I assumed Dan would head back to the Class Trial to spend his Stat points. He didn’t. He headed straight to the third area. It’s officially named Develop but it’s always called the Castle since there’s a big castle with a Class Obelisk a lot of participants use as a residence. If they make it that far.
The Castle is also the first area where the difficulty shrinks. People on Easy must increase difficulty to Normal or higher to enter. That and they must have a 1-Star Class.
Like the Boneyard, something spawns upon entering. Two somethings. Not only did two ghasts spawn for Dan, but he was met by two others.
That must’ve confused him. Someone else beat him there. Now, who could’ve beat him to the Castle area?
.
.
.
Well, are you going to guess?
[How could I possibly know?]
That’s why it’s called guessing. I mean no offense, Boss, but you’re absolutely terrible at the guessing game. You don’t even sort of try.
After Dan refused him, Leonard visited some other guy that was smart enough to swear fealty. That guy beat Dan to the area. A guy named Hector.
Some other hotshots were getting in on the action too. I know for certain Beelzebub, Moloch, and Lilith were, but their participants were too far away to merge with Dan’s third area, even considering how many regions were connected to his Boneyard.
That many bigwigs…remember, Beelzebub, Moloch, and Lilith are high pantheon hotshots…that many getting involved was making us all very nervous. The high pantheon had never gotten involved with a Game before. At least not directly. Not that I’ve ever heard of.
Anyway, when a participant has a mark from our side, they stop getting attacked by creatures outside of Trials.
The ghasts Dan spawned were level 30, the others were level 24, so I hoped they’d give him a challenge. Most stuff like this that spawns on Hell Difficulty are either the participants level plus 10 or the tier minimum plus 10.
Sadly, the ghasts weren’t a challenge. He and his infernal rolled them up super quickly. Then he ran to the castle, hit the Class Obelisk, spent his Stat points, and kept running to the next area. I was hoping he’d run into Hector, but no such luck.
Dan was the first participant to enter the fourth area, the Court, officially named Grow. To get in there requires Iron tier, level 21, as well as Hard difficulty or above.
Dan was only level 20, but we’ve since learned that meeting the requirements for a higher area grants access to all areas below it. The requirement for the last area is Hell difficulty and a 3-Star Class, which Dan met.
Every area besides the tutorial has a special thing. The Court’s thing is high-pantheon shrines for both Hell and Heaven on opposite sides of the area.
Two boneguards spawned when Dan entered. Two spawn per participant, same as the Castle and ghasts. They were both only level 31, the lowest possible level they could be for the Court on Hell difficulty. Still, boneguards are no joke. And they have rime as a mana-type. Dan would be vulnerable to it.
Dan pulled one boneguard to the other and gave them a double whammy of Lava Stomp and STORM. He caught his infernal in both invocations. Like an idiot. It was clear he needed practice controlling a summons.
One of the boneguards and his infernal survived. He knocked the boneguard over and his infernal drove both its massive arms down on its head and that was that.
Since his infernal was in bad shape, he dismissed it and summoned a new one, collected the drops, and took off running. He told his summons, “Try and stay out of my area attacks, please.”
Just FYI, talking to a summons like that is something only the crazies do. On Earth, gazillions of mortals talked to very low-functioning pets as if the beast understood complex concepts and language.
And that’s one…wait, do you talk to pets like they're sapient, Boss?
[I do not.]
Good. That’s good. Only crazies do that. That’s one of the major reasons I wish I could be on a Scourge crew when Earth gets Raptured. Oh, how I’d love to murder all those fools.
No need to say it. Back to Dan.
The Court’s pretty big. He ran right through it without stopping. We weren’t using our Sortilege because we didn’t want to piss off Mystozagan. I messaged Gabrodyl about what we should do and was waiting for her reply.
Truthfully, Bob and I were going to use our Sortilege, but like I said, Az’ga’s pretty smart for a dumb Asmodite broad. It was her idea to do a little brown-nosing and ask for permission. None of us wanted to piss off a high-tier devil either.
So, Dan ran to and entered the fifth area, nicknamed the Crucible, officially named Struggle, and dropped his backpack. Getting in that area requires Nightmare difficulty and Jade tier, level 41. A giant level 51 infernal spawned. Fire infernal. A very stupid one.
With his Aspect of Magma Slot Bonus, Dan was mostly immune to high temperatures. His summons was too, seeing as it was an infernal and infused with Dan’s mana-type.
Guess what the spawned infernal kept attacking with? Never mind. I keep forgetting you hate guessing so much. It only attacked with fire invocations like a real idiot.
Dan’s infernal was only level 25, but it was a Legendary summons. Even if the spawned infernal used physical attacks, Dan’s summons would’ve been able to go blow for blow with its higher level and tier cousin, at least for a minute or two, but the spawned infernal kept on just using fire invocations.
Since lava has a physical component, STORM did decent damage while Lava Stomp basically did nothing besides hold it in place for a second.
Dan sent his summons running away before invoking STORM. Once the spawned infernal attacked Dan again, his summons would run back and attack too.
Dan whittled down the infernal from a safe distance like a big coward and took no damage, but all his clothing was burnt away, so that was kind of good. Mortals hate being naked. It makes them feel vulnerable or some prudish nonsense such as that.
In case you’re interested in knowing, his groin’s a tiny fraction of the size of any one of my mighty tentacles. Even when my tentacles are little frozen nubs, they’re still far larger than Dan’s main groin.
In fact, I appeared to tell him so. Well, my actual reason for appearing and speaking to him was to buy us some time.
Our Sortilege in the fifth area had a good chance of stomping Dan into a little whiny puddle of fat sissy. We just needed time to get the go-ahead from Gabrodyl.
I activated my platform, got on it, appeared, and said, “Hello, fatso. You are a fat and your face is very stupid looking. Your groin is a tiny fraction of the size of any one of my mighty tentacles. Even when my tentacles are little frozen nubs, my most frozen and nubby is still far larger than your little girl penis.”
During all my Ethnological Observations living among various mortals, my focus, of course, had always been on orifices, but I’m almost positive the vast majority of little mortal girls barely have a penis, so that was a terribly insulting thing for me to say to him.
Their adult females usually have the largest. Some adult males have a very large one, such as the legendary Lincoln Hawk of ‘Over the Top’ fame.
There’s a small chance the flesh-lumps most adult mortals have on their upper chest isn’t a penis, so I could be wrong. The anatomy of mortals is almost as confusing as that of an Asmodite. How they’re built just makes no sense at all. If not a penis, I’m positive the upper chest is a groin of some type, so I’m sure my insult still caused him a lot of distress.
The narrative has been taken without permission. Report any sightings.
Bob heard mortals urinate and defecate out of their penis, but that can’t be right. Not only are genitals never multifunctional, but when I was imprisoned on Earth, I became very familiar with my skinsuit’s butt orifice, and that’s the hole…
[Enough. Back to Dan.]
Jeez. Okay. I had many devastating insults ready to unleash upon Dan to further crush his soul, but he began to attack me viciously, so he may have missed some of my deadly barbs.
And he continued to attack me for a while. I had way more than enough Veil, so I was at no risk at all. He was just wasting his mana and steam like a fat idiot.
Once he tired himself out attacking me to no effect besides earning more of my brilliant taunts, he gave up and tried to ignore me. But I am very annoying and hard to ignore. Sometimes. When I choose to be.
When I began repeating my own devastating insults too often, Bob and Az’ga fed me some good lines. Would you like to hear some of the better insults I used to crush his soul?
[No.]
Well, you are truly missing out. Just know they were all brilliant. I would rate each ‘10/10, would recommend’ if I still had access to Yelp. And if insults were allowed to be rated on that app. Now that I think about it, I don’t believe they were, and now I want to rate Yelp very poorly for lacking this functionality.
Anyway, Dan got his backpack and ran to the forge. There’s a Class Obelisk there too. While we’re on the topic, wherever there’s a Class Obelisk, there’s always a community Transmuter near it.
The forge is where special drops are turned in. You’ll see more of it later. For now, remember that token Dan chose for achieving SS-rating in the Core Trial? There’re three of those tokens in total, and they can be turned in for Traits. The other two only drop from specific bosses in Trials.
Dan put the token in the forge’s slot and went to the Profile Reader. He didn’t check his status. He just purchased a Trait. Intellection.
Then he punched in some code and was allowed to purchase another Trait. None of us knew about this code or where it came from. We put in a support ticket but never received a response. It had to have come from some Trial. Some secret in some Trial. But so secret we had never heard of it. We…
[I get the drift. What was the second Trait he purchased?]
Gifted.
[So, he possessed all three of the most coveted Traits.]
He did.
[Let me see his status. Skip the Class and Orbment sections. I just want to see Stat distribution and Traits. Of course, I know of Intellection and Gifted, but I’ve never seen their official descriptions.]
Sure. One second. I’ll add Attributes since he had two natural increases. Here you go.
Name: Daniel “Dan” Branigan
Difficulty: Hell (Increase XP by 100% and drop chance by 30%)
Tier: Copper (2)
Level: 20
Soul: SS+ Grade (5-Star)
Mana-type: Magma
Core: Pristine
Stats (capacity for and amplification of intrinsic qualities)
Agility, B Grade (100 Max): 20
Mana, B Grade (100 Max): 10
Reaction, B Grade (100 Max): 40
Speed, B Grade (100 Max): 40
Strength, F Grade (10 Max): 10
Attributes (intrinsic qualities averaged)
Durability (physical and void resistance): 4
Health (constitution, stamina, and disease, poison, and sickness resistance): 8
Spirit (mental and primordial resistance): 4
Traits (5)
(1) Lone Wolf: Pick an additional Trait. Increase XP by 50% and drop chance by 25%. Joining a party removes this Trait. Fighting within 13 meters of a friendly participant inverses Trait bonuses.
(2) Stalwart Soul: Your Soul Stat is increased by one step (F to F+, F+ to C, etc.).
(3) Hardened Channels: Your channels are hardened and can handle a large amount of mana usage without injury or damage.
(4) Intellection: Concepts, revelations, and epiphanies come a little easier for you.
(5) Gifted: Stat grades are a little easier to increase for you.
Those Traits don’t give much information, do they?
[They don’t. I was hoping for more specifics.]
Yeah. ‘A little easier’ doesn’t sound very helpful considering how coveted they are. Garbage and turd world participants don’t pick these two Traits as much as you’d think, but they only have access to one or two tokens respectively. Stalwart Soul’s a different story. Everyone gets that one.
[I’d assume so. Continue.]
Ace Blacky lives to serve.
Hey, while we’re on the subject of Ace Blacky, I’ve been racking my brain trying to come up with a way to incorporate lasso into it. I’ve never even heard of a demon with three names. If there has been one, I bet each name was independently stupid.
Mine will have the first, second, and third coolest words ever. Together. In one name. I just can’t figure out the right combination. Ace Blacky Lasso doesn’t sound right. Ace…
[Your name means nothing to me. Continue with the story.]
Jeez. That kind of hurt, but I did just tell you that I live to serve. And since I did just tell you that, it somewhat ties my hands, so I can’t hold it against you. Just know that I do have feelings, and they can be hurt, and what you said wasn’t very nice.
Okay, Dan ran to the Crucible of Agares, the hardest puzzle Trial in the Game. Much harder than the one in the final area. This Trial is always the ‘Crucible of Sponsor’s Name’ for every Game. The name’s the only thing that changes.
There’s no combat in the real puzzle Trials, but they kill a shitload of people. A massive shitload. The language is locked to the one used in the party leader’s tutorial area, which is always the predominant language of the region the participant came from. What areas feed into others dictates what languages are supported in the new area.
And language is a huge deal in these Trials before being completely solved. Entering with a full party of very intelligent participants that all share a language is critical. And not just share the language, but also know the intricacies of it. The clues and riddles given are ridiculously hard.
Lower difficulties give a lot more time, but nothing else changes though.
Once it’s completed successfully, how to solve each room gets spread around, and it stops killing so many participants. But you’d be surprised just how many participants that had all the right solutions fed to them before entering still die inside these Trials. It’s hilarious.
The parties that enter must work together to find clues, solve riddles and puzzles, and escape a room within a set time limit or die horribly. It isn’t easy. It’s extremely hard to find clues and solve the riddles and puzzles leading to the next room and the next after and so on.
Dan looked for clues in all the wrong spots. We were wondering what he was doing. I know he saw a couple of the main clues, but he ignored them. At some seemingly arbitrary point, he solved the first room without looking at one clue or riddle and began searching through the second room.
He found one false clue then immediately solved the room, then every other room after in record time, achieving an SS-Rating.
The reward is a choice between two items or an Orbment-Effect Charm. The items are the Cloak of Agares or the Wise Crown.
All the item rewards in the Game are as hurtful as they’re helpful. They’re all very powerful but they all come with a negative that somewhat stunts a participant’s long-term growth.
For instance, the Cloak of Agares has a powerful stealth effect but saps the wearer’s lifeforce to power it. The Wise Crown gives the same effect of the Mind Bastion Trait but saps the wearer’s motivation when it’s worn, and the effect lingers for days after removal.
Do you know an Orbment-Effect Charm increases some aspect of an Orbment it’s applied to?
[Of course.]
Oh. I never heard of them until I became a Game tech. Well, Dan picked the Orbment-Effect Charm. It looked like he was going to apply it then and there, but had second thoughts about doing so, so didn’t.
We hoped Dan was going to run to the next area, the sixth, usually called the Boss area, officially named Sacrifice. It would spawn a minimum level 91 succubus that would tear him apart.
And he’d have to fight and kill another participant to open the sixth area. If there was no other participant with a decent shot at killing him, we’d probably select his brother.
No such luck. It would’ve been hilarious if he had to kill Nick though, right? It looked like he was heading back to the Court. We still hadn’t heard back from Gabrodyl, so I appeared again hoping to slow him down and give her more time to reply.
I told him, “I’m truly sorry about all the mean and hurtful things I said last time we spoke. That was wrong of me. I feel absolutely awful about it. I’ve been wracked with guilt ever since. Your groin is barely tiny. I’d even go as far as saying it’s almost not tiny. I only lied about its size earlier to cause you distress. Can you find it in your heart to forgive me?”
“What do you want, Xotl,” asked Dan. Xotl. The fat prick somehow knew my old name.
“Or should I call you Ace?” The fat prick somehow knew half of my new name.
I couldn’t help myself. I had to know. I asked, “How do you know so much you shouldn’t? You’re not a transmigrant and time travel’s impossible, so how do you know so much? What are you?”
Without even looking at me, Dan said, “How I know so much? Same way you get to Carnegie Hall, I suppose.”
“What,” I asked, confused.
“How you get to Carnegie Hall?”
“I don’t know what that is,” I replied.
“You got to practice.”
I was befuddled. I asked, “Why not just use Google Maps or the Waze app to get there? Or is its location hidden? It requires practice to search for it? Is that how you learned so much? You found this Carnegie Hall, and it contained a treasure trove of secret information on the Game?”
He finally looked at me. “Come closer and I’ll tell you.”
Curious, I moved closer. I was completely safe. I had plenty of Veil. He…
[Explain this. At some point you would become unsafe? How?]
When a tech has less than 10% Veil, appearing to participants can be unsafe. I probably couldn’t be interacted with unless my Veil was extremely thin, say under 5%, but there’s no reason to take risks. The general rule of thumb is to never appear with 10% or less Veil.
Of course, I way out leveled that fat prick at the time. I could’ve torn him apart, but we aren’t allowed to attack participants. It’s still a risk since it’s possible I could get knocked off my platform and trapped within the Game or lose my temper and attack a participant by accident. Or something.
It’s weird how Dan knew so much but didn’t seem to know any of this. As soon as I moved closer, he dove at me with a lava-dagger. Like a fat fool. I laughed at him.
And since he never officially accepted my sincere apology for saying mean and hurtful things to him earlier, and since Gabrodyl still hadn’t replied, and since there was just as much risk of being executed for not taking such a good opportunity to kill him, Bob and I hit our Sortilege.
Az’ga was frozen with indecision and didn’t hit hers though.
Guess what? We got two really, really good ones!
All the secrets he had found within this Carnegie Hall would soon die along with him.