(Y7, January 13th)
----------------------------------------
Vantegaard and Birkathane both needed a second helping of coffee. 8 AM at the Earthen Keep translated into nearly 2 AM in Sweden at the moment. Recess and respawn were the worst case of jet lag imaginable, an instant jump from one to a completely different time zone. Northworld’s days were 24 hours and 19 Earth minutes long, so the “morning” also drifted slowly, and each Recess and Respawn was a different experience. If you could stay up over 75 days in Northworld, you could maybe remain in synch, but nobody, not even the people over 2500 levels, could do so without going into severe Adaptation Sickness levels.
They hadn’t experienced it, but the slow reduction in attributes was likened to having some mild fever, with aches and then later headaches, growing slowly as your stats dropped. Vantegaard knew people had tried to see how far you could go, but all had chickened out before 100%. After all, 0 health translated as being dead when you fought and having one’s health forcefully reduced to 0…
No one knew what would happen. Yet.
Thankfully, there looked to be one of the remaining cafeterias set into the Keep for the raid that had been stocked with coffee. With enough people commuting between Earth and Northworld, that was a serious affair. Heavy pots labeled “coffee” and “tea” were waiting for the people fresh from Respawn, and both of them helped themselves with an additional dose of caffeine to supplement the one they’d taken after showering while checking they had not forgotten anything.
Half a dozen people were already there, none of which they recognized, so they introduced themselves.
“Oh, you’re the ones who’ve been there. Miscagenous, 2200 Strength Archmage of the World Wreckers Emeritus.”
“So you’re one of Vormacinus’s people,” Vantegaard noted.
“It’s more like he’s one of us, you mean? All four of us in the guild above 2000 came. No way we would miss that. It’s one thing to venture deep into Mt. Doom’s range to track an artifact another guild detected from fifty kilometers away. But to go where you can find actual traces of the ones behind all this?”
“We did not have much time to investigate. Turning on the tracking map immediately triggered guards.”
“But that’s what we’re here for. You know, I heard about the control room and the five aliens on the Historicianus forum first and thought, ‘Here we go again’. But this time, it turns out it’s real. At least, I hope.”
“The Cartographers have kept one Aliengate, just in case.”
“And it truly leads… somewhere else?”
“It activates here on Northworld and shows nothing, as it would if you never spawned at its destination. But as someone said in the conference, it’s priceless if you need someone – some alien – to die to get one.”
The Wrecker archmage took a thoughtful expression.
“We’re always cautious because it’s not a game. We all old-timers are adventurers at heart, but you die, you die, no resurrections or anything else. And we’ve kept as mementos the Silvergates of the four who died over the last three years since Vor, and I created the guild. They’re ‘burned out’, after all,” he said.
“Maybe they aren’t,” Vantegaard replied. “Not for everyone.”
“And if they can lead aliens back to Earth…”
“It will be a different can of worms, right?”
“Imagine the scene in front of the 10th Downing. ‘Mr. Prime Minister, may I present you the giant Smurf ambassador’.”
“They look more like a cross between Avatar and Dark Elves rather than overblown Smurfs. But yes. It’s one thing to have a neutral ground in the form of Northworld. But to travel beyond the stars to actual alien worlds…”
“Almost makes me wish I was running east instead. Almost.”
At that moment, a now-familiar figure with a wolf head cover entered through a side stairs, immediately scanning the crowd.
“And here we go again…” the two-thousander archmage muttered with a smile.
“I see not everyone’s there…” the raid leader started.
“It’s 7:45,” someone shouted back.
“You don’t cut it close,” he shot back.
“Close only counts in pre-fight buffs.”
Vantegaard spotted his boss, or maybe under-boss to the side, and made his way there, accompanied by Birkathane.
“It’s a bit different from the conference,” he said.
“Most of us have adventured together at one point or another. Everyone here – well, save you two, that is – goes back to Y2 or Y3 back when there were a hundred or so of us early Gaters, and we only started to meet each other by chance. We were ahead of the curve. There aren’t many 180+ rank areas to go these days, but a couple of years ago, when we were mere thousanders, you sometimes decided to crack a 120 dungeon, and that’s who you sent an email to on Earth with a place and date,” Vastragal, second in command of the Cartographers and his primary sponsor, replied.
“So you’ve been with all of them?”
“Save Luciano there. He always went with his own guild, never anyone else. That’s the first time I’ve seen him outside Delvers.”
“I’ve been wondering. When did it go from using normal names to handles?”
“Year 3? I think. Most of the crowd around Arnoldo knew each other, of course. Upper-middle-class young men from Panama who had gone to school together, things like that. They knew each other; they used their names naturally when prompted. Then, a few outsiders started to use names like they had on video games, and after year 4, everyone did. Some of the Skills give you the handle of the person, no matter what, so it’s like wearing your ID permanently on your shoulder, and you can’t turn it off. When you had that crackdown against drug traffickers, who were using Recess to bring high-value stuff across country borders… people figured out they did the right thing by keeping pseudonymous. Even if some are easy to read.”
Vantegaard laughed.
“Not too hard to figure out where Berkleyyan comes from.”
“And dilute enough that you can’t find the actual Yan. If he’s still living there, even. Of course, most of us know each other on Earth too. Sometimes we’ve met, sometimes we haven’t, but it’s better to keep in touch.”
“I’m not giving you my phone number,” Birkathane said.
“I haven’t asked him if that’s what you wonder. We do respect our private lives,” she said, nodding toward Vantegaard.
Vantegaard could feel the discussion might veer in weird directions, so he pushed a diversion.
“Worked almost non-stop and got a few more candidates. One of the best leads is the Trial of Strength.”
“Sounds interesting by the name alone.”
“A rank-60 dungeon in west Gamma. Got its name because there is a massive iron door that slides down and separates it into two halves. The only way to get through is for someone with enough Strength to grab the single handle and raise it long enough to put something that can withstand the load. Estimates range from 55 to 60 Strength required.”
“Ouch. Okay, I do have over 60 Strength, but I graduated from clearing rank-60 dungeons a long time ago. Not everyone will have that at the level.”
“You need only one in a group. People who know the setup bring something to hold the door up while everyone goes under. The door will eventually crack whatever you use – according to our guides, that is – but it’s good enough to get into the last section of the dungeon.”
“And now comes the good part.”
“And people say that if you manage to do that, the effort is enough to push the lottery into giving you a Strength Skill.”
“People still think using enough Skills will give Skills in the same areas in your next lottery, despite no statistical evidence for it,” Vastragal noted.
“Got enough comments on the website about that one trial. Other people ran the lottery there, but I assume they didn’t have a high enough Strength. Those who have enough to open the door do seem to get a random Strength Skill in the central chamber… but only their first time running the dungeon.”
“That does sound like it. So, a Strength requirement?”
“That’s my guess. We know Aether, Geomancy, and Druidry all require having access to the vital to get the locational Skill, so why not a minimum Strength for a Strength skill.”
If you discover this narrative on Amazon, be aware that it has been stolen. Please report the violation.
Vantegaard stopped himself, suddenly realizing something.
“What?”
“No, just thinking. I’m now wondering if there might be locational Skills with multiple requirements.”
“Why?”
“My friend is a Ritualist, and he got a Skill while within the Tarquar influence area. I didn’t get a prompt, despite having access to the vital through Meditation.”
“Might be a coincidence. After all, people do get multiple Rituals, even if the branch is quite hard to luck into. If it’s not, that will be hard to figure out those,” she noted.
“True. Now, this Trial dungeon has one thing for it. It sits atop a major leyline that crosses it from the entrance to the last room. That’s why it’s been discussed so much on geomancer forums.”
“Meaning you’ll have to visit it soon.”
“Not that soon. I have 31 Strength only… and I think I can only see interference I qualify for. In addition to, well, the dungeon being rank-60.”
The Cartographer second-in-command pondered the information.
“Does the Strength require your normal Strength… or with items?”
Vantegaard had to remember to close his mouth.
“That’s something to test.”
“There’s no way at least some of those gate openers didn’t have significant gear to help.”
“Will the Guild…”
“It depends on the expenses. This project is projected to cost us significant amounts of investment already. Tackling stat-oriented sets will add… especially if you find more of those Trial things. But good work.”
“Got half a dozen of other candidates, but at this point, I’m scraping the forums with rumors and two, maybe three mentions of lucky Skill rolls.”
“We probably need more, but worst case, we can launch with mostly those druidic, geomantic, and aetheric build sets. Notably druidic. Healers like you, miss, are always in demand and short supply.”
“I haven’t found an Infuse Vitality grove yet,” Vantegaard said.
“If you do find it, it’s the thing you can charge an electrum to get to,” Vastragal noted. “Not all druids have it, but if you can provide them with it…”
“More if it’s just a matter of having the vitals,” Birkathane added.
“What?”
“I still have my old ring with +75 lifeforce. Maybe if you wear it, then you qualify for druidic Skills?”
Vantegaard and Vastragal looked at each other.
“More to test,” he said, theatrically rolling his eyes.
“Always more to know. Welcome to the Cartographers Guild.”
More people had arrived, and Vormacinus finally cleared his throat loudly before speaking again.
“I see everyone there, so I’ll have no delay. Grab your last coffee, find a toilet for a last pit stop, and we’ll move this. We will use the new main road between Beta and Gamma, so paths to the southwest, the pass at Goblin Teeth, a mere 200 kilometers of wilds, then Gamma. We have two Compass users, so if we get lost, I’ll eat my hat.”
“Challenge accepted,” someone yelled.
“You’re not a Wrecker, Tomas.”
Everyone laughed.
“And off to see the wizard we go,” Vantegaard said.
“I got the maps for the trip,” Birkathane said.
“I do want to see the big man eat tanned wolf skin, but…”
“I’m not risking pissing him off, don’t you worry.”
Overall, there were around seventeen people, in addition to the two of them. All above 2000 levels. As they all grabbed their gear, shouldered their backpacks, and drained their last cup, Vantegaard looked at the raid.
High-level gear was present everywhere. Vormacinus might look particularly distinctive, but even his guild co-boss was showing off her advanced status. Like most on Northworld, she wore leathers, but the leather wrapped in chainmail links was not quite what a human crafter would make. Studded trims in odd places. A pair of massive rings, including one with three gemstones that looked impossibly cut and merged together flawlessly. Her boots looked simultaneously stylish, the way you’d expect designer footwear to be, and reinforced for battle with large metallic trimmings that looked thick yet flexed in a way that was not supposed to happen with metal.
Vastragal had long daggers in half-scabbards at her side. One was of a near-absolute black that looked like the metal was black by itself rather than lacquered. Everything, including the pommel, was black as a cloudy night without Night Sight. The other was engraved with whorls that actually glowed with a faint greenish light. Rather than the usual sickly green you’d expect from a videogame weapon, it was an almost grassy look suggesting nature, entirely at odds with a wicked-looking weapon.
Of course, Vantegaard could feel the Aether levels with Aetheric Sense. Both weapons were in the level 50-60 range, the same as her boots. The 3-gem ring was her highest item, at level 82.
Of course, everyone around had the same range of item levels. The lowest items were in their upper 40s. Just by scanning the gear, he could see his Skill progression % visibly growing.
Aetheric Sense
Tier 2 Perception
Passive/triggered
The magical world is unseen by all, and plain to some.
Perceive the exact amount of Aether in locations, objects, and entities, rather than using clumsy evaluations. Any magical entity will have Aether, regardless of its magical abilities.
Aether sense: 1066 max
Skill level 32 (base 15)
Advancement: 22%
The other thing that reflected the non-video-game nature of Northworld was that most of the raiders did not look like their builds. Miscagenous, despite his archmage build, sported runed bronze greaves that looked like they had been owned by a Greek Hoplite before and a ringmail coif with a red-lacquered circlet. The only person wearing a robe had something more out of a Chinese historical drama than a wizard robe. Despite the ancient and Earth-style look, the robe gave off an 89 Aether level.
The sheer amount of presumably powerful items was daunting. But those people were at the forefront of levels, deliberately seeking progression and pushing into unapproachable locations like that Mt. Doom Miscagenous had mentioned. That was where you found Northworld items, with three, four, or five stats, skill boosts, and other effects, where crafted items got half the potential even at the same levels. You got them because you were the first.
And as he implied, they probably have someone like Quan to pinpoint items ripe for plucking.
Once they came out of the Keep, Vormacinus did not wait for anyone but started straight on the path leading out. Since Vantegaard remembered well the map they’d used for their grinding, he knew that the path forked about 500 meters out, with the section they’d followed with the expedition going east on one side and another quasi-road going south. Earthen Keep laid about south-southeast in the Beta Sector, and they would veer southwest until they reached the so-called Goblin Pass, which he thought would have no actual Goblins since the closest were the Pumilus, which everyone called dwarves, although they did not have any beard.
Ramon Palacio slid alongside them.
“Try to keep up as best as you can. Vormacinus will not pause – most of us don’t need much in the way of breaks – until he absolutely needs to, and then he’ll belittle you for forcing the break.”
“Gotcha.”
The Second Gater increased his pace slightly, and more of the raiders started to overtake them, forcing them to up their own pace as well.
“That’s boot camp,” Vantegaard joked.
“Valkyrie morning,” Birkathane countered.
“Really?”
“Okay, maybe only for Rangridda.”
“We’ve toughened up, but that’s still fast. I wonder how many will need a break.”
“Probably not many. Stamina is mostly based on levels since those grow faster than physical stats,” she replied. “They probably have ten times ours, even if the consumption isn’t quite equal.”
Infuse Stamina was worth it, Birkathane thought.
The druidic ability was useable anytime, and she carefully injected some juice at strategic points. The wooden area they were now entering was helping a tiny bit in the regeneration aspect, but she could probably keep up for nearly two-three hours before Lifeforce bottomed out, and she had to use Meditative Cultivation. Her Skill required her to stay still, or it would break, but she could replenish both Stamina and Lifeforce in just over a minute, then hurry to catch up. And she did not need to replenish Vantegaard’s own stamina. His Meditation broke only if he used an active Skill, not while moving.
Men. They get all the goodies. I don’t even need the one-health-per-day boost… although if I hadn’t picked druidry, it might have been handy.
The grueling trip ended with the sun going down and the light starting to fall. Far from everyone had Night Sight since it was either luck from the lottery or an expensive Skill Stone. They took the opportunity of a small clearing next to their pathway across the lightly forested area and made camp as the light waned. The winter solstice wasn’t altering the day’s length as much as the same period would on Earth, but they still had to break early, put up the tents, and make dinner.
It was interesting, Vantegaard thought, to see the raid dynamics play out. All the significant guilds had literally their own little grouping to the side. The four from World Wreckers and the three Dungeon Delvers Anonymous had their tents facing each other while the independent two-thousanders made random clumps. His boss had put her tents next to a man from some guild called Shaman For’us. As she’d said, almost all of them knew each other already.
The two of them were not entirely separate from the primary grouping, but there was still the inevitable separation intrinsic between people who were above 2000 levels and had been roaming all over Beta Sector for over four years and relative newbies like themselves who had never been there until six months ago.
“I’m sore,” he finally confessed.
“Yep. Lights out after dinner for me, too,” Birkathane replied.
“I thought the stats were supposed to help.”
“Strength, Dexterity, Resilience for this.”
“You’re sure? You’re not saying that because you’re now above me in those?”
“I take the advice of Falunjul.”
“The one who was with us on the Deva expedition. She wants to run that Marathon by cheating, I remember.”
“In two months now, yes. Even though you cannot use the Skills without a Silvergate, the stats translate more or less. And many people swear you can almost use Skills, at least those passives who do not need activation.”
“Quan calls those Shadow Skills. He says that’s why he’s decent with the staff now on Earth, even if he never had done any martial arts of the kind before Northworld.”
“Uh uh. So I need to put points in those.”
“Or train harder,” a voice from behind them came.
Both turned and found Ramon Palacio standing just behind them. The thirty-something Latino Gater looked like a movie star still in costume with his Northworld gear.
“Even if ‘normal’ training does not translate on the Interface, it does help. Of course, the higher your Interface stats, the harder it is actually to train physically rather than improve Skills.”
He laughed.
“For almost two years after we started Gating, we’d hit the gym every day when we were back on Earth. Believe me, it made a difference. We stopped because we were really conspicuous, and people at the gym were asking what kind of drugs we were taking to do all that and how they could get some.”
“Did you slip them some of that ‘drug’?” Vantegaard asked, curious.
“A few. There are two in Delvers, not on this trip, that got in through us. Unsurprisingly, they started with higher Strength than Ramon and I had initially.”
“Stats – at least on Setup – seem to reflect what you are. You know, people have been speculating for long about why each stat’s average was different somehow if they reflected a semi-arbitrary measure.”
Palacio smiled.
“The Devas.”
“And the others. They might have different base stats. Different averages.”
“You’re assuming they have the same stats,” he said.
“Their gear, even if the names were non-recognizable, had normal stats.”
“Which bugs me no little. It looked like the Interface had to adapt, you said. Which suggests that theirs might run on… a different system?”
Vantegaard froze. He hadn’t thought of that one.
“You think there are different Systems running? Maybe… the Pyramid is running one?”
“That’s why we’re there instead of rushing to establish contact with the others. Because your Pyramid can be anything, including a master control for Northworld. Just the fact that it is guarded means it is important, somehow.
“Anyway, get your sleep. Even with regeneration making sure you’re not really sore the next day, you want to be in top shape. The climb to Goblin Pass will seem easy, but it is definitively not.”