The first thing I noticed as I looked around the town for the scribe’s place was that the town had four blacksmiths where one could buy arms and armor, which left me a little put out. Had I spawned near a village of elves, would there be four scribes instead?

I might’ve complained about the stereotyping, but a lot of what I was seeing was making me more comfortable here. I could understand dwarves who liked to mine and craft things a lot better than I could understand my sociopathic tree partner, even if at this point it was sort of overdone and unoriginal.

The real good news, when I thought about it, was that I wasn’t trapped in this game with just a bunch of aliens. There were NPCs who mostly acted human. Or rather—

I stopped in the street to think about this. Were the Hierarchy of El the aliens here, or was I? It was their game, but built around human rules and based on human video games. Nobody was really at home but the NPCs.

I kept thinking about my player race—True Human. I could take any element of my UI that I could see and bring it up as a small window in front of me—it was how Cuby and I had been sharing abilities. I was sure I could link any of the other species my True Human designation just like my other abilities to prove my player species, but what good would that do? Even if I tried to use my human status to get them to listen to me about how wrong they were about their prejudice, I’d still be using prejudice to do it.

I didn’t find the scribe’s place until I started searching the edge of town, past where most of the shops were. In true video game fashion, it was doubling as an observatory set onto a rocky outcrop from the mountain. I had to travel up at least two hundred steps to get to it, but this only highlighted how much stronger and more physically fit I was with even just a couple levels’ worth of stats: I was barely winded once I’d gotten to the top, my stamina not even at half.

“We got another one,” I heard a voice say as I made it to the top of the steps. I looked and saw a human man, an older-looking player with a graying mane of hair:

Anoth - Level 4

I nodded to him in greeting. “Took me awhile to find this place.”

“Yeah, it’s twice as far from town as all the other shops. But the mages all find their way here eventually. I’m Anoth, Miradel’s assistant—she owns the place. Feel free to go in and look around, or if there’s something specific you want, just ask.”

“Thank you,” I said. “There is something, actually. A dwarf from this town named Kontor told me I might find it here: a spell called False Identity. We already had a run-in with some player killers and while it went our way, I’ve been looking for a way to deter them in the future.”

“Huh,” he said, thinking on this and nodding. “Come on inside—we’ve got it, and I can’t say I fault your reasoning. Better not to fight than to fight and hope you win, especially when there’s experience aplenty to be had doing everything else.”

“My thoughts exactly.”

Inside, the observatory tower was quiet and spacious. Miradel was a level 7, the highest level I’d seen so far, and she gave Anoth a nod from where she stood speaking softly with two other customers—a mage and a warrior.

Anoth took me past a display of casting implements and up a flight of stairs into a library of sorts: curved bookcases surrounded a circular display at the center of the room. It was much like the others I’d seen, though beneath the glass there were cards and books.

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“Here,” Anoth said, leading me to a part of the display that held two identical cards, one partially covering the other:

Uncommon Spell Card – False Identity

Cost: 8 Mana + 4 Mana / Hour

Cast Time: 4.1 Seconds

Range: 0 Meters; Self

Effect: False Identity at 19 - Special Penalties (see below)

This spell changes the details on the nameplate that other characters see when they tag you. You choose a new name, level, title, and designation to appear when you cast this spell.

The strength of this illusion decreases as your changes become more deceptive: the base strength goes down by 1 for each level of difference between yours and the illusion’s, and 2 per each other detail you change.

The description of the ability lit my heart up—I suspected that “Chosen,” the word we’d seen written after Haroshi’s name in the mines, was either a designation or a title—meaning that False Identity could hide it. “The part about the strength of the illusion—what does that mean?”

“Many abilities allow different characters to see through illusions,” said Anoth. “But it isn’t as simple as having one such ability or not, otherwise any character, no matter their level, class, prowess, or spellcraft could simply take one such ability and render the illusions of the highest-level illusionist imaginable completely useless. As such, illusions have an effect strength just like crowd control spells—usually listed in their detailed description.”

“Okay,” I said hesitantly. “Effect strength?”

Anoth nodded. “Some spells don’t deal damage but have effects. Some spells do both, but still have an effect value. The way that resistance reduces a spell’s effect when it has an effect value is to calculate damage resistance using the effect value—as if the spell were dealing damage—and reduce the effect by an amount proportional to how much damage would have been lost.”

“Oh, okay,” I said. “That makes sense.”

“Illusions spells have an effect strength,” said Anoth. “But it doesn’t interact with resistance. Instead it interacts with the effect strength of a detecting ability—the higher wins.”

“So a higher-level illusionist who’s focused hard on strengthening his illusions can’t have them seen through except by people who did the same for their detection spells?” I asked.

Anoth smiled slightly. “You understand the jist of it, but it’s not quite like that—detection abilities often have a higher base effect strength than illusions. A strong detector beats a strong illusion—but yes, a focused illusionist requires more than just an offhand commitment to counter, even from one equal to their level and stats.”

“That all makes sense,” I said. It was good news: it meant that my Supercharged spell ability, along with the extra stats from being two classes, would serve to better keep me hidden. “Great. What’s the price tag on the card?”

“One hundred ten gold pieces, sir.”

I smiled slightly at the little sir he’d put on the end to soften the blow, then acted as if I were considering it. The truth was that I’d give all my gold, my shiny new staff, and my whole inventory minus the legendary card for this spell.

“I’ll take it,” I said. He retrieved the card, then we traded using the trade interface, the card dropping right from his inventory into mine.

“Pleasure doing business, sir. Anything else you can think you might want? I’d be happy to show you the collection.”

“Perhaps later,” I said. “I have an appointment to keep with a friend. I’ll be back.”

“Of course.”

As I left the observatory, I considered my options. I didn’t know what the illusion-detecting abilities were or how low a level people came by them, but I didn’t want to walk around town with a False Identity up until I could at least cast it with Supercharged spell—which meant that for now, my best choice was to use my legendary card, take a second class, then go farm however many monsters I needed to get to level 5 mage again.

I just needed to figure out where to do that, then. Hopefully away from prying eyes and potential player-killers.

Time to go check back in on Cuby.