No sooner had Brittany accepted Doug’s offer than, in a flash, they arrived in his virtual cabin. A large oak table sat in the middle of the room. Brittany pushed aside several goblets to make room for the stone. With a loud grunt, Doug heaved it onto the table.
“This ice is crazy thick.” He rubbed his hands together for warmth. “Wait here. I’m gonna go grab my blowtorch.”
“Your what?” Brittany raised an eyebrow in confusion.
“You’ll see.”
With a grunt, he ducked through a door on the far wall. He returned moments later with a modern face shield and a large real-world-looking blowtorch decorated with jewels and ancient-looking runes.
He hesitated as he swiped at an invisible screen. “Um… we’ve got a problem.”
“What?”
“I used up too much of my Mana making fireballs back there.”
“So?”
“This blowtorch is magically enchanted.” he winced. “Would you mind activating it?”
“I only have 40 Mana left.” she hesitated, “Is that enough?”
He chuckled and handed her the face shield and the torch, “Plenty.”
The wielder of this relic must possess a minimum Intelligence of 1 and Willpower of 1. Do you wish to activate the relic?
This will tax 10 mana.
Yes | No
She quirked an eyebrow. “Where did you get this thing? Even a noob with default stats could use it.”
“I made it.” he said with an arrogant smirk.
“I see. Why’d you set the parameters so low?”
“Why not? I’d rather use Mana for fighting.”
“And what’s with the face shield?”
“You’ll want to wear that while using the blowtorch, otherwise any stray sparks can cause you to incur damage points. I tried to bypass that issue while writing the code, but I couldn’t.”
She shrugged and put on the face shield. Pressing the YES button on her screen, the blowtorch came to life and she began working at the ice.
-10 Mana
Within minutes, all of the ice had melted, and she could now recognize the carved lettering.
“It’s in Hebrew.” she said, meeting his gaze.
Doug stared at the runes. “What makes you say that?”
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“I studied abroad in Israel for a semester.”
“Oh. What does it say?”
She studied the characters more closely, then frowned. “I’m afraid I’m too rusty.”
She traced the curve of one of the characters with her finger, and a box popped up.
Do you wish to translate the message?
Doing this will tax 15 mana.
Yes | No
Smiling, she pressed YES.
-15 Mana
Two more windows popped up in her NR enhanced vision in successive order.
Translation:
Buried within the legendary ruins of the Tower of Babel you will find an ancient portal to the Old World. Activate the portal, and you will receive a Legendary Class.
Do you wish to accept this quest?
Yes | No
Congratulations!
You have completed a quest to decipher a stone with ancient runes in the Northern Lands. For your endurance in this quest, you have been awarded with the following:
+300 XP
+10 Intelligence
+5 Willpower
Brittany swiped away the Quest completion notice and stared at the Translation window in shock. The legend of the Tower of Babel being hidden somewhere inside Conquest was renown throughout the gaming community. To date nobody had found it, but not for a lack of trying. Several guilds had been formed over the years, but none had been successful in locating the ruins.
And a Legendary class?! It was almost unheard of. Only one other player had achieved such a class many years before, but had gone into hiding. To this day, the identity of this player had remained a secret.
Her finger hovered over the YES button anxiously.
“So?” Doug prodded. “What does it say?”
Her eyes refocused and the message went blurry. She had almost entirely forgotten that Doug was there. A pang of guilt surfaced in the pit of her stomach, knowing that Doug should share in the reward since he had helped her locate the stone.
She toggled through her settings, and activated the Sharing option. The message on her NR enhanced vision blipped momentarily and returned:
Translation:
Buried within the legendary ruins of the Tower of Babel you will find an ancient portal to the Old World. Activate the portal, and you will receive a Legendary Class.
Do you wish to accept this quest?
Yes | No | Share
“Well?” he huffed. “Don’t leave me hanging!”
She gave a wry chortle and hit the SHARE button. The pupils of his eyes refocused. His jaw dropped.
“No way…”
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Despite her excitement about their new quest, Brittany was exhausted from her long day. She needed to go home and get some sleep.
“Hey, Doug.” she waved to get his attention “I’m gonna hit the sack. Thanks for your help today.”
He smiled broadly. “No … thank you! I gained ten points in Intelligence and five points in Willpower, and I even leveled up thanks to this quest.”
“I gained those too, but unfortunately I’m still 140 XP shy of Leveling up.” She yawned. “Anyway, how about we meet up again tomorrow night?”
“Works for me. I’ll study this map to the Tower of Babel we were just awarded and try to put together a game plan.”
“Just don’t go behind my back and sell it, or I’ll hunt down your respawning point and camp out.”
The map was likely worth millions of dollars in real money. It would be very tempting to just sell the knowledge on the black market.
“You have my word.” he placed a hand over his heart as if paying tribute to a flag.
“Good.”
Brittany brought up her NR enhanced screen. She swiped to the left several times until she reached the log out screen.
Do you wish to log out of Conquest?
Yes | No
Brittany yawned again and pressed Yes.
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