I walked up to the booth standing outside the sand arena. An NPC-actor stood upright at my approach. The NPC was an elf with a slight build, and the typical pointed ears of their race. I waved as I approached, and the actor nodded.
“Well met, adventurer,” the elf greeted. “Can I interest you in a fighting companion? After sundown, we shut down for the day, so this is your last chance before the Scarlet Horde invade.” The lines were delivered without inflection, like this actor had said the same thing a hundred times and was just going through the motions. But then their eyes locked on my face and grew wide. Unlike some other actors I had come across, however, this one recovered quickly. “I-uh, can’t quite determine your class, adventurer. Perhaps you can tell me your fighting style, and I can recommend a mercenary to complement you?”
I nodded along like that was normal. “Yeah, that’d be great,” I replied. “I’m still trying to figure it out myself, but I’m favoring long-ranged melee weapons right now. My health is pretty high, but I have no tanking or melee skills to speak of, so not sure if being front line makes sense for me right now.”
The NPC-actor took that in stride, though he or she must have been confused as all hell. Then again, maybe they weren’t. Maybe they knew exactly what they were dealing with. Either way, they had the good grace and professionalism not to comment on my status. “That’s understandable…um, shall I address you as Sir or Lady?” he asked suddenly.
“Just Ray is fine, or Sir if you insist.”
“Excellent. Sir it is then. Well, Sir Ray, our melee companions are quite skilled, but unfortunately, all of the tanking-based fighters have been snatched up.” I deflated at that, but he continued. “Hope is not lost, Sir Ray. There are still many good options for a bruiser-type fighter such as yourself. We have two types of mages available: elementalists who specialize in area-of-effect damage, and mentalists who specialize in crowd control. Elementalists will be quite effective at thinning the horde that approach, but there is a large risk of friendly fire from environmental effects.” I nodded, immediately deciding against that class. “A mentalist is also quite effective at reducing the numbers of those mindless brutes, but deals very little damage. You will have to carry much of the burden, and may find yourself overwhelmed with time.”
“Okay, that’s all pretty interesting,” I said.
“Of the two, my recommendation would be the mentalist. Even the best-intentioned elementalists tend to either hog their master’s experience or inflict grievous wounds to their allies. There is one other class of mercenary that may interest you, though.”
“Oh?”
“All of the buffing companions have been taken - which would have been my first suggestion - but there are a handful of healing classes left. They have zero combat capabilities to speak of, but they can keep your health topped up in all but the most dire of situations - for a time, that is. Their spells have long cooldowns, which is not conducive to the kind of endless onslaught the Scarlet Horde employ.”
That was something to think about. “And I can only have one companion?” I asked.
The NPC-actor looked unsure at that. “Hmm, well normally I would say yes, but your-ahem-level allows you two companions. There is an additional 2000 gold surcharge on the second companion, however,” he added.
Hell yeah!
“Money isn’t a problem,” I said. “What’s the cost and how long do I get them?”
“You can rent the companions by the hour, for a total of two hours. The timer starts when the sun is down. The price is variable, depending on the companion’s level and skill set.” He waved a hand, and an offer to show me the inventory of companions appeared. I mentally accepted, and a list populated in front of me. It had each available companion listed, and I could sort by type, level, and price. I immediately noticed that price wasn’t exactly correlated to the companion’s level. Some of the companions in the low-40s range were twice as expensive as the level 48 warrior. The price ranged from 2000 gold an hour for the cheapest, all the way to 10,000 gold an hour for the most expensive. Despite what I had just said, I was a little concerned about throwing away 20,000 gold for a single quest that almost assuredly would not recoup the cost. But, at the end of the day, this was my life on the line.
As I scrolled through the list, something the NPC-actor had said occurred to me. “Elementalists can cause friendly fire you mentioned? How does that work exactly?”
He nodded at the question, clearly having answered it before. “Friendly fire applies to all environmental effects, such as fire, ice, earth-based effects such as quicksand or earthquakes and so on. Spells that cause explosions, by triggering a barrel of gunpowder for example, also apply. Friendly fire effects cause 50% damage to friendlies. Your hired mercenary will strive first and foremost to avoid such scenarios, but results are not guaranteed by this establishment. Neither I, nor Hope’s End will be held liable in such an event.”
This tale has been unlawfully lifted without the author's consent. Report any appearances on Amazon.
I waved his concern away. “Not worried about that. So, they’ll avoid unintentional friendly fire…but what about intentional friendly fire?”
He briefly squinted his eyes in confusion, but then shrugged. “They will, of course, do as you direct, so long as it doesn’t impact the soldiers of Hope’s End.”
Now that was interesting. “Soldiers of Hope’s End meaning the NPCs, correct?”
Despite my mention of ‘NPCs’, he didn’t break character. “Meaning those under General Aldara’s command. Not traveling adventurers such as yourself,” he added with a knowing look.
I rubbed my hands together, already imagining the possibilities. I scanned the list of mercenaries one more time. “I’ll take this one here,” I said, indicating a fire-based elementalist that was 7,000 gold/hr. Her name was listed as Icalia, and she was one of the priciest mercs. I continued scanning the list until I found what I wanted. “And…this one here,” I said after a moment, pointing at another elementalist - this one earth-based. His name was Jailen, and he was only 2,000 gold/hr.
He seemed puzzled at my choices but didn’t argue. “Very good, Sir Ray. And how long will you be employing them for?”
“The full two hours,” I replied.
He sent me a debit for 18,000 gold plus the 2000 gold surcharge for hiring two companions. I noticed a small byline under the charge:
Pay 10% more for actors to inhabit your companions for the duration of your lease.
I happily paid it.
***
It was five minutes until sundown according to my quest timer. I had made a brief foray into the potions shop after peeking my head in to see that Git and Damien had taken off. The highest-level potions available here were mostly suitable for those around level 40, so they weren’t as useful as I had hoped they would be. Still, I grabbed a stack of 100 health potions called [Good Enough Health Potion] that would each restore about 5% of my health over fifteen seconds. They didn’t stack unfortunately. It wasn’t great, but it was enough to possibly make a difference if shit went sideways.
There had also been mana potions of similar efficacy, and I grabbed a stack of ten. I wasn’t expecting to need those, given my pretty large mana pool and my spell set of exactly one spell with a decent cooldown timer of 60 seconds. The rest of the shopkeeper’s inventory had been buff potions that lasted in intervals ranging from 10 minutes to 2 hours, but they had been level locked for players under level 50. I had asked the shopkeeper about that, and he had danced around the subject for a moment, not wanting to break character to discuss the hidden mechanics of the game. But after some probing, he eventually explained that all the buff potions were percent based, and the highest-level potions were astronomically expensive to make. So, most players, if given a choice, would use the much cheaper low-level buff potions rather than the expensive max-level ones. It was a difference of 25% stat buff compared to a 15% stat buff, but the cost differential was an order of magnitude higher.
Sooooo, it was a money grab by S&S. Force the players to grind the materials for the higher-level buff potions - more in game time. Or, force the players to buy the expensive materials - more in game currency bought or farmed, leading to…more in game time. All roads led to more real-life money spent via more subscription time purchased, or through in-game currency purchased. Because S&S allowed conversion of real currency to gold, but not the other way around.
I had got the impression from the actor operating the shopkeeper NPC that this was a central topic discussed in their job training. I hadn’t reached that level of my career yet, so I hadn’t seen behind the curtain entirely. I mean, I had seen plenty to know S&S was a god dammed money pit, but it now seemed like the roots extended even deeper than I had imagined.
Thankfully, at least for now, it seemed that in-game money wouldn’t be a problem for me. I was sure that would change if I decided to do max-level content, but for now, I hadn’t wanted for gold yet.
As I exited the city and entered the exterior encampment, I saw a staging area for the Consortium faction to my right. There were probably a dozen player nameplates, and at least another dozen mercenary NPC nameplates standing before one of the Hope’s End Commanders. He seemed to be gathering the players to give some sort of speech or brief before the fighting began. On the outskirts of the gathering, I noticed two NPC nameplates that were highlighted. As I noticed them, the two mercenaries noticed me, and jogged over.
The female fire elementalist’s nameplate read:
Name: Icalia
Class: Elementalist
Race: Human
Level: 46
Faction: Hope’s End
Status: On loan to Consortium
The male earth elementalist’s nameplate was identical, except he was level 43. His name was Jailen.
I gave them a friendly wave as they approached, and they both bowed before me.
“Well met,” Icalia said first.
“Happy to be on board,” Jailen added.
“Hey, guys. Nice to meet you,” I said, smiling. “I’m Ray. Let’s address the elephant in the room right off the bat, okay?” Jailen glanced surreptitiously at Icalia, but she remained stony faced. If I had to guess, she was most likely the more senior of the two, and he would defer to her in ambiguous moments. Kind of how I, as a damsel, would look to the dungeon boss actors if I had a question in the moment. My mind went back to last night, when I’d been just a damsel actor, saying hi to Jeff, the Silent Knight actor who had been slain by BigSword. Jesus fuck, that felt like weeks ago.
I cleared my head with a shake. “Well, it’s pretty obvious I’m a damsel. Can’t really hide that fact. And I’m guessing you haven’t been living under a rock, and have read or at least heard of the Crawler article that posted a few hours ago?” Jailen started to nod, but a sharp look from Icalia cut him off. I held up my hand to placate her. “Hey, I get it - gotta stay in character. Just tell me straight up if this is gonna be a problem for either of you? No hard feelings, no bad reviews, just walk now and I’ll grab my refund after the event.”
Icalia was watching me with an appraising look, and I could see the gears turning in her head. After a moment, she said, “Jailen and I are professionals, and we don’t discriminate based on social status, gender, or affiliation. If your gold spends, we are with you.”
I appreciated the way she had deftly maneuvered the situation without breaking character. I nodded, looking at each of them in turn. “Then let’s do this.”