Damien didn’t much like his life.
Home was home, his parents were parent-ish, his siblings were annoying, and school was a nightmare. But he had one very good outlet for all that annoyance.
Gaming.
Recently he began to get into Darkwar a strategy-slash-roleplaying game that had the players build a base on a planet in a dark universe and then conquer the planet, protect it from invaders and cultists. Then, when the planet was conquered, they would be fighting against other players and their planetary or even interstellar empires while protecting them from the hordes of aliens that wanted to destroy everything. It was glorious!
With his friends together, they set up a small empire, and they fought tooth and nail to protect their slice of the galaxy.
Then Matt came with the news of Magic Unbound, some kind of revolutionary roleplaying game.
Damien didn’t care much for it. He was perfectly content with purging ‘heretics’ and burning the xeno. But the rest of his friends were immediate fans.
And during a meeting in his lavish throne room, which he had built in his planetary palace (it improved the subjugation stats) they, as in his traitorous friends, decided that they would migrate over to the new game as soon as the game servers opened.
Their argument was sound. In Darkwar they were latecomers. Their small empire was impressive as they spent a lot of time making sure that the logistics and economy worked like a well-oiled machine, but people who started out earlier had much better and, more importantly, stronger armies.
In a new game, everybody would start at the same level, and with their talent in gaming, they would advance much faster than any noob.
Still, he didn’t have to like it. In Darkwar he was the Emperor of the Darkfire Empire. Millions of (simulated) souls moved as a result of any command he uttered. In the new game, he would be a nobody again.
Damien didn’t like being a nobody…
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Damien took back every wrong thing he said about his friends.
Magic Unbound was amazing! No! It was beyond amazing!
He could do magic! But it was not the same boring magic casting as in every other game that came out nowadays. Instead, they had to work for it.
When Damien found out how complicated the magical system in the game was, he immediately decided to become a mage. His friends went with the usual thief, assassin, and alchemist. It was a good party composition. He usually went with the death knight class, but now he wanted to sling magic around.
Then, when he thought about it and realized that the non-existent class system of the game allowed him to become anything he damn wanted, Damien decided he would still become a death knight, just with glorious magic.
Unfortunately, deciding to do something was much different from actually doing it.
Getting his mana unlocked was cheap and easy, but actually finding the appropriate spells that he needed for his build was many a times harder. The mage tower in the tutorial town sold him a simple Magic Armor spell that would be useful later down the road, but everything else required more gold (or commitment) than he was willing to pay for it.
So as he was grumpily walking around in the black alleys of the town, looking for a quest or something to do, he was instantly on alert when he heard a throat clearing behind his back.
Damien whirled around and stared at the hooded person standing under an awning, only their feet illuminated by a stray light beam.
“What?”
While he couldn’t see the person’s face, he could clearly see the hooded head look carefully around, then turned back to him.
“I heard you’ve been looking for magic, kid…” His voice was deep and scratchy, but Damien couldn’t help but be excited.
A chance encounter with a hidden master!
After his argument with the mage tower, this was exactly what the doctor ordered. So what if he yelled at them for their prices or called them out for hoarding magic?
“I do!” he answered with a nod.
“Good!” he didn’t see anything but could practically feel the grin on the other person’s face. “This is what you have to do…”
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So, the hidden master turned out to be a cult recruiter, but Damien didn’t mind. Cults were usually cool in games. Plus, in most games, they came with hidden (and powerful) classes. Granted, Magic Unbound didn’t have classes, so instead, they got cool artifacts and super-powerful spells.
Damien even convinced the leader of the circle that he was part of, that if he succeeded with a few quests, then he would teach him some knightly skills. Like Darkslash or maybe how to summon a ghostly steed! Cults usually knew how to do that…
So with reckless abandon, and while also bragging to his friends how fast he got an awesome teacher, armed with an amulet that granted him some buffs like Demon’s Aura, Dark Enhancement taught to him by the leader of the circle and a very nice ring that granted him regeneration (sadly he had to have the circle leader to refill it but it was oh so worth it to see his friends’ faces) on his finger he went out to do the dark bidding of his new teacher.
First, he had to do the usual RPG quests. Collect this material, hunt down this many monsters, kill those merchants, give a letter to those bandit groups and so on.
Damien didn’t really mind. The game looked amazing and using the spells and skills he learned felt very rewarding. Thanks to his genius, he even managed to combine his Dark Enhancement with his Magic Armor spell, creating a very appropriate Dark Armor spell.
He was so much closer to his dream of being a Death Knight!
The leader even rewarded him with an amazingly powerful amulet! It allowed him to draw on more power from their patron, Calkon or something. He didn’t much care for the lore that was much more Matt’s area of expertise. That was why he was always an alchemist.
Instead, he went out and defeated even more powerful monsters, including trolls, the same monsters everyone was hunting. And thanks to the Dark Luck spell, a spell he traded several previous loot for on an altar, he managed to get four Life of Blood spellbooks for himself and all his friends.
Clearly, joining the cult was the best decision ever! Damien couldn’t wait for the next quest!
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Damien didn’t have to wait long, as the leader came back one afternoon and told him and the others hanging around the lair of the cult that they had a raid planned and everybody was going.
It was expected that the leader would lead from the back. After all, somebody would need to be responsible for bringing down the magical defenses, so Damien didn’t complain when he received his mandatory black all-concealing clothing.
He made sure his blade was sharp and his magical armor ready.
“Ready, initiate?” came the grave voice of the circle’s leader.
Damien bowed his head a little.
“Yes, master!”
“Good…Goood… Make sure to take out the target, no matter what!”
“Yes, sir!” he snapped out a salute, a holdover from his emperor days from Darkwar. “And if we succeed, can you teach me those awesome summoning skills, master?”
The other man, still hidden by a hood, chortled a little, then nodded.
“Sure, initiate. If you succeed, I’ll consider teaching you what I know.”
“Yes!”
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The start of the battle went great. The leader shattered the magical defenses of the manor with a simple flex of his will, once again proving to Damien that he made the right choice. Those idiots back in the magic tower can choke on their stupid spells. He would get the best magical skill from the real masters!
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But the moment they jumped over the walls, everything changed.
The first person was taken out by some kind of attack that Damien couldn’t see. But what he could clearly see was the player standing next to their target, today’s ‘raid boss’, some kind of lord.
Still, Damien didn’t worry. They had several NPCs and while everybody was careful to conceal their identity; he was sure there were at least several other players in the cult.
Sadly, things went downhill from there. Thanks to the player present, they didn’t have enough people to defeat the raid boss. No matter how much he drew from his patron, he couldn’t do anything against the boss.
Then everybody around him was defeated, and he stood against an obviously enraged boss and a suspiciously calm player. Damien thanked his lucky stars that he had turned on the recording because that guy was going to get himself assassinated as soon as he could contact his friends.
But in the end, nothing he did was useful and Damien was defeated. But instead of the game over screen, he was forced to watch from behind his character’s back, like a disembodied spirit, as his body was taken over by something, probably his patron, and used his body to detonate against the barrier protecting the ritual…
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When he resurrected, he was greeted by a notification screen.
[Due to overdrawing your mana, while channeling the lord of the circle, Calon, through your body, you are struck by Magical Exhaustion!]
[You successfully allowed Calon to act through your body. You gained the Dark Body skill! ]
[You failed the task given to you by your lord! You are afflicted by Calon’s Curse! Seek out the Master of the Circle to atone for your mistake!]
[Mana Exhaustion: Physical abilities -90%, Mana Control -90%, Mana Regeneration -90%, Using mana could result in all manner of other negative effects. Duration: 99 hours 59 minutes]
[Dark Body: Level 0/100 (0%) (Passive) Your body is more receptive towards dark energies. Using skills that use dark mana has decreased mana cost, and dark spells and skills that affect your body give increased bonuses. Increased damage received from light spells.]
[Calon’s Curse: You have been cursed by Calon for failure. Your maximum mana and status points have been reduced by 13%. While afflicted by the curse, you suffer continuous damage while exposed to the sun. Holding onto the curse long enough will grant you the Calon’s Blessing as you have proved your dedication!]
Damien stared at the notification for a while, then angrily slammed the logout button.
He spent the next hours complaining and ranting to his friends about that player, especially after he figured out that the game wouldn’t let him export the guy’s face from his recordings thanks to some dumb privacy laws.
And when he finished his newest ranting, he and his friends decided if they currently couldn’t get at the guy who ruined Damien’s plan in the game, they would ruin his reputation on the forums.
So, with great zeal and much experience, thanks to their battles against others in Darkwar, they descended on the forums and began to call the guy out, while also smearing his character.
Damien was pretty happy to have such loyal friends that would help him when he needed the most.
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Lucrecia was so excited.
Her dream had come true. Or rather, both of her dreams. Her mother got cured, and she finally met a pretty cute (and strong) adventurer. He was so cool with his magic, and according to Martha, the head maid, he was an awesome sword master who cut through dozens of enemies while protecting her mother.
And he had that super adorable wolf with silken fur as a companion. Practically the perfect package.
So, Lucrecia decided to offer herself up to him. After all, in all her stories, the hero was received by the heroine and then they rode away from the battle, into the sunset while holding each other. Granted, Sam didn’t have a horse, but he had Lucky, who could take them anywhere on his back. Which was arguably better than any boring horse.
She was ready for the low-brow life; living in inns and dining only on what they could hunt while he recited poems and serenaded her at the fireside.
But then the unthinkable happened.
She was rejected!
Her! Lucrecia Silvercrest, with her luscious blonde hair, eyes glittering like jewels, a perfectly cute nose and a figure that most people would kill for. Sacrilege!
But then…
Then he said the words.
The words were straight from her favorite novel, the Spymaster’s Desire, a novel she had read at least two dozen times.
She couldn’t help it and ran away in her excitement while agreeing with what he had said.
It couldn’t be a coincidence!
He must have read the same book as she did, and because of her status, he could only communicate with her this way!
She threw herself on her bed, grabbed the fluffiest pillow, and screamed into it in her excitement.
Then, after she was done letting out the excitement, she sat up with a fire in her eyes.
“My fated one! I will do as you bid me and build you the best spy organization this side of the Great Ocean!”
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Outside of Lady Lucrecia’s room, the maids, hearing the young lady’s squeals of happiness, just shook their heads with a rueful smile and then went about their day as if nothing happened.
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“What the hell happened?”
“Greyskull.”
“I thought it turned out the info was wash…”
“We think they did it on purpose to stop us!”
“So, they’ve spies in our guild.”
“Probably…”
There was a tense silence as the two of them stared at each other, trying to cut through the smokey darkness of the tavern.
“And what the hell happened with the ‘event’? I thought we timed it properly… Were my sources lying?”
“No. I looked into it and it seems somebody went and eradicated the Calon’s Circle.”
“Totally?”
“There were some very angry druids there…”
“Maybe somebody got a quest to stop it?”
“Maybe. We are currently looking into it.”
Another brief pause as a waitress dressed in a skimpy hooded robe walked past holding a tray full of drinks (fruit cocktails all of them, of course) with the eyes of the two people following her journey, then when she was lost to the darkness of the inn they returned to their discussion.
“Go and find out how our plan was ruined.”
“As you will, sire!”
“Sire?”
“Sorry, just trying out new things. Thought about it and might as well try this roleplaying thing…”
“Hmm… I don’t really like it. Sounds weird.”
“I’ll try to find something else then.”
“Good. How are the gold farmers? I heard rumors that they are planning to introduce RMT soon. I want to make as much money as possible.”
Unfortunately, the other man grimaced.
“Not as good as we want to. Those damn Blazing Fire bought some info on Shadowland and have been swarming our troll fields. Plus, Greyskull is still dominating at the foot of the mountain.”
The other man said nothing for a second, then nodded.
“Alright. That skill book already saturated the market, so our profit margin is not the best. Leave a group in one of the hidden farming spots for the next influx of noobs and start searching for the next best thing. Maybe fishing?”
“We tried that. Too slow…”
“Hm-hm. Alright, I’ll contact that guy on Shadowland. They usually have some hot info about every game. I’m sure I can offer him enough money to get us something juicy.”
“As you say, my master!”
“No, that’s just creepy. Or you’re not hot enough for it.”
“Sorry!”
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The entire thing was one giant exercise in frustration. The game promised infinite complexity, detailed world-building and the chance to advance without needing to fight.
She hated fighting, be it in real life or in games. That’s why she stuck to simulation or kingdom-building slice-of-life games. And not the super edgy everything-wants-to-kill-you but the cutesy ones. Where you make a cake for the neighbor because why not? Then go and spend an afternoon petting cats.
Despite their slice-of-life nature, she still took them very seriously and enjoyed the challenge of building up infrastructures, and dealing with the economics and logistics of a city, castle or what have you.
It was her life.
That is why she went to university about logistics and infrastructure management. Sadly, in today’s modern civilization, with the AIs directing a good part of civilian life, there weren’t many positions for people like her. And in the end, the people who were chosen for said position were those who had connections.
And unfortunately, she had no connections. Only the iron will to work hard.
Thus, she had given up on her dream in the real world, got some crummy admin job that needed a maximum of three brain cells to do, and spent her considerable free time in different games honing her craft.
And several years after her graduation, she could say that she was rather famous in certain circles on the internet. Or at least her guides…
That’s why the newest game, Magic Unbound, frustrated her.
The opportunities were there, but it already had an established economy, so she was already in a rather unfavorable position. This meant either she needed a lot of gold, which she could either buy from sketchy sites for exorbitant amounts of money or go out and hunt monsters. Which she hated.
Her final solution was getting a backer. For obvious reasons, she didn’t want to go with sketchy gold farming groups or with some asshole second-generation rich guy, as they were notorious for their behavior.
And when she approached the few guilds in Ironwood that were not assholes, or PK guilds or something similar, she was met with demands that she refused to fulfil. Just because she refused to fight didn’t mean she was alright with getting a ninety percent reduction on her pay. Idiots!
In her frustration, she took what little money she had and bought several supporting spells that would be useful and spent her time practicing them when not at work.
Sometimes she visited one of the better cafes, where she could calmly read a book without being bothered by the staff to spend more or lecherous players (and NPCs).
Today, as she walked towards the café, she couldn’t help but feel something in the air. She shivered a little, then began to hurry towards her objective. She didn’t like fighting but even she could see the tension in the air…
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“Hey, boss! Look at this! The system flagged two sub-routines as advanced!”
There was a little rustle as the other man extricated himself from his own desk and walked next to the speaker.
“This fast? I thought the projection said that it would only–“
“Yeah, this fast!”
“Then let me see them!”
The first man nodded, then spent a few moments typing on his keyboard and clicking away with his mouse.
“There!” he pointed at his holographic screen.
The other man leaned slightly forward and hummed a little.
“The first one is not interesting. That’s just a random teenager. Teenagers are pretty chaotic, so the system is trying to replicate that.” He pointed at one of the lists. “As you can see here, her characteristics explain everything. So, her being advanced is just the system activating a more advanced routine for her.”
“Then what about the other one?”
“Now that’s more interesting. A pet advancing so fast? Pretty cool.”
“It is! What do you want me to do?”
“Add a flag and notes about our review, but otherwise, nothing.” There was a slight pause. “Unless you think the owner cheated somehow?”
The first shook his head.
“No evidence.”
“Good. Remember, the boss wants to know the moment we spot the first cheaters.”
“I know, I know… no need to repeat it again…” sighed the first man as he began to type away.
“Alright… I’m going back to working on the RMT system. Call me if you find anything interesting.”
“Sure thing, boss!”
As the second man walked back to his desk, he paused a little, then slightly turned towards his employee.
“Also, send me a few pics of the dog. He is pretty cute…”