Several hours after I had logged back into the game, I finished killing yet another one of those infernal lizards. “Oh, just an armored lizard Angus. No need to worry, you and Inkler will be able to handle it.” I mocked Master Faraldo’s voice. Those lizards that he made out to be little ended up being taller than me. The males would work alone, but the females always had two or three adolescents with them. Bastards ended up being around level 65, with the younger ones being in the 50s. The only good part of this whole ordeal was that I had finished my weekly kill list and had started gaining levels like mad. I didn’t devote any of the deaths to Thanatos, as I needed to get scales for Inkler.
I sat down and started to do the math. Each adult lizard dropped three to five scales, but I wondered what would be required for turning him into a variant. I decided to assume ten sets of ten scales. If they were dropping average scales, I would have given up. Luckily I had found a work around. If you let them charge up to you, their initial move would be to spit poison at you. If you timed it right, you could fire a bolt through the soft palate of the mouth and into their brain, killing or gravely injuring them. That let them drop almost exclusively superior scales, cutting the necessary number from 100,000 down to a manageable 1,000. I couldn’t use the ones from the younger ones, but had still managed to collect 146 so far.
So why was I being grumpy about killing the lizards? Well, they didn’t exactly stop when you shot them in the mouth, and I was sick of getting bowled over. As large as they were, they were surprisingly agile on the sands and I only managed to use [Dancing shadow steps] to get out of the way one out of every three lizards. Inkler was happy to sit back and watch me struggle beneath the bodies. Luckily looting them destroyed the body, so I wasn’t trapped for good. “Sure, sit there and be smug. I would too if I only had to take out the little ones.” I snarked at him.
“Mrow.”
Agile as the younger ones were, they were no match for Inkler. He quickly figured out that their armor worked best at deflecting attacks from the front and sides, but were practically worthless when the magic attack came from the rear. Thanks to his efforts, we also were amassing a rather large amount of lizard tail meat, which I really hoped ended up tasting like alligator. I just needed to find a way to deep fry it.
As much killing as we had done, we still had only barely breached the edge of the desert. From what I could tell the sunlight flowers formed the basis of the ecosystem here, and they really looked a lot like sunflowers in real life. The pollen was easy to obtain, and I had nearly 200 vials already. Hopefully that would be enough for my assault. Eating the sunlight flowers, and whatever else they could find, were large click beetles. With levels in the low 50s, they were the next rung, and probably the main food for the lizards. They weren’t the only thing that had a taste for beetle though. Giant, flightless birds that would make the Australian army run in fear called cassowacks roamed the sands as well. I assumed there would be much deadlier creatures deeper in.
Every so often we would encounter a desiccated dead. Think of a mummy without the bandages, and you’ve got yourself a fine desert undead creature. They had a nasty habit of hiding in the sand and erupting in an ambush attack, like they were some sort of antlion. Burying themselves also had the unfortunate effect of hiding them from my [Mystic vision], and I had to resort to tripping their traps with my shadowgheist. Their drops were odd too. I understood what the desiccated bone dust would be good for, but who would ever want a tendon that looked like beef jerkey? Even with the boost to their stats, a level 50 undead was no real match for the speed of myself and Inkler. I would often draw their attention while he circled around and crippled their legs. A few swings of the hammer later, and one less undead wandering the sands.
We had just cleared the nearest of the oasis marked on my map when the first false light of dawn appeared, and I made the call to head back. “Hey bud, what do you say to heading back and sleeping away the day? I’ll see if the kitchen will prepare you one of those gigantic cassowack legs, and you can tell me if they taste like chicken, deal?”
Note to self: when your battle pet is tall enough to rest their head on most tables, make sure you have stable footing when you do something to make them happy. Inkler went for a head butt to the chest with some purring, but I slipped in the sand and ended up with a nightliger rolling around on top of me. A few minutes of wrestling later, and we were headed back toward the city. By the time we reached the gates, things were looking pretty good for one night of work. I had jumped up to level 55, Inkler was at 42, and we had 170 plates and 30 vials of the bone dust. The kitchen was more than happy to slightly sear the cassowack leg for Inkler, and promised it would be up in about 20 minutes. I waited for them to deliver it before logging off and heading home for some well-deserved sleep.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Mike’s POV
“How’s it going?” I asked Frank as I plopped into a seat in his office.
“That kid’s got us running like a one-legged man in an ass kicking contest.” He replied with a sigh. “There’s some great ideas in there, but we are running on the assumption that he will take a week to get what he wants done in game. After looking at his progress, I doubt it’ll be that long.”
“Really? Anything I can do?”
“Yeah. Give me your overtime budget for the quarter, and I’ll sleep easier. Well, sleep once we get this stuff done.”
“I didn’t think it would be that hard to come up with a backstory?” I asked, confused.
“That’s not all of it though. We have five people dedicated to that, along with three artists drawing things like mad. But we want to have the monster party system installed in a few days as well, and somehow it got hard coded in that monsters can’t form parties with other races.”
“Oh shit.”
“Oh shit is right. I got a few people trying a workaround, but it’s another pain in the ass that shouldn’t have been an issue.”
“Well, I have the cure for that!” I said, pulling out a cold one. “Ice cold brewski?”
“Your offering to the gods of programming is accepted.” He said, happily taking the beer. “Oh, that’s perfect. Is it Friday already?”
“Almost six on Friday. You and your crew should have been done an hour ago.” I pointed out.
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“Damn. Tell ya what, can you go and grab a thirty pack of those? Use my card.” He said, sliding said card across his desk. “My team deserves it after what I’ve put them through this week. Oh, grab a few sodas as well, would ya? There’s a few non-drinkers on the team.”
“And that’s why they’re always willing to do the crazy hours for you.” I said with a chuckle. I headed toward the door, stopping in the frame and turning back to him. “Do you think he can pull it off?”
“If he does manage it, there’s gonna be shockwaves through the game community. People will go through a lot to get a divine tier object, especially the monster races.”
“Yeah. It’ll be pure chaos.” I said with a smile.
“And chaos brings in new players.” Frank said with a grin. “Now, go forth servant, and return with our drinks!”
“Yes sir!” I said with a mocking salute.
* * * * * * * * * * * * *
Marty’s POV
“You look like you have sand in unmentionable places.” Derrick chuckled as I meandered in to the café the next afternoon. I stopped to stare at him for a bit, before deciding that it didn’t warrant a return volley and simply sat down. Perhaps some sugar would help? Combing through the menu, I saw the customization option and set about giving myself virtual diabetes.
“Dear god, what in the world is all that?” Phoebe asked, horror on her face.
“Chocolate chip pancakes with strawberry jam and maple syrup.” I replied, before taking a massive bite. They were fluffy, syrupy, and stacked three high. “God, I would give my left leg for these in real life.” I muttered, eyes rolling in ecstasy.
“That much sugar and they might take both of your legs if you aren’t careful.” Derrick chuckled.
“Why do you think I’m eating it in here?”
“Ah, digital immersion.” Jon said with a sigh. “The land where you can eat what you want, not gain a pound, and never need to worry about sunblock.”
“Here, here!” I lifted my glass of orange juice in salute.
“That’s it, I’m emailing the devs.” Phoebe declared. “Your teeth should be rotting out of your face right now.”
“Please, no!” I mock cried. “Leave me my simple pleasures. Tis all I’ve got left!”
“Here hun, your favorite.” Jon finished tapping on his own menu, and a stack of pancakes appeared that he slid over to Phoebe. “Bananas foster pancakes.”
“THE BEAST HAS BEEN PACIFIED, PRAISE THE SUN!” Derrick said, standing up with his arms raised. Phoebe glared at him with her mouth full, pointing an empty fork in his direction. “Never gonna apologize for that.” Derrick said with a smile, causing Jon and I to finally lose the laughter we had been suppressing.
“Aaaaah, I needed that.” Jon said when we could finally get control of ourselves. “So how’s the desert?”
“Hot and dry. Little sandy. Other than that, it’s fairly nice.”
“Really?” Phoebe asked, disbelieving.
“Oh yeah. Giant lizards that spit poison, undead that hid themselves in the sand, what more could a guy ask for?”
“Hah, you’ve barely scratched the surface!” Derrick laughed at me. “Wait until you start finding the djinni.”
“Those are nothing.” Jon said shaking his head. “I can’t wait to hear the complaints about the hydrorpions.”
“Just what in the hell is a hydrorpion?” I asked, voice tinged with horror.
“The devs love combining creatures it seems. Imagine a scorpion with a varying number of tails, like a hydra has heads. Each tail gets a different poison, and they can have up to nine tails.”
“Yeah, but you guys are forgetting one very important thing.” Phoebe broke in. “Marty here has poison immunity, so he doesn’t really have to worry about those tails.”
“Speaking of that poison immunity.” I started, “Have you guys thought about variants?”
“Not really, I figured that players would get to become variants on their evolution.” Jon said.
“Well, it just so happens that there is a way if you gather enough materials. I can see if my contacts at the alchemy guild will let me turn you guys into variants. All you have to do is gather the materials.”
“Hold up, what all are we talking about here?” Derrick asked. “I can see the benefit to us, but what about you? What are you getting out of it that I’m missing?”
“Paranoid Derrick?” I asked with a chuckle. “I’m hoping to boost my alchemy skills. But you guys can choose your own items and what you want boosted, I just think you should try and use perfect materials. They gave me a bonus, and it’ll take 10 of the previous tier to boost up. If all you find are average items, it’ll take 1,000 of them to reach one perfect item.”
“That’s an awful lot of grinding.” Phoebe said. “Is it really worth it?”
“I think so. I can see mana, even inside a body. The other option was to increase the distance I could see it.”
“Any drawbacks to becoming a variant?” Jon asked.
“Well, you will lose mana for 24 hours. It can get overwhelmed if you choose a sensory variant. I’ve been blinded by intense magic before, and that hurts.”
“Are there any limits to what you can choose?” Phoebe asked.
“You can only have one, so choose wisely. Other than that, I’m not sure.”
“Well, what all are we looking for? I can only imagine the havoc Derrick could cause if his mana regenerated as fast as his health.” Jon pointed out.
“Oh god, I want. I WANT!” Derrick shouted. “Give me massive mana regen, my health regen, and a mana shield spell and I will. Be. UNSTOPPABLE!!!!”
“There goes his inner warlord.” Phoebe said, shaking her head. “Thankfully for anyone who might run across Derrick in game mana regen boosts are usually limited to locations. What about you hun?”
“You know, I could probably go for some troll regeneration.” Jon said thoughtfully. “It would take out some of my squishiness. You?”
“I want a speed boost, but I’m not sure how to get it.” Phoebe said.
“Speed does win most fights.” Derrick nodded sagely, or tried to.
“Sage advice, from the lumbering troll.” Phoebe chuckled.
“Instead of speed, why don’t you try and get some stealth? You already do massive physical damage, can you imagine what you can do with some crits from stealth?” Jon asked, and Phoebe’s eyes widened.
“Yeah, but that’s only a one off thing.”
“Unless you can break line of sight.” Derrick pointed out. “Hell, imagine the havoc the two of you could cause if Jon learned to make illusions of you and you could teleport around the battlefield.” We all froze at the implications of that. Jon already healed her when he cast his curses, add in some distractions and that would be a nightmare of a fight for any group.
“Can we do that hun? Pleeeeeeease?” Phoebe practically begged.
“Oh alright. What do I need? Magic cores from fairies? That shouldn’t be too bad. Looks like we will be trying to find a portal to some of the lower planes for you though Phoebe.”
“Yeah. Let’s finish up this quest first, then we can use the planes to reach our max level. What about Derrick though? He’s got that sword to cut through spells, attacks with his own spells, and has a troll’s regeneration. What more could you really need?”
“Heh, the only thing he can’t do is revive himself.” I chuckled, but stopped when everyone started staring at me.
“Think of the horror. You just spent a boatload of resources wearing down and finally slaying the giant who keeps pummeling you with magic. Your mage was particularly useless, as any distance spell got cut down with an anti-magic blade. After you finally manage to overcome his insane regeneration and slay the creature, it revives a few feet away at half health and climbing, ready for more. Guess who’s going to start hunting phoenix hearts? This guy!” Derrick had developed a rather manic gleam in his eyes, and I was starting to fear what I had unleashed with an off-hand comment.
“And on that note, I have to head out to the game. Wouldn’t want my cat to think I’m dead and would make a good dinner.” Standing up, I waved to everyone before heading back to my apartment. I didn’t really know why I felt the need to go there, as everything was digital, but I did notice that all of us did it. Shrugging, I headed through the Oblivion door and entered the game for another night of battle.