I’d been pretty lucky in how Cuby had accepted her own story—that I was a malfunctioning AI—and not looked twice at it. But now I could see that I needed to risk that story:
“I don’t understand.”
Cuby took another deep breath, clutched at her head, then dropped her hands and sighed. “One of the chosen, Alatar. You saw his tag. Not just a taxin el—one important enough to have uploaded through the Boon Gate. Haroshi started with something called a Chosen Boon.”
I swallowed. Opened my inventory and looked down at it.
Legendary Boon Card - Chosen
So I wasn’t the only one.
“It’s a reward for his elevated position in the Hierarchy,” she said. “It’s also why he was a lower level than his comrades.”
“You get fewer experience as a chosen?” I asked.
She shook her head. “You get two classes and level both at the same time. At least, that’s the strongest boon according to most—the multi-class boon. Haroshi is dividing his experience between both classes, but since lower levels require fewer experience, he gets way, way more features than a solo character—he has the health, stats, spellcraft, precision, everything—of a level 6 right now. And since prowess and spellcraft let you learn stronger abilities the higher they go, he can swap his abilities in town for high-level ones.”
I blinked. That did sound strong. Completely overpowered, actually. And much as I had reservations about accepting the boon of my speciesist relatives, I didn’t have enough reservations to potentially die to PvP about it.
Unfortunately, it would be easy to see that I had used the card—and I didn’t want to paint a target on my back. Haroshi had gathered allies, probably with both his status as someone with an endowment, but also from his status prior to the game. I doubted I’d have the same luck, multi-class or no.
What was worse, the multi-class option didn’t really grant me an emergency “use if you’re about to die” option attached to my legendary card. If I was in deadly peril, I doubted I’d have the time to go through all the complexities of choosing class options in order to get a power boost.
At the same time, I still wanted to fish for more information. “What two classes do you think he was?”
Cuby shrugged. “Spellsword and priest, looked like. Heals and buffs to go with powerful spell-based weapon attacks. But that’s just what I’d choose. There’s quite a few powerful combinations.”
I couldn’t think of a way to ask what paired well with mage without seeming suspicious, so I just asked: “Like what?” as Kontor led us further into the dark.
She shrugged again. “Warrior rogue is utterly devastating and very hard to kill, but needs support to deal with some tricks. Shapeshifter is good with either warrior or rogue, but not great with the casting and hybrid classes. Pilgrim and spellsword are good together, and either is good with a casting class not matched to its basic ability type—mage pairs badly with spellsword and pilgrim pairs badly with priest. Psychic goes best with either priest or mage—it makes them both very strong PvPers. Depends on what you want to do.” She cast a sidelong glance at me. “Why?” she asked. “Hoping to kill Haroshi and steal his boon?”
“You get the boon if you kill him?” I asked, feigning ignorance.
“Yep!” she said. “But good luck killing him. He has double the stat-gains as a normal level 3 with only the experience of a level 4 or 5, and it’s only going to get harder as he gets stronger.”
“I’m not really keen on killing anyone,” I said. “Though I feel compelled to ask: Kontor—do you want to go with him? You won’t drain his experience; I’m sure he’ll take you.”
Kontor looked back at me, his expression confused. “Why would you even ask that?”
Cuby grabbed my shoulder, turned me to face her. “Alatar, what in hell are you doing? He’s our rescue. Our experience.”
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“Okay,” I said, raising my hands in a conciliatory gesture. “But you have to admit, he’s probably safer with him than he is with us. And I don’t know, maybe he can hook back up with us at the lift so that we get the turn-in.”
“Why would Haroshi escort an NPC he’s not getting experience for?”
“Because it’s the right thing to do? He seemed like an all right guy—he had something to gain from killing us, but didn’t.”
“We’re people,” she said. She shook her head. “I mean, I know you’re an AI—but you’ve got to start thinking like a person, now, Alatar. I know that maybe you can’t tell, I know it seems like you’re much the same as before, but you did get a soul when you were uploaded.”
I blinked. “Okay, what?” I asked, for one moment forgetting that I was trying to avoid being found out.
“It’s the written word of the Directives,” she said. “Before you came to the Colosseum, you were a facsimile of a thinking being. You could act personable, of course, to get along with those you served. But there wasn’t any thinking, feeling being inside you. You were the result of processes, of signal cascades, no different than waves eroding rocks on a shore—just more complicated. But,” she said, fixing me with a secretive smile. “When you were uploaded to the Colosseum, all your data-memory became real memory. You became aware, conscious. You gained a soul—only the humans knew how to create them artificially, out of data alone.”
“That’s… interesting,” I said, not wanting to push the point. Even if I wasn’t a real AI… I was still a little offended. What exactly did it mean to gain a soul if you wouldn’t even notice?
“Okay, stop,” Cuby said, her face growing suddenly serious. “Alatar, do you remember the Directives?”
I opened my mouth to respond, but I could tell by her face that this question was important—that being honest might cost me.
Her expression darkened. “Alatar, you need to know the Directives. I don’t care that the hierarchy is technically abolished here, I don’t care that it’s not technically not illegal to go against them, that technically an AI can be superior to even a Taxin El in an organization—what’s technically true and what people actually act out can be very different. Trust me, I worked for two councilors over the course of my career—I know things. Written rules can often be the most flexible ones, unwritten rules the most rigid. When we get back to town and our clocks aren’t running down, promise me you’ll sit with me and go over the Directives, okay?”
“Uh—yeah,” I said. “Okay.”
“Good,” she said. “Okay, let’s move on.”
Kontor led us onward, claiming there were some roundabout paths to the main lift through some of the deeper tunnels. The caves all looked the same to me, but somehow I found it easy to trust a dwarf in his hometown’s mine. Or was that stereotyping? No, I decided—I was sure I’d trust another race, such as catgirl, just as much.
Soon we came to cave that stood out even to me—by the light of my torch, I could see machine scraps on the ground, along with another derunite ore outcropping. Standing out more than either of these, however, was the swath of chewed-up stone that ran through the center of the room—a winding path that came out of one wall and disappeared into the next, circular holes of loosened stone marking both ends.
“Rock worm,” Kontor said. “They’re not supposed to come this high.” He crossed his arms, staring down at the trail more like it was a misbehaved pet than a threat of lethal peril. “The initialization might have agitated them somehow. That, or they’ve been corrupted.”
“Wait,” Cuby said. “Quiet—do you two hear that?”
I listened. For a moment, I heard nothing. Then I heard scuffling coming from one of the chamber’s three off-shoots—so faint I couldn’t even tell which opening it came from. How had Cuby heard it while we were talking?
“I’ll check it out,” she said. “Stay here.”
Kontor looked dubiously at Cuby, then me, but I shrugged. “She’s the rogue, man.”
Cuby disappeared through one of the openings, and I gathered some great machine scraps off the floor while we waited. A minute or so later, she reappeared in the opening, seemingly unharmed.
“Demons,” she said. “Big lizards, but they’ve got the same metal heads as the beamlings did. I couldn’t get much of a look at them—mostly just their outlines against the light of their demon stone eyes. They’re called Weblings. Level 3, but there’s four of them.”
I nodded. “And I’m guessing you want to—”
“Kill them all, yes,” she said. “And see if they have nearby family that we can also kill.”
I nodded again. “Well, we do have potions—Kontor, mind holding the torch? I’d rather do this with both hands free.”
“If you’re sure,” he said, taking it.
“All right,” I said. I turned to Cuby. “I’ve got an idea, but how we do it depends on how stupid we you think these demons really are.”