First stop on the way to Candlekeep wasn’t too far from where the Eternal Wardens had met their end. A monster field for the lower leveled among us to catch up.
Unfortunately, Guilds didn’t share experience. Twice as disappointing was that Ren, Wolf, and I were too high level to kill things for the others to receive credit even if we did rearrange the Parties so that one of us was in each.
I watched the dinosaur-like creatures fall in the battle with a rather sour expression on my face. While the bear could act as a physical blockade, even if not attacking, and Ren could heal and shield the other groups, I was at a slight loss.
We’d never had to contend with experience share outside of the normal Party dynamics, but even if I just hobbled the System-created, it put a huge dent in the experience the killing group would receive.
Quinn stood beside me, perhaps content enough that he didn’t need to put himself in danger for once. “Isn’t it funny how life works out?” he asked.
“Very true.” I nodded slowly, not knowing exactly what he meant, but fully onboard either way. It would only take a glance at my current situation to know that life had dealt me a rather strange hand.
“I never thought I’d fall for a woman like Tanya,” he continued, “but there’s an edge to her. I can only thank you for bringing us together, friend.”
I blinked away the remanents of confusion over his initial statement. “Oh. Well, she brought herself in. I only chose not to kill her. Your charm did all the rest.”
He chuckled and shook his head. “You give me too much credit, Max. What drew us together was not my unquenchable spirit or any notion that love was on the cards. Just two people desperate for normality and safety. It just so happened we had the right ingredients between us for a blooming passion to germinate.”
I pulled a face, totally ill at ease with the phrasing he used. “I’m genuinely glad, Quinn. Doubly so, as now you have a reason not to sacrifice yourself in my stead. You can live on.”
“Don’t death flag me, friend.” He turned his one eye to me and smiled. “It’s not my convictions or love that prevents me paying back the blood debt, but I have truly given up knowing if you are dead or not when you use that skill.”
“True enough. I am tiresome.” I gave him a wide grin. “If you want to repay the debt, just protect and keep her safe. Nothing would make me happier than you two surviving and finding a place of contentment once this is all over.”
He seemed fulfilled enough with this change of plan. “Consider it done. That also means you and Ren have to make it through. Wolf too. We have all been through too much to lose each other.”
I gave him a nod, but couldn’t find the words to respond at first. With all the magical scrolls we had found, none had been for resurrecting allies. How likely was death once we got to the city? While part of me liked to think that us powerful three would be taking on the bulk of danger, there was surely plenty to go around. Maybe I had some karma coming my way.
“As much as I would like to hope that all fifteen of us will make it through…” I said, slowly. “It seems hypocritical of someone who has killed so many people to care to such a degree to make the narrative care for my thoughts on who should be protected.”
Quinn looked me over, his single eye reading my expression, before he gave me a tired shrug. “Just think, Max. Any of these poor souls you save would be your fan for life.”
I had to admit; I did like the taste of that phrasing.
My mind was elsewhere now, however. As Tanya called him over for something, my brain was focused on the area around us. If I couldn’t kill monsters, then I would run protective measures over everyone here. Things were never as simple as moving from one place to another, and we had suffered enough ambushes in our time here to know better.
Not that we were exactly a soft target anymore. While one dinosaur screeched and fell over dead, another burst into flame. It wasn’t going to be quick experience, but Tanya had a plan. We’d grind here until dusk, and then to a nearby town that had a couple of easy Quests to complete. Sleep the night away, and then start fresh in the morning.
Logistics and morale were important for an army, she had told me. As much as the enemy literally lit the sky ahead of us, we needed proper rest and full stomachs. Any glimmer of confidence we could gather to tell us that this wasn’t going to be a big deal. Deadly.
But was it? I didn’t even know, to be fair. There was a chance we would just roll over Candlekeep and usurp the Lady even easier than we turned hell upside down. It wasn’t a… realistic possibility, however.
In fact, I fully expected to be attacked tonight, if not before.
It would be disappointing if we weren’t. Our enemy would benefit from it to the point that it would be negligence if they didn’t try to needle us on the route to Candlekeep. I didn’t know the Lady in Red’s past, but I was sure she had some cold cunning in her for her to get this far. A cruelty to her that hated a threat just lingering beyond the borders of her control.
I watched as Wolf walked away from the front lines, his expertise not really needed while they waited for monster respawns. He came up near me and then flopped over onto his side.
Stolen novel; please report.
“Everything fine, brother?” I asked.
“Yeah. Just making use of the fine weather.” He rolled so that he could look up at me while we talked.
I nodded. It was a good day, all things told. Compared to hell, this was heaven. A mild warmth that lingered if you stayed out in the sunshine. It brought me back to the cottage, and I imagined the three of us hanging out by the swing. The flowers. Such peace. Something to fight for.
My focus returned to him. “Still keeping that large maw closed about your abilities?”
The bear grunted, but maintained his gaze. “You will know when it is time, no sooner. Some things only work that way.”
I rolled that statement around in my mouth before giving him a bow. “I accept and will pester you no further.” He had a trick up his sleeve, and it would be rude of me to force it to appear when it wasn’t time—ruining the whole performance. It was clearly something important to him.
“Thank you.” Wolf closed his eyes, soaking up the rays.
Would be nice if he could give at least one clue, though. I pulled a face and looked over at the fighting groups. Fiona’s Party was still engaged with two dinosaurs. The feathered creatures fell back as she swiped at one with her mace, and the spellcaster froze the other in place, allowing Magnus to nearly decapitate it.
Ren looked relaxed, not really straining to heal their front-line fighters or put shields on them. Bored, possibly. The babysitting was part of the process, unfortunately. We had leapfrogged everyone in these first areas of the world thanks to our vacation to hell. Dragging weaker Players into the coming battle seemed unfair. The least we could do was to prepare them for…
Whatever was coming.
My eyes went to the many Chance Boxes I had accumulated lately, including the demon-flavored ones. I suppose it wouldn’t be the worst thing in the world to eventually open them.
Frowning at the ground around me, I chose several spots to drop useless gear. A pile for each Stat. Then, I went and opened ten boxes at a time. Gold, potions, scrolls, and the occasionally miscellaneous item I kept, but any gear I couldn’t wear, I dropped to one of these piles.
A little garage sale in the making, people started to accumulate as they took a rest from their fighting. I continued on, opening and dropping. Nothing was as good as my hell gear. I stopped, not because I was running out of Chance Boxes, but because the surrounding ground was too cluttered.
“I can disenchant gear,” Percius offered, some slight hesitation to the statement. “With enough shards from magical items, I can craft Power Tokens.”
“Holy shit.” My eyebrows raised quick enough that my hat almost fell from my head. “Where have you been all my life? Ren, did you hear this motherfucker?”
“I have like a billion shitboxes too!” the elf said, practically running over.
“Party members get first dibs if they can use the gear,” I said, waving my hand impatiently yet diplomatically. “Otherwise funnel everything into this man here.”
“There’s a cost-” he begun.
“I’ll pay it,” Ren and I interrupted at the same time.
And thus began what I could only describe as the least efficient Power Token factory ever to exist. I couldn’t believe he hadn’t told us sooner—although, judging by the surprise on Fiona’s face, he hadn’t told them either. A secret skill that made him incredibly valuable and important.
Now we became uncontested. Ren and I opened and spat out magical items to the floor in front of us. We had four runners who would take the gear to Tanya. With everyone’s equipment screen shared with her, she went through and designated gear to a Guild member—or handed them to another runner who brought it over to the spellcaster, who melted the item down into token shards.
Wolf sat beside him, paying off the cost. We’d finally found a gold sink that wasn’t Sweet Cakes.
And we had an obscene amount of extra gear. I kept two rings, as we had now unlocked the third and fourth slots by becoming Level Twenty.
[Ring of Hope] [+25% Mana, +10% Mana Regeneration, +5 Int]
[Scryer's Hoop] [+3 Int, +3 Wis, +6 Luck]
The rest wasn’t useful for us main trio, but once we switched to the hell gear from the demonic boxes, they were soon hoovered up by the others—their old gear going into the pile to be broken down instead.
I felt rather pleased that our hoarding and distrust of these random loot crates had eventually worked out in our favor. I was sure that we weren’t about to get a ton of Tokens from this whole effort—but it would be better than just keeping things around in our Inventories.
The one downside was the amount of time it was taking. Sure, the other two groups—and even Quinn and Tanya—were getting a power boost, but the feathered dinosaur-like monsters were now just walking around idly instead of being crushed to death for their experience. I could see the ire on Tanya’s face - that we were ruining her plan.
She was in charge of our schedule, after all. I shouldn’t be interrupting the production.
“We’ll do part two of this later,” I announced, ceasing spewing the useless items onto the grass.
“Good,” Ren agreed. “It was doing my eyes in.”
I swept my hand in front of me and picked up everything still by my feet, straight into my Inventory. The grid boxes were cluttered to the point of breaking, but it would have to survive for now. “Go and grind experience. We have little time before dusk and then we’re moving, whether you have leveled or not.”
It was enough convincing to get them to change track. Now, with a few pieces of improved gear each, the process of slaying monsters took even less time. I could tangibly see the benefit of our little gear explosion.
Percius stayed behind, still getting caught up on disenchanting the last pieces of gear moved to him. The process of creating Tokens probably took a while as well, but he could at least leech experience while the rest of his Party acted. With Ren backing them up, they wouldn’t miss his offensive skills.
“How was that?" I asked him, a wide smile on my face.
“Expensive. For you,” he shot me a brief grin before looking back at his work. “I’m not sure there will be much to take back from Wolf once all is done.”
“Oh.” I raised my eyebrows down at the tired-looking bear. “I didn’t give him any. That’s all his own gold.”
"I hate looting," Wolf grumbled.
Percius hesitated, before glancing between us. “The second phase - Combining the shards into Power Tokens - doesn’t take gold, but instead uses a lot of mana.”
“You need potions?” I went through my Inventory. “I don’t really use them… so I have a large stockpile. Greater Mana Potions would probably get you to fill, right?” He was nodding in my peripheral as I looked through the windows. “I’ll split the stack, so… I’ll trade you three-hundred-and-fifty.”
“What?” he asked. “You have…”
“Just of the Greater version, yes. I’m keeping the Masterwork and Max ones for myself, the latter just for the amusement. So, how many Tokens are we getting out of this process so far?”
He shook the disbelief from his head as he went into his own Inventory. Beneath his wide hat, I could see his eyes widen further the longer he looked.
“Oh shit,” he murmured.