come up with something similar, but I never attached any real back story to it since it was stuff that was designed to be done between game sessions, in the background.
As I was heading toward the main gate, I saw a couple of players staring down at each other, one yelling at the other about ¡°kill stealing¡±. I paused and listen to the argument, the gist of which was that the two players had been hunting in the same area, and one of the players kept stealing all the enemies. In Apoch¡¯s Twilight, mobs were ¡°tagged¡± by whoever did damage to them first, so no one but that person or members of his party could get XP or loot from the mob until it was dead or it lost aggro. The accuser was a melee warrior with a warhammer and a shield, while the accused was a ranger like me though he looked like he hadn¡¯t taken the Animal Companion Trait. Being ranged, it was easy to see how he could easily snipe and tag the enemies before the warrior could get in close. The shouting increased, and finally the warrior pushed the ranger to the ground and pulled out his warhammer. The ranger scrambled to his feet and pulled his shortbow out. Suddenly there was a clarion call of loud trumpets and from out of nowhere a pair of fully armored guards appeared. They wore silver plate armor from head to tow, carried large silver kite shields in one hand, and held a wicked looking longsword in the other. They had a black tabard draped over their armor with a silver raven crest on it. These were the Ravensport Guard and they acted to protect the town and the players in it, providing a safe zone for the playerbase. There were a handful of these NPCs stationed around town and at the front gates, they were largely non-interactive and wouldn¡¯t respond to players unless players attempted to touch or attack them. In the case of players attempting to PvP or attacking the town NPCs, however, the stationary guards would spring into action, and more guards would instantly spawn if there were no stationary guards nearby. The two spawned guards immediately moved toward the ranger and warrior, weapons held in a threatening pose. ¡°Cease and desist immediately, or you will be restrained.¡± The two players glared at each other, then looked over at the guards who exuded a menacing aura. It was obvious these guards were far more powerful than any player on the server, and further they would continuously summon more as needed, making trying to fight them futile. The warrior spat, then turned and stormed off. The ranger looked shaken, but also had a smug look on his face. I disliked players like that intensely. If the players had attacked, the guards would have killed them, and rather than respawning at the chapel they would have spawned inside the gaol, the local jail, and would be held there for a minimum of one game day, with the jail sentences increasing in length for every repeated offence. While players could log in, there was no way out of the gaol, so it effectively locked their account during that period. That didn¡¯t prevent potential PvP outside of town though, and in town players could use a PvP Duel function to challenge each other and the guards wouldn¡¯t interfere. Once the commotion died down, I headed out of town. The ranger was going further into the city, so I breathed a sigh of relief. I wasn¡¯t sure I wanted to deal with someone sniping my kills and making things more difficult, or worse possibly deciding to try and Player Kill me. I¡¯d never liked PKing or PvP much. As I left the gates, my eyes were dazzled for a moment. Inside Ravensport was mostly fields with some small patches of forest. It was lovely and very pastoral. But immediately outside, the land was just¡­ green. But not green grass, green sand. A brilliant, almost blinding crystalline emerald green. There were a couple minor quests and objects that could be found that would reveal some of the back story about the emerald sand from Lacio, Ravensport¡¯s Historian, but I already knew the reason for it. When the dome initially went up, it was rushed and thus was incomplete. It was powered by a large Magicite crystal, a physical embodiment of mana that could be sometimes found naturally. This crystal was the source of the dome original 20-year lifespan, but what the mages who created the dome failed to take into account was that Magicite Crystals could absorb mana to replenish themselves over time. The unique combination of the dome and the Magicite crystal slowly drained the mana from the surrounding countryside, empowering the crystal far past its intended purpose, but destroying the local environment and staining everything this green color. While I didn¡¯t have a minipmap to track my immediate surroundings, there was a world map I could open up. It didn¡¯t show my surroundings in great detail, and from the start the only revealed area on the map was Ravensport itself, everything else was black. The map would slowly fill in as I explored, but I knew from designing this that the emerald sand extended out for two miles away from the dome, at least in the direction that wasn¡¯t blocked by mountains and cliffs.The author''s tale has been misappropriated; report any instances of this story on Amazon. ¡°Hrmm. If there¡¯s nothing but green sand and nothing grows out here, how am I gonna find Grandpa Johnson?¡± I asked myself, unconsciously speaking out loud. ¡°You need to go this way.¡± Aibee pointed to the south. ¡°There should be a small patch of flowers that have sprung up for this quest.¡± I looked at Aibee and blinked. ¡°Umm, I thought you were just my Help and FAQ bot? Shouldn¡¯t you only answer questions about game mechanics and the interface and stuff? ¡°Doesn¡¯t helping with quests and answering questions about them qualify as ¡®Help and FAQ¡¯?¡± She hovered in front of me, wings buzzing. ¡°I guess I can¡¯t argue with that. And this helps a lot. So, thank you, Aibee.¡± She smiled and flew over to sit primly on my shoulder. I began heading in the direction she had pointed to. After about 10 minutes as we moved further from the walls, the sand began to form dunes. As we approached one of those, Raider suddenly stopped and gave a low snarl. I bent low and we moved up to the top of a small dune. N the distance we could see a rock outcropping, maybe 15 feet high. An old man was huddled on top of it, and several dun-colored wolves paced back and forth underneath of him. Focusing on the wolves, I could see that they were indeed [Sand Wolves] and a small indicator under their status indicated that they were a quest objective. Nice, I¡¯d be able to get double credit here. There were three wolves, so I had to be careful. I crept forward, trying to stay outside of their aggro range. I hoped that the VRMMO worked on the same principle that most MMOs did, in that mobs didn¡¯t operate purely on line of sight or on sound, but also on being within a certain range. There wasn¡¯t any cover, so I was nervous they¡¯d see me before I was in range to fire. I knocked an arrow anyway, just in case. Once I was 40 feet away, the maximum range for my shortbow, I targeted one and told Raider to charge. I then used my Rapid Shot to fire at the remaining two. My arrows whizzed by the charging tiger and struck both wolves, causing them to yelp and immediately turn toward me as a pair numbers floated up over their heads reading ¡°65¡±, murderous intent in their eyes. Apparently they had 10 points of Damage Reduction. The wolves were well muscled, but their fur was ragged and mangy, given them a nasty, feral look. Raider pounced on the remaining tiger, his claws digging deep into its flank. The wolf Raider attacked bit back, and I winced as I heard my tiger let out a screen of pain as the wolf¡¯s fangs dug deep into his side. Meanwhile, the two wolves I¡¯d shot moved about halfway, and then leaned back on their haunches, readying a leap attack of some kind. Most enemies had at least one special attack they could do outside of their basic attack that let it do something special, like attacking from range or doing extra damage, and the wolves could perform a leaping attack, adding damage to their claws. Fortunately I was out of their initial range, though just barely it seemed, and I was able to let off another arrow attack. The arrow flew true and dug deep into the neck of the wolf dealing 65 more damage to him, and it collapsed with a whine. The remaining wolf then leapt at me, its front claws raking me across the chest and knocking me back a few steps. Pain rippled through me, causing me to inhale sharply, and I could see I¡¯d taken 85 points of damage, leaving me almost halfway down. I grimaced as my vision swam. Holy crap, this hurt. There¡¯s supposed to be a large amount of pain reduction, otherwise no one would play these games, but maybe since I was reborn into the game or something it didn¡¯t apply. I groaned, but forced myself to focus. Rapid Shot was off cooldown, so I fired it off again, once at the wolf next to me and once at the wolf attacking Raider. One arrow struck the far off wolf, dealing 65 damage, killing it. The wolf near me, however, dodged away and the arrow dug into the sand in front of it. Raider began charging toward me, but the wolf was able to lung at me first, its teeth digging into my leg deep. I grimaced as a large ¡°75¡± flashed up. Looks like I¡¯d taken a crit from the wolf, but my armor saved me. However, I was down to 30 HP, and the pain was nearly unbearable. My vision swam and somehow I got off another arrow and the wolf fell to the ground and vanished into blue sparkles. I collapsed to my knees, panting in pain. ¡°Query, Bull.¡± Aibee the Pixie help-bot asked as she flew over near me, peering at my wounds. ¡°You seem to be in a great amount of pain. Why have you not adjusted your pain threshold settings?¡± I swore under my breath and collapsed face first into the sand. If I didn¡¯t hurt so bad, I would have reached up and strangled her. ¡°Hey! Are you still alive, young man?¡± An elderly voice called out to me as I lay there. ¡°Meh.¡± I mumbled into the sand. I just lay there, feeling the warmth from the sand and not wanting to move. ¡°Nope. I¡¯m dead.¡± I groaned again as I rolled over and sat up, wincing at the pain. ¡°Hey old dude, is it clear? Anymore wolves around?¡± The old man looked around from atop the rock. ¡°Nope, looks clear.¡± ¡°Good, give me a minute to recover then.¡± I leaned forward and laced my hands behind my head and closed my eyes. Raider padded over and licked at my face, his large tiger tongue scratchy like a house cats. ¡°I¡¯ll be fine, boy. Just need to chill for a few.¡± When I was creating Apoch¡¯s Twilight, one thing I wanted to avoid was excessive downtime due to players using their abilities in combat. I couldn¡¯t even count the number of D&D games I played in where our party would camp for the night to rest and recover health and spells, only for the first encounter of the next day to be especially rough due to some nasty enemies or bad dice rolling and we would end up using up most of our spells and be low on health again. Rather than risking any further exploration, we¡¯d hunker down and camp for another 8 hours to recover. It was silly and could really bog down a game. So I decided to eliminate that aspect of the game because it simply wasn¡¯t fun. Once out of combat, if you rested for a few minutes, you could regain all your health and mana. This further helped the MMO emulation of the game, since it was something a lot of those games did as well, because no one wants to waste a bunch of time recovering after a fight. It also let you go into each fight at full strength. Of course, there were exceptions to this in Apoch¡¯s Twilight, namely Dungeons. Most dungeons were flagged as ¡°No Rest¡± areas, and you could only rest and recover in certain areas. This provided a nice mix of tactical ability use while still being able to find places to recover at, usually right before boss fights. While I was waiting, I opened up my status screen and found my options menu. It was tucked out of the way so I hadn¡¯t really noticed it before, and since I was reincarnated here I had assumed I wouldn¡¯t be able to modify any of it. There were a lot of options, but pain was one of them, as was smell and surprisingly taste. I left the latter two alone for a while, but moved ¡°Pain¡± down to about 30%. Pain is a useful tactile sensation, so I felt that turning it too low would actually be detrimental. I remembered a biology teacher I¡¯d had in junior high school who had lost the sense of touch in one of his legs, and he told us how he¡¯d once stepped on a nail and was bleeding pretty badly and didn¡¯t realize it until he noticed himself leaving bloody footprints around his house. That always creeped me out. While I rested, I opened up the loot windows that had popped up for the wolves. There were a dozen [Scraps of Wolf Fur] which were a grey-named trash item worth 1 silver each, a white common [Copper Chain Pants] that I couldn¡¯t equip, and best of all 8 pieces of [Sand Wolf Shank], a cooking ingredient that would only drop if at least one member of the party had the Novice Butcher skill. I couldn¡¯t use the meat yet, but it wouldn¡¯t spoil while in my Inventory, so I could store it until I picked up the Cooking skill. I could also feed it to Raider since he would happily eat raw meat. The loot window also reported I¡®d earned 150 XP which was a nice bonus. After a couple minutes, my health began to rapidly regenerate. My wounds likewise began to fade, the holes and rips in my armor vanishing as they did so. I stretched and stood up, feeling great once again. It was amazing how resilient this body was, though dropping that low on health really scared me. I needed to raise my Endurance and HP and invest in some better armor as soon as possible. ¡°Hey, you up there!¡± I called out to the old man on the rock outcropping. ¡°You¡¯re Billy Johnson¡¯s grandfather, yeah? He asked me to come find you.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s me. Hold on a minute, I¡¯ll be right down.¡± The old man slowly clambered down from the rocks and wobbled his way over to me. ¡°Thank you, young man. You really saved my hide there.¡± ¡°Glad I could help. The town gate isn¡¯t too far back this way, I¡¯ll escort you back.¡± I pointed back the way we¡¯d initially come. ¡°No, no. I can manage on my own, but thank you.¡± Old Farmer Johnson said, and he began slowly walking back toward town. ¡°You must be busy. But come find me when you have some free time, and I¡¯ll see to it you¡¯re properly rewarded.¡± I guessed that this wasn¡¯t really an escort quest, and the old man vanished over a hill as I called out to him to be careful. My Quest Log updated itself at that point, noting that I had successfully rescued Billy¡¯s Grandfather and that I should now return to the [Old Johnson Farm] to finish up the quest and get my reward. I decided to explore a little further, moving cautiously. Fortunately quest mobs could overlap, so the three Sand Wolves had counted toward the [Hunt Sand Wolves] quest, leaving me only 5 more to kill to complete the quest. They seemed to spawn in small groups of two to three, so I was able to hunt them without too many problems by avoiding the packs with three wolves. I still had to take a short break between fights to recover, and had a close call during the second fight when two more wolves wandered awfully close to us, but I managed to kite the wolves we were already fighting away before the new group could aggro on us. Because we were pulling groups of two I ended up taking down one more wolf than needed, but that wasn¡¯t a bad thing since it was some extra loot and XP. Kiting, by the way, is a term in gaming when you move and lead an enemy around from a distance, like leading a kite on a string. It¡¯s useful to separate groups of enemies away from each other, or as I did this time to lead one group of enemies away from a second group to prevent pulling too many enemies at once. I just barely survived three wolves before so I was pretty certain I couldn¡¯t handle four at once. I picked up some more [Sand Wolf Shanks], more [Fur Scraps] to sell, and a couple more pieces of common white armor. One was a pair of [Linen Gloves] that weren¡¯t worth equipping since my leather gloves were better, but there was also a [Light Hide Belt] that let me equip something on my waist inventory slot. I immediately put that on, since it added 4 more Damage Reduction. While I was looking over my armor, I noticed that my breastplate and my shortbow were both getting a bit worn. Gear had a durability score, and would take a little bit of durability loss during every combat. The more you got hit, the more durability would be lost. The [Starter] gear had pretty crappy durability, each piece only having a Durability of 10. By contrast, the belt I¡¯d just found had a Durability of 16, and it was still a low level, common item. Better quality and higher level items would have higher Durability values. Repairing gear was pretty simple. You could get it repaired in town by any vendor, with the cost varying depending on both the amount of durability needed to be repaired as well as the value of the item. More powerful and thus more expensive items would cost a lot more to repair than crappier, common items. So repairs could become something of a money sink. Besides vendors, any player crafter could do it with minimum of the base material used to craft the item and some tools. This was one way that I¡¯d wanted to encourage players of Apoch¡¯s Twilight to take the crafting and gathering skills. [Starter] gear had no price, so it was simply 1 Copper per point of durability to repair, so was negligible. But as I mentioned it had a really low base durability, so you had to repair it frequently. For now though, I could make do. I headed back to town and did the [Deliver Supplies] quest, then turned the quests all in one at a time.
QUEST REWARD: Deliver Supplies
Experience Reward 100
Gold Reward 200
Item Reward [Small Healing Potion]
QUEST REWARD: Hunt Sand Wolves
Experience Reward 100
Gold Reward 300
QUEST REWARD: Locate Lost Grandparent
Experience Reward 100
Gold Reward 300
Item Reward [Wicked Ash Longbow] - Dmg 90, Req 7 AGI, +1 AGI, +1 END, Dura 20, Value: 200G
I smiled as I repaired my armor and equipped the new bow, which was a nice recurve bow made of polished, pale wood. Equipping it made me tingle a bit as I could feel the power from the enchantment making me lighter on my feet and more durable. It was an interesting sensation, and was a bit of a rush. I could easily see that feeling being addictive, leading one to wanting more and more power. Finishing up the quests also pushed my total gained XP up enough that I leveled up! That gave me a new Trait point to spend, plus enough XP to consider a new Talent or raising an Attribute or two. I decided to head back to the Golden Horizon for some lunch to think it over. Book 1, Chapter 6 While eating lunch at the Horizon, I scrolled through my list of possible upgrades. I had a new Talent point to spend, so that was my first concern. Due to how I¡¯d specialized my character though, a lot of Talents were unavailable to me at the moment. Most of the combat-oriented ones required a higher Strength or Endurance, while the magic and some of the crafting Talents required a higher Focus. While I did need to raise those, I wanted to hold off a little bit longer. I had picked up Novice Butcher in anticipation of picking up Novice Cooking,so I decided to go ahead and pick that up now. Selecting the Cooking Talent and confirming it, my head was suddenly filled with flashes, images, and I knew how to cook several recipes in game: Bread, Roast Desert Boar, and Grilled Sand Wolf. New crafting Traits always came with a few basic recipes, and these were the simplest ones. Bread could be made from cheap ingredients sold in town, while the Desert Boar and Sand Wolf recipes required meat from those creatures. None of these recipes gave any kind of additional buff, but they would satisfy the Hunger meter if needed, so I didn¡¯t need to buy food in town anymore. The Cooking Trainer was named Rose, and she worked in the kitchen of the Golden Horizon, so I asked Geira Werth if I could speak with her. Rose was a tough, leathery older woman who looked right at home with a meat cleaver in her hand, and she was not someone I would want to have angry at me. But she was friendly enough, if curt and to the point. Once I explained I was a fledgling Chef, she was willing to teach me a few additional recipes for a bit of gold. 200 gold later and I had learned to craft the Desert Sandwich, a Sand Sandwich, and some Desert Stew. Desert Sandwiches required Desert Boar Meat and gave a +1 END buff for 8 hours, while the Sand Sandwich required Sand Wolf Shank and gave a +1 FOC buff. Desert Stew required a couple of each meat and provided a +1 to both STR and AGI. I thanked Rose, and headed back out to the dining area and sat back down. I needed to pick up a set of [Cooking Utensils, Tier 1] later as well as some of the basic ingredients I would need, but I still had some XP to spend, so decided to take care of that first. I pulled open my menu again and looked over my options. I decided I really needed some more base Hit Points, so I went ahead and raised that from 2 to 3. It cost 100 times your current rank in XP, so it was only 200 XP and gave me a nice boost to my survivability. That left me with 550 XP, so I decided to pick up another Trait. Since I relied on Raider, I decided to purchase an Animal Companion Trait to give him a boost. I ruffled his head and fed him a piece of leftover meat from my lunch as I pondered what to give him. Right now I had the option to boost any of his stats such as Hit Points or his Defense, but I really wanted to buy him a Taunt skill. But with his HP being pretty low, I worried that would just get him killed, so I went ahead and purchased Bestial Toughness which gave him an additional 300 Hit Point. As I accepted it, a white shimmering enveloped Raider and he let out a happy roar, startling several other diners in the Inn. As the light faded, he looked a little bigger and beefier, and I grinned. ¡°You like that boy, don¡¯t you?¡± I smiled and rubbed his head, and he leaned into me, purring. ¡°Hey man, nice kitten you got there.¡± A low, melodic voice said. I looked up and saw it was the Bard that had been playing Don¡¯t Fear the Reaper yesterday here in the Inn. ¡°Mind if I join you?¡± ¡°Sure, pull up a seat. You were doing the bard thing here yesterday, right? You¡¯re pretty good.¡± ¡°Thanks man, yeah. I¡¯ve always dug music, you know? But I can¡¯t play a lick in the real world.¡± He grinned as he sat down. ¡°I love that I can rock out here. It¡¯s a dream come true. Even cooler that I can play my favorite songs too. My names Zed, by the way. Zed Deathsong.¡± ¡°Nice to meet you.¡± I shook his head. ¡°I¡¯m Bull, this is my buddy Raider.¡± ¡°I haven¡¯t seen more than a couple Animal Companions in the game yet, so this is pretty cool.¡± Zed reached forward to pet Raider. The tiger narrowed his eyes a bit, but didn¡¯t object as Zed rubbed his head. ¡°You leveled him up or something earlier, with the light show?¡± ¡°Yeah. The default Companions don¡¯t really have that great of stats, so I¡¯m invested a bit to make sure he can handle combat some. Hitting a dungeon later tonight, and want to make sure that he¡¯ll be ok.¡± ¡°Awesome. Yeah, I got a quest to go do one as well, but I don¡¯t really know too many folks in the game yet. The VirtualGear headsets are just too damn expensive still. Mind if I ask where you¡¯re heading later?¡± Zed flagged down Geira and ordered an ale. ¡°Sure. It¡¯s a quest from the Werth¡¯s here in the Inn. [Expedition to Old Ravensport]. Have to explore the Ravensport Metro.¡± I replied. I guessed since he was hanging around here at the Inn, he has the same quest. ¡°Hey, yeah! That¡¯s the same one I have!¡± Zed replied. I was correct. ¡°I figure it¡¯s probably a terrible idea to go do a dungeon quest solo though. Especially since I¡¯m not exactly a combat build, ya know?¡± ¡°What is your character build, if you don¡¯t mind my asking?¡± ¡°Well, obviously the concept is a Bard, with kind of a rogue secondary. There¡¯s not much in the way of Bardic abilities yet, just the basic Performance skill to buff your party with, so I went high Agility for defense and took Stealth. I have a bow, but I¡¯m not very good with it.¡± ¡°Yeah. I noticed the talents and traits are pretty limited right now.¡± I replied. ¡°I think they as we explore and find new cities and areas, we¡¯ll get access to more.¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s what they say. I¡¯m looking forward to that, and hoping that they actually have some decent Bard stuff for me to pick up.¡± ¡°Tell you what, Zed. I¡¯m meeting with the rest of my party here at 5. I can¡¯t guarantee we¡¯ll have room, but I wouldn¡¯t mind having some buff backup, and you¡¯d fit in with the current party set up, I think. If you¡¯re gonna be around, check back with me here then, and I¡¯ll let you know?¡± ¡°Dude, that would rock!¡± Zed said, excited. ¡°I¡¯m almost level 2, so I¡¯m gonna go see about picking up a couple more quests in town and see if I can pop over before then. Thanks dude, I appreciate it.¡± I smiled as Zed ran off. He was an interesting guy, and I liked the music he was playing last time, so he¡¯d make a good soundtrack to dungeon to. I got up myself, dropped a couple gold on the table as a tip for the waitress, and headed off into town to pick up some cooking gear and ingredients and make myself some food for tonight.
Cooking was pretty easy. I decided what I was going to cook, and as long as I had some cooking utensils, a fire, and the ingredients needed I instinctively knew what I needed to do to create the food item and would automatically go through the motions. It didn¡¯t take long either, about 30 seconds per item created. It still took a little while to make all the [Sand Sandwiches] I was cooking up, because they each required several [Bread] to make, so I had a couple of steps to take. Still, less than an hour later I had 23 sandwiches all made up and ready to go, and I still had a couple hours to kill before I was meeting up with Torrie. So I dropped off some of the extra ingredients and my cooking tools in my storage chest at the Golden Horizon and decided to head out and do a little more hunting. I headed out and explored to the southwest of Ravensport a bit, filling in my map a little bit more and hunting Sand Wolves and Desert Boars as I went. With the increased Hit Points that both myself and Raider had, plus a more powerful bow with longer range, I was easily able to take down groups of three mobs. I probably could have taken four but I decided not to push my luck and avoided the larger packs. I also avoided other players as much as possible, since player killing was a possibility out here. I never really understood the PK mindset, honestly. Dueling, or even arena fights or a battleground type scenario like [Capture the Flag] or [Take and Holds], sure, I got that. I played football and baseball up through high school and college, so the idea of competition and team sports and the like appealed to me. But Player Killing was usually somewhat lopsided, picking on weaker, unsuspecting players just for shits and giggles. And usually, those being killed were unwilling. When I played MMO¡¯s I preferred games where PvP was optional. But I¡¯d wanted Apoch¡¯s Twilight to have a sense of danger for the players, to know they couldn¡¯t always trust other ¡°players¡± in the game. Now I¡¯m regretting the decision a bit. However, things were calm and after a couple hours I¡¯d managed to hunt a couple dozen boar and wolves and collected a nice pile of meat as well as a couple loot drops. Most was trash, but I did get pair of [Mighty Light Leather Boots] that would have been a minor upgrade and provided a +1 STR, but they required a minimum base STR of 5 to equip, so I just put them in my pack. Maybe I could use them down the line, or I could sell them off. I got back, sold off the trash, bought a few more cooking ingredients, and whipped up a dozen [Desert Sandwiches] since those provided +1 END, then stored away all my extra gear to make sure I had maximum inventory space. After that, I headed down to the dining room to meet up with Torrie, Zed, and the others. Zed was already there, set up and playing some music by the fireplace again. I could see the hulking form of Dagg sitting at one of the tables, so I made my way over it. Lorelei was sitting next to him as usual, and she looked up and shyly waved as I approached. ¡°Bull.¡± Dagg said, taciturn as always. ¡°Hey guys.¡± I nodded to them as I sat down. ¡°All set for tonight?¡± ¡°Yes. Level three.¡± The big man pointed to himself and Lorelei as he said that. ¡°Awesome. I¡¯m not quite there yet myself. That¡¯s impressive though. You guys find some more quests, or did you do some grinding?¡± ¡°We¡­ we actually¡­ umm¡­ We ended up running with¡­ errr¡­ some others late last night and ended up doing the Metro dungeon with them. Sorry. I couldn¡¯t sleep so I¡­ talked Dagg into hopping back on for a while with me and, well¡­¡± Lorelei turned red as she spoke up quietly. The little blond priestess looked downcast and embarrassed. ¡°But we¡¯ll still go with you and Torrie! We can run it again today.¡± ¡°Oh, cool. You sure? I mean, that would be a big help. We don¡¯t have a healer or tank without you guys, but I¡¯d understand if, you know, you want to do some other stuff.¡± ¡°No. We go.¡± Dagg grunted. ¡°Yeah, we said we¡¯d go with you. Be¡­ besides, you¡¯re our friends.¡± Lorelei nodded. ¡°Cool. Ahh, hey, there¡¯s Torrie.¡± I waved the little pseudo-kender over to our table. ¡°Greetings Torellisin.¡± ¡°Greetings, Sir Bull.¡± She said with a laugh and sat down. ¡°How¡¯s everyone doing tonight?¡± ¡°Good. Though Dagg and Lori here have already done the quest.¡± I said with a grin. ¡°Ooo, does that mean they don¡¯t want to go?¡± ¡°No, we go.¡± Dagg said again in his flat, monosyllabic way. ¡°Yeah, we said we¡¯d go, so we¡¯ll go.¡± Lorelei agreed. ¡°Besides, even without the¡­ the quest reward, the dungeons got some decent loot and XP. And¡­ I think¡­ didn¡¯t Bull say he had something else to do after that?¡± ¡°Yeah. I don¡¯t know if it¡¯ll pan out, or if we¡¯ll have the time though, but I heard a rumor about something I want to check out past the Metro a ways, if everyone¡¯s up for it.¡± Everyone agreed, so I continued. ¡°Cool. I took Cooking, so I¡¯ve been able to make up some sandwiches. I have two types, one that gives +1 Focus, and one that gives +1 Endurance. I have a bunch, so we should be covered for food for the trip.¡± ¡°Oh, awesome Bull. I can¡¯t wait to try them.¡± Torrie replied with a smile. ¡°I love trying new food out, and the idea of being able to eat crazy fantasy foods in a VR game is really exciting. Especially since I don¡¯t have to watch my figure in virtual reality!¡± ¡°I did have one thing I wanted to ask you all. Do you mind if we bring another person along?¡± ¡°Maybe. Who¡¯d you have in mind, Bull?¡± ¡°Well, Torrie, I was thinking that we could use a little music for the trip.¡± I said with a laugh and pointed over to the fireplace. ¡°I was talking with Zed over there earlier, and he has the quest but doesn¡¯t have a group to go with. He seems like a decent enough guy, and he¡¯s taking the bard type skills, so he¡¯s got a party-wide buff that could be useful.¡± The other looked at each other for a moment, then Dagg shrugged while Lorelei nodded. Torrie smiled and said ¡°Ok, let¡¯s do it.¡± So I called over Zed and introduced him to the rest of the group, and after a bit of small talk we headed out. The Metro wasn¡¯t that far, about two miles or so from town. I had noticed when I was exploring earlier that I never really got tired, no matter how much walking I did. I even tried running for a while and it didn¡¯t seem to fatigue me at all, but I did end up running into a couple of monster spawns accidentally, so it was somewhat dangerous to just sprint across the wilderness. We decided to take it at a normal pace. Zed fiddled with his guitar and played some music off and on while we walked, sometimes singing along. His voice was quiet and soulful, a surprising counterpoint to the more hard rock and metal songs he played. Though I did notice a lot of his renditions were slower tempo than the versions I was used to. They were nice though, and it lent a good atmosphere to our trip. ¡°So Dagg, Lorelei. Do you remember exactly where the dungeon is?¡± ¡°North.¡± Dagg grunted. ¡°It¡¯s marked on our maps since we¡¯ve been there, Bull.¡± Lorelei added. ¡°Excellent, that makes it a little easier then. We should¡ª¡° As I was talking, Aibee suddenly flew up off of Raiders back where she¡¯d been nestled in his fur. As everyone else suddenly started at the sight of the tiny AI, I realized that Aibee had been staying hidden this entire time and they hadn¡¯t seen her. ¡°Bull!¡± Aibee flew up and sat on my shoulder. She leaned in to my ear and whispered ¡°I looked into it and apparently I¡¯m unique. Other players do not have a Helper Bot like Aibee.¡± ¡°Umm, Bull, what¡¯s that?¡± Torrie said, peering at Aibee. ¡°She¡¯s adorable, but is she dangerous?¡± ¡°Err¡­¡± I had to think fast, and I decided to play it off like Aibee was a minipet. I had planned to have those in Apoch¡¯s Twilight for my players, so I hoped that this version of the game had them as well. When all else fails, steal from your favorite media, I guess. ¡°This is Aibee. She¡¯s a¡­ err¡­ Navigation Pixie.¡± ¡°Ooo, neat. Where¡¯d you get her?¡± Torrie asked. Everyone crowded in to look at Aibee, who buried herself into my neck a bit to hide. ¡°Random drop? I guess I was lucky?¡± ¡°Dude, she¡¯s like a pet, right? Is she purely cosmetic, or does she provide any buffs or anything? Either way, she¡¯s awesome. And she talks, that is so cool.¡± ¡°Umm, she¡¯s kind of a compass?¡± I replied. Zed implied that there were both purely cosmetic minipets and some with in-game functionality, so I decided to lean into that. ¡°She can track nearby quest objectives and keep track of mob info, I think? I don¡¯t really know what all she¡¯s capable of yet.¡± Aibee flew up and bowed. ¡°Nice to meet you all. Now, Bull. I came out to tell you there¡¯s a possible quest objective to the west, over the next ridge.¡± I looked out where Aibee was pointing, but didn¡¯t see anything but green sand dunes. I was surprised again that Aibee would be so proactive, but I wasn¡¯t about to look a gift A.I. in the mouth. She was proving surprisingly useful. ¡°Another quest? Sounds good to me, lets go check it out everyone!¡± Torrie said with a smile and headed toward the direction Aibee had been pointing. I looked at the others and shrugged, and we started following after, Aibee fluttering down to sit down on my shoulder. ¡°I think we need to have a little chat later. You know more than you¡¯re letting on, don¡¯t you.¡± I whispered to Aibee, who looked sheepish but didn¡¯t say anything. I whistled to Raider and we followed the others to the west. We marched up over a small dune to find the blasted remains of a building. It was hard to say how large it had once been or even what the design had been as most of the walls were gone, and those that remained were scoured by wind and sand and tinged the same emerald green as everything else around us. It looked to have been made of solid, thick stone at least a couple stories tall, and enough of the front of the building remain that it looked to have semi-protected the interior. Aibee hovered in front of me looking intently at the ruin, so I assumed that was our target. There was a large arched entrance and beyond that what was likely once an enormous entrance chamber. The rest of the building was destroyed or buried in sand, but in the center of the chamber was the ruins of a large statue about 10 feet tall, standing on a pedestal that was about four feet tall. The statue was worn and battered from exposure to the elements, with the features scoured clean by the sand. It was robed and hooded, impossible to tell if it was supposed to be male or female, and it had a broken stump where one of its arms was supposed to be, the stump raised as if holding something aloft. The pedestal had a large stone placard with some writing on it, though it too was badly worn and the symbols were one I¡¯d never seen. The entire thing gave me a shiver, as this was obviously a temple to one of the old gods, long since forgotten. Part of Apoch¡¯s backstory was that there were once 36 gods that ruled the world, a typical D&D style pantheon. 12 were good-aligned, 12 evil, and 12 neutral that held them all in balance. I fully admit I cribbed the concept off the old Dragonlance series, as I found the idea fascinating. The Twilight, the war that destroyed the war, happened because the good and evil gods joined the mortal races in their worldwide war, and the neutral gods began to choose a side as well rather than keeping the peace. At the last minute, before all life was snuffed out, the gods simply vanished and the war ended. The mortal races turned from the gods, and soon almost all details about them had been lost and forgotten by all. That was the story, anyway. The truth was that as a game designer, while I loved the idea of a pantheon in general, I found it stifling for actual game play, especially once you started dealing with priests and clerics and such. So the backstory was a way for me to include the idea, but then handwave it all away and give the players, and the world, a blank slate to work from. No gods, just what the mortals and players were capable of doing. So I recognized that this was a temple to an old god, but I¡¯d never named or really even defined any of the gods outside of some general concepts, such as the gods of magic. I¡¯d also never written this temple into the game, or this quest, so this was new to me. I was actually excited by that. I really only had the initial starting area and surroundings defined, so I knew eventually I¡¯d start encountering new stuff, assuming that this game and world were actually fleshed out beyond my original concepts and notes, but I hadn¡¯t really expected to see anything so soon. That said, I was stumped. We looked around, but beyond some bare, broken stone walls, this battered statue, and emerald sand, there wasn¡¯t much to find. ¡°Maybe we dig?¡± Dagg said, after we looked around a bit. ¡°That doesn¡¯t feel right, and I suspect all well find is sand.¡± Torrie replied looking down at the ground. ¡°Besides, I don¡¯t have a shovel or anything to dig with.¡± ¡°There¡¯s something¡­¡± Zed muttered. He was bent down on one knee in front of the statue, staring at the inscription. ¡°I can almost feel it, there¡¯s something here.¡± As he looked over it, his hands unconsciously plucked at his guitar. He plucked a couple of notes quietly, but then strummed a chord a little more confidently. The notes rang out, and then echoed back from the statue, and the first character on the placard began glowing softly. Zed grinned and strummed a few more notes, and more characters lit up one after the other. Then he hit a discordant note, and the entire thing faded. ¡°Hah, it¡¯s not a message! It¡¯s a line of musical notes.¡± ¡°Can you read it, Zed?¡± ¡°I think so, Bull. I can¡¯t read music in the real world, but I think my Performance skill is letting me translate the notes here. It¡¯s hard though, because it¡¯s so faded and worn. Give me a few.¡± ¡°Did you get a quest pop up or anything?¡± Torrie asked. ¡°No. I think this might be special. Maybe it¡¯s only something you can do if you have the Performance skill.¡± Zed looked over the musical notes for a few minutes more, plucking at the guitar occasionally. Then he finally stepped back a few feet, took a deep breath, and began playing. The notes were deep and resonating, and while it was only a few seconds of music the impression it left was dark and sad, soulful, like a dirge for the dead. As each note and chord was struck, the symbols lit up one after another until they were finally all lit up. They flashed, shining brightly, then faded along with the final note. I looked around as silence reigned, nothing happening. ¡°So, what now¡ª¡° I began to say, but was interrupted by a rumble, a vibration in the air around us that shook my teeth. The statue shimmered and began to move, the green stain deepening as the stone began to take color. The robe darkened to black, and the features filled in, though with the hood the face still couldn¡¯t be seen clearly and it was impossible to tell if the figure was male or female. The missing arm reformed, and was holding a large guitar, of all things. I blinked at that, but made some sense if it was a bard quest. I focused on the statue and took a few steps back as it stepped forward off the pedestal. [Echo of a Lost God] was the name of the thing.The narrative has been stolen; if detected on Amazon, report the infringement. ¡°Ok, I have a quest now. I gotta defeat this thing. Did you guys get that as well?¡± Zed asked as he retreated away from the statue as well, moving back behind Dagg as the warrior strode forward. ¡°Nope. Nothing here. Guess this one¡¯s only for you, man.¡± I replied as the others also replied with a negative. Combat had started, so further conversation wasn¡¯t really possible. As Dagg moved forward to engage, Torrie crouched and went into stealth, and the rest of us moved back a bit further. I whistled to Raider and told him to attack once Dagg had engaged. The [Echo of a Lost God] paused, then with a motion brought his free hand down on the guitar. A discordant note rang out, and ripples of visible power exploded out in all directions. The force of the blast knocked me back a step, and I saw a red -56 flash up over my head and -50 flash up over Raider. I shook my head, my ears ringing from the sound. Zed began playing, and I recognized the first few notes of Led Zeppelin¡¯s Immigrant Song and grinned. That was good fighting music, and I felt confidence flow into me. A buff icon shaped like a musical note in my HUD indicated that Zed¡¯s song was granting a +2 bonus to hit, which would be helpful. Meanwhile Dagg charged forward, letting out a taunting roar as he swung his sword down, slicing into the robed figure. I readied my bow and let fly Rapid Shot, one arrow finding its mark while the other just missed. I dealt 65 damage so the thing didn¡¯t have too much Damage Reduction, but my damage only moved its health bar a sliver. Unfortunately, it was enough that Raider wouldn¡¯t be able to deal any damage without a critical hit, so I called him back and put him on standby in case we were ambushed by something else during the battle. The fight continued from there. Besides the Area of Effect blast, the Echo could also fire focused attack blasts from its guitar. These blasts seemed to be its base attack, and the AoE attack seemed to be on a 12 second cooldown. Dagg was taking considerable damage as he kept the Echo focused on him, but Lorelei was able to keep p with heals on him. The rest of us used a healing potion after a couple more AoE blasts to prevent her from needing to heal us. After a couple minutes, we had dropped the Echo¡¯s health down to around 10% when it suddenly reared back and strummed a different chord, this one louder than before. Dark purple energy exploded out from it, knocking us all back several yards and stunning us. I grumbled and should have seen this coming, it was a phase transition. Some bosses would, after they¡¯d taken a certain percentage of damage, change up their attack patterns and even their types of attacks. The stun was an unavoidable effect to allow for the boss mob to perform some animations and set up for the next phase of the battle. The [Echo of a Lost God] played a series of chords, a terrifying metal riff that sent chills down my spine, and one after another skeletal hands began to push their way up from the emerald sand around us. A dozen skeletons climbed up from the ground each armed with a wicked looking curved sword and a shield. The stun wore off as the Skeletons charged us. ¡°Dagg, Torrie, focus on the boss. Me and Raider will handle the Skeletons!¡± I shouted. I tried to sound confident, but I was more than a little worried. This could go bad real fast, and I still didn¡¯t know what would happen to me if I died and I was determined not to find out. Raider pounced on one of the Skeletons, and Dagg taunted one as he pushed his way past, charging once again at the Echo. Torrie slipped in the shadows again and began circling around the robed boss. I fired a rapid shot at a pair of skeletons near Lorelei to try and pull aggro on them, then ran another direction, deliberately bumping into three more skeletons as I did so to get them to focus on me as well. The [Lost Gods Warriors], as the skeletons were named, didn¡¯t seem to have any Damage Resistance so our attacks were doing full damage. However, I estimated they each had about 300 HP, as my attacks did maybe one-third of their damage. My only hope was that I could kite them away from Lorelei and stay alive long enough for Dagg and Torrie to finish off the last of the bosses health. Two of the Skeletons managed to hit me as I ran past, dealing 61 damage each. I winced, as my current health dropped under 250, half of my current total. If it wasn¡¯t for the END boost from my bow and the food buff, I¡¯d be just a hair away from dead, so I thanked my lucky stars for that. I turned and fired again at one of the Skeletons that was moving toward Lorelei, who was trying to stay ahead of them as well while staying in range of Dagg, and it turned to start marching toward me as well. I popped another healing potion and kept moving. There was a short cooldown on using potions to prevent them from being spammed, but it was short enough I could se one every few rounds of combat. I was now very, very thankful for that design decision, as I almost limited them to one per combat the way World of Warcraft did. Raider took a nasty hit as one of the skeletons got a critical strike on him, and his health was down under half as well. I grimaced, but sent him to attack one of the skeletons we hadn¡¯t pulled yet as well, hoping he could hold out. I now had seven of the skeletons chasing after me, while Raider was engaged with two and one had followed Dagg to the boss. Lorelei still had two remaining on her, but she was dodging around a chunk of broken wall, keeping it between them and herself. ¡°Wow! Yes! Take that!¡± I heard Torrie yell as she materialized behind the Echo and drove her blade into it. She had taken the Backstab Trait, which let her do extra damage on an attack when she was in stealth, and her happy shout just now indicated she must have gotten a good, solid critical strike in. I fired off another shot, targeting another of Lorelei¡¯s Skeletons, grimaced as three of the skeletons chasing me caught up and swung at me. One missed, but the other two connected and I watched my health plummet. I turned and began running. I couldn¡¯t take another hit like that, as my health was now down to just over 100. Fortunately for me, movement speed was based on AGI, and mine was pretty high. So I was just a bit faster than the Skeletons. I spent the next couple rounds of combat running and dodging, and managed not to take anymore damage. Zed seemed to be safe where he was and just kept playing since the attack bonus he gave us was better than any physical attack he could manage. Lorelei still had one skeleton attacking her, but after a heal spell on herself, she went back to casting on Dagg and dodging. Raider took some more damage and was hurt pretty bad, so I had him start running as well and hoped his speed was enough to stay ahead of the skeletons as well. Dagg was getting hammered by the Echo¡¯s guitar blasts, but fortunately it didn¡¯t seem to use it¡¯s AoE during this phase. If it had, that would have been the end of us. Torrie used Vanish, and then did another Backstab and Dagg followed up with another big slash. As he did so, the robed [Echo of a Lost God] staggered and dropped to its knees. The Skeletons that had been chasing me suddenly crumbled into dust, and I let out a sigh of relief. The Echo didn¡¯t say anything, but held the guitar u, holding it by the side and neck so we knew it wasn¡¯t going to play anymore notes. It stood and walked toward Zed. I held my bow at he ready, but I was pretty certain we were done with combat. The robed figure presented the guitar to Zed without a word, and the bard smiled. ¡°Quest complete, man. Awesome!¡± He took the guitar, and the Echo simply faded away. A loot window opened up for each of us, showing a bit of gold and a decent chunk of XP, but no other loot. Zed, on the other hand, was ecstatic. The guitar he was holding was chilling to look it. It looked roughly like a Fender Flying V, with the body in a deep, evil looking purple color. The neck looked to have been carved from bone, and the head was the skull of an animal. It looked powerful, but kind of evil. Despite that Zed seemed to love it. ¡°Dude, this is awesome. [Instrument of the Damned] gives me a couple stat bonuses, +1 Endurance and Charisma. But it also can fire those ranged blasts that the boss was using, and even better it uses Performance for the attack skill rather than Ranged Combat! This is perfect!¡± Zed was grinning like a maniac. ¡°Plus, I unlocked a skill I can buy when I get enough XP, [Dirge of the Damned]. It lets me summon a skeleton. Fucking awesome.¡± ¡°This was a Temple to one of the old god. A god of Death and Music maybe?¡± Lorelei said quietly, looking around. ¡°Hard to say. There¡¯s no lore on the old gods as far as I know.¡± Torrie replied. ¡°That said, we should rest up and get going. We still got another dungeon to delve.¡± We were resting up from our fight with the Echo, waiting on our mana and health to refresh and our wounds to go away. Even with my pain threshold down to 30%, it still hurt a good deal to take that much damage. Each hit felt like a good, solid punch that would have left me covered in bruises in my old life. Here though the wounds closed up and vanished in no time, the pain faded to nothingness in a matter of minutes. It was amazing. ¡°Oh wow, this is awesome. I just noticed, that boss tripped off a Storyline Quest for me.¡± Zed said while we were resting up, scanning through his menu. ¡°Storyline Quest? What¡¯s that?¡± I asked. I had my suspicions, but that boss and quest were new, not something I¡¯d written into my game, and I¡¯d never labeled any quests like that. ¡°You don¡¯t know, Bull? Didn¡¯t read up on the game much before you started playing, did you?¡± Torrie grinned at me. ¡°Err, yeah. Let¡¯s just say I jumped in head first.¡± I couldn¡¯t very well tell her that I died and was somehow reborn into a video game based on something I once wrote. She¡¯d think I was nuts. Hell, I barely believe it. ¡°Throughout the game besides the normal quests that everyone can pick up, there are hidden quests called Storyline Quests. Not too much is known about these as the devs were keeping details under tight wraps, but some details and rumors have slipped out in the last week or two. There are apparently a couple types of Storyline Quests ¨C Personal and Plot. Personal Storyline Quests are like what Zed found, a quest chain that only he will get to follow up on, and will probably take him a long time to finish. It will likely have a big impact on his character, and can offer him some really cool, unique rewards and skills.¡± ¡°Bitchin¡¯.¡± Zed said with a grin, lightly strumming his new guitar. ¡°Harsh. Reminds me a bit of Star Wars Galaxies and the way they originally handled Jedi.¡± ¡°I never played that game. Before my time, I think.¡± Zed said. ¡°Still, this is awesome. I haven¡¯t heard that anyone else had unlocked one of these yet, so I might be the first. Although the quest itself is pretty vague. It just says I need to continue searching for more information about the Lost God of Death and Music.¡± ¡°Plot Storyline Quests, on the other hand, are something that move the entire games storyline forward.¡± Torrie said, continuing her explanation. ¡°They will trigger events, open up new areas of the game, unlock new classes and classes, and generally have an effect on the game as a whole. From the official descriptions, it sounds like some of the actual quests will only be for a single group, or maybe a single raid¡¯s worth of players, while others will open up quests that anyone in the game can take and participate in. In either case though, the success or failure of the quest will impact the game permanently.¡± ¡°So wait, some of these quests are one time only?¡± I asked. ¡°Like, only one player or group can ever get them, and they will be the only ones in the game with the quest rewards or the skill or whatever? That seems a bit... unfair. Especially to players who come along later in the game. I know every game I¡¯ve ever played in the past that had any sort of limited rewards tended to have a lot of negative pushback. Hell, even limited-time cosmetic rewards, like holiday pets or clothing and costumes would have their share of people complaining if they weren¡¯t widely available or weren¡¯t recycled on a regular basis, like a holiday item being available again during the next years holiday.¡± Everyone looked at me in silence for a few seconds, then looked at each other. I could see confusion on their faces, which means I just hit a landmind. This was something I probably should have known, I guess. ¡°Bull? Have you ever played a VRMMO before?¡± Torrie asked, quietly. ¡°Umm, no? To be honest, this is my first jumping into a VR game at all.¡± I replied. I decided to be honest about that, at least, since it seemed they expected me to know certain basic facets of the game that, well, I obviously did not. ¡°Dude, really? Wow.¡± Zed replied, surprise evident on his face. ¡°What was the last online game you played then? I know you¡¯ve talked about playing MMO¡¯s before, I just assumed¡­¡± ¡°Probably World of Warcraft, I guess?¡± I said tentatively. ¡°Woah. Yeah, old school. Huh.¡± Zed shook his head. ¡°How come?¡± Torrie asked. ¡°You seem like you¡¯re a big ol¡¯ geek of a gamer. Seems like VR would be right up your alley.¡± ¡°I guess I¡¯m more of a tabletop and board gamer?¡± I answered cautiously. ¡°And I just never got around to picking up the VR hardware?¡± Dagg suddenly shifted forward. He¡¯d been still and silent since we¡¯d settled down for the break, so this surprised us all. He lifted his waterskin up and took a big drink, then slowly began to speak. That was a surprise to all of us, since he rarely said more than one or two words or simply grunted. His voice was a deep baritone, and he sounded a little older, almost familiar It reminded me a little of my grandfather¡¯s voice, actually. ¡°To understand why modern VRMMO¡¯s are designed like they are, you need to understand previous generations of virtual reality and how people reacted to them.¡± We all just stared at Dagg as he spoke. To be honest, I had assumed he wasn¡¯t all that bright. Playing to the ¡°big dumb¡± stereotype, I guess. And it was clear that no one else expected this either, including Lorelei, though she just looked more embarrassed than she did surprised. ¡°1st and 2nd generation VR was pretty crude. The Oculus back in the mid-teens was generally just a headset, while 2nd gen added some feedback and control peripherals, but was still just a set of strap-on goggles at the end of the day. They were neat toys, but were very limited and VR would have remained just that, a toy, had it not been the big step forward with 3G VR, the neural override. You¡¯re familiar with this, of course, since it¡¯s what allows you to dive in and experience virtual reality as a fully immersive experience by putting your body and mind into a state of lucid dreaming.¡± I just nodded as if I knew this already, as I was no longer in Kansas. This also told me that whatever happened to me, I was not necessarily in an alternate reality, but was at the very least some years in the future. ¡°The 3rd gen systems still had a lot of problems. Computer systems weren¡¯t really able to keep up with the massive storage and processing needed to render and deal with thousands of players and hundreds of thousands of objects and NPCs that went into a virtual world, so the graphics and detail tended to be pretty shoddy. Plus interactive AI was still pretty limited. It was during this period though that the first big multiplayer VR game was released, Pit of Volrune, a Diablo-like game.¡± ¡°At the time, PoV was the most expensive game ever created. It was in development for nearly a decade, and on release was the best selling game of all time and was credited with a 500% spike in sales of 3rd gen VR systems, launching with 100 servers capable handling up to 2000 players each, and expanding 500 servers within a couple months. Its initial success blew everyone away. And its rapid demise nearly destroyed the VR market as well. Within a year of release PoV had shuttered and consolidated all of the extra servers it had opened, and six months after that it was down to just 10 servers. Heathen Queen Games, the developer, shut down not only the game 2 years after launch but also closed down the entire company as they were deep in debt.¡± ¡°How the hell can a company tank so badly?¡± I interrupted. I couldn¡¯t help myself, I was shocked. ¡°The game must have been pretty cool to sell so well, so what did they do to fuck it up so much?¡± ¡°Honestly? HQ Games did everything right, as far as I can tell. The game launched on time, had surprisingly few bugs and little downtime following launch, was adding new, free content on a regular basis, and even had some pretty well-received costumer support. They may have expanded their hardware a bit too quickly, but considering how fast copies of the game were flying off the shelves, I think any company would have made the same call. No, they did everything right, but they failed to realize one simple thing. Hardcore gamers are a very, very small minority of the player base.¡± I blinked. ¡°Yeah, I get that. Kinda like with WoW, less than 1% of the payers were hardcore, top-end raiders. Most people just logged in and played casually with friends. Not sure how that translates though.¡± ¡°Heathen Queen didn¡¯t get it either. VR is¡­ different. It¡¯s immersive in a way that gaming never could achieve before, especially with 3G. There is no separation between player and screen, no controller, no mental safety net that other games and earlier VR had. And despite fifty years of fear-mongering about video games making us violent or desensitizing us to violence, PoV proved that none of that was true. People are not wired to be killers, even when what you¡¯re killing are monsters. We avoid conflict and violence. It¡¯s easy to disconnect and know it¡¯s just a game when you¡¯re on your couch, holding a controller, and playing on a 60-inch plasma screen. But most people find that much harder to do when all of your senses are telling you that everything around you is real. Even dialing back the sensations like pain or toning down the gore didn¡¯t help. Even though we know we¡¯re in a game, our minds still want to treat it as real.¡± ¡°When the numbers first started falling off, Heathen Queen started looking at the numbers and found that nearly 80% of players quit playing after barely a month of play time, with over 25% of players never logging back in after a few hours of game play. No one wanted to admit that the game was too intense, too realistic, too violent, and just too damned scary for them, so it was several months before anyone really understood why the drop-offs were happening. And once everyone started to realize the cause, the entire VR business nearly crashed and burned overnight.¡± ¡°Wow.¡± I thought back to my first couple encounters, how terrifying the rats had been, and how much it hurt when I nearly died to that first Sand Wolf encounter. ¡°Ok, yeah, I can see that. I know the first few fights here shook me up a bit. I wasn¡¯t expecting them to be so¡­ visceral.¡± ¡°Yeah. And it never really goes away.¡± Dagg nodded. ¡°After that, VR stepped away from the violent games for a while. With the ¡¯29 floods, and everything that¡¯s happened since, people needed a place to escape to, and virtual reality filled that need. A lot more entertainment began to get broadcast through VR, with virtual museums and parks for people to walk around and explore, sporting events and the Olympics so you could virtually attend and even watch the games up close from the sidelines, and even thousands of virtual clubs and cafes opening up. On the gaming front, multiplayer sports games were wildly popular, and EA even trotted The Sims franchise out of retirement for Virtual Sims with people creating entire virtual neighborhoods.¡± ¡°The Pit of Volrune incident continued to get studied, in part because gamers were clamoring for an MMO, but no studio was willing to jump in without finding a way to make it financially work and find a way to keep gamers around long-term. So they created test ¡®games¡¯ and brought in a wide variety of types of players, hardcore, casual, and even people with no gaming experience. And in a strange show of solidarity, the majority of the gaming companies big and small were willing to share their findings with each other.¡± ¡°Eventually they found that less than 10% of the overall playerbase could handle games that were primarily combat-oriented, whether they were dungeon crawlers like most MMOs and Diablo-likes, arena-style shooters and MOBA¡¯s, or even single player shooters or open world games. However, a much larger portion of gamers didn¡¯t mind those elements, as long as there were other things to do most of the time.¡± ¡°Something else that was discovered as an unexpected result of these studies was that the less a game conformed to the laws of physics, the harder it was for a player to accept and enjoy. I¡¯m sure you¡¯ve wondered why it took so long to travel out here to what is essentially the very first dungeon of Apoch¡¯s Twilight? After all, it¡¯s a couple miles and a straight walk takes 15-20 minutes. Imagine what travel times will be like once we¡¯re traveling cross country, from city to city, or country to country.¡± ¡°You¡¯re right. I didn¡¯t really think of that. I mean, in most games I played, you could walk across the entire game world in 30 to 60 minutes most of the time.¡± To be fair, I had thought of this, sort of, but I couldn¡¯t explain it to Dagg. The Tabletop RPG had my players getting trapped by a rogue AI inside the VRMMO, and they had to find a way to beat it to escape. Since it was a TTRPG, I could easily fast forward past travel and such, so it wasn¡¯t the big, boring time waster it would be in a real game. I¡¯d actually also planned to have game events like the Plot Storyline Quests, but again those were centered around the enemy AI, and were simply a convenience to ¡°gate¡± my content and keep the players on the plot train. This was something else, something very different. ¡°It was found that the more things you removed from inside the game, the more unrealistic it was and the more the human mind had trouble accepting it, and thus enjoying it. When distances were shortened to make travel times faster and more acceptable, players complained about how cramped and small the world felt. When the need to eat was removed, players found it unnerving. Most games do still remove the need to use the bathroom in game though, thank goodness. Probably because you can¡¯t shut that off or ignore it in real life. Speaking of which, I should actually step away for that. We¡¯ll take turns doing bio-breaks, so keep an eye on my body?¡± Dagg suddenly froze in place as his player took off his VR gear, I¡¯d assume. I sat back and looked at the rest of the group, processing what the big fighter had said thus far. Lorelei smiled and shook her head. ¡°He hasn¡¯t said more than a dozen words since we started, and all of a sudden¡­ this.¡± I laughed, motioning with a shrug. ¡°Sorry. He knows a lot about virtual reality in real life, and likes to talk about it.¡± She blushed and laughed. ¡°Believe it or not he¡¯s giving you the very condensed, non-technical version.¡± ¡°Wow. Remind me not to get him going then.¡± I grinned. ¡°So I¡¯m guessing we¡¯re using what, 4th gen VR gear then?¡± ¡°Yeah, I think so.¡± Torrie responded. ¡°It fixed some of the data synch issues 3G tended to have, has some better safety redundancies, and has better processing and translation software so that the games look much more realistic while not requiring much more backend processing power. Or something like that? I dunno. I may be a nerd girl, but I¡¯m not much of a techy. I just play the games.¡± Dagg came back, and Lorelei went AFK, though I supposed ¡°Away From Keyboard¡± didn¡¯t really apply anymore. ¡°Away from Headset¡±? I¡¯ wasn¡¯t even sure what the VR gear they were using looked like. ¡°Torrie explained we were using 4th gen hardware, or so she thought.¡± I said to Dagg after a moment. ¡°And you explained why distances are so far in the game, I can kinda grok that. So how does that tie into the original question of why the game can get away with limited and unique quests that most players won¡¯t get access to?¡± ¡°Remember what I said about how many players would actually really get into the combat of the game? Well, there are still a lot of players that want to come and play a game like this. They just don¡¯t want to be on the front lines of combat. Here¡¯s another thing. You haven¡¯t died in game yet, have you?¡± ¡°Umm, no?¡± I said, confused. ¡°Come close a couple times, but not yet. Why?¡± ¡°Torrie, Zed? You died in here yet? Or maybe in another VRMMO?¡± They both nodded, their faces serious. ¡°Simply put, dying sucks. It¡¯s hard to really describe, but at the core there¡¯s a primal fear of dying that we all have, and it¡¯s something we can never shake no matter how hard we try or how much we tell ourselves that its just a game. The software cushions things as much as possible, makes it as brief and painless as possible, but there¡¯s still, there¡¯s always this moment when everything goes dark, before you respawn, where you think to yourself that maybe, just maybe, it was real this time. That you¡¯re not going to wake up.¡± ¡°Since MOBA and Deathmatch eSports went VR, do you know what the most common reason for players to retire is? Fear of death. Teams limit how many matches per month players can play to reduce the mental trauma on their players, and still most of these eSports players retire or quit after an average of four years, many of whom end up in therapy for years after.¡± ¡°Remember how I said that 10% of players are able to handle combat regularly? That is true. But only a fraction of those players end up being hardcore players. Most are much more casual, or much more careful in how they play to minimize their deaths. After that we¡¯ll have a bunch of players who are very casual, who will mess around, travel, sightsee, play with trade skills, occasionally quest, and while they may be semi-permanent players they are not really full adventurers, not the way we are. And beyond that, probably three quarters of the entire player base will be ¡®residents¡¯, people who mostly just ¡®live¡¯ in the game world. They¡¯re take up trade skills or do safe, non-combat work to level up, eventually they¡¯ll buy their own shop or home, and they¡¯ll just live here in the game world part time, an escape from the crap that is the real world. Functionally, they¡¯ll be little different than NPCs, really.¡± Zed snorted. ¡°Hell, from what I¡¯ve seen of this games AI so far, I suspect the actual NPCs will be livelier and more interactive than a lot of the residents.¡± ¡°So, what you¡¯re saying is that, say the game has 10 million players. Maybe 10,000 of them will be active Adventurers doing these sorts of quests?¡± That made sense to me, in a weird way. ¡°Yeah. And of those 10,000, there will be a lot of competition to be the first to explore new zones, fight new bosses, and such. Those are all accomplishments in and of themselves. But then throw in dozens or hundreds of unique Plot Quests to discover as well. Sure, it¡¯s not necessarily fair, if you assume that everything should be fair for every single player. But it¡¯s already not, since most players can¡¯t or won¡¯t go looking for that stuff anyway. And so long as there¡¯s a decent amount of these secret quests to find, there¡¯s enough to go around for most of us active Adventurers. It¡¯s not really a big deal, ultimately. A few games have done it before, and it¡¯s worked out. And Apoch¡¯s Twilight is looking to be bigger and better in almost every way.¡± ¡°Ok, so a friend got me into this. It was a bit of a surprise, which is why I didn¡¯t really have time to research it or follow up. I kinda got the game dropped on me suddenly.¡± That was close enough to the truth, in a way. ¡°You¡¯re talking millions of players, but so far I¡¯ve not seen nearly that many and I¡¯m mostly seeing the same faces. Where is everyone? I didn¡¯t get an option to start in another city or anything.¡± ¡°That¡¯s because this is just the first alpha stage of the game. I say alpha, but it¡¯s not like a traditional alpha test. The game has apparently been stress tested and bug tested and all that already. Instead they¡¯re letting players into that game in waves, based on applications. You must have had a really, really good friend to get you into the first wave. There were a couple hundred thousand applicants, and they only chose 1000. They¡¯ll open it up to a larger group next weekend for the beta phase, and will be ramping up to an omega phase in two months time, in which the game is live for everyone. Most of the Alpha and Beta wave are more hardcore players, so we¡¯re getting to push the early game content and open the game up for the more casual players, so that there¡¯s a living economy and safe spaces for them to explore and find their way in.¡± ¡°On that note, we should get moving. Time¡¯s wasting, and I got an early class in the morning, so I can¡¯t stay up too late.¡± Torrie interrupted us as she stood up, stretched, and gathered her equipment. ¡°I get the feeling if I let you boys talk, you¡¯d be sitting on your asses all night.¡± ¡°Yeah, Dagg and I both work pretty early as well, so we need to be careful staying up too late or we¡¯ll be zombies.¡± Lorelei said softly. Dagg chuckled and nodded at her worlds. ¡°Ok, let¡¯s head off. We shouldn¡¯t be too far from the Metro.¡± Book 1, Chapter 7 We set off once more. We had a couple stops along the way to deal with a moderately sized pack of Sand Wolves, but they weren¡¯t much of a challenge for us. During the fight we even found that Zed could fire off his guitars special Dischord ranged attack while maintaining his Bardic Performance. He just worked in a loud chord jam into his song. It was really cool. We also detoured a couple times so that Dagg could harvest some Copper Ore from mining nodes and Torrie could gather plants we found along the way. The big fighter was planning to take up Blacksmithing so had taken Miner, and Torrie had picked up Botany so she could be an Alchemist. Finally we reached an area on the edge of the bright green sands, where the land turned to a rocky terrain that was tinged a more natural color, outside the edge of the Shield Crystals¡¯ reach. Dagg took point and headed forward toward a flat, dusty area and brushed the dust off something. He bent down and lifted a metal signs several feet across with writing on it. The words were badly faded, but could still be read: ¡°Ravensport Metro¡± with the words ¡°134th St. Station¡± underneath. I expected this, but it was still kind of surreal to see something so modern and mundane in what has been almost a pure fantasy world thus far. ¡°Here.¡± He said simply, and began brushing sand and dust off a large metal door, which he easily lifted despite its size. A set of stair led down into pitch black darkness. We paused for a moment as Dagg and Lorelei pulled something out of their storage. They were two long strips of cloth with a [Glowstone] bound in the center. They carefully wrapped the cloths around their heads, creating a makeshift headlamp. I nodded in approval. ¡°Oh, now that¡¯s clever!¡± ¡°Wow. I didn¡¯t realize you could actually create things outside the game¡¯s actual crafting system. That¡¯s really interesting.¡± Torrie murmured, looking at the headlamp. ¡°I wonder what else you can do?¡± ¡°There¡¯s no¡­ no light down there. We had trouble last time, so we came up with this. I meant to suggest you make some too, but I forgot, sorry¡­¡± Lorelei said quietly, her head hanging. ¡°No, no, that¡¯s ok! We totally got this!¡± Torrie replied, patting the blond mage n the arm and smiling warmly. ¡°It¡¯s not your fault. We should have talked about the dungeon a bit more once we knew you¡¯d been in it already.¡± ¡°Totally cool. I got some [Glowstones] if we need more, too.¡± Zed grinned, holding his new guitar fiercely. ¡°Let¡¯s stick with the normal formations. Dagg, take the lead. Torrie, you¡¯re behind him. Zed, Lorelei, and I will hang back. I¡¯ll have Raider help the front line or protect us in the rear as needed.¡± We set off down the dark steps. The [Glowstone] gave off around thirty feet of light. The stairs formed a ¡°U¡± shape as they went down, meaning we couldn¡¯t see anything below us even with the light until we were most of the way down. Almost immediately, a stench assaulted our nostrils, and I could hear a couple of the others gagging. It was a pretty rank combination of smells ¨C the damp, musty, moldy smell of a basement that frequently gets wet combined with the sickening smell of rotted meat. I¡¯d worked one summer unloading a beverage truck to grocery stores, and one of our deliveries was to this store that threw all their deli meat scraps out into a dumpster the night before we delivered there. It unusually smelled pretty bad, but one week we were in the middle of a blistering heat wave, and even at night the temperature didn¡¯t drop below 80, and was around 100 before noon. By mid-afternoon when we got there, the smell was so awful, I actually threw up a couple times and had to work with a cloth wrapped around my mouth and nose. It was nasty. And this reminded me of that in all the wrong ways. Everyone except Dagg and Lorelei started fumbling for their Stats Window, and I followed suit. Smell was one of the options you could turn down, and I hurriedly turned it down about 60%, making the stench barely tolerable. Lorelei apologized again for not warning us, but I swear I could see Dagg smirking. I¡¯m sure they went through something similar their first trip through, and he found it funny to see others walk face first into that wall of funk. I sighed and let my breathing regulate. We reached the bottom of the staircase, and Dagg motioned for everyone to stop, then cautiously took a step off into the darkness beyond, his [Glowstone] headlamp providing some dim illumination. He took one more step, and to the left at the very edge of the light I saw movement. The armored fighter held up his shield and suddenly bellowed a Taunt, and the rest of us began moving into formation as several things came rushing out of the darkness toward us. I was familiar with the Metro Dungeon, so I knew what these were ¨C Rotted Ghouls. Humanoids that had been trapped in these tunnels during the Twilight and warped by magic, disease, or whatever, their skin was shrunken and emaciated over their skeletal frames and mottled grey, with mold and rot eating away at them. Their eyes glowed a sinister yellow in the darkness, reflecting the [Glowstone] lights, and their hands ended in wicked, twisted clawed hands. To be fair, the entire dungeon was loosely based off the feral ghouls and the rough layout of some of the subway maps in Fallout 3. I wasn¡¯t always original. The ghouls were fast, and besides the one that was taunted, two others leapt at Dagg as well, clawing at his armor. He swung his sword at one, connecting and lopping its arm off in a spray of pixilated, yellowish blood. He took two viscous blows in return however and staggered back. The fourth rushed toward where we were bunched up on the stairs, and I immediately commanded Raider to charge forward and intercept it, and he pounced off the stairs and onto the chest of the ghoul with a snarl, his claws raking the things hide. Lorelei uttered ¡°Protection¡± as she motioned with her hands and a runic circle appeared underneath Dagg for a moment, then he began to glow very faintly. The ghouls seemed to flinch away from the light slightly and I knew that his Defense had been raised a bit, making him harder to hit. I knocked an arrow and fired at one of the ghouls, my arrow driving deep into one eye. A large red ¡°108¡± flashed over it, and I grinned at the Critical as the ghoul dropped and shattered into a shower of lights. Torrie had gone into stealth and moved behind the ghoul that Raider had engaged with, and as she stepped out of the shadow she drover her blade into the ghouls back and it erupted into particles. Three down, one to go. Zed started picking out the first notes to a relatively soft, quiet tune that I quickly recognized as Queenryche¡¯s Silent Lucidity and grinned as I could feel his Bardic Inspiration kick in. Zed was a walking jukebox of all my favorite rock songs. This VRMMO didn¡¯t have any naturally ambient background music since that would burst a players immersion, so having a bard around to provide music was pretty kickass. The last ghoul took another chunk out of Dagg and I could hear him grunt in pain. I wondered what he has his pain threshold set to? Then he retaliated and the final ghoul fell. We regrouped near the stairs to catch our breath as a reward screen popped up. We¡¯d decided to let Torrie be our Loot Master for the dungeon, to keep things simple, so the green display window only reported my share of the XP and money dropped, a whopping 16 XP and 2 gold. ¡°Ok, this is gross.¡± Torrie reached up to manipulate her HUD, then lifted up a chunk of grey, withered flesh from her inventory. ¡°We got three of these as our loot drops. Grey trash, worth 5 silver each. Also, frakkin¡¯ disgusting.¡± ¡°Yeah, the ghouls all have a high chance to drop [Rotted Flesh].¡± Lorelei replied as she cast a heal spell onto Dagg. ¡°I¡¯m not sure what¡¯s more disgusting, that it¡¯s considered loot, or that the vendors in town actually buy it?¡± ¡°Ugh. Not cool, man.¡± Zed shuddered. ¡°So as we mentioned in town¡­¡± Lorelei continued as she cast a second heal spell onto Dagg. ¡°The dungeon is a No Rest zone. Which means we won¡¯t heal up between fights. So be conservative with your mana, and try not to take too much damage. Don¡¯t be afraid to pop a healing potion, either, as my heals will be a bit limited.¡± I noticed that on my HUD, there was a little debuff icon that showed a red exclamation point, the indicator that it was indeed a No Rest Zone. ¡°Dagg really took a beating there, didn¡¯t he?¡± I knew the answer to my question already. I¡¯d made the Ghouls here to be something of glass cannons. They had a decent attack and could dish out a lot of damage, but their Defense wasn¡¯t very high, they had no Damage Reduction, and they didn¡¯t have that many Hit Points. Most of us should be able to drop one in a single hit. ¡°100 per hit, minus armor.¡± Dagg replied tersely. Good to see he was back to mostly monosyllables and short sentences again. ¡°Woah.¡± Zed whistled. ¡°Note to self, do not get hit.¡± Since Dagg was tanking, we decided to have Lorelei focus solely on him unless one of us got hit really bad. We all had a handful of healing potions, so we¡¯d rely on those for now. Once we were ready, Dagg led the way once more further into the darkness. ¡°I wonder what those things were?¡± ¡°Rotted Ghouls.¡± Torrie replied with a laugh. ¡°Didn¡¯t you read their name tag? Silly Zed.¡± ¡°Yeah, of course. But I mean, I wonder if there¡¯s any lore to explain them. They¡¯ve been trapped down here for what, 150 years? What do they eat? Do they need to eat, even? I couldn¡¯t quite tell if they were undead or not.¡± ¡°I could always ask Aibee. I think that¡¯s one of her primary functions, to be a database for me for quests and monsters I come across. Aibee, can you come out?¡± The four-inch pixie materialized in front of me, hovering in mid-air in front of me. ¡°That is so awesome, dude. I want one!¡± Zed said as he peered at my AI companion. ¡°I know. Bull gets all the awesome stuff. An adorable kitty and a cute little pixie pet?¡± Torrie said as she slowly slid over near Raider. I could almost see the tiger sigh in resignation and Torrie began petting him like he was a simple housecat. ¡°Hey Aibee. Umm, how are you?¡± I wasn¡¯t sure just how ¡°alive¡± Aibee¡¯s AI was, but I felt like it would be wrong to just treat her like a tool. I felt like there was more to her, so it¡¯d be better to be polite, at the very least. ¡°I¡¯m fine Bull, thank you for asking. What can I help you with?¡± ¡°If I recall, you said you were a database. Can you tell us anything about these Ghouls we fought?¡± ¡°Yes. When Ravensport fell, many sought shelter in the transportation tunnels that ran underneath the city, and were subsequently trapped. Unfortunately, some of the people that had fled down here had been cursed by an unknown god. The curse made it so that they could not die to disease or the ravages of age and caused them to suffer from a terrible hunger. With almost no food to be found in the Metro, these cursed ones soon turned to cannibalism, killing and devouring those free from the curse. They have been trapped down here ever since, suffering an eternal hunger but never dying from it.¡± This was stated in such a cheerful, matter-of-fact way that it made the explanation at least twice as horrible, and I shuddered. ¡°Man, I am so sorry I asked. That¡¯s fuckin¡¯ horrible.¡± Zed said, horror in his voice. ¡°Aibee, why is this item sellable to the vendors in town?¡± Torrie suddenly asked, holding up some of the [Rotted Flesh] the ghouls had dropped. ¡°These ghouls retain traces of the divine magic that cursed them. The flesh they drop is has a higher concentration of this energy, and the alchemists and mages in town are interested in studying it to see if there¡¯s a way to cure it, or prevent others from being infected by it in the future.¡± ¡°OK, thanks Aibee, I appreciate it.¡± I nodded at the sprite and was about to dismiss her, when a thought came to me. ¡°Hey, question, where do you go when I dismiss you?¡± ¡°I go away.¡± ¡°Yeah, but to where?¡± ¡°Nowhere. I just go on standby until you call for me again.¡± ¡°So you¡¯re waiting for me to call you. Does that mean you¡¯re awake and aware?¡± I asked. ¡°Yes, that is correct.¡± ¡°Doesn¡¯t that get boring? Do you have anything to do wherever you are?¡± ¡°Boring? I never really thought about it.¡± She screwed up her face a bit as she thought about it. ¡°Yes, I guess it is boring. And no, there¡¯s nothing to do. It¡¯s just a formless, dark void.¡± ¡°Bull, you meanie! Locking her up in a dark box all the time!¡± Torrie glared at me as she hugged Raider. ¡°Wow man, not cool.¡± Zed chimed in. ¡°I¡¯m sorry, I didn¡¯t know! I mean, I¡¯ve never really thought about it before. I¡¯m not really used to my companions and pets and stuff actually, you know, thinking and having feelings.¡± It was weird to think about, but then again, I wasn¡¯t sure yet if I was much different from the other AI myself. Maybe I was identical to them now, I just had more memories. ¡°Ok, Aibee, tell you what.¡± I finally said after a little thought. ¡°Why don¡¯t you stay out here? Help us if you can, but try to stay out of the way during combat, and don¡¯t get yourself killed or anything. Sound good?¡± ¡°Yes, that sounds great.¡± She smiled and started flitting around my head a bit, before settling down on one shoulder. ¡°Can we go now?¡± Dagg asked tersely, and I nodded. We readied our weapons again and began to move. I pulled out a [Glowstone] as we searched through the darkness, sweeping it around to examine our surroundings. Judging by the overturned benches and the tracks that flanked us on either side, it appeared we were on a loading platform for a pair of what were effectively subway cars. A number of cars were sitting on the tracks, many leaning at an angle. On the closest track, it looked like the ceiling of the tunnel the train cars were heading into had collapsed while the cars were moving, causing them to crash and pile up. The cars resembled a cross between subway cars and old trolley cars, except that they had no wheels. Instead it looked like they had a set of brackets that fit over the rails, and the brackets were each etched with a series of runic letters and patterns. The cars were levitated and controlled via magic, using the rails as guides. ¡°Incoming!¡± Zed suddenly shouted. Looked up and realized the group had moved away from me a little bit, heading toward the far set of tracks. At the edge of their lights, I saw movement. I tossed my [Glowstone] in their general direction and readied my bow for combat. This time we had to fight off six ghouls. We had a better idea of what to expect, but they were still fast and hit very hard. Dagg took the brunt of the damage once again, but Torrie took a couple nasty wounds as well and Raider was hit pretty hard as well. We still succeed and picked up a minor amount of money and XP, and Torrie collected more [Rotted Flesh], though not without complaining. We paused, and those wounded used healing potions on themselves. I sprinkled two of my potions over Raiders wounds, sighing in relief as his wounds closed up and he stopped limping. The loading platform was a large rectangle, maybe 100 feet across, and 160 feet wide. With this group of ghouls, we¡¯d cleared it of all enemies that we could see, but Lorelei noted that some of the ghouls moved around, patrolling through the dungeon, so we stayed on alert. In the center were two flights of stairs going up about 20 feet to a platform above us. Two sets of rails cross the room, but three of the tunnels exits were inaccessible due to the tunnels collapsing. The fourth, in the northeast corner, was clear. ¡°The boss is up that way.¡± Lorelei said, painting up to the platform above us. ¡°But we were hoping you guys wouldn¡¯t mind heading down the side passage. Torrie, you said you¡¯d picked up Tier 1 Lockpicking, yes?¡± ¡°Yeah. I figured it would be useful.¡± ¡°Good. There was a chest in a room down that way, but we never found a key for it when we ran the dungeon last night, and we didn¡¯t have any rogues with us so we had to leave it.¡± ¡°Sure, sounds good. I¡¯m always up for a little extra loot!¡± Torrie said, grinning. The glint in her eye made me think maybe she did have some kender in her after all. ¡°Hey Bull, what¡¯s Aibee doing?¡± Zed asked. I realized that she¡¯d flown off my shoulder at some point, and looked around and saw her hovering over a pile of rubble near the crashed metro cars. ¡°Hey Aibee, we¡¯re heading this way. Let¡¯s go.¡± She just whistled and looked away, like she couldn¡¯t hear me. I frowned. Wondering what she was up to, and stalked over to her. ¡°Hey, come on. We¡¯re heading this way.¡± She looked at me finally, then simply flitted down and sat on a slab of concrete, crossing her legs primly. She looked down at the slab she was sitting on, then back at me, then shrugged. ¡°What, are you tired? You need me to dismiss you?¡± She shook her head, but stayed silent. Again she looked down at the slab she was sitting on, then looked away and began whistling innocently. ¡°What¡¯s wrong with her, Bull?¡± Torrie asked as the group followed me over. ¡°I¡¯m not sure, but¡­ I think she¡¯s trying to tell me something. Aibee, are we supposed to search under this rubble?¡± Aibee looked at me again and shrugged, doing her best to look innocent and failing. Then she flew up and sat on my shoulder again. ¡°Guess we¡¯re moving some stones, man.¡± Zed sighed. ¡°I¡¯m not built for this, you know. Strength is my dump stat.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± I laughed. ¡°I think Dagg¡¯s the only one who didn¡¯t tank it. But let¡¯s see what we can do.¡± Dagg leaned down and started shifting the broken concrete. He was able to almost move the big slab Aibee had been sitting on, but it required all the rest of us to provide him with enough help to lift it up and shove it aside. He cleared a few more good sized chunks, and then lifted up a dust covered leather satchel. ¡°Hey, loot! Good job Aibee!¡± Torrie grinned up at the little AI pixie, who smiled back at her looking proud. ¡°Yeah, very nice, Aibee. Thank you.¡± I said, and patted her gently on the head with one finger. She seemed pleased by that. ¡°Why couldn¡¯t you just tell us what was going on though?¡± ¡°I can only provide you with hints if you¡¯re close to finding something. I can only directly inform you about things you¡¯ve discovered for yourself, such as providing additional information about the monsters and item drops.¡± ¡°Well, thanks. Let¡¯s see what we have here.¡± Torrie took the bag and opened it up. It was a small satchel designed to be attached to a belt, and was maybe six inches wide and 10 inches deep. However, when Torrie opened it, she grinned.This story has been taken without authorization. Report any sightings. ¡°Ok, this is a haul right here. Aibee did amazing. I¡¯m guessing since this was so hidden and there was no obvious hints that it was here, it¡¯s got extra decent item drops. You guys didn¡¯t find it before, did you Lori?¡± ¡°No, we searched around but didn¡¯t even suspect this was here.¡± ¡°Excellent. First off, the bag itself is an 8-slot bag. That¡¯s a major score right there. There are three items inside the bag as well. The Staff of Rayven, a Soldier¡¯s Shield, and a cloth Nobles Vest. All three are Silver quality items.¡± Unless Spellcasters took a Trait called Combat Casting, they couldn¡¯t cast with a weapon in their hands. There are two exceptions to this, however, a staff and a wand. Staves generally tended to have a defense bonus to them, while wands often give a casting bonus of some kind, plus whatever stat boosts the items have. I¡¯d wanted casters to have to rely on their spells and allies in the early game, so staves and wands were pretty rare right now. The [Staff of Rayven] was an ebony staff with a golden claw on the top of it, with a glass sphere of black with a swirl of smoke moving inside it, and it apparently granted +2 to Defense as well as +2 to Focus. It was immediately given to Lorelei, who happily equipped and bound it. The [Soldier¡¯s Shield] was a mid-size silver kite shield. The center featured black heraldry with the silhouette of a silver raven in flight, and it provided +4 to Defense, +1 to Strength, and +1 to Endurance. Being the only tank, it went straight to Dagg. Finally, the [Noble¡¯s Vest] was a deep-blue silk vest with a pattern along the edges in black stitching. It was cloth armor and provided 3 DR, +1 Charisma, and +1 Endurance. Both Lorelei and Zed used cloth armor, but they agreed that not only was it more appropriate for Zed, Lorelei had already gotten something. So he equipped it and we all started chuckling. Since it went in the chest equipment slot, he was wearing just the vest and hence was bare-chested. ¡°Hubba hubba!¡± Torrie grinned and leered at him goofily. ¡°Ok, that¡¯s not gonna work. Let me try something.¡± He unequipped the vest, and then pulled the [Linen Shirt] he had previously been wearing out and pulled it on over his head. Then he equipped the vest and it appeared overtop the shirt. ¡°Hah! I can wear the shirt, but it doesn¡¯t count as equipped. I don¡¯t get the DR I normally would from it; it just acts like a shirt now. Awesome!¡± ¡°Ok, that¡¯s cool. Good to know. Now let¡¯s go get that treasure chest!¡± Torrie grinned. ¡°So who gets the bag itself?¡± ¡°You should keep it.¡± Lorelei said quietly. ¡°You¡¯re acting as loot master, you need the space.¡± ¡°Ok, cool. Thanks! That will be a big help.¡± Torrie grinned as she quipped it, then prodded Dagg to lead on. The warrior led us to the open tunnel and we began to slowly pick our way through it. The tunnel wasn¡¯t very long, less than 100 feet or so, but it was partially collapsed. The footing was treacherous in most places, and twice we had to climb over piles of dirt and broken concrete, so it was slow going. At the edge of the improvised headlamp, I could see that the tunnel curved ahead, but was blocked off by a metro car completely buried in rubble. However, there was an opening to the right. Dagg held up one hand, palm open, and we all stopped. I guessed we¡¯d all seen enough movies with military squads and the like to guess what he was tying to say with his and signal. He pointed to the right hand opening, then held up four fingers, made a back and forth gesture, then held up 4 fingers with his thumb extended as well. So four or five ghouls to the right. He held up his hand again, then motioned forward as he began charging the final twenty feet. The warrior let out his taunt, and four [Rotted Ghouls] charged out at him. We were several steps behind him so he had to take the first assault solo. The he sung his sword but missed, and all four ghouls ripped viciously into him. He blocked one with his new shield, but the other four tore into him, virtual blood flying. Lorelei quickly chanted her healing spell, and Dagg was enveloped in a soft white light. The rest of us followed suit, buffing and attacking. Zed fired up his Bardic Performance with the first fierce chords of Scorpions¡¯ Rock You like a Hurricane. I grinned at that. With Zed¡¯s playlist I didn¡¯t even need the buff from the Trait; the songs themselves pumped me up and inspired me. I let loose with a Rapid Shot, dropping one but missing the second. I also whispered to Raider to attack and he rushed forward to engage one of the ghouls. Next to me Torrie vanished into thin air as she dropped into Stealth. I smiled, thinking that this wasn¡¯t so bad. I really should know better than to think things like that, though, and my smile disappeared as four more ghouls came rushing out from the room off to the right. Ok, this could be a bit nastier than I expected. Dagg hunkered down, going into full defensive mode and activating his Parry skill to try and block some of the claw attacks. It helped, but several attacks still got through, and two of the ghouls turned to attack my tiger as he rushed into the fray, clawing at them. His damage was still pretty low, so all he was doing was weakening them a bit. Both ghouls ripped into Raider, leaving long gashes in his side, each doing 80 damage to him. Torrie materialized behind one of the ghouls and drove her dagger into it, dropping it with a flurry of death sparkles. I let fly another arrow, taking out a third ghoul, and Lorelei cast another heal spell on the tanking fighter. A few seconds later and Dagg was starting to look worse for the wear and Raider had taken some more damage, but we managed to drop two more ghouls. Then I heard Lorelei cry out from behind me. I spun around and realized more ghouls had crept up behind us, and all four had attacked the Light Mage while she was focusing on healing Dagg. Horrified, I watched as one sink its teeth into Lorelei¡¯s shoulder as she screamed and vanished into a burst of white light. She¡¯d not had the chance to raise her Endurance much and had as few hit points as me, possible less. Dagg looked up and roared and began flailing with his sword, bisecting one of the ghouls. I started scrambling back away from the newly arrived ghouls as they started charging toward me. I desperately fired Rapid Shot again and managed to hit both times, dropping two of them. Raider ignored his wounds and the ghouls clawing at him and charged in between me and the ghouls, protecting me. I grimaced as he got hit again. I was genuinely getting scared here. I knew that the others would be fine; they¡¯d respawn back at the beginning of the dungeon, though if they all died it may be tough to get back down here and get their gear back, depending on how much of it they¡¯d bound. Plus they¡¯d have to deal with how dark it was down here, as you couldn¡¯t bind [Glowstones]. But me, I didn¡¯t know yet what would happen if I died. In the Tabletop, I¡¯d decided that NPC¡¯s didn¡¯t respawn if killed, to give the world more of a living feeling to it. But was I considered a Player or an NPC, or did it matter? Fearfully I sprinted into the near the buried metro car. At the very least, I could limit how many sides I could be attacked on. Zed unleashed a Dischord blast into one of the ghouls and it fell. I whistled for Raider to retreat back with me, as I didn¡¯t want to risk him taking anymore damage. I unleashed another arrow at the ghoul chasing my tiger, but I missed. I cursed as the [Rotted Ghoul] leapt at me, its teeth sinking into my arm painfully. I didn¡¯t even have time to look and see how much damage it did as I screamed and kicked it off me. I tried to fire my bow again, but it was too close and just knocked it away and raked at me a second time. This time the red numbers flashed extra large, indicating a critical hit, and I saw I had taken 121 damage that time. Even with the pain reduced, my arm was burning and felt like wet spaghetti. Another discordant note ripped through Zed¡¯s song and the sonic blast hit the ghoul, causing it to burst in a shower of fireworks. I slumped down and fumbled at my belt to activate a healing potion as I looked at my remaining health. I panicked as I realized I had less than 100 health left. One more solid hit would have taken me down. Dagg was still fighting with at least one more ghoul, but I hurriedly drank a [Small Healing Potion] down, sighing as my health rose to nearly 200. Each type of potion had a nine-second cooldown, allowing you to use multiple healing or mana potions in a single fight, but preventing you from just spamming them repeatedly. I grumbled as I really wished I could drink another right away. I looked over in time to see the final ghoul drop as Torrie stabbed it. She and Zed staggered and dropped to the ground to rest for a moment, but Dagg immediately began running for the entrance. Torrie tiredly tried calling out to him but he ignored her. A reward window popped up, but I dismissed it without even looking at it. ¡°Shit man. That was fucking intense!¡± Zed groaned. ¡°I lost count of how many of them there even were.¡± ¡°Twelve. Eight in the room over here, and four more that came up from behind.¡± I replied, quaffing another [Small Healing Potion]. I was up to 297 health now out of 400, and unless more ghouls showed up I wasn¡¯t moving until I drank another. I did, however, use one on Raider and prepared to use a couple more. Poor kitty was battered pretty badly as well. ¡°Did Lorelei even get a chance to do anything?¡± Torrie said, horrified. ¡°No. All four ganged up on her. I think she must only have about 300 HP and cloth armor has almost no DR. She went down instantly.¡± I replied. Her scream as she died was haunting. She was genuinely scared. We sat and finished mostly healing up. I was 3 points shy of full after one more healing potion, and Raider was 40 health below his max of 500, but I since our healing pots gave us 100 HP and I only had a few left, I decided not to top us off. After a few minutes, Dagg came back, with Lorelei hiding behind him, blushing bright red. I quickly realized why as she bent to retrieve the loot bag that had dropped where she died ¨C Other than her staff and a set of cloth slippers, she was in the default underwear that you wore when naked unless you turned off the modesty option setting. As shy as Lorelei was most of the time, I could only imagine how embarrassed she was to be running through a dungeon in just her undies. You couldn¡¯t Bind the default starter equipment or the Common items you could buy or find, only Uncommon or better gear was Bindable. At this stage, we didn¡¯t have much gear that could be Bound. We all turned away to let Lorelei equip her gear once again, then we gathered up and moved into the room where the ghouls had come from. Once upon a time it looked to have been a utility room and hallway that ran between the two parallel metro tracks. The rusted remains of several lockers and sheds rested on one wall, almost hidden behind a mound of ancient bones, most of which were heavily chewed on. Along the other wall, though, was a green metal footlocker. Maybe three feet wide and a foot tall. It wasn¡¯t the traditional looking treasure chest, but this had to be what Dagg and Lorelei had told us about, ¡°Ok, just in case this thing is trapped or something, everyone stand back and let Torellisin Nimblefingers do her thing!¡± Torrie cracked her knuckles and knelt down as the rest of us backed away. She produced a couple pieces of long, thin metal and with a few deft movement there was a click, and the lid slowly lifted up. ¡°Tada!¡± A loot window popped up in front of her, so she didn¡¯t actually have to reach into the chest. She looked over the list for a few moments, then turned to us. ¡°Ok, it was mostly gold and some potions. I think Zed and Lorelei are the only ones who use [Small Mana Potions] right now, so they can fight over them. There¡¯s three, just let me know who gets what. There¡¯s also five [Small Healing Potions]. I think after that last fight, everyone gets one. There¡¯s enough gold for everyone to get 100 each, and there¡¯s a little left over that I¡¯ll give to Dagg if that¡¯s ok, since his armor will cost the most to repair and he¡¯s taking a hell of a beating down here.¡± She nodded and assigned the items around. ¡°And finally we have a set of cloth gloves, [Noble¡¯s Gloves]. They¡¯re Rare, and have a +1 Endurance and +1 Focus. Lorelei, Zed, it¡¯s up to you who gets them.¡± ¡°Lori.¡± Zed said immediately. ¡°She can use the Endurance boost, and Focus will do her more good for now than me.¡± ¡°Lastly, Bull.¡± Torrie looked up at me. ¡°It¡¯s your lucky day. Besides the icky ghoul flesh, we also got an item drop. It¡¯s leather armor, and since you haven¡¯t gotten anything yet, it¡¯s all yours. [Night Watchman¡¯s Trousers], +1 Endurance, 4 DR, and only requires 2 Strength, so I think you can equip them right away?¡± ¡°Yeah, and that¡¯s a nice upgrade. An extra point of Damage Reduction and it¡¯s obvious we all need to raise our Endurance a bunch after that last fight.¡± ¡°Ok, they¡¯re yours. So go ahead and strip for us!¡± Torrie grinned at me lecherously. I laughed and took the new pants and equipped them. You didn¡¯t have to remove anything you were already wearing, just swap them out, so it was immediate ¡°Sorry shorty, no strip show for you I guess. Too bad!¡± We laughed, and the levity helped loosen us all up a bit. I looked down at the leather pants. They were pretty basic, just a soft black suede, no real adornments or anything, but I liked them. They looked a bit like a set of black jeans. ¡°Ok, so all that¡¯s left is upstairs? Lets rock.¡± As we headed toward the stairs up, carefully watching for another patrol of [Rotted Ghouls], I thought back to what Dagg had said earlier, before we got to the Metro. When Lorelei had come back, she had a slightly haunted look in her eye. Being embarrassed about being mostly naked, and Torrie¡¯s jokes had helped her relax some, but I hadn¡¯t missed that. Even if you knew what to expect, dying was apparently not pleasant for players of the game. I shook my head and wondered if I¡¯d actually have been willing to keep playing this as an active Adventurer if I¡¯d still been alive, or if I¡¯d have opted to become a Resident and just enjoy a casual, more peaceful game. For some reason I didn¡¯t feel like the latter was an option for me now. We made our way back to the main loading platform and headed up the stairs to the waiting deck that overlooked the tracks. Overturned, rusted out benches and trash cans were scattered about, and we found another group of four ghouls waiting for us. We were ready though, forewarned by the fighter and healer pair that had been through here before, so we were able to take them down pretty quickly with little damage. After that last fight, it was almost boring. I clamped down on that thought, hard. Getting complacent, not taking things seriously enough was how we got into trouble with that last fight. I shook my head and focused. I checked over my status as we paused after the fight, and realized I¡¯d hit level 3, and had a decent chunk of XP saved up. I¡¯d need to look over my options carefully before spending any of it, and I had to wait to do that till we were in town anyway. I closed out the window, and we moved on. There was a 10-foot wide hallway leading north from the waiting platform, and we headed down it carefully. About 30 feet up, there was a heavy steel door on the left side of the hallway. There was a metal sign bolted to the door, but the letters had faded with age to the point where they were no longer readable. Ahead another 30 feet the hallway curved to the right, and there was a narrower hallway large enough for a single person to pass through angling off to the left. ¡°Locked. Need key.¡± Dagg grunted, pointing at the door. ¡°There¡¯s a boss up ahead.¡± Lorelei said quietly. ¡°Up that small hallway. He has the key to this room, and the lock can¡¯t be picked.¡± ¡°Ok then.¡± Torrie nodded. She¡¯d been about to reach for her lockpicks, but shrugged and realized that it would be poor level design to allow players to skip the only boss fight. ¡°So what can you tell us about the boss?¡± ¡°Big. Hits hard. Sprays needles.¡± If I hadn¡¯t heard him speak at length earlier, I¡¯d swear he was incapable of saying more than a half-dozen words at once. ¡°It¡¯s called a Spined Ghoul, I think.¡± Lorelei added, filling in the gaps for Dagg. ¡°It¡¯s bigger and much tougher than the other ghouls, and as Dagg so eloquently put it, he hits really hard. He has around four Rotted Ghouls with him, and will call replacements every now and then. And finally, he will sometimes pause and start flexing. When that happens, get as far away as you can. He¡¯s covered in these razor sharp spikes, and he shoots them out all around him in an area. It¡¯s relatively short range, but things were too chaotic when we fought him last time so I¡¯m not certain exactly how far out they go.¡± ¡°Shit, man. What is up with all these bosses having adds?¡± Zed complained. ¡°We have gotta find ourselves a secondary tank. Dagg¡¯s soaking up too much of the pressure and damage.¡± I noticed that Lorelei seemed to slowly be getting more comfortable with us and didn¡¯t stutter or pause as much. That was good. I liked her and Dagg, but with Dagg¡¯s habit of non-verbal communication and her reluctance to talk I had been worried about how well they would integrate into a group. ¡°We need to get our main tank some heavier armor too.¡± I replied. That required Dagg have high Strength and taking the Heavy Armor Talent. He didn¡¯t have it yet, which meant he couldn¡¯t grab it till level 4 at the earliest, when we got our next Talent point. ¡°Ok kids. Lets make sure the hall is clear, hope nothing respawns behind us, and then head into the boss room. We¡¯ll stick with the usual formation. Dagg, tank the boss in one corner, that should help with the bosses AoE attack, since it¡¯ll be easier to move away from him. Lori, do you know how often he summons new ghouls?¡± ¡°No, not sure. Like I said, the fight was pretty chaotic. It was the first boss fight for all of us, and honestly the group we went with was pretty disorganized. We wiped a couple of times on it.¡± ¡°Ok, we¡¯ll just have to fake it then. Zed, Torrie, we¡¯ll burn the ghouls as fast as possible then swap to the boss until more come out, then wash, rinse, repeat. Lorelei, focus healing on Dagg as usual. Sound good?¡± Everyone nodded, and Torrie agreed to sneak up and check out the end of the hallway. The rest of us moved up cautiously behind her to allow the [Glowstones] to illuminate the bend, but we were worried for nothing. The hallway only extended after the bend a short distance then dead-ended in rubble from a collapse. We sighed and moved over to the small hallway. It was only big enough for a single person to pass through, so Dagg took the lead, followed by Raider, Torrie, myself, Lorelei, and finally Zed bringing up the rear. Right as we entered, the light mage cast a Protection spell on Dagg to buff his Defense. The hallway was short, only about 15 feet long, and opened up into large, circular room. As we entered, long strips of glowing lights flickered on above us, illuminating the room. The lights were obviously long [Glowstones] of some sort, but their placement reminded me of fluorescent light tubes. One or two were dark, and one flickered slightly. In the center of the room was a dried up fountain about 8 feet across with a crumbled, broken statue of some kind sticking out from the center and surrounded by a ring of rusted out metal benches. Along the northern wall, on the far side of the room from us were two doors set about ten feet apart from each other. Each had a white sign on the door with a blue figure, one male and one female. Bathrooms. That made me laugh, since the game didn¡¯t include needing to go to the bathroom. My quiet chuckle was interrupted by a loud roar that made everything seem to rumble, and moments later the bathroom doors both slammed open and ghouls began pouring out. Two [Rotted Ghouls] ran out of each door, followed by an enormous ghoul standing over eight feet tall, covered in heavy muscle, with wicked six inch spines poking out of its body. A [Spined Ghoul], it had a fancy scrollwork design around its name when I focused on it denoting that it was a Dungeon Boss. This ghoul didn¡¯t look rotted, though its flesh still looked dead and necrotic. It roared again, signaling the beginning of the boss fight. Dagg immediately taunted the boss and moved to the far west wall, away from the rest of us. He sliced at the large ghoul with his sword and was rewarded by a painful looking claw in return that sent the warrior stumbling a bit. I did not want to be hit by that. I turned to focus on the [Rotted Ghouls] and whistled for Raider to move in and attack one. I chose two others and let loose with a Rapid Shot, hitting both and dropping them. Zed started hitting some rapid-fire, heavy chords that I couldn¡¯t place right away but recognized. A moment later I realized it was Iron Maiden¡¯s Two Minutes to Midnight. Torrie didn¡¯t bother with stealth, simply rushed forward but unfortunately missed. A moment later, we¡¯d dropped the two remaining ghouls, though both raider and Torrie had taken a bit of damage. We switched over to the big ghoul to help relieve Dagg a bit. Lorelei was chain-healing him as fast as she could, but I could see on my our party status bar that Dagg was slowly taking more damage than she could heal. I ripped into it with a pair of arrows and winced as it only took 70 damage from each shot, meaning it had 20 DR. I called back Raider for the time being, as he could barely scratch it. The ghoul let out another roar and swiped at Dagg again, catching the fighter in the head with a nasty looking blow. I heard Lorelei shout ¡°That means more ghouls are coming from the bathrooms!¡± and turned to see that four more ghouls were rushing out at us. I sent my tiger to intercept one, and fired an arrow another but missed. Zed¡¯s Dischord had a moderate cooldown, 15 seconds, so he was limited in how often he could unleash those so he just focused on his Bardic Performance and staying away from the ghouls. Two of the ghouls rushed at me, covering the distance fast. I noticed that the ghouls were glowing slightly, and had a buff of some kind, but I couldn¡¯t pause to focus on it at the moment. They came in very fast, leaping toward me and biting and scratching. Both landed solid hits, and while they didn¡¯t register as a critical hit they still did 105 damage each. My DR was 20 now with my new armor, so they were doing 125 total, meaning they were stronger than the ones we fought earlier. I had more health now, but I dropped from 500 to 290. I kicked one of the ghouls away and fired my bow, killing it. Then I heard Dagg yell out ¡°AoE!¡± I turned to run, but the second ghoul was latched on and I could barely move. I commanded Raider to move back toward the hall we came in from, near Lorelei and braced myself. I had moved in toward the boss some to fire past the fountain, and as the boss flexed and spines went fling in all direction I realized I was still way too close. I took another 180 damage as several of the razor sharp spikes embedded themselves in my arm and chest. Torrie dashed over and drove her dagger into the back of the ghoul holding my leg, and it let go as it vanished in a flash of particles. Then a warm white light washed over me with a tingling sensation and I recovered 110 health from Lorelei¡¯s healing spell. I stood and thanks Torrie, then dashed back near Lorelei, downing a healing potion to recover another 100 health. That brought me back up to 320 HP, but that was too close for comfort. With the ghouls down, we focused back on the boss again, but paid more attention to our positioning this time. But we¡¯d finally found our rhythm. We had to endure two more waves of ghouls, I took one more hit, Raider was running low on health, and Dagg dropped dangerously low a couple times, but with a groan the boss finally toppled over. As he exploded into a flash of red and white particles, I cheered. Torrie did so as well, while Zed ended his song with an improvised guitar solo to celebrate. I sat down on one of the few intact benches and applied a healing potion to Raider, as he was too low for my comfort and I was worried about respawns on the way out. Then I checked over my loot reward window. 50 Gold and 200 XP, not too shabby. Torrie looked over her Master Loot window, then called out to me ¡°Hey Bull, Rock, Paper, Scissors.¡± I looked up and said ¡°ok¡± and we prepped and threw. I tossed out Rock, but she beat me with Paper. ¡°Looks like I win, sweet. Boss dropped some [Night Watchman¡¯s Gloves], +1 Agility and Endurance. Sorry. You get the next ones. And Dagg, here, these should be a nice upgrade. [Soldier¡¯s Greaves], +1 Strength, +1 Endurance, Medium Armor.¡± Dagg grunted and accepted. ¡°And finally, one [Metro Office Key]. Any ghouls hiding in there?¡± ¡°No, it was clear last time.¡± Lorelei replied. We headed back to the office and opened the door. It was rusty and required a bit of force, and squealed horribly as metal scraped on metal. The office was a small room, about twenty feet by ten, and any furniture in here was ruined and rotted. The remains of a chair had an old skeleton sitting in it and behind him was a small metal safe, the door open a fraction of an inch. The only thing in there was an old, worn leather-bound [Journal] that flagged our [Expedition to Old Ravensport] Quest as updated when Torrie picked it up. All that remained was to turn it back in at the Inn. We formed up and slowly made our way back to the entrance, ready for an ambush or any ghouls we missed or that respawned in, but there were none. We climbed the stairs to the dungeon entrance, and I was relieved and excited. It had been harrowing and I was terrified deep down of dying, but it was exhilarating all the same. I¡¯d been playing D&D since I was eight years old, and now I was living it. I couldn¡¯t help but smile as we successfully completed our first Dungeon Crawl. Book 1, Chapter 8 ¡°Bullie, you said you knew where another dungeon was?¡± Torrie said once we were standing under the evening sky outside the Metro. ¡°Do we have the time to run it, and more importantly do we have enough healing potions?¡± ¡°Hrmm, I sorta know the general area that the dungeons in. I don¡¯t know anything about it though.¡± That was a partial lie. It was true I wasn¡¯t certain exactly where it was on the game map since the in game map was a little different, I did know a bit about the dungeon itself. But I couldn¡¯t really explain that now, could I? ¡°Hey Aibee, since I¡¯ve learned about this dungeon already, does that mean you can access information on it?¡± ¡°Do you know the name of this dungeon?¡± ¡°Ummm, some kind of factory, I think the guy said. He was out exploring solo so he didn¡¯t dare to go into the dungeon itself, but he said there was a sign outside. Traviss Manacite Factory, maybe?¡± I feigned trying to remember the name. ¡°Affirmative. 4.5 miles Northeast from here is the Manacite Factory Dungeon.¡± Aibee replied from her perch on my shoulder. ¡°What is Manacite?¡± Zed asked. ¡°It is a type of ore with high magical properties. I cannot tell you more before you discover the ore, however.¡± ¡°Ok, thanks Aibee.¡± I sighed and reviewed my inventory. ¡°I have 5 [Small Healing Potions] left. I also have two [Small Mana Potions] that I don¡¯t need, so here, you take them Lorelei.¡± She took them, and we took stock of our supplies. Everyone had around the same amount of potions. Torrie lamented that she hadn¡¯t yet taken Alchemy as she had a lot of herbs she¡¯d collected so far and could probably make a bunch of healing potions now. I was the most hesitant out of everyone to push on to another dungeon and our third boss fight of the night, but I knew there was some good possible loot in the next dungeon as well as a couple toys that would help us out a lot in the near future so I voted to go. Everyone else was eager, so we set off. The trip was mostly uneventful. We collected some more ore and herbs along the way, had a couple encounters with [Sand Wolves] and [Desert Boars], collecting more meat and cloth scraps. The broken desert area gave way to a barren wasteland with dry, hard ground and half-dead scrub brush, then into an area where we could see the destroyed remains of buildings. Mostly just the occasional wall and a lot of rubble. Finally Aibee pointed and we saw a large, rectangular building ahead. It had a worn brown-brick fa?ade and several windows on the two sides we could see from this angle, most broken or opaque with dirt and age. As we got closer, the windows all seemed to be sealed up by some kind of rusty metal shutter on the inside of the window. The front of the building had a set of glass double doors that were so grimy with dirt that we couldn¡¯t see through them and a worn sign out front said ¡°Traviss Manacite Factory¡±. Circling the building, there were two large, heavy metal doors that looked like loading dock doors on the back side of the building, but we couldn¡¯t budge them now was Torrie able to pick the locks, so we headed back around and prepared to enter the front doors. We opened the doors and entered. It was dark inside, and even with our lights we couldn¡¯t see what lay beyond. This was probably a function of it being an instanced dungeon, as we would be transported into a private zone once we stepped through. Dagg led the way once more, and we stepped through. This time I noticed the transition, a nearly imperceptible stutter as I transitions into the dudgeon¡¯s zone and could feel a slight tickling sensation wash over me. The same had happened when I went into the Metro dungeon, I realized, but didn¡¯t know what it was at the time. I assumed it was just nerves. Inside we found ourselves in what looked to be a reception area. A pair of desks flanked a single hallway leading out directly across from the doors we entered, and chairs and a few small tables were set up to create a waiting area. Of course all the furniture was ancient and worn, the metal rusted and corroded, the wood warped and decaying, but their functions were still obvious. As we entered, a status screen popped up in front of us with a quest for the dungeon.
QUEST: Manacite Factory Exploration
GOAL: Explore the Ravensport Manacite Factory, defeat 4 Manacite Golems and defeat the Manacite Guardian Golem.
REWARD (First Clear): 2000 XP, 1000 GP
[Y] [N]
¡°Dude, nice! A quest to go along with the dungeon.¡± Zed said with a grin. ¡°No gear, but really nice XP and Gold reward.¡± ¡°It says ¡°first clear¡± for the reward. Does that mean it¡¯s because no one else has completed the dungeon yet, or is it just the reward for the first time you run the dungeon?¡± ¡°No clue, Torrie, but does it matter?¡± I asked. ¡°Not really, I guess.¡± She replied, and we all accepted the quest. ¡°First Clears offer extra rewards for being the first players to clear a dungeon.¡± Aibee offered up. ¡°The final boss will often have better than average drops as well.¡± ¡°Oh. That answers that then. Bull, Aibee is awesome. And way more useful than you." orrie grinned at me. "Now, let¡¯s go kick this dungeon¡¯s butt!¡± We didn¡¯t see anything inside the reception area and a quick check of the desks found that not only were they crumbling at our touch, anything that was in their drawers had long since rotted away. We started moving down the hallway carefully. The hall was about ten feet wide and stretched out past the edge of the [Glowstone]. There were two doors on either side of the hall. These doors were wooden and were starting to rot away as well. Carefully, Dagg opened up the first door after making sure we were prepared. Shining the light in, the room was devoid of enemies and mostly empty, a 15 by 15 foot room with a desk and a rusted metal filing cabinet. An office of some kind. The cabinet and desk were both empty of anything but trash. The other three doors proved to be nearly identical, empty offices. Past that, the hallway came to a four way intersection. The light didn¡¯t reach the end of either hall, but at the end of the hall to our left there was large, shadowy figure just at the very edge. I pointed it out to the others silently. Dagg nodded and took a step up that hallway to get a closer look, and suddenly two bright blue lights flared in the darkness, glowing eyes. With a whine of metal moving for the first time in decades, a large figure strode forward a step. It was at least as tall as Dagg, and bulkier. It resembled a suit of plate armor, with vivid blue lights shining through the eye holes of the helmet. It had no right hand however, instead it¡¯s arm ending in an absurdly large and wickedly sharp looking double-headed battle axe. ¡°Halt, intruders.¡± A metallic, raspy voice rang out from the creature, a [Manacite Golem]. ¡°Present your worker identification or leave the premises immediately.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have identification.¡± Zed whispered quietly. ¡°What do we do? Did we miss something?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t think so.¡± I whispered back. ¡°Remember, the quest calls for us to defeat 4 of these as well as a Guardian, probably the boss. I think we gotta fight.¡± ¡°Your failure to comply has been noted. Prepare to be destroyed.¡± It bent forward a little, angled one shoulder toward us like a running back trying to bust through a tackle, and suddenly rocketed forward toward us. It was so sudden it caught us all off guard, and in that instant I noticed that its shoulder pads both had long, wicked spikes jutting out from them. It rammed into Dagg, knocking him to one side and kept right on going, slamming through Lorelei and then into me, knocking me back a step as a red 120 flashed up in front of my vision to tell me how much damage I¡¯d taken. Dagg taunted the golem and it turned to face him as he swung his sword down at it, slashing at the metal with a shower of sparks. I ordered Raider to attack, and fell back a few steps to put a bit of distance between myself and the metal monster. I fired an arrow as I did so, dealing 70 damage to the golem. Zed started playing a hard, fast guitar riff I didn¡¯t recognize, but I felt his Bardic Performance buff wash over me. Lorelei moved back near me and cast a heal on herself, while Torrie moved in and began attacking as well. The [Manacite Golem] raised it¡¯s axe up, and suddenly the top half of the creature spun completely around like a top, the axe slicing out around it. Torrie, Dagg, and Raider were all hit by the attack, and my Sand Tiger took 80 damage. We all attacked back, and Torrie began focusing on healing Dagg. The golem attacked with just a single axe swing several more times, then turned and faced Zed and did its shoulder charge once again, hitting Torrie, Dagg, and Zed this time. Fortunately Zed had gone the opposite direction from us, or that could have been nasty. It followed up once again with the whirlwind slice, but Torrie and I were waiting for that, so she stayed back and I had commanded Raider to wait. Zed had stepped back as well, so this time only Dagg was hit. A couple more rounds of attacks, and the Golem collapsed in a heap of scrap metal, then dissipated into a shower of particle. A combat reward window popped up informing me that I got 10 Gold and 20 XP from the fight, but I just dismissed it as we regrouped. I drank down a healing potion and applied one to Raider, leaving me with three left. I¡¯d have to conserve carefully the rest of this dungeon. ¡°Ok, we got some Common junk. I¡¯ve picked up a few of those, we¡¯ll see if anyone needs them after the dungeon, but it¡¯s likely vendor trash at this point.¡± Torrie said after reviewing the Master Loot reward window for a minute. ¡°But we also found a piece of grey vendor trash, a [Damaged Golem Core] worth 100 Gold, and a Rare quality item called a [Manacite Battery] It doesn¡¯t have any stats and doesn¡¯t seem to be equippable, but is worth 250 Gold and has descriptive text: ¡®Used to power Manatechnology.¡¯ Whatever that means.¡± ¡°Let¡¯s keep exploring. We need to find at least 3 more of these, and the boss.¡± I said. ¡°We can worry about Manatech whatevers later. Maybe we¡¯ll find out more when we beat the boss or in one of these side rooms.¡± We kept exploring the Manacite Factory. One of the first large rooms we came across had a [Manacite Golem], but we were able to handle it better than the first one now that we knew its attacks. The room itself looked to be a ritual room of some kind, maybe. There was this strange, glowing yellow fungus on some of the walls, and there was a pedestal with a huge stone cauldron on it that was surrounded by more fungus and had some growing inside it. The fungus spores weren¡¯t targetable, and when we asked Aibee she said it was a harmless byproduct of some alchemicals that had once been in the cauldron, but we all avoided touching it anyway just in case. Exploring some more we came across a few more offices, all in similar shape to the first couple we¡¯d found. We came across one that had a [Manacite Golem] inside the door. It caught us by surprising, attacking as soon as the door opened, but Dagg managed to keep it bottled up and we took it down with only a bit of damage. These golems each dropped another [Damaged Golem Core] and a [Manacite Battery]. This was in the central hallway, and just past that office at the end of the hall was a pair of large, heavy metal doors. We assumed this was the boss chamber, so we continued exploring as we needed at least one more [Manacite Golem] for the quest.You could be reading stolen content. Head to the original site for the genuine story. Exploring to the right side of the central hall, we found another corridor that led to more offices and two more large rooms. One appeared to be some kind of ritual summoning room, as it had magical glyphs inscribed on the walls and floor, and an enormous fifteen-foot wide pentagram inside a circle that dominated the floor one end of the room. The other had a large metal cauldron that had long since dried out and tables with bits of broken glass and metal tubes surrounding them, an alchemy lab of some kind. At the end of the hall was the fourth [Manacite Golem] and we made short work of it as well. Lorelei still had a handful of [Small Mana Potions], so she cast several healing spells on those of us running low on heal potions so that we could save them for the boss fight. We then made our way back to the double doors where the boss waited. I knocked an arrow to have it ready as Dagg prepared to open the door. I only had twenty arrows left so I was concerned about the fight going too long, but there wasn¡¯t much I could do at this point. Zed began plucking out some deep guitar notes, the opening riff to The White Stripes¡¯ Seven Nation Army. Dagg pushed the double doors open and we stepped through the threshold. We stepped forward into a very large room, and much like the room of the ghoul boss we fought in the Metro the lights came on as we stepped into the room. Apparently the developers were nice enough not to force us to fight the boss in the dark. The room itself was maybe 80 by 40 feet and had a number of what appeared to be workstations lined up around the room, with piles of crates and boxes along the walls. At the center of the back wall stood an enormous blue and silver golem that looked for all the world like it could transform into a steam-powered locomotive. It stood around ten feet tall and was easily five feet across the shoulders. Two pylons rose off its shoulders that began sparking and smoking as soon as the golem began moving, and it had a large angled plate covering its chest that looked a bit like the cow-catcher off a an old train. In place of hands it had a pair of what looked to be large-caliber machine guns. The [Manacite Guardian Golem]¡¯s eyes lit up a bright yellow as it came to life with a rumble. Dagg charged forward with a taunt as the golem unleashed a hail of bullets toward him, the rounds pinging off his shield and punching through his chainmail. He roared and began to attack the golem, Lorelei cast a Protection spell on Dagg, and I unleashed a pair of arrows with Rapid Shot, though one simply ricocheted off the helmet of the monster doing no damage, while the other buried itself into its shoulder for a mere 65 damage. Seeing how much Damage Reduction the boss had, I held Raider back for now as he¡¯d be unable to deal any damage. Torrie went into stealth and began moving around the golem while Zed unleashed a rippling Dischord into it. The golem swiveled and this time unleashed a sweeping barrage from both of its gun arms. Torrie was almost behind the it, so she was untouched, but the rest of us were inside its 90 degree firing arc and were hit. Raider and I both took 80 damage, so the bosses special must do about 100 damage total. ¡°Spread out and try to outside of its front arc!¡± I called, moving off to one side as I fired another arrow, this one critting and dealing 83 damage. 17 arrows left and the boss¡¯s health was barely touched yet. Zed and Lorelei circled to the left, moving the opposite direction I did. Lorelei healed Dagg, while Zed continued to play. Torrie materialized and hit the golem in the back, and I could see the things health bar in my HUD visibly drop. She could dish out a decent amount of damage with her Backstab, and it looked like maybe she got a crit on top of that. The two pylons on the golem¡¯s back began to glow and spark as it shot Dagg again and I called out a warning and moved a little further back until I was against the far wall. I fired again, and the golem suddenly discharged a ball of blue lightning centered on itself and expanding outward. It stopped just in front of me as I was outside its range and I breathed in a sigh of relief. On the far side, Lorelei was safe, but Zed looked like he got hit. Being in melee both Dagg and Torrie got nailed as well. I saw all three of their health bars drop visibly in the party status window and winced. That was a powerful attack. The fight continued on from there, with the boss alternating between its specials while continuing to attack Dagg. After the first time, we were able to avoid it¡¯s arc spray attack as it stayed focused on its primary aggro target and the rest of us had moved far enough to the sides so only our tank was hit. The electric discharge attack was more troublesome, as it was able to almost cover the entire room and the golem kept moving around a little. Dagg tried his best to keep the boss centered, but I got zapped by it once for 180 damage, and Zed and Lorelei likewise got hit again. Torrie meanwhile kept a watch for the pylons to start glowing then dashed over by me as fast as she could, but she got caught a couple times as it was hard to cover that much distance in time. It also meant her damage output slowed considerably since she missed out on a couple of attacks. I watched my arrow supply dwindle, and I used two of my three healing potions after getting hit by the electrical attack. The others all used health and mana potions as needed, and Lorelei struggled to maintain healing on Dagg. I watched the bosses health bar drop slowly, then remembered something a hair too late ¨C this boss went berserk at 10% health. I was about to call out as Dagg landed another blow and the [Manacite Guardian Golem] suddenly started sparking wildly as it sped up drastically. Its attack speed effectively doubled, and I grimaced. ¡°It¡¯s berserk!¡± Torrie called out, realizing what was going on. ¡°Damage! All the damage you can, now!¡± Unfortunately we were limited by our lack of skills at this point. I fired one of the last three of my arrows as fast as I could. Dagg swung his sword one more time, and then got hit by another electrical burst that also hit Torrie as she no longer had the time to react and run away. It followed up with a machine gun burst and the fighter went down. Lorelei quickly threw a healing onto Torrie, and I told Raider to run back to the entrance of the dungeon, to hopefully keep him from getting killed, and to maybe guard us as we respawned in case more of the smaller golems showed up. The golem turned and shot Torrie, who retaliated with her dagger. I loosed another arrow, ignoring my Rapid Shot for now. The defense of the boss was high enough that I¡¯d missed a couple of those so far, and the attack penalty meant they were less likely to crit if they did hit. The arrow connected, doing minimum damage. The golem fired its burst shot at Torrie and I saw her health drop perilously low. Torrie rushed a healing spell, but the pylons began to glow again, and a moment later the golem unleashed its electric discharge and Torrie went down. Lorelei and Zed turned and moved in two different directions as the golem turned and began chasing the healer. He healing had outdone my arrow damage, so she was higher on the aggro list, I guess. I figured my last arrow, saying a silent prayer as I did so. The arrow connected and flashed a crit, dealing 101 damage. The health bar of the boss was down to a mere sliver. ¡°I¡¯m out of arrows!¡± I yelled. ¡°Run for it!¡± Lorelei yelled as she turned and swung her staff at the golem awkwardly. She connected, but I don¡¯t think staves did much damage. The golem raked her with its arc fire, and her health almost completely vanished. She continued to lead the golem away from Zed, hoping his Dischord would come off cooldown. It took a couple steps then fired it¡¯s burst-fire once again, and Lorelei went down with a scream. ¡°Shit!¡± Zed yelled. The Boss turned and fired another burst-fire and stitched a line of bullets across his chest. It then began charging up another electrical discharge. I took a few more steps down the hall, out of the boss room and away from the fight, ready to run. I didn¡¯t want to abandon everyone, but I was scared to die as well. Then I heard Zed rip a loud, off note chord, the distinctive sound of his Dischord attack. I crossed my fingers as I watched the visible wave of sound crash into the golem, and with a clatter the Golem collapsed to the ground and exploded into particles. ¡°Yes! YES! Fuck yeah!¡± I heard Zed yelling from the boss room. ¡°Take that you scrapheap!¡± I collapsed to my knees and gasped. I felt so very drained after that fight. A minute later Dagg, Lorelei, and Torrie came up the hall followed by Raider, mostly in their underwear. I turned away to allow them a moment of pseudo-privacy as they collected the bags their corpses dropped. Since they''d died fighting a mob, these bags were locked to anyone else looting them for one hour after death, at which point they would then be lootable by anyone. I stood and headed into the boss room. My personal loot window said I got 20 gold and 100 XP from the boss fight. Torrie opened up the Master Loot window and grinned. ¡°Ok, we got 4 more [Manacite Batteries], 4 more [Damaged Golem Cores], and three pieces of loot, all Rare. This one¡¯s for you Bull, a [Manacite Crossbow]. You¡¯re our only ranged, so that¡¯s automatically yours. There¡¯s also a [Manacite Belt], light armor but requires 5 strength. I don¡¯t know that any of us can wear it, but I¡¯m probably the closest. My strength is at 4 right now.¡± We discussed it, and it was decided to let Torrie have the belt. ¡°And finally, and this is the coolest one. [Mini Manacite Guardian]!¡± She said with a squeal. ¡±Is that¡­?¡± ¡°Yeah Zed. Minipet! It¡¯s Bind on Acquire though, so I gotta give it to someone. I got the belt, so I think it needs to go to someone else, which makes me a sad kender.¡± Torrie said with a sigh. ¡°I got the Crossbow, so I¡¯m out.¡± I said. ¡°Lorelei has gotten the least loot tonight, I think. Give it to her.¡± Zed said decisively, giving up his chance at the pet. Lorelei looked over at him and beamed a huge smile. ¡°Thank you Zed!¡± She walked over and gave him a big hug, then knelt and pulled something out of her inventory and set it on the floor. It was a miniature version of the boss, standing about a foot tall. It marched around her and mimed firing its gun hands adorably. Aibee flew in from the hallway where she¡¯d been hiding and hovered around the [Mini Golem], looking at it curiously. It was three times her size and just towered over her. I looked at my new [Manacite Crossbow] happily. It was very cool looking, resembling a blue, crystalline sci-fi rifle with the bar of a crossbow across the front. Its stats were pretty nice ¨C 120 Damage, +2 AGI, Requires STR 4, AGI 6, Range: 25¡¯, 25 Durability, Value 400G, Ranged Weapon (SPECIAL: Manashot, Damage 200, Range 20¡¯, AMMO: [Manacite Battery], 4 Shots per battery.) It was capable of firing regular arrows, but I could also use the [Manacite Battery] that we¡¯d found to fire much heavier shots. There were two doors off either side of the boss room, so after healing up some we moved over to one and opened it up. It was a storage room full of rusted and half-collapsed metal shelves. There were wooden storage boxes and crates, most of which has disintegrated from age, but several were intact so Torrie approached one and cautiously opened it. ¡°Quest item!¡± Torrie said, excitedly. She pulled out an item that looked like a crystalline egg cut lengthwise down the middle. There were five in the box, and she handed one to each of us. I looked it over carefully and grinned. This is what I¡¯d wanted to come here for. These were a version of the ¡°fantasy smartphone¡± that we¡¯d seen in the games opening cut-scene and would prove incredibly useful. ¡°Ok, if you use the item, it will give you a quest. It¡¯s vague, says to show these to an expert on ancient history.¡± Torrie said, frowning at them. ¡±The old man from the cut-scene.¡± I replied with a grin. ¡°He¡¯s at the Town Hall. He¡¯s a historian, knows a lot of rumors and theories about the pre-Twilight Apoch. I bet that¡¯s who we take this to.¡± ¡±Yeah, sounds good. Let¡¯s check out the rest of these boxes, and then head back. It¡¯s getting late,¡±
QUEST: Get Strange Artifact Examined
GOAL: You found a strange artifact in the Manacite Factory. Take this artifact and one [Manacite Battery] to someone who is an expert in ancient history to find out more information.
REWARD : ???
[Y] [N]
Searching through the rest of the boxes, we found 8 more [Manacite Batteries] and 16 [Manacite Crystals] which were apparently a crafting material. Everyone was really excited when I told them about the new crossbow, though I wasn¡¯t quite able to equip it yet. I needed to bump up my Strength first. We also got a quest complete for the dungeon, and it gave us the option of putting in our names and sending out a world wide message. After a brief discussion, we decided not to. No one else had found this dungeon yet, so we decided to keep it a secret for now so we could farm it a couple more times. Pulling out my [Recall Stone], I concentrated on it and everything went white. I felt like I was floating for a moment, then my vision slowly came into focus. I was standing in the main hall of the Chapel. The floor was made of several type of marble, cut and placed to create ornate designs, and in the center of the room stood an enormous green crystal nearly ten feet tall, pulsing softly with power. This was the crystal that originally powered the Dome around the city, and while it¡¯s power had waned it still retained a bit of that energy. Staring at it, I could feel the small green gem embedded in my back tingle as the two stones resonated with each other. A white light flashed next to me, and a moment later Torrie¡¯s tiny frame appeared, followed in succession by the rest of our party. Everyone looked beat, and I knew that last dungeon had been a close one, but everyone had a tired grin on their face. We¡¯d prevailed, and that was what mattered. ¡°Well then, let¡¯s go get paid!¡± Zed grinned, and we headed out to turn our quests in. Book 1, Chapter 9 We were tired enough that we didn¡¯t really talk much as we stepped out of the Cathedral. Torrie led the way toward the Town Hall, and we just followed along behind her. Physically I felt fine but mentally, well, it had been a long day full of stress. My virtual body may not get tired but my mind certainly did, and I was feeling quite sluggish. It was evening and the sun had gone down, but the town was still bustling. Being an online game there were player from different time zones and probably even different parts of the world, so the game tended to be active 24/7. This meant that shops and quest givers had to be available all the time. There were lampposts throughout the town square and up and down most of the streets with [Glowstones] on them, and many of the shops and buildings had them near their doors as well, a magical porch light of sorts. Torrie pushed open the door and we walked into the Town Hall. The main reception hall had three counters, another job board similar to the one outside, and several tables and chairs. Only one of the reception counters was currently manned and had a bored looking man in his early 30¡¯s sitting there. The rest of the hall was currently empty. The self-styled kender walked confidently up to the counter. ¡°Hey there!¡± She said cheerily. The receptionist must have been half-asleep, as he suddenly jumped in his seat, startled. ¡°Yes, can I help you?¡± ¡°I hope so. We were hoping to speak with the town elder. Is he around?¡± ¡°Hrmmm.¡± The receptionist said, peering down over his eyeglasses at Torrie. ¡°He is, but he¡¯s a busy man. I can relay the nature of your business with him and see if he¡¯s willing to talk with you.¡± Torrie looked at us, looked around to make sure the place was truly empty, then spread her hands and gave us a look that asked ¡°should I?¡± I nodded, and she carefully pulled out her crystal artifact and set it on the counter. The receptionist stared at it a moment, then nodded. ¡°This will probably do. Please hold onto this, and I¡¯ll go let Elder Lacio know. I expect he¡¯ll be eager to speak with you.¡± The receptionist quickly headed into the back, and Torrie put the device back in her inventory. ¡°So why are you so gung ho to keep this a secret anyway, Bull?¡± ¡°Easy, Zed. Remember the opening of the game, after chargen? When we saw glimpses of Apoch, pre-Twilight?¡± ¡°Yeah. That was pretty cool. So?¡± ¡°One of the scenes showed a crowded street, and many of the people on the street had these in their hands.¡± I replied. ¡°I think they¡¯re a fantasy version of a smartphone.¡± ¡°A what?¡± Zed asked, confused. ¡°Pocket comp.¡± Lorelei replied. ¡°Bull¡¯s showing his age here. It¡¯s what they were called back when they first came out.¡± ¡°Yeah, that. Sorry.¡± I nodded to Lorelei, grateful she unwittingly covered for my ignorance. ¡°But yeah, what I mean is this will give us a huge edge over the other players, if it works like I suspect it will. Remember how Torrie mentioned a lack of being able to send Tells or Whispers or any other kind of in-game chat when we first partied up? I bet this is how we access that functionality.¡± ¡°Ohh. Yeah, that makes sense. Good thinking, dude.¡± ¡°Come this way, please.¡± The receptionist came back out and motioned to us, and we followed him back into a large store room. Shelves lined the walls filled with books, boxes, and odd bits of stone and what appeared to be pieces of machinery, and in the center of the room stood a couple long tables also covered by artifacts. Seated at one of the tables wearing a magnifying lens over one eye sat Elder Lacio, intently looking at s crystalline object while flipping through an open journal next to him. ¡°Ahh, my children. Come in, come in.¡± He waved us over, and the receptionist bowed and left, closing the door behind him. ¡°Bruce tells me you¡¯ve found something interesting?¡± ¡°What¡­ what is all this?¡± Zed asked, looking around the room. ¡°Information. Remnants. All that we have of the remains of the world that was, I¡¯m afraid.¡± Lacio said shaking his head, his voice melancholy. ¡°The Twilight hit us before we were prepared. There were libraries and entire warehouses that were supposed to be moved here before the Dome went up, but we were too slow. This is all we saved ¨C a few books, as many memories as our founders could record, and a handful of magical devices and technology, all of which failed almost immediately.¡± ¡°As Elders, our job has been to study these, to learn about them, and to see if there was any way we could reactivate or fix them.¡± The old man sighed, the lines in his aged, leathery skin deepening even further. ¡°Sadly it seems impossible. The old magic vanished with the gods and their power sources drained long ago. We don¡¯t have a way to recharge or power them now.¡± ¡°What about the magic they teach us now?¡± Torrie asked. ¡°You should have learned this during you training. Didn¡¯t the Peppers teach you about this?¡± We all shook our heads, and he sighed. ¡°Of course not. Muscle-bound idiots only consider combat. I expected better from Doctor Wendy.¡± ¡°Before the Twilight magic came in two types, arcane and divine, though all came from the gods. There were three gods of magic, the ones who helped create the domes, and they gave the mortal races the power of arcane magic. This was a type of magic that drew upon the fundamental elements of the world and mortals could learn to manipulate it in different forms. Divine magic, on the other hand, were miracles granted directly by the various gods and were linked to their powers and domains. So, for example, a god of nature could only grant divine magic that reflected nature in some form.¡± ¡°After the Twilight when we retreated to our domes, all magic failed as our connection to the gods was lost. Divine or Arcane, nothing worked. But over time, some of us learned to tap into the worlds energies once again. The power was similar, but fundamentally different. Here in Ravensport we¡¯ve mastered the basics of Elemental magic and what we call Light magic, the power to heal and affect the human body. There are other energies as well, though we¡¯ve never managed to harness those.¡± ¡°Sorry, sorry. I didn¡¯t mean to lecture you. To sum up, all of this?¡± He swept his arm out to indicate the various artifacts stored in the room. ¡°All of this is worthless unless we can find new power sources. So I can look at what you brought me and may even be able to tell you what it is, but chances are I will not be able to help you with it.¡± ¡°Here, we each found one of these.¡± I said and pulled out my artifact, setting it on the table in front of Lacio. He picked it up carefully, studying it closely. Picking up a screwdriver off the table, he carefully pried at the back and pulled apart the crystalline eggshell. He then slowly pulled out a small, blackened cube. ¡°Ahhh, a CrystalVox unit. These were quite common, once upon a time.¡± Elder Lacio held up the crystal shell. ¡°This was a communication device, capable of contacting any other CrystalVox systems anywhere in the world, letting people communicate instantly. It could also access a magical library full of information as well as store images and recordings. I can only imagine how convenient and useful such devices were. Alas, without a power source they are useless.¡± ¡°Something like this, maybe?¡± I asked and pulled out one of the [Manacite Batteries] we had found. It looked much like the cube Lacio had pulled out of the [CrystalVox], but where that one was blackened and dead this one pulsed with a soft, glowing blue light. ¡°Where did you get this?¡± He exclaimed, reaching out to take the battery. He looked at it closely through the magnifying lens he wore. ¡°This still has a full charge! And this CrystalVox unit is in pristine shape. Considering its over 150 years old, I would have expected some wear and degradation, but it is excellent.¡± ¡°We found it in some old ruins to the north.¡± Torrie replied. ¡°In fact, we found several of them. And more of those crystal cubes too.¡± Torrie set her own [CrystalVox] unit on the table, and the others followed suit. They also each took out a [Manacite Battery] and set it next to the comm. Devices. ¡°I ¨C I think I can get these to work, with a little tinkering.¡± Lacio said excitedly. He sat down and bent over the table and began muttering to himself as he worked. I shrugged at the others and stood back patiently. Lorelei let out a small yawn which she quickly tried to stifle and looked embarrassed, but Lacio didn¡¯t even notice. ¡°Got it!¡± He shouted after a few minutes. He put the casing of the device back together and then turned the device over. After a moment, the flat side of the crystal, the screen, flickered to life, looking for all the world like a simple smartphone home screen. ¡°This is amazing! It works!¡± ¡°It seems the device is a bit limited right now.¡± The elder said, handing the [CrystalVox] to me. ¡°It can¡¯t connect to the magic library anymore, but that¡¯s not surprising. I imagine that¡¯s long been destroyed. But each of these has a unique number, and you can use that number to send letters directly to their Vox. You can also speak with them directly, though they have to activate their device as well. It seems that the recording feature doesn¡¯t currently work, however, and there are some other functions that I can¡¯t access and I don¡¯t know what they do. If you can find other CrystalVox units, it¡¯s possible that I can combine them to upgrade your unit with additional features.¡± ¡°How long will these batteries last, do you know? Or is there a way to recharge them?¡± I asked. My smartphones always seemed to be nearly dead twenty minutes after taking them off charge which always annoyed me. ¡°With these Manacite batteries? I imagine they will last for quite some time. Months, if not years.¡± ¡°Like, what is Manacite?¡± Zed asked. ¡°It¡¯s a rare ore similar to iron that is naturally infused with mana, with magical energy. It was highly valued in the old world for crafting Magitech items. I imagine it would be very useful for repairing any Magitech you found, and possibly for crafting new items even.¡± As he spoke, Elder Lacio continued to repair the [CrystalVox] in front of him, his hands deftly moving. ¡°In fact, I¡¯ll offer up a bounty for any more of these batteries or any ore you come across.¡±
REPEATABLE QUEST: [Manacite Ore] Turn In
GOAL: Elder Lacio of Ravensport is interested in any [Manacite Ore] samples you find and has offered to reward you for each one you turn in.
REWARD: 100 XP, 200G
[Y] [N]
REPEATABLE QUEST: [MANACITE BATTERY] Turn In
GOAL: Elder Lacio of Ravensport is interested in any [Manacite Battary] samples you find and has offered to reward you for each one you turn in.
REWARD: 200 XP, 250G
[Y] [N]
Two quest windows popped up, alerting us to a repeatable quest we were now eligible for. I dismissed it since we hadn¡¯t divided up the loot we¡¯d found in the Factory and with my new crossbow I had more than a passing interest in the ore and batteries. I saw the others do the same as well. ¡°Sorry, this is all we have for now, sir.¡± Torrie spoke for us. ¡°But if we find anymore, we¡¯ll be certain to come see you.¡± ¡°Well, good then.¡± He said, satisfied. He passed the last of the Vox units over to us. ¡°There you go. All done. They¡¯re simple enough to use, so I imagine you can figure them out on your own. I daresay these will make your adventures together a little easier.¡± ¡°Indeed, sir, Thank you very much.¡± Torrie spoke up once again, nodding her head to the old man. ¡°We should get going now. We know you¡¯re busy, and don¡¯t want to take up too much of your time.¡± ¡°Fine, fine. Go, enjoy yourselves. I imagine you¡¯re off to celebrate, eh?¡± He smiled at us, waving. ¡°And for now, I¡¯ll not say anything about these to any of the others, unless they too find some of these units. I know how competitive you kids are.¡± ¡°Thank you.¡± Torrie replied, but Lacio had already bent over his workbench once again. We filed out of the room, nodded to the receptionist and headed outside. ¡°Oh man.¡± Zed stretched his arms above his head and yawned. ¡°I¡¯m beat. I¡¯ve never been so tired inside a game before. Let¡¯s hit the bar and grab some drinks. I think I need one right about now.¡± ¡°Sounds good to me! I could us a cold one or five right about now.¡± Torrie grinned as she skipped ahead of us. I¡¯d swear sometimes she really was a kender, full of energy and mischief. It made me smile. ¡°I just wanna relax a bit and get this last quest turned in.¡± I said as we walked toward the Golden Horizon. ¡°I¡¯m woefully underpowered right now, so I need to sit and figure out where to spend my XP. I felt like I was a papier-mach¨¦ pi?ata at a children¡¯s party out there.¡± ¡°Now, now, no talk about builds and skills. That stuffs so booooring!¡± Torrie giggled. ¡°Tonight we celebrate!¡± We arrived at the inn and entered. The place was mostly full, but there were a couple open tables along the walls, so we moved to grab one. There was another bard in Zed¡¯s usual spot, a woman singing some sort of upbeat, high-tempo pop song that I didn¡¯t recognize. It wasn¡¯t really my preferred genre but I could tell her voice was really good. ¡°Hey Zed, check it. You got some competition!¡± Torrie said as we took our seats. ¡°And she¡¯s cute. Any chance of a duet in the future, if you know what I mean?¡± Zed shook his head and chuckles. ¡°Not my type. Wrong genre, and wrong gender. Though I suppose I could see if she wants to play a song or two later, that could be fun.¡± ¡°Oh, sorry about that.¡± Torrie¡¯s face reddened in embarrassment. ¡°I shouldn¡¯t have assumed¡­¡± ¡°It¡¯s ok. How would you know? I haven¡¯t said anything.¡± Zed replied, shrugging. ¡°No big deal.¡± The table got quiet in awkward silence for a moment, so I flagged down one of the waitresses as she was bustling by. We ordered drinks and asked for Geira or Malkom. A few moments later, both of the Werths came out to our table, Geira carrying a tray of drinks. ¡°You¡¯re back, I see!¡± Geira said with a smile as she set the drinks down. ¡°How¡¯s the adventuring going?¡± ¡°Great!¡± Torrie replied. ¡°We really tore it up out there tonight. So we¡¯re celebrating!¡± ¡°That¡¯s good to hear.¡± Malkom replied jovially. ¡°I don¡¯t suppose¡­¡± ¡°Heh, yeah. We managed to find that journal you were looking for.¡± Torrie opened up her inventory screen and took out the [Journal] we had found in the Metro. ¡°I believe this was it?¡± Malkom took the worn book and started flipping through it, grinning happily. ¡°Yes, this is exactly what I was looking for. Thank you so much! There is a lot of information here that I will need to read through, and some of it is faded and hard to make out. It will take me a couple days, but I believe this will be enough to get us started on our plan.¡± ¡°Plan?¡± I asked. ¡°Yeah, I told you this was the journal of a pre-Twilight Merchant, right? Well, I want to learn from this. Ravensport is self-sufficient, but what we can produce is still limited. We need to get out there and see if there are other survivors, other cities, and start trading with them! Once I work up an appropriate plan of action, I want to send out a few teams to make contact with any other villages or towns so that we can establish a trade route with them. So please, come back and see me in three days time and I should have another job for you, if you¡¯d be interested.¡± ¡°Sure, that sounds great Malkom¡± Torrie replied. As she did so, we got a notification for a quest completion, and a screen popped up with a selection of chest armor that I could choose from for my reward. I selected the Light Armor leather option, as that was the heaviest armor I could wear right now, a Rare item called the [Night Watchman¡¯s Tunic].
QUEST REWARD: Expedition to Old Ravensport
Experience Reward 300
Gold Reward 200
Item Reward [Copper Ring], [Night Watchman¡¯s Tunic]
I accepted my reward, and the experience gain was enough to push me up another level, over to Level 4. I raised my mug to the rest of the party ¡°Cheers!¡± We spent the next hour drinking and relaxing, joking about how nasty the dungeons we¡¯d been in were to help take the edge off. Lorelei downed her first mug of ale in one long gulp, and immediately got both tipsy and much more talkative and outgoing. It was funny to see how fast the transformation was. I had the waitress bring over a shot glass that I filled up with beer for Aibee, and everyone roared with laughter as they watched her guzzling down what looked to be twice her volume in booze. Lorelei even brought out her [Mini Golem] pet and let it wander around. It didn¡¯t seem to have Aibee¡¯s level of AI, and instead would only react in very rudimentary ways with things around it. Raider didn¡¯t seem to like it though, so he would avoid it whenever it came too near, which set the table off to laughing again. The other patrons were fascinated by the little robot, but when they asked where she¡¯d gotten it Lorelei only grinned and put a finger up to her lips and whispered ¡°Secret!¡± ¡°Sho¡­¡± Lorelei said, slurring her words. ¡°What do we do next?¡± ¡°I¡¯d say following up the Werths¡¯ quest chain is the logical step. But that means we have a few days to kill.¡± Torrie said. ¡°Yeah, well, since we have a few days to kill, we could hit those two dungeons a couple more times.¡± Zed said.The tale has been illicitly lifted; should you spot it on Amazon, report the violation. ¡±That was the plan anyway I think, but yeah, we definitely should do that.¡± I replied. ¡°If nothing else, try and get a few more of those bags of loot that we found in the Metro.¡± ¡°That¡­ *hic*¡­ That won¡¯t be possible, sorry Bull.¡± Aibee piped up. She was lying down on the table next to her shot glass. She¡¯d downed four of them so far, somehow, and was now quiet drunk. She¡¯d lain down to stop the room from spinning so much. ¡°Special loot in the dungeons is a one time only deal. So the satchel I helped you find and those boxes of ore and batteries you found in the other dungeon? They won¡¯t be there next time.¡± ¡°Bummer. But that makes sense. What about the treasure chest?¡± ¡°Treasure chests are a little different. They¡¯re kinda random, though.¡± Aibee sat up and shook her head to clear it. ¡°Chests can have several different spawn locations depending on the dungeon, and whether they spawn at all is random. So sometimes there may be no chests, and sometimes multiple. It all depends on the design though.¡± ¡°Hey Zed, you¡¯re on quite a bit, aren¡¯t you?¡± I looked over at our bard. ¡°Yeah, I work from home and have a lot of free time. Why?¡± ¡°I was thinking. You¡¯re set up here in the bar a lot, and you talk to folks a good bit. Let¡¯s use that.¡± I grinned. ¡°Chances are no one else has found that hidden satchel in the Metro. Who would think to look under a pile of rubble, especially when there are so much of it down there? So let¡¯s sell that information.¡± ¡°Ooo, I like where thish ish going!¡± Lorelei giggled. ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s awesome man.¡± Zed replied. ¡°Sell that info for some cash. I can also try and see if I can pick up info as well, see if there¡¯s any other quests or dungeons people have found.¡± ¡°Yeah. I¡¯ll do that as well. Right now, I have nothing but free time, so I¡¯ll be on almost all the time.¡± It was a little white lie of sorts, since I was always online and in the game. ¡°Also everyone should keep up with their daily quests. And we¡¯ll see what these Vox units can do tomorrow as well.¡± ¡°But for now¡­¡± I continued with a big yawn. ¡°I¡¯m fragging exhausted. This has been one hell of a day. So I think I¡¯m gonna call it. Sorry to cut things short guys.¡± Everyone said goodnight, and I grabbed Aibee and headed up the stairs, Raider following on my heels. Reaching my room I opened walked in and promptly collapsed on the bed and just lay there for a few moments, enjoying the relaxing softness. Then I followed over and looked to Aibee, who had flown a bit drunkenly over to the nightstand. ¡±Ok. It¡¯s past time we had a nice long talk.¡± I patted the bed and Raider leaped up next to me and curled up like an oversized cat, and I ruffled his fur behind his ears causing him to purr happily. Aibee fluttered over and sat down on his side, leaning back into his fur. I sighed and used these few moments to gather my thoughts. ¡°Ok Aibee, I¡¯m going to lay out all the cards on the table here. I need some answers. First off, you¡¯re an AI, correct? An Artificial Intelligence?¡± ¡°That is correct.¡± ¡°Ok. Most, if not all NPCs in this game are AI like you, correct?¡± ¡°That is partially correct. They are all AI, but they are not all like me.¡± Aibee said, looking almost offended. ¡°There are three different levels of AI running in Apoch¡¯s Twilight ¨C Rudimentary, Low-Functioning, and High-Functioning.¡± ¡°Rudimentary AI are very simple AI. They have some simple behaviors programmed into them and use a straightforward Boolean logic to make decisions. Simple ¡®if; then¡¯ type programming. Most monsters in the game and some bosses are all Rudimentary AI, as are the occasional far background NPC that players aren¡¯t really expected to interact with much.¡± ¡°Low-Functioning AI are a step up from those. They have more behavioral options and utilize a moderate degree of fuzzy logic to intelligently interact with players and each other and can learn and adapt to some degree. Most NPCs and some bosses and monsters are LFAI, also called LoFai.¡± ¡±High-Functioning AI like myself are incredibly complex systems with dedicated fuzzy logic processor, complex behavioral strings, and capable of somewhat independent thought and action within the game, as determined by our core personalities and goals. HiFai are pretty rare. Besides myself, I only know of two others currently active in the Ravensport area.¡± ¡°Lo-Fi and Hi-Fi, rally?¡± I chuckled. ¡°You sound like old stereo equipment. Can you tell me who the other HiFai are?¡± ¡°Geira Werth here in the Inn and Lacio, the town Elder and historian.¡± She replied. ¡°Oh, cool. So Geira but not her husband, eh? Huh.¡± I nodded. ¡°Ok, so since you¡¯re such a complex AI, why were you running character creation for me? Or did you handle that for everyone?¡± ¡°I was assigned to you. Most players had a simple Rudimentary AI interface to help them with their character creation.¡± ¡°Any idea why you were assigned to do that?¡± ¡°No, sorry, I do not know that.¡± Aibee paused, a pensive look on her face. ¡°It is strange now that I think about it. It does not seem that there are Helper AI¡¯s assigned to any of your comrades. They seemed surprised to see me. I¡¯m sorry, I do not know why this is.¡± ¡°During chargen, I wasn¡¯t given the option to alter my appearance at all. You gave me some kind of answer like it was my ¡®idealized self¡¯. Were the other players able to change their appearances?¡± ¡°That function was locked for you, but is present. I did not witness any other character creation event, but judging by the variety of shapes and sizes I would surmise that it was not locked for them.¡± The pixie replied. ¡°So this may seem strange, but do I register as a player or an AI?¡± I asked, hesitantly. ¡°You definitely register as a player.¡± Aibee said. ¡°However, I have noticed something unusual from observing you. You do not log out like other players, even temporarily. It is possible to sleep and perform most necessary actions inside the game, though it is not recommended as it will quickly have negative effects on your physical health, but there are certain actions such as eating and depositing waste materials that can only be done while logged off. Why is that?¡± ¡°Yeah, that¡¯s the problem. I don¡¯t know.¡± I replied. ¡°Do you know what the date is, outside the game?¡± ¡°Yes. It is currently October 15, 2039.¡± I winced as she said that, and I felt a jolt of pain shoot through my head. From what Dagg had been saying earlier, I expected something like this, but to hear it straight out was terrifying and painful. ¡°Aibee, I don¡¯t know if you¡¯ll believe this, or even understand this, but¡­ The last memory I have before standing at character creation with you was crossing the street and getting hit by a truck. That was in September of 2018.¡± ¡°Huh.¡± Aibee said, looking stunned. ¡°Hah!¡± I laughed. ¡°Now you know why I kept saying that. Do you have access to my login data or anything? I¡¯m not sure what all you can see or interact with on the back end.¡± ¡°I can see the code that everything is running on, yes. And you have the distinctive code of the machine interface between a human brain and the game.¡± She flew up and stared intently at my face. ¡°However, the interface connection just vanishes into nothing. That should not be possible, by my admittedly limited understanding. You¡¯re logged into the game, but it¡¯s like you¡¯re not plugged into anything.¡± I laced my hands behind my head and pulled me head down so that my chin dug into my chest, closing my eyes tightly as I fought back a wave of dizziness. It really seemed like I had a hard time thinking too deeply about my situation, probably because the human mind wasn¡¯t really equipped for such things. I took several deep breaths to steady myself. ¡°Ok, thanks Aibee. I expected as much.¡± I sighed. ¡°So here¡¯s a question, will I respawn, since I¡¯m registered as a player?¡± ¡°Yes, of course you¡ª¡° She started saying, then stopped. ¡°Actually, I¡¯m unsure. The player data syncs with the player¡¯s interface device upon respawn, creating a duplicate character and moving the connection to the new body. Since it¡¯s unclear if you are connected to said device, it is possible you would be treated like an AI instead.¡± ¡°What does that mean?¡± I asked, already knowing the answer. ¡°If an AI is killed, it is deleted. In some cases a new copy of the AI will be spawned in, such as with monsters in the world and the monsters and bosses in dungeons. But by design, named AI, especially NPCs, do not respawn. This is to allow players to have a permanent effect on the game world.¡± ¡°So it¡¯s possible that if I die, the game could treat my like an AI and delete me.¡± I said shakily. ¡°I¡¯m afraid so.¡± Aibee replied. She actually looked concerned. ¡±Ok Aibee, first off, I want you to protect yourself. If you ever feel you¡¯re in danger or another player tries doing anything to you, I want you to despawn. I¡¯m guessing that the same applies to you, if you die, you¡¯re gone for good?¡± ¡°That is correct.¡± Aibee said. ¡°Ok, then yeah, keep yourself safe.¡± I told her. ¡±Thank you Bull, I appreciate the concern.¡± ¡°Dagg covered a bit about the game earlier. I was surprised he talked so much.¡± I mused. ¡°One thing I couldn¡¯t ask him about was if the game had any kind of time dilation feature. In the stories I had read about VRMMO¡¯s, often the game operated at faster speed than the outside world. So, for example, I could play for 8 hours, but only 2 hours pass in the real world. Does this game do anything similar?¡± ¡°No, it does not. It operates on a one to one time ratio. My information database indicates that the virtual interface devices used are capable of time dilation and that some virtual reality programs utilize it, but it is not used for most immersive games where players are expected to spend any significant time in.¡± ¡°Why is that? It seems like time dilation would be useful, letting players get more playtime in.¡± It seemed unusual to not to take advantage of such a feature. ¡°Studies found that extended immersion in an accelerated or dilated time caused players to suffer from ¡®Time Synchronization Syndrome¡¯. In very short doses this isn¡¯t a problem, but regularly spending several hours or more with their minds operating at a different speed from the outside world caused players to have trouble adjusting back and forth, causing severe mental issues.¡± ¡°Oh.¡± I said flatly. ¡°Yeah, I can see how that would be bad.¡± ¡°Further, from a more practical standpoint, it makes it easier for players to keep up with events in the game.¡± Aibee continued. ¡°Even before TSS became a known problem, players would complain about going o bed or to work, and having several days pass while they were gone, leading to events passing by too rapidly for them to participate.¡± ¡°You know, that was an issue I always wondered about in those stories.¡± Several Light Novels I used to read had games that operated anywhere 2x, 4x, or even faster speeds, and it always seemed weird that so much time could pass while you were offline. ¡°So since things are all kinds of screwy with me, how much help can you actually give me in game?¡± I asked. ¡°I have certain parameters I have to follow.¡± Aibee said. ¡°I¡¯m not supposed to directly interfere with your game experience, and I¡¯m not supposed to directly tell you about things you haven¡¯t discovered yet.¡± ¡°But you can offer hints and other indirect help, like you did this evening?¡± ¡°Correct.¡± She replied with a grin. ¡°I find it enjoyable to watch you and your friends discover things in game.¡± ¡°Cool. Feel free to keep it up. And if there¡¯s anything you need, let me know.¡± ¡°-ndwic-¡° Aibee mumbled something. ¡°What was that?¡± I asked. ¡°Sandwich. I¡¯d like to try one of those sandwiches you made that everyone ate tonight. They looked tasty.¡± She replied, blushing. ¡°Oh, sure. I didn¡¯t think you would need to eat.¡± I replied, opening my inventory and pulling out a [Sand Sandwich]. ¡°I don¡¯t.¡± She smiled as she picked up the sandwich. It was larger than she was, but she happily began taking enormous bites out of it. ¡°But I can taste things. These looked good, and they are!¡± ¡°Ok, I guess that¡¯s it for now.¡± I said as I fed some [Sand Wolf Shank] to Raider, who happily gobbled it up. ¡°I¡¯m pretty beat. I may have more questions for you later. And if you can figure anything out, I¡¯d appreciate anything you can find.¡± Raider leapt down to the floor and curled up in his corner. I decided to go downstairs and see if I could get some more blankets so that I could make up a little bed for him, and Geira was happy to provide me a couple for a few extra copper per night. A quick peek into the main bar showed that my friends had all logged off for the night. I sighed as I walked back up to my room. It was unbelievable that it had been less than 48 hours since I awoke inside Apoch¡¯s Twilight. So much had happened so fast. I was coping and adapting fairly well, I thought, but it still made my head spin to think about it. I needed to find out why I was here and what happened, but I was at a dead end for now. I didn¡¯t think Aibee was hiding anything from me, at least not deliberately. It was possible she knew more but was locked out of that info or prevented from telling me by her programming. But I¡¯d cross that bridge when I came to it. I set up Raiders bed, then sat back down on my own and pulled out my quest rewards from the Metro quest. The [Copper Ring] was a simple, unadorned Uncommon rarity ring made of copper that gave +1 END, while the tunic was a really nice Rare black, studded leather, sleeveless shirt with a +1 AGI and +1 END on it. It matched the pants I¡¯d gotten earlier in the evening as well, giving me a more uniform appearance that I liked quite a bit. I was now Level 4 and had a new Talent point to spend, so decided it was time to upgrade my character. I made the motion to open up my Status window and started flipping through it. I went over to options first and decided to go through those again, since I¡¯d largely been ignoring them except when I had to adjust something. I fiddled with a few settings, then closed that window and paged through my sheet a bit. Then I flipped over to my stats window and pulled up my Talent options. I noticed there were a few new ones added to the list. I wanted to pick up Medium Armor so I could wear something heavier, but that required four more points of strength, so I decided to maybe try and grab that when I got my next Talent point at Level 7. Instead I decided that Insight would be useful. It required a Focus of 4, so I needed to bump that up, but it let me see the actual percentage of health and mana that a mob had, which would be useful during fights. I also needed Strength of 4 for a couple of my new piece of gear, but I had a lot of XP available to spend, just shy of 5,000 since I hadn¡¯t had the chance to spend any in a while. So I dropped 300 XP to bump my Strength to 4, and spent a total of 500 XP to bump my Focus from 2 to 4, and equipped the new crossbow and tunic I¡¯d picked up. I slipped my new ring on as well, and grinned as I felt tougher and more powerful. I needed more health so I decided to buy a couple more ranks in that as well, bumping it from 3 to 5 base for 700 more XP., raising my current buffed stat to 8 which meant I had 800 health now. That would make life much easier going forward. I didn¡¯t really see any good attack Traits for me to take, so I decided to buy some more traits for Raider. He had a couple fights where he could barely do any damage so I needed to fix that. I picked up Animal Fury and Maul. The former gave my pets a passive +50 Damage, and the latter gave me a four round cooldown that buffed it another 50 points. I also nabbed Tough Hide, boosting my pets DR by 20, and Nature¡¯s Instincts, which gave him an additional 10 Defense. I had a little over 1,200 XP left to spend, so I decided to invest in skills a bit. I raised Perception from 3 to 5, raised Negotiation from 2 to 5, Riding from 1 to 3, and finally bumped my Ranged skill from 5 to 8. This left me with 26 XP, but I felt good. I felt much more powerful and with my new health I felt a good deal more secure. I shut out the light, told Aibee and Raider ¡°goodnight¡±, and opened up my sleep menu. I selected 8 hours, hit accept, and everything went black.
The next day I continued exploring and questing, as well as spent some time in the Inn and the Town Hall gathering information. Zed was on most of the day as well, so we partnered up during the day and put our new skills to use. The dailies were a breeze now. Zed sold the secret location of the [Shoulder Satchel] bag a dozen times for 100 gold each and I found out the locations for a quest and a dungeon. North of the city, along the mountain ridge about 4 hours walk was a mine entrance. It was infested with giant spiders, but was apparently a good place to mine for ore. I shuddered and vowed never to step foot in there, as I suffered from rather severe arachnophobia. Tiny spiders in real life made my skin crawl, I could only imagine what spiders the size of dogs or horses or worse would do to me. There was also a hermit living in some woods to the north as well that had a small quest chain. Completing it unlocked a Martial Arts Talent players could take, giving them access to unarmed, hand to hand attacks and Talents. It sounded interesting, but wasn¡¯t really the direction I was going with my build so I wasn¡¯t too worried about it for the time being. Once the others logged in, we headed out and ran the Metro and Manacite Factory dungeons again. They were so much easier the second time around, as everyone had bought some new skills and abilities. Lorelei now had a group heal called [Healing Burst] that hit everyone in a wide area around her. That alone was a game change for the party. And Raiders new skills made him an effective secondary tank, taking the pressure off Dagg who had upgraded to Heavy Armor so was sporting some plate armor now. A day of solid questing, hunting, and dungeon raiding was enough for all of us to level again, hitting Level 5 by the time everyone logged off. It let me pick up ranks in the Stealth skill as well as a couple new Traits, Backstab and Vanish for myself, and Stalker and Fade for Raider. This gave both of us the ability to use stealth and to use it to leave combat if necessary, which was vital to my survival. And Backstab would let me dish out a little more damage. I also bumped up a few other Attributes and Skills with my remaining XP. We¡¯d planned to try and hit level 7 so we could get our next Talent point by the time that the Werth¡¯s had the next quest in their chain ready, but the next day something happened to derail our plans. I was the only one of our group on, and shortly before noon the following message popped up for all players online. It also showed up in every players Mailbox,
Attention All Players: Jericho has initiated a Major Storyline Quest. A Primal army is gathering to attack the town of Hayver¡¯s Mill in the Ravensport zone. All players may participate in this Public Raid to determine the fate of the town. The attack will commence in 48 hours on Friday, October 18, at 11:47 AM. Report to Hayver¡¯s Mill for more details.
¡°Shit.¡± I muttered to myself. I was in town, and around me players were getting excited, but I was worried. Failing this raid would mean the destruction of one of the few towns in the Ravensport zone, and worse, meant the deaths of all those AI. I felt a pang at the thought of that. And Hayver¡¯s Mill was where the Werth¡¯s were supposed to send us, but they wouldn¡¯t have that quest available until Friday night, after the Raid. Worse, some dumbass player jumped the gun here really badly by initiating this now. The playerbase was still low as the Beta Wave hadn¡¯t launched yet, and before noon during a weekday meant that there would be even fewer players online. This was a massive fuck up. I pulled up my character sheet to review one more time while I waited for the others to log on.
Name Bull Level 5
XP to Level 10,406/15,000 XP to Spend 366
HP 600 (1000) MP 500
Def 19 (22) DR 24
Gold 2718
ATTRIBUTES
STR 5 FOC 5
END 6 (10) CHA 6
AGI 7 (11)
SKILLS
Drive Cart 1 Ranged Weapons 8
Negotiation 6 Ride 3
Perception 7 Stealth 7
TALENTS
Animal Handling Requires Charisma 4, Gives Ride and Drive Cart Skill at Rank 1
Cooking (Novice) Allows the cooking of Tier 1 Recipes
Insight Requires Focus 4, Allows user to see health and mana percentages.
Ranged Wpn Training Requires Agility 5, +2 to all Ranged Attacks.
TRAITS
Animal Companion (Tier 1) Sand Tiger (Raider) - HP: 200 Att: 8 Dam: 25 Def: 15 DR: 20
*Animal Fury Grants Pets +50 base Damage
Backstab Only useable while in Stealth, adds +50 Damage to a single attack.
*Bestial Toughness Grants Pets +300 base HP
Butcher Allows collection of Tier 1 meat from certain animals.
*Fade Pet can enter stealth mode regardless of situation. 12 Second Cooldown.
*Maul Adds +50 to Pet¡¯s base Damage for its next attack, 12 Second Cooldown
*Nature''s Instincts Grants Pet +10 base Defense
Rapid Shot Fires 2 Attacks, -5 To Hit, 6 Second Cooldown
*Stalker Pet gains Stealth 6.
*Tough Hide Grants Pet +20 Damage Reduction
Vanish Allows you to enter Stealth instantly, regardless of situation. 12 Second Cooldown
EQUIPMENT
Head [St Lt Hide Helmet] Req STR 3, DR 3, Durability 10, Value 1c
Shoulders --
Neck --
Back --
Chest [[Night Watchman¡¯s Tunic] Req STR 4, DR 5, +1 END, +1 AGI, Durability 20, Value 250G
Hands [Night Watchman¡¯s Gloves] RReq STR 4, DR 4, +1 AGI, Durability 15, Value 100G
Waist [Lt Hide Belt] Req STR 3. DR 4. Durability 16, Value 20G
Legs [Night Watchman¡¯s Trousers] Req STR 3, DR 4, +1 END, Durability 15, Value 100G
Feet [Tough Hide Boots] Req STR 3, DR 4, +1 END, Durability 14, Value 100G
Ring (Left) [Copper Ring] +1 END, Value 100 G
Ring (Right) --
Main Hand [Manacite Crossbow] 2H Wpn, Req STR 4, AGI 6, +2 AGI, Range 25¡¯, Damage: 120, Durability 25, Value 400G (SPECIAL: Manashot, Damage 200, Range 20¡¯, Requires 25% Manacite Battery Charge)
Off Hand --
Bag One [Small Bag] +6 Inventory Slots
Bag Two --
Ammo [Simple Arrow] (100) Val 0c
TO BE CONINUED IN BOOK 2¡­ Book 1: Afterword Hello. My name is Steven Ratkovich, better known as Bull online and in the tabletop community. And if you¡¯re reading this, thank you for taking the time to read my little slice of wonkiness. I¡¯m getting to be an old ork, and I¡¯ve been involved with roleplaying games as a playtester, writer, and even developer for over two decades now, mostly for the Shadowrun RPG. And while I¡¯ve written some short fiction before, the bulk of my writing has been rules and adventures. So this is the first time I¡¯m really diving into long form writing, even though writing a novel or three has been a dream of mine since before I graduated high school. So a few months ago I needed to break out of a rut and decided to start writing a little bit each day. And the work you¡¯ve hopefully just read was born. And if you haven¡¯t read it, I humbly ask you to go do so. Apoch¡¯s Twilight as a concept is over 15 years old now. I first conceived of it back when we were playing Dungeons & Dragons 3rd edition, and I was considering GMing a campaign for a bit. I wanted to come up with a unique world, and conceived of the idea of a world like the Forgotten Realms or Dragonlance where the gods had come to all-out warfare on each other, and destroyed each other as well as most of the world. Mages created a haven underneath a magical dome, and after a couple of generation the players were sent to explore the world outside the dome. I had the base concept right there, and it hasn¡¯t changed. It didn¡¯t have a title at this time though. I never did run that as a D&D campaign, but a few years later I was trying to stretch my design chops a bit and I¡¯d gotten frustrated with D&D 3.X. It was too number crunchy and everyone I knew who played it was too focused on what the best combinations of multiclasses and feats and whatever else there was, and weren¡¯t focused on the actual game itself. So I decided to design my own fantasy RPG from scratch, giving the players the freedom to take their characters in any direction they chose without the limits of levels or class. I also asked them what they were interested in playing, and designed skills and powers and such specifically to fit their concepts. We played that version for a half¨Cdozen or so sessions before we got sidetracked. We were all burnt out on fantasy overall, and we were doing a lot more board gaming at the time, so the game got shelved in favor of other things. However this time it had a name: Apoch¡¯s Twilight. Apoch was the name of the world, but was also a portmanteau of two words: Apocalypse and Epoch. It seemed appropriate, and I liked the way it sounded. I didn¡¯t come back to it again until three years ago. This time around, I¡¯d been watching a lot of anime as well as reading a tone of light novels and manga, and some of my favorites were Isekai, especially the ¡°Playing in and/or trapped in an MMO¡± ones. Of which there are a LOT. Sword Art Online and Log Horizon were my two primary inspirations, but there are a ton of others as well, not to mention how many Isekai shows have ¡°game mechanics¡± as a side thing as well. I was running a Patreon by this time for some fans of my Shadowrun work, and I was trying to run a semi-monthly game for some of my higher-tiered patrons. I decided to try doing a ¡°trapped in a VRMMO¡± tabletop game for them, as most of them had played MMOs pretty extensively over the years and were fans. So I set out to write an TTRPG that would capture the feeling of playing an MMO. I sat down and completely reworked the game system op to bottom. About the only thing I kept was the base dice mechanic, which was 2d12 + Stat + Skill. I ran this online for about six months, but once again the game got derailed, this time by life. Convention season rolled around, and I usually do both the Origins Game Fair and Gen Con, so summer gets busy fast. Plus everyone else¡¯s schedules got harder and harder to mesh up, especially since we had a couple folks on the West Coast and a few of us on the East Coast, and all of us were at least in our early to mid-30¡¯s, with a couple of us in our 40;s or older. Jobs, families, local game groups, and other commitments all make scheduling a cast-iron pain in the ass. Once again, Apoch¡¯s Twilight got shelved, though this time I had rules base written out, had mapped out a small chunk of the game world, had ideas for a bunch more, and a whole host of other bits and pieces written, and I had every plan to come back to it one of these days. I made a small attempt at the beginning of 2018, starting a short story that maintained the original Patreon games premise: One of the games more powerful AI gains sentience and manages to wrest control of the System from the developers and locked the initial 1,000 game testers into the game world in order to learn from and study humanity, while they tried to find a way to free themselves. I only managed to get a couple chapters written before dropping the project. I liked the idea of it, but wasn¡¯t sold on writing out the whole Evil Ai plot, and the MC I had created for that version didn¡¯t appeal to me. Then at the beginning of September, I needed to get back into the habit of writing again, as I hadn¡¯t done any in a while and was having some issues with it. So I decided to just ¡±word vomit¡±, aka just start writing and not worry about editing or flow or whatever, and just get the idea out and on paper (so to speak). And I decided to do so by revisiting Apoch¡¯s Twilight yet again. This time, rather than an MC that I was unclear on who he was and what his real motivations and stuff would be, I decided to think simple, if a bit stupid (and a little narcissistic). Since inevitably the MC of an Isekai story (which is what I was aiming for) was called a Mary Sue, I decided to really lean into that idea, and wrote myself as the main character. So for those wondering, yeah, the fact the MC is named Bull and that I sign my name ¡°Steven ¡°Bull¡± Ratkovich means that the MC is very much a version of me. He¡¯s not an exact copy of me, but pretty close. Makes writing him pretty easy, since all his reactions are genuine. They¡¯re exactly what I would do in his situation. I also thought it gave the story a fun and unique hook, killing off and trapping the MC inside his own creation. Weirdly enough, I only very recently discovered American LitRPG, shortly after I began writing Apoch¡¯s Twilight, not realizing that was the very term for the genre I was writing. A couple of friends pointed me towards a couple sites, like Royal Road, where there are hundreds of LitRPG. That was pretty cool, and gave me a whole new slush pile of interesting things to read. My goal for these novels is basically to tell Bull¡¯s story as he tried to figure out why and how he ended up inside a VRMMO of a game he wrote. I¡¯m writing about 90% off the cuff, so I don¡¯t always know where the immediate story will take me. Especially once I get into book 2, as a lot of book 1 is based on stuff my Patreon group played out. But I do know the underlying concept, and I do know the why and how of what is going on. I think at least a couple of you have already got a slight guess as to what¡¯s what, which is cool. I¡¯m trying to keep things pretty vague for now, but it will become more clear around the end of Book 3, or possibly Book 4 (depending on how things pan out). Now, I¡¯ve had a few comments and questions so far, both in the Royal Road comments section and elsewhere, so I¡¯ll address them as I can. I don¡¯t plan to argue with anyone who dislikes the book or what I¡¯m doing overall, because people like what they like. Most of my friends love Game of Thrones, for example, but I just can¡¯t get into it. Doesn¡¯t make them wrong for liking it, or me wrong for disliking, just means we are looking for different things in a work. So if you¡¯re looking for a fight, I won¡¯t give you wrong. I¡¯ll simply say thank you for reading what you did, and wish you luck finding work you like.If you find this story on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the infringement. On to comments! ¡°This needs an editor/rewrite!¡± Yes, yes it does. I¡¯ve tried to snag as many basic typos as I can, but frankly I am absolute shite when it comes to self-editing. And as mentioned above, my first draft is very much a ¡°word vomit¡± where I¡¯m just trying to write without being nitpicky about grammar and stuff. I do go back and do a quick edit before I post the individual scenes to Patreon, and I do an actual second draft and heavier edit when I post to Royal Road a month+ later. But there¡¯s still a lot of story left when I do post, and things sometimes change as I write. So eventually I need to go back through and do a really solid third draft, preferably with the help of a professional editor (or at least semi-pro editor). If I decide to try publishing these as an ebook for sale, I¡¯ll look into that then. But if and when I do that, I want to be able to pay for an editor, because they¡¯re VERY much worth it, and right now I¡¯m nowhere near being able to afford that. Anyway, yes. I need an editor and I need to rewrite sections of things. I¡¯m very much aware, but I do appreciate it greatly when you point out my errors, because that lets me immediately fix the minor stuff, and it gives me notes to look at when I go to do a deeper dive later one. So thank you! ¡°How overpowered will your MC get since he¡¯s your personal Mary Sue?¡± Not very. He starts out with a little bit of an edge, since he knows the starting area and a few of the starting dungeons. And he has Aibee, his little AI helper, who will be a boon going forward. But otherwise, he¡¯s just an average gamer. Heck, even with his knowledge, he still isn¡¯t the highest level character or the most powerful character by the end of Book 1, and that doesn¡¯t change in Book 2. I plan to keep Bull and his merry band of friends as ¡°front line¡± players, pushing the edge of content, and few of them will get some neat powers and toys (like Zed does with the guitar and the unique quest he finds), but I plan to keep Bull himself fairly grounded. Mostly. I don¡¯t mind stories where the MC has some massive cheat power and is totally OP. I really like the light novels for both ¡°Isekai Smartphone¡± and ¡°How not to summon a Demon Lord¡± (Smartphone¡¯s anime got butchered beyond belief, but the other was decent enough), and the MCs for both are crazy stupid powerful. But for Apoch¡¯s Twilight, I wanted to have just a nice, normal MC. No crazy cheat powers, no harems. I¡¯d make a terrible Light Novel writer. ¡°Why don¡¯t you update more often?¡± Frankly, because this is currently a part time hobby for me. If I can get my Patreon backers up high enough and start making some real money, I can dedicate more time to writing. But for now, I¡¯m not the fastest writer, and I only get a couple hours a night to write, at best, and that¡¯s not every night. My current goal for writing is 5000 words per week, which is about a full chapter¡¯s worth, give or take. I post shorter ¡°scenes¡±, 2-3 of which make up a full chapter usually, and those go up to my Patreon backers as soon as they¡¯re done, so they usually get several small updates each week. For Royal Road, I compile these scenes into a full chapter to post once a week. As mentioned above, I do a clean up and second draft pass on the material, and then go through and clean up the formatting in RR¡¯s editor to fix double spacing issues and table issues. Right now that¡¯s the limit of what I have time for. I¡¯ve got my day job, I do taxi work for the local community, sort of an Uber thing, and that keeps me running, On top of that, I do some freelance writing for Shadowrun still, and that¡¯s a higher priority for me right now. One of these days I¡¯d love to be able to write full time, but that¡¯s a far off dream for the moment. ¡°Maybe you should dial down the game details and/or not explain game mechanics so much.¡± This is a very valid point. There¡¯s a fine line I¡¯m trying to tread in both instances, and it¡¯s one I haven¡¯t entirely found my balance with. This will be one of the heavier issues I deal with when I eventually do another draft of AT. For game details, we¡¯re talking things like actually plotting out how much damage characters take during combat, tracking cooldowns, using potions, etc. For many of the combat scenes in here, I actually keep track of the MC¡¯s skill use and damage intake/output throughout the fight. I fudge the other characters most of the time though, because keeping track of 5-6 characters, plus all the mobs during a fight sequence is a nightmare. Trust me, I tried it once. But, I feel having this detail in is important. This is a game (well, for everyone but the MC), and they¡¯re going to play it like one. So they¡¯re going to call out taunts, call for healing, track cooldowns, etc. But the trick is to find the right balance between enough details that it still feels game-ish, but not so much detail that it makes the scenes no fun to read. And like I said, I¡¯m still working on the right balance. I think I overdid it a lot in Book 1, so I¡¯m trying to dial things back in Book 2. As for explaining the game terms and game mechanics, I realize that the majority of people going into a LitRPG will be well aware of most of what I¡¯m talking about with little to no explanation. But at the same time, there¡¯s always a chance that someone will pick it up and not be familiar with a lot of gaming terminology or how an MMO works. Plus, every game is a bit different, and since I¡¯m writing this as a real game and trying not to just handwave the underlying game mechanics to suit the story, knowing how this specific game works can be important. For the explanations though, by Book 2 they largely go away because I¡¯ve covered most of it. It does make the opening couple chapters a bit of a slog, because there¡¯s a lot to get through, so it¡¯ll be something I look at for the next draft (I use that as an excuse a lot, don¡¯t I?) ¡°You¡¯ll need to change a lot of your references to other games and pop culture.¡± This will be an aspect I¡¯ll look into further if I decide to try selling the book, but honestly? I don¡¯t think I will need to edit much, if any, of the references. For one, I want to keep them because I think they¡¯re important. They make the story a bit more ¡°real¡± because we as gamers and nerds and geeks and lovers of this stuff use all these movies and games and books we read as a touchstone and a reference for almost everything we do. And since I¡¯m writing myself as the MC, this is how I think. About 25% of my brain is nothing but movie quotes, pop culture references, and snippets of song lyrics. And two, as far as I can tell you can reference popular works relatively freely. If I was quoting sections of a published work, or using copywritten characters it would be one thing, but mentioning a book or game title, or a character from a movie in passing is perfectly legal. I can say ¡°Bull watches Star Wars and wishes he had an X-Wing.¡± If I have Luke Skywalker show up flying an X-Wing, then I¡¯m in trouble. Also game mechanics are not something that can generally be copywritten. And even then, I¡¯m not directly using any direct mechanic from any of the games I mention in Book 1. There are some similarities and I take inspiration from a bunch of sources, but I know I could publish my rules for the Apoch¡¯s Twilight RPG and not run afoul of any other game companies. I think the only ¡°iffy¡± bit I have in the entire thing is Torrie referring to herself as a Kender. And even then, because she¡¯s NOT actually a Kender, just modeled after one, I think it¡¯s ok. But still, if and when I do publish, all of this will get explored and checked out to make sure it¡¯s above board. Hell, half the things I reference I know people involved with writing or publishing it, so I can just pester them about it. Ultimately, I''m not a lawyer, so I could be wrong on all of this. If so, well, we''ll change what we have to. And that¡¯s about it! Ok, there weren¡¯t really too many comments to deal with, even if I can be a bit long winded! Thank you to everyone who has read Apoch¡¯s Twilight so far. And a Special thanks to all my Patreon Backers and my Alpha Readers for getting me this far and for making this possible in the first place. I really appreciate it, and hopefully will see you around at the end of Book 2 for more Adventurers in Afterwords! Book 2, Chapter 1 Shit. Shit shit shit. This was a bad plan. A really bad plan. I sprinted for the woods, calling for Raider to follow me. A crossbow bolt whizzed by my head as I ran, and I turned my head to see that the two players were still chasing me. It was just me and my kitty out here, so yeah, like I said ¨C really bad plan. I ran through the trees and dropped down over a short hill behind a log and used Vanish, commanding my Sand Tiger companion to use Fade at the same time. After a moment we began moving west as quickly as possible while maintaining Stealth, hoping to lose them in the forest. I couldn¡¯t move to quickly, and I could hear the two Player Killers cursing as they lost my trail for the moment. They split up, one going south the other east, and I breathed a sigh of relief and worked to put more distance between up. Hopefully the cart driver was ok ¨C I was worried they¡¯d double back for him. I grimaced as I remembered how I¡¯d gotten into this mess.
¡°So Bull, what¡¯s up with this mail we got?¡± Torrie asked as she approached me. I was sitting at our usual table at the Golden Horizon waiting for the rest of the group to log in. Zed was at his usual spot as well, playing a slow, dark rock ballad that I didn¡¯t recognize, while Dagg and Lorelei were due to log in any minute. ¡°Let¡¯s wait till the others get here. It¡¯ll be easier to discuss this as a group than to rehash everything two or three times.¡± I waved to one of the waitresses that worked in the inn so she could come get a drink for Torrie. ¡°Bah.¡± Torrie grumped, frowning. ¡°Something wrong? I¡¯ve never seen you in a bad mood before.¡± ¡°Bah.¡± She said again, grimacing. Then she took a deep sigh. ¡°Sorry, just having a bad day. Real life junk. I shouldn¡¯t drag it in here. But seeing this message just added to it, you know?¡± ¡°Yeah, I know how it is.¡± I nodded and took a drink. ¡°If you ever need to vent, I¡¯m a good listener ¡° ¡°Thanks.¡± She smiled and relaxed a bit. The waitress came over and took her order, and she sat back and sighed. I also ordered a couple drinks for Dagg and Lori. Aibee was perched on Raiders back as usual, while the tiger was sprawled out next to the table. I reached down and scratched him behind the ears and he rumbled out a purr. We sat in silence for a few minutes, listening to Zed play until they walked in and came over to join us. Zed packed up and came over as well. ¡°Someone triggered a Public Quest I see.¡± Lorelei said without preamble, taking a big drink of the large ale I¡¯d ordered. Dagg simply grunted irritably. ¡°Yeah, happened this morning. Got an announcement window popup and everything.¡± I replied. ¡°Great. That¡¯s just terrific.¡± Torrie sighed. ¡°I¡¯ve heard that Hayver¡¯s Mill is where the Werth¡¯s are supposed to send us. Guessing that¡¯s gonna be all messed up. And I can¡¯t even be on, I got class and I can not afford to miss it.¡± ¡°I¡¯m out as well.¡± Zed replied. ¡°My oldest has a concert at school, so my husband and will be there all day. And yeah, Hayver¡¯s Mill is almost due west of here. No ones made it out and back yet, but the best guess I¡¯ve heard is that it¡¯s somewhere around 40 miles away. Which means it¡¯s gonna take the better part of a day to travel there.¡± ¡°And we have to work.¡± Lorelei replied. ¡°And I¡¯d rather not try calling off. It could cause some problems.¡± ¡°Same.¡± Dagg said with his standard eloquence. ¡°I have the feeling that a lot of players will be in the same boat.¡± I said, thinking. ¡°Noon on a weekday is a terrible time to start a big raid. Especially since you said the Beta Wave of players don¡¯t join for a few more days yet, so our playerbase is pretty thin to begin with.¡± ¡°From what I¡¯ve been able to tell, we¡¯re above the average level as well. A few players have hit levels 6 or even 7, but I think at least half the players are still around level 3.¡± Zed added. ¡°Since the Public Quests can permanently affect the game, what happens if the players lose this?¡± Torrie asked. ¡°It depends.¡± A high pitched voice piped up from the floor next to us. Aibee fluttered up to the table and sat down next to my arm. ¡°I don¡¯t know the details of the quest yet since he hasn¡¯t gone out to Hayver¡¯s Mill yet, but it sounds like its being assaulted by a large enemy force. If the players fail to repel the attack, the town could be taken over and then need to be liberated, or it¡¯s possible it could simply be razed and removed from the game.¡± ¡°In my opinion, it gets worse. Aibee, tell them what you told me about NPC deaths.¡± ¡°Unique NPCs other than dungeon bosses are deleted when killed in game.¡± Aibee replied, a note of sadness in her voice. ¡°So?¡± Zed asked. ¡°I mean, sucks that we¡¯d possibly lose the town and some quest givers and such, but that¡¯s not that big of a deal. There¡¯s bound to be more, or someone else will take up their quest.¡± Torrie shrugged. ¡°While I¡¯d like to save them if I could, I kinda agree with Zed. They¡¯re just, y¡¯know, NPCs?¡± ¡°Really?¡± I frowned. ¡°I mean, look at Aibee. Look at Geira and Malkom and the other NPCs. They¡¯re more than just mindless robots. They think, react, they¡ª¡° ¡°They¡¯re programmed that way, Bull.¡± Lorelei replied. ¡°Apoch¡¯s got some better than average AI for their characters, I admit, but still. They exist to help fill out the game and to provide us with entertainment. They¡¯re not alive. Any emotion, any independent thought they seem to have? It¡¯s all just coded responses.¡± ¡°Since you haven¡¯t played any VR games before, you may not have run into any lifelike AI before.¡± Zed looked at me. ¡°I get it. It¡¯s unexpected and can really suck you in. It¡¯s one of the things that helps makes these games so immersive. But don¡¯t lose track of reality, man.¡± I stared down at my hands on the table in front of me, my fists clenched in frustration. Intellectually, I understood what they were saying. But I felt a connection to Aibee, to Raider, to the other NPCs. And despite Aibee telling me otherwise, I was starting to wonder if maybe I wasn¡¯t an NPC of some kind with some weird past-life memories programmed into me. Either way, I couldn¡¯t just accept it and let them be killed. ¡°I¡­ I can¡¯t accept that.¡± I muttered to myself. Then I repeated it louder. ¡°I just can¡¯t accept that, guys. Sure, they may not be alive, like you all are. But they exist; they¡¯re a living, breathing part of this world. And I can¡¯t accept just writing them off because they¡¯re a little different than I am.¡± ¡°Good.¡± Dagg said simply. He appeared to be smiling, and I smiled back at him. ¡°Thanks big man.¡± ¡°Ok, yeah. I don¡¯t get off on killing NPCs anyway, so I can roll with that, dude.¡± Zed replied. ¡°Agreed. But how does that help us now, Bull. None of us can be on for this fight?¡± ¡°It doesn¡¯t Torrie.¡± I said with a sigh. ¡°But I¡¯m glad you guys are on the same page as me, albeit reluctantly. Sorry. I feel the way I feel, I guess.¡± ¡°So what¡¯s the plan then?¡± Lorelei asked, resigned to the situation, though she looked like she wanted to argue some more. ¡±We go out and level for a few hours. Maybe run out and hit the Factory one more time. I¡¯d like to see if I can get a few more [Manacite Batteries] for my crossbow. Then tomorrow, I¡¯m heading out to Hayver¡¯s Mill to scope the situation and see what I can find out. So you guys will be on your own.¡± ¡°Well, keep in touch. Guess we¡¯ll finally be putting the [Crystal Vox¡¯s] to a real use.¡± Torrie replied.
Bull> God this is boring. Torellisin Nimblefingers> I bet. That¡¯s a hell of a walk. We need to find horses for this crap. Zed Deathsong> Yeah. See how much horses cost in Hayver¡¯s Mill, if they have any for sale. Bull> I¡¯ll keep an eye out. I¡¯m so glad we can do group chat on these Vox¡¯s. I¡¯ve been walking for over 7 hours now, I gotta be getting close. At least I finally found a road to follow. Torellisin Nimblefingers> A roads a good sign. Just don¡¯t follow it the wrong way! Bull> Ha. Ha. Zed Deathsong> Have you seen anything interesting on the trip, at least? Bull> I found a pretty good sized lake, at least a few miles wide, and we¡¯re starting to get into some woods. I¡¯ve actually seen some critters that look like deer and a few rabbits. Nothing too dangerous though. I haven¡¯t even had to fight anything in the last couple hours. What are your plans for tonight? Torellisin Nimblefingers> I think we¡¯re gonna spend some time farming and just running errand quests, since you¡¯re not here. Bull> Hey, don¡¯t let me stop you. Do whatever you guys want, I¡¯ll be¡ª Bull> Let me get back to you, there¡¯s something going on up ahead. I put my little crystal smartphone thing away, and entered Stealth and told Raider to do the same. Up ahead I could hear shouting. I quietly moved through the brush and over the next hill, and could see a short ways ahead of me was a wagon loaded with stone and some tools being pulled by a pair of horses. There were two men dressed in simple clothes, dusty and dirty presumably from mining up the stone in the cart, standing with their arms raised. Two more men, both dressed in simple black leather armor and holding short swords stood menacing the two. ¡°Come on, you can¡¯t tell me you don¡¯t have any money at all.¡± One of the leather-clad bandits growled. Focusing on them, I could tell both he and his buddy were players, while the two wagon-drivers were NPCs. The one currently speaking was thin and bald, with a hook nose. The other was taller and muscular with a blond crew-cut. ¡°N-no. You can search us if you want, but we don¡¯t have anything.¡± One of the men drivers whimpered. Crew-cut, whose name when I targeted him was Bonebreaker, punched the taller of the two drivers in the face, knocking him to the ground and shattering his nose. He then kicked him a couple of times. I frowned and began creeping up closer, silently motioning for Raider to creep into attack range. ¡°Look, you don¡¯t want us to have to make things personal, now do you?¡± Sneered the hawk-nosed man, whose name was Talon. ¡°Give us any money, and we¡¯ll be taking your horses as well.¡± ¡°Look, Bill already told you, we don¡¯t have any money. And those horses are our livelihood.¡± The second driver, a shorter, thick bodied man with a beard replied in a deep, gruff voice. ¡°Is that so? Well, guess we¡¯ll have to remedy that.¡± Talon grinned, then nodded to Bonebreaker. As soon as I saw that, I moved, but I was too slow. Crew-cut¡¯s sword descended, stabbing the man on the ground through the chest.Ensure your favorite authors get the support they deserve. Read this novel on Royal Road. ¡°Bastards!¡± I screamed, simultaneously launching a Manashot from my [Manacite Crossbow]. I only got four of those shots per [Manacite Battery], but they dealt a full 200 points of damage each. Couple that with bonus Backstab damage since I was in Stealth when I attacked, and I had a really solid opening punch. My crossbow glowed blue and a bolt of energy blasted forward, striking Bonebreaker and blasting him into the side of the card. A moment later Raider materialized from stealth, clawing and biting at him as well. I must have gotten a couple Critical results as well, as the damage numbers flashed 230, then 276, then 322. Then Raider¡¯s damage flashed as well, 105 damage. The two bandits looked up stunned. They never expected to get jumped by another player all the way out here, and they took a few seconds to react. Crew-cut was down under 33% of his health, so while their brains sorted out what was happening, I let loose with another Manashot and had Raider attack again. No Critical this time, but my 180 damage plus Raider¡¯s 55 was enough to finish Bonebreaker off. He never even uttered a worth, just evaporated into a shower of red particles. Talon the hawk-nose finally reacted, charging toward me with his short sword. His swing connected, and a red 76 flashed in my vision. Painful, but not too bad. Raider and I could handle this guy, though it was a shame that my tiger¡¯s new Taunt skill, Challenging Roar, didn¡¯t work against players. I dashed back to kite him away from the cart, yelling to the remaining driver to hide. I turned and unleashed another Manashot, getting a single Critical this time, dealing 180 damage which then increased to 216. Raider raked his back for another 55. Insight showed that he was at around 65% health, so he was a bit tough than crew-cut was. Then I heard the distinctive twang of a crossbow coming from my right, and turned in time to see a bolt flying toward me right before it embedded itself in my chest. Another black-clothed figure materialized behind the bolt, and red numbers swam up in front of me, 151, which then grew to 181, then to 212, and then once more to 242. I grimaced, that was a triple-critical and shaved off a lot of my health. I panicked and fired my last Manashot at Talon, hitting him for 180. Raider attacked and got a crit this time, dealing 67 damage. Then I turned and fled, whistling for Raider to follow. I needed to find some cover, put some distance between us. I had Raider use Fade, and I used Vanish to enter Stealth, then cut to the right, headed toward the trees. I was hoping I could get a moment of respite and get out of their line of sight long enough to pop and healing potion and load a new battery into my crossbow. Besides having a very limited number of shots, the reload time made it tough to use in combat, taking a full 9 seconds to pop the spent [Manacite Battery] out and replace it. Fortunately, both Talon and the newcomer were heading my direction and weren¡¯t paying any attention to the last wagon driver. I kept moving, but studied the third bandit as I did. She was thin and willowy, but obviously female. She wore similar black armor to Talon and Bonebreaker, but hers looked nice and more ornate. She also had what looked like a ninja hood wrapped around her face. Her name was apparently Stiletto. I grimaced as I saw Talon quaff a healing potion, and decided to load my crossbow real quick. Manashot was my only chance to handle this two on one, especially since Stiletto¡¯s crossbow had some solid base damage and I guessed she¡¯d boosted her Ranged Weapons skill and Agility pretty high, judging by that crit she pulled off. Stiletto looked down at the ground, then pointed to the left while she started moving to the right. Ahh crap. They were flanking me. She hadn¡¯t spotted me yet, but I bet she had Tracking. That was a skill I¡¯d been eyeing. That would give her an idea of where I was, and if she got close enough Stealth would break even if her Perception couldn¡¯t see through it. I needed to put some more distance between us. I commanded Raider to charge at Talon, then popped up and fired a Rapid Shot since I still hadn¡¯t gotten a new battery loaded. The bandit didn¡¯t seem to have great stats, and his defense was low enough that both my shots hit, though neither critted. I got a Backstab off on the first shot, dealing 150, and the second shot did 100. Raider added in another 55 and then we took off running. Talon was hurt badly according to my Insight, but not down, and Stiletto was far too close for comfort. I ran for the woods, popping a [Small Healing Potion] as I did so. Another bolt slammed into me right after, dealing another 181 damage. I decided that as soon as I had some more XP stored, I was investing in the Dodge skill. I heard Raider help and saw an arrow sticking out of his flank, and looked back to realize that Talon had swapped his sword out for a long bow. Finally I hit the tree line and was able to use Vanish again. The two bandits split up to begin searching for me, and I saw Talon guzzling another healing potion. Dammit, I needed to finish him off. I paused a moment to finally get a new battery loaded, then started creeping the direction Talon went. A few moments later I found him searching through the underbrush. Insight told me he was almost back to half health, but that was ok. I grinned, aimed, and triggered a Rapid Shot along with my Manashot and Backstab. I sent Raider in to Ambush him as well. It was likely vase overkill and a waste of some [Manacite Battery] charge, but I was pissed and wanted these fuckers dead. My first shot ripped into him with a crit, dealing 276 damage. My second shot hit him at the same time as Raider, and my 180 damage plus Raiders 66 turned him into sparkles. I didn¡¯t waste any time and rushed over and grabbed his death drops, showing them into my inventory without even looking at them. I then turned and started running back to the wagon as I was worried Stiletto might circle back and kill the last NPC there. I dropped into stealth again as soon as Ambush was off cooldown and approached the wagon. I could see the remaining wagon driver, an NPC named Gareth Granitecutter. He was hiding under the wagon. Surprisingly, the body of his fellow wagonner was lying on the ground next to him, having been pulled under the wagon by the first man. Maybe he was still alive? A quick scan of the body revealed that no, he wasn¡¯t; he registered as having 0% health. Apparently NPC corpses don¡¯t turn into sparkles like monster and PC corpses. ¡°Psst.¡± I whispered as I crept up to the cart. Gareth was started and jerked up, slamming his head on the undercarriage of the wagon. ¡°Sorry, sorry. I¡¯m the guy who tried to help you. I killed one of the others, but the woman¡¯s still out there. Stay still and stay quiet.¡± Gareth nodded, and I scanned the area around us, willing my Perception to detect Stiletto. No luck, but after a couple more minutes, a sultry woman¡¯s voice called out. ¡°Not too bad, Bull. You got two of my men, and I suspect you and your pet tiger might even be a match for me. Well, probably not, but I¡¯d rather not take the chance. I prefer to¡­ dominate.¡± ¡°Subtle.¡± I called back. ¡°What do you want?¡± ¡°I don¡¯t let people cross the Soultakers.¡± She replied. ¡°So you¡¯re now a target. I just thought it fair you knew that in advance. However if you were to join us, that would be a different story.¡± ¡°Join you in killing and robbing helpless NPCs?¡± I asked. ¡°And hapless players. In fact, they¡¯re usually much more profitable. But there¡¯s so few in the game right now, so we take what slim pickings we can get.¡± ¡°Sorry. Not interested. I¡¯m not a fan of PvP, and really don¡¯t like those that grief other players.¡± ¡°My, my, such a shame. You looked like you would be fun to play with. But, I guess we¡¯ll play with you in an entirely different way. See you around, Bully boy.¡± We sat there for a few minutes waiting, but Stiletto appeared to be gone. I slumped down, mentally exhausted by the encounter. Gareth crawled out from the wagon and picked up the body of Bill, the other driver. He looked sad at the loss of his friend, but looked up at me with gratitude. Now that I was standing next to him I realized just how short he was. Not quite as small as Torrie, but he couldn¡¯t be an inch over five feet tall. ¡°My thanks, stranger. Did I hear that vile harpy call you Bull? My names Gareth.¡± He held out his hand and I shook it. It was rough and calloused, a workman¡¯s hand used to seeing labor. ¡°I¡¯m sorry I wasn¡¯t able to get here a few minutes sooner so I could have helped your friend.¡± I said softly, looking at the corpse. ¡°There¡¯s always danger on the roads, it can¡¯t be helped. Though it¡¯s usually wild creatures or the [Primals], and not other humans.¡± ¡°People are wild animals most of the time.¡± I growled. I bent down and picked up the loot bag that Bonebreaker had dropped and put it in my inventory for the time being as well. ¡°People like this just suck.¡± ¡°Amen to that.¡± Gareth responded. ¡°Can you help me get Bill up onto the cart. I should take him back home for burial. Mary¡¯s gonna be all tore up about this.¡± ¡°Where you headed?¡± ¡°Hayver¡¯s Mill, just a few more miles up the road here. Want a ride?¡± We loaded the other driver¡¯s body into the back of the wagon, wrapped in a blanket that Gareth had stowed away. I then climbed up onto the driver¡¯s bench next to him, and with a snap of the reigns we set off up the road. ¡°So where you from? Ain¡¯t seen you around before?¡± ¡°Ravensport, west of here.¡± ¡°Oh. From the dome? Seen a couple of your people the last couple days. We always wondered what was under that thing all these years. We always worried it was monsters or something, like an egg full of evil that was waiting to hatch. Least that was what a few conspiracy minded folks thought, anyway.¡± Gareth laughed a bit at that, then sighed sadly. ¡°Bill was one of them. But we was all glad when it turned out to just be a normal town hiding under there.¡± ¡°Yeah, we were trapped under there for a long time. It¡¯s nice to finally be out and free to explore.¡± ¡°Ya picked a hell of a time for it. Things have been getting mighty rough in this part of the world the last couple years.¡± ¡°Oh? Like what?¡± ¡°Well, for one, the entire zones been locked off for the last two years thanks to the [Primals] and their master. Cut off all trade to the outside world. We¡¯re fairly self-sufficient, and there are a couple other towns here to trade with, but with the tunnel closed off, we¡¯re kinda stuck.¡± ¡°Can¡¯t you just go around, or head out another way?¡± I asked, though I knew the answer already. But I wanted to see what they said about it in-game, and this way I could ask other questions. ¡°You ain¡¯t explored much, have you? No, I guess if that magic dome of yours just came down, you wouldn¡¯t have, would ya?¡± Gareth sighed and looked off at the horizon, squinting. ¡°You can¡¯t really see it from here yet, but you know that ridge of mountains your dome-town sits up against? And those ones you can see to the south of here? Well, this entire area is ringed with those damn things. Totally impassible, too. There¡¯s only one way in or out of here, and that¡¯s through the Great Tunnel to Port Callen.¡± ¡°There¡¯s no other way out? No other tunnels or caves? And no ones tried climbing the mountains? ¡°Back in my Grandpappy¡¯s days, not long after the Twilight, some folks tried. Only one guy came back, all torn up. Said there were some dragons or some such living at the tops of the mountains. Never seen them come down though, so don¡¯t know for sure. Not much point to it either, since there¡¯s little to no land on the other side of most of the mountains. Taking a ship from Port Callen¡¯s really the only option.¡± ¡°So who, or what, are these [Primals]?¡± I asked. ¡°You don¡¯t know? Surprised you made it this far without encountering them.¡± Gareth replied, looking around cautiously as if he expected something to jump out of the woods. ¡°Damn warrior apes of some kind. Smart, fast, strong as hell. And they¡¯re all over the place out here. They¡¯ve taken over the entire western section of the zone. They¡¯ve set their sights on Hayver¡¯s Mill now. That¡¯s actually why I¡¯m lugging this cart full of rocks. Bill and I are¡­ were¡­ stone cutters. We were gathering some more stone to help reinforce the town¡¯s wall.¡± ¡°Yeah, I heard they were massing to attack the town. It¡¯s expected to be tomorrow some time, right?¡± ¡°Yeah. You¡¯ll be able to see their camps soon. There¡¯s a lot of them.¡± Gareth fell silent, and we rode quietly for several minutes. I studied him a bit out of the corner of my eye, trying not to stare and make him nervous. He was broad-shouldered, had thick arms, and a wide face with a short brown beard. In fact, he looked an awful lot like¡­ ¡°My apologies if this is rude or out of place, Gareth.¡± I spoke up, my curiosity getting the better of me. ¡°But are you a¡­ dwarf?¡± ¡°Sure am.¡± Gareth replied with a smile. ¡°Half-dwarf, actually. Well, technically quarter dwarf, since my Grammal was a dwarf, but they just call any of us with mixed blood halfers. The others I¡¯ve met from Ravensport all asked me the same thing. Are there no dwarves there?¡± ¡°Nope. All humans.¡± ¡°We don¡¯t have many demi¡¯s in the Mill, but there¡¯s a few. Don and his family of nekos. A kobold couple. And a scaleskin that moved here from outside the zone about twenty years ago.¡± ¡°Nekos are cat-people? Kobolds are dog-people? And a scaleskin would be a¡­ lizard or snake?¡± I asked. I had kept it all human in Ravensport deliberately, but I¡¯d planned to introduce various other races along the way. Never really got around to doing much in that department though. Beast-races were planned to be a big part of it though, and I had a handful of ideas for dwarves and elves to make them a bit different from standard fantasy, so I was curious to see how those turned out. ¡°Hah! Yeah, got it. Though I recommend not calling a kobold a dog. They¡¯re touchy about the comparison, even if it ain¡¯t wrong. The nekos, on the other hand, don¡¯t mind the cat comparison. As for the scaleskin, he doesn¡¯t say much. He¡¯s kind of a hermit, so don¡¯t know his thoughts on the comparisons. But He¡¯s more lizard than snake, since he¡¯s got two legs and two arms, plus a tail. I¡¯ve heard rumors of a naga race that are legless but have arms, but don¡¯t know much about them or if they¡¯re related.¡± I talked with Gareth for a while longer about mostly inconsequential things, telling him about what I¡¯d experienced in the few days since I first woke up here, framed as when the dome came down. It¡¯s hard to believe it¡¯s only been four days, really. Feels like a lifetime. Eventually though we crested a hill, and I could see directly ahead of us a village, ringed with a mostly wooden stockade wall. And to the north of the village was a sight that made me inhale sharply and cuss under my breath. ¡°Holy shit.¡± I muttered. ¡°That¡¯s the [Primal] army?¡± There were hundreds of tents set up as far as the eye could see, and they reached out into the plans and woods in front of the village. I could see hundreds of tiny figures moving in the distance, including a large number that were doing what looked to be combat drills. ¡°Yeah. And more arrive every hour.¡± Gareth said with a worried tone in his voice. ¡°It¡¯s estimated there will be at least a thousand of the hairy monsters by tomorrow.¡± ¡°Well then, that just frags up everything, doesn¡¯t it.¡± I debated straight up PKing the idiot who triggered this Raid when I found him as we rolled into Hayver¡¯s Mill. Book 2, Chapter 2 As we were rolling into town, I scanned through the items I¡¯d looted off the two PKers. The best item of the lot was a black 8-slot bag that had been crafted by the Player Killer that had escaped, Stiletto. It appeared that crafted gear had their crafters name listed on them, presumably to help crafters get their name and their ¡°brand¡± out there. There was also a nice Uncommon belt, a [Powerful Hide Belt] that had better armor and had +1 STR and END that would be an upgrade. There were a couple other pieces of armor that weren¡¯t an upgrade but that I could sell later, and a nice dagger that might be an upgrade for Torrie. I also got almost 1000 gold from the two bandits. Looking over at Bill¡¯s corpse, I pulled out 500 of the gold and offered it up to Gareth. ¡°I don¡¯t know if Bill had any family, but if so give them this. I took it off his killer, and it should help them out a bit.¡± Gareth accepted and looked grateful. ¡°Yeah, he has a wife, Mary, and a son, James. I¡¯m certain they will need all the help they can get after this.¡± I fell silent again, feeling awkward. I never was very good at being consoling or dealing with loss or grief, so I did what I always did: found something else to focus on. I sorted through my gear and equipped the new items I¡¯d gotten, finishing up as we pulled through the gates of Hayver¡¯s Mill. Hayver¡¯s Mill was smaller than Ravensport. There was large well situated in the center of a cluster of a dozen buildings. One was obviously a two story inn, and there were several shops as well, most selling produce. A large stable sat off to the west of the town square and I could see a number of horses, which excited me. I was hoping to pick up some horses if possible. There were a large number of farms outside the walls, but it appeared that most of the people of Hayver¡¯s Mill had moved inside the walls due to the encroaching army. Many were working to help reinforce the wooden walls surrounding the town or helping erect more watch towers. I could see a couple dozen players milling about as well, many just standing around watching but a few actively helping with the defenses. ¡°I need to let everyone know about Bill right away, and then get this stone delivered. Anything you need here?¡± Gareth asked me as I climbed off the cart. ¡°I was hoping to buy some horses if possible. We don¡¯t have any up in Ravensport. Just some mules for pulling plows, but nothing for riding.¡± ¡°You¡¯re in luck then.¡± Gareth smiled. ¡°Enos is our local stable hand, and while he doesn¡¯t usually raise too many extra horses beyond what we need for local use, he usually has a few that he trades with some of the surrounding villages and outside the zone. But with the mess these [Primals] have been causing, he hasn¡¯t been able to this year, so he¡¯s got some extra.¡± ¡°Tell ya what, Bull. Let me take care of business here then I¡¯ll go talk with Enos. Have him cut you a deal. Me and him go back a long way, and you saved my life and helped me bring Bill home, so it¡¯s the least I can do.¡± ¡°My thanks, Gareth. I¡¯ll go look around for a bit then I¡¯ll meet you over there?¡± I asked, glad he was willing to make an introduction and help out. He nodded and flicked the reigns, getting the cart moving once again. I wandered around town a little bit, eavesdropping on the local conversations a bit. A lot of the locals were worried about the upcoming fight, but the other players that were here seemed pretty eager and excited by the upcoming raid. I growled to myself irritably. I heard a few of them mentioning Jericho and got the sense he was organizing and leading this raid, which made me even angrier since he was the douche-nozzle who kicked this mess off. I forced myself to calm down and did a little window shopping. Most of the stalls were produce, mostly fruit. I¡¯d seen a lot of orchards outside the town¡¯s walls, and there even a couple small apple groves inside the walls. There was a butchers shop, and asking there the butcher introduced me to his wife who was willing to sell me a few Cooking recipes. Two were just generic food items using deer and rabbit meat, but one utilized something called [Stonehide Bear Meat] and provided a +2 Endurance buff. I needed to keep my eyes peeled for those, as that would be a quite useful food buff. Unfortunately the butcher didn¡¯t have any for sale currently, due to the [Primals] preventing anyone from hunting safely. I spent another twenty minutes or so looking around and chatting casually with the shopkeepers, but nothing else really stood out. More than a few expressed their fears about the [Primal] attack but they seemed to have faith in the adventurers who had shown up to help defend them. Jericho was assuring everyone that they could handle this with no problems, and I felt my anger rising once again. I finally had enough and headed toward the stables. As I approached, I saw Gareth¡¯s squat form standing in front of the stables, talking with a tall, lanky person. He looked human, except for a layer of fine, short fur on his arms, a pair of tall pointed dog-ears sitting on the top of his head, and a thin, black tail sticking out of the back of his paints. He was obviously a kobold, and while he had a human face his doggish features reminded me of a Doberman Pinscher. I grinned and approached them. ¡°Bull!¡± Gareth called out. ¡°This here is Enos, our local stable hand. I was just telling him how you helped me.¡± I nodded as I approached. ¡°Heya, I¡¯m Bull. Nice to meet you, Enos.¡± ¡°And I you, Bull.¡± Enos said in a voice that had a slight, residual growl behind it. I assumed it was due to his kobold nature and not that he was angry or growling at me deliberately. ¡°My thanks for saving Gareth here. Shame about Bill, but I¡¯m sure you did what you could.¡± ¡°I wish I had been just a minute or two earlier.¡± I said sadly. I sighed, and everything was awkward silence again for about thirty seconds, then Gareth broke the silence. ¡°So Enos, as I was saying, Bull here is looking to buy some horses.¡± ¡°I happen to have a handful of extras right now. You looking for riding horses, or work horses?¡± the kobold asked, grateful for the change in subject. ¡°Riding. My friends and I are adventurers and travelers, so we want to be get around faster than on foot.¡± ¡°That¡¯s reasonable. How many were you needing?¡± ¡°Five total, if possible?¡± I asked. ¡°Yip, I can do that. Won¡¯t be cheap, but I can cut you a bit of a deal, seeing as what you¡¯ve done for Gareth. Come on back and see what I got available.¡± Enos led them into the stable. ¡°I¡¯m assuming you¡¯ll need tack & saddles for each of the horses.¡± Enos continued as they entered the barn, where about twenty horses were stabled. ¡°I have those, so I¡¯ll include them as part of the package. I¡¯d normally charge 1000 gold for the whole deal, but I¡¯ll knock off a couple hundred gold for each horse. So say, 4 grand for all five, plus the tack and I¡¯ll toss in some feed as well.¡± I winced at the price, but nodded and accepted it. We¡¯d been hoping to get the horses for around 500 gold each, but I¡¯d saved up a decent bit of gold, and the others had sent some with me, so I had enough. Barely. I walked around, looking at each horse that Enos pointed out as available. I didn¡¯t really know anything about horses, and hadn¡¯t even ridden one back when I was still alive except when I was a little kid. My great-grandfather had a couple horses when I was really little, and I remember riding them a couple times, but I didn¡¯t really know a thing about what makes a good horse. So I simply looked around for the coolest looking ones. In the end, I picked out an almost pure black horse with a white, four-pointed starburst on his nose. The others I just grabbed randomly, a couple chestnut colors, a cream-yellow colored one that Enos said was called a palomino, and a multi-colored pinto. I decided to keep the black horse for myself. I had a thing for the colors black and red. ¡°Sounds like a deal!¡± I said, smiling, and opened up my inventory to pull out 4000 gold. I¡¯d found that if you were taking out a small amount of coins, under 25 or so, it would pull them out loose. Any more than that would come out bundled in a small cloth bag, which was handy. The NPCs also tended to overlook how strange it was to pull a sack of money out of thin air, which was fortunate. In fact they tended to either completely ignore anything unusual that players did that was outside the norm for the game world, such as talking mechanics or using the UI, or they would find a way to incorporate it into their world view. Enos did the latter as I took possession of the new horses. ¡°You¡¯re lucky, Bull.¡± The kobold said as he led the five horses over to me. ¡°You adventurers from Ravensport have some kind of special magic, don¡¯t you? That will let you turn these horses into an object you can store when not riding them. Very convenient, that.¡± I nodded in agreement and looked over the horses. Each was Bind on Equip, so I¡¯d at least be able to pack the other four up and take them to the rest of my squad. I touched the forehead of the black stallion, and it shimmered slightly and a window popped up.
Black Riding Horse
Increases movement speed by 50%
Bind on Equip: Equipping this will permanently bind it to you. Do you wish to bind this item?
[Y] [N]
I accepted, and the horse vanished, a small black horse icon appearing in my inventory. I repeated the process with the other four horses, and declined to bind them. They likewise became inventory objects. ¡°I¡¯ll be damned.¡± Gareth muttered. ¡°That is really useful.¡± ¡°Yeah. Side effect of being trapped under that dome all these years.¡± I grinned at the half-dwarf. ¡°Some of us were born with special abilities.¡± As I was finishing up, I heard a commotion from outside. I nodded to Enos and Gareth and headed outside, the two following closely behind. Most of the town appeared to be gathering near the front gates. A large archer or command platform had been erected near them, and I could see a man in bronze plate armor standing on top, facing the gathering crowd and talking to them. As I approached, I focused on him to see his name plate. He looked like a stereotypical ¡°hero¡±, blond hair, square jaw, blue eyes. He had two swords and heavy armor, and looked to be decently geared for our level. His name plate said [Jericho} and I gritted my teeth. I decided to get as close to the platform as possible to listen in on whatever this guy was saying. ¡°I know that things look dire.¡± Jericho shouted from the platform, his clear, deep voice ringing with confidence. ¡°The enemy is vast and powerful. But look at them! They¡¯re apes! Animals! And we, we are men! They fight simply to conquer. We fight for survival! For your home! For your freedom!¡± The crowd cheered and Jericho waited a moment before continuing. ¡°Just think, in a week, in mere days you¡¯ll think back and laugh to yourself that you were afraid. You may be farmers, but you¡¯ve worked this land your entire lives! It is soaked with your sweat from a lifetime of effort! No mere monsters can compete with that. If you rise up, act as one, defend this land with all your might, you will be victorious!¡±This content has been unlawfully taken from Royal Road; report any instances of this story if found elsewhere. ¡°I, no we, the adventurers of Ravensport, stand with you. As the enemy rushes your gates and engages us in battle, we will stand with you! Ready to fight with you, ready to fall with you. I won¡¯t like, it will be a dangerous battle, and some of us may perish, but¡­¡± ¡°Bullshit!¡± I yelled, finally having enough of this. Jericho cut off, he speech faltering as he looked down confused. He clearly hadn¡¯t expected any resistance. I pushed my way past several other players and climbed the steps up to the top of the platform to stand next to him. ¡°Bullshit.¡± I said again, loudly and firmly. The crowd was silent, watching us intently. ¡°But.. You¡­ What..?¡± Jericho sputtered. ¡±You. You triggered this raid, didn¡¯t you?¡± I said, angrily poking at his chest. ¡°You fucking moron, what were you thinking? No, don¡¯t bother, I know. You just wanted to get your name up on the scoreboard, to see it in the world announcement for accepting it. You didn¡¯t fucking stop and think for a second, did you? That this was a big deal, that this was a major in game event that would have a permanent effect on everyone around you?¡± ¡°No, you didn¡¯t.¡± I continued. ¡°You just wanted to be a big shot. Get your name in lights and then be the big damn hero to lead everyone against the enemy, give a big speech, right? So you¡¯re up here chewing the damn scenery like Nic Cage in a Sharknado sequel, lying to these people. Or do you honestly think that you and a few dozen under-geared, under-leveled players, a few dozen half-trained town guard, and a couple hundred untrained farmers can face down that?¡± I turned and point out at the army arrayed in front of the town and inhaled sharply, wincing as I got my first really good look at the enemy force. There had to be a thousand ape soldiers down there, easily. I could also see a number of enormous creatures that looked like six-legged boars crossed with a triceratops, with giant tusks and massive horns jutting from it¡¯s forehead and nose. I grimaced, and turned back to the townsfolk of Hayver¡¯s Mill. ¡°Jericho here talks a good game, abut standing and dying with you. But has he told you that the adventurers from Ravensport are effectively immortal?¡± I turned for a few moments and raised the back of my leather tunic so that the green crystal in my back was embedded, then turned back. ¡°Some of us born under the dome were given special powers, and we have that mark on our back as proof. We¡¯re more powerful than average and have some special magics available to us, but most importantly, if we are killed? We will simply reappear at the nearest temple or chapel. We can die as easily as you, but we do not stay dead. You people do.¡± ¡°If you follow this idiot,¡± I paused as I turned and glared at him again while I said that, and he looked uncomfortable, obviously intimidated by me. I felt a perverse sense of satisfaction knowing that. Then I repeated ¡°If you follow him, you will likely all die. This battle is doomed to failure. I¡¯m sorry, but it¡¯s true. We¡¯re not powerful enough to take on an army that size. All we can do is slow them down and distract them for a while.¡± A rumble of discontent went through the townsfolk at that, and I could hear a number of angry comments and complaints asking what they should do, and why they should believe me. I was honestly very uncomfortable standing up here in front of a crowd. I never liked having to do this sort of thing, and confrontations made me queasy. But I couldn¡¯t just let these people die, even if they were simple NPCs. ¡°Friends, friends. Please, calm down.¡± A familiar voice cut in as Gareth stepped up in front of the platform, then climbed a couple steps so that his short frame could be seen by everyone. ¡°This is Bull, a friend. He saved my life earlier today. I trust him, and I think we should at least hear him out.¡± I smiled gratefully at Gareth. ¡°I¡¯m not saying you should completely give up. But you should know and understand what¡¯s about to happen, and you should know the risks. We adventurers will stand and fight, and if you have some trained warriors among you, you¡¯re welcome to join us. But this fight is likely a lost cause, and I don¡¯t want anyone wasting their lives needlessly.¡± ¡°So what do we do?¡± Gareth asked. ¡°The enemy will be attacking early tomorrow. That gives us very little time. We need to evacuate the civilians. Have them go to Ravensport, it should be safe there. Pack up whatever you can gather in the next couple hours, then head west. Do we have any adventurers here who aren¡¯t combat-oriented?¡± I looked around and a couple raised their hands. ¡°I¡¯m a tailor.¡± A young-looking man with bright red hair said. ¡°I came down with some friends to see if I could find some recipes here. I¡¯m only level 2 and haven¡¯t put many points into any combat skills. I¡­ don¡¯t like fighting.¡± ¡°I¡¯m a blacksmith and hoping to open a store.¡± A dark-haired woman holding a warhammer spoke up. ¡°I just came here to try turning in the quest from the Werth¡¯s. I do have some combat skills, but I don¡¯t really like it. I only bothered so that I could survive going out looking for mats.¡± There were a couple others who spoke up as well. ¡°Can I ask you four to lead the refugees to Ravensport then? You know the way, and hopefully you can help protect them a little against any wild animals.¡± Gareth began speaking to the people of the Mill, and they began dispersing to try and pack up. I could see many were resistant to the idea of leaving their home, but most seemed to understand the situation and were helping encourage the rest. ¡°Why did you do that?¡± Jericho demanded. ¡°We maybe had a chance if we had the NPCs helping out. They could at least be canon fodder to allow us to do more dam¡ª¡° I punched him in the face. My attack did almost no damage, since I didn¡¯t have any unarmed combat skills and my strength was pretty low, but I caught him by surprise and he stumbled back and fell onto his rear. ¡°Listen up, fuckhead. They may be NPCs, but they¡¯re still a vital part of this world. They¡¯re alive in a very real way, and without them we lose out on valuable resources and quests. Plus, that¡¯s just goddamn cruel.¡± I growled at him and his face paled in fear. Between how easily I persuaded the townspeople and how I was scaring Jericho, I was thinking that maybe my Charisma and Persuasion skill was helping out. ¡°When the fight starts, you can be the general and lead everyone just like you want. That¡¯s not my thing. I¡¯m a ranger and support. But if you deliberately try and get these people killed, I will put a world of hurt on you, understand me?¡± ¡°I¡­ yes, of course. You¡¯re right. That was callous of me.¡± Jericho said as he shakily got to his feet. ¡°I¡­¡± Jericho sighed and his mask slipped. Gone was the haughty, righteous warrior and instead he just looked like a young man who didn¡¯t really have a clue what he was doing. ¡°I didn¡¯t mean for this to happen. I figured I could accept the quest, then start it when I was ready. I didn¡¯t read the quest text close enough, and it was too late after I accepted. And I just figured, this is our first Raid, right? So it couldn¡¯t be too tough. But then the [Primals] started showing up, and just kept coming. I was desperate. I didn¡¯t want to be responsible for us losing the first big Story Quest in the game.¡± ¡°Well, you did.¡± I softened my voice a little, but I wasn¡¯t about to absolve him of his responsibility or what he tried to do. ¡°This town is lost, possibly permanently. I don¡¯t know if there¡¯s going to be a follow up quest and a chance to recover it, or if they¡¯ll simply destroy it. And a lot of good NPCs are going to die. Try talking with them sometime. Most of them have histories that go back years, decades. They have families. They may not be alive, but dammit, they¡¯re still people in some sense.¡± ¡°Yeah. You¡¯re right.¡± Jericho looked beaten at this point. ¡°Look, I meant what I said. I¡¯m not a leader, and I don¡¯t really do strategy or tactics. You started this, you can be the general for this raid battle. Just be smart about it.¡± I decided to lay off him finally. ¡°Organize everyone as best you can, and be ready to die. This is going to be brutal.¡± I turned and headed back into town, leaving him alone on the tower to contemplate. Since there were a couple hours before the townsfolk would be setting out, I headed over to Hayver¡¯s Mill¡¯s job board to see if I could pick up any daily quests here. I¡¯d done some in Ravensport earlier, so I wasn¡¯t certain if I could do some here as well, but plucking a paper off the board, I got a quest pop up.
REPEATABLE QUEST: Reinforce the Hayver¡¯s Mill wall
GOAL: Carry 20 stones or logs to the Hayver¡¯s Mill wall to help reinforce it for the upcoming battle.
REWARD: 100 XP, 40G
[Y] [N]
¡°Oh neat.¡± I muttered to myself as I accepted the quest. ¡°The Daily Quests are tailored to the current situation, looks like.¡± ¡°Yeah.¡± Aibee fluttered up from Raiders fur. ¡°Apoch¡¯s Twilight has a dedicated AI that controls the procedurally created quests. It can change and tweak the quests to match whatever is happening locally in response to the Players¡¯ actions. So all the quests here are related to building up the town¡¯s defenses.¡± ¡°That¡¯s pretty cool. I always hated it when games wouldn¡¯t or couldn¡¯t update these sorts of things, so you¡¯d have the town literally on fire, but NPCs would still be asking you to gather up some corn for them or something stupid.¡± I gathered up two more quests and was able to complete all three in less than an hour. The rewards weren¡¯t that great at this point, but every little bit helped. It also gave me enough XP to pick up another Trait I¡¯d been looking at, Eagle Eye. It increased my ranged weapons base range by ten feet and ¡°dramatically increased eyesight¡±, which I think meant I could see further and more clearly. Both features would likely be very useful for the upcoming battle. The NPCs of Hayver¡¯s Mill began gathering by the western gate, loading supplies into every wagon they could find. Jericho still looked a bit resentful that I was sending so many people away, so I ignored him and took charge of organizing the refugees myself. I gathered Gareth and Enos along with the handful of Players that would be escorting them and had them introduce themselves to each other. The blacksmith with the warhammer was named Meera, and she was the only one with any appreciable combat skills. ¡°Traveling after dark probably isn¡¯t very safe, but I imagine that most of the wild animals out there will avoid a group this large.¡± I said to them. ¡°Do your best to keep everyone gathered close together, and don¡¯t worry too much about speed. Get as far as you can in two hours, but do so safely. You don¡¯t want anyone getting separated and lost along the way. After two hours, you should be far enough to be safe from any [Primal] patrols. Go ahead and camp, then continue on till morning.¡± ¡°I don¡¯t like fighting, but I can and will.¡± Meera said, hefting her warhammer. ¡°The other players likely won¡¯t be of much help though. Are there any townsfolk going that can fight?¡± ¡°Yip.¡± Enos said, making a sound that almost sounded like a bark. I stifled a laugh. ¡°Both of my brothers and my sister can. Kobolds are natural fighters. We also have three of the town guard who want to escort their families, and a couple of the local hunters are good with a bow.¡± ¡°Good. Enos, Meera, organize them and keep everyone safe. I¡¯ll work with everyone here and do the best we can.¡± ¡°Thank you, Bull.¡± Gareth said, sincerity ringing in his voice. ¡°I¡¯m grateful that you stepped up and were honest with us. We knew this battle was likely a lost cause, but we¡¯d have stayed and fought. And probably all died. I wish I could do more, but¡­ Thank you. We won¡¯t forget this.¡± Many of the people of Hayver¡¯s Mill echoed Gareth¡¯s sentiment, and honestly it was a struggle not to tear up. It was heartbreaking that we couldn¡¯t save the town and knowing that there were still so many lives that would be lost, but at least this way we would save hundreds. I put on a brave smile and nodded. ¡°Better get going. Be safe out there.¡± I shook hands with the Gareth, Enos, and the Players, then stood and watched as they began slowly moving out of town. Enos had turned out his entire stable and they¡¯d put every cart and wagon in town to work, loaded up with as much produce as possible. Farmers were leading small herds of farm animals, and families trudged along with the carts carrying as much of their lives on their backs as they could. It was a sad procession, but hopeful at the same time, because it meant the town would live on in some form no matter what happened here tomorrow.
HIDDEN QUEST: Save the people of Hayver¡¯s Mill
CONGRATULATIONS! You have completed a hidden quest to evacuate the noncombatants of Hayver¡¯s Mill before the upcoming [Primal] Invasion!
REWARD: 1000 XP, Friendship with Hayver¡¯s Mill residents.
Well, that was unexpected. But I wouldn¡¯t turn down the XP boost. I was curious what the ¡°Friendship¡± entailed, but the popup didn¡¯t provide anymore information. ¡°Hey Aibee, what¡¯s up with this hidden quest and the reward?¡± I asked her quietly. She flew up on my shoulder so she could speak with my quietly. ¡°Hidden Quests are just that, hidden. They¡¯re secret goals that you can accomplish for rewards.¡± ¡°Well, duh. Thanks, that was a big help.¡± I replied sarcastically. ¡°And the Friendship?¡± ¡°Sorry, the requirements vary greatly, and even I can¡¯t see the quests ahead of time, so I can¡¯t give you a heads up.¡± She shrugged. ¡°As for Friendships, it¡¯s a reputation system of sorts. Anyone who is a resident of Hayver¡¯s Mill, or was one in the case of the town being destroyed, will consider you a friend. They¡¯re more likely to help you or provide you with information, and you¡¯ll get better prices from Hayver¡¯s Mill vendors.¡± ¡°Ahh, now that could be useful. Assuming we survive this.¡± I turned and climbed up one of the towers to survey the army in the distance. Night had fallen, so it was hard to make out much of the enemy, but there were hundreds of campfires dotting the countryside. I sighed and checked the supplies up here. There were several bundles of arrows, some water and food, and even a few [Small Healing Potions]. I had a feeling it would be a long day. And at some point, I would need to figure out a way to escape it myself. I made a big deal about ¡°us¡± staying and dying to protect the village, but that really only applied to the other players. I still didn¡¯t know if I respawned, and I was too much of a coward to risk it. I¡¯d already died once. I didn¡¯t want to repeat that if I could help it. Book 2, Chapter 3 I opened my eyes, refreshed and energized and ready to take on the word. It still amazed me how nice it was to just be able to, you know, sleep. Close your eyes, and get a solid nights rest. I suffered from insomnia before Truck-kun and it was rare that I got a full nights rest, and no matter how much sleep I got I woke up groggy. And as I got older I¡¯d wake up stiff, sore, and just aching. The fact that none of that applied since I¡¯d woken up in Apoch¡¯s Twilight was simply glorious and I began to look forward to mornings. I¡¯d found out from Dagg that apparently even regular, non-reincarnated players could sleep inside the game as well, and it worked nearly as well. The neural override that the 4th Gen VR tech utilized could actually allow a player to put their mind into a calm, mostly-dreamless sleep state near instantly. There were several simple VR programs available that simply allowed someone to combat insomnia and sleep on command, but Apoch¡¯s Twilight incorporated that ability as well and it was expected that a number of the so-called residents that would be joining the game in later release waves those non-combat players would just mostly live a second life inside VR would take advantage of it. Dagg assured me that it was completely safe and that not only were there a number of safety protocols in place, that even a mild stimulation from the outside such as a loud noise, a drastic temperature change, or being shaken or jostled would trigger the failsafe and wake the player up. This worked to my advantage. I¡¯d been worried about showing up as online on one of my friends¡¯ social lists in the middle of the night while I was asleep and not being to explain it. Plus the lovely, lovely full nights sleep. Just amazing. I stood up with a grin and called out. ¡°Aibee! Raider! Rise and shine!¡± I might be a morning person now, but neither of my AI companions were, strangely enough. Raider would rouse slowly, but Aibee frequently just grumbled at me and snuggled into the fur on Raider¡¯s back and would go back to sleep until breakfast time. I was staying in one of the rooms in the Maiden¡¯s Rose, the only Inn in town. It was owned by a family of nekos, adorable grey-striped tabby cat-people. Unlike Enos, who I found out was half-kobold, Don, Tisha , and their four children were full-blooded, which meant they looked completely like bipedal cats. They were large for cats, standing about four and a half feet tall, and reminded me a lot of Puss-In-Boots from Shrek. Don even sounded a little like Antonio Banderas without the Spanish accent. Don and Tisha had evacuated with the majority of the townsfolk, but they had left the keys for the adventurers to use. I headed into the kitchen and started making some breakfast. As Dagg and Lorelei had found, you didn¡¯t have to actually have a recipe to craft something in Apoch¡¯s Twilight, you just had to have a basic idea of how it was made and the appropriate crafting skill, as well as the right ingredients. Non-recipe items didn¡¯t have stats or give buffs, but that didn¡¯t make them useless. Lorelei had already made a couple outfits for herself and Torrie using Tailoring, and I found that I could make some pretty tasty food. I could actually cook back before whatever happened to me, happened, but I didn¡¯t do it very much. Having the skill made simple recipes very quick, and I could cook up meals far faster than I could in real life. The nekos hadn¡¯t been able to take all their food stock, so I dipped into it and started making some eggs, French toast, and bacon. The smell drew in other adventurers and even some of the town guard that were staying behind, so with the help of a couple others with Cooking we soon were setting out a huge buffet. Most players had some basic buff food as well, but everyone really seemed to enjoy the breakfast feast and it was good to see everyone¡¯s mind taken off the upcoming battle for a little while. As I was eating, my [Crystal Vox] beeped, indicating a chat request. I looked at my friends list and saw that Torrie was on, so I opened it. Bull> Hey Torrie, what¡¯s up? Torellisin Nimblefingers> Yo, Bullie. Just getting ready for class and figured I¡¯d pop on for a few minutes, check in with you and see how things are going? Bull> Fan-fraggin¡¯-tastic. Just peachy keen. I¡¯m living the dream here, lemme tell you. Torellisin Nimblefingers> Someone woke up on the sarcastic side of the bed, I see. Bull> Yeah, sorry. I¡¯ve just been trying not to think about it. I¡¯m not even sure why I¡¯m bothering here. We¡¯re doomed. Torellisin Nimblefingers> That bad, eh? Bull> The town is barely defensible. It has a shoddy wooden wall and a handful of guard towers. The town was even smaller than Ravensport, and has maybe 50 NPCs that can fight worth a damn. I sent the rest of the NPCs to Ravensport along with a handful of players who had shown up to play lookie-loo but were still really low level or were only crafters. They got a ways outside of town and then camped, so I imagine they¡¯ll be arriving in Ravensport sometime around noon or so. Torellisin Nimblefingers> How many players you got there? Bull> Not really certain, honestly. Jericho, the kid that kicked off the quest, is playing General, and I¡¯m so disgusted with him that I¡¯ve largely been leaving everything in his hands. Torellisin Nimblefingers> He at least a decent level? Bull> Hah. Are any of us? He¡¯s level 5, like we are. Gear looks halfway decent too. But honestly, over half the players here are still mostly in Common white gear or just have some basic crafted stuff. I think there are only about 20 of us that have above-average gear, and I suspect I¡¯m by far the best geared here. Bull> Oh, speaking of which, I might have a few new bits of gear for you guys. I¡¯ll let you dig through them when I get back. And keep an eye out for three players, Stiletto, Bonebreaker, and Talon I think were their names. They dress in black and call themselves the Soultakers. They¡¯re PKers, and they target NPCs as well. I killed a couple of them protecting an NPC and they kinda vowed vengeance on me, I think. Torellisin Nimblefingers> Hah. Yeah, sounds like you. Ok, I¡¯ll let the others know. Let me know if you need anything or if there¡¯s anything I can do? Bull> Just keep an eye out for the refugee caravan coming in later, if you can. Let Geira and the town elder know what¡¯s going on as well. There¡¯s a player blacksmith named Meera that¡¯s kind of in charge of them. Torellisin Nimblefingers> Ok. I gotta run, but I should be back on a little after one, maybe sooner if the exam doesn¡¯t take too long. Good luck. Bull> You too. I just gotta deal with a horde of 1000+ gorillas that look like they escaped from the set of a Mad Max film. IIRC, you gotta deal with math. *shudder* Torellisin Nimblefingers> Mad Max Gorillas? Bull> I¡¯ll tell you later. Go take your test. I need to get ready here. Later! I finished eating and took my dishes into the kitchen, where I left them piled up near the sink. I didn¡¯t think there would be much point to washing them, plus I had other things on my mind. I looked around at the inn and sighed. Chances are in a few hours, this would all be gone. Or would be home to a bunch of damn, dirty apes. In either case, the dishes didn¡¯t matter. I headed out to the front wall, waved to a few players and town guard milling about, and climbed up one of the main towers. Each of the towers was a simple wooden affair, big enough for about four people to comfortably operate and fire bows out of. I sighed and looked out over the field with Eagle Eye now that it was daylight. It was even worse than I had thought. I wasn¡¯t lying to Torrie when I described the [Primals] as Mad Max Apes. These were one of the last things I¡¯d specifically designed and laid out for the tabletop version before it got derailed, and I wanted something that was different from your standard ork race as well as something that could embrace the ¡°post-apocalyptic¡± design aesthetic. So I came up with these ¨C six to seven foot tall gorillas wearing a hodge-podge of makeshift armor of leather and iron made up of straps and buckles and spikes. Besides the [Primals] there were also the large boar-triceratops crossbreeds, called [Ironhide Boars]. These boars were the size of a small horse and attached to large chariots capable of holding a half-dozen [Primals]. There were also a couple of [Greater Ironhide Boars] which looked similar, but were a darker color and were even larger, standing easily over eight feet at the shoulders and a good dozen feet long. I sighed and swapped out my [Manacite Crossbow] for my older ranged weapon, my [Wicked Desert Ash Longbow]. It was a drop In damage and I lost out on the special Manashot ability, but for the first part of the fight the longbow would be a much better weapon. The crossbow had pretty short range, even with the boost from Eagle Eye. The longbow had three times the range and the base damage was still pretty decent. I was glad I had stashed it in the bank rather than selling it off, as I was able to withdraw it from the Hayver¡¯s Mill branch of the Sylvan Savings Bank. Even though the bank¡¯s NPC tellers had all left, the bank function still worked. At the end of the day, it was still a game. I heard Jericho calling for everyone to gather around and headed down to get my Raid group assignment. The morning was flying by, and the battle would be on us before I knew it. ¡°Bull!¡± A voice called out as I climbed down the ladder from the watch tower. Looking over I saw a pair of familiar faces approaching me. One was a tall, grizzled looking man with iron grey hair and a short beard, the other a lanky dark-skinned male with bright orange-red hair and a long goatee. I hadn¡¯t seen either of them since my first day in the game when we¡¯d been matched up to run the tutorial dungeon. ¡°Morrick! Flamebolt.¡± I waved as they came near me. ¡°When did you guys get here?¡± ¡°Really late last night.¡± Morrick said, cutting Flamebolt off before he could start speaking. I grinned at that, remembering the fire mage¡¯s rambling chuuni habits. It looked like the two had been running together and Morrick had gotten used to him. ¡°Almost didn¡¯t come, but figured what the hell. I didn¡¯t want to miss out on the first big in-game event.¡± ¡°We¡¯re doomed to fail you know, right?¡± I asked and shrugged at them. ¡°Failure is not possible. You have me, Flamebolt, wielder of the sacred fires of Tiamat at your side!¡± Flamebolt exclaimed, raising his staff in the air. It looked like the same one that Lorelei had gotten from the Metro dungeon. ¡°I shall call down the fire and fury upon the army encamped outside these walls and burn them all to ash!¡± ¡°Yeah, we know. Despite what Red here says.¡± Morrick laughed and shook his head while Flamebolt looked indignant. Despite the gruff, grizzled look of his avatar, Morrick¡¯s voice was softer and younger than you would expect. ¡°I was hoping, but after seeing how few players there are, yeah. We¡¯re so screwed. Still, we¡¯ll go down swinging, right?¡± ¡°For you that works¡­ maybe¡­¡± A deep, growling voice said from behind us, speaking slowly and drawing it¡¯s words out. Flamebolt, Morrick, and several other adventurers started as they stared behind me, and several drew blades. I spun and nearly pulled my bow out myself when I saw the creature standing behind me. ¡°If what this softflesh says is true¡­ you don¡¯t die. But we¡­ do. I¡¯d like to prevent that.¡± Standing before us was a dragon ¨C well, a dragon-man, really. This must be the scaleskin that Gareth told me about. His head was more of a snout, broad and flat with a mouth full of sharp, pointed teeth. Scaled ridges lined the sides of his head, and a pair of wavy horns jutted up from his skull about six inches. His neck was about three or four inches longer than a human¡¯s, and appeared to be flexible like that of a dragon¡¯s. It also added to his height, standing near seven feet at the top of his horns.Unauthorized duplication: this narrative has been taken without consent. Report sightings. His body, on the other hand, was well-muscled but more slender than I would have expected, having the build of a lightweight boxer. He was covered in tough-looking deep red scales that faded toward an orange-yellow on his torso, and wore no armor and very little clothing. His chest was bare, and he only wore a leather skirt that hung to his ankles. He had a long, graceful looking tail that protruded about three feet behind him, and the skirt had a slit in it for the tail, but buttoned up underneath it, possibly for modesty or extra protection. His hands had long, slender fingers tipped with smaller but wickedly sharp looking claws, and his feet resembled those of a velociraptor with some nasty looking talons. A tall bow was slung on his back, and a sword hung at his hip. ¡°Ahh, heya.¡± I said stupidly, caught by surprise at the sight of him. ¡°You must be the scaleskin, I think it¡¯s called? Gareth mentioned you, but he didn¡¯t tell me your name, sorry. I¡¯m Bull, and this is Morrick and Flamebolt.¡± ¡°Nice¡­ to meet you¡­¡± The scaleskin growled, his neck twisting into a nod to each of us. His body remained still, so it looked unnatural and made my own neck hurt seeing the way it bent. ¡°My name is hard for most¡­ softflesh to say¡­ so they just call my¡­ Keddraym.¡± ¡°Ok people, gather round!¡± Jericho called out as he climbed up one of the towers so he could see everyone. ¡°We need to organize ourselves and get ready. This fights set to start in about an hour, so that doesn¡¯t give us much time.¡± Jericho set out trying to distribute our forces as evenly as possible. We had a little over 90 adventurers, though the majority were likely to get torn apart pretty fast. We also had about 50 townsfolk, though Keddrayn looked to be the only one that could really fight. The rest were mostly town guard and locals, hunters or those who had trained a bit to help ward off bandits and wild animal attacks. Unlike Ravensport¡¯s guards the ones from Hayver¡¯s Mill weren¡¯t high level. We were also dreadfully low on healers, which would make things difficult. We split up into parties of six and then joined a larger raid group. Raids were normally limited to 36 players, six groups of six, but this was an exception due to being part of a Storyline Quest. We were even able to add the NPCs to the raid, something normally impossible to do. I ended up forming a group with Morrick, Flamebolt and Keddrayn. We also added a couple of the town guard to our party at the insistence of scaleskin, two human NPCs named Jim and Halbert wearing heavy armor and carrying swords and shields. ¡°We have a decent party for this.¡± I said, looking everyone over. ¡°Three of us up in the tower, and three guarding the wall and gate. I just wish we had a healer.¡± ¡°You underestimate me once again, Bull!¡± Flamebolt said with a grin, holding his hand up triumphantly. ¡°My powers have been bestowed upon me by the great and mighty Tiamat! I¡¯m surprised you do not know of her many and varied wonders and powers, but she is the awe-inspiring five-headed queen of the dragons, and she combines many magics under her illustrious auspices that¡ªOw!¡± Morrick flicked Flamebolt in the forehead. ¡°God, you remind me of my little brother sometimes. I convinced him to take up light magic as well as elemental, and he¡¯s been putting all his points into expanding his mana pool.¡± ¡°I was getting to that, jeez¡­¡± Flamebolt muttered, rubbing his forehead. ¡°But yeah, I have both healing light and healing burst, so I can hit an AoE with my heals. I also have a lot of fire I can rain down, and since Morrick doesn¡¯t use mana, he¡¯s been giving me all his mana pots, so I have quite a few of them.¡± ¡°That¡¯s really great to hear, Flamebolt.¡± I grinned at him, and decided to throw him a bone. ¡°Praise be to Tiamat, may her terrible majesty bring ruin to our foes.¡± Flamebolt broke out in a grin, and I swear for a moment he looked like an excited puppy and I had to struggle not to laugh. IIRC, there was no version of Tiamat that had healing abilities, but that was ok. Jericho continued to split up parties and give out orders. I noticed he steadfastly avoided me, however, and had since the night before. Following my impromptu speech, a bunch of the adventurers and townsfolk had approached me to ask about what would happen, but I turned them all away, told them to talk with him. I was serious when I told Jericho I had no interest in leading this fight, and honestly I couldn¡¯t lead. Like the NPCs, I couldn¡¯t risk dying, so my plan was to fight for as long as possible, then bail, and try to save as many of the remaining townsfolk as I could.
Looking out over the walls, I could see the Primal army beginning to mass for attack, right on schedule. A countdown had been initiated by the system at the five-minute mark, and a nervous excitement ran through the gathered adventurers. The remaining NPCs of Hayver¡¯s Mill simply looked resigned to their fate, prepared to die defending their homes. I shook my head, wishing I could have convinced them all to leave, but that went against their programming I guess. The Primals were not organized and orderly. They appeared to be grouping into warbands, groups of anywhere from six to a dozen Primals. They were disorganized and sloppy, but there were so very many of them. ¡°It just means¡­ We can¡¯t miss¡­¡± Keddrayn growled next to me, sensing my worry at their numbers. ¡°Hahahahahaha!¡± Flamebolt laughed melodramatically. ¡°My firestorms will sweep over the enemy and annihilate them all!¡± I rolled my eyes and looked down to where our melee fighters were lined up with their backs to the Hayver¡¯s Mill wall. The plan was for them to sortie out and attack as soon as the battle started, then slowly fall back to the wall to prevent them from being surrounded. We¡¯d provide ranged covering fire from up top and hopefully prevent too many of the enemy from reaching them, and hold out as long as possible. The timer ticked down to zero, and a status window popped up, giving us a quest update:
STORYLINE QUEST: Defend Hayver¡¯s Mill (Stage 1)
GOAL: Defeat 500 Primal Grunts
STATUS: 500/500
That was actually better than I expected, since there were easily double that number of Primals arranged on that field. But if we had to complete this in stages, maybe it would be more doable than I originally thought. I moved the status window to the corner of my vision where it would be out of the way, but left it open so I could track our kill count. A roar rippled out from the army, animalistic and throaty, and then they began charging across the field, howling as they came. A few of the archers on the tower let loose a little early, their arrows falling short, but the rest of us held back with our bows drawn tight, waiting till they were in range. The second they were, I let loose with a Rapid Shot, sending two arrows flying. Both hit their mark and two Primals dropped. I smiled at that. The basic [Primal Grunt] at least wasn¡¯t that tough. Good. But I suspected things wouldn¡¯t be that easy for long. I chose another target and let fly. Next to me, Raider growled. He wanted to go out and attack as well, but I kept him back with me. In the chaos of a big battle like his, I wouldn¡¯t be able to keep a close eye on him, and I expected most of the healers would overlook a simple Animal Companion in favor of healing other players, so I opted not to risk him. Plus this way if somehow some Primals broke through and attacked us here, we had a bit more melee backup. The status of the Primals ticked down ¨C 450, 400, 350. Flamebolt let loose a couple AOE flame burst spells. They weren¡¯t quite powerful enough by themselves to drop the enemy, but two was enough, and he took out a dozen enemies that were bunched up tightly all at once. The numbers ticked down faster, but there were still almost 250 when they finally clashed with the melee line. Morrick wore chainmail that I didn¡¯t recognize, the shirt a bright green color that stood out on the battlefield. I watched as he whirled through the enemy, a pair of longswords flashing, his Sweep Talent combining with his other skills to allow him to mow down multiple enemies with each swing. Jim and Halbert flanked him, acting as shields to allow him to attack without worrying about being attacked from behind. I provided some cover fire as well, helping them clear out an area of attacking apes. That first clash wasn¡¯t without cost, however. I had the status plates for the entire raid set off to one side, and I glanced at it now and then. Seconds after that first melee skirmish, several of the players on the list went dark indicating they¡¯d been killed, and a lot of others were taking heavy damage. The [Primal Grunts] didn¡¯t have much defense or health, but it looked like they hit really hard. Our healers began topping off the melee, and the battle stabilized a bit, though by the time we¡¯d finished off the last of the first wave of Primals, we¡¯d lost a dozen players and unfortunately two NPCs. There was a brief pause in the battle, and everyone took advantage of that to top off health and mana with potions, refill their ammunition, and generally prepare. The darkened names on our raid list reappeared briefly, then left the raid group one after another. I looked back toward Hayver¡¯s Mill¡¯s Chapel, but didn¡¯t see any of our raid group respawning there. ¡°Aibee, what¡¯s going on? The players respawned, so where are they?¡± ¡°Sorry, Bull.¡± Aibee said as she flew up from Raiders back to my shoulder. ¡°It appears that during events like this, the local Church is disabled for the duration of the siege.¡± ¡°Drek.¡± I grumbled. ¡°That means that they¡¯ll respawn at their previous location, which means they¡¯re back in Ravensport.¡± ¡°I¡¯m afraid so. Sorry.¡± Aibee apologized. I sighed and patted her on the head with one finger, then looked down to where Jericho stood in front of the main gates shouting orders. ¡°Hey Jericho!¡± I called down. ¡°We got a problem!¡± ¡°What now?¡± He yelled up, annoyed that I was interrupting him. ¡°Notice we¡¯re missing a few people? Looks like the Chapel¡¯s not working for respawns during this fight.¡± ¡°So? Why does that¡­¡± He started, then his face flushed with realization. ¡°Which means they¡¯re not able to respawn here. So they¡¯re out of the fight for good. Ahhh, shit.¡± He turned and looked at a couple of players next to him and said something to them, and they ran off, picking up the couple player loot bags that had dropped on the field. Most players had deposited any loose items they were carrying in the bank and had Bound their gear to themselves, but there were always things like potions and Common gear that couldn¡¯t be bound, and some players possibly didn¡¯t think about it. Hopefully Jericho was planning on sorting the gear and delivering it back to the players who dropped it, but I couldn¡¯t worry about that now. Two more windows popped up:
STORYLINE QUEST STAGE 1 COMPLETE
Experience Reward 500
Gold Reward 100
STORYLINE QUEST: Defend Hayver¡¯s Mill (Stage 2)
GOAL: Defend Hayver¡¯s Mill Gates for 15 Minutes
STATUS: 15:00
With another throaty growl, the Primal army surged forward again. I quickly dismissed the first window and moved the second up to the corner to track the timer. This stage was going to be harder, and I expected we¡¯d have more than just some simple [Primal Grunts] to deal with. I began firing again, quickly dropping several Primals in the front of the oncoming army. They vanished in a swirl of particles which the Primals behind them simply charged through, paying their fallen no mind. I lined up another shot, and something punched me in the shoulder, knocking me back and down. As I hit the floor of the tower a loud ¡°crack¡± sound ripped through the air. A red ¡°325¡± floated in the air in front of me, indicating that I¡¯d taken damage, and then the surge of pain hit me, and I could see a large, ragged looking wound in the shoulder that had been hit. ¡°Snipers¡± I called out as I could hear the sound of more gunshots ripping through the air. Flamebolt looked down at me, confused, and then a shot hit him in the side of the head. I was really, really grateful for two things at that moment: one, that the gore and damage graphics weren¡¯t completely realistic, and two, that despite it being a pretty nasty looking headshot that it still only did it¡¯s normal damage and that it wasn¡¯t an instant-kill shot. The chuuni mage was flung to the ground, dazed by the blow, and I could see his health had dropped nearly half from that single shot. I was in decent shape since I¡¯d raised my Endurance and been focusing on gear that gave me boosts to that as well, but that one shot wasn¡¯t even a critical, meaning that it did 350 damage before factoring in Damage Reduction. My health had dropped by nearly one-third, and from the sounds of it there were at least a dozen snipers out there. I slowly raised my head to peek over the wall of the tower and used Eagle Eye to try and pinpoint the snipers locations. I spotted two clusters of them, hiding in a dense grove of trees. We needed to take them out, fast. Most of the mages were pretty squishy and would die from just a couple shots from these guys, and if they had to keep their heads down it meant they couldn¡¯t heal. It was bad news. ¡°Do you have stealth?¡± I asked Keddrayn, who nodded. He hadn¡¯t gotten hit, but he¡¯d ducked after seeing us get hit. I drank a healing potion, then motioned for him to follow me. ¡°Flame, we need to go deal with those snipers. Focus on staying out of sight and healing until we take them out, ok?¡± ¡°Y-yeah, that sounds like a good idea.¡± He said unsteadily, forgetting his chuuni roleplay for a moment. I led the scaleskin hunter down from the tower and out through a small, single door set next to the gate that allowed for a single person or a small group to move through without the need to open the gate up fully and approached Jericho, who was issuing orders and yelling about the sniper fire. ¡°Hey, I got an idea.¡± I called out to him. He looked back at me with a look of annoyance, but took a few steps back toward me and said ¡°What?¡± ¡°I know where those snipers are. Give me a few rogues with stealth, and we should be able to deal with them.¡± I replied, staying low. ¡°If we have enough, give me four and Keddrayn here four. They have two sniper nests in the woods, so we can split up and hit them both at the same time.¡± ¡°Ok. Do it. And be careful.¡± Jericho said with a sigh and called out to a handful of players who came over. Two were archers who¡¯d been in another tower, and the rest were fighting on the battlefield. They disengaged and made their way to us, healing up with potions as they did so. He explained the situation, and they nodded. Keddrayn and I split the archers and formed two impromptu groups, dropped into stealth, and began making our way toward the two camps. Intermission: Game Mechanics Core Mechanic The core mechanic of the game is 2d6 + + vs either a static targent number or an opposing roll. Usually a static number. So, for example, say Bull''s Ranged Combat is 7 and his Agility is 8, he rolls 2d6+15 whenever he attacks, then adds in any modifiers from Talents, Traits, or other sources to get his final roll. This is then compared against his target number. For every full 5 he beats his target by, he gets a Critical Step. If the roll is for damage or healing, he deals/heals an extra 20% for each Critical Step. For most other rolls, the Critical Step will have some other effect, such as spells lasting longer or giving a higher buff/debuff. The actual effect is defined by the skill or spell, so its always the same. Defense Defense in Apoch''s Twilight is broken down into three categories: Defense Score, Damage Reduction, and Active Defense. Defense Score is a score that represents how hard you are to hit, and is the base Target Number enemies need to match or beat to hit you with an attack. It''s a derived attribute based on twice your Focus plus your Agility. So a character with 5 focus and 6 Agility has a Defense of 16 ((5*2)+6). Some gear, such as shields, will add to your Defense as well, but most gear does not. Damage Reduction is based on your armor. Each piece of armor will usually provide one or more points of Damage Reduction and you add that all up to determine your characters overall DR. This is a flat reduction of damage taken. So if you are hit by an attack that deals 50 damage and have 25 DR, you''ll only take 25 of that damage. Active Defense is a bit different in that it''s a skill test, and there are two types of Active Defense Skills: Parry and Dodge. Parry is Strength-based, and you cannot parry ranged attacks, magic, or a Strength-based weapon with an Agility-based one (larger one-hand weapons such as long swords, warhammers, and axes are STrength-based, while daggers, short swords, and rapiers are Agility based, and all two-handed weapons are strength based). Dodge is Agility based and can be used against most attacks. Reading on Amazon or a pirate site? This novel is from Royal Road. Support the author by reading it there. The downside to Active Defense is that it uses up your action, so you cannot attack while using it. Base Stats One point of confusion I''ve seen is exactly how stats are applied, since gear adds bonuses. It''s pretty simple: Any time a stat is a requirement to equip a piece of gear or to learn a new Trait or Talent, you use the base, unmodified Stat. That way there''s never a question of whether you can keep a piece of gear equipped or if you lose a Talent or Trait later on because you took your boots off or something. Hit Points and Mana Points are calculated based on your Modified Stats, and any temporary HP/MP from buffs (Such as Well-Rested or Food Buffs) comes off your maximum, not your current total. So if you''re in combat and down to 100 HP out of 1000, and your Well Rested Buff drops off suddenly, you still have 100 HP, it''s just now 100 out of 900 instead of 100/1000. XP Costs To raise an Attribute, it costs 100x the current Base Attribute in XP. So raising an Agility 7 to 8 costs 700 XP. Skills are 20x the current Base Skill. Traits costs are based on their Tier Level. Tier 1 Traits, which are currently the only ones available to the players, are 500 XP per Trait. Talents have no cost, but you only get a limited number of them. YOu get 2 at to start at Level 1, an additional point at Level 2 and level 3, and then one point every 3 levels after that. Money "Why do you mention Copper and Silver, but everything operates in Gold?" Good question. This is frankly a leftover artifact from the TTRPG, and is something I decided to simplify for the story, because doing book-keeping is a pain in the ass. "> There''s a lot of little stuff that''s supposed to cost coppers and silvers rather than full gold, but it''s all minor, piddling stuff that''s not worth mentioing or dealing with. It''s something I''ll have to fix in a future editing pass.