Half a day–that’s how much it took him to pick the casque up from the floor and log into Elderpyre again, note or no note.
It was like the room itself was designed to be boring. There was nothing to do in there but stare at the ceiling, nothing to watch, nothing to read.
For someone who’d spent pretty much every day of his life staring at one screen or another and consuming media, sitting around and doing nothing was torture. He could hardly believe it himself, but he’d rather take his chances with the mist stalkers than spend another hour twiddling his thumbs.
Logging back in the game, Alex–well, Hunter–found himself back in that old-timey bar he’d met with Faux-Grimm the previous day. Everything was just as he remembered it; the player piano was playing some chipper tune from the Roaring ‘20s, the air was filled with smoke, and Mortimer the bartender was behind his bar, wiping glasses squeaky clean. Faux-Grimm, however, was nowhere to be seen.
“Hey there, Mortimer.”
“Welcome back, Mr. Hunter," said the man in the solemn, slightly dissociated tone you’d expect from a high-end bartender. Or an NPC. “How about another pint of that lager?”
“No, not today, thanks.”
“Trouble, sir?”
“You could say that. It seems I managed to get myself killed.”
“Ah, I see. Maybe something stiffer, then?”
“No, thank you. It would be great if I could ask you a few things, though.”
“I’m always happy to help to the best of my ability, sir.”
Hunter climbed on a barstool, leaned against the bar’s polished wood, and started massaging his temples. He had no idea where to begin–so he began at the obvious.
“Why did I end up back here again?”
Mortimer seemed genuinely surprised by the question–something that actually managed to put a dent in his air of immaculate, impassionate professionalism.
“Why, this is your private Shard, sir. Your very own mind palace, as Master Grimm likes to refer to it. You can always return here whenever you wish to take a breather from your travels.”
That actually made sense, now that Hunter thought about it. Many games had a hub, a place for the player to use as a base of operations. This old-timey bar was his own, apparently. Not his first choice, as style went, but he had to admit it had character.
“Mortimer?”
“Yes, sir?”
“Can I ask you something?”
“Of course, sir.”
“Is this a game?”
The bartender paused, giving Hunter a measured look.
“It's definitely not a game, sir. Not a such. It's a very realistic, immersive experience.”
Hunter frowned.
“You know, someone slipped me a piece of paper saying that—this is not a game.”
“Any suspicions, sir?”
“No idea. What does it mean, this is not a game?”
“It could be some interested party trying to tell you to be mindful of the consequences of your actions, sir,” the barman said as he put a tall glass of cold water before Hunter, “without risking getting caught violating their non-disclosure agreement.”
Hunter gave it some thought. That was a plausible explanation. Maybe the most plausible.
“In regard to your recent and unfortunate downfall," Mort went on, “may I suggest you not get disheartened? Take a closer look at your character sheet instead. Figure out your strengths and weaknesses. You will find that persevering and improving oneself is almost always the key to overcoming adversity.”
“You know what? That’s not a bad idea. And maybe I’ll have that beer, too. It’s five o’clock somewhere.”
Hunter pulled up his character sheet and took a closer look, this time armed with Bob’s explanation of what was what.
As far as he could tell, the most direct way to improve himself was to upgrade his Attributes. Those upgrades, however, started at one hundred Aether a pop, and only increased from there. As things were, he had exactly zero of that.
His other choice would be to learn some new Skills, just as he’d learned Low-Light Vision. Learning new Skills cost Inspiration, of which he still had two of the three points he’d started the game with.
When it came to resources in games–stat points, skill points, healing items, consumables, you name it–there were two types of players. The first type was the hoarders–players who’d hold on to everything and not spend a single skill point for fear of making the wrong choice.
Hunter had always been the second type–the “upgrade now, ask questions later” kind of player. In most games, after all, there usually was a way to reset his character and revisit his choices. Holding on to unallocated upgrade points and unspent resources was not only boring–it was actively suboptimal.
In Elderpyre, however, he had no way to know whether he’d get a chance to respect and reallocate his upgrades and whatnot.
“Hey, Mortimer. Do I get a do-over once I spend Aether and Inspiration and the like? Do I get the chance to redistribute them later if I change my mind?”
The bartender frowned for a second.
“There are ways, but they are rare and difficult to come by, and come at a great cost. So no, generally you do not.”
Well, that sucked.
Hunter briefly considered holding on to his Inspiration and waiting until he could learn more about his options. He didn’t even know whether Inspiration was something he could routinely gain as he progressed through the game, or whether it was super rare and worth hoarding.
In the end, however, he knew that kind of restraint wouldn’t last long. He’d already spent one point of Inspiration and hadn’t regretted it. The other two he still had were burning a hole in his pocket.
He’d gotten a ton of system notifications during his brief but horrifying encounter at the standing stone, he remembered. He’d been too busy getting murdered to death to pay any attention to them at the time. He’d even gained a point of Insight, which supposedly was very important for Mystics. He grabbed the beer Mortimer had served him, took a generous gulp, and pulled up the log of notifications.
Most of them were a grisly, beat-by-beat chronicle of his death at the specters’ hands. Hunter scrolled past those as fast as he could and skipped to the notifications before that. As it turned out, gaining that point of Insight and striking an accord with the antlered spirit really had its upsides, too.
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Now we’re talking, Hunter thought, dazzled by the ton of new options splayed before him. He went through the descriptions one-by-one, exploring and weighing his options.
Make Contact, the first one on the list, sounded really cool on paper. In practice, however, he had to learn more about the world around him to be able to make an informed decision. He didn’t like to stockpile his ability points, yes, but he didn’t want to end up with a marginally useless ability either. Plus, that “reduce risks” part at the end of the description somehow gave him the impression that making contact with spiritual beings and the like was a bit more complicated than hitting them up and saying howdy.
Mystic’s Eye, on the other hand, sounded perfect for his situation. It was versatile, too; the description stated in no uncertain terms that it could be used to gain information about items, creatures, the users’ surroundings, and more. Again, this sounded like a gamble. It could prove to be invaluable, or it could prove to be a glorified Inspect-type Ability. The description mentioned some kind of side effects, too, as well as something called a Mystic’s Lens. Too many moving parts for Hunter’s taste, but then again having a reliable source of information could prove invaluable.
Moving on, Conjure Familiar sounded both like a safe choice and a gamble. There was no mention of risks or side effects there. Its usefulness probably depended on said familiar’s kind and abilities, and the description didn’t offer a whole lot of information on those. He’d seen people do some very interesting stuff with familiars in Dungeons and Dragons, but in Elderpyre, his mileage might vary.
As for Eldritch Power, well…
For many, Eldritch Power would be the obvious choice. Not for Hunter, though. In almost every game he had ever played, he had chosen the up-close-and-personal playstyle warrior classes offered. He wasn’t above picking a magical ability or two to complement his build, but Eldritch Power sounded more of a full-time spellcaster thing–which was to say, not something that Hunter usually enjoyed.
In the end, Hunter went on and spent his remaining Inspiration on Mystic’s Eye and Conjure Familiar. The first because, as the saying went, knowledge is power. Wasn’t that the whole point of being a Mystic? The second because Hunter had grown up consuming a rich diet of Pokémon-related media. Having a magical pet follow him around sounded like too much fun to pass up.
Much like when he’d learned Low-Light Vision, Hunter instantly became aware of a newfound innate understanding of his new abilities. To his surprise, Mystic’s Eye was even more useful than he had anticipated. Besides items, creatures, and the like, he could also focus its knowledge-revealing effect on game terms, general concepts, or even other skills and abilities. It felt like a search engine and knowledge base had a magical baby, and that baby had now taken up permanent residence in his head. Eager to try it, he used it on his other new skill, Conjure Familiar.
Something came alive on the back of his right hand–his Mystic Sigil, invisible up until then. It was a circle of black script, neatly forming the words ‘Scientia Potentia Est’, whatever that meant.
Shivers ran up his spine as a coldness seeped into him and tugged at something behind his eyeballs. His essence, he realized. Knowledge flooded his mind out of nowhere, hitting him like a sudden slap in the face. It was unpleasant, painful, like saltwater and copper burning his sinuses from the inside.
“Motherf-!” he groaned, too numb to ever finish the word.
Moments later, a string of notifications popped up before his eyes.
The description went on to list a couple dozen animal forms the familiar could assume, as well as their advantages and abilities. Most of them were small critters, no larger than a housecat. Some of them were birds. Hunter ended up choosing the Twin Ravens. According to the Mystic’s Eye, they could become the conjurer’s eyes and ears, proving to be excellent scouts and spies. Plus, they were two-for-one–and, as hundreds of funny animal videos he’d watched on YouTube over the years, corvids were among the smartest animals on the planet.
Unlike using his Mystic’s Eye ability, conjuring a familiar was by no means instantaneous. It required a ritual that, despite not being complicated, would take Hunter some time. He’d have to leave his Shard to cast it and considered focusing his efforts on finding his bearings in the forest instead, but quickly changed his mind. If two pairs of eyes in the sky couldn’t help him figure out where the hell he was, nothing could.
First things first, though, he had other immediate priorities–like getting back to Aernor. Would he reappear at the same spot? He sure as hell hoped not. The idea of getting spawn-camped by those wraiths was enough to instantly make his butt clench.
“Mortimer? How can I get back to… well, back to where I was?”
“That is simple, sir. Simply use the exit over there, and it will take you back to your last position. Or, in your current situation, back to the Place of Power you’re anchored to.”
“Uh… I did not understand any of that.”
“Your existence in this world is anchored to Places of Power” Mortimer explained. “Right now it is anchored to a Place of Power in a location called Kiln PP-B-036. Since you recently met your temporary demise, stepping through the door will take you there instead of your last position. This may be mildly inconvenient, but it is a necessary safety precaution.”
“I see.”
Most games Hunter had played had similar mechanics. Save points, check points, spawn points–points of reference, in general. This Place of Power he was anchored to was, simply put, one such point.
“Thanks again, Mortimer,” he said, and started for the door. “For the beer, too. I’ll see you around, I guess.”
“My pleasure, sir. I literally have nowhere else to be,” said the bartender and returned to polishing his already immaculate glasses. “Godspeed.”
Hunter crossed the threshold and walked through the fog wall. Being briefly deconstructed into a collection of disembodied senses was just as jarring as the first time around, but fortunately didn’t last long. Starbursts of impossible colors, tolling bells, and the smell of ozone and camphor overtook his being for a moment, but then it was all over just as abruptly as it had begun. A few seconds later he was back in one piece, waist-deep in the water at the bottom of that cave.
<Élan> You successfully make your way back to the realm of the living, albeit losing a small fraction of yourself in the process. Your Élan quality is now 9.
Shit. He’d forgotten all about the pool. Who the hell would place a spawn point smack dab in the middle of a pool? And what the hell did that notification about him losing a fraction of himself mean, anyway? There was so damn much to figure out, and so little hand holding.
Wet to the bone again, he waded out of the water and inspected himself. He was feeling okay, no wounds or pain or anything. Moreover, he still had his backpack, all of his items, and his glaive.
Good. At least he didn’t drop his items on death. It was some kind of consolation.
With his Low-Light Vision showing him the way, he made his way to the exit at the top of the cave. It only took him a minute, but it was enough for him to get a notification informing him he’d gained another Skill rank.
Just like he’d done the first time around, Hunter sat down in the sun and waited for his clothes to dry a bit before making his way into the forest. This time around, he’d follow a different path; he’d avoid the clearing and the standing stone altogether, and he’d try to make it straight to the log cabin. From his vantage point up there on the crag, it didn’t look too difficult. If he found his way to the creek, all he had to do was follow it downstream.
The base of the crag was as good a spot as any, so Hunter decided to get started on that Conjure Familiar ritual. As if following instructions streamed directly in the back of his mind, Hunter found a flat and bare patch of ground, picked up a stick, and went on to etch a conjuration circle in the dirt.
He’d never even seen one before, but he could almost see it etched into his brain every time he closed his eyes and thought about it: runes and sigils, occult symbols with triangles around them and curlicues over them, special circles to hold the whole thing together… two or three of those, overlapping for extra strength.
In the beginning, Hunter was unsure of what he was doing. A couple of minutes in, however, he just stopped thinking and let the coldness seeping into him take over completely.
He braced himself for another shock of copper and saltwater, but this time it never came. Maybe that was the side-effect mentioned in the description for Mystic’s Eye, and not something that happened with every Ability. He certainly hoped it was, because it really, really sucked.
For the better part of five minutes, Hunter drew and carved and etched as if his life depended on it, relying on pure, primal instinct. It had to be just right. No–more than just right; it had to be perfect.
He knew his work was almost done when he felt an invisible energy–his essence–pour out of him and slowly fill the lines and shapes and curves of the conjuration circle, bringing it to life. When it was finally complete, he touched it with his mind and sent out some kind of wordless message, infinitely short and infinitely complex and infinitely inhuman.
Someone–something–responded.
A deal was struck.
A pact was sealed.
Power washed over him, and the tension that had been building up inside him reached critical mass and burst. A ghostly shape materialized out of the circle like steam seeping out of a manhole in winter, and Hunter watched it take the form of two identical ravens, big and plump and black as tar.
All around him, the forest–which he’d just realized had fallen silent as he was performing the ritual–was once again buzzing with the sounds of nature. A few feet away, the ravens were watching him with solemn interest, tilting their black heads to the side.
Exhausted from the effort, Hunter simply sat down on the ground and rubbed at his eyes. He felt empty and dizzy and his head was throbbing, the way it did after a long and difficult raiding session, or when he concentrated on something far too hard for far too long. He felt like he was going to be sick, but he still also felt exhilarated. Feeling all that power funnel through him felt… right, in a way.
Whatever that feeling was, he wanted more of it.