Cuby was walking toward us from the edge of the square. She had both hands on one handhold of a large wooden chest, which she was noisily dragging along the ground behind her—apparently it was too heavy for her to lift.
“Alatar!” she said loudly. Despite the atmosphere of death and mourning around her, she was grinning, and the noise she was making was drawing a lot of confused looks that I was worried might soon turn into angry ones.
Don’t make so much noise! I said in thought speech as I rushed over to her. They’re grieving, Cuby!
At this, she seemed to look around and take in some of the stares of the townsfolk for the first time. But we won, she said. We saved them.
It doesn’t matter, I said. This is the worst day of most of their lives. Here—let’s get this back to Karrol Stir.
“Oh good,” she said aloud as we carried the chest. “You found him. See, there was so much stuff on the dead bodies that I traded one of the blacksmiths for a locked container—I didn’t have room!”
We set the chest on the ground by the fountain, and Cuby materialized a small key from her inventory, passing it to me. “You need this to look inside,” she said. “And I’ve got an almost full inventory, if you want to trade me and see. I’ve got your half of the gold, too.” She turned to Karrol Stir. “Say: want to buy all our stuff again?”
Karrol Stir’s sounded somewhat bemused. “I’m afraid I likely don’t have the gold on hand to liquidate your inventories this time.”
“That reminds me,” I said, turning to him. “How much gold do I owe you?”
He blinked. “Ah—nothing. I would not like to take your coin. You helped these people—the money in your pouch is in its rightful place.”
“All right,” I said, careful not to thank him.
Cuby cocked her head at me, but said nothing. “Come on, Alatar—check out what we got!”
Without even having to open the padlock on the front of the chest, I opened its inventory:
Container – Large Oak Chest [60]:
Common Item – Healing Potion (3)
Common Item – Mana Potion (5)
Common Item – Stamina Potion (2)
[15] Common Item – Demonstone (301)
[8] Common Item – Great Machine Fragment (73)
[2] Common Item – Derunium-Infused Scale (342)
Common Item – Steel Ingot (4)
Common Item – Card Stock (3)
Common Item – Paints (3)
Common Item – Strip of Leather (8)
Common Item – Wyvern Claw (4)
[4] Common Item – Derunite Ore (7)
Common Item – Albedo (2)
Common Item – Black Powder (2)
Common Item – Bolt of Wool Cloth
Uncommon Item – Derunium Bar (1)
Uncommon Item – Polished Agate
Uncommon Item – Golden Thread
Uncommon Item – Explosive Charge (2)
Common Spell Card – Charm of Gliding
Common Spell Card – Hex of Needles
[14] Uncommon Equipment – Sturdy Mountaineering Boots (14)
“I guess we know where they got their experience,” I said, eying up the 15 stacks of demon stones.
“Some of those are mine,” said Cuby. “I stacked them together so that I’d have more inventory space. I also took the Pack Mule skill so I could carry it all.”
I blinked. “Really?” I asked, thinking that if that was the case, she’d brought 105 inventory slots worth of gear.
“And I left their common starting armor behind whenever I found it,” she said. “Here:”
Cuby has offered to trade.
Once I was in the interface, she just kept offering up items:
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Sturdy Mountaineering Boots (2)
[6] Uncommon Equipment – Derunium Chainmail (6)
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Derunium-Studded Leather Armor (2)
Uncommon Equipment – Runed Leather Armor (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Derunium Flamestave (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Caustic Derunium Rod (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Caustic Steel Rod (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Steel Battleaxe of Fire (1)
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Steel Flameblade (2)
Uncommon Equipment – Caustic Derunium Zweihander (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Yew Lightning Longbow (1)
Uncommon Equipment – Yew Flaming Longbow (1)
A case of literary theft: this tale is not rightfully on Amazon; if you see it, report the violation.
Uncommon Equipment – Caustic Derunium Trident (1)
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Caustic Steel Kukri (2)
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Shocksteel Kukri (2)
Uncommon Equipment – Derunium Flamespear (1)
[2] Uncommon Equipment – Steel Circled of Lightning (2)
[5] Uncommon Equipment – Steel Circlet of Nature (2)
[5] Uncommon Equipment – Steel Circlet of Fire (5)
“Plus some bombs that I’m just going to keep,” she added. “It looks like they really focused on producing their elemental weapons and circlets—there’s not a lot of valuable things apart from those. My guess is, Haroshi had them selling everything they could so they could arm themselves.”
“It so much stuff,” I said.
“Yeah,” she said. “And this, too.”
She offered to trade me again, but instead of showing me the wares, she just gave me 1487 gold.
“That’s nice,” I said. “Given that we need to do some quick shopping and get going.”
“Quick shopping?” asked Karrol Stir, who had been watching us both, his expression unreadable.
“We need to stock up and get out of here as fast as we can,” I said. “Look, Karrol Stir, can you help us? We need… as many healing potions as possible, I think.”
“I need stamina potions, too!” said Cuby. “It’s only Alatar that has the absurd resource pool.”
“And don’t think I don’t need it,” I said, glancing at some of my supercharged buffs. “I think Cuby needs more bombs, too.”
“And you,” she said. “Let’s get you some bombs, too.”
“Huh?” I asked. “I don’t have the Explosives Training skill.”
“You don’t need it!” she said. “Profession skills don’t help in combat at all, they just help you make things that help in combat—anybody can use the grapple guns and explosives if they’ve got the stats, you just have to be willing to have one hand free.”
“Oh,” I said. I briefly thought of Cuby’s concussive grenades—the area effect interrupt had done a lot for us.
“Just remember that using any item like that has a shared cooldown,” said Cuby. “If you toss a bomb, you’ll have to wait until you can use the grapple gun. And without the fast hands passive, it takes a lot of time to equip something new.”
“Okay,” I said. “So we both need bombs. Can you think of anything else?”
“Definitely!” she said, grinning. “I need an upgrade to my class. But I don’t know if we can find that here. Actually,” she added, giving me a significant look. “You need to upgrade your class soon, too, since you’re level 10 now.”
Karrol Stir, who had looking pensively between us as we spoke, said: “I’ve seen no class cards in town.”
“I remember reading something about this when I started,” I said. “But how does upgrading a class work? What is it?”
“We have common classes, right now,” said Cuby. “And we can upgrade them with an uncommon class card that we qualify for. You know how each class gives you a passive ability that you can’t change?”
“Like Mage Class,” I said.
“Exactly like Mage Class. You’ll get another one of those.”
“But I won’t lose the old one?”
“Nope!” said Cuby. “Just add some new abilities to the ones you’ve got. I think we can upgrade now that we’re level 10, but there’s no real effect until we hit level 11, which is like level 1 in your new class.”
“And if we don’t upgrade?”
“Then when we hit higher levels, our iconics will just give us the abilities we didn’t choose from our old class,” said Cuby. “And we won’t get a class passive.”
“Level 11 sounds like a pretty big deal.”
“About as big as level 10 was!” said Cuby, grinning at me. “But I’m not sure where we’re supposed to get the cards. We can’t make them with professions, they’re not being sold in town, and I didn’t get a quest when I leveled.”
“So there’s not much we can do except keep our eyes peeled for them,” I said.
Cuby sighed. “I suppose.”
Poor thing: that was the second card tonight that she was missing. “There will higher levels near the dungeon,” I said. “We’ll get our cards. Any idea what the class upgrades do, at all?”
“The uncommon ones are pretty consistent across ladder seasons,” she said. “There’s a monk and an assassin class for me—assassin is probably better for PvP. If I had to guess, you’ll probably take wizard.”
“Yes,” I said immediately.
“What?”
“Wizard, Cuby. I’m taking wizard.”
“I didn’t even tell you what it does, yet.”
“It casts spells,” I said, grinning.
“Two thirds of the classes in the game cast spells. Alatar, even I can cast certain spells.”
“Not like a wizard, you can’t.”
Cuby narrowed her eyes. “Alatar, is your entire criteria for making character decisions that you like casting spells?”
“That’s potentially true,” I said.
Cuby’s face scrunched up into a scowl. “What do you mean, potentially? What’s that word doing in that sentence?”
“I pick the good spells and it’s been working out so far,” I said. “Which reminds me: I want to make a trip to the observatory shop and see if they’ve got anything else I can use. It would be nice to take back the illusion spell I replaced, and maybe a psychic crowd control spell—the demons we’ve seen so far have been stupid and weak. Even the wyvern.”
“Wyvern?”
“I killed a wyvern.” I said, holding out my arms to emphasize its size. “Big wyvern. But I’m thinking that if we want to pick off Haroshi’s allies when they’re confronting the dungeon, the illusion could be a help. And last time I was at the observatory, they had potions for sale. Health and Mana only, but that’s what we need.”
“All right,” said Cuby. “But we’ve got to sell some of this stuff quick, then split up what’s left between our inventories.”
“Maybe not,” I said. I turned to Karrol Stir. “You said you had everything you were collecting in chests, earlier—can you store our stuff?”
He nodded. “I can. I can also see about selling it off, if you like—though I don’t think many players or townsfolk are buying much at the moment. I have another suggestion, however, that you may like more.”
“Yeah?” said Cuby.
“Let me join your group,” he said. “I will share all I have with you, and help you hunt Haroshi and assault the free dungeon—if that is what you wish.”
Cuby narrowed her eyes at him. “Why are you offering?” she asked before I could say anything.
Karrol Stir nodded as if her suspicion was both expected and understandable, even though all he’d done was offer to give us free stuff. “Unselfishly: you two have done a good thing, tonight. You’ve defended these people, and from what I’ve heard, the town would have fallen without you. More: the demons of the free dungeon threaten them, and Haroshi goes free, unpunished for his transgressions against life. You may yet correct one or both of those things.”
Then he nodded again, the smallest smile appearing at the corners of his mouth. “Selfishly: you are both clearly skilled. You’ve stayed ahead of all other players in level, and you won several battles against a numerically superior enemy. I was hiding in the church during the battle. Some of those looking out the window said that they saw you fight him off—Haroshi.” He seemed to hesitated, then added: “I do not pay mind to how this might have been done. But you are powerful, and can offer both protection and opportunities. Invite me to your group, and I will endeavor to assist you in every way I can, starting with what supplies I might offer.”
I listened to all of this, then glanced at Cuby.
What do you think? She asked me in thought speech.
I’ve no problem trusting him, I said. And it doesn’t sound like we’re really trusting him with much, anyway. But you know more about people than I do, Cuby. It’s your call.
I can trust a karox of the Fold, she said. You just always have to know why they’re doing what they’re doing, is all. With that, she turned to Karrol Stir. “You’re in,” she said.
He nodded.
Karrol Stir has joined the group.
“Come with me,” he said.